The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 9/Transcript

Transcript by the lovely volunteers at TAZscripts.

Griffin: Previously, on the Adventure Zone…







Griffin: A massive shape lifts up from the darkness below you. It is an unthinkably gigantic gray anthropomorphic cat, and it says,



[others laugh]

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

{1:45}

[Heathcliff by Griffin McElroy begins]

Griffin: So the three of you are standing in front of a chasm underneath this city. The air is still, there’s just this sound of water dripping from the catacombs behind you and the purring of this enormous gray cat with a white patch of fur on its gargantuan belly in front of you. And Heathcliff says,



























Travis: Griffin, I don’t mean to give you notes, but is it too late to make Heathcliff speak in rhyme?

Griffin: Hmm.

Clint: Hmm.

Travis: ‘Cause it really feels like…

[Clint chuckles]

Griffin: Mmm…

Travis: It really feels like it would take it over the top for me…



Griffin: No, I’m not gonna do that, it’s—

Travis: Okay, but if you see the opportunity for it, will you take it?

Griffin: I will take it, I promise.

Justin: Yeah, like, more rhymes than the average person.

Travis: Yes, yes, yes!

Griffin: [high-pitched voice] What about a riddle?

Travis: Ooh! I’ll take a riddle!





Travis: I have to remember, it’s been so long…

Griffin: It’s been a month.











[Clint laughs]





Travis: “Supportive…”



[paper rustling]









Griffin: And he extends his gigantic furry paw, and places it on the ledge that the three of you are standing on and says—









Griffin: You hand the sword over to Heathcliff, who raises his paw up to his face and examines it for a moment. He actually takes out a little eyeglass, like a little jeweler’s eyeglass, and examines it very very closely. And he smiles and hands it back to you and he says,





Travis: Have we ever learned Duck’s real name?

Griffin: I don’t think so. That’s finale material.

Travis: Okay, ‘cause I would like to pitch Ruchard?

Griffin: Ruchard is— Justin, simmer on that, okay?

Travis: ‘Cause, it’s like how Dick is short for Richard, and Duck is short for Ruchard.

Griffin: Oh, that’s quite good, yeah.

Travis: Thank you.

Griffin: He says:



































































Griffin: So I have devised a sort of new way of doing the Fantasy Costco item acquisition stuff for Monster of the Week. Which I kinda had to do because it is not nearly an item-rich game as D&D was, right? And D&D could just be like “Oh, you found a more powerful sword and you found a ring that can freeze time or, y’know, whatever.” And that’s not really how Monster of the Week operates so instead, [Roll20 image send sound] I came up with a new rule. Oh Jesus Christ, this is [Clint: Hmm...] this did not come out—

Travis: Well, hold on, can you share it as a doc with us, perhaps?

Griffin: Yeah. How this is going to work. In the future, at the beginning of each new sort of arc here in Amnesty, the three of you will receive a letter from Heathcliff. And that letter will contain a hit-list of three Earth items that he wants. And all three of them will be available at some point during your hunt, but it will often require you to put yourself in harm’s way or a risky situation or something to acquire them.

These will be kind of like sidequests, so I’m not intending you to just be like “Okay, well I’m going to the— Y’know, I’m gonna rob a bank or something so I can get the magic diamond that he needs.” They will be sort of organically in— I will find a way to work these organically into the hunt, it’s just up to you whether or not you want to like take the risk to get them.

So that adds sort of a natural complication to things. Every item that you bring back to him, you will gain +1 on a roll that you do when you visit Heathcliff. So, for instance, if you recover all three items you would roll 2d6+3 when doing this Acquisition roll.

And then, from there, you can either enchant a piece of gear that you already have and make it better. Or you can summon a new piece of gear which won’t be as dope as the pre-existing piece of gear that you already had, that you enchanted, but it will still be a new thing that you can use. And that works with Gear Tags which is a mechanic in Monster of the Week, which your gear already has, like: one harm, two harm, area. I think Beacon attacks in an area, that’s a tag, fire is a tag.

