Ep. 35: The Crystal Kingdom - Chapter Seven/Transcript

Griffin: Previously, on the Adventure Zone...



Griffin: You pull out from inside an old compact mirror. Inside is actually just a circular disk of emerald.

Travis: Okay, so he's stealing technological ideas from our world.



Travis: I turn around and chop it off!



Travis: I chop it off!

Clint: Quit chopping me off!

Travis: I’m gonna chop it off!

Clint: You're choppin’ off my damn arm! Seriously!

Justin: If we need a new arm, the good news is, he's got lots.

Travis: Yeah.

Justin: So if we could figure out a way to make that work? That would be rad.

Clint: Yeah. I'm unconscious, thanks.

Justin: That's not what unconscious people say, but let's keep moving.



[THEME MUSIC: "Déjà Vu" by Mort Garson]

Griffin: We come to you live from— a breaking news story— a tragedy, a tragedy that has—

[Over this, Justin and Travis make beeping "breaking news" sound effects.]

Griffin: Oh my God. Well, don't both do it. When they do breaking news at TV stations, they don't have two different beep-a-deeps.

Travis: But they do have someone live do it, like on Carmen Sandiego, when Rockapella would do the breaking news.

Griffin: Yeah, but if Rockapella did it, they'd be fucking harmonizing and stuff. Anyway, breaking news story: Dad has just touched Justin's dice.

Justin: He touched my dice, he got it— whatever it is, he got it all over them. [Justin sounds a little low and raspy from a cold.]

Clint: Aaah. Get over it, dork!

Travis: That's not— you're not supposed to touch—

Clint: I'm a rebel, man! I got attitude! I got serious attitude!

Griffin: It sounds like Justin has implied that there's some sort of residue that Dad has left on the dice.

Travis: Sticky Coke Zero fingers...

Justin: Not bad, it's just like, whatever he does—

Clint: Critical misses, you mean?

Justin: Just, his critical stink is all over it right now. And I'm worried that like—

Travis: Critical Stink is a great D&D punk band name.

Justin: [English punk voice] Oi, we're Critical Stink, let's roll! [noises imitating punk music]

Griffin: Before we get into the—

Travis: [snickering] Let's roll!

[Clint laughing]

Justin: Thank you, Travis. Somebody appreciated it.

[raspberry, probably from Clint]

Travis: I liked it.

Griffin: Before we get into the excitement and action and resolution and shit, I feel like we need to do some corrections and amendments here at the top.

Justin: Okay...

Griffin: Just— Dad does have an ax, but it's a— and I, he announced it in the first episode, and people were kind enough to remind me that Dad does have an ax— [distant thunder sound] Wow! Y'all hear that?

Justin: What's that?

Griffin: That's some fuckin' atmo! It's stormy as hell.

Travis: Oh!

Justin: Okay.

Griffin: Just know that that's not in post, it's not storming inside of Lucas's lab. Um... Dad does have a hand ax, he announced it in episode one, but it's basically a hatchet, it's like a hatchet that they would use in like— a child would get for Christmas—

Travis: Like you would use in the book... Hatchet?

Griffin: Like a Gary Paulsen hatchet.

Clint: Hence the name Li'l Choppy.

Travis: I also wanna say, the reason we didn't use the red barrels [during the tardigrade fight] is because we beat them anyways, pretty handily. I don't think we took a lot of damage. We didn't need the red barrels, and it wasn't until afterwards when all you punks got to hear Griffin say "the red barrels" that you went yeah— [crosstalk] like— hindsight, 20/20, you guys.

Griffin: Another quick one, I learned this, I didn't— there's no such thing as negative Kelvin.

Travis: But what if he's really sad?

Justin: There also isn't, I think I said a thousand degrees Kelvin. That's not a thing either.

Griffin: Anyway, I, uh... I'll uh, just one last, as long as we're piling on here, I've been saying the word "proboscis" wrong my whole fuckin' life.

Travis: You know what we're not? A factual show. This is not about science and learning, it's about Dungeons and Dragons!

Griffin: I saw somebody trying to defend me like, 'Well in this fantasy universe, maybe it's pronounced probiscis!' No. No, friend.

Justin: You're embarrassing yourself.

Travis: Wait, it's not probiscis?

Griffin: My sweet friend, no. Proboscis, with an o.

Travis: Jesus...

Clint: Probiscis is a flower.

Travis: No...

Justin: I thought it was probiscis the whole time, is it not probiscis?

Griffin: It's proboscis.

