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 relictrpg dot com. Hello and
welcome back to the Knicks Archive. I am your game master,
CD Corrigan. Hey, how we doing with me? As always
our lovely diminutive Dungeon Delvers, the lovely miss Mattie Hammond.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, I'm playing Farah today and.
Speaker 1: Of course MRSA Montero playing Yea. Last week left off,
we had our first combat of the story. Our heroes
and their new vanished now friend Jat had been walking
back from picking up some snacks to go meet Jat's
hand and Uh reconvene with Brune School and Arelia when
the long Haul exploded as inns and taverns are wont
to do, A fight ensued with a what do you
call a group of murderous mages?
Speaker 2: A fizzleges inside of its own like a literation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a fizzle of murgers mages was duking it out
now murders major is just better, You're right, was duking
it out inside the long Haul got into the mix
with Brunschool, Arelia and Lady Sith and poor Rowland, who
got hit in the crossfire and was down for the count.
Lady Sith buried under rubble with what appeared to be
the leader of the Mages, Brune School, Arelia and Jet
absconding with a prisoner at the end of the battle,
and we pick up right there as Lady Sive emerges
from the rubble and turns to Skink and fair Eh says,
not exactly how I wanted to make your acquaintance, but
I suppose this works.
Speaker 3: It works for us.
Speaker 2: Hello, they're dead to meet you.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, it looks like everybody who's left is dead.
Speaker 2: I think Broom School took one alive.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's one in the closet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Broom's School. The tall fellow, I don't know him,
whispy Beard. Yeah, one whispy Beard. He's in the and
you see she kind of points to where the closet was,
and I think you guys would look over and see
that the wall appears unblemished there.
Speaker 3: Oh, the whole closet's gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the door's gone.
Speaker 3: Well, well that's in the closet, Lady side.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there certainly was. Slash is a closet there, that's something.
Is Rowland alive? Has anyone seen him? Roland? You're good,
miss ive, I'm okay, all right, Well that's good. You
do medical attention probably all right, we'll uh, we'll get
on that. Presumably someone has gone running to alert to
the town watch by now, which I suppose is great.
Hell of a day, hell of a day.
Speaker 3: H I know you've been under this pile for a while,
but we're very instrumental in taking care of this.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and make a I'm gonna say a cleverness
check and you're gonna be all right. So here's I'm
gonna I'm gonna set I'm gonna set it ahead of time,
so don't tell me what you're rolled yet. On a six,
i'm gonna give you something. On a seven, i'm gonna
give you something else. Now I'm seven. On a ten,
i'm gonna give you something.
Speaker 3: More, okay, And it is U thirteen.
Speaker 1: Well done, ten plus three, ten plus three beautiful. Okay.
So the thing you get on six h is you
noticed she's been under that pile of rubble for a minute.
Looks completely unscathed, not even dusty neat Yeah, right, useful,
Uh screw directly in no way on a thirteen. You
say we were instrumental in all of this, and she
she kind of looks at you for a minute and
just goes looks at the zombie corpse behind you. Well,
I appreciate the assist. It really seems like you to
know how to handle things. Yeah, you're a little banged
up there, miss Fair. You are right.
Speaker 2: I'm just I am. I'm gonna have a seat for
a minute. Okay, Okay, Sarah's gonna sit down, just like
she got rattled literally literally in the affliction. She's still rattled,
and she's gonna sit down on her butt, you know
how you do when you're really tired, and you're like
knees her up and you're like her hands are on
her knees, and she's going to reach into her jacket
where she shoved the bag of fish really quickly that
they were planning on eating, and she's gonna eat some fish.
She's gonna pull it out of the bag. Hopefully it's
not dusty.
Speaker 1: She is dust.
Speaker 2: She has dust on it.
Speaker 5: For me.
Speaker 2: Okay, did it survive? That is an That is an nine?
Speaker 1: All right. It got squished a bit in the fight,
but tracks yeah, it does not it's not. The food
is still just as food as it was when you started.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for.
Speaker 2: Reference, Maddie wouldn't care about that.
Speaker 1: So yep, beautiful the old squished bag lunch love it.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 1: I think is gonna be a good moment to step
out of character for a second and say, this has
been our first combat scenario of the game where a
couple episodes in. Now you guys won with flying colors,
and I think it's time for a level up. Chris
future Chris put applause clip here, I have one too,
So we are going to bump you guys up to
level two. Ladies and gentlemen, they that was a level
one fight and Relict for those playing along at home.
Jat as well was a level one character who we
may see again, so he won't be next time. But
here we are, so a couple things are going to
happen at level two. Here's a basic rundown for audio here.
Each character in Relict has a major class and a
minor class, and some of our players also have a
third class called a influence class. I'm not worried about
the minor and the influence when we level up, We're
just going to look at the major class, So for Skink,
for example, that would be necromancer. For Parah that is Enchanter.
To level up your character, our players are going to
scroll down on the class page for their major class
to the specializations area, and this lists out the choices
you get as you level up at each level for
that major class. For example, for the Necromancer at level two,
I believe Marris's options will be either to take a
perk from the perk list or to increase her manner
resource a little bit more so a mathematical buff or
a more situational specific ability or buff from the perks list,
And there are quite a few perks in Relict, so
she can browse to her heart's content there. The other
thing that's going to happen is that a bunch of
our players resources and scale check the math of the
character go up based on your level. So there are
a number of things that will increase, including their man
in stamina poles, and at level two, your spell check
targets will also increase, as well as a number of
other things that happen at half levels. So there we are.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this, would it benefit me to
get specific weapons training since I make weapons did you
make weapons?
Speaker 1: Yes? So technically yes, bluntly so, you can make any weapon.
Phara's enchanter ability allows her to conjure weapons and combat
for her use, but if you conjured one that you
are not trained in, you would have the penalty associated
with that if you used it. So if you would
like to be able to use those other weapon types
without a penalty, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Okay, excellent, and does it? Okay, let me ask you this.
My character level increases, so it technically still increases my
mana by one. It does, but I don't get the
added boost if I choose the perk.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the the other level two option is to
increase your manner regeneration by one, which is something that
only happens every like two levels because it involves a
half in the math there. Yes, so it lets you
get a little bit of a leg up on that
for your loco.
Speaker 2: Sure, okay, I think I'm going to take the perk.
Come back to me though, because I might, I might
look at a couple other things.
Speaker 3: I chose my perk, what'd you choose? I'm going to
choose the spell whisp Oh beautiful?
Speaker 1: Yeah that yes, Skank's going to abuse the crap out
of that. So Marissa, for Skank, has chosen in the
perks list anytime you take a park. You can also
choose from a number of universal spells. There are generic
spells that any character can learn, so things like cleaning
and whispering and making little lights and doing rituals defined
things that aren't really tied to a specific class. There's
a whole bunch there. So beautiful Marissa has chosen.
Speaker 3: Whisper, and I'm writing it down.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I made all the math changes on my.
Speaker 1: Page, right, let's run through.
Speaker 3: Really, Yeah, there's some math changes now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so your character level goes up to two. That
will increase some of your Yeah, so your toughness bubbles
will go up a little bit. I've got cl and
half cl in there to make sure you get those.
By the way, if those of you who are watching
the video version of this, you might see us holding
up these books here. These are available on Amazon. It's
how we help support the system, which is of course
free to play. But these are our character journals. They
have a bunch of character sheets and damage charts and
notepads and stuff for keeping yourself organized.
Speaker 2: Okay, what what if I took something entirely impractical like clean.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why not?
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear, I always, always, always
encourage players to take the impractical choice. I'm doing Sorcerer.
I've ever played, never took fireball er, lightning ble.
Speaker 2: Would you like me to read that for audience?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I was going to say, let me run through the
math stuff here real quick, and then I was going
to have a whisper and clean get read out, because
I think that'll be fun. So okay, mathew, things just
to flag you're top fofness. Resulting things go up, so
how many hits you can take before you get an affliction?
Regardless of your charts. Your stamina capacity goes up by one.
Your regeneration will go up by one as well at
level two for both MANA and stamina same with MANA capacity.
So all of that and then your major class, minor class, influence,
class spell check targets will also increase for the first time,
all down on the page, and you can see on
this lovely convenient page here all of the math is
filled out in these bubbles, so you don't actually have
to remember all of that. You just look at it
and it's all there, So when you guys are ready,
whoever would like to go first, Let's say, Maddie, if
you'd like to read out clean when you are done
doing the mathy stuff.
