Latest / Smooth Critical / C1 Ep.3: The Lady of Breath

Transcript

C1 Ep.3: The Lady of Breath · Smooth Critical

• 0:19
  Welcome back to Smooth Critical. I'm UDM Avni.
• 0:22
  Hey, actually quick question. Avni, are you OK?
• 0:25
  Avni, are you OK? Are you OK, Avni?
• 0:28
  Yes, I am OK, and in addition to being OK, I am so excited for my
• 0:33
  3 wonderful players to find out what is in the deep dark hole.
• 0:38
  But before I go into a recap, let's meet our three gorgeous
• 0:41
  gladiators. He my.
• 0:43
  Hello, I'm Abe. Harry.
• 0:46
  Hello, I'm Bon. And Charlie?
• 0:48
  Name's Bo. So let's begin our recap.
• 0:52
  Our three Gladiators, having won their match and secured A
• 0:55
  sponsor, begin planning their next steps.
• 0:57
  Abe, without explaining why to anyone, asked Bo to chop his
• 1:02
  entire arm off instead of just losing the hand.
• 1:06
  Bundy secured Abe's arm down, after taking a shit of course,
• 1:10
  and Bo did it without any questions.
• 1:12
  Abe got knocked out, but Bond healed him back up and the four
• 1:15
  of them went to go get a mechanical arm for Abe.
• 1:18
  Then Bo, Bond, and Bundy left a scared Abe to go on a little
• 1:21
  shopping trip. Bond bought some religious drugs
• 1:24
  and a necklace for Abe, while Bo bought some new armor,
• 1:27
  switchblades, shadow pocket patches.
• 1:30
  A vague prophecy from a Seer. Bo was kind of rolling in it.
• 1:35
  Balandita the Seer forged a connection with Bo and
• 1:38
  encouraged him to be his true self.
• 1:40
  Bunty and Bo then headed to Plorescence Florissions to buy
• 1:43
  mystery bags and become influencers.
• 1:46
  Everyone reconvened to see Abe's cool new arm in hand.
• 1:49
  The gang then found out they needed the captain's keys to get
• 1:52
  to the east side of the ugly arena where the tablet is being
• 1:55
  stored. They created a distraction,
• 1:57
  stole the keys, and found themselves faced with a few
• 2:00
  challenging yet dumb puzzles. After solving the puzzles they
• 2:04
  ended up in a dusty old storage room with a giant hole in the
• 2:08
  ground that seemed to open into the remains of a tower.
• 2:12
  The session ended when our player saw some little eyes down
• 2:15
  in the hole and a voice that said oh.
• 2:17
  Shit. And that is where we are now.
• 2:21
  So you guys are standing over the hole.
• 2:23
  You can see that there's a staircase landing 40 feet down.
• 2:28
  We're going to roll initiative to see if you can catch up to
• 2:31
  whatever is down there. Got a 17.
• 2:36
  I also got a 17. Nice.
• 2:39
  OK, who's who's dex is higher? I got a 21.
• 2:42
  OK, you know what? Since all three of you rolled
• 2:45
  higher than whatever is down there, I'll let 3 of you go in
• 2:49
  whatever order. How do you want to get down
• 2:51
  there? It's 40 feet down.
• 2:52
  Who has the highest speed? I do.
• 2:55
  Yeah, what's your speed? My speed is.
• 2:58
  I have a climb speed that's equivalent to my ground speed.
• 3:02
  Are we climbing? Is there a broken part of the
• 3:04
  the staircase or is there just a staircase that is?
• 3:07
  Fully there's there's a hole in the ground and then there's a 40
• 3:11
  foot drop until where the staircase is there's just 40
• 3:13
  feet of nothing in between. Could I do a an acrobatics check
• 3:17
  to try to scale the the stone? Yeah, absolutely, totally go for
• 3:23
  it. We all have like packs and stuff
• 3:25
  from our back stories. Somebody, yes, you all have like
• 3:28
  rope and packs and stuff. Would you rope?
• 3:31
  I'm sure. Would you guys want to tie that
• 3:33
  up before Abe starts to try to scale down the wall or?
• 3:36
  I think Abe, get that, get that little little weirdo and we'll
• 3:40
  we'll tie up some rope up here. All right, well, in everyone's
• 3:44
  interest, I rolled the Nat 20. You were like waiting on that
• 3:49
  information until we were done talking.
• 3:53
  Awesome. OK, on that Nat 20, what is your
• 3:56
  speed? It's 45 or.
• 3:58
  Yes, it is 40 feet, 40 feet. 40 feet.
• 4:01
  OK, it's still great. You scramble all the way down
• 4:04
  and you make it to the top of the staircase.
• 4:07
  I assume you can just keep running and use a dash to get to
• 4:11
  whatever is down there. Yes.
• 4:13
  When you reach your hand out into the dark, you grab a little
• 4:17
  coboled girl and she's got this big bow in her hair, this lime
• 4:21
  green bow. And she looks at you with fright
• 4:24
  in her eyes, and she goes, please, Sir, please, please.
• 4:29
  And she starts trembling. Hey, don't worry as I'm holding
• 4:34
  her up, I'm not going to hurt you, but who are you?
• 4:37
  Hey, Abe, whatever's down there, if it even seems like a slight
• 4:40
  threat, just kill it immediately.
• 4:43
  It's not. She's shuddering.
• 4:47
  There's no need to kill something just for the sake of
• 4:50
  killing it. Let's let's take a.
• 4:52
  Moment What if it's a danger to us?
• 4:54
  What's what's down there? It's a little cobalt girl.
• 4:57
  Why don't you guys come down? I'll, I'll, I'll keep her here.
• 5:00
  And I just I keep holding her up so she can't grab anything.
• 5:04
  She's just shaking. She's just shaking.
• 5:06
  Bunty's on my shoulder, just an FYI.
• 5:08
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, baby, I'm always here.
• 5:12
  He leans over and flicks the cobalt girl in the nose.
• 5:14
  Yeah, what are you going to do about it?
• 5:16
  Bunty, stop Bunty. We're not.
• 5:18
  We're not trying to hurt her or scare her.
• 5:21
  I'm not trying to be mean. OK, that's a lie.
• 5:24
  I'm. Trying to be mean.
• 5:27
  Bunty. Yeah.
• 5:30
  Yeah. Stop.
• 5:31
  Just stop talking. Stop talking.
• 5:33
  But you can sit there. You don't have to be in time
• 5:35
  out, but you can't talk right now.
• 5:36
  OK, what did I just say? What did I just say?
• 5:41
  You're not allowed to talk. But you're not allowed to talk
• 5:43
  there. You go, he growls.
• 5:46
  And. Non verbal only.
• 5:48
  Faces, faces the wall cross legged and crosses his arms as
• 5:53
  this is happening. Abe.
• 5:55
  No, you're Abe guys. You guys have all one syllable
• 5:58
  names, just like killing. They were the monos where the
• 6:00
  monos. Bon and Bo, you guys tie up the
• 6:06
  rope, you're able to shimmy your way down and you land on the
• 6:10
  staircase with Abe Bunty and this little cobalt girl who Abe
• 6:16
  is just holding out. What's the expression on this
• 6:18
  cobalt's face look like? Can I do an insight check?
• 6:21
  Yeah, absolutely. Go for it.
• 6:23
  That is a 16. 16 Yeah. I mean, you could tell she's
• 6:28
  like shaking. She seems very scared of you
• 6:33
  guys and and doesn't know what to make of especially Abe, who
• 6:37
  is lifting her up in the air. Please don't hurt me.
• 6:41
  Don't. Don't hurt me.
• 6:43
  What are you doing down here? My job.
• 6:46
  What's your job? I'm a guard for this place.
• 6:49
  I'm one of the guardians of the the the this tower.
• 6:52
  You're doing a pretty bad job at it.
• 6:54
  Today is my fifth day on the job.
• 6:56
  Thank you very much. And as she says that, you
• 6:59
  remember that there were boot prints in the dust in the room
• 7:04
  where this hole was. They didn't look like cobalt
• 7:06
  prints, but there were definitely boot prints there and
• 7:10
  they looked pretty fresh. So I've only been here and it
• 7:14
  was kind of an emergency. I, I didn't really get my
• 7:16
  training. So I'm just, I'm learning on the
• 7:20
  job, you know? You know, I think that's the
• 7:23
  best way to learn. Oh, well, if you put me down, we
• 7:29
  can fight. And that, that'll be a good way
• 7:31
  for me to learn, right? But I mean, please don't kill
• 7:33
  me. I mean, but a good training.
• 7:35
  Right. No, I I look over to Bo and Bon
• 7:37
  and I say I I think we would kill you if we fought, so let's
• 7:41
  not do that. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah.
• 7:46
  And you see, she's got like a rusty sword, like short sword on
• 7:49
  her back. She doesn't have like any proper
• 7:52
  armor at all. She's wearing like a lime green
• 7:54
  tunic that matches the lime green like big bow that she has
• 7:58
  on her head. And she goes, truth be told, I,
• 8:03
  I don't, I like fighting. So this is, this is OK with me
• 8:06
  if you, if we don't fight, Yeah, that's OK.
• 8:08
  Yeah. Who do you work for exactly?
• 8:11
  Make a persuasion check with advantage because she's very
• 8:14
  scared right now. That is 16.
• 8:19
  Do you know Captain Lumiere? And you guys remember he's the
• 8:23
  captain you stole the keys off of?
• 8:24
  She goes, yeah, so him and and her name is Jasmine Fray.
• 8:30
  She's the arch druid of Ignovarum.
• 8:33
  She's the imperatives right hand woman.
• 8:36
  The two of them get us from our little Cobalt village and we're
• 8:41
  here for like a secret mission and, and then some Cobalts are
• 8:44
  chosen and then we we live in the tower for like 5 years or so
• 8:49
  and then and then we rotate out Cobalts and yeah.
• 8:54
  It sounds like. Like an exchange program.
• 8:57
  I was going to say like slaves. Well, I mean like they take care
• 9:01
  of of the of the village. We're not very strong in the in
• 9:05
  the Cobalt village. So they take care of us in in
• 9:08
  exchange, every five years some of us go and then live in this
• 9:12
  tower and then new Cobalts come in five years, so.
• 9:17
  With one arm up in the other hand that I have free I I do air
• 9:22
  quotes and I say take care of the village.
• 9:26
  Am I right guys? And I wink?
• 9:28
  Oh, yeah, yeah, I, I, I know what you're on.
• 9:31
  They give. US.
• 9:32
  Food. Yeah.
• 9:33
  This is this is total bullshit. Yeah.
• 9:35
  Yeah, OK. I mean, yeah, it's food.
• 9:37
  They're, of course they're going to give you food.
• 9:38
  They want you to work for them. They want to keep you healthy so
• 9:41
  that you can do the jobs that they assigned.
• 9:44
  If I remember correctly, you said.
• 9:45
  Shit goes so deep. You don't like to fight?
• 9:47
  Why are you? Why did they give you a sword if
• 9:49
  you don't like to fight? Were you?
• 9:51
  Did you come here against your will?
• 9:52
  Did they just choose you and you had to come?
• 9:55
  No, there's, there's people trained for this, for this job,
• 9:58
  and every five years those people get chosen for for this
• 10:03
  job specifically. But I guess someone maybe died
• 10:07
  and I was just sent here to replace them.
• 10:09
  They just needed someone else. And yeah.
• 10:13
  But did But did you want this job?
• 10:15
  Well, I was chosen so but but did you want it?
• 10:21
  I don't understand the question. You guys need to unionize right
• 10:26
  now. I don't know what that means.
• 10:30
  So a union is like a collection of workers that are able to.
• 10:35
  This tower. Please will you?
• 10:37
  Leave this tower, please. I'm sorry, but what's?
• 10:39
  What's in this tower? What are you?
• 10:41
  What are you guarding? Oh, I don't know.
• 10:44
  Interesting. I'm going to do an intimidation
• 10:47
  check and I'm going to slam her against the wall.
• 10:49
  I'll do an insight check. I got a Nat 20 on the insight
• 10:53
  check. On the inside, check.
• 10:55
  OK with that. With that Nat 20.
• 10:57
  She genuinely doesn't know. Yeah, and waste of a Nat 20.
• 11:01
  I didn't. What do you get with your
• 11:03
  intimidation? Well.
• 11:05
  So before, before I slam her to the wall, I'm just going to look
• 11:07
  at you guys and say bad guard, good guard, and then I slam her
• 11:11
  against the wall. You're going to hit her no
• 11:17
  matter what, so just roll AD 6 for damage and we'll see if you
• 11:19
  kill her. Oh shit, Oh shit.
• 11:23
  Can I OK? Can I OK?
• 11:25
  OK, what did you get? Non lethal.
• 11:28
  Non lethal. You're knock her out.
• 11:30
  I did 4 damage. OK, she's OK.
• 11:32
  She's she's barely alive. She's bloodied.
• 11:38
  What? She looks.
• 11:38
  Her head is like spinning in circles.
• 11:40
  Why did you do that, Sir? Why?
• 11:43
  You said you And she her head goes through snap.
• 11:47
  My fingers in front of her, in front of her face.
• 11:50
  Yeah. Say I need you to focus.
• 11:53
  Have you seen a tablet? Have you seen a tablet that
• 11:56
  looks special down there? And I point down.
• 11:59
  Oh no, So there's there's a few floors to here.
• 12:06
  I only I patrolled the top three floors with some other cobalts.
• 12:11
  I don't know what's what's below these top three floors.
• 12:15
  We're we're looking for something that does not belong
• 12:19
  here. It was taken from somebody else
• 12:22
  and we are just trying to retrieve it.
• 12:26
  Well, I don't know where it is so I can't really help in that
• 12:30
  regard. Would you be all right if we
• 12:32
  just took a look around and tried to find it?
• 12:35
  There's a few more of us down here though.
• 12:38
  So I, I just, I mean, I don't really like them.
• 12:41
  It's kind of a boys club down here, you know, like they're
• 12:44
  kind of crass. They fart a lot.
• 12:46
  It kind of smells horrible down here.
• 12:48
  God, God forbid I hate it down here, but if you, maybe I can go
• 12:54
  with you. And then if whenever you find
• 12:57
  what you need, when you, when you leave, you could take me to
• 13:00
  leave too. You got me thinking about what I
• 13:03
  want in life, and I don't really think it's this.
• 13:07
  What's what's your name? Janie.
• 13:11
  Janie, do you think you could convince the people in the boys
• 13:14
  club to not attack us? Oh absolutely not.
• 13:17
  They fucking hate me. I'm a woman.
• 13:18
  Damn. Oh well.
• 13:21
  Is she bleeding at all from me slamming?
• 13:23
  Her. Yeah, like she's she's yeah,
• 13:25
  she's gushing blood. You smacked her into a wall.
• 13:27
  All. Right, all right.
• 13:29
  She she's almost dead, OK, You almost killed her.
• 13:32
  Here I'm going to do something nice but kind of stupid from a
• 13:37
  from a purely meta gaming perspective and give her one of
• 13:41
  my healing potions. As you, as you reach over to
• 13:43
  give her that, I put my hand out and I say that's all right, hold
• 13:47
  on to that for later. I will, I will heal her up and
• 13:53
  I'm going to use my channel divinity.
• 13:56
  Let's see what that does. As a magic action, you point
• 13:58
  your holy symbol at another creature you see within 30 feet
• 14:01
  of yourself and focus divine energy at it.
• 14:03
  I do 1D8 plus wisdom heal. Thanks, Bon.
• 14:08
  And I say, listen, Janie, I'm, I'm sorry about slamming you
• 14:12
  against the wall. We're on kind of like a
• 14:14
  convoluted job here, the three of us.
• 14:17
  And I, you know, there's an like, it's a means to an end.
• 14:21
  And you're kind of like willful denial of my initial question
• 14:26
  really set me off and I'm dealing with some things
• 14:29
  internally today. So I for that I apologize.
• 14:32
  And and externally I I gesture at your arm.
• 14:36
  Oh, cool. I'm pretty sick.
• 14:38
  Yeah. How much healing does she get?
• 14:39
  So that's for for healing. For healing back, great.
• 14:43
  Have have you put her down yet or are you still holding her?
• 14:46
  I'm still holding her, but I I say we should, we should
• 14:48
  definitely tie her up just in case she's lying.
• 14:51
  Janie. This is just like precautions
• 14:53
  for the job will take you with us back out.
• 14:55
  I really don't think that's necessary, personally.
• 14:59
  They didn't think it was necessary to put my brother in
• 15:01
  prison, but they did it anyways. Tie her up.
• 15:13
  Listen man, you, you can't just bring your brother into every
• 15:16
  little thing we do so far. This is twice now in the past
• 15:19
  hour. I I'm you clearly have some
• 15:21
  stuff going on but I don't think she deserves to suffer because
• 15:25
  your brother needed to be locked up.
• 15:27
  No, I'm not going to. We're not going.
• 15:28
  To hurt, she seems like. But like, just just
• 15:30
  precautionary. But Bo, you're the tiebreaker,
• 15:32
  Bunty. You don't get a vote.
• 15:34
  Bo, what do you think? It is it's, it is.
• 15:37
  It is degrading to be put in chains, physically,
• 15:40
  metaphorically. It's not something that this
• 15:44
  mirror would want. Sounds like both of you are
• 15:47
  going through some stuff. So I think, yeah, I think, I
• 15:53
  think Bond's right on this one. I don't.
• 15:56
  I don't know if we have to worry about her.
• 15:58
  All right, all right. And I and I lower her down to
• 16:01
  the stairs. Hey, how would you feel if we
• 16:05
  went and killed those other cobalts that don't like you?
• 16:10
  As long as you Get Me Out of here, I'm not.
• 16:12
  I'm not really pressed about the issue I guess.
• 16:14
  Cool. And if we, if we get you out of
• 16:16
  here, you're not going to like go tell the captain about us and
• 16:20
  like seeing. Yeah.
• 16:21
  Nope, Nope. No.
• 16:24
  Cool, What? Like just curiosity What first
• 16:27
  steps you get out of here? What do you do?
• 16:30
  Good question. Good question.
• 16:34
  I like the heat so I'll probably stay in Ignovar, maybe go to a
• 16:39
  sunny little beach town. Quiet, just kind of relaxed
• 16:44
  there. And then maybe after a couple
• 16:47
  years of that I'll find a dragon to a worship and probably, you
• 16:50
  know, us Cobols, we love our dragon.
• 16:52
  So I'll probably just go find a dragon to a worship and have a
• 16:55
  little time. It'll be nice.
