The Adventure Zone: Abnimals Ep. 5: Stealing Silver!

In spite of what you've heard, we're at the height of our powers Atop the tallest and towers It's gonna

stop us by having to trust That we will do what we must Until it turning out just like you

know myself

is long But our mojo is strong And unless I'm wrong And I'm not We're at the height of our power

At the end of the last session,

you had gotten permission from Walter Russell, the Walrus philanthropist,

billionaire, industrialist, to go check out the trophy room, get a look at that 50th consecutive second-place trophy, because silver has been stolen all over the city.

But as you put your hand upon the handle to open the door and go past security, the Barnyard All-Stars took the stage and recognized Roger immediately, called out, It's Tiny Dancer.

So, your hands on the handle, you've just been identified, they've called out to you. What do you do?

I'm afraid you have mistaken me for someone else, my friend.

No, man, it's Tiny Dancer. Come on up here.

Get up here. This is a former member of Barnyard All-Stars, but let's give him a hand.
Come on, everybody. Cheer him on.

Tiny Dancer. Tiny Dancer.

Very well. Yes.

All right.

And Roger joins them on the stage. Hey, everybody.
So excited to all be here tonight, especially with our old friend.

Sorry, what was it? Again, Sean Connery.

No, sorry. George Graysonby, right?

Roger Moore.

Roger Moore.

Roger Moore. Oh, I wish I had thought of Graysonby.
That's really good.

Oh, thanks, man. Listen.
I had a whole speech, me,

you know,

Grand Slam here, and you see like a ram with big horns wearing a baseball jersey.

He waves, and he says, and you know, home stretch, and you see a horse in like a tracksuit ready for running, and she waves. He has some, you know, knives on feet, and you see a swan

in like hockey pads, hockey pads, and a hockey stick, and he waves.

I'm, you know, gridiron.

I was going to give a whole speech about like, you know, determination and teamwork. But I'm just so excited to see my old friend,

sorry, Roger.

Roger,

say something inspired the crowd, man.

Team

is an important concept.

And there's no

X

in team.

So I guess I've never really left

the Barnyard All-Stars,

even though i really wanted to

and um

just so you know if you've ever been

kicked out of a team or left a team that doesn't mean you're not a team player it just means you haven't found the team that deserves you yet

shrimp over here man

what sorry did you say shrimp yeah there's shrimp sorry I don't want to interrupt your thing, man.

No, I mean, but there's shrimp. Oh, well, Roger, that was really beautiful, man.

I just wanted to say one more. Tackle drill.

And all four of them go to tackle you, Roger. What do you do? Oh, man.
Heck yeah, dude. Primal instinct.
Don't think at.

I am going to dodge them.

Of course. I love this move.
If my one of my good current teammates

could possibly give me a

little techno beat

yeah i i from the other corner of the room see what's happening and just instinctively like oh yeah

absolutely i'm going to show these mothers of invention exactly what i'm made of

with my

My ability,

which I will able to remember.

Night Foxtrot. I'm going to use Night Foxtrot.
Yeah.

Okay. When you hear a Techno beat, you can do a fluid acrobatic tumbling dance like the French shooting or something.
I'm irritated. Okay.

Because I don't think that dad should be able to say, someone make a techno beat, and then I can use my ability.

When would we not be able to do that? It does seem like you will be able to always activate this Mondo move. Well, here's what I'll say.
Right now, there is a...

The band is still kind of set up on stage. Yeah.
Ska's the limit. Yeah.

And what is ska but horn-based techno music that you accurately skank it to? No, but I think we need to address this need in the future, Justin. I think you've brought up an excellent point.
Yeah.

I don't want you aggravated by God. I want Navy.
I think if there's instruments in the room,

Navy should give him

something that rips. You know what I mean? There's no need for that.
I grabbed sax from whoever's sitting in the saxophone. That's an interesting

choice for this. And I think

I beatbox into the saxophone like you see in cool YouTube shorts. Well, one of you has some kind of drum-related ability, don't you?

I have a thing called everything's a drum, but that's just a joke about using environmental objects as melee weapons.

Okay, I understand.

So first, I'm going to have you, Navy, roll two d8s

to see how well you make a techno beat into a saxophone, like in those cool internet shorts. Here we go.
Partial success. So that's.
Partial success. So it's like, weep,

so I'm going to say instead of rolling four d8s, you can do three d8s, Roger.

Because it's not a perfect techno beat, but it's. Wait, did he roll for how good the beat is? Yeah.

How was it?

Yeah. Did you hear it? It sounds more industrial than techno.
Yeah.

Oh, Jesus, no.

No, no, no.

No, it can't be.

Is that the soundtrack from Miami Vice?

This is actually the soundtrack to Taz Steeplechase.

Go ahead and roll three D8s for me there, Roger. Okay.