Speaker 2: So clean Clean is a spell that it's somatic. When
you touch something, you use an action to do it,
and it costs one manna one plus. You remove one
square foot of dirt, grime, filth, or other surface level
cosmetic contaminants from an object, creature or surface you can touch.
The soiling material is dissolved harmlessly, and the object looks, smells,
and feels like it had been given a thorough scrubbing
or bath. You can upcast, meaning that's you can add
mana to increase the affected area by one square foot
for each additional mana added.
Speaker 1: It's a very aspirational spell.
Speaker 2: I feel like yes, just yeah, is it necessary? Like
I don't feel the dirt of my character? But what's convenient?
Speaker 1: I I will put this out there as a prediction.
You will find a way to abuse that in such
a way to like get through a puzzle or around
an obstacle or something. I'm calling it now before this
story is done, Huh, somebody will find a way to
clean work for them in ways I did not expect.
I love utility spills, Marisa, why don't you give us whisper?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: Whisper is a verbal cast and has a range of
fifty feet.
Speaker 3: It only costs one minute to use, but.
Speaker 4: For every extra point of mine is spent, you increase
the range by fifty feet. So you indicate a specific
creature within range. You must be familiar with the creature
or able to perceive it directly. You can speak in
a whisper and the creature hears you as if you
were whispering right into their ear. The whisper is audible
to other creatures, but only if they are extremely close
to the target.
Speaker 1: Neat beautiful, So just to clarify on that, that means
that if you were outside and Parah was inside, you're
familiar with Parah, so you could whisper to her exactly.
If someone you'd never met was inside, you wouldn't be
able to do it to them unless you could see
them through a window or something perfect beautiful. We are
going to cut back to our scene now. Lady Scythe's
speaking to you two as Farah sits down and begins
to lunch on the fish that I have given myself
food envyfore listening to that recording back, Yeah, I don't
know what recipe that is, but we're gonna have to
make it. We should do a cook buck. Anyways, I'm
running that down. I'm reading that Sarah has said, yeah, man,
I know, I know who I'm married. Farah has said
that she is feeling rattled and sat down. Lady Sith
is looking between you two, and you see that she's
she's standing staying put. She's kind of holding her ground,
but she is sort of sidelong, glancing, just sort of
eye bawling land like, Okay, he's all right. Interesting, Well,
it seems that my office has been demolished. That's great,
not entirely sure, how structurally stable the rest of this
roof is so couple things. Need to chat with you too.
I think we have some things in common based on
some things I've heard. Curious to know more. Also can't
get over the fact that there was a closet there
five minutes ago. I'm gonna go look at that. You
do what you're curious? Are either of you taking any
actions in this moment? As she walks over to the wall,
I am.
Speaker 6: Just eating my fish I feel like, uh, I'm just
gonna stand right next to Farah because for some reason,
Ski just has a lot of distrust of this elf because.
Speaker 4: First Chester was murdered for something that had to do
with what she was looking for, and now the place
that she was calling her office has been destroyed. So
it seems like a lot of bad things happen around
this elf, and I just want to stand next to
my friend and like watch her go away whatever else
is going to happen to her. Skink doesn't want to
be next to it.
Speaker 1: It's fair, fair, fair, you guys are standing together. Lady
SIV walks over to the wall, and you see she
kind of looks for a moment and just goes hand
goes straight through the wall. Yeah, that's an illusion, Okay,
I thought I smelled one, and she just steps to
the wall.
Speaker 2: Sarah is not having it. She just shakes her head
and keeps eating a fish.
Speaker 3: Sarah, do you do you want me to just peek?
Speaker 4: Can I just I'll just like stick my face through
the wall and then come and tell you what's over there.
Speaker 2: If you want. Man, that's okay.
Speaker 7: Sure.
Speaker 2: You know, when you've had a really like stressful thing,
happen and you have like a blood sugar dip. That's
what's happened to Sarah.
Speaker 1: She's recovery fine.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: I think Skink will go investigate if there's like anything
to see with like just sticking her head.
Speaker 1: Through the wall.
Speaker 4: We'll do anything, leaving her body on the side of
the reality that we understand.
Speaker 1: Okay, As you go up to the wall, it feels
very counterintuitive to just put your head through wooden planks
and plaster. Yeah, you go through with absolutely zero resistance,
just like it is purely like a hologram. Effectively, you
see the expected broom closet door open. Ladies, Sive, I
think this might be one of the first times you've
been like close enough to like inspect her with nothing
else going on. Very well dressed woman, this jet like
blue black hair, put back into a very precise like
ponytail updo with a little embellishment on it, very fine
like looks like silk, but also lined clearly with something
thicker and more insulating like fur trimmed cloak and robes.
Leaning down, I think the most unusual thing about her
is she's wearing these like half gloves that look to
be made of this very smooth white, like almost like
bone white polished material, and she has like bracers of
the same color, all again lined with the bracers are
aligned with fur as well, and she's kind of crouched
down looking at the floor and like tracing her fingers
around in a pattern and just go, hey, necromancer, how
you doing basic illusion? We can oh, and the illusion disappears. Okay, Yeah,
nothing to worry about. They didn't leave us any nasty
surprises or anything. Looks like they teleported out of here not.
And you see her gloves have this little like copper
or brass tip on each of her fingers, like where
the fingernail would be underneath, and she kind of and
traces these little glowing rooms in the air as she's
talking to you. Just kind of very very minority report.
She's doing kind of this number and she just yeah,
looks like a scroll or an enchanted item they used.
So he didn't cast the spell here, which makes sense.
I didn't pick up any blank majors or anything like
that around. However, that does mean that it is a
little bit harder to trace generic magic, you know how
it goes. Not sure where they went, somewhere south maybe
southeast of here, not infinite range, so probably within like
one hundred miles, but you know that's not super helpful. Anyways,
they're gone, so that's cool. So that's that's the prisoner
gone with them. Honestly, that's the part I'm a little
mift about. Uh. I mean, yes, order order the seven
steps one of them. Yeah, cool, And yeah, she's walking
back out with with Skink right there in there yet. No,
she's saying all of this as she kind of wraps up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, once the wall disappeared, it was like she was
saying it for everybody to hear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you two are the only ones in the
room who have a fucking clue what she's talking about.
There are a few people around who are like patching
themselves up. There's a lot more people who are not
gonna be patching themselves up. But it doesn't look like
the long haul was super slam packed when all this
went down, or like everyone ran away, So the damage
was done probably in the first couple of seconds. And
really Roland's the other one who's in need of some
more serious medical attention. So yeah, she walks back out
and says, Okay, well, interesting, I really would have liked
to talk to one of those little fellows. If I'd
known they were gonna keep them, I wouldn't have put
that one's head through the well.
Speaker 2: He did.
Speaker 1: Just gonna take a while, Yeah, I gotta take a
while to dick him out. Okay, Well, I'm sure miss
Quick will be here in a moment to interrogate all
of us. Would you like to retire to my estate
before that happens. I really do need to talk to
you guys. Well, hold on, Roland, you good, I'm fine,
Miss I've I will. I'll wait for missus Quick here,
all right, up to you if you want to talk
to the sheriff militia whatever she is. No, one's really sure, Paladin, really,
if you'd like to talk to her or just come
with me. But obviously I'm not gonna be working out
of here for a while, and I haven't really set
up a position anywhere else in town.
Speaker 3: I've wait a minute. Weren't they after you?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Actually they were after the order fellow, the tall guy really? Yeah? Yeah,
so I'm.
Speaker 3: La is still suspicious, Robert Cleverness check, all right, all right,
I will.
Speaker 1: I might oppose it just for fun. What is her?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: I got a fifteen. It was a twelve plus three.
Speaker 1: She got an eight plus eight, so that's a sixteen. Okay,
you do not glean anything devious about that statement, but
I think you do glean enough. Well, you got a quit, Yeah,
so do so?
Speaker 3: Am I taking a fake point?
Speaker 1: You got a qrit didn't click on that for a second.
You may take a fait point, or you may roll
again and try and be to sixteen and add it
to the what'd you have thirteen?
Speaker 3: I don't think I can beat a sixteen?
Speaker 1: Wait? What did you roll? Now?
Speaker 2: Fifteen?
Speaker 1: You have a fifteen. So literally, if you roll anything
else and add it to fifteen, you will beat her.
Speaker 3: Oh if I added to.
