The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea - Episode 36

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

The Menagerie: Part Six The Coriolis crew race to save the animals from a sinking ship. Amber takes up arms against the hunters. Zoox tests his communication skills. Devo gets some unexpected news. Additional music in this episode: "Mantra" by Jahzzar http://www.betterwithmusic.com/; "Dybbuk's White Eyes" by Sergey Cheremisinov https://soundcloud.com/sergey-cheremisinov-1; and "Ambient V-X" by ROZKOL https://rozkol.bandcamp.com/. Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Previously, on the Adventure Zone, Ethersea, you see the Coriolis, and it is upside down, and the cargo bay has, like, fully flooded. You see Jimbo Clyde standing next to the bullheaded hunter with the axe. This jungle, like, compartment is starting to fill up with water. Ms. Grie, you will need to move or we will have to move you. Well, I got a great hunt plan for you. It's the most dangerous game. Me.

And then I run away with the Orock. You help get these animals that you don't care about, or the stations that you don't care about. And the next time we have the opportunity to destroy one of your enterprises, we'll let that one slide. The ecology of this planet has been completely obliterated. Devo, there's a better world waiting for us. Do you know how it got to be?

like that? Because of assholes like you who focused on better and the next thing. Moments later you hear the sound of branches snapping and then Devo comes crashing in through the ceiling, thudding

to the floor with a terrible thunk. And swimming at you its many rows of teeth bared is another blink shark. He can't speak with animals. It swims towards you and very gently closes its jaws around you and blinks.

And you both disappear. It is I, Captain Vegetable, with my carrots and my celery. Oh, my gosh. Eating crunchy vegetables is good for me. Yeah. Good for you, so we... Keep going. Are you being held at knife point?

I'm being held at a fucking flavor point by this carrot. Crunch twice. if you are in danger. How about how do I crunch three times from my body's got all the sea that it needs from this incredible carrot? Now, I seem to remember that the rest of Kevin Vegetable was him going to kids who like spaghetti and stuff and then being like,

I only eat vegetables. And then the kid being like, that's not a great idea, Captain Vegetable. You shouldn't just eat vegetables. And that was Betty. That was Betty who loves spaghetti. No, I'm sorry, Daddy. That was Eddie who loved spaghetti.

Eddie. I have no idea. I love spaghetti. Hey, okay, guys, we need to get, so let's focus up. You're going to crunch. No, I'm not. You are. No, I just say, I want to focus up on the incredible power of carrots.

Nutricious, you bet. Yeah. Comes to crunch. I just feel like, this is the thing, guys. On this, I'm just on TAS, like, my brand is obviously in, you got her disarray at all times. Right, right, right. But, like, even on Taz, like, I've made, like, I talked a lot about.

about like French onion soup and a lot of like, I just wanna be a good role model. And I feel like kids look up to Amber Greer, they look up to taco, they look up to all my great characters. And like, I feel like they should be like good role models. I don't think that's, that's like wild. I do. And we've all been waiting for you to like choose your cause.

And I think beta-carotene deficiency is a noble one. Okay, hey, Devo and Amber, go ahead and roll. roll for initiative, please. Wow, just jumping right into it after. I wouldn't say that that's jumping right into it. Nothing about what it just happened. We spent quite a bit talking about Veswells. You spent out two minutes singing a song referencing something I don't know, which is rare

that there's like a cultural reference that you three pull that I don't, but I was like having a fever dream. Really? Were you loving it? It's a Sesame Street thing. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, he didn't watch Sesame Street.

That was, I don't know. He's still around. Um, Griffin, wait, Dad, are you saying Griffin just didn't watch Sesame Street? No, he didn't watch Sesame Street. No, I was more of an Allegra's window or Eureka's castle. Yeah, Allegra. They brought back Captain Vegetable as played by John Lagozamo. True story.

I do like, I do like that. If I could get that initiative role. Oh, oh, oh, I am so sorry. This is rude. I am being agrude. Hey, let me be the first to say that I am the one response. That's a 20. Got it.

Mine was in 12. Yeah, okay. I'm glad that I got a very high initiative role because I'm very dialed into what's been happening, and I'm ready to make the first move. Well, here, to paint the picture with a Nat 20 initiative role, you are facing off against these two hunters. You have Clyde, who is holding this big harpoon gun crossbow, trying to finish off this wounded polar bear in this little hutch that you all find yourselves in.

It's muddy. It's at an increasingly rakeish angle inside of here. You got some scared, trapped animals. You got a surly serval. You got a couple of ostrich-looking dealies. You got the wounded polar bear, and you got a couple of aurochs. One of which you are, I don't know if you're still astride. Are you still astride it?

Okay. I'm really torn because I feel like Amber the person would stay on the oroc. No. Okay. You know what? I've just rethought it. She's not going to be able to do much from up here. Okay.

So she's got a dismount. Okay, so you're not, you are not on the Oroc. That's not your component of your turn. So that's the scene. And then you just hear like, Sacrebluf! It would have been sued to lore, Griffin. Oh, that's fine.

As Devo just comes crashing down, making a Devo-shaped imprint in the mud. Devo, actually, you're going to take a little bit of fall damage. Yeah, you're going to take 10 points of crushing damage. as you fall down into this thing. It should have been more, but the branches, you know, broke your fall,

but not completely. With a Nat 20 initiative role doesn't phase you, this plummeting Frenchman into your zone here. And now you have two angry-looking hunters and some angry-looking animals. What do you do?

Hmm. If I were to, like, what is my immediate impression of the stay of the animals currently. The polar bear is in bad shape. The polar bear has been recently harpooned and is sort of like struggling to stay on its feet. Most of the animals are kind of coward in the corner.

The serval is sort of like striking a defensive pose in front of the ostriches and the other orach. While the orac you were riding is sort of like standing at your side. Your trustee steed at this point. Who loves carrots? probably and there's bull the do we know the bullman's name you do not but we can call him bull man yeah i'm gonna uh i'm gonna um take this opportunity yeah to um try to um try to you also have a harpoon yes are they are they last question before i act yeah how threatening are they are they like i mean

obviously they're a little surprise from the turn of events But like, do I get the vibe that because we roll an initiative, like we are going to fight? Yeah. Okay, good. All right. Thank you. That's all I needed. Yeah.

