The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 7

Previously on Taz Royale.

I would be happy to swap with you if you would like to switch domiciles.

I will happily accept the gold, but I'll have like an open door policy so you guys can come in and like raid the fridge and stuff if you want.

Would you be happy in this?

I would be thrilled to sleep in it under the stars on the grass.

I wish to have a fuck about

what I'd like is for you, Hellgrammit, to go inside and have a fuck about and then come out and tell me what you what happens.

But you also have this new crystal in your grimoire and a new spell at your command.

I would head into one of these other eggs immediately if that hadn't taken you so long.

Welcome back, everybody, to the Adventure Zone Taz Royale.

We join our aspirants in the middle of their free time, their free block, their lunch

hour, their recess, between trials.

Last time we got a rundown on who lived, who died, who told your story.

It's us because we're the only ones on the podcast.

It's actually always us.

Anytime you ask anyone that question as to who tells your story, it's always us.

We have such a backlog.

TM, TM, TM, TM.

And we're recording these well before they go out

because of how diligent we are.

And And we don't know what the response has been to some of the decisions that were made vis-à-vis

people being people dying, people being killed because of our choices.

And so

what's wrong, Juice?

No, I just wanted to mention in the interim, there has been an update to our tool here that we use.

I'm just seeing this pop up now, that there's now animated maps have been enabled.

And I am, Griffin,

so excited for you to fold that in

for me

and to enjoy, to make it a little bit more like I'm playing a video game and not working.

Because every step you can take in that direction is so huge for us and the listeners.

Yeah, for sure.

So

I'll make the whole island spin around topsy-turvy, get silly, make it bigger, make it smaller.

Something really distracting.

Yeah,

I need, yeah, I want a world that's coming to life.

You're like Roblox.

If we have Roblox, I want the bottle.

I want the motherfucking bottle city of Kandor up here.

I want to see a thriving metropolis.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, this sort of child's

forced perspective drawing of the map that I did that took me two and a half weeks, I think is evidence of the fact that I am hiding my light under a bushel and could very easily.

I see something here raw I can mold.

Yeah, for sure.

So last time

we had only one of you, we had Hellgrammate sort of spend his free time fucking about with the eggs in Loraveth's own words.

That leaves us with Loraveth and Rictus.

Who would like to go first?

How are you spending your free day between trials?

If you have any ideas.

I have an idea if Justin

will allow me.

Yeah, because my thing was kind of like going to the eggs, remember?

And I kind of like brought him along, but we kind of did that as a duo.

You know what I mean?

So that's what I was doing while he was doing the eggs is I was having a refreshing swim.

Sure.

If you want your refreshing swim to be the thing that you do, that's absolutely fine.

I wanted there to be some sort of mechanical kind of component to the choices that you guys make in this

free time.

Hey, let Trav do his thing and let me cook on the swim for a second.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And maybe something happened during the swim.

That sounds great.

Okay, what's your idea, Rictus?

I want to head to the graveyard.

Rictus heads to the graveyard.

Home fields where Rictus feels comfortable.

Yeah, it is.

You can tell when you roll up here that

the vibe is just kind of different from how it was during the

trial of abjuration.

Like it seemed like almost there was a special effect being sort of applied here to make things look much, much spookier.

This is a haunted house with the lights on.

It is very, very much so.

Like the day after the Hollywood Studios Fright Fest or whatever, where they're like kind of cleaning things up.

There's no shambling skeletons about.

It just kind of

looks like a normal graveyard.

What would you like to do while you're here?

So here's the thing.

Rictus wants a physical weapon.

Okay.

And not you.

Not me.

Not Travis.

No.

I hate that shit.

Yeah.

I'm ambivalent.

I like metaphysical weapons.

Right.

I like weapons of the mind.

Rictus knows that oftentimes

warriors and heroes will be buried with prized possessions.

Awesome.

So he's going to do some grave robbing.

Okay.

Wow.

That's so great, man.

As a necromancer, there's not a lot of...

You got to understand, there's not a lot of

worry.

Not a lot of

sanctum.

The mores are different.

That which sustains us no longer sustains him.

Okay, so I mean, looking around the graveyard here, there's,

I don't know, a couple dozen sort of grave sites.

There's, there's, you know, unmarked, sort of just blank tombstones in long rows.

There's a few like pretty big monument style gravestones.

You sort of like have your choice of how regal a grave you want to dig up.

What are you sort of like looking for

in terms of like deciding

where to dig?

I'm looking for a monument, maybe an inscription that might give the idea of like this was a fighter of some kind or a warrior or somebody who wasn't just all magic based.

I'm looking for something where it's like they might have been buried with their sword or dagger or whatever.

Give me an investigation check, please.

Investigation check.

You got it.

Well, that's a five plus three and eight, Griffin.

Well, sir.

Well, sir, you tripped over a ding-dang headstone, and I'll be danged if it isn't a child's.

Well, that's humiliating.

Dang it.

It sucks, man.

Dang it, man.

You tripped over a kid's headstone.

And your pants came down and everything.

Oh, I'm darkly tore.

With an eight investigation check,

you don't turn up much.

I think looking around, you have a hard time kind of...

You don't recognize any of these names, names, right?

It is.

I don't see anybody named like Cool Sword McCoy.

You do not see anyone called Cool Sword McCoy.

Have you ever seen anyone named Cold Sword McCoy?

Yeah, there was a kid in eighth grade with me named Cool Sword McCoy.

I think the best you do.

It was ironic because his sword was really boring.

Are you sure it wasn't Cold Soar McCoy?

Because I remember that kid.

No, that was a different kid.

There is Pete and Pete character.

