Latest / Smooth Critical / C1 Ep.14: Tenser's Floating Ship

Transcript

C1 Ep.14: Tenser's Floating Ship · Smooth Critical

• 0:19
  Welcome back to Smooth Critical. I'm your DM, Avni.
• 0:24
  Quick question, Avni, are you OK?
• 0:27
  Avni, are you OK? Erm, are you OK of me?
• 0:31
  I'm so emotional right now because Bo let out a lot of
• 0:36
  trauma and low key made me so sad.
• 0:40
  But yeah, Bo, love you dude. Very sad.
• 0:44
  Can't believe I did a silly voice for that one.
• 0:46
  But lots of, lots of. No, it's all right.
• 0:49
  I think it fits. Yeah, lots of lots of lore
• 0:54
  trauma dumping. Just needed to get that off your
• 0:57
  chest. So I'm glad you did that, buddy.
• 0:59
  So let me introduce you to my three gorgeous gladiators that I
• 1:03
  love so, so, so much. And I will protect as well as I
• 1:06
  can, except I'll sometimes kill them.
• 1:08
  OK, He my. It's Abduqadir Elrich happy to
• 1:12
  be here. Harry.
• 1:15
  My name is Bontelwillowinds. You captured my God.
• 1:19
  Prepare to die. Incredible.
• 1:21
  And Charlie? Yo-yo yo, it's Bo fo SHO.
• 1:26
  Don't you know what up, though? Holy crap, is that a Bard?
• 1:30
  Was that a Bard talking? Just he's.
• 1:32
  Just gonna do like he's. Wrapping your bardic ability.
• 1:35
  Rolled A Rolled a freestyle. A Bard?
• 1:38
  Excuse me, I'm a Bogue. A Bogue.
• 1:41
  Oh fuck, I'm so. A Bogue.
• 1:46
  I expect more freestyles in the future now Charlie, sorry.
• 1:49
  That that terrifies me. I'm.
• 1:53
  Gonna put you on the spot. It's got the banjo.
• 1:56
  It's alright. All right, let's start our
• 1:59
  recap. So after the battle with the
• 2:01
  pirates 2 sessions ago, the ship needed some repairs.
• 2:05
  Everyone got to work patching up the boat a bit, restoring it so
• 2:08
  we could make its way to Ember Hold.
• 2:10
  You all notice that there was something up with the stars and
• 2:14
  it made Bunty seem very uneasy. He spoke in Abe's mind and then
• 2:18
  all of a sudden the voice changed to something a little
• 2:21
  more posh as Bunty's eye became more human.
• 2:25
  Abe started feeling uncomfortable as posh Bunty
• 2:27
  tried to recruit him to the dawn of stars to work for the Void.
• 2:31
  Then there was some downtime. Beau told everyone about his
• 2:34
  back story and how he got to scenario, which left them
• 2:37
  feeling bad for Beau and left them with many, many questions.
• 2:42
  Bon tried to connect with this mirror, worrying she was trapped
• 2:45
  despite a role of 34 on religion.
• 2:48
  Only some wind blew. Abe read more of Johnny's
• 2:51
  journal, uncovering more secrets and then it was time for bed.
• 2:55
  In his sleep, Bon actually got to talk to this mirror for the
• 2:58
  first time, where she let him know that she wasn't kidnapped
• 3:01
  per SE, but part of her had been changed and weakened.
• 3:05
  She disappeared before Bonn could talk to her, and he woke
• 3:08
  up from his uneasy sleep shouting this mirror, how can we
• 3:11
  help you? And that's where we are now.
• 3:14
  Just a small correction, it's Jovinian's journal.
• 3:17
  Sorry, Jovinian Maccabee. Yeah, only his friends call him
• 3:22
  Johnny. This mirror, how can we help
• 3:25
  you? Well, Bonn, what?
• 3:27
  What? What's going on?
• 3:29
  I talked to her, I saw her. It was this mirror and she, she
• 3:34
  said she wasn't kidnapped, but she was being, I don't know what
• 3:39
  changed in some way by the Imperator's actions and I she
• 3:46
  disappeared. I don't know.
• 3:47
  Did you see where she was in your dream, Bon?
• 3:50
  No, it was just sort of like a space in between spaces.
• 3:55
  It wasn't anything noticeable, you know?
• 3:58
  I had no idea where I was. Was it dark?
• 4:01
  Yes. OK, I think there's my hunch,
• 4:05
  and I'm going to pull out my journal and start writing down.
• 4:08
  That feels like perhaps Void Mommy has something to do with
• 4:14
  changing this mirror. Bunty.
• 4:16
  Yeah, you have to decide right now.
• 4:19
  Are you with us or are you with the Void Mommy?
• 4:22
  What do you mean? I'm with you guys?
• 4:23
  What the hell? Yeah, but if the void mommy
• 4:26
  asked asked you to like to kill us or or do something, do you?
• 4:31
  Do you know how much Bon and Bo care for you and how much I care
• 4:35
  for you? Yeah, I can't really care.
• 4:37
  For you. She doesn't.
• 4:38
  She hasn't talked to me and like since you summoned me.
• 4:42
  All right, pink pinky promise then.
• 4:44
  Right now. Right now.
• 4:45
  Yeah, I pinky promise. OK.
• 4:48
  Bon, do you want to give me like a perception check?
• 4:52
  As you like. Remember your dream and when you
• 4:56
  had talked to this mirror. Not one.
• 4:59
  I I think I'm just like so frazzled by, yeah, you know,
• 5:03
  this profound moment for my life.
• 5:06
  And I don't remember much, you know, I don't remember seeing
• 5:09
  anything. You you just remember talking to
• 5:12
  her. You don't exactly, you know, it
• 5:14
  was dark. That's all you remember.
• 5:15
  It was just kind of like her. She appeared out of nowhere and
• 5:18
  then she disappeared and that's all you got.
• 5:21
  It all it all happened so fast. I don't know.
• 5:23
  Did you take Dream Salt last night?
• 5:25
  I I thought about it but you're not supposed to mix dream salt
• 5:30
  with alcohol so I didn't take it.
• 5:33
  I hear like super weird shit happens when you do that and it
• 5:36
  feels like a waste of dream salt.
• 5:39
  I mean, it almost sounds like you did to dream Salt but.
• 5:42
  I checked my dream salt rations and they're still the same.
• 5:45
  I think, I think it's, it's, it's fair that you're, you're
• 5:48
  frazzled bond, but consider that Fesmira did reach out to you.
• 5:54
  Yeah, I, I talked to her. I actually, I talked to her.
• 5:59
  You, you talk. You talk to Fesmira.
• 6:02
  She's that was the Breaker of chains herself.
• 6:04
  She's in trouble, but I talked to her.
• 6:06
  The lady O breath, that's her. Guys, we have to save her.
• 6:12
  I please. Yeah.
• 6:15
  I have kind of a crazy plan. OK, we need to get a cleric.
• 6:20
  I'm a cleric. I'm a cleric, no but cleric but
• 6:22
  like a cleric that can knows how to revive.
• 6:26
  Okay, yeah, so I understand the plan.
• 6:30
  We're not killing one of us so that one of us can talk to a
• 6:33
  God. That was exactly the plan boat.
• 6:38
  Let's go have some breakfast. You guys head upstairs and Tahan
• 6:44
  has made scrambled eggs and some toast and hand you guys some
• 6:49
  plates with it. And she goes, well, Bond, thank
• 6:52
  you so much for letting me have those.
• 6:54
  Those four hours with trash where we got to kind of cuddle
• 6:57
  up on the boat. That was very kind of you.
• 6:59
  You are a very, very good man. And then she whispers in your
• 7:02
  ears, I gave you more food than the other two.
• 7:06
  Thank you. Yeah, no problem at all.
• 7:09
  You know, the boat was rocking. It was a little rocky last
• 7:12
  night. I I noticed it was shaking a
• 7:14
  little bit more. It was 4 hours.
• 7:17
  She says out loud, wink. Just the lava currents.
• 7:21
  Yeah, no. She says out loud, wink.
• 7:24
  Wink. Yes, absolutely.
• 7:25
  That's very, that's very taun. So you guys sit.
• 7:31
  And wait, does she wink when she says it or?
• 7:34
  She actually blinks when she says it.
• 7:38
  So you guys kind of have your breakfast on deck and.
• 7:44
  I would like to say during breakfast or like I don't eat as
• 7:46
  much as everybody else, so I just kind of have a little bit
• 7:48
  and then I'm going to take the banjo out and play just like a
• 7:52
  little bit. I think I still like in tuning
• 7:54
  it, but I get to a point where it kind of sounds maybe in tune
• 7:58
  and play a little bit. And as part of leveling up, I
• 8:03
  checked with Avni and I swapped out the skilled feet for the
• 8:06
  musician feet. So I lost some proficiencies,
• 8:10
  but I now have the ability to, every long or short rest, give
• 8:16
  people up to my proficiency. Heroic inspiration.
• 8:19
  So Bon, you get a heroic inspiration and then Bunty I
• 8:24
  believe can also get an heroic inspiration.
• 8:28
  Thank you both. I guess theoretically I have an
• 8:30
  extra 1 that I could give to Don or Trish.
• 8:34
  Yeah, you can give one of them to Don if you'd want.
