Ages of Pain | Age of Umbra Episode 5 Part 2

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Hey there, Matthew Mercer here, and you're listening to part two of this episode of Age of Umrah, a dark tale and campaign setting from our recently released tabletop RPG Daggerheart from Darrington Press.

If you haven't checked out part one yet, pause this now and head over there first. Otherwise, let's return to our adventurers striving against the darkness in part two.

And welcome back. So,

as you

exit the screen forest and come to the scrub land between

the outside,

the outside from this dangerous wooded space onward to the Amber Gate itself.

Well, first off, I realized that I gave you an updated item sheet for the weapon.

It was supposed to be a D10, not a D8.

Oh, it's a D10? It's a D10. Idol this, I think.
Say yes, I think you will idle.

I think this will sweeten the deal. Say yes.

Carved from the bone of some massive creature, the reinforced blade ends in a terrifying hook. Say less.
I'm in.

All right. So,

the day grows later.

The sky grows darker, climbing towards the sunset.

Beyond the gray, choked clouds

what do you wish to do you know if you play really hard you'll have to rest an equal amount

looking out over this field and using my slyborn scoundrel ability uh i have advantage on rolls to find safe places to hide

can we hole up are there massive edifices of stone in this field or giant bits of scrub brush let's find out that's fine uh so if you like to go ahead and roll for instinct with advantage with advantage with advantage

I was gonna spend a whole time

speak scoundrel to him, but I don't know if I speak his scoundrel

uh 18 234 24 with fear 24 with fear um

Carving a partway between here and the gate, uh

you see there are a number of chunks of exterior ruin.

Part of this region used to be the outermost neighborhoods of Amber Reach before they were trashed and washed away by the rising seas that have taken this space.

And so there are kind of the remnants of structures, old homesteads, warehouses. Who knows what these once were that have since toppled and fallen to weather and ruin?

You find one that has enough of an exterior wall to possibly hide.

As you kind of of rush in to check, the first thing you notice is you hit, as you turn the corner, your leg gets caught in what is a massive, sticky web.

You

begin to pull away for a second as all of a sudden you expect something to descend from the top, and you see something inside this massive, clustered web.

With as hurt as you've been, and as much as you've run from things like this,

the chuckle can't help rubble up inside as you dart back.

You take a stress from the sudden fright and burst of excitement of getting to that threshold of possible once more riding the edge of death before you see this abandoned nest and what looks to be a human-like body that is webbed up inside, hollowed out from the inside, the lower torso missing, and the mostly skeletal body just hung by the now wind-torn webbing.

Oh, hi there, friend. What's got you so down in the dumps? It just rests there unmoving, but this corner has enough cover that you think you probably

hopefully ride the evening with some measure of safety. You found a pretty doll.

And a friend? Not much of a conversationalist, though.

Well,

white powder's wearing off.

White powder.

He could be a conversationalist if we were in the mood.

So that we can get his last words of

at least what killed him and if it lived or if it went off somewhere. Yeah, how many times? I have to vary.
How often can he use that spell?

Who doesn't say?

Maybe as much as you want. You can abuse a corpse with a moment of life to speak it, make a spellcast roll.
Da da da da.

Yeah, you can do as many times as you want, but it's limited for a corpse, and each time you roll is a chance for fear or failure. No, that's fair.
That's fair. All right, well, I'll figure that out.

Short rest?

Yes, short rest. Or long rest.

What's the time of day? Well, you sleep. We've been going wild.

Starting to take stress. Most of this troop, in fact, probably all of you for the most part, haven't slept in a day and a half.
Well, that's.

Oh my god, you've got to take a long rest.

Got to take a long rest. So you can just take a short rest if you want to, but you'll start taking stress as a group

based on the lack of actual sleep.

I'll

forage around the surroundings and grab minor bits of kindling to light a fire.

And I have a bunch of sleeping bags that

we got you treated up. Oh wow.
Yeah.

So I'll pass them out to you, Brixton.

All right. And to

maybe

idle. I don't think you'll fit in one.

I don't.

I just

sleep standing up anyway.

Kind of open the sleeping bags, make a nice. Delia may want one.

padded area for us to share. Okay, there you go.
Thank you so much.

Night rolls in here.

The scrubland falls dark with a moonless night.

The clouds somewhat part, but no stars are visible in the black expanse above. The temperature drops.

You can just faintly see on each side

little dancing blue lights in the distance,

occasionally coming in and out of view,

blinking,

vanishing behind things you can't make out at this distance.

But it's just the ever-present reminder that

the land never sleeps.

But,

nevertheless,

you attempt to rest this night.

Can you can you heal me before we take a

No,

I healed. Well,

only because you're a sweet little girl and definitely not gonna do evil shit later. I will use

life support again to spend three hope to clear a hit point on an ally with ally within close range. It's only one.

Huh? That's so much hope for.

Do you want to be healed, kid, or don't you? Thank you, Idol. You build a little campfire to keep yourselves warm here in the dark, chill of night.

Boy, what a day.

It's not as opulent as the pyre that we were used to, but over firm. It's about the confidence.

Thank you.

I'm glad you're still with us. Me too.

Misty.

Yes.

This is all done.

I wanna...

Come back and burn the pyre completely out of your temple.

Get the hive

gone. Clean it up.

I will gladly help you with that.

I feel light. So I think it's time.

I feel light as well, even though

I'm not.

We should learn more about where you came from.

And the best way to do that is

to release all those poor souls.

Yes.

I think that would be great.

A quick above-table conversation. As a reminder, we have this minor stamina potion recipe.

So as a downtime move, someone can use the bone of a sizable creature, which I think we ripped from the mother. And apparently, there's one hanging on the spider web behind us

to make a minor stamina, a potion if no one else has anything else they want to do.

It takes one of your actions. Oh, because it takes one of your actions.
Good enough. Right, as a downtime move, we're assuming it would take an action.

So, also, point of order: before we bend down for the night, I'm going to use my health potion

without one of the other, right? Correct, when you create your characters. 1d4 plus one.
1d4.

If I'm gonna play tomorrow, I'm really gonna need this now.

Healing potion is just 1d4.

It's 3.

You can heal.

But my armor's fucked. And my stress is fucked as well.
I understand.

So I'm unfucking myself entirely, but

I'll make one that leaves the clear essentially. No? Only if you don't have anything else going on.
Um, I'm gonna clear my armor, but three stress ain't freaking me out. Okay,

yeah.

Does anyone wish to keep watch this evening or leave it to fate? I could keep watch if you have

that fancy fancy.

Well,

do you have holds? Hold on a minute, because I

you're pretty you were pretty feed up.

I think I'm not the good I'm not a good person because I did clear my HP already and I added my armor back. Never mind.

Would somebody else

if anybody has an extra move to spare and if not,

just let the dice decide.

I could sit and take watch.

I'll give myself not the long rest.

Do I not get a long rest?

No, you do. You get two moves you can make as a downtime move.
Oh, okay, so I can still do it while I'm watching.

Well, you choose one of your moves to be keeping watch, and the other is to either clear hit points, clear stress, repair armor.

So it's a hard choice sometimes.

You know while you're up I made a little bed for Violet.

Oh

thank you. Well at least she'll get some rest.
I set her on a little bit of web that I hung low and I put her in the same position as the dead man up above.

She looks so peaceful.

How do you like our new friends?

I like them quite a bit. So you should keep it going.
I think so. But if we're going into Ember Reach, we should definitely be careful with them.

We took great pains to leave the Ember Reach. I don't want them to die.

I'm undecided.

But I follow your leaders always.

Okay.

Get some sleep, Screen.

I look very stressed. When I curl up like a dog, uh, right around your old curve.

I will

fix my armor.

Okay, so you're repairing your armor full for a long range? Yes, I'll I'll sew my dress while I'm

while I'm keeping watch.

Okay, so that's all you're doing is fixing your armor and keeping watch? Yeah, I'll keep my stress as is. Okay.

You are repairing.

I am repairing my armor, and I am tending to my wounds. Alright, so heal your wounds, heal your armor.
You are.

I repaired all of my armor and also my wounds. Alright.

Screeve, you...

I

brought myself to full HP with that potion, so I will use my two actions to heal, fix armor, and clear the massive amount of stress that I got from the white powder. Fixed it.

I'm clearing HP and stress.

Four of my hands are repairing my armor and stitching it back up, while the other two are making a minor stamina potion

with the round bones.

I will clear my HP, and if no one is available to prepare with me, I guess I'll just prepare by myself. So you gain a hope? I gain a hope.
Alright. And with that,

can I use my

experience of they mostly come at night because I'm used to keeping guard for monsters at night?

Well, for this particular role, you don't get to apply

experiences to it.

Um,

That's a one. So I gain one fear plus the number of PCs, which is seven.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Squeeze me? Jeez, thank God it was just a one.

Holy hell. Who can ask for all of anything more?

Seven PCs and a long rest definitely sets me up for the next day.

Wow.

So, you roll a D12, and I roll roll a d12.

And then I decide you decide to keep yours, or if you want to use mine.

It hit my hand.

It did hit your hand. It's a five.
Do you think his would be higher or lower?

What'd you roll a five? That's a 50-50 splitter. And I want whatever one's higher? Yeah.

I'll go with yours.

Go with mine? Mine's a four.

It's okay. Five or four actually are the same.
Okay.

So as you rest,

trying to find

a semblance of recovery here in the darkness,

the firelight

begins to flicker

and fade.

Like the actual chill of night consumes

that source of warmth.

And you find yourselves occasionally

opening one eye to find nothing.

Blindness, darkness, and an instinct to panic and move, but paralysis takes your body.

You sit here in shadow and cold, unable to move your limbs, to move your eyes.

Just still and lost and alone in darkness.

Until eventually,

the fear takes you back into shadow.

I get my one fear.

That's all the fear. For a full day.
Do you get a prize for getting all of the fear?

I win! Yeah!

Fuck you, Lou.

However,

the night's rest, as chilling as it is and as ominous as the times to come may be,

nothing seems to disturb your slumber

with violence.

And then the morning comes.

Heavy mists now crawling across this land and the surrounding bits of the ashen seas that have filled the marsh that has made this valley.

And there beyond the low-hanging fog, you can just barely see the shape of the outer wall of Amber Reach and the gate that awaits.