All the tags are sort of— they inform the narrative, they inform what these pieces of gear can do. So on a really good roll you tell Heathcliff, “Oh, I want my sword to have fire on it,” and then you roll and if you roll well then it has it, if you roll a seven to nine you get that tag but you also get a “bad tag” that will complicate that weapon.

If you fail, it gives me narrative tools to use against you. And then if you fail completely, rather than just doing the normal, “You fail and you get one XP,” because this is sort of a high-stakes roll, if you fail this one you actually get two XP, so you still, like, get a nice little boost even if you fuck up. But basically, the more items you recover off Heathcliff’s hit-list, the better chance you have to get a better item. Does that make sense?

Clint: Yeah!

Justin: Yep!

Travis: Yes.

Griffin: So, those are the rules, Ned, do you want to start?













Clint: And I open up my coat.



































Griffin: And he extends his paw.



Griffin: What's it look like? What kind of— Cause there's lots of different types of NERF guns, and I don't think we have to be historically accurate (crosstalk) here but...

Clint: (crosstalk) It’s the NERF— It’s the NERF Blaster. It kind of looks a little bit like a shotgun, almost.

Griffin: Okay, cool. Um, what’s it—

Justin: I just feel like we're not being cognizant enough of our merchandising opportunities.

Griffin: No, this is amazing—

Justin: You said it looks like a NERF Blaster [Griffin chuckles] then that’s on sale [crosstalk, unintelligible]

Clint: [crosstalk] But it’s not gonna look it after he's done enchanting it, though. Then it’ll [crosstalk] look like—

Griffin: [crosstalk] It's not?

Travis: [crosstalk] Woah…

Clint: —whatever we can manufacture on the cheap and sell.

Travis: A NARF Blaster!

Griffin: It’s BERF! [Travis laughs] Um..

Clint: NERPH. N-E-R-P-H. [Laughs]

Justin: “It’s BERF or Bothin’!”

[laughter]

Griffin: All right, let’s enchant this thing. So, because you [Justin laughs] handed over what counted as two individual earrings, it'll be plus two on this Acquisition roll.

Justin: [gasp] The enchantment, it's changing the branding! [Clint laughs] It’s unlicensed! It's ready for sale! “It’s BERF or Bothin’”!

Griffin: Go ahead and roll 2d6, mac.

Clint: Ooohh…

Griffin: Holy shit. So that is a nine plus two, eleven!

Clint: Yeah!

Griffin: Okay, I think the tag that works here is “magic” if you want this thing to hurt this water monster. Okay, so he takes your NERF Blaster, your BAR— your BERF [Clint: BERF.] Blaster, and descends— I think I like NARF way better, actually. He takes your NARF Blaster and descends down into the depths, and he’s down there for a few moments and there is a gust of wind and a blast of light from down in the depths that shoots forward to the ceiling of this chamber. And you hear this loud screeching meow from down there and then Heathcliff comes back up and he hands you back your enchanted NARF Blaster.

Uh, the barrel where the shotgun, I guess, balls were previously stored is now this cylinder of what looks like blue stone that is, like, crackling with energy, and it's vaguely in the shape of the chamber that was in there but now it is this sort of magical power device, uh, in the center of your NARF Blaster. And, uh, now it possesses the tag “magic”. Go ahead and— what is your— I think your revolver does two harm. I think this, just to keep it consistent, is a two harm magic [Clint: Umm...] NARF Blaster.

Clint: Is it “close”? ‘Cus “close” is another tag on the .38, but—

Griffin: No, I think this would be whatever the next one is up from “close”, I think—

Travis: Medium.

Griffin: Medium, yeah. I’ll figure out the exact word later.

Clint: Okay, cool.



Griffin: He says,









Travis: And, i’m gonna be honest with y’all, I just raised my hand sitting here. Me, Travis. [Clint laughs] What’s the matter with me? Yeah, I don’t— okay.











Justin: A NERFling?



[Justin chuckles]

Griffin: He eyes you over. He actually lowers his huge face right next to you, and I think you get a better sense of his scale at this point, because his head alone is, like, three times your height. And he leans back and he says,















Griffin: And he sticks his paw out.

Travis: And Aubrey hands over her sick ass leather jacket. It’s sleeveless. In case anyone was wondering, it is sleeveless, it’s really badass.

