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Fiery Results · Rotgrind - Narrative Declaration

• Hi everybody, are you ready for another exciting episode of Rock Grind? Hey goons. Freaks. Oh my head hurts now. Oh god damn it. Did you get a nice vocal warm-up in everybody? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Has everybody done their scales? Oh, Speaker walks into chat. Hey guys, I got a headache. I'm gonna take a whole bunch of headache medicine. Also Speaker. Yeah, you know, I should have known better. I should have known better. You're like, you're like Germo laughing himself into a, you know, into like, a conniption. Exactly. His headache medicine is just chewing on a bunch of drywall. That's true. We merely have to embrace the pain and burn in its fuel on our journey. Hi guys. True. Odo, is this the part where you also want to take over? Shall I do this? Oh god. Oh fuck. We're a mess. I'm just gonna do it. Just do it, Erndil. Hi. Hi everybody. I'm Erndil. I am the GM of this game. Fuck you. As you well know, with my good co-host and co-GM, you know, subtitled, like, you know, subtext, you know, on-call GM over here. I was waiting for you to say someone else's name. I was really waiting. Yeah, welcome to Rotgrind today. Zoran is recovering from the disease that is apparently sweeping the fucking nation because I've had people in California, Illinois, Texas, and also here in Maryland getting this horrendous throat headache fever death disease. So, you know, he's probably not gonna be speaking at all today, which is fine, but he'll be here in spirit. Please show the bear some love. He needs it because he's diseased currently. Yeah, I'm sorry. I gave him Rotten 3. He's blighted. So, yeah, we're taking over for him on this scenario, and we will be continuing today, starting with our good blue... Our good blue... Our good blue? Yeah. Our good blue. Odo, just fucking introduce yourself. Why don't you do this all the time, Erndil? I don't get it. Because I'm intentionally doing a bad job because that's funny. It's the bit. It's the bit. Call her the bit the way he's committed to. Anyway, hello, I'm Odo. Today I'm playing Vali, the sylph swashbuckler. Tomorrow? Who knows? You'll probably still be playing Odo unless you, you know, choose to eat glass. In character, I mean. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's crunchy. No, don't do that. Next up is our illustrious fellow in the world, Hulky Crow. Thank you so much for that intro, Erndil. Yes, that is indeed me. I am Hulky Crow. I will be once again reprising the role of the Kenrasu cleric, Rahua. And as always, as one for the character, I'm going to be eating a succulent Chinese baked good. He's done this every single episode. I'm just not sure why you were telling me this doesn't happen. Am I having a stroke? Next up is your host and GM for the day, me, Erndil. I'm playing as Baldrick, the human alchemist, a very character. He's very powerful, I assure you of that. Next is the fellow who could not be here last week, but is here now and is really great. He's really great and he scares me, but not really. Speaker D. That's right. I am defined by my absence. I am defined by the void. Hi, everybody. I'm Speaker D. I play J and I was, he's an android. He's a magus. You know him. He's also very revolutionary and he has other character traits. And oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, this is actually something worth talking about. The dreaded squeaky chair is no more. Yeah. It was, it did not survive. It's battle with me. I finally confronted it after all these years and it shattered under my weight. It did not win the battle against Speaker's ass. It was, it failed this fight. Yes. You lost Erndil's car. Now it's Cher. Oh no, that, that motherfucker is still here. Don't, don't, don't get it twisted. You can still hear him when he chooses to make himself know. Next up after that, we have, uh, Zoran the bear who never introduces himself. But Zoran the bear is deadly, is deadly illness. Apparently dying inside. Hello, Zoran. Zoran, Zoran, Zoran. Please let him rest his voice. Zoran, Zoran. Don't talk. Zoran, don't speak. Don't speak. I'll speak for you. Oh no. What's up idiots. It's me, Zoran the bear. You're all pawns to me. You mean nothing to me. I do remember when he said this. Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. It's like a normal bit. Why are we acting like we're surprised? Yeah. What we need you to do, Chad, is we need you to collectively wrap your hands around Zoran's torso, turn him upside down and squeeze until all the phlegm comes out. Yeah. If you could do that for us, we'd appreciate. Up after that, the other really great player that is joining the game because I'm GMing it is our illustrious game master, Thirst Unhillman. Thank you. That was not me fucking that up. That was me coughing. Thank you. No, no, it's fine. I'm very excited to join in on your session, Arndell. I'm really looking forward for all of you to, you know, to meet my new character that I'm going to be playing, Picturn Squelchfoot. I look forward to being this character in the campaign officially now. We know Picturn's been a bit of a guest here in the campaign, but I'm actually really excited for Picturn to just, you know, become the newest member of the Rockride crew. So, as you know, last episode, we introduced the concept of the MILFs, and this is why Picturn is being involved, is because he is going to go on the MILF-slaying quest that we are setting forward. MILF-slaying? Shh. Oh, yeah. Speaking of last session, what the fuck did you people do? Okay. Because I thought of them, Speaker. What have you people done? Just watch the episode. No, I purposefully avoided watching the episode and only listened half, like, half to people sort of explained maybe some. What have you people done? If you're only listening half to us, what the hell do you expect to learn? Well, Speaker, if you're missing context for the episode, what you could do, much like anybody else in the audience who's currently watching who has missed last episode, you can watch us on Narrative Declaration's YouTube channel and catch up with all the funny shenanigans from last week. Well, that sounds great. Okay, but is there anywhere I could go potentially to fund this project? Anything I could do to help maybe get access to cool behind-the-scenes things? Or maybe additional content? If you can support them, you can't stop this. You can support the show and our channels directly through our Patreon or, however, through Black Market means and funding our current war effort in a hitherto unnamed third world country. That's awesome! The third world country is the U.S. I want to start my own proxy wars amongst other nations and make them all live and die according to my whims. Hey, guys! Let's all say rock grind! Let's not shill other people's Patreons. There are better people for waging wars than us. All right, all right. Calm down, Patrick Bateman. You can only be so based here. All right. We can support Blackwater PMC's Patreon another time. Let's focus. Sit over! Thurston. Sit over! Thurston, where are we going today? Oh, you're the GM. I thought you had the recap ready. No. I got a recap. I got a recap for you right here, motherfucker. Oh, oh, stupid! Oh, oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god! All right. We can't believe it. Previously on Rock Grind. There we go. Oh. Our destined band of Chuckleflex dealt with the fallout of Gorgamunker's demise, with Tannhauser going offline and Vali further succumbing to her rotten state. They discovered Picturn's squelched foot, gazing off into the distance, only to uncover a crate belonging to the Medics Guild of Outset that had been cracked open and likely leaked raw rot into the ground. Tashri, the member of Tashri, the member of the distant Sudden Earth Kaibu, re-approached the party after they had left them to deal with Gorgamunker alone. And once they approached, they indicated and urged the party onwards into the Swamps of the Solitude after further discussion to go to the Sudden Earth Kaibu, where their leader might have some answers about their rotten state and how to resolve it. The group traveled, eventually discovering the strange ruins of something known as a Zeskorin reality engine, which Vali and Rahua gazed into. And as they gazed into it, Rahua found himself viewing some vision of a caravan under attack before he felt something run him through. Vali failed that check with no apparent consequences, and there's no notes in my GM log about what would happen with that. And then, finally, our group ran afoul of some rust chickens, Oren turned into a dinosaur, and then the MILFs, right? That's about it, right? Yep. Correct. I began a bit where I said, think of the MILFs and your rolls will be great, or something to that effect. And we proved that that did work for a brief period of time. And then we had to stick with the bit because we needed some insanity to go on to make things more entertaining. And so we did that. And now we're here. Mm-hmm. Now we are here. So let's hop on over to our fancy map of the Solitude region, which has now been updated with some new hexadecimals. Um, representing your journey through the Solitude so far. Oh, yeah. Um, having started off in the city of Outset, uh, you have traveled your way to Zabblezap's caravan, uh, fought your way into a crashed perfectite siege engine in the form of a strange cube, further carrying onwards, eventually finding a lake of acid filled with ghosts where you recovered a mysterious relic after, you know, recovering a ring that allowed you to survive the effects of acid after defeating the- the sawsaurer king in a magical grove. Then heading to Site B where you slew the rotten form of Gorgamonger. Then you later went on to see the Zaskoran reality engine, thanks to Jersh for letting us use their cool fan art of this. Uh, and then further carried on, uh, on your journey towards the- the Sodnirth Kaibu off in this general direction to the west. I'm kind of showing the map just to- to give you a sense of the progress and the paths you've taken here. Um, as we begin today's session, um, we're gonna actually start off right where we left off, with the last of the pharaoh raptors slain, and you sort of standing in his grove. One thing, uh, that had happened near the end of last session is, um, Baldrick, as you'd been sort of running to- to toss some bombs at one of these- these rust chickens, as they're known, uh, you've stumbled slightly on a corpse you'd found in the ground. Um, yes. Now that the- the- the pharaoh raptors have retreated away, uh, several of their corpses lining the ground here, some of them even, like, filling the air with an almost metallic cooking tang. Um, what are you all doing? At this point, there is also this- the winding of gears as Tannhauser comes online, um, and Oren goes through a transmogrification back into his Strix-like form from that of a T-Rex. Uh, uh, Baldrick is gonna check out the corpse of the person that he's stumbled over? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so- so you sort of walk trudging through- through the swamp, the sort of, like, slush, slush, slush sound as you approach, um, sort of rifling through, you can fa- you find, um, much to, you know, your- your probable amusement is that this person was holding on to quite a few alchemical items. Um, you see- three different alchemical items, um, on their person, um, and I'm just gonna get you to give me a single crafting check for these, just to see how- how well you can identify them off the bat. Sure, sure. Throwing out a crafting. Uh, alchemical savantik applicable here? Yes, absolutely. Okie doke. Throwing it. Uh, great. Ooh! Roll a nat one. A nat one to open our session. All right, well, um, uh, you know what? All of these that you've found, Baldrick, as you look at them, appear to be strange- strangely cobbled together, but, you know, cobbled together, um, like elixirs of life. Mm-hmm. So, they're- they're great- they're great healing tools. Um, now, along with, um, along with that, we- we would, however, have a, um, have a- have a- have a complication that would appear here. Um, um, and as you're sort of- sort of looking through this, um, you get- something- something flies out of the body that you're ransacking and hits you right over your visor, temporarily causing you to go blind. Um, and, like, through the- through the light of the sun, it kind of shines on this, and there's, like, up this advertisement that's blaring through at you. Um, you see the words, like, silhouetted by the light on over this paper, mutton king, just- just covering your vision. As this litter has- has- has hit your face. Baldrick's going to grab the fucking thing and pull it off of his visor. Yeah, you see- you see the- the trash wrapper of some establishment called mutton king. Um, and you- you basically have to spend quite a bit of time. Thank you, uh, thank you, actually, jurors for that complication of sponsored litter. Terrific. Baldrick, whenever he gets that off, is going to be so annoyed that he was originally going to inspect the life potions further, but since they've been cobbled together and doesn't trust anyone else's handiwork, he's going to not draw attention to them. Sure, um, so- so you've- you've kind of noticed these. You put those, uh, those away. You also notice, um, though- so there's a total of, uh, as you kind of look through everything, there's, um, five total potions in there. Uh, you also spot, uh, what appears to be a, um, like a- something further from one of the bodies. Uh, it looks to be like a- an interesting s- like stick, um, not- not even a stick, more like a branch. It's got a gnarled end that has, like, a gemstone clutched in it, like a blue gemstone. And then between that and- and this- this body, um, is a book and a, um, a small satchel that's just, like, pouring out gold into the- the swamp, but beside it. All right. He'll grab the wand or staff or whatever it is. He'll grab the book and he'll hoist the satchel up and start putting the gold back into it and just kind of show that off to the party. He's not going to even bother with the potions because someone else cobbled them together from what looks like garbage, so screw it. Okay, so you're just going to leave them there, then. Unless someone wants to, you know, come over and, like, drink one as a guinea pig. Yeah, fuck it, that sounds up my alley. Hey, my crafting check showed that they were bad, so, you know. Make of that what you will. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to pick one up and just sniff it, see if it's alcohol. Okay. Yeah. Um, it has a- it has, like, a strong tang to it as you- as you- you sniff it. Um, are you going to take a little- little sip? Um, I'm gonna- gonna kind of- kind of waft it. I'm gonna see what- what- what scents I identify here. If it's not booze, then I'm not gonna drink it, but if I take- if I smell anything like it. Yeah, you wanna- you wanna give me a little perception check? Yeah, just a little- Yeah, I'd love to. Sweet! I like it. I would absolutely love to do that for you, Thirsten. Oh, okay, 24. 