Clint: Proboscis.

Travis: Is probiscis like a weird West Virginia thing?

Griffin: Yeah, it's like aunt [pronounced ant], aunt [pronounced ahnt].

Travis: All right. Let's play Doon-jens and Dray-guns and get on with it.

Griffin: Okay. Um, who needs a refresher, anybody? Dad— Merle's arm got chopped off.

Travis: I just listened to it!

Justin: One last correction. I'm sorry last week after we beat them that I didn't call them "fartigrades."

[All groan at the missed opportunity.]

Travis: Or nardigrades!

Griffin: A gross factual error from Justin.

Justin: Yeah, it was incorrect of me.

Travis: We got a lot of fanmail about it.

Griffin: One thing we also need to resolve: Merle, what is your dominant hand? 'Cause I think that's the one that we're gonna say got got. 'Cause I don't see why you would grab a thing with your non-dominant hand.

Travis: I actually think he said he was ambidextrous.

Clint: I did at the very beginning of the show, but along with all these other facts, I guess that was forgotten too.

Griffin: [laughing] It's been two years!

Travis: It feels like five.

Griffin: Well, if you wanna flip a coin and tell me which hand got got...

Clint: I'll roll a die.

Justin: While Dad's rolling that die to tell you which hand got got, I should also mention that very early in the show, I also said that whenever people are around Taako, they get super horny and want to give him lots of money. I said that and everybody was like, uh huh, good good good good.

Clint: Yeah, we like that- like that’s canon-

Travis: I actually, I wrote that down.

Justin: [slower, as if taking notes] They get super horny... and want to give him lots of money.

Clint: I lost my dominant hand.

Griffin: Nice. Which is it, your right or left?

Clint: My right.

Griffin: Okay. Taako, I actually remember the super horny, giving you money thing. Like, has that not... that's just how it's—

Justin: I just have it. It's like my acrobatic skill, it just hasn't...

Griffin: You just haven't used it. So about twenty minutes have passed since you guys got Merle into this medbay room.

Travis: Merle's dead. He bled out.

Clint: I'm dead, right?

Griffin: And— he died between episodes. It's a D&D podcast first.

Travis: But he's been recast, as a younger— this is Oliver, the new Merle...

Griffin: No, he is alive, and through a series of medicines and salves that Lucas has applied, you're actually pretty lucid, and the pain from your grisly wound has almost completely subsided.

Travis: Hey, it was a very clean cut, thank you very much!

Griffin: I meant gris— okay, yes.

Clint: Take pride in your work, Trav.

Travis: It was surgical!

Griffin: It was surgical in nature.

Travis: I was surgical with this bitch!

Clint: By the way, while we're on this subject, thanks to all those people who tweeted and said, 'here's hoping Merle dies!' Thank you!

Travis: Well, everybody loves a shakeup, Dad, I don't think that that's personal against you, but like, you know, the interjection of an— who knows what celebrity we could get to play the next Merle!

Griffin: The possibilities are very exciting. Let me, let's do some storytelling.

Justin: Wait, wait, just to be clear—

Griffin: Oh, boy.

Justin: —Travis, you're saying that we would not replace— let Dad play a new character, [Travis: Uh-huh!] —we'd bring his old character back to life with a new actor, like Doctor Who.

Travis: Yeah.

Justin: Okay, got it, cool. Got it. Perfect.

Clint: Thanks! Thanks, bud!

Travis: You could, you could come back as like maybe a whimsical spirit, or some kind of like, talking book...

Clint: Sure, yeah.

Griffin: Or talking dog...

Justin: Maybe more of a producer role in the back, taking a backseat, a Robin to our Howie...No?

Clint: [cracks up] ...Why am I laughing?

Justin: I don't know.

Griffin: I don't know. It's very sad. Merle—

Justin: That's what you'll be doing a lot of, though. And you— a lot of, "Good one, sirs!"

Travis: And you'll be asked to leave the set because you're interrupting the filming.

Justin: "Excellent, young masters! Way to goof 'em again!"

Travis: "Do you need any lem-o-nade?"

Justin: "Thrilling plot twist!"

Griffin: Okay. Merle, you've been treated. What I'm trying to establish is, you're actually doing okay. Aside from, you're missing your right arm. And by right arm, it's mostly your forearm, it kind of just kind of stops at the elbow, and you're really thoroughly bandaged up on that arm. The bleeding has come to a stop. Things have calmed down in the past, in the twenty minutes that have passed.

