The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 22

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

The Trial of Necromancy, Part I Only 14 wizards are left -- alive! The remainder must face their fallen competitors and survive the night in a house with zombies . . . as well as with their murderous living rivals. Royale Theme: “Wizard Disco” by Louie Zong: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/wizard-disco Original Music by Griffin McElroy Additional Music in this Episode: tribute to eddy" by Jean Toba: https://jeantoba.blogspot.com/; “Oneiri” by Kai Engel http://www.kai-engel.com/; and "Rust Colony" by ROZKOL: https://rozkol.bandcamp.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

A dozen wizards face the horde of marching death beyond the door. The civil twilight deep and blue creeps slowly toward a brighter hue. For sunlight's safety, 12 shall strive to kill the rest and stay alive. But to those killers, bear in mind that death shall answer death in kind. Welcome back to Taz Royale, our Battle Royale winner take all season. You join us as we begin the next trial, the sixth trial that our aspirants have faced off. Only 12 wizards survive. Those wizards include Loravith, Dream Wonder, Gonjabon, Rick is Raven with the fourth, Hellgramma, and nine others.

At the end of the last episode, you all had made your way into a mansion that had appeared in the cemetery here on the of the octave ziggarot found your way inside where you were informed that you would be attacked by the unquiet dead inside this house the objective for this trial is to survive until sunrise and you were also told that the usual restrictions of you know don't kill each other have been have been lifted but that doing so will incur some some negative attention so you all i would like to announce that the rule about killing me is still firmly in place. Okay, yeah. So we did agree to that before we started this season, and I was like, listen, guys, it's going to be like a battle royale season. It's going to be a squid game. It's going to be a battle royale.

It's going to be a fortnight. And Justin was like, I don't want to do that because I don't want to get hurt. So we did put a little special rule in there that you guys can't hurt Justin, but that he can hurt you. I met myself, the performer, Justin. Oh, yeah. That's fine. Yes, if you'd like to extend the protections to my character. Yeah, for sure.

Lorvith, Dream Wonder, a gongubon. By way, good news, bad news, a little bittersweet this week found out they are making a Shogun season two, which is great for us as people, because it'll give us, it's one of the few things that we as brothers like that has nothing to do with our jobs. And all of Shogh. And Father. Yeah, and Shogun, and I, but people will realize that I'm just doing Cosmo Jarvis from Shogun in this character. So that will be unfortunate when that becomes blatantly obvious. Well, we should, we will probably wrap this season up.

before season two of Shogun arrives. So maybe they'll think that he's copying you. Oh, yeah. There you go. So let's begin. A shrill horn rattles the windows of this foyer in which the three of you stand, marking the start of the trial of necromancy.

Beyond the large double doors leading outside to the graveyard, you and the dozen wizards assembled here in the entryway can see the shambling, half-decomposed forms of your former competitors punch upward out of their burial mounds and begin sort of crawling toward the building. Hearing beyond them over the horizon of the island, you can see that the night sky has just sort of barely begun

to shift from pitch black to like a deep royal blue, marking the impending sunrise that will bring this trial to an end. But, you know, looking at it, you know that it will be some time before that happens. As things get started here, Scorpo is the first to spring into action, racing towards those big double doors and slamming them shut, and he begins securing it with a nearby lamp.

Rictus, you see Pranklin, who you had kind of teamed up with, in turn, starts enchanting the windows here. Oh, so we're already inside. Okay, I thought you all are inside. You all are inside. The door on us. Yeah, yeah, no one's going in. Ha ha, ha.

Fuck you guys. He begins casting a movable object wards on the windows in this room, sort of helping Scorpo secure it. As they are doing that, a red light flashes through the room. And when you turn to the source of it, you see Hasty Jane is sort of at the first landing of the staircase leading up to the second floor from this foyer. And she has run into what appears to be a barrier, just a light red barrier sealing off the second floor from you all. And she is on the second floor? No, she is on the sort of landing on the staircase. the second floor has been warded off by this great large red barrier.

She's on the landing? Yes, sort of. You see how the staircase kind of like goes up to a landing and then it goes up to the second floor. Yeah. And I would say like half of the other aspirants here just fucking bolt deeper into the first floor of the house. Sort of scared out of their minds. And Scorpo turns back to face the three of you and Dober and says, there's too many ways in on the ground level.

We're not going to be able to defend them all. We've got to disable that barrier and reinforce our position up on the second floor. We've got to locate whatever's powering that barrier and disable it before the dead break through our defenses. Good thinking, partner. Way to go. That's my partner. Scorpo gives you a glance and he sighs. I give him a nod.

A knowing nod. He says, hell, hell, graham at whatever animosity is this. between us. We have to put it aside today or we're going to die you. I don't have venomosity. I'm proud of you and you're forward thinking. Okay. Okay. Put a pin in that. Right. The undead have begun to approach the front door. He looking out the window, he says, don't let him touch you, don't let them bite you, don't let them scratch you. Don't let them have your social security number. Absolutely. Don't let them fish you. Uh, how old do we know the layout? We need some salt for the doors

Hell, Graham it, go see if you can find salt in the kitchen. Okay. Scorpos, go see if you can find some salt in the kitchen. Scorpo kind of sighs and trudges off to the kitchen after making sure that the front door is secure. What is it, Laura? How well do we know this place? How well do we know the way out of this place?

Well, this mansion didn't exist before today. It seemed to be conjured out of magic. And so, I mean, you got a sense of, you know... So he knew about the kitchen. This is what I'm trying to figure out. Do we know this place or do we need to? to recon this place. You could see, as you sort of approach the building, right, you could see in, you know, the front and get a general kind of sense for it. There's, Scorpo is right, there are

lots of entrances and windows leading into this building. The kitchen is right off of the foyer. You can kind of see into it from where you are. It is like the next room over. Everything else, you are, I would say, not 100% sure. You know that there's a drawing room kind of off to the side of the foyer as well. You can see that. I'm going to head in there with Dover. Okay. Doober looks at you as you head off sort of dutifully and is just like absolutely sticking by you pretty scared. I lean down to Franklin and say, yeah, the salt doesn't do anything. Let's go. He likes that shit a lot, man. The other room that you all can see into here is the dining room sort of here in the very center of the first floor.

