The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 23

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

The Trial of Necromancy, Part II The zombie horde shambles into the house and the survivors scramble for safety as dawn slowly approaches. But with the situation getting desperate, some of the wizards will be forced to sacrifice more than they ever expected. Royale Theme: “Wizard Disco” by Louie Zong: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/wizard-disco Original Music by Griffin McElroy Additional Music in this Episode: "Fireball" and "Sunny Day" by Jar of Flies: https://jaroffliesofficial.bandcamp.com/; "Skin Writhes Anxious" and "VIII" by ROZKOL: https://rozkol.bandcamp.com/; "Foresight" by Serat: https://blear-moon.com; and “If You Can't be the Sun, Be the Sun” by Schemawound http://schemawound.com/. Marsha P. Johnson Institute: https://marshap.org/ Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Hello, my friends. It's Justin Tyler McElroy. These are my brothers. Their names escape me. Help me out, guys. It's Travis. Chunwell. Welcome to the Adventure Zone. Our dad is not here with us, but you are, and it is the MaxFund Drive, which means right now, if you like our stuff, go to Maximum Fun.org, forward slash join. If you can chip in five bucks a month, you can help keep this show rolling, and we'd really appreciate it. We sure would. You get access to a bunch of bonus content when you do that, including this year's Boko for Taz, a new one. entry in the Taz Charlieverse world, actually Taz Cousinverse, where five of our six kids got together to plan a one shop for us. It's darling. It's madcap and it can be yours along with a suite of

other bonus items. So you can go sign up and become a new member. You can upgrade your membership or even just boost by a couple dollars if you're not ready to move to the next level. It's all there. Maximumfund.org slash join. Let's get to the episode. Previously on Taz Royale. Duburn? Yes. We're very close to the end of it now, Dubur. You play yourself a jaunty little tune in case the noises get too upsetting. Listen, I gotta go.

Those bugs are to protect you. Later! Wait, no, hold on. I saved your life, man. You owe me. Fine. It's an antidote. I don't know to what, but there's probably a reason it's here.

Then he turns around very quickly and starts to charge downward, down the hallway, as he screams even louder, run! As another corpse mound, a horde of zombies, begins to pour into the room, ready to eat your whole body and ass. I was thinking this morning

as we were getting ready to record, I'm really, when we stop doing this, I'm really going to miss this character. I love doing this guy. This guy makes me so happy. Loravith, it makes me so happy. Like, I really, I get excited. decided when we're gonna sit down and record

because I love this guy. I never really know what he's... I never really know what any of your guys' characters are gonna do next. It is my favorite thing about this season is I don't know what the fuck. Hell Graham is always up to some shit. Loravits always up to some shit.

Richtus is always on his own shit. It's like... Doing his best. I'm having you say that, but I've been attempting to parent a boy for three straight months. I don't know. I'm not throwing your curveballs, man.

That's fair. I adopted a man. The fact that you adopted an adult man is itself, I think, a curveball. Yeah, but it's past you, dude. It's on the ground. Rickus is just out here battling his inner demons, Griffin. I don't understand where he's trying not to be an evil murderer as he has to murder people. And he's death's avatar.

I don't understand. And dad's a little shithead. And that's nasty fucking shit. Everybody's falling in love with. Yeah. A nasty little. Shithead everyone loves. People can't get enough of hell,

Graham, it being nasty. Welcome back, everyone, to Taz Royale, our Battle Royale winner take all season. We are in the middle of the sixth trial of the octave conclave to decide who will become the new member of the octave, the god wizards that rule the world of the fold.

We are in the trial of necromancy, where you all have... Sorry, Griffin, Griffin, I'm sorry. Go ahead, go ahead. We're in the trial of necromancy. I... Dad has rearranged his setup due to a recent my brother, my brother and me,

McRoy Family Clubhouse recording. Yeah. As rear-in just set up, so there's a picture of him. A big picture of dad. A huge picture of him pulling open his shirt with a Superman-style sea underneath it. It is, I am not super easily distracted on these. It's incredibly distracting.

It's usually distracting. It looks like that. It's sitting, it's like a poster-sized picture sitting on a tripod, and it does look like the entrance to his funeral. If there was a reef there Yeah, that's the only thing Put that somewhere easy to find him Yeah

No, no no, don't know No, dad, don't take it down Dad, you're gonna lose it Dad, you're gonna lose it Forget where you put it if you move it right now Leave it right there Leave it there We are in the trial of necromancy

You all are taking shelter inside of a manner That is under assault by the Fallen 52 Wizards Fallen 52 aspirants who have died in the previous trials who have come back in undead form assaulting the mansion. In the last episode, we lost a couple real sweethearts, the spider, Tommy Falcon, both lost to the undead horde. The rest of you are kind of scattered across the first floor of the manor. You were on a sort of mission to find the whatever is powering the barrier, cutting you off from the second floor so that you can take up a more defensive position up there. Let's start on the east end of the house. Loravith, you're on the ceiling of the library.

After stowing duber sweetleaf inside of a piano, you have followed Bergerman and the spider into the office. Saw Burger Man murder the spider. Before running into the office, you did sneak a peek at the ruin that is powering the barrier inside that office before Burger Man locked himself inside. A corpse mound has smashed through the window and witnessing Burger Man's crime has sort of been agroed onto him. So you are on the ceiling in the library and you can see the corpse mound

sort of bashing against this door trying to gain access to the office where Burger Man and the Rune are hiding. Lorvith, what do you do? The door is shut. The door is shut, yes. The blob's trying to get through the door to Burger Man. Yeah, it is a mound of corpse.

