The party leave the safety of the militant town of Kira with all of its
high walls and an overlooking castle, and the sun is still high in the
sky, which gives you a good look at the surrounding area, allowing you
to map the road ahead, and each of you begin traveling on foot for
several hours. I think we see Vita scouting ahead, reporting back with very
little movement or anything that seems to be any sort of traveling warbands or horrible
monsters that come rushing at you. The landscape south of Kira is mostly kind
of clear plains land. Every now and then you'll see thick patches of woods
in the distance, but for the most part it is pretty clear walking.
You also again have that advantage of the daylight for several hours. At one
point Merlin wanders off the path forages for mushrooms and wanders back with an armful
of those red topped mushrooms that he was looking for. But as the daylight
wanes, you find that your footsteps start landing on harder ground. It's dry
and infertile. The packed earth road is all but gone here. There's not
much need for travel between Kira and Nim. All the way down on the
southeastern coast. The weather remains pretty much the same, clear today, a
slight chill to the wind, more due to the time of year than anything
else. But I think eventually there is an arid and endless wasteland that you
can see stretching out in the distance, and just before the sun vanishes,
you each can quite clearly see the Great Masas known as Twin Rock, two
huge sort of mountains in the distance that punctuate up through that flat wasteland.
The Twin Rock is a waypoint for travelers who wish to move off the road
and take a shortcut into Dandalo. It's a straight shot southwest, about half
a day's travel a little over from here to the outskirts of Dandalo. Or
you can follow the road for two more days, circumvent the wasteland a little
longer, and move down towards Nim, crossing a river and following the path,
the cart path into Dandeli. It's up to you, guys, what
you decide to do at this point, but you essentially get to this point.
I think after the majority of the day, I think you've probably been
traveling for about six six hours of daylight at this point and you come to
maybe a moment you guys can pause, put your packs down, take a
breather. As you come to what is literally a fork in the road.
Are you going to take the shorter route through the twin Rock or follow the
path? Decisions? What do we think? Well? Times of the essence
tempted to take the shortest route, but that has landed us in trouble almost
every time thus far, I might make end up making things take longer.
Maybe we take the safe way around. We have got out of trouble every
time. It might be worth just taking it. Agree, I'm inclined to
agree considering some of us so I still are not armed m inclined to agree
with who? So you're thinking the shorten h if people think said the opposite
things, Oops, I make the same hath safe. I think safety is
best okay for Merlin at least sticking with the ride. Yep. Yeah.
So you begin to move down the continue following this kind of packed earth road
for a while. Here you do find that you follow the kind of arid
wasteland underneath. Again, the ground is very dry and infertile. There's lots
of dust kicking up, but not so much. Yet you can tell that
further into the wasteland there will be what will essentially amount of sand. But
out here you are moving along kind of a hilly half half wasteland with patches
of grass. Eventually you move off of the wasteland itself and you continue to
follow a hilly, kind of rocky, fertile, open landscape. The path
is very very thin and difficult to find in places. If all four of
you can roll me a survival check, we'll see what happens for you easily
able to follow it sixteen sixteen seventeen ten. Oh, that was another that
words are fifteen instead of sixteen. You're able to continue to navigate following the
path there isn't it's not really a path at this point. In places there
are stones that mark the edges of a road, there are signs. In
other places there's sort of packed dirt, and if you've been to Guardia or
Ryon or Oka's Port, they have full roads that are a stone and cobblestone.
Out here, you're following what is essentially just trodden the carts, the
few cards that might have been using these same trails, and you guys are
able to still manage to follow that for now, but it gets dark once
night falls, true, it gets a little more difficult to maneuver your way
to ensure that you're focusing your travel heading towards nim at this point, because
that's where the road goes. And who would be scouting ahead? I think
the most item might be because I have devil's sight, so I can see
in the darkness for one hundred and twenty foot completely normally, So I think
here maybe I would. Yeah, it's not all about sight, though,
sometimes it's about perception. Is all of your senses you're to hear things or
even smell things in the dark. Would we both be doing it like walking
ahead together? Yeah, you can be. I mean, it doesn't matter
who is doing it. I'm just curious if anyone is sort of prioritizing that
over anything else. I would be you can experience what happens when you don't.
Both give me perception checks, and then I guess fire roll me a
D ten oh, no eight, and then roll me a D one hundred.
Okay, what if I were or not? He just said, doesn't
matter who's doing it. Then call for a bunch of roles and say I'm
scared. Maybe eighty three is good. I don't know. You tread on
something, it crunches under foot. You lean down and you find a piece
of folded cloth that is tough. When you unfold it, it turns into
a stylish cap. Oh shit, hmm what does it look like? Have
you seen bloodborne? Mm? Hmm? You know that thing he wears that's
kind of closed in at the front so cool? Looks exactly like that.
Oh my good. I will put it on without thinking about any possible consequence
and turn around to model it for my friends, right rob my performance check?
Okay, all look amazing. She comes wandering back and everyone's forced to
slow clap. Amazing. What thanks? I found? That looks far too
nice. I've just been left out here. Well, what what do you
mean? Do you think somebody dropped it? I'll look around. Probably probably
just my imagination. Normally, if we've found stuff laying on in the desert,
I'd expect it to be beaten up broken. Find yours papers? Yeah,
they m anyway? Any fresh tracks and stuff on the road survival check,
uh So investigation eighteen. Survival seventeen. You're looking around for cart tracks
and you start looking around to see if there's anything else here. It does
seem strange that this hat would be here. When you get a little closer
to the ground and you let both of your dark vision eyes adjust and look
through the area, you do get the sense that probably a cart traveled through
here ahead of you today. This doesn't there's no body or anything weird or
anything waiting. This isn't attached to like a piece of fishing wire and it's
going to lead you into a cavern where there's a bunch of goblins waiting or
anything. If anything, you get the sense that this probably fell off of
a cart that's traveling ahead of you, that one of the carts that you
know to have led out of Kira earlier on that day and probably heading down
towards Nim maybe Dandalo. The It's probably fell off the back of a cart
today. Is it not like it would off the work of a car today?
Is it that like it would have belonged to anyone in particular, I
guess a certain sort of worker or her hat like that. Guinness was wearing
a kind of a wide brimmed hat, a bit more like a black cowboy
hat. No, this is just a it's a stylish hat. But it's
it's made out of cloth, so it wouldn't be necessarily a high end where
or anything like that. This is just a common hat. It's a hat.
Get a free hat. Nothing crazy? No, No, where's the
trap? What is it? Can I take it off? Okay? Merlin
give me an arc. Oh, I was actually maybe going to detect some
magic twenty three. It's not cursed or anything. Merlin looks at it over,
gives it sniff and yeah, pretty sure it's the cat. I don't
blame you. It's made out of human flesh. Isn't it very normal?
It's probably just falling off the back of a cot headed this way earlier,
trying to guess. Yeah, I don't detect any magic from it either.
It's just a plain hat. A very nice hat, you know, plain
hat. You could sell it, you know. Our travels thus far have
been exciting. When we panic over a hat in the dirt, do you
want to be? Want to? I don't know if I want to be,
if I want to wear it? Oh? No. When it turns
into some sort of demon and starts eating from the head down, I kind
of just gesture at my almost like we got oh I'm already covered. I
got a hat, but thank you. All right. The area that you're
in is quite quite flat, with a little hilltop that you find yourselves kind
of investigating looking around. When you find this cap it might be a decent
place to camp for the night, if you are going to stop and camp
and rest. How long have we been on the road now? This is
probably about eight hours into your day of travel, it would be, And
I have the exact hours from keeping an eye on them, because mister Arias
is waiting for you. You left about eleven am this morning, so it's
about seven pm. It would have gotten dark about an hour ago. Do
we have a sense of like how far along we are? Are we?
Like halfway there? You'd be on the you'd be, I mean, on
this map, you would probably be somewhere about here. Hm, you have
a bad Do we have to go? Do we have to go all the
way to that? Oh? I see what you mean? Yeah road as
opposed to the two. Correct, you're following the Yeah, if I take
the nose snapping off following this road. In fact, I'll do it on
this one because in chat can see too you're following this road here. Eventually
it will lead you down to this this bridge, and then you'll be able
to follow the trader's road into Dandelio, as opposed to wandering through the the
wastelands without signs and guides and stones and things that that you know that you're
on the right course. I didn't even notice, Like I heard your description
of the roots, but it didn't register on the map that I can actually
see it. That's pretty cool. How far to am I miss? It's
going to be like a whole nother day's travel, right, so even if
we push through the neighbor, I'm not going to make it there in time.
What is this? Do we have any idea what this spot is?
Right next to the bridge. West of Nim you might see houses, Yeah,
just a little river set of homes and houses, just a tiny little
off shoot town, very similar to how Grant's refuge was not really anything but
a small cluster of houses, just unnamed. Kind of a subset of Nim
that belongs to fishermen and people that run up and down the river on small
rowing boats and canal boats collecting and fishing. There's actually a decent amount of
fish and dried fish and things that you can find in Dandlo and Nim because
of that, not because of any deep sea fishing. Deep sea so bigger
ships large. There are no real huge, huge ships at all. There's
naval things are a waste of time. And while some people have gone off
on larger, larger ships sloops and maybe something as large as maybe a caravel,
for the most part it's kind of pointless. Go out too far and
you're in the midst and you'll never seen again. Deep sea fishing doesn't really
provide a worthwhile catch outside of maybe Guffreider has it. Between Guardia Regis Regis
is the is the fishing place to go to. They do actually have some
good naval things going on, but there are traveling ferries and ships that will
take you from Guardia, the mainland of the Dark Realm, over to Fennis
Timarosa, which is where the Thieflings are from. At some point Fix would
have taken a ship, probably from a freak, down to Guardia and then
traveled that road in the couple of weeks before the campaign began. But really
most fishing actually comes from the rivers and lakes nearby the towns, as opposed
to what we might understand to be more traditional sea fishing. So Nim and
even Dandalo have a decent amount of fish and things like that. However,
that little fishing cluster of houses is a little bit off of your route.
You are adding hours to your travel to Dandalo to go there. Isn't it
right on the road there that we're following, Yeah kind of, but this
isn't an exact accurate map, right, so we would just be cutting straight
down here. It would just be you'd be taking an extra couple of hours
to go over towards that village when you could just not go straight over the
bridge, right all. In that case, if you're in trouble and something
huge is chasing you, like a dragon, then you'd probably want to run
to the village maybe to see if there's anybody there who can help, so
we can destroy the village as well. Yeah, I don't know, there's
they've probably got some basic walls and things if there's something rushing after you.
But with standard dragon, yeah, you guys probably are the people that they
would run to if there was a dragon, So you're not the type that
would normally run to it. But if you were a trader, for example,
you might want to push on to that town if something was harassing you
on the road here. But if you guys, is kind of pointless to
head that far along to nim and the little fishing village there. Okay,
So the choices we are the rest here in the thought that there might not
be a better place to rest up ahead, Well, we carry on and
hope if you've actually been there. But I'm sorry, man, Well,
if you push all the way through the night and then push all the way
through the next day's travel to Dandelo, you'll probably suffer a love exhaustion.
Yeah, no matter, if anyone's safe over the rest hmmm. Honestly,
setting up camp on this side of the river before we enter the desert is
probably the safe play and the smart play. I can't think of any settlement
within walking distance of here that we'd be able to make it too before good
night at that earliest. As much as I hate the idea of wasting time,
I think this is sensible. What do you think, Merlin? I
think it would be best that we do rest here for the night, considering
yes, there is water nearby, Yeah, okay, set up. Let's
set up shop here then, so you set up a little camp. Let's
see. Yeah, let's have fixed romm A D twelve five A five Where
are we? So? Yeah, you guys probably find a decent area to
set up this camp, each of you taking watch overnight. Maybe a low
fire to to keep you guys from freezing, because it would get very cold.
