Avowed One-Shot

Tron Aries has arrived.

I would like you to meet Ares, the ultimate AI soldier.

He is biblically strong and supremely intelligent.

You think you're in control of this?

You're not.

On October 10th.

What are you?

My world is coming to destroy yours, but I can help you.

The war for our world begins in IMAX.

Tron Aries, suited PG-13.

Maybe inappropriate for children under 13.

Only in theaters October 10th.

Get tickets now.

I don't mean to interrupt your meal, but I love Geico's fast and friendly claim service.

Well, that's how Geico gets 97% customer satisfaction.

Yeah, I'll let you get back to your food.

Uh, so are you just gonna watch me eat?

Get more than just savings, get more with Geico.

Hey there, Critical Role podcast listeners.

We have a special new membership service at beacon.tv, where you can get early access to all new podcast episodes, including Critical Role for the first time ever.

Beacon members also get things like event pre-sales, merch discounts, access to a private community Discord, and new exclusive series like Critical Role Cooldown, where we riff after the show.

Think of it as our digital Critical Role land.

Head on over to Beacon.tv to check it out for yourself and start a seven-day free trial.

Thank you so, so much for your support, for being a podcast listener, and for being a part of our community.

Hey there, critters.

We are so excited to share with you our brand new podcast from the world of Xandria, the Reslayer's Take.

In this audio adventure, you'll be guided through the wild continent of Assilra, home to some of the most dangerous creatures.

Here, the Slayer's Take is the most notorious monster hunting group in the realm.

But when previously slain creatures start returning from the grave, it's up to six misfit mercenaries to band together and re-slay these supernatural threats as the re-slayers take.

So come follow along these audio escapades as the second coolest monster hunters this side of Xandria battle a growing undead army of dangerous creatures.

The party is led by a duo of Game Masters, George Primavera and Nick Williams, with the main cast including Jasmine Bular, Caroline Lux, and Jasmine Shion.

Listen to new episodes every Monday anywhere you stream podcasts, or become a beacon member and listen to the podcast two weeks early and uninterrupted by ads.

Hi there, this is Matthew Mercer, Resident Game Master here at Critical Roll to welcome you to this podcast version of the show.

If you'd like to watch the stream as it airs, you can catch it Thursdays at 7 p.m.

Pacific on twitch.tv slash critical roll or youtube.com slash critical roll.

Twitch subscribers can access the video on demand immediately after the broadcast and it also becomes available on YouTube Mondays at 12 p.m.

Pacific.

Podcast episodes land right here on the Critical Role Podcast Network on Thursdays a week after the initial broadcast.

Okay, with that info dump out of the way, let's dive into the story.

Hello everyone and welcome to a very special one shot in collaboration with our friends at Xbox and Obsidian Entertainment and their new game Avowed,

which is out now.

You should buy it.

It's in the same world of Pillars and Pillars of Eternity and Pillars of Eternity 2.

And I love it.

I'm super excited.

You can check it out now at xbox.com/slash avowed to learn more about it.

And that being said, while you may recognize some of the places and characters explored tonight as inspired by elements from the avowed game, we just want to emphasize for you all that the characters and events in this one shot are our own creations and are not official content from avowed.

They are just simply inspired by it.

But a big thank you to Xbox and Obsidian Entertainment for letting us play in your world of Aora.

Before we jump in, let's get a quick roundtable for some of our fantastic players here.

I will go ahead and start on this side.

Marisha, Marisha Ray, are wonderful.

That's me.

I'm Marisha Ray.

Hello.

Hi, thank you.

Hi.

Yay.

Joining us, I guess, for the first time.

Sungwan Cho, thank you so much for coming.

Pleasure.

Thank you.

Hell yeah, buddy.

Anjali Bamani, thank you so much for coming along.

Hi, guys.

It's good to see you.

Oh, no, I won't be doing that first time.

Do not worry.

I know.

Someday, someday, I promise.

I promise.

Travis, Travis

Willingsom.

Willingsome.

Travis Willingsom.

Thank you so much.

Travis Willingham, thank you for coming, buddy.

Thanks.

And lovely Whitney Moore, thank you so much for joining us at the table.

I'm a nice woman.

I was allowed to be inside an airport.

Oh, what does that mean?

We're not going to unpack that at all.

We do not have time.

But

bringing us back to Aora, without further ado, let us indeed come into the world of Avowed.

Critical Role is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Look, there's a difference between venting to your GM and actually talking with a licensed therapist.

That's where BetterHelp comes in with clinically trained and licensed therapists.

They've been around for over a decade, helped millions of people, and out of 1.7 million client reviews, they've got a 4.9 rating.

Now, here's what I love about BetterHelp.

They help find a therapist that works for you so you can focus on your life's adventure.

You fill out a short questionnaire that helps identify your needs and preferences.

And if you you aren't happy with your match, well, you can switch to a different therapist at any time.

It's fully online, and you can pause your subscription whenever you need to.

With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally.

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise.

Find the one with BetterHelp.

Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/slash critical role.

That's betterhelp.com slash critical role.

Tron Aries has arrived.

I would like you to meet Aries, the ultimate AI soldier.

He is biblically strong and supremely intelligent.

You think you're in control of this?

You're not.

On October 10th.

What are you?

My world is coming to destroy yours, but I can help you.

The war for our world begins in IMAX.

Tron Aries, feeded PG-13.

Maybe inappropriate for children under 13.

Only in theaters October 10th.

Get tickets now.

I don't mean to interrupt your meal, but I saw you from across a cafe, and you're the Geico Gecko, right?

In the flesh.

Oh, my goodness.

This is huge to finally meet you.

I love Geico's fast and friendly claim service.

Well, that's how Geico gets 97% customer satisfaction.

Anyway, that's all.

Enjoy the rest of your food.

No worries.

Uh, so are you just gonna watch me eat?

Oh, sorry.

Just a little starstruck.

I'll be on my way.

If you're gonna stick around, just pull up a chair.

You're the best.

Get more than just savings.

Get more with Geico.

When you need eye-catching content fast, use Adobe Express, the quick and easy app to create on-brand content.

Make visually consistent social posts, presentations, videos, and more with brand kits and lockable templates.

Edit, resize, and even translate, all in just a click.

And use Firefly-powered generative AI features to create commercially safe content with confidence.

Start creating with Adobe Express at adobe.com/slash go/slash express.

Welcome to Aura.

A vast and mysterious world of magic, politics, and discovery, where empires weave and row over their interests, and the many gods have presided in ages past over the wheel, a cycle of rebirth the soul undertakes.

with each passing.

The soul itself is a studied thing, a being's own essence, and its mechanics themselves are studied across many lands within the field of animancy.

Texts and great machines recovered from the ancient civilization known as the Ingwithans pertain to and manipulated souls in ways that are still not fully understood.

But such matters carry little interest where our story begins, as a sizable prison ship recently set sail from the Adiran capital city of High Crown, heading northward.

This ship, the Dancing Umbridge, carries a cargo of numerous convicts of varying degrees of notoriety, shackled, then prepped into the ship for arrival to the Living Lands, the northern frontier island where numerous settlements and foreign colonies now seek to expand and claim dominion over the region's diverse geography and bountiful resources.

A rumorous swirl of unnaturally abundant landscapes and uncovered relics belonging to prehistoric culture, and the pursuit of such interests requires labor.

And well,

no labor is cheaper than prisoners without choice.

Prisoners that now wait within the belly of the dancing umbrage, pushing onward across a choppy sea as a storm brews beyond.

So here,

deep below the deck, the dull swinging lantern light barely lighting the interior of these barred cells, the strong scents of musky sweat and mildew,

salt-soaked wood itself giving this kind of awful mixture of smells that sting the senses, like an invisible mist that just kind of hangs in the air around you.

The loud sounds of hard exterior rainfall hitting the hull of the ship, and the undulating creaking of the wood with each shift of every heavy wave, causing you all to rock and push against the bars and wood that surround you.

Here, in the shadows of this ship, the many criminals sent on this adventure sit behind these bars, sliding with each of these heavy swings, a wooden cage filled with a unique mix of white-collar criminals, grifters, thugs, and some career crooks all eager to be free from this seaside rocking coffin.

Travis, as we shift over to one of these two adjacent cells with but a set of bars between them,

what do we see in front of us and what are you doing?

You see a human godlike sitting there, sort of keeping to himself.

Almost appears cold, but it seems like

it's tremors from the violent shaking of the boat.

Not really handling himself very well.

His skin looks almost charred or blackened, and you can see these little veins of what look like magma or kind of fire creeping up his neck and into his cheeks down his arms and there's a like a low glowing flame beneath it.

His eyes have sort of this like burning coals and blackened

hollows behind them and then these horns that protrude from his down along his cheeks and up along his temples as well.

But

he's not a terribly imposing figure and he actually looks

fairly afraid and fearful of where where he is and he's he's constantly furtively moving his eyes back and forth and just trying to get a bearing on his on his situation.

All right.

Now but a few days here deep at sea to this unknown location.

You sit there keeping to yourself mostly kind of hands ringing in your isolation both here among the distant waters and even amongst a foreign populace of folk more threatening than you by disposition, maybe not by visual appearance.

But sharing this cell with you, Whitney, if you wouldn't mind describing who we see and what you're up to.

Yes, I am an Oralan, so about three feet tall,

with the coloring of sort of a Siamese cat, dark, all white except for dark on my hands and feet and ears and a little bit right on my nose.

And I'm wearing a beautiful silk gown that has a really cinched waist and a bell

skirt and it is embroidered with beautiful green

stems with pink flowers on it and it's really beautiful.

I've got lace gloves on it and I am humming to myself.

Having

not a nice time, but I am content and I am sort of fingering the hem of my dress where that seems like there's something, a thread that I'm kind of pulling at.

But humming and I'm keeping to myself.

All right.

As you hum and you pluck at that one thread, it begins to slowly unravel as it has been for some time.

And as you're lost in distant thought, as the song swims through your mind,

a heavy wave seems to billow on one side of the ship, and as it does, it lists and rocks to one side.

And you can't help but kind of try and catch yourself before you slide and

wham into the other bars across the way as the ship writes itself.

As you slam into the bars, the heavy sound of metal

kind of ring behind you, right into the back of you, Sung Wan, your character on the opposite side of these bars, feel the impact from behind, and who do we see react?

So he's a big

blue man.

He's very handsomely dressed.

And I guess prior to getting run into,

very relaxed, just like, I don't know, sticking his finger in his ear, checking for, you know, wax blowing, and just like clearly not too bothered

by his current circumstance.

When she runs into me,

I'm like, kind of just vaguely annoyed, but your character is fairly small, right?

Okay.

Very small.

I almost barely...

Because I'm built and I barely notice it.

And when I like to kind of scoff,

a little look of disdain, but I don't even acknowledge.

Fair enough.

As this Aumaua kind of glances over his shoulder,

not terribly bothered as

head turns to look about the rest of this cramped cell where not too far, Anjali, if you would describe who we see also sharing this space.

So you see

sitting in the back corner, one leg folded under and one leg

bent in front, you see a lithe elven woman who is

she has white long white hair twisted up.

You see some kind of some kind of

golden stick, something that is that she's fashioned into into some kind of a hairpin of some kind.

You can't tell if it's a weapon, a stick, or what it is, but it's in her hair.

And she's wearing

like a full

fur-lined bolero and a high, low, skirted leather bodice jacket thing.

It's a technical term, it's name out of my lane.

And

long, tall boots.

And as all of this has been happening, she's been eyeing both of these two

very

sweet

characters across the way.

She's been eyeing them and sharpening her nails against the stone or against the stone of one of the walls.

You've noticed that her nails are sharpened to a fine point.

All right.

So

even noticeably treated treated a little better in what you're able to bring along than some of the other prisoners on this.

There is some some difference in station, just easy at a glance to notice.

But here, as you kind of gather yourself and

feel comfortable in this space, you feel the distant crack of rolling thunder kind of

echo and billow through the muffled sound barrier that is the outside of this ship.

As the movement of the waves make it continue to roll and undulate,

the warden's heavy footsteps now being heard beginning to descend down below deck and into the interior of the chamber.

As you can glance over to the right in the direction of the sound, not far from you on the other side, ears also perked up at what sounds like the warden giving some sort of an immediate walk or pass through.

Marisha, would you describe who we see also in this chamber with these two?

So you see a very stout dwarven woman.

She looks kind of like the rugged outdoorsy type.

She's covered in a bunch of like scars.

Face is a little bit worse for wear, a little gruff, a little

reddened cheeks from you know sun spots from being out in the sun too much.

She's got a like a fur pelt over top of her shoulders.

sustainably sourced

and it's got some like leathers kind of all over the place, you know, a little bit of some hides hanging from her belt and a big wide-brimmed hat sits on top of her head.

Two kind of braided ponytail or pigtails that kind of hang down beside.

And she's having a very different experience from everybody else.

You would almost think she's having a good time.

Right before this,

right before this warden came down, she was just like,

getting tossed around like a fresh pot of ale and drunkard stomach.

Let's go!

As you slam on the ground, you know, all of you, your

arms and armaments themselves confiscated and

not certain where they were taken even before this trip, even if they made it to the boat.

You are have just what was on you when you were set aside for conviction and then quickly thrown onto this ship with what you had on your back.

You slam your fist in the ground before another sound

slams into the heavy wood door just beyond where the cell is.

As around the corner, you see kind of the dark and outer shape, barely lit by the still hanging and squeaking metal of the lanterns that are kind of still trying to recover from the thrust of the ship from side to side.

The outline of Warden Ranzano.

You see a human man with a big, heavy, square jaw with like a

big bushy red beard

that consumes most of it, though the mustache itself is cut down except for a bit stubbly up top It's just this massive chin beard short crew cut red hair and a very intense look of look to be the green eyes you've seen during the day before you took this trip, but it's hard to even tell much beyond his like really thick brow and this kind of top-lit lighting as he comes around

All right

Need y'all to keep down

no more too much noise making around here We still got about a week's path on this.

And if any of you be causing any sort of trouble, any rolling down here, I'll strap you to the front of this bow until you right make your face smile.

Don't make any promises you can't keep.

We can keep plenty of promises, Missy.

Food's coming around in about two hours.

And he keeps on walking.

Moving past.

You hear this like, ting, ting, ting, about ten feet down, he's like, I'll do that!

I fucking through that!

Someone ever laughs around, he's like, couple chuckles, comes over and slams into the bars, and everything gets quiet and still.

And he's like,

You,

Genfor,

want to go ahead and take a walk?

Huh?

You hear like kind of this like, no, no, sorry.

He goes, too bad.

Time to take a hike, boy.

Opens up the bars, and you hear like, no, no, no, no.

The sound of chains dragging, being like manacles being clamped onto somebody, and you see the shape of one of the prisoners in one of the other cells in this part of the deck being dragged out with the warden up to the deck.

His whimpers vanish as the trapdoor closes on top as that was happening could i rush up to the bars and just try and see like where the warden is pulling like keys from or anything like that on his person or yeah mate go ahead and roll perception for me first roll first roll

internet natural 20.

You see another guard that had kind of been stationed on the far end of this hallway has joined him as this commotion began to begin.

So there's a secondary guard helping.

It's not just the warden, but the warden indeed pushes past his cloak.

And you see there's like heavy furs as well, soaked.

He's been kind of walking up on top of the deck to try and keep everything organized.

And so there's like water kind of dripping from the furs.

But as he pulls back, you hear the jingling of metal.

And without issue, even here in the low light, your keen eyes see this ring that carries about probably a dozen and a half keys from it of different colors and metals.

And he goes ahead and plucks past four down, enters it, and then enters the cell where this figure is drawn out.

You see, this is a poor, older dwarven fellow who looks later in his years.

Who he's not fighting, he's just whimpering as he's dragged off, kind of bald of head and long, kind of

white curls.

And they both the guards grab an arm and pull him up onto the top of deck and out of sight.

Can we please keep it down across the way there?

I really, I really don't want to end up on the bow of the ship.

See how hard he hit that wood?

Strong wood.

What do you think, Hoke?

It's good.

I turn

to Iloba and I go.

So they uh

got you two, huh?

It seems they have.

Yeah, well, I made a few too many slip-ups, and um,

yeah.

But uh, you'll be fine.

You two know each other or something

in passing,

I suppose.

We're acquainted.

Family.

Friends?

Yeah, with uh, uh, what was the name of that family?

Hmm.

The Tyrans.

Yeah, yeah.

Tyranns, yeah.

Anyway, we've, uh,

had a few run-ins.

Nice.

Like.

Like.

Definitely not.

Not yet.

Well, we're here another week, you know, so um

no strangers among thieves, right?

Are you looking?

How am I watching?

As much as I appreciate your daring do,

I think perhaps uh

our perceptive natures are a little bit more inclined to finding a way out of here before

we

enjoy each other's company.

Guess she's got a real stick up her ass.

Watch it, or you'll have one up yours.

Promise.

About this moment,

a soft voice from across the way, in the shadow of the bars in the cell across the hall from you.

Should

anyone around here know where we're going?

Anyone at all?

You see just faintly through the shadow these two little hands curl around as this kind of dirty blonde, uh, Orlin, kind of female, old, kind of middle-aged

blue eyes kind of peer through from beneath.

You can see just kind of a pale expression of fear on her face as she kind of wears kind of somewhat ragged-looking prison clothes that give you the sense that she's probably been waiting in a cell back in the Endiran Empire for a while before joining this journey with the rest of you.

Haven't you heard?

I imagine they're gonna take us where they take all these type of folks.

Living lands.

I don't know what that is.

You look like me.

I've never seen someone who looks like me.

Um,

we're going somewhere to do work, I believe.

Um,

but don't worry, because patience is a virtue, and adaptability is a virtue.

So, if you hang on and um

think

nice thoughts, then um you'll get through and that's what I'm hanging on to.

So,

have that.

Okay, okay.

Um,

that's good to know, that's good to know.

I'm I'm Lyria, Lyira, Lyra,

my name is Lady Manette.

It's so nice to meet you.

You're a lady, I'm a lady, yes.

Wow, hi, Lyira.

I'm I'm Galen.

That's very nice, by the way.

I find it helps to hum along, um, to drown out the thoughts, so

and there's no dread for you hung over it.

I'd like to differ, there is a little bit of dread.

Maybe not for you.

I'm sorry to speak out of tone.

It's quite all right.

Yes, Mary.

You have to apologize.

Oh.

All right.

Thank you.

I

understand that in polite society it's important to have manners, and I don't want to speak out of tone.

I'm very sorry.

We're not in polite society no more.

Lady Manetta, are you a- you're a lady?

I am, I am a lady.

Um, just very much like Ilva, actually, right?

Um,

Lady Ilva, um, you went to parties and you drank tea and are educated like me, right?

I am many things, but definitely not a lady.

Oh,

forgive me.

Um, yes, I am a lady and I

am

adaptable and I have strength of character.

And so this is something that we will

cross the bridge when we get to it.

Interesting.

Do you have any

skills?

Yes, yes, I'm highly educated in magic.

Um, I was uh my my friend Eleonora, whose family I I joined at a young age, uh, she wanted me to be taught all the things that she was taught.

And so I was raised with education such as maths and and literature and also I can shoot fire out of my hands so I

don't know I don't typically do it very much but um yes and I'm also very good at dice

games card games um yes you know you have to

a lady must always have a rounded set of skills that's what Eleonora said

so what's a fancy little girl like you doing

here?

You steal a cookie from the cookie jar.

No, I wasn't allowed to have cookies.

No, I um

I'm here because of friendship.

Oh dear.

Um

well my friend Eleonora she met me when I was a very little girl and she was small as well and I was on the streets and she said, would you like to come home with me and be my pet

and I she called me Minette which I think means cat and I think she thinks that I am a cat but that's okay because she said I will give you beautiful dresses and hot meals and you will be educated and you will become a lady and so she brought me up and I owe her everything and

There was an accident.

Forgive my imprudence, but I was reasonably more skilled at spells than she was, and she had an accident with a male suitor, and

I couldn't let anything happen to my friend, so I took the fall, and I would do it again.

I owe my entire life to Eleonora, and I regret nothing, and I am in this situation because I deserve to be, and I will handle it with

grace.

So, so wait, wait, wait, um, just uh, so, so many questions.

Um, there's a lot of time packed.

No.

So you are

a cat that did something to support another creature.

No, no, I.

A cat that had someone else's better interest in mind.

Um.

I'm sorry, I've never heard of anything like that.

I don't, I don't, this is not.

I, what about?

Sometimes the most virtuous thing to do is to understand one's place.

I'm not a cat, although I do meow.

And I

um

sounds like you're kind of a cat.

Yeah, it is.

Looks like a cat.

Smells like a cat.

What would you do for a hot meal?

Oh, for many things.

It depends on the meal.

Right now, I'd meow.

And much more than that.

Eleonora Salmon was very, very dear to me.

And her life was going in a direction that mine could never.

And I am very, very grateful to her for what I've learned through for her and the very very many beautiful dresses that i received um

for that

i take my peace and um i think she will come back for me i think that she will i think that she loves me

thank gods we got a week on here because it's gonna take about a week to uh uncode all that

well this is good though uh if if eleonora is is very very powerful or has a lot of means or station, then maybe there would be an effort to free you and us.

Trust me, if you're depending on love,

there's no one coming.

What about you?

You look more nervous than a gingerbread man in a hot oven.

What did you do?

I did.

I did nothing.

Okay.

No, no, I know that's probably said quite frequently, but I literally did

nothing.

I work the books.

I work in accounting and an import-export business and

I...

White color crime.

No, even that...

Yeah.

Well,

maybe.

I might have drawn outside of the lines a little bit in some accounting, but nothing that deserves

this.

I found some errors in the accounting of my company, and when I brought them to

the owner's attention, he

paid me a little extra to look the other way and to continue the business as it was.

But

I

was working late, burning the candle at both ends one evening, and when I awoke, there was a struggle in the office.

And

when I turned the light,

there were dead bodies

everywhere.

Someone had broken in and throttled the owner, and his wife was there.

It was terrible, but as soon as I went out and tried to help them, I realized they were beyond saving.

And by raising my hand and flagging down help, I was pinned for this.

Can I make whatever kind of roll would be made to try to see if anything about this is something that I would have heard of in the among the families?

Sure, yeah, make an inflight roll for me if you don't mind.

18 plus 6.

So

17.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Sorry, 18 plus 6.

Did I say 17?

I'm an Asian who can't do math, you guys.

There's only one of us.

Only one of us, and it's me.

24.

Very, very good, actually.

The

Opalescent Trading Company is known to do quite a bit of business on the eastern side of the Idyran Empire,

also also between here and the Velian Republic.

But they weren't a massive business necessarily, but they were one of the smaller up-and-comers.

Have been around for a while and were starting to kind of really make theirselves known.

But it word got around that there was some sort of a

vengeful

wiping out of their upper management.

And there's currently investigations going into a number of the competitive businesses.

But

currently all you've heard is they arrested somebody involved with it.

But

I don't have any inkling that that business, that that crime had something to do with one of the criminal families that either he or I belong to.

I would say that from what you can understand,

there were many families that had some toes dipped in, like they do in many of the trade businesses around here.

But from what you've heard, no specific whispers about cause or blame.

And as you look at Galen, he he looks like he's wearing sort of dirty clothes, but it's actually very darkened, like rust-colored, like bloodstains on his shirt, on his pants, on his sleeves.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It sounds like you were just trying to help.

That's a virtue, and I'm sure wherever we're going, you can just explain that, and

right?

No no one's listened to me.

They take one look at me and they assume the worst.

And I I understand.

I tried to help, but

I think they've lacked evidence or anyone else to point a finger at.

And

have you ever killed a man?

Or anyone without a matter?

No, no, I've never even killed for food.

Keep that to yourself.

Where we're going, that's not a good thing.

Right.

I'll

thank you.

I'll keep it to myself.

Lady Gilbert, have you killed someone?

not a lady.

Have I killed someone?

Massive ship in the ship suddenly causes you all to shh slide to one side.

You grab out and try and hold into the bar space.

You can't embrace yourself.

Remember the battle of

the ship settles again, and you hear another crack of distant thunder kind of

stillness takes again.

I learned a long time ago.

Have I ever killed anyone?

Oh, that's an interesting question with several different answers.

It depends on what you mean by killing someone.

Feels like there should only be two answers.

I don't know.

Feels like yes or no.

Was I responsible for someone's death?

Maybe.

I break several hearts here and there.

But have I ever

physically killed another person?

A woman has to have her secrets.

So, yes,

is what I'm gathering.

I'm sorry.

Sorry.

Yeah, it feels like it would be a resounding no if it were

anything else.

She's got a smile on her face.

Absolutely got a smile.

Looking like sweet best.

Fully got a smile on her face and continuing to sharpen her fingernails

up against the bar, the stone.

Are there any wardens nearby?

Do I see anybody?

At the moment, no.

You hear heavy footfalls above, and there are people like shifting around on deck, probably trying to hold the sails down in the midst of the storm, but nobody at the moment is present in the hall.

But you do know that about every 10 or so minutes, the warden or one of the other guards comes through to kind of just check in on things.

When we were brought in to the boat, did we see any like

dinghies or anything for abandoned ship?

Did we see any like extra boats?

Any ejections?

Ejection.

For their own people.

You know what?

Roll a perception check for me if you don't mind.

Nope.

That's

an eight.

The path you took into this ship was pretty direct.

You were brought across the gangplank onto the deck itself and directly under to your cell.

So even the quick glance you got,

nothing that leads you to believe that there's any sort of

kind of life raft base.

Anyway off this boat other than landing.

Do we know how much longer this voyage is going to last?

Make an intellect roll for me.

Oh boy, my character's not good for you.

Can I help?

Come on, buddy.

13 minus 1, 12.

Let's go, Big Blue.

Big 12.

12.

I mean, you've heard of the Living Lands.

You know it's to the north.

You know it's a big, kind of like an island landmass and all sorts of weird rumors about it.

But you're not a navigator.

Yeah, I haven't really looked at a map, so you have no idea.

Are there reports of like dangerous like do people die when they go there?

Is there like a reputation?

You've heard things from people saying it is a

rich land of possibility.

It's a frontier, you know,

unused and unexploited.

And you know that there are some like colonies set up from many of the different

major political players, both the Adrian Empire, the Avalian Republics, from New Jersey and the Dead Fire.

There's all sort of figures that are of interest of this northern area.

But also, it is

in its own ways kind of dangerous and unmapped.

That's as much as you could gather, and that's just from hearing around from people discussing it through your life.

No direct reports.

You do hear, though, a chuckle kind of emerge from a cell a little bit of an angle from across the way as a shattered figure kind of leans against the bars, their shoulders kind of pushing against it, their head kind of pushing through carefully.

