The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea - Episode 7

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

The Infinite Clam: Part One The newly employed crew of the Coriolis take on their first official job with the Bluespan Brokerage. Devo confronts his past as he crosses paths with the leaders of the Benevolent Parish.Additional music in this episode: "Comic 6" by Phantastonia http://www.hörspiel-werkstatt.de/ 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. But if we're all looking out for ourselves here, then I'll just spend it on boat shit that I want. I'm going to call it Amber's Pad. I want the basic crew quarters, except there's only going to be one bunk in there, and it's mine. Zooks is going to buy a broadside cannon. Give three luck to two back. What I don't want is for her to be. in the position where she doesn't have, she has no choice, right,

because she has no money, no power. I have been there. I would be happy to offer a line of credit for five lux. However, there will be interest applied to the loan. And I will also take the depth charge. Who's the captain? Oh, Amber. Amber.

Amber is the captain. What's the name of it? It's the Coriolis. And he lays down these folders, just a handful of them on the table in front of you, and he says, who's ready to get their feet wet? Across his desk, Ravi Montrell slips you all a handful of little folders, of various colors, all with the bluespan brokerage insignia on the front of them. He pushes those across the desk toward the three of you, navigating them between his mini, mini desk toys, professional business desk toys.

And he says, all right, so listen, you all know your capabilities better than myself. And so you know how far you can push yourself. And your team and your crew and your ship. Beautiful ship, by the way. Is that Move? Am I saying that correctly? Move, Mov? I've never actually seen something that's color.

so I don't know how to say it good, I guess. Marv. Marzapan. That's fun. Moad, Bois. Okay. Moadib. Okay.

That's good. We can establish that Devo, Devo's not French. Devo is... That was not diva. That was Travis. Oh, okay, cool. I'm a fremen. He says, not all of our contracts are equal.

They all should be doable by someone of a team of... of your, let's say, unique skill set. But some of them are a little bit more, let's call them taxing. Let's call them dangerous. But risk and reward is the backbone of business. You know, you don't know. I suppose, no. Yeah, if you say so, we have no reason to say no, I guess.

He fans out these folders, and now you can see that there are five of them. and he says, basic brass tax stuff. People in this city may need stuff done outside the city. That's where you come in because you can go outside the city

and your beautiful mavership. And you take a contract, execute it, go out there, do the dang thing, come on back. You get the money, we get the money.

And rinse and repeat, baby. Well, which one? You got any spooky ones. Oh, boy. Do I have any of the one, like a ghost one? No, like, it starts out normal.

Oh, yeah. But then it's later, it's spooky. Oh, I like it. And then at the end, it wasn't actually spooky. You know what I mean? Oh, like maybe it was like an old man in their mask. He's like, yeah, it's like an old. Man, but he's a...

He's still bad, though. You know what I mean? Because I don't want to feel bad like, oh, it's a misunderstanding. Jinkies, that would be cool. Yeah, you get it. This guy gets... He looks through the folders, he said, Yes, I have just the contract for you.

It's co-signed by the Harlem Globe tribes. And you will go... I seem to have never to work with them. They re-volved all hogs. They embarrassed you on. on the basketball court and that's okay. You have to admit it. You have any that won't alienate every listener under 30.

I think that describes the five missions currently in front of you. Listen, I picked these five specifically for you three because I think you're going to be a great fit for what you've already accomplished, your great deeds, heroic even. Well, I must say that I like the name of this one, rescue the infinite clam. but I do not so much care for the fact that it is, it is, you know, from the parish. I'm not wild about working with them. Is anyone else interested in this infinite clam besides the parish? What's, can we outline real quick,

just logline the five missions, just so the folks at home kind of know what you guys are, discussing what you're contemplating. Sure, certainly. So each of these missions you will see on the right side of them has a compensation, which explains what you will get for signing on the mission or completing the mission and what bonuses there are, if any, and the risk rating next to it, which is between one to three stars, which is basically just the danger that you might die on this mission.

I want you all to know, this is obviously a different way of doing a of structuring a campaign. And I want you to know that none of you are the chosen would. And so I promise you I'm not going to call. You mean none of our characters are? Because that's yet to be seen about us. That's fair. Travis, yes.

That is entirely fair. I have ideas of like what people, what factions in this world want, what their goals are that I think could be structural for like campaign arcs. But the three of you are not integral to any of that stuff. So, you know, taking on a more dangerous job while it pays better, the risk of death there is not inconsiderable. So there's a three-star job here, the lost laboratory from ampersand-five is the client where they did just that. They lost a lab.

They want you to recover the ship log. It's a mobile like ship lab. They want you to find out what happened. Talk to the one survivor from the lab and go figure out what happened. There's Hunt, the alloyed menace, where an ironwelk, the Vice Admiral Beam, has located a scrapyard out in the ocean. One of their scouts, an Iron Welk scout found it, but the pile of salvage apparently came to life and attacked them. So they want you to destroy whatever is inhabiting that metal. I'm sorry, Griffin.

Did you say it came to life? Yeah, so that might be, that might scratch the edge that you're looking for. That's a spooky one. There's a bonus there also if you can figure out where this metal is coming from, because that's not something they figured out. There's investigation, the biomass swarm, which is from Ballister Codira, who's one of the chaperones, former leader of the chaperones, and sort of the defense secretary for Founders Wake, the biggest baby crew discovered a huge swarm of sea life that is only growing and growing and growing outside the city. and your job is to figure out what's causing this swarm, and you will get a considerable bonus if you can dispel it. Then we have, as you've discussed, rescue the infinite clam,

or you're not trying to rescue a clam. Oh, man. But it is from the client hand of guidance from the parish, where a higher up there at the parish benefactor Orlean was studying this ethereal energy signature by this massive bivalve creature, and he has gone missing. So they want you to rescue him, recover or recover his remains.