I mean, Clyde has been the more cool-headed of the two of them, but he just got gored. And now he is, he is, no pun intended seeing red. All right. I'm going to try to bury the harpoon in Bowman's throat. Wow. Okay. Does he have an exposed? I figured he was exposed.

Yeah. I mean, that's not usually, I think, a D&D consideration is like. like throat meat vulnerability. It should be, though. Hey, version six, huh? Version six. Target, whatever meat you want to target. Justin activates his VAT system.

Yeah. Yeah. This is basically a sharp quarter staff, so we can say that you are proficient in this weapon. So roll a D20 roll with, wait, what weapons do you have? Do you have the quarterstaff in your? You don't. The list.

No, I don't. I just have my arm strikes. Really? Okay. It's so cool. It is very cool. It's really cool. Okay.

I want to do an attack with this, and I got a 19. 20 plus 5, 24. That will hit. Roll that 1D8 plus 2 damage, since I'm assuming you're using both hands with this. Five damage. Okay. Are you throwing it or jabbing it? Jabbing.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's a good hit. You, it glances off of his meaty neck, but you definitely hear some, the sound of success as he roars gutterily and takes a step back. Anything else you want to do? You didn't really move. Oh, and also, I mean, also you get to, you have so many things. I forgot you are a monk. So you have an extra attack and you can make an unarm strike now as part of your first attack. You know what? What I'm actually going to do is I'm going to use a bonus action to pop out my arms because he's close to me. So he'll have to.

They'll both have to. I mean, they're both within distance of the effect there. Yes. That is they have to make a deck saving throw. Yes, correct. Okay. This one's for the bolt. That's probably going to save versus DC 14.

Yeah, that just saves. This one's for Clyde. That was a 15, by the way. Yeah, Clyde saves as well. They both take a step back. Like, whoa, cool. But they are not blown away by the force of your arms arriving. Okay.

And I think that's all I can do because I... Well, as... When you take an attack action, you get to take two. attacks. So you still have one attack pending. It said as a, wait, Flurry a blows or? No, extra attack. You can attack twice instead of once whenever you take the attack action on your turn. Okay. So I'm going to stab him again. Okay. This time it's a 12. That is, that is not sufficient. Yeah, obviously. That time he, he, you try to stab him in the

exact wound that you got him in last time and he sidesteps. Like, really? Um, Okay, and are you moving? You've brought that up twice now. It's just part of the turn. You're not suggesting, you're not standing on a landline. No, I want to stay next. Justin, you are on a landmine. Oh, no.

I want to stay near my Orock. Okay, cool. Well, next up in the order. Roxy, by the way. Roxy, cool. Next up in the order is the barbarian, who is going to take a step forward and with blood dripping out of his mask,

he is going to rear his great axe way up high in the air and swing it down at you. That is a crit failure. He flirts when he does it. A toot does come out, and then he looks kind of like sheepish. Like, oh, did I do that? And he misses a turn. He is going to, like, continuing his motion of this great,

straight axe strike. He is going to step forward into the middle of this hutch toward the rest of the animals in the back of the room. You do get to make a attack of opportunity against him. Is this just a regular attack? Yeah. I mean, you can use whatever weapon you want. Seven. Ah, bummer. No, you just miss him as he does his sort of Eldon Ring dodge roll. next up in the order is Devo Devo is you come to your senses and things are not great you are like buried in the mud up to your ears well I mean face down

you have splattered down into the mud and it will take your move action just to rise from your grave I do that yeah stand up So I am clearly hurt Right what is the state of the aminals and an amber?

The only one that is like in Amber is fine. Amber's topped off. The polar bear is breathing real slow and looking really rough. The rest of the animals are in various states of malnutrition, but they're

otherwise, okay. How close am I to the polar bear? A question I, Travis McGrath, have never said that calmly before. I mean, this is a fairly intimate little battleground here. So you're pretty close to it, maybe within 10 feet. Okay, but I can't, like, touch it from where I'm standing.

No, not from where you're standing. Let's see. What can I do? As I've fallen and are there any sticks nearby, something I can pick up as a weapon? Are there sticks nearby that you can pick up as a weapon? I mean, give me a perception check. It's not hard to see. Just fucking answer him, or there's sticks or not.

It's not hard as he sticks, Griffin. It's a 15. There's sticks there. It's not like I ever, Travis McRoy, but in the middle of a wooded area. I'm like, time to really focus and see if I can see a fucking stick on the ground. Yeah, there's a stick on the ground. It's a short stick. I'm going to say it's like a short club.

Okay, I pick it up. Okay. And I'm going to throw it at Clyde. Okay. I don't know if a club is a throwing. I have a boomer ring, you see. Okay. A boomerang is like a curved stick, Griffin, when you think about it.

Yeah, you can throw this stick out. It's going to be 1D4 damage. I don't know what your boomerang is at. 1D4 damage. That's a Nat 20, though, baby. Wow, okay. Nice. Check this.

2D4. Yeah. Plus one. I do that. Hold on. So that's five points of damage. And as it hits him, oh, fuck, it really fucks with his brain that I hit him so hard because that's psychic blades, baby. Okay.

Remind me psychic blades? 3D6. When you hit someone with a weapon attack, it takes one of your bardic inspirations to do so. Do they roll a save? No. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, it just adds another six to there.

So that's 11 total. That I thwacked him with good. Okay, so you throw a stick at this dude, and for a second, like, he regains his composure, and he's like, did you just hit me with a stick? Ah! As he has a sort of like full, full blown panty over these psychic blades. I like the idea that the damage has caused my him being so upset that someone hit him with a stick.

No, I'm serious. I've never been hit by a stick before. This changes everything I've ever thought about myself. It's just a stick. My entire self-image is being undermined. I've always been clied the man who can't be hit by sticks. What am I now? What are you doing anything else?

You still got your bonus action, I think. I don't think I have any bonus actions I could choose. Oh, no, you know what? I totally can. I am going to say like, Amber, you are not alone in this. I've got you. They seem bad, right? So let's kill them.

Give the animals. Get out. They're the worst. They're the worst. Let's fucking do this. And use part of inspiration. Bull man especially. Ugh.

