Of Corpse It Is

(dramatic music) - All right, we open yet again around the campfire with your friends. Before we move on to the recap and back to where we were, does anybody have anything they wanna say around the campfire for one another? - Do you remember that dungeon? It felt like time moved slower than the dark. - I think it was the stink. - No one could forget that smell. You know, I still try to forget it every day. It feels like it lingers still all these years later. - Mm, stuck in your nose hairs. - Yeah, it's like I could never get it out of my wings. You know, I still flap those, you know, flap them around, try to get it out, but you know, I think that'll be with us forever. Just like the giant, you know, minotaur that, you know, we fought in there as well. - Hilo sniffed delicately in, in Maz's direction and goes, "It's mostly fire now." - (laughs) - True. - I'll take the fire over that smell any day. - (laughs) I can't, I remember waking up in the cinch was unbearable. I don't know how he fell asleep like that. Didn't he take a short rest? - Yes, yes, yes. And then how, you know, trying to remember, you know, what happened as we woke back up and somehow it's all just, you know, a little bit fuzzy, you know, 'cause it was so long ago. - It's true, you're remembering it across a large span of time, correct? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. - Do you remember what happened, Sal? - I think I do. And with that, our storyteller guides us back in. Two, we return once again to the dark dungeon below Skyland. You entered seeking answers, answers to what tragedy befell the hundred year peace celebration, answers about the young girl who sent you on a seemingly foolish adventure into the forest outside Skyland, answers about who the jagged knife are, what they're planning and who they're working with. You haven't found any of those answers yet, but that doesn't mean you found nothing. The deeper you delve into the dungeon, the more the mystery seems to unfurl around you. You discovered that the dungeon supposedly under the control of the Skyland government is actually in the hands of the jagged knife. - Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's not you. - Is actually in the hands of the jagged knife. You found loot that will surely help you on your adventures ahead. And maybe most important, you found a new friend in Toko Stormclaw, a Simeon who was trying to escape the dungeon just as you were trying to get in. When we last left off, you narrowly avoided a fight with a guard captain and her minions before running face first, literally, into a minotaur who Hilo quickly put to sleep and Toko quickly woke right back up. It was no match for all of you either way, but the fight left its scars. And afterwards, you all found yourself so desperate for rest that you crawled into the nearest dank, disgusting jail cell to get just a little recovery. As you roused yourself from your rest, able to see the slain minotaur through the bars of the cell you've crammed yourselves in, you hear the sounds of the dungeon around you. The drip, drip, drip of water leaking in, the rustling in corners of rodents scavenging for scraps. And the sounds of other living things. The sense that you are not alone and you have not yet encountered everything that the dungeon has for you. So party, what would you like to do? And I will change the map because, sorry, I. - Yeah, yep, yep. I was just gazing into the fire waiting. - Yeah, well, that's, you need the little (imitates music) sound effect to take us into the dungeon. And for anybody else, nobody was laughing at our wonderful narrator's story and his introduction. It was because of silly things typed into chat and we're children and it was great. - That's okay. There's always gonna be silly little things happening in the background. So now that we're on the right map in Roll20, you all are, actually most of you are crammed into a jail cell and Toko is waiting outside by the fire. - Toko's in the jail cell. - Oh, Toko's in the jail cell? Okay, you were originally keeping watch because you, I believe you felt bad. - Oh yes, that's right, that's right, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And I don't think you had any short rest things that you needed, I think was the decision. - No, that's right. - So as you kind of wake up, like I said, you can tell that there is more around you. You've explored everything kind of in your general area in these cells that you can see, but you hear sounds like movement. You don't think all of the movement that you hear is necessarily small rodents. Bigger things lurk, is what your ears tell you. - The aerial stretches and says, "Wow, I feel like I slept for like six weeks." - Is there something that we heard before we rested that we thought might be a second minotaur? Am I remembering that correctly? - I think so. - That's a strange dream you had. - It was, I would call it a nightmare. - We heard other footsteps coming from the north. - From the north? - Before we took our rest, yeah. - Toko, did you see anything while we were resting? Nothing. - Nothing that I was worried about, nothing nearby anyway. - Can I peek around the corner and see if there's-- - Are you staying in the jail cell? - Anything in the hallway? No, I would have, well, is it locked currently? - I think you guys closed it after you 'cause you picked the lock to get in, right? Does that remind me of that? - I believe I used my fancy key, right? 'Cause my key kind of-- - You have a skeleton key, correct? - Yes, yes, yes. So I think we should just be able to open and get out, I thought. - I wasn't planning on you guys having to get stuck in the jail cell, that seems like a silly. I mean, if you wanna try to lock yourselves in. - I mean, just perfect for our group to lock ourselves in somewhere honestly. - Let's just plan on spending the night. - This will be a four hour session of just trying to escape. It's ever increasingly smaller escape rooms. - And Maz sees God's Svetlana and slowly, quietly follows behind. - Okay, so you guys are going back to the, I guess there's an entrance, there's a hallway that you went down where you fought the Minotaur where there's cells on both sides and you're going back to the kind of entrance to this hallway to look towards the north. - Dokko kind of follows as well, especially like closely to Svetlana. - Okay, what were you saying? - Be careful, friends, Svetlana. - I will. Do I hear anything? Like are we closer to the sounds now? - You hear, it's quiet for a moment. And then you do hear a, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then it's quiet again. Boom. Something is moving. It does sound like from the direction you've moved. It might be in the direction that you're heading. - Hilo says, it's not a bad beat, but I don't think I can dance to it. - Yes, it sounds like thundering steps, almost like another large creature. I wonder if we should try to sneak up this northern corridor, maybe not charge ahead. No reason, I mean. What do you all think? - I would like to get away from this carcass, please. As if this thing could get any worse. - Yeah, Maz-- - I think it could. - Goes ahead and indicates, yeah, by points upwards towards the north, nods her head, and let's proceed quietly. - Okay. - And I'll go directly behind Svetlana. - Okay, is the whole party planning to move down the hallway together? - No, Ariel and Pazu will follow. There's really nowhere else to go, 'cause we determined that to the east is a dead end, and to the south is where we came in. - We aren't hearing anything back from those doors that way, are we? - From the last time, from when you left that door, you assume that there are still people on the other side of it, but they're not knocking or anything. They're not trying to break down the door, anything like that. - They haven't successfully broken down the door in the time we were resting, for example. - Not that you've heard, you can have someone go check if you'd like. - Did we blockade that door? - We locked it. - And it was the airlock door that we needed the magic key to get through. - Right, so we left-- - Oh, you left the door open. - We left the door open, which locked the other door. - That's what it was, oh, God. - Yeah. - I'm not too worried about that. I'm more worried about what lies ahead. - Right, so is everybody sneaking down the hallway together? All right, let's go ahead and start today with a group action roll then. - A group action roll for-- - We are gonna roll for Finesse. So I will-- - Finesse. - Svetlana at the head. - Unless you would like to elect someone else. - I'm not very sneaky. - Svetlana says, "Anyone else please." - Yes. - I am also not sneaky. - I am a little sneak. That's incredible, you're a giant clank. - Yep. - How do you like Pazu as the leader? - He's probably the sneakiest. - Pazu is, of course, naturally stealthy, but also doesn't roll in the group roll. - True. - Up to you guys. - You're not stealthy? - I thought you were. - I'm looking at character sheets. We have nobody stealthy. - Nobody is stealthy, nobody. - I have a plus one, that's the best we got. - My back legs. - Svetlana, are you minus or are you just at least even? - I'm just zero. - Well, great, 'cause I'm minus one, so. - Oh, well, I think we're in this plus one. - I'm plus one. As we go through here, I'm going to describe for everyone how to sneak in a rather pedantic and low tone so that it's kind of boring and not very noticeable in an attempt to rally us all and give everyone a D6 rally die just in case we need it for this first set of actions. - Oh, yes. - Incredible. - So you're leading the action. We all roll and add a D6. - You don't have to add a D6, 'cause the rally die is if you're like. - Oh, if you need it, you just have it. - So yeah, it's any with a rally die can spend it to roll it to add a result to an action roll, reaction roll, damage roll, or to clear stress equal to the rally die result. And then your rally die goes away at the end of the session. - Okay. - So I have not been taking advantage of this enough. Yeah, each of you have a 1D6 that you can add to things and you sub to you on when you want to do it. - Can you give me an example? - Ahead of time? Do we roll it now and just keep it or do we roll it when we need it? - I would say roll it when you need it, but that's just me. - Can you give me an example of what the speech would sound like as you describe stealth to the party? - Sure, so the art of not being seen. Stay very still. If you can't stay still, walk slowly. You have been seen, slower, quieter. (laughing) I still see you. You're doing good. - I think slap is better. - That's better. (laughing) And trying to get people into a kind of a, you know, that sing song thing to his voice where he's just moving along. We're all moving, we're walking slowly, we're walking carefully. Nope, not like that. There you go, more carefully. Please move along. Nothing to see here. Please move along. - Beautiful, all right. Let's have everybody roll. We decided Hilo was gonna lead with that incredible speech. - Amazing. I got a 15. - Does hope or fear matter? - Yeah, yes. - Just for the lead. - Yeah. - I got 20 with fear. - 14 with hope. - Okay. - I got 11 with hope. - Got a 13 with fear. - Okay. Hilo? - I got a 19 with fear. - All of you begin to creep down the hallway. Even listening to yourselves, knowing that you're moving, Boga's traditionally kind of slappy, ribbit feet are quieter than you've ever heard them. You don't hear the rustle and clank of people's armor like you normally would. As far as you can tell, you're moving quietly. You guys can't hear yourselves. You don't believe that anybody nearby could hear you. As you move up the hallway, on the right side is just a solid stone wall. On the left side that some of you in Roll20 have moved past is a door. There is a wooden door. Like so many of the doors you've seen, so many you've seen already in the dungeon. And then as you approach the end of this hallway where it veers right, or what we've been calling east because I'm lazy with map directions, you see at the end of the hallway a bonfire for light. And as you get closer to this corner, you start to get the feeling that whatever loud noise you had heard previously, the loud footsteps, you hear like a loud breathing sounds. You start to get the feeling that they are going to be around this corner. - Those of us who are at the end of the hallway, I think would let the people know that they're behind us. That around the corner is the Minotaur. I think there's another one. I wonder if this corridor here is just another row of cells that's being protected. Should we try this door here and see if it leads to a way out? What do you all think? - I think we dispatched the other Minotaur and like short order, we can deal with another one. - I know that. - I'm very much confident. - Togo wants to loot that Minotaur. I mean, am I right, Togo? - I got a hunger for Minotaurs. - Just to be clear. - I got a hunger that only Minotaurs can satisfy. - Are you saying this full voiced or are we stage whispering? - I was whispering. - Okay. Everybody else was. Definitely whispering though. I don't wanna make the decision for other people here. - Okay, just wanna make sure. - I mean, in true fashion, Maz was a little bit loud and then got quiet when Maz realized it was not the time or place. - Okay. - Yriel, what do you think? I feel like last time you thought we should leave the Minotaur and then we ended up fighting it. So I want to make sure you're on board. - Yriel is not as confident about the Minotaur fighting abilities of the squad. It seems like we had a few lucky interventions that prevented, you know, rather serious consequences. Also, Yriel is an explorer and wants to know what's through the door. - Yes, I think. - You wanna know what's in the Minotaur's pockets? - But we could always come back. - Not a looter, an explorer. - If there's not an exit. Yeah. (Yriel laughs) - Okay, friend said Lana. (Yriel laughs) - Good fight. - Hyla looks back and forth between the Semya and, oh no, I forgot what the cow person, what the-- - Furbul? - Furbul. - Furbul. - Furbul, the