The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea - Episode 39

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

Benefactor's Folly: Part One The crew of the Coriolis, with Ballaster Kodira in tow, set off to hunt down Benefactor Orlean before his plans come to fruition. As is so often the case, they get thoroughly distracted along the way. Additional music in this episode: “Minus” by Nctrnm https://soundcloud.com/nctrnm; and “In Silence” by Andrew kn https://freesound.org/people/Andrewkn/. 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. Somebody controlled guidance via the tone wheel to make her drink the poison. And there are not a lot of people that are strong enough to make the hand of guidance do this. You see a message appear in faint glowing script. on the street between you. Meet me at Nirmal's Pyle at Lights Out, the Beholder. And can you all, like, get it the fuck together? And he throws down a big stack of papers held together with clips.

That's the journal of Heretic Knob. You secured it at the abyssal auction, and you returned it to Joshi for payment, and then he turned it around and sold it to his client, and that client was Benefactor Orlean. I'll take the trace of Spike, please, so I can find Arlene and probably kill him, if I'm being honest. We'll bring him to justice. All right, thank you. What was your name again?

Oh, Chauncey. I mean, that's the holder? And I would like to say that I am very proud of the decision we made to pay off the debt. Because, you know, when you live underwater, it's good to achieve liquid. So you all are in sort of final preparations before you disembark from your your parking spot in Founders Wake. And as the shipworms are loading up, the last of the supplies that you purchased, Kodira is there, Amber. And she's come basically to check up on y'all's progress on the investigation so far. and it's up to y'all how much how much you want to actually you know reveal to her but she is she is standing at the side of the ship by the airlock and she says are y'all going somewhere is is this part of the is this part of the investigation um you know what um amber stopped me if you disagree but um balusters seem to be dropping like flies and so i

I think we should give you the information we have. It's not much, but there's a guy named Benefactor Orlean, who is, to my mind, just a real piece of shit. And we think he might have some information regarding what is going on with, you know, the Hand of Guidance and the Whisp and all of these things. So we are going to go find him and see if we can get that information from him. or, I don't know, kill him if we have to, to stop him from doing something bad. We won't kill him just for fun.

Let me be clear, because you are law enforcement. We will not just be killing him to get our jollies. Roll a deception check. No, I'm just kidding. We would also try to, you know, bring him in peaceful. Oh. We don't want to murder some, but we're not like judge Judy in execution. She nods and then she looks around just to make sure nobody else is kind of close by and she walks up to you, Amber.

And she says, listen, I can't for something like this, I can't bring the full brunt of the biggest baby down with, with y'all. But if it's all right, I could come with just to help out if I can. If there's anything I can do to, like you said, stop the execution of the balusters, I would like to take part. So may I join you all? Let us huddle. I understand. Take your time. And she gives you all some space. Anybody have a strong feeling?

Yeah, I want to know. What does full brunt mean? Is there such a thing as half brunt or like quarter brunt? It's a good point, but not relevant. Okay, okay. I got a problem. Goder is kind of fun. Listen, as much as I would love to have, you know, the Ballastor of Defense watching our backs,

I do think we are running out of allies here at home, and there's a lot of shit happening here. I think she would be way more useful, you know, protecting, you know, like Hermine. and, you know, the church and all of these things, in case anybody feels froggy here at home. That's a good point, but I feel like I've always had this sneaking suspicion that when people aren't with us, they're not really doing much of anything. Have you guys felt that ever? Oh, like when we are not around, they cease to exist?

Not cease to exist, it's so firm, but like they don't really, really do anything, unless we're watching them and we're near them. So I feel like she should probably just come. I don't know about metaphysical. Okay, but let me also throw this up there. She is very lawful, and the ways that we handle situations is not always that. Yeah, but if we have to go in hard, Yeah.

Then having somebody there who could say, hey, they had to go in hard. Oh. It might be helpful. Was she even cool? Well, see, I think she can party. You ask her if she can party. Hey, hey, Codira. Yeah.

Can you party? I think you already know the answer to that. That's a no, right? I mean, I did have, I did have. No one who can party? Yeah. Doesn't respond to that one. the hack party.

Well, I did have that mixer at the headquarters, and I invited you. You did not come, but I... Attly attended if memories. But I made a dip. I made a dip there that people talked about for a couple days afterwards. You got any of that dip on you? The dip will take me weeks to prepare. All right, well, maybe when we get back, come on.

Let's go. It's good. It'll be good. Okay. All right, road trip. I mean, see. Cordero, will you put some people I assume you already have, but just in case, like, on Bastarameen and on, you know, everybody? No, I told them actually they could have the week off.

I said that there were, there have been, there was a murder of a high profile figure here and a lot of unknowns happening. And then I was like, but you know what? Labor Day is coming up. I see, that's party. You party. party and? She is going, she's going full brunt with sarcasm, isn't she? I was not trying to be offensive. I am sorry. I just, there's, no, I've, I've been briefed on sort of the way that you conduct yourself with, um, people. Damn, Devo said he's sorry. Did you have a stroke? You okay?

Let's, let's, uh, let's get, let's get going. I'm, I'm, I'm ready if y'all are. I hope she doesn't snore. Uh, you all bored the Coriard. The Coriard. And Urchin is there to greet you as you walk in through the airlock and he looks at the... Is he wearing a little uniform? Please, please. Yeah, okay, fine. Yeah, he's wearing a little uniform. And he's got a little tool belt on and he's a cute little guy pie.

And he looks up at the four of you and he looks at Codira and then he says, Who's the cop? Yes. I don't know. I don't know about all this. Okay. Well, then you can get off the ship. I just feel like that.