24? Uh, you can tell that definitely three of these are- are similar to the- the- the, like, life-restoring elixirs you've seen in the past, and are fairly common. Um, and you could, like, maybe with a- like, another person taking a look at them, they might be able to identify the quality of them. The other two are definitely not, um, uh, like- like drink- well, one of them's drinkable, the other one is definitely not drinkable, and in fact looks to be more like alchemical, um, fluids that have been bodged together. Uh, Baldrick's disdain of them being so much, he didn't really even, like, inspect it too closely to note that this is, like, some kind of catalyst? Um, of, like, if you were to toss it or whatnot, it might, uh, create effect. Hmm. Well, I've got bad news. Yeah? It's not alcohol. I could have told you that. Well, I- I had to check. Listen, I'm out! Anyway, this one smells like a health potion. We've done these before. If you want to trust their handiwork, go right ahead for it. I'm not touching them. Okay. You gonna, uh, grab those three, uh, Volley? Yeah, screw it. Yeah, cool. Add them to your inventory, because if you die, you die. That is true. Well, now I've got Die Hard, so I get one more try. It's true, it's true. I have moved those over. Uh, there is still the other unidentified potion and then the, uh, the, the catalystic one as well. All right. Um, what is this? Can I draw Tannhauser over to take a look at the staff that I picked up, or the wand? Yeah, it's more, more the size of a wand, absolutely. Hey, Tannhauser. Ah, it is good that you have come to take to me now, for I have just finished my systems update. I should have been out for, what, two minutes? Yeah, that was a bit more than two minutes. You were out for, like, almost a week. Hmm. It's been 30 years, Tanny. No, it hasn't. All of your friends are dead. Look. They're not coming back to save you. The revolution failed. Holy fuck. Just look at this wand in front of the ears. I bet you did this. And I grab fucking Baldrick by the notes. You did this. Get off of me. I'll take a look at it. Distracted now. Um, it's the dead jangling keys. Exactly. All right, let's see what this is. Um, should I roll Arcana? Yeah, please. Oh, well, if you asked me so nicely, I mean, how can I do it? I would be a 23, good sir. All right, a 23 is enough to identify this. This is a wand. Um, this is a wand of crackling lightning. Um, so what that is, is it's, um, it's a wood, like, basically, once per day, you can activate it to cast a spell. Um, and you cast lightning bolt as a third level spell, but the spell's area is twice as wide. So it's, like, rather than just like a, um, rather than just being a, like, a single line at 120 feet, it's two squares wide. Um, and any creature that fails their save against it, um, is, uh, flat-footed for one round. I'll move that into, uh, about the people's loot, and you can figure out what you want to do with it from there. Most interesting. This is some sort of long-reached magical carrying device. It will shoot for the lightning bolt. I recommend someone in the back line use it. Perhaps you, Baldrick. Hmm. Wouldn't hurt to have a backup for a moment. Now be wary. Lightning bolts are well known for being relatively, uh, not the widest. This shall have a wider area of effect, meaning that you must aim carefully to avoid electrocuting one of us. Now, also, you probably need a spell caster to use this to know the right, like, activations and whatnot for it. In that case, I'm probably best off giving this to one of you guys. Hmm. All right, fine. Um, I'll... I think Rahua should get the taser. Rahua, zzzzt. That would be the funniest option, yes. Very well. And I'll give Rahua the wand. Okay. Oh, thank you for the funny gift. I will not put this to good use. I know. Right then. It seems as if we have accomplished everything we wanted to do in this particular area. Where to next? Oh, we have to get to the Kaibu. I'm going to add the gold to the people's loot, and I'll just read the book as we travel. Uh, yeah. So, as you start reading the book, even just skimming it, you realize it's a formula book for alchemical formula. Interesting. Baldrick is, uh, hesitant because this person clearly can only barely gobble together potions, but he'll read it anyway. Yeah, um, it'll take a bit of time, but you can do that as you're traveling. Tashi starts, like, following up as does Picturn, who picks up a bit of a toon. Um, also, for the record, there were about 280-some-odd gold pieces in there, bringing the people's loot up to 600 gold now. Oh, my gosh. So, yeah, like, that was a lot of money to be on someone's satchel in here. Um, I don't suppose this person... Before we depart, Baldrick wants to investigate the corpse a little bit more in-depth. Absolutely. Like, I'm going to check it for, like, insignias or emblems or anything that might identify them. I want two checks, please. Maybe by their, like, clothing style. I want a perception check and then a medicine check. Okay, I'll give you a perpeption. Perpeption? Perpepsy? Perpepsy. A doctor perpepi. Dr. Pepepy. Dr. Pepe. Rolling, and you'll get a 29. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, okay, okay. Uh, and then give me the medicine check now as well, yeah. Okay, Meddipson, that's going to be a 19. A 19, okay. Um... I'm assuming you're not wanting me to resurrect them. I think you should. That would be funny. I mean, we got a lot out of that in, uh, in good old war hams, I mean. Uh, that's just because, you know, Reap could get away with that shit. Yeah, there was a lot of payoff to that, too. Um, okay, okay, okay. Um, so let me just really quickly pull something up here. Um, because you do, you do find, uh, a few things on here. Um, I just want to give you a bit of a visual representation, and I need to load it into the thing because it's not there just yet. Um, so as you're, as you are, you are sort of looking over, you, you do see a couple things. One, um, the hands on this, um, this, this body have gloves, which you kind of, like, tear off. And as you do so, you can see the hands actually, um, have a fair bit of blistering on them, uh, which you, you would immediately identify as the result of, like, alchemical, um, explosions. Or probably fire is, is the most likely culprit of this, based on your, your medicine check. Um, then, as you are, you are looking, um, you see tattooed on the wrist of this individual, um, in what also appears to be, like, an alchemical, like, acid etch tattoo, is a symbol you have seen before. It is the symbol of Uncle Blaze. Mmm, funny. This, uh, sort of, kind of has, like, a wispy, uh, appearance with, like, a crook at the top. This, this strange arcane, well, not arcane, but, like, primal rune that is displayed. Hmm. How old is this corpse? Um, based on your medicine check, probably, like, a, maybe a couple days? Hmm. Uh, interesting. It's a blue Uncle Blaze. I think that's, uh, relevant to Mr. Lord's people. That it would be, they are devout cultists of following Uncle Blaze. Whether or not they are simply lackeys, peons, or... I mean, I would assume they would be peons, based upon the fact that this one blew themselves up. Maltric's just gonna nudge the corpse with his foot. Reckon this one got lost. Well, it's kind of interesting, too, because, you know, he had all these, uh, potion of pots on him, and all this money, and... Well, that seems like a lot of money for someone to be having. Yeah, and I'm willing to bet that this money was not necessarily sourced... Sourced... Hmm... Fairly. Or legally. Yeah. Yeah, it's awful. What about, what about the book there you got? I'm gonna skim through it some more. It's just a, it seems to be an alchemical book. It's a lot of formulas, and a lot of other notes that this person might have been taking here. I'm gonna take a look at it as we go. So, as you flip through it, uh, you find that it is a formula book, but, like, as you start flipping towards, like, just the back doing a skim, the back probably third of this, this tome is, has a cut in it through the pages, which is actually concealing a vial inside of the book. Hmm. Um, and this vial, like, has a, has a very different, um, appearance to what you've seen before. It has a, almost a, first of all, it has, like, a cork, cork on it, and then inside it's this, like, almost brown-orange, um, gas that seems to be bubbling around. I'm gonna do a crafting to identify that. Sure. Da-da-da, go. I'll give you a 31. 31 is enough for you to, as you, as you start looking at it, realize that this is a, um, this is a magical, uh, consumable, but it is also using alchemical principles. It's kind of a combination of magic and alchemy in that sense. Um, it contains what you gather to be, from staring into it, an elemental creature. Some kind of, like, fire elemental from the elemental churn that has been bottled into it. Uh, you could toss this, this bottle, and it would explode in the area you toss it. Like, two actions to toss it, then set it up. Um, and then it would, like, create an elemental that, as long as you expended a little bit of, and exerted a little bit of guidance and control, uh, in a turn, you would, you would be able to control this, this elemental. Hmm. Baldrick's going to carefully get some of his, uh, some of the packing from his, well, from his, you know, satchels and pouches, and he's going to carefully wrap this thing up so it doesn't, you know, shatter randomly. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And as you're, as you're sort of, like, going, going through this, um, you're, you're also able to, to do some skimming of the book, and inside the book you're able to, to tell that there are, um, a couple different, um, formula. One, there is, um, there is the, the, like, formula for a greater smokestick. There is a formula for a, um, lesser elixir of life. Um, and then there is one final formula, which you start sort of, like, perusing through and trying, trying to get a better sense of, um, for a, another magical potion. Um, which you would, you, you've heard of these things before. They are a, a ration tonic, uh, greater ration tonic. So these are essentially, like, they give you a week's worth of food and water and nourishment, uh, just by drinking it. Interesting. He'll pocket the book for now, and he'll inspect it more later, because we need to get a move on, and I see that Oren's going to be using learn a spell. Yes. To learn the scroll of Mossy Weapon. Yes, and so Oren is kind of studying this ancient scroll as you're traveling as well, uh, learning the ability to cast Mossy Weapon, um, which, you know, is a first level, uh, primal spell. And normally you wouldn't have to, to do, do it this way, but because this is an uncommon spell, it's some, like, ancient lore that's been lost. You carry on your travels, um, Tashdi, they, they continue leading the way. However, as, as this happens, um, oh, the rain is picking up. And in fact, you hear the, the booming of thunder in the distance. And as you are, you are carrying on, um, you notice that the sky is starting to clear, and you can see both the moon and the sort of strange glow of the rose wound off in the distance, which, you know, is, is, is that, that effect in the sky. But then, there is also, to the west, uh, like, a black cloud that hangs in the air. And as you see it, uh, you can see there's, like, crackles of lightning inside it. The, the just most ominous storm clouds. And though it's still far away, it almost seems as though the rain it's dispelling is falling on top of you, even though there are no clouds directly above you. In fact, as you carry on for, like, another two hours after your encounter with the, the pharaoh raptors, you are getting pelted by this, uh, this rain. Damn storms. Lovely weather we're having. Yeah, Volley's got, like, her coat over her head, looking like a, like a wet dog. I don't see why you're all complaining about this. This is quite nice, actually. Especially for the solitude. I agree. Who is just absorbing all the water? He's just growing. Tree! Why is he getting bigger? I'm not getting that much bigger. I'm just rejuvenating. When I was a young man, we used to celebrate when the sky cried. Maybe we should make the best of it. Who wants to make a little swimming pool? In the, in the swamp? Fine! You can just tell me what you really think about my idea. No, no, Tan, you know what, let's go find, let's go find a puddle, and we're gonna, we're... Okay. Alright. Alright. Alright, alright, let's, let's go, let's go find, we're gonna look around for a, for a, for a puddle. There are many, there are many puddles. So many puddles right now. I'm gonna look around for the most fun-looking puddle. Okay, okay. Uh, how about everyone give me a perception check for, for finding a puddle? Cool. I'm not helping with this. I don't need to find a puddle. Funny, you don't get to come to our pool party then. I'm not going into the, I'm not going into the stagnant water hulky crow. I got a, I got a 20. I got a 17. Orin got a, I got a nat 20. Whoa! Orin and Rahua are the winners. So, so as, this is appropriate, so as Vali and Tannhauser are looking, uh, are, are looking for the, the most metal pool, um, Orin stares off into the distance, seeing the, the immense black clouds further off. And Rahua, you have this moment of clarity as you, as you take a moment to look away from finding your puddles, briefly to look over at it and realize that cloud is moving very fast. Like, deceptively fast. And if you're getting this much rain and effects from where you are, it's coming over you, and it is going to be, uh, a natural disaster above you. Oh. Oh. Friends, I, I do not mean to rain on our parade here, but we should probably keep moving. Tannhauser, with a 20, you also find a great puddle. Look! I get in, and I just am not listening at all, and I jump up and down. It's like a car. It's like, Vali's interest in life. Yeah, Vali's gonna get in the puddle, too. Splash at Tannhauser. I'll splash at Vali. Oh my god. Rua, I assume, like, you're looking back at, like, the death cloud, then back at, like, your two friends splashing. Uh. Yay! Uh, friends, friends, we should probably get going. We, oh, wouldn't this be better if I put my magic disc in there? We could have, like, a little fountain. Yes! Yes! Yes! Excellent idea, Picton. I really cannot understate how great the situation might actually be. We could play in a puddle another time. It's not going to be good soon. I know, I can't overstate how great the situation is. Uh, okay, let me see. I'm gonna roll a stealth and slip away from the party. I hurt my throat for the... Oh no. I remember the scene. I can't remember the... I can't remember the... lane of the gas station. Oh, Zoolander. Yeah. Exactly what it's... Oh my god. Stagnant water fight. Anyway, Baldrick's going to stealthily pull away from the party and continue on towards where the Kaibu is quickly. Okay, okay, so you, like, start making your way towards these, um, these, like, woods to the northwest, slightly continuing on, sort of, like, trudging through, uh, pictures. Like, oh, is it really that bad? The stagnant water party. Yay! Friends, there is going to be an absolute disaster above us in a very short amount of time. This storm is not natural. It is moving far too fast. We need to go. Oh, shit. Do you want to give me, uh, survival or nature? Anyone who has it, whichever's higher. I got you. I got neither. All right, survival coming at you. Survival. Uh, not great. 