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Recollections · Rotgrind - Narrative Declaration

• all right everyone it's time for another exciting episode of rotgrime almost harvesting season to the last episode of season three of rock grind thank you all so much for staying with us for such a long time coming to the live streams watching the youtube videos all the other stuff thank you all so very much for just saying hi just coming over saying hello supporting us the entire time we've been at this for three years ish more now like a while it's like a good while like going through a whole bunch of trials and tribulations and smashing our heads up against rocks and all that other fun stuff but but thanks guys for playing rock grind with me wait it's our delight to play rock grind with you yeah of course why would we not show up to a fun time filled with happy characters to whom nothing bad ever happens yeah nothing ever i'm driving a car goes wrong i gotta go bye where's it going where's it going he's going somewhere so i'll fix the bit bars there so with that everybody welcome to another exciting episode of rock grind i have to introduce introduce you to the amazing players that bring you the show starting off with odoroshi hi hello it's me it's odo i am playing veena the sylph swashbuckler very excited to be here with you guys for this uh final episode before our big hiatus and uh i think the swashbuckler remake is gonna be out by the time we come back question mark looks at thurston sure will fuck yeah i'm so excited for that so uh yeah same with the alchemist actually yeah those are both gonna get some get some loving not the magus though fuck that guy tan hauser gets nothing if anything we're taking away the magus's ability to cast spells yeah that seems fair that's a very flavorful choice there's still something to be excited for it's hulky crow hey that's me i'm hulky crow i'm back at it again playing as always the kanrasu cleric rohua and man aren't trees grand speaking of grand it's erondale hello i'm erondale i'm playing baldrick weathers he's an alchemist so the chorus he's laughing with nothing uh uh it's a terrorist it's speaker i am a terrorist known as speaker d if my demands are not met you will feel the consequences as will all of the inhabitants of your city i play tan hauser the you know who i am at this point i play tan hauser he's the magus he's the red guy yeah he's the red guy yeah corn the famous red guy from cow and chicken yeah yeah yeah you don't wear pants and wesley willis first one hopefully still wearing pants is our lustrous game master thurston hillman shorts actually they're comfy and easy to wear it's true hello hello of course i am your host for this evening i am zoran the bear i'm playing oran the stricts druid now thurston you did tell us that we leveled up i have something to admit to you yep i've been so busy and i didn't level us up that's fair oh god everyone still levels oh no guess you don't go into this next session with the correct level what could possibly go wrong i'm gonna kill us again i forgot i also see this is what i deal with this is what i deal with chat this is listen we're not respecting our game master but when we come back i just forgot to put my feats in yeah when we when we come back i didn't level up for this one yeah it'll definitely make more sense that we're level 10 uh in the new season and stuff or come through come through and stuff but of course it's lovely to see everybody who would like to give uh a quick summary or i can if people don't want to what happened last episode we'll try to get back to you give a recap host yeah you should show that you guys do it yeah so it happened last time this episode of rock grind yeah we'll play that we'll see if it works out no that won't work out we're doing something different i got it i got it i got it i had like a different one set up okay okay last time on rock grind the city of outset was on fire us and the rest of our lovely band of charcoal fox charged forth to deal with our top hatted wearing friend who was now possessed and consumed by uncle blaze after a fierce battle a burning battle of thurston trying to hit a fire drake he was immune to fire but then we found out that the rest of the party was not immune to fire all of us nearly perishing we eventually came out on top after coming after coming out of that fierce battle being left with an ultimatum to either attack and die now or to be left alone to see how the future of outset now now will now expand due to all the old gods now being captured unfortunately our party was left debilitated thinking that we were played the entire time by someone that we sheltered inside of the people's duplex after escaping from the multi-elemental amalgamation after escaping from the multi-elemental amalgamation that has now chased our adventurers away now we return to our heroes now left broken even though they survive the battle they may feel defeated at a loss as of what to do next excellent i mean yes um one little asterisk um just to note the city of outset uh is not on fire you went to the smoldering city the uh the like attempt at building a city outside of outset the ruined sort of city that had come ablaze so you're actually uh running out of the smoldering city uh having made having escaped sort of back in the near solitude between the smoldering city and outset short little uh yeah just a little correction there but of course i think we are still running and i assume we are running back to the only safe place we know which is the people's duplex well i believe you're uh you're in the swamp right now um making your way back towards the city and finally kind of catching your breath having escaped the the um the immensity that is the uh smoldering city which is now a blaze bringing us all of you together with the storm clouds in the sky and the immense immense walls of outset off in the distance uh finally with a chance to sort of catch your breath having gotten far enough away we need to sit down that architect she played us like fiddles she'll pay for that they'll all pay in time in time in time we will no doubt have our vengeance upon them but we needn't waste time worrying about how we will issue that revenge right now for now let us see to our wounds everyone got out all right no one is seriously injured i'm hurting but uh i'll make it we just need to find somewhere to make camp batten down the hatches and see if we're not killed in our sleep oran thurston yeah seeing his friends in quite dire straits um he's internally oran's a bit tormented because of everything that's happening and also not knowing if gorgamonger is alive uh oran just kind of like he toughens up basically kind of like he's like i got this you know my friends need help i like to roll a survival check to see if i can find some place maybe there's like a little cave area or some place where they can get just a little bit more comfortable than in the swamps yeah absolutely give me a survival check oran rolls and gets an 18 on the die for a total of 37 yeah you you managed to find um a rut of sort of old stonework uh some trees it's it's it's enough cover to shelter you from the sort of constant precipitation here you believe the stones here are probably offshoot of some some tower in fact as you check it um you you remember tales in fact of a gnome who once traveled the solitude who uh constructed various edifices trying to get a sense of exactly how big a building would piss off the old powers outside of outset uh this was probably one of those long abandoned experimental sites but it's enough for you to to get some cover off the the main drags and roads and um you know away from predators and whatnot here while uh orrin is tending to everyone and is getting the the stuff for the medicine together i'm presuming the rest of the party is more or less together right yes because a little a little bit like nearby but not with everyone else baldrick is kind of just standing off to the side and staring over towards outset he has kind of just he's he's standing very very still and staring at the big absurd city in the distance he has a single alchemist fire in his hand and he's just kind of like rolling it around in between his fingers as he's staring out at the city at it can't stand in this place hey everyone over here we can rest over this way orn will lead everyone over and he'll see baldrick mumbling to himself in the district going mr baldrick we can rest over here you see orn will be waving baldrick over to join everyone else i can't stand this place this damn city every time it's been one he's just kind of like raising a finger up and pointing at the city and he's just he sort of flinches the arm that's holding the alchemist fire for a moment as he's like he's trying to throw it at the city but he's just kind of grappling with something that's not fully visible at this point it's every time with this place every damn time with this cursed city orn will walk up the baldrick you know sensing like obviously seeing seeing that he's quite upset and he'll kind of like put a little hand on his on his arm be like Mr. Baldrick I can't and at that point he does rear back with the alchemist fire and he kind of just pelts it towards the city I can't stand this place I'm shatters in a field there's a small fire briefly it fizzles out in the rain he is he is rapidly unleashing everything that he had in his pack he's taking out whatever bottles are available he's got bottled lightning frost vials alchemist fires he's he's throwing he's attacking the city feebly and pointlessly at this point I can't stand this place I've sunk years of my life into this blasted hole this rotten pointless little spit in the face of the rot they just they just keep backsliding back towards it back into the abyss damn this place he's he's just he continues to throw one alchemist fire a bottled frost impotently a bottled lightning he's not even really hitting anything but Oren next to him you can start to see his aim starts to get a little haywire like they start to not land on the mark and in fact some of them are starting to land really close to where the two of you were standing yeah Oren will like bird hop over and stuff just trying to like get in the way of Baldrick's wrath and he'll come out like Mr. Baldrick and he'll try to like you know kind of tugging his arm to kind of like not exactly like force him to stop but it's more of a suggestion like Mr. Baldrick I understand that how frustrating you could potentially be but let's go ahead and get in the safety first that coming at us and we don't want to give away our location let it come at me what's the point what's the point of doing anything in this cursed hole every time it's one step forward and like a blasted leap backwards it's unreasonable I can't stand it anymore fuck this place and he continues to throw in at this point he's absolutely just he'd throws one directly at the ground at his feet and it will detonate yeah and there's like there's a smattering of fire around you nothing damaging at this point I assume you're able to just craft your like even your low level ones just to keep the stream of physical invective going are you sure because I'd be willing to take some damage if that's if that's within character here if you're not using your bomber's eye then absolutely just what he can't aim right now he's mad yeah so he'll take he'll take like you know two points of of you know fire splash here you know you don't have to apply your your intelligence modifier I'm so smart this hurt even when I'm not thinking I'm still burning myself with my smarts yeah you can apply it fair enough yeah there's Oren would probably want to step back or he's going to start getting hit by the splash how much does the splash do let me check what is the damage of alchemist fire moderate I would have to retrieve it there we go uh it is two plus four so that would be six so I'll say technically because you have the bobber thing so it would affect or otherwise you would down or or I mean listen if you want if you want to get close to a guy who is patently losing his mind and throwing explosives around with reckless abandon like that's up to you we'll figure this out or or and