The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 8

The wizards huddle four by four,

With fervor and esprit decor, To plumb the depths and shake the trees, And loot the isle's energies Of flame and flora, sea and stone, Or stranger substance unbeknown,

And from these primal sparks of light, Evoke a champion born to fight.

Hello, and welcome back to the Adventure Zone Taz Royale, our winner takes all battle royale season.

Today, we are going to kickstart the third of the Octave Ziggurat trials.

And by kickstart, this one's going to cost a pretty penny.

And

we do need you.

Every minute is going to be $12.

Push $12 into your zoon hole and we'll get it

oh here they come oh wow they're pouring in it's all so wet um what people don't know at home is that's what we call our buttholes thank you travis for making that so explicitly clear that we call our buttholes our zoon i didn't know that at my home i

i want to preface this by once again complimenting this map how much i love it i think it's a great design you did great artwork thank you i want to talk about for a second the logos you've done for each element here yeah it looks like the four elements are toothpaste blom, Spotify logo, Spotify logo is pretty explicitly like a man with a fiery peacocktail.

Yeah.

Okay, so you get it.

Those are the four elements, and we all know that.

Spotify

land heart, but

let's get started with this elemental trial.

You three with your fourth teammate, Scorpo, a beloved character for whom I had lots of personal backstory and detail.

And I did plenty of a reminder of their existence, Al.

Justin didn't need to be reminded about Scorpo's existence.

I think I can help a little bit.

Before we get started, could Hel Grammet have just a real quick chat with Scorpo?

Just real quick.

Real quick.

Sure.

Scorpo sees you, a fellow Thrykeen

and sees you wanting to talk to him, lumbers over.

But to be fair, Hell Grammar has to walk past Rick this doing diagrams of incorporating Scorpo into the team and putting Hel Grammet over at a bench location while he's like sketching out cool moves so that she and Lorivis and Scorpo could be doing together.

Well, Helgrammit kind of looks at that and kind of smiles warmly and says,

Look, Scorpo, I know it can be difficult joining such a well-established tight-knit group like ours.

Don't be put off with our playful banter.

We get around a lot, but the truth of the matter is, I'm pretty much the boss here.

So you'll do okay if you keep in mind what I say goes.

So things like, well, what he's doing over there, that humorous cartoon he's drawing.

That's kind of the fun ribbing we give each other.

But, hey, kid, you just follow my lead and

you're going to be good.

Okay?

Gorvith leans over to Scorpo's other shoulder and says, I apologize for the smell of the Bukman.

Give me, both of you give me a persuasion check for me.

Actually, Justin's not really persuading anyone.

I'm not really

a stinker.

So, Hel Grammy, give me a persuasion check, please.

That would be an eight.

Scorpo, who towers over you,

looks down his, well, not nose, but face chitin at you and leans down and

says, uh, I am not a child.

What is your power?

Uh, uh, I uh have a number of powers.

Uh I have Frost Fingers,

Scorching Ray, uh,

I can cast auguries, believe it or not.

I can also get you a Gatorade or anything you need.

You just tell him what you need and he'll get it.

Yes, I

well, I could do that, I suppose.

I control the dead, whatever that is,

and I can set alarms.

So, it comes in very handy on when you're traveling.

I feel like Dad's tone of voice indicated that maybe he even learned a little something in the past 30 seconds.

Scorpo turns and looks at you,

Loraveth, and says, So are you the one who is truly in charge?

No.

Oh, I just said.

He just kind of pushes you, gently pushes you to the side, Hell Grammat, with your unconvincing persuasion chat.

To be frank, it's

we're all by nature sort of

in our own pursuits, but certainly certainly we've aligned for the moment is accurate.

Scorpo raises his claw and the third octave, Trace, who was sort of giving you all the lay of the land in the last episode, says,

yes, what is it?

Scorpo says, can we trade teams?

Trace says, no.

So, we shall begin the trial of evocation.

This trial shall test your mastery over the four primordial elements that serve as the foundation of our physical world.

Fire, element of passion, and energy.

Yes, yes, Laura.

It sounded as though you said this one would be a vacation.

No, so should we not expect a challenge?

Sorry.

Evocate.

I forget sometimes that not everybody is as well versed in the names of the eight schools of magic.

Evocation is the channeling and wielding.

I already have a vocation, sir.

Okay.

No, this is...

Should I use a different...

The trial of

elements.

The trial of elements.

Is that better?

Give me a second.

I'll tell you.

Okay.

Trace waves a hand

through the air, and

there are banners hanging that say trial of evocation that all change to say trial of elements.

Trial by fire.

Trial by fire and water and earth and nature.

Trace continues.

Says, Fire, the element of passion and energy.

Earth, element of substance and time, water, element of motion and restoration, and nature, element of life and sky.

Your quartet will be assigned one of these four elements and will compete against three other teams representing the others.

Juice, give me a D4 roll, please.

You got it, Griff.

My favorites to roll, but it's a sharp dice.

It's dangerous.

It's probably the least steppable.

I did manage to pull a four, though.

Okay, cool.

Um, out of that beauty.

Yeah,

by the way, what are the odds?

You see, as Trace waves a hand through the air, this purple velvet bag floating around between the different groups of people.

As it approaches you, it sort of opens up.

You reach inside and you pull out a green marble with the Spotify logo on it.

Not quite the Spotify logo.

You recognize this as the symbol of nature, which is the element that your team has been assigned.

