The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 8

The wizards huddle four by four, with fervor and his spriticale to plumb the depths and shake the trees and loot the Isles energies, a flame and flora, sea and stone, a 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 is going to cost a pretty penny. Oh man. We do need you every minute. It's going to be $12. Push $12 into your zone hole, and we'll get it. Oh, here they come. Oh wow, they're pouring in. It's all so wet. What people don't know at home is that's what we call our bubbles. Thank you Travis for making that so explicitly clear that we call our bubbles our zone. I didn't know that at my home. I want to wrap this by once again complimenting this map. How much I love it. Thanks. I think it's a great design. You did great artwork. Thank you so much. I want to talk about for a second the logos you've done for each element here. Yes. It looks like the four elements are toothpaste bomb, Spotify logo, Spotify logo is pretty explicitly. Like a man with a firey peacock tail. Yeah. Okay, so you get it. Those are the four elements and we all know that. Spotify, Landheart, 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 back story and detail. And I did not have a reminder of their existence. I just didn't need to be reminded about Scorpo's existence. I think I can help a little bit. Before we get started, could, could help Graham and 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, lumbars over. But to be fair, Hellgram has to walk past. Rick is doing diagrams of incorporating Scorpo into the team and putting Hellgram at over at a bench location. While he's like sketching out cool moves. So much so. So much so many and Laura and Scorpo could be doing together. Well, Hellgram looks at that and smiles warmly and says, Scorpo, I know it can be difficult joining such a well established tightening 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. You'll do okay if you keep in mind what I say goes. Things like, well, what are you 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. Laura leads over to Scorpo's other shoulder and says, I apologize for the smell of the bug man. Give me both of you give me a persuasion check for actually just in it's not really persuading anyone. I don't know. I don't feel any stinker. So Hellgram, it give me a persuasion check. That would be an eight. Scorpo who towers over you looks looks down his well not knows but face kindin at you and leans down and says, I am not a child. What is your power? I have a number of powers. I have frost fingers, scorching ray. I can cast auguries. Leave it or not. You also get your gatorator 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 can told the dead whatever that is and I can set alarms. So he comes a very handy when you're traveling. I feel like that's tone of voice indicated that maybe he even learned a little something in the past 30 seconds. Scorpo turns and looks at you, Laura veth and says, show 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 gram it with your unconvincing persuasion. Frank, it's a, we're all by nature sort of in our own pursuits, but 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, and we trade teams. Traces, 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. Evoke, 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 it different? The trial of elements, the trial of elements, is that better? Give me a second, I'll tell you. Okay. Trace, trace waves of hand through the air and different, there are banners hanging that say trial of evocation that all tries to say trial of elements. Try my fire. Try my 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. Your quartet will be assigned one of these four elements and will compete against three other teams representing the others. Choose, give me a D4 roll, please. You got that, Griff. My favorite is to roll, but... It's a sharp dice, it's dangerous, it's probably the least step above. I did manage to pull a four, though. Okay, cool. How did that be, Ud? Nevermind. That's 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. It's 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 and battle with the creations of the world. Today, we begin with the harvest. To collect your elemental moats who 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, a boulder or tree, you liberate the moats within for your collection. The more moats you collect in the ten minutes allotted to this first round, the greater flexibility you will have later in the trial. Now, now... Now, time has started yet. Rectus, rectus, rectus, rectus. Sorry, I thought that was it. You see Trace turns to talk to her fellow octaves. And whatever, like, 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 does keep happening. And I did say that we should do this. Oh, God, sorry. Anyway, 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 moats, building a flame from Tinder and Spark, 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 Zigarad, 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 mussely looking wizards, raised days, haze and blaze. The arcane gladiators. Big meaty 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. Over to the water side, just next to you, you see the gentleman. The gentleman from Wizbury, 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. Is this the kind of thing where it's like we lose as a team, or are we individually graded? 