The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 16/Transcript

Transcript by the lovely volunteers at TAZscripts.

Griffin: Previously, on the Adventure Zone…

Griffin: You hear music coming from Minerva. It’s— it’s like a sad and beautiful, like, acoustic blues tune.

You see a black imperial crown coupe wrapped around a tree. In the driver’s seat is your accomplice—

Clint: And I pack— fill my pockets and then I gotta run into the woods!

Griffin: I think you are surprised when you cut clean through the pole.



Griffin: And it falls over into the store. The counterweight and the tram and— and your car kind of tied up in this cable are very very slowly, slowly skidding to a halt.

Justin: Beacon has now coiled its way around the goat’s throat.





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

Griffin: Maybe we should start with like a refresher, ‘cause it’s been— it’s been a Gregorian Calendar year since we’ve played this game. In this one, you hunt big monsters. Or sometimes—

Clint: Ooh, scary!

Griffin: Yeah, sometimes— it is a little scary, I’m going to go ahead and give this one a PG-13.

Travis: Griffin, have we revealed yet that we’re the real monsters? Like—

Griffin: Yeah, I think if you’ve been paying attention to like the subtext of the podcast, we have— the Walking Dead is actually maybe even us? If you can believe it?

Travis: [Comprehending] Ahh!

Clint: Nice! Well I don’t need it because I’ve taken copious notes, but I’m sure that the other two—

Griffin: [crosstalk] Okay, why don’t you—

Clint: [crosstalk] The other two might need it.

Griffin: Yeah. Why don’t you lead us, then, Dad, in prayer?

Clint: Uhh, dear Lord, please bless us with recognition, with cognitive abilities to remember all of the many wonderful things that have happened, and thank you for the blessings of podcasting—

Justin: [crosstalk] All right, he doesn’t— he’s just making— he doesn’t know shit.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Okay, he has no idea, yeah.

Justin: Just pulling that out of his old ass.

Clint: Amen.

Griffin: So basically, things have been happening that are bad. Bad things have happened that are bad. Like accidents. You had Danimal’s wreck because of the Gatorade bottle, you had the Pizza Hut sign falling into the building, and now you had the funicular tram— something went wrong with its brake mechanism, and it fell and was only prevented from wrecking the base station and the people inside of it because of Ned and Aubrey and the brave sacrifice of the Lincoln Continental. So that has sort of been the main threat. There— it’s kind of followed a pattern, where there’s been a sudden storm, and as it passes, that is when things start to go wrong.

You have also seen now these hooded figures that now you know to be these goat men that kind of resemble some of the creatures, including Vincent, that you have seen over in Sylvain. And Duck, you were in the middle of sort of stand-off where you had one of them taken captive with Beacon wrapped around its throat, with two more sort of facing you down. What other sort of stuff has been— Aubrey has kind of had some issues with her magic and her not really understanding how to make it work reliably, I guess?

Travis: I would say that she has some reluctance to safety and danger, you know? And concerns.

Griffin: Sure.

Justin: I think it’s great that Travis’s rolls in The Adventure Zone have been such that, should he actually roll unfavourably, he has to create a narrative reason why this is happening. Certainly this is not within the bounds of reality, certainly there’s a narrative reason why my rolls are bad!

Travis: Justin, the dice tell the story, you know, I’m just—

Justin: [Repeats somewhat incredulously] The dice are telling the story.

Travis: I am a humble messenger, the dice truly pin the tail on the donkey.

[Justin laughing]

Griffin: Let’s do— is there any other— we also had Ned’s sort of realizing that it was Aubrey’s house that he robbed, and that was sort of— that was sort of a fateful event in this campaign. It was the last robbery that he and his partner had before they had their wreck that left the partner behind, and Duck, you had, let’s see… a vision, a pretty bad vision of a meteor falling planetside [Justin: Yeah.] back in the first episode. Anything else that we need— you’ve met the Mothman, that was cool.

Travis: Duck has a sister.

Griffin: Duck has a sister, he also saved Juno from the funicular falling. Oh, these goat men have the tools from Danimal’s car, the one that wrecked, so they took what seemed like his arborist tools from the vehicle after it crashed. I think that’s it, I think we might be belaboring now. You all ready to hop back in, now that we’ve done sort of some groundwork?

Clint: Yeah!

Griffin: Okay.

Griffin: I mean let’s pick things up with— with Duck. That’s sort of the most pressing thing that I’m curious how it is going to resolve. You have this one goat man held captive, you have the sword to its throat — or rather, I guess, around its throat, which is sort of a unique way to put a sword to something’s throat — and you have these two goat men that you are facing off against, one with these long shears and one with a big shovel. And as you and Beacon say this badass shit, the two goat men facing you down don’t really, they really take a beat here. They don’t know how to respond. They don’t look scared, so much as they look, they look confused. They look like the possibility of one of them being in danger actually never even occurred to them. And I think they have a beat here where they are just kind of stopped still in their tracks, and just sort of stare at you waiting for your next move. What do you do?

Justin: I’m gonna try and talk to them—

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: And it sounds a little something— that’s a weird intro. I should always do that before I start talking. [crosstalk] And now my character speaks. [laughter]

Griffin: [crosstalk] And now I speak.

[Clint and Griffin laughing]





Travis: This is great, because Justin’s been recording the shit out of the Sawbones audiobook, and so Duck Newton’s voice has changed, it’s become a lot deeper.

Justin: Yeah, he’s down— it’s down here, because this is all I have left.

[Clint and Travis laugh]

Griffin: Yeah, the people on the tour we’re about to go on are just gonna get sort of tatters. Tatters of Justin’s soul.

Justin: You know when I get, I got one of those Hollywood doctors to give me the shots of the good stuff. [Clint and Justin laughing] Keep the glitter and glamor from spilling out my pores for the ticket buyers, of course.

