The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 21

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

Rictus, Hellgrammite, and Lorovith collect their winnings and gain new spells and powers . . . just in time to be thrown into the next trial, which has no guaranteed survivors. Royale Theme: “Wizard Disco” by Louie Zong: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/wizard-disco Original Music by Griffin McElroy Additional Music in this Episode: "Atmosphere for Documentaries" by Universfield: https://unil.ink/universfield; "The Apotheosis of All Deserts" , "VIII", and "Chewing Devil Grass" by ROZKOL: https://rozkol.bandcamp.com/; “The Redemption in Her Arms, the Light at the End of Her Tunnel" by Schemawound http://schemawound.com/;  "A Rainbow in the Sewers" by Jangwa: https://www.petitesmaisons.it/jangwa/; "Haze" and "Time is Ticking" by Scott Holmes Music: https://scottholmesmusic.com/; "Foresight" by Serat: https://blear-moon.com;  "PULL" by Nctrnm: https://soundcloud.com/nctrnm;  "Moulds Sun" by 10 Echo: https://10echo.bandcamp.com/; and "tribute to eddy" by Jean Toba: https://jeantoba.blogspot.com/. Marsha P. Johnson Institute: https://marshap.org/ 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 Taz Royale. I am a turmoil of emotion. I just found out I'm engaged. As long as we're sort of exchanging favors. And he hands you a freshly packed pipe. If you're hitting that thing, give me a constitution saving. Give me a constitution saving throw, please. And he picks up the time crystal and places it on his grim war.

Give me a wisdom saving throw. Oh, two plus five, a seven. That was not a great role to roll that on, Trevi. In our last episode during the mid-trial break, we had a nice scene with Loravith, getting absolutely just zooted with Deuber Sweet Leaf, and Richtus experienced the quickening by taking a secret stone from a specter of death.

Today, I would like to check in on Hell, Grammat, see what you'd like to do during the break, and then do a little bit of shopping around for spells and items before we get into the next trial. So Hell Gramet, you got a day off here to rest and recover and spend how you'd like. How would you like to spend today? I think Hell Gramet is a little confused. I cannot imagine why. How he could find a message written in his hands. handwriting that he doesn't remember writing.

Okay. So I think he wants to do some research. I don't know which one of the octaves. Does he have, do they have access to the octaves? Can they talk to the octaves? So you all have access to basically the run of the place at this point. There's only 12 people left. And we all have Bing on our grim war.

You do all have Bing. Rick does had to sort of like request an audience with a member of the octave in order to talk to them. So you may be able to, you know, have a meeting with the octave. Other stuff that you guys have access to, though, are like all of the facilities except for the crystallarium here. So like there is a grand library that you could try to find answers in. Or you could, you know, try and see if you could gain audience with one of the, with one of the, octave. Well, while I do realize that going to a library makes for

compelling podcast content... Well, yeah, Dad, you can explore the exciting world of periodicals and microfilm and all kinds of things. Okay, yeah, I'll go to the brewery. This will be a McElroy challenge. Yes, he's going to the magic library and not even using

dupersweaves. Duber Sweet's magic herbology to get there. Dupersweet is a totally different character. That's from Ethersea. Yeah. Okay, you make your way to the library. There is a large sort of ornately carved wooden double door leading out of the foyer of the ziggurat right, right to the back center of the room. And when you head in, you look all around this library and see a great sort of search.

chamber and running around sort of the entire perimeter of this round room is just shelves and shelves and shelves and shelves of books. And as you walk in, you realize that this is sort of the highest floor of the library. It like burrows downward into the island. So by sort of walking down a spiral staircase that leads, you know, four or five stories down below, you just move deeper and deeper and deeper into these rows of books with these tiny little plateaues set out every level or so with, you know, chairs and tables and desks where you can read and study. And you're trying to look for answers for how you could leave yourself a message that you don't remember writing, right? Okay. So, I mean,

there's a couple checks you can make here. I think Arcana would certainly work to sort of like leverage what you know about magic to sort of start your search. If you wanted to do an investigation check, just to see if you could find like a particularly, um, you know, salient book on the topic. You could, you could certainly also do that. Could he not just check the Dewey decimal system? Decentral system? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, also if you want to look for, uh, if you want to look for some sort of filing. If you want to look for a filing system, you can definitely do that too. How about I look for a librarian?

Okay. So I can have interaction with someone. Yes. As you look around, give me a perception check, please. And it's an eight. Okay, with an eight, you do not see any other people in here. No other octave members or aspirants or anyone. What you do notice is some movement going around.

most of the different sort of layers of this, this, you know, whole of a library. And that movement, as you kind of like zero in on it, you see books kind of moving on their own. Books that are sort of resorting themselves, books that are kind of cleaning themselves up from little piles on these little study desks, you know, scattered around the chamber. So you don't see any people, but there is like a, you know, some sort of presence in here moving the books around. Okay, I'm going to do an arcana check so you can identify the... Would it be...

I have pretty good nature stats. Do I think it's... If you wanted to roll nature, sure. We could try and... We could find an answer for that for sure. Okay. Then how does a 25... Holy shit, man.

Okay. Now you can speak to the trees that the books were made of. Yeah, the paper revives. Owsh, they cut me up real skinny. I make apples. I hate that. I'm sorry. I hate the idea of a tree getting chopped down.

