The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone Versus Dracula - Episode 4

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

The vampire hunters head into Frankenstein's lab and find many creepy-crawly surprises. Godwin lends a hand. Mutt goes to the dogs. Phileaux pushes some buttons. Additional Music in this Episode: "Sofia 30" by Nuno Adelaida: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Nuno_Adelaida. 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

Dear diary, since we find ourselves within this circle of trust, I must confess, several times over the last century, I have considered hanging up the cape and collar and retiring from the Dracula business. It's not quite as glamorous as it would seem. Drinking blood is pretty yucky. It's like a warm, a penny-flavored milkshake. Also, I can't stand to fly But I'm not that naive I understand that for this realm To be what I needed to be It needs me to be Dracula

And if all goes according to plan That's exactly what it's going to get Dracula Bloodless Forevermore I'm gonna hate kill on that guy I think he's a very sympathetic character Did you hear the way

the way he referred to blood, it's one of the grossest things I've ever heard in my entire life. I want to make it clear, I did not come up with that because that's like, you know, sometimes Stephen King writes something so fucking freaky in his book. They're like, I know he's making make-believe, but that's a freak came up with that. Have you ever heard his wife Tabitha King in a lot of interviews to be like, yeah, it's not uncommon for Steve, she calls him Steve. Yeah. To come into my bedroom, like, pound, pound, pound, blah, blah, like Tabitha did it again. They sleep in separate bedrooms? Separate houses.

And he knocks on her bedroom door and he's like, Tabby, I did it again. Yeah. I did it again. I spooked myself out. I wrote it too spooky. And he's got his teddy bear and his little blankie with him. You got to let me sleep with you tonight. I got to sleep with you tonight, Tabby.

I scared myself. Hey, she made him lock up Pet Cemetery, the manuscript for Pet Secretary for years. Pet Secretary is great. I love Pet Secretary when the dog shows up and he's like, any notes, sir? Maggie Gyllenhaal, you saw that. Hold my cold. Oh, dad.

Dad, I don't know how I feel about that. That was really good, and I hated it at the same time. Yeah, I hated how on point it was. Okay, the three of you, and you are now two dogs to send down a spiral staircase into... We are now two dogs. You, into an underground laboratory. Long, it's a long corridor, a huge, huge cavernous chamber. You are looking over it from a sort of elevated.

platform that the staircase exits out onto. And from this platform, there are two short staircases sort of leading down to the rest of the lab. In the half of the room closest to you, things are way in a state of disarray. There's crates and just large, glowing yellow rocks piled up sort of all around the room in disorganized piles. In the middle of the room, you can see what appears to be an operating table, where some unfortunate soul has wasted away to a skeleton. Its skull is fastened to a sort of helmet, which is connected by dozens of wires to a console further down in the room. The smell in here is unbearable, and it is not difficult to ascertain why.

On the opposite end of this long chamber, you see a giant glass tank, a sort of containment unit, which is host to what could only be described as a bunch of unassigned body parts. What would have likely been fodder for some of his makeshift bodies have become something else in Dr. Frankenstein's absence. There is just a pile of limbs, mostly hands, sort of shambling inside of this containment unit. They have formed a sort of cadaverous rat king. You can see it moving, not with any sort of intent that you can figure out. It is contained. And it likely hasn't noticed that the five of you are here, because how would it? But it isn't in a tank, right?

It's in a big containment unit, yes. There are there's sort of metal grading on the top and bottom of it so it is not like airtight but you know it's not like this thing can just like come out and destroy you all two large pylons flank the containment unit

each of which is attached through long cables to three smaller batteries each you can see this in the map I have provided you half of these batteries seem to be providing power to this containment unit the other half appear unpowered there is a marked key on the containment unit that has a lightning bolt and a number four on it. That is what you see as you enter this chamber. I am going to head up to the chamber and peer in to see if I can recognize

any body parts of mine. I know that I was largely exploded. Right. But I don't know the extent to which I was exploded. So I just like to see if I see any like hands. I feel like Pierre explained it pretty well. It's kind of like vaporized kind of. You never know. She's holding a hope. You don't want her to hope? I'm going to need a fairly high perception check on this because this is a pretty huge room

you just wanted into and there's a lot of shit everywhere. I'm just looking at the tank. Just looking at the tank. Okay. Give me... Well, because you said that's where all the limbs were. Yes, give me an investigation check. Okay. Oh my God. That's a Nat 20.

Natural 20. Fuck, man. You know everything. Take a second. It's all right. No one expects a natural 20. The containment unit is illuminated in the side with the same sort of yellow light that is coming off of the batteries and the pylons and the yellow crystals in this room. And in that yellow light, you see in the tank a flash of blue.

just a faint glint that draws your eye and when you turn to get a better look you see the hand of I mean it's hold on I'm coming up with this shit on the fly hold on I guess that's touches the dragons

didn't it? Yeah but a 20 is weird because you got to justify it right right right yeah you see a weathered hand. Your hand. And you know it is your hand because it is wearing your sapphire signet ring. You see it clear as day for just a moment before it scuttles deeper into the pile and you lose track of it. You, okay. Did anyone else see that? Anyone? He's got my hand. I've not been entirely vaporized.