• 8:38
  They can decide amongst themselves who gets it.
• 8:41
  Great. So actually, as you're eating
• 8:44
  and noodling on the banjo, you had expressed interest in kind
• 8:48
  of maybe taking a look at the banjo a little more.
• 8:52
  You kind of just received it and had been playing on it, but you
• 8:55
  didn't really get to like inspect it.
• 8:57
  So if you'd like to roll an investigation check on the
• 9:00
  banjo. We need to really make sure to
• 9:04
  use up our heroic inspirations now, before long rests.
• 9:07
  Yeah, so we're. Getting them or before short
• 9:10
  rests. Oh.
• 9:11
  Fuck yeah, I can do it on short rests too.
• 9:13
  Yeah, it's huge. Short rests are incredible.
• 9:15
  So that is going to be a four on the die, which turns into a
• 9:20
  three for me. Yeah, so you look.
• 9:24
  At this is a cool banjo. This is a cool banjo.
• 9:27
  You look on the back, there's some like claw marks that maybe
• 9:31
  when Lucky and Lulu had the banjo, they were maybe attacked
• 9:36
  by something, you know? Interesting.
• 9:40
  Does anybody else recognize these claw marks?
• 9:43
  Anyone can give me now an investigation of nature check?
• 9:48
  Feels like the wrong time to use my heroin spray but in that one.
• 9:52
  So I'm not. I had the same thought, but I
• 9:56
  mean technically we could just take a short.
• 9:57
  But. I don't want to game it like
• 9:59
  that. 10. Ten OK with a 10, you can tell
• 10:05
  that the claw marks have kind of been patched up with like a
• 10:08
  different kind of wood on the back of it and kind of repaired
• 10:11
  that way. But they're uniform, like 3
• 10:14
  Talon marks across it. And you can tell that these are
• 10:17
  the talons of something called a rock Roc.
• 10:21
  They're these giant birds. You've never seen one before, as
• 10:24
  they're extremely rare, but you've kind of heard about them.
• 10:28
  A rock's silhouette looks much like any other bird of prey.
• 10:32
  In flight, though, the rock's wingspan spreads 200 feet or
• 10:36
  more, and a rock soars high above the clouds, completely
• 10:40
  ignoring small towns or forests where tiny prey can hide, and
• 10:44
  instead they dive down to snatch massive targets like whales,
• 10:48
  elephants, or giants in their like massive talons.
• 10:52
  As you kind of relay this information, everyone can give
• 10:55
  me a history check. 4. Also 4. 15 for me.
• 11:03
  Nice. But once Bond starts telling you
• 11:06
  this, you overheard something from your time with the Domina.
• 11:11
  She was complaining about the Rex.
• 11:14
  She was complaining about how he always has his animals with him.
• 11:17
  He's never alone. He always has to seem like some
• 11:21
  sort of like animal protection around him.
• 11:23
  And you know that Rex has tamed one of these rocks, and it
• 11:28
  actually regards his canopy fortress in Verdellum, this
• 11:31
  capital of Silvorum Rex. So kind of putting the pieces
• 11:35
  together about Lulu and Lucky and knowing that they were
• 11:38
  adventurers, there was maybe a time that they were at the
• 11:42
  canopy fortress during their travels.
• 11:45
  And so this banjo was kind of like a history of their travels.
• 11:50
  Well, I wonder if we can find anybody who knew them or
• 11:53
  recognize the banjo. Or it also sounds like maybe if
• 11:56
  they were in silver warm wrecks, maybe their time there didn't
• 12:00
  end so well if this is the memory of it.
• 12:03
  Are these things like as big as Dragons?
• 12:06
  They're they are quite big, yeah.
• 12:08
  I mean like their wingspan is like 200 feet pretty much, but
• 12:12
  they're super rare. Like what it for?
• 12:15
  For every 5 Dragons there's maybe like 1 rock.
• 12:20
  Like they don't have babies very often.
• 12:22
  Like they don't lay eggs super often.
• 12:25
  They're just incredibly large beasts that live very long times
• 12:29
  and they just kind of do their own thing.
• 12:31
  And while you're looking at the banjo and thinking about that,
• 12:34
  you also realize that the bag of holding was also Lulu and
• 12:38
  Lucky's, if you want to give an investigation on that.
• 12:41
  Yeah, I think I have it next to me.
• 12:42
  I pulled the banjo out of it so it'll be a three on the die
• 12:48
  which becomes a 2. Yeah, You're rooting your way
• 12:50
  through it. You're just like, wow, this is a
• 12:52
  really deep bag. Holy shit.
• 12:55
  And you start digging deeper and deeper, and at some point you
• 12:58
  almost fall into the bag and Abe has to, like, grab you before
• 13:01
  you go head first into the bag. And you're like, well, that's a
• 13:05
  big bag. Let's tire.
• 13:07
  Let's tire up the bunty and. Bunty goes.
• 13:14
  I don't want to go in there. Is that OK?
• 13:17
  Yeah, no, that's fine. Incredible.
• 13:20
  So you guys are kind of just hanging out on the deck of the
• 13:23
  ship after like a bad night of sleep and kind of just like
• 13:28
  trying to take it as easy as you can.
• 13:31
  And after about like 10-15 minutes of this, Tan shouts over
• 13:36
  and she goes look over there, we see the land.
• 13:40
  We have to go dock the ship very soon and you guys look over and
• 13:44
  you guys see a very nice beach. The boat starts getting very,
• 13:50
  very close to the beach. Bunty, just FYI, that's how you
• 13:55
  call out things that you see. Did you see how she did that?
• 13:59
  OK, I get it. Jesus Christ.
• 14:01
  Sorry, Silvira, Christ and it. Still says Christ, that's her
• 14:08
  name. That's her Canon name, Sylvia
• 14:10
  Christ. Sylvia Christ is her name OK?
• 14:14
  There's one episode where Bunty just says Jesus.
• 14:17
  He's just like Jesus, he says. It a lot of things.
• 14:22
  I I want. To think that the void gives him
• 14:24
  some. Extra.
• 14:26
  Dimensional knowledge and vocabulary.
• 14:29
  Bunty is Catholic. Oh my God.
• 14:33
  So the boat kind of pulls up to the beach a little bit and Tahan
• 14:38
  asks if the three of you would take the ladder down from the
• 14:41
  boat and help her pull it up a little bit more onto the beach
• 14:46
  so Tahan can activate the tensors floating disk.
• 14:49
  Definitely, yeah, Jump down. Everyone give me athletic
• 14:54
  checks, DC 18 and Abe. You can roll for Tahan as well
• 14:59
  and add a + 4. I need 2 successes out of the
• 15:03
  four of you guys. Got you.
• 15:06
  There's no way I can give somebody help because there's no
• 15:09
  way in hell that I'm getting a DCAT Athletics check.
• 15:12
  With 2024 you can only get help if you are proficient.
• 15:16
  Of course, of course, yes. Unfortunately.
• 15:18
  Oh wait, I can give somebody a bardic and they can I can just
• 15:21
  like give Abe one and then he can choose to use it or if.
• 15:23
  Well, so I'm I'm it. Gets too low and then.
• 15:25
  I rolled a 22 so I should be. Yeah.
• 15:28
  And then what did you roll for, Tom?
• 15:31
  A 12 for Tom. With the plus 4 it's a 12.
• 15:35
  It's a 10 for me. I'm going to give myself
• 15:38
  guidance and it is a 13 for me. Damn, a 13 so you're able to
• 15:46
  pull the boat up slightly and tan is like, well this isn't
• 15:53
  super great that we can't get the boat all the way up before
• 15:56
  we inflate the tensors floating disc.
• 16:01
  Can we get the horses out and use the horses to help us?
• 16:04
  Boo, that is a very good idea. That's.
• 16:07
  Smart. OK, let's engage the ramp and
• 16:11
  she attaches the ramp on the side of the ship and leads and
• 16:17
  Trash, who's like the horse girl, leads the horses down the
• 16:20
  ramp and they tie them to the front of the boat, which is
• 16:23
  where you see that they're going to lead the boat anyways.
• 16:25
  So there's already harnesses ready for that.
• 16:28
  And who wants to roll the athletics with advantage?
• 16:34
  You just need to get above a 13 on the die.
• 16:38
  I. Can skip it to lucky dice he my.
• 16:40
  I'm rolling for them. Yeah, you roll with advantage
• 16:43
  and you just need one of the die to be 13 or.
• 16:46
  Yeah, neither of them, neither of them are 13.
• 16:49
  Damn, so the horses are unable? They've been just chilling on
• 16:54
  the boat for so long they don't seem super motivated to yank the
• 16:58
  boat up on the beach. So Tan goes well.
• 17:02
  I try to wave one of the special bananas in front of them to get
• 17:06
  them to go towards it. There's there's one more thing I
• 17:09
  could try. I'm going to get back on the
• 17:12
  ship and I'm going to cast gust of wind into the sails using the
• 17:16
  wind fan to try to, yeah, help out in that way.
• 17:20
  So as you do that, we'll let the horses roll one more time with
• 17:25
  advantage. So he might do.
• 17:27
  One can I give Can I give partick to the horses?
• 17:30
  Yeah, pick a horse. You have to choose which horse
• 17:32
  you wanna give it to just for fun.