You're cordially invited to leave. But I feel like there wasn't really part of the decision-making process, and I feel like I've at least earned that, don't you think? Okay, we'll take a vote. The four of us, who wants to have Kadira on board? And Devo raises his hand. Zook raises his hand. Yeah, Amber raises her hand.

All right. Does dark time crying a bit whenever she starts doing cop stuff? Okay. We really should start C-Cing. Urchin on stuff. I don't think that's too much to ask. Just to C-C. Is that S-E-A, S-E-A?

Listen, I got big ideas. I've got a idea of Nachos machine. So have you proven out the theory? Have you been doing anything while we weren't talking about you or seeing you? No, it's real. It's like whenever you guys are around, there's a, I feel up. to sink into an inky black void. Anyway, I'm going to climb up on the pipes

and not exist for a little while. And he turns into a little hedgehog ball and rolls up the walls into a vent and disappears. Okay, the choreolus disembarks, and you all begin the journey following the tracer spike, which basically sits on the dashboard, like a little hula dancer. Hula dancer figuring and points in the direction of Benefactor Orleans ship.

Whenever there is downtime or like autopilot or whatever, Devo wants to spend some time looking through the book, the guidances book, that he took from her office. Okay. It is definitely written in like a cipher. Yeah. Why don't you roll, let me see. What kind of check would that be to try and maybe just a, maybe just a, an intelligence check to try and figure out what the cipher is.

Not too bad at that. I mean, this time wasn't great. No. Now, wait, hold on. The cipher is what she has written, right? Yes. Okay. So this book is two parts, right?

So every hand is given, it's basically like a combination of like a Bible and a journal. Right. And this is like what the specific each hand is given that is like, like the magic they learn what their focus is. So he's not able to read her notes, right? But the rest of it, he would be able to read. Okay, sure. Okay.

Here's what I will give you with it. But you rolled a fucking six. So I'm not going to give you a lot. The Bible part of it has a very well-known parable. I think it's one of those things that like even people who are not of the church have at least heard of before. and it is basically the parable of the prodigal son. It is a parable about benevolence's sort of solitude after he betrays the rest of the vestiges by giving magic to the world of man. And the, you know, the desolation that comes along with that.

But then how that desolation becomes joy whenever, you know, people begin to join, join his flock in appreciation. and it is just a parable about, you know, forgiveness and reunification and reunion. She has, like, recently marked up this page. That is all I'm going to give you with a six. Okay, that's fair. He wants to keep working on it. So, like, whenever you think, like, enough time is past, you can do another check. This is not like, well, didn't work that one time and I'm not interested in it anymore, you know?

I mean, I get that, but you failed to check. to interpret it. So I don't know what is going to change, but I will keep your request in mind. Thank you very much. Why don't we roll that readiness check? Who hasn't done it in a while? I know dad, I think dad's done two

because he wanted to redeem himself. Yes. I can do one. Yeah, go for Amber. I think you did the first. Do I roll a dice 20? No, you roll a dice 100. And right now, your readiness rating, let's see.

You got Zook's expertise. You got the Astral Sextent. You got some intel and some generous rations. You do have the minus four urchin penalty as you gave him a raise. Didn't we? On a recent mission. You did, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So that is a total of 10. That is your, I think, highest readiness bonus so far. So let's see what you got. At least I'm not going to get it at one. Yeah. Well, you could get it on. If you remember, the one just sort of didn't factor in any of the

It was just a crit fail. Alright, here we go. Roll that beautiful bean footage. Hello, it's my flexible friend. Damn, that's a good bean. That is pretty good. It's 62. 602.

Right? Total 2 plus 10. Okay. That's really good, though. You could do sound like. Flexible friend. Now, Justin, you sound a little bit like bean if he was under a great stress or weight.

Do you guys appreciate the fact that there's probably, I would say 98% of the people who listen to the show do not maybe understand that incredibly specific Mr. Bean pull? You mean where he used? But here's a problem, right? Here's a problem. Here's a problem. It's not my job to decide if something is worth making it to the audience.

That's true. It's Rachel's. Yeah. So she doesn't. I just go. I'm a comment. Yeah. If you search YouTube for my flexible friend.

mp4, it's going to get you where you need to go for. I'm just saying that like, I'm a comet, and Rachel just scoops me up and her net and flies me off planet. If that comet isn't worth scoop it up in the net. Wait, hold on. Is that, is that like, who does that? Maybe Little Prince? The Little Prince. The Little Prince scoops up a comet and flies off the planet?

Little Prince. Outer space. He'll catch a shooting star and sail away. Remember? Yeah. No. It's another. Bean?

Get out of here. We are. We've been writing our coattails for too long. You got the launch of man versus B to look forward to. You need to get ready psychologically. No, that's Rowan Atkinson, not Mr. Bean. Oh, it's a different thing. Okay.

Mr. Bean, you do need to stop hanging out with Rowan Atkinson. So a 62, you all have traveled for maybe half a day or so. and you've entered into like pretty, pretty dark, deep water. And it's getting tough to kind of, you know, see where you're going outside of the, you know, floodlights on the front of the ship guiding you, but your peripheral is just sort of not useful to you right now. And so you're in sort of a slow going mode, slowly idling through this dark water when something floats in front of the viewport on the bridge. It is a large spherical shape. It is like roughly half the size of the Coriolis, you would estimate.

And most of its form is just this like translucent jelly. But at the center of it, there is a small, bright orange shape. The shape kind of resembles an atom. There's like smaller light sort of rapidly orbiting around a center light, pulsating in a sort of heartbeat-like rhythm. And so it floats up and across your field of view, and after it passes, you can see that this is merely one of maybe hundreds of these huge spheres, and the rest of them are tethered to the ocean floor with these sort of white, fleshy strands.