Okay. Okay, you have Bartik inspiration that you can add to any ability, check, attack, roll, or saving throw. That's a 1D8 now. So that's beefy. And just as a reminder, you can use it after the dice is rolled, but before Griffin has told you if it works or not. Yeah. So you don't have to decide if you want to use it before you roll. But you got to go quick, because I'm quick on the draw.

That's true. If I see an 11, I'm like, nope. I come at it really fast. Okay, next up is the, is Clyde. Clyde, he, like, cocks his crossbow thing that he's using. And it seems to, like, widen a little bit. And he puts another harpoon in it. So there are two harpoons in this that he's going to fire both at the same time at Devo.

He just threw a stick at him and scared his brain. The first shot is, oh, wow, an eight. Nope, that's a miss. Nope. Second shot is, yeah, 20. Yeah, now that is a hit. Okay. And that's going to hit you for nine or 11 points.

Sheesh. Okay. And I need you to make a DC12 Constitution saving throw. A DC12 Constitution saving throw. Okay. Yes. Oh, thank you. That is a 19 plus one and dirty 20.

That is sufficient. You feel poison, but then you flex, you're like, get out of me. Get out of your poison. And the poison gooshes out and doesn't stay in your body. Nope. Nope, do it again. Yeah, it comes right out my pores because I detoxified Justin. The poison jizzes out?

I don't know what you want me to say. The salvo of the harpoons that have just flown by him has very much upset the Oroc that you were standing next to. Amber and he is going to charge at Clyde and he is going to attempt to gore it. Yeah, that's a 24 versus AC and he is going to smash into him for good Christ 19 points of piercing damage. You're going to kill your own life.

Yeah, that was that was very close to max damage. Yeah, Clyde goes flying. Clyde is down on his tuchus. The Ourok comes to a stop sort of outside of this clearing now, sort of blocking off exit from the two baddies. We'll take a break from that combat real quick to check in on Zooks. Zooks. Hello, hi, welcome back.

Hey! You, when you finish this blink, which is, you used the blink bay, right, in the last adventure. It feels basically exactly like that. It is loud and instantaneous. And when you arrive at your destination, you see the blink shark that teleported you, kind of swim away a distance. And this blink shark has two other associates here in this space. And they are the only points of light in this chamber. It is pitch black in here, say, for these three green faint lights.

So just using that faint green light, you can look around and see that this chamber you're in is very unnatural. It's submerged. It's all underwater. And it's made of this, like, ridged obsidian-like material with these little nooks and crannies all over the place. Give me a nature check for me. That would be 13. Yeah, this is a nest. Like you have said there, it looks similar to, I mean, you know sea creatures.

And you feel pretty confident that these things are not natural sort of sea creatures like anything you've ever seen before. But this is a nest. And it's huge, but it's like almost totally empty. It's far too large for these three creatures that seem to reside in it. You also notice two other sort of points of interest in the middle of the room. There's just like sand all over the floor. and there are two kind of like squat black cage-looking objects, both of which are covering dead blink sharks. The first of which is considerably larger than the other one, and it looks like it's had its jaw ripped open.

And the other smaller corpse is completely charred on one side. Both of them are lifeless. These are essentially makeshift graves. and the three sharks seem to confer for a minute, and the one that blinked you swims up and gestures towards you. And you hear that weird translation again as this almost like alien language tries to become like syntax that you can follow. And you hear its voice say,

this one made of colorful sticks did understand me. This is very good. Um, I, I, yes. It is, it is good. Um, do you have a name? Do you have a designation? The one that blinked you looks back to the other two and they kind of shake their head and they say, that was nonsense garbage words. We understand not them. We are very dangerous animals, but not now to you. Yes? Um, you are not dangerous. dangerous to me because you could have, like, you could have bitten me in half or even some other fraction.

There is an understanding. Why did you bring me here? The blink shark that bit you looks back at the other two who nod again and it turns back and says, we have a favor job that you will be doing to escape eating from us, acknowledgement? Yes. Why is this making me so happy? Just hearing Griffin say that in such confidence is like triggering my ASMR, I think. Okay.

Worst. Thank you. Can I no duty to help you? And there it goes. I like it's done now. I think it's great. Whatever you would like me to do, I just, I need to get back to my friends. They're the worst.

Sorry, I'm not here. Oh, right. The blink shark you've been talking to nods and says, Oh, oh, yes, yes. You will kill Forearm Woman person until her death. Agreement? Oh, no. No, no, no.

I can't do that. No, forearm, would you call her? Forearm woman person. Yes, that's extremely bad. She's my friend. Mm. You bring death to Many Shark Lives? Me?

No, I have never killed a shark. Not very good. The other two in a chorus. Not very good. I see. Is there any... She didn't do that to those two sharks. Did she? Yes, she did do this to these two sharks.

Family, only ones left. Now three. Not very many. There are only three sharks left. Your whole race? In this world. Yes, three sharks only. I tell you what. Make sad.

I will give her a stern talking to. I'm sure that she doesn't know that you're almost extinct. Or else, you know, I'm sure she wouldn't, you know, kill any more of you. You know, it's kind of a nature versus nurture thing. I think she's changed. I don't think she... No, I'm not going to kill my friend. Now, what are you going to do about it?

I just blew up a ship and killed a whole bunch of people. I have killed a lot more people than you have. So maybe you should be doing me a favored thing, a gift favor, of whatever you said, job favor, favor. Roll an intimidation check, you intimidating bundle of sticks? 12. they bear rows of teeth that seem to be shifting and moving and growing and shrinking. And it is a terrifying sight. They do not see, despite the sort of chillness of the voices that are being translated for you,

you immediately understand that their tone does not necessarily match their, their demeanor in this moment. It's just a sort of trick of the spell that you have woven. They say, we can eat you. You travel with Forearm Woman Person on Iron Whale. This is an awful thing. Why friend with Forearm Woman Person? She has saved my life on numerous occasions.

But with her many arms, she rips sun from sky and boils all the water. Misbehavior. Are we talking about the same person? How many forearm woman person you know? The others do get a giggle out of that. And then they go immediately into shark face mode again. Okay. We could have a conversation about this.

I don't think that... So you're open to it. Excellent. Sorry, I'm not there. I'm not open to it. All I know is that if Devo is there, he'd be kicking himself. for not ever teaching Ziggs had a lie. All right, let's jump back to the combat.