Griffin: That’s a vest!

Justin: That’s a vest.

[Clint laughs]

Travis: Well, it was a jacket at one point in its life, y’know what I mean?

Griffin: Okay. Go ahead and roll Acquisition for me.

Travis: What was it, I can’t see it. Well, that’s not great.

Griffin: It is a seven, plus two is a nine.

Travis: Or is it a 10?

Griffin: No, it’s a 9. You can’t roll twice, my friend. So, with a mixed success on an Enchantment roll, your chosen tag, which would be 1 Armor, does get applied, but I get to pick a negative tag that I can put on it. [amused] I’ve got a good one. He rises back from the depths after the same sort of flash and meow, the whole production, and he hands you your sleeveless jacket. And as he opens up his palm, you see that— what is it made out of? Denim, I think you said earlier?

Travis: Leather. I said leather earlier, but whatever. Denim, sure, let’s go with denim. [Griffin: No, which is it?] That one makes more sense.

Justin: Denim didn’t require any sweet, sweet cows to die.

Travis: Yeah, so we’re gonna go with denim.

Griffin: Okay. Sweet moo cows, we don’t want them hurtin’. Denim, though, comes from the denim… horse, and lots of them got got.

[Laughter]

Justin: [imitating a horse] I’m supple!

Travis: Denim horses are assholes.

Griffin: This is denim flayed from Ted Nugent, so that’s great, actually. He hands you back your denim jacket, and there are threads of just sort of bright red shimmering… well, thread, now coursing through this jacket as he hands it to you, and he says,



Griffin: And he hands you back the jacket.

Travis: How sooo?

Griffin: I've given it the negative tag, “loud”. Loud enough that it draws attention. This is a— [Travis: Oh, cool.] this is a loud garment. It is loud, sort of, visually speaking, and I think it was probably there before, what with all of its patches and buttons and stuff, but [Travis: Yeah...] now it has the tag “loud.”

































Griffin: He very slowly starts descending into the depths, like:









Griffin: If you— actually, as you peer over the edge of the chasm, you see him looking up, still, like, very slowly descending into the chasm, [Justin laughs] like,







Justin: I was waiting for Beacon to respond.

[laughter]

Travis: God, we’re all on a certain meta-level today! Hands raised. Waiting for our own character to respond to us.

Justin: [imitating a therapist] Is Beacon there, Justin?

[Travis laughs]

Justin: [imitating a therapist] Can I talk with Beacon?

[Clint and Justin laugh]



Griffin: He pops back up–











Griffin: And he descends down into the chasm. Go ahead and roll Acquisition.

Justin: You watch, it's gonna be, like, a three. C’mon, big money, big money, big money! [disappointed sigh]

Griffin: That a six plus two, that's an eight.

Justin: [dejected] All right…

Griffin: He— so, uh, what Ned and Aubrey did is enchanting, uh, what you did is summoning [crosstalk] which is sort of—

Travis: [crosstalk] Thank you!

Griffin: ...different rules. [Justin chuckles] Uh, on a seven and nine, the summoning works but the item suffers during its creation. It has a positive and negative tag chosen by the Keeper and it also has “fragile” as a tag. Uh, which is just sort of a narratively focused tag that, if things go very, very wrong, it can break. Uh, but he comes up from the depths and he has kind of a confused look on his face and he's like:







Griffin: And he extends his paw and opens it up and you see a magic jetpack. Um, I kinda like the visual of it being like two criss cross belts that go around your chest with an apparatus on the back that does the propulsion. Because you invented this from your mind's eye, maybe you could tell me what it looks like.

Justin: Well, I'm trying to think if Duck’s— with Duck’s age, I think it is pretty close to The Rocketeer. Sort of that, like, art— a little bit of, like, Art Deco, that vibe. I don't know anything about architecture design or anything, but— yeah, that sort of, like, retro— Retro-futurism. That's the word I was looking for, thank you. Uh, that [crosstalk] sort of—

Travis: You're welcome.

Justin: That sort of vibe. Silver, two canisters that reach two points, and I feel like, from the bottom of them, there's just sort of like a blue-purple constant thrumming that just, like, makes them seem very scary. Like, ready to blow at any second.