And so they're all stationary, kind of pulling at their strands. And at the center of this enormous field of glowing spheres, you can see another light. And this one is much more faint. It is a gentle green light radiating from what appears to be a statue of a four-armed figure. And there's one last thing that catches your eye. That first sphere that floated by your ship has drifted upward toward the surface away. and against the sort of orange light that it is casting off, you can see the shadow of some hapless fish swimming toward it.

And you see the fish stop and then quickly swim toward the center of the sphere to kind of like sniff it out. And as soon as it touches the sphere, it explodes violently. The sphere does. The fish does too, but only because the sphere does. As a reaction. As a reaction to the sphere exploding. And it sends like a shockwave through the ship. and all the other spheres down sort of tethered to the ocean floor,

kind of very gently drift back and forth, but none of them are sort of caught in the chain reaction. That is what you all see. Are they all like tethered so that they're floating at the same level, or is this like a literal, like, obstacle course minefield thing? It is a literal obstacle course minefield is a good way of thinking about it. Too big to go around. No, you could go around it.

That is the option I will give you on a good, on a good 62. Okay, one more question. The statue at the center, is it like gigantic or is it like, you know, six foot statue? It's maybe like 10, 15 feet tall. So not gigantic, but pretty big. Big enough for you to be able to make out that it is a four-armed glowing green person statue. Is it, obviously the ship would have difficulty going. How much space between the spheres?

I mean, doing just some quick back of the napkin math, you do not think it would be possible for the choreolis to get through here without touching someone. But an individual could. But an individual absolutely could. Zooks would really like to go check out the statue. Hell yeah. Okay. And get out.

I actually have just one more question. The tracer spike, is it like, Bing, Bing, Bing, he's in there? No, no, no. This is, it is still pointing. It is pointing you past this, this mindfied. All right, Zeus. Go, man. Okay.

Go for it. And dad, have you rolled a second character just in case? I thought I'd use the second character from the end of the night. Yeah. Okay, great, yeah. It's 62. It can't be that bad. Well, but it's also not that good.

Like, if you got a 62 on a test, you wouldn't be like, yes. I did it. A 62 is somewhere at the end of the day, you're like, well, I don't know. You can't really call it good or bad, but, We all got through. We put our eight hours in, and that was good. Hey, I'm supposed to have surgery tomorrow. What do you know about the surgeon?

Oh, I'd say he's like 62% good. I'm not wild about that. Okay, Zuchs, you hop on out the sort of launch bay moon pool for the bathosphere, and you are in the water. What's your plan here? To move very, very carefully. Okay. between through the the the the mind spheres right mm-hmm and investigate the statue the statue before he goes yes

devo says hey do not die and gives him bardic inspiration good call okay zooks uh you dive downward into into the deep toward this minefield and as you approach sort of the outer perimeter like the outermost spheres, you notice that as you get closer to them, the atom at the center of these things, they start to glow a little bit faster. And it almost seems like the spheres are like magnetically attracted toward you. So a few of them start to kind of like pull at their strands and begin to move in your direction as you get close. Um, so these are obviously some kind of creature. Some sort of hugging sphere.

It's a delicacy, actually. Why don't you roll a nature check for me? Jeez, Louise. That's a six. That's with a plus three. I rolled a three. Yeah. You cannot tell.

You can't tell. I mean, there is a flashing light inside of this thing, right? So at the very least, it is not inert. It's not a rock. It is alive in some sense, right? You don't know about the intelligence of whatever these things are, but there is life there. All right. Zooks cast summoned Beast.

Oh, shit. Okay. And summons a... Let's see. Who did he? Who did he? scoes the shit back. Yeah, right.

Well, I think what I'm going to do is do summon beast. Okay. And bring up, what was the name of the, the seal, the giant?

The elephant seal? Yeah. Are elephant seals known for their maneuverability and dexterity amongst minds? Mm-mm. No, you're missing my point,

you're missing my point altogether. What twisted scientist, Travis, would, would challenge. that hypothesis of just like, you know, they got into some weird shit in the 60s, Griffin. Yeah, I guess that's fair. And they're

in some, and they're in, you know, they pretty naturally aquatic. No, I'm going to send this gosh, I can't remember what it was now. It's a different elephant seal. It looks a lot like the first one, but this one has its own name. Well, in that case, I'm going to send a narwhal. I'm going to make a narwhal.

Okay. A baby narwhal? Is this going to be the episode, is this going to be the episode of the Adventure Zone where dad blows up a narwhal for no reason. It's starting to feel like... And so I win the pool. No, no, I'm going back. I'm going to make it just a seal.

Okay. A regular old seal, not an elephant. And I'm going to... Did you know when it blows, I'll be torn asunder. I'm going to use that seal and send it towards a certain section of where these sphere mines are hanging. Okay. And try to have them be attracted to...

to the seal. Okay. Which would clear a path for Zooks to swim. I'll give you that. I'll give you that for sure. Okay. I also just want to say, Dad has this really great tell where an idea will occur to him and he'll go,

and like have this like chuckle. And that chuckle means like, I'm going to do something wild here. And in the middle of a live show that I am DMing, that is the scariest sound. That does exist. Okay. So I'm going to give you advantage on an acrobatics check to try to try to. weave your way through because you have sort of gotten these things to drift away, uh,

you know, at least partially, uh, from, from you and are able to kind of clear a path. And you still have a bardic inspiration. You do still have that. Well,

I won't need it because that's a dirty 20. That is a dirty 20. Go ahead and roll the second one. We'll see if you can crit. Okay. Get a clean 20. Nah, 15.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, with a 20, it takes some time and some very, very careful sort of coordination to make sure that the seal is just always pulling these things away from you. But you are able to sneak your way through the minefield toward the statue. You are not a, I don't think Zuchs would be able to like identify any kind of symbology here. This thing has been here for a while. And so this was obviously crafted by somebody and it appears

like there was an inscription at some point, but it is completely weathered away. And you are now in front of this statue. The rest of the spheres are kind of giving this clearing, like a bit of a berth. So you are not in any immediate danger from the spheres

here. Make an investigation check. Okay, roll that. That's a 13. Wait, before Griffin gives you the answer. Do you want to use that one, D-8? for Bartic Inspiration? Yeah, why not?