Speaker 1: Fifteen, so you don't get the fate point, but you
basically have the option if you can take a fate
point or you can beat her on this.
Speaker 3: I have I already have a fate point.
Speaker 4: I'm just going to beat her, right Okay, Okay, I
got a fourteen this time?
Speaker 1: You got a fourteen?
Speaker 8: Nice?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you have severely beaten her on deception. Okay,
So here's the thing you were checking to see if
she's lying about these people being after her? Right? Okay,
by my math. You've also rolled like twenty nine at
this point. Okay, So here's how I'm gonna handle that,
because the answer to your question is no, she's not lying.
These people were not here for her. Okay, that doesn't
feel twenty nine worthy. Uh So I'm gonna give you
a little bit extra just about her as you're talking,
and she's like, no, they were after what's his name there, skink?
You just walked through an illusion. You saw her to
spell an illusion. You saw her do a bunch of stuff.
You also saw her stand up from underneath a building
that got dropped on her and not look even a
little bit dirty. I think the wheels start turning, and
you go, this woman is telling me the truth right now.
It is one hundred percent not who she appears.
Speaker 3: To be in this moment, Okay, making an o sive
more than an elf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think on that extremely good role. I
don't think you clock anything malicious necessarily, like she's being
deceitful to try and win one over on you. This
is just how she has chosen to present herself to
anyone who perceives her.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, Look for some of the distrust starts
to fade.
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, just there's there's something happening here, and I
see a little bit more of it now, Okay, she goes, okay, Well,
so Order of the seventh Step has a beef with
stand by, and she like flicks her finger and you
see this little mote of magic and just these little
like ruins go pa and sort of fade away, like
she's scrolling through like a database very quickly. Yeah, she's
just kind of hold on. And she goes over and
grabs one of the dead mages, will say, the one
that you bloodied to Helen back farah. He picks him
up by like the scruff of the neck and looks
at him and goes, I mean, naturally, assassins wouldn't have
identifying marks on them. These are generic robes. Looks like
they were purchased in Fellow's grasp. Easy enough, just acquire
your local things. You don't want to leave any trace.
But the methods of Attech, the organization of their group,
what I can see of the remains, I'm gonna guess
Scrivener's anyone heard of them? I have not?
Speaker 2: Wait, okay, should I do a knowledge check?
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, this is the gm putting it
out there if you would like to make a knowledge role.
But obviously she's going to explain some stuff. It's just
a matter of if you know more than she gives you.
Speaker 2: Yes, I would like to do a knowledge check, then
go for it. Oh I got an at twelve.
Speaker 5: Oh, okay, same option, fate point or roll again. I
think I'm actually going to take the fate point lovely.
So twelve plus three fifteen fifteen is a very good
knowledge check. Oh and man, I love it when the
dice work with us. So, Farah you previously rolled an
obscenely good knowledge check on the order of the seven steps.
We had dictated that that was because you, guys and
your delving into various lost and forgotten archives and libraries
throughout your travels had happened across some book of theirs
that they had misplaced or lost to time, and read
a good deal about their organization in that tract, which
I will say this is twice. Now that you are
kind of narratively pulling on this, tell me would Farah
have kept this book?
Speaker 2: Ooh, great question. I actually okay, I don't think she
would have. They were pretty mobile and books are heavy.
If it had been a scroll maybe, but I don't
if it's a full book, I don't think she was.
Speaker 1: I did say a book, so yes, that's fair. I
appreciate the honesty on that there. I was gonna be like,
did's fair to keep a book from every single place
you got?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, No, that makes sense to me, but two ridiculous roles.
I think we got to give it to you. Okay,
so you had read in this tract I think you
recollect your memories, your notes on the subject. The Order
of the Seven Steps is primarily concerned with acquiring, compiling,
and preserving knowledge. They believe there are multiple incarnations of
the world and that knowledge is lost when the world
goes through a transformation, and they exist roughly in opposition
to this notion or an acknowledgment of scriveners on the
surface appear to be a very similar group. They are
primarily concerned with the acquiring of knowledge and information and data.
They believe strongly in this element of achieving a sense
of I'm trying to figure out the way to phrase
this here. They believe it is possible for one of
their senior members within their organization to accumulate a perfect
expertise in a given subject or field. On the surface,
it seems like these groups would get along. What you
gleaned from your readings is that that is not the
actual purpose of the Scriveners. That is the face they
present to people in order to move about relatively unmolested
when they have to identify themselves. You don't know what
else they get involved in. You do know that they
have clashed violently with the Order of the Seven Steps
every single time they come across each other. Okay, so
lady sives more or less reiterating kind of what that
was to everybody else in the room and just saying, yeah,
all right, so Order the Seven Steps, weird mages show
up unidentified, start trying to kill them, usually Scriveners. Weird.
Speaker 2: Can I ask her directly, do you know why they
fight or why they're so at odds with the Scriveners.
Speaker 1: The Order, Well, listen, it's a good question. Neither group
is very keen on talking to anyone else about it, right.
The Order has a mission, as they view it, to
preserve knowledge against an uncertain future. The Scriveners, and here's
where I'm kind of at the edge of what I
know about them. I want to be clear on that
because a lot of people have asked this question. What
I've learned in my time is that the scriveners work
for somebody. There is a difference between trying to achieve
and preserve information that might be of value to others
and trying to hoard it so you have something that
others don't, And I think that's the other side that
they fall on. Obviously, neither group is super concerned with
like mondanity and trivialities like no one cares who the
fastest horse was in the last you know, bitter road
rally or whatever, like, That's not what they're after. They're
the Both of these groups are more concerned with like
esoteric workings, astrology, magical arcane secrets, the refining of like ores,
and mental like. It's it's very useful knowledge. Having said that,
I'm not really sure who the order is stuck and
stuff up for. I just know that they're a little
less well. I'll put it this way. If you know
something that both of these groups want and the Scriveners
get it from you, they're going to kill you to
make sure no one else can get it. Yeah, they
actually suppressed the discovery of gunpowder for a couple of years,
I believe that or not. But they found the first
couple of alchemists who are working on it down south
and kept to them.
Speaker 3: Well that didn't last.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not an easy mission they've set for themselves,
and especially when you, you know, are taking things away
that others really really want, like sure kingdoms. M But
it's an interesting, interesting little dynamic. They walked in here
and saw the tall fellow and it looked like they
were looking for him, and things popped off pretty quickly there.
So there's that, Well.
Speaker 2: There is gonna heave herself up at this point, dust
Off say, shall we go to your place? I don't
know that I want to deal with questioning?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems fair.
Speaker 3: Skake is like I already talked to one dead guy yesterday.
You know, they can do this one without me.
Speaker 1: You know what. It's healthy to head boundaries, and I
respect that. As you guys are kind of dusting yourselves
off and getting up to walk away, you hear the
rubble shift a little bit. I need We're gonna call
this a precision twelve check from both of you.
Speaker 8: Okay, Oh no, I got a thirteen got.
Speaker 1: Two. Okay, farre is tired, she's rattled, she's got a
whole thing going on. I think, Sarah, you don't even notice.
Speaker 2: I got a gnat one incredible skink.
Speaker 1: You clock one of the trusses, one of the beams
holding up like the upper level of the room collapses
and is falling towards that. You've got one action to
do something.
Speaker 8: Oh I don't like it.
Speaker 3: Oh no, what's my action? None of my skills are
made for this. Wait a minute. Oh, I gotta go
back a page.
Speaker 2: You can always alert me. I have some magic.
Speaker 3: I just just like throw you at it. No, that's
not gonna work. Uh uh uh.
Speaker 1: Alerting others is a valid response instead of like casting
a spell or something.
Speaker 9: All right, I'm just gonna really quit. I'm just gonna
like whisper into Roland's ear real fast.
Speaker 1: Just move.
Speaker 9: Oh that's smart, because I feel like he's he seems
like he has some sort of very uh active background.
Speaker 3: I don't know, military something.
Speaker 9: I feel like he would act on instinct if I
just if I just whisper move, I feel like he'll
do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, Roland even just roll. Roland has a plus
four run this okay, he's looking. He's looking for a seven.
I think crazy. He gave him good morning.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That is a seven on the dice. Roland is an orc.
He is an adventure. He is going to use his
mighty deeds ability, which is an Orcish feature, to temporarily
make his might ridiculous. It lasts for like one round.
Me let me actually pull it up. It's fine. Increase
your might precision and or I'm sorry, mite precision or
fortitude to fifteen until the start of your next turn.
