I have a question for you too, In the village of Osque, far
to the north of all the cities that we've ever talked about, on the
continent of Concord's reach, are you too already in trouble? Oh great question,
Oh midday twilight cast the frozen landscape in hues of gold and violet,
the feeble sun already retreating toward the horizon. It is not welcome here,
not now, not in this place that desires not its warmth and has no
patience for its shine. Soon the daylight will flee this land, entirely,
surrendering to the night's implacable grasp while it rallies its strength for the next summer.
But even as gloom claims the heavens, light is not banished. In
glittering defiance of the driving frost, sharp winds, smothering snow, and ever
deeper dark, the village of Oscar crowds one bank of the Kin River.
Within light persists, and the flickering candles set on window sills, and the
dancing flames of glass paned lanterns that line Osks, Twisting slush churn streets,
the warm glow of roaring hearth fire fills the ever dark rooms of the village,
in stubborn defiance of the pervading chill. Night soon comes to claim the
sky, but light will last the winter. Here. It gleams off too.
They smiles, shines off the steely rim of tankards, and glitters in
the shimmering surface of stews. It glints from coins as they change hands,
and flashes in darker alleys, knives are drawn and blood is spilled. Surely,
once some god of light looked upon this place and thought it unfit for
life of any sort. But as the gods have long mocked the plans of
mortals, so in turn have mortals ever scoffed at the limits God sought to
place upon them, these fickle walls built of danger and good sense. And
thus this village is in spite of all, And thus life shines within and
there, amid swirling snow and ember lights. We start our story. I
feel like I feel like Sarah is probably trying to like lay Low because they're
kind of appear because they may be avoiding trouble elsewhere, But she's not confident
that her friend Skink hasn't already. Okay, we're thinking the same thing.
I was like, maybe you're getting me out of trouble. Also, we're
gonna go ahead and do the thing that we're gonna do at the start of
every day on the Knicks archive, and we're going to roll for Pip,
who would like to be evens or odds? Oh evans okay, evens?
Okay, that is evens. Pip today recognizes Sarah as mother. Yay.
So we're gonna start like this farah where it's midday but it's dark. We
are up towards the Arctic circle where we're not quite into polar night yet,
where the sun never comes above the horizon, but at noon it's like twilight
here. Sure, so fair uh midday, mid afternoon, pretty dark out.
Pip on your shoulder, our little ruffled, feathered, white, scruffed
raven companion. What are you doing not knowing where Skink is? Oh so
we're separated right now? Yes, I think that's gonna happen here. Okay,
I'm walking through town kind of trying to look nonchalant. I've I think
got a scarf that's wrapped around not just me, but also Pip, like
around my shoulder, like looped once around, Pip looped once around me give
this little puffball of feathers. Just ah. And I'm saying to Pip,
hip if you were other mother, where would you be? Pip kind of
cocks his head. You feel just sort of ruffling around in the scarf as
he does his side eyed thinking pose and just goes out. That is a
solid point right or or bones that actually has Sarah like cackling. She's probably
looking a little odd to people on the street. I would assume I was
gonna say, would you describe Farah for us? As you walk along these
like you're in constantly like the best case scenario is knee high like wet snow
like these ere roads here. Yeah, so I Farah is a metallic silver
color of skin. Gnome gnomes are what meat small size small? Yeah,
small so kind of petite, metallic looking otherwise kind of unassuming, except wearing
weirdly like has this weird mashup of really nice equipment, like very clearly new
brand new coat, nice fur around the face like good gear. The snow's
up to her. Uh what you say me, well, morphs, I'm
small right, probably thigh height for a gnome for anome Uh in this terrain,
probably struggling actually pretty hard, despite the fact that you would think she
could like almost buy size maybe like kind of sit on top the snow a
little bit or at least more so than she is. But she like every
step she like fully sinks into the snow. Yeah, she is wearing underneath
her coat what I don't know what people would see, but it would be
leather armor. And has a sickle and a hammer. Oh that's very Russian
clost on her back. Accidental comrade, right iron comrade, the merging character
builds. Yeah, so she has she has a hand crossbow hanging off of
her pack. So she's got like small weapons, unassuming weird Miss Smash I
said earlier, the really good equipment, but also like some tattered stuff too.
She doesn't. She doesn't look like she makes sense. So as you
kind of come to these conclusions, where is Parah going to head to?
Hm? Okay, so local tavern, local cemetery. Mm Faira is thinking
cemetery. Okay, we pull away from Farah for the moment to zoom through
the snow and ice. It's a well sunny day is not really a thing
here this time of year, but the sun is trying its best. There
are always perpetual swirls as the wind comes sweeping down from the northern I believe
it's the Bulwark Mountains north of Osk, always constantly churning up this dry powder
into the air, kind of flipping, flipping and twirling and breezing through alleys
and across rooftops. Anytime you look into the wind to the north, you
get this like stinging needle sensation as it pelts your face. Where do we
find Skink right now? So Skink's first stop was the cemetery, But I
think by the time that Pharaoh gets to the cemetary, Skink will be gone.
So in this note like there will be footsteps to find, so you'll
find me eventually, very clear track left behind. Skink did go to the
cemetery because it's always nice to know who's dead. You know how many dead
people you got? Are they freshly dead? Are they really old dead?
Did a bunch of people die at the same time. You know, there's
so many things you can know about the dead by just going and looking at
the grave, the gravestones, or finding out like do they like they're dead?
Here are they taking care of well? They notice if someone goes missing,
like is this the kind of place where the graves are well tended or
sort of ignored, and it's good to know, good to know. I'm
going to give you the option. I think you've earned the first role of
the campaign here. I'm going to give you the choice. You can make
a cleverness or a knowledge role. The revealed different things, but let's see
what you learned from your cemetery survey. Also band name, right, they
well, those are the same stats, so I'll say, like the same
level. So I'm going to go with knowledge. Okay, take a roll.
What do you want me to roll for that? It'll be one D
twelve plus your knowledge score and if you want to use the tough so that's
going to be a six total three plus three three plus three six total.
Not the worst thing in the world, but not incredibly insightful. You've noticed
that, you know, OSK has a pretty big cemetery. It's just like,
yeah, you know, it's well, you think it has a big
cemetery. A lot of it at any given time is under like snow drifts,
but you know, the way the snow is kind of bumpy in different
ways makes you think, like I don't see the fence it might continue a
little bit further over there. Hard to say, but you know, it
seems big. It's a relatively small village in terms of like total footprint,
but that's about all you get from it. It's pretty cold and pretty snowy
out here, okay, And like the Skink also makes a mental note that,
you know, it's really hard to bury people when it's snowy all the
time. It's very hard to bury people if there is ice. So Skink
is wondering if there's like a lot of cremations done out here, and like
maybe maybe they have more burning ceremonies than burials. It's just something that Skink
walks away with. Yeah, like ceremonial headstones maybe hmmm mm hmm, klid
question. And then uh, with all of these, with all of that
running, you know, running around in my mind, I sort of gobbling
my way over to the tavern because Pip is right, those are the things
I care about the most. Also, it's called out and I just want
to be warm. As Skink is walking away from the cemetery, Marisa,
can you describe her for us? Yeah, Skink is a skinny little goblin,
not much to this body. It's a lot of skin and bones.
She's very small. Her hair is very messy, and she likes it that
way because then Pip will often make a nest in her hair. Her ears
point out at like a real jaunty shoulder level, and her clothes are really
buried beneath the giant fur pelp that she's covered herself with, like as of
the skinny little thing. She's not really good at keep you warm in this
cold weather climate, so she has got the most overkilled like parka coat seal
fur thing that she could get. Giant hood, massive shoulders, like those
leaves go like further than her hands, like like it looks like it's for
someone much bigger than her, but it was still the smallest thing she could
find. And just like massive furry boots to keep her feet warm. And
even then it's like she's still a little like banging around to them. They're
kind of loose, but they stay on and they're like they're boots that go
all the way up to her knees, which would be like a normal person's
like regular sized boot, but they're just too big for her, and she
still she still wears them, and that's getting around in them, so a
what like two foot nine shambling pile of furs and pelts trudging through the snow
at the cemetery. Yes, yeah, like the there's absolutely like the weirdest
tracks. It looks like something like very strange and like shifty with what leaves
way bigger tracks than she normally would to think that she doesn't walk up right,
she's like kind of hunched, like her knees come up pretty far,
and she's just shambling through these through the snow. In fact, as you
emerge from the cemetery, you see a pair of town militia like town watch
kneeling and examining your tracks going into the cemetery with like some confusion. And
then one of them as you as you start to approach the town again kind
of oh oh oh, all right, miss kind of just oh okay,
all right, we're fine, and Skink makes their way to the tavern.
