The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 25

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

The Trial of Necromancy, Part IV With dawn and victory in sight, the competitors decide their best bet is to work together. But despite their efforts at diplomacy, more fall to the zombie hoards, dragged down by those they have wronged. Royale Theme: “Wizard Disco” by Louie Zong: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/wizard-disco Original Music by Griffin McElroy Additional Music in this Episode:  "Chewing Devil Grass", "Palaver", and "Skin Writhes Anxious" by ROZKOL: https://rozkol.bandcamp.com/; “If You Can't be the Sun, Be the Sun” by Schemawound http://schemawound.com/; "Circus Minute" by Orion Williams: https://toolofgod.com/; "Ancient Winds"  by Kevin MacLeod:  https://incompetech.com/; and "Simple Song" by Jar of Flies: https://jaroffliesofficial.bandcamp.com/.  Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Previously on Taz Royale. In each of those rooms, we're going to find something to turn off portions of the fire. Except for Hasty Jane. She is still sort of nowhere to be seen after running off flash speed after attacking Hippocrates. Duba. We're both watching now. Maybe so much. You wish to.

Okay, you both come with me. How about that? Hell Grammet and Loravith. Eventually, we're going to have to kill each other, right? But now is not your time. you recognize this undead figure pretty quickly. It is Randolph. Randolph attacked you before anything else happened.

Did you kill Randolph, Lorifith? Which time? Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Tas Royale, our battle royale, winter take all season of the Adventure Zone. we are currently nearly wrapping up the trial of necromancy, the sixth trial. You know what they're called

Taz Royale in France? Are we going to do it every episode? Because I know it's been a while since we've recorded. It's a new one I came up with. I came up with a new one. Okay. What do they call Taz Royale?

It's a different punchline. What do they call Taz Royale in France? No, what do they call Taz Royale in France? Okay. At the end of the last episode, we had a bit of a showdown between Loravith, Dreamweedver, Gonjabon. And...

That can't be right. Is that right? A lot of people forget the Dreamweaver? Dream Wanderer. Yeah. Dream Wanderer. A lot of people do forget it. Dreamweaver.

Oh, Dreamweaver! All my ears. Gary Wright. You had a confrontation with the undead form of Randolph, through which Duber realized that you had terminated. him during a previous trial. We were in the midst of putting out a fire to expose a hidden ladder up to the rooftop where you all were hoping to make a hasty retreat in order to greet the sunrise a little bit faster and escape the hordes of undead thrall that are crawling all over this mansion

at this point. As we come back to that moment of Duber and Loravith sort of having this discussion. You all hear from downstairs, you're standing at sort of the top landing of this first floor staircase. From downstairs, you hear a shriek, a long, sort of prolonged, pain, shriek, followed by the sound of a loud chiming bell from outside. Hell, Gramet, I think, because you put him in that position, you realize that was the, that was the sound of, oh, shit, ready go. Oh, I already deleted him. His name wasn't, his name wasn't, right? His name wasn't It was Formaggio Bucatini. Formaggio Bucatini.

God, I deleted him too fast from the virtual tabletop. There's 64. For the record, I was going to try to find a way to rescue him this session. So Griffin murdered him. I did. I've murdered so many guys this season. You also hear the sound of Scorpo shouting from deeper in the study. Richtus, you are standing there with Hippocrates and Prankland.

Scorpos comes running out of the last of these. bedroom suites and shouts, okay, I got mine. Everyone else? You look over and see that the prismatic fire at this point has been doused completely, revealing the ladder leading upwards. And without missing B, Pranklin's going to go ahead and start climbing up onto the rooftop. What are the rest of you doing? Griffin? Yes. Through like hearing the bells chime and the people around us, would I, would Rick just be able to figure out besides Hasty Jane, if there's anyone,

left? Who you don't have like tabs on right now? Yeah. I will go ahead and say, I don't know if Rickdis would know this, but Loravith probably would remember that Burger Man ran off into the woods at some point and has not been accounted for yet. Okay, so the seven of us, including Franklin, Rickus, Scorpo, Hippocrates, Loravith, Duber, Hell, Gammett, Haycy, Jane,

Pranklin and Burger Man. Yes, those are the nine contestants, the nine aspirants still remaining. Okay, we have a few minutes. I'm going to try to find Hacy Jane before I go up. Okay, where are you going to be looking? Hippocrates kind of nods at you and begins lumbering towards the latter as well. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, why? Are you guys regrouping in the study here?

No, we're separate. We're separate. Hell, Great, wait. Yeah, Helgram, you're not in the scene. Oh, right, right, right, right. Right. I mean, we've been in the suites. Sure.

And Loravith was in the library and there was no HastyJ in there. So I'm going to head towards the guest rooms. Okay, cool. You scuttle over to the western wing of the second floor towards the guest rooms. Before we get to that, Helgrimut and Loravith, what are you all doing? Duber is just kind of staring at you, Loravith. Duba.

Up, up, up, Dubba. I lower of his leg, pants his shoulder. Up, Duba. We must a way. He takes a step back from you kind of flexible. Duba, doo-do. Dudo. Do-do.

Up. You know, I think you too. You two need a moment. Why don't I scuttle like so many others have done? And I'm going to go to the study. I didn't realize you were still here, Buck Manor. Oh, that's hurt a little. Frank. I'm looking at an overhead map, but I didn't realize it. I know. Right. Yes, I know.

