Latest / Rotgrind - Narrative Declaration / Our Benefactor
Transcript
- Sorry, Akon is a wrapper. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. I feel like you're pushing the boundaries of what a backflip is capable of. I am a wizard. You can ask me for information. You're a wizard? Well, I'm talking about up. Then ask direct questions. What do you want from me? Are you ready? For another exciting episode of Rotgrind. AHHHHH! AHHHHH! AHHHHH! AHHHHH! AHHHHH! How the hell? That's how speaker died. Speaker is very excited. We're killing him. I have a rock. Climbs and blades. It's a nice rock. Is that how speaker died? That is how speaker died. I've got an empty can here and I'm gonna... It didn't make a noise. There we go. You need a couple thousand more of those, but you could be ghost with that. I will not become ghost. I'm sorry. All right, guys. Welcome to Rotgrind. Actually, wait. I'll go get my cans and set them up. Perfect. Welcome to Rotgrind, everybody. A Pathfinder 2nd Edition TTRPG Live Show. We're back at it again with Part 4 of Season 4. Woo! Zoran's a little under the weather today. I wanna die. But it's okay, because we got his back. What was that, Zoran? I wanna die. Me too. Mostly because of the things that were said on this stream. There's worse things to happen still. I have a rock. You do have a rock. And among the people who are staring at that rock today are the wonderful, amazing players here, starting with Odo Roshi. It's me. I'm Odo. I will be bringing you Veena, the sylph swashbuckler. How is everybody on this post-April Fools stream? I'm feeling gravid and kind of moody. You don't get to talk. You know, many people are saying this. It was Roshi's birthday yesterday. It was Roshi's birthday! Yeah, he's the April Fool. He's the April Fool. Little Roshi. And the person who fathered and sired that fool is Speaker D! I'm Speaker D! I am playing Tannhauser the Wizard! And unlike some of my colleagues here on Rock Grind, I respect women! All right, that's it. All right. One such women respecter is also Erndil! I'm not putting you under the bus for that one! That's all right. I love you nailed Zoran's awkward transition. 10 out of 10. Give yourself a hero point, Halky. Thank you! All right. Well, yeah. I'm Erndil. And I'm playing as Baldrick Weathers. And he's a human alchemist. And today I'll be cosplaying as a TV radio show ghost. That's all. Ah, God. Got sent to the Asmongol dimension. And the person who's lurking in the Asmongol dimension buried under mountains of cans is Zoran the Wizard! I'm sick. He's very ill. Yeah, you're sick as fuck, dude. I have to go pick up those cans. Hold on. I'm doing the little, like, L-shaped hand gesture to, like, I'm shaking it at you. Like, yeah, you're sick! You're sick, dude! You're fucking sick! Yeah, basically I'm sick today. Hi, I'm Zoran the Wizard. I'm playing Orin the Strixter today. Orin is now also sick. Okay. Orin is also... Oh, he's pretty cool. He's pretty sick. I'm making them house for me today. Normally I'm all the energetic one going, yippee! But I'm like, I'm here to push the buttons this episode so everyone gets a show today. It's all good. You can push the levers and pull the buttons. Push the button and just pull the chain. And out comes the Porin' Rain. However, there is one person who's better at pushing buttons and pulling levers. The Master of Machinations, of course, are incomparable! Game Master Thurston Hillman. I have a rock. It does. What color is the rock? It's kind of like a black-brown-gray. It might taste like pound cake. Don't bite it. I don't think so. I probably don't want to bite it. You know, I love brown bricks. I love building brown bricks in Minecraft. Flint and steel. Thurston, get us out of here. I'm... Uh, yeah, someone's got a recap for me. Uh... I can recap. I can help us recap. Hulk is so nice. And he did the intro. Vina's taking the first napkin. Yeah. Yeah, Vina... Vina's done... Did so well last session. There were no problems. At all. Never. I've never had any problems. Ever. Anyway. Natural one? More like natural... Fun. Number one. There we go. There we go. What is it to have natural fun? True. It means you go out in the nature. I don't know. You just never return. Ever. I paint Warhammer armies. I don't know. That's an unnatural fun, boy. You need to have natural fun. Anyway. Uh, so... Uh, last session. We... Snuck in to Outset. Snuck back in. With the procession of undead. We spent a... Not insignificant amount of time under a tarp. Uh, Baldrick decided to have his own tarp. Because he was very, very tired of us and our tarp shenanigans. Uh, however, we were joined by an unexpected friend in Rocky the Raccoon. Uh, he gave us the essence of the platypus that we definitely missed and just didn't pick up. Um, because we're... We're so absent-minded like that. Don't even worry about it. Uh, we were stopped by the guards at the gate. But after some quick thinking, we were able to sneak in, uh, without arousing too much, uh, suspicion. And one notable thing we saw whenever we got in is that people were celebrating. Things were actually pretty great in Outset. Everybody was happy. There were people cheering in the streets. And notably, it was because we were in some of the richer districts. And they, uh, we found out that they were holding lotteries for the, uh, plots of land that are about to be built as Outset begins its expansion plans. Um, and I, you know, I really feel for the poor sods who have to enter a housing lottery. I would never do that, especially in an MMORPG. Um, however, as we got closer to the Pond's Pilaster and saw the fruits of the Revolution, uh, or at least what remained of it, we realized that things were not all great in Outset. It seems as if somebody had to pay the price for the Revolution, and if it couldn't be us, it had to be the poor folks of the Pond's Pilaster, who were having their homes and things torn down, and all of their belongings sent off for the expansion efforts. Um, we found Duhakis at, uh, Granny Sweets. She was depression eating, which, um, relatable. Um, and, uh, when we spoke to her, she gave us a coin that somebody had left at Baldrick's house. A coin that we, uh, with a symbol that we recognized as that belonging to Anathion, the funny gold man who had initially commissioned us to go and deal with Sandal Declans. Uh, um, and, uh, so we decide to go and meet with Anathion, but unfortunately it appeared to be some kind of trap. We were ambushed by two invisible, uh, Zaskorin constructs. I have in my notes a little frowny face and the word bitch next to it. Uh, and then after we, uh, dispatched the constructs, we were greeted by a very familiar codpiece in the hegemon, who seemed to have set up this ambush for us, and that was where we left off, I think. Odoroshi, that might be one of the absolute best recaps I've ever had in the entirety of this campaign. Tannhauser, get a hero point. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I've been really striving. I worked really hard on Odoroshi's... I'll get you! I'll kill you! I'll get you! I'll get you with nine! I'm trying something different, where if I just don't give Vena the hero points, maybe the luck will be better. Damn you! Damn you both to hell! So yes, where we left off was, um, a coring charge placed on the secret door which you knew to exist at, and Nathian took out from his sort of upper deck parlor. When it detonated, out came the mysterious, uh, individual known as the hegemon, um, who indicated that perhaps it was time for you to talk. Talk? You want us to talk, hegemon? Murderer? Liar? Fiend? What words could we possibly have for you? Well, one, when did I lie? Ah, you are an abetter of they who declared a meeting, a meeting full of ambushes and Ciscorrin war machines. Anathian! Yes, the Chamberlain hoped to destroy you, but you proved far superior. You're quite resilient, all of you. I don't trust like that. What's this smarmy asshole playing at? I'm gonna try... Sense motive. Sense motive with perception! I shall! Get it. Fuck. That's a 20, but not a natural one. Yeah, um, you have a difficult time reading this guy. You're not getting anything off of this. And as for the killing you, well, none of you appear to be dead. You... Someone help speak. You tried. Or someone did, if what you're saying is true. Yes, yes, I did, and it didn't quite go the way I'd hoped. Perhaps we could discuss this somewhere a bit... More... Enjoyable. Might I suggest my estate? Let's hold that thought for a moment. Just one moment. Do you have like six more of those things? Why? Why? Oh, you're very drunk, aren't you? No. Flask slowly moves. I'm not drunk. I've never been drunk. Go fuck yourself. I'm gonna drink from the flask. It seems like a lot of the time we find you, you're usually in an unassailable position, whether that's at the top of an Iron Baron, or in the middle of a party surrounded by guards that could eliminate us in a second. It's kind of curious that we find you here, right now, in an exceptionally killable position. Give us a reason why we shouldn't. Well, perhaps you would like some explanations on what's been happening. Perhaps you need more information on how to proceed. I suspect you're here for your airship, the one that Sandal gave up before they put him in that dreadful institution. Damn, they institutionalized him. Honestly, it's probably the best. Do you see that kind of shit that he had in his room? That is true. That is true. Maybe they'll give him the shot that makes him respect women. I'll have to give him the shot that makes him stop reading. Asterix, evil women. Evil women. Evil women. Listen, we all love evil women. Except Twitch acceptable terms. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't at least hear what you have to answer with. For now, we've got the upper hand on this one. So, why not? Well, then, if I may invite you, you'll find my estate over there. And he waves off into the distance, past the skyline, to a section of the prince's pilaster that is elevated. It looks to me like a palatial estate with trees and a small exterior garden that is held aloft upon almost like an elevated bowl that surrounds the entire city. Oh. That's quite a nice little parcel of land you've got there. Yes, you can travel to the base. My servants will let you in. You can find it maybe an hour or so walk that way. I shall see you there. And there is a flash of light and he disappears. Of course, he didn't actually come. So, are we going to his house? Is this a good idea? No, it's not. It's a horrible idea. You see that guy? He turned two of you into mulch the last time that we saw him. Hold on. Can I ask something real quick before we get sidetracked on this? Is he a genie or does he just have the ability to, like, appear and disappear and, you know, a snap? Give me a arcana, religion, or a cultism check. Thank you for positing the thing I wanted to ask. I had no idea how to frame that to the party because I can't do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. 100%. 