Okay. No, no, no, no, no, let's save it. I know how Griffin works. I'll save the Bartic Inspiration. Okay, what you notice with a 13, and it's less noticing and more of just in, like, mental observation. You sort of connect the dots a little bit.

This particular shade of green that this forearm statue is giving off is familiar to you. It is the same color of the spectral arms that Amber is able to summon up. Can I tell anything else about the statue? I mean, just looking at it without investigating.

Four arms are better for hugging, my man. I can tell you that it doesn't look like the light is, like irradiating from the stone. This is not like a glowing stone. It almost seems like it is encased in this green light. Like it is forming a layer around the stone. Okay. He whips out his shell phone.

Okay. And communicates back to the ship and says, whoa, hey. It's like this statue is like a, like a tribute to amber. It's like it's, you know how your arms, Amber, when you do your magic arms?

Yeah. It's like, it's like that, and it's got that same kind of green glow, and it's got four arms. So, I mean, like when you do your magic stuff, your magic arms, that's what it looks like.

And I'm not sure it's a statue. I think it's something inside. Mm-hmm. What do you mean? I mean, it's like, it's like it's, there's something inside the statue. It's, it's like it's encased in something. I can't, I can't vote like, I feel real bad about this, guys. I feel like we should go.

No, listen, this is what I think is if you, okay, so what we've got here, right, a minefield that requires dexterity to get through to prove that you are worthy to collect whatever, monk power is in that statue. You got to go, like, hug that statue or give it, like, a high 20. You know what I mean? So, and I bet if you do, you get some kind of, like, kick-ass monk ability. What is wrong with you that you think that's the way the world works? Oh, I think it does, too.

I run him. Now, hold on, Amber. I have studied magic. I spray magic sea salt into my mouth to make people do things. This is how the world works. There's magic. here and this statue is glowing. It's not a, it's not a, it's not a vending machine.

You don't do a good job and then get a special treat. I have never heard anyone else, right, that can do what you do with your magic arms, right? There's a statue with magic arms just like you and you're like, this, it probably isn't connected to me. Hey, I have, I have another idea. Do you think you could, we could pick it up with the, uh, With the arm or grappling arm, the ship arm? I think it's too big.

Is it? Let me pray on it for a second. Hold on. Is it too big? I don't think that there's, it would take a miracle, I think, for you to get this, get the claw in there, pull this, rip this thing from the seafloor and extract it without blowing up the entire mind. Listen, y'all, I prayed on it. I think it would take a miracle to get in there and extract this thing from the seafloor without blowing it up.

All right. You know what? Fuck it. Fine. You know what? Fine. You only grow around once. Let me vape. There's a gap in here where Mike. Let me vape. Okay. Vap on. Okay. You throw on your vape. I'm assuming that means put on your vapor suit or are you ripping? Okay. I don't know how Amber does it if she needs to rip some choice clouds before she does something dangerous. Vaping is illegal in the ether sea. You're right. I forgot about that. They call it Huffing. Okay, you throw on your vape suit and jump into the water as well. Wait, do you mean my vaping jacket? Why? Sorry. No, you mean Amber, not me.

Not my special vaping jacket. Okay. All right, I throw my vape suit and I head on out there. You sink down to the bottom of the ocean. Oh, hey, wait. There's still a gap. Don't fuck up. Oh, you're giving Amber the...

Can you only do that for one person at a time? Let me see. I'm pretty sure. No, I mean, it doesn't say that in the description in my... I guess that's true. Okay. All right, you also have Bartik Inspiration now as you approach the minefield. Okay.

And Zook's just like pointing at it excitedly. Come on, come on. Yeah, okay. I'm very gingerly making my way. Are you using your seal still, Zooks? Yeah, my seal is still like swimming around making that gap. Why don't you, I'm going to make you roll for that, because I think it was very easy and natural for you to do that for yourself, but in order for you to do that for somebody else, it is a bit more of a challenge. Why don't you roll and roll a D20 and we will add your spellcasting modifier, which is plus four to that.

Okay. That is an 18 plus four. 22, easily. Yeah, okay. You see this little seal swim around you. playfully, Amber, and then start to try and make a path for you through the minefield. So you can roll acrobatics plus with advantage. Plus seal.

Plus seal. Yep. Oh, 22. Thank you, die. Thank you, bud. These are some choice beefy rolls, boys. Right when I need to. Go ahead and roll with advantage.

Roll with advantage. All right. Well, that's a 15, but. Okay. Yeah, with a 22, you are able to. This is weird. Hold on. I'm not seeing my totals on.