I'll just go into the study and let you two have this dramatic family moment. Okay. Held Grimmet, you head into the study where you see Hippocrates' black feathered tail sort of scuttling up the, so much scuttling this episode, up the fireplace ladder. Scorpo is the only one still in here. He starts to go towards the ladder, then turns back towards you and is like, what are you guys? go first. No, that's okay. You go ahead and, you know, you're a little heavier

than I am, so this will check and make sure the stairs are okay. Fine. Just don't... I'm trying to trust you, Helcline. Yes, oh, and I should. Absolutely. What am I going to do?

Stabby in the back. Well, I have a poisonous barbed tail back there, so it's not place I'd recommend. Oh boy, I'm glad you pointed that out. Scorpo actually does scuttle up the ladder up towards the rooftop.

Click, click, click. Hell, Gremant, are you following? I think I'm going to pause. Okay. Right at the base of the ladder. Okay. You are so paused. Loravith. Yeah. But, Duba, Duba, I don't understand.

You saw that terrible dragon I saved you from with a fireball and now we must away. That was no... What? That was... That was Randolph. You... Oh no. You said you killed him again.

Oh no! Duba, I understand what's happened here. Illusory magics. I was afraid of this. Very powerful illusory magics are at work here, Dubo. They made me see a dragon. You saw so that me attack Randall? Oh, I should.

me I could never have a good not. His name was Randolph. That's what I said. I swallowed the F. It's an accent, Duber. Give me a persuasion check if you're actually trying, or I'm sorry,

a deception check fucking definitely. Devo, definitely, one of the purest deception checks we've had in a while. 15. Very good. Okay. With a 15 deception check,

Duber is still looking at you skeptically. but he sort of shakes his head and says, it's not safe. Sure enough, at this point, you can see down the stairs, the corpse mound that just killed Jimmy Linguini has begun to scuttle in your direction.

Everybody's scuttling. Where's the ups? Like, I see corpsebound, right? Sorry, Corpsebound is technically down here. I'm showing it to you. So we're on the second level, right? So I want to follow in the way Hellgram is going. Okay, yeah.

You follow into that door. Dober sort of walks alongside you in towards the study, in towards the ladder. Rick, this will hop over to you. You walk into this sort of long hallway leading into the West Wing where the guest rooms are. Give me a perception check, please. Okay. Ah, 19 plus 5, a 24. Okay, you walk in, you spot a few doors into some small, like, modest bedrooms on the right side of the hall here.

but you hear the sound of running water coming from the left side and as you open up the door where you're hearing the sound from you see a small sort of common restroom uh i knock first okay i'm not just gonna walk in i hear running water driven i don't think zombies are washing their hands yeah that's a fair point uh you knock first and within a half second the door is swung wide open and inside you see hasty jane who up appears to be somewhat distraught. She is still holding in her hand the, the candlestick that she used to bludgeon Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi, Jopcrates earlier, earlier in the trial. She looks at you and she says, Hi, Rickus. Hey, hey, Jane. We got access to the roof so we can head up there and give us another layer of safety. Is Apocriti still alive? Yeah, no, he's fine. Listen, he to the moment. it stuff.

He's fine. There's a lot going on. She turns, she turns on her heels and throws the candlestick at the mirror over the sink, shattering it. She shouts, damn it! Yeah, no cool. I hate mirrors too. I,

I didn't even, I made a mistake and I didn't even, I didn't even, he didn't even die. That's better, isn't it? Rick does, I don't, I don't want to fucking kill anybody, man. Yeah. And I don't, I also don't want to die. So those seem to be the only two options here. And I realized a long time ago, I'm in pretty well over my head.

It may surprise you to learn I'm actually not the most competitive person out there. And I don't know what to do. And I thought this was my chance to have my heel turn. And I couldn't even fucking do that right, Richtus. So what's the other? What's the other way out? Why shouldn't I just stay in this bathroom and hide and hope for the best and not run into the guy I just tried to kill? You know, I've actually been thinking about this a lot, Jane, and I think that it has been kind of positioned to us.

Like there are only two options, you know, kill or be killed. But there's two other options. And option one is survive, right? because the challenges themselves have been killing people, right, and limiting the competitors, and all you have to do is survive. But there's a fourth option that has only just occurred to me, like, today. There's a set amount of trials, Jane.

And their assumption is it will come down to one person left. that there can only be one person left. But that's assuming that the people who are left want to kill the others and be the only person left. You really believe that, she says. I mean, I don't know, but if you're talking about there's no other options, there are.

And if you look at your wrist, like I look at my wrist, we are exponentially more powerful than we were when these trials started. At that point, we were completely beholden to the rules and what we were told to do. We each had one spell, but look at us now. I know I can move dirt with my mind. Sick, yeah. You couldn't do that before, right? No, I couldn't.

Give me just a sort of general persuasion check here. I don't know what other kind of like... A 13 plus 1, a 14. Okay. She nods. She says, sorry about the mirror. It's not mine. Yeah, good point.

Fuck this mansion for real. Yeah, I don't care. She picks it up the candlestick and smashes another mirror. Okay, but we are unlimited. Yeah, we're on a time frame. Yeah, of course. Yeah, let's go. And she darts down the hallway into the study.

sees everybody else standing in the study. Does a quick pan around looking for Hippocrates doesn't see him and says, where'd everyone go? Oh, threw the fireplace up? Let me go first, though, because Hippocrates is already up there. Yeah, smithing's over me? Yeah, I can buffer. Okay, cool. All right, Rictus, you head up the ladder as well.