Before we leave, Hell Grimmis is going to cast alarm on the inside part. like on the floor. Okay, that's a really, really... Right next to the door. Okay, I'm going to put down... I'm going to put down a little line here so that we remember that that alarm has been set. That's very good.

The intent being that it'll sound off if they breached the door. It's so sad, Dad, that you have to explain why you're doing a competent thing, so out of less deal, would it be... You have to explain your motivation. It's an extremely confident thing. It's such a rare occurrence.

Well, let's give a... have to like, there's not a joke. I'm not doing a bit. It's a real alarm. He's not going to step in it and slip in oil. Yeah. Like, home alone. As you're setting down that alarm, first of all, are you making it an audible sort of alarm?

Or is it a psychic sort of just to you alarm? No, I think it's audible. Okay. As you are putting this ward down right in front of the entryway, the first of the undead reach, the front door. And you can see that what has approached the front door is probably 10

to 12 undead sort of entities. You see a couple familiar faces sort of in there, but a lot of them are too moldy and decomposing for you to make out all of their identities. But we are going to be treating them like a swarm here that has begun to kind of batter

against the front door. But it does seem like the wards that Pranklin laid down in the the barring of the front door that Scorpo did is holding for now. I am going to cast protection from evil and good on myself. On yourself, gotcha. Yeah, which includes protection against undead. Okay. And then I'm going to grab Pranklin's hand,

and we're going to go into the drawing room looking for like another door. I don't want to hang out in the drawing room. There are other doors at the rear of the room leading to the dining room. Oh, okay, great. Yeah, then we'll take that door. Okay. So you all sort of branch out and make your way into the neighboring rooms. So wait, they just went into the dining room?

Yes. Oh, that's on this level, isn't it? That is on this level, yes. Okay. Everything on this map is first form. I understand. Okay. How old, Gramet, are you, what is your idea here, actually?

You're still in the foyer. He's going to stick with his buddies. He's going to, you know. Your buddies are split up. We all just split up in a different ways. Oh, we'll win three different directions. Well, okay. And just say you weren't paying attention, Dad.

Just say I was watching the news or something. You know. He's playing Fallout 76. I think you'll head to- I was downloading a patch for Fallout 76. He'll go find Scorpo in the kitchen. Okay. Great.

So you all having warded the foyer split up into these different rooms. I'll tell you what. Let's go ahead and roll initiative. We're not going to get into. combat necessarily, but it will be good to have that sort of on hand. Whoa, those are real physical dice. Someone didn't roll very well, but that's a beautiful dice. Uh, three. Okay. That's pretty two. I got 11. 11. Okay. And you got at 12, Loravith? Yep. Okay. 13, actually. 13, perfect. Okay. So, we are going to start in the drawing room. Loravith, you

scamper in there through the east exit of the foyer and find yourself in a very posh sort of lounge area. There's a piano in a corner. There's a like a little bar where there's some some bottles of beverages all lined up on shelves against the wall. There's a huge wall of windows by the piano facing the front entrance of the house where you can see sort of where the the undead have begun to smash against the front entrance of the building. They have not fanned out necessarily to a point where they have made their way over to this big window display. There are a couple doors out of here through one you can see into a library. And you hear a couple of other aspirants moving around in there, but you can't quite see who or what's going on.

And there's also a door into the dining room where Pranklin and Richtus have had into. Also in this room, looking out the windows sort of in stunned terror is Tommy Falcon, who's just like kind of holding his hoverboard next to him, just kind of frozen in place. And Duber looks up at you, Lorvis, says, What do we do, sir?

What should we be? Listen, I need to do, trust me, I need to move your marker for a moment. You put him on top of the piano. Inside. Inside the piano. Listen, Duba, you're going to be safe here. Inside the piano.

piano and I need you to hide inside the piano until I come back and tell you it's safe. Okay, sir, but I'm not, I'm not sure if I'm going to fit. Duba, it's a large piano, look at the size. What if, I don't know, his skeleton comes along and begins playing the piano and he hears the dull sound. And then look at it at a perfect fit. As he's like saying his thing about like, what if a skeleton plays the piano, aren't you? Don't care. Perfect. Now stay mum.

Stay mum, Duba. Daddy's got some work to do. At the sound of the lid of the piano slamming down, startles Tommy Falcon out of his reverie. He turns real quick, sort of drawing into a combat pose, then looks at you. Flying drop kick right out the window. Oh, for real?

Yeah, man. Hell yeah. Tommy Falcon. Okay. He's in here with Dooper. All right, man, absolutely. Give me an attack roll. You're going to try and, I guess this will be to move him five feet.

Oh, yeah, baby. let's get it going. I rolled Nate. Rolled Nate. Well, roll your unarmed attack, right? What? I did. I rolled an 8 plus 6, 14.

Okay, yeah. That hits Tommy Falcon. Okay, good. I should have said it with more confidence. You can make a special attack. It's part of the attack action. Push creature 5. Oh, I'm sorry, it is not an attack.

If you are just trying to shove him, right? You're trying to move him out of the window. Okay, so let's do an athletics check. He's going to contest it with his acrobatics check, and we will resolve it that way. Tommy Falcon has rolled an 11 plus 1, a 12. 12 plus 3. 15. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. Tommy Falcon turns to look at you as you slam the lid of the piano down on Duber, and he goes, Oh, man, what are we going to do? We're all going to do. You kick him square in the chest, and, as you do so, he goes flying backwards, smashing through the plate glass window. He is going to take some damage just from that window. He's also going to, I'm going to use Hilltumble, so he's prone to.

I need a distraction. Okay, yeah, absolutely. You have created a hell of a distraction. A bait really is more accurate than delicious chickeny bait. A sacrifice? Yeah, some. Delicious avian bait. Some might even say a sacrifice.