It's not like a slime situation. I know. Okay. Sorry, I didn't. You get it, though. I didn't call your blob the right thing. Our words are all we have. Literally.

No, Griffin, your words are all you have. I carry a knife all the time. And I got big muscles. I'm watching. I'm watching for a second. Yeah, dude. That's a totally fine answer to this situation. What are they doing?

What is the mound doing? They're smashing against the door. Give me a... Like a blob. against the door. Like a blob would do against the door. Give me a perception check. I'll give you advantage.

You have a nice vantage point here on the ceiling. 13 and a 9. It's not going to take them long before they are able to smash in this door. It is already starting to rattle off the hinges and creek and crack in the center of its big wooden frame. With that perception check, you can also hear Burger Man's just screaming from inside. He's in a real pickle. I'm in a real pickle. Yeah.

I guess he can't cut the mustard. We need to catch up to him. Just to do something, please, I'm dying. Please, they're going to keep going until we do something. Unless you want to keep waiting and wait for them to just smash the door. Let us help him. Oh, good. I'm going to cast shield on myself.

Okay, great. Shield, that increases your AC, I believe, by a flat, amount. Yeah, and now I'm going to body slam into the big amount of corpses. Oh, wow. You have a five bonus to AC awesome. They're just completely distracted. If I shield myself, then I could just like completely get the drop on this big amount of corpses. It's taken a beating in my head. It's got to be pretty well beaten up. So, you know, and also, I've got to be honest with you guys, there's this big symbol in there that I saw that I got a peek at. And like, this is not really about Burger Man for me.

But if he hits that and gets a cape, I'm going to fucking flip out. Yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so this is a surprise attack. I'm going to grant you advantage. This is the same corpse bound that you blasted with a fireball earlier. And so it is somewhat diminished in size. So you're going to make this attack with advantage here as you leave.

down from the ceiling and smash down onto them. 14 and a 18. 18. Okay, yeah, absolutely. With an 18, you are going to hit. You have this shield on, right? And you're landing sort of in a mosh pit. So I'm not going to make you take like any sort of falling damage here as you leap

down from the ceiling. Instead, I think I'm going to confer that falling damage onto the corpse mound using Newton's third law. Sure. Tough plus fair. So go ahead and first roll your unarmed attack damage and then you're going to add 1D10 to that. Four? Oh, nice. Plus a D10? Seven.

Nice. Plus four, 11. Okay, you come crashing down onto this corpse mound. As you do, you fully flatten a couple of zombies. You see, let me see, let me pull up the list. Who's dead? You hear the poor frame of the goblin demolitionist, Powderkeg Kelly, get just completely squished underneath you. There's a few of these guys you have now taken out.

The corpse mound is less than half the size it was when you first sort of fed Tommy Falcon to it. With that burger man, you can see, you know, one of his eyes peeking out of his sesame seed bun peering through a crack in the door. And he shouts, Yeah, get them. Do it, Laura Veth. Um, I think Ref- Nothing more from you, meat boy.

Uh, with that, the corpse man is going to, uh, counter and, uh... Eh, well, real quick. Oh. I would like to use my bonus action to activate my large form. Oh, shit, okay. Uh, I'm fighting a big mound of fucking body, so I'm going to go ahead and do that. Give me, uh, what does that mean, uh, your large form? I'm big. For 10 minutes, I'm big. I have advantage on strength checks and my speed increases by 10 feet.

All right. Cool. You stand up from the pile of corpses. You have just kind of dispersed a bit and you are now considerably larger. You also have a plus five to your AC, which is great. Because of their diminished size, they are not going to make three attacks against you. They are only going to make two. I'm going to roll this on the table. And it is worth noting that it also, because of my... my hills tumble, it has received the prone condition from me. Now, I don't know how a big amount of bodies goes prone, but it's not like bowling pins. So it's not leaping into an attack. It's got to take a second that re-combobby. Yeah, I mean, they'll spend their move action to stand up, but you also landed in them. So they're not having to move particularly far. Okay, so the first thing that happens is one of these zombies lurches upwards and tries to sink

its teeth into your shoulder. What's your AC? What number am I trying to be here? You really don't want these guys. Oh, you'll never. You'll never be nine. It's a nine plus five. So a 14. Wait, hold on. Plus my shield. Oh, I'm not sure that's.

That's not going to matter, my man. That is a 19 plus two. Plus my shield, Griffin. Nine plus five is 14. We've covered this. That is a 21. Okay. Your AC is nine?

I mean, I don't know. That's what Griffin said. I'm a wizard. I mean, why does a wizard need better AC than nine? You're a big old dude. I don't know, man. It's just, it's been nine the whole time. But can I just say, it could have been a lot higher,

and I still would have taken a beating there. Yeah, that's a big head. That's a big head. Okay, so. It's all semantics at this point. You see this zombie. It is rotted sort of beyond, beyond your ability to recognize them,

crashes into you. Its teeth sink into your shoulder, and you are going to take, God dang, 22 points of damage. And now I need a constitution-saving throw. You are trying to beat a DC-15. I see here that Lorvith has not Great dexterity, I think, is the AC problem.

