The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 17/Transcript

Transcript by the lovely volunteers at TAZscripts.

Griffin: Previously, on the Adventure Zone…



Griffin: The van is empty. All of these supplies and all of these tools are gone. They are not in the van.









Griffin: You see this faint sort of orange light pulsate out of where Aubrey touches this goat man. And the goat man stands up from the table and sort of gets yanked back by the handcuffs attached to its wrist, and looks at you, Duck, and he smiles. And he says,



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

Travis: So, the goat man just said Duck’s name. Begin.

Griffin: Yes.

Travis: Create.

Griffin: Uh, we’ll take it— let's just hop right back in. We're right in that moment where this goatman has just said your name, Duck, while staring at you, uh, with— just right in the peepers. He's got some yellow eyes with vertical slits? Sort of goat— I mean, they're goat eyes. [Travis: They're goat eyes.] He has the peepers of a goat, but a bipedal, sort of humanoid form. Uh, bit taller than you. And he has said,



Justin: I guess I should check with you, Griffin. This is the first time that any of us ever heard a goat man talk. Are there any sort of erotic awakenings that we need to be aware of? Just wanna check in.

Travis: Good question. Second—

Griffin: Technically, it's the second time, because you all have met Vincent, the goat man in Sylvain. [Travis: Oh, that's fair.] And I guess my follow-up question is, did that have any erotic awakenings? I will admit, I've been pretty unplugged from social media as of late, so I don't know what the erotic fan art of Vincent situation is, but I don't— I don't have my finger on that pulse anymore.

Clint: Pretty hot.

Travis: Well, to be fair, Griffin, Justin, I think, if I may, is both asking about our characters, but also us, the players. Within us, has that caused any awakenings?

Griffin: Sure, let's all roll to Act Under Pressure, I guess?

Travis: Okay.

Griffin: And I—

Travis: This is as Justin, Dad, and Travis.

Griffin: Yeah. If you roll poorly, you're gonna make a… hard move.

[Laughing]

Justin: Love that.

Travis: I got an 8?

Griffin: No, this is nothing.

Clint: Uh, I rolled a 6.

Griffin: Okay, you're into it.

Justin: You rolled a sex.

Griffin: And… and… unpause.









Griffin: It sort of looks at the wound in its shoulder and touches it. Have you— I'm guessing you've dressed it, I'm imagining, with bandages, at some point. Or is it sort of just exposed stitches— it's almost certainly bandages, right?

Justin: Yeah, he's done a good job.

Griffin: Yeah, he touches his shoulder and kind of just nods a little bit, and gives what you sort of detect as, like, a faint smile.



Griffin: It nods and says,







Travis: 101.

Justin: [Laughing] Yeah. Me llamo Duck.



Griffin: It starts to gesture with both hands, and one of its hands is restrained to the table, still, with the handcuffs, and so it kinda gets pulled back, and it looks down at the handcuffs and tries pulling it a few more times. It looks confused about the concept of handcuffs. And it just kinda looks up at you, confused, and says,











Griffin: Sure. You pop off the handcuffs, and the goat man kinda rubs its wrist, and then gives another smile, this time to all three of you, and then says,







Griffin: He looks sort of— he looks nervous. He looks nervous when you ask him this question. He looks, what's the right word, he looks sort of conflicted. And he… and then he looks down at the ground, he looks almost embarrassed now, and he nods his head up and down.



Griffin: Now he just looks fucking confused, ‘cause that's a very confusing question.



Griffin: The goat man looks up at you and says,



Griffin: And then [clears throat] clears his throat a few times and then says,



Griffin: Uh, he says, “grow” if you don't speak Griffin goat English.







Griffin: He looks excited, and he nods his head up and down, yes yes yes. And he actually kinda grabs you by the arms. Like, I think he's— this is so new to him, being able to converse with human beings, and the fact that he's just had a thought that he tried to get across, and then he succeeded in that, and somebody got it— he's, like, he’s totally stoked.



Griffin: All of a sudden, he remembers himself, and he lets go of Ned, and he looks sort of defeated. And now he just hops back up on the table and sits down and shakes his head no.

Clint: It's a pot farm. He's growing pot. Goat pot.

Griffin: The strongest pot known to man.

Travis: Goat weed. It's horny goat weed.





Griffin: He is thinking very, very hard. And then he looks up at you and just kind of very slowly shakes his head no.















Griffin: He kinda tilts his head to the side, like, “Huh?”



Griffin: He shrugs his shoulders. If that's really what you— is that sort of first thought, what you wanna name this character? I feel like maybe—

Clint: I think Billy would be our first choice, right?

Justin: Billy is good. Billy's better.

Travis: Billy is good. Yeah, Billy I like. ‘Cause you know what, maybe during those more serious times, he can be William.

Griffin: He nods in approval. “Okay, I am now Billy. I am Billy now.” Uh, you hear the cellar door open, and—

Travis: [Nervous sound]

Clint: Uh-oh.

