The Adventure Zone Versus Halloween: Live in Phoenix!

Good evening.

My name's Count Dracula, and I'm about to eat all your blood.

Hope you brought a change of pants with you, because you're about to shit in the ones you're wearing right now.

It's Halloween in the big city, and we got scary guys waiting around every corner, ready to jump out and kill you.

But uh,

it's all make-believe don't worry nobody actually gets hurt or do they

nah they don't it's safe anyways this is count dracula wishing you and yours a happy and terrifying lumino fright fest

Hi everybody, welcome to the Adventure Zone Live.

We got a spooky one for you tonight.

With your permission, I'd like to hop in and introduce our characters in Media Res.

I thought we were in Phoenix.

The monster population of Engrave has diminished following the successful Dracula slaying campaign of our fearless trio.

But for one night a year, the monster census data gets thrown way the fuck off.

When All Hallows Eve descends upon the realm in the city of Lumino, bright lights and beautiful music are substituted with cobwebs, jack-o'-lanterns, and all manner of spooky carnival attractions.

I want to give a quick shout out to Amanda, our business business manager, who put together some visual elements for this live show.

Justin.

Justin, there are jack lanterns on screen.

Are you going to be okay?

As long as I don't look behind me, I'll be fine.

This is...

If you have particularly reflective glasses, I request you remove them now.

So I don't see any don't actually do it.

I want you to enjoy the show you paid for, obviously.

This is what the three of you see as you stroll through the southern checkpoint,

dressed in your finest Halloween regalia.

Tickets in hand, don't look directly at the jack-o'-lanterns, man.

There's some scary ones on there.

It's a wagon of them.

Don't point at them specifically, Dad.

That makes them scarier.

One, two, three, four.

You know, he's counting.

Tickets in hand for the Lumino Fright Fest.

Let's start with you, Travis.

Introduce yourself and your character and your character's character, I guess.

I'm Batman, man.

So you've started in reverse order.

I like that.

Unveil the onion for me.

I'm Travis McElroy.

And I'll be playing the King of England,

Crawford Mutner, call me what everybody does.

Woo!

And also.

And

he is dressed as Batman.

That's excellent.

How about you, Mac?

I'm Clint McElroy.

Aww.

I am playing...

Oh, God.

Okay, I'm playing Brother Philo,

who is a monk

who is trapped in the body of Pinocchio.

Trapped.

And dressed as the victim of the opera.

and I can tell you it is impossible to drink with this mask on that's why he's so upset all the time

he's wicked dehydrated he wants her to sing because he's parched and they hadn't invented straws yet

and juice my name is Justin McElroy I am hi hello thank you very kind

I tonight am a podcaster dressed as a half Frankenstein lady barbarian dressed as a minion.

I'm your favorite kink's favorite kink.

My name's

Lady Godwin.

Okay, Mutt, Philo, and Lady Godwin, you all stroll into town and see it decorated all spooky-like.

Godwin, you do have a fear of jack-o'-lanterns, right?

That is canonical.

Yes.

Okay, it's challenging, I think, for you to be here.

As you all make your way into sort of the central plaza of Lumino Fright Fest, you see a man, middle-aged, hunched over, and sprinting in your direction.

His arms are holding out the ends of a black cape-like wings.

As he approaches, he twirls the cape around himself in a dramatic fashion and throws it outward with a flourish.

And he says, Welcome, doomed souls, to Lumino Fright Fest.

Have I dropkicked him yet?

So in the game Dungeons and Dragons, you can do pretty much anything.

I didn't want to interrupt an important introduction, so I'll let you say a couple words.

And I have answers, I appreciate that.

But if you do want to do a dropkick, unless the first few words out of your mouth were, don't kick me, I was gonna be okay.

Give me an attack roll against.

I mean, in your defense,

it looks like Dracula pretty much.

Actually, I think in your defense, it's gonna be the question of the day.

That is a big old three.

Let's get it going.

Let's get it.

Three, three, hold on.

Three plus what?

You need me to help you, Dad?

No, Dad.

I don't need it.

Oh, how the tables have turned.

They haven't.

Thank you.

Oh.

Thank you, Paul.

That's nice.

Thank you, my angel of music.

Come on.

For those of you at home, Dad has been given a straw, and you would have thought he scored the winning touchdown.

Yeah.

How are we looking over there, Juice?

I'm good, buddy.

I'm good, man.

It's a six.

I mean, it's a six.

So a six total?

I mean, no, a nine total.

Nine total.

Three plus six, nine.

That does not hit.

No.

You just barely miss him.

You whiff off of his cape, and he goes, whoa, hey, hey, hey.

This is all...

This is all play pretend.

I'm sorry to scared you, but I'm not.

It's my job.

My bow is his crossover behind his Batman cape.

Okay.

Yeah, man, top pretend.

This is so embarrassing.

I'm so sorry.

I see fangs and I just go, you know.

Oh, that's right.

It's you three.

It's us three.

Wow, should I feel nervous?

You guys have a few.

This really means but man, it's not really Batman.

He had you going, admit it.

Yeah, yeah, no, I figure.

You were fooled.

I know.

He's like a comic book character.

Yeah, no, I know.

It wasn't the true Batman.

I'm not Batman, man.

The true Batman on the streets of Gotham.

Why would he be here?

Yeah, I wouldn't.

Did you think I was Batman?

Because I wouldn't have told you my true identity if I was.

I'm the owner and operator of a Halloween-themed event.

So, no, people in costumes don't bewilder me in the way that you seem to think they do.

If you want to play it off, cool, man.

I get it.

Anyway,

he looks in your hands where you all are holding your Fright Fest tickets.

He says, I see you all have golden RIP passes.

Well, lucky ducks, you're in for one hell of an evening, or my name's not Mr.

Count Dracula.

Is it?

I just thought we established it wasn't.

Sorry, one more time.

What was that, Lady Goblin?

Oh, I don't know.

What was it?

It was something of...

It was very good.

In the moment,

it was established that he was Dracula.

Oh, right.

We just

were Dracula.

Oh, I went to scratch my head and my Batman mask in the way, man.

Why don't you take it off so your face can breathe?

He says, okay, well, I want to get you all on your merry way so I can go back to doing my business.

But as you go,

give me an insight check.

It's a 16

plus something,

plus four.

Yeah, 20.

A dirty 20.

You see a look in his eyes that communicates, did this man not just watch this giant barbarian woman try to kick me the moment I walked up here?

I want to be out of this conversation as quickly as is humanly possible.

He says, as you can see, most of the businesses in the area have been converted into spooky attractions themed after classic baddies from literature and film.

You three are made of sturdy stuff, but I bet we'll get a few screams out of you yet.

I just came from the bad dream on Oak Street attraction, and it left a deep psychic wound in me.

Scary, scary stuff.

So we're completely off the public domain thing, right?

We're taking some.

This is part public domain, part parody.

Fairy

completely legal.

That's the important thing.

Deeply, deeply legal.

But rest assured, no matter how scary our event may seem, it's all completely safe and under control.

No matter what you witness, it's all intentional.

There's no danger presented to you or anyone else in the slightest.

I need all of you to make a constitution saving throw for me, please.

How are we looking?

I over here got a...

Oh, it's a natural 20.

All right.

Hot niggity dog.

18.

Wow.

Wow.

10.

10.

Okay.

In moments, you see fog, opaque white fog begin pouring out of the storm drains and manholes, filling the main drag into town, swallowing up everyone in attendance.

Within moments, you are unable to see your own hand in front of your face.

With a 10, mutt, it is, you are,

you can't see anything.

You can't see or

know kind of what's going on around you.

This fog just completely swallows you up very quickly.

Mutt, take my hand.

No, thank you.

Philo and Lady Godwin, you all are able to see through a little bit of the fog.

And you both, from where you're standing, you see like the silhouette of a person collapsing to the ground.

As you step forward to investigate, it seems as if all the lights simultaneously click off at once, plunging Lumino into an uncharacteristic darkness.

And then, as quickly as they switched off, the lights come back on and the fog begins to dissipate.

As the fog dissipates, as your vision begins to return to you, the three of you hear a scream.

With a Nat 20, Lady Godwin, you can tell this scream is starting out fairly quiet, then gets much louder as the fog begins to lift, and then you hear a sickening thunk.

And moments later, the fog finally lifts.

Laying on the ground in front of you, in an almost comical splatter of blood, is the mangled form of the fake Dracula with whom you were just conversing.

Can I just say, man, the special effects here at Lumino Frightfest are incredible.

Everyone is just looking at what just happened in a state of rigid terror.

Oh, they're good.

Yeah, he looks really dead.

They're really good.

I'm going to

check the body for a pulse.

Okay, give me an investigation check for me, please.

All righty.

No problem at all.

I know how to do that.

I'll just do it.

All right, man.

All right, 17.

17, okay.

With a 17, this is, and you've seen a lot of these in your

time here on the Adventure Zone, a dead man.

This is...

Okay.

This man has died.

I think also with a 17, there probably wasn't much doubt in your mind, but this is not a real Dracula.

His fangs and his shoes

as he died and fell to the ground just flew off of him.

Mutt, Philo, if I can speak to you privately, please.

Oh, yeah, man, what's up?

So they are very good.

His commitment to the narrative is breath taking.