or apply some mud to himself like just gonna patch myself up a little or or or will come up the ball and even though he drops the fire and stuff he will cast uh a three action heal in reaction to that just to kind of like keep just because knowing basically what that's going to do to both of them um he'll try to like quickly just just just a calming nature wind kind of goes past both of them and goes Mr. Paul I understand Mr. Paul but the city's not been kind of all of us I think all of us here have a stake in exactly in how much we've been wronged you know either by the city the people inside of it how we've been used and abused in multiple ways I have no love of the place myself but at least you have us Mr. Paul and Oren will finish casting his spell cast the heal oh you want to cast it cast it okay I mean I assumed you were unless you just wanted to let me have that I was going all role play on it okay we're going to do through action heal 30 foot emanation nice you both we both get healed 14 all right he'll he continues to just kind of like storm and fume at the general area just get back get back I can't stand being around anything right now I just and again more the rest more of his inventory I left that battle with a lot of bombs still in my inventory by the way like I have a lot of them Oren will will take a step back and he will look to the rest of his friends seeing if Tanhauser Veena and Rahua have taken shelter in the place that he indicated yeah Veena's just kind of been quietly watching and seeing Baldrick kind of still fuming she's gonna very gently put a hand on Oren's shoulder and lead him a couple of steps backward why don't you let him be bud Lauren's probably for the best that he takes his time for himself buddy yeah but I know I know but he needs to feel this out well I'm gonna stay here and Oren refuses to go inside of the shelter he finds like a nearby bush or something that'll support his weight and he'll sit there like still in the distance of Baldrick just to give him that but just to be there in case anything goes wrong or if Baldrick needs anything it's like because Oren kind of shakes his head if anybody tries to tug him and he's like you don't leave friends alone you give him space but shouldn't leave your friends alone of course just space is probably best seeing the many small explosions going off slightly ahead yeah space the sound of shattering glass and explosions of various elemental natures and Baldrick's kind of half maddened half despairing ranting and raving at a big stupid city in the distance basically the only people who are audience of this is you guys he'll keep at that for a while so you will likely want to discuss between yourselves some other things can't blame him really can't no go on go on oh sorry i fully interrupted you i interrupted you don't don't don't apologize it's okay it feels like just yesterday he and i were talking about how much he just wanted to live quietly how much he thought you know maybe we were finally getting out on the other side of this that maybe we were making a difference that finally he didn't have to be chewed up and spit out by this fucking place we've not been spit out yet haven't we no no not yet and i won't allow you to speak that way in my presence we have been derailed yes we have lost a battle but we still breathe our hearts still beat and our dearest marlene has made a critical error she delegated our destruction we are still alive and we are still powerful maybe it is well i hmm and rahua kind of reels back for a moment at the mention of us still being powerful and for the first time he feels a level of distrust towards tannhauser lack of faith would be a better way to phrase that and he turns around looking towards baldric in the city in the distance i'm not sure if i believe you tannhauser forgive me but i don't know if power would be exactly what we possess right now right now rua we are beaten we are bloodied we have lost much yet we still retain much we have the revolutionary movement the bits that moved outside of the walls we know where we can find an airship don't believe me don't believe me look at me i was broken not even my bones were brought enough they were shattered so severely i don't even retain a single ounce of them in my arm my body my lungs my innards all of it shattered on the sands by a slave master and look at me now how much i had to struggle how much i had to crawl my way back from nothing i owe much to those around me who uplifted me the great lady zale who made me more than just a barbarian who brought me back to life from the dust and the woman who engineered her demise is laughing to herself supping from the cup of victory and you because you feel powerless want to turn your back on me and deny what you can grab with your own two hands i am not denying what we could do tanhauser i do not deny you your resurgence from nothing from being broken beaten and left for dead but i am asking you to take a moment and consider our position not from a position of resurgence or blindly throwing ourselves at the machine but take a pause we are not beaten yet no and we have not lost everything and we are not giving up i have no intentions nor did i state i was going to give up but i think it merely calls for a change of perspective i i need some time to think about this remember who will start off towards the thicket and kind of ruminate on what's going on i'm not leaving i'm just before you go chasing after me i'm not going away i just take your time give me a moment take your time for now is not a time for attack it's not a time for assault but do not my friend allow despair to conquer you for if any of us permit that it would be better if we had died in the flame there is so much more to do i couldn't agree more and rahul will continue off i wish i shared your optimism tanny what happens to us now what happens when there's another iron baron when there's another bullet from from the guns that killed me what happens when there's another we don't get that chance again tanny you don't know how many times i've stared death in the face and only by sheer dumb fucking luck have i made it this far what do i do what do i do when i'm staring down that barrel again vina you are still my second in command you are still worthy of so much more than you give yourself credit yes yes should you be dispatched it may very well be that you will die but that is the risk that we have asked of all of those that we have brought with us if you allow yourself to hesitate in the face of that then pick turn and all the others died for nothing and i know you your care for others will never eclipse well your care for others will never be eclipsed by your fear tanny if it weren't for those second chances i would have died before any of this any of it i would have died before we left outset i would have died before this even properly started i am not strong enough i'm not strong enough to take any of that back i died in their place because i could afford to i died in their place because because that's one thing i could count on myself to do to dream this to founder and to die pull yourself together it's nauseating i know the truth of you vena and it's not this this madness that is befalling you if i needed you by my side to die i i wouldn't have had you here you are not needed for your ability to die or to flounder you are needed for your sword for your wits for your charisma for your ability to keep this band of miscreants and morons focused on a single goal and pushing forward yes yes when we were weaker yes yes when we couldn't have the strength that we have now yes you were the first to be undone and perhaps perhaps i am not as kind to you in light of that as i oughtn't to be perhaps i forget myself what it's like to face death down but we now do not demure by the gods do not demure is there anything anything that you have done had you known that you would die doing it that you would not have still committed to would you not have cast down the martinet even if you knew it would cost your life would you not have purged the rot from the dreadful home of sandal declin if you had thought you wouldn't come back would you not have helped me ferment hope for possibly the first time in that blasted city i don't know tanny i don't know it's easy to be confident when you know that when you know that maybe there's a second chance and now now the stakes used to be so much lower the stakes used to be just fighting to make things a little better alongside my band of idiot friends and now now now there's this expectation that that we could try to fix everything that's been fucked up i died when the stakes were low tanny i failed when the stakes were lower i failed on my mother's airship i failed an outset and now now the stakes have never been higher and i don't have that second chance that i would need i don't have that fallback if there is another martinette and she puts a gun to my head it's over you don't yes perhaps it is but i go into the fire with or without a second chance i will face these foes with you without you without any of you if i need to and i won't leave you tanny i'll walk into the fire but but i know i know that i couldn't walk out vina stop no just you are greater than you think yes the martinette undid you yes you were run over by a bloody car but you know what you faced off against a god this evening and you didn't falter you didn't flinch and you didn't need a second chance you can do these things i just don't know how to make you believe it i don't know if i do either tanny vina's gonna reach to our belt unscrew her flask tip up what's left in it and walk back to camp okay i think at this point i think you're the only one who's in the camp except for maybe rahua were you in there and you walked off as well yeah rahua walked off tanhauser is alone yeah i think you're all kind of alone at this moment except for oran who's sitting by baldrick perhaps it's for the best admittedly tanhauser steeped in darkness as the rain pours down looks as vina walks away and grim and abiding flame echoes embering in his eyes i need you all but if i have to do it alone i'll do it alone if i have to kill them all myself i'll kill them all myself i'll do it someone has to i'll do it and as tanhauser turns he reaches for his parchment and he sets himself to work channeling all of his anger all of his fury his indignation and frustration and the impotence of this group in the face of marlene schemes and he's channeling all of that into plans upon plans upon plans as tanhauser says he has to do it alone or will pop up beside him and go i thought it was a mistake joining everyone you know did you now yeah see how long when i came here to the city of outset i didn't trust anybody when i came here like normally everyone i met either wanted to capture me or eat me or do something else and at first it was a thought of survival just to try to get out so i can get back to finding my friend but you all were the only ones who cared i have everybody that i saw in the city of outset you were the only ones who didn't try to eat me or hurt me or capture me or do anything else so i stayed after i left my home to come all the way over here to find a friend i thought i would only leave with one but looking at everyone here and you'll look over the baldric and his rage and bruhua deep in his thoughts and veena and her sorrows you'll look at tanhouser steeped in his motivation understand it's hard for everyone to lose so much and the fear of what they can lose but i don't even know if i'm gonna even leave this with anything that's mine i don't even know where corgamunger is and he'll show his wooden hand i don't even know if i have my friend anymore but what i don't want to lose is all of you because if one thing that i can see that you all are the light that has been born from this city and i believe there's a lot more people who have that light so i'll help you mr tanhouser i'm not gonna let you do it alone i don't want to leave them alone either i've always felt bad warren in some way i've always felt some level of guilt baldrick is a terrorist for who i don't even know if he would be killed if that would just make him more powerful veena she's a criminal but you you've