13. 26. 13. Ooh. Hey! Oren survives. Oren with the nat, the nat 20. Um, so Tannhauser, like, believes the best solution is to play in the stagnant pool with a 13. Um, he's, he's just having fun. This is just a little rain. You know what? I'm going to re-roll that. I'm going to hero point that shit. Okay. We have a nat 20! Well, no, because here's the thing, here's the, no, because here's the thing. If, if, if, if Thurston's saying, with a 13, Tannhauser thinks the best solution is to play in a puddle, and I also have a 13, I don't want that. Then maybe, maybe your character is thinking, maybe I shouldn't have left that puddle party behind. Um, okay, so with the, with the 22, all right, so with the 22, Baldrick, as you've kind of, like, rushed off from the rest of the party, uh, momentarily, you, you sort of have this pause and, like, look up and realize, um, this is, this is not, this is not going to be something you're going to just be able to trudge away from. In fact, it's, it's hurtling towards you so fast now that your only option is to, like, try to construct some form of shelter, um, or just, like, basically hunker down and try to, try to weather this thing out, because there really isn't, there, there aren't many options here. Okay, um, Oren, uh, sorry, one second, uh, Oren with the, the 37 has this, like, similar, uh, moment, and in fact, with that, uh, can, can, can immediately recognize that your, your options here as far as, like, skills with which to maybe weather this, uh, would be something like crafting, survival, or athletics even, to just try to, like, construct enough of a barricade and, like, use trees and, and cover and your own equipment to try to, um, like, create enough of a, of a chance to, to hide from this, so to speak. Now, all that being said, um, with, with, as, um, Zoran has mentioned in the chat, that following the expert, in this case, Oren is definitely an expert, um, with what is like, with, with what, what he is seeing, and can, can certainly, basically grant all of you, like, a plus two bonus to any of the checks you're gonna make to try to endure this, if you decide you need to endure the awful storm that's coming down on you. Uh, looking back, having been conveyed the severity of the situation. Damnation! I don't think we wasted so much time playing in the puddle! Why didn't anyone warn me?! That's okay. You only live once, Danny. I'm going to harm you severely. As soon as I get my hands on that cleric font, you are in so much trouble, mister. And, uh, I almost said Zoran, uh, Tan Houser is going to, uh, start looking about. Back in the waste, we needed to survive dust storms of over 80 miles per hour. That was on a good day. We need to build a fortification that can survive this water storm. Orrin! What do you know about surviving water storms? I assume Orrin is just, like, grabbing necessary supplies and quickly trying to craft something. All right. That's a good idea. Um, uh, and, uh, Tan Houser's- Yes, uh, we should definitely be doing this. Tashdi sort of pipes up. We should definitely be building up a- And, like, Tashdi's- They've already sort of leaned down and begun, like, pulling out some of their own equipment to try to set up some kind of stable shelter from this. Uh- Is this a normal thing, Tashdi? Does this happen a lot? No. Not with- And, like, they look up- Not with- That thing. That- The- The- The-The-The-The Papa's domain doesn't- Doesn't come here often. Oh. Well, I'm used to Papa Storm's domain. Ha ha! Oh, dear. Uh, okay. So, at that exact moment, hey, uh, Odoroshi Ryder, do you want to give me a reflex save? Why? Cause you must dodge the rain. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh... But- I can't- No! Why? Ladies and gentlemen, nat one. I- I love- Odoroshi Ryder did not activate their stamp. No. No. It keeps happening! It's my- It's my- It's my- I have a plus 17! One sec. One sec. Just give me a moment here. Uh-huh. Yeah? All right. Um, all right. Uh, Vali, you'll take 59 points of electricity damage as you're like, I'm used to Papa Storm's and a lightning bolt comes crashing out of the sky, skewering you through your rotten chest. Um... How much else do you have? How much else do you have? I'm at about a- Uh, hold on. Let me- Let me take that. Uh, do I just click the damage button? No. Ah. Uh yoo yo yo yo yo- You could just manually adjust it on your sheet. That's okay. Yeah. That's okay. It's all good, you know. Um. Oh. Okay. As that happens, now- Now- I'm at about a 22 out a 90. That's good. That's good. Um, we, that was a, that was a save, so- Um, you know, and that was a natural one, right? So- Oh, I complicate. yeah exactly like oh it's great um right because we love we love complications here and we also love making the the players suffer um great great great great um oh gosh okay okay okay okay okay hostile god hostile god i'm gonna use this one uh here uh that's positively abrahamic up in here that's just entitled you have failed me with failed all in caps um you know which is from uh acolyte of pooksy thank you um the player character is confronted by the ghostly specter real or imagined of a uh loved one that only they can see and the specter uh proceeds to castigate you on how you have failed this person so what are you what are you seeing after being struck by a lightning bolt volley um oh goodness yeah what what what like as literally your life flashes before your eyes after being struck by a horrifying lightning bolt from a horrifying death storm um what what figure do you see from your from your past or history oh gosh uh volley would probably see her mother uh a tall sylph figure uh a sort of swarthy looking individual with this uh carved uh white ivory peg leg um uh yeah yeah and and and what what is your mother telling you uh probably uh castigating volley over her inability to predict the storm you know we're the people of the wind how dare you splish and splash around in a puddle i raised you to be a better captain than this and uh to the rest of you volley gets skewered by a lightning bolt and slightly like tumbles back that doesn't look good uh i'm going to quickly come to volley's side and just try to shake her make sure she's still conscious yeah okay papa storm i'm sorry i'm sorry mom i'm sorry papa storm my god she's hallucinating mothers this is pat uh i'm going to uh cast resist energy on her okay um so that's not going to do a whole lot this is the best i can do uh so for the next 10 minutes uh you will subtract you have resistance 5 against electricity thank god that'll actually be that's actually it's useful but it is very funny because it's like volley is standing there smoking covered in char like a sim from the sims 3 who just got like set on fire yes and and and then comes on the dairy bit and is like he just starts spraying her with like a hose that's making her like electrically resistant it's like ah the rubber now now that i have properly insulated volley um i'm going to just kind of pick her up who can heal this rua uh i'm still okay i can do the best i can all right i'm going to put volley on the ground then i'm going to start looking about are there trees in this area uh there are like a few stand stand trees like desiccated dry ones you can see that tashti and orin are desperately trying to like construct something with all of the gear and things like trees to give you some form of cover and shelter from this yeah i'm going to uh aid uh because i actually know how to construct large wooden structures okay crafting speciality um and so i'm going to be taking my weapon i'm going to be carving down trees i'm going to be tying them together uh and i'm going to be trying to create at least a solid walled structure that we can take shelter behind yeah give me a give me a um the crafting check absolutely give yourself a plus two bonus from our dear friend uh orin who uh like nailed the the perceiving this threat absolutely um i will give myself a plus two uh yeah and we just have that here and then i'm also going to activate my nanite surge since this seems rather important maybe maybe so just all all servos on full blast complete focus on this task okay uh that's a 21 i will hear a point that okay hero point you know point hero quest broke well that didn't go terribly much better um but 19 it's still better than it could have ahead okay yeah you're like you're you're you're you're desperately trying to get materials and like you're helping by getting materials but it like you're you're just unable to to really grasp exactly how to approach this because it's like build a house in the middle of a storm like you're you're just like unable you're used to building like larger um you know structures not quite in as as immediately pressing circumstances as you're in your friend has just been struck by lightning tannhauser you're kind of looking around um yeah yeah seeing the situation is as it is can i try one more thing okay um the storm is like almost on us right yeah like the the sky seems to get particularly dark all right looking at this we don't have time find a sturdy tree tie yourself to it right and i am going to be the last one to do this i'm going to take my climbing kit and i'm going to try to reinforce um the most sturdy trees around us with some uh pittance uh and try to just make what we have as good as possible knowing we're gonna get buffeted by rain but at least maybe if we tie yourself down to a strong tree we might not get flown away into like i don't know a giant pit of death or something okay okay okay cool cool cool um so volley you've been struck you were about to administer some healing correct i am i was actually going to ask uh because it's normally i would do this in combat uh if i was to use something that has a sustain up to one minute healing spell such as i don't know positive attunement uh would assuming that the light does not get struck by lightning get or have further damage uh would she just then take that uh healing effect over time or might be permitted to cast um let me check here oh so so so you can sustain it so what that means is like you can spend an action to sustain it for up to 10 rounds basically so just take an action from you to keep sustaining the effect okay yeah i said the difference here since we're not in like action economy state yeah like at this point like i just assume you're going to sustain it and then like be a bit slower on other things of course so yeah with that in mind then rahua will go to the smoking the smoking cartoonistic figure volley and slap her on the back and like cheer up it's not all that bad this rain is still quite sorry mom oh yes like i'm i'm not your mom but look how nice the night is isn't that wonderful and you just really you need to have a much more positive outlook here anyways you you glow now what enroll and bolly will start glowing a a lambent yellow i'm having a i'm having a hard time because i'm imagining the goddamn dark elf from the beginning of oblivion also appearing in volley's vision just saying you're going to die here sylph you're going to die uh baldrick um what are you doing uh baldrick's going to take the travelers any tool from the part of the people's loot and he's going to begin to uh uh he's going to begin to use it to help pitch a more secure resting accommodation in the shade of a larger tree that he can find hopefully yeah do you want to give me a crafting check yeah sure whatever yeah i'll boil you okay engage boil me do it do it up can i use seasoned for crafting food and drink no no uh i'll give you a 32 oh yeah like like baldrick baldrick is just calm and composed during this like he's a lot calmer now that he's not near the party yeah exactly like oh okay i'm gonna set this up you know and as you're setting this up in fact you're able to give yourself a little bit of shelter but that's when you notice um as you look back at your your group as you're sort of taking your your final moments to set up what little shelter you can with your any tool um you you see that like you know you you get a lay of what's going on like um oran and tashti are quickly setting up stuff tannhauser's rushing around trying to help a bit frantically who is healing uh volley who's on the ground and then in sort of just like the middle of the clearing is picturn who's waving his hands back and forth as magical runes begin to dance on them is he summoning more lightning i hope so but you like like you are you are arcane trained so like you know or a cult trained i don't think unless you have a cultism uh you're not you're not quite uh up to speed on exactly what like what picturn squilchfoot is doing listen whatever he's doing it'll probably cover them in like a giant bubble of like waterproofing and that's fine they can have that baldrick wants to stay away from them for right now because the last memory he has of this particular moment is volley and tannhauser sitting in a stagnant pool and splashing around like a pair of ducks okay cool he needs he needs some time to himself are you fucking kidding volley please no okay i want you to know i want you to look at the the way that the current background is arranged right okay okay you'll notice i i just rolled a seven sided dice okay i want you to know this is not me picking on you time for that resist energy give me a reflex save you would love to this chat lightning does strike twice oh my god i saw the one and i almost shat luckily i have evasion so that is a critical success my friend um well when you roll a success on a save that's a that's a success that was watching lightning yeah i'm gonna hero point it okay okay oh my god no yes here we go here comes the one let's do it i'm gonna shit my pants i'm gonna shit my pants go jack nicholson yes sweet christ it's worse oh it's not a one though it's it's not a one it's not a one it's not a one it's not a one it's not a one it's not a one it's not a one it's not a one and there's just double damage yeah you'll take 24 this time it's like a second bolt comes crashing down no no no remember thurston she'll only take 19 19. okay so