The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 22

A dozen wizards face the horde of marching death beyond the door. The civil twilight deep and blue creeps slowly toward a brighter hue. For sunlight's safety, twelve shall strive to kill the rest and stay alive. But to those killers bear in mind that death shall answer death in kind. Welcome back to Taz Royale, our battle royale winner take all season. Join us as we begin the next trial. At the end of the last episode, you all had made your way into a mansion that had appeared in the cemetery here on the Isle of the Octave Ziggurat. Found your way inside where you were informed that you would be attacked by the Unquiet Dead inside this house. The objective for this trial is to survive until sunrise. You were also told that the usual restrictions of don't kill each other have been lifted, but that doing so will incur some negative attention. I would like to announce that the rule about killing me is still firmly in place. Okay, yeah, so we did agree to that before we started this season. And I was like, listen, guys, it's going to be like a battle royale season. It's going to be a squid game. It's going to be a battle royale. It's going to be a fortnight. And Justin was like, I don't want to do that because I don't want to get hurt. So we did put a little special rule in there that you guys can't hurt Justin, but that he can hurt you. I've met myself, the performer, Justin. That's fine. I guess if you'd like to extend the protections to my character. Yeah, for sure. Loriveth, Dreamwander or Gondobon. By the way, good news, bad news, a little bittersweet this week found out they are making a show gun season two, which is great for us as people because it'll give us, it's one of the few things that we as brothers like that has nothing to do with our jobs. And father. And father. Yeah, and show gun. But people will realize that I'm just doing Cosmo Jarvis for show gun in this character. And it will be unfortunate when that becomes blatantly obvious. Well, we should, we will probably wrap this season up before season two show gun arrives. So maybe they'll think that he's copying you. Oh, yeah. Yes, there you go. So let's let's begin. A shrill horn rattles the windows of this foyer in which the three of you stand marking the start of the trial of necromancy. Beyond the large double doors leading outside to the graveyard, you and the the dozen wizards assembled here in the entryway can see the shambling, half decomposed forms of your, your former competitors punch upward out of their their burial mounds and begin sort of crawling toward the building. Hearing beyond them over the horizon of the island, you can see that the night sky has just sort of barely begun to shift from pitch black to like a deep royal blue, marking the the impending sunrise that will bring this trial to an end. But, you know, looking at it, you, you know that it will be some time before that happens. As things get started here, Scorpo is the first to spring into action, racing towards those big double doors and slamming them shut. And he begins securing it with a nearby lamp. Rictus, you see Franklin, who you had kind of teamed up with, in turn starts enchanting the windows here. Oh, so we're already inside. Okay, I thought you all are in slam the door on us. Yeah, no one's going in. Ha ha. Fuck you guys. He begins casting a movable object wards on the windows in this room, sort of helping Scorpo secure it. As they are doing that, a red light flashes through the room. And when you turn to the source of it, you see Hasty Jane is sort of at the first landing of the staircase leading up to the second floor from this foyer. And she has run into what appears to be a barrier, just a light red barrier sealing off the second floor from you all. And she is on the second floor? No, she is on the sort of landing on the staircase. The second floor has been warded off by this great large red barrier. She's on the landing? Yes, sort of. You see how the staircase kind of like goes up to a landing and then it goes up to the second floor. And I would say like half of the other aspirants here just fucking bolt deeper into the first floor of the house, sort of scared out of their minds. And Scorpo turns back to face the three of you and Duber and says, there's too many ways in on the ground level. We're not going to be able to defend them all. We've got to disable that barrier and reinforce our position up on the second floor. We've got to locate whatever is powering that barrier and disable it before the dead break through our defenses. Good thinking, partner. Way to go. Oh, that's my partner. Scorpo gives you a glance and he sighs. I give him a nod. A knowing nod. He says, Helgram at whatever animosity exists between us. We have to put it aside today or we're going to die here. I don't have animosity. I'm proud of you and your forward thinking. Okay, okay, but put a pin in that. The undead have begun to approach the front door. He looking out the window, he says, don't let them touch you. Don't let them bite you. Don't let them scratch you. Don't let them have your social security number. Absolutely. Don't let them fish you. How old do we know the layout? We need some salt for the doors. Helgram it. Go see if you can find salt in the kitchen. Scorpo kind of sighs and trudges off to the kitchen after making sure that the front door is secure. How well do we know this place? How well do we know the layout of this place? Well, this mansion didn't exist before today. It seemed to be conjured out of magic. So he knew about the kitchen. This is what I'm trying to figure out. Do we know this place or do we need to recall this place? You could see as you sort of approach the building, right? You could see in the front and get a general sense for it. Scorpo is right. There are lots of entrances and windows leading into this building. The kitchen is right off of the foyer. You can kind of see into it from where you are. It is like the next room over. Everything else, I would say, not 100% sure. You know that there's a drawing room kind of off to the side of the foyer as well. I'm going to head in there with Dover. Dover looks at you as you head off dutifully and is absolutely sticking by you, pretty scared. I lean down to Franklin and say, yeah, the salt doesn't do anything. Let's go. He likes that shit a lot, man. The other room that you all can see into here is the dining room here in the very center of the first floor. Before we leave, Hal Grimm is going to cash a lot of money. He's going to be paying for the food. He's going to be paying for the food. We're here in the very center of the first floor. Before we leave, Hal Grimm is going to cast Alarm on the inside part, like on the floor. Okay, that's a really, really- Right next to the door. Okay, I'm going to put down a little