One of the monument style sort of tombstones

shows a robed wizard whose cowl kind of covers their face.

You can't quite make out who it would be.

But you do see at their side a scabbard at their side.

So I think in terms of like, you know, information to go off of where you should dig with an eight investigation, that's about as good a clue as you are able to get.

Well, he's not feeling super confident about that.

So, plan B,

he's going to go investigate the mausoleum that he went down in last time.

Okay.

And, you know, during all the hubbub and whatnot, didn't get a great look at the statue down there.

And maybe it has some sort of weapon.

Okay.

Sure.

You head on down,

down the sort of spiral stone staircase down to the mausoleum.

I think as you go down the staircase, your ankle starts to kind of ache reflexively from the self-inflicted wound

you suffered last time to escape this thing's clutches.

When you get down here, it is...

I mean, it is still just as spooky down here as it was before when you were in the second trial.

You head down, you see all around you, you know, that great infinite chasm leading downward, which like spatially doesn't make much sense.

You know kind of how tall this island is, and it seems strange that there would be a bottomless pit in this floating island.

So

it is a strange

sort of arrangement, this giant tomb.

There is a long stone bridge.

You walk across it.

You see where some of your spit landed when you tried to save, well, where you did save Hasty Jane Jennings.

And you make your way across to this statue, which, again, sort of very,

you know, archetypical angel of death style statue.

And

it

give me a perception check.

Okay.

That is a 17 total.

It is in a different position than you saw it last time.

This statue has moved.

Now

it has a hand out, but it's the other hand.

And instead of holding a key in its hand, you can see that it is holding a small crystal, much like the ones that

you have claimed in order to gain new spells.

That is what you are able to see with your perception check here.

Is it holding a scythe?

It is, it is holding a scythe.

It is part of its, I mean, it's molded in with its, you know, statue form.

It is part of the statue.

It is a scythe.

Well, I'm going to snatch that crystal.

Just going to snatch it up.

Just going to snatch it up.

Wow.

Wow.

Old school bad ideas.

Let's impulses run wild.

Yeah, man.

Huge, huge magnus.

It's not.

Hey, listen, it's not an intrusive thought if you lay out the welcome map for it.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah,

what do you want me to do?

You want me to break out like my jeweler's glass and like investment?

It's only an intrusive thought if you're weird about it it's what you want me to do that's a great way to get your arm chopped off may i just say yeah

um okay man uh you reach forward you don't act like that's not what you wanted me to do griffin okay all right i guess uh you know there's things you can do in this game where if something seems suspicious you can like take a moment to check it out or try and diagnose sort of like but rigged this doesn't fear death okay cool um you reach forward you grab the stone As soon as you do, you feel really, really, really, really, really bad.

Give me a constitution saving throw, please.

Okay.

It's a two plus one.

It's a three.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Prepare to puke.

As you grab the stone, no, it's not a nausea situation.

As you grab the stone, you see

this sort of

pulsating darkness coming off of the crystal.

And as it makes contact with your skin you see that darkness sort of crawl up your your veins on top of your hand and it sort of slowly crawls up your arm and up your bicep and into your body and I don't think this is something you have experienced before

give me give me an arcana check to try and diagnose what what is happening to you okay that's a 10.

With a 10,

you have been cursed.

You think that is what's going on.

This doesn't feel like a malady of any sort.

You don't feel sick.

You feel like your life force has been sapped away somewhat.

Sure.

And until you are able to do something about it, that is going to remain true, or maybe it will wear off after a matter of time.

You are not sure because you've you've never been cursed before, but you do know that

you feel weakened inside and out.

What that means is you have now taken a level of exhaustion, which is a fifth edition condition that sort of escalates over time.

And the first level of exhaustion is you have disadvantage on ability checks.

Oh, cool.

Yes.

However, you have this crystal in your hand um and you it has delivered its sort of curse payload but now you know you have it

is there a place to mark on my sheet that i am exhausted do you know probably

okay i'll figure that out um

just a post just a post-it note um

is there anything does the crystal also give me you know anything else

I mean, you will be able to sort of figure that out by, you know, putting it in your grimoire with your other crystals if you want to.

Sure.

Why the fuck not?

You know?

Yeah, I mean, it's already cursed you.

I'm a curse already.

Okay.

You slot the crystal into your grimoire, and as you do, your mind is flooded, but it's not quite as clean as the

memories that you received when you

put in the last crystal.

What was the spell that you got during the second trial?

Protection against good and evil.

Protection against good and evil.

That showed you like a memory of the wizard studying it

very, very, very clearly.

This one, maybe because the

crystal that you slotted in here was in kind of a state of disrepair, the memories are a bit scattershot.

They don't really put together a clear picture of who it was that was using this.

You just see

a blade whirling through the air,

carving through armies of combatants.

This was the weapon of a very powerful sort of martial magic user.

And you have gained a new spell.

And that spell is called Shadow Blade.

Okay.

You weave together threads of shadow to create a sword of solidified gloom in your hand.

Lasts until the spell ends.

Counts as a simple melee weapon in which you're proficient.

It deals 2d8 psychic damage on a hit and has the finesse, light, and throne properties.

In addition, when you use the sword to attack a target that is in dim light or darkness, you make the attack roll with advantage.

Oh, hell yeah.

You can summon this with a bonus action.

It is a dope spell, and it has come at

significant cost.

That is

your choice.

That is your action.

here in the free time.

What about you, Loraveth?

Yeah, I was over here having a swim.

Right.

And because I wanted to cool off, because I got bored while he was fucking around with the eggs.

Where are you swimming?

I'm over in the falls.

In the falls.

Okay.

Yeah, nearby the eggs.