The colonel's been cooking. We got chicken. Comey. The sound of the shattering glass attracts the attention of the corpse mound here. And you see that those undead that were clawing at the front door have begun to clamber over towards Tommy Falcon laying outside the window. From inside the beginning, you hear Duber say, oh, have they broken in, sir? I'm going to crack it open. Crack it open the top of the piano.

Duba. Yes. We're very close to the end of it now, Duba. You're going to hear things that may be very frightening for you. I would ask that should it become too disconcerning, you strum these strings here under your finger pads. Do you feel those, Duba? You play yourself a jaunty little tune

in case the noises get too upsetting because you shouldn't listen to what happens next. Okay. Can I, what if someone gets in here and is it about to find me, can I play a jontie tune also to like tell you, like, come back, please help me? Duba, I can't bother myself with your question right now, Duba. But let me guess at what you're asking, and yes, you can pee in the piano if you need to, you may urinate or defecate as need as boys I want to do.

I'm an adult man, sir. The lid closes. As you keep on insisting, too much. You are a big boy. And yes, I understand. Yes, you're a big man. You're my big man. Please stay in the piano where you are safe.

All right. Rick this, you and Pranklin dash into the dining room. Pranklin's still cackling at your great prank on Scorpo. As you arrive there, you see Hippocrates, the sort of plague doctor-looking necromancer, aspirant that you've encountered a couple times before turns and just kind of like nods at you. He is busy just like tearing this room apart looking for something. He looks at you. He says, do you know what we're supposed to be looking for, how to get rid of the barrier? Is it like a button or a...

You don't know. I mean, honestly, your guess is as good as mine. but you keep looking, Franklin, start grabbing chairs and shit and let's barricade these doors. He points at the doors leading back out to the foyer. There's those doors, he seems to say. A quick description in the room,

there's a couple of fireplaces sort of flanking the west and east walls of the room, and then there's two big dining tables with like a dozen chairs each, seated at each one. And then at the very rear of the room, there seems to be like a little, what's the word, stage, but like a raised...

Diocese. A Dias, yes, thank you so much, with a throne-adjacent chair sitting on top of it, looking out into the dining room. Pranglin points at the doors you guys just came through. Back to those doors, or there seems to be some going to the kitchen and drawing room or the servant quarters and library. He's sort of gesturing all this with his hands. Yes to all.

Okay. He is going to... Not the ones. Let's leave the ones. on either side to the left and right, the east and west unblocked. He starts laying out chairs forming a barrier around some of those doors. What are you doing

in here, Rickus? I'm also going to search. Tell me about the fireplaces here that I see. Yeah, I mean, they appear to be fairly modest. A lot of stuff in this house is like super duper fancy. These appear to be like way more functional in nature. They are not lit. They are not lit at all. In fact, I regret to tell you that they have never been lit. They're pretty cringe. As far as fireplaces go, there's some ashen logs kind of like tucked away in each one.

Then I'm going to look closer. What's that? The throne. Ashen logs have been recovered, sire. The ashen logs are still intact. A log still burns. Okay. It was just as you foretold, sire.

The ashen logs are perfectly preserved. You are looking around sort of the throne up there on the dais? Well, I sit on it. Oh, okay. Because if there's going to be a button or some shit, it would be reachable while you're sitting in it. Okay, get me. You're looking for a Scooby-Doo prank. Yeah.

Give me a perception check, please. A sitting check? How good do I sit? Just perception to see, like, how good is it to sit? Oh, my. It's uncomfortable. Yeah, that's a one. You've rolled a natural one.

You sit down and as you do, you hear two sounds happen simultaneously. The first is a big loud fart and Franklin turns back to look at you and points and fucking busts up laughing as you pull a small inflatable device of some sort. How'd you even do that, Franklin? Franklin's so sick with it as he continues to lay down chairs in front of the room. You're an assassin. You also hear a loud crinkle as you sit down and you see tucked sort of into the crack next to the cushion of this room is a map as you unfolded, a map of the grounds.

The problem is you sat on it so hard that it crinkled up almost entirely beyond recognition. But now you all can see sort of the general layout of the building. It seems like there were some telltale smudges of a sort that had been marked onto the map. Maybe it was the force of the whoopee cushion blast that, like, seem to smudge those so that they are not helpful anymore. But now you can see hold the... Nothing here. Hippocrates looks is, I thought I heard a crunch. Yeah, no, I had a candy bar in my back pocket that I forgot about.

Okay, great. I found this. He holds up a vial, a green glass vial that appears to have some liquid in it. He says, I think it's a person. or it's a poison. And until I determine which one it is, I'm a medical doctor. Until I determine which one it is,

I don't think we should drink this bad boy. So it's a, it's a potion or a poison? What would you, is it 50-50? It's either good or it's bad. No, there's actually way more poisons than there are potions. So I would say it's like 10, 90 best shot.

Do you want me to drink it? Do you want to feel like drinking it? No, it just felt like you were kind of... It's a poison and I'm a doctor. Were you angling for that? It felt like you wanted me to drink it. Give me another perception check, Britus. Well, that's a 24 total.

Okay. I will tell you with a 24 total, you are talking here to Hippocrates. He does not seem to notice that underneath this table that he is standing right in front of, the marble tiles have cracked quite a bit. There is just a sort of a patch of exposed earth. below that hole and you see it begin to kind of

tremble and part as you see a hand begin to clamber upwards from it. Hippocrates has not- Hippocrates- Grab him and move him out of the way. You pull him right out of the way as an arm swings out of the hole and you see a lone, undead figure climb out of the hole. Who is it? Give me a...

Minute to come up with the person. No, I know who it is. Thank you so much. I know who everyone is. Climbing out of the hole. Give me a history check, I think. This is your own personal history to see if you recognize this figure.