A very thin head.

You see a pale elven head kind of pushed through with a kind of a dark brown, kind of matted long hair that covers one part of the face.

Things in

sorry, I couldn't help but listen in on your little conversations here, but uh, little miss here is trying to be cheeky.

I think she's killed many times.

I think I know a few.

You recognize that voice.

This pale elven man, you know to be uh Medrin

Gla

Glakaias.

Can you spell that please?

Yeah

M-E-D-R-A-N

Glaca G-L-A-C-Y-A-T-H

of the Glockayath family.

Like himself.

This is one of the m numerous competing criminal families.

More to the western side of the empire.

They don't work directly near the capital city.

And he's

a middle high member of the family.

He's not deeply important, but

both of you make intelligence checks for me, or intellect intelligence checks for me real fast.

17.

Nice.

What does that say?

Which one?

This one?

I have my glasses over here.

That's a 19.

19 plus 6.

25.

Okay.

You both do know, as you keep tabs in your own ways on any of the adjacent kind of criminal movements in your spectrums of interest, The Golkaiath criminal family,

this Medrin figure was known to be kind of a rising star within his particular circle,

but recently became arrested and publicly humiliated and more or less disowned by the family.

You don't know if that was to just push any of the blame away from tarnishing their business or keep eyes from prying too deep into what they were doing.

But he was definitely made a public example of before disappearing for a good two or three months from any site, and then now, apparently, has been placed on a similar journey as to you.

They're just collecting all of us, huh?

That's uh, Medrin Goal, with the

what was it?

Lakai, whatever.

Anyway, yeah, yeah, I know.

My face falls a little bit, and for the first time, you see me not looking coy or holding anything back, just

eyes.

Hello, Medrin.

So they've done to you what he's done to me, have they?

Do you all like

know each other?

What is it with you?

Has it been a long time?

Yeah.

Look, let's.

It's all been terribly honest here.

Some of us here have some skill.

Others maybe not so much.

Not at least where we're going.

So, if we have a chance, we make landfall.

If any opportunity strikes, we have to know who's got our backs and who's going to be useful.

After all, last I counted, there's more prisoners in this ship than there are guards.

There are.

I did the math.

I can't do math, apparently, so we've already established that.

Sorry, that was above table.

Good.

What can you do?

Oh, you know, I'm just a dwarf with the land, you know, pretty good with a gun, pretty good with the dagger,

pretty good with nature, kind of in general.

Why the fuck are you down here with the rest of us, Rifle?

Well, you see, um, I consider myself a conservationalist of sorts, a little bit of an animal rights activist.

You see, I was just happy in the fine in my mountain, protecting my forest, you know, trying to keep it from poachers and other type of people that want to exploit the land.

And uh,

you know, there's a lot of people who wander into my neck of the woods, uh, generally from the Valian Republic, who uh have all sorts of interests in the exotic animal trade and trying to find the wildlife and use them for either any type of their criminal mischief or everything from just being a uh an accessory.

All right, and uh you should your team

Excuse me, sir.

Pardon me.

Um, we were engaged in conversation, and I don't understand why you interrupted and then assumed that we didn't already know.

She clearly killed someone and was purposely withholding.

He lunges at the bar suddenly with a hand reaching out, but like a light.

And as he does, I just step in front of him with a hand up gently.

Matron.

Be careful who you're talking to, Miss.

I'm not afraid of you.

And what can you do?

Wait.

I can wait.

Ew.

Another heavy wave impacts the side of the ship.

This time it like hits at a heavier angle than you expect.

All of you slide.

The lanterns shake.

One ends up like slamming and breaking on the wall.

You hear the shattering of glass clattering on the ground.

And the flickers kind of darken for a second as it eventually

writes itself.

As it does, the whole room kind of shakes.

You all hear

and the bars to your chamber

ever so faintly open.

I run up and like hold it, hold, look like it holds it close, but like put my fingers in between so that it looks closed.

But like, it's I

think it's open.

I think it's open.

Did we just crash into?

Did it feel like we crashed into something?

No, you're still rocking.

Just a heavy, heavy wave hit.

The storm's getting bad.

Damn.

Medring was right.

I'm saying this to them, but I'm looking at him.

Medring was right.

We have to take any opportunity we can.

Get out of here.

Can I look both ways down the hall?

Like, just not opening the door any further and making it...

It was squeaky when it swung, right?

A little bit like...

And while he was...

While he's doing that, can I run over?

Is there a key hole to the

R bars?

Where R bars are?

What you can see is each one of these has, like, a very hefty metal latch lock on it.

When the heavy impact hits, because you kind of didn't really, you know, pay attention until you got there and closed it, the lock that was on yours kind of got pulled and broken and is now lying open on the ground in front of you.

It's kind of rusty and just old and shit.

Yeah.

So if there's one like that on our door,

I'd like to run up to it and

try to pick the lock.

Like with your nails.

Have you seen these?

I understand.

I understand.

All right.

All right, go ahead and make a dexterity roll for me.

This is a very difficult roll.

Can't imagine.

I'm going to put it in the room.

Actually, you know what?

I'd like to,

instead of using both with nails, one hand with nails, and I'm going to pull the,

grab onto the hilt here and pull a long stiletto dagger out from there with a very fine point and use both.

Very cool.

Yes or no?

You say no.

Make two dexterity checks for me.

The first one is to see whether or not you're able to hide a dagger with yourself.

That's where I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because it was like a

shiv.

We'll pretend it's a shit.

We could say it wasn't my dagger.

It wasn't a shiv.

But I'll allow.

I'll allow you to go ahead and roll to see if on the way in you're able to do something.

19 plus 3 is 22.

I hit a gun.

It's a lot of hair.

Right.

So, so this is not a stiletto.

It is a hairpin, but

it is made of harder metal than a natural hairpin or a common hairpin is because you do use it as a defensive weapon, being a woman of

the realms that you wander in business.

I swallowed a kid.

Yeah, roll a constitution check.

And now I need you to go ahead and roll.

You need to roll a 22 to pick this lock.

Oh, no.

You got it.

You got it.

You got it, you got it.

That's 20.

It says 16.

So you move around and

try and pick the lock with this as you can.

These locks are built strong.

The one that broke off there just from the sheer force, and this one may have been probably the most kind of like

salt, like sea salt worn over time, but this one's pretty pretty sturdy and it's not budging at this point.

Not by picking it at least.

And so the lock over there broke off?

It broke off.

So the door is basically open.

Their door is open.

Who's in there?

Sorry, who's in there?

Just the two of them.

Just the two of them.

Okay, sorry.

Esperanto.

Would you mind using your manly strength to help me?

Sure, what do you got in mind?

Break it.

Okay.

Hang on, hang on.

Let me, let me, I think I might have something to kind of help you out a little bit.

Let me see.

What do you got?

I'm going to kind of reach around through the bars and as I glide by

just

a little reach around.

It's been too long.

I cupped the lock.

No.

And then

I am going to.

I'm too close to being a big green spit take.

Can I cast corrosive siphon on the lock and try and just weaken it a little bit by corroding it?

I'll allow that.

Okay.

So go ahead and spend the essence.

Okay, which it's for essence.

Yep, as you as you clutch this lock and kind of focus on it, you take your particular connection with your time in nature as its guardian

to kind of tap into the innate corrosive powers of time,

of minerals, of how ore and metals can become pockmarked and drawn to dust and broken rust.

And you focus your magic, the lock itself seems to tarnish and you hear the faint kind of twisting and

of metal like straining against its form.

It is weaker than it was.

Much more useful a skill than saving bunnies.

Don't you talk about bunnies like that?

Can I are the bars wide enough?

The guy that lunged he put his head and his arm through the bars.

Can you get your head through the bars and like look left and right down the hallway?

You cannot.

The gentleman did so.

His head was.

He's a narrow, like thin elf,

and he'd barely fit through.

You can probably get your head, but you can't get your full body through the bars.

I will look around, but I think that maybe we should come up with what we're going to do after we get the lockout because there's a chance that it might make a sound.

And I think maybe we should just know what we're going to do next.

Um

run

um

the warden had a ring of keys on him, and I memorized which key he was using to open the other cell lock.

And I bet if we work backwards from the end of the hallway, we could get each one of these cells open, but I don't know who's at either end.

But you said so yourself, right?

There's more of us than there is of them.

Maybe we wait for him to come back around on his rounds.

Maybe we wait for him to come back around on his rounds, and at the right moment, you open your already open cell door.

That would require someone capable of great violence.

Alright, go ahead and make a mite roll for me, please.

Thank you.

No.

4 plus 6, 10.

10.

Yolanda,

and you, like, you feel something move.

And you're like, oh, yeah.

And you look down, and one of your fingers has popped just out of its socket.

You're like,

okay.

you withdraw your hand,

stings, you kind of pop it back in, trying to hold on.

Looks like brute forcing it

that way, probably not gonna work.

Well, I'm shit out about this.

So it looks like the two pacifists on the ship are the ones that currently have the most freedom, and we may have to engage in violence.

Or you could let us out of here when you get out.

And we'll engage in the violence for you.

Plenty of us will, though.

After all,

there's a lot of cells here and a lot of friends here that all got skills in there, right, boys.

And he looks off to the side, and you see two of their shadows shift as like a

another like thin-looking, lanky dwarf kind of comes up to the edge and goes, ah, yeah, yeah, already.

And you see, like, a female Ao Mao with like kind of brownish-red skin and like this awesome tattoo across her face, kind of like leaning against the bars, big old fists over glancing over.

Bring them here.

So crush them.

Jesus.

I think I'm in love with her.

I have two plans.

One, if we can figure out who's on either end of the hall, we could try and rush them, or we could create a commotion and have them come back down here, open the door, push him towards the bars, and let that scary individual do whatever he does through the bars.

I like that, Climb.

Between us, there are some people that I do not want to let out of the ship.

They are very scary to me.

Lady,

I don't think you have a choice right now, darling.

Okay.

To be fair, I concur.

You hear one of the trapdoors to the upper deck of the ship shift open, and the sound of heavy rain splattering across the upper part of the ship immediately fills the interior of the hallway.

You can hear muffled yells from across the upper deck, kind of just barely just out of audible range to make out the words.

There's definitely commotion up aboard as a waterlogged guard begins to step down into the chamber, making his current pass through the hallway.

Distraction, yes.

Pardon me, sir.

I have a question for you.

The guard steps forward.

Warden runs on him again.

It's coming through and goes.

Oh,

right, right.

What can I possibly do you for?

I just wanted to show you my curtsy.

I wanted to show you something.

She

sees Medron against the bars and kind of just slams against the metal

Medron kind of backs away and skittles to the back as is does the two other figures that stepped up.

It's like

I don't want to see you stepping up in the front again.

I swear to god, it won't be just my fist.

This is the warden.

This is the warden, yeah.

Ronzana.

Yeah, Ronzana.

So now my question is my question is

when we when we arrive, um when we arrive, will there be books for us to read?

No,

no books!

Warden, I just wanted to let you know, that gentleman has a weapon.

His weapon.

He made it onto the ship with a weapon, and I feel for my safety.

Don't even shut it.

As soon as he looks or turns away, can I rush, throw open the bar, and I'm gonna try and check him into the cell wall.

Make a mite check.

Okay.

Come on, man!

Come on, baby boy!

Loo!

I know!

16.

Natural 20.

You open the bar and rush towards it.

The warden turns around and goes,

grabs you and slams you against the bars, puts his arm up against your throat and lifts you up against it.

He said he's outside, but he's outside.

Yeah, he's outside against the bars now, like in the middle of the hallway.

In the hallway, are the bars?

Are they?

His back on the other side.

Can we?

His back is about maybe four feet from where you are in the hall, outside, and kind of pushing him against the other bars on the audio.

So I have the guy

against me.

I'd like to take my.

How far can I hairpin him?

You what?

Can I hairpin him?

Am I too far?

I think you're a bit far for that, uncle.

I'm just gonna throw my hands down, and you see the crackling start to happen at the top of my fingertips.

And I'm gonna, I it doesn't say here, and I don't know how this works, but uh, jolting touch.

Can I cast it a lightning bolt at him?

It's a bolt at him and one other target.

Is there wood anywhere?

I don't want to hit another.

Oh, yeah, there's wood all across this.

Great, then can I hit him and some wood somewhere else?

Because I don't, there's no people here that I don't want to come.

There's no, there's no

roll for it because he is wearing metal and there are metal bars behind them.

So he's not dodging this because he's not even aware that you're attacking at this point.

So go ahead and roll damage.

Okay.

Do it!

Damn it, do it.

Oh no!

It's 1d12 minus 1, and that's a 1.

So

you try and reach through the bars and release this blast of jolting magical energy, and it arcs into the bars in front of you and dissipates into the bars of the cell, affecting no one.

You feel the light from your eyes begin to fade from the choking as you all begin to gather.

I can get out.

I

jump.

I jump my body onto the front of the guard and I stick my fingers right in his eyes.

Yes!

He's faced away, and you jump up in front of him.

Okay, make a dexterity check.

I'm treating you my reach around.

Roll for reach around.

Reach around, crew.

Reach around, crew.

Dexterity.

Honestly, yeah.

Five plus three.

He rolled an eight.

She rolled an eight.

So what does that mean?

Rolled an eight.

All right, so here's you start gouging his eyes.

He's like,

pulling back.

As this happens, another meaty arm reaches through from the other side of the bars.

There's the Amau woman there, grabs him by the back of the head, and kind of between where your head is and the bars, slams his head into the bars.

And the guard, the warden, kind of like,

like, bud sputters out of his mouth.

He goes, oh, this shit, grabs you by the side of the face and kind of throws you back towards where you are.

And the both of you kind of collide and slam into the Mars.

He pushes you off, but his eyes are hurt.

At which point, another crack of thunder.

The whole ship

lists up.

Heavy.

Slow motion seems to take over as it tips and tips and tips.

And all of you begin to shift to one side as the world turns topsy-turvy.

Lanterns out.

Everything spins like you're in the middle of a dryer.

And darkness in shadow takes you.

We gotta get out of here.

The ship's going down.

We gotta get out.

All of you

are lost

to darkness.

Dad, you take a buenano, si nos chambiamos en Verizon nos dan cuatro lines por esprescio de 3.

Diverdad, es comos ya quatra linea pora gratis.

Ok, a para mí other para tumama, una para tí, la cuesta para para minovio?

Excuse me?

Tar, Mira, who are in contact with the toddler time.

Vamos estáfora del País.

No important.

When you go with Verizon, you telephone also

and

text as if I content.

I also.

When pieces of vacations, and the horoscopes with MyPlan de Verizon, chambers and

lines for two quieters for the present porno $3 porn the mesh in the limbo welcome Europe and

cargo.

Additionally, use your telephone en el extrajero contrabo pass in a ligas 3 días almes por 1es a la gregaro en MyPlan.

Visita tutienda Verizon en San Diego.

Eno van limited welcome los datas unlimited 5G for GLT.

Podias are

the entire queen loading a conjuestion of datas national vehicles of 2G.

Sergio tenura suit my plan for the three days of travel passing.

Raise a glass of Sierra Nevada, and you'll taste more than just a beer.

You'll taste a trail-blazing spirit.

You'll taste pure ingredients, sustainable brewing, and a commitment to community.

And you'll taste a world of flavor, from the legendary pale ale to the citrusy and smooth, hazy little thing and beyond.

It's flavor that takes its time, so you can make the most of yours.

See for yourself, refined beer is sold.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company tastes what matters.

Please drink responsibly.

When you need eye-catching content fast, use Adobe Express, the quick and easy app to create on-brand content.

Make visually consistent social posts, presentations, videos, and more with brand kits and lockable templates.

Edit, resize, and even translate, all in just a click.

And use Firefly-powered generative AI features to create commercially safe content with confidence.

Start creating with Adobe Express at adobe.com slash go slash express.

A massage chair might seem a bit extravagant, especially these days.

Eight different settings, adjustable intensity, plus it's heated and it just feels so good.

Yes, a massage chair might seem a bit extravagant, but when it can come with a car,

suddenly it seems quite practical.

The all-new 2025 Volkswagen Tiguan, packed with premium features like available massaging front seats, that only feels extravagant.

Quiet, stillness,

absence

Slowly,

you begin

to rouse from this shadow.

You pick up on one arm,

and the majority of you are starting to kind of

find yourself again.

You begin to feel a sense of body, of physicality, and you hurt

everywhere.

A soreness, an aching throb from head to toe takes over, and

all of you have

little to no light to make out your surroundings at this point.

You can smell the smell of fresh, soft rain

and what looks like little bits of gray light peeking through cracks in the splintered wooden debris that surround you.

Your eyes begin to focus, and you can see the semblance of metal bars bent and jagged, some of which now bear on them

other prisoners.

You all kind of begin to rummage through the small spaces that you can as you come to realize that you are all partially trapped within the confines of your wrecked prison ship.

But you are not underwater,

and And you can hear the rain above.

You think it's above.

What do you do?

The ship's not taking on water?

It

feels like it's still in shipwrecked.

You don't know how much time has passed, but as you come to consciousness,

the cell that was around you is now a crumpled

space,

tight and broken, and you are all...

I'd say the two of you are pretty close together, and you are all pretty close together.

So you're still in your same kind of clusters,

but you are very much kind of

through some sheer luck,

you are not crammed and crushed with the majority of the spaces around you.

Can we see in our cell, can we see any kind of opening in those bars, or is it cracked?

It's enough cracked open that like those, the cell is no more a cell?

The cell is not really a cell anymore,

but it is still kind of bent and closed.

You'd have to try and push through to maneuver or try and move some of the debris if you want to.

Can we find the body, I assume, of the warden if he's unconscious or alive?

You go ahead and you kind of get up and move through the remnants of the hallway.

And you can still see there's like planks of wood and it splintered up in places and part of the deck has collapsed and jammed into it.

In fact, where the deck has collapsed in, you can see the warden's there.

Legs kind of, you know, laid out in the ground,

arms kind of out to the side, and the wood of the deck splintered into where his head would have to be.

Oh!

Oh!

Could I search for a key ring?

Easy enough to find.

Okay.

He's not going to.

Just let it go on.

Just let it keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Just keep going.

Can I grab the key ring and

limp my way back over and just say, I think we should try one of these, see if it'll help loosen your cell?

You get to the cell and all the bars are tangled and right, and the door that would have been the exit is now like partially bent.

Do we all see each other?

Like,

we can make an account of ourselves.

However,

because of the corrosion of the lock and the amount of stress that you had placed on it originally, the lock itself has broken off and the twisting of it.

It's just about pushing the door open.

And it would maybe make enough room to try and squeeze through.

That's one way to crack an egg.

Alright, let me try to get this door.

So I'm going to try to push it to give someone else enough room to get it.

Let's go ahead and roll mate.

13 plus 6, 19.

Oh, yeah, without issue.

As you shift it out of the way, you feel and hear like

other parts of the debris kind of

shift and settle.

Dust and bits of like

rain muck can can drip out of the ceiling, and you see where it shifts a little more if the sky is now visible.

This kind of gray mid-daylight kind of peeks through as droplets of water are now, kind of coming in from the storm that is not as heavy as it was at the peak that apparently wrecked this.

Seems the worst of the storm has passed, though it still probably rains outside.

How long do you reckon we was unconscious?

Tell me, do you think that

me jamming my fingers into that man's eyes was necessary considering that the ship was wrecked shortly after that.

No, but it was awesome.

See, um, it certainly saved my life, so for that you have my thanks.

Bedren!

No response.

Oh, shit.

Lyra?

Hello?

Hello?

You hear a voice, but you cannot see where she is, where you stand.

I'm going to try and squeeze out of this

cell using the

gap that Hasbro has opened.

Okay, yeah.

You all you clear enough space for the three of you can square down.

Now the now the five of you are in the

remnant pocket of the hallway where all the many bent bars are

and no real clear exit.

You might be able to see the stairway that leads to where the deck would be is somewhat visible now that you've exposed some more of the light within.

Was that how we came down into this area as well?

Like one entrance, one exit?

Correct.

You were correct.

And are all the cells relatively

destroyed and open?

Do we see any other prisoners?

We heard Laira.

Yes.

We don't hear Madron.

You don't hear.

Do you want to go inspect the cell?

We do.

I do.

We care about life.

Not his, but maybe

I do.

Make a perception check for me.

17 plus

2.

19.

Great.

As you head over to where the bent fragment of bars are, you glance in.

The first thing you notice is nobody's moving.

The second thing you notice is because there's nobody here.

The other end of that cell that's partially collapsed in, you can see what looks like other bits of outer wood have been shifted and pushed out.

And it looks like there is...

an exposed opening to the outside that has been kind of reclosed.

He rolled pretty high.

A A large piece of wood has been placed against it to kind of reclose the source of exterior light.

But we hear Lyra's voice, but we don't see them anywhere.

At the moment.

Well, I'd say with that high enough roll there, too, you glance over and you can see Lyra where the cell is.

That cell is also partially collapsed.

And at first glance, you're like, nobody survived that.

But you see one piece of broken wood with like a bit of like stone that fell from something above that kind of crumbled.

looks like some sort of a looks at the edge of a cannon may have like tumbled in with it that's holding against the wall and you can see kind of

trying like someone's trying to push it up and you hear her voice like hello

i can't move my

run over and start pulling on it okay so you push past the broken bars there kind of the door opens slightly at this point you get in and uh you go ahead and make a mic check for me to see this is my lowest stat but you see also i think uh you see in her face a completely different face, you're like a face of worry, a face of concern.

18 minus 1.

That like matronly adrenaline rush hits your body like a mother whose child has fallen under something heavy.

You just reach down and

Hulk pulse those mafia female arms.

Do these look like hands that do manual labor?

Because they do.

You shift it up, and other parts of the brief kind of like crumble and fall to fill some of the space.

But thankfully, Lyra is relatively small and kind of

pulls her legs up and kind of reaches for your arm.

And as you hold it up, she gets up onto her feet before, like, kind of stumbles a bit.

Looks like her one ankle is pretty badly injured from the impact, but she manages to pull out just in time to release it and

recrumples and settles as other parts kind of settle inward and crush that space where she previously had barely held herself.

I'm gonna hold her under, like, like under her armpits, like I'm holding her up.

Of course, of course.

Thank you.

We need you, Lyra.

A rising tide raises all ships.

Oh, no.

I'm

so sorry.

Sorry, I didn't.

Sue, Sue.

I didn't mean to.

it.

So we haven't heard anything.

There's still no sign of Medron.

No, and

there are, from what you can tell glancing through here, most of the other...

And there are like other prison cells throughout here.

Most of them up here crushed or empty as well in the immediate vicinity.

As you begin to kind of inspect the internal space here, you see signs of farms peeking out of

crumpled debris.

You will still only have the view of this one hallway right now, but the damage seems significant.

And around the warden and any other areas around guards, where there are boxes, storage lockers, anything that might have broken open that we could try and loot.

Not in this hallway, but you can certainly search the wreckage.

Is there something also?

I want to check on the warden if he has any kind of a weapon or an

something else besides the keys.

Indeed, he does have a sword at his side that he keeps sheathed just in case.

I'd like to pull that out and see.

Someone else is probably better using this than I am.

I'm I've

took fencing.

Um,

of course I did.

I'm just gonna turn to Hespero.

Yeah, that's exactly how you do it.

That's very sword in the stone.

Yeah, as you pull the sword out, shh, it sticks into the wood.

Hespero, I know there's no love lost between our families, but I should have you know that I no longer have an allegiance to Family Terran.

Well, listen, we're all in this mess.

Moral support?

Will you cook?

I can.

Yeah, we're going to need food.

Fine.

I can cook, cook, cooking.

I've cooked before many times.

I got you.

Do I believe her?

Yeah.

I don't.

I make a perception check.

Can I make one too?

I actually don't care because I want to see if I want a cover for her.

That is

poor.

That was poor.

I don't know.

Dirty.

I'm so glad.

Oh, excellent.

Dirty Torny.

Oh, secret 20.

Secret song is the secret song.

We're all playing, we're playing along.

I don't write any of these songs.

Beautiful.

That's all I got.

I'm no Sam.

Alrighty.

The voice is in my head of stuff.

You kind of like set her down.

I can walk.

I can walk.

Just, you know, a bit of,

gotta tough it out, you know, put some dirt in it.

Can I, uh,

let me see if I can help you out.

I'm gonna look over.

Do I see just like a broken stick or piece of like splintered piece of

Oddly, nothing but splintered wood around you.

Great.

I'm gonna take a little splintered piece of wood,

take one of my leather straps, and just kind of strap it to her, make kind of almost like a little makeshift splint.

Yeah, you take a few minutes and splint out her legs.

She kind of steps up on it.

You know, still see that kind of twinge of pain, but definitely a lot more functional to follow than a person who's more stumbly than not a person.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Think I'm gonna head on upstairs, see what else we can find.

Yeah, I'll join you.

All right.

Shall we all go?

Yes.

Yes.

Alright.

You all

head towards where the stairs head up to the deck.

And the

trap door that normally is easy to press up has heavy weight pressed upon it.

But with your all combined up, you push it up and the rain begins to spill in to the opening as you kind of step out into the

free gray sky around you, taking the smell smell of fresh sea foam and air of that recent storm still kind of settling on this island and you look around yourselves you are now standing on the edge of the rocky shore of some

isolated island

the ship itself didn't crash into it crashed onto the rocks like it was lifted and then smashed onto a whole number of heavy jagged worn stones that seem to protrude from the surrounding surf.

And the ship, indeed, as you get up to the deck, you can see half of the ship.

And it is broken, open, and splintered.

And surrounding you and all the water around is just a scattered smattering of what is now broken driftwood and bodies just kind of floating up on the shore.

You can see the few guards that are on the deck right now are no longer living as well.

And within, like, kind of just get a quick glance here and listening around, there's no movement, there's no other voices.

At the moment, you feel like your crew might be the only ones who survived that you know of

our crew, the reach around?

The reach around

definitely the reach around crew.

Emergency, baby.

Are there any weapons in sight?

Hell Hell yeah.

In sight?

Like immediate sight?

No, but you can, if you want to go ahead and search the contents of the ship best you can with what's available to you, I'd say

go ahead and make a perception check

or a resolve check, your choice.

Desolve search or just one?

I'm going to let him go ahead and take one now.

13 plus 3, 16.

16 is great.

So with all of you at Hasparo's side, you begin to push through, kind of like figure out, if these are where the prisoners are held, what are the parts of the ship that are unaccounted for that you can even get to.

There's a mess area and storage below,

but most of that is completely blocked off or missing from that side of the ship.

However, you come off to where the side of the ship is, and where a portion of it is crashed onto the jagged rocks, there's a part that's a little lower than the others, and where that side of the ship is busted open, you see two prisoners,

well, one and a half prisoners,

kind of smashed on the rocks, and around them crates that are like splintered open and all manner of tools, weapons, armaments.