i'm not down i am however at 2 hp where is her healing thurston apply the healing healing i will allow you you uh it heals 1d8 immediately so you can give me 2d8 for the time that has passed yeah i thought so that's cool volly could you please start drinking those potions i'd love to now volly gets 11 back on oren's turn he would like to cast vital beak what what turn are we in combat with no we're not we're not like i'm i'm trying to to do this very um very much like okay some of you are trying to make shelters and someone you're getting real close you're getting real close get lightning rod volley out of the out of the hang on a second i just want to do something here real quick mm-hmm okay that would have been that would have been rahua next it would have been very okay thank you thank you her and dill i appreciate i appreciate that you were rolling the dice that that is a gm thing to do i appreciate it i'm glad i'm glad i could rub off on you there thurston i figured it would be very fair if you got to you know you know if i didn't take the limelight so yeah it's true carry on with with electrocuting volley yay yay all right so oren uh stops uh assisting with the the the setup to to begin casting a beacon of of energy to to help heal um as this is going on tashti is continuing uh their work um tirelessly trying to to like create shelter um and then picturn is now like standing there continuing to speak and like wave and magically and can't um let's go to uh rahua next and then we'll go to volley after what are you doing rahua if you already cast a first heal and then your friend got struck by another bolt of lightning okay wow that's this is super unfortunate for you volley could you could you possibly try and get struck by lightning less please doing my level best okay laid down after the storm cloud rumbles in response to that all right well i guess we're going to cast a i'm gonna use my cleric pot and heal volley again okay yeah absolutely all right what do we got you're fine i these are always so fucking confusing because i've got like a bunch of heals in my spell sheet and then it's just clear fun it's there well he's gonna get that sick-ass lightning scar that people get where it like fries their nerves oh god i guess i'm gonna spend another action to cast or two actions to cast heal and then volley will get another 1d8 of healing on top of that too because of positive two men i'm going to i'm going to throw this out here and it will get odo to play much much you know more effectively odo if you die you get to play pick turn according to gc rust in the chat boy picture oh everybody wants a bit of the squelch foot i'm gonna shove you into a box he hated that all right here we go uh volley die less okay thank you uh and and um um if you see chat there maybe you want to touch her in his shoulder yeah yeah i saw it a little extra for a little extra for 4d10 rohua touches his shoulder thank you oren thank you that feels so nice nice all right how much do i heal roll roll another 4d10 oh so i heal eight you said oh i have a roll for you too because i'm just oh yeah oh that was from your positive energy yeah yeah oh i see dealing one d8 positive damage okay so eight and a six okay reach to you to 27 that's much better i can survive another lightning strike maybe uh volley what are you uh yeah there we go there we go yeah there's some real healing from the real healer i'm gonna walk up to oren do the the the spider verse scene where i put a hand on his shoulder hey hey oren hey oren thanks for the healing dawn of war mission objective complete sound okay nice oh so tashi rolls well yeah tashi does it worse than you no no no i just don't have tashi's bonuses factored in so oh right i rolled a natural 18 for tashi who uh does manage to uh to avoid the the worst of a strike that smashes the tree above them um just as they're finishing up like some work on a shelter um but the lightning bolt like seems to seems to strike towards the shelter as though focusing on it rather than tosti it does singe tosti a bit but all of you can tell it seems as though like this storm has some kind of malign intelligence um then we'll cut to tanhauser who's wrapping a rope around his waist i believe last we left him off what are you doing tan and hauser is not wrapping a rope around his waist he wants you know you help those that need the most help first um so instead uh have we found a particularly sturdy looking tree uh yes that was just the one that was struck by lightning it's still holding but it's like been damaged is there another particularly sturdy um not particularly in the immediate area um though as as you're sort of looking around for this you do see picturn standing there waving his hands around okay so we'll probably do this in this case i am just going to try and grab rope and i'm going to try and tie everybody to this tree i'm going to call over everyone come here this is our best way to survive the storm uh and uh whoever comes here i will tie to the tree okay um who is who's going to get tied to the tree i feel like being tied to a stationary thing is not good for me right now can we bury voli so she's having come here yeah i have to succeed on one of these i swear to god can we can we just bury voli up to like her neck like dexter's dad was that one time so she's just going and then she's going to drown now she's a sylph no i i'm an air i'm an air sylph yeah that means you have air i'm a sky bitch do sylphs really breathe air i mean as this happens picturn's incantations cease as bursting forth from the ground is the cozy cabin that's a good idea too let's get in that which big chicken runs into the cabin i'm just imagining tenhouser immediately 180-ing on his plan here and he just uproots the tree alongside himself i'm going to eat some cabbage just like that i was like no i shouldn't have tied myself to this tree no the cabin wait i was very specific he was tying other people to jack so he could get in the kitchen he just leaves no one no one gets so i guess nobody i guess he was just tying rope to the tree he's like come on guys tie yourself to this tree cabin beers everyone has a choice like yeah we gotta board up those windows fine i guess all i guess i get the tree all to myself speaker please make me a roll and see if you tie yourself to the tree all right should i off does tannhauser obey his own nature is he a coward oh you're right oh god is he committed to the bit a man chooses a slave obeys oh god no i'm going to go into the cabin because no one no one uh tied themselves to the tree and there's no reason to not go in the cabin like orin is calmly reinforcing the cabin as zorn has said in chat he's used to this weather so it doesn't mind at all it's like the cracks with mud yeah and baldrick is just watching all of this from afar in what is clearly like a trench i have i have reinforced my position with my pup tent i am fucking keeping it real i am just hiding under here i'm gonna have stew sit outside so i can collect this weird ass rain if it's just rain great if not that's even better um the storm continues for quite some time uh once you manage to get inside of the the cabin you are all protected um the the the blasts of lightning not doing anything damaging picture and sort of like like reclining back and forth as he sits on one of the beds in there it's really like stuffed with all of you inside the cabin it's not meant for this many people you know there's all sorts of storms that used to go on and and uh i i do good in storm storms are good storms are good i i like storm how about do y'all do y'all like storms you feeling storms right now you know usually my people have the favor of papa storm but i think even god's abandoned me what why i i i i turn my crispy head toward a picturn i don't know picturn why do you think well um maybe it's uh maybe uh i i don't i don't you know maybe it's kind of like my my brother jim a miss he had a he had a he had a a prize ha ha ha i don't like storms and he puts his hand in his like little hands oh i pat his shoulder there there little guy we'll probably survive i appreciate zoran making the cabin on stream oh no that was that was me i wanted to draw the cabin but instead i got into the measurement tools now i just made a ray and a rectangle so you know good it'll do i don't want this to happen i don't want to i don't know what's even happening with us that is a very sort of like leans is is is he always like this is he okay he's just chatty and he gets chattier when he's nervous i don't want to talk about this right picture yeah yeah yeah i'm very i'm very uh that's not just like you know i just i have so many family members and oh boy this is just stuff going on and like as this is happening orin is continuing to just like board up and reinforce the structure no you know and then then you know the only person who's really been honest to me he keeps shutting off at random times why you leave me like that 10 000 picture and i know that you are very upset you are very emotional right now and this is understandable would you like me to read you a story to calm you down okay i love stories you know i have so many stories in my family you know there was there was that time in the in the in the bake sale you know that that was the thing that happened the the bake sale though yeah yeah and we'll get on the couch and i'll i'll comfort him and i'll put a hand on his shoulder i'll open my book and i'll say the history of all hetero exact existing societies is the history of class struggles freemen and slave patrician and plebeian lord and serve guild master and journeyman in a word oppressor and oppressed stood in constant opposition and this goes on for some time thurston he's reading he's reading marx's big book of marxism please help what's this big book of marxism yes good okay that's what it's called that will fill the air alongside the blistering wind and the crackling of thunder wait we've we've summoned we've summoned six zoran yes oh that was hulky okay okay it was that was me okay so for who i didn't go into the cabin okay okay i'm assuming he's the only person outside right now yes and and baldrick who is in his like little shanty yes baldrick likes the way this sucks yeah it's what's it's currently away from the madness for a moment i would like to observe the storm because this is not a natural storm by any means it's definitely something as we've no doubt seen that is made with ill intent can i seem kind of weird because of how general this is can i detect magic and see if this is some kind of spell okay yeah absolutely you want to uh give me a perception check sure oh it was almost bad uh 32 you stare up now now detect magic has a range but i'm kind of flubbing things because you know cool factors you're trying to like detect magical and energy currents that are traveling in the world uh and looking up at this this pitch black cloud that rumbles with white explosions at strange intervals and you stare into it and as you stand there uh your arboreal form looking into it uh give me a reflex save oh yeah we're who i get closer to the storm to understand how stormy it is begin flying absolutely i will i'm gonna double checking if i get bonuses to reflexes because of my funny uh funny necklace oh yes i could have swore i got something like that oh yeah yeah the the pendant of the people yes just double checking the people the people the people mr perception the people no i think it's fine yeah not for this one where can i i'm gonna hear a point that yeah that's uh that seems like a reasonable idea i don't know you're the tech you can take the heat yeah even if thurston max is out on you you'll still live that doesn't matter okay 27. okay okay okay okay so that's still a fail but yeah not a but it's not a critical fail like it would have been um yeah um so as you stare up you you do detect magical energies and you can see that this this is a like conduit of raw primal power um like the the magic that orange channels that you've you've seen from druidic forces um this is like a raw untamed un untouched version of that and as if to punctuate it and to punctuate your intrusion into its order a crackling bolt of lightning smashes into your shoulder causing you to stagger back slightly rahua well i guess i was asking for that but it rumbles in response i rolled a rain rain go away come back another day thank you oren so this is definitely magical in nature now i mean i'm grasping at straws here sensing the horrible primal forces at play rahua feels in a way a bit more tuned to the chaos in that inimical to that's not the word i want to use i don't know how to speak today there's a lot of chaos in the system that is lightning and storms there is no order it is raw power untamed and unbound and in a way he feels some sort of kinship to that but with that being said rahua is going to try and further manipulate the entropy within the system and try and cause the storm to dissipate by adding so much entropy that the storm will just fizzle out and basically collapse upon itself like a fire consuming a fire i'm gonna try and dispel magic i just might as well okay okay yeah um all right so we haven't really done this before yet have we um doing so doing some counteracting all right all right all right i am okay so this will be oh gosh uh this will be a counteract check um so you add your relevant um let's see here so you're doing dispel magic and should i just hit the counteract button and just go for it yeah do it here we go oh fuck happy with that uh i oh i have another hero point baller uh i'll i don't know the last the last great hero point the last final hero point who will ever have because he's dying right now oh yeah let's go 29 okay um so so you like you've stare up into this storm and like okay for anyone who's who's listening to the show and like uh we're actually searching dispel magic is a range of 120 feet fuck off this is cool um so so rahua you're staring up into into the the the the great um the great storm that roils in the sky um and in fact you can you can feel these sort of chaotic forces in there and then a bolt of lightning comes skewering down and as the bolt comes towards you it comes within 120 feet of you which allows you to dispel it because you know haha i got you um and you you you let off this effect and at a point there is there is like the the bolt of lightning pauses in the air and shakes slightly before recoiling back um and though you don't dispel a like a an immense primal force of this nature you seem to dissuade it slightly and as the the lightning recoils back the cloud seems to stop slightly and then begins to drift off even the rain seems to take on you haven't dispelled this storm by no means this vast um almost cyclopean in size uh primal force just veers off as though oh that's annoying and then twists and the only witness to this cool thing was baldrick rahua staring up at