The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 2

As sunset settles oversea, another sun shall come for thee.

The flame approaches, wizards clash, and all shall be reduced to ash, but those inside the zikarot.

Their trial past, they worry not.

With keys in hand and fates decreed, they mourn a moment,

then proceed.

Hi, welcome back to the Adventure Zone Royale, our new season of our ancient, decrepit, role-playing podcast.

Wow.

Last legs.

We are the shambling husks of the McElroys with a combined age of 260 years old.

Thank you all for coming back and joining us.

If you missed our first episode, you should probably go listen to that because we introduced ourselves

to this one.

So bonkers.

What's wrong with you?

We got to meet our three characters, Hell Grammet, played by Clint McRoy, the Thrykeen nasty man.

We got Loriveth, Dream Wanderer.

What's that last name again, Juice?

Gonjabon.

Gonjabon.

That's going to stick in there probably around episode four or five.

It's actually printed on the sheet in front of you.

The Goliath rough boy.

And we got Rictus Ravenwood, the fourth, the neon sheep of the Ravenwood necrobantic.

Oh, I like that.

I like that neon sheep.

That's good.

In our last episode, you all passed your first trial where we got to take looks at your past, presents, and futures.

And

you were

incapacitated by a magical gauntlet.

Yeah.

And you awoke here on the

island of the octave Ziggurat.

I have made a map.

We will share it online

with some points of interest here at the ziggurat just to sort of set up.

How do you make that, Griffin?

It's real good.

Yeah.

Procreate does this great thing where if you draw, well, okay.

It does a great thing where if you draw a circle, it'll make it look better than it actually does.

Oh, nice.

And then, you know, I did a little watercolor.

I put a lot of work into this one.

I'm

pretty proud of this here map.

And this is going to be our setting for the whole campaign.

So

a lot of stuff here.

Let's begin.

The sky above you all ignites as this great fireball, roughly the size of the island that you're standing on, breaches the clouds above you and just kind of hangs there.

And from all around you, you hear the reflexive screams of your fellow aspirants.

But with a wave of his hand, the first octave Oshim, who is standing up on the higher tier of this Ziggurat fortress in front of you, weaves this magical field of silence over the crowd.

He says,

My sincere apologies, but you will want to hear this.

Welcome, aspirants, to the trial of abjuration, the school of arcane wards and protections.

One such ward, and a potent one at that, has been placed over this ziggurat.

In sixty minutes' time, the flames above shall descend, and only those standing within this barrier shall survive its fury.

And immediately you see one aspirant in this sort of circle of participants in this conclave.

You see a man wearing pretty simple casual clothes, white tank top, gold chain around his neck.

He just

sets off in a dead sprint for

the ziggurat, for the fortress in in front of you.

And as he reaches the door, he is blasted backwards 20 feet by this shimmering field of light that appears.

And Oshim says,

It would behoove you to let me finish my instructions, Bobby Dazzler.

And he stands up and sheepishly walks back to the circle of wizards.

And Oshim explains the rules.

He says,

Scattered across this island are forty-eight keys.

With a key in your possession, you shall be granted entry into the Ziggurat thereby passing this second trial.

And as he says that, this enormous illusory stopwatch appears in the sky over the Ziggurat, its hands indicating the time remaining, while these three sort of concentric circles of illuminated dots display 48 keys.

And he says, The keys are crafted from three different metals, each with a corresponding reward awaiting those who pass this trial.

Now, the twenty-four bronze keys will be the easiest and safest to recover, but they carry with them no advantages, save for your guaranteed survival from the flames.

Sixteen silver keys shall prove more of a challenge, and grant a proportionate leg up in the remaining trials to the wizards canny enough to find them.

And finally,

the eight gold keys will provide their owners with future benefits beyond belief.

But be warned, pursuing these golden keys without caution or protection will end your life long before the fires fall.

You may only hold one key in your possession at a time.

Any aspirant who attempts to hoard multiple keys shall be penalized.

Also, you may not attack, harm, injure, or otherwise accost your fellow aspirants during this conclave.

Except under certain conditions.

And

as he says that, the carpet of grass you're all standing on turns bright red.

He says, when standing in a red zone, you may be attacked for two reasons and two reasons only.

One, if you're holding a key and two,

if you've attacked someone else during the course of this trial.

anyone who attacks another aspirant who does not satisfy these conditions or attacks beyond the boundaries of a red zone shall be thoroughly punished.

And you will come to understand the extent of the octave's power throughout your time here, but for now, believe me when I say that you simply cannot transgress upon our rules without us knowing.

Finally...

You'll notice the gauntlet that has been fastened around your arm during the previous trial.

This is your Grimoire, and it shall prove an essential tool during this conclave.

You will discover its usefulness in time, but I will share with you this one vital function.

If you have any questions about the conclave, the current trial, or any rules that have been outlined here, merely tap the stone set into your gauntlet and assistance will be provided.

To the forty-eight of you brave and cunning enough to pass this trial, we shall greet you inside.

To the rest, know that while you fall short of your aspiration, your contribution to this institution will be eternally treasured.

Begin.

And with that, the hands of the stopwatch begin to count down,

and

the second trial, the trial of abjuration, begins.