• 16:56
  It'll be very nice. Yeah, you could never go back to
• 16:58
  your village after this, you know that, right?
• 17:00
  What about your village? What about the people you knew?
• 17:03
  Yeah, Yeah. Well, most of the Cobalts, if
• 17:07
  not all of the Cobalts who go into this tower, usually, I
• 17:11
  don't remember them ever coming back, really.
• 17:14
  The captain says that they go off to different missions.
• 17:17
  I don't know if that's completely true.
• 17:19
  So yeah, I I'm basically dead already.
• 17:22
  I was going to ask that earlier, but when you said rotation, you
• 17:25
  know, it kind of really got the idea that it was like they went
• 17:28
  away and then they they came back.
• 17:30
  But but what you're describing is.
• 17:32
  That's kind of the word that Miss Foray uses.
• 17:36
  So the word I would use is is slaughter.
• 17:39
  I I I think all of those cobalts are dead if any of them were
• 17:42
  close to you. They kind of just told us they
• 17:45
  rotated jobs. So this is kind of, oh, this is
• 17:48
  hitting me hard. Like a reminder you've never saw
• 17:52
  them again, right? Technically, yeah, I've never
• 17:55
  seen them again. Technically.
• 17:56
  Technically. They're totally dead.
• 17:58
  They're they are. Gone.
• 18:00
  This is tough. This is tough.
• 18:02
  Listen, Janie and I kneel down to her height on the staircase
• 18:06
  and I kind of pop her, brush her shoulders off and her collar.
• 18:10
  Cobalts are like really small. So you're like you're low, right
• 18:14
  They're. Tiny.
• 18:15
  She's like bunty sized. Yes, yeah, I'm really.
• 18:18
  They're like staring each other in the eye.
• 18:19
  And and I brush off her, her shoulders and I kind of
• 18:22
  straighten her up a bit. And I say, listen, today is the
• 18:26
  day you become free, Janie. When we go down there and your
• 18:30
  cobalt enemies decide to turn on you and on us, you're going to
• 18:36
  draw your sword and fight for us, aren't you?
• 18:39
  Because you're going to be free after this.
• 18:41
  Make a persuasion check but flat.
• 18:44
  It would have been with advantage, but you slammed her
• 18:46
  into a wall so. So 12 because I have a -1.
• 18:53
  Yeah, we'll see if I draw the sword, but I'll definitely I'll
• 18:57
  guide you to to the rooms on the top, these floors that I know
• 19:01
  about. Yeah, we'll take it.
• 19:03
  So while we're sort of getting ready to go, I am going to
• 19:06
  ritual cast Detect Magic. So that takes. 10 minutes.
• 19:11
  It takes 10 minutes to ritual cast.
• 19:13
  I'm pretty sure. Well, ritual cast detect magic,
• 19:16
  and for the duration you sense the presidents of magical
• 19:20
  effects within 30 feet of yourself.
• 19:22
  If you sense any such effects, you can take magic action to see
• 19:25
  a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area
• 19:28
  that bears the magic. And if the effect was created by
• 19:31
  a spell, I can learn the spell's school of magic.
• 19:35
  It is blocked by 1 foot of stone, dirt or wood, one inch of
• 19:38
  metal, or a thin sheet of lead. So I'm looking for the stone
• 19:44
  with, you know, stone with the magical aura on it.
• 19:47
  That sounds good. So you ritual cast this and
• 19:50
  whenever it's done, you guys get up and start moving your way
• 19:54
  down the spiral staircase. So right now, the platform that
• 19:57
  you're on, there's no doors. It's just a platform.
• 20:00
  Yeah, Bo. The language of detect magic is
• 20:04
  for the duration you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet
• 20:07
  of you, so I think. Oh, he's sensing magic right now
• 20:12
  with everyone around. Yeah, I mean, you would see an
• 20:17
  aura around Bo. Oh that's a good point, you see
• 20:21
  an aura just around bows entire body as you cast detect magic
• 20:26
  and you see like a mix of magic effects happening.
• 20:31
  OK, interesting. I feel like can.
• 20:33
  You keep this to yourself. I noticed this and I'm going to
• 20:37
  try to hide that I noticed this so I'm going to I'm going to do
• 20:40
  a. Deception and then Stella.
• 20:44
  Check. Stealth or a deception I think
• 20:46
  to try to like hide your mask, your face and then bow you do
• 20:49
  perception. I'll say I don't even think Bow
• 20:52
  has a deep enough understanding of how magic works to to think
• 20:57
  about that. Can I That's true.
• 20:59
  You you, you were very surprised about dancing like spell like Oh
• 21:04
  also, is it, is this place lit? Are there like torches and
• 21:07
  stuff? Yeah, there's light.
• 21:09
  There's low light right now. There's torches along the wall.
• 21:12
  Abe, to your question, the detect magic is just for Bond's
• 21:16
  eyes, so you won't be able to see it out and about.
• 21:19
  So you're not going to see any of these auras?
• 21:21
  Yes, but can I try to perceive Bond's reaction?
• 21:26
  Because I do understand magic a lot even though like I'm new to
• 21:29
  practicing it. Abe, you roll perception and and
• 21:32
  bond you do deception. I rolled A5.
• 21:37
  A flat. I rolled better.
• 21:39
  I rolled an 18, a 13 and a. Five OK so Bond you cast a tech
• 21:44
  magic and when you open your eyes you are looking around and
• 21:48
  you look straight at Bo. Your jaw goes slack and your
• 21:53
  eyes go wide and it is very clear to read from the.
• 21:56
  Face. That you saw something so crazy
• 22:00
  and Abe, you, you clock this. It's not that hard to clock.
• 22:04
  I I kind of cock my head and widen my eyes like looking at
• 22:08
  Bond but I don't say. Looking at Bo.
• 22:10
  Loud. Well, well, I'm looking at set
• 22:13
  bond reacting to Bo. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
• 22:16
  But I don't say anything. So no one says anything, but
• 22:19
  they all just look at each other.
• 22:22
  Yeah, I wait. There's a like a limited time on
• 22:25
  this spell before I have to cast it again, so I'm just going to
• 22:28
  keep moving. I'm going to turn around.
• 22:29
  I'm going to how. Long does this.
• 22:31
  I'm just going to last for. It's 10 minutes.
• 22:34
  It's not it's it's pretty solid, but I am going to ritual cast it
• 22:38
  again in 10 minutes. OK.
• 22:41
  Also you guys know it's evening of like the first night and by
• 22:46
  midnight of the second night you are to return the tablet to
• 22:50
  Egrix so you have a night in between.
• 22:53
  Well, don't we? Do we have any activities
• 22:55
  tomorrow though? No, like gladiator activities.
• 22:58
  Just the festivals going on. The big the big fight was this
• 23:03
  day you did earlier today. So as far as you guys know,
• 23:07
  there's nothing that you have left to do for the festivities.
• 23:10
  It seems more random, joyous fun and plays going on and things
• 23:15
  like that so. Awesome.
• 23:17
  OK. Yeah, so the spiral staircase
• 23:21
  winds around the inside of the towers hollow center.
• 23:24
  There's cracked basalt walls, scorched masonry, ash that
• 23:29
  drifts like snow. The handrail is twisted and has
• 23:32
  even melted away in some places. Every loud sound shakes the
• 23:37
  structure. Chunks of stone drop close by.
• 23:41
  Quick question, what's what's the air temperature like down
• 23:44
  here? Is it like warm?
• 23:45
  Is it, is it like cold, like you know you're underground or what?
• 23:48
  Good question. It is not because Ignovarum is
• 23:53
  very hot. It's still warm but it's a
• 23:56
  little colder, but not not that much.
• 23:59
  But as you go deeper, it starts to feel a little warmer.
• 24:02
  OK, cool, that answers that question.
• 24:04
  And it's pretty tight in here. Yeah, you're going 1 by 1 down
• 24:09
  this staircase as to not fall off the edge of the stairs.
• 24:12
  I think so. Bonsall has a bit of
• 24:15
  claustrophobia, just doesn't really like being trapped.
• 24:18
  I'm kind of thinking back to the time that I had to escape from
• 24:23
  my village being destroyed through a cave system
• 24:26
  underground, and it's kind of sending me a little bit of
• 24:29
  flashbacks to that. So I'm a little on edge right
• 24:31
  now, yeah. And I'm kind of bon is not
• 24:33
  hiding. Hyperventilating a little bit.
• 24:35
  Yeah. Are you?
• 24:36
  Are you in front? He's like shaking,
• 24:37
  hyperventilating. I imagine I'd be in the front.
• 24:41
  Great. That being said, I'm facing my
• 24:43
  fears. Indeed you are, but we're very
• 24:46
  proud of you. Hey.
• 24:48
  Hey, Abe. Look at Bon.
• 24:50
  He's such a chicken. Bunty just for that you have to
• 24:54
  go sit on his shoulder and calm him down.
• 24:56
  And I send him across bow to Bon so that because I, I think Abe
• 25:01
  thinks that it'll, it'll make you feel better to have someone
• 25:04
  with you. OK, this, this is great.
• 25:06
  All three of you make perception checks, so.
• 25:10
  That's going to be a six from me, 13.
• 25:14
  Dirty 20. Abe, you command Bunty to go sit
• 25:19
  on Bow's shoulder. Bunty scrambles off of your
• 25:23
  shoulder and then is lost in the shadows and you don't know where
• 25:29
  Bunty just went. Bunty, Bunty.
• 25:34
  You hear nothing. Oh, bun, where's Bunty Is is
• 25:37
  Bunty on your on your? Shoulder walking for a second.
• 25:41
  Nope, I thought you had Bunty. Wait, wait.
• 25:44
  Stop. Stop walking.
• 25:44
  Stop walking. Everyone stop walking.
• 25:46
  I stop. I I don't, I don't know where
• 25:50
  Bunty is. Yeah, I tried this.
• 25:55
  I don't know. I'm sorry.
• 25:56
  I'm sorry man. No, no bun, it's OK.
• 25:57
  It's OK. I tried to send out just like
• 25:59
  thoughts in my head because we have the telepathic link.
• 26:04
  You're not getting anything in response.
• 26:05
  Oh fuck Janie Janie. Is she still behind me?
• 26:09
  Yeah, yeah. Stop.
• 26:11
  Just stop moving. Everyone stop moving and hold
• 26:13
  hands. You guys hold hands?
• 26:16
  All right, we, we. I.
• 26:18
  I oh, that's cool, you guys, you guys go ahead.
• 26:25
  Yeah, I don't know if I really like being touched right now.
• 26:29
  You know, I'm not feeling great about being in this case.
• 26:33
  Jamie, just just get on, just climb onto my back because I'm a
• 26:37
  little worried. Wait, this is not good, guys.
• 26:40
  I'm I'm just going from. Your back.
• 26:42
  Well, who knows where that crazy little guy went.
• 26:45
  He seemed like a handful. Oh, shut up, Janie.
• 26:49
  You don't know him. You don't know Bunty like I do.
• 26:52
  Never say that again about him, OK?
• 26:54
  You know you can get off my back.
• 26:55
  You can get off my back. Why don't you go in front of
• 26:57
  Bond and lead us down there, huh?
• 27:00
  I thought that was my job. And so she scrambles off your
• 27:03
  shoulder and goes in the front. I I listen very hard for for
• 27:06
  faint sounds of Bonkit and. You.
• 27:11
  You don't hear anything right now as you guys continue down
• 27:17
  the spiral staircase. You get to another landing.
• 27:21
  Bon, your detect magic, doesn't see anything in this room, but
• 27:29
  it's a giant stone archway. No door.
• 27:32
  And above the archway you read Hall of Flame and Glory, and
• 27:38
  Janie says, oh, I really, I really like this room.
• 27:41
  It has some really pretty pretty paintings on the wall.
• 27:45
  What are the paintings of? I don't know.
• 27:47
  It kind of looks like scenarium. It kind of doesn't look like
• 27:51
  scenario. It's just a really, really
• 27:53
  pretty painting that goes in there.
• 27:55
  But we can keep going if we if we want to keep going.
• 27:58
  Would this be like a detour? Would we have to like go off to
• 28:01
  a side room to see? This, I mean, this is just the
• 28:03
  room that's that's off of on this floor.
• 28:06
  This is the only room that there is.
• 28:07
  It's just called the Hall of Flame and Glory.
• 28:09
  So if you want to just just pop in, we could also just pop in,
• 28:13
  but we just have to be careful because the ceiling's kind of
• 28:15
  falling apart. But it's it's really pretty.
• 28:17
  I highly recommend it. What's up with the faint?
• 28:20
  With the flame in the glory part of the name?
• 28:23
  What's up with that? I mean, this is Ignovarum, so
• 28:27
  that's kind of what we. Yeah, I figured.
• 28:31
  I figured those were like the two main things of this place.
• 28:33
  Yeah, I think we should go in and case Bunty's in there.
• 28:37
  Oh, I mean, yeah, good idea. Good idea.
• 28:39
  So she warned you guys about the scene.
• 28:40
  You. Don't even care about Bunty.
• 28:42
  I just want to get out of here. So if we could just get along
• 28:46
  with that, that would be really, really great.
• 28:49
  So you guys head in and Janie has warned you.
• 28:51
  Don't like the way you're talking, Janie.
• 28:55
  I don't like. I, I I put, I put.
• 29:01
  Attitude with which you're talking, Janie, we just saved
• 29:04
  your life. I put a shaky hand on Abe's
• 29:07
  shoulder. I put my hand and I'm, I'm
• 29:09
  trembling a little bit, but I'm saying, look, I know that you
• 29:14
  are worried about Bunty, but. I'm not worried about Bunty.
• 29:19
  I don't want you where you got. That cool it, man Cool it.
• 29:23
  I'm freaking out. And this is.
• 29:25
  Tip This is making me nervous. I'm cool, I'm cool.
• 29:30
  Thank you. So.
• 29:33
  Bon. Whatever you do, don't think of
• 29:35
  an even darker, more cramped space, because that might make
• 29:39
  it worse. I just kind of so evil, evil.
• 29:46
  Bo Bo isn't even trying to be mean.
• 29:48
  He seems genuine. I.
• 29:53
  I take some deep breaths. I don't.
• 29:57
  I don't imagine that space getting smaller.
• 29:59
  I blow, I blow a little mixed Shard and say a little prayer to
• 30:04
  this Mira and kind of light up the room for a second.
• 30:07
  Great. Is the room already lit?
• 30:08
  There's light candles along the wall, but it's not incredibly
• 30:12
  bright. Your Nick Shard would help to to
• 30:14
  kind of put a brighter light there.
• 30:16
  Cobalt's like the dark, so they can see very well in this low
• 30:21
  light, but you cast your nick Shard so as you guys go in,
• 30:25
  everyone make a Dexterity saving throw Janie's warned you about
• 30:30
  like the loose stones in the ceiling.
• 30:32
  For a second I thought Janie just fully LED us into.
• 30:35
  The ground. Deck saving throw.
• 30:40
  Natural one. 22 for me. I've been rolling very well.
• 30:45
  It's a 24. Bon you take 6 bludgeoning
• 30:48
  damage as a stone just drops from the ceiling and pumps you
• 30:52
  right on the head. Brutal.
• 30:54
  Oh, sorry about that. Yeah, I.
• 30:58
  Yeah, fuck. So you guys walk in Bon holding
• 31:06
  his head and you see that the entire room is actually a giant
• 31:11
  mural. The walls are painted with
• 31:14
  bright depictions of scenario from what it looks like
• 31:17
  centuries ago. It looks like a different
• 31:20
  scenario than the one you are in right now.
• 31:23
  Scenario right now is currently adorned in like a dark palette
• 31:26
  of like shades of red and black and uniformity throughout the
• 31:29
  city. But this mural depicts the city
• 31:32
  as vibrant with yellows, oranges, and even bright Blues
• 31:35
  and greens that pop. Do you guys want to do an
• 31:39
  investigation or a history check on this mural?
• 31:42
  Yes. Sure.
• 31:45
  Also do do you guys have dark vision?
• 31:48
  I do not. I'm a human.
• 31:50
  So I don't think you do either in SO.
• 31:54
  I do because I'm a drowl. But with the nick Shard, that'll
• 31:57
  help light up the room enough that I'll say that you can do
• 32:00
  these checks straight. OK. 22 For history or
• 32:04
  investigation, it's the same multiplier.
• 32:07
  Well, which one do you want? I'll do history I think is
• 32:10
  ascribed. I'm more in tune with that.
• 32:13
  That'll be a 10 on the die for me, which with my modifiers
• 32:17
  makes it a nine. I got a 12 on and I'll do
• 32:21
  history. As I said, this looks like
• 32:23
  scenario from long past, and thinking about the history books
• 32:30
  that you've read about scenario and just art depictions of
• 32:35
  scenario throughout the years, you can tell that this is about
• 32:41
  maybe 550 years ago, like a little bit before the Imperator
• 32:48
  took over. This looks like scenario under
• 32:51
  different leadership and you can tell the outfits of the people
• 32:56
  from Ignovarum, but with your history check, you also spot
• 33:00
  some very whimsical figures in bright steampunk attire.
• 33:04
  Amongst among the murals. There are many men with funny
• 33:07
  mustaches and all the people have this elated yet goofy
• 33:11
  expression on their faces. They're not in the forefront of
• 33:15
  the mural, but they're in the back, kind of waving happily.
• 33:18
  And you don't believe that these people are native to Ignovarum
• 33:23
  just based on their outfit choices, but you don't
• 33:26
  necessarily think they're native to the other three empires.
• 33:30
  And you also see Mount Fire, the mountain that the Agni Arena is
• 33:34
  built on is not there. And in its place is a beautiful
• 33:38
  castle built with stone that shimmers in the sunlight.
• 33:41
  That is the castle that you are in right now.
• 33:46
  Wow, very interesting. They buried.
• 33:49
  They buried their past. How how, how did how did they
• 33:53
  get so much debt and rocks? That's the question.
• 34:01
  We see people from a land that we don't know about, but how did
• 34:04
  they get the dirt in the rocks? To bury a.
• 34:07
  Castle. Like, I'm sorry, but like
• 34:10
  anywhere, right? Oh yeah, that's that's a good
• 34:17
  point. Also, gods exist, so maybe.
• 34:22
  The gods gave them a lot of dirt.
• 34:24
  All right, all right. Yeah, that's that's definitely
• 34:28
  what it was. Well, it wasn't Thesmira.
• 34:31
  She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't bury this castle.
• 34:35
  I moved towards the to the mural and I, I put my finger on one of
• 34:40
  the like, whimsical mustachioed men in the background.
