The Monster at the End of the Dungeon
#9

The Monster at the End of the Dungeon

[MUSIC] Yeah, I'm feeling a little nervous. I want this one to go well. I want this one to go well. I mean, if it goes like any other battle, somebody named Svetlana is going to go in with an axe and murder everybody in three seconds, And then we're going to go, well, there we go. That's it. Good fight, Gigi. 10 minutes later. Free loot. Free loot. One nice roll. Now you said it. Now that's not going to happen. I feel like you put it out there that I'm going to do that. So I heard you rolling three ones in a row while I was stepped away. So I'm not too worried. I rolled three ones on my paradise. So there it is. Not a deal. Out of four. All right. Let's get this going because people got stuff to get to family and rest. So just a quick note for listeners. Uriel is actually not feeling well. So we're actually going to have her type out what she wants to do in chat. And I'm going to read it to you. That way you guys can experience the whole thing. And that way everyone can play, even if they're not feeling well. This is a big moment in the campaign. We want everybody to be able to play, but we also don't want to aggravate anyone's sickness. A little note. All right. So as we so often start our sessions, we are going to remind you that we are playing dagger heart in what we are describing as campfire style, which is the idea that we can hand off GM back and forth to tell different stories to give give all of us time to GM, that sort of thing. So usually at the start of sessions, we start at the campfire. We are limited on time. So unless somebody in the party has something urgent, they need to bring up on the campfire or at the campfire. We might just skip straight to the recap and jump back into the prison below Skyland. Anybody? No. Okay. The secrets of the dungeon below Skyland have never been closer. Where we last left off, the party had just slayed another Minotaur and some knife wielding cultist, inspired a wizard for interrogation. Upon pressing him for answers and pressing him with the blade of Maz's sword, he told you that whatever he was doing, whatever gruesome activities he participated in with the bodies you find laying around the room, he hadn't actually heard anyone. He was brought into experiments on corpses to look for something that they wouldn't even tell him. On further questioning, he learned that he believed he had no choice to do what he was doing, that they had taken people he had loved to force his hand. Your group showed compassion and asked him to do better, but let him go. Before he left, he told you not to press forward, and as you started to, even against his wishes, Boga began to get the impression that he was right. Her senses attuned to the forces of magic around her told her that there was something something evil, and as you got to the end of the hallway, you found a single door. Opening it revealed to you an altar carved into the floor and scrawled in blood with a fountain in the center overflowing with something. At the front of the altar was a pedestal containing a single book, and all around the room you saw spirits with large swords. The person in the center, though, near the altar stopped Toko in his tracks. As we ended last time, he said, Hmm, you brought the simia, did you? And that's where we pick up now. So the first thing you notice is, you know, Toko for like a sharp but it goes away immediately. his kind of his breath shortens, his ears flatten, and like his tail bristles, and he's just like frozen, as if he's not with you in the moment. All you can hear coming out of Toko is like very whispered panting, the very whispered panting words of no, not again. - There, okay. - The wizard levels his gaze on Toko and says, I didn't think I'd see you again. As you can see, my experiments have progressed since we last met. And the wizard kind of gestures with a grand sweeping gesture to do the room around you as you kind of follow his gesture, you notice that the last room you're in before the last hallway was kind of covered in like bodies and gore and things. Whatever you saw there, this room is worse. There's blood sprayed up the walls, whatever was going on in this room before you arrived, you get the feeling that, I guess the last wizard explained that he was only working with corpses from the blood spraying the stone walls and covering the tables and the floor. You get the feeling that people in here were potentially alive while this was, while whatever was happening. - Just a DM or a GM point. I believe Toko still has the darkness, the shroud of darkness around him, right? - That is correct. - That was cast by the wizard. Mm-hmm. Thank you for the reminder. I also will take Boga off of my shoulders as long as that's okay with her and set her next to me so that, you know, we're not a double target. Yeah. That's fair. Have you considered throwing Boga? Sorry, I haven't been playing too much Marvel Rebels. Svetlana, knowing this is a bad dude, will do her charge ability into the room. Okay. And so I'm going to roll for stress to see if I actually take it. Okay, absolutely. And I will. Okay. So I'll take a stress. Well, actually, before I do that, I'm sorry, I should have rolled for agility because I'm trying to go in and attack the wizard. You're going straight for the wizard? Yeah. So that is a nine plus. Oh, wait, no, agility. Sorry. A nine with hope. Nine with hope. OK. Make sure you take a hope. You charge into the room and just the the sheer. This room is covered in blood and you don't quite get steady footing as you're charging and the wizard just easily side steps out of the way. And I think I wouldn't even make it over there, right? Because it's not succeeding on the agility role to run over there. Yeah. Yeah. So you make it part of the way and lose your footing. And you find yourself kind of closer than ever to the wizard. The wizard kind of looks at you, Cox's head a little bit. And so that's how you want to do it. And the spectral guardian that is next to you, this giant spirit with a sword swings its grave blade at you. You can tell just yeah, go ahead. Just to clarify, for those who are watching this later, Maaz is putting in chat was put in chat there, something that he should probably stay out loud for everybody's benefit. Oh, so so she does charge in with an axe in hand, of course. You've got to. But I failed because we talk about this earlier. And we should have knocked on wood. All right. OK, sorry to interrupt this this way. No, no, no, that's OK. So I rolled a 19 on that. Oh, oh, oh, I'm against against Svetlana's evasion. OK, of seven. Now I need to roll. Damage dice, if I can find it. (sighing) That is 16 points of damage against Svetlana with the grave blade. It's a giant, it's almost like it's not, it looks like flames, but they're blue as the ghost strikes at you. And as you take the damage, you don't just feel it in your body, you feel it in your mind. And so you take 16 points of damage and a stress. - Okay. Oh, 167. Brutal. I will roll for stress, too. Sorry, go ahead. As Toko sees that, he his voice drops even further, like almost to a growl, like as he sees Svetlana being hurt. He says, you took you took everything from me. I should rip you apart. And and and like he gets out of this kind of because his fur kind of stands on that and his closet stand and he lunges. OK, just just in like absolute raw fury. OK, is this towards towards the spirit that hurts that long? OK, absolutely. That is easy enough distance for Toko to travel with his semi agility. So if you could roll for attack against the spectral guardian. Yeah, that's an 11. 11, the your 11 with hope. Make sure you take a hope. The blade that you you have a you have a blade, right? You're swinging a long sword. OK, your blade passes straight through the the spirit and the spirit takes no damage. It almost like separates around your blade and then closes again. And then the spirit looks at you and attacks back this time, not using grave blade because it just used it, but attacks back at you, Toko. An attempt to hit you with the blade and much like you did, the swing goes wide, your simia agility allows you to dodge. And the spirit does not connect with its attack. I rolled a three just to be clear. We approve. Maz noticing who's often one of the bedrocks of the party, you know, slipping on her way in and taking significant damage. The rage of Toko, you know, feels something well up within her. just a sheer, you know, fury, almost sort of like a blackout state of, you know, this is, this is the time where I just need to fight and flaps her wings to leap over to the same. What do you call these things? Wraith? Yeah, Wraith, Spirit Guardian, Spectral Guardian, whatever, whatever you call it. The ghost, the ghost-like figure and as she, you know, kind of wells up her feelings in The side of her becomes unstoppable. - Ooh. - And, you know, it summons, you know, something that doesn't come out of her often, right? And it's often not pretty. And she takes, you know, both swords out and sort of spins around trying to put all of her force into a slash with both of her short swords coming after this spirit. - Sounds great. Go ahead and roll for attack. Oh, never mind. Parable. Parable. Oh my God. Six with fear. So she's, you know, swinging. Let me just make sure I got this right. Sorry. Okay. So yeah, she swings, you know, wide, slipping on, you know, the bloody, you know, floor as well and loses their footing and, you know, does does not make, you know, contact with the spirits, what I'm thinking. No, Toko's blade kind of passed through without doing damage. You are, you're seeing red and as you swing, you just swing too wildly and just completely miss the the spirit. And gathered behind the wizard start to move up on you. If you were paying, go ahead. - Quick question, per GM. 