Speaker 1: In a secluded world where magic and industry compete. The
veil between life and death grows thin. A cold wind.
Speaker 2: Whispers secrets of the past.
Speaker 1: The gears of fate turn ever onward, and in the darkness,
something stirs. The dark Room Detectives stand at the threshold
paranormal investigators, seekers of truth. But began as a simple case,
unravels a mystery far greater than they ever imagined. So
gather your courage, steady your hands, and roll the dice.
Welcome to Adventures in the Parted Veil. Hello everyone, and
welcome back to the Veil. The Parted Veil, by the way. Uh, yeah,
hopefully it's a good one. We're technically recording this before it,
but you're seeing it in the new year.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Five Christmas, Yeah, Christmas was close enough.
Speaker 1: All right. Well. I am Ryan Lang, also known as
the mind Player, and I'm joined by my good friends
and family.
Speaker 3: Hi am Cassie Lang.
Speaker 4: I am playing Penelope Waters, the human Aquium Architect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm Tim I play Driving rock Fist the
Dwarf Rogue.
Speaker 3: And I'm Cameron. I play Amar Well Glendell, the half
alf Bard.
Speaker 1: What kind of rogue?
Speaker 2: Oh, he's a phantom rogue.
Speaker 1: And barred college of Oh. Now, well, while you look
that up, I will have enough. I will have Cassie
give us, give you some Yes, go on.
Speaker 4: The minis that we will be using during this session
we created on hero Forge and they were printed using
Banana for Scale three D printing services. You can find
them on Facebook and use our code mind Played twenty
for twenty percent off your first order of three D
printing services.
Speaker 2: Yes, yep, yes, and as of this year yeah, yeah, yeah,
the rest of twenty twenty five, twenty twenty five. Yeah,
I got to get used to that. Yeah. If you
guys are enjoying what we're doing here and want to
show a little bit of support, we do have a
Patreon going. Details for that are in the description below.
If you join the Patreon, you can get on the
discord and chat with all of us. And yeah, we
like to have fun on there, so we'd love to
see you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'd be blast. You get you get
to have some actual interaction with us, which is pretty
cool to it.
Speaker 3: And if you like the music that you're hearing, it's
made by Karl Casey at White Bat Audio and you
can purchase his music as well on band camp or
on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Right, yes, yes, uh, well you can purchase.
Speaker 3: It on band camp, you can find it on YouTube.
Speaker 1: So what kind of bard?
Speaker 3: College of lore? College of I knew it had something
to do with like books, books, but I don't know
the name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it's not already evident, I am extremely tired.
I've been working overtime every day this week. So we'll
see how this goes.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's going to be. I can feel it.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be.
Speaker 3: It'd be especially good because in leveling up our characters,
I realized that I didn't have any magic spells from
being a Bard.
Speaker 4: All of my magic from other pride of my character.
Speaker 3: So not only did I gain spells for leveling up,
but I gained way more spelsible, it's going to be
a good episode, considerable increase.
Speaker 1: I can do props for you for being as creative
as you were with very limited Yeah. I remember last
week being like, don't you have like we'll have to.
Speaker 3: I'm sitting here like why can Tim and Cassie do
so much? And I have like no options. Now we know,
as I never finished setting up my character.
Speaker 2: That's all right, this is how we learned in D
and D how we learned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't need to talk.
Speaker 4: About a way to start slaying D and D is
to just start playing D and D totally.
Speaker 1: It really is, It really is so there. If you're
on the fence, get off the fence on the side
that lets you play. Okay, well shall we.
Speaker 2: Begin, let's do it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you all had just finished looking at the
green flash, right, and the green flash was was excuse
me it you had found it. You'd found that the
area around it had been dying. Right. We had one
of our party members decide to get a little too
aggressively scientific and almost die.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then it flashes over. But we found like
a crack.
Speaker 1: Found in the air the side effect of Yeah, and
the green was emanating this way but not that direction. Yeah,
it looked as if there was no light in that direction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: So let us begin back there.
Speaker 2: Okay, now I think we need to have a better
look at this, just like to make sure we got
our bases covered, because I don't think we want to
be here too long? Is that true?
Speaker 3: I could use a nap.
Speaker 4: Yeah, good long rest, but maybe not right at here?
Speaker 3: Hang out.
Speaker 2: I think our camp. I think our camp was further
away because we saw like the glow.
Speaker 1: From camp right, that's true.
Speaker 2: So I vote that while we're here right now, we
do a quick like look around maybe like divide and
conquer and just have a look at individual things real
fast and then have a sleep. Is that cool?
Speaker 4: Can we walk behind the crack or is that kind
of like where the halting takes over, like at that
exact point that we can't make it?
Speaker 3: We're in the halting, are we not?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're on the cusp of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But like I'm wondering like where, like where it starts,
like if this is the actual border that you can't.
Speaker 3: Get past?
Speaker 2: Right, Well, what we know about the whole thing thus
far is that it puts you back in the place
that you were and you can't go further. So technically,
if you keep walking, you'd end up if that's if
that really is the boundary, you'd end up standing right
there again.
Speaker 4: I yeah, because it always feels like you're walking forwards.
But then and anyway, I do, I would like to
walk past the crack?
Speaker 1: How close to it?
Speaker 3: A decent distance away.
Speaker 1: But still relatively close?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like yeah, uh.
Speaker 1: You slam face first into what feels like an invisible barrier.
Speaker 4: Oh oh gosh, this is new, because okay.
Speaker 2: Can I come over and just try to touch it?
Speaker 1: It's as if you're touching a cool, cold pane of glass.
Really huh.
Speaker 3: I pull out my air and I bounces off. No, crack, nothing.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 3: I need to expand an arow.
Speaker 2: Now, I say we take one final look around, well
we can, and then go camp. All right, Okay, I
would like to have a look at the surrounding area
to see if there's any like evidence of what Poltergne
was doing before they came here and passed away. I'm
just gonna like run off and basically do a perimeter check.
Is that cool?
Speaker 3: It's cool with me.
Speaker 4: I'm going to dive into my notes from see if
I can find any more information there that might be relevant.
Speaker 3: And Maria, I want to run and see if there's
any point that I can still kind of see them,
but like if there's any point where the wall is where.
Speaker 1: You can continue like start walking, all right, Okay, I.
Speaker 2: Just kind of feel alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, we will start with you. Okay, So you
have a seat and you begin to study. You leave Maria.
As you begin to walk into the night and you
feel along this barrier, eventually it stops and you feel
as if you can continue forward again.
Speaker 3: How far is Eventually.
Speaker 1: It's probably a good fifty feet okay from the crack Okay,
so not as far.
Speaker 3: As I thought it would be. Can I.
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 3: Is it a corner?
Speaker 1: Can you go around?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So you want to walk into it?
Speaker 3: Not necessary without them.
Speaker 1: But I do as if you can continue.
Speaker 3: Okay, and it doesn't feel like there's like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't feel like like you're on a you know,
a door and then you can go around the other
side that it doesn't feel like that.
Speaker 3: No, no, just all of a sudden, there's not okay, huh.
Speaker 4: You you couldn't like reach nope, touch the backside, but
it does.
Speaker 3: It does the wall block? Like if I feel like
I can walk forward and now is the wall on
my side?
Speaker 1: Nope?
Speaker 3: And if I did try to reach around, I just
my arm discussion weird, Okay. I don't intend to uh
go anywhere by myself, but I am going to return
okay and let them know that that's what I want
to do next as a group.
Speaker 1: Okay, Uh, let's move on. To Penelope. Okay, so you're
researching the notes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm looking through Isaac's notes and research about this area.
Speaker 1: Okay, give me an investigation check, all right, I will.
Speaker 3: Do that, Okay.
Speaker 1: Nineteen nineteen. Upon reading, you find a flap of paper
that's been folded down that you hadn't seen previously. Upon
flipping it up, you see scribbled in rather hasty writing
that it says, I feel as if it is some
sort of magical force, and there must be something beyond it.
Perhaps something with sufficient energy could disrupt that force and
allow me to get through.
Speaker 5: Okay, noted, Thank you, and now we'll move on to Draven.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I'm just going to try and check the
We're in pretty deep woods, yeah oh yeah, yeah. So
I'm just gonna try and check the outskirts for anything
that might look of interest, anything polter Gone might have
left behind. But when I get far enough away from
my companions, I am going to just kind of have
a quick look around, make sure I'm alone, and then
I'm just gonna say, Ale, are you there.
Speaker 1: There is a pause and then a small rustle of
wind and you hear a quite a I would say,
petit voice still dwarfing, but petite for that of a
dwarf answers, Yes, I'm here.
Speaker 2: Good. I thought i'd better check in with you. There's
been a lot of developments recently. Do you know or
sense anything about this crack.
Speaker 3: This.
Speaker 1: Green glowing crack that you've been hanging around. I know
nothing of it. I've never experienced it, never seen it before.
I don't even know what to think of it. I
do have some information, though, Please anything. I've told you
that there's something pulling at the souls of the dead.
It's getting stronger.
Speaker 2: Well, that's something else I wanted to mention to you.
We met a man a while ago. Eh, we couldn't
save him, and when he went I spoke to him
after he died, and he said he could see many
souls trapped here. Do you see them too?
Speaker 1: I do?
Speaker 2: Do you speak with them?
Speaker 1: It's not that simple. But what used to be a
few souls that would remain now is becoming many and
fewer and fewer are passing on. And there's something else.
It's starting to pull at our very essences.
Speaker 2: No, what does that mean.
Speaker 1: It's like losing control.
Speaker 2: Oh, this is much worse than I thought. Are you okay?
Speaker 1: I am, I am. It's strange, though I've felt this before.
It's like the same song as being sung, but a
harsher instrument is playing it.
Speaker 2: You think this is like back then when you went yes.
Speaker 1: But it's also different. It's more menacing, there's more malice.
Speaker 2: I wish I knew more so I could help. But
I think we're on the right track. Do you know
anything about this figure we've been hearing about, skeletal, glowing
green black robe.
Speaker 1: Never heard of him in my life.
Speaker 2: Well, I fear we're a ways off the truth yet,
But that being said, I think we're closer to that
truth than I ever have been before.
Speaker 1: You made me a promise, keep looking.
Speaker 2: I will.
Speaker 1: There's a a little bit of a breeze, and that's it.
Speaker 2: All right, and then all meander back?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: Penelope could have heard.
Speaker 2: That called me under back to camp and just said,
or back to these guys and say, I couldn't find anything,
nothing of note? What did you find?
Speaker 3: I'm going through Isaac's notes and I'm just like I
was right.
Speaker 4: He came to the same conclusion that the halting is
some sort of magical force, and it says right here,
perhaps enough energy could disrupt that force.
Speaker 3: That must have been what happened.
Speaker 2: So this green thing, that's what we're looking at. Enough energy,
I think.
Speaker 1: So what did you find?
