The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone Versus Dracula - Episode 17

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

After a regal encounter, the monster hunters make their way to the chamber where the Cult of the Buried Blood lives up to their name. Godwin beefs it. Phileaux beefs it. Mutt beefs it but in a different way. Dice sounds by Tal M. Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Oh, secret keeper of my most profane, most fucked up thoughts. The date is June 6th, 1666. I have a new favorite food, King Blood. Some dork named Arthur rolled up on me with two dozen of his strongest idiots, and I just wasted those dudes. For the first time, one of my good, Conquer'd foes actually dropped some pretty good loot. A bejeweled sword, he called Scalibur.

This puppy's throbbing with more holy power than the shroud of fucking Turin. And half tempted to yeat it into the stranglemire, but... Well, maybe one day I'll find a use for it. Oh, and I got a nose piercing at them all. Finally, my exterior reflects the obsidian black emptiness of my soul. Doing a poetry reading at the warehouse tonight, wish me luck. The irony of Dracula being a goth kid. Well, it started, so wait down, you know it started somewhere, right?

Yeah, I know. Goth came from somewhere. He, like, invented it. Like, vampire culture led to Goth, right? You get that, right? Well, I get that. Okay. As established by Lady Godwin in the last episode, the year is 18-something.

So that was a journal entry from a while ago. Not that you guys know that because you haven't found his journal yet. I'm looking for it. Keep an eye out. You guys actually haven't been looking for it. You've passed it a few times, and I've had to. move it from place to place. You all are standing now at the edge of the spine bridge

where you have just offed a few guards and many, many, many, many, many rats before a incredible acrobatic maneuver that saved Brother Philo. But as he was reeled up, as all of you sort of landed back on the landing here, you have hauled up also the living skull of King Arthur.

Now, Griffin, let me ask you a question. Please. I, Travis McRoy, know who King Arthur is. Yeah. Does Mutt and Philo and Lady Gal would know who King Arthur is? You, yeah, yeah, I mean, you all know, you would know who, I mean, I guess if you want to roll a history check, I'm saying he's the most famous sort of king in the history of this world.

You would definitely have heard of his legend. He is also, just for us, another delectable, rich vein of public domain character for us to explore, which is the main reason for his inclusion here. I have plus three in history. Would you like me to roll? Sure, sure, sure. Give me a roll. Okay. 22. Yeah, a couple centuries ago, he disappeared with all of his Knights of the Roundtable. before that he was a very well-known figure in the world.

I'd say with a 22 year connection with the church would tell you that the quest he was on, I think your order would consider like a religious quest. He was off with his Knights of the Roundtable to vanquish some incredible dark entity, the nature of which has not really ever been known to history. Until now Until now Hell yeah man Like King Arthur

Dude that's cool as shit I would like Wait what's he sound like He sounds like Nigel Thorneberry Let me get back there Let me get back into Nigel Okay is Nigel with us Nigel

Smashing Yes okay Yes surely you are familiar With me and my exploits With the Knights of the Round Table Excalibur Dragons all of it Yeah, man.

Sometimes there's dragons in the legend of law. Sometimes there's not. That's cool. They were mostly, they were large, they were big lizards. Yeah. Where is the rest of you? And I do mean that personally and collectively. Well, if you're asking about the rest of my body, it was smashed by this big furry man who swung down and hit me so hard that I turned from a skeleton into a bunch of loose bones.

Let me tell you, there's a lot of bones down there. It's going to be quite hard to identify your pelvis. Could you pick your pelvis out of a lineup? You probably could. Large lady. That's incredible. I used to be able to. I had a great sense of pelvis.

Yes. But I feel like I'm just getting the hang of this one. Yes. And, well, if you're asking about the rest of my crew, they are regrettably still down below. And you hear like two dozen voices. You're like, up from the gulch below. Oh, man, that's perfect. This is, okay.

Listen, hear me out here, man. We're here. investigating Dracula. And there's like some buried blood, bad boys, as they're called. Is that what they're calling themselves now? The bad boys. And you got your knights down there. We'll throw a rope down.

We'll get you all up here. We got ourselves a skeletal army face off against the bad boys and Dracula and all that, man. Can you comprehend? Can your mind, a feeble human mind, comprehend how many bones in a human body. Yeah, it's like 300? 316. That's actually not as...

I don't think that's... I think that's more actually than there are actually. So you guys actually oversawed it, which I was just around and up, man. Let's... Hold on. Let me think on it. Skoll.

Neck. Mm-hmm. Ribs, gotta be 10. Neck back. We're already at 12. Al best and crack. Arm is two, because it bends. Funny bone.

Don't forget the funny bone. Four. I think that's a nerve. I'm at least 20 bones. There's like, there's a couple hundred of them, and there's 26 of us total. Can you even comprehend how many bones that is and how long it would take you to pull them up? And to identify which ones are the bones of the 26 men? So you say it's 26 times what, let's just say 300 to round up, right?

That's too many bones! I mean, 7,800? Has human evolution changed over the last 200 years? 7,800. I think I've got it. 112. But if they... But they're...

Okay, they gotta stick together in some way, man. So if we throw the rope down and the hand bone grabs, the hand bone's connected to the arm bone, the armone's connected to the shoulder bone, right? We'll be able to pull up. We don't have to pull up. It doesn't work like that. Oh, no. How does it work?

