The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 24

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

The Trial of Necromancy, Part III The trial continues and the competitors must decide who to trust and who to dispatch. But with the numbers of survivors dwindles, the number of zombies increases, forcing some of the wizards to quite literally confront their past actions. Royale Theme: “Wizard Disco” by Louie Zong: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/wizard-disco Original Music by Griffin McElroy Additional Music in this Episode:  "VIII", "Skin Writhes Anxious", and "Chewing Devil Grass" by ROZKOL: https://rozkol.bandcamp.com/; "Fireball" and "Night Sky" by Jar of Flies: https://jaroffliesofficial.bandcamp.com/; "Foresight" by Serat: https://blear-moon.com; "PULL" by Nctrnm: https://soundcloud.com/nctrnm;  "Grande Vista" by Jason Shaw: https://audionautix.com/; "The Fae" by Mark Lingard: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/mark-lingard/; “If You Can't be the Sun, Be the Sun” by Schemawound http://schemawound.com/; and Taffy Machine" by Kate Kody: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/kate-kody/. Marsha P. Johnson Institute: https://marshap.org/ Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Previously on Taz Royale. Okay, I'm going to open the piano and get Duber out. Hell, Grimmett, thank you. I, I, I always believe that you were good. I think Scorpo is wrong about you, sir. You're like a nephew to me. Jane? 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 going to bolt. And what's that growing out of your shoulders? Whoa! It's a Kate potion! You wish to save the ape? And Rick to think, that's my dude.

This ruined world, this hellish contest, these are the wages of the eternal mind. Give them to me and all for you. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Adventure Zone, Tazzo, Royale. Our winner, take all battle royale, 64, inter-one wizard leaves season of, the Adventure Zone. Do you think about, what do you think about

the subtitle instead of Royale? What do you think about center take all? Oh, that's cool. Ooh. It's cool, right? Yeah, we can make, I mean, we're getting towards,

I would say, the back third. So more of a sequel title, isn't it? Yeah, I would say it's more of a sequel. It's a little late to, it's a little late to pivot now. Center fake ball. Center fake ball. It's like you're a sinner and

you can't ball, but you fake it. You pretend to. Check this out. Yeah. This is like you're a divorce. Dad and you're trying to win over your kids because you only have them for one weekend. Dinner?

Cake wall. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, that's cool, actually. I like that one even better. Spinner, Sean Paul. This one is our season where it's all about thinking. Skinners take gall. Takes a lot of gall to be a skinner.

That's true. We are currently, guys, in the throes of the trial of necromancy. You and the other surviving wizards here in. inside of this mansion, under assault by many zombies. You've done a decent job thinning the herd and have cleared your way up to the second floor of the house. Your goal is to survive until sunrise. And as hectic as things are right now, you all can sort of catch a glimpse of the first traces of the sun's rays peeking over the edge of the Ziggurat Island. You are getting very close. In fact, sunlight has begun to very, very slowly overtake the

roof of the building that you all have taken shelter in to defend yourselves against these this horde of zombies right now where we left the situation we got uh hell graham is being eaten as snook you looked on in horror hell grammat oh help help help me all the gym stuff i did didn't prepare me for this my the skin is too tanned leathery kick it through it uh hell Grammett had just rescued Duber and was leading him to the second floor to safety. We had Lora Vith Gondh Dreamwander who had just sort of dispelled the seal on the second floor and found a really great red half cape that I fully intended for him to have. In the office still on the first floor being blocked off by the exit by another corpse mound

that is still sort of pursuing him. And I would say most sort of dramatically, as we ended the last episode, Rictus, Ravenwood IV, had just sacrificed his ghostly grandfathers to the specter of death to free him from the time bubble in which he had trapped himself

for the second time in one episode in order to rescue. Thank you. All right. In order to rescue his dear friend, Pranklin. Hey, it happens to the tribe of us. That's true. Sometimes there rains a tribe nation. That's true. Griffin?

Yes. What new special powers do I have now that I've sacrificed my great-great-grandpa-be and my great-grandpa-be? Give me an Arcana check, please. Okay, I was hoping you would just tell me. A 12. A 12. You don't feel that you have new power. You do feel the bubble that you had trapped yourself in.

This bubble of frozen time has slowly begun to, not slowly. It's like a popping of an actual bubble. freeze you and and sets you loose. In this moment where you sort of rejoined real time, you feel something kind of missing. And with a 12 archa check, you can tell that the blessing that sort of grants the Ravenwood line,

this eternal life after death in the form of these ancestral ghosts, you do not feel a connection to that in this exact moment right after you have sort of given away your grandfather's to death. That doesn't mean you feel powerless. In fact, you still feel yourself

sort of charged with the magic that you have been bestowed. It's not like you've been left powerless, but there's an element of your sort of inheritance that does feel kind of weakened in this moment. You also, however, are back in real time, Pranklin, who has been attacked a couple times by this corpse mound and is struggling to get free is right in front of you. We'll start with you. What do you do?

May I cast two spells? Let's do one first and then kind of see how we're feeling. Okay. I cast invisibility on Franklin. Okay. So invisibility is entirely a sort of like visual-based spell. He is being sort of grappled by these guys. So it's not like a Lord of the Rings, like you become intangible as well. How about I'm going to cast cause fear? Okay.

On the corpse mound, I'm assuming? Let's see. Yes. Okay. Does it not work on undead? It does not. Okay. How about...

Okay. I'm going to... Let's try this again. Run up and grab Franklin's hand and cast Thunderset. Okay, great. Yeah. Why not? Uh, thunder shod, you have the spell slots for this, I'm assuming?

Yes, I do. Okay. Uh, you reach forward, you grab onto his hands and just as a sort of group of the corpses inside the mound reach out to try and grapple you as well. You bamf away. Uh, and as you bamf away, a thunderous boom sounds and each creature within 10 feet of the space, which I think is just this corpse mound, uh, is going to have to roll a con save. Con save 14.

Uh, uh, That is a seven. That is insufficient. They're going to take... Con save, baby. I want to make a con save... Oh, shit, yeah, dude. 20 points of damage.

