The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 13/Transcript

Transcript by the lovely volunteers at TAZscripts.

Griffin: Winter has come to Kepler, West Virginia. It is late December, and the reliable crowd of out-of-state tourists has nestled into Kepler’s hotels and resorts, seeking an authentic snowbound holiday retreat. Twinkling lights cover the town’s buildings and streetlights, and a freshly-cut, garishly decorated tree stands in front of city hall. It’s nighttime, and not a creature stirs in Kepler’s festive streets. But, up the road, to the west, a van speeds down state route 66. The vehicle, emblazoned in the ancient logo of the Monongahela Forest Service, is driven by one Rick Dannon, the agency’s chief arborist. With his working day of tending to the forest’s trees behind him, he has packed up his tools and left the forest to head home. But through his windshield, the winding highway begins to vanish before his eyes as a sudden furious snowstorm materializes in front of him. Thick, white flakes whipped into a frenzy by a powerful wind blanket his vision in seconds. Panicked, he bears down on the brake pedal and wrestles with the steering wheel, attempting to maintain control of the vehicle and pull over to the side of the road.

And then, as quickly as it appeared, the storm passes. The van’s wipers kick on, revealing the road before him. Rick breathes a sigh of relief, then turns the wheel, pulling back onto the highway to continue his commute. The van pulls away down the winding highway. It passes out of view behind the mountainside. Moments later, a crash echoes through the pines.

[Pause, music swells, then fades]

Duck Newton is pulled from his slumber shortly before sunrise by the ringing of a telephone. On the other end is Ranger Juno Divine. She informs him that Rick Dannon died last night [Amnesty theme begins] in a car accident on state route 66. No foul play is suspected. [Amnesty theme continues].

Travis: But I guess any time you call Duck Newton there’s some fowl play.

Griffin: Oh, that’s pretty good.

Clint: Ha ha haaaa!

Justin: Is it— is it the— my time, Griffin?

[Travis laughing]

Griffin: Um…

[Travis and Griffin laughing]

Travis: Is Justin finally coming in to his own?

Griffin: Uh, yeah, Justin, your body’s going through some— you’re going through some wonderful changes.

Justin: [crosstalk] Is this the change? The change in life. Okay, that was not my— that was not my roll, that was my get the— get the command in there. Um, but I need to do my, uh, I need to have a vision.

Griffin: Uh, that is true. Why don’t we, uh, why don’t we roll 2 d6 plus Weird, or I guess in your case minus Weird. I love that you keep taking stat upgrades but you’ve never upgraded your Weird because you’re still so spooked out by all this shit.

Justin: Here’s the thing, the only thing it’s good for is Use Magic and I don’t have magic powers, so what’s the point?

Griffin: Sure, sure.

Justin: [crosstalk] Uh, so I—

Travis: [crosstalk] Not— not yet.

Justin: So in fiction I guess like, [laughs] I woke up, they called me and said “Danimal is dead,” and I said “Aw, shit, I’m going back to sleep. I have to— I have to have a vision about this. [Travis and Griffin laughing] Hold on, let me do a prophecy about it and I will be back with you around 8:30.”

Travis: “You guys, I had the strangest dream that I got a phone call that Danimal is dead!”

Griffin: Uh, go ahead and give me a 2 d6 roll.

Justin: [laughs] Fuck.

Griffin: [simultaneously] Oh my god [laughing] Justin! Oh my god! Starting arc 3 off with a fuckin’ bang.

Clint: It’s a 2, ladies and gentlemen.

Justin: It’s a 2 minus 1.

Griffin: [incredulously] It’s a 1!

Justin: It’s the worst possible vision that I could have. I mean, here’s what I’m gonna say, canonically, Griffin. I feel like with a roll of this calibre Duck will have something bad to him— I feel like he’s also pissed himself. [Travis laughs]. Like, I think if he has a vision that is this bad, he has to have wet the bed during it.

Griffin: Oh my god.

Justin: Canonical.

[crosstalk, indistinguishable]

Travis: Like, maybe in the vision he has a vision about using the bathroom.

Justin: Yeah.

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: And in real life he just lets go.

Griffin: Okay. No. This is gonna be a bad vision. And it also means I get to take a hard move on you in the future. Um, which last time was quite bad, so, yeah. I don’t know exactly when I’m gonna cash in that shit. But here is your… here is your vision.

