The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 20/Transcript

Transcript by the lovely folks at TAZscripts

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Griffin: Previously, on the Adventure Zone…

Griffin: And as you come to, you see a black Imperial Crown Coop, wrapped around a tree.

Clint: I gotta run into the woods!

Griffin: It is a note, uh, written on the back of a Cryptonomica postcard?

Griffin: As you reach toward the crystal, the prevailing feeling that you have right now, in this moment, is one of absolute certainty that you are dying.

Griffin: Uh, as you fall, you are in a flower bed. Your right eye is now this...dark orange hue?

Griffin: You see the face of the person holding this blade.

Griffin: Leo Tarkesian, neighbour and friendly local grocer, clears his throat and says,

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

Griffin: Welcome back to The Adventure Zone: Amnesty, 2019 edition! It has been seven - years since we have recorded an episode...[Justin laughs] Is this the one where we talk about medical history?

[Crosstalk]

Travis: Yes.

Justin: No.

Clint: This is the etiquette one. Right?

Griffin: Yeah, you wouldn't know, because we're four rude mother- motherfudgers.

Travis: [disapprovingly] Griffin!

Justin: [Laughs] Love it. Yes sir!

Travis: Griffin, we've talked about your blue comedy before!

Griffin: Welcome to the blue-collar comedy tour of the podcast. We're four young yokels, Griffin Justin, Travis and...Bob the cable man, and we're so excited to bring to you the Adventure Zone, and...we're gonna play Monster of the Week.

Justin: In this arc. In this arc, four rough and rowdy comedians have been sucked through a portal and are charged with doing uh… battle with the forces of evil. I, of course, play Ron “Tater Salad” White [laughing] And uhm… I’m really excited about this role—

Griffin: [crosstalk] He’s a paladin. [Justin: Paladin.] It’s great.

Travis: I play Jeff Foxworthy, who is in this universe an actual fox. An anthropomorphic fox-man.

Griffin: And Ron White should be known in his paladin name is Ron the White.

Justin: Ron the White, [Griffin: Yeah.] Tater Salad.

Clint: So you’re leaving Larry the Cable Guy for me?

Travis: You could do the guy with the signs.

Clint: Bill Engvall! No, I’ll be Engvall. I’ll be Billy.

Travis: Yeah, Engvall with his signs would probably some kind of divination class.

Justin: Divination—

Clint: [crosstalk] Here’s your omen. [Griffin laughing] Here’s your omen.

Griffin: Larry the Cable Guy could be like a tinker class [Travis: Yeah, uh.] Or perhaps like a thief or something that can work with traps. Like a trapper of some sort.

Justin: Or, here’s what I— Here’s what I—

Travis: [crosstalk] What about a bard named Larry the Fable Guy.

Griffin: Ooh, that’s quite great.

Justin: That’s very good.

Griffin: Well, okay. So.

Justin: Since we’re jumping through time and portals and stuff, maybe it could be Cable the Cable Guy.

Travis: Uuuhh. [Griffin: Oooh.] I like that!

Justin: From Marvel.

Griffin: Okay. Uh, Ned—

Clint: [crosstalk] Why are we not recording this? This is good stuff.

Griffin: Yeah, real—

Justin: Real good.

Griffin: Real quick: Ned, Aubrey and Duck killed the last big monster and the world is safe. Thanks for listening to TAZ: Amnesty. Now it’s time to move on to this great season of podcasting that we have just devised of the last three minutes.

[Clint laughing]

Griffin: I would kill for this—

Justin: Hey, let’s pick a name for it, so people can get on our nerves about it.

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: Yes, it’d be F— I mean, The Adventure Zone: Funny. Just to keep it sort of the convention. Uhm, no. We’re gonna do a Lunar Interlude for our current arc. Just to like— We haven’t done a The The Adventure Zone Zone about Amnesty since we’ve been in it, sort of, by my guess I think, we’re probably like halfway through it. I wanna say. This is gonna be a shorter one than TAZ: Balance. And uh… I also feel like it’s getting a lot more freeform than TAZ: Balance was towards the end. I think we all tried to make this beginning of Amnesty kind of more structured and uh… I don’t know, narrative heavy like the end of Balance was. And I think that the way the game has sort of moved, it’s been a lot more freeform. So when I say it’s like halfway through, I’ve no fucking idea. But it feels like we’re about there. And we’re gonna do like level up stuff and Heathcliff stuff.