It looks like this is where the guard kept most of their equipment or equipment that was confiscated.

As you search through and kind of gather things, you find bows, you find spears, you find shields, a couple of pistols, as well as clusters of ammunition.

Pretty much what you may need for simple armaments for protection,

you can scavenge from what is smashed across the rocks here.

Do I see a great hammer?

You do.

In fact, it's your great hammer.

It looks like some of the things that were confiscated specialty were either being kept as trophies or maybe to be presented as some sort of offering to work towards when you were heading towards maybe working your debt off in the living lands.

But indeed, you kind of lift up your old faithful hammer and kind of feel solid in your grip.

I'm looking for,

it's going to be hard to find amidst all of this like random splintered wood, but I'm looking for a particular long, gnarled piece of wood with a pointy end.

Could you make a perception or resolve check for me, please?

Okay, Charlie,

now's your time.

Okay, maybe, maybe not your time.

You go sleep right now.

That was a six.

That was a six.

Yeah.

This is

a very scattered wreck.

And

in these particular circumstances,

you do not see anything that matches what you're looking for.

Look at this.

It's a long, pointy stick with a gun.

And a gun.

I don't know how to use either of those.

Oh, look at my gun.

Oh, here.

Oh.

And I'll take this utility nut.

Did he find my long pointy stick?

Is it short?

Yeah.

Did he really?

Oh, DM, are we letting this happen?

Because I'd be pretty excited.

Emerge and storytelling, Matt.

I'll say what you plucked and found, you'd realize at the time was probably a look like a sack of dried oats that it was in.

And as you pull it free,

a streak of red emerges with it, and you realize, oh, that was a prisoner.

But this is a familiar locality.

That's mine.

Oh, wait, wait.

I'm a criminal now.

I should act like one.

What will you give me for it?

I won't pay you.

If that's yours.

No, you know.

This is most fortuitous because we can start over.

We can be whatever we want.

We don't need weapons.

We can just go explain

that we are explorers and I can contact Eleonora and we don't have to do anything illegal or violent ever again.

As she's saying that's before as I'm taking up this dollar.

Loading up on things.

Start over, Ashley.

Taking my hair pin dagger and twisting my hair back up again.

Always a lady.

Always a lady.

Well, I do grab a spear because I am very small and it has reach.

And I do grab a shield for self-defense.

I do not intend to use it.

So,

come at me, bro.

You know, if we're bringing along Lyra, then I feel like

we should find some food for Lyra to cook.

On top of all the weapons, any type of provisions?

Uh, go ahead and make a perception or resolve check for me if you don't mind.

I'll do

perception.

It's

alright.

11.

11.

You spend the better part of the next hour or so searching through the wreckage,

finding other corpses of those who are aboard the ship, before you begin to figure out by process of elimination that whatever place may have been the storage

chamber for the food that was being kept was likely on the other half of the ship that is not present.

So you are now here with no provisions, some arms, and just your little troop.

Standing amongst the like broken rocks of the greater island, that you can only have like the slight view of it just beyond kind of the maybe a 15-foot or kind of rocky cliff.

Well,

first things first,

shelter

for warmth and food.

Lady Sable,

you're a woman of the woods.

Yeah.

What do you know about foraging?

Oh,

pretty much everything.

Although I will say, you know, I'm kind of used to the foliage and the natural fauna from where I'm from, so this might be a little bit little bit uh taken, getting some used to, but uh, yeah, you know, just stick with me.

We'll be great.

Yeah.

Smarter than a shithouse rat.

We're great.

Yes.

I'm sure.

Well,

we should look for some food then.

I'm sure you can tell.

Generally, what is poisonous?

Bright colors or

smell.

Just kind of let's like stir with the basics.

Let's find some fruit.

Maybe some good greens and grasses.

Let's avoid mushrooms.

Yeah, you don't want to focus on that.

Oh, Vya, try it first.

You know, she's a cook, right?

Yeah, I'm a cook.

That's a great point.

Yeah.

What time of day did you say?

Is it still midday?

I mean, it's hard to tell because the gray skies skies still kind of keep the sunlight more or less even throughout the sky here, especially in the post-storm roll.

You know, it's daytime, but you're not entirely certain if it's waxing, waning,

coming towards its end, or in early morning.

One way or the other, we should find some shelter quickly.

We don't know what else is on this island, or who else.

Do we see any signs of life?

Any signs of the city?

So as you clamber up the small kind of

stone rock slide trail that leads up to the edge of the cliff to get onto the actual island proper,

you see now the expanse.

It is not a massive island, but indeed there are two kind of

hill mountain-like

topographical rises on the opposite end of the island, themselves covered in green trees from what you can see.

A lumber source here on the island.

But between there and where you stand,

beyond the kind of low-hanging thick mists that kind of sit in the now windless region here, while the rain falls, the winds have halted and everything just kind of sits still as the rain droplets still continue to fall, you see a lighthouse that kind of stands up into the center of this island, kind of a beacon in the middle of this

sea full space and it is from what you can see just ocean to the horizon on all sides before the fog kind of takes it at the end of your periphery.

How far are we from all the bodies?

From all the bodies.

Did we leave?

Did we

in order to see this?

You had to climb away from the ship about probably like

50 or so people.

Can I ret on one thing?

Sure.

Can we

grab some of the

guards

garb?

Just in case we run into people who are also part of

the garters.

The garters.

Can we get some of the guard garb?

You can indeed.

You can gather some of the gargargarborough.

I just want to grab it just in case.

Blah, blah, blah.

So we have the garbar

now.

Yes, you may.

So yeah, yeah, like there are kind of standard issue breastplates that are emblazoned with the Somology of the Adeer and Empire, as well as cloaks.

So at least one or two of us looks like they might.

So we can have both.

Who would want to be wearing these recovered accoutrements?

I'll take some armor.

Okay.

So you go ahead and fix yourself on like the light breastplate of the one of the guards.

I'm not covering this up.

I'm fixing my sights on someone who understands status, and so I am taking this spear for self-defense, but I'm hoping at Lighthouse someone will understand, call for help, or we can use it as shelter.

But I'm not putting anything on to suggest that I'm a violent person.

No, no, no, no.

This would suggest that you were a guard of the Adyiran Empire.

Well, not in this, surely.

No, no.

It's okay.

I've got it covered, and if anyone spots us, I can say that I'm keeping an eye on you rap scallions, and everything is in order.

Oh, you're defending that guard for the ladies,

and

also a guard for the ladies.

Yeah.

Yep.

Sure.

Deception.

Deception, deception, deception.

So it's one of you in prison

guard garb.

Anybody else take that?

Anybody else else want to be?

I don't know.

I look pretty good the way I am right now.

So you have one guard escort of the colour.

Is there anything else?

Is there anything that looks good that I could put on?

Nothing better than what you have on that.

Oh, God.

I just don't want to.

Can I just, I'm just going to bring some.

Do we have any way of bringing it just in case?

I just want to have the option of putting it on if we need to be

sneaky stuff.

You mean there amongst the wreckage of the supplies that were scattered amongst the rocks, there are like heavy sacks.

Are there any like coins or metals or something like that that would would speak to someone being an envoy of the empire or a or a

like displaced, but not necessarily a prisoner?

You could show where you have some coin.

I mean, there's coin you find among some of the guards as well, yeah.

Some of uh

more mean like a like a

like a thing of status, like a badge.

Thank you.

Um

i would say there are markings on the warden ranzano's uh breastplate that do carry with them a symbol of higher rank within the the rank and file of the guards that were brought on this prison ship um so if you want to bring that breastplate along it has it emblazoned on it

it'll do that

maybe i'll throw that on your body okay

now this uh this lighthouse we're talking about

is it lit?

Is the lantern lit?

No, it's the candela is not lit.

It is dark.

It's dark.

It is dark.

Okay.

Interesting.

And do we see any do we see any signs of like

I don't know if the living lands have any if the Adarian Empire has any kind of foothold

here

so do we see anything that any signs of that on the lighthouse?

Any markings or anything?

I mean,

it's a good few miles from where you're standing.

Like, it's further in, and even then, like, you can only see kind of over some of the rocky hills and some of the tufts of trees that kind of rise up.

But you can see it's kind of like

your depth perception on how far away it is from you right now is a little tough.

If you want to make, if one of you wants to make a perception check to go ahead and go for it.

22.

22.

A couple things.

As you kind of try and get the best high point you can, this close to the cliff, kind of go up behind a cluster of trees and kind of hold on one side and get the best vantage point.

You notice,

yeah, the lighthouse is a few miles off.

Not a heavy walk, but you'll be able to get there with a short enough walk.

This is not a large island.

And indeed, it is kind of out in the middle of nowhere.

You notice

farther up north,

there are signs

barely with a high enough roll like that, of almost like another shipwreck, but

long washed away.

Just a couple pieces of blanched driftwood that there was a wreck here

probably

long before you arrived.

You also noticed at the base of this lighthouse, which itself is not lit,

there's a little looks like a household near its base, and a number of tents and other shacks kind of settled around it, like a very small settlement that is kind of,

I'm going to say like haphazardly built around the base of this lighthouse.

Made of different materials.

Like the house looks nice and well made.

The other smaller structures look like they're more function over aesthetic.

The lighthouse, which is not lit, that seems like, I don't know, a problem.

There was also remnants of another shipwreck farther off.

The lighthouse is only a few miles away, but there were signs of um an encampment at the bottom of the the lighthouse, uh, sort of ramshackled.

So, I don't think we'll be entirely alone.

Do they seem like soldiers or civilians?

A few miles off, it's hard to tell, but I think it's fair to assume other people will be here.

Sounds like shelter and food to me.

Shall we mosey?

Yeah,

skit the molasses out our asses.

Let's go.

I love you so much.

It makes me want to cry, except this is a waterproof mascara.

As you gather your still aching selves cold and damp through the continuous, though gentler rainfall, you begin to trek up the rocky hills of the outside

cliffs edges of the island and in towards the central portion of this landmass.

Because of your high perception role, as you continue inward, you still don't see any signs of any liveliness or

shifting light or movement within the city from this far distance.

But you do pick up the mists that kind of sit around the

walking landscape as you progress.

Sitting still, occasionally just kind of shifting in strange ways in the absence of wind that make you a little uncomfortable.

I don't share that.

Maybe he is a rainbow.

Sneaky sneaky boy.

That's not real.

That's my imagination.

A strange smell seems to spark through a number of your noses.

It's a mixture of.

It's almost like

an irony taste of blood mixed with a fresh rain.

It's hard to describe.

In our world, it would be like that spark of an electric fire or a little bit of burnt ozone.

And as this mist begins to swirl, a light kind of

seems to almost flash and flicker amongst the mist before vanishing.

Did you see that?

Yes.

I think we should take care and find someone who can help us and also have a backstory for as to how we are not criminals.

It's kind of like

It's like a cluster in the middle of this mist where that light's kind of flickering.

There's just a

localized deluge, as a little flickering of energy kind of seems to spark through this one area.

As Lyra's like, um, ha, what's going on?

Megan's like, pull on the side of your arm to like get closer to you.

I tap her shoulder and I say, I don't think that we should talk to that over there.

I think that that's not

two more of them begin to emerge from the storm as these what look like strange anomalies of the elements in nature seem to be coalescing into

some sort of will.

Three different points of

some odd elemental nature congeal

and converge on all of you.

I need you to all roll initially.

15.

Nice.

Alright, so we have a 20 to 15.

Anybody above someone over here?

Alright, so we have Haspro up first.

Alrighty.

15 to 10.

All right, 10 to 5.

Ooh, rollies.

Both of you rollies.

Oh, my dice.

15.

Seven.

Nice.

All right, so we Minette.

Followed by Sable.

I had a 7.

Alrighty.

Galen.

I had two!

Beautiful.

Alrighty.

So

these...

Whatever these strange entities are beginning to converge.

They're flashes of energy and the deluge of water seems to be expressing and splashing out as energy sharks around it, like some sort of electric shock type spark.

You're up first, Haspera.

So they're...

describe them again they are they're like strange clusters of some sort of storm like elemental energy that seem to like can like congeal out of the surrounding mists and the rainfall and now begin to just rush towards your troop from three different points

let's see if these fuckers bleed i'm going to shoot one yes

what else do you do with a pistol so your pistol is it's cocked already flint you go ahead and aim it down and fire It's going to attempt to dodge your strikes.

Go ahead and roll off.

20.

That's an 11.

So it does not successfully dodge, but it does spend its

four stamina to do so.

So go ahead and roll damage.

Alright.

That is 15.

15 points of damage.

The flash and explosion at the front of your pistol and smoke spilling outward, and you watch as this strange engine

flickers from the blast and seems to momentarily almost discorporate before it recollects itself.

They can be hurt.

Do you want to continue with your turn?

I think, since it looked like it worked, he'll just go

Okay, and he's just gonna take another shot.

Same one?

Yeah, let's go.

So, do I have to roll for it's going to also attempt to dodge this time successfully?

So, go ahead and roll to hit

nine twenty-four

the second shot.

It shifts out of the way and seems to almost ship closer to you.

You can feel

there's some sort of like inherent electrical energy that's kind of sparking through the swirl of water.

Almost like some sort of like ill-intent spirit has taken on the form of the nearby elements to come upon you all.

Does that finish your turn?

I'm gonna end my turn there.

Okay, it now comes to the first of these entities.

That's right after you.

It is going to

use charged shield.

It's going to spend six of its stamina.

All of you lose two stamina.

As

it crackles in this field of staticky energy, like

filters out and all of you feel like the energy of your body kind of grow just slightly more exhausted.

And then

it's going to spend its last five stamina to come after you since you just shot it.

Makes sense.

Do you attempt to block or dodge?

I don't think I can.

I think that last little sucking of stamina.

Alright, so with that,

you take, oh, that is eight points of damage and you get one point of shock accumulation.

Do you feel that?

Do you keep track of that?

I'm keeping track of it for you.

Like, you feel kind of as it hits you, your muscles kind of spasm, and you feel the energy kind of

through your body.

It's going to finish its turn.

With that, let's go ahead and take it two minutes.

Okay, are they all out in front of us?

They're like kind of like more or less

surrounding you.

Okay.

I'm going to fight lightning with lightning

and do jolting touch at that's

two targets within close range.

So

neither of them move to dodge or block.

You release the two bolts.

And they are absorbed harmlessly into the two stairs.

Okay, um, that's good to know, good to know.

Okay, then

is um

uh

are any of them within poking range?

Yeah, I mean, they're converging, and there's one that rushed up towards Haspero.

Okay, going to the one that he shot, or towards one of the ones that hasn't been moved yet?

Towards one of the ones that has not been moved.

Okay, that's quite closer to you.

So, the one that you tried to release one of your bolts towards and it absorbed, you kind of

think under your breath how frustrating it is.

Shield at the ready, you kind of duck forward and shrine spirit.

So, go ahead and spend your stamina, and it is going to attempt to dodge that as well by spending four stamina there.

Rolling for that.

Do I get anything for your hit bonus on your speed?

Oh, ten.

It rolled a nine, exactly.

A natural forward plus five.

And they dodge pretty high.

So

go ahead and roll.

Go ahead and roll damage on that.

One of the ten.

One.

One damage.

Hey, it all adds up.

Do you want to continue to strike?

Because you You have quite a bit of stamina, PowerPoint.

Yes, I do.

All right.

This will

attempt to dodge again.

Same.

Golden.

13.

Yeah, you hit again, so you go to roll damage a second time.

16.

Plus 30.

Oh, plus C.

One.

It all adds up now.

She's just a little guy.

That's two spear strikes.

Get them going or you call that your turn.

I'm going to call my turn.

Okay.

That finishes your go.

Sable, you're up next.

God almighty.

Sable starts to run up and you start to see this manicun stability that probably got here in the first place.

And she runs up.

She takes the knives that she collected.

Let's see if we can find this lighting.

And she jumps in one try and stab the lightning.

Let's go.

All right, so are you gonna go after the one that was shot or the one that was poked or the one that's been untouched?

Let's go after the one that's been poked.

Let's start with the poked one.

You got it.

All right, it only has enough stamina to try and block, which is not as high as it's dodged.

So it's gonna go ahead and roll.

That's a seven.

It's gonna roll.

Okay, that's a 17 on the die.

That hits.

Go ahead and roll damage.

Plus five.

So, all right.

Nine damage, nine damage, nice.

Alrighty,

I'm going again.

Let's go.

Yep.

It just doesn't even.

So you just hit automatically.

Okay, minus five points damage on that.

Alright, that's 14 damage on that turn.

Are you gonna keep going or are you gonna die?

How's it?

Can I tell how it's looking?

It's a sparkling, sparking kind of storm elemental.

How far away am I from the one that was attacking Haspero?

About 10, 15 feet.

It's not a quick.

It's a quick jump.

Okay, I'm going to like dodge under this little

ghost light.

I'm going to head over to the other one and give it

one more stabby stabby.

What fur?

Okay, the one that's...

What fur?

The one I hate.

That also, I cannot dodge or block.

It spent all stabbing.

So just damage, straight up.

Oh, just damage.

Yeah.

I'm so used used to that.

It's okay, yeah.

Six, baby, let's go again.

So, and I've got Keen, that's plus two on that damage.

So, that's that is it.

D6.

So, when you roll max damage on a dice, folks that know here, actually, I should probably go over some of the rules here since we're in combat for those who are watching.

So, everyone has stamina they can spend on their turn.

It refills the top of their turn.

Any stamina they spend is based on the speed of their weapon.

And any stamina they want to try and defend with, they have to spend out of their turn in the reaction of attacks to either block or dodge, in which case it's a roll-off.

If you do not have any stamina left to block or dodge, attacks automatically hit and you just do straight damage.

So you're doing damage directly unless your target has enough stamina to try and dodge or block.

So this creature just takes damage immediately.

If you roll your damage dice and any of them are max in the dice, that is a critical hit, and you roll an additional die, and they can continue to explode like that.

Because your weapon has the keen feature, it gets additional two damage each time that you do that.

So that's 12 on this first one.

Let's go one more time.

And that's a one

balance of nature.

And

so that is going to be 12 on the first one and 5 on the second one.

So 17.

All right, so 17 on that.

As you rush forward and slam into one that's next to you, as it's kind of sparking up in your face, you kind of have your pistol in your arm and kind of reloading it, keeping the hammer at the side as you do.

You watch as Sable kind of rushes up and just stabs right into the center of it.

You see the spirit shut and just kind of flicker out and it converges once more and the sparks, but but it's like flashing and it's starting to show like it's barely holding on at this point.

Stubborn little buggers, aren't they?

I'm going to take the last of my turn to spin two Essence to cast Arcane Veil on top of me to

keep myself a little bit more protected.

That's my turn.

All right.

Finishing your turntable,

the one

rainballite, as they are called.

Rainbow.

Rainbowite.

That works too.

Water ghost.

That's so very simple.

Well done.

I mean,

it's the Latin subtitle.

It's the Riley Coyote, like, you know, dude.

Italicized underneath.

It's going to take its turn here.

This is going to be the one...

Actually, this is the one that

you stabbed and poked, and then you initially attacked before darting off.

Since this one has taken it, so it gets all the stamina back.

It's going to

move over towards you since you're the one that struck hard its ally and it's going to go ahead and attack you with like a shock burst it is unblockable so you would have to spend stamina to dodge oh i'll spend my last stamina to dodge dodge it baby dodge it last one all right let's roll

let's roll

okay

uh 19.

11.

so you manages woof duck out of the way as the spark

emerges out no impact um So that's going to be five.

On there, it's going to spin another five stamina to attack you again.

Alright, I can't get it.

You're out of stamina.

So the hit comes to you directly.

Alright, is

that going to be 9 points of damage to you?

Okay.

And you take a bit of shock accumulation.

Okay, I'm going to spin an essence.

to reduce that by a d6

with my arcane veil.

Okay, that's four.

And then my

armor has three damage reduction, so that's four, five, six, seven.

So I only take two damage.

Correct.

Okay.

Alrighty.

Finishing that.

Rainbights go.

Galen, you're up with Yulva on deck.

I'll take out the bow that we salvaged from the crate, and I'll knock an arrow and let one fly at one of the creatures.

Okay, there's the one that hasn't been touched, and then there's two that have taken one that's taken a few hits, and one that's looking really hurt.

I'll take the one that's taken a few hits.

Alright.

It does not have enough stamina to dodge dodge your block, so just go ahead and roll damage.

Amazing.

That is D8 town.

That's not an eight.

Why?

Why?

Why?

Here we go.

Six,

nine,

fifteen points of damage.

Fifteen points of damage.

The arrow strikes it, and you see it kind of flicker.

It's also starting to kind of have a hard time holding itself corporeal.

The storm itself kind of like taking form and then drifting away before pulling itself back up.

The sparks kind of shooting off in odd directions.

So the two of them look pretty hurt, from the best that you can gather from a water ghost.

But one of them has been untouched up to this point.

Oh, gosh.

Continue your turn.

I'll take the last shot.

I'll take one more on the one that hasn't been touched yet, just to try and cover.

All right, let's go.

This one is going to attempt to dodge.

Okay.

15 plus 6, 21.

21.

And I rolled a 14, so that hits.

Go ahead and roll damage.

Three balls.

Seven, fourteen.

14 points of damage.

Fourteen points of damage.

Alrighty.

Does that finish your go?

It does.

All right.

Yulva, you're up next.

I saw what happened with her jolting touch, so instead of my frisky lightning fingers, I'm going to.

That's what the kids are calling them these days.

I'm going to just reach out my hand, and you see this long

magical staff appear in my hands, and I'm going to cast a parasitic staff.

Okay.

So I will take away that four essence, and I am going to run after.

Describe how you pluck this staff from the ether.

Yes.

So I hold this out to my hands and you see,

hold out my hand, and you see spiraling down sort of a

spiral of golden light, and then it corporealizes into my hand and I grab around it.

You're holding it.

Exactly.

It kind of sparks and flashes with kind of a violet black energy.

Let's try this one and then I'm gonna run after the one that looks like it's super hurt and couldn't respond to that guy and since it can't respond I'm just gonna do my 1d8.

Let's do that.

Spend that stamina and roll 1d8.

Okay, so stamina one,

two,

three.

Wait, one, two,

how many stamina do I spend for the staff?

Because it's essence, it's not stamina, right?

Correct.

Well the uh it should have speed next to the staff's statistics under the spell.

It doesn't.

It says four essence, last one encounter, cooldown, three turns.

That's the very bottom of the spell.

Like I said, it says speed five.

I was just testing you.

You passed.

Like I said.

So, yeah, I'm going to go after this dude.

Okay, well, that's three minus one, which is a two.

So it takes two damage.

Two damage, but I also regain

five essence.

So I'm going to get back my essence.

Ooh,

interesting.

You can't go above your maximum, can you?

No.

Oh,

that's fine.

And then I would like to.

Where?

How far away is the one that's hitting the one that was relatively untouched?

Untouched is probably about, I'd say,

20 or so feet from where you're kind of.

I'm going to continue to go after the weakened one, like the super weak one.

Alright, it can dodge, so go for these round.

That's better.

Six minus one, five.

Five points of damage.

So you take the staff, one impact.

It kind of seems to flicker off almost like the arcing energy of it.

Hits the staff and pushes it slightly off the way, just kind of grazing it.

You circle back, whack, and slam the staff in the middle of it.

It seems to get stuck in the middle of this kind of flickering storm.

And as you focus your essence into it,

energy detonates out from within, and the blight just scatters off into nothing.

The water hitting the ground harmlessly.

One of them had been destroyed.

Right, I'd like to use any of my remaining movement possibilities to get out of range away from any of these other guys or like hide behind him.

Yeah, you can go ahead and try and hit him.

I hide him.

Fine, that's bro.

Now it's time for you to return the favor.

I'm going to hide behind his back.

I shot it twice.

I don't know.

Please protect me.

The one that was just, or the one that was impacted by one strike,

kind of in the distant one,

seems to shift up quickly over and angrily towards your direction, but you move behind your friend.

so it's going to focus now on you uh you have not had your turn yet so you're still out of stamina uh to dodge or can you i have i have like one stamina left okay yeah so so these are these can bounce the first one's gonna hit you for uh that's a six in the die that's an explosion run

that's gonna be

uh the other dice rolls are terrible so it's nine points of damage

You do gain another point of shock accumulation.

Great.

And the last one

is only three points of damage, but you gain a third point of shock accumulation.

You are now affected by the shock status.

As the blasts

hit you, your body is now rocked with electrical energy, and the rest of you see

kind of arcing through Haspero's body.

You are currently shocked, and at the start of your turn, something will happen.

Oh, boy.

Which...

Oh, no.

It's now your turn.

Hey, let's find out what happens.

Oh, no.

Let's fuck around and find out.

However, that Rainblight did use pretty much all of its stamina, so it also cannot defend itself.

Oh, by the way,

the one that was destroyed, you watch as you scatter, like it kind of, I should have explained this too, a bit of its essence seems to like drop to the ground almost like two kind of faintly glowing orbs of essence that kind of drift there.

So the one that finished that round,

the top of your round,

you immediately take 1d8 damage from the shock.

That's three points of damage to you.

Okay.

And three points of damage to everyone who's directly around you.

Which would be you two yeah so both of you also take three points of damage okay

and i can still um oh well i have to still have damage reduction by three points correct you take no damage no damage okay great um

all right points of armor

you're sounding pretty good right now

uh so but one of your points of shock accumulation goes away um Now is the beginning of your turn.

You, unfortunately, as you are shocked, you cannot move.

However, you do have both blights nearby you, so you can still shoot at them at a distance, or if you wanted to shift into your hammer weapon, they're both of them melee range because they did come after you.

Okay.

So I could hit either of them if I wanted to.

Yes.

Okay.

How are they looking?

One of them looks very hurt, and the other looks hurt.

You know what?

But I'd like having a little bit of stamina left just in case.

So I'm going to stick with the the gun.

I'm going to stick with the gun for now.

Okay.

Can you get all your stamina back in?

Yeah, but

my speed is like pretty high.

So I can only do like a couple of things or else I'll be basically a...

There's a cost to switch, right?

So I'm going to keep that.

I don't do any hits with that weapon.

It hits your trust.

I'm going to go for the one that is more hurt looking.

Okay.

Alright.

That one, neither of them can defend themselves right now because they spent all their stamina aggressively.

So just go ahead and roll damage.

Get it, get it, it, get it.

Let's go.

Okay.

Get it, get it.

Okay, so that is

13.

13 damage?

Yeah.

As you pull the gun back towards the one that's directly in front of you, the first one that engaged you initially, and you had the first kind of few shots off, you kind of look in the center and see this kind of spiritual glow.