Griffin: These two goat men that you’re facing off with, they look at each other, and the one holding the shovel kind of blinks, and then says:



And you immediately realize that they do not speak your common human tongue. They really have no way of speaking to you, you don’t even know if they understood what you just said. They obviously understood that their compatriot here is in danger, but that’s about the long and short of it. I guess my question for you is like, what are you hoping to accomplish with this hostage situation?

Justin: So here is the questions for me as a player. One, I’m obviously outnumbered and in a great deal of danger: can I secure my safety? Second, I don’t necess— I assume because of the structure of the show, that these people have— no, these goats [laugh] have bad intent, but I, it feels, Duck in the world does not know that. So, that is, I’m trying to ascertain, I think that. Is this a situation where these are hostile, or, you know or, what is the deal? Those are the two things I’m trying to achieve.

Griffin: Follow-up question— this goat man that you have held hostage, is you know, has human characteristics and also animal characteristics. Does Duck feel an actual sort of reluctance to commit violence to this thing? Obviously, the big, you know, omni-bear that you guys fought in the woods, and the water ghost that you fought, you didn’t necessarily have that element of, you know, personification, I guess, for lack of a better term.

Justin: Yeah, well, and I think also this is a situation where he has managed to get the upper hand? [Griffin: Okay.] And Duck is not the sort of dude who’s just gonna like… decapitate an unarmed creature [Griffin laughs] that he has pounced upon with nary a word spoken, one way or the other. I mean, he is— like, even if it was just an animal and not a personified animal, like… it didn’t attack him, yet. It may be responsible for some bad stuff but he’s not gonna, like, decapitate the thing [Griffin: Sure. Okay.] just because he has the opportunity to. He may come to regret that, but that is where he is coming from.

Griffin: Let’s do this, then. I think this is probably going to be a Manipulate Someone. I think that’s how we codify this and it’s how we move the plot forward? You want them to do something, you have something that— you have leverage, which is this captive. So, I think just to firm this up and to move forward, you tell them what you want them to do, and you roll plus charm, and you give them a reason. And I think your reason here is just, “Or I’ll kill your friend.” Or not friend, but, you know [crosstalk] fellow goat man.

Justin: [crosstalk] And I am definitely using some, like, hand motions to try to indicate, basically, weapons down. [Griffin: Okay.] Like, calm— you know what I mean? Like calming, like I would probably with an animal [stammering] you know, as effective as that is, I have no idea. Uh, roll 2d6— [goofy voice] Uh— Oh no! [Travis laughs] It’s a four! It’s a four, innit? Oh no.

Griffin: Aw, buddy. Aw, pal.

Justin: Oh no.

Travis: Oh no.

Justin: Bad.

Griffin: Okay, I’m gonna take a hard move here. They… I think they get one over on you. The one with the shovel sort of just starts taking a step back, it’s holding on to its shovel— it actually grips a little bit tighter to its shovel, because it doesn’t want to lose this tool. The one with the shears starts to put it down, and then— I think its legs just sort of compress and then spring forward at you, just so— just so blindingly fast, and closes the gap between the two of you. And I think before you or Beacon have the chance to react, the shears go through the goatman that you are holding hostage— right through its shoulder, and into your shoulder.

Justin: Aw man, that’s my shoulder!

Travis: Oh, no!

Griffin: You take three harm as this shear goes into you. And it pulls it back, and the goatman that you are holding captive falls to the ground and is bleating— and bleeding, hey! Alright.

[Exclamations of delight]

Griffin: — Just bleating up a storm. And at this moment, you are looking at this goatman that you’re holding hostage— or you were, just moments ago, I think at this point Beacon is now off this thing, and the two of you are just kind of on the ground— and, the other two goatmen have been kind of emotionless, kind of, um, robotic, although they are not robots. Almost like, confused by this hostage situation, and the emotions that you are trying to conjure up. The one on the ground is fucking— it’s terrified. It is terrified, and it is exhibiting a lot more emotion than the other two ever did. And the one with the shears gets ready to leverage another strike down at you, and then both of the standing goatmen, their ears perk up and you see them look, into the trees behind you, and you hear a car pulling up. And as it pulls up, these two remaining goat men run away. And you hear snow crunching, and through the brush comes Barclay. He’s holding his car keys, he has a baseball bat in hand, and he surveys the situation, and he says,





Griffin: He helps you up to your feet, and



Griffin: Yeah, he has a jacket on that he takes off and presses to the wound in your shoulder. Obviously, it’s not as bad as it would have been for a normal person, because you absorbed two of the harm with your chosen armor. But he says,











Griffin: And he looks down at the ground where there is still the injured goat man just kind of writhing. His bleating is getting a little bit quieter, it seems like his consciousness is starting to wane, and he says,













Griffin: Barclay says,







Griffin: And the goat man on the ground is now looking up at the two of you and its breathing is slowing. You actually see, like, tears in its eyes. This being is looking up at you as the two of you are speaking. I think it’s stopped sort of crying out at this point and is just kind of quietly looking up at you.







Griffin: He kinda laughs nervously and he goes,







Justin: And I rolled him back up.

[Clint, Griffin and Justin chuckle]

Griffin: Okay, Barclay helps you pick this goat man up. I think, as you get it off the ground, it sort of bleats in protest for a bit. I think its shoulder hurts quite a bit as you lift it up, and the two of you manage to get it— it’s actually a truck that he is driving, it’s Mama’s truck, and Barclay helps you put him in the truck bed and then kinda looks around and realizes, “Oh shit, we don’t want anybody to see this,” and has a tarp back there that he covers the goatman up with, and the three of you head back to the lodge.

Let’s also resolve Aubrey and Ned, you all have just jumped out of a moving vehicle. Ned, you have just seen your automobile be destroyed as it sort of gets tangled up in the cable and counterweight and car. I think all of those things just kind of turned into a big, big ball and stopped just before running into the base station, and you all also came to a stop about 30 feet from the base station. You’re pretty close now, and you can actually see the engineer in there, Mark, I think, is what we named him last time. He is listening to some music on some headphones, and he has his back to this obviously wild, chaotic scene and just has no idea what happened behind him. What do you do?