I assume people would be eating a little snack, having a drink,
and resting. Merlin, you did forage successfully today. We did it just
before the show began. But you can. Let's see if you can craft
a potion. So you successfully foraged. Rob me a medicine check or a
herbalism kit check. Wow, and nine is the lowest you can get.
And yeah, at some point in the night you see Merlin sitting up.
He brings the herbalism kid out, unfolds some of the things, brings out
the mortar and pestle starts grinding down the mushrooms, boils some water, puts
the ingredients together. But there's something up, Merlin. This You begin to
create this potion with these mushrooms. They're freshly plucked today. They seem like
the right mushrooms. But in the process, you spoil the ingredients or you
mess it up. What do you think happens. I think I got a
little too comfortable and I messed up something in the recipe. Maybe I didn't
grind it up clockwise as it usually is. Maybe I went counterclock wise today.
Yeah, no, I just wasn't feeling it. I guess, Yeah,
messed it up. You can tell once the potion comes together at the
end that it hasn't It doesn't come together correctly. Something is wrong with it,
and it would not be advised that anyone use it as a healing potion.
You're pretty sure, if anything, it's going to make them sick to
drink it. I would toss it of your shoulder. You can forage again.
Mess up. You can forage again tomorrow to try and find some more.
But you failed this one and you spoiled the ingredients. You do have
some other things you can make, though, So since you're here, what
do you remember what you guys bought? You bought some ingredients for like potions
of it was like an oil of sharpness, I think, and potions of
water breathing. No, yeah, well all of sharpness ingredients. We got
five leaves of gillyweed and three mushrooms. So assuming they didn't get stolen,
with everything else. Oh yeah, all your stuff got stolen. Yeah,
we didn't do it. I remember. Now, that's why you don't have
any of your stuff. You probably didn't have a herbalism kit. That's probably
why you failed. Let's say that's why you failed. You're missing about half
of the bits that you usually use to craft these things. Also, you
guys, yeah, you just have like bits of chicken that you're cooking right
as well. You don't have your usual things with you, like pots,
pans or items that would make this basic camping better. In fact, you
probably don't have anything really nice apart from your own clothes and things around you.
So regardless of the fire, it's probably a chilly and uncomfortable night.
I thought they just took our valuable they took everything. Well, they didn't
take everything, but I feel like you've like that's why Merlin kind of going
through these things, realized they took some of the like like tweezers are probably
hard to come by, you know, so they're like, oh, that's
good, I'll take card to come by. So you're probably missing certain things.
You probably still got like a blanket or something, but I doubt this
is quite as comfortable a camp as you normally experience over the night. That
being said, there isn't anything that comes rushing out you in the night,
no creatures, no other people. You don't find any other items or anything
like that. But can we can we try to go hunting from Merlin before
we enter the desert if we don't end up Yes, we couldn't do that
on Yeah, the next set of rolls, I mean the next day rolls
around. It's morning, but not daylight yet. It would still be quite
early, I presume, since I'm going to be a little bit more specific,
we're keeping track of time. That was about seven at nights, so
probably need to Who needs the longest amount of sleep in this group? Again?
I don't. I don't think I have any modifier to my sleep.
So it's the normal rest. You've got to do the full eight So rest
now? Or did the rules for that change? I don't think Merlin needs
to rest. I can't remember what he has to do. I think he
does have to do some sort of like muscle rest so that he doesn't just
all apart. I would think what he can do, he's more about making
sure that he keeps fed. He has to eat dead flesh. He has
to have at least one mouthful of brain at one point. I imagine you
probably just pop a chicken brain in his mouth keep him from creeping over to
one of you in the night. But yeah, and I don't think he
I actually don't think he does need sleep. Conically, you probably can sleep,
but I don't. But it's not a thing that is like necessary mechanically.
The fire can both just sit there awick on my keeping watch. Yeah,
pretty much, but he was working on eight hours. He was working
on his things instead, so that's kind of a thing. Ultimately, I'm
not even gonna make you roll for it because nothing's coming for you, so
it's just a waste of time. You're okay, it's a matter, but
you got we can assume that each of you is taking a watch, but
mechanically you don't need to actually roll anything. So it's it's actually probably in
the middle of the night. It's probably like three or four a m.
By the time you guys feel rested enough, packed up and begin heading out
again, or what is essentially the next day's worth of travel. We'll say
it's about four am. Once everybody's woken up and begins moving out again.
So who he So Merlin, I assume more forage for mushrooms. Who wants
to hunt? To make sure they find something with brains for Merlin to eat?
And if you're good at hunting, that will be a survival check for
the record. Yeah, that'd be okay that we can have together. And
then all right, so let's have but you're both doing it. Yeah,
sure we're partnering up. Anythink there's anything else I want to do. Vita
can scamp for you, so give me a perception check from Vita. Everyone
else give me survival checks. Will I'm just going to put you on making
sure that you're on course. Yeah, I'll navigate and try to keep an
eye out for ambushes while they're doing that, and I will just in a
circle. Well, you'll be very pleased to know that five is the DC
for this because you're on a part. So you're okay, nice fire and
fix. All right, let's see what you come back with. Roll me
these six Oh damn, you're gonna eat well a haspiring clear Bard's hut something
uh out there? Now? Where are you you are between Kur and nim
So I think you guys come back with a bore like a like a like.
It's this is not a huge thing that the two of you are carrying.
It's a small piglet sized thing that you've got, like a little guy.
But it has brains, and you can see that it has. Between
the two of you, you probably expertly found it tracked, it was able,
maybe fixed, kind of ran it into Fire's path through very quickly,
and definitely put an arrow through its heart bringing it back to the path as
Will and Merlin are moving along. Merlin and by the time you gut,
you two return from this small hunt and catch up to the other two.
You see Merlin is kind of holding another armful of the appropriate mushrooms. Every
so often, Merlin scurrying off the path into the kind of grasslands and the
underbrush is but moving into a bush before it. At the other end of
it. He comes back out and he's got another mushroom to add to the
pile. Will. It's not easy to follow the road again, really,
because this is just a matter of of finding a very very rarely used trail,
but a trail that it is there for the rest of this day.
You're able to manage to keep everybody on track Vita rolled a six however,
so roll me a D twelve. Fix goody. That was such a very
nice way of telling me, I managed to follow a path. Yeah,
but it's really it's not a road. You guys aren't on a highway here.
You're on like a almost a woodland trail for like half of this and
just like you're in these open fields and planes, so it's just a matter
of finding. You're almost doing tracking finding areas where you're like, oh,
clearly a cart came through here from somebody who's very experienced that taking this route.
So we're still on track, probably able to use the sun and things
to make sure you're on the right bearing. Every now and then you probably
come close to an area that gives you the sense that you're closer to that
river as well. A D twelve on a four Vita doesn't spot anything,
but it doesn't mean that nothing is there. That being said, nothing attacks
you, but you also don't find anything. If there was something to find,
eventually, will you spot in the distance the river. You also see
across the river is pretty new looking stone bridge. You guys probably move off
the road and start just making a little shortcut across the open fields here towards
where this bridge is, and as you get closer you can see it's quite
wide. It's wide enough to fit two carts across it. The center of
it kind of cobblestone built. The rest of it very plain mason stone,
but still well made and sturdy. It actually looks pretty new, clean and
well kept. The river underneath it is running. No fish, not a
lot of wildlife in the river underneath this bridge, but there is algae that
crawls up the side of the bridge. It almost completely dissects maybe about a
thirty foot river here. But on one side, the side that you're on,
is a field with flat grass, but yellowed and green. On the
other side, you can see in the distance that that grass very quickly begins
to disappear and turn back into that open wasteland, just the dead and infertile
land that's around Dandolo and Coops to the south. And yeah, you're back
on this road. However, the road coming off of the end of this
bridge, on the other side of it is once again that kind of packed
dirt. Of the sides of this packed dirt road along that kind of infertile
land is stones and huge carvings with Dandalo written in several languages, in rocks
and things like that. Once again, you're on what feels more like a
main road, the type of thing that somebody would travel. Kira to Nim
to Dandalo is is no man's land, No one really needs to bother with
it. But Oku's point to Kira to Gefreida, we owned to Dandalo to
Nim. Over to the ports, you'll see a lot more traffic, so
you're back on pretty easy to follow road. Once again. That being said,
you've still got like maybe a full day, and we would be on
the map over to about here. Now we'll say like like this, and
you've still got to do like about a full day's travel, so this would
have been another eight hours or so. Normally I wouldn't calculate this this much,
but we're on active time limit because of Arios, so I'm tracking the
movements a little more specifically because we also know that young Arias is out there
doing things. And actually probably around the time that you first spot this bridge
and point out to the others and the rest of you start to move over
towards the bridge. Fire with a boar hanging over one shoulder, the sun
begins to rise, you're noticing about six hours of daylight, so you've probably
got five or six hours of daylight ahead of you. That being said,
you've still got like a full day's worth of travel, so you're looking at
somewhere between fifteen to twenty hours of travel ahead of you. What's the plan
as you come to the bridge. The bridge is a great place to camp,
but also you lose the daylight. Is there a troll under the bridge?
There is nothing under the bridge. You're at the bridge, you're on
the bridge, you're looking over it. That was a fair question. Yeah,
No, In fact, there's no one or any There's nothing here.
It's actually quite barren of wildlife. We've not been traveling that long since morning,
right, so setting up a camp it would probably be a bit of
a waste. It's about midday. You've been traveling since four am. Okay,
so we've done the full day. Yeah. Yeah, he took the
safe but slow route. So I'm jumping forward in like eight hour bursts,
and it would be how long till Dandalo from here? Like a whole day
and a half pretty much about another fifteen to twenty hours, depending on what
you do or how quickly you go there. I've never camped on a bridge.
Mhm, first time for everything. My only concern is it's only noon,
Like we've still got good traveling hours ahead of us, and maybe we
should keep moving. Well, not everyone here is decaying. I I I,
well, I don't know for how much longer I'm going to stay intact.
Okay, how's the finger holding up? It's actually quite good. Whatever
you did, it certainly made it a little more sturdy. Okay, what
did you what happened? Oh my my, my pinky. Oh, it
just needed reinforcement. There was no it was. It didn't really fall off.
It was like, you know, just sort of yeah, looking a
bit loose, that's all. It was kind of loose, yeah, loose.
Yeah, you know, like you know, maybe broke it or something.
At some point you broke it and you didn't tell me. Yeah,
just you know, like like a hangnail. It's it's no baky. I
didn't want to worry you. Fire m hangnails. Fixed it. Hang nailed.
It makes your finger nearly come off. Yes, I get really bad
ones always, or I don't remember that happening. I think it's you know,
just ever since I uh died, your nails never stopped growing. He
came on alive. I think, well, the important thing is we're on
top of it, right monon exactly? That's fine, okay. I mean,
if we rest here, we can try and fish. Do we have
fishing poles? There even any fish in there? I think bowl fish.
That was the first time everything I suppose. I mean, if we carry
on, will there be somewhere to rest in the desert, not that I
can remember. Yeah, this could be our last h our, last rest
before the desert is the only option. We could rest here until the evening,
then around seven or eight, heat out again and travel overnight. Much
as I hate the idea of traveling out there in the dark, you never
know what things are lurking out there, but we can't afford to waste too
much time. Now I'm with you, there will But I suppose the bridge
probably is the last place we're going to get a safe spot to rest before
we make the trek across the desert. So settling down here is not a
bad idea. That to maybe relaxed a little. Who knows what's out there?
Mm hmm, who knows. Maybe we'll actually catch a fish, I'll
try. Who wants to go fishing? And how are you doing it?
Because you have no stuff? Yeah? Oh yeah, I would like to
create an illusion of some sort of wool. I think in the middle of
the river. I want to try and like corral the fish towards the wall
so that fire can then boat them fishing in real life, I didn't think.
I don't know if they was smart enough to stop. Maybe there are
I mean, there could be some weird fish in here. We've got owl
bears in the world, so maybe there's some like brain dynamite fishing. You
you have some dynamite. What do you have? Can I can cast thunder
away? Yeah? I was gonna fashion a rope into a string and try
actually fishing. But if we're going to just blow it up that I think.