• 17:35
  Alexander. Jeff, Jeff.
• 17:39
  Which Jeff exactly got. Okay, Nat 20.
• 17:44
  Nat 20. All right, the horses.
• 17:46
  The horses got it. Yeah.
• 17:48
  Also, I'm I look up at at at Bon using gust of wind and I look
• 17:53
  over at bow and I say look, look at him go.
• 17:56
  Look at him go that's Mira's cleric.
• 17:58
  Look at him go yeah. This isn't even a.
• 18:02
  Cleric class. I have to look at him go using
• 18:05
  wind. You're.
• 18:07
  So, patronizing, Did you wait? Did you use the fan?
• 18:10
  Yeah, use the fan. Hey, you found the fan at like
• 18:14
  the base of? At the altar.
• 18:17
  Yeah, and it is. It is indeed patronizing, as she
• 18:20
  is your patron. He's in his bag right now, yeah.
• 18:23
  Incredible. So the boat is finally able to
• 18:27
  be pulled up fully on the beach and once the boat is on land,
• 18:32
  you see trash somewhere far off on the boat.
• 18:35
  You don't really see her activates the spell and you see
• 18:37
  a very large disc kind of like inflate out below the boat like
• 18:42
  like when you go swimming like it just kind of goes and
• 18:46
  inflates and you see that the boat starts hovering a good foot
• 18:51
  off of the ground. So trash turns to you all and
• 18:55
  goes she comes off the boat she goes.
• 18:58
  It will be early evening by the time we arrive in Emberhold.
• 19:03
  We usually park the boat behind this in on the edge of town
• 19:08
  where a lot of us a smaller merchants stay there and and
• 19:11
  they have a bar on the on the 1st floor.
• 19:13
  Would would you guys like to join us for a drink?
• 19:15
  The first first round is on me as a thanks for saving us from
• 19:19
  those from those pirates and just for helping us along this
• 19:21
  journey. Yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to
• 19:24
  the. Longest string of words I've
• 19:26
  heard you say. Trash.
• 19:28
  Yeah, we'll join you. Hell yeah.
• 19:31
  Thank you. So trash into on wait.
• 19:34
  Wait, a call out somebody who's already shy?
• 19:38
  Tresh and Tahan each hop on one of like their horses on the
• 19:41
  front and Tahan goes. We will navigate the boat on
• 19:45
  these horses and and your horses will just kind of help pull it
• 19:49
  along. You guys are welcome to either
• 19:51
  ride on your horses or just chill out on the boat.
• 19:54
  Chilling on the boat sounds nice.
• 19:57
  Sounds good, it's actually a very weird experience to be
• 20:00
  riding on a boat on land, so honestly I highly recommend you
• 20:04
  do it once at least. That's a great point.
• 20:07
  Yeah. This is something that pretty
• 20:09
  much nobody in the world, except for maybe you guys have done.
• 20:12
  I know it is super cool and one day we will be the biggest
• 20:16
  merchants in the world. I've done it before.
• 20:18
  Oh. Really.
• 20:20
  Though I'm just kidding, that was a lie.
• 20:21
  I have things I have to work. On.
• 20:23
  Complex relations relationship with the truth.
• 20:27
  OK, well Bo, I wish you best in your endeavors to be a more
• 20:32
  honest person, but you are very cool and I like you.
• 20:35
  Why do you sound like you're saying goodbye?
• 20:36
  But. Well, I'm just going on the
• 20:38
  horse for the next few hours, so.
• 20:40
  Fair enough, fair enough. So they hop on the horses, and
• 20:43
  now you 3 are alone on the boat. Time kind of passes as you
• 20:48
  travel. The path takes you away from the
• 20:50
  molten veins of Ignovarum, and with every mile traveled, that
• 20:55
  kind of oppressive, choking heat from the lava river begins to
• 20:59
  fade, replaced by like a cool, crisp breeze.
• 21:02
  You find yourself traveling along a very wide, winding dirt
• 21:06
  Rd. that carves through the rugged terrain along the sides
• 21:10
  of the path. The harsh Obsidian rock gives
• 21:13
  away to clusters of ash, dusted pine trees, and strange fungi
• 21:17
  that cling to the shadows of the boulders, pulsing with a faint
• 21:20
  bioluminescent orange glow. And you guys are just chilling
• 21:24
  on the boat. Bon Ave.
• 21:27
  Do you think you can talk to her again?
• 21:29
  No. Oh.
• 21:32
  I've been trying my whole life to do this and.
• 21:36
  Listen, I just, it just feels like maybe.
• 21:38
  This are you? Are you implying that I'm not
• 21:40
  trying hard? No, no, Bon, bon.
• 21:42
  Listen, you know what? I know this is very, I know
• 21:45
  you're feeling kind of on edge. I know this is it.
• 21:48
  Don't tell me how I'm feeling. Sorry, Bon, I'm just like, I'm
• 21:52
  feeling like, you know, you know how like when you, when the seal
• 21:56
  is broken, when you pee for the first time once you drink a lot
• 21:59
  and then you just got to keep peeing.
• 22:02
  I'm wondering if it's something like that, like now that you've
• 22:04
  spoken to her. You think?
• 22:05
  You think talking to my goddess? Unfortunately, it's such a good
• 22:10
  analogy. Talking to my goddess is like
• 22:12
  urination. No, no, no, no, not like no.
• 22:15
  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's like peeing when you're
• 22:17
  drunk. Yes, exactly, Beau.
• 22:20
  Exactly. And and focus less on the
• 22:22
  urinating part and more on the like, OK, we've done it once,
• 22:25
  can we do it again? Can we do it again?
• 22:28
  You know, that kind of thing. I just.
• 22:30
  Bond, do you know how to pee? Have you ever?
• 22:31
  Peed while you were drunk Bond listen, you guys are asking a
• 22:35
  lot of questions and I yes, of course I've peed when I'm drunk
• 22:40
  I. And then I mean, out of
• 22:42
  curiosity, if there was a mirror there, did you ever like feel
• 22:44
  yourself while you were peeing? While you were drunk?
• 22:47
  This is just a side note, I'm curious.
• 22:48
  Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait.
• 22:49
  Hold on, Hold on, hold on. Let me.
• 22:51
  I think I understand. I'm just curious.
• 22:55
  To clarify, when you say feel yourself, you're talking about
• 22:58
  looking at yourself in the mirror and.
• 22:59
  Metaphorically, like, wow, I look really handsome.
• 23:02
  I'm this drow cleric of this mirror and I'm drunk.
• 23:05
  Have you ever thought that? I just, there's not usually
• 23:08
  mirrors where I go to pee, you know, like I'm usually peeing in
• 23:12
  like the woods or like in the in the bathroom on a ship or like
• 23:16
  your. Reflection. 7.
• 23:18
  In your pee puddle even I don't know.
• 23:20
  Oh my God, I'm giving up on this conversation.
• 23:26
  I is the point. Do you think you could talk to
• 23:27
  her again? No.
• 23:30
  I think what Bond's trying to say is that he doesn't have to
• 23:32
  pee right now, yeah. Yeah, I don't have to pee.
• 23:36
  Bo's going to continue fooling around with the banjo.
• 23:38
  Now that we've broken the seal on this weird conversation, I
• 23:44
  think we need to to prepare for something a little bit when we
• 23:47
  get to and behold, I've I've got something I need to to show you
• 23:51
  guys and I pull out a sheet of paper with the symbol of the Y
• 23:58
  shaped stick of Nerx. He gave this to me on the last
• 24:04
  time I saw him. And I'm going to I'm going to
• 24:09
  share with with everyone. My dearest Bon, you've always
• 24:13
  hated goodbyes. Even as a boy, you'd stand at
• 24:17
  the dock long after my sails had vanished beyond the horizon,
• 24:20
  keep snapping in the wind as if you could anchor me there by
• 24:22
  will alone. You never could.
• 24:25
  The wind belongs to no one, not merchants, not imperatresses,
• 24:30
  not even gods, but has always favoured you.
• 24:34
  When I found you in the woods north of Moon Fen, ash still
• 24:37
  clinging to your hair, bright white eyes reflecting firelight
• 24:40
  that was not your own, you did not cry.
• 24:43
  You do not rage. You simply held your left hand
• 24:46
  against your chest and whispered her name into that watch as if
• 24:50
  the wind itself might answer. It did.
• 24:53
  Your village was different. Your mother knew it, your
• 24:57
  grandfather certainly knew it, and yes, so did I.
• 25:01
  There's sex at this mirror all across the world.
• 25:03
  I've seen them in marble cathedrals and and behold, in
• 25:06
  whispered shrines carved into cliffside caves and silk Drake
• 25:10
  chapels and nachtopales. They speak of broken chains as a
• 25:13
  metaphor of political freedom, of personal liberation.
• 25:17
  Sirleaf did not. Your people remembered something
• 25:21
  older. The Knicks shards you make are
• 25:23
  not common. Lantern prayers bond, but they
• 25:25
  are keys, invitations, echoes of a pact more ancient than the
• 25:29
  current emperor's banners. You've asked me more than once
• 25:33
  whether the Imperatrix knew the secrets of Sirleaf, whether she
• 25:36
  allowed what had happened. I will not lie to you,
• 25:40
  Seraphine. Vexalia knows more than she
• 25:42
  reveals. She gathers the secrets the way
• 25:45
  other rulers gather armies. She summoned every major
• 25:48
  merchant back to Noctavales this year.