25 total. Wow. Gosh dang. Okay, well then I'm going to tell you outright. Uh, they are, their face is almost entirely like unreadable. Looking at the sort of spandex uniform that they are wearing, you can make out who it is exactly. It is Ray's, one of the elemental gladiators that you dispatched, uh, in the, in the trial of, uh, evocation, uh, shape-shift. into the form of a giant house, I believe. You landed the killing blow, getting rid of your death mark curse. Hippocrates looks at you as you pull him out of the way. He's like, wow, thank you. Thank you so much. You could have just let me die there. Rays, as he talks, you see that he turns his eyes away from Hippocrates

and instead turns to stare directly at you, Rictus. And as Ray's kind of makes eye contact with you, his eyes, the pupils of his eyes flash red. And he begins to climb with a little bit more intention. As that happens, you also see the hand of another undead begin to punch its way upwards from the hole. What do you do? I cast chromatic orb. Okay. What level?

Uh, you first. Okay. And I'm going to go with acid. Okay. Uh, you are launching an orb of acid at, this is an area attack, I think, a small area attack, Cromatic orb. Uh, no, it's just a range spell attack. No, just a range spell attack.

He is, uh, he's prone and like, not upright, so I'll give you an advantage on this attack roll. Oh, thank God. Okay, there we go. 22. The first one was a nine. Okay. going to be 3D8 acid damage. 12.

12. Okay, that doesn't seem to have much, like, additional effect on him. Acid is not, like, whatever the element is that this zombie is weak to. But you have, you blow off, like, one of its arms, and it just kind of, like, melts in the acid next to where Hippocchese is standing. He takes, like, a big step back. this this particular zombie is is in terrible shape the one climbing up next to it which has now breached the the dirt below the table is wearing an almost matching sort of spandex uniform only this one is sort of bright green in color you recognize as days the other another one of the elemental gladiators similarly it makes eye contact with you ignoring hippocop And Socrates and Pranklin in this room entirely and mad-dogging you as it clambers out of the hole.

Let's jump over to Hellgramit. You are down in the kitchen as you arrive. You see two figures have gotten in here before you. One is Scorpo, who is looking through all of the various shelves and cabinets in the kitchen, trying to find salt in order to seal the door. You hear him muttering like, I don't even think salt is a thing. I just, he knows a lot about undead stuff. I believe I overheard him telling his young ward that it was a bunch of BS or his partner. Oh, great.

Great. Give me a, the other figure in this room you see is Formaggio Bucatini, who is, you see, has gotten kind of distracted. He is also having sort of a tough time with the reality of this situation, just as Tommy Falcon was. He, it appears to be, he is doing a little bit of press. work for like a meal and, uh, he is just kind of muttering to himself or is he maybe even talking to someone who maybe lives inside of his big tall chef's hat. I'll never tell. So, uh, give me a perception check, please, as you come into this room. Perception check. All right. It's called a tog, Griffin, by the way. Or tog? That's a Nat 13. Oh, wow. Uh, you see as you arrived and you

started speaking to Scorpo, he tucked something that he had found in one of the cabinets. He sort of stood up quickly and tucked it into the back of his trousers, trying to hide it and is sort of casually, but you definitely clocked it. He said, okay, are the front doors holding? So far, no alarm, yes. Okay. Looking out the windows, he looks back and says, it looks like the undead have moved to a different part of the building. I think this room is secure. Let's let's, uh, why don't you keep giving it a good once over and, uh, I'll move a little bit further into the house and, uh, see, see, see what I can find. Uh, uh, good. Yes, yes, yes. Um, inspect. How about the servants quarters? It's right next to us. You want, yeah, I'll head in there and, uh, do a lap and, uh, hopefully I'll find whatever is getting this, this barrier up.

And, uh, let's, it's good to be sort of allied with you in this, in this moment. I know we've had our issues in the past. Yes. Yes. It's species is. That's what we're sticking with. Okay. That's, okay. Hell, Grammott's going to go over and talk to Formaggio. Okay, Formaggio, holding a big sharp chef's knife, has begun to chop up an onion on the cutting board. Just kind of like eyes.

What you make in there for me? He looks up at you, and he says, Ratatouille. Oh, wow. Wow. Saying the quiet part out loud. Shit. We don't have turnips, but I thought I would make everyone a nice.

I figured if we gave the zombies, ratatollies, maybe they would need the ratatouille. There's turnips right in that pantry, right next to us. Oh, you saw turnips in there? Yeah. Give me a deception roll. You did not look in that freaking pantry, dude. How do you know? Because you didn't say it out loud.

I'm here, and you're here. Okay. Here's an insight check. Huh? I got an insight check of 16. Your deception check was, this is a contested check for lies. Oh, okay. 14.

Okay. Formaggio turns to look at you and says, the pantry is locked. It was locked when I came in here. He's holding the knife and kind of in front of him now sort of, he's crying, and you don't know if it's the onion that he's chopping up. I don't even know if onions in Rattuckin'i, but I assume it is. It's in freaking everything. Formaggio. Formaggio.

Can we just talk for a minute? Let's be, can we be real? You're not coping well with this threat, are you? You're a little, are you worried about the, uh, the waves of undead soon to be upon us? I'm a magical chef. I know, I know. So yeah, I'm a little afraid of the, I've been afraid since the moment I stepped on foot of this island. I haven't stopped being afraid.

I'm going to be afraid until I win or die. I understand. May I make a suggestion? Yeah. The pantry, what I was trying to trick you before. Yeah. And there may be turnips in there. We don't know, right?

Yeah. Why don't you go in there and I can assure you that you will be safe? I can assure you you will be safe. Let's unlock the pantry. You go in there. Okay. And I will protect you. Give me a persuasion.

Since he caught you in a lie, I'm going to need at least a 16 on this. It is a high check for you to do this after getting caught like that. Persuasion check. All right. All right. That'll do. Dirty 20. Okay, with a dirty 20.

Formaggio has no reason to trust you. In fact, I would say he has pretty good reasons not to trust you. But he is so pants shittingly terrified in this moment that he is going to. sort of nod. He walks over. There's just like a key ring next to the pantry. He unlocks it and says, you're not going to, like, set the pantry on fire or anything while I'm inside of it, right?

Farageo, please. It's a kitchen. Where would we find fire? He kind of sighs and steps in and says, I'll bar it from, I'll lock it from this side. Do you think this door will hold if, like, zombies get in here? Absolutely. will it hold. Okay. All right. Um, I said, don't I need to lock it from out here? I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. And then slide the key and then slide the key back under to me.

