Speaker 1: Hello, this is Brad Woto from Table Story. If you
enjoy this podcast, please be sure to rate and review it,
and if you'd like to listen to more of our podcasts,
you can head over to tablestory dot tv for a
variety of other shows. We also have additional show content
and merchandise at merch dot tablestory dot tv, and if
you'd like to join our community, you can head over
to tablestory dot tv, Forward, slash Discord. Thank you for
listening and enjoy. As you stand within this room in
the monastery at Coup, the moonlit etchings on the wall
lit up radiantly, there is a strange sensation that creeps
over your skin, like the air itself is thickening and
growing heavy with some unseen force, and your vision begins
to blur. The dungeon walls around you seem to sort
of warp and blend, twisting unnaturally, as if reality is
stretching beyond its limits, and the sounds of Cyrus's voice
cry out to you, becoming distant and muffled, as if
she's speaking underwater. As you might look to Cyrus, she
reaches out, twisting and turning between each of you a
confused look across her face, and without warning, the ground
beneath your feet shifts and you feel an unnatural pull,
like the world itself is yanking you out of place.
The fabric of the world sort of unravels around you,
and you're dragged into something deeper, the world around you
stretching away. Then, as quickly as it began, the falling
sensation stops and you're dropped lightly, as if placed onto
solid ground. But something's wrong. The air here is different.
It's thick and humid. Every breath feels like it drags
in more than just air. The colors around you are
muted and dream like. The edges of everything seem to
shimmer and ripple, as though not fully real. In the distance,
you can hear faint whispers, too far to understand, but
close enough to feel unsettling, And looking around you, you
realize you're no longer in the monastery. This is a
sort of distorted place, a twisted version of reality. There
is on the walls. In fact, the walls sort of
are mirrors in places. There is some stone, but everything
is kind of green, has a sort of green hue
to it, and you're on no ordinary sort of plane.
Of existence. I guess it might feel like there's a
faint scent of sulfur and iron, and you do not
see your other companions. Instead, what you see ahead of
you is another version of yourself. The edges of their
skin blur and distort, their eyes aflame with a dull power.
The version before you is darker of skin, the colors
of their clothing dimmed, almost a shadow version of yourself.
Dark Geldin, dark Thrank, dark Sear smile twistedly at their counterparts,
and those counterparts need to roll me initiative. I'm going
to bring you over to the set of hallways. Yeah,
Jilden is over up on the top right, Thrack on
the top right. Sorry, children on the top left, Sea
on the bottom right, with dark versions of yourselves.
Speaker 2: You know, I thought for a moment, you're going to
make it so that dark Sear was I don't know,
like bright blue or something, because I'm already dark purple.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's darker purple. Yeah, he's like full shadows
here rather than you know, just dark skin lavender.
Speaker 3: Good roles today, Shah Share, I wasted my Nott twenty
and a minus three.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Jilden goes on a seventeen dark, Jilden goes
on a seventeen See It goes on an eighteen dark,
Seer goes on an eighteen, and Frank goes on a
twenty six dark. Thrack goes on a twenty six. It
is real Thrack first in the turn order. How annoying
is it for all of you? If I do this
every round just for the chat, you know what, I
won't do it. I'll do this.
Speaker 3: You do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: Well, you've already told me how to GM before this began,
so I won't be listening to you. I already had
my notes from you today. Thank you. I'm not kidding
when I tell you I cut out two paragraphs from
the opener. Sorry coming out with an I panic and
got rid of it. You do not understand.
Speaker 3: I hate myself. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay, Thrack, you are first. There is a very clearly
malevolent version of yourself standing.
Speaker 4: Ahead of you. Okay, give me a passive arkana check.
Yeah what passive?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I just roll one.
Speaker 4: You're teen a very bad role.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you're you're aware that you're sort of trapped
in an illusion. If you've seen the routo, it's a
bit like being trapped in again jusuo or something like that.
You're just kind of caught in this bizarre illusory world
right now, so you can't naturally be aware of that.
All right, What do you do?
Speaker 4: This pillar next to me, I'm assuming is like solid.
I can't go through that.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, correct. So there are sort of areas in
this room that are strange, demonic obelisks and fiendish carvings
that are adorning the walls, standing up food from the
sort of center of the rooms that you're in, and
running across the the mirror walls as well, so you
can kind of make them out.
Speaker 4: But that is any idea where my counterparts are.
Speaker 1: You can make me a perception check if you would like.
Speaker 4: Is that going to take up my action?
Speaker 3: I will be yelling if that makes any difference? What,
Madame of Trick? Is this an a worry?
Speaker 4: There you go?
Speaker 1: You hear that echo down the hall, be a little
further away from you, but you hear it too. Okay, Actually,
Dark Jilden also speaks and says the same thing, What
go echoing down the halls for the rest of you?
Speaker 3: I'm being punished.
Speaker 4: She picked pockets here, She's un successful. Okay, I'm going
to I think I'm gonna cast slow on this piece
of piece of garbage pop or ganger, So I altered time.
I round up to six creatures of my choice in
a forty foot cube within range. So just that guy,
Wisdom Saving Throw, I can put it. I can put
thir thing in the one game in it.
Speaker 1: Okay, here we go, Wisdom Saving Throw. Excuse me a second,
I just need to go over here. Wisdom your character
sheet fifteen.
Speaker 4: I think it's a fail. Yeah, it's seventeen. Is my
spell saved? All right? So you're all to time? Oh
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: The speed is halved, it takes a minus two penalty
to ac and dexterity saving throws, and it can't use
reactions on its tourn It can either use an action
or a bonus action, not both, regardless of the preducibilities
and magic items. It can't make more than one melee
or ranged attack during its turn. Okay.
Speaker 4: Also it sounds like this and I slow him, yes,
and then I'm going to run. Well, first of all,
you are also slowed. Really, yes, Well, I really regret
being the first person to go.
Speaker 1: Dark Thrack is slowed and you are slowed.
Speaker 4: Interesting, Okay, I don't get to make my own save.
All right, Well I'm still going to run. Okay, you
can move path my movements feed. There we go.
Speaker 1: Okay, is that the end of your turn?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Agree? Dark Thrack gets to go. Now. I think dark
Thrack will throw a ray of frost at you. M
on a twenty seven that's going to hit damn unless
you do something.
Speaker 4: I don't have any reactions.
Speaker 1: I'm slowed, right, you take seven cold damage. Dark Trank
takes three cold damage?
Speaker 4: Okay, I think my cold damage is in is half?
Isn't it great? Dark Trank takes one. Yeah, you take three.
Dark Tract takes one. And then on top of.
Speaker 1: That this does what else does the ray of frosty
doesn't this also can speed?
Speaker 4: Yeah? All right, so both of you gets yes, okay,
all right, I think I know what's going on here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is Sears turn.
Speaker 2: I I think I stick my hands into my monks
shift looking towards my counterpart and go what manner of
creature do we have here? And I just saunt to
write up to it and inspected give you an investigation check,
all right? Nineteen there's some magic bullshit going on here.
Speaker 1: You can give me an arkana check as well, and
I'll give you the appropriate answer. At thirteen, much like thrank,
you come to the conclusion that you're in a sort
of illusory world, but more like an illusory trap. You
get the sensation of being caught in a spider's web maybe,
and in front of you is an illusory version of yourself,
that is, for all intents and purposes, an exact copy
of you that is standing ahead of you. It does
seem to be just like the walls and everything while
you are in an illusion, It's not like you're in VR,
you know what I mean. You're act things here are
an illusion, but it is tangible, and this is a
sort of a physical copy of you really standing there
smiling at you.
Speaker 2: I smile back. I lean forwards, looking at my counterpart,
and I think the eyes on my forehead, which are closed,
open up in a slight gaze. I want to say
aliyah at this creature and admire it. In what I guess,
I'd be adopting the patient defense trait here as I
just hands in my shift like in deep pockets, just
looking at this creature.
Speaker 1: Right Okay, now, a dark series going to attempt to
strike you and hit you from this point on. I'm
just gonna let you fight yourselves. So Dark Seer will
do everything in his power to attack and hit you.
So you tell me what that is, because you guys,
I don't know what you guys can fully do, to
be honest, and I don't I don't want to have
to learn it, so you can blame mugs. Yeah you yeah,
full unleash. Dark Seer is going to attempt to kill you.
If you were real Seer, what would you do?
