Assassin's Creed Shadows One-Shot

At 1-800Flowers.com, we know that connections are at the heart of being human.

Whether celebrating life's joys or comforting during tough times, 1-800 Flowers helps you express what words can't.

For nearly 50 years, millions have trusted 1-800 Flowers to deliver thoughtful gifts that help create lasting bonds.

Because it's more than just a gift, it's your way of showing you care.

Visit 1-800-Flowers.com/slash Pandora and connect today.

That's 1-800Flowers.com/slash Pandora.

Hey there, Critters.

This year marks our 10-year anniversary of Critical Roll, and we are partnering with Fathom Entertainment to bring our 2025 tour to movie theaters across the U.S.

and Canada.

Head to theaters to see the Wedding of the Year coming to theaters on October 15th with an iconic Jester and Ford wedding at our New York City live show.

Visit fathomentertainment.com slash Critical Roll to find tickets in theaters near you.

That's fathomentertainment.com/slash critical roll.

Hey there, Critter 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 Roll for the first time ever.

Beacon members also get things like live event pre-sales, merch discounts, access to a private community Discord, and new exclusive series like Critical Roll Cooldown.

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 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 Re-Slayer's Take.

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

Here, the Slayer's Take is the 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 role or youtube.com/slash critical role.

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, and welcome to tonight's very special one-shot, sponsored by Ubisoft and Assassin's Creed Shadows, the ultimate feudal Japanese video game experience.

A new creed rises over Japan as the country is on a brutal path toward unification, driven by the iron will of Daimyo Odanubunaga.

Set against the backdrop of the turbulent late Sengoku period, Assassin's Creed Shadows lets you live the intertwined stories of Nawei, an adept shinobi assassin from the Iga province, and Yasuke, the powerful African samurai of historical legend.

Explore the vast world centered around Kyoto with 10 regions that each have their own biomes and visual themes.

Now, as a reminder for our one-shot tonight, it is set in the world of Assassin's Creed Shadows, but we are not creating a historically accurate story, nor are we telling a tale that is canon to the game.

Tonight's events are instead just lovingly inspired by both.

But thank you again to Ubisoft and Assassin's Creed Shadows for sponsoring this one shot.

Visit assassinscreed.com/slash shadows for all the latest.

And now let's go ahead and meet our wonderful players at the table for tonight's game.

Let's start with some familiar faces in the studio over here with Liam O'Brien.

Hey, it's Liam.

Today I'm going to be playing Garrett O'Neal.

Thank you, Liam.

Over on this side, we have Robbie Damon.

Yeah, yeah, I'm playing Rufino.

Just Rufino.

Wonderful.

And we have two wonderful new friends in our studio today who are also cast members from the game Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Emily Pickford.

Hello, I'm Emily Pickford.

I play Tomiko in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

And today, I'm playing Umi.

Wonderful, perfect.

And over on this side, we have Peter Shinkoda.

Peter Shinkoda here.

I'm playing the character I designed, Ryuichi, in this game, but in the video game, I play Fujibayashi Nagato.

You'll find out who he is.

More context to come for those characters.

But tonight, we'll get to see your characters and your creations here in this world.

So with that, let's go ahead and jump into tonight's story.

Did you know Tide has been upgraded to provide an even better, clean and cold water?

Tide is specifically designed to fight any stain you throw at it, even in cold.

Butter?

Yep.

Chocolate ice cream?

Sure thing.

Barbecue sauce?

Tide's got you covered.

You don't need to use warm water.

Additionally, tide pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new coldzyme technology.

Just remember, if it's got to be clean, it's got to be tide.

Whenever I need to send roses that are guaranteed to make someone's day, the only place I trust is 1-800-Flowers.com.

With 1-800 Flowers, my friends and family always receive stunning, high-quality bouquets that they absolutely love.

Right now, when you buy a dozen multicolored roses, 1-800 Flowers will double your bouquet to two dozen roses.

To claim this special double roses offer, go to 1-800flowers.com slash Pandora.

That's 1-800Flowers.com slash Pandora.

Hey there, critters!

This year marks our 10-year anniversary of Critical Roll, and we are partnering with Fathom Entertainment to bring our 2025 tour to movie theaters across the U.S.

and Canada.

Head to theaters to see the Wedding of the Year coming to theaters on October 15th with an iconic Jester and Ford wedding at our New York City live show.

Visit fathomentertainment.com slash critical roll to find tickets in theaters near you.

That's fathomentertainment.com/slash critical role.

Our tale takes place in 16th century Japan during the late Sengoku period, where over a century of political unrest and clans warring for control in the wake of a waning emperor's influence has left the peasantry suffering through famine and the masses of military warriors exhausted.

In this era, land and name are key to your survival.

You either own them or die trying to defend them.

Now less powerful daimyo are challenged to ally with stronger ones or risk decimation, and a handful of dominant clans have risen to prominence and power, though none as ambitious as the Oda clan.

And under the leadership of the ruthless visionary who seeks to unify Japan under his rule.

the Daimyo Lord Oda Nobunaga.

Now Lord Nobunaga's quest to make every region of Japan as one was growing more and more successful, and one of the locales he sought to achieve this goal was the autonomous port city of Sakai, an international trading hub boasting emergent technologies and abundant wealth bolstered by non-ban trade, or trade with foreign merchants.

The Independent Merchant Council of Sakai recently refused Lord Nobunaga's request to join his expanding rule, and a palpable tension sits across the city streets.

But

life goes on, and business within these walls is ever booming.

It is here our story begins.

An hour from dusk, within the prosperous port city of Sakai, where a ragtagged troop of figures seek their individual fortunes.

Now, standing against the beautiful Osaka Bay, and surrounded by a massive moat and large defensible walls, the bustling city of Sakai is a vibrant and wealthy city filled with people of all walks of life.

Here, the busy streets wind through multi-level wooden structures of intricate sloping tiled and thatched roofs, intermingled with Minka-style households and the occasional shrine.

Plumes of smoke drift up from the numerous ironworks, and they're at the heart of the city's industry, the clanging of worked metals echoing in the distance.

Textile store fronts and food merchants line the roads, and closer to the port, as you get there.

It's here at the water's edge of the Osaka Bay.

You can see the vibrant mix of fishing vessels and trade ships coming and going.

Now, some of these ships bear the design of foreign sails and make, as do some of these denizens within this center of commerce.

Such as

this figure we see sauntering up with a brisk pace and determination.

Liam, would you like to describe Garrett for us?

Garrett O'Neill is a tall, broad

Irishman that washed ashore in Sakai the better part of two decades ago

and and has since made a life for himself here.

These docks here along the water are where he spends his days working and living,

translating and helping facilitate

the movement of goods across the sea.

He is a very tall

muscled figure with

straight red hair that hangs pushed back down

and has a bit of light red goatee or scruff on his face.

He wears his clothes fairly loose, and anyone seeing him walk by can see the edges of very, very faded

Celtic knotwork tattoos poking out

on his neck and chest and a little bit down one forearm.

He carries

a conobo,

a thin kanobo, a wooden one, that is

in his hand almost like a walking stick as he makes his way down the docks.

He wears a fairly reserved expression at all times

and

affords himself a grin at the familiar sights here at the bay.

Kind of in one hand, kind of twiddle with the missive scroll that had called you to Takeda Shingen, who is one of the various

owners and managers of businesses along this shipyard, his specifically being the ship repair business.

And he's offered you quite a bit of work in the past.

He's made a reputation of himself, both as a reputable individual to get your seafaring vessels repaired, as well as a very trustworthy source to get things you can hide on these vessels, both in and out of the city and to foreign shores as well.

Since his business does indeed require interacting with foreigners often through Osaka Bay, you've become kind of one of his favorites to pull from, to

discuss and just directly converse with some of his

less savory

foreign clients as they come through.

After two decades, I know a lot of people.

Truth.

So this means that he has a bit of business.

And it's been

dry for a bit.

A little extra coin, a little extra money in your pocket wouldn't hurt.

So as you coast up the side of the bay, you can hear the creaking of ropes and some of the nearby ships kind of pushing up against the heavy wooden docks with the tide.

Not too far off, moving at about the same pace and catching your eye just as you catch his.

Ryuichi, would you please describe what we see as you are heading across the bay?

Ruichi,

he's a handsome fellow.

He's got a full head of hair

and a ponytail, a samurai's ponytail bun.

It's got wisps coming down.

He's wearing a blue kimono, a little bit muted.

I guess he has the accompanying garb, his earthy colors.

He's got some tabi on.

But But he is

adorned with

a katana.

Usually samurais carry a katana and the wakazashi.

Symbol of the two.

Makes you the samurai.

He only carries one.

He's formidable.

He also has on his back a naginata.

That's like a wooden staff with a blade.

That's a secondary weapon.

But

his personality

is reserved.

It's muted.

He's kind of

walking down the street, not calling attention to himself, although I think he exudes

reserved power.

But he's not

common.

commonplace what what he does.

I think people can assume that

he might be a combatant, but he's not asking

for the...

He doesn't want attention.

I think that he's reserved because

there's things in his past that he wants to forget.

He's compartmentalized him, and he just wants to move on with life.

Moralistically, he's very sound,

but

I believe he does not fear death.

In fact, invites it.

Ryuichi.

And I think it's that mood that drew you to Takira's attention, as when you are delving in some maybe not the most

locally legal affairs of trade, or at least things that aren't sanctioned by the merchant council that is in charge of Sakai.

It is important to have figures that sort of give the air of

well-guarded.

to his interests.

And you've been a good hire in the past, to the point where violence has not been necessary.

Just your presence seemed to keep probing thieves and other surrounding outside interests from getting too close to his interests as well.

I like that.

And you have crossed paths once or twice with Garrett, who catches your eye as you're both kind of arriving at around the same time of day with that same kind of look of intent.

Okay.

I don't think we're all met.

A couple more.

Hopefully not too long a wait.

Time will only tell.

As these stoic figures walk

side by side with a fair distance of just enough familiarity,

not too far behind them, we see catching up quickly

these also familiar familiar figures.

Umi would you describe what we see as you begin to close the distance?

Yes.

As Umi emerges from the alleyways and sees some familiar faces she fills the space with her mass.

Though she is only about five foot three tall she's very wide built strong from heavy work on the farm.

She's new to Sakai, recently moved here to pursue her lifelong desire to be a warrior, having come from a samurai family, but raised with all these brothers and a father, a mother who passed when she was a child.

They saw no need for her to delve into the training and to be a samurai on the battlefield as she did.

So between all of her heavy work,

she would take what training she could and learned to wield a kanabo.

So over her armored shoulder she has a massive kanabo, a great club studded with metal.

At At her side, beside her breastplate, back plate, she has a wakizashi.

And the rest of her attire is truly humble farmer's garb and quite lightweight.

She runs hot as a fire.

And

she's

rather withdrawn, so focused on the task at hand, so focused on looking for a master, looking to train, looking for an opportunity to fulfill this dream and to level up her skills to become a very competent samurai or

a female samurai.

But she'll settle for being, if she can, even just a bodyguard.

So Sakai feels like a good place to do that.

If there's people whose interests need protection, perhaps she can put some muscle in front.

And indeed, your initial meetings looking for such work has been met with a bit of disinterest to even

some outright disrespect.