Speaker 3: I did find a way around so you won't walk
into a wall again. Really well, I don't know if
it's round, but the wall stops there. Let's go. We're
all gonna go over there.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you arrive where the wall stops. Now let's
say this is you going and stops here? What angle
do you take? How do you walk?
Speaker 4: Well? First, I would like to pull this maneuver, so
like wall is here right yep, and I can go
and reach around and if I go this way, it
comes right back through.
Speaker 3: And if I can hit something, yep. Okay, I'm gonna
do that.
Speaker 1: Okay, the same thing happens.
Speaker 2: Cool, run faster.
Speaker 4: I think that we should perceive, like what happens if
one of us stands behind and one of us starts
walking forward? What does that look like?
Speaker 1: So somebody stands on one side and one person goes
like this, it just.
Speaker 3: Starts walking into just.
Speaker 2: Four like and just keep coming, like.
Speaker 3: Beyond the holding wall.
Speaker 1: They begin walking which one.
Speaker 3: I'll do it?
Speaker 1: Okay, watch I'm observing you're standing kind of off to
the side of the wall, and you watch as she
walks off into the woods. Eventually you lose sight of her.
Speaker 3: No, I wouldn't go that far.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, I'll just turn around, like when they're barely
coming back from behind us.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, what was that?
Speaker 4: When when it gets to like I can barely see them,
then I'll come back.
Speaker 2: It's also night, right, so yeah, we could do more
testing in the morning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you barely seeing us would be not
far at all.
Speaker 4: So I don't get very far before I check it out,
and don't do that.
Speaker 2: I can't see anything.
Speaker 3: Do we all go together? I mean you didn't this
just like like with the cracks.
Speaker 2: So that's true.
Speaker 4: True.
Speaker 2: Do we want to try it now or we like
to come back after we've had a proper rest.
Speaker 3: I have an idea. I would like to go.
Speaker 4: Directly behind the wall, like I'm gonna go just behind
me on this side, you guys on this side, and
we're gonna walk together back to where the crack is.
Speaker 3: Can your whole body walk through this way if danger
would happened on the other side, I will test that.
Speaker 4: Can I my whole body like my arm came through.
My whole body walk through.
Speaker 1: Your whole body can come through.
Speaker 2: So you go back around, and then we're going to
walk towards the Yeah, we're gonna walk towards the crack.
Speaker 3: But we can't come help you. Yeah, you can just
come back to us. I did, Does one of us
go with her with dark fish?
Speaker 2: Just in case? How much health do you have right now?
Speaker 1: She's looking pretty bloody.
Speaker 3: I want to try something else. Oh yeah, she hasn't
had a long no fun. But do I try this
in the daytime?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 4: Wait, this might be a risk. Okay, I'm willing to
take that risk.
Speaker 2: Okay, for science.
Speaker 4: For science, say from the backside, I'm just gonna do this,
like right at the edge of the crack. Okay, I
would like to stick my finger through, just my tip
of my finger through.
Speaker 1: You want to walk around to the crack.
Speaker 4: No, I'm not at the side. I'm just at like
the edge of where the wall is from the backside,
where I can go through stick my finger through just
like that far, just a tiny like tip of my finger,
and then I'm going to trample back.
Speaker 1: Okay. But what I'm saying is you have you walked
so if the cracks right here.
Speaker 3: Have you walked around to it now.
Speaker 1: I follow you. You're fine, it can return. Well, it's
it's the same thing as you going like this with
your arm. No.
Speaker 3: But remember but when I went she's doing this.
Speaker 4: When I went with my arm, I could go all
the way through, and then when I went back it
would hit from this side.
Speaker 3: I'm sticking just the tip of my fire through.
Speaker 2: It's not just kidding.
Speaker 1: I thought it comes it does come back.
Speaker 4: I'm going to stick like a whole finger through and back,
whole arm through and back.
Speaker 3: But I'm going to.
Speaker 4: Walk through and leave only my hand on the back
side of it.
Speaker 3: Can I walk.
Speaker 1: Back through it?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: But when I take my whole body out now I
try to walk back through it, I hit a wall.
So if any part of me stays there, I'm connected
to it. Okay, that's really cool. Okay, now let's take
our little walk to the crack.
Speaker 3: Okay, what's your hope.
Speaker 4: For thirteen thirteen twenty seven. It's a little bit better
because we've got the level up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So as you what happens is, so you
go around the wall and these two say on the
other side, you begin walking. As you watch, you begin
to walk and she begins to walk, and eventually the
two of you get to where the crack is, but
Penelope just keeps going. On your side, you should have
been at the crack by now, but you don't see it.
These guys you do at first, but then they seem
to start to be getting further away from you.
Speaker 3: Well, would you just.
Speaker 4: Keep going if you happen at this point when it's like,
I think i should have been at the crack by
now and I'm losing them, I'm gonna turn right back around. Okay, actually,
I'm just not gonna turn around. I'm just gonna go
straight towards the wall.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to come out.
Speaker 1: So you see it looks like she starts to walk
off right, Yeah, But then as you're watching, she shut
suddenly comes out of the woods in front of you
and walks through near where the crack was.
Speaker 2: Okay, what happened? You didn't stop?
Speaker 3: You guys drifted off.
Speaker 4: We were supposed to stay right by the wall.
Speaker 2: We just did. We walked at a normal pace and
stopped at the crack. Weird, you couldn't see.
Speaker 3: It, no, not from the back.
Speaker 4: M Maybe I didn't go far enough. I could have
sworn I went far enough.
Speaker 2: Well you went past it. Oh look wherever you've come out.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I couldn't see it.
Speaker 2: Hm. That's interesting a poor at all? It could be,
although trying to go through it is clearly not a
good idea.
Speaker 1: Your mortal minds cannot band.
Speaker 4: Penelope is going to take a moment to just write
notes about everything that we've figured out at this point,
and like.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you attempt.
Speaker 3: I want to adventure beyond this altogether together, but.
Speaker 2: I just like try to keep walking. What happens?
Speaker 3: One more thing?
Speaker 4: Repeat our last experiment, except I want to hold your
hand the whole way.
Speaker 2: Well we're stopping well before the crack then, because I'm
not holding your hand through that thing. Yeah, but like yeah,
right in front of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, so you're you're like, way.
Speaker 3: What if what if you walk halfway?
Speaker 2: If you want to have way one eye on either
side to just see what you see?
Speaker 4: I mean, that would be interesting. You want to do
that behind us driving?
Speaker 2: Sure, I'll try You're going to try that.
Speaker 4: Okay, I did not cut my finger off, so I'll.
Speaker 2: Go behind them like this Okay.
Speaker 3: Is this wall just it's just a thin sheet, right
you said, there's no just no evidence.
Speaker 4: It's just a barrier that we can feel on one side,
but there is nothing on the other side.
Speaker 2: So hmm, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So you two begin to uh to walk holding hands, okay,
and the first five feet there's nothing. The next uh
five feet, you begin to feel a tingling sensation in
your hands. Yes, the next five feet it starts to hurt,
like you know when your hand falls asleep. But it's painful. Okay,
starts to like really hurt.
Speaker 4: Can we hear each other if we talk? At this point?
This is starting to hurt? Are you okay?
Speaker 3: I mean it is, but I'm okay if we want.
Speaker 6: To keep how do I science another another another five
feet and you take you take one point of force
damage each of you.
Speaker 2: Okay, how am I feelings being like happened? We'll get
to you. Oh no, oh.
Speaker 4: No, okay, do you keep going.
Speaker 3: You're the scientist. You're slowly step forward a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Okay, take five points of forced damage.
Speaker 4: That's as much as I can take about now that hurts.
Speaker 1: Dravin following behind you begin to feel this tingling sensation
and As you continue forward, it gets crazier and crazier,
and then suddenly it's as if a flash of light,
like lightning right in front of your face. Just you
go completely blind with a sheet of white, and then
your mind bends as it's flat. You get flashes of images.
You see a massive castle floating in the air. What
you see a crystal that is blue, purple, and red
with motes of light golden light sparkling within it. And
you see a glimpse of something that your mind refuses
to let you understand. And you take three points of
psychic damage and one point of force damage. What do
you do at that point?
Speaker 3: That's enough when we check in on each other?
Speaker 1: Or is this behind you? He's following, because we would
have also checked in. Oh yeah, by the time you
turn around that's happening.
Speaker 2: Okay, that would probably be enough for me to pop
out and be like, oh did you see that?
Speaker 3: See what?
Speaker 2: You didn't see?
Speaker 3: The flash? The flash? The green flash?
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't green, it was white. I was walking,
I started feeling strange, and all of a sudden there
was a flash of light and I saw things.
Speaker 3: What did you see?
Speaker 2: I'll just tell you, guys, exactly. Yea, A massive castle
floating the air, a blue, purple and red crystal with
golden motes of light inside of it, and something I
just couldn't comprehend that. I don't know how to explain
it is like my mind wouldn't let me figure it out.
But it hurt, Yes, it hurts.
Speaker 4: Let's get back to camp for now, unrest, I.
Speaker 2: Think that's a good idea.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, so let's do that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you all go back to camp. Yep, go
down for the night. Is there anything you do before
you fall asleep or you go to sleep pretty quickly?
Speaker 4: Make sure that spiders aren't going to talk us, check
the web trap, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Shoot arrows into the trees.
Speaker 2: Do we want to do some watches? May?
Speaker 3: I would like to cast sea invisibility?
Speaker 2: Oh okay, right now.
Speaker 3: To see if in the camp or at the crack
in the camp in the camp camp, Yeah, to see
if we're like, okay, okay there, okay, So.
Speaker 1: How long does that last?
Speaker 3: One hour?
Speaker 1: One hour?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: So upon casting sea invisibility, you look around. You can
see now into the ethereal plane itself, and uh you
you look around, there's nothing really to see other than
everything is more of like shades of wispy gray. But
you just catch just the faintest glimpse of what looks
like a female face off in the woods, and when
you make eye contact with it, it turns and goes away.
What species dwarfing?
Speaker 3: Okay? I mean I know what that is, but mar.
Speaker 1: Mar would know what what species it is?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Well species? Yes, yes, she's saying.
Speaker 1: Yes, like who you have an idea? Yes?
Speaker 7: Shoot?
Speaker 3: Okay, and that's the only.
Speaker 1: That's it?
Speaker 3: Creature? I see, Okay?
Speaker 2: Cool?
Speaker 3: Did I sorry? Did I feel any sense of threat?
Speaker 1: It looked panicked?
Speaker 3: Panicked? Okay? Hey, uh, Drivin, you see.
Speaker 2: Ghosts and stuff when they show themselves to me.
Speaker 3: There's a panicked girl over there. I just I just
learned this new spell in my studying or however you
get spells, and and I I decided to try it out.
I looked into the ethereal realm, and there's this girl
dwarven scared? Is that someone that we need to help?
Speaker 2: Well, if they need our help, they'll show themselves to us.
