The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 10

Previously on Taz Royale, by merging your modes, you will create more complex and for the purposes of this trial, more powerful material. Those materials will be given life. Yeah, man, but what's the Titanic of the swamps? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And now, as the Titanic sinks, Swampers grows in size forms thick, meaty legs, a huge wide trunk big, strong arms and says, I'm still swampers. But now I'm more like swamp thing. All of you are Voltron-style controlling swampist, your elemental in this final battle of the third trial. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Adventure Zone, Taz Royale, our battle royale season. We are in the the heat of the trial of evocation in the last episode the three of you with your teammate, Scorpo, the giant scorpion man built an elemental as did the three other competing quartets here on the Ock-De-Zig-er-O-Rot Island. and after quite a bit of experimentation and fusion and good old fashioned magic, you all have created Swamp Thing, the beloved character. What's that, Trev? I was like, wild thing, but Swamp Thing. It was kind of an intro song I was working for him. Cause he played two copyright infringements at once. He cancels out that's exactly the right question. I listened to y'all, that's how Glee got did it. I would change the lyrics to Swamp Thing. It's that wild thing. So it's now parody. I love it. So that's very easy. Making it safe. Yeah, that's how weird Albert gets away with it. That's criminal. Let's begin at the very end of the last episode. The three of you turned into Swamp Material and fused with the elemental that you had created. And while you all have seen sort of, any number of unimaginable things here during your time on the Ziggurat, in this moment where your bodies are transmuted into this kind of primordial muck and your consciousness is shunted into the body of this 25 foot tall Swamp Thing. You truly realize the awesome power that the octave possesses. You all feel your consciousnesses latch onto this new form. And in this weird sort of abstract space, you feel the presence of your three teammates doing the same thing. And for just a moment. What a score, bro, feel like. That's a great question, Travis. In this moment, the boundaries between your minds has become a little bit blurred. And you see flashes of your teammates' memories kind of manifest before you. You all see rictus standing before some sort of altar. Looking very nervous, you see Hellgram at laboring resentfully for his hive. You see Lora Vith locked into this just ceaseless, territorial battle and you see Scorpo surviving alone out in the wilds at the very edge of the folds foggy border. And in this moment, you all realize you could probably sneak a peek at more of those memories if you wanted to try and pry. I leave that up to you. I was about to ask, I was like legitimately about to ask if I could look in. But like before you offered the opportunity, I was going to ask to watch Rictus' memories to see if I could spot any weaknesses of his. Okay, Akir Shal, we're gonna do this. Rictus, make a wisdom saving throw for me. This is gonna dictate sort of how successful this is and more importantly, if Rictus sort of clocks that you're doing this. That's a 13 total. Okay, with a 13 total Rictus, you get the sense that someone poked around in your memories, but you are not exactly sure who. What do you look for? Probably Hellgram. What do you look for, Lora Vith? As mentioned, I wanna see if there's some sort of weakness that is more obviously telegraphed during this moment that Rictus is fixating on. Some something that I might be able to exploit later. We're just to understand more, I guess, about what makes Rictus tick. I can tell there's a lot of layers of theatricality there. So I'm trying to get a better sense of who he is as a person. Yeah, you see a memory of younger Rictus, maybe 12, 13 somewhere in there, getting kind of lectured by his family members, the other necromancers in his life, about the purpose of necromancy, the strength of it, why they do what they do. And it's very much focused on bringing people back to serve you and the idea of the strength of the power over death and that kind of thing. How attentive of a student does he appear to be? Well, is he really dialed in or is this like, is he obligation sort of thing? He keeps interrupting to ask questions about like, well, but couldn't that also be used to help or to do this and that is getting like very much like, well, it could, but away to engage, but maybe not in the way that they were hoping he would be. Yeah, he's not super on board. With the concept of necromancy as a, like, this is a powerful tool that we can use to maintain power and that people kind of fear that kind of deal. As you're poking around in Rictus's memory, this part is a little bit confusing because there's a lot of death stuff in his history. There is something present in his more recent memory that is really, really potent. It is really, you feel it a lot more than his other memories. You are able to pick up on the fact that Rictus has been, has been cursed by this statue, the specter of death here on the Zagrass aisle. I don't know how forthcoming you've been about that, Rictus, but I think in this moment, like when the walls are down, it's not something you're gonna be able to hide. Anyone else? I'd like to pry into both of them. I wanna see their proudest memories. Well, I thought, listen, if he's, if we're prying on lots of people now, I thought, wait, we just won't be able to. Yeah, I think let's pick one out. Just to keep it moving. And listen, I can, the actor, listen, that's fine by me. I don't wanna stay, I should have thought. I should have thought to see if I could look at all, at both of them. Well, yeah, no, if Lord of us gonna pry, then I'll pry and Hellgram it, we'll keep the triangle going. There we go. I wanna pry and Hellgram it and see his proudest memory, what makes him feel good about himself. Roll a wisdom saving throw down? Just so we know how much Hellgram it sees here. That would be an eight. Okay, you are unaware that this memory is being accessed. Don't do, don't do, don't do, don't do, don't do. Hellgram it thinks back to a moment when he was just a low, lowly drone and was doing his part. He was one of the feeders in their hive that fed the queen, La Rosa, if you remember, La Rosa. Of course. So he sees himself on this one particular day. He's just in the line of drones, you know. Oh, we're all, and they're just doing their drone- Yeah. anything, whether going