And for a split second, you see a flicker that almost has like

the faintest of humanoid outlines for a split second.

And you aim for it and fire.

And as you do,

it scatters off and is destroyed.

Same like dropping these little moats of essence that kind of just glide there on the ground where it was.

Nice.

Now

there's one more left.

I mean, as I always say, nothing beats a gun.

I'm gonna shoot the other one.

You may be thinking about it.

Let's go!

Let's do a gunfight!

The other one cannot defend itself because it's out of standing mess, so it's take the damage.

Six?

That's what I'm hoping, though.

No.

That's still 19.

Whoa!

19 points damage on that rainbow.

It takes the impact from both, from the blast of your pistol, the second firing, because she gets hit and kind of shimmers for a second, then manages to hold itself present.

It looks very hurt, but is still currently aggressive.

And then I will end my turn there.

That finishes your turn.

The one that will be taking its next turn was destroyed,

so it is up to you, Minette.

Okay, it's time to poke.

Yeah, that's what she said.

I'm going to spend...

That's my...

One, two, three, four.

Whoa, oh, one, two, three, four.

I've got five.

Oh, wait, no, it starts over, right?

On the round?

Nope, the beginning of your round, all your stamina refills.

Okay, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great!

Okay.

One, two, three, four, five.

Okay, I'm going to poke with my spear.

Alright, so go ahead, it cannot defend itself, so go to roll damage for your spear.

Right.

That's a D10, right?

D10 minus one, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

That's this one.

You got it.

That's that one.

I'm telling you.

So I'll make sure that you're aware.

Five.

Five.

Alright, five points of damage there.

Got a one.

Let's show.

You stab it with the spear.

It's odd.

Like, you're stabbing something that doesn't have or shouldn't have weight or matter to it, but as you stab it with the spear, you can feel some sort of resistance as it does, and as you do, you feel it kind of like dip and it has to readjust itself.

It's very hard.

Okay, I'm going to poke again.

Alrighty.

When these things take damage, they make sound like a

do they emit anything?

Cool.

All right, good.

Should I not poke?

Are you you striking again?

I am.

All right, go ahead and roll damage.

Zero!

Another one by the table.

You strike with the spear and it kind of shifts out of the way, and the spear kind of takes an arc, and your hand falls numb for a second, and you have to pull back.

No damage on that one.

Alright, I'm going to do it again.

All right.

Come on.

Get in.

Get it, get angry.

All right.

And then when I guide my hand,

three minus one.

Two.

All right, all right.

That is cheap and away.

You finally frustratingly stab, stab.

This thing's not going down.

You strike through.

How do you want to do this?

Describe how you defeat the creature.

How do I do it?

I'm kind of peeking behind him in my mind, and I take both hands and I kind of straddle.

And I

like a lady.

Like a lady.

As the spear strikes upwards,

it sends out this like sparking spray of electrical energy that kind of dissipates into the nearby atmosphere.

The mist kind of

arcing out and separating for about 30 feet from where you all currently stand.

And with that, the blights are no more.

Just little motes of essence kind of left around to kind of drift before they slowly begin to almost look like they're about to vanish into the mist.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, grab those, grab those.

You guys, I'm good.

So each of these drops two essence fragments.

You can absorb those to restore two points of essence if you'd like.

Can we pocket the point?

So like

two per Orby?

I don't need any.

No, each one gives you essence back.

I'll take if anybody, does anybody else need any?

I'll take one.

I don't use essence.

You'll take one.

I got mine back.

I've used a lot of essence with that corrosion spell, so I'll take what's left if no one else wants it.

So what?

That's what?

four?

Yeah, it was a six total were left behind in the three lights.

Oh, question.

Question, question.

When we had the rest in the, like, when we were unconscious, did that count as a rest?

So all our stamina and everything came back to.

I just want to make sure I did this right.

Yeah, you're staying.

Yeah, everything there would have recovered.

It's just essence that doesn't recover out of it.

Correct.

Yeah.

So I would have, I would actually have down, I would be down four, though.

I'd be down three because I got back five.

Yeah, down three of them.

Do you need one of the ones that you're going to have?

Do you want one?

Did you use up all of yours?

I use five, but I can just use four if you want to take one.

Yeah, let me take that one.

Do that.

Okay.

Thank you.

With my useless lightning bolt in the ship.

So rude that didn't work.

Frisky fingers sometimes use it.

It's not enough for everyone.

True.

So, indeed, it seems odd dangers lurk upon this rock beyond just

stormy sea tracks.

What would you like to do?

Through that mist, is that mist in general still there?

I mean, the mist still hangs across the entire island, but it looks like

at least where you had walked through a space where something else lurked within the mist that came

came to awareness at your presence.

Came to awareness at our presence, so there could be more.

Any signs of tracks now that we're further up and in a little bit?

Make Make a perception check for me if you don't mind.

Come on.

9-15.

15.

The rain here is washed away much,

but between the bits of exposed stone, there are bits of hill and earth that kind of still kind of emerge between where the trees and roots still hold it.

And you do see some heavy...

heavy muddy footprints as well as some smaller footprints that seem to be heading kind of loosely in the same direction you're traveling.

That hasn't been completely washed by the storm.

Heavy, like this guy, heavy, or heavy, like bigger?

No, like this guy, heavy.

And this guy over here.

This one.

This guy.

This guy talking like your family, okay?

Is that alright?

I'm just gonna pick up on that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When you hear your family, yeah.

I'm a part of my family.

I'm a part of yours now.

That's it.

Shelter and food still

in that direction.

Is Lahera still with us?

Lahera has been hiding on the ground through all of this encounter and kind of like me.

I'm not a fighter.

I'm barely a burglar.

I'm not supposed to be here.

Oh, a burglar mean

taking shit you're not supposed to.

Those are not ones to judge me.

I've been listening to you all talk.

Listen, she may be of use later.

Just be gentle on her.

She's small enough to carry.

She better be a damn good cook, is all I'm saying.

Speaking of which, if we just look around real quick, is there anything foragey available around where we are?

Uh, you know what?

Make an intellect check for me.

Because you have to be very smart to be a forager.

Twelve?

I mean, there's

nettles and bush.

Love eating bushes.

Thank you for saying it because I felt like someone had to.

Reach around me.

So sorry, Obsidian.

Sorry, not sorry.

There are some scavengeable berries, not enough to fill a belly, but enough to definitely chew on and make you more frustrated that you're hungry.

No, they don't help with anyone's hit points.

And they wouldn't heal anything.

I'll say there's enough berries for someone to heal one hit point.

Well, that's just sad.

Can we give them to Liara?

Give them the Liara.

She didn't do shit.

I got shocked like 15 times.

She doesn't cook as shit.

Willie, eat up.

Might as well take it.

Yeah, I'm still hungry.

But I heal one berries.

You heal one hit point.

Okay.

Get that one hit.

There we go.

Make them lump and

gathering yourselves and wherewithal,

especially the signs of other, hopefully recent life, and this small, almost an outpost that seems to be surrounding the base of this lighthouse of a darkened candela.

You

pick yourselves up and continue trekking through the falling rain towards the semblance of some civilization and hope.

And that's when we go ahead and take our break.

I'll be back here in a few minutes.

We'll see you all shortly.

Oh, hey there.

Laura Bailey here to tell you all about the glorious goods we create inspired by our stories.

Our stores are filled with the basics like character-inspired t-shirts, dice sets, and pins, as well as more specialty items like fancy jackets, puzzles featuring gorgeous artwork, the comfiest joggers and pajamas ever, and much, much more.

There's also a few special items that support charity efforts, like our dedicated Critical Roll Foundation merch.

You can check out all of our regional online stores by visiting the shop tab on critroll.com or head straight to the U.S.

store at shop.critroll.com.

Every purchase helps support our shows and the stories we tell.

Speaking of which, let's get back to the story.

And welcome back.

So, as we left off, this troop of unlikely companions, survivors from the shipwreck of the person ship that was carrying them to the living lands, caught up in a terrible storm, have wrecked upon an unknown island to them, nor it seemed the path they were supposed to tread.

After battling with some of these strange elemental creatures, these rainbowites upon the island, you've pushed through the mist towards the core of this rocky landmass, where a singular non-lit lighthouse and a surrounding outpost of a homestead and a few makeshift shacks seem to await your arrival.

As you begin to approach the outskirts of this, what would you like to do?

As we're walking up the hill, kind of just want to

get in pace a little bit with Lady Manette.

Meow?

Sorry.

Bless you.

You know, I was actually kind of, I was gonna ask about that.

Do you meow because you were expected to meow?

I?

Or is that like, do you like that?

Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

Um,

thank you for the question.

I was playing a role, a critical role in

the lives of Lady

Eleonora.

And

I was playing a party, yes, uh, but

you know, the funny thing is, I did enjoy it because I was cared for so wonderfully, and I was fed, and I was educated, and

I slept at the foot of her bed, and it was

not

where I come from, but I don't regret it, and

I apologize in advance.

It's a bit of a take at this point,

but you know, I'm doing my best.

So so you understand

your

other damaged Orland companion is kind of hobbling alongside you.

You're not

made to be a pet at the behest of other people.

Yeah, what she said.

No,

let me be clear.

I'm an equal.

I'm...

I am.

I am an Orland.

I'm not a cat, but above all, I am a lady.

And that is the important part.

Who sleeps at the foot of the bed?

I

am Eleonora's friend, and she will be coming for me.

She will.

As soon as I get in touch with this lighthousekeeper or wherever we go, there's going to be a nice, noble

man or lady, and I will be able to contact my friend and tell her that I am no longer in trouble, and none of us are.

And how wonderful and fortuitous is that?

Look, I don't want to be the one to bust your biscuit can.

Please don't.

I feel

like you should just have someone give you a reality check here.

She ain't coming to get you.

She let you be the fall guy here.

All right?

And that's not someone who looks at you as an equal.

And I want you,

just like what Lyra over here is saying.

What I was saying.

Yeah.

To be able to understand that, recognize that you are a strong, independent, female, Orlan, orlin and that you

deserve better than that bullshit

lynette

sometimes people

treat us than treat us less than people it can happen to any of us

it could happen to me

um

lady ilva and lady sa sable um I appreciate the counsel, and I will take it under consideration, and I will return to you these words: that trust and belief are virtues that I abide by.

And if I don't have those, well, I might just fucking kill myself.

So, oh, no, what I'll do, frankly.

Don't.

We are alive.

She's coming back for me, and she's my friend.

All right, look, she's my friend.

You know, this might have escalated, but it's fine.

You know what?

I am

a girl, yeah.

I think I unlocked trauma and maybe a very untimely place and manner.

Smoothing my skirt.

Just, you know, like, look at Lilara over here, you know, just seemed might

be good to have some other influence, bro.

And some other friends.

Yeah.

I am very happy for your companionship.

We're smarter than the rest of them.

I could hear that

right next to us, but also you're not wrong.

No, not.

I may be dumb, but I ain't deaf.

Let's keep moving.

That was loud.

Puts her arm around you, and we both kind of continue inward towards the outpost.

Approaching the outpost, you can see the cluster of wooden shack-like structures, some heavy tents.

that are arranged around the base as well, though some have since been blown over by the recent weather and kind of mostly a pile of tattered materials

that kind of stand up amongst like jagged sticks pushing through like a collapsed circus.

These temporary structures set up around the central home abode with the massive lighthouse there before you.

And even

it's not hard to make out.

The lighthouse

is incomplete.

It looks like the majority of it is constructed, but its apex is only partially finished.

Or at least maybe partially crumbled.

But you look amongst the structures as well, and the more you glance around, you can also see

what looks like almost construction equipment.

Number of tools for moving earth and breaking stone.

That's the outer glance.

From whatever distance we're at, can we tell?

Again,

I just want to get a sense of whether these seem like they are

people connected to the Idiran Empire, or if these are

they the soldier guys, are they the ash guys?

Well, you don't see anything.

You make a perception for a reason.

Bad dog.

This is a bad day.

There are no bad dogs, only bad people.

four

uh you kind of peering out beyond as the rest of your troop are approaching see no signs of movement.

Uh the still wind itself not blowing any flaps free.

There's no sound of the

now still and some crumpled tents moving and shifting with the elements.

It is just a stagnant and still cluster of structures with no signs of life or movement.

Something doesn't feel right.

Yeah, I think they're different.

You're very tall and perceptive.

Do you see anything?

Uh

not not beyond what what you see.

I wouldn't mind trying to get a little bit um

a little closer.

If there is anyone in those tents, though, they would greatly outnumber us, so it might behoove us to try and attract their attention this way instead of uh doing the opposite.

Maybe I could ask if they have any books that went really well last time.

Books, books, books.

Yes.

I'll see what I...

Are we kind of in like a tree line?

The tree line itself is broken, and you're kind of like jumping from cluster to cluster to move best you can unseen.

But as you reach the perimeter, yeah,

best you can.

But now that you've kind of gotten close enough to see these details, the rest of it is mostly just like exposed rock and a bit of like

looks like

sea-friendly shrub

but it's kind of an open walk to the rest of this cluster where the lighthouse currently stands.

I could try and get a bit of a closer look if we didn't want to expose ourselves all at once.

You're the only one dressed as a soldier, and I don't

know that this is since we don't know if they're friendly to soldiers or other.

I don't know.

I'll go with you, fuck it.

As my prisoner, as your prisoner, yeah.

Or vice versa, depending on what you discover.

Yes, if it's scalawags, like us, us, then I'm the bitch.

If it's gods, you the bitch.

Debatable, but okay, yeah, we'll go with it.

So the two of you are scouting ahead.

Yes.

All right.

The rain turns to a drizzle, and eventually the drizzle begins to clear.

The gray skies still carry above you, but it looks like the threat of rain.

and perpetual waterlog

fades.

But with that, the fog thickens, seeming to choke off your vision from the full perimeter of the island, now becoming just obfuscated shadows at the periphery.

But as the two of you approach and begin to step into the boundary of the small encampment, this outpost, if you will,

you see all manner of signs of

work here.

You see within some of these shacks that are set up a number of construction tools, excavation pickaxes.

You see piles of heavy stone.

It looks like worked rock or completely displaced rock.

You see lanterns hanging on hooks outside of these structures themselves, unlit.

The muddy kind of trappings, the way this part of the land is, it looks like a lot of the water and rain pushes what earth kind of sits above it into this kind of very faint caldera of where the lighthouse is built.

And so the further in you go, the more it just becomes mud.

As your foot falls enough

with each step, you come through here and you can see other foot tracks at a glance of recent movement it would have to have been.

It's also not too hard to see amongst the mud here

four

skeletal corpses that appear to be partially submerged in this mud.

You see the occasional like skull, half of it kind of open, its jaw agape, kind of peering out from you as its body is laid out, its arm kind of sprawled.

You see another one that's like kind of partially collapsed over by the side of one of the collapsed tents, its rib cage kind of you know sticking out from it.

It looks like bits of cloth torn and weathered with the elements.

You see four

skeletal corpses.

Mostly skeletal.

Shreds of

elements of skin or what they once had

a long time ago.

I mean,

a long time ago.

So there's no signs of recent activity?

Uh, make a perception check for me.

Haha, four.

Four.

Uh, most thing you can make out is as you turn, you see

a little like carrion bird that's kind of perched on one of the nearby corpses,

picking it with shreds of what pushes it through.

You want it?

Just go ahead and roll.

It's gonna try and dodge.

Get it, get it, get it, get it.

I got it in the 22.

It rolled a 19, but that's not enough.

Overall damage!

11 points of damage.

That's enough to kill a carrion bird.

So I was like,

just slumped against the arrow that now has stapled to the side of one of these shacks.

I killed.

I took a life.

Oh my god.

So

Half Pearl just steps forward and goes.

We'll see what Lyra can cook up

with this later.

See if she can pull her weight.

But

yeah, it looks like

nobody's around here.

You see anything in the tents or anything?

Oh, look, can I do a more in-depth kind of search for anything dated yeah if you want to make uh perception or resolve your call can we catch up to them now since we don't see them if you'd like to the rest of you want to kind of follow dirty 20 yeah baby dirty 20.

um

looking around a couple things one you see indeed it looks like uh there are a number of places where workers would gather um you know, building materials, stones that have been smoothed that look like they were carried from elsewhere.

They aren't made here on the island.

So there was a con in the construction of this uh lighthouse looks like teams were coming here to build this as a means of kind of extending safer travel across the ocean possibly towards the living lands uh your eventual destination um but they didn't seem to finish um you continue to pour through and find three other bodies uh glancing across them what you can see their decay indicates that They haven't died recently.

They're not ancient corpses per se.

And even the weathering that you see in the surrounding structures here, the home feels older than the rest of the buildings.

Some of these structures seem more recent.

And there's more weathering on the homestead than some of the shacks.

You also see the bodies, there's no signs of violence.

There's no like broken bones or slash marks.

And most of them aren't sprawled in scenes of violence.

Just collapse.

And some are like halfway submerged, like in the earth.

What you can tell, it looks like as the bodies have been here long enough that the mud and kind of the general elements have kind of begun to reclaim them.

The lanterns are all unlit, and there are canisters of lantern oil kind of between two of the larger shacks.

We'll grab some lanterns and lantern oil.

Yep.

You also, as the rest of you approach,

hear a whistle.

Kind of coming from the other side of this gathered troop.

Yes.

Was that not you?

No, no, that wasn't me.

Was it the others?

It wasn't us.

We got it.

Oh, you're here.

That's right.

That's alright.

It was us.

And you see

Medrin kind of steps.

out from behind one of the far ends shacks near the household and you see he has like a satchel over his arm has thank you very much look at that look at that keen delivery i beg a party very cool

thank you delete this oh

i appeared i didn't even notice look at that magic

thank you guys you see has also scavenged arms from the guards bladed his side a little bit of a breastplate set on him um it's medron Medron with a partially filled satchel over his arm.

You see the two other figures that you had saw in the prison kind of following alongside, also with satchels or you know, sacks over their arm.

Um, and he says,

Well, it's very good to see that you all survive.

Likewise,

oh, you didn't think to maybe check up on us before you decided to head out on your own?

It was a tangled mess, same when you when you woke up, you know,

yeah, all right.

Oh, excuse me for not truly encompassing the uh the empathy that you hold for yourself.

Well, you're excused.

Apology accepted, I think, is what we mean to say.

Absolutely, I hate this guy.

Well,

whistles again, and you see from two other as I'm emerging from the household and from underneath one of the tents as it shifts, you see the

kind of muscular female Aumawa that you saw with kind of the kind of brown burgundy skin emerge

from under there, as well as the lanky dwarf you you can see that kind of pulls out with this like dagger and shield at the side and they all kind of converge off to the side of uh medron so you're all kind of more or less in like a two semicircles kind of facing each other

surround us no they're not like aggressive but they're certainly like wary sure are you the only ones who made it so far

as far as i know this is all we've seen No other survivors.

It was a terrible accident.

And he kind of like shifts his shoulder a bit and you can see like part of his clothing is bloodied.

Like, they've all sustained injuries, and they're kind of like, you get the sense based on the sacks they carry.

They're scavenging as well,

possibly looting.

How many of them are there?

There's three of them.

Just three of them.

My apologies.

I've not introduced you to my

little team here.

This is Figran.

Met motions over to the female Amawa.

She herself kind of holds aloft now, looks like this massive excavation

shovel that has wrapped some leather around the middle of it to kind of make it to a makeshift weapon.

Lifts it up and shunk sinks it in the button goes,

How do you do?

There it happens,

and this here is Al Sento.

Al Sento points to the dwarf.

Now we've all got to stay together for survival, yeah?

Yes.

Yeah.

Good, good.

Well, I guess if we're making introductions, that's Manette.

That's Galen.

Lady Manette.

Lady Manette, Suri.

That's Ilva.

That's Haspero.

I'm Sable.

And we're Team Reach Around.

You've got a name.

We recently adopted the name.

It was Haspero's idea.

Pretty good name, right?

I like it.

It's promising.

We don't have a name.

She gets

good for morale.

This one.

He points over,

and you see him smile as he points.

And you see Eliris like,

oh, none of this one.

I guess it's good to keep the food close, eh?

That's wildly inappropriate.

You're all because she's a chef.

You heard she's a cook?

Yeah.

Yes.

Wise with his resources, this one is, I can tell.

I'm guessing there's a history between these two probably don't need to make a roll for that

You guess that there's something there, yeah.

All right,

nevertheless, whatever this is here on

it was man and something didn't work out.

That means they don't need what they left

Did you by any chance encounter a sort of

water blight?

Sorry, Water ghost?

A sort of lightning creature.

Water blight.

That's what I call him.

I saw some weirdness amongst the mist, but we actually dallied around and kept quick to our feet and just ran.

You know, not fighters.

Um.

Oh, right, we're

not done that.

I don't know if you've noticed.

We're fucking stranded.

We need to get that working.

So, anyone know how to work a line house?

Why'd you say it like that?

Like there's an innuendo

sold everything else is an innuendo.

God, I hate him.

You should join Team Reach around.

I think he'd be right in.

Oh, I think Team Reach around's joined us.

I mean, I think we could get it to work.

I'm sure that we could get it worked one way or the other.

There's plenty of lanterns and plenty of oil around.

That's a start.

Make a fire.

Grab materials, start planning yourself out there.

Anything that's good and decent, bring it.

We're gonna pile it here in the center.

You two, go and keep watch, make sure nobody falls out of line.

You two, also watch us, make sure we don't fall.

All right, all right, you're barking out a lot of orders there, hound dog.

Why don't you calm down?

All right,

no one appointed you team leader.

All right,

find it.

I'm going to go search around and keep an eye on them to see if they're out of line, and you can keep an eye on me to see if I'm on out of line.

Why don't we vote on who could be our team leader?

Yes,

that's good.

Diplomatic,

democratic, yes, yes.

Fair is fair.

Make a resolve check for me.

That is 11.

That is 11.

Oddly failed with a name.

He was like,

You know what?

Fuck it, why not?

Oh, they got sounds fun to me.

Let's see.

Amongst all of us here,

who should be the leader?

Isn't Isn't that right?

Boys!

You see over there, uh, Tigran goes,

and lady,

who wants to be the leader amongst your trooper?

Well,

it's gotta be either one of the smarties, I think, or I don't know, one of the biggies.

I vote for intellect, I vote for

Galen.

Who is volunteering to be voted for?

This isn't an open council.

I'll volunteer, yeah.

All right.

Whoever wants

Hasperot

to lead our stranded, dying shred of a team.

Raise your hand.

Oh, shit, I wasn't expecting that.

It's all right, darling.

I'm used to being the second hand.

Last four votes?

Yeah.

How about the rest of your lot?

And he looks over at Lyra.

And Lyra's like.

And you see the other ones put their hands up.

And he puts his hand up.

That's four on four.

All right.

Which is funny because

you didn't vote, but he voted for himself.

Damn it.

I don't.

I'm not that good at math, so it doesn't seem funny to anybody.

Alright, fine.

How about a diplomatic partnership?

Sure.

Let's see what we can find.

Quickly.

I'm getting hungry.

Seven shifts his bag and they kind of like scatter amongst the ruins and start like picking through things.

You watch as Figurine takes that shovel and she kind of like moves aside one of the bodies, kind of pulling it out of the muck and slopping it onto its front where it kind of like breaks apart a little bit and starts like sifting through it with a stick.

They're essentially just looting.

You said that there was some kind of a house?

There is.

There is like a small abode that is older than the rest of the structures here that is up against the side of the lighthouse.

One of them came out of there, right?

Yeah, it looked like

Ruben Elcendo, I think, was coming out of that one.

Shall we.

I'm going to go check out the house.

He said it's attached to the lighthouse.

Well, it's like right right next to it.

Okay.

If you want to check out the house, we could examine the lighthouse, see what sort of progress has been made on its construction.

I'll go with you to the house.

I'll come with you to the little

tiny house.

And Lahira, why don't you join us in the house?

Yeah, that's where I figured I'd have to cook, right?

Speaking of that, got some grub for you.

Oh, yes!

I killed!

Our hands will never be clean!

You made dinner, Alex.

You simply made dinner.

I don't think Mandarin should have any of that dead vulture.

Personally.

It's a pigeon.

Pigeon Maddass.

Cannon badass.

Cannon pigeon.

The worst kind of pigeon.

Big partial.

Gail and I will accompany you to the lighthouse.

I think it might behoove us to have someone with mental fortitude to aid you in your quest so you don't get scared.

Yes,

yes, that's excellent thinking.

They keep calling us dumbasses over there.

I don't really like

appreciate that kind of talk.

It's all right, Darling.

Being underestimated is a wonderful thing.

Exactly.

We are all we need.

We're all we need.

Team lighthouse.

It doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

No, it doesn't.

That's okay.

We'll work shop.

Alright, so the two of you head towards the lighthouse, right?

You come to the front doorway to it, and you can see there is a wooden door,

like metal

trim for both like physical

kind of load-bearing power to it, but it looks like it's one of the hinges is partially broken away and it's part way open.

Dark on the inside.

And as you kind of move it aside, you have to push hard to kind of push the muck out of the way that's kind of built up on the outside of it.

Looks like it hasn't been opened in a while.

And immediately there's like that smell of wet muck and earth on the inside.

You can see a stone staircase that immediately kind of spirals up.

And you can see a little bit of light above that, like daylight that is coming through the unfinished top of of that lighthouse that just like barely frames the edge of the steps as it spirals upward.

Um, there are wooden crates kind of like set off to the side, um, that have themselves like some bits of broken stone.

Um,

yeah, what do you want to do?

Well, first of all, Galen, now that we're alone, I have something to tell you.

I'm all ears, you're in you're innocent, correct?

Yes,

I think that once we

find an established society, we just absolutely

abandon the people we're making temporary alliances with.

It's important for us.

You're a numbers guy, right?

Yes.

Yes.

I just think that

I don't personally want to be associated with criminals.

And I think that it would be a good idea for us to think about an exit plan.

That's all.

That's all.

Sure.

Playing the percentages.

Yes, exactly.

All right.

They have been very useful.

But I see a lot of reason in your thinking.

I didn't come here to make friends.

I came here

because I was in jail with them.

And that's all.

Well said, my lady.

Good eloquence.

Now that that's sorted,

it's a virtue.

Now that that's sorted, um, how does a lighthouse work?

I thought thought you knew.

Oh, you're the big smart!

You're the big smarty!

We're the lights of the intellect!

I assume you create a light and then something to reflect that light around.

That's great.

He's just so smart.

We have lanterns and lantern oil.

Can we look around to see if there's anything mirrored that we could use a piece of?

Make a perception check, both of you.

Yeah.

21.

22.

22.

You both.

Which one of you goes up and which one of you checks the floor?