One by one, you all begin to awake.

Cricks in your neck. Your muscles and limbs soar from the fights and travel the day before.

But

the once golden city awaits.

Wake up, Violet. We're going home.

Where did you get Violet?

Home.

But, like, was it made for you by a relative or given from a friend? Or stolen from a shop?

It was given to me by my grandfather.

Where

is your your family?

Mostly gone.

Although some of them might be alive, I suppose.

Why are you not with them?

Well,

the bad men were killing some

and said we could go with them.

But

they looked very dirty

and had bad manners. So

I ran away.

How how old are you?

I'm nine.

What a good age.

We've been together. Yes, I'm nine.
How long have you both known each other?

Hmm. Not that long.

Not that short?

Less than a year, I think. But you've been taking care of her.

We've been taking care of each other. She's very capable.
She's very capable. As we saw

yesterday.

Well, I'm sorry about your family.

It's alright.

I have Screve now. And Violet.

She's very happy to be here. Can I hold her?

No. Oh, okay.
Hello, Violet.

She doesn't talk. Oh, that's okay.
Her mouth was thrown shut when she was very little. Oh, my goodness.

So sad.

That is so sad. It can happen.

So what are we doing today, family?

I think we're going into the Amber Reach, which is a scary, big place.

I mean, parts of it are scary. Other parts are less scary.
And you've been? I've been.

I.

I've been a bunch, because I had a girlfriend there for a while.

What was her name?

Amber.

Oh, that? Last name, Reach. No.

Oh.

Was the city named after her? No, it was just a

coincidence. This sounds like you're lying.

I'm not.

Can I tell if he's lying with my Slyborn scoundrel?

Sure, if you want to go ahead and roll an instinct roll and you roll a presence roll, reaction roll here.

20 with hope.

21 with hope.

Oh, I will add my experience reading between the lines.

The only time I've used it.

You got to spend a hope. Yeah, yeah, and you get a hope.
You got a hope by rolling with hope, and then you can spend your hope by

the roll before you roll. I didn't have a memorial.
But this would be a perfect scenario in which you would use that experience. Experience.

Yeah, you use it before the roll. Yes, I do.

I mean,

people lose people all the time here, and there's a glimmer of

seeming truth behind his words. Why would he lie?

That would be ridiculous. I believe the fawn.
Plus, he's easily the most deadly fawn we will ever find. That is true.
And we have to find that blessed branch.

And you're trying to get to the idle hollows?

Where are you trying to go?

Past Amber.

Right. The BBR.
The BBR. I think all the Amber Reach is scary.
Well, that's what makes it so much fun.

Which way are you planning to go?

There's three ways to go through the town, and I will tell them the ways to go through the town.

Through Amber Reach.

There are, to the direction we're going at least, there are three main paths.

The fastest to your destination is across the Imperian Bridge, which avoids the drowned sprawl and more or less goes deep into the heart of the city through the Cinnabar corridor, then up through the Astro Foundry to the Barrow.

So while it is the fastest, you are exposed on the bridge itself through a great length of the city and whatever might see or await you on that bridge to race past or engage with.

You said cinnabon, right? No.

That's the worst of all.

The

not quite as fast path, but the next fastest, would be to go through the drowned sprawl to the west to the Ashkall Quarter, to climb up through what was once the realm of learning here in Ember Reach.

The Drowned Sprawl is a neighborhood that is now mostly underwater, a series of broken rooftops and towers that barely peek through this kind of murky, still, stagnant water.

Deeply haunted. Most of the city is, but this place in particular is very much permeated with ghosts and strange entities that like to lurk in haunted spaces.

Many scavengers, you know, will sometimes go there to dive into the water-logged cityscapes to try and find anything of worth, any like weaponry, arms,

money, tradables, goods.

Some come back.

But the Ashkall Quarter itself was once the learned place. Many great colleges and libraries was the center of higher learning in Emberich before the apostasy.

And since then, much of it has slowly fallen to marauders, beasts, and various other shadowed creatures.

The one that still stands, and the only true sacred spire or the sacred prior that exists in Ember Reach

is the Athenium, the Celsium Athenium.

Reinforced what was once a massive collegiate building to now be a stronghold that has existed the entire century since the gods left, it is the core of much hard research and clerical study on what happened and how best to save the realm.

A massive cityscape of over

a few thousand enduring, it is rumored, to still live there and exist. And massive

intended troops are sent out to gather materials and knowledge and scraps of history as well as powerful magical relics from the past and fight back and slaughter what bits of growing darkness and terrible monstrosities stalk the city streets.

But for whatever reason, whether it be the length of time that it's existed or something hidden within that draws them to it, many terrible creatures perpetually stalk and patrol the base of the fortress.

Almost like they're drawn and waiting for a moment to tear through and consume what lies inside.

Beyond that, you do do pass on to the Cinnabar Quarter, which is where the Damascus Queens currently hold much of their power.

A roving gang of raiders under multitudes of queens that carry their own subsects.

They are raucous, dangerous, murderous entities

that,

whenever they capture individuals, give them the offer to join or die.

And often when great victories are gained gained by their body or leadership, hedonistic, bloody parties are thrown where cries and laughter and screams echo throughout the city streets.

As they

now live in this quarter which once belonged to the powerful nobility

and the social elite of Emberich.

that hold themselves in after the fall of the God-King and kept the main populace out.

And then over generations,

locked away in their homes for protection, their money and stores dwindled.

Some may still remain.

Others may have joined the queens. And many others

lie somewhere rotting

or on the many pikes. that hold the corpses as a warning to those who would cross them.

The longest path is to the east, the Basilica Quarter. This is the grandiose realm of Ember Reach where the very core of worship and faith resided.

When the gods left, the Grand Ordinance themselves carried the seat of power here to keep the peace among the land and hold the faith of hope that the gods would return.

As time passed, their power waned.

As did the things that dwelled in the shadows in the absence of the gods that began to take the cathedrals and temples from them.

It is said that some of the ordinance still remain, their mad cults still striving to bring one shred of their faith and glory down at whatever it takes,

where other terrifying beasts and demons hope to rise and corrupt those who still try and cling to the shreds of that past belief.

That will bypass. The Sinevar Corridor, but it is a sprawling domain of rising cathedrals and broken places of worship.
What the fuck, Matt? Did you write this thing?

These are your paths to choose from.

Jesus.

That metal one sounds like a daisy.

I know. Well, I'll tell you, snakes, of the three options you just laid out for us.
Yes, good job, snakes.

I need a drink.

The first two lead through the cinnabar quarter, and those might be a little dicey for Adelia and I

for Adelia and you? Oh, yes,

because of past interactions? Well, we both spent our

pasts there, not together apart. We met later,

but we both fled that place for different reasons. My family is with Yuri of the Emerald Queen.

The Emerald Queen, she's one of the Damascus Queens? Yes, of course. I thought you've been there.
Well, I've run through it, yes. I

haven't met any of the queens.

Wait, which queen?

Emerald Queen.

Um,

avoiding the cinnabar

would be fine, probably safer, but

the basilica path

there's a there's some folks out there that I might not want to encounter.

Yeah.

And you see I'm clutching a small package that I've had with me the whole time.

Tighter than normal.

I...

What are you clutching? I don't actually know, but I...

I sort of stole it from somebody. Why don't you open it up?

Oh,

I don't know what it is, and I kind of don't want to know. I'll open for you.
I love packages. I couldn't resist the temptation.
Please, it would be so fun. It's not a present.

it's it's probably something bad. The curiosity isn't killing.
Maybe it's a toy. Plus, you've been risking your life.
I mean, this could be a great chance to bet off some steam. Reward yourself.

This is something that you're supposed to give to someone. I was supposed to deliver it, yes.
To who?

Where?

Um,

someone uh across across the

uh in Okros, but yeah, we're not going there. If you're not going to deliver it, you should keep it for yourself.
What if you're already carrying one of these branches and you don't even know it?

I don't think that it's that. What do you think, but you don't know? Normally, they would have me deliver bad things like

drugs or weapons or

fingers of people as a warning. None of those are bad things.

General contraband. Yeah.
Plus, if it was magic, Cadelia would be able to sense it, right? Yes, of course. Why don't you bring it over to me? Alright, can you sense if there's magic in here?

I don't sense anything magical.

Probably just a poo.

Just creepy. Maybe it is just a poo girl.
Just a single.

Perfect poo.

Barely any creases in it, just a perfect.

I feel like if I had this and

the gentleman who it belongs to finds me, maybe I could give it back as sort of a make-good and

they'd like. That's stupid.

Just give it a little peek,

how long have you been holding on to it? Is there a wax seal? Could you just open it and close it back up? Just remember the steel.

Real quick, boy.

I should not have told you about this.

You're just clutching through it.

I mean, I.

You know what? Don't do anything you don't want to do.

We'll open it while you're asleep.

It's got a hefty weight to it. I have an idea.

I have an idea. Okay.

We open it. How about

you have somebody else peek and look at what it is, and they don't have to tell you. Plausible deniability.
Maybe you don't. Still say in good conscience that you didn't open it.

In fact, we can knock you out. You don't know what's inside of it.
We wouldn't have to tell you. Well, which one of you would do that? I walk around behind

all of us. Put my arm around and just start squeezing.

Sleep for all.

Fainting goat. We got a mouse.
30 seconds. Oh, just open it up.
You have dainty little needles. Dude, I'm going to use.

Am I really doing this? I guess I am.

I'm going to use...

sticky fingers and I'm going to try and use my very very careful use to open this up gently without tearing it like trying to save it. Make a finesse roll for me if you don't mind.

I'm gonna hope to add your experience to it. I'm actually, I'm gonna do some even.
I'm gonna, um, where is it? Um, I can do a fun thing,

which is I can spend stress to double, uh, to double uh

your experience. Yeah, so I'm gonna mark a stress

it's a uh, what kind of roll again? Oh, a pebbles finesse

That's

10, 11, 12. 14 with fear.
14 with fear. Okay.

You go and find. Oh, 15 with fear, excuse me, yes.
God, what's up? 15 with fear.

Okay. 15.
15. 15 was the DC.
Oh, well, there we go. The difficulty was 15.

In the brief moment you have, you take and kind of pull back this twine and unwrap this, like, kind of

somewhat crumpled, heavy burlap that's kind of centered around it, and it's it's about that long.