Gotcha. And then that way I'll be able to get out when it's time to end. This is, this is, this is so good. Okay. You will feel safe. Awesome. Great. Uh, he shuts the door. You see the key slide out from underneath it. And, uh, you, you, are you locking him in there? Oh, yeah. Okay. You lock the door. Uh, you, uh, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, hear fromage to say, oh, there's a, wow, there's a nice grue here. I might, I might pivot on the recipe a little bit, do it like a cheese, cheese a cheese, yeah, yummy down. Yummy down on that. All righty. Do you return the key to him? Do you return the key to, oh yeah, let me get that key, buster? You know what? If I give it to you, you're just going to have to give it back to me because you can't unlock it from the inside, right? Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Yeah, all right. So, you just

hang in there. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Take care of yourself. I will. Don't betray me.

Don't betray me. It's Royale. Why would I betray you? All right. And he casts infestation to go under the door. Oh, Jesus Christ, hell, grammat. Is this a betrayal? Curse your sudden benevolible betrayal.

All right. Go ahead and what is that? I think that's a city of infatement. station. Constitution saving throw. Okay, yeah, 14. What level are you casting this at? I guess you've reached fifth level. It's a cantrip, so this is going to be 2D6 if it hits. Okay. Okay, he's going to make a Constitution saving throw. It is going to be a, uh, that is a 19. You hear him screaming, uh, as, as the bugs crawl on. He's like, oh, hell great, bugs got in. Oh, gosh. They're eating all the cheese. Come back, boys.

Well, just... Did you make those bugs? Hell Grimmitt, did you make those bugs? No, of course I didn't make them. He starts pounding at the door. I'm not a queen. Listen, I gotta go. You take your...

Those bugs are to protect you in case the worst happens and something breaks down the door. Later! He's going to keep pounding on the door. As he does so, through the windows, you can see it's attracting some attention as some undead begin to sort of approach the kitchen.

Are you leaving this room or are you, what is you going to? Exit stage left, yes. Okay, you're falling Scorpo into the servant's quarters. Great. Okay. Back in the drawing room, Loravith through the window that you just kicked Tommy Falcon through. You see the next act is the corpse mound, which as it approaches Tommy Falcon as he tries to sort of scramble backwards, trying to get to his feet.

It is going to take three attacks. The first, you see, like, six different hands reach outward and grab into Tommy Falcon and pull him sort of into the pile. The next sort of couple of attacks that happened, you are not really partied to. The only thing you hear is the shrieking sound of a bird. As Tommy Falcon, you just see feathers fly upwards out of the corpse bound. And moments later, you see his sort of. beaked visage poking out of the pile. And simultaneously, the dozen sort of corpses here that just consumed Tommy Falcon and Tommy

Falcon, all of their heads slowly turned towards you. And they see me. They look up. They look up through the windows at you. And you see all of their eyes have begun to glow bright red. Yeah. Duba, I know I told you not to look, but you won't want to miss this. I know how you love the...

You see the lid of the piano crack, and then you see Duber poke his head up very slowly and see, as he does that, you notice that none of the corpses turn to look at him. All of them are sort of eyes locked on you, and Duber very slowly lowers the lid of the piano downward, and you hear him say, It's okay to pee in here.

Absolutely, Duba. I'm making Lorovis love a chicken. And then I cast fireball on the big pile of bodies and the corpse mound. I'm just going to fucking torch it. Absolutely. I love it. Fireball time. You heave a great...

Kids love Minecraft, so I assume Doobr loves references. Oh, Duber, it feels at peace. You can't see him, but you know, like, Doobre has been pacified by the Minecraft reference. You hear him go, you hear him go, chicken, chalky, from inside the PM. It's almost inoffable. That's good. Yeah, Snover chicken donkey, yes. I still don't understand what that means.

This is going to hit a 20-foot radius sphere. The corpse pile, I'm going to make a group sort of dexterity saving throw. I'm actually going to make the corpse pile a little bit hardier now that there's an additional corpse in it. Okay. All right, so a dexterity saving throw. I'm going to make this with disadvantage because it's a shambling pile. And also, I do think swarms are susceptible to. to area of effect attacks.

I also just would like it represented that I distracted them with Tommy Eagles' incredible sacrifice. Yeah, no, I mean, they did not climb in this room, right? They are still outside of the window. They are not moving particularly quickly, but you manage to sort of buy yourself around here. Okay, they rolled an 11 on their deck save, which I do not think is going to clock in below your spell save. so you're going to roll a whole bunch of damage here. It's going to be fireball. I think 8D6.

Yeah, 8D6 fire damage. All right. Damn. That's a lot of them. 34. Yeah, it's nice to watch all them digital dice go scroblin across the screen. 34. Okay.

You get the sense as you hurl this ball of flame into the pile of shambling corpses. it's actually really fucking them up. You hear a sort of chorus of screams coming from the undead aspirants outside. This is actually going to hit them for 68 points of fire damage. And you can see you have sort of trimmed the fat a bit. A couple of these bodies have stopped moving entirely and kind of lay prone in the grass outside as the remaining sort of now on fire. zombies begin sort of turning their attention toward climbing through the the shattered window.

I don't suppose. You also see one of the undead grabbed Tommy Falcons hoverboard and like kind of jokingly like, check me out guys. But can't really, but can't do it because he's not coordinated enough. So wait, hold on. Is that Tommy Falcon? No, it's another one. The Tommy Falcon zombie looks at that zombie is like, hey, cut it out, man.

That's offensive to me. Oh, okay. So I was going to ask, I thought there might be a. chance that once a couple of them died, Tommy Falcon would be like, hi-h-h-h-h-h-ha. Chop his way out. Chop out. You see Tommy, you've only seen Tommy Falcon's head. All according to plan, buddy.

You've only seen Tommy Falcon's head at this point. As you thin out the crowd, you can now see some of his upper torso, and it's just bones. It's just empty bones. Like, they killed him so fucking fast. Yeah. So, like, he's super dead. What are you doing? You have torched this corpse, man.