up and then dropping some kind of hideous looking stuff down. So the queen, La Rosa can yummy down on whatever it is that yummy down on. And he has this moment of revelation where he thinks this is not enough. This is not good enough. Why can't I be the ruler? Why does it always have to be a queen? Why couldn't it be a king? And as he... And then it's right. I love it. As he goes walking up and starts going up the side of the feeding panel. That was a joke. I don't like men's rights. No one reacted to it. I don't want to be clear. I'm glad you clarified that trap. Okay. He, you know, after whatever millennia of the way these things are, he takes his little chunk of food and just drops it. Just drops it on the side of the mound. And looks around. Everybody reacts in shock. And he says, oh, sorry. Dropped it. Hold on. And he goes chasing down the mound after it. And then the drones get back in time and they start falling in. And when no one's looking at him, he sneaks out and he leaves the hive for greener pastures and to try and fulfill his destiny. And for that moment, when he sees that he has broken away from all those menial drones, he feels a surge of pride in his insectoid hearts. Feel the rain on your skin. No one else can feel it for you. Thank you, confetti. I don't know that song. No one else. What? I shouldn't have gone to harming, man. I would have bumped right up to melody if I had that I was going to be flying solo. Kibben first chair juice. Oh, man, the rest is the melody's unsupported. I don't know why, not unwritten. It's written. How about you, Helgram? Oh, I got to look into. Lorveth. Don't have to. Look at that. Yeah, I do. That dingus. The dingus corpio. Nope, nope. I'm going to look into Lorveth's door. I want to know. Lorveth's most terrifying moment. What scared Lorveth the most? That's good. Can you roll a wisdom saving check for me here, Lorveth? One time there was a big old bug landed on his shoulder, freaked in the fuck out. Never since then he's had a real problem with us. Ooh. 16 plus 3, 19. 19. With a 19, I'll say it is up to you. I think you got to give something here. But with a 19, you feel specifically Helgram it. Kind of poking into your memory. And like, you know that that's what it is because you just did it to Richtus. And you, I think you're able to resist a little bit if you want to not get like two crazy specific with it, but I leave that up to you. 19 is a very good save. Okay. Here's what you see Helgram it. You see a cliff's edge. There's three or four sparse trees that are like sort of lining the edge of the cliff. And there's a big rock. And there is a small gala, I think probably still would have been about six feet tall at this time, but he doesn't look more than eight. If he was a human, and you can hear him yelling, please anybody help, I'm lost. Please anyone. And you can see him like staring out of the edge yelling, please anybody. Is he calling out over the edge? He's clearly lost like he doesn't know where he's at. Oh, poor little guy. Please, anybody. Oh. Little of course not you. Bug man. Bug, right? I didn't want to bother you. And the boy turns on you and he's speaking like clearly. Oh, clearly. Oh, see. Oh, I'm out. I'll call me now. Rather ink and we need a moment. You get caught red handed Helgram it. And in that moment, you are a little bit distracted as you feel another. You feel my fucking boot in your chest as I kick you off the cliff is what you feel. It's a sort of the dream cliff. Yes, it's an absolute. You get it, Griffith. Stratts thought boot. Yeah. Griffith acts like he's never seen a Freddy Krueger movies, but check his tattoos, man. Yeah. Mine? I have Freddy Krueger tattoos. Yeah, the Swede. The Swede Strikes. Why would I act like I don't? Why would I act like I don't know? You just never seen them, Griffith. You scared the look. Helgram it. Make a wisdom saving throw for me, please. I sure will. How about a four? How about it? It's Helgram and Kikin. Ripens. Dominate the dives. Yeah. ABC blue. All right. With a four, I'm going to twist it a little bit. Scorpo is prying into your memory. And it's a very recent one. It is the memory of your first trial here at the Octave Ziggurat. And Scorpo is present sort of in the background of your hive as you make your triumphant return after winning here at the Octave Ziggurat and have become the latest member of the Octave. It is the vision of the future that you saw during the trial of divination. And with a saving throw of four, Scorpo sees all of it, all of it. The nasty sort of domination that you desire in your heart of hearts, Scorpo is now infinitely, really intimately familiar with. And you see him standing next to the queen as you sort of tower over her in all of your arcane power. And you guys make eye contact. And then the vision ends and the wall sort of between your minds become distinct once more. And you all are now fully integrated into your elemental, into swamp thing. And you can see now, you have some senses now, though they are sort of strange, you feel a certain familiarity. You can see through its sloppy eyes. Sorry. It's sloppy, floppy eyes. It's super, super, super, super, super, sloppy. You see this giant, sliny, viny hand raise up in front of your face, but you're not really sure who specifically is making the movement. There's very much a like Ouija board sort of situation. And you also have a sort of like telepathic link with each other, which you realize when you hear Scorpo shrieking, oh, I'm dead. I'm fucking dead, fuck, oh, I hate magic so much. Oh my god. Oh, fuck, oh god. What happened? I'm dead. No, you're not dead. We're in swamp thing. What? We're in swamp thing. Where's my body? Okay, I don't. Sorry, just been clear, guys. We're in a swamp thing. Yeah, swamp thing. It's how I've been saying that. That like swamp, swamp thing. Who is a swamp thing? I, a indefinite article swamp thing. He's like spirally, he's freaking out. He is sort of, you can see swamp thing now is kind of like trying to emulate, trying to walk forward, but kind of like slops down onto the ground and like, griff, d, d forms, and then like pulls itself back up out of the ground. If I, if we are telepathically linked, I don't want to try to not like tell them, but share with them the confidence that Rictus has that the soul and the body are not the same thing. That's good. Yeah. And that they're still themselves, even without corporeal body. You know, I like this a lot. Give me a persuasion check. I will say you can have advantage on this just to kind of like get scorpos, everybody else seems fairly chill. Scorpos is the one like freaking