Griffin: Okay. Yeah, I like that a lot. The tags—

Justin: I feel like Duc— it has an appearance that— as Duck sees it he makes the instant decision that it will be behind glass, “Use in case of emergencies only.”

Griffin: That is a good idea. This thing has the “fragile” tag as a result of your roll. It also has a positive and negative tag at my discretion. I'm going to give it the positive tag “quick,” which is normally reserv—

Justin: [Through laughter, sarcastic] So much better than slow jet packs.

Travis: Yeah, right.

[Clint laughs]

Travis: “Do you wanna take the jetpack?” “No, let's just walk. Are you kidding me?”

Griffin: It also has the negative tag “volatile” of course. This weapon is dangerous and unstable, or, rather, this jetpack is dangerous and unstable. So, it'll get you there and you can do some cool aerial stunts with it, but you better roll so good when you use it. So go ahead and add “magic jetpack” to your inventory there, Duck.

Justin: Alright, got it baby!

Griffin: And mark down those tags.

Justin: It’s called the “Fly Master” by the way.

Griffin: Sure, of course it is.

Justin: That's what it says on there.

Griffin: Because it has to rhyme—

Clint: -with NARF Blaster.

Griffin: Yes, all the items rhyme today. Heathcliff smiles and he takes those two earrings and he says:



[Heathcliff fades in]

Griffin: And he takes those two earrings and he closes his giant paw around them and gives you a little wink and then descends down into the depths with a whoosh. A magic whoosh.

{31:55-39:24 ad break}

Griffin: So Vincent has led you all back through the catacombs and onto the surface of Sylvain, back through the avenue of shops and restaurants, and across the bridge spanning the river at the center of town, right to the entrance of the castle that you spotted during your arrival. It's time to make yourselves known to the Interpreter as you sort of promised when you showed up here.

And he takes you across that bridge and you are now in the courtyard in front of this castle. It is a courtyard leading up towards a large staircase into the castle’s imposing front door. And as you walk through this courtyard you see that big orange crystal that you saw earlier up close. And, Aubrey, whatever attunement you have to magic stuff, you can feel the power radiating out of this thing. You feel a warmth coming from it. You almost feel like a sad longing emanating from it, too.

Travis: Ooh…

Griffin: All you, though, see something even more concerning at its base. There's a fleet of city guards standing in a perimeter around the crystal and they are shepherding a line of residents of Sylvain in a queue toward it. And, one by one, these residents, they reach the front of the line and they produce a slip of paper to the guards and they proceed to touch the crystal, just for several seconds, before another guard steps in to quickly usher them away. And Vincent says:











Travis: Aubrey looks at Duck and Ned, like:

















Griffin: Vincent has been, like, very, very affable for all of your interactions that you've had with him so far. But, when you sort of reinforce that, his demeanor changes, and he says:











Griffin: He gestures to the crowd of people waiting to touch the crystal and he says:



Griffin: He says:



Griffin: And he gestures up and, sure enough, there is a huge chunk just, sort of, carved off the side of it. He says:





Griffin: He sighs and he says:



Griffin: And he leads you into the castle. You head into this large entrance hall, where there is a long blue carpet leading up between about a dozen pillars of carved marble lining the other side of the carpet. Each one has an armed guard stationed in front of it. And you walk down this carpet to the end of the hall where there is a large, wooden door. And he stops and he says:















Griffin: And he gives you a big, furry thumbs up and he slips through the door and closes it behind him.



















































Griffin: [Giggles] You hear the sound of a spear’s butt hitting the ground and the door in front of you opens and you enter into the castle’s royal hall.

[Sylvain fades in]

Griffin: It is a cold room almost entirely carved from the same marble as the columns outside with a ceiling that stretches into the heavens, painted with an intricate mural of dozens of Sylvans of all shapes and sizes, all just touching the crystal. Almost as if to taunt you, Aubrey.

And surrounding you are rows of benches that climb the walls of the rooms, designated for observers to come and watch the proceedings that take place here. They are all completely empty. In front of you are three tall pedestals adorned with crests noting various royal titles. And seated on top of them are three individuals who, based on the crests beneath them, you assume serve important roles in this city.