Oh, that's nice. That's my good, that's my good tea drinking hand. So you have a bad tea drinking hand like that? Look at this, well look at this, Mitt. Look at this. You couldn't even, you couldn't even properly extend your pinky the way you're supposed to when you. That's true because of, because of the sine you. Yes.

Oh, too much sin you. That's how to say. Griffin. Yeah. I would like to Are there any like hands scheduling around Are there any body parts moving around

Outside of the containment unit Give me a perception check Please We'll say if you're just sort of scanning the room for me I'm just looking around for weird shit That's a critical failure It was, yeah I agree Feast your famine with you boys today

Yeah No, you don't see anything. It is so the thing at the end of this room is so grotesque and horrifying. It is difficult for you even a seasoned monster hunter to like pull your attention away from it. Philo, any checks you'd like to make? Any action? Yeah, I think he'd like to take a look at the lightning bolt four thing. Okay.

to kind of see if there's like any kind of operating mechanism for the containment unit. Sure. We'll say that, you know, you are a practitioner of the medical arts for the most part. And an artificer. And an artificer. That's a very good point. Okay. So we'll do a, we'll call this arcana, right?

That is a sort of summary knowledge of your magical stuff. And this is, you know, the other side of the same. Okay. Holy shit. Well, how about a 21? All right, yeah. You get a, you get a basic sort of idea of this machinery just sort of following the cables, right? It's all one unit.

There is a table with the helmet and the skeleton that seems to be going into this unit, the containment unit. The batteries are powering the whole thing. These six batteries, three of which are turned on, three of which are not, sort of funneling energy through these pylons into the tank. There is a console on the front of the tank that everything seems to be connected to. You can see the console is in a, like everything else in here, a state of disrepair. There's a portion of it that's just been smashed in. There's buttons missing, but there are a few things sort of illuminated that you can't quite

see from here. The creature inside of the containment unit, it seems like this thing is used for something else, and this is a nest for a bigger monster. You get the impression that this shambling mass of limbs that has taken up residence in here, that's not what this machine is for. It just happens to be maybe the warmest spot in the room. Is it closed? Is it sealed in there?

There's some gaps in like some metal bars near the top of the unit, but it does seem to be otherwise sealed in there. So my limb, does it just seem to be in there, or is it part of the... It's part of the blob. Blob, okay. Mound is what it's labeled as here. Mound. I would love to attack the glass of the tank with a sword with my axe. Sorry, Jennifer Myers. Can we do, can we contest that?

I don't want to stop it from doing it. I mean, you can certainly talk as you see, this is, I will say, a huge distance away from where you are. So you would have some time as Lady Godwin charged Leroy Jenkins style into the mystery lab. Now, wait, I'm pretty sure that I ran up to the tank to go look for my hand. Yeah. And I was at the tank looking for my hand with a 20. I didn't, okay. I don't want to stop Justin the place.

I don't want to talk Justin out of it. I want Mutt to try to like catch the axe or get in the way because... Okay, how about this? I'll give it to you. I rear back to attack. I'll give you a whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Listen. You see the hat.

You see my hat. No, listen. Absolutely. Absolutely, I do. Okay, then. But I also see batteries running into it. And what if you smash it and release a bunch of electricity and fry your hand? Okay, well, hmm.

Perhaps there's the way to open it without destroying it. Oh, yeah, I suppose we could go that run. I, um, hmm, would love to just sort of, you know, give it a little smash. No, I know. And listen, might come to that. Oh, yeah, of course. Um, hmm, well, I suppose we could hold off for a moment. I would ask this, if smashing does need to be done,

I would love to be the party responsible for his head smashing. Yeah, of course. Yeah, for sure, yeah. And I am not leaving without the hand. No, I think we definitely need to recover your hand. Thank you. Is it possible you... I don't know what I'll do with it, honestly.

It couldn't go with the rest of the look at all, if you know what I mean. It's impossible you have other components in there. Do you recognize any of the... I only... As I understand it, I was pretty thoroughly... blinst, so I would be just absolutely shocked if there's more appendages in there of my own. Where are you at sort of right now, Brother Philo? I'm trying to sort of establish the scene here on the map to just kind of keep up.

Well, I think he got close. I think he's also fairly close because he got close enough to inspect the console, right? Okay. I think Fylo would like to take a look at the batteries. Specifically, the one where there's one battery. Disabled on the north side there? Yeah. Okay.

Give me an investigation check. Or Arcana. We can also keep that rolling. Okay. Oh, my God. Nat 20. Well, no, Dirty 20, but still very good. Dirty 20.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, you look around at the batteries. You see that the three batteries that are shut off, they are, they're sort of in different states right now. You notice the ones on the other side of the room. One of them just appears to be turned off. One of them is sort of a bit frayed at the bottom and is given off a couple sparks here and there. The one you are standing next to is just empty.

It doesn't seem to contain the same yellow stone that the other. ones appear to have in it. So this one is just sort of missing its powering core, which you've noticed in sort of piles scattered around the room. Do I see any of the those yellow stones

of litter around? Okay. Do you want to, Brother Philo, I admit it out of my depth. Do you want to try to chuck one of these in? Yes. I believe If you look at the sign with the four and the lightning bolt, I believe that's probably telling us if we get four of these batteries operational, we may be able to operate this console.

Yeah, I'm failing to see if that's something we necessarily want. Well, you want your hand, don't you? I do. I desperately want my hand. I do worry about the power igniting some sort of... See that little... A little grouchy bugger in there. I'm worried that he'll, um, maybe that's to open it, four to open. Maybe.