And Trace continues and says, This trial will be conducted over three rounds.

In the first, your quartet must harvest elemental moats from around the island.

In the second, you will use those moats to forge an elemental entity, which, in the third round, will engage in battle with the creations of the three other teams.

Today we begin with the harvest.

To collect your elemental moats you must travel to a corresponding elemental quarter, then engage with that element in some substantial way.

The key to this harvest is change.

Create, destroy, transform, transport.

By altering a wild flame or pool of water or boulder or tree, you liberate the moats within for your collection.

The more moats you collect in the 10 minutes allotted to this first round, the greater flexibility you will have later in the trial.

Rictus starts running for nature.

Nope, time hasn't started yet.

Rictus, Rectus, Rictus, Rictus.

There's more room.

Sorry.

I thought that was...

I thought that was it.

Sorry.

You see, Trace turns to talk to her fellow octaves, and whatever magic was amplifying her voice is still going and she says we should maybe look into like just casting hold person on everyone while we explain the rules because i feel like this this does keep happening and i did say that we should do this heart mic

oh my god sorry uh anyway uh our common rule stands you may not bring harm to your fellow aspirants however should you wish to disrupt another team's harvesting rituals you may deny them the resources that they need weakening them in the later rounds one last condition.

As elemental magic consumes elemental energy, it may not be used to create it.

Conjuring a magical flame will not produce elemental fire motes.

Building a flame from Tinder and Spring shall.

Any questions before we begin?

When we get to the assigned question part, there's no questions at all.

Amazing.

Then with that said,

you see that she waves her hand, and

eight of the groups of four here are carried into the Ziggurat, leaving four groups of four, each representing different elements, here out on the battlefield.

Looking around at the three other teams, you see a few familiar faces.

You can see

over on the earth side of the field, up by the mountains, you can see four sort of Leotard-wearing, athletic, bulky, big, muscly-looking wizards, Rays, Days, Haze, and Blaze, the Arcane Gladiators.

Big meanie men.

Big beefy men, slapping beef.

Over towards Fire, you see Hasty Jane.

And Hasty Jane's team seems to be pretty...

Pretty bad.

Hasty Jane's got Dr.

Legume, the clumsy Mr.

Bean type, who did not perish in the last trial.

There's a little frog man, Gunk.

There's a dude with a burger for a head whose name is Burger Man.

You all have not had much contact with Burger Man, and you may not, depending on how this trial goes.

And then over to the water side, just next to you,

you see

the gentleman.

The gentleman from Wisbury, who is there with three wizards,

one of which is a sea witch, looks like Ursula with tentacles.

That's Hilda.

You see a man, a young man sort of modeled after Mystery, the pickup artist named Enigma, and a woman dressed in black with floating swords surrounding her, the wizard Corrigan.

Yes.

Is this the kind of thing where it's like we lose as a team or like, are we individually graded or?

The proceedings of the third and final round of this trial shall determine the outcome.

The team that is eliminated first shall be eliminated from the competition entirely.

So, yes,

you win as a team, you lose as a team.

So, you must find a way to work together, overcome your differences, should they exist.

You have been matched based on compatibility that we, the Octave, have observed.

And so, we have given you every leg up that we possibly can.

But the rest now is up to you.

No individual plaudits, huh?

No, not in this case.

Not even um

most improved.

You want a most improved award?

No, I still wanted to give the bug man a bit of hope.

Actually, he's standing right there and he looks very sensitive.

I

I think you need stuff.

He's talking about he's talking about you, Scorpo says.

I don't think so, but that's that's adorable.

Uh with that, uh Trace raises a hand in the air and fires a chromatic orb upwards that soars into the sky and then explodes with a wave of elemental energy.

And another timer appears over the Ziggurat, counting down 10 minutes.

You all have 10 minutes

to explore the island and harvest these elemental moats by interacting with the corresponding elements within.

Scorpo first looks to you, Lorivith, who I think he has identified as the sort of like most leaderly of the three.

He says, What?

Where do you, where is it?

Have I given that?

I don't feel have I given you.

I think he knows it's not Hell Grammar.

And I think I feel like it's just a process of elimination thing.

Yeah, for sure.

Griffin, I think, I'm like, I feel like it's because I'm your older brother.

You just can't help but see me that way.

You know what I mean?

Like, and it's not your default.

I think it's not your default as Scorpio looks at you

Is that leader?

Yeah, and I'm kind of the wild card.

Yeah, Scorpo is enormous.

Scorpo is a very, very, very big bug man.

And so I think he respects size.

And he's going to look at you, his fellow size queen, and say, yes.

What would you have me do?

What is our strategy?

I don't want us to...

Lack any of the elements.

Would you have me go and harvest or

keep the other teams from harvesting our modes?

What would you what would you say?

Yes, I believe

with your size, perhaps defense

would be

good use of your skills.

Would that

you how's your awareness?

How's your per per perception?

It is.

I am a subterranean sort of uh being by my nature, but for what I lack in senses, I more than make up for it with speed and grit.

He is going to skitter over.

You are starting over here in the quarter, the nature quarter,

which contains this sort of like long observation platform and the gardens and a little bit of the forest with the big tower that you ended up leaping out of in the last trial, Hellgrammate.

He's going to scurry up that tower and sort of just like keep watch, keep Sentinel here to look out for other aspirants who may come into the nature quarter to get some nature moats and is going to try and disrupt those, which leaves the three of you to go off and do whatever you want.