Clint: We weren’t injured when we jumped out, were we?

Griffin: No, I think that the way we justified it is the sacrifice was the car, and I wasn’t gonna make you all, y’know, break all the bones in your body. You landed in—there was some thick snow here, so you landed in that and were pretty much okay.

Travis: But at this point, like… is the situation done?

Griffin: Yeah. Situation’s done. There is no more threat posed to the base station.













[Griffin laughs]

Griffin: Got ya again!

Clint: Alright, so Ned goes and gets the Wookie costume out of the trunk. It’s… it’s unharmed.

Griffin: Sure, I love the sort of… unofficial bag of holding that Ned always has on him, where he just always has either one of the objects that we established that Ned had in character creation, or from Heathcliff, or just that you fuckingstole from some celebrity at some point. So I imagine [crosstalk]—

Clint: [crosstalk] My trunk of holding.

Griffin: Your trunk of holding, I imagine that there’s quite a few things. As you’re rooting around in the trunk, which, by the way, is pretty hard to get to, because it’s not much of a trunk anymore as much as it is, like, a can of Dr. Pepper that, y’know, a horse stepped on. [sarcastic] God, that’s a fuckingbeautiful metaphor, Jesus Christ I’m good at this. Holy shit. You guys are so fuckinglucky that you get to play this fucking game with me. [crosstalk, mumbling]

Clint: [crosstalk] You’re like a wordsmith!

Justin: [crosstalk, sarcastic] What a talent. The voice of a fuckinggeneration.

Griffin: Damn. As you’re rooting through, the engineer is alerted to the police sirens that are actually going off as these two sheriff station vehicles pull up in front of the base station, and you see two figures run inside. You see Sheriff Zeke and Deputy Dewey sprint into the station and start checking the area. And I think that they see you, and Zeke looks kinda surprised to see you, especially Ned—he notices you, Aubrey, but when he sees Ned, he’s like:



Griffin: Uh, and, the engineer walks over to the train-car-cable-counterweight situation, uh, and starts looking around, and says, he says:





Griffin: Just, he’s, I think as you are speaking about, uh for some reason, in the moment of him discovering that the train has been destroyed, asking him about secondhand scrap metal retailers, he is now focused entirely on the train, and he says:



Griffin: And he runs back to the base station, and you see him pick up his radio, and try to contact the engineer back at the top, um, but then he puts the radio down and kinda looks at it and slaps it against his palm, and his— his radio has stopped working, uh and then he shakes it a little bit, and you see some brown liquid come out of it, and you see him kinda realise that the, uh, coffee that he was drinking earlier spilled onto the radio, uh which, which kept it from working. And he just starts, I think, walking up the hill just to make sure everybody at the top station is okay. And with that, Sheriff Zeke walks over to the two of you and says:





Griffin: Sheriff Zeke looks over at you, Aubrey, and sees you being kinda quiet, he says, uh:

















[Ned and Aubrey protest]





Griffin: He looks a bit caught off guard, he says:









[Justin chuckling]



















Griffin: Do either of you know what he’s talking about?

Travis: No.

Clint: I don’t even know what I’m talking about.

Griffin: Fantastic.

[Music]

Griffin: Duck, you and Barclay have managed to get this goat man back to the uhhh, base… uh, the base?

Justin: The base? That sounds very militaristic, I love it.

Griffin: Back to Amnesty Lodge, back to the Pine Guard headquarters, underneath in the cellar. Uh, Barclay hops out of the truck as you all get there, and sorta gives you like a “hold on” signal, and then runs inside, and comes out, and says:



Griffin: And he helps you get the goat man inside. Uh, and up on the— I don’t actually know what your sort of veterinary-infirmary situation looks like, can you sort of— can you describe, like is this something that Duck knows how to do? Or what— what, what are you sort of envisioning this scene looking like?

Justin: Duck is probably— probably first aid, I would think, as far as like, what he can do. That seems to me to be logical, like he’s not a… serious, you know— he’s not an animal physician, but I think he probably is aware of, um, you know the basics. So what we’re talking about in this area, I think you can imagine a... metal table, in the middle of the room, and then some like, uhhhh, like formica counters sorta surrounding it with wood cabinets above, sort of cheap wood cabinets, that are filled with all manner of, you know, tinctures and medications— tinctures sounds fake. [Laughs] Medications—

Griffin: [Laughing] Salves—

Justin: Salves, and po—

Travis: Yeah, some ointments, linens—

Clint: Unguents? [crosstalk] Some unguents?

Griffin: [crosstalk] Potions, uhh…

Justin: I’m uniquely positioned to keep continuing to crank out synonyms here, after recording the Sawbones audiobook [Clint laughs], so we probably want to stop this game right here. But that is— there is also a scale in the corner of the room. And that is sort of what, uh, we’re looking at here.

Griffin: Okay. Um, so, first off, as you all come in, Thacker, who you’ve seen down here in sort of the little kitchen-dungeon area that Mama set up, every time you all have been down here, Thacker has just sort of been comatose, just sort of lost in whatever state that he is in, seated criss-cross-applesauce, just kind of in the middle of the kitchen there. And as you all come in, and this goat man is starting to shout a little bit more, not— not super loudly, not shout, but sort of starting to make some animalistic noises, Thacker actually looks up, and comes up to his knees, and is just sort of surveying this scene quietly.

You get the goat man laid out the table, and you’ve definitely seen like some cuts and bruises on the trails, and from people sort of hiking Appalachian trail and sort of, getting some grisly wounds along the way. You know that miraculously— or perhaps not miraculously, you don’t really know what the physiology of this thing is— they, they don’t seem to have hit an artery or anything like that.