So, the biggest tavern in Osk is called the long Haul spelled H a
double L, and I would think that that is probably the first stop for
most folks coming into here, as it is the tavern with the largest great
hall and a decent amount of lodging. The Long Haul is as the name
implies a long, low roofed structure with a number of burning hearts. Throughout
the common room, there are a set of cheaper kind of like partially partitioned
sleeping areas off to one side, but near enough to the hearths that it's
worth the coppera night to go in there and share a cot share bunk beds
rather with whoever else is staying the night. There are also a suite of
rooms up the stairs, kind of nestled into the crook of the roof,
sort of between the trusses, so kind of these like slow roofed slanted private
rooms up top. It's up to you, guys, whether or not you
would have splurged to get some of those. There's usually a couple available because
they do cost a whole silver each night, but there's usually a few on
hand. I think this, unless you guys have strong disagreements, would have
been the place that you would have come and maybe established as home base.
The bartender. There is a big burly orchiesh fellow named Roland brig Roland Bartender
of the Long Haul, I think recognizes Farah as you come in staying here.
I have tracked her, oh would you have been following behind her?
Yeah, I think he would have gotten there first, and Skink would get
there first. You are right, so Roland, urse get your anything?
What is your warmest beverage? Roland kind of looks around and he's got this
weird like tick of like thoughtfully scratch a broken tusk that he's got protruding from
his lower jaw, and just kind of, well, I've got some muld
wine that I can keep on the keep on the kettle over here. Uh,
it's probably our best for you. I do have a case of me
that someone left over by the hearth that's probably getting pretty spicy. That wasn't
intentional. But a bowl of mulled wine, then you want? You wanted
a bowl like a super bowl, a bowl of mulled wine? All right,
I'd be three copper and she reluctantly hands it to him. I think
Skink was pissed about how much the room costs and has been intending to steal
from other people in the tavern as much as is possible to like recoup the
costs. Roland kind of, you know, he goes over he like gets
a suit bowl from over by the cauldron where a big like hardy stew with
whatever they've got going is just sort of perpetually churning, brings it over to
the wine cask and just you know, ladles it out of well, I
guess I said it was being mulled. So he ladles it out of the
pots and figures out how to hold all right, and just delivers it to
you like soups. Do you want to you want to spoon? Now?
This is perfect? And Skink takes the bowl with like bull hands and then
just like SIPs out of the side of the bowl. That might as well
happen, and Roland kind of just lumbers off. He's a big, like
pot bellied, like blue green skin orc fella, get a little bit bald
patch in the back like he's getting up there in years, you know,
various stains and whatnot on his apron, but not probably one of the few
people here. You can always kind of tell the locals and ask one of
the few people here who is not heavily layered in many many like furs and
coats and boots and whatnot. They dress in in fewer, more practical layers
and just kind of suck it up in the cold. I think that is
something you guys have probably noticed in your time here. And I'm gonna ask
you, now, how many days have you been in town? I'm thinking
still not that many. I was gonna say not a lot, like maybe
one or two nights at this point. I would say almost one, because
we're still kind of exploring. Yeah, I think this is like our second
foll day. Yeah, yeah, like maybe we got here at night,
we had a day, This is like our second full day. Yeah,
that tracks, I'll say that. That I think is something you guys have
picked up on as you've sort of explored the town and gotten the feel for
the place. Is like there are very clearly two groups of people here.
The division you notice is there are the locals who live here, the townies,
right, and then there's a lot of people like you guys who are
like maybe a little bit more equipped, if not better equipped, but more
equipped, carrying bags, carrying gear and equipment and weapons and whatever. A
lot of people staying like a disproportionate number of inns in town here. Everyone
kind of coming through Oscar is sort of a gateway town. It's almost like
a gold rush like gold boom type situation. Various locals really for or against
this as they're they're wont to be. But yeah, skank, you settle
into the corner of the tabin. Are you gonna do anything else while you're
here? Just sort of hangout? Can I take a look around and see
who looks like either like the wealthiest person or the least perceptive person, like
someone who's just like kind of an idiot who might not notice if they're a
purse goes missiting. Sure, sure, go ahead and make a that'll be
a precision check. So one D twelve plus precision, D twelve plus perceiving
that is going to be a thirteen. Thirteen is pretty nang good. This
is of course a D twelve system for those listening at home, or D
twelve as our base dice. Anyways, Okay, so thirteen pretty good.
Uh, you notice a couple of people who look like they're doing fine?
There is Well, thirteen is pretty good. I'm gonna give it to you
in terms of like what you observe and then what like your tactical fieving brain
would notice in terms of like what's a good idea. Uh, there is
an Elvin woman sitting at a table across the hall who is very well dressed.
Yeah, a hair and a tight updo who very finely trimmed, like
fur lined, but like lighter weight but still warm, like dark midnight colored
robes. She's sitting and she's been having You've seen her here a number of
nights now. People come up and she has a conversation with them. Sometimes
gold exchanges hands. Sometimes they just kind of interact for a while and then
they go their separate way. Sometimes it's a whole group, sometimes its one
person at a time. But she's sort of running some sort of operation here.
She has clearly not got a problem splashing money around. But I think
Skink would have also clocked that she is very perceptive. Roland has a small
cash box behind the bar. You actually think probably that's not where most of
the money in this place is. The staff kind of changes it out,
it goes wherever it goes at the end of the night. But he's selling
drinks for a couple of copper, a couple of silver here and there,
probably not keeping an enormous amount of cash unattended on hand, but there's something
tuck behind the bar there. And then as you're sort of making you're sweep
here and I'm gonna say this time, Farah, you're probably approaching the outside.
If you're just following like Skink's weird shambling tracks through the town. You
and Pip are approaching in the long haul at this point, so you two
would clock at the same time. If Farah, you're coming in right now.
A young human heavily bandaged. He's kind of walking with a strong limp,
and he's got one arm kind of like wrapped up in gauze and that
you can see some stained, bloody bandages on his arm, but very happy,
smiling, raises a tankered up over at the bar next to walg A
roin another round for everybody, and just drops like a handful of silver on
the table and a couple of bear Oh yeah, all right, cool,
and Roland just kind of shrugs and starts dishing out tankards and just lining them
up on the bar for anyone who wants one. That guy Skink, I
think you would pick out pretty easily, as like has cash, not paying
a lot of attention. Looks like he loses fights, right noted Dulee noted
Fairy you come in, yes, so Farah, I need it noted that
she does not dislike Skink's mischief, but usually just tries to temper it so
that they can get around without getting into too much trouble. She's watching this
event occur. She clocks Skink, I would say, would know what's going
through Skink's mind, and just proceeds to the bar and grabs one of those
tankards that's free. You see, h Pip kind of like starts to like
poke his way and just this is like little exploratory beaking at the rim of
the tankard if you bring it in your hand, sir, can I get
a bowl of your stew? Please? All right? Roland goes over and
just puts it down and goes put it on the room please fair enough.
I think you will have clocked that Roland is fine putting things on the room
when it's on your tab, not so much on skanks at this point,
like Roland plays plays it slow, but he's not an idiot. He's so
hands you a bowl of stew as well. Okay, I immediately pluck out
a piece of meat to give to Pip, I don't think, and then
I'm gonna sit at the bar, little happy feather shakes. You're sitting at
the bar away from Skink for now, I'm gonna. I'm gonna okay,
uh skink, I think no problem clocking Parah as she comes in. Can
I, you know, give a give an acknowledgment or not, as you
so choose, you sit down at the bar and Pip kind of ruffles his
way free and like kind of weirdly spider crawl hops down your clothing, down
your arm and just sort of perches on the edge of the bar and is
like he won't He's a relatively well behaved raven doesn't directly dip his beak into
your stew, but every once in a while he will kind of just like,
yeah, tap the edge of it, kind of look at you like,
and I keep I'll keep scooping stuff out for him, for sure,
Mutton mother. As you are doing that, I think you sit next to
this young man who has you know, all banhed shop and has just purchased
around for the bar, and he's laughing and he's joking, and he's talking
to a woman next to him, who I think you would see that close
resembles him. Okay, what would you like to do? Is he just
actively talking right now? Or yeah, there are like three or four seats
away from you. And you see she's kind of leaning in, like chester,
you gotta we're all excited, but like, maybe slow down, man,
you've gotta like rest up a little bit. I'm worried about you.
You got you took kind of a big hit there. It's fine, it's
fine. We are set. This went so well. Let's just enjoy the
night. And you know, you guys head out. You'd be back tomorrow
night. We're gonna get out of here. This couldn't have gone better.
I miss having ten fingers, but otherwise couldn't have gone better. And I'm
very happy and I want you to know that. And I heard that alcohol
was good for the healing process because it kills germs. So Farah is gonna
lean in, like lean over and be like, lad, what how is
you so happy this evening to buy me a free drink? I do appreciate
it. You see that he looks over at you, and you as you
kind of lean closer. He's young, he's maybe twenty twenty one, like
he's a young dude, but he leans over because great to me. Great
elbow shake, elbow shake. I can't do handshakes right now. It's still
you know, hold on to my tankard. Here, I'm a little get,
a little banged up. We had the best expedition out to the foothills
this week we came back. We got a whole load of flakes. It's
awesome. We're gonna take him down south. We're gonna sell him and follows
grasp. We're gonna be set for life. We can head on down to
the coast. And I I want to start a tavern. That's what I'm
gonna do. I'm gonna start a tavern. But I do like ships.
I might I might start a ship tavern. Does that make sense? Like
a boat that is a tavern? And we could just say to all And
you see that the woman next to him kind of stops him and goes chester.