We have some true professionals here.

There seem to be some sort of

vital sign-stilling potions have been brought in.

This should just be really Method Man and he just had somebody kill him.

Wait, do you think it's Method Man?

Could be.

Did you see him?

I hope he's not slumbered.

Slumming him in how high?

I hope he's so good in that.

I should hope Method Man isn't slumming it in community murder mystery.

As you three have a little sidebar, you see that another figure has walked over to the body and is giving it an old butcher's, a good look over.

Ah, yes.

And he stands up and he turns to the audience sort of surrounding this crime scene.

He is wearing a deer stalker cap and he's chuffing on a pipe as he turns towards the three of you.

You see him kind of like eyeing the corpse.

He dips a finger in the blood and sniffs it and he stands and he says,

he says, ah, just as I suspected.

He looks at the three of you looks at the audience

attention everyone.

My name is Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective.

I regret to inform you this is not theatrics.

Dracula has, for real, died.

And with my keen powers of perception, I've solved the case of the murdered Dracula.

It's elementary.

Child's play baby shit.

Who did it?

He's good, too.

Not very sporting, though.

You haven't even unearthed any of the clues.

He says, I have all the clues I need.

Observe the rippling black cape, the feigned canine teeth, the pallor of his flesh.

This was indeed Dracula.

Who among us has proven themselves not only capable, but eager to slay Draculas in any form they may take?

Why, the heroes of Lumino, of course.

These three are our killers.

Hold on.

Hold on.

Counterpoint, counterpoint.

He still has his teeth.

And if I killed him, he wouldn't still have his teeth.

Good point.

We've clearly stumbled in at the end of something.

If we need to go, that's fine.

The only only place the three of you are going is to the slammer.

I'd rather not.

We're quite busy.

Says, I've already sent a wire to Scotland Yard.

They'll be here within the hour to throw you in said slammer.

I actually know how far away Scotland Yard is, man.

I'm the king of England.

They ain't gonna be here in an hour.

Unless there's a branch here in Lumino I didn't know about.

That's quite a commute.

Hey, wait a minute.

Doesn't Scotland Yard answer to you?

Yeah, that's right, man.

Wait a minute.

I I apologize.

He's a rather new king, all things considered.

Yeah, and it's still old in enough times that I can get away with it.

He says, you're the king of England, and do you have any identification to support?

Oh, that's

Scalibur, all right.

Yeah, that does it.

This is a tricky situation.

This could cause a real

problem.

The police coming after the crown, this could be messy.

Perhaps the three of you could come up with a different conclusion for the murder.

I'm right, but if you can come up with something even plausible, we could tell Scotland Yard.

Okay, so where did you obtain your clues?

Maybe we'll look there.

I have all the clues I need.

Dead Dracula, three Dracula killers.

Case closed, really.

But if you want to come up with a convincing story for the boys at Scotland Yard.

You did it.

He fell on his keys.

It could be either one of those.

Both virtual avenues of comedy and investigation.

Let's pursue them both.

Why don't you allow us some time to form a conclusion by investigating the scene ourselves, he said, trying to move the plot along.

Yeah.

He steps aside.

If you want to check out the body, he is not going to get in your way.

I'm going to make...

Instead of investigating the body, I'm just going to make a general perception check to see if anything catches my eye.

Oh, that's very good.

Okay.

And Dad, you're investigating?

Yeah.

You could also make a medicine check if you wanted to

do the recommendation.

Travis, what did you get on your perception?

I got a 12 plus 7, 19.

Okay, a 19.

With a 19, you

don't see anything immediately around the body.

You...

You do notice, so Lumino Tower has like exploded at this point.

You guys destroyed it basically in the final confrontation

with Dracula.

There is lower on the tower there is a clock, a giant glowing clock,

and it's it shows a time that seems weird.

You all rolled up to this this event like 8 o'clock and it says that it's like 9.30, which is not like, that's like wild

that it shows a time that seems like impossible.

Give me the investigation check, please,

Philo?

The medical check?

Yeah, or medical check.

It's actually a 19.

A 19, huh?

So I think Philo gets down close to him and says,

I think he's still alive, and starts doing compressions on his chest and yelling, don't you die on me, man?

And it makes the blood squirt even

more.

As you do that, Sherlock Holmes is like, oh, man,

you're sort of contaminating...

The crime scene a little bit, but it's really your ballgame at this point.

I am trying to save this man!

with a okay with your medical knowledge.

Oh all right.

With your medical knowledge this man's extraordinarily dead

I would say you pick up on the fact that there is a blood splatter around his around his corpse.

Made even larger now.

Yeah, it does and it doesn't seem to be like a pool that has leaked out.

It is like pretty widespread.

It is a true splatter in every sense of the word.

He says, look,

I want this to be fair and I really do want to avoid any drama.

So can I help you sort of put your own case together that you could present to Scotland Yard in your own defense?

Very sporting of you.

Hey, that's me, Sherlock Holmes.

I love games.

I'm a real gamer.

He says, solving a murder.

The OG gamer, Ethan.

Solving a murder is as simple as solving a three-piece puzzle.

First, motive.

He takes out a map of Lumino Fright Fest, and he circles the bad dream on Oak Street attraction.

He says, as the victim's last known location, perhaps a clue to the reason for his murder will become clear.

He circles the security office on the map.

And he says, means.

We know not the manner of his murder.

Perhaps security footage could provide an illuminating perspective.

And finally, he circles a hatch on the map labeled sewer access.

You think for a second it's weird there's a map that is here for tourists that shows where the sewer access is.

But then you don't think about it again for the rest of the adventure.

Perfect.

And he says, opportunity, the fog that gave our killer a chance to strike unseen.

Discover the source of that fog and you may discover the perpetrator.

Pretty good stuff, huh?

He hands you the map.

Yeah, man, thank you.

It's really good.

So, yeah, you got maybe an hour, depending on how long it takes Scotland Yard to get here and

May the game is afoot.

That's one of my things.

The game is afoot.

All right, cool, man.

So what do you guys want check off for?

When dad was digging around there, did you check like the body, the pockets, or anything?

Is there any clues?

Yes.

Like nothing, so nothing.

I did.

Yeah, but nothing.

Yeah, and I found some cool shit.

That's me.

That is cool.

Yeah, I found some clues.

Go ahead and tell them what those were, Greg.

You found $15.

Whoa!

I hope there's a gift shop.

You find also, I will say, a role of like ride tickets

for the different carnival.

You all have RIP passes, so you don't need to worry about those.

But now you have tickets for the different attractions,

should those come in handy in any way.

Does that stand for rides in plenty by any chance?

No.

There's an I in there.

So rides in plenty?

In.

No, man.

No, man.

No, man.

That's not how that would work at all.

So, shall I whistle?

Yep.

And call for Aggie.

Okay, great.

Cool.

She's dressed as Robin.

What's that?

She's dressed as Robin.

Okay, Sloppy is also.

I will say Sloppy has accompanied the.

He's dressed as Red Hood.

He's dressed as Red Hood.

She just runs up.

You see Aggie jumps up to you.

Very good, very obedient girl.

Sloppy runs right over to the corpse and just starts eating a little bit.

Sloppy, no!

Sloppy!

Sloppy!

Nope!

Crime scene protocol, Sloppy.

Sloppy.

He shamefacedly walks away.

What would you like Aggie to do?

We're going to follow a trail.

Okay.

We're attempting to follow a trail.

He had said that he had just recently come from the Bad Dream on Oak Street.

Okay.

So let's follow that way and see if we can follow his trail back to whatever he was doing there.

Sure, yeah.

Are you all following?

Yeah, let's see.

You all head to the Bad Dream on Oak Street attraction.

It takes a few minutes of sort of navigating the cobblestone streets of Luminel, but eventually you arrive at Bad Dream on Oak Street.

In reality, it appears to be like a small inn

that has

crudely ones yet, I think.

It's a small inn that has been sort of crudely decorated with like a hodgepodge of scary props.

There's like a skeleton with a knife for some reason, and like a bunch of stickers of bats, and a tiny little mannequin with a pitchfork.

And you see some horns have fallen to the ground that he eventually someone did not put a ton of effort into this particular I put the horns back on.

Okay, you do and his mouth opens and 10 gold coins fall out, Travis.

Heck yeah.

We got 10 coins.

We got ride tickets.

We got $15.

Give me a rubber chicken and a pulley and we'll...

It's 300 miles to Chicago.

We've got...

The three of you enter the inn, and you see the wild decoration scheme is even sort of more scattershot inside.

Everywhere you look, there's fake spider webs with fake spiders stuck up in them, which was not like a huge element of Bad Dream on Oak Street from what you remember.

And you hear the sound of metal scraping on metal, and a taunting voice calls out to you and says, Welcome to your worst nightmare.

You all look tired.

Why not take a rest in one of our comfortable, reasonably priced beds so that I can kill you in ironic ways based on your worst fears for real in your sleep?

Okay, yeah.

No, I do it.

I lay on one of the beds immediately.

You immediately lay on one of the beds?

I mean, I use what I use the tickets.

Okay.

Might as well get the full experience.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, you go, Lady Godwin, you hop into a bed.

Are you also hopping into a bed, Philo?

I think I'm going to video what he's doing for the TikTok.