20 points of damage is big. This... Actually, this corpse mound... 20 bottoms of... This course found was pretty fresh. I think it's the one that Loravith had been dueling that has been mostly dispersed at this point. However, you do knock them slightly away,

and you and Pranklin reappear, Where? Go ahead and place yourself. On the stairs. On the stairs leading upwards. Okay, great. You and Pranklin teleport away, a short distance, free from the corpse mound, which you hear sort of recovering and making its way back towards you from deeper in the house. Pranklin looks up at you. He is definitely injured and bloodied. He seems to be panting sort of furiously as the, the, the, the, the, the, you know, the,

The poison, the curse that these things bestow with their scratching and biting, appears to take some effect. He is breathing and he is alive. I'm going to go ahead and move you up to the second floor stairs, where as you are dragging him upwards, you see Scorpo doing basically the same exact thing, dragging Hippocrates, who has this great sort of gnarly head wound that Hasty Jane gave to him, sees you pulling him up, almost like you guys are doing a fun race up the stairs, dragging your grievously injured competitors to safety.

Is Hippocrates poisoned as well? Hippocrates is not. Hippocrates was just bonged really hard by a candle stick. Is he conscious? Barely. Hippocrates. If I give, Prankland's one bit, if I give him this vial of stuff you gave me,

is that going to help him? I mean, I think it's, an antidote. Do you have any, like, Advil or anything for me, maybe? Can I see the corpse found? Not quite. It is still further down the hallway. They do not move quite fast enough to catch up to you. How far away are they? I mean, like 50 feet. Okay, I cast, uh, Wither and Bloom. Now, do you need line of sight on them? Because they are on, like, like, 50 feet. Okay, I cast, uh, Wither in Bloom. Now, do you need line of sight on them? Because they are on, like,

like a different floor of the house than you. It says the range is 60 feet. Okay. Zaney creature in your line of sight. It says on a point within range. Okay, cool. Yeah, you can do that. You know where they are, right?

And these things are moving slow enough that you can target that pretty easily. All right, Wither and Bloom, they are, is this a con save as well? This is, Wither and Blooms is a con save, yeah, 14. That is an 11. So they're going to take some damage.

Five points of damage, and Hippocrates can use a hit dice to heal. Okay. All right, that's four. That's four points of damage. But he's a little guy, so it's not, you know, that's significant. You do your thing. You from one hand channeled the forces of death, and from the other hand, the forces of, you know, rejuvenation.

Hippocrates. They've got to come up with the opposite for death. That's true, yeah. I've been asking the dictionary guys for a long time. The best thing came out with was undeth? Anti-death. Anti-death. Yeah, yeah.

Hippocrates kind of shakes his head and sort of ruffles some of the feathers on the back of his head and kind of stands up. Kind of looks at scorebo's like, oh, thanks. I think you, Rick does him. I'm good. I got it. The antidote, will that.

help him? Yeah, I assume so it's an antidote that was found during the trial. I assume it'll fix the poison. Okay, I give it to Franklin. All right, you pour the antidote in his mouth. Franklin is an ape. He's going to not want to

he doesn't want to take his medicine. It's afterwards we'll get ice cream. After this trial? He nods his head and opens his mouth and he takes the antidote. That's my big boy. As he does so you see these sort of like black veins that were forming around the, the bite marks recede and

return into the, the bite marks. And he kind of also shakes his head, stands up. He looks at you. He gives you a big tight hug, big tight, tight, tight, tight. Oh, that's my guy. Okay. Let's hop over to. Well, then Rick, this is going to take off running towards the library. Okay. From the second floor of the library? Correct. Okay, cool. We're going to hop over to to that library, into the office, to Loravith. Laura Vith, you are in this office. Right outside the door is the corpse mound. But again, you've thrown a lot of shit at this corpse mound.

It is fairly beat up. Burger Man had just run off into the woods. You've lost sight of him. And you are standing here with a bunch of zombies between you and sort of the door. There are windows leading out into the woods where Burger Man left, but... Did another Corseman chase him? No, you didn't see another Correspondence. The other thing you forgot to mention, Griffin,

one other cool thing is that I recently healed myself to full health. Now, how did you do that? The power of Christ. No, no, no, let the record show. There was a red potion. Oh. If you'll recall.

Yes, a potion of superior healing. Yes. Yes. Okay. And I've recently refilled the full health. It's an interesting scene setting technique Because the last thing I said, I remember it in the corksbound, I don't remember it was some hard shit about how I was going to beat it to death. Okay. And now I get to deliver on that promise, which is always, this is a lot of fun for me.

Okay. Check off fist. All right. Loravith, you have healed yourself up with this healing potion. As you take a step towards the corksbound, you realize you are still poisoned by their bite. You do still have the sort of curse that they afflicted on you. And what do you want to do? What are you doing to this corpse round?

I want to find our face and kick it in our face. Okay, cool. So an unarmed melee attack roll. Go and give me that. Oh. Unbeat fucking leaveable. It almost wasn't. What's the narrative justification for this God?

Yeah, yeah. I'm talking to God. You know what I mean? Yes, that's a one. Like, what is the narrative justification? Fully healed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't make sense that I would roll away.

one right now. Yeah, for sure. What's the narrative justification? You're poisoned, right? And so you think, like, I'm hot shit. Please fuck that. I took a red potion. Yeah.

He was better. He's totally red-pilled. Yeah, I was already, Griffin. He's geomaxing. You must be a sinner then. Yeah. You're not going to take it all this. A sinner takes some.

That's damage. Just tell me that this weave, you know. Yeah, so you try to stomp on ahead, but you know you lose your step, you falter as you are weakened by this poison, and the corpse mound, as slow as it is, is able to sort of shuffle out of the way of your big stomp. Do you get any other sort of attacks or actions? I know you're not a fighter by trade. Don't I get a second attack? I don't think so. That's sort of fighter shit. your foot lands sort of in the middle of this, you know, weakened pile of zombies.