And then it'll all slush out. Maybe we could talk to. It's made out of parts, right? Try to talk. You made quick work of that puppy outside. Maybe try discussing the animal life or whatever your tricks are. Handle it. Discuss animal life?

What's in life? Handle the animal. I don't know how one handles an animal. That happens. And in there never touched an animal. Never? Not a fan. Okay.

Look at these hands. These hands are made for petting beasts. You can see me scooping up some sort of bear hide with a, you know. Do you want to pet sloppy? I'd rather not. Okay. Sloppy. He's kind of a stupid new character this way.

Sloppy seems right at home in here. Sloppy is just sort of strutting around, sniffing around. There's like a little pile of rags that he sort of nestles down into. I'm going to, okay, so your dog, your chicken shit dog is by the door. She's not chicken shit. She's worth it. I'm going to check out the, so there's a helmet on the skeleton that's connected to the thing, right? Yes, yes.

Griffin, in any other game, were we not playing an RPG based on dungeons and dragons. I would not ask this. But is the skeleton moving? No, the skeleton is not moving. I'm not even going to make you roll for that. Okay, great. It ain't moving. Hey, sorry, sorry to bother you big mass of stuff in there. You got a name? There is, there is, where are you at as you are doing this? I am standing a safe distance away. Okay.

I am standing so at the foot of the skeleton table looking at the big containment unit. Okay. It does not respond. Lady Godwin, are you still up against the glass, sort of? I am, yeah. No, there is... But I'm just looking at this point. I'm just kind of watching it.

For sure. There's no response, but because, like, there's no ears. as far as you can tell in there. I'll tell you what, I will go ahead and grab one of the yellow stones and bring it over to Philo. I don't know what he wants to do with it or not, but I'm going to try to bring one of them over. They seem big, but it's hard to tell scale on a map. Okay. They are quite large.

You get up to them. They are about, I mean, they're about the size of your torso. They are quite heavy. You get the impression that with a smaller frame, these would not be movable without some sort of special machinery. but with you, it seems doable. Okay, I'll haul one over. Okay. I need you to give me first a strength check.

Okay. See if you can haul one of these things, deadlifted out of the crate that it's sitting in. Yes, on a 17, you heft it up from the crate. And now I'm going to need you to give me a Constitution saving throw, please. Wow. Okay. On a 20, you feel an electrical current charged through this thing. And it is weird because you can tell your body is not enjoying the feeling of holding this thing. But perhaps through your sort of Frankensteinian build, those signals aren't exactly reaching your brain. And so it is not an issue for you to hold this. Brother Philo, I'm sorry, I don't wish to alarm you, but this is quite done pleasant. If you could let me know if you'd like me to chuck it in or not, it's a bit above my station to make these decisions.

But please, let me know immediately. I would say that from the earlier 20, that Philo would know how to insert it. Yeah, there is a hatch on the top that you can crack open. Right here, my lady, and he opens the hatch. Okay. You put that crystal right in here. She chucks it in. All right.

You put it in the hoop like slam. And after she puts the khyber crystal in Griffin, what happens? It turns into a life saver. Delicious. So, when that happens, there is a flicker of light. The room grows somewhat brighter, as do the pylons on the opposite end and the containment. unit. The marquee, which said four, now updates, and says eight. And when that happens, wait, it says eight? It says eight. When that happens, the shambling mound does seem to take

notice. You see a large group of hands sort of on the outboard. On the outlawfuling mound. You see a large group of hands sort of on the outskirts of the pile, extend their fingers suddenly as if in a state of shock. When that happens, the shambling mound shakes like a dog trying to dry itself off. And all of those hands come flying out of the bars at the top of the containment unit. I'm going to need everyone to roll for initiative.

Hmm. 12 for me. 14 for me? 19. All right. You count 10 hands that have flown out of the top of the tank and landed in a sort of phalanx formation in front of the containment unit. Lady Godwin, give me a just straight up luck check, D20. We'll see if your hand is one of the 10 that came out.

We'll say if it's... Do you think it's good luck or bad luck? I don't see if my hand comes out. I'm not sure. We'll say 10 or above your hand comes out. Nope, three. Nope, you do not see your signet ring amongst these ten hands. That makes this easier.

They are now, like I said, in this phalanx formation, and they appear to be crawling outwards in a wave. You have activated now four of the batteries, and like I said, the number at the top has doubled, an increase to eight. And first in the order is Lady Goblin. Griffin, can you remind me what was wrong with the other two batteries? just off. One was just turned off and one was afraid at the bottom. Great. While they're still clumped, I'm going to try to grab another crystal and chuck it at them. Okay. Yes, this is going to be

a bit of a hike, I think, for you to get to one of these crystals and chuck it. But you can get to the Crystal's no problem. I think it's just your your attack roll is going to have to be quite high to just even make it to the other end of the room. So why don't we do that? We'll do an athletics check just to see if you can huck one of these things to the other side of the room and then I'll make them do deck saves to see if this works. So give me an athletics check to see how far you can kind of caber toss this thing. Oh my God. That isn't dirty 20. Yep. No problem, baby. We are going to roll. We're going to roll some deck saves. Are you throwing it at the sort of northern clump of hands? Yes, the upper clump that's closer to my side of the map. Yeah, we have bad news for you. We ran all the test. It's your upper clump.

