Speaker 1: You are listening to the Knicks Archive, the official Relict
RPG Actual Play Podcast. You can play Relict absolutely free
right now by going to Relict rpg dot com. Hello
and welcome back to the Knicks Archive, the Official Relict
RPG Actual Play Show. I am your host and game
master C d cor Again. How's it going? As always?
I am joined by Miss Maddy Hammond. Hello, and Miss
Marisa Montero.
Speaker 2: Hi, today.
Speaker 1: No one did a bit. I'm shocked and amazed.
Speaker 2: Keep it afresh, keep you on your toes.
Speaker 1: I am suspicious, dear listener. I don't trust.
Speaker 3: Them at all, and he shouldn't because they know should he?
Speaker 1: On that alarming note? Let's begin. First things first, been
a housekeeping. Our characters have leveled up to level three. Huzzah.
We're not going to do a whole breakdown like we
did the first time we leveled up with the characters.
But could you two go ahead and read off the
new feature you have both gotten RISA.
Speaker 3: Do you want to go first?
Speaker 2: Sure? So? At level three, as a necromancer, I can
now raise complex undead. This means I may raise thralls
that match simple unded monsters. You can go check out
the undad monster's page on Relic to see how many
cool things. That means it keeps growing, It keeps growing.
There's so many undead to be the thralls require a
corpse that matches their size. Slain undead monsters, if usable,
can only be raised as the same type monster using
this ability. Each requires one enthrallment slot per five health.
So if the health is ten, then it takes two
enthrallment slots and you must touch the target corpse and
use an action to raise them. This costs two man
of per enthrollment slot.
Speaker 1: So how many slots? Yeah? Right now, Marisa, do we say.
Speaker 2: I have two? At level three? I have two slots.
Speaker 1: You have two slots at level four. That'll go up
again at level five. There's another feature that goes up again.
Necromancers really start to run away when they're a major class.
You wind up with like twenty or thirty slots by
the end if you make different choices. So that's fun.
That's fun for me, Maddie. What's fair a pack in? Now?
Speaker 3: At level three I get to choose one between bind
objects and sympathetic Resonance, and I chose bind objects, which
as an action I can touch two objects or one
object in a spot on the ground. Those objects now
exhibit a slight attraction towards one another, enough so that
one will indicate the direction of the other if allowed
to hang from a string, float in liquid, or something similar.
Objects remain bound in this way until I use an
action to break the connection. So any Harry Dresden readers
out there scrying for people, is it it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Arrah can basically make a dowsing rod. Now, So
both of our characters have gained a new feature at
level three four leveling up. They've also gained an increase
in their manna and stamina, just as the math of
the character sheet. That's how that works. So you'll see
them thrown around a few extra resources as we go
and go we shall. Last we left off, Skank and
Farah had bid farewell to Tula and Orlow and of
course dear Barry, who were crossing after an Well, you
guys were going to camp within the frozen river within
the mountain. As I believe we left, it's been a
couple of weeks, folks. Tula, Orlo and Berry were heading
back to their previous base camp to start making an
ascent up the mountain and potentially meet them at the top.
You two had entered the hidden river within Mount Zio.
Bid farewell to Orlo and Tula, who are going to
ascend the mountain on the exterior while you came up
the more cramped, too small to accommodate centaurs at a
parrath shortcut that a mysterious figure person entity spirit had
shown you and hopefully save some time. We're going to
pick up right there. You guys are a couple of
yards into the entrance of the cave. We can say
that you rested there for the night if that's what
you wanted to do. Give Orlo and Tula a chance
to like start up the mountain, They do have the
longer path ahead of them, and then we'll say we
pick up the next day. You like to go and
roll for Pip in this dark sunless you know, sun disappearing.
We did establish I'll put this out at the outset
because I don't know what's going to make the cut.
In the last episode, we did establish as a goblin
with a tunnel sense feature that skink should have the
ability to more or less tell what time of day
it is even underground wants odds or evens.
Speaker 3: I'll take Osank.
Speaker 1: That's the sing I did, in fact roll a one.
So who was Matti? As you've come out of the
cold and out of the driving wind and snow, it
makes his way over Phera mother uh, having you know,
well out on the ice, not really wanted to leave
Skink's protective covering but no inside, and kind of burrows
into your as you start the morning, You guys wake
up and have not much to do but eat breakfast
and descend any preparations or do we get just getting
straight to it?
Speaker 2: I think now because of the way the last couple
of nights have gone, Skink would start the morning while
they have their breakfast by asking Sarah, did you have
any dreams last night?
Speaker 3: I don't know, GM, did we have any dreams?
Speaker 1: Not spontaneously, but if anyone would like to try something,
We've had some attempts in the past. It's always an option.
You now know the name of the entity that was
watching you. That is a thing that was learned after
your conversation with Zero.
Speaker 2: So should I roll? Should I roll?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Well, it is cleverness to see if I remember any
dreams last night.
Speaker 1: Let me put it this way this is. This is
one of those weird, esoteric, squishy things where it's like
what would you do as your character, Like what would
Skink have done to try and influence interacting with this
because it's not as simple as like doing a thing
and stuff happens, So it's like, you know, can you
get this entity's attention? Can you have an interaction? So
like what would you have attempted to do? And we'll
see what checks or multiple checks would come out of that.
Speaker 2: I don't think Skink would have done anything on purpose,
especially because like last time that, you know, the night before,
Skink wasn't sure what to do, you know, picked a
bone about it and then was like, Okay, I'm not
doing anything. I'm just going to bed. Yeah, and it's
gonna like it's going to stick with that impulse, going
to stick with that line of reasoning, and it's just
going to bed and is not going to ask for
any thing. And the last time Skank went up to
a wall, things happened, and so Skink's just like, well,
I'll just go to keep to myself for a.
Speaker 1: Minute, Sarah, You're end anything.
Speaker 3: I believe I prayed to Nick's to get the dream
that told us like time of day and the vision
of the cave. So I think at this point Sarah
probably feels like she was told what she needed to
know okay, and would not ask okay, beautiful.
Speaker 2: So in the morning, during this conversation, Skateble asked like,
did you remember any dreams? And it's just.
Speaker 3: Like, no, no, I think I had a wrestle night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's like I blacked out.
Speaker 3: It's like I blacked out now yeah, yeah, bad for
your circadian rhythm, but really I really didn't want to
wake up right.
Speaker 1: So the mouth of the cave still night outside, but
this faint glow of the borealis in the night, the
starry night sky is visible as a window frame in
the darkness that now surrounds you. You both have dark vision, thankfully.
Pip I don't believe does so he's really just hanging
out in the hood. He's like, oo, don't love this bather.
Speaker 4: Ather.
Speaker 1: It's a loyal bird to follow you into.
Speaker 2: A cave, truly, Truly.
Speaker 1: This picture of the starry night sky behind you, because
again always dark in the morning's up here and before you,
stretching at an angle up into the depths of the
mountain is a sheet of ice, rocking ice, a frozen runoff.
Not you wouldn't call it a river down here necessarily,
but there is certainly a sheen of frost over everything.
Like snow doesn't really make its way in and up mountain.
This is water that is coming down will filtered through
the rocks, and probably from some source further and higher
up the slope are far removed. What are we doing?
How are we approaching this? It's taking on through.
Speaker 3: How slippery is it?
Speaker 1: Go ahead and make a precision check for me. Actually,
here's what we'll do, both of you for this first.
There's not a lot of like deviation from the path
that is possible in this first area, right, yeah, So
both of you go ahead and make three precision checks
for me. Your goal cumulatively, each of you wants to
get a twenty five between all three of them. Okay, okay,
how'd you do?
Speaker 3: I got an eighteen.
Speaker 2: Sixteen plus nine is oftentimes twenty five five?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, okay, skink, you are at home here, maybe
a bit colder, maybe a bit slippery here. Tunnel's always
felt right to you. You've got this down, you scamper up.
It's a hard hike like this is like a rocky,
uphill backcountry hike, except also underground, in tight spaces where
you have to squeeze and shuffle and take your pack
off and push it through and then put it back
on and then crawl. And it's cold and it's wet.
But your goblin, you've done this. You've done this many times.
You scamper your way through for a while, we'll say
you're you guys are doing this like all day effectively.
About four hours in you look back and realize Farah
is not behind you anymore. Oh no, Farah. You're not
sure at what point in this log you are six
hundred pounds. Underground is not an unfamiliar territory to you.
You are a gnome, right, But you are a six
hundred pound home in an unworked tunnel. You've been to
underground cities. You've been to underground magnificent palaces and rooms
and working areas and factories and all sorts of things.