I mean it's not uncommon for ghosts to appear frightened
or in pain. I mean often it's a reflection of
their last moments of life.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, well, I mean.
Speaker 2: That's very interesting that you you've been able to learn
that ability.
Speaker 3: Though I spent a lot of time with you.
Speaker 2: Clearly it's it's worn off on you.
Speaker 3: That's impressive, kind of scary, kind of weird.
Speaker 2: You'll get used to it.
Speaker 1: Just wait until you see your first one that's missing
its head.
Speaker 3: Okay, well I didn't see anything, but that scared me.
So I feel like we're okay.
Speaker 2: If it's all the same. I think maybe we should
take watches for the night. Okay, I just it seems
like a dangerous place to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, all right, I'll take first. I only need
four hours, so sleep. I will go to sleep. You
need to go to sleep.
Speaker 1: It's like a two hour it's two hours, and you
take the final four.
Speaker 4: Since well she's gonna take the first four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but two hours oh sorry, two hours of watch?
Two hours of watch?
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, yeah, sure, yeah, Driving.
Speaker 3: Will last two I want to unbroken.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Driving will probably take a while to fall asleep
because he'll have to wind his mind down after all
the revelations from today. M all right, in a bit wild.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you may benefit from a long rest. The
night passes uneventfully.
Speaker 8: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: Upon waking the next morning, what does everyone do?
Speaker 3: Have some breakfast?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the most important meal of day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have some neat And.
Speaker 3: I want to see what you saw. I want to
walk that line.
Speaker 2: Well, just be warned. It didn't feel very good.
Speaker 3: I want to. I want to know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's go look for the green crack in the
daylight if we can find it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So going looking for it. It is significantly harder
to find and see. But there is a dimly glowing
green okay, shimmering crack.
Speaker 3: Shoot, does that mean something to just come through last night?
Like had it just opened?
Speaker 9: I then light's just easier to see in the dark.
Speaker 10: In my professional opinion, okay, I put all my points
in charisma, not that many in the intelligence.
Speaker 3: No, she's quite analaging just stupid.
Speaker 2: I just.
Speaker 1: Okay. So you go back, you find it, and.
Speaker 2: You want to see what I want. All I can
tell you is this is what I did. And so
I'll just tell you I just tried to follow half
and half and you started walking towards the crack, okay,
And I will warn you that it it hurts. So
if it starts to feel bad. Just get out of there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, uh the uh, the same thing happened.
Speaker 3: Sorry, sorry, Can I also hold their hands and see?
I just want to if that tangling thing happens, if
it's like one person, I'll do that. Yeah in between.
Speaker 1: Okay, uh, no, it only only seems to affect you,
and the same thing happens to you that happened to Drabin.
You can take three points of psychic damage, one point
of forced damage, and you see the same things. You
see that crystal. You get the sense that it's very large.
You get this, you see the flying castle, and you
also see something. But what you glean from this is
that this something is alive.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, but I still feel like I can't comprehend
it really correct, And it's just like a vision or
like appearing.
Speaker 1: Right, just a flash of image gone, Okay, I walk further.
All right, there is searing pain as you now take
ten points of forest damage, and you you get another
flash of this, this unknowable thing, but this time what
you see is a great eye and it's staring.
Speaker 3: At you on the unknowable thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, I see there is no life in the boys. No,
you take another four psychic damage.
Speaker 3: Okay, and I fall out? Now, okay, are you okay, Mara,
I'll be okay. Well, that thing, I think we probably
saw the same thing because I got the other two visions.
But it's it's alive and it's watching or it saw
me in the flash. I don't know, but I saw its.
I I don't know what it was. I really can't.
I can't explain anything else about it.
Speaker 2: But well, just be more careful next time. You could
have got yourself killed if you kept going.
Speaker 3: I feel a little dizzy, but I think you would notebook,
there's like.
Speaker 1: A bird barked out, Yeah, mohawk, just a bald mohawk or.
Speaker 2: In verse? In verse more?
Speaker 3: Would I be able to like comprehend the eye enough
to recreate it in pens? Note but I'm asking her
to draw in my notebook for me.
Speaker 2: Oh, are you a therapist?
Speaker 1: What would that? That would be a performance check, would
it not?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, probably give me.
Speaker 1: A performance check. Mm hmm, fourteen fourteen. Right, So you
managed to make a decent drawing of it to the
point where you can tell that it's supposed to be
some sort of eye, but it it's pretty it's almost
as if Asmara went to draw it, she kept getting
the image mixed up with something else and it's not clear,
Like the eye seems to melt in other areas, and
it seems to go off into something else in other areas,
and there's not It's it's as if her mind was
wandering well making the image, but she kept drawing. I
will say that staring at it makes you very uneasy,
just there's this primal fear that it produces within you.
Speaker 4: I'm going to flip the page of my notebook and
also like fold the edges over, so like I close
that page and then like fold two pages to get
onto each other.
Speaker 1: So it's like sealed closed.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, forget about it for now, okay, or
try to that time pleasant and uncomfortable?
Speaker 1: All right? Is that out?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 2: I just needed to know fair enough now, you know.
I think maybe we should get out of here before
we all hurt ourselves some more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that we've found as much as we can.
Speaker 2: At this point, I think, so I think maybe we
head back to Everclean and discuss along the way what
we're actually going to tell this king Jonathan.
Speaker 4: We should we should tell him about I'm forgetting the
name of the other group. We should tell him about
Polter Gone and their fate. I don't think we should
tell him about this crack.
Speaker 3: What do we tell him then, because he didn't just
send us to figure out what happened to Poltergon. He
sent us to figure out what the flash was.
Speaker 2: I mean, don't you think other people should know about this?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, we don't know what it is. We've got ideas,
but this is a bit beyond me.
Speaker 4: I don't know how much I trust the king though,
and he's consolidating forces to protect himself and kind of
abandoning the farm towns and villages nearby.
Speaker 2: He does seem a bit absorbed in himself, which could
be dangerous.
Speaker 4: I don't think he's a bad guy, but I don't
know if I trust him with this. I'd like to
find out more. We should tell him about the cloaked figure, though,
because people need to be warned about that, especially if
it's heading southward.
Speaker 2: Maybe we tell him we think the cloaked figures what
killed pols Are Gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we could say we found Polder Gone at what
would have been the sight of the flash. We don't
have to tell him about the crack.
Speaker 3: Do we tell him that we saw another flash?
Speaker 2: No? No, even if we told him that, I don't
think he'd understand what we were talking about.
Speaker 1: Do you understand what you're talking about?
Speaker 4: Perhaps if he earns our trust, we can fill him
in later.
Speaker 2: But okay, that seems fair to me. Yeah, okay, So
with that you leave, then you know, make our way
back towards Evercleian.
Speaker 1: All right, do we have.
Speaker 3: Four hours for me to take a long rest?
Speaker 1: It's a multi da, it's a multi day.
Speaker 4: Every night along the way as we're traveling back, Penelope
is just like hard at work.
Speaker 3: On some new creation.
Speaker 4: Yes, she's building a.
Speaker 3: Pair of boots.
Speaker 2: You're building another one of your flying animals.
Speaker 3: Therein not not an animal. This is something for myself.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it'll work yet, but I'm hoping
maybe it'll lift me into the air at least.
Speaker 3: A little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, I've seen what you can do. I have no
doubt that wherever it does, it'll be spectacular.
Speaker 4: Thank you, and I get back to work.
Speaker 1: Okay. The journey back through Emralia, it's fairly can I
say it long?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is fairly uneventful, right, you don't get attacked
or surprised, but some spiders. You have a couple scares
here and there. You know, at one point Mara does say, okay,
we are going to skirt around this area. There's obvious
evidence of a creature that's been through here. And and
when when she says evidence, what you see is alongside
part of a tree, a huge section of the bark
has been rubbed off, and obviously something very large passed
through here. But yeah, you find yourselves back in and
darsus and headed on your way to ever claim that
is your intent. You're gonna go straight to the city.
Speaker 4: Yeah, go back to the king.
Speaker 2: Gotta go get her money, all right?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you you you were at the city, no issues,
and and upon arriving you are ushered back to the castle,
brought into the King's presence, right uh. And and as
you're doing so, you can see that there are lots
of these individuals hard at work in the castle. And
what they're doing is they seem to be feeding this thin,
long string is what it looks like to you up
through parts of the castle. And then they're there. You'll
see that some other individuals seem to be taking this
string and attaching it to these little glass spheres.
Speaker 8: And putting in light bulbs.
Speaker 3: And penwood.
Speaker 1: You know that is she'd have she'd she'd have a
better idea than any of you.
Speaker 3: Yes, what's going on?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 4: A way of producing light without magic?
Speaker 2: Okay? Like in like fire like.
Speaker 3: I know we've seen this before in the.
Speaker 1: He didn't see it. Oh I saw it.
Speaker 3: I've seen this before when we broke into the mine,
the miners, camber, glint campball, glynt home.
Speaker 2: Oh you mean when you broke in, Well.
Speaker 3: When we went in and I broke into his office.
Speaker 2: This hhmm? Is it? Is this? Like what you do?
Penn Ah.
Speaker 3: I don't work with this kind of stuff. My focus
is more with aquium, all right. And and what power
is this electricity? I think it's not my area have expertise,
but I have seen it before. There's a few buildings
with it in Metaclaud.
Speaker 2: No doubt some trend that the king must be getting
in on.
Speaker 3: Yep, don't mock himself.
Speaker 2: That's no offense. He just likes to be with the times.
Speaker 1: Indeed he does, and upon arriving at his court, one
of the first things he says oh your back splendid.
Did you see the new of what are they called lights?
Lights that they put in It's kind of on the
nose term. Don't you think light produces light? Anyways? Apparently
it's the new fandangled thing where you don't even need
magic and you can see at night.
Speaker 3: Very cool.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well, I mean obviously I have no issues
being with the nobility when it comes to magic. I
could just cast an eternal flame spell. But there's something
satisfying about it. And he reaches over and he grabs
what looks like like a lever, and he just he
turns on and you see us all around his his hall,
all these lights turn on and and drive him. For
the first time you see light that is not the
sun or fire.
Speaker 2: Confess, your majesty, it is quite impressive.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, dreamed up by those fancies scientists in
mediclaud quite wonderful. But and if it ever fails, well
I still have my magic. But let's get down to business.
What have you found out about Poulter Gone and that
that green flash gone?
Speaker 2: Oh you did so?
Speaker 1: They didn't just take the money and run?
Speaker 3: Where which one of us is holding all of the
ideas yeah.
Speaker 2: Someone we grab one of the melt out, which he grabs.
Speaker 1: A look of concern comes on his face and he says,
this doesn't bode well. I take it you didn't find
them in a good state.
Speaker 4: It was right at the northern tip of Memoralia, probably
where the flash was.
Speaker 3: They seemed to have been melted.
