Ep. 36: The Crystal Kingdom - Chapter Eight

"Are you ready for the greatest adventure of all? By which I mean donating to MaxFunDrive? Make it rain on... The Adventure Zone!"

Synopsis
''Hey, things aren't really going that great for our heroes right now, but on the plus side - it's MaxFunDrive time! You can support our show by going to maximumfun.org/donate, though unfortunately, you can't really support our heroes right now, they've got to un-goof this situation themselves. Merle saves a life. Magnus gets new legs. Taako introduces a long-overdue tentacle scene to the show.''

At the end of the last episode, everyone had been paralyzed to varying degrees due to Lucas’s null suit trap. The crystal golem, who has the same voice as whoever impersonated Pan, has approached them. He waves one of his hands and a book made of light appears, which he leafs through while investigating the forms of Killian and Carey. Travis makes a shitty George McFly impression, and Clint busts out his Doc Brown, which is actually more like Bernie Sanders.

The golem determines that Killian and Carey aren’t on the “naughty list”, and then notices Noelle. He looks at his book again and notes that she must come back to the astral plane with him, as well as the boys. Magnus tries to explain that they’re from this plane and that there’s been some mistake, but the golem doesn’t buy it.

The golem hits his left arm to break off a piece of crystal, which floats in the air next to him. He tries to hit Merle with this shard, but misses somehow, and is embarrassed. Merle notices that his former arm is inside of the golem’s body, and retcons that he had been flipping the bird when it got crystallized. He then casts Dispel Magic on Taako, who casts Evard’s Black Tentacles at the golem. Glistening black tentacles appear in a 20-foot square around the golem."TAAKO: Hey thug, what’s your name, I’m about to tentacle your dick. Hey, hey, hey! I’m gonna get you into some tent porn, lemme get that name real quick so I know how to credit you, in my tentacle porn I’m about to make with you.""GRIFFIN: *laughing* You want me to look up somebody’s name on Twitter, to name this person after so you can wrap them in sex tentacles?""TAAKO: Hey you heard me, I didn’t stutter! You froze me, Brosephus!""CLINT: Find somebody who likes hentai.""GRIFFIN: Oh god, Dad just said the word “hentai” out loud.""GOLEM: My name’s Kravitz!""GRIFFIN: And it’s named after Mac Kravitz on Twitter. Thank you Mac–you’ve just got tentacled."Magnus yells at Lucas through the stone of farspeech, demanding that he dispel the magic. There’s no response, just a shattering sound as if Lucas had destroyed the mechanism he was using to communicate. Magnus asks Noelle to try to undo whatever Lucas had done to the suits, but she can’t figure it out. Instead, Magnus asks her to stand him up and throw him at Kravitz.

Kravitz takes a significant amount of damage from the tentacles, and is restrained. The piece of crystal that he broke off of himself begins to shake, and then explodes, wounding everyone in the room, and knocking out Taako. Kravitz uses his turn to escape from the tentacles, which give him one last graze, and he blushes. Merle casts Prayer of Healing on everyone, and Taako regains consciousness. Taako, who is unable to cast Dispel Magic, instead summons Garyl underneath Magnus to allow him to move."MAGNUS: Garyl.""GARYL: What’s up.""MAGNUS: I want you to leap over him.""GARYL: Yeah, no problem dog. Just leap over him?""MAGNUS: Yes.""GARYL: I’m just a regular–I mean–I’m beautiful, and powerful... I do have the qualities of a regular horse.""TRAVIS: How tall is the golem, Griffin?""GRIFFIN: Uh this golem is about eight feet tall.""GARYL: Yeah, yeah, naw naw naw.""MAGNUS: You can do that!"Magnus delays his turn until after Merle. Kravitz shatters his left leg to produce two more crystal shards. He attacks Merle with one of them, and crits. Magnus blocks him, forcing disadvantage. Kravitz’s second roll is a 2, which misses heartily. Merle tries to cast Dispel Magic on Magnus, but fails. Magnus commands Taako to get the Glutton’s Fork out of his pouch."GRIFFIN: You’re just sitting on this horse–I imagine at this point Garyl would be like “Did you need me for something?”""TRAVIS: Well hold on--and then also, you know, Merle, attack one of the crystals.""GARYL: I was halfway through season 2 of Daredevil, guys."Merle hits one of the crystal pieces, shattering it. Taako takes the Glutton’s Fork out of Magnus’s bag. Magnus explains that this can be used to eat any non-magical item that can fit in your mouth."MAGNUS: Use the fork... eat the crystal. You’ll feel better.""JUSTIN: Luke!""JUSTIN and CLINT: Use the fork!"Taako sticks the fork into the remaining crystal shard, which he realizes is part of Merle’s former arm. The crystal turns into one of those awesome Red Lobster cheddar rolls. Taako pops the whole thing in his mouth, somehow bypassing the helmet that he’s definitely still wearing.