I got bored.

And they're near the mountains.

So I kind of like that,

that energy.

But

while I was there and I was looking at the mountains,

I started thinking about the geography of it, like the nature of this place.

Right.

right and i got curious so i want to i want to kind of poke around specifically the falls area have a butcher's

um no i didn't say that travis

it was a question it was a question that's such an overstep um i i i want to explore the falls it's up to you griffin as a narrator if i encounter something or if there's like specifically something that i'm interested in but the nature of this place that i am in is what has caught my attention and the thing that I'm currently pretty curious about.

Is this man made?

Is it magic made?

Are we, where are we?

I'm, that's what I'm interested in.

Um, yeah, that's cool.

Uh, if you can kind of tell me, I would like to know sort of what sort of role to give you here.

And I, I think it could be something more interesting than just a straight up and down investigation check.

So if you can tell me like what it looks like for you to investigate a mountain or a waterfall or so what i'm gonna do in this case is a nature check okay so I am trying to compare it against my experience of the natural world, right?

That's going to be the hardest to pull the wool over my eyes is when you're faking these like biomes that I'm familiar with.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay, give me a nature check, please.

Perfect.

I rolled a four, so fuck me.

Fuck story.

Who gives a shit?

What's the fucking point?

Does he also know this?

Does he also?

Why does I even say any of this shit beforehand, Griffin?

I don't know.

I fucked around in the water.

I got wet.

I went home.

I had a nap.

Fuck me.

Why do it like this?

Why do it like that?

If Stephen King comes up with something, no one's like, ah, ah, Steve, roll on it, bitch.

Yeah.

Come on.

You trip over a child's gravestone as you explore the waterfalls.

And you're like, what the fuck is this doing here?

Why do we even fucking do it?

Why are there children's graves everywhere?

With an eight,

I think what that means is just that the...

You can tell that this place is not a naturally formed place, right?

Like you don't get these biomes so tightly packed in together in this circular sort of arrangement.

It is too perfect and unnatural to have formed, well, naturally.

You poke around in the falls, you climb, you know, climb the mount a little bit to try and get a good look around.

As you are checking out the mountain, again, like so certain that this is, this was formed with magic.

And I don't know that you get anything more sort of concrete than that with an eight.

You do notice coming from the mouth of the sort of mine entrance that you went into where you sort of faced off against the

big icy crystalline dragon to get your key, you notice that there are some

faint hints of light kind of coming from

the mouth of this mine entrance.

I want to pick up like a rock, like a loose rock or something nearby, and chuck it at the edge of the, as far as I can see, you know, the edge of the world as I understand it.

Okay.

Chuck it at the edge of the island.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's like over the graveyard.

What I want to see, here's what I want to see.

Does it keep going or does it poof out of existence?

I'm trying to figure out if I'm on an enchantment or if I'm on a physical place that is like was created through magic.

Give me an athletics check as you just sort of yeet this yeet this stone.

Yeah, you know what I roll Griffin?

You know what I roll them at Griff?

I'm four.

Yeah.

So who gives a shit?

Yeah.

Sometimes I pick up a rock and shit my pants and I die.

The rock you picked up me.

The rock you picked up is a child's gravestone and you're like, oh man, what am I doing?

gravestone.

It's all made up.

Yeah.

Fuck.

You pick up a rock, you throw it towards the edge of the island, and as it reaches the edge of the island, it just kind of like

loses its momentum and slows down.

But like your throw was so shitty.

You gotta keep it going.

Your throw was so shitty that you don't know if that was your fault or some sort of magical kind of interference.

Four plus four.

Sorry.

Four plus three, seven.

Does that help?

Oh, well, with a seven.

No, the same sort of, same sort of result.

Sorry, guys.

You have a sort of natural attunement to the mountains, right?

Some of this,

I don't think you need to roll for, mercifully.

God.

This place is, it's not illusory, right?

Like you're touching, you're touching it.

you're interacting with it.

You're touching grass.

You're touching grass, right?

But that doesn't mean that it is real.

And I think your understanding of magic is kind of pretty fundamental.

And so like the intricacies, the ramifications of that are a bit lost on you.

But I think you know enough now to know that this place was...

This place was built.

This place was created for this purpose.

And all of the different areas of it are designed, you know, around some sort of magical purpose.

The graveyard below, you know, there is a school of necromancy, right?

Like, you know, that that is kind of what that is for.

The mountains here, there's so much magic, you know,

about stone and earth.

It is, you know, the kind of fundamental element with which you are most familiar.

That is why that is here.

The lake is, you know,

there for all sorts of water-based magic.

That is kind of what you are able to kind of put together with this look around.

Is

everything here is here for a reason, and that reason is like the testing or practice of magical ability.

Okay.

Give me a

perception check, please.

Please, it's nice.

You can do it.

I appreciate it.

I'm just saying I appreciate it.

Please.

Oh, fucking yes, dude.

Yes, dude.

Funny six.

Very funny six.

Okay, I'll do this for you.

Plus one.

Another seven.

He's on fire.

You look down at where the rock was that you picked up and what you threw, and you see a small

glimmer of amber light.

It is like a small sphere, like a, you know, a large speck of dust floating around through the air.

And

you are not quite sure what it is, but as you you know pick up this stone and throw it this little tiny tiny little orb takes shape and uh you know crystallizes hardens into like a small almost like amber marble uh and it drops into your hand and you're not sure what this thing is but um it's it's yours now

neat man thanks dude yeah no problem thanks you get a marble cool um marble

quick bite on it You take a bite out of it?

On it.

You take a bite on it.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, it...

Give me an Arcana check.

A cruncha check.

