The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 4

Previously on Taz Royale.

Yeah, I had to break my foot to get it, but I got it. Go ahead and make an acrobatics check for me.
I want you to beat a 15 in order to get through these waters safely. How about a 6?

No, that actually weirdly doesn't do it.

I'm going to cast burning hands.

Yeah, give that dragon a taste of still medicine.

You snatch this stone out of the liquid

and through the windows, you can see the trees near you rustle as the Titan reappears.

Welcome back to the Adventure Zone. We are deep in the midst of our second of the eight wizardly trials of the Conclave.

The sort of clock interface hovering above the Ziggorot shows there's only like

15 minutes left before the great fireball in the sky descends. The three of you have had varying levels of success in securing the keys you need to reach the Ziggorot before the fireball falls.

We're just going to pick right back up with Rictus Ravenwood IV, the first in our initiative order. Hi, Trav.
Griffin, is it too early to use my summon?

Is it too early to use your summon

as your limit gauge? As your limit gauge, you're right. Yeah, I'm only at like 60%.

You got to think about that.

You had just unsuccessfully attempted to get through this waterfall to find this shining treasure within that you

could say I successfully failed at it. You failed.

And fell in the water where you were pulled up by a young man wearing a big plush-looking sweater and headphones who

whispered to you in a very convincing voice that you should give him your key.

He is casting his special spell on you, and that special spell is suggestion.

You

make a wisdom saving throw on a failed save. It pursues the course of action described to you to the best of your ability.
The number you are looking to beat is 13. Okay.

And this is technically a charm spell, which I believe you have advantage on. Yes, I do.
Okay, so roll twice, trying to beat a 13 on a wisdom saving throw. I had the map up.

I don't like to roll through the map. Oh, but I worked so hard on the map.
No, I like to look at the map. I'm looking at the map, but I want to have a second thing up.

Okay, you said wisdom saving throw? Yep, with advantage, beating a 13.

Wow. A 13.
13 on the money. And there's a 19.
Okay, amazing.

You definitely feel this guy sort of reaching into your mind. I think that maybe this guy chose the worst imaginable target for this for this ruse because you just sort of put this

evil entity

underground in its place that was way better at this than he is. And so you are unmoved by

this action. He still kind of has you by the wrist.
What do you do?

Yeah, I'm sorry, man, but I'm not going to do that.

I just, I broke my own foot to get this one.

So like I'm I'm gonna hold on to it and stuff.

But I can I'll help you find your own key if you want.

Shit.

What's your name?

He pulls you up onto shore

and

he whispers

called whisper

whisper. Okay, yeah, that'll be easy to remember.
I don't even need like a mnemonic device or anything. No, sort of the only way I talk is by.
Yeah. Should I whisper? You don't have to.

Oh, okay, great.

Actually,

I wouldn't be able to hear you. He points to his headphones.
Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I can help you find a key if you want. I've already got mine.

He

kind of squints his eyes at you as if he is checking you over to tell if you're trying to screw him over in the way that he just tried to screw you over.

I think make a persuasion check here. Okay.
It's maybe weird to have to persuade somebody to help them, but I think that it is so weird that

your response to being conned, oh, that is a failure. That is a one.

Getting hovered on 19, you know?

He says, nice try. I wasn't born yesterday.
I'll find my own key. Okay.

And he

takes off

to the south towards the rows of houses down in the residences, desperately, desperately searching for a key.

You look around, those icons over the ziggurat show that there's only like one or two gold keys remaining. Most of the other keys have been picked off.

You get the sense that this guy's going to have kind of a tough time at this point.

And just looking around, like the wizards who don't have these like floating key icons over their heads are getting pretty fucking panicked and running around,

just like knocking over potted plants looking under them and just lifting rocks up off the ground one by one. Making their own keys out of soap.

You do see, you actually see

a dwarf who is

found like a little patch of grass by where you are on the west side of the falls here.

He is like on the side of the mountain and he is like digging earth out to try to make like a hole to hide in, hoping that that will be sufficient to keep him from getting it.

People are kind of freaked out and understandably so. But you have about 15 minutes here, and you have your key.
You cannot be attacked for it unless you're in the red zone around the Ziggurat.

So, as long as you don't go in there, you're fine. You can see from your position, there are some people camped out in that red zone waiting for people to try to fucking step through.

So, you get the sense that it's with whisper.

Yeah, with whisper out of there, I'm going to take another run at climbing up into the falls. Okay.

I think I can maybe move a little more carefully. Okay.
A little more slowly now. Take my time.
For sure. Go ahead and

make a... What did we say last time? Acrobatics or athletics? Your choice.

I'm going to choose acrobatics. And like I said, I'm moving slowly.

I will reduce the DC because this is your second shot at it. I think you probably have a 15.
Right on the money, baby. Yeah.
Okay.

