H m hm m m m m. After will you will lace a hand
to the stone above the bones of Vein wolf Child. You see COORSELDI materialize
for a moment and then immediately begin to kind of fade away before your eyes.
She delivers the words that you just heard and vanishes in the place where
you and her touched this rock. There is now a second handprint, blood
red sitting on top of this rock below you the bones of this person you
know to be Vain wolf Child. And really that's about it in this place.
As this part memory and part kind of shadow wraith that is bound to
this area dissipates, all four of you would have seen and heard the words
that she spoke to Will. The other shadows disappeared after kind of being absorbed
into coorse Sheldy, and you find yourselves once again in this set of minds.
Abandoned dusty mind shaft here, lots of it kind of fallen in on
itself, the creaking wood that's holding these mind shafts up above you, holes
and broken bits of wool dust filtering down from above. What do you guys
do next? I think I'd probably slowly turn around kind of in a bit
of a state of shock for a sec and then look back to the rest
of the party and say it's over at least here. That's not what I
expect. What were you expecting? I was expecting the same thing that happened.
I was expecting that. I was expecting the same thing that happened when
we caught up with El Darin when his ghost spoke to us. But perhaps
Vain might have something similar to say, did we touch the bones there?
Hmm? I did, Yes, I believe I did. I don't think
you touched the bones. You touched the handprint above the bones. And remember
you explicitly telling me that you touched the bones. And I say that because
I think I would remember before I touched them, before I touched the handprint,
before the whole fight started. I believe what triggered the fight was me
putting my hand on the skeleton itself and taking a second like a moment of
silence. Um, if I'm not mistaken like I did, that first one
of us is and it's probably I in my head. As you reached out,
it triggered poor Sheldy behind you. So I don't know if you actually
like them. So she jumped out and interrupted before I did. Basically pretty
much, that's the activation. She's a protection, ghost, demon, shadow,
raith spirit gotcha. Well, in that case, I'll say, I'll
say that you maybe didn't because I would imagine that as you went to reach
out or as you I think you said you were going to kneel or something
in front of them, because it's been two weeks for us, Let's say
that you didn't. Okay, Well, she also just very explicitly and directly
told us not to touch him, and it's a trap. So I'm probably
probably going to pass on that, unless unless Merlin wants to like detect magic
and see what's going on here. But otherwise I'll I'll not mess with it.
Might not be a bad idea. I will then use detect magic.
Okay, first you can do that, but roll me. You go to
tech magic on a daily thing. Do you I remembering that or do you
have it on the spell slot? I do believe I have it on a
spell slide. Should also have it as a ritual if we want to just
hang out for ten minutes. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. That's actually
important. Do you want to do the ritual or do you want to do
it instantly. Oh instantly, Okay, well it takes a spell slot and
yeah you you do that, rob me and Arkana check pleasey three so you
will get some extra stuff here the first Okay, there is a lot of
weird magical things happening in this area, and this is about thirty feet around,
but I guess it doesn't matter too much. First of all, I
think the most powerful school of magic that hits you from this is the school
of Necromancy. It is a side as well. This is again, every
time you cast to tech magic, you get all of the enchantments and spells
that are currently on your equipment and all the things that's going on with you.
The strange kind of sense of magic that comes from fix, the strange
ping of magic that comes from you. You are now a necromancy void combo
preacher. You get another sense and almost however, it is that Merlin interprets
this exact kind of sense of the same school of necromancy void blend from the
dissipating energy that was coor Sheldy, this spirit thing that was there before.
She's as a shadow spirit, I guess is what you would probably if you
wanted to identify it as anything, but it is exactly the same thing as
you also on A twenty three, you understand that actually that basically is what
will happen to you as well. You kind of can't die while your physical
body will rot and deteriorate over time, and depending on how well you keep
up with the certain like dailies that keep that your body fresh and quote unquote
alive, and you will eventually become kind of basically that thing that happened there.
This spirit that is that is born of a a wish from the mist,
the same way that essentially fire wished that you didn't die or that you
would come back. The same thing happened here. This person, somebody else,
presumably this vain person, did the same thing, and she came back
as an undead creature. When he died, she stopped. She stopped is
the first thing. Her body stopped, but her spirit remained here. The
last thing that he asked her to do was protect, and so that was
the enchantment. There was a thing born here where she is now, part
attached to him, part attached to the mist, part attached to this wish,
which was that she doesn't die and that she remains, and while she
doesn't exist in the same way that you do currently here right now, every
now and then she is brought back. She essentially just then was reborn and
killed again, but that will happen forever. It is partially the mist,
partially the void, and the mist is partially the void. And you kind
of understand this or ready, but essentially this void magic is so powerful.
It's just keeping her key a bound to this spell and bound to this promise,
and bound to this abjuration, which is the second school of magic that
comes through for you, Abduration, which is mostly like shields and protection spells
and things like that. There's just a huge amount of it that seems to
be linked and attached to these bones and the the hand prints, which I
think stand out for you quite heavily, and that lingering essence of this being
the bones, the abjuration magic on the bones seem to be linked with two
schools of magic. Divination. There's an there's a there's a link that you
can see or smell or understand or feel in some way between those bones on
the ground and Will, which is essentially divination. While I think last time
we played you were kind of blocked off somewhat from that will, or you
interpret it as being blocked off from the connection that you had with your previous
incarnations them selves. Here, Merlin, you totally can tell. And there
is an element of divination to it, and that same void magic which is
running through a lot of things going on here. Lastly, there is something
that basically the school of magic that appears to be a form of a trap
is a strong abduration link with what would be transmutation. If you int rang
with these bones, it will do something, it will transmute it, and
transmutation is essentially that you manipulate the physical properties of something in a simple A
transmutation spell might be like shape, water or polymorph. It could be way
worse. It could be and it could literally just turn you into goop.
And that's it. I think, I don't think. I don't think you
know the spell. Let me double check with just get the school suff from.
I don't know the spell, so you definitely get the sense that it
will it will do. It will do some sort of powerful transmutation magic as
an abderation spell for you. Now, is there anything else? Because this
is a particularly crazy place to be casting this spell. So I just want
to double check. You might have more coming through for you, but I
think that is it. You certainly get a deeper understanding of precisely what is
happening here with this being that you just witnessed, because you've cast it instantly
and they're still lingering somewhat, and the bones themselves are pretty much just bones,
but there is certainly an abjuration and transmutation field over them. Oh,
the hand prints. The handprints also stand out to you as uh, that
would be fuck, that would be h Can you tell that? I wonder
hmm. On twenty three what it is is the inverted form of the missed
void magic, those handprints. It is still powerful void school of magic,
this new school of magic that you've discovered that is linked to this alternate plane
that you've also been kind of learning about. There is a tower that you
now know is nearby that is like a portal that allows you to cross into
that plane. And that plane is just a plane of this insane energy that
you can draw from the cast of spells and change spells and enhanced spells and
things. But also you are fully aware and have been for some time,
that the mist is also just completely, like it's just a mixture of void
magic and consciousness. The handprint is exactly the same thing, but I think
treat it like black and white here. If the mist is black, the
handprint magic is white. But it's still the same source that you can tell.
The only thing here, and I literally mean the only thing, including
you, yourselves, this area of the minds, the bones, the shadow
creature of course Shelby, even just lingering on the rocks and things. It's
the only thing here that is not linked or is maybe repelling the mist itself.
Are those handprints. It's like a polar opposite, like the two opposite
ends of a magnet trying to all the same ends ends trying to repel each
other. And I give you all that because it was twenty three and that
was good, and I think that is also everything going on here. So
yeah, plus you kind of understand this stuff now, will since we're here,
roll me your own kind of arcanto check, But it won't be an
arcanto check. It is going to be for you. You are no longer
making wisdom save throws. You have leveled up in a different way after that,
and with your ability to access your memories, yours is a just a
you know what, I think, just a wisdom. Yeah, you can't
make me a wisdom save. Just make it a wisdom save because you're proficient.
I'll allow it. I'll give you the proficiency to it. It's essentially
like having a skill in wisdom. So that makes sense to me. Thirteen
Okay, mmm, thirteen is the worst one. It's the worst number.
It's just like you don't really get everything, but you don't not get something.
It's the you were almost good enough. Yeah, like you gotta get
you definitely get something. I think it's appropriate for where you are here.
You seem to be locked off from certain abilities and certain understandings and stuff.
What I'll give you is a sort of passive answer to a sort of passive
question that you had earlier on with the others, when you were talking about
the fact that you were expecting like a response from El Daring kind of and
you didn't really get that. Here, I think I will give you some
kind of internal understanding that El Darin felt like a different person to you when
you encountered the previous set of handprints, whereas here you have a complete,
full understanding that this isn't this was a different person to you. Absolutely,
Vain was his own person, with his own life and stuff. You have
access to his memories, and you seem to be reincarnating with him or as
you with his whatever going on. But now that you have access to El
Darin Vain and Joe May's memories and also you are struggling to differentiate between those
memories and yourself, and that is causing a kind of current dissonance which is
going to potentially turn you quite literally insane. As your mind splits four different
ways, you no longer I think, experience them as different people. So
through their memories you can draw different answers. However, but you also have
is a much greater understanding of the consciousness of the Mist and your relationship with
it. You they can't do it. You can flip into the mist consciousness
mechanically. It's on a wisdom save and I will give you literally all of
this in a second outside of being in the myst. It's much harder to
do when you're not in the mist. But you can literally just access it
if you ask it questions that are beyond your scope, essentially the questions that
you've been asking it. It now just simply has a cost on you.
You can ask a question, it will give you an answer, it will
cost you ten sanity to do so. Wishes can be granted by the mists,
such as bring Merlin back. That will cost you twenty five sanity per
wish. That is our and it is unrecoverable at this point. Oh snap.
Now. The reasoning is that you have unlocked all three sets of memories
from Eldara in Vain and Joe May. So while you don't have like a
perfect total recall situation here, you definitely I think I've been treating this on
your behalf, as your brain quickly cherry picking the most important stuff so that
you don't go insane, give you an idea of what's going on. And
a lot of these wisdom saves have been that Porcheldi says to you, no
more bargains with the mist. Use your light, not the darkness of the
mist. And I think when she does that, that is what gives you
your understanding of the fact that bargaining with the mist itself is what's harming you.
But it also gives you a much better understanding with it. But it
also sets you apart from it, which is why now bargaining with the mist?
You It is just what it is is since she's going literally against your
nature to do so. So it's just irreversible harm to do so, but
is also very useful and powerful. Got that impression, basically cast wish spell
but break y brain to do it. Yeah, I got it. Shadow
wishes and these are not always you know, perfect wishes. It's not like
we're not talking, you know, celestial wishes. We're talking. Please don't
let Merlin die. Technically he's not dead, but sort of it is.
It's gonna be one of those sadistic genies that misinterprets the way I think it
is somewhere in there. Okay, So that's how that works, what you
understand. So I'm going to give you just the stuff here as well.
So when you're inside the mist, it is a wisdom save of a DC
of fifteen or higher to do this success to successfully join with the mist consciousness
and flip into it. When you lose your body, your eyes roll up
and you join into it. That is for everyone. That's how that works.
Outside of the Mist. Only will can do this. It is an
eighteen or higher unless you are in cole Jyrus dandalo or coups. Outside of
this, outside of the myst itself, you are still able to do this,
and it's an eighteen plus, but if you're in those spots it's only
a fifteen. Failure still will cost you one D ten of sanity, which
is recoverable. And I don't think you know how this works for the others
yet, but for you, that's how it sits. So I'm going to
just old print screen that for you and chuck it into our thing as well.
It's a slight and final you'll be pleased to know change Apart for you.
The others, obviously it's still a little different. Potentially it's far more
dangerous for them, I'll give you that much. You do know, but
they pretty much have the same kind of options as you. But that I
think is probably all you can really pull from that, and let's end there.