Dad, sorry, follow his friends with TikTok for Return to Austin.

He loves video.

He likes to sit in vids, sit in his ventures.

Check this one out.

I'm going to completely ignore the horrifying thing playing out over there.

And I don't mean the scary thing.

I mean a puppet standing over a barbarian dressed as a minion, sleeping.

Filming them as sleeping?

Yeah.

Actually, I'm going to just fluff the pillow.

Worse.

And I'm going to

just ignore the Chad Kroger, who I assume is the scary one here,

and go with Aggie and follow a trail.

Okay, you don't even need to do that because as soon as they head into the room and lay down and bust out their video camera, I guess.

You see,

Mutt, you see a man come out from around the corner in the most unconvincing Friedrich Cruget costume you've ever seen.

Friedrich Cruget, of course, the monster of Bad Dream on Oak Street.

He's got a red tunic on that he's painted with like uneven black stripes.

He's wearing like a derby hat, and he's got like bugles on his fingers.

What?

Really?

He looks more like Linus from Peanuts than Freddy.

Why is it so little Rich?

It's imaginary.

As he sees you, he puts up a little finger as he creeps towards the bedroom.

Okay.

Yep.

And one of those bugles goes right up his nose, right?

Okay, I stand up on top of the bed.

We need answers.

What?

Oh, you're not.

I'm the nightmare now.

So why did you all even come here if you're not trying to get scared?

Oh, Dracula got killed.

What?

Fake Dracula.

Who runs this show?

What's the name of the person?

Dracula's dead?

No, the real boss, not Dracula.

The guy playing Dracula is my boss, and he's dead.

That's.

Super dead.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

He was my

guy who signed my paychecks, and now

he was your boss, and now he's not.

You're free!

There's room for upward mobility.

And a job opening.

Give me an insight check.

I would say, Mutt and Philo.

Mine is an 11.

Okay.

Mine is a 7.

Okay.

I'll say with an 11, you pick up on the fact that he is a little excited, actually.

When you mention the opportunity for advancement,

perhaps.

He shakes his head and he's like, so

what are you all doing here?

Are you all like...

I am.

Tell me

what happened.

How did you scare him?

What did you do to scare him?

Give me an intimidation check.

With disadvantage, I hope.

No, not with disadvantage.

I will say, I'm looking for a 10 or better.

He is easily scared.

15.

Yeah, all right, Batman.

He looks really scared.

And what are you specifically asking him?

What'd you scare him?

How did you scare him?

He was here and he had a thing and messed with his brain.

He says, whoa, whoa, take it easy, man.

Take it easy.

I was just, he came here and he's just me, Munt, man.

I'm just.

Oh, thank God.

This man is easily affrighted, you can tell.

He says, Calm down.

He just came in here and he was giving me a hard time for my exhibit.

He's like, tell me I didn't work hard enough and there's not much immersion.

And then he kind of left in a huff.

It's not really my fault.

I hate being Freddie.

Friedrich Cruget is like my worst fear ever.

I wanted to be Mickey Myers, but that role was taken.

And you swear that's all that happened?

Swear to me.

Say Falcone, please.

Please.

What?

Falcone.

Where's Falcone?

I don't know.

I don't know who Falcone is.

He's a character in Batman.

Who he is?

He says, okay,

we had an argument.

He left in a huff.

He walked into one of my spider webs and he freaked the fuck out and he yelled at me some more and then he left.

He didn't seem particularly afraid of the spiders.

I mean, he freaked out a lot.

And I'm one to talk, but he was like he was like a frightened little baby dog or something.

It was tragic, really.

But that was it.

He came in here, yelled at me, and then that was it.

And I didn't kill him.

Do you think I killed him?

Jesus Christ!

No, man, I didn't.

Oh, you said somebody.

I think you're born.

Wait.

Are there other employees?

No.

Oh.

Well, this one's a dead end.

He says, look, you guys freaked me out.

I need to lay down for a bit and regather my constitution.

If you want to keep looking around for more clues,

I just start sort of tearing it apart.

Tearing them.

I mean, it's just like, it's pretty shitty, right?

So I start flipping things over.

He's got to write it.

Okay, he sees you start tearing it in apart.

He sighs, but he's too scared to say anything about it.

He goes into one of the guest rooms, shuts the door.

Do you look around for any more?

I'm doing an investigation, and I got a five, so give me the stay

on that.

I want to listen to the door where he went in.

Resolve my investigation.

Resolve Justin's five.

No, no, no, we'll say this.

With a five, you start trashing the inn.

You don't find any clues.

You do find his stash of bugles that he was using for finger replacement.

Add it to the inventory.

This is a wild inventory you guys putting together.

It's all going to pay off, isn't it, Griffin?

Yes.

I've seen through your web.

All of it connects.

The bugles, the gold coins.

Give me a, I guess this would be perception check if you're just sort of listening through the door.

It's a 12 plus a seven, Griffin.

That's a 19.

19.

Okay.

You hear him go in there, shut the door.

You hear the sound of bedsprings as he lays down.

You start to hear a few moments later

some sort of disturbance in there.

Before we resolve that, while you two are staging your investigations, Brother Philo, you are sort of left alone in the lobby of the inn, and

a shape manifests before you.

Now, before we begun this episode, I asked my two brothers and dad, in a decision I will almost certainly come to regret,

to write down their character's worst fears on a piece of paper that I would not look at until we were on the stage.

Now, this is the character's real fear not our own personal

yeah, there's no way you're afraid of this Philo you see this shape Almost sort of appear out of nothingness.

It is floating in the air.

It is about I would say three feet tall with these long webbed wings.

It is a hideous wasp with a long spike coming quote out of their ass

Which I see now i see what you've done here which bores into wood and lays hundreds of larvae that eat their way out of the wood with exclamation point you've written this is a horn tail wasp has appeared in front of you

i believe it is the state insect of arizona

hometown wasp makes good

check off clint kisses ass yeah

In the wildest way imaginable.

What is your immediate reaction?

We'll resolve this and then we'll get back to your door check track.

Complete and total terror.

I mean, he's a puppet, for God's sake.

Sure, sure.

Wooden puppet.

Give me a wisdom saving throw to avoid being frightened.

I am looking for a 15 or higher on your wisdom saving throw.

And I guess 17 qualifies.

That's an 18 minus one.

Okay, you avoid being.

He's a monk.

You avoid being frightened.

He's not a monk.

He's an artificer, please.

You avoid being frightened.

So you are not forced to flee from this thing.

You kind of stand your ground as you watch it curiously.

I'm going to give you

either a perception or an investigation or because it's a bug, a nature check with advantage right now if you want to kind of like figure out what's going on a nature check

damn it okay

skills

nature

nature oh yeah

oh yeah hit it oh wait yeah oh

we have been having if you all could see what i see you'd be terrified right now 22 22

all right 22 nature check i'll give you a lot one this is not how big wasps are that's crazy that's what I get for a 22.

I should get his social security number for that.

I will also grant you this.

You are well versed in the magical arts.

As an artificer, someone who like works with homunculi, like you are very aware of kind of like how summoning and channeling and sort of like projecting life into the world works.

What just happened is,

to your knowledge, like impossible from an arcane perspective.

This bug, literally just, this giant bug manifested out of nowhere,

which gives you, I would say, the impression that

it is not real.

It is somehow some sort of fantastical projection, perhaps part of

the Fright Fest experience.

You are listening at the door.

You start to hear the sound of commotion, and it's like sort of flailing, and then you hear muffled screams.

Oh, I bust open the door, man.

You bust open the door and you

see through the door the flailing form of Friedrich Cruget getting sucked down through a large hole that seems to have formed in the mattress.

He slips out of sight and then moments later an absolute geyser of blood shoots upward from the bed.

I'm going to check his vital signs.

Pooling onto the ceiling.

I Pat Philo on the back of mid-terror.

They are very good.

They really are.

They don't have to.

If you want to get close to what's happening, it's going to take about 10 seconds to wait for the geyser to finish up.

Okay.

We wait ten seconds.

Everyone, please join us.

No, I'm not going to do that to us.

Okay, the geyser stops.

That was 10 seconds on the nose.

Perfect.

You approach the bed.

There is just a cavity, a giant cavity in the middle of the mattress through which he seems to have slipped.

It is messy and scary and bad in this room right now.

Hey, Griffin, I'm just going to go ahead and touch myself.

Nope.

There it is.

I'm going to lay a hand on my own shoulder.

and cast protection from evil and good.

Okay.

Probably a good idea.

And I'm going to throw an apple right in the hole.

Yeah, man.

I need to know for all of our sakes what happens if you put an apple in the hole.

I saw too many of you nodding in agreement about putting an apple in the hole.

There must be really good emergency rooms.

I am trying to be the type of GM that whenever any of my players makes any choice or makes any kind of decision, I try to find some to do with it.

I am in this moment live on stage, struggling to think of a resolution that is satisfied to Apple and Hole.

I just want to know, you could just say it disappears, make a broken noise, falls in, spits it back out, spits it back out, falls back.

Oh, fuck yeah, yeah.

Oh, it goes in, disappears for a few seconds, and just the core shoots out.

Hell yeah.

That's good.

You now add a nasty apple core to your inventory.

Hey, Griffin, just to see what happens.