• 34:44
  Yeah, say, who are who are they? I just kind of say out loud to
• 34:48
  the group. Oh, could I come in and take a
• 34:52
  look? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bo, you can.
• 34:54
  Now that it's pointed out to you, Abe, or now that Abe has
• 34:57
  pointed it out to you, Bo, you can, you can get a good look at
• 34:59
  these people as well. These whimsical people with
• 35:02
  whimsical mustaches and beards and steampunk attire.
• 35:07
  Interesting. Can I do?
• 35:09
  Yeah, we've already done our history checks.
• 35:10
  Yeah, I don't. They don't look like anyone from
• 35:14
  anywhere that I know. But again, I mean, these people
• 35:17
  don't look like people from Ignavarum today.
• 35:20
  So maybe they're people from the past that, you know, dress
• 35:25
  differently. Well you know, you saw the
• 35:27
  people from past Ignavarum, you could tell the outfits from like
• 35:32
  Novarum from 5. 100 yeah, but from past other.
• 35:35
  You know that it's not Civil Arm Rex, you know that it's not
• 35:37
  Fairy Malex, and you know that it's not an act of Alice.
• 35:40
  You know from your because your history check.
• 35:42
  Lost Kingdom people. Lost Empire people maybe?
• 35:45
  Basically, it's like if we were in Avatar the Last Airbender and
• 35:49
  somebody was wearing clothing that wasn't orange, green, blue
• 35:53
  or red. Yeah.
• 35:59
  Someone wearing a completely different color?
• 36:01
  Exactly. The Swamp Benders, Charlie.
• 36:04
  They also wear green. That's true.
• 36:06
  That's. True, they do, but they're water
• 36:08
  benders. That's also true, yeah.
• 36:10
  So Janie turns to you guys and is like, isn't this really
• 36:14
  beautiful? Isn't this really nice?
• 36:15
  I like looking at it. I like those funny little people
• 36:17
  in the back. Do you do you know?
• 36:19
  They're not all that funny, Janie.
• 36:21
  They're not all that funny. And I pull out my collision.
• 36:24
  Such a downer bro. And pull up my collaborators
• 36:30
  supplies and I start to sketch like a couple of the figures
• 36:34
  that I see just so that I can remember what they look.
• 36:36
  Like very cool. That's awesome.
• 36:38
  I love that. That's awesome.
• 36:40
  Do you know anything about these people, Janie?
• 36:43
  Not really. I mean, I talked to some of the
• 36:45
  other Cobalt people and they were like, oh, like those are
• 36:48
  people from long past, they're all probably dead now, yadda
• 36:52
  yadda yadda. OK, I try, I try to whisper to
• 36:55
  you guys. I can make a deception check or
• 36:58
  stealth check or whatever, but I say she doesn't seem to know
• 37:01
  much about anything. Well.
• 37:05
  She did say that she didn't really wasn't really prepared to
• 37:09
  come here, so I think that checks out.
• 37:13
  It's only her third week. I kind of glare at Ubon and I
• 37:16
  say it's. My 5th.
• 37:17
  It's my fifth day, actually. It's only it's only a fifth day
• 37:21
  they. Just let me be irrationally
• 37:23
  angry with her, please. And then I huff, and I keep
• 37:26
  drawing my sketch. Do I notice anything from the
• 37:31
  detect magic? Yes, with the detect magic under
• 37:35
  some stones in a corner you find 30 gold pieces and a spell
• 37:41
  scroll of mold earth. Oh, very cool.
• 37:46
  Sick. I'll keep that.
• 37:48
  Amazing. I, I will, I will give BO10 gold
• 37:53
  pieces and then I will keep the rest.
• 37:55
  And I'll say to Abe, this was, you know, I, I had to kind of
• 38:00
  cover a little bit of that weird amulet that you had.
• 38:05
  Listened. Earlier SO.
• 38:06
  Fine. You don't have to explain
• 38:07
  yourself. It's fine.
• 38:08
  It's fine. OK.
• 38:10
  And at that point, I finished my sketch and I, you know, close up
• 38:13
  my little notebook. Janie goes.
• 38:15
  OK, well, that was kind of fun. We'll go down a floor, I guess.
• 38:19
  And she leads the way. You guys head down the stairs to
• 38:24
  the next floor, flame flickering on the torches.
• 38:28
  She says that she goes in front and I kind of whispered to you
• 38:31
  guys again. Sounds like she thinks she's in
• 38:33
  charge here. I knew someone was going to have
• 38:39
  a problem with Janie. I knew someone was going to have
• 38:42
  a problem with her. Both of both of you honestly
• 38:46
  need to chill right now. The vibes in this tower are
• 38:54
  horrendous. I'm just.
• 38:58
  Breathing hard. Can we just like just do a, just
• 39:01
  do a vibe check like on your own right now and, and tell me I'm
• 39:04
  wrong because because you guys, you're just bringing the mood
• 39:07
  down. OK, OK, fine, fine.
• 39:08
  Can we roll for vibe check? Of course.
• 39:12
  I'm going to roll a. Vibe check with.
• 39:13
  Disadvantage. I'm absolutely rolling with
• 39:15
  disadvantage. That is a gnat 1 I'm.
• 39:19
  Gonna I'm also gonna roll with disadvantage because me pointing
• 39:23
  out that the vibes are horrendous actually also dampens
• 39:26
  the vibes. I got a 10.
• 39:29
  So that could have been an 18, but it's actually a 17.
• 39:31
  Damn. So my vibes are actually pretty
• 39:33
  good. I.
• 39:36
  Was chilling, but despite all of this, you're kind of like having
• 39:39
  a grand old time. You don't know what's up.
• 39:42
  Everyone around you is so cranky and annoying, but you're just
• 39:45
  kind of just vibing. Just chilling in this dark
• 39:48
  castle. I rolled a very fitting that
• 39:51
  one, so I'm just. You're having a.
• 39:53
  Panic. Attack.
• 39:54
  I'm just sweating. So sweaty.
• 39:59
  Your long hair is like stuck to the back of your neck.
• 40:02
  I don't know if you've ever had that feeling, but it's horrible.
• 40:05
  It's like living in DC. Oh man.
• 40:07
  So you guys head down the stairs and you get to the next floor
• 40:12
  and Janie goes, this room is locked.
• 40:14
  So we've never actually been inside.
• 40:17
  I guess we could break down the door, but we're just told to
• 40:21
  patrol. And so we just kind of.
• 40:23
  Patrol who's already picking the lock?
• 40:26
  Great, roll your sleight of hand.
• 40:30
  That'll be a 15. You get in there and you hear it
• 40:35
  and the door opens. You guys just enter I'm.
• 40:38
  Going to do a quick perception check to to make sure
• 40:41
  everything's safe in there before I just walk in.
• 40:43
  Yeah, for sure. You put your ear to the door. 17
• 40:47
  How thick is the door? Bo you hear something scuttling
• 40:51
  around in there and bond to your question.
• 40:54
  The door is not over a foot, so as you approach this door you do
• 40:58
  see some magical aura inside of the door.
• 41:02
  Can I try to detect the school of magic?
• 41:05
  There is a bunch of different magic in this room.
• 41:08
  You get a strong illusory magic coming from somewhere.
• 41:14
  OK, but. Is there necromancy yet at all?
• 41:17
  No. OK, cool.
• 41:19
  OK, so you hear scuttling happening on the other side of
• 41:22
  the door. It might be Bunty.
• 41:25
  Bunty, is that you? No answer.
• 41:27
  Is that somebody other than Bunty?
• 41:30
  No answer. All right, I can't think of any
• 41:32
  third options. Jenny, you actually, you know
• 41:37
  what, I'm so nervous. I'm just, I'm just going to get
• 41:40
  a little closer to the ground. Like I'm just going to kind of
• 41:44
  cratch a little. Bit sink into yourself a little
• 41:47
  bit. Yeah, OK, Yeah.
• 41:49
  So they're scuttering on the other side of the door.
• 41:51
  No one answered when you asked if it was Bunty or not.
• 41:54
  Bunty. I think Bunty would have
• 41:56
  answered. As you guys are waiting outside
• 42:02
  the door, the scuttering starts to get louder and louder and you
• 42:05
  hear. At this point it's clipped for
• 42:11
  Abe, so I kicked down the door that's unlocked.
• 42:15
  Bunty, Bunty, come here. Abe is so right.
• 42:21
  I was right. This is Bunty.
• 42:23
  And you see Bunty piled under a bunch of clothes and he's stuck
• 42:27
  and he's rolling around. Abe.
• 42:29
  Say me. Abe.
• 42:32
  Abe. Bunty, I know your disgusting
• 42:34
  voice anywhere. I just look at the clothes and
• 42:42
  like somebody's going to have to wash those.
• 42:45
  He already took a bath earlier today.
• 42:48
  I step into the bigger room and just take a deep breath, happy
• 42:51
  to be out of The Cave. Quick clarifying question about
• 42:55
  Bunty. So he's like, he's like covered
• 42:57
  in like a, like a goop, right or.
• 43:00
  He's kind of like scaly and wet at the same time.
• 43:03
  Does does he like change appearances when he gets bathed
• 43:07
  or? No, he just, he had taken a bath
• 43:10
  earlier to hold down Abe's arm when you chopped it off.
• 43:13
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 43:13
  And he just, like, took he he just looks the same.
• 43:16
  He looks just kind of gross. From what I remember it was just
• 43:18
  the water that ran off him got less.
• 43:21
  Black. Oh.
• 43:22
  That's. Right, right.
• 43:23
  Yeah. OK, cool.
• 43:25
  Save me baby, save me. I've been stuck.
• 43:27
  Here for like. 10 minutes. How did you get here and I?
• 43:32
  Accidentally found I found a secret passageway and I stumbled
• 43:37
  along. This little slide.
• 43:39
  I think that's how they like sent food or something and then
• 43:43
  I into this room and then it got dangled up in all these little
• 43:47
  clothes. A little man used to live here.
• 43:49
  I can tell he's little. What?
• 43:52
  What do you mean a little man used to live here?
• 43:55
  Well, I mean it. Can you Get Me Out of the
• 43:57
  clothes and I'll show you? Yeah, yeah.
• 43:59
  And I'd take one of like my daggers and just like kind of
• 44:02
  cut up where he's tangled, freeing him.
• 44:05
  You free him and he's showing you clothes.
• 44:08
  Probably meant for a halfling. Yeah, little guy used to live.
• 44:13
  Here I mean not as little as me. Bigger.
• 44:15
  Bigger than cobalt? I mean, yeah, he's halfling.
• 44:17
  He's bigger than me. And that bitch over here, My
• 44:21
  name is Jamie. Honestly.
• 44:22
  She is a bitch bunty. Oh my God.
• 44:26
  I didn't do anything to you. It's just like.
• 44:31
  I'm I'm the cutest member of this group.
• 44:34
  And then this little girl comes in and she thinks.
• 44:37
  Oh, I have a little bow. And a matching little green
• 44:39
  outfit. I'm going to be the cutest.
• 44:41
  No, I'm the cutest. You see, you see Bow, Bow is in
• 44:48
  the corner and he's just like, man, I thought I was the cutest
• 44:50
  member of the group. His.
• 44:54
  Nondescript face and his nondescript clothes.
• 44:58
  He's like a he's like a 38 year old man who like doesn't take
• 45:02
  care of himself is what he looks like so.
• 45:07
  So yeah, you guys get into the room as this is happening, and
• 45:10
  you see that it's a small chamber, surprisingly humble.
• 45:15
  There's a faded rug and no art or decorations of any kind, and
• 45:20
  the bookshelves on the wall sag with journals.
• 45:24
  Anything on detect magic? Next to the bedside table you
• 45:28
  see a small handheld mirror that is giving off an aura.
• 45:34
  Decently strong aura. OK, I walk over to it and I am
• 45:38
  going to try to just like inspect it.
• 45:41
  Do you want to pick it up? It's, it's right now it's face
• 45:43
  down, the mirrors, face down on the bedside table, so you can
• 45:48
  just see like the ornate back. Do you lift it up and look at
• 45:50
  it? Yeah.
• 45:52
  So the ornate handheld mirror reflects a middle-aged halfling
• 45:58
  talking to himself in a fancy little wedding outfit.
• 46:02
  And then it flashes to another image of this man, slightly
• 46:06
  older, smiling and holding a baby and making the baby kind of
• 46:10
  like wave at the mirror. You know they use their little
• 46:12
  hands and wave at the mirror and then it flashes again and you
• 46:16
  see this halfling as an older man wearing an old traditional
• 46:21
  ignovarm regal outfit, looking weary and sad and placing his
• 46:27
  leaf crown on the head. As you're looking at that, make
• 46:32
  2 checks for me. First, make a history check.
• 46:34
  Can I show other people this as I as like?
• 46:37
  Can other people see this first of all or?
• 46:39
  Is it just other people or if they come around your shoulder
• 46:42
  and all look into the mirror, yes, they could see this.
• 46:44
  Guys, there's something weird in this mirror.
• 46:47
  Come. On everyone sees the same thing,
• 46:49
  a middle-aged halfling, and then him slightly older, and then him
• 46:52
  as an old man, and he's wearing a regal outfit so everyone can
• 46:55
  make a history check if they want. 17 for history. 5. 10.
• 47:04
  Sorry, Bond, did you say 5? 55, yeah. 17 was the highest.
• 47:09
  OK, Abe, you know that this mirror depicts Imperator Johnny
• 47:14
  Maccabee, the halfling who was the Imperator before the current
• 47:18
  Imperator. And as that happens, I need all
• 47:21
  three of you to make Charisma saving throws.
• 47:25
  Fuck, I'm sorry I'm so uncarried I shouldn't have called you guys
• 47:28
  over. Unnatural 20.
• 47:30
  Crazy. 11. I think the statistics of how
• 47:34
  well I'm rolling should be should be inspected with a
• 47:37
  Christmas saving through It's a 15 with my -1.
• 47:41
  Oh you just passed so the only person who doesn't pass is Bon.
• 47:47
  I need everyone to roll initiative.
• 47:51
  Oh, 12. Oh my God dude, that's the third
• 47:54
  gnat 1 tonight. That is kind of crazy.
• 47:58
  A 13. A 13 for Abe, 12 for Beau and
• 48:05
  three not the three for Bon. As you look into the mirror, all
• 48:10
  of a sudden you guys see a mirror version of Bon start to
• 48:17
  out of the mirror. He's like a Chrome version of
• 48:21
  Bon. He steps up and he looks at you
• 48:24
  guys completely. Chrome face, Chrome eyes and
• 48:28
  attacks. Annihilation.
• 48:30
  Annihilation. He turns to you guys and he
• 48:39
  decides to cast. Well, let me ask Bon Bon, what
• 48:43
  is your most offensive spell? Tell me.
• 48:46
  The most offensive smell. Most offensive smell.
• 48:52
  I would say it's probably guiding Bolt.
• 48:55
  Great, he turns to you regular bond and casts Guiding Bolt.
• 49:02
  He will roll to attack. Yes, I'd say everyone watch out.
• 49:06
  They made a bond. But sexy.
• 49:10
  I do. So much I.
• 49:13
  Take 5 psychic damage. So he hits you with guiding
• 49:20
  bolts and does 4D6 radiant damage.
• 49:25
  Wolf. Could I use my DM inspiration to
• 49:30
  make him re roll this? No, it's just for you to re roll
• 49:33
  one of your roles. So that's this is not good at
• 49:37
  all. I should have used it on the
• 49:39
  charisma saving throughout. You take 14 points of damage as
• 49:45
  you are blasted with Guiding Bolt.
• 49:47
  I am down. You are down.
• 49:51
  That is more than half my health points.
• 49:53
  So you get hit with 14 radiant damage and you get knocked out.
• 50:00
  And since it's radiant damage, we will not be chopping off any
• 50:03
  limbs. Mirror Bon does his turn and now
• 50:07
  it is Abe Stern. Bond I've.
• 50:14
  I've never seen Bond go down before.
• 50:16
  That was very scary. So I but we got to take this
• 50:20
  motherfucker out and then Bunty, I'd say Bunty, go, go, go.
• 50:23
  OK. Baby, let's go.
• 50:26
  All right. So the two of us are going to
• 50:28
  square up with with Chrome Bond with sexy Bond.
• 50:32
  Great. Bunty created on his ass.
• 50:39
  Oh, let's go, let's go, motivated.
• 50:41
  Incredible and I rolled so poorly.
• 50:46
  So that is going to be 6 damage to Chrome bond.
• 50:51
  OK, great. And then Abe, how much damage do
• 50:54
  you roll to the I'm? Going to attack, I'm going to
• 50:56
  attack. I'm going to swipe with my staff
• 50:59
  first, not 20. Oh my God you just Chrome bond
• 51:04
  just got credited on in a row. Yeah.
• 51:07
  Also, this is my second Nat 20 of the night.
• 51:09
  I've not rolled. I've not flat rolled below at 10
• 51:13
  this evening on anything. You're you're crazy.
• 51:16
  You're crazy. OK.
• 51:18
  So this is just for the staff first 15 on the first attack.
• 51:24
  Bond only had 19 hit points. You take Chrome Bond or Mirror
• 51:30
  Bond out completely and as you knock out the mirror version of
• 51:35
  Bond you see that it turns to wisps and float back into the
• 51:40
  mirror. Is anyone going to heal Bond?
• 51:43
  Actually Bond? Give me a death saving throw.
• 51:46
  That is a six. OK, that is 1.
• 51:49
  Fail. I'm gonna rush on and glug a
• 51:52
  healing potion down Bond's gullet.
• 51:56
  Is it 11-D4 or 2D4? I wrote just a regular healing
• 52:00
  potion. Two D 4 + 4.
• 52:04
  Yeah, that's that's the healing potion that we had. 11.
• 52:08
  Did you guys call? Why did why did you say that he
• 52:12
  was sexy Bond? This is the last thing you heard
• 52:14
  before you got knocked out. Bon, I think this is a metaphor
• 52:20
  for your ego. Oh my.
• 52:22
  God, that's the deepest thing Bo has said thus.
• 52:25
  Far. I close my eyes again.
• 52:28
  I just lie back down. I close my eyes.
• 52:32
  So while while while this had happened, you guys had kind of
• 52:35
  dropped the mirror as mirror Bon climbed out.
• 52:39
  So does anyone want to go pick up the mirror?
• 52:42
  Does anyone wanna roll in Arcana check?
• 52:45
  I'll do. I'll pick up a piece of the
• 52:48
  clothing and I'm gonna pick up the mirror and just wrap it in
• 52:51
  it without looking at the mirror directly.