the fuck out right now. A persuasion check to kind of like, that's a not 20 baby. Oh, yeah. Instantly. Oh, oh, okay. Well, when you put it that way, I do kind of feel like we are not just our brains and bodies. There's a witness, a silent witness at the back of all of our consciousness. And that's the thing where you get the self resides. Yeah. That's incredible. Thank you for you've just cheat with a net 20. You've just changed this man's entire sort of existential understanding and like interested. Travis is that fucking Alan Watts YouTube video that 10 minute meditation just came out nowhere like this video will find it when you need it the most like the body and the soul are separate. Okay. Ah, sit. So cool. We're not in this Voltron style, right? One of us in the leg. And one of them. This is what I need to understand. I'm actually now that we now that. Are we yes, thank you dad. This is the question that I've been like hung up on. Am I in a knee? Like, where am I like the leg man? I was interested now that I've gotten a net 20 on this. I think not only do all the characters understand it, but you guys and me understand it too. So I don't even know why you're worried about it anymore. That's a really good point. Travis, you could explain it to me. It was a 20, yeah. You all don't seem to have any kind of like localized like you're in the knee, you're in the arm. But as Scorpio kind of calms down and you guys sort of like start to poke around with what it is like to be in this body, it becomes pretty clear, pretty quickly that you're gonna have to come up with some sort of system because all four of you are basically in control of this same body. So like as you're trying to sort of figure that out, you all now that your senses have sort of reactivated. You can see sort of around the island. You can see that those dividing lines between the different sort of elemental quarters of the of the Octav Ziggurat have become these opaque walls of shrouding fog. And the only thing you can see beyond your immediate area is the Ziggurat at the center of the island where a clock has appeared in the sky, just like in the last trial. And it is hovering over the Ziggurat structure where you can see the eight members of the Octav and the aspirants all watching. And this clock has counting, it has two minutes on it, it hasn't started counting down yet. And you hear Trace's voice come through into your mind's telepathically and Trace's aspirants or now in direct control of the elemental you have evoked. You will have two minutes to learn how to operate this shared form in unison after. My race won't think that'll begin. Yes, Rickdis. Oh, sorry I was just practicing. Okay, to remind you all of the stakes, the last elemental standing will be rewarded greatly after this trial. The runner up will receive a smaller prize. Well, third place will receive an even more meager boon. But the first elemental to perish in this battle will take its pilots along with it to the grave. Your two minutes preparation begins now. And the clock starts counting down two minutes until the battle begins a period of time in which you all can sort of figure out how to move this body together. I actually have an idea. I actually have what might be a good idea. Why don't we divvy up between the four of us? It is four, right? Yeah, county Scorpo. Yeah, like one being charge of offense, one being charge of defense, one being charge of observation in the senses and one being charge of healing or constitution or something along those lines. Could I maybe suggest even more rudimentary than that? Legs, arms, head. We'll start there and like, lower of it. Take the legs. No one, no. And no one operates that way. You don't operate as an independent head in arms and legs, do you? How could if we're thinking that way? No, we need to be thinking as one. What number am I thinking of right now? Like to say it. Eight, you weren't thinking of a number. That was a trick. Seven, one good shape. I was going to say one, which one minus from eight is seven. There we are. No, yeah? What if just one of us did it and the other three can just kind of chill? Or tag team? Voting? We could vote. The time is like half a laps. So like, I've got this. Wait, I need to check one thing. Yeah. All right, I will myself to cast lightning last. Okay. In the same way that I would make it happen in my body. And I'm basically what I'm attempting to do is make something magical happen with the swamp. Like I need to know what we got. Awesome. I'm trying to see what do you have offensive man. What are you trying to whip? What are you trying to lash? The air. Just like in the ocean. No attack roll necessary. You hold out swamp things hand and you see, indeed you see lightning lash whip out of it. It has not necessarily scaled to this size, right? But you can tell that the magic abilities that you all individually possess, you can channel through this thing. In addition to whatever other powers, it might sort of natively possess. So yes, your magic is available to you. You have figured that out. Okay. And we don't know anything about the other element. You do not. Walls have sort of blocked your vision off from seeing them. But in just over a minute, it's going to drop and you will find out. I think between us all, we've got a lot of elements covered. Like heat and ice and other scales, other spells. Let's just go at it. We should lay down in the trees. Okay. We should lay down in the trees. Let the others fight for a moment. Let's dim, we're hiding in the trees. They don't know where we're at. Then we, well, here's when they think the fight is ended, they look around all the foes are slain and who rises up from the trees? It's us. At the time of our powers. He wishes telepathic wing. Yeah. I don't think that this is on purpose, but I'd like to see how much rictuses commitment to helping the fire team like he promised. Yeah. Leads through to the other three. Yeah, I think this would be a separate check. And this one's going to be quite a bit, I think higher. I'm obviously, you got a nat 20 on the last one, but this is a big thing to kind of like subtly push through. So if you want to make another persuasion check, we'll say a DC 18 to really get this going. Okay. Yeah, 11 is, I don't think 11 total. It's not strong enough. I will give you this. As you're sort of like measuring that out, you feel this telepathic link connect to Hastie Jane over on the fire team. And you can actually tell that she has been frantically trying to reach out to you. Make a perception check for me to see how effective you are. How much of a 13? 