I think will would wait on blowing up the river to see if conventional
fishing works first, and if it doesn't after an hour or two. All
right, I'm gonna try this blow up the river? All right, who's
trying conventional fishing and also creating illusionary things? So well, I'm gonna go
apple bopping, like I'm going to try and catch them with my mouth.
Yeah, you're going down and get in the water and waiting there, and
if you see one, you're just gonna bite at it exactly. Okay,
And what are you crafting fire? So you're the only one making actual fishing
rod out of something? Yeah? I want to try to take a part
a bit of my rope to make like oh wait, actually have string?
Oh? Then all you string? I wist trying to create the thing.
I don't have any parts, but I can at least lend a pair of
hands spring. And what do you got for like a hope a hook?
Mmmmmmmm? I have ball bearings that I could use as like yeah, but
m kinder, Yeah, I think of all those things are cold that you
like clip them, you plamp them over your string. Not that that's what
a ball bearing is, because somehow you need to break that out, and
with your super phenomenal strength, I will allow it somehow. You you can
probably tie a thing. It's probably a nightman to do, but you've got
you're resting, that's the point. So maybe I'll take like an arrowhead and
try to use that as like a hook. But that's very big, probably,
Okay, then just trying them, then please roll me a survival check
to see if you can actually craft a working fishing rod dish. We will
call it a fishing rowdish on a thirteen. What you're trying to do is,
I mean, you're on a bridge, so you can probably just drop
the string off the edge with your kind of makeshift fishing tackle on the end.
Do you have bait? What are you using as bait? I have
a ration. I was going to just maybe drip up a little bit of
whatever something. It smells strong, And yeah, I think you sit on
the top of the thing, on the top of the bridge. Merlin,
give me a perception check. Fix creates an illusionary wall, and I'm not
going to lie. It does nothing. Thanks would know more about fishing than
I do. Yeah, and uh okay, so you know what, We're
going to just stick with fire and Merlin for a bit, even though you
two are helping them. What it really does is negate the extreme disadvantage because
there's very very little fish in this river. Both of you roll me next
he saving throws. But when you finally see a fish, Merlin, first
of all, Merlin, what happens on that fail? Oh no, well,
I guess Merlin would see a really nice big one and he's you know,
he's he's getting ready to pounce, but well he miscalculates and he falls
in, absolutely falls in fast over tit into the water. This is not
like a rushing river. This is a slow moving thing. It's probably at
the center of the river. It's again it's like thirty foot wide, so
at the center. It's probably not the type of thing you want to really
fall into. But we can imagine that you've kind of rolled up your housers
and you're on the edge somewhere of kind of dipping around. You got you
go in. There's a moment where probably everyone laughs at Merlin as he comes
up, beards drenched in water, no fish in his mouth at all,
wiping off the excess water. However, fire you do feel a bite and
you whip a fish up. You fight with it for a moment, but
since you're in kind of in a position above this thing instead of a normal
you wouldn't really have to fight anything. You just have to lift him up
out. It stays hooked. It's a pretty it's just an instant, perfect
catch, and you pull this fish up out of the water. Hmmm,
roll me. Nature check or a perception check. But depending on which one
of you roll depends on the answer you get. Mm hmm, sixteen nature
A sixteen nature? H h oh. No. You pull this fish up
out of the water, big looking fish, decent size. Would it's not
going to feed everyone here, but it will be a nice treat to have
a fresh fish. But you're looking at this thing, and it's there's something
wrong with this fish. It's thin, the scales on it are loose.
Even as you pull the thing up out of the water, you see them
falling off of its back. And it doesn't look right. It just it
does. It looks sickly. It's fish that you're you're looking at. Mmm,
something's wrong with my fish? Guys, does anyone know anything about fish?
Clearly not me. I might know a thing or two about fish,
Okay, don't eat it because it's something's wrong with it. And I would
I have heard any rumors about this spread. I'm no fishermen, and I
don't know much about fish. But this was where I was like along the
water. Here is like where we were posted, or where I was posted
in my army days. I've been up and down the coast. Have I
heard any rumors of like fish being weird here. I mean a history check
anyone can if you if you have any if you think you have any justifiable
knowledge on the areas around here A nineteen nineteen. So this air is so
dandaloing and more distinctly in coups. People don't hunt the fish or the animals
here very often. It usually causes botulism. You find there aren't even that
many animals here. The type of things that live in dandalone in cous are
usually kind of monstrous creatures, the types of things that you more likely to
expect coming out of the mist than out of the forests. And while yes
there are things like owl bears that might look strange to our eye, they're
still kind of healthy looking creatures. The fish in this river that fire pulls
out is sickly and unwell looking. You're not sure necessarily if it's poisonous,
but you're having that almost like kind of weird natural response to seeing something that
looks sickly. It might be toxic to eat. The hunting is just not
a thing around dandalo and coos. People don't really eat the food around there.
And while there are pools of water, again, this isn't a desert
because of heat, a lack of rain or sort of dryness. This is
a desert because thing the area is incredibly infertile, so the sand is more
dust just accumulation than heat. And I think, will you see this fish,
and that would probably ring true that the creatures here are sickly staying in
People don't live in Coos. Cous is supposedly a place where witches live,
and goblins and orcs are said to be able to live there for longer.
But people get sick going to Coos and staying there for long amounts of time.
It's a poisonous place. Dandelone not so much, but the area around
it remains sickly. And you see this fish, and I think it becomes
clear to you that that's what it is. It also probably took you a
decent amount of time before you even saw this one fish. That's true.
I know that KOs is a rough place, poisonous land. I didn't think
it'd reached all the way up the river to hear though. Back when I
was in the Army, our squad, the cook he hated this place because
he couldn't really find ingredients, but that was further down south. Whatever poisons.
The land there must run very deep to reach the fish all the way
up here, and we should probably not eat that. Mm hmm. Unfortunately,
does that mean all the wildlife is going to be the same around here?
Part of the reason I wanted to hunt and rest before we head into
the desert. It's not. I mean, no, desert is a hospitable
place, but yeah, this one's particularly nasty. I've heard a lot of
nasty stories about the things that lurk in coops too. Let's just hope we
don't have to go down there. It was resting a good idea if we're
just going to get hungry and have nothing to eat, pick your poison,
was press on while exhausted into a desert, or try and rest and find
food here. But yeah, it's not really a winning answer in that scenario.
Hm. Well, I'm gonna let this fish go back to whatever life
it has as a sick, clean fish, probably fucking it weakly swims off
the bore you have looks good and you can cook and serve that up for
the for the afternoon. As you set up this camp, are you on
the bridge or like to one side of it? Can we be the trolls
under the bridge. Yeah, with the troll slightly under the bridge, using
the bridge as some form of cover next to the river. And well,
the river doesn't look bad or poisonous, you know, it's not bubbling or
evil or anything like that. It's probably relatively relaxing to actually sit by daylight
next to this bridge and then cook up what parts of the boar you want.
You all eat quite well, I think that day, including cutting out
the brain and giving some raw bits of flesh to Merlin. And yeah,
the the daylight of the day will pass after about seven or eight hours.
An hour or two after the sun has set, you probably pack up and
head over the bridge and follow the road towards Dandelo. One final push before
we get the rest of the way across. I want to stop fire on
the on the bridge where borrow your services for a moment? Who do you
want that? Well, no one but appreciate you letting me borrow this.
The little sword, however, I can't say I've ever used one quite like
it. Mind going around or two with me, no stabbing, no actual
stabbing. I need to get the hang of this thing in case we end
up in a scuffle Besides, I've always wanted to have a duel on the
bridge like in the stories. Oh yeah, like a cool look mm hmm.
Oh you know what we should do? What's that? We shouldn't tell
them that we're practicing. We should just act like we're fighting. M hm.
You see, given the current temperament of fire strikes, roll me in
a tack row, you asshole, and exactly what you like. I feel
like they're both just a thirteen against your ac But are you Are you actively
trying to parry to get used to the swords instead of instead of relying on
your armor to defend you from these. With this first one, she just
kind of jumped me, So I think it was kind of reflexively use of
the shield first, Yeah, and say, okay, all right, and
then I'm actually gonna take the shield off and just put it on the ground
and hold the rapier with one hand like an a fencing stance, which looks
incredibly goofy for someone in heavy armor, but I'm gonna tapped it. Nonetheless,
you have this very very thin blade out of this enormous armor that you're
wearing via the weapon that you're using now is actually a little bit more like
probably more like a katana looking thing, not quite as quite as long and
thick, but somewhere along that that kind of a thing like a chokuto if
anybody sort of dying order. We had a rogue that had one of those
as well, So it's a little different the way that you can use this
new blade of yours, the Iris blade, which you know as the enchantment,
which allows it to do extra poison damage. But you'll have to actually
cut flesh. And Will assume that no matter what you roll here, you're
not ever gonna yeah deal any damage to each other. Will moves backwards or
adjusts himself, and the shield glances off your strike. Merlin and Fixed suddenly
turned around from the sound of the sword striking the already very scuffed and scratched
looking shield that Will has, and Will you would like to presume see if
you can return an attack. Since you are clumsy with this, you have
disadvantage on the first attack Oki dok one disadvantaged strike coming up. Fourteen,
All right, what is your act? Fire dances out of the way of
this as you kind of thrust forward this thing lunging. Maybe it's not coded
in I think it's still a miss, but it would be it was a
fifteen. I'll fix it. What are you missing? I use charisma as
my attacking stat Oh right, okay, I didn't notice you'd added the sword
to my sheet. I did, yeh, I saw it as I glanced
over there. Yeah, I just let it. Let it do its own
thing. On Roll twenty, Fire dances out of the way of this attack.
You can see that Will's kind of clumsy in his ability used to probably
swinging much heavier swords, bustard swords, long swords, even great swords,
probably more to the basic training of a guardian soldier, whereas fire you were
trained in everything for the most part, but ultimately most elves specialize in finesse
weapons, lighter weapons, quieter weapons a lot of the time, short bows,
weapons that allow you to strike and gape unseen you. If you would
like, can school Will a little bit on his stance, posture, and
ability to move even though he's going to be struggling a little in this in
this heavy armor. You can tell him what he needs to do to adjust
his balance, move on his heel if you want, Yeah, I will.
She does mess with him a little bit and then all yeah, and
then I'll help give me an attack role. Me yeah, me. She
shouts at you to you know, pivot, use your hip to move as
much as your ankle, and then she's next to you with a dagger kind
of up to your throat. Roll me an offhand attack as well with your
other dagger. Mm hmm. You you you, You try and move.
You listen to her words, and you realize how quick she is when she
wants to be. And she's just dancing around you. Almost from Fix and
Merlin's perspective, it's almost as if these two are just dancing on this bridge,
the moonlight behind them. As fire moves around you, you recognize the
feeling of a cold steel against the side of your neck, up by your
jawline, and as you kind of flinch away from it, you realize that
you're pushing yourself towards a dagger that would have been between two of the plates
on your armor. She had another one at your stomach as well. She
dances away from you again, but it does give you an opportunity to strike.
Give me a normal attack role, no disadvantage. Okay A seventeen what
was your singin een eighteen? It's good. He actually takes your advice.
He moves on the ball of his heel, pushing off with his very powerful,
on strong legs, using that strength to add to his ability to spin
quickly around. But that bulky armor is something else. I think more than
anything, it's the armor that slows him down or even gives away his positioning.
You can hear the grinding of the plates and you're able to just about
skate out of the way as this rapier glides across your midrift barely barely an
inch or two away from you as he you dance away from him. What
do you do next? Looks hard to be light on your feet in that
armor. I am accustomed to smashing through my opponents instead. Mm hmm.
But I'll get the hang of this. Let's go again, okay, hohether,
you give me attack Roles. Yeah, I'll hold up the iris blade
this time and just wait for his move. Okay, good, Try twelve.