• 52:53
  Does anyone wanna roll in Arcana?
• 52:55
  Check on the mirror to try to figure out how it works.
• 52:58
  You can do it with advantage cuz you have detect magic up so you
• 53:01
  kind of know. I don't anymore cuz it's down.
• 53:05
  I'm actually gonna spend, I'm gonna spend 10 minutes trying to
• 53:08
  get detect Magic up and running again.
• 53:10
  So I'll let I'll let somebody else do that.
• 53:12
  I can do an arcana check. This would be my second time
• 53:14
  trying 1 canonically. Yeah, go for.
• 53:16
  It I'll do, I'll do an Arcana check.
• 53:19
  Can I do it with disadvantage? Absolutely.
• 53:21
  I was just about to tell you that though.
• 53:25
  So that would be a nine dude. I'm on fire tonight, 16. 16
• 53:32
  Yeah, With a 16, you're kind of like inspecting the mirror.
• 53:36
  You saw what came out of it. You're tying together your
• 53:40
  knowledge of magic to the books that you've read, that your
• 53:42
  parents left you. And what you've kind of come to
• 53:46
  the conclusion is that you guys either passed your Christmas
• 53:51
  saving throw or you fought a mirror version of Bonn.
• 53:55
  So you're probably OK to look at it again.
• 53:58
  It seems like once you pass that throw, you're good.
• 54:01
  You're good to look at the mirror if you want to.
• 54:03
  It's just new people who look in the mirror might have to make a
• 54:07
  saving throw or fight a version of themselves.
• 54:11
  Well, you can unwrap it. I think we're hey.
• 54:12
  Show me the mirror. Show me the Show me the mirror.
• 54:15
  No, yeah, look at. It I don't think Bunty rolled.
• 54:17
  I don't think Bunty rolled a Charisma check.
• 54:19
  Bunty, get under my cloak and close your eyes.
• 54:22
  But I I kind of want to see Chrome bunty.
• 54:25
  I think that would be really cool.
• 54:27
  I also kind of want to see Chrome bunty.
• 54:30
  I turn to the two of them, fully serious, and I say you do not
• 54:33
  want Bunty against you. OK, who has the mirror right
• 54:36
  now? I still have it.
• 54:38
  I guess I'll unravel it if Abe has explained that.
• 54:42
  As you unravel it. Oh, OK, nevermind.
• 54:46
  Bunty tries to go for it, but slips and falls down.
• 54:51
  Fuck. All right, fine.
• 54:54
  I thought it'd be funny to see me, but I guess the God has
• 54:57
  conspired against me and he lays on the floor.
• 55:00
  Asshole. So you unravel the mirror and
• 55:03
  who is looking into it right now?
• 55:04
  I'll. I'll look into it.
• 55:06
  Beau is holding it and looking into it.
• 55:08
  I assume the other two of you are kind of hovering over his
• 55:10
  shoulders or? I'm I'm.
• 55:12
  You're still meditating, so Abe you're you're looking over his
• 55:16
  shoulder. The images of Imperator Johnny
• 55:21
  Maccabee starts to fade away a little bit Bow.
• 55:28
  When you look into the mirror, it kind of glitches.
• 55:33
  You see yourself earlier today post battle, covered in dwarven
• 55:37
  blood, and then there's a long bit of like static before you
• 55:42
  start seeing yourself floating in the water, eyes closed.
• 55:48
  You're missing an arm and a leg, and you're in your non human
• 55:52
  form. As both of you look into the
• 55:54
  mirror, Abe, you see a steampunk automaton of intricate design, a
• 56:01
  patchwork of bronze and brass with gears turning and whirring
• 56:05
  mechanisms visible beneath open plating.
• 56:09
  One arm is a skeletal brass hand.
• 56:12
  He's missing the other one, and he's only got 1 copper leg.
• 56:16
  He is floating in the water with pink and white coral encrusted
• 56:21
  around his shoulder where there's a pressure gauge.
• 56:24
  It looks like a strange blend of machine and life, and this robot
• 56:30
  is floating in the water. I cover it up and I'm like, wow,
• 56:33
  that's really weird. All right, so should we, should
• 56:37
  we move on? Can I do an an insight check
• 56:42
  just because like I'm starting to figure out how this thing
• 56:44
  works? Yeah, roll an insight check.
• 56:47
  I think if we dwell on this any longer, the vibes are at risk of
• 56:52
  of just bottoming out. Lock me up and take me to jail.
• 56:59
  Crit. I am.
• 56:59
  Fucking no I didn't crit but I got a 19.
• 57:05
  Incredible. So that would be like a 24,
• 57:08
  yeah. Yeah, you figured out how this
• 57:10
  mirror works. It shows you at different points
• 57:14
  of your life and at some point Bo is or was in mostly robotic
• 57:22
  man. I feel like I kind of notice
• 57:24
  what's going on over here and I I peek over a little as well.
• 57:28
  We'll say your ritual casting is over.
• 57:30
  Yeah, you get a you peek over. That was you.
• 57:33
  We, we should really be moving. We have, you know, we don't know
• 57:38
  what's ahead of us. Is it Haas?
• 57:43
  And wait, wait, wait. Bo, I don't put my hands on him
• 57:46
  because I know that he doesn't like that.
• 57:48
  Oh, you can tell us if there's something going on and I have my
• 57:51
  hands up, I'm not touching him. OK guys, I need to tell you
• 57:54
  something. I'm actually an influencer.
• 57:57
  I did unboxing video with Bunty earlier today and.
• 58:03
  Stop lying to us. Stop.
• 58:07
  He's had enough. I I trust you, Bo, and I trust
• 58:11
  you to keep me, this little guy, really cute, Safe.
• 58:15
  You have to keep me safe. That is your life goal.
• 58:18
  And if you're not honest with me, well, I don't know if you
• 58:21
  can be my bodyguard anymore. Well, with a threat like that.
• 58:26
  Bo I I saw I saw a magical aura earlier.
• 58:31
  I I know I did a really good job of hiding my face when I noticed
• 58:36
  it, but I saw something surrounding you and I've seen a
• 58:44
  lot of magic, but you are filled with magic.
• 58:47
  Bo lifts his hand up to his head and removes his flat cap.
• 58:53
  And I think you know, as he, as he does it, like you might not
• 58:56
  be looking directly at his face. You might be like looking at his
• 58:59
  hand as it's like moving down. And you watch as it kind of like
• 59:03
  the skin fades away and, and like Avni said it, it kind of
• 59:06
  has this, this metallic skeletal look to it.
• 59:09
  And then you you look back up and where Bow's face was before
• 59:14
  is also a face also made of, of metal.
• 59:18
  You see, it's this fine clockwork face, as if the the
• 59:24
  muscles that show expression for the mouth and the eyebrows and
• 59:28
  things like that have all been replaced with gears and springs
• 59:31
  that do a similar. And you see where Beau usually
• 59:35
  has a kind of a crooked smile that he just kind of keeps on
• 59:38
  his face, there's a spring that's actually broken and it's
• 59:42
  reflected in his mechanical face.
• 59:45
  Yeah. You see, just like Avni said
• 59:47
  this, this amalgamation of kind of different styles of of body
• 59:53
  parts and prosthetics and mechanics and no sign of flesh.
• 59:59
  Yeah. And when you guys saw?
• 1:00:01
  Him floating in the water, he was missing an arm and a leg,
• 1:00:05
  but you see now that his arm and a leg had actually been replaced
• 1:00:09
  with newer metal like steel, kind of like the type that the
• 1:00:14
  Domina has and that is very popular in Ferry Malik's.
• 1:00:17
  It seems like someone maybe fixed him up since he was in the
• 1:00:19
  water. Wow.
• 1:00:21
  And he's beautiful. He is absolutely beautiful.
• 1:00:25
  I'm sorry guys, that I that wasn't super honest before.
• 1:00:31
  I've frankly, I've been through quite a lot in the past couple
• 1:00:35
  of weeks and I've found that that this what you're seeing
• 1:00:40
  before you my, my natural form can attract attention for the
• 1:00:47
  wrong reasons. I choose to appear the way that
• 1:00:50
  you saw me. Can I ask a question, Are there
• 1:00:54
  any true automatons in our world like this?
• 1:00:57
  Like to the level of complexity that.
• 1:01:00
  There has never been a person like someone who was flesh, who
• 1:01:05
  has been like this, augmented. There's never been anything like
• 1:01:09
  this before. He he looks.
• 1:01:11
  Like Domina? No, the Domina is maybe like 70%
• 1:01:15
  augmented. She's got like a good chunk of
• 1:01:18
  her. There are like War Forge, right?
• 1:01:20
  Like fully. There are like war forge that
• 1:01:22
  are like they were built up that way but you can tell from bows
• 1:01:26
  build that it looked like he was once something that slowed.
• 1:01:30
  Probably each part got replaced. Oh, you aren't incredible.
• 1:01:35
  This is one of the most beautiful things I've seen.
• 1:01:38
  Well, I mean, you could have said that.
• 1:01:39
  You could have said that before. What was what was stopping you
• 1:01:41
  from saying that about me like 5 minutes ago, you know?
• 1:01:45
  Well, OK, you called the mirror version of me sexy Bond.
• 1:01:48
  So if we're going to if we're going to start pointing fingers,
• 1:01:55
  I was trying to be not all right, all I never mind.
• 1:01:58
  All I'm saying is, you know, mere mere bon would.
• 1:02:05
  No, it would. What would, what what just goes
• 1:02:11
  right over my head. Did you do this to yourself or
• 1:02:15
  did someone do this to you? So that's a great question and I
• 1:02:20
  would tell you the answer if I remembered which I don't, I kind
• 1:02:26
  of I kind of don't remember anything from like before two
• 1:02:31
  months ago, give or take. Did you wake up in anyones care?
• 1:02:35
  Was someone. Yeah, so as far as I know, I was
• 1:02:37
  found on a beach. And the, the first things I
• 1:02:41
  remember are the taste of alcohol that was found by this
• 1:02:46
  this group of, of travelers. And they had propped me up by a
• 1:02:51
  fire that they were dancing around at night.
• 1:02:54
  And as, as a joke, one of them poured some beer down my throat.
• 1:02:59
  And then a couple like 30 seconds later, I, I kind of, I
• 1:03:03
  came too. But you don't know how long you
• 1:03:06
  were alive before. Yeah, I have no idea.
• 1:03:10
  Do you think like the mirror will show you your past?
• 1:03:14
  Well, that was a really big thought for me.
• 1:03:16
  I'm. Actually really smart.
• 1:03:18
  A very good question, Bunty. Yeah, that's, you know, that's
• 1:03:21
  like, that's a, that's a good idea.
• 1:03:23
  Maybe we don't need to like look right now.
• 1:03:25
  Why don't we hang on to it though?
• 1:03:27
  Yeah. But I want to see Abe is like a
• 1:03:29
  little baby. I never got to meet my brother
• 1:03:31
  when he was a baby. Do you think they show me baby
• 1:03:34
  photos of Abe? Bunty shut up.
• 1:03:36
  And I and I, I, I ask for the mirror from you, Belle, if you
• 1:03:41
  give it to me. Sure, I I'll hand it to you.
• 1:03:44
  I I wrap it up with some cloth and and Stow it into my pack.
• 1:03:48
  So you guys are in this bedroom. You found the mirror and Bunty
• 1:03:55
  goes. I'm going to take some of these
• 1:03:57
  capes. Do you guys want some clothes?
• 1:03:59
  They may be a little small, but cute.
• 1:04:02
  Do any of them look like I mean this is a King's clothing?
• 1:04:05
  Are there any of these like super regal and expensive?
• 1:04:07
  Like are there jewels on any of them?
• 1:04:09
  Yes. And you can look around and do
• 1:04:13
  you want to just like take the jewels off, like the old clothes
• 1:04:16
  and stuff like. Hell yeah.
• 1:04:18
  Yeah. You get about 300 gold pieces
• 1:04:22
  worth of jewels and you also, like I said, there's not a lot
• 1:04:26
  of decorations on the wall, but there's a bookshelf with a lot
• 1:04:30
  of journals. Do you want us to like write
• 1:04:33
  down 300 gold pieces of jewels or do you want us to just.
• 1:04:37
  No, you can just do it in gold. You can just do it in gold.
• 1:04:39
  Yeah, all. Right.
• 1:04:40
  So everybody just take 100, OK? Finally, I have money again.
• 1:04:44
  We're not. We're not cutting Janie into
• 1:04:45
  this. Definitely.
• 1:04:46
  Yeah, what about my money? I need to get to the beach.
• 1:04:49
  We'll give you money afterwards. Oh, OK.
• 1:04:52
  I didn't know that was part of the deal.
• 1:04:53
  I'm OK with that. We're not going to give her any
• 1:04:55
  money. Yeah, we better not.
• 1:05:01
  I'm the cutest. I'm the cutest.
• 1:05:04
  We might have to give her some money just so that she doesn't
• 1:05:07
  tell the captain well. Not out of my share.
• 1:05:10
  Yeah, I'm going to tell the captain.
• 1:05:11
  Well, no, just kidding. I'm joking.
• 1:05:13
  Don't hurt me. Please.
• 1:05:14
  Did somebody give Bunty a share? I just handed the.
• 1:05:17
  I just been taking money out of Abe's back pocket, so whatever.
• 1:05:21
  Dude, what the bunty bunty bunty give it give it all back right
• 1:05:25
  now and I hold my hand out. Give it back right now or any
• 1:05:28
  Cape that you grab from here, I'm going to tear it into
• 1:05:30
  shreds. Give it to me.
• 1:05:31
  Give give me the money you took for my pack.
• 1:05:33
  Oh shit. OK, you know what?
• 1:05:34
  Yeah, he gives you back the money and he takes 3 capes, 1's
• 1:05:38
  gold, 1's red and one's one's blue and he ties them all on to
• 1:05:42
  him at the same time. That's pretty sick, I won't lie.
• 1:05:45
  Yeah, looking fresh. Do you guys want to check out
• 1:05:48
  anything else in the room? Yeah, The topic of the journals,
• 1:05:51
  are they dated in any way? Like are there like a series of
• 1:05:54
  journals? I'm looking for something close
• 1:05:56
  to the end of his reign. Yes, perfect, you can pick up
• 1:05:59
  the journal and this journal was probably dated maybe like a year
• 1:06:06
  ish before they attacked the lost empire.
• 1:06:09
  So Imperator Pyrion at this point was just a general whose
• 1:06:14
  general Pyrion, and you know from history that he was the one
• 1:06:17
  who kind of united the four empires to attack the lost
• 1:06:21
  empire. He was thinking that they're
• 1:06:23
  unchecked power, right? They're not involved in this
• 1:06:25
  war. They're kind of out there
• 1:06:26
  thriving. That would be detrimental for
• 1:06:29
  the other empires. Pyrion was just a general at
• 1:06:32
  this time. And in Parador Maccabee, you're
• 1:06:34
  reading his journals, and he writes a lot about the doubts of
• 1:06:38
  the war. He talks about how he wishes
• 1:06:40
  that the four empires could just find peace, but he knows that he
• 1:06:44
  is seen as a weak imperator for wanting that.
• 1:06:48
  He also talks about how he knows that Perion is up to something
• 1:06:54
  behind his back, but he's not entirely sure what it is.
• 1:06:59
  And he also talks about how he misses his wife and his
• 1:07:02
  daughter. And as you keep reading, you
• 1:07:04
  realize that his wife and his daughter died during the war,
• 1:07:08
  which also is another reason why he's not a big fan of this war
• 1:07:13
  to begin with. So when you saw him in the
• 1:07:15
  mirror, looking old and weary, he he was like looking
• 1:07:18
  depressed. Well this is like huge for Abe
• 1:07:21
  to be reading about anything related to the Lost Empire.
• 1:07:24
  Well, this is about ignovarum. This I mean like.
• 1:07:28
  But anything that could give him more information, especially his
• 1:07:31
  primary source as ascribed. This is like invaluable
• 1:07:34
  information from a primary source.
• 1:07:36
  So yes, he's gonna try to grab a few more of the journals.
• 1:07:42
  Roll AD 20 right now. Just add nothing.
• 1:07:45
  Just roll AD 20, OK? Straight 10.
• 1:07:49
  Straight 10 half of these journals are destroyed from over
• 1:07:53
  time, just like moisture in the air has gotten to them.
• 1:07:57
  So you're able to grab 2 pretty thick journals and you can put
• 1:08:01
  them in your pack if. You want?
• 1:08:03
  Yeah. And I'm not going to read them
• 1:08:04
  right now, but I definitely want to read them later to see if
• 1:08:07
  just like anything, anything about like interactions with
• 1:08:10
  people from the Lost Empire, like any, anything that could
• 1:08:13
  tell me more about them. Well, Ava's doing this.
• 1:08:16
  I'm going to go over to Bon and I'm going to say, so have you
• 1:08:18
  ever, have you ever gotten one of those prophecies from that
• 1:08:22
  place, Veil and thou? Thou I tend to leave prophecies
• 1:08:29
  to my dreams. I pull out a little vial of of
• 1:08:32
  dream salt. Oh cool OK I only I only really
• 1:08:35
  heard about it about, you know, a month ago.
• 1:08:37
  It gives me crazy dreams that are said to be prophetic, and
• 1:08:42
  that's sort of where I've been dipping my toes into prophecy,
• 1:08:45
  why I was. I was just.
• 1:08:47
  Did you did you get a prophecy I.
• 1:08:49
  Might have I might have gotten a prophecy.
• 1:08:53
  I was just wondering if like, you know, there were any, any
• 1:08:56
  like first hand accounts or of it like coming true or being
• 1:08:59
  like accurate or stuff like that.
• 1:09:01
  Or if it's just, you know, like it was just, it was just like a
• 1:09:05
  lot of stuff about just like the the echoes of the past will sink
• 1:09:09
  through you and like you are not you.
• 1:09:13
  You mistake yourself for the seed when you are the root and
• 1:09:15
  stuff like that. And I'm, I'm just, you know.
• 1:09:19
  Well, I think I know enough about religion in general to say
• 1:09:24
  that. So, you know, Vedrus is magic.
• 1:09:27
  The God that the people in that store worship is, you know, a
• 1:09:31
  God of prophecy, dreams, things like that.
• 1:09:34
  And from what I understand, there is accuracy to the words
• 1:09:40
  that were said, but it's never a clear picture.
• 1:09:44
  And I'm not sure what those words could mean.
• 1:09:48
  I'm sure they could mean a lot of things, but the gods, they
• 1:09:51
  work in mysterious ways. I wouldn't worry about it too
• 1:09:54
  much. Just keep it in the back of your
• 1:09:56
  mind. Great.