Speaker 2: If I was real Seer, I'd probably just try and
admire myself right now.
Speaker 1: But if I'm a creature, you're if you were here
and if you were dark sir, and you were trying
to kill this Seer, what would you do?
Speaker 2: Right In that case, I would use this attack and
miss I would then use extra attack again, and Miss
I would then go into Floria blows and that's a
natural one, and I would try again and then that's disadvantage.
So that's that, and I'd hit with that last punch.
Speaker 1: Okay, what does patient defense do for you? Just boost
your say.
Speaker 2: It just yeah, no, it just makes it so that
I have advantage. I mean they have this advantage of
attacking me, I believe.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so one of them hit to give
me the damage for yourself.
Speaker 2: Okay, that would be it's seven points of blooding damage, all.
Speaker 1: Right, you take seven points of bluddening damage. Darks here
it takes three points of bluttening damage. All right. Can
Dark say do anything on bonus actions?
Speaker 2: Yes, but he wouldn't if he's attacking.
Speaker 1: That brings us.
Speaker 4: Over to Jilden, the star of the show, the star
of the producer, the producer, executive producer.
Speaker 3: Can I see down these? Is this middle pillar like
blocking my line of sight?
Speaker 1: It is sort of blocking your line of sight? Yeah,
you might notice that there's some like purplish glow coming
from the hallway to the south of you, and not
from the hallway to the west east of you. I
don't know, not is southwest, but you Yeah, you wouldn't
have a very clear line of sight with the obelisk
thing in the way.
Speaker 3: How lit is this place? Do I see? Very well?
Speaker 1: It's relatively well that it's gloomy and like you know,
the ablow gloom darkness. But it isn't it certainly isn't
true darkness. You can see pretty well, but there isn't
really that many light sources. But because the walls are
almost all mirrors, it's reflecting the light really well.
Speaker 4: Hm.
Speaker 3: I would like to run to this little staircase and
then take a look down this corridor, so if I
can like appear around and see anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if you've really got a good
line of sight there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, not really.
Speaker 1: You can see another room that looks like that one
you're in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so it's not obstructed or anything. Okay, cool.
I take a look at my dark down heart, and
I look at myself, and there's nothing Jildren hates more
in this world than herself. So a second person is
she has nothing to do with it. I'm going to
use my bonus action to sprint, I guess, and I'm
going to go towards the purple glow, sort of trying
to get a look down that corridor as long as
well as the other corridor. All right, m.
Speaker 1: Dark Jilden will now attempt to kill you. Now, if
Jilden was trying to kill Jilden, what would Jilden do?
Speaker 3: Probably cool lightning. Um, I'm just double taking to see
if it's okay in this room. Yeah, is there a
ceiling tall enough where a storm cloud could feasibly appear?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is probably pretty tall this room. It's a
like a weird twisted mirror room as well.
Speaker 4: So then she would pillow right there. A line of
sight is an.
Speaker 3: Issue, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, it's within sixty feet. I mean you can also
just move like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, she would.
Speaker 1: Just pull it in here.
Speaker 3: So that's a deck save from me.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, that was so close, just.
Speaker 1: Minus three decks. Okay, So the clouds appear above where
you are, this dark version of Jilled and shuffles around
the side of this kind of central pillar. As you
start moving south, you recognize the familiar hand movements and
maybe the words uttered before the clouds appear above you,
and the lightning strikes and you take a three D
ten lightning damage, which is twenty one lightning well that time,
and dark Jilden will take ten lightning damage as well.
You see them kind of react to a reflected bit
of damage. What is your problem is a problem, she
says back. Okay, can dark children do anything on bonus actions?
Speaker 3: Only? Heel or wild tape.
Speaker 1: Would you do that?
Speaker 3: Not here? I don't think.
Speaker 1: Okay, background to a thrack, then.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm going to I think I'm going to go
with a little misty step. So I'm so smart. I'm
thinking there's something else going on here. So I'm just
going to try to get some distance. I have ten, fifteen,
twenty thirty and then.
Speaker 1: You have that much distance with all this slowing stuff
going on.
Speaker 4: That's a misty step. Oh okay, yeah, I can't misty step.
And then I'm thinking about whether I want to drop
I got my concentration and not. Yeah, I'll drop concentration
and I'll move another I can move twenty more.
Speaker 1: You are I slowed? Is far dark?
Speaker 4: Right? And can I see see ya? Yes?
Speaker 1: You can see dark sir as well? Just launching these
this barrage of strikes towards the sea that you might recognize. Yeah, okay,
Now if you were Thrack and Frank was getting away
down this tunnel, what would you do to.
Speaker 4: Try to kill myself? And I have my so ray
of frost it's I believe it falls off the start
of my next turn, so it's gone now both of us.
So he would move his full thirty feet over here,
and he would cast fireball.
Speaker 1: Where is it down to here?
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is where I was thinking. Yeah, we're just following.
And then launch of fireball, launch of fireball into the hallway.
All right, yeah, it's gonna kill myself.
Speaker 6: Give me the wrong Yeah, okay, fireball.
Speaker 4: That's thirty three fire damage with a DC seventeen x
save and I'm not very good at those. You get
a nine, so I'm down to nine hit points.
Speaker 1: Nine hit points. Yeah, Dark Thrant takes sixteen fire damage
as well. Yeah, this fireball goes after you have a fireball.
Speaker 4: Sound I do? It might be a dragon that works, yep, dragon.
Speaker 1: A fireball is launched down this hall I think. See
you sort of recognize just at the last moment, out
of the corner of your eye you see Thrack moving
and then you just see flame hit the side of
this hallway and then just engulf the whole thing. The
entire place lights up as the light reflect reflects off
the mirrors and refracts. I guess down the hallways as well.
Thrack then stumbling forward, caught in this flame, looks a
little a little worse for wear. Okay, ending Dark Thrats
turn that brings us down to your turns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well, both to hit my own self
in the face, and also distracted now a tiny bit
by the commotion of the corridor. I think what I'll
do is I shall disengage from myself and run forty
feet up to the neck of this.
Speaker 1: Corridor where all the fire is coming from. That seems well,
I mean, it's sort of happened.
Speaker 2: And then I see Thrack, and I surmise he wouldn't
have done it to himself. And I'm then going to
keep going, using step of the wind to then dash
over here, which is forty feet of movement. And then
I see I see Thrack, and I think a wicked
smile crosses my face, and I'm unable to at this
point in time reach him, I don't think, so I
reach into my robe once more, and I fling from
it a dart towards this dark creature. Four and eleven
to hit.
Speaker 1: That does hit. That's hilarious.
Speaker 2: Points to piercing damage.
Speaker 1: Six points of piercing damage. Thrac, you take three.
Speaker 4: I take damage.
Speaker 7: Excellent.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: As dark strikes the Thrack ahead of you, you see
it react to the damage. There's also a wound that
opens up in a similar place on Thrack himself.
Speaker 2: Okay, and I if I hear Thrack grunt, you see
me go, and then that's my turn.
Speaker 1: Okay. How does dark Seer attempt to kill Thrack?
Speaker 2: The Dark Sea would try and kill Thrack. Right. In
that case, he would, let's see, I need to get
my my yard stick out here movement, and then he
could then use step of the wind to get to hear.
I guess he'd use his big stick and beat him
down with it.
Speaker 1: I guess, right, do it?
Speaker 2: Okay, so he would use his staff for thirteen to hit.
Speaker 4: Actually, what happens is I cast a new spell called
temporal Shunt to save my life. You target the triggering
creature it's reaction, which must succeed on a wisdom saving
throw or vanish being thrown to another point in time,
causing the attack to miss and the spell to be wasted.
At the start of its next turn, the target reappears
where it was or in the closest un occupied space.
The target doesn't remember you're casting the spell at being
affected by it. I'm just going to take him out
of time for a minute.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, you're telling me that dark Track could have
done this.
Speaker 4: As a reaction.
Speaker 1: Do you have no reactions?
Speaker 4: What's that?
Speaker 1: Does dark Thrack have no reactions?
Speaker 4: He has, He has reactions, but no one's attacked him.
Would you want him? Wanted him to do it on
a dagger throw that does six damage? Can only do
it once?
Speaker 1: I don't know. You tell me whether this is the
time I wouldn't have done it? Okay, fine, all right, yep, sure.
Speaker 4: I'm about to die. That's why I'm doing it. I
think my only fifth level spell slot, I'll allow it.
