You are listening to the Knicks Archive, the official Relict RPG actual play podcast.
You can play Relict absolutely free right now by going to relictrpg dot com
and welcome back to the Knicks Archive. We are going to pick right back
up where we left off. The ladies had just found a gruesome murder hidden
in the luxury suites portion of the Long Haul. I am C. D.
Corrigan, your game master and creator of Relict. I am today joined
by the lovely miss Matti Hammett. Hello, I'm Maddie playing Farah and Marissa
Montero. Yeah, I'm here as the voice of Skink Marsa Montero, who,
of course I have learned how to say her last name properly after knowing
her for over a decade and realizing on camera that we I'd never actually said
of that lad before. That's a true friend when you're like first name only.
Yeah, whoo, I'm a good friend. With that heinous violation,
we are going to jump straight back into the game. You two have just
come across a murder scene. The poor young loudmouthed Chester with his throat slashed,
blood splattered across the room down the hall from the room you are renting
at the Long Hall. His sister, well, I don't believe you've actually
caught her name yet, but you know it is his sister, having just
discovered him and collapsing into a fit in the hallway, crying and screaming and
tensing as Pharah runs into the room with weapons drawn, but quickly realizing that
no, you couldn't have been in the room murdering him if you were coming
from behind her, their Elvin companion, having just run over to check the
body. But it is immediately obvious to you, Farah that Chester is in
fact very dead, and we'll pick it up there. Parah, what do
you do? I would like to look around to see if there's any threat
still lurking. Okay, so you're investigating the room. That'll be a precision
check for me. One D twelve plus your precision score that is a ten.
Ten pretty solid. We, of course, are a D twelve based
role playing game system. We do use the entire spread of polyhedral dice,
but twelve is our base one, so the scale is a little bit different
if you're used to some other systems. Ten is a solid score, especially
at level one, So what you find is No, this room is pretty
sparse. There's actually not even enough beds in here for like all of them.
So I'll tell you what you see. Walk in Chester is slain on
one cot kind of set up against the outermost wall, kind of at the
back of the room, away from the hallway. There is another cot off
to one side. It's clearly been slept in, but no one in it.
You can easily see underneath it, and beneath both cots are stuffed a
couple of large stuffel bags, similar to the ones you were helping the sister
and the elf bring up the stairs as they return from their expedition. Okay,
can I tell like, can I discern how he was maimed? I
think you would have to get closer and make some make some checks for it.
Can I do that? I would like to move towards the Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Go. Meanwhile, Skink, are you doing anything?
You were down the hall as this unfolded very quickly? Yeah? I think
I had been holding the door for them to get all the duffel bags in,
So with all this commotion, I've let the door close. Were all
inside, right, And Skink is sort of sidling up, like getting pretty
close still kind of watching it because where there's still some Duffel bags in the
hallway, like they hadn't finished moving them in, because yeah, so they
had kind of done that thing. You guys had all entered the building,
so you're like in the hotel hallway, right, Yeah, they had taken
their luggage down to the front of their door, and then she opened the
door and then this all popped off. Yeah, so I think Skink is
aware that something very valuable is in the bags. So Skank doesn't want to
let go of like of a foothold on the Duffel bags while this terrible scene
unraveled. So we'll say, Farah has rushed into the room and at the
doorway. Yeah, Skink is at the doorway. The sister is at the
doorway as well. She's obviously very thick sated on the body. He stood
there at the door while Parah went up to the kind of like screamed and
collapsed, like like she like reeled backwards and probably tripped over the Duffel bags.
As a matter of fact, the elf had run inside to check chester.
So Farah, you're moving off, Yeah, so you're moving up next
to him. Farah, do you want to go ahead and make a knowledge
check for like a medical situation. Yes, I would like to do that,
and that is a seven seven on knowledge his throat's been cut. It
looks like with you know, pretty pretty deep, very obviously fatal wound.
But you can't really discern with a seven too much more about like specific implements,
number of wounds, anything like that. It's just like, nope,
that's that's a fatal wound right there. But I can rule out animal attack
maybe yeah, Well so I don't know if you can dial in any specific
kind of attack, but what is you can make intuitive leaps. Certainly what
I think is immediately obvious, no check required, just based on the blood
pattern. Is he died in bed? There was like a broader struggle here.
Okay, all right, I'm trying to design what Phair would do.
She would ask if I think she would immediately jump to like, okay,
this was probably a robbery because he was talking about having so many flakes,
right, so I think she would say to the elf, is there anything
missing? Because this was probably like an attack of opportunity to steal from you
all, because he was pretty loud about what you guys have gotten he's kind
of like his hands are covered in blood. Now he's like stepping back from
his slain friend, and he's kind of kind of looks at you and he's
got He's like very clearly in like an adrenaline state and kind of like coming
to grips with like there's no immediate action to take right now, and you're
kind of having that like jitter. He looks at you and he, I
don't, Cassie, how many how many bags do we Cassie's Cassie's not and
he's good. You can see him kind of like, oh, it's me,
like it's on me right now, just sort of like assuming that mental
position, and he kind of all the bags are here. I don't.
I haven't. I'm not gonna tear him open and like wave them and check
everything that's in here. But everything seems to be here. All of his
belongings are the belongings that I most easily see right now are all in the
room. We need help, we need to get and then skink. You
clock footsteps. So there's an interior staircase coming coming from like down the hall
that goes down into the common room. You clock a bunch of footsteps running
up, and I think pretty quick. My immediate reaction is to like,
I'm going to draw my dagger, because I have like a little dagger in
my bag, and I just shout before I see anyone coming, don't come
any closer. It's May. It's May. And you hear Roland's voice.
Okay, Roland, Roland rolland is it? Are you alone? A couple
couple of lads locals from the bar downstairs we heard screaming, what's happened?
Leave the lads downstairs? Roland come up? All right? At this point,
far is going to just exit the room, notably weirdly calm, despite
the amount of blood. I just need everybody to know that you gave the
blood token. Being in this room, by the way, okay, only
lasts last a few minutes, so keep that in mind. It is a
minute. Yeah, so in the scene, you've definitely got one just from
being in this room. Roland comes down the hall, big pot bellied orchish
bartender, stains on his apron, a little stressed, but he's and he's
you realize now, skink, I think you've always seen him kind of behind
the bar working things. Roland's fucking huge, like Roland is a big,
tall guy. Mechanically, he's a large creature, so two sizes bigger than
you on the on the creature chart. Yeah, And he kind of like
delicately comes down the hall as best he can, and and Skink's like got
the knife by her side. She didn't let go of it, but it's
like in her hand and goes Rowland, there's been a murder, right right,
and he kind of you see him put it together and just kinda see
Cassie crying, and well he says her name, he's Cassie. Is it?
It's Chester, isn't it. And then against like steps back and gestures
towards the room. Sarah's gonna like put a hand up and be like it
is, buddy, I just want you to be aware. Roland, I
think he kind of leans. He's trying to like lean past you, but
physically he's like looming over you, just from the size of discrepancy. And
he kind of like puts like a knowing hand just kind of pats your shoulder,
and briefly it's just like, wasn't always a bollkeeper? Miss looks in
all right, everybody out of the room, please, we're going to uh,
there's only you two groups renting up here right now. If you two
would be okay confining yourselves either to your room or staying downstairs. And he
turns and he calls back down the way he came. He goes, Georgie,
get the law man. We've there's been a there's been a slag.