13. Okay, it's like a radio static sort of situation. You're catching like every third word, but she sounds panicked. You can hear her say, this, everyone's after you all. The other team came to my, it's and can fit to hang up. I'll try to appear, but why did you, you wouldn't work? Why wouldn't you lie? Oh shit, bad news guys. I think I figured it out. Go on. I think the other team convinced the other team members of Hastie James party to team up against us. And now that she's trying to like mess with her, but now it's three on one. We should hide in the trees. Yeah, hide in the trees. Hide in the trees. To the tower. We should go to the tower. To the tree. It's defensive. It's offensive, right? Okay. So you all to understand your plan is to become a swamp and try and hide. My, that is a goal. Is that if we hide in the swamp, then it is like we are, they won't know exactly where it will be in our absolute element. Yes, absolutely. I mean, look quite literally as little as is imaginable. Okay. I love this. With seconds remaining on this countdown clock, I think all four of you simultaneously just like, make a move as swamp thing towards the, towards this like thicket of woods around the mages tower here in your quarter. And because of the sort of like simultaneous nature of the movement, it actually works pretty fluidly. And he, you swamp thing, dives down into the trees and just as he did moments ago, when Scorpo was sort of like flailing around, just sort of deforms into a swampy bog on the floor. I am going to need a group stealth check to see how effective this is before we get into initiative and combat. And this is a, I'll just let you three roll. We'll drop highest and lowest and take the average roll. Okay. Now Griffin, when you say that dad's camouflage care of this year. Absolutely. Yes, dad, you can roll with advantage. Yes. The other two cannot. But okay. Dad, I'll always fight for you and it benefits me. I know for sure. All right, stealth checks around the table please. Okay. All right. That's an eight from Rictus. 15 from Laura Veth. 13. It's a ring of my negative two. That's really good. Yeah, 13 and if you can get higher than a 15, this is going to be a really good one. Here we go. Son of a bitch. That's a nap one. Okay, so we will take the 13 as the average roll. With a 13, you all sort of in this form, deform, you turn into just a pool of muck and you still have like your senses available to you. From this like position, you're obviously low on the ground. You can see sort of the ziggurat and the clock above it through the canopy of trees. And you see the clock hit zero and a horn resounds across the island. And with that, the fog walls disappear. And you all can see the creations of the other three teams to the east, the fire team. You can see as you are sort of warned by Scorpo during the last part of this trial, you see a towering tree and it is, it's a pine tree but it seems to be decorated in a like wild and colorful sort of fashion. Roll a history check anyone who wants to. 13, five. All right, 13. Dirty 20. 13, that was the one who's doing it. He said anybody who wants to. I did say I wanted to and I did it first, right? Did you want us all to do it? You all could for sure do it. Lord of it. I will take that then. Yeah, hell gram it. With a 20, you recognize it as a Christmas tree. It's a crit, this is a Christmas tree. And you haven't seen a Christmas tree before. Christmas isn't like a big thing in the fold, but like for whatever reason, you know that that is it. That's a Christmas tree. For us, earth, you know reality people, it's basically like the Rockefeller, you know, Plaza, massive, massive three story tall Christmas tree. It is decorated with bobbles and garlands. Tendrils of garlands are sort of whipping off of it like tentacles and it has these two thick trunks at the bottom holding it upright. That's the fire team which has hasty Jane and gunk and Dr. Legume and Burger Man on it. To the northeast, you see standing before the mountains there in the earth and quarter, you see a two story ranch style house and it is standing on two big, I'm gonna say bare feet. Wait, which way? Bare feet or bare feet? Like bare human feet and that's confusing. And you can see that. This is a naked, supple human feet. Naked, supple, huge human feet. It has sort of two second story windows with lights on and shutters sort of open on them sort of making a sort of vague eye shape, but this is a living house elemental that has been created in the wild fashion that you all know. And to your left sitting in the lake, the water, oh, by the way, the earth quarter is the sort of American gladiators, raised days, haze and blaze. Of course. And to the north, you see the water team which has the gentleman from WizBerry who came and petitioned you at the middle of this trial as well as Corrigan Hilldella and Enigma who I don't believe you from that. You can see a familiar sight sitting in the lake, you see the Titanic. You all had a brush with this yourselves while you were building your elemental out and decided against it and seeing it in this way, you are somewhat regretting that decision maybe because it is, it's not to scale with the original ship, but it is still significantly larger than any of the other elemental summoned here. Swamp thing, the Christmas tree, the house, they're all about the same size and this is, you know, much larger than the others. And you hear a deafening, threatening horn, bellow from one of its stacks across the sky and we're going to roll for initiative. Can we shade our thoughts so that horsewamp thing doesn't feel our percent? Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's, yeah, that's a time. I don't want to gesture that. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Got a few announcements before you get back to the rest of the episode. We got some new merch up in the Macroy merch store over at Macroymerch.com. New T-shirt with a helping is always a free action design on it. There's a 20-megastick and namel pins on there. Lots of really, really great stuff this month. And 10% of all of our merch proceeds this month will be donated to Border Angels, whose services include educational programs, water drops in the desert, day laborer outreach, familias reunite us in Migration Bond Fund program and shelter aid support in Tijuana, to aid migrants and asylum seekers in need. I also wanna let you know that I have a book coming up very soon. It's a choose your own adventure book. It's called The Stowe Away. It's appropriate for middle grade readers, but I think it's a rollicking adventure, a survival tale set in outer space that anyone would get a thrill or two out of. There's intrigue, there's action, there's stunts. There's everything that a book can have. I think those are the three, right? I said action in stunts, right? Yeah, no, that's all of it. So you can pre-order that now. It bit.ly slash griffin's stowe away and it would be gosh, just a huge help to me if you would consider doing that. The book is $10 and it comes out again on March 10th. So don't wait, go ahead and secure your copy today. That's it, enjoy the rest of the episode. We will be back with a new one in two weeks. So talk to you then, bye. Hey, it's TV Chef Fantasy League, you know, the podcast where we watch cooking competition shows and we treat them like fantasy sports. Right now, we're getting ready for top chef Carol Reina. 