But it was Takeda that saw a little bit of opportunity in you, as his initial disinterest in hiring you was set aside when the hire bodyguards that he had used for one of his businesses found themselves quickly laid low by a series of bandits that had been waiting along the outer road,

whereas you had followed them in hoping to prove yourself and stepping in, managed to dispatch and frighten off the rest of those that sought Takeda's goods.

And upon returning them and throwing them upon his desk, he decided maybe there's more to this young farm girl than meets the eye.

He told you in time he'd have a calling to have you prove yourself, and indeed you received your first true missive for possible business this day.

Now, having kept your eye on those who he's done business with in the past, you've

recognized both these figures, Garrett and Ryuichi, as having come in and out of Takira's business warehouse near the docks a number of times.

You maybe have crossed paths or had some brief conversations, but now's your opportunity as you see them approaching carrying very similar missives as the one you have in your hand.

You, of course, hear the footsteps coming up from behind.

Maybe not the most

stealthily trained figure.

figure you normally see that here.

This is a sign of someone approaching with intent.

I see you.

And I approve of you.

I don't really have that many

adversaries in the world anymore.

But I nod.

Also, being somewhat of an outcast now, I also know how the females might feel, so absolutely.

She can walk with us, and I approve.

Let's go see what Takeda has for us.

As you kind of approach, kind of expecting that same kind of arm's-length energy that you receive from other established men in this space, there is a welcoming air to the side of these two half-strangers as the three of you approach the outside of the large shipyard warehouse where Takidashingen does his work and they're kind of waiting on the outside after arriving arriving maybe a good minute or so beforehand we have Rufino if you wouldn't mind describing what they see as they reach the outside

yeah

yeah just sort of leaning up against a corner with a half-eaten apple just sort of taking in the scene that comes through.

It almost seems like Rufino always has a shadow to step out of.

In the humblest of garb, you could almost call it dirty.

Maybe you would imagine he's got a little musk, a little funk, a little smell to him.

But what's contained is just this absolutely sort of feral, mop-topped,

sort of

lively spirit

that

exudes

danger, for sure.

He's Portuguese,

somewhere between late 20s and early 30s.

You can't tell because it's obvious he's lived a hard life.

He first arrived here on a missionary ship years ago and

much like most of his life afterwards it was defined by bad timing and ill fortune.

He came into the Great Rush

into Kyushu when

Catholicism was starting to become more and more accepted and then the minute that his group got there suddenly it started to get pushed out and less favor and he was abandoned by

by his group that he traveled missionaries that he traveled with there and he was only a child.

He was a cabin boy on the vessel and with no one there to

take care of him as a young person he basically wandered from village to village, wandered the countryside barely surviving until finding himself on the outskirts of Sakai

at a natural onsen, where he was taken in by

the manager there and raised.

So while he's Portuguese in appearance, he's

Japanese by the way that he was raised,

though he's never seen

as that way, and he knows it.

So he continues to operate in the shadows in sort of a feral way, and

if there's money to be made,

he'll be there.

And as the approach,

he sort of immediately clocks everyone in the group.

Huh.

Riuichi.

Garrett Umi.

Interesting.

Not who I was expecting, but

interesting.

Still breathing.

Yeah, I'm surprised.

Last time I saw you you were uh face deep in a stein of veil so uh

well

you have to forge yourself a little bit of kindness once in a while sure

nice to see you Garrett

been a while does anybody know exactly what this is about or

how much how much information is in this missive in this uh only given uh a brief note saying uh possible work should you have a little bit bit of time

this afternoon, if possible.

Being that

Umisan is newer here in town, I don't really know her the way I know many people here, and I've sort of just been sizing her up this whole time.

And the thing that stands out the most to Garrett in this first minute of spending time together is the fact that I am six foot four

and

wielding this rather anemic-looking carnival.

And you're about half my size, but hoisting this massive iron weapon over your shoulder.

And I can't help but

crack a half-smile at it.

It's a little demasculating, isn't it?

I'm comfortable.

My height, my gender, and the disadvantages that might put me at in this society.

I try and lean into other advantages, such as my strength and my weapon, and hiding behind my hat but yes I'm sense that I'm in very good company to learn from but we are all very different in skill so I can only imagine we'll all be working together I don't think we're in competition with one another for this job I don't believe so either I think

Niruichi is always suspicious

but I think my curiosity

is

overtaking the suspicion and I have to follow this through.

This is the most uncommon, motley crew of people put together.

I have to see what

is going on.

And it doesn't take too long before an associate of Takeda kind of brings you into the warehouse past the

heavy movement of various kind of ship hands moving materials and various tools for repairing and setting up and hoisting things coming and going throughout the entire dock site.

You move and kind of weave through Fawn the Associate until you're brought to the back chamber.

The door slides open and you can see there

is the table before Takeda Shingen, a man in his late 50s or so, kind of thinning long salt and pepper hair that's pulled back into kind of a loose ponytail.

He's dressed like a mid-level merchant throughout the city, a man that like probably got his hands dirty in his younger years and now is trying to imagine himself above that.

But you know, you can tell by the toughness to his fingers and texture that he's done a fair share of his own dirty work as the years have gone on.

He has a thin mustache, and he's in the process of finishing, filling out some papers before he kind of rolls up, sets it aside, and looks.

Ah, you've arrived.

Perfect.

If you wouldn't mind closing the door, the slide shut behind you, goes.

This is the pleasure is mine to have you all come on such sort of notice.

This is a possibility that I think could make all of you quite a bit richer, not to mention myself.

There is a

series of trade vessels to come in in the morning.

As you, I'm sure, are well aware, there's a lot of conflict up to the north, and conflict can be a very profitable business.

They are bringing with them an order of,

well,

a fair amount of matchlock tempo firearms that I will be able to distribute to a number of interested buyers.

Unfortunately, they did not include ammunition in this shipment.

So

I would like to

prove the capabilities of some, not just in the battle, but perhaps as some

extensions of my will and interests in the city, the four of you to find somebody who might be interested in, in a short period of time, crafting and delivering a large volume of iron bullets

discreetly.

And should they prove difficult to find, have the skills to maybe muscle information out of those that could lead you to such figures?

Do you see yourselves

available and interested in what could be a very simple job that could pay very well?

Takeda San.

I live to serve.

Bullets.

Indeed.

That's it.

That's all I need.

I just need to establish a new contact within this city.

Somebody who, with your keen senses of judgment, could be trustworthy and capable.

As I see that a number of you have a

knack for finding

hidden

capability.

And perhaps there might be a few of these

weapons left over that could be a good keepsake.

Do you find these these terms acceptable

most important question to me

would be once you match the bullets

with these rifles

who's gonna own them

well whoever

wishes to pay for them that is how business goes

see Riuichi over here suffers from

long-term honor disorder.

Yeah, he really can't shake these old ways.

Some of us are just like that, right?

Yes, certainly.

With all due respect,

this city will take care of that quickly enough.

I hear that often.

Mind you, you don't have to discard your honor, but

learn to put it on hold when it's necessary.

There could be some vibrant opportunities in the future for a man that can

set it aside momentarily.

But this is a simple ask:

find somebody who can fulfill this order for me.

Assure me that you think they're capable and trustworthy, and return.

That is all I need.

I embrace the opportunity to work with these fine gentlemen and learn their skills

and to prove myself of service to your business in the future and perhaps learn how to use these firearms as well.

Indeed, it seems they are quite the way of the future.

No disrespect as he looks upon your katana.

I speak for myself,

but

I will go along with it.

But if there's any ounce of treachery,

you know, people don't die

around me.

I

trust your word is uh

is is good.

Because in my past

words have been just words.

Projection.

That's a great point, Ray Lichi.

And you know, I picked up on a couple of words you said a couple times.

You said simple so many times over and over.

And

hey, I don't know.

I've done a few deals before.

I just usually find when someone overstates something, maybe it might be the other way.

And listen, I'm grateful for the opportunity, too.

It's going to be a wonderful learning experience, I'm sure.

Any pitfalls we might need to be aware of?

Anybody else you might have sent out on this quest other than us?

He continues to fill out paperwork like he's now half paying attention to your troop now that he's put the business before, and installed looking at the paper and says,

Well, the first part is simple, of course.

If once we have the contact, then production has to continue.

When production is completed in various uh stages, I will need those to deliver them and keep them safe when they're being brought to the clients.

So, with this first step proven, perhaps you would be capable of being responsible enough to keep them safe upon the delivery.

And from there, the money just continues to flow.

So this part is simple.

Should you enjoy this transaction, there are more opportunities to come.

Perhaps not so simple.

So a provider, a contact, a blacksmith, somebody that can either

be an independent source for this ammunition or can craft them with haste would be.

Now I have much business to get to.

The day grows short.

Thank you so much.

And if I am not present when you have completed your task, my associates will be up until the early morning on the outskirts of the warehouse.

They'll go ahead and receive your confirmation.

I don't think he likes me very much.

Sorry.

Not trying to blow it for anybody else.

You do try to poke the bear.

It is closed behind you, and you are kind of led out of the warehouse back onto the streets of Sakai, next to the docks, and the beautiful city streets that extend beyond.

The massive buildings and log walkways.

Even though at this point in time the sun has begun to set, as the colors shift, it is still quite a bustling town.

You can hear the conversation and chatter kind of echoing from the core of the populace.

The marketplaces themselves are vibrant and probably very accessible place to search for such a contact.

But the city is yours.

What do you think, Farm Girl?

You cool with it?

Illegal armor?

Yes, I'm here to

observe and to advance in

this city.

Whatever route

to get to

my goal.

I was hoping for a display of your prowess, but I think we're just talking about a bit of legwork at this stage.

Yeah, in fact, I'll be following behind as I am new to the city, so forgive me.

I'll be here to

just

reinforce as necessary.

But I let you take the lead, just a bit of commerce.

You do understand there's repercussions.

If we do fail or to succeed in our mission, we're moving

the highest tech weapons in the world.

After that,

people die

and more people die.

We cannot predict who they may be,

but

it's only going to create chaos.

Yeah, people die.

You step on a butterfly.

There's a tsunami across the sea.

I get it.

I get it.

How does that work?

Ah, I'm not really sure.

Sweet friends, sweet friends.

Gentleman kind of steps up from the side.

Long black robes, he's so sweaty and dirty from the thicker materials he should be wearing in what was kind of a relatively hot afternoon.

White collar around.

I could not help but notice amongst you,

perhaps some of you have taken to the worship of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And you immediately remember, and I acknowledge this to be one of the Jesuit missionaries that are just beginning to perpetually flow into the town in recent years.

He seemed like 50s, balding, bearded, and just kind of is coming around, holding his, you know, rosary wrapper on one hand and a book under the other, and is immediately coming forth and looks to you.

Are you, you, um,

yes, you,

of course, brother.

Well met.

And out of my uh tunic I'll pull a tiny little silver cross give it a kiss

indeed well you you well you are in good hands.

Please be so kind as to make sure they understand

the the way the life and the love of our Lord and salvation beyond that.

Looks to you and Khars.

I don't subscribe to that.

My faith belongs somewhere else.

You can move on to one of my comrades.

Really?

Looks to you.

