The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea - Episode 9

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

The Infinite Clam: Part Three The heroes fend off a curious lionfish while getting their bearings within a curious bivalve. A slapdash infiltration brings them face-to-face with the Super Captain. We all love the Super Captain!Additional music in this episode: "Techno Beat" by Kafokafo https://freesound.org/people/kafokafo/; and "Rust Colony" by ROZKOL https://rozkol.bandcamp.com/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Previously, on the Adventure Zone, Ethersea, a stowaway appears who siphons away resources. And also notably, there is no sign of the benefactor's ship. There's nothing in this crater. And sitting right smack dab in the middle of it is a big clam. You pick up what this thing is feeling with this spell. It's hungry? like insatiably hungry. Devo, you are suspended in this stream of water falling down,

and from the way that you are sort of dangling, you see Zooks just plummet over the edge and fall into the abyss. There goes nothing. I should have mentioned before now. I do not know how to swim. Hey, we're just inside a giant clam. We have company.

We have underwater swerving red company. And another huge, just jet of water shoots down right, right near the three of you as you see its mouth open up. And just as the lionfish is about to come back and attack again, it looks up and starts to move away because it sees the Coriolis in freefall above you. So, um, y'all's ship has just been sucked into the mouth of the infinite clam, where you all were sort of treading water below. A lionfish, a massive lionfish had just attacked you with these glowing spikes. And, okay, can I, can I, if I can try to, I want to repaint this, like, I can understand the, um, basics of the scene, but I want to try to repaint it in a way where I understand the physics of it. Yes, sure. So we're in the ocean.

Yeah. And we're, a good start. We're inside a clam. There is a, is there breathable air in clam? Yeah, you all are, you all are basically on the surface of a giant lake. Like a grotto. Like a grotto inside of this clam. Yes.

Every time it opens its mouth water pours into this, this grotto. But it's much bigger. It's, it is infinitely large, this clam. you would say. Oh yeah. And as it opened its mouth, the bathosphere that was sort of dangling down into it, fell in, and moments later the Coriolis got sucked in and is now actively falling toward you. But the orientation of the thing is that we are at the bottom of it.

Yes, the gravity of the clam is... Or not Earth, but whatever. Name your planet. What's the planet? Jeff. We don't need a fucking name for the planet. Come on. You can't throw that at it.

me three minutes into. I was going to say Earth 2, but that's taken. You could do Earth 3. Yeah. You're in a giant clan, and your ship is falling on you. I need Zooks and Amber. Amber, you're holding on to Devo. I need the two of you to make a dexterity saving throw.

Amber, if you are going to be holding Devo during this save, I need you to take disadvantage. I'm going to be great. I will be holding him. I think that I wouldn't think to let him go. Okay. But I do give you Bartig-G inspiration because I'm smiling at you. I'm batting my blue eyes. As if to say, please don't let me die.

Please don't let me die. Okay. We got, here comes Amber's. We got it. Well, okay. No need for another role, I think. Got disadvantage on it and that's a one. So, okay.

Gonna be a real face. You can let me go now if you want. Does that mean I have advantage? Uh, no, you don't have advantage. So that's a six from Zooks and a five from Amber Grie. Did you roll a crit one juice? Critical one. Oh yeah, it doesn't matter what Amber got.

That is a failure. And by extension, a failure for Devo. Fair. So I need all of you to take. Wait, did I really have Bark Inspiration? It doesn't. There's nothing you can add. The fails, a fails, a fail.

Fails, a fail. Hang on to that party. Sparring inspiration, you can still use another time. All of you take 11 points of bludgeoning damage. Is there no action we can take? Is there nothing we have time to do? Not right now. There is not.

Your ship has just fallen down. All of you take, what did I say, 11 points of bludgeoning damage as the ship falls down and it doesn't land on top of you, but it sends off just this concussive wave of force that knocks the three of you backwards. like 20 feet. Yeah.

You okay? Everybody okay? How's everyone doing? Yeah. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts us down to 12.

All right. So you all go flying through the air and come splashing down about 20 feet away. And it takes you a while to sort of get your bearings as you all land in the water. Devo, you are still just like free, free floating. In fact, Amber, make a, um, make just a dex check to see if you can hang on to Zooks or to hang to see if you can hang on a divo

during this this wild throw just a dex check just to see just a quick dex check I got 11 plus 213 yeah that's enough to it's clumsy it's awkward but you're able to stay holding on to divo

so he does not go sinking like a stone and you all float back up to the surface of the water, you can see flickering lights of the Coriolis below the surface of the water. It is now sinking down, and it hasn't pulled like the bathosphere down with it. I think that the wire is a bit longer than that. But in the distance, you do see that lionfish that crashed into the wall of the clam, which sort of forced it to open its mouth. that lionfish is starting to circle back around. What do you all do?

We should get to Zabathosphere as quickly as possible, and then get into ship and then shoot everything. Yeah, I'll get you back. First off, I'm going to start swimming with Devo back to the ship. I mean, that's the only same thing right now. I can't do anything hauling his, this cord. would dumb ass around. Yeah, sure.

I really appreciate that. You didn't hear that. You didn't hear that. That was Justin talking to Griffin. No, as long as you're holding on to me, though, I'm going to cast cure wounds. Okay. And heal Amber for six plus three, nine points of damage. Excellent.

Cool. Amber, recover nine points of damage. Love it. Love a healing. Love a heal. Yeah, thanks for keeping me alive. Probably single digits in the number of heels in the history of the adventure room right there.

So are you swimming to the bathosphere or the bachelis, etc? Fucking, I'll swim the coriolis. It's stupid ship fell in. At least I could do is get back in it. I only ask the coriolis is below water sinking. The bathysphere is still on the surface of the water and has not yet been.