Loravith, Duber, Hellgrammit. You're still in here with Hasty Jane. From the north side of the study where there is the back staircase leading up, you hear the sound of of the shuffling dead as another corpse mound begins to make its way up. Yeah. Every day they're shuffling. That's when they're not scubbling. Who wants to go up the ladder next?

But you go ahead. I tell you what, Doobre, why don't you go ahead? Okay, fine. Duber runs. That's the only thing I feel comfortable with. Yeah. Duba runs up the fireplace up to the ladder and clambers upwards. Hasty Jane says, I'm going to go next, but I'm really fast.

And she zooms towards the ladder and up onto the roof as well, leaving just Helgrim and Loribeth down here. Well, I think one of us should probably stay here. Okay, Laura. I guess it's me. Turns and goes up the ladder onto the rooftop as well behind Duber and Hellgrammit. Rick this shouts down, we'll always remember your noble sacrifice, buying us time, Helgramette. How close is the mound?

I mean, 10 feet, 20 feet. Okay. You just see it sort of appearing around the staircase coming up onto the second floor. Okay. Hell Graham is going to scramble up the ladder. Okay. And then pour the vial of holy water down on the rungs of the ladder. Okay, yes.

You just make it up the ladder as the two corpse mounds from below reach the study where you are. As you climb up, you reach down and dump this vial out of your satchel, and you hear one of the corpse mounds shuffle upwards. you're not sure if they would be able to get up this ladder in any case, but you hear sizzling and this very hollow screaming coming from down below you as a very foul vapor begins to flood up the shoot. I didn't do it. No, it wasn't me. It was the dog. You all make it up onto the roof. If you can scroll up to the top part of our map here, you will see where

our eight heroes have gathered. As you reach the roof, it is quite large with these sloped, sort of tiled, shingled rooftops with a sort of flat area on the very top where these sort of stove top, what do you call those, stovepipe exhaust ports for some of the other fireplaces in the house? Chimneys? I guess you would call them chimneys. Houses don't really have exhaust boards. No, I think it might be stovepipe exhaust ports.

exhaust ports for fireplaces. Guys, I haven't lived in a house. We lost a lot of, we lost a lot of boffins to bring you these plans of this manner. You can see, this is the turbo thermal exhaust port for the, that's the one week point. For the temperature shifting chambers. It's the one place you have to place the shot to destroy the Death Star. Um, okay.

Other than these stovepipe exhaust port for fireplaces, that you see poking out of this flat section of roof here for big boys. The last thing that you see is a sun dial that is positioned sort of on the southern edge of this flat part of the roof. And you can see where the sunlight, as it is creeping over the precipice of the Octav Ziggurat Island, is inching closer and closer towards it. Everyone is sort of, everybody else, I should say, is sort of gathered around this sundial. watching, sort of waiting expectantly, waiting for the sunlight to reach it. And just as it's about six or so inches away from reaching the sundial, you hear a shriek from

the woods to the east. And it is a loud, cartoonish, a shriek, followed by another bell. and a few seconds after that, a shadow comes flying out of the... He's well done now. And a burger-headed corpse lands on the roof next to you. And you can see the now-turned form of Burger Man, who ran off after confronting Lora Vith and has been killed and really fiercely yeated back towards the,

the manor here, landing on the rooftop with you. Just seconds after that, there is a loud pounding sound. The trees rustle sort of in rhythm. You all see parting the canopy of trees a pointy felt hat about the size of like a windmill appear.

And moments later, later the undead form of Pip, the enlarging, reducing gnome zombie, who, when you last saw him Hell Gramet after saving Duber in the sort of piano lounge room, was already pretty big. He has like Quinn Tupold in size. He is 35, 40 feet tall at this point, as tall as the building itself. He appears to be the one who just chucked Burger Man up here in a tizzy. Which is hilarious. It is quite funny. As he parts through the canopy of trees, you see him reach down and begin to scoop up some of the remaining zombies that you all have not destroyed at this point with Holy Water and Magics.

And he is going to charge towards the manner. But before he does that, let's roll initiative and get into it. Sorry, I did not realize that there was still initiative going. Oh, yeah, 16 plus 2, 18. So you got 11 Loravith Hell Gramet got what? Oh yeah, 7 plus 1, 8. I'm looking at my adventure kit

for maybe the first time this entire like campaign And within it is a quote, little bag of sand, end quote. And I want to know how many meetings went into if it needed to be little or not. Yeah, probably a lot. I mean, it's got to be for Indiana Jones stuff, right?

Right. Yeah. Okay, first in the order is Rickus, Richtus, the eight of you are gathered here on the roof. Burger Man is the only sort of foe facing you all on the roof, but you do have a fast encroaching,

gigantic zombie wizard also coming in from the southeast here. Cool. What would you like to do? It's a great question, Griffin. Thank you for asking. I'm going to... There it comes.

Drop it on us, king. You know what? Magic missile, Pipp. Oh! Casting it at second level. All right, go ahead and roll your, what is that, 4D4?

Chab, I'm sorry, man. I was worried I was hyping it up too much. I didn't know you're about to drop the double M on them. That was magical. This is our first magic missile of our wizard-based season of the Adventure Zone? Eight, nine, ten points of damage. Nice.