cow. - Yes, da. - And just kinda comments to himself that next time maybe he should sleep a different person. - Looking at you, Toko. - Pointedly not looking at Toko. - Yriel is watching. Yriel is doing the finger eyes thing at Toko. - We start heading towards the door. Yriel, do you want to lead the way? - I am sure. - Is it locked? - You check. - Hello door, are you locked? It appears locked. - The door is locked. - Maz, come, come. - Maz kind of goes over with purpose and excitement to use this cool skeleton key thing. - Honestly, it's the most valuable loot in the whole game. - It's been pretty great. - Uses the, I'll grab the skeleton key and try to unlock the door. - Okay. - What do I roll again? - I believe that is finesse. - Do I just roll my regular dice? What do I roll? I'm gonna do six. - How do I roll? No, you roll your 2D12. - 2D12. - Does the skeleton key add anything? - Oh, hold on. I think there's something that you need to... Use this to make a finesse roll at advantage. So it's that plus the D6? - Yes, correct. - Oh, my. - Ooh, baby. - That was a sound. - Yeah, that was a sound, yeah, yeah. Let's-- - That was an unhappy sound. - That was an unhappy sound. Oh, God. I'm gonna use my luck bender. - Okay, what does that mean? - Spend three hope. So after you are an ally in close range, make an action roll, you can spend three hope to reroll the duality dice. You must take the new result. - Okay. And that's once per session, okay. I'm gonna undo that. - Yeah, undo, undo, undo. Okay, that's way better. I got a 15, so it's actually a 19 with fear. - 19 with fear, okay. What did you roll the first time out of curiosity? - It was a nine with fear. - That would have been so. - It was a five plus four, so it was pretty bad. I was like, ah. And I keep forgetting, I never spend my hope and then I end up with plenty, so I'm like, you know. - You work the skeleton key in. I want you guys to picture skeleton key is, it looks like a key, but using it is more of a lock picking experience. Like you are, you are, yeah, you're adjusting. There's a chance that you're gonna use this and it's just not gonna open doors. Like skeleton key makes it sound like you're just gonna open every door you come across and that's just ridiculous. We can't do that for an entire campaign. So you. - Unless. - Unless we just stop locking doors. Towns people find out that the only way to keep you guys out is just to leave the doors unlocked. So Maz kind of leans down ear to the ear to the door with a loud click, allowed click. The door opens and you check the door handle. - Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle. - The door is now unlocked. But behind you. - What is this gonna say? Oh no. - It's picking up the pace. You hear footsteps moving towards you. You have a feeling you know what's coming. - Maz goes mad gestures towards everybody. Like, you know, towards the door and come in, come in. And I can't move through right now. - Oh, you can't choose to open it. Sorry. - Oh, there I go. I got it. - Okay. - Maz enters the door, just looks behind, gives a motion, you know, hurry. - Is everybody following through the door? - A trusting Maz. - Something drops through the door. - I would go last and just make sure like I'm blocking everybody until everybody gets in. - Okay. - For you, friend, Svetlana. - Ariel and Paz go scurry through the door. - All right. - Go ahead, let's go. - Letting them take the back line. As Svetlana and Toko try to argue about who's going to go last, you see another minotaur with the same markings as the previous one turned the corner. - After you, friend Svetlana. - I know. - And as you guys argue, he charges down the hallway, narrowly missing you. - Oh, okay. - Can we lock the door back? - Definitely dry. - It's a pretty little door. - You see, you close the door. Oh, you guys can close doors? What the heck? - I guess. - I sure did. - Okay, so you close the door and you hear the sound of like metal skidding on stone outside. And then boom. - Oh, the guy's like, he's doing the feet thing. - Yeah, it's skidding to a stop is the impression that you get. - He's charging after the last two, skids to a stop, turns around and the entire wall shakes as the minotaur hits the door that he saw you go through. Entire wall shakes again. You start to notice like little crumbles of stone and things falling from the ceiling as he hits the wall again. He doesn't have a lot of running room in the kind of the narrow hallway. So these aren't very like, he's not taking a full charging bull action at the door to get like through. He's just kind of pounding on the wall door, I guess. So you find yourself on the other side of the door, still sounds of the minotaur frustrated, maybe taking that ax and kind of swinging at stuff. You find yourself in kind of an anti-chamber. You've got seats, you've got tables. - Is that a dead body? - Looks like there's a little wash basin and yeah, there looks like something that is a corpse. I mean, it's corpse shaped. You don't know that it's a corpse. - Of corpse it is. - Wrapped in a sheet against one of the walls. - I mean, Maz walks immediately over towards the corpse and kind of nudges it with her foot. - Right. - Can I pick up these manacles that are on the desk here? - Sure. - Do they have a key? - Yes. - I just love it when we do that. Hey, can I do this? And he's like, "Yeah, why not? Let me figure out how this is gonna work." - Oh, we've had about 60 of those scenarios in this dungeon so far. - It's one of my favorite things. - You didn't know that there was manacles on those desks, did you? - Nope. - Did I learn anything from nudging the corpse? Does it feel like a corpse to me? - Do me a favor and roll for instinct. - 19 with hope. - Corpse. - All right. - You didn't wanna know anything other than that, right? So that's, you can, I'll say this. You don't know that it's a corpse, but it definitely is corpse-y. It's got corpse energy. - Well, I mean, I'm a seasoned adventurer, right? So I mean, you assume that I have a sense of, you know. - If you're just nudging it with your foot, like it feels like a body, it could be something else. - Okay. - Hilo kind of looks to Maz and is like into the corpse and is confused, like, did you not like this bundle? (laughs) I'm just trying to figure out what's inside 'cause it looks, you know, like a body, but I'm not so certain that's what's in there, though it feels like it. - Did you want to examine it? - I do, actually. There's ropes around the side. Could I, I'm gonna take out my short sword and start to snip and get a look at what's inside. - Okay. - Careful. - What does it smell like? - Carefully. - All right, so. - I took a approach which is a little bit interesting, but I've got a whiff of it as well. - What does it smell like? - Yeah. - Death. - How dead is it? - It's so dead. - On a scale of one to dead. - All right, so. - It doesn't smell like life, that's for sure. - As Maz starts to cut away at the ropes and the sheet, it's a little bit startling what you see spill out of the, like you see an arm fall out first, and the arm is covered in bright purple fur. And then as Maz cuts more, you see more of that same purple fur and you kind of look to Toko, you look back to the corpse, you look to Toko, there's a similar coloring to the fur on both of them. - Do I notice any change in Toko's expression? - You do. You do. Toko's like just frozen and like, for like Vietnam PTSD, like frozen in time. - Take a test. - I'm not knowing how to react. - Take a step towards Toko, ask him gently. You know, do you know anything about this? - No, he's still a bit too shocked to answer. He takes a step back, kind of comes over here, tough like leans against the wall quietly. And the only here I'm saying is, I thought he would stop. I thought he'd stop, I thought he was done with it. There's no way, I thought he was done. - But we're just kinda not sure what's happening 'cause she's been like, she's not been looking, she just watches Toko, wander over to the wall and just remarks herself, what is happening? And she kinda, kinda wandered like further towards where Mars is. That's, that's, that's, what, what startled Toko? What has spooked monkey friend? - I'm not sure. - Masz gestures towards the simian, what looks to be a simian type body with the purple fur says that I think that Toko knows something about this body but I'm not sure what. - And Boga looking at, looking at the body on the floor, now that Masz has kind of cut away the ropes and the sheet that we're covering it. It's clearly not Toko because you look off to the side and you can see Toko but this body looks like Toko. - Like identical? - Not identical, but like it is, it is a, it's a simia with a fur that like before Toko, you haven't seen simia with this kind of bright purple shock of fur. And so seeing, finding one in Toko in the dungeon and then finding this other one, your mind associates the two of them together. - That's, this, this body feels like, feels like Toko's blood kin. I feel like this is similar. - And as you're talking, you hear the boom on the wall again and you start to see a crack form just a little bit on the stone wall of the door that you came through. The minotaur has not forgotten about you. - Boga's just, while she's here, she's gonna kind of wave her hand like over the top of the simia's face, see if she can attune to any magic nearby. - You don't sense any magic in the room that you're in. This just from the looks of it, like there's like a wash tub and there's just chairs. Like this was just kind of a, a kind of, like I said, it's just more of an anti-chamber looking room. It's a transitional room before you go into different rooms. You do get, you get a sense of magic off of some of your fellow companions in the room, obviously. Probably don't need to say that every time because you're gonna sense that every time unless you're not with them. And the simia on the ground does, like you get the, actually, can you roll for, can you roll for instinct for me? Just wanna see how much you. - That is a 15 with fear. - Okay. So you get the sense that there was something magical about this creature potentially when it was alive. Maybe it could, it isn't like anything the simia is wearing or anything like that, but there was just some kind of magic that you can sense the residue of since it died. You also do get a sense that just to kind of sense around you, you do get the sense that there is more magic past the door that's ahead of you. Not the door that you came from. The minotaur is still pounding on, but ahead of you. You can sense just the slightest bit of magic through the door. - But it kind of follows that feeling just towards the door. - Okay. - Try to use it as like a compass. - Okay. - Like waving a hand left and right. - Okay. So you make your way to the door. It's very, very easy to follow that sense because the closer you get to the door, the stronger that sense is. You kind of lean your ear or your head up against the door and that's the strongest feeling that you've had of magic. Like I said, there's very little remnants left on the Sumea that was wrapped up in a sheet, but there is something on the other side of the store. - Does it feel similar to the magic on the Sumea? What is it? - It's a different sense. It's a different sense of magic. - Cool. - Svethlanda not really knowing like what else is going on. She was by the door when this all happened and they discovered she saw Toko move to the other side of the room looking crestfallen and just went towards him and knowing that the minotaur is coming, she's just like, it's okay, it's okay. I'm here for you and like tries to usher him like towards the other side of the room. - Okay. The pounding continues. Like these are very sturdy walls. - Or like towards this way. She's trying to-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - These are-- - Yeah, she actually goes. - These are very sturdy walls, but this is also a very sturdy minotaur. So you don't get the sense that, I mean, the crack that you see in the wall is very, very slim. So it's not like you are in, you're in as much of a rush as you feel like you should be knowing a minotaur could break through a wall, I guess I'll say. You don't think it's going to happen right now though. - Ariel and Pazu are hanging out near the wall, hoping that the next minotaur charge will not encompass them. - Okay. - When it breaks through. - All right. - But, you know, it's like, what? Is that another door? What's over there? Is it locked? Can we get through it? I don't think we should stay here. - Okay. - I agree. Toko, are you okay to keep going? What happened? - The purple. You see it's the same as mine. - And she glances over, seeing for the first time that, you know, what was uncovered. It's you? Is there two of you? - There are more apparently, and it's, I don't have a very happy story, a very happy past. And I suspected that this was what was happening, that he was involved in this. - Who is he? - Just the personification of evil. Just took me in and did all sorts of experiments and tortured me, changed me, abused me, punished me, until I was able to escape. - My goodness, I'm so sorry, Toko. Are you okay? - I will be. - Once I end him, which is what I should have done. - Once you end him? - Once I end him, once I kill him, once my blade, tastes his blood. - Wait, he's not the one that's there already dead? He's somebody-- - No, this was a friend. - Oh, I see. - This is a victim. This is a victim of something, someone terrible. - Toko, I'm so sorry, but I am here with you and I will help you avenge your friend. But we must go-- - Thank you, President Blana. - We cannot avenge your friend if we are dead by the Minotaur. So I think we need to get going and we should discuss this more later. - Toko moves over to the friend and with his blade, he kind of takes a little bit of the fur, kind of tucks it away, like very, very gently in his side pouch and puts his hand on body for like a moment. And like whispers something and says, okay, let's go. - Voga, as they're having this conversation, the sense of magic on the other side of the door