You've spent your time underground. It's not the underground that
bothers you. It's tight, it's slippery. Things move. When you
put a six hundred pound woman on top of a rock,
that slips in the shale and ice. She falls. You
are dragging your way into and up this incline in
the dark, and at some point you look up and realize, Skink,
it's not there. Neither of you are sure how far
away the other one is. I will say, I'm going
to roll something. Ooh ooh, all right, sorry, here's my.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, the big one.
Speaker 1: For those listening at home. I have just pulled out
a spherical D one hundred.
Speaker 3: It takes like a minute for.
Speaker 1: In the box. It's not too bad, Okay, I know
how far apart you guys are. You are out of
earshot of one another easily. This is not a quiet tunnel.
There's water runoff, there's rock, there's a lot of obstacles,
and like always kind of this perpetual sound of like
flowing water and creaking ice. So it may not be
that your miles apart. It's just that you can't easily
hear one another wherever you are. Fuck, what do you do? Well?
Speaker 2: I feel like one of the things that Skink would
try first is like stomping, like you know the way
that rabbits they thumped the ground to signal to each other.
Skink would try that first, and I know you're saying
that it's too far away, and I guess also Skink
would be like really wondering what the fuck happened to her,
because I have tunnel sense, so usually I notice when
I'm alone or not. But I think I must have
been like really into, Like I must have been like
in the zone of moving and just assuming that you
were following me, and then like suddenly became aware that
I was alone when I like checked in. So I
don't know how far away you are, but I would
try like thumping first and seeing and then waiting thumping
and waiting thumping and then waiting to see if anything
comes back.
Speaker 1: So I had not been considering tunnel sense. But that
is excellent point. So here's what we'll do to kind
of doesn't want to honor that ability as well. You've
made that choice, you should get something for it. Uh barah.
You rolled eighteen. You said, yeah, okay, Skink, go ahead
and roll an additional D twelve. We're going to add
it to Ferret's school. Don't add your precision. This is
just gonna be flat six six. So eighteen plus six
brings is up to twenty twenty four ooh, skink, you
do clock you lost Ferris sometime in the last five
to ten minutes, so you know it's not like you
lost her this morning.
Speaker 3: For minor enchantment, I can applot, wait, make the target
baffle to a whisper or amply twitched out all sounds
passing through it.
Speaker 1: Can I do that to my hands? Absolutely? Okay, So
I don't know gloves or you know, there's a million
ways to solve that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So I don't know that you can hear me,
but I'm going to try it. So I'm gonna use
minor enchantment to on my gloves to shout or skink, go.
Speaker 1: Ahead and make We're gonna say a mite check on
this one for shouting feels right, But I want you
What I want you to do is double your might
when you add it. This is one of those things
where like if you guys were standing in an open field,
this would work no problem. It's just the geometry and
weirdness of the specific place that you're.
Speaker 3: Kind of combating that is a twelve.
Speaker 1: Ay twelve would double your MTE on it. Yeah, ooh
oh hey, then, uh, skink, I need a precision check.
You're shooting for eighteen. I was taking thirty and subtracting
whatever Fara got.
Speaker 2: Eight plus two is ten.
Speaker 1: Don't hear.
Speaker 3: Can I try another enchantment?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely. This is one of those things where you, yeah,
you've got time to like try a bunch of things,
but for the sake of gain mechanics, keep trying. If
you keep trying the same thing, the check's just going
to get higher and higher.
Speaker 3: This is different, though, so I don't hear anything. Sarah
is paused, she's been struggling. She's going to try something.
I can apply a near friction frictionless coding to a
target or make it as sticky as Tree said. Okay,
I want to try to do this to my shoes, Okay,
so that I can walk with more grip.
Speaker 1: I all right, cool.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that makes it harder since I'm heavy,
but she's gonna try it.
Speaker 1: I think that's a very clever use of that ability.
And you can also like expand that to be like
because you can keep recasting it. Right, you could do
it on your shoes, you could do it on your gloves,
you could do it all sorts of things. Very interesting.
All right, I'm gonna ask you for another hm hmm.
Now that is well done. Okay, here's what I'm gonna do,
which is higher your mighty your precision might Okay, make
three mic checks shooting for twenty five.
Speaker 3: That's thirteen seven. That's seven thirteen plus fourteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful, so twenty seven. Okay, you've worked, You've struggled
your way. It's not that Pharah is not athletic enough
to get up this climb. It is that it is technical,
tricky and precarious. But by applying this sticky coating, you've
basically superpowered your climbing gear. Here, you are able to
turn this to your advantage. You're able to turn this
into an athletic contest once more. Sarah starts scrambling up
and rapidly making up time skink. You sit there for
five minutes, ten minutes, started thinking about going back. Here's
the problem with going back. If you go down a
side tunnel that you missed on the way. You know
tunnel sense, like if you go down the wrong way,
you'll never find each other again. It's better to stand
the root. And as you're thinking about all of this,
you have this just sort of sense, like something in
the air has changed. Something in the acoustics of the
very baseline. Ambient noise in this place is different than
after a moment. Oh, okay, okay, Farah's coming. Sarah scrambles
up with renewed strength and vigor, coming up the frozen
sheet of water. This is like the area you're sitting
in right now, Skink. Without even realizing it, You're basically
on a giant like slate slab that is covered in
black ice. Like that's kind of the environment you find
yourself in. And you see Farah coming up, and as
she like plants her boot or puts her hand down
for a handhold, not only does the weight of your
nomish companion crack that ice that has been there since
primordial times at this point, but she is just visibly
hauling herself up, almost like bouldering now instead of like
your scramble.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And you guys rejoin one another.
Speaker 3: I have a suggestion. Yes, I don't like getting separated
from you in the dark.
Speaker 2: No, I'm so sorry that I went faster than you.
I should have slowed down. I should have stayed with you.
I didn't realize you were that far behind me.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. It's okay, this is a different underground
than I'm used to. This is definitely your element, not mine.
That's okay. I have an idea. Let's use bind objects.
I want to touch you and I want to touch me.
We now exhibit a slight attraction towards one another, like.
Speaker 2: Actual bagage, just like the bodies just saying.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, you're ruined it.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 3: Is that okay? Am I allowed to do that?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think technically it might be objects, but you
could just be like your shirt say yeah, way, like
that's that's one of those things where like, oh, technically,
but also there's a thousand ways to get around that restriction,
so it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2: I love the idea that Farah being made of iron
is just this like dense magnetic like substance, and that
as soon as you bind skink just sort of like
it's like stuck to you whatever whatever metallic piece of
like bits of iron in my blood or just like.
Speaker 4: You.
Speaker 1: You do notice as Pharah casts this little working of magic,
there is this like it's very subtle, but if you
sit and concentrate on it, there is this very slight
like lean sort of like almost like you would imagine
a homing pigeon knows where north is. It's just kind
of like, oh, yeah, that way. What's nice about that ability?
I don't believe it has a range.
Speaker 3: Of limit on that specified one.
Speaker 1: So like you just sort of have this like there
is that way. Yeah, you have to kind of sit
and like it would be hard to keep up with
if you were in an avalanche falling down a mountain
or something. Sure, but in terms of like if you
take a moment and are like, okay, you can infallibly,
It's very similar to how like zero gave you the
sense of like where the entrance to this place was?
Speaker 2: Cool? Cool, cool, okay cool. I think Skink is also
racked with some level of guilt, like a little low
grade guilt for going too far. And let's see how
that plays out the episode.
Speaker 3: Of it.
Speaker 1: You guys continue onward up this in this portion of
the tunnel, very slick recipice of just this icy sheet,
this icy sheet. It's almost like a slide the whole
way down for several hundred more yards. But with Farah's
reapplication of enchanter magic and Skink's just baseline goblin handling
of tunnels, familiarity and whatnot less of an issue for
you two. You pressed the top of this into like
underground clift and find yourself like coming over what is
effectively you know those uh about Oh, I can't imagine
what they're called right now, Not a dike, but the
those low head dams that they have in some rivers
where like the water goes straight over the top and
like a continuous sheet.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, there's a word.
Speaker 1: For that, And I can't remember what they are. It
doesn't matter. You come over effectively what is a natural
version of that? Like that's what this stone slab has
been that you've been climbing up. You realize as you
come over the top, and it's just that like wherever
the whenever this water was liquid last it just barely
ran down the surface of this thing. H And as
you come over the ridgeline of it, you are looking
out into a frozen underground lake like this is there's
you can hear like a little bit of trickling of
like melt water from somewhere that is making its way
like filtering through the rock into the this room. But
like you are looking out over uninternal surface of ice
that had filled this basin and was just sort of
like barely cresting over the edge of this rock whenever
it froze. The room is quite large. There's low ceilings
in many places, like there are places where like even
you have to stoop somewhat, but you can see out
into a cavern that is especially with your dark vision.