Or it also lets him ignore a single source of
damage that would do harm to him. You can do
this once a day. It's an orc thing. So he's
going to activate that ability and through some combination of
a burst of strength and precision and or just tanking damage,
he's gone and just shove this thing off of him,
you guys, clock, Lady Sive whips around and goes roll
it you all right, all right, fine, man, I think
if it's not too much trouble before you leave, let's
help everybody still alive to get outside. Me included things.
And you see that she goes over there and does
like help him up. He's three feet taller than her,
but she kind of like props him up and actses
a little.
Speaker 2: Pharah will help too, She'll go to his other side.
And I'm pretty sure with my metallic body though I
am tiny, he could use me almost as a walking game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is exactly what he does. That is a
non future. You actually count for certain things as a
significantly larger or heavier creature, and he does. He kind
of leans on the two of you. Appreciate it, ladies.
And you see, Farah, you're pretty well accustomed with blood
and injuries. His leg is basically shattered, like that's what's
going on with him right now? Why?
Speaker 2: And I like Farah cares about Roland as a character,
but also Maddie me, I am weirdly attached to Roland.
Speaker 1: Hey there, this is your friendly neighborhood game master CD Gorrigan,
dropping in midway through the episode to say a very
heartfelt thank you for myself, Mattie and Marissa for your
support and listenership of the next archive. One of the
things I am most proud of on this show has
been the incredible music and sound effects that we've been
able to pull together to bring our episodes to life.
Nearly every single sound effect and all of these awesome
musical tracks that you have heard in the next archive
thus far have come from Monument Studios and we are
so happy to announce them as our first official sponsor.
If you want to bring your TTRPG experience to life
for your home games or your own productions, head on
over to monumentstudios dot net and use code nix n
y x to get ten percent off any order. I
was so happy to get the sponsorship opportunity because this
is truly a product that I was one hundred percent
sold on and actively using on the show before I
ever spoke to the creators. So please go forward, tell
me sent you and enjoy. It's the cool retired barkeeper.
He's always like, it's the fan favorite RPG character.
Speaker 7: Exactly.
Speaker 3: It's a military buzz cut. Yeah, it is like unshakable demeanor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his little pot belly goes. Actually, as you guys
are helping him out, he goes, oh, if you wouldn't mind, actually,
and lady of course Sive kind of whips her fingers
and his bandolier of flintlocks flips over to her hand
and she hands it to him, and you just feel
better with it, uh, love it, no problem. You guys
help him. Outside, the remaining patrons who have like survived
this whole ordeal kind of like are gathering themselves and
kind of rally around Roland. He's saying, I'll look after
everybody I know, the neighbors. I'll get inside and warm,
and we'll talk to Lady as Stell. And you see
down the road like a good ways, but you see
that a Stelle and some of her companions in the
Temple of the Thaw outfits have rallied a number of
what looks like just people they call on in town
and are rushing towards the long haul at this point,
and Lady a Stelle goes, I've already talked to her
this week. I don't she's good at her job, but
the woman is exhausting and just and you guys pick up.
You are kind of screened from that view, just like
a little bit of camouflage, like you're just we're going
this way, she's coming from that way. She's just not
going to see us. And she leads you off into Osk.
Lady Sive takes you across town. Oscar is not a
big town, right. There are number of halls and taverns
and various you know, blacksmiths and alchemists and different shops, caverns, restaurants,
et cetera. Things that you would find on Main Street
as like the shopping district. Effectively off main Street, you
get into more like warehouses and storage and like the
things that you need to keep in a town, especially
a town that endures very long, very harsh winters and
doesn't have a strong growing scene at all. So you know,
fish processing and meat storage and like that kind of thing,
like just the things that you need to sustain a population.
Up Here beyond that, there are residential areas, most of them.
A lot of row houses here kind of pram together
so they can kind of share heat like central hearth's
you know, fire that will supply warmth to like multiple
abodes kind of built around them as like a quad
or a duplex or whatever. A lot of that, Lady
Si leads you to a small, but very well appointed manner.
That is, it doesn't have a huge footprint. It's almost
like a Oh Hunt helped me out here. What are
the New England houses with the super pitch roofs. You
know what I'm talking about? It doesn't matter, Yeah, a.
Speaker 3: Frame a frame kind.
Speaker 1: Of house, Yes it is. It's somewhere it's closer to
like an a frame or a tutor style. It's very
well appointed but still compact to like preserve efficiency, right
with two chimneys on either end of it, so it's
got it probably combined, but looks like four smokestacks coming
out of it warming the interior of this place. And
a small stone fence with a wrought iron gate surrounds
the perimeter of this. She goes, well, it's not much,
but it is home away from home. And she opens
the gate and walks in. Farah, what is your major
class primary stat remind me governess knowledge knowledge, Go ahead
and make a knowledge check for me.
Speaker 2: That's a seven.
Speaker 1: Seven seven is enough to clock. As she is invited
you guys in, you walk through the gates. These gates
are enchanted with ruins that are not dissimilar to the
ones that you work, but of a particular style that
you are not familiar with. Okay, you just recognize, like, oh,
I get the architecture here. I don't know what that
specific one does is different, you know, different font effectively,
But and she walks you guys inside. You enter into
a a well appointed mudroom effectively, but it is significantly
warmer in here. And she says, if you'd like to
take off your coats and accoutrementt here, we have some
I don't know, lockers, effectively, we have some there's like
code racks in a closet, everything, like, if you'd like
to leave anything here, you're welcome to it. No one's
going to mess with it. It should just be us
here at to this point. But kell I'm being rude.
I get you some tea honey, anyone.
Speaker 2: I would love tea with honey, Tea.
Speaker 1: With honey, right, sugar green anything.
Speaker 3: Same tea with double sugar.
Speaker 1: Honey, ridiculously sweet tea for the goblin. Yes, make that happen.
And just something a little more sensible.
Speaker 2: For you, miss slightly sweet. All right.
Speaker 1: She turns and walks away, and then as she's walking
into the house, You guys can take off your coats
and snow boots or whatever if you want.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna turn to Skink and say, are you taking
off your coat?
Speaker 4: And the scheek is like, I don't know, man, it
seems like it seems like no matter what we would do,
she'd overpower us.
Speaker 2: That's a good call. I'm just gonna take off my coat, okay, okay,
pretty warm in the air.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 4: It's like, on the one hand, I don't like to
be without my spells.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, I don't think any of them
will hold up.
Speaker 2: I am gonna make sure. I'm like check all my
pockets and I'm gonna make sure that my coat doesn't
really have anything in it and hang it up like
I have most of my stuff on my body otherwise.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She didn't say anything about like disarming yourselves or anything.
She's just like, yeah, yeah, which one of you has
the flake? By the way, I.
Speaker 4: Think I have it. It's in my pocket, okay, Yeah,
I keep it on my person.
Speaker 3: It's not in a bag.
Speaker 1: Just checking. Yeah, lovely okay.
Speaker 3: Yes, And like Pip is in the house now too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Pip is like yeah, and is immediately like
shiny objects everywhere and is he's up in a like
crystal He's like hopping around a crystal chandelier. He's jumping
over to like examine his reflection in like a candlestick.
He goes, you're and he like falls into a vase
and then pops out a minute later, like, I love it.
And then he goes and he's like he kind of
is like hopping around the next room a little bit
like this big den like living space, you guys, disrobe.
Lady Syve is coming out of a back room as
you enter further into the house with a little levitating
tray and like a little tea set is like pouring
tea and little animated spoons and stuff are putting honey
in sugar. And there's like three spoons working on skinks
right now. As you guys come up, skink, she kind
of just leans in a little coily to you and goes,
I have a bit of a sweet tooth too, And
you see that her cup has a couple scoops, not
an enormous amount, yeah, And she goes, well, I don't
normally entertain at my residence, but I figured needs must
and all, so welcome in. And you see that she's
got a large sitting area, a number of like heavy
furs and rugs and everything. No like tax dermay heads
or anything like that, but there's like furs on the
floor like looks like some big polar bear related type creatures.
There is a wide there is a wide like monument
staircase like heavy would be oak, I suppose, but a heavy,
dark wood staircase going up into a higher level of
the home. And then beside that offset a little bit
there's a stone staircase going down to a doorway that
is closed. And she goes, well, you know, it's uh
here we are.
Speaker 2: I though, is there a basement in this bruizen tundrum?