You bring this thing down. It's more of a it's less of a
fencing move this time, as you kind of just brute force to sort of
prove your point that strength wise, if this had hit you, fire it,
it would definitely hurt. But you also get the sense that Will is
easily strong enough that he could just break the blade on this thing if he
wasn't careful with it in the way that you would be. You carry his
sword out of the way of yours. Even though the strength you feel in
your wrists as you move this thing away from your body moving forward, you
get the sense that if Will had any other weapon in his hand, you
wouldn't even probably be able to carry it. Just the strength alone would overcome
your dexterity. But with him half attempting to swing this down in a way
that allows for him to maneuver towards you, you parry the sword out of
the way and come up close to him, with the sword now resting the
flat of the blade across the side of his cheek. Dexterity for dexterity,
you're h out matching him. Both of you are probably quite aware that had
Will had a great axe in his hand or something, this would be a
different fight. But as it stands right now, you kind of got the
upper hand on him. Either of you want to do anything else, Yeah,
Whenever when she does that, I'm gonna lean in real close and say
you're enjoying this one't you and push back, and then I want to I'm
gonna pick my shield up and say, all right, I'm taking what you
said to heart, but I think I need to modify it a little bit
once again, okay, and get the daggers out again. I mean another
set of contested attack rolls you fire you. You would recognize the enchant shopping
like Will's kind of cheating, but it's it's the it's the hecks that he's
put on people when he's fighting before mm hmmm, uhh come. Fire comes
like spinning towards you. You see her kind of faint one way, and
then she turns in a way that she's obviously just she's almost just toying with
you at this point, but you use that to your advantage, allowing you
to kind of focus in. There's a moment, I think Will, where
you lose all sense of surrounding. While you're aware of Fix and Merling,
both of them arms crossed, watching you to have this thing you're aware of,
a sense of fire kind of toying with you, it goes away.
You focus watching her move and as she does the thing that she's been doing
so far, kind of dancing rather than actively moving away from you. Your
basic training kicks in and you focus on that she comes dancing towards you.
You push the first dagger attack away from her, sens her immediately off balance,
and you bring that rapier to her stomach, pushing it into a piece
of the leather armor that she's wearing that you know won't pierce through, and
letting the rapia bend against her midriff. You would have been stuck on this
fire for sure. And while the two of you find yourselves relatively even matched
with this thing, will you kind of understand better how to move in your
armor, apply your own basic tactics to this weapon, almost probably remembering some
of that ability as well. I'm sure you would have been trained with similar,
lighter weapons, And it kind of comes back to you adjusting yourself to
allow for the movement in the armor. Fire. He finally gets the better
of you, even though you're pretty sure he used a little trick at the
end. There you will. It comes back to you regardless and fire he
gets you. He gets you feel good, yeah, a little bit.
I hope you'll forgive me, but I think I'm going to go back to
knocking people's legs out from under them and smash them with my shield before I
poke them with this m stick to what I know probably a good idea.
Kelly, all up there, or would you like to get your revenge and
make me look silly once more? Oh? No, I think I did
my job that you did. Thanks for the lesson, I uh anytime.
I mean it. Really, I'll keep that in mind, and I'll try
out to break this by getting off the sellis and swinging it straight into someone.
Well, if you did, it's not the worst thing that could happen.
I have this now? Is this old sort of yours not hold any
kind of memories for you? Some sort of an attachment to it? I've
never known someone who lives by the sword to part with their weapons so quickly
and easily. Well this one is cooler, so quite the pragmatist. Mm
hmm. I don't have memories that I uh really want to hold on to
mm hmm. I don't mind giving them away. I think some of us
wish we could. But thanks, I will take care of it at least
until I retrieve ideally my own sword back or anything else more suited to my
talents. And yes, let me just smash things like it ogre. It's
so much easier. M hmm. This brings back a lot of memories.
You know. It took me almost six months. We had three weeks of
training, but we shipped out to the mountains during the Pointless Worth three weeks.
They trained us in spear, long swords, shield and bow and crossbow.
Took six months before I actually learned how to wield it properly, getting
beat up nightly in the camp because I kept challenging a fell an invasure and
over and over and over. He was the best among us. That does
sound like something you would do. I'm keenly aware, Pully. For a
moment there, we thought, well, mostly me, I thought you too
were fighting. But well, as soon as no fence, well fire whooped
your butt. It was practice. You did well though. I'm just hoping
when it really comes down to it in a real fight, I'll be able
to put this thing to use. Also, thanks for not fire balling me.
I was kind of concerned about that. Oh. I was watching you
like a hawk. It was like a bird fighting with a bull. Mhm.
It was graceful somehow, So I am a graceful bird. Hm hmm.
That wasn't a graceful bull before, but somehow you did it in the
end, So well done. I will, I'll do my best. It's
going to end up with me just hunching them down onto the starting on what
I feel, But either way should start. You're the graceful ball, the
graceful ball. My nicknames grow ever weirder. Yeah, well, you don't
want to gain notoriety, so I suppose having a different nickname in every area.
If the dark realm is no bad thing. We going now? There?
We get back? Yeah? Are we get back on the road?
Thanks? Yeah? Okay, So after your midnight dance, you each head
along the road now and you move for a little while kind of following this
road, the ground underfoot toughening up again as the patches of grass are left
behind you, and you just start to walk out on dust and cracked earth,
almost as if it was some scorch. But the extreme lack of sun
and honestly the amount of rainfall that happens is too much for that to be
the case here, and yet the area around you appears to you as if
it were a desert. After several hours, you actually start to realize that
underfoot There are areas of sand and dust that are thick enough that you can
kick it and pile it up. There are areas that seem to be mountainous,
but the rock is broken, cracked, and red in color, just
like you might find in the Grand Canyon or something like that. It really
does seem like a desert here, but you get neither the excessive cold nor
the excessive heat during the day. Let's have Merlin roll me one more forage
check. You have to get a twenty or higher. Wow, that's three.
No, there is nothing out here. Every time you think you spot
a mushroom, you run over and it's a red rock. Every time you
think you see something that might be alive, you rush over to it and
it is a shadow or something that's moving. You are unable to find anything
that is useful here. Definitely no mushrooms. You'd be surprised if there are
any mushrooms in this whole place. What you do find are these clumps of
kind of dark green. They almost look like leaves off of a tree that
grow up out of the ground. Every now and then you stumble upon a
natural kind of crop of these leaves, like a small bushel of dark green
leaves with purple edges. Give me a nature check those. Yeah, you
know what these are. These you might not ever have seen if you've spent
your entire time in the lush forests down by the Irish tree. This is
leaf of the sand, which you know that people smoke like tobacco. They
shred it and smoke it, and it gives you a little happy high,
a little happy buzz. It's an extreme relaxant, relaxes all of your body.
Too much of it and you'll poop yourself. But it's commonly found here
in Dandelo. It literally doesn't last. So once you pull this up out
of the ground, it dries very quickly, and once it dries out fully,
it's just unusable. It just becomes a normal leaf. You do find
a few clumps of that that you think you could shred and smoke like a
tobacco if you were interested in doing so. Other than that, there's like
nothing here. You spy every so often some very long rooted cacti, these
kind of thin looking things, and they're not lush and green like we might
expect. They're browned in most places. The thorns on them long and black,
curved at the ends, but cacti nonetheless just about the only plant life
in the entire place that you spot. No mushrooms, and also no wildlife.
You find bugs, and there are things that will land on you and
try and suck at your blood, like mosquitos, but little creatures like that.
But there's no deer running off. There's no boar to hunt. There's
also not really any birds flying around, or bats or anything that you might
expect every now and then. You probably feel quite alone out here. It's
relatively quiet, other than the whistle of the flat planes kicking up some of
the dust and dirt around you. Guys, as you start to move through
this area, I'll have I guess, in fact, just give me perception
checked you're on the road. I don't think you can get lost, because
you're following a really obvious road. Now, wow, we've got the lowest
vita, so fix from me a D twelve eleven eleven. Interesting. Okay,
Well, on the map, you guys have probably somewhere along here where
we leave off our break for the evening. When we come back, you
will either be under attack from an ancient brass dragon or arriving at the town
of Dandolo and I know how that sounds like I might be joking about the
dragon part that liarly you've never seen this show before. So come back in
a few minutes. We're going to go for a little break here and when
we return, which was true, what do you think predictions in the chat
you're back in minutes. When we were level three, you were a green
dragon that spreaded. Don't trust you? Oh, I love throwing an ancient
dragon at level one. Part is it's so fun. All right, we'll
be back in a few minutes. Thanks for watching. In the distance,
you see Dandalo, which is an odd site I think for each of you
as you follow the road up towards where Dandalo is, and I think it's
quite hard to see it first on the road before you Before you arrive realizing
the upperhead there is a sort of a mountainscape, almost a natural set of
Macer's hills and more kind of peaked mountains, you start to recognize houses.
And I think with you coming up on this quite late at night, it
would be m m or would it would be quite early in the morning,
which would be late at night. So yeah, we're looking at three in
the morning, so yeah, you're coming in real late at night. For
this one, I think you're already almost in town when you suddenly recognize all
of the houses and things here. Due to all of the extreme weather and
the dust and the sand and the the from the wastelands all around Dandalo.
There houses here are white stone built, very different from the ramshackle, plaster
wood brick built houses of the rest of the realm. These houses are built
sort of straight out of stone and smooth at the corners from the wind and
the detritus that gets thrown at these houses. Most of the houses sit nestled
into the hills and the maces that make up the area around Dandalo and in
an attempt to sort of block out some of the weather. Similar to Kira,
there are levels to Dandelo because it's kind of built inside of a natural
occurring mountain side here in the middle of this wasteland and desert. There's a
lower level which has a sort of a grand street with a bizaar that runs
up and down most of the large parts of the road. The road that
you're coming in on continues straight through the lower side of Andalo and out the
other end, and there are wooden palisade walls that kind of intersect parts of
the road to keep out the larger wasteland monsters. But along the road at
constant points there are small steps and stairs and ladders that run up to the
next sort of section a bit further up and nestled into that natural mountain side,
the secondary level with tents and long houses, more of those white stone
buildings that are scattered kind of haphazardly. You can see a lot of people
as you move closer into town here, moving lazily from tent to building,
from building to stall. Nobody here, Unlike Heira and even j Rus when
you arrived there was like an imposing sense of military and a guard at the
gate. This just doesn't exist here. You walk practically straight into town with
people moving around you. As you're looking up and further up at the areas
of this town is built and nestled into this mountainside. You can see that
there are lots of these little buildings, but there's one particular building that stands
out, nicely built architecturally, a huge building that overlooks the town. This
is where the Dandalo clan natives lived, known as the Dandalo clan. This
town was once a tribe of desert dwellers that believed the land to be barren
in response to the mist, and lots of those natives stuck around, but
slowly, with the proximity to the bigger towns around it that belong to the
realm, they kind of slowly assimilated into the kingdom at large. But there
is a serving council known as the mold Gresh which run Dandalo, and they
sort of sit in this huge building at the top that overlooks this place,
and you can see it from pretty much anywhere in town. The other notable
thing I think you see coming into town is this enormous mesa that once served
as a gold and silver mine, which is now home to tents and small
houses around this large bridge sitting up and aside from the town itself closed down
clearly like an empty and old mine. And you guys, walk into town,
it's dusty. People are eyeing use suspiciously. A lot of people that
here wearing a different kind of clothing style to what you're used to because of
the winds and the desert debris. Lots of people are in robes, hoods
and things covering their faces, masks pulled up that their noses through the dust
and the sand. There's the smell of sweet smoke on the air because of
Dandalo being home to that leaf of the sand and the growers. It doesn't
last long and once it dries out, it loses its potency, so a
lot of people just smoke it here as a simple luxury, so it's kind
of carried on the air almost all the time. Looking straight into town,
you walk past a kind of large carved face in the mountainside that is response
to Asa, the goddess of the Voice, and Dandalo being one of the
more religious places in the dark realm. They believe that the myst constricts the
realm as penance, and when those that have paid their dues for ancient sins
are finished, the mist will lift and the goddess will sing for them once
again. So you'll probably see around town little little trinkets and things, and
little carvings of Asa, which I will write for you in this chat.