Try refreshing the page if it's been open a while. Yeah, because you, one thing we should mention, you all leveled up to level seven. I mean, I'm sure we will talk about the repercussions of that in a bit, but it may be messing with the math if you are. All right, I've refreshed. Yeah, with a 22, you are able to swim around the spheres through this path that the seal has made for you,

and now you and Zooks are both floating in front of this statue. What do you do, Amber? Is there an inch? Is it like of a scale where I would like go into it? No, there's no there's no entryway that you can see. But there's like a light in the? There's a light that is like coating it. And it's the same green light as the color of your arms.

Touch it. Touch it. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, you know what? I'm going to pop out one of my arms. Now let's go two arms. Yeah. And I don't think I could just do one.

Not without some weird clinching. Right. I'm going to touch it with one of my spectral arms. Okay. As you summon your... My astral arms, excuse me. It's different planes. Okay.

As you conjure your astral arms, there is that wave of force that comes. out. And it does send a shockwave through the minefield and it like upsets the mines. They are sort of now bouncing back and forth. They are bouncing off of each other. And they have made your egress from this place. It would be much more challenging to try and get through here. DeVos the ship back a little bit more. Yeah, sure. Do you all have a tauntine that Devo might be the sole sort of recipient of should this mission go south? We can, we can figure that out later.

Well, you can figure that out. It's always better to figure out a tonskin later. All right. I'm going to, in this moment, I've never done this before. Oh, boy. But I'm going to dawn the visage of the astral self. What? This is new.

Yes, this is a new, this is a new ability. I'm, as part of activating my arms, I'm going to spend a point. And she's never done this before, so I think it kind of freaks her out a little bit. But I'm going to summit the visage of my astral self for 10 minutes. Okay. So you can spend one key point and you gain the following benefits. Astral sight. You can see normally in darkness.

You already got them fish eyes. So like you already have a bit of an advantage on everybody else here. But now it is like you are standing in a well, lit ballroom. You have wisdom of the city of spirit. You have advantage on insight and intimidation checks. And you can speak so that only one creature can hear you in its brain. You have telepathy, essentially.

You can also amplify your voice so that all creatures within 600 feet can hear you. That's fun. And that's what I'm going to do. My name is Amber Gray. What is your deal? Holy crap. A little warning may be. I'm so sorry.

Jeez. I'm so sorry. You hurt my ear holes. The atoms inside of all of those spheres, they start to go hog wild as you shout in this magically amplified way. And then you see four spectral arms sort of tear away from the four arms of the statue. you and they swoop downward toward you to try to basically just grab you. But you have a moment of reaction here. What do you do?

I'm going to, I guess I could use deflect missiles, right? Would you account their missile, missile, missile hands? Their hands that are coming for me? I will only because deflect missiles is my favorite ability that a monk has. So you can, well, this lets you reduce the damage of the attack you take by 1D10 plus 9. Why don't you roll that? We'll say that if you can deflect, we'll say 14 points. So if you can roll a 5 or above on this, I will let you avoid any repercussions of this.

You have Bartic inspiration? Partic inspiration. Okay. Yeah, this seems like a good moment to use it. So I roll a D8, just add that? Yes, I will allow it. I think Bartik inspiration is pretty limited in what it can allow you to ability check, attack, roll, or saving throw. This isn't any of those, but I will be.

I'm already rolling. Motherfucker. Oh, that's a one. Oh. Jesus. You hold up. Your words have failed me. It's resembling the tension.

It's symbolic of the tension in our relationship. All right. I gave you a week. Pretty good. That's true. It wasn't a very inspiring speech. Don't fuck up. Yeah. You hold up your two spectral arms to kind of try to, you know, block whatever this thing is trying to do.

But its arms are way more jacked than your own. And yours just kind of crumple under the force of these four arms that reach down and all grab your body at the same time. And when that happens. Your incredible astral vision goes dark, and then you awaken, and you are somewhere else. You are standing on a cliffside atop the Aynar Plateau. And behind you, the ocean is sort of roiling. There is no storm in the sky. This is whatever you are seeing now is from a very long time ago. You can actually see the beach below you that the shoreside community first sort of came to, you know, 25 years ago when they started to build Founders Wake.

But the main thing that catches your attention is Coda. Cota is standing atop the plateau with you. That's one of them gods, right? That is the God whose body was repurposed into the biggest baby, essentially. It was one of the last surviving sort of vestiges that went around killing all of the other vestiges, essentially, as soon as he was able to. He is unfathomably big. He is blocking out the sun, even though he is a great distance away from you. And he is panting.

And he pauses for a moment. and then he begins to charge towards you. What do you do? I mean, he's charging at me, but it, is it, how long do I have? I mean, is it like, I don't think you would do it. Like, I don't know. His gate is enormous, so he, it will not take long. Yeah, so he'll be on me.

And is there anything nearby that I could, like, hide under or behind or anything? I mean, he's going to destroy anything that I'm. It does not, it doesn't appear that way. Make a, you can make a check to like sort of get a better. Nah, she just gets to stand her ground. Stand your ground. I mean, like, what the fuck? If he, it's just, it's Codiv.

He wants to crush me, can crush me. Okay. It takes maybe five footsteps to clear this huge distance as he runs right at you. And just as he is about to reach you, uh, and obliterate you, you feel, the earth beneath you shake. And you have felt that as his gigantic footsteps have, you know, approached you. But this is different. As he gets close to you, the edge of this cliffside just shears off.

And you immediately are falling down into the ocean below. But you also see with... A satisfaction that maybe is alien to you, is not your own, you see that Coda is falling to. And he almost catches a glimpse of you. Your eyes meet as you both are falling off of this cliffside. And he, in his enormous sort of obsidian face, you can see what appears to be like a proud smile. and then you see his body shatter as it hits the beach below and then you hit the water. Make a wisdom saving throw for me.