It is so the two of you come to a greater understanding. Will
for you this is it's not a manual check like like Merlin is casting a
spell. I think this is up to you to interpret. But you're kind
of just like at this point, you're like it's like it's like memories are
straining through a coffee strainer, ripping through You're getting these kind of thoughts and
feelings and memories and things like that, but there is definitely a subconscious thing
holding it back because you will just go insane and end the campaign because it's
ridiculous. It's a ridiculous concept to try, and you know, remember four
people's memories and so you h However, you get this information and some of
these elements that are being unlocked in you. You now have a greater understanding
of just generally kind of how your interaction with the Mist is working. You're
also starting to get this sense that you are the polar opposite of the Mist
itself. The Mist is the Yenn, you're the Yang. That's kind of
what's happening here. You definitely start to understand and feel that repulsion Is that
the correct word from it? Merlin? However, you definitely get more of
an academic understanding very quickly. There. Everything I said to you, I
think is just a thing where you go. That's abduration magic, that's necromancy,
that's void magic. This is all being held together by the Mist itself
somehow. But we're not in the mist. You know that kind of thing.
You definitely get all of those answers very quickly, I think will over
the course of the fight maybe, and definitely while speaking with coor Sheldy,
you just get a greater understanding of what feels like yourself, a drip feed
of what would feel like memories, maybe like being being hung over or something,
or you kind of remember, like weird drunken memories from the night before
when someone jogs your memory, that kind of a thing. Maybe something like
that would be probably how you experience it. Again, totally up to you
to interpret however you want. So bombs lots of bombs coming in for you
in the campaign obviously, and if you have any more questions and things,
I know I'm dropping lots of stuff, but a lot of the campaign has
been questions up until this point, and you're starting to kind of crest that
hill with your understanding of yourselves and of the mist and of the things that
are powering the mists, such as the void magic that sits underneath it.
All the magic dissipates for you, Merlin, the spell wears out, and
you definitely get the sense that kor Sheldy, this spirit is gone, Like
it's almost as if they have been completely erased. There is no sense of
them after a while, though, you know, it is totally possible for
them to kind of regenerate almost Yeah, like a revenant. It's a strong
neck gramancy spell. And again the question really that has came down to whether
that the bones, when touched or disturbed, will cast a very strong transmutation
spell. So with all that in mind, over the course of about thirty
seconds, what do you do next? Well, first things first, I'm
going to relate everything to the rest of the party because I'm not keeping all
that tea to myself no way. Oh yeah, that, and I will
greatly express no touchy on the bones because they have inscriptions of well one transmutation
spell. So well, no catchy, I heard you the first time.
Sorry, what what's the transmutation spell? Well, I mean, to my
understanding of it, Well, I myself do not know how to cast it,
but the spell and uh, well quite frankly, I don't know what
this one will turn you into, but it well I would I would imagine
something not pleasant. So basically it's to turn you into something trap. Is
that what you're telling me? Pretty much? It will manipulate you know,
any physical properties, so basically yourself. Right. So my thinking here then
is I don't touch it. That's my take. Huh. I think we're
done here, though we already know from what we learned before, there's nothing
else looked down deeper in this mind the whole place was a trap, and
Courseldy is pretty much a prisoner here. Oh we didn't quite exactly. Well,
let's just say there's a possibility and a likely possibility, of course Sheldy
coming back unless the mists allow it. So do you think let's save her
from this purgatory? Save is perhaps an optimistic term, but we can perhaps
at least cut her loose from it and let her move on to the next
life. It has to be bad than being tethered like this, right,
I agree, and I'm not gonna leave her here. We'll find some way
to cut it loose, whether it be whatever we find out on the ocean,
or if I just have to find the center of the mist and grab
it by the throat. I'm not leaving her down here. Yeah, but
we can't fix that from here. We may have to come back for course
Sheldy, Hey, we will. What does she mean by use your line?
Is there a way you can utilize that meaningfully. I feel like I
already do every single time we fight. Do you think you could communicate with
it the same way you can in the I feel the last time I was
in the mist, I tried. Remember how every time we ventured into the
myst it sounds like a thousand voices a chorus, But there was one very
distinct voice last time I was there, sounded like a woman's voice. I
suspect that she is not necessarily the the light, but a representative of it,
a ursa. I suspect it comes from her. Perhaps No, Perhaps
it's like it's a black and white, two sides of the same coin,
and she is one half, and whatever is spurring on the mist is the
other half. Perhaps a theory answer to answer your question, No, I'm
not magic is not my strong suit. I don't know how this works.
I do know that if you know that, the longer we keep at this,
the more I figured it out. Remember back when we first started traveling,
the only thing I really knew how to do was hit really hard,
and that was it. But now now I can see things, cast spells,
and it's all coming from that same source. Maybe given some time,
we'll figure out how to do it. You've come a long way in two
short weeks. I think we all have, Dad, we have Let's leave
these minds then, I don't trust that they won't just crumble around as any
second now good right, yes, no, especially with the fire is still
a burning, let's let's let's abscray. Yeah, that's right, arranging fire,
crazy, crazy fire. I think it's I would imagine that if that
was happening, you would all have left. There's some smoldering areas that are
that make the the timber holding some of these pieces of the mine look a
little more precarious. You can freely leave, or you can continue to explore
the mine. Oh why do you say that? Now? I want to
explore. No, no, no, no, you do whatever you want
to do. I'll tell you what. I'll bring you back over to the
Botto map, and by all means, do not take it as any sort
of incentivization towards death. Simply just want to let you know that technically,
you know, you went straight in, straight down the central mind shaft and
towards the right and discovered this is Brad's saying, there's treasure. Brad's saying
there's more in the mind. Brad's saying there's more here, but it must
trap or it might be it's a beholder. I do not want to incentivise
you one way or the other, but I also don't want to get to
the end of the campaign. You're like what you're telling me, The Excalibu
sword was in there, and I could have gone and got it. And
speaking of which, I was actually just about to ask Vadan's body, does
he have anything on him? I know the bones are cursed, but like
I'm actually thinking he was this warrior representing Goddess of Light. I wonder she
gave him anything neat you know, maybe he has a magic sword. So
hey did have a magic sword. He had a very very big uh I
believe Let me just double checks. I don't misspeak, because where uh you
know at this point he had Yes, he had a great sword, but
it is absolutely not here. He has his his armor on that you recall
as the kind of patchwork armor, like most of it seems to have been
made from bits and pieces of very well made armor. Here it looks very
battered and old and kind of ruined. But yeah, you you get that
sense of decent patchwork armor from hundreds of years ago. But the the sword
that you recall Vain having, this very powerful great sword is is not here.
I'm going to still work under the rules of of rle rules that you
made when you first came into here, and the wisdom role that you made
when you first came in and failed that you're relatively disconnected from directly accessing Vane
Jermy and l Darren's memories right now. So I don't think you know what
happened to it or where it is. It's it's certainly not here though,
like it's not like it's hidden under a rock or anything like that. When
you say it's certainly not here, you mean in this chamber in his body.
Okay, it's been like the room or the entirety of the mine.
Right though. You can make me, make me one more wisdom save I'll
tell you whether it's in the mind. Ah, sure a twenty this time.
It's not in this mine. You know that much. You know he
had a big braid sword and it was awesome. But it's not your question.
The strength we lost from the strength drain. Has that recovered or is
that feminine? I think you have to do a long rest, and I
will double check for you on the shadow. You almost got drained a zero,
didn't you. I'm on five strength, so the strength chain reduced by
oney four. The target dies if it's reduced to zero. Otherwise, the
reduction last until the target finishes a short or long rest. There you go.
So here's what I'll do you guys. I'm just gonna go. We
can go back to you can freely move your tokens around. Obviously ignore the
fact that these are all still here. I will do this for you so
as not to confuse your tiny little player character minds. Welcome. I'm gonna
freely move out of the mine. Okay, if you're just leaving the mine,
that's all good. I just I don't want you to not have the
option because I didn't put it in front of you. I appreciate it.
And oh no, I kind of want to poke around. No no,
no, no no no. Obviously, if if Will pokes around, I'm
not going to leave him fix and fire all wander out of the mine and
and and begin to head back towards the entrance, whereas I think Will maybe
starts trailing behind as you. Yeah, I mean, what does will do
well. If they're all leaving, I'm probably going with them. But I'm
also kind of if Brad went to the trouble of preparing a beholder to kill
us, all who would be here without talking with kill rate with behold again?
So yeah, you didn't even need a beholder. Don't worry about that.
Will doesn't know. I had a huge dungeon with lots of wonderful,
amazing, incredible little the lights hidden underneath terrifying, monstrous. You don't need
to convince me, Brad. I want to explore the mine. Will.
Whatever Will decides to do, we will. Probably we'll go to because it's
Will. And now he's like the Truth and the Light, so we you
know they are. The Superman theme starts playing, and I'll just fly down
the tunnel. Now, perhaps we should poke around here other clues. Perhaps,
I'm not sure what else there is the benefit us here, though,
if you want to look around, we came all this way, we might
as well. All right, you lead the way, we'll follow. Yeah,
I'll walk out. Jesse wants to explore the mind. Will doesn't care,
but Jesse wants to see what's in here. So I'm gonna walk a
little deeper in and see what we got. All right, let me remind
myself of what horrors await you. Yeah, you head out of the chamber
with the body of vein in and you continue to follow these mind tracks along
this very ancient looking mine, old looking tracks, most of them covered in
dust and dirt and stones and rocks. A chamber to the left, a
simple chamber with nothing but rocks and debris in it. Merlin pokes his head
around, lifts a couple of rocks up. Nothing in this chamber. As
you head along, however, you take a few steps further forward the ahead
of you. Down here you will notice a is that a chest, big
icy treasure treasure chest, I knew it. And a ditch that looks ill
in my head. Down there are several collapsed tunnels in here that lead off
and branch off from this part of the mine. You get the sense that
actually this was probably a central part of the mine long ago, but almost
all of the tunnels in here have fallen in and created more of a chamber.
The lumber in this room that is supporting the walls creaks and groans distinctly.
There is a chest that you can see an unmarked thing, likely containing
some of the miner's things before they were left behind. It's not like this
was a treasure mine or an ancient tomb or anything like that. This was
a mine shaft. People worked in here and it collapsed naturally. There is
a huge fallen in piece of the mine, a massive hole that is perhaps
an eighty foot dropped to the bottom of the mind shaft. It seems to
lead down to a lower chamber that was probably one of these tunnels that took
you down further into this mine and ran underneath this chamber itself, and the
gap over to the other side of the chest is about a ten foot gap
towards this chest itself. The fall itself would hurt one. Obviously, you
guys are aware of featherfall and all that kind of stuff, and that's all
good. But if you weren't to cast any sort of spells falling into this
hole, you get the horrible sense it would bring the cavern down. In
fact, any sort of movement inside this chamber here that's too abrupt might bring
the roof down on you. Of all the areas of the mind that you
have been in this chamber, which we will say kind of starts around where
Merlin and Fire are, where these two pillars, these posts are located.
This chamber itself is most definitely the most precarious looking thing. Barely any wooden
timber holding this thing, almost no frame left behind, is pretty much just
being held up by its own kind of collapsed areas. The pole lies in
front of you, the chest on the other side of a simple ten foot
jump over an eighty foot drop. So don't cast underwave in here, I
recommend I wouldn't even I probably woudn't even cast ma age hand, but sorry,
bread you can. It's like, here's how I killed the party.
I just put a chest next to a giant cave in and wait, essentially
in here a chest next to a giant cave in. Depending on how you
guys want to potentially approach this, I will let you know, but that
is what is in him. What do you do? Okay? Well,
I was going to say I could easily hop across, but I worry that
heavy armor jumping. Yeah, you're gonna make the ground. The question Brad
with misty step, I can go thirty feet, so could I go fifteen
across in fifteen back? Or is it only one journey. Sorry, I
think it's because that's not movement, that's the spell itself. Do you get
what It's just once a day elf? See, yeah, you teleport up
to thirty feet. Okay, so no, I can just yeah, then
you'd have to recross it to do it again. Movement, you can spell
up a singular spell. Thing you can. I can't get back. We
don't, we don't. We don't need whatever is in the right. There's
a no need for us to all die for a box that's been sitting down
here for who knows how many hundreds of years? Okay, see what's but
I really do want to see what's in there? Merlin. Can you use
your magic hand and just here and take my climbing rope? I just use
your magic hand and just get onto the thing and I'll rail it in.
Okay, you know that that sounds like a reasonable and safe plan. All
right, let's let's do that. All right, I'm gonna cast mage hand
and take the rope. Yeah, you away from everybody, Yeah, anyone
that if you're in this room on the map, step back beyond. Would
you like a line? Shall I draw a line for you? You'll stand,
I'll stand right here, I am going to for the sake of fear,
I will draw you a green line. Wow, that was incredible.