I don't know where it's going, honestly. I feel like we have to get the ship. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, sure. But if we get to the bathiscer, The BASphere, we can reel into the ship. And then I can steer the ship, right?

Yeah, but like you're, it's 6 to 1, right? Because I can use my suit to get to the- Devo is going to need to make a Constitution saving throw if you dive down with him. You want to come down with you? You want to float here. No, let's go. Yes, we could do this.

Deep breath. It's weird. You don't really think of drag of people down. No, I'm bad. Yeah, okay, come on. Ten. All right, make a Constitution saving throw, Devo. I did.

That's a nine plus one, grvin a ten. Yeah, that's not good enough. Oh, boy. You take five points of damage. Who! That is difficult to classify. You are so shitty at being in the water that, like, I don't even think your eyes reflexively close. And so you just see like the flickering lights of the choreolas and the like glowing, what is it, green light of your vapor suit, Amber.

You also catch a glimpse of your hand, Devo. And it's almost like in Back to the Future when when Marty McFly's hand starts to disappear because he's doing a shitty job of making his parents hump. It's a little bit like that. Like you feel like you can see through your hand, almost like your hand. is turning into the very water that you are currently submerged in. You know what? In a panic, I'm going to cast cure wounds on myself then. I think, hold off.

I think everybody's taking one sort of action here. Amber's diving down. You cured Amber. It's just that I only have one hit point left. Oh, really? Yeah. That's not very many. Yeah, you should make sure you don't get hit by anything else.

Zooks, what are you doing? You got this lionfish circling back around. see Amber dive down with Devo to head back to the ship. Amber, with your vapor suit, I think you'll be able to get there, like, in another sort of turn, another move. How close is the lionfish to Zooks? It will be on top of you in a matter of, like, all of this is happening in real time in, like, a few seconds.

It's coming at you fast. And in fact, because you are the one that shot it in the face or in one of its barbs, it's coming at you first. Well, in that case, he needs to make up for his mistake and casts animal friendship on the lionfish. So something odd that happens. You know what it's like to sort of converse with sea creatures in this world. When you cast animal friendship, it just doesn't do anything. It's almost like you've just cast it on a rock.

And in fact, let me give you this Zooks. Zooks make a dexterity saving throw for me. 23. Fong yes. Okay. You try to cast this spell and it's like a game of chicken. Like you're just holding out your hand trying to chill this thing out magically and just feel like nothing coming at you in return. Except for this lionfish, which whips some of its spikes up, these glowing red hot spikes towards you.

But you just like slowly. through them with your bubble jets. And in fact, when you do that, you realize you get a good look at this thing's face. And its eyes are illuminated. And it's not just some bioluminescent effect. You can see into the eyes and you see what appears to be a cockpit being piloted by something that you can't see. and you put together that the reason animal friendship did not work on this thing is because it is a vessel. It is a ship that is being controlled by someone.

Amber, you have finished pulling Devo down to the Coriolis. I think the elevated bridge is probably just up allowing you access in. You head your head inside, I'm guessing? Yeah, I want to get Devo in. Okay. Okay. Roll a D4 for me. just a good D4.

Just a plain old American D4. A four. A four. Nap four. Nap four. Okay. As you get into the ship, a little bit of water gets in, obviously, through the airlock as you come in. But as you step foot into the actual body of the ship, like the common area, you realize that water hasn't just

gotten in through the airlock, water is pouring into the ship through a leak in the hull because the hull is damaged. It took this damage as it fell down into the water. So I'm going to mark one point of damage for the hull, which really only affects you if you're aboard the ship when it happens. So luckily, this is one of the better things I think you probably could have rolled here, but the ship's taking on water. And Deva looks at Amber and says, on the bright side, Uh, maybe the fall killed urchin? Yeah, I mean, we can hope. Hey, dumb, dumb.

You want to drown? No, not really. He swings down from a vent. Start working on this hole for me, all right? Earn your rations. Uh, okay, I'll do my best. He takes some, he takes a ration, and he chews it up, and he, like, throws the spitted ration at the hole, and it just shoots right off. He says, well, I'm about ideas.

So you can take a pot of bomb without blowing your shelf up, but you cannot, like, tape up a hole or some shit? Come on. I don't, I mean, shaming me isn't going to make me perform any better? No time. Okay. I'm going to be hardy with your approvation and lavishing your price. That's what I'm always saying.

Jesus. Okay. We're in the bridge? Yeah, I mean, you're in the ship. You can get wherever you want. right now. Okay, yeah, Devo heads to the bridge to try to, like, get control of the shit. Amber, what are you doing? I'm going to start trying to fix this fucking hole, I guess.

Okay, describe to me what that looks like. You all don't have any sort of repair kit, but if you can tell me sort of how you patch up a small sort of tear in the outer hall. Paint that picture for me. We can say urchin's there too, just sort of, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I scoop, well, urchin just say, does the ration have some sort of wrapper or something? Yeah, sure. Okay, so urchin did that, and I grabbed some, we got tape. Like, we have to have tape, right?

Yeah, I mean, you all have tools aboard the ship. It's just a question of, like, you don't have necessarily. I'm going to grab a ration wrapper. Okay. And just tape that on with some duct tape. I love that. Okay, roll it. D20 plus one for the incredible help afforded you by urchin here with his eating the ration.

The number you're looking to beat is a five. Well, but it's a two. It's a two. It's a two. A do you want to take that Bartik inspiration here? It adds like a plus, like, D6. I don't know. I mean, the number to beat here is a five.

So this would be a good tight. Yeah, let's try it. Just try it. It's a D6. Yep. So you need to get a, anything but a one. Two. The low bar kid.