• 1:09:58
  So Janie goes, wow, I bet she's never been in this room before.
• 1:10:01
  This is this is really nice. Maybe I'll be like Bunty and
• 1:10:04
  grab some cloaks. And Bunty goes, no, you get no
• 1:10:08
  cloaks. And he starts tearing up all the
• 1:10:10
  other clothes that he did not take.
• 1:10:12
  OK, I guess no cloaks for me. I go over to Bunty.
• 1:10:15
  I'm like, why are you being so mean to?
• 1:10:18
  I am so cute. I am so cute.
• 1:10:23
  But I know you're. Cute she is.
• 1:10:25
  Both know you. Did you see she's got a matching
• 1:10:28
  lime green outfit and bow? I can't fucking compete with
• 1:10:32
  that. I'm Naked all the time.
• 1:10:34
  Naked, I tell you. I understand, I just maybe stop
• 1:10:37
  using the B word to describe her.
• 1:10:41
  I don't, I don't think. I'll tell you guys that.
• 1:10:44
  OK, as soon as as soon as like I hear this, I'm stowing the
• 1:10:48
  journals away. I walk over but but Bond, she is
• 1:10:50
  kind of a bitch. No, Abe, we don't use those
• 1:10:54
  words in this house. We don't use those words.
• 1:10:57
  Do you not listen to what Bond just said?
• 1:10:59
  Oh my God, You'll go in the corner, Abe, You'll go in the
• 1:11:02
  corner. Think about what you've done.
• 1:11:04
  Bond to. Look up to and I glare at.
• 1:11:05
  Buzz, guys. 1. He runs away so.
• 1:11:08
  Guys, do I need to say it? Do I need to say it vibes?
• 1:11:13
  Come on. It's been it's, it's fully been
• 1:11:16
  10 minutes. My detect magic just runs out.
• 1:11:18
  I'm like, yeah, start to cast the ritual again.
• 1:11:25
  So yadda, yadda, yadda, you cast the ritual time going on and
• 1:11:29
  Janie goes, OK, so the, the, the next floor that we're going to
• 1:11:33
  go on, that's that's the last floor of, of, of stuff I know.
• 1:11:37
  So the some of the other guards might be might be down here, I'm
• 1:11:41
  not sure. Janie in which room?
• 1:11:44
  This, this is the first day of your life, Janie.
• 1:11:47
  This is the day where you decided that you have free will
• 1:11:50
  and we're going to go below the level.
• 1:11:52
  I'm very excited for it. That you've been told to go Oh.
• 1:11:55
  My God. OK, but first let's go to the
• 1:11:57
  level that I know. I I go up, I go up to Bunty and.
• 1:12:00
  Janie God damn it, I go. Up to Bunty and and Abe I guess.
• 1:12:05
  And I'm like, imagine having free will and choosing to be a
• 1:12:09
  bitch. Tax.
• 1:12:12
  Bunty turns to you Bo, and goes, oh, that's actually I think I'm
• 1:12:17
  going to ask her to be my girlfriend.
• 1:12:18
  So I would appreciate if you didn't call her that.
• 1:12:23
  I think I love her. I think I love her.
• 1:12:27
  I don't know how to respond. Charlie's like losing.
• 1:12:29
  His mind. Well, maybe when we go down the
• 1:12:33
  steps, you guys gonna hang back a little and put like the moves
• 1:12:37
  on her or something and. Like.
• 1:12:38
  The Bunty. Maybe by the time we get to the
• 1:12:40
  next floor, she'll be my girlfriend.
• 1:12:42
  I'm in full support. Let's give you a makeover.
• 1:12:44
  And I pull out the mirror as if to to help.
• 1:12:49
  No, no, no and. I'm just mirror.
• 1:12:50
  Abe has the mirror. Abe has the mirror.
• 1:12:52
  I was just kidding because Abe does have it.
• 1:12:56
  So so Janie and Bunty lead you guys down the stairs.
• 1:13:00
  I'm going to roll with disadvantage persuasion for
• 1:13:04
  Bunty to try to get Janie to be his girlfriend.
• 1:13:07
  I want to give bunty that help action.
• 1:13:10
  Yeah, how do you do it? Oh fuck, I guess I pulled I
• 1:13:13
  pulled Janie aside or I, I, I go up to our while everybody else
• 1:13:18
  is doing is up to something, I guess.
• 1:13:19
  Well, while Bond's casting the spell for another 10 minutes and
• 1:13:23
  I'm like, I know Bunty's gross, but he's, he's.
• 1:13:27
  Starting off so strong. He's like gross in a cute way.
• 1:13:31
  You know, it's like, so you, it's like, I kind of want to
• 1:13:35
  give up a bath. Like, don't you?
• 1:13:37
  Yeah, she turns over and she looks at Bunty, who's giving her
• 1:13:41
  like this really big grin as drool comes out of his mouth.
• 1:13:45
  And so he'll roll flat as he's putting the moves on her dead
• 1:13:51
  ass. That's a gnat 1.
• 1:13:57
  You look over and you see Janie push him until he almost falls
• 1:14:02
  off of the stairs and he grabs onto the handle and he pulls
• 1:14:06
  himself back onto the stairs and he turns to you guys and he
• 1:14:09
  goes. That went really well, guys.
• 1:14:12
  Like I feel it's connecting. I'm such a like a, a deeper
• 1:14:15
  level, I think. And Janie's just like a
• 1:14:18
  hurriedly like running away from him down the stairs.
• 1:14:22
  Yes, that was awesome. Dab me up, dab me up.
• 1:14:25
  And you guys saw him epically fail?
• 1:14:28
  Yeah, I'm not. I'm not dapping him up.
• 1:14:30
  Yeah. Bunty.
• 1:14:32
  Bunty, he high fives himself. I think you need to leave her
• 1:14:35
  alone for a little bit, Clint. Get in, get in.
• 1:14:39
  Bunty, you You shot your shot. You shot your shot.
• 1:14:43
  You. Did whatever you did but but if
• 1:14:49
  it's if it's a no, it's a no. Maybe when she sees me fight,
• 1:14:53
  she'll be like, oh man, he's hot.
• 1:14:55
  He's so hot, right? Maybe, all right, maybe I'll
• 1:14:59
  start fighting. We'll start fighting something.
• 1:15:01
  I don't know anyone. Maybe if you got really good at
• 1:15:04
  bunk it. Yeah, I was just going to say
• 1:15:08
  that. He goes under Abe's cloak and
• 1:15:13
  starts. You hear the soft sounds of bunk
• 1:15:16
  it as you guys descend the stairs to the next.
• 1:15:20
  Twist it. Tap it.
• 1:15:21
  Stretch. It.
• 1:15:23
  Rotate it, yank it as you guys get to the next floor.
• 1:15:28
  Unlike the top two floors where there was just one room that was
• 1:15:32
  like off the steps, there are 5 rooms here, but it seems like
• 1:15:37
  only two of them might be accessible.
• 1:15:40
  The other three are mostly just rubble.
• 1:15:43
  And Janie turns to you guys and is like, OK.
• 1:15:45
  We'll have to be. Really quiet right now because
• 1:15:48
  like I think the other cobalt guards are are probably around
• 1:15:52
  here. So does everyone want to give
• 1:15:55
  stealth checks? What are we?
• 1:15:57
  What are we walking into, Jamie? Is this just like a room where
• 1:16:01
  they're all sitting at a table playing cards?
• 1:16:03
  Is this like a? What are?
• 1:16:05
  Well, there's two different rooms on this floor.
• 1:16:07
  There is the Prager room and the the the letter room.
• 1:16:12
  If we didn't see them on the other two floors, then they're
• 1:16:15
  probably hanging out in one or or both of these rooms.
• 1:16:19
  I'm not really sure. How many of them did you say
• 1:16:21
  there were? Oh, there's ten of us total, so
• 1:16:22
  probably 9-9 other. And you think they're definitely
• 1:16:25
  going to, you know, just fight us like there's, we can't reason
• 1:16:28
  with them. I don't know.
• 1:16:29
  They were kind of trained for this job, so we should.
• 1:16:32
  I don't know, They were told. We should tell them that we're
• 1:16:35
  that we were sent by the captain and the Arch Druid.
• 1:16:39
  And sure, I mean you can tell them anything you want.
• 1:16:41
  Yeah, but for that to work, you need to, you need to act like
• 1:16:44
  it's true. Janie, Can you do that?
• 1:16:46
  Janie? Yeah, of course I can do that.
• 1:16:48
  I want to get out of here. Here's the thing.
• 1:16:51
  Because if we, if this is just going to turn into a fight, we
• 1:16:54
  also, if we try to go diplomatically, then we lose the
• 1:16:58
  element of surprise. I agree and I'm going to ready
• 1:17:02
  bless. I assume we're going to try to
• 1:17:05
  sneak up, but when we notice people, I'm going to cast Bless.
• 1:17:09
  Cool, everyone give me their stealth checks.
• 1:17:12
  I'm going to cast guidance on myself for the stealth check
• 1:17:14
  also. I got an 18.
• 1:17:16
  I got a 24. I got a 14.
• 1:17:19
  All of you guys are silent, some more silent than others, but
• 1:17:24
  still silent enough. As you guys come down the rest
• 1:17:28
  of the steps, there are two doors, both closed.
• 1:17:31
  Which one do you want to go to 1st?
• 1:17:34
  There's one on the left and there's one on the right, Janie
• 1:17:36
  says. The one on the left is.
• 1:17:37
  The prayer room and the one on the right is the the the letter
• 1:17:41
  room. Listen, Janie, you you did say
• 1:17:44
  that before, but that doesn't explain what the rooms are.
• 1:17:47
  Janie you understand how like informative those qualifiers for
• 1:17:52
  the rooms are, right Janie You get that, Janie, right?
• 1:17:55
  Well, one is about the gods. The letter room, Is that the
• 1:18:00
  other one? Yeah, like the mail room.
• 1:18:02
  Oh, OK, or. They just keep, it's like they
• 1:18:05
  keep a lot of like letters from other people and also just like
• 1:18:08
  old journals and papers. It's kind of like a lot of it.
• 1:18:12
  I'll be honest. We've destroyed a lot of these
• 1:18:14
  papers and letters just because we kind of goof around and we're
• 1:18:17
  just having fun and like, it's been here for 500 years or so,
• 1:18:22
  so it's destroyed, but. You're saying a lot of we have a
• 1:18:25
  lot of fun and we do this. I thought that you didn't like
• 1:18:29
  these other nine guys down here. I just want to be included.
• 1:18:33
  I'm just. If we.
• 1:18:34
  Use the WE language. Maybe they'll include me.
• 1:18:37
  Well, now not anymore and now I don't really care.
• 1:18:39
  But. Yeah, you need to remember
• 1:18:41
  you're no longer part of the WE, you're part of this wee.
• 1:18:44
  I know I will kill if needed. I will kill if.
• 1:18:47
  Needed. That's good to know.
• 1:18:48
  Oh wow, that's you've come a long way.
• 1:18:51
  Yeah. From the top of the stairs all.
• 1:18:56
  Right, I feel like Bo is the best at stealthing.
• 1:18:59
  So why don't we let Bo lead the way?
• 1:19:02
  I guess my question to Janie is which of these rooms can I walk
• 1:19:06
  into and the people inside of the room won't immediately know
• 1:19:10
  that the door is opened? Both of the rooms.
• 1:19:13
  Kind of have like a little part to it so that like when the door
• 1:19:18
  opens, if they're at the other side of the room, they don't
• 1:19:21
  really see it. It has like a little that little
• 1:19:23
  like short hallway type of thing.
• 1:19:24
  OK, OK, cool. I can get into one of these
• 1:19:27
  rooms without having to alert the people inside.
• 1:19:31
  All right, yeah, I'll, I'll, I guess it doesn't really matter
• 1:19:33
  which one I pick. Then I'll pick the letter room.
• 1:19:35
  How about I go, I go in first. I get AI get just kind of a low
• 1:19:41
  down. Great.
• 1:19:42
  You enter the room silently with your 24 stealth and you step
• 1:19:47
  into what was once a castles litter room, which is now mostly
• 1:19:51
  a forgotten corner. Dust hangs thick in the air,
• 1:19:54
  stirred by your movement. There is toppled shelves and
• 1:19:58
  scattered letters everywhere with their wax seals cracked and
• 1:20:02
  faded parchment litters the floor edges curled from age and
• 1:20:07
  moisture. There's a smell of mildew and
• 1:20:09
  old smoke. There's a few half crushed male
• 1:20:12
  tubes and rusted ceiling stamps. But there's no one in here.
• 1:20:16
  Can I do a check to confirm that perception check?
• 1:20:21
  Yes, yes, you can do a perception check. 16.
• 1:20:25
  There are no cobalts in this room.
• 1:20:27
  You know, come back out of the room and gesture for everybody
• 1:20:30
  to to follow me inside. I figure we'll we'll look around
• 1:20:34
  this room, see if there's anything we can find before
• 1:20:36
  going into the next one. I had to dismiss I, I had to
• 1:20:47
  dismiss detect magic to cast guidance on myself.
• 1:20:52
  And I thought we were going to cast bless.
• 1:20:55
  So now if we want to explore this room, I need another 10
• 1:21:00
  minutes. This is This is the D&D
• 1:21:04
  equivalent of if you're trying to go somewhere and one person
• 1:21:08
  has AGPS, but it only has like 2% battery at a time and you
• 1:21:12
  have to stop every once in a while and just wait for it to.
• 1:21:15
  Change Yeah, well, you guys can investigate the room, look
• 1:21:18
  around with your eyes if you want as bond as virtual casting.
• 1:21:23
  So everyone want to give me investigation checks.
• 1:21:25
  Yeah, I'm again interested in any salvageable primary sources
• 1:21:31
  from this long ago time. Any letters?
• 1:21:35
  I'll tell you there, DC-10 you'll get something small,
• 1:21:39
  DC-15 you'll get something bigger.
• 1:21:41
  And if you guys beat a DC 20 investigation check, I will give
• 1:21:46
  you all these the things that I have planned.
• 1:21:49
  Oh, well then in that case. What does an unnatural 2 get me?
• 1:21:54
  Bo, you can't find your ass. You think maybe it fell off when
• 1:21:59
  you turned back into your robot. Turning around in circles and
• 1:22:02
  I'm. Chasing your tail?
• 1:22:03
  I'm turning around in circles like a dog and I'm like, where
• 1:22:06
  are we? My ass piece.
• 1:22:07
  My ass piece fell. Off.
• 1:22:09
  I think I should have. I should have gone to the casino
• 1:22:11
  tonight I believe. Oh.
• 1:22:13
  Man. What'd you get, 21?
• 1:22:16
  20. 1/21/21. Abe, you find this letter
• 1:22:19
  written from Ambrose Skylark to Imperator Johnny Maccabee.
• 1:22:24
  To His Excellency Imperator Johnny Maccabee, from the hand
• 1:22:27
  of Ambrose Skylark. My dear Johnny, Another year
• 1:22:31
  gone, and still I find myself searching for words.
• 1:22:34
  When this day returns, there are none.
• 1:22:36
  Of course, no clock can take long enough to ease what you've
• 1:22:39
  lost. Still, I wanted to write, if
• 1:22:42
  only so you'd know that someone else remembers.
• 1:22:45
  As I passed the old gardens of my cottage this morning, the
• 1:22:48
  wind carried the scent of ash blossom, and I thought of Ilara
• 1:22:51
  and little Mira laughing there when you visited last.
• 1:22:54
  The world feels emptier without them.
• 1:22:57
  My own household has grown quieter.
• 1:22:59
  Elias buries himself in his studies.
• 1:23:01
  He's clever with the gears and glass work, though I fear he
• 1:23:04
  prefers the tinkering to his lessons.
• 1:23:06
  Corin, poor boy, is still unwell.
• 1:23:09
  The healers say it is his lungs. He wakes at night gasping,
• 1:23:13
  unable to draw a full breath. He keeps a little journal now.
• 1:23:18
  I found a page he left by the bedside.
• 1:23:20
  He wrote that a woman came to him in a dream.
• 1:23:23
  The lady who touched his brow and whispered, just breathe,
• 1:23:26
  just one more, I'll help you. When he woke, his fever had
• 1:23:30
  broken. He has met the Lady of Breath.
• 1:23:33
  As the war where you live rages on, the priest speak of her more
• 1:23:37
  often these days. High Priestess GAIL Song said
• 1:23:40
  word last month asking me to attend the Feast of the Last
• 1:23:43
  Breath. She wrote, keep your eyes to her
• 1:23:47
  altar, not to the clamor of the four.
• 1:23:49
  It is she who sustains us. The people must remember that
• 1:23:52
  every life is her gift. And yet, Ambrose, there are
• 1:23:56
  whispers that the artificers have found a way to hold that
• 1:23:58
  gift forever. Those words have lived in my
• 1:24:02
  mind ever since. To hold her gift forever.
• 1:24:06
  She means the scholars work at the Capitol in attempt to anchor
• 1:24:09
  life itself, to make the act of breathing unending.
• 1:24:13
  I cannot tell whether it is faith or arrogance that drives
• 1:24:16
  them, but if there's any chance it could ease Corin's suffering,
• 1:24:19
  how could I not see it through? I've written to volunteer for
• 1:24:22
  their trials. The High Priestess insists it is
• 1:24:25
  the lady's will. The artificers claim it is only
• 1:24:28
  refinement of craft. They say the body need not fail
• 1:24:32
  if the breath is given form, that the spark can be housed in
• 1:24:35
  brass and copper as well as flesh.
• 1:24:39
  I no longer care which is true. If my breath can keep my son
• 1:24:42
  alive, let them take it. If this reaches you after I'm
• 1:24:45
  gone, think kindly of me. I wrote letters to my sons to
• 1:24:50
  tell Elias his mind will outstrip mine one day, and to
• 1:24:53
  tell Corin, if he still draw his breath, that I never stopped
• 1:24:56
  listening for it. When next you think of me, open
• 1:24:59
  a bottle of our favorite Mead and toast with the wind.
• 1:25:02
  She'll carry it to me. Your old friend Ambrose Skylark
• 1:25:06
  and after reading that I I look up there was like some kind of
• 1:25:11
  reference to to mechanical life and I do like glance over at
• 1:25:16
  bow. Who do you think this guy is and
• 1:25:19
  also where do you think this guy is?
• 1:25:22
  It's a good question. Can we do history checks?
• 1:25:25
  Yeah, you can. You can do history checks to try
• 1:25:27
  to read between the lines. Also to see if we know who
• 1:25:30
  Ambrose Skylark or like if the Skylark family.