100%. If someone wants to, they can make one of those checks. I want to. I don't like a religion. I don't know shit about shit. I do a backflip, though. That's awesome. All right, Tannhauser and Rahua, you would know that translocation is very powerful magic. Some powerful creatures even possess it innately. This would be a type of, like, teleportation or translocation. Um, Tannhauser, based on your knowledge of this, um, and some, some just, like, some of the situation, namely there weren't, like, specific spell gestures or anything, um, this is either some kind of innate ability or piece of equipment that allowed that. That was not a simulacrum, though. You can, you can identify very clearly that was some kind of, like, translocation or teleportation magic. Hmm. Yes, he teleported. He likely has some item that allows him to do so with some contemptuous ease. We must be cautious around this thing. Is that, like, is that something a wizard would do? Do they do that? Do wizards have items that do that? Yes, we do. Oh, my God. He might be a wizard. You very well may be. I wish we knew a wizard. We could probably ask them for better information on that. I am a wizard. You can ask me for information. I thought you were a magus. When did you suddenly realize... You're about four sessions too late for that. What's a session? I don't know. A unit of time. We learn about it in wizard college. You're a wizard? No. Okay, this thing sucks. Yeah, yeah. We've already done it! We're gonna kill you! Oh, they can't all be winners, though. Even funnier the second time. Even funnier the eighth time. Hey, so while we're here laughing at these hilarious jokes and these zingers, inside of this room, is there any sign of Anathion? No. There's no sign of him at all. Is there anything in this room, or was the hegemon just waiting in, like, a room with a sealed door with nothing in it? So the sealed door, you'd know that Anathion used it as a passage to depart from here during your last meeting? Mm-hmm. So that secret passage would have ostensibly been where Anathion would have come from or gone to, so that accesses to other points in the city. Right. So, him specifically, he was just waiting in the passageway for us to intrude. The timing is very auspicious, yes. Indeed. Indeed. Do we want to explore this and maybe learn something about this passageway that we were otherwise unaware of? I'm down to, but I also get the feeling that since this has likely been set up in advance, chances are the real shipang is waiting for us at the hegemon's estate. This probably place has already been made more secure. At the same time, I mean, I don't know how much time they've actually had. Worth a look. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can look. Does anyone have survival to go tracking through these tunnels? Let me see. I have acrobatics. Odoroshi Rider, we have to have a talk. I know I've often judged Speaker and Tannhauser for their, you know, use of social skills and other skills to become social skills. I feel like you're pushing the boundaries of what a backflip is capable of. A backflip is capable of anything you set your mind to, Thurston. Okay, okay, okay. Give me an acrobatics check. I'll give you a survival check. Yeah, so do a survival actually roll. I hope I not won this. No, unfortunately, I did succeed. Well, thanks. Your die got in the way and stopped mine, forcing it to land on a nine. Not on my screen. That's a 22. All right. So a couple of things. Vina and Baldrick go to investigate. Meanwhile, Oren has fallen back on Gorgamunger, fairly exhausted from the events. As he rests, Tannhauser and Ruhu, I assume you're going to kind of stay back and allow Vina and Baldrick to do their searching. The two go into the labyrinth of tunnels. Baldrick, you quickly realize that this must be arterials all throughout the Prince's Blaster. There's turns and twists and stares. They are very untrodden paths. So you can see that there's dust in some areas like they aren't used a lot, but they definitely connect to lots of places. You can tell that there's very likely secret doors that you're missing along the way. You get a good sense that this is like a spinal area. If you actually had time, you know, days to really sit here and document it, take your time, you could probably map out a lot of connections through the Prince's Blaster. Back doors into main areas of governance and other places. Can I mark an entryway that we can potentially reach again easily? Oh, like an entryway that is not the sort of balcony you're on? I'm assuming getting into this balcony repeatedly will grow to be difficult in the future. I'd like to follow it for a bit to at least find something at a more accessible level. You can find a passageway that leads just much like this, except to one of the sort of arterial streets. It comes off of a column of one of the larger thoroughfare bridges. So you find yourself able to access through that and you could remember where this is. No problem. Okay, good. As you're doing... I was going to make a note of that. Yeah, as you're doing all of this and like figuring this out, Vina does a sick back flip that no one else can see. That's good. I'm glad to hear that. That one was just for me. And with that, the two of you can return to your companions. Yes. Well, what have you found? Well, this passageway seems to be interconnected with a lot of stuff in and throughout the pilaster here. Found one that's... I made a note of it on my map. I know where it is roughly. We can use it again if we need to access somewhere in here, or if we can at least map it out later. Right now, it's not a pressing concern. We've got a meeting to go to. But I think you and your movement might find it interesting when we get around to that again. Excellent. Very good. All right. I suppose we're best off going to see the hegemon then. I guess so. We need to have a quick way out, though, I would imagine. I... I don't know. I don't... I don't get the sense that he wants us to walk out of that. Most certainly not. I'm just reviewing a spell real quick. Oh, yeah. A fireball. He throws it on... True! It's got a long range. I use my level 20 feet echoing spell to cast Divine Immolation twice so I can cast it on the party. Oh, excellent. That makes a lot of sense, yeah. I agree. Yes, I don't have any quick and easy escapes. Perhaps some things I can create, but... We're going to have to be cautious if we enter into his lair. I mean, push comes to shove, I can always make a mess of the place. That's always an option. All right. Let's go. All right, so the passageway out of here takes you back into the sort of mainline lanes of the Princess Blaster. Again, you return to the jubilation, the general upbeat nature of the citizenry, as people seem very, very content. Along the way, you reach after, as was stated, about an hour and 15 minutes of traversing through some of the upper end buildings here. At this point, you realize that you're sort of on the top level of the Princess Blaster, so you're at the height of the city. When you finally make your way to the sort of alabaster spire that rises up, a sort of cylinder of alabaster that rises up with a simple, oddly simple, golden doorway at the base. Seemingly, knowing your approach, the door opens, in which a woman stands there, a human woman, her head bowed. She has a blindfold over her eyes. What is the manner of this woman? Yeah, absolutely. Give me, uh, what are you, what are you, a little society? Society, I suppose. Yeah, this, it seems like this is, is this some sort of, uh, ritualistic situation? It's a 19 on the die for a 40! Uh, this is, this is a noble woman, by all accounts. This is someone who, um, is affluent, knows how to carry herself, clearly has social graces training beyond just, like, what a servant would know. Um, the blindfold and its significance remains a mystery. Um, as far as you can tell, the best guess you have is that she is so well-trained, she's blindfolded herself to do things perfectly without the need for sight. Thurston, would an outset law help this? Um, you can give me a check there, Ian. Okay. See if it's related to something law-based. Absolutely. There's a law on the books, let's go 17 on the day. Ah, let's give me a 34. That's enough for you to know that this isn't anything, um, specific to outset. So there's no, like, law about blindfolded servants. There is something that niggles at the back of your head. It's not related to law, but the fact that it's not a law has, like, tingled something in the back of your brain. You're not sure what it is, but it's not, it, it, you're, you're absolutely certain. This is not a law thing, that this is not some, like, typical outset societal thing, but there is something that is bothering you. Hmm. And not even bothering you, you, bothering you in the sense that you, you, you think you would know more. You're just not able to call that memory to the surface. He'll put a pin in it. Let's see if he remembers later. But it's least convenient. As we, uh, walk in, I'll, uh, whisper to Baldrick, Do you think that this could be the same subculture that the Martinet belonged to? I wouldn't put it past them, because unfortunately, all nobles are kind of the same. All got their little cliques and clubs and special handshakes and secret outerwear and what have you. But it's also possible it could just be nothing. Fashion trends are a dime a dozen around here. Hmm. Duly noted. Um, and with that, I suppose, we'll proceed. Uh, is this woman ushering us in, or is she, like, do you have an appointment? She waits at the door. As she, as you approach, she turns over and picks something up from a, um, a wooden table that has a silver tray on top of it. And there are hand towels on it. Um, you can see, like, faint steam wafting off of them. She picks up the tray and holds it out. Please wash your hands. Please wash your hands. The, uh, detect magic reveals no magic on these towels, right? You are getting a magical presence, but it's not specific to the towels. Okay. It's more like just here in this place. Uh, well, let's take a look. So, at this point, you're fourth level. You can pinpoint the source of highest magic. There's some magic into, um, into the walls here. Like, the walls of this building are magically rewatched. I see. All right. Uh, would a reed aura give me any more information? Um, so what is the object you're wanting to target with it? The walls. It also takes a minute to cast. Are you going to stand there for a minute checking out the walls? Could I spend a minute washing my hands as I check out the walls? Uh, yeah, sure. Absolutely. Um, these walls kill anyone who washes their hands. Ah, the classic wall killing hand trick. So, you definitely know that the walls are inlaid with magic, just from casting reed aura on it. Um, you could spend some time to identify the magical effect. So, like, identifying what's up with the walls. Um, that is, you know, something that would take, like, another ten minutes if you really wanted to, like, stop it intently. But you do know that this is not illusory. So, it's very likely, like, reinforcement. I think we could easily find a way to delay for ten minutes while we look into this. Gang, wash your hands very carefully. Everyone's slowly washing their hands. Ten minutes of washing our hands? Ten minutes of hand washing? What, you guys spend an hour playing mouth washing? Can't do ten minutes of hand washing? Come on. I'm not that invested in what the walls are magicked up with. Could be important. It could be. I don't think they're going to eat us. But, you know, I think, I think we're going to go meet the Martinet in his super spooky death house. I think we've kind of already thrown caution to the wind. All right. If you, if you, if you're really, um, if you want to get a closer look at those walls, I can try to buy us some time with a funny feat that I have. Oh, what, what, well, use your feet then, by all means. Uh, I have shameless request. I can go ask her to get new towels. When you request something, you reduce any DC increases from making an outrageous request by two. And if you roll a critical failure, you get a regular failure instead. Yeah, go for it. Why not? It works. I'll allow you to, to, to diplomacy