And then there is negotiation, the abyssal auction from Uncle Joshi, who wants you to attend an exclusive auction and purchase an undisclosed surface relic as his sort of representative. And he'll supply you a bankroll. And your bonus there is whatever you can sort of keep from the bankroll. So those are the five missions. Now, Griffin, so with this, is this the kind of thing where we pick one of these and the rest go away? or like we want that? I don't know.

I don't think so. I mean, obviously we're going to have to sort of stretch reality and time there a little bit, right? Because, God, Benefactor Orlean, the infinite clam, who knows where he is? He could be in a lot of trouble over there. Or he could be fine. Or he could be fine.

Is it going to wait for a couple months, though? Yeah, we can make it wait for a couple months. You're okay in there, Benefactor, Orleans. Don't worry about it. Now, also, let's mention that there is a balance also. The first one, the acquisition one, is red and has the biggest reward, 15 Lux and more. Right. The next two, the hunt and the investigation are both green, and those are like moderate.

And then the last two rescue and the negotiation are blue and are the smallest, the smallest reward, although the one with the auction has the potential to be more. Correct. And another thing to think about also for these missions and the structure of this season, And like, I want you all to also pursue what you think is interesting and not necessarily base it entirely on the compensation. Because, you know, if we do a mission where you are interfacing a lot with the iron welks, like inherently, the iron welks are going to be a bigger part of the world and we'll learn more about them. And they will, you will unlock licenses in some of these cases for, like, new gear you can buy for your ship. So think about that also. like think about what you're interested in.

And yeah, you have a lot to sort of way in making these decisions. I am, I have created, I've devised this system hoping that, you know, the three of you will be able to settle on one job each time and not, you know, come to blows over it. I will say that I personally feel good about negotiation. This is some things that I am good at that I feel pretty confident on. I'm not sure how I feel about the kind of fighting ones, the ones where we attack something. That's not, we are not using the dreams of Deborah anymore, as you know.

And I have to be honest with you, I'm a little shaky after, you know, almost perishing on the last mission. I don't think we ought to, you know, I think we ought to stay in our lane. bro and sis i think we ought to try i think one of the two blue ones i don't until we level up maybe i love it but you miss a hundred percent of the shots you do not take and that's an important thing for you to remember i that one inspiring thank you appreciate that uh i would have picked something where i could i wanted to beat up the metal monster but i'm a simple lady so i um you know why I understand that.

You lost a lot of... You got blood? Huh. No, not exactly. When I lose, I lose my body. Oh. It's very complicated. The little tiny little organisms that make me up.

Hey, yeah, that's a tough beat. And I am sorry. I feel like I wasn't appropriately sympathetic. For real. I'm sorry about your body. Ugh. Well, it happens. Apparently.

Let's say, you know, we could do the, we could do a mystery. That sounds fun, right? Come a mystery? Yes. Rescue Orlean or maybe bring back his chunks, whatever. If the one thing, if you want to do the Infinite Clam, I cannot be the ones that communicates with the parish, but other than that,

I see. Oh, drama, drama. I have a history with them that I will be happy to tell you that I don't really want to discuss in front of, no offense,

Ravi. No, no, that's legit. You stole a bunch of candlesticks, huh? Me too. You did? No, I did not. You pound it. Did you do this? Pound it. You can't leave me hanging?

I will pound it, but I did not take the candle sticks. When Amber gets somebody to pound it, is she using her astral fist? Oh, 100% of the con. She uses her flesh arms to just give double thumbs up, and then you pound the spectral arm. Yeah, I thought that was clear, Griffin. Come on. Sure. It was implied through my tone. So, Amber, are you hungry for violence?

I mean, do you, are you, fucking mystery. Now I'm hungry for whatever for me who lies in front of me. Y'all ain't down the clown with the metal monster. That's fine on me. You know what? You know what? Magnifying glass. I was all fucking case.

Devo, why don't we roll the dice? Because you'll die. You'll die. You'll die. This is fun. I'm being accommodating. I know, but I really like the idea of fighting the metal. I saw the metal thing and I thought that would be so cool.

and I can't... You're being indecisive. I don't... I actually... I kind of am being indecisive, but I'm kind of not being indecisive. Oh, boy. I don't know. Debo, we've somehow just opposed our positions here.

So, uh, what do you... You make the call, huh? We can go for it. I do not, uh, know how I feel about leaving it up to chance. Yeah, I don't... I've never... In this game? I've never...

left anything up to chance. So, come on. I think we should take the less risky one. It was a lot to see Zooks the ways that he was, and I appreciate Zooks, you being so ready to give out there, but I do not have a lot of friends, and I do not know that I want to put you at risk again. I bet you just left some of your shit there, right?

Oh, I will not be going in there. You could not get me to go in there. But, you know, fate brings people together, you know. I love that. I love a good reunion, you know. Tearful reunion, oh, boy, oh, my, I miss you so much. No, it would not be this. Kailasai, let's go.

So what have we decided on, folks? The infinite clam. The abyssal. Oh. Yes, the infinite clam. Onward to the infinite clam. I can't live my entire fucking line without hearing my dad say infinite clam. You're going to hear it a lot, unfortunately.

He scoops up the other four folders and files them back away and opens up the infinite clam folder and pushes it towards you. So the description, benefactor Orlean, a respected scholar within the benevolent parish, went missing. while investigating ethereal energy signatures emanating from a giant bi-valve discovered in the fidel flats. The parish is seeking a team to investigate the creature and rescue Orlean or recover his remains, whatever the situation requires. And your payment for this upon signing, either five lux or the installation of vapor suits inside of your ship, and then five lux upon the successful completion of the mission. He smiles

and slides three pins across the desk. He says sign right there, there, there, and there. It's happening for real. I'm sorry, sign where, where and where? Right there, there, there and there. Sorry, am I pointing to... I have this sort of thing with business papers

where I point at them, because I know where the signatures go, like I can do it with my eyes shut. But you want to do it there, there, there? Okay, you did not... Okay. this was too fast slow please he's very slowly shows you where to sign

because this bid is going on too long okay diva signs are there different flavors of the vapor suits that just sounds like a question for the parish huh the vapor suits are kind of their tech it's proprietary maybe you could get a

you know a minthalated one I don't know what you're looking for well I don't know if I need them but if it helps the other two I sign Zooks, but I do my usual thing of signing it backwards. Cool. Yeah. Sure.