Travis: Oh, no! Mom's home.

Griffin: Barclay is actually the one who comes down the stairs, and he looks sort of— he looks a little harried, and he—

Travis: Well, yeah, he's a bigfoot.

Griffin: Well, he's not right now. He runs into the room and sees the now-conscious goat man, and he looks kinda nervous, but then sort of surmises that you guys don't seem nervous, that everything's okay, and he says,















Griffin: Uh, Barclay was there for that.















Griffin: And the goat man says,















[Laughing]

Travis: Okay, hold on. Wait, hold on, the pizza sign. Is that something?



Griffin: I didn't even think about that. I was making a joke, but sure, yeah, the pizza sign was there.

Travis: You can't make jokes, Griffin, I take this very seriously.

Griffin: No, yeah, no, you did a good job of connecting it to canon. Barclay says,





Griffin: I think you would know. Like, you've lived in Amnesty Lodge for a long time now. You know there is no—

Clint: Wait a minute, wait a minute, what about Vincent? Could we not call him in?

Travis: He can't come over.

Griffin: He can't come over, yeah. And you get the idea that maybe bringing this thing over into Sylvain is also not an awesome idea. Um, you all hear the phone ring upstairs, actually, and you hear Dani answer it. I mean, you hear it, like, through the floor.

Travis: Wawawa? Wawawawa.

Griffin: You hear Dani shout for Duck.





Griffin: He has a name.



Clint: I have an idea. Could Ned check out Thacker's archives and see if there's anything in them about goat men?

Griffin: There's really just the one book, but if you wanna do that, you are more than welcome.

Clint: I think I would be interested in doing that, ‘cause I thought maybe I could also do, like, Investigate a Mystery and see if Ned could get a couple questions answered that way, by checking out the archive?

Griffin: Sure, so you're gonna do that. Aubrey, you're just keeping an eye on Billy?

Travis: Yeah, I'm gonna talk— I'm gonna keep up with the gentle interrogation.

Griffin: Okay, Duck, are you going up to the phone?

Justin: Yeah.

Griffin: Mmkay. Uh, okay, let's start with Aubrey. What do you ask Billy?



Griffin: He nods his head yes.



Griffin: He cocks his head to the side. He looks kind of confused.







Griffin: He shakes his head no.



Justin: [Laughing] So he can shake his head no and say Duck. If only there was another nod that could communicate more information. Any head movement at all.

Clint: This is some real “I am Groot” shit going on here.

Griffin: Very much so. Uh, Ned, the only sort of surviving text, the only one that Mama brought back when she was over, uh, trapped on the dark side in Sylvain, is just a single book. And it was the book that kind of revealed, like, the only information that we knew was in that book is that he couldn't find the source of the abominations while out exploring in Sylvain. But as you flip through it, why don't you Investigate a Mystery and we'll see.

Clint: M'kay.

Griffin: We'll see what we glean.

Clint: Investigate a Mystery. That is a 7, plus 2 for sharp. So that's a 9.

Griffin: Uh, a 9. Okay. So on a 7 to 9, y—

Clint: I get how many?

Griffin: You get one question here: what happened here, what sort of creature is it, what can it do, what can hurt it, where did it go, what was it going to do, what is being concealed here. And keep in mind that it has to be in context with, like, what could be in this book of notes from Thacker.

Clint: Then I think the only one that would be in there would be “what sort of creature is it.”

Griffin: Yeah, I think that's for sure. Uh, there is a— the first, like, third of the book is just sort of drawings and notes on the physiology of certain types of beings over in Sylvain. There are some notes about the spectral beings that are over there, which you know are born when one of the Sylvans dies in the presence of the crystal in the center of town; they get to live on in these sort of spectral forms. There are some notes about what are just called “Sylvans” that are the more vampiric, more humanoid, sort of magically imbued beings over there. Folks like Dani, and like Janelle.

And then there are notes about the beast-folk, and these are creatures that, according to the notes, just used to be animals over on Earth, and then found their way into the various gates that opened up across the world throughout the history of time, and as they spent time in Sylvain, in this alien world, they were slowly— actually, not slowly. Compared to evolution on Earth, actually very, very quickly, transformed into these new forms. The origin of goatmen is like, a goat wandered through a portal one day, and then maybe a couple of generations later is a bipedal, sort of humanoid goat creature.

But it's not just goat creatures. Like, there's entries on bear-folk and fish-folk and bird-folk, and all kinds of beast-folk. And so, like, goat people are definitely a type of being over in Sylvain, and by all measure, this thing looks a lot like it. Not exactly like— you've met Vincent. It's certainly a bit bigger than Vincent, a bit more imposing than Vincent, you would say. There are some subtle differences, but yeah, this thing looks a lot like Vincent.