'Cause my, it says short sword plus four agility. Does that mean I should be adding plus four for my agility to this thing? I don't know what that means. - Yes, yeah, you should be adding four to your rolls. - Okay, so then I should have been getting 10 with fear, instead of six with fear, which I'm assuming still isn't hit, but yeah. - Correct, that still misses, but that's good to know. Yes. So on your character sheet, you have next to your weapons, you have two numbers. The first one is what you add to your attack roll. The second one is what you roll for damage. So. So meaning when I roll my duality dice, it'd be my duality dice plus four. Plus four for attack. And then, yeah, you would do. Got it. Yep. All right. So you see these two spirits kind of move in around and past the. the wizard and start to move up on you and anybody who would be watching the wizard, I assume Toko would probably be pretty locked into what the wizard was doing just due to their history. Would notice that just a very slight kind of like minuscule gesture, just a little point with the head from the wizard to show that maybe he is controlling these spirits, or at least commanding them. The two spirit guardians close in on you and just kind of these spirits seem to be surrounding you. Currently, they are not attacking, but they are closing in and the wizard makes eye contact with Toko and says, "Bring me more lambs to slaughter." And play back to the players for that or with that. Ilo kind of, as he did last time, is a little more focused on the guy in the back. And so we'll pawn him with and using his troublemaker spell. OK. And he will say, you know, most sorcerers try to keep their work areas at least a little more tidy. You think you'd have some professional pride? OK. And let's see here. That is a 13. With hope. And this is a presence role. OK, so it's a temp to kind of intimidate. Is that like taunter provoke? Is that right? Taunter provoke. Yes. OK. You see a look of concern wash over the wizards face just for a moment. And then he smiles at you. and it's a really, really wicked looking smile. As your words don't appear to have any effect on the wizard, but he in response is going to using his staff kind of swirl it in the air and cast a bolt of magic at you. An attempt to hit you in response. He's going to say. I don't cower. I did the voice wrong. Hold on. Sorry. I don't cower that easily. And that is. Twenty one to hit. Twenty one to hit. Yeah, that would hit. OK. So I will roll for damage. It is a big burst of magical damage. Let me make sure that's the wrong. Oh, oh. But. So I forgot I could because I thought it was when an ally, but it's when I or an ally make a presence role and fails or succeeds with fear. Okay. I can spin three help to negate that role's consequences. Okay. In terms of this. Yeah. Would that not be a consequence? I mean, a consequence in this case, I don't necessarily, I want to, I want you to be able to use your abilities. So. Realistically, what the consequence would be like, if you roll with fear, like another monster appears, or if you if you miss. In this case, you were attempting to taunt him and he was not or provoke him, I guess, and he was not provoked. OK, OK. So. I was running to see if this was a reaction. This is just what I had done. This was just because you had missed. he was taking a turn rather than like a consequence of you missing. If that makes sense. So it wasn't a consequence. I'm with you. I'm with you. Okay. Just checking. I like the idea though, but in this case, the consequence was I took a fear. So. I'm going to guess you could use it for that, but that seems a little. Yeah. No, no, no, that wouldn't. That's not worthwhile. I if it was a reaction kind of a thing, like he was using a reaction that or a. Counter. I am with you. This was 21 magic damage. Whatever magical burst you saw from the staff with the previous wizard, this is like a giant wavering ball kind of surrounded by almost darkness it looks like. And the ball just bursts when it hits you for 21 damage. How? Um, I think... What's your threshold? 14 is my severe damage threshold. Wow. And I've got a re-armor slot, but it would... How much HP do you currently have marked? I have no HP marked, so... Okay. I could mark 3 HP and just take the damage because Getting that down is not going to be very effective. It's going to take a lot more armor slots. Yeah Yeah, I love just just it's smacked a lot and kind of Crumples for a second before standing back up You see kind of it kind of looks like what the that shrouded armor that toko currently has from You got a spell it kind of looks like that, but this is a darkness that When it hits you instead of kind of wrapping around you it seems to try to suffocate you a little bit and then it does that damage and then it kind of dissipates like mist and The wizard will also take a step back closer towards the altar of which is purpose You still do not know that I'll hand play back to the players at that moment As Kind of walk towards the the wizard Or not walk, but you know kind of storm over that way. Okay, starting to close the gap But leaving it open for somebody else to jump in while she's making her moves. Sounds good If I were to try to go across the room to the book Mm-hmm Could I make that or do I have to do an agility role for that? That's a great question. You are currently just due to the terrain of the room due to that kind of established slippery floor and everything. This is a little bit of difficult terrain. So I would say if you're going to try to move across the room quickly, that would be a thing where I would probably request an agility roll. Yeah. You know, Maz is flapping her wings to fly as she hops across the floor to assist. Okay. I am rolling agility to run across. That's a 15 with hope. Okay. To try to go and grab this book. Okay. With a 15, you can make it to the book. Are you going to attempt to-- And I was going to pick it up and in my one hand and then in the other hand have I will use my experience of I burned with the light of a thousand suns to create like a burning like sun like radiance and flame in this hand. And I would say to the wizard, I don't know that I have the accent, but I would say I have your book. Now call off your specters or it burns. Okay. Sounds like you're going to attempt to intimidate the wizard. So if you could make a presence roll to see if the wizard is intimidated, you have his attention. And Toko react to this in the meantime. Sure. 16. Toko sees what's going on. He turns to the wizard and says, "You always thought you were untouchable, but here you are, standing in front of a girl like a fool." [laughs] The wizard says, "You haven't touched me yet." That's a 16 with fear, but I think I am gonna add probably add my prayer die just to be sure I'm gonna add two of them to make it 18. Okay. All right, an 18 and you see a fear pass across the wizard's eyes, speaking of which, I need to take a fear as you announce that you have his book and he is going to call all his spectral guardians back to attempt to protect the book because you rolled with fear. And I'm going to activate these two spectral guardians. One of them is going to move past Maz to get to you. The other one is going to just have a direct line to you. And both of them are going to attempt to slash you with their sword to protect their master. I don't think this matters, but I forgot to add the experience points onto the roll. So it would have been actually 20 with fear, but I don't think it matters because it succeeded. Sounds good. Sounds good. And sorry to ask another question, but I use a hope right to use an experience. Correct. Or is it to hope one hope to use an experience? Yep. All right, the first Guardian is going to slash you with its flaming blade. And that is. Believe going to hit that is a 14 to hit. That hits. OK, that is a Laming Blade attack. I will roll for damage. Is a terrible role. That is 13 damage