I think that, I think this is the dream you were having when you were awakened by the phone call from Ranger Juno Divine, and it came to you like sort of all of your visions come to you, there’s— there’s something about it, there’s something about this thing that you can see in your dream that makes it different from, sort of, the other dreams that you— that you have. There’s something very— there’s something very vivid about it, but there’s also something kind of, um, artistic, for lack of a better term, about it. Uh, there is something almost like you’re looking at a painting or something like that, um, and the vision that you see is just stars [music begins playing].

Not necessarily like you are, you know, lying on the ground and looking up and looking at the stars, but it’s just stars and there’s— there’s no moon above, you’re just looking up into the stars almost like you’re in them. And you see this for like, a long time, I think this is a long vision. For— for several minutes you just see these stars and then one of them appears to be getting larger, and it’s kind of at the center of your view and it’s getting larger and larger still, and then you realize that it’s not a star at all. What is approaching you is… a meteor [music changes]. And it is coming at you faster and faster and as it collides with whatever your point of view is, you wake up to the sound of a telephone ringing. [Pause, music quickly fades out].

That’s about as bad as these visions get, I think.

Justin: Yeah, that’s like, not great.

Griffin: So, it is December. We are about to start our third arc, our new hunt, our new monster, and just to like, to set the scene and get some of that good character juice… I’m curious what the holidays are like for each of you. Obviously, Aubrey, this is your first sort of holiday season in Kepler and you’re living in Amnesty Lodge and you’ve been there for now four months or so, so I think you’re pretty well settled in there. But Ned and Duck, you’ve lived in Kepler for some time, and I’m just curious what the holiday season is like for each of you.

Clint: It’s kind of weird for Ned. Growing up, he was always very much “big holiday guy”, loved, you know, family get-togethers and, you know, all of the cousins and uncles and aunts and grandparents getting together and enjoying a meal. But, you know, with the way his life has developed— you know, kind of a life on the shady side— he’s kinda had to give that up. So, holidays are not a big time for Ned. He wishes they were! But, you know, he’s [sic] usually [dejected and depressed] ends up watching the Macy’s parade and eating a cup of gruel—

Griffin: [snorting laughter] Jesus Christ.

Justin: “Cup of gruel”, where does he even find gruel? [crosstalk] By himself, does he make it by himself—

Travis: [crosstalk] It’s an old, sad recipe—

Clint: Hot Pockets Gruel. I don’t know if you’ve seen those or not—

Travis: Ew.

Clint: — They’re really nasty. But he just sits there in the dark with the TV on watching Macy’s, and y’know— hating on that Al Roker guy and—

Griffin: Yeah, good. Um—

Clint: It’s just not a lot of fun—

Travis: Yeah, dig that beef deeper, dad, go for it.

Griffin: Yeah, what about the Cryptonomica? Is it— Do you do anything special for your local business in the holidays?

Clint: Well, you know, a feeble attempt to decorate. Try to have, like, some special events.

Justin: God, it’s even sadder. It’s, like, sadder to put on a few strands of lights.

Clint: Yeah, it does make it even sadder, and y’know nobody comes. Ned’s trying. So most of Ned— he’s decided he’s going to have a Christmas special on “Saturday Night Dead”, and so he’s concentrating his energies there so he doesn’t see how sad his family-less life is on the holidays. So, he’s going to have a special couple of movies on the “Saturday Night Dead”, and, um, just kinda throwing himself into his work—

Travis: Like what movies, dad?

Griffin: Well, there’s that — what’s the one that MST3K did about like the killers—

Justin: Santa Claus vs. the Martians?

Clint: Yeah, Santa Claus vs. the Martians would be a good choice.

Travis: Maybe Jack Frost, but the scary one?

Griffin: The Michael Keaton one I don’t remember being especially scary. I mean, I guess he dies and that is inherently kinda scary but he does come back and learn a very valuable lesson about family and that—

Travis: He’s a ghost that haunts a snowman, Griffin, what’s not scary about that?

Griffin: Yeah, I know it’s spooktacular. Duck, what about you?

Justin: So Duck’s sister, Jane, is not in town. He would usually spend the holidays with her but she’s doing mission work in Honduras, so she is not here currently. So he kinda hung out with friends. He didn’t feel too sad about it, it was never a real big thing for his family. A lot of friends were in from outta town. He spent a lot of time doing bar trivia and karaoke and just kinda hanging out with pals that had come back in to Kepler. People he kind of lost touch with. [stutters] So he didn’t feel too bad for himself, like I said, it’s not normally a big deal, but with Jane not there there wasn’t really a chance to do family stuff. He just kind of palled around with folks. But it was nice, it was good to see some of those folks that he hadn’t seen for so long.