Walking a little bit more carefully this time, you are able to sidle sort of across this very, very narrow gap,

pressing hard up against the rock as the falls just sort of hammer down behind you.

You get the sense that if you had really gotten in there, it would have been pretty uncomfortable being pounded by this waterfall.

But you are able to reach this alcove behind the falls where there is a plinth set up. And on the plinth is a crystal, not unlike the one that is set into your

gauntlet, into your grimoire. What do you do?

Well, I mean, that's why I came up here. So, I grab it.
Okay.

And I eat it. No, no, no, no, no.
That was a different thing. That was a different arc.

That was a different arc. Yeah.
I grab it. I put it in another slot in my Grimoire.

Yeah.

I should have picked a different. Oh, I gloved it.
Yeah, Grimoire is a great word. Cool.
I do like it. All right.
You slot it into your Grimoire, and this is Rictus's first new power, right? Um, yep,

so you have this extremely disorienting experience where

you are suddenly subject to memories that are not your own. Uh, they are the memories of um, what looks like an acolyte or a priest.

It's hard to kind of like tell exactly what's going on, but there's there's it's definitely some sort of monastic uh kind of order. Uh, and

you

see

an invasion happen. The sky turns dark outside of this abbey and demons

pour out and begin to assault the church. And

this wizard raises their hands and a warding circle goes around

the inhabitants of this abbey.

And as you snap back to reality. Oh, there goes Rabbit.
I think we

did that like even the last episode. Oh, boy.

You realize that with these memories, you have

gotten a new power. You have a second spell.

You can now also cast protection from evil and good.

That is your one of our more judgmental spells. Yeah.
Yeah. But also

non-committal. Yeah.
Yeah. What about the just like the horrible,

like just the

you know, the evil of neutrality? That's actually, to me, a little bit scarier is apathy. Yeah.
Hey, protection from eggshell.

Father Gary, protect me from apathy, brother. Yeah.
You know, maybe that's what we all can

all pray for that. Maybe we should all just pray for that.
But I just don't care. You know,

okay. With this spell, you feel like.

your kind of natural talent for warding off

mental manipulation spells is like dramatically enhanced when the source of that thing is, you know, celestial or aberrant or, you know, demonic in nature.

Like, for instance,

the skeleton statue that tried to take over your mind in.

Okay, I want to go back there then and make fun of it. It's too late.
You are beat him. Damn.
You beat him to hard. You beat him.
You broke the. This is the sequence break.
Speed run.

Rict this Ravenwood the fourth speed strats. Yeah.

Let's hop over to Loraveth. Loraveth,

you have seized the golden key from the icy dragon that you thoroughly destroyed with a melting blow.

Are you leaving the mine?

I'm done with the mine. I did what I meant to do here.
I'm all set. Great.
As you step outside, you can see the two surviving elemental rangers cleared out.

From your position, sort of like on this plateau in the middle of the mountain, you get a great glimpse of the entirety of the Octave Ziggerat island.

You can see just anything you want to from your position. You see this great purple crystal building up to the north, this huge, wide path of woods surrounding the western border of the island.

There's a lake with this intricate

glass lily building in the middle of of it.

There's an arena. There's all kinds of stuff.
You can also see this display over the Ziggurat showing that there is maybe 15 minutes left and not many keys left.

And you can see the people sort of camped out in the middle waiting for people to try and get through to the entrance.

Can I ask a clarifying question real quick? I know it's not, but it's just occurred to me. I've had it in my head this whole time that like

the doors or whatever that we would use the keys for are not currently accessible, but could we go there at any time? Anytime, yeah. Um, we just there seems to be a I will say a deadline, though.

If I don't do it before 15, is that like a problem? If you don't get in the ziggurat before the fireball falls, you'll you will be destroyed. Oh, no, no, no.
I'll be in the ziggurat. Yeah, for sure.

Trust. Um, there is not a the doors are open, right?

The hesitance here, Trav, and I mean, I think you can see this too for sure, Loraveth, is like, there's also people, you can see a lot of people with those key icons over their heads just outside the border of this.

There's people running D, right? There's people who decided that they were going to be on defense. And there's lots and lots of people.

You get the sense that though keys have been seized, not that many people have actually gone into Ziggorot because people are waiting for other people to go first to get killed by the people running defense so that they can go in unperturbed.

But so far, nobody's kind of

there. Any animals up here? Are there any animals up on this? I mean, burps, burps, for sure.
Burps all over.

Big birds? Little burps?

I was just looking for someone to talk to. You talk to animals? No, just like talk out.

I just want to talk. I just don't have anybody to tell what I'm thinking or talk about my feelings.
You know what? Just as you, just as you, Justin, think that it's so crazy.

A wizard climbs up over the edge of Mountain Plateau. No shit.
Okay, cool. Yeah.
And it is,

it's going to be, let me see, which one is it going to be?