Now I get a 13 when I try to eat the marble.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, RN Jesus.

Appreciate you.

Thank you, brother.

When I need you the most, biting a marble.

15, you bite this thing, and with a 15, you know enough to know, like, I shouldn't bite this thing pretty good.

I shouldn't bite this thing pretty hard because it seems to be

pretty magical, whatever this tiny little amber marble is.

You pop it in your mouth like a jawbreaker, and as you do, you feel a

deep kinship with the earth.

You are reminded of exploring the

crevices of your mountain home,

spelunking deep into the caves.

This is a this tastes of earth.

It is a tiny fragment of you know elemental earth.

That is what you are able to discern from this thing.

Okay, perfect.

I'll put it in my pocket in a safe place.

Great.

With that, the

sun begins to set over the mountains, and you all can see that there are quite a few wizards coming and going from...

Griff, I think the animation on the sunset is broken on the map.

I'm not seeing it.

As you're saying it, I'm not seeing the sunset.

Let me just.

I wanted a time.

I was hoping for a time-lapse at least.

Oh, good.

That's good.

You've made a sort of

picnic pattern red circle in the corner.

Yeah.

So that's gone now.

And

you can see that there's quite a few wizards coming and going from the

Adelier down here,

the sort of large circus tent style building down by the falls that appears to have a giant sort of papier-mâché cat head emerging from the top of it.

There are some lights that are sort of shining up into the sky, kind of red carpet premiere style, and

everyone is sort of making their way in and out of this

establishment.

As you all make your way down to the Adelier and you step inside, you find yourself in

large shop you can see that there is a shop counter behind which you see a number of those crystals like the ones you all have found and gained spells from floating behind the the counter all around the shop are you know magical instruments on on shelves that the purpose of which for most of them are not particularly clear

and as you you three make your way in here,

you are in here with just a couple other aspirants who are just kind of poking their noses around.

Does anyone know how to remove a curse?

Anybody here?

One of the aspirants

is Tommy Falcon, who is floating on his Tensor's floating disc around the store, sort of like hoverboarding around, looks at you and it's like, oh man, I don't know.

You look terrible though, man.

Thanks, bud.

Yeah.

You taking your vitamins?

Uh, no, I don't get.

Yeah, I should get those.

Yeah, man, you gotta take good care of your body and it'll take good care of you.

Right?

Also, he's an Aero Cocra.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Cool.

Now, like, shrieks and hoverboards out of the shop.

From behind the counter, you see

someone appear.

It is

just a normal-looking guy in a blue sweater.

Oh, okay.

And he stands behind the cash register and he clears his throat, gestures to the three of you, and says,

Well, hi,

welcome to the Adelier.

My name is

My name's Arbuckle.

How can I help you?

I hear one of my cats upstairs crying.

You know what they're, you know, what they're upset about.

Just like the state of things and whatever.

No, they're only ever wanting one thing, and that's for me to get the smalls out.

Dad, we don't know how to.

Yeah, they love the smooth bird.

Dad, we want our smooth bird.

We don't have jobs.

We can't buy our own food.

We don't know how to order things.

Dad, we're so scared.

We're cats and we've gained complete human intelligence.

What's happening?

Where are we?

Yeah.

Where are we?

But you know what?

I calm them right down with smalls because you're going to get a package of smalls, right?

You're going to open it up.

You're going to put it in front of your cats there, put it into a bowl, whatever you're going to, I don't know your business.

But when you put it out there, these cats are going to freak out.

And you're also going to see some long-lasting effects.

In my experience, at least, my cats have been a little healthier.

They've had a nice, nice-looking coat, and they just love, they love smalls.

They love it.

Smalls cat food is protein-packed recipes made with preservative-free ingredients.

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And get this, after switching to smalls, 88% of cat owners report overall health improvements for smalls food.

That's a big deal.

For a limited time only because you are a zone.

I was really proud of that, Justin.

I was really proud of that.

Sorry, Trav.

That was great.

Thank you.

For a limited time only because you're an adventure zone listener, you can get 60% off your first smalls order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com slash adventure.

That's 60% off when you head to smalls.com slash adventure plus free shipping.

Again, that's smalls.com slash adventure.

Hey, this week we're coming to...

Sorry to interrupt.

I just kind of burst in.

Okay.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Hey, I'm also sorry.

I'm also sorry.

And I'm here and I'm interrupting too.

If you're coming to

our shows this week in San Antonio and Austin, thank you.

If you're not already planning on coming, why not?

We want to see you there.

We need you there.

Join us.

What are you doing?

That's so great.

Yeah.

If you're coming to the show and you want to have a question,

you got a question you want answered, you want a fear read aloud, we got you.

Email that to mbmbam at maximumfund.org and put your city in the subject line in Austin.

And Austin.

What, Trav?

What are we doing in Austin, buddy?

Well, we're doing Adventure Zone versus Hercules, and it's going to be a real treat.

You're going to feel happier than you've ever felt in your entire life.

Yeah, we're also coming to Utah and California later this year.

Tickets for all those shows are on sale now.

More info and ticket links are available at bit.ly forward slash McElroy Tours.

Oh, we also have a new merch because it's a new month.

Yeah.

New month, new merch, new you.

Well, yeah, sort of.

We've got a brand new Gerald t-shirt over there designed by Lynn Doyle.

Go to mackerelmerch.com and check it out.

uh and 10 of all merch proceeds this month will be donated to equality florida which is dedicated to securing full equality for florida's lgbtq community so go to macroymerch.com to get yours now

you know we've been doing my brother my brother me for 15 years and maybe

Maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, nope, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn Everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Sorry, say again.