Just scooting right under. As always, the least minimal effort. Excuse me if I could just. Okay, I'm just going to squeeze past you. Okay. You put the wrapper on there. It's like so bad that I can, it takes me like ten minutes to figure out if it's leaking or just like condensation.

I'm like right at the edge of like, is that cold or what? Yeah. It looks like when the partner in the relationship who doesn't normally rap presents wraps the present and you're like, that's a lot of tape. Hey, that's a lot of tape.

Are you sure? It has formed an inexplicable sagging balloon, this wrapper that is like very slowly expanding and you're like, oh, that's probably not good. It's just kind of hanging down from the chair. But you have patched that hole.

I will remove. the hull damage here. And Devo, you've raced up to the room. I think that's probably a, you know, in real time, probably a turn to get back up to the bridge and get this ship going again. The engine turns over. In fact, the engine, I think, was still running. Like, you didn't necessarily power shit down here.

Yeah, I took the wheel with me, if I remember correctly. Okay, I mean, the lights are on in the ship looking through, like, the viewport here. Like, it's just infinite black below you. This grotto that you're in is deep beyond sort of your current way of measuring things right now. Yeah, I'm just trying to get back to whatever the quote unquote surface. You know what I mean? I'm getting a sense of up and down and stop our free fall. Okay, cool.

Yeah, free sink. Zooks, you see that then. You see the Coriola sort of like write itself and start to raise back up toward the surface of the water. You're underwater right now, right? Zooks, you were when you cast this fell? Okay. And Deva, are you retracting the bathosphere back to its spot? Okay. Zooks, you know, you've just dodged this lionfish's attack and it is swimming away from you right now. You can't tell just yet if it is going to be making a return trip or not. What are you doing? I don't want to waste like an investigation or anything like that, but can you describe the lionfish a little bit more to me based on things that Zooks would be able to present? see just looking at it like its size.

Yeah, I mean, it's a, it is a little bit smaller than the choreolas. Like, it's a bit, it's huge. And it has these probably about, I think, a dozen of these, these barbs that are glowing red at the tips. And those appear to be, you know, almost light, lightsaber-like. Like, they are incredibly powerful burning hot spears. You can't seem to make out any kind of like jet propulsion. It seems like it's like actually using some sort of.

mechanized tail and fin to propel itself through the water. But that's what you can see from it. Okay. Then I am going to, how close, is Zuchs within closing distance? I think it would take all of Zook's movement, but he could reach this lionfish if he really pushed it. Okay. Is there a place on the tendrils that you were talking about where he could safely grab a hold of

them? Yeah, sure. If you grab them close to the base, like close to the. hull of this thing. You could for sure. Okay. I think he uses all of his speed to get to the lionfish and grab a hold of one of the tendrils to be like riding it like a bucking bronco.

And he grabs a hold of one of those tendrils. I think I was going to make you do an athletics check here, but I think this would be more acrobatics to like get through. through the tendrils to a spot where you could grab onto it. So make an acrobatics check for me. Acrobatics check. And I will give you advantage on this because you kind of saw through this thing's ruse with your last roll. Well, the first roll is an 11.

That is not good enough. And that's a 19. That is good enough. Okay. then as you are floating to the surface, Devo in the ship, and Amber, we can say that you're up there too now in the bridge. You see Zooks shoot off in his bubble stream, like a rocket, and then grab onto the lionfish and then just whoop,

the lionfish starts running away. It is swimming away from you in Coriolis. It does not seem to be about to make another pass. It is making away with your ranger. Oh, divo follows with the Coriolis. Okay. Why don't you roll plus speed for me at D20 plus 5? That is the speed of the Coriolis.

I don't know that you've rolled speed in this bladder propelled beauty. Ugh. Uh, a three. It bounced off the corner of my screen. Like, it's all bits and bites and lots. light. It was almost an 18. No, it's a three plus five. That's an eight. Okay. Hmm. Interesting. Yep. You, uh, you are following this lionfish, but, uh, maybe the Coriolis is a little bit more banged up than you thought. It's, it's taking a while for the, for the

bladders to refill, uh, with air. And after a few seconds, you have lost this thing's trail. Remember, you're back up in the bridge now, too. Is there anything you want to do as you watch this lionfish sort of fade from sight in front of you with Zooks riding it like a rodeo? I mean, Zook's got it. Yeah, Zook is going to be fine. It seems like Zix has got it. You know, I don't want to step in the path there, you know. It seems like Zooks has got it.

He's got a plan or else he wouldn't have just grabbed on to the spines of this wild fish if he didn't have something. all that's very high. Absolutely. All right. Let's jump to Zook. Zooks, this thing is swimming pretty steadily in one direction. I love that band. They're so great.

I knew that I was coming. Again, like, it's not a fish just swimming all over panicking. Like, this is a ship that is going to a destination that you can tell. But it has not seen you because you approached it from the rear. So whoever is piloting this thing, whatever sensors they've got, they don't seem to know that you are on of it. What do you do? Okay, I tell you what I'm going to do. First thing I'm going to do is cast fairy fire. Whoa, okay. Around the lionfish. Fair fire. Oh, interesting. That's great. Outlines an object in blue, green, or violet light. I'm going to go with violet. Yeah.

And any creature in the area where the spell is cast is also outlined in light. Okay. Can I make a suggestion, dad, just like a whirl, like a, that it's your swan, little phosphorescent, a little swarm surrounding it. Well, you know, I've been thinking about that. And, you know, I know it's table talk, but I think I'm going to try to make all of Zook's magic swarm-based.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that is, we talked about this a little bit about how it's different from Devo's magic. Like, this is all biological, I mean, archa-biological sort of stuff. So what this is, is, you know, Creatures that live in coral reefs, these are thousands of phosphorescent seahorses. Okay.