Who do you want it to be, Juice? I'll tell you this.

I'll send you the Google Doc. I'll send you the Google Doc.
Can I just choose a number? Yeah, sure. Choose a number between

37.

Okay, sure. Very, very quickly up the side of the mountain, you see what appears to be a ninja wearing this very detailed blue armor.

They have these like spikes of ice coming up off of their forearms.

They hop up on top of the mountain and you see this icy ninja look at you and then look at the cave and say,

you did it already?

Yes, yes, there's no

spoilers in there remaining, I'm afraid. Shit.

He starts immediately looking out over the vista looking for a key. He seems kind of panicked.

Listen,

you

look at me, yes?

You can see me.

The thought of taking my key wouldn't cross your mind, right? I mean, I-if I understand the rules correctly, I cannot, or I will be punished.

Well, excellent. Excellent.
So, uh, I'm going to go down and have a fuck about in the eggs. Would you like to come along? Perhaps there'll be a key there for you.
You think

that in the eggs?

I have no idea. I have my key.
I'm not that concerned about it. But what I'm saying is, I'm going to go have a fuck about in the eggs.
If you'd like to join me perhaps you'll find a key

um make what's your name

i'm called absolute zero

fascinating can we just call you want to go have a fuck about in the eggs with me zero perhaps we'll find a key for you uh make a persuasion check if you want to just fucking chill with with sub-zero here uh i mean absolutely i think that he he should do a person i'm offering to help him yeah no for sure but he also i'm offering to let him come on my fuckabout yeah but so do do okay.

It's a seven, so don't come with a seven. So no, so no, never mind.
I can tell from your expression.

You know what? Absolute zero. I bid you the very best, but I'm going to go have a fuckabout at the end.
No, I'll go. I'll go.
If there's nothing here, I'll go.

Yeah, cool.

He starts climbing down the mountain to head towards the eggs.

And you do the same, I assume? Yeah. Okay.

You are able to find an easy enough path down. You are a mountain man.
I'm not going to make you roll to climb down.

I actually do roll. That's my secret.
I just saw it all the way down.

Yeah, you turn into a little man ball and you zoop down. Oh, he's a Goron.
You and

you and Absolute Zero roll up to the eggs. See, we're still rolling.
There is a...

It's like a...

They're in a row, in a sort of quarter circle around

the ziggurat,

lined up against this sort of circular pathway going all the way around the building.

And as you approach, you can see there are eight of these little tiny dome-shaped,

like

bigger, bigger than a pup tent, but that's vaguely the shape of them. They would be big enough for you to go inside without having to, you know, crouch down or kneel.

I would like to start by

investigating the surface. Of the eggs? Yeah.
Okay. I want to figure out what they're made of.
Okay.

Give me an investigation check

egg egg Is there a door there is there is a small arched door in each egg you also notice that they are numbered one through eight

you are zero

Yeah, what is it

Do you want to open one of these doors

perhaps there'll be a gig.

I don't want it. What if it's a trap and the trap lasts lasts for longer than 50? Oh, that could be fatal for you, Zero, but you know what will be fatal? Not finding your key, yes? Okay, fine.

All right. Yeah, you're right.
It's your lucky number, zero. I mean, zero, but that's not like one of the options.

Maybe three.

How does three feel?

He looks at three. He says,

yeah, okay, I guess so. Yeah, three is as good as any, I guess.
Uh, I'll, I'll, I'll catch you on the outside unless I get out way before you, in which case I'm just gonna make a run for the ziggurat.

Um, good luck. Zero, if you should die,

may I have your gem?

What are you talking? What is that? What are you talking about? What is that? I'm winking. I'm winking.
Okay.

I'm winking. I'm Zero.
I'll be taking it anyway.

That's.

I'm. All right, man.
Door Zero.

We're running out of time. Yeah, we really are.
He climbs inside of the door,

and as he goes into the door.

I watch behind him to see what I can see inside. Thank you.

It disappears. The door disappears immediately.
And now he is just inside of this egg. The door disappears immediately.
So what do I see when he's an opening?

I just want to see inside, Griffin. What's inside? You see egg

like yellow.

I feel like my bad investigation role is still haunting me, Griffin.

No, I mean,

you do not see anything inside. It appears to just be a white egg.
Just say it's an egg. I'm saying fine.
But as you go. And the door disappears? Okay, I press my ear to the egg.
Okay.

Give me a perception check, please.

It's a natural twin. Holy shit.

You hear mear the baby chick inside pecking away. I don't see the egg.
I cannot feel the egg. But as God is my witness, I will kill this egg.

You hear.

You hear.

Not with a 20, I know. A voice speaking.
With a 20, you are able to tell that.

Have you talked to your gauntlet yet?

Hmm. I don't remember.
I don't think... I don't know if you have.
You hear a pleasant man's voice speaking, and you hear absolute zero sort of answering in return.