He's like talking about the fruit he generates. That sucks. I hate that. I said that. I have to think about that now. For the better part of the morning, you spend your time going layer through layer of this library. I got used to make the Macaroys podcasting book.

I'm so lonely. Please, somebody. You spend the better. Hey, Travis, I will say this. You can't teach timing like that with a book. That's the problem. That was our hubris, you know what I mean? Yeah, I wanted to get.

To think that we can throw enough pearls out. Yeah. With a swan. I tried to get. I tried to get a chapter in there that's like, If one of your brothers has been talking for like 30 seconds about some other shit, feel free to jump right back to the joke that you guys were just working on. Well, when the jokes hit, they hit.

They hit. You can't, yeah. Check the laugh. The muse moves how it moves. You look around, right? You're looking for books on secret messages and, you know, remote conversation and anything along those lines, anything about sort of the sending and receiving of secret. messages. And while you definitely find plenty of books on the topic, you don't really find anything

describing what you've experienced of finding your own message that you've forgotten about writing. And so you turn your attention instead towards, you know, memory spells, memory magic, things that could potentially, you know, erase the memory of this message that could be sort of returned to you in this way. And that's almost a like the signal to noise ratio there is. is not helpful. There's so many ways to make people sort of forget things.

And so after a few hours of fruitless searching, you turn your attention over to the sort of more biological parts of the library, the more zoological parts, I should say,

because you're looking for insect pornography. I'm surprised that the resolution of all your fruitless searches was insect pornography. With a 25. Your burnout and you start looking for insect pornography because sometimes they have that in libraries.

And I only read insect pornography for the articles anyway. Yeah. While you are flipping around through the pages of these incredibly erotic bug novellas, you find something that actually does feel like. relevant to your search. You see, as you're kind of flipping through this grand almanac of, you know, exotic bugs, you find an entry for something called an echo mite, M-I-T-E, and looking at it, it looks incredibly familiar.

With a 25-Arcona-check, you sort of scan the page. You realize why it looks familiar. The insect that you saw that kind of drew your attention and, you know, spoke to you psychically or was maybe a sort of conduit for some sort of psychic speech from whoever this was that called you their bridegroom, that insect, this sort of long, flatworm, centipede, plated looking thing with crystals sort of poking out of it is one of these things, is an echo mite. and reading about them, the thing that they are most known for and that sort of wizards are cautioned, you know, against getting too close to one of these things, is their ability to attack anyone with a certain level of intelligence and encode their memories, steal their memories from them in the form of these kind of crystalline shards that jut out of their back. So you're not sure exactly, you know, if one of these things got to you, if perhaps like this is the reason why you could not remember. If you were attacked by one of these echo mites. But the piece is kind of aligned for you in a way as you are studying this book. And then, you know, you find more sort of like super hot pictures.

I imagine grubs are like big for you, like really big for you, sort of erotic. but yeah that is your sort of main find here in the library if you wanted to look for something else to try and gain any more clues or any more information you would have a little bit more time to do that maybe not in the same entry but I'd like to know a little bit more about these things could I do a history check yes give me a history check please 18 okay uh Within 18, this kind of lights a fire in you at this sort of realization. It can't just be, you know, serendipity. There has to be some sort of reason for why these things are on the island

and why your memory is faltering. And so you turn your search to echo mites and try to find more books where you can learn more about them. You find a couple other editions of that same almanac where the information is roughly the same. but in one of the first edition of this almanac, the oldest, the pages are weathered and many of them are missing. The bindings are weakened on this old book. You flip to the entry on Echo Mites to try to learn more about them. And at the very bottom, there is a single kind of paragraph with a picture of this large, large, large, insect that looks like a like wildly evolved version of the of the

echo mites you've seen so far and it is surrounded by just a thrall of smaller similar insects and this paragraph enlightens you to the fact that there is a figure in the history of of the Thrykine that is an echo mite and this information for whatever reason has been kind of like removed from following editions and, you know, seemingly, you know, tried to keep a secret. The first brood mother of the Thrykeen, the one that kind of got wise and overthrew the wizards who created the Thrykeen to be their kind of like insectoid soldiers was an ethomite. The first brood mother who is responsible, basically, for the Thrikeen's independence and the fact that you are a kind of

your own people under no one's control was one of these echo mites. And her name was it does not say. Hmm. Rumpel-Stidskine. Nope. Nailed it.

Liza Vermichelli. That can't be right. Griffin, is that right? You just texted me Liza Vermichelli. I have told you guys not to text each other while we're making it. So, With this information in hand, you make your way back up to the surface.

Your eyes kind of readjusting to the sunset light. It is... Is it safe to say that... Is it safe to say Helgermott might have stolen the books to take with him? Huh. I mean, if you'd like... I assume it's a lending library. Are you trying to steal all these books, or are you just trying to steal this kind of like first edition?

Those two... Those two almanacs that refer to the echo mice. Actually, I don't think he needs the first one, but this ancient one. I also don't think you have to steal books from a library. I think they like it when people check books out. Yeah, but then you've got to get a card and you've got to get stamped. Okay, here's what I would like. If you're just taking the one book, it will be a lower check,

but I would like either stealth or sleight of hand to get this thing out of here. Okay. I will do either. Okay. Slight of hand, that is a 15. Okay, yes, with a 15 as you make your way up the spiral staircase, you get the kind of like faint impression that several books floating on their own have begun to sort of follow you up the spiral staircase, you know, keeping a fairly good distance. But you manage to kind of like keep your cool and make your way back up to the ground level floor. and you exit the grand library without anyone sort of stopping you.