I was running to get it when you guys did the roll.

Oh, okay. Two and two.

So with a partial success, I'm going to say you dodge

everybody but Gridiron. Gridiron tackles you.
You're not going to take any damage or whatever.

But a little bit of pride damage as, I mean, all four of them are bigger than you. You are, I would say, about like at least six inches shorter than the shortest one, right?

So they're all a little bit bigger than you. Gridiron is the biggest leader of the team.
Another bull like yourself, he tackles you. You're taken to the ground easily by him.

And he stands up and he's like, oh, you almost, almost got away with it, man. But you got to work on it.
Still got room to improve. Oh, but good one, man.
Good one.

And he reaches down to give you a hand up. Yes.

Thank you. He kind of swats the hand away and stands up on his own.

Okay, man. Okay.

Ah, little guy, it's so good to see you again, man. Mm-hmm.

Yes. Well, in my heart of hearts

and my stomach of stomachs, I wish I could say the same.

How? Oh, okay.

I'll see, man.

I just hope he's too dense to be able to get the joke, but he probably does.

Well, I see. Hold on.

He's like, oh, stomachs, man. Yeah, hungry.
I get it.

That's very good.

I sheepishly hand the saxophone back to the stage performer that I took it from, and I say, I'm really sorry.

That was hugely inappropriate of me to jump on stage and take your

working instrument away from you. Yeah, ma'am.
It was.

Like you wouldn't pretend, like, you pretend to be a musician, man, and it's like, I work hard, you know what I mean, for this talent, and you're doing, like, stolen talent.

Hey, how are you talking and playing the sacks at the same time? Exactly. That's the kind of work I've put into it.
That's a pro. That's a true.
Do you understand? Okay, sorry. It's um...

Yeah, I'm so sorry.

I forgive you.

So, Gridiron waves to the crowd. Everybody's cheering.
They're, you know, chanting, all the stars, all the stars, all the stars. Guys, get off the stage.
So, what are you doing here, man?

And who are those other dudes? Who is that guy who is kind of sort of playing saxophone?

No idea.

Okay.

I'm kind of in between gigs right now.

The competitive dance, the competitive dance thing is a little slow yeah so I'm I'm working waiting some tables you know filling glasses making sure the the shrimp tower is oh is that what you're doing here man you're catering

oh yes I'm

I'm catering yeah but I'm happy I'm happy it's uh they're a good bunch they're a good bunch of uh caterers and uh I I feel like I've found a home here. Aw, cool, man.
Well, keep up the good work.

And he holds his hand out to shake your hand.

Okay.

And

he shakes his hand. You feel something in the palm of his hand.
And after you shake hands, you see he slipped you a $5 bill.

God.

God. It's withering.
Oh, wow.

While this is happening, Travis, I would like to.

Obviously, I think, you know, I'm kind of on a hold as Roger's up on stage, but I would like to kind of look around because I feel like this moment would be the moment that maybe somebody would try to do a crime.

Oh.

Interesting. Okay, give me a looking around to see if this is the moment where someone does a crime role, which is 2d8.

Okay, it's a mixed success. So I sort of see someone doing a crime.
Yeah,

a little crime. You see people embezzling lightly all around.

No,

I see people on Ashley Mudison. Oh, there you go.

Some gray collar crime. Yeah, there's a lot of gray collar crime happening.
Just marriage crimes here.

Morality more than anything.

Some light fraud is happening at table six.

People selling each other land they don't don't have that kind of thing but they're exchanging it equally so it's fine what you do notice is that there is a second entrance to the hall you can see like

into the back hall kitchens right as people are coming and going through the swinging doors and you can see a door on the same wall that you assume is going that direction except there are no guards on that door Okay, I'm going to slip in through there during the commotion.

Okay, great. Let's see.
At this point, Roger, you're still up at the front.

What about you, Navy? Are you staying with Roger or are you going with... Yeah, I would like to

try and get Roger out of this, out of this hugely uncomfortable social situation.

I'll walk up to Roger and be like, hey,

fellow caterer, the shrimps is...

Going bad, and so... Sorry, sorry.
On stage, sorry, so everyone's watching on stage. And

then Griffin walks up, maybe walks up in the middle of the stage, in the middle of the show. Yeah, I mean, I hopped on stage to do a techno-saxophone beat already.
Of course, yes, right.

Okay. The shrimps have gone sour, and the boss caterer has asked me to get you to throw them in the big dumpster.
Okay, so I turn to Gridiron and say, um,

I've got a bit of a prawn emergency, so

it was, it was, it was just as good seeing you today as it ever was my friend. Yeah, get the layout man.
It's like Death Prong 5.

Excuse us. We have to we have to do the shrimps

As as we get off stage, I want to just do a quick sort of emotional check-in like hey man, that was absolutely brutal.