Right as you head into town, you will will notice some people that are
military. Dandalo, much like Kira, has this kind of presence here.
But Kira is extremely militant because it's literally just a military town. Dandalo does
have a presence from the army and the Guardian force at large, but not
quite as obvious. The dedicated duty guardsmen wear a yellow sash across the chest,
much like in Kira they had a purple sash. Again, it's not
a huge presence here, but you can see patrols. They seem to be
consistent and regular. The longer you stay in town, there's obviously somebody who
is in charge, who is ensuring that they do their job. But compared
to Kiria, this feels like you're just wandering into Coule or one of these
other towns that didn't have really any military presence whatsoever. What's the first port
of call as you walk in And I've got an image up on the screen
for you all to see of young Brian martial arts. You guys are probably
on this lower edge of the town down here, and I'll try and make
sure that people on the stream can see it. Sorry, listeners, but
once you get into town, do you have any thing that you think you
guys will be doing first before anything else. I'm trying to remember because it's
been a couple of weeks. If it was mentioned, I don't have it
in my notes. But other than the clue of knowledge of the source saw
me lost under Dandelo, other than like under did we pick up any other
clues along the way? Doesn't I think you did? For the second man
that you witnessed when you were in the mist, who had the coarse blonde
hair and the more knightly armor. Yeah, Dandalo is just the only name
listed. I don't know if you guys had much else to it than that,
unless you guys can come up with anything that you can remember. I
always get caught as a DM sometimes because I'm like, I can't remember what
I told them and what I know. Well, the question was kind of
posed to the whole party as well, like in case there's some o the
clues that I'm forgetting, but I don't. I don't think there was.
I think the only thing we had to go on was that what we're whatever
we're looking for is under Dandalo. So yeah, I was trying to remember
if Guinness had said anything, but I don't think you had anything important.
So it's just your clue. And then meeting with the shadow will mm hm,
Can I look around elms? Yeah, you guys are in this big
street. Will is kind of contemplating what to do next. You each kind
of wandering, a few people looking at you. There are people moving across
the street in front of you. A cart and a wagon move trundle past
you, and they're not even stopping. They're moving through DANDLO and heading out.
When yeah, give me a perception check buyer A five. You look
around, You're looking up down, You're kind of trying to see. It
is real difficult. A lot of people here are almost completely cloaked and covered
in robes and things. It's very difficult to determine who is a shadow elf
and who is you know, a human or an elf or something. Size
and stature give away some people. But much like the mistake that people make
with Merlin, you're looking at somebody who could be a halfling or could be
a child. At times, you are pretty pretty unsure, I think at
first as to who might be friend and foe let alone, specifically, who
is an elf or a shadow elf. That being said, as you guys
kind of move around and move forward through the town fire, you're looking around,
like hyper vigilantly looking for this this, this elf, and you do
not see her whatsoever, But there is a tap on your shoulder, and
as you spin around behind you, the young shadow elf that you had paid
in Kira yesterday morning, two days and two mornings ago is standing there.
Her hair is tied back now she has a stern look on her face,
but her outfit remains pretty similar. Dark blues and blacks, a cloak pulled
up half over her head, but kind of loose, a mask pulled up
over her mouth and chin. On her back is now a thin backpack which
is slung across one shoulder, and then on the other you can see a
short bone equivalent not too dissimilar to your own. A gloved hand thrusts a
rolled piece of cheap parchment at you. I take it. Yeah. Here
is the note written in Elvish. Feel free read it out for the class
if you like you took your time. I have located the reavers. They
have a hideout here that they went immediately to upon arrival in town. Amateurs.
There looks like many reavers wait. There looks like many reavers use it,
but only the four you encounter didn't care are here. Their hideout is
a tiny tower near the mines. It has a golden brick above the doorway.
The main entrance is unlocked. They have locked the items you need away
in the storage. I snuck in and placed a curse upon one of the
barrels outside their mass area. You'll be able to tell which one, for
it has green mark upon it. Fire a flame arrow at the barrel and
it will explode an acid and burn the Reavers within about twenty foot of it.
Hmm. I'd suggest you draw the Reavers to the barrel somehow and then
attack. Once dealt with you may be I'm quietly reading this everyone, I'm
not yelling. She's standing there with her arms crossed, staring at you.
Once stealt with, you may be tempted to rob them of all their things,
but be cautious. The Riavers are well connected. Selling too many of
their stolen items would probably raise some eyebrows and lead the others to you later.
But that's up to you. My name is Samana. Is that how
you say it? She nods. If you have need of our services again,
then you need only ask the air for the silence and we will find
you. That's so cool, thick? Can I call you Sam? She
nods. She looks across each of you, nods at each of you as
well, and winks at you, and then turns around and just starts walking
the way that you just came down. I did we pay her to find
our stuff or get our stuff from the dexterity saving throw fire? Oh god,
paper you're holding ignites, burns away. You drop it, like,
let go of it before it burns your fingertips. She's walking off, yourself
destructing. Five seconds, Begin to lose her in the crowd. Ah,
she's gone. That's how long it took be completely gone? Then that was
how long? That was what it was. She's gone. Okay, I
did it. I believe it does have a valid point, and have sworn
the payment was to retrieve our belongings. But I'm quite happy just to have
a lead. You know. I can bring that up with them later.
It was not my gold that hired them, that's between you. Yeah,
that costs us one hundred of gold. I mean, well, regardless,
they helped us out in a way where well, it looks like they marked
a certain barrel that we're supposed to well draw them near. Yeah, So
the question then, do we want to go attempt to retrieve our stuff right
away, because that could make the rest of us stay in the city somewhat
difficult, especially if they go rally up several of their friends and come after
us with twenty or thirty. Yeah, I mean I have everything of mine,
so I'll leave this up to you. What about you, Merlin?
How are you getting along without your supplies? How hampered are you spells?
Well, I mean I could honestly care less for Orias's staff, but mine,
well, it does possess some sentimental value that and uh well, I'm
comfortable casting my spells with it. Right. What I'm asking, though,
is can you cast your spells now? Like? I'm not sure. I'm
not a wizard. You tell me? Without your staff? Can you actually
do anything if we get into a conflict with these guys I need Well,
I'm just so accustomed to it, but I'm not, you know, saying
that it is impossible that perhaps I can. I need a straight answer.
Okay, yes I can. It is it is possible. I just thank
you. Yes. So we've been traveling for a while. Aris will be
at Goure's point in two days, and he will stay there for a further
what two three days something like that. Yes, we're already even moving into
fastest pace and heading straight back. I feel like we might still miss him
by a day or two, unless he decides to linger there longer than he
said waiting for us. But once we retrieved that staph Rolin could make contact
with him one last time and just let him know that we've been delayed.
If that's what we want to do, I think we need our things.
It's not like we have a question about whether or not to deal with these
arriavers. We should have to do it and see how long it takes.
I feel like the question is more so now or later. Maybe we should
get the lay of the land here and survey the plus first. I'm pretty
sure a Riots made it very clear that he would not wait. Okay,
so we go now, depending how quick we are. Okay, we can
look around quickly see if there's any of their type around, and then all
right, well let's do a little scouting. Then as you turn, there
is somebody standing right in front of you about your height, very thin looking,
you know, kind of dirty looking, but long robe that hangs down
covering most of their face. They thrust towards you what at first you think
are maybe pens before you realize that they're tobacco rolls. And he says,
here you go, I've got nothing. He grabs your hand and tries to
push them into your hand. I resist, Welcome. I can't pay for
these, and I know what this works. That's free free? Yeah,
yeah, it's free. Why what's the catch? Always welcoming here in Dandelo.
Here you go. The name is muppin Muppett. Yeah, is that
you agree to us? This is what you do. You give people things?
No, there you go, one for each year, four leave at
the sand, become one. You take them the town, spark it up,
enjoy yourself. Relaxed, m Thank you, you're welcome, sweetheart.
Okay, does anyone know what this actually is? Leaf of the sand?
Oh? You're still here? The leaf of the sand? Oh I I
saw these while we were out in the desert. Smoke looks a lot like
leaf of the sand to me. And he will calm you down. You
look stressed that you're nice and relaxed. Okay, you need more of it.
Rung one copper. It's just one copper. I got roll you up
one mm hm, you want more? This should be fine. Your head
on up to the The task up there points up to the second kind of
level, big tavern, plenty of rooms, nice and safe, the native
place. You're safe here, okay, yeah, don't worry. Hey is
that a gnome? Yes, holy ship. Nice to meet you. Muppet
holds his hand. Oh, nice to meet you, Muppet, and he
shakes his head. Am you're cold. Oh ha ha, how well you'll
fit right in with the bloodless bastards in this town. I don't say that
circulation. Well, you need more of it. You know where to find,
muppet. Yeah, we got the best stuff, Muppet. Okay,
don't go buy anything. No one else. The rest of the growers here
there, they'll scam you. Mm hmm. Ship stuff, No, no,
no, that's the best stuff right there. Best patch. I got
the best patch. Why are you giving it away for freedom? That's the
best stuff because you're gonna want more and you know where to go now mm
hmm. Let's see. Okay, can I fucking what is this guy?
What does he going? You guys are like walking along and he's walking with
you. Yeah, what do you ar me? He dings? Your shield
will used to be it used to be? Uh? What are you doing
in town? Huh? Trying to find someone to kill. Who are you
killing? Oh? You arm types. You're only good for one thing,
killing stuff? Then what you're out of the army. What you're gonna do?
Settle down, start a farm? Didn't think so, who are you
killing? Up? It'll show you away for you, give me a gold
piece, take you anywhere you need to go on the back alleys. The
whole settling down idea had crossed my mind. Yes, not yet. Huh.
One last job, they say, one last job. Suck as you
straight back in. Do you know who this is? Muppet? Something like
that. It's the graceful ball, graceful ball that you're speaking to. Holy
shit, can't believe it sing as a song? Graceful Ball. Is that
a bad name? No? No, not quite tell you what if you're
in the business of leading people to things? Do you know anything of underground
area here? Perhaps a cave, cavern, underground tunnel system, anything like
that that goes under the city, big fucking mountain. There used to be
a gold mine. Silver mine caved in hundreds of years ago. Useless,
nobody goes in. I don't suppose that mine has a small tower right in
front of it. Few towers there a few towers here. Whose tower you
after? Not? Bet'll lead you there one gold piece. Now, I'll
do it for a silver hmm. How far down does the tunnel go?
I have no idea. You never been in there. Whole thing crumbles all
the time. Sometimes you hear it late at night. Underground, things still
caving in right. Well, the truth is I didn't actually come here to
kill anyone. Surprising though that may be. I'm actually here to get some
answers. Yeah, Holiday, We've got the best girls, We've got the
best guys. I'll keep that in mind. The answer that I'm looking for,
though, is somewhere underneath the city. That's the only clue that I
got to go on in a letter from one of my ancestors before he died.
Underneath. You don't want to be going underneath. There's holes, there's
cracks, there's all sorts. There's the mines. Well, you want to
stay up here where the army are. Look at these bastards, your friends,
Huh. Wasteland's dangerous out there. Drakes, big land crabs, huge
great scorpion things filled with poison. Hmm. Fuck that it's such a pretty
picture. You don't want to go on the ground. And those are the
big things. Wait you see the small ones, little poisonous worms. Yeah,
they'll put them in your drinks too, These little poisonous worms. They
don't happen to on to your neck and small and white and squirming. No,
they make your ch at first just touching them, and and then the
itch turns black and your fingers fall off. We're experts on that. We'll
be fine. Is there any other underground location besides that mine? If I
said I needed to go under dandalo, if I needed to go digging,
that's the only place. There's no archaeological digs nearby or anything like that.