I believe that is a crit fail. It's a critical failure, my lord. Sorry, I don't know why I talked like that. I'm a failure in podcasting as well as adventuring. Lora of it. Either entertaining nor confident. As the teeth of this creature sinks into your shoulder, you feel an immediate sort of burning sensation

begin to course when you pee. When you pee. from this wound. You are going to take nine points of necrotic damage, and that is going to continue

until you are able to save from it. There's another attack coming your way, too. Another zombie of the corpse pile is going to try and claw at your legs. They do not succeed. That is a three on the dice.

Okay. You see Burger Man shout to the door. If it's like, fool me once. Darm missed me, sucker. Blood, blood, blood. Burger Man threw the crack in the door, shouts, I'll help. I swear to God, Meek Man.

He shoves his meaty mouth up to the crack in the door, and grease begins to shoot out of it, covering the ground where the zombies are currently trying to get to their feet. creating a slippery, slimy, greasy hazard. And he says, I did it! I'm a hero! Let's jump over to the western side of the manor, where when we last left our heroes,

we had four wizards in the hallway. We had Scorpo, Rictus, Pranklin, and Hell Gramet, and you were investigating the sort of servant quarters here on the west side of the house before a corpse mount smashed through the door, leading Scorpo to race a wall. in flight. Hell, Gramut, you're on sort of like the farther end of the hallway. Through the door leading back into the kitchen, you see the corpse mound has smashed in and

access. So you guys are basically facing two corpse mounds now that are coming at you from kind of two directions. From the servant quarters, you have a couple exits that are not blocked by zombies here, one leading to the north, toward the stables and the north sort of wing of the house. or you can head back into the dining room that Rictus and Pranklin just sort of ran in from. Hell Grammat calls out. Through my psychic link, I realize Loravith is in great danger. Where? In the library.

You guys got this covered. I'm going to go help Loravith. And he bolts through the door into the dining room. Have this covered. Rick does after it. Scorpa just sighs as Helgram it bails on them. Okay, I will say that you will be able to make it all the way to the library. I don't think that there is a path you can cut that does not go through haze and blaze,

unless you're lying and you don't actually want to go to the library. No. Well, they're all zombies, dad, so in a way. I believe it was Rays and the other one, Frays. Fries. Days? Yes. that have been killed.

Blaze and Hayes are both kind of just sort of very slowly crawling, chasing after Rictus. So unless you want to attempt some sort of maneuver here to kind of get around them, they're right flat in the center of the room. They will get opportunity attacks on you if you want to try to make it to the library in one turn. Hey, Griffin, that's not fair. That's not fair. Dad thought he was dead. Dad thought they were dead. Yeah.

Griffin may come dead. No. Okay. So I'm going to use Misty Step. Okay. With Misty Step, I can teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied face I can space I can see. Easy, yeah. So I'm going to teleport to the door.

Yeah, easy. You can for sure make that. That is no problem. You see Blaze and Hayes reach up towards you, and you just kind of effortlessly. vanish and reappear behind them. They turn and they look back at you and then they decide that's not worth it. They still have their eyes set on rictus and they continue they're crawling that way as you make it past and you are able to make it into the library as you, no, no, no, no, I'm going to stay right here. And he's going to mental, using the psychic link, he's going to tell Loribeth,

I am on my way, friend. Hang in there. Okay. You take up a position by the door, and we hop over to Rictus. Rictus, you have corpses to the left of you, corpses to the down. Here I am stuck in the middle. You've got Scorpo and Pranklin in the hallway with you. Scorpo is just kind of like taking very slow steps backwards away from the corpse mound. Unsure where to head next.

What do you do? I freeze time Interesting This is going to be So we haven't done this yet Since you first sort of discovered the power The way this is going to work When you cast time stop

It is a I believe a ninth level Spell in the D&D book So you are not supposed to have this yet We have tried to convey this narratively Through the fact that when you have used this spell It has been pretty fucking Pretty wild give me

it's going to cost you nine spell slots right it's going to cost nine so like if you if you have that you can spend that or you can attempt to do it just as a third level spell and you're going to have to roll sort of a wisdom saving through it

to make sure that you can kind of handle the power so I'm offering you there's a safe way of doing this that is very expensive or you can attempt to use this spell at like your current level with potential side effects I have a plus five on wisdom saving throws, Griffin.

Let's do that. Okay. I want you to, before you cast the spell, go ahead and use a third level spell slot. And I want you to make a wisdom saving throw. The number that you are trying to beat here is a 17. Okay. That is a nine plus what?

Plus four. Or plus five. Okay. For a total of 14. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's it.

right you said I had to be what was it you said a five yeah you just had to be an eight no you have not reached the 17 DC uh my brain scorpro and pranklin uh look to you as you sort of reflexively uh sort of shout as you try to channel this spell uh and what happens is a bubble of sort of opaque light uh begins to envelop you and spread around you you see yourself inside of this like area of frozen time and you've been in it before and whenever the gentleman cast it you were fairly good at resisting that kind of effect here you conjure this this sphere of light and as it spreads out around you you realize with horror that you are also frozen in here you have created this sphere and then sort of trapped yourself, uh, immediately inside of it. Uh, and Scorpo, you can see through the bubble, like looks at you sort of in a panic. Uh, and Pranklin, hmm, Franklin's going to try, pranklin's going to try to save you. He's going to roll a DC, uh, 17 also to try to get in there and try and save you. And I'll roll this on the table. He is adding a, uh, four to this. I mean, a