Sign. And the signatures turn golden glowing and Ursula laughs and your voices are. She got us again. She tricked you again. He smiles and signs it himself and stamps it and says, okay. So first things first, I would recommend you go speak with the client for further details. and before you leave the city, make sure you've got whatever supplies

and intel you might need to help you along the way. And, oh boy, if you have any questions, just give a holler over the old tone wheel. We've got dispatchers here to help you where you need. And if your ship gets blown up, we will, of course, have an insurance payment made out to you for an appropriate amount of luck. So don't worry about that.

Just do not beef it. ships can be replaced. The choreolus too. This, he points at his heart. And this, he points at his brain. Those can't be replaced unless you do like a heart surgery. Yes. Griffin, do we have like communication devices?

Not personal ones, but you do have one aboard your, aboard the choreolos. It comes sort of standard with the bridge. Ravi, is there any ways that we could get the shell phones for each other so that we can speak to each other when we are in Founders Wake as well as on the ship? He says, unfortunately, requisitions like that are not supplied by us. But I think we offer very generous health benefits and insurance. And I mentioned the dispatch thing and also all the jobs. Oh, I just thought we were business friends and you would want to be. be able to get in contact with us so that we could do the happy hour or we could, you know,

grab some wings one night or maybe have a cookout. Roll a persuasion check because you've got his fuck. You're dialed in. You got his number. Almost a 20. 8 plus 7, 15. 15. He says, oh, man.

I tell you what, I'm, I'll tell you what I got. And he roots around inside of his death. for a minute. And he goes, one, two, three. Wow, I can't believe I have three of them. And he pulls out three small sort of square boxes with clips on them with a very, very small tone wheel inside of them. And he says, with these, you all can let each other know that it's time to talk. You can't do the talk and through it, but it'll send out a signal like, hey, I need, I need you. And we call them pagers. So you can have these. And I, and, uh, and I, and, and, and, and, Don't say I never did anything for you.

All right, pal? Yeah, all right. And they're stylish, too. People are going to see those. They're going to say, whoa, is that a pager? And then they're going to say, why do you have that? Are you a doctor? And then you're going to say, no, I don't have a tone wheel.

Okay, yes, this makes complete sense. Thank you so much. All right. You've negotiated three free pagers out of me. I'm being very generous this season. Well, no, I'm being very negotiable. Yes. Negotiatory.

Well, yeah, but, you know, I met you halfway. I'd take the pageers back. A pageers halfway off. I'd take your pages back. You looked, yeah, the gift horse. Right now. You said shitty teeth horse. He goes back to work now.

He says, all right, let me know if you need anything. And buries his nose in, I don't know, a fax machine. Y'all are got your job? Yeah. know what to do. So what are you doing? Boo. I feel such a sense of purpose. I will go with you to the parish, but Amber, you cannot leave me alone with them at any time.

Do you want to sit in the car? Honestly, without being able to communicate with you and hear what? as they say, I do not trust them to be honest with you, especially not the hand of guidance. And I know her very well, and I will know if she is lying, and I will know. And so I will go with you, but I cannot be left alone, and you cannot let them take me anywhere. Is this a two-way street, Devo?

I mean, do you need to go in disguise or something? Are they going to see you and freak out? I do not know about freak out, but they may attempt to pressure me to come back to the church. And this I will not do. Oh, we won't let you do that. Well, I appreciate this. Thank you very much. Just keep an eye on me, okay?

Sure. Not sure I actually have eyes. There's a hole for that. There's a hole for that. There's two holes for that. Will you keep one of your holes on me, please? Uh, sure. If you're sick of constantly arguing with the people closest to you about topics that really aren't going to change the world, we're here to take that stress off of your shoulders.

We take care of it for you on we got this with Mark and Hal. That's right, Hal. if you have a subjective question that you want answered objectively once and for all time for all of the people of the world, questions like who's the best Disney villain, Mac or PC, or should you put ketchup on a hot dog, that's why we're here. Yes, I get that these are the biggest question of our time. And we're often joined by special guests like Nathan Phileon, Orlando Jones, and Padgett Brewster. So let Mark and Howe take care of it for you on We Got This with Mark and How weekly on Maximum Fun. So the three of you hop aboard the Crystal Ascension up to the Conservatory.

And there you make your way to the headquarters of the Benevolent Parish, which, again, is sort of in the most beautiful district of Founders Wake, the most beautiful building here. There's just a long lawn stretching out in front of it, almost like the capital, what's it called the mall thing? in Washington, D.C. The mall. The Mall. The Capitol Mall? Anyway, yeah, it's, it is landscaped to perfection here, sort of reflecting the power that the parish holds, at least in this district. The Hand of Guidance is also a baluster, sort of representing the interests of the parish and the conservatory.

Oh, shit. I didn't know that. Yeah. So are you all going inside? Yes. Yes. But Devo is thinking very, very close to Amber. Okay.

As you walk in, there is a young woman sitting behind a desk. And she looks up at the three of you and she says, Hello, how can I? And then she sees you, Devo. And then she stands up and sort of briskly walks to a back room, leaving the three of you alone. Yes, it has begun. And that door opens and out walks the hand of guidance.