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on we got this with Mark and How weekly on Maximum Fun Back to the top of the order it is Amber Oh hell yeah No, wait. So, what's my scene? Griffin, can I interrupt real quick? Yeah.

So none of the other animals are doing anything? No. Okay. No, I have initiative order with all the animals on it, but they are, I mean, they've had a rough go of it, they're cowering and feet. Got it, got, got, got, got. Aside from the serval who seems to have, you know, is maintaining a perimeter. Got it. Okay, I just want to make sure.

To, just sort of for spatial. Help's sake. Clyde has been knocked on his tookus near the door out of here. The Orock charged sort of threw him to get there. The bull face dude is in the middle of the room, now sort of threatening the animals at the rear of the chamber. And Devo is, I mean, he's also threatening Devo. He's very close to where Devo is now. Is there a fire here?

Is there a fire here? Where's the light? The light is, there's artificial. lighting outside and the like artificial jungle where you are in. So it's like coming into this room in beams through like the branches and the sort of twisting mangrove. I guess that makes more sense than an open flame in your indoor pretend jungle. Right. I'm going to really wail on a bull man. I really hate his guts. I don't know why. I'm going to punch him in the in the face repeatedly. Yeah. A number of the punches.

There's going to be a lot of punches, right? Because now you have all your... Yeah, I got all my biz. You're right, okay. Let's just start hitting him all along. All right. That's a natural 20. Holy shit.

God, that one hurt, huh? Shit. All right. Don't go too quick. Okay, so 2D6 plus 3. All right, that's 8. Use the plus 2. I think you can use your wisdom modifier also, which is higher.

Which would be a plus three. Okay, I mean, call it nine. Yeah, I mean, he turns back to you as you say shit, and then you clock him right in the grill, and he takes it like a champ. Oh, wow. You really, you don't mind getting punched. Well, hold on.

I don't want to rest of the judgment. Let's see. 10 plus 515. Yeah, that's a hit. Plus two, three. Again, you see where it's... Oh, okay, well, four. Okay.

Again, you punch him right in the face, and he reels back and then just kind of turns to you. And he actually snorts. You see some, like, steam shoot out of his nostrils through his mask because he just kind of like snorts almost in laughter. But that's a mask. How did he do that? Yeah.

And now I'm going to do a flurry of blows. Okay. There's more punches. How many punches? Two. more punches. Okay. Plus six.

Yep. Is it hit? On the first of the two arm punches. Four? Uh, yep. 25. Wow. Fucking hell.

Heck yeah. And then that's a, man, getting bad damage rolls. That's another four. Okay. Wait, four on a max day. Wasn't that another net 20? No, no. It was 19.

No, it was 19 plus five. Uh, okay. So eight more damage. Uh, this time he reels back. and it takes him a while to kind of turn his head back toward you. And he's trying to do it like slow, cool Terminator style, but like this dude's bloodied and not having a very good time of it. All right.

Is that a monk? Is that what? I don't even think you've used your bonus action yet. Yeah, the bonus action was Flurry Blows. No, Flurry of blows. You spend one key point to make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action. Oh, okay. Cool, I didn't see that bottom part.

Okay. And that's it. Hey, I have a quick question. Yeah, please. I have the ability to deflect missiles, right? Sure. It says you can use your reaction. How does that work?

So every turn in every like player turn has four actions. There's the action, which is usually attack or spell. There's bonus action. There's move action. And then your reaction, which you actually spend not on your turn. Okay. So on the last turn, when you did an attack of opportunity, that was your reaction. So you couldn't have done that and deflected missiles in the same like,

round. I feel like I'm learning new things every day. Thank you, Griffin. Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, Monk has, Monk's got some, like, technical, like, meat to it more than I think any, like most of the classes we've played.

So, uh, okay, uh, next up is that bowl. I think that bowl is going to come at you now. Uh, you see that steam come out again. And it is almost like comical, like cartoonish, the steam pouring out of this thing's mask.

Uh, it is going to go, reckless. He swings his great axe at you. And he has advantage on it, which is good, because that's a critical failure. And the next attack is... It's good for him. It's not good for Josh. 21. Yeah, I mean, obviously that hits. And that's going to be eight points of slashing damage. One thing about reckless is at the start of its turn, the berserker gains advantage on all melee attack rolls during that term, but attack rolls against it have advantage until the start of his next turn.

So he has opened himself up to... to be attacked. He's freaking out in this idiot. And next up is Devo. Devo is going to as best he can

approach the polar bear. I hope at this point the polar bear's like this guy attacked guy with harpoon and the guy with harpoon hit him too. So enemy and my enemy. This guy is my friend. Right?

I mean it probably cool. Yes, but it is also a wild and wounded animal. I'm going to say, using that logic, I will give you advantage on an animal angling check

just to see if he lets you approach without contention. Well, that was a naughty one. So? You have advantage. That was a 12. Um, yeah, I mean,

he tries to push you away as you get closer. Or rather, he tries to scramble away, but he is on death door. Trust me on this. I'm going to help. And I cast cure wounds on...

How bad does he look? I mean... You don't know the polar bear's HP. I guess I do. Well, he has white fur? How pink is he? Pretty pink, dog. Got it.

Okay. I'm going to cast it on a third level. Whoa, geez. Yeah. What's it... That's going to be 18 total. Okay. You have stabilized this polar bear.

And so let's see. That's my move. Oh, and to continue my move a little bit. And then I kind of scooge behind big polar bear boy I just stabilized or a polar bear person. I don't know. I'm going to say. It's not a person. It is a polar bear.

You're going to take an attack of opportunity from the bull if you do that. He is in berserker mode. and if you try to, like, disengage to that level, he is going to, he's going to take it. Okay, maybe I'm just going to hunker down closer to the, to the bear that I'm like, all right, now you see, I'm cool, my dude. Sure.

Yeah. Okay. Next up in the order is Clyde, who is going to stand up. Oh, you know what? Just for fun. I'm going to change my glamour week to look like polar bear for, for, so it's like, now we're a pack. Very cool.

camouflage. I'm not trying to blend in. I'm connecting with the polar bear of like, see what's happening here? So we're cool, right? Okay. So Clyde's turn. He is going to stand up as his move

action. And he is going to reload and fire his envenomed crossbow. The first bolt he is going to launch at the Orock that just charged into him. That is

Yeah, that's a hit. And I'm just going to nail that beast for six points of damage. And he looks kind of woozy. The Oroch does. The Oroch is now kind of like drifting back and forth as it is in Phantamed. The other shot is going to come at you, Amber. That's going to be 16 versus AC. Yep, that hits.