the at the cloud not gonna sugarcoat it to spell magic this is not our fight for today we can do this another time baldrick is seeing all this as he's putting stew out and planting his little feet in the dirt so he can collect rain huh probably should have tried that trick more than once are are you in the immediate vicinity of the cabin urndale or no baldrick has set up his pump tet and he is like a good like maybe 20 or 30 feet away okay yeah i didn't know if rahua would have noticed him at all but yeah so having done what needed to be done rahua will go back up to the cabin and walk inside it's like walking storm's done uh yeah you you walk in everyone sort of like looks up or at least like pick turn and tashti look up and like somewhat shock surprise see you with the still charring shoulder blast from where you took lighting uh and like you can see that like pick turn has stopped paying attention to marx's book on marxism and it's like oh oh no are you are you okay did orin part of the door oh shit it's okay it won't stop rahua yeah jack nicholson shinings his way in you know um no no i assume the door is is open so you you manage to like like pop your head in and yeah picture and looks up sort of in shock the storm is abating now friends we may wish to continue making headway lest we run the risk of losing our quarry up ahead what i thought that the storm would rage for hours it seemed that the storm and i had a disagreement it may come back later but it seems to have glutted its fill of misery on us for now you you calmed the storm i wouldn't say calm so much as dissuaded it from continuing to bear hell and fury down upon us but pardon in in a way i suppose you're just you're just like you're just like my brother stevens they always said that when he tried the pipes that it would keep anything away yes just like that weather is in the natural world is just as much a conduit for entropy as any living being the planet lives breathes and acts of whims far more inscrutable than our own i can't pretend to understand it but i think i see some sort of kinship towards it nevertheless it shouldn't harry us for at least a little while so we should try and still get closer while we can i hope everybody else is doing a bit better for who will try try and make what passes for a smile with his very rictus grin tree if you can do that sort of thing to storms once we get out of here i think i might have a job offer for you oh well wherever the wind blows i suppose huh i suppose how the fuck did he do that well we might as well just take what we can get okay yes but we're not far from the from the kaibu i just maybe uh maybe one more rest and we'll be there okay so is everybody good let us journey on take advantage of the miracle our friend has performed for us yeah we should probably hustle and uh with that i will sadly have to close my little red book before proceeding onwards yeah so everyone's like like disengages from the cabin uh baldrick you you see this as the the storm has has now sort of ended around you and you look up to see your companions all walking out of the cabin preparing to continue on fair enough he'll he'll pack up his stuff he was ready to tough it out but i guess we're just gonna push through it yeah makes sense i mean if we don't have to worry about lightning obliterating us for now for now yeah knock on wood punches rahua um we owe him our fucking life right now bro for who it takes a spell strike damage and dies wow all right shall we uh shall we take a quick quick break yeah yeah you know what this is a good opportunity for us to take a break and then we can come on back to uh yeah what yes sounds the light continue whoa whoa we're back we're back hello back wow oh i just saw pika t's fan art all right welcome back everybody hey thanks how's it going wow wow wow thurston yes off well you survived the storm somehow somehow some way and uh you've continued moving on oh there's a there's a fun little hex here look at that here's a here's a new hex as you make your way and finally reach the kaibu all right no okay so uh after after roughly another eight hours of journey um the the sun is sort of sort of coming through hazy gray clouds that have overtaken the area after whatever that monstrous storm was has blown off into the distance as you travel ahead you find a settlement of structures they're standing atop ancient stones similar to the ones that you saw last session uh the sort of just like stone platforms except these ones actually have um lodgings on them uh there appear to be about a dozen huts and wooden structures uh you can give me a crafting check if you're uh trained in it please uh crafting yeah crafting okay i'll give you my crafting i go to i'll give you i'll give you mine yeah mine is not very impressive i was almost in that 20 23 28 yeah um so all of you would have enough knowledge to recognize that these structures are intended to be easily dismantled and moved um so like just just the way that even like some of these buildings like you see what appears to be like oh this is like a wood log structure but it's actually set up in such a way that like the walls could be torn down and the wood could easily be transferred and even some of the accoutrements and like leathers and like reptilian hides that are being used to enhance the structures are also set up in a way that they could easily be removed um as as you you you see this uh tanhauser with with your role you would also um note that the way the structures look to to be right now is that they've probably been set up for a couple months at this point so they're they're fairly settled in um but like they could easily still be disassembled intended to be that way but these people have been here in this location for a bit this isn't like oh they set up yesterday um and as you you kind of approach you see people milling about there's a variety of different ancestries here but probably about two dozen people at least that you're seeing uh some of which are humans some of them are churn touched which would be like sylphs or you know ifrits that sort of thing uh you see some dwarves even all sort of just milling about most of them are are in like leathers or hide uh clothing they they look up they seem to take note of you know your your eclectic band and then they pause a bit when they see tashti and then just slowly go back to their to their endeavors ah nomadic lodgings you haven't been here for more than a few weeks ashti nods and they're they they look yes you have a good eye for that um the kaibu's move between some of these these foundation areas when we can mostly so that we don't um over over over harvest in an area or earn the ire of something like papa's storm as we saw things like that events like that can be quite deadly what are the origins of your people what brought you to this lifestyle mostly where wanderers or people who have discarded civilization every everyone's story is different in that regards i i came out here um at a younger age uh to to try to to find more about my own uh earth-touched ancestry uh but everyone has their own stories there are some who are are generational the uh the the elder uh and like tashti turns and they as they say elder and like they look off to one of the uh not larger structures but one of the more like embellished structures and an old human man walks out with a a balded head and white hair along his sides a kind of fine like beard and braids going down a going down a cloak and this figure sort of like does a hunched walk towards you ah hello there tashti who've you brought with you tashi who have you he pauses and he seems to just be taking in all of you um but like his eyes seem very fixed on folly oh sorry uh i was i i tossed my hair i was struck by lightning oh if i were a bit younger and you were a bit less rotten oh i like you oh that is something you can tell at a glance now awesome also a very weird thing to say sort of like waves the finger he's a lech and then he gets starstruck again um this time his his his eyes are still towards voli's general direction but not not on your face voli instead definitely focused on your your hip he like cut like waddle like trudges forward a bit more is that is that a is that a flask what's in it is it alcohol oh well it used to be rum some of that please it i'm sorry man it used to be rum but i've been out for a few days it's a lot of alcohol here it's and the stuff we make is honestly it's piss shit oh damn it i was i was hoping that you would have alcohol oh where are my manners hello i'm speak well i'm i'm not speaker athon is the best way everyone calls me the elder though i'm not the speaker that's that's going to anyways hello hello who do you speak for well the the the kaibu here this is the sodden earth kaibu i'm i'm assuming that you were told about this yeah yeah we were we were informed pleasure to meet you my name's uh voli this is my uh pleasure to meet you valley he's like gives a deep nod uh always a pleasure to meet a fellow drunkard uh these this is my merry band of chuckle fucks rahua baldrick tanhauser orrin your band okay the people's band of merry chuckle fucks why are you calling us it's a pleasure to meet you oh you're a you're a something and he like points up and down to rahua yes i did you eat the tree or did the tree eat you ah more more column a than column b strix we don't see many of uh many of you out out round these parts very good very good very good side skip yeah orange throwing up yeah oh well now that okay okay and turns and you oh oh you you have you have some some kind of mask thing going on um um and your hair is awful red that's the interesting and you have goggles for eyes oh the things the the the the types of fashion outset gets up to now i swear tanhauser is sad everybody just shell shocked no he he just he is he's just like and you oh oh go ahead tanhauser if i may ask you are the leader of this kaibu as its speaker yes well yeah yes yeah that's that that's correct you know i'm i'm in the process of training the the next speaker uh uh jedi uh is a adorable little child this is one of the cutest things you've ever seen oh he you know he's really happy he likes his blocks right now he's in the block phase he has like he's you know he plays with blocks all day he says cute catchphrases he's the most adorable little child you've ever seen but currently he's in the russian gale kaibu and he's on loan and they're in the far northeast so he's not around at all on loan yeah a little foreign exchange oh oh we're exchanging children this is kaibu title forgive me i'm less than familiar is this a hereditary title a cast no it's no what are you talking it's based on destiny oh of course it is how do you determine destiny well um not with those and he like points two fingers at your goggle eyes you've got a it's more it's more like here and he pats around his his chest uh oh yeah right around here tapping over his like heart briefly ah good good yes right there that's how you know destiny intuition i see and is there a selection process oh oh yes yes you see what we do is every year we send five of our children into the swamp and they go in single file lines and then what we do is we leave them there for eight years and any of them who come back they're destined they're destined i'd like to talk to you about other things now she stares at you with this just like grandfatherly smile look we're here for a particular reason before we get too wrapped up in the history of the kaibu and your people all right oh i haven't told you anything i've just been fucking with you for a bit now oh okay that is actually pretty good so why would i tell you about my culture when you come in here immediately like i don't even know who you are come on in and get at least get some bad drinks come on you too bucket head i want to hear what you have to say too and he turns and starts like waddle walking towards his uh his hut well disgusting alcohol is still alcohol and i'm sure i've had worse you're gonna you're gonna change your tune on that i uh i look at our stone skinned guide was aif ashti who who has this just like like absolutely mortified expression on their face was everything he just said a lie oh oh yes he's he's absolutely just except for jaji of course the the the young speaker that that was true and and it's he is with another kaibu but that's a learning process and we don't send our children into swamps to to live for eight years that's so stupid why would he say that and like as if on cue hey as he goes into the hut all right go now i gotta teach you how to make touch tea do you have any advice on how to make this man less irritating don't don't make him angry what and he's teasing you but he's testing you we just got here let's not try and change the locals to be something more palatable for us we don't have to stay don't misunderstand me i'm not attempting to usurp cultural tradition i'm attempting to survive it right oh best not to leave him waiting i'm going to go check in with some of the others here best of luck oh thank you so much tashdy this is good this will be fine i like this fella i figure him and him and i can talk up a storm you know oh no he's probably right all right quickly let's go before picture makes it will uh not keep faith on waiting quickly let's kill picture again come on come on let's get a move on okay okay okay so you go and you go into the in into the the extended like wood hut lodging um where there there is like hot steaming drinks available for all of you and there's no chairs here it's just sort of like um mats on the floor which athan sits down at ah very good very very very good well well but so so okay i apologize i apologize i haven't been incredibly nice to you but it's here i don't see people you're all so different and interesting ah yeah what what brings you here i mean i i i could probably guess about five different guesses but please please tell me look why don't we just get to the point of this we aren't exactly here on pleasure all right he's nodding drinking so suffice it to say you can tell that bali is obviously quite rotten he's going to jerk a thumb over towards bali oh yes oh rotten just seeping with rot actually yeah she's not the worst of it he uh well well i mean she is the worst of it excuse me she is the worst of it at the moment but he then points towards orrin he's had a he's had a pretty bad go of it and aside from him we've all got something going wrong with us with regards to the rot well looks over squinting briefly well definitely you two definitely you two orrin and vali all right oh especially especially you oh you're so you're so rotten i mean oh boy oh just one of god's funny little jokes oh no there's nothing funny about it you're like two steps away from becoming whatever those things are that sometimes pop up and you do not want to that oh it would have been one were it not for a great feat of