Let's start things off to determine order with a good old-fashioned roll for initiative.

Okay.

I got an 18 plus two for a gentleman's 20.

Amazing.

I got a 14 plus one for a somewhat less etiquette bound gentleman.

15.

Well, juice.

Yeah, roll natural 20.

Juice rolling at natural 20.

It is minus 2.

So

that is an 18, but congrats.

You can't minus from a natural 20.

It just, I succeed in acting.

Well, not.

I don't think that applies to initiative, right?

I don't believe it does.

No matter what.

Okay.

We will start then with Rictus Ravenwood IV.

Immediately, as soon as he says begin and the clock starts counting down, the aspirants,

almost all of them, just scatter and start running in every direction.

From where you're standing, you are standing in front of the ziggurat on this island, this sort of central feature of this circular floating island.

But all around you, even if you, you know, don't have a map spread out in front of you like we, the players in GM do, you can see all kinds of crazy shit on this island, man.

There's mountains and lakes and huge crystals and a tower and a little residential district and a giant fireball and a tent with a kitty cat head poking out of it.

All kinds of wild stuff here.

So I guess to start things off, Rictus, Ravenwood IV,

what's your game plan here?

What do you think you'd like to do?

Rictus is going to play to his strengths and home field advantage and head for the graveyard.

Okay.

Rictus, you run along the roads past the sort of residential district and over to the very edge of the island.

It is disorienting, being on this like giant...

floating disc hundreds and hundreds of feet above the ground.

You are just sort of above a thin, wispy layer of clouds.

You run along the side of this lake, along the edge of the island, to the graveyard, which is very much on the outskirts in the shadow of this giant mountain.

From where you're standing also, you can see the falls, just this big,

clearly like artificially hewn waterfall in the

magically, you might say?

Yeah, you might say magically, magically hewn waterfall in the side of this mountain.

And he does clock the kitty cat tent thing for later.

It's hard not to.

Yeah, it's a giant tent with a huge kitty cat head poking out of it.

You're going to be making a roll to see how quickly you get here.

Is there any other sort of supporting role you want to do

to, you know, maybe give yourself advantage on an athletics check to see how fast you run?

What are you doing to kind of like

get here quick?

It seems like you've made up your mind very quickly.

What is your strategy?

Are you just

sprinting?

What's your plan?

I think

I'm trying to think of what would benefit.

I don't know that I have any supporting skills or anything

that would help with that.

So I think it's just, you know, he's running.

When you take off towards this part of the island, there's definitely a few other people kind of like in this, heading in the same direction as you.

If this was the Fortnite match, you would see lots of those parachute sound notifications nearby.

Give me an athletics check straight up just to see how fast you are able to not his strength.

That is a one.

That is not great.

Okay, it's a pretty straightforward path to the graveyard.

You can like see the gate from where you start, but I don't know, man.

Maybe Rick just doesn't drink enough milk.

Well, he doesn't run a lot.

He's not an outdoor kid.

Okay, so there's a lot of

a lot of flailing, a lot of floppy.

He spends a lot of time in graveyards, but mostly sitting around thinking about death.

Not like sprinting.

You see

a young wizard, a woman wearing sort of like athletic gear, like track and field gear,

just like...

blaze past you, just go flying past you, and you see her disappear into the graveyard as she gets there much, much quicker than you do.

You see there's a couple other aspirants here at the graveyard by the time that you arrive, and they are furiously kind of like poking their heads around.

As you enter the graveyard, it seems like the sky around you darkens as if there is some sort of,

you know, field of gloom surrounding this place.

Even though it is obviously you know, double sunny outside with the giant fireball in the sky, it is still dark and gloomy in this graveyard.

There are white, ivory white tombstones and statues and monuments all around you

in this graveyard.

And at the very back, you can see

what looks like a crypt or a mausoleum at the back.

And there is a darkened archway where you saw this track and field star go sprinting into earlier.

You have made it to the graveyard.

There are some other people here.

What do you do?

So, Griffin.

Yeah.

This is a fun time to discuss this.

We all have once, though, right?

Yes, everyone in this world.

Well, we are like magically inclined.

Yes.

And we have, you know, Arcana skills and shit like that.

If there's like

things we want to do that are magic adjacent, like my thinking is Rictus has a lot of experience with like the undead and spirits and stuff.

Sure.

If I wanted to like call out and see if there's any spirits around that would help me.

Hmm.

I would, I would let you certainly do an Arcana check.

It would be a very high one because this is like we are bordering on magic spell territory.

Um, but like, I don't know, you kick it at the crossroads, and there's lots you're you have three ghost grandpas, so like it's certainly a something that you are used to.

So, if you want to call out in the way that you would call out to one of your ghostly grandpas, um, I would allow an Arcana check for you.

I'll call out for a

ghostly people.

Okay,

that's a nat 20.

Jesus, holy Christ.

So, it's a 25 total

Game over.

Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, I mean, like, okay.

Nat 20.

With a nat 20, you feel a fluttering in your chest, and

you think for a second, maybe it's just the nerves.

You know, you've just found out that some people are going to die here today.

But then you look down, and from your pocket leaps the ghost of your great, great-grandfather, Rictus Ravenwood.