always been the best of us the kindest i don't blame you for not trusting us when i first met you all i truth be told viewed you as means to an end my revolution as if i could have ever composed such a thing with my own flawed hands i'm sure i would have failed somewhere along the way or done something i'd regretted and turned back to the batland savage i was i'd never seen it but bringing you into this bloody mess i'd always had my second thoughts but now i realize i never was bringing you anywhere or in you you were bringing me somewhere your camaraderie friendship was something i shall always cherish you are a better friend than i deserve orin will put a hand on his shoulder and say let's go be better friends for everyone else and orin will walk off to where veena is sitting what does orin see you see veena it's just yonks it he's exploded sorry i forgot i muted myself it's the point and click adventure you see veena i don't know if i can do anything with this i put veena in my inventory put veena in the bag sorry for the whiplash anyway he comes up yeah he comes with the the see veena and he goes miss veena yeah veena right now is kind of sitting cross-legged by the fire she is she's downed whatever is left in her flask which i can't imagine is all that much by now and is kind of rifling around in her pack with with fears of the chainsaw car and the distance yeah veena's just kind of teary-eyed rifling through her bag just i knew i put some fucking booze in here miss veena orn frowns a bit but he comes over to sit down with veena said i'll make it through but he'll uh he'll look down to kind of see what veena is trying to rummage for and he would just kind of like put a hand over her and you're like but how are you feeling i'm feeling a lot of things none of them very good god i don't know where to go from here i don't know if i can orn will uh bring his hand over and be like can i see your flask pass it to him orn will uh take the flask because i assume it's raining water like a drizzle and stuff on us yeah it's not heavy but it's just like a constant sort of blasting down uh he will for this little thick area where they have shelter in he'll kind of put up to where a stream of water is coming through and uh he'll fill up the flask but at the same time he'll kind of like take some leaves and stuff and kind of grind them up or so i'd use healing plaster for this um less of here's mud with worms to heal but he uh uses his knowledge of plants and stuff to basically which i could roll for plant lore if you'd like uh to basically be like to make a very comforting like herbal herbal drink and there's a 17 of a die for a total of 28 because i have plus 11 the plant lore yeah you can put together something pretty pretty potent uh as you cook as um ornald makes this tincture where it's like it might hit the spot but it's also like super refreshing yeah like very hydrate like very lovely like like lovely feeling and stuff and he will and he'll pass it over i overheard what you and mr tanhouser were talking about and you know i'm i'm scared too vena yeah we wouldn't have made it without all this and now without it what do we do orin what do we do i'm not gonna abandon you guys i don't think i could bring myself to i don't think i could bring myself to go that low but i don't i don't want to see all of that happen to you happen to me happen to any of us for real when i when i came back for you when the iron baron got us both i didn't really know at the time that we really had that second chance it was kind of just impulse you're a good person and you didn't deserve to die and at the very least you didn't deserve to die alone but now i can't stop thinking about what happens now that we don't have that what happens now that what happens now that this time it's for real that if i watch something like that coming for you again i know in my heart of hearts that there is no coming back from that i don't think i could live with myself if something happened to you and i don't know if there's anything i can do to protect you not that i've been doing much protecting if anything it feels like you have been the one looking out for me orn will doodle on the ground as veena is talking and he'll say i didn't leave my home alone you know i had friends others who were going to help me find gogamunger and they're all dead some were captured some eaten alive some lost the sea and i couldn't help them i'm so sorry he nods and said and he replies back but one of the things that still keeps me going is knowing that i can still help others and in all various lands there are good people and bad people and if i fear the world that is around me i'm no longer living and i would think of myself already dead for i know a tree doesn't think of a storm that may come over and topple it over and knows that it was able to provide you know maybe a squirrel a home and it's been able to serve its purpose and for me like helping people out or making sure that they can survive the days to come lead them to a safer place is good enough for me but for you it could be different i feel that you shouldn't look at the issue that we have now as a detriment but as a way that teach you to live to not be beholden from some other entity or something that wants to preserve you for its own gains but to take into the knowledge that it's time to live your life to live it to as full as you can even though it may end and it'll end for all of us take solace that in your life that you're able to achieve so much it's kind of you i don't really know what you and tanny see i see my captain god i wish god i wish thank you bud orm will nod and uh he'll step up you know leaving veena to her thoughts yeah but he'll turn back and say i think your crew's with you miss veena i know i am i'm with you too bud and uh just know that we are here with you the friends that you lost everything that you've had to endure we're here with you despite it all and i with you captain and he leaves and veena's just going to drink her herbal tea and stare into the middle distance for a while cool give me a perception check oh fuck there's worms in it a middle distance is full of crabs time for crab time for crab by the way the motor show outside my window appears to have abated so i can unmute now nice nice these people so much that is a 23 total cool you see some like light far off in the distance um like probably a torch from a wandering caravan or whatnot that has left outset um just like far off in the distance giving a slight ping of illumination but that's about it beyond your the the signs and sights of your own allies in the area does it look like it's getting closer or is it just kind of in the it looks like it's moving kind of parallel like not closer not further away all right venu's gonna kind of keep a little bit of an eye on it but is mostly just going to sit and brood and drink the delicious tea absolutely absolutely um yeah my mental plan is i'm going to talk to rahua and then arendil but if somebody else wants to interject or else i'm going to eat everything up here uh i'm gonna go after whatever you finish up with there because i actually have a thing that i'm gonna do okay yeah that works out because i was gonna round about so oran's heading to rahua um it walks up to him what does oran see rahua doing rahua is alone naturally in a clearing looking up at the fading sky above him as day gives way to night he appears to be lost in thought staring out at the growing starfield above he's not aware of oran's presence mr rahua there is no response oran looks back and he looks back to baldric and he you you kind of peer out back towards where baldric is and you can see that at this point the pack and the bandolier are like completely empty he has dispensed with all of his inventory except you see him hefting something above his head you see the familiar and frankly unpleasant shape of what looks like a coring charge as he is staring at the city it's just hefted above his head oran will i look back to mr rahua and he'll kind of tap him like mr rahua rahua will shake as if startled oh hello oran could you everyone seems pretty bummed out mr rahua could you come help me talk to mr baldrick he kind of looks over seeing the explosive he's like i don't want him doing anything rash of course i can follow along but oran if i may before we go back before everything had happened that led to this what did or did destiny feel like to you did it feel like an unspoken urge driving you onward i'm sorry this is kind of out of left field but i've been doing a lot of thinking based upon what marlene had said what to hakas had said even before that i'm curious oran thinks for a moment and as he looks up at rahua's giant one eye he'll say i never really felt much of a pull or severe need to go one way or the other but majority of my thought processes was to make sure you were pan hauser being and mr baldrick to make sure everyone was okay sure my i could think of one motivation was to still find my friend but after that is to make sure you guys were able to make it the way you want to go so so i i see i never felt much of destiny i always had my my path laid out for me because it's what i preordained it's what i wanted to go down but i can understand someone subverting that for their own needs to help others go down their path curious and here i had thought that perhaps being the odd one out there might have been something more to the whole destiny thing perhaps some kind of unspoken compulsion that transcended our everyday thoughts meaning but i think you i think you may have figured things out for me as well i think very well think that might have been the missing piece as it were or nods and says are you holding up okay mr rua well much as i want to tell you that i am perfectly fine i'm also not one to beat around the bush so they say and rua will look around the decimated shrub that he would utterly ruined i can't say there's much of a bush to beat around anyway what was said what she had mentioned about not not not even having accounted for me had given me a lot of pause that i really wasn't even supposed to be here i've been kind of coming to know everything and i mean quite literally everything for the last three some odd years but having some sort of destiny something greater to fulfill spurred me on it made me feel as if there was some sort of purpose behind my creation one that i believed i had understood i was being guided to some greater inscrutable end in service of force beyond my own comprehension and in the wake of sealing a god away that revelation that it was all pre-plan at least for most of us it seemed to stem the tide of belief and fervor it gave me pause and needed a much needed reflection upon what exactly i am or what we're doing and so as i so often did i wandered out here hoping that being closer to where the anarchy tends to be thickest might have given me some clarity grappling with how little i truly understand how little i thought what i knew was so quickly dashed against the flames gathrim now smote but i think in light of all of that there may be some greater truths yet revealed to us in this moment of failure although i think it's something best shared with everybody feeling their own doubts at this moment and bruhua will look back towards baldrick assuming he can see the coring charge perhaps yeah perhaps reflecting out here is not beneficial anymore it's time to put a theory into practice or nods or and will turn to the baldrick and to her who is like let's go check up on our friends mr rahua yes let's and rahua will walk back with or and towards the camp and the others yeah they had to the head to baldrick seeing him uh holding his coring charge above his head yep mr baldrick he uh he he's he sounds like he's arguing with the city at this point he's he's he's kind of he's not necessarily ignoring everyone around him but he most definitely seems to be having a one-sided argument with the city based on the sounds of his his yelling and in the the you catch the tail end of an argument that he is in the midst of having it's kept on like this for years you just keep going like this what do you want from me you've taken everything at this point what do you want answer me and he's