He's my brother's overly enthusiastic. We had some good fortune on an expedition.
And he's a couple of cups in but you know, you see she's
probably a couple of years older, and just it's not that big a deal.
But go ahead and roll cleverness for me. Okay, I was gonna
ask, would Pharah know what flakes are? You would have heard something for
sure, But go ahead, and after you do cleverness tack on a knowledge
role for me as well. All right, my cleverness role was eleven.
Okay, and you said knowledge correct a five okay, cleverness eleven. Uh.
The then with him is trying to downplay his boasts. She's worried.
You clocked that pretty quick. And I think Farah well traveled enough to be
like, yeah, not great to just walk into a tavern and be like,
mom, I'm rich, So not awesome with a five on knowledge.
You've heard people talk about Flake since you've got here, and you've gotten the
sense that like it's involved in whatever this like gold rush situation the town has
currently found found itself in right now, like people are mounting expeditions to go
gather these things, but you don't know a whole ton about it. Okay.
So Sarah is going to try to continue the conversation with Chester, right,
Okay, She's gonna say, I don't know about a tavern on a
boat. I don't like boats at all. I tend to sink really easily.
He kind of like squints that you, oh, you're you're uh uh
iron No right right, I knew, do you know? Carlo? No?
No, he was, he was, he was well he's about your
height, and he wasn't It wasn't iron, he was actually Copper. I
met him once. I come from the Iron clan. We don't write really
hang out with a copper plan all that much. So you don't, Okay,
Well, I was gonna ask you to tell him, I said,
hi, but I guess not. It's fine, It's fine, it's fine.
I'll carry that for you some other time. Yeah. Well, so
the boat, if the boat was just a first idea, it could be.
It could be a cart. Maybe maybe you drink and we all work
together to pull the cart around town to different places, and the cart's just
a bunch of kegs, and that could be fun. I think, I
don't know. I think I want to do something with alcohol and making money
from it. That sounds good. Alcohol often makes people money, and you're
imaginative. I'm sure you'll be successful. You hear Roland from the Bargoes not
for him tonight. He's spend a quite marit Chester. What are these flakes
you're talking about. I'm not familiar with them. I And you see the
woman with him just kind of like she goes to step in and then like
gets distracted by someone on her other side, who like grabs her and like
trying to get her attention. So Jester he leans in. He is,
flakes are the best. I don't know the first thing about him, really,
But here's what I'll tell you. That woman over there is paying people
to go out and find all sorts of stuff around here. She actually sent
us out to get a scroll, if you can believe that. Whatever.
But looking for the scroll, we found a whole vein of flakes, and
we were just like, we're gonna do. That is way more money than
she was putting up. We haven't told her yet. She might be mad.
It's fine. Flakes are these these little sparkly woods. It's you find
them in the ground like like like iron, ore, like gold, whatever.
But they're all over the place up here. You just go north of
the city, you head past the mountains, you start seeing veins of them.
They glow in the in the moonlight. Sometimes they're really pretty stuff,
little little spicy to handle with your bare hands, but it get gloves on,
it'll be fine. All I know is you chip some of those out,
you fill up a wagon, you fill up a pack, whatever.
You take them down south, and wizards will pay through the nose for this
stuff. We're gonna take him down. We've got a guy in follows Grasps
who said he would buy anything we brought back to him before we even came
up here and met the nice lady there, and we're just we're just gonna
do that. We found enough, but we couldn't carry it all. We've
got, actually well, especially because I got I got, I got mold
slightly. There's a bear. It was a thing I kind of gathered.
Yeah, not gonna lie. The alcohol's helping a lot on that front,
doing a lot of heavy lifting with the agony. So we couldn't carry it
all back. I dropped my bag all that stuff. But my friends are
gonna go back and pick it up tonight. We're gonna they're gonna I'm just
gonna hold down the fort. They're gonna go out and get it. Be
back in the morning and bing bang boom, we're on the next caravan down
south. We're all made a man. It's fantastic. You gotta get into
this stuff. I'm just saying, sounds like it interesting. Thank you for
sharing your story. What mould you? It was a it was a dire
bear. It was well, it was a big looked like a bear,
more of a tail on it, some spikes, I don't it wasn't good.
Popped right out of a snowdrift. Didn't see it coming and slapped me
around a little bit. And that was before before Orlow kind of kind of
caught up and smacked it and it went away. But took a hit.
Took a hit, bad time, bad time. I'm going to get a
gold fingermade you do that? And he shows you. It's like his middle
finger is what's missing. He's like, I'm gonna just gonna flip people off
in style. All right, Well, I'm happy for your fortune, sir,
thank you, thank you. Capt by a drink, you sure,
rolland another around and then you see his sister just kind of grabs it.
Okay, you're done, and she kind of shuffles him off. You see,
it looks like they've rented one of the private rooms upstairs for sure,
and they kind of there's like two other people with him. There's a there's
a tall or Elvin fellow who's you know, in robes and whatnot, who's
kind of like helping his sister heard him, and then he mentioned an orlo.
Uh, well, i don't think you would know who that is yet.
Okay, all right, at this point I will go over to Skink.
So yeah, so when Skink saw you come in the door, I
think Skink can, like you know, deep in the bowl give you a
little wink. And it has just been sort of waiting for you to come
over there. Okay, we'll find out what reconnaissance has been covered. And
Skate's been listening. And I don't think that guy kept his voice down at
all. No, no, most of them are heard. Yeah. So
now I'm just like, you know, waiting for you to come over so
we can discuss a plan. Mm hmmm, hello, hello friend, And
I'm sure you clocked that exchange, oh you did. But before we begin,
you must try this mulled wine. It's delicious, and she like offers
the bowl over, okay to have a little sip. All right, I
try it. It is delicious, You are correct, she just I feel
I feel like ten times warmer from the inside. Now. I could feel
it all the way to my fingertips. As you kind of take it back,
Pip pops over and like lands on your wrist and kind of like juice
get fucked up, Pip uh first f bomb of the podcast. I'm amazed
we made it an hour. All right, So before we talk about our
good friend Chester over there, what did you find any information from the grain
yard. Well, it's a pretty large graveyard, which you know is good.
Means a lot of people died here. That's that's always fun. But
but it's very snowy here. I am hazarding a guess that a lot of
people have been cremated. There's not a lot I can do with dust.
Oh darn, Yeah, that's a good point. Did you talk to anybody
in the graveyard? No? Not today, Not today, so we don't
have to worry about any m Not this time. We need to cover up,
not this tame. It was too cold out, it was too frozen
ground. Yeah, true, true, sure, Sue. So what do
you think about a pilfering a flake or two? I think that's a great
idea, especially since I find it curious that wizards are it was wizards right
or interested in it? I think that Well, I'm assuming the elf lady
is the one who was she wanted to scroll. I'd like to talk to
her. I don't know if I want to get entangled. She might hire
us, though, if we want to, you know, make money.
I mean we make scrolls. We like scrolls. We like making money.
Yeah, we like scrolls. I wonder what I mean. If they want
it, it's probably worth something. If we get it first, maybe we
can have it sure, And if it's not of any use, we can
you know, get money. Mmmmm uh, I don't know if I want
to talk to her. Do you think I can do the talking if we
feel like it's necessary. But we might be able to get more information out
of Chester. Good call, good call? Maybe maybe tomorrow. Did he
say his friends are going back out to get the He did say his friends
are going to get the pack. They're going back. If we want to
know where they went when they got all those flakes, we could follow them.
We could follow them, We could follow them. There is also a
dire bear out there, which something to consider. I mean, she looks
pretty bad, true, but you know, I'd rather come across a dire
bear than a man in the woods. I choas and skink takes a big
hearty golf of old wine. Yours to bears, Cheers to bears, cheers
to bears. Well, I also think that I'm not as stupid as chester
and uh, there's you know, it's probably his own fault. He got
mauled by that bear. Sure, yeah, yeah, No one not smart
when it comes to announcing his fortune. Absolutely, and no one else in
the party looks injured. No true, good point, good time. What
is your passive detection? Guys? How do I know what that is?
Beneath dark vision? Minus six? Okay? What would be my buff for
You? Probably don't have a buff for it unless you've done something very specific.
Okay, mine's five. Okay, both of you clock not being particularly
stealthy, people are moving and out of the long haul pretty regularly. There's
the door is kind of like tucked around its own little corner so the wind
doesn't directly blow into the main hall. But both of you clock a tall,
thinner man step in from outside, and I get this kind of wispy,
thin like salt and pepper beard kind of down to his chest, almost
like poking out from underneath his hood, and he kind of pulls it back
and bald head a little bit of like almost like a monk cut of hair,
just like thin around his ears and whatnot. But not, it looks
more from like lack of maintenance than it does like this is a fashion statement,
kind of looks around, and I think with your just passive perceptions alone,
you guys see him come in and unlike everybody else who comes in,
goes over, grabs one of the free tankards that's still kind of on tap,
or talks to Rolling about food or whatever. He starts kind of like
making a circuit of the place, and he's not trying to be very sneaky
about it, but he's trying to be unobtrusive, if that makes sense.