You launched this over at PIP It strikes him square Well I guess four darts Fly towards Pipp And they appear to be just doing Largely Cosmetic Damage I aim for his hat You see him

Oh shit you didn't say that man I'm gonna knock his hat off Give me a range attack roll Just to see how Magic Missile always hits You're gonna hit him But if you want to knock his fucking hat off That's gonna be

I'm gonna need a good roll for that A two It's a two you hit him in the feet You hit him in the feet You miss his hat just about as bad as you can. All four go down and hit his feet. He looks at you like you're some sort of weird purve or something. Okay.

Any other stuff on your turn? Yes. I'm also going to cast Shadow Blade, which is a bonus action to summon my weird creepy dark sword thing. Okay. You sew conjure. You now have your weird creepy dark sword. Where would you like to position yourself?

I'm going to position myself betwixt a burger man and everybody else. Okay. Since I've got a sword and I don't know if anybody else has a weapon. Cool. Next in the order is Pip, the giant. Pip, who you can see was sort of like leaning down

as he stomped in the direction of the manner, stands up to his full height and like a child putting pieces down on a game board, you see him drop down more piles of zombies, two more corpse mounds here, numbering about, well, just about the remaining 20 or so wizards that you all have not destroyed, have appeared on the roof.

And having done that, Pip stands back up here, towering in front of the edge of the rooftop here, and just as easily he reaches forward and grabs that sundial, just as the sunlight was approaching it. Oh, man. And is now holding it sort of in his enclosed fist lower out of the reach of the sunlight. So it's not just decorative. It actually has some impact on mechanics?

It would appear so. Oh, man. Next in the order is Burger Man. Burger Man, he's going to do sort of his classic thing that Burger Man knows how to do. It is also his favorite movie musical. He is going to cast Grease. He opens his mouth and from his sweaty patty begins to immerse. begins to emerge a torrent of slit grease,

which is going to cover the ground in a 10 foot square. He made me greasy. He is going to put that actually right here next to the sloped edge of the roof. We are going to get a deck save here from Dover and Pranklin. I'm going to get a 15 plus 3rd, Duber saves. You see him start to slip slide around, but he manages to keep his footing.

Pranklin is going to not do quite as well. Pranklin rolls a four. Pranklin slips off of his feet and begins to tumble towards the edge of the roof. Duber manages to grab his hand. He is prone, but Pranklin is still sort of on terra firma. next of the order is Loravith Loravith as we get to your turn

the other sort of NPCs here you see Scorpo and Hippocrates and Hacy Jane are going to go and begin to actually they're going to go over here to this corpse mound a little bit further from Burger Man and engage in combat with them so I don't have to continue to take seven actions

between your guys' turns what would you like to do I have to get greasy with the monkey I have to go over to get my son He's in a greasy spot right now And he needs me Okay Even though he's not super proud of me right now

I gotta go help him And I maybe have to kill Franklin to do it What? Whoa We're just gonna see I'm like, hey, Trav It's just like at no while, man I'm gonna check the spice level

And I'm gonna decide from there All right Okay, Loravith, you head over towards Duber and Pranklin. You can see Duber is sort of struggling to stay on his feet, but he's got a firm grasp on Pranklin's wrist, holding him upright, keeping him from slipping off the roof. Duber says, Loravith, grab his other hand. Help me. Grab Pranklin's other hand. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. All right, you're going to help.

Yes. Give me a dexterity saving throw, as you... step into the grease to help? Eight. Okay. You are successful in helping get Pranklin out of the grease. You, however, begin to lose your footing as well and begin to slip, slide around. Give me another deck save just to see if you can stay on the flat part of the roof as you begin to spiral out of control.

Oh, that's a five. No, okay. You begin to slide down the tiles. Doobre is already holding Pranklin. and you can see looks at you for just a second and does not reflexively reach out to grab your hand in the way that he... Duber does it?

Duber does not. Duber does it reflexively? Hmm. No. How quickly a 15 has faded. You have managed to not completely fall off the roof. However, you are in a somewhat precarious spot here and used your move action. You do still have a...

regular action that you can take here. You are sliding for those not looking at a battle map, which is everybody else hearing this in the direction of the giant zombie pip also. If you'd like to use your action to try and unfuck this situation by taking like another move action instead of a regular action. Oh, can you do that? Is that an option? Yeah, for sure.

You do have some options here. Your regular action, you can more or less change. You know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to, I'm going to take this. not a move action, but I'm going to take, well, I guess basically a move action, just try to get my bearings and try to stop the slide. Yeah, easy. Yeah, for sure. Of my...

Yes, you use your move action. Out of the grease now, you are able to sort of gain some traction. You're sliding sort of in the direction that the shingles are facing, so it's tough to kind of like get some footing, but you're a big enough do that you can kind of just like put your hands down and use the friction to stop yourself. So you are ungreased and able to sort of get to your feet here. It is a bit tricky footing, but you are no longer in danger of falling off the roof. Next in the order is the corpse mound. The corpse mound is going to crawl in Burger Man's direction to lend some aid, and Rictus is going to make.

a few attacks towards you. Is it? Yes. Unless you have some manner of... No. Cool. All right. So...

Rolling that. Yes, that is a 20. What? They have a plus 11? Yeah, it's a lot of zombies, man. When you're fighting a sort of a horde of enemies that you have not damaged yet, they are sort of at their most...