Uh, Duck, you head upstairs to answer the phone. I think Barclay heads back up to the lobby with you. And as you get to the lobby, you see some of the folks that you know from the lodge. Up there you see Jake Cool-Ice polishing a board. You see Agent Stern reading a Lamplighter. This is sort of, like, something he does every morning, is he cracks open the new Lamplighter and looks for leads. And Dani hands you the phone as you come up, and as you put it to your ear, you hear a voice say,





Griffin: You hear Indrid say,





Griffin: He laughs on the other end of the phone, and you hear him say,





Griffin: He says,







Griffin: And through the window next to the table where the phone is, you see these big fat fluffy flakes falling from the sky. And Indrid says,



Griffin: And sure enough, Ned and Aubrey, you hear a sound that sounds like a— well, like a pin drop. Like a small piece of metal falling to the floor. And you all turn towards the sound and see that the net that was hanging up over the kitchen area, where Thacker has been sort of imprisoned, one of the hooks holding it up has just fallen out of the wall, and now a corner of the net is just hanging loose. And in a flash, Thacker, who was just sitting on the floor, looking down at the ground, almost unconscious— he just springs straight upward and scrambles across the ceiling, through that gap in the net. He is crawling above you, towards you, and he cranes his neck almost completely around, and you see his face that was just calm a moment ago. Now it's just, like, slobbering black slime into this long, unkempt beard and grinning this abnormally wide grin. He is crawling across the ceiling towards you. What do you do?

Justin: I'm probably already back down there.

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: I mean, in the time— as soon as he said that, I would've come down there, I think.

Griffin: Okay. Yeah, you are— I'll give you, like, you are on the stairs as you see Thacker on the ceiling. He quickly cranes his almost backwards head toward you, and then looks back down at Ned and Aubrey, and just, like, hisses.

Clint: Ned makes a beeline with the book into the safe room.

Griffin: Okay! All right. I don't even think you need to roll for that, if that's wha— if that's your plan, then go for it. You grab the book, you head to the safe room. Are you shutting the door?

Clint: [stammering] Well. As he's, as Ned's running, um— and him taking the book is not necessarily a conscious move. It's just that he has it with him. He's not doing any of this to protect the book or anything. He's doing it to protect himself. [Griffin: Okay.] But he calls back over his shoulder and says,



Clint: And…

Griffin: Uh, okay! [Clint: Takes off.] You run into the safe room. This is very Ned. This is peak Ned. This is the aesthetic ideal of Ned Chicane, and I'm very, very into it. Aubrey or Duck, what do you do?

Travis: I'm going to say,



Griffin: Billy doesn't even look concerned. Like, Billy doesn't know that's not what a human being is supposed to look like. Uh, or rather that that's not what a human being is supposed to look like. So he just kinda nods and says,





Griffin: He very quickly sort of canters over to the safe room.



Griffin: He has some trouble fitting into the— well, fitting in, you know, in general. He's a big goatman, but he also has trouble fitting into the safe room.

Travis: Oh, but not just, like, socially.

Griffin: Yeah, sure.

Clint: Well, his language skills kinda hold him back a little bit.

Griffin: Sure. Uh, Duck, what do you do?

Justin: Um… I'm probably gonna tackle Thacker and try to bring him down.

Griffin: He is up on the ceiling.

Justin: Yeah, I'm gonna, like—

Griffin: Which, like, it's a cellar, so it's totally, like, not a very high ceiling.

Justin: Right.

Griffin: But “tackle” might not be the right verb, because you'd have—

Justin: Not tackle. Y'know, not punch him in the face, but try to like, get 'im on down.

Griffin: Tear him— ge'em down.

Travis: As one might do when trying to catch a bat flying around the room.

Griffin: Sure.

Justin: Get on down from there.

Griffin: There's a move, actually, in the playbook called “Ge'em On Down,” and it's G-E, apostrophe, E-M, on down.

Justin: Ge'em on down from there.

Travis: Ge'em on down.

Griffin: So this would probably— are you trying to, like, do harm?

Justin: It's probably Kick Some Ass?

Griffin: Yeah, that's what I'm—

Justin: I'm not trying to do harm, I guess, though. It's more like— it may be closer to Act Under Pressure, 'cause I'm just trying to get him and restrain him. I'm not trying to beat him up.

Griffin: I think it's definitely Act Under Pressure. I definitely— if you're not trying to hurt him, then it's not Kick Some Ass, right? [Justin: Right.] When you get in— Kick Some Ass literally says, “When you get into a fight and kick some ass, roll plus tough.” You're not getting into a fight, although it definitely— you can sense ill intent.

Justin: It could become a fight.

Griffin: It could definitely become a fight very quickly. You sense that this thing wants to hurt everybody in the room very, very badly. [crosstalk] Um, but it's not right now.

Justin: I'm currently doing, like, friend grabbing his drunk friend and trying to pull him off before an actual fight can occur. That is my to-be verb, currently.

Griffin: Okay. What do you, uh… so you're just running and ge'em on down, trying to just grab him off the ceiling. Go ahead and roll plus cool for Act Under Pressure. How cool is Duck?