You're over clump. It's infected. We're not going to, I don't know, ma'am. Okay. Wait, can I do another one? I think one of my favorite parts. No, we have time to do five saves. Unless it's better than that one.

Okay. I think I really love. liked Nadi Professor and then Nadi Professor Meet the Clumps, but I like the upper clumps the best. Okay. That one wasn't as good. I don't think. So that two more checks to make if you think. You got one more in the... Nope. All right. So, five hands, five dexterity saving throws. There is an... Jesus Christ. There is an explosion, a flash of yellow light that rips through the northern half of the room. these five hands vanish inside of it and when the light clears only one hand remains

the saves were 10, 9, 6, 16, and 8. This is lucky number 16 here. That is your turn. Next in the order is mutt. I want to make it to the battery that is turned off. Okay, that is the sort of furthest battery down here. You reach it and Pretty simply, there is just a lever on the front of it that is switched into the down position.

I switch it. Fantastic, fantastic. You do that, and once again, there is a flash of light in this room. When that happens, I need you to make a dexterity saving throw. Please, Crawford-Mutner. Dexterity saving throw. That's a 15. The wires, the cables at your feet, attempt to ensnare you.

They attempt to wrap around you. With a 15, you are able to hop back realizing what is happening. However, that was not the only threat here. The cables continue to sort of grow and wrap around themselves until they form a creature. nature made out of cables. And that is this vine blight, which is now going to join the initiative order. That is your turn, Mutt.

We are going to actually do the vine blight's turn right now. Can I, I want to speak as well, if I may. Sure. Hey, Fylo, you're like a sciencey kind of techy person, right? Well, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Us turning this on is what we're supposed to do, right? Because, like, I saw you guys turn that one on, so I turned this one on.

And in retrospect, like, should I ask you first, are we doing the right thing, turning it on? Should we turn it off? What are we looking at here? I don't know for sure. I was... I know. I'm not getting in time to have this conversation, Tram. I know.

A fascinating moment. You've chosen to have this exchange. The indicator is up to 16, so I would say we're doing six. something correct. Yes, when you turned on this last battery, the number doubled once again to 16. How is it look inside the tank? Very bright, quite bright now. In fact, I will say with the light as bright as it is, with the pile thinned out a little bit from the ten hands that hopped off of it, you can see your your ringed hand again on the sort of top of the pile. Well, let's not turn any more on, please, until I retrieve my hand. I don't want to turn it to ash.

The vine blight is a brand new baby, is going to take its turn now. It is going to whip some of its vines towards you, Crawford-Mutner, and try to constrict you. That is a 9 versus AC. That does not hit. Tragic. Okay. Then that is its turn. Next in the order, we are going to move on to Brother Philo.

Philo runs over to the skeleton on the bed. Okay. Okay. And says, I have an idea, and he puts the helmet on his head. Oh, fuck. Okay. Okay, you can do this. for sure.

You, you know, yank the skeleton down from the table, pop the helmet on your head. From your position right here, you see the console. You're right next to it where you are, and there are a couple of buttons that are illuminated. There's a large red one that seems to have the same lightning bolt symbol

on it, and there is a green one. With no lightning bolt? With no lightning bolt on it. Could I make an Arcana check? Sure. You may? 10. I mean, none of them are labeled, other than this, other than the lightning bolt on the red button.

So this is not like a, you know, machinery thing. This is like a, this is a poor user interface. designed by someone who didn't think anyone else was going to be using this panel but him. You, yeah, you can tell that the wires, at least, running into the helmet do go into the console and then further into the containment unit. They are running along the ground. And so the shambling mound is sitting on top of whatever this stuff is hooked up into. But that is what you see. I think he's going to try to communicate with the shambling mound.

Psychically? Hmm? Psychically? What do you, what do you mean? Using the helmet. Okay, it's not, you don't put it on, it's not cerebro. So you don't put it on and immediately you're like, pretty cool to be a hand. This is a connecting, I'm trying to, I did not think, your, you've stupefied me with this decision,

and I'm very excited about it. There is no voice, there is no psychic connection that seems to open up whenever you put on the helmet. All you can hear through the helmet, I will say, is just a faint buzz of, you know, electrical energy. Okay. All right. Did the two buttons light up when he put the helmet on? No, they have been on.

Okay. I think he... I'm going to be. gonna have Brother Philo drop to one knee and pray for guidance. Okay. Is this a, is this a, do you have the spell guidance? Oh, I don't know if I have the spell. Just the thing he does.

This is all structured. This is all built into it. We have mechanisms for talking to God. You can't just talk to him. No, I mean, if you, hey, I, I, listen, the power of prayer. It's, is, I'm always saying this stuff. Very, yeah. So if you want to.

This shows about nothing. else. Yeah, yeah. If you want to make a very good religion check to see if you feel the Lord moving in this underground laboratory tonight, I will absolutely always allow that. Then that is what I shall do. Here it goes. A 15 religion check. Okay. Um, what is the name of your, what's your order called? Tancred. Tancred, St. Tancred. you dropped one knee and you pray for guidance from St. Tangeran. And it doesn't work like a lot of people assume it does.