Yeah, I get get a stell okay, And he goes, Cassie,
I can I can put you and your companions in a different room for now?
What we waits? But we shouldn't. Should it be in the room
right now? Is there anything? There's no current. He's looking to you
two. He's like, there's no current threat that we know of, right,
all right, I'm going to everyone. He's kind of like hurting people
away from the scene a little bit, and you see signals to one of
the other people down the stairs to kind of like not let anyone come up.
You see. He goes to the door you guys had entered through and
sort of dislodges like a big bar and bars the door from the inside so
no one can come in from the outside that way. He's okay, should
be a few minutes. And I think he's gonna stop and a few minutes
doing what We're going to wait for the for the for the militia to come
and take over here because I don't really want to run. There's been a
murder obviously that means someone's killed a young man. I don't really and I
think you're clocking that, like this is a very different side of Roland that
you've then what you've seen before, like Roland was very yeah, yeah whatever,
kind of checked out, sort of like retired vibes. Yeah, this
is this is Roland, sort of in the heat of things. And he
explains like we're basically gonna wait for someone in authority to show up and handle
this because I don't want to be the one handling this. And he kind
of gently but firmly like scoops Cassie h and starts like hurting her down the
hall and the Elf takes over. So what are you two doing in this
moment? He said, you can stay in your room if you would want.
I want to ask Roland a question if I can catch him after he's
finished. Oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. So what he's doing is
kind of putting them in the room closest to the stairs at the end of
the hall, so I'm gonna follow behind him, I think, just okay,
because I want to have a conversation just a little bit. Yeah,
you see, Pip kind of just like poking out of your hood and just
blood mother much blood. Yeah, he's just miss Farah what Sorry you had
to see that quite all right, but doesn't really bother me. Did you
see anybody come up on this side, up to this room or up to
these rooms? I guess no. That group's been the only one besides you
coming in and out of here. But there is the exterior door, so
they wouldn't have had to come through. If they knew to come through there,
they wouldn't have had to. I think between you and I tried to
discourage Chester from running his mouth, but I think you got a pretty pretty
good picture of how that went for the past day or so. Ye.
I had just checked on him two hours ago. His Cassie had asked me
to bring him up some food. So while he was recovering, was he
awake? He was sleepy? Uh, pretty pretty drunk. I left some
stew in there, but alive. Yeah. So Skink is now thinking that
why wait for the authorities? So Skik is going to ask Roland you know,
we could ask Chester himself if he remembers anything happening. Kind of,
you see, the elf kind of like prick up a little bit, Cassie.
I don't think what I does she cluck it. Cassie did not clock
that. The ELF's passive. I think would do it regardless if even if
you guys are like out in the hall there will say you're in the hallway
there in the room. Roland kind of pulls you to the side of what
are you suggesting? I have the ability to ask the dead questions and they
will they will answer me. We could ask Chester what happened and see if
that gives us any clue. I must if he was awake, I mean,
if you were asleep when it happened, then we might not learn anything.
But if he was awake, then he might be able to tell us
something. I see and I think you see in this moment, Roland kind
of like actively reassessing his opinion of Skink. Just thought you were just a
little chaos Goblin might still be more going on here, Roger that he is,
Miss Skink. I'm not going to fight you on this, Frankly,
I don't want to be any more involved than being the proprietor here and taking
care of my customers. I would suggest you make that known to missus Stell
when she gets here. She's well, she's the sheriff as it were,
and OSK practical woman, not one to ignore it advantage. And the only
reason I say that is so there are multiple people there to witness any answers,
because if you two don't plan on staying here, don't want to get
bogged down in this situation, and you're the only ones who have heard the
answers that you might get, She's not going to want you leaving. I
understand, Okay, So that's that's my piece. Otherwise I don't I'm not
calling the shots here. I'm just making sure we can hand off no big
deal. Skink also then looks at Farah, and as you know, my
my conscience in this matter. Farah, should we ask his sister if there's
anything she needs to know from him or do we only want to ask questions
that the authorities care about. My concern with asking her that question is that
people, especially right after an incident like this, are probably still thinking of
their attachment and it might be hard for her to speak to him again.
I think that's fair. Maybe we could let still take the lead on that
she might have more experience with people going through that. Yeah, Farah.
In this moment, you realize that Pip is no longer on your shoulder,
okay, And then you hear Pip flies by you and lands kind of at
the entrance to the room where Cassie and the Elf are in and sort of
hops over towards Cassie, who is like hunkered on the ground and crying,
and drops a little you see this like glowing mote of like it almost looks
like an ice, and this little thing just kind of clatters to the ground
and he kind of nudges it towards her. H He kind of hops back,
and you see he flies back down the hall, and now you see
him. He goes and he lands on one of the Duffel bags they' left
in the hall, and he's rooting around in there for a minute and he
pulls he pulls up another one, and he flies back and he drops another
one in front of her. Skink looks at Pip and goes, all right,
and it's like signaling that that like Skink should get one. He's gonna
start distributing he takes off, rummages around for a second. Roland kind of
goes, probably shouldn't do that. I hold out. I hold out like
a crumb. I pull like a cold cracker out of my pocket for Pink.
Now is not the time. Pip perches on your cloak, drops it
into your pocket, takes the cracker and like takes the cracker over to sit
by Cassie and he's kind of like he's munching on it a little bit,
but he like, you know, throwing crumbs her way, and I think
she kind of notices him. And at that moment it's just that's the bird.
And then Pip hops back, climbs just kind of he doesn't really like
fly up, but he kind of hops up up Farah your cloak and just
kind of gets back into his little nest. I'm gonna screech, Pip.
Yeah. A few minutes go by, so wait, so the elf.
The elf has just left all the rest of the like, all the Duffel
bags are just everywhere, and one of them is now open because of Pip,
and nobody cares. Yeah, they're all kind of lying in the hall.
The elf is cloughly paying attention to Cassie, Roland ushered you guys away
from that direction, although the DM will point out that if you were to
go back to your room for any reason, you would step over their luggage.
Yeah. I don't know. I just feel like one of us would
have put all the bags in one room, and so I was going to
leaving them in the hallway. I was gonna say, since Skink took one,
and it's satisfied to make it, even because she knew it was just
about getting one, is gonna put all of the bags in the room that
they are currently in, oh, into the room that they're staying in.