line here so that we remember that that Alarm has been set. That's very good. With an intent being that it'll sound off if they breach the door. It's so sad, Dad, that you have to explain why you're doing a competent thing. So out of little bit of faith, you have to explain your motivation to the extremely competent thing. It's such a rare occurrence. Well, let's give him a... I know, you have to like... There's not a joke. No. I'm not doing a bit. It's a real alarm. He's not gonna step in it and slip it oil. Yeah. Like, home alone. Uh, as we're... As you're setting down that alarm, first of all, are you making it an audible sort of alarm? Or is it a psychic sort of just-to-you alarm? No, I think it's audible. Okay. As you are, you know, putting this ward down right in front of the entryway, the first of the undead reach the front door. Ew! And you can see that what has approached the front door is probably 10 to 12 undead sort of entities. You see a couple familiar faces sort of in there, but a lot of them are too moldy and decomposing for you to make out all of their identities. But we are gonna be treating them like a swarm here that has begun to kind of batter against the front door. But it does seem like the wards that Franklin laid down and the, you know, the barring of the front door that Scorpio did is holding for now. I am going to cast Protection from Evil and Good on myself. On yourself, gotcha. Yeah, which includes Protection against Undead. Okay. And then I'm gonna grab Franklin's hand and we're gonna go into the drawing room looking for, like, another door. I don't want to hang out in the drawing room with Dupre. There are other doors at the rear of the room leading to the dining room. Oh, okay, great. Yeah, then we'll take that door. Okay. So you all sort of branch out and make your way into the neighboring rooms. So wait, they just went into the dining room? Yes. Oh, that's on this level, isn't it? That is on this level, yes. Okay, good question. Everything on this map is first form. I understand. Okay, Hal, Gramet, are you... What is your idea here? Actually, you're still in the foyer. He's gonna stick with his buddies. He's gonna, you know... Your buddies have split up. We all just split up into different ways. Oh, we'll win three different directions. Well, okay. Just say you weren't paying attention, Dad. Just say I was watching the news or something, you know? Playing Fallout 76 and I think you'll head to... I was downloading a patch for Fallout 76. He'll go find Scorpo in the kitchen. Okay, great. So you all, having warded the foyer split up into these different rooms, I'll tell you what, let's go ahead and roll initiative. We're not gonna get into combat necessarily, but it will be good to have that sort of on hand. Whoa, those are real physical dice. Someone didn't roll very well, but that's a beautiful dice. Three. Okay. That's pretty two. I got 11. 11, okay. And you got a 12, Loroveth? Yep, okay. 13, actually. 13, perfect. Okay, so we are going to start in the drawing room. Loroveth, you scamper in there through the east exit of the foyer and find yourself in a very posh sort of lounge area. There's a piano in a corner. There's like a little bar where there's some bottles of beverages all lined up on shelves against the wall. There's a huge wall of windows by the piano facing the front entrance of the house where you can see sort of where the undead have begun to smash against the front entrance of the building. They have not fanned out necessarily to a point where they have made their way over to this big window display. There are a couple doors out of here. Through one you can see into a library and you hear some, a couple of other aspirants moving around in there, but you can't quite see who or what's going on. And there's also a door into the dining room where Franklin and Rictus have head into. Also in this room, looking out the windows sort of in stunned terror is Tommy Falcon, who's just like kind of holding his hoverboard next to him just kind of frozen in place. And Duber looks up at you, Laura, and says, what do we do, sir? What should we do? Listen, I need to do trust me. I need to move your marker for a moment. You put him on top of the piano inside the piano. Duba, you're going to be safe here inside the piano. And I need you to hide inside the piano until I come back and tell you it's safe. OK, sir, but I'm not sure if I'm going to fit. Duba, it's a large piano. Look at the size. What if I don't know his skeleton comes along and begins playing the piano? And he hears the doll sound. And then looking at a perfect fit. Close as he's like saying his thing about like, what if a skeleton plays the piano? You don't. Perfect. Now stay mum. Stay mum, Duba. Daddy's got some work to do at the sound of the like the lid of the piano slamming down Stardust Tommy Falcon out of his reverie. He turns real quick, sort of drawing into a combat pose, then looks at you flying drop kick right out the window. Oh, for real? Yeah, man. Hell yeah, Tommy Falcon. OK, he's in here with Duba. All right, man, absolutely. Give me give me an attack roll. You're going to try and I guess this will be to move him five feet. Oh, yeah, baby, let's get it going. Roll an eight. Roll an eight. Roll an eight. Well, roll your unarmed attack, right? What? It's an eight plus six, 14. OK, yeah, that hits Tommy Falcon. OK, good. So I should have said with more confidence. You can make a special attack as part of the attack action to push creature five feet. Oh, I'm sorry, it is not an attack. If you are just trying to shove him, right, you're trying to move him out of the out of the window. OK, so let's do an athletics check. He's going to contest it with his acrobatics check and we will we will resolve it that way. Tommy Falcon has rolled an 11 plus one, a 12. 12 plus three. 