I thought that was going to be a straight line. It's pretty good.
It was so good, Brad, it was really good. My number one
pet peeve in the world is drawing on my battle map and I did it
myself. But there it is, and that is the end of it.
So you cost the mage hand and you're taking the rope over to the other
side with the intention of what sorry, what were you doing with it?
On the other side. You can lazily float the hand over and then the
rope goes with it. Yeah, wait, what are we doing with the
rope? Just just find like it's gonna have like a carry handle or something.
Just hooked my little grappling hook thing, all right, pull it over,
Okay, all right, okay, just trust me, Just go do
it. Okay, all right. So with the tiny little mage hand,
I'm going to have it float over with the rope. Tie it a good
knot on one of the handles and past the rope, then over to will
the other side. Yeah, grappling, hirk grappled in on side of this
chest rope feet away. I'm going to give it a gentle pull to see
how heavy this chest is. H Um, Like, I want to see
if this thing weighs five pounds or fifty pounds to before I decide, I
don't know what pounds are. Let's find out what pounds are in stone fifty
pounds, because I should have thought about that, I would say, let's
see what twenty five pounds is. Uh, maybe about twenty pounds, I
guess Americans, that's not too bad. Yeah, um, give me a
I'm an investigation Jake will sure a six um sure whether the weight is from
something in the chest or whether it's the chest itself from here, kind of
hard to tell whether the wood is, you know, some very heavy dense
wood that they've built the chest out of. It survived all these years for
the most part. As you pull it a little bit, a couple of
rocks tumble off at the top. It's covered in dust, all from a
cob where there's a kind of a few rocks that tumble down. It echoes
off the the eighty foot drop as it falls into the smallest stones fall into
that hole there. But yeah, I'll go with twenty pounds under the understanding
that I don't know what twenty pounds really is. We can use a little
we can use a little weight converter, right about a stone and a half
in English, which is about nine nine grams. Does that make more sense?
Nope, no idea. What killer grammar is? We measure things in
stones in the UK. Yes, we still have bags of shot, bags
of sugar. I a stone, Yeah, that sounds about right. If
I were to guess, okay, well that's that's really freaking light, then
could easily lift that, So I'll, uh like, I'll tug it.
Z It's actually not nearly as heavy as I was expecting. Hold on,
and I'm gonna walk back into the room, okay and die hilariously. I'll
stand right here and then say, Berlin, can you lift that? Actually
with your hand? Not any Well, I can carry things ten pounds?
How much is it ten pounds that you can carry with that? Yeah,
with the with the main hand, So then no, you can't. It
doesn't lift under the Yeah, the main hand. My little hand is mighty,
but unfortunately it won't be able to carry that. Okay, Well just
keep it study then, or lift what you can then and I'm gonna just
pull it towards me, because it's it's pretty lightweight. I'll just I'll just
pull it so that it, you know, it goes to drop into the
chasm, and then just pull it straight up. Is it locked? You
can see a small padlock on the front of it. Am, Okay,
good? I was that. That's actually pretty good. Imagine if it didn't
have the lock in all the caps. Yeah, it just opens. There
goes the right down the thing. Yes, you're gonna pull this thing into
the hole. Yeah, I'm just gonna pull it into the hole and then
pull it up. But I'm telling Merlin, after I pull this thing off
the edge, just study it all right, don't let it don't let it
wipe back and forth with you. I'll just pull it off the edge.
Yeah. Give me a hmm, I guess. Just give me a des
give me a sleight of hand check with the advantage, since you have the
mage hand, just to make sure you don't butcher this in some way and
it swings sharply, or as it hits the bottom, it swings and strikes
the other side. Pretty Much what you're trying to pull off happens on a
natural twenty with the help of the mage hand here kind of without it really,
but the box, this chest is pulled to the edge and it falls
into the hole. You give the rope enough slack that it doesn't swing violently
towards the other side of the hole. Here the mage hand steadies it and
stops it from gaining too much momentum in the same way as it falls into
the hole. You kind of maybe almost like fishing with it. You hold
the rope steady over the edge of the hole, and it doesn't do any
mad swing, doesn't do any horrible crush swinging into the other side of the
hole here, and it sits now just hanging dangling maybe thirty feet down twenty
feet down below you in this hole. Yeah, and then I'll just hoist
it straight up if if it's that light weight, easily done, tuck it
under an arm and run out. Yep. I will just calmly walk out
of the room with the box and see, oh that was easy enough.
Yeah, you have this chest now again. It is about twenty pounds that
I say, so, it's not massively heavy moving it though, and as
you feel it, you can feel that it's filled with a bunch of stuff.
You also hear two kind of glass bottles knock against each other in there
as you move. I'll just have a small pan of fire. Yeah,
I'll turn the fire and say your skills include disarming these things and point at
the lock. Is it a trap or just locked? I think it's just
an ordinary lock. But this thing is kind of annoyingly bulky, and I
don't want to carry it around, So let's see what's in our plunder,
and I'll just set the box down like out here outside the cave in room.
You can give me an investigation check to try and look for traps if
you want fire. Kevin Keene, seventeen. This certainly does not seem trapped
at all. It looks like the type of thing that someone might just leave
things in. You'd maybe guess that maybe someone important once upon a time left
things in here, and there's enough valuables in here that they locked it while
they went to work. Maybe, or maybe it's just an on site thing.
But it certainly doesn't seem like, again, the type of thing where
you're going to unlock it, and you know this was a work site.
You know, it's not like there's going to be too many dangers. And
I think you get the sense of that from this, there's no like poisoned
dart that's going to strike you trying to unlock it. Yeah, you have
these tools. Yep, they give me a tools. Checking boom makes it
breaks. It takes you a moment to just kind of get used to this.
I think maybe you're you kind of go at it thinking this is going
to be nothing, and it takes a while before you realize that this is
a weird padlock. And then you get the sense that it's a fucking really
old padlock, like really old, and the tumblers insider are just built different.
Before you realize it's the same kind of mechanism, click click, and
the thing opens the catch on the padlock. Well, this is exciting.
We're in a literal gold mine almost. I just step away. I did
my job, scaredy cat. I'll just open it myself. I'll just throw
it over. Everyone rolled me a D twenty. Let's find out what's inside
and whether it was worth I wait for you have found my random loot box.
It'd be good, could be awful either way. It's free either way.
It's freeing nineteen. So I'm just going to do them in the order
that you rolled them in. Oh no, there's are twenty there. First
thirteen. So this is the first thing you find in here is a wow,
a silvered short sword with Elven script carved into it. And that is
pretty crazy. Actually you would be able to read it. And I'm going
to get you. Oh my gosh, I'm going to get you what it
says. I'm oh yeah, do not open this is a trip. Do
not open trapped box your soul. It says on it right, it says
the moon is my loyal companion, written in Elvin script. Down this silvered
short sword. That is the first thing in it, or anyone anyone that
can read Elvin in fact, So I just have to write this down.
So I will just turn that over in my hands. And then they said,
carefully you in my back. Okay, I just helped herself to that.
By the way, you guys rolled, it doesn't mean that it's like
it magically appears in your hands. It's just I made each of you do
a thing. Um. But yep, she the elf takes the the Alven
silvered short sword. The second number that you rolled here was a nineteen and
this one should be interesting, and that is wow more silver which makes sense.
This was a gold and silver mine. There is a silver arm band
in here that looks like a snake eating its own tail. Yeah, literally,
silver armband, snake with the with the sword. It was probably if
I what is to say? The arm It's like Merlin, This thing's probably
magic. What is it just added to Merlin in our KHANDA check Merlin?
It's super not magic at all, but you probably do recognize this ara boris
thing. It is. It expresses the unity of all things material, magical
and spiritual. It's just a very nicely made silver armband, a non magical
Can I just tell well it's magical anyway? Absolutely? What are you telling
it does get killed one day? I can't wait. This is a lightning
resisting thing. I will tell I will tell him. Apart wearing this,
this will give you a loose bal so I would avoid wearing. We'll just
sell it then, yeah, probably worth a pretty penny. Then you roll
EG nine, you find a bottle, a small bottle of whiskey. It
is an Elven Are you kidding me? Like one of those in a mini
bar. That's what I find. I was going to go with. I
was going to go with slightly bigger than that. But now, no,
it's a mini bar thing. But this thing is a seven hundred year malt,
which means it's either going to be the most awesome thing you've ever drank
if you were or maybe one of the strongest, just weirdest things you've ever
drunk if you're into whiskey, or probably again, would fetch a decent price.
So that is a small bottle of Elven whiskey, hic seven hundred year
old malt. Pretty crazy. Last thing you find in here is five?
Is that that one? Yes? Five? Wow? So maybe not worth
doing. All of this would have not been worth it if you brought the
cave in. I'm going to give you the absolute truth here. By the
way, by far, the most dangerous cavern in this whole thing was this
one, and also based on random roles, could have just been who knows
how powerful you could have walked out of here. But instead you get a
ring that is magical. Sticking with the theme here, we're going to say
it's a silver ring. It is magical, and Merlin, give me an
arcana check. I won't make you do a detect magic though. Oh you
recognize these rings. These are kind of little. They're expensive, but they're
fun. They're the type of thing that like nobles might buy in like a
big city or something like that. Usually kind of just for I don't know,
just rich people messing around. Rich again is not crazy in this.
We're not talking like, oh hey, lovely to see you. There's none
of these like insane rich level people. But usually people that can afford trinkets
like this are the still the upper Echolon. This is a silver ring that
is again probably worth a decent amount of money, but it's very simple.
It allows the wearer to change the color of their eyes and it can only
be used once to day. That's what that does. Silver ring allows wearer
to change the color of their eyes one day. Maryland would tell fix that
that's what the magical ring possesses. There is a bunch of other stuff in
here, but it's like old worn. There are a bunch of papers that
are just they just turned to dust in your hands. You can see that.
There are several what were probably once just workmen's closed type of things that
you might change in and out of, but again kind of obliterated through age
and time. These items, however, have stood the test of time.
The box itself is actually pretty kind of old and worn and busted up.
Probably could have just beat it and able to have fallen apart, but you
don't want to do that in this cave. And yeah, those that are
four items, so I will put those in our group as well, and
I will double check on all the prices if you were to sell each one
as well, like you are still in here. So those items, and
that's pretty much. Yet again, there's a few bits in here that presumably
about five hundred years old, if not older, because that was the last
time that the mine was in use. What do you do next, I
say, now we go. Yeah, once we're done emptying this thing out,
I'll say, well, does the victors go the spoils, and then
I'll push the box out of the way. Now let's get out of here.
I am satisfied with this whole of loot. You trundle on down the
hall or the tunnel again, back past all of the creaking wooden support,
the the echoes of small little stones falling behind you, and your footfalls echoing
out all the many different tunnels, and you head back towards the area of
the cave where the hole was made. For you to be able to safely
move in and out of the cave itself and step outside. Now, let
me check on what time it is for you. This path to the left
we haven't explored and will turns around again. We're almost out and will well
when we reached this intersection. I'm just going to point that way and say
there could be more valuables left down here after the cave in, more things
to carry around, fair enough. Well, yeah, I suppose it's nothing
too crazy, But at the very least, if we end up needing to
buy supplies, I think the whiskey and the silvers we just found will probably
sell for a decent amount. But you're right, it's probably not worth dying
in a cave in over the stuff. Let's just leave, all right.
Anyway, What if we survive this, we can come back and we can
search your hearts content. If we survive this, we can come back and
maybe die that. I like the way you think save the world fast,
loot the cave later. Um. Yeah, you step back out past the
kind of crumbling entrance and back into that more reinforced main entrance hall and head
back out into the darkness of early morning. It is by your measure around
five five thirty am somewhere around there. The town continues to be kind of
pretty pretty busy, the sounds of the town kind of moving up from the
lower levels of this city. Again, it's like a multi plateaued thing surrounded
by maces with a wasteland desert all around it. Here at nighttime under the
moonlight, you don't have a huge view of the landscape or anything like that,
but it certainly is kind of just a central thing in the middle of
this open, relatively flat plains of an area that is a desert again,
because nothing here grows, not because of temperature. It would be pretty cold
still, and the town kind of didn't really ever go to sleep, But
it certainly isn't the like crazy hustle and bustle of like a midday town.