Uh, you are going to take, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, but wait. Ah! Not so quickly. Because I, you see Griffin, in Dungeons and Dragons, there are four different kinds of actions. Yeah, yeah, yes. Okay, so I'm going to try to, uh, deflect missiles. Okay, it, it ended up being a 15 damage, right? And you get to roll a 1D10 plus seven, uh, to reduce that.

You got to spend a key point to pull this off. Uh, Right? No, I guess you just do it. I have this been a key point to throw it back at you. Okay, but that's only if you reduce the damage to zero. So if you roll an eight or more, you catch it, which would be really cool. It would be awesome.

It would be really cool. It's a four. Five, sorry, four plus seven, eleven. So I reduce it by 11 points. You do also still have Mardic inspiration. Yeah. Oh, all right. What's that?

1D6? 1D8. What do I need? Three or more. Four! Yeah. All right. Yeah, you catch the Invenom crossbow bolt out of the air.

Yeah, and I am going to go ahead and use that key point to chuck it right back at his dumbass. Okay. Does it give you, let's see. Just a ranged attack with a monk weapon. I don't think I have any equipped. Oh, no, no. It's right here in my thing. You have a dart.

20, a natural 20. You are fucking kidding me. Yes. It's a natural 20. This is the coolest thing she's ever done. Then you see a bolt launch out, not a bolt, a big fucking harpoon launch out and embed itself into the Orock. And after seeing that, you just see in a flash, he turns that big ass crossbow back

towards you and launches out a bolt and you catch it right in front of your face. Do you want to, do you, what happens next? I feel like she catches it in front of her face. And she just flicks her wrist and flicks the end around. And with very little pomp or circumstance, just chucks it right back at him. Okay, roll damage. Oh, it's Nat 20, so it's going to be double-dice damage. Yeah, that's 12 points.

Okay. Plus Venom. I mean, that 2D6 was it goes through his chest. What? And he looks down at the stick that is poking out of the front of him. And he looks back up at you and has a moment of calm or he looks at the polar bear. And he kind of like, hmm. And then falls down to his knees and then drapes over dead.

That's one. That's one. Next in the order is the OROC. The OROC is just going to try and like, get back into the hutch and is like almost like absent-mindedly walking toward the other oroc and it's going to take an attack of opportunity from the uh the bull but the bull is like so pissed off that oh wait no the bull still has advantage on all of its attack rolls no it this is so who's dead the Clyde Clyde okay good uh yeah so the the uh the uh the uh

The bull sort of drunkenly tramples back into the room and makes it over to its partner. And then it sort of just drops down to its knees and kind of like rest its head on them. And they don't appear to be dying, but they are like knocked out from the poison. Let's hop back over to you, Zooks. You've been, what is your angle for this conversation where you are trying to convince them that you should. and kill your forearmed friend. Zooks is going to make them an offer. Whether it's legit or not will probably depend on the kindness of the dungeon master.

Oh, a good place to be. And Zooks communicates to whatever this blink shark's name is. Blinky. And says that, what if I were to offer you a way to make up for the, two deaths that you claim my friend is responsible for. What if I were to make up for that and more? Would you release this vendetta and maybe even take me to her? The one shark that has been sort of the taking point here looks confused when you say the word vendetta.

and it shakes its head and you hear that that translated voice say, is not vendetta. Is not vendetta. We try to save our world from boiling. And doing that means killing for armed woman person before she kills our whole world. Is not revenge. Is not revenge. Has not happened yet.

Well, maybe I can replenish that world and then have a conversation with her to make her promise to never boil an ocean again. What do you think? World not need replenishing. World's still alive. It's confusing. You're down to three entities. You're down to three sharks. We are heroes and sacrifices.

We will stop much dying, but we'll not be not dead to swim in it. but they seem to think about what you said about replenishing though and the one swims back to the other two and they confer for a while and then it swims back to you and says you know other stick people like you but empty not like you the stick people like you but not like you is empty you know that yes I know some I'm oh you mean yes

I do know of some. They aren't born yet, but they're coming. It is not born yet. It's not color? Empty. Empty of color stick people? I feel like I'm in that movie where they had to interpret all the alien signs.

I think it's called signs. Mars attacks. Yeah, that was it. No, sorry, Mars is well. Yeah, there is. They say Empty stick people like you, not like you. They bring terrible forearmed woman person to our home

and hang her in sky like Big Star and, let's see. You know, we say sea boils, all death. You stop empty stick people, four armed woman person, no come to home. All good. I will keep her from doing whatever it is you think she's going to do, I'm guessing.

And I will convince her. No, I will tell you what. I will promise you that she will not do what you say she will. I will, I make you a solemn promise. What is promise? I will make, we will make an exchange. I will show my goodwill that I, will keep this

bargain between us. You will kill empty stick people like you, not like you, or you will kill a forearm woman person who rides with you on Iron Whale, or we will do both. Those are options. Agreement?

So I have to pick one of those? Other option, we eat you, hurt mouth on sticks. Not good, not very good. And then, If you eat forearm woman person, maybe eat empty stick people like you, not like you. Not ideal. Stick people very sharp.

If I killed the white stick people. Yes, excellent. If I do that, if I do that, we're good. We're cool, right? We still die as noble sacrifices, but world's safe, so very good. But that does not involve hurting forearm one. woman person. If empty stick people like you, not like you, aren't dead, are dead and cannot hang her in style like star to boil seas, then that solves everything. Everything is great. So we have an accord. Agreement.

I will keep the white stick people from hanging forearmed woman person in sky to boil off sea. Like star and use violence to do it and make them stop being alive. Yes. So are one of you a notary? By any chance. It's actually under the water, so it's a floatery. Yeah, there you go. Ooh. What is a notary?

Flotery. What is floatery? Doesn't matter. No, dad. No, dad. No problem. Explain it to the chart. Explain notary public.

Please. I will. I will. I got to say, dad, as a notary public myself, uh, you need to treat it. a little more serious. I will. I have a very,

I have a solution for this. I paid $25. We're under the sea, right? We're under the sea, correct? Yeah. Okay. A floatery uses a seal.