Okay, Griffin, can I ask two clarifying questions?

Sure.

Are only nature moats available in the nature sector?

Yes.

To get, you know, fire moats, you have to be in the fire quarter and do something with a fire, right?

To get earth moats, you have to go to the earth quarter uh and do something to transport transform create or destroy earth are these red lines that on the map here are these physical barriers no these are just to sort of denote the the division and that's the second question can we go into the other sectors you can

okay go ahead But you may be interfered with.

And so like the question is, are you trying to do so stealthily or quickly or whatever idea you might have for how you want to like interact with these elements to harvest them, you know, I will want some explanation of like how you are going about it.

Scorpo, you go up the tower.

I'm already up here.

Good.

Good job.

Is the forest we're in like big, thick, old trees or like new growth, or what are we looking at?

Yeah, I guess you didn't come here in the last trial.

It's

largely sort of pine and spruce, very, very tall, towering, shady thicket,

like a dense canopy that it's difficult to see the sky through when you're standing on the forest floor looking straight up.

Okay.

Fellas, I just want to point this out.

Last time I was here, there was a pretty wicked, like a giant monster here in these woods.

Well, we'll keep an eye out for it.

Well, hey, look, I'm just showing leadership qualities by warning you ahead of time.

Okay, well, if we see him, him, we'll hide.

Don't want him to stomp on you or anything like that.

So.

Okay, cool, man.

Yeah.

Could Helgrammit do an Arcana check to see if he can spot these moats?

I mean, the moats are all over, right?

You can see them kind of like floating around the air.

Even here in the nature area,

you can see them hovering around.

They appear to be somewhat translucent and ephemeral.

It stands in contrast, Loravith, with the moat of earth that you collected during the last sort of off time as you were exploring the mountains.

This is like a hardened amber marble that you have in your collection already.

So you all are starting with a bit of a leg up in that you have this one earth moat already that you will use in the next part of the trial.

What happens when we try to grab the nature moats?

Nothing.

Your hand passes right through them.

In order to actually change.

So

we can't move them or relocate them.

Change things.

You have to change nature, change the wind, change the trees.

Riches is going to do a poison spray on a bush.

Okay.

Yeah, that's not technically sort of evoking the elements.

So if you want to do a little bit of pesticide sort of spray, is that the intent here?

Yes, it is, Griffin.

Okay.

Go ahead and make an attack roll against a bush.

It's a constitution check from a bush.

Constitution check from a bush.

Okay.

You manage to pick the one living bush.

And he says, hey, watch it, buddy.

Oh, man.

I'm so sorry, man.

All the bushes are dead.

What's that?

You're telling me all the other bushes are dead.

Sorry, the only sentient.

The plague has swept across this land, Griffin.

The only sentient bush, I should say.

It rolled a two.

The only man bush.

It very, very quickly sort of starts to wither up.

Oh, my God.

Max damage.

Yeah, it does.

Yeah.

With a 12, the bush stands with these viney feet and says,

You think you can take on me, Bushman, master of the forest domain?

Why, I oughta.

And then he

shrivels up.

His leaves turn brown and wither and fall off, and he turns into a tumbleweed that the wind picks up and blows off of the island.

You know where tumbleweeds came from?

That's exactly where they came from.

From me

as that happens, you see from where he is, two green moats of light solidify and turn into

green marbles that fit right into your palm and you collect two nature moats.

Okay.

Who's next?

Hey everybody, start destroying shit.

Hellgrammer is going to there are other moats around, right?

I mean, there's just nature moats around you.

There's, if you want the other elements elements to sort of get an even mix for your your elemental crafting in the next round you'll need to go to those other areas okay hellgrammit's gonna make his way up to the water section the water okay hold on are we is everybody clear on how we collect the moats What are you, how, what's your impression of it, Dad?

You tell me what you think and I'll tell you.

Well, we either alter them or we destroy something.

And I think that with his freezing fingers power, it would make sense for Hellgrammate maybe to head to the water area

where there's lots of water and try to freeze some of the moats.

Okay.

Sure.

Just, hey, just be careful, okay?

Like, be sneaky or something so that they don't see you because they'll try to hurt you, okay?

I'd like to travel with the Mugman.

Okay, I'll just sit here and destroy shit.

Well,

you

do whatever you...

I give you permission to do whatever you feel you should do, Lorebeth.

Lead the way.

Lead the way.

Onward.

All right.

The two of you make your way north towards the

watery quarter.

As you approach, no one's really been up to this part of

the map quite yet.

You can see this

great lake here that takes up most of this quarter.

There are two bridges spanning the lake connecting to an island at the center, which appears to be like

two lily pads with

a big

building sort of sandwiched between them that appears to be like a red glassy flower.

Inside, through the red glass, you can see what appears to be like a really nice sort of spa that does not appear to be in operation now during the trial, but you make note of

it for later.

If you survive this trial, you know, perhaps a massage or a mud mask or something might be.

Would you say this great lake was normal or is it kind of eerie?

That's really, it's not eerie.

Okay.

It's.

So it's a superior.

You would say it was superior.

I would say that you're on some bad shit, Dad.

So

give me both of you a stealth check.

Credit got finger legs.

That's.

Huh.

Yeah.

Debatable.

Sorry, I was on a a phone call.

What are you guys talking about?

Josh Owen's pitching his sequel.