Archaeological what's that mean? Looking for clues from lost civilizations? Lots of civilizations?
We are a lot of civilization. Look at us. Nah, nothing
like that, not around here. We got the mines. But other than
that, that's about it. A few grow patches, a few places where
bandits hied out. You know what I'm saying. Stay away from steeler,
stay away from what stale is the best? That in charge? One of
your lot dings the shield again? Why is he on the take? No,
he's a basted A lot of us are. What about the Reavers clans
is over. You never heard of them? Yeah? I have, but
I only heard of them if you got the coin all I look like I
want to lose my goddamn tongue. Would not do the worst thing. I'll
flick at the silver. Now, what do you want to know? What
do you want to know? Fix? How many of them are the around
here? Mm hmm. A few of them they pay guys. Some of
them's reavers, some of them are some of them's dwarves. Them's the real
reavers. The rest of them? What ain't they just pass messages? You
know, scare people around town. I'm a river, but they ain't a
river. Of the dwarves. You're looking at eight eight dwarves? They outsource,
have people looking out. What's that source? Like barbecue? Sure,
they hire other people to work with them. No, no best as the
weavers. They just steal. They take what they want. Okay, they
say they're above board. They ain't leaders called Greg dag Greg? Hey you
a little bit older grayer hair? Oh? Greg? They in town right
now? They know? Haven't seen them? Mm hmm? Interesting? And
where do they hang out officially or on officially? And when you say hang
out, you mean when they sleep and he sings the shield. Not here
to kill no one. Huh. Why would you want to cause trouble in
a lovely town such as this. Unofficially you'll find them up the tusk drinking.
But they got a little place straight down there, right at the end
by the walls, little tower, little squat building, breaking the wall or
would you say that's where they keep their stolen good Hey, no, I
don't know about that stolen good stuff. But if I was to keep it
anywhere, that's where I keep it under lock and key. Nobody goes in
there, get their tongues cut out, you know what I'm saying. Unfortunately
I do. M you got a grievance with them third stories on the road,
all right? I hope you can take care of yourself. Yeah,
all right, Well I got a little point of stick there. You might
need something. It a little a little better than that big guy. I'm
going to get you a sword. Own me a gold I'll go get one.
I'll have you know. This thin little sword has served us well for
years. All right, you say so, I suppose, Yeah, sure,
it's not that little. It just it looks smaller because he's so big.
Yeah, okay, you could always go and see old Flask the blacksmith.
You got swords, good swords, bad swords, big swords. Perhaps
we'll go pay him a visit when we're done with our other errands. M
hm, where are you going first on into the mines? Who would we
speak to about that? You don't need to speak to nobody. You want
to go in the mines, You're free to go in there and die.
Kay I see I take it. No one no one's working it, No
one goes in there. It's just emptied. Yeah, okay. Do you
have a town historian, sage record keeper or anything like that? M M.
I suppose it's mindarates he's a muggrish. Where might I find him up
there? Usually sometimes he comes down to the bazaar. I think he lives
up with the other council members. Points up to the huge building at the
top of the Montgrish are the the town council that run the town. He's
a not much of a record keeper, but he's old helf good to know.
Normally at this point I would part with some coin as I thank you,
but I'm a bit light at the moment. Hey, I'll come see
you later on. How about that you do that. Make sure you smoke
those up. Yeah, enjoy yourselves while you're here in town. Okay,
mm hmmm, all right, all right. I was going to try and
take something off you, but you really don't have nothing. Huh, none
of us. Sorry to disappoints you. Pew I do you can try,
don't. I think I'll see you later on. Okay, you smoke up,
remember up it up at your guide they smap it all right. Anybody
tells you to kill Muppet, you say no, right, no, you
can say no for some gold. Yeah, you be careful with them.
Rus Sebastos, So you're around Muppet things are shield and turns around like immediately
walks over to someone else and just goes, hey, here you go on
the house. I love him so much. I love him. What a
nice guy. He literally never saw his face, by the way, and
that entire interaction he just sort of chin wiggling under the thing. Is he
wearing one of the bloodborne hats as well? It look like a rufus shin
wearing advent children with just a white thing covering a lot. Is just wearing
a bed sheet, you know, just a huge flowing robe that covers all
of him. Okay, so where are you going first slash next? M
It kind of concerns me that he seems to know exactly where their hideout.
He is too, like it's not much of a secret. Well, he
didn't exactly seem like a stand up guy. I know. I'm just saying
one of the chances that the first person we speak to you knows exactly where
it is, and I was asking him to see if he was consistent with
what we've seen. But by that excellent point. But I'm still somewhat concerned
because if they're supposed to be, if there are mercenary group bandits whatever hiding
out here someplace, you'd think that they would take a little bit more caution
in hiding their whereabouts, unless they just don't care about being found. Maybe
they have the town guard in their pocket. What did Sam call them amateurs?
It's true, Hm, I just rely on that wat force to get
by. Well, let's we should probably just go directly after them. I'd
like to stop and survey the area, talk to this historian, and do
a few other things. But I'm worried that if we wait, we may
miss our window to catch them. Or more of them may arrive. Even
worse, we should jump on it whilst Sam's information is still acting, because
we don't know how long they'll stick around or if they have friends on the
way. Yeah, so if we do cause a fuss, it might be
harder to go and do the other things we need to do fix specs.
It point there as well, quite true. How far is the entrance of
the mines from like the town center where we are, uh, kind of
the furthest point. If I just kind of give you an idea again,
this isn't necessarily to scale this map, just to give you an idea of
the style of the town. But you guys are kind of down here,
right down here in this kind of entrance way. This is the main road
that runs through the area that the reavers are located in. Is like in
here, the mines is the area that's all the way up here. It
seems like the entrance way is over this bridge. There is a bunch of
buildings you can see that are active, but lots of mining equipment and holes.
And he pointed to their you're kind of looking at the furthest point from
where you are. And also you seem to have to go up to go
down and into the mines. Like I guess the general point of the question
here is is it far enough outside town that if we get into a fight
with these guys, is the scuffle going to attract like the town guard and
all that, Like, is it going to be easily overheard? Or is
it far enough on the outskirts. If it's a banded hideout, I'm assuming
they're putting it far enough out that it's not going to be easily you know,
viewable. The the River's hideout isn't by the mine. I thought you
said it was in a little tower by the mine entrance. Uh, no,
it's in a little if I said that, I misspoke, a little
tower by the town entrance. You're near it right now, Sam's Sam's notice
they're hideout is a tiny tower near the mines. Oh that's my bad.
No, it's Sam's bad. It's nothing to do with us. Yeah,
sorr uh yeah, I uh, missfolk. Can we see it then,
if you guys can see it from where you are right now? Muppet pointed
at the thing. Okay, Oh, it's just another one of these dilemmas.
Okay, so it's so it's close enough to the entrance. Well,
the question still stands, then, if is it close enough to the town
that it's going to make an obvious scene if we do this, or is
it far enough out of the way that, you know, maybe we could
get in and out without drawing everybody's attention. Uh Rommy A. D twenty
first on nineteen twenty. As soon as you walked into town there was like
an outright blood fight between two merchants where one person was stabbed and then just
dragged off. Yeah, it feels like that kind of town. It's like
Tanta Waine. Here. While the military presence is here, it doesn't seem
like their town. Watch jewies are they are their priority. You get the
sense that their due is a more to deal with, Like if a random
monster gets into town. They don't seem to give a fuck about little scuffles
and stuff like that. Okay, well, I say we just go knock
on the door. Not literally, but I said we can pay them a
visit immediately while the trail is still hot. Yeah, longer we leaked,
the more likely they slip away. Everyone. Since you're close enough to me,
perception checks ooh ooh. Two twenty eighteen fifteen, then two from Vita.
He's trying. Let's say you begin to you move up. I think
probably we see the four of you move up to the Maybe you walk past
just who comes to town wandering around. You're looking at everything the same,
So it's not a huge deal that you walk past this small building. It's
kind of just a squat, little tower. You get more of this,
it looks more like a almost like a barn almost in that it's got these
wooden reinforced structures and then some of that white brick that makes up a kind
of relatively circular shape it is. It's only about a story higher, but
that you can see that the there's like a half floor at the top,
and there are like several windows around it. It's possible that once upon a
time this was built as like a squat, almost like a pill box for
archers to fire out of, But now it just seems to have been converted
to just a small little hut that these these urcenaries have taken up. There's
no markings on the outside, nothing to suggest that this is a place of
business or a hideout or anything like that. But above the doorway, what
a big kind of a wired I should say double door that is only about
five foot tall has one of the bricks that would make up for the white
brick has been painted kind of a gold color. That's the only real discerning
feature here than that it's pretty plain looking. It fits in amongst everything else,
and you wouldn't even look at it twice with your twenty there fire and
Merlin with your eighteen give me investigation checks. As well, you don't see
anybody in the windows or the the I forget what they're called, the little
windows that you can fire arrows out of that are kind of in looking things
holes in the war more than anything else. You also don't get the sense
that anybody's on watch out the front here. You're looking at some of the
people walking by, some of the people that are hanging around nearby. Usually
you'd probably expect somebody to be on watch if this is almost like a gang
hideout or a bandit hideout, but it doesn't seem to be the case here.
Looking at the doorway, looking at the area around it, it looks
like there's only a single entrance slash exit, which is this front door.
And you guys are pretty sure you can stroll all the way up to this
thing and start looking around it and surveying the thing a lot more overtly and
obviously if you wanted to. But whether that draws unwanted attention from other people
on the street, You're not sure. But you really do not get the
sense that there are any guards posted out here, Merlin and Fire. It
seems like if there's any of them that are inside, all right, direct
approach. What do you think has being sneaky worked for us once yet that
first encounter back near Cole I thought it worked out pretty well. Hm.
I can try to sneak in and you get a look around well and take
a moment and do that thing where you smell the magic around us? Would
you in case they have some sort of weird bruins on the floor whatever,
they're going to blow us up when we walk in, if there's no other
entrances and it doesn't look like there is, maybe just look for pressure plates
and traps on the door. If they are here and it turns into a
fight, which it inevitably will, we already know how they fight. They're
going to surround one person, try to beat them down and then move to
the next, and written some and repeat until we're all gone. So if
they surround me first, which is probably what they're going to do, Merlin,
bry all of us. I'll get back. I'll get back up.
They won't. Also, alternatively, we have an explodey berrel. Oh,
I'm saying. If we don't get the jump on them, and if it
just turns into a fight together, okay, wait till they're all together and
hit them all if it must be that way. But if we can catch
them by surprise, then even better. Yeah, I say we use illusions
to bring them all over to the barrel and blow it up. Good idea,
All right, let's try it. What's something that would throw them over
to the barrel? An illusion of me would do the trick? Yeah,
or like a top thing shiny you know, I'm gonna make it believable there.
It can make will extra shining. It'd been as made outfit. Yeah,
you never hear about that. I hope I never forget it. So
I'm grained into my brain and I don't think i've even saw it. I'm
not sure if I want to know, you're founding j Risk can stay in
Juris. I mean, we could make it into it big keg of beer.
Maybe. Honestly, I feel like anything and everything out of place is
going to get them to come over and take a look. But how many
of them? We need to get as many of them as we can,
right, not just one or two of them. Mm hmm, I guess
we'll see. Will give me a uh, I guess give me an inside
check with advantage. You spent a ship ton of time with dwarves. One
thing that every dwarf always talks about when they get drunk enough is how much
they want to try some King's Gold whiskey. King's Gold whiskey is literally the
greatest whiskey in the land. No one would There's like one bottle of it
that's made every five years, and it goes guess swear straight to the king.
I don't know if you know what it looks like. I don't think
you would. I would have never seen this, but they probably haven't either,
And I will relieve that exact in filterfis I still create an illusion in
my hand of like we can like create it together. And then what do
you think like red label? Maybe white? Yeah? Fancy, I mean
royalty They wear purple and such like a purple and gold label, right,
and like crafting it as we talk, and like adding little details, taking
them away and things like maybe opened so it doesn't look too fresh and new
like it's in stolen. No no, no, no, definitely keep it
court shot one hundred percent, but new, brand new bottle where they really
believe that. Probably not, but they're still going to run to check it.