It's still relatively quiet out here. You do know of a tavern in town
that you guys headed past when you came up towards the area where the Moltgreeche
were, the group that run this town pretty much partially military, partially oldest
people and also elders of the descendants of the Dandalo clan that first built their
their tribe here, and the the tavern really is just a huge, huge
building with beds if you wanted somewhere to rest. Alternatively, you know the
way out of town, and but I don't know where you're going to go.
I would presume that you're heading towards Gauze Point next. And just because
I know that it's really hard to remember everything and I had to work out
myself. It has been three days since Arias told you that he would be
in Gau's Point in five days. I'll bring you over to the world map
if you want, and then's work out that. Do you care? I
don't know. This seems like the type of thing you should probably care about,
So I'm going to go ahead and just help you work it out.
So following the road out of Dandelo over to Nim two and a half days,
three days, it's going to take you four maybe five days to get
to Gau's Point. He said he would wait in Gau's Point for a few
days as well. But you have that potential meeting, you don't have to
go there. You can stand him up, you can go and do your
own thing, you can go else, you can do all these other things.
But that is just one of the things that we had a timer on
to remind you because it has been a long time in real life, it's
hard to remember that stuff. For you, guys, it's been three days
since you left Kira in character the ticking time bomb at course point, how
many days would it take us if we went north by way of car Freda
instead? Oh well, i'll give you you guys can use this map yourselves.
The ruler icon on the left, So each hex is about a day.
This is just based on average travel and like nothing goes wrong or you
don't get lost, or you know, crazy things happen, And we're also
essentially following the road. Going off road can slow down your time and things,
but generally speaking you can turn snapping off. That makes it a little
easier as well. You're going north to Kira, would be another three days
to get to Kira. Then you would be going off road if you were
going straight through this kind of dense forest to gauze point. Alternatively, going
all the way up to follow the roads is another day, another day,
three, four, five, six days go up and around through Gofreda,
so six days instead of four if we went that road, do we do
we travel faster if we follow the roads as opposed to cutting through dense forests.
I'm assuming because maybe get lost or whatever. Yeah, the roads aren't
amazing, so technically no, the road is really just a kind of idea.
But what it does is it reduces your chance of being lost or encountering
worse things to be on the road, which obviously could very badly slow you
down or completely ruin your entire travel experience or die, et cetera. So
that's kind of how the road works in this being on a road kind of
lessens a lot of DCS when I'm rolling for you on the travel. It's
mechanically what it does the minor travel inconvenience known as death. When that happens,
it's a very difficult place to live. He said. The thing.
Yeah, okay, I don't know me personally, I'm inclined to want to
head by way of gear Freda because personal reasons. But we could also just
head straight to Gorse Point. I guess it's whatever the rest of the party
is feeling, but we should he east either way. I think m H.
I think if Will were to share that, we would at least Firewood
be fine with taking the Griffraider route. Yeah, Fix is not looking forward
to meeting with a Rios, so they would be happy to put it off.
I think. So we head east. We have to go to Gorse
Point, but if it's all possible, I'd like to take the long way
around. Granted, this will make us somewhat late for our meeting with Orias,
but I have business in Geffreida that meets tending. I uh. I
have to deliver it, some unfortunate news to a man that lives there,
and I can't dodge that responsibility any longer. And this will be the first
time in our travels we've gone anywhere near there, so I need to take
advantage of it. If that's okay with the rest of you, that's wine
with me. M hmm. I mean it's quite all right with me too.
But Orias did mention well if we did not arrive well upon the amount
of days he gave us, he would not wait. This is true,
only going to make a difference of a day or two, though I thought
he said he would give us a few days. If we know what we
have to do, why do we need them right away? That is the
question, right I'm leaning the same way. I I'm still inclined to kill
the crazy fool as soon as I see him. He will die. Wait
did he mention he would give us extra time? I can't remember. He
said he would wait there a day or two if he had to. What's
that You're the one who told us what he said. But if I recall
correctly, he said he would arrive there in five days and he would wait
for us for a few days. So in reality we should have had seven
or eight five plus. However long he waits, I still catch him,
And honestly, if we inconvenience him in some way, I'm not going to
loose sleep over it. No, you guys want to flow him off,
Go ahead, Morlan? Oh no, I was. I was just going
to say, I don't mind blowing him off a little bit, make him
wait. M m. What if he finds a way to consolidate power the
Oh, well, I think that's a perfectly valid question. But if we
really think about it, I'm fairly confident that his consolidating power is something he
would have to do out in that lighthouse at the sea. Doubt as anything
in Gauze Point that's going to give him such a huge advantage people. There
are people in Gau's point, Right, he's sustained pretty heavy losses up at
Some's point, gives him a chance to recruit, Right, you think he'll
hire more sell swords. I think whatever it is he thinks he's doing is
something that people might find objectionable if they knew, and he would probably want
something a barrier there between anybody coming after him to do what he's doing.
What is he even doing? Who knows? Therein lies the issue? Right?
We still don't know, the only thing that causes me to perhaps hesitate
slightly with just trying to kill him. Yeah, at the very least in
his own mind, he's convinced that whatever he's doing is the right thing or
the good of everybody. But I'm still leaning towards the idea that he's just
quite insane. I think he's a puppet. I think whatever entity it was
in the mist that was steering our actions earlier has implanted some idea in his
head, and he thinks he's saving us all, but in reality, he's
just serving some darkness he doesn't understand. He was also willing to isn't that?
No, it's not You don't see us going down to town, butchering
families and stealing their children. No, but we are following something we don't
understand, Okay, and what we're all we're all walking blind here fixed we
don't know what we're walking into. But the difference is we're not leaving a
trail of death and destruction and broken lives behind us. He is. It's
not the same, maybe not yet? What if you started fire? What
if I'm not saying I'm gonna start killing people? No, that's not what
I was saying. And I'm quite offended that you would even how dare you
all? I didn't mean to come across that way. I'm just kidding.
You're probably right to think that I was just going to say that what if
he started the same way that we did and ended up the way that he
did? Yeah, just a fun thought that I had. I am by
no means implying that we have all the solutions or that we're even doing the
right thing right now. We're just seeking answers, right, And I just
think the more we're aware of our position, the less like the reartic fall
into the same trap. Right right, I don't disagree, So where are
you leading with this? I don't know. I just I see what Arias
is doing, and I know what he hasn't done. I know we all
want him to die, but we need him to be alive because we need
to know what he knows. I just want to make sure we know who
we are and why are we doing this? More answers to figure out on
the road, something, something tells me we're really not gonna see the actual
truth behind all this until we reach that lighthouse in the sea. When we
reached the Dark Tower, do you want to stop? How does one stop
the misted any more than one stops gravity. I'm still not sure what's stopping
the mist implies you mean, remove it, Barnet from this land. You
heard what Merlin's friend said. Things are set in motion already in doing what
we've done, we are on a pathway. Is that what we want?
Arise wants to put an end to the mist, right, That's what he
said, and we seem to be working opposite to him and yet reaching the
same goal. It's just I don't know. I can't connect the dots.
I can't make sense of it in my head. It's just all I can
think about at the moment. Because you don't have all the dots fixed.
You're trying to connect and draw a picture. You're solving a puzzle, but
you're missing too many key pieces, and I driving yourself kind of mad.
Here's the thing. If we wanted to remove the mist entirely, and so
did Arios, fair enough, But why what's the motive? I, for
one, would like to have clean air and sunshine, but a riots.
He clearly has a deeper motive than that. He's tampering with forces that he
doesn't understand. He's willing to ruin other people's lives over it. He's quite
convinced that seeking this power is his right. So while our end goals might
be somewhat similar, the way we're going about it is quite different. And
I'm not convinced that simply removing the mist is all he wants to do.
Puppets and something is controlling knowing what we want inside, want to put both
hands on to fix his shoulders, fix answers. In time, You're simply
going to drive yourself mad, asking these questions that two weeks we don't have
the answer. I don't know. We're not already mad, all of us,
we don't. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I've been following on this
path for so long, and I still have no clue what I'm doing,
and I came here for very different reasons. Next, let me let me
ask you a question. You've been following this for twenty years, right,
I've been following it for about a month, so I can't really relate.
It's had a much longer time to take its toll on you. But how
close have you ever been before to what teaching? The end of all this
figuring out the answers, catching a Rios, you name it, all of
it, whatever you're trying to accomplish. How close have you forgotten before?
I dare say probably not this close, but right on the edge. When
we get to that lighthouse, hopefully all the answers we're looking for will be
out there and you can finally put your mind at ease. But in the
meantime, stop torturing yourself. It's not helping. I'm not going to tell
you to relax, because we shouldn't be relaxing, really, but take a
breath, then ocus, Right, the end is inside. Exactly what that
end is I don't know, neither does a Rios, neither do any of
us, but we'll deal with it together when we get there. So try
to keep your mind in one piece so when we do get there, you
can help us out here. Yeah. Good, you're just saying what we're
all thinking. I hope you know that, agreed. You're not alone.
No, all of the questions you ask are quite valid, trust me.
I just I've just I've seen this thing inside me, the way it resides
in the mist, and I'm terrified that doing what we're doing is going to
set those creatures loose. Yeah, things we have no understanding of. You're
right. I wish I had something better to say. But you're right,
and we don't know, and there's nothing you can say. And I know,
but what are the options? Right now? I'm moving? Can stop?
Here are the options? We see this through to the end, and
we make those decisions ourselves when the time comes, or we let somebody else
do it, and then you hope that whatever they do works out in everyone's
best interests Now, you tell me, do you want to leave? If
anybody has to do this, I'd rather it bes right. I just wish
it didn't have to be. You know, I spent years marching around and
following orders while other men made all the decisions. I just swung the sword.
At the end of the day, we just did what we were told
that very little agency, very little impact. I'm done with that. No
more. We can't just we can't just leave this to a rios or it's
some other individuals whoever wants interfere. It has to be us. You know
you and I believe it very alike. I spent many years not wanting to
think for myself, being afraid to make the decisions that I let my family
make for me because I didn't trust myself. And now we're out here having
to make those decisions ourselves. And have any of us ever had to make
these decisions before? Have any of us been in this position of leadership,
not real leadership? Now, I'd say I have, but the stakes have
never quite been this high, terrifying. And to answer your question or observation,
I can't say I have. Now. I've never met anyone who's quite
so polar opposite to me while also being quite so similar. Let's hit the
road, Orias can wait an extra day or two, because truthfully, when
we sail out into that ocean go to this tower, we don't know what
we're going to find and even if we do finally get the answers we're looking
for out there, we might not like them. And the reality is it
may be a one way trip. Who knows. So before that happens,
I have one last affair that I need to set in order I have to
I have to visit Lyra's parents and Geffreda and tell them what happened to her,
My one last responsibility as a normal person. And we support you,
of course in this will we'll go with you. Yeah, it feels so
strange, tackling monsters and darkness and death and magic and all that, And
yet the most frightening thing I've had to do is go talk to the girlfriend's
dad. Yeah makes no sense, does it? Oh? It makes a
lot of sense, But I have to do that. And once that's done,
I can essentially toss away the final remnants of what I used to be
and we can go out to this tower and we can bring this whole thing
crashing down and see what happens. Don't don't toss away the remnants is who
you used to be. You need those, It's what made you who you
are today. You might be right. Keep them safe. Somewhat inside you.
I'll keep them safe with my other three selfs, so I could go
wrong. Three protectors is the plan to head straight out? How long has
it been since we slept? I can't remember. Yeah, you had a
rest. It would have been let me just see how far away that bridge
is. You probably would have had another rest between the bridge and DANDLO,
so it would have been came into town kind of like midnight. So it's
been about five six hours since then, and then you would have done a
full walk, which is usually around eight hours. So it has been fourteen
hours plus a fight, plus the exhaustion from the strength thing, so the
strength thing is pretty long freaking time. Yeah, m hm. Do we
want to stay at the tavern and then hut out after? That's a bad
idea. Getting some resk could do with some good We could do that,
or we could head back to our favorite bridge. We could be trolls under
the bridge again. Bridges like a day, I think, having actual that's
a nice change of face. You hungry Merlin. Well, I didn't want
to have to bring it up, but you know me, I'm well always
hungry now more especially now that I'm dead. I'll go get you something,
or I'll get you something I don't know, something from the pub. Maybe
sorry to find you a pig head or something. I don't want to come
across too picky, you know, whatever they have. You can be as
picky as you want. You spoil me fire, part of my job.