What do I go through?

I go up.

Alright.

So as you kind of trek up the stone, it is slick with the recent rain, and you kind of have to put your hand on the wall to make sure you do it.

Because if you were to tumble down these stairs, it would be very bad.

Railing hasn't been put in.

It's pretty bare.

Like the fine details of it were probably the last thing to go in, and they haven't even finished the full construction.

but you head up to the top

And you can see there's part of the wall it looks like it may have been close to construction and something collapsed and they haven't repaired it yet

But there is a lens installed you get at the top and there is an actual lighthouse like lamp and lens installed but it is dirty as hell and the actual hood of the lighthouse looks partially off-center like whether it be through wind and weather it's just been kind of slowly pushed off to one side it's mooring come undone a little bit, but it looks like it could be a functional lighthouse if it were to be properly oiled, ignited.

You don't know how this works.

Excellent.

I take off my petticoat and I get to cleaning.

All right, you start scrubbing it.

You start checking it throughout here.

The crates, there are some tools, most of them look empty.

One of them looks like it contains some actual like sacks of rice and grain.

and kind of looking down with it in there you kind of check it and it is

moldy it is that that kind of like gray and white fuzz has fully ingrained itself and

it it it it's a it's a rough fungus in there um and the smell kind of hits you and you're like oh gonna catch yourself for a second um there's another crate um

it's kind of pushed off to the side uh and then kind of a cold wind seems to be like coming through the lighthouse at this point like the wind is kind of picking up a little bit as that fog is beginning to kind of choke the center of the island.

You reach over and kind of look within the crate, and it kind of tips a little bit to one side.

And you're like, what?

You kind of catch it and pull it up.

The stones in there kind of shift a bit.

It's kind of hard.

Make a mic check for you.

Oh, shit.

Mike, coming up.

Seven.

Seven.

The rocks shift on the other side of this crate

and it tumbles forward.

Do you hold on or let go?

I'm hold on.

Hold on.

It slams down.

It looks like part of the floor here actually was a hole or an opening.

And the crate was on the side.

Oh, no.

And as you shifted it, the weight shifted and the crate fell into this opening.

And you held on to it.

It comes forward and tumbles about five, six feet

and shatters onto this like heavy, rough stone floor, lightless around.

You have no sight.

It is just this dark expanse

where you have landed on your tailbone hard.

I don't stop.

I don't stop.

As you slowly catch the wind back in your lungs.

We'll be right back.

I think she's actually hurt.

Oh, I know.

Classic, if you haven't seen it.

Did the lantern that I have with me?

Did that break as well on the fall?

Roll a D20 for me.

And a 10 plus did not break.

Five.

Damn.

Front row.

Okay.

Just pitch dark.

Pitch dark.

Hello?

Hello?

Hello.

Anybody there?

There?

There?

Egon!

Can I hear him from up where I am?

No.

Make a perception check.

Okay.

With this one, by the way.

Oh, yeah, there you go.

Come on.

9, 10, 11, 12.

12.

Nope.

Fuck.

You're just cleaning.

I'll be humming.

La la la la la la la la la la.

I like the dark.

I like the dark.

It's so dark over here.

There's like four animals flying in the back.

Yeah, exactly.

Just like in there, like

tweeting with the animals.

The whole entrance that I fell through is like six feet in the air.

Five, six feet up, yeah.

Like you could like leap and catch and try and pull yourself up.

Take a couple steps forward in the dark.

Okay.

You feel like you find like a rough stone wall and what feels like a like a wooden brace.

Can I search my hands up the brace and see if there's like a joist or like a lantern or a hook or anything?

No lantern or a hook, but it seems to curl up to about a five and a half foot high ceiling.

Eventually, like as you move forward, it kind of ducks down and it's like a...

like a tunnel, like an excavated tunnel.

That's interesting.

No need for me to do this on my own.

Yeah, it takes you a few moments, but eventually you do manage to clamber back up into the base of the lighthouse.

Lady!

Yes.

Yes!

I have fallen and found a tunnel!

Oh, um, okay.

I...

Oh, do I take my petticoat?

Should I leave it?

I take it with me.

Fair.

And, um, and I carefully descend.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

Oh, she counts with her.

Math.

Well done.

I'm so proud.

123 steps later.

123.

Um, hello.

I fell

into a hole, and there's a tunnel, and I broke our lamp.

Oh.

Okay, um, one thing at a time.

Um, there's a tunnel.

Yes, in the ground, dark tunnel, into

the void, which I didn't want to do on my own.

No, um, okay, well, good news.

Everything, all of the fastenings for a lighthouse are up there.

I was just,

excuse my nakedness, I had to remove my petticoat to clean the glass.

Um, but it's all up there, and I think it's just a matter of finding more oil because that was the oil in the lamp that broke, correct?

Yes.

Um, so why don't we return to our friends and see because there was certainly more than one lamp if i recall a number of lanterns throughout number of uh it's one of a number

so let's let's find our friends remember um

grit is a virtue so let's get them

and

and uh let's join our friends and tell them the good news the good news

in the interim the three of you have trekked into this household the The front door itself is already partially ajar from what looked like one of Medren's compatriots.

And as you step in,

you know, Medrin kind of follows you a little bit and then kind of peels off before you enter the building proper and kind of goes off and finds his own interest throughout the rest of the surrounding encampment.

His two other compatriots also kind of like moved beyond sight.

I would say like I'll center at this point is rummaging through another like collapsed tent and pulling out bits of materials and tools and finding things and putting them in the bag.

But you enter this house.

It's a small abode and it's barely furnished.

It likely was a home built for what was to be the lighthouse keeper here.

Though the interior definitely, while it's not furnished heavily, is covered in all sorts of strange equipment that does not befit necessarily a lighthouse keeper.

You can see weathered

tripods and massive lensed equipment.

You see delicate tools hung on haphazard, like screwed loops put into the wall.

You see the extensions of excavation equipment and all manner of like laid-out strips of leather on

like small tables and counters with bits of flecks of broken pale stone of different sizes and areas where notes are kept and some of it missing, some of it present.

There's like broken instruments on the ground with like shattered glass that kind of spread off to one side.

All manner of like strange

scientific or research-based equipment.

Who is actively helming the investigation into this house?

Like she kind of led it.

Yeah, sure, yeah.

I'll be that person.

Okay.

If you would like to make a perception or resolve check, that's up to you.

Yeah, I should not be leading this anymore.

My dice have abandoned me.

All of them have abandoned me.

That was a four.

A four.

Glancing through the chambers here, minimal as they are,

you

can't quite figure out the threads behind what these might have been used for,

but a few things also catch your eye.

There is a small kitchen area in the back that it looks like some of it's been kind of open and emptied, but others are closed.

That is some hope for trying to have some supplies for liveliness.

You do see in one of the what would have been the bedroom, though the bed itself misses and has no present mattress on it,

there is another small table set with what looks like a

leather

ledger, journal,

a number of other pieces of paper and sheets,

and what looks to be another corpse that is lying on the ground, kind of arms back like this, its jaws

kind of hung open, and most of its just skin either pulled stretched or missing.

Oh, not skeletonized, though.

I mean, like, most of its body is skeletal, but there are like elements of like strips of stretched, like mummified skin that still give some semblance of

structure and motion.

Can I read some of these

journals, stuff like that?

Sure.

Well, you start reading through the notes and journals.

You see within the first opening page, there is a name marked within, usually denoting the ownership of the journal.

You see the name Aedia Colliate.

And it is...

It is very much written in shorthand.

Scattered chunks of notes and language that, at a first glance, is tough to kind of glean the purpose behind it.

But if you want to roll an intellect roll for me to see if you can ascertain,

come on, babies.

I've got so many of you to this party.

Show off.

Show off for a mama.

That's better.

Let's do an 18.

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Eight.

Okay, 18.

In reading through the notes of this journal,

a couple quick things you pick up.

This idea

looks to be a seeker of ancient history or lost culture.

Their notes are more about connecting dots between historical excavations,

referring to some sort of university, like a higher learning locale where they have connections, and trying to more or less figure out

parallels with some uncovered elements to this island.

You work out through the notes that when this lighthouse lighthouse was being constructed, the team building it uncovered odd ruins within the heart of the island beneath the lighthouse, and thus the construction was halted before completion.

Then Adea and her colleague, Dornelsi,

were called

from the Empire to gather a team of researchers to investigate this ruin and assess if construction could be completed or if the site had significance to the Empire.

You rolled really high.

Entries also speak of unpredictable weather and harsh living conditions upon the island, and a storm that sundered their long-moored ship against the shore before they could return to the mainland for more provisions.

Reading through the notes further, they speak about uncovering some of the depths of the ruins, as well as massive veins of Adra that dig into this island.

And you know Adra to be

a particularly important and rare mineral across the entire world of Aora.

It is a greenish, luminescent

stone that is believed in many cultures to perhaps all be connected at the core of the world,

or at the very least it is tied to the very essence of the soul, the spirit.

There are many different beliefs.

A lot of the ancient Ingwithan empire and their technologies were based around the manipulation of Adra and the spirit as an energy source.

Some people see the Adra as a creation or extension of the gods.

But there are a number of significant mysteries around it and a lot of technologies

through the use of manipulation of Adra.

But these veins were unique.

For the deeper they plumbed into these ruins, they found

the green became white.

Spidered veins of white Adra, referred to as Adraban.

An extremely rare form of white Adra that still isn't fully understood.

An incredible find by these notes, and likely why this ancient ruin was built here.

Adea's instinct is that these ruins might be of the fabled godless of the living lands, but they speak to it's too early to confirm without comparison and research back to the Empire, and hoping that their attempts to get the lighthouse functional again and to call some sort of help or aid back to the island could help them continue their research.

The further Induit gets

more complaints about dwindling provisions of desperation and conflict within the research team.

As these tensions rise, and Indea wants to push their efforts towards recovery and acquiring

some sort of follow-up troop to save them,

Dornilsi began to fall obsessive with these ruins, thinking that perhaps

maybe the secret to that lied within them, within this Ahadra.

If indeed it is all connected somewhere in the core here,

maybe through some unknown

animancy or some sort of ancient power within, maybe these runes unlocked a way in which they could be saved.

But this tension continued to build.

And as the teams began to separate and grow more ornery and divided with each passing week, the notes get more scarce and more concise and more

frustrated and hopeless.

Then begins to speak about Dornielsi wanting to tamper with the pillar

and wanting to stop them.

While this is happening, you both also find what looks to be an odd skull that's kind of set off to the side of the far back chamber by the kitchen.

It is larger than a human skull.

It looks humanoid, kind of, but it's

big.

It's a big skull.

Okay, yeah.

It's a technical term.

What would TV like be doing within the rest of this house while your friend over here is in the process of reading and studying this journal?

Do any of the tools look familiar?

Like we would know what these tools were used for?

Yeah, a lot of them are.

Well, actually, well, like the tools inside here, make an intellect check for me.

Oh, boy.

Come on, baby.

Eight?

Yeah, eight.

Eight?

Man, probably like dentistry.

Yeah,

Small implements, like obviously for scraping plaque and getting between those gums.

Like, yeah, this.

Do you think that this skull was maybe like a practice skull for the dentists?

It might be.

Yeah, yeah, that would make sense.

I mean, it's kind of a lot for one skull, but yeah, yeah, I could see.

You know how doctors have those like diagrams and stuff?

Yeah.

Maybe that's what this is.

I think you're exactly right.

Exactly right.

I'd like to come running back in and fill them in on everything.

I tell you everything that I read.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Let me see that journal.

Oh my god.

This is Gatorhide.

This is rare shit.

This is good leather.

I'm just going to turn around and walk outside to track and take a deep breath

and look for our other friends.

You step out of the doorway and right there you see, kind of shoulder to shoulder, Figrun and Alceno are like stepping up to the house

and kind of like

look at you.

Figurun's like,

You look spooked.

Oh, not spooked.

I'm intrigued.

Have you been in the house?

Looks over to Alcena.

He's like, I'm in your hello, hello, Kranzark.

You know,

not much of interest.

Got some food, a couple things.

What'd you find?

Some papers.

Do you read?

Not in a chatter way.

We found some more information that might be useful to us, but we need to reunite with all of our party before

bless you.

Even though I can't see you, I bless you.

We need to reunite with all of our party to figure out what to do about it.

Can you find your Medron?

Yeah.

We'll go find them.

I and they go ahead and both turn around and you can see like Figun kind of like looks at you looks inside the house a bit

grabs a hold of her massive shovel and pulls it from the muck and they both kind of walk off back and towards the cluster of structures

can have a better conversation.

Lyra's trying to cook up

the stove going.

It's like going through some cabinets.

It goes, oh,

I got

and pulls out like a small box and like what looks like a sack of some kind.

He's like,

well, I got some meats.

And does actually produce amongst the kitchen here

one

like large piece of smoked meat that you can get.

Oh, excellent.

Someone can heal up.

And a box of hardtack.

Oh,

all right.

So you have two helpings of hardtack that can be used multiple times.

I feel like we should eat some of that right now.

Yeah, we need our tank to make some magic over here.

I'm only down a couple of hit points.

Yeah, me too.

I feel like we should hang on to those for a while.

I'll use one of these uses uses now

because I'm hit pretty hard.

This is what it used.

Four uses, regain two hits.

I'll take one.

Why not?

How far

are our buddies?

Can I get

like 20 feet, 25 feet away, walking away further?

No, no, I mean these buddies.

Oh, them?

Yeah.

They're still going up to the lighthouse.

No, we came back.

Well, this is happening simultaneously, and the searching and cleaning and all these things take a little bit of time.

So you're probably like, at this point in time, probably just convening and about to start heading back.

You, as you kind of glance out and look, you also see on the table where all these kind of little tools and implements are, those like small little broken shards of stone.

Yeah.

Like

kind of matching that description of that pale white that you read in the book.

And upon a look, like one particular piece that's kind of like about the size of a coin, has like a pale glow, like a luminescent color to it.

I'm just going to swipe it and pocket it.

Okay.

Kind of grab that and a few other pieces that you can.

It's like literally like

grab them all.

So there's like a pile of stones.

Three sizable bits of Audraban that you can kind of pocket real fast.

The white sky?

Yes, Adraban.

See?

And is it known what the big difference is with Audraban?

I know it's like rare and stuff, but it's not like

that.

You just know that

from what places you've, the rare things that you've heard about, and you've seen it used mainly as jewelry for the elite.

Especially in my business, where I've been doing a lot with.

But

you haven't delved too much into the research of Adra specifically or its source.

It's mainly just

in your in your circles used as a sense of station.

Okay.

Audra and Audraban.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, Audra is used all throughout jewelry, but like in it's more

common comparatively.

Sure.

But it's used because it's very resonant to spiritual energy and essence.

And so a lot of animancy research and a lot of like magical technology and development of animancy-based magic is all surrounds the manipulation and usage of Audra.

Okay.

Your friends do approach as you kind of like pocket these things, and you can smell like food starting to begin to cook a little bit, and you all kind of come into the household.

Oh,

Lady Ilva, Sir Gillin was an absolute example of gallance and bravery.

He discovered a hole and a tunnel.

A tunnel.

It's a tunnel.

Okay.

A hole and a tunnel.

Yes.

Just the one.

And good news, the lighthouse is almost ready.

I've cleaned the glass.

A tunnel.

In this tunnel, did you, by any chance, see any

veins of green in the stone?

No, no, it was pitch dark.

How many lanterns do we have?

How many do we have?

A number.

Can we each grab one?

Oh, yeah, I'd say there are probably eight unbroken lanterns that are easily within grasping distance of both the island and the

surrounding structures.

But as you're kind of having this conversation in the house, you see the approaching shapes of the two compatriots that you sent off, as well as the image of Medrin kind of between them walking forward.

You see him.

He's coming towards us.

He's walking towards you.

I'm just going to lean my head out the door and be like, oh, I'm really sorry.

Lady Minette is just a little bit indisposed right now.

I'm going to close it and lock the door.

Oh.

Okay.

All right.

There is one other way in, which is the door, kind of you can see near the kitchen door.

Ah, shit.

I go over to that door and close it.

Please don't come in.

I'm having a feminine issue.

She just is her lady time.

I'd appreciate the honesty, please.

Thank you.

All right, we have in this moment, they appear to

probably still approach the house, but a bit taken aback probably by you closing and locking the door.

What are you doing?

Have you found anything?

Talking to

Medro.

Oh, I just thought you were going to be able to do it.

keep them out.

Oh, we're all inside

the map.

Right, um.

We don't fully trust ourselves.

No, of course not.

I can make up something that was in these journals, but and I don't know that either of them can read.

Well, we can say that the lighthouse is able to be repaired.

We could outfit it, clean it,

supply a lantern, and get it up and working.

And maybe while they're up there focused on that, we can slip down below.

That's a great idea.

nice Night.

i mean don't get me wrong i'm all down for exploring very adventurous spirit but what do we think we're gonna we're gonna find down there

what are we gonna gain a golden corral a golden corral let's go i want a bloomin' onion baby

house but it's the first thing we came in

everything else in this game

whenever i go to groups corral i'm like i wish i could have bloomed the Instagram.

I'd like to take this time to remind you that these are all our original things.

These are not canon to the World of Aora.

No, there's no Apache steakhouse in the World of Aora.

Just in case you were wondering.

I don't know, but it might be the only thing of value.

That's more what I'm thinking of.

And come on.

You've done a certain amount of anime.

Aren't you intrigued?

Yeah,

no, of course.

I mean,

know.

I'm so confused.

I don't know exactly what you're telling me right now, but I'm into it.

All right.

I think Team Reeshround must get in the hole.

Do we agree?

Oh, yeah.

Always.

Every hole is a goal.

What are we going to tell

Medrin to keep on winding?

We said we'll take them up to the top of the lighthouse.

See if they can get it working because we don't know how to.

and then uh see if we can slip in the hole

hurry you hear a voice outside be like

what's this

oh

that's all

are there windows in the sun situation there are like glass windows installed yeah it's outside the house and probably fur sounds further away than where you lock the door.

That's not a voice we recognize.

It sounds like Madrid.

Oh,

can we look out the window?

Actually, I'll go to the door that's on the opposite side from where the sound's coming from, and I'll actually head out outside around the house and just like try and slice the pie and look around the corner at what that sound's coming from.

You follow off to the side, and one of the structures, the partially like collapsed tent against the side of it, that was on this side of the house, you see Medrin and his crew are kind of gathered around the outside.

Like they were helming, going to go to the other side of the house and stops to inspect this.

And you see Medrin's kind of like moving aside some of the rubble and kind of pulls something out from it.

And you see kind of in his hand, this

like curved on one side and kind of coming to a point on it, almost like this large teardrop-shaped, massive chunk of that,

this like white stone material that's like faintly glowing with like the faintest bit of like pinkish violet sort of internal light almost like veined through the core of it kind of looking at it.

and go, I think he found like a giant bone.

It's like this long white shard.

Does it look like this?

I pull out the white algebra.

Does it look like this?

It looks pretty close, huh?

It is

bigger.

Damn it.

Um,

we want to.

Maybe while they're distracted with that, we can just go ahead and slip in.

But that's what we're looking for.

Well, maybe we can go find more.

It would be a good time to go to the tunnel.

Oh,

fine.

Fine.

Come on, Elba.

I just want it.

It's shiny.

We can go to the tunnel, go in the hole, come back and get it.

Yeah, they'll be looking for us.

Let's go.

I'm going to write a note.

Be back soon.

Going to do something prepared.

Love Elva.

Of heart.

Lyra returns to the potato.

And then I draw

myself for them because I don't know if they can read.

Lyra turns to the pot and it's like, up.

Likely around five or so minutes.

The birds should be ready.

This is stirring it.

Let's go.

Aspero like, oh, looks longingly at the food as we're as we're leaving.

All right.

You exit the door and kind of open it, like

unlatching it and then pulling it open.

And right there, kind of occupying the front of the door, is Figrun.

kind of pretty much like shoulder to shoulder their massive ama form.

She's just kind of like

standing in your way like a wall.

And then peers her head down past like the low-slung

door top and kind of

where are you going?

Well, well, she's feeling a little bit better, so we thought we'd get her some air.

It's not nice to slam doors and friendly faces.

Apologies, she's a little bit shy when it comes to these particular lady experiences.

She hasn't really been in a situation like this where we're quite

all of us have to be hungry

Well uh Laira has made a delicious meal if you'd like to partake can you smell it

Yeah

yes Bosch you hungry and she steps back and you see there's like Alcena walking up and a Medrin's kind of you know about 30 feet back kind of walking holding this in front

you're saying this shit, right?

This is Ardra, ban.

I never seen Ardra like this, except in like pebbles.

Can you imagine the worth of this piece?

I don't want entire veins beneath this island, maybe.

We should find them.

He's kind of staring at the stone there for a second.

Okay, get us home.

If I don't know if you've noticed, but there's like no commerce on this island.

So it's it's actually

arguably

useless.

It has no value

until we can get to

what's going on with this.

He shushes you.

Yeah, of course.

I

I don't understand what

what is it, Beow

this is Biook.

Uh

if anyone would like to make an intelligence role.

I would.

I'm not smart.

She's smart.

16?

Can I read some of the Beowok.

Beowaks, you've...

It's funny, it's jostled in your brain because of the recent kind of resurfacing of things you've read, passing books and things in your bored moments, when business is a bit slow.

Beowaks are also referred to as spirit winds.

They are

terrible magical storms that are said to shear the soul out of a person's body, often the cause of wayward souls to become

attached to nearby elements and begin to just wander aimlessly, aggressively.

Not unlike the blights you had encountered before.

Medron goes like

I see

a gift.

Medrin.

It'll be a gift.

Medrin, who are you talking to?

Adea.

I'll come find you.

Bind them and bring them.

And he kind of takes the stone and begins to putting it into his pouch.

He said idea, and he said, bind them and bring them as his two compatriots kind of look at him.

Yeah, the researcher.

He watches Figrin

pulls the

massive shovel out and kind of

palms it as Alcino kind of reaches down and pulls this like dagger that's a little bit kind of chris-like shaped out of the side.

And they all look at you.

Right.

I need you all to release it.

Yeah,

let's go.

I told you he sucks.

All right.

Yes, you did.

It's a cool bitch.

16.

Nice.

Better roll.

That would happen a little bit later.

We're gonna have to make friends for now.

Alrighty, 20 to 15.

16.

16.

Fuck it all.

14.

Hasperos also works.

Okay.

Alright, go ahead and rollies.

Rollies, let's do it.

13.

12.

Alright.

Also, it's Haspero.

Lady Haspero.

And then Sable.

Yes.

Alrighty.

15 to 10.

10.

10.

Alright.

We we have.

10 to 5.

Oh, no.

5 to 1?

1!

Someone's got to bring up the rear.

Is this team reach around?

Alright.

Medrin is up first.

With you all clustered here in the doorway.

Medrin steps forward

and is going to go ahead and, like, after placing the Audra piece into the satchel kind of brings the hand forward and rushes up

and is going to cast a fan of flames

towards all of you.

If you would like to block or dodge, that is your call here.

I will dodge.

I will block.

I will block

block.

Alright, so all of you roll and add your

over here.

Yeah, 20 for 26.

5.

Roger 20.

It's a dog paw, you guys.

Success?

16.

16?

Success barely.

22.

Success?

16.

Success?

5.

5.

All of you dart off to the side and kind of lean against the inside of the walls of the house as things

burn past poor Hasperos standing there.

Uh-oh.

Oh, baby.

You didn't even get your meal.

I got a little smoked meat, but still hungry.

That's going to be 12 points of damage upon you.

I get to parry also.

Oh, because you were blocking it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes, you can.

So we'll get into that in just a second.

So,

and you get two points of fire accumulation on Haspero as the flames are now kind of

starting to catch onto your body.

The singe smell of your hair kind of burned and curled back.

The pain kind of kicking into you.

I don't know.

It feels good to get the blood pumping a little.

You get to parry immediately, you said.

So.

I also cast Phantom of Flames too.

Well, Perry, you get to make an attack on it.

I stab him with my

spear.

There you go.

On your turn, you can.

Get it, lady.

Get it.

So after the flames finish, you immediately whip around the edge where you hit and try and actually kind of stand up because of the spear.

You can stab from behind your friend.

You can just stab from behind Haspearo.

Stab from behind Hasper.

Alright, so a free attack against Medrin.

Go ahead and roll.

Because he's going to try and

block.

Oh, dodge.

Oh, he can dodge for three.

All right.

There is no zero, right?

That's 10.

Okay, nine.

There you go.

Magic dice coming.

To hit for your

d20.

Oh, no, no, no, saying you have to roll to hit him because he's trying to dodge.

The d20.

So d20 plus three.

Shit.

Good practice roll, though.

Yep.

Nine.

Nine, unfortunately, misses.

He's quick and dodges off to the side and kind of almost disappears from the open doorway, out of sight to all of you.

He just kind of like vanishes, and now you're just looking at it like an open door with this two of the compatriots like standing right there, waiting to go.

That's gonna go ahead and

let's

yeah, Medin's gonna go ahead and hold course at the moment, having finished that round.

That now brings us to Minette with Haspero on deck.

Okay, I cast Fen of Flames too.

He's behind us now, but there's two people.

There's two

in front

who are still kind of clustered.

The two in front, I cast Fen of Flames.

Let's go.

Let's go.

All right.

Since they have not gone yet, they're both.

I'm confused.

Where is everybody?

Alcento's going to go ahead and try.

Well, he ducked out of the site.

They were going to have sight currently on.

So he's sort of behind them, but they're blocking us.

They're here, and he's gone and gone.

We're back here.

And everything's still taking, like, within the doorway.

Correct.

You're ball inside the house still, and there's the doorway.

Medrun was standing.

Cast the flame, and then Darta off to the side and it's out of sight.

His two compatriots are behind, as you step forward and cast Phantom Flame on the two of them.

They're both going to try and dodge.

Alright, so go ahead and roll and add your intellect.

That's 4d6 minus 1.

Plus my intellect.

Roll does he do hit.

Come on.

Come on, baby.

11.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Plus 13.

Yeah, you hit them both.

They both rolled really poorly on their dodge.

So go ahead and roll damage on that.

Okay, damage is 4d6 minus 1.

Right?

Okay.

Maybe that's this one.

That's the square, yes.

Yeah.

Four of them.

Six.

Come on, big six.

Five.

Okay.

Five.

Ten.

That's a six, which explodes.

Explodes.

One, six.

And two, minus one.

Okay, and one more because the six explodes

six.

Oh, fuck.

Yep.

Five.

Twenty-nine.

Amazing!

That is rough.

So ladylike.

So you dart forward.

This aggressive gout of burning fire emerges from your hand and just

engulfs them both.