effort he's like taking the sip of his drink we came this direction because we had heard word that we could possibly learn something from the twank folk regarding this current condition of ours and well we're here and we're hoping we can at least make ourselves useful in a way to pay for whatever knowledge you want you can give us all right are you going to have some of the drink it's very good i made it today i don't drink much volley i'm gonna i'm gonna try some yeah um so so you like have like it's it's it's a thin but very like warming beverage it's it's like you you go to take it like like like like like a drink but you realize it's more of a broth oh you also as you take the like a sip of it you hear like a like a clinking sound from the bottom of of the the wooden cup you have i'm gonna look inside kind of squint one eye in yeah um it's hard to tell because like the like the cup itself is a dark wood and as you're as you're looking down into the bottom of it it sort of like fills up a bit um you and you kind of like swish it around hearing something there's something at the bottom of this that's like clinking together drink up you're going to need it all of you probably especially you though oh so rotten i don't even know how you get that yes yes i i'm aware i'm gonna okay i'll have gin yeah pick out the whatever's inside it's hot but it's not like and you put pick out what appears to be like a chunk of a knuckle bone yeah let's uh is this for flavor oh absolutely all right who else is anyone else drinking this baldrick's still waiting uh i'm going to examine my drink before i ingest it knowing this man is something of a prankster yeah yeah it's the similar like exactly the same like kind of like a fairly clear liquid with some sort of hue to it that's hard to tell because of the the dark color of the cup um as you're sort of like shifting it about you you hear the jangling as well meanwhile like you hear slurping from like picturn oh this is this this is fun what is he drinking any of it oh yeah he's been drinking it like off and on the whole the whole time okay i can't help but notice a bone what creature did that come from oh well well uh it's from uh it's from several creatures actually you could say well it's also from one creature oh this is real good picture and says oh god oh oh there's like there's a lot of little bone bits at the bottom is this like you collect them is this like a game you play here you you put them in the bottom of some of your broth and then you you trade them and see if you can make a hand or something um thurston may i roll a uh christ can i roll like a what is there any way i could try to figure out like if i'm aware of what this is like i don't know something like a society well or a crafting if you have like any kind of oh actually i do i will use yeah uh nature uh for oran who is doing the same here checking the bone i'll i'll actually give me a nature check there oran oh not not for oran not for oran with a natural one um so so baldrick here you're taking a look at this and then like you start to click some things together as this happens you all hear this like oh gosh let's see here like i i assume that in order to uh to to like figure this out oran like tries to put a bit of the bone into his mouth to get a sense of something you know and there's like this cackling coughing from poor oran um which you know that that's uh that's a problem i'm trying to find a good a good skill off option here um oh yeah yeah yeah okay here we're gonna go with uh this one from good old gc rust in our list which is shock and awe which is um oran has no idea what this is um like kind of briefly chokes a bit on the uh like a bone bone piece in an attempt and then just like is now fascinated by the old man who's like continually rambling on this is a shock and awe so oran is essentially fascinated just by everything else even after the coughing in the bone and is just taking everything in right now um where can people submit their own complications thurston they can do so at our patreon at patreon.com slash narrative declaration where you too can sign up and submit your complications which wow when the players roll a natural one which happens more than we gave ourselves credit for it's very true um baldrick with your check you're able to to recognize like some of this like first of all it is it's a bone based broth but based on the type of bones you're like as you're like your your helmeted gaze goes over the room like this is this is a very strange type like the only place recently you've seen this many bones was a was a tree that you encountered uh baldrick is going to place the bowl or cup of broth down and kind of lock his fingers as he looks towards uh as he looks towards athon excuse me he's like smiling widely hmm would this happen to be bone broth oh yeah you've got a keen sense of smell like i can't and eyesight i guess it's just osteogrove bone broth what's that uh well oh volly we've encountered one in case you didn't recall oh i wasn't there for that yeah that's right volly wasn't there for but we we told her about it yeah well we drink for caltrops the osteogrove is composed of many bones not limited to animal ones oh oh are we drinking people might have been oh there aren't people anymore they're dead listen i appreciate the hospitality i'm a little averse to partaking of my own people yeah well you do it all the time anyways but but all right all right all right fine fine fine but i apologize i was trying to be a nice host but apparently offering people broth not very good uh broth composed of perhaps bones of humans is a little bit frowned upon outside of the cut well hold on hold on if we don't want to be inhospitable to our guests this is so good delicious rahua will fucking raise a a spoon followed up to his his gob and pour it in very clearly trickling down the plant matter below his chin as you hear a unsettling i don't know how to describe this sound because it's so fucking esoteric but the sound of groaning metal vast and intractable as the soup bowl held to his core the the soup inside of the broth inside rather begins snaking up like uh like an accretion disk around a black hole gets sucked into parts unknown i i can't wait for just like my god used to make i can't wait for a shp lovecraft's new book the soup in the stomach because that's what uh he hasn't put that he hasn't put on anything in a couple years i hope he's okay yeah i know right well um i thank you for drink consuming whatever whatever that was anyways all right so you're here to help your friend very noble very very noble very all of us technically but yes well none of you are rotten except for those two now yeah what what what there is some more to this story well okay let's spit it out i mean i'm all all ears i i've got big ears that's part of the thurston can i give him a truncated account of how we were selected by the gods more or less to do this nonsense because because much as i would love to i am currently battling my own throat affliction yeah yeah i i assume we like you know have have the the the recapping of certain events i'll tell them about how we fell in the pool how we all came back technically how we all spawned there how the gods pretty blatantly made it apparent to us that we were destined or chosen and the big fire told us all about it too as did the murals and all the other funny stuff and every time they die they come back somewhere else rottener interesting very interesting you see that what that tells me is a few things one obviously oh you've been sponsored and based off where you're coming back auntie drown likes you which kind of fits in given that you've come here very good very good she has a sense of humor that one oh excellent he like seems to be chuckling at some like inside joke that only he knows good good good oh she's brought us a gift good good good well all right so you need help with your your rotten condition that's that's the basis here it's clear you've been given a sponsorship by our uh our great and and divine auntie drown this is good this is good but but but like pauses and sort of looks over all of you again but there are certainly some other things here at play your timing very very fortuitous we have a problem that maybe you could help us out with sounds fine yes we expected to pay him for the service anyway exactly good good good good now a few a few little little points one you've asked if we can help you with your condition points to oran i can't help that at all well sorry my my my winged friend but no can't help you you're you're you're too early and once once you kind of get the the seed in your it's hard to to get out only really powerful powerful beings can do that but we might be able to help you later on hold on to that you points to volley you well we have someone here who might be be able to maybe wind back the clock a bit for you really oh oh yes yes yes yes just just a little not a lot you see you're you're you're so rotten like look at you look look at how rotten i know i know and so so so we have someone here who could maybe pull a little bit out i think we have all the necessary reagents for it but maybe you can go see biana later and she can she can help you you know for a cost of course we can't do everything as charity out here we need our money sometimes you know we have to trade with the the the bug and other people to make sure it's all good zablo sap that's the one yes yes now sorry for all that all the talking you know what i would say is we can pull pull some of that rot out maybe and this isn't a guarantee this could go real sideways real fast in fact has a chance to make it worse too so just just so you know but there is a being who could help you powerful entity that lives in this swamp who might might be able to fully remove the taint of the rats that sits in both of you my friends it's a powerful powerful spirit that dwells in this swamp venerated by many he stares at you in have you ever heard of cried animus oh oh that checks out wait what he puts his hand in his like he puts his head in his head oh my God, you're such an idiot. Crondanimus isn't real. No. I know that. Aww. No. He will know of your apostasy. Sorry, sorry. We have so many people who come who come find our Kaibu and are like, oh, do you all worship Crondanimus? And it's like, no, no, we don't. No, you broke my heart for a moment because I thought you would be one who would believe that too. Jeez. The humans somewhat lost when we're trifling with a terminal condition. Just as long as she's not running headlong into combat or risking her life in every second turn, it's not like it's terminal yet. We killed a dragon outside of your Kaibu. What? Yeah. We tend to get in a lot of trouble. Oh. It doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon either, which is why we're looking for a solution. All right. All right. All right. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. The entity who can have help your problems is is the is the servant of is is the servant of the great balance as ribious. I'm going to I'm going to lean over to Baldrick. Is he fucking with us again? Can I do a society? We're going to this would actually be a nature or religion check. All right. Someone else better for it. Baldrick's going to lean to Oren for nature. Ruhua will also roll for this one because Ruhua is surprisingly versed in nature. One of you guys make us look smart. I got you. Don't worry about it. With the 29, the 20, 29. Oh, sorry. Oren with 26. Ruhua with the 29. So for the sake of poor, poor Oren's voice, Ruhua, you and Oren would know first of all that Balanzaz is the sort of Druidic name for Auntie Drown. So when he's referring to like a servitor of Balanzaz, that's a servitor of Auntie Drown. The term ribious is a bit different and it's obscure, but ribious is like a powerful aquatic spirit associated with Auntie Drown, a kind of like manifestation on time of Auntie Drown's presence and like a bequeathor of gifts and abilities. Yes, I am familiar with both of these actually. Balanzaz is the more, the proper name for the vernacular known as Auntie Drown and ribious happens to be somewhat of an avatar or bursar of powers related to the deity herself. Aquatic spirit of some kind I add perhaps, but nonetheless one blessed with this deity's powers and able to bestow them upon others. Ergo, one might assume that ribious may be the person we need to give this divine intervention to the both of you. That's a very simple explanation. I like it. Good. High marks. Oh, you got a good grade. Oh, okay. I was, yes, my name is not Mark, but I'm glad to hear I scored well. All right. Now, now, again, the timing on all of this, very good. You see, our Kaibu, we move around, as you've seen, we set down on these foundations which have been here since, whoa, since, before the people of Outset ever dared defy the old powers and caused all of this badness. Now, we move between these places to settle down, and when we do so, we have agreements. The reason we go to these foundational places is because he pauses again. Well, Outset and us have a bit of an agreement and we keep some of the more nasty gribblies at bay or keep them informed of the goings-ons here or sometimes send some of our members into the city to help out with problems like, say, the little rotten situation you're dealing with. In exchange, they send us supplies. For our Kaibu, we take some of these supplies. You might see them around the camp. Yarna keeps a couple of them. But, but, the vast majority of those supplies end up going to Ribius's Grotto. now, there's caravans. They drop off goods and then we have some of our servants take them to the grotto. But, recently, these caravans have been getting attacked by hooligans. fire-wielding hooligans think they worship Gathrim, but they don't. They're on my people's land. They need to get out of here. Aethon, I have a question about these hooligans. Okay. What was the last time you had seen them? What direction from here, roughly? Oh, well, if I were to pull up a map like this. He pulls out his fucking map. Yeah. What's this terrible line? Someone's defaced it. Oh, that was me. I was helping out. Hi, we haven't met. My name's Picturn Squelchfoot, sir. It's a pleasure to meet you. You know, I really like all your stories. I feel like you and I could get off. You know, I had a bit of a well, it was an uncle who used to tell really good stories back home and like Aethon is nodding. Yeah, this is really told some good good stories, you know, about well, there was oh gosh, the the the fire second fire. The baking contest. I've told you about the baking contest, right? About an hour later, we finally get to the map. I like I like now that you're like this is an endurance match there, see, like we're not going to interrupt it. You're going to have to just you told us it is up to us to interrupt. I can listen to this