Travis: And just to be clear, when last we left, Merle had explained to us that he heard a British guy, [Griffin: Yeah.] who tricked him, [Griffin: Yes.] and then Lucas, if I remember correctly, said, "I'll explain everything."

Griffin: Yeah, Lucas right now is actually in the corner, he's actually removed a panel from the wall of this medbay and you can see he's got some sort of like hastily constructed terminal that he's like, rewiring some stuff in the panels, and he's like, fiddling with this terminal, and as he does, you can hear sort of rumbling and some ambient noises coming from pretty far off in the lab.

And in this medbay, now that things have calmed down, you've actually got a chance to sort of take in your surroundings. There's some cabinets with medical equipment and medicines, there is some sort of scanning device, and there is a null suit chamber, much like the one that you guys had in the Bureau of Balance, it's maybe a little bit smaller than the one that you have in your lab that you used to suit up at the beginning of this adventure, and hanging off of the side of it are— is a suit, that is Lucas-sized, it is human-shaped. And Lucas stops messing with this panel that he's fiddling with, and he goes,



Justin: Oh, ah, he really shifted blame— that, I mean— [crosstalk]

Clint: Yeah, some British guy—

Justin: He's exorcised himself from the story, huh— [crosstalk]



Justin: Travis is telling his shield, "I don't know, I never cut his hand off..."

Clint: So this is like, guns don't kill people...

Griffin: Magnus takes axes, kills arms.

Justin: Got it.

Griffin: He says,



Travis: A little put off.



Clint: Boy, you are really well-armed. [Griffin laughter]



Griffin: He takes it, and uh—

Justin: God, I was so hoping Griffin would say no.

Griffin: He takes the right arm and he holds it up to Merle, and it's really little. It's like a small, like a doll's arm. Like a toy, like a GI Joe arm. He's like,



Clint: Today the part of Merle being played by Kristen Wiig.

[crosstalk]

Griffin: He actually goes back to that desk where he was messing around with a belt and a petri dish, where he was messing around, and you see him—



Griffin: He unscrews this, like, cap at the end of it, and attaches it to this thing that he's tinkering with. And as he's tinkering with it, Carey comes back into the room, and she says,



Griffin: And she is holding a potted plant with these four wooden shoots, it looks like, coming out of it. And if you'll recall, you saw this very briefly when you went into the bugbear chamber. And Lucas goes,



Griffin: And he takes that plant and removes it, de-pots it, takes it out, and as he's like taking it out of the pot and shaking the dirt off of its roots, you actually see the plant kind of protest? Like it's like trying to slap his hand away? And he plants it in this petri dish that you can see has some sort of green viscous fluid in it, and he sprays it down with something. He picks it up, and it just kind of looks like this wooden plant is hanging off of this belt. And he creates—

Travis: Feed me, Lucas!

Griffin: He creates some sort of concoction that he walks over to Merle, and he says,



Griffin: Your other arm falls off.



Griffin: Okay, so you're downing this bev...

Clint: Mm! It's like an appletini!

Griffin: It actually tastes more like a carbonated wheatgrass shot. [Justin: Nice.] It doesn't taste especially great. But as you taste it, and as you drink it, you see this wooden— these four wooden shoots hanging off of this belt kind of come to a standstill and start to wrap around each other and tie around each other, and they form what looks like kind of a crude four-fingered arm.

[Soulwood by Griffin starts playing]

Griffin: And Lucas explains, he says,



Justin: Hell yes, ASMR.

Griffin: He starts whispering in nerd ASMR.



Griffin: He takes this belt and wraps it around your shoulder, and then there's another fastener which goes around your chest, and as he's doing this—



[laughter]

Griffin: And as he's doing this, he is straight up, like, Army of Darkness, attaching this wooden arm to you that is now roughly the size— it's actually kind of bigger than your other arm—

Travis: I chop it off.

Griffin: Oh no. That didn't last very long at all, huh.

Travis: No, I don't. Not this time.

Griffin: Yeah, you have this wooden arm, and you feel this like, this psychic link with it. You feel like a deep connection with this arm made up of these four wooden shoots that have twisted around each other to form the shape of an arm.

Clint: Awesome...?

Travis: So I guess it all worked out!

Clint: Yeah, everything worked out for the best!

Justin: Worked out fine.

Clint: I want you to feel completely off the hook, Magnus.