A direct retort on nearly the same level as Medrons against your troop, although not as lucky in avoiding it.

How many points of fire accumulation does it give them both?

Two.

Woohoo!

All right, they both get two points of fire.

They're both on the verge of the fire.

Virtue fire is a virtue.

Let's go.

They both try to fight.

They sizzling like a slap of pork or to spill it.

The smoke.

Come on.

Is that just long?

Is that just kind of ducky goodness?

Yeah, for now.

That's what it is.

it is.

Brandon baby.

That's nasty.

That's your spell.

Do you want to use any more of your stamina to attack?

That I am going to.

I have so much stamina, so I am going to stab, stab, stab, stab, stab.

Alright, which one?

Tall one or dwarf one?

Tall one.

Let's go.

They're not going to try and block or dodge, so you just go and roll damage.

Get it.

And that's.

They're not going to try or they can't.

Because they're crispy.

They're standing there.

Uh-huh.

Three.

Three points of damage to Fig Rune.

Alrighty.

Any more in your turn?

Yes.

One, two, three, four,

five.

And I'm going to.

They're also not going to block it.

Nope.

Go for it.

Five.

Oh, oh, four.

Four, already.

So like after they're recovering from the flames, smoke from their like burnt, you know, hide armor and guard-like cloaks they put over their shoulder, smoke building up.

Two spear stabs you back.

I'm like,

smoothing my skin.

Finish your turn.

Alrighty.

With that, Haspero, you are up with Sable on deck.

So they're both got hit pretty good, correct?

They're both hurt.

They're not looking hurt.

They took some heavy damage.

But they're a little tougher, I think, than the average bear.

And the Amawa's name is Figgrin.

Figran is the Yamawa, yeah.

I look at her, I go, you know, it's a shame because you're kind of my type.

Does that

react at all?

Make a resolve roll.

I'm on my hand, put on that charm.

Reach around, baby.

Let's go.

That is 14.

14.

What's your resolve?

She goes, 11 plus 3.

14.

Yeah, it is.

You're kind of my type.

You know what turns me on?

Pain.

Oh.

Okay.

This could be a win-win for you.

So you uh, you know her?

Oh my god.

I'm gonna get to know her.

Let's go.

I'll pull out the grape hammer then.

That's what we all know.

Yeah.

So do I have to roll for hit?

Figurine is going to attempt to block your hammer.

Now this crushing plus five to hit against blocking opponents, correct?

Oh, yeah.

I forgot about that.

All right, yeah, so let's go to roll.

It's a 25.

Shit.

Just roll damage, yeah.

She puts up the

front of the metallic part of the shovel to try and like block the blow and just the sheer heft and weight of the hammer as you bring it down, stepping out of the door frame upon her, she can't even stop it.

And just wham takes it straight to like the front of the clavicle and chest.

Okay,

uh, that's gonna be 15

points in one hit.

Crack!

The hammer hits, and she kind of like reaches up and grabs it and holds it and looks in the face and goes,

Okay,

I mean,

I mean, the lady has if the lady asks

now, I don't want to kill her, but you know, she looks like she can take another hit.

Oh, yeah.

She's starting to show a little wear.

Okay.

So,

I guess I gotta give the lady what she asked for then.

So, do I have to roll for hit?

Yes, she's gonna try and block it again.

All right.

18.

That's gonna be 20 for her.

So, she does manage to block it, but she does not get her parry against you.

Got it.

She has not what?

To not get a chance to parry you.

Okay, gotcha.

So this time she's catching, she catches your hammer now, and your both's kind of pulled in close, like face to face.

She's just like, kisses your hammer.

I go back like, yeah.

Hell yeah.

Let the two of them have a moment.

Does that finish your turn?

I will finish my turn there.

All right, cool.

Finishing that, Sable, you are up.

All right.

That's our one question.

Yeah.

Food.

Can I eat this now?

Why not?

Okay.

Yeah.

I feel like I'm going to eat it.

I'm going to eat a

Just because my health is a little low.

So I'll use this to heal.

I love it.

It's so good.

Great.

So I

Sable rolled out of the way and she's kind of got her back up against the wall.

Where's Medron?

Right now you don't know if you're inside the building.

Okay, right, because he went on the outside.

But there's another door.

Can we get to the other door?

Because is she

are they still blocking in and out of the door?

Currently, yeah, they're all kind of pushed there.

You can try and squeeze through if you want to.

I kind of stepped out a bit with the hand.

So you can probably move out if you wanted to follow the path of Medrin.

Yeah, I'm going to go after Medrin.

Okay.

Yeah.

You step out and kind of move beyond the back of Haspro, and about 30 feet away, you see Medrin is there kind of holding the back of the satchel and is kind of starting to run towards the lighthouse.

Still not beach.

Yeah.

Fuck that.

I'm dexterous as fuck.

I'm going after him.

Okay.

You dart and catch up as fast as you can.

Here, quick little dwarf.

What are you going to try and do?

Am I melee with him?

Roll a dexterity check for me.

Okay.

You'll say you need a 15 or higher total to try and catch up as fast as you can.

Ooh, that's a two.

Maybe.

No, no, no.

Unfortunately, due to the mud and just the general speed of Mandarin having a direct goal and a place to go, you can't quite get within melee.

Okay, that's fine.

I'm going to pull up my gun.

I'm going to, like, as soon as I realize that I'm not going to make it, I kind of just like steady, sink down to

my knees and try and aim, take a good shot.

Okay.

Also, first, wait, first.

Madrin is going to try and dodge.

Arcane Veil.

I'm going to do Arcane Veil really quick as well.

Okay.

Okay.

Natural one.

Don't do that.

Failed me.

Failed me.

You go to fire and the flint kind of like catches and it misfires slightly.

Not enough to damage the weapon, but enough for smoke kind of like pfft off the side and you have to kind of like clear it.

God damn.

Alright, one more time.

Another one?

Not that one.

Madrid has enough to go.

Let's go.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hang on.

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

Got not much stamina?

Uh, yeah, I just marked my one three

for that was for my one, two, three, one, two, three.

Shit.

No, I'm not going to do it.

Okay.

It's my pistols.

I'm not as quick with it.

Damn.

That's it.

Alright, that finishes your go.

It is now Figrin's turn.

Figrin, who is very happily in the space where you are and focused now based on how you interacted with them, is not going to go after any of your friends and is now just going to drill in.

You can't take that away from her.

Yeah.

She's going to go ahead and spend four Essence to begin to charge.

And is going to

go ahead and take a swing with her massive shovel which acts as a great axe in this instance.

Do you have enough stamina to dodge?

Okay, let's go.

Tell us

it's either really good or really bad.

Double ones.

That's still six points of damage to you.

Little love tap, all right, sure.

But with the charge,

is going to be slamming into you and pushing both of you into the wall of the building.

The wall kind of cracks in, and you watch as the structural front of it where you both slam into.

The cracks kind of

spider off to the side, and part of the ceiling kind of like comes in a little bit and falls.

And

that is pretty sexy.

So

am I up against the wall?

You're up against the wall right now.

Damn, that's hard.

Right?

He's fighting.

That's a different guy.

And she's going to save the rest of her stamina.

So now you're both just...

She's like, you're pressed up against the wall now.

It's like cracked in behind you, and you're both just kind of locked in.

Oh, you'll need that stamina, baby.

Should we all just take a moment to watch what's happening?

All right, finishing Figran's turn.

Ilva, you're up.

Oh, my.

I want to go after Medrin as well.

So I'd like to run outside and get and I'd like to arcane veil first of all.

Okay.

That's two of these.

And then I would like to pull out my wand

and as soon as I get within range of being able to see him,

I would like to

Poe my wand at him and let magic hit him.

Alrighty.

That's what I would like to do.

Let's see if I can.

Medrin does not have the stamina at the moment to talk to.

Go ahead and roll damage.

That's what I'm talking about.

Eight points of damage to Medrin.

Alrighty.

And

then I would like to just do the same thing again.

You got it?

Five.

Five.

Alright, eight and five.

Medrin, as you strike with your wand and

sends sends off arcane bolts to kind of arc and slam in the Medrin as he's running away.

Takes the hits and kind of skids on one knee and slides into the mud before picking up his momentum and is continuing to run.

Damn it.

Um,

what are the chances I can catch up with him?

Does he is he super duper duper duper freaking far at this point?

Um, I will say it hasn't come back to his turn yet, but because you are having to move around, roll a dexterity check for me to see if you can try and keep get up.

That's a natural 20.

Sure.

So you're a steady little bitch.

Hell yeah.

You go ahead and dart past Sable and get up into melee with

Medrin, who kind of like glances over his shoulder and notices your approach and is still trying to run.

What else do you do?

I am.

Oh, crap, I can't do this draw too much.

Fuck me.

I'm...

I'm going to try to trip him.

Okay.

There's like if I can get up to melee, I just want to stop him.

I want to knock him over.

Okay.

Somehow.

All right, so as you rush up, I'll say this will cost you two stamina.

It's not going to be a damaging attack, but you're trying to slow his escape.

Yeah, so I need you to roll a mite check for me.

Wait, he has the bag hanging off his

person?

He has a satchel he's clutching as he's running.

I'm going to grab for the satchel instead of trying to trip him.

I'm going to grab for the satchel.

Okay, roll a mite check.

Okay.

Oh, a mic?

Wait, what was the other mic?

Let's either knock him down or try and rip it from him.

Okay.

Oh no, that didn't happen.

Dice and skin.

What was it?

Another one.

Oh, yeah, no, that doesn't happen.

Damn it.

I can't really try twice, can I?

I mean, if you want to spend two more stamina, it's going to get harder each time.

It's a higher bonus, but you can keep trying.

I'm just so fucking frustrated.

Oh, can I shoot?

Can I try with my wand to shoot it off his person?

Like,

can I aim with my magic?

Like a shot shooter.

You know what?

And shoot it off his bow.

I'll allow you to, but I will say this will give him a free dodge.

So it'll be your attack versus his dodge to try and get since the target attack.

That's cocked, but it's a fucking 19.

That's also cocked.

Just build over here.

Okay, 15 plus

2.

17.

20, 30.

Natural 17.

Dart the one, and Medrin sees what what you're doing and gets low to the ground and shrooks past, boof, causes this explosion of mud and dirt to detonate as he kind of picks up again and kind of just

chuckles and just continues into a run towards the lighthouse and shouting over his shoulder like please follow me.

It's gonna be fun.

We have to stop.

I'm just gonna scream back to everybody.

We have to stop him.

All right, are you gonna keep going?

Well, I've caught up to him, right?

So I'm really close to him.

I don't know that I want to be in

with him.

I'm gonna.

Yeah, no, I'm no.

You got homegirl coming, right?

Who's homegirl?

I'm right behind you.

Oh, you're right behind me.

You're next?

You're yeah, I just got fucking stuck in the mud.

I mean, she's like behind you

geographically.

Yeah.

Oh, I gotcha.

But right past me.

She's right pressed me.

He's the only dude that he could come after.

Well, he's not coming after me.

Real.

Fuck, I'm going to try one more time.

I want to try to hit him one more time with the wand.

The same thing.

Hit the bag again?

Yeah.

Okay.

He gets a higher bonus now.

Let's go.

I respect that.

In Vegas, the house always wins.

17 plus, 219.

20.

I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

That would have been really cool.

That would have been cool.

So, okay, it's not over yet.

If that's what you're trying to do.

Yes.

Alright, cool.

So, it's like we're gonna go.

All right.

So, finish your turn?

Yeah, I think so.

I think I need to at least hang on to one block.

Okay, got it.

All right, so finishing your row, it's now Alcinos' turn.

Seeing...

Yes.

Yes, I'm done.

Alcino sees you both running after

Medren and comes,

stay back here.

And he's going to go ahead and put his hand out.

And as he does, he flings the stone.

As the stone gets flung, you watch his cold

aberrates around it, and it speeds up.

And because you're both charging after Medrin, you're in a line, and it's going to go ahead and attack you both with an enhanced chill blades

for four essence there.

Do you both have stamina to dodge or block?

I do.

I do.

I'm gonna dodge.

I'm gonna block.

Alright.

Fuck me.

That's an eight.

17.

Okay, nine plus seven is

16.

17.

Yes, miss it.

Oh,

no.

All right, so both of you take.

Ooh, that's an eight.

That explodes.

It's 11

13 damage to each of you.

Okay.

And you both take two points of frost accumulation.

I'll spend an essence for my arcane veil.

And I'll spend two essence for one.

I mean, I'll do

two essence.

What did you say it was?

13?

13.

I will.

Okay, I'll take the 10 hit points from that.

Okay.

I get seven back.

Or wait, it'll be nine.

Nine hit points.

All right.

I don't think so.

So, both of you feel like the ice crystallize and form around you.

You feel yourselves kind of shaking and mud on the ground itself, like, frozen around your ankles before you have to, like, break your feet through.

You're on the cusp of becoming frozen.

Can I scream back at him

out of turn?

He's going to try to kill you too!

I'm right next to you.

Stop yelling!

I'm yelling at the dumb door of the other door.

Galen, you're up.

Oh,

so Haspero and Figurin are in the house engaged in beautiful physical.

Yeah, like right off the side of the front door now, pushed into the

partially damaged wall.

Minette is just outside of the door, and both of your other allies have like run to the left-hand side of the exit and are chasing after and El Cento is chasing them correct yeah I'll break I'll make a break on El Cento and I will

what is it El Cento El Cento thank you

I might have said El Cento accidentally but now he's El Cento

that's on me I'll rush up behind him and

do things that stealth attack wouldn't work because he knows we're where we all are right he he knows you're present and you wouldn't be coming from any place surprising to him, unfortunately.

I'll take

a very deft swing with the sword, and I'm going to try and aim it right for the backside of his neck.

Okay, is this a standard attack or a power attack?

What is a power attack?

Oh, sorry, for those in the rules breakdown, you can do a power attack by spending twice the stamina.

Oh.

Yeah, I'll do that.

If you hit,

it critically hits automatically.

So you add enough extra dive dice, and it takes away some of the target stamina.

No, no, no.

I'll do a regular one.

Okay.

But you have that option if you ever want to.

That's right.

That's a cool option.

Is he going to try and block or dodge?

He is, because he has stamina to do so.

He's going to go ahead and attempt to block.

19, 21, 22, 23.

Oh, no, it's just plus two.

21.

Five.

So that definitely is.

That's cocked.

That's cocked.

12.

Stop rolling on things.

That's a 12 that explodes.

9, so 21 points of damage.

Oh, plus 2, so 23 points of damage.

23 points of damage.

Nice.

The blade shh carves that out.

Someone's like,

you!

Fuck!

What does that mean?

She's like, the patchy beard kind of opens up a little bit.

He's very hurt.

Fuck me.

And I'll take another swing.

Come on,

I'm going to try and use the last one here to block again.

14 points of damage.

5.

12.

Shitty rolls.

That is a 9 plus 2, 10, 11 points of damage.

11 points of damage onto El Seno.

Alrighty.

Not big boy.

Heavy hits on him.

Alright.

That's it.

That finishes your turn.

Back to the top of the round.

Medrin's going to go.

Medrin, seeing you all kind of rushing forward, the two of you kind of right on his heels.

is going to go ahead and grab a piece of mud from the ground and toss it over his shoulder.

It's going to arc and kind of land between the two of you as it does.

You watch as vines

emerge and wrap around the space there.

Poop stream.

He's going to go ahead and so spending the essence there is going to cast Tangle Foot between the two of you.

Yeah.

So

basically both of you, no damage, but in order to move at all in your turn, you have to spend four stamina.

Brutal.

Okay, okay.

He's going to spend the rest of his turn.

He's just going to run.

He's just gonna run

and hold on to the rest of that stamina.

And just go charging in the intended path.

So he's just now bolting as fast as he can, kind of trying to weave.

He's getting close to weaving through some of the structures, heading towards the

lighthouse.

Bringing finishing his turn, Manette's up with Haspero on deck.

Sorry.

I am.

Okay, so I'm going to.

Can I reach

Medrin with my jolting touch

jolting touch you could that that actually would probably if you were to full move you could do so you would then become in range of the tangle foot however

I have to touch him physically for it.

No, but he took his turn to run even further and he was like twice a turn's distance from you.

So we're in between him.

Okay.

I'm going to use jolting touch on Figarun and El Seno.

That you can do.

And that is four of my

sequences

Alceno cannot dodge anymore or block, so you just roll damage for Alceno.

However,

no, Figgro's not going to block either.

So you just roll damage.

Just 1d12.

That's this one.

Yarp.

Minus one.

But it's not a damage.

11.

10.

Yeah.

Yay!

Seno's looking real bad.

The jolt comes out.

So that's 21 of both of them.

That's great.

So Figurin is holding up and he's like,

oh.

And

yeah, this is as intimate as you've been in a minute.

Alcento is looking really in a bad place and is like...

Starting to look over towards boss, boss,

and is starting to like look around, panicked for something to do uh what else you want to do in your turn all right i've got so much stamina

um i'm going to poke with my spear and i'm going to poke at

a senior all right roll damage kill him come on ladies go bitch

wait taking out

kill him what if i i just completely got lost that's a d10 right yeah yes

Eight.

Eight points of damage.

He's like pierced and like held on, falls to one knee looking up at you.

Blood from his like lip that's like mixing with his patchy beard.

He's like,

God, he's a fucking creep.

I'm gonna kill him.

One, two, three.

Come on, four, five.

Let's go.

Two damage.

Two damage.

Stabbing it.

This time he like kind of catches it and deflects it a little bit, stabs in the side.

Kind of grins at you.

A little bit of like

blood and spittle kind of like sprays out a little bit and kind of catches his head of your chin.

You hate it.

He's still holding on barely.

I'm gonna go again.

I'm gonna poke him.

Okay.

Come on, kitty cat, let's go.

I want this for you so bad.

I do too.

Five.

How do you want to do this?

Two hurdy birds.

I take the spear and I put my leg over it so I'm mounted on it

and I thrust

right into his fucking dick.

Golden kill.

Golden kill.

Oh, nice.

Penetration is a virtue.

Seem unnecessarily vicious.

Respect.

and he just crumples over the front of it as you withdraw and falls to the ground to join the other corpses amongst the abandoned outpost

and as he crumbles a number of moats

of essence

so there's four moats of essence kind of crumble out onto the ground

god I need that so bad

alrighty does that finish your turn

can I can I get some essence oh yeah if you want to like try and just take it in right now

yes

moats of essence fragments if you'd like to pull that in.

Does anybody mind if I slurp it up?

Slurp it up, baby.

We're not close enough to ask.

Go for it, Katie.

Live a little, lady.

So it heals four, right?

Yeah, you get four essence.

Great.

And they cut seam.

All right, that finishes your goal.

Paspero, your upput stable on deck.

I love it.

Earlier,

your character was like, we shouldn't get weapons.

We shouldn't kill.

That's what you're in.

I'm learning a lot about myself on this journey.

Self-discovery, I respect it.

So, I kind of look over,

see her just fucking waste him and go, Yeah, it looks like Uggo over there.

I got God.

How long you know Medrin?

Is she open to me asking this question?

I do this close-up thing.

Good part of five years.

However, I mean, we got a spot open on team reach around if you wanna

join up with us.

Listen, I don't know, I'm not that good at math, but uh

Augos gone.

Numbers aren't looking too hot for you.

Looks over as Minnard just running off and slipping through the muck and darting.

Uh,

go ahead and roll resolve.

Come on,

my hero sit there fucking stirring the thing.

So we'll just bampooly

plus 320.

Oh, hell yeah.

Figuring goes.

I like my chances with a good reach.

Gives you a little forehead kiss

and then withdraws from pressing you against the edge of the building and

hoists the shovel onto her shoulders.

She's down to make out a little bit?

You going for it, yeah?

If she's down, she's down.

Do I have to roll for that?

No, but you can spend a stamina if you want.

I'll spend two stamina.

Hell yeah!

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

Okay.

So I'll say this interaction likely

will take the majority of your turn, but you have turned Figrun for the time being onto your side.

Top big lady acquired.

Yes.

It's so hot, she almost gets a third fire accumulation.

Awesome.

So that

finishes your turn.

All right.

So what stamina, if any, do I have left?

Stamina.

I mean, I'd say you only spent

two stamina on the kiss.

I'll say the conversation there, Um,

it's not about spending stamina, it's more just like that ends your turn because you've spent the turn talking and kind of doing this thing.

Right, but I mean, if I needed, if I needed the stamina in case something else happens, correct.

No, you get to keep that defensively.

Okay,

oh, I just spent two.

Okay, yeah, that's it.

The case, the rest of you get to keep the spend.

Mole Zable!

All right,

how far away has Medron made it from me?

Uh, he's probably 40 feet from you.

Is that like

close or far?

That would be considered far.

Okay, I'm going to spin the movement to try and go after him.

The stamina to move.

Yeah.

And dart to him.

Okay.

To within melee, I mean?

How far can I get?

Roll.

If you want to roll with dexterity, check to try and get up to him.

I do.

Okay.

As far as I can get.

Yeah, baby, that's going to be 23.

23, you get up into melee with me.

22, but still pretty good.

You're getting up as close as you can.

He's about to dart between, like, basically cut away from other people's line sight.

And

what do you do?

I'm going to say, like,

I'm going to say, hey, that's a pretty cool trick.

I know that one too.

And I'm going to take a mud cluster and drop it at his feet and also cast Tanglefoot on him.

Okay.

So that affects everything within close range to

including me?

I'm not going to do that.

Not going to do that.

What did you do?

But that's good to know.

So you can throw it like ahead of him and just get him if you want to.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I mean, that's what I was trying to go for.

Okay, yeah.

So I'm just saying the thing: if you're throwing it on him, then it would affect you, but if you throw it beyond that, you can kind of entangle him.

Okay, so the vines also rip out of the ground.

I'm beginning to like strike around and wrap around his legs and his arms.

Not a problem.

Sure.

And then I'm going to take my dagger and I'm going to, can I try and cut the satchel loose from his body?

If you want to try.

All right.

He'll go ahead and try and dodge with that.

Hello, baby.

Natural 20.

For a total of.

For a total, was my dagger 25.

25.

23.

Get rolled a natural 18.

So you cut the satchel from the arm and it kind of hits the ground with a heavy cracking thud and sounds like multiple things inside kind of impact and shift around a bit.

It's going to fall asleep.

What else do you want to do in your turn?

Can I grab the satchel from him?

Can I grab it away?

Take a stamina to do so, but you can.

All right, fine.

I'm going to turn around.

I'm going to go.

Ilva!

Catch!

Oh dear!

And try and throw it back to Ilva.

Okay.

I'm really sad at this.

To try and chuck it backward, spend two stamina.

Do I have to catch it per se?

Or can it lash?

It just arcs over them.

It tumbles back to where you are.

Excellent.

Or did you spend the stamina to try and skip from the mountain?

I did.

I did the four stamina.

It's just super annoying.

I can do lots of them, but I'm not catching something.

Hang on.

Let me make sure.

Put forward.

He's probably.

hmm.

Hmm.

Fuck it.

Yellow.

I'm gonna spin three more.

I'm gonna go again.

I'm gonna go again.

And this time I'm just gonna attack him with the dagger.

Alrighty.

He's gonna take it.

He's gonna take it.

Alright.

Come on.

Give me a six.

That's a syrup.

So that's gonna be 12 plus 15.

15.

Yeah.

Alrighty.

Total.

Nice.

Alrighty.

And then I'll stop.

Alright, that finished you guys.

Like the red streak of blood in the back of his cloak.

You see where you carve past and the armor kind of splits a bit and you can see kind of where the wounds begin to grow red and he's like

and just seems still singularly focused on the run.

On the run?

Does he not have dizzy dizzy dizzy?

Okay.

He doesn't have the satchel.

He didn't have the satchel.

Was that your turn?

Was the thing in the satchel?

Was the auto-audra

shape?

The autobot.

Did we see him not put it in the satchel?

We saw him put it in the satchel.

Yes, we did now.

Okay.

All right, finishing sables go.

Figrun

is now currently kind of just

holding away from your law and kind of like

so.

What does one do in the richer arms?

I'll show you later, but for now,

Wait, what's going on out there?

You're like, your vision is just like,

you just now come and like, wait, stuff's happening.

Look back, friends have charged around.

There's like violence out of the ground wrapping up Yilva.

I'll yell this table.

Yo, what's going on out there?

Big man running for a lighthouse.

Satchel down.

Satchel down.

I turn to Figma.

Go get Medrin.

and takes the shovel over the hand and begins running not the fastest being but nevertheless takes the rest of the turn kind of running and kind of catches up to where you're wrapped but kind of does a wide berth which also loses some ground to try and avoid the vines but is like trying to catch up to where you are and it's like basically a bit behind the rest of this of the race

but that's gonna finish their turn they're gonna hold their stamina at that point

That brings us to Ilva.

Alright,

so the satchel is like at my feet?

It is.

But I can't necessarily move.

I have to use some stamina to get free of the vines or something like that or just to move.

To move away, to move it off from the vines, you have to spend stamina.

And you can spend stamina to pick it up if you want to.

I'd like to spend some stamina.

Well, I want to, like,

it's in the sack.

I'd like to use my, like, wand to open it up so that I'm not touching it per se.

Right, like, poke through?

Yeah, like, to open it up and, yeah, like to poke through.

Okay, yeah, you poke through, and you can see inside, indeed, that large piece of Azraban is there within the satchel, amongst, like, looks like other bits of recovered implements,

looks like some nice bits of decor, like a pocket watch,

a looter's fine.

All I care about is this Azraban.

And I know that I okay, cool.

So,

YOLO, as you said,

I'm just gonna pick up the Audraban and

try to see what he was seeing in it.

Okay.

You lift it and look into it.

Roll a resolve test for me, please.

Twelve.

Twelve.

You look into it, and it takes a moment to kind of focus.

Your eyes get a little blurry, and you kind of see that kind of pulsing bit of kind of violet light at its core of the white stone.

And as it does, you kind of feel like a

almost like a heartbeat is pulling you into it.

And there you can see a flash of what looks like an odra pillar that kind of rises up of this odraban.

It kind of comes to a pointed apex, and there is within it this like massive kind of crack and a gap in it.

And you see a glimpse of what looks like some sort of strange, blurred structure, carved stone and what looks like other green odra and normal rock itself, adorned with all manner of strange scrolling and designs.

And you hear a voice say,

Come to me.

I

will

make them hurt.

Come to me.

And

You feel this draw to the lighthouse that you cannot resist.

You feel this is possibly dangerous, but you feel pain, you feel betrayal, you feel sorrow, you feel uh

you feel the sadness of someone lost and hurt, and they want

to make others hurt.

And you understand that feeling,

and you can help with that feeling,

you just have to get below the lighthouse.