Period, I think.

Did I do the math on that right?

If you're the fourth, your dad's the third, your grandpa's the third.

Yeah, okay.

Your grandpa's the second, your great-grandpa's the first.

Yes, yeah, he pops out of your pocket.

He's so small because ghosts get smaller as they get older.

Yeah, are you telling me you got a grandpa in your pocket?

And he or am I just happy to see him?

He says,

Oh,

looks like you spotted me, Rictus the Fourth.

I'm so sorry.

I was just so curious.

It's been so long since the last conclave, and I wanted to cheer you on.

Thank you, Rictus Prime.

Listen, there's kind of a timed element here.

I'm trying to find like a gold key or silver bra, honestly, any key at this point.

You want your great-grandpa to do a little poke around?

Yeah, if you could do a butcher's.

I'll give it a quick butcher's.

It'll take me a while because I'm so small.

Oh, I understand, but like you look and I'll look, and together, I think we, you know, two heads better than one, all that stuff.

That's not true.

We've tried that with bodies, but

you got oh boy.

I remember those days.

Double Frankenstein, we called him.

They're always trying to go different ways, is the problem.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, I'll, I'll take a, I'll take a quick butcher's and report back.

And he hops down from your pocket and starts to very slowly kind of trot around the graveyard to help you get a lay of the land.

With that, we're going to jump to the next in the order, which is.

Oh, wait, I forgot.

I love you.

I love you too, Greg.

You're the only one I like.

Same.

Okay.

My son and his son are real dickholes.

I know, right?

That's my dad.

Yeah.

He flies away.

We're off to Lorevith Dream Wonder Gonjabon.

You are.

This is all, you know, happening within the span of,

you know, less than a minute.

Flash sideways.

Flash sideways.

The timer starts counting down.

Everyone takes off.

Where is Lorovith's attention?

Loraveth is drawn to the mountain.

Cool.

This is his people's native geography.

Not geography.

Yeah, you know what I mean.

Yeah.

Sure.

It's native home term.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, the mountain, like you can see it from anywhere on this island.

it is these sort of two towering peaks that hang over everything, casting a

mind shout.

By the way,

he's not in any way hiding the fact that he is headed towards the mountain.

He is bounding there with all the confidence in the world ready for whatever.

Amazing.

So I want...

I mean, this is going to be another athletics check to just see how quickly you can get to the mountain.

If you have any way you you can think of of, you know,

improving or augmenting your running speed here,

I would love to hear it.

No, I have some

powerful abilities when it comes to like

hand-to-hand combat and my size, but nothing that is going to help in this effort, I think.

Okay, cool.

Go ahead and give me that athletics check then, please.

Travis, I just noticed you rolled a critical failure and then you rolled a nat 20.

Yeah, it's been a hell of a day.

Yeah.

18 plus three.

Holy shit.

Okay.

21.

That is quite good.

All right.

You are able to, you take off, right?

As you look to the side, you actually see

your old pal, whose name is,

of course,

on my list of names.

And so I'm going to read it.

Right.

Gracon, you see,

he is not running towards the mountains.

Your rival, your Goliath rival, he takes off towards the arena next to you.

And he kind of grunts at you in recognition as you two sort of cross paths.

Oh, ha, good.

Ha!

Yes!

I'll get, I give him a playful shove.

All right, you give him a playful shove.

As you do that,

your gauntlet vibrates.

All in good sport.

All in good sport.

All in good sport.

And then it stops vibrating, as if to say, like, watch it, man.

Amen.

Watch it.

21, really good.

You go sprinting around the Ziggorot here.

You reach this strange sort of arced field where you can see these eight sort of domes, white domes popping out of the ground, each with like a little tiny door on them.

And these are the eggs, as you can see on the map.

You are able to just like leap and slide over them and reach them.

I also prepared myself mentally to not get distracted by them.

By the eight giant eggs.

Like, I knew you would try to...

get me to look at the eggs.

Griffin's always trying to get us to look at eggs.

Like on the show off the show it doesn't matter

i stopped learning how to do art in basically middle school uh around the day that they taught like um like forced perspective and how to draw 3d geometry geometric shapes and i was like 3d geomati three 3d geomati and i was like i don't need to learn anything else and so that's what is just always eggs yeah a lot of cute drawing them he points them out in shops i love it i love a good egg you make it to the base of the mountain you can definitely see some aspirants behind you um trying to

make their way towards this big mountain thinking, hey, there's got to be some good keys in there.

But you get here first.

Yeah, my plan is this.

I've lived my entire life in the mountains.

I know the mountains.

I've had to hunt in the mountains.

My theory is that whoever placed the keys here, it would have been tough for them.

to navigate the mountain safely.

This is not a terrain maybe I'm hoping that they were comfortable with and I'm sort of using the same tactics that I would have used to hunt prey to look for some sort of trail or track or something on the mountain just because I understand that terrain so well.

Absolutely.

I'm going to give you advantage on a perception or investigation check here.

Because I think the first thing you do right when you're tackling a mountain, even when you're a big Goliath who knows this shit, is

look for your line.

Look for like,

and also, of course, look for keys or any other sort of features of interest.