Yeah. Yeah, So you start bringing stuff down and rolling kind of clocks
what you're doing, right, Yeah, I shouldn't leave those, and he
kind of helps bring them over, and like Roland definitely saw Pip take one,
and you can see him kind of doing the calculus of just like,
I'm not gonna pile on to the situation right now, that's just another layer
I don't really want to be in. H So he puts them in there,
and the elf kind of nods to you, Farah and as I'm uh,
yeah, I'm okay, holds his hand out. I'm prinned by the
way. Nice to meet you. I'm Pharah. I'm sorry for these unfortunate
circumstances in which we meet. Yeah, this is you heard Cassie. It's
Cassie, and uh, if you could do me a favor, Actually,
if you're or you see our centaur companion, his name's Orlow, tell him
what's happened and send him up to us if you would, or I can
meet him outside. He doesn't like the stairs very much, but I guess
that makes sense. Yeah, well, it's like he can do it,
but he gets up here and like he barely fits in the room, and
like, what's he gonna do? So, you know he usually do you
want someone to stay with Cassie while you go talk to him? If he
comes back, we'll figure it out. Then there they've been I'm the newest
member of this group. They've been close for a long time. He might
they might want to talk. I don't. We'll figure it out. But
I appreciate that as you guys are talking, I think you hear whoever's out
in the hall, would hear people coming in downstairs like a larger group all
at once and like a commanding like older woman's voice, just all right,
where am I going? Okay? Yes? Good? Strong footsteps like booted
clanking footsteps coming up the staircase, a pair of stell roland Good to see
again, what do we got this time? And you see coming up the
stairs is a woman wearing a thick, all like dyed jet black, thick
fur lined cowled cloak draped over There is a gleaming breastplate underneath, so you
can see it kind of in flashes as the cloak moves around her. But
everything she's wearing is lined with this thick like puffy furred dark black jet black
lining, knee high boots, same style. Like her whole ensemble was clearly
like custom tailored to match. Unlike a lot of people who, like you
know, bits of armor here and there, kind of acquire things as they
go. She's got an embroidered little crest of what looks like kind of like
a runic stylized snowflake etched in white on the cloak, and there's a matching
one you can see in glimpses on the armor, like embossed beneath. She's
not wearing a helmet of any kind, but you do see that she has
got kind of like a black, fuzzy cap that goes with everything that she's
like taken off and kind of tucked under long dark hair some streaks of like
gray and silver shot through carrying a what you would see as a warhammer underneath.
I'm kind of slung attached to her hip. So this like one handed
kind of like five pounds like spiked hammer sums up everybody. My name is
Estelle quick, I am the one amounts to law and osk me and my
troop. I'm told there's been a killing who wasn't and rolling kind of Stelle.
That's these two and he points to you two. We're staying here as
well. They were witnesses after the fact. They helped kind of secure the
scene. These two over here, and he Cassi and the Yelfs came back
to find her brother slain in the room. He'd been injured on an expedition
yesterday, and it gives her the overall scenario, right, okay, well,
good, no one else staying up here right now? You two and
the bird. Good to know, Roland. I will be happy to well,
I would appreciate it if you two didn't stay here tonight while I look
into this. I will be happy to contribute. She hands you whoever's closer
will say, farah five silver coins. Use that to get a room at
one of the other taverns in town. There are quite a few. If
you're looking and can't find a place, the Temple of the Thaw always has
rooms open. It's not much, it's not luxury, but I can't have
you drampsing around a crime scene. Skink pipes up very well. But before
we leave, I wish to offer you my services as one who is capable
of speaking to the dead, your mage, I'm a necromancer, you see,
I'm eyebrows kind of shut shoot up a little bit, but not like,
oh my god, you know interesting, haven't I haven't had the pleasure
of one of your practitioners. Colleagues. I'm not sure what to call it.
Come through us to my knowledge in some time. Are you able?
What? What would you be able to provide in this situation an interrogation of
sorts. We would not be bringing the poor boy back to life, but
we would be able to ask him a series of three questions. How long
would you need to preparek is like, oh, this won't take anything at
all. I don't know if that's true, but from what I have here
on interrogate the dead, it doesn't say how much. Yes, Like I
feel like this is one of those things where as long as I have the
proper rooms, of the proper talismans, I'm just gonna do it. You
just excellent, Pierre, bring up, bring up paper, note pad,
and she, you know, calls up one of her assistants. You see
this young man kind of dressed similarly, not nearly as well, just a
black cloak and some like basic kind of chain mail underneath, but with that
same symbol. Yes, right, and then three questions. You said,
yes, it is probably best for us to decide and advance what the questions
are to avoid any sort of misunderstandings during the interrogation. I think that's an
excellent point. Let's discuss this away from the bereaved, if we might.
I don't I've encounter necromanswers in my travel before. But some people I'm sure
you understand, don't. Yeah, and I think they would go in and
just like shut the door. Yeah, you see her kind of surveying the
room. It's terribly unfortunate. As she goes over and as you guys are
kind of brainstorming questions, and I'll let you if you have suggestions. She's
open to them. She can suggest a couple of herself. It's kind of
what she communicates. But she is looking around the room as you guys talk,
and you see she pulls the Duffel bags out from underneath and just just
kind of like doing a quick inventory of what's in there, and you see
several of them are just travelers packs, similar things to like what you would
carry rations, cloaks, bedrolls, like that kind of thing's camping supplies.
A few more specialized like tents made for camping out in the tundra and like
making a shelter and the snow and ice and like picks and that kind of
thing. But most of the bags in the room are actually crammed full of
those little glowing flecks that Pip secured, ranging in size from like the size
of a pee up to stuff that's closer to almost like an orange of grapefruit
sized, which she is. Well, I would say that goes to motive.
There's probably a few thousand goldworth of decent sized flakes in here. You
said there weren't any missing. They all said there weren't any missing, but
it wouldn't hurt to have him check further. He just glanced. Okay,
okay, yeah, I will speak to him about that. For certainly,
there doesn't appear forgive me. I want to kind of get a lay for
the land before we jump into the necromancy. Of course, doesn't appear that
there was much of a struggle. Seems they took the poor young man in
his sleep injured. Wouldn't I wouldn't have been able to put up much of
a fight. And she kind of points like what appears to be Chester's packing
weapons are like across the room by the door. Didn't really have a chance,
Didy, I don't. I don't quite get it. I had heard
rumors that a group staying here across town. I had heard the rumors of
the group staying here had a good hall of flakes. Again several thousand goldworth
just from a quick glance of what's here. So either they had more then
someone could carry or get away with carrying, and they had to leave the
rest here. She doesn't sound like was the case, or that's not what
they were looking for. He did talk about being commissioned to find a scroll
by an elf. Oh I don't know. I don't think staying here,
but was downstairs earlier, Lady Sive, I would assume. So if you
know of this interesting interesting, Okay, that's something to look into. If
it helps, I would check with his sister, But I don't think that
they found it from what I remember. Curious sir, and curious sir,
isn't it. I have a notion of what questions to ask. I've not
done this particular spellcraft before, so I am open to ideas. If you
have any I believe you'll have to ask the questions. Miss, I will
have to ask the questions. I also generally like to ask the dead what
is the last thing they remember before crossing over, to see if anything happened,
what before he passed off to sleep. If he was killed in his
sleep, then most of his memories should be pleasant. But if there's something
there, I'll ask him what his last memory is. I think that's a
good place to start. In fact, these were the fact that we're staying
here, I believe, and she kind of confers with her companion for a
moment. These people weren't from here, not ask natives, so I doubt
it was a personal attack, unless they've truly managed to anger somebody in their
short time here. All right, So let's say the last thing they remember
that makes sense to me, I could give us some leads if if it's
fruitful, if he knew his attackers, Okay, is that going to waste
a question? Should we ask him to describe his attackers? I will say,
we were at a general store when his other members of his party that
are staying here were coming back from going out, so we can confirm,
and we like came in right after them, so we can confirm that it
wasn't anyone that was in that party. We know who was there, so
possibly possibly a stranger, likely a stranger. Likely a stranger. Maybe unless
there's another person here that they've been working with that we're not aware of.
Possibly maybe better to ask for a description then if he knew him or not,
we can at least have something to work with. Okay, So we'll
ask. We'll ask if what he remembers, if he remembers being attacked,
hopefully he will be able to describe, And then I don't know what were
there doing for if he can, if he can remember that at all,
or like, maybe oh, do we want to ask what the party went
out for at night? No, I think I mean, didn't they come
back with those packs of flakes? I feel like we know that we could
also ask the living that the living can answer that. Yeah, would anything?