One of them is just going to sort of lunge out and try and bite you around the ankle. This thing is not making multi-attacks. Now you've sort of thinned the herd out to, you know, a quarter of its size. But one of those zombies is going to sort of take an opportunistic little chomp here. And that is a nine versus AC? that ties okay so that does hit yeah

okay that's fine I got lots of okay that's only four points of of chomping damage I am going to need you to make a con save against the the poison that's already double poison oh wow I rolled at 18 plus

plus five Hell yeah, dude. This thing bites you, it looks up at you, it meets your gaze, and you just kind of flex, and you feel the sort of effects of the poison that was harming you before. You flex and the poison flows back into their teeth. It squirts out, dude. And you have saved from the poison. You shake off sort of these weakening effects and the zombie looks up at you.

Its teeth sort of got barely through your boot, and it seems to be kind of stuck in there. What do you do now? I mean... Okay, now I'll look for some nuts and punch them. Okay. Some nuts in there. Right, right. 14 plus 6. 20.

Absolutely. You find two sets of nuts. Whoa. Yeah, they're stacked on top of each other just through kind of happenstance. Right. Double these nuts. sets of testicles, so divine. You know what? Okay, did that hit four damage? Four damage, yeah, absolutely

gushy. Bad for these two zombies. They explode. And now there's just there's just three zombies left from this pile. Three zombies in the pile. Three zombies in the pile. How much do they weigh?

Let's see. A desiccated three decadipalds out. More than five pounds? Yeah, they are more than five pounds. All right. I'm going to cast lightning lure. Okay, cool. On them. Yeah, absolutely.

That's my guy. This is your OG spell, right? This is your original damage. Yeah, my OG spell is narratively important. Yeah, I love it. I failed so miserably at punching the first, or kicking the first time. Okay. And I forgot.

You got to succeed on a strength saving throw. Oh, a strength save. Okay. You whip the lightning lure down around some of these zombies, and as you pull, they pull. and that is only a six. Strength save. They are not the strongest little guys. What happens next?

They're now going to take 2D8 damage. Okay, roll that for me. And I think rather than trying to tug them towards me, he's kind of like yanking the whole pile up in the air. Just like, chuck it. 13 points of damage, that is enough. You whip your lightning lure and it wraps around these three zombies. you fling them upwards

and as they kind of fly into the air and collide with the ceiling as they come landing back down they are they are completely motionless and still and this corpse mound is defeated okay and Loravith says up up and away

and he jumps out the wind like flies out the window with the cave wait out the window or the door the door into the library or the window out to the woods? I mean, the door in, I mean, I guess I'm flying into the library. Okay, cool. Well, okay, first of all, yeah.

Before I fly away, I got to do a quick dig around. It's a, it's a big corpse pile. Yeah, sure. I mean, this is kind of a literal butcher's, because I'm like peeling the meat parts away looking for consumables. Give me. To see if they have any jerky? What do you mean?

Did they have any mints in their pockets? Close to the bone. Oh no. Sweet of the meat. You know how this nerd stuff works like a scroll or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. Like a gym pieces.

The gym of Encelor. I don't know. Just a roll, man. Give me an investigation check as you sort of root through these fallen aspirants. Seven. You find pictures of loved ones, notes. No, I don't need that heat. Yeah, with a seven, these appear to have been sort of stripped of their belongings.

They are only barely recognizable as their sort of fallen aspirant forms, and you don't find anything about you. Well, okay. I am going to, I don't want to, I'm going to head towards where they are. I'm not great with layout. Yeah, yeah. So the library. I hear them fucking around and I'm going to head in their direction. Cool.

The library has a stair set that opened up as you sort of freed the seal here. So you're able to actually go up this stair set into the second floor of the library. You reach the second floor of the library. There is a small kind of set of tables here, like wash basins here, next to this bench at the very top of the stairs. Some more sort of desks and Rosa books. And you see a door leading deeper into the second. floor of the house. Let's hop over to Hell Gramet, actually, because you are somewhat close by.

Hell Gramet, you are racing up the stairs with Doobber. You do not see any immediate corpse mounts or really any sign of danger since you sort of escaped the piano room evading Pip, the enlarging gnome wizard. You've made it sort of the landing here on the second floor, and there are a few exits here. We don't have fog. of war on the map, but basically there's exits in, you know, west and east and north from here. There's also a small landing with like a small seating area with grand sort of windows overlooking the sort of courtyard area out in front of the house. Are there doors leading into the study? Yes, there are doors leading into the study. Okay. Then I think Duburn and I are

going to pursue, try to join up with the rest of them. Okay, great. That's, that is a good plan. You race forward through the doors at the top of the stairs and step foot into the study, right as you see. Franklin, Hippocrates, Scorpo, and Richtus, who was sort of racing, making a beeline for the library exit. You sort of catch him sort of mid-sprint, and Dober looks at the rest of the group and says, Oh, we're all, where's Lorovith? Is he okay? I I thought he was with you No

We thought he was with you He was he tucked me away Inside of the piano from where you rescued me Classic Lora Veth The old piano stuff guys Guys guys listen What are you guys Shut up

Listen what are you guys Say look What are you guys to be like Look Okay Look And then somebody else They'd be like up in the

sky. Up in the sky. I didn't think it would both be Travis, but that's okay. Somebody else can kind of pick it up from there. Look, up in the sky. Is that a bird? That must be a bird. No, no, it's a plane of existence. It's just me. Loravith. I can fly now.

Loravith is not flying. It's important to say Loravith has a cute little red half cape that is draped behind him, and he's got his arms out as he runs from the second floor of the library into the study, where everyone else is. I'm not imagining it the same way. He's really flying. Flying is a... Thank you for believing of me.

Justin, this is what I just realized. There's only one Griffin and there's three of us. So if we all treat it like Loravith can fly, Griffin can protest all he wants to. Yeah. But we're seeing Laura to fly. So Loravith touches... I'll just take it.

Loravith touches down. Whoa. Sadly disintegrates into dust. Whoa. It was one incredible flight. Perfect. But we'll never forget. It did. It did work the way I said, right, Griffin?

But it did. Yeah, you flew for a little. You flew for a little bit. And then the Cape disintegrated. And you always have that memory, too. He wraps Dubber up in his arms. Boy, boy, speak to me. How are you?