At first, roll was 18 plus 119.

And then we got a, oh, lucky as a four.

So

go with a 19.

All right, 19, amazing roll.

You, you sort of survey the mountain.

You got here fast enough that you are able to take a few seconds to like really look around.

You can see a few things here.

Scattered around the mountain, the face of the mountain facing the center of the island, the ziggurat, everything else, there's some like climbing wall looking deals at the top of which you can see a few copper keys.

You know, they are not particularly hidden.

They would require some good climbing, some lightly hazardous climbing to get up to reach these copper keys.

But you can see quite a few of those.

But with your finely tuned mountain climbing instincts, you notice two other things.

One is a cave.

It is

60 feet up, up a pretty craggy rock face.

You think that a smaller person might have some trouble getting over it, but you don't think that you would have a particularly hard time getting up to reach this cave.

And

it's quite dark.

You can't quite see anything from where you are standing.

That's sort of on the left.

the left spire, the left mountain here.

To the right, you can see a somewhat shorter wall,

also quite craggy.

And at the top of that, you can see a very small

blue crystal that is floating in the air.

So

to recap, with your great roll, you can see some copper keys with some not-so-challenging climbs around them.

You can see the entrance to a cave, and you can see a floating blue crystal.

Which are you going to do?

I have to go for the floating blue crystal, of course.

Okay, awesome.

I'm going to want you to give me another athletics check here, and I will give you an advantage on this one as well,

just for how well your mountain climbing has gone so far.

Okay, two plus three, five, not awesome.

Or a no, okay, so 18, 15 plus 3.

Okay, great.

As you set off up this rock, you hear footsteps behind you, and from behind you, you turn and you see four wizards approaching in formation.

And very clearly, by the way they're dressed, you can tell these four wizards know each other.

They are wearing bright colored suits.

There's a red one and a yellow one and a green one and a blue one.

And

they are

wearing helmets that match their colors.

They are Power Rangers.

They do look like magical Power Rangers, yeah.

In fact, I'm rooting for them.

You see the Magic Rangers.

Not against you, Justin, but just against everyone.

Oh, I get it.

They jump onto the mountain face as you are climbing up it.

And you can hear them cheering each other on.

You hear one of them say,

Come on, Ignacio, you got this.

You got this.

Dig everything you got.

But because you are so big and because you were born on this mountain, not this mountain, but a similar one, you reach the top first and reach the blue crystal while they are still trying to scale to catch up to where you are.

Let's see.

Let's do a quick...

Oh, man.

I think I have time for a quick Arcana check.

Before I grab it.

I want to squinch one out real quick.

Yeah,

squinch out a quick Arcana check.

Let me just squinch a quickie.

There's a great vibe, right?

A nine.

Okay, with a nine.

How does it feel, man?

With a nine, I will say this, like, you can't tell what the fuck this thing is, but you do have this, like, gemstone in your gauntlet that is uh like a different color slightly larger more um

uh more rough less like you know cut and prepared of a gemstone

but uh you you you can't tell like what is what is gonna happen to you if you i grab that crystal okay um as you i put it in my gauntlet cool

You reach out and touch this crystal, and

as you do, it stops floating in the air lowers into your hand and you slot it into

one of the the studs in your grimoire

and

in that exact moment

you remember things

that have never happened to you we'll come back to you to resolve that in just a moment.

Hell Grammit, you're up.

Hell Grammit heads into the garden.

For one thing, he, you know, is pretty tied to nature, but on another hand, people have always tried to keep insects out of their gardens.

Yeah, this is.

So he's just got this compulsion.

He just wants to go into the garden.

Absolutely.

Okay, so

this is fairly close to you, right?

Like, just, yeah, by virtue of the way that you all were positioned, the gardens is sort of the closest feature to Hellgrammit.

So

I want you to make an athletics check, but it is going to be, you know, a little bit lower just because you don't have quite as much distance to cover.

And if you have any way of modifying that check,

then

I've got stuff with dexterity, but not really anything with athletics.

No, I'm pretty low on athletics for that week.

Okay.

Backflip your way there.

Boy, no kidding.

How about a two?

I did a one, Dad, so don't feel bad.

Oh, wow.

I was confused there.

Okay.

Hellgrammat.

You turn to face the gardens.

They are on the outskirts of the island on the other side of like a little outdoor lecture hall area.

You can see

next to you, Hellgrammit,

you see a goblin who is

dressed in sort of ragged

clothes and has like a bandolier that

appears to be empty because you all, you know, did not not bring weapons or anything into here.

But he looks like a nasty customer.

He looks, your eyes meet briefly as you both turn and take off towards the gardens.

He is quite a bit faster than you, though.

He leaps effortlessly over the stage of the lecture hall here, and he makes it to the entrance to the gardens.

Before you do, you see him take off

down this

stone pathway leading through just

towering, towering plants of so many different varieties.

There are exotic tropical flowers and trees with unrecognizable fruits growing off of them.

I'm imagining, like, whenever you complete a Mages Guild questline in an Elder Scrolls game, and you get, like, the garden with every imaginable plant in it, that's sort of the kind of vibe that we're talking about here.

Are you chasing the goblin, or are you, you know,

trying to observe the situation before

running in?