Do I see the wasp, by the way?

Do we see the wasp?

You all weren't really looking at the wasp.

As you all, I think this blood geyser probably.

If we're interested in that, I just want to make sure.

Yeah, sure.

But

for Philo's benefit, you hear this blood geyser.

You look away for just a second.

The wasp is gone.

I want to shoot the bed with a crossbow bolt.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, do it.

Yeah, do it.

Let's see.

That's a five plus.

A five plus

nine 14.

Yeah, I mean the the bed grows arms and legs and says you got me.

I was the killer the whole time.

It could have been a fucking mimic.

Good night, everybody.

It was a mimic too, Trav.

I was afraid it was a mimic, Griffin.

No, it's not a mimic.

It is a bed.

It's deathbed,

the bed that kills.

No, not the bed that eats people.

You shoot the bed.

There is no response from the bed whatsoever.

I mean, I do get two attacks per turn.

Should I shoot it again yeah absolutely should

well

i don't know what clues we've gathered since we've been here

so so far we showed up just to recount

and

really think we need to

well we came here to get motive

he got scared of spiders Yes.

Got in an argument with the guy.

Scared of spiders.

And then there's, you said a big invisible wasp or something I didn't say anything okay

and a bed that and a bed ate him so we're that much closer to solving the crime an apple

oh

I ooh you hear a sound from the door Sherlock Holmes walks in and says well I think you found all the clues here at this one

Toot, toot!

I feel railroaded.

Okay, well.

Let's move on.

Yeah, he says, yeah, that's what I'd do.

All right, where should we check next, do you think?

Next to the security center?

Is that what you'd do?

I mean, you all have your choice.

You have the security center or the sewer.

I want to go to the security center to see if they have any weapons.

Because I would like a weapon.

We have weapons.

I don't have a weapon.

You do have weapons, but that's fine if you want to get new weapons from the security center.

It's not part of your costume.

Why would I bring weapons?

I'm a minion.

So wait, you're telling me.

I didn't bring my weapons.

Why would I bring my weapons?

Amazing.

Thank you so much for this gift, Justin.

Okay.

Looking around for my weapons.

I don't see any weapons.

I'm a minion.

Awesome.

Cool.

I leaned out of the sloppy.

Can you go get Jennifer Meyer?

He says,

He walks off.

Okay, you all are heading to the security office?

Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on.

The wasp just disappeared.

The wasp disappeared when you looked away from it.

It was a trick.

It was just a trick.

It was a trick, is what Justin's saying.

Cool.

You all make your way following the map to the security office.

You find it tucked away in a sort of crooked alleyway, well off the main drag.

You've wandered away from most of the spooky trappings of Fright Fest, and you're standing in front of a sort of darkened, deserted corridor in front of a featureless, squat, cinder block building.

As you open the door and enter this building, you are nearly blinded by the phosphorescent light of several dozen monitors, most of which are just showing static.

A few of them are airing live feeds of cameras positioned around the city.

You walk into this small security office.

You see off to the side, there's a small antechamber to this room that appears to be a small cluttered office with like a shoddy desk.

Pointed away from the three of you is a single monitor pointed away in the office, which seems to be sort sort of like flickering at odd intervals.

As you enter, you see the silhouette of a slumped-over man sitting in a decrepit rolling chair in front of these screens.

He turns slowly to face you, and you're met with a face that's scarier than a lot of the stuff you've seen today.

Just wild-eyed, unkempt hair, just a generally unsettling air about this guy.

And he says, Well, well,

not too often we get visitors here in the Panopticon.

What can Grandpa do for you?

I mean, this is unfortunate.

So, we were looking for some clues as to who killed Dracula.

Not the obvious, of course, but, you know, fake Dracula.

Dracula has perished?

Yes, unfortunately.

I hope you don't have a paycheck due, because I understand he was signing them.

But I was curious, you had any.

He was my.

Hold on, what you just said was extremely crass.

He was my best friend.

I am devastated.

How devastated I'm Mutt.

Now listen.

Do you got any clues lying around?

What sort of clues do you want from Grandpa?

What are you monitoring here at the Panopticon?

Yeah, like a video.

Oh, the security video?

It's a security video of Dracula being murdered.

It was a murder, you say.

We think so, yes.

He could have fallen on his keys.

i don't know why i slipped due to this accident but thank you for supporting my theory did you see anyone on your monitors sneaking in and out of the bad times i would love

i would love to get a little clarity he says uh i'll have a question first

you have a question Yeah, I just ask if there have been footage of the murder.

Right, right, right.

Okay, he says,

it is a shock to me that grandpa was murdered.

I'll be honest with you, and this may be TMI, TMI, but I've been in the toilet a lot this evening.

Okay.

I may have missed the event.

These cameras aren't all that, but

he says, well,

all of the backup footage is stored on my office console, but I am a bit uncomfortable.

It seems like if there's been a murder, I don't know how to trust that you're not the culprits trying to cover your tracks.

I pull out a scale of it.

So you understand how pulling out a sword in this exact moment is not actually doing a lot.

For really think about it critically for like a second.

What I was saying

was, you could be the murderers.

I see their back.

Yes.

Now, I was just saying I'm the king of England.

I'm just saying, yes, that's great and all.

I work in security, and what you just did is a huge red flag.

So, I could see, yeah, you know what?

Put it away.

I don't think you should be allowed to hold it against him, Griffin.

He says, I'll tell you what.

You, he points at you Lady Godwin he says you look dignified and trustworthy

you two

you two

he points at Philo and Mudd he says you two

You stay with me and you can go check out the security footage in my office and hopefully we can clear this whole thing up.

Okay.

Okay.

You head on into the

office.

As you sit down at the desk,

you see that this monitor that you can now see,

it is showing some footage.

And at first, it seems like it's sort of cycling through like really quick, rapid clips from different security cameras, but you see things that you don't recognize from around Lumino.

You see like what seems to be like a stony corridor with like a ring of light at the end and then like rolling ocean waves stained with blood and then a comb pulling through like long black hair and a tree on fire and an empty chair.

Give me a wisdom saving throw as you try to resist watching the cassette.

Not my strong suit.

And I rolled a six.

Ah banes.

You are compelled to watch this thing.

The last shot is just a well sitting in a yard

and

from it you see a figure emerge.

For our listening audience, Griffin is convulsed with laughter.

And now having the cardiac episode.

From the well emerges

Barley Jack, the man who eats children that don't finish their barley cakes.

Oh God, no!

Can you describe what Barley Jack looks like?

Oh, I think you do a much better job than I would, Griffin.

With your way with words.

He is

he is

he is corpulent with rifts all across his body through which Barley is

slowly sort of falling and blopping out.

It is horrible.

He crawls out of the well towards the screen and then pops through the screen,

hopping onto them.

You punch?

Give me an attack roll against Barley Jack.

The man that eats children.

I would like it's instinct, but I do would like disadvantage.

Sure, man, yeah.

Actually, wait, wait, wait.

Sorry, sorry, before we do anything else, I do need another wisdom saving throw to see if you are frightened in this moment.

I hope so.

That's a natural 20.

Whoa!

I'm not scared of you anymore, Barley Jack.

You remember the moment, the first dinner you had as a child, where you thought about it critically.

You thought, if there was a man named Barley Jack who went around eating kids who didn't finish their barley cakes,

the police probably would have done something about it by now.

And with that, you slowly tilt your bowl over the garbage can and dump your gross barley cakes out.

You flash back to that in an instant.

You realize you're not scaring me, Barley Jack.

You go for a punch.

I rolled an 18 plus 624.

Okay.

I'm not even going to make you roll damage.

With that bodacious roll and the very logical, courageous moment you're having right now, you punch into Barley Jack.

He explodes in a burst of barley

that as it sort of flies from his

disappearing form also kind of like disaparates in the air.

You all see.

I grab a fist full of barley and put it in my pocket.

You bring your fist down.

It is empty.

You two see Lady Godwin just like, what?

Oh God, she's gone over the edge.

She's having the terrors again.

She's nuts.

He,

Grandpa, you hear him start laughing

from the main security office.

And he says,

oh, I'm sorry, ma'am.

You know what just happened, right?

You got hooped.

Sorry?

You got hooped.

You watched the scary videotape that makes you get hooped.

And now you're cursed to die within the hour because you got hooped.

Oh, I don't think so because I punched him so hard he went away.

It doesn't matter if you I've punched the thing that came out of the well like a hundred times.

I still get hooped.

Trust me.

I'm a frequent hooper.

You watched it a hundred times?

It's a great flick.

But you know, hold on man.

So you know that watching it means you could die in an hour and you're like again.

Does it reset each time you watch it?

Wait, it's a good situation?

You might die?

Bunch of fucking film snobs up in here today.

I just wanted to say the logic.

hoop movie.

You just have to make sure after you watch the hoop movie that someone else watches it, or you die within the hour.

So every time you've watched it hundreds of times, you've made somebody else watch it, you have killed.

It's a really good movie.

Hey, actually,

Philo, he has a good point.

It is quite good.

Well, I would highly recommend anyone

any sinner Philo is going to love this flick.

Well, four thumbs way up from me.

Let's roll.

He says, all right, look, from one hoopie to another, I'll do you a solid.