I'm okay. Hellgrammit helped me. He got me out of the piano, and he saved me for Pip. I'm so sorry. You're the first, first that tell you. terrible calamity, then you're to speak without Gravett. Well, no, he's, he, I, I was wrong about him. I thought he was,

Scorpo was always telling me what a, just huge dick he is, but he absolutely saved me. He came in clutch. I think, I think he's changing. What a hero does. Dober, what is it? Doobar, what is it? You and I always say to each other. Who saved who? Right? Right. Yes.

The same thing here. I saved him. Who saved who? I saved who? I was trapped in a piano being assaulted by a giant zombie, and he saved. Who saved who? It sounds like you saved him in much the same way you saved me. No, he did. But you already saved me. He didn't save him.

I saved him. Bad news, bug man. He already has a ward. Pretty clear cut. I saved him. Loravith. Loravith. When you, when you trigger the sigil, sigil, sigil?

Sigil. Sigil. Sigil. Sigel. Okay. When you hit the thing, did it, like, disappear completely? Can we turn it back on? I have a sense it was a one-way sort of deal.

Let me describe the study because everyone in the trial remaining, except for Hasty Jane, she is still sort of nowhere to be seen after running off flash speed after attacking Hippocrates. You are in the study, which is at the very center of the second floor of the house. There are exits, basically in every direction. There are, you know, the staircase that you guys came up from on the north side of the house. There's the staircase to the south side of the house. There's the entry into the library. and then there's sort of some other spots that you could make exit from.

If everyone could give me a perception check, please. As you do that, I'll describe sort of the more visible, obvious stuff in the room. There's a table, sort of a conference table on a very fancy rug lined with sort of bookshelves. There is a very comfortable-looking seating area in front of one of two fireplaces in this room, flanking the west and the east walls. And how do we do on those walls? I got a 17. Hellgrammer, it rolled a six.

Okay. And looks like Laura Vick had a, well, that's an investigation check. I need a perception check, juicer. Yep. I banked it off the top of my mom. You're doing a lot of trick shots

with these fake virtual dice today. Okay, and a 12. So, Hell, Graham, you don't glean anything necessary. in addition to that. Loravith, you notice, I will say Loravith and Rictus, you notice that over the fireplace on the east wall, there is a sort of diagram that looks like a sort of bunch of interconnected squares that you are able to kind of puzzle out is a diagram sort of representing the second floor of this house. and in the four sort of corner rooms at the northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast, the four sort of corner squares of the house do seem to be sort of colored in in a way that the rest of the

map is not. Four colors, there's purple, red, green, and blue sort of marked on this map in those four sort of cardinal corner rooms. With a 17, I will also tell you, Rictus, that inside of that fireplace where you saw this sort of diagram, there is a raging, sort of prismatic fire that is that is burning bright and hot. Behind that flame, you can see the first few rungs of an iron ladder that do appear to be hidden within this, hidden within this fireplace. Those are the things that you have gleaned here. Got it.

Okay. I think we need to put out the fire. And I think that in each of those rooms, we're going to find something to turn off portions of the fire. So, like, because it's prismatic, so there will be like some kind of switch or something that turns off the green part. There will be a switch or something that turns off the purple part. And then there's a ladder out to the roof.

You figured all that out just by looking at the fireplace and the map, Scorpos says. That's amazing. I have ADHD in really good pattern recognition. Okay. All right. Wow. You were born with two powers, he says. Yes.

I sort of bug bug that wide. Yes. I have necromancy and hypercinesis. Okay. Okay. Have they? I'm new here. Yeah. Let's pretend that I'm catching up with everybody.

Have they been into the guest rooms? No. So no one has been into the, no one has explored the second floor here yet, aside from the library that you kind of ran in from. The guest rooms here in the corners are do appear to be the rooms that are sort of color-coded based on this map. Duber and I will search the guest room Well, I was thinking Duber would want to go with me

As the person who saved his life I'm... Hell, Grammat, you stand in the left corner of the room I will stand in the right corner of the room Right Duba We're both watching now Go ahead, blue directions

Wait, turn out your pockets Make sure there's no bacon or anything in there No bacon I love a rasher with bacon From Mama Bacon's Bakery Mmm Come was on your hell

Come on. Give me a persuasion check, both of you, Loravith, with advantage because you do have a sort of pre-existing relationship. A crit would be so funny here, Dad. Not to tell you your business, but a crit would be hysterically funny. Persuasion check? So we're doing? Yeah. That is a 17, dude.

17. What? That's a match. That's a tie, a 17 from Loribet? That's incredible. Griffin, now you're, that's your problem now. You have advantage. You get to roll one more, Laura Veth.

Oh, that's right. That's right. It's torn. Okay, so this is narratively, right? He can't decide. I don't know. Hellgram it saved me, and so I feel like I owe him one more.

Oh, that's a crit. That's a crit from Laura. Oh, wait, that's Rick this rolled that. Why are you rolling that? Travis, there's no reason why Doobr would want to go with you. He doesn't want to choose. He doesn't want to choose. Oh, that's a good point.

Duba. I'm going to go with Loravith. because I sort of know him. I'm getting a shit. No, I roll a 17 and a tied 17, and then I rolled a 14. We have to deal with this, Griffin. I know it's not in your grand design, but we have to deal with this fair.

Okay, you both come with me. How about that? Hell Grammet and Laura. Does that sound good? It's the only rational decision. Come along, both of it. Okay. Going into the yes room.

Okay. And, Justin, if you look at the map, you can see the purple room, the red bed, the blue bed. Yeah, they're sort of. Those are the ones. You can see those on the map. Well, okay, my favorite color is green. like the grass of the hills in which I was going on.

You're not in charge. I mean, you're not leader. I thought because you two was sort of fighting over me that I was sort of the leader of the, but no, I see now that's ridiculous. Okay, yes. Sorry, what? Can we clear?

Are you looking at the second floor of the map? Do you just make sure you're scrolled up to the second floor? Yes, I'm looking at the second floor of the map. So I see a purple bed and a red bed. There's a green one down below. Green and there's a green one and a blue one. Yep. Are those the guest rooms?