So you are able to get out of there with this ancient almanac. Cool. And I shall hold that information close to my heart. I believe you will. And my wisdom. You make your way out of the ziggurat. It is dusk, and you realize you have not done your business. at the atelier yet.

So you make your way over to this giant tent with a huge white cat head popping out of the top of it to do a little bit of shopping where you encounter Loravith and Richtus. Richtus does, Rickus looks weird. Richtus looks like he's had a day. And you know what? Actually, I'm going to go ahead and say both of them are being kind of weird, but for different reasons. One is because they had the quickening, and one is because they partied way too hard with duper sweet leaf. Hey, fellas!

Oh, sorry. Hey, everybody doing okay? What? What? What? Down here, bookman. Oh. I've come down here.

I've come down to the way you are. How long have been standing there? Are you fellows all right? Bugman, you do not need to shelter. I am right here, Buckman. I'm whispering. Why are you guys being weird? I'm just excited.

Like I told you, I found out a little bit more I think about my fiance. And you guys want to hear about her? I mean, I have never wanted anything less, Buckman. I understand. Oh, right. So, yeah, well, I'll just save this. And then maybe luncheys later. And I'll, oh, I get pictures.

I got books. I got porn. I got so much stuff you ought to see. John Arbuckle pops up from behind the counter. Did you say you have pornography? There he goes.

Step aside. It's very very specific. It's a very small niche. You don't know what John's into. I like it all. So you guys here to get some new spells? Yeah, I would like to test my luck, Mr. Arbuckle.

Yes. Well, then step right up, he says. You all have gold level rewards from your last trial for picking your combatant and defeating them. And so you'll each get to draw three spells from a spell level of your choice and pick the one that you want. you all at this point the grimwares the gauntlets that you're wearing where you've kind of been slotting in these different spellstones they they are all full up so at this point in order to put in a new spell if you get one that you do like you will you will have to remove one that you are maybe not utilizing quite as much so who wants to go first

Loravith. Yeah, I believe I call dibs. Okay. Loravith, you step up and hand in your sack with the three golden cubes. John Arbuckle sweeps them up, and all of these spellstones kind of floating in the air behind him, behind the counter, begin to sort of tremble as you begin to will them to your collection. What spell level would you like to shoot for? You can also for, if you don't want to specify a spell level, you can draw one from five random ones taken from all the spell levels available, which is Cantrip's first, second, and third. Hmm.

I think I'm going to try for third level, because I do not have any third level spells. Okay. And I would like to try to have something that's like got some oomph. Uh, perfect. You sort of focus your intention. And three stones, larger and sort of smoother than the rest, float down before you to take your choice, Pokemon starter style. The first is Liam Munn's tiny hut. Yes, that should change the tight.

Big Liam and sunglasses hood. That should shift the battle in my flavor. The next is... Wait, Griffin, I don't know. I don't want you to have to read the spell description. but is there any chance that it's a tiny hut that explodes and kills everybody

nearby? Knowing you, you could probably find a way to make it do that. Sorry, I'm trying to talk. This sentient murderous hut will stop in nothing until its target is dead.

Liam is tiny Baba Yaga hut. It's also a master of disguise and seduction. The next is... Whoa, neat. The second one is, Fireball.

Where's your laugh, so where's your jokes now, Mr. Jokes? Why is Leone? He had a third level spell. I'm looking at it. Because you created a dimensional hut. Taco used that shit all the time. Yeah, Taco would have definitely used that and not complained. He was good at this stuff.

And your final choice is, speak with dead. I can send you a link to that one. But that's like- Now, okay, can I ask about that? Sure. What, in the context of what we are doing, sure. What can you tell me about that,

the effect, that spell? Speak with Dead. Yeah, do you know what I'm asking? Yeah, so. I don't want to get in the specifics of, like. Laura Vith wouldn't, wouldn't know this. I would tell. Let me just say this.

We haven't had individual scenes where characters have been met at the river Styx is there shepherded into the afterlife, right? So there's rules with Speak with Dead. You cast it on a corpse And it has to have a mouth And cannot be undead And the

Oh, okay, so it's like fresh It's not like some of my grandpa Right, no, yeah It has to be a corpse Only 10 days old is the max Well, no, you can cast it on a corpse Every 10 days The corpse can be

Oh, I see. Much, much older than that. So, Liamuns Tiny Hut, Fireball Or speak with dead. They mostly dead I am Oh, God. God.

This is, y'all, you ask what the difference is between being an actual play podcast and playing touches and dragons at home, right? Because, like, the payoff, if speak with dead hits. Oh, it's massive. Massive. I mean, it's, like, massive. Like, story-wise, like, forget about it, right?

It's, like, massive. But it's also, like, so what? You know what I mean? You know, he who dies with the most toys win? So what? I have a spell if I can't. use it. On the other hand, fireball's like, we don't need this. Fireball, for sure. This kid tested

mother approved. I mean, it's been doing it since Gary Days. You know what I mean? It gets it done. The Gary way. I am going to go with... Now, Justin, before you decide... I'm going to go... No, no, no. I'm sorry, Travis.

No, if you go and speak with Dead, you could do pushing Daisy's roleplay. Yeah. Yeah, which would be amazing. I actually kind of... I feel like Speak With Dead is like too close to Rictus territory for me. Like, Davily with necromancy doesn't feel exactly right. So I think I'm just going to go with Fireball. Excellent. Yeah.