Speaker 1: Oh well, it's very funny, you know, the things that
stand out to practitioners versus normal people. You have to understand.
The first time I had Roland in here, he was
freaking out over the levitating tea set, which you know,
basic simple enchant. Maybe you worked at it for you know,
I bought it. I didn't even do that. One practitioner
looks at a levitating tea set and is like, yeah,
child's play. Let's talk about the logistics of digging through tundra.
And I appreciate that. It's actually why I wanted to
talk to you too. I mean, do you want to
see the basement? Like we can go down there. It's
just a little bit warmer up here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to see it, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean we can, we can go down.
Speaker 3: So also, I just want to note for the visuals.
Speaker 4: The thing that Skink was most excited about being inside
for was taking off the giant like arctic boots and
is now pattering around in her socks.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I want the socks to be like six inches too long.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So if we're all going to go down stairs,
just like just like flip flop it down with my socks.
Speaker 1: Yeah. As you guys are walking along, Skink, you have
a moment of like, my socks feel different, and you
realize that at some point in this conversation, Cive has
just popped you with a clean spell.
Speaker 9: It was like my house, you dirty, dirty.
Speaker 1: You can wear whatever you want, but the socks are
going to be clean.
Speaker 3: That's hilarious. It like fixed a hole in them too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like, my socks are like a little warmer
clean ment. There we go. So you guys go down
the stairs and she you know, kind of describes a
little roone and the door opens up and you realize
that like, yeah, it was magically locked. There actually isn't
a doorknob on this door. And she's just kind of
narrating as she's you know, don't get many people too
interested in the workshop, but here's what we've got down here,
and she takes you down.
Speaker 2: There's a She doesn't. I don't go any further than
that door.
Speaker 1: You don't go further than the door.
Speaker 2: No, I look in, but I'm not going to go
past that door. I'm afraid to be trapped.
Speaker 1: She takes a couple of steps. Skank, are you following? Oh?
Speaker 4: I have tunnel sense, and like, I don't know, I
grew up with like a whole bunch of weird goblins and.
Speaker 3: Little dark like like bunny dens, So this is not
weird for me.
Speaker 2: Sure, not afraid of being trapped there is afraid.
Speaker 1: Of being trapped. Sure, Sure. As you step inside, she
you know, Skank is following behind her. So she's just
kind of continuing to talk and be like, yeah, you know,
we dug this out and d d d d dah.
She kind of looks over her shoulder and sees Farah
stopped at the bottom of the stairs and goes, Pip
can come too if he wants. You don't have to
wait for them, pep come out.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, I'm not getting trapped on here.
Speaker 1: Fair enough. I guess, uh, well, all right, anyways, I guess.
Speaker 2: When I you said that Farren's kink word odd.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she just goes, mss Farah. If it makes you
feel any better, If I didn't want you to leave
the gate around the whole house, you're not getting out
of there, so that's not comforting. I apologize. I'm bad
at small talk.
Speaker 2: You see Parah like deliberating, like like she like acknowledges
like yeah, that's accurate, and then she's gonna say like
screw it, and she just shakes her head.
Speaker 4: Okay, fine, she just like resigns to like this is
how I die.
Speaker 7: I'm like, all right here, you're right here, we go
as you step inside, Uh, lady sib just looks at
you and goes and now that you're tryina, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: I'm kidding. I am here.
Speaker 2: If it makes you feel does she does she actually
do that? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, she fakes. She fakes you a little bit.
Speaker 2: Oh that's not that's not a good idea.
Speaker 3: Oh what are you going to do?
Speaker 1: What does Sarah do?
Speaker 2: I don't even know?
Speaker 1: Yeah what would she do?
Speaker 2: I think she would cut herself? Sure, yeah, yeah, I'm
gonna full on make myself lead too. How do I
do that? How much damage do I need you.
Speaker 1: Actually have a blood made ability that's I think just
called pin prick where you can.
Speaker 2: Just yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I do.
Speaker 1: Uh So she and Sarah just immediately and like you
get a blood counter and a round a bleeding, so
you would take slashing damage if that was to continue, Okay,
And Lady Sive just goes kidding, I am kidding.
Speaker 3: Here's Parah's like, I just look at ladies Ivago. She's
not kidding.
Speaker 1: I see that. Uh I said in my letter, I
wasn't sure if I was annoyed or if I appreciated
the gumption. I'm really leaning towards the appreciation the more
I talk to you guys.
Speaker 2: So I like that she is far more comfortable with
us than at least Farah is.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like she has not looked phased, even like
getting buried under the rubble. She's just like, yeah, it's
a living uh So she goes, here's here's what we'll do.
She grabs a piece of her hair, snips it off
with her little thy little flash of magic. Is it
in a little bow? And she pulls a little what
would it be, just a little piece of parchment out
from a little scrap of paper from her cloak. She
sets it on a little like sill next to her
in this hallway, puts the hair on it, scribes a room,
and the hair kind of burns itself into the paper.
She picks up the paper, she walks it over to Farah,
and she goes here, flicks a little like piece of
blood off her gums, like stabs herself, just a tiny
little bit, drops it onto the page and scribes a
little rune that Farah you would recognize as like a
combination of enchanting and like blood magic, A little bit okay,
very basic thing that she goes by this token, I
swear on my power you are free to leave here
anytime you would like.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna speak it, and she hands it nicely, I
like snatches quick yes, and.
Speaker 1: You feel like there's magic in this and everything that
you know in your history and your your knowledge of
your profession. You know this would work like she would
sell for not lethal, but like a significant like etheric
blow if she was to go back on this little
uh totem, this oath pact that she has given you,
all right, pat oath totem is what I was trying
to say, oath token.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, fair is comfortable now, sure, Okay, I
think she says, thank.
Speaker 1: You, Yeah, I got no need to drive here. It's
I mean, really, honestly, prisoners inconvenient would have liked to
talk to the scrivener figure out if they're going to
be more annoying in the future, or if they were
just here for the tall guy. But overall, taking prisoners
not really not really worth it to me. Like it's
just it's obnoxious. You had to feed them, It's it's
a whole thing. Uh, it didn't quit.
Speaker 4: Now that they seem to be on like a slightly
more even terms. Uh, Skink is gonna say the tall
guy was brin school.
Speaker 1: Brun's School. Brun School. Interesting, I do have that name. Okay,
so that was was that jat with him?
Speaker 2: Maybe yes, just kind of goes. I guess you've proven
that I can trust you as of now.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Okay, bruns School is actually a pretty it's that
high ranking. I think he's a senior member of the order.
But he's got an important job. That's something mm hmmm fascinating.
Speaker 4: Okay, Skink is now going to start to try to
go around her on the steps because now I'm I'm like, oh, hey, we've.
Speaker 3: All passed inspection. I do want to see within this weird.
Speaker 1: Sh Yeah, this is the this is the workshop, the lab,
the study, and whatever you want. So you guys walk in.
You see you know it's underground. There's no windows or anything,
but a long hallway with a series of like magical
torches set every couple of you know, so many yards.
So they look kind of like just a less excitable
fire well glowing orbs kind of set into sconss. So
Lady SIV takes you down through the basement. You see
this long haul filled with mage lights, and she begins
to indicate a series of doors off to one side
of the hall, sitting into the sun. Set into the
wall with the lights are a series of small alcoves,
little kind of shoulder height for her shelves with various
pieces of equipment machinery on them. All of looks all
of it looks destroyed like very old, very ancient, bent, warped, cracked, broken.
Speaker 2: Alrighty, it's at her, Yes, if it's at her shoulder height,
we can see it from far away. But if we
want to get up close to it, do I have
to jump to see it.
Speaker 1: All at the very least really stretch. I think I
would have to hop Yeah, yeah, I think you would.
I think you would, or still to look at it
and get close and just look at like the bottom.
Do that.
Speaker 2: By the way, she's doing that right now.
Speaker 3: I have a feeling that we've gone so many places together.
Speaker 4: But a quick check is Farah so heavy that I
would be unable to hold her weight?
Speaker 1: Would if Sarah is heavy enough that it would definitely
take a pretty good mic check for you to boost
her up. Yeah, vice versa skate can just kind of
clamber over Farah. And I was.
Speaker 4: Wondering like, if in all of our you know, exploits
and adventures together, if we had devised some way of
like I'll stand on your shoulders, you stand on my shoulders,
kind of like I.