Speaker 1: Melted, that is what we are, right, Yeah, melted. What
could have done that? Sorcery? Dark sorcery.
Speaker 3: I don't know, sir, I'm sorry. We didn't have any
encounters while we were there. Whatever it was.
Speaker 2: Something we have heard about recently that could be involved
is we've heard rumor multiple times from people, you know,
in the north of Andarsis and into Emoralia of a
cloaked figure dressed all in black, skeletal, glowing green.
Speaker 1: Features, skeletal like a walking skeleton. That's what we've heard
and what sets this apart from all the other undead
problems we've been having of late.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think it is.
Speaker 3: I think they might be connected.
Speaker 2: They very well could be. We met a man who
have been burned by a single touch from this creature
and he didn't survive.
Speaker 1: No, my.
Speaker 4: We also met an Awlbert who'd been touched by it
as well.
Speaker 2: That's true wildlife.
Speaker 1: So you're telling me that this thing has magical properties,
a corpse with magic? Are you saying this is the
lich King?
Speaker 3: We don't know. People suspect that we can either confirm
nor tonight, we.
Speaker 2: Haven't seen it ourselves.
Speaker 1: Well, if that is the case, that does not bode well.
The lich King has not been seen on the borders
of his lands for over a millennia.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if it's him or not, but people
should be warned. He's dangerous and I believe he's headed
this direction.
Speaker 1: Yes, definitely, asolutely. We will do that. And is that
all you found?
Speaker 3: But we don't know that it's the Lytch King, So
don't start a war.
Speaker 1: Start a war now, madam. You leave the politics to me,
But I don't think we need to start any wars
over a single magic using undead. If it's the Lych King, though,
we'll make sure we get him. It'll look very good,
very good. The other countries will have to look up
to us for that. Now. Well, were you.
Speaker 4: Able to send aid to that village that we talked
about before we moved?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, absolutely?
Speaker 2: Is he telling the truth?
Speaker 1: You may make a insight check.
Speaker 3: Can I also?
Speaker 2: I think we're all like, yeah, oh I don't have
very good insight. Nope, that's pretty bad. Oh no, I
rolled it four.
Speaker 3: What is insight? Oh?
Speaker 2: Is a wisdom?
Speaker 1: But I proficiency seventeen seventeen. So you could tell he's
obviously done something, but it may not be as good
as he's trying to make it sound.
Speaker 3: Okay, So.
Speaker 2: On that note, your majesty, it may not be a
bad idea to make sure some of the outer towns
are protected.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, can't be going hungry. Those farms are important.
Now I believe I owe you all some money.
Speaker 3: Yes, cop it up?
Speaker 1: Hey, now I eat gold.
Speaker 2: I'm sure I was laughing earlier when he was asking
if we found Poulter gone, because it was taking everything
in me to not say, so, are your majesty the
Poulter gone? But I did not well.
Speaker 1: So he collapsed and some servants come forward, and he
reaches into a chest and he grabs two bags, each
labeled at one hundred. He's like, two hundred gold, as promised.
You've done yourself well today. I'll have to put in
a recommendation. Perhaps maybe you'll get more business. Down in guildcraft.
Speaker 2: That's very kind of you, your majesty. We thank you
for this opportunity.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And where are my horses.
Speaker 3: They haven't returned.
Speaker 4: Excuse me, sorry, the woods got too thick for us
to continue on.
Speaker 3: We sent them back towards home, hope it would make it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I think I will take one of these bags of
gold back in payment for my horses, and you guys
can have the rest there.
Speaker 2: They were intelligent animals, your majesty. We thought that they
knew their way home.
Speaker 3: They promised me they knew their way home.
Speaker 2: We have an ad speaker.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I find when I've spoken with animals they
often assume their intelligence is more than it is. But
I will still put in that recommendation. You did an
excellent job. I'm just not letting you take my horses
for free.
Speaker 3: That's fair.
Speaker 2: Well, we're sorry to hear they didn't make it back, imaged.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I have other business to attend to,
he says. As somebody comes up and is like measuring
him for obviously more clothing, They all right, okay, you
can split one hundred gold however you'd like. Somebody gets thirty.
Speaker 2: Four, someone gets thirty four, the rest of us get
thirty three. Who has the least amount.
Speaker 3: Of moment technically you're the boss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, I'll take the thirty four. You will
get thirty three.
Speaker 1: Perks, the perks of leadership, right, okay, all right, and
with that, what do you do?
Speaker 2: Well, we'll leave the palace or wherever you are.
Speaker 3: Sorry, when we're in there, I look around again? Do
I recognize any faces this time? Any features?
Speaker 1: Any none? Whatsoever? Okay, I won't even make your role
for it?
Speaker 3: Cool?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you leave the palace. Awesome, You're in your
in Everclaane. Is there anything you want to do in Everclaan?
I know your intent was to head towards Metacloud.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do we do now?
Speaker 3: Should we continue looking for that.
Speaker 4: That casket? Or do you think we have more to investigate.
Speaker 3: I've gotten for the other matters that I've forgotten about
the casket?
Speaker 2: Well, I feel I feel like going to Meta Claude
might be our best bet. It's a hub for a
lot of things, so I'm told, and we might be
able to find some people there that know more than
we do.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I know some places we could look and.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't hurt. If we're going there to check up
on the casket. I don't know that we'll find anything
that maybe we haven't already found, but yeah, let's go okay,
all right, before we leave, I will want to just
quickly make a stop to grab another scimitaur if I
can find one in ever claim you.
Speaker 1: You would be able to Yes, there was a good
shop that.
Speaker 3: Sells those, you know, I'm glad he didn't like bad us.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I had the thought like, oh, we should have kept
an eye out for the horses on our way back,
and then I was like, I'm sure they made it fine,
It's okay.
Speaker 3: We don't need to get that involved in the plot line.
Speaker 2: When we decided to go back, I was like, oh, yeah,
maybe we'll find our horses.
Speaker 4: I was like, no, okay, so yeah for things, maybe
we can go find them later.
Speaker 3: Change of plans.
Speaker 2: We're hunting for kidding next time we well, when we
run into this like hooded, skeletal figure, he's going to
be like in a chariot with all our horses.
Speaker 3: Don't get.
Speaker 1: These weren't a good deal. They were free.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the.
Speaker 1: Okay, getting on his good side, all right?
Speaker 2: Cool?
Speaker 1: You head to Meta Claude.
Speaker 2: All right, I guess maybe we would ask somebody the
best way. We maybe asked somebody the best way to
get there.
Speaker 1: There are main major roads headed capital.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's a fairly direct route. And as you're traveling,
you actually happen upon something that none of you have
ever seen before. It's the most curious thing.
Speaker 3: Uh it.
Speaker 1: It's as you're leaving, As you're as you're leaving Everclan,
you have to cross what looks like it looks like
a bunch of wooden beams all spaced out in the
row in the road, well next to the road, I
should say, And running across all of these wind beams
are metal rails.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: Curious, they just sit there. Never seen anything like it
in your life?
Speaker 4: Would Penelope have any insight into this?
Speaker 3: They have any trans running in medical cloud?
Speaker 1: You have heard rumors of an invention, but you wouldn't
know anything about what it runs on.
Speaker 3: Okay, have you guys ever seen this before?
Speaker 2: Have I?
Speaker 1: Nope? Nope?
Speaker 2: Is it some sort of road marker or something looks
like an awful lot of work whatever it.
Speaker 3: Is, Yeah, I don't know. It's not something I'm familiar
with interesting.
Speaker 1: And it's at that moment that you hear a loud
roar in the distance. But this roar isn't from any
animal you've ever heard, and it's high pitched. And down
these rails comes flying this massive metal contraption. There is
what looks to be like steam flying out of the
top of it, and it comes flying at high speeds
and it shakes the earth as it passes by.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, you guys. I think I've heard rumors
about something like this, but didn't know that we actually.
Speaker 1: It works.
Speaker 11: But is it?
Speaker 3: I don't know what it's called?
Speaker 1: Us says an old man.
Speaker 4: Oh, there's an old man's.
Speaker 1: Steam engines as he's walking along. It's it's a large road.
There's lots of people. It's it's a well traveled road. Yes,
they they They finished completion of it recently. It goes
from the center of Everclain and apparently it goes all
the way down to that Fandangled University in Metacloud.
Speaker 4: Really this went up fast.
Speaker 1: My grandson says. He wrote on it, said it was
very interesting, very much liked it.
Speaker 2: People going that thing, mm hmm.
Speaker 3: How far away have we traveled?
Speaker 1: You're probably only like a fifteen to twenty minute walk
outside the city when this happens.
Speaker 4: We're turning around, you, guys, way outside of where we left.
Speaker 1: From our medical outside of Everclay.
Speaker 3: We're turning around.
Speaker 2: We've already got out of town. Let's keep going, Pen,
Do you see.
Speaker 3: How fast the thin can go? I want a chance
to see it closer.
Speaker 2: Well, we're pretty close now.
Speaker 3: For me, I don't want to write one.
Speaker 2: I think we can just keep going. It'll be all right.
Speaker 3: It would it save us time, like I means, yeah,
But we're gonna have to wait for her to come back.
Speaker 2: And it looks dangerous, Pen, So.
Speaker 3: Most new motivations are.
Speaker 1: Can ask Isaac about that.
Speaker 3: Maybe, don't have guys.
Speaker 2: Of course, you're okay for the dangerous thing. We get
to some strange crack in the sky, you chuck it.
Why am I not surprised?
Speaker 3: I'm interested in learning more about this.
Speaker 2: But it's safe. How could we know that my son
didn't die? This man's old enough that I don't know
if even though he.
Speaker 4: And start pulling you back, you want to go back?
Speaker 3: Do you guys fight me?
Speaker 2: I will plant my feet strict check. Okay, okay, okay,
h nine.
Speaker 1: Nine. It's just it's just literally pulling grab who's like
got his boots in the ground.
Speaker 3: He's like no, And I just said name. I usually
follow driving, but I kind of want to know. But
I'm driving those best.
Speaker 2: I don't want to go.
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 4: How many days is it going to take us to
walk to medical law?
Speaker 1: You're challenging me again. Uh so it is. It's a
good four day journey.
Speaker 3: Old man, that I don't how long did that take
your your grandson.
Speaker 1: Well he went down there and he said he spent
a couple of days and then he came back. But
the ride, it sound oh the ride he said it
took about Oh gosh, somebody's going to totally come at
me in the comments here. With trains travel at this speeding,
if it takes.
Speaker 2: Four days, it's a fantasy world. I'm trying to go. However,
faster slow ones.
Speaker 1: You said about ten hours.
Speaker 4: We're turning around and we're gonna ride that thing.
Speaker 3: It does save us a lot of time driving. Even
if it has to get all the way there and all.
Speaker 4: The way back before we can get back on and
to go back, that's still faster.
Speaker 3: To get there.