So, this is just like I'm mentally compelled, I don't have to

this turn.

I still have

like a lot of stamina left.

I know.

And you spent some of it to run.

I did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How much did I spend to run?

Oh, I spend some of it.

You spend four to move away from the vines.

I did move away from the vines.

Okay, I thought I did not move away from the vines.

I thought I just

landed.

You did?

Okay.

You look up from the stone and you're running towards the lighthouse.

No, that's fine.

That's fine.

Am I caught?

Have I caught up with Medrin?

No.

Make a dexterity check for me, actually.

No, I did not catch up.

You have not cut up.

Caught up.

You're still quite a bit behind.

What do you do?

Is he

in between

me and him?

Correct.

I don't want him to get there first.

I'm still gonna shoot him.

I'm gonna shoot him with my wand.

Okay.

He's gonna go ahead and attempt to dodge.

16 plus two.

18?

12, that hits.

Go ahead and roll damage.

Six.

Okay.

Six damage on that.

Um, I mean, do it again.

Alright, he

is going to attempt to dodge.

Why is

supposed to be 18.

18.

19 just beats you.

Okay.

So the first one hits, and the second one is you shoot it, he seems ready for it and like leaps off to the side and like now darts off between where like two structures are off point.

And he actually breaks away from your eye line at this point and it's like moved away from you and move further in towards where this cluster at the outpost sits.

Huh?

I know, but I'm throwing narratively.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I can't see him.

Uh,

I'm gonna continue running to try to catch up as far as I can with

with

if I used up three more stamina.

Uh well you've you've done your running for the turn.

I've done my running for the turn.

Did she run past me?

No.

Okay.

I'm just gonna scream ahead to Sable.

We have to stop him.

He can't get there first.

You've said this so many times.

What?

I don't.

I think that's all I can do at this point.

Alright.

Finishing your go.

That brings us to Galen.

If I step out after watching

El Sento go down,

can I see...

Can I just eat some essence?

I mean, eat some Audubon at the end of my turn.

Yeah, yeah.

Can I see Medrin in the distance at all?

I'll say where you are now.

Timing-wise, he's like just darting off to the side.

The vine still wrapped around his foot, and he's trying to like leap to break away from them i'll see you have one yeah this one moment if you're trying to do something yeah i'll try i'll try and hit an arrow using all of marksmanship all out action is he gonna try and block or dodge uh he has enough stamina to try and block one and he's out of stamina

17 21

natural 16 on that one this guy

he's a quick one move

i have time to shoot another arrow or he wraps around the corner no i mean it's your turn turn still, so.

He cannot block or dodge this one.

So we have six damage.

Get it.

Finish him.

Sweep the leg.

Eight, which explodes.

Yeah, nice.

Another eight, which explodes.

Oh, my God.

The four,

sixteen,

six.

Little, little,

twenty-two plus seven is 29.

29 damage.

Oh, that's a rough hit.

Oh,

darting out of the way, the arrow, like,

sticks through the back of the shoulder blades and protrudes from the front of the shoulder.

And the sheer, like, impact from it kind of causes him to, like, as he's trying to jump away from the vines, send him tumbling in the air, and the vines grabbing him, pulling him back to the ground, and he slams into it, and it's like, almost drawn back by a foot.

And he's like,

you bitch!

It's me.

The finished turn.

Yeah, I'll take off running after them.

Okay, cool.

So you're still behind the others, but you're rushing up.

Okay, got it.

Now it's going to bring the Medrin's turn.

Gets his stamina back.

But I have to get there.

He's going to go ahead and cast Tanglefoot again.

The two of you.

Again?

Yep.

But I can dodge.

Oh,

I can't dodge this.

No, it's just about spending stamina back.

And we're close enough to each other that it can hit both of us, because I thought she was near him, but I was not.

Right, but it hits things in the area around it.

He casts it between the two of you.

Gotcha.

So it's like a little, like, very close range there.

So the vines

disappear from the other pen, wrap right between the two of you, begin wrapping around.

He will spend four stamina to break free and then dart around the corner, injured, like dropping

blood splatters, um,

and disappears from sight.

Damn,

uh,

finishing his go.

Minute.

He's gone, he's out of your sight.

He's like now ducked between buildings.

And

Alceno's dead, and Figaroon is now part of our team correct so

is the fight over right now at this point it's more of a chase than a fight all right uh run terminal run okay so a bit we'll say for the purposes of narrative brevity here you all now begin to press forward and as you do pulling away from the vines and such trying to get back in the line of sight of where uh medron is he's then now he's kind of ducking and weaving between alleys and these tents and stuff.

And each time you move over to try and catch up with him, he manages to just get out of your sight and vision.

Until eventually, you're not quite sure where he is.

And you have a sense that he's likely,

if not at the lighthouse, in the lighthouse.

Right as you begin to approach its exterior.

Where did you say that tunnel was?

It's on the bottom floor behind a box that fell and crashed.

There's just a hole in the ground.

He found it with his pot.

Put a pin in that.

uh I fill them in the ones that haven't been filled in on what I read about

Dorneelson.

Make a resolve check.

Like I said, I make a resolve check.

Fight the rock.

Fight it.

Fight it.

He's really big.

I don't think anyone can fight the rock.

Wayne Johnson is no.

I fail.

A fail?

You all get to the lighthouse, and before you have a chance to express what you've said, as you all kind of, what do we do?

You watch as Ilva just jumps into the hole.

You grab the lantern and vanish into the tunnel.

While I do that, I'm going to go beat the water.

I guess we're

going to go here.

Should one of us try and get the lighthouse going?

What?

We don't have any lamps, or did we take those?

We had a lot, apparently.

There was a number of them.

There's plenty of oil canisters, and there are lanterns that you likely had with you ready to go, like affixed to your belt or ready to come along.

So you have light sources with you that you'd prepped.

Not enough to light a lighthouse on.

You'd have to bring the big canisters up there and try and figure out how to light it.

I feel like the lighthouse can wait.

Let's just go after her, right?

He's right.

It's not going anywhere.

Let's go.

All right, let's go.

Figurin puts out the flames, and you do as well.

You no longer have the fire accumulation.

We get our standing back.

Yeah, get your standing back, and the frost kind of eventually melts off from the spells that are there.

Figurin, you know, fairly hurt, but still at your side and it ready.

I never saw myself as a turncoat.

So instead, I will say a portoonist.

I like the way you think.

You want to share some hardtack?

I thought you'd never ask.

Lady and the tramp it.

That's actually a good idea.

Can I lady in the tramp the hardtack?

Of course you can.

Why would I say no to that?

How much do you have the hard attack?

So I have four uses.

They do two health each.

Okay.

So.

I don't know, I'll just do it once.

Okay, uh, I think we'll take two of them for an additional plus four because Figured I'm just taking some hits.

All right, you know what?

How's our health?

Uh,

as an ally, I'd say she probably has like

30 hit points at the moment, or 30 health.

Anyone else hungry?

We've never been hit.

I have no damage.

Shut up.

I've been pushing this whole time.

Neither of you need anything?

I'm good.

I just.

I definitely do, but I don't think I'm close enough to you guys.

No, no, you're out.

Oh, no, that's right.

You're mine.

You're jumped in the hole.

Yeah.

You fell for the hole.

I'll take two bites.

She takes two bites.

So

let's do it.

Alrighty.

Alright.

This is done.

So you all take a minute.

Ilva has vanished into the shadows below with her lantern.

You can hear their footsteps kind of

vanish into the tunnel below.

She's just running dead ahead, no lantern.

No, she has a lantern.

Oh, fuck.

You all have lanterns.

We have a good number of lanterns.

A good number of lanterns.

Several.

Well, she's running in heels.

We can catch her.

Yeah.

You've never seen me running in the middle.

Do we know for sure that Medrin ran in there?

Or are we just guessing?

You don't know for sure?

Yeah, sure, sure.

Makes sense.

But after.

Okay.

You all delve down and begin to hold aloft your lanterns as you begin to keep up best you can.

Ilva, hearing the distant rapping of her footfalls upon the stone, the tunnel begins to descend

in a kind of a occasional drop down and has a gradual angle, but then has these kind of drop-offs and you know, four-foot, five-foot falls.

The braces themselves built up into it, some more ramshackle than others, but enough to see that there was intent of excavation building down.

You begin to see, as you pass by, these glowing, soft, exposed elements of green Adra that kind of give off a faint luminescence that occasionally kind of exposed from the edges of the rock wall, some looking almost like smooth.

It's not like

a jagged geode.

It has almost like a smoothed, extending texture to it.

You continue down below, and more of the green Audre begins to greet you you as the stone begins to come lesser and less until it feels like there is now appearances of worked stone, almost like walkways and walls,

elements of an outer structure that begin to appear

as these kind of odd twisting veins of Adra also now begin to carry

their own veins of white with faint pinkish energy within the Adraban itself, kind of

a fractal of Adra within itself.

You push down,

immediately coming upon, on the outside of what looks like some sort of large gateway that is partially open, you see a skeletal corpse face down on the ground, arms sprawled out in front, legs behind it, kind of facing the direction where you're coming from.

Oh.

Trying to flee direction or going forward

facing you as you approach it.

You see this,

but continue to run ahead of it.

Roll another resolve.

Nope.

You just dart past the corpse

navigate.

I really don't want him to get there first.

I want to win.

As we approach the skeletal remains, is it wearing anything that we recognize?

Nothing you recognize.

It's wearing standard clothing because it isn't exposed to the elements.

It isn't as weathered as the surface is.

The outfit it's wearing is like a long coat, it looks like.

You know, like front pockets.

It's got normal pants on, work boots of some kind, like dirt at the elbows and the edges.

Yeah.

Anything on it?

Can we do a quick search of the corpse?

Yeah, go ahead and make a perception or resolve test to your choice.

Okay.

Twelve.

Twelve.

Pouring through the only thing of real note that you find

is a pocket watch.

And with on it, as you kind of look on the inside, the lid is clamps open.

It looks cracked.

And there's an engraving on the inside that says Dorneel Sea.

Alcano

is with us still.

Alcano is dead.

I mean, I think Medrin

is with you.

Okay.

Big lady is with you.

Lady, Figarun.

Did Medrin say anything about the stones that are all around and why he's running?

Not at all.

He's acting kind of strange today,

particularly last five minutes.

I did get to fill you guys in in the house vote, right?

I talked to you guys.

Yeah, we filled in.

We were told.

Yeah, yeah.

So that pocket watch thing is familiar?

It's one of the researchers, I think, that Ilvet was talking about.

Well, don't let her get away.

Let's keep going.

Yeah, we're still running.

We're still going.

All right, you dart past him through the opening here.

It's within you you

smell the scent of decay mingled with an odd I can only say ashen scent.

The

chamber interior here, as you step in,

it's a a baleful cavern

of rising large stone columns that kind of surround the perimeter of a cylindrical opening.

It looks like most of it is uncovered, though there is like dirt and stone that still kind of obfuscates some of the peak of

the inside of this chamber.

You can see all intricate carving along these massive pillars.

The

green and white Adra veins seem to twist through the walls in a way that feels intentional, which leads you to believe that the structure was built around the pattern of the Adra and not the other way around.

And all of the white Adra veins, the Adrabon veins kind of still kind of pulse with that white purple light.

You can see levels of wooden scaffolding built into this chamber, which insinuates that whatever these researchers were, they had set up shop within this room and were studying what's within.

And there are some chairs and small tables and platforms set around here that gives you the vibes of an unbothered excavation site.

Beyond the several skeletal corpses, also in untouched attire, that appear to be scattered throughout the floor, like something had just stolen their flesh in about an instant, and they dropped where they stood.

What also catches your attention is in the center of this chamber, between all these columns, is one raw, rising mass of white Adraban that rises up to a point about 15 or so feet in the center of this cylindrical chamber.

You can see among it, like this one massive kind of crack that rides about four feet down from the top of it.

And you see, among one of the secondary levels of scaffolding, Medrin stands there, looking up

at the

voice of Hayton promise.

I've brought you the gifts that you asked for.

And gestures to all of you.

Where you are clambering up the scaffolding after him.

What do the rest of you do?

You know, we could obviously go back and just close up the hole, fix the lighthouse, and go.

You know, that lighthouse exactly.

Yeah.

I don't think that's something you want to do.

I don't know.

What do we do?

How far away is

a Medron?

He is probably about 25, 30 feet up on the scaffolding, which has a makeshift ladder affixed to it.

So far enough away where you couldn't get to him in one turn.

What about an arrow?

An arrow could definitely do so.

It's about this time, too, that the Audraban column itself kind of pulses, and you feel in the room a similar kind of

spark, that same taste

that you felt in the mists earlier, but that bloody iron taste is so much stronger.

It's like someone had filled your mouth with battery-charged pennies, and that begins to turn into a horrible, strange, electric burning smell that mingles then with like a sweet decay.

There is just an essence of

tragedy and fury.

The emotions within you feel almost

plucked and brimmed sourcelessly.

You feel

shades of betrayal in your past you haven't thought of in a while seem to brim from nowhere.

And as you all kind of feel that overwhelming, almost a nausea take over, you watch as something emerges from the central white crystal.

A spectral female form just

drifts out of the crystal and floats in the air.

It's kind of tattered blue hair in front of its face, its arms arms hanging limp.

The chamber grows frightfully cold.

And the air seems to take up a sourceless gust around you.

You, with your high intellect, roll

roll for me, roll your intellect.

Oh, actually, let's choose this one.

There we we go.

18.

18.

You've heard myths of things like this.

The term used is Kengula,

which translates loosely to blood mother.

Horrific spirits who perish under violent, unjust ends and are unable or unwilling to move beyond the shroud.

And as this thought comes to your mind, you hear this voice, the same voice that that reached out to you within that crystal fill the chamber.

I call the Bioa.

That which took me shall now feed my fury.

You will join me in its binding.

The hair pulls back, and you watch as her eyes, piercing, glowing red hate.

Her jaw seems to stretch and distend as she screams,

I need you all to roll the initials.

Fairy lady.

Shed my pants.

18.

She's a blood mother.

Look what bloody dies.

She's really brave.

Yes.

She's a little lady.

She had her first count.

I am 18 as well.

Second.

All right.

So, sorry, 20 to 15.

18.

18.

All right, so

we're going to be

Is this a nine or a six?

Nine.

Well, mine's a two, so you go first.

Okay.

Yes, let's go, Minette.

Manette.

All right.

So brave.

Have fun with us.

All right, and then followed by Ilva.

Alrighty.

And that's all 2015.

Alright, 15 to 10.

13.

14.

14.

Alright, we've got

rollies, if you don't mind, Marcia.

Oh!

Figurines.

9.

Figurin's going before you.

Okay.

And then we have...

Sable.

Sleep one.

Alright, and then...

And then 10 to 5?

That's all of you, right?

Yeah.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

One.

One, that's right, that's what we got.

Barg.

Where are you?

I'm going to go after you.

As this entity begins to screech outward, the wind picking up within, the whole interior of it kind of shifting in color as the magic shh begins to sparkle and change around you.

This is

a tomb now.

And you may forever be lost in here.

But you picking up your bravery.

Manette, you go first.

What do you do?

Stop.

Don't do whatever you're going to do.

Let's talk.

Like, ladies, um, I'm going to

fuck this ghost.

You know?

I'm going to cast Fan of Flames

also.

This is cooldown one turn.

Does that have that doesn't roll over from last time?

Like, that's.

It just means you can cast it every turn if you want to.

Oh, right.

So, you can, uh, but you can choose one or two.

You're isn't enough.

There's between a Medron and this entity, you can't get both, so you can choose one or the other.

Okay.

Um,

I'm gonna cast it at the lady.

Let's see if she takes spell damage.

Adea, uh, or the Kangula, will attempt to

uh

pluck this flame, so go ahead and roll and add your intellect.

13.

15.

Release the flame.

And as the flames kind of curl around, they almost

arc around and do not even impact the strange dark spirit.

Well, I'm out of ideas.

I, um,

is anyone no one's within spear range, are they?

You can move

her.

You have pretty decent range on that.

She's high up, though.

You'd have to climb up onto some of the scaffolding, and it's on each side.

There's the one that has Medron and York, and you watch

Ilva is climbing up currently.

The other scaffolding is a little higher,

but you're going to have to roll to try and get up there.

Do you want to try that?

Yeah, I'll get it all right.

Let's go.

Go ahead.

And I'll say roll might or dexterity.

Your call.

Yeah.

Okay.

Fuck.

Seven.

Seven.

You get most of the way up.

And one of the rung that you're holding on just snaps off of the wooden ladder and you kind of fall back.

You try and catch it, but it's too late.

And you plummet, taking

one point of damage.

All right.

Not too bad, but you are unable to get to the top there this turn.

First time you've got my first damage.

Damaged by

the mess.

Already.

Yilva.

Oh, make a resolve check.

Please, come on.

For the love of God.

Come on.

Snap back.

I'm going to go back to these blood dice.

These have been.

It's got to be to 15.

15.

Come on.

16.

That'll do it.

In this moment, when the spirit appears and that connection that held when you, when you held the Andra in your hand, you look up towards it and you feel the urge to turn your spellcraft against your friends, to make this a grand sacrifice in the name of the Bioak.

And in that moment, you push through and that

influence leaves your mind and you are in control of yourself.

What do you do?

I'm gonna kill my friends.

I mean,

I don't know.

Now I'm pissed.

If I, can I use...

Can I hit Medrin and

Adelaide?

Because you're already climbing because of the control here, you can move to Medrin, yes.

And if you're a ranged attack, you could go after.

I have jolting touch, so can it hit both of them is what I mean.

You can probably do that, yeah?

Yeah, that's what I'd like to do.

Alrighty.

That's what I'd like to do.

Alright, great.

So with that,

Medrin is going to attempt to dodge,

and so is

the Kangula.

So

go ahead and roll.

Natural 20!

Let's go!

What do I?

Intellect.

Wait, Intellect?

Oh, 26.

Yeah, neither of them dodging that one.

Yo.

You can't do it.

So she's so pissed because

she has been so eager to exact revenge on the people that put her in the position that got her into this prison, including her fucking husband, that the fact that this revenge got turned against her and her friends fills her with such a fury that she just lashes out as hard as she possibly can with her brain power.

Um

1d12.

All right, so go ahead and roll 1d12 for each of them, or droll it once and they both take the damage.

Uh, nine minus one, eight.

Eight damage to each Medrin and Kangula.

Your uh burst of electrical energy shocks into both of them.

The spirit takes the hit.

And Medrin kind of

looks back at you and gives you that look of like, I thought you were on our team.

And grins.

Um, I would like to use my

wand

and attack

between the two of them.

Can I make any kind of role

to be able to tell if the pillar

is a source of power for

because I remember reading that we had to get to the that they were that that what is his name De Remerimer the guy with the D

was

was dying to protect the pillar Dorneel Sea Dorneel Sea that guy

is there any is there anything I can roll to to

See if that's a thing perception check

You know what I mean?

I'll say this will this will take you a stamina

Just take a moment and kind of peer over to kind of ask in information you sure you don't want that to be an intellect well that this is well these could be two things back to back depending on what you see and what you can ascertain gotcha okay

come on

14 plus, what is it?

Perception?

Perception.

16.

16, it's not bad.

So from the lower ground, you see this crack at the top of the pillar.

As you stand kind of up on the scaffolding, what you do see is the top of the crack is actually a missing chunk of Audra.

That's a good, like, you know, it's higher than the scaffolding you're on, and it's probably a good, like, 12 to 15 foot gap from where the scaffolding is to where that is.

But there is, like, an actual gap at the top of that pillar.

That shit you have.

It is clearly that shit I have.

Oh, fuck me.

Is she gonna do it?

She's got to.

Come on.

YOLO.

That was what you said, right?

I'm gonna try to get to

however I can get to that part of the pillar.

Okay, it is a 15-foot gap from the top of that scaffolding where you are to where that is.

I can't reach that.

So you can run, and then I want you to make a

dexterity or might check.

Dexterity.

19 plus 3, 21.

Plus 3.

21.

I'm going to roll to see what the pills are.

24.

This is a very diff from where you're standing, it's a very difficult roll.

So

the bonus for the dice is a plus 10.

Oh, plus 10.

Okay, all right.

So what?

But it's variable.

Yeah, yeah.

It's opposed to a solid number, but it's a tough one.

So what you do is you see this and you run past Mendridge and leap, holding it in the air, and you miss it by about a foot, strike the pillar, bounce off of it, and fall back about 15 feet

onto the base of the chamber, hitting for

six points of damage.

It falls from your grasp and shh skids about three feet from where you are, and it's now just on the floor of the chamber.

How many many stamina was that run?

Uh

because I had to run to jump.

How many stamina did that cost me?

Oh, that was one stamina.

Just each one of these like little motions are just like spinning a thing since you already ran up to there.

We have to get this in there.

We have to.

I don't know.

And

I'm just shaking off everything, and I think I'm going to call that my turn.

What's gotten into you?

Okay.

It is King Gula's turn.

That thing!

You're crazier than a possum in a henhouse.

What?

What's the matter with you?

I don't even know what that means.

But yeah,

someone get this piece.

Someone get this piece into the pillar.

Stop it.

The Kangula, the spirit of Edea that is now in the middle of this chamber, shrieking, is going to

spend four stamina

to wail.

This horrible screeching wail rings out the chamber, kind of echoing and shimmering.

The whole

whole sound of it doesn't hit your ears, it hits your spirit.

All of you need to roll Resolve,

including Figuru, which, but the two does not make it.

13

again.

12.

13, 12.

21.

11.

21.

21.

21.

Alright, anyone under 15, which would be you, you, and you.

Okay, I'm marking all of this this here.

You are all

You are unable to dodge or block until Adea's next turn.

Okay.

Big farts.

Adea is then going to spin its head towards you,

Ilva.

As you were the one that tried to leap in the direction of that, as you're like on the ground, sitting up, it does this screaming yell.

You grab your ears, manage to pull out of of the way.

You can back up your knees and glance up, and it's gonna go ahead and use its corrupting stare at you for three essence.

Is this blockable or dodgeable?

You managed to roll high on your resolve, right?

Yeah, yeah, you're not.

So, you actually can attempt to dodge it.

It is not blockable.

Okay.

It is an unblockable strike.

Okay.

I keep losing my coat.

Oh, God.

Sorry.

Fuck is that?

Oh, that's a big no!

We didn't know.

That didn't happen.

I'm going down.

Okay, so you take two points of poison accumulation as the stair hits you and you feel like your body wither from the inside.

You take from the strike.

I'm keeping my girlish figure, though.

That's a natural 12 on the 12-sided dice.

Oh, no!

16 plus.

You guys.

18 points of damage and two points of poison accumulation.

You're on the cusp of becoming poisoned.

And I'm so close to going down.

Oh, no.

With that,

Adea is now going to shift over

towards the ground.

You're the one who tried to climb up.

You're probably the closest.

Everyone else near the door is going to rush towards you and it's going to go ahead and try and strike at you with its claw.

This is unblockable, so you can only dodge it if you have the stamina to dodge.

I do have the stamina to dodge.

Let's go.

Go ahead and roll off.

Oh, did I lose any stamina for trying to climb?

Oh, but you cannot dodge because you were affected by the whale.

I was gonna have to be a fucking narc, but no, no, that is true.

So,

just take it.

So, you take

you take 11 points of damage as she reaches out and claws her spirit into your body and seems to pull out almost like a shard of your soul.

You watch as energy seems to shriek out of you past the claws.

Also, I need you to roll constitution for me.

Okay,

Damn.

Nine.

Nine, you are also weakened, which means

any attacks you make against the spirit, she can block or dodge for free.

Until the next turn.

I don't like it.

I don't like it.

And she's going to hold the rest of her turn.

At that point, finishing Adea's turn.

Galen, you're up with Figran on deck.

So it's real bad.

I'm going to take out my bow.

I'll notch and arrow, aiming at

Medrin, and I'm going to pull it back as far as I can to make a power attack.

Shoot it.

Power attack, alrighty.

Come on, baby.

Come on.

Alright, so this is Medrin.

Yes.

Medron's going to go ahead and spend three stamina to try and dodge.

12, 18.

Natural three for an eight.

Yes.

That hits.

Oof, that's rough.

2D.

Oh, but one of them, the first, one of them crits?

Is that what hell it is?

Well, it's a free crit, so you just roll an additional damage die.

Okay, great.

Three,

eight, fifteen.

Twenty.

Twenty total points of demage.

20 points of damage.

That was a heavy hit.

Medron, who's healed up a little bit since the battle with some of the scavenge shrewdy he found, still kind of hurt, though.

Takes the arrow.

And like falls and curls over onto the top of the scaffolding to kind of basically get out of your view from where you're standing.

But took a heavy hit.

And since it was a power attack and it's a two-handed weapon that does five points of stamina damage to him, he is out of stamina correctly.

You cannot dodge or block at the moment.

I have some stamina left over.

Could I use some stamina to start climbing the scaffolding?

You haven't moved yet.

So you can try and climb the scaffolding to get up there.

To get up to him, make a dexterity check to see if you can get up there.

Yeah, let's do it.

And burn two stamina or a stamina?

Burn a stamina to do so.

Awesome.

19.

19's enough.

You need to be to 15.

So you like put the arrow or the bow over one shoulder and climb up real fast, get to the top, pull it off over the side, and you can see Medrin's like on the ground trying to pull the arrow from his chest without noticing you right there.

Glances over the shoulder just as he feels your, feels your, or hears your feet hit the top of the scaffolding.

The scaffolding kind of shakes.

They're not very sturdy bits of scaffolding.

As it kind of shakes a little bit, you get the...

You're both already and you can make another strike if you want to.

If you have the stamina.

I don't.

But I'm up.

But you're up.

I'm up there.

Yep.

Alrighty.

That finishes your go.

Figurin is going to go ahead and try and clamber after you.

Actually, no.

Currently, it's more focused on the spirit, because that's scarier to Figgrin.

And it's like,

I was not expecting this today.

Looks over at you.

Ghost.

Yeah, fuck that ghost.

Fuck that gold.

And she's going to go ahead and

she's going to go ahead and

go ahead and spend last of her essence to charge against it, which means

she's gonna go ahead and try and attack.

Speed seven can do attack points there.

That's one,

but that's okay.

She's gonna save four stamina to try and protect herself for the coming turn.

Finishes Figurin's turn, sable Europe.

Um, okay, uh,

yeah,

Ilva seems not crazy anymore, right?

Maybe

She said she wasn't crazy, so I'm gonna trust my bitch.

I'm gonna run over.

I'm gonna grab the big teardrop thing of Audrebon.

Okay.

I'm gonna grab it.

I'm gonna look up.

I'm real short.

I'm a dwarf.