This thing is obviously very, very injured, with a wound that goes, you know, clean through, but there’s not like a ton of blood. So you get the impression that, you know, maybe you can just seal this thing up and, you know, give it some antibiotics, or something? I don’t wanna sort of tell you how this scene works, but you get the idea that like, you, this is maybe a little bit above your paygrade but you could take a shot at it. Treating this thing. And you have Barclay also helping you out. I think Barclay is actually helping hold this thing down, because every time you get close to this wound, it gets super scared again, it gets very, very scared.



Justin: So I go and get the bottle of alcohol from the shelf—

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: I get a clean rag, and I— you don’t really think of clean rags, do you? [Griffin and Justin laugh] Hand towel, dump some alcohol on it, and I say, uh,



Justin: And then I pour alcohol on to the wound.

Griffin: I’m tryna think of the best way to do this. I want to you maybe Act Under Pressure and we can let it ride for like this whole process, like this is [laughs] “Duck performing surgery” roll, and we will, we’ll see how it goes. That’s plus cool.

Justin: All right.

Griffin: All right!

Justin: Seven. That’s more like it. Now we’re cooking with dice.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Seven plus—

Justin: [crosstalk] Plus cool—

Travis: [crosstalk; like a TV show host] Cooking with dice!

Justin: [chuckles] Uh, nine.

Griffin: Uh, nine! Okay. On a mixed success, the keeper’s gonna give you a worse outcome, a hard choice, or price to pay. I think the price to pay is… the goat man just screams. Just screams, as soon as the alcohol touches the wound, he screams, and looks terrified, has like, it’s like he’s never felt pain before? And this is a very bad pain? And he screams, and then, I think faints. And is— is now just, uh, completely unconscious. Which is gonna help things, but uh, as he screams, above you, because this is the cellar beneath the Amnesty Lodge, you hear a chair scoot back? You hear like the [chair-across-floor screeching noise] and then you hear footsteps sort of rushing toward the front door. And Barclay looks up at you, and his eyes get wide, and he says:



Griffin: Barclay almost looks like he’s like, uh, you know how like when you get in a really bad situation that you’re completely out of your depth, it can be almost like… funny? [Justin: Yeah.] Like you almost are like “this sucks, so bad?” I think he’s kinda in that state? He’s like, “oh good, somebody’s coming down to check on the monster we kidnapped.” He races up the cellar stairs and shuts the door behind him, and you actually hear him talking to Agent Stern, just outside of the cellar. What else do you do?



Travis: Now, I am curious, how much of is this Duck not knowing what to do, and how much is Justin not knowing what to do? [laugh]

Justin: I mean I’m trying, it’s little bit of, you know, I try to bring a little bit of myself to every character I play, Trav. [Travis and Clint laugh] Uhhh, alright.

Griffin: I don’t know— I don’t know why Duck Newton would have more surgical experience than Justin McElroy [Justin: Right.], and so I’m totally fine with how this is playing out.



Griffin: Uh, the goat is unconscious.



[Griffin laughing]

Travis: Somebody’s googled!

Griffin: [Laughing] A phone with Google on it.

Justin: This is what it says on the inside of the suture kit. I’m reading the inside of the suture kit, okay?

Griffin: [Amused] Okay.

Justin: These are the things that are in there.

Griffin: Sure. Let’s not, for some of our more squeamish listeners, let’s not do an in-depth, you know, nasty suture scene.

Justin: How ‘bout this: I sew him up.

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: And I, yeah. Duck has probably sewed things before, so he is competent at least at that, and then he knows to like put some like antiseptic on it, cover with clean bandages, et cetera, et cetera.

Griffin: Yeah. Well, let’s hop into like, in the middle of this process, I’m not— we’re gonna let that nine roll, and the price to pay is that Barclay was sort of peeled off. Uh, while you were in the middle of this process, it is uh, it’s starting to get a little bit later in the day. As you are in the middle of sewing, uh, I think you are startled as you hear from behind you:



Griffin: And behind you, uh, appears Minerva.







Griffin: She shakes her head, and she says:









Griffin: She shakes her head and looks down for a minute. And we’ve talked about how you always see her in silhouette so it’s actually kinda hard to read her, but she is, she is furious. You can tell just her like, from her body language. And she says:





Griffin: She freezes, and she puts a hand to her forehead, um, and you can see her silhouette starts to tremble a little bit, and she says,



Griffin: And then she disappears. And you finish your operation. And the goat man stabilizes. He’s still unconscious, he is— and again, this is probably something you’ve seen on the trail, maybe with some of the gnarlier sort of injuries that have come through the ranger station [Justin: Mmhm], he’s in shock. And he is, he is alive, and not bleeding anymore, and you can actually tell you actually did pretty good stitches here.

And umm, he is laid out to rest, and you, I— I— it’s a couple hours later, and you’re keeping an eye on him, and something happens that hasn’t really happened before, which is twice in the same night, Minerva comes back. Usually she just comes at the same appointed time that she always comes back, and now she’s making a second appearance.

And she shows up, as you sort of see her appear, she is standing still, and you hear that blues music that you heard so many months ago, when she tried to appear to you, and you saw her sort of frozen in place. Um, and you can’t hear her, and you get the impression she can’t hear you, and she becomes unfrozen, and sorta holds up a finger, sort of telling you wait, and eventually that music fades, and she speaks, and she says:





[Clint laughs]





Griffin: She sits down, which you’ve never seen. You see her pull something, actually, she walks away from you, and you see her sort of miming almost, as if she’s pulling a chair over, and she sits down. And she takes her hand, is kinda rubbing it over her bald head, and she looks at you and she says:



Griffin: She says. And I— I wanna drive home, you have never seen anything like this [Justin: From her, yeah] from Minerva. She is always sort of this larger than life, always bombastic, sort of uh, warrior-champion, um, and, this is not, this is not that.