Speaker 2: He fails.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so he's just done for this turn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so he ran up to here. Is this
where he is where he gets shunted out of time?
Speaker 2: No, actually that is where he is.
Speaker 1: Okay, he is out of time, so I just can
put an next on him for now. So he's just gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's no longer.
Speaker 1: Yeah for a turn or a minute?
Speaker 4: One round? One turn?
Speaker 1: Nice? All right? Great?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We see this version of sea run forward and then
just sort of spiral out of time and then it's
just gone, bringing us. I think to jilden.
Speaker 3: M I look at this lightning in the sky, and
I know that it won't stop striking until I die.
I'm dead or I can make a very very lucky save,
which is not my forte these days. I take a
terrible gamble, I take ten steps forward, I says, I
take a terrible gamble. I die. I assess my counterpart.
Speaker 1: Okay. And when you say assess, you like full on casting,
just having a look at them, all right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hold a look at them and watch and
then I cast. So that is a console from Dark Children.
Speaker 1: All right, please make me the Conso for dark Childen.
Speaker 3: Ten that's a failum, which will be thirty three in
acrotic damage.
Speaker 1: Nice, okay, you take sixteen.
Speaker 3: But I am also resistant in a crotic damage.
Speaker 1: Oh it's dark Jilden resistant to this.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know how much dark Yilden
mirrors me. Is she un dead fully?
Speaker 8: Every?
Speaker 3: Okay, well that's what that's what I'm testing. So okay,
So that was your undead bullshit.
Speaker 1: So you take sixteen and then you half against you
take eight. Dark Children takes sixteen of that damage.
Speaker 3: M m mmmmmm. Tricksy, aren't you tricksy?
Speaker 1: Aren't you?
Speaker 3: Then? Will I bonus action healing word myself? Wait there's
a bonus Yeah, okay, cool seven healing. I have a
feeling work with this undead ship.
Speaker 5: Am I.
Speaker 1: You're fine. You can heal yourself because you're trying to heal,
You're not You're not actually undead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you're alive.
Speaker 1: Your body is just being puppeteered, so you can heal.
Jill Dark Children heels for three not.
Speaker 3: The end of your turn limit testing. Uh. I moved
twenty foot back towards where I could Can I hear
you guys? I'm sure When I can hear you guys echoing, you.
Speaker 1: Probably heard fucking fireball go off as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, then I moved twenty foot towards where
you guys were.
Speaker 1: Okay, now, if you were trying to kill children as
dark children, what would you do?
Speaker 3: I would cast the cool lightning again, because that does
you should do over and over basically. So it's another
deck save for me.
Speaker 6: Oh one, it's not even as just one.
Speaker 1: There's something about rolling a zero and a one, and
it's not coming up like red.
Speaker 3: You know, it could have worse's eleven lightning German, Okay, you.
Speaker 1: Take eleven, they take five.
Speaker 3: And they would likely use healing word as well. All right,
so that'd be seven healing again a mirrored and you get.
Speaker 1: Three of that. Okay, Brack, it is your turn in
the hall way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you accidentally moved so here. I think you've got
letted him back, who not regularly here darks here.
Speaker 1: I think my page is a little funky, which is
fine because you're in a weird illusion world genjutsu.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to run over here, and I want
you to know, Maya, that I looked at all the
possibilities here and because like the only thing I can
do right now that really makes sense I think is
cash fly on myself, which is really bad for you
if you're fighting dark Track.
Speaker 2: But I don't worry about it.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well I'm doing it. I can'st fly on myself,
and I'm going to fly into the air out of
his reach. So I have another thirty feet of movement
now because I cast fly myself now, So can I
go like twenty feet in the air and then still
move ten feet over.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Okay, So I'm now twenty feet in the air and
I move another ten feet over here. Okay, that's my tone,
and I guess dark Track is also fly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think this works on dark Track as well. Yeah,
so dark Thrack also begins to float up into the
air and can now also fly. Does dark Thrack do?
I think the sort of prime directive is kill youth rae.
Speaker 4: Right, and he has the knowledge I do about like
what it is you?
Speaker 1: They are just fighting dark versions of themselves. You know,
they're in the exact same fight, but they're a bit
more blood that they're blood blasted.
Speaker 4: Right. So with Cea, I think he cast a fantasmal killer,
which I don't think I've used yet, Right, so I
tap into the nightmare.
Speaker 1: Interesting this dude plus fear, what the fuck could possibly manifest?
While he thinks of that, he can tell us the
rest of us spell.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's an illusion, no manifestation of your deepest fears,
visible only to you. So yeah, you must make a
wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the target becomes
frightened for the duration at the end of each of
the target's turns. Before the spell ends, the target must
succeed a wisdom saving throw. I take four D ten
psychic damage as successful, saying if the spell ends, that's it.
Speaker 1: You've You've killed.
Speaker 8: MAYA look at it like this is the most secretly
could not be happier that they get and we.
Speaker 4: Get to fight each other. What's bad is that the
dark versions of us are going to win both fights.
Speaker 1: So yeah, blood blood lasted versions of Myron would be
an interesting one. All right, So I guess see a first,
make a wisdom savings throw against this, because otherwise it
doesn't nineteen Yeah, baby, what is the nightmare? We'll never know?
Speaker 3: Once again we are denied my exhposition, which I love.
Speaker 1: I kind of imagine that you watched this as a
TV show and just never found out anything about one
of the characters. They were just entirely elusive the entire time.
It would be horrible to watch, but I would absolutely
respect it beyond mallow.
Speaker 4: I would r yeah the same. I would respect that
so much. What a mystery man?
Speaker 1: All right? So yeah, you shrug off the effects of
this spell that you see sort of being cast by
this dark and elusive version of thrack Sea.
Speaker 4: And then thirty feet up in the air, and.
Speaker 1: Then he flies thirty feed up in the air. All right, right,
you do anything else, thrack Nope, okay, normal Sea.
Speaker 2: Well, I know that if I was to attack this creature,
it'll also attack thrack. I don't want to kill thrack
but trapped. So instead I sigh the prospect of not
killing a thrack, and I'm going to run forty feet
down here. I'm going to use step of the winds
to move eighty feet here, and then I'm going to
then use dash as an action, which is going to
double my speed plus modifiers to get one hundred and
sixty feet in front of this purple orb over here.
Speaker 1: It says, okay, yep, you run over to these orbs.
So in this room there are three sort of twisted, weird,
demonic gothic looking altars with sort of transparent glowing purple
orbs that are hovering over the top of these kind
they're almost like altars. The flame in the there's a
flame in these orbs that's it's very very translucent, like
it's sort of very only very lightly there. This purple flame,
which is purple flame and not dark fire, is just
sort of sitting above these effigies. But I don't think
they really look like much to you when you first
approach them. I don't know if you have an action
to investigate these things that you may.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I may investigate them.
Speaker 1: If you've got an action, Yeah, you can sort of
interface with them.
Speaker 2: I use action search and now I have an action, right,
I will investigate or at least try with an eight.
Very hard.
Speaker 1: To be honest, this ship means nothing to you. This
is the most bizarre I mean, you're in this bizarre
setting anyway. You know that you're trapped in some sort
of strange illusion. You know that there's there's gonna be
ways out of this thing. But what the fuck? These
three random looking demonic altars with these sort of magic
illusory balls that are floating above them are just it
means very little to you. With your first sort of
cursory glance and trying to take in as much information
and see if anything here makes any sense, and it
kind of doesn't. The ball solid, No, it would almost
look like a hologram to us with modern eyes, you
know that kind of look where it's very transparent or
translucent looking. Okay, I won't do anything else.
Speaker 2: I can't. That was my action.
Speaker 1: Okay. It is the return of Dark Sea. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Yeah? He's back.
Speaker 1: He's back.
Speaker 4: Dark what's happened?
Speaker 1: Returns from the fucking CAMOI that you fucking put on
him spiraling back into existence? And I think probably, I'm
guessing the.
Speaker 4: Most perspective, we just disappeared.
Speaker 1: He's like, what, oh right, yeah, I mean for sure
that's what he's thinking. He knows where all of you are.
What the dark versions of yourselves are like hyper aware
of everything. They are tapped into this world. They understand
you know, they can feel the vibrations, they can smell
your smells. They know everything because they are part of it.
So what would you like dark Seer to do?