What are things that only Chester would know? If he? I wonder
if he would have gleaned any information about what the killer was looking for?
She kind of she kind of nods, Yeah, I think that's a good
notion. Okay, last thing he remembers descriptions, if any? Yeah,
and then what they were looking for? If he knows, if he knows,
he might not know. Just because we get to ask him the questions
does not mean he will know. Okay, Hey, that's more than we
usually get. In all only get three, So three if the first.
If it turns out he doesn't remember anything, is there an alternative light of
questions that we would like to ask. We could come up with something.
But if I know only on the fly, yeah, if one of I
leave it to you, if one of his answers takes us in a very
different direction than we expect, I trust your judgment. Well, I'll be
honest, I don't trust you, but you are the one casting the spell.
Very well, use your best judgment, if there's something better we could
learn, you think in the moment, I don't think even if he doesn't
know the answers, I don't think from what I understand of the sort of
magic, it's still going to cost us a question. Yeah, I think
that's I think it's important to note right here for our audio listeners that Farah
and Sek, not even remotely phased by the not trusted, were both you
were both like, yeah, of course not. Why would you look at
us like I recognize a chaos goblin party when I see one, right,
all right? Well, without further ado and pulls back their sleeve because I
think this is this is one of the ell that Skink does like all the
time. So this is one that Skink just like got tattooed onto her arm
for you know, easy reference. So just like double checks the ruins and
then just like traces the shapes of some runs over Chester's body and then like
does some like weird vocal warm up like and then proceeds to ask Chester,
Darling, Chester, what is the last thing that you remember you see?
Chester? Lying there stone, dead, eyes wide open, throat gashed,
staring at the ceiling. This kind of like arches his back and kind of
like almost does like a bridge, like but just you know, his elbows
and shoulder blades are pinched back, so he's like in this really odd,
awkward position and his head is gross. His head just kind of like lulls
limply off to one side. Yeah, and you skink see from biomechanically,
he can't talk. You can't talk with your throat ripped open like that.
The magic is kind of like forming a very crude version of his vocal system
that is allowing him to speak and answer these questions. So it's distorted but
intelligible. And he's that in the night help down steal questions. That's one
hell down in the night, steal questions, held down in the night,
steel questions. And to be clear for just because voice acting is hard s
T E E L. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was assuming he was describing like the taste of steel like on his throat
or something. That's a good assumption. Yeah, And then I ask Chester,
Chester, Darling Chester, did you see the steel I woke blade at
neck? Two figures pale, then dull dark? All right, okay,
yeah, two dull dark figures pale pale dark dark, okay, okay.
And then and then Skank like looks over at Estelle quick to see if like
this is all going well. She kind of just like you know, nods,
you know, you see her kind of being like, oh, this
is uncomfortable. But Pierre looks like he's about to pass out. He's like
sixteen, you know, he's like a square or something, legit taking notes
like Parah's like leaning on the doorframe, just watching all this. But she
does, uh say, excuse me, wait, what was our third question?
And then Skink can't remember, but Skink has a new question that Skank
wants to ask anyway. I want to ask if they had glowing eyes?
Oh? Oh yes, yes, Sarah remembering encountering an individual with glowing eyes
who was looking for his friend who also had glowing eyes, who he described
as tall. And so I will say, Bruinschul did not have glowing eyes.
Oh I think no, but he was you clocked in a disguise,
right, So I will say, you guys have done this spell before.
You've traveled together for many years. Skink, you know the spell ends when
you next ask a question, Yeah, whatever it may be. Yeah,
Sarah, you would know that as long as Skink holds, you could go
over and say something to her if you wanted yeah, yeah, yeah a
statement. Yeah, I would go over and I would say this to a
spell too, and I would like have my hand up in like reference to
Skink pausing like, I am aware of a tall individual who is missing according
to his friend that we ran into who was looking for him, and they
he seemed kind of suspicious the guy that we talked to, and I don't
know about his friend if he's missing. One of the characteristics was that he
had blowing eyes. Do you think it would be Is there any other question
that would be better that would get us more information? Or should we ask
a more direct question like that We had a Stelle response. She is looking
to you and realizing like, oh, I can talk. It's not going
to mess it up. But you can see she's still trying to be like,
I don't know if I can ask a question in this room right now,
so I'm going to try not to. And you guys know that it's
skink cast to ask a question that ends the spell. But Estelle kind of
looks to you too and says, we had thought to ask ask being very
careful with her words. What they were looking for? Oh, that's still
better, I think. Okay. Skank also looks over and says, the
other possible question is what the questioners were asking. That is technically a statement,
because he's I think gets, I gets. I think I said he
said they asked questions. Oh, that's true. It's still leave been up
to you. I think what they were looking for or what questions they had,
either one are probably going to be the same answer similarly, but we
know they were asking questions. Knowing what they were after is a huge component
of this. I think if we know what they were looking for, I
could deduce more about who they might have been go for that, ask what
they were asking him? Okay, So Skink leans back over him Chester Chester,
Darling Chester, what were they looking for? Ask about the job for
miss Side where she zent us map and Chester kind of just crumples into flates.
And there is a little side effect to this magic Skink that I don't
know if you would have mentioned beforehand, But as he collapses back down,
the body is Mark could lead decayed by the power of this magic. Here,
mechanically speaking, a corpse cannot be affected by this bell more than once
ever from any source in role play world. What that means is the corpse
kind of pulls a Raiders the Lost Arc a little bit and just sort of
decays pretty quickly. Just still like a fresh corpse, but maybe not quite
as fresh and a little little more damaged, worse for the wear. Yeah,
yep, it looks pretty bad to Pierre, is audibly sick. Behind
you, Lady is still a little more appraising, kind of looks to Younus.
That was productive. Skink does like a little bow, miss Skink,
was it? Faarah? I appreciate your assistance in this matter. What's maybe
upgrade your stay a little bit? And she hands over a gold coin and
on top of things and standings on me. Yeah, Skink loves like a
good job recommendation, Like just knows like I did good at some point.
If they ever need me like that, that's my card right there. As
she hands holds out the coin, Pip pops down, grabs the coin,
and disappears back into Pharah's hood. We're not worried about it. A book
I have a bookkeeper. I appreciate that that was productive. How first of
all, if you are sticking around OSK and your services are for higher I
wish this was less frequent than it is, but I could make use of
it. Okay, So this woman, did you mention a name? Miss
ive? Miss ive? Is that what he said? Yeah, that's the
elf downstairs I know downstairs. Okay, all right, some elements are coming
together. I think I need to go speak with her. You two have
been terribly helpful in your services today. When Pierre's done vomiting in the hallway,
I am going to ask you to describe the events that you witnessed as
you came in to him for the report. I am going to go speak
with the grieving down the hall. But I am going to ask you to
exit this room and not If there's anything you need to get from your lodgings
at this moment before you leave, let's do that right now. Otherwise I'm
going to have to exit this hallway with you, and we're not going to
be permitting you back up here. So let's go ahead and take care of
that now. And I'm going to close this room. So and she kind
of escorts everyone out. I would say that I don't Pharaoh does not have
anything really in the room. Most of what she has is on her,
like she has a pack on her. I don't think I don't think she
would leave much Like my favorite toothpaste is in there, let me go get
it, and like goes back to like check the toiletries one more time.