No, I think I'm going to

go ahead and run in.

Okay, cool.

Fortune favors the bold sometimes.

You race into the gardens.

I'm going to say while you are running into the gardens, following this stone pathway, chasing this goblin, he is running with intention to a degree that suggests that maybe he has seen something further down.

Yeah, Griffin,

I wanted to congratulate you on having the guts to append that sometimes to Fortune favors the bold because I think it's a much more honest and applicable thing.

And makes that promises.

Yeah, it makes that promises.

It says, like, if you're bold, it might work out and it might also not.

So, you know what I mean?

Like, go ahead, tough.

It definitely favors the bold and the meek.

Right.

It's like, go ahead or don't.

You know?

Yeah.

It's like, whatever, dude.

I think it maybe does make the idiom less helpful.

A little less helpful.

Fortune favors the both sometimes.

Yeah.

Give me a perception check, Hell Grammat,

as you are.

Before you were sort of standing above

the gardens, looking down.

Now you are.

Four.

Four.

Okay.

That ain't going to do it.

Four.

You see this goblin in front of you

and you see him reach this plinth.

At the very back of the gardens, there's nothing but

some tall,

strange-looking, viney trees

between where this goblin is standing and the edge of the island.

He reaches this plinth, and as you turn the corner of this path, you see him reach out and grab the golden key that is floating there.

And he

holds it aloft,

and

you hear him shout

things are looking up for Powder King Kelly

and then you see the vines behind him rustle and

from those vines you see these great leafy blades slice down

absolutely destroying this goblin whose corpse falls to the ground uh, sending the gold key floating back

on top of the plinth.

And

as that happens, you all hear a bell chime over

in the arms of the angels.

Uh, as he falls, you see the stone that was set into his grimoire start to clink and vibrate, uh, and then it pops out of the hole in the gauntlet where it was seated, and you see it fly up into the air and out of sight.

And then those viney blades,

proud of the work that they have done in killing this goblin, turn to face you, Hellgran.

I hear one of my cats upstairs crying.

You know what they're upset about.

Just like the state of things and whatever.

Just like the state of things.

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,

you know, 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.

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 um and it's delivered right to your door and cats.com named it their best overall cat food 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 i was really proud of that just i was really proud of that sorry trav that was great Thank you.

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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 the week.

What are you doing?

It'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 also doing 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 McElroyTours.

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

Yeah, we got a 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 macroymerch.com and check it out.

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 macromerch.com to get yours now.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

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, no, 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.

It 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.

Rictus, back to you.

You are poking around the graveyard.

Your tiny ghost grandpa is giving you aid.

Give me an investigation or a perception check, and

I will grant you advantage this time.

I don't think I'm going to grant you forever advantage on investigation and perception checks just because you have a ghost grandpa, but right now, you know.

Okay, I got a 16 and a 19.

Okay.

19.

You

see a couple other aspirants poking around in the graveyard.

And one of them has found a shovel and is like digging up graves,

which seems somewhat desperate.

You see there are

some skeletons towards the back of the graveyard, sort of in the back corner,

where one aspirant is like trying to restrain them to reach a bronze key

just beyond where they are standing.

And then you see the mausoleum at the back of the graveyard.

You cannot see anything beyond sort of the archway, but you know that that isn't.

But the athletic where person hasn't come back out.

The athletic aspirant sprinted inside has not come back out.

You also see your grandpa float over to you, and he says, Well, I took a look in the falls, and I saw something quite peculiar behind the waters.

There's a beautiful, no keys, but a beautiful blue crystal.

And it seems like

it had a lot of juice, if you know what I'm saying.

I wasn't much of a magic user in my day, as you've probably heard the stories, but it seems rife with all that good magical stuff.

but there are no key but there are no key did you bring it i'm a i'm intangible my sweet boy

uh

can i get to the falls from here griven

um yeah there is a a narrow pathway the falls are sort of recessed into the mountain to a point where like there's not a clear path to walk behind them um you would have to figure out some way to like get through the water but you could reach uh there's like a little shore here where you could reach where the falls are splashing down fairly easily But she's been in there a while, right?

She has, yeah.

He heads to the mausoleum.

Okay.

Rictus, you sprint into the mausoleum.

As you reach this archway, you find yourself standing at the top of some

decrepit stone spiral stairs leading downward.

And as you go down them, you feel just this oppressive death vibe that is,

I mean, I think it's oppressive even to you, someone who lives in a like death kingdom.

You know that there is something extremely powerful and extremely,

you know, death aligned down here.

You reach the bottom of the stairs and you are standing at one end of a long stone bridge.

And this long stone bridge is standing over a black void that you cannot see the bottom of uh you also can't see the walls or ceiling of this chamber that you are in this this uh you know mausoleum chasm uh

and at the other end of the bridge you can see a

a really big statue, like 15 feet tall, carved from dark stone.

It is a figure,

a hooded skeletal figure,

not too dissimilar from a

traditional angel of death, a Charon, if you will.

I need to learn how to say that name.

It can't just be Karen.

Okay.

It couldn't just be Karen.

Do you like Sharon better?

Charon.

Sharon is better.

Charon.