Are you staying here, standing your ground fighting? Are you investigating? Are you moving on? Or what's your... I mean, is there... The way I'm visualizing it, I'm like a little bit above them, right? They're on the ground level.

Right, right. Outside. Yeah. And I'm in this room. Right. They're moving... Is there anything to be gained from, like, are they already in through the window? Is there anything to be gained from barricading at this point?

Or should we... There are two. They are definitely... Yeah. I think it's a little late to barricade the window unless you can move them back a little bit. You sort of... The bait that you set was right next to that window. So I don't think that...

there's like a particularly super safe way of doing that right now. Yeah, I, I agree with you. I do, is there rate of movement slowed, do you think at all by what I did? Or I'm just trying to like, if I made a get an attack on it and then immediately leave, it's sort of like, well, why did I do that? You know what I mean? Like, it's like if I don't, but I don't necessarily want to, I don't make sense for me to stay and like, fight this thing with Dober right there. Give me an insight check, please. Four. Okay. Not super insightful, but, you know, You have done... True, yeah, you hate that.

You've done... What you have done here is you have... You have tanked the sort of agro here. You can sort of see... Especially when Duber... You told Dupy's head out of the piano, he did so. A few of the zombies definitely clocked that, but they did not...

They are so focused on you. And you realize that that happened when you killed Tommy Falcon. when you killed Tommy Falcon the undead sort of... Super, super, a lot of leaps you're making their grip. You're taking a lot of conclusions. When you acted in such a way

that led Tommy Falcon to die. Oh, sorry, you're saying it was a leap that you killed Tommy Falcon just now? Yeah, circumstances did lead to Tommy Falcon's death. But had there not been a corpse mount outside, Tommy'd be back in here enjoying a game of Pinole with us and the rest of his friends. Yeah.

The corpse mound is to blame. I believe that's the... The client is my client is innocent of murder. One of the corpses in the corpse mound piles upward from the top and is wearing like a little Magister's wig and you can see is thinking about it and then turns to the other zombies and it's like, and they continue to stare right in your direction. I am going to flee into the library if I'm reading this map correctly. You are?

to try to draw that thing towards me. Okay, great. For knowledge is our greatest weapon. You dash into the library. As you do so, you see there are two aspirants in here sort of, well, one of them appears to be sort of furiously, you know, tossing books on the ground looking for something and opens the door here on the far side of the room. you see the spider has made his way to the other end of the library, and he shouts, like, through that door, like, oh, I found something. There's something in the hop. And as he is speaking,

you see the other aspirant that's in this room is Burger Man. And Burger Man has, it appears to be in the process of pushing one of these large bookshelves over onto the spider. You have gotten here, basically catching him in the act. You have a, you know, a moment to intercede if you want to or not. Um, I am going to use spider climb. Okay. To climb above onto the, above them. Okay. To watch what happens. Okay. Great. So you make your way into the, uh, into the library, spot this situation. Spider climb up onto the shells. Okay. You spider climb. Um, you're higher vantage point. You spider climb. give me a self-check with advantage because you are in an unorthodox sort of plane of the room, just to see if Burger Man is going to change this course of action here.

Got a 12 and a... Ooh, yeah. 17. Yeah, 17. You are out of sight, out of mind as you clamber onto... Are you on the ceiling or just on top of one of these shelves? I'm on the ceiling above. Okay, cool.

You spend the rest of your movement climbing up to the ceiling. ceiling and see watch with sort of baited breath as you see Berger Man shove the bookshelf between him and the spider, which then very, very quickly topples over and you see the spider turn turn backward a moment too late as he is crushed beneath the bookshelves. It appears to do a lot of damage. Maybe crushing damage is like extra good against spiders and bugs and stuff. but he is just absolutely flattened. And as he goes down, you see the gemstone in his wrist fly upward out of the grimoire that he's wearing and out of the window. I just catch it.

I catch it. You are nowhere. I mean, you're on the ceiling. Literally directly above him. I said him directly above him. That is your intention. Yeah, for sure. I would love that.

No, no, no, no. Fuck you. I know what that's. I don't know what that tone means? No, hey man, all I need is a narrative reason for why you would be able to do that. I do think you being... I don't like us catching the... I did it once, I know, it doesn't feel right.

So the stone's gone. Okay. Okay. Okay. You hear a loud bell chime from in the distance. You also heard it when Tommy Falcon went down and I forgot to mention it. Yeah, so now I'm watching. Can we keep with me for a second?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You see him crush the spider. As that happens, the corpse mound that was sort of pursuing you had made its way into the room. They did not seem to be distracted by your ruse, your stealth move, rather, I should say, climbing up onto the ceiling. They were looking up at you as they kind of clambered in here.

But as that happens, as the spider is crushed by Burger Man in this sort of treacherous act, you see as all of their heads slowly now turn towards Burger Man. Oh, bad move, Burger Man. This thing loves fast food. It starts with fried chicken. Next up, it's burgers on the grill. And Burger Man, his top bun flaps open as he yells, and he takes off in a B-line heading into the office through the open door of the office for just a moment

as Burger Man sort of throws it open before slamming it shut. You can see from your position on the ceiling down into the office, on the floor is a red circle of light with some runic symbols kind of all around it, which give me an arcana. Oh, no, you know what? It looks so similar to the symbols that were on that big red barrier that was sort of blocking off the top floor. It's probably nothing. You can see that whatever is happening that is keeping that barrier up is in the office. But then a moment later, Burger Man slams the door closed.

Let's hop back over to the dining room. Pranklin has finished blocking off the entrance into the foyer and the kitchen and the drawing room, leaving only the sort of exits deeper into the building open. Hippocrates is sort of standing back looking at you as rays and days the elemental gladiators begin climbing out from under the table. Rickus, what do you do? I yell out, cover your ears. Franklin and Hippocrates follow suit.