Yes, those are the four colored suites. Sort of sweets, yes. The sweets. Okay, how about I take the Bugman and Doobr into the blue master suite? That seems like a good place to start. Okay, you head. Oh, Halgerman, are you... No, we go together.

I mean, you're not taking, but I agree with your path. Okay. Okay, great. We both in lockstep. Two men and a baby style with Doobr, Sweet Leaf. Make your way down to the southwest of the master suite. I'm going to call out. This would be a lot easier if we had Hasty Jane with us because she's so fast that she could check places.

There is no response. Okay. Franklin, let's check out the junior suite, the green room. Pranklin runs on all fours, scampering towards the junior suite. As you are leaving the room, you see Hippocrates head up towards the northwest corner and Scorpo. to the northeast corner to check out the two remaining rooms. We will start in the Master Suite, the blue room. You walk in, and this is one of the finest bedrooms that you all have been within in quite some time.

Very fine bedroom we find ourselves in. It is a very fine bedroom. It's a tornado. Okay. There is a large California king size four post bed with this blue, dark velvet comforterter sort of draped across it. There's an entry into a small bathroom to the side. There is a small sort of table with a few chairs seated around another fireplace within which you see a blue flame burning brightly. And Dober is going to just sort of start poking around the room, looking for snacks and what have you.

What do you do Helgrimut? I'm going to do an Arcana check on the blue flame. Okay. Go ahead and give me a roll. That would be 11. Okay, it does appear to be sort of a natural flame in a lot of regards. It seems to be just sort of being produced by some lit logs within the fireplace. But with an 11, you can tell that it is sort of connected to something deeper in the house.

It does appear to have some sort of almost like your alarm spell kind of sets a trick. for something, this appears to be doing that as well. As you get closer to the blue fire to sort of investigate it, you can also see at the back wall of the fireplace, there do appear to be some sort of like channels into some tiny little crawl spaces, but you're unable to kind of see within there easily with the blue flames to live. I communicate all that to Lorbeth. Okay.

What do you think? Do you have, could you like, pee on that and put the flame out? Do you have a... Let me try. Oh, good. Let me try this. Good. I'm going to put my hand out and cast absorb elements.

Oh, cool. That's not peeing. I thought you said you would pee. It's like peeing with your brain in reverse. Oh. It's like peeing with your brain in reverse. Brain pee. That's how the hill giants think of magic.

Yeah, it's like peeing from, it's like brain piss. Beating from brain piss. Yeah. That's awesome. Okay, so the way that absorb elements... It would be a fun, it would be a fun spin to do one arc where, like, magic is real in this universe, but it is very vulgar and, like, wretched to see other people to do.

Like, it's something you would never want other people to see you do, because it's, like, so gross. Everybody turn around, I have to magic. I told you to magic before we left the house. I write that down, geez. you coat your hand in the sort of like protective ward of absorb elements. This is not like a vacuum sort of situation. This is a shield that absorbs energy.

But in order for you to like really absorb it in order to, to suck up this fire in the way that I think you're thinking about, you will have to touch it. You will have to be subject to it. You will gain resistance to whatever kind of like damage it might sort of deal. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I'm trying to keep my distance, but it's not going to fly. I'm going to...

I'm saying this idea works, but you're just going to take a little fire damage. There's like a... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got you. I will cast shield as a first... No, that's wimpy. Okay, I'm just going to do it. I'll stick my hand in the flame of cast a absorbed element. Okay, you'll reach your hand in,

and immediately you feel a very faint burning sensation as the fire sort of licks your palms. And you, that's four with resistance, so you only take two points of fire damage as you reach your hand forwards into the flames. You feel the heat from this fire sort of enrobe your hand and see the blue flames kind of begin to vanish. in just an instant, you have sucked up the blue fire. And you are also sort of imbued with it

for, what is it, your next melee attack on your next turn. You will do 2D6 extra damage of fire. So make sure you remember that, because I won't. And you suck it up. Give me a dexterity saving throw, please, immediately. Dexterity saving throw immediately. Yes. A quick brain update. I did zone out a little bit mid-sentence, but tuned back in for make sure you remember that.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Because I won't. That was a fun. And my deck saving is a 3-1-2. Okay. You... Lorameth also zoned out. Yeah, apparently.

You reach in, you absorb these flames, and you have a moment of satisfaction as you reach your hand in and see that you have successfully retrieved the blue fire. However, you feel instantly, as soon as that fire disappears, a painful sort of crunch on your outstretched hand, and you look down to see the undead form of Dr. Legume in one of these crawl spaces. behind the fire, who has reached out to chomp your hand. His eyes appear to be sort of a faint, sort of yellow. He doesn't appear to be sort of triggered by you.

This just appears to be kind of a reflexive thing. As you are going to take, give me a concept. So is he just playing? What's that? Is he just playing? Yeah, he's just goofing around. This is how he says hello? It's just, you just happens to play.

I am going to make a role here with disadvantage, but I do think a 13 still beats your AC. So you're going to take three points of damage from the bite and I need a con save from you, please. Let me get my damage. And a con save is 13 plus... No, sorry, five plus five, ten.

Okay, you also are going to take a little bit of necrotic damage here. Okay, three points of necrotic damage. However, this bite was so sort of ineffectual that it doesn't appear to have kind of delivered the... It's called a dry bite. I learned that from this past season of Survivor, where someone got bit by a sea snake, and they were like, you have to fucking leave, man. That's bad news bears. But it's a dry bite.

So Dr. Legume climbs out of the fireplace. And again, like his eyes don't appear to be sort of locked in on you. Do I have, what kind of history do? Help me understand my history and understanding of Dr. Legume because I've heard a lot of his misadventures. Right, right. But it's all like that is sort of immediately, I think, cleared up for you as he crawls slightly out of the fireplace and sees hellgrammit. And as he sees hellgrammon, you see his head snap to the side and flash bright red. And he is going to begin sort of trying to make moves on.

If I could just finish up my turn here, I'm just going to scoop duber up. and like pull him out of danger. Yeah, yeah, sure. Away from that situation. Duber was poking his nose around. I'm a bug now. That's their business, Duber. Yeah, he pulls up.