Manifest and surround the lionfish in this violet glow. Which I would think they would not be able to still perceive from inside the lionfish. Well, I think the trade-off here is that they would definitely tell if a thousand bioluminescent. sea horses swarmed around their vehicle. But the trade-off is that the Coriolis crew, you all can now see, you can now see this fish. You could see this fish from a county mile away.

Ah, see, I knew that Zooks had a plan. We needn't have worried, eh? It is not going to get away from you again. Zooks make a, this is going to be, maybe not Zook's strong soup, but make a stealthy. check for me because you hear some movement in this cockpit and you see light sort of shining upward in the direction of the top of this lionfish you mean stealth which zeke says a plus

three on sure I'll roll it's better than a minus one it's 18 uh okay maybe it's that these sea horses are also on you so in a weird way like that makes you blend into the hall a little bit better and also sort of you're in this, you know, this forest of spines on this thing's back. But that light shines around the top of the ship, and then it shuts off and keeps on going in the same direction. It does not seem to take evasive maneuvers or anything like that. Devo, you can see this fish now real close. What's your, or not close. It is a good distance away, but you can see it very clearly.

So what's your approach here? I'm going to tail it, I think. I don't know if we have any, like, floodlights. I know there are floodlights on the bathosphere, but I'm going to try to tail it as stealthily as a submarine, silent running. Yeah. You know, I'm also going to, before I forget,

just go ahead and cast cure wounds at a second level. Okay, fine, yeah. For old Devo, it's 2D8 plus three. Go ahead. On that one. Oh, yeah, you do have second level spells now. So that's going to be a plus 15. Okay.

She feels pretty good. That's going to bring you, bring you Halen Hardy. So you're like turning off the lights. Like what's your, you're shutting off the headlights here and just going by the light of the sea horses? If I can stay in a line behind it, right? Then I don't have to worry about running into anything. Roll plus speed with advantage because you have, you have everything you need here to take this stealth approach. So first that is a nine, geez, okay, and then, okay, a 10 plus five, so 15?

Yeah, that is sufficient. You were able to follow this lionfish, this beautiful glowing purple lionfish in the Coriolis. All of your lights shut off the, you know, bladder set to minimum bubbles. Oh, and I can see in shades of gray too. So shades of gray and purple. and the three of you follow this lionfish. And after about 10 minutes or so of it sort of heading in this direction at a pretty steady speed, it starts to slow down. And Zooks, you can see up through the spines what looks to be almost like a cluster of ships that have all sort of not anchors,

because there is no bottom to this water that you can see below you, but they are floating on the surface of the water. And as this lionfish gets closer, you realize that they're not just floating close to each other. What you are approaching is a bunch of ships of different sort of makes and models and different sort of functions that have all been sort of welded together into a large platform. and this lion fish is swimming toward the surface to dock at a long pier.

Okay, Zooks, this thing is docking. Are you staying put? The fish is docking? The fish is docking? The fish is a ship. The fish is a ship. It is a fish ship. It's a fish ship.

Justin, do you only listen when your character is actively doing something? Zooks, are you going to stay put? What's your plan here? Yeah, I think he's going to hunker down and still try to blend in, just to get information. I want to step in here and say I serve an important purpose for some of our more easily distracted listeners. It's important to resurface some of these key details. You know what I mean?

So I just think it's really. You never know when somebody's paused. Yeah. Yeah, maybe it's been a while. I think you owe an apology, Travis. I don't think I do. Okay. All right.

It won't be necessary, but I do appreciate the gesture. We will let your other stealth roll ride here as this thing docks. And I mean, I say docs, it is still below the surface of the water. This lionfish ship doesn't fully. surface, but the cockpit opens and you see, I mean, it's tough for you to sense things being under the water as this thing gets to the surface. And then from above the surface of the water, you hear voices that you can't quite make out. But you hear two voices talking to one another.

But because you're underwater, you can't really make out what they're saying. Okay. Devo and Amber. I mean, same sort of deal. You see this thing, Doc, and nobody has taken note of your ship quite yet because it is very stealthy under the water. What are you all doing? What is the shape of this, like, conglomeration of boats? I mean, it is tough for you to tell from being under the water, but it is like...

I just mean, like, are they... Is there open in the middle anywhere? Is it, like, a circle? Is it a combined? It's not clean. It seems like a bunch of ships were latched together. And some of the, in fact, make an investigation check. What am I doing?

What am I doing? You're giving me for information is what you're doing. I'm playing D&T here. I know. This is a suckers game. 18 plus 3, 21. Okay, yeah, it's, it is very, it's very rough. It is not, this was not planned by any kind of architect or something like this.

And you can tell that some of these ships are pretty old. And some of these ships are pretty new, and some of the welding jobs are closer to the center are really rough and tumble, and some of the ones closer to the outside are a lot cleaner. So, like, this is an expanding operation, as far as you can tell. And, you know, it doesn't seem like a fleet of ships that got in here, because if it was a fleet of ships, they would be similar in any way. This is a beautiful patchwork quilt of ships of all different shapes and sizes. May I ask another question?

Sure. It has nothing to do with what... So this is floating on the surface of the water. It's floating on the surface of the water, yes. Okay, cool. That's cool. And it's huge. It is like a city block.

Like, it is a huge cluster of ships. Ambire, as the captain, I will leave this up to you, but I am one pretty pissed about the lionfish ship thing attacking us. And I really want to yell at somebody. Do you say the lionfish ship? It's a ship, yes. Oh, okay. It was pretty distracted. No, that's fair.