• 1:25:34
  That and then also is there anything in my parents writing
• 1:25:39
  in their research, anything that like mentioned Lady of the
• 1:25:43
  Breath or this, this guy, Ambrose Skylark, like any of the
• 1:25:47
  names that came up? Yeah, everyone can roll history
• 1:25:51
  or an investigation also, either of those.
• 1:25:53
  Just went ahead and gave myself disadvantage on history and got
• 1:25:57
  an 8. Yeah, you can't really tell
• 1:25:59
  where this guy is from. He mentions when you visited
• 1:26:03
  last, so obviously the imperator had visited him.
• 1:26:07
  He talks about the scholars at the capital.
• 1:26:12
  You don't know which capital. I got a.
• 1:26:15
  This is the second to lowest roll I got.
• 1:26:17
  I got a 14. Abe, you don't recognize any of
• 1:26:21
  these names, really. You don't recognize the Lady of
• 1:26:25
  Breath. You don't recognize Ambrose
• 1:26:27
  Skylark. None of this is really similar
• 1:26:30
  to your parents notes. Got you.
• 1:26:33
  And it's and it's dated. It is not dated, no.
• 1:26:37
  OK, could I make my Czech religion to see if I can sort of
• 1:26:41
  infer about the lady breath? Yes, you can go for.
• 1:26:44
  It so I rolled a 23. Oh, you think deep past in your
• 1:26:51
  memories and you think to this one time in your childhood.
• 1:26:57
  You were young. You're a little rambunctious at
• 1:27:00
  the time. You've always had a little bit
• 1:27:01
  of a wild spirit and a temper. You're running around your
• 1:27:05
  village. There's a specific temple that
• 1:27:09
  everyone 18 plus in your village who goes through the anaphosis
• 1:27:13
  ceremony is allowed to enter. It's where the secrets of this
• 1:27:18
  mirror are held. They also talk about the other
• 1:27:21
  gods in this temple and have discussions, just large
• 1:27:26
  religious discussions with everyone in the village as the
• 1:27:29
  kids go out and play. And you remember this one time
• 1:27:32
  when you're little, you're playing hide and seek.
• 1:27:34
  And you decide what better spot to hide than this temple, this
• 1:27:38
  temple that kids are not supposed to enter.
• 1:27:41
  And you got on your hands and knees and you kind of creeped
• 1:27:43
  your way through the door, crawled in, and you heard a
• 1:27:48
  bunch of the adults talking. You heard them mention Lady of
• 1:27:52
  Breath. They talk about her as if she is
• 1:27:56
  not dead. They're talking about her
• 1:27:58
  influence in the world, what influence she still has.
• 1:28:03
  As you're listening in and you're hiding, your mother spots
• 1:28:06
  you and she quickly grabs you and pulls you away and scolds
• 1:28:10
  you. This is not a conversation for a
• 1:28:13
  child to be at. One day bond.
• 1:28:15
  When you grow up, you will learn at your anaphosis ceremony and
• 1:28:20
  that's all that you remember. You have never heard anyone else
• 1:28:23
  talk about the Lady of Breath. That is not the moniker of any
• 1:28:27
  of the gods that exist right now.
• 1:28:29
  So you don't. Know, I'll kind of say to
• 1:28:33
  everybody, I've, I've heard of the Lady of breath before my
• 1:28:37
  village, the the worshippers of this mirror, the people in my,
• 1:28:42
  my hometown, they used to they, I, they talked about her once,
• 1:28:46
  but I don't know too much more. They said her influence was
• 1:28:50
  still present in the world. She seemed like some sort of
• 1:28:54
  God, but not, you know, not not one of the Paragons or the
• 1:28:58
  Scions. Bo, do you think that it's
• 1:29:01
  possible that you either are Corin or perhaps someone that
• 1:29:07
  was also experimented on in the same way?
• 1:29:10
  I have no idea, you know, about as much as I do.
• 1:29:14
  So as Bond is hypothesizing if Bo has any sort of relation to
• 1:29:21
  Ambrose, Skylark or wherever Ambrose is from or his kids,
• 1:29:25
  there is a second thing that you find.
• 1:29:29
  So what you find is the start to a ritual.
• 1:29:32
  A lot of it is burned off and has been damaged over time.
• 1:29:36
  But besides this ritual, you also see a drawing that looks
• 1:29:40
  suspiciously like Bunty. This invocation opens a passage
• 1:29:45
  not to the stars above, but to the silence between them.
• 1:29:49
  From there, something may answer.
• 1:29:51
  It is not bound to name, nor to place.
• 1:29:54
  It's form will be small at first, but it's meaning vast.
• 1:29:58
  Those who walk this path must be willing to give breath,
• 1:30:01
  stillness and bloom to the void, for only then will it reveal its
• 1:30:05
  hidden seed. And then a crude picture of
• 1:30:09
  Bunty. You know, where'd they get this
• 1:30:11
  sexy bunty? Yeah, it looks like me, but like
• 1:30:14
  I'm like, wait. Wait, hold on.
• 1:30:16
  Wait, what? I'm sexy bunty.
• 1:30:19
  I'm sexy, bunty. And according to Janie.
• 1:30:22
  He starts to cry a little bit out of his one big eye and goes
• 1:30:25
  under Abe's cloak. The ritual that I cast indeed
• 1:30:29
  had ghost like flowers bloom from the stone in my basement
• 1:30:33
  and Bunty arose from from that. They mentioned the seed, but
• 1:30:38
  your prophecy also there was. Something that seed was.
• 1:30:41
  It was about me confusing myself for the seed, but I guess I'm
• 1:30:46
  not the seed. Also about this this ritual, I
• 1:30:49
  kind of get in close to Abe and and I whispered and said it says
• 1:30:54
  that something may answer but it's not bound to a name.
• 1:30:57
  Then correct me if I'm wrong. Bunty was.
• 1:31:00
  He said his name was Bjerg when I asked him what to call him,
• 1:31:05
  but I don't know if that like if he really has a name or if
• 1:31:09
  that's just something he chose to call himself.
• 1:31:12
  And like, obviously I've changed his name.
• 1:31:14
  Interesting, because I didn't like that very much, but that's
• 1:31:17
  a good point. I don't know.
• 1:31:18
  Abe, you know that anytime you've asked Bunty where he's
• 1:31:22
  from, he just either doesn't answer or just goes, I don't
• 1:31:26
  know. I'm insane.
• 1:31:27
  The third thing that you guys find is a prayer sheet.
• 1:31:33
  When you wake, bow your head and draw in the first breath.
• 1:31:38
  Raise your sound like a yoga instructor, like a YouTube yoga
• 1:31:44
  instructor. When you wake, bow your head and
• 1:31:56
  draw in the first breath. Raise your arms as wide as the
• 1:32:00
  lungs swell and whisper, Mistress of Breath, fill my
• 1:32:05
  heart as I feel my lungs. When you release, lower your
• 1:32:09
  hands to the earth, palms open. Mistress of breath, what leaves
• 1:32:14
  me? Give to the world, place your
• 1:32:17
  head to the ground, and promise each breath is yours until no
• 1:32:21
  breath remains. Remember, She brings each breath
• 1:32:25
  to our lungs on the winds of freedom.
• 1:32:29
  The people of. And at this point, there is a
• 1:32:32
  little black mark that you can't read.
• 1:32:35
  I can't make out this word. The people of this place will
• 1:32:39
  always stay safe against the chains of the four.
• 1:32:43
  I want to make a insight check. On.
• 1:32:47
  There's been a lot of talk about like there was the silent bloom,
• 1:32:51
  I think. So Abe has never really like
• 1:32:53
  connected the dots and has been pretty like pretty singularly
• 1:32:56
  focused on the Imperator and on Astraxian who gave him the
• 1:33:01
  immortality in his form. But like, there's a lot of like
• 1:33:05
  illusions. I don't know if I need to make a
• 1:33:07
  check for this or not. I'm just asking like I'm trying
• 1:33:10
  to see if like any of this lines up actually with Cell Vera.
• 1:33:15
  You can roll a religion check if you want.
• 1:33:19
  OK. 9A19 plus that's a 22. You know that Sylvira, her stuff
• 1:33:27
  is like very circle of life. There is life, there is death.
• 1:33:32
  She is all about that renewal. This seems a little bit
• 1:33:38
  different than like the cycle. This seems like whoever they are
• 1:33:43
  talking about is the one that does the day-to-day breathing
• 1:33:48
  and keeping you alive and things like that.
• 1:33:51
  It is there to fill your lungs and to be with you throughout
• 1:33:55
  your life. Versus Silvira worships the life
• 1:33:59
  and death cycle. That's her domain.
• 1:34:02
  So it's similar, but it's not exactly the same.
• 1:34:06
  And I guess after you guys read these three, you notice that the
• 1:34:11
  people that worship the Mistress of Breath are not part of the
• 1:34:14
  four. That is made very clear in the
• 1:34:17
  prayer sheet. You also see that Ambrose
• 1:34:20
  Skylark talks about the Lady of Breath and attending the feast
• 1:34:26
  of the Last Breath. So kind of putting those pieces
• 1:34:29
  together, you can tell like Ambrose Skylark is not from the
• 1:34:35
  four empires that you guys know of.
• 1:34:38
  Yeah. Oh wow, Abe's face is literally
• 1:34:40
  my face right now. Just for reference.
• 1:34:43
  He is just like what is your face?
• 1:34:44
  My face is just. I'm just in absolute.
• 1:34:47
  Like this is such a knowledge. Gob smacked.
• 1:34:49
  Yes, gob smacked is a. Good word, good word.
• 1:34:53
  Perfect word to describe. He's just like reeling from this
• 1:34:57
  information, especially the Bunty one, because like that,
• 1:35:00
  that was like that came to him like from his research that
• 1:35:03
  there was like a ritual that could maybe have to do with
• 1:35:07
  things, but it was like secondary tertiary source
• 1:35:10
  research. Not, not this kind of like
• 1:35:12
  almost direct description with the sketch of Bunty.
• 1:35:16
  There was nothing like the sketch of Bunty in the in the
• 1:35:19
  stuff he had read. This is a good time to ask how
• 1:35:22
  exactly did you summon Bunty? Was it the same as this ritual?
• 1:35:26
  So on the boat that my brother came back on, brother who's in
• 1:35:30
  prison lost his mind. Yeah, we we've, we've heard,
• 1:35:33
  we've heard of him. Yeah, I don't know if you knew.
• 1:35:34
  You've mentioned him once or twice.
• 1:35:36
  There were a lot of journals on the book, and I didn't have a
• 1:35:40
  lot to do after that. And I tried to kind of like look
• 1:35:46
  for patterns in things that they wrote and observed.
• 1:35:49
  And from that it was more of like a mathematical relationship
• 1:35:53
  that described a circle that I ended up drawing in in my
• 1:35:57
  basement and stating the incantation that that they had
• 1:36:01
  written in the journal that was. That was a few years ago though.
• 1:36:05
  You basically like Jerry rigged A ritual from like a bunch of
• 1:36:09
  different sources and information and kind of put the
• 1:36:12
  pieces together. So it wasn't stated as clear as
• 1:36:15
  this. You don't know what the rest of
• 1:36:16
  this ritual says to do right? But it this is very clear and
• 1:36:21
  what you had was just like kind of nonsense that you put
• 1:36:24
  together and somehow summoned Bunty.
• 1:36:26
  Yeah, the the equation that came out like described how to draw
• 1:36:30
  the circle basically. But this is like like the
• 1:36:34
  reference to stillness and bloom to the void.
• 1:36:36
  Like when I did summon Bunty unknowingly, there were these
• 1:36:40
  like kind of white light ghost like flowers that cracked out of
• 1:36:44
  the stone in the basement. Like this is that ritual.
• 1:36:48
  This is that ritual. This has to be that same ritual,
• 1:36:52
  but maybe I messed it up, I don't know because he did come
• 1:36:55
  out with a name and I look at Bo.
• 1:36:57
  You look at his breastplate that says Bond.
• 1:37:04
  So you guys are having this conversation.
• 1:37:07
  There's definitely like a lot to think about.
• 1:37:11
  And Janie turns to you guys and says, so should we keep moving
• 1:37:16
  or or or is there more to look at here?
• 1:37:19
  I just reading's not really my thing.
• 1:37:21
  Yeah, yeah, you've been patient. Let's go kill your friends.
• 1:37:25
  You know, Janie, you know, it doesn't seem really like
• 1:37:28
  anything is your thing, you know?
• 1:37:30
  Do you know what? My thing is going to a beach and
• 1:37:32
  then worshipping a dragon later. That's my thing.
• 1:37:35
  I love Dragons, yeah. You said that, Janie.
• 1:37:38
  You said that earlier, Janie. Are you just mad because I
• 1:37:40
  rejected your brother? What are you talking about,
• 1:37:43
  Janie? Can you shot up?
• 1:37:46
  And as you abuse this poor Cobalt, she looks at you guys
• 1:37:50
  and is like, OK, so they they might just be in the in the
• 1:37:54
  prayer room right now. So I guess weapons up and I'll
• 1:37:57
  go in last maybe. And yeah, let's go in guns
• 1:38:01
  blazing, am I right? Sounds sounds good to me.
• 1:38:04
  Yeah, I'm gonna. Can I Stow the letters with the
• 1:38:07
  journals that I picked up? Please.
• 1:38:09
  You have the letters, the journals and the mirror in your
• 1:38:12
  pack right now. Oh yeah.
• 1:38:13
  We got a We really need a bag of holding, yes.
• 1:38:16
  Yeah. You got a lot of stuff.
• 1:38:18
  And it you're the you're the you're going to be the one
• 1:38:20
  Carrie. All right, so before we go in,
• 1:38:24
  I'm going to cast bless on the three of us, the big three.
• 1:38:27
  Sorry, Monty, whatever the monos.
• 1:38:31
  So whenever you make an attack roller saving throw, you can add
• 1:38:35
  AD 4 and then I think the rules of DND 2024 with surprise rounds
• 1:38:41
  are slightly different. They are.
• 1:38:43
  So I think it's just that your guys roll with disadvantage on
• 1:38:47
  the initiative. Yes, the disadvantage on their
• 1:38:49
  initiative rule. Cool.
• 1:38:51
  As you stealthily bust down the door, everyone roll initiative.
• 1:38:58
  I would like to open the door gingerly and then sneak in so I
• 1:39:02
  can get as close as possible and try to take one of these guys
• 1:39:05
  out in a turn. Yeah.
• 1:39:06
  So you as you sneak in, you see that there are 9 Cobalts who are
• 1:39:12
  kind of like in the back corner lurking in the shadow and on an
• 1:39:15
  empty wall they're painting something.
• 1:39:19
  So they completely do not see you at all.
• 1:39:22
  Place your bets. What do you think they're
• 1:39:23
  painting a dragon? It's it's got to be a dragon,
• 1:39:26
  right? Like.
• 1:39:28
  Yeah, yeah, That's like their thing.
• 1:39:31
  Yeah, Janie, what do you? Actually, in DND 2024 and DND
• 1:39:35
  2024 Cobalts are now classified as small dragon creatures.
• 1:39:40
  Oh, sick. Yeah.
• 1:39:41
  Yeah, the more you know. Janie turned to you guys.
• 1:39:44
  Yeah, it's probably a dragon. Yeah, it's probably a dragon.
• 1:39:47
  All right, rule initiative and they will roll with
• 1:39:50
  disadvantage. Oh my God bro wow. 14. 22.
• 1:39:57
  Another natural 10. My God.
• 1:40:01
  Can I? You can use DM inspiration on
• 1:40:04
  this if you want, It's any D20. Roll.
• 1:40:05
  I'm gonna use my DM, you better. Not roll another one.
• 1:40:09
  This is a little depressing. No, no, it's better.
• 1:40:11
  That's that is A19A. 19 Great. So wait, what did, what did you
• 1:40:18
  guys get? Abe got 22, you got 19, and Bo
• 1:40:21
  got 14, and all the Cobalts will act after you all, which is
• 1:40:28
  really nice. Good for you guys.
• 1:40:31
  All right. Also, because these guys are
• 1:40:36
  kind of small, we're going to use cleave rules.
• 1:40:40
  So this is not the weapon mastery cleave.
• 1:40:42
  That's in 2024 edition. So you know how we were talking
• 1:40:45
  about how different weapons have different mastery properties?
• 1:40:47
  There is a cleave mastery property, but this is different.
• 1:40:50
  This is the cleave house rule where when fighting a bunch of
• 1:40:54
  weaker enemies, damage that kills one carries over and goes
• 1:40:57
  into the next. This will only count for melee
• 1:41:03
  attacks. With that, the first to go is
• 1:41:06
  Abe. Abe.
• 1:41:07
  You see, all nine of them are kind of just huddled in the
• 1:41:10
  corner together. Oh, perfect.
• 1:41:13
  They're they're real close together, huh?
• 1:41:15
  Yeah, yeah, they're. Just in Cleve, they're in a
• 1:41:17
  little after the Cleve house rule.
• 1:41:21
  I'm gonna move across the room. I'm assuming it's within my
• 1:41:24
  move. Distance.
• 1:41:24
  Yeah, within your 40 feet. Yeah, they're about 30 feet
• 1:41:28
  across. If I say something, will it like
• 1:41:31
  take out the surprise? Round no, you guys already get
• 1:41:33
  surprised. You already get surprised cuz
• 1:41:35
  they rolled initiative. So it's just disadvantage on
• 1:41:38
  initiative. Now is your chance to take
• 1:41:40
  control of your lives and. Then.
• 1:41:47
  I say as I swipe. I don't give them a chance to
• 1:41:51
  consider. Today is the first day of the
• 1:41:53
  rest of your life, yes, and maybe the last.
• 1:41:57
  And I'm gonna go for. I'm just gonna go like from the
• 1:42:00
  right to the left. Go for it.
• 1:42:03
  So we'll see. First sub 10 roll.
• 1:42:06
  Fuck me it had to come. It had to come.
• 1:42:10
  It is a 13 to hit. A 13 does not hit.
• 1:42:14
  I'm going to use my bonus action to do Flurry of Blows.
• 1:42:19
  Awesome. Try to get at least something in
• 1:42:21
  a 18 to hit. And eighteen hits do your
• 1:42:27
  damage. I'm gonna roll the other attack
• 1:42:29
  too and a 19 to hit. Both of them hit okay.
• 1:42:34
  Yeah, I'll roll my damage. First attack is going to do 8
• 1:42:39
  damage and the second will do 9 damage.