Hasper.

Here's my pitch.

Okay.

I get on your shoulders.

Manette gets on my shoulders.

Human tower, put it back.

Ghost, not mad no more.

I agree.

Do we know what's gonna happen if we put that shit in there?

Nope, it could arguably get worse.

Okay.

All right.

Excellent.

I'm gonna just

scooch it up, run over, and start climbing the top of the scaffolding and wait for this team maneuver.

Okay, so it is to like a 15-foot gap to this pillar.

So you get to the top of the scaffolding.

To get to the top from where you're standing at the bottom,

roll a dexterity check to see if you can get up there for your full turn.

Okay.

15.

15 is exactly what you needed.

You clamber up there without issue.

You kind of

step next to

and move past where Galen is and near where Medrin's currently on the ground and kind of getting himself more prepped and ready.

And indeed, there's like a little bit of a five-foot runway, and then there is the distance to the top of this pillar.

And I ran, did I run past Medrin?

I I did.

You're like just up against Medrin with this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Then it was stamina.

Medrin here.

Yep.

Cannot block or dodge because that power attack knocked out all of his stamina.

So go for it.

Ooh.

Okay, and wait.

So with power attack, main attack, you're going to choose to spend double the stamina cost of attack to make it a power attack.

Additional damage die.

And if it damages the opponent, the moment loses stamina.

Correct.

He has no stamina at the moment, which means

you can't block or dodge.

So your attacks just do damage.

They just do damage.

So even if I do a power attack, it's all the same for me because it's 1d6.

So whatever.

I'll just do three for right now.

To just do a regular attack.

Go

ahead and get the currents.

Six?

Nope.

That's a one.

Five damage.

Five damage.

Alrighty.

I'll do it one more time.

Why not?

See what happens.

Jesus.

One again.

So another five damage.

Five damage.

Veterans turning it up and use Corvin.

What are you doing?

Come on.

Alright.

So then it's your turn.

Okay.

Medron finally like pulls away from your dagger and you're like right there at the like there's like a five-foot walk to the scaffolding.

Medron's right in front of you and Galen's behind you.

He's like, you

fuckers.

Unleashes Fan of Flames, the improved fan of flames on you all.

So with that, I

do either you have stamina to try and dodge your block.

I will dodge.

Let's go.

Come on, Katie.

Need to be to 18.

18, okay.

Negative.

Negative.

Oh!

Natural one.

Damn, that is my third one in a row.

Alright, so both of you

didn't roll any max dies on this, though.

That's gonna be 13 points of damage to each of you, and both of you get two points of fire accumulation.

Okay.

So you are now both starting to burn.

The flames are starting to burn.

And one more bit of that, and you both ignite.

With that, Medron, who

is pissed at you for just coming over and shanking him as he's getting up, he's going to pull out his blade and then come and attack you.

Oh, he doesn't have all the stamina back here.

So with that.

Alright,

are you dodging or?

I will.

Do you have stamina to do so?

I do.

I have four stamina on the left.

Up to you.

I'll block just in case.

Let's go.

Yeah, 20 total.

15, you beat it.

So the first

goes wide.

Pissed is going to go ahead and spend four more stamina

to attack you again.

I'll let it happen.

You can't dodge his arrow.

So I don't have to roll for that.

That will be.

That is going to be 10 points of damage to you.

The first one, you manage to just get out of the way.

He flips it around in his hand and then backslices you with the blade that kind of like shanks you into the chest.

Okay, uh,

yeah, and that's gonna go ahead and end his turn.

Uh, Hespero, you're up.

So,

is she in position to do this maneuver?

She is like right at the edge, about five feet of a runway, holding on to this auto.

By the way, end of your turn, make a resolve check for me.

Oh, because I'm holding it, yeah, but I'm not looking at it.

No, but you've been holding it for a moment.

Come on, come on, baby.

Come on.

Come on.

I'm holding it.

I'm not looking at it.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

18.

Yeah.

Unaffected.

Okay.

I don't want to let no ghost rocks get in my head.

So I'm still on the ground, so I got to get up there.

You do, yeah.

So, what do I spend about that one?

Stamina?

Spend one stamina and roll dexterity for me.

Okay.

Oh, no.

That's five.

Five.

So you spend a second, you get partway up because this isn't the other one, which is very, very tall that you were trying to get at the top of.

This one is halfway up.

You do get to the top of it, but you don't get to the edge of where she is.

So you manage to get to where it is.

You're halfway to position.

And I don't have any more movement I can do.

I'll say in this instance, because

it's cinematic and fun, if you want to spend three stamina, I'll let you close that distance.

I'll do it.

Okay.

So then

she has it.

She's not corrupted.

We could potentially go for it now.

If you wanted to spend another three stamina to take it from her and attempt to make that leap.

Well, I was going to get on his shoulders.

Oh, okay.

That was the thing.

And then, and then, unless if we can make it, awesome.

If not,

then Manette can

do a little

circus pyramid.

Got you.

Okay.

So what you're doing is you're now going to send the rest of us to get into position.

Sure.

And And then you're going to hold your turn or

hmm.

What do you think?

Well,

if I can just go for a little

shoulder ride, then I can wait for Manette and maybe she can get up there.

I think it's worth in terms of turn order.

But doesn't, what, yeah, doesn't.

What's her face go bad guy?

Because Manette's going to go

next

our next turn.

But when does the bad guy go?

After you.

So it's going to be Hasper, and then it's going to go go Manette.

Oh, oh,

so either I can hold, or, I mean, I should maybe attack

Medron, right?

Or something.

Am I able to get on his shoulders?

Is he able to?

On my turn.

But that's so far away.

I mean,

I can try and hand it off to you real quick if you think you can do a little like

eight-foot diamond.

Yeah,

vertical.

What I need to roll, might?

This would be a might roll, I think.

That's

your best.

That's your.

All right.

How much stamina do I need to do that?

I'll put this at five stamina.

Five stamina.

You're more or less attacking the pillar.

I believe in you.

I could

take a shot and then

go for it.

I think I'm going to do it because it's just funny.

And Medrin isn't within sight?

Medron is, yeah, like maybe 15 feet from me.

I'm gonna shoot him with a gun.

Yeah, shoot him with a gun.

I'm gonna shoot him when it goes.

He doesn't have any stamina, right?

He does because he's had his turn since.

So he got the stamina back.

So he has enough to try and dodge once.

Okay.

So he will spend that.

So let's go ahead and roll.

Let's see what we got.

I'm going to go ahead and roll this out.

Don't know.

Two.

A two.

What's your bonus?

My bonus?

What do you mean?

To hit with your gun.

I only have Keen.

Sorry, to hit plus one.

One plus one, two.

That's what.

Oh, I see.

I see.

Yeah, so he does unfortunately dodge.

So then you go to fire with the gun, pistol,

and you go to shoot.

It's a cloud of smoke, and he's already kind of ducking out of the way, spinning off to the side, and bracing himself on the edge of the wall.

The scaffolding now, with all of you standing on it, is like

it's rocking precariously.

This is a slippery zombage.

But he's out of standard.

All right.

Take that.

I'm just gonna go for it.

Come on.

Okay, what's your mic bonus?

Get a big blue.

Plus six.

Plus six.

Get a big blue.

All right.

The DC on this is a 20, so you have to roll a 14 or higher to try and accomplish this.

I love it.

Let's go.

You run.

You push off of this.

The rest of you feel the scaffolding.

I'm going to go ahead and

15 on that.

The scaffolding holds.

If I'd rolled under a 10, the scaffolding would have collapsed.

But you leap full on like Michael Jordan.

Yeah, slam donk.

Slam it into that missing chunk of the crystal pillar.

As you do, putting all your weight behind it, it, it like hits and

slides in.

As it does, the crystal seems to glow from within that kind of purple light,

pulsing outward.

It seems to spread and fill the chamber with bright white light.

And as you all kind of have to withdraw from the paint of it on your eyes, you then hold on to the top,

slide from the top, and plummet 15 feet to the ground

for three points of damage.

Okay, all right.

As you hit the ground, this Audra Bond pillar is just bright within the room, and you see Adea, the Kangula, like,

as it lights up,

this beam of light emerges from it.

That the rock above seems to

kind of crack away.

It burns and carves some sort of beam of burning light

up

through the ceiling of the chamber.

Is that your turn?

Yeah.

Okay.

That's gonna bring us back to uh minette with the other old.

Yeah, I was so sick.

I don't even know if it was a good thing, but worth it.

The Ghostbusters reactors.

How close we're still fighting

Medrin, right?

So fighting Medrin and Edea.

So she's still there.

She's still there.

That didn't fuck her up.

All right.

You have removed some of her abilities.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Well, then I'm going to spend four essence,

which is one, two, three, four.

That's all of my essence.

I've got one left, so I hope this works.

And I'm going to use jolting touch on the two of them.

Okay, let's go.

So, let's see here.

You were weakened, so it gets the

Adea gets the block for free from you.

And Medrin has no stamina.

So Medrin just takes, go ahead and roll for the for Adea.

But

for damage or for to hit.

So roll and add your intellect.

Fuck.

Four.

Four unfortunately misses the spirit of Adea.

However, Medrin cannot dodge and is like standing up on the side.

You can just barely see where the shaking scaffolding is.

And you do strike him, so he takes the damage.

Go ahead and roll that.

Six.

Six points of damage.

Medrick gets knocked at the back and kind of falls back back onto Monians.

Breathing deep and his eyes now seeing what's happening with the spirit.

You see him kind of like shake something out of his mind.

And now there's panic in his eyes.

The drive and the will of whatever brought him here and continued to push on is gone.

And now it's just survival instinct and looking for an escape route.

The spirit is still screeching and wailing and furious at what's occurred.

What do you want to do with your turn?

Am I in poking?

You are.

It flew down and struck you.

Its turn to now focus on the chamber, but it's right next to you.

I am going to try to poke her.

Okay.

She gets to dodge him and block you.

She still gets to block.

Oh, fuck.

Just forever?

Oh, until her next turn.

Just because she struck you and weakened you.

Okay.

Let's go.

Is it rolled a hit?

Plus what?

Intellect?

Next to your spear, it should say.

Plus.

Oh, shit.

I've not been adding that.

Oh, well.

Six.

Anyway, six.

Yeah.

Dog is out of the way, unfortunately.

You want to keep going or?

Yeah, let me.

One, two, three, four, five.

Yes.

Keep going.

Eight.

Sixteen.

God damn it.

I have not been on your side.

No.

I'm going to go again.

Let's go.

Roll again.

Come on.

Five.

Come on.

Click my.

16.

Eight.

General damage.

Sticky.

Roll page.

Good damage, good damage.

Green.

Green turns today.

Hey, it all hands up.

No hands up.

I know you're going to go use the litter box.

That's right.

Yes.

I used to shit in the litter box.

All right, that finishes your turn.

Ilva, you're up

with a deal coming.

Am I close enough to use a jolting touch on the two baddies?

I'd say so, yeah.

Crap, but I have 10 health.

So I could arcane veil and use the wont.

Do it.

I'm...

At this point, she's like so, she's so angry, and she knows she fucked up, so she's not even worried about her own self-preservation.

She just wants them to go.

So, Jolting Touch.

So I roll it to hit, I'm assuming because I'm assuming they're both gonna shot she's going to spend three or four to try and dodge your attack

and that's plus intellect medron cannot so go ahead and roll add your intellect

18 plus six so 24 she rolled 20 totals that hits excellent so go ahead and roll damage and they both take it

hot

11 minus 110.

10 points is

the shark arcs off hits the spirit she

pulls back and it damages her.

It arcs off of her and strikes at Timedron as it impacts.

How do you want to do this?

Just with severe fury in her eyes, especially at being taken by him,

she

takes out all of the vengeance that she wishes she was able to take out on the people who wronged her.

And as she's staring at him, she just watches him as she hands the as she sends the lightning bolt through him and into

Adea.

That's her name.

Yep.

And sends her in, but watches him as he hopefully just

and falls.

So you watch as he's seeing all of a sudden the panic in his eyes.

He gets up and starts sprinting towards the edge of the scaffolding to try and like leap down and over the rest of you out the exit.

As he runs,

he like slows down and steps up to the edge of the scaffolding where there's like burned hole in his torso.

And he just kind of looks over

and slowly tips forward,

smacking harder into the stone floor, no longer moving.

Yes.

I am going to use some stamina to

fire at Adea from my wand.

Adea.

Adia.

Wand.

19 plus to 21.

Well, I doesn't have any stamina to dodge.

Oh, fantastic.

I wasted a roll for nothing.

That's a great roll.

Can I save that for later?

My wand is 1d6 plus 3.

6 damage.

Alrighty.

And then I would like to use 3 more stamina to do it again.

Let's go.

7 damage.

I would like to use 3 more stamina to do it again.

four damage.

Alrighty.

I would like to use three more stamina to go with

the mm.

There is no tomorrow and I have so few hit points left or health points left.

I was doing eight damage.

Eight damage already.

A lot of hits.

So I finished your turn.

It's just like just one strike after one strike, just

blasting into this spirit.

And I would like to, if there is any possibility of using, because I can't block with two stamina or dodge with two stamina, can I use two stamina to just roll behind something?

Because I've been, if there's any possibility of me getting it.

I mean, you haven't moved, you're on the scaffolding still.

Uh, so there's no way to hide.

I know.

Well, no, you leapt to try and get in there, so you're actually still on the ground, right?

Right, I've been doing this from the ground.

You can try and move behind one of the pillars as part of your movement.

Yeah, let me try to get behind something so that I can't.

You don't have to spend stamina for that.

You just move behind it because you haven't moved this turn.

I have to do that.

That finishes your go?

Yes.

All right, top of the round brings us back to Adea, who is furious, has

lost the weakened ability of her strikes.

So that is gone.

Is going to go ahead and corrupting stare you at the top of the round.

You can't stare at me, I'm hiding.

She can move to follow you, which she doesn't.

I don't see you.

I don't see you.

I don't actually close my eyes, so I can't see you.

You can't stare at you.

Do you have enough stamina to block her dog?

I don't.

So you take.

I'm going down, kids.

Uh, that's gonna be 19 points of damage.

I am down.

Alrighty, so when you go to zero health, go ahead and roll and add your resolve.

Roll a 20?

Roll a d20?

Correct.

The blood dice have been good.

The blood dice have been very good.

Now that I've said that, please deliver, kids.

Please deliver.

Is it plus anything?

This is your resolve.

16 plus 2 and 18?

Alright, you

remain standing at one hit point.

Just barely.

Push through.

Throw her some hard tack.

Have a biscuit.

You do take a third point of poison.

Oh, right.

You are now poisoned.

So now that means you cannot dodge.

And at the start of your next turn, you take 1d8 poison damage.

No, so I'm going to potentially go down right away.

So she is going to go ahead and swoop up to you as you stand on your feet and strike at you with an attack.

You cannot dodge because you are poisoned.

So you immediately take 2d8 damage, which takes you down.

Make another resolve roll.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Yep.

15 plus 217.

17?

You barely hold on.

Wow.

I'm not dead yet.

I'll go get for a walk.

Well, let's see.

No, it was was 15 originally.

It goes up two every time.

So 17.

You barely hold on.

Furious.

I'm just going to go ahead and make another strike on you.

She's out for you.

Down she goes.

Oh, no, no, no, we're rolling.

You can't even take damage.

You're down again, make another resolve roll.

This is no 19.

You got this.

Nope.

You are now unconscious.

If you aren't stabilized by the beginning of your next turn, you will be dead.

We didn't use all that heart attack for a happy snuggle time, did we?

Well, I don't.

You don't have anymore?

You used it all up.

Does anybody have anything?

Alright, well, you know.

And then Adea's gonna shift back out of the chamber like, ah,

and is going to spend

four more stamina to try and wail.

I need all of you players to make a resolve roll.

18.

18, you're fine.

15.

22.

Nope, 6.

All of you avoided except for you.

So, Sable, you are unable to block or dodge until Kangula's next turn.

Okay.

And she is focused intensely on you for vengeance.

All right.

That's going to go ahead and finish her turn.

Galen, you're up.

Am I able to get within

a swords strike distance of our floating shrieking lady?

She's down kind of towards the ground at the moment, floating up above.

You could try and leap off of the scaffolding and strike on the way down.

You have to roll a dexterity check to do so.

Yeah, let's do that.

All right, so we roll a dexterity check.

Not too hard, it's a 10.

Oh, great.

It's a.

Oh, that's a seven.

I know.

Total seven?

Yep.

You're a little bit short, and you do like

face plan on the ground.

You do take six points of damage

from the impact, but you do get up and you're able to approach.

This is more like this was more or less to see if you avoid the damage from it.

So

yeah, I'll take strike with the sword.

All right.

Is she gonna block her dough?

She doesn't have this damage at two.

Oh,

oh, that's a 12, which explodes.

Yes, let's go.

6, 18 plus 2 is 20 for the first strike.

You don't have to.

Well, it's going to be 20?

It is.

Sorry.

See, it's catching.

Be a 12.

Not a 12.

That's 6 points of damage for the first one.

Alright, 6 points of damage.

And then I'll burn another 4 for another strike.

Five is eight points of damage.

Alrighty.

And one more swipe with the sword, because fuck not.

To be a bitch!

Also, eight points of damage.

Eight points of damage.

Three heavy

strikes.

Your ankle's aching.

You may have sprained or broken something, but you're still swinging away with this blade.

Swing away.

So I'm swinging.

With each impact, like the light's getting brighter from the Audra, and the spirit seems to be diminishing with each blow.

Some heavy hits on it.

Does that finish your turn?

It does.

All right.

At the end of Yorugalen, it is now Figgran's turn, who kind of has been preparing for this moment out of the spirits and range is going to go ahead and regain the stamina.

I do got this.

Uh, it's gonna go ahead and spend seven stamina to strike this time.

Uh, doesn't even have to roll the hit because uh,

if it cannot strike, that's gonna be

uh 2d8

plus 4.

One's an eight that explodes.

That's 13

14 plus 4.

Oh, plus another 4 on a crit.

So that's

32 points of damage.

How do you want to do this in PC?

NPC!

That is the end of Figurin's stamina, though.

Figurin takes one heavy strike, a heavy hit.

That's a massive blow that sends a spirit.

It goes through the pillar and emerges on the other side.

The jaw is like getting more open and crooked.

Figurin means to take a few steps back.

Babe, I'm scared.

I got you, babe.

Finishing me your assumption.

So I can't block or dodge.

Until...

Until the end of the Kangle is next turn.

So you know what that means.

All damage all day, baby.

Can the spirit block or dodge?

No.

Also out of stamina.

We're just

rolling damage here, guys.

First attack.

Let me just make sure.

One, two, three.

First attack.

That's going to be

seven damage.

Alrighty.

Second attack.

Seven damage.

Third attack.

Five damage.

Not great.

Fourth attack.

Give me a six.

Five.

Nine damage.

Alrighty.

That's my turn.

Fantastic.

Once again, you're all kind of swarming in now on the spirit.

Almost like ping-ponging between your weapons as you all kind of begin to fill the chamber around.

The spirit tries to escape one and falls right into the clutches of another, just being knocked between each of these like flurry of blows on all sides.

That finishes go starting spirits like starting to flicker and you can see it like the tether, this like weird ephemeral bind that holds it to the odd pillar is starting to like kind of break and pull apart.

All right, so finishing sable to go has pillow you're up.

Am I within striking distance?

You can move to get striking distance if you want to.

Actually, actually no, yeah, because you're on the ground after the fall.

Get up.

Yeah, you totally you can move up to it.

Yeah.

I'm going to switch to the great hammer.

All right, let's finish stamina to switch it.

Let's go.

Okay, that is a great hammer.

Gonna,

let's go.

I'm gonna do a great hammer strike so she cannot jump.

Block or dodge.

Come on, come on, baby.

That is 13.

13 points of damage?

Yes.

How do you want to do this?

Yes!

Avenge me!

so

I look at her and I go to be totally honest I don't really know what's going on

But my homie

Eva Chi Chi Eva said some stuff about you're like a researcher or something, but anyway

Figurin

is for you babe

A swing that wakes the chamber with its pullback and quakes it even harder with the impact as you slam it down.

The blast hits the spirit and you hear the one final echoing scream.

As the hammer cracks the ground, the center of the chamber itself, caving in Dragon Ball Z style.

You see rocks and stones kind of get thrown in the air around it before they drop

from the sheer blast.

You see cracks in the nearby walls, like

slightly, not enough to make it dangerous, but enough to show that that was fucking hard hit.

As the bits of the spirit energy scatter and the the just barely visible tether to the odra fades

you all kind of sit around and breathe heavy split second moment on your turn before you lose your friend ilya or ilva what do you do

okay medron died while i was peeing right yeah did he drop any food

You can go and attempt to quit.

And did he drop any essence also?

Oh, he did drop essence.

He dropped eight essence.

Can I help, help, help, help, help.

Or can I force that down my friend's throat?

I mean, you can,

but that doesn't really.

That doesn't do anything.

Food, food heal her?

If you have food, that could functionally, you could force her to eat.

Okay.

There's pigeon talents.

I'm sorry.

It's going to take a lot of stamina to force an unconscious friend to eat food, but it's not impossible.

Okay, I am going to

see if Medrin, he healed himself with some food, so I'm assuming he's got snackies.

All right, so here's what we're gonna do: you want to use your movement partially to rush over to Medron's singed corpse.

I need you to roll a perception check or a resolve check to try and push through his body to see if you can find anything that still remains that is edible.

Perception or what?

Resolve.

Resolve.

Yeah, resolve.

That's right.

Seven.

Total of seven.

No food on his body.

He healed a bit because he ate it all.

Can I

get her shoes?

Is there any other way to heal

to heal my friend?

Is there, can I give her a speech?

Can I talk to her?

I don't want you to die.

You can.

The last thing you can do is try and stabilize her slipping into death.

But from, since you use movements to search his body in the middle of this rush,

you can try and spend, I'll say the rest of your stamina to try and remove any sort of bits of cloth that you might have, any semblance of remnant healing interests that you might

conceive.

This will be

an intellect role.

I never put down my petticoat.

I still have it with me.

So...

Wait, so you've been fighting naked this whole time?

No, a petticoat goes underneath.

Okay, so make make sure you're pretty boy.

Who doesn't have new knickers on?

Everyone could see all her naughty bits when she was on the scaffold.

That's what I was like.

Yeah, those of you.

Yeah.

So you

under your arm, you rush over and are going to attempt to essentially like triage your friend where the poison is corrupting into the body.

I need you to roll an intellect check to see if you can logic out and remember anything about solving this.

This This is going to be.

Can I use one of yours?

This is going to be a 16-year-old.

Oh my god.

This is the roll.

I'm reaving you.

For my friend.

16 total.

Exactly?

Holy shit, that's a 14 of the tie.

Yay!

Are you fucking kidding me?

Oh, thank you so much.

My friend, ladies don't die.

Taking a picture of

Very unladylike to die.

Not dying is a virtue after all.

In the faintest

of gentle moments, you wait for your friend to cross the threshold.

But her breath never stops.

And then it grows stronger.

Until eventually her eyes open.

you're alive, Ilva!

Very ladylike indeed.

Please don't be mad.

All of my underwear is in your open wounds.

But I think it helps.

Won't be the first time.

Hopefully the last.

You know, I think there's some really good pigeon stew waiting back at the lighthouse for us.

I'm so sorry.

I thought

exacting revenge was what I needed.

But it only caused so much pain and

so much trouble and

I'm sorry.

It's okay.

Yeah.

We're Team Reach around.

Team Reach Around.

Yeah.

What goes around comes around.

As you pick up your arms and march outside of the blazing chamber, you crawl through the subterranean tunnels back to where the base of the lighthouse remains.

It is

here that you see the lighthouse is partially crumbled.

For the base of this pillar and its beam of energy has torn through it

so while the lighthouse remains no beacon for salvation

the beam of light that seems to climb into the sky should be enough to get someone's attention

with a glimmer of hope of being saved by any passing ship

you smell the delicious scent of freshly cooked odd carrion seabird in a nearby kitchen As your new

interesting lady friend slaps you on the ass,

you all look at each other with a smile and a nod and continue to where dinner is waiting.

And that's where I'm going to go ahead and finish tonight.

That was fun, y'all.

Thanks for coming along for that.

That was great.

Really, really great.

That's so cool.

That's fun.

Weird and perfect.

I love it.

I love it.

Really appreciate you all for coming, friends.

Old and news.

This has been so fun.

And thank you again to our friends at Xbox and Obsidian Entertainment for letting us play in the world of Avowed tonight.

And thank you all for joining us for that.

A reminder that while you may have recognized the spaces and characters explored tonight as inspired by elements from Avowed and its universe, we want to emphasize that these characters and events in this one shot were our own creations, if you couldn't tell.

And are not official content, as if you couldn't tell, from the avowed game.

They were only inspired by it.

But I'm going to put up a recipe for carrion pigeon.

I'm going to find one for us and

make a delicious dinner for us in celebration.

And when we get out of the hospital,

we can thank you again for joining us.

But all that being done, go check out Avowed.

It's a great game.

It's out now.

Some people at the table are in it.

So check it out at xbox.com/slash avowed for more info.

Thank you all so much.

We love you.

Good night.

Thank you so much for joining us on this adventure.

To help new listeners discover the show, please give us a rating and review on whatever podcasting app you're listening on.

Until next time, is it Thursday yet?

Dad, you take a buana noticeable.

If we change the Verizon, we danced for the president of 30.

Deverdad?

It's like the cuarta lineage for gratitude, okay?

A para mi ota para tumama, a para tí la cuesta para para mino bio?

Excuse me?

Tad, Mira, quiero tar encortacto con el todo tiempo.

está las vacaciones.

But

the country.

No important.

When you go with Verizon, you telephone

and

text as if I contented.

I also.

Which las vacations and

plane of Verizon?

When I

have a cup of linen for that two quieters quieros por el president por solo $3 por lineage almost en a limited welcome york in puestos y cargos.

Additionally, use your telephone en el extra con travel pass in a pair of licas tres dias almes por 2 a la gregaro en MyPlan.

Visita tutienda Verizon en San Diego.

Enochana limited welcome los datas unlimited 5G for GLT podías temporarily for me to maslandos que lo es oto trafico grantee una conjestión Romina de datos national velocidad estu Gi sarquír tenen una linas vita Myplan para lo 3 das de travel passes.

Applicants additional

chair might seem a bit extravagant, especially these days.

Eight different settings, adjustable intensity, plus it's heated, and it just feels so good.

Yes, a massage chair might seem a bit extravagant, but when it can come with a car,

suddenly it seems quite practical.

The all-new 2025 Volkswagen Tiguan, packed with premium features like available massaging front seats, that only feels extravagant.