14. That's my boy. Pranklin reaches in and grabs onto your elbow and with considerable effort manages to pull you back out of the bubble. Give me, as you sort of return to real time, I want you to give me a perception check as you are sort of removed from the bubble. 13 plus 5, 18. Okay. With an 18, as you are sort of pulled. through the edge of this bubble. Looking back into it, you see a very,

very faint image of a tall humanoid figure wearing a sort of tattered cloak. You realize as you are pulled out of this bubble, inside of there, you can see this entity that is called itself

death that you have communed with a couple of times in the past. He doesn't appear to be moving. He doesn't appear to be like completely all there. The image is like fairly staticy. But as you're sort of pulled outward and the bubble dissipates, you do witness that. Pranklin gives you a little sort of violent shake. He is a, he is an orangutanang. He's very, very strong. And you manage to come to your senses. And as you do, you see that time has passed as you were in here. The corpse mount has caught up to Scorpo, who is attempting

to sort of hold off the crowd, the corpse mound. I'll give you another action here since that one. Okay. Option B, I run to Scorpo. Okay. And grab him. Okay. And cast Thunderstep.

Okay, cool. You can move other things with Thunderstep? Yeah, you can move somebody, blah, blah, blah. You can also teleport one willing creature of your size or smaller. They must be within five feet of you when you cast a spell. and there must be an unoccupied feet within five feet of your destination space. Okay, great. For the feature to appear in.

Are you just sort of grabbing him and pulling him away from the corpse mound? I'm grabbing him, and then we are going to thunderstep next to Franklin by the door to the dining room. Okay, cool. And the corpse round is going to take some damage here, right? Correct. Or they have to roll something. They have to make a con save, beat a 14. Okay.

Let's see. do do do do do that is uh what is their con save probably not great there are a pile of zombies uh their con save is no that's not going to do it yet so they are going to take wow holy shit man it's a lot of damage 18 3d 10 18 points of damage okay uh as you do that you see that uh from around sort of the corner that you have teleported behind. You just sent a few full zombie bodies like flying

backwards off the corpse mound back through the door outside. You have reduced the size of this mound considerably. I will say as that happens and you appear by this door next to Scorpo, the door behind you leading deeper into the

other side of the servant's quarters where the other corpse mound is starting to sort of move into sandwich you. They have arrived on the scene. Okay, I grab the other two and head towards the dining room. Okay. You head back into the dining room. As you break in, Blaze and Hayes have made their way over, and they are sort of the first thing you see as you come in here.

The other thing you see is kind of Hellgrammit, posted up. I give them a what, come on, like a big, like a big, what? Hellgrammerma, I had to fight my way through those guys. No, you didn't. How do you know? Because I'd already weaken them and they looked exactly the same. I didn't say. I effectively fought them.

Then you'd be dead. No, I'm just, I'm dodgy. I'm fast. Loravith, we're going to hop back over to you. You are standing sort of in this pile of now greasy zombies remaining from this corpsebound. Burger Man is now just kind of going back to. Just like your fan fiction, girl. Yeah, grease it.

These oiled up These glistening up Shambling Dead Okay, change of plans It's from Grivance fan fiction The fucking dead Okay, so I'm a change of plans here Yeah

We're going to Rick Grimey gets in there With the gas You don't even have to change that Grimes is fine Yeah, but he doesn't want to get sued So like Yeah I'm going to have a change of plans here

I am going to try to force my way into the room with Burger Man. So, because I'm clearly outmatched here. I cannot take this thing, mono, uh, e blobbo.

So I think that, I think I'm going to just push my way in. Uh, okay. Yeah, not, not, not,

yeah. The door is weaken enough that it's not going to put up much of a fight. Really what this is going to be is a strength contest to burger man. He sees you coming in and he is not going to, there is no way he will be down with. opening this door at all. So this will be just a straight up sort of strength, strength contest.

Burger Man has rolled a 12. Very good. So that's a one. The other one was in 11. So 11 is closer enough to 12. You push the door and it budges a bit. You hear him say, No, thanks.

You can, I already got them greasy, so it should be easy enough to finish them off, I think. You got it, you got it, man And then I'll come out Once you finish them off I'll open it up for sure What's the smell like in there, Griffin? Not great

Well, okay Fine, Burger Man Have it your way I climb up the wall This is spider climb Okay All right You're just

That's my one advantage that I have is I can climb up fucking walls because I'm still under the influence of spider climb so I'm going to climb away because I can't this thing will kill me and I don't want to tie no one will protect Dober Yeah absolutely Okay you you

You hop up onto the nearest shelf scale Upwards towards Back towards the ceiling The zombies you notice are still kind of fixated on you After having like come down and jump down And smashed a few of these guys their ire has been drawn towards you.

So as you climb, they are kind of trying to fruitlessly scale the shelves behind you to... Oh, and they're slippery, too. I bet it looks so stupid. They're really slippery. They look like total... They're grease all over them from the spill. So you are able to... Even with their super well-defined muscles and great hair.

This is what I plan. I'm luring them away to save Burger Man's life. I will say that is an easy thing for you to do with your spider climbing. and their greasiness, like, as you move up around the wall, the corpse mound kind of just like shambles and slips and slops away, and you are able to get them out away from the door. As soon as they are clear from the door, you see Burger Man smash through the door behind them.