He hands you the whole monitor, which appears to just be sort of like a standalone screen with the hoop video playing on it in a loop.

He says, it's a little cumbersome to carry around.

And he says, just find someone else to watch the tape within the next hour.

The curse gets past to them, no problemo.

Anyway, and then really, I'll say this: it really hits on the second watch.

So if you do get...

I felt like there was a lot of clues I was missing.

He says, I do owe you all some clues here.

He flips a few dials and twists a few knobs on one of the working monitors and he presses the play button and he steps back.

And you all see footage.

from a camera positioned above the Fright Fest Central Plaza.

It starts right when the fog has sort of enveloped the block.

And for like a moment, it seems like you're not gonna glean any helpful clues from here.

But then you see something wild.

A massive spider lowers from the sky on a glistening thread.

It descends into the fog and then it rips back upward, now carrying the fake Dracula in its pincers up into the sky and out of frame.

And then as the fog just begins to dissipate for a few frames of footage, you see fake Dracula plummet from the air, falling into the fog and onto the street at terminal velocity.

With that in mind, we're going to take a brief intermission.

Join us again for the rest of the mystery right after we take a pee break.

I hear one of my cats upstairs crying.

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

Just like the state of things and whatever.

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

Dad, we don't know how to,

yeah, they love the smooth bird.

Dad, we want our smooth bird.

We don't have jobs.

We can't buy our own food.

We don't know how to order things.

Dad, we're so scared.

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

What's happening?

Where are we?

Yeah.

Where are we?

But you know what i calm them right down with smalls because you get a you're gonna get a a package of smalls right you're gonna open it up you're gonna put it in front of your cats there put it into a bowl whatever you're gonna i don't know your business but when you put it out there these cats are gonna freak out and you're also gonna 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, Justin.

I was really proud of that.

Sorry, Trav.

That was great.

Thank you.

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

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

Again, that's smalls.com slash adventure.

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

Sorry to interrupt.

I just kind of burst in.

Okay.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Hey, I'm also sorry.

I'm also sorry.

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

If you're coming to

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

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

We want to see you there.

We need you there.

Join the webinar.

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, Trap?

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

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

Yeah, we have 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 macroymerch.com to get yours now.

What's up, people of the world?

It's Mark and Hal from We Got This With Mark and Hal.

The show that settles those pointless arguments that you and your friends have.

Should you put ketchup on a hot dog or liquid, foam, or bar soap?

And our 500th episode of We Got This with Mark and Hal is available now.

It is supersized and a ton of fun.

Yeah, we've got guests coming back from the entire 500 episode run of our show.

Some of your favorite Max Fun stars, some of your favorite regular out-in-other places in the world stars too, some really fun surprises, and every single one of them had a topic for us to cover.

You can listen to it right now on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, sleepyheads.

Sleeping with celebrities is your podcast pillow pal.

We talk to remarkable people about unremarkable topics, all to help you slow down down your brain and drift off to sleep.

For instance, the remarkable actor Alan Tudick.

You hand somebody a yardstick after they've shopped at your general store.

The store's name is constantly in your heart because yardsticks become part of the family.

Sleeping with Celebrities, hosted by me, John Moe, on maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Night night.

Before we get into the conclusion of our mystery, I just want to say first of all, thank you all for coming.

A big thanks.

Thank you.

A big thanks to Amanda for putting together the visual element of this episode, this fucking rules.

Thank you to Dano Wagner, who designed our poster, which you can see up there today.

Maybe Grab, we signed a bunch of them.

They might still be out there.

And a big thanks to the celebrity theater.

This place rules.

And I don't think we've ever done in the round like this before.

So it's very exciting.

Okay, so.

We hop back in.

I assume you all are heading to the final location that Sherlock Holmes has indicated to you.

As you reach the sewer arrival, if you want to discuss the clues as you've learned so far, or if you just want to get on into it, it's up to you.

Have you just abandoned the Batman mask entirely?

I'll put it on when it's time.

Okay, cool.

I don't want to accidentally slip into it.

Okay, cool.

I think a review of the clues would help these two guys.

I mean, I'm pretty much on top of it.

Here's what we know so far: there is a bed that eats people,

And he likes apples.

When we went to the night, the bad dream on Oak Street, excuse me, we were told that the guy was there.

They had an argument.

He walked into a spider web and he freaked out.

Yeah.

He got real angry.

Yeah.

The other guy was very tired.

He didn't want to be Friedrich Kruger.

He wanted to be Mick Myers.

He's dead now.

He doesn't matter.

He's fine.

Okay.

As in the star of Austin Powers.

Correct.

And then he got at by a bed.

Yeah, we've covered the bed that eats people.

And then we went

to the security center where a lady government got hooped.

Yeah.

And we saw a video where the fog came, a giant spider came down, picked up Dracula.

Yeah, great.

And dropped him real good.

Yep, great.

You got it.

And, of course, what conclusions have we drawn from that?

Well, it's interesting, isn't it?

Because...

They were both killed by what they seem to be afraid of.

I would ask you not to solve the mystery right now.

We do have one more location to.

Yes, like we just say, if you look at the time on the clock, it's not quite parlor room scene time.

But the other thing a lot of people don't think about are the keys.

Did he follow Miner?

Did he not?

That's another lead we haven't given full examination to.

You thought that would just slip on Maya, didn't you, Blue Masters?

We wouldn't circle back.

But the key, it turns out, was the key all along.

And I really think, man, it's going to tie back into these gold coins and $15.

Yeah, travel core and barley.

Did we get the barley?

You didn't.

It was imaginary barley.

No barley.

Okay, well, then the three of you make your way to the sewer access hatch and...

pop it open and you immediately regret it.

You're not sure if the sewers have been decorated for Fright Fest or if you're just sort of discovering it in its natural state, but it's pretty bad down here.

You all step into an underground aqueduct with narrow, crumbling stone walkways on either side of a channel filled with pretty, I mean, nasty water.

There are these

would you say it's brackish?

I would say brackish, yes.

Yeah,

there are small, largely ineffective lamps sort of flickering on the walls every 20 feet or so that sort of vaguely illuminate the path before you.

You hear.

What's powering them?

Are they electric or flame?

Or magic?

If you all want to give me perception checks as you make your...

I don't want to waste it on this.

I do.

Does the dice explode after you roll it 10 times?

14.

14?

Okay.

To know how lights work.

Hey, Griffin, I'm going to do one in here.

Electricity.

Yeah, good.

Six, so apparently I don't even see the switch.

I got an eight.

A what?

An eight.

What did you say it?

I got an eight.

Okay, Lady Godwin,

I will give you a couple of things.

First of all, the lamps down here, they don't appear to be like flame lamps.

They appear to be like electric lamps, which is wild because Lumino Tower was sort of the battery for this whole city.

There's not really electric lamps all over the place.

You note that as kind of strange.

I think with your role and also in 8,

you all hear a couple of distinct sounds echoing down the corridor to the south of you, which leads

toward the plaza where the fog first emerged.

The first is this rhythmic sound of some great machine just

chunking and wheezing.

The other sound you all hear sounds like screaming laughter, just high-pitched and

yes, the direction of the plaza.

Of the plaza?

The plaza.

The plaza.

To the south.

Go find my plaza.

All right, I'll go to the south, Griffin.

And I go with Luigi to find the plaza.

I think there's more to find out about these lights.

I don't think we fully solve this puzzle.

If you want to stay behind in the scary sewer by yourself to explain.

No, man, it stinks in here.

Okay, cool.

So, the three of you walk carefully along these narrow walkways deep in the sewer for a couple minutes until you hear this.

Can I ask a quick question?

Yes, please.

Doesn't seem to be decorated.

Is this...

No, it doesn't.

I don't think...

There's no jack-o'-lanterns down here, which is like the telltale sign.

It is, you got the 14 on the perception check, right?

It doesn't seem...

I don't know how much you know about infrastructure.

It seems like if this was the actual sewer, that would be fucking crazy.

But this is like medieval, like, this isn't.

Yeah, but it shouldn't be be green goo right like you all know you can address like this shouldn't be green.

Let me ask Mutt Mutt.

I've never had reason to come to the sewer, of course.

Um,

I don't mean this in a judgmental way.

Oh gosh.

Um no, no, it's okay.

You seem like the sort of person who would have been to the sewer.

Correct.

Previously, whatever that means.

Yeah,

I fought man gators down here.

Does it seem...

does it seem familiar to you?

No, it's not usually green and weird like this, man.

And these lights are freaking me out.

I'll tell you what, Mutt, give me a, I'm going to say as you sort of go back through your memory of your mini sewer croc encounters,

give me a history check, but I want you to make it with disadvantage.

Okay.

Well, that was a 15 plus 116 and a 16 plus 117.

Okay, all right.

Let's cheer for the dice.

Yeah, thank you, Dice.

You have fought man crocs down here.

They were man gators.

Mangators down here so many times.

Yeah, I mean.

It's about the shape of the snout.

The snowy.

You have fought.

And that's how many nads.

What?

How many nads?

Mangators and crocodiles have different...

It's different.

One has an odd-numbered nads, an even number of nads.

You can tell.

Not the same number across the species.

I think it's you referencing them as NADs that took me by surprise because man gator's got snads.

They're very casual.