I was talking to Joel.

Sorry.

To the hit Tom Green film.

Right.

That everyone remembers.

This phone's ring off the hook.

We've already got figuring legs.

Stealth check from both of you, please.

I have advantage on stealth checks due to chameleon carapace.

When you are hiding,

which...

I'm just reading what it says here on the thing.

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

What else would we be doing if we weren't moving still?

9, 11 minus 2, 9.

Mine was 14.

Okay, well, we'll average those out.

As you all sort of traipes through the woods on the far edge of the lake here,

you notice that within this glass flower building, uh, you can see that someone has taken notice of you.

You see that uh Hilda, the octopoid, I don't know if that's a word, sea witch, uh, comes out and uh leaps off of one of the lily pads to splash into the water and she begins swimming in your direction.

So what are you specifically doing here, Hellgrammate, to try and transform the the the water?

Um, are there moats over the water?

Are there moats in the water where are the moats yeah there's moats everywhere the the moats are not like um

the moats aren't necessarily where you're supposed to focus your attention if you do stuff with the water here in the water area water moats will come to you it's not like the target to aim for or something all right there's like a little fingerling of water yes there's like a small small little um outcropping here so um right next to he's going uh hell grammar's going to cast um

frost Fingers on the water.

Okay.

Frost Fingers

freezes non-magical liquids in the area that are not being worn or carried.

Okay.

Give me.

Is this a

roll of any kind?

Constitution saving throw.

I mean, this is pretty explicitly like not.

The,

I guess it does say non-magical liquids in the area that aren't being worn or carried.

How 15-foot cone?

Yeah, I mean, this is a significant amount.

Now, this is an evocation spell that you are casting.

It is not necessarily to create or destroy water inherently, but you were sort of warned that using evocation magic to

harvest these would be of somewhat limited effect.

So I think maybe just a straight-up

Give me just a straight up intellect sort of role, and

that will determine kind of like how effective this is and how many moats you're gonna get out of it.

Okay.

Intellect.

That would not include nature?

No.

No, no, no.

Sorry, not intellect, intelligence.

So it's just a D20 plus

three.

That's 13 plus three, 16.

Okay, yeah, with a 16, you reach your chilly fingers down into the water and you touch it.

And as you do, you see

ripples of white begin to spread across the surface

that then penetrate the surface of the water.

And you basically turn this whole little outcropping into a solid sort of block of ice.

As that happens, you see three moats of this blue aquatic elemental energy

begin to materialize over this block of ice.

And as they appear, you two see Hilda the sea witch

spring out of the water, launching herself out

of where she was kind of patrolling, swimming around, and she is going to try to seize those moats.

Loraveth, what do you do?

Hell Grammitt is kind of, you know, deep in his his magical process here, freezing the water.

You see Hilda coming to try and steal the moats that he just created.

Dude, hello.

Hmm.

What's like proximity, Griff?

Like, give me a, like, what's

you were sort of standing right next to Hell Grammar.

So, I mean, you're, you are right next to this situation.

If you wanted to try to grab them before she did, that is an option.

If you wanted to try and like get in her way or block her somehow, as long as she's...

What do you know of her abilities?

I don't know that you know anything of her abilities.

I think you can just kind of assume that they are

Hilda,

that they are water-based, as she is like.

like.

Shape water.

She has

allowed to know that, though.

Yeah, I mean, I guess

we do have a big list of all the people and all the spells that they do know.

So, like, your characters wouldn't know that, but you know that shape water is her power.

Now, that would be of limited effect here, right?

Because that's not, that's so explicitly doing the thing that Trace warned you not to do that, you know, it's not like a huge advantage.

And is it the class of magic that is specifically the issue?

Yes.

because is and shape water is evocation?

Uh, well, I mean, shape water, if you use this magic to to move the water around or to change it in some way, like it it kind of goes against the the spirit of the thing.

This effect, freezing like a huge uh body of water like this, would have netted more moats, but because specifically it was sort of an evocation magic that used it, it was it was a smaller harvest.

Okay, um,

yes, okay, I am going to

Hilda!

I know nothing of your abilities, but I look forward to learning!

And I'm gonna cast lightning lure on her.

On her?

Um, wait a minute, hold on.

I just remember your stupid rules.

Give me a second.

Attacking rule.

Your stupid attacking rule.

Uh, no, you know what?

I am going to

cast lightning lure on the water.

Uh, okay.

In the direction of the moats.

Uh, sure.

I want to try to electrify the water.

I love it.

Yeah, to try and ward her off.

I like that.

Yes, exactly.

Uh, okay, so that's gonna be.

Imagine Lorvith like whipping the water with his

the lightning leash, trying to like ward her away from it.

Yeah, that's rad, basically.

Uh, okay,

so.

Turkmenist succeed in a strength-saving throw.

I'm not gonna make you roll for this because this is not um

you

don't, the water's not going to make a strength saving throw.

It's kind of intimidation, like, but I...

Intimidating the water?

I'm intimidating her by attacking.

That's a fair point.

Give me an intimidation check.

And I will say, because of

your clever application of magic here, you can roll it with advantage.

Great.

So that's a 16 plus 420 or a 18 plus 14.

Oh, no, 10 plus 414.

So 20.

Yeah.

With a dirty 20, you see her swim forwards, and then as this crackling wall of energy then courses through the water between her and this block of ice in the moats,

you see her double back and swim further away.