Griffin: She puts up a hand, and stands up, and she says,



Griffin: She looks around and she says:









Griffin: She takes a step back and she says,



Griffin: And then she vanishes.

{42:05}

Griffin: Okay, Ned, you are in the sheriff’s office—you’re not in a cell or anything like that, I think you’re just sort of in a holding room. There’s a table and… Deputy Dewey has come in a couple of times just to make sure that, y’know, “Do you need anything, do you need some coffee or a Diet Coke, or…?” Those are really your two options. I guess water, you could also have? Just sort of making sure that you’re taken care of, you are not a prisoner at this time.









Griffin: [Chuckling] And he walks out of the room, off to AltaVista. And a few moments later, Sheriff Zeke walks in, and he sits down across from you and he… doesn’t really know how to treat you. Your last interaction with him was on the front porch of his house as you were trying to get Calvin to come out and help you fight the water monster. And he brushes his hair back and he says:









Griffin: He chuckles, and he says:













Griffin: He smiles and he says:





Griffin: And he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and he says:



Griffin: And he starts to light one up.



Griffin: [Chuckles] He smiles and he says:











Griffin: Let’s firm this up: are you wanting to initiate Sheriff Zeke to the best of your ability? I know that you’re saying that Ned is fairly clueless, and I don’t know how much of that is your understanding of what Ned knows, ‘cause, I mean, Ned went to another planet, right. Ned went to another planet, Ned has killed two Abominations, Ned knows about the Pine Guard— Ned knows quite a bit. Are you letting on a little bit without sort of giving away the whole thing, or what’s… what’re you doing with Ned right now?

Clint: To be honest with you, I think Ned feels a little overwhelmed? And I think, you know, Ned has spent all these stories, basically— I mean, he’s gotten closer to Duck and to Aubrey, uh, but you know, at his very heart Ned’s not a hero, and I think he’s kinda looking for any kind of support he can get. No, I don’t think he wants to tell the Sheriff everything but I think, maybe there are things about himself that maybe it’s time for him to, you know, break down the facade a little bit for somebody who might be able to help him.

Griffin: Uh, okay. He says:





Griffin: When you say specifically “you should buy some bullshit from the Cryptonomica,” I think he laughs out loud, and lets you sort of finish your thought, and he puts out his cigarette and he says,





Griffin: And uh, he stands up, and I think he stands up pretty fast, I think his chair actually falls over as he does so. And he’s a bit little pissed off, he thinks you’ve sort of taken him for a ride a little bit, I think he’s mostly angry at himself for like allowing himself to sort of start to buy into it? And I don’t want to sort of take away the fact that you are opening up a bit to him, I think that you have said things to him that are going to sink in, but I think in this very moment I think he’s thinking, “I just wasted my fucking time,” and he storms out of the holding room.

And you’re sitting in this holding for a little bit, and I think just being in a sheriff’s office kind of takes you back, maybe returns your thoughts to all of the other, um, corrective institutions you have, uh, been fortunate enough to visit during your career of burglary? I wanna, we haven’t really talked much about Ned’s history, and so I like wanna get into it a little bit as long as we have this, like, solo scene. And I don’t know how much thought you’ve given to this, but how did Ned get into burglary?

Clint: I think Ned has— he kinda saw himself as like a Robin Hood, you know, almost like a treasure hunter. Ned just had the physical gifts, the mental gifts, for [laughs] for theft! Never anything armed robbery or anything like that, he was more of a cat burglar. [Griffin: Sure.] And usually, tried to steal things that had been stolen, so that he was stealing them from thieves. And that’s where a lot of the—

Griffin: Now, I do wanna address the fact that you have stolen so far, canonically, an Oscar I think from Clooney, you’ve stolen a NERF gun prototype from the inventor of nerfs, I don’t know that necessarily they were thieves.

Clint: Not exclusively… Robin Hood…

Griffin: [Laughs] Okay, maybe once or twice you stole something from thieves and that’s how you sleep at night, but most of the time it is sort of—

Clint: Well, I think he started off as just a flat out burglar who liked to collect weird shit.

Griffin: Okay.

Clint: But then I think he kinda saw… There was an incident in his past where he saw that that was not good, and he basically had a life-changing moment. He had an incident where he just decided this was not for him anymore.

Griffin: I do also want to drive home that the final burglary you ever did was Aubrey’s house, which I don’t necessarily know that that was an entirely altruistic heist. And we can get into that, that you know, maybe that one was a bad one [chuckles].

Clint: That was, that was— that’s what I’ve been thinking.

Griffin: Okay, that was like a nice opportunity, and so you kinda broke your own rules a little bit just to get the sweet score. Okay, we also haven’t talked much about your partner. So let’s like— I don’t know if you have any ideas as to like how the two of you met, but I have like kind of a scene I think could be fun? Um, if you’re cool with that?

Clint: Go for it. Go for it.

Griffin: So you are— it’s a long time ago, I don’t think you’re in West Virginia, you are— you tell me, did you have a base of operations for your cat burglary operation, or were you just sort of all over the place?

Clint: … No, nah, he just kinda traveled. He loved traveling by train, by rail. And he never had, like, a locked down base of operations. Or bivouac.

Griffin: Okay. Let’s say you’re in Connecticut somewhere, in a fairly rural part of Connecticut, where the houses are nice and they are secluded. You are in the middle of… not, like, a huge haul, but a safe haul, which, I think, for a career burglar is what you go for. It’s not all about the, like, Ocean’s Eleven million-dollar getaways as much as it is the grind “I can do this and not get caught”.

You are actually in the middle of a house that is being fumigated. So, the family is not present. There are some neighbors nearby, but you are inside this house that is inside a giant tent and you have a uh, a gas mask on that is protecting you from the bug spray that is happening in this house. And I think you can maybe even smell it, a little bit, inside the gas mask, but it is protecting you from harm. And as you are sort of poking around this house and having a leisurely robbery, um, you turn a corner into an office and you see a figure actually also robbing this room of its valuables. And this figure turns towards you, and he’s wearing a gas mask too, and the two of you are just kind of… frozen in place as you run into another burglar in the middle of this scene… of your crime. Uh, what do you do?