You just kind of make out sort of,

you know, peanuts teacher style,

the timbre of their voices, but not exactly what they're saying. And then you hear what sounds like

a wave, like an ocean wave, and then you hear like the sounds of different wildlife and you hear Absolute Zero go, whoa.

And that is what you hear within the egg.

What do you do, Lord of Fifth?

Man, I don't know. I already got a key.

I'm going to wait another 30 seconds and see what happens. Okay, then we're going to jump over to Hell Grammit.

I don't know. I got a key.
I don't see any reason for me to be a hero. The funniest imaginable outcome of this is Absolute Zero rolls out.
Like,

how was your egg?

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, man. Okay, Hell Grammit, back to you.
You have just seized a gemstone from the bottom of this acid-filled barrel at the bottom of this tall tower.

Just as you hear the telltale signs of the invisible Titan outside returning from its pocket dimension, where you kind of scared it off to.

What do you do?

I'm going to slam that crystal into my grimoire.

Okay.

as you do so, you

receive a

memory from beyond. Um, it is not one of your own.
Uh, in this memory, you are a

human man, which uh you know is is weird enough already, not being in your insectoid kind of form in this memory. Uh, and he is a very sort of like wispy, uh, tiny looking dude.

Uh, And you see him climb on top of a platform in the middle of a town and open his mouth.

And as he does so, this shrill, piercing siren comes out to alarm the town as a horde of monsters approaches, giving them time to prepare for the assault at hand.

And as you come back from your reverie, you realize that this power that this man had is now your own. You now have the spell alarm.

You set alarm against unwanted intrusion, choose a door, window, or area within range.

And until the spell ends, an alarm alerts you whenever a tiny or larger creature touches or enters the warded area. You can designate...

creatures that don't set off the alarm and you can choose whether the alarm is mental or audible.

Also, as you come back from your memory, you realize that someone else has come into this bottom floor of the tower. It is

a

dude with very sharp features,

very awkward looking, almost a unibrow. He's got like this ill-fitting gray suit that is too small for him.

And he also is like picking some leaves and twigs out of his hair.

And as you see that, I think you realize that you've seen this wizard before. He was just grabbed and launched from the tower by the invisible Titan and appears to have survived the encounter.

And he looks at you and says, Oh, oh, dear.

This is uncomfortable. Yes, yes.

Yes, it is.

How do we resolve this?

Oh, wait, wait, wait. I have an idea.
I have an idea. Okay.

And he takes off, sprinting up the stairs.

Wait, wait for me.

No.

All right. You take off up the stairs.

This tower is about seven stories tall with this winding staircase leading up the entire span of it.

You are not going to be able to reach the top with sort of a single action here.

But if your plan is to try to gain as much ground as you possibly can, you know, before the, you know, Titan figures out what's going on or before this guy can catch up to you, that is certainly within your power to do so.

I would need an athletics check if you're just like straight running, unless you have some other sort of wily scheme up your side.

I was thinking leaps and bounds. Leaps and bounds.
Okay. Is there a way I could use acrobatics? There is, not for just running up a flight of stairs.
Okay. All right.

So, I mean, you're not going to fail and like fall down the stairs. It's a question of like how fast you are, basically.
Right.

So, go ahead and give me that athletics check first.

Okay. That's a 10.
Okay.

Yeah. With a 10, you take off, you catch this guy by surprise, and he is going to start running right behind you.
I'm going to roll for him. Just keep it honest.
We'll see. We'll see.

He is, he has a negative one, also to athletics, just like you. So, this will be fair.

That is a 13. Okay, with a 13 he is able to kind of catch up to you and you guys are basically on the same step uh give me a perception check please

there it is and that is a 12. um with a 12 you

It's like a shadow passes by the window that you were that's just sort of to the side of the step that you were just scaling.

But it is not a like fully opaque shadow.

And that is enough to tell you that

the Titan is just sort of outside where this window is. Okay.

Is this the same window

through which it grabbed this forward? You are a bit lower than the window that this wizard

apparently made it to before.

I think

he comes to a dead stop on the stairs

and kind of.

So he has stopped sensing that there's a thing outside of the window.

What do you do? I'm going to try to blend in using the Kerapis,

the chameleon carapace. Does that just give you advantage on all stealth checks? Stealth checks, yes.
Because that seems insane.

Well,

I mean, the the rest of his life is spent as a bug, Griffin. So, I mean, there's checks and balances.
Yeah.

Okay, giving you advantage on. He's not going to have an easy time, like, getting into the clubs or whatever.

So the exact language is

you get advantage on dexterity, stealth checks made to hide. So I think the limitation here is like, if you're hiding in place, you can use this.
But if you are...

like trying to sneak by something, it would not be as effective. Okay.