You are looking out into a cavern that is hundreds
and hundreds of yards across. Like this was a great
body of water still is. It's just very cold.
Speaker 3: This is not the cavern that we saw that I
saw in my dream.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, this is this looks natural. Okay,
this is a natural awkwardfer almost like an underground pond
or an underground river. It's peculiar. If you would like
to roll knowledge checks, we can talk about like the
giography I.
Speaker 2: Love, sure.
Speaker 3: I have a seven, was a nine?
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, seven and nine. This is esoteric. It's you know,
underground water feature formation. What's normal, what's not not super
well studied outside of some very specific academia. So you
guys are kind of like, yep, big underground pond or
lake or something. I think you have a sense of
like this is unusual, like, but you're not first enough
on the geology of like, how could something like this
have formed? Is this the influence of other things about
this place? Is this just a thing that happens sometimes
like you wouldn't know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do feel like this extended walk and now
that we're like like sticking with each other now and
we've come onto this new place, I feel like this
is an opportunity where we would be like, hey, this
right of the tiler, we went a blank?
Speaker 1: What are you saying?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, this is always what I imagined when I read stories,
when I read stories about Alton.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, this is where I.
Speaker 2: Could Can't you just see like a whole host of
dwarves in here? Can't you just see it?
Speaker 3: I guess I don't know. It's don't they do more
architecture in their caves?
Speaker 2: Okay, that's be logical about it.
Speaker 3: It does have the grandness of when I when I
am what I know of dwarf ah cities m M.
Sort of reminds me of some of the cities I've
been in that are nome cities, although of course ours
has more architecture too. This is obviously natural.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: There's something I don't know, something different. It's large, speaking
of do we see an outlet from it at all?
Like is there a doorway or so?
Speaker 1: I believe Skank your dark vision is like three hundred
feet or something, and Pharah's yours is I.
Speaker 2: Didn't write it down, but I checkup here. My dark
vision is Okay, why don't I see it all?
Speaker 4: Say?
Speaker 2: This is dark vision?
Speaker 1: Yes, I don't have a Oh you're on the main page.
I have to fix that. It's on the overview page.
Yours is three hundred feet.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, cool, coo cool.
Speaker 1: So your dark vision is three hundred feet, Pharas is
one hundred and twenty feet. I will tell you that
both of you cannot see the far wall of this cavern.
Speaker 2: No, but I do think that Skink would start messing
around and pretending to be a dwarf in Olton and
so so now now that uh, now that we're thinking
about no, okay, skink, Skink would sort of uh make
make herself even more into it, like as square and
rectangular as shape as she can, and sort of uh
walk in a very square manner, acting like she's heavy
when she's totally not, and and just starts making grunting
sounds like dwarf is here. I am in the dwarf home.
And then and then turning around to Pharaoh going.
Speaker 3: Like, welcome to my dwarf home.
Speaker 2: Have you brought me any gifts? And and just like
straight up like goblin stereotype of dwarf and luck And
it's like not taking this seriously anymore for the moment,
for the moment, because again with my tunnel sense, if
I thought there was something in here, I like imagined
that I would have noticed. So I like think we're alone,
and I was like, whatever, it's time to be joking again.
I want to have a good time. I'm going to
pretend to be a dwarf.
Speaker 1: Oh the DM impulse. I feel like do I pop
a surprise on them or just let them have a
nice And I think we'll let you have a nice
It's just like.
Speaker 2: I always know I'm tempting fate when I when I
decided to goof off in this case, really yeah yeah,
like the last time I decided to practice shooting my gun,
I remember what happened.
Speaker 1: Begin to cross this frozen lake. It is no question
frozen solid right Like there's I'm not gonna like dangle
the possibility of oth thin ice. It's this is as
deep freeze as we can get. You begin to cross
this frozen lake. Neither one of you can see the edge.
Let me ask you this. Do you stick to a
wall or do you try and cross? Oh?
Speaker 3: No, yeah, for sure? Is there as sure of the
lake that we can identify.
Speaker 1: Or you're basically standing on the surface of it? Okay,
like this, imagine like a bowl that was frozen solid.
You came up over the lip of the bowl and
you're just standing on the ice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yeah, we would say it.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: You begin to kind of wend your way around like
the perimeter of this thing. You walk for a good
twenty minutes and are still like you can detect there's
like some meandering happening, but you've kept this giant open
chamber to your will, say, left the entire time, and
are wrapping your way slowly around as tunnel sense. I've
got to remember tunnels.
Speaker 2: I know when I'm not alone at the very least,
I just know. Does it say it's inside? Yeah, and
it's inside an enclosed space, so you can.
Speaker 1: So let's read it off, because this is going to
be important for this whole adventure. Goblin tunnel sense, you
can always tell whether or not you are alone in
an enclosed space, even if you cannot otherwise perceive the
creature that is there. This ability does not tell you
what kind of creature is present, nor how many, only
that there was at least one in the same area
with you. I'm gonna be nice. I'm going to tell
you that there is a way to interpret this as
purely binary, where the fact that Sarah and Pip are
here means that it is always activated and tells you
nothing else. That's a valid and also kind of a
dick move.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to rule that Farah and Pip you
know it. They will still trigger tunnel sense, but you
will know if there is anyone besides Farah and Pip
as well.
Speaker 2: I think that, Yeah, I feel like that's the generous interpretation.
Speaker 1: It's the generous interpretation of being like you're familiar with
your party, that's Listen. Sometimes I sick bears on Marisa,
and sometimes I go, Okay, I'm not going to be like,
there's a spider, so you don't know if there's a wolverine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or like like if there is going to be
a bear, like you feel it, you feel a bear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like, well, technically there's my microbes in
the tunnel, so you're not gonna do that. So you
twenty minutes circumnavigating the perimeter of this underground lake, Skink,
as you kind of come around, you're not even sure
quite how far you do get that sense of like
there's something else moving in kind of this region. Now,
I'll clarify a little bit. Tunnel senses not like infinite range.
The second you walked into the mountain, you weren't like
I am aware of every creature in the mountain. Mountains
are big, right, but like within the range you can perceive.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, like you know, we're in one tunnel.
If there's something on like the other side of the wall,
it's not like they can hear it.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Yeah, you're not like scanning mountain. You We'll say,
skink stops. You sense something else is in the space.
Speaker 2: With you, Okay, so I stop? Am are we assuming
that I was kind of always in front of a
side by side?
Speaker 3: I think you would be in front for one thing,
you're traversing more easily, and yeah, your dark vision is
further than mine.
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. So I stop and I put out my
hand to just like touch you behind me.
Speaker 3: And for your hand.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then I turn around and look at yeah, yeah, yeah,
exactly there you are there, you are chicken in And
then I turn around, I look at you. I don't
say anything, but I just like tap, like I want
to communicate with you. Oh, I have whisper. I'm just
gonna whisper into your into your mind.
Speaker 1: I I want to point out that whisper just sends
a whisper to somebody. You can also just whisper to her.
Speaker 3: I don't she doesn't know if something would hear us.
Don't want to hear.
Speaker 2: I don't want anything to hear us. I just want
to like. I like it, like, hey, something is here.
Speaker 3: Sarah's gonna nod okay.
Speaker 2: And then we have to keep going. But I have
passed along the message, sure have, sure have.
Speaker 3: I think I would. I think at that moment, Barah
would conjure armor. Oh okay, all right, it's too manna
and the sustaining to okay, okay, yes so she I would.
It would be light armor, which is one plus add
one to my armor. It's got absorbed one. And I
speed increases by ten feet.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, you're it's magic armor effectively in casing yourself
in some enchander meg ye, beautiful Skink, anything you're gonna
do at the moment.
Speaker 2: I think Skink is just mentally rehearsing all the things
that like I have on me. I'm like, okay, if
I need to shadow meld, like I can go faster
in here to reach whatever is out there. If I
need to like whip out my skeleton, jar, I got it.
I can make a little undid chicken. I just like
just like mentally mentally scrolling and you know, feel feeling
through what's going on here. But is doesn't doesn't have
anything like prepped yet.
Speaker 1: What is both of your passive perceptions?
Speaker 3: What that's just our decision.