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 plodits, huh? No, not in this case. Not even a most improved. You want a most improved award? No, I still wanted to give the bug man a bit of hope. Ha ha ha! Actually, he's standing right there and he looks very sensitive. I think you need to start giving him a... He's talking about you. You, Scorpos, as I don't think so, but that's adorable. With that, 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 modes by interacting with the corresponding elements within. Scorpo first looks to you, Lord of it, who I think he has identified as the sort of like most leaderly of the three. He says what? Where is it? Have I given that? I think he knows it's not Hellgram it. I feel like it's just a process of elimination thing. Yeah, for sure. Griffin, I think I feel like it's because I'm your older brother. You just can't help but see me that way. And it's not in your default. I think it's not that. Scorpo looks to you, Lord of it. 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 be? How's your awareness? How's your perception? It is, I am subterranean sort of being by my nature. But for what I lack in senses I'm all that make up for it with speed and grit. But fight has no fight. 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 in the gardens and a little bit of the forest with the big tower that you ended up leaping out of in the last trial hellgram. He is 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 modes and is going to try and disrupt those, which leaves the three of you to go off and do whatever you want. Okay, Griffin, yes. Do you clarify any questions? Sure. Are only major modes available in the nature sector? Yes. To get, you know, fire modes you have to be in the fire quarter and do something with a fire, right? To get earth modes you have to go to the earth quarter and do something to transport, transform, create or destroy. Are these red lines on the map here? Are these physical barriers? No, these are just a sort of denotes the divisions. That's the second question. Can we go into the other sectors? You can't, yeah. Okay, great. But you may be interfered with. And so like the question is like, 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. Scorpio, 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. Well, 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. Okay. Well, we'll keep an eye out for him. Well, hey, look, I'm just showing leadership qualities by warning you ahead of time. Okay. Well, if we see him, we'll hide. Don't want him to stomp on you or anything like that. Okay, cool, man. Could you help Ramit do an arcana check to see if he can spot these modes? I mean, the modes 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, Laura Vith, with the mode 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 mode already that you will use in the next part of the trial. What happens when we try to grab the nature modes? Nothing. Your hand passes right through them in order to actually we can't move them or relocate them and change things. You have to change nature, change the wind, change the trees, change. Rich, this is going to do a poison spray on a bush. Okay, yeah, that's not technically sort of evoking the element. 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 the bush. Well, it's a constitution check from a bush. Constitution check from a bush. Okay, you managed to pick the one living bush. And he says, hey, watch it, buddy. Oh, man. I'm so sorry, man. I didn't know you were dead. What's that? You're telling me all the other bushes are dead. Sorry, the only place has swept across this land, Griffin. The only sentient bush, I should say, it rolled it too. The only man bush. It very, very quickly sort of starts to wither up. Oh my god, that's my damage. Yeah, with a 12, the bush stands with these viny feet and says, you think you can take on me, bush man, 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. And where tumbleweeds came from. That's exactly where they come 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. Hey, everybody, start destroying. Hellgram it is going to, there are other moats around, right? I mean, there's just nature moats around you. If you want the other elements to sort of get an even mix for your elemental crafting in the next round, you'll need to go to those other areas. Okay, hellgram is going to make his way up to the water section. Hold on. Is everybody clear on how we collect the moats? What's your impression of a 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 hellgram it, 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 bug band. 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. Or rather, lead the way, lead the way. Onward. All right, the two of you make your way north towards the, the water recorder. As you approach, no one's really been up to this part of the map quite yet. You can see this, 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 a two lily pads with a, you know, 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 an operation now during the trial. But you make note of, of it for later, if you survive this trial, you know, perhaps a massage or a mud mask or something. Would you say this great lake was normal or is it kind of eerie? That's really, it's not eerie. Okay. It's, it's, it's so it's a superior, it's, say, a superior. I would say that here on some bad shit dad. So give me both of you a stealth check. Freddie got fingerlegs. That's, huh. Yeah, the baitable. Sorry, I was on a phone call. What, what are you guys talking about? I give you a, oh, Justin was, Justin was pitching his sequel. That's sucking a Joel, sorry. To the hit Tom Greenfield. Right. That everyone remembers. This fence ring off the hook. Oh, Freddie got fingerlegs. 