And he's just kind of like looking into all the nooks and crannies, all
right, kind of sighs and walks over, and he asks Roland for something,
and Rolling hands him a little mug of soup. After a moment,
sort of sits there and SIPs it. And you see that he posts up
in the corner so you can kind of keep an eye on the room.
And then I say to Pharah, do you think he was looking for Chester?
Maybe she looked like he was looking for someone, someone or something for
sure. Maybe Chester. Should we go approach him or I can approach him,
gonna ask for another bowl. So as you guys are having this discussion,
uh, Pip flies away from the table and like perches in the rafters
above the s guy. And you see he's looking up at this bird versus
mug. Yeah. And then I go like, oh, there we go.
I'll go, I'll go, I'll go get Pip. I'll go take
care of this one. Excellent. So uh skink sort of like shuffles over
to the uh the under the rafter, which is so now she's she's near
the man and if he's like sitting at the bar, so the top of
her head probably comes to like wherever he's he's seated like his hips so that
it's like small he doesn't notice you for a moment. He's just like small
messy goblin comes up and and then like from underneath him, he's gonna hear
like, hey, pick you want some wine? Uh Pip just and jumps
down and like lands on your head. Perfect. So now there's just like
the two of us right there in a stack little goblin raven stack. And
and I don't know if I guess, am I tall enough to be seen
over the bar? Like if I if I approach the bar to ask for
something, did they see me? Roland would typically notice you coming up if
you like pressed flat against the bar. I think that might be stretching it,
but as long as you're like a foot away, you know, the
angle works, right. Yeah. Plus now there's a bird, so he
could probably see the bird on top of Yeah. Roland definitely clocks all of
this, yeah, happening right here. And I was like another bone of
mulled wine. It was so good. All right, you uh, you
send the bird over here to pick it up first, or it doesn't matter.
And he he reaches over and takes the empty bowl from you and goes
and fills it back up again and gives it back. Not a lot of
hell standards in this place. And then I'm like, Pip, say thank
you to the kind gentleman. And then I'm assuming that this guy that's sitting
there has been watching all this. And then Skink just looks and he does
what You've never seen a raven before your life? I have, I I
gotta get it to the voice here. I've seen ravens before, miss I
haven't, uh didn't expect to see one up here. And osk but it's
fair enough. Fair enough animals with you at take with us. At this
point, Pharaoh walks up behind her, not much taller, just so stooped.
A fine crew you make there. He's got this very kind of like
wispy raspy voice and almost matches his beard actually, and then skin says,
I noticed you're not drinking any alcohols. Are you pregnant? He just laughs.
No, I'm not. Wouldn't that be a thing. But I'm actually
at work, as it were. My duties are not discharged, so I
will not be partaking in alcohol while I am here, save for what I
need in order to not drink poisoned water, you know, little little spirits
in the water. It keeps all sorts of things at bay. It's just
have you, either of you seen a young man walking around here about not
as tall as both of you and the bird all stacked up together, a
little shorter than me, good looking fellow younger, very defined like facial structure.
Sometimes his eyes glow in the dark. That might have That's usually the
tip off I should have led with that. I can't remember anyone whose eyes
gluted in the dark. I feel like we would have noted that. Yeah,
he'll turn up. I'm sure he likes to it, just as that
old guy thing where you like constantly is sort of like wetting his palette,
and he likes to sample the cuisine. So if you happen to various restaurants
and things and ask here, he's run off on me and he'll turn up.
I'm sure, but we have places to be, and it's rather quite
annoying when I have to chase him down every time he gets hungry. I'm
cuisine a euphemism for something not to my knowledge. I suppose it could be.
I suppose it could be. I don't think that's been going on.
I could be wrong, but he is a bit of a gourmet. Actually,
he's a he like he truly just calls himself a foodie actually, but
yes, he's Uh. I am staying over at the midnight Sun. I
think that. Let me make sure, mom, DM New City, New
City, mm hmmmmm. I'm staying over at the midwinter Sun, which is
not the midnight Sun. It's a totally different tavern. But we have a
set of rooms there. If you happen to see a young man with a
glow in the dark eyes who matches that description, tell him to get back
there, if you would. He sort of just takes a sip of his
his stew. Hm hm, m hmm. We can do that for you
do I I don't forgive me. I don't. I'm not out and about
commissioning favors that dolphin am I supposed to? I can give you stuff for
it if you find him. Is that good? We like stuff? We
like stuff. But Skink has kind of already lost interest in this. Yeah,
and it's like he's like for some guy who likes to eat what a
loser? And and uh it just has already started like shuffling back to the
table without even saying goodbye, just like turned around. It was like never
saw him, can't help you. As Skink turns around, parah, you
clock, he kind of reaches in as he's like I could give you stuff,
I don't and he pulls out like three platinum coins and it's just like,
I, yeah, I like stuff. I can help you find him.
Great, that would be that would be a big help. I'll take
those three stuff. I'm just kidding. I know that's a high price cleverness.
He's gonna roll against this. Actually six he kind of like holds him
for a second and just goes almost did it. Then he tucks them back
in his robes and he goes you get those after I find my charge.
Ah, that's how it works. I do think you clocked that this guy
is just not used to he is very out of his element right now,
Okay, yeah, for sure, all right, And I think Fair is
gonna like ruffle around in her stuff and she's gonna pull out like this like
old notebook. I be like, will you describe him again for me?
Of course, of course, and he gives you that description one more time.
He's for a taller, good looking man, glowing the dark eyes,
and he gives you some description of like the robes he was wearing, which
sound very similar to his own. They're kind of like a white bassed color
with like you see, there's some like trim internally outside of the outer layer
with like multi colored strands and like a sash and whatnot. So it sounds
like he's wearing a very similar outfit to that. Okay, okay, all
right, where can I and I can find you at the midnight the midwinter
sun. Yes, it's it's easy to confuse. My name is if you
need to leave a message, my name is Bruce School. And by that,
of course, Chris meant to say Brune School because I can read my
writing. All right, Brune school, all will be in touch right,
thank you very much. And then as I as he stands up, go
ahead, make a what do this means? I'm gonna leave it to you
either precision or willpower check for me. We're gonna go with willpower. Lovely
fourteen whoa. As he stands up, he kind of puts the mug down
and gets up and he turns to leave. As he puts his hood up,
you see just a little shimmer and his face shimmers a little bit,
and I think you clock with your enchanter abilities, you clock the hood he
is wearing is actually a magical it's causing a minor glamour on him. It's
putting sort of a disguise on and you just catch a little bit of distortion
as he works through it. And then he makes his way out the door.
All right, all right? Think in the meanwhile, I's like gone
back to the table and is playing catch with Pip with like a little bone
that she kept her pocket. So they're just like tossing it back and forth,
just this little bone and catch. It was very happy, just hopping
around it. He's not good at throwing, but you know, he tries
sort of just tosses it to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, toss
it down and then I can throw it again, like yeah, exactly a
first rape and that ever, it was cliber clever, clever, clever.
Well, I think our friend there is not who he says he is,
or rather who he presents as. You don't say, mmm, but if
we do see his friend, I know you didn't care as much about this,
but uh it was three platinum that we get from also, yeah out,
yeah, right, well I bet it'd be interesting. That could be
interesting. Think sounds interesting, right, all right? At this point,
like how close is it to bedtime? I know it's probably been dark for
a while. Yeah, it's definitely been dark for a while. It's you
know, it's weird up here. You guys have only you know, you've
bopped around town a little bit. It's probably getting more towards like dinner time
now, like five six o'clock in the evening. But you are also welcome
to have spent as much time in the heaven as you so choose, on
your hold on on your passive perceptions alone, passive detections alone. Rather you
had a five and a six, if that's right, yeah, okay,
uh, Skink. A couple hours later, you guys hang out, you
have a meal, you know, do your thing. You're conversing, talking
about your next moves, the trip up here, the things you found that
brought you up here, Skink. At one point you clock the woman who
was with Chester slipping out the door, very clearly has her hood up and
is trying not to attract attention. Okay, so I whispered to Farah,
Hey, this is getting boring. Let's follow her see if something happens you.
Yeah, And I'm like, and I think there's like a question,
and the invitation is like, this is what Skink's gonna do? Do you
want to come? Yeah? Right, okay, cool, cool, I'll
come. I'll follow. Yes. As you guys get up and move to
leave, Pip dives into your hood Farah and just honkers down into stealth mood.
Cute. Are you guys attempting to sneak behind this woman and surveil her?
What's the what's the plan of action here? Yeah? I tend to
be drunk out the door. Two bowls of mould wine body and a tiny
little goblin body. So this is definitely some alcohol fuel fun. But but
you know, we're pretty practiced at getting into trouble. So I feel like,
you know, I think Skate's got a overconfident sense about her. So
she like, yeah, I could be like so sneaky. I could be
the sneakiest, you know. So we're sneaking. We're sneaking. Maybe we're
not, we're really but yeah, like not really, but we're so small.