grows stronger and you get the feeling as the Minotaur keeps pounding that it may be getting something's attention on the other side of the store. That's your impression from the presence of the magic that you feel. - Hyla reaches out and puts a hand awkwardly on Toko's shoulder and says, she may be wrong. You might be able to avenge beyond death. I know several stories of ghosts, inspectors doing such a thing. So if at first you don't succeed, keep trying. - Voga reaches towards the door handle but it kind of stops hesitantly when she feels the other presence getting stronger. She looks back to the cracked wall and she's like, and she's in like a kind of dilemma. Which way is worse? She just, she decides magic, I know this. And she decides, she tries the door handle. - Door is unlocked. - She kind of stumbles forward with the door. - As you stumble into the room, you see a room that your first impression is a room where the scent of death, like the feces, the urine, the blood, the gore, all of that scent hits you like a wave as you open the door and just a quick scan of the room. You see why? There's a dismembered corpses on tables. There's saws, there's blades, there's all kinds of things. And also there are currently three people who because of the pounding on the door seem to be, I guess on the wall past where this door was, seem to be looking your direction. Two of them wear brown robes and one of them wields a staff. - Bo's face kind of drops, knows what's in there. She kind of, she stumbles back slightly. - Okay. - Maz who had followed right behind, kind of I guess, Bogha stumbles directly into Maz. Try is catching her, glancing in and seeing, you know, directly ahead of one of the, I guess this person with a, looks like a long knife. And glances back towards the group and says, you know, I think we may have found what we're looking for. - Would you like to do anything or would you like to have them act? - Do they obviously seem like they're ready for an attack, right? Like, do you see any symbols of the jagged knife on them? - You don't see any clearly marked symbols now. - I mean, Maz flaps her, actually, no. Maz actually just kind of, as Bogha had stumbled into Maz, she kind of takes him, kind of, you know, shoves him aside, not like in a forceful way, but to, you know, get him out of her way so she could, you know, hop right in through the door. - Okay, just be, just to make sure we're right, Bogha, she, her. - She her, sorry. - Yeah, you're good, you're good, you're good. It's been a while. - Yeah, goes right through and, - Okay. - Yeah, and it kind of just looks around, trying to take it in, I guess, 'cause there's a lot going on. She's actually kind of taken aback by the both scent and the sights, 'cause it's pretty gruesome. - As you push through the door, you see the one with the staff kind of wave the staff around and all of a sudden a, kind of a cloud of darkness wraps around the one in the robe closest to you. You don't know what it does, but you do see that kind of cloud form around it, or around them. - I think Svetlana moving up into the direction of the other two and seeing this atrocity of dismembered corpses and things, and knowing that Toko had just told her his story about being experimented on and things like that, she immediately thinks there's something abysmal going on right here. And so she's just writing herself to attack. She isn't going to talk this one out. And she throws her acts at the first robed figure there. I believe that's the one that's shot up in the darkness. - Correct, yep. - So she throws that to strike an enemy in close range. - That is a, oh no, 18 with hope. - Okay, take a hope. - So is that a hit? - I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were waiting for me. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I did say hit. - I was like, wait a second, I was like, there's a hope. I was like, what happened today? - My fault, sorry, I was reading some abilities there and I got sidetracked. - So that is 2d10 per four. - Do I recognize anyone underrun? - As you peer through, make an instinct roll for me, actually. - Instinct. - That was six damage by the way. - Six damage, okay. - That was a 17 with hope. - Okay, take a hope. You look around the room and your eyes scan each face individually and none of them look like you were never in this room. So none of these people look familiar. - Okay. - And as, but Lana, as your axe flings out, the darkness that was around this cult member kind of breaks almost like glass and your axe comes back and you catch it and whatever was around them is no longer there. Whatever spell was cast, you have broken. - A Maz notices the shattering kind of spell and immediately runs right up into close range with that same figure pulls out both short swords and goes for a slash along the right side of the person's torso kind of opposite how they're holding their knife. - Okay, go ahead and roll for attack. - And I got a 12 damage. - Okay. - 12 with fear. - All right, take a fear. Well, actually I take a fear. What am I saying? I don't know how to play. - I'll take one if you want. - It's been a while. As your blade goes to slash across this robed figure quicker than you would have expected the knife that they were holding and it looks like a, it's not a typical fighting knife. It's already dripping in blood. And you get the sense that before you were in this room, this knife may have been used on some of the bodies that were on the tables and the knife kind of flashes quicker than you'd expect and blocks the sword slash that you attempted to take. And this character doesn't take the hit, blocks it instead. In response, you all of a sudden see that same knife raised, you see two others in robes converge on you and they all raise their knives almost like eerily similar in the same motion. Like it is like a, if you were outside of this, it would be freaky how exactly in sync they are as if they're being moved all at once at the same time. And they all attempt to stab you with their blades. All three of them attempt to stab you with their blades at once. And they miss. - Oh no. - Very badly. - All three. - Very badly. They all. - That's that D20 life, baby. - That was a one. I rolled a one. So realistically they all stab each other and it's a, they all just maybe due to the synchronization of their motion and just the fact that you have experienced combat before they all swing at once, which means you can just dodge all of them at once. It is a simple process of just kind of sidestepping. It almost feels too easy as you get out of the way, but you are still currently locked into combat with three of these round robed knife wielding people. - And then I'll just quickly take another now swipe back at the first one that I engaged with, directly ahead of me going for a overhead motion, trying to slice them sort of like diagonally, I guess across right the shoulder. - Okay. So you're swiping at the one that you initially tried to engage with before the other two descended on you? - Yes. - Okay. Sounds good. Go ahead and make another attack. - Did he just say he was swiping right? - Yes. - Just, okay. - Always, it is an 11 with hope. - Okay. You swipe again. - Miss again. - Somehow you'd think that when you were swinging your blade, even if you missed one, you would hit another one 'cause they're all so close to you. They all duck at the same time, directly below your blade. And seeing this happen, the mage, wizard, whatever it happens to be, you don't know yet. The one with the staff is going to attack you past these robed creatures and is going to use shadow shackles. Going to cast shadow shackles on you. And I'm going to spend a fear to do that. And what that will allow me to do is, thankfully none of your allies are close to you, but you look down and you see from the ground these chains made of smoke rising and they wrap around your arms. They wrap around your arms and begin to kind of pull you down every action against these chains seems to like tighten their hold on you. And you can not currently move. You are temporarily restrained. - Are you done? - Yes. - You keep going. - That's me. - Okay. Ariel seeing maz in distress, weaves between the members of the group in front of the door and rolls into the next room, coming up sort of diagonally behind maz and pulls out her whip. Cause you know, we just carry a whip around and uses a whip crack, which you mark a stress to scatter enemies in melee into close range. So the intent here is to push the enemies back away from maz of it. - Okay. Go ahead and roll that attack. Looks like you add a plus one because of your presence roll. - Okay. That is 18 with fear. - Okay. Do you have a target or are you just trying to make noise? I should ask that. - Well, I imagine the whip crack is, can I, hold on. Where's the, it is like flashing past maz to the one across from me diagonally, but it would push all of them. Yeah. - Okay. And you said that was 18 with fear? - Yes. - And roll damage for me. - Roll damage? - Yeah. One of you have hit an enemy today. That's incredible. - Oh, I know. - That's true. That's true. - 2d6, that's a seven. - All right. As you crack your whip and thankfully maz is being pulled down by the chains and isn't able to like accidentally catch their head in the whip flying over their head. You catch this cult initiate directly across the face. And as you see kind of their neck whip back, they fall over dead and much to your surprise, so does another one. The third one seeing this ducks back, moving away, afraid of the whip. - It's not for everybody. - And you said that was with fear, correct? - It was with fear. - That was with fear. - But as the, I guess, bodies hit the floor, Uriel calls over her shoulder to Boga, hey, you have knowledge of magic, see if you can help maz. Okay, thanks. - Right. I'm not sure. - I think the enemies go next, but because I had fear, but I'll show that out there. - So seeing this and seeing some of his minions fall, he sees what you do and he is going to use, let me see if I can read this, enervating blast on you and you notice the wizard, the mage, whatever you wanna call him, he raises the staff and from the point of the staff, which looks like a jewel of some kind that doesn't quite seem to be touching the staff, it seems to just be rotating slightly above it. A blast of energy comes out and aimed straight at you, Uriel, and I'm gonna roll for that. - How far away is Uriel from me? I think I could probably, I would do the I am your shield ability and rush up and see, 'cause she can probably see the hymn start to move the staff and she rushes over to try to block. - Okay, so Svetlana is going to step in the way. How does I am your shield work? Let me look at this one. - I spend a stress to stand in the way and take the damage instead. I reduce the damage by my strength trait, which is three. But first I'm gonna roll a D6 because of my natural calm to see if I actually take the stress. And I do. - Okay, so you are stepping in the way to take the damage for Uriel and I rolled an 18 to hit. - So that'll be 15, which is my major damage, so. - Wait, wait, that was to hit or the damage roll? - Oh, it hit, sorry, yes, thank you. - And then I need to roll for damage and, ooh, pretty good. That is 10 damage and because it is a, because of the nature of enervating blast, as the damage hits you, your whole body starts to shake and you feel the pain not just physically, but you feel it deeper than physically and you also mark a stress on taking the damage. That was 10 damage if I did not say that. - I actually don't take the stress because my natural calm as a furberg calms me and I understand this is just magic. This is not reality. And I will take one HP since I reduced the damage by three to seven, which is my minor threshold, or below my minor threshold. So I just take one HP. - All right. The seeing this happening, the knife wielding cult initiated initiate is gonna rush back to Maz, seeing Maz restrained by these kind of ghostly chains and is going to attempt to stab you again, seeing a moment of weakness or a moment of opportunity. And that is a 14 to hit you Maz. - Yeah, 14 definitely hits. - Okay. 14. - Ariel has danger since. Once per short rest, mark a stress, make an adversary re-roll and attack against you or an ally within very close range. - That's good. - That is now-- - He's like, I finally got a roll, come on. - That is now an 18. - Oh. - Oh. - So product can help. - Yep, good try, good try, good try, still hits. - All right, you take five damage from the knife. You feel the knife, it's not a very well-calculated swing. Like this was meant to be more in sequence with others. Just imagine the stabbing that was happening earlier where they all missed, they're all meant to stab at once. And so it kind of catches you in the shoulder and you feel the tip of the knife go in to your shoulder. And then-- - Go ahead. - Yeah, now I was gonna say then, I'll mark a stress as I take the hit in my shoulder. 