Speaker 2: Can you promise me we won't die? No, then why
would we do it?
Speaker 3: Can you promise me we won't die on most of
the things we do?
Speaker 2: Oh that's a fair point. Curse you for being so clever.
I don't like it. But if you two are both
determined that we're doing it.
Speaker 3: Let's go.
Speaker 4: Let's go.
Speaker 2: I will let's go.
Speaker 4: Plopy is way ahead of you, guys, she's running.
Speaker 2: Now, okay, so driven's going to be grumpy.
Speaker 1: So you turned to to uh to ever claim, and
upon asking some directions, you're eventually brought into what is
called the station. And there you see this this place
with there is the train and these rails and all
these things. Obviously people have just gotten off of this machine,
this contraption. You can hear the steam as it billows
out of the machine and.
Speaker 3: Wait, did it pass? Going to ever claim?
Speaker 1: It went?
Speaker 2: Oh, perfect time.
Speaker 1: So sorry I didn't catch that. You guys didn't catch that.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So what happens is is as you arrive, there's an
individual who's sitting standing in a booth and he says,
are you here to ride the train?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, I guess that will be uh that will be
four gold per person?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: Take through my money.
Speaker 2: It's not cheap.
Speaker 3: Hand it out.
Speaker 2: Walking would have been free. Don't add for it, just
go up, although I think you would have to pay.
Speaker 3: That's okay, Oh, hi, pleasure to have you.
Speaker 4: Join us for the adventures and the Parted Vales podcast.
Join us on YouTube for the video version of our show,
and don't forget to check out patreon dot com, slash
Twighlight Enigma for exclusive content and discord access. Okay, I
gotta get back to this project I'm working on, but
I hope you enjoyed the restless session.
Speaker 1: So you get on and you sit down, and and
the seats of this thing, they're like a bright red,
almost like a velvety. It's very luxurious, right, I should
say that this this machine is made out of what
looks to be a very silvery metal. It's shiny and
the inside is filled with silvery shine and everything. The
seats have this red, which seems to clash with the silver.
It seems like an odd choice. Perhaps it was the
king's choice. But but there are tables at each of
these seats, and and you're asked to sit down. They
tell you there's bathroom in the back, and to be
patient and you'll soon be on your way to metacloud.
Speaker 4: Penelope is going to be asking every question to every
person who will look at her, and probably most of them.
Speaker 1: Don't know the answers, a lot of confused looks.
Speaker 4: She's gonna ask.
Speaker 3: She's like, how does this work? How does it operate?
What is it doing? What are the all of the questions?
So you wait, just listening. I'm like, I don't want
to be annoying, but I want to learn.
Speaker 1: Dravens, staring at his feet. Yep, okay, Well you sit
and you wait, and you wait and you wait, and
then they say it'll just be a little bit longer,
and you wait longer than a little bit longer, and
then finally, eventually this individual wearing wearing a suit comes
in and says, we are about to get going. We
ask that everyone please be careful, all hands remain inside
the vehicle at all times, and enjoy your trip.
Speaker 2: We could have been halfway to we were just walking.
Speaker 4: How fast do you walk?
Speaker 2: Faster than you?
Speaker 1: And with that there is a lurching motion. Draven flies
under the tail and you begin to lurch forward at
faster speeds as you get pulled down this track and
you see the city begin to fly by you, and
before long you're flying down the plains towards meta cloud
trees and things passing you hills, roaring by the wind,
sailing past the windows. And you've never experienced anything like
this in your life.
Speaker 2: But yeah, driving will eventually come out from under the
seat and look out the window.
Speaker 3: Penelope's been like glued to the window the whole time.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever moved this fast to my
entire life, although there was one time. Never mind, Sorry,
there's nothing.
Speaker 3: You can't just bring something up and not discuss it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I can't.
Speaker 1: They spend the rest of the ten hours trying to
get it out.
Speaker 2: Is there like a front part of this like train,
like we could go look out?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can go up to the front of
the car turre in and and they don't allow you
out of it, but you you can stand there's windows
and everything, and you can look.
Speaker 2: Okay, at some point during the time driving will be
brave enough to get up and walk around.
Speaker 1: That's awesome, Okay.
Speaker 3: Anybody else in our car to you?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, there's various people. There's you know, a small family,
seem fairly wealthy, right, but small family. Is there obviously
individuals who do business going back.
Speaker 3: And forth, wealthy like Noble. Yeah, yeah, I want to
check up a conversation with them.
Speaker 1: Okay, what do you say.
Speaker 3: Is this your first time on one of these? It's mine?
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, we we traveled to Meta Claude probably
every other week.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're from every claim here.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, well my wife is from Meta Cloud. Okay,
we go visit her mother.
Speaker 3: Okay. Nice.
Speaker 1: It used to be we'd take the trip once every
few months. After all, it was long, but then they
built this wonderful rail track and now it only is
a day journey down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: He begins to look at you awkwardly. Nice meeting you.
He turns back to his kids. Okay, and a quick
ten hours later and you arrive at Meta Cloud.
Speaker 2: Before we arrive, Draven will be standing at the front
of the cart looking out the front window. And if
anyone comes it comes to find him, you'll see there's
like a tear.
Speaker 1: In his eye, It's like blows in the wind.
Speaker 2: And if anyone seeson with that, he'll quickly like, I don't.
Speaker 3: Think that I would go to find him, but I
would probably go to see the view. Do I happen
to catch a tier in my not looking for it?
Speaker 1: How obvious is it?
Speaker 3: I also follow, so do I?
Speaker 2: It's more obvious than Driven would like to think it is.
Speaker 4: It's probably pretty obvious, but I'm also probably pretty distracted
by everything else.
Speaker 1: I feel like I would do you see twelve? Perception check?
How about that?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 3: Maybe I don't notice thirty? I know, but I picked
it up. I think it was this way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't catch it. Are you okay?
Speaker 3: Driven, I'm fine, Okay, A real insight.
Speaker 1: If you would like.
Speaker 3: Oh, no, I just he said, he's fine, He's fine. No,
I just probe more.
Speaker 1: You're not.
Speaker 3: You're not fine. What was that one time that you
mentioned earlier? There we fought for hours. I said, you
wouldn't tell us clearly, it's bothering you.
Speaker 2: Fine. I thought I might have recognized these, well what
they call it a rail? And I remember where I've
seen it before. As a kid, we had mine carts,
okay down deep. We weren't supposed to use them, mind you,
but as a kid we went for a ride and
things got a little out of the hand. Sorry, it's
just old memory side. I'm fine.
Speaker 3: Okay, I do want to do an insight then a
check or whatever I need to Is that a happy tier?
Was it a sad tier?
Speaker 1: Well, well, insight, what's the DC driving.
Speaker 2: To find out it was a happier sad tier?
Speaker 3: Can I tell h that's because I also didn't notice.
So I caught you kind of like, why.
Speaker 2: Let's make it a sixteen?
Speaker 3: Oh shoot, m h fourteen?
Speaker 1: You are unable to determine, okay, all right. So upon
arriving at Meta claud you begin to pass into the city,
and the city is monstrous.
Speaker 2: It's the biggest thing.
Speaker 1: You've ever seen, right, it is huge. You pass in
and first you start to pass by what looks like,
you know, your typical wooden houses and lodges and log
cabins and things. And then as you get going, you
start to notice that some of the houses seem to
be built out of what looks like red rock with
some sort of grayish paste in between each of the rocks,
and they're very square and they have quite a unique
look to them. But you continue to pass by, and
some of the buildings get taller and taller and taller,
and then finally all of the buildings break and you
enter into this huge, massive open area, and in the
distance what you see is a huge building, but it's
completely spherical and it's made out of wood, but it
is very very large, and it seems to be supported
by six stone pillars near the bottom. The pillars are large,
but they don't look nearly large enough to hold up
what must be the astronomical weight of this building. Right,
the train actually pulls up and stops next to this building.
The building is in a so there's a huge plaza
right the buildings. The there's the building, stone pillars. There
seems to be some sort of shop amongst the pillars,
and the roof of the shop would be literally the
building above it. And then there is a plaza and
some grounds, and then a large ring that encompasses these grounds,
and the ring is made of a singular wooden building
that is just exceptionally long and circular. The individual who
had told you to enjoy your stay says, welcome to
Sphere University. This is the only stop that we have
at this point. Hopefully the train will have more at
later dates. But you everyone off, Thank you jo okay.
Upon exiting, you see welcome to Sphere University written on
this huge sign, and then under Sphere you see social, personal, historical,
and educative rearin establishment.
Speaker 4: Penelope, as we began to enter the city, her wonder
looking at everything passing by out the windows kind of
starts to fade and she's like, eh, boring and like
sits down, like is distracted until we arrive there. And
then at some point she'll look up and like see
this and be.
Speaker 3: Like, whoa, this is new?
Speaker 2: Can't we just have a normal day? Why does everything
have to be blowing my mind?
Speaker 3: A university? I'm excited. Do you think they have a
good library?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're at Sphere University. It is basically in
the center of the city.
Speaker 4: Perhaps we should take a break.
Speaker 1: I think that is a great place for us to
take our break. Yeah, so you're on this thing. This
tour takes you through the whole university. It is massive.
There are hundreds thousands of students at this university, and
they seem to come from all walks of life. There's
people from every country and every place you have ever
heard of. And the university is what essentially caused the
town to grow. Meta Claude sits on the border of
three Second Prick countries. It started in Everclaim, but as
it grew it spilled over into Yes, sorry, it started
in and Arsis, and as it grew it spilled over
into Jakar and also Emeralia. Gosh, I'm a little tired,
can't you tell? Yes, naj Kat and Emeralia. I'm looking
at cities, but yes, and it is known as the
city of Innovation and Industry and yeah, so you have
only barely scratched the surface of it. On the tour,
you are also told about the ring that goes around.
So what it is is there's the sphere, there's a
bunch of grounds. There's a ring that's one excessively long
building with breaks in it like like like hooded brakes
where there's still roof but you can walk through and
it goes all all around, and then there's more grounds
after that and that's the end of campus. But they
do all of the more outdoorsy studies in this outside ring,
so anything from animal care to outdoor magical classes and
things like that.
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you do?
Speaker 1: Tours over?
Speaker 2: Driving's impressed but tired.
Speaker 3: Understandably.
Speaker 2: So what time of day is it? Because it was
like a ten hour it was.
Speaker 1: You caught the last, the very last tour.
Speaker 12: So it's the end of the day, the end of
the day.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, we should probably try to find somewhere to stay.
Speaker 3: I think my parents could cause us.
Speaker 2: Oh that that wouldn't be an imposition.
Speaker 3: No, my mom loves having company over.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, yeah, all right, I want to.
Speaker 3: Come back to this library one day.
Speaker 4: But oh yeah, tomorrow, we should probably check out.