Griffin: Alright. And Aubrey, what about you?

Travis: Well, Aubrey doesn’t really do Christmas [Griffin: Sure.] Aubrey celebrates Yule, or the Winter Solstice. It started when she was kind of a teenager, and it was a rebellion against her parents and, like, leaning into the magic persona. So I would not say that Aubrey identifies as Wiccan, but with time as she grew older she actually did the research into it and found that it seemed to be a purer form of the things that we associate now with Christmas, and so it became more traditional in her mind and a lot more about the spirit of it without all the stuff piled on to it [Griffin: Okay.] That kind of thing and a lot less about, y’know, family. And I think a lot of that now is because she does tend to be on her own a lot more [Griffin: Man, yeah.] so she doesn’t really have a lot of traditions that kinda date back to family times.

Clint: Wow, we are a damaged bunch, aren’t we?

Griffin: Yeah, no kidding.

Travis: Yeah, dude.

Griffin: That’s good stuff though. I think that’s kind of the aesthetic of Amnesty Lodge, just a lot of festive, warm, welcoming sort-of winter time decorations. And in fact, let’s jump to that. So it’s a few days before Christmas, I want to say it’s the 21st or so, and in the afternoon Mama has called you all in to Amnesty Lodge to discuss your next hunt. Duck and Ned, as you arrive, and Aubrey, as you go to greet them, you all enter a very festive scene in the lobby. It’s decorated with garlands and wreaths, and the hearth is roaring in the centre of the room, providing much-needed warmth to combat the very cold weather outside. Jake and Dani are hanging up some more decorations here in the lobby area, and Moira is tinkling away at the piano trying to figure out some holiday standards sorta by ear. They probably don’t have tho— I mean, they definitely don’t have those in Sylvain, so she’s trying to sort of master them on her own. And Mama emerges from her office, and she’s walking with a cane made of this dark gnarled wood, it wouldn’t surprise you if she made this cane herself from some stuff she gathered in the woods around the lodge. She gives you all a faint smile as she sees you all, and she says:











[Justin laughing]



[Justin laughs]





Travis: Aubrey looks up from her book, and says,



Travis: And back to the book.



Griffin: And she sort of gestures towards the dining area where you all see Agent Stern—

Travis: We haven’t killed him yet?

Griffin: [laughing] No?

Travis: Man, we are slipping!

Griffin: He’s drinking— yeah, it’s a different age from the Balance age where you all— maybe it’s just because you can’t find a good cliff side to huck a body off of discreetly. But he’s drinking some cider, and he’s going over a Lamplighter with like a red sharpie, circling what you assume to be leads for his own monster hunt.

Travis: Oh, not just like corrections?

Griffin: Uh, he’s probably doing a little bit of that, also. It’s sort of a one man operation with Kirby leading up the publication, so, you know, there’s probably not much copy editing going on there. But she leads you all down into the cellar, which looks completely transformed from the first time that you saw it, thanks to sort of your own modifications and Barclay’s general cleanliness. And you catch him down here as you enter, he’s sliding a tray of food under the net that is sort of covering the kitchen area, where you see Thacker, who still looks unkempt and, like, vaguely inhuman. But he appears to be a lot more docile than he was just a— last time month. He doesn’t seem to respond as the tray slides to his feet, he just kinda sits perfectly still in the center of the kitchen, just kinda clutching his knees and looking down. And after you all settle here in the secret HQ of the Pine Guard, Mama says,













[Travis laughing]









[Travis laughing]





























Griffin: Mama shrugs, and she says,





































Travis: Is it snowing, Griffin, in Kepler?

Griffin: Uh, I don’t think it’s snowing right now but it’s going to be pretty cold outside for a while, and so, all of the snow that has fallen is still kinda on the ground.

Travis: Oh, so there’s snow, that’s what I mean.

Griffin: There is snow, yeah. I think public works does its best to keep it off of the roads and the highways, but I think this is probably an area where snow tires are kind of a necessity. [crosstalk] But yeah, there is snow.







Griffin: And Barclay, like, nods.