Well, you need a skull connected to the other bones to make the bones work. That's basic doctor shit. And so you can't have a hand bone connect to itself and or to something else without a juicy skull of procedure. You'll have to throw me down there. What did you say, 7,000 times? Well, no, but you can't daisy chain it together? Bones are heavy, and I have no muscles, sir.

Okay, yeah, man, I understand. So listen, you've been here for a while, right? Apparently, over 200 years. Yeah, quite some time. You must have seen some shit, right? Mostly bones for the last 200 years or so. Yeah, we get it bones. We get it, we're closing the chapter,

bones. Just for a moment. We'll get back to it. Let's start here. That I could. Oh, yeah. Okay. When you got here 200-some years ago, right?

How did you end up? Bones? You love talking about that here at the bottom of this here, uh, chasm. How does anyone end up? Oh my God. No, it's not, I don't want to get, I mean, like, how'd you die? I was, I was killed by a mighty wizard. By the name of Dracula.

A wizard? shit. What's wrong? I just didn't know you. You have heard of the arch wizard Dracula. You're telling you he yet breathed. I said not two minutes ago we was here investigating Dracula. Oh, I wasn't listening. Okay. I'm the king. I've got a lot of stuff going

on here, I guess. Yes. Um, yes, I came, well, me and my order came to slay the foul, evil demon who has imbued himself within the loam of this land. And,

as it just so happens, Dracula. The mighty wizard, the dark sorcerer Dracula, he was very strong. You would think 26 of us, and I had a very cool sword that had holy power and made me the king. So I thought, surely, this will go, nope, it boop, boop, like bubble wrap, he popped us.

Scalibur? Excalibur. You'll be happy to hear your legend continues even to this day. We know of your, even the name of your blade. Oh, I did think it was scalerabre. It sounded like you said, it sounded like you said Scalibur. That's what I thought it was.

That's what it's written in the book. I thought, hey, if we did step out, I thought you established in this world it's called Scalibur. Because the first person to say it was Dracula and he said Scalibur. He did say Scalibur. I think it's called Scalibur. Let's pick this up. Let's pick this up in the show. You know, language changes very rapidly with the advancement of technology.

It's possible that you all have short. History is shortened. named to scaliber. It's cooler that way, man, when you think about it. It sounds like a bone. Yeah, the scaliber bone. Your, your majesty, thank you.

What, what happened to scaliber? Do you, do you know where? Is it down amongst the bones, so to speak? Well, the human head can survive for like 20 seconds after, its removal from the body, which Scalibur was used, ironically, I think, by Dracula to behead me,

and then I saw him look at it like pretty cool, and so then I assume he must have held on to it. His corrupted fingers could even hold that beautiful, holy blade defies logic. But, yes, it's probably in his

position. It's got jewels and stuff on it, and technically I think Dracula is the king of England, because he's got it now. What? So, out of curiosity, did you get an opportunity to use the sword on Dracula at all? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, baby. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes, baby, it went so good. It was a close one, I'll say a real nail biter. But did it almost got him? Ooh, so close. I'll magically burn him. I tell you, the winds shift a little bit and that battle would have gone my direction so close was the combat.

Can I jump back real quick? Because what I'm confused about is you're talking about what you're aware of after your head got cut off as you died. Yes. So does that mean that there was a time where you died? Yes. Then you weren't aware as a skeleton. And maybe your skeleton got magical over time.

And then you became aware of stuff. You're suggesting a world in which your skeleton could become aware while still inside of your living body. It wasn't living. I'm saying, when did life after death begin? Okay, I want to know why. I was asking if Excalibur seemed to have magical effects on Dracula. Yeah, make an insight check.

That seems important, but not understanding when the skeleton gains sentience. That doesn't matter. I mean, Travis just poses a good question. It seems like metaphorical, I bet. It's just simply not. It's all from Griffin, you know? Yeah. Wait, what?

Wait, hold on. The artist is just falling down around me. I know. Griffin's making this up. That's right. I've read an insight check. Me and my team of right. He's reading it out of the big book.

The 10,000 page. Every fucking word, man. World tome. An insight check. It's coming out. We got 15 plus 3. 18. This dude's lying through his teeth.

This dude did not get a fucking scratch off on Dracula. Dracula fucking destroyed this dude and his 25 friends. Not even close. His teeth are chattering. as he is telling you this. Is he cold? Clearly this fib. What's that?

Is he cold? He's probably cold. Yeah, I mean, how is he getting around? No skin on, man. Right now he's not. You just punched him off of his sort of like upper half. And so that's, that's, he's not moving.

Wait, so his upper half is still in here? Yeah, it's still up here on the landing. Okay, can I reattach that? Yeah, sure. As you get the skull close to his upper half, it snaps on, almost magnetically, magically. and he hoists himself up sort of now just kind of chilling on his ribcage. Thank you. This is much more dignified.

Of course. So did you guys need something? Yeah, man. How do we, but can you offer us any useful information whatsoever as far as how to be Dracula, how to be Barry Blood, which direction to head so it's not to get trampled by rats at this? I mean, if I could not defeat Dracula with all my boys, I'm talking Lansalot. Uh-huh.