And Amber and the suks, you've never met the hand of guidance, I'm assuming. She is a very busy woman, the leader of the Benevolent Parish and a baluster here. But she does not look how you expected her to look. There is nothing sort of prim and proper about her. and there's nothing sort of, there's very little ritual to her garb. She's wearing like mom jeans and a big sweater with a chunky necklace

and her hair is up in like a very frizzy bun. And she has these glasses on that are very big and round with just a lot of character. And she walks out and she says, oh my goodness, You're here Devotion, you're back

You're back and you brought friends Oh, it's so nice Let me see, let me take a look at you It is Devo now Divo, whatever you want to be called It's so good She tries cupping your face in her hands Let me see you look very healthy

Oh, sorry I'm sorry I'm just so excited Who are, hello, it's nice to meet the two of you Are you all my contractors? Yeah. Well, I'm a hand of guidance. She holds out her hand for a handshake to the two of you.

Hello? I am Zooks. Zooks, that's a fun name. It is, isn't it? And I write, when I sign my name, I write it backwards. What a card. It's just one of those things that I do. And this is my friend and partner.

Amber? Hello Amber. What's up? Pound it? Yeah. When she sees you pound it with an astral fist, like her, she breaks for like a millisecond. You see her look down like, what? And then she's right back into this very friendly sort of mom mode.

So what's the buzz? Cause you got a missing dude. Right, right to business. I'm sorry, this is wild for me. Devo, it's been months. I was worried about you, but I'm glad to see you're hale and hearty and making friends. I bet you were worried. You do not need to worry about me.

I'm doing very well. I do not need your worry or you. And please simply inform my friends and my captain about this is a smith. and we will be on our way. She says, oh, Devo, I hope you know there is, there is no bad blood here. You know, you know that, right? Is this so? Is this no bad blood you say?

Well, this is, this is excellent. You would welcome me back, is what you mean. Oh, excellent. No, no, I'm not saying that. I don't think you're a good fit for parish leadership, Devo. You, your tutelage was a gift, Devo. Your behavior in leaving us displayed a lack of gratitude that sort of indicated that maybe you're not cut out for the parish, which I know makes your name a little bit ironic. But, no, bygones are bygones.

And I hope that we can move forward and, you know, at least stay in touch. But yes, let's down to business, she says, sounding a lot like another character on the show. So, right, the big clam. Oh, gosh. Yeah, this is a tricky one. Benefactor Orlean, you remember him, right? Devotion. Oh, Devo?

Sorry. Yes, I do. Right. He's a scholar. He's been with us for a while. He was on the beach, hailed down from the high hermitage. And he's been studying some energy signatures. Weird stuff, really complicated stuff.

And he found this big clam out in the Fidel Flats. And he was staying in contact with us as he checked it out and then lost contact with him about a week ago. So here you go. And she pulls out a little map tablet that has the location of where the clam is located in the Fidel Flats, giving you a piece of intel here. Diva stops, like puts a handout to stop anybody from taking it. just yet. Oh, it's not a, sorry, it's not

cursed? I don't know what you think. No, this is not, what is this the energy signature? Was this magical energy? Devo, it's the ethercy. Everything is magical. But, yes, it is

a field of study that benefactor Orlean is particularly interested in. So, yeah, you just found, I guess, a big, beefy signature and went to check it out and I guess got in a little over his head. I'm going to roll what would be like a memory to see if I know something. Is that wisdom?

Well, is it a thing that you would know about? Yeah, I think that's got to be it. Yeah, okay, yeah. 12 plus 4, 16. Do I know what benefactor Orleans like field of study is, like what his main interest is? So you maybe met him a couple times at the, you know, the, you know, the. where you grew up, but this, he is very, uh, reclusive. Uh, you, you, you, he does not, he is not a figurehead, right? Like, that was what you were being raised to be. Right. He was like, uh,

I want to understand everything that I can understand about the gifts that benevolence gave us. Because if you remember, like, the church of benevolence is also the primary magical sort of institution. Right. So it's not just like, you know, hymnals and campfires. It's like study of magic stuff. And that is something that benefactorily. It really says a lot about our Southern Baptist raising that to Griffin, a church can be summed up by hymnals and campfires. Okay. Some churches then.

I have a question. Is this Zooks or Clint? This is Zooks. Okay. Yeah. Shoot. What do you got? Did.

Did Benefactor Orleans have a room here or an office or a laboratory where he resided to, and I assume it. Maybe I shouldn't assume it to he is. Oh, it is a he, I think she said as much. She says, you know, he does have a bunk here, but I'll be honest, he has not stayed in there for, I don't know, a while. married to his work, Benefactor Oralina, as we always get him a hard time about it. He lives on his ship for the most part, which, ugh, not for me, that life.

I can tell you that. But besides, I don't think it would be proper for you to poke around in his room when he's not there. I just, that doesn't sit right with me, so. Griffin? I am going, well, no, I haven't learned that spell yet, have I? It sucks that we're doing magic the right way this season. Yeah, I know, right.

I would have already called Zone of Truth. Yeah, for sure. All right, guidance. Antiva takes the tablet. So you are not going to tell us specifics. This is fine. We'll find this out. And the mission is to return with his body or with him, correct?

Preferably with him. I put that body thing in there. And then, like, that night after I submitted it, I was like, yo, that's pretty dark. Because I bet he's still out there kicking. He's a wily one, the benefactor. Was he working on his own? He always works on his own.

The mission does not state that we must return with his findings. No, I'm just worried about him. Can you think of any reason he'd want to disappear? I mean, you kind of have a bad track record. She looks, again, you kind of bring. broke her facade here a little bit. Roll a, man, Amber, I don't know what that would, what that little jab would be.