all night long. However, there are only so many hours in a day. Holy shit. There was the car. Okay, good. Very good. All right. you pull out the map as like like Baldrick you can get pointed a sort of looks away from picture and looks down at the map. All right. I see you've you've kind of done a bit of a let's see if you've gone like south bridge. Okay, you've done sort of a almost like a stretched out you here. Oh, you've been going quite away. I found that cube. I guess you helped see Oh, the old the old pond temple. Oh, the other the first house church. Oh, you've yeah, the pond temple is the buried one that was under the acid lake. The lake's no longer acid. You're welcome for that for whatever that's worth. Oh, solving a bunch of problems here. I like all of you actually. You've got gumption. You're coming in here. You're doing things. I like it. I need more kids like you. Oh, and then you went to the reality engine from Zeskoran. Wait, what? Yeah. Right right there. Listen, Tannhauser, we have so much stuff on our plate right now. I understand that there is stuff on your plate, but you didn't think to inform the cybernodecly augmented makus that you had found a reality engine. You were offline for three days. Yes, I know, but since awakening, I hadn't heard a word of it. We'll need to make that a priority. Yes, I know what a reality engine is. I happen to be an expert on Zeskoran lore and machinery. Yes, we've seen the reality engine, and now we're here. Where on the map have you last seen the children of the blaze? Okay, well, you see the line that your friend squelch turn, pick bum, whatever, he did it here. Yes, so right around where you have this ominous don't go here line, that's where we usually meet up with the caravan, so they drop off their goods. Now, they've been kind of further out here. I would guess that's where the travel range, but yeah, the last time we've seen them has been around out in this area. all right. If we go that direction and we take care of whatever nonsense Elort's men, the children of the blaze, whatever the hell they want to call themselves, whatever they may be up to, and possibly meet up with the mercenary group we sent out that way to figure out what the deal was, we'll take care of that. How would you like it taken care of? We could kill them probably, in all likelihood, or maybe just ward them off. I just don't want our caravans getting attacked. You don't have to murder a bunch of people. It's probably how she got so rotten. Listen, if they choose to get murdered, that's up to them. This guy's really intense. Have you noticed that? Oh, yes, I noticed. Oh, we've noticed. That's just part of Baldrick's charm. It's true. He's very charming. I wish you could be more calm, Baldrick, like me. Baldrick is prepared to take a sedative for six weeks. Mom, I'm going to drill. It's a scorn reality engine. One sec, Bob's pill wakes up six weeks later. No, I'm not going to miss out on Tan Hauser's story. Are you kidding me? I want to hear why he's so fucked up. Now then. Well, okay, regardless, I'm just saying, I'm not asking you to murder these people. Now, if murder happens, I understand. I've done my fair share of murdering in my time too, you know, just like one time I was with this elf woman. Oh, she was so good. Let me tell you, elves, they leave you eventually, but they have some of the best relationships you'll ever have in your life. Okay, thank you. Oh, sorry, so anyway, so what I was going to say here is, um, if you deal with this problem for me, then the Kaibu, then I will show you where you have to go to meet Ribius. is Ribius one of yours? I guess that's like asking, you know, oh, if there's a patron saint of the church like your first house, does that mean that the saint is one of them? Sometimes kind of not. Ribius is, well, Ribius is Ribius. He's a slow-talking kind of powerful entity. We all respect him. I mean, everyone outside there, they're in complete awesome. I mean, look at me. I've been doing this job as speaker for 60 years now. So for clarification, Ribius is not a citizen of this Kaibu that falls under your jurisdiction. Ribius is more akin to a third-party entity. Ribius is a house-sized elemental. So, no, he doesn't fall under my, this, he probably wouldn't even get out of his grotto anymore. I suppose you wouldn't pay taxes in that state. Probably wouldn't, no. You would be surprised how many people come to join a Kaibu not to pay taxes anymore. There's a lot of them. Very interesting. I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep that one in mind. Why did you kill, why did you kill Mr. Lord? He tried to make me pay taxes. Understandable. Yes. Scam. You're out. Very well. I believe we have our mission, but before we go, I'd like to ask you a few questions. Okay. Have you become aware of an increased excess of rotten activity? Well, you mean presence of the rod out here? I mean, certainly, it's been off and on, but one of the Kaibu's roles is to combat such things. We keep an eye out for it. There are younger folks who go out and, like, Tasti, I mean, we didn't know what was going on there. I haven't even really had a chance to talk to Tasti yet about what was going on in the forest where you had but your vigilance may add more context to something. Our friend Orin once called a dragon his companion and, we have reason to believe, possibly agents of Outset brought that dragon here and experimented on it until it became an abomination of rot. Well, one that's really messed up. I don't know anyone out here who would do that thing, but there's people from the city who come out here all the time. I mean, when you've got a Zescoran reality engine in your backyard, people like to come snooping. Zescoran Yes, about that. How did you manage to obtain a Zescoran reality engine? Well, okay, so, Outset is the oldest city of time, and so people like to try to come and conquer Outset all the time. So, we have a Zescoran reality engine. I'm pretty sure there's the corpses of at least eight dragons in here. Big, big, big, proper-sized dragons. There's a Perfectite siege tower that you saw right over there. I'm pretty sure there's at least one anarchite deconstructor somewhere out here, too. There's all sorts of leftovers from prior sieges and wars. That's what this place is. But, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, the old powers, they just gobble it all up. Nothing, nothing lasts forever in the swamp. The swamp takes all. That's why I picked the winning side. I suppose you have. Now, this reality engine, it's simply one of the many things in the swamp. Your Kaibu doesn't claim ownership. No. You just let it sink more and more into the swamp every year. couple centuries probably gone. Excellent. That was my questions. I believe we should move quickly to tend to this situation Elort has placed us in. Are you going to help your friend out first? Yes. Of course I am. these things are all related. We need to stop the caravans in order to gain access to Ribius, yes? Yes, but you're going to take your rotten friend, your very rotten friend, like so rotten, you're going to take her to Bjarna before you go, right? Yes, ideally. Thank you. We need at least some kind of, some kind of stop gap solution in case things go south, east of here. If things get really dicey with the children of the blaze, I'd rather still be able to keep swinging. I can come. All right, all right, well, you'll find Bjarna's, hers is at the farthest out from the Kaibu. She's kind of a, has mostly like a charred wooden, lots of bones and trinkets there. She's part of the Kaibu, and we all love her, but she's a bit of a on her own type, so, you know, but she'll help you out. She will definitely help you out as long as you have some coins. We have plenty of that. Good. I'll give you some equipment too if you need, you know, if you need a new bucket or something. I'm fine with this one, thanks. Oh, I'm not going to upgrade buckets? Right? Upgrading buckets seems like a good idea. I am keeping this one. Fair enough. Baldrick is going to just place his cup aside and make for, are we in a tent? Like, it's kind of like a, like, it's not a tent, it's, it's like a halfway yurt almost, like it's got wooden supports and structuring into it. He's going to make for the tent flap. Bye! I'll be waiting outside. When we're ready to move on, let's hit up this healer. I concur. Agreed. All right. Okay, so, so, Volley and Tannhauser and Baldrick and I'm assuming Orr and Rahua, are you also departing here? Of course. before leaving, uh, Rahua will chime in. Oh, well, if Tannhauser is asking a bunch of questions too, I would also like to ask a question for you. Oh, you're the one, you're my favorite, yeah, absolutely. You're a tree, I'm going to use you for kindling. Oh, I don't know how I feel about that. What is your favorite color? What is your favorite flower? Are you susceptible to any diseases? Are your people going to fall in time? I need to know. green, rabblebush, um, susceptible to disease as well, you know, luckily that elf lady didn't have any. Um, and are my people going to, no, my people are doing fine, just as long as I, just as long as between you and me, little Jedi gets out of his block face. I've got to train him on everything to be a speaker before I die. Of course, thank you for being so candid with me, I do appreciate it. Uh, and Rohuo will fish from his, his chest of drawers, aka his chest, uh, some fertile soil and create, what was that, the flower he described, a crackle bush, or? Uh, like, I think it's like a rabble bush, yeah. A rabble bush, yeah. He'll create a small flower from, uh, the fertile matter within himself, and, in a shade of green, Lusgris Frudent Viridian. Oh, I like that. Put it right over here. Thank you, thank you, no, I like you, I like you a lot. He, like, stares into the orb, and he's, in fact, probably one of the only people you've known who stares at the orb rather than stares into your eye. of course, of course, just a small trinket of our appreciation, and Rahua will look over towards the flower, he will observe the small display, he'll get in real close, and whisper something, and I'll expend a fourth level spell slot, and I will say no more. Hello? Okay, okay, okay. Touch of death! shh, no, ominous, ominous Rahua is ominous, um, ominous, oh, I see what you're doing, uh, okay, okay, okay. I'm scared. Yeah. Okay. And then you walk out? Very much like it if Rahua did not plant C4, tree 4, if you will. tree 4. Rahua walks out, the bomb has been planted. What? The phantom exterior. Yeah, as you walk out, you can see now the sun is starting to set, there are some, like, lights and small torches that are being set up, um, all around the the caibou, but then there's, like, a distant, like, a distant structure. This one is, um, similar style to, to Athan's, kind of a yurt-like half construct, half, half tent, um, that, like, has, like, has fires around it, but they almost, like, glow a, a greenish flame. perhaps worth investigating if we come back here, as we are in a limited time scale, so we had best see to this healer woman first. Oh, that is the healer woman. Oh, good, then we will go there and dunk. All right, Vali, prepare to hold your breath. You must be dunked in the fire. That must be what he sent us here for. Oh, wonderful, wonderful. I love being set on fire. Dunks your head in the fire like the, like you're bobbing for apples, but you're bobbing for fire. Pain. Just shouts pain. That's the Nexus Scorrin engine. The Scorrin pain engine. True. I'm gonna draw that one. Don't create the torment nexus. I'm going to create the torment nexus, so we go to the torment nexus. We go to the doctor's building. Yeah, so it, like, as you approach, there's this, like, wind gush that causes various, like, bone charms to jingle and jangle, like, wind chimes that have been set up made of bones and small scraps of metal. Then you see that there are these, like, sconces that are put outside that have, like, a green fire to them, almost like a, almost like a, I don't know, it's like a goblin green, let's use that citadel paint, color fire that gives off this illumination on the, otherwise, like, darkened black wood of the, of the hut. Witchy. All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take point, as I'm the one dying, and I'll, I'll push my way inside. Okay, yeah, you, you, you push in, and this place is cluttered. It's full, like, it's a circular structure, but the interior is, like, actually a smaller circle in the center of the circle of this, because everything else is just stacks of knickknacks, trinkets, bottled corpses, like, animal corpses, all sorts of just strange things on display. There's a, like, an assault on your smell as you walk in here, as, like, you, you get a sense of, like, alchemical, taste in your mouth, but also just, like, a rankness? Like, like, spoiled meat? Uh, can I do a crafting to figure out if that is some kind of alchemical practice? Yeah, sure, give me, give me that, um, as you kind of, like, poke your head into, um, as this is all going on, at the center of the area, there is, like, a wooden desk that has been set up, and behind it is a, is, like, a hooded figure, like, his hood covers their face, there's, they're very, like, short and stocky. What's a 28 get me? A 28 is enough for you to tell that, like, what you're, what you're gathering here is, like, the, they're, these are all chemical preservatives, and as you kind of look around, you get a sense, like, the, the animal corpses and stuff, the smell of decay is not coming from them, but is coming from something else. The animal corpses have actually been properly preserved. Hmm. Baldrick's going to address the figure at the desk and is just going to call out to them, Controlled decay or has something gone off? Oh, something has gone off. And, uh, the figure raises up their face and what stares at you is like a dwarven woman's face with half of the side of it ripped open and missing, musculature exposed, like, the skin is, like, peeled and torn in some areas. This is, this is a zombie who stares at you. Oh. Oh. Um, to try not to be rude, Vali's gonna do her best not to make a face. Hello. Hello. I apologize. Uh, whatever for? I do my best for the smells of other things. Hmm. Baldr's gonna step in with Vali to the, uh, undead dwarf before us. You enter my home. I am Bjarna. Pleasure to meet you. My name's Vali. This is Baldrick. Yeah. Nice to meet another alchemist. I only use basic alchemy. I am more of a practitioner of divine sciences. Hmm. But thank you for the respect you show me and that you do not run away in fear. And, like, you can tell, like, her vocal chords just do not work. Like, the way she, like, says things, like, just, like, comes out and wheezes and then, like, scratchings of throats. Like, she, like, she cannot sound natural. Hmm. We've seen plenty scarier. Yeah, we are fine with your