Lance a little. Lance Littal. Rettlansome. Rettlansom. Funky Mike. Twizzlers. B-boy. B-boy.

B-boy Jr. Knife guy. DJ Thumb Sr. DJ Thun and the whole fucking set. I don't know where you think you can accomplish this. One of you is a puppet. It. Okay, so, cool, man.

But I will say, I don't think he can be killed. I don't think he can be defeated. So terrible is the source of his power. But you didn't try your incredible magic sword? Oh, I tried it. And I got him good over and over again. His gross blood just jizzing out like nobody's business. Do you know what that source of power?

You mentioned a source of power? What's that source of power? You're kidding, right? He points back, he gestures now backwards with his skeletal arm back to the gigantic fucking spine in the ground. He was like, you dwell incredibly close to, do you not know? Has time truly erased this over the last two centuries? Sure, man. Yeah.

Make a religion check, brother Philo, very high one, I think, to see if this extremely arcane knowledge would be known to you. Let's say DC 20. What'd you get? What did you get? 20. Nice. 20. Of all the moments on this historical check.

Yes. Thank you. I think that in preparation for this mission, you did a little bit of research into the general scariness of Ongrave as a region of that. this world that appears to be touched by dark magics beyond sort of understanding. In your research, you found many sort of sources claiming that that is the work of a demon of some sort or arch demon. When he starts talking about this, it strikes familiar with you. He says, the very name of this realm, Ongrave. Mm-hmm.

It is just that. It is a grave of the dark god, On. An nocturnal god. You, puppet, you're a religious man. Surely you're familiar with the Pantheon and the great and terrible works? It's specifically religious puppet, yes, I am, yes. Well, then you would know, on, whose dominion is that of the natural world at night,

God of foxes, owls, and mock orange bushes and bats and all those sleepy time fools. How would you spell this word, Griffin, because I'm trying, with the accent and everything. Ah, H.N. A. On? On. Sounds like a cool dude. He perhaps was at one time a neutral lord, but he was extremely vain, and he sought to preserve his beauty eternally, which was a wish granted to him by the cruel trickster god Joki None of this is ringing a bell

Sorry, say it once more The cruel trickster god Joki Once more Jokie Which part are you struggling with? None of it, it's exactly what I heard I thought you said And that is what I thought I heard

And I heard it thrice So thus it is settled Now it's locked in, yeah Joky's curse made him so that he never aged, but Nelson never changed. His hunger never satisfied, his thirst, never quenched, and he spiraled down a path of darkness. To become one of ancient history's nastier gods.

This isn't ringing any bells for you. No, it is. It is. It's also the root for the expression on and on. He just went on and on. Precisely. And that's why we say on and on. This dude knows.

Mine's more like street smarts. I didn't do a lot of, like, religious studying or whatnot. Oh, let me illuminate you. Aons ago, his acolytes tried to summon him to this realm. Yeah. But you know how those things go? Oh, yeah, man. A misplaced candle here, a substitution for gardenia pedals, for moonflower petals here.

Somebody sneezes at the wrong time. Someone sneezes. The ritual got fucked up. They summoned him hundreds of feet lower than they intended to. Brummer. Gross. but he now dwells in the land where Aunt Grave sits

It is Ones grave And is he happy about that Or would you be happy about that Being unsatisfiable For eternity Buried underground Dracula Is he a minion of Alden

Or some sort of extension His foulest minion He has He has claimed his powers His powers of immortality and regeneration. Stuart is the foulest minion. Which one? Stuart?

I don't know of which you speak. He loves banana. I've been bones for two centuries. He loves banana. Someone illuminate me. This peasant is saying the strangest, why illumination indeed? What are you laughing about?

What are you choking about? I don't understand. It's the accent. They're just, they are amused by a humused by a accent. It's all right. Are you familiar with the Kinesdoscope? Yes.

It's a... Merlin showed it to me last week, or I guess 200 years ago and some change. Yes, well, what was depicted in Merlin's Kneroscope, if I may ask? The funniest motion picture you've ever seen in your life. You would absolutely shit your drawers if you had seen this film. It was a man and he was on a horse, but then he fell down. And then a lady came over and still... Breeze kind of wiggled her dress around.

It had every... This film had everything. A lot of heart, you know what I mean? I cried upon first seeing motion, Merlin's dirty dirty movies. Is minions like this? Imagine if it's like that,

but it's a bunch of angry egg yolks. They're just getting into all sorts of different business. Yes. They are caught the minions and there's one of them, I'm assuming his name's Stephen. I don't know the... Stuart, I think, man.

Steward. See, this. The little egg yorkmen have human names, Christian names. Indeed. Though that's the only Christian thing about them. They are so far from God's Light. And the nudity. Oh, it's there, man.

You see, one of them wears a thong in one of the movies, man. He's in a hot tub with, I think, a teddy bear or something. They hang dome in every film, I assume. Yeah, man. I just want to talk about anything else. We hate Dracula for his foul, perverse taste, but I must say seeing Merlin's pornographic films that he makes has awakened in me and my own sort of darkness.

Well, you'll have to pray on that one, my boat. If I understand, if I understand, Dracula, you believe, is unkillable. Mm-hmm. He carries the powers of on. He is invincible. But on seems very present, no? And immobile and physical.