Looks to you.

Looks to your weapons.

Have a good day.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hold on a second.

Hold on a second.

Come back, come back here, come back here.

What's your name?

Jeremiah.

Jeremiah, where are you from, Jeremiah?

From the British Isles.

Oh.

How are you finding it here?

Terrifying.

I don't know.

And like, he's been talking in like very broken Japanese through this period.

And like, I was going to ask if this was in English, so Umi's just like, yeah, it's it's it's like half English, half Japanese.

You're picking up bits and pieces, but you definitely pick up the things that are important based on his garb and his his mode.

Uh, definitely, and and this has been kind of an increasing presence within the city as of late.

Um, yeah, he kind of looks like

I was sent here, and but it's it's I'm having a hard time, brother.

culture shock that's true uh well uh i think you are doing amazing work is there anything about this guy that could serve any purpose for i mean like like like

as as he approaches us roll with guile okay yeah i i want to take in the whole pick the whole picture

well that's all right eight eight not too fine looking at him uh

There is no way this man knows more about the city than you do.

And at the very least, seems to be a figure that could be a future scapegoat

or a person that

might have other uses if you need a Jesuit missionary.

Got it.

Sorry for eating up so much of your time.

Oh, no, that's fine.

This whole time, since Garrett heard, this fellow's broken Japanese with English accent on it has just been skullfucking him silently the entire time.

Good day.

Then wanders off.

But the city streets lay before you.

Any ideas?

Gary, you got any

metallurgy?

I mean, who you're you're the man that knows the net.

I sell my stuff.

Well, I've moved copper, silver, iron.

I know people around town.

I reckon I could uh probably stop in at any number of drinking houses and

have a conversation or two.

Sure, sure, yeah.

Uh, make a cognition check for me.

That's cocked.

That's what that is.

Yeah.

Oh, it's fun to say in the accent.

Oh, terrible.

That's a two.

That's a two.

Uh, yeah, there's probably a few places.

Uh,

metallurgy.

I mean, like, you've hmm.

Let's walk.

You're having a hard time recalling.

Can I, yeah, can I scan the sort of skyline for like any kind of smoke from like a forge or a foundry anywhere in town?

Yeah, you can easily see a number of smokestacks kind of like rising over that.

And it's getting harder as it gets darker in the day to kind of pick up the color, but it's just still enough where you can kind of follow deeper into the core of the city where most of the ironworks are represented.

Clearly every town,

prefecture,

is

has a kind of, you know, there's a political system there's usually a lord a daimyo there there's usually a castle overlooking each town

would we go to any like minute military uh installments to see if they're expecting anything

uh you can certainly check into that i also don't want to instigate a fight like in the and then um you know uh

turn them on to any illegal arms coming in of the i don't want to do that i want to you know service takeda and get the hell out

So, could we find

a military gate or a military arms

factory?

Or could we go to the castle?

Well, it's interesting.

There is no daimyo of Sakai.

It is a merchant council by Roman Saiya.

This is one of the few autonomous cities, especially of this scale of wealth and prosperity at this time, which I think is why it's been kind of on the outskirts of the main conflicts that have kind of swallowed the majority of Japan as of late.

But there is a military guarded presence here, and

the merchant council does have hired mercenaries

to look over their vested interests and protect the town.

Who's their biggest enemy?

Make a cognition check for me.

Go ahead and roll with your cognition bonus.

Okay.

A 12, right?

Yep.

A

So I got a seven.

A seven.

Not too bad.

Most of the enemies of the Merchant Council are foreign merchants and other political interests that would like to

ally or absorb such a wealthy place.

You have heard rumors and discussion

of Lord Nobunaga, who has been making quite a large political play for a number of the outlying cities of this level of trade and wealth.

You mean this by outright attacking or political?

No, by conversing with.

There was representation in this city as of late.

There were meetings between the council.

There has not been an assault on this town, but there has been rumor and discussion of representatives of Nobunaga, if not himself, possibly being present and meeting with the council.

So there could be an agreement underway.

You're not entirely certain.

Above the table,

we're trying to find someone who can, in addition to whatever their legit business is, also on the side squirt out some bullets, all right?

Seems to be, yeah, or at least have a contact where they can get it there.

You know, and as you're kind of looking around and walking through the city,

you know, people are coming up to you or looking in your direction, trying to sell their wares.

You can see there are shop fronts that are open.

Glancing around quickly, you can see there's like smells of cooked fish off to one side.

You pass carts with like millet and daikon radishes and azuki beans, taro, all manner of

farmers and various other merchants that just fill the streets, the dense kind of populace of this area.

You know, the outside of Sakai is massive spreading farmland, and everyone comes in here for the day to try and sell their wares, to trade it.

And you're immediately kind of, as you're looking around, kind of swallowed in by the

kind of vibrancy of the populace.

One man in his late 30s with very kind of edged mustaches and a dark mop of hair up top, runs up,

says,

Friends, friends, hello.

I'm looking to sell some of the finest mulberry silk and mulberry leaves

if you'd like, or other quality crafts.

No,

I'll

other quality crafts.

We're not talking livestock and plants.

You can move military hardware?

I'm a simple simple farmer.

Uh,

sorry.

Um.

And he continues kind of walking along, having found the uh the the wrong sort of folk, he seems, and he was looking for.

Um.

Perhaps rather than finding a forge, could we find a merchant who's selling wares

like of like metal goods and try and trace and maybe see if this person is hungry enough to be peddling their wares if if we can convince them to make some bullets for us rather than looking around trying to find a back blacksmith.

Thank you for walking around knocking on doors saying hey, can you make some bullets for us?

Not exactly as clandestine as we need to be.

I figure if our employer could just buy these, he'd do it himself.

So obviously we need to find a roundabout way of doing this and above table check.

We're talking like flintlock pistols.

We're talking like balls and shot.

Yeah,

these are like iron balls specifically for like tepo

so relatively like

high-tech weaponry, low-tech ammunition.

Correct.

Where if we find someone who knows how to manipulate metal, they should be able to make this ammunition for us.

It's also right about this time, it's kind of hard not to notice.

As you're heading through this area, you notice like the crowd is kind of keeping a wide berth around the exterior of one officious-looking structure.

where you notice a troop of several armored soldiers, a number of Ashigaru, straw hats not too dissimilar to yours, with Yari spears at their side and armored, like a cluster of them kind of guarding the exterior of this building.

Since you're the most connected here, make a

cognition or a guile check.

I'll accept either for this.

Alright.

Seven.

Seven's not bad.

It hits your mind just as the figure emerges.

Two figures actually emerge.

One, you do not recognize,

is stepping out of the building, a fully heavily armored samurai.

A daunting figure, tall and wide,

full helmet.

You can see across their face

this mask that

has

teeth carved into it with large almost tusk-like curves out the side,

a toothed grin that kind of curves up with a wiry mustache that kind of sprouts out the edges, cold eyes from beneath the menpo mask itself.

It's kind of holds an intensity.

The figure next to him that you do recognize, a well-dressed middle-aged man that you know as Imai Sokyu,

who is

a member of the merchant council of the city and is very much mingled in the business and trade of the town.

Imai Sokyu.

They both kind of emerge from the building and talking to each other.

And as they do, like other townsfolk kind of see the samurai figure and kind of just step away.

He kind of just carries a presence with him.

And the other Ashigaru soldiers kind of follow in kind as they continue to walk down the street together, just having a casual conversation.

It's rare to see a samurai in full garb, but also this one is

in particularly

his armor is designed to set a presence.

So he's more of a peacekeeping presence as opposed to somebody that's

I guess he's an assassin.

Maybe not technically a samurai because there's these merchants that are controlling the city.

But

you say that he's

it's unique that he's coming out.

To be walking in the middle of the town at this point with one of the heads of the merchant council, which do not have any sort of

classical samurai on this scale under their employ,

it is odd.

You'd like to get the feeling that he's either not local or somebody is wearing the garb of a samurai for

make a cognition check for me.

Okay.

All right.

The twelve, right?

Mm-hmm.

Five

plus two.

Seven.

Seven, okay.

That's not too bad um the best you can make out you do not recognize this figure at all you've never seen them but you've never seen them which means they are definitely not from sakai this is not their home so they are likely visiting and they're visiting and conversing very casually with uh one of the members of the the council here so there is some big business going on around this time pardon me did you say the face was visible

uh of of the the the uh samurai imaias samurai no uh you can see the the eyes just barely beneath the the helmet and there is a Menpo mask in the front that kind of completely obfuscates the front of the face.

I don't know, they're all chill.

Yeah.

They're just talking as the rest of the Ashigaru soldiers are kind of like walking alongside them.

This one deal.

That's too much for one day.

And normal Sakai.

I need to find out a little bit more before I fulfill

this order from Takeda.

I'm going to look

at you all so we we need to figure out exactly where we stand in this whatever it is is there any way these guys one can be sent in to feel out

to cause a commotion or an incident you want to do a you want to do a classic walk and follow them maybe perhaps yeah all right how I don't want to be prominently like I don't want to be out there or I'm going to look like a challenge to them

how's your play acting

good

I'm just sorry we don't exactly blend in.

Yeah, we don't exactly blend.

I'm quite happy to offer him

your services.

Are we saying, let's go and

eavesdrops?

Yeah, you're a fan of the female.

As soon as I hear the waffling, I'm going to just break off from the group and try to slowly start following them through the shadows.

I think it took too long.

Make a guile check out.

A guy's check?

Okay.

Cool.

My intent's full stealth here.

Hey, that's not bad.

Who you could approach and say, how can I join the ranks?

That's a tent.

I'm a female, but I'm, you know, formidable.

Good.

Yeah.

Okay.

You slip into the shadows and kind of like

it's a combination of both keeping off of the road and kind of keeping out of sight, but also kind of blending in with the crowd best you can for being visually non-local.

But still managed to pull it off pretty well, kind of obscuring your

I think my dark, like my dark sort of stick straight hair, I'll wear it down and low, and if I can kind of obscure myself in my traditional villager garb.

So you do a great job of hiding.

However, a voice perks up

between the three of you that goes,

you look funny.

And you can't help but Garrett look down this towering red-headed massive mountain of an Irishman at

a boy probably no older than 11 years old who's looking up at you, his arms kind of cocked on his hip.

He's got that kind of attitude that like a pre-teenager has when his parents aren't around.

He's like, so what what's your deal?

Where are you from?

It's true, isn't it?

Do you know?

I have a head like a torch, and at night, it burns and can be seen for miles around.

No.

That's

our

yummy.

I feel compelled to step in at this point as this child is perhaps blowing our chance to be subtle and get more information and would like to intimidate him away into or intimidate him into silence so we can fulfill our purpose of gaining information.

Alright, what would you do to try intimidate this child?

So I think I might roll for might and see if I can intimidate him away just with stepping forward

alongside, I mean Garrett is formidable, but just to growl from below the brim of my

all right go ahead and roll with might.

Great.

Oh, that's 14 might for this little one.

Wait, wait, wait, you're doing

a little kid.

So I might just step forward, drop the carnival on the ground with a little thump,

and exhale in his direction.

He goes,

Um, I look, I didn't know.

And she raises a finger to her mouth.

Tommy's off.