Speaker 3: The funeral home over here.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, all right, so you guide everyone back to
your parents. I would suppose it's a fairly middle class
area of the city, right, you pass more of those
strange houses with the red stones interlocked.
Speaker 3: We've never seen bricks before, not like this.
Speaker 1: I'm talking red brick houses. Yeah, you would have seen
stone built, stone built houses like stone on stone Castle.
But this is brick pen What what are all these bricks?
Speaker 3: Yeah you say that like we should know what a
brick is. I guess I grew up with them.
Speaker 1: They're red and bad for your teeth.
Speaker 3: You're not wrong, Yeah, but.
Speaker 2: I know where do they mind these stones? They look weird?
Speaker 3: Okay, real life me actually doesn't know how bricks are made, why.
Speaker 2: They fire them?
Speaker 3: I mean, I knew that much. I explained the process
of brick making.
Speaker 1: I will have my wife look up how bricks are made.
Speaker 2: At the end of this, I mean, well, that sounds
like a lot of work. Why don't they just use
normal stones?
Speaker 3: Why don't they?
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm asking the.
Speaker 3: I assume this is well, clearly they're more uniform this way.
Speaker 2: I suppose that's true. You don't have to cut every
single one of them to size. I just prefer the
look of stone.
Speaker 3: Change.
Speaker 2: You go through.
Speaker 1: You go through the city, and you go down, you
go down past a little stone bridge, and uh and
eventually that's what I'm walking.
Speaker 3: Up.
Speaker 1: And eventually you find a rather moderate sized house with
some candle light burning in one of the windows, and uh, yeah,
I will go.
Speaker 3: Do I just walk in? I mean, but it's been
very long. I will knock. It's been okay, a long time.
They don't want just somebody. They're not expecting me, so
I'll knock.
Speaker 1: So there's a pause, and then you hear the scooting
of a chair and some steps coming towards the door,
and the door cracks open, and there's your mother, and
there's a pause and then she goes.
Speaker 3: Oh, Ben, I go in for the big sweeze.
Speaker 4: What are you doing here?
Speaker 10: Hi?
Speaker 1: Mom?
Speaker 3: These are my friends, Dravin and Mara.
Speaker 1: Oh. She grabs and grabs your head like shakes your Oh,
it's so nice to meet you.
Speaker 3: Dravin And what was it Maria Barah?
Speaker 1: Oh, you're meeting all sorts of people. Well, please come in,
come in, come in. I just made some biscuits.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're just actually hoping we could spend the night here.
Speaker 3: That's right with you?
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely definitely. Let me go get your father. He'll
be so excited to see you. And she runs off
into the house somewhere.
Speaker 2: I told you she have you guys, I confess it's
a lot more welcoming than some of the previous places.
Speaker 3: I've missed them.
Speaker 1: There's there's a you soon hear the chatter of your
mother coming back. And she showed up out of nowhere,
and she's with a dwarf and an elf and and
oh look at this. Look here's your father. Gives you
a big hug. He's like, oh, my little girl, my
little firebrand. He's like, and and sorry you are, he says,
reaching out a hand.
Speaker 2: Nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: And Mara, well they're nice to meet you as well.
So how do you know our daughter.
Speaker 3: We've been working together for a while now.
Speaker 1: Actually working. I thought you were with that Isaac fellow
doing an apprenticeship.
Speaker 3: I was with Isaac. Unfortunately he passed away.
Speaker 1: Oh my, I'm very sorry to hear that not one
of his experiments. I hope you're not in any danger.
Speaker 3: It was one of his experiments. But I promise I'm
more careful than that.
Speaker 4: Hm.
Speaker 1: Yes, Well, a lot of electrocutes yourself four times making Georgie.
Speaker 3: Now, well, I'm too busy, like like fighting back teas
right now to like make a snip comment.
Speaker 1: But which he's he says, Now, I understand innovation is
just as important as you do, but you must take
proper care.
Speaker 3: Okay, I will.
Speaker 1: Yes. Well what brings you to Metaclaud?
Speaker 11: What do you do?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: We are paranormal investigators come again, uh, dravens his ghosts.
Speaker 2: Well, we are an investigation agency. Penn has recently started
working for us.
Speaker 1: Uh huh we uh.
Speaker 2: Investigate anything relating to undead, dark magic, strange happenings, things
like that. We get to the bottom of it and
find truth.
Speaker 1: Oh my, that sounds terribly dangerous.
Speaker 3: It's fine, mom, I'm fine.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're sure. Huh, you're not in any danger at all.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 4: You are your life is dangerous.
Speaker 1: Oh, pen leave the girl alone, says, well, that's that's interesting.
You must be very busy of late.
Speaker 2: Well we have been.
Speaker 3: I yeah, have there been issues here too.
Speaker 1: Metacloud seems to be doing okay, but there has been
odd attack.
Speaker 2: Here and there right, yes, even in the city here.
Speaker 1: Yes, even in the city, mostly in some of the
more slummy areas. But there was there was a fright
at the university a few weeks ago. Really, yes, it
was taken care of. After all, there's plenty of mages
on the university campus. They made short work of them.
Speaker 2: What happened, if you don't mind.
Speaker 1: Me asking, Apparently some there was an attack of undead
that burst in on one of the classes. Nobody's quite
sure how it happened, but they seem to have originated
from inside the building somewhere. They're looking into foul play
strange times, m Definitely, the question is who put them
there and why would they do that?
Speaker 2: Well, that's sort of what we're working on trying to
find out.
Speaker 1: Really well, maybe you'll be the ones to crack this
case wide open. I mentioned that our little firebrand all
over the newspaper solves mystery of undead a Dad, well, yes,
tell us about and he goes in and they talked
to you for probably the next two hours, asking you
an incessant amount of questions.
Speaker 4: I will skim over more dangerous details, but otherwise tell
them most of our stories.
Speaker 2: Okay, Dravin will eventually like chime in and be probably
more jovial than you've seen him.
Speaker 4: I'm also really excited to show Dad Georgie, to which
he is very very exciting.
Speaker 1: He's like, so you built these, built thee Really this
is what that Isaac fellow.
Speaker 2: Is teaching you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, how about that? I always thought you'd do better
her in one of the mechanics shops here, you know,
working on one of those new fandangled steam engines or something.
Speaker 3: But a pretty cool too.
Speaker 1: They are. Did you rode one? You said? And one day,
one day I'll get the chance. But and now you're
making aquium stuff. That's that's rather fantastic. And what I
would suppose you to have your own specialties in your business?
What do you do.
Speaker 2: Well? I've always been good at looking into the truth,
investigation and finding out information that's difficult to decipher.
Speaker 1: Very cool, and and you.
Speaker 3: I do whatever driving needs.
Speaker 1: She's a secretary, isn't she.
Speaker 2: She's a bit more than just a secretary.
Speaker 1: Obviously she's with you back at the office.
Speaker 3: But it's a very good secretary.
Speaker 1: Great, well, I must retire for the night. I am
not getting any younger, and I've got some work to
do in the morning. It's very it's a pleasure to
meet the two of you. Pen gives you he goes,
which your mother then spends the next thirty minutes like, oh,
here's this room, and here's some blankets, and if you
need anything in the oh, and by.
Speaker 3: The way, thank you. I think we're good for tonight
in the morning.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you each have your own room.
Speaker 3: So as soon as I get into my room, I stob.
Speaker 1: You sob I heard snob.
Speaker 2: How does one snow?
Speaker 3: I don't know if they hear it or not, but
that is.
Speaker 2: What When when Penn's comes into check if I've got
betting and everything, I'll probably like scandalized her a little
bit by being like miss if I was if all
I had was a cold, hard slab of rock, I'd
be just right at home. Uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Oh I could never sleep on yeah, clutch the pearls okay, okay,
all right, the night passes, no issues, everything's fine. You
benefit from long rest. You guys haven't had any combat.
Shame on me, DM no, and we better not have
any in this house.
Speaker 2: The house blows up. No no, no, no, no no,
this is too precious.
Speaker 1: Cassie's a queen architect, boots and malfunctioned.
Speaker 2: Your dad goes down to try leaps through the room.
Speaker 1: You just wake up to his head through your floor. Okay,
all right, so uh next morning you're fed a wonderful breakfast.
They're you have a hard time getting out the door
because your mother just and yeah, you're off in meta
claud again, what do you do?
Speaker 3: Let's check out this funeral home quick. Get that out
of the way, and then we can at the library.
Speaker 2: Sounds like a plan, okay, funeral home.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: I'll pull out my little manifest sheet that's all crumpled
up by now and try to consult with Penn about
where the address of this might be. Yeah, oh okay,
now I might need a refresher. Was this the place?
This is where it was supposed to be bound for? Right,
this was a.
Speaker 1: Final okay, okay, So you were at this at this
funeral home. So it's it's a it's a funeral home
slash crematorium, okay. And upon entering, there's you know, rather
pale fellow with very platinum blonde hair sitting at the
front desk. He says, welcome, How may I be of
service to you?
Speaker 2: We're here on business. We're the dark Room detectives. Oh,
we just had a few questions for you about shipment
that to probably never arrived to you.
Speaker 1: A shipment than never arrived. Well, excuse me, let me
grab my boss. He would know more about that than
I would. And he disappears into the back and another
fellow comes forward. He introduces himself as excuse me as
a stamp, and Stanson says, so you're here because of
a shipment that didn't come. Why would detectives be at
my doorstep about a shipment?
Speaker 2: Well, there were some curious circumstances around the casket that
was meant to come here.
Speaker 1: A casket.
Speaker 2: Ay, that's correct.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: It was originally commissioned by a Jacob Johnson. Do you
know that name at all?
Speaker 1: Never heard of him?
Speaker 2: All right, pull out the manifest at this point and
sort of like show him the details on it.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we did have a casket that we
did order from. Well, we didn't order it that We
were contacted by a woodworking shop up in nel Villar
and they asked if we wanted one of their samples.
I would suppose this was it. It never arrived, hm.
Speaker 3: Hmmm they contacted you, Yes, it was through mail. But yes, interesting, Okay,
are they telling the truth?
Speaker 1: Roll insight?
Speaker 2: Not a bad ideas?
Speaker 3: I can't read with us?
Speaker 1: That is it is? It looks like at thirteen here
it is thirteen.
Speaker 3: Fifteen.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: He seems very much to be telling the truth. He
believes what he's saying. And how did you find out
about this?
Speaker 2: We were hired by a warehouse that was storing goods
in transit and they had some difficulty with a few things,
and this was something we ran into along the way.
Speaker 1: Okay, what what sort of difficulty?
Speaker 2: Well, if you don't know much about it, truthfully, I
don't think I'm really at liberty to say why not,
I mean, it's my goods. Well, it is an ongoing investigation,
and until we know all the facts, we hesitate to
reveal too much. We don't want any partial truths getting
blown out of proportion, you.
Speaker 1: See understandably, Okay, Yes, I think.