'Cause it says I can still do actions while restrained, correct? Would you consider my retaliation an action or is that something I can't do? - You can do that, yes, that is fine. - Okay, so then a mask pulled down sort of wiggles one arm up just enough to jab a piece of the knife towards the person's, the cultist's side to get a stab right in the torso within close range. - And that's just an automatic hit, right? Because it's retaliation? - Yeah, it says it's a deal weapon damage to the creature at half proficiency rounded up. I'm not sure what that means, I'll be honest. - You just roll, your proficiency is 2d8. You have two proficiency for your weapon. So you'd normally roll 2d8 plus four. This time you're just gonna roll 1d8 plus four. - One d8, oh, 'cause this is right there. So one, which one? I always mix up the d8. The d8's, sorry. - D8 is kinda-- - This guy, right? - Yes, yep. - All right, so it's just 1d8 plus four on top of that. - Correct. - So it's three plus four, so seven. - Immediately upon retaliating, your blade carves straight through, and the cult member collapses to the ground. - Oh, nice. I'm sorry, how much damage did I take? - Five damage. - So that would be one HP, I'll mark. - Yes, okay. - 'Cause that's my minor threshold, yeah. - And then as you are all in the middle of this combat, you hear a loud sound of a wall crumbling down. - Ah, crap. (laughing) - And the minotaur has now broken through the wall. - Oh, baby. - Towards you. - And I'm still restrained, correct? - You are still restrained. - Yeah, okay. - In the kind of the pause of the moment, Hilo kind of glances around in the front. He's heard the sound behind, but can't see 'cause he's now through the door. And kind of points to the guy with the staff and says, "I bet you thought this would be going better for you." He's using his troublemaker spell to taunt that target, and I get to do a presence roll against them. - Okay. - Ooh, which is a 17 with fear. - Okay, I will take a fear. What does troublemaker do? - If that succeeded, I now roll two D4s. - Okay. Feel free to roll. - And deal that much stress, the highest value from the D4s does deal that much stress to the target. - Okay. You have-- - And the highest is-- - Was a success, so you are good to roll. - Okay, the highest is a two. - Okay, so two stress? - Yes. - All righty. The wizard, you see, you're right. The wizard definitely thought that this fight would be going better, and it takes a moment of, or I guess they take a moment of kind of pain, and then they center themselves again and immediately send out a blast of magic from their staff at you and attempt to retaliate. And unless you have a very low, and miss it, no, no, no, wait, that's 11, that's an 11 to hit. - I use my prayer dice to pray to reduce the hit. Can I do that? - Prayer dice to reduce the hit? Me. - To aid yourself or your ally within far range, you can use the spent dice value to reduce any income damage, add to any roll result after the roll. Oh, so it's only for damage, sorry. - It's only for damage, yeah. - Go ahead. But you could use your hope die or your rally die, right? - That would be-- - That's how it adds to stuff. - Didn't roll anything. - Yeah, I didn't roll. - So what kind of a thing is he doing? - This is a blast of magic damage just from his staff. - Okay. - And it is going to, that was an 11, so that hits. And, exactly the same roll last time I rolled. This is a, it is 10 magic damage and a blast of energy out of the staff at you. - What's your threshold, your minor threshold, Hilo? - Six. - I will expend four of my prayer die to reduce the damage to six. - Okay. - Is that, does it have to be below six? - Yeah, but I can use an armor slot, right? To reduce it to that additional point. - You can use any method you would like to reduce things. How much is your armor slot? - My armor's three, is that right? - Correct. - So technically, I could reduce it by three and you could reduce it by? - Three? - I think two would do it. - 'Cause I only have-- - Two. - Oh, two? - 10, yeah. - Okay. I'll use two then. - You're just using the number two, not two of your dice, right, 'cause you had a one, two, and a three. - Right, the one that's two. - All right, so you mark one HP and the wizard also backs up to get some more distance between you. You can tell that Hilo's troublemaker words got to him and a little smile forms on his face. And he says, "If you think I'm bad, "wait till you see what's behind you." And backs up. And the minotaur who has broken through the wall moves closer, very slow, lumbering walk. You've got a wizard ahead of you. You've got a minotaur charging behind you, to be clear, not using the charge attack because that would be ridiculous. What would you like to do? - Toca wants to jump towards the minotaur. - Okay. - And attack him. - Okay. How are you gonna attack? Give me a description, what are you doing? - I really hope he says-- - What are, interface, like, yeah. I wanna, let me see what I have. Let me see what I have. I wanna grab my short sword. And I wanna run, right? I wanna run. And I wanna jump. And like, turn that around, like down. And I wanna go ahead and like, look from the air and like-- - Oh, so we're doing like a jumping stab at its head? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Okay, I love that. - Or you could-- - Or general, this kind of thing. - Trying to boop, boop the minotaur with the sword. That's what I think's happening. - There you go. - Boop this new-- - Well, that might be the outcome. We're about to find out, right? - All right, sounds good. Go ahead and roll for that attack. I mean, for a Simeon, a run and a jump across a room is absolutely easy enough to do. You're very nimble and agile. So let's see if that hits. - See. - Please, please. Shit, that's a 15 with hope. - 15 with hope. All right, with a beautiful arcing motion, you fly forward across the room and you bring the blade down directly into the kind of chest plate armor that the minotaur is wearing and your blade-- (mimics blade whirring) screeches down the armor and the minotaur doesn't look phased. - Oh. As I hear the clink of the tip of my longsword on the ground and I land, I look up and I say, fuck. - You see the minotaur kind of look down at you. - Eloquent as always. - You see the minotaur look down at you and just, a puff of air comes out of each nostril and it lowers its head to attempt to gore you with its horns. I need to roll though, because that's how this game works. Oh, oh, oh. - Don't. - Let me check. - What? Easy. - As the minotaur is like feeling very confident because of what just happened. Like you just stabbed and no effect. And it kind of like, the puff of air is a taunt. This is how it's handled other creatures before and it bends down and you're a nimble, Simia. You're not gonna be taken down that easily and you just jump over, put a foot on the center of its head right between the horns, back flip off. You guys are still squaring up. No one has taken any damage. The wizard is going to step back further. This is in the other room, step back further. Those of you in that room might notice that there's a door on the opposite side of the room and the wizard seems to be moving towards that. - Mass struggle against the restraints and tries to pull herself free, seeing what happens. - You can absolutely-- - I don't remember. - Okay. - Can someone remind me how movement works? How far we can run, I mean. - There's basically, movement is essentially, the grid on this is not precise. It is essentially like melee, very close, close. Like you just kind of go outward. And so like right now from where you guys are, the wizard would be considered far if you have any abilities that work at far distance, that sort of thing. - Well, I was more thinking of like, how far can we get to get close, right? If we were to run by this person towards that guy. - You're looking to run to them, okay. - Yeah, if I'm like my movement speed. - When you're not in-- - And I guess, and I'm not seeing it. - You might have to run like an agility roll for sprinting. - Right, essentially, if you wanna move farther than close, you'll need to do an agility roll. So for-- - Can I still struggle out of this thing while he's doing that? - Yes, you can. - And can I help, Matt? - There's two ways to get out of being this restraint. This is not super, this is more like rules than it is role playing. But you can either spend a strength, or sorry, roll a strength roll, or spend two hope to get out of your restraints. - So Maz, hearing the kind of ruckus behind her and the crashing of the wall, realizes that things are going from good to bad very quickly. Maz, therefore, flaps her wings, summons, trying to summon all the strength, thinking of the danger that they're in and struggles against the restraints, and got a 13 with fear, but plus two, so 15 with fear. - And Svetlana, you said you were attempting to help. Can you describe how you're helping? - Well, I was thinking I could use the back end of my axe and try to smash the chains. - And so go ahead and take advantage on that roll with Svetlana's help. So add, is that D6? That's D6, right? Could I also use my experience or not because it's not my roll? - You can't use an experience on someone else's, or at least on this roll. So go ahead. - That gave me a plus five on top of that, so now it's a 20 with fear. - That's a 20 with fear, Lana. That was good, that was really good. - So with Svetlana's help, you are able to like, you pull one arm and you see the kind of ghostly, ethereal, smoke-based chain snap, and then with Svetlana's help, pull the other arm. That one snaps as well. You are no longer restrained. 'Cause you rolled with fear, the wizard is going to use that opportunity to take another step and, actually, I'm gonna go not quite through the door. The wizard is at the door, kinda, kinda panic fiddling with the handle. They believed that these hooded creature, well, they thought it was going to be safer in this room, I guess, I don't wanna tell you their motivations. - Ethereal can, what's it called? The deft maneuvers, Ethereal has deft maneuvers, and can Marcus stress to move anywhere within far range without making a roll to get there. - Okay, sounds good. - So Ethereal is going to move to the wizard. Only Svetlana is on top of me, and I can't move my, my character. - Sorry. - There you go. - Well, well. - Oh my. - Let's talk more about that, everybody. - That's the rest of the- - That's the rest of the- - This is the claps of their wings and swords. - Sorry, man. - Tell me more. - All right, so Ethereal crosses the room, very top right corner of that. - There you are. - Very top right corner. And the Ethereal, through just some nimble footwork, leaping off a table, kinda narrowly avoiding the fire that's in the center of the room to not get burned. Maybe like one foot squishing into the, one of the bodies on top of the table makes it over to the wizard, and the wizard looks startled. Was not expecting someone to clear that sort of distance that quickly. - I don't know. (mumbling) My instinct is to try to restrain the wizard, but I don't have anything really related to that. I mean, I think I'm carrying. - I have some rope. - You also just picked up manacles in the last room, Svetlana. (laughing) - Yeah, I was gonna say, if you don't have an action just yet, I can do a charge action to get over to where you are, and I do have stuff to restrain. So if you wanna do that, but you could also just fight him. - I could attack, but I'm afraid based on how easily the dagger wielding weirdos were defeated, I will kill him. - Gotcha, okay. Well, I guess that's true. - What can I do to stop him from escaping? - I mean, you could try to attack and knock him out, right? Rather than trying for a fatal blow. - Make a threat. - A lot of options. - A lot of options. - Do you need help Yariel? - Yes. - Okay. Svetlana will use her charge action to move from very far range into melee range. Oh, I guess I have to succeed on an agility roll first. Let me roll that. - I got a 18 with hope. - This isn't difficult terrain, so take a hope and you're all the way over there. - Okay. And then I will deal 1d12 physical damage just with the intention to not kill him. I'm just like pushing him into the wall, basically. So that's 1d12. - Oh, wait, wait, wait, sorry. Is that an attack then? Oh, oh, oh, oh. Okay, you still succeed. Sorry, go ahead. Yep, you said eight. - I also have to mark a stress. So I'm gonna roll my natural calm to see. Yes, I mark a stress. - Okay. - And then I'm just doing 1d12. So that's four damage and I'm pushing him into the wall. And I don't know if I have another action, but I could just be pushing him and say, like Ariel, get the manacles out of my pack. - All right. - So I'm holding him. - Could you roll, if since you're doing something back to back, could you roll a strength to attempt to restrain him? Sounds like what you were attempting to do is hold him fast. - Grapple, yeah. - Yeah. - That is 18 plus three, so 21. - All right, this is a-- - Fear though. - Okay, this is a small man in terms of physical strength. So you easily pin him to the wall and he looks like he was not expecting to have this encounter. He looked eyes wide, mouth agape. He's scared. He's very scared. - Okay, Ariel pulls the manacles out of Svetlana's bag and moves forward to restrain the pinned wizard. - Okay, well pinned, I don't really think you need to roll to manacle someone who is currently unable to move, so. - All right. - Make sure his hands are behind his back. - Unnoted, so. Put the manacles around his wrists behind his back. - Okay, as you do, his staff clatters to the floor 'cause he can't hold it while you're doing that. - And from chest height or whatever I am to this small man 'cause I'm smaller, I'm gonna loom with my hands on my hips and tell him not to try anything funny. - He looks down at the ground, looks back up at you. It's not really that much of a difference in terms of height, but all right. He looks a little defeated. - Okay. Meanwhile, do you go now? 'Cause Svetlana rolled with fear. I'll let you guys keep going. You're on a roll. - All right, Pazu, seeing Minitar barreling down on friends and allies, leaps into the fray, literally, literally leaping with claws extended to attack the Minitar. - Okay, so from across the room, Toko, I imagine, sees it coming and kind of lowers his shoulder and Pazu jumps off, claws extended towards the Minitar. - Yeah, of course. - Toko, if you're okay with that, obviously. - Yep, 100%. - Just trying to add some flavor while we roll. - That's a 17 with hope. - Take a hope and that is a hit. - Okay, and then... (dramatic music) Okay, so it's 2d6 for physical damage. I got eight and then do I add my agility to that? Uses your proficiency. - I think 2d6 is your proficiency. 