You pull it back, and see, it is a thin lead box that has a latch on it that is indeed like locked in with some sort of a like a button to it.

You find where the button is locked in, you quickly get in,

you flick it open,

it opens, the box opens. I'm gonna spend a few that you just gave.
I would have gotten at that point to match onto this.

It opens like a latch automatically, spring opens

in front of you. Two things you notice.
One, a beautiful black iron scepter with like a gold inlay.

It is

beautiful in its design, about that long.

Also, you notice resting next to it in the box is a black tongue

that immediately leaps out.

Gotcha! And guarding off.

Alright, I need you to go ahead and make a finesse roll for me. I'll spend a half to say, oh, God, God, got it, you scouting!

Alright, I'm gonna spend a fear to give you a disadvantage on that. Oh, so I lose the health and he gave me a bad thing.
What? You can do it.

I can do all kinds of weird shit with my fear.

You got this, you got this. Alright, so finesse.

And it's just a straight roll because you negated

the advantage.

It's a 15th hope. 15th hope, you gain a hope that as you reach out, the tongue is quick.
Whatever strange necrotic enchantment keeps it here, it avoids your blow and continues. So

dart away from you.

You all watch as Screave does not manage to grasp or slash towards us and the tongue is...

Can I try to unleash chaos on the tongue? Sure, go for it.

I will spend a fear to give you disadvantage on the table. Oh gosh, okay, so just a minus a D6.

Okay.

Oh no.

13 with hope.

Minus 2.

11. Okay, so you gain in hope.

However,

it is an unholy speed that this weird blackened bit of somehow still flexible flesh that has remained in this package for far too long darts away in the direction of Amber Reach.

Can I try something or are we done?

It is right now beyond far range.

This will be your last chance to do something. Can anybody snipe it?

Nope. I have one sniper ability, but I don't.
Do we want to kill the Black Tuck? Yeah, do whatever. Yeah.

You get one last shot. If somebody's going to roll something, it has to have a far range to even reach it at this point.

Within far range, I can make a spellcast roll for bolt beacon, just like a

give it a shot. All right.

Oh, what I would give for advantage, but I don't hear anything. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hold on.

What? May I'm going to roll again? Matt's got the look on his face.

Can I do a rally dog?

Oh, Greg.

Yes!

The ball close.

Okay.

So go ahead and roll damage on on your bulb beacon. Okay.
Bulb beacon is D8 plus 2. So it's max 8 plus a D8 because it is...
Does this say user proficiency? It does. Magic damage using my...

So it'll be 16 plus 2d8. Gabot Rocket.

Sweet. 5.

5. 10.

6.

26. Oof, that is...

I'm going to be pissed.

Wow.

It becomes temporarily vulnerable and glows brightly until this condition is cleared. It does.
Or it would if it had enough hit points to survive.

Right as it exits the reach, you are going to

fling this.

The unholy magic that animates this entity meets the strange divinity that you somehow are the host for. And you watch in this magnificent splash of light.
The tongue

just turns into black smoke and mist that seems to

swirl

and continue to travel almost in the direction it was going.

Or maybe that was just

an illusion as it's no longer visible. You don't know.
But the tongue is destroyed.

I think I got it. Very good.
You can unconsciously. What happened? What

happened?

We found a scepter. Okay.

That's it.

There was a black tongue that came to life and ran, but we stopped it before we got away and turned it together.

Is the tongue still over there? It's

the tongue is disintegrated.

So it was disintegrated, but something

flew out of it. Well, it just you saw black mist, like

that was it. Is there a chair in the middle of the room? Always.

The scepter, though, was gorgeous.

Does it say anything on the scepter or on the box or anything? No, the scepter is magical. You sense the lead-lined box!

Lead.

Who wishes to touch the scepter? I'll touch the scepter.

Yes. Alright.
You are the bravest.

Roll Nd4 for me.

How many chances does she have to survive this? One and four.

Oh, four.

Four.

You grab the scepter and watch as the blackened coloration on it

dissipates, revealing a beautiful silver. As the black coloration on it instead crawls up your arm.

And as it does, your arm goes freezing cold. The flesh seems to

painfully spear with just this

sharp, sharp pain.

You take four stress.

And your left arm is now permanently black. Whoa!

That's awesome! But

you now have the scepter of Elias.

Oh, but by that max stress, what does that mean? It turns into a hit point.

Well, it means you are now

vulnerable until you clear a stress. Does anybody have a stamina potion? You just made a stamina potion last night.
This is all fresh stress.

Well,

if you're max stress, and then you would take

one or more stress, you take out one hit point instead, regardless of your armor. It can't be reduced.
Okay. Okay, so two stress could be taken away from the stamina potion.

I doubt we really should get on that part.

What does the scepter do? It says it's invigorating on a successful attack, roller d4, on a result of four clear stress.

And it is a magical item.

It's a magical attack. So I could use it instead of Violet.

Maybe Violet could use it. I have a magical spell, or is it just a

it's just a uh focus it's a focus like Violet is basically

cool

might not you need this let me take a look really quick

shall we walk and talk yes yes which direction are we going we still have to pick the path

if we go through the cinnabar quarter

probably a lot of people are gonna be very interested in

the two of you

certainly there are strength and numbers now though and certainly we make an imposing figure

also if we go the route of Basilica that's adding more time

on an already very

short mission I suppose I could see my father from a distance

and I suppose a lot of the Damascus want me dead but

it was just me and then just the two of us but perhaps with all of you

in Athenium efficiency,

so it would be like two d6 plus three or just one d6.

Um

if we promise to look over you, which we will

we will

agree with this. I think we could

cut quite a path through there.

And if we head the way of the Celsius Athenium,

we will

be very near or potentially go by the sacred pyre, the grandest one in all of the idle hollows, and it could bless us with its sacred flame. Oh, it's a roof.
That's got you all

breathed deep. So it's a presence.
Let's do it. Yeah.
Let's do that one.

Right.

Which one are we doing?

The sh the

wet one? The far. Yeah.

Going through the Ashkal Quarter, through the Celsian Athenium. With the rooftop speaker.

Oh, I don't want to what a Prince of Persia does a little bit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's not the basilica one.
No, okay.

Yeah, I'm fine with that. Quick and high danger.

Okay.

And after all, that black tongue choked you out, choked you out before. We don't want to make you.

I don't remember that. It's okay, sweet prince.
It happens so quickly. Rest, sweet prince.
I'm gonna do two things.

I am going to

die. Do

a little bit of music.

Oh, yes. Music with my wings.

Just pump us up and everybody gets a D6 as a rally die.

So you can add that to your action roll, reaction roll, damage roll, or to clear a number of stress equal to the result.

And then I also

clear stress. So take your D6 rally die that you can spend.

I can clear stress with this right now.

Yeah.

Do it. Do you roll a D6?

Yes, you roll a D6. And the amount that I roll.

it. And do it.
Yeah.

Or you can add it to an action roll or a reaction roll.

Oh, come on. I need

to roll the one.

There you go. Well, you clear another stress.

And then, um, from my new Book of Sittle,

I am going to adjust my appearance

so we can travel a little easier. That's great.

So I am going to, you, I'll turn into a black tongue.

don't underestimate the worm

never

um and I will um

you'll see sort of a

a beautiful young woman early 20s

just beautiful brown hair and I sort of look at Adelia and

and and

the dress sort of looks very similar to Adelia's because it's just sort of

she that I'm looking at everybody around me and sort of taking little bits and pieces. But big brown dough.

Oh, and I'll do a spin.

It feels nice. If I reach out and squish her wrist a little bit, what do I feel? Do you feel the hardened exterior of her stone form? Do I feel like a person? Ooh,

you feel like something.

I run one of my claws lately, and you hear

me. Don't hurt her.

Don't.

I think she can take it a little more than that. She actually can't.
I don't know if you have been paying attention for the past 24 hours, but she actually cannot.

She's from the old world. She is basically an antique.
From the Temple of Cadbury.

It's just squishy. Squishy on the inside.

These religious types are a lot. Very strange.

Snakes.

Yes. Neither Adelia or I are interested in this doodad.
Do you want him back?

It needs a presence attack.

You got the best part.

Your aesthetic change.

Black arm. So cool.
I can hang on to it.

Sure.

It's good for Barner.

Yeah.

It's wearing you. I can hide it in my car.
It's no problem. All right, let's move.
Yeah, maybe we can trade a little bit. So which way

we're going through the

west to the west. But we just have to go through the front gate to begin through the amber gate.
Brixton turns around to the to what's left of the burning embers

and goes to stamp them out

and stops

and starts to shake.

And a little bit of sweat pours from her brow.

The flame

has abandoned me.

It has forsaken me because I have abandoned the flame. This is my punishment.
This is my punishment. And I'm gonna take just a handful of the embers that are left.
Oh shit.

And I'm just gonna smear them across my face. It's red hot still? It's a little ashy.
Oh god. Oh god.
To give myself a re-up of my

ashened war paint

across me as a black coal and drip it underneath

my eyes

like the tears when my sacred pyro went out.

Please

forgive me for abandoning my post.

I shall redeem myself.

Brixton?

Are you all right? Idol. You look over to Brixton, and when she turns to look towards you, her face is glowing gold.

Like the cresting sunlight of a sunrise you've never seen just this halo of golden light emitting from her face in your direction you react and blink and it's just her ashen smears every step i take

is marked by the gilded flame of redemption

I rush over, I grab her face. I turn her head.

Open your mouth.

She opens her mouth, and for a second, her entire face just becomes a void of black. And you feel, you feel.

And as you jump back and blink once again, it's just her face.

Are you.

What did you see?

Did you see darkness inside of me, am I cursed?

No.

Accursed.

Everything's fine.

We sh we should get going.

The fickle finger of destiny pushes upon us.

I just start walking.

Screve has a fickle finger.

Cue the evanescence.

Everyone else is getting mad.

You're very weird. I like it.

Coming from you, I'm not sure if if that's a compliment.

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I'm bloodhounding through the grass. Indeed.
And it's here in the early morning hours. The low fog still sits across the distant waters and covers much of this

open pathway to the outer walls. And the scale of them is lost on you until you truly begin to approach.
And these exterior walls, when the ramparts were tall,

but you could only see what the water let you. Here, the outer walls of Amber Reach

are monstrous.