Yeah, I think you guys head down towards the kind of market area towards
the center of this town where the the tavern is looking at stalls, checking
out any of the like fresh huntsmen stalls that are being set up very early
in the morning for any kind of fresh kills and things like that. And
it's probably a good place for us to go to a short break here.
When we come back, we'll probably rejoin you after a long rest or short
yeah, all right, short break here a few minutes, and then when
we return we'll head out back on the road again. Thanks for watching,
see you in a few Welcome back. Sorry, Brian, what was your
question? I had just asked Brad if we had caved in that area,
would it have been most likely death? And he said, I'll answer that
live doesn't make me feel the end of the ad break video. So the
way that that worked for those of you dms out there that are interested in
trying to kill your party, but don't want to just pull the entire thing
down on them and kill them immediately. There were ways around it. I
didn't know what you're going to do. I assumed that probably you would probably
do some maje hand bullshit and make it easy for yourselves. But if not,
you can do acrobatics checks to get around the edges of the thing with
There were like four different DC levels with different things that could go wrong.
But if you essentially anything that led to you to cause a cave in,
everyone would have had to make saving throats to jump or run out of the
cavern in time, or else you take five D ten bludgeoning damage from the
falling rocks and debris, and anyone reduced to zero HP wouldn't have been killed,
but would have been trapped under the debris, so you'd have had to
make further athletics checks to move debris off of them, and curiosity thirty three,
so it would have been bad, but not too horribly horribly bad and
fun fact, when I ran my first ever campaign, which was called The
Mind Harvest, which was in a kind of basically this setting, but I
rewrote everything for this campaign. There was a character in it called Vein wolf
Child, and he punched a wall and brought a cave in on himself and
killed and tpka the party and ended the campaign. So the character Vann wolf
Child is a nod to that. Him being in this cave is a nod
to that. And they were in a town called Dandalo. So it's all
just stupid little nods to a stupid thing that no one cares about except for
maybe me and three people who remember that first of a campaign around years and
years and years ago. So just stupid things. There's so many of them,
no one will ever know. Welcome to how I DM. So you
let's rejoin you all. Merlin will have in some you would have found him
something. You would have stayed a night at the in markof let's say,
two gold from wherever you whoever's your accountant at the moment, markov two gold
for just like food and rooms or a room or whatever it is. That's
just the general going rate. And plus the fact that you would have had
some special team meat, some brains for your undead creature that's following you around.
And it will be we'll probably say, it will be because you would
have had to go in and eat and everything as well. Plus the do
you guys need eight hours of rest? What is this the rules of this
party? Who for any of you? I just met you meditate? He
he just needs to eat. We needs to eat? Do you need you
need to fall? Eight? And then I'm pretty sure I follow normal human
sleeping rules. Yeah, normally eight hours. Let's say it has been ten
hours then, so it'll be the middle of the day by the time you
guys have eaten food, woken up, maybe eating more food, and packed
your things and headed out. You would have stayed then in the yep,
Vita's back. Does he show up? Like? What the hell? Man?
What the heck? I don't think Vita. I don't think has those
kinds of feelings. He best he is just absolutely beholden to fix in a
way that is Yeah. I think he just he's like, Okay, that
happened. What are we doing now? You know, it's like one of
those kind of like a dog, it's like a puppy that you know,
just you can re summon him. You uh, you guys want to stay
at this uh this this tavern in Dandelo it's known as a tusk. It's
kind of like a huge Viking longhouse essentially with flags and sigils along it that
that are innocent of tribal culture, with the Dandelo clan being the central pillar
of this town there is. It's a weird building with a tower in it.
It has like a workshop inside of it as well, with people fixing
their wears and weapons and armor, as well as lots of tables with people
playing cards and smoking that leaf of the sand that sweet smell constantly. You
guys would have eaten food here. They do a lot of sweet foods.
They've got things like nutmeg here because they it's kind of the only things that
they can grow in this kind of environment, so they have a lot of
like cinnamons and things like that, so there's quite a lot of sweet things.
They have brandy as well, which is a local kind of specialty.
So you guys would have had this evening at this essentially like a huge kind
of Viking longhouse, decent food, decent drinks, and then you would have
been given there's really only a common room here, so a very simple looking
thing with a simple cot to stay in and sleep in and by the time
morning rolls around, or well not morning, I guess by the time you
finished your long rest and it is the center of it'll be around. It
would be ten hours, would be about half past four in the afternoon,
four thirty. And let's see how much daylight you have on this here day
A lot. Yeah, this is a it's been light for six hours already,
and you would see dandelo I think for the first time by daylight,
which would be interesting. Maybe these kind of and I ask what the light
patterns have been so far, because at first it was like an hour of
daylight, and then I think you said it got longer, but then it
got shorter again for little bit, and now it's longer, correct, right,
was it because we're out here in the desert. Maybe they get more
sunshine? Maybe are you either from the mist that might be it you.
Definitely anybody that would have been awake or would be not sleeping up until this
point would notice that it got light around ten am. But it remains light
most of the time. While you've been traveling down here. It has been
about six hours, five or six hours of daylight, kind of just flipping
between four and six most of this campaign, it has hit about eight hours
of daylight today. You maybe have about two hours left of daylight before during
this travel time as you guys pack up your things and potentially head out of
town. Is there anything else you're doing in the town. You can do
the quick buying stuff as well, but I think you kind of did it
so to you. You've brought up all the potions I think, which is
usually the main thing that you want to buy, right, Yeah, just
the usual buy them out of stock on all healing potions. Actually, I
will take some time to craft some if I can. Yeah, do you
have stuff? What do you have? I think I maybe have just enough
for a regular potion of healing, not the greater, a regular potion of
healing. Yeah, because you had a few, a few bits. Yeah,
I just wanted because I know you. Oh no, we did all
the other ones doing we at once, I remember, I think. So.
Yeah, so you need to make me a hobalism kit roll please you
have to beat well it's twelve Yeah, bam, you make with that?
A that is a? Is it? You're up to a greater potion of
healing? Now? What do we bump you up to? Or I have
a million things open for this thing today. I mean, I do have
the greater potions of healing, but I think I need mushrooms for that.
All of your potions that you the ones that you buy, are just standard
healing potions, and then there is the next one up. Yeah it is
a greater healing So normal healing potions do two D four plus two. You
craft with foraging now and your skill greater healing potions, So it's important to
differentiate them because they do four D four plus four. So you have one
of those, You're gonna go ahead and assume it's the only one you have.
Yeah, it's the only one. And all of the other potions wherever,
whoever is whole holding on to how many potions you have or how many
each of you have, I can't remember what who's doing. We distributed them,
so those would be normal healing potions. But remember that Merlin makes greater
healing potions. You can forage to find the ingredients and craft one of those
per day on a travel rest, So you make one of those greater healing
potions and let's say you head out of town. I guess now again,
pretty pretty simple. Your plan is to practically retrace your steps, or are
you going to try and take that shortcut through the what's it called? What
did I call them? In the there is a twin the twin Rocks that
you can move through that reduces your travel time by a significant amount. It's
three days to Kira by following the road heading to the bridge and heading up
along the desert, or it's a day and a half a little over just
to get if you take the shortcut that you were told about. Here's the
thought, here's the thought that could potentially get us all killed as well.
What if we took a straight shot to get Freda from here? Absolutely you
can do that. It's just super like off roady stuff. There's absolutely no
telling what's in the deep forests there. It's the thickest forest on the mainland
that isn't belonging to the the elves down by the Irish Tree, and it
is huge. But you are if you're a good enough ranger and you want
to do it, you you do not have to follow roads here. If
you want to just go from Dandalo to go Freda, it's going to take
you, I mean judging by that. If you just made a straight shot,
didn't encounter anything didn't didn't get lost, nothing went wrong. It's only
going to take you about, let's say four days, because it's right.
So if we did it that way in theory, we get all the way
to you're afraid to and we're not even late for our appointment with the rise
if we don't all die, and if you are a gambling party or not.
I'm just thinking out bad options here and it's absolutely doable. You everyone,
give me an insight check and you and and add and add them together.
You have to beat twenty five. I think you've already done it.
Yeah, you all are hyper aware of something. You are too strong,
all of you over the and the conversation you would have had the night before.
You're just noticing that Will's obviously got an element to him where he's aside
from normal. He has the ability to like almost literally bifurcate an ogre with
a single massive swing of a standard long sort. It's kind of crazy,
but each of you have seen magics, and you've eat You've seen wizards cast
fireballs, you've seen people contact people from across the land. It's insane.
You've seen all these crazy things. But compared to how you were before you
first went into the mist. You are all probably aware now maybe a little
bit that you're stronger than you were and a little a little ope. Honestly,
I think you are noticing. And it's again, I want you to
I don't want to lead your thoughts, and it's how you guys want to
interpret it, and you don't have to, depending on how egotistical your character
might be, I guess, but you certainly probably have a sense that each
of you. Maybe you don't notice it yourself. I think sometimes when we
get stronger, or we get you know, whatever we grow, you don't
always notice it. But I think the other three members in your party you
would notice that they're just doing stuff. Sometimes you're like, wow, that's
pretty crazy. Like Fire is making shots that were that she was really good
with, like a bow and raw, and now she's making like insane shots
sometimes and you're like, wow, that is so accurate. And she's her
fingers are not even like she's not even maybe even pulling the bowstrings correctly.
She's kind of half passing shots and they're better than you've ever noticed. Fix
is summoning up spells so much quicker and enchanting so much faster. It's almost
you're not even having to think about it. Merlin is quite literally imbued with
the power of the Void and can and can boost and enhance all of his
spells. Should he wish kind of comes with those same twisted wish rules though,
But still Merlin is pulling up these huge flames, and obviously Will is
doing the things that Will does. And I think you probably would notice that
you guys are stronger than you were, and you're you're not. No one's
saying that you guys are superhuman or anything. You're still fighting with these dwarves,
for example, and there are points where you get hit, you bleed,
that kind of thing. You're not blurring around people at super speed and
stuff like that, but you're just noticing that you're slightly quicker. Those dwarves
that you guys took out. You might have had your asses handed to you
the first time round, and that was more circumstantial than anything else. You
were already exhausted. It was kind of a one versus four situation. At
first. They were so much more brutal than I think anyone was expecting from
a simple bar fight. And that's one thing. But the the most recent
fight. You whip the shit out of them, and it should not have
really been that easy, even with the jump on them and that kind of
thing. Those were a really tough set of men that would really kind of,
you know what. You wouldn't normally ever want to encounter them. Any
of you before this would certainly have probably rather not ever have to deal with
them under any circumstances. And honestly, you kind of whip the fuck out
of them. And I don't know how much your characters interpret that, but
you're certainly stronger and more capable. Now. I'm not saying you can wander
into this forest and encounter an ancient gold dragon and you'll just slap him and
he will walk away crying with his tower between his legs, but I will
say that I think it's fair that you guys notice that you are stronger now.
We outside of this mechanically, we know you're leveling up, but some
of that is relative, and that's just kind of how I GM. It's
not really always that you're clearly leveling up compared to everyone else in the world.
A lot of the world is just relea if to you as you level
up. But I think in this instance, there's certainly a dissonance to that.
And while you guys are growing stronger, you're starting to notice a slight
like it's ridiculous. You've been on the road, I think for a month
together and you are just obviously stronger. Some of you are concerned that you're
going mad, and maybe that's just all it is. You're just crazy and
you kind of like insanity drunk. But I will say that much I kind
of romp through this forest just isn't as intimidating as it should be for you.
If you don't want it to lead, that is all you will say.
The main takeaway from all this is that there's a gold dragon. There's
a gold dragon. That's all I heard. That's all I heard him say,
over and over the whole time. I'll tell you this much. If
there is a golden dragon in that forest, it is not a combat encounter
unless you really want it to be, because you'd be in trouble. Even
cooler, but they live in water as well. Maybe I'm wrong, but
that could be traditional D and D stuff. I'll make up whatever I want.