Kravitz, already looking worse for wear, is appalled at this act of psuedo-cannibalism. He promises that the next time they meet he will take them in, and retreats. The form of the crystal golem collapses and the white light passes through a rift in space and disappears.

They all retreat into the pocket spa to take a short rest. They’re all loinclothed up, and it’s not weird at all. After about ten minutes, everyone has recovered from the paralysis, and they head out to find Lucas. As they approach the elevator, Carey gasps and points to the back of Killian’s helmet. A crack has begun to form from when she fell to the ground after being paralyzed. Killian is extremely frustrated that she’s unable to continue."MAGNUS: Do you wanna swap helmets?""KILLIAN: Well that seems like--your sweet head can’t get crystallized either, dumb-dumb.""MAGNUS: It’s already pretty thick."Killian admits to the gang that she probably shouldn’t get too close to a relic anyway. She explains that when she and the boys had recovered the Phoenix Fire gauntlet, she was almost overcome with the temptation to take it from them. Magnus suggests that she take Noelle to lead the hugbears to safety, but Noelle says she wants to see this through. Instead, Noelle prints out a map of the lab and draws a path for Killian to follow. Killian tells Carey to be careful and not to be a hero, and departs. (TAAKO: Hey Carey if you wanna be a hero… I mean we could use at least one.) Carey presses the down button to call the elevator, but when the doors open they see that there is a metal grate blocking the car. "CAREY: Well I guess we should just turn back and go home, mission failed, right guys?""MAGNUS: No!""CAREY: Hey, we did our best, no harm in that, all you can do is your best!""TAAKO: I think somebody’s been listening to too much Adventure Zone. You don’t wanna be like those guys."They hear a loud smashing noise, and the elevator car shakes violently. The smashing noise continues, and the car becomes crushed from something above it. Eventually the source reveals itself to be another elevator car--one that is bright yellow, with a big nose and eyes. It’s Upsy Your Lifting Friend, from the Miller museum in Episode 31. Upsy completely crushes the original elevator car and tells the group to get in its belly. It’s disturbingly wet and fleshy inside--definitely a manifestation of Griffin’s elevator and vore fetishes."MAGNUS: Upsetting, my lifting friend.""UPSY: That’s a good joke! Which way are we going, kids?""MAGNUS: Down.""UPSY: Aw, down’s my least favorite."Magnus is still riding Garyl, who is annoyed by all of this. (GARYL: My favorite part was the hour we spent in that spa.)

They arrive at the bottom floor, and Upsy makes a barfing noise as they exit. They enter into a small dark lobby area, with two doors. One door is a large, circular vault door with a hand scanner next to it that is lit up red. The other is an even larger industrial-looking door with a green hand scanner. Noelle explains that Lucas must be in the main experiment chamber, through the circular door. The other door leads to the robotic manufacturing center, where robots are created as needed and delivered to wherever they need to be. Taako tries to open both doors at the same time, and makes a Quantum Leap reference. Noelle tries to open the vault door and fails, but is able to open the door leading to the robotics room.