Griffin: He says, uh,



Griffin: And through the tent, you can see through the windows, it’s like this big red and yellow circus tent almost, you see lights flashing against the side of the tent. Blue and red lights. And, uh, you know that there are police officers outside. And Bob says,





Griffin: He just starts moving at this point because you hear officers start approaching the front door and start trying to figure out how to, like, get through this bug tent. And he runs to the back door and tries to open it, and sees that the tent is sort of surrounding it also, and then runs to a basement door, which he tries to open, but finds its securely padlocked and he starts trying to kick it down and its not working.



Griffin: He steps back, and Bob allows you access to the lock.

Clint: I know I can do this.

Griffin: Uh, probably Act Under Pressure.

Clint: Act Under Pressure? Alright, Act Under Pressure. Alright, so…

Griffin: Is this one— let’s establish this, I know— I don’t think you have, like, a skill that’s like, or uh, or you tell me actually. I don’t know:

Clint: Well there’s burglary…

Griffin: Yeah this is your first time actually doing some burglary even though it’s, like, in a flashback. And uh, the Crooked, let’s see… “When you break into a secure location, roll plus sharp. On a plus-10 pick 3, on a 7-9 pick 2: You get in undetected, you get out undetected, you don’t leave a mess, you find what you were after. So let’s do that. We have never done that roll before.

Clint: Alright.

Griffin: And we can say that this break into a secure location is this robbery.

Clint: I rolled a 7 +2 sharp.

Griffin: So that would be nine. Okay so pick two. You get in undetected… let’s take that one off the table. You got in undetected until I guess you ran into another burglar in this place. You get out undetected, you don’t leave a mess, you find what you were after.

Clint: [Amused] We get out undetected!

Griffin: Sure, and you get one more. You don’t leave a mess, you find what you were after.

Clint: Okay, find what you were after.

Griffin: Okay! I think that just means like, you get a sack of loot. [Laughs] You did very well on this robbery. And I think that Bob did too, Bob also has a satchel that he has stuffed full of stuff. And, uh, you manage to get the basement door open and run down the stairs and uh, Bob turns on a flashlight, he actually has a head mounted flashlight, and you see some stairs leading up to a cellar door that is unsecured and unlocked. And Bob pushes it open, and the two of you hop a fence, and make it out okay. I think actually that Bob helps you up over the fence first. It’s a very, very tall fence, and you actually hear police officers coming around the side of this backyard that you are in and start opening up the gate that would allow them access. So he is moving quickly, and actually lets you get up… first? Which is maybe more noble than the average burglar? And he manages to skitter up the fence himself and the two of you manage to get off to safety.

And after you’ve made it a certain distance, you come to a hill by the roadside where these police officers are and the two of you roll down it and are sort of laying with your backs up against it waiting for the police officers to leave and Bob takes off his mask. And uh, what’s— what’s your partner look like? We also don’t know his name; I’m sort of leaving that up to you unless you wanna keep calling him Bob and Larry, which is fun, but it’s also the Veggie Tales.

Clint: Boyd… Mosche… is his name. M-O-S-C-H-E. Boyd Mosche. Um, he’s uhhh, a big guy. Like Michael Phelps, kinda tall, you know, fairly athletic. And just a hard looking guy. He’s— He’s just, he looks, you know what I mean? I mean he looks like a… he looks like a badass.

Griffin: Okay, we can leave it at that, and just sort of leave the rest up to the audience’s imagination. He takes off his mask and you see this, you know, this— this chiseled jaw. This very physical looking dude, who takes the mask off and looks over at you and kinda like gives you a kinda like panicked smile. The two of you kind of lay there… quietly for a bit? Until the cars start to roll away. And he uh, he looks up, and makes sure the coast is clear, and he comes back down to you on the hill and gives you a thumbs up and says uh:



Griffin: And he offers you a hand and he says:





Griffin: He shakes your hand, and he laughs, and he says,



[Ad break]

Griffin: Hey everybody, this is Griffin McElroy, your dungeon master, your best friend, and your… thirsty boy. And I don’t— I don’t mean that in the horny way, I mean I require fluid.

{1:05:19 - 1:10:16}

[music]

Griffin: So, Aubrey, you have headed to Sylvain. Um, I think that— let’s address this. Have you been back to visit Janelle and like do your magic lessons? It’s been a couple of months now since you were sort of first introduced to the world of Sylvain and Janelle sort of told you to come back and she— she wants to study you just as much as you want to learn from her. Is this the first time that that has happened or have you done this a couple of times now?

Travis: I— I would say that, like, it’s probably happened a couple of times um but very, like, cursory check in, no big advancements or anything along those lines. Like, thing as if we are talking in terms of Karate Kid, this is still like the paint the fence, wash the car kind of thing, and not—

Griffin: Yeah. Or to like, put it in the terms that we’ve already established, she has studied you and you have not learned anything from her. Which is probably frustrating. “Do your thing, do your thing, do your thing, I want to test your natural aptitude before we actually get into the…” and maybe you’ve started to think “Maybe she can’t teach me anything…?” Which is probably really frustrating to, like, be able to use magic and not trust this person is gonna be able to help you improve it or make it safer.