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Listen to wonderful, every Wednesday on MaximumFund.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, real Billy Joel. No problem, Griffin. A- Go ahead guys and roll initiative for me. Independent. You're going to roll it. Independent. Nice. Nine. Okay. 15. Scorpio has a five. And Swamp Thing has an 11, which shockingly is the highest of the elementals. So Swamp Thing is up first. Obviously you all are in this sort of like hiding position if you want to delay your turn and take it once the other teams have like started moving. Then that is fine. The way that I sort of envision this going is all four of you are sort of in control here. But if somebody has an idea that they want to pursue that not everybody else is wild about, we are going to go in initiative order to determine whose turn it is to pilot the Swamp Thing. So I guess hellgrainment will take it to you because you got the highest initiative. Are you wanting to keep this hiding posture that you all have taken? And then take a turn once the other teams have come close trying to surprise them or what is your plan here? Maintain stealth or do something else? Well I think if we have this mental communication, obviously we've already kind of shared the idea. Yeah. And I mean, I mean, it would be kind of stupid, which is kind of my forte for sure. Yeah, for sure. Okay. But I think sitting back though, right? I mean, this is what we wanted to do. So I kind of see how about a perception check? Yeah, sure. You can make a perception check. But you really kind of zoom in on what the other ones are doing? Yeah, for sure. Okay. I have major armor, which I'd like to cat, if we have like a turn where we're not doing anything, it's a full action. So it lasts for eight hours, you know what I mean? That is not a bad idea. What does major armor do, Rictus? It increases the target space AC becomes 13 plus its dexterity modifier. Okay, that actually wouldn't affect Swamp things. Swamp things AC is already 17. Oh, okay. Not bad. And you are trying to perceive sort of just like, get a lay of the land what's going on as the walls fall and everyone starts moving. Give me that perception check. You know what? I changed my mind. Okay. I'm going to do something else. Okay. I'm going to cast Augury. Okay. With Augury, you receive an omen from an otherworldly entity about the results of a course of action that you plan to take within the next 30 minutes. I want to see if it'll send us a sign as how well this hiding theory or our hiding plan will work. Okay. My answers, I believe, are wheel or woe. If I'm not mistaken. Yeah, wheel, woe, wheel and woe are in difference. And wagon wheel. I will say for you specifically hellgram it, I think you feel wheel. I think you're keeping it wheel right now. You are sharing this kind of like psychic link with everyone and so they can kind of feel you poking around in this kind of like divine, you know, source of information, this thought space. And so for you, it's like fully wheel and for Laura Vith and Scorpo, same deal. Rictus, I think for you, it is wheel and woe because I think you've pieced together that if this works and you hide, the result of this is going to be the other two teams are probably just going to turn on on Hastie Jane's team, the Christmas tree. Yeah, that would be a bummer for sure. Yeah, but the alternative is you all, you know, get caught and die. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that is your action. We move on next to the Christmas tree. I want you to roll a D4 for me, Rictus. This is representing sort of your friendship with Hastie Jane. If you get a four on this roll, it's 25% chance. She will sort of interfere in the plan that was concocted by her teammates. That's a two Griffon. Yeah, no, so you all see the Christmas tree run over to the observation deck and tries looking around for you. I'm going to roll a perception check. Okay, that is an 11, which is under the 13 stealth roll that you made earlier. So you see the Christmas tree kind of like poking around trying to locate you to know a veil. You can hear Hastie Jane clearer now, Rictus. You hear her say, Rictus, okay, whatever you're doing, keep doing it, stay hidden. But like, what's the plan? Because if we don't team up on you, they're going to team up on us. So like, what's the plan? Can she hear me? Yep. If I give the chance, if I give the chance, we'll attack one of them first and not you. Okay, why did you tell them that you were not going to team up with them? Why wouldn't you just say that you were going to and then not and then we could like trick them? Oh, they're assholes and I got kind of blinded by that, I guess. You hear another voice like Pop In? Who are you talking to, Hastie Jane? You hear the voice of Dr. Legume. Life flexible. How could you? You know how I feel about the bug, man. That is going to be it for the Christmas tree. No, you know what? The Christmas tree flexes its lights and starts shining its lights throughout the wood to try and help the other two locate you. Next up is the Titanic. The Titanic, you see sales over right to the edge of the lake. On the edge of the forest where you all are hiding and is going to start pumping smog out of one of its smokestacks. This layer of smog starts to roll low, clinging to the ground under the forest canopy, basically settling right on top of where you all have taken this swamp form. Let's get Laura Vithroley Constitution saving throw. That's a plus five if you click on the initiative order swamp thing. You can see all the roles there and make them yourselves if you would like to. Do you guys see the character sheet for sewer thing? Yeah, I got it. Okay. How do we go? And did you use the advantage on its initiative role, Griffin? Does it have advantage on its initiative role? I think it's expected appearance as the sewer thing is motionless instead of combat. I mean, he was first in the order. Yeah, anyway, I did forget it, but yes, thank you. Okay, so Constitution save. Swamp thing has a plus five. Laura Vith, can you roll your D20 here? Trying to beat a 15. High roll 19. Perfect, amazing. This smog, this dark, putrid green smog as it rolls over the, your sort of stagnant swamp form on the ground. You could tell that the Titanic team was trying to smoke you all out. They did not know that you are a, that you're a swamp thing. Even if this, if you had failed that role, you are immune to poison. So this, this attack would not have done anything to you. And you hear another sort of like angry, a horn resounding. Next in the order is the house elemental. It is going to climb over the ziggurat. And standing atop the ziggurat is just going to try and spot you all in the woods, where you are hiding. That is going to be a, it has to be an 18 intelligence. 