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 1: Raak is flying up in the air. Normal Sea ran
around the corner. There is also a turtle woman. I
don't know how far Sea can actually run, but I'm
guessing he can just barry Alan around this whole place
if he wanted to.
Speaker 2: So I can barry Alan one sixty feet without being
able to attack.
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound very bloodlusted to me.
Speaker 4: Well, you can do. He could do his action search
like you just been.
Speaker 2: I mean I could do, and then I could barry
Allen three sixty feet and get back to exactly where
it was, but.
Speaker 1: Turn the world back in time like Superman.
Speaker 2: If he's twenty feet in the air, I can't attack
him unless I use a dart. That's about it, really, Okay,
so I guess I'll try that, all right, So I
guess i'd move into position like I need to be
at least twenty feet from him, otherwise it's disadvantage.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, then you'd have to be right underneath me because
I'm twenty feet Yeah, get.
Speaker 1: Right underneath you, all right?
Speaker 2: And then he throws a dart for a twenty one
day hit.
Speaker 4: Yep, that hits.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's five points of darting damage.
Speaker 4: I have one hit point.
Speaker 1: Okay, you take five damage. Dark Frank takes two.
Speaker 2: Okay. And then I guess you mentioned action search. I
guess he would would he use action surge? Would he wait?
So it would wait? It's a waste of an action surge.
But I used the action searche to look at something.
So I'll use action search to dart again for twenty
three to hit. It's it's your points of piercing damage.
Speaker 1: What does that do for flying? Is that a concentration?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I've got to do some cons Is it
con saving throws?
Speaker 1: If you're unconscious, you just break concentration.
Speaker 4: Well I'm not unconscious though, because I have relentless endurance, right.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he would have had to make concentration saves anyway.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you just need to make two constitution saves
a ten.
Speaker 4: Okay, lay, I'm on the ground, so he would just
punch me.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming can't do it if he's on the ground.
Now things change because I can't just punch him, and
I can't use my weapon because of how extra attack works,
and I can't use my dart now because he's too close.
Well it's twenty to sixty.
Speaker 1: Technically mm hmm, he would have fallen, so he would
you would have thrown the first dart, which would have
broken his concentration. Then he would have fallen and taken
how high a were you to? Twenty feet?
Speaker 4: Twenty feet?
Speaker 1: So I think that's two D six damage.
Speaker 4: Okay, so I'm i've then then I used my relentless
used to one.
Speaker 1: Age pay then it would be seas second dart.
Speaker 2: Couldn't use the dart right now unless it's to punch
me or something.
Speaker 1: Can't you can use the dart with disadvantage?
Speaker 2: Okay, die? So where did my darts go for the
R ten.
Speaker 4: That we'll have you try again?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 4: Is that disadvantage?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 2: I again a roll like a twenty three before okay, yeah,
and then you have seen anyway you'd reroll yeah to seventeen.
Speaker 3: So it's I mean it's going to one.
Speaker 1: Does he redo the whole role or he redoes that
one role?
Speaker 4: I think it's stop the attack when you read it.
Speaker 3: Would say not maybe take a step back and choose
to take an opportunity attack in order to better advantage
his own attacks. I feel like that's something. See it
would absolutely.
Speaker 2: Do see it would do it. I don't know who
this Dark Sea is. He's blood.
Speaker 4: When they make an attack role, you can force the
creature to reroll.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so it would be with disadvantage, but it's
still a seventeen or twenty seven.
Speaker 4: Okay, so I am hit and unconscious? How much damaged
to do it before?
Speaker 2: For seven points of piercing damage?
Speaker 1: Cool Frank falls unconscious, which means under dark Frank falls unconscious.
Good luck, Dame, Luck Tam.
Speaker 4: I don't say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dark Fact didn't say then. That's why it was
just with my voice. It is children's turn at the
end of Dark Sears Turn real Jildin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just do you say anything sorore in that chamber.
I'm trying to figure out if I would change course.
Speaker 2: Maybe, Ah, what is this? Nothing? Really? You know? I do,
like I said of my own voice, but I wouldn't
be Wow, what's this? Core blimey is not really a thing?
Speaker 1: You don't fall anime for the opening while there, but the.
Speaker 3: Sounds of combat have moved quite far away from where
I am. So I'm debating whether I you know, I'm
gotta roll dice. Let's see if I a one stakehold
or too if I go to the light two I
go to the light, all right, in which case, okay,
thirty this way and right, that's shiit. I can plain
that game and I call lightning. I in fact, ha ha. Now,
because there is already an existing storm cloud, I feel
like I can technically utilize this. I don't know, I
should know.
Speaker 2: Maybe not maybe storm cloud again.
Speaker 3: Well, if you're outdoors and stormy conditions, when you cast
the spell, the spark as you control over the existing
storm instead of creating a new one. So I wondering
if I could just get control of the existing storm.
Speaker 1: I'm not outdoors, so it's not your spell, so you'd
have to wrestle it away from them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's case I will simply cast it, so
now they will make what was it a conso dex
save all right, dark children, here's your deck.
Speaker 5: Save.
Speaker 3: It is a ten as a fail, which names you
will now take eleven lightning damage.
Speaker 1: Eleven lightning damage for dark Jildin, which is five for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very annoying. That rolls so well on their first
Lightning's like.
Speaker 1: You've been tased. You cast your own spell.
Speaker 3: I hate groesthetic shocks, and that is I'll do another
healing word on myself. I've gotta regret using all these
sparselots I already know for Okay, so that's five healing
for me and that's the end of my turn.
Speaker 1: Five healing for you is two or Dark Jilden. Right,
if you were Dark Jildin, you were trying to kill Jilden, what.
Speaker 3: Would you do, I'd be calling all lightning.
Speaker 2: Both of you are just off.
Speaker 3: I roll a four of my deck save, so Dark
Jilden does fuck off eighteen lighted damage. I hate it him.
Speaker 1: That's nine to Dark Jilden. As the two of you
who are just echoing down this hall towards you, and
like flashes of lightning are just happening. There is just
chaos in the room to the north of use here.
As this madness goes goes off Thrack, make me a
death saving throw please. Fifteen, that's one, make dark Thrack.
Make me a death saving throw for dark Thrack.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Seven is a fail for dark Thrack, and that brings
us around to Seer. True Seer, what would you like
to do?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I ruled wisdom for my conscience. Okay, I got
a seventeen. I'm staring at this orb, this glowing thing
connected to these claws. I think I will probably you
mentioned the orbits are not solid, correct? Can I climb
into it?
Speaker 1: You can?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I climb into it?
Speaker 1: Right, Nothing happens until it would be the exact same
I would imagine, and as if you in real life
climbed into a hologram, it wouldn't really feel like anything
and nothing really happened.
Speaker 2: Okay. In that case, I will then move forty feet
here and then you step at the wind to get
to dark Seer, which I'll just make, okay, and then
I will m I know this Seer. So I'm going
to hold that thought and I'm going to attack the
Seer okay, with an eighteen to hit which hits with
my staff at twelve points of bludding damage. Okay, you
take six, okay, okay, and then I'll try again, but
twenty six to hit. That's not eleven. Yeah, you take five, okay,
and then I'll use a flurry of blows, and that's
going to be a twelve which doesn't hit, and a
fifteen which doesn't hit. That's my turn, okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the two of these Seers just start exchanging blows.
I would imagine since I'm going to guess that Darks
is just going to start punching you back at you
right and hitting you with sticks. So role plays for Darks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, dark Sea fights back using his staff
for a natural twenty, which is going to be a
fifteen points to bladdening damage.
Speaker 1: Okay, you take fifteen. Dark Seer takes seven.
Speaker 2: Okay, and then he's going to try again and press
the attack for twenty three to hit, which I just.
Speaker 1: Want to say for the record that both Seers are
on fifteen h pay. Yeah, okay, you take ten, he
takes five.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm good. From fifteen to five. He's then going
to go a flurry of blows I guess for twenty
two hits. It's going to be a five.
Speaker 1: And damn okay five he is on eight HP. You
are KOed by dark Seer at the end of dark
Sear's turn. I'd imagine the dark Seer would actually try
and get to children, So I'll let you calculate how
far he can make it.
Speaker 2: How does dark Sears stay alive when drag didn't?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, you're right, he KOs right condition he's
knocked out. You are both knocked out? Correct?
Speaker 3: Fucked fuck?
Speaker 1: It is now all on Jildin.