Is there a little soap that I can take? Phone charger? Yeah?
Yeah, Like Skink was maybe like a little bit freer with leaving, like
do dads in the room stuff that wasn't like terribly important, but like just
a nice convenience, and is also curious to just double check to say,
like did they want to mess with our room? It's like somebody killed a
guy up here, did they go in our room at all? As you
go ahead and make a precision roll for me, precision role, we're gonna
say, I'll say, sometimes I like to just sort of see how you
roll and then kind of figure out how things go. But this time,
I'm gonna say, you're looking for a twelve or higher, all right,
So it's gonna be a D twelve plus two for precision, and it is
uh thirteen eleven plus two thirteen. Okay, on a thirteen, you are
confident no one has been in your room since last you two were great.
I collect my hotel toilet trees and I am out there are not much.
It is that much, but really it's like have it. I think it's
like the pip's favorite rocks and pebbles that he's picked up since you've been in
town, or like stashed in there, and like a chicken bone that wound
up up there for some reason, and like you know, it's that kind
of stuff. Can't leave your bones behind. You got to take all your
little bones with you, okay, So you I feel like they would like
flounce downstairs, like, oh my god, we get to go pick out
a new expensive room, which see you what to look for. Fair is
pretty unfazed. She's happy about the gold so and I don't know, you
know the guy who said he'd pay us three platinum to find his friend is.
I think they're staying at the Midwinter Sun. We can always check that
out. Oh hell yeah, let's go. As you guys come down the
stairs, you do see that Elvin woman across the room at the same table
she was yesterday, definitely watching you. We're we're not super was in tune
with what we look like maybe to other people, or maybe we are,
but we aren't. We just don't care. I don't know, but I
like hold my hand up to like Holt, like a Holt skink at her
chest. Yeah, because I think Skank sees the elf looking at them and
is just staring right back, just like full eye contact, full eye contact
like I see you, I see you gestures. I don't know. Fare
is a little Yeah, I'm seeing this unfold as like a cartoon thing,
where like Farah very carefully has like an arm out that is like both blocking
and holding Skink at the same time, as like Skink and the elf are
locked eyes the whole time. But you just walk us both down the stairs
and out the door like a cartoon without Yeah, it's like a weird,
like a weird slow motion walk. That's what I'm imagining. Yes, And
then when we get outside, I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna say, should
we go back in and talk to her? I don't like this she gestured
for us to come over, because that's annoying to me, but rude by
rude. We just got paid by that nice martial law lady, and I
just want to do what she said, so I think we should go.
And she also sent her last group on a quest where they someone died because
of it. So I am tempted because I have a feeling it would be
lucrative and also something interesting. But I don't know Skank's gonna say, like
she's gonna be there every day. We can come back tomorrow and talk to
her. I like it. Also, it just means that I get to
ignore her. Come hither. So let's go to midwinter Sun and then it
like flounce off, thinking like, haha, she can't tell us what to
do. She can't tell us what to do as our dominiontive Dungeon Delvers flounced
to the midwinter sun, away from away from someone who we absolutely believe is
a murderer. I would say, who is absolutely a plot hook for this
from the GM, just like, oh, all of my fellow gms,
pour one out for me. You know exactly how I'm feeling. The midwinter
You hold hands and skipped through the snow. You head to this don don
don don hey, it's your friendly neighborhood game master C. D. Corrigan.
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Find the links to all of that well, depending on what app you're
on, exactly where you'd expect to find such things. Now, let's get
back to the show. So you two scamper off into the permanently dark,
snowy streets of Oscar towards the midwinter sun. I'm going to just for setting
the scene. You guys had a nice little trek out into the wilderness after
dinner, you came back, you helped work on a murder case. It's
probably getting towards midnight right now. It is cold as shit outside, Yeah,
cold as hell outside. The streets are pretty clear at this point.
Like, yes, a lot of people kind of keep weird hours in us.
But also now it's dark and cold and late, so not nearly as
many people out on the town right now, and the wind and snow have
not embedded in the slightest. It is cold and dark and snowy outside,
but you have been around town for a couple of days. It's not a
huge town. You know where the midwinter sun is. You approach a large
building, and one thing you've seen in Osk is a lot of these buildings
are made out of kind of a combination of like quarried stone and heavy timber
construction, plastered thick walls trying to keep as much heat in as possible.
Some of the older buildings in town. A lot of this looks like newer
construction, as weird as that is, so like newer timbers, not as
weathered, mostly plaster, a lot of wood shingles, that kind of thing.
Midwinter Sun is one of the older buildings in Osk. It is mostly
stone, including chunks of much larger like a blue streaked stone that you see
in some of a lot of the older buildings in town. Not nearly as
prevalent in these smaller or newer constructions. These big kind of monolithic almost not
quite like cobalt blue, but kind of bordering on that range of like it's
streaked through with different minerals and things, so it gives it this very like
almost regal appearance, like exotic marbles and stuff, even though it's not marble.
It's more of a granite or something like that. Midwinter Sun is a
larger building unlike the Long Haul. It is built as kind of like a
rotunda, Like it is a circular, semi circular building with a sort of
a domed roof at the top, still out of tile, but you do
see there is sort of like a raised portion as you approach it in the
center of it, with like a steady stream of smoke coming out of it.
As you enter this building, I don't think you would have been here
before unless you had any particular reason to go hopping between the different taverns and
hotels inns. Rather. As you enter this building, it is warm,
similar to the long Hall. They've got a number of like smaller hearths around
the perimeter blazing at all times. In the center, there is a large
fire pit kind of like elegantly decorated like stone, almost like a giant what's
the word Brasier bonfire. Yeah, I almost said Beziers. That's not right.
There's this large like fire pit decorated with stone kind of carvings around the
perimeter. Everything about this building is just a little bit older and more refined
and kind of more original to like the older town before this gold rush boom
whatever's going on right now. That smoke is funneled out through that central stack
at the top. What you see is kind of like partially opened, but
obviously all the heat is coming out of there, so that the cold is
not really getting in as long as the fire is going. There is a
central like bar island kind of deal as you walk in, sort of like
taking up like one sort of arc segment in this round room and seating on
a number of terraces that kind of stare step down into the center of this
room. Lots of different tables and booths and benches and seats kind of all
scattered around to sort of all face this central like warm fire. Here.
There is around the kind of second and third floors of this building. It's
all one big open chamber. But around the second third floors you do see
balconies like a walkway going all the way around, almost like a catwalk,
with individual rooms kind of fanning off of it like spokes of a wheel.
Cool. Yeah, So you walk in, the bar is most directly in
front the main door, and there is a larger Oh let's see here.
I'm gonna look at my list of NPCs. I've got to decide what lideage
to give them, because I'm trying to think of a fun one. Yeah,
okay, you walk in and see a surprising site in Osk. A
larger, kind of more full figured mayre woman is standing behind the bar,
covered in a lot of furs. This amphibious species that you would know much
more common down towards the coast, tumble Frey, the rending sea, simmarint
Ocean, but has found her way here to ask, and she kind of
greats you as you walk in. Hey, welcome, welcome in, close
the door, close the door. It quickly, yes, thank you,
appreciate it, and sort of like scuttle shuffle up to the bar and like
a great mood because like now we're to own a fancy place. It's love
said, Yeah, welcome to the midwinter sun. My name is Maria.