Turns back and looks back, and you see a young woman in her 20s or so, you know, dark hair,

normal working clothes, kind of rushes up and goes, Hey, G, what's

I'm so sorry.

He.

This one belongs to you.

Oh, no, no, no.

Belongs to a friend.

There's Smithies down the road.

He's just kind of a rambunctious

kid.

Hey, G, would you not bother the clearly armed and intense figures walking the street?

Short temper, this one.

And you see that he's looking back

at Umigo's like,

yeah,

his head's on fire.

Like, of course it is.

That's why you don't bother them.

And kind of like moves Heiji a little bit behind his head.

I'm sorry, bother you about that.

We'll get out of your hair.

I love that interesting information about blacksmith family, did you say?

You said blacksmithy?

Family, just down the road.

Yeah, she stops.

Oh.

Yeah,

Heiji's parents, they're blacksmiths.

I don't know.

Hey, J looks pretty spooked.

And he's like, He can trust us.

Does the fireman get to come?

Absolutely.

Ever go for a ride on a mountain?

You pick HF and put him on your shoulder.

He's kind of this spindly boy who kind of like clutches on

your neck and it's like, whoa!

It's on fire!

As you kind of carry along, Tommy Coke.

Nice.

Kind of crosses our arms a bit and kind of smiles.

Like, sure, I'll introduce you to Ren at the very least.

Thanks for

letting your friend give him a little bit of a ride.

He doesn't get to wander too much if he's not helping at the Smith.

So,

anyway.

Your co-worker's eating mystery leftovers.

Again, but you, you respect your lunch break.

Grab a new toasted pizza sandwich from Jimmy John's.

Yeah, toast it.

Try the Sicilian salami, capicolo, ham, rich marinara, gooey mozzarella, and oregano basil, all on golden French bread.

Or go cheese mode with the three cheese, parmesan, provolo, and mozzarella, dripping with marinara and herbs.

Hot, melty, seriously satisfying.

Order one, Fronta, Jimmy John's new toasted pizza sandwiches.

Oh, that's good.

At participating locations for a limited time while supplies last.

Did you know Tide has been upgraded to provide an even better clean and cold water?

Tide is specifically designed to fight any stain you throw at it, even in cold.

Butter?

Yep.

Chocolate ice cream?

Sure thing.

Barbecue sauce?

Tide's got you covered.

You don't need to use warm water.

Additionally, Tide pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new coldzyme technology.

Just remember: if it's gotta be clean, it's gotta be tied.

When it comes to delivering flowers for life's special occasions, trust the name that's been setting the standard for nearly 50 years, 1-800flowers.com.

From breathtaking bouquets to one-of-a-kind arrangements, 1-800 Flowers is your authority on quality blooms.

Always fresh, always stunning, always delivered with care.

And right now, for a limited time, you can save up to 40% off your bouquet and make someone's day.

Save up to 40% off today at 1-800-Flowers.com/slash SXM.

That's 1-800-Flowers.com/slash SXM.

Hey there, critters!

This year marks our 10-year anniversary of Critical Roll, and we are partnering with Fathom Entertainment to bring our 2025 tour to movie theaters across the U.S.

and Canada.

Head to theaters to see the wedding of the year coming to theaters on October 15th with an iconic Jester and Ford wedding at our New York City live show.

Visit fathomentertainment.com slash critical role to find tickets in theaters near you.

That's fathomentertainment.com/slash critical role.

So, as you walk back with them towards the Smith, we're gonna come to you as you are.

Right, I look over my shoulder, going, Where the fuck is that?

Yeah, yeah.

So,

I'm

trying to stay tight, like within like 15, 20 feet, kind of in the shadows of blending in with the group.

And I'm trying to clock any kind of info about what, because this has piqued my curiosity, too.

Like, I do feel like I know a lot of people in town, and this is, I don't know, it's just one of those kind of serendipity kind of days.

A lot of passion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So

they're walking, talking to each other, and it seems to be like their conversation is casual, but then every bit of time,

Imai kind of leans in pretty close and seems to like whisper a bit to the samurai.

The samurai seems unaffected.

There's like

there's two different levels of conversation happening here, I guess you could say.

Yeah, but no no information about anything moving through the city.

Like, are they having like, and I'm really trying to like peek in for anything that might be.

Listen to their conversation.

I want to get close enough to roll cognition for me to see that.

Well, it's not

best.

Let's go.

Oh, boy, I'm just poopy.

Ah, fuck.

Whoops.

A five.

A five.

Damn.

I know, not great.

So you, I know.

You try to listen in, kind of move through, and as you are getting close enough or you're starting to pick up bits of the conversation, you kind of like turn around the corner and one of the Ashigaru soldiers kind of like steps in front.

Kind of gives you the notion to like

fuck off essentially.

Oh, so I'm so I'm made.

Or at the very least, he's like, you're too close.

Okay.

I'll just give him just a...

beaming smile.

But then also like just a little bit like

maybe inhibited and just wave wave away and just kind of like hands in pop no pockets, but hands that wander off back to the group.

Okay.

Yeah, useless side quest.

All right.

Wandering through the streets of the city, the sun slowly comes to set and the night comes into

the streets of Sakai.

At this point, now some of the shops have closed, but also some of the evening establishments have continued their business.

You can catch all manner of people still going about their business and work for the day.

But Tomiko is kind of just walking along the way, conversing a bit with the rest of the troop here.

So, what

you see kind of a motley crew walking through town here at this hour.

What's your business?

What do you need a smithy for?

Well, business does bring together strange bedfellows.

We are actually hunting around town for someone who is

especially versatile in metalworking.

Have sort of a unique

need.

And,

you know, business is stretched a bit at the moment.

We have a possibility.

Well, if we can find the right craftsman.

We'll see if we can.

Arina and Nakamura are very talented blacksmiths.

Most of their work tends to be in the realm of you know, what sells well, which is, you know, their specialty is tobacco knives.

However, they make all sorts of odds and ends.

And I'm sure whatever sort of custom masks you might have, at least they can be of help.

Here it is coming right upon it.

And off to the left-hand side of the

main road where she's kind of led you, you can see this compact,

very modest but very functional smithy built into a longer building with the front of it there.

You can see a woman in her 30s or so

is kind of just sitting on the side with a display spread of various small blades and utensils.

And right as you begin lumbering up, she kind of sits up and goes, Hey G, Hey G, what are you doing?

Sorry, I heard this was yours.

He's like,

Mom, I rode a giant.

It was amazing.

And she's like,

Okay, Heiji.

Well, thank you for giving my son a ride.

And

Tomiko.

And she's like, I tried to follow him.

He gets

like how he gets.

And she kind of tussles his hair a bit and he smiles up at her.

Anyway,

Rin, these fine folks here are looking for someone of your craft and skills, apparently.

So I guess a little bit of

good fate has brought you all together.

Peta, feel free to go about business.

And I'll try and keep your son in order.

And he's already kind of like run off and is just being a terror in the street.

Rin sits up and kind of wipes her hands for you.

You can see she has a little bit of that like soot on the edges of her chin and she has a cloth wrapping around her head.

She's not wearing her leather apron, but it is hung up on the side.

And you can already, the kind of the heat that emanates from the inside of her complex itself is noticeable as you approach.

But she sits up, like, kind of adjusting her back a little bit.

So, what can I help you with?

Could we take a moment inside her very heated complex?

I mean, have a word with her.

You can ask her that?

Yeah.

She's like,

sure, yeah, we can step in a bit.

Just kind of takes a moment back, and you can see Tomiko and Heiji are now just kind of sitting outside a bit.

Heiji's now like looking back, and he's like trying to be curious about what you're all doing and his eyes are still kind of locked on the strange red-haired man.

What are you doing at this time?

I'm not back yet.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I'm kind of like lost him a little bit.

So I'm making my way back through the market, like looking for signs of which way direction they want to go.

I feel like I've got an idea, but I'm just not quite caught up yet.

I'm also going to try to steal some shit.

Okay.

Nothing major.

What are you trying to steal?

I'm just trying to to shoplift some food.

Sure, go ahead and roll guile for me.

Yeah, great.

Oh, that's what I'm good at.

Okay.

Finally found it.

14.

14, yeah.

Easily, like, whatever you want, you pocket it with a 14.

I'm not greedy.

I'm going to take one, two, three, four.

I guess I saw them.

Were they engaging with

the kid yet when I left?

I'm going to grab half a dozen Onigiri and uh one apple for myself.

Okay, fair enough.

As you begin to kind of find your way back, you while you separated for a bit, you come to find the exterior of this Smith works.

Yeah, so well done, they've they've found something.

They're all like standing like a semi-kind of like looking in.

And we're just gonna I'm just gonna pop up behind Garrett and go, huh, found the Smithy.

I'll toss them each uh I'll toss them each and Onigiri.

Yeah, yeah.

You'll get a snack as you're all walking inside.

As they're all stepping in, you see, kind of across the street, a little further down,

the samurai and Imai Sokyu are like stepping out of a nearby street and are kind of joining into the main intersection just across the way.

And they've kind of stopped for a second with the rest of the soldiers there.

While you all kind of step into the smithy.

Do we see that soldier, or only he sees it and keeps it to himself?

Only he sees it because the three of you have stepped into the building at the time.

Okay.

I'll walk into the building with you.

Is there a shuttable door?

No, it's an open store, friendly.

Okay, well,

I'll just duck out of view.

Yeah.

I don't want them.

I've made my presence known.

So Rin's going to wiped her hands.

Like, what can we help you with?

Thank you for giving us a bit of your time.

We are trying to facilitate a bit of business.

This evening we have been vetting different metal workers, and we're

on the hunt for somebody with a bit of versatility

versatility uh i mean we're pretty versatile what we can do we uh

we can check in with my husband Nakamura he's currently with a client on the south end of the city

but I'm pretty crafty in my own right

what what is it you're looking for we saw your wares outside

looks uh

looks fine enough but you'd be able to improvise a bit

Sure, sure.

She takes a little cup of now cold tea off to the side and kind of sips it.

Direct, I like it.

Oh,

I'm not used to it, but it'll do.

You see a look behind her eyes of

acknowledgement.

I mean, that makes sense.

Certainly a lot of soldiers coming through town these days.

Is there some kind of naval operation underfoot I'm unaware of?

It's a great question.

It's one that I want answered.

I haven't gotten it yet, but

that is the most important question.

But, you know,

I'm dealing with the issues at hand right now.

It's: can we find somebody that can supply a certain amount of ammo?

We're more of uh

middle

people.

Yeah.

She kind of nods for a minute.

Okay.

I mean, we...

It wouldn't take too long to...

At this point, you hear like some gasps outside.

And kind of people's attention kind of...

Everyone kind of looks around and you hear like Haiti's voice go, what?

And you all kind of turn and look across the street where that conversation was happening,

a standard civilian of the town is been knocked onto the ground, like into a bit of muck, and is kind of like on all fours, pushed down.

The armored samurai kind of stands over him.

And as he kind of glances down kind of intensely,

kind of cracks his head to one side.

Your disrespectful gaze is noted, Worm.

Now bow before me as you would before Lord Nobunaka.

People kind of freeze around.

All the various movement and chatter has just come to an immediate standstill.