Travis: And then Magnus and Merle engage in a very complicated like high five secret handshake so he can test out the hand, we do the Shimmy Shimmy Cocoa Pop, the Bureau handshake—

Griffin: Yeah, as you do the secret Merle and Magnus handshake, Merle, you feel like it is not a big deal to move this thing at all. It takes maybe a little bit to become as dextrous with it as you were your original OG dwarf hand, but yeah, you have pretty good control over this soulwood arm. And it actually like kind of curls up towards you and gives you a big thumbs-up as if to say, hey! I'm your arm now!

Clint: Wow! Creepy! Really creepy! Yeah! Good. That's really gonna cut back on my fireworks—

Travis: I want it in the canon—

Justin: And hey, good news, now you got somebody to blame for your rolls. [Travis laughs] It's the tree!

Travis: I want it in the canon that Magnus is actually like a little bit jealous of his sweet new wooden arm. Not out loud, mind you, but just quietly to himself.

Clint: And I would like it in canon that Magnus can kiss my Kenny Chesney tattoo.

Travis: Fair. All of this is fair.

Justin: Can you imagine what kind of delectable torture that would be though, for Magnus, to have a tree on his arm that he cannot split.

Griffin: Yeah, true...

Clint: Well, he can.

Travis: Can Magnus make a tree even he can’t split?

Griffin: So in terms of mechanics, Merle, you now have just a permanent disadvantage on sleight of hand rolls. That's just— your days of having good sleight of hand rolls are behind you.

Clint: My days of having any good rolls are behind me!

Griffin: But! You can now control this hand separately from yourself. You can take it off, chuck it, control it like you would normally, [Travis: What?!] like your hand, only you can control it remotely.

Travis: Awesome.

Justin: So it gave him superpowers, basically. Great.

Travis: More so than the magic he could already wield, you know, summoning angels and all that.

Griffin: Magnus cuts both his legs off. Like, all right! Juice me up!

Travis: What've you got for me?!

Justin: Taako cuts his head off.

[snickering]

Griffin: Lucas says,



Griffin: And Noelle says,



Griffin: And a little compartment opens up and a tank pops out that looks very much like the tank of spray that they plugged into the chamber when you first got sprayed down to null-suit yourselves. And Lucas slips into his null suit and plugs the tank into the chamber, and he's like,



Griffin: And I guess very awkwardly, because there's more of you now, you're doing like a Real World/Road Rules like, how many co-eds can we fit into a phone booth challenge... you all get coated in another layer of null-suit juice. The meters, you have these little panels on your wrist that are showing how much energy you have left in your null suits, are completely full up now. And everybody gets all sprayed down.

Clint: And may I say, in Amazon reviews, I'm giving the null suits originally one thumbs down...

Griffin: [laughs] That's not how Amazon reviews work.

Clint: I couldn't pass up a thumb joke.

Griffin: Oh, that's— good point. We're gonna have a lot of those now, I bet.



Clint: "What is that?" [crosstalk]



Justin: Uh... [clears throat]



Griffin: Justin, I wanna hear your—

Justin: The role of Taako today will be played by a ghost.

Griffin: The Cold and Flu version of Taako should be interesting.

Justin: Yeah. Taako silently nods in agreement.

Griffin: You guys make your way out of the med bay and through the decontamination chamber back into the central hub. This room is kind of a mess because the crystal golem started to form in here and kind of fucked shit up, as he was like breaking pieces of crystal off.

And you make your way into the door that you saw earlier that was labeled 'The Cosmoscope.' And as you pass through the airlock into the Cosmoscope you enter into what you assume to be a pretty large chamber, although it is like, completely pitch black in here. Save for a pillar of light which is illuminating what looks like a circular disk that is kind of free-floating in the middle of the room, facing you. And uh, Lucas walks into the back of the room, into the darkness. You see him get out a flashlight and you can see he's messing with some sort of lectern back there...

Travis: Time for scary stories!

Griffin: He says,



[laughter]

Griffin: No, he flips some switches on this lectern and you see an image pop up on this disk, and it looks like the lab that you are currently standing in, as seen from above, from outside of the lab. And he says,



Griffin: And he points to this disk in the middle of the room, and he says:



Travis: Got it.

Griffin: And he holds up two index fingers, and does, like, an iPhone pinch-- pinches them together, and the image pans out. You see it zoom out, and now you can see the Stillwater Sea underneath his lab.



Griffin: And he pinches the screen again.



Griffin: And as he’s doing this, you’re seeing the entire galaxy, spiraling. And it’s beautiful. You’ve never seen anything quite like it.