As she does so, she squirts out a cloud of black ink into which she vanishes.

But you have warded her off, and you all are able to collect your three elemental moats of water.

Now we got a copyright strike because that sounded exactly every sounding song, lad.

That was like listening to it.

Poppers doing John Williams.

I'm sorry.

In the meantime, Gucci over here.

In the meantime,

I want to find like a densely vegetated.

Hell yeah, dude.

Meanwhile, the gardening continues unabated.

Okay, a densely vegetated.

Give me a nature check, Rictus.

Oh, no.

I have, I'm going to tell myself, reminder, I have a disadvantage on ability checks.

Is this an ability check?

Yeah, this is pretty explicitly an ability check.

This doesn't apply to like attack rolls or defense rolls or whatever, but yeah, I mean,

yeah, five is not great.

I mean, you look around, you don't necessarily notice like any part of these grounds that are more kind of magically enriched than any others.

Okay.

Well, anyways, I'm going to cast Wither and Bloom.

Okay.

Which explicitly says non-magical vegetation in that area withers.

And it's in a 10-foot radius from me.

So all around me and above me and below me.

That's amazing.

What kind of role does this require?

Well, it would require a constitution saving throw.

The non-magical vegetation in that area just withers.

There's no...

Yeah.

No,

there's nothing else to it.

Yeah.

And this is not evocation magic.

So, wow.

You, uh, what's it, what's it look like when you use Wither and Bloom to this sort of effect?

Um, the

kind of skeletal, ghoulish magic hand comes out of the left, and the gold angelic hand comes out of the right, and they just kind of whip around in this circle, swirling around each other, creating this ball of like sick, sickly green gold energy.

Yeah.

Um, And in this

20 foot wide sphere, you just see all of the

life drain from any plant it touches.

10 foot.

10 foot wide.

Well, 10 foot foot radius.

So 10 foot to the left, 10 foot to the right.

10 foot in front.

Yeah.

10 foot radius.

So what's the circumference?

The question is, if 10 foot is the radius, the circumference.

Then the diameter is 20 feet.

The diameter would be 20 feet.

And if we multiply that by pi,

then that's a lot of vegetation.

No matter what the math comes out to, that's a lot of vegetation.

The thing is, we're talking about a lot of vegetation.

Yeah.

The diameter is...

Is the diameter 10 feet?

No.

The radius is 10 feet.

Oh, my God.

Which means the diameter is 31.4 feet.

No.

Yeah, because it's three, it's times pi.

No.

How up does it?

The diameter is

up 10.

It's a square.

Okay, the diameter is 2R.

It goes 10 to my left, 10 to my right, 10 in in front of me, 10 behind me, 10 above me, 10 below me.

The diameter of it, so it's like 100 feet because it's 10 in all directions.

10 times 10, I knew we'd get there eventually.

Okay, I killed the whole forest.

You killed the meanwhile, Smokey the Bear is like, whatever you've done, it's gone too far.

You 10 feet, one foot, a single mouse, Travis.

Only you can start forest fires.

You cast Wither and Bloom in this way, and uh, even though you usually use this spell as a sort of more explicitly life-draining uh apparatus, it is incredibly effective here.

And uh, it sort of expands outward from you at first, and you see a light wind pickup that begins to blow through this circle of trees and uh brush uh immediately surrounding you.

And then, as the circle contracts, it's like it brings all the life and

greenery of this forest with it.

And as it sort of sucks up that that greenery, it manifests at your fingers.

And you collect six floating moats of green light from the air.

You all are up to eight.

Nice, dude.

Nice.

Eight of these nature moats.

I'm going to collect all the dead leaves and sticks and branches and everything as much as I can.

Okay.

And sprint over to the fire section.

Okay.

We will circle back to that when we return to

your turn.

Give me a perception roll real quick, Rictus.

Ooh.

Okay.

Oh, with disadvantage.

Yeah.

8 plus 4, 12.

And a natural 20.

So 12.

Okay, with a 12, as you sort of are collecting these sticks, you look up for a moment and in this wizard's tower overlooking the forest where you all have Scorpo on patrol, you see he is staring at you pretty intensely.

He's got sort of little,

you know, beady eyes barely visible on these like little slits of his

face chitin.

But you can tell that he saw what you did and seems to be kind of observing you with an expression you can't quite make out with a 12-perception chat.

Is it pride?

It is not pride.

It is, he is feeling a way about you that is

not great.

Love?

Not

great.

Not love.

I mean, love can be weird sometimes.

Tell me about it, man.

I hear one of my cats upstairs crying.

You know what they're upset about.

Just like the state of things and whatever.

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

Dad, we don't know how to...

Yeah, they love the smooth bird.

Dad, we want our smooth bird.

We don't have jobs.

We can't buy our own food.

We don't know how to order things.

Dad, we're so scared.

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

What's happening?

Where are we?

Yeah.

Where are we?

But you know what?

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

You're going to open it up.

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

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

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

In my experience, at least, my cats have been a little healthier they've had a nice nice looking coat and they just love they love smalls they love it smalls cat food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free ingredients um and it's delivered right to your door and cats.com named it their best overall cat food and get this after switching to smalls 88 of cat owners report overall health improvements for smalls food that's a big deal for a limited time only because you are i was really proud of that just i was really proud

sorry trav that was great thank you for a limited time only because you're an adventure zone listener you can get 60 off your first smalls order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com slash adventure that's 60 off when you head to smalls.com slash adventure plus free shipping again that's smalls.com slash adventure Hey, this week we're coming to sorry to interrupt.