15. Yeah, absolutely. OK, Tommy Falcon turns to look at you as you slam the lid of the piano down on Duba and he goes, oh, man, what are we going to do? We're all going to. You kick him square in the chest and as you do so, he goes flying backwards, smashing through the plate glass window. He is going to take some damage just from just from that window. He's also going to I'm going to use hill tumble. So he's prone to I need the I need the distraction. OK, yeah, absolutely. You have created a hell of a distraction. So bait really is more accurate. Yeah, sacrifice. Yeah, some delicious avian bait. Some might even say the colonel's been cooking. We got chicken. Come eat the sound of the shattering glass attracts the attention of the of the corpse mound here. And you see that those undead that were clawing at the front door have begun to clamber over towards Tommy Falcon laying outside the window from inside the being in your Duba say, oh, have they broken it? So I'm going to crack it. I'm going to crack it open the crack up in the top of the Duba. Yes. We're very close to the end of it now. Do you want to hear things that may be very frightening for you? I would ask that should it become too disconcerting, you strum these strings here on your finger pads. Do you feel those, Duba? You play yourself a jaunty little tune in case the noises get too upsetting because you shouldn't listen to what happens next. OK, can I what if the if someone gets in here and is about to find me? Can I play a jaunty tune also to like? I don't come back. Please, Duba. I can't bother myself with your question right now, Duba. But let me guess it. What you're asking. And yes, you can pee in the piano if you need to. You may urinate or defecate as as need as boys are want to do. I'm an adult man, sir. The lid closes as you keep on insisting. Are you or a big boy? And yes, I understand. Yes, you're a big man. You're my big man. Please stay in the piano where you are safe. All right, Rick, this you and Franklin dash into the dining room. Franklin still cackling at your great prank on Scorpo. As you arrive there, you see Hippocrates, the sort of plague doctor looking necromancer aspirant that you've encountered a couple of times before turns and just kind of like nods at you. He is busy just like tearing this room apart, looking for something. He looks at you. He says, so, you know what we're supposed to be looking for? How to get rid of the barrier? Is it like a button or a you don't know? I mean, honestly, your guess is as good as mine, man. But you keep looking. Franklin start grabbing chairs and shit and let's barricade these doors. He points at the doors leading back out to the foyer. There's those doors, he seems to say. A quick description on the room. There's a couple of fireplaces sort of flanking the west and east walls of the room. Then there's two big dining tables with like a dozen chairs each seated at each one. And then at the very rear of the room, there seems to be like a little what's the word? Not a stage, but like a raised. Dias. A Dias. Yes. Thank you so much. With a throne adjacent chair sitting on top of it, looking out into into the dining room. Franklin points at the doors you guys just came through back to those those doors or there seems to be some going to the kitchen and drawing room or the servant quarters and library. He's sort of gesturing all this with his hands. Yes, to all. OK. He is going to not the ones. Let's leave the ones on either side to the left and right, the east and west. OK. Unblocked. He starts laying out chairs, forming a barrier around some of those doors. What are you doing in here, Rick? I'm also going to search. Tell me about the fireplaces here that I see. Yeah, I mean, they appear to be fairly modest. A lot of stuff in this house is like super duper fancy. These appear to be like way more functional in nature. They are they are not lit. They are not lit at all. Fam. In fact, I regret to tell you that they. They have never been lit. They're pretty cringe as far as fireplaces go. There's some ashen logs kind of like tucked away in each one. So then I'm going to run closer. What's that? The throne logs have been recovered. Sire, the ashen logs are still intact. A log still burns. OK. It was just as you foretold, Sire, the ashen logs are perfectly preserved. You are looking around sort of the throne up there on the dais. Well, I sit on it. Oh, OK. Because if there's going to be a button or some shit, it would be reachable while you're sitting in it. OK, you're looking for a Scooby-Doo prank. Yeah, give me a perception check, please. Sitting check. How good do I say? Just perception to see like how how good is it to sit? Oh, my. It's uncomfortable. Yeah, that's a one. You've rolled a natural one. You sit down and as you do, you hear two sounds happen simultaneously. The first is a big loud fart and Franklin turns back to look at you and points and fucking busts up laughing as you pull a small inflatable device. How do you even do that, Franklin? Franklin's fucking so sick with it as he continues to lay down. You're an assassin. You also hear a loud crinkle as you sit down and you see tucked sort of into the crack next to the cushion of this room is a is a map as you unfolded a map of the grounds. The problem is you sat on it so hard that it crinkled up almost entirely beyond beyond recognition, but now you all can see sort of the general layout of the building. It seems like there were some telltale smudges of a sort that had been marked onto the map. Maybe it was the force of the whoopee cushion blast that like. Yeah, seemed to smudge those so that they are not helpful anymore. But now you can see hold nothing here. A Bakretis looks as I thought I heard a crunch. Yeah, no, I had a candy bar in my back pocket that I forgot about. OK, great. I found this. He holds up a vial, a green glass vial that appears to have some liquid in it. He says, I think it's a potion or it's a poison. And until I determine which one it is, I'm a medical doctor. Tell I determine which one it is. I don't think we should drink this bad boy. So it's a it's a potion or a poison. What would you do? Is it 50 50? It's either good or it's bad. No, there's actually way more poisons than there are potions. So I would say it's like 10 90 best best shot. So do you want me to drink it? Do you want to feel like drinking it? No, it just don't like you were kind of a chance. It's poison and I'm a doctor. So were you angling for that? It felt like you wanted me to drink it. Give me another perception check, Rictus. Well, that's a 24 total. OK, I will tell you with a 24 total, you're talking here to Hippocrates. He does not seem to notice that underneath this table that he is standing right in front of the marble tiles have have cracked quite a bit. There is just a sort of patch of exposed earth below that hole. And you see it begin to kind of tremble and part as you see a hand begin to clamber upwards from it. Hippocrates has not had a problem and move them out of the way. You pull him right out of the way as an arm swings out of the hole. And you see a lone undead figure climb out of the hole. Who is it? Give me a minute to come up with the person. No, I know who it is. I know. Thank you so much. I know who everyone is climbing out of the hole. Give me a give me a history check, I think. This is your own personal history to see if you recognize this figure. Twenty five total. Wow. Gosh, dang. OK, well, then I'm going to tell you outright. They are their faces almost entirely like unreadable. Looking at the sort of spandex uniform that they are wearing, you can make out who it is exactly. It is Ray's one of the elemental gladiators that you dispatched in the in the trial of evocation, shape shifted into the form of a giant house, I believe. You landed the killing blow getting rid of your your death mark. Curse