I don't think that's surprising for those. What? No love for Liamon's tiny hut. Too tiny this hut. Okay. I mean we just, we've already done that. Apparently I've already done that. Like, I don't remember all of my old, his name was Taco.

I don't remember all the, you know, I'm in the moment. I'm now, you know what I mean? This is today. Would you like to target another level or do want five randoms? Oh, can I, wait, in addition to, how many of I get? Three? So you have two more stones. So two more, two more draws.

You can either pick from three from a specified level. Level four. Oh, you don't have that one yet. Level three. Another level three. Another level three, okay. No, level two. Level two, level two.

Level two, level two. Final answer. Final answer. Okay, level two. The first is enlarge, reduce. I can't do that already? No, you have your hill giant thing that lets you get big. Yeah, so you could get like super.

How could I double dip? Well, you could go giant and then you could reduce to turn back to normal. Whoa, cool. No dip shit. I mean, you know that's not what I meant. I want to get double big. The second is knock. unlocking spell. And the third is

spider climb. Enlarge reduce, which does what it says on the 10. Knock, which lets you unlock things, or spider climb, which lets you climb like a spider would do. Yeah, we're going to grab spider climb. Okay. Make sure you unseat one of your, you can, you know, pop it back in whatever you want to, but this is like sort of the equivalent of preparing. Okay, how did, let me see, what's the best way of This is the problem with us never doing the whole Preparing thing.

Yeah. I'm looking at the spell list. I'm not like, are you adding these for me? No, you'll have to manage those. When you click manage spells and D&D beyond it, let's you. All right. So we'll do that. I think that that's better than color spray for sure.

And one more choice. I'll delete color spray from my prepared spray. How many are we allowed to have prepared? As many as if, I don't know, the thing will tell you. No, but I'm asking for, you said that I had to unseat something. So, like, I'm asking. That was, that's so that you don't go over your limit of spells. At this point, you all should have learned more spells than you can actually prepare at one time.

So. I don't think you're quite understanding. How many can I have? I'm now looking at five spells that I prepared. Lightning lure, absorb elements, burning hands, shield, detect thoughts. You were saying I need to unseat something. So I just unseated or I unprepared, I guess you would say, color spray to make room for the spider climb. But you have a limited number of prepared spells that you can have.

Sorry, not prepared. I'm talking about where it says add spells. You click that and it brings down like the whole big ass list of every spell. That is where you're going to be doing those. And I think can't you only learn a certain number of those at a certain time? Yeah, you can have like I can have 11 spells prepared. Yeah, you can have four cantrips and ten spells. Okay.

So if you're not at that limit, then you don't have to go and hop anything out. Okay. What was the name of the first one? Fireball. Yeah, that's right. Fireball. Okay. And SpiderCline.

Okay, one more choice, choose. Let's do a mix. Give me a selection. Okay. I'm just going to call them out if you want a link to the description. Let me know. Okay, first is... Wait, they raised... You know, there's a document of the random spell generator. Yes, that is what I'm using.

Yeah, oh, I meant if Justin wanted to look at it, you get a description. I like to just listen. Okay, we've got spray of cards. We've got... Snare? We've got... What spray of cards do, Spray of cards

You spray of cards. You spray a 15-foot cone of spectral cards. Each creature in that area must make a dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 2D10 force damage and is blinded

until the end of its next turn. It's absolutely inappropriate for the character, but it does sound sick. Yeah, it's fun as hell. You know what I mean? But it's like such a bad... Like a gambit kind of thing.

Whatever for sure, man. Third, we have Frostbite, a cantrip. That's sort of like a, I believe, a melee ice attack. Fourth, we have catapult, the spell. The first level spell that belonged to Gricon before his untimely passing. And fifth, we have sleep. So, your choices are spray of cards.

Sleep, snare, catapult, and frostbite. I'm getting catapult. It's what he would have wanted. Rat. Beautiful. Okay. You claim these stones and... I put the catapult one in a special pouch.

I keep right next to my nuts. Oh, okay. You don't put it in your gauntlet? No, not yet. Okay, great. My hands are full. I love it. Yeah, you put that one.

I just had to put that one in my secret note pouch for a second. Yeah. You, uh... For sentimental reasons. For sentimental reasons. You always loved my nuts. As you slot in the spider climb one, you are inundated with the memories of the spider.

The one who dressed up like Spider-Man in this contest. And you see him... Uncle Bun! He's a nerdy... I'm seeing Uncle Bun die before my very eyes. He gets picked on by all the other men. He's so small Flushed hamkins

Picks on him One day a big spider bites him And Flush tampons He puts him in the hospital For like two years But then he comes out of the hospital And his uncle Bun had passed away

That was totally unrelated He didn't really have anything to do with it But he feels pretty bad about it And then he learns to climb on walls No It was actually turbo scurvy He got Uncle Bun he had nothing to do with it Nothing to do with like

He didn't No responsibility the power's okay. Okay, those are your spells. Next, who wants to go? And then after we're done with all of our spells, we'll do some items. I'll go.

Okay. Which level would you like to target? Cantrip, please. Cantrip. We've got, Frans. Friends. Do you think by the third, enter the Spiderverse thing,

that we'll be able to get the spider into there? Yeah. I think that. And that'd be sick if they're like, I got running my adventure for you. Yeah. I don't remember what he sounded like. Mind sliver. It's the next one.