18 intelligence check. An 18 investigation check to discern that the sewer thing is animate. Oh yes, so that's another aspect of unexpected appearance. That's rad, yes. Okay, so with an 18 intelligence investigation check, let me just, I can actually roll that directly from the guy. Roll. Nope, that is an 11. Again, this house has started to look for you all. And it doesn't seem to be finding, finding much purchase. You can hear some chatter happening like over this psychic air wave. But he is pretty far away from you for you to be able to pick it up. He is not aiming it directly at you, sort of as hasty Jane was doing. But you can tell that specifically the Titanic team and the house team are starting to really second-guess this plan that they had concocted to team up. With the, you know, hasty Jane's team to take you all out first. Next in the order, it's back to Swamp Thing. I mean, we still haven't been spotted. That is a good point. Maybe we could do a little, can we do a little, uh, inside out. Sort of discussion here. Yeah. Probably think. Yeah, for sure. Hmm, I think this would be a moment. If we were to sort of covertly snatch one up like a, uh, uh, to truly instill some fear and confusion rather than wait for them to, uh, approach. This is a great moment. Okay, but counterpoint. If we take out the weakest one first and blow the advantage of surprise, why not save that to take out one of the stronger ones? Is there a chance we're the weakest one? No way, man. No idea where we are. Oh, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. We draw them into our forest. We're on our home field turf. Hmm. Yes, but they will have the advantage of should they begin the attack. They haven't since this yet, right? Uh, yeah, nobody has, nobody, they didn't know what you look like, right? They are all operating at a disadvantage. From their perspective, the walls dropped and you guys were just gone. And all of their attempts to find you so far have been unsuccessful. What I want is if they, here's what I'm trying to get to. Yeah. If one of them hoes close enough, I'd love to like snatch one of them up. Like really, really kick things off a bit, get things a little, get people a little freaked out. Here's what I'm gonna say, Lord Beth, you were next in the initiative order. Yeah. You are, it is technically your, is there anyone near the, who's near the hand of the, or no, who's near the, yeah, who's near the hand? Who is near the hand of the swamp thing? Yeah, kind of like a luck roll or something. Is there, is there any, if you look at the map, you can see the Christmas tree team was standing sort of like right on the observation deck looking for you all. Okay. And so sort of to scale, they are. Has anyone wandered into the swamps yet? No. Into the forest. Not quite. Okay, that's what I would like to delay action until someone has decided to do that. Okay. So maybe while I have the initiative, yeah, I just like to give a cheeky little shake of the trees with our foot. Okay. Just a cheeky little tree shake to see if I get the Christmas trees attention. Okay, that's very, very good. Give me a, a slight of hand, right? You're trying to like, slide a foot, slide a, slide of slime. Yeah, give me that, give me a slight of hand check. You can either. This is great. I'm perfectly positioned to do this with my negative two from my five, which is three. Okay. Yeah, I mean with a three, immediately the Christmas tree, which was standing like right over you all in the observation deck, like sees you all. And they are actually next in the order. So I think a result of your failing role here is you're kind of going to get exactly what you wanted as the Christmas tree is going to leap down. Actually, D4 role for me, Rickus. Yeah. D4. Look at her four. Is it three, Gervin? Nope. Hst Jane is unable to rest control. And so the Christmas tree leaps down and it's two big trunks sort of splat down right next to the swamp. And you can see it's sort of Garland tendrils begin to whip back for an attack. However, you did prepare this exact action. Swamp thing. Slash Justin. So what do you want to do? How big is it? Talk to me a little bit about scale. Yeah. Talking about like 25, 30 feet. These things are, if you look at the character sheet sort of for sewer thing, which is what I have based this swamp thing off of, you can see that it is huge in the terminology of D&D. You can also see sort of like the other stuff that it is capable of. This guy is wandered in and this is, we are never going to have a better moment to pound the ever loving shit out of this thing. Like this is, we're not going to be able to do better. So I think that's what I want to pounce and just engulf it with our swampy mass. That is amazing. So sewer thing, there's a few things that are going to be working for it here. If this sewer thing attacks a creature, it can make one additional tendril lash attack as part of its multi attack action. So sewer thing multi attacks, you're going to make two attacks and then a free tendril lash. And then also you can use engulf as part of this action. So you are indeed going to, this is what sewer things do is they hide and then if you step on them, they fuck you up really, really fast. So this is, this is doing exactly sort of what got intended. So let's get our first multi attack role here. And it's also, and this is the worst part that is tough. It's like we're not acting in a legally distinct way from the Marvel character. That's fair. So this is very swampy thing coded actions we're taking here. We are going to do plus eight on this role, mainly attack role on the Christmas tree against the Christmas tree. Yes. Trying to be the DC 17. Okay, I'm just rolling still the D20 right in your doing the math. D20 plus eight. I roll a 14. Yep. That is going to hit. So that is going to do two D8 plus five, bludgeoning damage and grapple onto the Christmas tree. Okay, that is eight plus five, 13. Okay. 13. And then what was the other one? Do it, do it again. You get two sort of, you actually get three attacks and an engulf on your first turn here. So just another D20 plus eight. Oh, that's one. Okay, that second tendril, the Christmas tree like knows to get out of the way of. And then it sort of like stands, resolute, preparing to continue its attack that it had. Ready, not knowing that you still have quite a bit of stuff left. So you can use your bonus ambush, tendril, lash here. So one more D20 plus eight. You've already got it grappled. 