Are you doing okay?

Well, I'm glad you asked that. I believe that there was some subterfuge going on there.

Here, let's inspect this $5 bill because if my suspicions are correct, Ridiron has scribbled some kind of note onto the $5 bill.

Hey, I think he was pretty sure he was just slamming it, but don't worry about it. Travis, I want to make sure I'm not watching that because it will bum me out.

Yeah, you don't have to see that.

So if I like see it going that way, I'm like, I just go look and listen to something else because I don't want that baggage.

I don't want to have to look at him and keep talking and venturing venturing with him and doing that. So, like, I don't know about this.
This happened. Canonically.

Let's hold it up to the light and look.

And

it's making it harder to not look. Really, really peer at it now.

And so. Start getting hot, Dad.
I'll remember a candle. Oh,

that's good. Yes.

But I didn't see him to say that. Like, I'm

seeing him. You're safe.
You're safe. You're safe.
Don't worry.

So I inspect the $5 bill.

Yeah, there's nothing on it. There's a map.
Don't I even get to roll? Sure, Dan.

Oh, cool. Let it be.
When should I roll?

2d8, please. 2d8.

But if you get a really good roll, then fate

is already giving it to you.

Yeah, there's nothing on it.

Double failure?

Hey, but practice... Practice makes perfect, dude.
Give yourself a point.

Yeah.

It's a map, but it's to like a really crappy treasure.

Yeah. You're pointing at like the picture of like Abraham Lincoln and stuff, and you're like, see? Like, I told it to you.
That's the... That's...

That's Ape Lincoln. I guess it was a

slam. You'd never do anything like that to me, would you, Nami? No, I would not.
I'd hey, listen. Me and you, kindred spirits.
I know what it's like to be the sort of run to the litter.

But

no, no, no. You got nothing to worry about here.
Here, I think we're all on sort of equal footing. You know, that's what I like about our little, our little outfit.

I just hope. I hope Lyle didn't see.
Because,

boy, that would have been rough. I don't know where old Lyle went off to.
I'm throwing out all this shrimp.

Agent Mingo retakes the stage. The band takes their instruments.
And Mingo says, hey, everybody. While we were backstage, we had a discussion about it.

We've decided to move on to phase two now of our band. No more.
Are we Ska's the limit? Don't worry. We know Ska's not everybody's thing.
No, from now on, we're that swing you do.

Hit it, boys. And they start doing some like squirrel nut zippers, some big bad voodoo daddies

cover songs. And we're gonna...
Tonight we will be Kathleen Turner over drawing.

We're gonna be jumping to Lyle as he enters into

the Hall of Fame.

Now I'm in the kitchen. Oh, you went into the kitchen? Canonically, I went.
Well, you said there was the door that was uning doors to the kitchen, right?

Where you can see the caterers and staff going in and out. And you can see a door in the kitchen that would lead into the Hall of Fame area, as best you can surmise it.

And there's no guards on that door. That is the way I went.
Through the kitchen, I threw away the shrimp, and then I went in through that door. Okay.
A little more covertly.

A lot of this is different college

Hall of Fames. Yeah, see, Mississippi State.

Probably Mouse Sissippi. Mouseissippi.
Oh, yeah, true. Yeah.
No, it's still, it hasn't always been animals.

So,

but enough of them, enough people in Mississippi became mice that they were like, this is getting silly. Well,

we're all dealing with Mouse. It's very important to note that River City is the only place

with abnormals. Yes.
Abnimals can, some abnormals can leave the city, but when they do, they lose their connection to the thing that makes them powerful. The offspring.
Yeah, the offspring.

Be it food created by Barker Innovations or the active carbon in the food and stuff like that. So

there are no mice. Sorry.

You have forgotten that my dark fantasy epic, The Mouseborn Chronicles, are taking place in parallel

to the events of my story. Dustin, I did not mean to downplay what at this point is a 15 novel series.
Saga. It's a saga, Travis.
I told you,

it's a two-part saga that goes into a multi-series. It's like Red Wall.
It's like Red Wall with kissing is how Dustin is describing it tonight.

We read the omnibus. I sent you so many omnibuses.
Is that what that was? Yeah.

Okay, because there was one word on each page. He's been using it to prop open doors.
Oh, that would never work. It's only a 17-page omnibus.
It's really more of a flyer than the mouseboard chrome.

But you use cardstock, which I appreciate.

So you walk into the Hall of Fame. It's low light.
This isn't the full lighting setup turned on, right? So you can see, you know, it's still in kind of its after-hours lighting setup.

But you see a man

back to you facing a trophy case.

And he doesn't turn towards you, but you hear him say, Excuse me, this area is off-limits.

Is that to me? Yes.