Arden is at his weakest. Must be. Of course. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to get Jennifer, I'm going to get Jennifer Wheeler. Okay.

And I'm going to, sorry. Jennifer Myers. Who's Jennifer Wheeler? Sorry. Jennifer Wheeler is running for mayor. Jennifer Godwin is on house. Jennifer Myers is my ass. Awesome.

Yeah, Jennifer Myers. I'm just going to like hit the. spine as hard as I can. Fuck yeah. Make an attack roll, please. Yeah, I'll just go ahead and wrap this up. I hope you guys got a new arc plan because I am wrapping it up. That's a 9 plus 6.

See ya. All right. Welcome to the, the adventure zone zone zone. Today's a wrap up of our new arc. A wrap of our new arc ended suddenly. Yeah. The princess climbs from the crack you made in the spy. I was trapped in there all along, travelers.

You chop into the spine and another pair of those trimmers comes shooting down the tunnel in front of you, but it is followed by another trimmer that is much louder, much more sort of shrill. It is a grinding, shrieking sound from in the distance of the tunnel that you have sort of crossed over the bridge here too.

You didn't seem to do a ton of damage to this enormous, like, 15-foot-wide spine, but you have done something here. You also hear some voices down at the end of that hallway who were sort of chanting in rhythm, and that seems to have been disrupted slightly by what has just done. Cool, I hate chanting. Hey, Arthur, man, just real quick, just to check in, because I think Godwim is probably going to chop that spine again.

That's usually her style. And you're a, Trav, great read. And thank you for recognizing my decorum in allowing you to slide on in there. You're about to spite definitely being about to hit the spine again. When shit goes down, Arthur, do you want us to chuck you back in the pit or take you with us? I just wanted to get a read on that first, man. I am I happy here? I am of two minds, but am I happy here?

Do you see any kinetoscopes down in the book? bone parts. Yeah. I've been cut off from pornography for 200 years, that's kind of suck. Well, sometimes the bones, we all get together and put on a show for the other ones.

A real bone show. That's what we call them. Anyway, not particularly, but I can't leave here without my crew. And like I said, it would take 7,200 approximately trips down to free them all. Our only hope is to wait

until enough people have been killed. by Dracula and on and their bones thrown in here that we can eventually rise to the top. Have you ever tried making one big tall guy? Okay, don't worry about it. Go ahead, Goblin. Have we ever tried making one big tall guy?

Have we ever tried stacking up? I rolled a 20 on that one. A net 20 plus six. Oh, did it was a nat 20? Yes, it was a natural 20 plus six. Okay, you take a chunk out this time for sure. You hack close to one of the

discs and just cleave off a good, I don't know, like two foot long shard of bone. Sick. But I, and yet I didn't roll damage. Isn't that interesting? Well, I'm not going to. Interesting. Yes. Okay, roll damage, sure.

No, I, no, Griffin message receives. I won't hit it with my axe again. I am going to pocket that shard, though. Cool, yeah. Help yourself. A little bit of God. Don't mind if I do. Don't mind if I do, yeah.

You part of that very quick. So, announcement, that didn't work. I'm out of ideas. His powers, as unlikely as this must be to believe, I don't believe are stored in the bones. Okay, now, what about this, though? Now we got that chunk in there. We put this stick of dynamite where you made that weak spot,

blow this whole thing straight to hell. What do you think? I don't know what dynamite. Is dynamite like minions? Yeah, it's like a bingion that explodes real big. Okay. Doesn't sound very erotic. Oh, well, you ain't seen it yet.

I believe you may have just kicked the hornets nest a bit. There's hornets here too? Hornets nocturnal. I don't think so. No. No, then no. The hornets you won't have to continue with. Okay.

If you wouldn't mind sort of, man, gently lowering me back down. to my voice. I make a little handkerchief parachute for him. That's great, yes. I've got a bone show tonight that I can't be late for. I'm something of a star down there. A bone show, you see?

Yes. So, anyway. Good boning to you. And I check him off. I catch you guys later. You should, I want to come up? Oh, well. Wait, give me back Excalibur.

Will you fight? Oh, shoot. I forgot to tell. Oh, man. Hey, can you guys hear me still? A little bit. We'll keep it, thank you. Just, when you, hey, when you hold Excalibur,

make, wear a glove or something, or else you'll become the King of England? That's how it works. Does that run the risk of us being ruled by a sentient glove? Hmm, shit. I've worn gloves holding Excalibur before. Are you telling me that? That was a hell of a parachute, you must have.

Look at that drift. Was the glove sentient? I think that's the key. Because just her regular glove. Like Glover? Like Glover? Yeah. No, yes, he was since you. I thought it was like a Merlin, one of Merlin's many pranks. Yeah.

Well, we've got to get going. Oh, my God. Gunspeed. He's in the bottom of a pit. God's like, doesn't even reach here anymore. That's true, yes. Guys, are you still there? No.

Guys. You're going to stop. I'm not answering you. Yes, what is it? Does this one? Does this one look like my pelvis? Okay, bye, man. Oh, you didn't see me with it before.