And the gentleman who was pushed to the ground kind of turns around, looks up at him fearfully,

and leans down and goes into a very, very deep bow before the samurai.

The samurai nods, looks to the Imai Sokyud to his right, nods to him.

Good.

And with one spell swoop, he carves through and cuts this man down in the street.

The collective

gasps.

You see Heiji kind of step into Tomiko.

Tomiko kind of guarding him for a minute and taking a step back.

He flicks the blood from his blade and looks at it.

Needs to be sharpened.

Shh.

Sheathes it.

and just walks away with Imai, who's like a bit disturbed, but continues conversation.

The rest of the soldiers kind of staying behind across the road.

Rin kind of leans out a bit and goes,

Tomenko,

why don't you go take

Heiji over to Otori Shrine for a bit, play with him there, maybe just get him out of the

thoroughfare.

Tominko go nods, of course.

Heiji,

why don't we go...

Why don't we go play somewhere else, right?

And he goes, okay.

She kind of takes him by the arm and they both kind of leave.

Slowly, the cityscape begins to reclaim a semblance of its energy, but there is definitely a shaken mood to the space.

Yeah, Sakai is, I mean, obviously like a bustling town.

A lot of like commerce.

But like, is

open murder in the streets?

Is this like, it's not a common occurrence?

It's not a common occurrence.

However, it's a violent place.

Violence does break out here.

Okay.

There is, unfortunately, in some spaces,

a samurai

activity referred to as sword testing.

That some samurai use as a power play in public to where they want to check whether or not their blades are battle-ready.

And sometimes we'll use people that don't matter to check that.

Okay.

What I caught and bristled at was the the name of Odo Nobunaga from him.

So I'm curious if this samurai is affiliated with Oda Nobunaga, and if that then means that there's some connection between Oda and Imai, like with the Merchant Council.

Is

some move about to be made on Sakai from Oda Nobunaga?

Could very well be.

Based on the terminology he used in the street, it seemed to imply some sort of

connection of perspective between him and, as he said, Lord Nobunaga.

But he has now continued up the street with Emai, while the rest of his soldiers kind of stayed behind there and kind of keeping an eye in the middle of the walkway.

Rin has kind of stepped back into the structure here.

Is there anybody that we can ask about what is happening, what operation is going down?

Is anybody familiar with

what's happening?

Why the samurais come out?

Could we ask his soldiers?

If you want to.

Yeah.

That's fair enough.

I'll see.

Sure.

So what would I...

Can I roll?

Can I just go up and say what is...

You can just walk and approach if you'd like to.

Now, where they stand, especially because of what just transpired, there is a rather wide berth.

People who are still walking kind of keep

a fair distance.

How many of them are there?

You would see there are

six figures you see.

There are three Ashigaru with Yari spears.

You see two Ashigaru with bows.

And there is one kind of

appears to be

an armored samurai, helmetless at the moment, that is not anywhere near as

ostentatiously decorated as the masked figure that left

with Imai.

Me being such an

imposing figure

perhaps

Garrett could you ask them

I'll be there but I think I might stand out just I would personally love to approach I feel very yeah because I so want to just be a warrior and learn how and so to uh approach them seems um

appealing to me okay as you all begin to kind of step out of our ring goes like what wait what are you doing what are you

Side question because I don't want to march up to these soldiers at all, but are there shops on this street in addition to where we are?

Oh, there are many shops.

Okay, so what I'm gonna do because I don't I'm nervous about this going tits up.

I'm going to just walk across the road and pretend to browse wares so I am close in the vicinity, but not having eyes on it.

I'm just tracking it.

And you're used to drawing eyes anyway.

Just by the nature of you standing out like the reddest of sore thumbs amongst the populace.

But yeah, you go ahead and kind of duck into one of the nearby shops.

To back you up, so I'm absolutely in with this.

You

you stay out of the way.

And you

are watching your samurai guy.

You're off stealing out.

I am sitting right next to the...

Well, who was the head of the forge?

Not Tomiko.

Oh, Rin.

Rin?

Yeah, I'm just sitting next to Rin, finishing up my owning Gary, just kind of watching you guys walk out into the streets.

Yeah.

And you notice her, like...

She's just like dispersed, right?

There's other people walking through the film.

Oh, yeah, there's all sorts of people.

People are like, are still going about their day.

You get the sense that moments of violence like this are uncommon, but not to the point where the shock halts people's day.

And the city's kind of, everyone's kind of slowly going about their business, but there is that kind of tension that sits in the air.

As I'm sitting there, what kind of material do we remember what they asked for?

It was like lead or iron?

Iron.

I'm watching you guys walk off.

He's kind of like rolling his eyes to himself

because we're off mission.

But it's like,

all right.

My last little bit of rice from my Onigiri.

Like, as I'm sitting next to her and talking to her, I'm going to roll into a little ball,

roughly the size of a piece of ammunition.

I'm just going to hold it in my hand, and I'm going to lean over to Ryan and go, one of these

iron.

A couple hundred, couple thousand.

That's the deal.

I'm going to flip it to her.

She kind of catches it, and she's paying attention to you, but she's also watching your friends approaching this cluster of

armed warriors.

It's like,

Okay.

I'll keep this in mind.

I'll talk to my husband when he gets back.

And she, like, without even thinking, like, takes a bite.

And you see her eyes kind of darting off in the direction of where Tomiko and Heiji went.

And there's just kind of like

she's a bit distracted at the moment.

But then eventually comes back to you and goes, I'll talk with my husband.

See, there's something going on in this town.

These guys, they just want to complete the mission.

I have

reservations about completing the mission.

I'll complete it if it's fine, but I have to check out every angle.

See if we're not going to start a national war.

I don't want to.

I got you, baby.

I'll be an angle on your angle.

So, to that,

I'll slip out of the room and duck into an alley, and I'm going to wait for you two to do whatever it is you're going to do.

But I got your back, whether you talk that or not.

So, the two of you approach with kind of Umi leading the

forward momentum.

Yes.

Because I feel like this is the turning point.

If I get the information about what battle might be about to transpire that we might be

facilitating by getting munitions to it.

Because

as much as I would love to be a warrior, I don't like Oronobunaga.

That's who I feel I am against.

I don't want to aid him.

So before going through with this first mission of checking in with the forge and getting all this ammo, I would like to approach the man who is not as heavily adorned as you described.

Right, so yeah, so the samurai, as you approach, this gentleman in his 30s,

like kind of scruff on his chin and his upper lip,

kind of longer,

kind of oily hair.

Looks like he probably hasn't bathed in a few days or so, and the armor is probably sweaty in its own right.

It's not like heavy,

but definitely enough to kind of show station as a samurai.

He's commanding the squad, he is the highest.

It looks like amongst them, yes.

Because all the rest of them are like either mercenaries or like Ashigaru soldiers with straw hats on, but they'll probably take it off now at this point in the day.

Oh, he has a katana.

Okay.

Okay.

Katana and Wakasashi.

But as you kind of step, you know, they're all kind of looking about and kind of conversing with each other.

They all kind of be, they all look a bit like they're waiting for something.

And as soon as you begin to step forward, like the samurai kind of glimpse of her, you turns his head to the side at the sight of this, this, this five-foot-three armored mountain of a woman.

Kind of looks.

Can we help you?

That samurai mentioned, Lord Nobunaga.

Just jive right in.

This is the thing.

Humi is not very subtle.

And so that's why she's like reluctant to talk.

Garrett's holding a melon 20 feet away in his eyescope.

She's just like very dressed.

I love it.

All these guys, I love it.

She's like 20 years old.

She's lived on a farm her whole life, just surrounded by brothers.

She's just like left the farm.

She's just like, hate Nobunaga.

But, you know, she's very inspired by the subtlety and the

intelligence of you all.

So she's like, I'm going to try and be...

step in and have a slick conversation with this song.

He looks at you as you say the name and he kind of

nods and kind of gives a little smirk like,

indeed, we are here on a diplomatic mission for Lord Ora Nobunaka.

A diplomatic mission?

Why do you ask?

And now she thinks I'll connect him.

This poor gal is like, diplomatic mission?

What does that mean for this city?

So

now she was like, she's like, okay.

She really wants to have the help of this,

who she sees as a mentor, though he doesn't know it.

Say the right thing, girl.

Say the right thing.

Do you want to join?

And where can you like it?

Yeah, so like trying to get more information to play, ah, a diplomatic mission.

Are you in need of finders?

Okay.

Make a guile check for me.

Okay.

Let's see if I can boost my zero guile.

Yeah.

Nine's not bad.

He gives you a look and says,

You're certainly armored as a warrior.

Trained as one, too.

And

where does your alliance lie here

in the unification of our great nation?

My alliance is with the greatness of this nation and all who pull pull towards that.

Hmm.

That was a good answer.

Looks like the soldiers.

Well then.

Stay close.

The night should get interesting.

That's all he says.

She bows and retreats.

Okay.

So she comes to share that with us or with myself?

Do you choose to go and share that with the rest of us?

I will share that with the rest of you, yes.

Okay, cases of interest to y'all.

Ah, so diplomatic?

Yeah, that's so diplomatic.

I heard that in Star Wars.

Diplomatic.

Diplomatic means war.

Diplomatic sounds as though it means discussion, but to be receiving, to being open to

recruits sounds like there is

so you can get close with him.

Yes, perhaps.

But no, Bunaga, I also don't have

affection for him.

We don't like him, no.

When she says,

when he says that they're talking out loud like this, you can get in close and she says yes, is there like the equivalent of an insight check on this?

I want to know like how interested she is.

Can I clap?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So then I want you to go ahead and roll cognition and you roll guile once more.

Great.

Okay.

I want to see how honest that answer was.

Ten, Guile.

Uh, I rolled a natural ten plus two.

Ooh,

so, so, okay.

So, yeah, give him, give him an honest read of your intent here.

Right.

My honest read.

I.

I don't support Lord Nobunaga.

My intention is to get closer to get more information

and

and perhaps to thwart Lord Nobunaga's intent.

Alright, so I glean that that was your intention in talking with them.

And I go,

yeah, I know I could trust you, farm girl.

So, what's the play?

Rin, at this point, by the way, who is kind of at the back of her shop, watches you all like walk back after conversing with these soldiers, you know, unharmed after watching another civilian cut down,

kind of

nods.

I'm gonna go and retrieve my husband

and Heiji.

I think I'm gonna close shop early.

Maybe, perhaps we have enough business to not have to worry about being open for the night.

And she begins to kind of shut her up.

About this time, you hear in the distance.

Another horn goes off.

And the soldiers across the street kind of look at each other.

The samurai reaches to his side and pulls out his own horn and blows into the air loudly.

As soon as he finishes his horn, one of the warriors next goes, is it time?

The samurai goes,

it seems it is.

At which point they all draw their weapons and just start carving through the closest civilians they can.

Screams begin to erupt throughout the street.

You begin to hear the intensity of combat erupting here in the middle of Sakai and in the early night as bloodshed and cries take space.

Rin is now like put against the back, and other people are just running out.

Children, merchants, all certain types.

What do you do?

So it, so hold on a minute, Matt.

Hold on a minute.

So we're in

a fairly wide open public thoroughfare, multiple shops, including the smithy.

Yes.