Yeah, you wanted to do the Lunar Interlude this time like based on what kind of progression you wanted. Based on what thing you chose as your level up ability [Justin: Right.] Rather than me doing like “Hey, you’re going on a ski trip and then for no reason at all, you know, Duck eats some good soup and his sharp skill increases. Instead of doing that, like having some sort of narrative justification for it. So, that’s what we did this time—

Travis: It also— There are also have been scenes like that… I’ve wanted to— You know, a scene— Specifically one that we’re doing today. That I’ve wanted to do but it feels weird to stop in the middle of hunting a monster to be like “And now let’s do this!”

Griffin: Yeah, for sure.

Travis: This worked out well.

Griffin: Yeah, I’m really enjoying the game. I agree that the constant kind of tension of “There’s a monster on the loose that could kill somebody” does kind of lend itself to railroading a bit. Like Travis said, it’s tough to be like “Okay and then you go take a pottery class while, you know, the Bandersnatch gets the— eats up the kids”. I didn’t watch that Black Mirror episode but I think that’s what it’s about. So, who wants to start? I’ll leave it up to you guys. Who is the most randy for RPG.

Justin: Let Ned go ‘cause there’s somebody at my door.

Griffin: Okay, [Clint: Okay, great!] we’re gonna let Ned go first. Uhm, Ned.

Clint: Yes!

Griffin: You’ve told me what you want your progression thing to be and what the scene is going to be, so. Let’s hop right into it. Ned, you— This, by the way, takes place in like the couple of months between the December hunt and I guess next one will be the February hunt. So this is sometime in that stretch of time. We don’t have to all take place at the same time. But it’s in there. Ned, you find yourself at Whistles’ auto shop and trusted used car dealership. It is the automotive hotspot for all of Pocahontas County and you are standing there as a tow truck sort of loudly deposits the still mangled wreckage of your Lincoln Continental in the lot, where the shop’s proprietor, Whistles, eyes it over with concern.

Griffin: Ooh! That’s quite good

Travis: Now Griffin, I’m sorry. Is he whistling as he eyes it over or is his name Whistles?

Griffin: His name is Whistles and this is a name that Justin said off-handedly during some Duck lie and now he breathed life into this great character Whistles, the auto dealer.

Travis: Okay, and one additional question: On this auto dealership, has anyone ever been frozen in a block of ice as a publicity stunt?

Griffin: Uh, yes. Clint McElroy, [Clint gasps] who is sort of a plane-walker [Clint wheezes] between our worlds.

Clint: We have esta— That is canon, right? We’ve established I am able to move from plane to plane.

Travis: That is true, yes. ‘Cause he does appear also in Adventure Zone: Balance.

Clint: And I was frozen in a giant block of ice in a used car dealership once.

Griffin: That is true.

Travis: [crosstalk] That’s the reference I was making!

Clint: I know! I know!

Travis: Okay.

Griffin: So Whistles looks at like the mangled corpse of your Lincoln Continental and says,

[Travis laughing]

[hysterical laughing]

Travis: Nailed it, got it in one.

[Travis and Justin laughing]

Clint: Okay, so. Just to kinda… This is how long after the last hunt?

Griffin: I don’t know, you tell me.

Clint: You said a couple of months, right?

Griffin: Somewhere in between like the late December hunt and the February, which will be the next arc.

Clint: Okay! Well, here’s the thing. Obviously, with the end of the last episode he’s kinda feels some guilt that he hasn’t been a more active team member.

Griffin: Okay.

Clint: He has an idea of what he wants to get and he’s wandering around this lot, is Whistles doing that whole “used car salesman hanging all over, hovering—”

Griffin: [crosstalk] Oh yeah. I think, yeah you and Whistles hop in a few different cars, like there’s an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera that’s kinda beat up, there’s an old manual Yugo, there’s a—

Travis: Maybe an old, kind of rusty yellow VW Bug but it has a spark of life in it.

Griffin: Oooh.

Travis: It’s Bumblebee.

Griffin: An AllSpark of life. Yeah, there’s probably Lincoln Town Car, just like trying some stuff out.

Justin: Griffin, you really put Transformers in this thing? What’s up?

Griffin: Uhm. I mean.

Justin: Hey, I hear you guys talking about Transformers like, are you going to put Transformers in this motherfucker?