I got you. God, don't you hate it when somebody you've invited over just hangs around and hangs around and hangs. Well, we're going to let you go, man. All right. Take a sleazy. I walk away. Yeah, we're down the hall. We're gone.

What incantation do I need to say to get us from that? this moment. He's got. This is Biz, and this is the final season of One Bad Mother, a comedy podcast about parenting. This is going to be a year of celebrating all that makes this podcast and this community magical. I'm so glad that I found your podcast. I just cannot thank you enough for just being the voice of reason as I'm trying to figure all of this out. Thank you and cheers to your incredible show and the vision you had to. provide this space for all of us. This is still a show about life after giving life. And yes,

there will be swears. You can find us on maximum fun.org. And as always, you are doing a great job. All right, class, tomorrow's exam will cover the science of cosmic rays, the morals of art forgery, and whether or not fish can drown. Any questions? Yes, you in the back. Uh, what is this? It's the podcast. Let's Learn Everything. Where we learn about science and a bit of everything else. My name's Tom. I studied cognitive and computer science, but I'll also be your teacher for intermediate emojis. My name's Caroline and I did my master's in biodiversity conservation and I'll be teaching you intro to things the British Museum stole. My name's Ella, I did a PhD in stem cell biology, so obviously I'll be teaching you the history of fan fiction.

Class meets every other Thursday on maximum fun. So do I still get credit for this? No. Obviously not. No. It's a podcast. I'm going to move you all over in roll 20 to here. You all walk down another tunnel. As you do, these pairs of reverberations get louder and louder. And as you reach the end of the tunnel, there's like a sharp curve to the left. And as you approach that curve, you just see just bright red,

light, pouring out of that room, like tanning bed level light that is shining into this tunnel. And as you turn the corner, you see the source of it. You are in another underground chamber, but this one is way different from the others you've seen in this underground headquarters of the cult of the buried blood. there is a water feature, although that is a misleading name. There is a sort of river that cleaves through the center of this room, dividing it into two chunks. You can see that there's some very just plank bridges crossing this river. That's about 10 feet wide.

At the center of where this river cuts through the room, you see a heart. And not a fun Valentine's Day heart, but a anatomical heart that is, for one thing, gigantic. It is sort of tilting in this room, but it's about 20 feet from bottom to top. It is embedded in the ground. And it is, it seems to be sort of crystallized. It is redstone surrounded by sort of a pale. sort of amber stone encasing the, in casing the heart. It is shining this brilliant red light all around the room. You can see a couple of other sort of features. One, you can see there is,

what look like cell bars, like jail cell bars, in front of an entrance into a sort of small antechamber of this room. At the far end of the room, you see a large, rusted iron portcullis. with a great big heavy chain and to operate at the portcullis is closed. You also see people in this room. They do not seem to have taken notice of you, but you discover the source of the chanting here. You see a half dozen cultists surrounding this heart, standing on the land on either side of it.

They are kneeling and chanting in time with the reverberations, which you now realize are heartbeats coming from this. great crystal heart. You also see this just abomination. It looks like an extremely, extremely amateur like Frankenstein operation, like a DIY. But it is gigantic. It is a flesh golem that is standing in front of the bars guarding the little jail that they have set up. Through the bars, one last thing you recognize. You see the familiar Frankenstein visage of Hyde, of Jekyll and Hyde, the duo that you battled on the high road, before Hyde sort of ran off after turning Jekyll into a vampire.

That is what you see as you come into this room. None of the figures in here have noticed you yet. There are some sort of smaller red crystals that you were able to post up behind as you get the lay of the land here. Is there a way to get, is there an obvious exit here that we could get around? Yes, so you can see that the caves sort of close up around the source and the exit of the river in this room. So those don't appear to be good sources of egress. By the way, the water in here is dark red. Yeah, what's this smell like?

Extremely metallic. So blood. Yeah, I feel like it might be blood. I think it might be blood. It could be a blood situation. So is it flowing? North to South. It's flowing down.

From the heart? Yes. And into the heart. Into the heart up above. Yeah, that is how blood goes in the body. Mutt says to Godwin and Philo, stay here. And activates the tavern he's wearing.

Oh, okay. That masks his face and makes them look like one of them. Okay. To answer the earlier question, the exit from here, you assume, to be the portcala sits in the same direction that you've sort of been traveling this whole time. It is at the northern exit of the room, but it is a big, heavy closed gate. Okay. You activate the runes on the collar of this cloak, and as you do, red steam. begins to shoot up from your cowl surrounding your face.

Godwin and Philo, you can see this and you see Mutt's head just like vanish inside of this smoke. Mut, you realize you can see out of. Oh, good. I didn't even consider that as a possible, like the opposite of that as a possibility. I'm really glad. Yes, so you activate it. Can I understand, I want to mimic the chanting as. best I can and kind of blend in with it and start like moving towards the heart moving

towards the group um I mean for that I will need a performance check if you are trying to just like roll up on this drum circle like hi guys I was also here the whole time yeah okay that is what I'm going for with a plus zero in performance oh 19 thank God bounce off a one sure okay yeah you just kind of like Reasily step forward And you hear them all just saying like Unhautizedo Just like chanting You know

And you just I would like to Reach out my eyes I love this You know Great You guys were in us Your audience

Yeah We're saying we're going to You can't You literally do run up to rusted roots, send me on my way. And where are you stepping? There's sort of, on one bank, you see like five cultists being led by one cultist on the other side of the river. I'm trying to get as close to like the one cultist on my side.