You know what a seal is? Delicious. Yes. A delicious seal. So. A seal on the lips is more shark on the hips. You know that? Okay.

It floats forward and nods, and the other two, look, just as excited as this one did when you start communicating with it. You get the impression, you're probably the first thing these guys have communicated with since they set off on whatever mission this is that they are on. And the one floats forward and says, I bite you now, gentle for moving. Acknowledgement? Man, I've said that to so many people. Yeah, but do it in a different place because you kind of, you got a little... It chomps down right on your torso. That's it.

That's the spot. And with a loud pop, you are suddenly back in the cargo bay. Only it is drained out. And you see a very hairy-looking urchin working on the pumps. My boy. And he looks over at you like, what the fuck man and the blink shark is also like what fuck we're water and then it blinks and it's gone and you are standing in the uh the cargo bay with urchin what's your go dude

great big blink shark nest that's not important i'll tell you all about it um you know when we have our uh you know you know that meeting we have afterwards where we all get together and yeah anyway Hold on a second, and I use the shell phone to call Devo. Okay. Hello, you're Devo. Hey. Yes. Sorry.

It's been nuts here. Oh, here too, yes. The cargo bay is clear. Can you get here? Um, well, everything is tilting here and flooding here, so you might have to come to us? Okay And I know where that is Because I tracked animals

Yes, I know Okay, I tell you what Leave it to Urchin and me Oh you have Urchin with you Yeah, but I'm still thinking that we might be able to pull it off Oh no, tell them I'm not here No, hang up Say hi, just say hi, hang up, hang up

Here and I hand the shell phone to Urchin What? What? What? He looks down and he says, I dropped the cell phone. I can't do nothing right. As you all are doing this really cute little scene,

a sprite floats up through the moon pool and it seems to be towing like a small chest that it floats over towards you and then it lowers down on the floor and releases it. And it kind of like topples over and you see Amber's belongings fall out of it. And the Sprite whistles at you a couple times. And then it floats back down in the moon pool and is gone.

I feel so objectified by that sprite whistling at me. Yeah, it whistles at you like, oh, daddy. It's saying out loud. So is it just Amber's belongings? It is. Everybody else left you. You all left your stuff on the ship. Amber was...

They took all of Amber's when she got taken to the jungle. Okay. Urchin. Yeah. We have got to be the big heroes. Oh, yeah. We have got to save everybody else. But I'm heading to the bridge.

You stand by for action. Absolutely. What am I like? Co-captain? Lieutenant. Uh, how about vice assistant... Corporal? Vice Assistant.

Captain Pro Tem. Okay. Does that come with a salary bump or benefits? It'll almost double what we pay you now. Oh, boy. So. Because I love the working man. Right.

I believe in the working urchin. Okay. And Zooks runs up to the bridge. I'm just going to double the readiness penalty, the urchin sort of, no. You can't commit us to dad's weird ramblings? I am going to bump it up from three to four, though, because he is going to start eating more food. That's fair.

All right. Okay. You make it up to the bridge. I mean, you're floating in front of a, like, half-melted debris field with, like, corroded metal and, like, you know, rebar and other sort of structural shit and sparks just, like, flying out of it right in front of you, but also that is where, That is the direction the animals are in. So I move through.

I start moving towards where the signal is. Okay. And I keep moving through. Uh-huh. Oh, I like that. Dodging the big stuff. Oh, yeah. But if it's free floating, how much damage could it do?

That's true. I mean, does Zooks? I don't know how Zooks would work that math out. I will say if you look. Zook spends his life swimming through the bar. That's fair. That's fair. I will say you saw the Coriolis from the outside.

It's a little bit beat up, which if you look at the character sheet for the Coriolis, it's at about half hull right now. But also, the Coriolis is a big ship that you all picked for its bigness. So it is, you know, it's a tough old gal. And don't we have a repair sprite? No. That was on the Dreams of Debra, which you famously exploded mere episodes ago. All right.

So he just starts moving through the water, starts moving through the debris, trying to find his friends. You see that sprite again floating in front of you, and it seems to be kind of like illuminating the way. And you follow it for a while through the wreckage, and then it comes to a big sealed door in a chamber that, like, you did not see before the ship half exploded. And it starts to pulsate. We're going to jump back over into the fight. and Amber. You have Clyde is dead. The barbarian is in the middle of the room,

still sort of in its berserk mode. The bull is knocked out with its other, or the Orock is knocked out with the other Orock, and the polar bear is back and healthy. I'm going to take advantage of the bull's frustration. Okay. And punch, stop me before this one. Punch it in the head.

Okay. Go ahead and roll with advantage. 11. Neither of those, actually. All right. It comes to second and attack. Okay. 19 plus 5.

Yes. That one does hit. All right. That's seven points of damage. Okay. This punch makes him stumble back quite a bit. And it takes him a minute to kind of come back to his senses. And he tries to shake it off.

But he is slowing down a little bit. Uh, is that it? Let me check my key. Yeah, I'm going to hold off. Okay. I think, I think, yeah. Uh, all right. Um, I'm going to drop that flurry of blows.

Yeah. Okay. That's, that will be four more attack rolls, uh, for, because you start advantage. Okay. Yeah. 17 plus five. Yes. So the first one hits.

And then this 21. Yeah. So that's the first one hits. Well, no. I need. that hit, so that was the first roll of the second attack. When you roll advantage, you rolled the dice two times. Oh my god, this

is ridiculous. There, 16. Yeah, that also hits. Or actually 22. Yeah, good. Two good ones. Two good ones. Let's see that damage. Eight. Wow. Two eight. God. Yes. It feels mighty. It feels good. 16 points of damage. God, I'm so mad at this dude.

I punch him the hardest I've ever punched anybody twice. Oof. Yeah, he is looking Very, very rough. He takes a moment to stand up, and it looks like he takes a big, deep breath, like he's about to start monologuing. And then you hear, and a polar bear crashes into him with its claws. I guess its claws are always bared. Yeah. But this time it's B-E-A-R-E-D.

That's very good. And that's going to do 12 points. of damage against him. He goes down on his knees, but he is still standing. Well, he's not standing. He is not quite dead. And he's going to take one last desperate. He loses his rage.