We were in the middle of the battles. There was a lot going on. And I also... Makes more sense now, honestly, a lot of it tracks. Yeah, yeah, yes. I also want to get things figured out and then get the fuck out of this clam, which is not a thing I thought I would ever say.

Yes. So let's just like surface and point a big gun at them and be like, hey, is there a lean in here? Give him to us and we'll fuck off. I want to roll. I want to roll. Amber's been around a long time. I want to roll investigation to see if I recognize any of the the ships,

be it like actually specifically the ships or like the type of ship. Like make and model? Yeah, sort of, yeah. Okay, roll an investigation check for me. 16. 16. Okay. You don't know so much about the types of ships that are all around. You obviously you were there at Founders Wake since it started like you have seen all manner of ships.

I'll tell you what you do see a lot of. You see a lot of trade vessels, a lot of delivery vessels, a lot of just a lot of like cargo haulers. And so with that you, you know, piece together that maybe these are ships that were that had trade routes that took them near this clam. and therefore they got sucked in here. You also see something that you don't see a lot of in Founders' Wake, Amber. You see a lot of, like, wood. You see, like, planks. You see planks of wood patching together.

In the ships or just, like, floating around? In this, like, cluster of ships, like, forming rough sort of walkways between them. But, like, you see, some of it is, like, reclaimed. Like, you see wooden doors that are, that have been turned into bridges. And, like, you know, trees don't grow under the ocean. So. Trees don't grow on trees. Is that what you're going to say?

Right. I was not going to say that because they explicitly do do that. But so you're, Amber, you are seeing some stuff that I don't know that, that Devo and Zooks have ever seen before. All right. Listen. I celebrate your, uh, enthusiasm. Absolutely. But look at some of these ships and look at us.

Like we got a, what, the slug launcher and a cannon, nothing special, right? Like, if you could blast your way out of here, I know any of these cats probably would have already, right? So are we going to sit here and wait for someone to spontaneously just throw Elaine into the water? No, we're going to go in, say, kill aside. and see what's what. Okay, yes, let's do this. I am much better talking to people. I just thought it would be easy to, you know, blows them up.

All right, Gubby, stay seated, and let's get in there. So what are y'all doing? The Coriolis surfaces. Okay. The Coriolis surfaces. Zooks, you see that from your hiding spot, still on top of the lionfish, just under the surface of the water. You see the bladder activate underneath the choreolas and push it toward the surface.

And as you come to the surface, Devo and Amber, you see through the viewport two sort of humanoid-esque figures standing on this pier, sort of having a conversation, not looking toward the water. These two figures, though, are, there is something wrong with them. They are... That's not very nice. They appear to be like almost superimposed on the rest of reality. Like they are person-shaped, like, renderings of a starry sky with these glowing white skeletons inside that occasionally like surface for a moment in this swirling void. Is my hand still fucked up? Devo, make an Arcana check.

Okay. That's a nine plus, or six plus four, ten. Geez. Okay, with an arcana check, I will tell you, your hand is not fucked up anymore. Since you have gotten out of the water, it has slowly sort of reappeared. You don't know what this is,

but what was happening to your hand has happened to these people's entire bodies in a way that seems to be permanent. And do I know enough to think that this is connected to the ethersea. You all know enough to know, I'll tell, especially you, Amber and Devo, you know enough to know like, this is why you do not get into ethersea water. Because weird, magical shit happens to you that is still not quite understood what it is. But these,

these sort of ethereal-looking, uh, humanoid beings turn and see the choreolas and one of them, uh, bolts off running down the dock. They're both going to need to make charisma saving throws, Griffin. Oh. As I cast calm emotions. What's the range on that there, Spel?

The range is 60 feet. And it's a 20-foot radius sphere. So I don't know the point you choose. The one that was not running rolled a seven. Uh-huh.

The one that was running got a 21. Okay, well, the one who's running can keep running and the one who is not. Is there like a hatch or something I can pop open and talk to this fool? I mean, you can lift up the cockpit out of the water and, you know, we'll say there's like a loud speaker

that functions not in the water, right? Okay, so he's currently just like indifferent. Yeah, what does calm emotions do? So I can either like suppress an effect or I can make a target indifferent. Okay. That's both your level two spell slots, by the way, now. Correct.

Okay. Go ahead and mark both those off for me. Watching like a hawk. Ain't nothing gets by me. Okay. He is pretty chill. And in fact, he waves. Yes, hello.

Hello. We are looking for Orlean. Do you know Orlean? Ah Hey this guy asked for If we know Oraline Do you Hey Teddy

Teddy where are you got? Do not worry about him The other ethereal Person You see has hopped into Slug launcher that is on The dock Like looking over the water

And fires off A bright red slug Towards you in the Coriolis? Yeah, that's going to hit. And you all feel the ship rock as the ship is hit for 11 points of bludgeoning damage. If you would please tell your friend, Teddy, I believe his name was, that he needs to, once again, 69, nice, driven. Yeah, thank you.

We are here to help you get out of this big clam. Teddy, don't do that, man. And you hear the other one say, but they get a spell on you, I think, because they try to do one. Hold on, I'm going to shoot them again. If you shoot this again, Teddy, then we will not help you escape.

Make a persuasion check. Thank you. 14 plus 7, 21. Teddy is so charismatic. No, of course that works. That's enough to give Teddy pause. And he stops reloading this slug launcher. And he says, oh, all right, I'm listening.

Teddy's listening. Teddy's listening. Zooks, you can't, the loud speaker is now loud enough and these dudes are now shouting. You can hear all of this under the water. By the way, still neither of those people know that you are down there. Are you doing anything else? Are you still holding, holding steady? I thought Teddy was running away as well.