Maybe intimidation. Yeah, I can see that. I would say a lot of things Amber does can be connected. To minus one, the least scary thing that's ever happened. There are Kathy comic strips that are scarier than what I just did. You see her kind of grimace, and she walks back to that desk and you see her pick up what appears to be like a disc, like a spherical disc, and she opens up a drawer and puts it inside and slams it. And she says, I don't want to play this card, but you all are my contractors. and if you're going to come in here and insult me when I've been nothing but gracious to you,

then perhaps you all can just do the job and come back and we'll issue payment and then not have to work together again. How does that sound? You pay is just for come by? She shakes her head. She says, that's right. There's a signing here. And she reaches into a little bag that she's got and pulls out five luxes and hands at to you, Amber. She says, that's the first half. Oh, I mean, would you rather have this

or some vapor suits? Because, you know, we got some spares. Now, you know, we said we would and we'll come out. I actually wasn't trying to give you shit. I came up with a bunch of finners and I know that it's tough being, you know,

a lady in charge. So I was just trying to get to the bottom of what's going on. We'll find your guy. She sighs and says, All right, that's fine. I apologize. I'm worried about him. That's, that's, I'm on edge and I know you probably didn't mean anything by it.

So, we're, we're cool. I pounded it. And that's, that means sacred, Kepa, for sure. I say we take the money because Zooks can like go underwater and do you. Devo can't swim, so Devo currently has no use for vapor suits. Sir. That's my vote. We can figure it out once we get to the, I mean, we're not at payment yet, right?

You are actually, this is a signing button. Yeah. Well, listen. I want a paper suit. Okay. Why can I have a vapor suit? One thing I do, I will point out is vapor suits are, again, proprietary to the parish and not something that you all are licensed for. So this is.

not be able to buy. Would we have a license? Like, is this going to be like, here's your vapor suit. Now you need to get a license to use it? No, it's, here's your vapor suit. All right. Hey, Devo, sidebar? Yes, sidebar.

Hey, you don't know how I swim. I get that. It's shameful. All right? Every time you say it, I think less of you. I get it. But here's the thing. Can I flip it on you?

If you do learn to swim, how much easier would that be if you had a kick-ass vapor suit? This is a good point, yes. And also not being able to swim, having a suit that would help me breathe if I fell in the water would be pretty useful, I assume. Yes, spoken like somebody that's really never swam much, doll. That's absolutely legitimate point. You can't breathe underwater. Hey, but if we have a suit, if there's one that's cooler,

I'll let you have it. Well, how about this, Amber? Seeing as how there are three of us, but we only need two suits. Maybe we can get suits and some money. Mix and match. Yes. What are you two talking about over there?

How we're going to get you some money. We're going to get cool suits. Okay. And people are going to call us the cool suit crew. Oh, okay, but I don't need one. Yes, yes. Yeah, we know. Hey, listen, hey, uh, hand.

Say your name. Do you like hand? Um, I mean, yeah, sure. You can call me. Well, no, that'll get confusing. There's other hands. Um, you can call me guidance for short if you'd like. Godo.

Can we have some of the invaporate, two vapor suits and some money? Oh, I don't, I'm not sure I understand. I understand. Two Lux, two vapor suits, clean. We get your guy. But it's, they, they come in a set of four. I suppose we could augment them, but it's, it would be, I mean, we would already be in breach of contract. And it seems like you've all just kind of started.

But, yeah. Okay, well, hmm. What do you mean they come in like a set? Like, they're matching? She walks over to a little display case where there is a like a holographic vapor suit being displayed. Actually, four of them that are plugged into this like charging plate, like this cross-shaped thing on the floor. Are they bonded? No, no.

We should. We want to take the suit. Yeah. Nope. We're on the same page, Amber. Yep. Sot. Yeah.

Those are so cool. I wouldn't want to break these beautiful babies. We'll take all four. Yep. We will take the four suits. The set, please. Oh, okay. That was weird.

Nah, man, man, man, man. Okay, now I won't think about it too much. This is what it looks like when people work together instead of just trying to control one another. Right, okay. All right, sure, Kappa. Tell me your lot number. I'll have it installed by the end of the day. Seven.

There's also a letter. 10. 0.5. But the letter? 17. point. Double A. Do you not know your lot number?

Nah, that's embarrassing. I didn't even look where I parked just kind of... Oh, we're in goofy seven. G7. Do you have a key fob that you can hit the alarm and we'll be able to find it? Pitch the panic button.

Your ship is a giant purple and green bath escape. I think it will be easy to find your ship once you get down there. You can do G7. That's a weird crossover. Bingo!

But we can rock that way if you want. Okay, I'll have it installed. Here, I'll just one second. And she walks in the back and pops out. She says, okay, I'll have it done. I guess contact me if you have any more questions. And good luck, TiVo. Seriously, come by some time.

I would love to catch up. Oh, fuck, no. Oh, wow. Jeez. Okay. Who are you? Her. Uh, her, right on.

Okay. Oh, okay. And Zooks puts his hand on his crossbow. No, no, no. No. You said she hurt you. Yes, but she is also incredibly powerful in a variety of ways. And before you could Twitch, you would most likely be dead.

That's right. Again. Yeah. This is getting really weird now. thought we were ending on kind of a high note. Ah! We need our money, though, right? Folks, don't need money.

We got the suits and we're going to go. Good, real good. Okay. Come on, God. I'm not sure what this gambit is. Y'all are playing, but I can't wait to find out. Oh, we only need two suits and there's two more. We can sell those two.

Yeah, so I can sell them. Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah, why not? You know, literally a black market dealer. She wanted to be boring and not and not give us the money and some suits. We'll just fucking sell the suits. Probably for a better, a better profit.

Yeah. Okay. So I guess, yeah, you're done here. I'm not going to, you know, immediately push you off. What do you want to do? Just to sort of, again, this is the first time we're doing this in proper. This would be a good time to do any sort of preparation that you want, stock up on any cargo consumables. supplies that you might need, gather any additional intel that might benefit you out there.

All of that stuff can impact your readiness rating. Well, I think first we have to sell the two suits. We can wait on that. Okay. I'm not in a big rush. Well, we have nothing to spend if we're going to buy supplies and all that other stuff, do we? Huh. Is there a pawn shop anywhere?