Griffin: Don’t spoil the surprise ending.

Travis: Oh, is that our next? We gotta hunt a Transformer?

Griffin: Well, the next one is gonna be the blue collar comedy tour, boys. And Transformers—

Clint: [crosstalk] And then hunt the Transformer.

Justin: Transformers Generation—

Travis: [crosstalk] Thus Adventure Zone: Gasoline.

[Clint laughing]

Clint: Okay, so Ned. All right. Ned spots something, [Travis gasps] there on the lot. And he remembers what Victoria was telling him about fate and luck and destiny. And it’s this humongous food truck. A gigantic food— the biggest food truck Ned has ever seen. And painted at the side of it, it says “Crêpes by Monica” [pronounced like “craps”, close to the French pronunciation]. There was a lady called Monica in Kepler, who is— who tried to make a go of it with the food truck business. Selling crêpes. But this is, you know, this is—

Griffin: Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. You call ‘em “craps”?

Justin: Did you just say “craps”, dad? How much—

Travis: Is it “craps”?

Clint: It’s crêpes [pronounced like “craps”].

Travis: Crêpes! [pronounced like “crayps”, the American pronunciation] It’s “crayps”!

Clint: [crosstalk] It’s not “crayps”—

Griffin: [crosstalk] It is for sure— It is for sure “crayps”!

Travis: [crosstalk] It is!

Clint: Do you say “crayp-paper”?

Travis: Yes!

Justin: You’re perfect, don’t—

Griffin: [crosstalk] Don’t change a thing.

Justin: —change nothing. They’re now “craps”.

Clint: Okay, so. So, this is obviously—

Travis: “Monica’s Creeps”.

Clint: A fried—

Justin: [singing] Doomsday crêpers!

Clint: A fried baloney sandwich market. Creeps— Crêpes [“Crayps”] are not gonna be very popular. So Ned looks at this and has this epiphany that with just a little bit of paint he could change “Crêpes by Monica” into “Cryptonomica”.

Griffin: Ooh! That’s quite good.

Travis: Oh, I see!

Justin: Okay, yeah!

Travis: Oh, I see!

Justin: Okay, yeah!

Clint: And it could be a rolling headquarters for whatever the hell the three of them are called. And with surveillance equipment inside, some weapons and he can roll around [Justin: Damn, I can tell you’re a writer.] like a mobile headquarters. But at the same time, you’re hiding right under their noses because it’s gonna look like a rolling billboard for Cryptonomica, but it’s really their mobile base.

Griffin: And are you gonna get of the “Crêpes by Monica” sort of paint job and write “Cryptonomica” [Clint: Yeah!] Or is it—

Clint: Yeah, it won’t take very much at all. Just a little bit of paint to change [Griffin: Okay.] “Crêpes by Monica” into “Cryptonomica”.

Griffin: Uh, I mean. Let’s resolve this. You’re talking about borrowing a move from the Professional playbook. The mobility—

Clint: [crosstalk] Yes, the mobility. Yup.

Griffin: Yeah. So, for that you have a truck, van or car built for monster hunting or crêpery. Choose two good things and one bad thing about it, and then there’s some tags: Roomy; surveillance gear; fast; stealthy; intimidating; classic; medical kit; sleeping space; toolkit; concealed weapons; anonymous; armoured; tough; monster cage. So two of those.

Clint: I’m gonna go with surveillance gear and concealed weapons. Like night vision, stuff like that.

Travis: Flashlights.

Clint: Flashlights.

Griffin: I’m into that. Like radio scan— Like you guys don’t have a lot of ways to [Clint: A police scanner.] scan the town. Yeah. I think that’s a very logical choice. And then for concealed weapons is it like stuff inside like Men in Black style, you like press on a panel and some guns come out? Or is it on the outside?

Clint: I don’t know how we would justify that.

Griffin: The outside one, I think, would be much harder— Like if a chaingun comes out of the top. In the shape of a crêpe, like that is way harder to justify than you have secret, hidden weapons inside the panels of the truck.

Travis: But I think you could say in a food truck, there are probably lots of cabinets and stuff. [Griffin: Oh for sure!] Like where you could definitely store weapons. So that if we were ever like stopped by cops or whatever—

Griffin: [crosstalk] And had to fight them!?