I just kind of burst in.

Okay.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Hey, I'm also sorry.

I'm also sorry.

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

If you're coming to

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

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

We want to see you there.

We need you there.

Join us.

What are you doing?

That's so great.

Yeah.

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

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

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

In Austin, and Austin.

Are we doing what, Trav?

What are we doing in Austin, buddy?

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

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

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

Tickets for all those shows are on sale now.

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

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

Yeah, we month, new merch, new you.

Well, yeah, sort of.

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

Go to mackerelmerch.com, 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.

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

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

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

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show, Let's Learn Everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Uh, okay, Lorivif.

You can, by the way, fellows, you can custom add stuff to your inventory if you want to keep track of the moats we collect.

I'm also keeping track of the moats that you all collect.

So far, you have Griffin can lie sometimes.

I'm not going to lie.

I trust Griffin.

Eight nature, three water.

You have one earth and no fire moats so far.

And where are we on the timer?

The time is about halfway elapsed.

So.

Loravith, aren't you like a mountain type of person?

You know,

stone and shale and all that kind of crap?

Yeah.

Why don't we head over to the earth part

and see if we can get into some stuff over there?

Look at where Bugman.

Look at where it is that you're saying.

Look.

That's all the way over there, Bugman.

I well, I know, but I mean, how- How wish me to walk all the way over there?

Uh-huh.

No, don't come over here to the trees.

We'll find more moks over here.

All right, all right, very well.

I mean, I agree.

I'm just watering, okay.

We're watering deeper into the forest, okay, into the water side of things or into the nature side of things, yeah, into the water side of things.

Okay, cool

because he just got a bunch of bushes, and I don't know that, but I don't not know that.

Yeah,

I yell, I yell it out, I killed a bunch of bushes.

Scorpo, if you'd like to contribute anything to the group, go right ahead.

You see Scorpo leap down from the tower and grab the top of a pine tree that he scuttles down, and you hear voices sort of begin to emerge from the forest.

You see him,

you assume, trying to ward off somebody who has come to collect some moats.

Are there more moats in the water over on our side?

There are as many.

You all could, if you wanted to, post up here in the water side and just keep doing shit with the water and keep getting moats if you want to.

This is not a situation where you're going to collect all the things, right?

Okay.

The moats materialize as you do this shit.

And so as long as you...

Bugman,

I'm going to try something.

At least

try to keep a look at it, huh?

Absolutely.

You have my permission to go ahead.

Okay, Lorvith takes off all of his clothes.

Great.

Oh, God.

Stop, Bugman.

No, I'm not.

No, Don, I'm not looking at you.

I'm not looking.

I'm not looking.

This is fine.

Loraveth takes off all of his clothes.

He looks

at his tattoos.

The Goliaths have tattoos, many of which many Goliath believe that their fate.

is held within these markings.

There's something in these markings that they can learn about their future.

That's not important here.

It's just something that crosses his mind as he takes off all of his clothes and jumps into the water.

Awesome.

Okay.

I got to admit something.

Yeah.

Help Grimmett snuck a little peek.

Yeah.

You got a peek.

You got to check it.

I mean, he's got to be 10 feet tall.

You got to be sure.

Yeah.

Okay.

You hop into the water.

It is

bracingly cold.

You went for a dip in the

sort of waterfall pond on the other side of the island earlier.

This is considerably colder.

You don't know if it is sort of naturally that way or if it is because of the giant ice cube that was just kind of

damage roll?

Slight damage roll.

What's that?

Can we do a quick damage?

No,

this is cold water.

You're made of hardier stuff than that.

You're not going to take damage from getting in cold water.

It is somewhat difficult to,

you know, see under this water.

There is still a lingering ink cloud from where Hilda sort of zipped away earlier, but you are able to be in the water without taking any damage.

Okay.

I am

he closes his eyes and casts

absorb elements as a second level spell.

Okay.

Absorb elements.

So that is a reaction.

So let me think of how we

so I did it when I jumped in.

That was my thought is like

I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to trigger something here.

I'm trying to see if I could make this work because i only have these this many spells so yeah sure um

okay so you have damage resistance damaging type so let's start in the next turn um

okay i this is what i was trying to goad you into man i was trying to goad you into giving me damage so i was trying to say like hey are you sure i didn't get any damage are you sure i mean if you want to hmm

if you want to try and damage yourself with water if you can tell me how you damage yourself.

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, Griffin, okay, okay.

Okay.

Lorvin jumps in.

Yeah.

Naked.

Yeah.

Nothing happens.

Ah!

It's so cold.

Damn.

He looks around to see if there's any like higher ledges.

Higher peaks around the water.

Is there any like outcroppings or like higher ledges?

But better jumping off points.

If you wanted to climb a tree and like foon into the water

i'm gonna climb a tree and foon yeah great i love it give me give me an athletics check please the 17 plus 320.

hell yeah man uh what's it look like uh he clambers up the tree uh uh and he reaches the very peak and i i think i like to imagine that no matter where you were on the island

No matter where you were, you might have looked over at the trees at that moment and seen a giant naked goliath just leaning back on a tree and flinging himself into the water and just screaming foon

as you foon downwards and you cast absorb elements are you still doing that or is it yes yes that is the that is what i'm trying to it didn't work last time right i tried to it didn't work okay

uh as you do it this time I mean, technically, you don't have to cast it again, right?