Speaker 3: Does he not have the sol ancor thing? If you
dropped a zero hit points you don't fall un conscious
and said you remain at one hit point, but you're
begins to slip from your body.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I guess.
Speaker 3: Every round you remain at one hit point. You must
make a DC ten constitution saying.
Speaker 1: Thank you Dark series back up. They just do the
not on'll get solid four. Just They're just punching each
other on over and over again. Then they fall over,
one of them grabs the other one. They wake each
other up. They punch each other exactly at the same
time in the face again while in the other room, Gilden,
what are you doing?
Speaker 3: I call lightning one more time. On dark Jildin before
I scop it down the corridor. That's twenty three lightning damage.
Oh now do I get one? I guess there's one
hit point. Is it immediate or do I lose the
rest of my turn?
Speaker 1: You explain what you just did.
Speaker 3: I called down lightning on dark Jilding for twenty three damage,
but I only have six HP.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so dark Jilden is only brought down to
three HP when you take half of that yourself. So
you take eleven light damage, which KOs you.
Speaker 3: But then I also have the soule anchor, so I
don't fall on conscious like I don't want to.
Speaker 1: What was the wording on it?
Speaker 3: You fall unconscious or you if you dropped the zero hadpoints,
you don't fall unconscious. Instead, you remain at one hit point.
Speaker 1: But don't actually drop.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you So I can move?
Speaker 3: Is my question?
Speaker 1: You are on one HP and you can still move?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I try and break line of sight with
Dodd Jordan all right, and then oh wait, shoot I
didn't actually give them the decks, so.
Speaker 5: We'll live.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I this might be quite protracted. If I continue,
I am going to wild shape into.
Speaker 1: A bear, right you wild shape into a bear.
Speaker 3: Which means my hit points are now increased two thirty four.
Speaker 1: Yep, a bear appears with the that World of Warcraft
bear sound that.
Speaker 4: Game we were playing.
Speaker 1: And then it is dark Jorden's turn, who I'm guessing
will run like over here somewhere.
Speaker 3: Oh. Actually, because I'm a bear, I can do an
extra ten four movements, so I'm gonna just keep not much,
but it's.
Speaker 1: Enough, all right. What would dark Jilden do in this situation?
Three hp?
Speaker 3: Like she did the exact same thing I did, call downlining. Okay,
so deck say, from from.
Speaker 1: The bear.
Speaker 2: The bearing yielding, so hopefully it's going to be a twelve.
Speaker 3: That's sixteen yeah, so this would do nineteen damage.
Speaker 1: Okay, Bear Jilden takes nineteen damage, but this kills dark Childen.
Dark Children takes reflected damage here to the tune of
nine yeah damage, So this would knock out dark Jildin.
In the other rooms, the form of Dark Seer and
Prime Seer try to punch at one another, and then
like elastic band rubber banding into sea, Dark Seer is
pulled into sea. We see this kind of smoke of
dark Thrack rush down the hallway and enter into Thrack's body.
As dark Thrack and Thrac combine as well, you would
still be unconscious, though, and dark Jilden rubber bands misting
as they move towards the bare form of Jilden. The
dark versions of yourself are defeated. You get eight HP. Okay,
at the end of this fight, Rack is still unconscious.
I'm gonna say, make me a death saving thorwer please
right thirteen two makes what do Jilden and see you do?
You are out of combat?
Speaker 2: Make a med check to wake him up with slap
him on the face, a medical slap, so it's not
a damaged slab.
Speaker 1: You slap him on the face. You do a medical
slap on the face. Give me a medicine check. Okay,
we've all been there. Twist his neck instead with a
seven Yeah, I think you just give him a slap.
Good luck with the rest of the It doesn't do
it doesn't do any damage to him, but he doesn't rouse.
Speaker 2: Okay. In that case, I rummaged through his stuff or
a healing potion. Does he have one? Then I rummaged
them my stuff, and I take my healing potion and
give it and I force drink this giant green hamster.
Speaker 4: Is one that I gave you.
Speaker 2: I think it's one of the ones I bought from
Thingy at the beginning of the campaign.
Speaker 4: Okay, what is that a healing post?
Speaker 2: That healing potion?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Where was that one?
Speaker 1: Du It's just a normal healing potion. Yeah, two D
four plus two yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: Seven.
Speaker 2: I make sure to be away and by the wall
by the time he rouses.
Speaker 4: The Okay, I'm gonna try to kill you.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're gonna do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you rouse?
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 7: Oh oh, and then I I gripped my I picked
my staff up and I look at him and I'm like,
can I tell he's not shadow?
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, okay, what happened?
Speaker 2: Well, your guess is as good as mine. I was
fighting and I was about to win when it entered me.
I'm sorry, Yes, anyway, where's yielding? Where serious?
Speaker 3: Your here? Padding and echoing right coming down the hallways
towards you, and a wet laughing sound as I am
quite literally licking my wounds and I sit on my
haunches next to you, large and largely stinking.
Speaker 4: Stink.
Speaker 3: Now, I'm a fucking bear. Of course I do vile,
not a bear. I'm basically an undead bear. Do I
have like a corpse bear? Well, how does this work?
Speaker 1: No? I think I think you're there for I mean,
you're the Gilden corpse. Doesn't look like a rotten corpse
that has just been pulled out of the ground. You know,
it's you. Guys will get there. So I would imagine
that Jilden, your normal quote unquote corpse, doesn't look rotten,
and it does have some signs of life to it.
You're sort of vitalizing it. So I think the bear
looks not necessarily for the undead, But I do like
the idea that as.
Speaker 3: You slowly well, I think because the Druidic magic is
very life focused, I think the very essence of that
magic has been corrupted and would likely be rotten in
itself in its own way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe that. Yeah, I just think it would
be more of a reflection of your state as well,
and as your as your body as Jildren rots away,
than the bare form and wolf form and stuff will
as well. You'll show up at one point with But
at the moment it's not too bad because you're.
Speaker 3: I'm still stinking, because I'm still a bear.
Speaker 4: Right, what what is back? And I point behind you're
doing at these strange.
Speaker 2: I'm not too sure I had a baganda, but I
wasn't able to find out. Maybe perhaps you might.
Speaker 4: Okay, move over there, limp by.
Speaker 1: Way, Yeah, you guys, head over towards these sort of
alter looking demonic things. Give me an ar karna check thrack.
Speaker 4: That's thirty one.
Speaker 1: These are locks and you need three keys to access them.
While obviously they don't look like keys and locks as
we might understand them, that's what they are in terms
of what there arecane nature is. In order to escape
this illusory world that Anauare has kind of tricked you
and trapped you in, you will need to gain access
to three keys. And as you think of one of
those keys, one of those keys manifests in front of you.
It looks like an orb of fire, like a flaming
sphere that appears floating in front of you. It would
be called to the touch if you grab at it.
But you understand that placing this flaming orb inside of
the demonic looking obelis purple kind of translucent sphere, it
will ignite that and unlock that one lock. These are
keys of truth, and you need three of them. Okay, yeah,
I'll do that, grabbing it, placing it inside of this thing.
You notice the entire sphere, the much larger sphere, ignites
this time with a you know, an orange flame, and
the room about you shifts and changes, and what was
this sort of hall of mirrors and room of strange
demonic obelisks gives way to an eerie, sort of dream
like set of paths that wind through a mist covered garden,
kind of an ethereal looking garden, with these strangely colored trees,
some of them looking green and yellow, some of them
with browns and autumn oranges, but some with pinks, some
with vibrant reds. And ahead of you is a split path. Really,
what we're looking at is two doorways. Behind you, there
is just a solid darkness, nothing whatsoever ahead of you.
The two paths that wind forward and end at these
two doorways, these mist covered kind of trees and hedges
and Laura. There is one path that winds towards a
doorway that is distinctly caught in a kind of patch
of sunlight, and the other doorway is very clearly sort
of caught in shadow and darkness. Not as pitch darknesses
as what is behind you. But you know very obviously.
One of these doors is bathed in sunlight. One is
bathed in darkness. You hear a voice, the voice of
anaware h follow the light. It will lead you to
the truth. Shadows conceal the way forward. Truth. H It's
in darkness here.
Speaker 2: Now if the laya says this, then what is the mean? Exactly?
I say to my compatriots.
Speaker 3: Am I a dissatisfied girl? A wine?