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 it, 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 will you be doing if we weren't moving the stealth? Nine, 11 minus two, nine. Mine was 14. Okay. Well, we'll average those out. As you all sort of traipse through the woods on the far edge of the lake here, you notice that within this glass flower building, you can see that someone has taken notice of you. You see that Hilda, the octopoid, I don't know if that's a word, C, which comes out and 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, Helgram, to try and transform the water? Are there modes over the water? Are there modes in the water? Where are the modes? Yeah, there's modes everywhere. The modes aren't necessarily where you're supposed to focus your attention. If you do stuff with the water here in the water area, water modes will come to you. So the target to aim for is something. All right, there's a little fingerling of water. Yes, there's like a small, small little outcropping here. So right next to him. Helgram, it's going to cast frostfingers on the water. Okay. Frostfingers, freezes, non-magical liquids in the area that are not being worn or carried. Okay, give me, is this a role 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 harness. So 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 modes you're going to get out of it. Okay, intellect. That would not include nature. No, no, no, sorry, not intellect intelligence. So it's just a D20 plus three. It's 13 plus three 16. Okay, yeah, with a 16, you reach your chili 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 modes of this blue aquatic elemental energy begin to materialize over this block of ice. And as they appear, you to 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 modes. Laura, what do you do? Hellgram it is kind of deep in his magical process here freezing the water. You see Hilda coming to try and steal the modes that he just created. What's the proximity graph? Like give me a mic. You were sort of standing right next to hellgram it. So I mean, 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 you can. I don't know of her abilities. I don't know. 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 she has. She has her not 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 is not that so explicitly doing the thing that trace warned you not to do that. You know it is not like a huge advantage. And is it the class of magic that is specifically the issue? Yes. Is it and shape water is evocation? Well I mean shape water if you use this magic to move the water around or to change it in some way. Like it kind of goes against the spirit of the thing. This effect freezing like a huge body of water like this would have netted more modes but because specifically it was sort of an evocation magic that used it. It was a smaller harvest. Okay. Yes. Okay. I am going to kill her. I know nothing of your abilities but I look forward to learning. And I'm going to cast lightning lure on her. On her? Wait a minute. Hold on. I just remember your stupid rules. Give me a second. A attacking rule. Your stupid attacking rule. No. You know what? I am going to cast lightning lure on the water. Okay. In the direction of the moats. I want to try to electrify the water. I love it. Yeah. To train her off. I like that. Okay. So that's going to be. Imagine Lava is like whipping the water with his lightning leash trying to like ward her away from it. Yeah. That's right. Okay. Okay. So, Tarmus seed and a strength saving throw. I'm not going to make you roll for this because this is not, um, you don't, the water is not going to make a strength saving throw. You, it's kind of intimidation like, but I, intimidating the water. I'm intimidating her by attacking. That's a fair point. Give me, give me an intimidation check. Uh, and I will say because of your application, your clever application and magic here, you can roll it with advantage. Great. Great. So that's a 16 plus 420 or a 18 plus, oh no, 10 plus 4, 14 to 20. Yeah. With a dirty 20, you see her, uh, swim forwards. And then as this crackling wall of energy, then courses through the water, uh, between her and this block of ice in the water, you see her double back and swim further away. As she does, so she squirts out some, uh, a cloud of black ink into which she vanishes. Uh, but you have warded her off and you all are able to collect your three elemental modes of water. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Now we got a copyright strike because that sounded exactly like the song that I was like listening to. I think we're doing John Williams. I'm sorry. In the meantime, Gucci over here. In the meantime, uh, can, can I want to find like a densely vegetated, uh, yeah, mean, meanwhile, the gardening continues, uh, debated. Uh, okay, a densely vegetative. Give me a nature check, Rick. Oh, no, I have, I'm going to tell myself, reminder, I have, uh, 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, uh, yeah, five is, uh, not great. I mean, you look around, you don't necessarily notice like any part of these grounds that are more kind of, uh, magically enriched than, than any others. Okay. Well, anyways, I'm going to cast with her in bloom. Okay. Which explicitly says non-match, uh, vegetation in that area withers. And it's in, uh, 10 foot radius from me. So all around me and above me and below me. That's amazing. Um, what kind of role does this require? Uh, well, it would require, or require a constitution saving throw. Uh, the non-match, uh, vegetation in that area just withers. There's no, yeah. Oh, there's nothing, 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 in bloom to this sort of effect? Um, the, uh, kind of skeletal, ghoulish magic hand comes out of the left in 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, uh, 20 foot wide sphere, you just see all of the, um, life drain from any plant it touches. 10 foot wide. Well, 10 foot radius. So 10 foot to the left and for the radius. That's what it was. Yeah. Uh, 10 foot radius. But what's the circumference? It's the, the questions, what's, 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, 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, if this is the diameter, 10 feet. No. Oh my god, guys, the diameter is 31.4 feet. No. Yeah, because it's three, it's times pi. No. How up does the diameter is, it goes up 10. It's a sphere. Okay. The diameter is two R. It goes 10 to my left. 10 to my right. 10 in front of me. 10 behind me. 10 above me. 10 below me. The diameter of, so it's like 100 feet because it's 10 and all 10 times 10 is 100. Thank you. Yeah. I knew you'd get there eventually. Okay. I killed the whole forest. I killed the meanwhile, Smokey the Bear is like, whatever you've done, it's gone too far. 10 feet. 10 feet. One foot, a single match, Travis. Only you can start forest fires. You cast wither and bloom in this way. And even though you usually use this spell as a sort of more explicitly life draining apparatus, it is incredibly effective here. And it sort of expands outward from you at first and you see a light wind pick up that begins to blow through this circle of trees and brush 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 that greenery it manifests at your fingers and you collect six floating modes of green light from the air. You are eight dies, dude. Nice. Eight of these nature modes. I'm going to collect all the dead leaves and stigs 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, it's disadvantage. Yeah. A plus 412. 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, BDIs barely visible on these like little slits of his face, Kighton. 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 check pride. It is not pride. It is he is feeling away about you that is not great love. Not not great, not love. I mean love can be weird sometimes. Tell me about him. Got a few announcements before you get back to the rest of the episode. We got some new merch up in the McRoy merch store over at McRoyMurch.com. New t-shirt with a helping is always a free action design on it. There's a 20 make it stick 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, and the latest immigration bond fund program and shelter aid support in Tijuana to aid migrants and asylum seekers in need. I also want to 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 and stunts, right? Yeah, no, that's all of it. So you can pre-order that now at bit.ly slash griffin stoweway 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's. We spend all year covering these competitions, but now it's time for the main event. The apex predator of competitive cooking television shows. Tune in for after team and play along. With your hosts, Sierra Cotto, Mike Gabelon, and if you want to wait. New episodes every week at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Wonderful is a podcast where we talk about things we like. That's hard to sell in a promo like this. So we've enlisted the help of Piano Rock Superstar Billy Joel to tell you about some of the topics we've covered. Take it away, real Billy Joel. Eddie Rock's been on like sun, wholesome shower, circle time, cigarette drink, and castes a salad tower of annoyed. Keep me up eight tongue caps, hoes, wanes, whirl, cheese bowls, while it's even stonkey gone, fun-size, all mentored. They didn't stop the podcast. Except that's not true. They didn't want to do. They didn't stop the podcast. No, they actually did. That was a fact of fib. Listen to wonderful every Wednesday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, real Billy Joel. No problem, Griffin. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Laura Vith. You can, by the way, fellows, you can custom add stuff to your inventory. If you want to keep track of the modes we collect. I'm also keeping track of the modes that you all collect so far you have eight. But Griffin can lie sometimes. I'm not going to lie. I trust Griffin. Eight nature, three water, you have one earth and no fire modes so far. And where are we on the timer? The time is about halfway elapsed. Um, so at Lord of Earth, aren't you like a mountain? Time that person, you know, some stone and shell and all that kind of crap? Why don't we head over to the earth part? And see if we can get into some stuff over there. Look at where... bugbed man. Look at where it is that you're saying. Look. That's all the way over there, bugbed man. I know, but I mean... I wish me to walk all the way over there. Um... No, come over here to the trees. We'll find more mocks over here. Alright. I... I feel... I mean... I... I just water... Okay. We're watering deeper to the forest. Okay. Into the water... the 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. I don't know that, but I don't not know that. Yeah. I yell... I yell it out. I kill a bunch of bushes. That... 