Travis: It’s all just a collar on a cat!

Griffin: [Laughing] It’s, uh, yeah. He says:



[crosstalk]



Griffin: He walks to the back of the room-



Clint: It all ties together.



Griffin: –he says, and he flips a switch on that lectern, and the whole room lights up. And the disk in the middle that you were just looking at is made of some sort of dark, bluish-green material, in a perfect circle with some silvery trim all around it, and this disk is levitating. But you realize, as the lights go up, this room is filled with these disks.

[MUSIC: A Far Friendlier Robot starts]

Griffin: And they’re all arrayed in orbit around this central disk in rings around it. And there’s ten other of these disks in the room and they’re all different colors -- bright reds and oranges and greens and blues and whites -- and they’re all displaying a wide array of scenes of impossible things. You look into this red disk,



Griffin: you see a world that looks kind of like the world, if the world was made completely out of lava and fire. And then there’s a blue disk where it’s just a giant ocean, a world made of water and ice. You see a world where millions and millions of these living lights just float weightlessly through the air and worlds where oceans of magical energy wash up on shores made of these brilliant white sands--

Justin: There’s a name for that one. It’s Ibiza.

Griffin: You see-

Travis: You see a world where everything's the same except everybody's got mustaches…

Griffin: You see, well, no, that’s not one of them, but you see all of these, like, incredible worlds and you don’t know where to look--

Justin: Uh, I would. I would look at Buffet Planet back there, couple planets back.

Griffin: Lucas says:



Travis: Good question.

Clint: Thank you.



Griffin: And these, he points to these disks that are on the outermost ring away from the prime material plane disk that’s in the middle of the room. And he goes:



Griffin: You can actually see underneath the disk that you were looking at first, where you’re looking at your own universe, you actually see another disk underneath it. And he’s like:



Travis: So the boring one.

Griffin: Well, as you actually look into the plane of thought, which is this deep green emerald mirror, you see similar scenes to the things that you saw in the compact, Magnus. You see a large, wide, gray road with a bunch of vehicles just sort of sitting stuck on it.



Griffin: Yeah! You see scenes like you saw in the compact.

Travis: So this plane is where all the creativity and energy for this world comes from. The creation.



Clint: There’s the meat plane, the vegetable plane, the dairy plane, the breads plane…

Justin: Soluble fats plane…



Travis: The plain plane, that's not very exciting.

Justin: The plane plane, that's just full of planes.

Clint: And the plain plane plane with all these plain planes in the plane.

Travis: Yeah, you gotta be careful with that one.



[laughter]



Travis: Is Merle’s arm there?



Griffin: Actually, as he was talking about the astral plane, you realize he’s talked about 12 different planes but there are only 11 in the room. He says:



[crosstalk]



[laughter]



Griffin: Can you guys give me a minute? Sorry. One sec. [beeps, then a slamming noise]

Justin: He’s gotta go write a new story.

Travis: He’s like, “Uh, no no no! Give me twenty minutes!”

Justin: Like when the producers of Lost pretended that it wasn’t about purgatory the whole time.

Clint: It was?

Justin and Travis: It was.

Clint: It was about purgatory? Oh, I thought it was inside like a snowglobe thing and it was, like --

Travis: Here’s the thing, Dad, the tricky thing is even when it wasn’t about purgatory, it was. ‘Cause that’s how purgatory works.

Clint: Ahhh.

Griffin: Hey, I’m back, sorry.



Griffin: Killian’s actually getting a little short-tempered about all this. She’s like:



Griffin: Uh, he says



Justin: Mmhmm.



Griffin: He flicks another switch on the lectern and the disks just start to sort of rotate around the central one, like they're moving like planets in orbit.



Clint: Just like NASCAR plates.



Griffin: He freezes and time kind of [Travis: Well, you son of a-] time kind of freezes. Um and,

Travis: You’re in complete control of this world, Griffin! You made that happen! Don’t act like that was out of your control!

Griffin: Yeah, time has kind of frozen here. The orbit of these disks has stopped. Um, and Killian, and Carey and Noelle have just kind of stopped, a- and from behind you, you hear a voice ask that question, uh and it asks-



Travis: Oh, yeah!

Clint: Oh, god, if he’s got a raincoat on I am not turning around!

[Snorting laugh]

Travis: Oh, like a flasher and his penis!

Clint: [Laughing] Thank you, Travis.

Travis: I just want to make sure that all our listeners, especially the younger ones, really understood what dad was implying.