No, Teddy was running to blow your ship out of the water. I am going to, while this conversation is happening, I'm going to see if I can stealthily exit through the moonpool and get to the controls that I just saw Teddy go for. Yeah. Okay. You're still wearing your vapor suit, I'm assuming. There's no moon pool here. There's just sort of like. I wouldn't be wearing my vapor suit because once I got aboard this ship, you can't wear a vapor suit in dry.

Oh, sure, sure. It becomes immobile. I think we said that. Right, but I also think we said it's like a collar or something like that. So like you can have it on. I can reactivate it. Yeah. Okay, there's no moon pool in this ship, but you can sort of squeeze, squeeze through the hatch down.

Well, what was the hole that we got the Yomna up in? That was on the other. Another ship. It was in the dreams of death. Well, I'm going to, job one is going to be to add one of those back. Yeah, he's a lot of fun down there. But you can sort of squeeze out the hatch of, you can like deploy the bathosphere a little bit and like,

yeah, go through that. I'm gonna try it about that way. Okay. Make a stealth check for me. Nice. Nice. It's a good one.

Okay. That's a four plus two equals six. You managed to get outside. I thought maybe if I seemed positive about it, you know, to rub off on you. Like,

maybe it is a good one, you know? I'm kind of convinced you it was a good role. Make a dexterity saving throw, Amber. I feel like we just can't catch a fucking, I know, right? I mean, that's a 17 plus four. Oh, yeah.

Okay, that's a very good role, Amber, because you are like crawling along the bottom of the choreolas, but your vapor suit is like on. And so Teddy sees like this little green person climbing around the bottom of the choreolas and without missing a beat whips that slug launcher around and you like feel the heat of this projectile just. sort of zip past your back and very, very narrowly avoid hitting you. This is a good time for me to mention something that I haven't talked about before. The way I've sort of balanced ship versus human combat or ship versus creature combat,

other than like big, you know, big Leviathan-esque sea creatures, if you are shot with a cannon, it does double damage to you. If you swing an axe at a ship, you do half damage to it. Just a flat rule. So if that slug launcher, it hit you, Amber, that would have been very, very bad for Amber. But you have very narrowly avoided being blasted by this. Excuse me. You guys?

You try to sneak someone. There's a sneaky little stinker down there. This is our repair person. And she is trying to fix the damage that this zebrafish, lionfish did to our ship. When we were attacked, we came here. on the rescue mission, we were sent to rescue people, and we were attacked first. Just real quick, I felt like I was trying to do like a deception check or something, and like the outcome of what I said. That was sort of like two truths and a lie that you told. I'm not

going to make you roll deception on that. I think that you have given, you have given Teddy pause here. Yeah. As long as he's not fired. He's not actively firing on the ship. Yeah. Yeah, Zooks. What are you up to? Zooks just goes shooting up at top speed as hard as he can and it slams into the boat that Teddy's in.

Oh, Teddy's just standing on the dock. Teddy, yeah, he's not on a boat. He is standing on the same dock that the other person. So the slug thrower is on the dock? Yep. It's like an anti-ship weapon that is here for this exact. reason. Well, in that case, Zook's is just going to go flying

up out of the water to slam into freaking Teddy. Okay. I like that. Okay. Why don't you? Let's make it just make an attack roll against Teddy. We'll do it as let me think, just as an unarmed strike. An armed strike. Yes.

Unarmed strike. That is a 15. Yeah, that is going to hit Teddy. He's not armored or anything like that. You launch up out of the water, like the most beautiful dolphin, and tackled Teddy off of the cannon that he was sitting on. And seeing that, the other guy that you have hypnotized kind of divo sees that, and he's like,

Now see, Teddy, this is why I told you. Well, when he sees that, it does break the spell. Oh, it does? Yeah, if he witnesses any of his friends being harmed. Oh, okay. You literally rolled damage, Dad. It's not even being hurt. Anything harmful to it.

If it is attacked or harmed. Okay. Then this other figure sees what has happened over with his friend Teddy. Seeing that you have attacked his friend, Zooks, this other ethereal figure is going to charge at you and draw a cutlass out of a scabbard at his waist. That is a 21 versus AC, Zooks. That would hit. Yep. Okay.

you, as you are like trying to pin this dude down, you feel just a slash across your back as this big heavy sword gets you just a little bit for eight points of slashing damage. Okay. Devo looks at this fool to just attack them and says, I have had it up to here today. I have had to talk to the persons that I hate most in this entire world. We have been sucked into a giant clam. We were attacked by a lionfish, which apparently was being piloted by one of yours as we came here to help. You shot us with a slug launcher, and now you attack, my friend. If you do one more thing, we will wipe you out of existence and uses words of terror.

Yeah. And you are going... On me. On Griffin. Make a wisdom saving throw. Which one of these guys are you... The one who just attacked Zutes. Okay.

That is a 12. It fails. Ooh. Yeah. So now he is very frightened of us. Uh, okay. Now that I have your attention, drop your cutlass and get me or lean.

He drops the cutlass and it splashes down into the water. Amber, you watch it sort of sink past you. What are you doing, Amber? I get it. I'm grabbing my sword. Hey, fucking, hey, fucking free sword. You pop out of the water, same. Hell yeah, free sword.

Then Teddy backs up and sort of like taps the other guy on the shoulder who sort of scrambles out from your grasp. Wait, are they both named Teddy? Uh, no. What? No. You've... Teddy was the one that Zooks tackles.

Yeah, okay. Then the one who you've... Just... By the way, my name's... My name's Crum. Okay. Yes, I was addressing Crum. Yeah, Crum, yes.

So, Crum, you know, steps backward and taps Teddy on the shoulder who kind of scrambles out from your grasp, Zooks. And, uh, crumb says, okay. So you all know the super captain? I don't remember saying that you could ask me questions. I don't, okay, I'm sufficiently terrified of you. Hey, scare, you need to back down. Come on.