just going to stand there for a moment that that last one would definitely have been loud enough I had to restrict myself it's definitely loud enough for most everyone else to have heard that and after just a period of silence he's just going to continue to stand there with the coring charge above his head oran oran will come up and place an arm up near his to kind of like try to coax him to slowly but surely bring down the coring charge and oran's like it it's okay mr baldrick like it's like we're here for you then oran will kind of like look at rahua and then back and be like let's just let's just put that down for now mr baldrick he doesn't seem to recognize you for a few moments he's still staring at the city but after a moment or two further you can hear him sort of very quietly mutter to himself so be it and he'll just kind of lower his arms and drop the coring charge to the ground it wasn't even primed but he he definitely seems to have been thinking at that and he goes back to staring at the city but this time he crosses his arms behind his back as he looks back out over it rahua will walk up alongside him and cross his arms behind him as well she's not answering you is she never has you know believe it or not i know how that is how many years have you been at this baldric he tilts his head back a bit the uh the thirst and what's the weather like at the moment is it a clear night or is it rain oh no it's it's it's been perpetual cloud cover with perpetual precipitation um the the like the rain is not heavy it's just kind of like a a mist that starts to build on your skin and clothing yeah you can see that there's some water kind of spilling down the side of his smooth topped helmet 12 years 11 years ago it was college then after that it was doing what i'm doing now it's not going anywhere and that's i think i've got my answer finally i can only imagine trying to get water from cobblestone for 12 years and here i am thinking i can't even speak the one thing that i owe my creation to for three but i know what that feels like i may not have been doing it even half as long as you have but crying out to the one thing that you expect an answer from one thing that issues change the guiding beacon in your life only to be met with silence is nothing short of maddening don't think i don't know it i've been i've tried so so long to see if i could do right by this city this place this outset outset has been outset is possibly the largest potentially last greatest bastion of sapient thought on the entirety of time and it seems like no matter how hard i'm taking a crack at this it seems like it's doomed to be to be ruled by fascists and dictators it's just it's just poetic isn't it i'm sure there's other places around still that are still doing their best in the face of the rot and everything else i've looked at historical records and and numbers and everything relevant to longevity of the world i'm not an expert i only had scant few years of college before my current profession but it looks like things are going under all over the planet and i thought that maybe outset would be different that you could just work hard enough to fix the problem but if anything it seems like the city just wants this to be the way that it is and you know what i'm done killing myself to try and make this city happy i'm done trying for something that's nothing let it burn i don't care that's the funny thing about change isn't it you can try as hard as you may to make it happen all too often things just feel too stubborn to know what is best for them in outset's case maybe saving it isn't what the city wants what the greater forces at play have ordained but that being said even if she won't respond to you i've learned through the silence to listen beyond conventional hearing it won't cry out and tell you exactly what it needs i can't offer you that tired platitude there's no sense but if you're met with a wall and you can't go around it can't blow it up you can't get through it how do you get past it and to that i posit reframing it recontextualize because it's rarely as simple as a one and done solution what is a wall but a container or what can a wall be but a doorway could we make something out of that could we make a wall standing in a field into a home that we might be able to raise more up around it or is it the stepping stone to perhaps some future growth overgrown glade i can't truly explain to you what to do but perhaps a change in perspective is required in the midst of your conversation uh rahua he he he does somewhat interrupt as you're getting to the end there he kind of turns to face you and he walks up and he puts a hand just kind of like on your i guess bicep because rahua is tall right hmm he's pretty big he's pretty big yeah rahua at this point i'm done looking for solutions i'm tired if there's a solution to be had i'm not thinking of it right now if i'm still here in the morning it means i found one if i'm not you know the answer i'm tired i'm going to bed i have been tired for 11 years and i have been tired throughout this entire destiny that we had i am a tired man and at this point i'm ready to sleep whether that's a natural sleep or a permanent one i leave to the fates but right now i know i'm going to sleep good night orin good night for hua good night and he's going to shuffle off back towards the uh he's walking a lot slower than he normally would he has like no energy left in him at this point he has been admittedly shouting until it turned nighttime so he's kind of exhausted at this point orin uh will panic uh can i miss balgic wait and he'll take his water skin and make another uh herbal like tea and pretty much like take some other herbs and stuff but try to like help him get comfortable help him with the pain help him sleep better and orin will kind of catch up the baldric even though he hasn't gone too far um he'll come up to him and offer him the water skin and he'll say mr baldric you've from a lot of people that have met or so far you've been the most stalwart and even forgiving of a lot of people that i've met and i just want you to know that i appreciate everything that you've done to even though it was a sternation or so i they gave us a home to where friendship and goodness could thrive you gave us a chance mr baldric and i wish i could give a lot more back but i hope this helps a little bit and he hands over the water skin and like a roba wise it's it smells wonderful if he does ever smell it like lovely herbal just like drink it oh i know the feeling i would i would actually like something right now because i need to drink because i'm out of water but yeah but it's like like it's lovely and orange like even though i he he he seems sad and a bit regretful and i thought but it's like out of everything mr baldric i i know you out of a lot of people in that city help build a foundation for people to do good and just like different caretakers will take care of the forest some may only take care of just the saplings and may disappear before it's a full tree i think you are one of the best tree carers of the city i've ever met mr baldric oran i've got a little bit of information before i go i'm gonna try this all right he's gonna hold up the flask a bit and he's going to he's going to tip it up to his helmet but he's going to be he's pretty tired so he's not thinking too much so he's actually going to lift his helmet up just a bit and you're going to be able to see the barest part of his lower jaw at this point as he tips the flask up to take a drink from it you know that based on kind of what you're looking at it looks almost like the entirety of his right cheek is missing you can see the entire like row from like back of his jaw to the front of it on the right side yeah is gone you can just see like his teeth are just there and they part for a moment to let him drink oran this city is going to be built on the bones of my friends it has been and it will be built on my bones if I don't have my way of things so for the moment I'm going to sleep I appreciate it oran nods he passes the the empty flask back down and he lowers his helmet back down a bit and he will stumble into whatever the blind is that's been set up at this point I don't even know what we have as a as a shelter it's just all grass isn't it it's it's it's like a structure with some some dead trees mostly rocks from a like a basically an old attempt at a building out here that you managed to find Vina as as Baldrick approaches are you still awake yeah Vina's awake and you're still kind of looking off into the middle distance right have you just been sort of tracking the fire the fire light from the torch yeah with nothing else she's kind of just tracking the light you see as you are you are keeping an eye and Baldrick is approaching a shadow descends towards the torch from the sky a winged shadow orrin perks up does he identify the shadow well Vina's the one who saw it oh sorry oh Vina what does orrin see yeah let me metagame through your eyes real fast orrin perks up sorry no you're good it's fine yeah I'll try to focus in on it try to figure out what it is from this distance um give me one more perception check we'll see if you can like get a get a get a better tell I'm sorry I need I need to point this out someone in the chat I'm not I'm not being mean you described it as having wings right yeah someone in chat said the ship how else is it supposed to fly I'm sorry I'm not being mean but it was very funny yeah that's a 30 on the perception check it is a it's an erratically flying winged draconic being that has landed by this by this torch in the distance does it look like a familiar draconic figure too far to tell I'm gonna look back toward the gang just very quickly stand up and meander a little more to get a better look at it okay so you're just gonna kind of leave the gang and start heading towards it yeah yeah I'll just start wandering in that direction yeah you you kind of like splush through a bunch you can see that the torch has stopped moving and as you get closer there is there is a reflection like a glint like the torch light is almost being amplified by something behind it and you continue to get closer and as you do with with your your your very very actually are you approaching stealthily that's another question that's also a good idea yeah I'm gonna approach stealthily yeah yeah give me a give me a stealth check all right that's an okay roll yes that 19 winked at me that's an 18 it did it did it did um okay so you're you're making you're making progress you're you're you're stealthy um but there's still you know the squelching of the swamp here you're you're trying to get good footing there's not a lot of cover but just to get close enough to see a single solitary figure holding a torch in one hand and some sort of weapon in another the reflection that you previously saw was actually the glint of the figure's armor reflecting the torchlight and as you see the vast sort of draconic wooden entity of gorgamonger which is now kind of fallen fallen down not not dead or anything so so dramatic but from winded and breathing um you definitely see the armored form of someone you you know from the past so the armor reflects back um light from the torch much of the armor is covered in like spatters and the patina of blood and you see the crunch of legbet behind which is is what appears to be some sort of a of a wagon um the wagon has a tarp over it concealing something inside and that is where we'll go to break finally break time we'll be right back everyone we are back we're back we're back there are things in the distance thurston i hunger uh there are uh you've seen sir crunch approaching uh with a wagon that has a tarp over it bloodied with a well gorgamunger sort of having landed uh veena you have approached this site seeing that crunch is the source of the light holding up a torch crunch who's there who's there i i may be at the end of my of my strength but i won't let you touch anyone of this caravan i swear it i swear it back back and he's waving the torch crunch what happened veena's gonna step out not a tickle the light oh oh oh god it's so good to see you oh i'd hoped we would find some sucker out here i did not expect they said you