My name is My name is R.

Buckle.

John R.

Buckle.

John R.

Buckle.

Yeah.

That seems lately indefensible.

Is it John R.

Period Buckle?

No, John R.

Buckle is my name, but I'm just a normal guy working here at the Adel Day here at the Octave Ziggerot.

And

I'm here to help you all get outfitted for your next...

for your next trial.

Perfect.

Do you have any new arrivals?

Anything to give

an edge on the competition?

Well,

technically, I'm supposed to wait before I am able to equip you guys with any sort of magical instruments.

Wait for the crowd to pare down just a little bit.

So, you know, check back with me maybe after the next trial.

We'll see if I have any armaments or equipment for you.

But what I can do is help hook you guys up with some new spells that you can use.

And, you know, do you have any like salves or creams that are good for curses?

Oh, I mean, you'd have to check with the

you'd have to check with the apothecary for something like that.

I'm actually not licensed to carry salves.

And I'm not trying to get,

you know, my business license revoked.

Sure, sure, yeah, yeah.

But it does look like they are closed for the evening.

Oh, cool.

So you, you know, you should have gone there earlier in the day because you look like ifs and buts were candy and nuts.

Yeah, you look like crap, man.

Yeah, people keep saying that.

It's very hurtful.

Yeah, so

yeah, you guys want some, you guys want some magical stuff or what?

Yes, please.

All right.

Let me see your cubes.

I beg your pardon.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Yes.

You

all have from

the small

sort of sack that was waiting for you in your different residences,

inside of those

were three cubes of different sort of...

What's that?

They're cube sacks.

For John.

So there are John cube sacks.

Each of the cubes, there's three inside of each sack, and they are composed of a different metal corresponding to the, you know, the value of the key that you use to access

your residences.

Because of the switching around that happened,

Rictus, you have three golden cubes.

Hellgrammat has three silver cubes.

And Lorveth, you are left with three copper cubes.

He says, you exchange those and you are able to

get some new spells

for your troubles.

Of course, you don't get to pick and choose which spells that you want because that kind of goes against the

spirit of the game.

But

if you're looking at the worst cubes, because I gave them my cool house,

I mean, you gave them the house, and the cubes were in the house.

What's the John?

What's the give me my cubes?

Give me my cubes.

Hold on, Lord.

Hold on one second.

What's the exchange rate?

What's the difference?

Well, there's one spell per cubes.

What?

I didn't.

You put Bugman, give me the cubes.

No, you know what you're doing.

Yeah, just ignore them.

It's really hard because they're talking.

I'm rolling.

I'm rolling, Bugman.

I'm rolling the dice.

To see if I heard you.

Oh, go ahead, roll the dice.

I've seen your other rolls.

Each cube will be exchanged for a different spell, but the more valuable the cube, the more choices will be afforded to

the roller.

So that's sort of how it's going to work.

Each of you is going to walk away with three spells, but

nine plus five, Bugman.

How's that grabbing 14?

Wait, wait, wait.

Time out.

Time out.

Damn it.

Why don't we work together as the team that we are?

Give me my cubes, Bugman.

Pool our resources and

make more of a choice of the spells we want.

You all see him refraining from giving me the cubes.

You all see it!

Theoretically, you should be going after his cubes.

I'm gonna...

Next as

I need to do some inventory, so you guys let me know when you're done with this.

And he just kind of climbs under the counter.

He just kind of pretends.

He does the thing where he pretends to go down the stairs.

What's your AC?

I roll 14.

You're not attacking John.

Are you attacking John Arbuckle?

No, I'm attacking the Bugman.

I'm being very clear about this.

Okay, you're attacking.

You are attacking Hellgram.

Attacking Hellgram with your for my cubes.

Okay.

Yes.

I gave him plenty of warnings.

I got a 14.

What is your AC, Hellgrammat?

14.

Okay.

Are you trying to grapple him?

Are you trying to?

I'm trying to smack him in the face so he will give me my cubes.

Okay.

Wait a minute.

This is a violation of the standards.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Go ahead and give me a damage roll.

Wait!

Four.

Okay,

you roll a four.

Hellgrammat, he just kind of open palm slaps you across the face.

But weirdly enough, like it doesn't hurt your face.

You don't move in response to

this attack on your person.

Loraveth, instead, you feel an invisible hand slap you across your face and you take four points of bludgeoning damage.

Damn it!

You

black man!

You see you've driven me too!

Hey!

Hey!

Look what you've done, Black Man!

Take another shot at me!

Come on!

Is that the best you can do?

Is that as hard as you can do?

I'm regrouping!

I'm regrouping!

Griffin,

while they're distracted,

Rick does climbs under the counter with John.

Is like, I'm gonna go ahead and exchange cubes.

This is awful.

Are they always like this?

I have no idea.

I literally just met them like four hours ago, but I'm gonna go ahead and exchange my cubes while they're distracted.

Okay, that's uh that's fine.

Uh, so uh, go ahead and uh we'll roll them one at a time.

You got gold there, that's good stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't let them know.

Okay, how do I roll?

So, uh, we have, uh, thanks to the spreadsheet magic of Amanda, we have a random spell generator that's going to pull from the list of spells not currently claimed by a living wizard.

With a gold cube,

you get to choose both

the level of the spell that you're going to acquire, and then three spells will be provided for you randomly from that tier of magical spells.

And right now, the spell levels that you are able to wield are cantrips first and second.

Is that in the random spell town?

Yes, I will handle the rolling and the offering in the random spell tab because

it is a bit touchy.

Okay,

can I do the spell level two or lower?