Maybe maybe I pretend for the benefit of whoever is in there, that
I have had so much to drink that I might puke. So I'm gonna
go outside. So I like clutch at my stomach as they go out the
door and sort of like exaggeratedly, uh use the railing and walls to like
get my way over to the door in like a herr, Like, oh
no, I hope I make it a time that's appreciated, says rolling.
Theirs totally playing into earth with it. So like she's like, everybody watch
out coming through or we've got somebody ill here. Yeah, is going like
I'll take care of her. It's all right, everybody, She'll be fun.
Happens all the time. Not a lot of question on you leaving the
bar this way, I will say, I will present you with an option
to actually follow the woman through town. You can roll stealth to remain undetected
and unseen. That will be a precision roll. However, because of the
wine, I'm gonna say that Skink is gonna roll that with a D ten
instead of D twelve, and you know, it is what it is,
and if you get detected, it's going to be maybe raise some suspicion.
Alternatively, I will let you guys roll together with a cleverness role to just
act like drunken fools, and but the downside will be that people will know
you're there for sure no matter what you roll. So I think we should
be sneaky and then if we are detected, act like drunken fools. Okay,
yeah, yeah, I think like as soon as we get out of
the out of the tavern, Skink immediately goes silent, like goes out to
like you know, oh no, I'm gonna hurl. They get outside the
door and then just sort of like now where it stealth mode? Yeah,
lovely, Okay, decision roll precision D ten for Skink and Farah. If
you've had a lot of booze, I haven't, but I rolled my was
three yeah, good old three right there, but I add to the shockingly
it's a ten, okay ten, and of three. Farah. So skink
walks outside and fades into a shambling mound through the snow and just blends in
with all of the other hunched robed cloak. Figures, Uh, farah,
you go to follow after her, and I think with a clang, like
bump in something and pip in your head. She goes and you you see
the woman kind of turning the corner on the block, like look around and
like see you, And all right, you do see as she looks back
a moment of recognition you were the person talking to Chester at the bar.
All right at this point, hmm, I'm gonna I'm gonna hang back pretty
far. I'm like, I'm gonna at that point like pretend like I am
like drunk and falling down and giggle and laugh because I knocked into something.
Do you want me to roll a cleverness? Yes, I will say.
She continues around the corner, but go ahead and roll the cleverness. I
don't think you would know if she or someone else is still observing you.
Okay, I roll a seven seven cleverness. Roger that okay, So Skink,
you leave Pharah behind pretty quickly unless you decide to like give up your
sneaking and turned back Sarah. You perform this like drunken clang clang clank before
continuing on your way. So Skink sees that you know, uh that Sarah
has made some noise. So Skink turns around, still undetected and does that
like exaggerated mouth so that she doesn't have to speak loudly, but she's like
mouthing and kind of like subtly. Uh Sarah does too, thumbs up sage
goblin mouth just lip syncing. Goblins can actually be lip red from a mile
away. Their mouths make them look a little taller even so then so then
uh Skink is like okay and continues sneaking off, assuming that Farah will follow
when the coast is clear, and Skig is like, I'm just gonna I'll
get there since nobody has seen me yet, and I'm just I'm just gonna
go for the both of us, okay, uh Skink, So you're leaving
Farah behind, uh Farah moving to catch up with her after you think like
the coast is clear, or however, I think I'm like moving but at
a much slower put pace, and I'm keeping the like facade of drunkenness on,
so like I'm like talking to Pip and I'm like sort of just shambling
kind of humming to myself as I kind of dance through the snow, like
trying to really put on a show. Roger that uh farah. You continue
along. You see this woman, you know, turns the corner again and
you're able to keep her in sight is joined by that like taller elf figure
as she goes, and they kind of continue forward together. You saw him
in the bar as well, helping Chester up the stairs. They are heading
looks kind of like north northeast towards the outskirts of town, kind of you
know, not taking like a super secuitus route or anything, but they take
a couple of corners that you realize with your like proficiencies that like they're just
checking, like it's a veneer of caution to like see if someone is actively
tailing them, but you don't think they have made you. She reaches a
it looks like a outfitters kind of like a combination of like a stable and
like a general store towards the outskirts of town. Another figure emerges heavily laden
down with like furs and blankets, and hands them both large sacks, large
backpacks that are they look to be empty right now. They're just kind of
passing them around, very light weight. This person is actually a centaur.
You see its dressed. All of them are dressed heavily for you would think
an overland expedition out here in the elements. The centaur is distributing a number
of what up here to be empty load bearing equipment sacks like backpacking gear,
duffel bags, that sort of thing, center carrying the brunt of it.
Frankly, as you guys watch, they exchange a few words, how close
I'm sorry. As Skink watches, they exchange a few words, how close
are you getting, Skink? I mean as close as I can stay within
the shadows? How close to the shadows go? I mean, if I'm
like, if I'm like up against buildings and going around corners and stuff like
staying under the eves, I'm trying. I'm trying to stay in the shadows.
I don't know how far away they are from a building, but I
think I don't want to be any closer than like twenty five feet. I
want to be like seeing distance, but not them seeing me right right twenty
five feet. Yeah, I think here, you know, with the wind
and the weather and whatnot, especially as night has fully settled onto this place
for quite longer than night normally settles onto a place. They're hanging out pretty
close, so just instinctively close to like the warmth of indoors that they just
left. So you can kind of creep around the corner and probably hear the
tail end of their conversation. And what you hear is this centaur's house Chester
doing. Yeah, he's all right, big lunk. He's just he's getting
drunk to deal with the pain. He's more freaked out than I think anyone.
He's not gonna tell anyone, but he's pretty freaked out. That bear
scared the hell out of him. So he's okay, you know, he's
I got him sitting tight. I talked to Roland. He's just gonna bring
him up some rations and kind of poke his head in on him overnight in
the morning, and he's out cold right now. I just sort of locked
him up and he'll stay there and hopefully we'll be back before he's up causing
too much trouble. I think he's gonna be hurting in the morning once the
hangover, for one thing. And the Elf kind of just chuckles and yeah,
he's he's a drinker, that one. I see, he really is,
and he's not normally, he's just he's young. He just got hurt.
I think it's the first time he's ever been really scared. So just
comes some slack. Hey, let's get it done. You know where we're
going. Yeah, no, we have marked the trial. Won't just talk.
And then the three of them turn and set out, and Skink I
think you see the human woman just sort of does a little gesture with her
hands and you see her eyes begin to sparkle with a spell of like dark
vision as they set out into the cold, and they are leaving town.
They are heading out into the planes. I think Skink will make her way
back to Farah to relay the information. So I'm gonna like shuffle back and
say, Ellie, hey, they're leaving town. There's like she she just
joined a group. They've got a centaur. The elf is with them,
and uh, they're going back for something. They just loaded up a bunch
of empty backpacks. I think they're up to They're up to something. I
don't think they're just going to get his backpack. No, it doesn't sound
that way. What do you think should be followed? I mean they are
on horses, they're gonna go a lot faster than us. But what else
are we doing tonight? I mean they're gonna leave tracks for sure. We
can follow them easy, easy, I mean, hmm, deaf call.
We could. We could look for the glowy eyed kid guy I don't know.
We could get a good night's sleep and then try to follow their path
in the morning if we're curious, or we could follow them now, or
we could go play with bones in the graveyard, play with bones. We
don't know where the glowy eyed guy is. We'd have to go looking a
bunch of places we're not sure about. Well, he likes food, supposedly,
Oh that's true. We could just how many taverns does his place have?
Great question? Great question, you've noticed more than a town this size,
probably should. And he's a gormand so we can roll out all of
the the lesser ones, anything that looks like a cheap dive. He's not
there, true, true, Yeah, so I guess the question is do
we want to search warm places or cold places? Skink, I'm gonna leave
that one up to you. And one of those has a dire bear.
You're not scared of a little bear, are you? I'm not a little
bear. You said, how much did that guy say that he was gonna
pay you? It's re platinum platinum. But if we follow the other people,
there's like untold riches. I mean, those flakes seem like they're worth
a lot. We don't know if they're actually after flakes, but there could
also be a scroll. There could also be a scroll. And if they're
leaving at night, whatever it is is worth so much. I don't know,
man. I mean, like I we got this far, We've been
in this city for like a couple of minutes. We could go out,
right, we could go out. Let's have a little fun, go out.
We could go out. If we wait till morning, they'll be back.
Yeah, they'll have gathered what they wanted. Maybe the dire bear will
go after them, and then we can snag whatever they're after. Yes,
yes, of course, all right, I'm in. I'm in. Let's
do it. Okay, you guys are setting off into the wasteland to chase
after this trio in the night. Do you both have dark vision? First
question? I do, perfect. Oh, I love your face right there
where you're like, listen, you could have stayed in the village. You
could have found you could have hung out with the rich people. You could
have had like you could have had second dinner. You could have had like
second fancy supper. And no, you decided you want to go out into
the cold in the middle of the night, following people you don't know,
finding you don't know what. Like, Okay, guys, that's your call.
Okay, okay, great, you guys set off into the wilderness.
Are you trying to catch up to them or simple follow their trail? They
ketch up a little bit, but not like too far, not too close,
okay, so setting a hard pace like briefly and then settling in just
to make sure you stay like on the fresher trail. Right. And I
think I would have related to Pharah, like, hey, that bitch has
dark vision. That bitch did something to her eyes. Oh so she has
some ability to Yes, she's got something. She's got something going on.