to make a request. All right. Yeah. A shameless one, in fact. A shameless one. And yeah, Veena kind of seeing that her, her, her friends are analyzing the wall and stuff. She's just going to lean to the blindfolded woman. Hey, we're like, we've got a lot of dirt on us after that fight that we conveniently had with your guys' tinker toys. So we're going to need a second plate of towels. Can you go get that? And I'm going to give you a diplomacy. Yeah, Rolette. Oh, that 20 winked at me. 34. Oh yeah. 34. Yeah, they pause as, yes, you are quite dirty. One moment. And she turns and walks away. She seems to be ascending the stairs up the spire. All right. I think I bought you some time. Do the lizard thing. Very good. I can't help but notice also that she said we were dirty, but she was blindfolded. So that must have been purely unscent. Yeah. My God. We've been living in a swamp for like weeks, dude. Oh yeah. Ever since my nose got blown off, I don't think about that anymore. Yeah. If I could smell, you'd probably smell pretty bad. I bet you smell worse. And I'll identify magic. Please do. How dare you. Hey, Zoran. Yeah, Arcane. Yeah. Absolutely, boss. Okay. Hold on. Let me. Arcane. What you need, man? Zoran. Stacey's come to collect your $50. Cool. What the fuck? Ah, a three on the dice. I will use a hitter point and reroll. I'm so sad. And that's a 37. Ah, thank you, Vina, for the hero point. You're welcome. That's a good hero point. Let's you identify the walls. Um, the walls are inlaid with anti-detection magic. So this entire compound is basically scrying proof. Um, no detection magic can, can really function properly in here. There is also lattices that you can see that would, um, disrupt, uh, translocation and teleportation effects. But they are, they're definitely more intricate. If you had to guess, it's probably the means in which, uh, the hegemon could, like, translocate either to here or around here with no problems. Um, but, like, people just trying it on a base level might not have the, uh, the secret tech necessary to have it go off. How interesting. These are quite cautious people we're dealing with. We may have stumbled upon a genuine conspiracy. Well, it's also that nobles live here. If it's scrying proof, it's because they don't want to be looked at. That's just kind of what the wealthy like. Yes, they do like that, don't they? Um, at, at that insidious chuckle, the, the woman comes back with more towels. Thank you. Please take them. All right, uh, that one, Baldrick will wipe his hands down and make sure that he is cleaner. Yep. How nice are these towels? Um, they're, they're very, they're, like, nice, white, wrapped, folded, somehow steamed. Rahua, these towels are of incredibly high quality. Incredibly high quality? Were they obtained at a simple, reasonable price? Well, I can only imagine not, this is a noble house, but you know what that means. I say, as I take the second plate of towels, we can use them again later on. We need to find some place to store them, though. Oren, real quick. And, uh, I walk up to Oren, um, and then I just start stuffing towels into his mouth. A man? I don't, he's not a, he's not a bag of, uh, of, he's not a lot of space. He's, what birds store towels in their mouths? What birds are bags? Birds store nuts for the winter. No, they don't! I have squirrels that live inside my body. They do not store nuts. Hold on a moment. Hold on. Gonna make a nature check. Okay. Crazy question, is she looking at, is she, like, you know, still here, while we're doing this? Oh yeah, she's listening to all of this. Uh, with a nature check of 11, uh, what do I think of what Ruhu is saying? Uh, it makes logical sense, and he's very logical. An 11 is enough not to be a complete dumbass, so, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd like to make a narrative declaration. Please, please, let's milk that hero point out of you early. I don't, I don't like that. I don't like the wording on that. Oh. I would like to narratively declare. The, wait, no, that's, I'm telling you what you believe, Tannhauser. That's fine, yeah, declare it, narratively. Narratively tell me what I think. Please give me any excuse to be a complete moron. Oh, I'm, say no more, my captain. Tannhauser earnestly believes, in fact, despite all regular conventions of outset lore dictating that this should not be something that people don't know, Tannhauser seems incensed and believes, in fact, that birds do this on the regular, such that there is a bird he is trying to find at this point that does exactly that. I fucking love that he botches this fucking test at this level and gets, like, a fucking 11, and I'm like, okay, 11 is enough for common sense. And you're like, hero point, no, he's an idiot! No! It is common sense, it's common sense because now it's real, now there's a bird that stores nuts for the winner. Oh, Ruhua, Ruhua, Ruhua, your facts and logic fall prey to a simple reality, the reality of the Rosate Knife Bill. The Rosate Knife Bill is an eclectic bird, yet to be captured by zoologists that I know exists, that does just this. Isn't that right, Oren? Oren throws up. Ooh. We can't use that towel now. No. It is, because they're all ruined. All right, let's just go up the stairs, then. I hope he kills us. Boy, that towel bit. The towels. Let's go. We got, we got, we got, we got the towels. Come on, this is the towel episode, guys. We're making it happen. All right. Thurston is about to start 3D printing a knife to kill us all with. I've got, oh, oh, oh, I've got Zedon. Zero minutes left. It's just about to finish my current print. All right. So, you carry on up the spire as you do. So, you can see that there are windows inlaid here. About every two rotations, you go up. So, you can look out as you get a view of the surrounding buildings and structures. The walls here on the interior are also this alabaster, but they're inlaid with, like, they're inlaid with gold and brass filigree that seems to dance around the edges as you go up. So, the steps here are of a fine sort of wood that come out and then have a brass sort of barrier around the edges that prevents anyone from, you know, falling over. You carry on up for quite a ways. It's about a 10-minute walk up. The noblewoman, I should say, who leads you. She seems to walk away from the building towards an outside pond where there is some free-flowing water that is filled by a series of statues. The statues all seem to be different, like, celestial sort of configurations. Like, you see, like, a sun, a moon, something that must represent the rose wound in the sky, all sort of arrayed around and spewing water into this pool. There's fish of vibrant colors that move around here. And then there is a table outstretched there. And sitting at the table, again, waiting for you, is the figure of the hegemon. I think you should invest in an elevator. How quite. You see, I don't need it, I, as you may have noticed. Please come sit. We have much to discuss. Uh, can I notice anything? I don't even know how, like, to say anything. Is there a trap in the room? No. Is there, like, any sort of... You can perception to look around. Yeah, I'm looking for, like, any sort of artifice that could hide some sort of machine in it, you know, like the kind that he attacked us with. Yeah, absolutely. Give me a check. Okay. I will roll my perveption. Pervepun. Another 17 for a 32. You look around, you are not getting any signs of any overt hostility. Um, there are some servants mulling about, uh, again, all of them blindfolded. That some of them are, you know, tending to the gardens here. Others seem to be, uh, moving, like, food trays. Which one of them seems to be coming towards you with some, some, like, appetizer, dainty-style foods on a tray. Um, there are very majestic-looking birds that seem to fly around and oddly keep an orbit inside the perimeter of this sort of, like, dais that you're on, elevated above the rest of the city. It's quite strange, Baldrick, for you, because one of the things that you, you even get a little, a little, not vertigo, but just a sense of kind of taken aback, is you're above the city wall here. Like, you can see past the outer wall. What do I see past the wall besides the solitude? You see the depths of the solitude. You see, like, the sun is shining through, um, breaking through the almost perpetual cloudy, dismal cover that's been around for some time, including the rain has stopped. However, in the distance, kind of the, uh, to the, to the far west, you see dark storm clouds out of the city. The sort of perpetual storm that you know has been imprisoned there. You can even see, to the east, the sort of ant-like figures of the trudging great march of undead bringing their supplies into the city and marching out to collect more. Baldrick's just going to look past this, all of this that he's not really seen with too much clarity before now, and he's going to actually take it all in for once. Yes. It's quite a sight, isn't it? Oh. It's a view you can only really pay for nowadays, huh? Hmm. Money doesn't get you everything, I'm afraid. Ah, food. The servants, almost on cue now, arrives, placing the appetizers down. You'll find some refreshments here. I can have some liquor, if you would like, Vino. Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not hungry or thirsty. I don't need anything, in fact. Ah. Of course. Down to business, as it were. It seems fine. What is it you'd like to discuss? Well, crew, what the hell do we have to discuss with them? I would like a very enlightening and perhaps direct reason as to why I shouldn't kill you and leave your body for your pet birds to peck at in the rotting sum. Because you couldn't. You wouldn't be the first to say that, and then be very swiftly proven wrong. Oh. You have the prince's era around you. What does he mean by that? You can give me a religion check. Ha ha. Yeah. I'm great at that. Yeah. Hey, 17 on the die for 25. Not bad. I mean, the prince is a deity. The prince is a god who was once immortal, who, you know, conquered Outset. The prince was the last of the first house deities that, like, ascended. He came to Outset and conquered it and basically took over the city and ruled as a sort of living demigod. And, uh, for a fairly long time before his father, the king, came and brought him into the pantheon directly. Am I supposed to take that as a compliment? You can take it however you like. But if your goal is to defeat me, you can try, I suppose. Well, what is your goal, then? What is the purpose of this miserable game that you seem to be oh so effete and thrilled to be paying? I'd love a straight answer from one of you parasites. Ideally, before I wring it out of your broken body. Then ask direct questions. What do you want from me? Now? I don't know. Before I wanted to kill all of you. You made that quite bothersome. And so what's changed? What makes you decide that you're more undecided than settled on killing us? Your destiny is over. Yeah. The only reason I tried to kill you is because your destiny was so unsavory. What about it was so unsavory? Because, honestly, we weren't really sure what the whole destiny was in general. I could see it. The strands that brought you all to the doom of the world and the doom of outset. And so I thought in my hubris I should try to stop you. I failed at that. Perhaps I wasn't as direct as I should have been. Operating through... Others. How many others? Well... There was that uncouth fellow from the Tyrant's Guild. And then once I'd slain the two of you, you and... The one on the... Vomiting on the dragon there. He's had a bad day. Leave him alone. I thought... I