Hippocrates looks at you as you pull him out of the way. He's like, wow, thank you. Thank you so much. I could have just let me die though. Ray's as he talks, you see that he turns his eyes away from Hippocrates and instead turns to stare directly at you, Rictus. And as Ray's kind of makes eye contact with you, his eyes, the pupils of his eyes flash red and he begins to climb with a little bit more intention. As that happens, you also see the hand of another undead begin to punch its way upwards from the hole. What do you do? I cast Chromatic Orb. OK. What level? You first. OK, I'm going to go with acid. OK, you are launching an orb of acid at this is an area attack, I think a small area attack Chromatic Orb. No, it's just a range spell attack. No, it's just a range spell attack. OK, make a range spell attack. He is he's prone and like my God up right. So I will give you an advantage on this attack. Oh, thank God. OK, there we go. Twenty two, the first one was a nine. OK, so that's going to be three D eight acid damage. Twelve, twelve. OK, that doesn't seem to have much like additional effect on him. Acid is not like whatever the element is that this this zombie is weak to. But you have you you blow off like one of its arms and it just kind of like melts in the acid next to where Hippocrates is standing. He takes like a big a big step back. This this particular zombie is is in terrible shape. The one climbing up next to it, which has now breached the the dirt below the table is wearing an almost matching sort of spandex uniform. Only this one is sort of bright green in color. You recognize as days. The other another one of the elemental gladiators. Similarly, it makes eye contact with you. Ignoring Hippocrates and Pranklin in this room entirely and mad dogging you as it clambers out of the hole. Let's jump over to Hellgrammit. You are down in the kitchen as you arrive. You see two figures have gotten in here before you. One is Scorpo, who is looking through all of the various shelves and cabinets in the kitchen, trying to find salt in order to seal the door. You hear him muttering like I don't even think salt is a thing. I just he knows a lot about dead stuff. I believe I overheard him telling his young ward that it was a bunch of BS or his partner. Now, great. Ward, great. Give me a the other figure in this room you see is for Margie. A Bukitini, who is you see has gotten kind of distracted. He is also having sort of a tough time with the reality of this situation. Just as Tommy Falcon was he it appears to be he is he is doing a little bit of prep work for like a meal and he is just kind of muttering to himself. Or is he maybe even talking to someone who maybe lives inside of his big tall chef's hat? I'll never tell. So give me a perception check, please, as you come into this room. Perception check. It's called a toke, Griffin, by the way, or toke. That's a Nat 13. Oh, wow. You see as you arrived and you started speaking to Scorpo, he tucked something that he had found in one of the cabinets. He sort of stood up quickly and tucked it into the back of his his trousers, tranched to hide it and sort of casually. But you definitely clocked it. He said, OK, are the front doors holding? That's so far no alarm. Yes. OK. Looking out the windows, he looks back and says it looks like the the undead have moved to a different part of the building. I think this room is secure. Let's let's why don't you keep giving it a good once over? And I'll move a little bit further into the house and see what I can find. Good. Yes. Yes. And inspect. How about the seven quarters? It's right next to us. You want? Yeah. I'll head in there and do a lap and hopefully I'll find whatever is getting this this barrier up and let's it's good to be sort of allied with you in this in this moment. I know we've had issues in the past. It's speciesism. That's what we're sticking with. OK. That's OK. How grand is going to go over and talk to from Agio? OK. From Agio holding a big sharp chef's knife has begun to chop up an onion on the cutting board, just kind of like. What? What? What you making there for me? He looks up at you and he says. Ratatouille. Wow. Wow. Saying the quiet part out loud. Shit. We don't have turnips, but I thought I would make everyone a nice. I figured if we gave the zombies a ratatouille, maybe we'd get the ratatouille. They wouldn't need us instead. There's there's there's turnips right in that that pantry right next to us. Oh, you saw turnips in there? Yeah. Give me a deception. Well, you did not look in that frickin pantry, dude. How do you know? Because you didn't say it out loud. You I'm here and you're here. OK. Here's an insight check. Huh? I got an insight check of 16. Your deception check was this is a contested check for lies. Oh, OK. Fourteenth. OK. From Agio turns to look at you and says, the pantry is locked. It is locked when I came in here and he's holding the knife and kind of in front of him now, sort of. He's crying and you don't know if it's the onion that he's chopping up. I don't even know if onions in ratatouille, but I assume it is. It's in frickin everything from Agio. For Agio, can we just talk for a minute? Let's be. Can we be real? You're not coping well with this threat. Are you your little? Are you worried about the the waves of undead soon to be upon us? I'm a magical chef. I know, I know. So, yeah, I'm a little afraid of the I've been afraid since the moment I stepped on foot of this island. I haven't stopped being afraid. I'm going to be afraid until I win or die. Understand. May I make a suggestion? Yeah. The pantry, what I was trying to trick you before. Yeah. And there may be turnips in there. We don't know, right? Yeah. Why don't you go in there and I can assure you that you will be safe? I can assure you you will be safe. Let's unlock the pantry. You go in there. OK. And I will protect you. Give me a persuasion check. Since he caught you in a lie, I'm going to need at least a 16 on this. It's a it is a high check for you to do this after getting caught like that. Persuasion check. All right. That'll do. Dirty 20. OK, with a dirty 20, Formaggio has no reason to trust you. In fact, I would say he has pretty good reasons not to trust you. But he is so pants, shittingly terrified in this moment that he is going to sort of nod. He walks over. There's just like a key ring next to the pantry. He unlocks it and says, you're not going to like set the pantry on fire or anything while I'm inside of it, right? Formaggio, please. It's a kitchen. Where would we find fire? He kind of sighs and steps in and says, I'll bar it from a locket from this side. Do you think this door will hold if like zombies get in here? Absolutely will it hold. OK. All right. I don't I need to lock it from out here. I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. And then slide the key and then slide the key back under to me. Gotcha. And then that way I'll be able to get out when it's time to. This is this is this is so good. OK. You will feel safe. Awesome. Great. He shuts the door. You see the key slide out from underneath it and you you are you locking him in there? Oh, yeah. OK. You lock the door. You hear from Margie say, oh, there's a. Wow, there's a nice screw here in here. I might I might pivot on the recipe a little bit. Do it like a cheese. Cheez-a-tooh. We read a cheez-a-tooh. Yummy down. Yummy down on that. All righty. Do you return the key to him? Do you return the key to oh, yeah, let me get that key buster. You know what? If I give it to you, you're just going to have to give it back to me because you can't unlock it from the inside, right? Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. All right. So you just hang in there. OK. OK. OK. All right. Take care of yourself. I will. Don't betray me. Don't betray me. Don't betray me. Boy, would I betray you. All right. Any cast infestation to go under the door? Oh, Jesus Christ, hell, Graham. Is this a betrayal? Cursed your sudden, benign betrayal. All right. Go ahead. And what is that? I think that's a save infestation. Constitution saving thrill. OK. Yeah. Fourteen. What level are you casting this at? I guess you've reached fifth level. What's a can'trip? So this is going to be 2D6 if it hits. OK. OK. He's going to make a Constitution saving throw. It is going to be a that is a 19. You hear him screaming as the bugs crawl on. He's like, hell, Graham, bugs got in. Oh, gosh. They're eating all the cheese. Come back, boys. Well, just did you make those bugs? Hell, Graham, did you make those bugs? Of course I didn't make those bugs. He starts pounding at the door. I'm not a queen. Listen, I got to go. You take you take your those bugs are to protect you in case the worst happens. And something breaks down the door. He is going to keep pounding on the door as he does so through the windows. You can see it's attracting some attention as some undead begins to sort of approach the kitchen. Are you leaving this room or are you? What is it? Exit stage left? Yes. OK. You're falling into the servants quarters. Great. OK. Back in the drawing room, Laura, through the window that you just kicked Tommy Falcon through, you see the next act is the corpse mound, which as it approaches Tommy Falcon as he tries to sort of scramble backwards trying to get to his his feet, it is going to take three attacks. The first you see like six different hands reach outward and grab into Tommy Falcon and pull him sort of into the pile. The next sort of couple of attacks that happen, you are not really party to. The only thing you hear is the the shrieking sound of a bird as Tommy Falcon. You just see feathers fly upwards out of the corpse mound. And moments later, you see his sort of beaked visage poking out of the pile. And simultaneously, the dozen sort of corpses here that just consumed Tommy Falcon and Tommy Falcon, all of their heads slowly turned towards you. And now I see me. They look up. They look up through the windows at you. And you see all of their eyes have begun to do that. Right, Red. Yeah. Do you know I told you not to look, but you won't want to miss this. He you know how you love. You see the lid of the piano crack and then you see Doober poke his head up very slowly and see as he does that, you notice that none of the corpses turn to look at him. All of them are sort of eyes locked on you. And Doober very slowly lowers the lid of the piano downward. And you hear him say, it's OK to be in here. Absolutely, Doober. I'm making law of its love of chicken. And then I cast Fireball on the big pile of bodies and the corpse mound. I'm just going to fucking torch it. Absolutely. I love it. Fireball time. You you have a great. Kids love Minecraft, so I assume Doober loves references. Oh, Doober feels at peace. You can't see him, but you know, like, Doober has been Doober has been pacified by the Minecraft reference. You hear him go, you hear him go chicken, from inside the piano. It's almost impossible. Yes, no more chicken, I still don't understand what that means. This is going to hit a 20 foot radius sphere. The corpse pile, I'm going to make a group sort of dexterity saving throw. I'm actually going to make the corpse pile a little bit hardier now that there's an additional corpse in it. OK. All right, so a dexterity saving throw. I'm going to make this a disadvantage because it's a shambling pile and also I do think swarms are susceptible to area of effect attacks. I also just would like it represented. That I distracted them with Tommy Eagles incredible sacrifice. Yeah, no, I mean, they they do not climb in this room, right? They are still outside of the window. They are not moving particularly quickly, but but you you manage to sort of buy by yourself around here. OK, they rolled an 11 on their dex save, which I do not think is going to clock in below your spell save. So you're going to roll a whole bunch of damage here. It's going to be fireball, I think 86. Yeah, 86 fire damage. All right. Damn. That's a lot of them. Thirty four. Yeah, it's nice to watch all them digital dice go scrubbing across the screen. Thirty four. OK. You get the sense as you hurl this ball of flame into the pile of shambling corpses. It's it's actually really fucking them up. You hear a sort of chorus of screams coming from the the undead aspirants outside. This is actually going to hit them for 68 points of fire damage. And you can see you have sort of trimmed the fat a bit. A couple of these bodies have stopped moving entirely and kind of lay prone in the grass outside as the remaining sort of now on fire zombies begin sort of turning their attention toward climbing through the shattered window. I don't suppose you also see one of the undead grab Tommy Falcons hoverboard. And like kind of jokingly like check me out, guys. But can't really but can't do it because he's not coordinated enough. So wait, hold on. Is that Tommy Falcon? No, it's another one. The Tommy Falcon zombie looks at that zombie is like, hey, cut it out, man. That's offensive. Oh, OK. So I was going to ask I thought there might be a chance that once a couple of them died, Tommy Falcons be like, hi, hi, hi. Chop his way out. You see Tommy. You don't see all according to plan, buddy. You've only seen Tommy Falcons head at this point as you thin out the crowd. You can now see some of his upper torso and it's just bones. It's just like they killed him so fucking fast. Yeah. So like he's super dead. What are you what are you doing? You have torched this corpse around. Are you staying staying here, standing your ground fighting? Are you investigating? Are you moving on? What's your I mean, is there the way I'm visualizing it? Yeah, I'm like a little bit above them, right? They're on the ground level right outside. And I'm in this room. Right. They're moving. Oh, is there anything to be gained from like are they already in through the window? Is there is there anything to be gained from barricading at this point? Or should we there to they are definitely. Yeah, I think it's a little late to barricade the window unless you can move them back a little bit. You sort of the bait that you said was right next to that window. So I don't think there's like a particularly super safe way of doing that right now. Yeah, I agree with you. I do. Is there rate of movement slowed, you think at all by what I did? Or I just try to like, if I made a good attack on it and then immediately leave. Yeah, sort of like, well, why did I do that? You know what I mean? Like it's like, if I don't, but I don't necessarily want to sense for me to stay and like, give fight this thing with dober right there. Give me an insight check, please. Four. OK, not super insightful, but you have done. Yeah, you hate that you've done. What you have done here is you have you have tanked the sort of agro here. You can sort of see, especially when do you told doober to poke his head out of the piano. He did so. A few of the zombies definitely clocked that, but they did not. They are so focused on you. And you realize that that happened when you killed Tommy Falcon, when you killed Tommy Falcon, the undead. Super, super, a lot of leaps you're making there, griff. You're to make a lot of conclusions when you acted in such a way that led Tommy Falcon to die. Oh, so you're saying it was a leap that you killed Tommy Falcon just now? Yeah, circumstances did lead to Tommy Falcon's death. But had there not been a corp's mount outside, Tommy be back in here enjoying a game of P-Nuckle with us and the rest of his friends. Yeah, the corp's mount is to blame. One of the kind is my client. Yeah, is innocent of murder. One of the corp's mount piles upward from the top and is wearing like a little Magisters wig and you can see his thinking about it and then turns to the other zombies and is like, and they they continue to stare right in your direction. I am going to flee into the library. If I'm reading this map correctly, you are to try to draw that thing towards me. For knowledge is our greatest weapon. You dash into the library as you do so. You see there are two aspirants in here. Sort of while one of them appears to be sort of furiously tossing books on the ground, looking for looking for something and opens the door here on the far side of the room. You see the spider has made his way to the other end of the library and he he shouts like through that door like, oh, I found something. There's something in the up. And as he is speaking, you see the other aspirant that's in this room is Berger man and Berger man has is appears to be in the process of pushing one of these large bookshelves over onto the spider. You you have gotten here basically catching him in the act. You have, you know, a moment to intercede if you want to or or not. I am going to use spider climb. OK, you climb above onto above them. OK, watch what happens. OK, great. So you make your way into the into the library, spot this situation. Climb up onto the shelves. OK, you're a higher vantage point. You spider climb. Give me a give me a cell check with advantage because you are in an unorthodox sort of plane of the room just to see if Berger man is going to change his course of action here at 12 and a. Oh, yeah. Seventeen. Yeah, 17. You are out of sight, out of mind as you clamber on to. Are you on the ceiling or just on top of one of these shelves? I'm on the ceiling above. OK, cool. You spend the rest of your movement climbing up to the ceiling and see watch with sort of baited breath as you see Berger man shove the bookshelf between him and the spider, which then very, very quickly topples over and you see the spider turn turn backward a moment too late as he is crushed beneath the bookshelves. It appears to do a lot of damage. Maybe crushing damage is like extra good against spiders and bugs and stuff. But he is just absolutely flattened. And as he goes down, you see his the the gemstone in his wrist fly upward out of the grimoire that he's wearing and out of the window. Catch it. You I catch it. You are nowhere. I mean, you're on the ceiling directly above him. I said him directly above him. That is your intention. For sure. I would love that. No, no, no, no. Fuck you. Fuck it. I know what that. I know what that. No, hey, man, all I know. All I need is a narrative reason for why you would be able to do that. I do think I don't like us catching the I did it once. I know it doesn't feel right. The stone's gone. OK. OK, you hear a loud bell chime from in the distance. You also heard it when Tommy Falcon went down and I forgot to mention it. So now I'm watching this is I can we keep with me for a second? Yeah, what happens? Yeah. OK, you see him crush the spider as that happens. The corpse mound that was sort of pursuing you had made its way into the room. They did not seem to be distracted by your ruse, your stealth move, rather, I should say, climbing up onto the ceiling. They were looking up at you as they kind of clambered in here. But as that happens, as the spider is crushed by Bergerman in this sort of treacherous act, you see as all of their heads slowly now turn towards Bergerman. Oh, bad move, Bergerman. This thing loves fast food. It's fried chicken next up. It's burgers on the grill. And Bergerman, his top bun flaps open as he yells. And he takes off in a beeline heading into the office through the open door of the office for just a moment as Bergerman sort of throws it open before slamming it shut. You can see from your position on the ceiling down into the office on the floor is a red circle of light with some runic symbols kind of all around it, which give me an arcana. Oh, no, you know what? It looks so similar to the symbols that were on that big red barrier that was sort of blocking off the top floor. It's probably nothing. You can see that whatever is happening that is keeping that that barrier up is is in the office. But then a moment later, Bergerman slams the door closed. Let's hop back over to the dining room. Pranklin has finished blocking off the entrance into the foyer and the kitchen and the drawing room, leaving only the sort of exits deeper into the building open. Hippocrates is sort of standing back looking at you as rays and days. The elemental gladiators begin climbing out from under the table. Rictus, what do you do? I yell out cover your ears. Pranklin and Hippocrates follow suit and I run towards rays and days. OK. And when I get about four feet away from them, I cast Thunderstump. OK. And teleport away back on top of the farthest table. Good. And they are going to make a Constitution saving throw. They need to beat