Yeah, no, yeah, no, that's, uh, just got me. Uh, okay, um, their first attack is not going to deal any damage. Instead, they are going to grapple you with their first attack. Their second attack, they are now going to attempt to bite you, uh, as you are sort of held into them. That is going to be, uh, 18. Yeah. Versus AC. Okay.

Uh, make a constitution saving through for me, please. One. plus one two oh well it's insufficient okay you are going to take five points of crushing damage just from their

jaws sort of smashing down on your arms as you're trying to pull yourself away from them and then you are also going to take six points of necrotic damage which you're going to continue to take on your turn until you are able to save from this

condition. That's 11 total. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. They have disadvantage on attack rolls against me. Because like, oh, you have protection against evil. Yeah, good and evil. Good and evil. Yeah, okay, excellent. Let me roll both of those attacks again, though. If the first one doesn't see. It's going to be hard with a plus 11, I realize, but. Yeah, yeah, anything's possible. Yeah, 21 on the grapple. Yeah. Still going to hit. And on the bite. Okay. Never mind. Okay. 11 points. 11 points of damage. Speaking of that poison,

Hell, Gramet, you are still under the effects of it from your sort of confrontation down in the guest room earlier. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. Yeah, yeah. Hellgramut has resistance to poison. Oh. So how does that manifest? That would just mean half damage.

So of the seven points of damage that you're supposed to take, you would instead take four. and you now get to try and roll a con save to beat that before we get into your turn. A con save would do this. And that is a four. No, you are still under the effects of the poison. Nice. So you are sort of standing right next to where Rictus has been pulled into the corpse mound and is being grappled and also poisoned.

Burger Man is sort of looming overhead on the other. side of the roof, you have Hasty Jane, Hippocrates, and Scorpo. Scorpo kind of keeping the piece between the other two as they try to fend off the corpse mound on the other side of the roof. You have Duber, Pranklin, and Loravith, who just went over sort of the edge of the flat part of the roof towards the giant pit. Everybody thinks he's going to be fine, though. Yeah, everyone thinks Laura is going to be okay because he's so big. He's really big. He's bigger than the roof. That's what Griffith did mention is he's basically sitting on top. He's basically tips size, yeah. Is there more, are there any more corpse mounds that Pip can drop on us?

You don't see anything? No, this appears to be like the remainder of the corpse mounds. Aside from the ones down at the bottom of the fireplace that you, you know, dispatched with your holy water. Is Pip a danger to Loravith? I mean, other than drop it stuff, can he reach us? Yeah, oh, easily. Yeah, I mean, he's been sort of manipulating objects on the roof pretty, pretty, pretty, effortlessly at this point as he grabbed that sort of sun dial earlier would attest.

He's a tremendous danger. I'll show you my cards. He's an enormous 40-foot-tall zombie wizard. He's extraordinarily dangerous. Okay. I am going to cast infestation on the corpse mound trying to hurt rickus um okay and i'm casting bloat flies which have a tendency to eat decaying flesh uh disgusting uh so okay so this only targets one creature well this hell grammat what you expect yeah uh okay so it's going to take a con save what level you're casting this is a cantrip so this would be 2d6 damage if it hits um so i will roll that con save now No, just a nine. Okay, go ahead and roll 2D6 damage, and then we'll decide which direction it moves.

That would be nine. All right. The corpse mound, you knock a couple of bodies off of it, which fall onto the sloped pile of the roof and tumble down to the ground 30 feet below. And roll a D4 to determine which direction these bloat flies as they pick these corpses. is clean, which way they move them. Okay. That says four. With a four, this is going to go to the west.

They don't have a ton of room to go here as they run into one of the house exhausts. However, that is enough to knock them off of Rictus. I will break the grappled condition on him. Okay. Any other thing you want to do on your turn, Helgrammat, you still can move or bonus action. Yes. Yes. I'm going to cast.

Misty Step on myself, which is a bonus action. Okay. And move down to that little, I don't know, base, not basement, that little... Balcony? Balcony on the, at stage left. At stage left. Okay, yeah, so down... No, no, over here. Over here. Over here. Over here.

Okay. That's the right side of the map. I guess it would be... Oh, I see, I see. Okay. Yeah, Helgrimit. You having sort of pride this pile of zombies off of rictus, you do an acrobatic little roll down the slope tile of the roof. And actually, give me an acrobatics check. This is not like a huge fall. You're basically dropping down, you know, six feet or so down to the balcony on the second floor of the house. Okay. Yeah, easy.

You land on your feet with the 18. 18, easy. You tumble down the tiles. land on, you know, one knee and one hand, uh, and manage to keep your footing as, uh, you kind of disengage from the battle of it. Uh, okay. Next in the order is Rictus. Riktus, you have been sort of pride free of the corpse mound. You are prone, um, but you are, uh, need to give me a con save first to check, uh, if you are free of the poison. Uh, an 18 total. 18 hits it exactly. Uh, you, uh, you,

adrenaline pumping through your body, you feel it start to kind of push out the pain and exhaustion you were feeling from whatever these, you know, this corpse man infected you with. And you have saved from the poison. Excellent. What do you want to do? I'm going to cast unseen servant. Okay. on Pip's shoulder. Okay. To have the servant like pull his hair and poke him and kind of scurry around in an invisible, annoying way. That's very cool. I like that use of unseen servant.