No,

specifically for this, for the gold, like the reward for a gold cube is you get to very specifically outline like what level spell slot you are trying to fulfill, and then three will be given to you that you get to choose from one of them.

And I can do that three times, exactly.

Right.

Okay, great.

Can I start with a Cantra?

You start with Cantrip.

Okay.

And is it possible to include non-wizard spells, or is that a no?

It is not possible to include non-wizard spells.

Okay, great.

So the first

is Poison Spray,

which I believe used to belong to Stinkbud.

As you roll the cube, this one crystal flies down from where they are all hanging from the ceiling to kind of like float in front of you.

The second is

Minor Illusion, the spell belonging to, I believe, Athena from the last trial.

You see that crystal fly down and join the other one, and the last...

that appears is

message.

The third crystal floats down.

So you are offered a choice between message, poison spray, and minor illusion.

And I'm happy to outline what those do if you want sort of more details.

What does message do?

Message allows you to...

You point your finger toward a creature within range and whisper a message to the target, and only the target hears the message and can reply in a whisper only you can hear.

I will say this, Travis.

It seems like to kind of spell the narratively, we kind of fudge around around a lot.

So I'm not sure if you're going to be missing that one out.

We usually find a way to, you know, figure that out.

Yeah, weekly.

It's up to you, man.

It being a podcast.

No.

Yeah,

I'm going to take.

What was the other one?

It was Message, Poison Spray, and Minor Illusion.

Yeah, I'm going to take Poison Spray.

Okay.

Add that to your sheet, please.

You have two more dice to roll.

What level would you like the next one to be from?

Let's look at first level.

Okay.

First level, the first spell that appears is

identify.

Identify allows you to figure out what kind of magic item a thing is or what kind of magical effects a person is currently under.

The next is

Unseen Servant,

which kind of does what it says on the tin.

It makes it an invisible servant who can do simple tasks for you.

And the third choice is

Mage Armor.

Ooh.

Mage Armor gives you a sort of a buff to your AC, I believe.

Let me...

Oh, boy.

That's tough because I was looking at both Mage Armor and the Unseen Survey.

Yeah, your base becomes AC becomes 13 plus Dexterity Modifier.

My dex modifier is plus 2, so that would bump me up.

to 15

when I have it cast.

If you so use it.

What's the length of it?

Eight hours.

Eight hours.

Yeah.

And it's not concentration.

It just like counts.

Oh, yeah.

I'm going to take mage armor.

Okay.

And

you have one more cube?

Yeah, I'm going to do another first level, please.

Okay.

Uh

magic missile.

A classic.

Uh-huh.

Chromatic orb.

Also a classic.

And

Thunder Wave, Jesus.

Okay,

three pretty

classic wizard attack spells.

Thunder Wave, Chromatic Orb, and Magic Missile.

What would you like?

Well,

chromatic orb seems like because it gives thunder and fire depending on which I choose.

I mean, chromatic orb can be any of the different elemental attacks.

I'm going to go with...

I'm going to go with chromatic orb.

Okay.

As these crystals appear in front of you, as you choose from them, you plop them into your Grimoire, which is now very much starting to take on a kind of infinity gauntlet sort of appearance as you put more and more stones into it.

Each one is

joined with memories of

wizards throughout time and their practice of these spells.

And you feel like as you plug these stones in, those memories become your own and the mastery of the spells that they provide becomes your own as well.

And as you stand up from behind the counter, are you two still fighting?

I feel like we're probably at a standstill now.

I ceased the attack when I decided to step back and

re-strategize.

Okay, cool.

I hope you've had enough.

You guys really shouldn't hit myself.

You shouldn't hit each other.

It's not allowed.

Don't do a hit.

It's not allowed.

Who wants to go next?

Because Rictus just did all of his, and he did really good.

What about you, since he's already traded his cubes in?

You want to pool our cubes together?

And, you know, absolutely not.

Okay.

You fine.

Fine.

I'll go next with my silver cubes.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, the silver cubes offer sort of a middle ground of choice.

You can either select the level spell you want, and one will be provided to you at random, or you cannot dictate the level of spell, and three spells will be pulled for you at random that you can choose from across the different levels.

So

what would you like?

I'll do the

three.

Three random spells from across the entire spell list.

Okay.

And I get to do that three times.

And you get to do that three times.

Okay.

Yep.

Okay.

So, second level or below.

The Cantrip Friends,

which gives you advantage on charisma checks against someone, but they know that you did it.

There's

Snare, which is a first-level spell,

which allows you to set a magical snare.

And

Toll the Dead Cantrip,

necromantic spell that belonged to one of the wizards that you battled at

the edge of the Zig Rod during the last trial.

Griffin, out of curiosity.

Yes.

Is it possible to trade spells?

No.

Once you slot these crystals into your Grimoire, there doesn't appear to...

Like, maybe if you got a flathead screwdriver and really got in there, you could pry him out, but otherwise, they seem to be pretty well affixed in there.

Now, is Toll the Dead a cantrip?

Toll the Dead is also a cantrip, yes.

So, you got two cantrips and a first-level spell to choose from here: Friends, Toll the Dead, and Snare.

I'll take Toll the Dead.

Okay, okay, so

what do you want to do now?

You want three randoms or one from a specific level?

Let's do three randoms again.

All right.

Kinetic Jaunt, second-level spell.

How fun!

It is a fun name.

Kinetic Jaunt lets you...

You can increase your walking speed by 10 feet.

You don't provoke opportunity attacks, and you can move through the space of another creature.

All right.

Next.

Augury, another second-level spell.

I think that's the one that lets you talk to God if you want to.