And the gate itself, the great amber gate,

hangs slightly ajar

for who knows how long.

You've been through this gate many a time, and been through here quickly, because there's no telling what might await you on the other side.

As we approach that gate, can I just look back at the others as they're walking, haunted by what I saw with Brixton? Does anything happen when I look at the other...

their other faces as slyly as I can?

No, you look apostolist the rest of the troop and everything's normal as you'd expect.

Though you still feel that sweat drip down your brow and down the back of your neck and into your back of the armor

of one of Screves' little rings on his arm and hold it like I'm holding his hand

Welcome home

one step, another

another

and the rising outer wall approaches.

You've never really felt so small by comparison. The gate itself stands 70 feet in the air, maybe.
It's hard to gauge from this perspective.

Giants of the tallest magnitude could walk through and feel dwarfed in its size. But a glimpse of how grandiose this golden city once was.

Memory you've only heard of.

But here in its presence, you can imagine how great it once was

and feel how terrifying it is, its presence,

now that its life has long vanished.

You step through the gap in the gate and immediately feel a shift in mood.

What little bit of light comes through from the cloudy skies

has this

bluish-purple hue.

The heavy mists that you saw outside are ever thicker here.

And the lip of the cobblestone, pocked and broken in places, that descends into this district immediately is met by the thick murky waters that sit over the entirety of the drowned sprawl.

Before you you can see the cracked and somewhat uneven beginning of the Imperian Bridge that rises up,

100 feet wide, side to side, lifting and rising, much of it still standing, crumbled in places, big towers on each side with chains attached. What was once a

welcome, wonderful parade route for the armies of the God-King.

Some bearing the symbol symbol on the shield that you found near the monastery.

You can see for a moment and imagine

the hundreds and hundreds of troops and soldiers.

You're not imagining it.

Faintly visible, blue-hued soldiers march silently away before the mists engulf and they're gone.

Another chill runs down your spine.

And as you step to the edge of the water, you can see on both sides, east and west,

the barely visible tops of the neighborhood that has since sat swallowed and sunken for a century.

You can see the crenellated tops

of small guard towers and watch points. You can see the

brick-built and thatched roofs themselves now molded over and overgrown.

You can see the partially crumbled elements of

temples and arches of worship. You can see broken statues barely piercing through.

The scent of the stagnant water is heinous. It is

old

and rotting.

You can hear the occasional buzz of insects that feed off off of the clusters of bacteria that cause the discoloration.

There is no walking path through this district. The bridge continues on to the core of the city, but the western path you chose towards the Ashkal,

you can't even see the shape of the district you aim for beyond the fog. You can only trust, leaping from roof to roof, and hope no one slips into the drink below.

Unless you dare in hopes of searching for what lost secrets or treasures might still remain unfound in the lost neighborhood.

What do you do?

Dead things are always so pretty.

The soldiers, the ghosts of the soldiers, do we get much detail out of them? You only caught a faint glimmer of just helmets and spears and shields. What you thought was just

a part of your mind filling in the gaps became real for a moment. You thought maybe it was just

it was your imagination, but the mist just swallowed it and you couldn't make out more detail beyond just the shape of their armored

torsos disappearing into the mist. This is a sign.

It means we're on the right path.

We're following the footsteps of the great soldiers of your

and I'm going to confidently start leaping across, leading the way. I

on the bridge or into the sprawl. We're heading west, right? Heading west, yeah.
The soldiers are going up the bridge, but you guys are choosing west. Alright, well, whatever.
Fucking still confident.

Okay.

There is a

papaya in this area. Yes.
A sacred assortment. A sacred plain.

You step towards this hollow and haunted monument to forgotten glory and unchecked opulence, this capital city of the Halcyon domain.

As a group, carefully leaping from roof to scrabbled edge to shred of stone that peeks from beyond.

Who is helming

this initial progress of leaping through this section? I guess I'll go. Yeah.

All right, I would like everyone to make a group action role that you will eventually take.

The choice is agility or strength here.

Am I determined by the rest of them, or I can also pair agility or strength? You can choose either one. And depending on the script role, can I use one of my experiences by spending a hook to

that?

Yeah, I'm going to add Creepy Climber

to my role. 23.
23, plus one.

Misty?

I am seeing if I could... No, I can't add an experience.

20 total. Alright, that's a plus two.
Yeah, 18. 18, it's a plus 2.
We're in the positive for the first time for a time.

We'll fix that. 19 with a hoop.
Plus 4.

I'm sorry, 10.

Plus 3. 26.
Plus 4. So you go ahead and roll strength or agility and then add plus 4 to your role.
You can't mess this up. I can't mess this up.

May I also spend a hope to add historically inspired my experience since I've seen soldiers. Sure.

So that's, you said plus four.

That's gonna be plus two more because of my experience. So four, five, six.
And I'm gonna do plus my strength, which is gonna bring me a plus nine. Damn.
I swear to fucking god, you guys.

Don't eat shit. Swear to athidius.
Swear to do a phidias.

Come on.

Oh, that's good. That's good.
It was almost a crit.

Okay, that's going to be 22 is what I rolled on the dice. Plus nine.

With fear.

With fear. Okay.
I mean, he's pretty stacked, so. That is definitively a success.
Okay.

You begin to look around and locate each leap you can, helping out the rest of the group as you jump across, prep yourself.

You find what looks like part of a fallen archway that is broken in the center.

The center, like, keystone of the arch crumbled, but you scramble from one end to the other and help the others get across.

You then get enough room to run and leap a rather impressive section of open water and land upon a heavy thatched roof that kind of cracks under your weight for a second, but you catch yourself, turn around, and using the exposed wood to brace yourself, help each other member of the team across.

You begin to leapfrog. from section to section.

You can see the massive walls on each side of this district rising up themselves, covered in grown roots and vine that are affixed to the long mildewed walls and stone.

Every now and then as you land, elements of

loose rubble and small rocks kind of tumble off the edge and just

the water

tends to spill out the ripples projecting before vanishing about.

You help the rest of the troop get across, and then just out of the corner of your eye, Brixton,

kind of still holding onto the vision as you arrived you can see what looks like just barely through the mists in the distance the shapes of figures on the outer walls that seem to appear

and vanish

you can almost hear the sound of a child crying in the distance and the moment you try and focus on it it's gone like losing a thought before you can finish it

You look down over into the waters below, and you swear you see a face look up at you from the street before before its mouth opens and you pull back and it's gone.

I don't need this.

I just hear Brixton just start muttering a little prayer under her breath, just

giving her thanks and reverence to all of those who have fallen before us as she tries to,

with her words, give them rest and peace, lead them onto the beyond. All right.

Hey there, it's Katie Nolan, host of Casuals, the sports podcast where we don't care how much you know about sports, we're just happy that you're here.

Every week, I hang out with some of my good friends to discuss the biggest stories across sports and entertainment, but in a way that's like fun and not boring.

Want to know Sue Bird's favorite Diana Taurasi story, or how heavy the Larry O'Brien trophy is, or even what baseball team is right for you based on your moon sign? We got you.

Listen to Casuals every Tuesday and Thursday on the SiriusXM app or wherever you get your podcasts. Bye!

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Here within the streets of the drowned sprawl,

there lies much buried knowledge should you wish to grasp for it. These spirits, these lost ruins, there are all facets as to what happened long ago and what has happened since.

Mind you, to peer and seek such things could be dangerous in its own right.

But there is always reward should you peer beyond what you currently know

or just continue to press on. The choice is yours.
But as all of you follow in Brixton's step,

you can see like the tops of windows that are just barely above the water and in you can see floating boxes. Out across the water you can see old barrels that have since kind of grown

a thick green-brown moss on the underside of the wood.

There is much that has remained unpilfered,

and there are many spirits about this land that still wander.

Do you press on?

You bet your ass.

I think we have to press on. Yeah,

there's so many treats in the water. This grave looks very excited, which I've only taken as a positive.
If you'd like to go fishing, be my guest.

Those poor soldiers still think they're in battle. Yes.

So, as part of this, this

so to bring in the mechanics of Dagger Heart, which is part of the fun of it.

It is an exploration environment.

So,

within this part of the abandoned city, there are a number of features that I can call upon based on what you do and what you'd like to do.

To give you an above-board context to what I was describing, there is a passive referred to as buried knowledge.

The city has countless mysteries to unfold and if anyone wants to inquire, look for information about the fallen city, what happened, what might be around there, you can make a roll for it.

And

it could go great, it could go poorly.

Or you can just rush through the district and try and make it through the drowned city

neighborhood to the ashkole dipping down and having to search that's one way to do it it's up to you how would you want to

learn of the city you said they were also just boxes and crates and things floating yeah something just floating out the water yeah

are any other roofs that we're on top of do they have holes in them

The one you're on right now, no, but there are like maybe two up above or in front of where you're going, kind of off the left, you can can see one roof that looks partially collapsed.

I want to look down into the building when we're on top of it. We could look in the box, but you want to look inside, Dornimo? Oh, look whatever you want to.

If there is a box that's far away, I could try to reach for it with a

magical hand. That's a good idea.

Go for it. Yeah, I'll do that.

Okay, so you're looking for some

box box that's possibly could hold something useful or information for where you are?

Make a knowledge or instinct role to

seek buried knowledge of the environment. I was.

Are you going to go first? Do you want help? I would love help.

Because this is

enticing, isn't it? It is.

But I. My.

My.

Should you say it was instinct? Instinct or knowledge? Instinct or knowledge are both meh.

I can be clever about things if you can? Yeah. Well, maybe I should assist you.
I do have. I could grab it from afar.

Okay, well then let's take a look at what looks interesting. I could spend three hope and we could do something together.
Look at least for a pretty box.

Actually, that's not about it. Can we can we spend three hope and do this together? If you'd like to, yeah.
Tag team in a box. You can do it.

You can tag team an action on the box. Let's do what we do.

All right.

Always. All right.

We're repressed.

I'm going to take a small rock and I'm going to tie some of my silk thread to it and I'm going to illuminate it.

Then we're going to hand it to you so that you can move it out. And I'm going to just sort of

use that to sort of take a look around and see what's inside some of these drowned houses to see if anything looks particularly interesting with the knowledge roll. Alright.

And you're rolling knowledge or instinct?