as the first one hits you. And as you are taking that damage, The second one sees a moment of opportunity and swings at you with a 15 to hit. That hits as well. As I say, I don't think a 13 is a bad role for damage, just for the record. That one's because I think that hits all of us. Eight. That one's 17. First one is 13 damage. Second one is 17 damage. I got to figure out how I'm going to take this. That's 20 30. Do you continue holding on to the book? Because that might change how these spirits continue to act. Honestly, I was thinking about burning it. So. Well, do it. I don't know if I once I saw them coming towards me, I probably would have burned it, but I don't know if I would have been able to do that in time. Roll roll to your 2D 12 and tell me what the result is. The both the both the both. Great, great, great. A six and a four. So that's 10 with hope. OK, you're a 10. Although what was it? What category was it? It doesn't matter. You're attempting to light a book on fire. Like it's it doesn't have a really high difficulty. Oh, OK. It's a stationary object. So it's not running away. Right. It's like it gets legs. It's a stationary object with no armor, so it's not super difficult. As the spirits slash into you. Your holy flame from core sets the book alight and the pages burn orange and yellow and all the typical colors of fire. But you notice the the smoke coming from the pages is considerably darker than you would expect. It is not just smoke and ash burning away. It is something else. And you hear the wizards say, no. Does, uh, does Boga feel anything from this happening? Boga, I mean, still feels the overwhelming dread of this room. This is a highly magic room. You can feel, you can feel a little bit of a lessening of that dread. It, it seems to reduce slightly, but it also is still there. When I say slightly, I mean very slightly. So like if we're talking like 100% as the book starts to burn page by page, we're talking about 98% dread still. I believe that Uriel is going to share with us something that she would like to do potentially, but you all are welcome to continue engaging. And I will. I was just going to start moving forward a little bit, So he can help out a little better with everybody. And is this this enemy right next to me? Is that in my way? Should I treat it like that? This race? It is between you and the wizard. Yes. Okay. So a quick note. Uriel is going to spend three hope to increase evasion with Rangers hope. And then Uriel would like to ask Boga if she needs an escort to inspect the ritual site. Can you even do you have the strength? I do not have it myself. Like, I cannot... I can't go into that room by myself. Uriel believes that you got this. Oh, Pazoo is gonna kind of like step up and shake his fur a little bit and offer you a ride as a tiny ribbit. You will be able to ride on Pazoo's back if you would like that help to get into the room. a rare privilege. Nice. And Bogey just, Bogey is slowly trying to clamber away onto the back of Pazze. Okay. So we'll go ahead and move Pazze here. How close to, I guess, move where you would like to go on the map? Bogey, and then I'll move Pazze with, as long as that's okay with Uriel, which I assume it is based on what Uriel said. So just move into the room where you would like to be. I am going to go. Going to go just past high low. OK. Go ahead and have. Get to this. Kind of bench. OK. Sounds good. The further into the room you move, the more that the pain that you feel from sensing this magic starts to increase. It starts to feel not just like a weight on your body, but a weight on your soul. It feels like it is dragging you, pulling you, attempting to to wrench something from you. In this room. Um, as what let's how like a yell of pain, Like, ah, as we as we get further in, like there's a sweat beading on a on a like drenching her clothes. If it was keeping cams wet. Um, as who's sort of flying more than than running towards the wizard, as the race steps into her way, she really pulls out both short swords and attempts to stab the wraith that got into her way. But even more so to really stab and actually with pure fury shove the wraith, you know out of out of her way Okay, go ahead and make a roll for attack against the the wraith Good god, man. I on fire Well, she is doing that I just wanted to say this for the audio purposes that when Svetlana took the 30 damage from the wraiths she used three armor slots So it hit her armor quite a bit. And she prayed a little bit, used one of her paradise and still took to HP damage. OK, and you see as the as the book kind of goes up in flames, you hear the wizard, you fool, what have you done years of work and you set it on fire? And then Maz attempts to slash the spirit. Yes. And I'm going to use luck bender to spend three hope to re-roll my terrible role. OK. And I just do and great. Oh, wait, wait for it. Wait for it. Oh, Maz is so pissed. Oh, man, she stabs the shit out of this thing with a crit. Double sixes. Oh, congrats. It is not pretty because she just unleashes all this fury with the friends around her in trouble, seeing folks actually getting hurt. That is one thing that, you know, she cannot stand for. So. I got to look. So as a crit, you take a hope. Yeah, clear of stress. And your damage works like this. You take whatever your maximum prayer dice is, or not paradise, your damage dice. Sorry. So I roll two D eights. So you you 16 is your initial number. You add 16 to the two dice that you actually roll and then add four. That's how much damage you do. So roll your two D eights. So it's 16 plus eight, but that means I'm up to 24. Right. Did you add your? Then I also, then that means 28. And then I have body basher. So, I mean, I'm putting the full force of my body weight into this slash and push. So that means I add my strength trait to that as well. So that's another plus two. So that's 30. 30 damage. And then because I am losing my frigging mind and unstoppable, I add the value of my unstoppable die to my damage total, which is another four. So that brings it up to 34. OK, that is. I think it's that's insane. So as you you see the you see the rage start to. You see the rage in Maz's eyes as you as she attacks and the sword goes into the spirit. And then Maz kind of slashes up, slashes down all while the sword is inside of the spirit. Instantly killing the spirit and by killing, obviously, it's a spirit, but removing it from the battlefield. Oh, man, that felt that was good. That was that was sorry. Very satisfying, very satisfying. Very satisfying. You see the the spirit vanish in a similar cloud of kind of dark, dark smoke. Yeah. That was like incredible attack. That was anything I would say just in the interim. I will spend three hope to reroll a paradise or refresh a paradise. Sorry. OK. And then I would also like to consume one of my minor health potions. Sounds good. So that's a D four of hit points. So that's good. Both of those are easy enough to do while a while a wizard is watching you burn a book. You're just standing there with a book, taking a swig of a. Just I assume there's a cork in it and you pull it off with your teeth and throw it back. Quick blow on it. Is it with getting ones on my paradise? Jeez. All right. Didn't even need to mark any HP slots for that. Spirit card. Yeah. Just a live to death. Just alive to death. Insane. I just the first time I've actually gotten to use Unstoppable. So I was like, let's let's see how this one works. I like how you prepped it and everything is like, I'm going to do this. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, that was pretty cool. Yeah. All right. What happens next? I was going to try to. Sorry. I just said what happens next, but I didn't mean to interrupt you. Go ahead. No, no. Yeah, Toko is going to try to attack the spirit again, like inspired by what he just witnessed. OK, the one closest to you. So kind of in the the entrance to the room. OK. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to try and attack that spirit again. OK, see that's a 21 with hope. Oh, my goodness, 21 with hope absolutely is going to hit. Go ahead and take a hope. And we are hitting it for 16. For 16. Yeah. All right. Jeez. Where was where were you guys at like five five minutes ago? What's going on? And you can see the roles on Demi plane. I'm not lying. Also, we're both like warriors, right? So it's like, yeah, yeah. As you was like frozen the second I go, you know, like it's this is hard for him as you slash at the spirit. It releases a shriek of pain. You definitely did some damage. It's not down, but it definitely did some damage. And as you are watching this, you see the wizard move back further And he attempts to be doing or appears to be attempting something, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. You can see him forming some arcane symbols with his hands and with his staff. Seeing this, Hila moves forward a little bit more, trying to kind of get in between Svetlana and the wizard guy. OK. Since what she's doing seems to be somewhat effective. And then he's going to again try to taunt this guy. And he points to Maz and he points to the wizard and says, you're next. I mean, while Maz at that moment leaps up from just destroying this thing and, you know, flaps her wings to take off right into the air going towards the wizard, you know, and essentially in sync with what Hilo's saying. So is that a group role? For intimidation? I was doing a... I was trying to do the spell. The ability. Yeah, okay. What did you... What did you roll for your troll? I rolled a 13 with fear. Okay. The wizard kind of cocks an eyebrow, which is a thing that I can't do. So imagine Cox and eyebrow and looks at you sees sees maz flying towards him. And takes another step back kind of back against the corner continues to do those those gestures with his hands. You still don't know what they are but continues to to cat attempt to cast some type of spell. Unfortunately, your provoking did not seem to provoke. - No, no, it was the same, it was the same numbers last time, just with a different combo, so. - As Toko sees him cast a spell, he turns to the party, "Don't, don't let him, grab him." - Listen, as she hears this, Fetlana will throw her axe at his hands to try to stop his hands. OK. So she'll use her trying to cut off his hands. And then it's him. That's a very that's very Fetlana, though. You got it. It is really like I'm just going to call this now. What? Oh, that's a crit. Double eight. No. So it's 16 plus 3 so that's 19 plus it's a crit. Okay, you don't if it's a crit you don't need to tell me the role. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Um, so for damage 2d10 plus 4. Okay. So it's 24. Potentially it could be. No, no, I mean because it's a crit, right? Right, it's a crit so you do 20 plus your dice roll plus 4. So my dice roll was 10 plus six of 16. Thirty six plus four. Twenty. Wait, what? Jesus Christ. So you did 24 plus. Twenty four plus your dice is what you want. Oh, OK. So forty, right? Sixteen plus twenty four. Yeah. Yeah. Forty. All right. Our wizard. And she's aiming for his hands. OK. (laughing) Your axe connects solidly, embeds straight into his arm, like deep into the muscle, maybe even up against the bone, and he cries out in pain, "No!" And for a moment, he stops, he appears to stop casting whatever spell he was casting. - Hmm. As you do that though, seeing that their master is being attacked, the spectral guardians all converge on you. And the closest one is going to attempt to use its grave blade to cut you down. That's a natural one. Just a quick side note. Oh. As the axe lands on the wizard, You can notice Toko like wincing and pain as well. Okay. Good to know. Good to know. So the Spectral Guardian attempting to attack you with Grave Blade rolled a natural 20. That definitely hits. Allow me to roll for damage. That means you get special damagey things like we do. Look at that smile. I'm not sure what he means. I don't know. Sorry, Spetlana. That is 20 damage and you must mark a stress. I mean stress. Oh, wait, I got a roll for my stress. Oh, got a six. So I don't have to mark it. There you go. Um, and then 20 damage. Mm hmm. I will use one armor slot to make it. Uh, 16, which is my major damage threshold. Oh, no, I'm gonna. I feel like Svetlana is looking rough. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I guess I'll take two more HP. So I'm not doing well. But. And you notice as Svetlana takes this damage, the wizard seems almost emboldened by your pain and is even with blood pouring down his arm from where your axe when you throw it, right? Okay. - Correct. - Even with the blood pouring down his arm, you can see bone through the hole in his arm that Svetlana put there, but that doesn't stop him from casting these, these runes in the air. Whatever spell he is casting is not complete, however. Boga's trying to look for an indication of what kind of ritual this is. Is that correct, Boga? - Indeed. - Okay. Make a while everybody is fighting. Make a instinct role and because of the chaos of blood and violence going around you, I think it's gonna have to be at disadvantage. - Thanks. - And how do we do disadvantage? (laughing) - I don't know if that's gonna matter. - Is that a crit again? - Yes. Yeah. Amazing. Those of you who are listening to this later, Michael is shaking his head in disbelief right now. That's you guys have gotten how many crits in a row? Three. It wasn't in a row. There was a failed role in the middle. But yeah, three good solid crits as, you know. Y'all are killing me, but I guess I also got a crit. So. Yeah, you know. All right. So you rolled a crit, hope, like a hope, clear stress. And what you can tell from your investigation, it's all a bit muddy while everything is going on and plus the weight on your soul is definitely making it more difficult. But the focus of this ritual site appears to be specifically the fountain. Like I said, from the fountain, there is some type of material that is bubbling up and bubbling over and like spilling off the sides. And the focus of this ritual site seems to be around that. From your knowledge of the arcane, you can tell the shapes on the floor are an attempt to contain what is in the fountain. It's not a this is not a ritual to release something. This is a ritual to contain something. And that's only something you know because you rolled so well. But it is a it is an attempt to contain what is in the fountain. OK. And you will be able to likely tell what is happening with the fountain after a period of time, but in a quick, in the middle of combat glance, that's just really tough. So that just to just to clarify, that'll be something that we'll talk about in a moment. So I mean, combat in a moment, I guess. And mask continues to advance towards the wizard again in the now, you know, blind fury, overstepping the, you know, race that she had utterly destroyed and looks to close, close the distance, flapping her wings, flying in the air, moving to close the gap. Okay. The flying should be easy enough to do. Are you going to attack or are you just closing the distance? Close the distance, leaving it open for somebody else. All right. As you close the distance, the wizard's hand suddenly stops. for a moment, like you guys all feel the atmosphere in the room around you change. It's almost like charged with electricity, but it's still. And you have a second to kind of look around. Before the wizard blinks out of existence. Oh, what happens to the actors? They still look mad. Oh, I thought seen as a wizard life, they would. Well, that makes sense. They might. I mean, as flies forward towards where the wizard was, and I guess she hits air. You attack nothing. The wizard as far as you can tell you bring your sword down to where the wizard just was. There's nothing there. The sword just just slices through perfectly through the air. I rolled really, really well. I wasn't sure how that was going to go, but I I just I definitely just rolled 21. The wizard as far as you can see. It's gone. Hmm. I mean, Maz turns around sort of screaming a bit, you know, where, where did he go? Where did he go? As you're screaming, Toko says, I know exactly where he went. I mean, as the. Sorry. No, I was you guys are good. I was just going to say, if you guys would not like to go, I still have characters that I can use. So. But you started talking before I said it. So go ahead. Go ahead. No, Matt just then starts flying in the opposite direction, you know, a bit in a fury, but also, you know, did did did hear Toko and, you know, certainly once they know more about where this guy went because she's, you know, in a fury, but then flies, starts flying back down towards the other side of the room where in the direction of the race. Sounds good to me. Is the book basically just like Ash now in her hands? You've burned quite a bit of it. There's there's still some some lingering text, but it is. If you can, if you don't put the fire out, the book will be completely gone. OK, I'm not going to put it out. OK. The book is completely gone. I'm just going to go like, oh, no. By the way, Boga, as the wizard blinked out of the area, imagine you you were feeling like a vice grip around your heart. as the wizard blinked out of the area that seems to have released. You still feel the magic in this room, the magic of this ritual site, but you no longer feel like you're going to be strangled by it. Incredible. It seems I'm so close to the two of these specters. I'm going to use, like, string it up on the back of Pazoo And can I twirl around with my cloak and use rain of blades on the two spences that are very close. All right. Feel free to roll. Um, I got a 13th fear. 13 years. But I am going to spend. Oh, no, I can't. No, mind. I have for my year real just to just to give you guys a little bit of