Justin: So cool. [pause] Oh, you're wanting me to numerically quantify. It's a 2. Plus.

Griffin: That is cool.

Justin: Oh, an unrecognized command. What'd I do wrong? Oh. “Roll… roll two d…” Uh, 6 plus 2, it's 8.

Griffin: Okay. On a 7 to 9, the Keeper is going to give you a worse outcome, hard choice, or price to pay. Um, hm. I think I might just do price to pay. You grab him, you just sorta wrap your arms around his waist as he is hanging off the ceiling, and pull him down. And as he does, uh, his fingernails have grown sort of long and gruesome. They have this same kind of black plaque that is on various parts of his body, just this sort of tar-like substance that is all over him and dripping from his mouth right now. He scratches you pretty hard across the neck. And that scratch feels like, it feels awful. It feels very, very bad. Not in a, like, you've been gored kind of way, but in an unnatural, like, it's— it burns. So take one harm, ignore armor, from this scratch.

Justin: Okay.

Griffin: Ned, Aubrey?

Travis: I'm gonna look in my laboratory. So one of the parts of Big Magic is to require ingredients.

Griffin: Yeah…

Travis: I'm gonna look for, like, a potion in the laboratory, so I think it would be probably an Act Under Pressure… and then also maybe a Use Magic roll. I want him to go to sleep.

Griffin: Okay, yeah, I think this would be— we can say that this conflict is happening, like, he jumped down on you inside the laboratory, so this is you literally, like, you're back up against a cabinet, reaching for whatever the fuck you can get your hands on to throw at this thing.

Travis: He's, like, on Duck.

Griffin: He's, like, on Duck right now.

Travis: And so, like, I throw the— so I think it would be, maybe it's an Act Under Pressure to find the right bottle, and then an Act Under Pressure to aim and not hit Duck.

Griffin: I don't like the idea of doing two rolls in a row. I wanna definitely just do it with one. [Travis: Okay.] Is the— I mean, let's, uh… let's make this fair. Is that, uh, is this reasonable? Is this logical? Like, is your magical labr— have you been doing fuckin' Snape's potion class homework in your laboratory, making—

Travis: For, like, tranquilizers.

Griffin: Yeah, is that really what you've been doing in here? Or…

Travis: I would say that I can make a strong argument for the fact that, with all of the abominations and stuff, one of the first things we'd be working on is, like, tranqs. Right? Like, that, to me, seems—

Griffin: Yeah, but then I would have to give you that, right? And then you could use tranqs on any— you know what I mean? That's just sort of adding an arrow in your quiver.

Justin: I think that that at least gives you the possibility of the action. Whether or not he is successful in that… [Griffin: That's it!] is a different question. But you do have the narrative framing for, logistically, why he wouldn't just be randomly grabbing bottles.

Griffin: What I love this way, the roll is not for you to throw a bottle at this guy; you're right up against him, you can do it. It is whatever the contents of the bottle are gonna be. Maybe you have been trying to alchemize some sort of potion or toxin or something that can help you in your hunts. It is not final. You have not, you know—

Travis: Has not been tested.

Griffin: Has not been beta tested. So you can roll Act Under Pressure, and that is going to determine what this thing does.

Travis: Let's do it.

Griffin: Okay.

Clint: Okay, Ned is gonna do Help Out.

Travis: Ooh…

Griffin: You are in the safe room.

Clint: Door's open.

Travis: Okay, I rolled a 7.

Griffin: Plus?

Travis: And I don't have any plus. So, mixed success.

Griffin: Help Out would not help out 'cause that only adds one to the roll, which would get them to 8. Mixed success is fine. Um… okay, here is the— now I'm trying to figure out, like— I don't think I can offer you a hard choice on what the contents of the potion is. I think you already kind of rolled the hard 6 on this, and it's kinda up to me to decide what happens. Uh, he— what's the potion look like? You actually describe the action to me.

Travis: I'm going to say, like, grabs the— starts to reach for the purple vial, but then reaches for the more purple vial, and can't remember— "Shit!" And grabs the more purple vial and kinda flings it at their feet, and it spreads into a gas.

Griffin: Okay. It gets scared, actually, Thacker gets scared as you throw this bottle, and he recoils. And he recoils right into the gas. And the gas very, very quickly dissipates, and for, like, a second, he looks like he's getting kind of sleepy. But he also looks like he is, uh, in an effort to try to stay conscious, getting angrier. Now his eyes are completely pitch black, like he's wearing those cool pitch black eye contacts that, like, you know, bassists wore in the early aughts for all their cool music videos. And he looks like he is actually whipped into a frenzy. So, the mixed success there is—

Travis: Aubrey real quick just grabs a clipboard where she's been keeping notes and writes “C-”.

Griffin: Okay.

Clint: “Less purple.”

Travis: “Close.”

Griffin: Duck, I think you are up. This thing is off you now, but looks super pissed off. I keep saying this thing, it is—

Travis: So I did succeed in getting it off of Duck, like, so now it's just, like…

Griffin: You succeeded in that Thacker has been tranquilized, right? Thacker may go down very, very soon, but before he does, he's gonna fuckin' rage.