Justin: [laughing] Shake him up. [Travis laughs] “I’m Jake Cool-Ice and I’m now an insurance salesman.” [Clint laughs]

Travis: “You know, death could come at any time.”

Justin: “I had to confront that, thanks to a dear friend that was trying to cheer me up once.” [Griffin and Travis laugh]

Griffin: Alright, so the three of you head back upstairs in Amnesty Lodge. I want this scene, I think Jake Cool-Ice is like, walkin’ to the door. He’s just finished helping Dani decorate, and he’s got his board and, sort of, his gear on and his goggles, his board’s freshly waxed, and he sort of waves and he’s like,







Griffin: And he leans in close, because Agent Stern’s still kinda in the adjoining room, and he says,







Griffin: He looks fucking psyched, he’s like,









Griffin: He says,



Griffin: And he sets his board down, and the four of you now head outside towards Ned’s Lincoln. Uh, and as you step outside, it is— it’s the weirdest thing, because you just sort of walked in the front door as you came back up from the cellar, and this wasn’t there before, but now it is there. There is, sitting in front of the door, a small card. And as you sort of approach it, you sort of survey the card— it is written on sort of a fancy white stationary, with a lacy red trim pattern around its border. And at the bottom right corner of the card is a stamp in red ink, and that stamp has a design of a paw print inside of a thick red circle. And written on the card are three bullet point items that—

Travis: Oh!

Griffin: Yes, if you remember, that’s sort of how we’re doing the economy in this game.

Travis: It was just such a threatening and scary way for it to pop up. [Travis and Clint laughing]

Griffin: Oh, was it?

Travis: Yes! I thought you were about to introduce a serial killer character to the show.

Clint: The Red Paw!

Griffin: Uh, written on the card are Heathcliff’s bounties, which are: “A lawkeeper’s symbol, [crosstalk] a seer’s spectacles—”

Justin: [crosstalk] Badge. First one’s a badge.

Griffin: “A seer’s [crosstalk] spectacle—”

Travis and Justin: Glasses!

Griffin: “And a victorious seed.”

Travis: Some semen.

Justin: [laughing] From a really good sports guy.

[group laughter]

Griffin: Get huntin’, gumshoes.

Justin: “Go get Michael Jordan’s semen!”

Griffin: Michael’s secret stuff!

Justin: Get Michael’s secret stuff!

Travis: “Hey guys, it’s me, Michael Jordan, I just moved to town!”

[music fades in]

Justin: Dad met Joe Namath at San Diego Comic Con, so we got an in there. If we want his champion seed. [Travis laughing]

[music]

Ad Break {27:35 - 33:17}

[Amnesty Theme plays]

Griffin: So it is around sunset, and the four of you arrive at the scene of the crash on State Route 66, which is just sort of around this sharp hairpin turn around a hillside. And about halfway through the turn, the guardrail has just been demolished, and next to it you see a forest service van that has been hauled out of the woods sort of beyond the guardrail. The front of the car is just crumpled, there’s bits of woodland debris that are sort of stuck to its grill, and sort of in its shattered windshield. There’s no body, that has long since sort of been carted away. Instead there’s just sort of the remainder of this crash. And parked just in front of the van is a Kepler Sheriff’s Department vehicle with its lights flashing. And as you all sort of arrive without any troubles, because of Ned’s expert driving, and good snow tires— I couldn’t think of a great adjective there—

Clint: Chains. Great chains.

Griffin: You all exit the Lincoln and—

Clint: Before we do, [Griffin: Yeah.] I want to prepare Jake just—

Griffin: [crosstalk] Okay. Yeah, let’s have that.





Travis: [crosstalk] “I’m 43!”















Griffin: He looks— now you’ve made him worried and he continues to look worried as you arrive and get out of the vehicle. And as you do, the driver of this Sheriff’s department car steps out. Duck, you— and Ned, maybe, depending on— you’ve probably had run-ins, I think we’ve established you’ve had— not necessarily criminal run-ins, but sort of distrust from the Sheriff’s department. You all recognise him as Deputy Dewey, Zeke’s second-in-command. He’s just this, like, tall, awkward, kind of young guy, and he’s not especially well dressed for the cold, I think he’s just like wearing a short-sleeved shirt and he does not look especially comfortable out here. And he approaches you as you all step out of the car, and he says,





Travis: [imitating Dewey’s voice] “Aw shit, why do I sound like this?”





