The group enters into a cavernous workshop, containing large pieces of machinery, an assembly line, and a conveyor belt leading through a tunnel out of the room. The floor of the workshop is littered with abandoned, nonfunctioning robots. Some of the robots are more sophisticated looking, with glass fuses in the torsos like the one Noelle has. These bots have more humanoid features. Noelle, by comparison, looks more roughshod, as if she was the prototype to these newer bots. Noelle begins to examine these robots closely. She says that she hasn’t been here in a while, and doesn’t know what is going on. Merle reassures her, telling her that she is better than these robots, and that she is his special angel.

The group leaves the workshop and enters the tunnel. All the machinery is shut down, and the tunnel is very dark. They see a floating ball of light appear from around a corner in front of them, followed by two more balls of light. The lights fly over the group, and behind them into the robot workshop. Magnus notes that he may have realized what the glass fuses are for, and three robots emerge from the workshop. One is massive, almost gorilla-like. Another is more slender, and has what appears to be a cannon for an arm. The third is very short, and has a bunch of wires sticking out of it.

The three robots run at the group, and stop just before them. They begin to laugh. The gorilla-like robot says, “Oh my god, I can’t believe it’s you guys! Oh my god, I can’t believe I get a second chance at this!” He sounds like Marvey from the Petals to the Metal arc. The robot with the cannon arm, who sounds like Magic Brian, says “Oh yes, this is going to be lovely little rematch isn’t it?”. The third says “That’s right motherfuckers, it’s time for round two.” He sounds like Jenkins."TRAVIS: I said I’d smell you later.""JUSTIN: Consider yourself smelled!"

Money Zone
PLACEHOLDER TEXT

Featured NPCs

 * Carey Fangbattle
 * N0-3113
 * Killian
 * Garyl
 * Kravitz
 * Upsy Your Lifting Friend
 * Magic Brian
 * Jenkins
 * Marvey

Featured Locations

 * Lucas's Lab

Music

 * Garyl
 * Robot Rematch

Explaining the MaxFun Drive
"JUSTIN: We have levels from five bucks a month all the way up to 200 bucks a month.""GRIFFIN: Well, the top limit is infinity.""JUSTIN: The top limit is you buy that shit out from underneath Jesse Thorn and you rename it the Maximum Dave Network."

Clint is at Griffin’s house instead of Justin’s house
"TRAVIS: Is it also nice to do it without fear of Dad spilling drinks all over your setup?""GRIFFIN: This motherfucker, he’s got a full glass of cheerwine right next to my brand new MIDI keyboard. That shit is precarious.""JUSTIN: He actually hired an itinerant man, young man, to sit in my chair across from me with a 64 ounce Coke Zero that he bought at the Speedway.""TRAVIS: That’s what I love about Dad, he’s a job creator."

We all make mistakes
"JUSTIN: And it’s conjuration, which is right in my wheelhouse.""GRIFFIN: Well, transmutation’s your wheelhouse.""JUSTIN: No, it’s like my other wheelhouse behind the bigger one.""CLINT: It’s like a wheel shed.""GRIFFIN: It’s like I minored in Sociology in college, and like why the fuck did I do that."

Rolling for hit points
"JUSTIN: Yeah I roll a D6… So a lot of people wonder, how many times? I know you at home are wondering, how many times? Well here’s Griffin to explain it to you. *dice rolling* I got 12! That sounds good, doesn’t it?"

Don’t be a hero
"TAAKO: Hey, Carey if you wanna be a hero... I mean we could use at least one.""MAGNUS: Wouldn’t say no."

Nailed it
"MERLE: And who would ever guess we’d miss Girl from Ipanema playing on the sound system?""UPSY: I can do that for you if you want it to! Happen!""MAGNUS: Yeah.""CLINT: *singing* Tall and tan and--""TRAVIS: No, no--make Griffin do it.""UPSY: *singing badly* The girl from Ipanema’s coming to take your stuff, inside your house, here she comes--I haven’t heard the song before!"

Your afternoon soaps?
"UPSY: Yeah, my elevator stories.""MAGNUS: Are they any good? Wait--are they any good?""MERLE: Ah--they have their ups and downs.""UPSY: I don’t understand.""JUSTIN: I guess what Griffin’s trying to say is that we killed that crystal a lot faster than he thought we would."