I think it's going to have to be a save from Pip, right? Just to see if he can figure out what's going on or, uh, to get this thing off of him. I'll make a wisdom save maybe for Pip just to see if his like zombie brain can really comprehend like there's an invisible servant fucking around with me right now. Absolutely not. No, that is a five minus three, a two. So yeah, sure enough.

I assume you were trying to sort of distract Pip here. And you have done so swimmingly. He takes one step away from the roof and begins sort of like slowly swatting. at his head trying to grab your unseen servant, which you know, you can't see, but you do continue to see his hat, like get knocked around and see his hair get sort of tugged around. You seem to have distracted Pip for at least this round. Sick. Then I'm going to stand up. Yes, that is your move. And then your bonus. I don't think I have any bonus actions, but do I see is the corpse of the gentleman up here or is he still downstairs uh he is still downstairs uh you

do not see he might be in one of these piles of corpses he may be do i see any any corpses i recognize um if you don't know who does yeah that's a fair point uh yeah give me a uh give me an investigation check a 10 total 10 total um who would you say see. I'll say there's a couple of faces that you recognize in the corpse pile that was just attacking you. One face you recognize because it's just like so brilliant and some might say even dazzling. You see Bobby Dazzler's sort of handsome visage poking out of the corpse mound. The other thing that you see, you take note of because it is slightly larger than a lot of the other corpses here in the you see the undead form of Gricon in the pile.

Excellent. These are not going to be individual NPCs. I'll sort of leave them off to the side here for reference. They are sort of part of the corpse mound for all intents and purposes. Can I try to speak to them? Yes. All attempts at diplomacy with, well, I say that. And Justin kind of had a moment with Randolph.

So, yes, if you would like to speaking as a reaction. He hadn't been corpseboundified, though. I would make the argument, and maybe this will make it an archa chag. But as a necromancer, speaking with corpses is something that... Don't try to act like you didn't take the speak with Deadspill. I did. I know that you regret that. I know it keeps you up to me.

That wasn't up to me. Oh, right. That's fair. You definitely would have grabbed that one. Bobby Gricon, if you're in there, if you can hear me, you target the ones that killed you but it was the responsibility of the octave of the games themselves that you died. I mean, hmm.

Travis not only is satisfied with like talking to the dead, he wants it to moral reasoning. No, I mean, I see what you are doing. You are trying to sort of exploit the rules as established of like cause of death. I will allow a persuasion check here, but I'm going to say it's going to need to be like a, This will work on like a 20 or above.

Oh! Not quite. Just I said with an 8. Yeah, you get no response from Bobby Dazzler or Gricon to your plea. Okay. Next in the order is Pip. I'm going to make Pip do another wisdom saving throw, and if you can't pass it, let's say he's trying to beat a...

What is your spell save trial? My spell save is... Okay. My spell save is 14. Okay. Is he at least going to have, is it going to have an effect this turn one way or the other? Yes, yes. Let's roll that.

Okay, no. He rolls a, is that a zero, which is cool. I don't know that we've ever actually seen that dice result before, but he gets a zero total. And as such is going to kind of continue flailing around taking another step back. still holding on to the sundial. Loravith, give me a perception check, please. You are sort of getting a front row center sort of view of Pip

as he is sort of flailing around like this. Oh, yeah, 19. Oh, hell yeah. As Pip is flailing, you know, he's swatting around at his head, at his head, where this is. Unseen Servant is fucking around with him. He is still holding the sundial in his hand.

And every time he kind of like brings that hand up to try to swat away the invisible specter that is tormenting him, you see sunlight flashing off of the sundial as he sort of reaches up the hand holding it. You see very briefly it begins to sort of glow this blue light and tracing these runic patterns over it as it reaches the sunlight. And then he drags it back down. continuing to flail and the pattern disappears. You see that kind of like flash and appear a couple of times as he is trying to rid himself of this ghost.

Burger Man is up next. Burger Man is going to come towards you, Rictus. And is going to grab you by the shoulders and just point-blank grease you. point blank grease blast you doesn't he have to try to grab me I mean he just that was just for flavor he doesn't actually grapple you

but he is gonna just sort of like you know shoot his grease all over okay um give me a dexterity saving throw please that would be 21 hell yeah all right you actually try I duck he wasn't expecting that

you duck the grease Grease does like splash down behind you covering a 10 foot square of the of the ground. But you have this like cool technique where you just don't move and so you don't start to slip and fall. And he looks at you confuse like this has never happened before. Burger Man has greased a lot of guys in his life. And this is the first time. And we don't say that. You know what I mean?

No, yeah, for sure, for sure. Next in the order is Loravith. Yes. Loravith from his position on the roof looks over to Pipp and casts color spray Oh, nice.

Into Pipp's face. All right. So you must survive a, not survive, succeed on the Constitution saving through. Okay, con save or blinded condition. What am I trying to beat here? 15. 13.

13. that is a 10 great okay Pip now has the blinded condition as he is sort of like swatting around trying to get the

the ghost off of him you flash him with a spray of multicolored orbs and he grabs his eyes reflexively

and how big is he he's about 40 feet tall shit do you have a spell that works on 30 feet tall knife no no no it's good it's all good it's just I didn't want this to

work, but it makes sense. Bad news for you, Pip. I just remember on spider climb last an hour. And I leap at Pip. Okay, awesome. Yeah. You leap forward. Give me either an acrobatics or athletics check, please. 18 minus 1, 17.