You still have the

ward around you.

And so as you hit the water, the effect is instead of feeling that familiar slapping sting on your skin, it is like there is sort of an invisible buttress between your body and the water, which makes the foon even more dramatic.

And this like perfectly lorvette-shaped,

outlined splash launches straight up into the sky.

Hellgrammat, from where you are, you know, a bit deeper into the forest, you can see it arch upwards, creating a sort of rainbow effect as the water drizzles back down.

And Loriveth, as you breach the surface of the water again, you see that three more moats of blue elemental light have formed that you are easily able to collect.

Can they just absorb into me?

I mean, I've absorbed elements, right?

No,

these are sort of tangible

objects, yes.

All right.

I'll grab them.

Okay.

Well, you know what?

I'm actually pretty disoriented.

Is he close enough to get them or should I go ahead and scoop them up?

I mean, they sort of appeared in the cavity you left in the water.

I'll scoop up my three.

I'll scoop up my three.

Okay, great.

Let's check in on Rictus.

Rictus, you have collected all of these dead plants and everything.

And you were heading towards the fire quarter.

Yeah.

Specifically the big kind of burning fire closest to the ziggurat.

Okay.

You make your way over to the fire quarter and you can see that there is this sort of grand bonfire here between these big glowing red crystals in the residential block.

And you can see that there is a, you can see a hasty Jane actually is sort of standing guard by the fire.

And she says, oh shit, Rick this.

Rig this.

Hi, Jane.

Hey, how's it going?

Oh, it's going great.

How are you doing?

Not bad.

Have you gotten a lot of moats?

Oh, yeah, I got some.

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

We should team up later because if we can work together to take out the other two teams, then

we'll win and we won't die.

Oh, that sounds great.

Can I grab some fire modes real quick?

Yeah, I'm supposed to keep people from doing it, though, but Rictus, you're like my dude.

And will you share some of them with me?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

I mean, as long as you, you know, maybe split them even 50-50, then

we can, you know, make a deal.

51.49

yeah i guess sure yeah if no that was a joke yeah that sounds great okay cool yeah go for it man uh i hand her half of the sticks and stuff okay

and you're just gonna chuck them right into the blaze i'm gonna do dip them in the blaze one at a time light them on fire and then put them out okay that's interesting because that way i'm making fire one at a time

to get as many modes as possible instead of just one big lump.

I love it.

This is going to be a time-intensive thing so this is going to take the remainder of your i i think this is probably the last option available to you last action but it it will be more effective doing it in this very specific uh

very very kind of clever way um

i'm going to say this is not going to take a check because you're not going to do good at that what with your exhaustion level um but if you are willing to spend the rest of your time on this very slowly putting sticks into the fire taking them out and uh uh you know

extinguishing the small flames that you create.

You are able to harvest...

The two of you together are able to harvest six moats of fire.

And you see Hasty Jane say, all right, three and three.

Sound good to you?

Yeah, that works.

Thanks for being so chill.

Yeah, of course.

But for real, like later when I guess we all have to fight,

let's try not to go after each other because, well, I mean, we pretty easily could if you all are like sort of a nature one and we're a fire one we'll burn it right up but we're not gonna do you like that because yeah and i'm sorry that you got stuck with such an absolute boner team it's actually cool because like burger man's actually super chill like

gunk and dr legoon like yeah they're but like burger man is actually pretty chill and i think you guys actually have a lot in common what's his whole deal burger he has burger for a head and yeah uh fast food he talks in like fast food um sort of slogans and he's he can shoot grease all over the place oh that's cool yeah the grease comes out of his mouth I bet that's really good with the fire stuff.

Oh, shit.

I didn't even think about that.

Burger Man, get back here.

You should grease on the fire.

Let's hop back over to Hellgrammet.

Hellgrammit, you have a little bit of time left here.

Do I have time to get to

the mountains?

Yes, you should have time to get to the mountains.

You're fairly close where you are at the sort of top of the water quarter here.

Okay.

Um, I'm going to um move to the mountains, okay,

and

try to climb up as as far as I can.

Okay, so give me an athletics check.

This isn't to see if you fall or anything, it's just to see sort of how high up you lurk.

Will I still have an action?

Yeah, of course.

Okay,

uh, athletics check, you said, yes,

Yeah.

That's five.

Okay.

With a five, you are able to, with considerable effort, climb up to the mouth of the mine shaft entrance where Lorave

entered in the previous trial in order to defeat the icy dragon within.

However, because it took you so long, you can see that

Haze and Blaze, two of the Arcane Gladiators,

just dripping with sweat that pour in rivulets down their

intensely defined musculature, are climbing up the mountain right beneath you to try and stop you from doing whatever it is you're about to do.

The effect of your sort of slow climb here is that whatever you're trying to do here is going to have to happen pretty quickly.

Do I have time to do a nature check and then cast a spell?

Sure.

Yeah.

If the nature check is just kind of relying on your natural insight, I think that's sort of an instantaneous sort of...

Yeah, that's a 14.

I want to look for loose rock or loose shale or loose anything nearby.

Okay.

With a 14, you are able to find one sort of section of the rock just sort of above the mineshaft entrance where

there has been a cleft that has been carved naturally or unnaturally, right?

