The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 23

Hello, my friends. It's Justin, Tyler, McElroy. These are my brothers. Their names escape me. Help me out, guys. It's Travis. Chunwell. Welcome to the Adventure Zone. Our dad is not here with us, but you are, and it is the Maxfun Drive, which means right now, if you like our stuff, go to maxfunfun.org.com. If you can chip in five bucks a month, you can help keep this show rolling, and we'd really appreciate it. We sure would. You get access to a bunch of bonus content when you do that, including this year's BOCO for Taz, a new entry in the Taz-Charlie-verse world, actually Taz-Cousin-verse, where five of our six kids got together to plan a one-shop for us. It's darling. It's madcap, and it can be yours, along with a suite of other bonus items. So you can go sign up and become a new member. You can upgrade your membership, or even just boost by a couple dollars if you're not ready to move to the next level. It's all there. Maxfunfun.org slash join. Let's get to the episode. Previously on Taz Royale. Yes. We're very close to the end of it now, Duba. You play yourself a jolty little tune, in case the noises get too upsetting. Listen, I gotta go! Those bugs are to protect you. Later! Wait, no, hold on. I saved your life, man. You owe me. Fine. It's an antidote. I don't know to what, but there's probably a reason it's here. Then he turns around very quickly and starts to charge downward down the hallway as he screams even louder, run! As another corpse mound, a horde of zombies begins to pour into the room, ready to eat your whole body and ass. So I was thinking this morning as we were getting ready to record, I'm really when we stop doing this, I'm really going to miss this character. I love doing this guy. This guy makes me so hap- Loravith, it makes me so happy. Like I really, I get excited when we're going to sit down and record because I love this guy. I never really know what any of your guys' characters are going to do next. It is my favorite thing about this season is I don't know what the fuck. Helgram is always up to some shit. Loravith is always up to some shit. Rictus is always on his own shit. It's like doing his best. Doing his best. You say that, but I've been attempting to parent a boy for three straight months. I don't know. I'm not throwing you curve balls. That's fair. I adopted a man. I think you adopted an adult man is itself, I think, a curve ball. Yeah, but it's past you, dude. It's on the ground. Rictus is just out here battling his inner demons. Griffin, I don't understand what he's trying not to be an evil murderer as he has to murder people. He's death's avatar. I don't understand. And dad's a little shit head. And dad's a shit nasty fucking shit head. Everybody's falling in love with it. Yeah, the nasty little shit head everyone loves. People can't get enough of Helgram being nasty. Welcome back, everyone, to Taz Royale, our Battle Royale winter take all season. We are in the middle of the sixth trial of the Octave Conclave to decide who will become the new member of the Octave, the God Wizards that ruled the world of the fold. We are in the trial of Necromancy where you all have Griffin. I'm sorry. Go ahead. We're in the trial of Necromancy. Dad has rearranged his setup due to a recent, my brother, my brother, me, MacRoy family called past recording. He has rearranged his setup so there's a picture of him. A big picture of dad. A huge picture of him pulling open his shirt with a Superman style C underneath it. It is, I'm not super easily distracted on these. It's incredibly distracted. It's hugely distracted. Now, it's sitting, it's like a poster sized picture sitting on a tripod and it does look like the entrance to his funeral. Hey dad. If there was a wreath there. Yeah. Getting his sign, man. Put that somewhere easy to find. Yeah. No, no, no, don't take it down. No, dad, don't take it down. Dad, you're going to lose it. Dad, you're going to lose it. Don't forget where you put it if you move it right now. Leave it right there. Leave it there. We are in the Trial of Necromancy. You all are taking shelter inside of a manor that is under assault by the Fallen 52 wizards, Fallen 52 aspirants who have died in the previous trials who have come back in undead form assaulting the mansion. In the last episode we lost a couple real sweethearts. The spider, Tommy Falcon, both lost to the undead horde. The rest of you are kind of scattered across the first floor of the manor. You are on a sort of mission to find the whatever is powering the barrier, cutting you off from the second floor so that you can take up a more defensive position up there. Let's start on the east end of the house, Lorivith. You are on the ceiling of the library. After stowing doober sweetleaf inside of a piano, you have followed Bergerman and the spider saw Bergerman murder the spider. Before running into the office you did sneak a peek at the rune that is powering the barrier inside that office. Before Bergerman locked himself inside a corpse mound has smashed through the window and witnessing Bergerman's crime has sort of been aggroed onto him. So you are on the ceiling in the library and you can see the corpse mound sort of bashing against this door trying to gain access to the office where Bergerman and the rune are hiding. Uh, Lorivith, what do you do? The door shut. The door is shut, yes. The blob's trying to get through the door to Bergerman. Yeah, it is a mound of corpses. It's not like a slime situation. I know. Okay, sorry, I didn't... You get it though. I didn't call your blob the right thing. Our words are all we have. Literally. No, Griffith, your words are all you have. I carry a knife all the time. And I got big muscles. I'm watching. I'm watching for a second. Yeah, dude, that's a totally fine answer to this situation. What are they doing? What are the... what is the mound doing? They're smashing against the door. Give me a... Like a blob against the door. Like a blob would do against the door. Give me a perception check. Uh, I'll give you advantage. You have a nice vantage point here on the ceiling. 13 and a 9. 