What's that? That is a psychic spell attack. You drive a disorienting spike of psychic energy into the mind of one creature you can see within range. They must succeed on an intelligent saving throw or take 1D6 psychic damage and subtract 1D4 from the next saving throw it makes before the end of your next turn. And you can increase the damage. Actually, you guys are above fifth level. So most of these spells are going to do more damage. This one does 2D6 now.

Okay, cool. And the third is chill touch. Chill touch. Chill touch, necromancy. It is. You create a ghostly skeletal hand in the space of a creature within range. You make a range spell attack. And on a hit, they take 1D8 necrotic damage and cannot regain hit points until the start of your next turn.

Yeah, it's taking that one. If the target of the spell is undead, it has disadvantage on attack rolls against you until the end of your next. next turn. And it does 2D8 damage. Yes, he'll be taking chill touch. Okay. Give me a... What have I got? I got...

Give me a third level spell. Okay. You hold out your hand and three new stones fly down to your position. The first is ascending. That's the sort of telekinetic secret messaging spell. We've got fly. L.S. you fly. And then we've got major image.

This is like a very advanced sort of illusion magic. Illusion within a 20-foot cube. And it seems completely real, including sound, smells, and temperature. Fly, please. Fly it is. Okay, I assume you are unprepared spells if you are full Yeah, I just assume you guys had more than, I think, 14 spells at this point, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and what would you like?

Can I have another cantrip, please? Another can trip, sure. I'd like to buy a vowel. Okay, first we've got Magehand. Classic. Okay, to Pockets who passed in the last trial. We've got friends again. It will be there for you.

Mm-hmm. And we've got shape water. That lets you have a fish man boyfriend. And he teaches you about, like, yourself. You know what? Make chance a classic for a reason, I'll tell you. All right. Those are your three.

And next up, we've got... Hellgram it. Fourth level. Don't have that yet. Okay, let's start with third level. Yeah, that is the next biggest one. All right, third level. What a maroon.

We've got... Who could be that kind of mistake. Hypnotic pattern. We've got... Major Image, again. And we've got... Summon Undead. This gives you like an undead spirit thrall who acts, I think, on your turn.

Major image is a big illusion spell, and hypnotic pattern is like, you know, a mass hypnosis spell. Yeah, let's go with an hypnotic pattern. Okay. All right, what next? Let's go with, let's do a cantrip. Cantrip. Okay. First up, we got...

Minor illusion. We've got friends, once again. And we've got firebolt. Minor illusion, friends are firebolt. Let's do minor illusion. Okay. Jot, all that down, please. You claim all of these spells. Plug them in with sort of faint residual memories of the wizards,

many of whom you all have defeated in this contest who trained those spells up in the first place and while you get a lot of memories of folks hitting the books real hard and practicing their stuff over and over and over again not much else sort of powerful details come through other than that. Hey Griffin, when I put in Magee,

Ann, tell me of Pocket's life on the streets. Pockets actually grew up in the lap of luxury. It's like you would think it's like a charming kind of like street urchin making her way. No, dude, total nepo baby. What an all over twist. Terrible. It feels bad. Do I get a third choice?

That was your third choice. I've only picked two. Just like Griffin. Hey. I got hypnotic pattern. I got hypnotic pattern and minor. illusion. Oh, okay. Yeah, then yes. Sorry. My apologies. I thought that was your third. Okay, one more hell, Grimmon.

Third level. Another third level spell. Yes. I will tell you guys, there's not many more of these that have not been claimed. I've been thinking about that way. It's a good point. We've got Liam Munn's Tiny. What? I've heard good things. We've got haste. And finally we have... Wait, did Hacy Jane's beef?

Hacy Jane has a different spell. Okay. And third, we have... Dispell magic. The party piper. They call it. The no fun allowed. No fun allowed.

Don't you already have counterspell also? You're the fucking... You're the fucking fun police. Hey, you guys doing magic? in there. I can smell it. I can smell it. Get out.

It sounds like a cancer. The RA spell. Yeah. I know components when I smell them. Jeez, that's all. You can also, if you don't want to unseat a spell for

one of these, assuming you're full. You can just say, no thank you, John. I know the sound of bone striking an oak ring, Jeremy. We know you're casting. Um, oh,

I'm inverting, I'm turning inside out. Is that what the spell was? Oh, that's so good. Oh, that's not liquefine. All my insides are now

outsides. That's real fucking funny. Try them back where they go. Calling your mom. All right. One of the three choices. Man, I don't. Dispel magic.

Leoman's tiny hut. Just to Get it off the board. Give me the damn hut. Yeah. Okay. Now watch, this is, that'll be the spell that the whole season turns on. It's going to change everything.

It well, man. Okay. Okay, before we wrap things up here at the Atelier, you guys also are able to draw a prize from the orb of conjuring. You all, because you got gold level rewards, we'll get to roll two D20s and take the higher result. Okay. Let's go and refer a short of this time.

You're already up there, Halgramma. Why don't you reach into the orb and tell me what you pluck out of there? All right. All right. And here's a six and two sixes. I get to roll again. No, no, not in the, sorry you do. So with a six, you reach in, you clasp your hands around a small kind of

metallic feeling disc and retrieve it. And what you retrieve is a very ornately painted metal dial. It is sort of split into two sides. On one side, there is a small illustration of a smiling sun, and on the other side is a frowning moon. And John Arbuckle says, oh, yeah, that's the sun and moon dial. You can place it on the wall on any enclosed. space and turn it to either fill the room with bright light or magical darkness. Oh. Yeah. It's very powerful stuff.