were heading to the smoldering city yes yes i did see see i told you i told you something from the back of the wagon oh as do hakus pops out both of you are okay there's there's a third figure and you start to hear this sound of like like loud obnoxious snoring as a small child is sleeping in the back of the wagon as well oh thank god this character is here oh god yes the comedy child comedy child she's asleep i don't have to do the voice sees all this and he just kind of shakes his head spoilers chat i know you don't trust me right now no the hungover peasant child is not something they need to kill or assume is the ultimate ultimate villain it's actually been one of the gods the entire time no if anything if anything we're going to have to fight the hardest final boss of them all cirrhosis so true bestie cirrhosis the wise yeah i'm gonna approach crunch so what happened back in outset i'm gonna need you to talk fast because if you're with marlene marlene what does marlene have to it's too hawkish who like pops out as like crunch is still umming and i i was at i was at baldrick's house and then and then the tyrant skill kicked in the door there were a dozen of them they came in and and and and they were they were apprehending me they were they were they were going into baldrick's back room and and they were taking trying to take the thing the thing that's in there and then crunch showed up and and i murdered so many of them this is where you like really take notice of just how much blood is on crunch's armor oh it's not uh oh well i i came and i i was on the way back and i i saw i saw the tyrant's guild and i i figured i i wouldn't i wouldn't cause a scene but but but then the child was there and i had to protect the child of course and then i heard lady screaming so i i went in and i went in a smashing and well they were in the way when was the last time any of you saw marlene shortly before everything went to whatever the hell's happened in the city she was she was doing doing paperwork for the revolution stuff i don't know it all seemed so stupid to me she sent tessin to send some pamphlets and then then then she disappeared then tessin left and next thing i knew you were there and we had that talk and then then just like expressively like disturbed so so crud showed up and we knew we were made because because at that point the tyrant guild baldrick's house wasn't off limits anymore so we left right well that's not not quite the whole story all right fine fine fine what else was there though well well you see before we left i i knew we had to extricate ourselves from that that locale but but i knew that that sir baldrick had been hard at work on something so i acquired ourselves a wagon from from one uh uh rotis um who indicated something when i indicated the purpose of it that was um some sort of um fly guys um coupons or stamps or something that you were good for one wagon so he provided the wagon for free which was quite sporting of him and and well we we made sure to evacuate baldrick's project you moved the whole thing well i it's in the wagon it was glowing so we covered it yeah that's a good idea did you separate any parts of it no no no no no you did you're going to probably need some attention medically very soon no no no no in fact in fact um so blotus indicated we would want a lead-lined top for our current endeavors which is why i'm somewhat all right with the child sleeping there good uh get her off it uh like the crunch goes to to like but like she's the weapon to decide like holds the sleeping child like like an enlarged baby in armored hands because the child is not waking up the child is definitively not waking up so Odo doesn't have to voice the child would you please give me some girl snores okay thanks chunk me me excellent done beautiful yeah vena's gonna look over to baldric and then kind of look back toward the camp and gesture for everyone to come so yeah it i guess we've got a lot to talk about then i'm guessing so all sorts of things happened the wind is stopped the water the earth got sour yeah the tyrant skill were everywhere barely got out they were more interested in imposing order of the city they didn't care who was coming or going that seemed to be according to marlene's plan keep mentioning marlene what does she have to do with this everything we're getting to that what one side i need to make sure this is intact and baldric is going to continue the conversation as he swings around the back of the wagon to inspect the project yeah yeah the project looks intact okay i'm going to spend a hero point narratively so that he can work on this and further it at this point now that he has the opportunity yeah so marlene the architect she was not strictly speaking just an architect you know the amalgamate oh the foul beast that that plagued you from your early days in those apartments the one i chased around yes is the foul creature yes so her and it are one in the same as i suspected when i when you inquired about this before some sort of primal entity i of course my research simply indicated it's typically some sort of eidolon for speakers of different folks in the solitude and other old power venerating groups yeah well her and the amalgamate they're the same she is the amalgamate what oh oh oh no wait wait wait wait no no that's you you mean that's like some sort of she's it couldn't be her it must have been like her no i mean that very literally i mean that extremely literally i mean that as literally as beating you over the head with it yes she was it that's how all of this managed to transpire because everyone else baldrick kind of leans on the edge of the wagon pausing his repairs of the project for a moment to motion towards the assembling party was perfectly okay with just adding whoever to end and so as a result it's just normal to have people around didn't even bother to check but that's life do hakas is like quickly scrounging some of the tomes that are in the back right here right here right here she's like pulls out like various pages that she starts flipping through and showing as she holds up these tomes showing creatures of elemental providence some of them being singular elementals like you know roaring fires others being like duo elemental compositions like air and fire and like a whirl like a unflagrating whirlwind but then she eventually points these are all idylons of great great powerful primal primal beings well not beings but mortals who have vested primal energies in them something kind of like what Orrin does but less generic and more specialized to the elemental powers she was it's not generic you know what I mean you believe in the green but this is like there are when you enter the solitude you you went to those kai boos they have they have they have a speaker there don't they they they baldrick is trying to rack his brain and by that I mean I'm trying to rack my brain did they have a speaker yeah so it was a thought I know but I wanted to make sure he was but the whole thing was that Athan talk to you about the the current speaker being a small child that Athan was the was the speaker but his child abandoned the kaiboo and so they had to go to like the next generation to get a speaker who was basically like a small child who was off at was off at another kaiboo when you visited well they did have a speaker problem is it was a small child because of inter tribe nonsense look I don't speak for them in this regard all I know is yeah okay well it couldn't be it couldn't be that one because because Marlene's a half elf yeah he might have been the other half because he loved a lot talking about his by the way just an absolute lech of a man he really loved talking about that elf oh well then I can show you the amalgamate and Marlene are not the same it's just more that the amalgamate is like a very very powerful pet considering it's operating at her will I would be hard pressed to assume otherwise last time I had a pet it didn't exactly do what I wanted it to cats are like that I guess it's yeah more powerful style powerful elemental being chained to powers of mortal flesh and whatnot we're beating around the bush so yes that's all there is out here are bushes he's going to return to repairing because the derailing thoroughly defeated him someone else take over he doesn't want to talk to duakus yeah let's just get to camp clearly you guys need to rest I should replace the child somewhere yeah just put it on the nuke or something no also you don't know what that is don't say that I'll give you a hint it's not that yeah they have the scene sorry they have the scene somewhere else Oren had dashed off ignoring everybody and has already rushed up to Gorgamonger and it's just a scene of him in the distance just bawling don't cry for me I'm I'm fine I just need to rest a little I don't want to roleplay crying why is why is Gorgamonger crunch now no crunch is crunch is far less like definitive he's crying so much he confuses crunch for Gorgamonger yeah I just pat Oren's little head yeah he's just bawling Horrid will never be bawling he gets a three pointer no you've been droid I'm bawling spikes him in through a net but after that Oren will kind of you know after his tear fest and reuniting himself with Gorgamonger he just starts going to town healing everybody I guess everyone's wounded so that's pretty much all that Oren is doing at this point just checking up on everybody and you even come up to Tannhauser and be like Mr. Tannhauser you're wounded here here's some mud coming into the shelter it is even in this short time just been like a scrawl of just like insane pins on like boards everywhere maps laid out things being written no no it's not this bit you fucking son of a bitch I'm trying to catch the criminal that's me hands up I know the problem yeah yeah yeah Tannhauser looks Tannhauser we have to go to Grya yeah Tannhauser looks at Oren someone's been killing meteors in the lower decks who is it maybe it's this guy points to an old man like no no that one and he points to some weird looking glowy eyed fucker just I cannot believe that I canonically exist in this setting good thing the bearded barrens on the cage I'm losing my mind all right well I'll get away from this this this altereded reality of ours and I'll take a look at Oren Oren I notice the explosions have stopped I assume Baldrick has come to something resembling his senses he's he's calmed down for a bit I gave him some tea and I have some for you and he kind of has another he's refilled his water skin at this point and has made some I see been healing people and he offers it to Tenhauser as he looks at all the random scrawlings and papers and stuff and he's like well what have you thought of so far Mr. Tanhauser right now I'm collating data it'd be so much easier with Duhakis here but we don't know who of the old guard of the revolution can be trusted I need to find our next point of action they arrived what who constant Duhakis is outside along with Gorgamonger and he kind of sets it aside he drops the he drops the gravel for exactly like half a second what oh what oh my god he says totally normally no I don't mean that was a fuck up I mean that was funny it'd be funny if Tidhauser like before he became a robot Tidhauser didn't talk like this was like hey guys it's me what's up just like a door to the door cells I can't regenerate on your vocal cords get fucked for the rest of the campaign good thing in my noform I removed my throat because it would tire the machine the machine spirits are strong they're too strong today so at hearing this I'm going to kindly take the tea I will drink from it in the mysterious way that Tidhauser drinks things and I'm going to head out and get a gauge of things and see who is still alive still sane still trusted and I will see the baby on top of the nuke Mr. Tidhauser yes or looks at all your scrawling like what is like there's a summarize what is most of the scrawling war plans these are like tactical maps these are like maps drawn from memory like shitty like coordinates like collations of potential forces like tables of math to estimate the time frame in which like a group of like conscript like levy men can be trained into proper soldiers it's all shit like that