• 1:42:41
  Great. You killed two of them.
• 1:42:44
  And you do damage to a third guy as you just wildly swing your
• 1:42:51
  staff and crack them both. It's going to be, I'm going to
• 1:42:55
  flavor it as like I went for, I went for a punch, so I went for
• 1:42:59
  the swipe. I missed the swipe with my left
• 1:43:01
  arm. I hook the one on the furthest
• 1:43:03
  on the right, just kill him and then I'm going to do a kick
• 1:43:06
  across to the one that's next to him.
• 1:43:10
  Get that one and. Crunch him into the next guy.
• 1:43:13
  Incredible. So you already took out two of
• 1:43:16
  these little guys and have severely hurt the third guy
• 1:43:20
  before they even respond. Now they're aware that you're
• 1:43:22
  here and they'll go What? What?
• 1:43:25
  What? Oh my God, they started to
• 1:43:26
  fight. Someone's actually here.
• 1:43:28
  Let's fight, fight, fight. But it's not their turn yet.
• 1:43:32
  Bond, it is your turn. I am going to run up.
• 1:43:35
  I'm not going to waste the spell on these guys.
• 1:43:37
  I'm just going to use my Mace that disrespect, try to try to
• 1:43:44
  try to bludgeon one of these guys.
• 1:43:47
  So yeah, I'll make an attack with my Mace. 14 to hit. 14 just
• 1:43:53
  hits. All right, I'm going to roll
• 1:43:55
  damage. Seven damage.
• 1:43:58
  Seven damage. Are you hitting one that has not
• 1:44:01
  been hurt? Are you hitting the one that has
• 1:44:03
  been hurt? I'll hit the one that has been
• 1:44:05
  hurt. Let's keep this chain going.
• 1:44:06
  Yeah, so you kill him and then do cleave damage into the next
• 1:44:10
  guy. And then I'm gonna stay there.
• 1:44:18
  Stay there. Fuck it, if we go down, we go
• 1:44:20
  down. But it's your turn right now.
• 1:44:23
  Three of them are. Three out of the nine are dead
• 1:44:27
  and one is severely hurt. Well, so I imagine that there's
• 1:44:31
  just a line of them painting, right?
• 1:44:33
  Yeah, yeah. And then Abe ran up to one end
• 1:44:37
  of the line and took out two of them.
• 1:44:40
  And then I imagine that bond ran up and then just continued that
• 1:44:44
  trajectory. Yeah.
• 1:44:45
  Down the line and so I'll just run up to the next slot of
• 1:44:49
  Cobalts and keep taking them out in order.
• 1:44:53
  Incredible. You get sneak attack because you
• 1:44:56
  have allies within 5 VDU. Yep.
• 1:45:00
  That is not gonna do it. That'll don't forget to add your
• 1:45:03
  D4. Right.
• 1:45:05
  For. Less maybe it'll do it.
• 1:45:08
  That will be a 12 to hit. That does not hit.
• 1:45:14
  Damn, brutal. OK, I still get another attack
• 1:45:17
  because I have an offhanded weapon.
• 1:45:19
  Offhand. So this will just be a dagger.
• 1:45:23
  I rolled the same roll on my die and so even with a bless it's
• 1:45:28
  not going to do it. Sad.
• 1:45:30
  So Bo, you run up there. By this point they know that you
• 1:45:33
  guys are here, so as you swing at them with your daggers, they
• 1:45:38
  kind of dodge out of the way and now it is their turns.
• 1:45:43
  What about did Bunty go already? Oh, Bunty did not go on your
• 1:45:46
  turn, Abe. Bunty looks over at Janie and
• 1:45:52
  Janie doesn't even have her sword out.
• 1:45:54
  She's cowering in the corner. And Bunty turns to you, Abe, and
• 1:45:58
  goes, I might sit this one out and just got to hang with my
• 1:46:02
  girl over here. All right, whatever.
• 1:46:05
  And then he, he hangs out next to Janie.
• 1:46:07
  And you see on his turn, he sidles up to her and he goes.
• 1:46:10
  You're looking pretty good these days.
• 1:46:12
  I mean, like, do you come here often or you know?
• 1:46:17
  0 Situational awareness. Oh my.
• 1:46:20
  God, Bunty, I don't even have the words to like, yell at him
• 1:46:23
  right now. Is is.
• 1:46:24
  Bunty. Problematic.
• 1:46:26
  He He is absolutely problematic. You're just realizing that now
• 1:46:32
  there are 6 left, so 2 will go after each of you.
• 1:46:35
  So we'll start, we'll start with Bo, but what's your AC?
• 1:46:39
  15. 15 and they get to roll with advantage because they have
• 1:46:43
  something called pack tactics. So they hit on the first one and
• 1:46:48
  they hit on the second one. The first one is going to do 5
• 1:46:54
  damage and the second one is going to do 3 piercing damage.
• 1:47:00
  So 8 damage total to you. Then they're going to roll
• 1:47:05
  against Bond. What's your AC?
• 1:47:08
  It is 15 as well. Oh, they miss, then the first
• 1:47:11
  guy misses and the second guy misses, so you're perfectly
• 1:47:15
  fine. Let's go.
• 1:47:16
  And Abe, they're going to roll to hit you.
• 1:47:18
  What's your AC? 17.
• 1:47:21
  One hits you and one crits on you.
• 1:47:23
  Oh shit. So the first guy, you take 6
• 1:47:29
  damage, OK. And the second guy, oh, you're
• 1:47:34
  so lucky I rolled, so I rolled the double ones on the damage.
• 1:47:38
  You only take 4 damage from that crit.
• 1:47:41
  It was kind of a weenie crit, like he was going in so hard
• 1:47:45
  with it and then at the last second kind of tripped up and
• 1:47:48
  just nicked you, which was unfortunate.
• 1:47:51
  I am so looking forward to levelling up.
• 1:47:56
  I know. The top of the round, Abe.
• 1:47:59
  There is one that is very hurt and then five that are perfectly
• 1:48:03
  fine all. Right.
• 1:48:04
  I'm going to go for very hurt guy with the quarter staff that
• 1:48:10
  is going to be a 23 to hit. That hits.
• 1:48:17
  That's going to be 7 damage on that.
• 1:48:20
  Guy 7 damage so you take him out and cleave into the next guy.
• 1:48:24
  OK I will use blurry blows again.
• 1:48:26
  This is my last focus point. Do you get them back on short
• 1:48:30
  rests? I can get them back on short
• 1:48:33
  rests, and I can also get them back once a day at the beginning
• 1:48:37
  of initiative if I like, if I haven't done short rests, but I
• 1:48:40
  can't use that again until a long rest.
• 1:48:43
  This is a nice. Little feature like if you enter
• 1:48:45
  a fight you regain all of them. Yeah.
• 1:48:47
  Yeah. But if there's.
• 1:48:49
  Another you can regain all of them or just regain like one or
• 1:48:51
  two. Potentially all of them.
• 1:48:53
  You roll your martial arts die, which for me is AD 6.
• 1:48:57
  So for now it could like absolutely be all of them
• 1:49:00
  because I also had my monk level to it so I would at minimum get
• 1:49:03
  3 back and I only have two right now so.
• 1:49:06
  Gotcha, gotcha. All right, roll your flurry
• 1:49:09
  blows. Crit Crit to hit This is the
• 1:49:14
  fourth natural 20 I've rolled tonight.
• 1:49:16
  I know you're you're on something.
• 1:49:19
  OK, these dice need to be retired, Yeah.
• 1:49:22
  I know. Like we need to.
• 1:49:23
  Maybe I'll use a different D20 next time to balance it out.
• 1:49:27
  Or they waited, so that is 10 damage on that.
• 1:49:32
  Person 10 damage attack. You killed that guy.
• 1:49:35
  You severely injure the next guy.
• 1:49:37
  OK, and I will do my next attack and that is a 20 unnatural.
• 1:49:43
  That hits do your damage. OK, that is going to be 8
• 1:49:48
  damage. 8 damage and you take out the guy that you had just
• 1:49:54
  hit and take out the guy next to him completely.
• 1:49:57
  So there's only two Cobalts left.
• 1:50:00
  So did I take out three? You took out three total of
• 1:50:03
  this. Yeah.
• 1:50:03
  So all flavor does use the staff to take out the one that was
• 1:50:07
  hurt cleaved into the next one. And then I do like a quick it's
• 1:50:10
  like twisting 2 kick sideways, so I just keep hitting in a line
• 1:50:16
  with my kick sick. Like martial arts movie bicycle
• 1:50:21
  kick style? Yes.
• 1:50:22
  Incredible. The like he shouldn't have
• 1:50:24
  floated that long type of. Bond, it is your turn.
• 1:50:30
  All right, I'm gonna just go after sorry one hurt right now.
• 1:50:35
  No, the two that are left are completely unhurt.
• 1:50:39
  I'm just going to go after one of them that is a 23 to hit that
• 1:50:44
  hits my Mace. I'm going to roll 9 damage. 9
• 1:50:50
  damage, you take one out and hurt the other, so now there's
• 1:50:54
  one guy left. I just conk with my Mace.
• 1:50:59
  All right, Bo, it's your turn. Can you kill this last Cobalt?
• 1:51:02
  Yes or no? God, I would feel so bad if I
• 1:51:06
  wasn't able to hit. I just rolled the third three in
• 1:51:10
  a row. On this side.
• 1:51:13
  I could use a a lucky point to give myself advantage on my
• 1:51:17
  offhand attack, but I'm not going to.
• 1:51:21
  Yeah. So I'll just, I'll just go for
• 1:51:23
  it. And that becomes a 7 on the die,
• 1:51:27
  so 12 with my modifier and then with bless, it's a 13.
• 1:51:33
  I miss, don't I? Yeah.
• 1:51:34
  Yeah, this. Bunty this bunty step in.
• 1:51:41
  No Bunty's flirting it but it's only this one Cobalt's turn and
• 1:51:48
  he looks at you Bo as you try to hit him and he feels kind of
• 1:51:53
  sorry for you and he attacks Abe instead.
• 1:51:57
  But no pack tactics. This is the second fight of my
• 1:52:00
  life, you know. You did really well in the first
• 1:52:02
  one, all right. No pack tactics this time
• 1:52:04
  because he's got no allies ABP created on you.
• 1:52:07
  Oh my God. Dude.
• 1:52:09
  I guess if you crit enough. You should be goes around, comes
• 1:52:13
  around. That is 6 damage.
• 1:52:17
  Yeah, I'm close to down, but not down.
• 1:52:20
  Damn, it's your turn now and I'm I'm pretty sure you can take him
• 1:52:24
  out with one of your hits so. Is there any utility in holding
• 1:52:27
  this man for questioning? Actually, don't answer that.
• 1:52:30
  Stop. And I and I point at him.
• 1:52:34
  Stop fighting. Stop fighting right now.
• 1:52:36
  All of your friends are dead. And if you want to live, you're
• 1:52:38
  going to tell us everything we want to.
• 1:52:41
  Know. OK, yeah, that sounds yeah, that
• 1:52:43
  sounds good. OK, Yeah.
• 1:52:45
  You bond, Bo, tie him up, tie him up.
• 1:52:48
  What do you want to know? What do you want to know?
• 1:52:50
  No, I prostate myself. What?
• 1:52:54
  He lays down on the ground. Oh my God, this is a little
• 1:52:58
  humiliating for you. Maybe.
• 1:53:00
  Maybe just kill me. Maybe just kill me.
• 1:53:02
  Yeah, I think. Maybe just kill me.
• 1:53:03
  I think just kill me. Maybe.
• 1:53:05
  No, no, no, no. No, Maybe just kill me.
• 1:53:06
  Yeah, maybe just kill me. No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:53:09
  No, he wants to be killed. I'll kill myself.
• 1:53:12
  First listen, get up. First, say sorry to Janie
• 1:53:15
  because all of you guys were really mean to her and you
• 1:53:18
  didn't let her join your friend group and that's really not
• 1:53:21
  nice, especially when she was forced.
• 1:53:22
  So ironic. Sent here.
• 1:53:24
  I know, I know. Something you're going to learn
• 1:53:28
  about AIM is that he is wildly inconsistent about his social
• 1:53:31
  interactions with. People.
• 1:53:34
  He's just a hypocrite. Yeah.
• 1:53:36
  Yeah, uh, Janie, I'm sorry that we didn't let you like, hang
• 1:53:41
  with the rest of us. You're pretty cool and you're
• 1:53:44
  really stylish, but I guess we're just not used to that type
• 1:53:48
  of energy in our little squad, I guess.
• 1:53:52
  Uh, sorry. And then Janie turns, he goes,
• 1:53:57
  hey, yeah. Apology accepted things, buddy.
• 1:53:59
  Yeah, yeah, he's good. We can hang with him.
• 1:54:02
  What's your name? Johnny.
• 1:54:05
  Like like the Emperor. Like the Maccabee?
• 1:54:08
  OK, fine. My name's not actually Johnny.
• 1:54:11
  I thought that was like, I seen his name around.
• 1:54:14
  He seemed like a really royal and good dude.
• 1:54:18
  Jenny, what's this dude's name? Oh, his name is Rug.
• 1:54:21
  He's. Rug.
• 1:54:24
  Rug, Yeah. Like, like the thing you walk
• 1:54:26
  on. No, of course not. 2 GS at the
• 1:54:29
  end. Oh.
• 1:54:30
  Rug giga. Rug Giga.
• 1:54:33
  I was just pronounced. Rug OK.
• 1:54:35
  I couldn't hit a fucking guy named Rug with a knife, God damn
• 1:54:39
  it. Hey, Bo, if you if you want to.
• 1:54:42
  I mean, he's still here, but I think we could get some
• 1:54:43
  questions out of him first. I, I don't feel like we could
• 1:54:47
  roll an attack on him right now and it just I, I.
• 1:54:52
  Don't know man, like do you also just want to go, you know, live
• 1:54:57
  your life or something? Yeah.
• 1:54:59
  I mean that would be. Yeah, sure.
• 1:55:02
  Well, I mean. Think very carefully about
• 1:55:06
  saying anything that would make us have to kill you right now.
• 1:55:09
  He's going to roll an intelligence chair.
• 1:55:14
  I'm trying to help this guy out. Yeah.
• 1:55:16
  So. Here's the thing, I kind of like
• 1:55:19
  it down here because did Janie tell you that?
• 1:55:23
  Well, I guess she doesn't really know because we don't really
• 1:55:25
  keep her in the loop. But like there's like a dragon
• 1:55:27
  down here and I worship this dragon.
• 1:55:29
  So like. There's a dragon down here.
• 1:55:32
  What the Janie, how did you not know?
• 1:55:35
  And I turn around to Janie. How did you not know there?
• 1:55:36
  Was a for five days. I've been here for five days and
• 1:55:40
  they don't let me off of the top three floors.
• 1:55:43
  How am I supposed to know what happens beneath the top three
• 1:55:47
  floors? The guys don't talk to me.
• 1:55:49
  I wasn't. Drinking cobalt?
• 1:55:50
  Don't you have like some kind of like sense?
• 1:55:52
  Dragon should be like clued in like you didn't.
• 1:55:55
  Yeah, You didn't hear them talking about the dragon.
• 1:55:58
  Like at all. They don't talk.
• 1:55:59
  Whenever I walk in the room, they get all like quiet and
• 1:56:02
  everything. And then Rug turns and he goes,
• 1:56:05
  oh, Jenny, That's because we all thought you were like, really
• 1:56:08
  beautiful and just had like a really big crush on you.
• 1:56:11
  So we just didn't know how to talk to you.
• 1:56:13
  I'm sorry if it came off the wrong way.
• 1:56:15
  Oh, really, Rug, you, you had a crush on me?
• 1:56:18
  Hey, what about me? I'm standing right here.
• 1:56:20
  I'm a boyfriend. I don't know this guy.
• 1:56:23
  I don't know this guy, Rug. I really like you, Rug.
• 1:56:26
  Oh, really? I go, I go.
• 1:56:27
  To grab bunty, I grab Bunty, you grab.
• 1:56:33
  Bunty. This isn't fair.
• 1:56:35
  I want to find love. Bunty love is mutual.
• 1:56:40
  There is no love in this world that you could find that would
• 1:56:44
  be worth anything if it wasn't mutual.
• 1:56:48
  I love Abe and I don't think he loves me.
• 1:56:50
  I whisper to him. Abe absolutely loves him.
• 1:56:54
  It's so clear to everybody else around.
• 1:56:57
  That's good because he cuddles me at night, but he doesn't want
• 1:56:59
  anyone to know. But we spoon and guess what?
• 1:57:02
  I'm the big spoon. You don't hear the same, they're
• 1:57:07
  whispered. I know, I know, I was about to
• 1:57:09
  yell. So as this is happening, rug
• 1:57:13
  turns to you guys and is like, oh, yeah.
• 1:57:15
  So there's like a dragon that I worship this down here.
• 1:57:19
  They gave us like really specific instructions to like,
• 1:57:23
  not let anyone like wake the dragon because that could be
• 1:57:28
  like, super dangerous. Oh, here, here, here.
• 1:57:33
  And he pulls out something from his pants pocket.
• 1:57:36
  He goes the captain, well, Captain Lumiere, when he came
• 1:57:40
  down here with a, with the Janie, he gave us this list
• 1:57:45
  because as you know, like Cobol's, we love Dragons and
• 1:57:48
  stuff like that. And there's a lot of Dragons
• 1:57:51
  that I guess the Imperator is kind of trying to keep track of
• 1:57:55
  and maybe make alliances with these Dragons and stuff.
• 1:57:59
  So like the captain gave me this list of Dragons and you could
• 1:58:04
  have the list. I, I take the lists and I and I,
• 1:58:08
  I look at it and I, I'm gonna say to, to Abe and Bon.
• 1:58:12
  I was like, actually have AI. I've met a dragon.
• 1:58:16
  What? In the in the two months you've
• 1:58:18
  been alive. Yeah, it kind of saw me being
• 1:58:22
  like shiny and made of metal and, and figured that I must be
• 1:58:26
  valuable. So I was I was part of a a
• 1:58:28
  dragon sport for a little bit. Oh.
• 1:58:31
  My God, I love that. And as you guys, Bo, as you're
• 1:58:35
  reading the note, you get down to the second dragon, Isiador,
• 1:58:42
  who's a blue dragon, and it says that this dragon has started a
• 1:58:46
  cult and this dragon is now dead.
• 1:58:49
  But this dragon has a son named Iseth.
• 1:58:52
  And you remember when you were part of this Dragon's horde,
• 1:58:55
  these three adventurers came in and tried to attack the dragon.