thought it was dealt with. But then you came back. And I realized you must have been sponsored. Ugh. And I couldn't meddle in that directly. So I made my attempt. It didn't go how I wanted. But to answer your original question, no, I have no purpose for you now. Again, my desire to kill you has passed. And what of Marlene, eh? Ah, yes. The young speaker. Well, she hides now. She's done her work. Bound the old powers to... He, like, waves kind of shakingly off to the cloud and the sky. The sort of ominous storm and even the distance beyond. To their prisons, I suppose. And is this what you wanted? Oh, of course not. I care for this city. I've loved this city. I have bled and wept and lived for this city. And so why is expanding it so bad? A few years of expansion before the rot consumes everything. Outset is a pinnacle of society. Why does it need to expand? It only needs to go up. Up towards the heavens. You say you love this city, yet under your auspices, iron barons mow down entire crowds of innocent civilians in the forgotten and rotting pond's pilaster. You make it seem as though I rule this place. I am no government official here. What are you then? I am simply someone concerned for the well-being of this city. Someone who... Has a vested interest in it. I'm going to go out on a limb. I'm quite curious. You and the Martinet. You were allies, weren't you? Ah, Cardoza, you mean? The very same. No, no, no, no, no, no. She sorted me out as a means to enhance her powers, and at the time, bequeathing them upon her meant perhaps I could sever your ill-begotten destiny. It did not work as I anticipated, and thus I had no use for her. I gave her a sliver of what I am. What you are. Hey, Thurston. Yep. I have a theory, and I'm going to float it past you, but I want to know if I need to make, like, some kind of roll to get an answer for this. The way this fellow's talking and all the things he's talking about really make me wonder if he's some kind of... He's got some kind of relation to the first house. Like, in a descending fashion. What would I roll to get... Is that within a ballpark, or should I roll to see if that idea is actually, you know, salient? Um, give me a sec. I'm going to look at your character sheet, and I'm going to figure out what fine skills you've got on this here character sheet. I have most proficiencies, but I am missing nature, performance, religion, occultism, and arcana, because I am not magic or a performer. I will say that in this instance... I would set laws kind of out here. I'll give you... Since you don't have religion, I'll give you society here on this. Um, just sort of try to, like, suss things. This is my own thinking on this, because I've been kind of just wondering, like... There's a lot of talking about up. And he doesn't... And I don't think he's talking about the movie. I'm going to roll. He just likes to feel tall. Eh, it's a four. I'm going to actually hero point that. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to roll with a hero point. So that's actually going to be a 30, though, because of the, uh... Because of the plus 10. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what will a 30 get? A 30 is, like, got you... Got you pondering here. You're thinking about, um... The hegemon and what you know of this individual. Um... So... A couple of things. Um... And I'm going to... To sort of... To sort of give you some details. Because, again, you're someone who's very well learned. You've spent a lot of time in the city. You've spent a lot of time researching it. It's history. Like, the hegemon is an entity that has... Give or take been... Like, someone of this nature has always existed for at least the past 1,500 years. Is it the same one? That's what I mean by there's always been someone of the... Of that type. Like, record-keeping and whatnot are not the greatest. You even know that the hegemon is only spoken of through kind of, like, whispered networks. Um... To sort of, like, the point he just made to Tannhauser. He's not a government official. This is someone who is a power player in the city. They seem to have clout, connections, money. But they are not, you know, akin to, say, um... The chamberlains or any of the assembly members that actually rule the city. All right. I think I know what I'm going to ask him. Mm-hmm. All right. Let me cast aside a few grievances I may have with how you've handled things so far. Because I'm kind of curious now that I've got you before me. And we're not trying to blow each other apart with whatever the hell we happen to have. I've got a question for you. Of course. Who was your predecessor? In what way? Well, what I know of your role as the hegemon. Being something that exists within Outset as just some kind of entity. People always mention the hegemon in certain hushed tones and outright just fanciful thought. It's been around since before I was even here. You could go to college and learn that. You could go to any pilaster's library and look that up. What's not really familiar with me is any specifics beyond that. Did you even have a predecessor? Very smart. No, no, no. I did not. Ah. Well. Aldric's a little stumped on this one now. What does that mean? That we're dealing with another belligerent godling. Well. Don't think we should go quite that far. But. Given how long you've been here. Kind of curious as to how you aren't technically the most powerful person in Outset. Well, I certainly didn't say I wasn't. Hey, Rahua. Yeah? You want to give me a religion check? I would love to. Here we go. That's a 34, Thurston. Okay. So, I like assume as this is going on, like, you know, we've got Baldric and, um, Tanhauser sort of killing the hegemon. And then, like, back, um, probably between, uh, the crunched-over Auron and then Veena is Rahua sort of standing there like Sentinel. Uh, the, the sort of, you know, mono-eye staring out. Um, Rahua has definitely taken it upon themselves to. You know, learn a lot about history. Um, and you would know that based on the, the, the, you know, some of the timelines there and some of those sort of numbers floating around. Um, that at that time, you know, when, when the hegemon first started, it was the prince who was directly ruling the city. Of Outset. So, while the prince was ruling, that is when the hegemon appeared. You were around when the prince was still in the city. Before his ascension. There is an immediate curl of the lip as, as the hegemon almost, like, kind of twitchingly turns to you. Well, I was certainly around, yes. Yes. And that is when you first started, well, if you appeared around then, your machinations are, must surely be, long-spanning. If you were there to witness his triumph, the mortal would ascend to the brightest heavens. His triumph. The words are just like acid. His triumph was marching soldiers here. His triumph was using stolen power. His triumph. Bah! Who are you, really? I, I, I would like everyone to give me, um, you know what? But let's, let's, let's make this a society or religion, if you've got it. Society it is. Society, eh? I've got neither of those. I'll give you a 35. And I'll give you a 32. We are swinging for the fences. You have 24. Even Odo's swinging for the fences. I'll give you an 18. Well, at least it didn't roll as bad as he, I mean, that's, that's fine. Oh, I'm just going to double check your sheet, Vina, just in case. Yeah, there's not much, uh. I'm dumb as though. There's not much in there that's really, uh, appropriate. Uh, okay. She's trying to survive right now. It's more important. Exactly. Yeah, she, she's doing a backflip. Um. Yeah. I, I could perception him to, like, get a better read on his body language and reaction to all of this. But I wouldn't actually know the backs to put two and two together. I, I, I think the, the 30 plus rolls from Baldrick and Tannhauser are enough for me to give a hint. Think back to the cube. Think of it. Think of the cube. I remember the perfectites attempted to siege the city. Um, that was, that was the point of the cube. Yes. Originally. The cube crashed. The cube crashed. When you found the cube, what was in the cube? We're going back to season two lore here. It was a lot of. Rack our brains. It was, it was medical equipment from the, the next. So they were, there was a bunch of documents from. There was crates from the medical guild. Yeah. Isn't that where we found Gorgamonger? Oh man. You know what? Oh man. We have old handouts. Old handouts are cool. Everybody. We're, we're going to. Please rehand it back out. I don't have it. Yeah. We're going to go. We're going to go back in time. Oh my God. Back in time. Yeah. I'm going to pull up something fun. Boop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop. Boop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop. Sorry. I've got to find the thing first. Hmm. Uh. Boop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop. Yeah. Okay. We need him. We need him to tell us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um. I don't. Oh, it's not coming up correctly. Okay. Uh. When you were in. The queue. You found equipment. And, and other such items. Belonging to. members of the Prince's army. So remember when you went in there and you found that there was the sort of alchemical lab but you also discovered that there were long like deceased members of the Prince's army that it advanced on outset. Yes. So you had gone in there and you had found these things inside the cube. You that's why it wasn't a handout. You had found several items in there that you, Tannhauser had used your object reading on at the time. You found a sword. Yes. A bust. And so I will remind you of some of these. They were a while ago but the checks is probably enough to trigger it. The sword was a sword of the Western Dawn Centuria. The wearer of this blade ever dutiful to his optio escaped the soulless eyes of beneficence only to die in the darkness of pure perfection. The bust was a now faceless bust of the Prince. Optio Calasti would stare into its face when it had a face in hopes of receiving some remote guidance from her liege. She would never know that the Prince never cared and never thought to dispatch scouts to find her missing soldiers. And then the the Phalera the sort of banner that you found. Serena Calasti never thought she'd escape a life of banditry amidst the hills of Rodiman. The Prince's arrival gave her purpose and she willingly braved the vicious seas to help take the jewel of Outset. She would never see the city's walls. She would die screaming alongside her legionnaires in the depths of a timeless prison. Hmm. All right. That's all good, but that doesn't tell us who this guy is. this guy could be I mean, it was said that the Prince got swagged on and made to ascend. It couldn't be this guy that made him ascend, right? The Prince sieged the city. Yes. The city was occupied at the time. by the beneficence, right? By a being known only as the shining beneficite, which is a entity you've heard of quite a few times in the past. That was the entity that ruled Outset before the Prince came with his armies and then was ousted. You. Are you? You couldn't possibly. You couldn't possibly be. Be what? What? The reason for the Prince's claim to fame. The beneficite. There it is. Now it seems you do understand slightly something at least. It would make sense why you have such a vested interest in the city. What? With being deposed and all by someone like himself. But if you have such a vested interest in Outset's own purity, its being the pinnacle of civilization and predoma, why then do you abet such horrors within it? The Medics Guild experimenting with the wrath, the