Speaker 2: It's safe to say that your goods were damaged. M
and I don't think you'll be receiving them, as I understand.
You've just told me it was a sample, so I'm
guessing you didn't pay anything for it anyway. No, no,
we didn't.
Speaker 1: It's what we were told as it would be sent
to us, we could use it to show individuals and
then we could order more specific versions of it later.
Speaker 2: Hi. All right, an unrelated question, Since you're in the
business of dealing with those deceased, do you have any
thoughts or insights into the recent increase in undead activity
in and around this area.
Speaker 1: It's very strange, very odd, but fact mean, I don't
know anything about it.
Speaker 2: If that's what you're asking, Well, we've just been trying
to get a better understanding of what's going on, asking
people their experiences or trying to hear other things that
have been happening.
Speaker 4: Is this funeral home in a nicer area of town
or a per area of town?
Speaker 1: All of you wrote me a perception check. I should
just say it's in a nicer area of town.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty one twelve for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're too busy in conversation. But the two of
you notice at the question of do you know anything
about this undead like this? You know the strangeness of it.
There's just this quickest glance at his secretary, and that's.
Speaker 2: It I.
Speaker 3: Get. Okay, how does detect thoughts work?
Speaker 1: Okay, so if you read detect thoughts, you can cast
it and you're able to determine the surface level thoughts
of an individual. However, if you want, you can try
and dig deeper, but you risk them knowing that you've
done it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I want to Yeah, and sorry, is it
a noticeable thing to cast?
Speaker 1: What does it say? Verbal? Semante?
Speaker 2: Right, so there'll be some little I think it's under
components so vs and M. So V means verbal, s
is somatic, and M is materials, so it uses all three.
So yeah, it uses a material and you have to
actually verbally say something.
Speaker 1: So you would have to do it stealthily. Yeah, I
don't know if I want to.
Speaker 3: Risk right, Okay, okay, all right, so never mind not yet, so.
Speaker 1: You may continue with your conversation. You would ask him
about the undead, and you were saying that we were
just trying to figure out what's going on with it,
to which he asks, are you saying that my sample
casket has something to do with the undead?
Speaker 2: Oh? No, as I mentioned, that was an unrelated line
of questioning. We are just investigators. Investigating the paranormal and
unusual is our specialty, and we've been and hearing a
lot about this recently.
Speaker 1: So well, I, sir, deal with laying the dead to rest,
and in my opinion, there are no ghosts. There are
perhaps puppets of undead, as we have seen, but my
job is to make sure that those individuals stay six
feet underground.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that's usually the way we prefer it as well.
Speaker 1: Good then we agree, we do well, thank you for
your time.
Speaker 2: We won't disturb you further. We'll have to look into
this matter in other means, have a good day as well.
Speaker 3: Does the secretary and him stay with each other?
Speaker 2: They do? As you leave, shoot, what's the range and
you have to see them?
Speaker 3: I have to concentrate thirty feet target one creature you
can see within thirty feet of yourself, or one creature
within thirty feet of yourself that you have detected with
the sense thoughts option. So like, if I know they're there,
you learn what is most on the target's mind right now.
If the target target doesn't know any language and isn't telepathic,
you learn nothing.
Speaker 2: Okay, is there a window there?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: I want to cast that on the secretary.
Speaker 1: On the secretary, okay, uh, let me pull this up here.
So all right, I should just say that as you uh,
as you're walking out, you can just catch down the
hall towards the crematorium area you see an individual who's
shoveling ashes out of what looks like a wood burning
oven into a bucket. Okay, like just a small wood
burning oven. Okay, Now, so you cast it on the individual,
and I think there's there's no save originally, right, like.
Speaker 2: You just yeah, not for the first part.
Speaker 1: For the first part, So on his mind. The first
thing on the secretary. Yeah, on the secretary. The first
thing you notice, Am I just making assumptions on gender? Okay?
Let me see where is it? Okay? You you sense
that on the secretary's mind is a lot of fear
and anxiety and uh and that uh that he he's
there's a lot of fear and anxiety in regards to
the discussion that you just had with him or with
his boss with well, yeah, with his boss that he
was witnessed.
Speaker 2: Yikes.
Speaker 3: I want to try to go deeper.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, deeper deeper he will know, right, only if.
Speaker 2: You exceed.
Speaker 3: The target makes a wisdom saving throw. On a failed save,
you discern the target's reasoning emotions and something that looms
large on its mind. On a successful save, the spell ends.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: Either way, the target knows that you're proving it.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, maybe I don't.
Speaker 1: Want to go deeper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I want to instead cast it again on
the man we spoke to.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So casting on him you get the
same impression, but you also feel there's a sense of
anger and urgency as well.
Speaker 3: Now okay, anger, Like can I can I tell what
the angers directed to?
Speaker 1: Right now?
Speaker 3: I have to for that, I share that information. Like, guys,
they're feeling scared and he's he's angry.
Speaker 4: Looking at the secretary. Can I notice anything.
Speaker 1: About him like, seems like a normal dude other.
Speaker 3: Than being really pale?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just pale. It's just a pale complexion. He's
not some undead No, he's not freec Pale.
Speaker 2: This guy's undead.
Speaker 1: Pet my my grave digging empire. The dead buried themselves.
Speaker 2: I guess when you when you share that information, mo,
I'll just well, he did a good job of hiding it.
Something felt a little off with the conversation, but when
it finished, I just thought, well, I guess he really
doesn't know, but he's gone to be hide and see
he well he did.
Speaker 3: When you asked. I don't know if you caught it,
but he he like looked like he looked at a secretary.
Speaker 2: I didn't notice.
Speaker 3: No, hmm, it's interesting to me. He says that that
he was contacted by the shop Jacob Johnson, impersonating.
Speaker 2: And that's not what Vel told him.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: Val told us that he didn't even know about.
Speaker 4: The funeral home at all, and that it was just
personal order. But the shipping manifest says it's from the
shop to here, So there's some.
Speaker 3: Third party. So is Vow lying or is it? Is
it this man, this Jacob Johnson? I think it's Jacob Johnson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the unknown Jacob Johnson that.
Speaker 3: We've made trying to remove himself from this delivery was
it ever actually supposed to Well, he wouldn't have a
reason to lie, yeah to this end, if it wasn't
supposed to make it here. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean we could Maybe this is me jumping ahead
a little much, but we could come back here at night,
try and have a little look around that. I know
that's maybe not the most lawful thing to be doing.
That's my past showing through. But if they're hiding something here,
we might be able to find or observe it.
Speaker 3: You know what else I want to find wile we're here,
that mob boss that your friend is afraid of. I'd
rather not.
Speaker 2: I think he's afraid of him for good reason, and
we should leave it alone.
Speaker 3: Marrow, you know what I want to find? A mob boss?
Speaker 11: Honestly, what am I going to do with you sticking
your hand into bright, glowing anomalies in the world and
wanting to go look after the dangerous?
Speaker 3: Just that your friend's description when he gave it made
me think that perhaps these two people are one person?
Speaker 1: What two people?
Speaker 3: Jacob Johnson Johnson, hm, hmm.
Speaker 2: It seems like a bit of a stretch. I guess
things it could be possible.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it sounds like the party wants to break
in tonight.
Speaker 3: I'm down if dravings down.
Speaker 2: Suggestion.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering what I'm going to tell my parents.
Speaker 2: Don't where are you going so late at night? We're
just going to break into a building.
Speaker 3: Don't worry, we'll be back.
Speaker 1: Just typical investigator stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Keause, my mom is gonna ask.
Speaker 2: If you go home. That's true if we go home,
but then if you don't, you can be worried. Okay,
what do you guys do? What do you do?
Speaker 3: What time is it?
Speaker 1: So well during the day.
Speaker 2: We've done. I mean, that's that's all I've got right
now is coming back to see you guys. Wait, need
to peak. I don't know if anyone has other things.
Speaker 3: If we're just waiting, I want to go check out
the library.
Speaker 1: Okay, the library.
Speaker 4: I'd like to keep my eye out for any rumors
about some skeletal, cloaked figure. Okay, Like I'm just gonna
kind of wander around the library, pretending to look at
books but actually over listening conversations.
Speaker 1: See you head to the university library and there uh
nothing about this cloak figure, drav And I'm not sure
what you do.
Speaker 2: I'll go to the library with them. Last night, I
consulted the knowledge of a ghost I'm acquainted with just
I don't think I've talked to you about this, but
like the way that the phantom Rogu's abilities work is
that I can learn a new like proficiency that's robbery
long rest. And so the way I see it is
that like people that I've been close with when they died,
or like have I witnessed them dying, or a ghosts
I've spoken with in the past, like I might have
some ability to try and call them back. So there's
an old like professor of arcane studies that I once,
you know, met as a ghost, and I'm gonna call
him back and sort of ask him to tell me
bit about the arcane so that I gain a proficiency
with arcana for the day, okay, And then while we're
at the library, I'm going to see if I can
find anything about the magic of this like rift that
we've seen, you know, based on the very surface level
stuff that I've heard Penn talk about about this potentially
being a barrier that you know Isaac was talking about,
just if there's anything magically related I can find that
might give me any further information about that thing. Okay, yeah,
all right, we'll get to you in.
Speaker 1: Just a moment.
Speaker 3: Sure, So how long do we have in this library?
Speaker 1: Well, you got all day, Yeah, as long as we want.
Speaker 3: I start in the history section, just looking at nobility
who have lived in the area.
Speaker 1: Give me an investigation check on this. You find a
book on the genealogy of all the noble families, the
major noble families in Edenclive.
Speaker 3: Are there pictures in this book?
Speaker 1: They're not pictures. But it's it's family trees, it's genealogy records,
it's a it's stories about major families. And there is
a familiar name that sticks out to you, one that
you had heard your mother mentioned offhand a few times. Ah,
this family seems to have most of its its roots
in Stele Nobus.
Speaker 3: Cool, yes, does it mention? So in this family tree
this name. How long ago were they born?
Speaker 1: Well, so the name dates back to the beginning of
the record.
Speaker 3: Oh, but it's a unique it's a unique name. Yeah, Okay,
I steal the book the library. Just check it out.
Speaker 1: I steal the Okay, Well, I'll make you make a
sew is of hand check with advantage due to the
fact it's a library.
Speaker 3: Oh shoot, okay, that's a fifteen eighteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I steal without it. They don't have any
fan dangle beepers. Uh, give me an investigation check.
Speaker 2: Which die which die.
Speaker 1: Natural? Twenty yep? Okay. You also find a book, and
as you're reading through it throughout the day, you come
across the most peculiar thing. It is a book that
has it's a record that's been written in time about
the magical phenomena of eating clave. And what sticks out
to you is about halfway through the book, all these
studies begin to happen on the halting, all yielding, they're
all fruitless, right, But the first half of the book,
because it's in chronological order of studies over time, the
first half of the book, which dates back thousands of years,
there's no mention of the halting at all, none whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Hm hm.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 4: Does Penn hear anything interesting in her eavesdropping? I mean
you've already said they don't hear anything about this.