There is the Minister of the Arcane, a short Sylvan woman dressed in a thick coat with several thick scarves draped around her neck. She's reading a large tome atop her pedestal and does not appear to acknowledge your presence as you enter.

In the center pedestal is the Minister of Preservation, an older, large spectral man, who looks down from his pedestal at your entry, intensely eyeing you with disdain.

And atop the final pedestal is the Minister of Defense. It's Vincent, who gives you a wink and a quick okay gesture with his hand as you step inside. And the door shuts behind you and the sound echoes through the chamber. The three ministers are sitting atop their pedestals, silently. They say nothing as you enter.









Griffin: The spectral man shouts,







Travis: In the meantime, Aubrey, almost offhandedly because she's been doing it so much, kinda starts nervously doing her little fire jumping from finger to finger.

Griffin: The spectral man sees you and says,













Griffin: And he hushes up as the sound of a loud creak fills the chamber and you see a door behind the three pedestals open and a Sylvan girl, no older than 13 you would estimate, steps through the door and onto a platform that is raised behind the three pedestals. She looks tired, partially because she's wearing what appears to be a long nightgown that reaches her feet. And there is a humble throne on this platform which she approaches and puts a hand on but doesn't sit down in. And she peers over the railing of this platform and looks at the three of you one at a time and then gives a faint smile and says:



Griffin: And then she turns and shuffles back through the door and out of the royal hall. And the Minister of Preservation, atop of his pedestal, says,



















Travis: [imitating the Minister of Preservation] Fresh from the horse.

[laughter]













Justin: Do you have something in your mouth?



Justin: Dad, do you have a jawbreaker in your fucking mouth? You legally have to tell me if [crosstalk] you have a jawbreaker in your mouth.

Clint: No! I don't do [crosstalk] jawbreakers.

Justin: We made podcast history—

Clint: [defensive] I don't do jawbreakers anymore! I have—

Justin: Are you eating during the show? Is it ice? You have to tell me legally.

Clint: If that's the truth, look on the camera.

Justin: Everybody rewind your audio.

[crosstalk]

Griffin: We all heard it.

Justin: Second-guess my dad. You heard it.

Travis: Is this like, now you're saying you're not eating now. Were you eating 30 seconds ago when we started asking about it?

Clint: I did have a bite.

Justin: Ah okay! ‘Kay hungry boy, what is so important that you had to eat it during this great podcast?

Travis: Which, I will let everyone know, is at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, not a traditional meal time.

Clint: I have blood sugar issues, you guys.

Justin: Here we go.

Travis: [disbelieving] Uhh-huhhh.

Justin: Here we go. [crosstalk] Here we go.

Clint: [defensive] Maybe you don't know that, but I do have these issues I have to deal with.

Griffin: He says,













Griffin: And he points to the woman dressed in all of the thick clothing to his side and says:





Griffin: Uh, she does not acknowledge you. She is nose-deep in this book that she’s reading.



Griffin: That does it. [chuckles] She looks up, just a second, and kind of eyes you over.



Griffin: What is the [bszzhhh]? You can't just say [bszzhhh].

Travis: It's like a fire in my hands, like I'm holding a flame.

Griffin: Sure, since you're trying to do it to accomplish something, right, you're trying to do it to impress this person and I think you should probably roll Use Magic.

[Roll20.net sound]

Travis: Ohh, not great. Uh, it's a— ohh, a six.

Griffin: Yeah, go ahead and mark experience there, Aubrey, and there is a glitch. Oh, it's not a glitch, on a miss— [chuckle] okay, this is what it says for Use Magic. “On a miss, you lose control of the magic. This never ends well.” So, you do whip up a zesty fireball, but, instead of staying put in your hand, it launches forward, as if with a mind of its own, toward the pedestal of the Minister of the Arcane, who reflexively ducks down beneath her pedestal as the fire ball collides with it, setting it ablaze and—



Griffin: And—



Griffin: And engulfing the book that was sitting on top of it. And after that impact, you see her reappear and wave her hand. And, as she does so, the fire swirls and then dies down and she sits back down at her pedestal and looks at the now charred and destroyed book in front of her. She kind of sighs, closes the book, and peers at you.