The human lady did something to her eyes. So we shouldn't get too close
because she'll see us. No good, good catch. So the two foot
almost three foot goblin, shambling pile of rugs, the three foot metallic gnome
and their pet bird set off into the for them waist high snow north of
Oscar, into the Arctic tundra. Yeah, chasing after the chasing after the
elf, the human and the centaur on horseback, And go go ahead and
roll, both of you, you guys hike. You know you're following the
trial. Easy enough to find. There was fresh powder down. It's not
tricky, like anyone can kind of track that up to a point right heading
north of the city. Let's go ahead and pull our map out. This
is actually y'all's map. This is the map you guys found on your previous
adventure to our dear listeners. We'll talk more about what Skink and Farah got
up to that led them to this place in coming discussions. But part of
what their hall was was a lovely old map that they are filling in with
the modern things as they find them. There is osk down towards the bottom.
Huzzah, you guys are heading I said north northeast is what I said.
I believe. So heading kind of a this wordly direction, heading off
into the northeast. This is a lot of open hondra. There are like
rolling drifts, effectively, some of which are solid ice, easy enough to
like hike through and climb over, and the wind kind of sweeps most of
the powder off of them. Some of them are relatively deep, like banks
of snow that you have to like push and trudge through as the darkness settles
in. Both of you have dark vision, not the worst thing in the
world. As the darkness settles in in this like later evening space, I
want you both to go ahead and roll a fortitude and they might check for
me two separate rolls D twelve right, yes, D twelve plus fortitude and
then D twelve plus might. Okay, I have eight on fortitude and a
twelve on might. All right, I got an eight on fortitude and a
three on light. Okay, that's okay. So with eights on your fortitude
roles, neither one of you, after we'll say, two hours of trudging
through this type of terrain, neither one of you suffers the exhaustion affliction yet.
So that's great. As you press on the mite roll was to see
kind of how well you're forging through these snowbanks. This is an act of
like physical prowess of athleticism. I think, Farah, you're definitely taking the
lead on this and sort of acting as an icebreaker for Skink who is struggling
to keep pace. But we'll say that you did well enough that breaking a
trail. You exceeded the target was looking for by a good bit. So
you are breaking the trail of forging a path ahead. Okay, I have
a question, Yes we have. Oh I have a water skin, and
I'm gonna ask Skink do you have a little like bowl or mug or something.
I think there is like some definitely something bowl shaped or like cup shaped
in my bag. There's a medium chance you still have the wine bowl from
the taverns. True. Okay, good point. Well, because for all
my spellcasting stuff, I have like you know, like little glass vials with
cork stoppers and like things like that. I got some if it's not like,
uh, like a glass handled or like you know, a handled mug,
I have things that definitely hold liquid. Sure. Okay, Oh and
you know what actually better yet, I can actually can may I use a
minor enchantment on her water skin and mine and so that we can hold it
on our core. I can eat it too, up to one hundred degrees
fair nights, you absolutely can. That is a fantastic use of enchanter abilities.
Does that that's a mana cost, right, just a one and done
h okay. So you're just kind of continually every few minutes recasting this minor
spell. But outside of combat, you've clearly got the manna to manage that.
No big deal. So Skink, I think you guys probably used this
technique to get to Osk in the first place, because like there's a lot
of tundra between Osk and the next closest place, which is not a warm
place to begin with. So like this is this is routine for you guys.
But yeah, as you go and skink Ause, you start to maybe
fall behind, and poor Pip is just like shaking frost off his feathers in
your pack. There, Farah begins to heat up these bottles using her enchanter
abilities and uses them as sources to keep you guys warm. We are gonna
say that makes Trevor this significantly more comfortable, and I'm gonna be a little
less cruel about exposure to the elements, which is what we were building towards
us hours stack up out here. Yeah, am I disappointed? Slightly?
Excellent problem solving. Yeah, And I think like all the time, Skink
is just like this is gonna be worth it. This is gonna be worth
it. It's gonna be worth it just to know what's going on, just
to know what's going on, And it's just like constantly muttering to themselves like
that, like this is the payoff, will make it worth it, and
like as soon as Sarah shares this little warm bottled waters, like this is
no problem, there's no problem. It's like totally a problem still, but
like it's gonna be okay. So that being what it is, the next
question I'm gonna ask you guys is how, in terms of hours, how
many hours are Farah and Skank willing to push on into the night following this
trail before you decide to turn back, not knowing how far they'll go.
Great question. I feel like we would definitely do a vibe check after one
hour because we still have to walk back. So I'm gonna say the point
you guys are doing the bottle thing. We're about two hours into the hike
out. Oh wow, okay. We yeah, we did a vibe check
at an hour and we thought, yeah, this is fine. And now
it's been two hours. I'm like, how long can you keep up this
water bottle spell? I mean pretty continuously, but we do want to make
sure that we don't get too tired, and we can't. We can't rest
out here, like we'll freeze to death. No, we can't rest up
here. And I think Skink probably imagined that they were going to go somewhere
and come back like before, relatively quickly. Yeah, and was not thinking
like, wait, did they leave town before everybody on purpose? And they're
not coming back? Are they not coming back? I think there had the
idea that they wouldn't have gone far as well. So she's like at two
hours and she's like, right, at this point, we could turn back.
They might catch up to us if they do come back this way,
So I want to keep that in mind. Oh, if they catch up
to us when they come back, I wonder if they'll if they'll carry us
the rest of the way. It no, skin, No, I think
they're going to know what we were doing. Ride mother, ride you too.
Yeah, He's well, I mean, I mean, as my how
am I? I haven't the questions right? The question? Yeah, you
guys are comfortable and off. But to Farre's point, resting out here without
more elaborate equipment is going to be difficult, and there is a limit.
You know, this is the end of the day. There is a limit
on how many hours of a day you can be up and active without resting
before. It just has penalties regardless of how tough you want to how much
you want to tough it out. So the question stands, you're two hours
into this hike out. Do we turn back? Do you want to press
on for any amount of time more to see if you reach the end of
it? Skink, I'm gonna leave that up to you. You are a
little more affected by the cold, I think than I am. I know,
Skink is like shivering now latelish like I just didn't think it was gonna
be this far. All right, we're gonna turn back now. I'm gonna
grab her bottle from her, I'm gonna heat it. I'm gonna give it
back to her, and let's keep moving. We'll just turn back. You'll
stay warm as you heat the bottles again. You see Pip just sort of
dives into your robes and just tries to burrow in next to the bottles.
But I do want to I want to wait just one second because I want
to see if there's any kind of enchanters not like I do. Can I
create an alarm rune to set right here? Sure? Yeah, I believe
it takes a few minutes and one of your enchanter slots, but that's not
a not a hard task. I am going to make an alarm roune.
I guess. Do I have to leave something here? I guess, or
find like a rock? You draw a little like yeah, thing in the
ice effectively. But go ahead and read this the spell for the listeners here.
Sure, as an enchanter, I can create runes. This is a
scribe rune. It requires touch. I inscribe a surface with a magical room
that perpetuates an effect. This room glows very faintly and requires one square foot
of area. Her enchantment slot used, So just one for me right now,
and I'm going to do the alarm room, which it does take one
mana as well as one spell slot. This room sends you a telepathic alert
when activated. You may set this room to activate when something moves within its
line of sight up to sixty feet away, or when something crosses a specific
threshold you designate within that line of sight. You may also choose to have
the room emit a loud noise, bright flash of light or both when activated.
So I think I'm just going to have it send me the telepathic alert,
and it's going to be when it's going to be within a sixty foot
radius, essentially, so just in case they don't take the path coming back.
Okay. Yeah, So you set a little magical trick wire here and
the dig through the snow and find a hard surface and scribe this thing into
the ground. Lovely, that takes a minute to do, No big deal
mine or amount of manna for you even at level one? Easy pasy and
you guys turn back towards OSK. Here's what I need. Go ahead,
I want one more might check to see how well we're pushing through things.
Seven seven not bad? Okay, wildly? Oh you also got a crit
Yeah nice? Okay, Yeah, water bottle is working. Yes, go
ahead and take yourself a fake point there as well for the crit For those
listening along at home, Hi, how you doing? Relic gives you several
options. When you roll a twelve on a D twelve a critical success.