presence. Don't worry about that. Appreciate it. But why have you come in here? Did Aethon send you Yes, Aethon sent us here. Um, we were informed that you're a bit of an expert in reducing rot contamination. I'm gonna sit down in front of her and kinda pull my eyelids down. I do not have the eyes that old Aethon does, but I see now you are afflicted. I have some tools here. I can perform a ritual, but it will not cure you. It will only pull some of this back. She says the last like it's exerting her to say it, but it's very clear that that's just how the vocal chords work. Well, buying time, if that's the best we can do, it's the best we can do. I'll take what I can get at this point. Yeah, Maldrick's going to pull out the extra bag of cash that we picked up. How much are you looking at? One moment. and like she pulls out she pulls out an instrument that appears to be like a silver wand, but the end tip of it has like a clump of moss that grows on it. And she's like sort of like waving the wand over you, Vali. I must see your strength of character. All right. What do I need to do? Just stand there. You're lucky. You have a powerful persona. you, you must be destined. Yes. We have gives like a smile, which is really creepy because like, yeah, half of the side of her face is just raw muscle exposed. Oh, um, you have a wonderful smile. Uh, I, I mean, we have been sponsored by, uh, I believe we were informed anti-drown. but then you have a destiny. I had a destiny once. You were sponsored? Oh, no, no, not lucky like that. I, well, like, Bjarna shakes her head. But you're lucky because though you're powerful, you're still in my realm of healing. if you were just a little bit more, just a little bit more on your journey, then I couldn't do this to you. Uh, well, glad to see that we caught it. What do I need to do? What do you know of nature or the occult? Um, well, let's see. Olly has, uh, occultism zero and religion zero. Vali just, well, um, I know how to spell it. I see. If you knew, it might have made the process a little bit easier, but no matter, I'm sure my skills will be up to the task. Uh, Thurston, yes? Is this going to fall under a medicine? No. Okay. In that case, Baldrick is going to think on it a little bit. He's going to hold up a finger. Hold that thought. He's going to step out of the yurt for a moment, and he's going to try and flag down Orin. Orin. Going to ask that you, uh, come here for a bit. We might have need of you. I assume you just sort of like pull Orin in with you into the yurt. Yeah. Um, and like, Bjarna looks over. Hmm. Afflicted, but I can't help that one. No. He can try to help you with volley. like, Oh, no. Bjarna shakes her head. This ritual is too personal. Me and the afflicted. The afflicted is the only one who can help when I begin. Outside help won't matter here. Maldrick's going to narrow his eyes at her. Yep. I see. Sorry, Orin. Welcome to Watch. I would take any assistance you could give, but I'm sorry. I I must be the one to do it since none of you know the ritual. Then we'll wait here and we'll help if we can. I will need 140 coins of gold to trade for the reagents who use the moss. The moss. The last of the moss we have. We can gather more though, but it takes time. The primal moss doesn't grow as much as it used to. Hey, Thurston. Yeah. I have the capability of creating a moss bomb for this purpose, not for attacking, obviously. Could I, in theory, synthesize something similar using my butyr agents? So it's like you can't like you know use your agents because they're like temporary compounds and such. Yes, but I can craft. You can, you can, you can certainly craft like like realistic moss. So in a long-term situation, you absolutely could craft for this, but this isn't something you could do on like a short term. This would take like days, maybe weeks of crafting to get like the right amount. Well, how long are we going to be here? depends like okay, let me, let me phrase that a different way. Yeah. Bjarna, how long will this ritual take? Remainder of the evening. Right, fine. Noting that Orin's going to observe, Orin will, or, you know, Orin, Baldrick will acquiesce and he'll just retrieve and count out 140 gold coins. Who is going to be watching this ritual? Baldrick definitely is, but we also don't want to crowd the freaking tent, so Ruhua will as well. Ruhua, okay. Tanny? Tannhauser could watch and give support, but is there anything else more useful he could be doing because Tannhauser, well, I mean, I guess if there's, it's not exactly an arcane ritual, is it? Well, you don't know. that's fair, you know what, in case it's arcane, I will watch and see if I can take notes. Is there a way we can all watch without interfering with this space? Absolutely, like, she has you sort of, like, pull back, and she begins to perform the ritual, which does involve, like, burning various rare primal moss and other constituent components, particularly taking different items from the swamp, again, some of the bones, some of the earth, there's a little bit of this, like, strange fire, there's metals, all of this is, like, weaved together. If you have occultism, you can give me a check here, or nature, actually. Nature or occultism, for those observing. Yag. Yeah, get on that, because I don't have either, in an appreciable amount. Yep. Oh, look at that. Oh, stinky, trying to, okay. Well, the orange 28, I'm not gonna, oh, well. Okay, I will also reroll. Hey. He tried. His best. Oh, my God. I saw it on that 19, too. Our rerolls have been terrible this session. They have been really bad this session. All of you are watching. The most you're able to observe is that this is a nature-based ritual that does have occult components, and in fact is probably primarily occult. I'm gonna reroll this one. Oh, okay. Uh-oh. I thought I was out of hero points. I have one more, apparently. Thank you, whoever did that. Do it. Do it. Do a tree. Do a tree. I'm gonna do a thing. I'm gonna do a thing. Do a tree. Do a thing. Eh, no. Okay. Still better. One better. Enough for you to recognize that, like, with proper training, you definitely could, like, have the potential of learning this ritual. But, this ritual is, is like occult or nature, so you could use either. You'd have to be an expert in occultism in order to cast it. By the way, this is the purge rat ritual that appears in our character guide that is available for free on our nerddecoration.com website there. I'm shilling. But, as you're watching this, you're seeing that Bjarna is finally taking, like, taking the final steps. And this goes on for a few hours of which, like, you know, you have moss applied to some of the more egregious areas of your skin where you can almost feel the crawling underneath. The whole time volley, as you're getting tired, you're kind of hearing these, like, sounds in the back of your head. These whispers, but they seem to get doused as any time the moss touches you. And then, finally, Bjarna is going to roll a d20, and we're going to see how this ritual goes for you. Let's see. A ten. A ten. A dude! A ten. Bjarna finishes breathing somewhat heavily after the exertion of moving around, but again, it comes out as wheezing. And you realize the exertion's not a physical one, it's actually like a mental manifestation. of just what she's had to do here. And as that happens, you feel slightly less weighed down, Folly. You feel slightly less burdened by outside influences. Oh no, she took her leg off. And I have just taken you down to Rotten Tomb. Yay! We're back where we were before the dragon fight. Yeah, as Bjarna finishes this and looks at you, and she shakes her head slightly, that is all I can do. There's no more that can be done. To remove more would take beyond my power. Yeah, Volly's gonna sit back up and roll her shoulders. No, you did your best. I feel better. How do I look? Am I still pretty? Are you asking that to Bjarna or the party? I'll ask that to Bjarna. Bjarna gives like a slight smile and just like nods. Okay, turn around. As you turn around, you're not in the hut anymore. You find yourself in the swamp and you smell fire and smoke and you have figures running around. Something's on fire. There's shadows. Someone's being shot in the back with a flaming crossbow bolt. Another person is being stabbed with what is a flaming dagger. You're looking around. There's dozens of figures. You're staring at this massacre. There's several carts on the muddy path that crisscrosses through puddles, some of which these puddles have face down bodies and some of those bodies having crossbow bolts in their back. As you look around, you see off in the distance something familiar. And, Vali, you see, standing there looking at this same carnage is Rahua. and you see a shadow rush behind Rahua. And then as you look, it appears momentarily like the shadow is running through Rahua, like through his back. And as just as it's about to pass through, you're looking at your party in Bjarna's Yurt. Hey, question. Yeah? Are there any side effects to this? Dizziness, nausea, I don't know, erections lasting four to six hours? Visions, maybe? There should be no visions from this only if the rotted tainted your mind, but this would have cleansed that. I look over Rahua. Does he look fine? Yeah. Still very much agree? I think I saw the children of the, why would I be seeing the children of the blaze? where'd you see them? I, it was just, it was the swamp, it was, everything was on fire, and there were corpses, and something rushed through Rahua's back. Oh, you saw the vision too. What? Wait, wait, wait, wait, huh? You saw that? Yes, when I gazed upon the reality engine, that is what I saw, portent of things to come, I believe, or maybe even an alternate set of events, perhaps? Although, with our current goings-on, I reckon it very well, it is more likely than the former than the latter, that there is something coming, reckoning, with the children ahead. And that is almost exactly as I had seen it. Okay. The shadow rushing through me, as if fleeing. Hmm. Did you see anything happen to you in this vision? Besides just the shadow passing through you? No, that was around the time that it had ceased. as the caravan was on fire, crates overturned, burning, screaming. Corpses, it's a massacre. Yes. You, your caravan isn't planning on moving anytime soon, is it? We aren't moving for some time. Wally, this is the caravan that comes to here. Right. And I think with that horrifying vision of things to come, that's what we'll call it. Wow. Wow. We'll have to call it you get two massacres in your campaign. That's all you get, though, is only two. I only allow two. Only two massacres per campaign. It's okay. It will be wonderful. Yeah. Well, thank you all for coming to another exciting episode of Rot Grime. Were you muted? We all forgot that Zoran was dead. You simply forgot that Zoran is ill. We were like, ah, that's it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, we have an outro. Of course, we have an outro. Hokey, you're doing such a great job. Continue. Yeah, continue. Please. As always, thank you all for coming down and supporting us here at Narrative Declaration. You can always find us here at this channel every other Saturday. In fact, every Saturday now, we have Rot Goons on alternating Saturdays and then occasionally Abomination Vaults on Tuesdays. You can also support us over at our Patreon, patreon.com slash Narrative Declaration. I think there's something going out in chat for that. Zoran knows more about that than myself. But you can also support us over at our YouTube channel as well. Again, links are to be below or in chat. But as we have been here, I am Hulky Crow. I play Ruhua. You can find me at the usual places. Next, of course, we have the gallivanting, less rotten swashbuckler, Gali, played by... Yes, the slightly less rotten swashbuckler, Gali, played by me, Odo. You can find me on Twitter at Odoroshi Writer or on our Discord. Yeah, great session today, guys. Feeling, feeling fine, feeling fresh and dandy, feeling like a million dollars. Well, or more like 160 gold. Well, 160 gold shorter. True. But all the more worth it. And of course, we have the ever-pensive calculating mastermind of the chuckle-fuckery Baldrick, played by... Erndel, you can meet me at Twitter at Erndelio for now, until eventually that hell site collapses in on itself. I'm also found on the Discord and on Tumblr, too, if you find me there or wherever the hell. It doesn't really matter. But yeah, fun stuff. Up next, we have the... to the yet-to-portally displaced, ever-forward-thinking revolutionary Tan Houser, played by... Yes, played by me, Speaker D, of whom you can find on Twitter at Super Snake Kick, where I live before the entire boat is drank by the ocean. I also would mention on the subject of these TTRPGs, if you ever wanted to, I don't know, get into maybe World of Darkness, there is a brand-new video essay, our very first ever, over on Alphabuse's channel, presented, narrated, written by me, your introduction to the setting of Hunter the Parenting. If you haven't seen it, check it out. You might like it, I hope. The video revealed by mental illness to the whole world. That's right, by channeling it into a productive energy. In addition, you know, more news to come relating to World of Darkness very soon. That's me, though, for now. And a weird turn of place as well, the ever-caring, doting, and perpetually plagued by bad luck and misfortune, but infinitely more talented and amazing host, Zorn the Bear, I shouldn't have said your name, I should have let you introduce yourself, but you are playing Oren. I don't know if you want to say anything, but. Arguing, ass. I'm so sorry. And of course, as I will echo the same sentiment as chat, please get well soon, get some rest. I am not suited to do this kind of thing. This is your fucking baby. But all the same, we could not have done this without the amazing constant story writing wonderment of our fan favorite Torchverse slash GM, Thurston Hillman. Yeah, if I let them repair a level of rot, who knows what I'm going to do to them next, right? Right? Right now. Thank you. Hi, you can find me on Thurston Hillman, on call GM. I'm on all the things at on call GM. That includes the Twitter. That includes the Twitches where I sometimes just play games and chat about stuff. I'm in a CRPG phase, so doing that up. Otherwise, lore, lore, lore, lore, lore, lore, lore. I appreciate all of your love of lore and using the lore I'm out. And otherwise, yeah, thanks all for coming out. Zora needs to rest now and get better and then we'll be back in two weeks for some exciting follow-up to where we are in the campaign. Yeah. Everyone say goodbye now. So long. Farewell. Bye. Bye. Bye, everybody. We will see you soon. Farewell. We'll meet again. Don't go well. Don't go well. But I know we'll meet again. Bye. Alright, that's it. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.