it's all lore war stuff or will kind of tap some of the pieces of paper or so like Mr. Tannehuser have you considered there might still be some that are still part of your revolution like for this paper and he kind of goes he taps on one and goes like oh and here you can probably solve this problem with that airship that that's probably still docked somewhere and he kind of like taps another paper exactly exactly these have all been accounted for though the exact state of my revolution is yet to be seen we are fortunate that we were forced out of the city in some number it's likely we can recruit many the allies and once we have that air ship the world won't know what hit he looks at Tannhauser and kind of like with a small smile comes up to him and he's like sounds to me mr. Tannhauser then there's the path forward there is always a path forward let's go let's go see everyone and get plaps forward indeed yeah how dare you I can't break your bones all right just explode so I'm gonna go out and say hi to my friends yeah so you go out you see crunches at the hungover child baldric is now got a second wind and wind and is working on the device veena's there crunches sort of like doing the dark souls thing of leaning up against the rune's side of a building seemingly crestfallen cronch random drunk child you're all alive yes sure am I had some stuff happen to us too you should have seen crunch crunch crunch murder a lot of people excellent crunch I always knew you had it in you on account of all of the expensive armor that you wear well what you do is you think of their skulls like smelting a weapon and then it works very effectively most excellent now then we have a problem I'm sure the others have already told you about Marlene a viper so close so in the nest Drakis I'm going to rely on you especially in the coming days we must undo whatever damage Marlene has done in her high position I don't know we we had to leave the city quite quite immediately we didn't know really much of what was going on there were so many of them they came out of almost nowhere yes they have reason to suspect that they might have been lying in wait what we're dealing with is a conspiracy an outset illuminate something manipulating everything from behind the scenes of power but fortunately for us power has always been our target I suppose I thought we were here to help people so I'm still interested in helping people of course of course of course one cannot help anyone without the ability to do so and one gains the ability by seizing power now tell me do you know of how many revolutionaries we have in good fighting order I couldn't tell you a thing we ran the ponds district by Sir Muldrick's house was in good order but then the tyrant guild came and everyone was scattered and beaten I don't know how many of them made it out I don't even know what happened with good Sir Tessin either truly truly dark day indeed well we'll have to gather what allies we can for now we need to rest we faced off against an avatar of Uncle Blaze and we barely survived your what Uncle Blaze he was behind that dreadful street gang we've been very busy huh and he turned into a tree wait wait yes Duhakis hi Duhakis Marlene was able to seal the avatar of Uncle Blaze as well as all of the old powers utilizing some unknown crystal some sort of strange concoction that she claims has sealed all four of them what can you tell us of this what did you see of it like give me something to go on here it was a shining spike it impaled them from the back there were chains I believe who else recalled that I was filtering in between consciousness when it occurred um it was as if a nail of piercing white light cored the avatar aflame cooling it and sealing it inside a great gnarled tree at this moment Rahua choosing to finally re-engage the group and walk back up tree you're the only tree I I mean like that like that kind of tree I guess I'm sorry I've seen trees before it was similar in shape but sealing uncle blaze inside it just the same proclaiming that she had done so to the remaining three old powers and that he was the last and with his sealing ah yeah okay yep yep we are no longer sponsored you can't you can't just seal you can't just you can't just be like oh here's a spike that oh old power literal god try mortals don't get to do that there is something more at play as all its divine might ebbed away in that moment or at the very least it severely limited its power orrin yeah you can cast spells right yeah okay so they're not gone or dead anything like that because if they were cut off you wouldn't you wouldn't have primal magic it just wouldn't work that's something you're saying that she why why did she do this to allow outset to expand that with uncle blaze locked away the one that they had not already subjugated it was uncle blaze the old powers would be helpless to invoke their wrath upon outset once more for expanding beyond their borders okay okay but but gods don't manifest like that's not that's not they have they have avatars or and you fought uncle blaze like like not not some not wait you said it was the lord right yeah yes his body what did you kill him the lord is dead so far as we know to shreds yeah gathrim incarnated through illort and nearly smote us with a sun sized ball of fire before marlene swooped in if you got that religion check give me that religion check recall knowledge with religion that's a check to make that's a check to make that's a beautiful song 24 that's enough for you to recognize you know sponsorship works in a very similar way where divine power works through you but you would have enough knowledge here to know that uncle blaze is unique in that historically they have not sponsored in a normal fashion their sponsorship represents essentially using a host like fuel where each sponsorship allows them to take exert more and more of a direct influence so like alert would have essentially been every time you defeated him say the twice in that combat would have been burning more and more of what was alert away and making more and more room for uncle blaze as a manifested point on time alert was most certainly sponsored by uncle blaze his sponsorship worked a little bit differently than what we at least understand of it that each time that we would have dealt a fatal blow to alert what remained of him burned away uncle blaze filling in the room until well nothing of the man who was existed and it was simply a a point of primal power that uncle blaze allowed to fully manifest in that moment yes a focal point the old powers they they they don't manifest directly but they have focal points they that that storm over there in the distance that's where papa storm is said to manifest a focal point it moves around the whole planet sometimes um i'm assuming the giant toad thing you told me about that's probably a focal point for auntie drown yes that would be correct at least under my assumption of it so oh what's that revelation well well that'd be no that'd be dumb no we're not operating on smart or dumb at this point if you had an object that could hold something powerful in place something self sustaining constantly growing constantly regenerating something that could slough off the old powers attempts to get it out you you could trap those focal points and that traps their attention they still grant spells because that's that's just the thing that's being asked of them it's it's a transactional element but but their their focus their ability to just look at the planet and go smite there like they've done you'd stop that because because when they're looking here they can only look at the one point they're trying to get out of which would allow them to continue building around them as they are struggling to break these bonds yes because then they couldn't they couldn't manifest themselves anywhere else on the planet but but that would mean everything that that would mean if there was a rot infestation they couldn't manifest and save it like they've done which would track that whatever kind of arcane technology the architect's guild had used or the greater forces at play was rot based what else beyond the capabilities of the old powers the gods that be would be able to draw them in a manner that you describe but but they're anathema to one to one another you can't primal powers what stops the rot it couldn't be that it'd have to be something immensely powerful something something that's that's constantly regrowing itself to deal like look at uncle blaze he could just burn it off so it have to be something that constantly is there constantly like the right i have a suggestion what the one outlier in all of this has been rukua a creature of pure chaos and the cult that we were able to engage with among the tyrants guild venerated the perfectites between that and the strange tower that we encountered could the perfectites somehow have a material that could do just a thing a perfect imprisonment some sort of sublime unnatural material it could be perpetually evolving utilizing rot in tandem for its ontomorphic effects to create effectively a rearrange a self rearranging prison that for every time they try to find their way around it burn it away it seems to right itself or essentially as if it was a lock that perpetually changed keys is this possible to hacus yes yes that would be something previously unknown i don't have any any supposition that i'm trying to think of anything i know that would match this any of you have crap mere recall knowledge craft you said crafting yeah i have crafting yeah crafting i will crafting because i have the strongest of everyone who ever lived nanite larger than a 16 why are you nanite surging so i can think extra hard with your two with my when the tear that i rolled i'll spend a hero point because we should maybe find out let me roll my crafting first hang on i thought you did oh no oh my nice that was hokey nevermind there we go i appreciate this too because tanhauser and ru have been like all of this thing and like i assume baldrick's just kind of in the in the background of this scene tinkering on the device and then there's like baldrick you grew up in outset you've been in outset your whole life um outset is a city that constantly grows upward because of the white pilasters that constantly grow through the city and constantly force it to move upwards and when you when you think of the scene that you saw of a a white object piercing it whilst it it it was white it was not light like pure light in and of itself uh it took on that appearance because of fire but in fact it looked more like the sort of salt stone uh white of the of the pilasters of outset hang on hold that thought growing yeah yeah it would need to otherwise think of it the uncle blaze would just be like fire it's gone pilasters what they grow we saw a white shape pierce through what is a round outset that is constantly growing that happens to be same basic tone um people people that's the answer right i just said it oh i guess just the polasters don't know much about them i don't either i'm not an engineer like i'm not an arch it sure and now it comes full circle but you would need you would need a repository of ancient knowledge from like a super long time ago in the city to figure out some of the you mean like the kinds that can be found by delvers in the undercity in the place below where we might have been sent to collect things kind of knowledge hoarded by people great power who are trying to forestall their own ends strange benefits or held in the collection of ladies ale what a mess that type of power is some pretty pretty ridiculous ridiculous I mean it's look at that city over there and like the camera pans away from our current shot of you know distant shadowy outset towards the literal flaming small burg in the distance of the now ignited city and no longer smoldering city oh that makes even more sense now give me a nature check if you've got it no I don't got good I do time to roll I'll let Ruiz take it that's a nat 20 yeah Ruiz got it yeah Ruiz you turn to like look with your eye and you you sort of like one of the things that's still been put up here is like crunch's torch and this is the first time you sort of noticed that the like crunch's