How can I help you this evening? Can I get you something to drink?
Maria, We will absolutely have something to drink and we will be staying
the night, so poor big fantastic love to hear it. I've got a
fine vintage red all the way up from Chris is gonna look at his map.
I've got a fine vintage end all the way imported in from Springs End.
If you would like that, If you're in the mood for something a
little heartier. I've got a fine got a fine point guy or Rye that's
come up the bit of road a few months ago. That's really been quite
popular. Sort of a richer. I'm not actually quite sure what they make
it out of him, more of like a Rye whiskey type of beverage.
We'll take a wine and a shot. I love that, love to hear
it. That'll be one silver, please, and pouring. I look at
Pharah like Parah is carrying the money here. I think Pip is carrying the
money. I look at you. You look at Pip. Little beak just
pops out. That's uh. I'll make change. She kind of makes change,
comes back with five silver just or sorry, that would be he handed
you a gold coin, nine silver, I got it right, and silver
from she gave a silver. You've got all sorts of denominations. It's just
a matter of what Pip's carrying in your hood. Yeah, had a gold
coin. He's not counting. He's just like, all right, so how
many silver is that? You would have lost? The gold gain nine silver?
Okay, and we had three, which I think skinks. You might
want to write that down. I guess who's been writing. None of this
down to write. Do you want me to record the currency any mind?
Yeah, if you record the currency, that'd be awesome. But maybe after
the recording we'll like compare notes to make sure we all know how much money
yet Right and Farah are participating in fractional reserve banking. That joke is going
to make me sound so much more educated than finance than I actually really know
what it meant. Don't comment, I don't care anyways, Love you,
love you all. So the bird delivers a gold coin? Yes, the
bird has delivered a gold coin and our drinks. I guess we should also
we'd also like roo you can take that out of the change from a gold
coin? Or how much is a room? Standard rooms are three silver a
night. Our deluxe suite is eight silver a night. I think we look
get into the like, how fancy are you feeling? Farah is very like
I feel like practical, So she wouldn't go for the fancy room. Would
Skink go for the fancy room? I think Skate already feels great that we're
here, so like, probably whatever their their regular room is is gonna feel
like a fancy room. Yeah, yeah, We're gonna go with one of
the regular ones, so I'll push three back to her for the night.
Standard room excellent. We've got openings on the second floor. I can put
you in immediately, no worries. They do have one stuffed bed a piece.
Would you like us to bring in a second cot? Do we care?
I think Skink has spent a lot of time on the floor, and
it is like, of course I want to cot. I'll have it brought
right up, thank you very much. And there was like no question at
all that far was gonna get the bed and Eskate is like, where do
I sleep? Like it? You are welcome to enjoy our common room at
all hours of the night, although after this time of night we do ask
for quiet hours until the eighth tolling of the bell in the morning, so
please just kind of keep it down. Tomorrow we do have a live performance
coming in. A Harlequin troop is passing through town and we booked them here
for the next several nights. They'll be arriving around dinnertime. We have three
meals a day that are available at a discounted rate. While you're staying with
us. Please make yourselves comfortable. This is awesome. This is totally awesome.
Yes, I agree, this is totally awesome. We did spend four
hours walking outside and then we spent an hour hanging out in a general's store,
and then we like solved a murder case. So I think my cursory
glance and then be like, I want to go drink in bed, and
it's gonna be great. Yep, you're making a cursory glance around the room.
Go ahead and roll a precision check for me. One needs to do
it. Yeah, go ahead, go for it. Oh eleven, I
got a thirteen again? Thirteen again? Yeah, eleven plus two beautiful,
So an eleven and thirteen beautiful. Both of you clock. They're not hiding
or anything, but you do see kind of across the way, sort of
like on the mid step, so like on each kind of stair step down
into the central fire pit. There's like staircases all throughout the room, little
like half flights of stairs. Because each step down each platform is like three
or four feet, it's enough to kind of like make a little wall to
put tables up against and whatnot. There's like a railing on each platform.
It's a nice, cool little space sitting across like through the fire from where
you're standing, but fire is not like so huge that you can't see through.
It is actually brunskull. And he is talking to a younger woman.
Hard to make out a lot of details at this distance, but I think
you would clock pretty quickly that she is in fact a fiendling. He looks
exasperated. He's kind of like leaning and like just putting pressure on his temple
or like pinching the bridge of his nose. She is a little bit more.
She's almost got kind of like a teenager affectation to her, just like
you can see her kind of waving her hand dismissively, rolling her eyes.
And they've got some meals in front of them, and they're obviously having an
ongoing conversation. What would you guys like to do? I thought we were
going to go up to our room and just do like friend talk, like,
oh my god, can you believe this happened today? Yeah? I
was gonna say, sking to you. I see the guy we talked to
earlier. Do you want to talk to him again? Or should we just
go to sleep? Go up and go apit? I mean, we do
have one drink to finish. Does he look like he wants to be interrupted.
We could absolutely interrupt him for the length of one drink and then unceremoniously
leave. I'm okay with that. We could also ask him if he wants
to chat in the morning, if he's still looking for his friend, I
could always still have help with that, only if you want to. Yeah,
Maria puts your glasses and shots down and puts a key on the bar
across from you. Guys. If there's anything else I can do, I
will be retiring myself in about an hour. I will have someone down here
at the desk overnight, So just come on down and ask at any time,
and we'll be happy to accommodate. Thank you, Thank you, of
course. And I think I take my glass of wine and my shot scoop
back, and then I look at Sarah like, Okay, are we gonna
go over there and talk to that guy? Then sure, let's do it.
Farah's gonna take back her shot and place that back on the counter,
and Grandpa blazing wine. It's a good burn, like it's smooth, but
like you can tell, whatever this is packs a wallop, So noted.
Sarah had no idea what she was talking about with the lake. She knew
of the places where these libations are coming from, but she did not know
enough about like fancy alcohol to like even really care. But she does note
that it tastes good. Yeah, yeah, this is like a I don't
think Sarah, if she doesn't have like a liquor and spirits palette would know.
But for our benefit, this is like a good mid to top shelf,
like whiskey. Nice. Yeah. I think skink from all of her
time just like spent shooting the shit with people, has like picked up a
bunch of knowledge about things that people like to imbibe. And it's like right
up there with her, Like smoking stuff is like socially drinking and socially smoking.
It's just like nice to have some preferences. It's a good skill to
have in a lot of situations. By the way, just behind the screen,
I was trying so hard not to say Scotch as I was coming up
with just a drink on the fly here, because I was like, oh,
I'll give him like a Scotch, And then I was like, Scotch
implies the existence of Scotland in Rubica, and that just doesn't work. You
can't anyways, You guys head over towards Brune School as you approach. They're
not being sneaky or anything. I'm gonna say. You approach from behind Brune
School, you see, you get a better look at this woman that he's
talking to. She's definitely younger, maybe twenties, hard to say with feelings
sometimes, but young woman with these kind of like onyx colored, glossy goat's
horns like rams horns, kind of curling back from her forehead, kind of
cropped like neck length, shoulder length, bob cut like dark hair, reddish
skin that is like crimson red skin with like just the faintest hint of texture
that's a little bit more like lizard esque than a normal like human skin complexion,
so almost like a hint of scales in there, a smidge, and
of course a spade tipped tail that you can see kind of like that thrashing
around a little bit under her robes as she's talking, as like a subconscious
equivalent to like talking with your hands type deal, and you hear her as
she's approaching like Broun School. He'll be back in the morning. I'm sure
you know this is what he does. It's not a big deal. I
don't see why you get so bent out of sort about it. You always
fight him on this and it just it's, oh, hello, hey,
we do the like fancy c and ui here again, looks like we're the
same hotel. Look at us. And then skink like like taps her taps
her shot on the table, and then she's it like isn't this great that
we're all here again? Uh? No check necessary. You see brun Skull
just flabbergasted this old man with this like wispy beard and like terrible balding monk
cut uh and you see the fiendling with him just look that like mischievoush like
young person delight of like their authority figure is flustered and just being like brune
Skull, did you make friends? To be fair, we did choose this
place because we knew he was here. Ska, oh you saw it?