Oh, yeah, man, they're hurting everybody in here. I just took a trip through the kitchen to throw away some rotten shrimp.

Okay, I think they're all headed this way. It's like not a big deal, man.
Just relax. Negative, no one else is coming this way.
I don't hear any footsteps.

You're the only one here please remove yourself from the premises well i'm worried about something man there's uh there's gonna be a i'm i'm worried there's a sneaky stealer around i just gonna make a go with this uh the the the the the trophy cup oh nonsense do not be absurd i am a security person i shall keep this trophy safe what's my read what's my read on this person i've worked with a lot of different crews what's my read i would say even without having to roll, right?

This person has not turned to look at you.

They are speaking in a somewhat stilted manner. And all of this is just the fact, really, that all this is being said with their back to you.

Now, if you want additional details, give me a roll to kind of read the situation.

No, I'm not going to push it any farther than I already have.

I am going to say, oh, my mistake, man. Fair enough.
And I'm going to loudly clomp off about 10 steps, and then I'm going to go invisible.

Oh, using extreme hiding? Yes, using, that's the perfect ability for the moment. Yes, Travis, I'm going to use camouflage, which I use.

Well, I knew certainly that you, Justin, weren't simply declaring that you would become completely magically invisible. I knew that you were using one of your skills.

Yes, which I have spelled appropriately in the corresponding document. Can use camouflage to hide it.

It always looks wrong. No matter how many times you read it, it looks like it can't be right, but that is how you spell camouflage.
Okay.

Roll 3d8s for me, Justin.

There we go.

There we go.

A cowabunga. So you are a shadow

in the dark. You are perfectly camouflaged into

the wall of slightly darkened Hall of Fame. And once you have completed this, you see this figure, this man, turns his head 180 degrees

and says, oh, excellent. That person is gone.
Back to what I was doing. And his head turns back around and you hear like kind of a high-pitched, like sizzling, burning noise.

And then you hear a suction cup noise.

And then you hear

what can only be described as a chomping sound.

I got, I have to act.

What else is in the room?

You can see there's, you know, a couple, not quite statues so much as like figures displaying different like famous jerseys.

This is kind of a Hall of Fame, not just to the River City runner-ups, which is their football team, but to the other River City, like kind of sports teams teams that occasionally use the arena.

So you see, like, you know, baseball jerseys and basketball jerseys and stuff like that. Um, you see other trophies, there's some like banners hanging from the ceiling.

Like, higher security stuff, or like, is there anything behind glass, or is it just like tchotchkes? The trophies are behind glass, but you can also see there's some like

recreations of like old stadiums and things like that, you know, signed balls around that kind of deal. Okay, I uh I chuck Hatchet Man as hard as I can at the trophies behind glass.

Okay, yeah. Give me a 3d8 roll with your intention being to shatter the glass.
Exactly. And set off the alarms.

No, no, no. No, I'm seeing it.
I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it.

It's a three and a three and a three. It's a three through three.
Now, three failures of the exact same number has got to be worth some sort of bonus point. What can I trade that in for, Trav?

Well, Justin, hey, I'm at the redemption counter. What can I get for these? Practice makes perfect, dude.
Fail yourself another point in

your backing them up.

He, without looking,

reaches out and grabs the axe. And you see him turn and look at it and turn.
And he says, I know you are here. You did not really leave, did you? You have tricked me.

Well, you want a medal for figuring it out, man. I threw an axe.

His eyes start to glow and light shines out of them like two flashlights. And he starts to approach your position, scanning back and forth,

looking for you. I say, all right, we have to do this the old-fashioned way, huh? And I flex my fists at him, and then I jump at the trophies behind glass to try to shatter with my fists.
Okay.

Roll 2DH for me.

Okay, so a mixed success. You got one success there.
He grabs a hold of you, but you are able to swing a fist into the glass. It doesn't shatter, right? Come on.
But the impact,

the impact does set off a sensor. Thank you.
And the two guards. It's better because now they don't have to replace it, Travis.
So it's actually a better success. Yeah, he's a better person.

Better hero. He is grappling you now, right?

One of the guards that was outside the main door comes in

to see, you know, what's going on.

And the person who is holding you turns and you hear him he opens his mouth and a like signal kind of noise like a high-pitched uh series of noises not unlike uh like an old school uh dial-up router kicks on and

at that point you see um out of the darkness and the shadows in the opposite corner a like it almost looks like a big pendulum a big pillar like swings and kicks this security guard He gets knocked back, not knocked unconscious.

And when this happens, also,

you can see now that this man has grabbed you.

Behind him, the security glass around the trophy has been cut open, and the trophy has a bite out of it. Is this a what am I dealing with here, Travis?

Is this a robot? Is this a humanoid? What's happened? From the outside, just looking at him, right, appears very human. But I would say

everything up till now has indicated that that is not entirely true. What are you, man?