Charon.

Yeah, Charon.

Sharon.

You see this figure.

Charon also sounds like if you're going to do a robot, Karen.

Yeah.

Or if it's like, well, Care was off, but then

we switched it.

But if you want to share with somebody, Shareon, I don't know.

There's a lot of ways to go with this.

You reach

one side of this bridge as you come down the stairs.

You see this statue at the far end.

You can see that

its bony, carved hand is outstretched and it is grasping onto a golden key.

And then you can see this track and field star standing pretty close to the statue at the other end of the bridge.

And

something is clearly not right with her.

She kind of wobbles a little bit as

she

takes a step backwards away from the statue.

You see her turn to face you, and as you do, you can see that her eyes have just gone kind of pitch black.

and she smiles and then she flings herself over the side of the bridge that we are standing on.

Can I reach her?

You can absolutely try if you would like.

Yeah, I'm going to try to.

Okay, you are going to need to give me

first,

I think, a dexterity check or

I don't know.

If you're running, right, if you kind of realize what's happening here and you take off in a run, I think athletics, if it's just like agility to see how quickly you can reach down and grab her before she plants it.

It's going to fight for her hand.

Okay.

Then, yeah, I think this is just going to be a straight up dexterity check.

We're going to say it's a,

if you want to reach her in a way that is going to be...

uh you know steady and safe and i'm going to need a 15 out of it you'll be able to reach her with a 10 but you are going to be in some danger uh if that is the case it's an 11

Okay.

With an 11,

you can tell that she is possessed before she even turns around.

And so you take off running even before she heaves herself over the edge.

You are, again, not the fastest kid in gym class.

And so

you are not able to grab her before she falls.

You do slide on your belly, kind of like you're, you know, going into home plate, and manage to grab just the edge of her wrist and get a good grab on her wrist.

But you are starting to fall off the edge of the bridge just through the weight of holding on to her.

She is also, unfortunately, wearing like a sweatband wrist cuff that is making it really tough to

keep your grasp on her.

Compounding the issues that you are currently facing as you are deep underground beneath this graveyard, you start to feel this

presence from the statue at the back of the room holding the golden key.

It is starting to come for you now.

And I need you to make a wisdom saving throw, please.

A wisdom saving throw?

What's it trying to do to me?

Is it trying to charm me?

Yes.

Okay, I have advantage against.

Oh, great.

That's very, very, very helpful right now.

Because you've gotten yourself into a very dangerous situation.

Okay.

Yeah, so I got a 19 was my highest for a wisdom save.

Okay,

so

a 19 just barely beats this

oppressive force.

Yeah.

And I think what I will give you with that is like, you're in so much danger right now.

This thing is exceedingly evil and extremely powerful.

And if you spend much longer on this bridge, you are not going to be able to resist it you are still holding on to uh this aspirant but she is still uh under this thing's thrall and is like actively wiggling to get out of your grab still looking at me still looking at you i spit in her eye gross gross

um making it make an attack roll

and i want to hear the sound no i don't want to hear the sound well here's the thing my hands are holding her yeah no this it's, Travis, it's disgusting, but I fully understand the intention of doing this.

Yeah.

It's just bad.

It's the wrong choice.

Okay.

You spit and it misses.

You're a fancy little,

you know, pseudo-royal here.

You spit, and it just kind of droobles down.

I keep trying to spit.

I spit again.

Well, she's going to spit back in your eye.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she's going to roll.

Where's my dice?

This is a real classy affair we got going.

Yeah, no kidding.

She rolls a 14 versus AC.

Yeah, that hits.

Yeah, I mean, that gets you right in the eye, pal, and it stings.

It hurts.

I'm not going to make you take damage,

but you are.

If you continue to try to hold on, it is going to keep being pretty hard for you.

I'm going to allow you to have one more move here before you have to make another wisdom saving throw.

Can I activate the gauntlet without touching it?

You were told that you had to tap the stone set into the gauntlet if you had any questions about the rules of the conclave or the trial that you are in.

Can I tap it with my nose?

You

are certainly able to try.

Do you have both hands holding onto her?

I mean, I think with an 11, I'm going to say I had to.

Yeah, yeah.

How about this?

You're able to kind of like bump it against like the side of the bridge to activate it.

And as you do that, you see

a little

animated glowing figure eight appear above the stone, just a holographic illusory image.

And you hear a voice say, hi, my name's Chris.

I'm your personal companion here on the conclave.

Okay, how can I help you?

Yeah.

How can I help you today?

How can I help you today?

Okay, cool, Chris.

If I attack her to save her life, is that still against the rules hmm great question

it depends on the nature of your attack uh you see uh the the rules state that you can't injure uh or harm uh an opponent but i suppose that if you're doing it to try to help or save an opponent then the rule wouldn't trigger and you wouldn't be punished excellent i cast wither and bloom

okay

So she needs to make a constitution saving throw and beat 13.

That is a nine.

Great.

She's going to take five points of damage.

Okay.

And I also then

grant the healing to her.

Oh, okay, cool.

And so she gets to use

expend a hit dice.

Yeah, yeah, dice to heal back.

The way that, what is this, what is the spell like?

It's my spell casting modifier, which is plus three.