• 25:51
  It is not for taxes. It's not for trade.
• 25:54
  But I don't know what it's for if I do not return soon.
• 25:58
  Do not come searching for me in Noctavales.
• 26:00
  Not yet. You are not ready for the games
• 26:02
  played in courts instead of arenas.
• 26:05
  Instead, I leave you three things.
• 26:07
  First, enclosed within this letter is a signet, a ring with
• 26:11
  AY shaped tree branch with leaves encircling it.
• 26:14
  It bears my merchant Crest and a sanction of Noctavalis.
• 26:18
  It will grant you safe harbor in any port that still honors my
• 26:21
  name. Flash it sparingly.
• 26:23
  It opens doors, but doors swing both ways.
• 26:26
  I pull out a signet ring, a golden signet ring with the
• 26:31
  symbol of the Y shaped stick of Nerx.
• 26:37
  It is the official seal of Nerx and it's it's a seal that I
• 26:43
  think I can use to get us a ship for our travels.
• 26:48
  He gave this to me on the the last time I saw him.
• 26:52
  Second, the Ledger attached is written in cipher.
• 26:55
  It will mean nothing at first glance.
• 26:58
  It will not answer to Willowind. The key is a name that once
• 27:02
  carried the weight of your village's faith before your
• 27:04
  mother chose a different name. Your grandfather believed a
• 27:08
  family name should preserve what came before, that it should
• 27:10
  carry the old songs forward unchanged.
• 27:13
  Your mother believed the wind could reshape even sacred
• 27:16
  things. That faith must move or it
• 27:18
  Withers. When she took your father's
• 27:21
  name, it was not rejection. It was a choice.
• 27:24
  And choice, as you well know, is holy.
• 27:27
  When you find the name, the cipher will unfold into an
• 27:30
  address. And and behold, go when you want
• 27:32
  answers, and maybe some answers will be there waiting for you.
• 27:37
  3rd, I'll leave you my faith in you.
• 27:40
  You think yourself incomplete because your education was cut
• 27:43
  short because your understanding of this mirror feels fractured.
• 27:46
  But Bon, there are certain things you can learn about this
• 27:49
  mirror from the world, not from books or ceremonies.
• 27:53
  You've always been the most yourself.
• 27:54
  When your Cape catches the wind and you say this mirror is with
• 27:57
  me, Do not let anger be the only fire that drives you in the
• 28:00
  agony arena. Justice is not the same as
• 28:03
  vengeance, and freedom is not won by becoming what hunts you.
• 28:07
  If you ever doubt your path, open your watch, whisper her
• 28:10
  name and listen not for answers, but for direction.
• 28:14
  The wind has never failed you. I'm with you always, Narix of
• 28:19
  the Open Tides, sanctioned merchant of Noctavalis.
• 28:25
  And I turn the page over and I show you guys the cipher, and
• 28:30
  it's just a jumble of letters, which you guys know will be an
• 28:34
  address when I know the word. You read this before Bon?
• 28:39
  I've read this before, yes. For one thing, it gives us
• 28:44
  passage that will desperately need to get to this horde in
• 28:48
  Nactivales and to your brother in the shade hold.
• 28:53
  But I still haven't quite figured out what my mother's
• 28:57
  maiden name was, and I need to figure it out to to solve the
• 29:02
  cipher to figure out this address, especially as we
• 29:05
  approach and behold. Well, we've we've learned a lot
• 29:08
  of names in the past week, so perhaps we start coming through
• 29:13
  those. And do you just have to say the
• 29:15
  name to the cipher? Is it a spell that?
• 29:18
  It's a keyword cipher, and this is something Narix would use
• 29:23
  when he would send sensitive information, and he taught me
• 29:26
  how it works. So you you write down the
• 29:28
  keyword first you remove any duplicate letters, and then you
• 29:32
  fill in the rest of the alphabet.
• 29:34
  So it sort of goes down like the word would be the first however
• 29:39
  many letters of the alphabet. Is that correct of me?
• 29:42
  Yes, yeah. So like for example if the word
• 29:46
  was like a balloon for example, the cipher alphabet would go
• 29:52
  Bal, skip the other LO, skip the other ON, and then you would
• 30:00
  fill the rest of the alphabet. So you already use the A in the
• 30:02
  cipher alphabet, you already use the B.
• 30:05
  So the next letter in the alphabet would be C and then you
• 30:09
  would fill it in all the way down to the bottom of the
• 30:11
  alphabet. And then that would translate
• 30:14
  this code. So I there's actually a handy
• 30:18
  dandy Google Sheets for Harry, where once Harry puts in the
• 30:23
  cipher alphabet, it'll automatically fill out what the
• 30:27
  code says and. Your your mother was an elf,
• 30:30
  right? She was a drow, same as me.
• 30:34
  So I don't know if we know of any specific drow, but are any
• 30:39
  of the names that we've heard so far in like Johnny Maccabees
• 30:45
  adventuring party? Could any of those be drown
• 30:47
  names? I've.
• 30:48
  Brought up the journal and I was thinking about connecting the
• 30:52
  The first one I would try if you can try Bon is GAIL Song.
• 30:57
  Yeah, it's. G That sounds like a smart.
• 31:00
  ALESONG, GAIL. Song.
• 31:05
  I spend some time sort of working through the cipher with
• 31:09
  the name GAIL Song, and as I as I get to the end of working
• 31:15
  through it, my eyes widen and light up and I say, eh, that
• 31:20
  that was it, that that's the right name.
• 31:24
  It says E Stock Warehouse 17 and behold, Lois Seladora mocked
• 31:30
  with a Lantern. Let's go, let's go.
• 31:32
  Hold on, hold on, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
• 31:34
  How do we? What are the odds that we really
• 31:36
  got it on the first track? Shouldn't we try all the other?
• 31:38
  Names. No, no, no, listen, I didn't.
• 31:40
  I didn't go through my internal process here as I often don't
• 31:43
  when explaining my logic. But the we know that that the
• 31:48
  Maccabee name had to do with with with Giovini and the
• 31:51
  Halfling, right, with Johnny. And then the IT just felt like
• 31:55
  the Gayle song was referred to as a high priestess, which just
• 31:58
  felt the closest in terms of yeah, it just felt like a good
• 32:02
  guess because Saloon Kai was a monk of the astral self and it
• 32:05
  just didn't feel like it could have been her.
• 32:07
  But. Does that mean I'm related to
• 32:10
  the Gayle songs? You must be.
• 32:12
  I guess my mother is a Gayle song.
• 32:15
  I I guess I'm a Gayle song. That's a really good name.
• 32:18
  Bontle Gayle Song, Whirlwind. It's a lot of wind.
• 32:21
  Yeah, Gales Winds. East Stock Warehouse 17.
• 32:29
  And behold the lower cellar door marked with a Lantern.
• 32:33
  This must be where we need to go.
• 32:35
  You're brilliant, Abe. I mean, it was the letter.
• 32:38
  And bow. Yeah, I know.
• 32:42
  Thank you guys. I've been I've been sitting on
• 32:43
  this foot since since he gave it to me years ago.
• 32:47
  I wonder if he's going to be an Ember hold.
• 32:49
  One year ago, he was ordered to return to Noctevalis by the
• 32:53
  Imperatrix. And you know, you heard the
• 32:56
  letter. It wasn't, it wasn't quite
• 32:59
  normal. I, I haven't seen him since.
• 33:02
  And I, I'm going to call out to, to an and Tresh and you know,
• 33:07
  they're very tapped into the merchant world recently.
• 33:10
  I'm going to ask them if if they've heard anybody seen
• 33:15
  Eric's in the past year. Good question.
• 33:19
  Well I know some of his ships have come to Emberhold because
• 33:25
  he he has quite a few ships. He is a big merchant but I'm not
• 33:29
  sure if anyone has seen him in the past year.
• 33:34
  We haven't been back to Emberhold for about a month, so
• 33:38
  unless he's arrived in this past month personally, he was not
• 33:43
  there. Hmm.
• 33:45
  I mean, I listen, I would love to see him, I hope he's there,
• 33:48
  but I just, I wouldn't get your hopes up.
• 33:50
  I know it's been a while since you've seen Stick.
• 33:52
  Yeah. And I kind of wink at you.
• 33:56
  Bon, I feel like maybe you have told us this before and I just
• 34:00
  can't recall, but did your village in Solif Lake, did they
• 34:04
  document things in in writing like or did you guys, was it
• 34:09
  like an oral tradition of, of your history and your family and
• 34:12
  like your connection to Thesmira?
• 34:15
  I think, you know, as I start to think back a little bit more, I
• 34:19
  haven't been there since, since I left six years ago, I think,
• 34:24
  but it felt like a much more oral tradition, at least until
• 34:31
  the anaphosis ceremony. You know, I, that's still kind
• 34:34
  of a grey area for me is what happens after that.
• 34:37
  It's possible there were texts there, but nothing that I
• 34:41
  learned was really from a book other than, you know, the
• 34:45
  basics, nothing too in depth about our history or our
• 34:48
  religion. It felt very closely guarded.
• 34:51
  And maybe I would know more if I'd had my anaphosis ceremony,
• 34:55
  but it's possible there are texts there.