Speaker 1: A precision modifier plus four five. Okay, So Pharah, you
actually clock it as you guys are seeding with caution,
looking around you, one hundred and twenty foot dark vision
past perception of five meets the five eye roll. You
just at the edge of your vision see motion you
see you have dark vision. You can see you see
a spider small like dog side well small, a dog
sized spider small for the other spiders that I've thrown
at people that relict true, Ken Valady, You see a
spider biting out at what looks to be a rock.
The rock moves, slams into it, and you see a
little burst of like shattering ice. Another rock moves and
slams into the spider. Another rock moves, and they kind
of You watch this spider succumb under this like mound
of basketball size chunks of rock and ice. They kind
of swarm around it, almost like ants. As you watch.
The spider goes down. The spider dies. I assume direct
Skink to look at it as well. You guys watch it.
Speaker 3: You get a tap on her shoulder and point.
Speaker 1: You see this kind of unfold, and then you see
in the darkness there's a couple of little like bursts
of dull blue light. There are now twice as many rocks.
Speaker 2: The rocks are eating the spider.
Speaker 1: Either of you who would like to roll a knowledge check?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we bettern plus three.
Speaker 3: That's ten. There is ten as well.
Speaker 1: I was gonna set it at a ten. You beat
me to it. That's the light. Great, both of you.
Well traveled, lots of libraries, lots of weird critters raising
dead all sorts of stuff, knowing you're going to osk,
knowing you're going north of the mountains, whatever. There are
stories of creatures that you might encounter out here. We
encountered at a distance of frost siren the other day,
and it's part of your trek. You know of a
certain kind of like naturally occurring elemental in places suffused
with magic of great that are like significantly cold, an
interaction that kind occurs like certain places can form. Elementals
are a type of animated creature. These are called flurries.
Flurry is a little animated bit of ice, magical like
empowered ether infused ice. They tend they're not terribly dangerous alone.
The problem is they are they don't really have an intelligence,
but they are attracted like reactively to heat sources that
come within their range, and they can duplicate themselves if
they find any sort of like dead organic matter. So
one on one, not very dangerous. If a swarm of
them comes upon you, potentially an exponential problem very quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a big problem for that spider.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't seem to have been detected by them yet,
but they are there in the dark there.
Speaker 3: I would like to One of my minor enchantments is
heat or cool a target object. Yeah, I can cool
it down to thirty three degrees fahrenheit. Okay, so can
I cool our clothing off the thirty three degrees fahrenheit
until we passed them? Does it look like we could
feasibly get past them before having old issues?
Speaker 1: Let me.
Speaker 2: Look at something, Maddie, You're so smart.
Speaker 3: He gave me too much power as an enchancer. He
came up with all these minor jetments that are super small,
and I'm like, oh, I these are super useful. Do
all sorts of crazy things with.
Speaker 1: These minor enchant man without using an enchient slot one
square foot of surface area less until your next term.
So we have sort of handwaved this a little bit
for stuff like heating up a water bottle to like,
you know, because if it lasts for a couple of seconds,
you get a heat source, you feel more comfortable, your
body temperature rises. Like that's well and good. In this instance,
what you're talking about doing, how much mana do you have?
Speaker 4: Have?
Speaker 3: Seven?
Speaker 1: If seven mana, so you can spend potentially all seven
mana two six, it would be four rounds. Is how
long you could make that effect last. Is it supposed
to last until the end of your next term? You
can upcast it for two to add another.
Speaker 3: Round, and I couldn't do both of us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the surface area is what's killing you in
this one. So like a water bottle, we can get
around that for a whole body. It's way more than
a square foot.
Speaker 3: Wait, can I cool our water bottles off to pour
on us?
Speaker 1: Potentially? Sure if you want to do that.
Speaker 3: Or signe note or alternative plan. I can also heat
to one hundred degrees fahrenheit. I could heat an object
to distract them.
Speaker 1: M I did say they are attracted to heat sources
like instinctive.
Speaker 3: So I think I'm gonna switch gears.
Speaker 2: What would be It seems like there's rocks around. You
could heat a rock.
Speaker 1: I could eat a rock, could literally be any object, Yeah,
I could. I want to do it.
Speaker 3: I would like to heat a I'm gonna tap on
h stink shoulder went to a rock. It's I want
one that I'm in a whisper.
Speaker 2: I can eat this rock up and throw it. Do
you think throwing it's a good idea?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I think this is a good idea. I
think you should I think you should heat that rock,
and I think you should throw it far away from.
Speaker 1: The creeping up on your ear.
Speaker 4: Lie rock.
Speaker 3: Ah, okay, how have you of a rock?
Speaker 1: Can? Pippled Yep kind of jumps down, scrabbles around a
little bit. It's feather's kind of ruffle up, like yeah,
it's pulled out here that looks around. Hass a couple
out Like you see this crow like using tools, like
he's walking around being like he comes back with this
little like piece of shade that's like, you know, not huge,
but you see him. Uh. He kind of indicates you're
an enchanter, you're a you're a necromance or whatever. He
kind of pulls at one of skinks like rags that
you just have sort of rap rap rock all right,
so you just want to burn himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna take the shell. I'm gonna put
it on the fabric. I'm gonna minor enchantment, heat it
to one hundred degrees fahrenheit, and we have to be quick,
So I'm gonna quickly bundle it and give it to Pip.
Speaker 1: Yip grabs it and just takes off and you see,
Pip is a brave bird. He buzzes straight over the
spider corpse like two feet above them. These things, for
what it's worth, seem to be like yay, big grapefruit
basketball sized things, and they just sort of like have
little stubby nubbins that they kind of like animate around them.
But they're not like reaching and clawing and scrabbling at him.
They're just sort of like rock goll them creature of things.
Pip buzzes right through them, like dangling the rock like
right over their little their little noggins, and just banks
and heads off into the distance, into the middle of
the void chamber. You hear the rock drops and lands
and here ada mada, call Mada bada. Dark, it's dark.
Speaker 2: Can we give the light?
Speaker 3: Can you?
Speaker 2: Oh man, how do we make a light without? I
was like, oh, we should light a match. That will
take them right back to us.
Speaker 1: You have dark light you can, or dark dark eye
of night you can. You can use eye of night
to bestow dark vision on a creature.
Speaker 2: Well, I should have done that before he left, because
this is I have to touch him.
Speaker 1: We'll see that. I can.
Speaker 3: Also, I can use a minor enchantment to cause a
strong odor. He's an animal. Right, yeah, did you since
that we did we maybe we moved too fast to
realize we could give him dark vision.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna him. Yeah, he comes fluttering back and
you hear him like fluttering up to the wall and
then like he detects you guys.
Speaker 2: Like I think we grab it. I would reach out
and grab grab the grab Pip.
Speaker 1: Yeah where his mother and then you know, you guys
gonna grab him?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Would bestow the dark vision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the dark vision yeah yeah yeah yeah, So that's
what I'm gonna do. That's what I'm gonna do now,
so that takes two. Yeah, so I have night is
two manus. So that gives him sixty feet. That's is
that That's probably good enough. I mean, like I can
upcast it, but he's probably not going to go any
further than us.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, we hadn't done it because he was nestled
in miney oh it's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he's just been napping.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's just.
Speaker 2: Just been hanging out. Yeah. I'm going to give it
to him just so that he can.
Speaker 1: You guys, saw Pip was kind of realized pretty quickly
as he left. You guys, he was flying blind a
little bit, so he's like, oh, I misscalculated, Yeah, but
had the desired effect. You guys saw as soon as
he buzzed these things with this hot rock. Even as
the enchantment fades and it starts to cool back off again,
they're reacting to not only the rock, but Pip's body
heat as well. It's electric. As soon as he gets
within like one hundred feet of them, they all immediately
go from like dormant where like they could pass his
chunks of rocks, to animated once more and start like
marching to him. And as he buzzes by them, they
just change directions like they are a lot on and
he flies off, drops the rock and circles around and
they march in like perfect magnetic attraction towards that rock.
Cool just off into the darkness.
Speaker 3: Well, we're gonna puffit away from them, yeah right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys, Yeah, we want to go fast. There's
no way I can. I can't. Yeah, I have it
with shadow mild. I can make myself go faster in
the dark. But again, because I feel guilty about having
become separated from Parah before, I don't want to, very sweet,
I don't want.
Speaker 1: To you guys, object now. I think you guys scramble
booking it, sticking to the wall on one side of
the void. On the other, you hear these things kind
of like coming, and you hear them just sort of
like slamming into the rock, like they're just like you
hear this like it's like someone has literally taken a
bunch of rocks and is just smashing them together like
that that noise of like grinding percussion. You guys, book
it past there. You look back, we'll say, Faery, you're
in the back. You look back, and you see that
the straggler of the pack literally for a few moments
is distracted by what appears to be the residual heat
of your footprints. But that quickly fades on this sheet
of ice here, so it like literally diverts and like
follows from one footprint to the next for a moment
until that is faded back towards like ambient temperature, and
then it just sort of goes dormant once more. You
guys keep going around the perimeter of this thing. How
fast are we going?