Perfect.

I mean, it's just going to heal her back up to full.

What's it look like when you use this spell on a person?

And have you used this spell on a a person before?

No.

I don't think I have.

I think I've used it on the undead.

I think I've used it on animals

and plants.

This is my first time using it on the undead.

And you see,

basically, out of the two hands holding him,

a spectral

skeletal hand comes out of his right hand

and grasps.

and takes

and then a like glowing golden like angelic looking hand hand comes out of the left and gives.

Fucking killer.

Awesome.

You see, as this first spectral hand reaches out and grabs onto her wrist just below the cuff, you see the life start to drain out of her.

You see her cheeks become kind of sallow.

As this happens, you do see this like black,

inky void that has covered up her eyes just dissipates.

And

she looks up at you, horrified.

And then as the other hand reaches out and restores her, that sallowness fades, and she looks up at you and says,

Give me the.

Oh, wait, what does she sound like?

I need a voicetron.

We all do.

That's why today we're selling voicatrons for five little payments of $9.99.

You too can have a voicatron at home.

She looks around and she Rachel made me a voicetron.

I guess I got to just ask.

You should ask nicely, though.

Yeah.

Not your usual way.

You know, you know how you do sometimes.

Trav, you know the way he gets.

Oh my God, do I?

She looks around,

looks confused for a moment.

She's kind of being like it right now.

And she looks at you in the face and says, pull me up, pull me up, pull me up, oh my God, pull me up.

I'm trying.

I'm trying.

You've got to pull too.

Come on.

Okay, with advantage.

Try pulling her up.

I think just strength check.

just to get her up onto the bridge with advantage because she is quite quite strong and able to help out too oh yeah it's 11.

um

she's helping she is helping you don't drop her but i do need you to make another wisdom saving throw please and you do have advantage against being charmed but it is a high check

13 oh thank god 23 23 does do it you pull her back up onto the bridge and she says let's get the fuck out of here and she is there a key uh there is a key it is in the clutched hand of

this statue.

I will tell you straight up: if you

try to make an effort to get this key out of here, you are going to continue to face this danger head-on.

Up to you if you want to continue doing it.

You've had some pretty damn good roles so far.

But

she's not going to wait around.

She says, Thanks, and she takes off and just fucking sprints out of the out of the chamber across the bridge.

Yeah, he's going to.

Is he brave?

As you consider that, we're going to bounce over to Loraveth, Dreamwonder Gonjavan.

You

are remembering a day from the distant past,

and you are

a little dwarf, balding, young dwarf,

and you are working in the mines, and there is a lantern that falls and sets off a seam of gas cracking through the walls, and a huge flame erupts at you.

And as it swallows you up,

you can see your co-workers are injured and killed by this explosion.

But as it passes,

you look at your body and you realize that you were untouched by the flame.

You are remembering, Loraveth,

now

years

of

and practice of mastering this one unique spell, but it is not yours.

It is somebody else's.

You have, in a split second, internalized all of these memories.

And now

you feel like you have control of a new spell, absorb elements,

just as clearly and

just as practiced as your original spell, Lightning Lure.

You can cast two spells now.

And with that, you snap back to the present, and you see the Magic Rangers just sort of scaling over the top of

the cliff face that you beat them up, and

they look really disappointed.

One of them says, No,

the Goliath got it.

Oh, damn it.

Hell, I'm Lora Vef.

Don't be too hard on yourself to rely on these hills my entire life.

You see the blue ranger say,

Do you think if we blow him off of the side of the mountain with a gust of wind that it would that would technically count as attacking?

Or

Loroveth looks around

to try to figure out who they're talking about.

The four of them are just like now kind of huddled up.

Like,

you hear the red ranger say, I don't know, I really wanted that crystal.

It seems like it was really cool and powerful.

And the yellow one says, While they're talking, Loraveth picks up a stone off the ground,

chucks it

behind them.

Okay,

you see them.

There you go, go for it.

Okay, they all

are you trying to like deceive, like do a yeah.

I want to try to convince.

I'm trying to convince him that I threw it.

Give me a deception check, please.

Yeah, okay, not my strong suit

at eight.

They look down at this just brown rock that landed kind of at their feet.

And you see the Green Ranger say,

He's making fun of us now.

I admit I have no gift for subterfuge.

And I charge past them towards the cave.

Okay,

give me an athletics check as you begin to scale another cliff face towards the cave.

13.

13.

Okay, 13 is

good.

You are able to get up there, but as soon as you jump on the side of the rock,

you see the yellow ranger

has joined you and appears to be maybe the one who is kind of earth element aligned of these elemental rangers

because she is able to get up the side of this cliff face with astonishing speed.

You climb over the edge of the cliff face just in time to see her disappear into the cliff, into the cave.

And as you clamber up and approach the cave, a solid, just

beam of flames, the width of the cavemouth itself launches out and

I cast absorb elements.

You are not, I will say, in this moment, not exactly in danger of

this fire hitting you.

You are off to the side, but you see this spell slot back.

Yeah, just suck that spell slot right back into your body.

But you see just this column of flames come launching out from the cave, and then you hear silence from inside the cave, and then you hear the sound of a bell

ring from over the ziggurat, and you see a small shining stone fly out of the cave mouth and and upwards and disappear.