Yeah, for sure. You leap forward and your hands sort of fine purchase on the tattered robes, almost like one of those big Velcro walls that you can run and jump up onto you stick to Pip's torso Pip is now like fucking Pip has a lot of stuff going on right now he's swatting at the ghost

messing with his head, he's blinded from the color spray and now he has Lora Viz sort of grabbing onto his midsection like a koala bear and you're just holding on you've already used sort of an action in a move here. I'm going for the sundial. I'm trying to get to the sundial. So that was my, that's my goal. I think that will be, I think we'll resolve that or attempt to resolve that next,

next turn as we move on to the corpse mound. The corpse mound is going to approach Richtus. However, it is going to have to make a dexterity saving throw to get towards that, to get towards him in that grease. And is going to fail. You see these corpses start to climb in your direction. However, as soon as they reach the sort of perimeter of Greece that Burger Man has laid down here, they just kind of are unable to figure out how to move forwards in their sort of shamans.

They don't slip and fall down? They are already sort of, this is a... I know, I was going to play yakety sacks in my head when they did. For all intents and purposes, you can yakety sacks this moment. They are going to stop short of you and are simply unable to get in sort of grabbing distance. And then we move on to Hellgramette. Hellgramette, you are now sort of like posted up on this balcony.

It's a chill situation. There's a picture of iced tea set out here. And some of your, some magazines just like sitting on this little deck. It's like the battle that's happening sort of next to you and above you is like miles away, man. It's like pretty dope right here. Um, okay, Hell Gremitt is going to cast a spell on PIP as well. Okay. He's going to cast Reduce on PIP.

Amazing. Target size decreases. I don't know how you want to handle this. Decreases by one category. Yeah, no, I mean, there is a very distinct way of determining this. Super good time, by the way. I'm so excited about this. Love the moment for this.

I'm clinging to this man. Thank you. So what he does is Hell Grimmett closes the centerfold of Playbug magazine and takes a little tiny sip of the ice team.

It's a millipede so it like takes a while to close the centerfold. And he casts reduce on good old Pip. Okay. So this is going to take Pip down one size category. I don't know

how to do that in... That's what I asked. I don't know how to shrink his token on the... Oh, oh, oh, oh. He was gargantuan. Now he's just going to be huge. See, beep. Oh, man, I just thought of something I should have done.

Wait until Justin wasn't on him. Yeah, that's what I was going to say, too. I was going to enlarge Justin. I mean... Great plan, Bugman! It would have been like an Ultraman. We'd be so much better the other way. A kajou.

Okay, you hang over the edge of the balcony. You can see sort of where Pip is standing with Loravith clambering all over him. You reach out your hand and cast Reduce. You see Pip shrinks sort of dramatically. This spell halves the size of whoever you cast it on. So Loravith, you with spider climb, I'm not going to make you run. roll anything to sort of like keep your, your footing here, you are easily able to sort of like hang on.

However, this has turned more from like a Shadow of the Colossus situation, and now is just more of like you're giving a very big man a hug. And I'm going to make Pip roll a deck save here. Okay, I think the sort of shock of being shrunk down in this way is going to cause him to drop the sundial. The sundial has now landed on the sort of patio on the ground pretty far away from the rooftop. How long does it take to fall?

How long does it take to fall? I mean, a round of combat is six seconds. So the way he had already shrunk down, this was basically already on ground level anyway. What I'm saying is he is no longer holding it in his hand. It is now sort of free. And one last deck save to see if he can, like stay upright with Loravith on him.

No, I don't think he can. Loravith Pip is going to sort of fall to his knees as well. Now having been sort of shrunk down, just sort of the weight of your considerable frame holding onto his front side. He's going to kneel down to the ground. You are now just like, you know, six or so feet off the ground as you're holding onto his torso still. Okay.

As my bonus action. Do I still have to wait for every? to do all their things. It's like where initiative starts to fail me. You know what I mean? Like there's going to be so many people doing things. Yeah, sure. As my bonus action, I cast Misty Step again and grab the sundial.

That's a lot of interacting with shit. I mean, you can warp over to the sundial, but like grabbing it, it's like a huge stone. It's like a big thing. So would not be easy for someone of your stature. Do you want to still misty step over there or stay on your... I'm going to misty step over there. Okay, cool. You land adjacent to Loravith and Pip and the sundial on the ground floor.

Next up is Rictus. I don't know if Greece is... The word. If you start your turn and... Greece is... Greece is the word. Grace is the word. Grace is the word is the main.

Okay, it's only if you enter the area or end your turn there, so you do not have to take a deck save. So I can just move out of it? You can just move out of it. Sick. Okay, I'm going to do that and go over. How are Pranklin and Dober doing? They are doing fine. It's actually been a while.

I think at this point they are going to take steps away from the edge and start to engage Burger Man, who is sort of the closest target to them. but I have not sort of taken any direct action yet. Okay, cool. You know, I conjure my sword. It'd be a shame not to use it. I'm going to take a thing at Burger Man. Okay. Go ahead and make your attack.

That's a 10. A 10 against Burger Man. What is Burger Man's AC? Oh, wait. It's still dark, right? The sun hasn't risen all the way? Correct. Then I have advantage with the Shadow Blade.