Speaker 2: I mean I can only go thirty feet per turn?
But are we going slower? Because you can.
Speaker 1: Do sixty if you book it. But I'm more in
terms of, like you scoot past these guys, are you
main hanging a fast pace or are we slowing back down?
What's the kind of game plan here?
Speaker 2: I would go as fast as we could, for as
long as we could.
Speaker 3: Do you know what the ranges? Would we know what
the range is for these little guys.
Speaker 1: You both got a ten on your knowledge check. I
don't think that is a thing that would be like
well documented. But I will say you saw when Pip
got within about one hundred feet more or less. That's
where they reacted.
Speaker 3: Now far away are we Let's see a couple.
Speaker 1: We'll say you've booked it a couple hundred feet.
Speaker 3: Past fast, so like two rounds, so like one hundred
and twenty yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, maybe four rounds.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, let's say let's say four rounds of moving.
Speaker 1: Fast, moving fast. Okay, you guys scamper on past and
then slow back down to a walking pace. You continue
to come around and you see the first break in
this underground chamber. Another kind of opening tunnel goes off,
and you see like the sheet of water kind of well,
the sheet of frozen ice kind of laps up against it,
but does not. If there's a slight incline there heading up,
it doesn't appear that the ice continues up that slope.
We will leave it right there while we take it
quick break and fed the beasts. Consider your next movements excellent.
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and check it out now. So you guys have scampered
past these flurries with it, I also.
Speaker 2: Will say maybe I should save this for later, but
like anytime there is an example, there's like an opportunity
for Pharaoh to just be clever. Is like it's incredible
this mind, like you know, there's like so much going
on in there, like I wouldn't even know.
Speaker 1: I've also sent a picture of the flurries to the Chato.
Speaker 3: They are super.
Speaker 2: Fun I like it, like it, oh gross, too funny.
Speaker 1: And they have no lungs. They can't make noise, but
I always imagine them just being like.
Speaker 2: Anyway, if it had a finger in it, Okay, what
are this is not related to anything that I can
keep it if you want, but like if there's a
finger in it, and uh, Pip really took a mind that,
like this crow wants a finger, could Pip pick that
thing apart and get the finger out? I mean, like
Pip obviously he probably can't perceive that there is a
finger in there. I can see it because it's there,
and you told me it's there, But like, is there
you know a universe in which those things get broken open?
Speaker 1: That is possible. Okay, you would have an old, frozen finger,
So what's that worth to you?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but all creatures
can be broken open if you hit them hard enough.
Speaker 3: But the string.
Speaker 1: Pip would have to be crafty. I feel like I
would probably still bet on Pip winning the day if
he thought a flurry, But I don't don't think him
going in and bashing his head into it is going
to be the way to go. Okay, they're not soft,
he's fighting ice.
Speaker 2: But ice chips awake, you know, like I feel like
Pip would like engineer a fall or drop.
Speaker 1: Rocks on it or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, straight up crow style.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like that's what seagulls do. They pick up crabs,
they take them really high, they drop them until they
break open.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Pip's going to be like, what do I look
like a woodpecker? No? No, no, are and I Am
not going to do that. I'm going to do Yeah,
I've got to drop this thing or I'm going to
drop something on it, or you know, shove it off
a cliff and just break it open.
Speaker 2: Cool, all right, that was just a question for you.
Speaker 1: Sidecar always good world building, that's what that is.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 1: Okay, you guys, scamper past this pack of flurries that
are descending on a decoy rapidly cooling heated rock Pip
safely tucked away back in his hood, and you find
for the first time an opening out of this chamber
as you've kind of followed your way around the wall.
Would you like to continue on look for something else
or go explore the opening?
Speaker 3: Do from my dream? Do I have a sense of
whether there is in the right direction?
Speaker 1: From your dream and from your conversation with Zero you know,
the Divining Pool is up not at like the peak
of the mountain, but quite high on it. And I
think it is easy enough for you to know there's
no way we've gotten close in like the day that
we've been down. Sure, But so what I would say is,
you know you've got to go up, and you've got,
probably with tunnel sense and zero's like blessings and whatnot,
a general direction. Uh, this is not dead on, like
there's no straight line through here, but it's within. Tunnels
are tricky because sometimes they can twist down and back
around and back up. This at the very least the
branch is kind of in the direction you feel like
you should be going. Whether or not that's the correct
path remains to be seen.
Speaker 3: Okay, what do you think for me?
Speaker 2: I mean, uh, another part of me wonder so like
there's all these tunnels because someone wasn't here before us.
There's holes because people were in here before us, and
you know people have come out here on expeditions for
other things before and uh, you know, like I accidentally
talked to a mountain spirit, you know the last time
I sort of checked. So there's this like wonder of
like should I just be like dragging a pickaxe along
the wall every once in a while. Should I just
be like tapping on there to see, like, you know, what,
what was it here? Did anybody pull out anything cool?
Like I don't really have a strong impulse to want
to sit down and like mine for an hour, but
you know, if there are if there's like some way
that skin can sort of like pass time. I mean,
like we have to eat at some point, right, like
we're gonna get hungry, like sure, like we should you know,
if we've been going for a few hours, I think
we need to have some lunch and uh or you know,
whatever time of day it is, I think we should
like eat and maybe like scratch the walls.
Speaker 3: All right, Yeah, I think we should do that in
the in more enclosed tunnel and not in the open
space where we know there's little.
Speaker 2: Elementals for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, so I do think I think we
should turn in here, Okay, turn into this little alco
it's a little tunnel here, okay, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys branch out of the frozen lake. The
good news is this is not the way you came.
It's the very least new territory for sure. The angle
here is slightly upward. It does look to still be
a natural tunnel. There are a lot of like stalagtites
and like features and like geological features and whatnot. You're
still kind of like forcing and squeezing and moving and
pip occasion lands to get out of your hood and
like and follow along and then get back in. And
you know, as you kind of go through narrower spaces
and whatnot, you do kind of find your way around.
And this tunnel does seem to be leading. Like there's
places where you've got to like kind of climb where
it's like a boulder and like a ridge and a
cliff and like nothing crazy. You're not like repelling down,
but just sort of like all right, well here we
are where we've got to go. All right, I'll boost
you up, you boost me up. Da da. You're making
way through, and it does seem to be heading upwards, and
you do get to a point if you would like
to stop. You're in a relatively narrow chamber kind of
the size of like a hallway, let's say, where at
the very least nothing's sneaking up on you. Yeah, if
you wanted to stop and kind.
Speaker 2: Of take stop yeah, stop, I think rations have some rations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, at this point, I will say you've been
traveling for maybe six hours.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, we'll be ravenous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'd be very hungry.
Speaker 2: We'd be very very hungry. I mean I'm hungry every
like two and a half hours.
Speaker 3: So not actively climbing, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think we we're probably gonna sit down for like an
hour to like scarf down some food. Yeah, yeah, let's
do that.
Speaker 3: You want to scratch at the walls, I kind of do.
Speaker 2: I mean, uh, I think you know, Skiak's gonna be
real experimental about this, so like at first they're just
gonna go and like touch the walls, touch with their
hand and like feel how hard packed the dirt is,
and like scratch a finger, a single fingernail at first,
and then like look under the nail and see like
is it is it coming off in clumps?
Speaker 1: Is it? Uh?
Speaker 2: I mean, Chris, you can tell me a little bit
like how hard it's it's it's frozen, you know, this
is this is this is really dense. It's like very
dense matter. But uh, you know, like if you scratch, granted,
that's different than if you scratch you know, like sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I don't know what the appropriate mineral composition
is for an Arctic mountain.
Speaker 2: So you've made fine I know, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But you scratch into this wall and like very
quickly realized, like there's there's no dirt here. This is rock.
This is a formation of like solid rock. The main
very like there's inclusions of like different veins and strata
of like maybe different mineral compositions, maybe different you know, colorations,
like there could be you know, some ancient geologic difference
in how these mountains formed and tectonically things mashed together.
Like there's inclusions of like different types of rock or
variations of on a theme. But like you are in
a stone tunnel.
Speaker 2: Cool, I think. Also, So after doing that, then I'm
just like sort of curious. I don't need anything, but
I think I'm just gonna again like put both hands
against the wall and just like feel into the rock,
like zero, are you there is this?