The blinged-up samurai and a few additional guards are just slaughtering anybody around them.

The mass samurai is gone.

The samurai that's kind of been head of this contingent is there with

five other figures that are kind of Ashigara mercenaries.

It's clear it's noble.

You can gather at this point that some sort of

age is beginning.

To just kill everybody.

They were exploded throughout the city, and it just kicked off.

And we're watching.

Yes.

Our slice of life is over.

I think a lot of people's slice of life is over today.

We had a good run.

Yeah.

Well, I think it's clear that

the bullets are needed for this

battle.

What if it's to defend Sakai?

What if our merchant this is the thing?

Who's it?

Takeda.

Yeah, now we don't know who it's for.

If they're already slaughtering people,

who's he supplying?

And that is a larger hovering problem, but at the moment

there are people slaughtered, getting slaughtered to serve our own lives and save anybody else

who's in the line of fire.

Yeah, we're on the battlefield now.

So

another person nearby just gets carved down by the shoulder.

This older woman who's trying to flee just gets cut down to the street.

You see the samurai pull his blade back and is looking for his next target.

Behind him, you see one of his soldiers is now setting fire to one of the buildings across the way as flames begin to burn and curl up to the thatched roof.

I gotta go out.

I've got to run in.

I'll tell you what.

Until this point, I was like, don't make a scene because you stick out like a sore thumb amongst the local authorities.

These are not local authorities.

Yes.

Stride out.

All right, so I need that.

Everybody, roll initiative.

Roll your D12 and add your initiative to it.

A six around each one.

Okay.

Come on.

Come on here.

Damn it.

Two.

I rolled a 10, which is good because I'm at negative 4, so I got a healthy little six.

Alrighty.

So, with that, we have 10 to 5.

So, you got a 6?

Yes.

Wow, you're out of the gate.

Hell yeah.

Okay.

We're all in 12 or 10.

I'm sorry.

I feel like I'm also closer to them.

I rolled a natural 11 with a zero.

Oh, so yeah.

So you're up for all right.

So we have Ruffino.

He's quick.

Rufino, followed by Umi.

And then that's 10 to 5, 5, 2, 1.

Okay.

I had a 2 plus a 3.

We had 2 plus 3, so you're 5, right?

5, 3, 3, 3.

Alright, great.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that'll put you.

Alrighty.

So.

And we have.

We made it to the center of the street.

Different win.

Is it done?

The fly hasn't started yet.

Alright, and you are.

Negative 2.

Negative.

What?

You have any of your door?

You want to get the 10?

I rolled a 1, minus 3.

What was the order?

Alrighty.

So, Rufino, you are up first.

You can see now these six warriors are kind of spread out.

Now, there's three with spears.

One that finished lighting the building has now set his torch down to the side, and they're now knocking arrows into their large bows.

Plus,

plus the samurai up front, so six total.

If honor were a stat, Rufino's would be in the negative for sure.

But seeing that old lady cut down,

that's where he draws the line because it reminds him of the old lady that took care of him when he was a child.

And it's just, he's, his blood boils.

And I'm going to see if I can.

Is there any way I can make my way to like any of the rooftops of the shops around?

Could I use my yeah, you can totally do that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, so go ahead and roll agility to try and agility or might, your choice, to try the rooftop.

That's cards.

Yep.

Oh, and that's a

man.

Steal some, steal someone Geary.

I'm off the chain.

Climb a roof.

That's a two.

That's a two.

So you go in and leap to the nearest rooftop or go to head towards it as the torch from the other bowman gets thrown up there.

And that ignites.

Oh, gee.

There's now the faintest bit of crackling flames now starting to catch all around you in the space.

So

as the entire central space here is starting to burn in your area, you have no rooftop to get to.

But you still get an adrenaline point because now that we are in combat, any rolls

acquire adrenaline.

So nothing up there.

What do you want to do?

I was like, ah, shit.

Time to get my hands dirty.

No, I failed.

So fate said I cannot parkour.

Although I would have very much liked to.

That's not what I'm built for.

I'm going to just kind of like dip through the crowds, like super sneaky style.

I'm going to go for that guy to cut down that old lady.

Okay, go for it.

Yeah.

let's go.

Because you've already rolled once, this would be pushing the advantage on this.

Oh, right.

Okay, so

because you're still doing it in the same turn, your first roll.

Well, the first roll failed, actually.

So, no.

So, so, uh,

you know what?

Oh, my, oh, I'm done.

Yeah.

Unfortunately.

Sorry.

So you try and get there.

He does it, though.

Yeah.

I'll say.

By the way, I think of the nerd before, but I created the system for this game.

So also we're learning it as we go.

And I can tweak things if I want.

I'll say because that was not an actual major action,

you didn't even get a chance to do it in this space I won't consider that your first action so you still get your turn because that would be kind of nice so go for it.

Yeah, I was trying to make a move to make him a play, but yeah, all right, cool.

Yeah, so I'll duck through and I'll go in for that guy.

And

so

I didn't tell you guys talked about your weapons.

I never did.

I have a very like

very

common looking hunter's bow, like a Yumi bow, on my back.

And then

that's why you're going on.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I have a quiver that is also very, very very basic.

And you can't see the arrows.

That doesn't matter.

Both of them have hidden the tanto that I have, like, strapped to the small of my back.

And I'm going to pull it out.

And

I'm so plain clothed and like

nasty looking.

This is the finest weapon you've ever seen.

I mean, it is just, it's like, it's, my entire life.

earnings have been put into this weapon and it is beautiful and gilded and and I'm gonna pull it out.

I'm gonna gonna go stick this guy who's who's I'm gonna try my best let's go all right cool I'll dip in on him uh pretty good uh I'll that's a nine a nine definitely hits him cool cool uh and then so that's just uh one I am gonna push my advantage because why not

take the wound so for those who aren't aware uh this is the d12 system d12 plus uh attributes i should explain this to the audience who are watching now that we're kind of in the thick of it um uh you know success or failure based on the difficulty or the dodge of the opponent that you're attacking.

But if you succeed in a roll, you can push the advantage, which means you can do an additional follow-up action or an additional follow-up attack.

But each time you push the advantage, the dice gets smaller.

And if you fail while pushing the advantage, there is a consequence to it.

So you are pushing the advantage, so your D12 becomes a D10.

Yep, I am.

I'm also going to be spend two adrenaline to use my special action Blade Fury, in which I can add my cognition to that my next roll.

Indeed.

And that's going to be

on the D10, pretty good.

9, 12, 14.

I'll come in for another post.

Two wounds on the samurai who cut down the old lady.

And it really pissed me off, so I'm going to push my binge again because you made a fun system.

Throw it.

Shit!

What?

Not one for a four.

A four does not succeed.

So you come in there, fury in your eyes.

One stab with the tonto.

It hits the armor.

The second one comes through, manages to catch some of the flesh.

The samurai kind of rears back.

The third blow you go for, he actually kicks you square in the chest and is going to come down with this blade as a reactive motion.

His attack on you, that's going to be an eight to hit you.

What's your dodge?

Oh,

it's a nine, man.

It's a nine.

The chest stuck out of the way.

The benefits of being unarmored is you're quick on your feet.

And now you're engaged.

And he kind of gives you a look.

Like, where the hell did you come from?

And I'm just gonna grin.

I'm gonna flip.

I'm gonna do like a mocking wipe of the blood of his own blood.

And I'm going to turn the Tonto into a downward, like a

knife fighter's pose.

Heck.

And just stand squared off.

And that ends my turn.

Great.

That finishes your go.

Next up, we have Umi with Ryuji on deck.

What do you want to do now?

Well, though I'm slow, I was hot on your heels, and you've done three attacks there.

So by this point, I am right where you were standing, and I would like to swing my conbo and just give a nice upper cut to this.

She got her.

Yes.

Let's go.

All right, so go ahead and roll it.

I should knock him out.

They're finishing off this lead.

We'll see.

Because we're going to plow through one at a time.

One, and then we're going to get on to the next play.

There you go.

So 12 plus your might.

Plus might.

Ooh, that's 10 plus 13 might for my attack.

That definitely succeeds.

So you take an adrenaline point from that strike as you uppercut him with your massive like iron spike combo.

Whack!

And you can see like it hits him upside the head.

And if he would have had a helmet on, it would have knocked it off.

But as he pulls back, there's a massive bloody spot on his head and he kind of like has to shake it off.

And he takes three wounds from that heavy combo hit.

Are you good with that, your turn, or do you want to push the advantage?

Oh.

I'd like to push the advantage and see if we can finish this.

A quick question.

How many points does it take to finish one of these?

You don't know.

He looks bloodied and hurt, which means he's taken a few hits.

He's not on death's door, but

he's definitely not looking pristine.

So I think we'll just let that one go.

I'd like to kind of carry this momentum through and go on to attack somebody else.

So I guess that ends my turn on.

Okay, got it.

That finishes your goal.

Ryuichi.

Okay, I'm in close vicinity to them.

Yeah, you guys are all kind of staying together.

So if you want to follow up to either go after the samurai or any of the targets, you're welcome to.

I'm confident in her ability.

And his.

All right.

They double-teamed on that lead guy.

Hell yeah?

I feel I have

exceptional skill.

I want to take on these four or five.

There are five of the figures.

There's three with the Yari spears that are like spearing people, spinning around, getting other civilians, chasing them down.

And there are two that you can see are firing arrows off into the distance.

And you can also see as you're glancing around, they're not facing me.

But

not at the very moment, but they're close by.

You could get there if you rushed.

I'm going to take out as many as I can.

Okay, you're going for that.

I have the advantage, but they're not looking at me and I'm not their, you know their their definitive target then i have the advantage and i'm quick with the sword instead of going off for one person i can take out these four who are clearly a threat i will take out as many as i can before i die so um let's go are you going for uh a spear uh i'm gonna go for the the two who's who's closest to me the spear gentlemen are closest to you the ones with the bows are behind them so yeah the spear guys first one by one i'm gonna keep them separated i love that

because there's four of them i can play their positioning so that they cannot get a clear shot.

So it's really maybe like two of them facing at all times.

And my skill is exceptional.

I'm going to roll.

Let's go for it.

All right.

You run forward, a hand on the hilt of your katana.

Go ahead and roll D12.

Add your mate.

All right.

Is that a nine or a six?

I can't tell.

It's a six-oh.

Yeah, nine total.

And

nine.

That is a success.

Oh, so you strike.

You strike the first Ashigari Warrior.

You talked a lot about your skill being exceptional.

up.

A lot of good love on that one.

So you did it.

You did it.

Welcome to tabletop.

I took out the warrior.

He took two wounds because you're trying to do one, their first strike.

Shhh, you carve through it.

He puts up the spear defensively, and it's not fast enough.

And you cut him through it.

They have like a Tatami, you know, like shuts the armor on the sides, and it carves through the first half of it.

He takes the wound, brings the spear around to get ready.

You can continue to attack if you want to push the advantage.

Yeah, I gotta push the advantage.

Let's go, roll a d10.

Add your might.

D10, D10.

That's this one, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Five.

Plus minus eight.

Five plus three is eight.

That hits as well.

He takes two more wounds.

This is what you

secondary slice down.

You cut him.

The blood spatters on the ground.

And he's like, he's still up, but he's barely standing and he's looking very, very hurt.

You also have earned two adrenaline points.

So I have two adrenaline total.

Correct.

Do you want to push the vintage again?

Yes.

All right.

I need to take them out.

Let's go for it.

Roll a D8 for me and add three.

What do I need to beat them, or you can't tell?

I can't, you don't know.

Oh, geez.

That's what that whole thing is for.

What the hell?

Drive it like you stole it.

Oh, good.

Oh, well, I can't tell.

It's a five.

It's a five.

The three.

Eight.

All right.

And so,

so.

So that finishes that one Ashigaru soldier.

How do you want to do it?

Yeah.

I'm looking at the other three.

I do a little spin, a little twist.

Dave!

And then I'm walking towards them.

He's like,

crumples to the ground, a spear dropping.

As you continue to walk towards the other ones, you close the gap.

You can continue if you want to push the advantage again.

But the dice get smaller, or you can end your turn there.

Up to you.

I'll end my turn.

Okay.

Awesome.

That finishes your turn.

Yes, yes, yes.

The two bow users in the back watch one of their own get cut down.

Both of them kind of looking at each other, seeing you both also coming in, smacking and like taking nearly the head off of their semi leader.

One of the individuals with the bow is going to fire on you while the other one's going to fire at you.

So against Umi over there, it's going to roll.

Oh, that is a five.

Oh.

What's your

seven?

Fires an arrow and just goes by without an issue.

The one that's firing on you, Ryuichi, oh, rolls a one plus one, two.

Both arrows just go wide.

They're kind of panicked at the sight of one of their friends carved down so quickly when they saw themselves themselves being surrounded by just the riffraff of Sakai.

Didn't expect all of a sudden to have these figures like emerging and attacking them immediately.

They're shaken.

The two remaining spearmen are going to try and get vengeance for their fallen friend, and they're both going to be attacking you.

This one's going to be a six plus one, seven to hit.

What's your dodge?

My dodge is

eight.

Eight?

Oh, woof, out of the way.

He's frustrated.

He's going to go ahead and push the advantage.

So he's going to go ahead and try and attack again, but it's a D10.

That's only going to be a five.

so that fails in his end you get to roll an attack back on him from yeah that's a 12 yep d12 okay

Another tough to read.

I know.

That's a five.

Five plus three.

Eight.

Eight will hit.

So you get two wounds

as a reactive strike on that Yumi spear holding.

He takes a hit.

His friend is going to try to use that moment to come up and attack you for his turn.

All right.

That is going to be.

Nah, that's a

one.

So yeah, you are just carving through.

They are trying hard to get any sort of purchase of the weapons on you, and you are just untouchable.

That's going to finish both the spear holders.

That brings us to Garrett and the Samurai's turn is actually.

Now, my confidence is not as sky high as my Ronin colleague.

So I take advantage of the fact that he has them so busy.

And I take my Kanobo and hold it in a really weird way.

Now, I've been here for two decades.

I have definitely learned some things here.

However, I am holding it in the battaract style, the Irish stick-fighting position.

It's a little bit like a tonfa, if you're familiar with that style of weapon and fighting.

And I come up from behind

and almost like I've got a lightning bolt in my hand, I spin it down and

try to strike twice on the I know it's just one attack, but one attack damage, but you super fast to the sides of his head.

This is to the samurai or one of the the Ary soldiers and the bowman.

Let's do the let's do the let's do the

fuck it.

Let's do the samurai.

All right,

that is an eight for might.

An eight hits.

That's kind of strike is three wounds on him.

Whack, a heavy crack on top of him.

You watch as part of his like chest armor gets knocked to the ground and he kind of stumbles into his back leg.

His head is still like heavily bloody.

One eye is kind of clouded with his own blood from the hit that you left on him.

And the second one kind of clobbers him up the side.

He's looking real rough.

If I give this fucker a chance to turn me, it's not gonna be pretty.

I'm pushing the attack.

That is a I rolled a 10.

That's a crit.

That is, yes,

yes.

So that is an additional wound on the hit.

That, how do you want to do this?

What did he get?

You got to kill him.

Oh, yeah.

All right, so it was quack, quack

to daze the guy.

And as he stumbles forward,

I spin the thing in my hand and bring the thick end of my wooden conaboe straight into the feller's face and unfortunately ruin it.

Done.

He is a hamburger patty-faced man on the ground, just scattered across the dirt.

The whole center point of this area is just wide open now.

People have like scattered off to the far ends.

People are running and screaming in the distance, and you can see other distant rooftops are now starting to catch fire, other parts of the city simultaneously.

You get the sense that this is far from the only force that is attacking from the inside.

However, there are still two standing Yari soldiers, or Ashigari soldiers, and two bowmen that are still present.

You can try and engage somebody else if you'd like to and push the advantage again or end your turn.

Did I not kill one?

It's so fine.

Oh, you did.

There were three spears.

Oh, jeez.

You took one out because there's just two.

And there's one that is wounded by you as well.

Two spears, two archer.

Yep.

One spear guy is wounded?

Yep.

Cool.

Thanks.

I have to go to the restroom quick.

You can go.

We'll keep them busy till you're back.

Yeah, we got you.

So, if the- I am gonna push it.

I'm gonna be stupid.

So, the heft of the weapon hit that feller in the face, and if there's someone else close at this point.

You can dash over to one of these spear users.

Possibly the one that's been wounded.

Okay.

I spin it down and immediately start running in low

and faint, and then

go towards the other one, not the one I was running towards.

Sure.

Pushing the attack.

I will use.

Do I i have to declare the adrenaline at the beginning yes you do all right

uh let's make this a cleaving blow i'll use the two adrenaline i've earned okay but it has to succeed

that's a nine that's a nine that succeeds on both of them all right so cleaving blow is three wounds three and three yeah three and three and the other uh the one that uh uh uh riuichi had struck earlier you dart up and

body check him and finish him entirely.

And as you go through, the sheer force of the blow cracks into the other spear holder next to him.

So you get a two-for-one strike on each as they, as one of them is now

like the wind is knocked out of him briefly, while the first one that you hit crumples to the ground.

Who you got to get the fuck out of here?

And that's the end for me.

Okay, that finishes your go.

The samurai is dead.

He doesn't get his turn.

All right.

Rufino, you're up.

Yeah, after watching this

red-haired whirlwind just

smash the guy that I was faced up with, zip across, and smash another guy.

I'm going to just lean over to Umi and go, remind me to mind my manners if I ever visit the aisles.

Give her a little wink, and I'll whip my bow off my back.

I'll knock an arrow, and I'll try for the archers in the back flank.

Okay.

Yeah.

Got a plug.

Yeah.

That's 12 or

doo doo poo-poo.

Poopy doo.

Big ol' poopy poops.

That's a three.

Three is unfortunately not going to be.

I know.

I love it.

The shoplifting, big success.

I said the cool eye and gave the girl the wink and everything.

I know, I know.

Man,

ain't that just life?

And the arrow just goes boing.

All right, so that finishes your go there.

Finishing, we're back to Umi.

That's all right.

I'm right behind you.

Behind you and beside you.

Beside you.

I'm just gonna clear my throat.

I'm just gonna.

Fair, fair.

And I'm gonna look to you, give you a wink and a smile.

And I'm going to take a swing at that same archer who's now turned to face us.

All right.

So you kind of dart past the spear.

So he took out the one that you had wounded, the spear of the wounded.

He's and then damaged the one next to him.

So there's still one of the spearmen standing who is wounded.

And now these both have focused on the archers in the back now.

And you watch Uni run past towards the archers in the back.

Go ahead and make your strike.

Okay.

So wielding my carnival with a six.

Nine.

Nine hits.

So that's three wounds on the bowmen.

Now, these gentlemen are not heavily armored.

And that first strike,

like hits him and sends him back.

He has to pick up his bow and he sits up and coughs of blood under his chest.

And goes and gets his arrow at the right as he backs up to try and get a shot on me.

Do you want to continue?

I would love to.

Oh, I can do it.

get a adrenaline point and then roll a d10 for your next attack right so i'm going to push that and i'm going to try uh

a cleaving blow use two of my adrenaline here

all right with uh uh three

plus so six six unfortunately does not hit so i tried to engage two so you did you go try and like

point them both down get your conabo ready and as you go to swing towards you before you even get a chance to swing the one that you didn't strike was already at the ready and had an arrow knocked and shh bleaches it towards you that is going to be a 10 to hit you what's your dodge dodge is seven so that's three dodge is seven you take two wounds two

two for archer yeah do we two wounds from the one arrow that shoof hits you and kind of like stops you, stops some momentum in the track and sets your strike just off enough where the other archer kind of ducks out of the way and backs up against the wall, kind of getting into offensive position with his his ally to the side but that's gonna finish your turn with that ryuichi you're up

nobody hits sisters on my watch

you better roll good i tried to do a cool line and then can i can i go off and take them two on at the same time you want to try and attack one and then push the attack well i'm gonna separate i'm gonna step in between that archer i'm gonna take the guy that just shot her yeah okay and if I can, if the other guy's in the vicinity, I'm gonna take him out too, all in one.

Like, let's go for it.

Yeah.

So, you, so you, you, you charge away from uh, from the one standing wounded spearman, run towards the Bogot user.

As you kind of rush in,

I step in between.

I'm going to take out him and secondarily the last archer.

Great.

Yes, the archer has that got pulled back that was already wounded by her, pulls back its arrow and sees you rush in.

With

you out of his prisoner.

I need a hobby.

Are you attacking with your katana or not going out?

Katana.

Okay, so go ahead and strike the wounded Bowy user.

Go ahead and roll D10.

Seven plus three, ten.

That's ten that hits.

All right, with that, you take him down.

How do you want to do this?

Describe how you got to roll this bow user.

It's clean, man.

Are you looking in the eyes?

His head right off, man.

I don't know if he's onto the ground, pushing the advantage to another bow user.

Can I aid if you push?

I want to spend an adrenaline to make it easier for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alrighty.

So, go ahead and you push your advantage.

Go ahead and roll a d10 and add your might.

And what are you adding to his?

I'm going to use might.

I'm going to horse kick the remaining guy at him.

Oh, great.

So as the other bow user turns around to try and prepare himself to defend, you watch out of the corner your eye, Garrett just goes ahead and

just

heavily kicks the standing spearman who gets pushed into the side of the bowman, throwing off his ability to avoid.

Go ahead and roll you with that.

What I got to roll?

High.

All right.

And then add his might as well.

That's a three.

So we got to get you a new dice.

That is a three.

But you've got his advantage.

so six total.

Six.

And do I add my might or not?

You add your might, yeah.

You got a six.

Two, I have a two plus two might.

It's eight.

So it's eight, which does hit.

So with that,

that is two wounds.

That is awesome.

Yes.

Nice.

So you managed to carve down the bowman.

It takes a heavy hit.

He's still standing, but he's pretty badly hurt.

Do you want to continue to?

The last one.

Well, him and these the spear user as well.

Those are the last two standing.

And I roll with a ten now.

Well, you roll with you roll with an eight if you attack again.

Do you want to risk it or not?

Fuck it, yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Which one's the eight?

Which one's the eight?