So

what is your end goal here, I guess? I want to get past that window and leave

Twiggy there

behind to

distract the Titan. I think with that in mind, then,

if you are trying to move while being sneaky to try to get even more ground in front of this guy, it's just going to be a regular

stealth check. Okay.

All right. Stealth check.
And that would be, come on, give me something good for it. 16.
Yeah, okay.

With a 16, this shadow passes

and

you

change the color of your carapace to match sort of the stone of the stairs.

And this wizard looks kind of alarmed as you continue moving. You hear him say, Oh, don't.
You've got to stop moving. He'll kill us both.

Well, you survived before, right? So, you know, take your best shot.

Seriously, I'm sure he won't see you. I mean, and even if he does, if he throws you,

you survived the last time. You'll survive again.

Give me a persuasion. Give me a persuasion check.
I'm going to say this is a pretty high check. I want to see like maybe a 18 or higher.
No, 13.

no um he shakes his head he says i have a special falling power but i can only use it a few times a day

the shadow leaves uh it passes away from the window um he says wait wait can we just talk about this before we take off in a race it seems dangerous for us to just push push ahead like this we can we can probably figure out another way to settle who gets the key

uh all right what do you have in mind?

What's your name?

I am Hellgrammet.

I'm Dr.

I'm Dr. Legum.

Dr. Legume, I thought my name was bad.

Griffin, you son of a bitch. It's Mr.
Bean, but it's Dr. Legum.

Dr. Legume calls me.
My flexible friend. He says,

There's another key in the tower.

There's a copper key about halfway up.

So we can go up and then we'll play rock, paper, scissors and decide which one of us gets the gold and which one of us gets the copper. It's only fair.

That

does sound fair,

but

no, I don't think so. Okay.
And he takes off running again. Oh, God.

He is going to run in pursuit. You have made it about a third of the way up the tower.
Let's get another athletics check here.

God, seven.

Okay, that is a ten.

He is able to get a lead on you. You hit a step that has eroded somewhat and you trip and he is able to run in front.

Give me just one more perception check for me. Okay.

It's a 10. God, my rolls suck.
What are these things you guys keep rolling with the two and the zero?

That's a two. A 20.
When there's

consecutive, it is a 20.

You,

neither of you actually clock it this time.

You see

just too late, a shadow pass over a window in front of the two of you, and you both kind of come to a halt he's like three or four steps ahead of you as you hear the titan roar from outside and then you see uh some of the stonework surrounding this window uh crumble inside and you can just see the faint traces of a fist uh and an arm as the titan reaches inside of the tower to grab you To grab who?

Bo, to grab you both, to grab you both. He is in front of you.
He is closer to to the hand. So, I guess to grab Dr.
Legume, if that is where his hand falls.

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All right, Rictus.

Yes. I'm looking at the map.
Yeah. And it seems like the best coverage for a clandestine approach to the Ziggy is through the eggs.
So I'm going to make my way to the back of the eggs.

to plan my approach. Okay, cool.
We are having

our first encounter here. You make your way towards the eggs.
I'm not going to describe all the stuff again because you, Travis, got to hear it, and now Rictus sees all this stuff.

The third egg appears to be sealed for some reason. Not sure why.

You can see that there is a very imposing-looking Goliath wizard staring at these eggs intently, trying to decide what to do,

what to do with them. Sorry, to be clear, I think he's listening.
Yeah, he's got his ear pressed up against the

20, so I'm not going to stop doing that. Yeah, no, you're going to hear the fullness of this egg experience.

I mean,

he has a gold key kind of insignia over his head, right? He does, as do you.

And I'll say in this moment, you two definitely catch each other's eye. Thank you for reminding me about the gold key symbol hovering just overhead.

You can also see, because of those symbols, there are some people, there's at least three people in the lawn in this red area surrounding the ziggurat who are camped out, and they are just gonna keep a fucking beady-eyed watch on the two of you because they can tell you you have what they want.

Hi,

how's it going? Congratulations on your key.

Same congratulations to you. It's quite formidable.
Are you waiting for the egg to

fuck about the eggs? Okay. I was having.
And and my friend, uh, well, not friend, hmm, another competitor slipped in here, and I was rather waiting to see if he was going to die. Oh, okay,

did he

not as yet? Okay, at least I haven't heard the

sirens.

Okay, my name's Rictus, uh, Rictus Ravenwood, the fourth, um, heir to the breathless fields, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, well, I'm Loraveth.

Loraveth? Loraveth, Dream Wanderer Gondrebone. Okay.
Um.

Can I.

I. This is.

You're. Seem very...
Wait, one moment. Okay.

I'm going to take another listen at the egg.

Oh, my God.

Wow.

Life is so beautiful. I stopped listening.
I tell you, he's having a good time here.

Okay.

The next time we're free to wander around, I think I might come to the eggs and have more than a fuck about.

A fuck around?

I perhaps even a fuck with.

The mood strikes. Okay.