torch it almost resembles like a lantern more than like crackling raging fire it's as though like the passion of this fire has been taken out of it but when you look towards that burg that that city you just ran from now in an entire conflagration you realize it's because fire has been concentrated there and as you do that you your eye sort of scans up to the sky where in the far distance um to the to the to the west past you know the walls of Outset even you see the storm cloud and the the intensity of flashing electricity as thunder kind of it's not making a sound like you're not hearing the thunder but you're seeing crackles of electricity in the immense storm as though much like the city that elemental power is now concentrated in one area it is as if someone has brought nature to heal that they've imposed the gross sense of order upon the natural order look out there the city burns still wild in its might but look at crunch is it's more of a lantern it's reserved there's no heart to the flame and over there in the distance that storm it's not possessed of that same wile and energy that we experienced before out in the solitude they're all at these loci of power as if to suggest that that is where we will find these bound gods well good luck getting into the storm how many are there well there are four gods at least of the cardinal four one would assume there would be four avatars bound somewhere on Tyne on Tyne so not within the city not necessarily but it wouldn't be impossible in fact it would be grossly convenient if they were that close Juhakis Baldrick I will require your assistance what need my assistance with Juhakis I would like you to spend the evening if you can searching through whatever records you might have with you we can provide you more find more obviously when we're not stuck in the outskirts between cities but we need to know of other avatars of the great powers where they might be if any are known to legend or myth meanwhile Baldrick you're an alchemist by excellence I have a simple task for you how do you dissolve a pilaster no hello Baldrick hi sorry about that I think my internet fluctuated there okay he was thinking about it really hard no I think I think it cut out like midway and I didn't realize you weren't talking sorry go ahead again sorry what did you ask him I guess how do you dissolve a pilaster how the Thurston what the hell would I roll to figure that out give me a crafting check let's see if you get the 20 there's a 1 in 20 chance that you would know this off the cuff no with a 32 you know that this has been like the theory of some debate for a long time the only the only like it is possible to break off pieces of a plaster but study into the plasters is not something you've ever done in fact like the city kind of has big issues with people doing that after what happened the disaster of the pond's plaster tumble taking its tumble so access to the plasters themselves is fairly regulated and in fact what happens is as they rise up they they put sheets around them to prevent access from like I'm digging in like the lower levels and then like I reach an adamantium wall because they've made sure to protect it the plaster substance though is like is something that can be can be damaged it can be chipped and removed as far as destruction though like destroying a whole plaster is incredibly difficult because of the rate of growth based on the size so you need to have generally speaking like a good way to dissolve it and this would be something you would need to do a lot of research into that's a bit above my intellectual weight class at the moment Tannhauser I would word some caution to you though the destruction of a plaster is not necessarily without its faults I'm a little too tired to bicker on morality of it right now but the reason we have that giant hole in the ponds plaster region is because someone tried to do that so unless you plan on doing that to the whole city you might want to rethink that I don't intend on doing it to the whole city I intend on doing it to the chains around the old gods I I have to look into it it it's not common alchemical knowledge but I'm certain I could think something up then this is the knowledge we seek where the avatars are and how to destroy the pilasters if if if you are dealing with perfect technology or perfect heights themselves you will not find breaking them in that fashion to be an easy task especially because they are ones to continue building upon themselves and writing whatever damage was done I don't think it would go beyond the pale to say that they would probably find some way to prevent doing the same thing that you did to them destroy them twice um Thurston I have a question yes would a possibility engine be a potential means to oh you mean like is a scorn reality engine yes yeah you want to give me one of lores to scorn things I would love to give you one of those um it would be my sincerest pleasure I was a 19 on the die almost it was a one it's a 34 in total your knowledge of these these devices would indicate that they would not they would not assist you in the the destruction they are about potentiality um they are about looking through threads and finding ways the best way forward these engines are like very strange attempts at time travel um but they are an enigma even to like the people who supposedly built them which came from Zeskorin um however um this gives you like a vein of thought can you give me a society check i would love to give you a society check yeah please do society sweet that's a 34 34 as well so this this takes you down like a thought of like okay well like the scoring technology is like very advanced maybe it could know but what's what's the what's the history of the pilasters well the pilasters were were not there since the beginning of outset um they came later they came after the disaster they came after the first people decided that they could go beyond the powers which sundered the continent um the pilasters were then left by the remaining inhabitants those who didn't flee the city um and when they used like when they created them the cause of their creation led to the people disappearing entirely and even the the reason for their creation remains a mystery to this day um it's kind of the like worldwide roanoke where the this entire city disappeared after you know a disaster and befallen and everyone mostly left but there was still like a sizable population in the city um that population disappeared and instead what happened was was traders and bandits and whatnot from from the proto solitude that sort of disaster land around the city following the old powers um revenge oh not revenge but enactment of their justice uh when those old power when those people came back to the city they found it empty and and then they found only the pilasters in their wake but the pilasters are are a man made device they don't seem to have any association with fundamental powers i see so i know that the people who create the pilasters all disappeared all at once after completing it yeah okay and that it's incredibly old but it it follows it follows the old powers so the old powers you know gave the people their city the people moved into the city it was all great and then they just all they had to do was not expand beyond the borders and then they expanded beyond the borders and the old powers just bucked everything up on the continent and most of the people then spread out and left but some remained behind and those people who remained behind they eventually disappeared and all that was left were these these vast pilasters that's eerie the pilasters are made of people this culture group that did it do they have a particular name uh they were like considered the last of you know something called the first people basically they were the only ones who so they sort of in their hubris took the name of the first people because they were the first people to have civilization in a standard sense outset was the first city up until then the world was roving gangs of fundamental Mad Max cults worshiping the fundamental powers of you know the beneficence the malice the malice the anarchy the perfection and then outset kind of formed as the city and because they built a city and they had like walls and they were protected they basically established the tenets of empire and did great until they broke those edicts and then they realized well fuck it we'll just leave the city after the old powers and brought civilization to the rest of the world i see um and that's like super super long ago history that you know about like we're talking very very long time ago i will share this lore with the rest of the class um and uh essentially tannhauser is going to say these first peoples that crafted the pilasters that did so after the original calamities that befell the land could it be possible to glean their knowledge to discover the means by which they created the pilasters i don't see why not then we must do so oh discord could reconnect that would happen there oh god did my did my internet just hiccup i think a lot of us i had speakers say something and then he just died out on me so i re-logged into the call good old discord to help us along uh oran uh has been although busy healing people and be like and grabbing everyone he still prepares everyone an herbal tea and uh as everyone's together he'll kinda be like well you know with the information and stuff i what are we gonna do now the only thing we can do move forward sounds to me like you you want to go into some of those places i think you've got a ways to go before you're able to go into fire town over there but well maybe you know where the some of the other ones i mean store bland but i don't know how you're getting you there let's my dad knows let's try to gather some information first let's see if we can get a hold of some people we know and see if they know anything failing that we also do need a means to travel yeah before we do anything we need the airship exactly well that sounds like something we can start on and orrin's passing out his tease everyone he's like well my dad probably knows a way to get through the storm and he looks over at the looming just clouds of and all the lightning and stuff he's like he's helped tons of ships brave the storms and especially what a lot of my people do so I'm confident we can do that and if we have the ship then that means we can go visit my family yeah yeah and get all of that and but we we need a crew and orrin kind of ponders we may be able to make a pit stop back in ayesa there are always people looking for work there crews with experiences on what few airships we have there's also the remainders of the revolution those that were scattered about the pond's pilaster or fled the city yeah we could probably promise them a way out of here if they don't want to be here anymore yeah a free ticket out of here is a pretty good leveraging point that is true it it is a surefire way out helping those who cannot help themselves especially those who might be able to throw a further wrench in the operations we do have something close to us that we should probably inspect first we definitely need to take a look and see what the business is with the frog before we go too far out of field i imagine that papa storm and auntie drown should be our first priorities i got three of them that just means you're gonna have to find a way into the earth and sepulchre for the last one take it as we go i'm tired tanhauser yes i'm mentioned at the mention of the earth and sepulchre you know that to be like the equivalent you know the dark lands under dark underground realm equivalent um you've all heard it mentioned before briefly uh by dita neeson who indicated that she had been going on an expedition into the earth and sepulchre um but tanhauser you know that one of the things notable in the distant lands of golgotha is underneath its vast wasteland deserts are various entrances into the earth and sepulchre ah oh it cannot be in the land of golgotha where the dark citadels of the black papacy dwell there are manifold entrances to the earth and sepulchre undoubtedly we'll have to find our way there and if we do we may have to pay a visit to the dearest host