Griffin: Uh, Woodbridge, the Minister of Preservation, looks horrified that you just seemingly attacked one of the ministers, but Janelle says:









[Justin laughs]

Griffin: [Giggles] She smiles.

[Clint and Justin laugh]

Travis: Thank you everybody, I'll be here all day!

Griffin: She says:



Griffin: And then she reaches into her pocket and she pulls out what appears to be a small pocket watch, which she looks over, and says:



Griffin: And then she reaches under her pedestal and retrieves another gigantic book, which she cracks open and dives right back into.



Griffin: Woodbridge says, uh:





































Griffin: The guards by the door pound their spears down again and it opens, and the three of you head back out to the entrance hall, and moments later you are met by Vincent who seems winded after running all the way down here to meet you. And he walks with you back through the city to the archway, back to Kepler, and he nods to the squirrel-headed guard, who catches the moonlight on their shield, and shines it on the gate, which fills with light, and Vincent says:







Griffin: He says:













[Laughter]

Justin: There it is. [crosstalk, not sure about this bit] That’s not— at all—













Griffin: And the three of you step through the archway.

[Sylvain fades in]

Griffin: Ned, it is Saturday night— late Saturday night, and that means it's time for your big television debut for “Saturday Night Dead,” the television show that you do because you said you did it, like, three episodes ago. You're back at the Cryptonomica, it is after everything else that transpired today. By the way, this whole arc so far has just been one very wild day that you all have had, and now you're coming down off the end of it. And you're back at the Cryptonomica about to do a quick television show. Can you give a little bit of flavor for “Saturday Night Dead”? What's the vibe you're going for here?

Clint: Well, uh, I don't wanna go full on old-school horror movie night. We're using cameras in the Cryptonomica and, because of that, it's kind of a natural setting, but it'll be sorta like a, uh, Night Gallery feel. Maybe I'm standing in front of the case with, uh, George Washington's upper plate or, y'know, I'm standing in front of the case with Blackbeard’s treasure or something, so it's always visually very different, very atmospheric.

Griffin: Are you dressed up like the Cryptkeeper or is it just sorta [crosstalk] Ned giving you full Ned.

Clint: No! No, I don't want it to be quite that hokey, but Ned is a very stylish dresser, y’know. He's got the long scarf and he's got the clicks and the weskit. Y’know, he's dressed for it. I mean, he wants to put on a good show.

Griffin: Alright, I think there's a couple folks from the TV station, which is only one of, like, a very small handful that services, like, a pretty large area, since you all are in the Radio Quiet Zone. They're just sort of operating the lights. There's probably a camera person there. And then you have Kirby with a headset on, I think, helping out with just, sort of, some stage management— [matter-of-factly] uh, that's what they call it for television shows. [Travis: Yep.] And he slides the headset off and walks over to you and he's like:







[spooky music plays]

























Travis: Okay, it’s going to be a really, like, fairly cool sleight of hand, especially with a camera, “Is this your card?” kind of thing. Oh, but at first it's one of those tricks where it's like, “Oh, it seems like she got it wrong,” right, and she's like, “Oh, yeah you’re right,” and then she opens up her jacket and there's a patch of, like, y'know, the three of clubs sewn into the inside. And she's like:



[Gasps]

















[Spooky music fades out]

Griffin: We see a prison two counties away. We see a common area. We see a pair of guards watching a small assembly of prisoners who are all seated in front of a small television. And one of the prisoners is holding the remote and flipping through the channels trying to find something for the group to watch. And they flip through some home shopping stuff, they flip through a couple infomercials, Adult Swim, probably. They flip through Saturday Night Live, just scoot right on past that. They flip past Saturday Night Dead, leaving it- lingering on the channel for just a few moments before changing it to another home shopping network special. And a prisoner seated a couple rows back walks up and puts his hand on the prisoner holding the remote. And this prisoner says:

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



Griffin: And the other prisoner does and this man laughs and he points at Ned on the television screen and he says: