Speaker 1: You are listening to the Nick's Archive, the official Relict
RPG actual play podcast. You can play Relict absolutely free
right now by going to relictrpg dot com. Hey, folks
up top, I just want to let you know we
had a little bit of an audio issue for the
first few minutes of this episode. Here a new update
for one of the softwares of recording suites or whatever
we use best up everyone's pre sets. We figured it
out around the seven minute mark. Maddie's track in particular,
was really suppressed for a few moments. After a lot
of fiddling in post, I got it up to being
tolerable for everything. But just know that if it's irksome
to you, you could skip ahead to about seven minutes
thirty seconds and things should be back on track. Such
are the perils of an unscripted production. Thanks for your
understanding and enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Knicks Archive.
I am your friendly neighborhood game master CD Corrigan. Nick.
How's it going with me? As always is the lovely mmm.
I'm always so afraid to introduce now because I see
Marissa just locking and loading something in the corner. My
lovely wife Maddie Hammett.
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm playing Sarah and of course our resident rabble
rouser sister wife Marissa.
Speaker 3: Who has no joke today.
Speaker 1: Anyways, last we left off, we had a nice double
whammy of an episode double for us. It came out
on a normal schedule for you guys, but our intrepid
dungeon Delvers crossed the tundra and arrived at the base
of the mysterious Split Faced Mountain on the Bulwark Mountain
Split Face Peak in the Bulwark Mountains, upon which near
the Apex their quarry supposedly lies. After making camp and
not spotting a whole lot of wildlife out of here
as a skink determined somebody paid them a visit, and
that was a whole situation, we met the mysterious Zero Windseer,
a guy in question Mark who didn't have a good
chunk of his face, but purported to be a friend
confidant servant of Nick's, the Goddess of Death who has
somehow marked these two but not the centaurs, so that's fun.
Zero revealed to them after a pleasant relaxed conversation that
there might in fact be an alternative path to their destination,
but it's going to be a tight squeeze. And upon
being asked if there was maybe something that we could
do for him, whatever this entity is, he said, well,
you know, not hurting me any but there's something real
gross up there, and if you wouldn't mind killing that thing,
that'd be nice. That is where we are going to
pick up as we awaken to another cold, dark morning
at the foothills of the Bulwark Mountains. But first we
have to do the thing we do every day on
the next archive and roll for pip roll for.
Speaker 4: Pip rolls today, what do you want even odds today?
Speaker 1: I want okay, okay odds for Pharaoh. Let's see it.
That's a one.
Speaker 3: Congratulations.
Speaker 1: You kind of spent several days curled up with Skink,
if memory serves, so this morning has we'll say Skink,
you awake first, and as you step outside, ready to
begin after a RESTful night's sleep. As we established last time,
as you step out into the camp, early hip was
kind of maybe over your thrashing in the night, and
he pops out of his beorn with you and hops
over and nestle in with Farah and barry the Barreth
around the corner in the lean to.
Speaker 3: Excellent.
Speaker 1: What would you guys like to do? It is the
first thing in the morning. Doesn't look like the centaurs
are up. Barry is still.
Speaker 4: I actually think that Pip getting up would have would
have woken up Skink. So she's gonna get up and
poke her face out to look for Farah.
Speaker 3: And go like say come here, come here, call her
into the tent.
Speaker 1: You awake to Tip nestling in with you and Skink
calling your name and a storing Barry. But that's become
kind of just a constant presence.
Speaker 2: Like, ugh, okay, all right, I go over the tent.
What's up Skink?
Speaker 4: Okay, So we're absolutely not telling tula At Orlow who
we talked to last night.
Speaker 2: Right, No, probably not.
Speaker 5: I mean I don't feel like they're connected to.
Speaker 1: And with a one and a two roll, they didn't
notice this conversation.
Speaker 4: Lucky us, Okay, okay. I just wanted to make sure
otherwise I was going to have to be like real
weird and sneaky around you.
Speaker 3: But okay, okay, No, well we're good. Yeah, how did
you sleep? Did you have any weird dreams?
Speaker 2: I did? Actually? Yeah, so you know how Zero told
us about that entity that lives in his mountain.
Speaker 3: The one we have sworn to eliminate.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, I I feel like I may have had
a dream about that.
Speaker 2: In my dream, I.
Speaker 5: Mean bad because the entity gives off bad vibes. But
the I had a dream about basically the cavern that.
Speaker 2: It looks like he might be in. It might be in,
I don't know.
Speaker 5: And if my dream is correct, there is a opening
to this like outside, which means that midday, when the
sun is at its highest, there should be some light
coming through that opening, which Zero told us that this
entity does not like light.
Speaker 2: Is its weakness.
Speaker 1: So a point of order from the DM Blue Blue
Blue Pharaoh's memory, there was actually a weak pillar to
the ceiling. There was not already an existing opening.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, that's right, she'd But I was basically shown
that if we broke it, take the weak pillar out,
that it would create the opening.
Speaker 2: Thank you, GM. I appree that. And there's a dark
pool underneath that pillar. It was a dream. It gets
muddled dreams.
Speaker 5: And we were told of that secondary way of getting
up there, which is going to be tighter. I don't
think we'll be able to take this informs with us
so if we do this, we probably want to try
to time it where we can get there there's sunlight. Right,
So well that's if my dream is accurate. So okay,
thank you.
Speaker 4: I'm glad we I knew we needed a conference before
before we went on with the day.
Speaker 2: Yes, morning conference time.
Speaker 3: Morning conference time. Oh all right, time for some of
that osc tea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, host tea.
Speaker 1: Uh, Pip is rooting around in one of your bags
looking for just rations.
Speaker 2: Cool.
Speaker 3: All right, I think we're ready.
Speaker 1: You all awaken there, I jump, Well, something's moving, he is,
something is moving?
Speaker 4: Brother, uh throwing a little face out of the uh,
out of the tent.
Speaker 3: We're awake.
Speaker 1: Blistering cold wind just sweeping around you. Remember, you guys
are up against this rock wall and this overhang, and
it's just every once in a while it's usually your sheltered,
but every once in a while the wind kind of
does that like swirls through and it's just really intense
for a second. So as soon as you poke your
head out as it wimby, yeah you see Orlo and
Tula stirring and starting to get a breakfast source.
Speaker 2: Right, Remind me what was in the Oscar tea wasn't
it just like.
Speaker 1: It's just melts hot water.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's right, I love it. I can do
it with my heat heating abilities. Is an enchanter, so
I am I immediately do that for ski Cana.
Speaker 1: I think farah it it occurs to you that if
this adventuring thing doesn't work out, you probably innately could
set up a little tea shop in Osk and do
like a pretty mediocre but survivable business.
Speaker 2: Excellent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's not a huge market ferocity, but like there's
lazy people.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm going to offer it to Tula and orlo
is wrong or logosh.
Speaker 1: I went and asked, and Tula takes hers and goes,
oh good, can you do moater? And she pours it
into the pot and just dumps what looks like some
dried noodles and veggies into it and is like stirring
up a little thing.
Speaker 2: I can, I will totally, He'll do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So with your help, she kind of just skips
like a huge chunk of like what would be getting
water up to a boil and making something and is
able to make this kind of like veggie mash noodle
thing that's actually warm and filling because we will need
this many calories for climb today. Yeah, you're all ready
to climb Old zero here. We didn't make it too
far up the side before, but.
Speaker 2: It'll be something I think you ever called the Mountain
zero before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Mount Ziero, mount to Mount windser a couple
of different names for it, but.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's one of the I don't know where
it comes from.
Speaker 1: I think, uh maybe actually Gallio could tell you back
in town. He's his family's tribe is kind of from
this area historically speaking. I don't know him, and they're
still up here. You don't say, yeah, no, but yeah
it's it's supposedly what was the highest peak in the
Bulwark Mountains I think a long time ago, and then
whatever you know, volcano or whatever blew its top off there.
It trunk it a little bit. I think there's a
higher one out east somewhere, but still still pretty big rock.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be a hell of a climb. I
think we can use berry. So my suggestion is we
dig in here. I mean, this is a good enough
landmark as any we can maybe find a way to mark.
Put a pairing up on the ridge, or something. But
I suggest we dig in the packs and the sled
here because we're not gonna be able to get them
up anyways. And this will be base camp and we'll
just kind of pack it in ice for a couple
of days while we head up the mountain and just
take the essentials, put what we need on Berry. The
rest of us will walk and climb ourselves. Berry should
be good to carry some basics, but not a full
sled and everything. And yeah, it's going me a hard
climb up there. We made it about a day up
with Cassie and Chester before we found a flake van
and turned around. So up to oh, let me think, yeah,
up to the high Forest. I kind of know the
route past that we're going to be in new territory
for me.
Speaker 5: Okay, is there any other entrance into the mountain that
you know of?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure there's caves and cave systems and whatnot,
but without knowing where I'm going, it would just be
a cave to somewhere. All I know based on Lady
Sives information, is that the Divining Pool entrance is supposed
that he pulls out a map like very similar to yours,
and it's got like some notes and some and you compare.
She basically gave you guys the same prompt and he goes, so,
based on this, if we head up to the and
he's like showing like you can barely see like the
twin split peak at the top from where you guys
are down the mountain, And he's like, all right, if
we head up there, we get within so many yards
of it, and we face towards the south west there
should supposedly be and there's these landmarks, this, that and
the other things. If we get around there, we should
be able to find an entrance in like a gully
or a gulch or something. I've never seen it. I
don't know if anyone has. That's just the record that
she had. So hopefully we can get there, and I
don't know, we'll bring our dig in the equipment. I
assume it's probably under snow if nothing else.
Speaker 2: Oh, Jim, we have a little bit of table talk here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the secondary engines that we're shown, that's like a
tight fit. Where was it in relation to the other entrance?
Speaker 1: Ciro gave you a specific vision, so like I think
you know intuitively you can find this thing. It's a
couple of miles away from your camp, and it is
actually like a waterfall out, well frozen, but a waterfall
out the side of the mountain that leads to an
underground stream that takes you. He described it as I
believe as the like drainage path for the dividing pool,
like it leads to it directly.
Speaker 2: Okay, so our tent is still up, correct?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, the trick here is the centaurs. Don't know
why you would know something like that, right, I think.
Speaker 4: Uh, cake is gonna go okay, well, uh, I'm gonna
go for a walk.
Speaker 2: A company all right.
Speaker 1: There was like, yes, this is high end fiber. We
should all take you a walk. Start claiming m hmm, yeah,
I too will go for a walk, and she starts
backing up and goes out the other direction, like around the.
Speaker 2: Or.
Speaker 1: It was like I haven't finished coffee yet, but all right,
I mean not a rush. It's still it's gonna be
dark out for a while, all right, I mean whatever,
I'll hold down the camp while you guys go relieve yourselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's don't wait up for me.
Speaker 2: Uh but.
Speaker 4: It's like I guess it's it's He complies that terrible
goblin business is about.
Speaker 2: That's I suppose you don't want cleverness, chef.
Speaker 3: Okay, I was waiting.
Speaker 4: I was waiting for you to make you.
Speaker 1: You know, it's we call for the check when there's
a chance of something going well or going wrong. So
it's waiting for the like what it is? What is that?
Speaker 2: It is?
Speaker 3: Into the cup? It goes.
Speaker 1: Ah, we're rolling from the yogurt container today eleven eleven.
All right, let's see three okay.
Speaker 3: Oh wait plus three? I get a fourteen fourteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was just like what and that's It's like,
all right, well we can wait for a while. That's
our listen, you're the leader of the expedition. It's fine.
Speaker 4: I know Kig says, don't wait for me, knowing full
well that they all do have to wait to his crew.
You can, so I just like to walk away in
or opposite directions, absolutely opposite direction.
Speaker 1: Like you're going to have a poop duel fifty paces.
Oh my god, Sarah, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: Well? I had asked if she wanted company, but then
it became about poop. So that feels awkward. So, I mean,
you know, awkward.
Speaker 4: He's intending for sure to like just go look around
and look for weirdness in the mountain. It's because I mean,
I guess there could be relieving, but uh, that's not
really the point of what.
Speaker 2: Are you going to walk several miles to where this?
Speaker 4: No, I'm going to walk maybe a mile, right, like
like twenty minute walking pace, right, a twenty minute walk out,
and then like if you ran back.
Speaker 3: It'd be like fifteen minutes in. Skink is gonna be
gone for like half an hour.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, all right, Farah is just gonna be like
awkwardly sitting there sort of like whittling her thumbs.
Speaker 4: And Sarah is the one who knows what the entrance
looks like, right, Skink doesn't know anything. Bothah, yeah, yeah, Okay,
it wasn't the dream.
Speaker 1: This serious conversation exactly. So Sarah, as you're sitting there,
Barry shuffles out and it's kind of.
Speaker 2: Like totally get berry breakfast.
Speaker 1: Okay, Barry was gonna get breakfast one way or another,
so it's good that one of you jumped on that.
So Barry eats one of these loaves of just meat
ration whatever happens to be in there, string and all
all oh, and yeah, Harry doesn't walk very far to
relieve herself. But it's it's fine. Orlo is just going,
I'm just gonna all right, so uh yeah, I'm just
gonna hang out in my tent for a little while.
Let me know when they're back. He just awkwardly. Arlow
is a simple guy. He doesn't know what the hell
everyone's doing stuff.
Speaker 4: Can we know what Orlo does in his tent while
he's waiting for everyone?
Speaker 1: Yes, dream secrets, But to Orlo hunkers down in his tent,
it's a bigger tent. It's a little taller to feel
wider kind of or less more slack in the lines,
just as necessity to like make a bigger enclosed warm
space a lot more blankets and furs thrown around. You
see that he kinda nestles down own and that kind
of horseway like on a pad of blankets, and like
throws a shawl over his back and another one it's
crazy pulls from one of his pockets. Journal, Dearest Melinda,
it is our fourth night on the ice. Think of
you constantly, two of the grades at my nerves for evermore.
But I must admit that I am glad to have
family amongst me. Once again there's a reminder of how
far I have drifted from the from my roots to
interact with her, who stayed so steeped in the culture
and ways of our family and our clan. But I
don't know. Siblings are siblings. We love them even when
we want to beat them up about the head. Well,
you know, give my best to Billy and he just
sits there and he writes like he's got a little
satchel of letters. Skink, you set off and you have this,
you realize as you come around from the rock face
and start heading off, I assume in the direction that
Zero had indicated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as best as Skink can tell, you know.
Speaker 1: You actually have. There's this like sixth sense to it.
Speaker 3: I remember that as a goblin, I have tunnel sense.
Speaker 1: You have tunnel sense. But this is something else. This
is like you have a feeling when you're heading in
the direction that Zero had like directed your awareness too magically.
When you were heading in the direction he had indicated,
it feels correct. You feel like you're going to the
right place. If you veer off of that path, it
almost feels like using your offhand to like write with
where You're just like, I have all the muscles for this,
but it doesn't feel right right, and so you kind
of I think you have this moment of like, oh,
there's like an intuition thing happening here, and you are
able to walk with confidence despite like the heavy snowfall
and like rocks and and tundra and icedly are between
you and a destination that you cannot see from this
vantage point. It is like around the face of the
mountain a little bit. You said you wanted to go
for about twenty minutes.
Speaker 4: I said, at like a twenty minute mile pace, but
I'm probably only going to go about fifteen.
Speaker 3: Minutes out so that I can go fifteen minutes back.
Like however quickly I get that far, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, sure, yeah, sure, I need two things from you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to start with one. I need you
to make a will power check for me.
Speaker 6: Okay, coming right up, we'll power check, okay, Yo.
Speaker 3: It's a twelfth plus a two.
Speaker 2: Oh very good, Oh my.
Speaker 1: God, very good. Okay, you have saved yourself.
Speaker 3: Some trouble, thank god.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: And then the next thing I need, because that was
so good, I need you to make a precision check
and also take a fake point if you so choose.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'll take it a faith point, yeah, yeah, from
a zero to a one one, all right, and a
perception no precision precision, yes, it's a four wait plus
two six.
Speaker 1: Six all right. Yeah. You're hiking along and you know
you have the sense of like, Okay, I kind of
I feel like I can find this thing. It's it's
over there, the snow out here. You know, in town,
the snow is up to your knees and waste. Sometimes
out here, you've got to like pick a path so
you don't submerge. And it's harder on like the windwardward
the windward side of the slopes where like the snow
piles up, so you've got to be really carefully careful
about being like, Okay, there's a ridge here. The snow
goes there, and that looks like flat ground. But if
I walk into it right now, I'm gonna be in
a snow drift. So I've got to go up here,
and like you kind of are like and that's sort
of how you're able to figure out this like intuitive
sense of oh, I know when I veer off of
like the cardinal direction, I need to go in as
you're kind of coming up and around like one out
cropping and like, oh, that's really snow over there. Uh
you see in the distance a flickering warm light. It
looks like a campfire or like a lantern light, and
then it it's away.
Speaker 2: H m hmm.
Speaker 3: Okay, Skink is gonna.
Speaker 4: Mark that by like splatting themselves into the snow, like
just try to like make a big mark in the snow.
That would be hard because it's windy and things are
moving and shifting. So Skink are just going to try
to like make a big as big a mark in
the snow as possible before heading back.
Speaker 3: To report on uh on on the findings that I
saw a light. I saw a light.
Speaker 1: All right, Skink heads back farah any activity on your end.
Tula has returned at this point, No, do not see
where the skink went.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just I'm sure needed a bit of time.
Speaker 1: I have mornings like that, Okay, After a little while,
orlow Re emerges from his tents, excuses himself for a
little while, comes back, and then I think about that time,
Skink is we're just fully playing out the morning routine
of everyone at camp.
Speaker 3: At this point right, yeah, yeah, it says Skink comes back. Guys,
I saw a light.
Speaker 2: A light?
Speaker 3: Well what something flickered? Something flickered. Okay, what do we
think there's what do we do.
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 3: Skink is like vaguely flustered.
Speaker 4: It doesn't have like a plan of action, was like,
but feels like telling people that I saw light out
here on the mountain should make people want to do
something and maybe they'll supply a reaction.
Speaker 1: Skink returns who camp and tells everyone that she had
seen fire orlo coming out of his tanding you saw what.
Speaker 3: Now something flickered. I walked that way and she points
and goes, something flickered. Someone's out here, someone's out here.
Speaker 1: All right, hold on, I'll go check it out. And
you see he kind of runs around the corner and
you like you hear him like run up to the
top of the ridge. Minute or two later he runs
back down. I don't see anything. I mean, how far
how far out we're talking here? It is still dark
at this point, by the way, Yeah, but Centaur doesn't
have dark vision. You two both do.
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: If if it was no dark vision, isn't the same
as like magical stuff like it's just being able to
see in the dark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, effectively?
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I swear, I swear I saw something.
I feel uncomfortable. I feel like we should.
Speaker 1: Check it out, all right, I mean how far okay,
all right, we can run out there? Can you tell us,
like guide us to it? How far out was this thing?
Speaker 3: One hundred yards? Skak, just like it says a number.
Speaker 5: Feels a little made up, but okay, I.
Speaker 1: Feel like I would have seen it at a hundred
All right, come on, any are you going with him
or are.
Speaker 3: You just like I'm totally going with him?
Speaker 4: I want it, yeah, because at this point I just
I wanted a friend to go with me. I was like,
I don't want to go that far away from the
camp by myself. But now that you know Chris Hemsworth
the centaur is coming with me, everything's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, usually if fair, are you coming along? Who are
you staying in camp?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, I'm still comming, okay.
Speaker 1: So Orlo starts to like trot around the corner and
then like sees you two are like following down, like
very clearly slows down, but I also speed up.
Speaker 3: I'm like scurrying along at my it's.
Speaker 4: Not very fast because it's so hard because the snow
is so high, but I can at least go fast
in the tracks that he made, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're scurrying after him, and then you just look
behind you and see Tula like calmly walking behind you
two and like keeping pace. Yeah, all right. He goes
out about one hundred yards and he kind of looks
at you, and he like looks at your trail and
he's like, I don't I don't want to cast aspersions best, skink,
but are you good with distances?
Speaker 3: It's not my best?
Speaker 1: All right. I'm just saying I know it's dark out
and he kind of holds up a torch. He's like,
it's dark out here, but it does look like you
went a lot further than one hundred yards. I just
I wanted to point that out.
Speaker 3: I thought you meant how far was it from what
I saw?
Speaker 1: Right? Okay? I was trying to gather how far I
have to go to see what you saw?
Speaker 3: Oh, you can just fallow wife snow tracks.
Speaker 4: Right, skin keeps running on, like, isn't it obvious where
I was?
Speaker 1: Orler just kind of goes okay, and he starts going
along you guys travel for about another fifteen minutes, and
you get to the point where you see a skink
shaped snow angel flopped into the snow.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It looks to me like you turned around here.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, and I saw one hundred yards
from here, right.
Speaker 1: I need Farah to make a willpower check and I'm
gonna roll some stuff for the centaur.
Speaker 2: That is a.
Speaker 1: It's not a twelve.
Speaker 2: It is a six plus three nine nine.
Speaker 1: Okay, great Orlo gets a twelve after his bonus, and
of Tula is per absolutely uh Sarah. So you guys
are standing there, Tula and Orlow kind of flanking skink
and looking to where you're pointing like, I don't really
see anything. I don't know, I mean maybe it's possible.
I mean there's other stuff out here you might have seen,
like a flake deposit or something. Was it like was
it warm colored? Was it cold colored?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: As you guys are having this conversation, Barah, you catch
up and look out and you are immediately struck more
than you have been since you left Osk with this
bone chilling, deep sensation of cold, and you look out
to where everyone is indicating and you see a light
that looks so warm and inviting.
Speaker 5: Okay, I think I see the light that you're talking about. Skink,
it's right there. I'm gonna point to it.
Speaker 1: As you go to point, you hear Orlo and Tula
shouting at you. Oh, and you realize we're gonna cut
back for a second, Skink as you're like, it was
over there, and Tula and Orla are like da da da.
You see Farah just fucking booking it across the tundra
towards where you saw the light. Oh no, so Parah.
When you go to point, you look back and see
two centaurs like struggling to catch up to you, Like,
what are you doing? Where you go? You can't just
go running off in the dart you see her? I
don't see her, Skink get up here. I can't. I
can't see in the dark. I don't know where she went. Farah,
light a light, light, a torch?
Speaker 2: You see your tracks?
Speaker 1: I see your tracks? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Does it?
Speaker 1: Do?
Speaker 2: I feel alarmed that I can look behind me and
see them like that?
Speaker 1: You or am I have a beat of like missed time?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: And you look back and I think you have this
sense of like why are my friends so far behind.
The light is warm. We need to get to that
or we'll freeze to death. And then they're further behind again,
and you keep running, skink, what are you doing right now?
Speaker 4: Just a second, I know they can't see, so I
try to climb on orlo to direct him.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, it's like what do you? What the heck?
All right? Yeah, come on? And he just like scoops
you up and like plants you over a shower, like
where is she?
Speaker 4: And I And I'm like, I'm like pointing, like I'm
Paul Revere or something.
Speaker 1: I'm like, with you guiding, the Centaurs start making significantly
better time they are, even with Sarah booking it way
faster than her. The problem is they didn't know where
to go. Farah, Yeah, you the light is getting closer,
it's warmer, it's brighter. There's like a bonfire out here,
and if you can just get to the bonfire, the
cold will stop. I think Sarah still looks back and
looks for her friends and sees them starting to catch
up now, and you just have a sense of like,
oh good, we're all going to the fire, will be warm.
So at this point, what does Farah.
Speaker 2: Do she obviously doesn't understand that anything's wrong right now? Yes, right?
I do you wonder if she would.
Speaker 5: Wait for her friends. Oh but if I'm being compelled
then maybe not.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think the compulsion is just for you to be
making progress towards that destination. I don't think it encouraged
you to be like you're close enough now that it
feels like you'll be safe. Okay, So if you want
to go ahead and make another willpower check, I will
allow that to like just slacken your pace.
Speaker 2: That is a thirteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you are still heading towards this thing, but
you're you're okay, I'm getting closer to the warmth, will
be okay. I should you have this sense of like
I should wait for my friends, and you allow them
to kind of catch up to you pretty easily. So
as you guys all rock up? What is fair doing?
What is Skink doing?
Speaker 4: I think Skink is going to jump off of orlo
onto Farah in like a full body tackle.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
Speaker 2: The fire? We're gonna freeze to death?
Speaker 3: What are you The fire.
Speaker 2: Is right there.
Speaker 3: And I look up? Can I see it?
Speaker 1: Skink. You guys are close enough now, no role necessary.
You see a flickering blue blow, not of a fire,
something more akin to like an angler fish.
Speaker 4: Oh, And then part of me is like, oh, that's
what I saw.
Speaker 3: And then the other part of me is like, wait,
I don't let go of Farah.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm just like on top of you, wrapping
you up so that you can no longer make progress.
Speaker 1: With a ten plus and an eleven plus, you two
feel two big ass centaurs grab you, Farah, you've here
or logo, he tries to.
Speaker 3: He remembers that.
Speaker 1: You're six hundred pounds with the legs, and he does,
with Tula's help, to throw you over his back. Tula
grabs you, Skink and goes that there's an ice, sir,
and we have to go. And the two of them
are booking it back to camp.
Speaker 2: Wait, we have to get to the fire. What are
you doing?
Speaker 1: They rolled very well for their resistances to this. U
to just be like we're gonna nope, not doing that
and booking you guys back towards camp. Parah. When you
get like a well do you have far When you
get closer to like three quarters of a mile away
from this thing, the effect goes away and you realize
you're not actually all that cold. You're very well equipped
with your enchanter's cloak and all this other stuff to
like be out here in the ice. You were never
like in danger of freezing on this little track that
we're going on. But it is like a switch flips
as you get far enough away from this thing, and
it's like, no, there's why would there be a bonfire here?
What would be burning? It doesn't doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna like tap on oiler and be like, wait, wait, wait,
I think, I think think I'm out of the like influence.
Speaker 2: What the heck was that?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's okay, glad to have you back. I've
never encountered one of those things before, but I've heard
of them. That was all right, you good, all right,
because you're barbeat for me? You are. You are a
heavy lady.
Speaker 2: He kind of you can put me down. I won't
run away.
Speaker 1: Oh thank god, clunk, all right, I did it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Listen, I can load up a lot. It is something
else to throw you just over, and it's a lot
pretty should have brought the bear.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And you guys are like coming back here within like
fifty yards of camp now, and he's kind of wonting
me back down. He said, Uh, yeah, I've heard of
him before. I've never actually seen one. They're like super rare,
especially south of the bulwarks. But if I'm not mistaken,
Untila is going.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I am pretty sure, brother. I felt something very strange
out there. That was that was a nice siren. That
is not good. It is very bad. Yeah. Some I
don't really know what their deal is. I know that
they create sort of like illusions, mental confusion type stuff.
I've heard of a couple full expeditions just being lost
after encountering one of those things. So that was bad.
If you see a fire in the distance, no you
don't turn around. Should have thought of that before. Like
I said, never heard of one this far south, never
seen one. Didn't really know what to look for, but
I don't know, Sis says, and I trust her.
Speaker 4: Ka looks over at Farah and goes, I'm glad you're
not dead, thanks, kink.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, Well that was a brisk start to the morning,
you guys. Uh, I mean you shouldn't be feeling any
ill effects after a few minutes here, so we should
be good. I think we dieded that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel fine now. That was so strange.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they I don't like stuff that messes with your
head like that man's and he kind of likes Sidelong
Actually go ahead and roll a cleverness check anyone who
wants to.
Speaker 2: That isn't.
Speaker 3: I only got a five.
Speaker 1: Weird fine, all right, yeah, nine will be enough. He's
not being super subtle about it. But you see as
he's like, I don't like stuff that mess with your
head like that, he's there's like a little like pension
Sidelong glance at Tula and he just kind of and
I think you get the says she seems much more
comfortable with what just happened than he does. And I
think you get the sense of like, okay, both of
them have like dealt with not that, but things that
do that kind of check before. And maybe there's a
reason Orlo doesn't see his family that often. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: Also bumped now because they were so convinced that they
were going the right direction earlier.
Speaker 3: Like with that like that internal like.
Speaker 4: Compass sense, and now is like, well shit, how am
I gonna get everyone to go this way? If the
way that I just directed was the right way and
it went very bad.
Speaker 3: What am I gonna do about this?
Speaker 1: Does Skink still trust that intuition? Is my question to you,
genuine question.
Speaker 4: Oh, Skink has no doubt. But the problem is how
do I become in charge?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: How do I lead?
Speaker 4: Is like, I don't what I want to do what
I think is correct, But leading a whole group of
people is like not skinks forte right right.
Speaker 3: Skik does not have the personal camaraderie.
Speaker 4: Skills, you know, like the personal development skills to like
be a leader and a group.
Speaker 1: You guys are.
Speaker 4: Actually wonder would Farah have felt that same sense as
we went this direction?
Speaker 2: Did I?
Speaker 1: You did? Yeah?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: We just seem so untrustworthy.
Speaker 1: Now you guys arrived back to camp, and I think
as you two are having that sort of internal audit,
you see Tula and Orlo going over to the sled
and pulling off packs and tools and things, and you
see that it has actually been packed in such a
way that like the climbing rations and apparatus and gear
and everything are like made to be taken off the
sled and taken out as like a secondary track. And
he guess all right, well, uh, missus your uh, we're
on your payroll. So whenever you guys are ready, I
think we can we can start the climb.
Speaker 2: It was just a minute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no worries.
Speaker 2: That was wait. I have a question, yep. How do
the sirens affect people?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Is it through sound like water sirens? Uh?
Speaker 1: Well, it's I think it's like a sight thing like
they have a I don't know, Toula. You get you
take it and he goes, yes, it is. It is
sort of a They project out an illusion of warmth
and safety and homecoming. And if you perceive it and
it like gets its roots into you, which it doesn't
always do, but if it like gets into you, it
can affect how you perceive not only vim but how
you are perceiving yourself, and it makes you feel like
you are in need of them. And I think mechanically speaking,
it's the light. It is if you see the light.
Speaker 2: Okay, any.
Speaker 1: Very much?
Speaker 2: So? All right, so let's just take a minute to convene.
Speaker 3: Skink.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I need to take care of Farah see if
she's suffering any lingering effects.
Speaker 1: I mean, you shouldn't be, but our Yeah, all right,
I mean, listen, it's it's your show, so you do
whatever you want. I'm gonna go pick a walk.
Speaker 4: Skink makes a little show of like patting Farah and saying,
take care of you.
Speaker 2: All right, So we know we need to go that way, right.
Speaker 3: Oh, we totally need to go that way. We absolutely
need to go that way.
Speaker 5: Okay, So I wonder if we can follow that feeling
of rightness blindfolded, because I think that's the only way
we're going to make it. Oh, blindfolded, Well, we can't
look right, I know.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Well I didn't fall victim to although
I did nothing bad happened to me. It was only you.
Skik has this like false sense of like immunity what
happened before.
Speaker 5: You could try to lead. But my fear is that
if it maybe it might affect you. Maybe didn't get
quite close enough. He just got close enough for it
to get me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, do you do you think that they'll still
let us go that way?
Speaker 3: They're not going to mutiny on us, are they?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: We could always tell them what's going on and that
we were pretty sure the.
Speaker 3: GIK is very internal caught conflicted.
Speaker 5: Okay, but what if you tell the that you had
a dream, don't.
Speaker 3: I don't want to tell them.
Speaker 2: Well, Doula might think that my dream is real, but
I don't know that. Orlo will.
Speaker 3: Arlo doesn't seem to I don't know.
Speaker 1: As you guys are having this discussion, U, Pip, are
you like back in your tent?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Uh, Pip kind of hops up and he's
like he's been sort of like nustling into like Farah's
cook of your neck just like I'm but you feel
him as you're talking. He kind of hops down, he
goes over to his little like nested area, and he
comes back and he is holding that big white feather
that he picked up somewhere. Yeah, and he just sort
of like he's like nudging you with it. And then
you realize after a moment, like he's trying to get
you to like take the feather Farah.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna think.
Speaker 1: As you pick up the feather, you feel that it
like pulls, It's got a tug to it, like it
is trying to take you somewhere.
Speaker 5: This is weird, skink. This feather is operating somewhat like
a compass.
Speaker 2: What. Yeah, you want to feel it. Okay, I'm going
to handle the feather.
Speaker 3: Skink takes the feather.
Speaker 1: It is pulling you, like down towards the floor, like
it's pulling your hand like a magnet towards the floor.
Speaker 3: Skink like fully lays down on the floor to see
what happens.
Speaker 1: Just like, as the feather comes in contact with the ground,
your hand starts to do it, and it starts scribbling
out words in the dirt.
Speaker 3: Wait dirt, ah, you're in your tent.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay, yeah, dirt, ice, ground, whatever. But
it just starts scratching as if you're writing. So if
you allow it to, can you continue to do this?
It says, ladies, glab Pip delivered my feather. H what
is the status of the expedition thus far? You've been
out there for several days? Oh, and then you see
that it sits for a minute and it's not pulling anymore.
And then it goes, oh yeah, sorry, when I'm not writing,
you can write and I'll see it.
Speaker 2: Fun.
Speaker 3: And then I just I look at lock eyes with
fara rh and go.
Speaker 2: Sive ah, yes, yep, friend, bird.
Speaker 3: Friend, bird bird account.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: I like hand the feather back to Pharah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so all right, but first I want to
do a.
Speaker 5: Maybe a precision tell me what I would do, but
I kind of want to Like she's picking up the
the hip is saying that his friend is an owl
and that the owl and five are zero.
Speaker 1: That would be a clever. Well, so what are you
trying to investigate? Are you trying to confirm that suspicion
or see if you know something about it? Okay, just
to like confirm and infer what a Pip is trying
to communicate clevers, Oh that is fourteen. Did you get
an at twelve?
Speaker 2: No? I got an eleven?
Speaker 1: All right, fourteen do a thing that seems to be
what Pip is saying. Pip is equating the owl and
his friend who gave him the shiny rock as the
same entity.
Speaker 2: So I think five must be able to shape shift.
She's just getting curiouser and curiouser.
Speaker 1: The tug happens again as you're holding the feather.
Speaker 5: Okay, and I will write back. We are at the
base of mounts here looking for a way.
Speaker 1: Oh good, I thought you were dead for a second.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: Fantastic anything important to report?
Speaker 2: And like.
Speaker 4: I feel like it's it's immediately, the vibe of like
the teacher checking in on the class after.
Speaker 3: The class was unattended for like ten minutes.
Speaker 2: Uh, things happening.
Speaker 3: We didn't do anything, Uh we can't.
Speaker 1: Sounds guilty when I tell the truth.
Speaker 3: It feels so guilty. What I tell the truth?
Speaker 2: I could we could tell her about the ice siren.
Speaker 3: Yeah we can't. Let's say that we avoided an ice siren.
Speaker 5: That sounds cool, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we haven So
I'm gonna write, we avoided an ice siren.
Speaker 2: Now we're contemplating how to get in.
Speaker 1: You see that the pen Literally she she literally does
a dot dot dot, like just tapping it in place.
You know, she's thinking, interesting to find one that far south.
Wretched little things. Good job on you for avoiding it.
They're they're not a good time. If you have to
go past it blindfold should work, or just burn it
from a distance. They look like fire, but they're actually not.
They don't like it much.
Speaker 2: Cool. Good to know, is what I write back.
Speaker 1: Thanks, will will alert me If you guys need to
send a message, I'll get somewhere. I can respond as
soon as I can. Keeping it on me at this point.
Good luck on the ascent.
Speaker 5: Excellent talk soon, that's okay cool.
Speaker 2: Should I give it back to Pip?
Speaker 1: Pips snatches it out of your hand and goes and
tries to like hide it and his little well, at
this point, he's like riding in your hoodie, so he
just kind of tucks it into his little he's got
like a little sown pocket in there for his drinkets.
I think you guys have both made some accommodations for
pips stashes. Absolutely, yeah, so he just tucks it back
in there.
Speaker 4: Mother, all right, So we could burn it, But it
wasn't actually directly on our path.
Speaker 3: It was just something that we saw from the right
way that we have to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys would have like passed parallel to it,
and it was just sort of like a diverse right yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, but we yeah, we'd have to pass it.
Speaker 4: So okay, I'm just gonna you know what, let's just
try telling Tula and Orlo that we just.
Speaker 3: Have a hunch that we were going the.
Speaker 4: Right way and that something bad happening was proof that.
Speaker 2: It was right away, okay, Yeah, and we could say, like,
I've just confirmed that it's weird that that iron is
this far south.
Speaker 5: So we could say that we think that it's I
agree that maybe the right is there's something there that's
not supposed to be.
Speaker 3: Or we could just say so I've told us to
go that way. Oh, we could just tell them, just
tell them I've said so, all right.
Speaker 2: I like that, let's do that.
Speaker 1: I was waiting for that little.
Speaker 4: Out like I love when things don't need to be
My responsibility is house kak feels all right, exit.
Speaker 2: The tent and go find them.
Speaker 1: Okay, uh yeah, they are kind of they're gathered up,
all right, a couple of packs for everybody ready to
start climb. Whenever you are right, you have the look
of some people who are going to tell me that
I just did a bunch of work I didn't need
to do.
Speaker 3: Well, no, you totally didn't do it. We're going to
have to go so.
Speaker 1: All right, I feel a little better about that. Good.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we have a way of communicating with thive and well.
Speaker 1: That's fucking handy. All I was like, just stamps a
hoof real quick like cool. That would have been all right,
all right.
Speaker 2: She learned from the last expedition.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, you know what, sometimes a tool that
kind of passed. The shoulder goes. Sometimes the whole point
of what you do is to be an example for
the next person not to fuck up.
Speaker 2: Cool ouch out.
Speaker 3: Wait, which one of them is older?
Speaker 1: I don't know if they've said.
Speaker 4: Because I was like, as someone who could have been
like the younger sister, like saying that to the older
brother as an ex you know, after years of like,
you're the thing that I'm not supposed to be as.
Speaker 3: An older brother.
Speaker 1: Let's just assume that's what just happened, because I heard
that one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, yeah cool.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah.
Speaker 4: So so she told us that the sirens are weird,
but probably an indication we're going the right way.
Speaker 1: All right, you're saying this thing is guarded like weird
Arctic entities and shit hard to say.
Speaker 5: She just said that was probably the direction we should go,
and she said we can use blindfolds to get past it,
or we can burn it.
Speaker 1: Jesus. All right, Well, nope, I can't say Jesus because
that would apply a lot of weird things. No starts bleeding,
so you know it's fantasy. There's more than one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: He just goes, well, hell's all right, that's uh sure, listen,
you're paying me either way, So that's fine. Uh so
we're going back back the Siren now, you guys, and
you got fire magic her equipment or anything like that,
or we could probably blindfold up and just get past it.
Do you know where we're going after that?
Speaker 2: We do?
Speaker 1: All right? Yeah, man, I'm not going to question the
big lady back home.
Speaker 2: So great, let me make things explode, But I don't
think I have a lot of fire.
Speaker 1: Right Tuli Goos. I could wrap up some crossbow bolts
and set them on fire if we needed something, we
could do that.
Speaker 4: Skink is just like kind of pissed that her shadow
made stuff isn't like quite strong enough to carry an.
Speaker 3: Entire group of people.
Speaker 4: Like sure, going around in the dark is fine for me,
but I can't just like shadow magic four five beings
if you include like.
Speaker 3: The bear actually somewhere.
Speaker 2: Can you use your cloud? Don't you have like a.
Speaker 1: You could make it so no one could see the light? Yeah?
Speaker 3: There we go, Yeah, there we go. So this geek
is like, well, I might have something for us. So
which spell is that?
Speaker 1: That is an aura of shadow at the top of
your shadow Mage page or it's the one that is
mislabeled if you're looking at the word document.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's the one that just reduces current light.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but since you are in the dark, right, it
would basically make it blinding. And I also think there's
a shadow mage trick to make just straight up darkness
as well, So that would also be an option outside
of of initiative where you're not worried about spending manna. Yeah,
your options are pretty good for being able to do this. Cool, Okay,
I think the aura of shadow would honestly be enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so gathered everyone close.
Speaker 2: How big is the aura of shadow?
Speaker 4: Well, it says that it's a five foot radius around me,
but I think that.
Speaker 3: Chris, are we in a place of power yet? Does my?
Is my like radius bigger? Or is it?
Speaker 4: Is it also more likely to work because we're already
and mostly darkness anyway.
Speaker 1: You are not yet in a place of power looking
at shadow? Uh? Okay, so you have two options here, okay,
or of shadow is a five foot radius sphere around yourself.
If you were riding on top of Orlo and Tula
and the bear brunting close to him, and you know,
barrows on top of one of them as well, that
will cover everybody because it's five feet in all directions. Yeah,
so that's the easiest option. The other option you have
is that dark light ability would make it so everyone
who doesn't have dark vision is completely blinded. For you two,
it would not help, but it would blind the centaurs
and I think the bear as well. So that's another option.
But I think the aura of.
Speaker 4: Shadow would be An aura of shadow is what Skink
would drive first.
Speaker 1: You always have to stay close.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yes, I was like, so I explained to them, Well,
you'd have to trust us to guide you, but I
have the ability to cloak us in enough shadow that
we would not see the ice siren.
Speaker 1: You see Orlo's kind of like all right, uh yeah,
and Tuillas like this seems fine. I am used to
having my vision taken from me in central impossible and
terrible places. What is blindfolding myself and walking across an
icy thunder full of crevasses and rock slides going to
be any worse than the things I have seen in my.
Speaker 3: Sleeps, Poor Toola.
Speaker 1: I am very happy with my life. I am content
with my loft in the world. I have just seen
beyond things that should not be seen.
Speaker 2: All right, all right.
Speaker 4: Uh so the best way for this to work is
for all of us to gather as closely as possible.
So very is Berry coming with us?
Speaker 1: I would assume that we're gonna take him. Yeah, she's
carrying most of our stuff honestly, so yeah, uh you see,
uh he goes, Miss Eric. Would you mind riding on
Barry maybe?
Speaker 2: Or or I can walk? I know, I do think
I should be tied to somebody because.
Speaker 4: We have if we have dive, just if you're on
the sled, that is being like, well, we're.
Speaker 1: Not gonna take the sled up the mountain. That's not
gonna work too much.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all right, I think I should be all right.
I think it would be maybe a good idea. I
know she wasn't affected last time.
Speaker 1: Actually, I think that's a good idea. Is we should
all maybe like rope ourselves together real quick, just especially
if we're in the dark, so we know if someone
starts running, because the chance maybe it gets one or
two of us, the chance of getting it getting all
of us seem to be pretty low at the same time,
and then at least we can interview. So I think
that's a good call. Let's do that, and he goes
ahead and he starts like he makes a little We
don't need to put him until we get there, but
I made a couple of little loops for us. I like, knots.
Speaker 2: Perfect.
Speaker 3: He's just so useful. He's so handy.
Speaker 2: Handed to look at.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, so Skin is so useful too. Skink asks
orlo U should I should I ride one more time?
Speaker 3: To guide us this far?
Speaker 1: You see, Tula chuckles and goes, yeah, don't do me
all right. He scoops you up and he puts you
on his back and go, do me a favor. We'll
get back to town. I don't tell anyone.
Speaker 3: And Skink just looks him dead in the eye and goes,
this never happened.
Speaker 1: You see. You actually like feel him relax a little bit,
and he's like, I knew I liked you. Yeah, needs listen.
I mean I carried Chester out to like I get it,
needs must and all.
Speaker 2: But like.
Speaker 1: It's easy to get a reputation as like the guy
who will give rides and then that's all anyone fucking
wants to do. And it's just a whole things. I
would just appreciate.
Speaker 4: Everybody is closed now and like about to take off, right,
I think so?
Speaker 2: All right, so Skink, we need it yet? Or should
we wait until we get closer?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you kind of wait until you're like ten minutes
out before you like lash together.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to make sure like everybody stay in formation,
you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you guys pack up, load up, and hike
back out, not quite to the snow angel. But I
think as you're getting like kind of coming up that
pressed in the mountain or low into a look at
a stabbing all right, I think it's I think this
is about where we need to start implementing. You know
where we're going.
Speaker 3: You trust?
Speaker 2: Do we both feel the Yeah?
Speaker 1: For sure? Yeah. It's it is like a like a
magnet or a compass, or like a pendulum that's just
sort of pulling you in the right direction.
Speaker 4: Okay, Like I won't lead you astray, okay, knowing full
well that like he might not trust her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, knowing full well that you've got a cardinal direction
and not any sort of topographical.
Speaker 4: Right yeah, yeah, yeah, you straight off a clift yeh
yeah yeah yeah. And so as they I am imagining
this as like they're still walking in their formation, and
Skink just starts to whisper like and is like casting
uh little shapes in the air, and then slowly everything
was dark already, but it just slowly gets darker and darker,
like someone just put a dimmer switch on everything around.
Speaker 1: Them as you pressed over, and I believe as a
shadow mage you can see through your own darkness. But
we'll say because this was a clever solution overall, as
you kind of pressed over the place where the fracas
happened before, you, through your own darkness, are able to
perceive this like it's almost like an annoying strobe light
as it's like filtered through and like disrupted whatever illusion
magic that it is doing. And only because you personally
are able to see through your own magic, you're getting
like this interference over here of just like oh, if
that's where that thing is, and you can kind of
see it more for like it's an effect that is
happening rather than like a benign light in and of itself,
and so you are able to perceive like, oh, there
it fucking is, and it is it's like two hundred
yards that way down the slope and just sort of
beckoning and like trying to work its magic on your group.
But no one in your group, but as you can
see it right now, even Pharaoh with her dark vision
cannot see through your shadow mage abilities. We'll say, for
the purposes of this, you both do feel this of
like suggestive pull towards it as you go pot mass
past the place where this thing had affected you before.
But it's easy to dismiss it. Is like, nope, don't
need that, thank you, and you are able to kind
of walk past. And we'll say, after about five minutes, Skink,
you are able to perceive that you get to a
place where like the lee of the mountain is blocking
the directionless thing was, and you can safely drop your provisions, okay.
Speaker 4: And so I Skink knows that like this isn't necessary,
but always for dramatic effect, just slowly lifts her arms
up with the lightning like the brightening of the shadow
so that it looks really cool because.
Speaker 3: There's, you know, nothing if not theatrics with a four ORL.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's really impressive, until it just kind
of looks he goes, I appreciate that you guys find
yourself overlooking a ridge line down onto what you see
is a frozen lake. A couple of like evergreen trees,
heavily laden with snow, kind of lying the banks, kind
of going up. There's like a little bit of a
forest on the side of the mountain. Not super common
in a lot of the tundra that you've seen thus far,
but something about this particular mountain it doesn't even extend
like down the mountain range. It is only on Mount
Zero where you see this like dark evergreen forest partially
climbing up the way around the sides of this lake.
And you see set into the mountain side across the
ice sheet of this frozen lake is a frozen waterfall,
maybe several dozen yards up into this rock bace, and
it's about a mile from where you're standing on top
of this ridge. But you do see like the outline
of it.
Speaker 2: We need to go there.
Speaker 4: And I and I and I like sitting sitting atop orlo,
I just say to him, because we can all see it,
I just say, what do you make of that?
Speaker 2: M hmm?
Speaker 1: It looks cold and possibly kind of looks over at
the Barraf and at Farah and it's like should be
frozen pretty solid. Yeah, It's like you can see him
doing the man he's like and if uh, Tula goes,
we can check before we get out there. We have
we've got like magic, and it's fine.
Speaker 2: We could also cross separately or like walk on it.
Speaker 1: I do think we will have to spread out our
weight a little bit, like centaurs are not exactly lightweights ourselves.
Speaker 5: I was going to say, if you put two centaurs
and Sarah on a cheet ice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's occurring to me as we're having this conversation
that there's a centaur. We have got like a two
ton Bearreth over here, the densest gnome I've ever fucking
seen in my life, and a goblin and if we
spread I actually listen, I've heard it's actually a compliment
in a lot of Nome cultures, So like, yeah, I
hope that reads that's it was meant as a positive.
I too, am blessed with the sturdiness. But uh yeah,
if we all spread out, there's a pretty good chance
that at least Skink survives. So I think we do
that right, Like Skink, I think you have a moment
of being like I am lighter by like ten x
than anyone else in this group.
Speaker 4: Yahkak is like wait, I don't want to be the
only three ounce living being solely responsible for the.
Speaker 3: Rest of this quest.
Speaker 4: Skank suddenly has a sense of being like a like
a leaf, like a fall leaf on the wind.
Speaker 3: Immediately dislikes this.
Speaker 1: You realize that Orlo has actually forgotten that he is
carrying you as you're like making your way down to
the shore, and you get I think at some point
you say, somebody's like Jesus Christ. Right, I can't say
Jesus again. All right, cool, Hey, I didn't forget you
were back there. You guys make your way down to
the frozen shoreline and dismount and Tula goes and you
see she does, she goes, don't okay, I can find
out how thick this ice is if we are worried
about it. It's something I can only do with like
every sunrise or sunset. So I don't like and Orlo
just goes, ah, you're gonna do the thing. It's like
I'm going to do the thing. It gives me a
sight to beyond sight, and that is very useful for
everything like the thinness of objects and stuff. It might
freak you guys out a little bit.
Speaker 3: Righty Skeek is both terrified and deeply interested.
Speaker 1: Orlo goes we can you don't have to watch. We
could just I'm actually gonna go over here and he
just like walks and just stands behind a tree.
Speaker 3: Nope, I think.
Speaker 2: I think Sarah is actually totally gonna watch. You know,
Sarah has a weird like attraction to just like knowing things.
She's deeply curious.
Speaker 1: Right now, you guys can go ahead and make a.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say seek was gonna go stand behind
a tree like I'm not gonna watch, but totally watch,
like right from behind the tree.
Speaker 1: So if you want to just go like hide behind
a tree but actually keep watching, that's totally fine. If
you're trying to make it so Tula can't tell your
watching roll a precision check to hide for me. But
if you're just like, yeah and it is what it is? Uh? Yes,
are you expressing? First of all, are you vocalizing any
of this? But also is like the nature of your
curiosity like a social thing, or are you trying to
analyze like based on magical intuition, like what is happened?
Speaker 5: I don't even know if it's like she's trying to
figure out what's happening. She just was told that it's
freaky and she has some sort of ability, and Para
just wants to watch.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and make a cleverness check for me.
Speaker 2: That is a nine nine all right, that.
Speaker 1: It's very determined to roll nines. For you, it seems like.
Speaker 2: Well, it's the one with the skull in it, so
I think it's actually not tooper balanced because it's a
I can tell that it's a bead, so it's a
different density.
Speaker 1: So you everyone else kind of like fans out, and
I think Farrett, you stay close enough with Pip, just
sort of nestled down in your hood, you stay close
enough to Clock. Like Tula is seems very comfortable with
whatever the hell she's dealing with. But there is a
little moment as everyone's like, oh, okay, we need to
hide ourselves from whatever you're doing, where she just kind
of goes and then she looks over and sees you
just standing there, just looking with like genuine curiosity, and
she kind of just like brightens up a little bit
and she's like, oh, you.
Speaker 2: Are not.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, this might welcome to the show. She
goes over to the ice and she kind of like
leans down. Centaurs are weird. She kind of like folds
over and like kind of hees the that's list bit, Okay,
all right, here we go. She is going to use
her ability as part of her as an avatar ability.
She is going to adopt her avatar form. Farah and Skink,
you are both watching, But Farah, you are up close
to this thing. You see the reality around Tula twists
is the best way to describe it. It's almost like
a Cubism painting, where like you're looking at her back,
but you can see her eyes like you are looking
at like like her kind of moving into this place,
but somehow you're perceiving her from angles and directions and lighting.
That doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit with the scene. Literally,
unknowable visage. Creatures that perceive you in your avatar form
cannot accurately describe the details of your appearance. What you
are looking at is both Tula not Tula, the Tula
that never was, and the Tula that never could be,
but also every fool that ever has been. At the same.
Speaker 2: Time, I got mind fucked, You got mind fucked.
Speaker 1: Literally, Yeah, so you are not within five feet of her.
Speaker 2: No, I think I would have.
Speaker 1: That's a good thing. Yeah, Skink, you're seeing all of
this too, but like further removed. But you see Tula
kind of reaches out and like perceives the lake around
her with There's like a flickering moment where like in
one eye you can kind of see like something different
than what you're seeing in the other eye. She's using
For those at home, she's an avatar of the Eldritch domain.
She is using a particular power in her avatar form
called veil Sight, which allows her I'll read it. While
using veil Site, your passive detection increases. Veil Sight allows
you to see in the dark, even in magical darkness,
through objects, in creatures, through solid surfaces around corners, detect
invisible creatures and objects, glimpse into non material planes that
may be intersecting with yours at that location. Sense Ley
Lion's currents of magic, the ether, and other interdimensional forces,
if they are disturbed, they al Site is weird and
cool and it's a lot of fun for gms. She
kind of does this for a few moments and then
the effect sort of fades out and Tula is standing
there once again. Pharah, you are able to perceive that,
like some of the as you like kind of gather
back together and orlo is it over? Yes, it's over
come on? Is you all kind of gather back together
around the shore? Farah? I think you look down and
you see a rock that was just sitting there, just
like a normal rock, but the grain of it has
twisted and clipped among itself, and it like literally looks
like parts of the rock were set against its own grain,
as if it formed a different way. And that's just
sort of like patchworked into the rock, like being around
her would have been paid and it just sort of
comes back. Okay, all right, the old one slumber steal.
That is good. That is good for us, good news.
It looks from what I can see, it does look
like the ice is many, many meters stick in all
directions from here, even up to the deeper areas out there.
So I don't think we are in much danger. This
has been frozen for quite a long time. You could
probably drop a building on this lake and no issue.
Speaker 2: So there I can walk across it.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, as far as I can tell, there's at
least thirty feet of solid ice straight down, So I
think we are as safe as ever, probably.
Speaker 3: More than I think with that. I mean, Skink always
knew but was sort of waiting for the go ahead.
Speaker 4: Skink is gonna just like run out and jump the
slide just like by like spinning you know, out on
the ice.
Speaker 1: You feel as Kip belly slides onto the ice after skin,
just spinning out after her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then we look at each other like, nice ride, bro, you.
Speaker 1: Know, they go that does look like fun. Real hard
to do without breaking a leg anyways, Great, well, I
think we're good to head on over to that yonder
waterfall and let you stop. And they are setting off
across the ice. You guys approach what appears to be
just a similar to where you had encamped a few
miles away, a sheer rock wall that clearly had flowing
water down it at some point in the distant pass,
long since frozen over, such that the ice is almost
like a shoal, but frozen wherever it was, and clearly
doesn't show a lot of signs of like melting and
thawing and refreezing, like this has just been frozen. It
is almost rock it, except that it is made of
frozen water instead of like sedimentary built up and whatever
you do see there is an opening about we'll say
a dozen yards up, like thirty forty feet up where
this is flowing out. You can see into it. There
was a small cave there from this advantage you get
there and Orlo and tulare kind of looking at each
other like.
Speaker 4: Eva, Skink Skink just looks it goes, this is what
we're climbing, right, we can climb.
Speaker 1: This, right, I listen, No, not for me. That's a
no for me. Sheer wall not the easiest thing to do.
You get that we're half horse, right, Like that's not.
Speaker 4: I think, Skink Skink sort of like does this little
goblin like I don't know.
Speaker 3: You said you brought climbing gear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to like get up an incline, but I can't
just freebase this like this is I don't know if
that's the right word whatever you said you had a
communication to to miss Ive. I wanna.
Speaker 4: Want us to ask her how to how centaur climbs
a waterfall.
Speaker 3: She's gonna think it's a riddle. Wait, I love this, and.
Speaker 4: Skink loves the idea of sending a riddle and wondering
if Cibe will have a real answer or like an
answer that.
Speaker 3: Nobody knew that we needed and I can't.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: So Skate goes off to the U to Pip to
get the feather.
Speaker 1: Pip from the back of Farishood just looks very leftficial
like hmm. And he goes and like rustles around and
he pulls the feather out, and you see that he's
waiting for like a shiny object.
Speaker 4: I think I'm gonna just like scratch scratch the little
feathers as a distraction until until a later time.
Speaker 1: And he hands off the feather to you.
Speaker 4: So I go over to the snow so I can
like right on the on the snow bank. And it's like,
how does a centaur.
Speaker 3: Climb a frozen waterfall? I just leave it at that.
Speaker 1: See yeah, yeah, yeah, Well if he's dead, you've got
that bottle.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: I heard this one before.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: Skank nervously looks over her shoulder and then scratches out
the snow because show don't what anyone to see?
Speaker 1: Are they right behind you?
Speaker 2: I was?
Speaker 1: And then it starts writing again and it says, I mean,
there's a there is a frozen river on the path
up the mountain, but I thought I'd mapped out a
route where they wouldn't have to do a sheer clime.
Is it possible you're off course?
Speaker 4: I just write back no, and uh and then JK,
it was a joke.
Speaker 3: It was ad and then and then and then say like,
I just I just learned a new riddle.
Speaker 4: Okay, so what's the answer, I write back, I haven't
figured it out yet.
Speaker 1: I shall contemplate this for many moons. We shall compare
our answers when you return, I am eager to see
what your thesis is.