There's not a coal thing. I think we just use the Phantom C Coast Co. That's what I was about to say. We don't need to add another shop in there. All right, you swing by there, and Felix the catfish swoops down and says, back so soon. Devo got that money, buddy? It has been like two hours. The juice is dripping, dribbling down.

Is it hourly? It's, hmm, who knows? Okay. So do you remember the gold plates that I showed you and. and you were like, oh, do not want the plate, I want the juice. Yes. Would you still give me money for the plate and say, I could pay you back for the plate later and, hey, more juice?

Does the plate shoot out like bad A lasers that can, like, blast a ship and you can put it on your ship? No, it is just a... A plate, huh? Nice. Well, it's a parish of benevolence plate. Oh. It is a very... Yeah. And you put it on your ship and it makes it go faster. No, it is decorative, but it is gold.

Oh, just a plate then. A gold plate? I don't want that. Is this not useful? Because my very dear friend, Brother Seldom, gave it to me and said, hey, this will be useful. And now it seems that... Not to me. I'm a big catfish monster worm thing. Why do I need a plate?

Because you could sell it if I do not buy it back. I sell ship stuff. This is crazy. You can't go to a sporting good store and try to sell them some ham. I guess this is a good point. Brothers sell them is a real idiot. I mean, there might be a plate store on this shop. No need to dinegrate your...

Okay, Griffin, I just asked, and you said, no need to create another store, there's a store with the giant Kevin. And then I get there and you're like, no. Excellent no-knowing, Griffin. I thought you were... I mean, you all said you were going to sell these vapor suits, Not a fucking plate, so. Oh, my God.

Okay, fine. We have two vapor suits that we can sell you. How about this? We got the set of four. We only need two. This leaves two. You're just going to cut the thing in half? The thing?

The set of vapor suits. It's got one. Well, that's, I suppose, not your problem. I'll take a couple of vapor suits off your hands. How does, uh, How does two luck sound? It sounds about half as much as we want.

Let's save everybody a lot of trouble. It's going to be three, right? Yeah. Let's do it home with our lives and just everyone just say three out loud, yeah. That's, yeah, I think we could get through this. Just get on with our day, three. Do you go say three out loud?

Three, yes. Yeah, cool. Three? Nice, nice. your witness. A little shipworm pops up from the bottom and has a little tiny pair of spectacles that he looks over the paperwork for the vapor suit and nods his head. And another one pops up that's holding like a cash register.

And the drawer opens and they grab three Lux and slide it to you. And Felix the catfish says, and I'll make sure I'll take those off your hands. literally right now while I'm talking to you. And he nods to a few other shipworms that dive down and head towards your lot. Anything else I can help you with? Will we need ammo for the weapons? No, that is one thing you do not have to sweat. The weapons that you have that, like the depth charges that only have two used as per resupply,

resupply just means docking at the city. You are not going to have to buy new depth charges or cannonballs or whatever. Same goes for fuel. The ships in this world are powered by the sort of salt that they are, you know, surrounded by. The things that I've got so far, at least for consumables, are rations, which affect your readiness rating. Right now you have no rations, which is a penalty to your writing. Because we get hungry. Right.

And the other two things are repair kits, which can be used to sort of skip a check on a damage system. You just use an action and fix it without having to roll. And that takes up cargo space. And there's also a hull patch, which is when you're not in combat, you can fix up the ship equal to half of its hull rating. Those are the things that you can purchase at the moment. So just real quick, Deva needs to drop by Brother Selthams and the thing. Zooks and Amber, do they want to go buy the consumables? Do we buy them from Felix?

Yeah, you can. I don't eat. So you folks get what you want to eat. No, I think you've got to eat. I think that you're... I mean, it's not the usual stuff. There is special food for brine arm, definitely. But like, you are a living organism.

You got to eat something. Yeah, you got filter feed. Right. So, nice try. Yeah. But you can just lower down in a big vat of yogurt and filter feed that. That's it. Yeah, there's the macro organisms in there.

I'll feed you up. Yum, yum, yum, good. I say we get the repair kit and the basic rations. Okay. We can do that. Are you sure I can't interest you in these delicious rations? This will be up to the captain. We just then won't be able to fix the ship, but we are not going to fight.

But they're delicious. The delicious rations cost. They're not just rations. They cost three luxes for the. Is this the kind of thing, Griffin, where rations expire at the end of a trip? Yes. All, yes, these consumables will go away at the end, not the stuffing or cargo. So what are our choices?

Bad rations. Bad rations, which basically negates the penalty. You will have a plus zero to readiness. For two, you can get generous rations, which gives you plus two readiness. For three, you can get delicious rations, which gives you plus four readiness. The exquisite Rations are out of your price. You know what?

We're still trying to figure stuff out. Let's get generous rations. And hold on to one lux? The lugs don't disappear at the end. All right. I will have these generous rations sent your way. Oh, wait. Before we finalize that, I would like to sample one.

Oh. Surely you do tasty. You got samples? I mean, my goods are of the highest quality. Just let me get one. I've just got a little bit of a package strick at now. I'd love to get a little bit of the, you know? All right, hold on.

Get their snoot into your Russians. A bunch of shipworms pop up, and like 14 of them are holding up, like, a little warming table. And one shipworm with a, like, plastic shower cap pops up, and they hand you, like, a tiny folding paper cup with a little orange cute. inside of it. And they have a little display showing you the generous rations right next to it. Hey, do I detect C beef? I suppose, yes.

Nice, nice. These are choices. Thank you. I feel much better. Thank you so much. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'll take them. Cool.

And the shiparms drop back down. All right, I will have this into your ship. Good luck out there. Don't die because you owe me money. Hey, sooks. I wasn't that hungry. While you all are sort of loading these rations onto the ship and giving it sort of a once over,

Brother Seldom approaches you, Devo. And he says, I got your page. That was weird. I haven't used one of these since the 80s. They are coming back. They're very cool now. Is what everybody is saying.