• 34:57
  I just don't. I had never got to see them.
• 34:59
  You. Know, and I mean I suppose if
• 35:01
  there were texts they would have been destroyed anyways when the
• 35:05
  village was burned. I also wouldn't be surprised if
• 35:09
  worship of someone called the Lady of Breath would be spread
• 35:13
  by word of mouth. My, my people were very clever.
• 35:19
  I think that's how we survived so long without this.
• 35:24
  You know how we have such old ties to the old world.
• 35:28
  And maybe we can. Maybe we can look for it one day
• 35:33
  in the future. Well, there's what Remington
• 35:35
  said about the next Shard. Exactly that.
• 35:40
  What I'm wondering, Bon, is if we can.
• 35:44
  So a couple days ago, when when we were before we had gotten to
• 35:49
  the Grande's village and we were reading Giovinian's journal, I'd
• 35:54
  mentioned maybe wanting to look into the Skylark name and maybe
• 36:01
  looking into the Laura GAIL song specifically, which is not the
• 36:07
  same High priestess, I think. No, they're as far as you can
• 36:11
  tell they're different. They're somehow related to GAIL
• 36:14
  song name, but Alaura is not the High Priestess.
• 36:17
  Yes. I wonder if if there would be
• 36:19
  any mentions of these names in the libraries and behold.
• 36:23
  I, I, I think it's very low likelihood if, if the impaired
• 36:27
  word in any way was trying to, to make sure this information
• 36:30
  was not found and like literally buried underneath the mountain
• 36:33
  of rock in the old castle, right.
• 36:36
  But I don't know, maybe maybe there's something, maybe there's
• 36:39
  something somewhere and we should GAIL Song seems like the
• 36:43
  name, right? It's your name.
• 36:45
  It's clearly important. I don't know.
• 36:48
  Maybe you could do some research at one of the libraries in and
• 36:50
  behold, but I wouldn't dig too deep.
• 36:53
  Publicly, yes. Yeah, I wouldn't ask for help.
• 36:56
  No, yes, we can't let people know what we're looking for.
• 37:00
  And I would also if you can. I know it's going to be hard,
• 37:04
  but I mean we should absolutely stop by Solif if that's
• 37:08
  something you are ready to do. Bon, I know it was a traumatic
• 37:13
  event but I wonder if your if your grandfather had hidden
• 37:17
  anything physical somewhere that could be of use to us in this?
• 37:23
  Like, I don't know, looking into the name of his family.
• 37:27
  I think maybe after after all these years, I could finally be
• 37:31
  ready to go back and see what really happens.
• 37:35
  Put AI put my hand on your arm and just kind of squeeze you
• 37:39
  reassuringly. So as you guys are on the boat
• 37:43
  kind of having this conversation, it is just you
• 37:47
  finally kind of take a beat to like look around after these big
• 37:51
  revelations. And it's just so, so freaking
• 37:55
  crazy to be like so high up on a boat floating, just traveling
• 37:59
  through Ignovar. I'm on your way to Emberhold.
• 38:02
  And everyone, can you give me a perception check As Ta'an cries
• 38:06
  out. We're getting close to
• 38:09
  Emberhold. We should be there in 30 minutes
• 38:12
  or less so. It's going to be a 12 from me.
• 38:16
  It's going to be a 15. 17. Unfortunately, perception is one
• 38:20
  of those profession sees that had to give up.
• 38:21
  To get the musician well with the 15 and the 17 you guys see
• 38:29
  on the side of the road, you see like lots of arrows and some
• 38:33
  dead bodies that look like it. It took some effort for these
• 38:37
  people on the side of the road to be killed.
• 38:40
  They look kind of like bandits. And Von, since you've kind of
• 38:45
  made this journey before and you worked with the bigger merchants
• 38:50
  in Emberhold, can you give me a history check?
• 38:54
  Yeah, I wish I had known history was going to be so important in
• 38:57
  this because my my history is so ass.
• 39:01
  That is a four. Yeah, you all you know is like,
• 39:08
  bandits really aren't on this road.
• 39:14
  You know that Narex was part of like the merchant coalition as
• 39:17
  like the bigger merchants, they they paid to have hired blades
• 39:22
  as protection along the path. So abandons bandits usually
• 39:25
  didn't even dare to come along the path between these cities
• 39:30
  because they were usually hired blades to kill the bandits.
• 39:34
  But that's kind of just generally what you know.
• 39:36
  You said there's arrows. Are the arrows just pointing to
• 39:39
  ember hold or is this somebody drew arrows somewhere?
• 39:42
  Oh like like bow and arrow? Like it looks.
• 39:45
  Like oh, bow and arrow. Sorry, I thought you.
• 39:48
  Meant like. Arrows.
• 39:49
  Sorry. Wow.
• 39:50
  OK. Bows and arrows, like there were
• 39:52
  just like a lot of arrows riddled between like the trees.
• 39:54
  It looks like whoever fought these bandits didn't have the
• 39:59
  greatest of aims, and it doesn't necessarily seem like.
• 40:03
  These were like the hired blades.
• 40:05
  The hired blades usually would kill the bandits pretty quickly
• 40:08
  or like disperse them from this area.
• 40:11
  But it looks like for some reason the hired blades either
• 40:15
  like weren't here or something happened to them and the bandits
• 40:19
  were able to get super close to the road to where the merchants
• 40:21
  are travelling. I shout out to Tresh and Tan be
• 40:26
  be on your guard. Something weird is happening.
• 40:30
  OK, that sounds like a great idea because I also saw those
• 40:34
  dead bodies, not really awesome. And so you guys are all kind of
• 40:42
  keeping an eye out on your way to Emberhold And can everyone
• 40:49
  give me another perception check?
• 40:51
  Yeah, ahead of ahead of this month or I'd say ahead of this
• 40:54
  Bunty, ahead of this Avni Freudian slip.
• 40:58
  Can I have Bunty go up to the crow's nest again as well?
• 41:03
  Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
• 41:05
  Remember the rules and remember to take inspiration from to ON
• 41:09
  and how clear she is with calling things out as soon as
• 41:12
  she sees them. 27. Holy.
• 41:15
  Shit. 14. When I see the bodies of me, I'm
• 41:20
  going to give bardic inspiration, one to Abe and one
• 41:24
  to Bon. So it's AD six, Yeah.
• 41:26
  Yeah, and you can choose to use it on AD 20 roll in the next
• 41:31
  hour. Got it.
• 41:32
  Oh, it's only for an hour. OK, cool.
• 41:34
  Well, that's how bardic usually is, but we play a little loose
• 41:36
  with it. It's fine if.
• 41:37
  It I see. I see.
• 41:39
  OK, so 20, sorry Bon, you got a 20 something. 27.
• 41:46
  It's high enough so Bon, you're the only one that spots this
• 41:51
  right now. But up ahead, hidden among the
• 41:54
  ash dusted pine needles of like a large overhanging tree, you
• 41:59
  spot a Crimson scale Dragonborn woman perched on like a very
• 42:03
  thick branch. This is like a very, very large
• 42:05
  tree. And she has a heavy great axe
• 42:07
  raised over her head and she's positioned right above this
• 42:11
  giant limb. And it seems like she's waiting
• 42:13
  for the horses to pass underneath so she could chop the
• 42:16
  massive tree limb down right in front of them or to like kind of
• 42:20
  part of the beasts. I trying to think whether or not
• 42:24
  whether to attack at this or whether.
• 42:27
  So she's about. Shout ahead.
• 42:29
  She's about 60 feet diagonally. You know that there's not a lot
• 42:33
  of space for like the boat to maneuver around this.
• 42:36
  It's, it's such a large thing. So you're going to either you're
• 42:39
  going to have to go under the branch to continue going.
• 42:42
  I'm going to I'm going to shout for trash to or not trash for to
• 42:48
  on to stop, stop the horses. OK, to on goes.
• 42:53
  Whoa, whoa, whoa. And the horses suddenly halt to
• 42:57
  a stop. You guys are kind of shaking on
• 42:59
  the boat right now. And as this happens, the
• 43:02
  Dragonborn looks over to you as she hears you shout and she sees
• 43:07
  you and she calls out. They've seen us get the bows and
• 43:11
  arrows ready. And everyone roll initiative.
• 43:14
  Aw. Man.
• 43:16
  Yeah, sorry. I probably could have handled
• 43:17
  that better. I just wasn't exactly.
• 43:19
  I didn't want to. I didn't want to attack and miss
• 43:22
  and then. I think that was the right call.
• 43:24
  That's going to be a 10 from me. 17. 9.
• 43:27
  So what you guys see is that the Dragonborn is up in the tree
• 43:32
  about 60 feet away diagonally. She still has the axe over that
• 43:37
  tree branch. And you see on the same side of
• 43:40
  her, on that same left side of the road, 3 more bandits appear
• 43:45
  with bows and arrows. They're all about 60 feet away
• 43:50
  from you right now, Abe. You're first to act.
• 43:54
  Are all of the bandits in trees or or just the?
• 43:56
  Dragon. Yeah, they're all.
• 43:57
  They're all up there in trees as if they were like scouting out.