M you think that will work? Sure? I think of any way
to get it towards attention. This is probably the number one way. It's
probably the best way. Whether if they're paranoia of having their hideout rated doesn't
get them to come over here, then the thirst will. Now I can
simply create the illusion, but if there's a physical bottle there, it would
probably sell a lot better. If we see another bottle in there, will
set it up in that spot and you can sculpt your illusion around the outside
of it. Yes. Yeah, it just means if they pick it up,
it won't immediately vanish, right. Well, they're certainly going to run
over and grab it, so reaction window will be somewhat limited. Yeah,
we make all this plan, but we know once we go in there,
we're going to step on the floorboard and four of them are going to rush
me, so see what happens. The restaurant work should stay back these arrange
at texts absolutely, and so I'm looking around and looking if there's anywhere like
high up we can get to, like a little bit of elevation and stuff,
or see the entrance hmm. Not really, it's going to allow you
to do anything to fire into the entrance because it's a dwarven entrance, so
it's five foot high. Also, you've got a lot of people on the
street that you would have to contend with. Probably get away with fighting in
this place and a little bit maybe out on the street, but fighting in
the middle of the street is going to draw some extra unwanted attention. Probably.
What were you saying, will, I've lost my train of thought.
I was saying that we can make all these plans, but once we go
in there, it may change dramatically, So we should. Oh, I
do remember if we can't catch them off guard and just have Merlin hit them
really hard if they try to rush around me on the lights out again,
I don't suspect they're going to be able to deal with it. Okay,
one a second. In that case, I pick up a like a startin
off the ground and hand it to Will the little pebble, I'll cast it
on that It'll be with you wherever you go. Excellent, all right,
shall I and I will? Oh, motion to the door. But I'm
not going first because I know I'm the loudest kind of like gesture to fire
to like, yeah, check the door for pressure plates and traps and all
that. WHI I can give me an investigation check. We're good to go.
Um, can I create behind an dey tech Magic? Oh yes,
you're also detective magic, so you can give me that check. Also.
Oh, actually it would just be that you're casting a spell. But now
I'm waiting for an arcana check. Um let's see here, so tech Magic
within thirty feet of you. You know what I'm gonna do for you.
Here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna bring you over to this map.
So fire in fact, yeah, fire. You walk up to the door
and you check it around. It is as the thing said, it is
unlocked. And you look in and you can see that there are multiple doors.
Now obviously we can see what's in these doors, but you can see
straight through to a set of barrels. You creep the door open. There
doesn't appear to be any dwarves in here, but you can see straight through
to these barrels, one of them very obviously glowing green, with an enchantment
on the top of it. There are one, two, three, four,
five other doors here, but you see no dwarves. The dwarves could
be behind any of these doors. It's kind of hard to make out.
Right now. Merlin wanders up behind you and begins incanting, and the group
of you can get close enough to this door that you can take a look
in. Doesn't appear to be any dwarves in here, but again they are
all these these doors ahead of you that are closed. No, then you
cast a spell and within thirty feet of let's just say the doorway here,
that's about here. The doorway itself, no magic whatsoever. These are dwarves.
If anything, there'd be a mechanical trap, but fire, you're pretty
sure there isn't one. Did muppets say that they would be at the bar
right now? I don't remember what time he said. He said, like,
oh, you'll find them. He said you might find them at the
Tusk. Or at the Tusk is the name of the bar. But the
or at their hideout, which was yeah, okay, so it's not like
a schedule thing. It's just I'll just whisper to fix h I don't see
anyone. Do you want to do? You have an illusion that can make
noise? I want to try it out on the yarrel. Now why do
not? I mean we could just sneak in and try to find our things,
but I don't see anyone. I can make noise, but I need
to be much closer to do it. Let's get inside us. We'll be
spotted from the street out here. Feel free to position yourselves anywhere outside.
If you move in, you can have to make me stealth checks. Yeah,
I'll step into the door. Just listen. They were a rowdy bunch.
They're probably making noise through one of those doors. I am invisible.
You move in, you can give me a perception check if you'd like to
see if you can determine if you can hear any of them. Now that
you're inside, the sounds of the street dull a little more as you manage
to get the walls around you. On A nineteen, they't ahead of you.
There's a door right next to that barrel that is with the green on
it, and you can hear two dwarves having a conversation in there. It's
in dwarfsh but you can hear the two of them just having this kind of
conversation. You get the sense that there's at least two of them in there.
What did I write? Hold on? Oh? You can also hear
on A nineteen some snoring coming from in this room. Okay, I will
put my head out to the group unless they're coming in. I don't know
if they were coming in or no. I don't think sen Veta in Vito
can just move around. That's a good point. Yeah, I always forget
how annoying warlocks, but I don't like being annoying by like being like Vita
will check everything what it is game for us? Yeah, exactly. I
don't like doing that. That's the point of having them. M hmmm,
Vita in ash form, give me a perception check and yeah, all right,
how invasive are you being? Is he just going in going through key
holes and wandering, Yeah, go through key holes just like you know,
dipping its head and seeing how many people room to room? Yeah? I
think so, all right, put him in the first room that you send
him in. Let's go to the kitchen. Yeah, you move through a
key hole, and yes, what you see is kind of a room where
they would prepare food. There are a few barrels, there's a bunch of
crates of varying foods and things. Again, it's quite hard to tell when
you're Vita what's what, but yeah, for the most part, it just
seems to be stuff. No dwarf in there. Right under the next room,
all right, romya stealth check as he goes in this one. Oh
what a stealth again? Sorry, he's not got a stealth on the sheep.
We're a bit sixteen. He Vita sort of moves into this room,
and you can see, if you're doing the warging thing here that the you
recognize, the eldest of the dwarfs, with his back to you. He
seems to be writing things into a book. You can hear the scratching softly
of a pen writing against this this paper and mumbling under his breath in Dwarfish.
Every now and then, I'm murmuring to the rest of them a brief
description of what the place looks like and what I see as I look through
Vieta's eyes and move on to the next room. Yeah, in this room,
you do see two dwarves sitting there tankards, holding two tankards and discussing
with each other. Rommy, another dexterity check. Gotta be a six.
Yeah, these guys are a little drunk. Again. There's sounds of dwarf
ish rolling through Veta's strange whole things whatever he uses to hear. But yeah,
two dwarves in here, sitting and having a drink, one of them
sitting in front of an empty plate of food. Okay, yeah, and
then checked their loss or second to last room, Yeah, romy stealth checked.
Yeah, just do it automatically. Three. Luckily there's nothing in here,
but what you do see is all of your stuff and bunch of other
things as well. This is the storeroom. You can definitely make out certain
items. The staffs that Merlin had, for example, are in here.
They seem to have just been kind of thrown down, almost as if they
were carried straight here, thrown into this room, and then left. Okay,
all right, finally sleeping room. Yeah, one sleeping dwarf. No
need for a stealth check because he is very asleep. The sounds of a
sleeping dwarf. Do you see his weapons or anything around. Next to his
bed, you can see a battle axe underneath the bed, just poking out.
You can see the edge of a crossbow. Yeah, all right,
yep, I relay that to everyone. All of our things are second room
to the left. So two of them in front, one left and one
right right. One left is sleeping, one right seems to be their leader.
All right. Then as the two of them come out of that messhole
area, as soon as they get nearby that barrel, Merlin set it off
on them. Got it? Do you need to be close to Merlin or
are you? Can you do it in the doorway? Didn't say you could
hit it with an arrow? Yeah, flaming arrow? Of flaming arrow?
I'm not sure if you have one. Nope, I could just light something.
Well, if Merlin can do it, then well, I was thinking
that it might be overkilled. But I was thinking, Merlin chucks a fireball,
They're going to get hit by the fireball, and just by the distance.
I don't want to burn our stuff on an accident. Yeah. Does
the place look flammable brand or is it mostly dirt and stone? It's mostly
dirt and stone, but obviously the stuff is flammable. The doors are made
out of wood. The tables and chairs and the other barrels that are in
the front here. There's not really much in this central room apart from those
barrels, which you would suspect from looking at them are probably mead or ale.
I could alternatively, I could sneak into that room with the one dwarf
and sold his throat. They had the option to kill us back in Kira,
and they didn't. So let's not become the murderers ourselves here. We're
here to retrieve our belongings and nothing more. Although perhaps beating a little respect
until these guys is not out of the question either. Mmm, so beating
is fine, But yeah, I could choke out non lethal? Is exploding
the barrel going to be non lethal? I recall that you caught one in
the face with quite a big fire spell back in Kira and he didn't even
go down. Yeah, so these guys are quite durable. I'm not really
worried about Yeah, he was on fire, he was that they should have
been burned to a crisp, right, that was? That was no small
hit you hit him with and he took it in stride. So these guys
are quite tough. I'm not really worried about accidentally hitting them too hard.
We incapacitate them, take our things, and just leave straight away. That
is the plan. We have a message. Maybe, Oh, I'm one
hundred percent going to have a word with them on the way out. We
could be dramatic about it, maybe, Yeah, let the lights flicker and
you make your voice really thunderous for a while, if you want to be
extra intimidating. Do you love a little drama, Yeah, all right,
let's get this party started. Behind you, there's a noise. There are
two town guards that are moving past on the road behind where you are.
You guys are kind of like standing around at the front of the door.
I don't know if you look necessarily suspicious or anything like that, but you're
kind of standing around. The two guards walk along. One of them are
halfling, nudges at the other human guard, and they look over to you.
They don't approach you or anything, but they're looking over there. For
a moment. You see them exchange words, and then the halfling waves over
to the group of you by the door. I'm just gonna wave back and
then make like a punching motion and pointed inside inside, you can't be seen.
It's just Merlin fix and Will out of the front. So I'm like,
they're fine, Everything's okay. A halfling turns to the human and they
discuss something, and then the half sigh and walk towards them. Waves you
over, Will, I'm going to stride towards them. I pulled Merlin over
to the side of the doorway so we can't be seen from the doorway,
gentlemen. The halfling looks up at you and says, what are you doing?
Then? These guys caught us on a war, us on the road
and took our belongings. We're here to take it back. How do you
know that? How do I know what? How do you know it was
them? How do I know who it was that beat us up and took
our stuff? Eh? How'd you find them? It wasn't too hard.
They came straight here. Where'd you get those? Where's are yours? There?
That shield? From my army days? When'd you get yours? Hmm?
Where'd you serve? I served under two thousand and three second Infantry?
How was at Sorrow Creek? Us war? There's some rebellion. Human taps
the halfling on the shoulder, and says, yeah, I was sorry,
Craig, Yeah, yeah, all right, all right, Well where you
can I inside check that, because I'll give me survivors of Sorrow I know,
survivors of Sorrow Creek are kind of rare, so him claiming to be
there too is an odd one. He seems to be telling the truth,
he says, And I'll just look at him then, right, Well,
spilling blood is uh, it's gonna cost you fair enough. What's the kind
of cost? Oh? Have me eve him in there? Probably four?
Mmm. The halfling looks up and says, and what about Greg. Eh,
Well, it's not great for us if you walk in a town and
kick up a fuss like that, you understand, And especially with them lot,
they're rarely. We like to keep them calm. And there's only four
of them. That means the rest to be coming back soon enough. And
if the place is full of butcher dwarves, then we're gonna get any We
have no intention of actually killing any of them. We just want to get
our stuff back. Well, if they want to fight to the death over
it for some odd reason, then so be it. I thought I had
a mind to come and ask you for assistance. On the town guard.
But this seemed a bit beneath your notice, out of your jurisdiction, what
have you. I didn't want to trouble since we're more than capable of taking
it back ourselves. There is a personal grievance that is not a lot of
our duties. You understand conversation at all? Give me a perception check.