Okay, hold on. Eight. But I have advantage. You do? Because of the visage of the actual. Fuck yes. That's a one. Hey, oh, you.

It was almost a 19 and then you'll never believe this. but it's a one now. So this is like a, what was the first? There's an 11. 11. Um, okay. With an 11, you snap back to reality.

Oh, there goes gravity. Oh, there goes rabbit. Um, you, you snap back to reality. And that green light that was coming from the statue is yours now. Uh, and you still have your, uh, your, your, your, your, your, your, your astral. arms extended, only now they look way bigger. They look much stronger.

They look like the arms that this statue was projecting. It's like Ashes of war. Ashes of war? Dad lives inside of Eldon Ring is dad's new address. Oh, no, Eldon Ring got dad. Yeah, it got that. That's where he lives. It has me.

It has me good. The mechanical benefit of that, Amber, is your astral arms when you attack with them. The damage dice has increased to a D8. Oh, oh. Now, with that saving throw, though, the statue has exploded. And now large chunks of debris are starting to float around toward the mines all over. Zooks and Amber What do you do?

Can I see them? Yeah, you see all this. Okay, I'm going to use the blink bay to get them out of there. They did not blink out with the blink bay. So you cannot recall them with the blink bay. Okay, I'm going to blink to them and pull them back. Who would re-blink you? Codera.

Archin. Oh, Codera! We brought Codera! You're welcome. Okay. You're throwing on the vapor suit then, I'm assuming? Yep. Okay, you have... Oh, come on, carrot house is truth.

You're conviction. You're just going to blink in and out. Who cares? Nope. I remember when I almost turned translucent because I was in the water for a second? Yeah, I'm doing that again. Okay.

You sprint to the blink bay, throw on a vapor suit, and in the next instant, what do you shout to Kodira in the literal seconds? that you have to try and attempt this. Count to two. Count two and then recall. She has been meditating as you, but she definitely is snapped out of it by the sound of maybe the statue, exploding and you sprinting and shouting.

And she like snaps to just like, what? As you vanish from the blink bay and appear next to Zooks and Amber. I'm going to grab their hands. Okay. I'd say, hold on. And as he takes your hands, a chunk of statue touches one of the spheres. And you all feel just for a moment this incredible heat and force as the entire minefield goes up. Only you see it from the blink bay as you are teleported back into the Coriolis.

The Coriolis is like flung. The Coriolis like is thrown upwards and you all struggle to kind of keep your footing as the ship is basically tilted on its axis, on its axis pointing like straight up. Only the ship corrects itself after a few moments and the ocean is quiet. And when you return to the bridge, you see urchin at the wheel. And he looks back at you and he says, I told you I'm a valuable member of the team. Use me. Did you move the seat?

Use me. What? Did you move any of the seat? You readjusted the seat. Did you move my seats? I had it perfect. No, I didn't do any of that. And he hops down and you can see that his quills have like poked a bunch of holes in the seat.

Hey, hey, y'all, thank you. Thank you. Devo. Archon, I guess. Thank you. Thank you for saving us. I'm not used to people kind of looking out for me like that. So thanks.

It is what friends are supposed to do. I'd like to point out that my seal kind of cleared the way for you to initially. Your seal is steak, bud. I love that guy, but he is. He is, uh, he is blink shark food. I'm glad you didn't name it. Oh, but he was a good chum. I almost did.

Hold on, stop. Oh. He was a good chum. He's a good. That's good. I got one, too. I got one, too. Please.

Please, can I get it? It's a little late. I would just like to point out that Amber just use visage to have a vestige vision. Sounds a lot. Hey, I'm sorry that your seal is dead, but you don't have to blubber about it. All right. That gets a seal of approval. Okay, yes.

Let me do a seal one. and we're never going to survive. Yes? That's it. That's the whole. This is very good. It's the whole thing. That seal probably knows that shit well and I was like, please name me.

Please bring me back. If you need me, give me a name, I'll come back at some point. You're in a theater. The lights go down. You're about to get swept up by the characters and all their little details and interpersonal dramas. You look at them and think, that person is so obviously in love with their best friend. Wait, am I? in love with my best friend?

That character's mom is so overbearing. Why doesn't she just stand up to her? Oh, God, do I need to stand up to my own mother? If you've ever recognized yourself in a movie, then join me, Jordan Cruciola, for the podcast, Feeling Seen. We've talked to author Susan Orlean on realizing her own marriage was falling apart after watching Adaptation, an Adaptation of her own work, and comedian Hari Kondobolu on why Harold and Kumar was a depressingly important movie for Southeast Asians.

So join me every Thursday for the Feeling Seen Podcast. here on Maximum Fun. Video games. Video games. Video games. You like them? Maybe you wish you had more time for them? Maybe you want to know the best ones to play.

Maybe you want to know what happens to Mario when he dies. In that case, you should check out Triple Click. It's a podcast about video games. A podcast about video games, but I don't have time for that. Sure you do. Once a week, kickback as three video game experts give you everything from critical takes on the hottest new releases to scoops, interviews, and explanations about how video games work. to fascinating and sometimes weird stories about the games we love.

Triple Click is hosted by me, Kirk Hamilton, me, Jason Shire. And me, Maddie Myers. You can find Triple Click wherever you get your podcasts and listen at maximum fun.org. Bye. You all are still following this spike, and it's been nearly a day now, maybe a little bit more. This is the furthest, I think, that a mission has taken you all from the Founders Wake. And you are navigating this. Reveen Devo.

And as you are going, Amber Coderre approaches you. And she says, so I was a bit out of it when all the excitement happened. Can you catch me up? What did you all see down there? Hmm.