powers that be tampering and just using this paracausal blight, this existential cancer to their own benefit? If you love this city so much, why do you let them continue to kill it? Stares at you. Because children need to grow up. Care to elaborate on that one? He starts talking and it's almost as though the sky dims slightly. It's like everything like you know, the movie scene where it's like the light is dimming just all around. I once sat atop the greatest spire at the heights of this city in a pure form, a radiant sun upon which all looked, and when their eyes beheld me, they wept and bled away, but they did not need to see, for they saw only beauty and beneficence, and this city was perfect in those days. it was utterly majestic, the greatest of settlements on all of time, and then, then the upstart came with his legions countless, his desire, his ambition, and he wrestled me atop that spire, and cast me down, and shattered me into pieces, motes of my light, that took so long to bring back together, but when they did come together and I could reform myself into something, anything, I saw the city, I saw it again, and the perfection that I had brought, the shining light I had brought, had taken away the people's will, and so I realized, and like the light kind of comes back around him, what I realized is that what I had done was wrong. Aha, in what way was it wrong? I took away people's choice. I should let them rule themselves, and so that is what I have done. for fifteen hundred years or so, I have helped, I have assisted where I could, but I have let the people here stumble to make their own mistakes. mistakes. The birds like break off of the trees and fly off. No, no, that can't be true. I have you. It can't be. You are speaking genuine now. You speak truthful words devoid of artifice. You are divine. I have no doubt that if you had sought to deceive us, if Marlene could do so, so too would it be within your power. So I ask you directly now. Do you lie? Do you truly respect the people of Outset's right to govern themselves? Is that your reasoning as to why you stood by? your firm belief in self-governance? Yes, I have no reason to be so direct ever again. Only a handful now see my shining gifts. And he sort of like waves to some of the servants who go about their times. Now as you look at the wraps behind there are the bandages that cover their eyes have that glow and you remember that glow from the nobles. You also then remember that glow from the mound of corpses outside the smoldering city. The legions of people you found before venturing in yourselves, their eyes burned away. I cannot, I cannot believe this. I am in shock and awe. Yes. You, who I have lusted to kill you with your ridiculous cardpiece, your gleaming tower, your sickening opulence and blinding arrogance. It's you, you, that I will have to call ally. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Well, you certainly said it, not me. Ah, I hope you find us lower beings disgusting, hegemon. I hope your lips twirl in disgust at us writhing in the ground dirt of the world like maggots in mud and sludge. I hope hegemon in some way that you view us through this lens, for then you can appreciate some reflection of how I feel in this instant to you. And yet still. He walks up to you. Yes. He walks up to you. And like, as you say, and yet still, he comes up and his hand touches your cheek. And as he like touches your cheek, you realize that like beyond a few moments and in combat and other things, like this is this is a like a personal interaction you've not had in a moment. Or had in a long moment, I should say. And he looks at you and you see the faintest of the glow of his eyes. Not enough to hurt you, but you see those those eyes shining and he says just impassively. No, I think you're beautiful. That shuts Tandhauser up. And he takes his hand off and like walks back to where he was to sort of like stand before the group. To spend 1500 years cutting one's nose off despite the face. It's no wonder the anarchy loves to see you in the malice bicker. It is not spite of myself. It is understanding. It is there's a sigh. It's experience. I came here one in a long, long line of beings. Certainly if you know the history of this city, there have been many. The dragons of Baha'uha, a warrior from Tillim who followed a ruler from Amari and then the plague that consumed them. A dozen other fundamentals who seized the city. Prior to me, there were even fey from the crucible of creation, a sorcerer, a raccoon, a pig. And then after I came and I thought, I sought to make this a beautiful place, to make it, to make it what it should have been from the beginning. And as I said, when I ruled this city, it was beautiful. There was no strife, there was no division, there was no poverty, there was no hunger, there were no problems. And only after I was cast down and came back later, did I realize that in that beauty, there was stagnation. It was like a perfect picture that would never change. And so, I simply let other artists onto the canvas, changing my role to perhaps guide the brush here or there. You say that you rebuke the idea of stagnation of this city remaining as it were, the perfect beautiful stillness. And I understand the role of puppeteer, the manipulator, the flow of change behind the scenes. But yet the ultimate stagnation, the degradation, the ruination of all things, the rot seeps and sees within outset. You would trade a sword for a partisan knowing full well it will run you through the exact same way. if I'm understanding you correctly that is believe me of all people, you speak truth to me that stagnation is the greatest evil there is in this world. You should know. You can see my nature. But do you willingly wish for the rot to be the answer to that progress? no, of course not. And that for that was the reason I perhaps overreacted and attempted to slay you. Again, an attempt to correct a brush stroke. You must understand for a being such as I, much like the speaker who hounds you, there's like a thought. I can see the skeins of destiny on people. I could see where yours go. I could see it so clearly that it would lead to a grand future filled with rot. And so again, I tried to stop you. Just didn't go how I wanted it to. It seems older powers got to you first. Would that we could have spoken rather than quarreled. If you had not rested on so high a tower, if fate of fortune had proved better, we could have stopped ourselves. And now you see it. That's why I wanted you here to talk. Baldrace is kind of like got his hand under his helmet. He's pinching the bridge of what's left of his nose. And he's just kind of like been thinking throughout all this. And finally he withdraws his hand from his helmet and looks to the hegemon. You've been here for God's knows how long at this juncture. I'm not going to put a cap on it. You seem like you've been around. But I've got to be honest with you after all that time of dealing with mortals, talking with them or doing whatever the hell you did. You didn't think to try and just approach in a way that would seem diplomatic rather than bringing the gauntlet up first. because to be quite honest you really didn't mean much then. You must understand I see the calculus of the city in the world when I look at some people. I could look at you then and see where it went. I could see the skeins of others. I could see from up here and he turns and looks down in the streets. There is a carpenter three blocks that way. I can see that they will build a building. That building will exist outside of Outset. It will be great. It will be glorious. And then I can see that some time after through that same skein the building will be a boiling mass of dark rot. And there will be a family entombed in it. Each member reliving their worst day in eternity as they are held in those boils. And they are given a moment of reprieve every hour with which to simply stare at their entombed family members to know the truth of what they live and then go back to their days. That is the future I see for that individual. And then he like turns back and looks at you. And I can see that across the city now. And it makes me sad. And so you must understand sometimes what I do is harsh. The concepts fundamental as you call them are otherwise of good and evil law and chaos. You can embody them but you cannot just be that. For good to exist evil actions must occur. Good men do evil. evil women do good. Evil women. Oh my God. Evil women everybody. Evil women. Let's give it up for evil women. Were you waiting for that one? It was totally a Freudian slip but I'm taking credit for that baby. All right. Well yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's that's how he like he delivers this. Yep. And it seems like when things started to drift away you didn't particularly like you got your fingers involved. And you know not speaking from experience as a god I guess I can get it. However we are now sitting here in your palatial estate having defied that whether that's with the help of the old gods or not because it really doesn't matter at this juncture because that's where we are right now. And so I guess the question is seeing all this potential demise from the rot what the hell do we do about it? Or do you think we're going to come up with a plan here and now? well I am certainly willing to help. So where another string to pull? I think you misunderstand the nature of this entity. I think we all have but we must realize now beneficence correct me if I am wrong but this was once a creature of order a creature of the same fundamental forces that Rahua opposes and yet and yet in time they had come to regret their actions to change and shift and welcome what was once their antithesis. what I know from experience that to reinvent oneself wholly you can never truly discard in totality what came before the hegemon to hear them say it has come to respect the sanctity of self determination and in so doing has embraced their antithesis synthesized to a new form but in order to act directly for this creature to have a plan that we then work to enact would defy that nature that transformation indeed if the hegemon told us right now their ten step plan to unseat Marlene I am under few illusions that it wouldn't work and I am under equally as few illusions that the entity we see before us would recede into what came before the hegemon is extending a hand because that is how it can aid us the the smile returns and there is just a look over all of you this is your struggle and let's let's let's take a little break right here let's yeah take a little break yeah while we're on break a quick announcement we just got new merch in we now have an exclusive t-shirt and hoodie of the journey through time series and of course we now have new enamel pins in gosh you look beautiful of course you also now have new keychains so you know the t-shirts and hoodies along with the enamel pins are limited time only it'll be ending at the end of may 2025 so you know our keychains also are in limited supply we'll be able to get more if they all sold out but of course you want to get them as soon as possible so be sure to pick up the exclusive merch now before it goes away along with anything else that you need either rock grind shirts hoodies t-shirts all sorts of stuff cups desk mats anything else that you need thank you all so much for supporting us the money goes directly to helping out the show paying the players game masters artists everything else that helps make the show run so thank you so much for your support you can pick everything up at narrative declaration dot shop