I sent my ninja friend in here to see if he would... Well, I was trying to assist him in a rather lateral way.
And it seems like it's working for him. Cool.
Unless he is, of course, tragically killed.

Yeah.

I was thinking...

Since we already both have gold keys and stuff,

should we like work together to get to the zigrat? Maybe get some other people with keys

to like team up to get to the zigrot safely?

You mean a collaboration?

Yeah.

I love that. Yes.

What should we call ourselves?

The survivors.

Okay. The key masters.
Sure. The key masters will watch each other other and they'll have each other's backs aboard lone fighting unit protecting their keyless friend, the ninja absolute zero.

Well, I mean, I guess if he wants to make his way to the zig rot, but I don't think if he doesn't have a key yet.

The door reappears on the side of the egg.

It's a boy.

You see Absolute Zero climb out.

And

he has lowered his mask. And you can see he is just like grinning ear to ear, tears, tear-stained face.

He has a copper key insignia over his head.

Well, there's no shame in that, zero. Oh, my God.

You guys

don't know

spoilers. I'm going to have a fuck with later.
It seems like he had a pretty good experience.

Wow.

It's just that I saw all of it, life and the connections.

No, again, I'm going to have a fuck about later with the action. He asked for no spoilers, man.
Thanks.

It's all connected. It's all connected.
I'd rather... I zero.

I believe I asked nicely. Okay, fine.

Who's this? You found another gold gold key guy. That's cool.
Yeah. I'm Rictus.
You guys,

Rictus. The three of us are the founding members of the Key Masters.
Oh, okay. Does it matter that I'm

like in the Copper Key Club, I guess? No, all are welcome.

You'll have a lower lower part of the hierarchy but you're still a member on it you won't have many of the same privileges should we ever develop some sort of clubhouse perhaps you won't have there will be access left yeah access left access okay so are you guys gonna go in these eggs or fucking what next time yeah there's like eight minutes left or something for now let's go let's the three of us journey i think i'm actually gonna

he takes a look at all the eggs i'm gonna take a pop into egg one maybe just to kind of see. Like, I liked three so much that I would love to actually just get in and out.

Because

what if the eggs are gone after this trial? Like, what if the eggs are just a trial thing, and then we can't do them any other time? Zero, I, I don't think that's a good idea, my friend.

I think you might end up getting destroyed by the gigantic fireball. I can get in and out no problem.
I've got to check out egg one.

Um, you can make a persuasion check here if you'd like to try and convince Absolute Zero to not go in egg one.

Yeah, and the reason I am going to do that is because I am about to leave. No question.
And I'd rather he not use up all the eggs. You know what I mean? You don't know how many charges.

I don't know how many. As far as I know, three is cash.
Okay, so like in this economy, you can't let him use up all the eggs.

So yeah, I am going to persuade him to come with us just to like, I guess also the added muscle for the key mask. Let's, uh, I, you're trying to beat a 13 persuasion check here to get him to do that.

No, that was perception. Ignore that five.
Wow. Lucky, you know what he did.
It was perception.

18. 18.
Absolutely. Uh, with an 18, he looks inside of one.

Uh,

fine. Uh, right.
Yeah. Shit.
Gotcha. You should come back and do like a key master's team building exercise with like the eggs eggs and you trust them and stuff.
You're right. Okay, cool.

Keymasters, great. So what's the plan here? Are we going to make a run for it? I can't.
I'm going to look around. I can shoot ice knives out of my hands.
Quick, quick sort of summary.

I can shoot ice knives out of my hands.

And that's going to come in handy, I think, if anyone tries to try and kill us when we're in the red zone. What's your guys' sort of whole deals?

I have like spectral hands, one that comes out of my left. uh that hurts people one that comes out of my right that heals people and it's kind of a loot an exchange, closed circuit.
Very, very cool.

And what's your oh, I also have a ward against good and evil. That's a really complicated your power is that you have magic.
Yeah, it's a lot of like esoteric judgment calls. Yeah, cool.

And what about you? Lord. I'm the one who brought you to the eggs.
Okay.

So the three of us will team together. Cool.
The key masters. All right.
And we'll barrel our way through. Zero, you should stay to the rear, I assume.

I want to scope around, Ditto, and and see if there's anybody else camped out with keys floating above their heads

yeah go ahead and make a

perception check i guess if you're just looking around to see to get a lay of the land a little bit here that's a seven

um okay i want to look again harder no uh with a seven you you i mean People are scattered kind of all over.

You can see, with a seven, you can see that there is at least one body laying in the middle of the red lawns surrounding the Ziggurat.

So someone has already perished in their attempt to make it to the door. You can see there's like a cluster of people on the other side of the, on the other side of the Ziggurat.

You can see like a handful of folks

over by the,

in front of the gardens. There's like rows of benches in front of a small platform.
You think it's maybe a bit like an outdoor lecture hall.