Speaker 1: Skeleton figure, But anything interesting and make me a perception.
Speaker 3: Check noise nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: You're rolling good, You are all doing amazing. Must be
the university it's distilling into your lines. What you do
here is that the king of Steleanobus has launched a
full scale assault into the lends of the dead. Okay.
And you also hear you hear that there was a
own a town in Let me pull it up, uh
Nacot near the coast, not far from the zief that
was decimated. It looks almost they they believe that a
storm must have blown in from the sea, and the
entire town was a frozen wasteland. At the end of it,
h all of the residents of the town uh are missing.
Speaker 13: Missing missing, not dead missing missing, Okay, Okay, all right,
night falls.
Speaker 2: Okay. I was gonna say, after I find my research
on the like the the information about the halting, I
come over and be like, Penn, I think I think
you should have a look at this. Have a look
here at these records of whole studies are information about
the halting, And look at before and I'll sort of
spits like skim through the pages. This is over a
thousand years of history and it never once mentions the
halting until right here.
Speaker 4: That is odd, I thought, so, huh m hmmm, are
there any maps in the book.
Speaker 1: There are maps, but all of the maps start where
the halting starts.
Speaker 4: There's no older maps.
Speaker 1: There are no older maps. There are blank pages where
there would have been maps. Oh but there's no maps.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, interesting, I'm going to tell Drivin about this
storm that blew in that I overheard about.
Speaker 2: Things just get crazier and crazier.
Speaker 3: Yeah, am I anywhere around? I should have mentioned after
I was looking at the history books, I move on
to the magic section and I just start reading about
magic spells and whatever.
Speaker 1: But makes sense, makes sense you would.
Speaker 3: Do that eventually. I'll wander over to them again.
Speaker 1: All right, night has fallen.
Speaker 2: What do you do?
Speaker 3: Go break into a funeral home?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you arrive at the funeral home.
Speaker 2: How do you do it? Well, let's have a look
around the exterior. See if there's any lights on.
Speaker 1: Good, And I was hoping you'd ask that. So there
are no lights on the exterior. There is obviously this.
So there's the front entrance, there's a side door, and
then around back you can see where they obviously have
wagons and things bring in the coffins and stuff. There
is there are large wooden doors that both swing out. Okay, right,
and these are padlocked with a chain. Okay, okay, the
other ones is a skeleton key kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, which doors should we go into?
Speaker 2: It doesn't look at any movement or okay, silent as
the grave. Well, I don't think I want to mess
around with getting into a door that has chained on it,
because that's a recipe for not being sneaky anymore. So
I'll maybe try like a side door.
Speaker 1: Okay, going to side door. Give me a sleight of
hand with your thieves stools. I guess it's not. It's
just thief stools. Check, that's how it works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it usually works out to be the same as
slide of hand because I haven't taken an extra Yeah, yeah,
expertise in it. M that's fifteen fifteen.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that gets you in. Okay Okay. The door
clicks open, you open it with much proficiency. Okay. Inside
is a dark hallway.
Speaker 2: Okay, I guess we'll creep in. Should we divide and conquer?
Speaker 3: Do you want to stick together in a place where
dead people are head rather not be alone?
Speaker 2: Goad point?
Speaker 3: Do you want to go on your own? I can
take Pen's hand and guide her through the dirk, so
that we don't have to turn on any lights.
Speaker 2: Well. Thanks, I'd like to be in and out as
quick as possible, so keep up, I guess okay, and
I'll sneak forward into the house. I guess yeah. Looking
for records, anything that looks like it's out of place, okay.
Speaker 1: Everything in any of the offices, they all seem normal. Like,
there's records, there's death certificates, there's you know, the big budget.
There's you know, letters and notices about people who've died
and they've come in, they've taken care of the bodies,
they've you know, sent them away. There's or they cremated them, right,
and records of them giving the urns to people and
everything right, thank you letters and cards all over the
walls from people who are you know, thank you for
helping them. Blah blah blah blah blah. But when you
get to the morgue, that's where things become a little odd.
Give me an investigator a perception check.
Speaker 3: All of you, Georgie, do you if you pull them out?
Speaker 7: That's all right, Georgie.
Speaker 3: Georgie got in nineteen.
Speaker 1: I got a twelve. Okay, so b Noelope, you're a
little out of your element.
Speaker 3: It's dark and she can't start.
Speaker 1: There's dead things around, and and you're breaking the law
in your own hometown where people know you. Now in
the morgue, there are two bodies laying on some tables.
They look like they're not being prepared to be put
in caskets. They're not they're they're they're not put away
in some area. They're sitting in the center of the
room on some tables with some wheels. Okay. You can
see the wood burning stove where somebody had been shoveling ashes,
and there's some ashes still scattered on the ground. And
then there's the big crematorium oven, which its door just
slightly a jar.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm interested to know who was cremated today. Is
there any records that we can find.
Speaker 1: There's no records in this room.
Speaker 2: We'll just peek inside the oven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead, I'm on looking inside. Please spotless. There's
not even a hint of use.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, is there any like fuel around to light
a fire.
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's a little bit over by the
wood burning stuff, but nothing in this begoing.
Speaker 12: No, nobody's actually been cremated here.
Speaker 3: With those ashes that we saw them sweeping earlier.
Speaker 12: From the little word bringing oven little just like a little,
not the crematorium oven.
Speaker 2: The putting them into a bucket.
Speaker 3: Where's the bucket?
Speaker 1: You can find a bucket. In fact, you can find
two or three buckets, all filled with ash sitting near
this wood burning stove.
Speaker 3: Can I investigate that ash?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, so they're just they're keeping ash.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it appears to be Oh, I'm not helpful.
Speaker 3: I try to help, but I just got made.
Speaker 1: It's it's ash of wood.
Speaker 2: Why why are they keeping this?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Why are they not cremating the bodies? That's because.
Speaker 2: You think they're using that ashes.
Speaker 12: They're giving this so the families at those bodies that
they are cremating.
Speaker 2: What are they doing with the bodies? Can we have
a look at these two bodies?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Anything unique about them?
Speaker 1: Or they just one is an elderly gentleman and the
other one is a younger person who looks like they
got into an accident of some sort. Each of you
will me a perception check. Wo I love my perception check.
Speaker 2: If this rolls a twenty again, there's a problem with it.
Speaker 3: Fourteen.
Speaker 2: I love this today. You can't make this stuff up.
Speaker 4: It is, Oh my goodness, my perceptions eighteen Georgia is
twenty four.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I'm gonna have to check the balance
on that.
Speaker 3: That's the same day you've used every time.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who hasn't always rolled a twenty?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, you just got three in a row. Though, that
would not die because I don't. I wonder what the
percentage of like chance is. That's okay, So that gives
you twenty.
Speaker 2: What twenty a perception? Yeah, twenty three, twenty three?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you hear it a split second before driving.
You gotta what fourteen fourteen? You are too busy staring
at all this, you know, kind of maybe maybe at
the body that got in an accident, kind of right
when there is a hint of candlelight coming up near
the back open doors and the click of the lock. Shoot,
your guys, people are coming.
Speaker 2: Hide.
Speaker 1: Okay, see you guys hide? Yeah, only a stealth Okay, there,
here's your tower, a natural one.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's not a natural twenty, but is eighteen twenty.
Speaker 1: But you get fourteen seven twenty six. Okay, all right,
So let me see what the perception of these individuals.
Speaker 2: If only my extra steal could be for you?
Speaker 1: What's your What did you get? A seventh? All right?
Speaker 3: So wait, what's the thing that I can do that?
Speaker 2: Inspiration?
Speaker 1: Inspiration?
Speaker 2: Oh it's not better.
Speaker 1: What you got?
Speaker 2: A seven?
Speaker 1: Again?
Speaker 2: No way is actually?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Seven? Okay? All right? So uh the door begins to
So what happens to you two? Slip away? Like you
melt into the darkness, essentially, hide underneath the table, hide
in a cupboard. You find yourself standing in an empty
room suddenly and the door is beginning to open. I'm
gonna give you one chance to save this. You better
give me a really good description of what you do.
Speaker 3: It's dark, I can't see. Uh yeah, oh yeah, that's
why we succeeded. I are there buy any chance on
the other tables?
Speaker 1: Three?
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna run behind the door, like behind where.
Speaker 1: They're coming from. Yeah, okay, all right, I'll give it
to you. What happens is they they open the door,
and you hear one of them saying I could have
sworn I heard something in here.
Speaker 3: I hold my breath real hard.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're holding your breath all right, all right, to
which the other one says, well, we need to hurry up.
That's the boss says, if we don't get these ones
to him tonight, then we might be toast. And they
run into the They get into the room and they
start wheeling out those two bodies.
Speaker 3: Sorry, do we are these the people that we see?
Speaker 1: We know these are just two two random guys.
Speaker 3: Okay, we don't know the guys.
Speaker 1: They they look they look like they work here.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: And as they're going, one of them pauses for a
moment and takes a second to look around. I'm gonna
have this is see, because you failed that stealth check,
You're gonna have to try and pass another one. Ye,
this is your last your last chance, right, So.
Speaker 2: What did you get.
Speaker 1: To look around? He looks, and he immediately.
Speaker 4: I'd probably like kick one of those buckets.
Speaker 1: He immediately sees you standing out the Why you there?
And that's where we will end for night. Okay, thank
you everyone for joining us in the parted veil again.
That was that was awesome. It was a good night.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: It was a really good night. So as always, we
release episodes every Tuesday and we're having a great time
to blast. You can always help us out by leaving
a comment and liking, subscribing ring the bell as they
always say, Really though, those comments really help that out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'd love to hear you guys feedback. If there's
anything we could be doing better, why not tell us?
Speaker 1: And if we have the time and money, we will
attempt to improve. But we have a few things we'd
like to say before we end tonight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we didn't end up out the minis tonight, but
the minis use we're printed by Banana for Scale three
D printing services. You can use our code mind Play
twenty for twenty percent off your first order until the.
Speaker 3: End of the year.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, a lot of role play tonight. Actually it was. Yeah,
I wrote this whole thing up with an encounter, but
we haven't gotten anywhere yet with that, so you can
get to it. Yeah, Banana for Scale three D printing services,
they're amazing through all of twenty twenty five mind Played twenty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tim, And if you guys are enjoying what you
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hear from you.
Speaker 3: Please, yes, and the music you are hearing is by
Carl Casey at what Bat Audio, which can find on
YouTube and band camp.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm yes, YouTube, band camp. Apparently I've been using
his stuff for D and D for years and I
didn't know it when I started doing all this. Oh
I've heard this before. Oh I've heard oh right, so
amazing stuff. And uh yeah, you'll have to wait till
next week to see if Penn gets out of this situation.
All right, bye everyone, Yeah, thank you guys,