fun. Normally, I wouldn't do this, but you guys can help each other with roles. And I haven't seen a lot of that. You're real. Is there a way that Paz you can help with this reign of blades that you could you could give us? Would anybody else like to act while we're resolving that? Just because we have somebody who doesn't currently have a voice. You just have to to wait for some text. - Nice. - Nice. - Nice. Anybody else like to act? - I mean, as flying downwards notices Svetlana looking in absolutely dire straits, then immediately flaps her wings backwards to kind of get like a hard stop landing on the ground and offers her a minor health potion. - Awesome. - I would drink it. - Go ahead and roll for a minor health potion. I believe that's 1d4, is that correct? - Would I roll or would she roll? - She would roll. You got a four? Hey, congrats. Make sure you remove that from your inventory, Mas. - Yeah, I'll do that. - And yeah, so Atlanta, remove the one that you used earlier. - I did, yeah, already. I had two, I have one now. So if, Mas, if you don't have any left, I can give you this one that I have two. - I had two. - Oh, perfect. SMS says, you know, take this and, you know, I guess, be careful. These, these wraiths are, are nothing to be played with. >>Svetlana gasps as she feels the wounds kind of mending and closing in on themselves, because there were so many lacerations on her arms from these grave blades. And she says, "Sink Thank you, Maz. I needed that. All right. So just to kind of go along with Pazu helping, Pazu is going to basically as you're leaping, Boga, Pazu will kind of push up with his haunches to give you more of a jump, assisting you on your reign of blades. And it looks like you get a plus five to your role from that assist. So that would make it a 18 with fear is that correct 18? Yeah, okay that that hits both of the spectral guardians that you are looking to attack one of them is already hurt So go ahead and roll for damage So I'm just trying to yeah good Why is that 2d8? Well, I guess you mean look at something you could Yeah, if you just look at the There's two different types of all there. Yeah, so The 2d8 is if basically if any targets you hit are currently vulnerable Then they take an additional one d8. So you're gonna roll d8 plus two cool, oh I'm saying that wrong. I was reading that wrong. You initially, your proficiency is two. So you're always rolling 2D8 plus two. If they're vulnerable, you add another D8. - That is one day on. - Yeah. So you're going to do 2D8 plus two to hit for each of them. Neither of them are currently vulnerable. So that won't apply. - Cool. That'll be 11. - All right. The Guardian that Toko had previously attacked Shrieks and vanishes in a puff of dark smoke as you slay it The other guardian looks hurts If you can tell those sorts of things bogey you can tell those sorts of things about spirits You're kind of attuned to this world Looks hurts, but is not yet defeated That was with fear So the spirit that you hit after it kind of shrieks as well is going to lash out with you with its sword and attempt strike you back and is going to probably miss based on that roll. Correct. That spirit misses. You are too small, too wily, and it is hurts and cannot properly aim its giant flaming blade at you. And that'll be my attempt. The other spirit closes in around you a little bit more. What it is the players turn. Is there any other sign this is any other like kind of ritual looking objects in this room other than the fountain? Anything I mean see from my there there is like this is clearly a site that was created just for whatever this fountain is. So, I mean, you're kind of getting magic from everywhere in the room. Obviously, it's big focused on the fountain and the ritual surrounding it. But there are like, there's a table that's filled with different like potion ingredients and stuff like that. Those sorts of things. There's a table that has like bowls to mix stuff in like other supplies you would use in rituals. One table just has a corpse that blood seems to be draining out of still in a steady drip into a bowl. Those sorts of things. So the whole room is very magic filled. No books or tomes or anything without liking. You don't see anything in the heat of battle, but We can do a deeper exploration. I mean, you can look now, but I'm not going to say you won't get attacked if you attempt to riffle/rifle through some cabinets. That's for you, Uriel. You rifle through cabinets, you riffle through books. Okay. If you attempt to rifle to riffle, if you attempt to rifle and then find something and then riffle potentially. All right. Anyways, would you like to go or would you like me to go? everybody. Um, so Maz flies down towards Boga in a sort of protective way, seeing that the attempt just to slash her, um, because, you know, Maz knows that, you know, she's, you know, not the physical fighter. Mm-hmm. As you move closer to the spirits, you do, Maz, having kind of have like seeing what But the first spirit was as it disappeared, you notice that they seem to be losing their shape slightly. They seem to be maybe a little less tangible than before. Maybe not tangible might not be the right word because that makes it sound like you can't hit them. They seem to be a little less present in the room than they were before. I mean, taking note of that, Maz, you know, goes to, to defend Boga again and she slashes a straight downward, trying to go from top to bottom with both right, short swords right in front of her. Are you attempting to attack the one that Boga has attacked previously or the other one? Sorry, the, this one? Okay. That is the one that no one has hit so far. Just wasn't a... Oh, sorry. I wanted one that had attacked Boga. Yeah, that's that one. Yep. This one. Closing it on Boga had had been slain. Oh, my God. You're going to think I'm lying, but I'm not. And I just got another crit. I mean, so we can save the math and just it's like, no, I can't. How much how much damage is just your default dice with your sword? Just without adding anything. It's 16. 16. 16. How would you like to kill this spirit, Mas? I mean, just flapping my wings to then actually then in that case, take both swords pointed straight down, driving it from right in the head area of this wraith directly down, pummeling all the way through to the floor so much so that I have to take a knee as the tips of the swords actually, you know, start to penetrate even the stone floor slightly. And then I expect there to be a nice not even like nothing else happens other than just like. And then it's just gone. OK, this one doesn't even get a chance to shriek. Like that's a big thing for spirits is the shrieking. They're really into it. This one, this one doesn't even get a chance as as Maaz carves it apart, protecting Boga. Well, that was I can't believe that happened. That's four crits in like one. That was a like an hour and a half. That was a critical success. If the players still want to go, you still have a chance. So, um, Hilo is actually going to stand back, not move where he's at, but he's going to use his hand crossbow to, uh, shoot at the last remaining one with a 21 with hope. That definitely hits. Take a hope. Also, did I take a hope for the grit? Yeah, you take a hope every time you crit, take a hope, clear stress. OK. That is seven damage. Seven damage. All right. The spirit is is hurt. You connect solidly the arrow. It doesn't really make sense the way that you see it. But the arrow kind of sticks in its neck. And even the even the spirit looks a little bit surprised by it. But it's still standing, standing, floating, still floating, floating. Vertical. Vertical, yes. It is not dead is the thing I'm tempting to convey. I'm not dead yet. As Fetlana is kind of sat down nursing her wounds, she will just place her hand on Hilo's foot and channel her hope and her healing magic into his foot to course up through his body and heal a hit point or stress. So she'll use two hope points to do that. Easy enough to do. How little less stunted Go ahead finish up what you were gonna say. No, that's as the thing how it looks a little better Thanks to the hit point heel as as you all are kind of like Take a deep breath from From the end of that battle. Um, you hear a thumping sound And if I can matter play your characters a little bit you look towards Toko and you see him lie down, lying down on the floor unconscious, breathing very shallowly, but unconscious. I mean, I would rush over as soon as I saw that, but I don't know since I was healing high low if I have time to take that action yet. Heals is one rate still alive. There is still one rate alive. Well, a dead. Yes, there's still one one way. I did. Yes, there's still a rate. There's a rate in the. Alive and yes, alive. And what did you say, Michael, about. The action. Healing doesn't take very long, so I don't see a reason that you couldn't heal and then rush over to Toko. Okay. I will kind of weave in and out of all these people and rush over. I guess I probably have to do an agility roll. That is eight with hope. Eight with hope. Okay. There's a lot less urgency, so I'm not going to make this as high of a difficulty. So you are able to make your way over to Toko. You do put yourself kind of cross paths with the spirit as you do it, but the spirit seems to be focused on the creatures that are currently attacking it. And I have a note here that Uriel is going to guide Pazoo to take Boga closer to the fountain, if Boga would like to do that, and then move closer to confront the last wraith. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, no. Is there anything left of that book at all? Or is it just ash? Ash. Dying. I thought it would stop him. Totally did, right? He didn't kill you. So, Jackpot. Hounding it as a win. What would you like to do, Uriel, with the with the last the last wraith that is in front of you. Also, just in case anybody is listening to this at home, I am taking some liberties with some of the default dagger heart character abilities. So you might see some of these names. I'm using some names, but changing abilities, I guess, is my point. So you might see some things that don't line up with with what's in the in the rule book. That's all. We're just playing for fun, you know, if you guys want me to to met a game it a little bit, technically in the rulebook, the spectral guardians are supposed to be resistant to physical damage. But in this group, that's nearly all of you. So. With level two characters and mostly non-magic users. OK, so Uriel is going to attack the Wraith. That looks like 12 plus two. Isn't that 14? 14 plus agility so that should be an 18 is that correct? I believe Uriel just rolled an 18 with hope to attack the wraith with her broadsword Which is absolutely a hit if you could roll Uriel 2d8 for that hit Hope I'm looking at the 2d8 Okay, two to eight and one plus two that is some tough roles You manage you manage to To do some damage to the wraith, but do not slay it you get a real solid hit But also you are attempting to carve a sword into a spirit But it doesn't do a ton of damage, but it does do damage and the wraith is going to attempt to back away And because it is a wraith is going to attempt to Mark a stress to back through the wall away from you all unless someone would like to try to stop it No one seems to be trying to stop it. I'm dropped my dice instead of rolling it I can I can pop another shot off since he's just backing away. Okay, go ahead and roll to try to hit I didn't roll amazing on the attempt to escape. So if you hit we'll say it's a hit It's a 20 with oh wait 21 with hope. Yeah, you're good So the the wraith is starting to back through the wall you see it's kind of ethereal I don't know backside like start to phase through the wall as Hilo's crossbow bolt strikes it. How much damage is that? That is nine damage nine damage How'd you like to do this? Oh? Well, so the first shot hit him in the neck and Hilo basically just kind of adjust it a little bit and just Spacks it right in the grinning skull, which is now stuck to the wall Hilo makes the final wraith into a brutal piece of wall art Before it vanishes like all of the other ones have I'm just going to remove these from the map since they are spirits and not bodies. You find yourself alone in the ritual room. Toko is currently unconscious on the floor and... Svetlana is bent over him. Holding his head in her hand, She kind of slipped her head under and is trying to view to see if he has any visible wounds And does she notice anything like? Visibly Toko does she notice anything is there anything to see? No, not visible. Okay. So did you roll something for that or? No Well, should I have I suppose I don't know Since I don't really know anything else to do, I would probably channel some healing magic and just try to heal Toko. So I will spend two hope to either let him, actually once per long rest, I can use that to spend two hit points or two stress. So I would probably do the higher one. So you're gonna clear two hits. - Two hit points, is that correct? - It's his choice, either two hit points or two stress. - Okay. And Toko, as you are healed in this manner, do you wake up? - No. - No! - Not for the moment. But you see like, it's as if I was tense, and then the healing kind of relaxed me a little bit. - Okay. - Okay. - While that is happening, I believe Boga is still writing Pazoo, Boga, it's up to you if you'd still like to do that with kind of the lessening of the dread as the wizard disappeared. But what you know, this is going back to your your crit roll on investigating, by the way, what you realize now that you are able to spend some more time on this ritual site is this fountain is a well of pure magic. And the stuff, the essence that you see bubbling and kind of spilling over is a well of just magical essence that is here for reasons that you can't ascertain, but it is a well of magic and the ritual being formed around it was attempting to contain and siphon that magical power for some reason. Oh, fascinating. This magic. As some. Oops, sorry. Well, you go, you go ahead. I was just going to say this magic did not, does not feel like the magic in the fountain does not feel like an evil magic from your, your sense of the arcane. The magic attempting to contain it, however, does not feel good. But who's gonna make it with all this in mind? She's gonna make a quick one. She's gonna wander around the circumference of this ritual. Yep. Trying to ask if there's like if it's trying to if there's any kind of conduit like the magic magic being siphoned into or if if it's just another location entirely. - Yeah, you don't see any, I'm still basing, I'm just not gonna make you roll for investigation or whatever it is, again, based on instinct, I guess, based on how well you rolled in the middle of the fight. You don't see anywhere that the magic was going. Your guess is that when you burst in here, when you did, I guess you kind of crept in, but still, You burst into the dungeon overall when you did and you don't believe that the plans of this ritual site were complete. You know enough about the arcane to see that like there was something being built and formed here around this fountain, but it is not done. - Buzz is just gonna be mushing under the breath incomplete this is it doesn't feel right this is just feel right and she's gonna just send their tap in her like her froggy foot mm-hmm make a slap sound and just goes I would hate to see the arcane contained and takes it this stuff we got from the other wizard. What's his face? Yep. You got that one. Scrape out the kind of the kind of the symbols make a massive line through the symbols, disrupting the the well, the magic, I guess. OK, so you're attempting to disrupt the ritual around the fountain. Is that correct? Yeah. OK, perfect. as you scrape the symbols and like there's blood and there's bones and all of these things on the ritual around the fountain, as you scrape some of that away, you feel all at once a big powerful burst of magic that kind of overwhelms you for a moment, Boga, But not in a bad way. Like you sense that you have just unlocked something about this magical fountain. I guess freed it might be a better word. So you're not actually taking any kind of physical hit or anything. You just feel that the magic is now like flowing again in the way that it was previous to this ritual. Incredible. And anybody else have any sense for the arcane to be able to sense when this happens? Soko wakes up and he kind of groans and opens his eyes one high at a time. He's like, "Ugh, did someone drop an Envul on my skull? Or did I just lose a drinking game with a Minotaur?" [LAUGHTER] Why does the floor taste like regret? She kind of sits down very, very slowly. It looks around. OK. Oh, hear me out. What if the teleportation spell actually did work? And it took us into a reality. where our heads are five times heavier. You just kind of sit still and go, "Oh." You're okay, Toko. What happens? You are knocked out. And then when Boga took off the ritual spell, on this fountain you woke up. I know I'm not okay. My my skull is about to crack open like an overwrite melon. I just think this is a dream. This is this is a bad dream. I'm still asleep. Are you sure we can? OK. He's just like, it's got like this massive. All right. While that is happening, Uriel is going to attempt to also analyze the fountain with Boga to see if there's anything more that can be learned. If let's do this Uriel, because you have Boga there helping you, if you could roll your your 2D 12s, Add your instinct and then add a d6 from the help that Boga will give you. No, no, knowledge. Oh, okay. So you're trying to see... Wait, knowledge. Oh, okay, sure. Analyze. Okay, sure. You can use knowledge. That's fine. So you're attempting to like analyze the mechanisms of this fountain. Okay. Okay, That works for me. Trying to understand what is happening with the fountain. 