And you can see that there are at least a couple of gold keys and a couple silver keys floating over some wizards' heads.

And they seem to be like sort of gathered up in a circle, maybe trying to come up with a plan.

You can also see that one of those gold key guys, like you can't make out a lot of details about these people, except one of them is a giant tarantula. So that one is pretty easy to see.
Noticeable?

Noticeable, yes. Yeah.

And one last clarifying question about the Ziggerot: are there multiple entryways, or is there like one place we're trying to get to?

There is

great question. The Ziggorot has one main entrance.
You can see it on the front here. It has sort of three different ramps to the west, east, and south that are leading up to this front entrance.

And then there are doors you can see on the higher levels of the ziggurat, but it is a like 20, 30 foot climb up pretty sheer, smooth stone. So you get the sense that that would be quite difficult,

but you know, it would

be

another route.

Fittingly, most of the kind of defenses I think you guys have figured out are surrounding these front ramps

up to the entrance.

Well, I'm not really like

a combat guy or whatever, but should we like go to the front and see if we can get more

key masters

and like just

you know full frontal assault or

what do you think?

I'm so glad that ended with assault. Yeah.
Listen, I kind of stumbled mentally halfway through saying it. I

feel that the more of us that can work together, the better. We are running rather short on time for the recruitment.
Where are we at? Um, there's about eight minutes left.

I know you're pulling this out of your ass. You're not tricking me.
No, I have like a special I have a special hourglass.

I know you're just no, I have a special hourglass made of ebony, and it's embarrassing enough to ask my brother what pretend time is. Seven minutes left now because you're being like this.

You're now now, and can I say seven minutes? Eight minutes would have been long enough for you to do an egg. But seven, but seven minutes.
I already told you I'm not trying not to use up your eggs.

I'm trying not to rush through your incredible ebbs. I was fucking absolute zero had such a good time in the egg, you wanted to go on another one.
So he must be someone.

I bet he's having the time of his life. Where are we at now, time-wise? Well, you ran out.
The fireball killed you all. No.

Seven minutes.

I say we head back to the front and see if anyone wants to join the burliest boys in the whole

game.

I'm not that burly, but

let's do it. Okay.

Roundup for me.

The key masters begin walking.

I'm guessing around the red lawn of the Ziggorot, not through it,

to where

the other key havers are strategizing in this outdoor lecture hall. We're going to hop back over to Hellgrammet.

Hellgrammit,

you are

about a third of the way up the tower as the invisible arm of the Titan smashes through a window on the side of the tower.

You know what? You and Dr. Legum make dexterity saving throws.
He's going to have disadvantage, and the loser is going to get targeted.

His lowest is a 13.

How about a natural 20? Holy shit, man. There it was.

Yeah, natural 20 will absolutely do it.

You

see him stop.

and the scene kind of stands still as some of the stonework from the window like rattles down the the stairs and falls the you know two or three floors down to the ground level and as that happens dr.

legume looks back at you uh sort of nervously and then uh says

i think it's going on i think we're

wait wait wait

do i have a time to speak to him before he's tossed um

yes you have time to speak no he doesn't he is not i heard you go right he is not yeeted immediately he is kind of like seized from from the stairs.

And now you see him sort of floating over the just like the void, falling down to the where he would fall down if he was released by this Titan.

He is floating and seems to be in great discomfort. Thank you.

Let us form an alliance. I can help you.
I will save you.

But we have to form an alliance. We'll call ourselves the Kiwanas.
We'll be the Kiwanas.

And... All right,

I will save you. I will save you.
Squish dad with Mr. Bean.
I will save you if you promise I can have the gold key and you will take the copper key.

Give me a persuasion check, I guess.

Well, okay. You know what?

There's no atheist in foxholes, right? That's what they say. And I don't think that that's true or makes sense, but I don't think you're going to need to persuade Dr.
Legube here to let you.

He says, yes, help me. He's squishing me.

All right.

And so Hellgrummit casts infestation on the hand of the Titan.

Okay. So it is going to be.
Now, let me ask you something. Yeah.
Which side of the tower is it reaching in from?

It is reaching in from the outside.

Yeah. Well, yeah.
I don't know if that was what you were saying. North, south, east, or west? North.

Okay.

so infestation, uh,

the hand has to make a constitution saving throw, yes, yes,

uh, or takes one D6 poison damage, yes. But I'm assuming this is sort of like what you are, what you did last time, where it is sort of a distraction thing, or are you just trying to,

I do have a plan. I will do this on the table.
Uh, this thing is a giant, uh, and so it has a

plus four to its con save

okay

says 13 plus 417 which I do imagine is going to

succeed

dr. Legium says

okay so what's the plan

and he is yanked out the window as your bugs fail to find purchase

on the on the arm of this titan as you look out the window you see dr. Legium go soaring through the air and then you see,

just as he is about to disappear again into the woods, crashing down with tremendous force, you see just an explosion of illusory feathers just sort of cascade off of him, and his descent slows dramatically, and he yells, That was the last time I can do that!