Yes,

you can divine

the results of a specific course of action you plan to take within the next 30 minutes the DM chooses from following possible omens wheel for good results woe for bad results wheel and woe I know that sounds like a pretty good spell but imagine with the power of message you can send messages to gods you just have to point at them point upwards you can do that at the lord point upwards and say hey god what do you think

uh message works for that too it's all purpose what's behind door number three

it is

comprehend languages

you can understand the literal meaning of any spoken language sending a a message to God if you can't understand what he says back.

Well, with the power of this spell,

hey man, listen.

Sometimes the dice

want to help you out.

Sometimes they want to give you some really niche, specific use case spells.

And that is the case this time.

Kinetic Jaunt, Augury, or Comprehend Languages.

The all-stars of the fucking wizard spell book.

Augury.

Augury.

I want to talk to God.

Augury, it is.

As you slot that one in, you hear a message from God saying, like, sorry, man.

Those are some rough choices.

I know.

You got one more choice.

So you want to go for a specific level or three randoms again?

So is it one choice in the level?

Yeah.

So if you chose like a cantrip, then you would get a random cantrip.

It's basically a way of like specifying if you are light on one of the different

spell level categories, you can specify exactly which one you want.

You know, I think I'll take my chances with the three again.

The three again, okay.

Friends, again.

Jeez!

Create bonfire.

Create a bonfire on the ground.

That's a cantrip.

The bonfire fills a five-foot cube.

Any creature in the bonfire space when you cast a spell must succeed on a dexterity saving throw or take 1d8 fire damage.

And

frost fingers

to first level frost fingers frost fingers first level spell frost fingers uh freezing cold blaster in your fingertips and a 15 foot cone every creature must be good okay wow okay frost fingers uh frost fingers it is sorry friends okay you have three new spells uh and you know three new uh

groups of memories of the wizards who who mastered those spells and you have added to your grimoire Okay, last up.

I take it

you've got some copper cubes for me?

Yes,

I suppose I do.

Hey, maybe you'll get lucky, man.

Don't, you know, don't count yourself out.

Yeah, those copper ones are great.

Enough of enough from you,

Mr.

Friends.

I'll help you get friends.

Okay, with a copper cube,

no choices here.

Three random spells from across the spell book, and you get to pick which one.

So I guess there is one choice sort of afforded to you here.

First spell, control flames.

It's a cantrip.

You choose a non-magical flame.

You can see within range that fits in a five-foot cube.

You can expand the flame, extinguish the flame, make it brighter or dark it, or create a simple shape out of it.

Cool.

Next,

Earth Trimmer.

First level spell.

You cause an earthquake and you can knock people prone and deal some light bludgeoning damage to them.

And that's a first level spell.

And finally,

Friends.

Shield, another first level spell.

An invisible barrier.

It's a reaction spell.

So if you are hit by something, you get a plus five bonus to your AC until the start of your next turn.

It also completely blocks Magic Missile for some reason.

Yeah, I'll grab that real quick.

Okay.

Yeah, I'll take Shield.

Okay.

Once again, three spells coming at you.

Magic Mouth.

Magic Mouth, a second-level spell.

It lets you

imbue a message into an object, and a mouth appears on it and can speak whenever that spell is triggered.

Don't friggin tempt me.

Next is

Color Spray,

which I believe was the spell of

Bobby Dazzler.

Lets you shoot out these colorful orbs that

just blind other creatures in the area.

And finally,

Booming Blade can trip.

You brandish a weapon using the spells casting, make a melee attack against one creature.

On a hit, the target suffers the weapon's normal effects and becomes sheathed in booming energy until the start of your next turn.

If the target willingly moves five feet or more before, then the target takes 1d8 thunder damage and the spell ends.

What is the what was the second one called?

Color spray.

Color spray.

I'm gonna go with

color spray.

Okay.

That sounds fun.

Man, as you slot that one in, your memories are flooded by the memories of Bobby Dazzler.

A lot of smoky, darkened

clubs where he is

doing his art, literally dazzling crowds across across the whole of the fold.

You get the sense that he was somebody.

Yeah.

Do I have any memories of his death?

Like how it went, how it all kind of fell apart for him?

Yeah, I mean, you were unconscious.

So maybe you didn't see exactly what happened, the grand betrayal of Bobby Dazzler, when he was webbed up and

had his key stolen by Hell Grammar.

But you see it now and you see the flames descend upon him.

And that is where the memories stop.

That was a tough break.

Wow.

Tough break.

We all died a bit in that damn war, huh?

And I think we can all agree that it was all Hellgrammer's fault.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Okay, last one.

Three spells coming at you.

The first spell is mending.

Once you fix a broken object, it's a cantrip.

Second spell is

magic missile.

And finally,

detect thoughts.

Second level spell does sort of what it says on the 10.

Yeah, I kind of would like to detect thoughts.

Okay.

And these copper cubes aren't too bad.

Got telepathy, Dad.

Did you hear that?

No, but I felt it in my mind.

Okay, Detect Thoughts joins your Grimoire.

Okay, all three of you have now gained three new spells chosen for you mostly at random.

You slot them into your grimoires, and it's a bit overwhelming the the amount of like other people's memories that are joining your own.

And so you sort of follow the crowd out of the Adelier as everyone heads towards the residences to get some rest before the next trial starts tomorrow.

Unless there was something else you all wanted to do here in the sort of small amount of time you have left in the day.

Nope.

Okay.

You all make your way back to the residences and your dreams that night are

really really intense,

mostly because of how your brains have absorbed these other memories.

It is not the most restful night's sleep, especially for you, Rictus.

Yeah.

As you're trying to sleep, but you just feel like no matter how it's like that thing where sometimes you get so tired that it keeps you up, like you have a hard time getting comfortable and falling asleep because of how tired you are.