2d, the fact that you have your active weapons is too proficiency, I think is what that is. Agility is you'd add to your attack roll is my understanding. - Well, do I add it to Pazu's attack roll? - You already hit, so you don't need to add it to your... - Oh, okay, I see. Okay, well, that was eight damage. - All right. The claws from Pazu kind of catch in the Minitar's skin and Pazu slides down the creature's body, claws dragging up a bloody line down its skin and Pazu kind of releases and hops back. The Minitar looks angry, madder maybe than you've ever seen it. Maybe as it was charging down the hallway, it noticed another Minitar. That had encountered you? - No. - But if none of you act shortly, the Minitar will. - Oh, well, in that case, I'm gonna walk forward to, this is close-ish range, right? - Yeah, it's close. - And Cass' arcane barrage. - Ooh, that sounds fun, what's that? - Once per short rest, he's in action to spend any number of hope and shoot magical projectiles to automatically strike an enemy within close range. - Ooh, okay. - Roll a 1d6 equal to the hope I spent and do that much magic damage. I'm going to spend, I'm trying to see how many hope I need for something else here, hold on a second, yeah. - I can also give you hope back. - Oh, that's true. I will go ahead and spend three hope then. - Okay, so 3d6. - You want one hope back or three hope back, Hylum? - I only, I was thinking just one hope, honestly. - Okay, yeah, I'll get that one back to you. - Ooh, that is 13 damage. - All right, can you tell me a little bit about the arcane barrage that comes flying to it? Is there anything special? - Sure, so what he does, when Hylum casts a spell, he actually takes a little metal card from a pouch and slides it into his arm and you hear these minor chords, like a music box coming out. And it just does the three chords in succession in this case 'cause he spent three hope. (hums) And he kind of points in that direction and these blue silver projectiles kind of just launch from his hand towards the Minotaur. - The Minotaur, oh, go ahead. - And I don't know where they hit. - As the attacks kind of seek to the Minotaur, you see the first one kind of like stagger its right shoulder, the second one stagger its left shoulder, then the third one pushes the Minotaur entirely back one step just because of three direct blows like that. And then it kind of huffs and attempts to, because it got knocked back to the back foot and that's not a thing that it's used to, it is going to charge through Toko and, it's gonna charge through Toko and Pazu and attempts to just reposition. It doesn't like having been pushed back by this magic attack. And it's going to attempt to charge through. See if I roll anything good. (chuckles) - I can never tell if that's a good laugh or a bad laugh until it's just right. - I was just thinking the same thing. I was like, I can go either way. - It pushes with its right foot, pushes again. It charges right through, but because Toko and Pazu are so agile, both of them just step to the side and the Minotaur ends up kind of crashing into this far wall past you and turns to face the lot of you angrier than before. - Boga reacting to this, she tries to bind the creature's shadow to the ground. - To the ground, needs a shadow bind. - Love that. Not for my creature necessarily, but just conceptually. - We love it for your creature, honestly. - We're seeing, and I'm gonna spend three hoped double lot score. - Wow. - I know. - You guys have some great, crazy abilities for level two. (laughs) - Ben's working. - You're good? - So I got 15 with hope. - Okay, 15 with hope after the double? - That's double my hope die. - Oh, okay, got it, okay, got it. All right, so with a 15 with hope, you see the, what I'm picturing is like almost little like hands come up from the ground to try to grab the shadow of the Minotaur. Unfortunately, they cannot get purchase on the Minotaur and the Minotaur kind of shakes it off. It doesn't seem to be affected by the spell. - The bow just kind of like frustrated, seeing it not work. - Maz looks south and seeing Boga kind of like hearing, you know, charging, stumbling, not knowing exactly, but assuming that something horrible is happening down there. And then looks up towards the, where she saw Uriel and Svetlana rush over towards this wizard and Maz, you know, thinks to help her friends down below, but starts to run over towards the wizard, just really rather infuriated at the restraint that was put on her earlier. - Okay. - And can I close that gap or is that too far of a gap to close, do I need to roll? - That'd be agility roll to travel across this whole room. It's just a big room. - Okay, now, so I'm actually just trying to add a little bit of a Maz flaps her wings, flies directly over the fire pit, hops on the table, continues to jump around using Bayrat acrobat. - Okay. - And I use a hope for that, correct? - Correct. - Correct, all right, so then it's a 10, 13, so 16 with fear as Maz continues to try to leap over to land over by the wizard and the rest of her companions. - All right, you make it over to the wizard and you notice that on your way, you notice that the wizard is attempting to break out of the shackles, the manacles behind their back. I'm gonna roll to see if that's successful. It is absolutely not successful. So the wizard does not succeed and you make it over successfully. - Maz then sees that the situation is entirely under control but bit irrationally, still takes out a short sword, presses it directly to the wizard and demands, doesn't actually say anything, really, just kinda puts her right up to his throat and you can see in Maz's eyes that she's just about ready to slit his throat just because. - All right, the wizard does not move due to the blade. The minotaur, however, is getting increasingly frustrated and in the minotaur's mind, the first creature that really tried to mess with it in this scenario was the simia and the minotaur moves up and attempts to gore Toko again, lowers its horns and charges. - Can Toko try to react? - Do you have something that lets you react? - No. - Hmm, fair enough, fair enough. That is a 20 to hit. - Shit, hit the hits. - All right, the minotaur uses the huge horns punching straight through your armor and because of the sharpness of the horns, reducing damage with armor is only half successful on this attack, so I'm going to roll for damage. There's 21 damage. - He says, hoo hoo hoo hoo. - And as it kinda like gets you with its horn and it almost like lifts you off the ground, like with the horn embedded through your armor and it kinda shakes and then because of that action, you fall off the horn but you do take 21 points of damage unless you reduce that. - Oh, that's a... - Question for the GM. Can I still reduce damage if I'm in a different room like with the prairie dye? - Hmm, 'cause it doesn't say anything. Well, it says you can give it to any PSA in range but it doesn't say what the range is. - Oh, within far range. - I don't think you'd be able to notice that this is happening through another, through a wall. - I think we're in, yeah. Dang. - That seems very far, not just far. - Yeah. - I like the idea. - Yeah. - So that is-- - I just needed to think it out. - That is unless you reduce it in some way, Toko, that is three HP it looks like. - Did Toko make a sound when he got gored? Like what I have heard? - There was a lot of, ugh, ugh. - Okay. I think at this point I know Toko's voice and so I will just start heading back this way and knowing I'll just be like, "Matt, you've got this and as our resident healer, "I would just start moving back this way." - That's good. No one would like to go, I can go again. - Oh, I just didn't know. - I wouldn't recommend it. - Did Toko just eat in the three HP? - Yeah, I was waiting to see what was going on with-- - Yeah, I ate the three HP. I'd like to try and attack if possible. - Absolutely, you just got gored. - I'll, yeah, I'll swing like, I'll stand up as much as I can and swing my sword from the ground like sparks. It sparks as I try to lift it up and slash the Minotaur. The Minotaur is like front side or whatever it is that I can hit with it. - Absolutely. - Let's see, please, please, please back it. 17 with fear. - That hits. - That hits, fuck yeah. Go for it. - Roll for damage, it looks like you're rolling 2d8 plus seven. - Jesus Christ, that's a nine. - Nine, okay, you can also look at your Warrior's Hope feature if you would like. - Yes, yes, I'll, yes. - Okay. - So this is 2d8, let's see. - For people listening, Warrior's Hope is a hope feature for Warriors that allows them to spend three hope to re-roll any number of damage dice. - I got a 12, so 12 plus seven is 19. - Holy crap, that was a great re-roll, jeez. - Yeah. - All right, so you said 19? - Yes, sir. - You deal a absolutely gory blow to the Minotaur in return for taking a horn straight through the stomach, through your armor, the rage that's inside of you allows you to slash a huge gaping wound into the Minotaur and it's not dead, but it definitely is, it's hurt. - Bogus is gonna try close a little more distance to get a very close range. - Okay. - And she's going to use Reign of Blades. - Okay. - Spending a hope. So she, well, she kinda, she swirls the cloak around her and like conjures these like flying like knives. - Okay. - And she sends him at the back of the beast. - Okay. - And that is a, so that's a 14 with fear, does that hit? - That unfortunately does not hit. You see the blades fly by the Minotaur and the Minotaur turns with a snort to look at you. - Damn, damn, damn. - This big Minotaur has pretty beefy armor when it comes to taking damage. - What I-- - It's just kinda disbelief. - Would I be able to use the charge action if I'm not going in a straight line? - I don't see a reason, I don't have to be in a straight line. - Okay, I think, you know, Svetlana is really worried about Toko hearing the grunts from the other room and she heard like slashing sounds, thinking it could have been Toko not realizing that he slashed back at the Minotaur. So she is gonna charge into this room and attempt an agility roll. - Okay. - And that is, that was a three. - 14 plus, oh, zero. 14 with hope. - Okay, yeah, I mean, it's-- - For agility. - It's running through a door essentially, so it's a pretty low DC on the agility roll. - Okay. - So. - Okay. And she will deal 1d12. Oh, I also need to mark a stress, so I'm gonna do my natural calm roll. - Okay. - And I do have to mark the stress. - Okay. - Okay, so 1d12. And that is 10 damage to the Minotaur. So she is like frantically running, just axe in hand, and as soon as she sees him, the axe just flies on her hand and attempts to hit him. Actually, it does hit him, I don't think it, I think the agility roll is still me. - Correct, yes. So you run into the room and the Minotaur, who was about to charge this rivet, who just tried to send some blades towards it, gets kind of knocked back again, like this the Minotaur, it's a big, big creature, and it's not used to being knocked around so much by such small creatures, and it looks startled, and it turns its attention from the rivet to the fur bulb. - You're saying it's not used to being bullied? - Ah, yeah, yeah. Because of Boga's role to attempt to cast Rain of Blades, being a miss, the Minotaur who was initially going to attack Boga actually repositions and aims for Fettlana, just kind of a swipe attack, it's more of like, it was planning to go with its horns again, but it had to recalculate in the last second and just kind of swipes with one of its big, big hands to attempt to knock you off balance. That is a 21 to hit. - That hit? - I guess what I meant, sorry, apparently he has a battle ax, I probably should have read the full description. We'll say that was with the battle ax, you know what, we'll say it wasn't with the battle ax, because I didn't say it, so. That is a horrible, that's okay, that's, yes, go ahead. - Can I roll in the attack of opportunity on this guy as well? - For attempting to move, is that what you're attempting? - 'Cause he moved away from melee range, right? - Sure, yeah, he still hits Fettlana and that was 15 damage, Fettlana, but because he moved out of your range to attempt to attack Spettlana, then yes, you can absolutely take an attack of opportunity. - See if that 18 to hit with hope. - Oh, absolutely hits. - I took two armor lines. - 16. - Oh, actually, hold on, what is your option? Would you like to keep them from moving, deal damage or move with them? Those are your options. - Ooh, actually keep them from moving, sorry, if that's okay. - So Spettlana, you will not take that damage because as you are attempting, as that axe is swinging towards you, Toko essentially just reaches out and pulls the minotaur back towards him, stopping him from that action. And so you see that swipe just go right in front of your face and the attack just whizzes right by you. - What was that action that allowed him to do that? - Attack of opportunity. - Attack of opportunity. - It's a class feature on warrior. - That's nice. - And so the minotaur is getting pulled in so many different directions. And I want you to picture the minotaur kind of like looking everywhere, trying to like a bit of a bull in a, in a, in a Gynoshop, this was the joke. No, the bull is trying to like, the minotaur is looking around, not sure who to attack, but the deeper its wounds get and the more you guys kind of lead it around, the more frustrated that's getting. - Understandable. - Maz, now with the, you know, blade to the throat of this wizard, just pushes it the tiniest bit more to make him bleed and then just stops and stares at him. - Okay, can you just, just to see if the wizard bleeds, can you roll for attack with your blade? - Do I add anything to my roll? Do I add my strength? - It should be in your character sheet. It should say short sword plus four agility or your second short-- - Short sword plus four agility, sorry. So it'd be whatever I roll plus four. - Correct. - So it'd be 16 with hope plus four, so 20 with hope. - Right, you successfully make him bleed. (laughs) - That's it. - Are you looking to do roll for damage or are you just looking to just draw blood? - Just draw blood, just intimidate him. - I won't mark any HP, but he swallows and his Adam's apple runs up against the blade and you feel it through the blade. - Yeah, does that mark a stress maybe? - I guess we're gonna have to roll to intimidate if you're attempting to do that, would you like to-- - Yeah, that's really, I guess the fundamental goal. Yeah, it's just-- - Okay, I didn't realize that was your goal. So