Speaker 2: I'll take a long sigh. And as I do, you
see the areas of my body that have these cuts
and scrapes. This section of my face that was cracked
open by the staff. You see under the skin it
starts to ry. There's these bright pink spiders crawl from
under that layer of skin. As they do, they leave
behind a purple web which they then interlace back and forth,
back and forth. The bruising on my face from that
initial punch and other hits start to just sink in.
As I use an action for wholeness of body and
a bonus action for second wind, as I regain thirty
three hit points, damn son, you hm hmm. Well that
we follow the light of the darkness. When a liar lies,
is is what she's saying the truth or not? When
she is trying to tell the truth.
Speaker 3: What truth does she have to tell?
Speaker 2: She said, follow the light to get out. It is
our salvation.
Speaker 3: Everything she says is twisted.
Speaker 2: Right, which would mean what we follow the dark or
we go straight ahead into that war?
Speaker 3: A look around me, Yeah.
Speaker 1: What are you looking for? There isn't anything looking.
Speaker 3: I am, in fact looking for Syrus.
Speaker 2: But of course Zerrus isn't.
Speaker 1: Not yet, although all three of you did see Cyrus
kind of looking confused at each of you, reaching for
each of you as you were sort of dreamily pulled
into this world.
Speaker 3: Yes, my thought process is I wonder which these pasts
might lead us back to Syrus the light surely, but
it is a fifty to fifty gamble. But do not
know if she's lying, she is a liar, We do
not know what truth she wishes to tell it if
it is a truth at all. Therefore, in my view,
it is a gamble either way. We just pick one
and go with.
Speaker 2: Are made? What do you make of this?
Speaker 4: Well? It could be a lie or a trick, although
I'm assuming this demon would have considered that we would
know that, So it could be a double deception. It
could be true. Perhaps they'd be expecting us to know
that as well. So I think it is truly a
fifty fifty.
Speaker 2: So perhaps both are them.
Speaker 3: Can we go with whatever we can stomach? The light?
Speaker 2: Well, I have got nothing to lose. I am already dead.
So I take one foot forwards, then the next, and
head towards the orange door, the light door.
Speaker 3: Okay, I amble behind closely. Yeah, still a be the.
Speaker 4: I follow them.
Speaker 1: Ah. Yeah. You push open the door. It opens very easily,
and you step through. There is a sort of moment
where the light grows a bit brighter, though the mist
kind of continues to swirl around you. It obscures the
distance of what you're perceiving as you step through this door,
but it's almost as if the garden continues through this door.
The path twisting and winding, and for a few minutes
you walk along this path, and it feels strange to
move through this path. It's a wonderland type thing as
it twists and turns awkwardly, but you feel quite comfortable
to walk along it. The floor and fauna of the
forest around you thickens, the mist thickens, and eventually the
path splits again, though this time both paths appear to
be mixed and bathed in a sort of mix of
light and shadow. You get the sense of the shadows
kind of cling closer to the ground here, and that
the light is kind of a little higher up on
these doors, but generally it doesn't have that obvious contrast
of the first two. You hear the voice of Anaare say,
both paths lead forward, but only one will lead you
deeper into the garden. The path where the the shadows
are heaviest is the true way. M hm.
Speaker 2: H m hmm. Well we have not been steered wrong
so far, So what say we follow this path towards
the shadow?
Speaker 3: That's no saying if we even want to be here
or if we want to leave, which has nothing of.
Speaker 2: Substance to say you would rather stay here?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm not saying that. I'm saying there's no urgency
either way. What does it matter which pathway we take?
What are we getting?
Speaker 2: Well, not for either of us. But there is still
hope for our green friend, is there not?
Speaker 3: Yes, that's not my point. My point is going deeper
into the garden may not be what it seems.
Speaker 1: Knew.
Speaker 3: They may escape in the garden. We have no idea
what trick she has let us leave, just leaving, really
bringing us back to where we were. Who nos so again?
Besides just continue on instinct.
Speaker 2: I don't recall ever wanted to go to a garden
in the first place. What is this garden, some afterlife,
some strange home to this creature? You are so intimate.
Speaker 3: With intimate mind, your tongue, this thing, this whatever she
is tricked me long ago. I made no ill with her,
I made no bargaining with her. I dealt with or
shall I thought, she is nothing, She is a hush,
a wheeld a stringe. We're not intimate.
Speaker 2: I return with just a simple nod to that, as
she tells me more than I would have gotten, perhaps
if I just asked a question. I see, I keep walking.
Speaker 3: I look around me at the garden, and I look
towards the light side and the dark side. I want
to see no apart from obviously the fact that the
dark side is harder to see. If any of them
looks more attractive, I'd assume the light side would seem
more attractive.
Speaker 1: But are they appealing give me a perception check are
they Are they appealing? You can give me an insight check.
Speaker 3: Inside. I want to know if any of them are,
you know, intrinsically off putting in any way.
Speaker 1: The dark side seems more off putting.
Speaker 5: M figures.
Speaker 3: Get us to the cruct of the situation. Do we
go towards the dark to uncover secrets that are uncomfortable?
Or do we go to the light to leave this
place away from the shroud of mystery? I don't know
what to be any closer to that thing than I
have to be, I would say.
Speaker 2: That comfort bears no meaning anymore, does it. What Mattter
is now is getting out of here and dealing with
the mess we left outside before we wither.
Speaker 3: Try the light.
Speaker 4: Very well.
Speaker 3: I turned to Thrack to see if he's in agreeance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, own, odd, Oh you mean me and I just
keep walking towards the light door.
Speaker 1: You push open the lighter door. Make me a dexterity.
Speaker 4: Save.
Speaker 3: All of us.
Speaker 2: Are just here, sir, one dexterity, say coming right up?
Or twenty three?
Speaker 1: You suspect that this is the correct door, but you
have to hop over the shadow that is sitting on
the threshold.
Speaker 4: Of the doorway.
Speaker 1: It almost reaches up. It's not really a fist, but
the shadow kind of curls up to grab at your
foot less than half a foot up. But you recognize
at the last moment that there is something that reaches
for you. While the doorway opens and you can see
through it, you do have to hop over this shadow.
Do you warn the others?
Speaker 2: Of course? I say I would mind your step if
I were you just there. I throw a dart into it.
Speaker 1: It does nothing and clatters to the ground, as if
the shadow. Yeah, it's not reaching for the dark.
Speaker 2: I stay at the dart forlornly. I like that dart too,
should I?
Speaker 3: Yeh? I'm not feeling into it right on my feet
these days? Is I standing your candor to remove it?
I stare at the shadow.
Speaker 2: You can do it, I believe in you. Is that
doing it weird?
Speaker 4: Can I do an arcane check to see if I
can respel this illusion? I? Yeah, the illusion of the shadow,
not the entire thing.
Speaker 1: Twenty Shining any light on this shadow will disperse it
enough for you to be able to pass through.
Speaker 4: Okay, I relay that information if you have any sort
of light source. I think the shadows will retreat.
Speaker 3: I cast fairy fire, and the three of us all
are outlined in a light in a violet light. Can
I roll, you can cut, you can do a dexa.
It's every object and creature that fails a dexa. Does
I fail?
Speaker 2: All right? What is the shame that now around me?
Speaker 3: Violet? You're shedding it for ten foot radius? Any uh?
Any invisible creatures in the area would also be affected
and wouldn't need text chokes after already? Does this dispeller.
Speaker 2: And the invisible creatures?
Speaker 4: Sorry?
Speaker 1: Yes, it completely dispels the shadow. The the doorway is
completely open to it. You see the shadow kind of
light recede into the archway of the door, completely clear.
Speaker 3: Mhm, Okay, I'm no longer a bear.
Speaker 2: Very fire. Last four.
Speaker 1: I just realized they're walking through these little doors.
Speaker 3: Well, if I didn't fit, I would have been unbird.
I am unbearable, big shell anyway. Yeah, it will last
four after a minute, okay, and I can drop it
whenever I want.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Once the minute elapses, you'll notice on your two feet
or two fist sized neon spiders emanating a five foot
glow from their abdomens like little pink slippers.
Speaker 1: Cool. You step through the threshold safely, and you continue
deeper into the garden. The mist continues to sort of thicken,
but the air feels less oppressive until you make it
into this next sort of part. And as you proceed
down this pathway, the path splits again into two doorways,
both seem shrouded in shadow. This time there are faint,
shifting beams of light that every now and then kind
of flicker on one of the doorways, and you hear
the voice of an aware say, shadows and light both
to eve here. Only the path to the left office salvation,
Truth and lies are where shadows are thinnest. So go
through the doorway that glimmers with light. The door on
the left has no shifting beams of light peaking. Throw
onto it the doorway on the right, as every now
and then these little glimmers.