Don't do it at like a kid's birthday or party or something. No. I scare them real bad. Okay. Cool. The sun and moon dial sent to us by Marissa. Thank you, Marissa. Frequent contributor.

Who would like to go next? Well, if we're going on a reverse order, Rick, this is up. Okay. Whoa. She won. Nat 20. I got a Nat 1 and a Nat 20. The duality of man.

You reach into the orb, rictus, and after rifling through there, you feel something and it just feels like a bag of beans. You're like, nope, next, and swat that away. You try to clasp onto a few rings, but they're tricky to grab onto. And instead, you feel your hand sort of press into a very, sort of cool, faintly sort of damp piece of cloth.

You grab it and pull it out and you retrieve. It's the Shrout of Turin. It is not any kind of foreskin diviner otherwise. I don't think the Shrout of Turin was his foreskin, Griffin. Was it not? No, man. Please don't write. That would have really changed that.

It was the Shrout of Turin is this burial wrap. What a lot. What was the foreskin one? You, what on earth? What? The holy prepuse. I was thinking of the holy prepuice. That was the story we told you when you were a kid.

Sorry, man. I was thinking of the holy prepuice, guys. I'm so sorry. That's a different thing. That's the foreskin. The shroud of Turin is 14 feet long. I don't think Christ's... It is, as you pull it out, you see a cloak that...

It doesn't appear to be like one color throughout. It is almost animated, just sort of gray and white wisps, sort of faintly floating around. The cloak is somewhat transparent, so wear something underneath it. But it looks like you are holding sort of a garment made of sort of a cloud. And John R. Buckle says, wow, that's about as close to a grand prize as we get from the Orbit Conjuration. That's the cloak of the misty lake. The cloak of the misty lake wraps magically around the user. While wearing this cloak, your AC is increased by one,

and you may also cast the spell fog cloud once per day. Oh, hell yeah. So you can cosplay as duper sweet leaf if you'd like. This ability recharges after a long rest. That makes up for the fact that I have lost both the Shadow Sears Lantern and Jordan's secret stuff. Yeah. Okay.

And Loravith. you. Indeed. Oh my God, holy shit. Wow. God damn. Dang.

What did the odds gets that? This is unbelievable. Dr. Odzman. Okay, so that's, Justin has rolled a 40, which is to say

two 20s on the 20-sided dice. Ooh. Travis just got the grand prize. Travis just got the one I have for, you reach in to the orb. Don't try to make this one up. No, shush. You reach into the orb.

and you swat away a nasty bag of stinky beans. You actually grab the beans. But then wait, no, no, no, wait, Griffin, may I? Yeah. Can I, can I, wait for a second? I swat a bag of nasty beans, right? Yeah. But then something in me is like,

beans? Huh? Doesn't seem right. You know what I mean? Like, there's something like, why are there beans? And then I go back and I'm like, starts reaching through and digging through

and it's almost like, they don't want to be found. Okay. Were they maybe like hiding, was that a test? Yeah. Have I realized like, you know what I mean? Like, what is beans? Sure.

Okay, so you can do something with that. So you grab the beans. That quick, huh? And you pull them out. I thought there would be more of a story. I thought there would be a flashbacker. Okay, that's fine. That's good, yeah, no, no, no, okay.

You grab the beans. Well, just that quick. Wow. You grab the beans and your mind is flooded with memories of the farmer who, grew these beans. His name was Jacob and his was a meager life but one he was very proud of

and he and you pull them out and you see these beans were definitely special. Hey Griffin is it possible that they're so special that it may indeed take me a full week to realize just how incredible they are. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely, dude. You pull these beans. Dang. You know, I know exactly what they are. You pull them out, you open them up. And these beans don't look like your dad's beans. They don't look like what? They don't look like your dad's beans.

They don't appear to be any sort of single color at all. They appear to be filled with a little swirling gray clouds. and as you pop them all in your mouth and eat them because you can't resist, you see that John Arbuckle says, those were the beans of the Misty Lake. And when you eat those beans, your AC is increased by one, and you can cast the spell fog cloud once per day.

And this ability recharges after a long rest. They're sort of like the sister item to the cloak of the Misty Lake that your friend both pulled out. So you both have sort of Misty Lake stuff happening for you now. Can the fog come out of his butt, though? Because of his beans.

And so I'm like, so... You feel these magic clouds. So I'm like, as I'm chewing the beans, I'm like, I have a question, though. What about my other 20? You look down at the bag that the beans were in. It doesn't seem to be any single color at all.

The bag appears to be swirling around. And I was just slowly chewing. Dried as beans. Now normally you're supposed to soak them for six to eight hours. But his font, yeah. For lap sack. He says, good Lord, that's the little bag of the Misty Lake.

And if you put something in it, its AC is increased by plus one and it can cast the spell fall cloud once per day. Say you're saying. Oh, my, girl. There once was a great, let me finish. There once was a great sorcerer, the sorcerer of the Misty Lake. He had three things. One, he had a cloak.