Oh, fuck yeah. All right. That's a Nat 20. Oh, yeah, baby. Yeah, baby. That Nat 20 is definitely going to do it. Okay, so you're going to roll double damage on this, and then add your modifier, please. Okay.

That is 2D8, 10, and 10. Holy shit. No, I don't have a modifier, so it's just 20. You, not moving, right, because you're, or are you moving out of the grease before you? No, I'm going to swipe. about him first. Okay, yeah, you, the Burger Man is still kind of like looking at you slack bund,

surprised that you did not succumb to his grease blast. And in that state of surprise, you swing the shadowed blade through the air. And it's very sort of Kurosawa, just like he stands there for a second, not quite knowing what's going on. And then the top part of his bun, just goes flying through the air and grease sprays upwards in a sort of stylish splatter and burger man.

I quartered that pounder. Next in the order is... Wait, no, now I'm moving away from the mound. Okay, great. I'm going over, yeah, kind of this lower exhaust port for the house. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, got you. So I can see what's going on down at the bottom. down at the bottom.

Oh yeah, you can see down and see Loravith, Hellgrayment, and a somewhat smaller Pipp, all kind of standing around the Sunnial. There's a part of me that's so proud to see Hell Grammet and Lorvith working together. Yeah. As a team to get the Sunsdial together. Communicating, collaborating. That's what is all about, folks. That's how we win.

Justin, Loravith, your turn. I'd like to cast Caterpull on the sundial. Awesome. To shoot it 90 feet into the sky. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So catapult is for objects weighing one to five pounds.

You weren't supposed to look. Sorry. I read that 100%. I read it. I read it and you weren't supposed to look at that one to five pounds. You can cast it as a higher level? I'm casting as a third level spell. Okay, so 15 pounds.

This is more than 15 pounds. This is a stone. Who? The sun dial. But I have also increased my size. I want to make this, I want to make this happen for you. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Question. Yes. Pip's hat. Yeah? Was big. Yeah. So Pip's hat is ostensibly under these same effects as the enlarge reduced magic

that is affecting Pip, correct? Yes. Okay, so the proximity of Pip's hat is what caused that magic to have the effect of Pip's hat, correct? Okay, I see what you're doing. So when the sun dial is in the, When the sundial is in possession of Pip and the enlarge-reduced magics are cast on him,

if they are going to affect Pip's hat, they have to then affect the medallion that is in Pip's hand, thereby lowering the class of the object and maturing its size so that I could essentially blast it up 90 feet with catapult. What do you think about that? I like it a lot. I like it a lot, choose. I don't like those swagger. No, the swing is like a, no, sorry, that was not a bragg. a notion swing that is like a what do you think boss or maybe you're gonna let him get away with

this one that's like a come on big guy what can it hurt come on little little enlarger deuce shenanigans I bet brin and lean mulligan would let me get away you know yeah yeah for sure uh okay here's here's what I want I want you to make a range spell attack roll to see how high up this thing going to get. Okay. You shouldn't be able to, to move it at all, but it is shrunken down. I'm going to say, before you roll it, a 15 or higher, full height, 90 feet all the way up, absolutely eat it.

Moving down from there, it's going to get less and less. The building is just 30 feet tall, so, like, you only need to get it, you know, that high. So just a D20. I'm just going to roll a D20. All right. Here? Yep. 11.

All right. With an 11, you chuck the sun dial, the shrunken sun dial, straight up into the air. It goes over the precipice of the roof and greets the sunlight beginning to grow bright blue as the traces of runic light begin to spread across its surface. Pip is going to stand, you still sort of clutching onto him with one hand, catapulting the sundial on the other, and you see his sort of still pretty massive face look down at you as he reaches towards you with his free hand to crush you in his grip. And just then, Rictus, you and everyone on the roof watch as the sundial

just barely inside of the sunlight, now freezes and hangs in the air as that blue light begins to spread outward in a sphere, encompassing at first just sort of the rooftop around where you're standing and then spreading outward and circling the entire house and the yard beyond it and the graveyard sort of beyond that. And as this light touches Pip and the corpse mound still remaining on the rooftop, you watch as they slowly reduce to a sort of featureless dark ash that lifts upward and floats away riding on the sort of sphere of energy that that current as it pushes away from the house.

And when the light clears, the sort of spooky trappings of this manor and of the graveyard and the sort of twilight sky have vanished as, if they were never there. All the spooky trappings. No spooky traps. I mean, it's still a graveyard. I just got used to all the spooky trappings. It's still a graveyard, so, like, there's still, I guess, bats. Graves aren't spooky, Griffin.

There's just real bats. There's fewer bats. There's just a natural amount of bats, naturally occurring number of bats. It's good for the environment. You know, their natural, like, bug predators. It's good. As you all stand here now in this sort of ordinary, clear day, this bright morning, you look around as you see all of the zombies have been eliminated. There is a...

Can you say put to rest, please? They've been put to rest. Thank you. The trial's been put to rest. You solved my zombie puzzle, my big zombie puzzle, my big zombie puzzle. One of my biggest zombie puzzles yet. And Hell Grimmett yells out, my plan worked. Good job. And the rest of you sort of look around as you realize having cleared the trial of necromancy,

you see some of the members of the octave sort of appear by the gates of the graveyard and start to make their way towards you. There's this moment of strange silence as the remaining aspirants look around realizing that with only two trials, to go, your number has dwindled to the Elite Eight.