I'm trying to get, I'm looking for an opportunity to try to like figure out what's going on with hide and with this situation. I'm right now just trying to infiltrate and create opportunities. Okay. Give me a Constitution saving throw. A 12. You are doing a pretty good job blending in here. You walk up, you are dressed the part, and you can tell that sort of these cowls that everyone is wearing, there's like projecting this red smoke.

It is designed to disguise the appearance of these. people. And so it is not actually that difficult for you to pull this on. However, as you're sort of kneeling by the heart and doing this, doing this chant, a heartbeat tremor shoots out of the heart. And it is really intense. And it's sort of, you have to like catch yourself to stop yourself from falling backwards. And the cult fanatic leader here sort of catches it out of the side of his eye. After that, heartbeat finishes, the cult leader stands, and the other cultists on the other bank stand to, and just sort of look at the heart contemplating it, but no longer seem to be any kind of ritual around it. The cult leader steps forward and says, Hello, brother

You must Remember to anticipate The movements Of the great Lord's heart It's It is profane To let it Push you, move you in any way

Yeah man Sorry, yeah The spirit was just really moving through me Oh, I get it man I get it, I get it I've been there Well, anyway Back to

Back to chanting I guess Hey man real quick Cass you guys Sorry, I'm late. It was a bathroom. What happened with... What happened with Hyde there, man, behind? I don't want to gossip.

You're not going to believe this. Brother Hyde turned on his own ward. What? Dr. Jekyll, you remember him, sweet man, sweet guy. Turned on him and his hour of need. Oh, man. Bullshit. Through some of our sacred.

Some of our sacred juice at Jekyll. You know, weaponizing it. Through it away. Through the juice? Through the blood of our Lord. Can you believe it? And anyway, his treachery was discovered by, you know who. And he points up at the sky.

Yeah, man. And for that, he has been duly punished. We will be feeding him later, this afternoon, actually. Feeding him to the big guy? That's cute. Yes. Yeah, man. That's what I call him.

Well, should probably get back to chanting, huh? Then that these chants aren't going to recite themselves. No, no, man. No. He kneels. It starts in again. I'm going to scoot over that way. I mean, clearly I've already shown an interest in Hyde.

I'm going to go that way. Make a stealth check for me. Okay. A 19 plus 4, a 23. Shit, man. All right. Yeah. You can tell that the leader here gives you another little side eye as you stand up and walk away.

I rub my tummy like, oh, you don't want to be near. He nods. Yeah. He gets it, dude. He goes, see me on my way. These mushrooms were fucking mushrooms. See me on my way. The mushrooms, right?

They're fucking unglued. I would like, do you know if they have yogurt that he chowed my head? I got to get my gut floor in check, man. Okay, so you're making your way over towards the bars. Godwin and Philo. what are you guys doing? I will say that this ruse has been quite successful so far, and Mutt is definitely attracting most of the attention in this room.

Positive. Positively, in a positive way. He's doing a good job so far. What are you guys doing? If you're just posting up, that's fine, but if you want to... I would like to... Reach out my hand. No, I'd like to...

I want to continue... We never do this, but I would like to attempt to continue to continue to... observe their behaviors and their activities to see if I could pick up anything else while I'm standing there. I don't wanna be active right now, but I do, would like to pay attention. Okay.

You're gathering intel. Yeah, so maybe, I don't know if it's perception, investigation. Maybe he's able to observe that one of them has a deathly allergy to treat us. I mean, I'm also thinking like in terms of their behaviors, like how they're carrying themselves, like, to maybe aid in blending in. Yeah.

How confident are they? Make an investigation check for me. Perfect. It's a seven plus nothing. The guys seem to be saying the same stuff. And it's like so weird that like how do they know when to say it, how to say it? It's like, it is weird. It's weird.

Yeah, it's weird. And they're doing weird stuff. Got it. Because just for the basic look around, you see in the corner of this room, there's like a little alcove that. is fairly dark, the light of the heart does not seem to be penetrating in there. And inside that alco you hear sort of a chittering noise coming from it. Okay. Fylo, you doing anything?

I'll go over and take a list of whatever Fyla has done. Fylo wants to get a sample of the river in one of his vials. Okay, I'll need a stealth check for this. I will say that you will have advantage, basically, from the aid of mutt, you know, attracting a lot of the attention in this room. Okay. First off is a 12. Okay. Can you do any better than that?

What can you do? What do we need to do to put you into the shadow today? The answer is no, because that's a seven. Okay. You get a vial and walk over, I guess, to the nearest point where sort of the river flows out of this room. and you, how do you collect this? Just lean my little puppet arm down and, you know, scoop up a little bit of the blood in the vial.

Okay. You do so. Can I assist? Does he need help? I mean, he did already have help. Okay, yeah, sure. All right, yeah. You collect blood in a file, easy.