Is this coming from you, Amber? Hey, I got a free sword. I'm feeling pretty fucking good. Be nice, these little claspers. Come on. You need to talk to Super Captain, Orleans? Yes. Okay.

By this time, by the way, hearing the slug launcher, you see like five or six more of these ethereal figures, like popping out of compartments of this superstructure, which now you can tell is like a living junkyard of ships that have been scavenged and bolted together here to form this thing. You see no non-etherial beings in this structure. We have a bit of an opening. I want to try to get control at the slugg launcher. Yeah, you can do that. You can just grab the... Nobody's at it yet.

So you can sit at the slub launcher. You doing anything at it? And then I'm going to make my way like onto the dock at this point. Okay, yeah. I want to spin it away from us. Yeah. Chiefly.

Yeah. And, you know... You can in fact... I don't think I want to be like threatening with it. Like, I'm just trying to not, you know, not get blessed. No, it would not be difficult for you to disable this thing. Like, you can just kick the ammo into the water. And then that's it.

Okay, cool. You all have to diffuse this situation. Crum stands up and sort of pushes Terry. Shit, what was his name? Teddy. Teddy. Teddy. He pushes a beloved character. Come on, Griffin.

He says, okay. Dr. Shack. Has there been an NBC as beloved as Teddy? He says, okay, I'm sorry for all the trouble. You all seem nice. Usually we would take your ship and kill you all. and, you know, just to, you know, keep building on to this great, beautiful, clan-based city that we got here.

But, yeah, you want to see the super captain? He's so great. I think he's the best, like, person. I think he's the best person, and we all love him. He's the best super captain ever, and we all have crushes on him, big crushes. So, I guess, follow me. Hey, Devo, make another Arcana check for me. 12 plus 4, 16.

Yeah, you felt this actually when you cast calm emotions on this thing, and then you felt it again whenever you used words of terror on this thing. By this thing, I mean, of course, crumb. Crum has been orated. Yeah. Like, your control over him was stacked on top of another magical persuasion. Yeah, I would say, even though I rolled Arcana for that to find that out, I think it's, Deva, with all of his study, with, like, the magic of the mind and stuff with as soon as they're like, we love him so much. Diva's like, oh, fuck.

Yeah. I don't even need to sense the magic to know that this is not like a normal thing. Yeah. You do not get to the title of Super Captain. That's just not. I know. I thought it was weird, too, because I'm the captain. But then Orlean showed up, and, but he's so fucking cool.

Amber, I just want to say that this is very indicative of the church in general. This kind of shit. I just, I needed to say this out loud. Spooky space ghosts? No, I mean, the weirdness, yes. But I mean like this, like, like people being assholes because they are controlled by the church. The church fucking sucks, is what I'm saying, okay? Yeah, I know you get some baggage with them.

I'm just like, I love them so much. for me. Oh, boy. You know, why are you saying? You can stop selling, but I'm not a big churcho either. You've made that extremely clear. You terrified that poor space goes. Don't say poor space goes, he was the attack.

He hit... He felt bad at him first, and I feel bad for him. He's kind of an ocean ghost. I've murdered. I've murdered. I've murdered a lot. See? Yeah.

Um, is there any way that we could stop buying a Mergic hair? Oh, yes. Sorry. Oh, Zul. Come here. And I cast Cure Wins on Zooks. Okay. Let's see.

That's another D8 plus three. So plus five? That's a first level spell, yes? Yeah. Yeah. I cast it at second level on myself because I had one hit point left. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. So you pick up five more.

Zook gets the snickle fritz is what you're saying. Exactly. You get the children's Tylenol of my five, plus five. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Is that not enough for you? No, no, I've gone from being, you know, having the flu to having a cold. That's good. Up great.

I'm okay. Okay. Captain Crum walks you through this junkyard city. And as he does, you see maybe a dozen of these ethereal figures, just kind of like some of them are kicking it inside of the cockpits of various ships. some of them are like doing some work patching up some of these different structures. But as you all, you know, non-etherial beings walk by, you catch all their eyes. And they look kind of like, well, I mean, they don't have faces that you can see, but you can tell just from body language.

Like they stop doing what they're doing and look at you very, very concerned. But Captain Crum's like, don't worry, guys, I got it. Just taking them to see the Super Captain. And every time he says that, they're like, Oh, yeah, Super Captain. So good. So cool. God, I love the Super Captain.

Yes, baby. And they walk you to this ship at the very center of this structure, which you all can see is like, this is a pirate ship. Like, it is a heavy black metal-looking combat rig for sure. And as you approach it, Captain Crum walks you up to a door at the rear of the ship and opens it up and ushers you into the captain's quarters, which are dank and dirty. You get the impression that these folks are not quite as concerned about luxury and comfort as you are.

But there is soft candlelight at a desk in the back of the room. And there, Devo, you see Benefactor Orlean, who, I mean, we mentioned that you knew him. How did you know? What's your relationship with Orlean? He was one of Devo's tutors. And I'm going to say that he is the one that taught Devo to speak celestial. Okay. So he was just an educator at this deep cloister.

or where you were. Yeah, so primarily Devo was taught by the hand of guidance, and then specialists were brought in from time to time to, like, focus on specific... Right, it takes a village to brainwash a child. Exactly, yeah, yeah, very much. Okay. So in Celestial, Devo says,

Olin, you absolutely piece of shit. It is time to go. So grab whatever, I don't know, garbage you have in your little hovel. and come get in our ship so that we can be done with all of this. Make a charisma check. Oh, is he trying to charm me? A contested charisma check, not a saving throw. Just a contested charisma check.