Speaker 2: Think it more often? Is No, I think it's only
ever you standing on my shoulders.
Speaker 3: Only ever me.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't think Sarah would would do that to you.
I would do that to Skink. So yeah, actually, I
guess instead of jumping, I might jump like once and
I probably make a pretty loud noise. So then I'm
gonna say to Skink, hey, do you want to get
on my shoulders and see this. What does this stuff?
Speaker 3: We're gonna We're gonna be.
Speaker 4: The like sort of asking the host, and I'll just
like climb up and start describing everything that I see.
Speaker 1: Sure, okay, so skink, go ahead and make a do
I want to don and you're cleverness, Let me think,
let me think this will be knowledge.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna roll away, hunt. No, I did that wrong.
I did that wrong. I gotta do it right. I'm
rolling It was only a six.
Speaker 1: You see that this thing looks like a hinge or
a joint of some kind. And then you go to
the next one and lump of metal hard to say,
And you go to the next one, it's like stone
or ceramic or something, but you don't really recognize the
shape of what it's trying to be. And it kind
of continues like that, and.
Speaker 3: So I just relayed down to Farah. So I gotta wait.
Speaker 4: There's a there's a hinge, there's a big lunk of metal,
there's a big lump of rock.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna put you down now, Okay, I'm
gonna turn to sib, Lady Sib and say, excuse me,
lady sive. What's that?
Speaker 1: She looks extremely amused by this whole situation here. Uh,
and you see as you turn, Kip is sitting on
her shoulder.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I don't like it.
Speaker 3: Oh no, have you a step stool.
Speaker 1: I can get you a step stool. But would you
rather just see the whole assembly?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Sure, come this way.
Speaker 2: What is Pip doing on your shoulder?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 10: We were chatting, and I lean over and I whisper
to Sarah he's probably gathering evidence, and very just nods
and smiles.
Speaker 1: The side just goes, No need to worry. It was
very clear where his allegiances lie. It's spent really like
every other sentence reinforcing that. But yeah, we're just just
chatting a little bit. Anyways, And she turns and scribes
open the door behind her, and she goes, What you're
looking at are pieces of various constructs. If you'll come
with me. You walk into a room that is a
wide open, kind of like garage or workshop. It's got
a scaffolding in it and set up suspended by pieces
of this scaffolding is a large I think, Pharah, you
would know enough about just enchanting and whatever a construct
it is a almost like a an automaton type of creature.
Usually this is like a statue or a construction that
is animated through magic to be a moving like a golla. Yeah,
that's what I was gonna say. This one is clearly
extremely weathered. It has four arms that reach down all
the way to where it looks like its feet would
also land, so almost like these gorilla walking things. But
it's got like two chest segments each with like shoulders
and arms on it, a large mono eye looking thing
set into the head portion of it, and many, many
pieces of it are missing, and the remaining pieces are
held up by scaffolding and wire to the roof approximately
where they would be in the final assembly if it
was all together. So those things out there are pieces
that didn't don't fit into this one.
Speaker 2: And what do you use this one for?
Speaker 1: Oh? I don't use it for anything. I'm studying it.
Speaker 2: Where'd you find it?
Speaker 1: What do you know about this region that we find
ourselves in north of us, north of the Bulwark Mountains?
Holy crap?
Speaker 2: Was it powered by a flake?
Speaker 1: It's interesting you mentioned that.
Speaker 2: Yep, Okay, all right, I know that flakes are a thing,
and I know that they seem to. I don't know
enough about them to really speak to them, but you
have since power. No, I've just felt one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're uh so unrefined flakes are Well. You saw
what happens when the Long Haul exploded?
Speaker 2: Is that what that was?
Speaker 1: Uh? A dickhead shot a fireball at a cave. He
didn't know it was up there. But there was that
whole cash of flakes from mic Roue. And they're not
like super volatile. But you don't want to do that, right.
Speaker 2: You throw enough energy out them and then they'll explode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really sets off a cascade situation. It's pretty
pretty violent if that gets going. Pretty hard to do
if you find like a vein of them out in
the tundra. It takes a lot to set off a
mass that big. But once they've been broken up surface area,
you know, it's it's kind of that thing. The more
you break it up, the more the less it takes
to set one off, and then once one gets going,
they all get going, and it's a whole thing. Sure sure, yeah, So.
Speaker 2: So how do they work? Are they like a man
of sink?
Speaker 1: That is the ten million gold claps question right now?
This is the only region anyone's ever found doesn't mean
it's the only place they could exist. My theory is
that they are actually frozen bits of ether whoa the
essence of the ether itself, this sea of energy that
we all draw magic from into our world. I think
something happened to freeze, but it's normally when ether gets
introduced into the material realm outside of the confines of
a spell to like give it structure and form. It's
extremely violent, like it's volatile. It comes in, it flashes off.
You can get really hurt trying to handle raw ether
without like confining it in. Like it is actually safer
to form etheric energy into a fireball that goes off
in your face than it is to try and draw
the same aunt of energy as raw ether and handle
it anyhow. Basic matecraft, right, I think I don't know
what could have caused these. I know they're stable. If
you take them south, like out of the cold Arctic,
they don't melt, but they keep cold. They are honestly
some of the best ice you can possibly have, because
it doesn't matter how warm outside it gets, like they're
gonna stay well below freezing at the same temperature you
find them up here, up here, they kind of blend in,
but you know they're from the void, so I don't.
They're very very interesting. I was right. A lot of
people very curious about what they are and how they're formed,
and if it would be possible to form them otherwise.
Because once you refine them, which is a process people
are working on with varying degrees of success and results,
refined forms are much more stable, still kind of dangerous,
but they become more and more reusable. Right now, if
I was to harness here, she pulls a glass vial
out of her pocket, a little bit of smaller than
the one you had, just a little bit of a flake.
If I was to try and harness this and use
it in some spellcraft right now, it would probably hurt,
and it would work, and then it would be drinked,
it would just crumble into dust. There's a refining process
takes an enormous amount of them, but you can refine
them into something that will eventually accumulate more charge as
it is interacts with the raw flow of the ether.
Very very useful, obvious, many many applications potentially prom is
getting them, transporting them, not exploding, getting the refining process
correct all that good stuff.
Speaker 2: How do you refine them?
Speaker 1: That is a very good question. It takes a pretty
well appointed chemical and enchantment lab, much much more than
I have up here. We're talking about this needs to
be processed at like a wizard's college, you know, with
like a whole lot of resources and investment. It is
a significant enterprise, which is why you don't see anyone
up here close to the source trying to just do
that part of the process. I am almost certain that
it needs to be done in a place of power,
but I haven't been involved in the process myself, so
not really sure about that. So flakes are, as I said, interesting, valuable.
You see why once they were discovered up here a
couple of years ago, people figured out what they were on.
A lot of people traveling north of the mountains up
here until relatively recently, kind of a kind of a boom.
I'm going to get some more, not the part that
brought me here though, these things. So north of the
Bulwark Mountains here is a place called the Shatterflow Tundra.
How would you feel if I told you this place
wasn't always cold? It was always cold, mind you? Like
it's a northern latitude, but it the ice did not
used to come this far south the perma frost question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in our readings, would we have come across information
on like the changing of our world like I have
in terms of climate change across the eons?
Speaker 1: Interesting? Let's okay, what I'm going to do is bracket
a knowledge check here. Okay, fifteen, Yeah, little bit tangential information. Okay,
twenty five very relevant information. This is a very hard check.
Speaker 2: Okay, are we both doing it?
Speaker 3: Do you need us both to do up?
Speaker 1: To you, guys, that's a hard enough check that if
you both want to take a shot at it, you're
not going to throw off the odds too much.
Speaker 2: It's just as a knowledge was shit, that's a one.
Speaker 3: It's on nine.
Speaker 1: You guys are like, this is this is up to
the bulwarks. Is about as far as we've ever heard
of anyone going. This is your you guys to you
are on the edge of the known world.
Speaker 2: Here did I with MYNT one? Do I just not
believe her? Am I climate tonight? No? So?
Speaker 1: Uh, matt ones are not an automatic failure. It's just
a low roll. So you still add them on a fire.
It's whatever that Okay is a four four. Yeah, so
you're just like, I don't know anything about this. So
she explains that, yeah, so this has always been a
northern climate, right, harsh winters, you know, a frozen frozen lakes,
frozen rivers, et cetera, et cetera. But it was not
nearly this severe in terms of weather and permafrost this
far south until within the past couple millennium. These things
date to that same time. I've found a number of them,
and I've sent out expeditions that have found a number
of other pieces and have great many other fascinating archaeological elements.