15. 15. Yep, that is going to absolutely hit. So another 2D8 plus five. Got three plus six, nine plus five, 14. Okay. We're in kind of like Kaiju battle mode. So the hit points on these elementals is quite a bit higher than your own sort of squishy wizards. Okay, and then finally engulf. You have grappled successfully the Christmas tree. This grapple ends. The target has the blinded and restrained conditions is suffocating and is subjected to the following effect at the start of your turn. A DC 16 save throw or else they take a fuckload of damage. Also, if you move, the target moves with you. And you can have up to four creatures engulfed at a time. And I think I don't know if that would count since this is four sort of like people piloting a big. This is four kids in a trench coat, but. Right. I feel like one of these is a fair. Like if I can only do four, I feel like one of these guys. Yeah, they're pretty big. Fair lemon. Yeah. Okay, so they are restrained, right? They have zero speed. They have, they are going to attack you. They are going to have disadvantage on the attack roll. They are also blinded. So I mean, this is, is double disadvantage a thing? Well, you also have the chance to fair play. Or you can try to make it escape roll with a DC 16 Athletics check. Yes. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think Chris was tree gets a multi attack too. I'm going to do one attack against you all with disadvantage and then try to free from this. This prison. Okay. That is a. Wow, double 11s. So plus four, a 15 with the disadvantage, which is not enough to hit swam things AC. And then it's going to try and escape with a. Trying to hit a 16 here. That is a nine. No. Okay. So what just happened is Chris's tree saw the leaves shaking. Saw the forest tree shaking where you very unsutably kicked one of the trees and hop down. And instantly as soon as its feet touch the ground, you just went berserk and attacked it a bunch of times. And then swallowed it. The whole trunk certainly and you know, maybe the top half of the actual piney bit of the tree. And as it tried to attack you with the tendrils, some of it were, you know, they were already submerged and that was not effective. And then the tree itself tried to wiggle out of the grasp of the swamp and also did not work. You hear Hasty Jane's voice come through kind of static. Now as Dr. Legume sort of picked up on your guys secret back channel. You hear say, what are you? Are you all in this? Are you this one? And I can't quite hear anything other than that. Next. Hey, Hasty Jane. It's me, your boy Rictus. We're just kind of playing the hand. We're dealt and you know, it's not over yet. And just gotta keep on keeping on doing our best. Sorry. Okay. Next in the order is the Titanic. Now that you've revealed yourself, I think the time for stealth is over. And the Titanic is going to dip down into the lake. And then launch into the air and come crashing down on top of the two teams that have now sort of merged into one big gooey tree. So Griffin, you did accidentally say it. I just said it's gonna dig down. I would have to finish the thought. And I appreciate that. Oh gross. But I do want to say that if the Titanic was going to verb a lake, I don't think you're incorrect. And say the Titanic would dig down. I mean, let's look at the Titanic as a symbol in and of itself. Yeah, it's not a fresh water vessel. But it is also. This is talking about this is a phallic extension. We can agree. Thank you. Yes, of course, the biggest one, the strongest one. Never quite like this. See unsinkable dick. The first challenge. The first bit of rigidity. It shatters. Yeah, because it's refused to change its path. True to form. Okay, so the Titanic is quite accurately dicking down into the lake. Okay, make a hellgrain. We'll have you do this one, a dexterity saving throw. That's just a plus one. And you're trying to beat a 15 here. Okay. How about a dirty 20? Wow, yeah, dirty 20 is going to do it. The Christmas tree, it's a birthday not one. But it moves with us. It does move with you. Yeah, that's a good point. How about this? I leave it up to you, Rick, this. Because technically you would be next in the order. Do you take it with you? You can save a Christmas tree from this. 100% one, two. 100% one. Awesome. Then with the deck save of this, of the swamp thing, you sort of goosh to the side, flooding around the major tower, getting out of the way of this attack as the Titanic beaches itself, coming smashing down onto the forest. When that happens, you hear Dr. Lake Yom's voice. What are you doing? Why did you save us? Because I made a promise, and if I can keep it without also getting fucked up, I'm going to do that. But how great it is with you, right? Yeah, he's not that bad, really. Hello. Yeah. He got me thrown out of a big tower, and it was really scary. Yeah, but would you have done that to him if you needed to? I'll never know. Yeah, you do. Come on. Give me a persuasion check, Rickdice. Okay. I got stuck on the side, but it's a five. With a five, you can tell from his tone of voice, Dr. Lake Yom has come around. Maybe also because you have just fucked up this Christmas tree pretty bad. Now in alliance with you guys actually seems not so bad of an idea. What was that, Juice? I'm thinking. I mean, I guess on that note, if you wanted to sort of flex a different, if you want to roll an intimidation. No, I think a pivot in strategy sounds good to me, because we're not, I don't feel like going to be able to do the same trick. Unless maybe the tree can lure some haters back here. Yeah, I heard about this great web. The spider is really nice. Come on over. He's got ice. Yes, great. That's the saying. From old Mother Goose's nursing right. It's great. Ice cream. So yeah, if you leave it