He looks at you, looks at the corpse mound, looks back up at you at the ceiling, and then he is going to bolt for this sort of rear door to the outside. away from you and the corpse mound, running and shrieking and leaving a trail of breeze behind him as he hoofs it, out of sight. Leaving the door to the office now open with the red ruin visible inside. What do you do? I mean, I don't think I can, okay, well, let me ask you, I feel like I've done an action and done a move. We're not an initiative right now, so we're having some liberties.

But he's clocking me still? The Corseman is following you, yes. I'm trying, here's what I'm trying to determine Griffin. Yeah. I can't, I mean, we have a map here and even with this, I can't. Like, if I'm already up here and I like want to make, it's just the symbol, man,

I really want to touch that symbol. Yeah. The Cape Pippistose is truly legendary. You got any fire? Yeah, but like, I as an, as an entertainer, I'm hesitant to just cast fireball again, you know? Well, they're covered in Greece. They are pretty green.

Grease is non-flammable. What do you mean it's non-flammable? What are you talking about? It's burger grease. Hey guys, he cast grease. Greece is non-flammable, explicitly non-flammable in 2024 rules. Greece is explicitly non-flammable. But it's 2026.

We're actually using the, we're using the 2018 classic rule set. I believe the wording is extremely flat. No, I'm not going to railroad you using another fireball against these. Hey, no, I'm telling, I just want you to, you guys are going to be really embarrassed and I don't, I want to say you guys. I already am. Yeah. I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons professionally just. How much more embarrassed can I be? I am, wait a minute. What's it doing right now? Slopping and sliming and sliding around the floor of this library trying to chase after you on the ceiling. Oh, fuck him then. He's not going to catch me. I'm going to bolt for the door.

Into the office? Yeah, he's not going to. get me. He's got grease all over. You don't even need to roll. And you're on the ceiling. You're on the ceiling. He's not going to expect this. You're a Lionel Richieing all over the place. So you kind of double back and as the course amount is just simply not agile enough, it probably wouldn't have been even if it wasn't all greasy.

By the time you reach the door to the office, they are like on the other end of the room struggling to. And I'm like, I want to like sprint towards the red symbol and like dive so that the cake materializes as I'm flying through the symbol and I'll like mid-air just like fly out the window is what I'm hoping will happen. Some of that. The cave was the thing you invented, like what if it happens

and then it became so real for you that you dove. Yeah, Trave, again, I am playing Dungeons and Dragons professionally. You are absolutely, that is the writ of law. Okay, as you... Can you describe the cape slowly and in detail growing up? As it materializes. Episode one. This guy finds

a magical cape and he fights. It's all been prelude to this moment. I miss that show. You run into the... I run into it. I know, Dad. You're the only one. I run into it and they threw a cape con every time.

Dad's alone in the room. I want to walk up to the symbol and step into the red symbol. Okay. As you move towards the symbol... And I want to do a quick Arcana check and then step into the group. Okay, cool. I'm really bad at Arcana. The Cape energy is so strong.

It's more of a formality at this point. It's whispering. Fucking hell, man. Holy shit, man. It's a one. It's a one. So this is, this symbol. This is why I think there's a Cape.

This symbol, you've never seen before. But it is magic, and that must mean Cape. So you've never felt more certain of anything in your life than the fact that when you step into this symbol, something's going to happen to you. I step into it and I accept my cape. Yeah, you step into the circle. As you step into the circle, it flashes bright red. The cape must be invisible.

The cape must be one of those invisible, weightless, intangible capes. But it's there, it's like your own invisible cape. Like in that movie crash. And you step in and there is a flash of red. red light from the symbol. And as that red light flashes, you hear the corpse mound outside begin to get whipped into a frenzy. Cape, cape, cape, cape, cape, cape.

The symbol disappears. And you hear a loud, whining hum emit through the first floor of the house as the barriers separating the first and second floor disappear. The other thing that you can see now through this like sloppy pile of corpses that has approached the door to the office now, behind them on the other end of the library, some of the shelves appear to be kind of nested inside one another. They slide out away from each other, forming a stairway up to a balcony overlooking the library up on the second floor that has appeared as you have removed this seal. So that's another way up to the second floor? Yes. there are now a few ways up to the second floor.

You can see there's, let me use my ping tool. There's this guy here on the west side. There's basically the main foyer entrance. There's one to the north and then one in the library and one in the servant quarters past the now two giant piles of zombies that are creeping through there. Okay, well, I want to look at the desk. That didn't do anything for me, Griffin.

I want at least want to look at the desk before you leave. Okay. Before you're all saying I departs from me, I would just like to look in the desk real quick to see if there's a knife or some coins. Okay, yeah. Give me an investigation check. You stop to check out the desk

as the corpse mound inches ever closer. No, it's having like no, it had no shot. You made that very clear. Give me an investigation check. Justin, I've got a box of toys over here. 16. 16, great. There's a really nice fountain pin in there, man.

Ooh. It's not even that. As you open up the desk drawer, you reach inside sort of rooting through there quickly, and you find a small sort of cylindrical vial that is full of a sort of luminous red liquid inside of it. You are going to, now, also, before we leave you, thank you for reminding me, you are going to take six more points of Nicolns. product damage from the toxin that is coursing through your shoulder, and you may make another charisma saving throw, trying to beat a 17, to break, to fight off this contagion. Oh. Well, a three?