Two, he had a little bag with nothing put in it. And three, he had a big friendship with Jacob. He had a friendship with Jacob, the bean farmer. So he bought all his beans one day for exchange. Normal bean. For exchange of a normal cow. And then I guess he put the beans inside the bag And they kind of just sort of

Well, what happens if you bring these three powerful artifacts together? Well, he just ate the beans. He could eat my cloak. In the bag, I guess if you want to do, this is like how they cast the spell and into the woods. For sure, for sure, for sure. Well, okay, let's be reasonable. Okay.

Because I did eat the beans, the magical beans. Yeah. Before really thinking about it. So I have selected that item. I don't get both the items, right? I have to choose. And sadly, I have to hand back. You get the beans of the Misty Lake and the little bag of the Misty Lake.

Are you sure? The little bag of the Misty Lake is so small. You're going to have a hard time putting anything in there. Can we call the beans toot fruits? You can't stick, you can't. You cannot stick your hand in there and be like, now it's on me. I have plus home more AC. So the way that, to me, that this worked was that the beans from Jacob were normal.

The bag was magic. Yeah, because and the bag transferred the magic to the regular beans. So I ate the magic beans that were originally regular, and I kept the magic bag, which now does not have magic. Yeah, I've added normal little bag to your inventory. You've added normal little bag here. Yeah, okay, got it. Awesome.

That makes perfect sense. I think it's very fair. Great. One AC. Let me just, hold on one second. I'm getting the double digits here. Wow, you had nine armor class before. That's pretty low.

You should talk to someone. You should talk to a medical professional. about your arbor class. There's a negative one dexterity problem. I don't know how to just like add. I can toss a magic item in there in a bit. So the day concludes. And after a night of rest, that is, I'd say,

maybe particularly fitful for you, Rictus in particular. Riktus, give me a wisdom saving throw, please. Okay. 16 plus 521. Bad dreams this evening. And part of it is like pretty explicitly like these continued assaults from, you know, these memories from the gentleman that at this point you have learned to sort of control. They're not going to be like a constant ongoing threat necessarily anymore. but they do make it hard to get a little bit of shut eye.

Am I learning anything from him? Like why he was weird? No, they're too, they are too like chaotic. And honestly, like the reason why you are having a hard time kind of discerning that and the reason why you're having sort of a difficult time focusing in general is this spell that you have gained, time stop, is a lot more powerful than anything you have like, fuck. with before. And just sort of having that in your brain is proving to be pretty bad for your mental health,

generally speaking. So you make it through the night. And when you all awaken, it is somewhat confusing. As you look out the windows, you see that the morning, the sun has not come. It has not risen. you look out and the sky around you, it doesn't look like the sort of like evening sky that you saw when you went to sleep.

It looks like cartoonishly scary. Like there's a huge full moon that seems like unnaturally large and there's like creepy clouds floating around in front of them and swarms of bats sort of flitting throughout the sky. Please, can you stop? And two big jack-a-lantern pump.

God, no! Loravith is terrified at Jacqueline and it's just like every character I've ever created. And you know that. Is it possible that just you don't, you're scared of? Well, Justin's definitely allergic to pumpkin. Yeah, we did learn that. Everybody knows that. You all, and sort of like getting the lay of the land, you see the members of the octave and some of the other aspirants have begun making their way toward the

graveyard at the corner of the of the Ziggurat Island. As you all approach and step in through the gates of the graveyard, you can all see, you all haven't spent equal amounts of time here. Rick, as you especially noticed, the layout has kind of changed. This mausoleum at the rear of the graveyard that you've gone into and sort of communed with this, well, in one case, this statue of death and in the other, the octave member responsible for necromancy. That mausoleum is gone, and standing in its place far at the back of the graveyard, is a large two-story manner. It is surrounded by a sort of wide, lush lawn, peppered with dozens of unmarked graves,

and this big manor house is surrounded, this yard is surrounded by a tall black iron fence. And the atmosphere in the area, as everyone kind of makes their way toward it, is pretty oppressive. You all step in toward the manor, and this black iron gate swings shut behind you. And as you file into this building where everyone is congregating for the trial, you are there with the nine other aspirants, which is 12 in total, you see the floating sort of image of four rictus, the octave of necromancy,

wearing this very fashionable, very sort of mystical-looking, dark purple robe that is hiding his face. And standing in front of him, you all see Osham. the octave member who sort of led you into your first trial and welcomed you to the island when you first got here, he says. Welcome all, welcome. Come in, come in. Welcome. As you probably have guessed at this point. Today, we will be conducting the trial of necromancy. Yes. Yes, Rictus, I assumed that you...

Sorry, was that out loud? Yes, it was out loud, I understand your excitement. You are likely well versed in what happens the possibilities of sidestepping the veil of death. And today you all will learn that lesson. You will also learn the way that death marks those who send people beyond that veil in either direction. I will be speaking for my associate here. ahead and introduce yourself. And you see

this floating wizard wearing this purple robe just hold up a slender gloved hand with four fingers. And Osham says, yes, okay. So, this trial will be different. This trial

marks the end of our no hurting each other. You all, if you... Hell yeah! Yes. If you so choose, You may, of course. Is Bucatini still around, Griffin? Framaggio Bucatini?

He is still around. I'm glaring at him so hard. Why? No, we have beef, remember? Formaggio Bucatini? Yeah, remember there was the episode where we were supposed to choose the people were going to deal with

and I bumped into him, but I kept going to the gentleman. Oh, no. Formatio Bucatini. Okay, you're right. Formaggio Bucatini is looking at you. He's going to try and fuck. Travis, roll an insight check. Oh, okay.