He needs to do this on its own. You're a man now, bug man. Dutting, right? I don't know. Good luck. We'll come back to this room in a second. Rick, this you walk into the Green Junior Suite with Pranklin. And within here, you see a still fairly stately bedroom,

not quite as fancy as the master suite we were just in. There's a door to a small kind of on-sweet bathroom that, not a door actually. It's sort of separated from this room by like a sort of thin sliding, like bamboo wall. There is, you know, a large king-sized bed in the room and some small furnishings. And right next to the door that you all sort of enter into, there is a very small fireplace lit here with a green, flame.

Pranklin immediately begins sort of poking around the room. Just like fucking shit up, just like throws the mattress off the bed, just kind of like looking for stuff. What are you doing, Rictus? Do I see any switches around the fireplace? I'm going to investigate, Griffin. Yeah, yeah. Give me an investigation check. That's what I mean to say.

Cool, cool. That's an 18 plus 3, 21. Okay, with a 21 investigation check, you're sort of looking in this corner by the fireplace. There don't appear to be any switches. Again, this is just like a fire in a fireplace being created by logs, green flame sort of emerging. You didn't do an arcana check, but like you are the one who kind of figured out the sort of lock and key

situation that you're currently in. With a 21 investigation check, I'm going to go ahead and tell you because you are very, very close. This fireplace is right next to this wall leading into the bathroom. You can hear some movement inside of the bathroom from just beyond this kind of sliding barrier. Okay. I motioned to Franklin to back up towards the door.

He nods. He's going to take a step away. And I'm going to hit the fire with Ray of Frost. Okay. Make an attack roll. You're going to hit because it's stationary, but is it 25? Yeah. You Ray the

Frost the shit out of this fire, man. give me no we're not going to roll damage you absolutely blast this thing and in an instant the logs freeze over and the green flame disperses and as you do that I'm going to give you advantage on a deck save because the thing that is on the other side of this wall

is going to be sort of activated as you commit this spell well the first one's an 11 and the second one's an 18 Okay, within 18, you are sort of wise enough to take a big step away from this wall right after blasting these flames out. And from beyond the wall emerges a very familiar figure, but disfigured and sort of really, really mangled here in undeath. Missing one of his arms, you see the shambling form of the gentleman, who saw. smashes through the wall coming at you. Lacking all of his kind of, you know, Savo Affair, his like fancy man sort of energy here. All of it? Uh, yeah. There's not even like

2% of it? No, all of it. Uh, and he reaches out with one of his arms towards you. Um, I'm gonna say Pranklin is gonna take an action here, uh, and picks up a stool and it's just gonna fucking throw it at the gentleman as, as hard as he. he possibly can. We'll make this roll on the table. Oh, he misses. He gets a three. The table smashes against the wall next to the gentleman

who appears to be completely unfazed by the action. Prankling kind of looks sad. I grab Pranklin's hand and try to rush out the door. Okay, awesome. You are fully able to. We did what we came to do. Yeah, absolutely. You leave the gentleman behind as you escape

through the junior suite out back into the landing. Where would you like to go now? We'll stick with you for a little bit longer. I'm going to head towards the purple room. Okay. You are going to race towards the purple room where Hippocrates ran into earlier.

Pranklin is going to sort of follow in your footsteps. To determine what is going to, the timing of what's going to happen next, I would like you to make an athletics check to see how quickly you are able to clear the gap here. That's a crit. That's a crit. That's a net 20.

Okay. Wow. Okay. With a Nat 20, you race forwards at tremendous speed through the study, up through this sort of landing on the second floor and throw open the door to the Western suite where Hippocrates is exploring the purple room as it was so coded by the map. As you enter, you see Hippocrates. who appears to be moving still a little bit slow.

You fixed him up a bit from the head wound that he suffered, but he doesn't seem to be making kind of the best time here. Franklin did not quite catch up to you as quickly as you sort of sprinted with your Nat 20. Hippocrates appears to have missed there is a small desk at the north side of the room sort of flank by these windows overlooking the back of the graveyard area. There is a small candle there that is flickering a purple flame. And give me an Arcana check, please. Uh, that is another Nat 20.

Holy fucking shit, man. What? These are happening on the... I'm powered by death. This is the, on the virtual tabletop. These are, that's two legit 20s, baby. I am Rikis. Ravenwood Servitor of death.

Oh, that's... You've come. a long way, baby. Yeah. You race into the room and you see this purple candle is flickering and it seems to be growing brighter and brighter. And just in an instant, just looking at this thing instinctively, you know that this is trapped and it is about to explode.

It is about to absolutely fill this room with purple fire. Hippocrates, get out now. Come here. Quick. Apocrates is going to look back at you, spread his. feathers out and just kind of chicken run out of the room. What do you do? I blast it with Ray of Frost.

Okay, make another attack roll. This one I will need you to make an attack roll because this is a candle you're aiming for. 18, dude. Plus six. The flame on this candle grows sort of like flare bright and starts to expand out and then contract, ready to go supernova. And in that instance, you just hit the wick of it with your Ray of Frost and send it out. I was fully ready to just nuke.

Hippocrates here. If you hadn't run fast enough or figured out what was going on fast enough. But thanks to your heroism, once again, you have pulled Hippocrates' ass out of the fire. He looks at you and says, wow, why are you saving me so much? Eventually we're going to have to kill each other, right? But now is not your time. Okay, man, thank you. And he is going to make his way back into the study. Prankling catches up to you. You can see sort of back into the steady rictus that the sort of map over the fireplace

only has one sort of square still lit up, which is the red square up in the corner. But for right now, we're going to hop back down into the master suite where Hell Grammett, Dr. Legume, has begun to climb towards you, eyes, blood red. Okay. Hellgrimitt turns this out a little bit to the side and speaks to Dober and says, Hey, Duber, let's fire one up. And he hits Dr. Legume with scorching Ray. Okay, go ahead and give me an attack roll.

Dr. Legume is prone. I'm going to say you have advantage on this attack roll. He is not in melee distance, so you do not take the disadvantage of making a range attack like that. And let's see, here we go. That would be a... 16. 16 absolutely hits.