of course if the link doesn't work or anything check the description down below for other links once more that is narrative declaration dot shop check the descriptions down below on youtube and thank you so much for supporting us welcome back everybody nothing happened on the break and we're all reeling from the realization of standing before one of the many previous rulers of outset the former shining beneficite yes i have a request of you as you can see the road that has been built by outset the people that you have allowed to govern themselves has ultimately led to ruin but it need not be so they have done so through tyranny and in so doing have lost their rights to outset i would ask you use your powers your influence your wealth support the revolution the people must take back their city only then can your ideal be realized and the world saved from the grim fate you foresee i see what you are saying but i have long abandoned absolute direct roles again it is for the people to make change and i can think of no better agents will that change now than well all of you baldrick will walk up to tanhauser and pat him on the shoulder looks like you're stuck with it well i wouldn't shirk my duty not if all of the gods in this miserable world roared at me upon the sky i would keep to my duty my commitment but the people hegemon the people suffer they struggle to make their world and they will make their world do they and he like he pauses and cuts you off just long enough for you to hear those faint whispers of jubilation from the people below or is it that some of the people suffer yes it is true these people blind and foolish shackled by centuries of oppressive political espionage and control they mistakenly believe that this curse that seeks to end the world is a blessing for them but you need not look further than the pond's pilaster to see the truth of it perhaps then a medium ground a revolution will accomplish nothing at the moment not in this city not until the problem is dealt with i assume that's why you came back here now in part yes we seek the airship of sandal declan with that we shall hopefully be able to attain the tools we need to release the captured essences of the great powers yes but of course you will have difficulty reaching them the metaphysical prisons that they dwell in aren't accessible by mortals at the moment well what do you propose then each of them is in an enclosed ecosystem of its own now so take for example points off to the the giant ominous cloud with the sort of lightning bolts happening inside the storm you can't go in there you'll die what you'll need though is something to bridge the gap a tether to this world to bring you into that overlay of the elemental churn that exists in that place but a tether is twofold it's spiritual and it's physical the physical is easy there are objects scattered across the world a spiritual connection however oh that's the one that's what makes it difficult that's uniquely again waves to all of you uniquely you you'll need to find objects that are attuned to each of your histories your homes those items once uncovered should act as keys to these respective overlays acornets sorry acorn is the wrapper oh my god oh my god oh my god oh yeah all right they say i look like acorn i like women respectfully yeah athorn had told us of these motes of power is that where we would find these objects tied to our corporeal destinies and pasts could be lul i assume each of you has a home more or less once thus when you go to your homes you should know now of course you might not know immediately but it is an option well i see that and i suppose a sponsorship from you was out of the question oh so bold you approach me and ask when i would have offered yes i can sponsor you and what is the price fill you with divine light but what is the price of such a thing the price is the same as all prices such a connection once made allows there's a pause it allows the otherworldly to seep into should you fall we get a little like this tracks with what you know like this tracks with what you know like the idea is when you're sponsored you die and then you are brought back but when that happens like the rot seeps into you oh don't worry your beneficence i know thank you for that by the way well i suppose i would ask who among you would wish to take such a gift i would be cautious before we even now would take that gift i recall the essence of the martinet though when you offered her a gift of power said her first was a fleeting thing not a sponsorship a sponsorship is it is a gift of interest it is it is a connection between the material world and your atma your souls so it would not be as though i had any control over you it would not be as though you would burn up the martinet was quite quite unimpressive on her own so she took power to enhance herself i would not be enhancing you simply providing your soul a tether should things go poorly but again should they go poorly and you return we know what can seep in through that moment a moment if you would i would like to discuss the matter with my party yes i shall go and attend to matters in the in the homestead i shall come when you need me ring the bell and there is like a flash of lightning's gone well back at this again huh i don't know i don't like this yeah he's different from what we thought he was we thought he was just another pompous noble who was running us over for shits and giggles and now we know he's some big important god entity who's just been sitting here and watching his city tear itself apart he wanted us dead and now he doesn't it doesn't feel right taking his charity hmm well it wouldn't be bad to have however i didn't ask for it the first time i got it because that's what we all got falling into a damn pit thanks to our carelessness or i guess the that's been so long regardless i didn't ask for it the first time not about to ask for it this time i'm doing this i'm doing this under my own power if i die well baldrick just gives a little bit of a shrug guess it was just meant to be huh vena i'm surprised to hear you uh hesitate in the face of this offer i had thought that your current mental state derived from losing that sponsorship yeah that's the real kicker isn't it because it sounds really good on its face you know there it is the second chances the only reason i was able to make it this far it's from his charity i remember what he did to me more importantly what he did to orrin he didn't hesitate yeah he thought that we were going to be the thing that brought down outset but we would have never tried to do that maliciously we never wanted anything like that and still he laughed when he mowed us down and now now that it's convenient he wants to bless us with the one thing that saved us from him i'm i don't know how to feel about that you know i've done worse you've been traveling with all of you remember when we first met a lot not the first prospect that we could find some local antagonists some grounds at which we could seize or monopolize violence and however provincial an area i sought any means possible to wring his neck in the most brutal of ways i do not regret or cry for a lord perhaps there was something inside of him that oughtn't to have been heeded perhaps perhaps but how is that any different from him laughing as he believes he saves his city the ends justify the means that's something i have always believed and by proxy something all of us must believe in some way we are to have associated together for so long can we hold that against him to this degree what have we done we've got a bunch of innocent people killed think of Pictorin and the allowance of people like that to die someone who had no involvement with Outset nobody would ever have touched that foot in the city as he would have through his willful ignorance has allowed someone like that to die countless more experiments and victims of the medical guild and the forces that work behind the scenes in Outset we must levy the lives we failed to save and the countless more who will continue to perish against these end goals but both of you have a very good point that for me at the end of the day any choice to be had is better than none to not have that foisted upon us or upon others the choice always has to be made even if it's the wrong one I will not dissuade you or encourage you one way or the other but keep these things in mind also kind of look at what happened to Mr. Lord and how he burst into flames he was just a conduit for for Papa Blaze Uncle Blaze is just weird like that I'm also going to I'm going to point out that in that scenario we also all beat the snot out of him that's not liable to happen in much the same way I don't think and to be clear because I think you you'd have time to have ruminated on this what happened to Alort was that Alort was wasn't like he was sponsored and even said as much in some of the the finally hunter he was he was just a conduit like like the deity itself just went into his body yep that's why it burned him up was it was essentially like manifesting an actual avatar when uh when you combated it look you all I'm not gonna sit here and act like my opinion of the hegemon the beneficite whatever we're going to call this being that we have to talk to here I'm not going to act like my opinion about him has changed at all but simple fact is we are the beggars in the beggars cannot be choosers parable we have nothing to go off of we have only our wits about us and unless we want to keep just using our wits we have to take something we don't have to take that but we can obviously take something he's offering something what that is is nebulous as of right now and honestly i've had a good long look at all the shit that's been happening over the past almost a year now maybe longer i don't know and i think at this juncture all i can do is laugh i'm not going to but i can recognize the humor in it for as awful as the bastard may have been to us we're now sitting here ruminating on how to fix the present situation together and not even in a way that he particularly wants he's got his hands off it he's given up on it leaving it ironically for us to choose like he said he wanted outset to choose so it's our decision we do what we want with it but honestly i'd be more willing to take it at this point i wish i wish picturn was here that's strange to say that young little farm boy but he had a sort of grounded wisdom not unlike you orin that made these decisions easier perhaps someone wise ladies ale would know what to do here i can only guess i i su i suggest the following we cannot bring ourselves to kneel entirely before a power no matter how benevolent it believes itself to be and i think to some degree this is this is a test the beneficite wants outset to forge its own path with its own hands sponsorship is a tool to aid in that but if we can do it without it we would have proven without a shadow of a doubt that it is the will of mortal men to be free that is a powerful symbol but worst to worst perhaps we accept this offer under a condition if one of us becomes tainted by the rot we head back to outset and seek their sponsorship not saying we should take necessarily the gifts of the divine but there are tangible benefits the physical ones we're in a gigantic tower a plinth floating above the rest of the city on a big stick yes the divine can do that but gold is a lot more effective at convincing men to do that there's something to be said for getting that kind of assistance should take his help i don't want to but we should then let's take his help but not his sponsorship at least for now a being of his power can