Speaker 1: You roll a whoppower check for me. Oh my god,
it's gonna be high. It's gotta be high. I'm gonna
tell you.
Speaker 2: That six plus two is an eight.
Speaker 1: You put your will out into the rock, and it is,
in fact rock.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, So it's a rock, We're at a rock,
we're in the mount it. It's rock. That's fine, that's fine.
So I just needed to just pack it up. I
think we're just just eating. I scratch the rock.
Speaker 1: You guys have a strange quiet lunch deep within this mountain.
Speaker 3: I think after six hours of climbing belungking essentially.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: I think it would be one of those meals where
you're sitting there and you're both just like dead silent,
just eating because you're so hungry and you're tired. Yeah,
and it's just like real quiet, Yes, in a mountain.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it is. So you guys both have
dark vision, which is great for you. Yeah, honey, you
and I have been to different caverns and whatever our
travels and like experienced underground darkness where they shut off
all the lights. Yeah, it's weird, folks. I'm gonna be
real with you. You start hallucinating in about ten seconds
because your brain can't handle having so little song. But
it's real weird. But you two have dark vision, so
you can the very least see each other and a
short distance in either direction. Although in this particular chamber
there's nothing else to see beyond that short distance. Even
for Barah, poor Pip is mostly just dozing whenever he can,
Like this is I think you probably still top up
with I have night periodically so you can at least
see what's going on. But yeah, he's kind of just
like this. This sucks. But all right, I will say
you guys have traveled most of like what a comfortable
day's excursion is under these conditions you can press on.
There's twenty four hours in a day. We'll say by
the time you're all done, we're approaching seven or eight.
This is arduous and difficult.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if we would start to switch to this,
like you know, like alternate sleep schedule where it's like
we hiked for six hours, We're going to sleep for
four like yeah, four hours and then get up and
then like do it again. Okay, So I wonder if
this is going to be like long nap but not
full night's sleep kind of territory.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: I don't know, put it out there.
Speaker 1: Or you guys tell me what you want to do.
I think we would.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you if you you don't have
to go to sleep necessarily Uh, if you try and
push out at the same pace going forward right now,
there's going to be a check involved, because this is
a difficult thing to do.
Speaker 3: So I think both of us are underground like dwellers,
So I don't know that it would mess up our
sleep cycle all that much. I do think we would stop.
I do think we would go to sleep. I think
we'd sleep for more than four hours, though, I think
we would probably sleep for like six not like a
fill eight hour night, you know, yeah, at least this
first night, because we like haven't been up as long
as we are used to. I think we would sleep
slightly shorter.
Speaker 1: There is also there's another consideration here in that you
have been told that this route will take less time
than climbing the mountain. Oh yeah, Orlo and Tula ostensibly
are going to meet you at the top from the outside.
M If you push through as fast as humanly possible,
you're going to beat them by like a day or two.
Who knows what they come into.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, I think we would actually go pretty slowly. Then.
Speaker 2: I think after six hours, little Goblin is going to
go for nap time. Yeah, okay, but is this where
we are now a good place to sleep or should
we find somewhere else.
Speaker 1: You guys know where you've come through. You have no
idea what's up ahead?
Speaker 2: That's true. I don't want to go back really.
Speaker 3: No, this, I mean this is going up, so I
feel like it's going in the general direction of where
we need to go. As a consideration is that we
might get lost, so we don't necessarily want to go
super slow.
Speaker 2: Right, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: There's going to be an element of risk in this regardless,
just because of the unknown.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, I do think here, can we do a
perception check or sorry, precision check for like, is this
a good area? The area around us look like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will I can tell we're alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, skin can tell you you're alone right now. I
will say you can use a precision to kind of
scout the area out a little bit, or you can
even do a cleverness if you want to assess what
can be done to this area.
Speaker 3: Precision. I have an idea of what can we do? Okay, actually, no,
what No, I'll go for cleverness.
Speaker 2: Uh. I wonder if we could block it off, if
we could like block off our own well.
Speaker 1: I have that.
Speaker 3: I are going to say, I have the alarm room.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right, that.
Speaker 3: Sends me a telepathic alert when activated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so would you roll on?
Speaker 3: I rolled on an eleven plus three.
Speaker 1: For cleverness or precision cleverness. Okay, you are able to
get like you're in kind of a box tunnel right now,
right You're you're in effectively a hallway, is what we said.
Going back the way you came, it gets into a
pretty narrow space like you guys had to like take
off your packs and kind of like squeeze through. Uh.
Going up ahead, you're not super sure like where everything leads,
but there is a relatively narrow kind of like corner
opening ahead of you is where you'll have to go next.
You were able to determine easy enough potentially to like
barricade or alarm or something where you came. And you
also have the enchanter's slate where you could put your
denial run ahead of you and effectively block the passage
with it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I still have a couple of critters that
I can make sension and stand batch.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 2: Also that like if you don't want to use, if
you don't want to use all your stuff all at once,
you have like a little guard squirrel.
Speaker 3: That's true, and that's adorable. My enchantments thoughts are only
taken up while.
Speaker 1: The enchantment is active. You can dismiss them later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so once the ruins are triggered, then they're lost.
I can dismiss them and the enchantments thoughts come back.
Speaker 1: Yes, So.
Speaker 3: I think I would choose to do an alarm room
to the back of us, since we know there's elementals okay, guys,
along with a warning room kind of behind it. Okay,
So like they would come across the alarm room first
and then a warning room okay, and then I th
think you could do a little lookout guy, and I
can do a second warning room because I have enough
man to the other side.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, think you want to raise your rotessary chicken.
Speaker 2: I still feel like rotusserie chicken is an attack guy.
I want to I say with that for like attack
carcass attack chicken. Uh, And I'm gonna I'd rather have
like a little a little watch squirrel.
Speaker 1: You do have your your one remaining starting.
Speaker 2: Puss That's right, I had. I had two little critters
to begin with. I still have one. So the chipmunk
has long gone so I'm gonna I'm gonna animate my
little squirrel guy that has been dead in my pockets
and bags all this time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys fan out. We'll say this is like
a variation on a practice routine for you. You've traveled together
through dangerous areas for many years. Pip kind of posts
up in the middle, hanging out as Skink raises this
decrepit road kill and physicians it behind Farah's first rune.
And then Pharah goes back the way you guys came
and sets up one room and then the other, and
you have created this little bubble of relative safety within
the depths of Mount Zero.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 1: As you guys bed down to take a well deserved rest,
We're gonna zoom out through the earth stone and ice
of Mount SiO, out into the frigid air the rushing wind.
We see Tula and or Low and a Barreth trudging
their way up through. They alongside a icy but not
thoroughly frozen, churning river that flows deep down like the
slope to one side of them. Chunks of ice and
rock kind of constantly churning within these rapids. They are
picking their way through heavy, dark, old pine forest these deep,
almost like alien looking, dark green evergreen trees bent down
low with the weight of just accumulated snowfall. The air
around them is like so muffled with the deadening effect
of just feet of snow that have piled up and
swirled around for years and years in what we see
is a kind of a indentation on the mostly barren
mountain side of Mountain Zero. But within this little not
valley is the wrong word, but this holler, this gorge area,
this winds leeward side, where some protection is offered by
the bulk of Zero itself, and some sustenance is available
through this river that manages to keep flowing in some
parts even in the deepest winter. Here this dark forest
has survived all of this time in the meager amount
of shelter that is available in this place. Hula bikes
at the forefront orlow, looking out to the side Berry
kind of flanking off to the other side. Tula snaps around.
What was that, I didn't hear anything. Ah shit, it's
back here we go. Brother Marissa, I want you to
go ahead and roll three D twelves or Tula, Maddy,
I want you to go ahead and roll three D
twelves for orlo. I'm gonna roll some stuff. I want
you give them to me an order. Don't add him up.
Speaker 3: Okay, here's a some asmr A.
Speaker 1: You ready, right, you've got your results, hold them, hold
them for a moment. You're rolling for tula.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was ten plus two plus twelve. Okay, so
she did roll a twelve.
Speaker 1: Okay, honestly, good give me decide what order you want
might will power and fortitude in ah. Actually no, here's
what we'll do. Here's what we'll do. That's gonna be
too complicated.