Option one, you can roll it again and explode the dice, adding two
rolls together, potentially doing something almost impossible. Option two. We have things
called critical effects. They tend to trigger when specific action is what caused the
crit. For example, a critical effect on a weapon might inflict bleeding or
additional effects, or with certain spells, have critical effects to do extra bonus
cool things when they happen. An option three is what Marissa is taking for
Skank right now, which is called a fate point. That's when you get
a crit. You don't really need anything else in that moment, but you
don't want to waste that bit of good luck. You can save them for
later. Spending fate points is a free action and you can use them for
any number of effects. You can spend multiple on some bigger effects, but
they do go away at the end of an adventure arc, so use them
or lose them. And we're back to it. So you go ahead and
krit on that, and Farah is still going strong. So blazing the trail
back through, I rolled for the weather. It did get slightly worse,
and the trail is starting to become harder to see. Heading back, however,
renewed vigor not really just a new thing to be doing. Turning around
going the other way, you're warmed up a little bit. You guys blaze
a quick pace heading back, and before long, even with the worsening weather
and the somewhat murkier trail kind of starting to be covered over by snow and
ice and snow being stirred around and covering up the tracks, you spot Osk
in the distance. The lights in the dark are easy enough to see,
and you vector off in that direction farah as you get probably within the last
half mile of the town's edge, that little ping in the back of your
head something has crossed your alarm room, which was a ways back, that
they're on horseback. Yes, they are on horseback, so you're about half
a mile away. That was two hours from here, hour and a half
from here on foot. I think, quick bath, you think, even
on horseback, they're not going to like overtake you. But they'll be back
into town not hugely far behind you if they're moving at like a decent pace.
And we dig a hole in this snow. So I'm gonna okay,
I relate the information to skiing. I don't think that's necessary. Couldn't we
just wait for them to get back to town, I mean their packs.
If they wait, we say that we're half a mile from OSC, that
doesn't seem very far, especially at the rape we're going. I know they're
going fast, but I mean it like we can't disguise ourselves as a snow
drift and wait for them to pass. I mean, I don't feel like
we have to. I think we can get back. Okay, Okay,
it will definitely be another like so you would know, even the horses out
here in the snow and everything, they're not galloping. They're just moving at
a consortable, like trudging pace that takes the weight off the people, especially
if they're laden down, like there'll be another at least hour, probably more.
They're probably if they picked up, like film up those packs with anything,
they're probably coming back moving at your pace or slower. It's just that
they can do it without giving as exhausted. Right, So I assure you
we can get back. It's okay, Okay, that's fine. And like
I think because of that high roll I got before, like skink just feels
like they've they've got exercise today, like stayed warm. Maybe they were like
singing songs while they were, you know, trudging along, like all of
Kate's favorite travel songs, and was like, this is the best, This
is the best. I'm having a good night. Maybe you can like,
you know, the weather's weird, but like I'm just out with my two
favorite beings and like I'm just having a good time. I don't care.
Just tucked in next to the water bottle. Pip is just like exactly exactly.
I was like, fine, I'm just gonna take this energy all the
way back to town. What a night? What a night? You guys
get back to town with that great incident. What is your course of action
as you get back to town. I think you're getting tired at this point,
but you could keep going if you wanted to. You're not like dead
on your feet. Is okay? So we've been out for four hours?
Yeah, you know, just a nice arctic hike. That means that,
I mean, does the town shut down overnight? Is it two o'clock in
the morning, Is it three o'clock in the morning, Like, where are
what's going on? Yeah? Yeah, so at this point, let's see
you guys left a getting after dinner time, you've been gone four hours.
It's probably pushing midnight at this point, maybe a little bit earlier. But
here's the thing about arctic town with a massively overblown, lopsided solar cycle.
I think Osk is one of those places that, like everyone's circadian rhythm is
so messed up that it's not like they roll up the sidewalks because people just
start keeping whatever time makes sense for their businesses. Everyone drinks all night.
It's one of those places. Yeah, it's just like, yeah, some
people went to sleep when the sun went down, and some people didn't notice
the sun was up today. It's just you know, it is. It
is what it is. So the town's not sleepy, no, No,
it's just like, yeah, it's always night here, so we just sort
of make our own hours, all right. I think we should maybe try
to find ourselves close to where they met up. Maybe I would like to
see them come into town. Yeah, I would like to find a place
to like hold up and observe. Yeah, maybe we can position ourselves at
some doorway and pretend like we're just having you know, a conversation outside,
like like two normal people outside of of a or passed out. I mean
you were running out, vare or passed out. That's right. We can
just follow that one to its natural natural conclusion. Of course, we're passed
out and outside. So one of the first buildings that you pass as you
enter back into OSK here is the general store slash kind of like stable that
they met each other at. You see, there is a battered old not
like beat up in terms of battered, but like frosted over many many times,
always kind of permanently wet. It does a number on stuff. But
there's a little placard hanging there that says, I can't keep that dice in
my hand. Little placard there that says thin Winter Outfitters. And there is
a loan we'll say, guy in standing by the counter in there just sort
of and he sees you through the window pane as you're like stopping and discussing
what to do, and you just see that he kind of like notices you,
guys, And hmmm, I don't like being noticed. We're pretty recognizable.
Let's see, we're not doing anything. I feel like often we are
perceived as suspicious even when we don't want to be. So really pip pops
out of your hair, bounce. So I don't know if we should stay
here. This is not I mean, he's this is his place of business.
He's gonna show us away. Should we find like somewhere more natural that
you would, maybe we would crash. I think I'm just following you right
now, okay. Or we could go in like we are intentionally trying to
get stuff, and maybe that's less suspicious. Yeah, let's go in and
ask for a hangover cures from the general store and one of us will post
up at the window and just watch. I like it. It's a good
idea. Yeah, okay, So you guys head inside, a little little
bell ting as you pass through the doors, all close, the door close,
the door, door closes. It's you know, CHILEI in here,
actually pretty chilly in here. You realize that like most places you've gotten used
to like walking in and like feeling the warmth of like a hearth fire,
just constantly being stoked to like keep the temperature up, and in here it's
it's better than outside, but it's just like it's a cold room with like
candles in it. And I think you see the guy in who are these
like world kin kind of like land based people throughout Rubica. He is an
ice guy in or a mountain guy in, and so you'll see a taller,
leaner figure, very plainer features that look like they're cleaved out of like
facets of glacier, a little little stony complexion, icy complexion. But he
kind of smiles as you come in. Hello, welcome to Thin Winter Outfitters.
May I help you? We feel pretty terrible. Do you have any
hagover like ginger candies or something like that? Ginger candies? Yeah, I
have a assortment of ginger different mostly preserved things. There's some licorices that some
people say are pretty good. They've infused with some different roots and supplements.
There a number of ginger candies. Do you have BE twelve? Do you
have BE twelve, the twelve beta of the I have no idea. He
points to a number of like, yeah, there's taffys and licorices, and
like some of them have like a ginger component to them. Just these simple
little confections that are easy to transport. You think they're probably not coming from
very close by, and the prices are a little bit hyked up for what
they are, but they're small items. They are like a couple copper a
piece. Yeah, I think Skink is going to take her time to sort
of pawing through every day, like reading labels and examining things and like giving
her unsolicited opinion just candy. Yeah, I like talking to him about the
best hangover cures and how good the mould wine is, assuming that Farah is
watching out the window. Yes, while she takes care of this, If
you're truly it's neat, I've got a number of simple potions here that might
might help with that. Instead, Oh, tell me about your potions.
I have a few healing potions available here. I usually they get bought out
pretty quickly by the various expeditionary teams leaving town constantly, but I try and
keep a steady supply coming in. Nothing too fancy. But and you see,
he shows you what are a couple of just basic healing potions for sale,
So he's got kind of a shelf of those. He's like. Occasionally
I get like a stronger batch made from the alchemist or the airbalist, but
those are more expensive and frankly harder to create, so we keep just the
base ones here on hand for display. I've been told that they're an effective,
if expensive way to get rid of a hangover. I don't know if
that's really what they're intended for. And you guys hang out here for a
while, you're trying to like hang out here for like a couple hours potentially,
Okay, oh my gosh, not that long, right, I mean
they're gonna come no, remember, it's going to take them a minute and
take a while. I mean, like, I feel like I could talk
about hangover cures with this guy and healing potions and like migraines and stuff like
that for like easily half an hour. Easily half an hour, go ahead
and roll a cleverness check for me, scake. I think Farah while she's
rolling would be like shopping around a little bit, just looking around, like,
ah, my friend's here looking for something. I'm just browsing because she
knows that they're not going to be there yet, so going to be a
thirteen. She doesn't want to be like suspiciously looking out the window. Okay,
right, yeah, they're definitely fair. You've clocked they're going to be
a while coming in thirteenth skink, I mean you kind of hit it off
of this guy. He introduces himself as I have my list of names over
here. He introduces himself as Gallio. He's come Gallio. I've lived here
for quite a long time. My family actually comes from the Bulwark Mountains to
the north here. We're a small, small group, but I came to
ask a few generations ago, my grandfather and his grandfather and you know,
the guy. And it's a little bit complicated because grandfather's it's not really like
a genetic line as much as it is sort of like a rearing up and
like taking charge of a ward. And that's sort of it. Anyways,
neither here nor there, but we've been here for quite a few, quite
a few cycles. It's been good. The activity coming through lately has been
has been really wild. Oh yeah, right, well, all of this
like flake craze and everything people have going. It's just it's really really I
mean, the business has been booming. It does affect kind of the character
of the town, but it's not such a bad thing. You'll hear people
complain about it. But people complain, but there's no business, so you
know, what are you gonna do? You ever go out for flakes yourself?