Did you bring my loot case? Yes, as you've requested. I don't know, are you playing some private concerts somewhere out in the creep blue? I feel that I will have some downtime on the ship and I want to be able to practice. In the meantime, please, I will return your plate to you because, well, several times we attempted to give it to people in an exchange for money. And it seems, and I'm sorry to say this to you, my friend, your play. your plate is absolutely worthless and nobody wants it.

I wanted it. He's not trying to get rid of it. Yeah, it's not just a free plate that I'm, it's a nice plate, but I suppose. Okay. I was going to give it a good home. That's okay. I'll take it back.

He takes the plate back. And he says, do you need S-A-L-T? Yes, you can just say it I trust them. Oh, okay. He palms you a few small little capsules of salt. I forget how we described it.

I was like hunks of like, yeah. One more thing. There was a young girl named Beck that came to the school. Yes, she has stopped by. She has been extremely helpful, actually, around the school. Oh, this is excellent.

Her and Skittles, the octopus, has really earned a place in my heart. Well, he has for everybody. He is a very charming young octopus. If you would be a bit of a go-between for me, I would like to offer back a job that I can pay her for if she is interested. It seems that the time has come for me to take swimming lessons. And for this, I can pay her three lucks. Um, yes.

Let's, uh, I will, this is a weird, I am, I'm like sort of the headmaster of the premier educational institution in this city. So I am a bit busy, but I will, uh, hand her your flyer or whatever for swimming. No, this is the money and I hand him the three locks. All right. Yes. I'll, uh, if you would make this offer. to her. Yes. And any time, if she gets sick of the school and wants to leave, just let her go. Do not force her to stay. If you would do this for me, I would very much appreciate it.

He smiles kind of sadly. And he says, of course. All right, good luck out there. Have fun. Let loose. See some stuff. What are you, what's your mission, by the way? What are you doing? Are you allowed to say? Oh, you are not going to like this. We are working with the parish. Fuck off. Yes, I know, yes. To go and rescue benefactor Orlean. Do you know anything about him?

Yeah, I know him. Good luck with that. Yeah, wow. Orlean. They got Orlean, huh? What do you mean? What do you know about Torlene? I mean, he's a very powerful magic user and scholar,

and I'm just surprised that he got got. What was it? A blink shark? Are they back? I heard rumors. No very large clam, I think. What a dingus. All right.

Well, good luck. And he heads back to the Ascension. So let's get on the ding-dang show. Okay. You all, I mean, we described in detail, I would say, the choreolas. But I'm curious, like, what the bridge setup looks like for you all. I think we describe the dreams of Deborah one as being almost like Enterprise-esque with like different stations and very nice, very modern aesthetic. When you all walk into the Coriolis Bridge, Captain, how does it look?

You know what it is? You know what it is? I just decided it's got a vibe like, you know how, like if you go to, you know, if you go to, an office that hasn't been updated for a long time. Like 70s, but not in a cool way. You know what I mean? Like, it's just sort of like

run down, but not in a dilapidated sense, like run down, like, creaky wood, that kind of vibe. But more like run down office that hasn't been updated. Like, it's got cork ceilings with like water damage that you see. Hell yes. And there's like file cabinets that have been chained to the wall.

so they don't tip over and unsuspecting moments. And there's like probably a bean bag somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's like the, and it's got like, this is what's really the fucking weirdest about it. The bridge has carpet. And it's like, why. Oh, shag.

It's got to be shag. Why would it even be carpeted? What color? No, shag would imply to add like residential. This is, yeah. And I'm just more like. Yeah. Real industrial.

Yeah. Like if it. hot fire, it would melt into one hunk. Right. I'm envisioning like any small town's city hall. Like that level of, uh, uh, yeah, exactly. Uh, I love that.

That is fantastic. Some of the chairs are like sun bleached. Uh, the different stations are actually cubicles. We're going deep in it. This is so good. Okay. Uh, all make your way to, uh, obviously, Devo, I assume you're still taking the pilot seat.

Um, yes. Where's your cubicle, Amber, as the, as the captain? Hmm. Oh, and I'm going to say, too, if I may, that this one instead of having like a sleek sphere Right. For the steering, this is just like a flat big disc that like you can still tilt different ways, but you have to like hold the edges. Oh, that's nice.

You're on the ones and twos piloting. Yeah, it's a little clunkier. DJ D.J. The captain's thing is like a slightly elevated desk with like a barrier on it, like, uh, uh, Like if you're at the help desk at the library. It's like that desk that they make Ron Swanson use in that one episode of Parkson. Yeah, sort of like that. Yeah, that's awesome.

Or angular or less round. And, and Zooks, where's your little station on the bridge? We didn't really necessarily get into your, uh, obviously our specialties here are not binding us to specific, uh, you know, rolls aboard the, aboard the ship. Um, but what do you, what do you, what do you think your sort of station looks like here? I think Zooks would probably be somewhere doing something along the lines of monitoring. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, the ship has sensors on it that are sort of the eyes of the ship. And I think there's definitely a station for. And he would be more apt to recognize things and, you know, see those things. Okay. So it's instead of a desk, it's like a kidney-shaped table. like from the, like from the, and a hard, one of those hard plastic chairs

kind of swooped, you know, and I've talked. How many coffee rings are on the table, Dan? So many. There's like, like a half a dozen. Oh, boy. And one ashtray that is a beanbag ashtray. What? Trust me, my dad used to have one.

That sounds horrifying. Okay, great. Okay, are you all ready to push off? Let's go. You all head out down through the water. the moon pool of the gills, and maybe it takes a couple tries for the weak engine of the choreolas to turn over. But it gets there and you all submerge on another adventure. All right, it's time again for you all to roll your random encounter here.