It is

with those two roles on a disadvantage.

It's sure for go nads.

Yeah, no, I got you.

With it with the great roles you did, even with the disadvantage, I will say it is different down here, right?

Like you were right on that.

It is curious to you how hard it is to remember your man Gator.

Like it takes you a bit to remember.

And that's not really something you forget about.

Yeah, I can't remember their names.

Yeah, right.

They told me for sure.

Okay.

You all continue heading.

Is it Crock a Kyle?

Okay, so

we go south.

It was Crock a Khan, actually.

Crock a con?

Croca con?

Alan Gator?

What was that?

Alan?

Okay, I got you.

So you all walk south along this sewer walkway for a couple minutes until you hear the sound of festival goers overhead.

And you can see through like a thick steel grate above the lights of the central plaza.

You are right underneath where you were

when the fog went off.

And sure enough, I don't even think you need a perception check to clock them.

Lining the walkways on either side of this aqueduct, you see about a dozen large round metal tanks, like propane tanks, propped up against the wall.

Hank Hill did it.

It actually says in my notes,

leave pause for Hank Hill joke.

Damn it!

So much for you never know what's gonna happen at the adventure zone.

Yeah, that's not true for us.

You understand that, right?

We've known each other for 37 years.

A few of these tanks seem to be still producing like faint trace amounts of the fog that overtook the town earlier this evening.

What do y'all do?

Do they seem to be so they seem to be depleted?

Yes, I was.

As far as I can tell in my extensive gas canister experience.

I mean you can tell like if all of them were activated at the same time, it was enough to fill the it was enough to come up through the ground and fill the plaza above you.

It's not doing that in here.

It's just a couple of them are still producing like a little, you just a trickle of the fog.

I want to take a whiff of the fog what's coming out and see if I can identify it.

Okay,

give me a perception check with disadvantage.

Well, that's a five plus seven, a twelve, and a nat 20.

So it'll be the 12.

It's a 12.

Save it.

So

with a 12, what I will give you is that the odor that appears to be coming out of the tanks it's CK1 it's

I knew it it's Dior

no it is it is entirely odorless I will also say because you've been down here before one of the other differences you notice is it doesn't stink down here there doesn't seem to be any powerful smell that you can detect like at all dude oh sorry go ahead no I'm asking you what you were doing because I was gonna I would like to see if the canisters seem to be connected to anything if there's like a central antenna, terminal, something they're routed to.

Like what might have triggered these things earlier in the night?

Hmm.

Okay, give me an investigation check.

This is very investigate-y.

That's an actual 20.

Holy shit.

Now, yes, now.

This is because I didn't bring my weapons.

I could think clearly.

No kidding.

Okay.

You see

hooked onto each of these tanks is a little pocket watch that appears to have they've all appeared to be synced to a certain time and activated via this pocket watch all at the at the same time.

That appears to be the activator for it.

With a Nat 20, I will give you another big, big, it's a big fan of Nat 20s up there.

You that's my name, Nathan20.

As you're sort of investigating this trigger mechanism, Lady Godwin, you also notice that there are warning labels stuck each of these tanks, which appear to list the pressurized contents within.

However, when you try to read the list of those contents,

you can't.

And it's not because the words are long, but the words are very, very long.

It's like your eyes and your mind can't seem to focus on the text, as if the text is shifting as you try and read it.

Okay, I pinch myself.

Also, with a what's that?

I pinch myself.

Give me an attack roll of your body.

At 24.

Fuck!

Ow!

I fall asleep.

I didn't involve a nerf bench on myself.

You take two points of bludgeoning damage.

Fair enough.

You're a barbarian who pinched themselves extremely, extremely good.

You don't know if it is the fumes coming up from

the tanks themselves.

You feel a little bit woozy as you are standing here.

As that.

I lay down.

Okay.

You lay down on the...

That's the only safe thing to do, folks.

If you feel woozy, lay down.

That's a really good point.

As all of this is happening, you hear the sound of racing footsteps coming from in front of you.

And out from the passageway in front of you leaps a tall, exhausted-looking clown man.

He's got this wild red hair and this bulbous red nose.

And he's got this face covered in thick white paint that's like dripping off slightly due to just the copious amounts of sweat this man is producing.

And he goes,

You shouldn't be down here.

I'm feeling a little floaty down here.

I need a second.

He laughs knowingly, winks at you.

He says, What?

Yes, indeed, I'm Nicholsmart, the funky jester.

Master of fear, eater of kid brothers.

Behind him, you hear that machinery sound.

It's

rhythm is sort of starting to quicken and echoing down the passageway that NickelSmart came charging out of.

And he's like, oh shit, listen, gay, we gotta get the fuck out of here.

I lost him when he's back, but if he catches up to us, we're fucked.

Who?

he sighs looks behind him real quick turns to you and he's like there was this tv show that was on when i was a kid and all my friends were obsessed with it but the show's whole vibe scared the shit out of me and the rhythm of the machine sound grows to a frantic pace and finally you see something from behind nickel smart the funky jester

you see a giant gray face appear in front of you, filling the entire aqueduct.

The the flickering lights illuminate this face smiling

as it charges towards you and then you see what it's attached to a massive robin's egg blue locomotive it's Maurice the motor car

charging towards you all full speed ahead what do you do

I shoot it with my crossbow.

Okay, make an attack roll against Maurice the motor car.

This goes on for a while.

You can stop it, Paul.

18 total.

18 total on Maurice the Motor Car.

Yeah, that hits.

Roll damage for me, please.

That is a three plus four, a seven.

Okay, Seven.

Do you want to go ahead and roll another attack roll

okay i know you do i know your style what we got uh that's a 12.

uh 12 does not hit maurice the motor car he's a train but the 18 does you get

notoriously hard to hit a train coming at you

uh you get it right in his right eye the smile does not change at all

He continues barreling down the track, but you hear him like,

he is getting quite close.

Anyone else want to do anything?

I roll over, so I'm in the middle of the track.

That is sewer water.

What?

That's sewer water.

If you want to do that, that's great.

There's no track.

His wheels are basically running.

You just said the track.

You said the word track.

Track.

You said track.

I apologize.

There's no track.

Its wheels are running on either side of this sewer aqueduct.

You can roll into the middle out of the way, but it is into the sewer water if you're okay with that.

Yeah, that's fine.

I'll be all right.

Okay, go ahead and give me a deck save.

He's still not like on top of you.

I'm going to say a DC-10 deck save.

Okay.

That is a 16 plus 2.

Excellent.

Yeah, you roll into the water, splash down.

Now I'm going to say a constitution saving throw, please.

Fair enough.

It's...

It's sewer water.

15 plus 2, 17.

Okay, 15 plus 2, 17.

There is no odd effect that happens to you with a 17.

It is unpleasant to be in here.

A little bit of it gets in your mouth, which is not great.

But

you don't taste anything weird.

What do you do?

I would say Philo.

I would say the train is barreling down on top of you nearly.

Philo casts Thunderclap.

Okay.

I don't love that.

Here in the water as I am?

Well, no, today's smalling.

I would actually say, just to be a nerd for a second, thunderclap isn't electric damage.

It's like loud noise damage, which is actually way worse for everyone not in water right now and instead in a sewer tunnel.

But go on.

That's true.

Go off, Kick.

Go away.

Okay.

So I cast it.

And what is Thunderclap?

Thunderclap fire.

You create a burst of thunderous sound that can be heard up to 100 feet away.

Each creature within range other than you must succeed on a constitution saving throw or take 1d6 thunder damage.

Oh, God.

I'm so sorry.

Loud all around, huh?

The fact that.

Nat 20.

The fact that.

He did.

He got a natural 20.

Oh, did he really?

Okay.

So that, but I do just want to say that's very cool.

And that's like the highest number of young dice.

And I'm loving that.

This is a constitution saving throw situation and not an attack roll situation.

So the 20 doesn't.

Oh, you rolled the nat 20?

Oh, I thought Justin.

I haven't rolled yet.

I'm going to.

No, I was avoiding his.

Should I get

his?

Do I get advantage?

Yeah, you're in the the water advantage, absolutely.

I thought I might.

That's a 9 plus 5.14 and a 4 plus 5 9.

So we have a 14 there.

Okay, I had a 12 there.

I believe your spell save at this point is like a 14.15.

14.

14.

Okay,

Maurice, the motor car got a 12.

So go ahead and roll damage against Maurice.

And I think Maurice was the only one who failed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Hit him.

Wow.

Two?

Really?

Got him, Dad.

Take that, you train bastard.

Okay.

You've just been filoed.

Yeah, I don't know.

It is quite a low-level spell though, Mac.

Can trip, I think.

They can trip.

They can trip.

Now that I look at it.

One step above fucking pulling a rabbit out of your hat, man.

You guys

stop a train.

If you've seen you scroll through all the other levels of spells you enjoy.

That was really.

Wow, there's a lot of stronger ones.

I cast wave at it as it goes by.

You have Dismantled Train.

I see there.

Okay.

Would have been good.

Here's what's.

Oh, Webb.

Can you imagine?

Levitate?

That would have been cool.

Enlarge or reduce?

Absolutely, right?

I got chills just thinking about it.

Hey, sliding doors, man, in a different universe, Dad.

Cast one of those.