here, the Christmas tree, you're going to have two out of the four members of that team sort of working on your side. You see now that everything is kind of like congregated together. The house comes smashing down, barging in. And swamp thing, it is going to throw up in its front door and from it just a buckshot spread of furnishings comes launching out in your direction. Rictus rule that, actually you've ruled the last one. Lord Beth, roll that deck save for me. It's plus one. Trying to beat a... 15. Wow, I got 18. Mine is cheesed. These saves are incredible. Yeah. You know, you absorb it. This huge cloud of end tables and dining room chairs and credenza. It comes flying out. It just kind of lands in the swamp and you all absorb it. And it sort of dissolves harmlessly. And that brings us to the top of the order, which is swamp thing. All the teams are kind of gathered together here now, right? You are all standing in the swamp. You have the Christmas tree almost fully submerged in your grasp. Although two of its members have sort of suggested that they would work with you. Who had tree partnered with? Who was tree? Tree was going to team up with Titanic and House to fuck you guys up. Because the other three members overruled Hayseew Jane. Yes, exactly. It's my turn, right? It is rules. Do we still have... Can I just clarify something before Rictus has? Do we still have Christmas tree physically restrained? Yes, absolutely. Okay, thank you. So they need to do some saving throws. Yes, you're right. Thank you, Travis. That is going to be a DC-16 that they need to roll Constitution save. So Christmas tree con save plus four. That is a 15, which is not sufficient. So they are going to take... Travis, why don't you roll it? Two D10 poison damage and two D10 acid damage. So just four D10. Yeah, just four... Four D10 damage here. Oh, boy. Holy fucking shit, dude. 810, 89, 35 points of damage. Oh, see, it's Yowza. Okay, a 35 is crazy. Like, as we were standing out, we stepped on their brain. Yeah, it was very... Oh, no, my fond nail never closed. They are just bloodied. So entire branches and bows and pine needles are like sloughing off of it into the swamp. And you can hear a sort of psychic yelp coming from the four members of that team. Okay, listen, sorry about that. If everybody agrees to be cool and work with us, I can help and let you go. What you tell me what role this is. You tell me if this persuasion is this deception? No, it feels like... It feels like intimidation. Persuasion with advantage, Griffin, because we did just turn them real bad. I would give you intimidation with advantage, because you should say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A persuasion is not something you would get advantage on after. Okay, yeah. But I'll take intimidation with advantage. Okay. So 17 plus 1, 18, and 14 plus 1, 15, so 18. You hear a voice. Say, burger man here. So you're saying you'll let us go and we'll work together? Yeah. Really? Yes. You can feel the tree that you all have restrained kind of, go limp a little bit. It stops sort of flailing about and waits to see what you do. Okay, I release them voluntarily and cast Wither and Bloom. Okay. Wither and Bloom. What level are you casting wither and Bloom at? I'm casting at a second level. I'm assuming you are trying to, this is it. Yeah, I'm in an ALE situation. Yeah, I'm hitting the house in Titanic and triggering the heal on the tree. Yeah, you all have not been hurt at all yet. Yeah. Okay, so what do they need to roll? They need to roll a DC 13 constitution saving throw. Okay, I'll go ahead and tell you right now Titanic's going to hit this roll. Can I clarify something? Are we privy to the communications that he has had with Hastie Jane? Like, have we been hearing those because we're also in his brain? Uh, connected. Like, we know what the, yes, I don't think that would we weird if we don't know what the tree has done? Yes, for sure. We are for us to not to be not be friends. You are privy to that for sure. Okay, so Titanic can say dirty 20. House only gets an eight. So, uh, House is going to take some damage here. They're both going to take damage. Oh, but... Yeah, Titanic is going to take half damage. Okay. Uh, what is it? Two D6. Uh, so House is going to take 10. Titanic's going to take five. Okay. And then tree is going to heal a hit dice, whatever that is. Okay. Uh, House takes 10, you say? Okay. Correct. Um, the house, you can see like some of the stucco on the sides of it, uh, some of like the wood-paneled walls, uh, start to kind of like creek and peel off a little bit. I think now that you have dealt some damage to everybody here, you can kind of like tell that the Titanic is clearly outclassing sort of everyone here in terms of, uh, sturdiness of their elemental, but the house in Christmas tree do appear to be like quite a bit more vulnerable, more vulnerable. Uh, you would say even then the swamp thing in which you currently inhabit. Uh, the Christmas tree is going to heal for 12 points of damage, bringing them back up to out of bloody range. Okay. You spew out the Christmas tree. Uh, it lands in this sort of like healing field that you have created. Uh, you see the house kind of like take a big step backwards as you hit with the spell. Uh, the Christmas tree stands up next to your swamp. Have you all deformed, have you all like taken back the form of swamp thing or you remain? I guess this is a question for you, Rick, this because it's technically your turn hasn't ended or have you kind of like taken back your elemental form. I, I would say we're back. Okay. Swamp like, because we, we wouldn't make sense. They know where we are now. Absolutely. They know where you are now. So then the sand when I cast it, Gervin just a little flavor, some flowers bloom on his shoulder on swamping shoulders. So that's cool. Yeah, that's very cool. Uh, then what it is then is the flowers appear on the surface of this like flat bog that had just consumed the Christmas tree that it spits out. Uh, and then as the Christmas tree is healed and restored and sort of like planted trunks next to the swamp kind of squaring off against the house and the Titanic that it had previously aligned with. Uh, those flowers rise up as the swamp thing sort of reappears from the muck and takes its form. Uh, standing next to the Christmas tree in a sort of dramatic two versus two pose. And you hear the voice of the gentleman sort of telepathically ring through your minds. Uh, and he says, uh, well now it seems we've got a fair fight on our hands. Maximum fun, a work road network of artist own shows supported directly by you.