13. It's not going to take them long before they are able to smash in this door. It is already starting to rattle off the hinges and creak and crack in the center of its big wooden frame. With that perception check, you can also hear Bergerman just screaming from inside. He's in a real pickle. Help me, I'm in a real pickle. I guess he can't cut the mustard. We need to catch up to him. Just to do something, please, I'm dying. Please, they're going to keep going until we do something. Unless you want to keep waiting and wait for them to just smash the door. Let us help him. Um, good. I'm going to cast Shield on myself. Okay, great. Shield that increases your AC, I believe, by a flat amount. Yeah, and now I'm going to body slam into the big mound of corpses. Oh, wow. You have a plus 5-10 AC. I don't have a, that's the only point of, they're just completely distracted. If I shield myself, then I could just like completely get the drop on this big mound of corpses. It's taken a beating in my head. It's got to be pretty well beaten up. So, you know, and I, and also I've got to be honest with you guys, there's this big symbol in there that I saw that I got a peek at and like, I'm, this is not really about Burger Man for me, but if he hits that and gets a cape, I'm going to fucking flip out. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so this is a surprise attack. I'm going to grant you advantage. This is the same corpse mound that you blasted with a fireball earlier. And so it is, it is somewhat diminished in size. So you're going to make this attack with advantage here as you leap down from the ceiling and smash down onto them. 14 and A. 18, 18. Okay, yeah, absolutely. With an 18, you are going to hit. You have this shield on, right? And you're landing sort of in a mosh pit. So I'm not going to make you take like any sort of falling damage here as you leap down from the ceiling. Instead, I think I'm going to confer that falling damage onto the corpse mound using Newton's third law. Sure. Tough luck here. So go ahead and first roll your unarmed attack damage and then you're going to add one D10 to that. Four? Oh, nice. Plus a D10. Seven. Nice. Okay, 11. Okay, 11. Okay, you come crashing down onto this corpse mound as you do. You fully flatten a couple of zombies. You see, let me see, let me pull up the list. Who's dead? You hear the poor frame of the goblin demolitionist, Powderkegg Kelly, get just completely squished underneath you. There's a few of these guys you have now taken out. The corpse mound is less than half the size it was when you first sort of fed Tommy Falcon to it. With that burger man, you can see one of his eyes peeking out of his sesame seed bun, running through a crack in the door and he shouts, Yeah, get him. Do it, Lord of F. Nothing more from you, Meat Boy. With that, the corpse mound is going to counter and... Well, real quick, I would like to use my bonus action to activate my large form. Oh, shit. Okay. I'm fighting a big mound of fucking bodies, so I'm gonna go ahead and do that. Give me... What does that mean, your large form? I'm big. For 10 minutes, I'm big. I have advantage on strength checks and my speed increases by 10 feet. All right, cool. You stand up from the pile of corpses, you've just kind of dispersed a bit, and you are now considerably larger. You also have a plus five to your AC, which is great. Because of their diminished size, they are not going to make three attacks against you. They're only going to make two. I'm gonna roll this on the table. And it is worth noting that also because of my Hills tumble, it has received the prone condition from me. Now, I don't know how a big mound of bodies goes prone, but it's like pulling pins. So it's not leaping into an attack. It's got to take a second to recombine. Yeah, I mean, they'll spend their move action to stand up, but you also landed in them. So they're not having to move particularly far. Okay, so the first thing that happens is one of these zombies lurches upwards and tries to sink its teeth into your shoulder. What's your AC? What number am I trying to be here? You really don't want these guys to be here. You'll never, you'll never beat nine. It's a nine plus five. So 14. Wait, hold on. Plus my shield. Oh, I'm not sure that's not going to matter, my man. That is a 19 plus two. Plus my shield, Griffin. Nine plus five is 14. We've covered this. That is a 21. Okay. Your AC is nine? I mean, I don't know. That's what Griffin said. I'm a wizard. I mean, why does a wizard need better AC than nine? You're a big old dude. I don't know, man. It's been nine the whole time, but can I just say it could have been a lot higher and I still would have taken a beating there. That's a big hit. Okay, so. It's all semantics at this point. You see this zombie. It is rotted sort of beyond your ability to recognize them. It crashes into you. It's teeth sink into your shoulder and you are going to take, god dang, 22 points of damage. Now I need a constitution saving throw. You are trying to beat a DC 15. I see here that Loraveth has not great dexterity. I think it's the AC problem. I believe that is a crit fail. It's a critical failure, Malone. I don't know why I talked like that. I'm a failure in podcasting as well as adventuring. Now, Loraveth. Are they entertaining or confident? As the teeth of this creature sinks into your shoulder, you feel an immediate sort of burning sensation begin to course throughout your body when you pee from this wound. You are going to take nine points of necrotic damage and that is going to continue until you are able to save from it. There is another attack coming your way too. Another zombie of the corpse pile is going to try and claw at your legs. They do not succeed. That is a three on the dice. Okay, you see Berger-Man shout through the door. Loraveth is like, fool me once. Darn, missed me sucker. Blood, blood, blood. Berger-Man through the crack in the door, all help. I swear to God, Big Ben. He shoves his meaty mouth up to the crack in the door and Grease begins to shoot out of it, covering the ground where the zombies are currently trying to get to their feet, creating a slippery, slimy, greasy hazard. And he says, I did it. I'm a hero. Let's jump over to the western side of the manor, where when we last left our heroes, we had four wizards in the hallway. We had Scorpo, Rictus, Pranklin and Helgrammet. And you were investigating these sort of servant quarters here on the west side of the house before a corpse mound smashed through the door, leading Scorpo to race away in flight. Helgrammet, you're on sort of like the farther end of the hallway. Through the door leading back into the kitchen, you see the corpse mound has smashed in and accessed. So you guys are basically facing two corpse mounds now that are coming at you from kind of two directions. From the servant quarters, you have a couple of exits that are not blocked by zombies here, one leading to the north, toward the stables in the north sort of wing of the