I am gonna roll instinct.

So

both of you roll your action rolls, spend your hope. Oh, so spending her hope.
Oh, it's your hope too.

Alright, so spend that hope, and both you roll, and you choose which which of your die rolls to go with.

15 with hope. Oh, mine's 15 with fear.
Well, 15 with fear. So we'll take yours.
And that means, uh, yeah.

15 with hope.

As you...

Taking Adelia's initial instinct towards that broken rooftop, you all one by one leap across, helping each other until you get to the edge of this, what looked to have been like a multi-tiered uh well-built homestead aside from the roof that had fallen inward glancing down into the waters below about five or so feet down you can see the murky water there and there are floating bits of old furniture

first thing you notice are two spirits that just kind of walk through the water and both of them look panicked. And they both reach down under this bookcase,

like they're putting something there.

Then one grabs the other and picks them up. And they flee through a wall and disappear.
Bookcase, bookcase. Yeah.
Yes, Dan. What they hide.

Let's go see if we can get you.

Helps Adelia and just kind of lowers her down into the water. Into the...

Not in the water. We're...

You're going in the house, right? Yeah.

Five feet down, the house is filled with water, yeah.

Okay, yeah.

And then.

I'm gonna tie some thread to you before we do this. Okay.
Are you going down or do you want to swing? Wait, but I can use my hand. Oh, well, let's see if we can pull some.

You want to go down or do you want me to use my hand? Okay.

Use the hand.

Yes, we'll use your hand.

Wee!

We play! We played!

How about we swing around for a little bit, but you can use your hand. Okay, I'll use the menu.

We play fetch all the time. I swing Adelia around around a little bit.

Just for fun.

I cut into the water like a fish. Oh, wait, she has a magic mage hand.

Still do it. Okay.

Alright, so sending my mage hand down. And you splash into the water or you want to.
My magic hand. Just swinging around.
Just playing around. Scream splash around.

So I'm just watching this hand as I swim alongside it. Swing around.
Magic hand goes down. And you see there is a small...

like a

a wooden chest is jammed into the bottom of this bookcase.

Looks like it was likely buried at some point, but whatever held it in place has since floated off or rotted with it in the waters. As your hand pulls it back, it breaks apart.

And it's like all the rotted wood kind of pulls into pieces. And you see something kind of

kind of sit there and float in the water where it broke apart, and your hand can grab it.

It looks like a pristine piece of

thick

cloth, like a quilted cloth.

And you see, like one of those ghostly images, those people that was standing there before, reappears where it was.

And it looks up towards where it is and looks towards you.

And it looks like

sad,

fearful,

and then it vanishes. And you sense that...
As you look it in the eyes,

there is

a panic and a doom

to its mood. This young girl who looks up towards you

like an acceptance of coming

end.

I'm just gonna

if making eyes with her and knowing sort of

I've been where she's at

saying I'm sorry.

Nuts.

Oh my god, every fucking time. It's been a minute.

You hear this boom and a rumble.

And the rest of you glance around

and you start hearing shouts echoing.

The spirit

runs and vanishes through the same wall and you pull it up and you see this is like a very well-made piece of

like quilted like protective material that you grab really fast and put it in your arm and the rest of you look around the space and you can see spirits appearing on the walls, spirits appearing on the roofs, spirits appearing in the streets.

You hear these echoed shouts.

They've left us. We're abandoned.
No, keep the faith.

Why should we?

They did this to us. Kill them! Kill the-

And you start seeing the spirits fighting. You see soldiers rising up.
You see families running through. You see panic.
You see ghostly flames beginning to burn across roofs. You begin to see

the apostasy riots.

The moments of violence that first destroyed parts of this neighborhood and this city in the wake of the leaving of the veiled gods

as I spend a fear

to activate the apostasy riots.

These ghosts begin to scream and reenact the fights and battles,

arresting and grabbing and pulling people off into darkened shadows and through the waters to no longer be seen.

You see ghostly archers gathered and clumped in the streets, some appearing onto the above water roofs, firing volleys of ghostly arrows into the distance.

You see other soldiers beginning to rush and grab those that are throwing what looks like bits of furniture and heavy rocks in their direction, some being arrested, some being beaten.

You see absolute, abject chaos beginning to build. And some of these ghosts

take notice of you

ghost fight, ghost fight ghost fight

an invisible bed,

bust him, bust him, bust him, bustin'.

I'm afraid it's so bad.

I heard you go bed.

That's so cool looking.

We need a different mini. She's changed her appearance.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I love nothing. I think it's easiest to know who's.
I love my mini.

So for the purpose of the colour.

That is so cool how it's just peeking out. Yeah, that is really cool.

It's so funny, we were just talking about that swamp water today. Our trying to get to it.
So funny, we were just talking about swamp water. Oh, my goodness.

We were just talking about that swamp.

You don't like that swamp water in your body now. What were you saying about swamp ass earlier?

Different, different thing. So, for your team's goal, you need to

get across this part of the riot. Oh, God.

Wow, the ghosts.

Take notice. I'm just going to put y'all here.

Staircases being unhappy with these

bases and lack of weight.

So we need to get because the floors are wet.

Over on this end. Over there.
Okay. What looks like a spectral captain

sees you, gives a shout.

We have

rioters.

See them taken in.

Raising his sword in your direction. Right as he does, you watch as a cluster of spectral archers

over in the middle of this

drink. Floating right above the water, all of a sudden,

pull out these ghostly bows

and pull back ghostly arrows to aim in your direction. Oh.

Well, a cluster. Oh, geez.

Of ghostly soldiers appear. Okay, I'm afraid.
Why does he have so many of these?

So we use a ride.

Just across across the gods.

So. Undead style.

It is

your goal.

How best do you wish to traverse this

drowned and remind us what that purple mini is over here? That's the captain of that.

I will, just because it's the captain and because I'll fire off a far bolt beacon just to try and make it vulnerable and illuminate it so we can at least be aware of what's happening if nobody objects.

Go for it. Okay.
Do it. Uh,

spellcast roll.

Is that a crit? Oh, nine and a six. Damn it.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Eighteen

with hope. 18 with hope.
Take that hope. That is a success.
So you

fire this bolt beacon upon the captain on this end of the drink, blasting him. This is magic damage?

It is.

Alrighty. Dealing D8 plus 2 magic damage.
Now, it's not a proficiency upgrade. It's just the single D8 still, right? If that's what the spell says, D8 plus 2.
So D8 plus 2 is using your proficiency?

It is using my...

No, it's using it. So it doesn't say on the card.
No, no, no. To spend a bullish room dealing with a...
Using your proficiency, yes. Yeah, so that would be 2d8.

8 points of magic damage. A total of 8 points? Yes, a total of 8 points.
Did you just roll one dice? I rolled it twice. Okay, gotcha.
Yeah.

Wow.

Really? It was pretty balls. Gotcha.
Alright, so eight points damage. It's going to be a single hit point to the spectral captain as you blast it.

But the captain is now glowing with divine light.

Heretic! Oh no.

Oh no.

So

do you want to move or you want to stay put in the middle of an island?

Yeah, I'm going to run.

Could I try and go around

Misty and can I make a leap for this roof? Yes, you may. Make a strength or agility roll for the judicial.
I'll do a strength.

That is, that's good. That's almost another crit.
That's

15, 16, 17, 18 with strength.

I'm sorry, with

hope. That's a nine.
Great, take that hope. You leap up and like catch the edge and clamber up onto the roof and stand there.
That's your close distance for that, but you barely get to the top.

You have a much higher view here. And you can see there are, there's a barrel, there's a top of a crushed in roof here with some things that are floating.
There's another roof on that side.

and that crenellated bit ends, goes into like a long runway that buttresses against what you hope is at least the beginning of the Ashcall quarter.

The mists are beginning to dissipate as the riots are beginning to show around you, and all the ghosts are beginning to rise.

If you can make it up the opposite side, it might be a straight sprint towards at least the end of this section of the city. Just relay everything that I just saw and say, Move now!

Time to run. Still

But

the Congress clock is also here.

Alright, so that finishes your go.

What I would like to do, and I'm hearing from above,

is to

swim towards what I assume is ample shadow down amongst all the stone and buildings and use

the Nightwalker shadow stepper ability to

disappear there and reappear as far away as I can in this direction. How far can you move? Far range.
Far range will get you

into shadow as well would get you either understress or under here. Yeah, I'll go there.

Alright, so you vanish into the underneath of this collapsed roof, kind of amongst its what would be its rafters at least the one rafter that still holds and as you like appear and land on it it kind of bows under your weight for a second it the the wood itself is long water to log and won't take a lot more weight than you but you hold tight in that space so I mark a stress which just means I'm silently giggling

good

is that all you do in your go

actually I will rise out of the water like apocalypse now in front of this captain

and I will also use Troublemaker, and I will start to grin. I'm just dripping wet, and my smile gets unnaturally larger.
I'll make a presence roll once paressed on a success.

I can stress this chap out. Is this the captain? This is the captain, so this is a presence roll.
Straight roll for me.

Oh, I'm gonna spend a hope to use my experience. Boo, motherfucker.

Good experience.

And here we go.

That's terrible.

That's a nine with fear. Oh, God.
That is not going to cut it. Awful.

All right. So,

that is definitely going to give me a few back. And that is a failure.
You reach out and kind of look towards it and give it that grin as the captain who's been shouting at you turns.

Its face stretches wide and you see the mists like swirl around it and you see this like ghastly image of this burning skull that was the eventual demise of this captain that transpired somewhere between this ghostly apparition's recollection and now.

So this countdown there are two ways to win this encounter

to either make it across and successfully avoid being killed

or If you can manage to find clues or engage with the moments of the riot's history in whatever way you feel is necessary, it'll count this down. Or defeat them.

So I guess three ways you can succeed in this.

It'll count it down? Or it won't count it down, you mean, if we're able to successfully...

This is a progress clock that you guys are in control of. You don't have to engage with it, but you have options at your disposal.
So

the blue spirits up there are rioters?

The blue spirits up there are

technically guardians. Guardians, okay, so we have archers down here.

Rioting archers. Rioting archers.

And okay, so he's in command of...

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out, are we the only rioters on the... Are we the only people on to they are? There are other spectral rioters running through the streets.

They all appear to be armored, which means they were probably part of Ember Reach

soldiers.