Are you? Does that mean that you found my found my ward? We
did not. We just got displaced and I figured this was as good as
any place if you're staying here. So I see you haven't found your ward
and you're still looking for him? Yes, that is uh unfortunately, And
you see the girl just kind of like rolls her eyes just like he's fine.
I'm sure. I'm pretty sure this is just did he drag you into
this? Like this is an ongoing thing between these two. It's not that
deep, I swear, Like how often does it happen? Is he missing
every night? I wouldn't say every and Brunece school just goes at least once
a week. Interesting? And do you know what does he tell you where
he goes? Is it for his food? FOODI love? He just gets
really curious and he likes to like whenever we come to a new town,
he likes to go around and say, ed, that's quite enough. He's
he doesn't tell us where he's going. He does tend to just get excited
about new places and it comes back later. And that's fine when we're in
a safer type of town down south. I get nervous when we come out
to these frontier places with anything could happen, Like I don't think there's a
lot of murders in Osk probably, but like there's wild animals here. The
weather is bad, and it's my job to keep an eye on him,
and he doesn't make it easy, and I get in trouble, and I
don't appreciate Arilla that you don't help me on this and you just enable him,
and she's like, he's fine. Run school, it's not a big
deal. I'm going to have to ask for help, but don't call in
the others. It'll be fine. Uh. They've clearly been having an argument
about this for some time. I think when he said there probably aren't murders
in Osk, I think uh Skink just did the thing where she like puts
her cup in front of her face and then just like looks at Farah like
you do, trying like we don't we're not gonna say anything. Do we
need to say anything? And you're gonna see Farah go like she's like has
her cup and she's like absolutely not. Sinks like you got it our little
secret he could find out tomorrow when the whole town is talking about it.
You guys have that little exchange, and you see she kind of what was
that? You know, she like gestures like with her finger and her tail
at the same time, like what was that little thing? Uh Skink immediately
loves being pointed out with the tail and is like this is my kind of
girl. Noted add more fiendlings to campaign. Uh but again, Skik is
like, well, Ferre told me not to say anything. I don't know
if I should. Are we saying it? Are we saying it? Heavy?
Sigh? Go ahead, what's going on. The whole reason we're here
is because we got kicked out of our hotel because there was a murder over
there. You see, Go ahead and roll a cleverness check for me.
Check either one of you. Okay, guys, I get a plus three
on that eleven eleven? Uh brunschal immediate panic? Who did you? Did?
You? Did you have? Not your friend? We know who it
was. It was not your friend? Who wasn't? So you know that
kid that was being really loud in the bar buying everybody drinks? Oh yeah,
I mean, I don't know if I'm supposed to share that information because
it's technically under investigation. But to ease your worries, it was not your
friend. That's unfortunate. You see Arilla again does that kind of like she's
your clocking like probably in her younger mid twenties, has a bit of like
an immature quality to her, Like she acts a little bit more like into
her teenage years than you would think, but you see, she's kind of
doing that thing of like, oh, I'm out of like the pool that
I'm used to being the big fish in right now, and I'm realizing like
some adult shit is happening and I don't know what to do. Uh,
just kind of that really like freezing. Oh was it what it happened?
I wouldn't worry. It's I mean it was pretty targeted. Unless your friend
is helping out that elf who's hiring people. No, I don't think he
would have gone near missive. I don't think he'd be drawing attention to himself
then if he's just checking out local cuisines, you said, And then Skink
does what Skig thinks is comforting is is people die all the time. Don't
you know? You'll be fine just riding off that cleverness. Check still broom
school weirdly better with that statement. The young woman deeply uncomfortable, just like
a little shell shocked from it, just like well you know, there's that
like teenage and vulnerability sense to her. And then you know it's like,
oh, I just some shit just happened next to me, Like what do
you Is this gonna be a thing? And these two are acting like it's
normal. Yeah, yeah, well it is. It's that like first exposure
to like, oh, these are people who I came in here real hot,
and these are people who clearly are used to dealing with shit that I
am not emotionally calibrated to handle. Well, uh yeah, so I'm sorry
you haven't found your friend yet. If you would like help, I mean,
we're I'm I think we're pretty tired. We were planning and going to
sleep. But if you can't find him tomorrow, we can help you.
That would be greatly appreciated. Actually, sorry for volunteering you, skinks,
Sorry skinks, skik is just like, of course we are, you know,
just going along, you see. Bruinskal kind of looks over to the
young woman who we called. Are really what we call? Or really?
I got it right, I might have said Arilla before. It's fine.
He looks over to really and says, this is why I worry. Do
you understand now? She just yes, Master Brooks go, I'm sorry.
Yes, if if you would help me find our young lord tomorrow, that
would If these kind of things are happening around ten, I certainly would like
to keep him on a shorter leash. That would be fantastic, And then
Skiing just goes, I'm sure he'll be fine, and then winks and says
sweet dreams and like starts to walk away from the table. Yep, Fairy,
you see Aurelia as just like completely oh it's this, I really like
just that clear sense of like I didn't want to take the adults warning seriously
and now they were fucking right, And that's a problem. That's a problem
for me, Like I've got to reevaluate some shit too bad. Fare is
a little socially awkward, like she gets around. So far she's been fine,
but like in this situation, she's a little too serious for her and
she's like with like especially a younger person's emotions. So she like is like,
yep, guess a good night, just walks away as you say that,
you feel as you turn, you feel Pip leave your hood and really
it just goes what and Pip pops back on your shoulder and he's got a
little scrap of something as being like he stole something off her plate. Pip,
what if I told you about taking other people's food. It's delicious.