Again, if you weren't listening, I guess, to the last time this happened. Every time you leave the city on a mission, you will encounter something along the way. You will roll a D-100 adding or subtracting your total readiness here. I have removed the inexperienced crew since you all have gone on a mission before and you still have the Zook's expertise. That's always going to be a flat five additional to it. You have the generous rations, which add two more and the intel that you acquired, which is a sort of abstract system, but I also think there's ways to get bad intel that will reduce this score. You all got one piece of good intel here, which is the location of the clam, which it brings your total readiness up to eight.

So who rolled it last time? I think maybe dad rolled it. Yeah, dad rolled it last time. Okay. Trabb, you want to roll this one? I do. Can I set the scene a little bit? A D-100. 28. Still fairly low. Yeah. It's higher than it was. So that's a 36 total. Yeah, I mean, last time you rolled a fucking six. So there's a lot of numbers that are bigger than that number. A whole lot of them. 94% of them.

I need everyone to make a perception check, please. Nine for me. Eight for me. Wow. Sooks rolled a nine. No, Zooks rolled an eight. Jesus, Pete. Okay.

I'm good at. I will say, Griffin, my passive perception is 13, so it's higher than what I rolled. I don't know if that helps. I'm trying to decide passive perception's gonna do anything here. I mean, I'm looking out the window. Also, I just realized my passive insight,

my passive is 16. Yeah. So it's gonna be hard for people to get shit by old divo. Yeah. Okay, this is an old ship, right? Or at the very least, maybe it's not an old ship, but it is in a state of still sort of relative disrepair. So there are some sounds that it makes.

It's vintage. It's vintage. There are some sounds that it makes while you all are cruising it through the ether sea. And some of these groans you just kind of get used to. It's just the material of the ship sort of settling under the weight of the water, which it has not felt for quite some time. And there's a sound that gets mixed in there that is different.

It is like more tinny and scraping. And you just kind of dismiss it as like more of the ship settling. but the longer you hear it, it becomes unmistakable that there is a, the sound of something moving on the, you know, the equivalent of the gunnery deck,

which I imagine is fairly bare bones for the ship right now. Inside the ship? Inside the ship. What do you do? I think with all your roles, it takes a while. And so whatever this thing is making the sound,

has been doing something for a while. But, you know, you all rolled basically the same thing. So you all hear it at the same time. I'm going to do whatever the equivalent is of, like, parking. So that we're not like, because I don't want to, I want all three of us to be able to go investigate without somebody having to stay on the bridge. Okay.

You can do that for sure. You are sailing fairly close to the ocean floor, since this is a deep sea vessel that is like no sweat. and these four thick, dummy thick, like, legs slide out of the sides of the ship parking so that the bathosphere is not crushed under its tremendous weight as you bring it down. And you are stationary. You hear the sound again. It sounds like, actually, the sound you just heard sounds like something being dropped,

like a metal thing being dropped to the floor. Zook's heads down there, pulls out his crossbone, heads down. Okay. Yeah, Diva follows at a safe distance. Amber? Yeah, same. Okay. Zooks kicks open the hatch door.

Says, free scumbags! Yeah, it's like pitch black in here. This is not a room. You describe the skeleton of this ship as being basically like empty cubes that you could fill with other chambers. So you have these like weapons aboard the ship, but like, you have to be standing on, you know, beams to use it, like steel, steel beams. And yeah, I think it's a little too dark. Do any of you have, like, dark vision?

Is that a trait? Maybe Devo, he's a, you know, the ancestry that you kind of picked up was, uh, do I? Yes, you have dark vision. Yes, I do. Um, all right. It's because of my blue, my glowing blue eyes. Your beautiful blue eyes. You're special eyes.

Yeah, okay, you see, you can see, like, traces of things. You can see shades in darkness, shades of gray up to 60 feet. So it's hard for you to, like, really pinpoint what this thing is, but you see something small, like, knee high and kind of round with what appear to be needles sticking out of its back. and it has what appear to be arms. Again, it's kind of hard to make this out with just your dark vision. And it is digging around the depth charges, the machinery that deploys the depth charges.

And you said you kicked open the door? Yes. Okay, as soon as you did that, it curls up and those arms disappear, Devo. And now it's just in a ball with these needles coming out of it. and it very quickly starts to roll up the inside of the hull of the ship, heading for a vent in the ceiling.

Oh, you scared it? Zooks cast speak with animals. Okay. How does that work? You gain the ability to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts for the duration, the knowledge and awareness of many beasts and limited by their intelligence, but at minimum, beasts can give you information about nearby locations and monsters, including whatever they can perceive

or have perceived within the past day, you might be able to persuade a bees to perform a small favor for you at the GM's discretion. Okay, you hear this spiky ball rolling up the wall going, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. And do I need a roll anything?

Nope. You're speaking with it, baby? Zook says, I'm sorry, I called you a scumbag. I really don't think you're a scumbag. Please come back and be our friend. Are you hungry? Do you want some food?

You freak its fucking bean when you speak in a language it can comprehend, so much so that it falls off the ceiling and crashes to the floor. Well, now, hold on. Let me make a dex check. Let me see if I can grab it. You want to try and grab this thing? Okay. Oh, no way.

No, go ahead. Oh, boy. Do you have gloves holding? So it would be a saving throw, right? Because it's happening in the moment. Not a saving throw because it's not attacking you, but you can make a sleight of hand. let's say, dexterity check.

17 plus 2 at 19. Okay, yeah. As this thing falls, you manage to grab it around the needles, which is saying something. Because now that you are looking at it straight up, like you can see it very, very clearly with your dark sight, it uncurls as you grab it. And you see its body now is almost like furry and almost rat-like. and as it unfurls and it sees you and it looks at zoos, it's looking for the voice that spoke and it doesn't think you're it,

it holds its hands out, and in it you see a glowing ball, which you recognize as the explosive at the heart of this depth charge that it was rooting around in. And this little creature says, nobody move! Our urchin's going to blow us all of the hell! Maximumfun.

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