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? The moats materialize as you do this shit. And so as long as you... I'm going to try something. At least try to keep a lookout. Absolutely. You have my permission to go ahead. Okay, Lorveth takes off all of his clothes. Great. Oh, God. I'm not looking at you. I'm not looking. I'm not looking. This is fine. Lorveth 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 what I'm important here. So the crosses his mind as he takes off all of his clothes and jumps into the water. Awesome. I got to admit something. Yeah. Hellgrem it. Snuck a little bit. You got to peak. You got to check it. I mean, he's got to admit it's a long, steep, tall, you're going to hear. 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 damaged. Oh, geez. Damage rolls. It's like a damaged roll. What's that? Do we do it quick damage rolls? Yeah, 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 see under this water. There's still a lingering ink cloud from where Hilda sort of zipped away earlier. You are able to be in the water without taking any damage. I am, he closes his eyes and casts absorb elements as a second level spell. Okay. Absorb elements. So that is a reaction. Let me think of how we... So I did it when I jumped in. That was my thought. I was trying to trigger something here. I was trying to see if I could make this work because I only have these many spells. Yeah. Sure. Okay. So you have... Damaging type. So let's start with the next turn. Okay. This is what I was trying to go to. Man, I was trying to go to you and to give me damage. So I was trying to say like, hey, you sure I didn't gain damage? Are you sure? I mean, if you want to... If you want to try to damage yourself with water, if you can tell me how you damage yourself. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay. Lurvin jumps in. Yeah. They could. Yeah. Though that happens. Ah! It's so cold! Damn! He looks around and deceived. There's any higher ledge. 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, food into the water to yourself. I'm gonna climb a tree and food. Yeah. Great. I love it. Give me an athletics check, please. The 17 plus 3 to let it. Hell yeah, man. What's it look like? He clambers up the tree and he reaches the very peak. And 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 gala. It's just leaning back on a tree and flinging himself into the water and just screaming food. As you spoon downwards and you cast absorb elements, are you still doing that or is that? Yes, that is the point. That is what I'm trying to. It didn't work last time, right? I tried to, it didn't work. Okay. As you do it this time, I mean, technically you don't have to cast it again, right? You still have the, you still have the, the, the, 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 food even more dramatic. And this like perfectly, loraveth shaped outlined splash launches straight up into the sky. Hellgram it 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 loraveth, as you breach the surface of the water again, you see that three more modes of blue elemental light have formed that you are easily able to collect. Can they just absorb into me? I mean, absorb elements, right? No, they, these, these are sort of tangible physical, physical things. Physical things, yes. All right. I'll, I'll grab them. Okay. I'm, you know what? I'm actually pretty disoriented if he, is he close enough to get him or should I go ahead and scoop him up here? I mean, they sort of appeared in the cavity you left in the water. Yeah, I'll scoop up my three. I'll scoop up my scoop up my, okay, great guys. 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 closes to the ziggurat. Okay. You make your way over to the fire quarter and you can't 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 H.C. Jane actually is sort of standing guard by the fire. And she says, oh shit, rictus, rictus. Hi, Jane. Hey, how's it going? Oh, it's gone great. How are you doing? Not bad. If you got 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 moats 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, we can, we can, you know, make a deal. 51-49. Yeah, I guess you sure. Yeah. I know that was a joke. Yeah, that sounds great. Okay, cool. Yeah, go for it, man. I hand her half of the sticks and stuff. Okay. And you're just going to chuck them right into the blaze. I'm going to do a dip them into 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 moats 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 you. I think this is probably the last option available to you last action. Yeah. But it will be more effective doing it in this very specific, very, very kind of clever way. 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. 