Once you get up north of the Bulwark, I have
so few records at my disposal of anyone ever living
up here. Oscar is about as far north as modern
civilization gets. There's a couple of like fish towns you
could find on various rivers that are only accessible at
certain times of year. But like no ruins, No, no,
well maybe there's ruins, we haven't found them. Like, there's
no real history here, and until the flake craze started,
not really a lot of people looking because why would you.
There's just not much here. There's not much to attract anyone,
So I am very curious to learn more. Partially listen,
I'm a very good mate. I don't know how this
thing works. Hmm.
Speaker 2: I was just about to ask you, thank you for
answering my question.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I found a couple different designs of it, or
pieces that imply different designs, Like some of the parts
out in the hallway don't fit into this construction in
any way that I can think of. I'm very curious
to know more, now, I said, I don't have a
lot of records of anyone living north of here, but
some people do. One of the places that I have
found mentions of a civilization or civilizations living north of
the Bulwark Mountains, has been in libraries in Bastian cities
I'm sorry, Beacon cities. So I think we might have
crossed paths a little bit on this element because I
had my eye on a certain little archive that I
hadn't been to yet. But before I could get to it,
one of my little birdies or little bees in this
case told me that a couple of diminutive explorers happened
to check it out and walked away with something interesting.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're talking about, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: Listen, I'll put it this way. The eight fathom Kraken
and I go way back, and he's very appreciative of
you helping out his friend. It's one of those offspring technically, what.
Speaker 2: Is he the bee you're talking about?
Speaker 1: No, no, octopus was the bee was passing along a
message for him. They have kind of a history there.
It's a whole situation. But they owed him a favor,
so they knew I was interested in the area. So
when someone came out of there and they had a
whole little.
Speaker 2: Thing, this weirdly, now maybe not weirdly, knowing that she
knows the octopus that we now know is a baby kraken.
They're like the blood oath token she made carried less weight. Actually,
now she's like, all right, yeah, we were there and
we do have a scroll, but I'm not going to
give it to you. I'll let you see it, but
I don't I don't want to give it to you.
Might have other words. I don't know.
Speaker 3: As gate goes, how much is this worth to you?
Speaker 1: I was just getting to that, I don't want to
take anything from I want to pool our resources a
little bit. Listen, I'm looking at a library, but I
want to go check out. I haven't had time to
get to it. My sister hasn't had time to send
anyone over there yet. Then you two walk out of
there and be lying for usk. I'm already up here,
so I just said, hey, we'll wait and see, and
here you are, and then we have that whole business
with Chester and everything. It's been a very hectic week
for me. I would love to see the scroll that
you've got. I would love to share what I've learned
relevant to it, and if you're interested, I think we
can find a way to make this lucrative is not
the right word, because I'm not interested in getting richer.
We can make this profitable for both of us, for
all of us. Pip tells me, you also found a map.
Speaker 3: Pip, Oh, mom's mad. You are supposed to keep our secrets,
keep our secrets.
Speaker 1: It goes, and she goes in fairness, and she holds
up a little she hands him, and you see, she's.
Speaker 3: Been bribing Pip with snacks this whole time.
Speaker 1: She's been bribing him with shinies. She's got a little.
Speaker 2: Like a cheater, pumpkin eater.
Speaker 1: She's got a little piece of almost like fools gold
or something, but each facet has been we were polished.
So it's just like a little tiny disco ball and
she just goes, I did promise i'd give this to him,
And she's got it on a little string and she
hands it to him and Pip's just like swinging it around.
Speaker 3: It is his cryptnite, it is.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, you found his weakness.
Speaker 1: It's fair. Yeah, it's fine again. Well I'm not here
to take your map. I'm just here to fill in
some blanks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought we had a scroll. Do we have both?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So we have. We have a hand drawn map and
that scroll we have. We have a hand drawn I
checked my notes, I have.
Speaker 1: Smart So why don't you give me a brief rundown? Sidebar?
This is a little bit for the audience. Who wasn't
the third sessions? Zero? Why don't you give me a brief
rundown of what happened?
Speaker 3: Oh at Beacon?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you went in. I know you came.
Speaker 3: Out m before before we tell you everything? Can we just.
Speaker 4: Are we just going to be partners? Can we agree
to be partners? Are we in this like as a trio?
Now Skeek is thinking like we could do everything we
are doing, but now with all the like accoutrement of
James Bond, you know, like this is like getting the
person who has all the fancy gear on your team.
Speaker 1: Let me put it this way. I I don't think
we're after the same things. I think in the course
of getting the things that I'm most interested in, you
will find plenty to keep you happy. Very if if
we encounter anything where we think there is a conflict
of interest between the two of us, I am happy
to discuss that. But I really don't see how it
could unless you want to get into the automaton business,
because I'm very curious to find out how these things work.
Speaker 2: Is a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a little bit curious, But I'm just like I
got dead things, you know, I make my own automatons,
you know.
Speaker 7: But that's fair that in point of fact, well do
we need to go back and actually explain what happened?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: So well, yeah, we were like sort of like getting
around to it.
Speaker 3: Everybody's making sure, like are we clear? Are we fair?
Is this fair?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Lady Sive actually goes, how about this a down payment?
Sound fair? She reaches into her pocket and you see.
Her hand goes way further than this pocket does, pulls
out something and she hands you. She's a miss fair.
I'm sure I will come up with something for you.
But in the meantime, Skink, I think you'll enjoy this.
She hands you a small bottle, roughly the size, little
like water bottle sized thing. It seems to be made
out of like a terrak, like a glazed terra cotta
or clay, you know, ceramic of some kind. Feels very heavy.
It is carved intricately in great detail, in the shape
of a skeleton that has been folded up into like
holding the shape of a bottle. Neat and she goes
the skull unscrews.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, and Skink is thinking this is the
perfect vessel for capturing a you know, reanimated ghost.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it'll work for that, but why
don't you pour it out on the work bench over here?
Speaker 3: Pour it out?
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, now I'm excited, Okay, pattering around my little
sock feet to an open spot. Unscrew the skull head
and pour out the contents.
Speaker 1: The contents come out, Skink, I think you immediately recognize
this is bone dust. You know what that is. You
pour this thing out and a little pile just sits
there for a moment, and she goes, you have to
put the head back on the bottle.
Speaker 7: Hmm.
Speaker 3: I put the head back on the bottle. Screw it
nice tight.
Speaker 1: This like deep violet unlight fills the room. The bone
dust disappears, and an assembled looks to be humanoid skeleton
is lying on the slab net. Whoa, that is a
skeleton jar. It will well here you go, take the
take the head off and touch it to the actual
skull of the skeleton.
Speaker 3: There, all right, I follow her instructions, do what she says.
Speaker 1: It crumbles to bone dust and pours itself back into
the jar.
Speaker 2: This is the coolest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, happened to notice doing a bit of necromancy.
There hard to carry full size skeletons around, right, problem
we've all had, sure, no, not a problem. And this
thing weigh is you know, it weighs like three or
four pounds, but not as much as like a full
human skeleton. For sure.
Speaker 3: She goes wayless space.
Speaker 1: It takes up way less space, she goes. It only
holds one if you use what's in there. You got
to replenish it with another body. You gotta find one.
You know, it's not infinite. But until you animate the
thing and get it up and walking around, you can
pop it in and out as many times as you want.
Just a nice little thing to have in your pocket.
Speaker 3: This is the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 4: Skik now absolutely loves this person and it like has
giving me a present.
Speaker 3: Done, I'm on your side.
Speaker 1: Important thing to note here, won't how do I put this?
It likes it only works on dry stuff. If you
have a squishy body, right like a fresh corpse, and
you can use it, you're gonna wind up with a
pile of goo. It'll take the bones, but it'll leave
everything out.
Speaker 3: Oh that's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just listen. Just I just wanted to tell you
that because I've seen some people who get it and
think that they're going to use it for cleanup, and
that is the opposite of what happens.
Speaker 3: Okay, just the bones, just the bones.
Speaker 1: And then mechanically speaking, she explains, it'll hold up to
a large skeleton, but nothing like bigger than that.
Speaker 5: Incredible, but only only one skeleton of any sense, only.
Speaker 3: One at a time, Only one at a time. This
is the best present I've ever gotten.