Okay. That's a 16 plus 3, a 19. He says, close the door, and you close the door, reflexively. Uh, and... Um, then diva draws his boomerang. Okay. And says, do this again. And I will remove your head from your neck.

He stacks up some papers on the desk and sets them down and he sighs and he says, uh, hello devotion. I take it that you're here to rescue me. Well, this is one way to put it. One, it is Devo now. Two, we were told to bring you in alive or dead, and this does not matter to me. If we say we found your body, then they have no proof otherwise. So as far as I'm concerned, all I need is to drag you back to our ship.

You can do so under your own power, or you can do so bleeding out on the dock. Um, Zooks, make a charisma saving throw for me. Sure. In fact, Amber, you also make a charisma saving throw for me. Let's make, thank you all. Mine's 16. 13. Devo, you realize that Zooks has his crossbow trained on you.

And Amber is holding that cutlass that she just pulled out of the water and pointing it in your direction. And he says, and Benefactor Orlean, Super Captain Benefactor Orlean says, why don't we all calm down a little? Why don't we just talk? A seems reasonable. You say as you're holding your cutlass toward your friend. Both of you feel this control just wave off of you. And now you're just pointing your weapons at your friend Devo for no reason. Oh. He says, we don't have to have this dynamic anymore, Devo. We don't have to treat each other like this.

I'm as eager to get out of here as you are to be done with me and the church. So let's start over. I'm assuming you were here to rescue me sent by the hand of guidance. Yes? Yes. Okay. then here's the bad news we are all stuck inside of here forever as long as the magic sustaining this big big big big clam continues to operate and he shows you some he fans out these papers on his desk and lights a couple more candles and he says but the good news is i think i know i know how to

deactivate it. There's more bad news. It's that I've sent a few of these ethereal's in to execute my plan, and they have all failed. So you might do the same. This is, this, this, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

And he looks at Amber and says, the church, they send up. others, right? They send us to get Orlean. Orlean sends these serials, now us, to die. Why don't you go do it, Orlean? This is why. And he reaches over to a table behind him. And at this table, you can see some clear, almost glass-like prisms of different sort of shapes and sizes. And one of them, is like several of these like cube clear cubes that have been sort of fused together into this rough shape and he sets it down at the desk and he says there's an anomaly inside of this clam and uh in order to get rid of it you have to have it manifest and take shape so i can and make these seed crystals.

You get one of these to the anomaly and it takes shape you, you know, contain it and then we're all free. If I go in and do it myself and fail, everyone in here is trapped forever. So does that answer your question? Great. So you all, he sets it down,

he says, you take this, and then he reaches up to the wall and you see a like super detailed anatomical drawing of the inside of a clam and he sets it down he said and there's your map take this crystal down to the anomaly it's a bit further back down in the clam as far as i can tell you contain it with that crystal and uh how's this for an offer you bring me back that uh that anomaly inside of this thing or you know however it manifests and uh how much you get in pay for this gig?

Eight Lux. Roll a deception check for me. 19 plus 4, 23. Fuck off. Yeah, I mean, it takes a lot to get one by by Benefactor Orlean, but he's, he kind of, he chuckles as if he thinks maybe you're lying, but he goes along with it anyway.

He says, all right, I'll double that. You know, we'll keep it quiet, maybe, just between us. Us orators, huh? Does that sound fair? It sounds like the best offer, there is. Great. Are you Amber Greed?

Yeah. That's bonkers. Oh, yeah? Why? It's just I remember you from the beach. Yeah, right, right, right, right. How are you? I'm stuck inside of...

She does not remember him, by the way. This is foy, fully like, yeah, for sure. I'm stuck inside of a magically infinite clam. So I'm... Hey, hey, makes tubas, right? He... Is he still charming me? No, I mean, just with his smile and his wit,

but you are not under any kind of magical effect. Right, I'm going to get closer so I can go like, shake his hand okay it's been too long how are you being uh i i i mean I've I've just kind of been just been busy and he reaches out

to shake your hand uh I'll pull him in for like a you know kind of like the pound the hug okay all right does he go for it? Cool um you know I'm same as always always got a fucking knife and I've got a knife

to his throat okay Hey, listen, I love the deal, for sure. It's all sound good, 16 looks. But listen closer, all right? You ever try to control me again? I'll cut you right down, right? I don't, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I got forearms and no fucks. You get me?

Kappa? Kappa. Kappa. Kappa. He backs up and he says, I have to say you live up to every ounce of the reputation that precedes you.

And... Well, unless I'm mistaken, I think you're Orlean. Yeah? Hey, we got them, guys. This is Orlean. Yes. Yes, this, okay.

He, laughs and he walks back to his desk and you see him kneel down and he picks up a big crate and he sits down on the desk and he looks at you Amber and he says hey do you realize where we are a big a big clam he shakes his head as if he did not expect you to get this question right and he starts pulling things out of this box and it's just like a, it's like a lost and found in that just none of these things have anything to do with each other. Like he pulls out a wooden like doll. He pulls out like a tattered dress. He pulls out just some, some nails that he sets down. And he says, the power that's sort of creating this huge compression

chamber that we all find ourselves stuck in. I thought it seemed familiar at first, but it wasn't until I found this that I realized exactly where we are. And the thing he pulls out of this crate next, Amber, you have seen before, and he takes it out and he throws it to you and you catch it. It is a, it's a letterman's jacket for the gushy wolves. And it is, it's over 25 years old. And it's dirty.

It's been, you know, flooded. But you have not seen one of these things since you were on the surface. And then you look at the pile of other sort of debris that he is stacked up on your desk. And then the pieces start to click together. And benefactor Orlean looks at the three of you and he says, welcome. to the trash hole. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture.

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