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, 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? 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 an hr one and we're a fire one, we'll burn it right up, but we're not going to do you like that because... Yeah, 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. Oh yeah? Gun conduct of the game, like, yeah, they're shit. 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 fast food, he talks in like fast food, sort of slogans, and 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 in, you should grease on the fire. Let's hop back over to Hellgram. Hellgram, 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. I'm going to move to the mountains. Okay. And try to climb up 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 are going to be. Well, I still have an action. Yeah, of course. Okay. 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 mind shaft entrance where Lord of the Vith 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 poor and rivulets down there, you know, 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, 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 a 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 the mind shaft entrance where there's been a cleft that has been carved naturally or unnaturally right everything on this island was sort of magically generated. 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 land slide. Interesting. Okay. Infest. Infestation. Crosses a cloud of some kind of bugs. What kind of insect are we sending into the rock to try and... I think our 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 the stone of the mountain they climb into this crack. Perhaps a word of encouragement or command or something would be 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. All right my horny little friends. Because they have that big horn on their heads. All 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. Ten. Okay. With a ten you see that the beetles begin to scurry feverishly into this cleft. As they all kind of disappear into the rock that is when Hayes and Blaze appear over the cleft's edge behind you. They kind of grab you Hayes says. All right man. You've had your fun but 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 obviously we can't beat the crap out of you or anything like that. But you are restraining me that's an attack of some kind is it not? Well we asked Chris or it points to the glove on his hand and a little light glowing in the crystal. And Chris said grab and is okay. His exact words were grabs are okay. Really? I missed that part of the briefing I guess. Your own glove the 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. All right yes right. He reappears no punches though. And then he just grabs not jabs. That's pretty good. Right at that moment the boulder begins to tremble and you see the crack begin to spread. And then the hit hasen 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 blazing days. Oh 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. Holy shnike. Yeah you got crushed by a big rock. Haze and blaze both leapt out of the way. The effect here is as the rock falls you see that six modes of elemental earth kind of tumble down from where the rock was and scatter all over this little outcropping of cliff. Haze 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 modes as they can before you kind of come back to their to your senses what do you do. Before I come back to my sense well before you are you were just crushed by a big rock and not dead or 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 modes of earth before you can. I think I am well I'm going to try to grab as many of the most I can. Okay then I think this is just going to be a contested athletics check to see if you're just trying to move as quickly as you can and grab as many of these modes before they can grab them. Unless you have some other way of collecting these these modes 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. Yeah, get out of the fan. 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? Oh, grandma. Yeah. You did not sound especially good. I don't think he has any hands. No, I do. I have four. You do have a little tiny bonus hands. I did forget about your tiny bonus hands. I have 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 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 you could definitely make the art. I'm not going to make a difference. My rolls are rolling big bags of donkey shit. So yeah, there we are. There again, there's a five. Oh, okay, great. Okay, that's only a seven from from from Hayes. I this is just going to meet even split by the time Hayes and Blaze you know get get back upright and run around and grab some motes 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 they have taken half of your motes but you have collected three more which brings you all to a total of four of these elemental modes of earth. With that another chromatic orb sails back up into the sky and explodes in another dazzling wave of light. You hear Tracer's voice amplified all throughout the island and she says, Asperinces 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 modes together to form a mighty elemental warrior. Max Mom Fine, a work road network of artist own shows supported directly by you.