The no, it's a it's a forest of random encounters, and you
guys have seen the level of random that can be. But it is certainly
a forest of random encounters. But I think it's just a thing for you
to consider in character. Maybe usually a romp through this forest would seem crazy,
But it's up to you whether you want to interpret the father. You
guys are certainly slightly stronger than you maybe should be. You might just notice
it. This isn't a thing where Superman's discovering his powers and he crushes a
can in his hand and he rips a car door off by accident. But
I certainly think that you will notice after we've seen so much travel from you
all, and we fast forwarded through most of it, and we see that
in a single dice roll. But you guys have spent days on the road
and probably notice that you can push yourselves an hour longer than you could things
like that. Not trying to influence you in any way, just letting you
know. It's just I know, but I think I think, I think
D and D parties spend a lot of time very scared of the unknown,
and I want you to know and justify in character somewhat that you you're you're
probably finding through this campaign that stuff is less scary or maybe stuff that you
would be scared of you're not scared of. AKA a very rough, powerful
dwarf who is you know, borderline and expert veteran warrior and you kind of
just wipe the floor with them in what was essentially an equal footing battle on
the second round. So yeah, but you also kind of fire you had
that one on one with the other elf, and maybe you in that you
had the one on one with each other and probably notice things like that as
well. I think it makes sense for characters like you, guys who would
concentrate on things like your abilities and combat. You're all trained in one way
or another, whether it be spells or swords and shields and things, so
you certainly, I think would notice those things. You're almost like competitively good
at these things. So I just want to give you some context because and
this is DM to players, there are always way more shit scared than they
need to be. But also this is a fucked setting and everything's fucking scary,
and I don't know whether you will encounter and Golden Dragon there because it
is random dice rolls and I have a big random table of things. Do
we feel lucky? But what I mean what I mean to say, I
think is at this point nothing is impossible for you. Lot also will almost
quite literally has the ability to summon up wishes, which is pretty insane.
And if you wanted to just blow ten sanity points, he could be like
what weighs the way out And you know, if he wanted to do stuff
like that, he could do that too. Hey, maybe even the rest
of you could, or maybe it would be absolutely ridiculous to try. Who
knows, just going to bring some more fearback in for you. So as
you guys are heading out of the town here of Dandelo, passing through all
of these merchants, you know, more of these guys that rush up to
you and try and sell you things. Seeing that you're like outlanders, you
are discussing the possibilities you could make a You can make a shortcut to Kira.
You can make a straight up shortcut straight through the forest to guffreda very
much uncharted territory to guffreda through that forest. It's just kind of pointless I
think for a lot of people. But rangers and bruids and people more akin
to that kind of thing, which maybe you could say Merlin and fire have
some expertise in I won't give you any mechanical expertise, but there might be
times that you can justify to leverage that you guys are from a forest.
I don't think rangers would be petrified. It's not like a haunted, demonic,
evil forest necessarily, even though they all kind of are. That's it.
That's my context for you. What are you doing? What's the plan?
I'm realizing quickly that maybe I should be more scared than I had running
into everything. I'm not saying you guys are invulnerable or anything like that,
but but I think this would seem like a crazy idea a month ago.
But now that gamble maybe is less of a gamble. I don't know.
It's a no brainer that we we take the desert shortcut back, because last
time we took the long way around, but this time, going into it,
we're all we're all rested, full up, fresh, and even if
there is a fight or a danger of some sort here in the desert,
or equipped to handle it now, but it's say we pushed through the we
take the Twin Rock shortcut at the very least, and then from there we
could decide whether to go north to Kira, or take a shortcut, or
even you can even follow the river on the south side to you'r afraid to
not have to follow this road all the way up here out of the way,
Well, we could decide that when we get there, So we start
by just getting through this rock shortcut. Let's get to the forest, right,
Yeah, you northeast through this pass to the road here, I suppose,
Yeah, Twin Rock shortcut off through this wasteland. Maybe we like we
see one of you, like, grab somebody aside and ask them the if
they have any idea of the that shortcut through Twin Rock. They kind of.
They give you a couple of weird landmarks and essentially point you in the
direction, telling you to essentially head somewhat northeast. Once you find those twin
rocks, you'll have a straight shot over towards where the road is as long
as you continue in the right direction. So you guys will head out of
town then in this direction up towards the Twin Rock, and another day of
travel begins. Rest is this time food in belly, brains in belly,
and you you will need to roll me some checks, of course, So
Merlin, first I'm assuming is going to be foraging for things and stuff,
yes, and is anyone else specializing in any particular thing on the way out
here? And will roll dependent on that. I want to make sure that
we're not being followed by anyone trying to retaliate for the dwarf thing. That's
a scouting role, but don't do it yet. I will probably focus on
navigation as usual to make sure we don't get lost question mark unless we don't
need to do that here. Because it's all wide open, you have to
do it more than if you were on a road. It's much easier to
get lost because you're kind of just heading into a waste standing while on the
map here it looks like a short amount when you're down on the ground,
and especially since you only have two days two hours of daylight, eventually you
are just going to be in just a flat plane of what feels like desert.
Yeah, we don't want to get lost in the desert. So I'm
going to focus on finding the Twin Rock landmark to make sure we don't get
off course, all right, and Vita would be scouting ahead for trouble.
Okay, So perception from Vita and fix and then survival from everyone else.
Please as you head out into the oh my god, every time an absolute
party fail. Yeah, evidence in yourselves the party, the part. You're
the one who just gave us the sandwork about going to the desert, right,
Sorry, I am going? I am Yeah. There is absolutely no
way you're not going to run into something. I'm just not even going to
roll for it. Let's just that is so that failure from everyone. Everyone
fails and all those things. Obviously you don't know this in character. You
kind of head I think we're doing great into this desert, so very inspired.
Yeah, how badly this goes? It takes some nice music. It
takes uh several hours as you head in what is probably the correct direction during
the daylight hours, Yeah, as the sun begins to set, it becomes
a little more difficult for you to to nownavigate in the correct directions. It's
also just very difficult to move across this terrain, even when you were probably
coming into town with the road. This is just uncomfortable. Everything here is
uncomfortable. The wind constantly kicks up sand and dirt and little stones into your
face, scratching your skin. The ground is so uneven in places, giving
way to just soft earth that makes your feet stick. The It is pretty
much just a flat plane. We're not even talking minor hills. Eventually you
walk out onto what feels just like a almost like a salt flat, just
this open wide expanse. And then the sun fully sets, the moon starts
to rise, giving you an idea of your direction. But you're having to
constantly just drag yourselves forward. Let's have who's who would be the most the
furthest ahead head that isn't Veta, because he who isn't Vita. It was
just me and Fire kind of collectively trying to navigate and both sailing. All
right, both of you roll me at D twenty lowest number is the least
lucky. Oh no, oh no, am I feeling well? I'm gonna
roll my own if this is. If this is under a ten, maybe
we both take half the damage. This is under a ten, you both
suffer the consequences of the thing. It is not a roll again. Both
you roll again, one of you the thing, Fire roll me a dexterity
saving thro Oh thank god, it's travers kind of tremors. You'll be fine.
You you are walking forwards all of you are moving forward, You're maybe
spread out a little fire naturally, taking the lead the scouting position, moving
a little further ahead outside of your dark vision. For the most part,
every now and then you catch a glimpse of her moving. Every now and
then she reports back fire. However, at one point, you are moving
across this horrible wasteland, this kind of desert, these salty sand stuff underfoot.
When there is something underfoot that gives way, you don't You probably don't
even see it. There is just an enormous hole in the ground that comes
up underneath you as you're moving along, and you put one foot down and
it goes a little too far before your natural instinct to dodge back kicks in.
There is a chittering sound and a and from underneath you, coming out
of this enormous hole in this wasteland is a giant ant and is an airdlon.
It is not an handlon, but I wish it was. Let's see
where you would be you would be here. Will will put there, Merlin
fix and Vita will put here. I'm going to bring you over to this
uh battle map and you can fight five giant ants. Everyone brow me some
initiative, please, oh, I don't like where I am. Why you
are engaged with the one that you are probably a good thing that will didn't
do this because you might have fallen in. Let's as soon as you said
say it was like, this sounds like a job for anyone else. So
I will roll for these guys, and I'm going to give them colors each.
I rolled for this random encounter for you on the break rather than doing
it the other way around. Just so you know, So that whole speech
was just bait. No, it was purely just if you failed your stuff
spectacularly. Normally I would have you roll almost all of this stuff yourself,
but I thought we're kind of running a little short on time. I will
do some of it for you, and you roll for a combat encounter with
five giant ants. They will go on Initiative ten, which means buyer.
As you look down and and realize in your dark vision kicks in, you
see this huge hole in the ground in front of you, in this desert,
the huge segmented legs, this massive segmented body. These antenna come up,
maybe one of them runs across your legs. As these enormous giant ants
begin to move up, just naturally moving towards a thing that's moving around near
their little base. They're a little high of here, this thick kiting all
over their bodies. Serrated mandibles snap at you as they move up out of
this thing, climbing up the walls of the other sides of the hole.
Here you see four more of them. We can assume you shout this back
to the others and take a kind of giant ants offensive position. And it
is your turn first. What do you do me? Yes, I'm going
to disengage and I'm gonna run. I'm gonna go dirt all right, stick
get away from the hall. Well do you have disadvantage on initiative? Am
I crazy? That is? With the disadvantage, I still got to say,
I rolled a sixteen and a twenty? Okay, yep, just trying
to remember my campaign. You actually you actually set it to auto auto roll
it? Oh yeah, I remember, yeah, yeah, yeah, sick
Green. I love that guy there. I swear the number of screen because
it saw the twenty, but it lowered it to the correct number, so
it's seventeen, is accurate? I love me not on three hours sleep like
today? So you roll out away? Did you say you're firing a weapon,
and well, I used my bonus action to disengage, and then I
use my movement, so yeah, oh a a lot. I'm gonna shoot
my short mode. Yeah, sorry, not not to be that guy.
Just for clarification, did we skip like the first four turns in the turn
order for this? No? I fucking that is why you asked whether it
was the thing. And this is also why three years ago, never to
have two people with the same the same all right. I don't know the
wanted to never allow us if they have the same letter at the beginning of
their name, make them change it forever. Do you have two same letters?
Yeah? Probably a moonwalk back to where it was. Sorry, giant
answer. Yeah, I was like, oh, couldn't question me on that
ship. If this is a random encounter, I yeah, this is not
something where I set up a fucking shadow demon that's going to come out and
deliver a bunch of serious law drobs on you. These are just five ants
are hungry. What do you do? Fixed she shouts, you see them?
I would say that really you can only see this first one here,
but she does say a plural as this one crests the top of the the
the ground hoole hive thing that they have is that what ants live in the
live in ant hills. This is an ant hole. There's something else down
there that they live in, like little colonies. Yeah, I don't know.
I made the map as a random map, and then the animals that
lived in it was also random. So there's probably a huge warren of ship
underneath the weight you're standing right now. No no, no, no no
no no, almost happening, so fixed, What would you like to do?
I immediately cast X with my right hand towards the red ant and then
fire to weldrich blast. You hear that like that deep ice cracking sound come
from my arm as a two blasts just like shoot out and whistle past between
will and fire just right past your ear. Shure, I see if they
do anything? What are you hexing? You have to pick up? Yeah,
constitution, Okay, I'm going something wild this time. It's eleven and
a fifteen and eleven and a fifteen. The fifteen hits I think eleven hits
as well. But you see it hit the kiting on this thing, and
you realize that these like they're basically wearing plate armor, you know, like
not well, not really, but they're wearing thick there. They're the hard
part of the ant. The kiting is a very very big looking shell.
And you deal eight damn force damage and four necrotic damage, twelve damage in
total. Yeah, I think fire like this thing appears, You see it
suddenly hit by that force damage. You recognize the sound and the effect of
one who Fix's Eldritch blasts striking this creature. The other one hits it but
doesn't really seem to affect it too much. What else do you want to
do? Fix? You have movement, really, and I will. I'm
gonna move just in front of Merlin behind Will here. Okay, Will's turn.
Okay, the ground right next to where Fire is standing? Does is
this spot stable? Looking? Like? Can I stand there? Stable enough?
Yeah? We'll say you get the idea that if, like if if
Fix hit it with like a Eldris glast would probably give way. But it's
stable enough certainly that you can stand on right now. Okay, I'll move
a little clock because I probably can't see it from where I'm standing. Almost
you won't be able. You won't step on it and fall, And I'll
say that much. But if you you hit this hole, give me a
in investigation. Now, give me a perception check. Give me an investigation
check. And what is your maximum range of dark vision? Are you sixty?