Gallio, I've certainly seen them. You know, I spent you know,
my people, we spent a lot of time out in the wilderness at
various points, especially as a child. I was up on the mountains quite
a bit. You'll see them on like moon moonlit nights. You'll see a
lot of them kind of glowing naturally. Most of them aren't particularly valuable in
their raw form, but if you get a good vein and whatever, it's
like they're valuable components for things you smoke. No, oh, it's guys.
I like skink head this idea. They like to keep talking, but
also like go outside and watch it. They should all go outside to saw.
I mean, listen, I'll try it. Just a lot of a
lot of herbs don't really do anything to me. I'm very free of the
earth. Do you sell any of that stuff here? I mean, I've
got my own I could share with you. You gotta try try this.
It's not really so much a dispensary here at the thin winter outfitter has done
a lot of people. I mean, you know, it might be a
good business to get into now that I think about it. But so like
skink reaches into her bag and like starts like rolling three, like one for
each of them, so that they all will like have have like something to
do to just like be standing outside nonchalantly well people rolling. Gallio was just
like, fuck it. It joins you guys outside, and he's like,
it's not it's doing nothing for me, but I enjoy the the display of
it. I think it's really gonna mess with some people if they see me
doing this, and that's kind of fun for me. I'm not gonna lie.
I'm a I'm mostly rock and ice to be fair, like not a
lot of biological I mean some, but it's a whole thing. Really no
reaction to this thing. I don't even necessarily think that it's But Skink says,
hey, Gallia, you look really cool right now. I do.
I feel cooler. I think that's the message here, is that smoking makes
you look cooler, even if there's nothing in it for you biologically or healthwise.
So I feel like the smoking definitely takes this through to like an hour.
Right. Yeah, you guys are there, I think, outside smoking
with Gallio. As you see the group that you had been following come back
into town and they don't really acknowledge you guys too much. Why would they
carrying a number of stuffed duffel bags and saddle bags and such, heading in
the direction of the long haul as so we're like reaching the end of whatever
it is that we're smoking, and I like, like, Gilly, oh,
you know, so great to meet you. I won't keep you up
any longer. We're good now that you know we've we've taken care of our
stomachs. I mean, I assume that Skink like picked up some like little
ginger. I'll see you around town. We're gonna take ourselves to Yeah,
come on by anytime. You're all right, Skink? Can I keep this?
I don't think I really smoked any of it. It's just sort of
like idly smoldering at the end. Anytime you want to look cool, you
just pull that out and remember, yeah, I think I will. You're
all right, Skinker. I like your bird hasn't really talked all that much,
but she like salutes in a goodbye light like that, and I think
and I see, like Sarah's like the first one out the door to like
actually watch while Skinks sort of wrapping up. Yeah, you guys wrap up
with Gallio and this group is you know, they're not stopping, so they're
probably back towards the long haul. You could try and beat them there if
you wanted to, if you like scampered or you know, it's up to
you. I don't think we need to scamper. I guess if we wanted
to see where they put the packs. What do you think, Skink?
I mean, we've been out all night. I don't think Skink's like running
anywhere. No, or you know, we're just sort of like absolutely,
I think at this point we're kind of lollygagging and having a good time.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think like at this point, and after having
like this nice little chat with Galileo, there's like a strong likelihood that Skiing
will just be like, hey, where'd you guys come in from? You
know, She'll just like talk to them, like like, you know,
everybody gets to be talked to around here, Skink chronic extrovert. Just so
you guys head back to the long haul. Yeah, perfect. Uh,
you guys are walking in. I think, yeah, I didn't need the
role for that. I knew that. I think what you would find by
the time you get there is that, uh, you're walking towards the long
haul. The centaur is walking back in the direction of Gallio's store with the
horses that have been deloaded from all the saddle bags and whatever. Doesn't really
acknowledge you again, just passers by on the street. Why would he.
As you get to the long haul, you see the elf and the human
woman extra loaded up, kind of dragging these bags around the back and you
know the there is an external staircase that goes straight up towards the halls with
all of the boarding rooms in them, and they're kind of going around the
back way. They don't want to go through the common room with all this,
and they're just working on getting them up the stairs. You need me
to get the door for you. Roll a cleverness check. It's only an
eight. It's only an eight. You see the human woman, who I
don't think you've gotten her name yet, just kind of I think we're okay,
and the Elf just goes, I did listen, you want to hold
the door open for me, that'd be great. So you got to follow
them up to the top of the stairs and hold the door open. And
the elf starts, thank you very kindly, and he starts kind of just
loading. It's like unloading, just a shitload of groceries right where it's just
like okay, yeah, there's no way we're getting all these in one trip.
But like they very clearly, I think, as you guys sort of
interact with them passively, very clear they don't want to leave the bags out
of sight anywhere. Like they're moving in such a way where it's like it's
not the most efficient way to get things into the inn, but it is
such a way that both of them could always have an eye on all of
their cargo here. So they're kind of like pulling one of them is like
shuttling things up the stairs. The other one is like pushing it through the
door and like looking down the hallway and you guys, takes a few minutes.
They've got six or seven like big stuffed duffel bags and a couple of
like smaller containers. I appreciate, I appreciate you doing that. Let's let's
all get out of the cold here. You guys have a good night.
And they walk down the hall towards the rooms kind of just like shuffle dragging,
pushing all of these things sort of down the hall, bump, scrape,
et cetera. Yeahs are down there too, right, Yeah, no,
I think you guys, I'm gonna say, you guys have a room
that's closer to this door. So they're heading down the hall a little bit,
but like you're renting hotel rooms in the same hallway effectively. Yeah,
so you guys head over to your room. It's been a long day,
honestly, like you got a good hike in that was sort of unexpected.
You pull out your key, unlock the door. I think as you're kind
of settling in, sort of maybe slightly keeping an eye on these guys down
there, you see the woman takes out her key, and it's like,
like very clearly, not subtly, just is aware of you guys, but
also probably recognize that they're a bit of a spectacle right now, so like
it's not odd that someone's looking at them. She's just like, I know
that you see us, I see you, Like there's not a She opens
the door, pushes it open, and just you hear it, go,
hey, Chester, we're back. Screams, blood curdling, and you see
she jumps backwards and the elf rushes into the room. What do you do?
I grab my circle and I run to the door, because I mean,
someone screams You're like, I I'll help, right, Yeah, Skank
is holding back for a second and just like kind of hoping he's dead and
like that I can do something with that body. Later, Skank has intrusive
thoughts. Roll for intrusive thoughts. You rush down the hallway, you draw
your weapon. You see the elf looks to you and no, he ran
into the room. The woman looks to you and like tenses and like reaches
for her own weapon, but then kind of recognizes that like you're not coming
at her. You're heading to the door, and she just has this moment
of panic and you see that she's starting to like she's shaking, like tears
or kind of coming down her face. You round the door and you see
the elf is like crouched over a bunk in a room much like your own
on it, blood spray lining the walls is the young Chester with his throat
raggedly cut. And that is where we are going to leave episode one of
The Knicks archive. Wow, thank you for joining us this evening. My
companions have been the lovely Maddy Hammond and Marissa. I've ever actually said your
name out loud. I'm just realizing I've known you for like ten years now
who uses last names Marissa Montero playing Skink and Matty Hammond playing Farah. I've
been everybody else. Thank you for joining us. Good evening or good day.
I don't know where you are, It's fine, goodbye. You have
just finished the first episode of the Knicks Archive. How we feel him If
you enjoyed that, the second episode should be up right now so you can
continue this frozen adventure with our diminutive dungeon delvers without delay. I certainly hope
you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed making it for you. If you're
listening to this as a podcast, you can check out the YouTube version over
on the Houndsong Games YouTube channel. It's got artwork, special effects, character
art, and all sorts of fun stuff and our beautiful faces. On the
other hand, if you're already watching this on YouTube and you want something a
little bit more portable, easy to listen to in the car, there is
obviously a podcast version available on the app of your choice. The nixt Archive
is the official Relict RPG actual play podcast by Houndsong Games. I would know.
I'm Houndsong Games. I created the Relict RPG system from the ground up.
I do all the all of the artwork, game design, illustration,
I already said illustration. It's fine. I did Relict. I'm the Relict
guy, and I'm still making it. There's more content constantly being added.
If you would like to play it at your table, you can go to
Relic r e l ic t rpg dot com. Right now, everything you
need to play with your friends is available for free. Because I don't believe
in payballs or any of that kind of nonsense, We've got a discord you
can always jump on if you have questions about getting game started, or you
need clarifications on things, or have great ideas. We've had some cool stuff
come out of the community, including a couple of class ideas that were implemented
because they were just really enthusiastic about it. So head on over there check
it out. It's a lot of fun. It's always growing. If you'd
like to support the podcast or Relict as a whole, we are setting up
a separate Patreon just for the next archive that's going to be split between Handsong
Games to cover the cost of microphones and software and hardware and all that kind
of stuff, and paying the girls for their time, because I really appreciate
them embarking on this weird journey with me. Or there are a number of
ways to support Reliced itself as a game over on the website. We're releasing
a number of adventure books this year, so there's all that kind of deal
going on there. You want to support free, open tabletop gaming, that
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promise I would be dear loict to my duties as a podcaster, internet type
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All right, that's enough out of me. You've got episode two in
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