All right. Well, I'll just tell it to, I'm going to tell it to you straight. And you just don't judge or anything, because it's just what I saw. But I touch that thing. And it grabbed me. And I saw Coda.

And he tried to squish me. He's so big. It's hard. I mean, he squished. And then the ground fell out from underneath us. And he, like, exploded. And he seemed like, he seemed like proud of me or something. Or, like, please, with exploding, which is weird.

And then I woke up. Uh, roll an insight check. Eight. Um, plus three. Plus three. But, uh, I should get another one because I have my, my visage. Hmm. I think that only lasts for ten minutes and it's been.

How long has it been? Half a day. Okay. Um, I turned it back on. 19 plus three, 22. Turned it back on. You're going to burn an extra key. How many times can you fire that off?

Yeah, right. You're going to do an extra. It's one key point. Okay, so do it burn another key point. I'll give this to you, but you're going to you're going to I did. I've burned two. And with my new level, I have more key.

Sorry, vibe. I mean, with that level of insight check, I will give you this. You... Can I say something? Actually, don't. That's rowdy. We don't do it like that. We don't do it like that.

We don't do it like that. Here's the thing. Your key points are limited. So if you really, really want to spend a key point to get more information... They are, but okay, this is getting like way too rulesy, but like, I wouldn't know, I wouldn't know that you were missing it, yeah. I wouldn't know that I was missing it to turn it on, right?

So we'll go with the 11. You can have that key point back. With an 11, she seems, she is visibly shaken when you say this to her. She says, and this was in a statue that you had this vision. I mean, I don't know if I was in a statue, but like, yeah, I guess I was. Yeah, I was in a statue. Did anything else? I need you to tell me the whole truth now, okay?

Did anything else happen? Well, I can do this. Then I make my mega arms. Okay. If you're just doing this for show, I will not make you spend a key point. Just to flex on them. She has seen you do this before, right? I think that she has very often tried to recruit you to the chaperones, probably because she knows what you are capable of.

When she sees this, she clasps her hands over her mouth. They're bigger, right? Bigger. Yeah. Nice. And she says, I see, I will. Check this out. Actually, I've been, wait, hold on.

And I put them on the ground and lift myself up. Okay. All right. I'm, yeah. Look at this. I can say. Okay. I'm, I'm the tallest person on our crew now, right?

Yeah. And Amber's walking here. Walk here on the deck. I don't have to hands. She takes a couple steps away from you. And she says, I need to. Bow before me, commoners. I need to meditate on this.

I'll, I'll check in with you later. Oh, damn. I broke someone. And she, uh, she like very quickly walks, almost runs away from you, uh, to retreat back further, further in the ship. And when that happens, you realize that the ship is filling with light from outside. Uh, and from the bridge, Zooks and Devo, you can see why. You all have come out of this ravine and on the other side, you are met with this brilliant and massive white light that is just covering the ocean floor.

And it actually takes a minute for your eyes to adjust. And when they do, you can see the source of this light. It is a huge half mile wide dome made of bleached coral. Huh. And it looks familiar and pretty much right away. and Amber, I'm assuming you have joined them just to sort of investigate where this light is coming from.

It looks familiar, and right away you realize why floating around sort of the perimeter of this dome are nearly a dozen of those enormous battleships that are made of bleached coral. And they are the same kind of ship that assaulted the abyssal auction.

And another thing you notice is that this whole structure, this glowing white dome is giving off a tremendous amount of energy. The lights on your control board here on the bridge are sort of flashing erratically as you approach, as are the just like regular lights that are strewn throughout the rest of the ship. And as you enter this clearing, the tracer spike begins to kind of dip downward and is pointing right at the center of this coral dome, right at the heart of it. None of these, you know, dozen huge coral battleships appear to have noticed your ship's approach. Griffin, just for clarity sake, this is a different place than where the Cambria dome rose, right? Oh, this is a completely, this is a completely different place. Yes, this is almost in the like exact opposite direction of where that was. This is a completely, you know, you just find some glowing domes.

Sure, sure. Yeah, no, I mean, listen, people, here's the thing about domes. Because I know I get a lot of shit for my mini domes. Domes are really good at covering things. This is true. And keeping things out too, like water. Yeah, a great. Yeah, your finer restaurants use them all the time, like to bring out the really,

Yes, this is a magical, this is an arcane coral cloche is what it is. Thank you. So that's what you all see. So we have to get in Zahm, yes? They could also, in this environment, it probably makes more sense to use a dome because they can withstand greater. That's the other thing. Thank you, Justin. I forgot about that, the pressures.

The pressures. Read a book. We're talking about literal pressures here. Not like the pressures that we're under every day to perform in our everyday lives, but rather the pressure of the ocean. That's good. If you think about it, what's the difference? It's a big metaphor, isn't it?

The whole season. If people were domes, maybe things would be a little better. Wow. Whoa. I'm Travis McElroy. We are the domes. I'm Travis McElroy and I approve this message. My platform is, if I'm president, people are going to be domes.

People are going to be domes. People are going to be domes, whether I like it or not. Okay. What do you do? Are there like openings? Are there places? to enter or is there's like a see you can see nothing you can see nothing it is like so tightly woven you cannot see through it okay zooks turns to codera and says have you ever seen anything like this

i'm gonna say codira is not here codira is like codira uh i don't know if amber catches you all up but codira is was visibly shaken by what she heard from from what happened in the um with the with the statue and she is she does not want to be uh She is not around right now. She is deep in that. So she's like in her cabin? I don't know if she has a cabin, but she's, you know, somewhere in the ship and is... Well, she could be in Amber's place because it's just no boys allowed.