Griffin: Yeah you know the child- the children who listen to the podcast, [Clint laughing] Daddy!

Clint: Of course.

Griffin: Children who are going to be very confused the first time they see an onion, like, “I don’t know what these are supposed to be for!”

Justin: You shouldn't let your kids listen to this show. Griffin literally named a character King Fu**di** (beeped). And it’s like, where does that even fit in, y’know I don’t even. Well I know where it fits in, but-listen I didn’t mean it in the way that you thought I meant it.

{38:45 A Far Friendlier Robot plays and announcements start, and end at 46:28 with Cosmoscope. But let’s be clear it starts during the ‘King Fu**di**’ joke}

{46:41}

Griffin: I’ll do a recap of what happened before we started talking about dicks. You hear a voice behind you say:



Travis: “I turn around!” No! Magnus turns around! Which one am I?

[Wheezy laugh]

Griffin: Um. As you-

Travis: I’m lost within myself!

Justin: I don’t know, nobody does character voices except me [cross talk] so it’s hard to say.



Justin: That’s fucking, that doesn’t make any sense! Why would he say that right now?

Clint: [high pitched voice] I turn around too!

Justin: “I’m turning around. We’re all turning!”

Griffin: Uhm, as you all say that you’re turning around, as you turn around. [Justin: out loud], out loud, you see, a floating figure in a bright red robe.

Travis: I attack it!

Justin: Yeah, I blast it with magic missile.

Griffin: Okay. Magnus roll your dice.

Travis: Fifteen plus seven, twenty-two!

Griffin: Okay, he’s incorporeal and your axe passes right through him.

Travis: I attack again, I get two attacks per turn. [background laughter] Fourteen plus seven, Twenty-one!

Griffin: Your second attack hits! It’s a crit!

Travis: What!

Griffin: No, it doesn’t, [Travis: Fuck] he’s incorporeal, it passes right through him. Uh, and Taako,

Travis: But does he seem miffed?

Griffin: Uh-nope! Taako, you’re magic missiling him?

Justin: No, I, well it depends, did I know he was incorporeal before, or did I watch him, Travis, attack first? If I watch Magnus attack first, I probably didn’t blast it with Magic Missile.

Griffin: Okay, uh then-

Travis: I step- Magnus steps into the place that he is, and kind of blends in with him and goes



Griffin: He phases, he phases-

Justin: Okay, now I do use magic missile.

Griffin: He phases sort of upwards so he’s floating above you.



Griffin: No, uh-

Travis: A/S/L.

Justin: ASMR.



Griffin: The last time he fucking saw you. Remember a thing! Remember-

Travis: No that was in character, Griffin. That was Magnus.

Griffin: Oh.



Griffin: He motions to all the different planes, and he says



Griffin: He waves a hand and uh, there is a crate sort of in the back of the room by the lectern. It actually sort of, kind of like a trash bin? And as he motions towards it, it tips over and some small gemstone disks crash out of it.

One of them, you can see, is a very dark disk kind of like black. But you can see definitely like flecks of red and green and blue color in this black disk. This disk, this disk begins to shake and this horrifying black cloud sort of emerges out of it and it slowly creeps towards these disks that are floating in the room, and one by one, just consumes them. As each disk is consumed you hear like, screaming voices coming from it.

Travis: Woah, hey.

Griffin: It is an absolutely terrifying scene. It consumes the prime material plane, and you feel kind of sick watching it. After it has consumed all of them, this red robed figure snaps his fingers [snaps] and the cloud disappears. This vision kind of leaves you. And he says-



Griffin: He says, uh

Justin: Dag.



Griffin: This, this, he’s starting to shudder. There’s red electricity kind of crackling through him. He says-



Travis: I’m gonna step a little bit away from Taako.



Griffin: As he shouts that he bursts into flames and disappears.

Clint: Wow.

Griffin: And the lights turn back on and Lucas says-



Travis: And we turn around and he’s got his penis out!



Travis: Hey it’s me Clippy! I see you’re trying to explain the “Planar system”. Might I recommend: comic sans?

Griffin: Noelle, uh Noelle has her little satellite dish scanner thing out. Its uh glowing green. And she says-



Travis: I sense green.


 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]
 * Merle/Magnus: A lich? [cross talk]



Griffin: You could make an arcana check, and I can tell you exactly what a lich is.

Travis: Alright, yeah, rolling. I forgot about that. Okay, that’s not gonna do it. That’s a four plus zero: four.