There is no heavenly body that appears before you and tells you what it is you should or shouldn't do. It's more like a subtle nudging of your own common sense that tells you that you are in an underground lab with a big weird machine with a bunch of dead body parts in it. And there's a helmet connected to this machine and you've put it on. your head and you stood in front of a console with two buttons on it and that is some of the that's some of the wildest shit that you or anyone could ever do as a scientist you know that you are well outside of uh your your oaths your hippocratic oaths uh all of that jazz uh because you've stumbled into a strange place it's like if you went into an operating room and just started connecting yourself to shit all willy-nilly without any sort of idea of what you're doing.

That is, on a 15, that's what you get. Not trying to dissuade you either way, but I think with that, you take a beat to pray and go, I have a machine on my head that I don't know what it does. He pushes the green button. Sure, man. Yeah, dude. Yeah, bud. For sure.

No problem. Definitely planned on that. Yes, sir. The Eurovision Song Contest. Hundreds of millions of people watch it every year. It played a part in a Democratic Revolution in Portugal. It introduced the world to Riverdance, and it launched Celine Dion's career. But you might have never watched it. It's got so much history and so many storylines that it can feel overwhelming to get into. It's like a real housewife season, but everyone's a better singer. Well, sometimes. But that's where we come in. I'm Dimitri Pompeii. I'm Oscar Montoya.

And I'm Jeremy Bent, and we're the host. of your evangelists. If you're new to Eurovision, we'll tell you everything you need to know to start enjoying the world's most important song competition. And if you're already a fan, we'll dive deep on its wildest moments,

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check us out. Oof, this is real. New episodes of feeling scene drop every week on Maximum Fun.org. And that's a series wrap on Brother Philo. Dad, you got a back of the character made or? Guys, Philo falls to the ground and is disquietingly still.

Okay, from pushing a button. From pushing a green button. I would say there were a lot of actions that led out to pushing the button, Justin. That's a good point, Travis. Yes. Okay. Quick update to the initiative. And we're all.

off. Un-fucking, unfucking believable. Great turn, great round. Great round, everybody. Great turn and great round. Classic. Dad, dad, can you? It's me, James Lipton. Dad, is Philo with us? Could we maybe speak to him about that decision?

Yes, I am here. Yeah, so why'd you do that? I thought it would maybe control the things within the device, within the containment. Awesome. I love that for all of us. I love that for the season. Okay, so dad died. What else?

What was next? Died? Died? Next to the order. Next to the order are the crawled. And I'd like to point out that if this were Doctor Who, and I had done that, it would have reversed the polarity. Yeah, for sure. And then all of a sudden everyone would be saying, he's a God, he's a God.

Now, hold on, Dad. That assumes that you are the doctor and that they, this isn't a regeneration episode because you might just be fodder for the cannons. I also love that your extreme confidence that your character didn't die when you have absolutely no idea

what that helmet does. But you're like, you didn't die. It's all about faith, Travis. Yeah, I'm wild about what just happened. Okay. We're gonna just keep on trucking. Like, that didn't just happen. Yeah.

Okay. So Brother Philo is on the ground. He is not moving. The marquee has updated. Apparently whatever just happened drained some of the power from these batteries. The indicator now reads 12. The claws, the hands are up next. You are going to be surrounded here, Crawford-Mutner,

because you're the closest target to these claws. they are all going to attack you, and because they have the vine blight there on the other side, it looks like three of these five will be with advantage. Okay. So, that's a 10? No. Versus AC?

Incorrect. No. Seven versus AC? No. Another 10 versus AC. Wow, you are getting some lucky breaks here. I'm very dexterous. These are a loose-lock.

Okay. That is a crucial. That is a crit. Yes, that does. Yes, of course it does. I'll give you that one. That claw just seems to hop up in the air and uppercut you. Cut!

It does seven points of bludgeoning damage with its crit. The last claw is going to get a 22 versus 60. Yeah, that hits as well. That one hits you for five bludgeoning damage as it sort of leaps up in the air and conques. down on your head like a coconut falling from a treat. Of course. The other sort of surviving crawling claw here, the other surviving hand is going to make its way towards you.

Just absolutely desecrate Philo's body. You can see it looked at Philo's body, sort of like dinosaur with its hand, sort of its middle finger being its long prontosaurus neck. You guys know what I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely. Checked out Philo's body. And I was like, that's not an issue anymore. And started to climb its way towards you, Lady Godwin.

But you chuck that rock from a very long distance. And I don't think a little hand is able to make it all the way there in one turn. Next in the order is the shambling mound. Oh, no. I was hoping he wouldn't get to take a shot. I'm going to roll a D6 here. Three. Three more crawling claw.

pop out of the shambling mound and hops right back into formation here. Oh, that's only two. Is one of them Lady Gaga's hand? Make a luck check for me, Lady Goblin. Thank you, Mack, that's a great point. No. On a four. Four.

No, this is not. There is still a lot of body inside of the containment unit. So these are just three other hands that have spawned in. But that is the shame. The indicator says 12 now. Do I know when that happened? Yes, I explained that. It drained for power when Brother Philo used the device.

That button is no longer illuminated, the green button that he just hit. Oh, so we don't get turns to put on the helmet and push the button? Next to the order. That is Lady Godwin. Lady Godwin, you are. Okay, see, this is tough. Because normally in this situation, I'd want to focus fire on the lump,

because it's just going to keep generating hands, presumably. Sure. My hand is in that lump. So I do need this to keep going a bit longer until I can get that puppy out. Right. So I'm going to go ahead and swing Jennifer Meyer at the hand that's coming for me.