Speaker 2: Right, I've gotten you all sorts of cool things over
the years. I can't compete. What am I saying? This
is the coolest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Miss Farah. I can show you how to make them
if you want. It takes like three weeks of enchanting.
But again, yeah dun, okay, okay, it'll take us probably
a month to go over the intricacies of doing it.
But like, if you get the time, like, come on
back anytime, I'll show you off hours, okay.
Speaker 3: And I'm just like, yeah, fair, you should learn how
to do this.
Speaker 2: It's useful because then we could have lots of little
scouts and jars and then anytime you need a skeleton,
just don't totally.
Speaker 4: And So now Skink looks over at Farah and is like,
is it is it map time?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Are we ready to share?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: They're ready to share it.
Speaker 4: Like now that you got your little blood promise, your
little like blood and hair promise, and I got my
I got my little present.
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, okay, we're ready to reciprocate. We're ready,
We're ready. Now it's our turn.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you guys produce the old scroll and the
old map that you found, and lady Siva goes, as
you're looking over these years, all right, so give me
the short version. You went to Beacon or a beacon
out post, don't I don't really never really interacted with
them a lot. They've been going for a couple like
a generation now, but relatively recent history. But think we're
around for a long time.
Speaker 3: All right, Do you want me to target or do
you want to do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, whoever wants it, I think that.
Speaker 2: Okay, you go, all right.
Speaker 4: I mean we went to Beacon. We weren't sure what
we would find. We we have a habit of scouring
old libraries and we'd heard there would be a good
archive out there. So we looked around and uh we
we were finding some nice things.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't until we wait what happened again?
Speaker 2: I think we helped the kraken baby escape.
Speaker 4: As it was after the after we helped them escape,
that something came became visible.
Speaker 2: I blew a little bit of a hole in the wall,
as it was you blew alone in the wall. Okay, yeah,
I want to do.
Speaker 1: You uncovered a hidden storage room. Okay, She's just kind
of like, all right, that makes more sense.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we blew the hole in the wall, and
that's when we found the hidden squirrel.
Speaker 1: The secret squirrel that is not unheard of to me.
So the Beaconites, I don't know what the Lightkeepers, I
don't know what they called themselves, really, I never I
guess it's super interactive with any of them. They've still
got some people like the Aspra descendants and refugees and
whatever drifting around, so you might run into some. But
their whole civilization was built on war after war with
different sea tribes out of the or sea peoples out
of the simmer and Ocean right like, they had a
long standing feud with a number of stations there and
Mirror and like different underwater empires. Their cities get flooded
and raised a lot, or they did, and so they
would constantly rebuild. So it's not uncommon in a be
Can ruin to find rooms that were sealed off after
being damaged or hastily patched in a preparation for an
assault or something, and then forgotten about because whoever was
in charge of patching it up died or got moved
or did whatever. So it kind of actually makes sense.
The reason Beacon is interesting to us here into these things,
and she points at the giant construct behind her. What
I've found thousands of years ago, in the earliest days
of Beacon, this was a young civilization. Then a coalition
was formed to come up here and fight a war.
I don't know who was against who or what the
stakes were, but Beacon sent soldiers, sent troops up here
to fight a war. And it was something to do
with a thing called and she points to the scroll.
You have the calder Infinia. All anyone knows about that thing,
those of us who have delved into these weird, esoteric
mysteries of history. Hey, I rhymed. My sister would really
appreciate that. All I've found about that, and all anyone
knows about that. Some source of vast power, some legends
point to it, can grant wishes, or bestow godhood or
great power, or a mortal life or immortality. I don't
know really that what of that is true, but from
what I gather, it was in the possession of whatever
or whoever was up here that was being fought against
by Beacon by these other great empires of the age.
The other thing that I've learned based on all of
the scraps of writing that I've been able to pull together,
and all the records and archives. At the time, the
largest army ever marshalled, marched north of the Bulwark Mountains.
None of them came back. Whoa, oh, and here we
are with a frozen wasteland full of flakes and these things. Well,
I'm curious, for sure. For sure, I don't know about you,
but I would very much like to know what happened.
Speaker 2: So she leads on, like, where could we find that information?
Speaker 1: I do, ah, our dear departed Chester. Ah, I sent them, which,
by the way, I would love to know what his
corpse said. I had hired his group to go north.
And she points to your map and this is actually
part of your map is outdated. Weird as that sounds.
It looks like someone was sketching the features as they
were at the time. That is not actually what the
landscape resembles anymore. So here and she pulls out a
map that is largely blank but has got some more
details around like Osk and you recognize the river, and
leads over to Wharften and the Bulwark Mountains and a
little bit north of that, and she goes so here,
let me show you a little bit, like you can
see how these features line up, and then this stuff
is like completely wrong. Now Here there is a point
in the mountains, I think, actually I know it is
a place of power, a minor place of power strongly
affiliated with divination magic. The forces that march north, the Coalition,
the Alliance, whatever you want to call them, as part
of their campaign preparation, sent a conclave of diviners to
this point to establish a divination system to attempt to
determine the course of the war to come. Like this
was a year's long campaign from when I've been able
to gather immediately after getting this thing up and running.
As hostilities erupted, they were overrun. Their prophecies never got act.
They might have changed the whole course of the war
if they were correct, you know, it's prophecy. Who knows.
Never made it back to like the effectively, the commanders
had to fight the war blind, without having what could
have been life saving information. But the procedures of diviners
in those days matches roughly what you see now in
like war. Colleges of divination and tactician diviners that like
some of the larger empires of the world still marshaled
to this day, it hasn't changed that much. They would
have written, and insured was preserved. The prophecies that they scried,
They foretold on a perpetual scroll. I hired Chester and
Cassie and that group to go to this place and
find that scroll. Now, unfortunately for dear Chester, as they
got into the mountains, they found what appeared to be
a relatively rich vein of flakes and decided that the
two thousand gold I had promised them was worth less
than probably the six or seven k worth that they
dug up and hauled back with them. And the rest
is history. I still need someone to go there.
Speaker 2: Why don't you go there?
Speaker 1: I have a prior engagement. My sister is coming up
this way. I don't see her that often, and I
kind of need to be here when she gets here.
It's a bit of a whole situation.
Speaker 2: Mattie has a Guesses to Love You everybody should read Relict, and.
Speaker 3: She was plugged.
Speaker 2: Look am I guessing right?
Speaker 1: Oh? I don't know. I spread many mysteries throughout my writings.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you need two tiny creatures.
Speaker 4: Two tiny creatures who appear to be unmotivated by flakes
to go.
Speaker 1: Listen, Can I level with you? Yeah? Of course. She
kind of leads you back out of the lab and
heads up to the sitting room again, and she goes
over to what you see as a slate like blackboard
up against like takes up most of one wall, and
it's completely clean and blank. She taps on it and
a little a small army of sticks of chalk levitate
up and begin describing like a whole list of things.
He goes, that is the list of people I have
currently commissioned to go out and do various errands for me.
I will tell you most of them not as promising
as the one I've just told you about. The only
reason I'm bringing it to you a group that I
have not worked with before, is because I saw what
I saw of the fight in the end. You seem
very capable, and you've got the link to the bastion stuff.
And I think that we have more interests aligned than
simple profit motivation, as all of these people are mercenaries.
Speaker 4: That's fair skin Boad. So I do so, Lady Steph. Yes,
I believe that our interests are in fact.
Speaker 3: In line. However, I.
Speaker 4: Must point out that Chester was murdered for seeking this
exact location that you seek.
Speaker 1: She locks onto you, and she gets very close and
she goes. That brings me to my really last questions here,
do you know who killed him?
Speaker 4: Not exactly. What we do know is that two tall,
pale figures came after him in the night, asking questions.
Speaker 1: What were they asking?
Speaker 4: I don't remember, And that's only because I can't remember
what I said two weeks ago and I haven't listened.
Speaker 3: They were edited episode because I went.
Speaker 2: They were asking what you sent him?
Speaker 1: After? You see, she just frowns and she goes, fuck.
And on that note, I think we're going to end
this episode of the Knicks archive. We'll pick it up there.
I just I was going to continue that conversation, and
I kind of realized, like, oh no, that's a that's
a good stopping place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can edit out all the places where I
said I don't remember, because please please do for my sake.
Speaker 2: People appreciate it feeling organic, though, like because that happens
all the time.
Speaker 1: No one who's ever played a tabletop game, including the
GM by the way, oh god,