And Dr. Legume is gone.

Help Grammet hauls ass up the tower. Okay, give me an athletics check again, please.

Damn, two.

All right, it's not going to go great.

You start rushing up the tower,

and

I think that it's maybe a mental thing more than anything because you know that this Titan is outside and you have elected to just like try and rush, knowing that you are sort of short on time here.

You are able to reach sort of the halfway point of the tower where the stairs expand out into a little overhang looking over the

fall down the center of the tower.

And sure enough, as Dr. Legume promised, sitting on a plinth on this small overhang is a copper key.

With this athletics check, you are not fast enough to make a lot of progress before you hear the Titan stomp back over towards the tower.

I'll need a

perception check

if you want to try and really triangulate his position. uh but you're about halfway up this tower i think i will uh grab the copper key okay

uh you grab the copper key as you do so you see a uh a faint copper key insignia appear uh over your head um

and

so let me ask you this this this is a spiral staircase running along the edge of the

tower the inside of the tower yeah the inside of the tower correct correct okay

um

then

gogrammat's gonna try to jump to a lower level

okay very very very cool um this will be an acrobatics check uh

and you're jumping down right

okay you're basically trying to jump the width of the tower um it is not it is obviously much much taller than it is wide it is a tower um and so this will not be the most difficult uh the most difficult check um i will need a if you want to do it without any consequence uh i'm looking for a 13 or higher um you you will clear it with a slightly lower roll but we will uh see how that goes sure

how about a dirty 20 a dirty 20 absolutely gets it um With a dirty 20, I will also say you lost track of this Titan. You were not really keeping a great eye on it.

And so you were on this little overhang on the north side of the tower. As you jump to land on the stairs, like you know, one story lower on the south side of the tower,

you see the window that was just next to this overhang also explode outward and something grab that plinth and lift it up into the sky and yank it out of the tower.

It is very, very good that you moved.

So I'm 20 feet up, right?

You are, yeah, about 20 feet up.

And there's a window where I am?

There is, yes. There are windows every like five feet or so, so you can be next to one.
I am going to jump out the window into the trees and hope I can keep from killing myself.

Cool.

So

1d6 bludging damage for every 10 feet a creature falls.

You are next to a pretty big thicket of trees, right?

They reach up about 10 feet.

So i

if you want to try to make an acrobatics check again to try to land among the branches of these trees uh then that is absolutely fine depending on your success will determine how much damage you take from the fall from the trees from whatever um yeah

go

12. okay

describe to me what what it what it looks like.

Helen Grammet looks up, sees that invisible hand grabbing the plinth takes a look at how far down he has to go down the stairs doesn't think that's gonna work so he looks out the window sees the top of the uh

uh see the top of the trees and just kind of leaps out of the window yelling for the scritch

uh

okay

you leap from the tower and you're not a bug with like wings right well they're not functional okay cool um

i think your wings whatever non-functional wings you have kind of reflexively are like oh come on nope nope okay

you

land among the upper boughs of these tall pine trees uh and desperately kind of you know splay out your limbs and your tail trying to just like grab anything you can uh to slow your descent but instead you kind of just like one hits you right in the stomach and knocks all the wind out of you, and you kind of loop around it and then fall and you hit several more branches.

You do land in a

you do land in a fairly sort of like soft patch of grass underneath these

trees, but you are going to take some bludgeoning damage just from being whacked by all of these pines. You take three points of bludgeoning damage.

Okay.

Were you hurt? Were you in? You were injured from the acid already. I was, yeah.
All right, cool.

You are beat to shit. Like, you, you had a healing potion earlier, obviously, but like, your garments or whatever at this point have been slashed and

acid burned and,

you know, whipped with tree branches.

But you do manage to get to your feet, wounded, but still, still with it.

And you can see the tree branches or the trees on the opposite edge of the tower on the sort of north side of the tower begin to bend and break as the Titan figures out that his quarry has escaped.

What do you do? I'm gonna

quote Credence Clearwater, I'm gonna run through the jungle. I'm heading for the Ziggerot, baby.
Okay.

Then

you

run through the trees back towards the sort of

observation platform where you were revived.

As you get here, you can see that just next to the observation platform, there's this outdoor lecture hall where several other wizards have gathered.

And these wizards appear to be strategizing to figure out a plan of attack

as

some other latecomers rush up to join

this position, Loraveth and Rictus and Absolute Zero arrive here around the same time as well.

At this point, there's about

eight of you all in total with keys of varying qualities.

you all reach this platform

and as you do so a bell chimes and the clock hanging over the ziggurat begins to flash red as it displays that there are five minutes remaining before the fireball descends.

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