• 44:01
  OK, I have no range attacks. How far is the crow's nest from
• 44:07
  one of the branches? Probably about a Well let me
• 44:12
  roll to see, probably about a 15 foot jump from the crow's nest
• 44:18
  to like a thick branch that would like sustain you kind of
• 44:21
  thing. OK, then I'm going to use my
• 44:23
  movement to get up the the crow's nest.
• 44:25
  Which is how high? You could.
• 44:28
  You would have to use like just one full movement to get up
• 44:31
  there because you're 45 feet. Yes, however I'm going to bonus
• 44:36
  action dash and go 90 feet. So move up the entire crow's
• 44:41
  nest and then jump to the closest branch.
• 44:45
  OK, so let's see how long jump is calculated in D&D 2024.
• 44:50
  You do need a running start, but because my my climb speed is
• 44:53
  equal to my ground speed, I would assume I'm moving at the
• 44:58
  same pace as running, but I. I would say that you can like
• 45:02
  launch kind of like launch yourself semi vertically
• 45:04
  diagonally instead of like horizontally and jumping because
• 45:08
  of your climb speed. So you cover a number of feet up
• 45:12
  to your strength score. What is your strength score?
• 45:15
  Not the modifier. Yeah, I'm not gonna make it's 4
• 45:17
  feet. It'd be my strength score is.
• 45:18
  No, no, no, not not your modifier, your score.
• 45:21
  It's one no 12/12 12:12 sorry, sorry. 12 So you wouldn't
• 45:29
  necessarily be able to clear it right now, but if you give me an
• 45:34
  athletics check. I'm going to activate my
• 45:37
  spectral arms to give me an additional 10 feet of reach.
• 45:41
  OK, yeah, that works. But that's going to be your
• 45:44
  bonus action action and movement to get to that branch because
• 45:48
  it's the bonus action to activate it.
• 45:49
  Action. OK, so you launch yourself
• 45:52
  halfway through the air. You're like, actually, oh, crap.
• 45:55
  Like I don't think I'm going to reach this branch.
• 45:58
  I'm not making it. And so you activate your arms
• 46:02
  and thank God you do, because you are able to kind of monkey
• 46:05
  onto the branch and pull yourself up.
• 46:07
  So that's your turn. You're on the branch.
• 46:10
  So now you're going to be about like 15 feet away from like the
• 46:14
  first bandit on a tree branch. So you'd have to kind of
• 46:17
  navigate your way over there. So the three arrow bandits are
• 46:21
  going to go. The one with the axe is just
• 46:23
  going to sit there because she just has an axe and she doesn't
• 46:27
  want to necessarily chop the tree down just yet.
• 46:30
  So let's roll one of them. The closest one is going to go
• 46:34
  to you, Abe. That is going to be a 14.
• 46:37
  Does that hit? No.
• 46:39
  OK, one's going to go towards Bonn.
• 46:41
  It's A7. These guys suck.
• 46:43
  When? You say go towards, you mean?
• 46:45
  No, like shoot, sorry, they're going to shoot towards you.
• 46:46
  So that's a 7. Just definitely not going to hit
• 46:49
  Bond. Damn, I see where?
• 46:50
  The and. High spread of arrows came from.
• 46:53
  Yeah, and that's an 11 to shoot towards Bow.
• 46:56
  So they all miss on their turn. All right, Bow, it's your turn.
• 47:01
  They are 60 feet away. I'm going to cast which bolt on
• 47:05
  one of the ones with a bow. OK, great.
• 47:10
  And it'll be a natural 1, so I'm going to use my heroic
• 47:16
  inspiration. OK, that'll be a 16 to hit.
• 47:22
  That hits. They have an AC of 12 because
• 47:24
  they're bandits, so. Wonderful.
• 47:27
  I guess I wouldn't get sneak attack on this.
• 47:29
  It's probably OK, I'll tell you that.
• 47:33
  All right, I do 13 damage. You absolutely kill this one.
• 47:37
  Describe how you kill this bandit from the tree.
• 47:40
  I I just like holding my hand as I'm so used to doing and like
• 47:44
  create this like magical tether between the bandit and send out
• 47:48
  some energy. But I don't think I've ever
• 47:49
  actually killed anybody outright with it before.
• 47:52
  So I think I just like, you can like see it's skeleton and then
• 47:56
  you just like falls out of the tree.
• 47:58
  I'm like oh oh fuck. It lands on the the forest floor
• 48:01
  with a giant thud. Sorry.
• 48:06
  Anything else you want to do, Bo?
• 48:08
  No, that'll be all all. Right, Bond, it's your turn.
• 48:11
  There's two more people with bows and arrows in the tree and
• 48:14
  then the one Dragonborn with the axe.
• 48:18
  I initially was going to do something much more war crimey,
• 48:23
  but they don't seem they don't seem that crazy.
• 48:29
  So I am going to cast Scorching Ray and so I'm going to hurl 3
• 48:36
  fiery rays, one at each of them and make 3 spell attacks.
• 48:42
  Incredible. Let's start with one of The
• 48:44
  Archers. 10 to hit. 10 does not hit.
• 48:48
  OK, second Archer is going to be a 24 to hit.
• 48:53
  Just definitely hits. And the axe person is going to
• 48:58
  be a 25 to hit. Definitely hits.
• 49:02
  I make this spell attack 3 emanating rays of fire bolt from
• 49:06
  my hands and one of them completely kind of whiffs one of
• 49:11
  them. Two of them sink into the bodies
• 49:14
  of these people and deal 4 fire damage each.
• 49:19
  Incredible. Yeah, they, they take that for
• 49:22
  fire damage and they're not looking super awesome right now.
• 49:28
  They're not bloody just yet. But yeah, they're not looking
• 49:31
  good. I assume they're not a fiend or
• 49:33
  undead, right? No.
• 49:35
  That's a. That's a different spell.
• 49:37
  Just some gals, anything else you want to do Bon?
• 49:40
  No, that's my turn. Abe, it's your turn.
• 49:44
  The close guy. I would say the close bandit is
• 49:47
  probably the one who was not hit by the by the fiery bolt from
• 49:53
  Bon. So still at full health, hanging
• 49:56
  out on the tree. And this is one with a bow.
• 49:59
  This is not the Dragonborn with the axe.
• 50:01
  Yes, this is one with the bow. Can I do a quick investigation
• 50:05
  check on the trees and I want to know if like these trees are
• 50:08
  flammable or are they like eucalyptus?
• 50:11
  I know you said they're Willow, but because this is scenario.
• 50:14
  And I, I would say that from what you saw, it's like these
• 50:20
  trees can withstand high temperatures and are already
• 50:24
  like kind of covered in ash. So they're probably not super
• 50:28
  susceptible to fire. OK, noted.
• 50:30
  All right then I'm just going to go.
• 50:32
  I'm going to try to attack this one that's nearest to me.
• 50:35
  Yes. So 15 feet away you don't even
• 50:38
  have to move do. You.
• 50:40
  No, but they're along the same tree as me.
• 50:42
  Or are they on the next branch? They they are, they are like 2
• 50:46
  trees away. But what's your reach like?
• 50:49
  They're only 15 feet away. I have to empower my my arms.
• 50:53
  So, well, if if you don't, if you don't want to empower your
• 50:55
  arms, you can just give me an acrobatics to kind of move your
• 50:58
  way across the branches towards them.
• 51:00
  I'm I am going to empower them. I'm going to empower them and
• 51:04
  also move. I still want to get closer.
• 51:06
  Awesome. So.
• 51:07
  Yeah, give me your acrobatics. That's going to be a 24.
• 51:12
  Yeah, you're totally fine. You're able to kind of like jump
• 51:15
  from branch to branch. You're able to spot the sturdy
• 51:17
  ones and make your way over to this bandit with the bow and
• 51:20
  arrow. I like do 1 jump with one leg
• 51:23
  and the other jump with the other leg just like bounding
• 51:25
  across the two branches and then I make it to them.
• 51:28
  I use my bonus action to empower the arms, so I don't have a
• 51:30
  bonus action anymore, but I'm just going to attack.
• 51:35
  That's going to be a 18 to hit. And because we're level 5, I
• 51:40
  also have Extra Attack which doesn't use a bonus action so I
• 51:43
  can attack again. Shit, yeah, the level. 5 hump
• 51:49
  has been reached. Love it?
• 51:50
  Let's. Fucking go.
• 51:51
  And the next attack is gonna be a 25 to hit.
• 51:55
  Yeah, both of them hit. So I'm gonna jump onto this
• 51:59
  branch and then with my spectral arms, do a right hook and a left
• 52:03
  hook. And I'm also adding my necrotic
• 52:05
  damage. Total damage is 4 points or
• 52:10
  sorry, 12 points, 12 points 4 by 3.
• 52:12
  Describe how you absolutely just demolish this guy.
• 52:16
  What does it look? Like right hook?
• 52:18
  He dies. Right hook slams them kind of
• 52:20
  off the branch into my left hook, which redirects them back
• 52:24
  to the right of the branch and they fall off the branch.
• 52:29
  And another body just thumps to the.
• 52:31
  Oh OK, I didn't expect them to go down so easily.
• 52:41
  Are you guys interested in maybe giving up?
• 52:44
  Is is that an option? Then yes, Yes, we will give up.