Griffin: [laughing] Are you trying to fucking make it so that Balance is a creation of Deputy Dewey’s mindscape?

[Clint and Travis laughing]

Justin: No, I just want to try to please everybody. You know, some people prefer that, so I figure here, you could have a—

Griffin: There is a shocking amount of our listener base that wants there to be ties between all of the different universes we make—

Justin: Yeah, there are.

Griffin: I think— I think if this is the tie between— if Amnesty is just— if Balance is just the fever dream of Amnesty’s new side character Deputy Dewey, that would maybe not be the most satisfying result.

Justin: There are connective ties that— it is one coherent planar-verse—

Griffin: Okay, no. Um—

Justin: It is!

Griffin: Dew— all right.

Clint: The planar-verse! I like planar-verse, though.

Griffin: Dewey— Dewey says,









Justin: Do— I’m going to— I’m trying to think if there’s anything useful—



Justin: Let me just— I’ll just straight up ask you for a ser— 'fore I start spinnin' dice.



Griffin: I’m trying to decide if— I think that you—

Justin: I could pr—

Griffin: I think that sort of by your conversation, I think Dewey kind of knows you, and he knows that like this is your buddy who died, and so—

Justin: I— let me say this, though, I do think that you could make a rational argument— and I don’t know why I’m trying to make it harder on myself— you could make an argument that— I think you could make the choice that, if maybe you don’t have a lot of authority, you’re a cop in a small town, maybe you don’t have a lot of power, you might tend to get kind of territorial about other [Griffin: Sure.] branches of, you know, officials, or however you want to put it.

Griffin: I think if this was Sheriff Zeke, I think that would be true. I think Deputy Dewey, I don’t think you need to convince him just to talk to him. I think if you want to actually investigate the car and investigate where the car crashed and see what visual clues you can find, you’ll definitely have to. But I think this is just a roll and Investigate a Mystery, talking to Dewey to ask him questions about what he knows, I think he’ll just tell you.

Justin: Okay. I will say, though, a lot of my Investigate a Mystery questions are specific to the creature, which he’s not going to [Griffin: Yep.] have any sort of insight into, yeah?

Clint: Well there is a “What happened here?”, maybe he can interpret the accident?

Justin: Ehh…

Griffin: Yeah, I mean, he will— I’ll tell you this, Dewey may not know much, but he may know one or two things, and if you ask the right questions, you’ll get that information—

Justin: [crosstalk] Ok, yeah, let’s do it.

Griffin: —if you ask the wrong questions, he won’t.

Justin: I’m gonna grill him. Six… plus two. Eight.

Griffin: Okay. That’s a mixed success. On a seven to nine, you hold one, so you get to ask one question. What happened here, what sort of creature is it, what can it do, what can hurt it, where did it go, what was it going to do, what is being concealed here?

Justin: Mmmm…

Griffin: This doesn’t have to be the only Investigate a Mystery thing that you guys do here. In fact, I sort of envision you doing a few, so— yeah, don’t—

Justin: Let me ask the broadest possible, and—

























Travis: Griffin, could I try— so I want to do Read a Bad Situation, not because I want to read a bad situation, but because I want to use my Third Eye. Does that make sense? Cause it’s like tied together—

Griffin: Sure, yeah. I think you could still ask like a question here, off the list, and—

Travis: Ugh. Not great.

Griffin: What did you get?

Travis: Uh, it’s only a five, so I can’t read shit.

Griffin: On a five I make a hard move against you. I would say unless somebody wants to help out, I would only give you a plus one, and would open them up to sort of— another bad thing that could happen. So you don’t really notice anything— you don’t really notice anything bad, Aubrey. You don’t seem to notice anything magical, you get the sense that you didn’t— you weren’t necessarily attuned, but you— you don’t notice anything.

Travis: Hmm. Then instead, I’ll turn to my friend and rookie partner, Jake Coolice.









Griffin: And he points to the snow, and he says,



Griffin: And he points kind of down the— down the hillside, not really where the car crashed but just off to the hillside, and you do see just sort of this carpet of snow, just everywhere. But it’s not like— it’s not flat, it’s not perfectly flat. It almost looks like pockmarked. It almost looks like there’s just kind of— there’s little, very very small divots that you definitely would not have noticed if Jake had not pointed them out to you. But there’s something sort of peculiar, it’s not just this perfect, flat sheet of snow. There’s pockmarks.

Travis: So not, like— not like, footsteps small?