All right, or you can, or you can fucking fire off a magical

Zela and poison everyone in the room for two points of damage.

Nickel Smart's the funky jester rolled a six on his save.

So he's also like, ow, what the f-fuck?

Yeah.

So do I roll for him?

Here's what.

Here's what.

No.

You have slowed, I would say, between shooting him in the eye and sort of shaking him a little bit on his way.

Trains maybe don't react so well to being gently shaken.

It's actually 2d6 damage.

2d6 damage.

Well, that changes everything.

Yeah.

Okay.

So let's add that six in there.

Oh, eight.

Okay.

Eight is better.

With an eight, I feel better about

as the train is buried.

Yeah.

How about an apology now, Justin?

I don't think for an eight an apology happens.

But it might have been a nine.

Between the eyeshot and the vibration of the sewer, it's enough to slow him down a little bit.

Lady Godwin, you are more or less safe, but at this point, Maurice the Motor Car is in the section that you all are in.

I will give the two of you one last action, or you, if you want to do something else, to avoid being run over by a fucking train.

I was waiting for...

Okay.

Wait, if you have another thing, you're in the water.

You're good to go.

But if you want to go to the water.

I'm waiting for him to go over me so I can hit him in his weak point.

Oh, okay.

That's perfect.

With the what weapon?

I got my weapons chew and chew.

For those of you at home, those were his muscles.

To hit the choo, choo.

So we're going to do like a Final Fantasy VI Sabin, like suplex the train situation.

Okay, I'm all here for it.

Okay, so I think let's do that.

You're safe.

You're good to go.

We'll resolve that last.

We'll do mutt.

The train's on top of you.

If you don't either destroy it or somehow

get out of harm's way, I swing into the compartment.

You try to jump into the train?

Correct.

Cool.

Give me an acrobatics check, please.

You got it.

I'm looking forward.

This is a tough one.

I'm going to say, give me a DC DC-15 to get in clean.

I am Batman.

Can we take that?

Can we take that again?

No,

that's crazy.

This is a live show.

No, I just meant he's delivering.

Everyone forget.

Everyone forget.

I just want him to deliver the line again.

So, okay.

Do you have Batman tools?

I roll the 12.

Whoa, whoa, wait.

No, no, no.

Hold on.

Do you have Batman tools with you as part of your costume?

What do you have?

Well, I wish.

I have a sickle tied to a rope.

Yeah.

I have a boomerang.

Yeah.

I have a shark repellent.

Okay.

I'll say with the sickle tied to the hook, you are able to grab onto the rail of the of the

door into the compartment of the engine and you are able to slip on inside of there.

As you do, Mutt, you see something inside of Maurice the Motor Car.

As you walk into Maurice the motor car, you hop into what you expect to be sort of the like engineer's compartment of the train of Maurice.

First of all, as you get inside, you hear Maurice moan with pleasure as you slip in.

No, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.

No.

I know.

Hey,

we get it.

Griffin is just an antenna.

You have to understand.

He's merely

muses beam it into his brain, folks.

I'm not devising.

I'm channeling right now, and I hope you can keep that in consideration.

This is big magic, folks.

He's just got to be open to whatever the universe has to do with it.

He's just his train of thought.

You don't.

You don't see an engineer's compartment in here.

As you swing in gallantly on your makeshift grappling hook, you land, stand up, and you are in the throne room of your castle.

And assembled all around you are the various dukes and minor rulers.

Your council is there, some high-ranking sort of members of

the trade of the, I guess, whole land of England of which you are king.

And everyone is looking at you, expecting you to give a speech.

It's almost like a manifestation of your fear of public speaking.

I'm doing my fucking best up here.

Griffin,

my man is a monster hunter trained from birth.

He ain't afraid of no monsters.

That ain't what bothers me.

I'm here.

I love it.

It makes a lot of sense.

It was just a long, it was a long road to hoe for old Griffin.

What do you do?

Hey, everybody.

You got.

Out of my leash.

I cannot hear you.

All right, Merlin.

Calm it down, man.

Hey, I'm Crawford Minor.

Calm down, everybody.

You guys are getting good.

Lost up with you.

There's a war on.

Warp it up, my leash.

I know that there's a war on the horizon.

France has been talking a lot of shit.

We're going to be fine, though, because,

you know, full hearts clear.

Yeah, we're going to, it's going to be good.

What did

Explain sire!

It's like how you believe in yourself and

And then you know because the magic is not in Merlin, it's in you the magic is within me.

I do want to make it clear the magic is definitely within me The magic is in Merlin, but it's also in you, but not it's not the same magic man, it's the different

You guys hear that the loud ringing that a meaty fist rips through the floor of the trade.

Yeah, okay, we'll resolve a meaty fist.

Unless you had something, Philo, that is happening simultaneously with this moment of poor public speaking that is taking place.

Yes.

Okay, wait.

Actually, one thing first.

Travis, I need a wisdom saving throw against Frightened, please.

Okay.

Wisdom.

Saving throw.

I have a plus four.

That's pretty good.

Well, not when you're all a four with it, Griffin.

It ain't.

That's an eight.

You are frozen in fear.

You are completely.

You begin to forget where you just were before you were in this hellish situation that I have to imagine reflects some

real-life encounters with the

fans.

He tried to do some speech and debate classes when he was a kid.

Did not go great.

Didn't work out well.

Philo.

Extemporaneous was not his thing.

Sure.

Before we resolve the punch of the train, Philo, what do you do mostly?

The train is going to barrel over over you in this moment.

What do you do?

Philo casts enhanceability

on Lady Godwin.

Okay.

You shoot a dart of helpfulness into the gross green water.

Bull's strength, which gives the target advantage on strength checks.

Great.

All right, yeah, for sure.

This is what we call teamwork.

Thank you, Dad.

And it's the first time that's happened on stage.

It's the first time I have ever done it on stage.

You're here for the moment.

Okay.

This is the moment.

So,

describe what happens, Lady Godwin, as the train passes.

Oh, wait, I'm going to make a dexterity saving throw

for Nickel Smarts, the funky jester, who I just don't even want to say his name anymore.

That is a five.

Nickel Smarts is flattened by the train.

You see a splash of red goo fly into the water.

You can see it through the green goo above you as the shadow of the train passes above you.

What do you do, Godwin?

I punch the bottom of the train and its weak point.

What is a train's weak point?

So,

as we all know, train is protected at the front due to cow wedge.

Obvious.

Cow wedge is huge.

Cow wedge is huge.

But who is going to think of the bottom of the train?

No one ever thinks of that.

So there's no armor there.

So I punch the bottom of the train as hard as I can.

And it's gooey underbelly.

Great.

Give me,

give me, okay, give me an attack roll.

I guess unarmed attack.

I can't be right.

No, wait, you have advantage on strength.

On strength checks.

I mean, this is a straight an attack roll.

Okay, that's fine.

So that is worse.

No, exactly the same.

It's two

11s.

Double 11s, 22.

Double 11s, baby.

Double 11s.

Does not do it.

You do have the ability to, I believe, take extra attacks as a barbarian.

That's cool.

Post-level five, if you want to try this.

All right.

And that is a 11.

The same thing.

This is 311s in a row is what it is.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

This has never happened before.

With a 3-11?

This is in the new player's handbook.

The new rule.

This is in the 2024.

In 2025, if you read in there, 3-11s.

This is a new thing.

Nat 20 isn't the best thing you could get anymore.

Now it's 311.

When this happens, you are.

You are punching fruitlessly against...

You grab onto it.

Oh, fuck, my cape ripped off.

Why would he say that?

You're fruitlessly punching the bottom of this train.

You grab onto it.

It is as if a small explosion takes place from inside of your chest as a wave of amber energy fills your body.

And then the shit you did worked.

You punch a fist up through the bottom of the underbelly of

sorry, I'm trying to fix my fucking cable.

Maurice, the motor car.

As you punch upward, you do find that the Maurice's undercarriage is like a chitinous bug-like.

There's something fucked up happening underneath all of these tank engines and no one's talking about it.

You punch up and you see.

Why are the scientists doing anything?

You do see a giant fist punch upward into the throne room.

As it rips back down, you can see the sewer back through the hole.

And also, I guess a lot of the people standing where the punch happened died.

Can't make an omelette, et cetera, et cetera.

All right, folks, that's my time.

They're giving me the light.

I'm going to go.

Cool.

And I drop through the hole.

Cool.

You splash down into the bracket

water.

Pulling the brake of

the engine.

Oh, okay.

There's no brake.

It's a throne room.

I thought we'd say there's not engineer stuff.

But as you hop out.

Hey, Griffin, it's not really the throne room.

I wasn't teleported to England.

No, yeah, it's, I guess, an imagination thing.

As you jump out, you see that just weird pale entrails are pouring out of Maurice the motor car and splashing down into the water.

You see it

derail and flip on its side and slide to a halt sort of

near the

access hatch that you all climb down through, leaving you alone in here.

A lot of the tanks got flattened as it happened.

From above you, through the metal grate, you hear the chime of a clock, and you hear a lot of footsteps overhead.

What do you do?

What time is it?

You look up through the grate.

You can see the clock on Lumino Tower,

and it is 2.30, which is not possible.

But it is the best time to see the dentist.

Come on.