of that beloved country of mine lord golgotha himself well it sounds to me we have a plan forward we're gonna go and find all the various remnants and stuff that we can over an outset you know it's gonna be a crew for that airship that we can definitely go over and find and try to secure i think like mr tannhauser is like i can help scout and everything if you want to draw out some plans for that yes yes i think so and in rahua like with your like with your knowledge and stuff we could probably just try to keep an eye on everything here and with your ingenuity and stuff and everything else you can also really help out with the heist and try to bring people aboard good i can certainly try i can certainly do my best in that regard or in and of course and of course like i'm sorry i'm trying to yeah and with that once we get a lot of people and stuff vena we're gonna need a captain for that ship and you're gonna bring a lot of hope to a lot of people uh oh um i can try he kind of pats feet on the shoulder saying i know you'll try your best but i know of no other captain who's more qualified to get their own airship i uh i can try i can try that's the only thing i can promise right now and of course we need someone need someone with a lot of expertise a lot of knowledge of what's going on of course when we come back to outset who else is the better to stick it to them than you mr baldred yeah i'm certain i don't know how you have this kind of energy right now oran it's late we got our asses beat i think we should get rest first well mr baldrick i i have a lot of this energy because all my friends are alive i consider you one of them mr baldrick so are you with us and he brings out a hand to shake his sure i'm in for now he shakes his brings everyone he kind of brings everyone together it's like and it sounds to us it sounds to me that we have a path forward sure when it got roughed up and things seem bleak a little bit but i don't think it's the end of it i think we have a shot of it because hey at least we know who to punch now i guess punching is half about all right duhakus kind of leans up sounds sounds like you've got yourselves a new destiny now it's funny you say that duhakus destiny baldrick had mentioned the word before i've given a lot of thought if i'm understanding it and feel free to correct me if i'm wrong destiny or what we once knew as sponsorship is to have our existence locked to a sequence of circumstances bound to terminate in a singular defining event ordained by forces far beyond our comprehension or control no less rigid or linear a journey than say a cart upon a rail that no matter how much one might try to deviate or how many curious bumps or hiccups there may be someone bound by destiny will never escape the point of termination they've been guided to uncle blaze gathering his followers they acted as agents of great change destruction brought upon the old so that new can rise from the ashes i assume that us with our sponsorship having originated from auntie drown that our own destiny was the flip side of that that creating protecting whatever the wanton ruin the children of the blaze threatened to wreak after all anarchy is a balance between destruction and creation in the wake of everything that had happened looking back towards the burning smoldering city i'm no less puzzled by those words that morlene had left us with of her architecting our actions from the start for one such as her and her own ilk to have used us to usher in their own ascendancy and carefully plot and plan our successes and failures our destinies something is not right it vexes me how can they do all this but still manage to have an unaccounted for variable in an otherwise airtight plot or who will start up start pacing about the campfire things might have worked in favor of their victory over the old powers but for all of her bloviating marlene exposed unwittingly a gap in that armor of surety that she and her benefactors had vested so much faith in duhakis had mentioned this first but she had affirmed this that I in the grander scheme was an aberration a mistake there was no destiny tailor made for me like there was for everybody else that no accounts or deviancies were pre-planned yet instead of that I am not shaken in fact quite the opposite if all of their schemes if everything was impregnable as we were led to believe then surely any variances would have been accounted for there would have been no real risk why then were they ever worried that it might fail I stand before you as we redouble our efforts battered but same as I had ever been that unaccounted for variable and to you asking what do we do how do we go about taking down the pilasters how do we bring ruin to these architects of stagnancy I offer you an answer at the heart of all creation lies a single inviolable truth and Rahua will loom very large over the fire anarchy reigns no matter how many forms change comes in the greater change will be and the less gentle it will be when it's born between what was planned and what came to pass is raw potential that no matter how hard we fall the worst outcomes can still guide us to an even greater height it is on us to choose to make something new to be someone new if that should be what we desire looking at Baldrick in this moment with what might have been this is the nature of the anarchy something I've tried to impress but found it fairly difficult to make poignant until now it is something that we can choose to embrace ourselves there's no destiny beside that which we make we are the stuff of potential because among a dispossessed and disparate many is the collective capacity to act as a singular force of chaos we choose to interfere in the machinations of others we act not out of some generational scheme or static prophecy who continues to just pace about more languid fluid as he's been far more than he's been in his stilt itself we are not sponsored anymore but we move forward because we believe what is necessary in that moment we do what we do because we are unafraid of embracing change as it comes and where it is needed we may not be sponsored but we are utterly untethered to destiny there are no second chances I cannot lie and say that we will certainly come out unscathed but no architect exists of our fate but us in her hubris she believes that having sealed gathrim she has toppled the final domino that she is summarily best at us and thinks herself having won but she is wrong it is but the first of many to fall and her banking upon our resignation will be her undoing we may be on the back foot but it doesn't mean we are beaten just means anything that comes next is forward progress sure as I am the tide of entropy cascades through my frame I am certain that our stories are nowhere near their end turning back now is death Rahua looks to each member of the party our souls burn brighter than any pyre that blaze could set anyone they could put us to and in our radiance we will eclipse even the withered and fetid mass of stagnancy that looms on our horizon above us we stand before the awesome gaze of infinity those stars long having guided others on their own journeys and I'm I don't know if I need to make a narrative declaration if the storm is not abated I would like to make a narrative declaration there's just a little bit of opening to the sky that's the smallest bit Rahua will just point upwards that whatever little space there is all all those little specks inscrutable importance of change I know that they are both the beginning and end of all things from the stars we are born and to that we will return though I've heard in my travels some believe that the brightest among them are the remnants of lives whose legacies surpass them having changed their worlds and life and thereafter change now beckons us onwards again so I ask you to walk with me my friends let me teach you to embrace the unseen current let us step forward into the uncertainty to fates unmade and ends unknown let us build a constellation for the future to follow together or it hops up and goes I'm ready for an adventure I'm ready for vengeance for who will look to volley and Vina I yeah yeah anarchy reigns I think I can do that to a pirate legend yet untold let's see if we get to tell it you still don't believe you you still don't believe it do you our stories are ours to write and ours to end Vina take heart yeah thank you for who will look to Baldrick now said I'm in and let it be done and let's all go to bed because I'm tired I was waiting for like because everyone's like I'm ready for adventure I'm ready for revenge I wanted I wanted Vina to be like I'm ready for yes chat just pointed out I'm ready for bed for Baldrick he has been but yeah but as as as this this final this final oath to each other is made our camera pans out away from the shattered ruin you find yourselves in in the solitude out to the distance to the silhouette shadow of outset with crackling storms behind it and small lights that dance amidst the bushes the the fireflies of the swamp that dance and jump and fade except some of those lights don't fade some of them watch our party with shining eyes that is where we are going to call it for this season yeah good job everybody thank you everybody for watching through the season of rock grind we all hope you have a wonderful time we're going to say goodbye to you all starting off with odoroshi hi hello it's me odo i was playing vena the self swashbuckler excellent session everyone i excellent excellent role play uh you can find me on twitter at odoroshi writer uh you can find me uh now on some more of the things with alpha busa and the ogre popenanga gang gang and yeah thank you for an awesome season of course next up we have hulky crow that is me as always i have played the gandrasu cleric rahua and i've loved doing it you can find me over on twitter at hulky crow you can find me on pretty much everything at hulky crow including here on twitch we do some funny things from time to time including on some ogre popening productions as well i hope to see you there there are more funny things and store and of course we have arundel i'm arundel you can meet me at twitter at arundelio or the tumblr that you may know or nowhere else because that's that's just where it is it's been fun folks i am a little tired myself but yes and of course we have speaker d i'm speaker d i remember it so you don't have to um this has been a lovely season of a lovely game i've enjoyed this immensely if you wish to find me then you need only look inside yourself but if you can't do that then you can look at me and urndel on brother alpha abuse's youtube channel where various different projects are put together and uh presented for your enjoyment um i love you all very much and uh don't forget make them pay make them all pay speak of that person's mantra thank you so much thurston for amazing session and season thank you and you're welcome um yeah this is this is kind of where as people have gathered uh we sort of take off the training wheels and now the tutorial part of the game is done uh and now at 10th level which everyone will be when we start our next season um we will see where the players go with uh few to no guardrails and uh i'm looking forward to it it's gonna be good otherwise you can find me at all the things at on call gm uh if you're gonna be a gen con i'm gonna be a gen con so i'll see you there feel free to stop by the paizo booth and come come check me out i'll be around um yeah it's been great i'm looking forward to other things and other shows too and doing other games and it's gonna be great hi everybody and of course i've been your host for this evening i am zon the bear i'm returning to the streamings and catch me at twitch.tv for slash zon the bear go over say hi ask questions about the show and stuff like that and on july 8th uh i don't like dating episodes all too much because people watch this far in the future but um but for that i will be uh revealing some fun stuff that we're going to be doing for narrative declaration and things that i'm doing so love you all very much hope you all have an absolutely wonderful time and we will see you all next season give you updates on the patreon for free see you guys later bye bye you