Grab a bigger bite next time, mother, Grab a bigger bite. Uh,
you, guys, head up the stairs. She's got you on the
second tier of rooms here at the midwinter Sun, I almost said midnight son
again the midwinter Sun. You opened the door to the standard room, which
is roughly twice the size of what you were staying at over at the Long
Hall. This is again mostly a stone room. There are a several layers
of different firs kind of on the stone floor to give the room a little
bit of warmth. You see that in set into the wall in the space
that would be kind of in the wedge between rooms as they kind of go
around the circle. There is a little flu i guess is what you would
call it, a little like there's no ventilation or opening on it, but
there's like an iron tube running up from one of the hearths below you on
the main floor that is radiating a lot of warmth into this room. So
it's a very comfortable space. There is a tiny, tiny little slit of
a window at the just with like a couple panes of glass covering it up,
clearly made small to let a little bit of light in when there's light,
but also a lot of times there's no light here and you don't want
the heat to get out, so just it is what it is. And
there's a a again fur covered bed off to one side, a small cot
with a pile of furs on it put off to the other side that has
been brought in. And there is a chest in the middle of the room
that is left open for you guys to secure any belongings that you want to
store here while you stay. And a little basin of water sitting off on
a table to one side. This is awesome. Skak like dives into my
pile of furs on the on the cot and then reaches into their pocket and
just takes out the little flake that Pip had given me, had dropped into
my pocket and just starts examining it, just holding it up in my fingers
and looking at what this flake is that Chester sort of died for. I
mean, like it wasn't really the flake, it was something else. But
this is what happened, This is what Chester was out doing. So this
is here. Pharah wants to examine it. So hey, skink, can
I can I see that for a sec And I'm like loath to let it
go for a second, but I've passed to give it back. I pass
it over. I am going to say both of you can make either a
knowledge or a willpower check. And this is one of those situations where there's
no like failure state. This is a matter of like, the better you
do, the more you will learn. In these different categories, it's the
same modifier either time. So eleven plus three fourteen fourteen. Did you want
to go knowledge or willpower? I think for Farah, since she works with
magic and sorcerers are attracted to this, I would go with knowledge because there
might be some sense there, some scientific understanding fourteen knowledge from Farah. I
picked willpower to see if I could like sense anything about it, but I
only rolled a three three. Okay, well I said that. There's not,
like I said, a failure state here. It's just a matter of
getting extra information. So the three on willpower will start there. You're not
going to learn a lot extra But I think as you hand it over to
Farah, you feel this like etheric tug as you kind of pass it over,
this like sense you know you're used to. For those listening at home
characters in Rubica in particular and Relicked as a whole, there's a lot of
magic going around. Everyone has the potential to access magic. We use the
metaphor it's like music in the real world, where even if you're not musically
inclined such of myself, I don't know the first thing about music, but
I can clap my hands on beat and like make mouth noises and potentially make
something approaching music or rhythm with great effort. But some people can play many
instruments, some people can sing, some people can you know, compose and
do all sorts of other stuff. And that's kind of the same way that
magic works in relict. You may not be inclined towards it, you may
not have developed that skill, but there is a little essence of like potential
in everybody. You skink in particular, are a mage, you practice of
the arts of necromancy and some other things that we haven't really gotten into on
the podcast yet, but we will. And so you're a little bit more
in tune with the sense of like moving etheric energy through your body and like
drawing energy in from the from the ether into the material world and working it
and creating effects. And you just feel a little bit of resonance as you
hand this fleck over of like, oh, there's something kind of on that
wavelength. It's almost like holding onto a magnet while another bigger magnet kind of
passes by. Farah Knowledge fourteen. You are an enchanter. This actually works
really well. I love it when the dice kind of cooperate with us like
this. You immediately clock. You kind of have that same sense as Farah
hands it or I'm sorry, as Skink hands it over to you, you
have that same sense of like, oh, there's some like etheric resonance happening
here, Like this is an item that's material, but it has a deep
connection to that outside the material energy that powers magic, the powers your enchantments,
powers your ruins and conjuring weapons and all sorts of stuff. And you
immediately get the sense that, like this is a tiny, unrefined mote of
this stuff. But your mind, I think, lights up on a fourteen
with like, oh, oh if I had a big chunk of this,
a lot of things I could do magically. This would allow me to work
with effectively more manna than I have in my body. Ah, Like,
this is something very interesting, and I think you immediately get the sense of,
like, oh, this little piece right here would be of some value.
I would be curious to know, with the right laboratory, with the
right equipment, if it could be enhanced, if it could be concentrated,
if it could be a raid, if it could be built into things,
if it could be you know, does it get used up, does it
expend itself? Is there a cost to using it in this way? But
like, this is like almost like a little chunk of manna in your hand.
Okay, all right, I promised Skink that I would give it back
to her. I'm like, oh, this is cool. I'm gonna get
myself some of this because I have got to try a couple of things.
Skink also thinks it's really pretty. It does blow it like emits like a
soft like blue cerulean light too. But uh, I think Pharaoh would never
betray Skink's trust when it comes to giving her her trinkets back. So she's
going to give it back to Skink. We're gonna have to get a piece
for me, so for sure, Skik is not even like we're going to
get a haul at some point, right, Oh yeah, probably need our
own little expedition at some point. I'm totally in for this. Yeah,
yeah, yes, one of you whoever, I guess it would be Skink
in this case can add to your inventory small unrefined f like okay, one
small unrefined flake and we don't know really what it does. Yeah, we
just have a sense that it will do something later. No, I think
you have a sense that it is magical and interesting. And Skink is looking
at it and it's like could it be a necklace? Will I make a
bracelet? And and is like is thinking like where where is this going to
go? Like it's in my pocket for now, but is already thinking of
this as like something that will be shaped and molded eventually. Farah like is
recognizing it as like extra magic essentially, like a sink of I don't know
what I'm trying to say mana anyway, So she's wants a piece right now
and she's saying this to Skink. I think I could maybe use that to
have access to more power essentially for my enchantments. Yeah, but I want
to see, like I don't know my use itself up, Like if I
if I, if I tap into that manna, it might zap the stone
and it might not you know, be able to do that anymore. Or
if we had a big piece of it and it just kind of is continuous.
Then it's possible that I could just have a nice big thing that gave
me access to more power for enchantments. We could get to use some for
more manna for necromancy. So cool. There's a lot we could do here,
and I'm pretty I could. I could put runes on it. My
rune enchantments would be so powerful. Oh my gosh. Maybe I don't know,
but I'm excited. You're having this conversation. A knock on your door,
I immediately hide it under my pillow. Do you want to open the
door? Do you want me to? And I'm like, who, which
one of us do you think is more uninviting? I think, oh,
that's a difficult I think I am like mostly I think Fair is mostly cordial,
and but like doesn't actually necessarily like to interact with a lot of people.
She'll do it, and she'll do it if there's a purpose to it,
but right now she's real irritated because she wants to go to bed.
So yeah, So actually, then Skink is like nervous and thinks better of
it, grabs the flake from under the pillow, says, you hold this,
and I give it. I give the flake to you, because now
I'm like, I don't I just want I don't want anyone to know that
we have this and it needs to be on one of our persons. So
I go to the door and I open it like the tiniest slit to see
what's going on, and I just go what as you open the door,
there's the tiniest slit. You see you're two feet and changed tall. Yeah,
hope you see basically a Clydesdale hoof and knee leading up to this huge
horse chest up to a man's torso who is built like a Hensworth and just
like, yeah, you're welcome, ladies. You crane your neck up and
you see I think you would recognize the centaur that Cassie and Chester we're traveling
with. And yeah, you craning up to see the centaur this big.
You haven't really interacted with him too much, but he's looking down. He's
got this kind of long, like shaggy, like dirty dark blonde hair,
huge like wolf's fur type robe and like vest that is left completely opened down
the front, and just this like fucking washboard. As like you're welcome,
right, just going down to this like dark chestnut and black horse body that
clearly he is like stooping down to fit in the door frame to like look
down to you. Uh, is this skink? And Feria Farah and then
I just go no, and I shut the door and I and I look
over at Farah and they go, there's a really hot centaur looking for us.
I'm actually gonna stop and say, on there's a really hot centaur looking
for us. That's all for this episode of the Archive. You don't get
a better cut to black. Yes, this is fun. This is so
fun. I love it.