It's not possible.

Okay.

You see it is before you arrived somehow

on the clock.

It seems like this clock is not being especially trustworthy right now.

We should go up, man.

I need to find Sherlock.

Okay, it is.

Now it's time for the parlor room scene.

You all approach the plaza at the center of Fright Fest, and you see Sherlock still standing near the crime scene.

There's a tarp over the body,

and there are indeed quite a few

guards from Scotland Yard here gathering around.

Sherlock points at the three of you and says, oh, good.

I thought you were going to try to flee, which was going to make this sort of diplomatic situation way crazier.

No.

But the time's up, and the boys have assembled from Scotland Yard, and so if you...

We are ready.

Okay.

We voted, and we decided that as a man of the clergy with no fear of public speaking, Brother Philo should present our findings.

He's about to blow this whole case wide open, man.

We talked about it.

We told him everything we know.

He's got this.

Sit back, everybody.

Hold on to your butt.

I think you all will appreciate what's about to happen a lot more if I tell you backstage.

Dad told me, I'm just going to kind of take a back seat during the solution part of this.

Actually, he asked me if I had a theory, and I said relativity.

Yeah.

Because he's my son.

Okay, all of the Scotland Yard guards are standing there,

Billy sticks in hand, and looking at you expectantly, Philo, as you take the stage.

Sherlock goes, Attention, everyone.

We're doing a parlor room scene.

The puppet man, Philo, is about to tell us what happened here today.

Go right ahead, Philo.

Right before,

Philo drinks one of his alter self potions.

Okay.

To do what?

No, no, no, no, no.

Let him cook.

And

transforms himself into

Lieutenant Colombo.

Now, wait, no, come on.

Well, the other one doesn't make any sense.

No, it's not.

This doesn't either, but I, okay, you are now Colombo.

Are you Kathy Bates Colombo?

That's Kathy Bates' match.

Metch Matlock.

Fuck me, I guess.

Who fucking cares, man?

You're Columbo now because of D ⁇ D Magic.

And y'all, pardon me for asking this.

As you decide how much time to allot to this, do remember the median age of the crowd.

It's not 49,

which is the minimum age for anyone to be who watched Colombo.

All right.

Allow me to summarize.

So,

obviously, someone was using propane gas to simulate fog.

This fog induced a state of

hallucinations within anyone who experienced it, thus making them visualize their greatest fears.

So then, I asked myself,

thusly,

When fake Dracula was sucked up into the sky by a giant spider.

It was actually not a giant spider.

It was something else.

And it dropped him down

to his death.

This is bulletproof.

And when he fell, he landed on his keys, man.

Good night.

The spider dropped him on his keys.

His keys.

But not there.

But it wasn't a spider, right?

It was something else.

It was something else.

After everyone huffed the hallucinogenic propane.

Yes, after they huffed the hallucinogenic propane,

they

imagined

a girl shit.

You see all of the Scotland Yard detectives there kind of like looking at you, shaking their head, and Sherlock sort of waves to them like, I got it, I got it.

Walks up to you and says,

so,

sorry, do you maybe have a different one?

Yeah, hold on.

Can I confer with my client?

We're not in court.

I'm just saying it would be better if it was...

Okay.

Okay, wait a minute.

I have magic ears in.

Okay, folks.

That was a goof.

So whenever there's a parlor room scene, there's typically one goof at the beginning.

I've done a lot of these, I'm sure.

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, man.

Yeah, I think we're ready to present.

Okay, so this one's not a goof.

For real this time.

This one's going to be for real.

Give me anything I can, please.

Anything I can work with.

Shake two, not a goof.

He steps back.

Actually, your scheme was pretty airtight, but

I think the real killer was the real Frederick Krueger.

Freddy Cruzer.

Friedrich Cruzer.

Cruchet.

Friedrich Cruget.

He says,

The real Friedrich Cruset?

You see, everyone died of their greatest fears.

Dracida died of a giant spider.

The clown

died of what?

The train.

And Friedrich was afraid of Freddy Krueger.

Friedrich Cruget.

Thank you.

Friedrich Kruger.

So obviously, the real

Freddy Krueger, Freddy Cruzer, I'm begging you.

Came up out of the nightmare realm and slayed them all.

And the motive was, I'm not afraid of public speaking because I'm Batman.

Batman's very brave.

The motive was that the display for Friedrich was really shitty and he was upset about how he was being portrayed because they hadn't done a good job setting up the scary O Street thing.

So he was really mad, so he showed up.

That sounds like a motive to me.

I don't understand, though.

Assuming Friedrich Crouget is even real,

his powers are only effective in the dream.

We're all asleep because they use the smoke to put us to to sleep, but we're all asleep right now.

We've been asleep this whole time.

That's why the time is funky and we can't read.

And watch as I hover in real life.

You know how you have in a dream and you figured out how to jump up and not come back down and you think, oh, I finally had to figure out how to do it in real life.

I can do it right now.

Give me a.

I'm going to say, give me a,

give me a wisdom check as you try to hover.

I'm out a 13.

He is now looking at the description of wisdom.

That's cool.

That's awesome.

Yeah, you should know what that is for sure.

Now looking at a list of his characters in DD Beyond.

I got a 13.

13, you do start to hover off the ground a little bit.

You see Sherlock looking confused.

Everyone here kind of looks confused.

And then you hear a voice echoing down the alleyways of Lumino that says,

You all like scary movies, huh?

Well, I'm not.

Really?

Let him finish.

Oh, sorry, sorry.

Yeah, go on, man.

Well, I got news for you.

And the ground shakes and debris starts to fall from the crumble peak of Lumino Tower.

You hear this voice say, Mad dream on Oak Street is no ordinary work of fiction.

It's more like a biography.

And you see a 30-foot-tall Friedrich Cruget smash out of the remains of Lumino Tower and stomp towards the plaza.

He says, You all came here to get scared, right?

I'm happy to oblige.

He gets his finger knives out, ready to dive down and fucking kill you, graveyard dead.

What do you do?

So you like scary movies, do you?

I have one you're just going to love.

He

rears back his knived hand coming down at you ready to hold up the monitor showing the film

See if we can get him hooped

Friedrich Crouget

comes down brings the blades close enough for you to just feel the wind off of his hand He stops an inch shy of your face as the flickering from the monitor catches him in the eyes.

He sees the fucking well.

He sees the chair.

All that shit.

All that spooky shit.

Then you can actually see on his monitor,

the well is there and from it emerges a flaming man, a man that caught a fire who comes swarming out, panicked, quickly out of the well and dives outward onto Friedrich Cruget's face.

He rears back, screaming as he confronts his own greatest fear, because I think he died from a fire.

I like that his own greatest fear is himself on fire, a thing I think a lot of us can relate to.

If you really think about it, that's everyone's worst fear.

It's at least some fucking kind of makes public speaking seem not that bad.

Try it while on fire, pal.

Which one would you rather do?

You know what, actually?

Yeah, let the wasps eat me.

He flails around, and as he does, he catches a fire completely.

And as he sort of flings his limbs around, panicked, you see that the whole city begins to catch fire.

So now the whole of Illumino appears to be on fire.

You're still hovering.

Friedrich Cruget, you killed in the dream world, which isn't even supposed to be fucking possible.

What do you do?

I get out my.

Sorry, go ahead, Travis.

Please.

I was just going to say I wake up and see if that worked, but you do that.

I get out my mage hand and have it pinch me too while I pinch myself.

A double, a double pinch?

No, a triple.

Because I'm pinching myself with two hands and then my mage hand is pinching me.

You got two associates here with two hands each.

Everyone pinched me.

You could get seven pinches.

And you have advantage on strength.

That's true.

Please, everyone, stand up from your seats.

Come up here and pinch me.

No, don't fucking do that.

Don't fucking do that.

Everyone, pinch in the air.

Pinches you, believe.

Pinches me.

Pinch!

Pinch for dear life!

As everyone in the world pinches you like in a dragon ball Z,

light shoots out your eyes.

And with a brush of fog again, you all feel this world ablaze drift farther and farther and farther away from you until finally you all

you reawaken on the streets of Lumino.

You all look around and as everyone kind of like rubs their eyes, your pinch was so powerful you woke up everyone.

I thought that might happen.

That's science.

You look around.

All the festival goers kind of rise from the ground rubbing their eyes.

You see Sherlock sit up.

And as everyone kind of like comes to, he's like,

I am impressed.

Your skills of deduction may even rival my own.

Perhaps I may call on your assistance should I encounter more supernatural things.

Wait, are you British?

I do lots of voices.

It's part of my whole thing.

Then I'm your king?

Oh, that was for real?

Yeah, man.

Oh, okay.

Well, so I might call on your help.

He says that that makes sense.

And hey, ultimately, no harm done.

You turn around and you see fucking Dracula is dead on the ground, having been killed in the dream, died in real life.

You also see the fake Friedrich Crouget and

Nicholsmarts, the funky jester, all dead on the ground.

He's like, except for those three.

Couldn't be helped, man.

Omelets.

Hey, you got to make an omelette to make a few.

You hear a sound from the grate underneath you getting louder and louder.

Sherlock looks up at you wide-eyed.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Thank you for coming to our show tonight.

Drive safely.

We'll see you next time.

Good night.

Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.