Speaker 3: Uh So, now now.
Speaker 4: Skik's like, all right, nobody knows the is to the riddle,
and and and I justinkly remember that in the vision,
Zero had said like, well, your other pals might not
be able to make it, but you can.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so Bear's gonna say, Hayskiin didn't Sive say that
at this point we would be able to we'd probably
have to traverse our on our own.
Speaker 3: Perhaps this is not one hundred percent necessary.
Speaker 4: I think Skate really does not want to lose the
uh the companions go because Kate doesn't ever want to
have to carry anything, and it's been so handy to
have all these other stronger creatures carry stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, so what I can say is, like, if if
that was the plan. Uh, I guess do you want
us to take barry and like move the base camp
over here, Because we could do that it take us
a little while. We'll kut a wide path around the siren,
or we can try and climb to the top and
they meet you there. I don't know how long this
ratt will take. I could see. I assume there's an
advantage in taking this one over the other one. Is
it like faster or safer or something like. That's that's fair.
I get that.
Speaker 2: Doesn't require digging.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, it's so up to you. We can
we can wait here for you and we'll just we'll
move base camp over here and at least be ready
when you come out in a day or two. Or
we can go over land ourselves and hope to meet
up with you at the compound.
Speaker 2: Actually we have.
Speaker 1: To dig our way out or our way in or whatever.
Like maybe because who knows, maybe this collapsed last week
and you're going to run into a dead end. So
like maybe we can come up with a.
Speaker 4: I have an idea, what if the two of us,
if the two of us managed to get to the
top and can see in and see that there is
for sure a way then then you can be on
then then.
Speaker 3: We'll meet you on the other side.
Speaker 4: But if we climb up there and it looks closed off,
then we'll come back down and all four of us
will look for.
Speaker 3: A new way in.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, I mean, I guess that's fair enough.
We've got the provisions for it. We can fight out.
Everything's split amongst the packs. Anyways, we'll take the heaviest
stuff up with Barry, and I guess if we beat
you there, we'll just start digging. It sounds like we
both got a copy of the map. That's all good.
The only thing I'm worried about is if you guys
come back out here and we're halfway up the mountain
because you decided not to go this way rockfall or
something inside, Do you have a way to like signal
us or something from a distance, and we'll at least
I have to climb back down, I would add some time,
So hopefully it doesn't come to that. I do see
an advantage and splitting up to try and like, if
there's two possible routes and we don't know if both
of them will work, maybe one of us gets inside
and grabs the thing and comes back out, So like,
I get that.
Speaker 3: Skink has this like irration. I had an inside thought
that's gonna standing inside.
Speaker 4: Thought that was like, oh, I'll just like, we'll just
have the volcano explode. That will be the that will
be the side. And then the media was like, no,
that's bad. That's bad for everyone. That's that's not a
good idea.
Speaker 1: So Orlo asked if you have a way to signal
them from a distance, and Skate just has this dissociated
look of like the world on fire?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, can we trust Pip to send message? Can
Pip fly? Is it too cold for Pip?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: How long could Pip reasonably fly without freezing to death?
Speaker 3: Out here?
Speaker 2: Can I insulate others?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if you've ever tried. Yeah, what's
the what does the ability XT say? Let's see if
I love this idea.
Speaker 2: So it's a minor minor enchantment.
Speaker 5: I can bestow a small enchantment on an object or
surface I can touch. I don't have to without using
one of my instrument's thoughts. It's limited to one square
foot of surface area and last until.
Speaker 2: The end of my mixtern so brief, Yeah, yes, it.
Speaker 1: Is too yeah. I think if you're doing it for
jackets and stuff, you can assume that you're just like
constantly just maintaining it, yeping it. But or Pip it
would be get Yes, I think so. You guys have
seen him like jumping around and playing in the snow
and everything out here, so like, as long as the
weather is not awful, Pip can move about fair enough.
I think the danger for him would be like if
a blizzard rolled in or the temperature dropped like precipitously
or something, he would have.
Speaker 3: To like take shelter right or he could get lost.
Speaker 2: Ye, not, so we are. My understanding is that Pip
could signal for.
Speaker 1: Us potentially, Yeah, yeah, if things go well enough, like
you could use him as a little courier.
Speaker 2: You have Whisper, but that.
Speaker 1: Pretty limited range. Yeah, although just kind of go yeah,
I mean, as long as the bird's up for it.
There's not gonna be a lot of centaurs climbing a
mountain out here, I don't expect, so I think you'd
be able to spot us, okay, I mean, well, and
he kind of like indicates, you know, on the map
and with landmarks like this is the path we're going
to take classes, I mean fair enough. And what we'll
do is we'll say in uh, yeah, we figured it'd
take us two or three days to climb, allowing for weather,
meet back at Basically, well, we'll meet back here. Weird
to say this meetback here in a week. If nothing
else happens, it's two three days up, two three days back.
We'll just camp here at the base of this waterfall nearby,
and you guys do the same. If like mission goes
well and somehow you beat us out here, you got
to send the bird up to find us. You know,
we'll uh, we'll just plan to rendezvous here. It's a
little risk here, but it's better than climbing for a
week and finding out we got to go another rabbit anyways,
and then we're worried about running out of rations and
stuff being out of here too. So there is that,
all right? I think we got a plan. Good?
Speaker 5: Should you uh, should you maybe wait here and make
sure we make it up the ice waterfall?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we'll stick around for a few minutes here,
no problem. You wanna want to set out? Now?
Speaker 2: What time is it right now?
Speaker 1: It's actually getting towards h dawn, and he goes, Actually,
what we will do is.
Speaker 3: Uh, I mean like three pm. What is that here?
Speaker 1: It's it's we've set it's around like noon to one.
It's like lunchtime.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, so yeah, we've been like moving around for
like four hours or so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And what Orlo says is like, and what we'll do is, uh,
we will go ahead and just go get our base
camp stuff with Barry and come back here and then
set out from here. So if you come out before
we're back, you'll at least have the camp and the
supplies and everything and the tents and stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh that's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the heavier duty stuff. So it's all at
one spot. So that'll be something.
Speaker 3: Very well. Thank you for getting us this far.
Speaker 5: Should we set off in the middle of the day,
we don't know how long it'll take us to get in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I can't imagine. Even if this route
is way more directed, you're still going to be in
there at least a day or so. Like you know,
it's just a he's just kind of pointing, like the
distance from where you guys are like relatively low on
the mountain to like the peak is a bunch of
miles and he's like, man, even if it's a clear shot, like,
you're not going to be there immediately. So there's that.
Speaker 4: Are you saying that we should camp here for a
day and then start tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Well do you think if you think this route is
faster and you want to give us a head start,
go for it. But we're not going to stand here
and wait for you to climb in that case, obviously,
if you want to get started now and we'll go
set up the camp and everything, we'll probably if this
is faster, we'll arrive at the top after you guys.
If this winds up being slower, it's it's all a
toss up. You guys would know. Ciro said this should
be a good bit faster than climbing up, But that
doesn't mean like an hour. It probably means like a
day and a half instead of three days.
Speaker 5: Ok, Yeah, I think we should go ahead and start,
all right.
Speaker 2: We can always sleep in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you're gonna have to take your packs
and your your you're sleeping gear and everything regardless, so we're.
Speaker 2: Not gonna a good way of keeping time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an interesting puzzle.
Speaker 2: As a goblin. Do you have any ability to keep
time underground.
Speaker 4: I mean, I I have a good sense of like
whereabouts underground, But.
Speaker 1: I am gonna I'm gonna weigh in as both the
GM and the game creator here. Yeah, and I'm gonna
say goblins specifically have a lineagibility called tunnel sense, which
is written with the eye towards like knowing if there's
other creatures around you and stuff. But I think it
is a very logical extrapolation from that to be like,
if this is a creature that predominantly exists underground, like
they have as good a sense of time as an
above ground creature does about it during the day, you know,
So I think that's fair. You would have some vaguesst
sense of like how much time has passed?
Speaker 4: Right, Like, I think it's like an inner sense of
time as opposed to an outer sense of time, like
Stink's personal circadian rhythm is like very dependable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Skink will be tired at night and awake during
the day. Like that is not like.
Speaker 5: When you put a human in a cave, right right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
like part mole basically basically.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's good, all right, So you guys want some
help if you uh well, when he gets up there
and secures the line, we can delay it for you
if or we can just head out now. If you're
gonna make the climb on your own, nobles, see if
you fail to your death.
Speaker 2: When we get back, I can climb to the top.
I don't think anyone wants to blame me because it'll
be real heavy.
Speaker 1: I didn't think about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'm gonna go ahead and attempt to climb.
Speaker 1: Okay, so climbing in Relict fun stuff. I've got my
handy dandy starter book here, which you can buy on
the Relic store. We do have climbing rules most of
the time. For a basic climb, by the way, you
simply move at half speed. However, this is somewhat difficult
because the ice and whatnot, so we are going to
use falling climbing there. We are breaches with the climbing speed.
Make climbs, but you don't have a natural climbing speed.
Normally you move at half speed. This is a relatively
straightforward path. It's very craggly, and you're able to like
grasp and climb up. The only real complicating factor here
is the ice itself. So I will allow you to
determine if you want to make a mite or a
precision check over some of that, and as long as
you score relatively well, we will treat it like a
basic climb.
Speaker 4: Okay, and did we are we assuming that we spent
we spent time to fighting up the packs and everybody
like all this stuff, and that we're well equipped to
another another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys came out here well provisioned for this
whole expedition because you like bought a ton of stuff
from Gallio, uh, with like a broad sense of like
the things that might happen. Uh. So we're kind of
handwave that you have basic supplies that you would need
for this track.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then and then the base camp was always meant
to be abandoned for like a week.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, specifically.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have a question before before I do this?