Okay. Uh, yeah, that's... I know it's a little, it's a little gauche, but like, as it a barbarian, you know, what you have as a hammer, et cetera. It is a little hand. You are higher on this, uh, small staircase that you guys are on, so I will give you advantage on this, on this attack roll. So you're stabbing the hand that feeds you.

Very, very good. No, I'm looking for the hand that feeds me. Uh, it looks like a 12. A 12, uh, uh, a 12 just hits. No, yeah. 12 does hits, great. 12 just hits. Roll damage.

Pretty sure you statistically can't not hit it. You're not in rage right now, are you? No, no, no. Would you like to be? Because that's a bonus action for you. I know you're new to the barbarian arts. Oh, thank you. So I need to say that before.

Yeah, I will go ahead and get into rage. I had rage selected, but I'll use a bonus action to get into rage. Thank you. Okay. What does rage look like for Lady Godwin? Like a huff. She's in a real tizzy. She's got her knickers in a twist.

Okay, fine. And you know what's weird? She seems nicer than the food. That's what you gotta watch out. That's how you know there's trouble. Maybe the words are nicer, but the pitch is a little higher. The intent is not. What about your body?

Is there a disconnect from what your body's doing and your head is doing? Yeah, I think that that's, it almost, you got a little bit more of that, the body is acting almost without her thinking about it, right? Like the rage is like, she's more appropriately dignified, mad, and you can see the body like almost using its muscle memory to, because it's a little bit less, you know, the ego is a little bit less in the way. Okay. All right.

You absolutely squish this hand. It is not the most sturdy of NPCs. It barely takes a breeze to destroy these things. And so a horrible cleave from a gigantic axe just like it disintegrates. I'm going to use the rest of my movement action to close the gap on me and Philo as much as I can. Yeah, you get about halfway there with the rest of your movement. That also sort of brings you squarely in range of the other three. hands that have just spawned in.

Did you have something else? No, I was just thinking to myself that I think that might be the first time in adventures in history that one of us has ever accounted for a movement action. Yes, yes, it's a new day. I want to thank Baldur's Gate 3 and this great map that Gryphon has made. Yes. Help me to understand how Dungeons and Dragons works.

Next in the order is the vine blight that you spawned in when you interacted with this battery. mutt it is going to try and constrict you once again, this time with unfortunately advantage, because it does have you pretty well flanked in here. Sure. Let's see how that goes. Oh, my God!

You are in the Matrix right now. That's an 8 and a 10 with the advantage. Can't do it. I'm wiry, man. Oh. Oh, that would have fucking hurt, too. Yeah, you guys, have you been marking your damage trail? I have.

Yes, okay, cool. Yeah, that would have almost killed you. But fortunately for you, you are able to, I'm not sure how, dodge these cables that it is whipping in your direction. I have a little surprise. Roll a, roll a luck check for me. No, roll an animal handling check for me. Me? Okay, hold on.

Animal handling. 13. Okay. There is a loud bark that echoes through this underground laboratory. And like a greyhound, it is not a greyhound. It is much bigger and sloppier than a greyhound. Sloppy dashes in and just devours. one of the hands.

Good boy. That is next to you. It is a fearsome, fearsome beast, the likes of which you are completely unfamiliar with, because you can see, as you watch, sloppy devour your, one of these hands that was attacking you,

you can see, by the door, into the lab, still sort of cowed with her tail between her legs, Lady Agatha this await. I think we should, should drop the lady from the name because that will get you. You can just call her Aggie. Just call her Aggie. That's fine. You see Aggie watch this sort of still terrified in the doorway. Yeah, you're doing great, Aggie.

You stay safe, sloppy. Proud to you too, bud. We all got our role to play. Sloppy. Next in the order is you, Mutt. I am going to, especially since they're so close to me, brandish my sickle. Okay. No, my dagger. I got me a carombet.

It's a curved dagger. Cool, cool. And I'm going to attempt to slice the cables of the cable beast in front of me. Of the vine blight. Very, very smart. So I will say there is one thick cable that appears to be going towards the pylon. There is one cable that is coming from sort of daisy chains to the other two. batteries on this side. Which one are you attacking?

Um, so there's one going to the pylon. Yes. And then, so it's, okay, so I'm understanding it. They're each connected to each other. Yes. And then going to the pylon. Right. But if I slice the cable, it's going to disconnect the power. It sure is. Hmm. Hmm. Interesting.

I'm going to disconnect. I'm going for the one. I will lay it out like this. You have three choices. One is the cable that is leading to the gigantic pylon on the south side of the room connected directly to the unit. Then you are also connected to the one battery that is still shut down and frayed and sparking, and then the one battery that is turned on. Those are your three options if you want to do this, action. I'm going to cut the one connected to the sparking one. Okay. Give me...

Here's what I will say. This works. You slash through, it's a cable on the ground. You have no problem hacking through that with this dagger. As you do that, sure enough, the vine blight unspools, unfurls, and drops the ground and is gone. However, I'm going to need a dexterity saving throw from both you and sloppy here. I got a 14. That is insufficient.

Oh, damn. Sloppy gets a That is a six No! But I will also say three of these claws are also going to make deck saves. Be good. And save.