One addendum. Human adaptability, when you fail a role that utilized one of your experiences, you can mark a stress to re-roll.
Go for it. Ooh.

Just could be burning it again. That's way better.
1920-21. Whoa.
Still with fear. Still with fear.
Okay, so I still get the fear back. That does succeed.

As the skull kind of draws outward, you've seen some terrible things in your time, and you just grin back at it.

And for a minute, like the mist scatters, and the soldier looks shaken in his spectral form, his hollow sockets kind of going darker still as he almost leans back. And on that success, I roll two D4s.

It's equal to my proficiency, which is two, and use the higher of these. That's how much stress this chap takes.
Four.

Four stress. Four stress.
That fully stresses out the captain, who is now vulnerable, period, for the remainder of this encounter. That's amazing.
Okay.

Additional stress just does straight hit point damage. Cool.

That's it. You wanted to do something? Thanks for that.
Oh, I just brought a jumpy. Jumpy jumpy.
Can I jumpy

towards you, Matt, onto that

broken church thing? Yes, you may. Didn't you get a fear back though? Isn't it your turn now? Oh no, you did roll with fear.

Never mind. Just a moment.

So for this, I'm going to have.

Here we go.

Yeah.

Let me go ahead and spend... Well, I'm going to have this here.

I don't know why. Five fear.
Fucking five fear. Five fear.
To have all five of these spectral archers fire upon your troop.

They're going to drift outward

within far range as they kind of

glide over the water. That's going to have all of you within range there.
Very returning. They're not going to be able to see you.

Firing off, it's going to be two at you since you're at the top roof there. Oh, that's going to be a

20

hit. Holy moly, yes, it does.
Alright, so. Oh, no, they're really good.

Those arrows are thick!

It's going to be

10 points of physical damage. Okay.

I also leveled up to a tier 2 using my bare bones ability, so my thresholds went from 9 to 19 to 11 to 24.

Alright, attack against you. That's going to be a 7 against August.

Miss. A natural 20 against Brixton.
Oh, boy.

That's going to be... If Anyone can take him.

Let's go.

You are your shield. I am my shield.

It's going to be 34 points of physical damage. Yikes.

Wow. Oh, my God.

Can we go back to the previous save point and go a different way? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've changed our minds.

Wow.

I don't think you're. Are you dead? I think he's in murder.
No. What's the rule about severe? Like, doubling your severe.

You said 34. 34.

My double would be 36.

So it's still just 18. I think.

18 plus 18, right?

It's 36. Correct, so that's 3.
Okay.

Wow.

Yeah, I'll for sure

burn in armor here.

I'll for sure burn in armor. For sure.

And take two hit points. I'll just start there.
Yikes. Dang.
Alright.

Against you, Adelia? Me. That's going to be a 12.
Or 11. Sorry, 11.
I have 11 as my opinion.

Not the child.

Not the child.

10 points of physical damage against you? Okay, I'm going to use my rune ward.

That's right. I hope to reduce that by d8.

And against you, Misty, it's going to be a 21 to hit you.

That was a 10, you said? Correct. You definitely get hit, Missy.
Okay, then I'm going to use my

armor.

Misty, you take eight points of physical damage.

Okay.

Okay.

That's...

I'm gonna. I'm gonna...

I'm gonna use a shield to only take... An armor.
I'm gonna use an armor. I think I can

take it down here. Shield icon.

Okay.

I don't think it's our turn, right? I don't think it's turned on. And then the captain is going to.

float out of the water and head up to Screeve. Oh no.

Screeve. Blade drawn.

And it's going to go ahead and strike at you. Yeah.

Actually, no, this one can strike with a longbow. So

it's going to float out into the water. It has a longbow.

And that's going to be... Still only a six.

Six?

I just fall back in the water and entirely.

Like the arrow hits the inside of the roof and vanishes into like an ectoplastic blast. That finishes my activation.

I want to get away from you guys.

I'm going to jump up to that structure towards you with my leap feature. So no rolling required.
The other.

I'm sorry, you're going over here. Yeah.
How far can you leap it then? Close?

Yeah, close. That'll get you right up onto that top point.
There is you.

And then can I leap again to try to get to them uh to the soldiers correct so it says on the on the leap

uh it says i can leap

uh

just says i can leap close range but i guess i can't do it more than once per turn

right so so say you can leap and then if you want to move again you can make an agility roll to try and leap to the next area without that that ability so you have to leap for free on that one sure i will do an agility leap on those let's go

Oh, terrible.

That's an 11 with fear.

Oh, man.

Oh, man. Oh, man.

You land.

Slip on the stone.

Into the water below. You all watch as snicks

into the murky waters.

I'm gonna use that to activate one of these spectral guardians that is then going to float down to where you are in the water.

And it's going to go ahead and strike you with its spear.

Oh, that's going to act from 19. That's going to be a 20 to hit you.
Sure.

Alright, so you.

You know what? I'm going to spend a fear. Make that a graveblade attack.

So this one comes at you. Instead of the spear, it's gonna strike with the sword.
It's gonna be six.

That's gonna be 13 points of physical damage, and you must mark a stress.

As it pulls out this ghostly blade and like jams it through your abdomen, you feel this cold, like an icicle jamming into the inside of your torso.

And as it strikes inside, it looks into your eyes and goes...

And you feel like part of your essence almost pulled from your body into its mouth and you mark that stress. I rather burn an armor to make that a major damage instead.
Alright, that finishes my go.

Uh, you're up.

Anyone that has gone, take it. Uh, okay.
I'm going to. Uh,

I don't think there's anything. Can I try to jump to the roof

next to Isle? Yeah, go ahead and make a strength or agility roll for me. Kick her in the head.

Oh, that's really good. Um, sort of.

Um, that's 12, 19, 21 with fear. 21 with fear.
All right.

You leap up onto the roof and you do catch yourself.

Uh, uh, you're about to slip, and idol actually reaches out and grabs the scruff of your dress and holds you in place and gets you back on your feet. I use the bone-hooked glaive to.

Uh, from that, the captain is going to spin around with his bow and arrow and release a long bow shot at you.

That's gonna be a six to hit you. Oh, good, I misses.

Out of the way. That finishes my go.
It's back to you.

Go. All right.

Is there any way that I could sort of go down and try to crawl in here through a window? Do you want to jump in the water, yeah? I'll do it.

You are now.

You are now floating inside this building. Very porous.

In the middle of it, as you kind of like swim around inside, and you can see those like chunks of odd, broken, almost like a pew or some sort of a long bench that's kind of floating in the water still.

And you can see a long rotted body that's kind of like slumped over it, its bones kind of dangling in the liquid. Take bones, take some bones.

I'll take some bones. As I'm in there, I'm sort of looking for anything that would give us information

near the make a knowledge or wisdom check for me. It's just say again? A knowledge.
Sorry, a knowledge or instinct. Okay.

Um, okay.

Okay, come

on.

Ten with hope.

Ten with hope. Uh, unfortunately, that is a failure, but it's with hope.

Almost, you start glancing through the insides here, and there's there's something about this partially broken building that you're just not quite gleaning its purpose or where it is within the riots.

You can see some ghosts passing through the water below,

but you're not quite grasping its purpose. It's just beyond your ability to conceive.
All right, could I at least try on the inside to get to the furthest window so I could sort of peek out?

You can only get partway through the building with your move from close range, and that's going to end your turn. Brings it back to me.

One of these ghosts

is going to glean through. It's going to mark a stress to pass through the structure.

And it's kind of like,

it just kind of ghost transitions through and rushes towards you, Brixton. And that's going to be Natural 19 to hit you.
Yep. That's going to come at you with its spear.

Spear is going to be

seven points physical damage. Well, really bad on that one.
Okay. I will

take it.

Alright. That finishes my goal.

Go. I'm going to, first off, take up, just start floating, so that's not a problem.
Spread my wings.

I'm going to walk up to the spirit that just attacked us, and I'm going to power push through the wall. Cool.

So that's a spell cast roll. From where you're standing? From where I'm floating.
I'm floating right in front of it because I have to jump in immediately and just know.

Okay.

So that's spellcast roll against the target.

That's

19 with fear. 19 with fear.
That does succeed. Go ahead and damage.

I know, I know. Why are you the worst dagger?

That's

12 points of magic damage. 12 points of magic damage.
That's going to be two wounds to that one. And they're pushed back far range.

You actually slam it into the wall.

It goes through the wall and gets pushed back

into the actual wall there and vanishing into the outer perimeter. Massive barricade.

Do you want to keep moving?

You still have a little bit of movement if if you'd like. Yes, I'm going to float up

sort of so I can keep a spot on everyone. So just right above that building so I can kind of keep with the group a bit.
Alright, just say

right above this building here, essentially. Yeah, more or less.
That's about as far as you can move on that angle. Alright, that finishes you go.
It comes to me.

I'm going to say one of those... The captain's going to go ahead and take a shot at you since you just flap in the air and are a viable target.
That's going to be an 11 to hit you.

I'm going to mark a stress and make that not happen.

Okay. I just unleashes an arrow and you just

dodge out of the way. That's going to finish my go.

All right. I'm going to jump up on this roof and kind of follow after idol.
All right. You get a bunch of a run.
Go ahead and make a strength or agility.

Strength.

Give me a hope.

Well, it gives me a hope.

11 with hope. 11 with hope.
You back up and run,

catch onto the edge,

and tumble back down

into the water.

You're currently

swimming in the murky depths above, kind of keeping up as you can hear the echoing shouts of conflict and battle and screams around.

You can hear the distant echoing of fire beginning to curl up, and you can see the ghostly flames consuming other rooftops and flickering up around the other outer edge of that one there.

The roof on the other side of that one. Seeing like ghostly ghostly flames on the rooftop.
Oh. Bricks and goes a little

cray-gray.

Looking at the ghosty fire. You could swim a little bit up to there with the rest of your movement.
I'll say that's your

go there. That's a failure.
All right, on my end,

this captain's going to float down and come for

you again as you sit there in the water.

That's going to be 10 to hit you. Mess.

It comes down to strike you with a spear, and you just kind of like swim out of the way

the ghost goes down and comes back up

you can see like the dark sock which these little flickering like white points in it that kind of like dart around and kind of focus in on you you hear the captain shouting in the distance bring in the heretics

that's my go i got i got an idea

so i'm going to sink into underwater shadow again

mark a stress

and i'm going to reappear i think in the shadows around that chimney. And as I rise up on that side, I lock eyes for the Delia across this huge space.