19 with knowledge and you're adding a hope experience, collective memory, is that correct? Okay. All right, so you're going to roll a 19 plus 3 and because Boga is here assisting, please add a D6 to that if you would. Also, is that with hope or fear? That's with hope. Okay. I'll let you guys decide who rolls with advantage. Boko, would you like to roll the D6? Or would you like Uriel too, since you are helping? Okay. Uriel says go for it. Just the one D6, is it? Yep. Just roll a D6 and we're going to add that to the result. So that's a two. That's a two? Okay. So that is... That's plus two to the result. 24 with hope, which is going to give you a decent amount of information. So you investigate the fountain, which kind of looks like its own pedestal, not the same one for the book, but it's like a birdbath almost with a hole all the way going down through the center. And as you look below kind of where it connects to the floor, you can just barely see a thin line and you see that the magic is flowing from beneath the floor up through the fountain and bubbling over. As you investigate, you believe that you've heard stories in the past, Uriel, of the magic that it took to lift Skyland in the air. There were very powerful wizards who cast very powerful spells to lift this large city-sized chunk of land off the ground from where it was, straight up into the sky. And you don't know this for sure, but investigating with Boga, you believe that that magic is leaving its residue and its, uh, yeah, residue, I guess is the right word in this area. And this mechanism to contain it, contain it's not the right word. This mechanism to kind of channel it looks older than anything else in the, in the dungeon. It's a, it's a actual, I would say there's actual like physical magic like, yeah. It's like it's a physical manifestation of magic bubbling up through this fountain. Cool. Who's going to touch it? Oh, interesting. Okay. Roll 2D12. We're not going to do, we're not going to do hope or fear on this, but just roll your 2D12. Pazulix's pause indifferently. That's Pazurus. Very good. That's Pazulix. Yeah. That's 14. 14. All right. It feels like a jolt of electricity as you touch it. It doesn't hurt you, but. It it it feels like connecting your hand to a live power wire. It is it is strong, strong magic. And as your knowledge of this kind of increases, as you investigate and as you actually reach out and touch it, you believe that if you leave your hand in this for long, there might be negative consequences. You'll be able to see Bogey visibly like jolt. Like, "Wah!" I just kind of... Can I draw a hand away? -Okay. -Boga. Bogey, take a hope as well. Take the... As you pull your hand back out, you feel... overwhelmed with the power of... the magic that you've encountered and it fills you with a little bit of... You guys have seen some dark things, but this is not one of those things, and witnessing it, I think, inspires you a little bit. So you take a hope. Cool. And, sorry now, but we're also going to absentmindedly lick her finger once she withdraws it. It tastes a little bit like barbecue sauce. Question, is the the shadowy thing around Toco gone? Yes. Did that go away when he fell down or around the same time, but you don't know that they're connected or not? OK. It was all happening so fast, though you weren't keeping a close eye on that. OK. Are you do you need a more healing? Toco. You said your head was hurting. Do you do you need some water? And she kind of like puts her little water flask up next to him, like urging him to drink it. He says no. Well, we need to go back to Cogburg. Cog what? Cogsburg. OK. Cogsburg. Why do we have to go back to Cogsburg? Well, it's Cogsburg. Yeah. I thought it was Cogsburg. Sorry. It's all good. Your head is killing you. I get it. It's my hometown. I know the name. He says. That's where that's where Malacar. And as he says that, one says by just saying the name. That's where Malakar keeps his layer. If we want to end this, we got to take the fight to him. Is that the wizards that was here today? Yes. Also, the wizard that imprisoned me and experimented on me for years. And this toko and I I put my arms out like in a show to I want to embrace you, But kind of waiting for his like, OK of is it OK to hug you? He took actually. Jumps into your arms and and you hear like like. Let it out. Let it out, buddy. I would I'm sure Svetlana would also be crying as well. just, you know, holding him and patting his back and, you know, yeah. What would everyone else like to do? In hearing that, Toko has suggested that the next step is Cogsburg with or without an S. OK. Uriel is commenting in chat. All right. So Uriel believes that the fountain and the ritual objects around the area of the problem and is looking to start breaking things. I mean, sorry, let's be specific to break some shit. I mean, I'm that is the specific. Saying so, she kicks the fountain. OK. I mean, Maaz literally sees it and jumps in without hesitation, you know, knowing, you know, with the relationship they've had in the past. She actually flaps her wings to get up a little bit of air and then drops herself down with the power of gravity, kicking at it. So you're going to attempt to kick over the fountain. Is that correct? Yep. Yep. Interesting. All right. Go ahead and roll for damage or roll for attack on the fountain, both of you. It's amazing. Does the fountain have a character sheet? It's a 13 with hope. OK. It's a fountain of a character sheet. I mean, it's not a moving fountain. I mean, it should be pretty easy to hit, right? 14 with hope. All right. It's a law of inertia, though. As you both kick the fountain, You feel the world start to shift around you. You're going to collapse this island. You feel like it feels like you are on a boat that is all of a sudden off balance. The keys. The. Maz stumbles back. Literally. Oh, shit. Oh, what was that? And then, you know, looks towards Bogo seems to have she is a bit of a better grip on, you know, whatever's going on. Do you know what just happened? Bozo packing like. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Yeah, Maz sobers up almost immediately and, you know, kind of like had landed on the ground but did like the like backward crab walkie thing like like and then stands up like not I'm not doing that again. Okay. You got to learn by poking the bear. That's for sure. Okay. I did I did roll to see if any of the any of the dungeon ceiling would collapse on you. You guys are okay. No. OK, so Uriel, perceptive as she is, Uriel, realize it's not the fountain and aims at the other ritual objects. Easy enough to do. Boga had previously just kind of scratched out some of the ritual circle, breaking, breaking the spell that was surrounding the fountain, but easy enough to kind of kick away the rest of the the runes and the bones and your feet are covered in blood from kind of kicking it all around. Thankfully, nothing happens when you break this ritual. -Can I go back to Toko and Svetlana for a moment? -Sure, absolutely. Toko has a rule. He's got very few rules, but the first rule is that he's not the first one to let go of a hug. But this time he breaks his rule to whisper into Svetlana's ear and say, I know what would make me feel better. What? Is potato. I'll get you some potatoes. Yes. I wish I had kept some in my bag from Padres Potatoes stall. Long enough, they wouldn't have kept very well anyway. That's true. It feels soggy. It's probably half a year almost, But it's only been like six out of five hours, four hours in the dungeon. Maybe it's true. Well, yeah, but we didn't we got the potatoes before we went to the four, the kidnapping. Yeah. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's been at least a day. There's been a couple of long rests there. That's all. Yeah. All right. What would you like to do now? I mean, Maz had overheard the brief comments about, you know, Cogsburg and, you know, seeing the embrace and kind of then looks over towards the rest of the party and suggests, you know, that I think we shouldn't, you know, let this one go. And if Cogsburg is where we need to travel, I think that's where we should go. I agree. But we're all looking a little rough, at least I know myself and Toko and Hilo. We all got hit. I think we need some time to rest as well before we go to try to take him on again. Yeah. Just for stories sake, Cogsburg is a few days travel away. So you don't need to rest in the dungeon if you don't want to. Atop blood and bones. Unless, oh wait. The real question is can Can we set this hellhole on fire as we walk out of it? Let's burn it down. - Don't, I don't know if that is feasible. - Everything's feasible with fire. There are definitely things that, to answer your question more specifically, there are things that would burn, there are things that would not burn. And I mean, it's a dungeon carved into the rock beneath an island. So it's the walls aren't going to burn. They might get charred, but tables, things like that will burn. Uriels, Uriels, right. We should return and let the officials know what we found. And then maybe they should protect us better since the guards all got taken over by cultists and. Et cetera. OK. So leaving the dungeon, is that the plan Or is there anything else that you would like to do? Bogey's going to ask. Ask. Wightly, does anyone have an empty bottle? An empty, empty potion bottle. One of the empty potion bottles from the two that I took earlier. Easy enough. Bogey's going to try bottle some of the magic from the fountain. All right. You get some of the fluid in the bottle. You don't know much more than that, but you do get you do manage to capture some and cork it into the bottle. Fantastic. Maybe with some time and study, you can see if there is a use for this. Wonderful. Also, of note, capturing a little bit of it did not appear to have any effect on the world around you. So. We didn't fall out of the air because of some magic. No. Yeah. Now I would say I agree with Madras Chimesen. The I agree with letting the officials know because this is extremely powerful magic. And I believe this may also help with the island itself. And we do not want it to fall into the wrong hands. And God help me. I do not want to rest in this stinking filthy bloody dungeon any moment longer than I can help. All right. Agreed. But I also might need a hand to get up and get out of here. And she reaches her hand up and just is waiting for somebody to help her get up. All right. So what's next? Where are we headed? Wait. I think. Thank you, Mass. All right The plan is to leave I'm not gonna make you guys move your Characters all the way through the rest of the dungeon if you're just planning to just head straight out is that? Yeah, correct. I think so anybody disagree It begs to question two things one there was a group of armor or of soldiers that we left behind the airlock Okay, and two there was a locked door or a blocked door Before we okay, would you like to tell you what happens if you attempt to walk out? Oh Yes, sorry no no no no. I'm not saying I'm you can Calculate for all these things if you want, but I can also just kind of guide the party through if you as you begin to Retreat from the dungeon following the same path you did find like e goth had told you guys that there was no exit in in the back other than the one the wizard seemed to have that was based on magic. As you move through, you take time to pause at the airlock door. You don't hear anything. You slowly move through the airlock door. You don't see the previous guards that were waiting there. Enough time has passed that they've assumed that the wizard that was waiting for you would have handled the situation and they wouldn't need to. So you sneak past the airlock door and the rooms where you initially countered them. You get back to the door that was barred by the guard that you let go, and you notice a giant hole is blown in the door, and Boga investigating the door, you notice that it seems to be a hole that was carved with magic. Oh, incredible. you might recognize the magic that is carved this hole as the same magic that Egon possessed by letting him go. He arranged your exit and you leave back through the way that you came and find yourself on the exterior of the dungeon. Sorry, you guys could have attempted to do that and walk slow, but I figured we just, I didn't have any plans for you guys to encounter the guards again on the way. You guys have already dealt with that. I don't want you guys to negate what you did in terms of escaping them just to try to exit a dungeon. That's no fun for anybody. So, as you push open the final door of the dungeon back into the fresh air of Skyland, the first thing you notice is the smell of burning is just as strong as when you entered the dungeon. the work to save Skyland is not done, but you do find yourself in the relatively fresh air. I'm on the wrong map, sorry. The relatively fresh air of Skyland, which does not look like this anymore because it was all exploded, but a little note about Skyland and kind of where you need to go if your next intention is to go. So the way you initially went to the east took you to the forest where you initially rescued the boy. Cogsburg, you know, just from your sense of direction is off to the west of the map, off the western edge of Skyland. And Skyland here is maybe more in embers than it is in flames at this point. Now that you're out of the dungeon, what would you like to do? And now, now I feel looking over at Svetlana that we should find a place to rest, right? And to recuperate. Yes, please. Are you going to rest in Skyland? I think I can make it outside the city. It's probably not the best idea to try to rest here with all this burning buildings. sure that they have even contained all of the fires from the explosions. I think I think we should probably try to get off the island first. What do you all think? You're all you're all wanted to note about letting authorities know about the dungeon. Is that something you guys? Is it basically you're going to be you're going to be like, hey, watch the dungeon and then dip or are you guys? How much would you like to? do. What would you like to do? So I just wanted to make sure Uriel's suggestion was noted since she is unable to speak. Uriel says we rest now and talk later because Jen needs to go. And I was going to say it is 10 o'clock for those people that had deadlines today. We could also, could we just want to just GM the official notice and getting somewhere and then, you know, do do do do do do do do Unless somebody really wants to role play, finding someone in Skyland and telling them, we can pretend that happens. Is that a big thing that people wanna do? Does anybody have? - No, I'm good with that, but I'm also good. - Yeah, I mean, I probably would have asked them like if they knew about the magic that was holding the island up, but we can, if we need to role play through that, we can do that next session. - We can do that. So we can, do you guys wanna rest now? Sure. OK, so you're going to rest on Skyland with the intention of, OK. So as you kind of step out of the dungeon and find yourself a safe little corner to make make your your bed for the night, you find yourself. You find your consciousness transported back to the campfire. where you are gathered with your friends and you are all reflecting on what happened in the dungeon. That was a hard night. That was a very hard night. And do you remember, anybody remember what happened next? Or could I bring up something that happened right after this? I don't know if anybody else remembers. Does anybody remember? I remember the crick in my back trying to sleep that night on a bed of pallets. Because we couldn't go to the forest because we had to talk to those authorities. Well, now go ahead, Boga. I was still high on magic. Lord, that was whoo, what a rush. And I don't know if, you know, as then everybody is sitting there at the fire and Maz looks over at Sal and looks towards the group and says, "Do you remember how when you guys woke up from this long rest that I was missing and nowhere to be found?" And this is where everybody met Sal. I remember that we salied forth after this. That's where we will leave off. And next time we play, we will have a new GM to tell a interlude story. If you didn't guess it's going to be me, that's me. That's me. I'm going to do it. So I'm very excited for this. We've been talking about this for a little while. Probably weeks at least. We have been attempting to arrange a way that someone else could run a few a few sessions to kind of get some GMing experience. So next session, Maz will be missing. We'll have to figure out what that is. I don't know anything. Sal doesn't know. Well, Sal might know a little bit, but we don't know a lot. So there's going to be a little detour on the plans to get to Cogsburg. So we've been trying to we've been trying to plan the handoff for an ideal point of like exit the dungeon rest Then you wake up in the morning and Maz is no longer there. I Mean if you want I mean I can so as you guys wake up from a long rest Here's here's what I'll leave with I think this might be slightly better is you'll find that you know Maz is missing and There's a note left behind Notes as friends. I'm not sure how to say this other than to let it be I must go I'm not sure if I shall return, but there's something I must do not even you're you'll knows about this Do not come after me for I don't know if you can help mass And I will say as you're reading the notes From behind you emerging from the shadows you see a small Ribbit wrapped in dark cloaks with gold lining He says perhaps I can help nice We'll leave that for next time [Music]