• 52:47
  Just kind of leave us alone. We will not drop the branch on
• 52:49
  your horses. You guys can just make your way
• 52:52
  to emberhold, yes? Oh no, we're we still want
• 52:55
  everything that you got, but. Well, stop fighting us and give
• 52:59
  us everything. That you got.
• 53:00
  Just just leave us alone. No, you didn't leave us alone.
• 53:05
  Well, that's kind of our job. And you failed, so this is the
• 53:09
  consequence. OK, do you want to give me an
• 53:12
  intimidation check right now? Boats for them to just give up
• 53:16
  and give you their shit. That'll be a 21.
• 53:23
  Cool, we are completely out of initiative right now.
• 53:25
  If you want to be the 2 remaining bandits are like just
• 53:31
  give us a SEC. We'll we'll we'll climb down the
• 53:34
  tree. Please just leave us with our
• 53:37
  clothes and maybe our weapons and we will give you everything
• 53:42
  else. Everything else, I promise
• 53:43
  Everything else. Let's I.
• 53:47
  Don't know about that. I I think my buddy over there
• 53:49
  and I point to Bond he'd he'd like your axe.
• 53:54
  We'll, we'll, we'll take a look at everything that you got and
• 53:56
  we'll decide what you get to keep.
• 53:58
  OK, but you you promise not to kill us.
• 54:00
  Yeah, and honestly, one of you should go check on.
• 54:02
  I have not. Hold up.
• 54:04
  Hold on. This is not.
• 54:05
  This is nothing to do with promises.
• 54:07
  You know You guys are bandits. We're not going to kill you.
• 54:09
  It's fine. We're not going to kill you.
• 54:12
  There's a good chance that if you listen to everything that we
• 54:14
  say, you'll, you'll walk away from this alive.
• 54:17
  OK, but and I request that we do not deal with the guy with the
• 54:22
  spectral long arms. He seems to kind of he he freaks
• 54:27
  us out a little bit. Is that OK if we just deal with
• 54:30
  you serve and they are? Talking to both as long as as
• 54:33
  long as he keep listening to what I say, yeah.
• 54:35
  We will listen to you. We will listen to you
• 54:38
  specifically, completely. All right, let's take a look at
• 54:41
  what they got. OK so the bandits come down and
• 54:46
  go towards the ship and bow. I assume you kind of drop down
• 54:50
  to the ground to meet them. I assume you don't want them to
• 54:52
  come on board your ship? No, yeah, I'll, I'll meet them
• 54:54
  on the ground and I'll have my weapons drawn and everything.
• 54:57
  So I'm I'm ready but. Great.
• 54:59
  And I kind of imagine Bon is like on the ship, just kind of
• 55:03
  like staring down at them. No funny business down there.
• 55:07
  Yep, that sounds good with us. And you go and loot through
• 55:12
  their stuff. They have 200 gold pieces on
• 55:17
  them it looks like. Awesome.
• 55:19
  As if maybe they had been looting people along the way as
• 55:23
  well. And what they also have is just
• 55:28
  a nice set of leather armor. Can you guys tell me anything
• 55:32
  about this leather armor? We just kind of grabbed it from
• 55:36
  this little travelling merchants.
• 55:41
  I'm not entirely sure we haven't.
• 55:44
  We haven't put it on. We just kind of did this like a
• 55:46
  couple hours ago. Oh yeah, yeah, no, we'll, we'll
• 55:48
  take that too. That's anything else you guys
• 55:51
  got? Just our weapons.
• 55:53
  Just just our weapons. Yeah, I think, I think we're
• 55:56
  going to take those too, because, you know, I don't
• 55:58
  really want you to be doing this to anybody else so.
• 56:03
  Mm, hmm. Mm.
• 56:04
  Hmm. OK.
• 56:04
  So you can hand those over. OK, Yep, you and then we're kind
• 56:07
  of we'll we'll fuck right off, yeah.
• 56:11
  Real before you go, just quick question.
• 56:14
  What? What are you guys doing here?
• 56:16
  Well, funny story, we kind of heard through the Grapevine that
• 56:22
  the those like a big old merchants in Emberhold weren't
• 56:27
  paying for the hired guards anymore, the hired blades.
• 56:30
  And we thought, you know what the hell?
• 56:31
  Like we know a lot of the smaller merchants use the road
• 56:34
  and, you know, honestly, like we weren't bandits like that long
• 56:39
  ago. It's just, you know, the economy
• 56:41
  has not been like super, super great for us.
• 56:43
  So we're just trying to survive. I have kids at home so give me
• 56:51
  an insight check. It's it's an 11.
• 56:56
  I turn to him. I'm like wow, this recession is
• 56:59
  wrong people. Yeah, you, you, you kind of.
• 57:05
  Believe him, it's the fucking shrimp from shark.
• 57:08
  Tale. Well, I have a family.
• 57:11
  Wife and or I have a interruption question.
• 57:16
  Are the people like dead, dead on the ground or could they be
• 57:18
  stabilized? The people that we we took out
• 57:20
  from the trees? They're they're, they're dead.
• 57:22
  Dead. You killed them and then they
• 57:24
  fell to the ground. Fair enough.
• 57:26
  Yeah. So assuming that we have
• 57:29
  everything from them of value, I I don't see any reason why.
• 57:33
  I mean, I guess I do see reasons why we shouldn't let them go,
• 57:36
  but I also don't want to just kill them so I'm fine with
• 57:39
  letting them go. What do you guys think?
• 57:41
  I'm going to be messaging this like.
• 57:42
  Mentally. As a Cam trip.
• 57:44
  Scale down the tree at this point.
• 57:47
  No, no, no. You guys said he would stay away
• 57:49
  from us. I'm.
• 57:50
  Not. I'm not gonna.
• 57:50
  Hurt. Let him have him stay away from
• 57:52
  us. I'm not gonna hurt you.
• 57:53
  Nope. Nope, stay.
• 57:54
  Stay in the tree. So I'm like half just just
• 57:57
  chilling down on the side of the trunk.
• 58:00
  Here's what I'm going to do. You guys, you guys can, you can
• 58:03
  go on your way and we won't kill you right now, but you got to
• 58:08
  clearly you're not very good at this.
• 58:09
  So just find something else to do and we're going to need one
• 58:15
  of each of your socks. Yup.
• 58:19
  OK. And the Dragonborn woman, she
• 58:22
  sits down and she's got like these giant.
• 58:25
  Have you ever seen like the, you know, like the converse boots,
• 58:29
  like, you know, converse like, but they have like the boots
• 58:32
  that go all the way up to your knee.
• 58:33
  She starts like UN. She has to like very
• 58:36
  painstakingly untie it all the way down because it's laced all
• 58:40
  the way up to her knee. And they both take off their
• 58:43
  left sock and give it to you. And it is absolutely rank and
• 58:48
  disgusting. Oh, I don't even take it.
• 58:50
  I just like kind of throw it in the mud and like stomp it into
• 58:53
  the mud a little bit. And then I'm going to use mage
• 58:55
  hand to drop a couple of pebbles into their shoes while they're
• 58:59
  off and then watch as they as they put the shoes back on and
• 59:04
  then just leave something to remember us by.
• 59:07
  You know, I don't want to kill them, but this is a fate next to
• 59:11
  death. Really nice, really nice to meet
• 59:17
  you. I hope you do well on the rest
• 59:20
  of your journey. Honestly, you're not that far
• 59:22
  from the the one of the gates of Ember holds.
• 59:26
  So yeah. Anyways, have a nice life.
• 59:30
  Bye. And they take off running.
• 59:32
  Cool. Amazing.
• 59:33
  I bet it's a very uncomfortable run.
• 59:35
  Yeah, you see them kind of like the guy, like who's shooting the
• 59:39
  air bow and arrow. He like trips because of the
• 59:42
  rocks. And the Dragonborn goes just get
• 59:45
  up, get up, we have to keep going, get up.
• 59:47
  I don't care if it hurts, let's go.
• 59:48
  And he's like, you have scales on your feet.
• 59:51
  This clearly doesn't hurt you as much as it hurts me, a human man
• 59:55
  with flesh. And they start arguing as they
• 59:58
  run off into the pools. There's no way that guy's human.
• 1:00:02
  That's a weird thing to say. He's hiding something.
• 1:00:08
  Way too specific. About that this sounds.
• 1:00:11
  This sounds exactly like when Bo was trying to make himself seem
• 1:00:15
  more. Human so Todd turns to you all
• 1:00:21
  because they were just staying on the horses kind of like
• 1:00:23
  making sure that every the horses stay calm during this
• 1:00:26
  battle and she goes wow. I feel like this journey is so
• 1:00:29
  much more chill usually. You all seem to have a knack for
• 1:00:33
  excitement so honestly kind of tired of it.
• 1:00:38
  So do you guys want to hop back in the boat?
• 1:00:40
  We'll finish our journey to Emberhold and just get a get a
• 1:00:44
  fucking pint. Yeah, let's do that.
• 1:00:47
  Yeah, sounds fantastic. Please I'll.
• 1:00:49
  Make my way back into the boat. Yeah, you all get back into the
• 1:00:52
  boat and eventually the winding Rd. flattens out as you approach
• 1:00:57
  the imposing outer walls of Emberhold.
• 1:01:00
  So just as a reminder, Emberhold is a city built on a Cliff.