Travis: He will not go quietly.

Griffin: He will not go quietly into that good night. Duck, what do you do?

Justin: Um,



Justin: And I punch him in the face.

Griffin: Okay. Now this is gonna be a Kick Some Ass.

Justin: Yes, it is. It is, Griffin, it is going to be that. But I also, I'm trying to knock him out. So…

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: Give him a little brain duster.

Griffin: [laughs] All right, go ahead and roll that beautiful bean footage.

Justin: I got a…

Griffin: There we go!

Justin: Ooh, there it is! It's a 9 plus… uh, tough. That's 11.

Griffin: All right! On a 10+, you deal harm, and they deal harm to you. You choose an extra effect: you gain the advantage, gain plus one forward or plus one to another hunter, you inflict terrible harm, you suffer less harm, you force them where you want them.

Justin: Heh. I'm gonna toss him into the safe room.

Clint: Yikes!

Griffin: With Ned and the goatman?

Justin: Yeah. And I'm gonna yell,



Griffin: I'm trying to think of— I'm trying to figure out what's gonna be best here. You definitely punch him, and he is [Travis: Dazed.] loopy, but I don't know that you can just, like… chuck him, like a ball. But you can definitely toss him in the direction of the safe room, and then I guess it's up to Ned and, uh, Billy to get outta there. To ge'on outta there.

Clint: Ge'on out?

Griffin: Okay.

Travis: Ge'em down, ge'on out.

Griffin: You just, like, I guess grab him by the scruff of the sort of tattered garments he's wearing, and push him towards the safe room. Ned, what do you— what's your plan?

Clint: Okay. Um, we gotta get past him. He's sort of in the safe room with us, right?

Griffin: Uh, yeah, he is definitely between you and the exit to the safe room.

Clint: Okay. I put an arm around Billy and kinda pull him in to my side. And then I fan open Thacker's archive.

Griffin: Okay…

Clint: And hold it in front of Billy.

Griffin: Okay…

Clint: And I tell Thacker,



Clint: And we're slowly backing out, as I'm saying this.

Griffin: Okay.



Clint: And just sloooowly back— using the book as a hostage [Griffin: Okay.] back out of the safe room. Hopefully that Thacker, on some level, will recognize [Griffin: Sure.] his book and not want harm to come to it, whether he understands my threat to have Billy eat it…

Griffin: Absolutely. No, I like this. So the— I mean, you're going to roll here, and the roll is not to, like— it's gonna be Manipulate Someone, right? But it's not going to be, like, how good an offer is this to Thacker. It is how much of Thacker can you pull to the surface [Clint: Right.] of this, like, feral beast. Go ahead and roll Manipulate Someone, plus charm.

Clint: 10, plus 1, which is 11. Whoo!

Griffin: Bazinga.

Justin: Wow.

Griffin: Something interesting—

Justin: Bazinga, indeed.

Griffin: Something cool happens. You pull this gambit, and put your back up against one of the side walls, trying to sidestep past Thacker. And for, like, a split second, Thacker stands upright. And it is not like, “The curse has been lifted, hooray!” but for, like, a second, definitely that black sheen that was across his eyes is just gone, and he has stopped just wildly slobbering, and is now just kind of breathing deeply, and puts his back against the wall, and you very— you're very close to him, right? Like, as you sidestep out of the room, you are [Clint: Yeah.] really, really close to him, but he doesn't attack. He keeps his distance. And as you step out of the room, what do you do?

Travis: And Aubrey slams the door.

Griffin: Okay! Right as Ned and Billy clear the door, you slam it. And as soon as the door slams, this spell that was cast over Thacker fades, and he just charges the door. I'm envisioning kind of a little circular glass, like, brain duster. window— or maybe not. I don't know. Duck, you envisioned this room. Is there a window on the door inside?

Travis: This is Ned's room.

Justin: Yeah.

Griffin: Is it?

Justin: Yeah.

Griffin: Oh, yeah, that's right, you had the in-fur-mary. Ned, is there a window?

Clint: There's a TV monitor.

Griffin: Okay. Oh, I like that. It's very— very high-tech, I like that.

Clint: You can look in there and see him break all Ned's Hummel figurines, or whatever he's got still in there.

[laughing]

Travis: All of his bobbleheads.

Clint: All of his—

Griffin: Yeah, he is—

Clint: Yeah.

Griffin: He slams against the door. He just charges and throws his whole body at the door a few times, and nothing happens, and then he just does the same thing that you've seen from Thacker this whole time. He just sits down on the floor and starts staring at the ground.

Clint: Saving the bobbleheads.

Travis: Well, your snowglobes made it.

Clint: Aww!

Travis: The bobbleheads may never bobble again.

Clint: As long as he didn't get the PlayStation.

Travis: Bad news, Dad.

Clint: Aww.