And so when you awake in the next morning, you know, with the hope that you will have slept off this sort of lethargy,

that is not the case.

You still feel quite exhausted when you wake up in the morning.

Am I feeling, is there any like mental

element of this, Kurt?

Is it like an ongoing, like, there's a dark voice in your head?

Or is it just like, I'm exhausted?

There doesn't seem to be any possession, if that is what you are asking.

You have not been, this is like its own thing i i think you already have given me an arcana check to try and figure out like the nature of this thing um so i'll just tell you like it is not it is not a possession it is a okay it is a curse of the body uh and this specific curse is is one oh so instantly rectus is 41 years old because that's what i feel like every day when i wake up yeah you travis have disadvantage on all of your ability checks god tell me about it um yeah so you you awaken and you feel like you have not gotten really any rest at all you still oh i left my CPAP.

I'd asked about hooking that up and there was no hookup for it.

That's why.

Yeah, there was a magical CPAP machine at the Adelier, but again, the shop is

not.

Okay, I'm first on the list for that, though.

I don't know how many they have.

Yeah.

Hey, by the way, dear listener, if you want to send in some item submissions to be stocked in the Adelier for their next visit there, go ahead and email those to us.

You can send it to adventurezonecast at gmail.com and we'll take a look at those and and maybe we will include them next time.

Does that include potions and salves for the apothecary, Griffin?

Uh, no.

Oh, okay.

I was just don't send in any fucking potions or salves, guys.

I couldn't, I can't make this clear enough.

If you do that,

I was just trying to provide maybe more property.

There's an apothecary, the apothecary's got the potions and salves, okay?

And I'm going to decide what those are because that's so send that to the apothecary if you have taste.

Send that to the fucking toilet because I don't need that shit.

Okay, I just thought it would be a chance for more interaction.

No, you can send magic items, not potions yourselves.

I'll freak the fuck out.

Okay.

You all awake in the next morning and join the crowd of aspirants around the ziggurat.

They are all standing in a circle around this, you know, tall towering building at the center of the island, all standing in the lawn.

And as you all join, you see the octave all sort of file out of a door from one of the higher tiers of the ziggurat.

And the crowd grows silent as

the octave steps forward.

And one of them climbs up onto the edge of the tier that they're standing on, stands up on the wall to face the crowd below.

It is a very diminutive older woman.

She is wearing these like Coke bottle glasses.

She's wearing a number of multicolored shawls.

And she clears her throat and says,

Greetings, good morning.

I am Trace, the third octave, and I welcome you.

I hope you have gotten your rest and prepared your minds and your bodies for this next trial.

Before that trial may commence, the remaining aspirants here must first be divided up into twelve groups of four.

Your collaborators have been chosen for you by the octave.

Please follow the beams of light emitting from your chest to find your teammates and stay together.

Oh, yes, the beams may burn.

That's normal.

Weirdly enough, guys.

You see beams of light connecting the three of you.

The fates have chosen the three of you to be on a team together

because it would be so weird if you weren't.

Fate has chosen you all to be together.

And as you all sort of congregate, you see there is a fourth beam of light that is connecting all of you to one more aspirant.

Travis.

Yeah.

Go ahead and roll two D20s and one D8 all together, please.

Yeah, here we go.

It's 30.

30.

Okay.

This beam of light is connecting you to someone, and as they approach, they blot out the sun.

They are

easily eight feet tall and nearly as wide.

You can look up and they're sort of silhouetted by the sun.

It takes you a second to kind of like determine who or what they are

and you can see just sort of sharp points and chitin and claws and all kinds of just wild,

dangerous-looking shit.

And you see a

extremely imposing-looking

scorpion Thrykeen.

He is he approaches you and looks down at the three of you, looks at you, Hell Grammet specifically, and kind of like cocks his head to the side and says,

what does he sound like?

I don't want him to hear.

Every big man kind of sounds like that in my mind.

What's score?

What's he going to sound like?

It's weird that that's what I sound like in your mind, Griffin.

Yeah.

He doesn't say anything.

He looks down at the three of you.

That's convenient for you.

Yeah.

Yeah, wow, that's crazy.

I should use that more often.

He's a strong silent type, you can tell.

He's a deep, deep, deep waters.

It's still

quite still.

I whisper to Loraveth, like, now that's a real Thriking right there.

You know what I mean?

Look how cool he looks.

What?

He goes and he sort of, he sighs, this deep, sort of hissing sigh, and stands next to the three of you.

He looks kind of disappointed with the group that he has been assigned.

You all have

now.

Scorpo has joined your party.

You see all the other aspirants here gather up and within a couple of minutes everyone has gotten together with their groups and Trace up on the Ziggurat says, Excellent.

Now I would recommend you get familiar with your assigned quartet as you'll be relying upon one another to pass your next

evaluation.

And with that, a circle of light.

forms around the Ziggurat lawn, which kind of trickles upward to form a sort of low, transparent wall.

And from that circle of light, four lines splinter off and shoot straight across to the far edge of the island, dividing the entire landmass up into four quarters: the mountains, the residences, the forest, and the lake.

And each of these four sort of biomes appears to be cast in a light of a different hue.

And in that light, you can see these faint floating orbs of a corresponding color.

With that, Lorivith, you, as you look towards the mountains, you see these tiny little amber moats of light kind of floating around,

like the one that you pocketed earlier.

The entire island now kind of resembles a game of Simon for your visual reference, sort of cut into these four different colored quarters.

And Trace says, I hope you all have spent your free time brushing up on the basic elemental principles.

For today,

we administer the trial of evocation.

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