house. Or you can head back into the dining room that Rictus and Pranklin just sort of ran in from. Helgrammet calls out... Through my psychic link, I realize Lord of Death is in great danger. I'm in the library. You guys got this covered. I'm going to go help Lord of Death. And he bolts through the door into the dining room. Have this covered, Rictus yells after him. Scorpo just sighs as Helgrammet bails on them. Okay, I will say that you will be able to make it all the way to the library. I don't think that there is a path you can cut that does not go through Haze and Blaze. Unless you're lying and you don't actually want to go to the library. Thought they were dead. No, they're all zombies, Dad. So in a way. I believe it was Raze and the other one, Fraze. Fraze? The days, yes, that have been killed. Blaze and Haze are both kind of just sort of very slowly crawling chasing after Rictus. So unless you want to attempt some sort of maneuver here to kind of get around them, they're right flat in the center of the room. They will get opportunity attacks on you if you want to try to make it to the library in one turn. Hey Griffin, that's not fair. That's not fair. Dad thought he was dead. Dad thought they were dead. Griffin may come dead. No. Okay. So I'm going to use Misty Step. Okay. With Misty Step, I can teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space I can see. Easy. Yeah. So I'm going to teleport to the door to the library. Easy. You can for sure make that. That is no problem. You see Blaze and Haze reach up towards you and you just kind of effortlessly vanish and reappear behind them. They turn and they look back at you and then they decide that's not worth it. They still have their eyes set on Rictus and they continue their crawling that way as you make it past and you're able to make it into the library as you... No. No? No. No. I'm going to stay right here. Okay. And he's going to mental it using the psychic link. He's going to tell Loribeth, I'm on my way friend. Hang in there. Okay. You take up a position by the door and we hop over to Rictus. Rictus, you have corpses to the left of you. Courses to the down. And... Here I am sucking them in a week. You've got Scorpo and Franklin in the hallway with you. Scorpo is just kind of like taking very slow steps backwards away from the corpse mound. Unsure where to head next. What do you do? I freeze time. Interesting. This is going to be... So we haven't done this yet since you first sort of discovered the power. The way this is going to work when you cast Time Stop, it is a, I believe a ninth level spell in the D&D book. So you are not supposed to have this yet. We have tried to convey this narratively through the fact that when you've used this spell, it has been pretty fucking, pretty wild. Give me... It's going to cost you nine spell slots, right? It's going to cost nine... Eight? If you have that, you can spin that. Or you can attempt to do it just as a third level spell and you are going to have to roll sort of a wisdom saving through it to make sure that you can kind of handle the power. So I'm offering you, there's a safe way of doing this that is very expensive. Or you can attempt to use this spell at like your current level with potential side effects. I have a plus five on wisdom saving, third, griffin. Let's do that. Okay, I want you to, before you cast the spell, go ahead and use a third level spell slot. And I want you to make a wisdom saving through it. The number that you are trying to beat here is a 17. Okay. That is a nine plus what? Plus four. Or plus five. Okay, for a total of 14. Yeah. So that's it, right? You said I had to beat... What was it? A five? Yeah, you just had to beat an eight. No, you have not reached the 17 DC. My brain! Scorpro and Franklin look to you as you sort of reflexively sort of shout as you try to channel this spell. And what happens is a bubble of sort of opaque light begins to envelop you and spread around you. You see yourself inside of this like area of frozen time and you've been in it before and whenever the gentlemen cast it, you were fairly good at resisting that kind of effect. Here you conjure this this sphere of light and as it spreads out around you, you realize with horror that you are also frozen in here. You have created this sphere and then sort of trapped yourself immediately inside of it. And Scorpro, you can see through the bubble, looks at you sort of in a panic. And Franklin, hmm, Franklin's gonna try to save you. He's gonna roll a DC 17 also to try to get in there and try and save you. And I'll roll this on the table. He is adding a four to this. I need a 14. That's my boy. Franklin reaches in and grabs onto your elbow and with considerable effort, manages to pull you back out of the bubble. Give me as you sort of return to real time, I want you to give me a perception check as you are sort of removed from the bubble. 13 plus 5, 18. Okay, with an 18 as you are sort of pulled through the edge of this bubble, looking back into it, you see a very, very faint image of a tall humanoid figure wearing a sort of tattered cloak. You realize as you are pulled out of this bubble, inside of there, you can see this entity that is called itself death that you have communed with a couple of times in the past. He doesn't appear to be moving. He doesn't appear to be completely all there. The image is fairly staticky. But as you are sort of pulled outward and the bubble dissipates, you do witness that. Franklin gives you a little sort of violent shake. He is in orangutan. He's very, very strong. Yeah. And you manage to come to your senses. And as you do, you see that time has passed as you were in here. The corpse mound has caught up to Scorpo, who is attempting to sort of hold off the crowd, the corpse mound. I'll give you another action here since that one is... Okay. Option B, I run to Scorpo. Okay. And grab him. Okay. And cast Thunderstep. Okay, cool. You can move other things with Thunderstep? Yeah, you can move somebody, blah, blah, blah. You can also teleport one willing creature of your size or smaller. They must be within five feet of you when you cast a spell. And there must be an unoccupied feet within five feet of your destination space for the creature to appear in. Are you just sort of grabbing him and pulling him away from the corpse mound? I'm grabbing him and then we are going to Thunderstep next to Franklin by the door to the dining room. Okay, cool. And the corpse mound is going to take some damage here, right? Correct. Or they have to roll something. They have to make a con save, beat a 14. Okay. Let's see. That is... What is their con save? Probably not great. They're a pile of zombies. Their con save is... No, that's not going to do it yet. So they are going to take... Wow, holy shit, man. Yeah, they are going to take 3D10. 18 points of damage. Okay. As you do that, you see that from around the corner that you have teleported behind, you just sent a few full zombie bodies like flying backwards off the corpse mound back through the door outside. You have reduced the size of this mound considerably. I will say as that happens and you appear by this door next to Scorpo, the door behind you leading deeper into the other side of the servant's quarters where the other corpse mound is starting to sort of move into sandwich you, they have arrived on the scene. Okay, I grab the other two and head towards the dining room. Okay. You head back into the dining room. As you break in, Blaze and Hayes have made their way over and they are sort of the first thing you see as you come in here. The other thing you see is kind of Hellgrammat posted up. I give them a what the... Come on, like a big strut... What? Hellgrammat? I had to fight my way through those guys. No, you didn't. How do you know? Because I'd already weakened them and they look exactly the same. Well, I didn't say I effectively fought them. Then you'd be dead. No, I'm dodgy. I'm fast. Uh, Lorivith, we're gonna hop back over to you. You are standing sort of in this pile of now greasy zombies remaining from this corpse mound. Burgerman is now just going back to... Just like your fan fiction, Griffin. Yeah, greasy. This is oiled up. These listening. Looved up, shambling dead. Okay, change of plans. It's from Griffin's fan fiction, The Fucking Dead. Okay, so I'm changing plans here. We're going to... Rick Grimey gets in there with the guy. You don't have to change that, Grimey. That's fine. Yeah, but he doesn't want to get sued. So like... I'm gonna have a change of plans here. I am going to try to force my way into the room with Burgerman. So, because I'm clearly outmatched here. I cannot take this thing, Mono. Uh, eblabo. So I think that, uh... I think I'm gonna just push my way in. Uh, okay. And, uh, yeah, not, not, not, yeah. The door is weakened enough that it's not gonna put up much of a fight. Really, what this is gonna be is a strength contest to Burgerman. He sees you coming in and he is not going to... There is no way he will be down with opening this door at all. Um, so, uh, this will be just a straight up sort of strength, strength contest. Burgerman has rolled a... 12. Very good. So that's a 1? The other one was an 11. So, 11 is close enough to 12. You, you push the door and it budges a bit. You hear him say, Uh, no thanks. You, you can, I already got them greasy, so it should be easy enough to finish them off, I think. Um... You got it, you got it, man. And then I'll come out once you finish them off. I'll, I'll open it up for sure. What's the smell like in the air, Griffin? Not great. Well, okay. Fine, Burgerman. Have a doorway. I climb up the wall. Yeah! He's a spider climb. Okay. Uh, alright, you're just... That's my one advantage that I have is I can climb up fucking walls, because I'm still under the influence of spider climb. So I'm gonna climb away, because I can't... This thing will kill me, and I don't want to die, then we'll protect doober. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, okay, you, you, uh, hop up onto the nearest shelf, scale upwards, uh, towards, back towards the ceiling. Uh, the zombies, you notice, are still kind of fixated on you. So after having, like, come down, and jump down, and smashed a few of these guys, uh, their, their ire has been drawn towards you. Uh, so as you climb, they are kind of, uh, trying to fruitlessly, uh, scale the shelves behind you to... Oh, and they're slippery, too. I bet it looks so stupid. They're really slippery. They look like total dwarves. And grease all over them from the spill. Yeah. Uh, so you are able to... Even with their super well-defined muscles and great hair. So this is what I plan. Luring them away to save Bergerman's life. I will say that is an easy thing for you to do, with your spider climbing and their greasiness. Like, you, as you move up around the wall, the corpse mound kind of just, like, shambles and slips and slops away. Uh, and, uh, you are able to get them, uh, out away from the door. Uh, as soon as they are clear from the door, you see Bergerman, uh, smash through the door behind them. He looks at you, looks at the corpse mound, looks back up at you at the ceiling, and then he is going to bolt for this sort of rear door to the outside, uh, away from you and the corpse mound, running and shrieking and leaving a trail of grease behind him, uh, as he, uh, as he hofs it, uh, out of sight. Leaving the door to the office now open with the red rune visible inside. What do you think? Um... I mean, I don't think I can... Okay, well, let me ask you. I feel like I've done an action and done a move. So... We're not in initiative right now. Okay. So we're, we're having some liberties. But he's clocking me still? Uh, the corpse mound is following you. Yes, uh, in effect... I'm trying, here's what I'm trying to determine, Griffin. Yeah. Because I can't, I mean, we have a map here, and even with this, I can't, like, if I'm already up here and I, like, want to make... Ah... It's just the symbol, man. I really want to touch that symbol. Yeah. I hate J. The Cape Epistosis, the Cape Epistosis is truly legendary. You got any fire? Yeah, but like, I, as an, as an, as an entertainer, I'm hesitant to just cast Fireball again, you know? Well, they're covered in grease. Grease is non-flammable. Grease is non-flammable. Um... What do you mean it's non-flammable? What are you talking about? It's Burger Grease! Hey guys, he cast grease. Grease is non-flammable, explicitly non-flammable in 2024 roles. Grease is explicitly non-flammable. But it's 2026. We're actually using the, we're using the 2018, uh, classic rule set. Where I believe the, the, the wording is extremely flammable. No, if you, I'm not going to railroad you and just using another Fireball against these... Hey, no, I'm tell, I just want you to, uh, you guys are going to be really embarrassed. And I don't, I want to say that I am. I already am. I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons professionally, Justin. With our dad. How much more embarrassed can I be? You can't embarrass. I am, wait a minute. What's it doing right now? Slopping and slidin' and slidin' around the floor of this library, trying to chase after you on the ceiling. Oh, fuck him then. He's not going to catch me. I, but I'm going to bolt for the door. Into the office? Yeah, he's not going to get me. He's got grease all over it. I'm not even going to make you, you don't even need to roll through the ceiling. You're on the ceiling. You're on the ceiling. He's not going to expect this. You're a lionel richie all over the place. So you kind of double back. And as the course amount is just simply not agile enough. It probably wouldn't have been even if it wasn't all greasy. By the time you reach the door to the office, they are like on the other end of the room, struggling to get back in. And I'm like, I want to like sprint towards the red symbol and like dive so that the cape materializes as I'm flying through the symbol. And I'll like midair, just like fly out the window is what I'm hoping will happen. Some of that. The cape was the thing you invented. Like what if it happens and then it became so real for you that you dove. Yeah, again, I am playing Dungeons and Dragons professionally. You are absolutely that is the writ of law. Okay, as you can you describe the cape slowly and in detail. As a matter of fact, episode one, this guy finds an magical cape. It's all been prelude to this moment. I miss that show. You run into the. I run it. No, dad, you're the only one I run into it and they threw a cape con every time dad's alone in the room. I want to walk up to the symbol and step into the red symbol. Okay. As you move towards the same way, I want to do a quick arcana check and then step into the room. Okay, cool. I'm really bad at arcana. So the cape energy is so strong. It's more of a formality at this point. It's whispering. Fucking hell, man. Holy shit, man. It's a one. It's a one. So this is really. This symbol. This is why I think there's a cape. This symbol you've never seen before, but it is magic and that must mean cape. So you've never felt more certain of anything in your life than the fact that when you step into this symbol, it will, it will, you'll get something's going to happen to you. I step into it and accept my cape. Yeah. You step into the circle. As you step into the circle, it flashes bright red. The cape must be invisible or something. The cape must be one of those invisible, weightless, intangible capes, but it's there. It's like your own invisible cape, like in that movie, Crash. And you step in and there is a flash of red light from the symbol. And as that red light flashes, you hear the corpse mound outside begin to get whipped into a frenzy. Cape, cape, cape, cape, cape, cape. The symbol disappears and you hear a loud whining hum emit through the first floor of the house as the barrier separating the first and second floor dissipate. The other thing that you can see now through this like sloppy pile of corpses that has approached the door to the office now, behind them on the other end of the library, some of the shelves appear to be kind of nested inside one another. They slide out away from each other, forming a stairway up to a balcony overlooking the library up on the second floor. That has appeared as you have removed this seal. So that's another way up to the second floor? Yes, there are now a few ways up to the second floor. You can see there's, let me use my ping tool. There's this guy here on the west side. There's basically the main foyer entrance. There's one to the north and then one in the library and one in the servant quarters past the now two giant piles of zombies that are creeping through there. Okay, well, I'm gonna look in the desk. That didn't do anything for me, Griffin. I want at least one look in the desk before you leave. Okay. Before you're all saying I departs for me, I would just like to look in the desk real quick to see if there's a knife or some coins. Or candy bar. Give me an investigation check. You stop to check out the desk as the corpse mound inches ever closer. No, it's having like no, it's had no shot. You made that very clear. Give me an investigation check. Even if it hadn't had grease on it. Justin, I've got a box of toys over here. 16. 16. Great. There's a really nice fountain pen in there, man. Ooh. It's not even that nice. As you open up the desk drawer, you reach inside sort of rooting through there quickly and you find a small sort of cylindrical vial that is full of a sort of luminous red liquid inside of it. You are going to now also, before we leave you, thank you for reminding me, you are going to take six more points of necrotic damage from the toxin that is coursing through your shoulder and you may make another charisma saving throw, trying to beat a 17, to break, to fight off this contagion. Oh, well a three? Three is not going to do that. Okay, you are still poisoned, feeling pretty bad. Oh wait, I'll drink the vial. Okay. It cured me. And what's that growing out of your shoulders? Whoa. It's a cape potion. You chug the potion, the red potion, and it's, man, you know what? A little cape comes out. A little cape comes out of the wound. A little cape comes out of the wound in your shoulder, okay? So it's not like a full cape. It's like a half cape, but not in terms of length, but in terms of width. You have a little, basically like a little napkin that's going over your shoulder now that is blood red. Like Captain Marvel has sometimes. Sort of, yeah. So you have this cool red quarter cape, I guess, sort of scarf now. This is a potion of superior healing that you have chugged here and also it gives you a cape. With the potion of superior healing, you are going to heal for, I do know, oh, 8d4 plus 8. You are still poisoned, but you are. 8d4 plus 8, 92. 8d4 plus 8. I don't know why you couldn't do the math for me, but thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So go ahead and recover 8d4 plus 8 hit points. You still are poisoned. Look at all those big fucking pyramids. Wow, dude. That's a pretty goddamn good roll for 8d4 plus 8. The 8d4 is 27. You heal 35 points. Great. You chug, you feel a bit better. You still definitely feel this burning sensation in your shoulder, but now you have a cool kind of cape coming out. Lureveth looks at the blob and licks some blood out of the quarter of his mouth. It's a bad news, pal. The Sloppy Corpse Mound begins to come towards you. Piss itself. It is loud as it sort of shambles and groans, but through that sound, you can hear another sound sort of echoing through the library coming from deeper in the house. It is the sound of piano strings being scratched in a sort of frantic rhythm. Wow. I really knock us out. It's times like this that I appreciate us more than ever, and if you're feeling the same way, listener, maybe it's time that you head on over to MaximumFun.org. Ford slash join. We have been a part of the network since it started. That is how much trust that they showed in this little startup project. And here we are, defying the odds. 12 years later, still rolling. We've been able to really, really put a lot of work into this show, hire people to work on it, and continue to make it what it is thanks to listeners like you. By going to MaximumFun.org. 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But with our podcasts on the MaxFun network, we don't want anybody to be left out of those. So we just put them out there and we hope that if you can pay for them, you will because it's the nice thing to do. It's a good thing to do. And maybe you'll pay a little bit more for the folks that can't. You know, that's the whole idea behind the thing. So if you find yourself in a position to do that, you know, that's kind of the arrangement. So I really appreciate it. Just go to MaxMumFund.org slash join right now before you forget. Back to the adventure. Yeah, let's get back into it. Back into the dining room. Hell, Grammit. You've been sort of caught here. What do you do? Are you going into the library or are you going to continue to sort of stay put here in the same room as Franklin and Rictus and Scorpo and Hayes and Blaze? Hell, Grammit is going to go into the library. Okay. Right there in that door. Okay. And then immediately down into the drawing room. Okay, you come into the library. I will say like you gain some information as you come in the library. You couldn't quite see the situation, but you do see this greasy corpse mound. You don't see Laura Vith because he's sort of tucked away in the office and you see this staircase that has appeared up to the second floor. More importantly, he doesn't see me, right? He does not see you. No. Okay. So you are going, you definitely hear this sound of the scratching piano strings down in the drawing room. And you make your way down into there. You see a room in a state of great disrepair. Laura Vith caused quite a mess in here. He threw a fireball and a guy out that window. There's blood all over the ground and toppled chairs and shattered bottles. And you see there is a piano that this sound is coming from. And right next to that piano, you see a zombie. And this zombie is about five times the size of any of the other ones that you have seen before. It is also wearing a cute little conical hat that you recognize as the hat that Pip, the enlarging, reducing gnome that Duber dispatched in his duel. Has come into the room and is kind of pounding on this piano. When this is so important, when the gnome enlarges or reduces the hat. That has the same size. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Of course. Yeah. No, I got you. So Pip is the kind of guy that goes to a party and if there's a piano, he just, he has, yeah, he's a real douche about it. He's got a flat. Yeah. He sits down and you hear him start playing Wonderwall. He starts playing some bin folds tracks. Okay. So Hellgrammat is in that drawing room. Yes. For what it is worth, Pip doesn't seem to give a shit that you're in there. Pip, Pip's eyes are blood red as you have seen sort of a few times before and his gaze is fixed squarely on this piano. Okay. Does Hellgrammat have any indication that Duber is in the piano? He has no indication. I don't think so, right? Well, if you said Duber was, is Duber strumming the strings? Yes. You have an indication that someone's in there, but I don't think Laura Veth communicated to you that Duber has been stored. Okay. I wouldn't communicate to any of you where Duber is stored. That's terrible. Sure. But then I'm going to have Hellgrammat as long as he hasn't been noticed by Pip, take a, take a little stop and use his psychic link to cast around to see if there's a, a, a, a, hello, you in the piano. Are you okay? Are you good? Who is that? Is that you? Hellgrammat, save me, please. I don't want to be squished. I don't want to be bitten and killed. Sh, Nike. Um, if I don't help you, you'll tell Laura Veth, won't you? Yes, definitely. Boop. Okay. So Hellgrammat casts infestation on Pip. Okay. And you're going to shoot a bunch of maggots. Oh, nasty. You know, flesh eating maggots that eat the flesh of the dead. Hey, I'm just going to lean into it a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. So this is going to do two D6 damage after he, if he does not succeed on the Constitution saving throw. Okay. Pip is going to make a consave here. That is a 13. It's a 13 save. Nope, doesn't make it. Constitution saving 4. Okay. Then go ahead and roll your 2D6 damage against Pip. Sh, that would be a 4 and a 4. That would be 8. Okay. I think po- wait, is it just poison damage? Uh, yes. And it also moves it 5 feet away. Yes. So does this work on large? Yeah. No, it doesn't say anything about, uh, yeah. So yeah, this will, this will move him 5 feet. You can move, uh, oh, but you roll a D4. So it is a random direction. Okay. So go ahead and roll a D4. I will say if you roll a 2 on this D4 and you roll to the south, you will knock him out the window. That's a 2. That is a 2, man. That is very, very, very fortunate. Uh, Pip, the gnome, uh, takes a big wobbly step backwards, uh, trying to swat some of these maggots off of him, trips over the ledge of the window and falls outside. Uh, as he does that, you see him stand and his eyes, uh, meet yours, uh, and flash red as he sort of transfers over, uh, the aggro onto you. However, Pip is going to just kind of stand there menacingly for a moment, and then he rushes off into the woods out of sight. You lose track of him as he, uh, as he leaves to, to regroup. Okay, I'm going to open the piano and get Duber out. Duber looks at you and he says, Hell, Krimmet, thank, thank you. I, I always believed that you were good. I think Scorpo is wrong about you, sir. I, I, I, you, you're, you're like a nephew to me. I mean, I know. You could have just set the piano on fire and I would have died and then there would have been one less competitor. Oh no, no, no, no. Yes, I thought that I was like, sure, that's what was about to happen. When I saw the bugs come out, I was like, oh, time to be eaten by bugs. But then they went off to pick you. Let's go through this door and let's get on to the second floor. Okay. Okay, sir. Uh, you're taking him into the foyer? Those stairs lead to the second floor, right? Yeah, absolutely easy. You, uh, you are able to take him up the stairs, uh, leading up to the second floor of the building. Uh, as you do that, we're going to hop over to Rictus. You are still in the dining room here with the two zombies. You hadn't quite finished off and a bunch of just a absolute World War Z level wave of zombies, uh, pursuing you from the west side of the house. Uh, you can see Franklin has blocked off the doors, uh, leading back down. So you cannot access the kitchen or foyer from here. Uh, but the doors that are still open are the one out to the, uh, library and then the doors to the north, uh, end of the house that you have not quite explored yet. I cast animate dead on days. Okay, cool. What's that mean as I try to add days back? I thought I was pretty safe in getting rid of his token there, but, um, the target becomes an undead creature, which should be pretty easy for them. On each of my terms, I can take a bonus action and mentally command the creature I made, uh, if they're within 60 feet of me. Um, I decide what action it will take and where it will move on its next turn. You can ask your general command. Um, and because I am a necromancer, savant person, uh, they get plus six health and plus three to attack damage. Okay, well, let me override the HP of this zombie. Uh, okay. Uh, that is your action, right? Is, is, is using that and then you have bonus actions. Okay, I'll go ahead and let you move days here. Uh, what, what's your, what's your goal here? My command is run interference for us. Okay. Uh, you see days look up at you, uh, lacking that kind of like, uh, you know, red shining aura about its eyes. Uh, and it clambers over to its two sort of former teammates, Hayes and Blaze, uh, and grabs them by the ankles and begins to claw at them. Give me... Give me an arcana check, please, Richtos. That's a, uh, one. Okay, that's not good. That's not very good. Magic happened here. One of the lower numbers. One of the lower numbers. Really, really, really bad rolls today, guys. I know I usually wait until afterwards to get to know how you roll, but really in the locker room, really, really super bad rolls today. Uh, okay. Yeah. Days, uh, begins to pull at Hayes and Blaze, whose attention turns back towards days, and it does appear to be, uh, they do appear to be distracted for the moment. And we run for that north door. Okay. Uh, Scorpo and, and Franklin are sort of ahead of you here because they realize that is sort of the only safe option, uh, for them. Uh, and you head into the kind of north hallway. Uh, there's a few doors leading, uh, out of here. Uh, one sort of to a, a meeting room that has some small windows you can peek into and see. It appears to be, uh, empty. No one has gone in there, uh, undead or otherwise. Uh, you see at the end of the hallway, another door leading into like a sort of parlor and then back into the dining room. And then there's this sort of smaller carpeted staircase heading up to the second floor that is now, it is un, unprotected by a barrier. The other thing you see is opposite, uh, end of the hallway. You see, uh, two figures, the sort of plague mask of Hippocrates, who, uh, you ran into before he scattered and ran off out of the dining room. And standing over Hippocrates, you see Hasty Jane, uh, who is holding in her hand a candlestick that she is using to make, uh, a series of pretty brutal melee attacks against Hippocrates, uh, on the ground. She is, uh, shrieking as she brings the, the candlestick down. You can't tell sort of how many times she's done this, but Hippocrates seems to be in pretty bad shape as she brings it down. The next, uh, blow, she, he kind of like is managed to hold off as she rolls a 10. Attack roll. Uh, she turns around super quick as she hears your voice. Uh, she, you know, her face is, is, is covered in blood and she looks back at you sort of in a panic and, uh, looks back down at Hippocrates and takes a step, step away. And she says, I, I had, I didn't have a choice. I, I thought for, he was moving towards me and he, he just, he, I could tell he had the sort of a menacing aura and I, I mean, look at him. He looks kind of scary and I, I, fuck. Hey, it's okay. Uh, she's going to bolt. Uh, she turns on her sort of afterburner boosters and, uh, goes flying up the carpeted staircase, uh, up to the second floor of the house where you lose sight of her again. Hippocrates is on the ground in front of you. Uh, and, uh, he is sort of, he is, he is gasping for air. He, you know, has this mask on so you can't quite tell how he's doing exactly, but he, he appears to be pretty, pretty injured here. Um, hey, the, the thing you gave me, the vial you gave me, will it help you? Hmm. He shakes his head. No. He says, but you got him. You have to move me. They're going to catch me. I can't book. Okay. Uh, Scorpopranklin, can you guys get him upstairs? Uh, Scorpop kind of sighs and looks back at you and he says, are you sure? Yeah. We need all the help we can get to survive. And I'm pretty sure when we kill people, they turn on us. The zombies target us. Pranklin, uh, pulls on your arm and gestures back to the doors where he has started to kind of reinforce them. Uh, Pranklin is kind of walling up the, the places that you come through. Uh, he points at the door at the far end of the hallway and gives you a thumbs up, uh, basically saying like, I'm going to go, give me an insight check. Uh, just a, a baseline insight check to tell how well you can kind of communicate with Pranklin, uh, sort of non-verbally. God damn it, guys. That's a one. He points at that door and then it gives a thumbs up as if to say, cool door, huh? You're sure? He says cool door, huh? I thumbs up too, man. Probably sandwiches behind there. Okay. Uh, okay. It's, it's going to take both you and Scorpop to, uh, haul Hippocrates away. Are you taking him up the stairs that, hey, see Jane just bolted up or where, what's your plan for, for sort of trying to pull him away? Yeah. I was going to go help Loriveth, but if Pranklin's not helping, then yeah, I'm going to help Hippocrates. Okay. Uh, you grab onto Hippocrates and Scorpo and you, uh, begin to pull him, uh, up the stairs. Give me a perception check, please. Okay. I'm pretty nervous now. Okay. 16 plus five, 21. With a 21, you are able to hear and very quickly process back down the stairs back towards the hallway in the direction that Pranklin was heading towards. Uh, there is a loud crashing noise and you hear a, as one of the corpse mounds gets to the door before Pranklin does. That's my boy. That's my boy Griffin. Yeah. What do you do? I burn all of my spell slots and freeze time. Whoa. Holy shit. Okay. Uh, all right. How many spell slots? Let me look at your character sheet. I want to, I want to make sure we're doing this sort of honest because if you don't have enough, you're going to have to do it the nasty way again. Uh, do you do? I don't even know. That was a panning maneuver. One, two, three, four. Yeah, absolutely. I can hear it in your voice. Yeah. I have eight available. That shows a real human love for Pranklin that I think is really touching, Trump. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you want to do this, you're going to have to do it the bad way. Um, okay. All right. All right. Pranklin, fuck. Um, no, okay. Can I burn eight spell slots, Griffin? Please, for Pranklin. No, you don't, you don't burn the eight spell slots. You do the bad way. No, I'm saying 13 and I burn eight spell slots, please, for Pranklin. Oh, I see. You've reached the bargaining phase. Yeah. Um, okay. Uh, as you drop, uh, Hippocrates, Scorpo, first of all goes, ah, fuck, what? Why? Uh, as he sort of now has to carry, uh, all of the weight of, uh, this large bird man wizard, uh, up the stairs by himself, you leap down, you see this, uh, mound of corpses begin to grapple Pranklin with its first attack. You reach outward and project another bubble outward from yourself, another bubble of opaque white light that spreads, spreads slowly away from you. But again, I'll just leave my cantrips to you, Griffin, please. You are unable to, uh, control this spell as, uh, you are surrounded and through the bubble, you see this corpse mound, uh, begin to pull Pranklin inwards. You are frozen in time, unable to help, unable to do anything. You see one of the, uh, the larger zombies in the corpse mound sink its teeth into one of Pranklin's legs that it is pulling, uh, back inward and he howls a terrible howl. And then from right next to you, you hear a voice say, well, if it isn't my master, that's what you said, right? Master of, master, you can't talk, you are frozen in time. Master of death, master of time too, looks like you've really, really got a great grasp on it, Rictus. I told you, and so did the gentleman. These powers are beyond your control and yet you thought you could hang on to them and make them your own. Because that's what your family does, it is the only thing they know how to do. I am so disappointed in you, he says. He looks around and he says, I don't know what you've done here. We are in a time outside of time right now and that is, I guess, the only reason that I'm able to appear here in the fold and speak to you. But if you can't control this and you keep using it, bad things are going to keep happening. Pranklin is going to take another attack here as another zombie reaches forward and scratches along its leg. It seems to be doing sort of surface level damage, but he is trying very desperately to pull himself away from the mound, kicking backwards, sort of helplessly into the pile. You can't speak, but you can think right now, Rictus, what's going on? A lot of feelings about hubris. A lot of thoughts about the difference between master and servant and wanting to be a conduit rather than a control panel. I think that this whole challenge, as much as Rictus has been looking forward to the Necromancy Challenge, I think that this has been a real bastardization of his concept of Necromancy. And these people died in the pursuit of the goal of this thing and now their bodies are being used to continue to kill more and not really given any kind of respect. Okay, give me an insight check, please. Okay, that is a nat 20. Holy shit, okay. Death drifts in front of you between you and Pranklin and lowers his head towards you close enough that you can sort of see through the darkness of the cowl. You see the kind of milk white sort of skull inside and you are not afraid of this. It feels sort of natural to you to have this kind of audience with death. And in this moment, all of those thoughts sort of going through your mind, death is recognizing too. You can feel like a kinship with him that you have kind of aspired to kind of known. Is your desire known that it's something that your family hasn't always gotten right. All of these like pretty complex realizations are happening and you can feel a kind of understanding from him. He takes a step back and looks at Pranklin behind him. He looks at you, Rictus. He says, you wish to save the ape and Rictus thinks that's my dude. Okay, I can't keep helping you, Rictus. If I don't know that you are ready to leave behind your family's ways and become my instrument. If I help you now, I am going to require collateral to know that you're ready to do this. And he holds out his hand and grasps and pulls backward as he does that. Let you see the ghostly figures of your great, great, great grandfather and his dad, Rictus Ravenwoods, the first and second, who have been with you in ghost form this entire time, pulled towards him. And they are holding on to you as well. Death says, this is unnatural. The mind is not meant to persist eternally and that is what your family has built. This ruined world, this hellish contest, these are the wages of the eternal mind. Give them to me and I'll for you. Yes. Yes. As you think that, you see a look of shock in the faces of your ancestors. And then you see a look of absolute stone cold fear in their faces for just a moment before death squishes his hand into a fist. These ghastly apparitions vanish and suddenly you are freed from this bubble of frozen time. Maximum Fun. A work-grown network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you. What's that URL again? I can't forget. Guys, I keep forgetting. What's the URL? Help me. Yeah, sure. It's a maximumfund.org slash join, Justin. I assume that's the URL that you're talking about in such a panicked way. Yeah. I want to support all these podcasts. I love so much. Well, yeah, you make them. But the folks at home can also support them by going to maximumfund.org slash join and becoming a member and support us financially as we continue to make this show and try and make it a really good thing. So please help us out, maximumfund.org slash join. Get all the Boko. Get all the fun stuff waiting for you there and help us out. Help keep us going. And don't wait because the maximum drive ends in just a couple of days. It ends, well, maybe. I don't know when you're listening to this, but you know, go to maximumfund.org slash join and see if it's still going. Yeah, it's follow the clues to our famous puzzle. Bye, everyone.