He's going to take one last swing at the Orock, his quarry. He buries his axe in the Oroch in its hind leg, and you hear it cry out. and the other Ourok starts to stand to its feet and looks quite pissed off. Devo, it is your turn. So he's down on his knees. Is that still true? Yeah. Devo is going to approach him, eyes glowing blue, and he's going to begin to whisper. But first he says, so you think you're a big man, huh?

with your axe and your mask and you attacks these animals even now they stand over there doing nothing and you attack I'll show you what it's like to be a defenseless creature and be attacked and I'm gonna hit him with dissonant whispers level two

which is 4D6 damage He makes it with the saving throw I miss magic it's so cool You just do it I was upset it. He's going to make a wisdom of saving three, yes. 11? No.

So he gets hit by 15 points of damage. He grabs his mask, like, around his horns and starts to just kind of tremble, and he falls down face first in the mud and is, like, trembling in fear, and you see bubbles kind of. popping up as he gasps for breath face down in the mud, and then the bubble stop, and he is still because he died. Oh, okay. And you all are... He's still standing.

He's still standing. That's the amazing thing. A proud warrior. Though he may lie on the ground in the water. In his heart, he still stands. He still stands. Yeah. It's quiet for a minute as the animals kind of like rise to their feet.

you all are out of initiative now. One of the o'erocks starts like licking the other one's wound. It seems like that one got like a bump of adrenaline from being attacked, so he is starting to get back to his feet, and the animals start to surround the two of you. And it's a beautiful little circle of life. And then the ship groans, and in the distance, you all see from one angle

what Zook sees from another angle, which is that Sprite blinks faster and faster, and then it goes off like thermite and just dissolves the wall in front of you. And you see the jungle now, which starts to very quickly fill up with water. And you two can see, like, sort of looking down the slope of the jungle, the Coriolis just sort of bob up and down in the water. Oh Let's Okay Let's go Time to boogie

We gotta get these animals on the ship Yes I agree Come on Um That that like They're like There's no way We could get the technology

They used to shrink them right That's like not available to us Uh Hmm You know That's an interesting concept because they would have I'm going to say yeah

like if they have that technology it would be wild for them to send you to get these animals without giving you that technology right for them to be like hey you bring that polar bear back with you right yeah maybe it is Pokemon rules though where they have to be willing to get into

them in order for them to work but yeah I mean you you definitely have the containment orbs they probably sent you like one for each pair of animals. Now, here's, this is also, I'm so proud of myself, Griffin, something we never do. I also want to real quick, just a real quick search of Clyde and the Bull, just to, like,

see if there's any, like, cool shit or, like, Lux. You know why we never do this? Because it's not narratively fun for Griffin and be like, he's got $8 and a photo is dumb. But I'm still five Lux in debt. I need some shit to sell. Yeah. Okay. The Great Axe is there, right?

The ball had it. The mask seems to be like super glued to his face. You can't seem to find any way to get it off. But the great axe you could definitely grab. It is a stupid weapon. Like it is so heavy and imbalanced. Like it is, this was a weapon that a rich asshole saw and was like, that's a cool axe. I'm going to use that to slaughter cattle and feel like a real big man.

But like, it's not actually a very effective weapon. It is fancy enough, though. So you can throw that in your inventory and try and hawk that later. What about that harpoon gun? The harpoon gun, yeah, you could grab that harpoon gun too. It is a big, you can't really quite assess it, but it is just as fancy as the great axis is and seem to be capable of some quick shots.

What about any wrist watches or diamond couplings? Yeah, one of them has on weirdly a bunch of, There's some emerald earrings and a big golden potion. No, it's... I didn't expect that. It's really just those two things. Okay, I grabbed those. Clyde had a jerkin on, but now it's got a big hole in it.

I got a jerkin off. Now, would you say now there's a hole in it, he's got a jerking off? Oh, the door was open, and he stepped through. I wish it wasn't. Okay, you all gather up the animals inside of their containment units and loot these corpses. is the ship is starting to tilt pretty quick now. Oh, yeah, okay. So you have a pretty steep and getting steeper run

toward the Coriolis. All right, let's go, let's go. Make an athletics check, both of you. 11 for me. Seven plus two, a nine for me. Okay. Did they shrink all the animals? They did.

Yes. Okay. Yeah, you stumble and fall trying to just like navigate this jungle. First of all, the terrain has like started to just kind of slough away. It's also very muddy and wet in here. This jungle was not meant to exist at a sort of 45 degree angle. And it is getting much, much steeper to the point where you kind of have to hold on

so that you don't fall down the jungle toward the water below. It's not quite 90 degrees yet, but because the terrain. was just a little bit too difficult. You guys are still a good 100 feet away from the Coriolis when you lose your foot. Wait, is the Coriolis above us or below us? Below you. The water is rising. Imagine the Titanic sinking.

Yeah. Right? And you all are sort of on that top level. And this chamber is filling up with water very, very quickly. And the ship is tilting very quickly. Oh. You can shell phone them. I got something.

Oh. I've got something. What are you doing? Zoogs can see them, right? Sure. Yeah. And they're just kind of hanging on and they've got all those animals? Yeah.

He uses the blink bay. Okay. To bring them on board the ship. The blink bay can only recall things that have blinked, but you can try and blink out to them and grab them and bring them. Oh, full-blown night crawler. I would let you roll for it. I would let you roll for that.

Blink. Okay. So like blink so that I'm hovering in midair? And grab them in the air and then blink back with them. Yeah, let's go for it. All right. What am I roll? Okay, let me think.

Here's how we're going to do this. You are aiming yourself toward the distance. So I'm going to let you just roll your crossbow attack. And I'm going to give you your target. I want you to hit, if you, if you, You hit a 17, you will hit exactly where they are and have no further complications. I love this game. Yeah, roll your D20 plus 8.

That's if it goes good. That's best case you here, you don't have another Bartic inspiration on you, do you? You can't hear me from there? Yeah, not from that distance. You got it, though. We go. So it wouldn't work over the shelf phone? Okay.

Oh, Lord, here we go. Come on, baby. Come on, baby. Come on, baby. Come. Now, that's a three plus eight, which is short of the goal. Or rather, you know what it is? It's quite far of the goal.