That's okay. That's possible. So Griffin, since we cannot actually see with our human eyes, when you say tightly woven, is it like the bathysphere could maybe make it through? Or like, if we wanted to try to make our way through, that's like vapor suits. Make an investigation check. All of you can, if you'd like. Please do, because I got a nine total. Yeah, I got a seven total.

Come on, Amber. Amber. 17. Yeah. Okay, with a 17, you know, it makes sense, Amber, because you have the fish eyes. I should have given you advantage on that anyway. So if you want to roll with advantage, all of your sort of like, all of your investigation and perception checks in ocean water, you should have advantage on.

Wow, that's two 17s. That's got to be worth something. It's worth 34, Dad. Okay, with a 34, there are no gaps. You cannot. You see, well, hold on. You can't just make stuff. Hey, Griffin, either there are gaps or aren't.

You can't just make stuff up, okay? Well, he can. No. No, you can't. Either there's gaps in the rain. You cannot see a way of getting through with the, with the core. You do not think you could also get a bathosphere in there. If there are gaps in here, it seems like it's layers upon layers upon layers of coral.

And so maybe there is a way that you can sort of push your way through the thicket of it. But like you do not see easy access for like anything for you, for the ship, for the bathysphere for any of it. Okay. Hudd. Can I call a huddle? Yes, of course. Anyone can call a huddle? This is...

Okay. I don't call... Wait, wait, wait. You specifically told me I can't call huddles. Any one of the three of us. We are senior crew. This bullshit. Any member of senior crew?

Okay. I'll do a huddle by myself, self-huddle. Well, don't do it where God can see. Great idea, urchin. I think that's the one of the best out of this yet. Thanks, sir. I'm thinking more and more. We just blow our way in.

But this is the same stuff. I communicated. with these people. Remember? Did it go well? I honestly don't remember. It never has. It has never gone well.

But maybe this time. But Orleans is in there, right? We have to figure out Orlean is in. I mean, yes, the Tracer Spike says that Orlean is here. Now, whether he is here voluntarily, like, this is all he's doing, or if he is here under duress, I don't know. And I don't know if I care. No, I don't.

No. Well, we could blow it up, but trust me, that you don't feel good afterwards. Well, now, hold on. Here's the difference, right? We could target like an area to make an entrance. But in doing so, we would most likely flood the place, right? This is not good. What if you want to blow a hole right where the orphanage is? Okay. Okay, but these creatures, listen, here's one thing I don't want to get twisted, okay? they attacked the auctions. They attacked us. They killed people. They wanted to kill us.

They tried to kill us. Right? This is not like a, maybe they're good. Like, they have demonstrated being, you know, assholes in the past. So I don't. It doesn't mean we could just blow them up. It doesn't? Yeah.

No. No. Does Orlean know we're after him? He doesn't, right? Uh. I mean. Maybe. Could we try subterfuge?

Well, yes, absolutely. Good stuff, Dad. But we can't get in. How do we subterfuge from out here? I say, why don't I try to communicate with him? And we make Orlean think we're on his side and we need to talk to him about all these plots and machinations against him. and that'll get us close enough to him to stab him with the spike. But, say, okay.

Well, no, that was an ad lib. The last part was kind of like, you know, we don't have to do that. If we are going to do this, right, is the only way is that I can see us communicating with Orlean in a way is that he is not suspicious is if it is that you all have decided to join him over me. Because him assuming, like trying to convince him that I'm like, you know what, Orlean is okay. he's not going to fly.

So this is going to have to be like, we're going to give you Devo, and now we're on your side, and we work with you because... He's not going to fucking bother that. Oh, he might. Right? I mean, I know what you're saying.

There's no way. I'm a pretty big asshole. He might buy us that you've gotten sick of my shit. And yeah, that's what... Yeah, I think I agree. I think if we are convincing enough, he knows he's an asshole, and he knows that we know he's an asshole.

Who are we talking about? We're talking about because you're just, okay. D, you, we're talking about you. It's just, you started talking in pronouns and this got a little confusing. Oh, right, right. Because we are both, we are both assholes. Orlean doesn't know that now we like Divo. Well, that's, I don't know that now I like Divo.

Okay. Just, I'm just fun with you. Um, me. Oh, man. Yeah. All right, let's try. Let's try. Okay.

Let's Devo, starting for this moment, you are now our prisoner. Okay. All right. So you're going to attempt to call out to him? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, this will be fun. How are you?

Okay. Should we use the shell phone? Should we hail, hailing frequencies? Sure. Okay. You all flip on the tone wheel. to attempt to begin this subterfuge.

And as soon as you click on the tone wheel, I need all of you to roll Constitution saving throws. Shit. Huh. Well, for me, that's a five. For um, Zooks, it's an 18.

For me, it's a 9. Okay. An impossibly loud hum tears through the ship. as the tone wheel activates. All of the speakers through which that, you know, you all communicate to each other while aboard the ship, all of this sort of, you know, remote broadcast technology is overwhelmed by a, the loudest thing you've ever heard. And Amber and Devo, you both go out like a light and fall to the ground. and Zooks, it doesn't, it definitely, you feel it and it sucks, but you are able to stay conscious.

And after a few moments, the tone wheel just fizzles. You see, like, sparks shoot out of it. And then the comm system aboard this ship is just fried. And it goes silent again. and right after that happens, you know, you're surveying the damage of what just, this strange event that just happened. And then you look up and you see floating just outside of the Coriola's viewpoint. A half dozen of those battleships are now staring directly in your direction with their weapons. aimed at you.

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