And I run towards rays and days. Okay. And when I get about four feet away from them, I cast thunderstep. Okay. And teleport away back on top of the farthest table. Good. And they are going to make a Constitution saving throw.

they need to be a 14 Okay I will make those individually Rays is going to roll A 9 minus 1 and 8 Daze is going to

roll A 17 minus 1 and 16 So Daze is going to save Rays who is already damaged quite a bit Is going to take full damage from this I think Daze takes half Okay, so that's 15. So then, is it rounded up or round it now?

We'll round up. So it's 15 on Rays, 8 on Days. Days is kind of like knocked backwards into the chairs around this table and falls prone. Rays, as it takes the full kind of like brunt of this attack, you see the Rays zombie just kind of explode, fanning out backwards across the room. is sort of like constituent undead parts as he is sort of blown to pieces by the force of the thunder.

Daze is, appropriately enough, dazed, but you see that immediately underneath the table, another undead form has begun to climb outwards. Well, Griffin, then that one needed to make a constitution saving throw as well because it's a 10-foot radius. I guess that would extend under the ground. Yeah.

Yeah, Blaze. Blaze is good. You see Blaze pop his head up, and Blaze, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blaze rolled A 14 exactly. So Blaze saved from that. So he also takes the eight points of damage. I also guess I should note, Griffin, that the spell description does say the thunder can be heard from up to 300 feet away. Yeah, so no, it's pretty loud.

is going to shatter sort of all of the glass candelabras in here. And everyone else sort of throughout the house is definitely going to hear that as well. Yeah, as Blaze sort of punches his head up, he's like holding his head like he has like a super bad headache. And you can see that he has taken some damage as well. Franklin, Hippocrates, anything you guys want to do? Way ahead of you. Hippocrates is going to point a finger at Days and launch a ray of sickness. at days and hits for eight points of damage.

You can see that he is just barely on his feet now as he kind of writes himself against the chairs you would knock him back into. And as that happens, another chair goes flying across the room as Pranklin just throws a fucking chair at him. My dude! And that is 18, which hits, and they only had one hit point left, so it just knocks his head clean off and another

zombie goes down. Blaze has climbed out from under the table at this point and immediately underneath you see Hayes, who I'll go ahead and roll a con save force that's probably close enough. Okay, so that's only an eight. So Hayes took the full

blast of that thunderstep. You see Hayes is like really fucked up like, oh man! As they climb out of the hole as well. Days is gone, and Blaze has appeared. All of these gladiators were sort of turning their attention towards you as they climbed out, Rictus.

But you see, as Pranklin threw that last chair, both Blaze and Hayes, their eyes flash red, and then they both turn to look at Pranklin, who is still kind of like busting up laughing about, like, killing that guy with a chair. Hippocrates says I'm gonna go deeper in the house You guys got this, right? It's just two zombies You're good, right? It's just two zombies

Yeah, give me that potion though In case, I guess I, uh, no, I'm gonna hang on to it, I'm a doctor and it's medicine, so like Okay, if you figure out what it is though Will you let me know just out of curiosity mostly? Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Give me an insight check.

Um, Um, I got, uh, 13. Uh, okay, that's a nine. He's lying. He knows what this potion is. Like, he is, he is lying through his teeth, uh, about, about what it is to try and keep you from asking a ton of questions about it. Wait, no, hold on. I saved your life, man. You owe me. It's fine. It's an antidote. I don't know to what, but, uh, there's probably a reason it's here. He tosses it over to you. He says, are we even now? I think I might have tried to kill you in the conjuration or transmutation. I've lost track. I've lost track. Honestly, man. Yeah, bygones, man.

Okay, cool. He gives you a feathery, uh, feather up, uh, and sort of squawks his way. Wait, like flusny off? No, no, like a thumbs up way. No, that was a thumbs up way. Sorry, it's tough sometimes. The long feather is for like, trying to like, like, tell someone to fuck off, but this is like my okay.

It's like, cool. Uh, and he is, or. Lormith hears this and realizes that Tommy Falcon was not, in fact, giving him a thumbs up. Yeah. Hippocrates Don't be done Rather rude

Hippocrates runs into the rear Of the of the of the Manor towards these back rooms back there Pranklin looks at you Pointing at the zombies Pointing at the doors like Yeah let's go to the servants quarters Okay

You two hop down Off of the table And before you make it go in there Let's see what happened with Scorpo and Hellgramut kind of while this scene was taking place Helgram, you make your way into the chamber, into the servants' quarters, after locking in Formaggio Bucatini, there were some zombies beginning to appear at the windows outside of the kitchen as you came in, as we had another corpse mound to the map. And as you arrive in here, you see Scorpo sort of turning over the room looking for any way of making this barrier,

away. He clocked Scorbo hiding something, right? Yes. You clocked Scorpho hiding something as you made your way into the kitchen. Right. How far away is Loravith from Hellgramid? I mean, he's on the other side of the building. Okay.

Oh, you have sending now, right? Yeah. Okay. Let me count the squares. I can do this. I can do this. Oh, wait, we have a ruler. 84 feet.

Okay. Then I'm going to use my Thryken telepathy. Okay. To contact Loravith. Okay. And say, um... Where are you? What room are you in?

Well, right now, Bugman, I'm ironically almost healing. Watching the Burger Band about to get his just desserts. Well done. Are you in danger? No, I'm actually quite safe. Okay, good. All right. I'll get back.

Hold. And he addresses verbally. Sorry, wait, I didn't do that in character, voice. The fuck? No. Hold on. He goes to Scorpo, and he says, Scorpo, are you an arachnid of honor?

I mean, are you an, you're not an insect, you're arachnid. Of your word? Um, yes. I think so. You shook with Loravith, agreeing to be his partner, his ally in this challenge. And right now, he is in a room on the ceiling while a giant corpse mound is moving in his direction. I believe you need to go help Loravith. Okay, man, am I looking for a magic seal or am I looking for salt?

A lot of people are telling me what to do right now. I know, I know, I know, no. Forget the salt. Although I am curious, what is it that you picked up and, you know, secreted on yourself a moment ago? I mean, I'm just asking in case it's something, you know, that is important to our quest. It's not. It's private. It's actually a very private thing.