Speaker 4: He's my pack, backed.
Speaker 1: Your pack.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so everything's in there, and not just dream stuff
doesn't work or anything, I'll take out. I'm pretty sure
I've got a torch. Yeah, I've got ten torches. So
I'll take a torch out and i'll set it a flame.
A little bit of magic.
Speaker 1: Okay, it doesn't really change anything here.
Speaker 4: If I go to one of the doors and sort
of put my torch close to it, not through the archway,
does do the shadows retreat it all?
Speaker 2: No, m.
Speaker 4: All like that. Do a bit of a fire bolt
down one of the hallways. Okay, so I feel lines
anything up?
Speaker 1: Uh? I don't think it does really know, you can
still see it, but it doesn't really have that same
sense of lighting things as it moves.
Speaker 2: Where was her voice coming from?
Speaker 1: Just everywhere? Like you're in a fucking dream all around you.
Speaker 2: Because she said the door on the left, and I'm
wondering our left or hers?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh, she mentioned the door without the light.
Speaker 2: Right. She said the door on the left was our salvation.
However the door that was sparkling was the right one. However,
those are two separate doors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the door on the left is the right one.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if if she said the word.
Speaker 3: Right, I had, but if.
Speaker 2: She did, even more interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't believe what she says. She has nothing
to offer you except broken pabashas and lie.
Speaker 2: Right now you've said, but right now we're inside one
of her toys.
Speaker 3: As far as we are aware.
Speaker 2: Fair, you don't think this is within her power.
Speaker 3: I do not know truly what she is capable of.
She has deceived me for most of my life, and
are the things I thought I knew about myself about
my life, and I know nothing. She is capable of,
far more than I expect she would ever reveal to me.
It's not for me to underestimate her.
Speaker 2: Very well.
Speaker 4: He is my soul attached to my body. Right now?
Am I in my physical body? Or am I? Have
we been Mike taken out of our bodies again?
Speaker 1: You're in your body.
Speaker 3: I suspect the answer may lie in the truth of
what we see. As we are able to dispel illusion,
dispel shadows, dispel the lie of in front of us,
then we know the path to take. We must figure
out what is making those flickered.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3: I poke my head around the door that looks to
be shimmering with light, and I want to see what's beyond.
I don't go over this threshold.
Speaker 1: Well, you have to sort of push the door open, m.
Speaker 3: Can I do so with my staff?
Speaker 1: Yeah? You push open the door which is flickering with
a little bit of light. You can see through it
the garden. A head sort of shifts unnervingly. The path
coils out in front of you. It feels like progress.
Speaker 3: I repeat the same action on the other door.
Speaker 1: The other door no longer opens.
Speaker 3: Oh m hmm. All right, then I'd like to invoke
from the ethereal awareness where you can receive the veil
between the living and the dead. Advantage on wisdom checks
to detect in visible creatures and dead or beings on
the ethereal plane within sixty five. So that's a reception check. Yeah,
advantage twenty seven.
Speaker 1: There are none aside from any sort of glimmers of
that you might receive from yourself and see her. No
un dead beings. No, this isn't the ethereal plane, and
no invisible things lurking in front of you.
Speaker 3: Hm, where I have no choice?
Speaker 2: All right, then I guess I'll lead the vanguard again,
and I just walk ahead into the door. But she's opened.
Speaker 1: Okay. You step through this doorway and the pathway there's
almost a break in the midst and you can see
a sort of distant clearing. The path seems to lead down,
but it begins to kind of circle, almost as if
it's circling back on itself, heading downwards, and downwards. It
becomes sort of impossibly confusing as you walk this path
winding away into darkness before there is eventually a light
that sort of begins to open up, as if you
were leaving a tunnel, but shining on the pathway itself.
The trees about you begin to light up, and there
is a single doorway that sits in front of you.
The door is just like all of the other doors,
trees and sort of hedges around it, a weird kind
of blurry etherealness to the edges of the well everything. However,
the sort of circular winding path that you've walked down
has kind of given away, and behind you is nothing
more than darkness, and you hear the voice of anaware say,
the light has betrayed you. The only way forward is
through the darkness.
Speaker 3: Suspected there was never a choice.
Speaker 2: I mean, she did say left. I'm not too sure
exactly why. Maybe she's forgotten about what her little set
up here looks like. Either way, or.
Speaker 3: She is correlling us to go wherever she wants us
to go. Either way, this is a thing with her.
But everything that we are experiencing, the choices we have
are far fewers and we think we are being rushed
by forces beyond our comprehension. They have their own agendas,
and we are just puppet.
Speaker 2: Pawns, well, little puppet, in which case, I suppose we
should dance to the string that's being pulled until until
perhaps you get a chance to be the puppet master. Yeah,
or at least to pinch back anyway. So there's a
dark door in this area them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a normal looking door, just a or plane
looking wooden door.
Speaker 2: I walk up to it and I kick it down.
Speaker 1: You kick it down, Uh, you kick it and it opens,
you know, it just opens up, and inside is a
dimly lit room filled with all of these floating orbs
of light?
Speaker 2: Is it just the orbs of light here?
Speaker 1: That's what it looks like. It looks like a All
you can really make out are orbs of light. The
walls and floors seem to be just very plain. They
might be stone. It certainly doesn't look like the garden.
It also doesn't look like pure darkness like what you've
got behind you.
Speaker 2: Okay, three spiders again, neon pink fist size, crawl out
of my robe. They then weave bubble like webs and
then float up towards these lights and then just hang
there by the lights. Does anything change? Are the lights
still there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I don't think anything changes.
Speaker 2: I walk inside and wait for my compatriots.
Speaker 4: Kay, does anything happening through them? When you walk? Soon?
I will also walk in.
Speaker 3: Okay, kuild them too, yeshlenga for a while, but not
too long.
Speaker 1: Okay. You step into a room that is just filled
with these kind of strange looking orbs that are lighting
up the the very plain looking flooring here it is
just a plain stone looking masoned and flat, but nothing dark.
The walls are kind of the same thing. It's almost
just a liminal space of darkness. The orbs seem to
stretch out endlessly, and they are at different elevations throughout
the room. Here, they're hanging from the ceiling. They're floating
in the air. Some of them are close to the ground,
some of them further up. They're spaced sort of randomly
and oddly, and as you get close to these orbs,
you can see they can tain glimpses of the adventure
that you've been on there since starting this campaign, distorted
in varying ways. You can see little moments from different perspectives,
some of them from Jilden's perspectives, some from Thracks, some
from seers. You also see a few of these orbs
hold different fragments of memories as well, not just moments
that you all shared and recognized, but different moments from
your past, personal moments, significant battles, childhood moments. But something
is always off in each of these memories. It might
be as simple as someone who's wearing a differently colored robe,
or it might be that there is for example, in
one of Thrack's memories, the bore is a pig, not
a bore. You know, something off in that way. Let's
start with sea. As you look into one of these orbs,
it transfixes you a moment. It holds your gaze a
little more strongly than the others. As you look into
this orb, what does see us see? And maybe what
do the others see as well if they're looking into
the orb as you walk through this room too?
Speaker 2: A false memory, he said.
Speaker 1: It'll be a real memory with an element that is false.
Speaker 2: All right, You see in this small portal into what
could only be my past. Perhaps there are dozens of drowl,
long hair, deep red eyes. They're all being scolded at
the moment by by a man's correcting them on the
proper use of a weapon, how to talk elocution. There
are a couple on the corner. You surmise perhaps they're
being disciplined, but as for how and why, you're not
too sure. All the drawer wearing the same clothes in
what looks to you like a classroom. You also see
this drought there as the shifts and shimmers and the
perspective changes. There's another drought girl you see with nine
eyes in the front of the class, attentive, also lost,
see yah, And then the all changes again, the perspective shifts.
It almost seems as if maybe perhaps time has changed
in this short moment. There's a commotion. There's blood running
on the road again. You see that same girl with
the nine eyes being dragged away. You hear them calling
up for their parents. The father's not there, the mother.
The mother's calling out back for her bet. Those shouts
are cut off. Literally there's a knife. He's plunged into her.