Travis: No! [Griffin: Oh, yes.] But they wouldn’t be like [Justin: Woah, twist!] why are you travelling with like eight shotguns.

Griffin: All right. Is that what you want? [Clint sighs] If you want a different tag—

Clint: You know what, I’ll tell you what. It might make more sense for it to be something like a tool thing. You know, I don’t want Ned all of the sudden to become the Terminator and have all this firepower.

Travis: Well now, hold on. What if he does, though?

Griffin: [laughing] Yeah, toolkit is one of the things. So, that can be the tag if you want.

Clint: I don’t know.

Travis: No, that does fit! Because like that was pretty well established with Ned that the trunk was full of stuff that he needed.

Griffin: Oh yeah. Yeah, that’s it! This is your bag of holding [Clint: There you go.], right?

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: Yeah, the toolkit— the toolkit is a way to finally sort of have a mechanical like justification for the fact that Ned can have whatever the fuck he wants whenever he wants it.

Clint: All right.

Griffin: Okay, so toolkit and surveillance gear and then bad things: loud; obvious; temperamental; beaten-up; gas-guzzler; uncomfortable; slow or old. You have to pick one of those.

Clint: I think “obvious” because it got “Cryptonomica” written at the side of it.

Griffin: Yeah, for sure. Okay, that’s great. Write that down somewhere if you do not mind.

Clint: I just did! [laughing] [smug] ‘Cause I know how to play this game.

Griffin: Okay, so you’re in the driver seat there with Whistles and— his name is plural, right? Yes, okay. And he says,

Griffin: And he hops out of the car and you are sort of poking around the front panel—

Travis: Enjoy your whip!

Griffin: “Crêpes by Monica”. And you know, looking around in the compartment up in the sunvisor, see if there’s any, you know, if anybody left any money in here, I guess. And the passenger door opens and someone hops quickly into the front seat.

Griffin: And uh, he says,

Griffin: I don’t— I don’t want to do a British accent anymore. This is the second time I’ve bailed from doing a British accent on this show. Hm. He says, because he was in prison and his voice changed while he was in prison.

Clint: Yeah, that happens.

Griffin: It happens.

Griffin: And it’s Boyd Mosche.

Griffin: I don’t think— Have you? You’ve described Boyd before, right? Like he’s big, he’s like built. He’s like a strong dude. Is like— Have you like… laid out any other sort of visual—

Travis: Looks badass, I believe is what was said.

Griffin: He looks badass is yeah, so I guess he is like a fucking— he's wearing a Punisher t-shirt. Although I don't know what that means.

Clint: I don’t— I think he’s uh… I think he’s a good looking guy. I mean, I think he’s, you know, can be very persuasive. Nice looking fella.

Griffin: Sure.

Clint: I think everything about Boyd Mosche is colored in Ned’s mind because he, you know, he sees Boyd as being the root of all of his problems.

Travis: I’ve always pictured him as kind of like Jason Statham.

Griffin: Huh, okay. Uh… Well then I have to make him British again.

Clint: Then you gotta go back to the British accent.

Travis: You can do it, Griffin.

Justin: Why does Travis get to pick what dad’s imaginary friend looks like?

[Clint laughing]

Travis: ‘Cause I’m dad’s imaginary friend.

Griffin: He says,

Griffin: He’s also kinda looking around the car like you were, uh, just moments ago before he hopped in. And he says—

Griffin: He looks at you, and he's kinda like agog for a second, and then he starts laughing and he's like,

Griffin: He sighs, and he just starts looking around the car and he says,

[Ned sighs]

Griffin: [chuckles] He laughs and he says,

Griffin: He’s got a little messenger bag he starts rooting around in as he talks. And he says,

Griffin: He says,

Griffin: And he hands you a small printout of this wooden sculpture. Looks like it’s about two feet tall and it’s intricately carved out of this bright, lustrous wood. It depicts this rhododendron tree, carved in breathtaking detail and beneath it is a figure sort of lying and looking upward into the trees branches. It is a lovely sculpture. Boyd says,

Justin: If you— If you listen closely you can hear dad’s buttcheeks flex as he attempts violently not to imitate Griffin’s accent. [Travis and Griffin laughing] He keeps wanting to veer wildly into it, but he’s gripping on for dear life.

Clint: It’s tough, it’s really tough.

Justin: [laughing] It’s difficult—

Clint: Blimey, it’s hard.