Three is not going to do it. Okay. You are still poisoned, feeling pretty bad. Oh, wait, I'll drink the vial. Okay. It cured me. And what's that growing out of your shoulders? Whoa!

It's a Kate Poe. You chug the potion, the red potion. And it's, man, you know what? A little cape comes out. A little cape comes out of the wound. A little cape comes out of the wound in your shoulder, okay? So it's not like a full cape. It's like a half cape, but not in terms of length,

but in terms of width. You have a little, basically like a little napkin that's going over your shoulder now that is blood red. Like Captain Marvel has sometimes. Sort of, yeah. So you have this cool red. Quarter cape, I guess, sort of scarf now. This is a potion of superior healing that you have chugged here, and also it gives you a cape.

With the potion of superior healing, you are going to heal for... I do not... Oh, 8D4 plus 8. You are still poison, but you are... 84 plus 8. 92. That's a lot. 8D4 plus 8. I don't know why you couldn't do the math for me, but thank you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So go ahead and recover 8D4 plus 8 hit points. You still are poisoned. Look at all those big fucking pyramids. Wow, dude. That's a pretty goddamn good role for 8D4 plus 8. Yeah, man. The 8D4 was 27.

You heal 35 points. Great. You chug, you feel a bit better. You still definitely feel this burning sensation in your shoulder, but now you have like a cool kind of cape coming out. Loravette looks at the blob and licks some blood out of the corner of his mouth. It's a bad news, pal. The sloppy corpse mound begins to come towards you.

It is loud as it sort of shambles and groans, but through that sound, you can hear another sound sort of echoing through the library coming from deeper in the house. It is the sound of piano strings being scratched in a sort of frantic rhythm. Wow. I really knock us out, you know. It's times like this that I appreciate us more than ever. And if you're feeling the same way, listener, maybe it's time that you head on over to maximum fun.org forward slash join. We have been a part of the network.

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Back to the adventure. Yeah, let's get back into it. Back into the dining room. Hell, Gramet. You've been sort of caught here. What do you do? Are you going into the library or are you going to continue to sort of stay put here in the same room as Pranklin and Richtus and Scorpho and Hayes and Blaze.

Helgrammond is going to go into the library. Okay. Right there in that door. Okay. And then immediately down into the drawing room. Okay. You come into the library. I will say like you gain some information as you come in the library.

You couldn't quite see the situation, but you do see this greasy corpse mound. You don't see Loravith because he's sort of tucked away in the office and you see this staircase that has appeared up to the second floor. Importantly, he doesn't see me, right? He does not see you, no. So you are going, you definitely hear this sound of the scratching piano strings down in the drawing room, and you make your way down into there. You see a room in a state of great disrepair.

Loravith caused quite a mess in here. He threw a fireball and a guy out that window. There's blood all over the ground and toppled chairs and shattered bottles. and you see there is a piano that this sound is coming from, and right next to that piano you see a zombie. And this zombie is about five times the size of any of the other ones that you have seen before. It is also wearing a cute little conical hat that you recognize as the hat that Pipp, the enlarging-reducing gnome that Duber dispatched in his duel.

has come into the room and is kind of pounding on this piano. Griffin, this is so important. When the gnome enlarges or reduces, does the hat? It has the same size, yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Of course. Yeah, no, I got you.

So Pip is the kind of guy that goes to a party, and if there's a piano, he just, he has. Yeah, he's a real douche about it. He's got to play. Yeah, yeah. He sits down and you hear him start playing Wonderwall. He starts playing some Ben Folds tracks. Okay, so Hell Grammet is in that. drawing room.

Yes. For what it is worth, Pip doesn't seem to give a shit that you're in there. Pip's eyes are blood red, as you have seen sort of a few times before, and his gaze is fixed squarely on this piano. Okay.

Does Hell Gramut have any indication that Dober is in the piano? He has no indication. I don't think so, right? Well, you said Dober was... Is Dober strumming the strings? Yes, you have an indication that someone's in there, but I don't think Loraveth communicated to you

that Duber has been... I wouldn't communicate to any of you. We're dupor restored. That's trivialized information. Then I'm going to have Hell Grammet, as long as he hasn't been noticed by Pip. Take a little stop and use his psychic link to cast around to see if there's... Hello, you in the piano. Are you okay?

Are you good if you got this? Is that you? Hellgrammit, save me, please. I don't want to be squish. I don't want to be bitten and kill. Shnikey. If I don't help you, you'll tell Loravith, won't you? Yes, definitely.

Okay, so Hell Grammat casts infestation on Pip. He's going to shoot a bunch of maggots. Oh, nasty. You know, flesh-eating maggots that eat the flesh of the flesh of the. dead. Hey, I'm just going to lean into it a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. So this is going to do 2D6 damage after he, if he does not succeed on the Constitution saving throw. Okay, Pip is going to make a con save here. That is a 13. Does a 13 save? Nope, doesn't make it. Constitution save a 4. Okay. Then go ahead and roll your 2D6

damage against Pip. That would be a 4 and at 4. That would be 8. Okay I think Wait Is it just poison damage Yes And it also moves it Five feet away

Yes So does this work on large Yeah No it doesn't say anything about Yeah So yeah This will move him five feet You can move

Oh but you roll a D4 So it is a random direction So go ahead and roll a D4 I will say if you roll a two On this D4 and you roll to the south you will knock him out the window. That's a two. That is a two, man.