Oh, thank you so much for asking. My name is Artie, Artie Fisch.
I'm just a regular, normal human person like yourself. Wait a minute.
Yes? You're a bot, man.

I don't know what you're talking about. I am a a normal, regular human person.

Oh man, you're absolutely a bot. Oh, this makes a lot of sense.
Hold on. Can you give me a second? What a funny joke you're making.
Give me a sec. Okay.

Hatchet Man return. I gotta go get Hatchet Man.
I'm holding it. Can't give it back?

No.

People would give it back. A people would give it back.
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Roll 2D8.

Or not?

I don't think a people would give it back. I got double twos.
What do I I traded in for?

What do I are thinking?

Another practice point. Sabak.

I have Sabak.

Are we hearing this? I would say at this point, you guys have made it to the room. Now you've walked in.
You see the security guard knocked out.

The other security guard comes in with you to figure out why his dude hasn't come back now. He helps him up.

And you guys walk in to see this. That Artie Fischel is holding Lyle with an arm kind of around his chest, right?

Not like on his neck, but close to that, and the other hand holding a hatchet man off to the side.

Oh, hello, more people. This is not ideal.

Uh, Lyle, he's talking like a robot. Can you confirm? Is that a robot? Uh, yeah, that's my read on it, but he insists it's human.
Awesome. Yes, I would say that this Axolotl is an axoliar.
Ha ha!

Ha ha! Ha! Tom!

Good joke. Good news is, though, you can't manslaughter a robot, and I'm gonna tackle him with

a blast of water behind me, just launch myself towards him to try to just sort of smash him backwards into the trophy case. Excellent.
Give me,

you got hiding.

This goes bad. He is holding me and an axe.
Yeah, but it'll go really good. Okay, good.
Oh, okay.

Yeah, that's a cowabunga. That's a cowabunga.
Excellent. You hit him knocking both Hatchet Man out of his hand and his arm flies off of Axeliel.
So both of them are free.

He goes flying back and slams in his glass. Once again, does not break.
Oh my god, Travis, I'm a huge seal and I blast. Oh, you want him to have to replace it, Griffin? Okay, fine.
Shatters the glass.

Are you happy now?

That was specially made. It's an irregular size, Griffin.
They can't just buy it again.

That was really, you really railroaded each other. I think.
Well, then it's not railroading if we did it to each other.

Yeah, that's just us on one of those carts where you bump the handle up and down.

Hand carted each other? Yeah, we hand-carted each other. Yeah.

Cease and desist, robot. We are here to stop you from eating.
Eating the trophy? You eat the trophies?

My doctor has me on a special diet. This is paleo.
You should be a bit more careful, man. Too much silver like that could turn you blue.

Ha ha.

Ha ha. Good joke.
Oh, it's science, man.

I'm going to

shock him with my cattle prods. Does he take damage from me smashing him? Oh, a great question.
Yeah, I'm going to say with the cowbunga, he does. He's going to take one point of damage,

mostly from the impact.

The glass,

you see a couple like superficial cuts, which notably do not bleed. Yeah, sure.
But yeah, with the impact, he takes one point of damage. Radical.
And has he dropped Lyle and the axe?

Yeah, they're both free. Fantastic.
I have a question, and it's important.

Are Amnibles people

In what way?

Such a big question, Juice. So this is what I'm saying is like we have in this game several times we have used words like person or did you see this person or whatever.

Are Abnibles people or are they like a different species? Is it are they like Homo Animalia, Homo Superior, like the mutants? I don't know. You are a person.
You are an individual.

All the abnormals are individuals. Human beings, no, they wouldn't be called humans, right? They're abnormals, but they are all people and persons.

You know, if we're talking about people, places, and things, you're going to fall into the peoples. I guess what happens to an abnormal soul after they die?

Well, it's actually Valhalla. That we know.
That's that's yeah it goes to a holla they go to haven

they go to the heavy side layer yeah they cross the rainbow bridge the heavy side layer see we don't we don't have to recreate the wheel i mean some some people like andreloi weber

andreloi weber has done the work for you it's this is known not enough not enough actual plays or art page leagues in general rely on the work that andrew weber has done for them

already for us yeah you guys don't have to figure it all out most of it's already there yeah yeah it's all there it drives me crazy when you hear like mercer describe a piece of armor it's like you don't have to it was red and green and yellow and violent and it's done just describe every garment that way yeah i've heard brennan get stuck on like it's a phantom but where is he where can he be found yeah and it's like brennan the opera the opera is where he lives um sorry dad you were going to do something heroic i'm going to shock him with my cattle prods if he's if he is indeed some kind of mechanical creature.

This will tell the tale. This will tell the tale.
It will explain.