Playtime!

And I'll run up to the edge of the roof. And I will creep down.

Cloaked says, as long as I stay out of Captain's line of sight, I'm still cloaked. So I'm just going to tippy toe toward him,

toward Captain, and spend the three hoped to tag team. Oh, you're spending the hope with

Adelia. Alrighty.
And I'll unleash chaos at him at the same time. That's a far range.

He is with the just within far range.

Perfect.

Let's go.

So there's no advantage, right? It's just you both roll and take the higher of the two, or the best of the two, I would say, for both of you.

18 with fear.

20 with fear. Ooh, ooh.
Let's imagine take the 20, maybe?

I'll take the fear. Alright, both of you guys roll damage and add it together.
Okay, so I get 2d6

of speed attack clipped. You do? Yes.

Come on.

Oh, wait, that's an 8.

14.

16.

16

points of damage. I'm going to spend a stress

to

double one of those sevens, so that's 14, 21,

22, 23 points of damage from me.

Whoa, yes,

so it's gonna be that's gonna

23 25 doesn't it almost doubles his

severe threshold, but he does still take

two destiny. He still takes three hit points.
The captain, as you both, you blast him with this magical energy. Oh, yours is physical, right?

Yes.

Add to a roll's result. That's after the roll is made.

12 or 13, depending if you round up or down. We'll say 13.
Well, here, I'm going to make a point here. Because your attack is physical, the ghostly forms are immune.

Or, I mean, they're resistant to physical damage. Sure, sure.
That's good to know.

That's good to know. So instead, that's 13 onto your 23.

That's still above its severe, so it still takes three hit points. But you notice at this point that ghostly entities seem to not take the full brunt of a physical assault.

Okay, we've learned something today.

So, your magic, what does it look like when it blasts across the space? I use Violet in front of me, and it comes out of Violet's eyes.

So, as that energy from the doll shoots across the space and the ghost lights up, I then just start ripping my claws through this cloud.

They tear through it, and as it operates, you can see the spectral captain is like flickering in space. It's taken quite a few hits and it's looking like it's it's holding itself there

with challenge um

however it like angrily turns and as it comes to my spotlight this roof this building collapses into the water

that changes things can i

am i allowed to move after that at all or

uh if you'd like to yeah i'll say it as the end of your turn

can i run and try to get back as close as i can to this roof but i want to be on the other side of it.

Yeah, like there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Goodbye, everyone.

Yeah, that'll be. So my action was to

collapse that.

I'm going to hold on to that fear. It's your guy's activation and your spotlight who wants to go next.
I kind of have a weird idea. Yeah.
And I don't know if this is going...

Because I don't know much about the Apostles New Barriots.

But I was... You can learn about them if you want to look around.
I'm trying. Yeah.
But I have an idea. Okay.

I I want to go to the window on the inside as far this way as I can. So if I've gotten halfway across, can I go to the window?

Yeah, you can see the edge of the window. And you can see ghostly flames now burning up from the inside.
It's like someone had set the inside of this building on fire and it's beginning to flicker.

I mean, you can see on this end, as you get to the other edge of the roof, you can see the stone is blackened. Like this rooftop is blackened.

Like flames did burn to a certain height here that may have been put out or burned out, but this building was set aflame in these riots. And you can see the ghostly fire curling up in it.

What would you like to do?

Okay, so

I can make an illusion

and

in close range. So I kind of want to shoot it out the window and have it be like around here.

And

lasts as long as I look at it.

It's no larger than me, so it could be my size of, you know. Seven or eight feet, whatever I am.
Yeah. And I was thinking of having it be the God King Othadias.

Do you know what the God King looks like?

I feel like I do.

Oh, yeah? Because you were old. You know what? Make a knowledge roll for me.
Okay. And I'll give you an advantage on this because

there is a thread of memory.

Maybe it's yours, maybe it's not, but it's in there somewhere. Come on.
Come on, Archie Jenkins.

Cool idea. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, well, okay. So it's, it's, it's, it's

nothing? Okay. 20 with fear.
But that is a success. Okay, okay.

Uh so you have this flash of memory of the amazing upper regions of Amber Reach, like you're looking from one of the temple outskirts.

There is a brilliant platform, a walled platform that overlooks the city where you see banners rising. You see a a beautiful blue sky and sunlight shines down upon some sort of celebration.

You see all manner of flower petals around and you just focus on a faint image.

He's too far to make out the details, but you see an older bearded gentleman adorned in incredible golden and silver armor with a long gray and blue cloak.

And you recall that image and you put it into the water over there. And this bit of image and knowledge sends this illusion into that area.

And you watch as the spirits over here that were getting their bows ready turn and go

the king

as they turn. I'm going to consider that a success

against the riots, which will bring this successful fear is going to tick down one to a four.

And as you do, you watch the spirit tethers that keep these ghosts present in this momentary distraction. They all kind of shift and shimmer as the riots seem to almost blur and then re-coalesce.

Okay, cool. That's something.
That's something.

However, it's my turn.

And with this, those five are focused on your illusion at the moment, kind of like caught in a moment of awe.

I'm going to say the captain's going to take a shot at you in the sky.

That's

an 11.

Which I know you're probably going to mark your stress and.

It's all good. It's what you're built for.

All right.

I'm going to hold on to that fear.

You're going. Can I run forward from the roof,

just a full sprint, and I'm gonna leap for that barrel as far as I can, just aiming for it.

And before I hit the water, can I take my bone-hooked glaive and summon my divine energy into a spirit weapon, and I'm gonna take a swing at the closest ghostly entity as I approach the water. Sure.

This will be two rolls. Yeah.
One of them is,

I'll say you can make the attack roll as you leap off the side, and then the agility rolls to try and land on that barrel. Okay.

Awesome. 14, 15, 16, 17.
17 with

hope. Great.
Take that hope and that it's a success. Roll damage.
Amazing. Damage.
This is 1D 10.

Is it a stress or a hope to use the spiritual weapon? It is a stress after I hit

to do a second target. So that's 5.

9, 14 plus 4 uh is 18 points of uh magic damage because 18 points of magic damage that is beyond their severe threshold so that is

you watch as all five of these engines oh

get scattered they all had three hit points and that was beyond their severe threshold as you leap in the air and unleash the bone glaive it bone hood glaives

carves through bell spears

and then vanish into the mists

make an agility roll please let me land on this barrel and do some cool shit. Do a barrel roll.

Is that a nine? No, it's a six. 13, 14.
14 with fear.

14 is the difficulty of this animation. Oh, okay.
Okay. Okay.
Okay.

You land on this barrel. Kick it, kick it, kick, kick it.

And you are. You're like,

all right.

That was with hope. It's still your guys' activation or your spotlight.

That was with fear. You're right.
You're right. All right.
Well, that's going to come in.

I thought you said it was hope.

Oh, sorry. That was with the agility.
You're right. So, with that, I take that fear.

Over on, as you destroy the archers, the captain turns and goes,

and it's going to head and leash an attack against you on that barrel. That's going to be a nine to hit you.

That's my evasion. That hits you.
You take from the captain.

I'm rolling the wrong dice.

18 points physical damage.

Great, I'll burn an armor. Thank you.
That'll drop it down to minor. And I will burn

two fear

to activate two of the spectral guardians that are up here. One of them is going to

float over and come after

you through the middle of the air. The other is going...
No, sorry, after August. Another one's going to float over and

come after you.

Actually, you appeared over here to attack him, so you'd be on this edge here.

So this guy floats over on this edge. So attacking you, August.

It's a five.

Nice. Natural two on that one.
And then against you, Screve, that's an actual 18.

That'll be a 21 to hit you.

That hits, yes. All right.

Oh, sorry. Sorry.
That's 19.

19 is into my severe damage, so I will. So sorry, no, that was a 19 to heat.

I was looking at the wrong bonus.

That's going to be 10 physical damage against you. 10 physical damage is major for me, so I will strike an armor off and brings it on minor one hit point.

Alright.

Alright. Now it's your go.

Um, okay, Brixton is kind of treading water a little bit, and she gets a little zoned out by the

flame. And she's

looking at the ghostly flame looking up the side of this building. Can I once again search for a clue to try and help us out with her?

Okay, I would like to do a knowledge roll. I would also like to use one of my Orderborn values for dedicated, which is the future lies in the past.

To roll a D20 as my hope. That is perfectly viable for this.
Go for it. The answer lies behind us.

Okay.

Okay.

It's all right.

So hitting 18 with fear. 18 with fear.
That does click it down to a three.

But it clicks it down. It clicks it down.
Clicks it down.

As you glance into the flame, all of a sudden you can see fire all around. You turn about and you can see fire all throughout this district.

You see fire in the sky as ancient mystical birds that were trained to carry soldiers come tumbling out of the sky.

You can't tell what burned them, but a good good portion of this whole city is at war with something outside, with itself.

You don't know, but there is fire all around and you just hear screams and screams. You hear just the sheer volume of agony and

terror that strikes this area and you flick out of it and you can even tell in the soldier spirits that are here, you can feel shards of that fear in their spirits that still cling to these riots.

Like these soldiers are following orders, but they're scared as well.

We're all afraid. Be not afraid.
And can I move?

If I wanted to just like swim. Yep, you can get partway there, I'd say.
About there. As you're like swimming through the water.
Comes back to me as you swim by.

This

guardian's gonna swoop down and attempt to. I'm gonna spend a fear to have it pull out its grave blade against you.
you. That's gonna be a four to hit you.
Nice. Miss.

And you just dive underwater and come up.

Photosplate armor. Yeah.

Back to y'all.

The timer's at three. I'm going to uh hmm.

Because I ticked it down one? Correct. Which is good for us.
No. Yeah.
Yeah. This one, this is your progress clock.
Like, like, there's, there's, there's a consequence clock and a progress clock.

I should have probably clarified that previously, but there's a progress clock is you working towards a goal. A consequence clock is advancing towards a consequence.

Where's their mystic flame out of curiosity? Like,

especially on this side of it, like, is there anything particularly on fire, or is it just that building at this point?