• 1:59:01
  The dragon escaped. And you think, based off of what
• 1:59:04
  this trio said, that Iseth is the dragon from on this list
• 1:59:09
  that was the one that had captured you.
• 1:59:11
  It was. Like, Oh yeah, yeah, I think
• 1:59:12
  it's that one right there. I point out the name to to Bond
• 1:59:17
  and Abe. So I'll read it out loud real
• 1:59:18
  quick. There's Scoria, who's a red
• 1:59:21
  dragon. Attempts have been made to find
• 1:59:23
  her horde, rumored to have brought wreckage and relics from
• 1:59:27
  the shards. The current status alive.
• 1:59:29
  Last seen in Ash and Ignovarum. Isiador is a blue dragon.
• 1:59:34
  Started the cult of ISI, which is a dangerous and delusional
• 1:59:38
  cult. It seems like Ignovarum and the
• 1:59:40
  Imperidor hired the Klawmark trio to kill both Isiador and
• 1:59:45
  his son Isith. But Isith escaped from his new
• 1:59:48
  lair which is South of Brazen Heart Pharomalics.
• 1:59:51
  So that's where Bo you were being kept.
• 1:59:54
  So current status of Isiador is killed by the Klawmark Trio.
• 1:59:58
  Then there's Scrovar who's a black dragon.
• 2:00:01
  They don't have a lot of information on him.
• 2:00:03
  It just says evil question mark no contact in about 300 years.
• 2:00:07
  Current status alive question mark no location.
• 2:00:11
  Then there's Velcaciar which is a green dragon and the dish
• 2:00:15
  dragon is apparently allied with the Rex.
• 2:00:17
  The Imperator has sent Arch Druid Jasmine Foray, who you
• 2:00:21
  guys have heard this name before.
• 2:00:22
  She's the one who kind of runs this whole cobalt operations
• 2:00:26
  with the Captain. Jasmine has been sent to speak
• 2:00:29
  regarding him rethinking his loyalties, so trying to get the
• 2:00:32
  dragon on maybe Ignovarum side. So this dragon is alive and is
• 2:00:37
  in West of Thornspire in the Copper Leaf forest.
• 2:00:41
  Then there is Cremoria the white dragon.
• 2:00:44
  About 300 years ago she promised to remain in far north
• 2:00:48
  Noctavalis and just keep herself isolated.
• 2:00:51
  So she has kept good on her promise, and Ignovarum sends a
• 2:00:54
  new load of goats for her to eat.
• 2:00:57
  So her current status is alive, remains isolated, and then you
• 2:01:01
  go to the last dragon, Kumkaraj, a red dragon.
• 2:01:05
  She has an insatiable hunger when awake.
• 2:01:08
  She has terrorized villages all over Ignovarum and it says that
• 2:01:13
  her current status is asleep for about 300 years.
• 2:01:17
  That's what you were hired to God.
• 2:01:19
  Yeah, they didn't like they. We have to keep the dragon
• 2:01:23
  asleep. I don't get to go to the lower
• 2:01:25
  levels. That's kind of where the better
• 2:01:27
  fighters kind of go and protect. We just kind of stay up on these
• 2:01:31
  these top three levels and make sure no one like gets in.
• 2:01:34
  And I mean, no one has gotten into wool, I mean, except you
• 2:01:37
  guys, but like. So you want to stay here, is
• 2:01:40
  that right? I kind of like this.
• 2:01:41
  Dragon Coon garage is very cool I think.
• 2:01:45
  I mean I've never really seen her but I could kind of like.
• 2:01:49
  The longer I've been here the more I can feel her draconic
• 2:01:52
  vibes. It is beautiful.
• 2:01:54
  I'm going to walk up right behind rug and I have my sword
• 2:01:58
  and my knife out and I'm just going to gesture at Bond and Abe
• 2:02:02
  like a wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 2:02:04
  I don't say that out loud, but I just put my hands up like
• 2:02:06
  quietly. One second.
• 2:02:08
  Sure. Yeah, Yeah, you send the signal,
• 2:02:09
  Yeah. Listen, I have a proposition for
• 2:02:12
  you, Janie. You wanted to go to a beach,
• 2:02:14
  right? Spend a few few years at a beach
• 2:02:15
  town, maybe find another dragon somewhere else.
• 2:02:17
  Yeah, yeah, that'd be really nice.
• 2:02:19
  Does that sound nice to you? Rug?
• 2:02:20
  Is that something you'd want to do maybe with Janie?
• 2:02:23
  Yeah, that actually does sound really nice.
• 2:02:25
  Janie, I would love to go to a beach with you and maybe find a
• 2:02:29
  new dragon to worship. I heard the cult of Iseth is
• 2:02:33
  very, very interesting and we can go a little crazy.
• 2:02:37
  Yeah, that sounds really nice. Rug.
• 2:02:39
  Let's do that. And they hold hands together and
• 2:02:42
  give a little kiss. Oh, Bunty, Pam Bunty's in pain.
• 2:02:49
  I'm just, I'm hiding under your cloak.
• 2:02:51
  Bunty. Bunty has to watch.
• 2:02:53
  Bunty needs to. Learn bunty if you if you truly
• 2:02:55
  one. Big eye wells up with tears if.
• 2:02:58
  You truly loved her, as you say you do.
• 2:03:01
  Then you would want what is best for her and what's best I.
• 2:03:04
  Do I really do? Is this relationship it's
• 2:03:09
  something that is clearly going to make her happy?
• 2:03:12
  So Bunty gives up on his dreams of Janie being his girlfriend
• 2:03:16
  and goes back under Abe's cloak a little dejected.
• 2:03:21
  There's a there's a rope at the top of the at the top of the
• 2:03:24
  tower if you guys just want to skid out a lot of here, the two
• 2:03:28
  of you just. Don't.
• 2:03:29
  I don't. I don't know if I feel good
• 2:03:31
  about them leaving. We have no idea where to go.
• 2:03:35
  We'll need someone to really kind of like take us out of the
• 2:03:39
  arena, like I know like the captain LED us here, but I have
• 2:03:42
  no idea how to like get out of here.
• 2:03:44
  Like we've never been to scenario before.
• 2:03:46
  We just are from our little village.
• 2:03:49
  That's all right. How about you guys just sidebar
• 2:03:52
  sidebar? Come here, come here, come here,
• 2:03:54
  Come. Here What's up?
• 2:03:54
  What's up? They're they're getting a little
• 2:03:57
  like, they've got a lot of demands and stuff like they need
• 2:04:00
  our help all the time. Like if you're gonna have.
• 2:04:02
  They're a bit mouthy. I know I'm like, should we just
• 2:04:05
  kill them? OK, we just promise them freedom
• 2:04:08
  and now you want to kill them and that that right there that
• 2:04:12
  goes against my beliefs. So I say we just lock them in
• 2:04:16
  the letter room for now and just leave them there while we do our
• 2:04:20
  thing and we can come back for them later.
• 2:04:22
  I. Like that, that's that's a
• 2:04:24
  really, that's an outside of the box idea, Bon.
• 2:04:27
  So freedom has a lot of definitions and who's who's to
• 2:04:30
  say? You know what?
• 2:04:32
  No, that sounds like a good let's just, let's just lock them
• 2:04:34
  in the room. Okay before you guys leave this
• 2:04:39
  prayer room cuz you guys never fully investigated it, do you
• 2:04:42
  want to roll an investigation check?
• 2:04:45
  Please, I'm also gonna, I'm just gonna hard cast fucking.
• 2:04:50
  Not gonna sit. Around.
• 2:04:52
  I'm not gonna wait 10 minutes for this shit.
• 2:04:55
  I'm going to hard cast. Perhaps.
• 2:04:57
  Perhaps we should, because it might not be a bad idea to take
• 2:05:01
  a short rest. I might need it.
• 2:05:04
  Yeah, me too. OK so you guys are taking your
• 2:05:07
  short rest as you ritual cast and you finally get a chance to
• 2:05:11
  look around this room. You guys have been so caught up
• 2:05:13
  with the Cobalts, but it is this large Dome room filled with
• 2:05:17
  mosaics of all the seven paragons, their faces glowing
• 2:05:21
  with old enchantments that flicker faintly now.
• 2:05:24
  I think there's the tablet could be in here cuz that was also my
• 2:05:28
  second fight and I'm not ready to fight a dragon I don't think.
• 2:05:32
  And it's. Stupid not.
• 2:05:34
  Observation. And just to clarify, they were
• 2:05:37
  painting a dragon, right? Yeah, they you look, they were
• 2:05:41
  painting a giant red dragon, which you think might be
• 2:05:44
  Kumkoraj, the dragon that sleeps a lot and then one is awake eats
• 2:05:49
  insatiable hunger. Sounds like my brother-in-law.
• 2:05:52
  Am I right people? My God.
• 2:05:56
  Is this thing on? Yeah, you use a jokester mic
• 2:06:00
  right now. It explodes.
• 2:06:03
  I cast I cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter on myself, and I just
• 2:06:07
  laugh at my own joke. Well, the fun.
• 2:06:09
  Fact so Kumkaran is a demon from Hindu cultures and stories and
• 2:06:16
  it was actually a nickname that my mom gave me and the.
• 2:06:19
  Lore of this. Demon is that it just sleeps and
• 2:06:22
  then when it wakes up it eats a lot.
• 2:06:25
  So that was kind of like me as a child.
• 2:06:28
  That's awesome. So yeah, so everyone rolled
• 2:06:33
  their head. Diets heal up on their short
• 2:06:35
  rest. But also give me your
• 2:06:37
  investigation check. Can I do it with advantage if
• 2:06:41
  I'm using? It with advantage. 17 on
• 2:06:44
  investigation. 7/19. Nice.
• 2:06:47
  OK, Bo, you look around and you're like, wow, these are just
• 2:06:51
  like really pretty mosaics and you're kind of PO D at the
• 2:06:56
  Cobalts for like painting over some of the mosaic with their
• 2:07:02
  with their dragon. It kind of ruins the art for
• 2:07:04
  you. I go over to rug and I'm like,
• 2:07:06
  what the fuck is your problem? OK, I mean, look at look at all
• 2:07:09
  of the dedication, all of the years that went into this craft
• 2:07:13
  and you have the audacity to cover it up like that.
• 2:07:15
  And then I look at the the dragon for a little bit and I'm
• 2:07:18
  like, oh, actually, no, I get it.
• 2:07:20
  I get it. This makes.
• 2:07:21
  Sense yeah, the Dragon's really cool way too.
• 2:07:23
  I've never met her, but it'd be really cool to meet her as that
• 2:07:27
  happens. A with your investigation check
• 2:07:30
  what you notice is that you see the names of the gods beneath
• 2:07:34
  their mosaics, but they're kind of moniker or title has been
• 2:07:37
  like scratched out. So it says extraction, but it
• 2:07:41
  wouldn't say like the Molten Warden and Silvira.
• 2:07:44
  The silent bloom is scratched out.
• 2:07:47
  Vaidris, Keeper of the Drowned Sun is scratched out.
• 2:07:50
  Dravanel the Gilded Butcher is scratched out this mirror, and
• 2:07:54
  then Lady of the Broken Chains is scratched out.
• 2:07:57
  Elithar, the Mirror of Wills is scratched out, and Nick Savar
• 2:08:01
  the Smiling Shade is scratched out.
• 2:08:03
  So only there are names, not any of those little monikers at the
• 2:08:06
  end. Is there perhaps an additional
• 2:08:09
  one with the moniker scratched out?
• 2:08:12
  You see only 7. Nothing underneath the dragon.
• 2:08:15
  Nothing underneath the dragon. Quick question about the the
• 2:08:20
  monikers being scratched out. Does it look like those were the
• 2:08:23
  things that were written like the monikers that we are
• 2:08:26
  familiar with? Does it look like that was what
• 2:08:29
  was written and scratched out, or does it look like it could
• 2:08:31
  have said something else? Great question.
• 2:08:34
  That's a good question. Abe, with your investigation
• 2:08:36
  check, you can tell for the three paragons, the oldest ones,
• 2:08:41
  Distraxian, Silvira and Vedris, their monikers, you can kind of
• 2:08:46
  tell what they said. For the four Scions, their
• 2:08:51
  monikers are so scratched out that you can't make heads or
• 2:08:54
  tails of what they were supposed to say.
• 2:08:56
  But the the paragons you can. But Astraxion, Silvira and
• 2:09:01
  Vaidris, you can tell what their monikers should be and they
• 2:09:04
  line. Up.
• 2:09:05
  OK, I'm going to try something. Well, yes, you can try something
• 2:09:10
  and then I'll tell you what you get on your investigation check,
• 2:09:12
  so. Why don't you tell me first,
• 2:09:15
  then I'll try something. You're walking around, like I
• 2:09:18
  said, everything in this castle is kind of crumbled and dusty,
• 2:09:21
  and you see under Thesmira's mosaic a small little altar.
• 2:09:28
  There's a little altar under each of the gods, but under some
• 2:09:32
  rubble on her altar you find a little hand fan and it has magic
• 2:09:38
  coming off of it. I use my my cloak and I wrap my
• 2:09:44
  hand around it and I actually wait.
• 2:09:46
  I'm going to use a magical action to determine what type of
• 2:09:49
  what type of magic it is first. Evocation magic.
• 2:09:54
  OK, all right. I mean, it's a fan.
• 2:09:56
  OK, I pick it up. You pick up this wind fan.
• 2:10:00
  It is a magical item. What it does is while holding
• 2:10:05
  this fan, you can use an action to cast the Gust of Wind spell,
• 2:10:10
  spell save DC-13. Once used, the fan shouldn't be
• 2:10:13
  used again until the next dawn. Each time it is used again
• 2:10:17
  before then it has a cumulative 20% chance of not working and
• 2:10:20
  tearing into useless non magical tatters.
• 2:10:22
  So basically once per day you can cast gusts of wind for free.
• 2:10:27
  Very cool. Yeah.
• 2:10:29
  Look at that, it's the first day of the Monos as a team and we're
• 2:10:34
  already picking up fans. Oh.
• 2:10:38
  My. Is this thing on?
• 2:10:44
  I am going to try to cast mending on the scratched out
• 2:10:50
  part near. Actually you tell me if this is
• 2:10:52
  going to work first. Mending can repair a single
• 2:10:55
  break or tear in an object you touch, such as a chain link, 2
• 2:10:59
  halves of a broken key, a torn cloak, or a leaking wineskin.
• 2:11:03
  As long as the brake or tear is no larger than anyone foot in
• 2:11:06
  dimension, you mend it, leaving no trace of the former damage.
• 2:11:10
  Good question. If you could get to so you
• 2:11:15
  wanted like you want this to affect kind of a larger area
• 2:11:19
  then. I just want this to do fist
• 2:11:21
  mirrors like the name following fist Mira.
• 2:11:24
  If you you're trying to use this spell, it's not really like
• 2:11:30
  mending because you don't know which part of like the rubble is
• 2:11:34
  supposed to go where, right? It's been like scratched out,
• 2:11:37
  things have been shaved off. So it's pretty hard.
• 2:11:40
  If you could give me ADC 25 religion check, I'll let you use
• 2:11:46
  the spell in this way. DC-25.
• 2:11:51
  Nat 20, let's go. Oh.
• 2:11:55
  My God, this is the most clutch thing you could have done right
• 2:12:00
  now. You, you have this deep, deep
• 2:12:04
  connection to Thezmira, a connection that was kind of
• 2:12:08
  broken a little bit when you didn't get to complete your
• 2:12:10
  anaphosis ceremony. And you see that her moniker has
• 2:12:14
  been scratched out. You put your hand next to her
• 2:12:18
  name, summon up everything within you.
• 2:12:23
  Everyone else from the outside sees that the rubble begins to
• 2:12:26
  kind of lift off. All these small, small, small
• 2:12:29
  particles start to come together and they make the moniker after
• 2:12:34
  this Mira's name. It says this mirror lady of
• 2:12:38
  breath. Ohh let's.
• 2:12:40
  Go. Let's.
• 2:12:42
  Go. That's when we're going to air
• 2:12:44
  in our session. I've never been so hyped at a
• 2:12:46
  mending spell in my life. I don't think, I don't think
• 2:12:50
  anybody has. Also, I need, I need to say
• 2:12:53
  Harry. That was really good thought
• 2:12:55
  because as I was reading the stuff again I noticed like
• 2:12:58
  references to chains. That's amazing.
• 2:13:00
  That's really, really good. What a good one to end on.
• 2:13:05
  Also definitely this was like that was perfect.
• 2:13:07
  I can't. I can't speak for you, Harry,
• 2:13:09
  but I feel like that kind of makes all of the Nat ones worth
• 2:13:12
  it. Oh my God, I rolled so many Nat.
• 2:13:15
  I must have rolled 5 or 6 Nat ones this session.
• 2:13:19
  It's kind of crazy. Tonight may have been the best
• 2:13:22
  rolling I've ever done. Like in my life.
• 2:13:24
  Yeah, that was also good. But this was good.
• 2:13:27
  We needed all that lore. Yeah, no, it was.
• 2:13:30
  Oh wow. Again, I've had like I had the
• 2:13:34
  most mid rolling tonight. I know that that really sucked,
• 2:13:38
  Charlie. You couldn't even hit a cool
• 2:13:39
  ball. The bad and the mid.
• 2:13:40
  We were, we were qualifying the distribution of rolls across.
• 2:13:45
  Yeah. Perfect, perfect.
• 2:13:48
  Wow Avni, that was a great session.
• 2:13:50
  Thank you, that was so much fun. I had a really great time with
• 2:13:53
  that. I really wish though that more
• 2:13:56
  mirror versions of you guys had jumped out because it would have
• 2:13:59
  also been fun to fight mirror version of Bo in his robot form.
• 2:14:04
  That would have been sick as anything.
• 2:14:06
  Yeah, especially before we knew. Yeah, I really.
• 2:14:09
  Almost brought you guys into that and just like screamed I'm
• 2:14:13
  lucky you guys pass because I was like hey, come look at this.
• 2:14:16
  That was immediately thought of the movie Annihilation when when
• 2:14:20
  Bond came out. Real quick, before we end the
• 2:14:22
  episode, if you like the podcast, make sure to follow and
• 2:14:25
  rate US on Spotify or Apple Music or join us on our social
• 2:14:29
  media for updates, official art and more.
• 2:14:31
  We are on Instagram at smooth critical podcast and Blue sky at
• 2:14:35
  Smooth critical. So with that, thank you so much.
• 2:14:38
  That was so much fun playing and I can't wait till next time.
• 2:14:43
  Bye.