What I found a private thing in the kitchen. It's a pornographic magazine. Oh. Please hang out. Pranklin busts in. Yeah. It's at that moment that Pranklet and Rictus Ravenwood come in through the dining room, as they said earlier.

And Scorpio turns back behind. He's like, okay, I'm surrounded. I feel kind of threatened right now. Do you say pornographic magazine? Just another. Please hang up the call. Please hang out. Hang up the call, please.

Bugman. Just another reason for you to leave and go help Loravith. And I'll let me. I'll let me. on to the magazine just to make sure it doesn't get destroyed. No, it's just that I promised Franklin a pornographic magazine for helping me with the whole thing with the gentleman a couple episodes ago. And if you would give me that, then, like, that would make us even. Scorpo, give me a persuasion check.

I'll say you have advantage. I'll say technically Rictus is, is, is helping in this role. I mean, you're going to need a good one, though, because people have been bossing Scorpo around. I say it needs to be at least a, again, a 16 or higher. Okay. Well, that's not going to do it. That's an eight, but... Shit, guys.

That is a six. Yeah. That's not going to do it. Scorpo... Tackle him! Whoa. We need that pornographic magazine! He whips out from his trousers.

Whoops. He reaches backwards and pulls out a parchment from his trousers that's rolled up. He says, it's not a pornographic. It's a scroll, okay? It's a scroll. It's got a charge of a magic spell in it. It's a good magic spell, and I found it, so I'm going to hang on to it.

What is this? You never heard of a pornographic spell. It's not a pornographic spell. It's death. Is it like an illusion, porno? It's a ward against death. Are you still on the line? No.

You're making me wish I had illusory hands. He says it's a death ward. It keeps you from dying. If someone kills you, it stops it. And I don't really know how it works. I'm not familiar with it, but it sounds like it might be useful. I'm able to help you figure it out. Let me take a look at it.

Okay, one, why didn't you just say that? And two, you broke Branklin's heart. You were so excited for that pornographic magazine. He is really, he's walking away slow, arrested development style. I've got some fan fiction here if you want to take a look at it. You know what? I am going to go find Loravith. He is going to...

Loravith barges into the room. I heard you had something that could protect Duba. I demand you share this pornographic skull with me. Oh, God. You... Is this something that you really... Is this what you've really done? I can't tell if it's a...

I'm going to keep doing my scene. Okay. I'm going to go over to my scene. They're having all the fun over there. It's fine. It's fine. Let them do their... Scorpo brushes past you all.

He is not going to make his way over to Loravith. You feel. failed to sort of convince him to do otherwise. Instead, he kind of like goes down this other hallway further down into the, into the servants' quarters. Frank. Is it still my, do I. Yeah, it's still your, it's still, it's absolutely still your, your action. I want to look at that book on the table. Uh, okay, yeah, go ahead and, uh, give me an investigation check, please. How about a 19? 19's a very, very good investigation.

Pretty high. Uh, you, you, you come in here, you see that, uh, scorebo hadn't done like a particularly thorough job of looking through the place as you were trying to assassinate fromaggio Bucatini. You open up the book. It draws your attention right away. You walk over to the table. And as you pick it up, you hear a clinking sound as it a page turns revealing a hollowed out portion of the book.

And from it a fairly large kind of vial of shimmering water falls. falls out of the book. And give me a, give me either an Arcana or a religion check, please. I bet I know what it is. It's Arcana. It's a dirty 20. Okay.

It is, this shimmering liquid, you have probably never been party to seeing it before, but you recognize sort of its natural kind of luminosity that this is a a vial of holy water. I'll have you know, Griffin, that Hell Grama is a member of the Catholic Church. Oh, that's really, really, that's super strong, trap. That's super strong. Roman Catholicized? I'm putting a sticker on the chart, on the chart, for a good joke.

Thank you very much. You find this, this vial of holy water. And as the three of you are sort of standing in this, is there anything you wanted to do in the servant's quarters as long as you're sort of here in the. this scene, Rickus, as you and Franklin kind of come in? I'm... No, we were just kind of moving through here. I think Helgram it and then have got it locked down.

Awesome. Then you all are sort of in... Well, you said you were in here, right? So you're standing in the servant quarters in this hallway. There's a hallway stretching outward towards a servant's entrance into the building where Scorpo sort of headed down towards. And then you have Helgrimic kind of in this lounge area. and from your position kind of like in the corner,

able to see sort of this whole room, you can see Scorpo taking a few steps backwards away from the door. And without turning to face you, he says, run. And then he turns around very quickly and starts to charge downward down the hallway as he screams even louder, run!

And the wall behind him leading outwards shatters the door falling down beneath the weight of the largest horde of zombies that you have seen so far, which have begun to pour in the room, thirsty for blood. Hey, Griffith, just for your own purposes, do that last one again, because you don't want to end on thirsty. Thirsty for blood. Yeah, you're right. They're, I don't know, they're all crazy. Yeah, you know. They're going wild.

They're like, what I kill you or whatever. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. I'll take that again. Scorpo turns and starts to charge towards you down the hallway, yelling, Run! As another corpse mound, a horde of zombies, larger and faster than the others you've seen, begins to pour into the room,

ready to eat your whole body and ass. Okay, can I just say the first time you did the two runs, like where he did run and then run. That was really good. So I like that and I'm going to keep that. But then you need to just... I'll try it one more time. So Scorpo turns back.

He's like, run. He turns back and he's like, run. Can I also give you a note? That part's good. And then he's going to eat your ass hole. Well, that sounds different. No, like W.H.O.L. Okay, so...

Okay, go ahead. And the corpse mound pours into the room. This one's even bigger and faster than the other ones. And they're totally ready to chomp your buns. Rachel's going to be like, so what do you fucking assholes actually want me to put in the... Give some claps. I have to put one of these in an MP3 audio file. Just added them all together.

Let's all clap at random times. Clap at how good a job I did ending this episode. Yay! Maximum Fun. A Worker Own Network of Artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.