So you are in her chambers, in the castle in the center of the city. And this room is incredibly spartan. There is just a single desk in the middle of the room with a single book and a cup of tea on the desk. She keeps things super simple in here so she can focus absolutely on like the text she is studying at any given time. And as you enter, she gestures to sort of a large clearing in the room where there is a big circular rug laid out and she has had you sort of stand in the middle of that each time you’ve come in, and she says:





Griffin: I don’t think that she has any patience for this shit whatsoever, she like— she, this is a person that is responsible for discovering the magical cure that will save this world. As soon as you say no she says,



Griffin: And she stands up [crosstalk] and she walks over to her desk—



Griffin: Uh, she sets her book back down on the desk and she sits down in this rotating chair at the desk, which she rotates around to face you as you stand in the middle of this rug and she says,





Griffin: [Surprised laugh/hum]



Griffin: In all of her years of doing this, I don’t actually know how long she’s been the Minister of the Arcane but she’s been like— she has known how magic has worked in this world for a while and has been a tutor to many, many people in its ways, uhh, she is taken back by this question. You get the impression that nobody has ever asked for this before. And um, and, I’m trying to decide out how she takes it, because you’ve actually caught me off guard uh, quite a bit. And she says,









Griffin: Uh, she stands up from her desk and um walks over to this pot and small ceramic cup and she pours you a cup of tea and walks over to you and hands it to you and this is already way more warmth than Janelle has ever shown you? And she says,







Griffin: She pulls out a— she can see you getting frustrated and she says,



Griffin: And she walks over to a shelf and pulls out a scroll which she unfurls on her desk. And she kinda beckons you over off of your training rug — which is something I think you use to kennel break dogs so maybe there’s a different word for it — and she gestures to this parchment and you see a map of the planet of Sylvain. And there are these lines that criss-cross the entirety of the map, almost like parallels and meridians on an Earth map, and the all connect in the middle. Not in like the middle of the depicted surface of the planet, but in the center of the planet. And she says













Griffin: She gestures for you to actually sit down on the chair, she sees you, like, getting upset.





Griffin: She smiles, actually, when you say that and she says,



Griffin: And she walks over to the window of this room and opens it, and opens the curtain in front of it and gestures outside and you see the courtyard outside of the castle, with that big orange crystal and the line of Sylvains waiting to receive their allotment of power from it. And she gestures towards this scene and she says,





Griffin: She smiles. She says:



Griffin: And you hear someone clear their throat by the entrance to Janelle’s chambers, and as you look towards it, you see the young girl who greeted you on your first visit to Sylvain. The interpreter, the sort of unofficial ruler of this land, and Janelle bows quickly as you can kinda tell that she’s embarrassed that the interpreter walked in during her talking about the end of the world, and the interpreter says:



Griffin: And Janelle turns back to you, Aubrey, and says:



Griffin: She actually takes your hands, and she says:





Griffin: She nods, and walks out of the room. And the interpreter turns to face you and gives you a little bow, and she says,





Griffin: And the words you just heard did not match up to the mouth movements that she made. You get the impression that she actually asked you a question with the words she was speaking and she was waiting on a response.













Griffin: And with that she kind of, um, smiles and nods, and you get the impression that she just said bye to you in some way with her mouth words, and she starts to leave.



Griffin: And… she walks out of the room. I think you find your own way out of the castle and as you sort of walk through the big double doors leading out of the castle, the serenity of this entry hall is shattered by this ringing of alarm bells in the distance off to the west by this huge wall that surrounds this city, protecting it from the darkness beyond. And suddenly, all of the soldiers here in the entry hall rush out, and you see the courtyard evacuated as the guards out there also rush towards the sound of these bells. And the people waiting in line are scared and so frustrated that their wait has been interrupted, they clear out too. And a couple of guards rush past you and they say— they tell you to get to safety, because there is something trying to break through the wall at the edge of the city. And you are in the courtyard alone.

Travis: [Determined] I would like to touch the crystal now, Griffin.

[Clint laughs]

Griffin: Why don’t you Act Under Pressure for me. Tell me how are you touching the crystal?

Travis: Just like, so lightly, just like, because on one hand, okay, let me explain myself. On the one hand, Aubrey knows that she’s like, not supposed to. And like, after the kindness that Janelle has just shown, doesn’t want to like, ruin anything. But on the other hand, I think she really has it in her head that interacting with the crystal in some way will like recalibrate her, or power, its… something will unlock, or something she’s supposed to do.

Griffin: I love that. I love that not because I’m just saying, “You are correct, you’ve solved my crystal puzzle,” I love the idea that Aubrey is just like, “If I just touch the crystal I’ll be able to do magic again.” Okay.

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: So are you just rushing up to it, are you proceeding with caution?

Travis: Yes, definitely caution and like, she’s just gonna like, touch it with one finger, um, and as she does, she says,



Travis: And then touches it. So I rolled a 6 and my Act Under Pressure— ooh, I don’t get any plusses. But I’m gonna use luck! Because this is very important—

Griffin: You are burning through that luck, my man.

Travis: I’ve only used 3!

Griffin: Okay, um… so that bumps you up to a 12. Correct, which is you do what you set out to accomplish, which means you touch the crystal unbothered. Okay, um, as you reach towards the crystal, like, just as the skin of your finger makes contact with it,

[reversed, haunting music begins]

It pulls in your whole hand. Your whole hand is in the surface of this crystal. Both of them are pulled in to its surface almost magnetically. You feel, Aubrey, you feel all of the moisture in your body is being pulled out through your palms. You can’t breathe, because you are convinced that in this moment there is nothing to breathe, you feel your consciousness falling away from you, almost like you were pushed down a well, and the world is getting much, much, much farther away.

The prevailing feeling you have right now, in this moment, is one of absolute certainty: that you are dying as you touch this thing. And, eventually, you push backwards off of the crystal. And you fall back, away from it. And as you fall, you haven’t taken any harm from this thing that has just happened as you touch the crystal, which is the good news. As you fall, you land in a flower bed. It is a bed of these beautiful wildflowers, just blooms of reds and whites and yellows and dark purples, all surrounding this crystal, spreading across just a huge swath of the courtyard. And they were not there a moment ago. They look beautiful; it’s kinda hard to appreciate them because you kinda feel like dogshit, a little bit, and as you sit up from these flowers, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the crystal. You are sweating up a storm, you look and feel a little feverish. There is one detail that really stands out. What color are Aubrey’s eyes?