a 14. OK, I will make those individually. Rays is going to roll a. Nine minus one and eight. Days is going to roll a. Seventeen minus one and 16. So Ray days is going to save rays who is already damaged quite a bit is going to take full damage from this. I think days takes half. OK, so that's 15. So then is it rounded up around it? We'll round up. So it's 15 on rays, eight on days. Days is kind of like knocked backwards into the chairs around this table and falls prone. Rays as it takes the full kind of like brunt of this attack, you see the rays zombie just kind of explode, fanning out backwards across the room. It's sort of like constituent undead parts as he is sort of blown to pieces by the force of the Thunder. Days is appropriately enough dazed, but you see that immediately underneath the table, another undead form has begun to climb outwards. Well, Griffin, then that one needed to make a Constitution saving throw as well because it's a 10 foot radius. I guess that would extend under the ground. Yeah. Yeah, Blaze is good. You see Blaze pop his head up and Blaze bubububububub. Blaze rolled a 14 exactly. So Blaze saved from that. So he also takes the eight points of damage. I also guess I should know Griffin, the spell description does say the Thunder can be heard from up to 300 feet away. Yeah, so no, it's pretty loud. It is going to shatter sort of all of the glass candle lobbies in here and everyone else sort of throughout the house is definitely going to hear that as well. Yeah, as Blaze sort of punches his head up, he's like holding his head like he has like a super bad headache and you can see that he has taken he has taken some damage as well. Franklin, Hippocrates, anything you guys want to do? Way ahead of you. Hippocrates is going to point a finger at days and launch a ray of sickness at days and hits for eight points of damage. You can see that he is just barely on his feet now as he kind of like writes himself against the chairs you had knocked him back into. And as that happens, another chair goes flying across the room as Franklin just throws a fucking chair at him. My dude. And that is 18 which hits and they only had one hit point left. So it just like knocks his head clean off and another another zombie goes down. Blaze has climbed out from under the table at this point. And immediately underneath you see Hayes, who I'll go ahead and roll a con save force that's probably close enough. OK, so that's only an eight. So Hayes took the full blast of that thunder step. You see Hayes is like really fucked up like I am man as they climb out of the hole as well. Days is gone and Blaze has appeared. All of these gladiators were sort of turning their attention towards you as they climbed out, Rick, this. But you see as Franklin through that last chair, both Blaze and Hayes, their eyes flash red and then they both turn to look at Franklin, who is still kind of like busting up laughing about like killing that guy with a chair. Hippocrates says, I'm going to go deeper in the house. You guys got this, right? It's just two zombies. You're good, right? It's just two zombies. Yeah, give me that potion though. In case, I guess. I know I'm going to hang on to it. I'm a doctor and it's medicine. So OK, if you figure out what it is, though, will you let me know just out of curiosity mostly? Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Give me an insight check. Um, I got 13. OK, that's a nine. He's lying. He knows what this potion is like he is. He's lying through his teeth about what it is to try and keep you from asking a ton of questions about it. 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. He tosses it over to you. He says, are we even now? I think I might have tried to kill you in the conjuration or transportation track. I've lost track, honestly, man. Yeah, by guns, man. OK, cool. He gives you a feathery feather up and sort of squawks his way. Wait, like, flips me off? Flips me over? Thumbs up way. No, that's all. It's tough sometimes. The long feather is for like trying to like tell someone to fuck off. But this is like my. OK, cool. And he's Lormith hears this and realizes that Tommy Falcon was not in fact giving him a thumbs up. Yeah. Hippocrates did me down. Rather rude. Hippocrates runs into the rear of the of the of the manor towards these back rooms back there. Franklin looks at you pointing at the zombies, pointing at the doors like huh huh huh huh huh. Oh, yeah, let's go to the servants quarters. OK, you two hop down off of the table. And before you make your way in there, let's let's let's see what happened with Scorpon and Helgram. Kind of while this scene was taking place. Helgram, you make your way into the chamber, into the servants quarters after locking in for Majiobukatini. There were some some some some zombies beginning to appear at the windows outside of the kitchen as you came in, as we had another corpse mound to to the map. And as you arrive in here, you see Scorpo sort of turning over the room looking for any any way of making this barrier go away. He clocked Scorpon hiding something, right? Yes. You clocked Scorpon hiding something as you made your way into the kitchen. Right. Um, how far away is Loravith from Helgram? I mean, he's on the other side of the building. So like, oh, you have him sending now, right? Yeah. OK. Let me count the squares. Well, I can do this. I can do this. Oh, wait, we have a ruler. 84 feet. OK. Then then I'm going to use my Thrykeen telepathy to contact Loravith. OK. And say, where are you? What room are you in? Well, right now, bug man, I'm ironically on the ceiling watching the burger man about to get his just deserts. Well done. Are you in danger? Oh, I'm actually quite safe. OK, good. All right, I'll get back up. Hold. Any fuck. The address is verbal. Sorry, wait, I didn't do that in character voice. The fuck? Hold on. He goes to Scorpo and he says, Scorpo, are you an arachnid of honor? I mean, are you an in you're not an insect, you're arachnid of your word. Um. Yes, I think so. You shook with Loravith a grain to be his partner, his ally in this challenge. And right now he is in a room on the ceiling while a giant corpse mound is moving in his direction. I believe you need to go help Loravith. OK, man, am I looking for a magic seal or am I looking for salt? A lot of people are telling me what to do right now. I know, I know, I know, no, forget the salt. Although I am curious, what is it that you picked up and and and, you know, secreted on yourself a moment ago? I mean, I'm just asking in case it's something, you know, that is important to our quest. It's not. It's private. It's actually a very private thing. What I found a private thing in the kitchen. It's a pornographic magazine. Oh, please hang on. Pranklin busts in. Yeah, it's that it's that moment that Pranklin and Richter's Raven would come in through the dining room, as they said earlier. Scorpio turns back behind, he's like, OK, I'm surround. I feel kind of threatened right now. I don't know. You say pornographic magazine. Just another. Please hang up the call. Please hang up. Hang up the call, please. But man, just another reason for you to leave and go help Loravith. And I'll let me. I'll let me hang on to the magazine just to make sure it doesn't get destroyed. No, it's just that I promised Pranklin a pornographic magazine for helping me with the whole thing with the gentleman a couple of a sense ago. And if you would give me that, then like that would make us even. And the call. Scorpio, give me a magazine. Give me a persuasion check. I'll say you have advantage. I'll say technically Richter's is is aiding is helping in this role. I mean, you're going to need a good one, though, because people have been bossing Scorpio around, I say it needs to be at least a, again, a 16 or higher. OK. Well, that's not going to do it. That's an eight, but. Shit, guys. That is a six. Yeah. That's not going to do it. Scorpio. Tackle him. Whoa. We need that pornographic magazine. He whips out from his trousers. Whoops. He reaches backwards and pulls out a parchment from his trousers that's rolled up. He says, it's not a pornographic. It's a scroll. OK. It's a scroll. It's got a charge of a magic spell in it. It's a good magic spell and I found it. So I'm going to hang on to it. What? You never heard of a pornographic spell. It's not a pornographic spell. It's definitely like an illusion porn. It's a it's a it's a ward for against death. It's still on the line. No, you're making me wish I had a loser. He has. He says it's it's a it's death ward. It keeps you from dying. If you if someone kills you, it stops it. And I don't really know how it works. I'm not familiar with it, but it sounds like it might be useful. And I'm able to help you figure it out. Let me take a look at it. OK. One, why didn't you just say that? And two, you're going to you broke Branklin's heart. You were so excited for that pornographic man. He is really he's walking away slow, a recipe development style. I've got some fan fiction here. If you want to take a look at it, you know what? I am going to go find Loriveth. He is going to. Loriveth barges into the room. I heard you had something that could protect Duba. I demand you share this pornographic skull with me. Oh, God. You. Are you just something that you really is this what you've really done? I can't tell if it's a good thing. I'm going to keep doing my scene. OK, I'm not going to my scene. They're having all the fun over there. It's fine. It's fine. Let me do the Scorpio brushes past you. He is not going to make his way over to Loriveth. You failed to sort of convince him to do otherwise. Instead, he kind of like goes down this other hallway further down into the into the servants quarters. Frank still might do it. Yeah, it's still it's still it's absolutely still your your action. Look at that book on the table. OK. Yeah. Go ahead and give me an investigation check, please. How about a 19? 19 is a very, very good investigation. Hi. You you come in here. You see that Scorpio hadn't done like a particularly thorough job of looking through the place as you were trying to assassinate for Maggio Buccutini. You open up the the book. It draws your attention right away. You walk over to the table and as you pick it up, you hear a clinking sound as it page turns revealing a hollowed out portion of the book and from it a fairly large kind of vial of shimmering water falls falls out of the book. And give me a give me either an arcana or a religion check, please. I bet I know what it is. It's a kind of it's a dirty 20. OK, it is this shimmering liquid. You have probably never been partied to seeing it before, but you recognize sort of its natural kind of luminosity that this is a vial of holy water. I'll have you know, Griffin, that Hellgramma is a member of the Catholic Church. Oh, that's really, really that's super strong trap. That's super strong. Roman Cavaliers, I'm putting a sticker on the church on the chart for a good joke. Thank you very much. You find this this this vial of holy water. And as the three of you are sort of standing in this, is there anything you wanted to do in the servants quarters, as long as you're sort of here in this scene, Richtis, as you and Franklin kind of come in? Um. I'm know we were just kind of moving through here. I think I'll grant it and then we've got it locked down. Well, then you all are sort of in. Well, you said you were in here, right? So you're standing in the servant quarters in this like hallway. There's a hallway stretching outward towards a servant's entrance into the building where Scorpos sort of headed down towards. And then you have Hellgramma kind of in this lounge area. And from your position kind of like in the corner, able to see sort of this whole room, you can see Scorpos taking a few steps backwards away from the door. And without turning to face you, he says, run. And then he turns around very quickly and starts to charge downward down the hallway as he screams even louder, run. And the wall behind him leading outwards shatters the door falling down beneath the weight of the largest horde of zombies that you have seen so far, which have begun to pour in the room thirsty for blood. Hey, Griffith, just for your own purposes, do that last one again, because you don't want to end on thirsty for blood. Yeah, you're right. They're, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, you know. They're going wild. They're like, when I kill you, you're like, blah, blah, blah. Well, I'll take that again. Scorpos turns and starts to charge towards you down the hallway yelling, run. As a another corpse mound, a horde of zombies, larger and faster than the others you've seen, begins to pour into the room, ready to eat your whole body and ass. OK, can I just say the first time you did the two runs like where he did run and then run, that was really good. So I like that and I'm going to keep that. But then you need to just. I'll try one more time. So Scorpos turns back. He's like, Scorpos turns back. He's like, run and he turns back. He's like, well, maybe can I also give you a note? That part's good. And then he's going to eat your asshole. Well, that sounds different. No, like W.H.O.O. OK, so OK, go ahead. And the corpse mound pours into the room. This one's even bigger and faster than the other ones. And they're totally ready to chomp your chomp your buns. Rachel's going to be like, so what what do you fucking asshole actually want me to put in some claps? I have to put one of these in an MP3 audio file. Just added them all together. Clap at random times. How good a job I did ending this episode. Hey. A work road network of artist owned shows supported directly by you.