Okay, I think they're speaking in quite hush turns. Yeah, I'm I'm
keeping my voice down and a fire is already inside. Yeahs though, so
I can't hear it. Then I think this is this is a conversation that
like most people wandering by are not really listening to. But fire, you
pick up bits and pieces of it. You're able to focus your hearing as
an elf. Crack the door open, and just I have four gold in
my pocket and I just put it in my hand, and I'm just I'm
holding my hand out the door with the gold. It's going to give it
the gods say to you, will Well, this is happening in the background.
Yeah, well, things seem to get messy with the reavers. You
understand, So you say you're going to just pop in there and ask them
nicely? Oh? No, I'm going to return the thrashing they gave us,
but I'll stay my hand from actually taking their lives. The halflink says,
I'd fucking take their lives if I was you. Yeah, well,
all right, you hold on hold that that. How much trouble do these
guys create for you? And are they known for just rampid banditry and murder
of all the people in ten And I'm telling you this only because you're a
brother, you understand they're Their contribution is not right? So I have a
cutle of them go missing and they want us to look into it. Maybe
it costs them a bit more than usual, right, Has no one put
bounties on their head for all the trouble that they've kicked up? Is there
some reason you don't just hold them off to prison more of you than the
rest of them. There's quite a few friends that the Reavers in town,
and a few more that like to hire them to do things. So honestly,
they do quite a good job when they're hired to go hunting and tracking
of the monsters and the beasts nearby. So it's a bit of a symbiotic
relationship. But frankly, I think old Gregg's are count so right? So
you tell me then would you prefer it they were never heard from? Again,
I'm saying this, You pop in there, you make a mess,
depending on the mess depends on how bothered I am, whether they're missing their
heads or not. And then perhaps once you get your things back, I'll
come over and have a little whisper in your ear. Again, there's that
said. I tell you, how about this, Why don't you stay somewhat
generally nearby and I'm going to look for evidence of wrongdoing, and I'll bring
you any evidence that I find, you can go over it. How about
that my work? Can I make a persuasion roll on this guy? You
can make a persuasion role? Sure? Twenty three? He's basically I'm telling
him I'm going to flux the other call dead and over to the guards.
So he think he can probably tell that he's sort of already on side.
I think you get the sense more that the two guards here are are on
your side, but not willing to make it look like they are. In
the middle of the street here the a halfling says, we're going to go
and stand over there, okay, sir? And then when when you're done
with your business, maybe we'll come and have a word with you. And
then the human says, the name's Hartford, this is Josah and any evidence
you bring us of wrongdoing will send it up the chain. I'm sure Commander
Steeler will be very happy for your assistance. How how is Steeler's relation with
these guys so they get along? Oh he hates them perfect, See you,
gents. In a moment, as you're walking away, you hear the
halflings say either ates me as well, though, And then that's I'm walking
back up. I'm gonna quickly say we need to do this quickly. There's
more of these dwarves on their way back, and at that point I'm just
gonna yeah, motion like I'm walking in because we can't wait any longer holding
the cold. Okay, I'll start walking in slowly. I'm not rushing in
because I don't want to make too much noise. I'm not sure if I'm
not sure how quietly I can do that. Is this like an elevated ring
around the room, Yeah, but it's it doesn't really give you so here.
It would be elevated to shoot inwards. But this is the the almost
pillbox element where you can look out onto the street. It is blocked entirely
for access into this bit, but it is a raised area that you could
stand up here. So it's basically just a giant So it's like a giant
hamster. If we'll circle, you just go all the way around and end
up where you started. But you could shoot down from the top of the
stairs if you bar this door, it would be a really good defended position
outwards to an attacking force coming inwards. But in this situation, I don't
think this ring would help you too much unless you wanted an elevated position from
here. Gotcha? Okay, Yeah, I'll just walk in and I'll kind
of like point to the still like I'll look back to Fix and Merlin,
and then just kind of gesture towards the stairs, like you two should be
over here as I walk in. I need to be closer to do an
illusion. Position yourselves where you want, but give me stealth checks. Now
if I if I stay back over here near the entrance, but I still
still need to make stealth check or is even entering the building too close?
Entering the building, it's real quiet in here, but I'd like to muffled
murmurs, the muffled murmurs of the dwarves that are up there. So on
your stealth on a natural twenty one, you absolutely can all right, Yeah,
I start into the kitchen and wait by the door so I can cast
an illusion. Yeah, I'm gonna will. I will wait and like let
Merlin scurry into position first, because I know he's quieter than me, and
then I will move to like over here, ducked around the corner so they
don't immediately see me when they walk out. Okay, give me your stealth
check. I'm waiting for Merlin. You can't do that because Merlin isn't here.
Merlin gets automatic because Disbey isn't here. Merlin just automatically attached to I
didn't notice this be a drop from the cop Okay, Marlins just staring blankly.
I just I wanted to wait for Merlin to get in position first.
Meins in position. Okay, here's me to blow it. How do you
make a decent amount of noise? I think once everybody else is in position,
I just pull the door shut behind me of the place. Yes,
you hear the door slam closed from further within, you hear the two that
are drinking continue talking. You hear the one that is snoring snoring, but
you hear the dwarf that is in the room that is writing on the right
hand side, say ohosas that. You hear a grumbling, You hear his
door it was locked, but you can hear a key turning at the door
that the dwarf who we would recognize as the elder, the one that started
all of this with you in the first place, back in Kira, turned
staying right here in the open. Curiosity. Well, I didn't. I
was going to ask will if we were if I should just shoot if I
see one, or if I should just stay hidden? Do whichever? Is
she like somehow hidden or stealth like right there in the open? No,
No, I I had I had one. This is a rewind time before
you walked in. What were your orders for fire? Yeah, I would
have like gestured to the top of the stairs, like you two just get
up here behind me in the choke point. Yeah, we'll say, Merlin's
up there too. You two are up there kind of hidden there is this
is actually only about six foot up because this is a low squad building and
the ceiling in here is only six foot up as well, So if you're
six foot or taller or whatever, you're probably having to duck in certain places
in here. It is not though it's a little taller in here, but
up at this top bit here you're having to duck down a little bit.
There's just enough of what is it called a banister almost, but it's stone
built for you to use partially as cover as well, but you also have
a little bit of advantage point to fire down as long as you have the
ability to see into this room. We see you kind of sit up against
this thing, crouched down behind it, pull out the bow and arrow.
Merlin begins to like rub his hands together fixes behind the door, very like
double oh seven kind of spy style hands waiting, Vita floating and bobbing around
in the air beside you. Uh, and Will standing menacingly in his in
his huge armor as the key turns in the lock and the door opens.
Uh. And that is where we're going to end the session today. I
don't know if we can even do this, but we wouldn't have been able
to do this battle either way. But we did lose a disby because she's
offously having to deal with something in her house at the moment. So,
uh, that's where we're going to end the sessh good sash perfect um yeah,
a good setup. I kind of wanted you guys to do that as
well. I'm glad that you were able to uh prepare. Okay, it's
like the end of some spy show with yeah, like sniper cross hairs on
someone and then you just hear the trigger pull on the episode ends. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, that is like so what I wanted to
happen here. I was hoping that you'd get in and maneuver around it.
I didn't know if you were just going to be like fire ball the door
and just like like you know, just like absolutely tempting. Yeah, there
was, there was. It was always going to be in your favor to
a degree, but like charging in would have been one thing, because they'd
be like pulling their pants up and like running out of the door, you
know, kind of like trying to figure out what's going on. Also,
I did wonder whether you're going to try and get in and just kill each
one individually, fire and just yeah, I was wondering that that was my
plan before we all decided on it wouldn't have been assassinating. Yeah, sorry,
fire assassinating each one of them would have been really cool. But I
feel like they had a chance to murder us and didn't. So like,
at least from Will's perspective, murder isn't justified here. Counter robbing, counter
robbing one hundred percent just fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yes, So we will see how this goes down in terms of the
actual initiative order, which will be one of the first things that happens next
week, whether you're able to draw them over to that barrel, and what
happens in a much more fair fight between you and these guys. Again,
you've already dealt with them once. These four reavers they are not they're not
They're not easy to kill, so I think it should be interesting to see.
But you certainly have to jump on them. You have a couple of
advantages this time, and you at least have spells and shit. So we'll
see out and more than four h p and more than one pach So tune
in next time for the conclusion of how they deal with this, and also
what they do in Dandelo, whether they go into the mines or go over
and go and speak to this elder in town who will remember I wanted to
give you the name of But until next week, we'll do a quick round
of shout outs to see who's who and who's where. Disbee had to step
away, so I'll do Disby's shout out. Go and follow disby Erics on
the twitches and everything else RP streams and RP streams and then some horror and
then more RP streams. Every day twenty four to seven. It's twitch dot
tv forward slash disbe Erics, who plays Merlin on the show, And please
go and support Disbee. But you could also if you'd like to go and
support Leah Viathan. Where can people find you? Leah Viathan? You can
find me at twitch dot tv forward Slash Leah also doing a lot of RP
terrifyingly, but a different time. Red Dead RP Cowboys. Yeah, good
session, good seton. That's it? Okay, Then what about you,
Brian Hi? You can find me at Brutalbrey everywhere and I will be returning
to streaming on Monday at six pm Eastern time. No, that's right,
that's right. Your mortal enemy is back on it. Bb oh going to
be doing Red Dead RP because I'm also on that train right now with cuter
Old. All right, what about you, Fairlight, what are you doing?
Hello? I'm Jesse aka Fairlight Underscore ex Caliber on Twitch and you can
find me currently toppling Empires. Most nights, I've been playing a lot of
Age of Empires for bits of New World here and there, and waiting for
the next game to roll out. Unfortunately, this is all the RP I
get during the week, so I save it all from miss Light. Maybe
you'll start doing GTA or Red Dead again some one of these days. But
read deal overdose on off here so much throughout the week, I did it
like a year and a half of GTA. I've been there with the overdose
also, also, Brad, I love the option to like scout out and
get everything ready and then knowing full well that the second I walking the door
and yellow Surprise is gone. Yeah, that's the trade off, right of
being a big, heavily armored paladin sometimes doing it a dex paletin next time.
Yeah, still the the Yeah. When I was setting it up,
I was like, it's probably going to be quite easy for fire to scout
this out on like on I think a ten, you would have heard the
two in the kitchen. On a fifteen you hear the snoring, and on
a twenty you can hear the scratching of the paper, so you'll be able
to identify where all four of them are. And that was kind of all
I really put down, because I was like, other than that, whatever,
And then it was a matter of, yeah, how you wanted to
approach it and whether you wanted to get in place. I wasn't. I
really wasn't sure how you were going to do it. I figured that there'd
be multiple ways that you might want to do it. So, yeah,
this is kind of how I expected it to go, and I'm glad it
did. But we'll see how it actually works out next week once the combat
element comes up and how they react to you and things. A bunch of
racist dwarfs. How are they going to react? I'm sure pleasantly. If
you want to see more shows here on Table Story, we have shows throughout
the week. Tomorrow we have Rhyme of the Frost Maiden, another D and
D show if you want to watch that. On Sundays. At the moment,
we have a Vampire the Masquerade campaign on Tuesday. I believe is the
Witchcraft and Wizardry Harry Potter Year finale. I was gonna say season, but
it's like they do years, they do school years in that show. Wednesdays
we have Spellwind, a new D and D show brought to you by myth
Omatic, and that's it. I'm playing Rimworld tomorrow. I'm starting a new
Rimworld. Play through that one my game vote that I did. If you
like rim World, I'll be playing that for a little bit. I'll either
be playing it for one day or six months, who knows, but I
just six months. I just click commitment mode on and see where guys see
if I can do it. So that starts tomorrow my stream. Make sure
you go and follow all of these people, join our discord if you want
to jump into the theory crafting that happens every week. And I'm going to
go and lay face down in the grass until tomorrow because dming is hard.
See you next week. Thanks for playing, players, and thanks for watching
everybody. See you next time, BA