Griffin: Yeah, uh, you’re gonna-

Clint: Alright, I’ll make one. With my plant arm. Fifteen!

Justin: Nice.

Griffin: Yeah, uh Merle, between your sort of backgrounds in, uh, religion and arcana, you know that a lich is sort of this embodiment of a, a very powerful mmagic user, who uh, sort of uh, combines their essence, like life energy with their magical energy, and sort of transcends their physical form. Technically, it’s like an undead- Imagine a ghost made of magic. But, that uh, a magic user has to willfully do that. Although-

Clint: Like David Blaine!

Griffin: Kind of, yeah. Except what’s interesting is, is that most liches, when a magic user does this, it’s like way too ambitious a thing, and they can’t really control that energy. Most liches are just like, insane. Like they have no control over themselves. They’re just hyper violent, hyper-evil embodiments of like, raw magical energy. They are not usually well-spoken beings. Lucas also says-



[Cross talk]



Justin: This is going to be my final plea, for everybody on the show, to use character voices. I would do anything. To make it more, sonically pleasurable for the listeners.

Clint: Let me try, try it again.



Travis: [Exaggerated] It was me~!

Justin: I’m not gonna play with you, little kid.

Griffin: You guys could essentially swap right now if you wanted to.

Justin: Oh that’s easy. I’ll just talk like I always talk, cause I don’t, that means I don’t have to do character voices like you guys, [Griffin laughing] or dad, ever.

Griffin: The mirror on the floor that you actually, the black mirror, that you saw that black cloud come out of. From where you’re standing, fairly far away, you actually see some like, faint, white moving shapes in it.

Travis: I get closer to it.

Griffin: Okay. Standing over it you can actually see what look like white eyes looking back at you through this, black mirror. And as they sort of make eye contact with you, these eyes quickly shut, and disappear.

Travis: I pick it up.

Griffin: kay



Clint: And I chop his arm off!

Griffin: That’s just gonna be, when you least expect it!

Clint: Well you know, I don’t want his arm to turn into a black disk with little white flecks inside it.

Travis: No, it’s cool, it’s cool. Nothing is happening.

Griffin: No it’s not, it’s not uh- all these things, all these crystals an’ stuff aren’t spreading around. This room is not, also I should have mentioned earlier, it’s not crystallized with the pink tourmaline. He says uh-



Travis: Are you Richard Nixon?

Clint: Was that okay? Was that good?

Griffin: Yeah it’s fun. I’m gonna-

Justin: You can't just do any voice.

Clint: You just told me to do a character voice!

Justin: It's not Rich Little plays Dungeons and Dragons

Clint: Well, mommy, uh-

Justin: We don’t want a fucking tour of American history, just do one character voice. Just do it!

Clint [indignant]: Well, you're doing a different character voice! Your Barry White voice.

Justin: Because my throat hurts and again, that's two to your zero voices.

Travis: Well, you're using up all the character voices.

[Clint laughs]

Griffin: Uh, he says, he do not, he has no idea what you’re talking about.



Justin: [wheezing laughter]

Griffin: I have been accused-



Travis: That was Magnus singing, in-character voice.

Griffin: Yeah, I mean the song is basically a mash up of that and the Forest music from the Super Mario RPG. I've realized now in post.

Travis: Perfect.



Travis: Okay, quick twenty minute nap.



Justin: Let's go, Sammy Davis Junior, as a gnome, as a dwarf.

Travis: Wait, so, am I Jerry Lewis? Hold on, we've got Dean Martin, we've got Sammy Davis Junior.

Justin: I'm out the door so I can't hear this.

Griffin: Okay, so back in the sort of central hub room of this floor, Lucas walks over to the central pillar and it's got one of those like red, hand-lock things on it and he puts his hand on it and it makes a bing-bong noise. And you hear an elevator sort of moving up to come to your level. And he says, uh:



Griffin: And Carey and Killian actually draw their weapons and they say, or uh, Killian says:



[Clint and Justin cracking up]



Griffin: Killian's getting kinda aggro and Carey's trying to sort of-



Griffin: And Lucas is like:



Justin: Hey, are you saying this out loud or are you saying this like, in character?

Griffin: Yeah, that's Killian's voice, I know it's confusing.

Justin: Okay, okay.



[All three players objecting at once]



Griffin: She points at Lucas.