create a ascending stone a means to communicate over a long branch of time see what aid he can give us without giving us divine gifts and if we need to purge ourselves of the rot perhaps we reconsider our pride any that's the problem what's the problem not to harp on the point but when you need the sponsorship that's not the moment you can ask for it when you need that sponsorship is when the gun is to your head or when you're broken under something the sponsorship is something that ensures that when those things happen and they will that is just the path we're walking on that whenever that jumps out at you whenever you're caught unawares whenever there is something that gets the better of you that it's not the end you uh you have to recognize it's pretty funny isn't it oh it's hysterical no no before you get all growly on me i'm talking about specifically this sponsorship the concept of it after all we've gone through against this guy and he's offering us something that we either take now or basically never it's so supremely impotent you know it's it's it's the biggest gift you could give to a mortal a second chance at life after you screw something up and and in our present situation after everything we've dealt with it's just so worthless god damn that's actually fucking funny oh what a waste still look at us look at us all sullen sad miserable we have stumbled perhaps into one of the most miraculous twists of fortune we could have a man who we had thought would be our sworn enemy has instead turned out to be a potential ally could be that we're being deceived of course there could be some grander game at play one isn't there but we should be exuberant and if none of us are we're all tired angry and haggard is this what we've become oran throws up leaves thank you oran speak for yourself tanhauser i think this is exactly what i needed right now i think i'm ready to get going on this what about you well it is not diametrically opposed to the anarchy in fact oftentimes they do work alongside the anarchy very true the fundamental battlefield is like is like a T or an X there's opposing points and then side points i am cautious of its gifts that is true if it truly does believe and seeks a future without the rot who am i to disagree that change is a good thing would i be anything but if i didn't but what if in sponsoring us it unmakes him i don't know if that would be the case i don't think he'd be so excited to offer it if it did no no no not the offer itself inevitably as we begin our our travels word will reach marlene marlene who likely now thinks of us as insipid ants or insects a inconvenience rather than a true threat when she comes to realize the enormity of her mistake she will look into this and she may well find that we glean with sponsorship and then what she comes here and crucifies the hegemon seldo would take him with us he's not anchored here he's not stapled to the floor it's not exactly hard for him to move around it seems to given that he's a 1500 plus year old beneficite i do not doubt the i do not doubt the power of a god but i know the power of man i know this city has ground gods to dust and rubble and marlene has done so to the four great powers that govern this world already tanhauser there is nothing and i mean this in all sincerity nothing that man could ever do that would ever stop the march of time we will see marlene's face frozen in agony calcified eternally i will gladly sacrifice my essence to know that we have stopped her and that she will scream until the end of all living days for a chance to stop the rot i will gladly sacrifice myself nothing is more important than stopping it i'm in well vena it is your airship i wouldn't dare force you to take someone on board assuming he'll have or will have him i don't have to like everybody on board i don't even have to like the situation i'll do what i have to it is a choice come on you're supposed to laugh i wish i could god i just you know how long i've been wanting to wipe that smug fucking look off his face and now here we are asking for his charity i wouldn't look at it like that consider it like this you know we he thought we were you know ink in his ledger to be wiped away he spilled an ink bottle better wipe it away turns out he made a massive miscalculation and whether or not he actually holds or continues to hold a vested interest in the city he has no choice but to work with us if he wants to see that happen us the band of five or so people who he thought he could wipe out because we were going to bring about end times or whatever great grand apocalypse he has seen and he has to stoop to deal with us and you know what he's not going to do anything himself it's all up to us who has the cards here because it's sure as shit not him it's you it's rahua it's tanhauser it's orin and it's me and roshi yeah roshi and roshi yeah who's behind those sorry guys behind a wall he's going he's having fun and playing yeah roshi too wants to get marlene come on yeah yeah yeah no it's you're right i think i think we hold off on the sponsorship for now i think it's all or nothing tanny because you hold off on it and you don't get it when you need it that make sense orin raises a weak hand yeah yeah i will not share a nest with my killer suppose that's fair he has hurt me and my family i will not do anything for him only for me and for my friends and family he owes me and he owes vena and the small part he owes everyone else if this was a trade back home it would be paid back in blood he would have to sacrifice something for our grace he might be he might be putting himself in a high position but he has nothing we can simply leave and go out our own way on our whims he scared he's going to lose the city and we're his solution so if he wants that he needs to give me a solution and that means the capability to fight the rot right good enough a way to purge it from us a way to get rid of it a way to keep it from us well we'll see if he can offer that then he has nothing for me and he owes me a lot more otherwise I wish his death and so if his city falls since I'll be away from it I won't care because at that point the blood feud is paid via city this is brutal as Orrin gets that he turns his head around as he lays back on go monger I'll pat his little head he's right if nothing else he owes us that and like you said Tani I guess the ends justify the means well let's see if you can offer us that very well let us go and somebody ring his dumb little bell I'll ring his dumb little bell and can one of you at the blindfolds get me some wine yes of course make it the expensive stuff he owes me as you ring the bell Tannhuser there is a flash and the hegemone appears back good you've had time to discuss then we have and what is your decision if you offer a means to insulate us from the rot to ensure that our quest is successful we have no choice but to graciously accept there is no means of preventing the rot that is the purview of the old powers who are so regrettably disposed but you're the infrasize orange point he's not accepting that sponsorship he's saying this fucker owes us this and nothing else oh i thought that you i thought you were pro sponsorship no no i misunderstood it's okay that's i'll help you clarify that's why you said i will not sleep i will not share my nest with my killer that's his way of saying fuck that guy he owes me yeah i kind of figured that's what it was too fuck i thought he was saying oh he better give us that sponsorship because he owes us that no that's how my mistake he was inquiring about getting something to beat back the rod yeah like say for example if we ever get infected by the rod like or in current learn like a ritual or something so then he could like help cure us of it without having to rely on this guy or wants this guy dead sorry who he is we can revert back roleplay wise yeah jump back he appears after you ring the bell good so you've come to a decision then there are several things that we would need to know i do not believe all of us are necessarily keen on sponsorship immediately without conditionals of course the greatest concern that we have is less of dying for a cause but of the corruption that the rot presents as a possibility to pervert our very souls and our natures should we be exposed to it do you have a means to reverse a contamination no there is no such means that exists the old powers can combat it slightly and push it away but they are so disposed at the moment as is the plight but the rot itself cannot be simply removed there are rituals that can remove the stain there are acts of great power that can be performed but never the same twice never a standard if one of you obtain some measure of rot and corruption could I perhaps stanch that flow yes but at that point that would be it it's not something that could be done again so he can remove one level of rot essentially he's he's basically saying that yeah maybe but also you know he could do that but that might also mean like oh then I can't sponsor you too like there it's kind of a tough thing to ask because yeah the whole point of the rot is that there aren't easy solutions for it yeah you you spent literally an entire adventure to remove rot from some of your characters so if the old powers can combat it it just means that we and by extension you need to do everything in our power to make sure that they're freed to that end it makes us allies but we are not friends I remember what you did he remembers too yes I am well aware you tell me honestly are you even sorry does it even register to you we're this far than few grit my actions because as I said you are all unique wonderful creatures it is hard for me to see you in a light that you would understand but perhaps and there is like a stare at you Veena that again you have sort of a similar thing to what town has her experience the sort of light behind the eyes shimmering into you tell me do you not feel remorse for the things you did what do you mean by that my of course the amount of blood on my hands doesn't even start to compare to yours truly I regret the things that have happened because of me and I'm doing everything in my power to make sure that that doesn't happen again and there it is you bring numbers into it you make it a tally but I don't equate to you and judge the action I did when all I did was because of a tally and there's just like this stare at you of like and you understand the absolute meaning here which is that this being did what it did because it saw exactly what was going to happen and it tried to stop it it tried to you know need needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few right I get it I get why you did what you did I don't have to like it nor do I have to like you but we are on the same side we want the rock gone we want to make sure that the people of Outset don't get torn apart because of what Marlene is doing I won't speak for everyone here but like I said we're allies not friends she's going to reach into her coat and she's going to pull out the two luminous daggers the ones imbued with the beneficence and she's going to just slide them across the table to him you can have these back I don't want them I have no use for them funny neither do I and the rest of you then is that your choice as well I I view you as a strange act of providence beneficent I think that our meeting here can be the genesis point for much good and correction in this broken and rotting society this decaying world but first I believe that if you care for that which man can accomplish on their own terms as you have allowed this city to determine its own path and fate so too must