That's two.

In the arms of an angel.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

I'm going to wait then for a second.

A good plan.

Give me a second.

I have to mark Tremora off the list.

Tremora, we hardly knew them.

Next.

Let's hop over to

Hellgrammet.

Hellgrammit.

From where you're you're standing in the gardens, you are surrounded by these deadly bladed plants.

You are standing kind of at a junction of different paths in the gardens.

You are, you know, a short sprint away from where this key is up on this plinth, but there are, no kidding,

dozens of these blades coming out of the vines surrounding

the plinth that appear to be in position ready to strike should you approach.

Down the other side of the path is a set of stairs leading out of the gardens and up onto the observation platform, which is this long sort of ironing board-shaped wooden platform that actually stretches out over the edge of the island.

At the very end of which, you see a giant sort of magnifying glass lens overlooking the lands below.

Also, up on the observation platform, you can hear the sounds of a few people conversing heatedly.

What do you do?

I'm going to cast a, I want to do a nature check on the sword leaf plants.

Absolutely.

Give me that nature check.

Okay.

That would be 10.

Okay.

Like I said, like this garden is a menagerie of exotic plants from all around the world.

You don't know what these things are.

You do know that those leaves are extremely sharp, which you probably could have figured out just in the manner that Powder Keg Kelly was,

you know, vivisected just moments ago.

But unfortunately, I don't think you get any more than that.

Is the plinth in the middle of these sword plants?

Yes.

Okay, how close can I get to the plinth and still avoid

the the sword plants?

I mean, you could, I would say you could make a maybe an investigation check to try to like triangulate that um you know that you are not within striking distance right now you also know that powder keg kelly was in striking distance and so you know it it you you can't work out the exact distance away like to the to the inch but um

if you want to investigate you can my rolls are horrible yeah seven seven does not cut it uh i you you you simply are not able to tell the the plants are different heights They appear to be

reedy and flexible.

And so

you are just not sure where it would be safe to stand.

Hel Grammon is just driven.

He wants that key.

He is fixated on that key.

So I think,

all right,

here's what Hel Grammont is going to do.

Hel Grammont is going to cast infestation on the sword plants around the plinth not not to damage them oh you can damage them i bet yeah you can attack plants well but that's not the intent okay the intent is to keep them occupied and then he's going to make a dexterity check and try to snatch the key um okay

how you got dads are like my intent's not to damage both griffin and travis like fucking run wild on them dude who cares well

i was more clarifying that the rule said you cannot attack other aspirants right there is no rule against blasting.

You guys are just so hungry for plants.

That's all.

There's no rule that says a dog can't be the next aspirant.

That's true.

That is true.

Okay, plants must succeed on a constitution saving throw.

These living vines are going to make a constitution saving throw.

Okay, that is a 14 con save.

Yeah,

that.

That saves them.

Okay, you're not going to deal any damage to these vines, and you're certainly not going to move them five feet in a random direction uh which is sort of what infestation uh allows you to do you do like conjure up a cloud of mites fleas and other parasites is there a specific type of bug that you're whipping up here uh let's let's go with nits i like nits okay this time aren't those just eggs

all right let's make them skeeters little skeeters okay little skeeters these little skeeters famous plant eaters skeeters they fly over and uh start start to swarm on some of these vines.

I have to sort of respect the roles so far and say, like, you're not 100%

sure how much this is going to distract these plants, but

you have put some bugs up on there.

Okay.

Hopefully it's enough to distract them that I can succeed with a dexterity check and snatch the key while they're occupied.

You will be making a check if you approach these plants.

A dexterity check to see like how nimbly you are able to grab this thing is will certainly help but you they they are going to attack you if you get into their into their zone

Okay

All right, so make my dexterity check yes do a dex check first

All right

That is an 18.

Okay, cool for sure you reach over

leaping over Powder Keg Kelly's body,

and you grab onto the golden key from the plinth.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

I have advantage on dex checks due to chameleon carapace.

You change the color of your carapace to match the surroundings, giving you advantage on dexterity checks.

So let me see if I can get a 20.

Is that all right?

Sure, I'm looking at chameleon carapis.

No, dad, giving you advantage on dexterity.

Stealth checks made to hide.

Stealth checks.

Okay.

Nice try.

Okay.

Nice try, Mac.

I just didn't finish the sentence.

Yeah, I mean, an 18 is still plenty good.

You are able to grab this golden key.

And then these vines are going to swing their blades down at you.

Make a.

Oh, they're going to make an attack roll.

That is a 19 versus ac

yeah that probably hits okay

um

the first vine swings down and slashes across your body you take six points of slashing damage

uh the second vine

uh

it's 15 versus ac

yep uh it is going to slash you for five more points of slashing damage well it was a great run for hell grammar

Oh, are you at it?

Have you tapped out?

Oh, I only have eight points.

Okay.

The

Viny Blades rear back and slash you once, twice, thrice, a lady, and Hell Grammit, the Thrykeen Wizard,

falls to the ground, landing on top of the quite dead Powder Keg Kelly.

and as you hit the ground, everything goes dark.

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