It is? It's a sixty footer dark vision seventeen on the investigation roll
right, So, uh, this is a thirty foot hole. At the
very bottom of it, you can see a bunch of sand and like that's
where the the ant hill is down in this thing with a bunch of little
holes and sticks and things probably covered in like like eggs, horrible eggs all
over it. I'm going to I'm gonna observe a couple of things here.
Number one. They're conveniently in a nice little fireball pattern, So I don't
want to be in the middle of it. You're welcome. Well, you
already know what I'm going to do. But also I'm kinda like I don't
want to see somebody get dragged over the edge and eaten. So I'm actually
going to spend my turn grabbing fire and pulling her away from the edge before
she gets swarmed, okay, because we don't need that in our lives.
So I don't know if it takes my action to do it or whatever,
but I'm grabbing being willingly moved. You can move the rest. I raged
as soon as you try to grab me, I just let it happen.
She just goes. You can move off of the remaining movement. You have
banquets. Okay, So I took ten, so that means I have one
space. So yeah, I'll step back to I can't get any further back
because I'm only moving half speed, so where I'm currently standing, and I'll
throw her behind me here, so like right here? Okay, bye,
you can place yourself in the correct there we go angle and that'll be do
I still can I still take an action? Or is that my action?
That would be your action because you okay, I'll in my turn there.
I just I don't want her getting pulled in and then making this more complicated.
All right, all right, Well Marlon sees will pulling fire out of
that, and he immediately well assumes they're on the same page and immediately casts
fireball into the pit. Give me the fireball. Roll that is a sword?
Sound d you see sixteen decks? Say Merlin tosses up a fireball and
we'll hits it with the sword. How like position he's casting fireball, and
it grows so big enough he's he has to eventually lift it up and then
he throws it like a volley bot spirit bomb. Yes, let me make
some saves for you. Deck saves. Got a bit at sixteen. I'm
gonna go from red and then go round clock quite as one to three four
five. Wow, what's the number there of the beaks? What's the DC
sixteen? So one makes it, which is the orange and there the rest
of them take twenty eight fire damage. There's probably just an absolute set of
screeching as this fireball goes off. The creatures are all freaking out. The
ants go mad. You probably explode and cook up a bunch of those eggs
as well, and they take so it was it twenty eight, so twenty
eight on this guy, twenty eight just one hundred and twenty six damage in
one eight on this guy. Twenty eight on this guy and then half damage,
so fourteen to the one that is that has the orange blip thing dot
And yeah, it's pretty crazy. I think will runs forward, grabs fire,
you move backwards and then the thing lights up. There's an explosive heat
that washes across everybody. These creatures screech. There's a smell of burning hair,
and these things smoldering and injured and kind of hurt, rush up the
sides of this thing. None of them are dead, but all of them
were hit and injured. If you want to do anything else med and you
can still move and bonus actions and things, I think I'll remain where I
am shall in my turn. Here come the ants. Now what do you
have there? You are a bunch of flaming giant ants that are like the
size of ponies. I'm running out. They're fire ants. They're now fire
ants. Yeah, kind of. I guess they will move towards the first
thing they see. Unfortunately, welcome to being the tank. One going there
can this one. So I'm going to say they're ten feet down, ten
feet up, and then another twenty five over to you. This one can
get here. This one can do is ten feet and it's okay. I
chose the slash. I think you can make it. I'm going to move
him up to where you are. But this one actually can't do anything.
This one will come up and make it around to you. This one can
get to you. I'm going to move just for the sake of it.
Leads two here and then this one I'm going to move to here. Oh
actually you can probably just move is double actually, so I'll rush him past
you. This one comes rging past where you are, but it can't attack.
Only three of them can attack you here. Let's determine. I have
a question, Brad, Yeah, can I use my skirmisher? Now?
What is that? I can move up to half my speed as a reaction
when an enemy ends its turn? Oh, ends its turn? Never mind?
With in fight a few to you. So if any of them end
their turn here, I can use half my movement as a reaction to move
without opportunity attacks. Ooh well, yep, you can do it after this?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. First, them's gonna start buying two towards
Will, one towards you. The first two towards Will. Is this fun
working? It is not? Hello? On there we go one two towards
Will, a seven, and a twenty three. The twenty three will Actually,
No, I'm gonna I'm gonna reaction cash shield. Screw this. I'm
not gonna start getting a bit right away. Yeah I will. I will
react by putting up an arcane shield. Okay, another bite coming in towards
you fire as Will puts up this kind of arcane shield. You see these
things bite towards him, and then this shield appears around him as it as
these creatures are hitting that thing. Too dumb to know what's going on,
horrible mandibles snapping near you. You probably move a leg out of the way
as these mandibles come in, closing like a horrible like a bear trap around
you, and then they're going to start trying to sting at you. I
guess they have stingers as well, which is awesome for you to know.
Oh yes, they do have stingers on their tails the size of a short
sword that comes spinning around. So these things swarm over towards you mandibles and
stingers. Two sting attacks towards you Will, and then a one towards you
again. By one two and eighteen and seventeen you still have the shield up,
so they kind of just bounce off of this thing, and then one
towards fire on a fourteen Nope, just avoiding this whole thing exactly like I
said, nothing to be afraid of. These things would care a normal man
alive within seconds and you two shield comes up, fire jumps, dances,
spins, around this this sting of these mandibles, and then that is the
end of our turn. So you can do your skirmishing, and you just
do all this dancing and jumping and flipping and before you know it, you've
moved out of the way. Will However, it's kind of lost amongst five
of these these giant ants rushing over and around him like a bunch of little
horses. And it is Fire's turn. Okay, I'm going to sneak attack
the red boy with my Can I do sneak Can I do sharp shooter and
sneak attack. Sneak attack is just additional to the to the thing, So
you do your attack role first and then you add sneak attack if applicable,
So it's just damage additional. Shiit thirteen sticks into the kit in but just
does not affect this thing whatsoever. It's technically a miss as the arrow just
buries itself into the the the armor plating on the back of this thing.
Mm hmmm. I will then just move back a little bit in front to
the side of Merlin. Okay, brings us to Vita cool Vita will blame
on. Yeah, they were already in flame form anyway for scouting their head.
They're gonna use flow attack on the red one. Okay, Flying Prints
of Fire moves forward this elemental creature and swings a little claw at the back
of this thing, same thing. I think it just hits this. It's
like hitting Will's armor. This just strikes the back of this kite in and
while you see it burns some of the kite into a degree, and it
certainly damages it. It's certainly not doing any sort of actual damage to the
to the ant, and it's doing it. And it's flashy a way as
possible. It's like spinning trying to like diverse some of the attention off of
Will, I suppose, and like be as noticeable as possible. I think
it probably does draw some attention to itself. I'll roll two dice for this
and and this and the two that are next to it. They're a red
one certainly takes a liking to Vita And is that the end of your turn?
Fix turn though, and fix for fire too. My Eldrish blast the
same one in unison. Okay, three and thirteen thirteen's gonna hit, No,
it isn't sorry. Twenty three does hit give me the damage? Thirteen
Hitteen damage in Wondercrotic, how do you kill the red fire and by Giant
and the eldrish blast? The first one kind of actually sweeps under its feet
and knocks it off balanced sideways, and the second one kind of like travels
up through its like Titanus exterior and just like tunnels through and out the other
side, and just kind of, yeah, this huge thing kind of hits
the ground next to you, partly curling into its own shell. Will as
you see one of them kind of hit the ground. It's a large fard
of this thing. It's pretty big and clearly has been felled by one of
your comrades here, And is that the end of your turn? Thinks M.
I will move forward to hear yeah, and that's the end of my
turn. Okay, will your turn? All right? I will look down
at the red one and be like, okay, all right, I thought
I was about to get fire. Then I will it's the green one.
I will swing at it with booming blade. Okay, now I can do
my booming blade sound effects for well, I think, yeah, I think
this thing is like they are moving around you. You're kind of having to
partially keep an eye on the fact that they're moving. It's like kind of
a scene where we probably see you with shielding hands, sword in the other
and you're watching them as they move around in a kind of circular motion.
You swing wildly at one of them, but it it turns and shifts itself
awkwardly to get out of the way of what it probably presumes to be your
stinger. And is that an India turn? Uh? That that is the
classic I should have just taken the dodge action maneuver and then I will I
will, I will mark a target. I'll mark the orange one for use
mark. Okay, what does that say? Uh? Let me post the
well, it's not gonna do anything this turn. I'll post the text.
I need to set this up so you can actually just read in the classic
monk target thing. I thought this was an abilly monk target is an action,
isn't it? No, it's a bonus action. Be sure it's if
it's it's the re skin text blates curses all it is. Oh, so
it is one of your things? Yesay, monk target is a move on
in the actual Oh is it like a different class? Has that? Now?
That's neat, It's just an og thing. There's a thing called mank
target hanging on. I can just open my little cheat sheet up. You
make a melee attack, you can choose to mark your target until the end
of your next turn. One opportunity attack you make against your target has advantage
without using a reaction, so kind of you can do it. It's just
a thing that has always existed, I think since time began, ive ab
began. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have always had it written down in
this little cheat sheet thing that I was given as a little fledgling DM way
back when they said here's a cheat sheet for all the things you can do
on your turn as an action. And I said, thank you, my
DM of the time, and he faded away into the night. That's how
are made, ye, He gave you his power, he became Batman,
and just that was I think that was three point five though, so I
don't know if I can actually do that here, regardless, that's not the
ability that I'm using, though, that's good to know for future reference.
Yeah, yeah, it's Merlin's turn. All right, I'm going to use
scorching ray on the blue, green and purple one. Okay, yeah,
here the attacks I go seventeen hits, nineteen hits and seventeen hits. So
blue it takes three damage. Green takes sixth damage. And did you say
which was the third one? So blue, purple, so purple, blue
and green. Yeah, so purple I think takes the last. Yeah,
oh, I say, okay, hang on, So that guys like that
and that guys like that might have sucked that up. But oh, either
way, that's the power of magic. Yes. All of these scorching rays
fly through the air in the darkness like trace the bullets as they strike the
backs of the creatures, hitting softer points in between the kit in and dealing
the appropriate amount of damage to each. They're all kind of looking burnt up
and messed up, but it's probably quite hard to tell how badly injured they
are. But that certainly hurts you're doing anything else. Yep, that's it
all right, giant ants. One of them, the red one, was
looking at Vita. Here. I'm going to roll to see if moving fix
draws the attention of this this other one here, it's ROMI a D twenty,
it's a fifteen fifteen. It doesn't so this one is going to attack
will In fact, they're all going to attack Will. So I'm just going
to roll a shit ton of dice. Here we are again, Here,
we are again, been here many times, So this is going to be
four bite attacks from the ants. So we go sixteen eight, six,
twenty one. Probably only the twenty one has any hope. Yeah, but
I know there's stingers coming after this too, Right, I'm gonna shield again,
Yeah, another magical shield around will Is. These things kind of swarm
him, avoiding his own attacks and kind of going for him. But then
this magical shield comes up. And then during probably the same flurry and madness
and so the sand is kicking up around him, there's a bunch of stingers
aiming at you as well. So I'm going to go one, two,
three four. Is that four? That's three, three and four, So
yeah, another set of missus is they just strike this arcane shield that you've
brought up around yourself. These things kicking up a load of dust, cheering,
snapping their mandibles, stinging at towards the area where Will is, but
none of them connecting due to the shield. Therefore fire It is your turn.
Do not snap your mandibles at me. Ever, again, is I'm
going to shoot the purple guy. Wow, same thing. Give me the
speech again. I am unbelievably good at firing arrows, and you are hitting
the target here, but maybe you just have no idea what part is the
soft part and what part is the kitin. It's probably more about and I
was trying to do a punt anatomy is where I was trying to go with
that. It's harder than it should be. And the arrow hits I have
not enough to say arrow hits the kitin, And yeah, it's you're also
these things are moving and moving up. They're like literally little ponies running around
will as you do. Successfully, I hit everything about this and that's it.
Vita's turn. Having seen you, miss uh, I'm going to point
towards the blue giant, and Vita is going to rush towards it and take
the help action. And they're gonna basically like rush around the soft spots that
they can see to try and help give you an advantage. You fire at
the next right, and so that's the next attack, which I think is
for you advantage. I think it's the next attack on that creature, right,
Okay, I see Yeah, So whoever attacks the blue creature next will
have advantage on that attack. But it is your turn now, years and
I will fire too. Eldish blasts at the purple one. Well, it
gets hext first because the red one died, so that one gets hext now
and Eldish blast because this is warlack come there seventeen hits and eleven missus.