You go way past them, and now you are free falling back down toward the choreolas. Devo and Amber, you see now, you see Zooks just suddenly beam up and appear like 30 feet above you and then start plummeting back downward. What do you do? Reach out to catch him? Wait, what's he doing? So what am I seeing? You see Zook's in free fall, falling toward you all,

just off the floor of the jungle now, falling downward, back toward the Coriolis. This whole room is... Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. All right, Amber reaches into her bag, drops the Orock out of its ball and chucks the ball at Zooks.

The Orock will fall? I mean, we're on steady ground. I mean, we're... standing on something. I mean, you guys are like holding on to tree branches and shit to avoid. This room is at a 90 degree angle now. It is facing. Yeah.

Yeah, that's kind of, I mean, that was my idea. Griffin said it wasn't cool enough. No, I said it. No. Okay, if you can tell me how to let a bowl out of a, out of a pokey ball and not just immediately plummet to its day. Do I have any extras? Mm.

They certainly would have given me an extra. You know what? Yes, because they gave you enough to bring back all the animals and all the animals are not. Right, I'm gonna chuck my extra pokey ball with a bit of fishing line tied to it.

Okay. Okay. Oh, wait, before Amber throws, just, Devo's like, please don't I miss! And that's my last part of inspiration. Very inspiring. I did say please. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Make a range attack roll at Zooks. I'm not gonna give you you anything special for this. You gotta fucking hit him. Let me do my deflect missiles attack, I guess. You have a dart. I just don't have it equipped. Click the button in your inventory.

This is a real momentum killer. To click one button? I just click two to go to the town. Oh. Okay. Yes, okay. You got to hit his AC too. What?

Yeah. Why? He's willing. just to hit his body with this as he's falling. As he's falling. You just have to roll a nine or more.

It's 13. 13. What's your AC, Zooks? Can you confirm that for me? 14. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, my Bartic inspiration. Right? Yeah.

So just don't roll as, you have to roll a one or more. Is it D8? Yes. Just don't roll a zero. I think you're a joke. No. Is there a zero?

Five. Yeah. All right. Okay, good. The poke ball hits Zooks in mid-air. Zooks, are you willing to get in the polka ball? I think, how does oblivious? Yeah, okay, that's fair.

Yeah, that's neutral enough. Yeah. Then you see a flash of light and Zooks, all of a sudden, you're standing in, let me think. The rhinos are the ones that went extinct, sadly. so you're in a sort of Savannah type situation all of a sudden, and you're like in there like, what the fuck's going on? And then you're immediately kind of just like thrown all around as this pokeball in the fishing line,

like then sort of swings downward and bongs into the jungle floor. And Devo and Amber, you see it shake once and then twice and then three times. Yes. And it clicks and stand still. Satisfying as hell. You've caught a wild zooks. Okay, you got.

And she catches it in the air, and she said, yep, gotta catch all of them. In balls. Okay, at this point, the water, I think, has risen to the point where you could just, like, jump down toward the ship. I just simply, boop, and I step onto it, and then I walk into the ship. Yeah, it rises to me.

Essentially, it's what happens. And urchin actually opens up the top hatch, and he's like, Rouserks. Because he vanished again. He's been doing that a lot today. Oh, he's in that ball. Don't worry. It's fine, I guess.

Can I keep him? No. I will feed him. Okay. I will feed him and take him on walkies for pieces. You promise? Because I do not want to be responsible for this. Oh, come on, go.

Oh, we should go to before this whole place falls over and explodes. Oh, right, right, right, right. Yeah. Smash cut to the choreola's just like blasting out of the glass. dome ceiling of the jungle as the rest of the facility. Deva has his arm around the polar bear. The polar bear has his arm around diva and they're both just laughing and having a Coca-Cola. Laugh and having a great time.

Actually, you all are immediately intercepted by the biggest baby, who you did call for reinforcement as it shows up a little bit too late to be useful. And they bring you in with their tractor beam, so to speak, into the loading bay. And as you all sort of raise up into the docking bay here, a fleet of engineers rush to get to work on repairs for the Coriolis. And there is a knock at the door and you hear Codira. And she says, permission to come aboard. Oh, yeah, come on in. Okay.

We let you. We let you out of the ball, though. Okay. Okay, she comes aboard the Coriolis alongside the curator. And he immediately, like, sees the orbs and starts looking at them just to, like, do an inventory. And you see him looking down at you, Zooks, inside of your orb. And he's like, I do not remember this. Oh, do you want out?

Yes, please. Okay, he pops open the thing and lets you out. And he says, so the rhinos did not. Oh, dear. Um, okay. If it makes me a difference, uh, they were dead before they got the, I saw them mounted in one of the rooms. It was, it was too late for them. But there is good news.

The cerebral is pregnant. Oh, that is delightful. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all so much. Your payment, you will receive it promptly. Excellent. Excellent work.

You have no reason, uh, to listen to me. I totally understand this. But, uh, if I may, just a suggestion. you may want to consider allowing the animals from time to time to have a chance to stretch their legs or, you know, to get out of the balls. Bigger, bigger balls, I understand. No, no, no, like, let them out.

Super big. If it helps at all, you could have showings where the children of Fander's Wake could see... And play with the polar bears. Yes, this is an excellent idea with no flaws whatsoever. I will research a more ethical solution. Thank you.

Thank you. And he scoops them all up and leaves. And the whole time, like, Coderre has been, like, debriefing. She says, so there was a... What happened? So what I know, and fill in the blanks, please. Amber and Zooks. But Aloysia Supreme

was part of a group called crescendo, and he helped them set up something where they stole the animals, and then people were hunting them so that they could feel the thrill of snuffing out the last of an animal. It was pretty shitty. There was a dude there named Tolover. I don't know if that's his roommate. Who is the auctioneers that we dealt with before?

He fucking sucked. Hey, Amber, roll a history check. All right. 22. That name rings a bell for you because you have only known one Tolliver in your long life. It's a name you have not heard in a long time. But it hits you all of a sudden that the only Tolliver you've ever known, the only person that ever had that name was Declan's. Cerns little boy. And as you realize that, the biggest baby shakes and rumbles and all of the

chaperones, including Codira, you see this single red eye illuminate on their foreheads, the sort of sign of Cota's influence. And she looks pretty freaked out when that happens. And a Chaperone runs up and whisper something to her, and she gasps. And she looks at you, Devo. And she is lost for words for a second. And she says, we need to go home right now. Devo, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

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