Give me that big nasty fire damage, please. Fierre damage is a three. Yikes, yikes. Don't do that. Yikes, yikes. Yikes. It is a three. However, it is also a six because as you blast Dr. Leukeum with the fire and sort of cut a path kind of across his body,

you can see where the beam kind of ripped across him. You can see sort of the modeled flesh kind of cinder and burn. However, he is going to continue his pursuit of you. Here's also what I was going for. In the movie Hellfighters, starring John Wayne, they used, they would have oil well fires.

Beloved non-problematic figure. Do you have a non-problematic cowboy figure that you could use? No, because nobody else. Jim Huttons. Jim Huttons. Jim Hutton was in Hellfighters, too. So. I don't know who that is, but he's probably old enough to have some skeletons in the closet. Okay.

Well, then that works then. Grand kids don't remember. They used fire. and explosions to put out other fires, like oil well fires. Okay. So I was kind of hoping that it would knock out a little bit of the, it would knock out the blue flame. Any chance of that? The blue flame's gone.

The one that Justin put out. Loravith did absorb that blue flame. Oh, he absorbed the whole thing? And then from behind it, he absorbed the whole dam. Absorb the whole thing. Never mind. And Dr. Legume is coming for that ass. Okay.

Dr. Legume is going to reach you. and he is going to make a biting attack roll on your sort of leg plate here. And he will succeed. That is a 17 plus, I mean, it doesn't matter. 17 plus 5. Yeah, 22 is going to absolutely hit. He sinks his teeth into the chitin of your compound legs, and you feel a crunch,

and you're going to take five points of damage and I need you to make a con save, please. You're trying to beat an 18. Then let's, I'm trying to beat an 18? Yeah, this is really nasty shit. Okay, you are, you feel a terrible heat

spreading inside of your body from your compound leg where Dr. Legume has sort of snapped onto you you are going to take six more points of necrotic damage and you feel yourself afflicted with the same curse that a few other folks have suffered during this trial. Dr. Legume is somewhat injured but appears to be still fully functional. Duber is going to take an action since you kind of conjured him. You said his name.

Duber is going to grab a big vase from a nearby shelf and jump up on this table right behind Dr. Legume and try to bring that vase smashing down on his skull. That was almost a crit, and yet it was it. That is an 11, which actually hits Dr. Legume. So this vase comes smashing down, releasing some sort of dead, withered up flowers. very spooky stuff. You feel scared looking at these scary flowers. And he is going to take four more points of bludgeoning damage. He seems to be sort of on the ropes here

as he looks up at you, Hellgrammit, sort of pitifully, you know, surrounded by these shards of poverty. And dead withered flowers. And dead scary-ass-wethered flowers. And old-ass water. Loravith, what do you do? Um, hmm.

How, where's the water touching? Like what, like, what, what's all connected by water currently? From the vase. Oh. Um, Dr. Legume has been sort of, uh, splashed down in water. I would say, like, there's a small pool kind of surrounding his kind of midsection, but dupers up on a table. Hellgram, it's far away enough that there's not really, all right. Great. I'll go ahead. I'll use. lightning lash on

lightning doctor leggea lure lightning lower yeah thank you okay that is a strength save right indeed that's not going to do it a nine okay go ahead and deal your damage

you should know I take no pleasure from this you seem to have wonderful taste in people 11 yeah you will the lightning lure around Dr. Legume and give it a good solid yank. He just fucking flies towards you and you kind of reflexively duck out of the way as he smashes into the back wall and collapses just fully crumpled up into the nearby couch and is motionless.

Dead? Yeah. Fully, fully, fully dead dead. Again. The noise of that is sort of intense enough. Your guy's sort of attention is drawn to where Dr. Legume smashes against the back wall of the room. Give me a perception check, please. 18, plus 119. I'm going to roll for Duber as well. Helgrammat, can I get a perception check from you as well, please?

I feel like I perceived everything, but all right. And that would be another nine. Uh, okay. Uh, hell grammat you and, did I roll for two? Yes. Four plus what I. Okay. Yeah, Duber did a shitty job. Um, Hell grammat you and duber are sort of transfixed by the exploded form of dr legume at the back of the room as laurvith kind of impressively whips him apart but laurivith your sort of battle instincts are savvy enough that you know not to kind of like lose sight of your six because from the other uh sort of hollowed out space behind the fireplace uh dr legume climbed out of one of them you you hear a rustling And as you turn back away from Dr. Legume, you see another zombie climb out of the flames,

and it stands up to its full wizarding height and appears to be somewhat modeled, somewhat torn apart like the other zombies. But you recognize this undead figure pretty quickly. it is Randolph former ward of Duber And Dober Former

Former Former Former Former Guardian Warder Wardee Warden Warden

That's got to be right Right? Yeah absolutely Yeah Let's agree on it Duber turns and sees Randolph and

appears somewhat shocked for just a moment. Hell, Grammett, you turn to see it now as kind of the other two react. And Randolph has these kind of like faded yellow eyes just like Dr. Legume did

before you, before he saw Hell Grammett and was triggered to go after him. And Randolph's eyes snap towards you, Loravith, and they flash bright blood red and he is going to immediately start scrambling over the table in your direction.

Hell, Grammet, I think its action is to you. Okay. Is Legume still got his jaws on me? No, legume has been thrown across the room and exploded and killed. Okay. Hell Grammett is going to sprint over, grab Dubur, and cast Liamann's tiny hut. Amazing.

What is that even? I don't know that we've ever done that one. A 10-foot emanation springs into existence around you and remains stationary for the duration. I'm going to say that he grabbed Uber pulled him away enough from the others, so that they're the only two involved here. And creatures and objects within the emanation. when you cast the spell, can move through it freely. All other creatures and objects are barred from passing through it. Spells of level three or lower can't be cast through it.

So they can't get us, but we can see them. Okay, cool. You grab Duber, take a step backwards away from Randolph, who was charging towards Loravith. And immediately the shimmering dome of light expands out and surrounds you and Duber. who looks around a bit confused, kind of gets an idea of what is going on.