17 plus 2 and 19. Formaggio Bougatini's coming for your ass fucking hard. You better be ready turn one, motherfucker, because Formaggio Bucatini is going to absolutely come and stab you to death. I pointed his hat, and then I do like as if I were dragging the finger across the throat chester, but a tiny one up above, like, where his head would be. His hat sort of shuffles around and falls off.

Formaggio Bucatini really quickly scoops it back up and puts it on his head. It looks at you with an incredible. crease resolve to kill your ass. Osham goes on. He says, There are no rules against killing each other, but again, death has a way of keeping

tabs of those who deal with him. You will be wise to not be so eager to defeat your fellow aspirants, but if that is where the

fates guide you, then so be in. You may want to consider working together in small groups because there is no number of guaranteed survivors of this trial. And it would be a big bummer if everyone died and then the conclave was just sort of over. Any questions? How do we form these groups? Do we put bids in? Do we have to audition each other? How would that work?

I'm so glad you asked. Everyone, drop your buffs. No, just kidding. You just sort of talk about it. I can't really instruct you on how to make friends. Dibs! Who are you dibsing? Yourself?

No, no, on you two guys. You can't call dibs. What, just showing my... affection for you. Seem more like ownership. Well, I go over and I do a secret handshake with Franklin.

Franklin, uh, okay, give me um, give me a persuasion check or just a charisma check. This isn't a persuasion check. Unless it's an intimidating secret handshake. No. Ah, beans. Three plus one and four. Uh, for your cha check,

uh, pranklin looks up at you and gives you a kind of sly nod. But he leaves me hanging? No, he shakes your hand, but he squeezes it a little weird. Okay. I guess it just leaves you and me, buddy. Loravit.

You see that duber sweetleaf has also come to just sort of stand in your shadow, sort of reflexively, Loravith. I assume, sir, that perhaps we could... I've learned some new spells. I think I can hold by own if we could complement each other's abilities and see each other through this trial. Lorbith. And I kick him in the stomach. Sorry.

Sorry, I punched you the stomach. I didn't want you to punch him in the stomach. I have just a sense of what you're going to say. I just feel like it's going to be mean. You're punching Helgramette in the stomach? No, no, no. Go ahead. Go ahead.

I mean, I know you have affection. Isn't he a little what, Bugman? Isn't he a little, small? I mean, we need bangers. Hey, we're down to the final 12, man. Who would you suggest, Bugban? I'll be honest with you. I'm not sure who still.

Okay, I can give you a roundup if you would like. The 12 survivors, the three of you, you got Duber Sweet Leaf. You got Pranklin, you got Formaggio Bucatini. The other survivors, you see Scorpo, Hell Grammat, the large Scorpion man who you have beefed with in the past. We have beef, yeah. Hasty Jane is here. Burger Man, the spider, who is a spider,

who you have also had dealings with in the past, Hell Gramont, Tommy Falcon and Hippocates. Wait, I thought he died. Didn't we see his memories? There was a different spider. There were three of the spiders. Holy crap. He's a great game.

All right, look, I know you all let, Let the kid join us. I don't want to put you in the position. No, wait a minute. Now, hold on. I didn't know Scorpo. It was available. Scorpo!

Scorpo comes over, gives you a fucking big old meaty hand, big predator hand slap. Big old, like, you know it. Laura V. Then we look at Duber and we're like, good news, Duba. Now you have two dads. You can count on me.

Yes, Duber, I'll be your other dads. Sorry, the, sorry, the butler seems to be interrupting our conversation. Butler, Hell, Grammat, please leave us be. Mr. Bugvedere. Mr. Bugvadeer, the dads are talking. But I asked first. Burger Man flops, Burger Man flops over to you, Hell, Gramet, and holds out a similar, like, power handshake, like,

and he flops his little bun up and down. Oh, no, I'm, no, I'm all. already committed to Rictus. Rictus, you need a third, right? We're already talking to Hasty Jane. Oh, crap. As you are sort of trying to find your group, Hell, Grammett,

you all feel a stiff wind blowing through the open door of this manner into the lobby where you all are standing. And as that happens, the moonlight outside begins to disappear as these thick clouds, kind of billow in front of it. And with that, Osham says,

It is time for the trial of necromancy to begin. And you all hear the sound of rustling outside and turn to look through the windows and the open door of the manor out into the yard out front where all these unmarked graves were. And you can see faintly. as the light is outside now, you can see movement around these graves.

The dirt is sort of rising and falling and parting. And then you begin to see limbs. You see hands and arms pulling bodies upwards out from next to these graves. And as some of them begin to breach the ground-level surface, you look and across this sort of field of the rising dead, you see familiar faces. You see the face of Dr. Lagoon as he pulls himself upwards out of one of these graves. You see the sort of hooded, red, webbed cowl of the spider, Spider-Man Spider, Spider, pull himself out of a grave.

You see Gricon pull himself upwards out of a grave. You see the gentleman pull himself upwards looking around the 40, wait, let me do my math right. 44 minus 12 is 52.

From the graves surrounding you in varying states of decay, the 52 other aspirin, other aspirants that you all have felled during the conclave have been revived as these monstrous shuffling dead. And you turn back and see Osham and four begin to vanish. And Osham says, Oh, right. Your mission for this trial. Survive until sunrise. If only someone had Speak with Dad.

Maximum Fun. A Worker-owned Network of Artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.