Justin: Aw, your PlayStation 2. Shattered.

Travis: PlayStation 2. You'll never be able to play, I don't know, Crash Bandicoot? Was that on PlayStation 2?

Justin: You'll never finish Blasto. On your PlayStation 2.

Griffin: That's a very good pull. God, can our next campaign be Blasto-inspired?

Justin: Yes.

{ad break 34:39 - 39:59}

Griffin: We're getting Dad into Destiny.

Justin: Yes.

Griffin: It's gonna go great.

Travis: Speaking of, Ditto, how come you're never on when I'm on? When do you play?

Griffin: I play late at night.

Justin: Like a creepy creep.

[laughing]

Justin: [singing, sort of] When you look in the shadows, there I'll be, playing a little bit of Destiny. I got all of the coins, I got all of the jewels, but you'll never see me, you pesky fools. I'm hiding out, don't you scream and shout. I hold my controller, look, here comes a roller. That's what I call the bad guys in this game, and if you see me, it'll be a shame!

Griffin: All right, so we're back, we're in act 2 of this episode. That was definitely how we started it. You heard us talk about Destiny for a while, which is regrettable, but then you got to hear Justin's great song, so I think it's all sort of a neutral, net sum game.

Travis: And just like that, we're taking the show in a different direction. It's gonna be much more about freestyle.

Griffin: First half is all storytelling. The second half is all freestyle singing game reviews. We've just missed being in the games industry so much. Okay, we're back at it. Um, let's— if it's cool with you all, unless you had business you wanted to do at Amnesty Lodge, I wanted to hop forward to your encounter at Indrid's. He has requested that you bring the goatman to him so he can help you keep him safe.

Travis: I wanna assume, just to say it, that we have, like, had Barclay, like, “Hey, go tell Mama,” [Griffin: Well, how muh—] like, that he broke out, we trapped him in the safe room, but he needs to be moved back into there… and he should be tranq’d at this point, right, once he's calmed down.

Clint: You're talking about Thacker.

Travis: Yes.

Griffin: Yeah, Mama definitely was not home during all of this encounter. Um, and Barclay, I mean, before we hop forward, I guess, we're still in that first scene. Barclay says, like,



Travis: See, here's the thing. This is a fun moment, people at home listening, because me, Travis, hates when people in any kind of media just don't tell the people on their team the truth, 'cause it always is more trouble than it's worth. [Justin: Yes.] But I also know that in this position, I definitely wouldn't tell an authority figure what was happening.

Griffin: Sure. Like, just to sort of set the stakes of this decision up, I don't think any of you necessarily know how Mama would react to this news. You do know that Mama has been hunting monsters like Billy, or rather, beings like Billy, I guess, for 30 years now, and has lost a lot of friends to them, and lost her adult life doing anything else but hunting them. So, like, she might not be stoked about the fact that you let one into her, her home. That's your gut feeling, and I'm not saying that you absolutely shouldn't I'm just saying that that's sort of the weight of this decision.

Justin: Hmm.

Travis: Were we all just simultaneously waiting for the other ones to make a decision?

















Travis: How come we haven't all talked about our Arrow fandom yet? Like…

Griffin: Yeah, in the fiction of this show, Arrow is the biggest, most popular show in the whole world.

Travis: And I assume every… Thursday? I don't know when it airs. Ned and—

Justin: [dramatic voice] In a dystopian future, Arrow has become something of a religion.

Griffin: Arrow is truth. Freedom is Arrow.

Justin: Kill The Flash!

Travis: We are Arrow.

Griffin: Two plus two equals arrow.

Justin: The afterlife is divided into heaven and the speed force.

[laughing]

Griffin: Okay, Barclay kinda, like, shuffles his feet and looks down for a second. He says,











Griffin: [laughs] Okay. And then just jump cut to you all standing in front of Indrid's Winnebago.

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: In the Eastwood RV Park.

Justin: On your second listen to this program, just imagine Duck standing completely motionless and silent throughout all of that lying. Just, like, it was like, “Duck, are you… is there something wrong with the lamp? 'Cause you're just staring at that lamp and not doing anything else. Like, are you okay?”

Griffin: Um, so it's mid-afternoon. The RV park is still, like, completely abandoned except for Indrid's Winnebago at the backlot of the park. It's getting, like, I think mid to late December at this point, and it's getting very cold outside, like, painfully cold. It's still not snowing, at least not naturally snowing, but it's, y'know, in the 20's, and you feel it on your face. It is very, very cold. And Indrid opens the door to his trailer, and you feel that blast of heat from inside, from the several, uh… um… oh, shit, what are those things called? Hot…

Travis: Space heaters?

Griffin: Hot makers.

Clint: Space heaters.

Travis: Space heaters, Griffin.