That is very, very, very fortunate. Pip, the gnome, takes a big wobbly step backwards, trying to swat some of these maggots off of him, trips over the ledge of the window, and falls outside. As he does that, you see him stand and his eyes meet yours and flash red as he sort of transfers over the agro onto you. However, Pip is going to just kind of stand there menacingly for a moment, and then he rushes off into the woods out of sight.

You lose track of him as he leaves to regroup. Okay, I'm going to open the piano and get Duber out. Doobr looks at you and he says, Hell, Grimmett, thank you. I always believe that you were good. I think Scorpo is wrong about you. I, I, I, you're, you're like a nephew to me. I mean, you could have set the piano on fire and I would have died and then there would have been one less competitor.

Oh no, no. Yes, I thought that. I was like, sure that's what was about to happen. When I saw the bugs come out, I was like, oh, time to be eaten by bugs. But then they went after the pet. And let's go through this door and up these stairs. Okay. Let's get on to the second floor.

Okay. Okay, sir. You're taking him into the foyer. Those stairs lead to the second floor, right? Yeah, absolutely easy. Yeah, you are able to take him up the stairs leading up to the second floor of the building. As you do that, we're going to hop over to Rictus. You are still in the dining room here with the two zombies.

You hadn't quite finished off. And a bunch of just an absolute World War Z-level wave of zombies pursuing you from the west side of the house. You can see Pranklin has blocked off the doors leading back down, so you cannot access the kitchen or foyer from here. But the doors that are still open are the one out to the library and then the doors to the north end of the house that you have not quite explored yet. I cast animate dead on days. Okay, cool. What's that mean as I try to... add days back.

I thought I was pretty safe in getting rid of his token there, but... The target becomes an undead creature, which should be pretty easy for them. On each of my terms, I can take a bonus action and mentally command the creature I made if they're within 60 feet of me. I decide what action it will take

and where it will move on its next turn. You can issue a general command. And because I am a necromancer savant person. They get plus six health and plus three to attack damage. Okay, well, let me override the HP of this zombie. Okay, that is your action, right? Is using that?

And then you have bonus actions. Okay, I'll go ahead and let you move days here. What's your goal here? My command is run interference for us. Okay. you see days look up at you lacking that kind of like, you know, red, shining aura about its eyes. And it clambers over to its two sort of former teammates, Hayes and Blaze, and grabs them by the ankles and begins to claw at them. Give me an Arcana check, please, Rick this.

That's a one. Okay, that's not good That's not very good Magic happened here One of the lower numbers One of the lower numbers Really really really bad roles today guys I know I usually wait until afterwards

To get my notes on how you roll But really in the locker around Really really super bad rules today Okay yeah days Begins to pull at Hayes and Blaze Whose attention turns back towards days And it does appear to be They do appear to be distracted for the moment

And we run for that north door Okay Scorpos and Pranklin are sort of ahead of you here because they realize that is sort of the only safe option for them. And you head into the kind of north hallway. There's a few doors leading out of here. One sort of to a meeting room that has some small windows you can peek into and see it appears to be empty. No one has gone in there undead or otherwise. you see at the end of the hallway, another door leading into like a sort of parlor and then back into the dining room.

And then there's this sort of smaller carpeted staircase heading up to the second floor that is now it is unprotected by a barrier. The other thing you see is opposite end of the hallway. You see two figures, the sort of plague mask of Hippocrates, who, you see, you see two figures, the sort of plague mask of Hippocrates, who, you ran into before he scattered and ran off out of the dining room. And standing over Hippocrates, you see Hasty Jane, who is holding in her hand a candlestick that she is using to make a series of pretty brutal melee attacks against Hippocrates on the ground. She is shrieking as she brings the candlestick down. You can't tell sort of how many times she's done. this, but Hippocrates seems to be in pretty bad shape as she brings it down. The next blow,

he kind of like manages to hold off. She rolls a 10. Jane? She turns around super quick as she hears your voice. She, you know, her face is covered in blood and she looks back at you sort of in a panic and looks back down at Hippocrates and takes a step, step away. She says, I had I didn't have a choice I I thought for he he was moving towards me and he he he just he I could tell he had that sort of a menacing aura and I I mean look at him he looks kind of scary and I fuck hey it's okay

she's gonna bolt she turns on her sort of afterburner boosters and goes flying up the carpeted staircase up to the second floor of the house where you lose sight of her again Hippocrates is on the ground in front of you, and he is sort of, he is gasping for air. He, you know, has this mask on, so you can't quite tell how he's doing exactly, but he appears to be pretty injured here.

Hey, the thing you gave me, the vial you gave me, will it help you? Hmm, he shakes his head, no. He says, but you got him. You have to move me. They're going to catch me. I can't walk. Okay.

Scorpo, Pranklin, can you guys get him upstairs? Scorpo kind of sighs and looks back at you and he says, are you sure? Yeah. We need all the help we can get to survive. And I'm pretty sure when we kill people, they turn on us. the zombies target us. Pranklin pulls on your arm and gestures back to the doors where he has started to kind of reinforce them.

Pranklin is kind of walling up the places that you come through. He points at the door at the far end of the hallway and gives you a thumbs up, basically saying like, I'm going to go, give me an insight check. Just a baseline insight check to tell how well you can kind of communicate with Pranklin sort of nonverbaly. God damn it, guys. That's a one.