that would be a presence, presence roll. - That's not gonna go nearly as well. 16 with fear, actually a ball of 17 with fear. We got a plus one on presence. - The wizard looks terrified. - Perfect. - If the room already did not smell like feces, you might've gotten an extra whiff. (laughing) - Yeah. - All right. - Ariel, is it fear? You back to you? - I'll let you go, go ahead. - Okay, Ariel reaches out to put a hand on Maz's arm and says, "Patience, we want information." And then sensing that Pazu is still in danger in the other room, commands Pazu to attack again. That is with Pazu's experience of judge me by my size, do you? So the command, the spell cast roll to use the hope, I think if I'm reading this right, is 20 with fear. - Okay, 20 with fear, that's a hit. That's a hit on the Minotaur. - So that uses one of my hope and then Pazu feels like the Minotaur attacked other people because he overlooked Pazu's ferocity. Just because Svetlana and Toko are taller, characters more visible from the Minotaur's height. Pazu would like to reinforce that that was a poor choice on the Minotaur's part. And leaps onto the Minotaur's back, aiming straight for the neck. - Okay, go ahead and-- - So this is-- - Yeah, you already hit, right? So that was-- - Yeah. - That's roll for damage. - Okay, that's damage is a seven plus three from the experience, so 10. - All right, the Minotaur takes the damage, Pazu is up on its neck and the Minotaur is going to attempt to grapple Pazu, like reach back and grab Pazu and lift him off and throw him across the room. To get this cat off of him. - I think touching very size to you may be one of my favorite experiences now. (Lauren laughs) - Pazu is too wily. Pazu can't be grabbed, it's just got those claws dug in. It's like when you have an itch back there and the Minotaur is trying to get it and just cannot reach Pazu. And I need to spend that to attempt to fail to do anything. - And then as Uriel put her hand on Maz's, Maz thinks back to the time that they've spent together, it's like suddenly snapping out of a trance almost of seeing red at this wizard, gets a flash of hurting her toe, gets a flash of Padre's potatoes, smells delicious Padre's potatoes, even somehow through the stench, and then relaxes and withdraws the blade slightly from the wizard's throat. - The wizard takes a deep breath, realizing that the danger's not gone, but maybe a little bit lessened. - Hylo is never happy to see the cat in danger and wants to help out. So he just literally like tries to stab this Minotaur. - All right, give me a roll. Looks like a presence roll to stab with your-- - It is a presence roll. Oh my, that's a 20 and it's a two 10s. - Nice. - Nice. - Holy crit. - Oh, he's so sick. - Crit. - Clear stress, take a hope. And is that a, man, we haven't done this in a while. Is that a double dice, is that what it is? Deals extra damage. No, no, it's start with the full value of your damage dice. And then you, so your attack, man, this has been so long. Your attack is 2d8, right? So you deal immediately, you deal 16, and then you also roll and add that to 16. Is that what everybody's understanding? - I honestly don't, I've never gotten a hit like this. I have no idea. - All right, fair enough. All right. - Usually it's Michaela getting those rolls. - Yeah, usually it's Michaela who just keeps rolling dice and I just go, wow, what a big number. (laughing) - Find it now just to make sure. - That's what I see, I see. If your attack rolls with critical success, it deals extra damage. Start with the full value of your damage dice, then make a damage roll plus modifiers, adding that to the value. - So there's no modifiers on the damage roll, but I did roll a 10, so it's 26 damage with a quick stab. - Hylo and kind of your analytical robot, or your clank, I guess I should say, your clank mind, you pinpoint exactly the point where if you remember earlier when Toko did that, swipe up with the blade, you see the point that the blade first connected with the Minotaur. And you take your sword or your rapier, is that right? And you find that point and your blade goes directly through all the way to the other side of the Minotaur. And if you were on the other side of the Minotaur, you would see Pazu release its claws, balance on the blade for a moment, and then hop down to the ground. And when you pull your blade back out, nothing happens for a moment. And then the Minotaur starts to fall forward. - So I'm gonna step back. - The Minotaur hits the ground, everything shakes. - You have successfully slain the Minotaur. God, that's a giant X in Roll 20, holy cow. - I rush over to Toko and spend the second to be like, are you okay? Where did he hurt you? And like place my hands on him to heal a hit point. - Hello, Salutes, Salutes Pazu before putting away his weapon. - Toko kind of lifts his armor, like his chest armor, which is like a little bit dented. And he shows just like, it didn't pierce necessarily, but it's like there's like a bruise on his stomach, right? Or did it pierce? - Oh, it- - It did pierce. - It lifted you up, yeah. So it, you're bleeding. - Yeah, yeah, okay, well, then there's a big, I guess a red stain and like the purple fur. - So Svetlana will put her arm on your fur. There'll be a brief like flash of light and you will still have bruising and things around. She's only able to heal one hit point, but you will no longer have the deep laceration. That was there previously. And I spend two hope to do that. - Yeah, Toko like breathes a sigh of relief. It says, "Oof, thank you." I had enough holes in my body. - But did you have any chickpeas? Sorry, sorry, wait, wait. - Hey, you're not done. - Hey, got him. - This was a furious moment. - I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. - It was and now we're good. - Maz then glances towards Uriel, sort of waiting to see if Uriel is going to ask any questions as Maz was literally on the cusp of murdering this person in just cold blood just because, you know, kind of hesitating for a moment while still, you know, making it sure the wizard knows that, you know, he's still very much in danger. - Uriel still with hands on hips, short nudges the wizard with the toe of her boot. And what is going on down here? What are you doing? Who are you? - The wizard kind of looks at you. With a little bit of kind of shock and just like, I was not supposed to have to fight anyone. That was not my role. That is not what my magic is for. Doesn't give you any other answer outside of that. I try to intimidate him into giving us one. - I'm as noticing the questioning didn't go maybe as far as we would want. I'm just takes the short sword and just slowly starts to poke it into the wizard's thigh. - Okay, you've already succeeded on a intimidation role. And he says, he gassed, he gassed. That's my name. It is egos. Please do not let the wing into one stab me again. - I can't make any promises, but if you'll answer some questions, I'll see what I can do. - I have answered your questions so far, please. - What are you doing down here? - What am I doing down here? I am looking to discover the secrets of this dungeon. - Meanwhile, you hear Toko, as you're trying to interview this guy, Toko kind of hears a conversation and like stomps over versus this guy. - Go like, here, I'll just go like the Asway and then I'll-- - Oh, yeah, I see. - Hyla looks from Toko to the dead minotaur, very confused, certain that he was gonna be looting this corpse. - Yeah, no, there's something else at play here. Toko lifts the wizard up in the air with like both of his hands, like very angrily and asks, where did the other Simea's body come from? What happened? Who do you work for? - He gassed, looks confused. - Simea, what? And he genuinely looks like he does not know what you're talking about. What Simea, we only have these bodies that we are given to explore. - The body in the other room, he shakes it. The body in the other room. - The body-- - He's losing it a little bit. - The body in the other room, the body in the other room. What do you mean? - There was a body in the other room, right? - Yeah, yeah. - What do you mean, what do I mean? Like, can I drag him out to the other room to show him the body? - Sure. - In a very like unfriendly manner. - Okay, what do you-- - I put him down. - Okay. - But I, that I grabbed in front of him to lift him, to drag him. - Okay, so you're dragging him by like the front of his cloak? - Yeah. - Okay. - Yeah. He's trying to get up, but like he can't really like stand up 'cause I keep dragging him forward faster than-- - Okay, let me know where you want me to move him. I'll move him back to the-- - Yeah, just back to where the body is. - You're dragging him. - Over by me here. - Yeah. - Okay. As you drag him this way, he takes a look at the Minotaur and he looks genuinely baffled at this giant corpse on the ground, but then like you kind of like forcefully turn his head towards the Simeon on the ground and he gassed, looks from the corpse to you, to the corpse to you and says, I have not, I have not seen this before. Do you know him? Who do you work for? - Who do I, how do I tell you who I work for? - What is his name? - I do not say his name. - Toko turns to the rest of the party and says, it's him. It's him. - Who? The man who experimented on you? - Yes. He puts the guy down or he lets him go, I guess. - The wizard is kind of like physically shaking as you put him down. Just for disclosure with everybody's like intimidation rules and stuff, like don't get the feeling that he's withholding anything from you on purpose. He is attempting to be as truthful as he can be. And the truth in this situation is that they do not say his name. - How do you get out of here? I say to the wizard. - You use the doors to exit. - Which doors? - He kind of points with his head towards the giant broken wall that leads back where you came from. The exit is through there. - There's only one exit. - There's only one exit that I know of. I was not made aware that this would be a violent position. When I was sent down here, I was told that with my history of the anatomy of living creatures and my history with magic that I was told that with my history of living creatures and my history with magic, that I would be able to uncover. They didn't tell me what I was looking for, just for answers. There is something special about this place. And so these bodies that you see on my tables, I didn't kill them. They were delivered to me already dead. And I was asked to see what was unique about them. And I realized that this looks ghoulish and that's charging in. You must believe that I am some kind of monster, but what more, what could I do? What could I do when it comes to if someone bad, tells you to do something at the risk of your life and the life of people you know, what more do you do but do it? - You kill him. - You kill him. You cannot kill him. - Why not? - Can you kill God? Can you kill the forces of nature itself? And then the wizard kind of looks at the Minotaur and then back up at you, Svetlana, and says, well, maybe you can, but I am a little more than a parlor magician. I know a few things to strike fear and keep people away from me. And that worked for no time against you. You expect me to fight a God? - I expect you to try, not just lay down and dismember bodies. Or this person that you cannot even speak his name. - The wizard kind of like pushes the Minotaur with a toe and says, take a look at what happens to those who try. - He turned somebody into this Minotaur, is what you're saying? - He looks confused. I'm saying that this Minotaur tried against you and you are no God and it lies at your feet. - There is something to be said for fighting for a cause that gives one more power than those who fight against it. I fight for the good of core and for the good of people. And that is where my strength comes from. You, the Minotaur, fight for this person. But it is not just about you. Don't you see? - What good am I to others, Ed? - Ilo speaks up and says, my father always told me I could be a good example or I could be a horrible warning. You chose poorly. - The wizard kind of hangs his head. I know, but what choice is there but poorly? What choice is there but poorly? You don't know what they would take from me. You don't know what they've already taken from me. - Then tell us. - Do you have a family? - Yes, duh. - So did I. - And they took your family from you? - They did. - What did they do to them? - They will not tell me until I tell them what they want to know, but they don't tell me what they want me to tell them. So I work with my friends my helpers to attempt to find things in corpses and it is brutality and it is, I don't sleep, I can't eat. I know that this is no position for anyone to be in, but I don't know what other choice I had. If I knew that the people that I loved were gone, then maybe I could go too, but if there's a chance that they're alive, then what choice do I have but to attempt to save them? What would you do? - I have a choice now. - What choice do I have now? The winged one put his blade to my throat. What kind of choice is a blade to the throat? Receive it or what? You tell me. - I'm giving you a choice. - I'm giving you a choice. - I'm giving you the choice now. Her blade is no longer on your throat, is it? - What choice are you giving me? - Do you want to help us find your family and fight the people who forced you to do this atrocious work here in this dungeon? The people who are holding your family and who will likely not give them back regardless of what you find here. Will you help us fight them? - If I help you fight them, then they are as good as dead anyway. - You've seen what we've done here. You've seen the power that being good has. Do you not believe that we could make a difference, that we could save your family? - I believe that what you've done is step on a few ants and make that believe, and that made you believe that you think you can face an army. Even this minotaur is nothing compared to what is ahead of you. And I ask you, if you care about any of these people you came in with, follow my direction and walk back out the door that you came in. - Ariel wants to know if that's the airlock door, if the one that we came in is the only exit. - The wizard kind of looks, the airlock, if you are in here, you came in through the exit. If there is another way, doesn't matter how many blades you put to me, I will not know it. I have not left since they put me down here. I don't know that I will ever leave, regardless of what you do. All I ask is you understand that there's not always a choice, and then do with me what you will from there. - Okay, Ariel being suspicious of people in general doesn't think that the wizard is going to be an ally. But if we could persuade the wizard to show us the door that he knows about, we can agree to leave him here to make his way doing whatever he does. - So you want him to show you the exit that he's talking about? - Yes. - All right, go ahead and roll for, no, sorry, presence to attempt to persuade him to do so. - That's an 11 with hope. - Okay. I mean, we don't have to move characters and roll 20 if you don't want to, but he takes you back to the airlocked door that you guys have been calling it. He takes you through, rather than through the door that you came through, he takes you through the rubble of the wall. And then like, kind of... - Before we leave, could I look at the bodies just to see if there's anything distinguishing them that they look different than some of my other friends here and stuff? Do I notice anything like a magical aura? And I would probably grab Boga as well because I know she has experience with this and I'd be like, what were they looking for? - So you're looking to check these three bodies appear to see if there's anything unique about them? You don't see anything... Roll for instinct for me, please. - Can I assist with that? - Sure, add a D6. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you're looking for, please? - Yes, 12 plus one, 13. Actually, I could also... Well, yeah. I'm looking for anything that marks these people as different than people I've seen around Skyland, than my friends that are here. Anything with like a slight magical aura or like symbols, runes, things that I associate with magic or dark arts, things like that. - Okay, what was your role? I'm sorry, once more. - 13 with fear. - Okay, what you find on each of them is they all look very ashen. Like they all look like they're not doing well, like even before they were dead, they all looked sickly, I guess might be the right word. Other than that, you find black robes with hoods. Each of them has a blade that if you kind of look around the room, you can compare to what's kind of on the table that they were using for dissection, I guess we could say, and they look very similar. - I was talking about the bodies on the tables. I'm so sorry. - Yeah, sorry, I highlighted these three. Okay. - I didn't see the highlight, I'm so sorry. - I didn't see the highlight. - Awkward. - They look like bodies, like different creatures. Like some of them are, they're all kind of human. They all look very emaciated and like they haven't seen sun in a long time. And there's nothing really distinguishing, they're mostly naked, they kind of have like little bits of clothing covering, maybe they're more private parts, but like that's just, they're just emaciated bodies that are on stages of disassembly. - Do I get the sense that they were being experimented on? Like, do they have odd, like musculature or metal, you know, attachments anywhere, anything that like looks like they had been part of experiments? - You don't see anything like that? - Okay. - So just to answer, go back to Uriel's thing. If you take the wizard, he would show you the airlock door. - There's nothing else in this room that grabs my attention. Like if I do a circle around it, there is still a door over there by Maz. - I mean, Maz is literally taking the skeleton key as you're doing that and just sliding on the door, doing a little. - Did we check and see if it was locked first? - No, no, no, nope, nope, nope. Just put it right in and just in Maz fashion, right? Come on. - Can you roll for Finesse? - I mean, have you met Maz? - In before Maz locks the door. - With Finesse, correct? Or sorry, not with Finesse. Are you Finesse, but plus a D6, right? - Right. - All right, it is a, ooh, that's still not great. 6.0.12 with fear. - Okay, you managed to not lock the door. (laughing) - Perfect, so, and I was like, oh wow. I guess I kind of then jiggle the handle at the same time and then I realized that it's actually already open. So I pull my skeleton key out and just kind of slowly start to creak the door open because that's just how I do. Kind of glance out. - Would you like to make a perception roll? Sorry, that's not called perception. It's definitely instinct. Ignore what I said before. Roll for instinct. - Instinct, baby. That's what I heard. I heard instinct the whole time. Nine with fear. - See a hallway. - See a hallway. - Barely. With a nine, you barely see a hallway. - Svetlana, I see a hallway and not particularly quiet, right? But I'm kind of assuming we just fought two minotaurs. We just killed many number of things. There can't be that much around. So I'm just kind of like assuming that this. The minotaur came just from that direction. So I'm thinking we're okay. - Oh, that hurts. Okay, go ahead. - Mm, mm. - What hurts? - The assumption that we're all okay now. (laughs) - It's up to you what you guys-- - I'm just not feeling that. - It's up to you what you guys do now. - Now, Maz looks over to Svetlana. I was like, you know, I don't see anything out there. It just looks like the hallway. I think we might want to regroup with the rest of our companions though before we move forward one way or the other. - Yes, and I just don't know because the wizard was going towards this door whenever we came in, like he was trying to escape. But if he says that this is a dead end, why was he trying to go this way? - I'm sure there was somebody there he was trying to reach. - Is the wizard able to hear you? - I assumed that him and Uriel were by the door. - Yeah, did we all come back together to the door? - I don't know, did you? I guess is the question. - But we was just trying to see if the magic she felt earlier was, which direction magic she felt earlier was in. - And you're kind of in the center of this like experimentation room? - Yeah. - Okay, you don't get a magical sense from anything in the room with you right now, assuming that the wizard is still in the dead minotaur room, the previous, the anti-chamber. So you said- - I like the dead minotaur room. - Every house needs a dead minotaur room. Like where are you gonna put it otherwise? Anyway, so you don't sense anything in the room. Like there is a very distinct lack of magic. Sorry, that makes it sound like that's something you should explore. I'm just saying there's no magic in the room. - The distinct lack of magic here, might be the decorums, I'm not sure. - It's anti-magic. No, no, that you don't sense the magic. You don't sense the magical presence in this room, but you sense it coming from the room that you had just left. So the magical sense that you were getting previously was that wizard being this far in the experimentation room, you sense something more powerful ahead of you. - So, pass the door that Maz is like cartoonishly staring down into the dark, not seeing anything. - I was about to just go over to this table and just observe, hmm, what could this torture chair be? A relic? - Would you like to sit down on the torture chair and see what happens? - No. - I wouldn't like to sit down on a torture chair. - No. - Yes, please. - You're gonna sit down? Okay, let me see. It doesn't recline, it's not super comfy. - Yeah. - Does it have good lumbar support? - No, it doesn't, it's actually that's-- - Oh, I hate that. - You actually take one D4 lumbar damage. - Bang. - Svetlana is moving back towards Hylo, remembering that he also took quite a bit of damage. And when he kind of made that remark about not all of us are okay, she remembered, maybe he might need some healing as well. So she goes over to him and lays her hands upon his metal shoulder. And a brief spark of light lights up and it kind of floods his body and it heals either one hit point or one stress. - Okay. Ooh, no, hey, look, I'm all better now. - Yay. - Has Boga relayed to us that she saw like a magical presence up ahead? - Nope. - Mascoon just see Boga behind her, just kind of waving her hand around like, (mimics metal detector) - Like a metal detector? - Like a metal detector, yeah. Magic detector. (mimics metal detector) Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit. (laughing) - Amazing. - You're just wandering over to the door as it just bumps into the back of Maz. - The closer you get to the door, the worse the feeling you have is, Boga. As you get right behind Maz, it is almost overwhelming how bad whatever is ahead of you feels. Is it like, can I tell what type of bad it is? It's like a repulsing bad, or is it just dread? - It is, you sense a magic that you have never really encountered before. It is a dark, foreboding, dread is probably a really good word for what you feel. It is pain and anguish and, as close as you can get to taking all of, containing all of the stuff within you without actually taking stress. Like it is, it's a bad fear. - But it kind of stumbles and a tear rolls down her cheek. Like, she just looks kind of paler than a frog would. Maz looking backwards, asks Boga, obviously looking alarmed, "Boga, what's going on?" - Do not go through that door. There is something. It claws around my very being. I don't know what this is. I think that may be exactly the thing that we're looking for, is then whatever is behind or whatever is ahead. And I think that's the secret, it must be that the wizard was referring to that, which he said could not be named. - Then it is a very dangerous secret indeed. This is, the power I feel is unique. It's got a signature. It's just, feels like a prolonged heart attack. - Maz looks towards then Hilo and Svetlana nearby and says, "You know, are you hearing this? Are we ready for this? What are we doing? Do we go forward or do we go back?" - That is the question, isn't it? Oftentimes the place where you need to go is the place that you dread. And I worry that the next step of our journey is gonna be facing harder things than we've ever faced before. Certainly that's what we're looking for, is the leader of this whole thing, you know, the secret as you mentioned, and none of that is gonna be easy. But I also know that's not the way out of this dungeon, or at least I don't think so. So we are getting ourself farther into this quest. And how do you feel about that, Boga? Are you still in this? - She kind of shrinks back into a cape thinking. She's like, "Whatever this is, I must know." - Curiosity. - That is the word, yes. - And if we don't know, and if we don't go in, we'll never know what is causing that feeling for you. - Uriel, we sense a dark presence looming up ahead in this chamber, back where the wizard was. There is some sort of-- - The other direction? - Yeah, some sort of foreboding, magical sense that Boga is getting. And we're curious if more secrets might be revealed if we went this direction. - We should definitely check it out. - I think-- - Are we all in this? - And with everything Toko has said, I think it is important for us to find out what may be at the end of this, given the suffering he seems to have had that would only be right for him and for Amara and the others of Skyland to find out what's at the bottom of this. - Lead the way then. - Oh, wait a second. Speaking of Toko, is he in the dead Minotaur room? - He is in the dead Minotaur room. - Did he lose the Minotaur? - I'm struggling to-- - No. - No. - I'm just checking case I missed it. - As Flaps her wings begins to run across, jumping on the table, stumbling as she goes over, stubbing her toe. And then continues along, moving into the dead Minotaur room and finding Toko with the wizard. Still here? As looks over the situation and then glances towards Toko and it looks towards the wizard then Toko. And then Toko, I think we're ready to get to the bottom, what's really been happening. And we wanna do it for Skyland, but also for you. Toko kind of looks up, still kind of in a bit of a, his mind's still in a bit of a disarray. And he says, lead the way. - What shall we do with the wizard? - Well, I told him if he showed me the exit, that I would let him go. - Okay. - All right, well. And then, oh, and as then Maz begins to walk back towards the not dead Minotaur room, she glances back towards the Minotaur and takes a look to see, are there any bags or pocketzies or anything worth-- - Oh, lutable AF. - Lutable AF. So Maz has a bubble speech, a think a thought bubble pops up above Maz and says, lutable AF. - Maz walks over towards the Minotaur to see what she can find. - Okay, go ahead and make a, what is that? That's a instinct roll. - 13 with hope. - Right, 13 with hope. You find a bag of gold. And you find a, let me just make sure I'm getting the right term here, hold on just a second. - Why does it add gold to my hand? Like a handful of gold? - Not bag, that's the next step up from. - Oh, no, cool. - And you find a minor health potion. - Oh, that's a good point, I forgot I had those. - Do I just, do I click active? Is that what I do? - Yeah. - Okay. - Yeah, make sure you add it to your equipment. Especially the minor health potion. I think you already have one, so give yourself a, add a second one. - Two. - Yeah, manage equipment, and then you should be able to add another one. - I don't see a way to add two. - Can't you just do manage equipment at the top of your equipment page and then? - It's an identity, yeah. - Oh, yeah, obviously I don't know how this works. - It's okay. - That's why we're learning. - Boom, all right, there we go, baby, all right. - Mas, shirts don't walk away, but go ahead. - As you leave, the wizard says, "Are you going to leave me shackled?" - I think Ariel said she set him free. - What, no, I thought I'd let him go. I didn't say anything about the manacles. - You have the key