Griffin: No, no, no, like way way way smaller than that.

Travis: Is it in any kind of trail?

Griffin: Nope. Just kind of all over. I think that’s it. Ned, you want to do anything?

Clint: I have questions about the body. I have questions about what killed the Danimal, but I don’t if this is the place or if Dewey would have any insight on—

Justin: That seems to be a stretch for Dewey to reveal the…

Clint: Yeah…

Griffin: Well, Dewey did say he died from impact of the car crash, he did say that to Duck.

Travis: What the fuck does Dewey know?

Griffin: Yeah, I mean he probably saw the body.

Justin: Ned’s a car guy, right? Have we established that?

Clint: Yeah, he is actually.

Griffin: Yeah, for sure!



Griffin: As you all approach the van, Dewey steps in front of you and he says,

















Justin: Alright, they’re having this conversation, I’m—

Griffin: No, I’m gonna need Aubrey to roll to… probably Manipulate Someone. Uh, and that is the reason that you’re doing— once you’ve given them a reason, the reason is, “Do you wanna see some cool magic?”, and what you want is to distract them, so [crosstalk] that Ned can investigate the car.

Travis: [crosstalk] I rolled an 11 plus 1.

Griffin: Holy shit!

Justin: Hachi machi, that’s some good fuckin’ magic.

Griffin: So, they will do it for the reason that you gave them.



Griffin: Where are you, like, leading them to?

Travis: I’m basically just like, you know, whatever keeps his back to the car, that’s what we’re doing. I also will say, how distracted is he? Oh, I know what trick I’m gonna do! I’m gonna make his badge disappear! [Justin laughs] Because it’s a law keeper’s symbol.

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: Ah, shit, I love that. Oh, that’s so good.

Griffin: Alright, let’s play that out.















Griffin: He hands it over, he says,





Travis: So while this is happening, Ned’s investigating the car, right?

Griffin: Alright, we can jump over to that. Ned and Duck are by the van.

Clint: Alright, so Ned takes off his big, puffy, red-yellow-and-blue vest. [Griffin: Okay.] And does uh, an investigate check under the van.

Griffin: Uhh yeah, go ahead and investigate a mystery, I’m gonna give you plus one forward, because like you have this driver tag that hasn't especially come in handy, ever, but you do have like car auto experience.

Clint: Alright yeah, so I rolled a six, plus the one, would be seven, plus two for sharp, which I get to use here too.

Griffin: Brings you up to nine and uh, Duck, if you want to help him out somehow, we can get that up to a 10. Um, if you wanna roll Help Out and explain how you are helping out— or Aubrey, if you wanna roll Help Out as sort of your distraction. But you all— I don’t think we’ve ever done Help Out, but you can get this from a Mixed Success to a Complete Success if you can tell me how you are helping Ned.

Justin: Um… yeah, lemme try— Do you want me to see if it works first before I waste time telling him? [Clint laughs]

Griffin: No, I mean— here’s the thing, if you decide to help out, and it doesn’t work, then there is still a thing that happens, it’s just probably not gonna be great.

Justin: Um,

Duck: Ned, you should know that Rick was a real safe driver and he would’ve taken really good care of his car. I— [sighs] I’ll tell you what I’m thinking: I just don’t believe that he would’ve done something this reckless. It just doesn’t seem like him.

Griffin: Alright, yeah, telling him a little bit about Rick, I think will help. Um, go ahead and roll [crosstalk] Plus Cool for Help Out.

Justin: [crosstalk] I did. It’s a ten. [Clint: Ooh!]

Griffin: It’s a ten, okay. On a ten, your help grants them plus one to their roll. So that brings you up to a ten on your investigate a mystery [crosstalk] so that allows you to—

Justin: [crosstalk] Plus two, so that’s 12.

Griffin: Oh shit, cool. Uh, so hold two, Ned, and you get to ask two questions off the Investigate a Mystery roll. Keeping in mind that, like, you’re just looking at a car, and so there’s a lot of stuff on here that’s probably not gonna— not gonna be especially relevant.

Clint: Alright, tell me— how do I word this, I’m going to investigate, really check out the brakes. [Griffin: Okay.] Check out the brake line and—

Griffin: The pedal, and just that whole brake system.

Clint: The whole brake thing, yeah.

Griffin: Okay, so that would be—

Travis: God, it’s like listening to Car Talk over here. [Clint and Griffin laughing]

Clint: [nasally voice] “What do we got, the pads? Check the pads! Are the pads alright?”