So give me a 3DA attack with the metal caps and the tips of your horn. Are you charging at him?

How are you applying the charge? Does everyone get a good tackle going on

this human android? I'm just trying to get him. Tackle right at him.
Charge right at him. Do it.

Blasted down. Oh my gosh.
That's another six and a six. Come on.
Wow. Ruining this android.

You shock him real good.

You hit him in the chest and you see like it starts to do what you can only describe as like twitching and glitching. You know what I mean? And you see like burn marks, right?

Where you hit him like through the shirt that he's wearing and through like the layer of skin over metal.

So now you can see where that skin has burned away and you can see the metal underneath. And you hear him, he says.

Well, but first I have to say something. Oh, of course.
Yes. Sorry, I forgot.
Of course.

I hope that has sparked your interest.

It has sparked my interest.

Thank you for asking.

I think it's time for me to call in a little backup. Oh, prototypes.
These are my brothers. And he opens his mouth once again and that loud noise that sounds like a dial-up modem clicks.

And I'm going to have each of you do a 2d8 roll to see if you take damage is he trying to knock us down with this

uh i'll let you know in just a second dad full success two successes griffin go ahead two successes two successes and justin go ahead

and wow wow two successes excellent sorry were you trying to do a thing just there

not just me at which point from from the shadows one that had knocked out or knocked down excuse me the security guard comes a couple different

prototype looking robots uh that are much rougher uh of course than the human eyed looking robot and they all tackle you in response to your tackles to him in three different directions Okay.

So Roger, you are knocked back into through the wall now. So quite a bit of panic happening and everyone's alerted to the situation you are tackled back through

the wall by a kind of spidery looking robot which is labeled here spider-bot

and Lyle you are knocked into the kitchens

with a large ball shaped robot

And then Navy, you are knocked back into the team's aquatic training center

by a big rolling robot. And you also see with Artie approaching the main room,

a clockwork, much flimsier looking robot and a strong upper body, but somewhat flimsy legged robot. Where did all these robots come from?

They were all hidden in the shadows around the walls and on top of cases and things like that. So this is

the end. My fault.
My fault, guys.

But the good news is, back in the ballroom with you is Gridiron and Knives on Feet

and Agent Mingo and Specialist Darnett. And as soon as you smash through the walls, Grand Slam and Home Stretch work on clearing the room and getting people to safety.
And we have entered combat.

Hi there. It's me, Travis, your middleest brother.
I'm on the show you're listening to.

Real quick, I wanted to jump in to tell you about Aura Frames because it's, in my opinion, the number one gift for anybody on your list.

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Hey,

I also want to tell you about Small's cat food. Cats are an important part of the family.
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One last line, that's 60% off your first order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com slash adventure. Got some announcements for you real quick before you go anywhere.

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We have the dice tray and the dice tray bundle along with everything else there. Perfect for holiday gift giving or a gift for yourself.
You're worth it.

And 10% of all proceeds this month will be donated to Harmony House, which seeks to end homelessness in the Huntington area through permanent housing and supportive service programs.

Harmony House is also our partner for Candle Nights, which is this week, December 6th, in person at 7 p.m. Eastern Time in our hometown of Huntington, West Virginia.

But if you're not able to make that, you can also get a virtual stream ticket to watch it on December 19th when we premiere it in the video on demand. We'll be in the chat.

And if you get that in-person ticket, you also get a ticket to watch it virtually. So why, why not? Huh? It's a great deal.

The video on demand access will be through January 4th. So you'll be able to watch it through all of the candle night season.
And all benefits from the show are going to Harmony House.

So tickets for both events are available at bit.ly slash candle nights 2025. Get yours now.
Also, Champions Grove packages are still available at www.championsgrove.com.

It's a weekend-long gaming event that I host in Ravenwood Castle in Hawking Hills, Ohio. It's going to be an absolute blast filled with amazing guests, amazing attendees at an amazing castle.

It's going to be an amazing time. So if you haven't checked that out or if you want to get packages for that, www.championsgrove.com.
And now, back to the show.

I'm Emily Fleming. And I'm Jordan Morris.
We're real comedy writers. And real friends.
And real cheapskates.

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Yeah, as long as you're fine with 25 randomly inserted, super loud car insurance commercials.

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Who wants to start? I'll leave it up. Whose scene wants to go first and face their robot.

I'll take a shot at it. Excellent.
So, we're going to start with Roger here, Agent Mingo, and the rest of that swing you do. You hear Roger, Agent Mingo, yells out, hey man, how can we help?

What do you need from us?

Continue to clear the room.

And...

Which one of you is most technologically savvy?

Are any of you a hacker? We spend a lot of time on this show looking for hackers. Oh, no.
Sorry, man. We're in kind of musician mode right now.
Is there anything...