Griffin, can I make an additional deck save to push Sloppy out of the way and take his damage if I succeed? Yes, let me establish this first. As you do that, that battery explode. It shoots electricity out in all directions. And you see an arc of it hit one of the hands and it just disintegrates. The other two hands that were in range, they leap back away from you, disengaging, and they avoid the electricity.

You are hit by one of these bolts of electricity, and you are going to take six points of lightning damage. Um, you, I will give you a chance to make a deck save with disadvantage if you want to try and knock sloppy out of the way. Okay. Oh, but you are able to knock sloppy away and, uh, you are going to take more damage as another bolt of lightning strikes you. You take just one point of, uh, electric damage. Sloppy is okay. is a bit confused at first as it slides to the ground. And remember, you basically have sloppy charmed right now with your magic.

So it looks up at you and growls for a second, but then it realizes sort of what you just did and chills out a bit. Sick. Philo. Hmm? You are there, and then you are not. You are looking into the tank. and you press a button and then you are in,

you don't feel anything, you are just in darkness. And it's not a sort of unconscious dreaming darkness. You feel like you are just in a dark room and you are weightless in this space and you make a, make a

this is still pretty fucking magical and stuff so I want another Arcana check out of you no you know what no we'll say this perception check a perception check yeah that's fine yeah perception check 18 you have the general feeling

that you are not alone in this place there is some sort of presence that is in here with you and just as you sort of recognize that, you become conscious and present and aware of yourself in a different space. You are strapped to a table, a small table, almost a sort of like workshop station. and you are absolutely surrounded on all sides by body parts that are moving around sort of on top of you. You feel completely different. You feel very little.

You are present. Your senses are sort of here, but your sense of touch is not as far as you. you can tell. You are not sure where you are, what's going on, what has happened to you, but sure enough, you get the impression that you are now inside of this, this containment unit, and the shambling mound is on top of you. Yikes. What do you do? Well, I'm strapped down, right? You are, yes. It appears to just be one strap sort of wrapped around your, uh, your arms, and your torso. Again, like, it is confusing because you can't get a great look at what's happened to you.

But you get the impression that that's what's going on. Can I make this body operate? Can I make it work? Yeah. I mean, you can feel, you can move yourself around a little bit, but you are restrained. Could I free myself with sleight of hand? Yes. Give me a slight of hand. check, I will give you advantage on this. For whatever reason, it is, you find it actually kind of easy to try and lose yourself from this strap. Did I say easy? You rolled two tens there. You do manage to wriggle free. As you do so, one of the hands here takes notice of you and is going to

attack you, you notice on this hand a blue signet ring. That is an 11 versus AC. Does not hit. Okay. It tries to punch you, but you, for whatever reason, it does not connect. You are, again, having a hard time telling what has happened to you because you're surrounded by body parts. It's hard to kind of look around and see your own body in this body. salad. Gross. Next in the order. Unless, did you have anything else? That's probably your action, Philo, just freeing yourself from this thing and, um, and he's little. Unless you had some sort of free action. I was going to try to hold hands with the

Sapphire ring hand, just like, you know, intertwined fingers in between. I'll allow that. I will allow that. I will say if you don't succeed on this, it is going to get another attack on you. Okay. But this is going to be, we'll call it just another slide of hand. And this is just you trying to grab the correct hand out of a big, big pile. This is not with advantage. This is, okay.

16. Yeah. With the 16, you reach out, you grab Lady Godwin's ring's hand, and you are now holding it in your own. Your hand, I will say, you can kind of see now it appears to be impossibly small, very small. but you have managed to grab on to this thing. Next in the order are the crawling claws. These three are going to move and attack you, Lady Godwin. Actually, that one would not be able to get around you

without taking an attack of opportunity. This one is going to just do a normal... Come get it. A normal attack, that's 15 versus AC? For Lady Godwin, that is... That is a hit. Okay, hits you for three bludgeoning damage because you are raging, you half that because you have resistance. Round up. So yes, you take two damage. The first one is going to attack you with advantage 13 versus AC. That's a hit. That's two bludgeoning, so one for that hit. And the other one is going to attack with advantage. Another hit, another two, so one from that. One, one from that. One, one. One. One. One. bludgeon damage. So they all get hits on you, but you are fucking... You are really steamed.

You are really steamed right now. You are really... Whoa. Did you short rest before you came in here? Because you did... You were missing HP from your horse bite, which is still... Well, I mean, I don't think we said it. Okay, that's fine. You still have your... Probably should have. I know. I know.

And now three punches. Okay. Next... Oh, we have three more claws here. I mean, yeah, I mean, two of them are going to move up on you. One is going to move on sloppy. None of them are going to be with advantage, because they are not in flank. Oof, 21.

Versus AC? Yeah, that hits. It's two bludgeoning damage there. The other one, 14 versus AC. Just hits. I mean, it ties. Yes, that's a hit. So that's five bludgeoning damage.

Total? No, no, no, from the second one. Oh, boy. So the first one reaches up and just sort of punches you in the stomach. Second one, right in your jenny's, right in your penis. It hurts bad. This one is going to try to karate chop the dog. It does not.

It's a six. The shambling mound is up next, and it is going to spawn. Some more hands. It spawns four hands. You guys are doing an okay job keeping the crawling claw population down in this room. But this thing is wilding out and spawning a lot more.