Speaker 2: So wait, wait, I mean I'll pick I'll do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna put a little bit of gambling in here,
a little bit of mystery. Okay, we're doing this risk
rules style. So if you ever played risk, you roll
the dice, your opponent rolls the dice, and you match
up the highest result to the highest result, next result
to the next result, and so like, if I get
a six and you get a five, the six beats
your five. If you get a five and I four,
the fo you know, like the next one down, eliminate
each other until you run out of dice, doing something
like that. But I've rolled three dice for each of
these checks. Okay, I'm going to tell you I rolled
a ten, I rolled a two. I'm not going to
tell you what my third one is. You tell me
what order you want to put these in. You got
a ten to two and a twelve. You said, yeah,
what order do you want to put them in?
Speaker 3: What happens if they like are even like two to
two tycos.
Speaker 1: To the player, right, I mean that would be convenient
for you. I could certainly see if we have a tie,
we will do a tiebreaker tie breakers.
Speaker 2: Technically, I'm not tula, you know, like I am so
so to tygos ten two.
Speaker 1: We're doing tie breakers, so they're basically nullified effectively, So
you could do twelve and two.
Speaker 2: So if I do twelve two, then I know those
beat them, and then the last one is a mystery twelve.
But I could take you know what, sure, I'll take two.
I could take two guaranteed wins over one possible failure.
So twelve ten and then a gamble.
Speaker 1: Okay, Maddy, I rolled two and a one and something.
Speaker 3: I rolled eight, five and one, okay, So I'm gonna
put the five against the two, okay, and the one
against the one.
Speaker 1: Okay, and what's the last one? Eight?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 1: I need two tiebreakers from you?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it's a one again?
Speaker 1: Done done, and next one.
Speaker 3: From me?
Speaker 1: Oh I needed two type breakers. Yeah, because my mystery
number was also an eight.
Speaker 3: Okay, I swear to god it is another one that's
a ten.
Speaker 1: Okay. I want each of you to roll one D twelve.
Uh huh, because I've also rolled for Barry.
Speaker 3: I swear to kill Berry.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to kill you might kill Berry.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: No, it's an eight as a ten.
Speaker 1: And we need one more from whoever wants to take it.
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't like this pressure.
Speaker 2: You go okay, I'll do it. I'll do it. The
pot can take it. It's a two.
Speaker 1: Nor is gonna have two mystery numbers. I'm gonna tell
you the last number I rolled. First one and the
second one are mysteries. You guys got to decide what
order you put what in? You've rolled an eight, ten
and two mm hmm. My last number for Barry was
a twelve. You're gonna lose the last.
Speaker 3: One, okay, so put the put the what did you
roll the two?
Speaker 2: So put the two down there?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, we know we're gonna lose that one anyway. Yes, yeah, yeah, Okay, get.
Speaker 1: An eight and a ten? Which one's first? Uh uh?
Speaker 2: Did you want to just do them? Descending order ten?
Speaker 4: Eight?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: We see cutting through the woods. As Tula braces herself,
that avatar form twisting and turning reality in on itself,
much as you saw her demonstrate before. These elder tendrils
of twisting wrongness engulf her form. She bellows and draws
her weapon. Orlow and Barry are slower to react. What
turn An enormous shape comes crashing through the trees, splintering
trees to either side. This gigantic, enormous humanoid monstrosity with
four arms come swinging through bom We see flashes of
stony ice, icy enclosure. This is not a creature of
flesh and blood. This is a construct. This is a machine,
a mechanism. It comes smashing through. If Orlo and Tula
had ever seen the inside of Lady Sive's basement, some
familiarity would have been bound there, but they do not
know what they are facing. Orlo bellows berserk rage, charges
in great acts, swinging smashes against the leg of this machine.
It sparks. Nothing happens, It does not penetrate. Orlo comes
back again to smash down one more time. One of
the arms spins around the torso of this thing. A
whole segment just rotates on its own axis, clubs him
and knocks him from his feet, tumbling into the snow.
Bury bellows in rage, charges in attempts to maul you
cannot maul. A statue is also battered down to the side. Tula,
calling upon powers Eldritch, foul and beyond the pail, calls
down a strike of dark energy and power that twists
and shatters. We zoom out to see a shock wave
shatter through the trees, snow blasted from branches, birds fluttering
into the distance, a sound of wrenching metal and shattering stone.
Moments later, Tula stands in the wreckage, stressed, frantic, looking
between a limping Orlo fighting to get back to his
feet an injured Bareth, with a mountain ahead of them
to climb. I will give you wake in your chamber.
Speaker 2: Was the blast that Tula brought down big enough to
like quake to the interior of the mountain? Or do
we think that we're so deep inside and they're like
really far off.
Speaker 1: At incredibly unlikely, but we can. I'm gonna I'm gonna
roll the.
Speaker 2: Big ball, the big ball, take out the big ball.
Speaker 1: If this is like a ninety or above possibly okay,
really only with tunnel scents, like they're quite far from you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like ground is hard to four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, things that happen on the world outside passes unseen.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, I didn't dream about this either, right, we.
Speaker 2: Have no idea. It's like, meanwhile, Sam and frodo have
no idea? What's going on with these?
Speaker 1: Of the party you wake in your chamber. The wards
have held, nothing has triggered them. Your tiny squirrel stands sentinel. Okay,
we're able to set off whenever you choose. Will say that,
for expediency's sake, you were able to break down the
wards reclaim your enchantment slots with no issues.
Speaker 2: There have like a little bit granola bar for breakfast. Yeah,
and rash and breakfast ration breakfast. And now squirrel buddy's
coming with us too.
Speaker 1: How are you proceeding? This is relatively narrow going from
here on out. You've had like room to kind of
maneuver and jockey from here on out. But I leading
into now. But this next passage on my little map
here is quite a narrow squeeze, like it will be
difficult to pass one another and anything but single file.
What is your marching order? You've got squirrel, You've got Parah,
You've got skink, you've got a pin. Yeah, way as
you see fit.
Speaker 3: I know I would be behind skin, probably because Ski
can see further than I can. Okay, yeah, and has
tunnel sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think that my throll, my thrall is
just sort of going where I want it to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as long as within your control radius you can
kind of mentally order it around.
Speaker 2: Yeah that I think I'm just going to have it
go like three feet.
Speaker 3: In front of me, okay, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's squirrel, Skink, Farah with Pip in the hood.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, we advance much as the day before. The
going here is slightly easier this. You are not climbing
a water slide of black ice.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 1: There is some scrambling, There are some tight squeezes. There
are some places where like, oh, there's a there's a
chasm here. I have to like press up against the
wall Indiana Jones style and shimmy, but nothing overly difficult
to traverse until you reach a particular span. Let me
describe the scene a little bit. Here to your left,
you are marching. You've been marching single file all day.
This has been several you're several hours in.
Speaker 2: Once more.
Speaker 1: To your left a sheer wall of stone. You've been
pressed up against this for quite some time. Just massive
rock formation. You've been picking your way through, kind of
broken and more sporadic, like stalagmites, and like low hanging stalagtites,
and like low squeezes and boulders and whatnot. Along this
narrow trail. The trail is about or five feet wide
in most places. You open up into an area where
that trail on the right hand side is a precipice.
It drops off hundreds of feet into darkness beyond your vision. Okay,
the wall to your left is ending. There's a bit
of an overhang on the trail where someone taller than
you would have to like duck and crawl under it
over the chasm that wall ends. The chasm continues around
like you are kind of at the peninsula. Here there's
a break in the path. There is a boulder ahead
of you that looks to be large and flat. It
is kind of the size of like a car, so
like it's only like you have to like step across
a couple of feet gap to get to that, and
then beyond that there is a wall with an opening
further through it. You cannot see it kind of like
immediately turns and goes up somewhere else. You are standing
in a great big chamber. The roof is we'll say,
like thirty or forty feet above you, So this wall
is ending, and then like all around you is this
hit and then this big stepping stone which a couple
of feet to step across to it another like we'll
say ten feet of air space to get to to
get to like the ledge on the other side. I
want to know what you were doing to prepare. I
want to know if you are if you opt to
try and cross this thing, because your other option is
to double back and lose a day effect that you
have not seen another path, well unless you wanted to
like climb down and take your chances into the belly
of the mountain, going sort of away from where you're
trying to go to. We if the swirl is still
going ahead of you, you like toss him onto the rock.
Do you like throw him football style into the ledge
on the other side, because like you could probably generally
he's dead, but you know, we'll say you could probably
like hop across a couple of feet. The ten foot
gap is gonna be tough.
Speaker 3: I say, have him test the boulder because it's like
hanging out of a ledge.
Speaker 1: Right this boulder, it's more like it is sort of
on a structure, like a great stalagmite structure from the pit,
so like it has its own column and it's just
sort of got like a flat top boulder is the
wrong word. It's like a flat top kind of dome
stalagmite type thing. Yes, yeah, okay, it looks like it
might have like broken a million years ago or something.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I don't think I have magic for this.