for the manacles, Vettlana, so I don't. - I thought she took it out. I think she just took the manacles, didn't she? - I did, I did just take the manacles. - Before we let him go, should we keep his staff? - I was gonna say, does anybody want the magic stick over here on the ground? - Thank you. - Hi, hello. - Hi, Ed. - One of you two? - It doesn't look like my kind of staff. - Take stick, yes. - Final mistake. - When you have more time to invest, I mean, you can spend the time to investigate now, but unless you would like to spend a lot of time, we can go over it another time. - The, Mazz glances towards the wizard and looks towards Toca, says, "What, Toco? What do you think?" - Toco. - Toco, sorry, Toco, what do you think? For the manacles. - You mean leaving the wizard like shackled? - Yeah, should we leave him shackled? - Just leave him alone. These are powers beyond him. Just let him be, let him go. - So leave him shackled and let him go? - No, just take him off the shackles and let him go. - Okay, well, let's go get the key, or I'll go get the key, Mazz works her way all the way back to the not minotaur room, not dead minotaur room. - Experiment room. - Experiment room. Does anybody have a key to unmanacle the wizard? - Did we want to rest first before we unshackled him? Or just let him go now? I saw some things in the chat about waiting till a wrist. - You think we should rest or no? I have three stress and one HP slot marked. - I don't have too much. I could certainly keep watch if people want to rest. I have only one HP, one stress. Got some hope. - Well, I also have potions I could use for immediate. - No, but I could watch everybody while we, if folks want to take a short rest. I'm in good spirits and in good, you know, I'm not wounded or hurt in any significant way. - I can clear to stress from people with my inspirational words. - Oh, yes, that would be great. I would be good with just that. I think one HP is not too bad, but very stressed. I was getting kind of worried. - Stress. - 'Cause if you hit, if you max out on stress, you permanently lose an HP, correct? - No, the next stress you take, you just mark an HP. Same, once you, you don't permanently. - And you become vulnerable. - Yeah, true. - I think it used to be HP and they changed that. - I certainly would love some inspirational words from, to prepare for the next leg of our journey. And then we can decide what to do with the manacled wizard. - Yeah, let's, let's take five. - Is that a short rest option or is that a? - I think we were just, if you are going to do inspirational words, I think that's what we are hoping for. - Yeah, so yeah, I'll do that. And Hylum basically kind of again, uses the recap of the story of, of just reminding everyone how we got here and what we're doing and that it seems like it's even more dire, impactful than we thought at the beginning. And since the wizards right there, kind of uses the example of our courage and fortitude so far to kind of point people in making the right choice and being a good example. - Indeed, Hylum, thank you. I needed that. - It's been a tough journey. - So encouraged. - Yeah. - Wait, are we using inspirational words? 'Cause I think that's just a one. - Oh, it's one each. I have had two tokens. I use both of those two for two stress. - Okay. - From only one person, I think is two, the other way that works. - Yeah, it's okay. I just want to make sure. - Yeah. - I don't know if Uriel was just joking about feeling inspired, but I just want to make sure we're. - The short rest, right? Not a long rest? - It's not even a rest. - We weren't resting. - Okay. - If you need to rest, that is something you can discuss, but just. - I think we should be okay for now. - Okay. - Yeah, I think the consensus was, we're not horrible off and we might be okay. - Now let me keep moving. - Sure. - Did you guys, did you get-- - Nobody else wants to go first? - Unchain the wizard before you left or is he still just? - I suppose if I have to. - Right. - Yes, I will. - As you unshackle him, he says, he, thank you, I know I do not deserve your grace, but if-- - We are not unmoved by your situation. - If I can ask one thing. - Ta? - Be cautious going forward if you choose. There is much pain ahead of you. There is loss and I don't wish that on anyone, even a group that just attempted to take my life, almost. So. - Do you mean metaphorically moving forward or strictly speaking through the store, pain lies ahead? - I mean both. - Good to know. I heard you ask why I would run to this store if it wasn't an exit and I just thought it was important to tell you that when the option is a blade or a door, you choose a door, but when you don't have the option between a blade or a door and you choose a door, please know what you are walking through and into and you chose to spare me, so I thought it best to spare you by saying don't go that way. Go back, go back to your lives, go anywhere that isn't where you are headed. ( - We are not unmoved by your situation and I feel empathy for you for losing your family wherever they are. We do this not just for us and not just for our people but for you and for your family and we have to move forward. There is no choice. - The wizard asks, may I see my staff for a moment? I promise I do not seek to harm you. Just give me a moment to help. - Do we sense that he's being honest? - Roll for instinct. - 17 plus one, 18 with hope. - Take a hope? You think that he's being honest? You believe to the best of your understanding about this person you don't really know? - Boga, can I see the staff for a moment? Boga's eyes dart between Svetlana and the wizard quickly. She rarely takes staff and gives it to Svetlana. - Just for a moment, she hands it back to the wizard. - He takes the staff and kind of swirls it and the same darkness that you saw earlier coming from his staff kind of shoots out and wraps around Toko and Toko, you have Shroud of the Fallen now, which is-- - I have what? - Shroud of the Fallen. You are now wrapped in a Shroud of Protection and you have resistance to all damage. - That's temporary, right? - That is temporary, yes. It can be broken. But there is a dark cloud around you forming above your wounds. Like you have a pretty big hole in your armor from the Minotaur and he can tell that you're hurt. And he just wraps you in this temporary armor. - I kind of grumble, thank you, at him. - He hands the staff back to Svetlana and says, "I don't know how long it will last or if it will help, but it is the very least that I can do." - Bossiva, my people, thank you. And I hand it back to Boga. Shall we move forward? And I take a step forward towards the door. - Yeah, meanwhile, Pazu and Ariel pass through the door or creeping down the hallway, skulking. - Skulking, got it. Love it, love that for you. So far in the hallway, this is, it's similar to the ones that you saw before with the cells, but something is different about the, on the right side of this hallway, you see doors into more heavily contained cells. And the last ones, last cells that you saw look like they were kind of just holding. Your assumption on the last cells is that they were holding prisoners 'cause they were filled with like fecal matter. Like they weren't clean. These are filled with blood and viscera and all sorts of matter of human. Like just from looking at the, sorry, I guess not necessarily human, all types of creatures, just from looking through these doors, you get the sense that whatever experiments were being done in the last room, this is where the people were held before or during or after or some combination, the floors, the walls, and some cells, even the ceiling, it's all lined with blood. - Okay, moving right along. Not interested in checking out ceiling blood. I don't know if anybody else is. - I'm good right here. - Are you moving in the hallway with them, Toko? Or are you, you were still in the dead minotaur room. So I move- - Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. - Okay. - I'm following along slowly with the aerial matching your pace. - I'm still attempting to be stealthy moving down here. And I think I spy another door. - Okay. Boga, the further down the hallway you move, the worse that you feel. As you get closer and closer to the end of the hallway, it's an effort to keep moving each step forward. You are like- - I'm using the wizard's staff as like a crutch. - Yes, you are walking deliberately at this point and it's interesting from your perception in the back that whatever you're feeling, other people don't seem to be feeling because for you it is such an oppressive force that's pushing down on you that each step, you're not sure if will be the last one you make this direction. - And I was just like, what passes for sweat? It's like beating on top of her skin. She's like, she stumbles at some point and kind of cries out in the pained, pained like whale. - Svetlana goes back to help Boga, offers an arm or even offers to carry her on her back if needed. - I cannot, I think my legs won't obey. - Can I? And I ask if I can pick her up. - Please. - Can I pick you up? Okay. I pick her up and I have her on my back and we keep moving forward. - Boga just kind of slumped at this point. She's like, whatever I'm feeling, it gets worse. First down his corridor, feels like I'm just running uphill. Even my mind, something's actively trying to stop. No, it's not gonna stop me. - Are you going to be okay? Can we keep going? I don't want you hurt, Boga. - Keep going. Must, I must try and know what this is. - Can we have a signal that if it gets to be too hard and you need me to take you back, what is the signal? (groaning) - I will, I will drop my, my Chris, my orb, my Chris Lord. I will have it in my hand and if I collapse anytime, you need to get me out of here. - Okay. - And I will pay special attention to Boga and her crystal orb, make sure that she's still holding it at all times and just keep moving forward slowly with her on my back. - Okay. - I assume we eventually meet up with the others at the store. - End of the hallway, there is, you still have the cells on the right. They are like all the other ones lined with blood, bones and then on the left, there is a single door and Boga, whatever you were sensing is on the other side of that door. There is something very powerful. - Can we check for traps? - Sorry. - Like on the door? - Yeah. - Sure. Absolutely, that's a instinct roll. - So 22 with hope. - 22 with hope, the door does not appear to be trapped. - Okay. Is it locked? - Do you like to-- - What way to find out? - Do you like to turn the handle to find out? - Go for it, Mas. Mas likes more than trying to open a door, Mas, though this time, gently tries the handle. - Okay, can you roll a finesse roll for me please to see if you are noticed? - Two sevens, I got my first crit since we've played Daggerheart. - That's incredible. Congratulations, take a hope, clear stress. - Woo! (laughing) - The door is unlocked and you check that quietly. - So quietly. - Would you like to open the door? - No, Mas looks back at the group, kind of looking at each one individually, not getting a sense for any magic, but feeling like this has been a long journey together and that they've grown close through the trip, looking at Uriel, knowing our long past experiences together, my newfound friendship with Hilo, my growing admiration for Toko and Svetlana and then notice Boga looking extremely distressed, almost physically struggling. And then look towards the door, look towards the group, and then asks quietly, are we ready? Or whatever's on the other side of this door. - Are we doing it anyway? - Hilo shakes his head kind of like he's not really ready, but he points forward. - Mas slowly starts to push open the door. - All right, because of your fantastic stealth roll, I will not, I will let you see what is inside without anybody noticing you, but you push-- - I can't see anything anyhow, just FYI, I see nothing, I just see like black. - Oh, that's funny. Okay, well, let me see if I can-- - I see like two squares. - Yeah, is that good? - Oh, Hilo's just rolling right in. - Give me a second. - I was just trying to see if I could see, I don't know if I went into the room, 'cause like-- - No, I see nothing. Even if I take one step into the room, I see like just two or three squares around me. - I might have to adjust something, I might've messed up this room, so my apologies. - That's fine. - But what you see when you open the door is some type of ritual room. In the far back corner glowing, there is sigils on the ground in a pattern, and in the center of those sigils is a fountain that seems to have things flowing like simultaneously up and down. Things are flowing through the fountain in front of this fountain and in front of these sigils is a pedestal with a book on it. And across the room, you see more like corpses that may have been used in some fashion and potentially worst of all, you see, let me see if this actually works. You see worst of all a powerful looking wizard and four specters. - I see that now and the wizard moves, he's animated. - Oh, I put those on the wrong layer. So pretend you didn't see that, hold on a second. Imagine the drama if I had put those lights on the correct layer the first time. - Sure, more drama, more drama. - Okay, anyways, so that's what you see in this room. This is some type of ritual site and at the center of this ritual, kind of like you guys have made a lot of noise over the course of this dungeon. So you had a really great stealth role. So he wasn't like knowing you were coming through the door right there, but they were prepared for someone to eventually make it to this door. The wizard and all of the specters turn to face you. - Do I recognize the wizard? - You do. And as you peer through the door, the wizard gets kind of a crazy looking smile on his face and then turns to the other ones and says, ah, you brought me the Simea, did you? And that unfortunately is where we're going to have to end today. - What? No, you can't stop here. - This is gonna be a great stopping point in the audio series where it's like, oh. It's a cliffhanger. (dramatic music)