I mean, that building is the closest thing, but there's like little bits of ghostly fire all over. Like, part of this building behind here is burning.
Some of the rooftops in the distance are burning.

The core of the riots, the apostasy riots that took over a lot of this city are very much on display around here.

I want to float down to

that

ghost that's currently engaged with our poor friend over here.

Snakes.

And.

That's it. No, I'm

not the video.

Okay, just as a fun experiment, I'm going to flip around and I'm also going to try and do... I I want to do

a magical push into Ghostly Fire to see if Ghostly Fire burns ghosts. Okay.
Oh, interesting. That's cool.

Which one are you trying to ghosts with? The one, actually, the one I'm currently closest to. Because

this is a meal. I'm pushing in which direction.
Where's the fire? Where's the closest fire? The closest fire is going to be that side there. Oh.

Up here. They're both kind of equidistant.
Yeah, that's far range, right? Yeah. I'm going to push them into that one.
Okay. That's funnier.

Where's my power push? Okay, that's a spellcrash roll.

You got this, Talias. Oh, now you said that.
Now it's all going to go wrong. See, you did that.
That was entirely you.

I'm blaming you for my dice.

16 to hit.

16 does hit with fear. With fear.
Wah, wah. That's okay.
That's okay. Go ahead and roll damage.
All right. And

it gets pushed into this wall here and kind of appears in the top. The ghostly flames surround it, and it screams in ghostly agony.
Nice. And then reshifts its focus back to you.

A spectral fire does not burn a specter. Oh, well, it was a wonderful shot.
But it was worth the shot. It was worth the 12 points of magic damage.
Alrighty.

Oh, it was a thought. Thank you.
Which does do two hit points to that one.

Alright. And that was with fear.
That was with fear.

The only roll of fear. Yeah.
Wow. With that.
Wow, sir. This one is going to turn angrily and rush towards you.

And the one you put over this way is going going to spend a fear to have it come after you and a vengeful assault.

That's going to be a natural 20 crits against you. Wow.

And the other is going to be a 9,

which I believe misses you. 9 does miss me.

Let's see. Alright, so that is going to be

16,

17. Where's that thing? Can I do it?

It's right here. Oh, I do not have three hopes.
Okay. 20 points of physical damage.
20 points of physical damage.

I'll mark an armor and I'll take that point.

Alright, that finishes my spotlight. The last thing I saw the captain do was fire an arrow off at Idol.
Correct. So I will bark at him.
I'll spit at him.

Officer, you are playing with me.

And I will use Enrapture to make a spellcast roll on a target within close range if I succeed. And I'm going to spend a hope to use my under-the-skin experience.
Under the skin.

The spectral skin you wish to get under.

That is 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. 18 with fear.

Ah, with fear.

Oh, that is a success. Success.
So, on a success, once per rest, I can mark a stress myself to force the enraptured target. to mark a stress as well, which I believe now will inflict damage.

Indeed, it goes at one hit point automatically to him. him.
He's looking real bad. Oh, that's good.

Captain turns you.

It's like mime work. Hell yeah.

And that was with fear? Yes. Yep.
Alright. The captain immediately is going to come back towards you because he's focused on you.
He's going to spend a hope to do another.

This is going to be...

You know what? No, he's going to spend two fear to do unending battle. So enroll a d4 for me.
I gotcha.

It's got very cocked.

It's a two. Two.

He summons

three of the spectral archers that were destroyed. No!

No!

Back up from the grave, and you watch as more ghosts begin to appear. And a sense of dread comes over you all as you begin to realize.

These ghosts will keep coming under this commander's focus and employ. This riot is filled with spirits that are looking for vengeance.
That's going to finish my go. It's yours.

I'm going to start tearing that room apart. All right.
I'm going to keep looking. If there, you said there was a pew, so is there an altar? Is this a place of worship that someone's going to be?

Make a knowledge horror instinct call for me. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right.
I would give you, I would try to spend a hope, but I am on a barrel. You know what?

You can see her through the window if you want to try and figure out a way to help her.

Yeah, that's good. I just want to see the other one.
That I do yet.

Clicky, clack. You can spend a paragraph, man.

Makes room here.

On the map?

Alright. That's a good roll.
It's a good roll, but it is with fear.

11 plus 12 is 23.

20.

Plus an extra 3, which is

26. 26, it counts down to 12.
Plus 1, because of my instinct.

Knowledge, you said?

Knowledge or instinct? Your choice. Instinct.
Plus one. Yeah, so 24.
It's down.

Your progress counter is down to two.

This is

you're beginning to glean kind of aspects of this. This was a place of prayer.

Kind of one of the smaller exterior temples of the city. And as you look down to where the pew is floating, you can see down there there are statues and

what looked like what were once painted elements of old faith that has since been like grown over with mildew and underwater moss and various other

subwater growth.

This was a temple that was desecrated as part of these riots.

And in that sort of image, you kind of begin to acknowledge that the conflict of faith that brought these riots about definitely explains why there's so much tension in these roads surrounding it.

It was a temple to the God King. Or to the Veiled Gods.
To the Veiled Gods. Was that with hope? That was with fear.
God damn it!

We get no momentum!

On my end, I'm going to spend

two fears on that activation for the spectral captain.

It's probably one, one good hand. Only two on that one.
Two more of these.

Archers. Jesus reappear.
A little more spread out. That's my activation.
Okay, can I get up and jump up to that thing that I fell off of?

Yep, you can probably like climb up in the top if you'd like to pass the spirit. I will probably.

Come on.

Take out the captain. Come up.
Do what you do. I don't think we can.
I think we can. I'm going to hold up the scepter of Elias

and announce to all the soldiers, it is I,

Elias,

holy priests of the old god, the current gods.

Because we're in the old days.

We're all alive. Rioters!

More rioters are to the east! Go! Find them! Protect my faith.

Put down the heretics.

That's us.

Make that way. And make a presence roll.

I'm actually, I'm gonna add, I'm gonna spend a hope to help you with the presence roll by using some pressedigitation to just sort of make your clothing flap and give you a little bit of like a like gentle illumination.

Let's go for it. Also, gonna use your rally dice.
Oh,

right? So, yeah.

What did you get? Four?

Four.

Twenty

with fear.

Twenty with fear. That is a success.
The timer counts down to one. Okay.

As you hold up the scepter and scream, you watch as all of the spirits, even the ones in the streets and the nearby walls, all turn to you. And there's a moment of reverence as they bow their heads.

And you see as some of the ones in the walls begin to rush off towards where you point. The ones nearby are momentarily confused and begin to turn in that direction.

But they're also looking at each other, trying to suss out where Elias suddenly appeared from, and whether or not Elias was alive during the apostasy riot.

Nevertheless, that comes to me.

The captain

who is enraptured with me, unless you is going to spend time.

It's going to be a seven to hit here. Nah.

Goes wide and shouting,

Imbeciles!

Elias has been dead for centuries. centuries!

That's why this is such a miracle!

I have risen again!

This says drowns out any sound but me and my voice. So did the captain hear that? That's true.
So the captain,

he's just focused on you.

So

you thought you hear that. One of the soldiers says that.

Off to the side, angry. The other soldiers are like, what are you talking about? But instead, Ramon, thank you for the reminder.
The captain is just focused on you.

All right, so it's your go again. Can I run forward to the edge and try to hit the captain one more time?

A little chaos.

Get him.

Get so close to counting this down.

Get us. One more countdown, guys.

That's cocked.

Okay. Oh, wait.
Oh, no. Oh, this is so confusing.
It's still good. Yeah, it's still good.

69? 69? 69. That's a crit in Dagger Heart.

15, 60, 60, 15. 18 with hope.

18 with hope. Take that hope and roll damage against Decapton.
All right, I'm marking a stress to get my

beads back. Okay, so this is 3D 10.

10,

11, 12 points of

magic damage. Yay!

Um, Violet's in my hand and she's shaking. And as the chaos bursts through, it's gonna

pass in front of Screve

and

I'm gonna smile and time's gonna slow down and it's gonna turn into this magical cotton candy land as the as the captain explodes out in the colorful rainbow.

His body disperses in a big ring and I just see you ringed in it from afar.

All the spirits together shout.

Captain!

Oh, I thought that would help us. Wait, was that with fear? No, it was destroyed.
No, it was hope.

Captain's destroyed. Okay, um,

I'm wearing this armor. This armor is from a great captain from the days of your.

I'm going to swim up a little bit and see if I can get purchase on this, like, chimney box. This is a floating bookcase that is like floating in the water.
You kind of clamber onto it. It's.

We're shredding mid.

I'm gonna take out my

blade and I'm gonna clink it against the armor on my chest that I found in the vaults. I'm gonna say, soldiers!

I'm your captain now!

There it is. We retreat!

Head back to the Amber Reach!

Yep, yep, yep, head back to the place you're in.

Leave a retreat. Sure.
Make a present.

Me.

Make a presence roll for the next one. Head back to the presents.

Okay, I am going to use my rally dice on this

because I don't want to buy this up.

Come on.

Oh, ooh,

Okay.

Finally, which with hope of the day is going to be 22 plus 27.

Minus one. 26 because of my presence.
26 with hope.

26 with hope. As you shout this,

the rest of you watch as spectral energy seems to surround Brixton. And while her voice...

Seems to emit from her mouth for a moment another emits.

The voice of another captain.

She's briefly possessed by another spirit in these riots that occupies her body, and you see a strong human woman standing, short hair and a cloak that flaps in the spectral breeze as she shouts out,

Let us not fight.

It is the lack of faith that forces us to kill kin.

These riots, this bloodshed will be the end of us all.

It is the god king that forsaked us,

not the gods.

We must sh

an arrow takes her in the throat, and the spirit falls out of Brixton's body, and he watches the soldiers look back in horror.

The flames,

the spirits of the soldiers,

and the haunting fades,

the district falling back to mist,

and the riots

gone

you all float in the water

here

the hunt or you keeping on your barrel

this brief glimpse into the dark history of Amber Each for the moment left to history

As your troop one by one leaps or swims to the edge of this parapet

catches your breath

and looks up now through the mist that has somewhat parted at your proximity

to the amazing multi-stared climb of the ash call quarter

and we'll come back to their next episode

nice we'll see you all there soon enough

Thank you so much for joining us. Love you very much.
And is it Thursday yet?

Good night.

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