I'm deleting that battery. It is no longer functional. It says on here that my unarmored defense should be 10 plus my dexterity modifier. plus my Constitution modifier. Do I need to do something on this sheet? No, it should automatically run those numbers for you. It should be 14.

So I don't know, my dexterity modifier is two and my, yeah, my Constitution modifier is two. So there should be 14. It's just saying 10. Ah, okay. Well, yeah, we'll. I don't manually update it. Yeah, go ahead and manually update it. And then I'm going to give myself three points back because no those hits would hit.

Yeah, that is fine. All right. Thank you for catching that. Okay, we are going back to the top of the order to you, Lady Godwin. When I look at, when I look at Philo, what's his scenario looking like over there? What am I seeing? I mean, either give me an investigation check. Can you just tell me what I see?

His still ass body lying on the ground. Okay. With a helmet on his head. I don't have to roll a C. Yeah, it's rough all around. Yeah, and I got three three pals that I guess would get

a tax of opportunity on me. Shit, you know what? I got to try to get to Philo, I think. Okay. I know they're going to get their hits, but like, I just found out my armor class is like unbelievable. Yeah, sure. A 14 unassailable.

There aren't even numbers higher than that on the fucking dustman. Not that I know of, yeah. Okay, so you're going to run up to Philo? Mm-hmm. Okay, you can make that, but you are going to take three attacks of opportunity here. Let him try. One. 14.

Ties, hits. Makes sense. It's an extremely high role, though. Griffithka job couldn't have been higher. Yeah, unbelievable. That is five. So three bludgeoning damage from the first attack of opportunity. Second, we're looking at a five, not going to hit.

And the third, claw. 19. That is going to hit for another three bludgeoning damage. So that's six bludgeoning damage total. You are able to get over to Philo. What do you do? Are any of the hands, like, close enough that they're going to be able to get to us? Like, are they an immediate threat to him?

You are in range of every claw right now. So yes. I think I'm going to have to, do I know if he needs help or not? Like, I know he needs help, but like having death same help. I mean, I don't know. All that you know is that he is motionless on the ground. You are close enough that you can see he is not breathing. He is, this is a body just like everything else.

in this room attached to a helmet. After pressing the green button is no longer illuminated, the red button is still illuminated on the console, and you don't see your hand inside. It seems to be pretty deep in the pile right now. I mean, that is all that you would know. Okay. I'm going to, man, I don't,

if I said right now I want to hit that big, mess with my axe as hard as I can. You cannot do that. It is protecting you all from it as much as it is protecting it from you all. So there's no way for you to sort of get inside of the unit as it is closed down now. But the batteries right now are saying 12. Yes. So 12 and all of them were lit up.

Yes. If I may point something out, when the new hand spawned, Justin did not roll a luck check this time. Oh, that's a fair point. Roll a luck check for me. I thought it was in there with... Yeah, it's in there with Philo. Yeah, that was... That was before more hands spawned out.

And so this time, with Philo holding onto it, if it came out. No, no, no, no. This is a fair point. I think the luck check is gone now because Brother Philo has... It wouldn't have mattered anyway, because that's a three. So, no, you do not see your hand.

Really terrible. Okay. Wow, I feel so out of my depth here because he touched the button and did all that nonsense. There's a red button on the console. Yeah, I think in her infinite wisdom, I think slapping the red button is probably just about as good as she can be able to do.

Okay. You slap the red button. As that happens, you see the batteries one at a time glow bright, hot yellow, and explode. Then the two pylons glow in the same way, even brighter now, casting long shadows against all of the people and dogs and hands in this room. And the containment unit glows in the same way. And then they similarly explode. I need you to roll 12D10 lightning damage.

for Lady Godwin for me? We'll see You need to do that You Lady Godwin If you go to the dice button And click Advanced Roller You can select

Wow that's quite good On a 12D10 That is a 70 A heck of a roll 71 A heck of a roll As it explodes It looks like a plasma ball

Inside of the chamber The Shambling mound is lit up by more arcs of lightning than your eyes can possibly sort of perceive. As it does so, it gurgles and undulates, and it begins to just sort of crumble. And some emergency lights inside of the lab kick on. It's much darker in here now.

and you all see that where there once was a shambling mound, there now is just a handful of these hands. There are five hands. There's a lot of other sort of unidentifiable detritus now inside of this containment unit, but five hands remain as sort of combatants. inside of the tank. You've got another 10 on the outside, so 15 hands total, quite a bit. But the shambling mound is no more. It was electrocuted for an outrageous amount of damage and disintegrates. You see these five hands. You also see a small table in the center of the

containment unit. You see your ring on a hand weathered. No way. How does this lady God want to see that? She is dead. No, you didn't take that damage. The shambling mound did. Okay, got it. That makes so much more sense. I was sitting here thinking about rolling a new character. No, you are not obliterated by sending.

Yeah, no. That purged the power in the batteries through the containment unit. It could go up higher than that, but that was a very high role. So it was more than enough to... And then we juiced all the batteries before we activated it. That's right. So you see these five hands. You see your signet ring, Lady Godwin, on a hand that is suspended in midair by a small figure inside of the chamber.

And as the body parts continue to sloff away to the floor, you see this figure revealed. It is the strangest thing you've seen today, which is saying something. because holding your disembodied hand in the air is Pinocchio the wooden puppet boy. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.