Everything on this island was sort of magically generated.

but here you can see basically a weak point in the rock where you can see pretty deeply into this crack and you know that it is somewhat weakened.

Okay, I would like to use infest and send the swarm into there to try to start some kind of landslide.

Interesting.

Okay.

Infest.

Infestation

causes a cloud of some kind of

bugs.

What kind of insect are we sending into the rock to try and

I think

Hercules beetles?

Oh, I love it.

I love it.

Okay, so typically this would have to be a constitution saving throw, but we are really bending the application of the spell here.

So why don't you...

You see these Hercules beetles, right?

They form from your hands.

They skitter up into uh the the stone of the mountain they climb into this crack um perhaps a word of encouragement or command or something would be uh the most sort of mechanically applicable thing here to try and encourage them to go above and beyond the call of bug duty here okay um

all right my horny little friends because they have that big you know horn on their on their heads all you you have to do is use physics, move little tiny pebbles, and little tiny things to unearth larger things to start a landslide.

And because you're so heavily armored, you may possibly survive such

crushing efforts.

Go, my little buggies, go.

All right, give me a persuasion check, please.

Uh, 10.

Okay.

Um

with a ten,

you see that the beetles begin to scurry uh feverishly into this cleft.

Uh, as they all kind of disappear into the rock, that is when Hayes and Blaze uh appear over the the cliff's edge behind you.

They kind of grab you.

Uh Hayes says, All right, ma'am, listen, you've had your fun, but uh we're we can't let you take any of our moats.

So

I think it's probably time you turn back around and head back.

And, you know, obviously we can't beat the crap out of you or anything like that, but...

Oh, but you are restraining me.

That's an attack of some kind, is it not?

Well, we asked Chris...

points to the the the glove on his hand and the little light glowing in the crystal.

And Chris said grabbing was okay.

His exact words were grabs are okay.

Really?

I missed that part of the briefing, I guess.

Your own glove lights up, and you see this little holographic crystal appear, and you hear Chris say, hey, it's me, Chris, your personal arcane assistant.

Grabs are okay.

And then he disappears.

Of course.

All right, yes, right.

He reappears.

No punches, though.

And then he disappears.

Grabs, not jabs.

That's pretty good.

Right at that moment, the boulder begins to tremble, and you see the crack begin to spread.

Haze and Days look up very quickly

as the crack forms a perfect sort of section around a big chunk of this rocky cliff face, which then falls down to the platform where you're standing.

I need a dexterity saving throw from you and from Blazen Days.

Three

that is not great.

You

try to leap out of the way.

However,

the giant sort of chunk of rock falls down and crashes into the cliff edge where you were standing, and it sort of splits in half.

One of the halves just sort of rolls over your legs where you had jumped down, and you are going to take

13 points of

damage.

Yeah, you got crushed by a big rock.

Hayes and Blaze both leapt out of the way.

The effect here is as the rock falls, you see that

six moats of elemental earth kind of tumble down from where the rock was and scatter all over

this little outcropping of cliff.

Hayes and Blaze both look up as you look up from where you're laying on the ground, and very quickly the two of them are going to try to scurry and rush forward to try and grab as many of these moats as they can before you kind of come back to their to your senses.

What do you do?

Before I come back to my senses.

Well, before you are you were just crushed by a big rock and you're not dead or

anything, but it did knock you to the ground, right?

So this is sort of a desperate scramble.

They're trying to collect these moats of earth before you can.

I think

I

well i'm gonna try to grab as many of the moats as i can okay then i think this is just gonna be a contested athletics check to see uh if you if you're just trying to move as quickly as you can and grab as many of these moats before they can grab them um

uh unless you have some other way of of collecting these these moats before these guys if you're just trying to do it with your own natural bug-like speed and agility that's that's totally fine That's what I guess I'm going to have to do.

Okay, give it a try.

Now, Griffin, would you say that because he has secondary arms, he would have advantage on this because he has four hands grabbing at them?

Do you have four hands, hell grammat?

Yeah.

You did not sound especially good.

I don't think he has any hands.

No, I do.

I have four hands.

You do have those little tiny bonus hands.

I did forget about your tiny bonus hands.

My bonus hands.

I'll tell you what.

For your tiny bonus hands, the other guys we're going to roll with advantage because there's two of them.

I will cancel that out.

It'll just be a straight-up roll, athletics versus athletics.

It's four hands versus four hands.

It's even.

Then, Then could I argue that I could use sleight of hand?

Yeah, for sure.

If you would rather use sleight of hand over athletics, it would still be contested.

But if that is a skill at which you are better, then I think, you know,

you could definitely make the arts.

It's not going to make a difference.

My roles are rolling big bags of donkey shit.

So yeah, there we are.

There again, there's a five.

Okay, great.

Okay, that's only a seven from

Hayes.

This is just going to be an even split.

By the time Hayes and Blaze, you know, get back upright and run around and grab some moats.

You use your hands to just stretch out without even having to stand up from where you crash to the ground to grab the other three.

So they have taken half of your moats,

but you have collected three more, which brings you ball to a total of four.

of these elemental moats of earth.

With that, another chromatic orb sails back up into the sky and explodes in another dazzling wave of light.

You hear Trace's voice amplified all throughout the island, and she says, Aspirants, we have completed the first round of the trial of elements, and now you must return back to your assigned quarters.

It is time for you all to weave your elemental moats together to form a mighty elemental warrior.

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