You reach another violin to gain as much. much of this precious, like, unbelievably powerful resource. But as you reach in for the second time, a bone floating down this river connects with your hand holding the bottle, and it makes a pretty loud, blink, noise. And when that happens, a couple of these cultists peel off to come investigate the sound. I think you would have heard the sound too, mutt, from across the room, maybe not able to see exactly where it came from, but definitely you would know it is in the

direction where your party was hiding. Okay. I'm going to check out the noise then while they're just distracted. Okay. It is, this little alcove is, you can see on the map, a decent distance away from you, so I will also

need a stealth. To the right? To the right, yes. Not the jail alcove, but like this little tunnel door. Yeah. Get up into that. Oh, okay. Oh, they just don't come lower than that, huh? That is a critical fail-up, but I will give you advantage on this stealth check as well since I gave it

to Philo. I'll say these actions happen sort of simultaneously. Six plus two, A's. Okay. As you sneak across the room to the edge of this tunnel, when you reach it, you are having trouble seeing down into it.

You can't quite tell how deep it is. As you approach, though, you step on like some loose small rocks on the ground, which sort of scratch against the stone surface of this cave floor. When that happens, you see eyes appear inside the tunnel. A lot of sort of very small, sort of yellow eyes, narrow slits, some near the ceiling, some near the floor, you see several dozen of them all open and look in your direction. Nothing seems to move, though. Or mut, I guess.

So I'm aware that both of them have beefed something. Yes, you've, yes. I'm going to do something, Griffin, that I can't believe in 2,000 episodes of Adventure Zone, none of us have ever done. I'm going to attempt to rip a big fart. To you. draw attention away from both of their noises. I've established tummy issues.

I have. And I feel like this is really gonna sell it while distracting everybody. Yeah, man, no, like, I get it. Like, you did set it up, like, narratively. Yes. It makes sense that you, that's just the worst part. The worst part is that so many things have happened

so far that make this make sense. And it makes me a question, like, the whole thing. Yeah. I know, I get that. I get that. If this is the prestige, Are you impressed? Yeah, it's all been working up to this.

Okay. And a constitution check is the best thing I can think. That's all I can think. Yeah, let me call Gary and see what this is. No, yeah, let's do a constitution check. I don't know if you want to fail it. I think the lower you get on this constitution check, the better, Traff. Now, see, I would say the lower I'm either not able to or I shit my pants.

You know what I'm going to say, Trav? Actually, if you give me a 10 to 15, this works. I like this model. 10 to 15, it works. Uh-huh. Below a 10, I don't think you can get this going, above a 15. It works maybe a little too good. Okay.

So you're not a saving throw, just a check. 10 to 15 is what we're looking for. It's a good range. Oh, no. It's 21. Is it 21? 21? That's higher than mathematically possible.

It's a 21. That means supernatural events of chemical. because no natural poop could exceed a 20, right? So this is, there's a supernatural element to how bad travis it's been there, done that. Woo. No, dad, what I'm, unless- No, dad, you don't understand. You can't have done this.

In our realm, this mortal plane, you can't experience the 21. So now what this requires, Griffin for you is to tell me the outcome. of this 21. Thanks, Travis, for telling me how to play Dungeons of Dragons. I do appreciate that. Well, you've made my character...

I appreciate that this is untread ground for this genre. I over succeeded on a fart. Yeah. It's not... At least what you can say is that whenever people are comparing

the greatest actual play podcast, at least the conversation will have a few... Yeah, but... But there was... Okay. You, it's not long and gnarly and yucky. It's wide.

It is wide and resinous. It's fast. It vibrates and the frequency only dogs can hear. It's fast and deep and violent. And it is, I'm not going to make the sound. And Rachel, we don't usually sort of give advice on the post-production of the show while we're in the middle of it. but I wouldn't feel compelled to add a sound here. Let's leave a space for it so people can know if it's going to happen or not.

It could be. It's Rachel's discretion, but it should have a discreet locale. It's silent but deadly. No, it's not. It's loud. I can't stress this in it loud and fast and short. I'm not going to like enunciate it too much, but it's of the rhythm and timbre of like, oh, like, oh boy.

Yeah. it's not, but everyone knows. So these cults us over here run to the edge of the river. Like low-like thunder from far across the horizon. These guys are going to come up here to the bridge because they think they're under attack. Sure. The flesh of golem is going to take a huge step away from you, like as far away.

So there's like a perimeter sort of forming here, a wall of these heroes trying to protect their lord. The front line against this act that is just taking place. These are the first responders. These dead skeletons inside of the prison cell, which I don't think I even knew were there. No, they move

backwards. Hide. I'm going to start, Griffin. I'm waft it towards, I'm wafting it towards Hyde to try to sell it to the rest of the grid. He goes back. Oh, bro. God.

Bro. Have I not suffered enough, bro? You guys, I got him. The flesh golem gives three thumbs up. The cult leader walks over and says, Brother, you may be excused for the day, if you would like. You don't need to bring this energy into the workplace. No, I think I got a couple more in me,

and I want to fill up that dude's sell with him. And I appreciate that, but we can't actually sell we can't feed our Lord meat that has been defiled in such a way. So it's funny as it is. That is very funny. And I'm losing it. I must ask you to please restrain yourself. Okay.

I'll try me in. I'm just going to sit here with my back against the wall for a second, try to curl up a little bit, see if I can relax on a ton of time if that's okay. Sure, sure thing. I feel like if I walk right now, I'm going to get some of the walking toots. And I don't think you guys don't have that. I'm actually done talking about this. stand there.