It is, it is Doobr's turn. Dober appears to be stunned, sort of stock still by the scene that is unfolding before you. He seems completely unfazed as this like shielding, warding bubble appears around you guys. And he's not going to really, do much of anything on his turn. Loravith, the action is to you.

Randolph has moved his speed towards you and will be on you on his next turn, depending on what you do next. What is the immediate danger to Dooper? None. Doobre is inside of a protective bubble that Hell Gramet has formed around him, and Randolph is charging after you with this sort of, like, you know, lock on that these things have been using. Hmm

This is a time for shield Okay This is a moment for shield Why was I trying to cast it before? Shield is going to give you Plus 5 to your AC Actually shield is a reaction So you can wait and use this

If you are ataxal Okay great, I'm prepping shield Okay cool But you can still take an action Cast a spell, move, do whatever else You would like to do Sort of on your turn Kicking has not worked for me today, I would say.

It's been a rough time for kicking. Wait, how close might have to the wall. I mean, you can be as close as you want to be to the wall. Hell yeah. I want a spider climb up onto the ceiling as he's charging for me. What's going to do with that? Put smoke on that, pal. All right.

Smoke that, Randolph. I do the one thing you can't, Randolph. Climb on ceilings. You clamber up. You could never do this for Nuba. You clamber up the wall and are now perched on the ceiling. And Randolph... Look at me up here, Randolph!

Randolph has his neck sort of craned upward, and he's, like, swatting sort of fruitlessly up at you, appearing to be just, like, whipped up into a frenzy. However, there's just no way he's going to reach you from here. Like, there is simply no way that Randolph is going to reach you. And I think that's your turn. Randolph... Yeah, I mean, Randolph is...

so locked in on you. He is not going to do anything else, but continue to try and swat at you, but because he's... Okay, let me just, okay, he's spider cloud. Okay, let's just keep going. Yeah. Duba. Hell Bram. This is your moment.

Yes? You're going to escape. He's looking at me. I'm up here, Randolph. Oh, you really hate me. Look at me on the ceiling, Randolph. Don't take your eyes away. Um, Duber is... Give me an insight check. As you're sort of like talking to Duber. you can roll this too.

Could I instead do a persuasion check? Sure. Yeah. Persuasion check is totally fine if you'd rather sort of get him out of it. Yeah. It just feels more accurate. It doesn't even matter. 16.

Yeah, that's what I thought I'd get a 16 with that. Yeah, that's super good. Okay. With a 16, Duber seems to look at you and look at Randolph and he appears to be pausing in a way that you you can't quite. I mean, obviously this is a very charged situation,

seeing his two former guardians kind of dueling, but he seems pretty shaken, but with that sort of command that you give him, he kind of nods, and he is going to sprint through the edge of the bubble and run out into the hallway. And that leaves Hellgrammett. Hellgrammett, you are still within your bubble.

Loravith is safely on the ceiling, and Randolph doesn't seem to be phased by Duber running by, is locked in purely on Loravith in this moment. Now, Bugman, go. Okay, I'm going to run after, the same direction, doper and the rest have run, and when I do that Lehmann's

hut vanishes. Okay. Poof. And Loravith, that just leaves you in the room with Randolph. What are you doing to sort of disarm or escape this situation? Okay, I'll start slowly climbing down the walls.

Okay. I'm inching down. Is he trying to like a... He would like to come close to me, right? Randolph is absolutely furiously like a rabid animal trying to get at you. Okay.

Hmm. Well, Randolph, I'll be honest. I'm feeling a little pinned up here, my friend. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You should know, Randolph. If there's any Randolph in there, I'm taking very good care of Duba. And I know that's important to you. And Randolph, if I could say one other

thing to you. With the hills is my witness, you will not leave this room. So if you care about the boy, let me pass, safely. Because I promise you, Randolph, I'm the only one who can protect him. Hmm.

Give me a persuasion check here. In this moment, Randolph is exhibiting more kind of humanity than any of the other undead that you have that you have faced so far. He seems to be listening,

which is a new thing. And let's see how, if your words have any effect here. Oh, that is a 10. Well, I cast fireball. Okay, go ahead and roll. Wait, wait, you have to roll this attack. Hold on.

I can't roll the attack. No, the decks save. Okay, yeah. Yeah. I'm going to give him disadvantage as you distract him with this, like, plea. Yeah, that is a three. He is not dext enough to do this. I'm glad Duber did not have to see this way. Yeah. I mean, what Duber does see from outside and Hellgrammit, Hellgrammit, you see it as well is, you know, you had closed the door behind you as you'd run out to put more distance between you and the zombie Randolph.

What they see is just the door being blown on. its hinges by an explosion of flame. And as you peer into the room, hell granted. I do hope, Griffin. I do hope. I hope that at least maybe Rickness saw. What I can only imagine was the briefest flash of hesitation across Randolph's face. Like, I think Randolph was able to get out of a, eh.

Yeah. Come. Come. Let me. You know that you mention it. You see Helgram it from the hallway as the door gets blown off its hinges. You do not even see Randolph anymore. You see a small wizard-shaped scorch mark on the ground.

And you see sort of other... There's like a bearskin rug in here that's just like completely fully on fire right now. And in the kind of flaming wreckage of this room from the ceiling, you see Loravith drop down. The number of dice I just dropped might have killed Randolph. Yeah, yeah. It was just the weight of those eight-eight dice, I think. Loravith, as you dispatch Randolph and, you know, clear this room, now I'd like you to give me an insight check, please, on Duber,

who still seems to be kind of stock still. Okay. That is a six. You and how do you feel about that? Here's what I'll tell you with a six. Duber looks scared of you as you sort of reappear in this room that you've just blown to smithereens. And for just a moment, I think, you wonder like, is it maybe because I just obliterated Randolph. But Duber looks at you and sort of composes himself, wipes a tear from his eye, and says,

Randolph attacked you before anything else happened. Did you kill Randolph? Lorifth? Was it you? Duba, I want to answer your question. But first, I have to ask you one very important, clarifying question about killing Randolph. Which time? Maximum Fun

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