Sorry which one we're hitting purple for thirteen damage total? Thirteen damage on that
one. Yeah, this strikes the creature. It's probably like in the midst
of going to bite at Will when it gets hit from the side by this
forced damage. And the thing is not dead though mm hmm hm. Seeing
Will send off all their attacks and knowing that I am rather not able to
fend off the attacks, I will stay put for now Will's turn. I
should I should dodge, but it's more fun to swing, So I'm going
to swing at the orange one again because I'm mad at this because I missed
it the first time with another booming blade. All still and there we go
a twenty six yes, which when we're in the first are the orange one?
Okay? Oh, Also here's the I actually did have it set up,
I just lost track of it in all the other junk on my character
sheet, but there's the text of the skill that was actually trying to use.
To avoid confusion there, all right, which one was your mom target?
The orange one? The orange one? Yes, all right? So
it is ten slashing, six thunder and then three three more slashing, nineteen
total. It's the damage inflicted. Okay, now this one is the one
that took the least amount of damage from the fireball. But I think you
probably just love off two legs immediately, just swinging around this thing. The
booming blade goes off, and this thing just loses two legs. They're just
on the ground as it kind of stumbles suddenly trying to adjust itself under its
weight, losing two of these legs, picks itself back up on the remaining
leg on that side, but is wreathed in that kind of purple energy or
whatever it is for you. Uh, the booming blade, if it moves,
it will take additional damage. And that's all that mark target does is
stay on it. What does that do? Yeah, it's just it's just
a continued It's similar to fixes hex or a hunter's mark. It'll just keep
going and yep, yeah, I will, I will, I will end
my turn and actually, I'll turn back to Merlin and say, see that
Merlin, shove that one, and then my turn. Will is not looking
very concerned about the fights. He's using it as a using it as a
team work. It's now a Merlin training exercise. I think you're pushing the
orange one. Yeah, orange one at the end. Yeah, at the
end of it. Oh boy him? Can I can I use scorching ray
again on the blue green one again before I push yep? Okay, right,
if you use it on the blue one, then f I I won't
get advantage on her next shot. Oh okay, strike, Yeah, you're
gonna advantage. Oh okay, I don't want to take that and advantage them
from Uh okay, you know what I will. I will blast the orange
one before I push it off. Okay, so purple green, orange,
Yeah, I'll be extra bully. Nineteen hits, eighteen hits and twenty five
hits all hit. The first thing that happens is you kill the purple one.
How do you do it? What does it look like? I was
gonna say, almost like a magnifying glass, like blast just and then just
set it in a blaze. But oh, I don't know. I don't
want to be like an ant bully or anything like that. Uh oh,
maybe I went to the crown person the bug's life. It happens his head
explodes on fire. And yeah, the other two scotch in rays launch past
the one whose head explodes as it hits the ground and strike the other two.
You deal all of the damage, but the other two remains standing magnifying.
Now and now I push. Give me the blurb on that telekinesis push
again. Yeah, sure, I'll do that. I can't remember. I
feel like we've been to this before, but it is literally there is no
size limit to this. Is that right? There's a bonus action. You
can try to telekinetically shove one creature you can see within thirty feet of use,
You're gonna have to move up ten feet. Um, okay, I
will do that. Then I'm a little just because ment or that you literally
can show you could shove a tarasque if you success believe managed to do so.
It's insane. Usually like things like this, and I know this is
magic, which is probably why they normally have like a limit onto like usually
like two sizes bigger than you or something that. Ah, so it is
a strength saving sort of dec I bus your bonus and the ability modifier of
the score increased by this feet, which is it's It's gonna be the same
as Merlin's other DCS sixteen, isn't it all right? YEA eighteen does not
move. This thing is big and strong and holds fast to the edge of
this thing even though it is missing two of its many legs. I'm just
gonna tell well, Will. I tried to push it, but he refuses
to. Fine, don't worry about it, Okay, next time if they
come, it's the end. Many bites towards you Will and oh yeah,
we're gonna roll. Do you see if it does not see Vita at all?
It doesn't care about Vita for some reason. So many bites towards Will
one, two, three, seven, eighteen, and the attack rolls against
your ac will. I can't remember what it is. I know I gave
you the armor like two weeks ago, but forgotten Will. What is your
ac will? Oh? Sorry, my ac is twenty twenty all right,
one of the who's gonna hit unless you want to do a thing? Uh
you know, I'll just let this one hit me. I don't want to
burn all my spell slots just blocking bite. All right, you are grappled.
Um this mistakes. I'm sorry. You take six bludgeoning damage apparently from
this bite, and you are grappled until the grapple ends. You are restrained
inside this thing's mandible. So actually this thing kind of the reason I guess
it does bludgling damage. It just grabs your armor and it holds you in
place. Suddenly this one kind of digging its legs in and biting the well.
This is the green one that has done this to you. I think
wait it was the second one. It's the orange one. It's your worst
enemy. Can he do this? Do you have any bullshit? I think
so? Mark target doesn't give you anything against this. No, no,
it doesn't defend me in any ways. That Now, I'm just glad that
I blocked the first couple because if I ever restrained at the beginning of the
fight, that would really stuck. Kind of got knit six times. Why
now, yeah, let's so, does restrain give me any sort of attack
bonuses? Again? Yeah, you have advantage show on the follow ups.
Now let's work out this then, because actually I don't have advantage on the
first one because this would have come in I was just doing the bites and
then the stings, so the first sting does not have advantage, rolling without
advantage. At twenty, do you have the ability to stop seeing how seeing
how this is about to go horribly horribly wrong, and shield myself before this
gets any worse? And then yeah, okay, shield again. Twelve and
eighteen, so well twenty one and a fourteen. But yeah, we'll say
you are still grappled, although the time might be a little wibbly wobbly that
I don't care. You're still grappled. You still take the six bludgeoning,
but also all the others hit magic shield that comes up during summer of this
chaos, and the orange one here is biting at will for anyone who's thinking
about pushing it off the edge, so you know, and that brings us
to the end of their turns, and it is Fire's turn, okay,
saying that Will is in trouble. I would like to if I don't hit
the blue, is it just the next attack on BLO So his turn next,
so it will be yeah, he'd have to read, yeah, you
see what you want to do. I don't worry about Yeah, I think
I'll just go Sorry, maybe next time, and take a short bowshot at
the the soft part of the ant that has will in its mouth. Hole
man, the ball twenty one? Is it hit? And uh? This
arrow just flies straight through the eye of this ant and it lets go of
will as it dies. Welcome, we'll say. It falls off the edge
for fun, crashes into the the ant hill which is in the hole.
Ant hill in the hole. Yeah, kind of probably smoldering a little bit
still from some of the burning. And that one is dead too. Left?
Is that the end of your term fire? Could I run up and
do an offhand attack on the green one? Yes? How do the corpse
spaces work? You can stand on the dead and areas? Okay, yeah,
I'll do that, and then off hand dagger. Wow, that is
a natural twenty eight with a lot of damage, is it? Yeah?
How do you kill this next one? You just killed them both. I
saw that the eye seemed to be a good spot, and so I just
walk up and just stab them in the eye. And yeah, it lets
out a screech and kind of just falls where it is stood as you whip
this dagger back out of the face of this and and it is Vita's turn
beats will continue to take the help action. Okay, you have advantage on
whatever you do next. Yep. And then this one is now hext for
strength and gives against any funny ideas about grappling m and it will get blasted
in the face, hopefully twice. So I'll roll the first one with that
advantage. The twenty three is going to hit and twenty four. Yeah,
can you do in sixteen damage? Now fifteen plus five? Twenty oh you
got the extra? Yeah, you kill it? How do you kill it?
I think for this one, seeing fire and up and stab this other
ant in the eye, I just aim at like both its sides, just
in quick succession. Just the blust just not only goes into the eye,
just goes all the way out the other side. So it's just tunneled through
this disgusting nice Yes, you successfully kill all of these ants. You also
destroyed a lot of the eggs. Probably matters, but you did. And
uh, the pants I have fallen. I'm gonna roll one dice real quick.
I'm gonna quickly quickly scroll to the part of the thing that I was
meaning to find the entire fight and completely forgot about and didn't go to it,
and then I will need a roll from you will just to see how
badly lost you are, because it may affect whether this is ended combat or
not. Roll me a D twelve. H roll a D twelve, yeah
twelve, A natural twelve. Oh yeah, you're good. You you successfully
kill these ants. You find that you're looking around, you're trying to find
the location of the twin rocks. And once you kind of take your breath
and you kick some of these ants away from you and check your armor over
where the mandibles were biting you, you look up at where the moon is
and you get the feeling that maybe you guys got a little lot track while
you were moving what was hopefully north north east. This is a good point
for you to stop, look around, take stock, and realize that,
in fact, you are a little lost a little, of course, and
we'll find out how you deal with that next week. Because that is the
end of today's session of miss Light. As we come to midnight for me
my bedtime, Thanks so much for playing players, and thanks so much for
watching watchers. You will be pleased to know one thing that I forgot last
time we played. You leveled up. You're actually leveled up after the court
sheldy fight and I completely forgot and I was like, oh, tell him
next time. I bit my tongue to thee to pester you because it's about
time up. So leveled up and completely forgot. But yes, before next
session, make sure you level up. And but during your level up you
don't regain your HP. Here. But if you want to roll your hip
dice now determine how much HP you get. Oh gosh, my body is
ready. This is a huge one for me. Wow, it's about tire
increase. Yeah, maximum for fire on a nine fire for Merlin, increase
your maximum. I'm just taking average, which is nine, all right,
and you have leveled up two. This is level six right, yes,
yes, yes, level six accumulate. So we'll deal with all the level
up stuff later on or during the week, but until next time, let's
do a quick round of shouts to see who you are, where you are
on the internet, and what you do. Let's start with Merlin. Oh
hello, I am Dyspiers and I played Merlin for you today. You can
find me here Twitch and Twitter at Dyspiers. I play variety and do some
role play stuff on the side as well. Yeah. Thanks, for tuning
in guys, and thank you so much for the session. Everyone. Thanks.
What about you Buyer? You can play me at Brutal Breathe. I'm
streaming basically every night now starting at six pm Eastern, and I've been doing
a Red Dead RP on Wild RP NonStop. It's ridiculous. Uh okay,
sorry, I was just calculating how badly lost you were after that, and
I'll do it later on. I'll do it later on. It's just sometimes
I get worried. Bm's out there will know that. Sometimes you go,
oh, I'll do that later on, and then you forget everything that happened
in the entire time, and then you then then it's the next session and
you go, oh, I didn't do the thing. What about fix?
Hello. My name is Leah and I play video games online. We're playing
Halo, Yeah, I guess I love Halo and also lots of Red Dividendi.
She will play as well because we're all very healthily not addicted to it
and everything is fine, right, right, Brie? Right? Anyway?
Uh yeah, So can find me at twitch dot tv for we slash leay
someone who is not addicted. So Red Dead RP is s where can people
find you and what are you doing? It's some league. Uh, I'm
continuing my League binge, which was prompted by Arcane, but I was already
an avid league player before that, so I'm just back into it, I
guess. Yeah. You can find me over on twitch dot tv, Slash
fair Light, Underscore ex Caliber currently doing League of Legends, but that may
change on a daily basis. The second I see some of the game looks
interesting, okay, and that is just forget to check out I am streaming.
There is a game called super People or something that came out that's a
br game. I'm going to play that with my I've got a very close
Swedish friend who I love very much. His name is Pony Punch, and
me and him are going to play some of that tomorrow and over the weekend.
I'm going to finally be able to play the Final Fantasy SEVI DLC the
Yuffi stuff the Uffi Stuffie that I have been waiting all year to play,
and it's came out today on the Epic Store, So I'm doing that over
the weekend if you want to watch that otherwise, we'll see you next week.
There's all sorts of shows here on table story that you can watch to
pass the time, including more D and D Tomorrow Night with Rhyme of the
Frost Maiden, and all sorts of other shows. Go and find them.
Go to the discord, go to the YouTube channel, go to tablestory dot
tv. Go and follow all of these wonderful people and give them some money
and thanks for watching. We will see you next time. Peace. I