Can I conjure armor because it can absorb? Right?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So I can I can conjure medium armor that can
absorb too?
Speaker 1: Okay? Yeah, you could do that. I thought you were
gonna like conjure crampons or something, which would be fun.
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you can conjure weapons and armor and
tools and stuff. So I don't see why not.
Speaker 2: I think I might just go with the armor, okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, so just a little bit of magical armor so
if you fall, you can just nerf it to reduce
some damage sources. Yes, that's clever enchanter shit and I
love it.
Speaker 2: Okay. And you said might or precision.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm going to leave you to decide, okay, So
just pure athleticism going up this thing instead of trying
to like boulder your weight in man, that's an eight
eight total.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Great, I'm gonna be honest for you. Yeah. I said
I was about thirty we'll say thirty five feet up, okay, Sarah. Yeah,
you get about halfway up, Yeah, grab for what you
think is a rock and it turns out to be ice.
And at this point you've been climbing long enough that
you're like hot, yeah, and the heat from your hand
slicks that outer layer of ice and you slip off
and you've got one action or you're falling. What do
you want to do?
Speaker 2: Umm?
Speaker 1: Hold on, hold on, skinky, you see her?
Speaker 2: And wait, I can heat or cool a target. I
have one manna left. It's a one plus manna activation plus.
Why is there plus? I don't want.
Speaker 1: What ability.
Speaker 2: Minor enchantment. I have bestow a small enchantment on an
object or surface I can touch without using an enchantment slot,
so I can heat or cool it.
Speaker 1: Minor enchantment. The upcast makes it last for extra rams.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I just want to cool.
Speaker 1: Why you like flash freeze the handfold the handhold?
Speaker 2: Wait?
Speaker 5: Wait, I can also conjure an item which is one
plus manna, but one plus for sustaining.
Speaker 2: So I can.
Speaker 5: Conjure something a Monday and item no more than three
by three by three inches in dimension and weighing no
more than what a single conticuous material with a heart.
Speaker 2: Can I conjure a small.
Speaker 1: Iceic Yeah? Yeah, that doesn't violate anything you literally.
Speaker 2: It'd be tiny, it'd be like a teeny tiny.
Speaker 5: But I want to conjure a tiny ice pic and
slam it into the ice.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and make another mic check.
Speaker 2: That is okay, Okay.
Speaker 1: I hate that I was hoping to beat your last
check with This is what we're going for it. Like,
can you can you like overcome what you failed at?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: So you can skink you see Pharah grab slip and
like as her other two fingers are about to lose
that other handhold as six hundred pounds of weight slams down,
she splash conjures this little like just shard of metal
like locked to her wrist like her blood magic weapons,
and just punches it into the ice as a handhold
and managed to ferry you manage to save yourself.
Speaker 5: I am gonna drop my armor at this point because
I don't actually think my armor's gonna help me at
this height anymore, and I want the manna.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay for my own imagination and visual effects.
Speaker 3: How high up is Pharah when this happens, is she like.
Speaker 2: She's a bank third story?
Speaker 1: Yeah? About twenty twenty five feet up this point?
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, So like am I watching from the ground,
did like Pharah just say all right, that's it.
Speaker 3: And just believe for it.
Speaker 1: I believe that the.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get some rope down to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, is taking the rope up. So she's gotta
free scale this thing.
Speaker 5: Quite frankly, I can tie the rope to myself and
you could climb up and you wouldn't make me budge.
Speaker 3: So that's true.
Speaker 2: I'm the best option for climbing first, yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, so Parah, you slam into this thing, okay, and
you you hear the ice like groaning under the weight
put in there. You've got another ten feet to go,
right chiming. I will say it has come down a
little bit, so you have a tool now and it
is only a shorter distance that is a nine. Okay,
Well I just said that it had come down a
little bit. So you get to the top and as
you get to like where the water had like flowed
over the lip of this thing. Yeah, ice is brittle,
man Like, you get up there and like you punch
into it at one point and it just shatters like
a whole dinner plate size piece off that like tum
down and cascades down towards you guys. You see Tula
kind of backs up. Just oh that was that was close.
But Ferry, you managed to like conjuring these spikes as
you need to. Sometimes you just you conjure a new
one and just drive it in and leave it and
use it as a foothold before it like disintegrates and
you manage to get over the lip to what you
see is like a frozen river beating up and away
into this dark mouth of a cave, have a rope
tied around you fast down to skink.
Speaker 5: Yep, I'm gonna can I look for a place to
like where I'm like, it's good and flat.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to slide around at all.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes I will. I will say you can make
a check if you want to do something more advanced
than that. But as a six hundred pound creature with
the ability to conjure spikes to drive into the ground,
it is pretty simple to just find like go a
little ways and so, like, you've got fifty feet of rope,
it was only thirty something feet up here. You can
go ten fifteen feet in and just spike yourself down.
If that is just all.
Speaker 2: You're trying to do, Yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean you're on a flat surface of ice and
you can basically just be like, I'm really heavy now,
I'm anchored. Done, yeah, and all down to skink. When
you're ready and skank, you are welcome to make the climb.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: So, so Farah has thrown down a rope and I'm
not like just holding onto it while she pulls it up.
Speaker 3: I am climbing the rope.
Speaker 1: That's up to you, guys. It's really a matter of
who wants to make the checks.
Speaker 2: I think I think that Sarah is focused on being stable,
so she wouldn't be pulling you up. You would have
to climb, all right.
Speaker 3: So Skank ties the rope like ties the.
Speaker 4: Bottom of the rope around her first, just to make
sure that like there's there's some some extra stability there,
and and then starts to climb and is doing doing
her little gobble climb.
Speaker 3: It is just sort of wondering, like, yeah, if only
there was like.
Speaker 7: A dragon to conjure, if I could just have my
own little like dragon zombie that could fly me to
the top of a mountain, would would be the coolest sucks.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: And like it was just really feeling.
Speaker 4: Like she should be if she was the coolest kind
of necromancer, if she was the best shadow age, she
would never have.
Speaker 3: To climb again.
Speaker 4: And like just that this is what's in skinks bind
as she climbs the rope use having to use her
actual physical strength instead of cool magic.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, stink, I'm gonna say the challenge for this
is only at a four because you've got a rope now, Okay,
the Pharah has taken on the bulk of the risk
on this and made it put you in a position where,
like failure is significantly less dangerous than it would have
been pre climbing. So go ahead and make a mite check.
You're just shooting for a four, okay, just see if
something funny happens.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna check my mic.
Speaker 2: My night.
Speaker 3: It's only a one, okay.
Speaker 1: So you got to roll three or higher?
Speaker 3: Six?
Speaker 1: Yay. This climb sucks, just sits everything about it sucks.
You slip a couple of times, but it's fine. You're
just holding onto the rope. Pharah, you feel this tug
tug tug tug as she works.
Speaker 4: The sense of like, you know, how like when little
kids get tired and they just like hang for a while,
like definitely like gets for there for a while.
Speaker 3: That just stops. It is just like and then how like, yeah.
Speaker 1: We physically can't, but I believe.
Speaker 4: In you, and uh and just you know, just begrudgingly,
begrudgingly makes it to the top.
Speaker 2: So how long does it take?
Speaker 3: How long does it take?
Speaker 5: Yeah, like, how long does it take? How long does
it take you comparative to me?
Speaker 3: I know, right?
Speaker 4: Because I love the idea that it was actually harder
for you, but it still takes me the same amount
of time or like.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, or breaks for sure, because it
was just like peg boarding, this thing just getting like
CrossFit style, I'm going for it. Yeah, I slept when
I got it.
Speaker 3: Is very like I'm tired of this, Grandpa.
Speaker 5: You know, you also have the luxury of being on
a rope where if you it's like significantly less dangerous,
so getting to the top is a lot less of
a right right.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah yeah. I was like, oh god, I have
to do this, do you like.
Speaker 5: Take I envision you taking twice as long and it's.
Speaker 2: Like what is no actually fair? And nos skink well
enough to know exactly what's happening, YEPI.
Speaker 1: Like sitting on the ridge, like sitting on the lip,
like watching you, like there's a little cheer for you
when you get up to the top.
Speaker 4: I feel like every once in a while Pip would
have like flown out to just like see.
Speaker 3: And then flown backs, flowed out.
Speaker 1: Flowed back mother.
Speaker 4: And uh, and the centaurs are down there watching like wow,
can you believe this?
Speaker 3: Like I've never seen anyone climb a rope so slow.
Speaker 1: Thing that like parakeets and stuff do where they like
grab onto the rope sideways and he's like looking down
at you, like, yeah, shimmy's up ahead of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 4: Occasionally when I was just hanging there, came to like
peck at me.
Speaker 2: M hmmm.
Speaker 1: It pulls your hair a little bit, trying to help.
Speaker 3: You're not helping, you, guys. And then yeah, so I
get to the top eventually, You.
Speaker 1: Guys, look into the mountain and even when you're dark vision,
you see a frozen sheet of ice blowing up into
the depths of inky blackness beyond. And as you wave
goodbye to the centaurs and they turn to make their
way back out across the frozen lake, that is where
we're going to end episode eleven of the next archive.
Speaker 4: Guys, I look over at Farah and and I was like,
I already kind of missed them.
Speaker 5: I know, I don't know that I really like it
being just you and I. I normally love it and
prefer for it to be only you and I, but
you and me, but.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's weird that I rolled up here.
Speaker 3: I love the idea that maybe Skink would have gone
to the top and wave goodbye and then as they're
walking away away, Skink was like, wait and they can't
hear no.
Speaker 1: As you guys watched them recede into the distance for
a few moments, you hear Pip kind of nestling down
in pharaohs hood once again, Old one Freaky mother