Justin: Pr— pr— Cor blimey, I’m very proud of you.

[Travis and Griffin laughing]

Griffin: He says—

Clint: Squire!

Griffin: He says,

[music begins]

Griffin: And he hands you a small stack of photographs taken surreptitiously from behind some branches of the woods. And they’re photographs of Amnesty Lodge.

[music fades out]

Griffin: So, Travis, you wanted to do a scene with Janelle, where you sort of are talking to her about the—

Travis: Yes, my magical guide, Janelle Monáe.

Griffin: Yeah, I’m okay with that headcanon. [Travis: Yep.] And you sort of talk about the nature of your magic stuff, which has, I think, developed over the last arc or so.

Travis: Yeah, I've really gotten good at this whole magic thing!

Griffin: Sometimes. Sometimes you drop a [crosstalk] Pizza Hut sign on all your friends.

Travis: [crosstalk] I can do it all!

Griffin: Uh, that is true. So, I think your training with Janelle— I like the idea of you all sparring. I think your training sessions have gotten a lot less, you know, you… levitating rocks on Dagobah, and more like, you know, full blown wizard duels as you sort of work on your magic together. And, so you're in this large banquet hall in the castle in Sylvain. It gives you a lot more space to spar. And Janelle pulls up a pant leg and stomps on the ground and this huge chunk of stone cracks out of the floor and starts flying at you. What do you do?

Travis: Uh, dive out of the way, and it's magically inspired, like a wind blows the stone one way as it blows me the other.

Griffin: Okay, I like that. How do you retaliate?

Travis: I would say… big fireball sent towards her head.

Griffin: Classic. Roll… I see you in roll20 here, why don't you roll plus weird. And if you really hard fail this one, this may be the end of Janelle, which would be a tragedy.

Travis: It was 8. Well, plus weird that 's a 10. '''

Griffin: Okay. Yeah, out of 10 you, uh, throw a fireball at her and she tries to do like, the same maneuver you just did. She tries to raise up this wall of water to actually just, like, sizzle out the fireball effortlessly but it actually, like, the force of your fireball knocks her backwards. And she falls to the ground, and she looks at you. And she looks very impressed, and your duel comes to an—

Griffin: Okay. Yeah, out of 10 you, uh, throw a fireball at her and she tries to do like, the same maneuver you just did. She tries to raise up this wall of water to actually just, like, sizzle out the fireball effortlessly but it actually, like, the force of your fireball knocks her backwards. And she falls to the ground, and she looks at you. And she looks very impressed, and your duel comes to an—

Griffin: She laughs and she says,

Griffin: She pulls up a chair. She casts a spell and, like, fixes the table and the banquet hall, which almost certainly got exploded during your duel, and pulls up one of the chairs as it sort of reforms beneath her, and she sits down and says,

Travis: And Aubrey takes off her sunglasses.

Griffin: I don't think she knows what that means. I get the gesture here, but I definitely— I don't think she's seen like the multicolored eyes. And she's just like talking and not paying attention. She's like,

Travis: [crosstalk] And Aubrey just kinda starts pointing to her orange eyeball.

Griffin: And she looks up at you and says,

Griffin: She doesn't look, like, angry or disappointed. She looks like she's— like instantly, like her instant reflexive reaction is like, it looks like she's trying to solve a math problem in her head, like she is trying to work something out, as you fess up.

Griffin: She stops her, like, calculation and looks up at you and just wordlessly nods.

Griffin: She has like long since gone back to her calculation, and then she like suddenly stands up with a start and she like looks around the room to make sure that it's just the two of you in there, and she says,

Griffin: She is already like walking away, towards the door.

Griffin: And she leads you out of the banquet hall, and down this long hallway, past a couple detachments of guards. And she takes you into this large chamber that, looking at the opposite wall from the one you entered from, you can tell is actually behind the royal hall from where you first met the ministers of this world during your first trip to this place. You see the three columns that they climb up on to hold court. And in the center of this room, there is, you know, there's marble floor. Right in the center of it is a crest depicting this large, orange crystal in front of the castle. And as you and Janelle step on it, she waves her hand and this circular crest lights up and then starts descending into the ground, and then you're just riding this platform downward. And very quickly, you enter into this massive, massive chamber. It honestly looks like where Heathcliff lives, like you cannot even perceive the true scope of this chamber, it is so massive.

[music fades in]