Travis: [same nasally voice] “I’m gonna look at the brake gum, and the sticky widgets.”

Griffin: Um, I think that would be a What Happened Here, so… yeah, so you check out the brake system. Underneath the car, and under the hood, there is— there’s nothing wrong. The brake system is totally fine. You know, the brake line is working, there’s brake fluid, everything seems very well and just in good operating order. Uh, mechanically speaking. You go and you check out the actual brake pedal, and the brake pedal is also fine. But while you’re down there, sort of looking around— and again, the front of the car is pretty well crumpled up, and I think you have a hard time even getting into the driver’s compartment to look at the pedals, you see something— I think, actually, it’s been moved over to the passenger side— there’s some bottles, like plastic bottles of, like, Gatorade— I think Rick was a big Gatorade fan, and so there’s just a few bottles of Gatorade. And there’s one that looks peculiar, um, that is over in the passenger side floor. And you pick it up, and it’s been kind of crushed— it’s been crushed, like, right in the center of the bottle, in like a very specific way, almost looks like it got stomped on. And as you are sort of looking at it, and you look at the brake pedal, you kind of surmise that the indent of the crush of this bottle is the exact same height of the brake pedal. And so you figure out what happened here is that this bottle got wedged under the brake pedal, and probably kept Rick from being able to brake. And so, just this freak accident kept him from being able to brake the car, and sent him to his demise. [crosstalk] You have one more question—

Clint: [crosstalk] Wow. That’s some Columbo shit, right there.

Griffin: Well, you rolled a ten. You got one more question.

Clint: What about the grill? As long as I’m in full blown Columbo mode, let me check out the grill.

Griffin: Um, okay. I don’t think there’s— yeah, there’s nothing really supernatural about the grill. There’s nothing especially weird, it just kind of looks like— and again, you’re not a forensic analyst, but it just kind of looks like this van hit a tree very hard, and got very messed up because of it. One thing— Duck, you are sort of there talking to Ned— one thing I think you noticed through the window into the van, and I don’t think this is investigate a mystery, because it’s just very, very apparent, it’s not something you would have to dig especially deep to realize: The van is empty. And he was an arborist, meaning he was responsible for if there was something seriously wrong with a tree, or some sort of rot that was plaguing the trees in the Monongahela forest, he would have like a lot of tools that he would use to, you know, safely scale the trees and prune it or help deal with it— there’s nothing in the van. All of these supplies and all of these tools are gone. They are not in the van.



Travis: The sour milk has claimed another victim.

Griffin: The sour sweat potion.







Griffin: Aubrey, let’s finish your badge theft, if this is something you wanna go through with. Again, these are side missions that you don’t have to do, it just helps you later on [crosstalk] with your Enchantment roll, but—

Travis: [crosstalk] Griffin, I am a fucking completionist.

Griffin: Yeah, I know, you wanna 100% this. [crosstalk] You wanna get all the towers—

Travis: [crosstalk] You can’t give me side missions. I’m gonna get all the feathers [Griffin: Sure] I’m gonna get all the flags. [Griffin laughing]

Griffin: Alright, um, so, what’s this trick look like? ‘Cause I can’t just let you say, “I do a magic trick, and now I have his badge.” There’s has to be some sort of challenge to it.

Travis: So I would say that there is a lot of like palming, but mostly it’s like, “Oh sorry, I thought it was here— oh, is it there?” You know, like, misdirect, his keys are now where his wallet was, and his wallet is now where that was, and that kind of thing. [Griffin: Okay] And there’s just a lot of patter, and I will say that now that he has introduced that he is a big David Blaine fan, I’m gonna go for kind of a David Blaine feeling reveal.

Griffin: You’re gonna eat the badge?

Travis: …No!

Griffin: I mean, that’s what David would do, but okay.

Travis: I mean, the reveal— well, the lie, is something along the lines of,



















[Griffin laughing]

Travis: She says, she says wink wink. But she doesn’t wink. [Griffin: Okay]





Travis: And then maybe like, there’s a little flash. But it’s flash paper, this isn’t real magic. [Griffin: Okay] No, no, no.

Griffin: He says,











Griffin: Um, and as he sort of turns to walk back to the car, I think Ned and Duck, you all are already on your way back from the van. And he tips his cap and he says,





Griffin: Uh, and he gets in his car.