Griffin: Space heaters, yes. And the goat— Billy kind of recoils at the blast of heat, kinda catches him by surprise, and Indrid says—

Travis: Also, just to fill out the world here a little bit [Griffin: Please.] to help get Billy around the world, I think that we've maybe gotten a big, like, vampire cape from Ned's, from the Cryptonomica, as part of the Halloween movie show that he does. And so we put this, like, vampire, hooded cloak on him, and maybe some kind of mask? Maybe, like, y'know, I don't know, what— maybe, like—

Griffin: The mask is a Krampus mask, so it's kind of just, like—

Travis: Yeah.

Clint: 'Cause we're promoting the upcoming Krampus festival on Saturday Night Dead.

Griffin: [crosstalk] I like that, okay.

Travis: [crosstalk] Right, right, right.

Griffin: Then, in Barclay's truck— or rather, Mama's truck— you definitely pass a car with Billy in the backseat, and they see Billy dressed up as the Krampus, and they look really scared for a second, and then they remember, “Oh, right, this is Ned's show,” and they wave at you, Ned. Uh, and now we're back.

Travis: And Billy waves back.

Griffin: And now we're back in the RV park.

Travis: I think, as time has gone on, we have made Billy more and more like Harry from Harry and the Hendersons.

Griffin: Yeah, I figured that would take maybe a quarter of an episode, and I was right. Um, he, Indrid motions you all inside, and he says,





Griffin: [crosstalk] And he motions you into his Winnie.



Griffin: He smiles, and he says,



Griffin: And he says,











Griffin: He lets you all inside, and as you all sort of shed your heavy winter wear in this very, very sort of sticky, hot environment, he goes to the fridge, and he says,





Griffin: He offers hot nog to you, Ned and Duck.





















Griffin: He pours you a nog and hands it to you, and he says,







Griffin: Uh, he pours you a nog.





Griffin: He puts the— he offers Billy a nog, and Billy definitely takes the nog. But Billy doesn't know what to do with it. Billy, I think try— pours it on his hands and starts washing his hands in the sink with the nog.

Travis: Hold on. Billy's definitely consumed a beverage before, right, Griffin? Like…

Clint: He could lap at it. Y'know, like a cat?

Griffin: I mean, hey, it doesn't seem like it. It certainly doesn't seem like it.

Clint: A clue…

Travis: So Billy just sprung fully formed onto this Earth this morning?

Griffin: I mean, you tell me. You don't know— there are still many things you don't know about Billy. But he's poured nog on his hands, and he's washing his hands with it. And watching this with just immeasurable amusement, Indrid says,





Griffin: Hmm. I'm trying to decide what he would be able to tell you about this, but you've basically asked me, Griffin, the Keeper, to solve the entire mystery of this arc for you in one question, which definitely isn't going to happen.

Travis: But there has to be something he can tell us beyond vague, like, “There's things in the future, and if you—” Like, okay, cool. So, like…

Griffin: That's fair. He'll definitely firm things up. Okay. He sets down his nog, and the amusement that was on his face as he watched Billy fuck up is kind of gone now.

Travis: Which also, can I just say, is very, like… he knew Billy was gonna pour it on his hands and wash his hands with it. Indrid. You jerk.

Griffin: Indrid, just to clear things up, like, as he explained in the last episode, it's not like he is living constantly 15 seconds ahead of you. He sees lots of different possible futures. Not all of them, but lots of possible ones, so, like [Travis: Uh-huh.] the way he described it, it's like watching, what, like 120 television shows all at the same time and trying to keep track of what's— it's hard to do that, so I think he boasts, but I don't think he knows everything. Um, so he looks serious for a moment, and he says,



Griffin: He says,



Griffin: And he walks over to this small wooden chest at the foot of his bed, and he opens it. And inside are a bunch of garments, like, loose articles of clothing, a lot of accessories, like watches and bracelets, and you also see just some junk in there, just a random assortment of items. And he says,



Griffin: And he gestures Billy over to this chest, and he starts rooting around. And he says,





Travis: Aubrey mentally high-fives Ned.





















































Griffin: He was nobody! I'm sorry I included an NPC that I didn't even come up with a fucking name for! He is not the secret Voldemort of this campaign! He die— I'm erasing, no, I'm Thanos-ing him from the timeline. There was nobody in the bathroom. Shazam!

Clint: Snap your fingers.





















Justin: And then several hours later…

Travis: Yeah, jump cut!

Justin: Jump cut, and we're back. I looked, and then I came back. With editing.

Griffin: Okay. No. Uh, he says,











Griffin: And I think you all are sort of caught up in trying to summarize this mystery, that you don't see Billy sort of standing now, sort of filling up the entire frame, the entire door frame into Indrid's bedroom, where he has gone and he has pulled out a… watch, a nice, big, sort of metal band watch with a metal face on it. It is not operating. It is not ticking, but he has it, and maybe he just picked it because it was shiny and nice, but he bleats a few times and hands it to Indrid. And Indrid says,



Griffin: And he places it on a table. He, like, swipes some hot pocket wrappers off the table, and starts sort of tinkering with it. And you see, like, little flashes of light as he tinkers with it. And he says,





Griffin: Billy looks kind of… nervous. Um, and I don't know, I think you will have to roll a Manipulate Someone if you want him to do it, which means you'll have to give him a reason, a reason to do it. But right now, he just shakes his head. He shakes his head no, without any kind of effort. He just shakes his head no. He is, like, adamant, no way.