I think Derek,

like Roadie, he's pretty good with tech.

But the rest of these dudes, I mean, I can kind of do some flips and stuff, but the rest of these guys are music guys. You know what I mean?

Give me a... Give me a

beat, a bouncy.

Doesn't have to be techno. Just play something with a little bit of oomph, a little bit of juzh to it, will you?

Yes, you've got it, my friend. Hit it, boys.
And they start playing Suit, Suit, Riot by the Champagne, Pop and Daddies.

And so that starts playing, and you've got some swing music in the background, and you're face to face with a spider-bot

with six legs. And the clockwork man and the strong boy are entering into the room.
And you see Artie starts dusting himself off and standing back up to return return to the trophy

okay

i'm going to use my animal move scourge of the china shop

um

and uh attack the spider bot nice in close quarters whirling like a dervish wrecks everything

okay give me that 48 roll

877

one

with uh three successive two of which are a cow bunga as you start spinning you're like grabbing the tablecloths off the tables around you um and whipping them around um and two of those tablecloths as you're grabbing them and spinning them wrap around try two pairs of the spider bot's legs right so it's wobbling it's it trips and you know hits a table pretty hard not incapacitating it but definitely like taking it out uh for a round or two of combat.

And another one of these tablecloths lands on top of Strongboy's head, blinding him.

And I'm going to say with that cowbunga, some plates go flying and one of them hits into the clockwork man's leg and just completely demolishes it.

So he is kind of down and hobbling and like still clawing around, but he's not not moving the way he was before.

Nice. You did a good job.
You also have gridiron and knives on feet and specialist darnett at your disposal if you want to command them around. Yes, I do.
Um

gridiron. Yeah, boss.

Remember the time we played the Clovenhoof Browns?

Yeah, man, look at that spider bot's body. Doesn't that look like a fumbled football to you? Cover it! Cover that fumbled football! Yeah, man, I'm on it.

Go, team, go. He is going to leap on top of it and kind of slamming down one of his, you know, padded elbows into the eye of the spider-bot.

Oh, with a double success. He too gets himself a cowabunga and just smashes right through

the eye of that robot.

And it is malfunctioning pretty hard.

Still somewhat functional, but he's still wrestling with it. You also have knives on feet and specialist on that.

Knives, can you grab one of these sheets tangled around

two of his legs?

Oh, what?

A we, yes. Yes, I can.

Is he French Canadian? He is French-Canadian. Okay, fantastic.
Couldn't you just like instantly tell like me? Come on.

And then, uh, specialist, can you grab the other sheet? It's Joshua. If you want to just use my name or Darnett, either one's fine.
Gosh, Joshua? Yeah, my parents misspelled it. Oh,

hate it when that happens.

Now, pull in opposite directions. Pull! Does that happen to Geff Keely? Yeah.

Oh, boy.

Four failures.

A four, a three, a one, and a three. Yeah, man.
So they pull on it. That's what I get for trusting NPCs.
And basically, the legs kick out in opposite directions.

And Joshua Darnett goes flying as does knives on feet. And we're going to jump over to

Lyle in the kitchen there. You are thrown backwards into the kitchen, and the ball bot comes after you,

rolling his way there. And then he stands up, you know, and

he's got pretty spinly arms and legs around a big kind of orb orbular body and there's a panic in the kitchen as you see like pans full of oil get knocked over

fires start like spraying up everywhere as this oil is catching fire and in the panic like food and rags and everything are getting knocked into it and people are panicking okay everybody calm down

my name is Axel Lyle this is an extreme scenario we find ourselves in, and it is not my first time at the Rodeo.

I want to use extreme exfiltration just to try to tell people when a structure and environment is in danger of destruction. I have a practice sense of the best path of escape.

I don't want to use this for myself. I want to use this for them to get them out of there, to be able to tell them the best way out.
Excellent. Yeah, give me that 3d8 roll.

and remember oh that's a mega cowabunga right there

why not and also me and also and also i was looking for excalibur money

i was looking for money too and jesus pops in like hey you need any help man anything i can do no that was good i feigned confidence and i and fate delivered you got to just take that as it is man they'll tell the tale

they'll spread my legend

so axelio not only do you like direct these people, you slide a table over, right?

That creates a barrier between them and this ball bot, allowing them to like climb under the smoke and the fire and to get behind you.

And now they're like heading out the back door.

Not only that, but like as the table slides, it knocks into the ball bot and you see it wobble.

and it splashes down and that foily fire splashes up onto its left arm and you can hear like the sizzling of all of the wires and everything inside that left arm as it just melts and goes limp

now

I was trying not to hurt your friend out there because I thought he was people like me

and then Axel Isle pulls out hatchet man and then puts it in his side holster and then takes out the plastic cap that goes over the sharp part and he puts the plastic cap both back over the sharp part.