we achieve victory by our own hands first your aid it may prove invaluable in the coming days and I urge you to intercede on behalf of the weak and powerless of this city to give them the strength to oppose the wicked and corrupt that rule from these lustrous spires but for now for now I must stand by my companions for now you are my ally maybe friendship might come in time I hope so but if it doesn't with or without you my comrades and I shall craft a more beautiful world so be it is that then the same for the rest of you yeah I'll pass on the sponsorship I'm gonna die I'd like it to be just the one time thanks of course I suppose I don't have to ask you that question child of anarchy our paths intersect but they do not intertwine but we do align on the values that we must stem this tide in some way and for that I will certainly work with you then it would seem your next course of action will need to be quite simple you will need to retrieve the deckland airship so that you may depart though your destinies are severed one strand I remember from our prior encounter seems to well it points to the land of Golgotha perhaps that is where you are destined to go first should such a thing still exist for you now of all places that is where we must first set foot you did say we had to go home I had hoped we would not go back until we were far stronger go I think you're underestimating us a bit there no it's that I wanted to kill that miserable lord Golgotha with my own two hands but as of now I'm not strong enough nevertheless yes if Golgotha shall be the first then it shall be the first and we shall unwind this twisted effigy of madness that has enraptured this world coil by coil there will be hardship and there will be as I saw tragedy even before you reach your former homelands I see I see the roots of change crushing your drive Tannhauser but perhaps you will overcome it to what is ahead crushing my drive greater things than roots have attempted to crush me I am unbreakable of course then your next objective will be to the rook's plaster and the dock where Martinet of Orkalian reigns right fourth of the list yeah you give me a society check of what you know of Vorkalian I'm just I'm just knowing from all from all the fact that this person is already on his shit list somewhere oh yeah for sure for sure for sure you know the name specifics though 33 all right yeah Vorkalian is one of the more directly brutal Martinets rarely employed rarely employed as a as a direct instrument from the tyrant's guild simply because of how how despicable their actions are even for members of the guild they are known as a brutish as as an absolutely brutish orc half orc um individual though it's hard to tell because they are constantly encased in banded thick armor and wearing a face mask sculpted to their own uh their own you know attire and structure this martinet is known for their particular uh preference of unarmed combat uh preferring to literally rend their foes apart vorcallion has just a lust for murder and bloodshed and is known as sort of the the proverbial boogeyman of the baron's plaster uh when not employed directly by the guild they essentially stalk the the streets of that brutalist area rending apart the interred and the different dispossessed of the area uh those who are slain you know have their limbs attached to vorcallion's armor and he animates those limbs to use as weapons good lord oh he's a crafter real winner this guy uh good i was hoping we could take another person out along the way and i will not cry about it being vorcallion well then beneficite is there a means by which we might communicate with you whilst we are out of this city ascending stone something of that nature certainly you have the magical providence for that yes but that also means that for every sending every 25 words i send to you that's probably quite a few foes i will not be able to kill yes thus you should contact me sparingly but i will do this for you should you not accept the gift of sponsorship that i would have offered instead i shall use my influence here to protect your friends that is acceptable yes and appreciated i believe they are under mar marlene's notice at the moment she hides herself though i suspect it is more for her family than herself she sadly will not be assailable until your mission is complete i understand oh no i don't believe you do she has tied herself to the ritual that her and her minions have performed i studied it shortly after again i had some time i suppose when you were off in that swamp quite ingenious really she he pauses she took slivers of the palasters big sippy big sippy she took slivers of the palasters and used them as bindings thus each of the focal points the stakes the metaphysical manifestations of the old powers they are all locked in place by husks off cuts of the palasters she has bound herself to them i suspect she would be impossible to slay without their deactivation or their removal well we have hardly any reason to go picking a fight with her right now but it's good to know that at least how she would know to do that how she would have that expertise in the rot and the history of the city you would need an expansive archive of outset's history you would need an archive detailing a great deal and where might we find such an archive do you think i don't know you tell me you're there oh yeah remember remember remember but then he forgot but then he forgot yeah absolutely the the the sort of under levels of the declan estate and you remember from some of the information you gleaned from that is that the the elder declan the one who you know became rot infested and became a giant face in the wall and then a giant brain in the floor they had offered up their library to someone that's right and we never figured out who the the person the mastermind was did we yeah i think we have now well it's probably marlene but you never know it could be shmarly it's crunch it's crunch fuck damn it the long con the long con i'm gonna double get you you thought you knew the true villain but but yes even my family even my immediate family bought it oh you see maybe if you stopped cutting me off i wouldn't have had this inevitable betrayal yes not not now cramps we're trying to figure out how you would betray us all right well i suppose we'd best set off then you have my thanks perhaps perhaps before you set off you should rest a moment earlier here i have maps of the dock that you may wish to review you know i remember time ago i believe you planned an assault on dreg sanren house and the good martinet cardoza seemed to work out for you then perhaps you wish to repeat such preparation this time that were the plan good to know i don't have to do too much legwork most excellent and while we we read these i have something else for you to do i would so presumptive well consider it a request i would be honored and i'll reach into my pocket if you read my book and i'll hand him a revolutionary book pamphlet is it a signed copy of course it's signed baldrick sighs as loud as you've ever heard him sigh that sigh ends our session no i had something i wanted to ask damn it yes yes okay okay okay all right fine what do you want pull it back pull it back pull it back pull it back pull it back ignore the sigh what do you want to ask uh as everyone is like departing after the the sort of meeting that we've all had with him baldrick's gonna remember something very quickly ah suppose i actually have something to ask of you and i don't know if you can even help with this or not there is someone who we were considering making an effort to collect from a location let's say yes i don't suppose you could rightly tell us if this person's actually dead or if this is a huge waste of our time to even bother go and get them and who would that be uh mercenary name of victrix corlos don't suppose you have any dealings with her but i did my research into marlene's actions after they were complete the victrix was the one who brought the stake into the wetlands so we've heard it was where you went to the swamp now my research it does show something that those who carried the items might perhaps be changed by them whatever's happening in those planner overlays i could not say but you might still find your friend when you breach the barriers whether or not they will be the same that i could not tell you let's not throw out the term friend so loosely but i get your point of course i'm gonna miss this victrix i'm gonna be really sad if she got turned into i'm gonna be really sad if she got turned into a big monster well she's not dead till we go there to figure it out i guess but even beyond that you mentioned the other spikes yes one in the smoldering city one in the storm cloud one in the grotto and one points off east in the direction of like the great march i zoomed to the earth and sepulchre beneath i'm tired i'll ask another time later of course and that yeah is where we'll call it for tonight yay yay good job everyone very excellent oh thirst and holy shit yeah what a great twist that was fucking stellar excellent yeah that was sick sick as hell i'm a big fan of mr hegemon i used to i used to love to hate him and now now i do i feel different you hate to love him but i love to hate him hey show time it's time for the outro it is time for the outro and now speaker d is in charge and now blood should be pooling at the bottom of your computer screen and hyper realistic blood shooting out upon you as otoroshi where the hell can we find you where are you where am i i'm on the discord at odo i'm on blue sky at odo bites uh you can find me on tumblr at otoroshi rider uh and you can find me gone gone all right well i i saw something else southern quadrant current location unknown that was where hulky crow was hulky crow where could people find you on this great white internet of ours they can find me crying in the chat here where they can also find me over at twitch at twitch tv forward slash hulky crow you can find me on axe in blue sky mostly on blue sky because fuck axe uh you can also find me on tumblr and a bunch of other stuff that i work on outside of that but i'm not gonna bring it up right now and oh my god it's a and that horrible thing that just crushed hulky crow i look up and oh my god it's urndill where can we find you urndill oh that's not me that's just a meteor but you can find me on twitter at the usual place and blue sky at the usual place and on tumblr at the usual place and nowhere else and oh my god he's he's he's he's in the in the darkest depths of the of the icu he's he's he's infected he's bleeding he's dying but where can we find you zoran the wizard it's zoranthewizard.com i want to make sure everyone got an episode today i'll get i'll get fixed soon oh please rest we love you rest and delightful friend of course we all know we're on call gm can be found but uh thurston you mind telling us where we can find you eternally grinding next ramus next gaming that's right now you can find me on all the things that i'll call gm hi everybody thank you for the thanks for the good vibes and chat really really appreciate it uh uh i think i'm getting through a lot of the the the the the big long-term reveals there's still a couple left i i got i got a couple more brain brain blowers left don't worry i'm getting through the handle so much absolutely yeah i am speaker d you can find me on blue sky at speaker d and my brain was bloated the most did that's been rock grind and i think now is the part where we say so long chat bye bye bye goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye ah ah and pray gruhua no fuck you zoran run away