I would like to... It goes right back into it. The focus, let that occasion. So, you all see these cultists sort of return to their duty. The sounds that have been made here... Today, on this day.

Today, on this day, have pulled their attention back away. You are not caught. What do you do? I'm still not quite sure what I'm seeing, Can you help me to visualize it? Now you are sort of right up against this tunnel. If you want to make...

Is it a me-sized tunnel? Yes, yeah. And also, Griffin, as far as elevation from the ground goes, where is he seeing these eyes? They are all right... If you imagine this tunnel as a circular tunnel, there seem to be some on the ground, there seem to be some on the ceiling.

The eyes look very similar, but they are of slightly different sizes. It is a menagerie, there, you would assume. Philo, I will say you have collected your sample now and secured a couple vials of this for future study. What are you doing now that you have? How far is Philo from the heart? A good, like 40 feet or so. Okay. Fylo is going to cast, no, Philo is going to cast, no, Philo is going to drink his alter self potion. Okay.

So he is going to transform into his aquatic adaptation from before. Oh shit, okay. Slip into the bloodstream. Wow. Okay. You absolute nutter. And start swimming towards the heart underwater. Amazing. That's so cool. with your enhanced swim speed. What does it look like again as you gain an aquatic form?

I think we described that it just sort of changes to your puppet anatomy. Changes your body to an aquatic environment, gills, webbing between your fingers. Full limpet. Full limpet. And gain a swimming speed equal to your walking speed. Okay. Yeah, you are able to swim. I'm not even going to make you make a stealth roll.

This is thick water. In fact, you are having trouble. like seeing through it, it is only by the grace of the fact that you don't have regular eyes that sort of gain the senses in the traditional way that you are able to kind of navigate in here.

But you have made it right up underneath the heart. You see bones floating past you as you swim through the water. You get the idea that something is killing things upstream and dragging them down. Griffin, just to a stat, while I'm leaning against this door in the wall, I'm trying to pick the lock on this cage. Oh, interesting.

Okay. So that's going to be a slight of hand check. I will lower the DC because I think that you have, you know, created a nice perimeter here for yourself. Even the flesh golem has sort of stepped away from the line of duty. So let's see what? Oh, my gosh, Traff. A 23. My checks are out of this world.

They are fucking bonkers today. 19 plus 4. Yeah. 19 plus 4, you have, have you done the, what reason does a vampire hunter have to, or a monster hunter, have to be so good at picking locks? This is a lot of, like, training for being caught and escaping, you know, like training a kid. If you've ever watched psych, like the dad trains his son. And I haven't. Yeah.

change, not only how to be like a good detective, but like how to escape from the trunk of a car, how to do this kind of thing, or like supernatural. They know how to pick locks to investigate because this isn't just monsters in the woods, right? I might find a shack where monsters hold up, but I needed to get in there to find clues or free prisoners.

It was a monster shack. I love you so much, Dan. You're well. No one clocks this, except for Hyde, who catches what's going on, steps forward, and says, What's the game plan? What are we doing?

We're smashing our way out of here? What's the, what's the plan? Who sent you to rescue me? Why? This is incredible. Oh, yeah. Sorry, man.

Was it Nancy? Uh, I knew Nancy loved me, dude. I know, like she's engaged. Nancy's energy maybe, like, led me here. But no, nobody sent me, man. I'm coming here on completely different reasons, and this has just happened to be how it worked out.

All right, cool. Cool, bro. So what, so we smash it out right now? Or is there a code? word for one week's time. Yeah, man, okay. This guy's getting out. What?

Yeah, he picked a lock, man. Somebody help me. You shout to bring all the attention to the room as you do so. Hide, his eyes go really, really wide, and he just pushes the door open. As he does so, it slams into the flesh golem who goes plunging into the waters. and all of the cultists are going to make a back like I've been pushed. Oh, yeah. For sure.

Okay. Okay. Hyde is now standing at the mouth of this jail cell. The cultists have all run around to take up arms against him. We'll put those two right there. And when that happens, Lady Godwood, I think every eye inside of that tunnel springs open, and you hear the sound of chittering and growling, growing louder and louder, and stepping into the light, you see wolves slowly walking towards you, licking their lips.

you see bats sort of beginning to flutter down the tunnel. You see a great number of nocturnal creatures all waking up. Brother Philo, what are you doing? I didn't know if you had some beat here for why you jumped in the water to swim under the heart. I think he, well, the intent was I want Brother Philo to enter the heart. To like climb into the heart? Well, I assume

this river of blood is flowing through it. Okay, yeah, cool. Holy crap, Dad. That's, I mean, that's metal as fuck. And I like it. You, yeah, you reach a large cavity in the, I believe, lower right ventricle of this heart.

And you, because of your diminutive, size have no problem climbing in. As you do, red light fills your senses. It comes in flashing pairs, and with each one you feel yourself feeling lighter and you feel the blood that you have been swimming through grow fainter and fainter as though it's fading away until you are in a dark void that is occasionally illuminated by two red pulses from beyond your vision. And after a few moments floating here, those two pulses illuminate a face. And it is the face of the turbocard. Maximum Fun

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