Travis: Uh, they are... Brown. But in a kinda, like just a pretty light… [crosstalk] you know, ahh.

Griffin: Okay.

Clint: Like a hazel, maybe?

Griffin: Sure.

Travis: Is hazel brown?

Griffin: I— I have no idea. Uh, okay, your left eye is that color. Your right eye is now this dark orange hue, with like a starburst of lighter orange just around the pupil. And you catch a glimpse of your new eye color in just this one large smooth facet of the crystal, and its new tint is nearly fading away in the gemstone’s brilliant orange expanse.

[music]

It is the following morning, and the three of you have regrouped back in the Pine Guard HQ underneath the— underneath the Amnesty Lodge. Duck, what have you done with the goat man? I think the goat man has been— has been stabilized, and you sort of kept vigil throughout the night, and he seems to be okay. He had a little fever, actually, sort of in the early hours of the morning, but it has broken. He is still unconscious, and— do you just have him sort of loose still, sort of just like out on the table?

Justin: He is handcuffed to the table.

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: Can’t be too careful. The door to the, uh, InFURmary is—

[Travis and Griffin groan]

Griffin: Oh, man!

Travis: Oh, okay! Yeah!

Clint: Wooooo!

Justin: That’s locked—

Travis: Yeah, he did it!

Justin: And there’s a big sign that says, like, “Caution: Bird Flu,” or something. Yeah, it says that. [Griffin laughing] It says that, it says “Caution: Bird Flu.”

Griffin: Okay. So nobody—

Travis: Caution: Bird Flu Inside, and it’s kind of spelled out like the Walking Dead, you know?

{1:31:12}

Griffin: Okay, I like that. Are you trying to keep this thing secret from your— from Ned and Aubrey, or— what’s like your— ‘cause I don’t wanna— I didn’t imagine the Infirmary being its own—

Justin: No, they can know about it. I was trying to keep— I don’t want it to be, like— I don’t want to have to discuss this with everybody at Amnesty.

Griffin: Okay. All right. I mean, let’s have that scene, of you sort of revealing your new friend.









Travis: Griffin, did Aubrey’s eye remain that orange color or is that just a temporary—

Griffin: [crosstalk] Aw yeah, baby. Oh yeah.

Travis: She’s wearing sunglasses, for sure.

Griffin: Okay!



Justin: And then I open the door to it.













Griffin: [crosstalk] No, we’re not crossing over.

Justin: [in Duck’s voice] No, it’s not. There’s no crossover here, sir. There’s no sat— there is nothing satirical about this creature.

Clint: I had to go there!

Justin: [in Duck’s voice] Ah, well I’m bringing you right back. Um, yeah.











Justin: I think I’m healing okay— One harm, I’m fine—

Griffin: [crosstalk] Oh yeah, you’re totally fine, your one harm you had is gone by this point—











Griffin: Um, are you—



Griffin: Um, the goat man is unconscious at this moment, are you trying to rouse it now to converse with it, Aubrey?

Travis: I mean, that seems like step one.

Griffin: Okay, um, it awakens—



Griffin: [crosstalk] It awakens—





Griffin: It awakens peacefully as you sort of rouse it and it sits up and sees the handcuffs attached to its wrist, I think it tries to pull away just like once and then it looks down and then kind of just stares at the three of you with just sort of obvious curiosity and—



Griffin: It just looks at you, Aubrey, is staring at you.



Griffin: It doesn’t respond.







Travis: And Aubrey points to the wound.





Griffin: He points to— puts his hand on his wound and doesn’t really know how to respond or anything like that but he just reaches up and touches it and just puts his hand back down.



Travis: And Aubrey closes her eyes and says—



Griffin: Uh… okay. This is a— I’m guessing a Use Magic, what would this sort of— what category are you assuming this would fit under?

Travis: Um, so there’s actually part of Use Magic that is Speak To… let me see where it is…

Griffin: [Leaned back from mic] Communicate With Something You Do Not Share a Language With, holy shit!

Travis: [crosstalk] There it is.

Griffin: Fucking holy damn!

Travis: I’ve been waiting to use that shit this whole time, that’s a seven—

Clint: For five seconds.

Travis: No like since I saw that on there. That’s a 7+2, so a 9.

Griffin: Alright. You choose the effect and the glitch, okay, Aubrey? You pick one of the following glitches: the effect is weakened, the effect is of short duration, you take one harm ignore armor, the magic draws immediate unwelcome attention, or it has a problematic side effect.

Travis: Um… Ugh, see, I want to say “the effect is weakened.”

Griffin: Okay. Yeah that’s fine. Here’s what’s happened. You touch the goat man, and—

Justin: “Touch the Goat Man” was the name of my first studio album. [Laughter] It was not well received.

Clint: [Tune of Shock the Monkey] Touch the goat man! [Clint and Justin mimic guitar riff, Travis laughs.]

Griffin: You touch the goat man, Aubrey, and you make some magic. And it actually does feel a little bit different than it has felt in the past. Ned and Duck, you see this faint sort of orange light just sort of pulsate out of where Aubrey touches the goat man. And the goat man sort of— is a little scared of this at first and starts to pull away but then just kind of sits there for a bit and just sort of takes the touch. And Aubrey you pull your hand away and this goat man is now still looking at the three of you.



Griffin: It sort of— now it’s kind of scared again, because it just heard you say something. The goat man like, yelps a couple of times, just bleating, just—



Griffin: And, uh, looks at you, Duck. I think this— he’s sort of looking at all of you panicked, but when it’s the most scared it looks to you because you are the one who saved its life and it definitely knows that.



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

Griffin: And with that the goat man stands up from the table and sort of gets yanked back by the handcuff attached to its wrist and looks at you Duck, and he smiles and he says—