[Justin and Clint laughing]

Griffin: Um… you all drive away from the scene of the crash, and Dewey gets back into his car, and sits there for a while. I think he looks around his car for a while, looking to see if maybe you teleported his badge somewhere in his car, but he doesn’t find it. So he kinda sighs and smiles, like, ‘Oh no, where’s it gonna show up?’ Um, and then we sort of— we see the crash from the woods, up the hill, from above the crash, and there we see a figure on a snowmobile. And this figure is wearing a helmet, and was watching this scene intently, as it played out. Saw everything that happened, saw Ned and Duck investigating this car crash, and they probably should’ve seen— saw Aubrey stealing the badge of a sheriff’s deputy. And as you all drive off in the Lincoln, they turn the snowmobile and drive off back into the woods.

Travis: Is it one of them fucking Hornets?

Griffin: [sing-song] Hard move~! [speaking] So, uh, night starts to sort of descend as you all drive back down state route 66 and into town— you pass the turnoff into the Cryptonomica, and sort of drive into Kepler’s riverside. And those Christmas lights are sort of streaking by as you drive across the main drag toward the ascent back up to Amnesty Lodge on cliffside. And the temperature now that the sun is down has just plummeted, the streets are clear, nobody really wants to be out when it’s this cold. And then a single flake falls on the windshield of your car. And then it is followed by a sudden, frenzied storm, that starts to just completely cover your view. Outside, through the windows and the windshield, you can just barely see this storm being whipped about— these flakes are just being flung almost horizontally in your direction. And through this, you all see a figure, just for a moment, on the side of the road. It is a humanoid figure, wearing a brown robe that covers its entire, imposing frame. And, from a distance, you’d estimate to be easily eight feet tall, with broad shoulders and thick muscular arms. It’s got these two large bags of some sort, slung over its shoulders. And you can’t see its face behind the hood of its robe, but it stops and it turns to face you as you pass, just as the storm outside finally and completely covers your view. And then Ned, the engine of the Lincoln sputters in this storm, and then it backfires a few times, and then it just dies. And your car rolls to a stop. And then, moments later, the storm just completely disappears. What do you do?



Travis: [whispers] Griffin?

Griffin: I’m not gonna tell you if it’s the Krampus or not. But [mumbling] it’s probably not the Krampus.

Travis: [doubtful] Okay. That’s what the Krampus would say.

Griffin: [laughing] I’m gonna have to tell you if it’s the Krampus or else it’s entrapment.

Travis: Okay, thank you.

Clint: I can tell you who it was… it was Michael Jordan!

[gasps]

Travis: Hurry, masturbate him!

Griffin: Jake Cool-Ice actually says,











Travis: Okay, Aubrey gets out.

Griffin: Okay. Um, as you step outside you see that, indeed, there is no storm, there is just— it is just gone completely. Ned’s car has rolled to a stop in the middle of the street, sort of right in the heart of riverside. You just passed city hall and the massive Christmas tree out in front, and the few municipal buildings surrounding it. And on the other side of the main drag you’re on is a handful of the town’s staple businesses. There’s like a winter sports supply store, a Dave’s Dehumidifier Depot is here, Leo Turkesian’s general store is here, the Pizza Hut is here, it’s got this like towering, illuminated sign beckoning in drivers off the highway. And everything is just quiet.

Travis: And so we don’t see the figure now, right?

Griffin: It is gone. But you are fairly close by to where you just saw it.

Travis: Okay, well, I guess we go check out that area.

Griffin: You say ‘we’, is it you and [Aubrey: Well] Duck, are you heading with her?

Justin: Yeah.

Griffin: Yeah, I don’t even think you need to investigate this, because I don’t think you necessarily need to— again, I think when there are things that are just obvious that you can just see with your eyes, and don’t require any sort of additional investigation, you don’t need to roll. You see tracks in the ground. You see hoofprints [Aubrey gasps] in the ground.



Griffin: And as you’re sort of standing there looking at these hoofprints that just sort of disappear from the place where they were standing, where you saw this figure— there is a payphone not too far away from where you are, about 10 feet away. And it starts to ring.

Travis: I look at Duck.













Griffin: You pick up the phone Aubrey, and a… sort of pleasant, sort of lilting voice answers, and this voice says,





[The Adventure Zone: Amnesty Theme by Griffin McElroy plays]



Griffin: You take the phone and the voice says,