Griffin: As you're like arguing with like, Killian, um, you notice that this pool of, it looks like blue? Just like a pool of the colour blue is spreading out of the central elevator in this room. And then very quickly, like a sound wave, it like, roars through the entirety of the room and you feel the lab shake a little bit, and you actually feel this wave of blue ripple underneath your feet. And then suddenly the whole room is blue sapphire.

Travis: Ah-bo-dee-ba-bo-die-ah-bo-dee-ba-bo-die-ba-bo-di

Griffin: And then very quickly before you can finish singing any more of the song, there's another roar and then another wave, and then the room is bright green emerald. And then another wave, and it is just shimmering orange topaz. And the room just keeps like, fluctuating quickly between these different colours and it kind of feels like there's an earthquake happening as the entire lab transmutates between these different gemstones. And with each one there's like another deafening roar. And finally it all kind of settles on...let's say amethyst.

Justin: What colour's that?

Griffin: Purple.

Justin: Amber. Did you mean to say amber?

Griffin: Amber, yeah. It stops on amber. No that's not good. We'll do amethyst.

Clint: That gives a- it makes us look all washed out.

Justin: Yeah.

Travis: What colour is the energy?

Griffin: Uh, I mean the colour, the energy is, the energy is 311's Amber but-

Travis: Okay.

Griffin: So this- as, as this- yeah.

Justin: [purposely interrupting Griffin] Listen, enough of this chin-wagging [laughs].

Griffin: It kinda puts an end to the uh, the argument that you were having.



Griffin: And I need all of you guys to make constitution saving throws.

Travis: Not great. Yeah. Mine is not great, Ditto.

Clint: Holy!

Travis: I had a four plus three, seven.

Clint: I rolled eighteen plus two is twenty.

Travis: Dammit!

Justin: Nice. One plus dick for me. [Clint laughing]

Griffin: As soon as Lucas says that, you all feel the panels that are built into the wrists of your null suits that Lucas designed, you feel them very quickly heat up and then you feel something very bad as these purple volts of electricity just kind of surround you, emanating from that panel and paralyzing you.

Travis: Ah, dammit!

Griffin: And Taako, you just fall to the floor, you are not moving. You have been completely paralysed as you fall to the floor. Magnus, your like, head is good and your hands are good, but your arms and legs are both paralysed. And Merle, just your legs are paralysed as you fall to the floor. But all of you go down. Carey and Killian go down like a sack of bricks. And right as soon as that happens the elevator doors open, Lucas runs in, and as the doors shut behind him, he says:



Griffin: And he is gone. And Killian says:



Griffin: Both your arms are actually pretty good.

Travis: And you can throw one of them off! And still control it! You're the most-

Clint: One of them's a weed!



Griffin: You hear crinkle-tinkles.

Travis: [gasp] Fuck.

Griffin: They’re coming from the floor, you can tell, now that you’re all on the floor. You can tell that it’s kind of reverberating through the crystal that’s taken over this room. And yeah the crinkle tinkles are building and they’re getting way louder. And you hear the beginning of a song start to play. And then through the very crystal that has encased this room, you hear another verse of the song.


 * Saved from the darkness by my child
 * Locked in a cage of glass and steel
 * But my true love remains in exile
 * Beckoning me to break the seal
 * Into this crystal kingdom
 * Into this crystal kingdom

Griffin: I'm actually gonna say the lyrics out loud cause I think some folks have trouble understanding vocaloids. Most people like, don't have an ear-

Travis: I don't speak vocaloid.

Griffin: Yeah, they don't have an ear for it. Uh, the voice just sang: Saved from the darkness by my child, Locked in a cage of glass and steel. But my true love remains in exile, Beckoning me to break the seal, Into this crystal kingdom.

Clint: Can I ask a question?

Griffin: Yup.

Clint: Is anybody writing this shit down?

Travis: Yeah.

Clint: Okay good.

Travis: I mean not me but I assume somebody is.

Clint: Perhaps they could send it to us.

Griffin: And as that verse wraps up, another rift opens in space. Merle, you're probably only person that can really get up to see this happen. And out of that rift, that white fire comes out of it. And those loose pieces of crystal shards that the golem kind of abandoned when it left this room start to self-form again.

Griffin: Merle, you see your arm, your poor, poor crystallised arm sort of float into this mass and come together to form another crystal golem. This one is actually, way more like, slender than the other ones you've seen. It looks like weirdly like bony? Almost like a crystal skeleton with these long, much longer, much sharper looking appendages. And this menacing apparition comes and stands over the five of you all laying paralysed on the ground. And through all of your Stones of Far Speech, you hear a voice say:



[End theme music]