• 1:01:04
  The West half of the city is on top of the flat part of land,
• 1:01:09
  and then the eastern half is built on the edge of the Cliff.
• 1:01:13
  So Bond, you can like tell the party about how the east part
• 1:01:16
  kind of of the city clings to the Cliff face and kind of goes
• 1:01:20
  down into the smoldering sea below.
• 1:01:23
  It is not for people afraid of heights.
• 1:01:25
  There are kind of these like silver metal trams that traverse
• 1:01:30
  the east side of the city from the top of the West side.
• 1:01:33
  There's these like dizzying ladders.
• 1:01:35
  There are very like steep stone steps that people go up and
• 1:01:39
  down. They're very narrow.
• 1:01:40
  So you guys kind of like someone's coming up and you're
• 1:01:43
  going down. You kind of have to like watch
• 1:01:45
  your balance. And there's also some like very
• 1:01:48
  zig zaggy switch back roads used by carts to kind of descend into
• 1:01:53
  like the shipyards that are at the bottom of the east side down
• 1:01:57
  at the water's edge. Awesome.
• 1:02:00
  But you all are arriving from the southwest side since this
• 1:02:04
  boat is not able to necessarily navigate through an entire city,
• 1:02:09
  so you guys need to keep this boat at least on solid land
• 1:02:12
  right now. So there's this large silver and
• 1:02:16
  Obsidian gate in front of you, and Tahan shouts up to the
• 1:02:20
  guards at the top of the gate. Hello there.
• 1:02:22
  We are merchants here to sell our goods.
• 1:02:25
  And a guard shouts down Tan, we know it's you and Tresh, who
• 1:02:30
  else has a floating boat? And the gate kind of swings open
• 1:02:34
  and you see Emberhold, this hustling and bustling city.
• 1:02:40
  So the boat goes in past these very, very large gates, not
• 1:02:45
  ornate at all, just kind of looks like giant rocks.
• 1:02:48
  And Trash navigates the boat literally immediately to the
• 1:02:52
  left where you see the back of a narrow but tall inn.
• 1:02:56
  She deactivates the spells. So the boat harmlessly thunks to
• 1:03:00
  the ground. And Tahan and Trash beckon you
• 1:03:04
  to to come down and join them on the ground.
• 1:03:07
  Trash starts tying the horses up in this stable that's behind
• 1:03:12
  this this inn. And Tahan goes, oh, oh, I'm so
• 1:03:18
  glad to be back, guys. Reen is the owner of this bar
• 1:03:23
  and she is, she's just an Angel for letting us park here and
• 1:03:27
  keeping our horses here. She doesn't, she doesn't ask for
• 1:03:30
  anything in return. And we get to keep a giant boat
• 1:03:33
  behind her bar. Just what a what a sweet lady.
• 1:03:37
  I'm just so happy to be back. You know, this is my favorite
• 1:03:41
  place in all of Emberhold, actually, it not many people
• 1:03:47
  know about it unless you're kind of part of that lower merchant
• 1:03:50
  class. Like no one really comes here to
• 1:03:52
  like the southwest side of of the gate, you know, so it's kind
• 1:03:57
  of like a a hidden gem, I'd say. And God.
• 1:04:01
  I love local wrecks. Yes oh man, I got it for you.
• 1:04:04
  If you need like a hole in the wall like I got you, this is
• 1:04:08
  this is the place, you know, here, here, come with me and
• 1:04:11
  she. Starts to you know where to get
• 1:04:12
  a good bond me around here. Yes, absolutely.
• 1:04:16
  Could we? Could we have?
• 1:04:18
  Could I have some of three of the bananas?
• 1:04:20
  Three of the. Bananas.
• 1:04:22
  Yeah, sure. Well, I'm just, I just wanna, I
• 1:04:26
  unpeel the bananas and I give them to Alexander, Jeff and Jeff
• 1:04:29
  as we leave the horses. Let's each of you roll and if
• 1:04:35
  you get above a 10 your horse likes it and if you get a below
• 1:04:38
  A10 the spiciness of the banana gives them diarrhea.
• 1:04:41
  I mean, I listen, I know they're gonna get diarrhea, but
• 1:04:43
  sometimes diarrhea is worth the enjoyment of the food that
• 1:04:46
  you're gonna eat. Just luck.
• 1:04:48
  Just a luck check. Feeding horses questionable
• 1:04:51
  stuff is so risky because. Of calling and if it's a 12. 19
• 1:04:54
  you said. It was an animal handling.
• 1:04:56
  No no, no. Just a lock check.
• 1:04:58
  You have to get a above a Ted. Oh, 15.
• 1:05:01
  Let's go. OK, all of your horses kind of
• 1:05:03
  fuck with the spicy savior every bananas and they they give a nay
• 1:05:07
  of approval. You guys pet your horses a
• 1:05:09
  little bit. I was going to say to Abe and
• 1:05:13
  Bo, now that we're here in and behold, I'm not sure we need the
• 1:05:17
  horses anymore. I was going to actually suggest
• 1:05:19
  that we sold them to trash and ton.
• 1:05:22
  It seems like they could use them to pull them on land and.
• 1:05:25
  Bon I was that was. This was supposed to be like a
• 1:05:28
  parting gift. Absolutely agree.
• 1:05:30
  Yeah, like give them something nice.
• 1:05:32
  Yeah, I know, I know. You just became really attached
• 1:05:34
  to, I mean Alexander I. Like, barely spoke to him, Yeah.
• 1:05:40
  Barely. Just a little bit, yeah.
• 1:05:44
  All right, as long as we're on the same page.
• 1:05:45
  I agree with you, yeah. Trash goes Yeah, I would love I
• 1:05:49
  would love more horses. That sounds like a good idea.
• 1:05:53
  Would you guys take, you know, I know you guys gave us some money
• 1:05:57
  from when you when you looted the pirates, but we'd be happy
• 1:06:00
  to give back at least, you know, 30 of the gold pieces to you
• 1:06:05
  and, and for your horses that that seems like a fair price, I
• 1:06:08
  would say. I don't know, can you do 20?
• 1:06:13
  Wait, unfortunately I can't because you saved our lives, so
• 1:06:17
  you'll have to take 30. All right, we'll settle for 25
• 1:06:22
  final. Canadian Shoal down.
• 1:06:26
  I'm really worried there. OK, 25 gold pieces and I'll buy
• 1:06:30
  you and I'll buy you 2 rounds at the bar.
• 1:06:32
  How's that? Twist my arm, all right.
• 1:06:35
  And we'll buy you one, so how about that?
• 1:06:40
  They laugh, but you can tell that trash is still a little put
• 1:06:44
  off about when Abe called her out for being shy.
• 1:06:47
  So she goes, yeah, good one, Abe, I guess.
• 1:06:53
  I just mother fuck. Does not like just one treasure
• 1:06:58
  approval. And Ta'an has been like itching
• 1:07:01
  as if she's been trying to go to those bars.
• 1:07:03
  You guys like negotiate the horses and feed them bananas.
• 1:07:05
  And she's like, guys, come on, it's time to go to the bar.
• 1:07:10
  And she finally gets you guys to the front of the bar where the
• 1:07:14
  entrance is, and you will look up to read the name of the bar
• 1:07:18
  as she announces it. And she says, welcome to GAIL
• 1:07:23
  songs, glasses and guest houses. And that's where we'll end the
• 1:07:28
  session, damn it. I I knew it was going to be
• 1:07:32
  sorry. I knew you were going to say
• 1:07:34
  something. I just wasn't sure what you were
• 1:07:35
  going to drop. That's crazy.
• 1:07:38
  Damn amazing. That was a good, that was a good
• 1:07:41
  cliffhanger. It's like such a such a weirdly
• 1:07:46
  casual cliffhanger, but also so impactful based on everything.
• 1:07:51
  I mean, it's because it's said so casually by the person.
• 1:07:55
  They have no idea what like the impact is, no.
• 1:07:57
  One guys, no one must know. No one must know like no one has
• 1:08:02
  read. The I'm just like for anything
• 1:08:03
  like yeah. It's like, here's here's the
• 1:08:06
  name of the name of the person who might just be able to answer
• 1:08:10
  like all of your questions. Might be a long lost relative
• 1:08:14
  years. Fun.
• 1:08:15
  I'm like anybody I I don't think that it's going to be that hard
• 1:08:18
  to research name anymore, I think.
• 1:08:22
  We're going to have to go. Well, we'll see.
• 1:08:24
  We'll see what GAIL Song really means to this bar.
• 1:08:28
  You know, we have to wait until next session.
• 1:08:32
  So we'd like to shout out one special listener, Mod H.
• 1:08:37
  We do not know you personally, but you have been the backbone
• 1:08:40
  of this podcast leaving, you know, a comment on one of the
• 1:08:44
  episodes liking all of our Instagram posts.
• 1:08:48
  We we thank you so much and we really hope that you've been
• 1:08:51
  enjoying this story. All right, so if you like the
• 1:08:55
  podcast, make sure to follow and rate US on Spotify or Apple
• 1:08:59
  Music or join us on our social media for updates.
• 1:09:02
  Official art and more. We are on Instagram at smooth
• 1:09:05
  critical podcast and blue sky at smooth critical.
• 1:09:09
  All right, we'll see you next time.
• 1:09:11
  Bye. Bye.