The adolescent girls dragged up a tower. It gets light
before it gets dark, Before it gets light again. They
look up and there's a shift amongst robe on the floor,
and this half drow, half spider looking creature looks at them,
and the ball dissipates.
Speaker 1: The other two. While Syr is looking into this memory
and you see it along with Sea, the orb in
front of Sea ignites with flame to the end of
the memory and sort of drops from the what of
a string or chain it's hanging from, and hits the
ground and becomes one of the keys of truth you
can collect.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'll I'll kneel down and does it look the
same as the other one, I'll pick it up.
Speaker 1: As you pick it up and you stand back up,
there is one of these orbs very close to your face, Thrack,
And as you look into it, you have a similar experience,
and that you see a sort of fragmented memory of yours,
something from your past, some moment, whatever it is, with
an element that is wrong, one thing that is wrong
about this memory. What does Thrax say, Potentially the other
two if they're looking that way as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I am. I'm walking into the in in the moon,
and I've got my nose in a book, and I
sit down for a meal, and I look up from
my book and notice that Cirrus, the the dragon born
is sitting next to me. She's got sort of Michael
pink and red and white scales and red horns, and
she she's eating her food and I order one as well,
just whatever's for dinner. And we discuss polite conversation about
moon and our time here, and she tells me that
she's fairly new here and looking forward to studying, studying
some magics in the air and religion into temple. And
I think that's it, just a nice little dinner memory,
nothing traumatic.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The orb that you're looking at ignites and transforms into
another one of those keys of truth. This time you
can pluck it like an apple if you want.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'll take that one as well. I have two
in my hands now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The walls of the room begin to brighten up
a little bit. All of the orbs throughout this place
begin to show the same memory. And this would be
a very dark memory of yours children, something that you
would not want these other two to potentially see. But
it plays across all of them. What do they see?
But there is one element to this memory that is false.
Speaker 3: The memory begins at a campfire in the middle of
a forest. It's dark. I'm sat with a blanket around
my shoulders, my pack next to me. Besides me, my
companions sat in similar attire. He's rubbing his hands and
holding them up to the fire. He's laughing, and I'm
staring at his face.
Speaker 5: There is a.
Speaker 3: Joy and a freedom that perhaps has never been seen before.
My companion and I laugh together, and we we grill
some meat on the fire before we begin settling in
for the night in our little camping packs. I lay
down and make sure he's settled. He's an attractive man,
flowing blonde hair, not young by any means, on the
older side, his battle's guard. He's seen a lot. His
eyes glow with a subtle yellow hue. But I make
him some tea, and we settle down, and I cover
him in a blanket, and I cover myself in a blanket,
and we stare at one another. Then we murmur to
each other as we fall asleep. As the perspective shifts
from the back of my companion's head and rather they're
to my perspective in the front of them. It is
not the male companion I'm looking at anymore. It's a
horned demon. You watch as we sleep for a while,
we wake up. We're smiling, we're laughing. We pack up
our camp and we continue our path. We're walking down
a road, not well traveled, scant, few horse hoof prints
mark the mud. Then we hear a sound, a wagon
trundling ever so slowly, a joyful whistle mute. But there
we hide behind the trees, waiting. We see him. He's
a lonely traveler. He's on his own. He's got nothing
really to defend himself with. We watch as he carries
on down the path, his wagon covered and spoils all
sorts of trade, crates that seem to be covered in
food and meats, and all sorts of treasures. We wait
till he gets close. We jump out in front of him.
We exchange words, pleasantries at first, and then becomes the
real deal. We want whatever he has in his wagon.
In fact, we'll take his wagon too, if he doesn't mind.
Of course, he declines. He wants to keep his wagon,
he wants his goods. He has a market he's supposed
to be going to. Why would he ever give anything
like that to two strangers on the road. But there
was never a choice in the matter. My companion, with
his flowing golden hair jumps next to him on the wagon,
pulls him over and with a quick flick of his knife,
slits his throat ear to ear. I look onwards at
the two of them. When I look down at my hands,
it's mine, not a covered in blood, and not it.
Speaker 1: The room begins to heat up. There is a burning sensation.
Immediately there is a cackling as you hear Anawara laughing.
Each of the orbs ignites, and the room begins to
shift and twist, and you find yourselves back in that
original space with the three altars with the burning kind
of holograms of orbs on them. One of them is
still a flame, whereas two of them remain kind of
purple and translucent. The heat carries over from the rooms
with the room with the orbs in back to this place,
and you feel that sensation regardless of the fact that
the flames seem to have gone away. You still feel
that heat on your bodies as you stand here Track
with two keys of truth in his hands, and the
room shifting and giving way as you return to this
mirror green sort of mirror refracted set of holes and chambers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how big are these orbs of truth fit?
Speaker 1: In the palm of your hand, like.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, so I'll cur you to in one hand.
I'll look over at Jordan, and I'm taking a moment
to study banks and body language.
Speaker 3: It's tense again, both hands clutching her staff. A your
tense looking into the middle distance.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, sort of down the earth spectacles, and then
link and move to the two Thank you.
Speaker 3: She does not look you in the eye. In fact,
she looks either of you in the eye for probably
the next God knows how long I spell that mud.
Speaker 4: Well, I put the two keys where they belong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you put the first one into the sort of
magic arcane altar thing. It ignites the flame, taking more
tangible shape similar to the first one. Walking over to
the next one, you do the same thing, and then
without warning, there is a sort of blinding flash of light,
and as you sort of instinctively close your eyes and
open them again, you are back in the temple cirrus
standing beside you the moon sort of moonlight etchings that
were on the wall, the tapestries. However, each of those
tapestries suddenly ignites. The ground beneath your feet begins to
tremble violently as cracks of molten fire tail through, spewing
flames up, catching the tapestries and burning them. A sort
of hellish set of flames spew upwards and spiral up
in these strange arcs as a form sort of monstrous
looking wreathed in flame figure that is radiating fire like
an inferno, pulls its way up out of the ground
before you more cackling. And that is where we're going
to end today.
Speaker 4: So come on one by the way next seven, I'm
in the Purple Show.
Speaker 1: You are in so much trouble, but you will have
a cleric back, hopefully as you as you pick up
next week. We did. We missed a Mergles this week.
Mergs is away for a week and we'll be returning
next week. And so that was why we had this
little side adventure. As anawari pulls you into again jude
to the sort of stunning revelation of the filler episode
at the end. There a couple of them, really, but
I don't know if you guys are even aware of it.
And we'll pick up from there as this creature pulls
itself out of the ground, following you up and out
of this illusory world back into the real world, and
we'll see what it is and what you have to
do and how you deal with it next week. A
quick announcement here just before we end that there is
a brand new show starting up on Sunday called Deathless,
which is run by Pumpkinberry. It is at I think
three pm am. I correct on that one three three Eastern.
And this is a show about vampires waking up after
being I don't know how much I can really say
about it, but being trapped in a coffin.
Speaker 3: There is a public description in the discord.
Speaker 1: Good and then you wake up and it's almost definitely
going to be Manhattan. Well they step into it's Manhattan
nineteen ninety five, I Thinkland Staten Island in the nineties.
So yeah, tune in for that brand new show on Sunday,
Deathless VTM fun. And we also have a new show
on Fridays now called non Cannon, which starts Pumpkinberry and
Wax Stephen as I run them through a sort of
multiversal strange weekly Monster or Sliders of the Week episode.
Where will they end up, where will they go? What
will happen? Probably absolutely they will end up in Manhattan
at some point during that one because if that doesn't happen,
then what was the point in me even doing it?
So yeah, just as a little, you know, a little note,
we've got gate Walkers Pathfinder on Mondays. Tuesdays you can
tune in and watch us play more of this Cura
Friday's Non Canon, and then Sundays this week, don't forget
to tune in for Deathless, which will be starting Sunday.
All right, great, I'm going to go straight to bed.
Thank you so much everyone for watching. We'll see you
on Friday for non Cannon, and we'll see the rest
of you here for another episode of Cura next Tuesday.
Thanks for watching. Bye bye, Hello. This is Brad Wonto
from Table Story. If you enjoy this podcast, please be
sure to rate and review it, and if you'd like
to listen to more of our podcasts, you can head
over to tablestory dot tv for a variety of other shows.
We also have additional show content and merchandise at merch
dot Tablestory dot tv, and if you'd like to join
our community, you can head over to Tablestory dot tv, Forward,
slash Discord. Thank you for listening and enjoy