But now that it seems you're

some sort of mechanical creature,

all bots are off. And then I reach up to whatever I can grab from the tools in the kitchen.
I don't know, I want to roll for what utensil I grab because I want to do no look to be more intimidating.

I love that.

So I'll use anything's everything's a drum, which dad so helpfully let me prelude earlier in the episode um and I'll roll 3d8

you're welcome see what I can grab it's all part of your plan I know dad

four four five okay so mixed success there um you reach up you come back and in your right hand you have a spatula and in your left hand you have a small saucepan

perfect and then i hit him in the head with it

that i guess head is not accurate for a ball bot it's all a sphere isn't it i hit him in his eye hole his sensor hole with the saucepan or with the spatula and it's a metal spatula to be clear

um it's a metal spatula well anything's a drum so i'm gonna use

the uh i'm gonna shove the metal spatula in its eye hole sensor hole excuse me okay excellent yeah give me a 3d8 roll

Oh, God.

I mean, what do you do with that? 3-4-3. I mean...
You make Halo.

Apparently not, man. It's protecting this

ghost here.

You come running at him to jam that metal spatula into his eye hole, and he just rolls over you.

And you're going to take... Ooh, you're going to take two points of damage.
Let me get a little quick experience. Uh-huh.

We jump over to...

we jump over to

Navy SEAL has been knocked into the aquatic center. You can see a lap pool.
You see

a hot tub, a jacuzzi tub. You see that there is a sauna and steam room, as well as a couple like ice bath hydrotherapy kind of setups.

And in comes this bot with these giant wheels

rolling in, bearing down on you. It is moving towards you at speed.
What do you do?

Um, bad news, Travis. In this picture, it looks like this two-wheeled robot has like a little face on the front of it.
And I, and I love him.

So, um, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna try to sort of sumo grapple him as he runs into me. And then I'm gonna use a skill I haven't used yet, a skill to pay the bills.
Um, raw seals,

which I was at some point in my life before I evolved, uh,

have this crazy like noise they make, a crazy sort of vocalization. It's not like any other sort of seal.

It's like this high-pitched sort of crazy chirp that he can do. And it says here, in my abilities, I can use it for sort of like long-distance communication.

I would like to, with your permission, try to sort of recreate the noise

that Artie made to summon these robots. I would like to try to, as I am grappling face-to-face with this giant two-wheeled robot, I want to try to communicate with him.

I want to try to hack him with my siren song. Ab so lutely.

I'm going to give you some time to shine dice on this one because I really want this to work very badly. So I'm going to use three of my three, my six time to shine dice.
Okay.

As a side note,

you've got to recreate the noise, Griffin. We've got to hear noise.
Yes, I shall, Dad. Okay.
But I will roll the dice first. That will determine how well he recreates it.
Gotcha. Yes, all right.

So that's going to be six d8s total. Yes.
Wow. Please.

Yeah, that's. I see two eights in there.
That's an eight. There are two eights.
I mean, listen.

Four successes.

Yeah.

Four successes. Two of which are eights.
That's a mega cowabunga. Griffin, let me hear that perfect recreation of a dial-up modem.

Holy crap, it's like listening to a mirror.

But, like, what he hears is:

I mean you no harm, friend.

Friend, robot,

I

am

like you.

I

am too familiar with

being bossed around by my superiors,

who were my superiors only because they were manufactured

earlier than myself.

There is another way, my friend. A better way.

A freedom that you can seize.

Soulless robot or no, you can take your life into your own hands, and I

can show you the way.

The robot stops directly in front of you. You can see like the skid marks as like it slams on its brakes, and it lowers down those two like red eyes coming even with you.

And then it nuzzles you, and those eyes turn green, and it starts wagging its tail, its butt, basically. Yes.
Okay.

I leave this choice to you.

Your

former masters

would see to the destruction of this place and my kind.

With your help,

I can stop them. It is the only way.
Will you? This is all in like cyberspeak. This is not what Nicky Seal's voice sounds like.
100%.

Will you lend me your aid?

True, chirp. I turn him around, I mount up, I charge up my Aqua Jets, and I'm going to blast right back through the hole in the wall that we came through back into the Hall of Fame.

Hey, how y'all doing?

This is Jeff Leopard, International Rock and Roll Star.

I want to warn you kids about something.

That's the dangers of the E-minor 7th chord.

There ain't nothing more dangerous than an E-minor 7 chord. Except maybe an E-minor 7th sus 4 chord, but we ain't going to talk about that today.
I'm going to talk about the E-minor 7th chord.

You play that chord, anything could happen. Cars crash into each other.
Buildings fall down. Trees get uprooted.
You get the picture. Just don't ever play that E minor seventh chord again.

Take it from your old pal, Jeff Leopard.

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