He points at that door and then it gives a thumbs up as if to say, cool door, huh? You're sure. He says, cool door, huh? I thumbs up too, man. Probably sandwiches behind there. Okay. Okay.

It's going to take both you and Scorpo to haul Hippocrates away. Are you taking him up the stairs that Hacy Jane just bolted up or what's your plan for sort of trying to pull him away? Yeah. I was going to go help Loravith, but if Franklin's not helping, then, yeah, I'm going to help Hoboceris. Okay, you grab onto Hippocrates and Scorpo and you begin to pull him up the stairs. Give me a perception check, please.

Okay, I'm pretty nervous now. Okay, 16 plus 5, 21. With a 21, you are able to hear and very quickly processed. Back down the stairs, back towards the hallway in the direction that Franklin was heading towards. There is a loud crashing noise, and you hear a, as one of the corpse mounds gets to the door before Pranklin does. That's my boy. That's my boy, Griffin.

Yeah, what do you do? I burn all of my spell slots and freeze time. Whoa, holy shit. Okay. All right. How many spell slots? Let me look at your character sheet. I want to make sure we're doing this sort of honest,

because if you don't have enough, you're going to have to do it the nasty way again. view. I don't even know. That was a panic maneuver. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I can hear it in your voice. Yeah.

I have eight available. That shows a real human love for Pranklin that I think is really touching, true. Yeah. I mean, if you want to do this, you're going to have to do it the bad way. Okay. All right, man.

Fuck. No, okay. And I burn eight spells slots, Griffin, please, for Franklin. No, you don't burn the eight spell slots. You did it the bad way. No, I'm saying, 13 and I burn

8 smells last, please. Oh, I see. You've reached the bargaining phase. Yeah. Okay. As you drop Hippocrates. Scorpo first of all goes, Oh, fuck, what? Why? As he sort of now has to carry all of the weight of this large Birdman wizard up the stairs by himself.

You leap down, you see this mound of corpses begin to grapple Pranklin with its first attack. You reach outward and project another bubble outward from yourself, another bubble of opaque white light that spreads slowly away from you, but again, I'll delete my cantrip's too, Griffin, please.

You are unable to control this spell as you are surrounded and through the bubble, you see this corpse mound begin to pull Franklin inwards. You are frozen in time, unable to help, unable to do anything. You see one of the larger zombies in the corpse mound sink its teeth into one of Pranklin's legs that it is pulling back inward. And he howls a terrible howl. And then from right next to you, you hear a voice say, well, if it isn't my master, that's what you say. That's what you said, right?

Master of... You can't talk, you are frozen in time. Master of death, master of time too, looks like you've really, really got a great grasp on it, Rictus. I told you, and so did the gentleman.

These powers are beyond your control, and yet you thought you could hang on to them and make them your own, because that's what your family does. it is the only thing they know how to do. I am so disappointed in you, he says. He looks around and he says, I don't know what you've done here. We are in a time outside of time right now.

And that is, I guess, the only reason that I'm able to appear here in the fold and speak to you. But if you can't control this and you keep using it, bad things are going to keep happening. Pranklin's going to take another attack here as another zombie reaches forward and scratches along its leg. It seems to be doing sort of surface level damage, but he is trying very desperately to pull himself away from the mound, kicking backwards sort of helplessly into the pile. You can't speak, but you can think right now, Rictus, what's going on? A lot of feelings about hubris. A lot of thoughts about the difference between master and servant.

Hmm. And wanting to be a conduit rather than a control panel. Okay. I think that this whole challenge, as much as Rictus has been looking forward to the necromancy challenge, I think that this has been a real, like, bastardization. of his concept of necromancy and like this like these people died in the pursuit of the goal of this thing and now their bodies are being used to continue to kill more and not really given any kind of I don't know respect okay um give me give me an insight check please okay That is a Nat 20. Holy shit.

Okay. Death drifts in front of you between you and Pranklin and lowers his head towards you close enough that you can sort of see through the darkness of the cowl. You see the kind of milk white sort of skull inside and you are not afraid of this. It feels sort of natural to you to have this kind of audience. with death. And in this moment, all of those thoughts sort of going through your mind, death is recognizing too. You can feel like a kinship with him that you have kind of aspired to, kind of known, is your desire, known that it's something that your family hasn't always gotten right. All of these

pretty complex realizations are happening and you can feel a kind of understanding from him. He takes a step back and looks at Pranklin behind him. He looks at you, Rictus, he says, You wish to save the ape? And Rikta thinks, that's my dude. Okay. I can't keep helping you, Riktus, if I don't know that you are ready to leave behind your family's ways

and become my instrument. If I help you now, I am going to require collateral to know that you're ready to do this. And he holds out his hand and grasps and pulls backward. As he does that, you see the ghostly figures of your great, great, great grandfather, and his dad, Rictus Ravenwood's the first and second who have been with you in ghost form this entire time pull towards him

and they are holding on to you as well death says this is unnatural this is unnatural the mind is not meant to persist eternally and that is what your family has built this ruined world, this hellish contest, these are the wages of the eternal mind.

Give them to me and all for you. Yes. As you think that, you see a look of shock in the faces of your ancestors. And then you see a look of absolute stone cold fear in their faces for just a moment before death squishes his hand. into a fist. These ghastly apparitions vanish, and suddenly you are freed from this bubble of frozen time. Maximum Fun.

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