I'm because I think is like far is six hundred pounds. Yeah,
there's there's very few things that I can conjure I
think that would like carry it. Like I was like,
can I summon a vulture to like carry me, you know,
like fly me over?
Speaker 3: But like, how don't I try to jump? And I
have the ski minor enchantment?
Speaker 1: How much mana do you have Marissa.
Speaker 2: Total I got eleven.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, it was like wraith Walk could potentially work,
it's going to be too expensive at this level.
Speaker 2: That's too expensive. The bet like the best I was
thinking was like grim pack a like like the most
massive bird imaginable. That would like just like talent fly
me over.
Speaker 1: There are not a lot of birds that can haul
off six hundred pounds.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, Dad, stop right exactly exactly. So
Farah is heavy A girl? A girl.
Speaker 1: So this is one of these really fun puzzles that
I've thrown similar ones and other adventures. And it's like, well,
if there's a blank mage in the party, this is
a two sentence conversation. When there isn't a blank mage,
this is like, oh this is a huge undertaking.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, because wraith Walk is too expensive, I can't
use that.
Speaker 3: A lance has a ten foot reach, correct, right, Okay,
I can conjure a giant weapon, correct, you can, or
a large weapon in this case, yes, I would also
do a great act.
Speaker 1: Lance is the best one. Lance is definitely the long one, Okay.
Speaker 3: So can I conjure a lance and slam it as
hard as I can? So I'd have to pop the
two feet onto the flattop the lag. Yes, and go
across and take the lance that I've conjured and slam
it as hard as I can across the gap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, reach wise, Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 3: The point of this to be that if we fall,
we can grab a hold of it. I don't will
it bridge the gap fully? It doesn't go into end?
Speaker 1: Right, So a lance's reach is ten feet?
Speaker 3: Is that reach with my arm?
Speaker 1: Though usually it is?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I rolled to see kind of what the slack was there.
We'll say you can because ledges are not perfectly even. So,
like ten feet is a nominal distance, there are narrower
and wider parts.
Speaker 3: Do I have large weapons journey? Does it matter if
I'm using it?
Speaker 1: As you can conjure a weapon you're not proficient in,
you just get a penalty for using it in combat. Okay,
So it's it's you can still conjure the thing.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So here's what I'm going to tell you. I rolled
to see if there was enough variation and like you
could find a narrow enough spot where it could technically
bridge the gap. That's not the issue. The issue is
for conjured weapons. The text of the spell is the
weapon disintegrates after one round if it leaves your person.
So you could bridge the gap with this thing. And
it is a corporeal object. It is, you know, powered
by your magic skink or the squirrel or whoever could
scamper across it. It is a solid you know, would
like magical object. The issue is how does fare across?
Because if you could do it maintaining contact with the
lands the entire time, great If somehow you jostle and
are depending on this thing and like use it as
a ballet for a rope or something. Once you're not
touching it, it chatters.
Speaker 3: Okay, I would like to use it for skink and
the squirrel to get across. I can conjure a pointy
a smaller pointy thing to jump and try to get
the wall. If I can't make it, okay, Okay.
Speaker 1: You guys tell me how you would like to proceed,
and I can use my stick.
Speaker 3: You're sticky it, I know, So I have I've conjured
this thing I'm across and I'm like, hey, I've got
I've I'm reaching across. You can use this to kind
of like monkey bar across essentially.
Speaker 2: So let me get this visual. So you've got a lance,
you're standing on one side, You've stuck it across, so
now you're holding one end and it's stuck on the
other end, and we have to like shoot across like
a little clothesline, you know, all of us, all right?
I do think that I would just put the squirrel
and Pip into my stuff, have like just me go
over with them, and then I mean, I really I
want to hold on to that lance for you. But
do we have much I'm going to be able to do?
Speaker 3: We have a we have a standard pack, right, so
we have rope?
Speaker 2: I also do we have rope?
Speaker 1: Have you also bought like an enhanced kit from Gallio
that would have like climbing here and Grampa, I can
also conjure.
Speaker 2: You can conjure a WI. So if I were to
get across, and then so is the does the weapon
going to disappear? Is that what you just said, Chris?
Speaker 1: If I let go of it once, Mattie, let's go
of it, it goes away in six secs.
Speaker 2: It's not like I can like reposition it deeper so
that you could spin the whip on around it and
get it. No, no, I will.
Speaker 1: I will also say, uh, but you Also, you pounduring
a whip is great. You have fifty feet of rope
each in your past.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's really what we should use.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right then, I think. I mean.
Speaker 1: I will also point out there are jumping mechanics and relict.
Spend stamina up and you can, for one stamina jump
under perfect conditions up to a third of your speed.
You can spend additional stamina and increase that in increments
up to half of your speed. That's under right deal circumstances.
You are jumping from an irregular icy rock to an
irregular icy rock. Neither one of you have touched yet.
There's probably gonna be some checks involved to make sure
you don't fall if you just try and jump. H
But I will point out, like I said, ten feet,
I'll hold myself to that both of you have a
speed over thirty feet correct, Yeah, yeah I should, so
you could theoretically clear that jump.
Speaker 3: No, my speed is twenty five feet.
Speaker 1: So a third of twenty five is going to be eight.
You could spend a bunch of stamina to increase that
up to half your speed, which would be twelve. You
would barely make it. And so we're going to do
some checks about that if you go that wrap but
if I will out.
Speaker 2: If we have some some basic stuff now that I'm
on the other side, could I like jam an ice
pick in, wrap the rope around it, send it across
for me? I know, right?
Speaker 3: Is there anything that you can wrap the rope around
where I can at least hold on to it while
I run and jump that way if.
Speaker 2: I do fall, That's what I'm wondering, will.
Speaker 3: Be holding onto something?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So can we look around on the other side.
Speaker 2: Where for a place to attach rope?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will tell you for free. If you look
a few feet into that tunnel that like kind of
leads up away from this chamber, there look to be
where places where like a stalactite, a select might have
met and formed. There are several of those so forming
like stone pillars and columns, like ten fifteen feet into
that chamber there.
Speaker 2: Okay, then I think that's what I'm gonna have to
go do. I'm gonna have to like go tie the
strongest securest knot that I can around there, run it back,
and then toss the rest of the rope across to Farah.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna wrap it around my middle hold Okay, all right.
Speaker 1: The skink you are maybe be clear here, skink is
taking a rope going into tie it between these pillars. Here,
we'll say you've got fifty feet of rope is a
standard pack both of you have, so you have a
hundred feet of rope. Normally you also bought climbing equipment
equipment from Gallier. You've probably got a couple hundred feet
of rope between you two. So if you want to
take that and like really wind it through and secure it,
you absolutely can do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the problem is.
Speaker 2: I'm saying I'm not saying it's like in the bait.
I want it not in the middle with the thinnest
part like at the.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I wanted to map that out a
little bit. The other thing is the problem is as
soon as you step into that room, your tunnel sense
goes off.
Speaker 4: Skin.
Speaker 1: I need you to make a precision check for me.
Your target is.
Speaker 2: Sixteen, it's going to be ten.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: As you are looking between these pillars like okay, I
can do something here, your tunnel sense tinkles Spidey sense
literally in this case, when a net of sticky webbing
blasts down over you, you find yourself stuck to the
ground that you are restrained your speed of zero. You
cannot move without making some checks about it. As you
decide what you are about to do. Before you can
even call out, you hear a voice behind you go hello,
little morsel. Oh no, and that is where we are
gonna end Episode twelve archive. Who has Skink found? Be
the friend.
Speaker 2: Foe little morsaltrsal will be.
Speaker 1: An affectionate term you never know. I as always have
been your host and game master, C D. Corgan. I
hope you enjoyed this evening. Before we let you go here,
I do need to plug because I think, if I
have my timing right, you will be listening to this
right about when the kickstarter from my next novel is
coming out. It is called The Memory Thief. It is
part of the collection Chronicles of the Crossing. That campaign,
Chronicles of the Crossing is happening on backer kit starting
October fifteenth. If you are listening between October fifteenth and
November fifteenth, go back it, get my book and get
four other books or three other books and a game
book and a bunch of other cool stuff. Because it's
all happening with storytellers Forge and three other authors this
crazy stuff. Go check it out.
Speaker 4: Cool.
Speaker 1: That was me. That's Cedee Corgan. I've been always, as always,
joined by the lovely miss Maddy Hammett and MRSA Montero.
Good Yes, wherever you Lawrence Basic blah blah blah, Yeah,
I'm bad at.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Good times.