Griffin: Uh, he sort of nervously nods, and he just kind of stands there. He looks very, like, again, he looks super conflicted. You get the sense that he is sort of weighing his loyalties right now and trying to figure out where exactly they land. And you hear, you see one last sort of bright flash as Indrid waves his hands over this watch on the table, and he walks over and hands it to Billy. And he says,



Griffin: And Billy takes the watch, and he puts it in his mouth. 'Cause he's a goat.



Griffin: And he says,









Griffin: He spits it out, and it lands in his hand, and he says,



Griffin: And he kinda, like, holds it, he offers it to you, Duck, like he's giving it to you.



Justin: I take it out of his mouth, and I slip it onto his wrist. Or his, like— not wrist… fore—

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: Yeah.

Justin: Forehand? [laughing] His wrist, okay.

Clint: Wouldn't he have hooves instead of hands?

Travis: No, he's got hooves on the bottom. [crosstalk]

Justin: [crosstalk] Okay, I slip it on his beautiful—

Griffin: Party up top.

Clint: Fetlock.

Griffin: I've just googled goat anatomy. [pause] Oh, no!

Justin: You'll never recover from this!

Griffin: Oh, no!

Justin: Delete your computer!

Griffin: Um, he transforms. Like, instantly. You've seen this when, like— I think you've mostly seen this from Barclay when he has taken the bracelet that he wears off and turned into Bigfoot, and then tossed it back on. And he transforms into a human man. He, uh, I can leave this up to Juice. Like, you basically are the one who brought this character into the campaign. Do you wanna decide what he looks like?

Justin: Uh… yeah. He looks exactly like Ryan Gosling.

Clint: Yeah!

Griffin: Um…okay, so much so that people are gonna see him on the street and be like, “Ryan Gosling?” and then he'll be like, “Pizza,” [laughing] and they'll be like, “Oh, probably not Ryan Gosling.”

Justin: Hey, Griffin, at what point in that sentence did you realize that it's fucking great? [Griffin laughing] Was it four words in, five words in? Give us the exact word at which my brilliance dawned on you.

Travis: And maybe, Griffin, in this universe, there hasn't been a Ryan Gosling 'til now [Justin: Yes.] and moving forward, Billy will become what we know as Ryan Gosling.

Clint: Half goat—

Travis: And in The Notebook, it'll be like like, “What do you want?” “Pizza.”

Clint: Half goat, half goose. Half goat, half goose.

Griffin: Uh, okay, I'm into it. Uh, sure, he looks…he looks pretty much exactly like Ryan Gosling, there it is. He is a very hand— like, Indrid actually takes a step back, and he's like,



Travis: I love when we just go ahead and cast the Adventure Zone movie for the directors. Like, don't even worry about it. Get me Ryan Gosling, it's canon.

Griffin: Uh, and Ryan Gosling Billy, like, looks at his now-flesh hands, and looks at the nice button-down that he is wearing under a denim jacket, and he's looking at his body, and he just says, um,



Griffin: No, I think he definitely still sounds like a goat.

Clint: Yeah.

Griffin: He definitely— says,



Travis: Duck, Duck, Gosling, is what we'll call this arc.

Griffin: Yowzers.

Justin: Baa-Baa Land.

[laughing]

Travis: The Goatbook.

Griffin: [laughing] Oh, man, there's so many!

Justin: There's so many excellent things!

Clint: First Goat on the Moon.

Griffin: Uh—

Travis: First Goatman, Dad, sorry.

Justin: First Goatman.

Griffin: Uh, goat—

Travis: Or First Pan. We also would've accepted the First Pan.

Justin: We would've also accepted the First Pan.

Griffin: Goat Drive. Goat— hey, everybody, Goat Drive.

Justin: You're just putting up a bunch of—

Griffin: Only Goat Forgives.

Justin: Blade Eater 2049. Like grass? Like blades of grass?

Travis: I got it!

Justin: Goatster Squad.

Travis: You're s—

Justin: The Big Goat!

[laughing]

Griffin: You're looking at his IMDB page now.

Travis: The Knockaround Goats.

Justin: Knockaround Goats is excellent. That's really excellent.

Griffin: The comedy rule of 39's has now applied, and we are—

Justin: Lars and the Real Goat.

Griffin: Okay.

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

Justin: [laughing] I'm done.

Travis: It's just that they're all so good.

Griffin: Yeah, I know, but we usually end these episodes on a cliffhanger, but, like—

Justin: Just fade out.

Griffin: Well, we need, like, a last thing to say after it goes like “bong,” so Justin, why don't you just say one last really good one.

Justin: [beat] Crazy Stupid Goat! [laughs]