It's the triangle, the pointy one.

Okay, there you go.

After this, we go to Vegas.

This one, huh?

Looks good.

What is it?

That's a crit, baby.

That's an eight.

That's an eight, yeah.

I love this game.

Winning, winning,

well.

So, how do you want to do this?

How do you want to carve down this final bowman?

I'm going to pull.

He pulled one of

these arrows back.

Arrow back towards you as he turned the sky.

Yeah, first of all, I'm going to cut right through all that equipment, that apparatus.

Like you could take a finger off or his wrist off like that, and he falls to his knees.

Stab him right through the collarbone, right through the middle, right into his torso, through his groin.

Out.

The spear user is like,

and he's going to try and turn to run.

Do you want to continue to push?

No.

He's going to go run, and he's going to bring a message back.

Okay.

Fair enough.

The final spearman, who's wounded, just goes charging off to try and

get away from.

What do I have next?

You will be in a second.

Don't forget to mark your adrenaline for each.

Oh, how much did I win?

Two?

Two for me.

That would have been...

Three.

Three.

Yeah.

I'm full adrenaline.

Hell yeah.

Well, yeah.

I have your own personal adrenaline.

Perfect.

All right.

So

he's running away full tilt to try and get away.

We're going to come back to Garrett.

He's too far.

I don't know if I can make it to him.

So instead, I reach into my clothing, tucked into my belt, and I pull out my Tanto and I throw it at his back.

Okay, so go ahead and make a guy.

There we go.

Come on.

Nah, I miss him.

It's a tree.

It's a tree.

You do earn adrenaline from the roll, but the tanto does go wide and the thing clatters off and hits something else in the distance.

But at that point, he's off.

Let him go.

You all kind of take a moment to kind of breathe and look at each other and kind of really take in the intensity of what's transpiring.

You kind of look around the space, and over there on the outside of the blacksmith, you see Rin is kind of slumped against the wall,

looks like clutching an arrow of some kind as she's like trying to stand up.

I be lying over.

What kind of

injury is it?

Well, from what you can see,

it's an arrow.

You approach.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm gonna going to kneel down.

What do we do here?

Yeah, where's the injury?

Does it look mortal?

She looks up at you and says, I'll be okay.

I need to find Heiji.

And you look at where the arrow is, and it is

bleeding profusely.

Likely hit some sort of a heavy vein or artery.

And she kind of is trying to pass it off, but she sees the expression on your face.

We'll deliver them out.

What do you need to tell them?

Just get him out of here.

Get Tommy Coke, get HG, get him out of here, get them safe.

Please go to the shrine and get them.

Please.

Okay, we vow that we will.

She kind of reaches out like towards you and kind of like grabs your hand, the kind of the blood kind of streaking on your hand as she grabs it and says, Thank you.

Thank you as her eyes get heavy

and she succumbs to her words.

You all stand there in the tense moment of what is now the empty street.

But even in this paused moment of tense quiet, the sounds of battle

continue to rage louder throughout the siege of Sakai.

And that's where we're going to take our break.

Oh, wow.

So good.

So we'll come back here in a few minutes.

We'll see you all shortly.

Boy, hello there.

This is Critical Rolls Resident Art Dad, also known as Liam O'Brien.

We are continuously amazed at the artwork this community creates.

That's why each Thursday at 8 a.m.

Pacific, we share a curated gallery of submitted fan art over on critroll.com.

If you'd like to submit your art for consideration, visit critroll.com/slash submit.

And thank you to all of the incredible artists who share their talents with us week after week.

And welcome back.

So our troop of four unlikely companions sent on a mission find themselves thrust into an unexpected bit of chaos.

As the city of Sakai is under siege, it seems, by likely the forces of Oda Nobunaga.

After your first fray in the center of the street, you managed to fell a number of soldiers that were lying in wait before the horns of war called them to attack the populace.

Striking them down, the dying breath of Rin, the blacksmith you had spoken to, sends you to go and see that her child and his guardian, currently, Tomiko, are brought to safety.

And with that, you head off down the streets towards the Otori Shine to find them.

So.

As you all begin to trek down the road in the direction of where you know the Otori Shrine resides, you pass through a number of the side roads.

Other people are in hiding off the side.

They're closing whatever ways into the buildings they can.

You can see already other bodies just kind of lining the sides of the street.

The orange glow of flames continuing to grow and spread across a number of the various building tops, causing the skyline itself to have this hellish orange hue at almost all directions.

A few wayward arrows come flying, kind of striking into the nearby building.

You kind of duck out of the way, seeking no source, not knowing how far away those might have been lobbed and just found their mark further and further away.

As you continue heading down the way, you hear a new sound.

As you glance backward, you see two horses in full gallop with armored samurai just rushing down the street.

Carving past and cutting one person down to the side and heading your direction.

Coming up quickly, what do you do oh geez

is there like a mean thorough fix go go go go yeah

my first thought was to uh i don't like it so i know there's a lot of

it

go trip the horse yes okay

i mean love the look

if they're up there just like slicing and soap but i feel bad for the horses are they two horses side by side they are they're like kind of like maybe one's a little bit ahead of the other but they're both kind of working in tandem

okay

not.

That looks like they had cut through a couple of civilians and are just heading down the road in your direction.

So if they haven't seen you yet, they're going to shortly.

Well, I'm prepared to kill them.

I will, you know.

Sheath my sword, take a cover, and I will take out one.

I'm expecting she will take out the other.

And I still have this arrow in my shoulder, so first things first, I'm just gonna...

Actually, you know what?

I can do this first.

Yes.

I'm gonna take my conobo and just get down low and swipe it across the hooves of the horse nearest me.

Okay.

On the other side, I would take the other ones out.

Alright, so I'm gonna need the two of you to go ahead and roll a D12 and add your initiative to see whether you or the samurai get the strike first this.

Oh no!

Eight plus three!

Eleven.

Eight.

It's a mite.

It's a mite one, one, right?

Oh, this is for your initiative.

Oh.

So the lightning bolt.

The lightning bolt in your shit.

So I got eight plus zero.

Okay, so it's eight.

Oh, nice.

I've got one.

I got five and a negative four.

Okay, got you.

So

you're gonna go first.

The samurai are going to strike, and then you go.

So,

as they get up close to you, you see both of them have

their blades already out.

These are not standard katana.

These are Odachi.

These are longer kind of cavalry weapons.

And as they both kind of get close enough, you get the strike out first.

You're rolling for the horse.

Go ahead and roll and attack with your might.

10 plus 3.

Take out both.

The horse is struck and kind of stumbles and lands on the ground, throwing the samurai on your side of the road off, flung down,

kind of rolling on the ground about 15 feet away.

His turn is wrecked.

He's going to try and take his turn, but he's at a serious penalty.

The other one manages manages to strike before you get your blow He's gonna go ahead and attack you That's going to be a nine to hit.

What's your dodge dodge

Seven dodge is seven

So he

I should have taken the arrow out first

the blade

one massive swoop in your direction

you go ahead and take three wounds Okay, can I

Can I put one on my armor and then just take two wounds?

Yeah, you can do that.

Great.

So my armor catches one

but then I'll take on two wounds.

So you're almost striking simultaneously.

The arc hits you just as you're striking the horse.

Go ahead and roll your attack.

Great.

Ooh, 11.

Might.

14.

Easily enough to do.

Both of you kind of knock the horses.

I'll say for the purposes of

liking animals.

Yes.

You both

cut the protective barding from these animals and send them kind of stumbling and throwing their riders off to the side.

The wounds being taken by the figures riding them as they are flung from it and then stumble onto the ground with the heavy hits.

So that's two and three wounds to each.

The horses then kind of catch themselves up and go kind of scattering off in different directions, now spooked without their riders.

Now the two samurai stand there and get up looking at the rest of your troop.

They look at each other,

get their blades at the ready.

And now, you both, if you want to engage rural initiative.

Oh,

yeah.

Five for me.

Okay.

Four.

Okay, so we have.

Are we keeping their initiative from the top?

Yes.

Okay.

So we have, uh, so Riuichi, we have Garrett.

Did I get an adrenaline for striking down that horse?

Yeah, you both would have got an adrenaline for both.

But I maxed out.

I'm already at five.

Yeah, so you don't gain anything more.

It's why you gotta spend it, man.

Long time.

You gotta use it.

All right.

Understand the money to make Understand.

Yep.

Okay.

All right, and then Umi holding up the okay.

Cool.

So, uh, with that being, they've gotten up.

Uh, they are taking their turn since they've taken the image, and they're gonna go ahead and dash towards the two of you.

Um,

and kind of basically trying to get retroactively get vengeance for what you've set upon them.

Uh-huh.

Uh, the one striking at you, Ryuichi.

Oh, that's gonna be uh, that's gonna be a ten to dodge.

An eight.

Okay, yeah, that's gonna hit you.

Yeah, It's a

one massive strike that carves into you for three wounds.

Okay.

Mark that on your sheet.

And the other one that's coming towards you, Umi, is the one that already hits you once.

It's gonna try and finish the job before another strike on you.

Another ten.

Oh, man.

That's three more wounds on you.

Three more wounds on me.

I'm gonna

take all three of those.

Wow.

This has been a hefty impact in this moment.

Yeah, I have to do that.

But

with that, Ryuichi, your turn is up.

Okay, well, I took the wound.

Seen it trying to brush it off.

Ignore it.

Recompose.

Reattack.

I imagine that, you know,

he thought he had me down, but I'm up.

Ignoring the pain.

And, you know, I'm going to, yeah, attack.

Let's go.

All right.

So the one that struck you, go ahead and roll a D12 and fight him with your contonent at the ready.

12!

Baby!

Yes!

Three wounds on him there.

Takes a heavy hit.

He's looking pretty hurt at this point, even just from the two strikes.

Do you want to try and push the advantage and strike a second time?

Yeah, absolutely.

How many advantages can I use?

I mean,

you can use as many adrenaline as you want, but push the advantage goes for a secondary attack.

So you can roll d10.

Do you have any of your weapon abilities you want to spend your adrenaline on?

You have a keen strike ability that costs two, that adds two wounds to the attack if you succeed.

What do you think, Rob?

What do you mean?

This is my katana.

I got my katana out, so I can put the adrenaline on my katana.

But you can spend two adrenaline to use the keen strike ability, which lets you do two additional wounds if you hit.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, so spit.

So we'll go ahead and erase two of the adrenaline and then roll for the attack.

This is what the D10.

Is the 12 or the 10?

D10, because you're pushing the advantages.

That one?

Hot dice.

Hot space one.

You got it.

You're going to get it.

Woo!

What is that?

That's on the corner.

What is that?

We call that cocked.

That's what.

Yeah, yeah, that's what it looks like.

That's a five.

That's clearly a five.

A plus what?

Five plus three.

Eight.

Eight.

Eight hits.

So, with that being the case, it's two wounds because you use your keen strike on your adrenaline.

That's four wounds on the strike.

You get to finish him off.

How do you want to do this?

Wow.

I'm going to put this one right through his heart.

Right through his heart.

Blade up in the air.

This massive long dock you upload.

Good.

And without a second, shoot.

Yeah,

right through his heart.

From the front or is it the back?

I guess it's up to you.

I like the front.

He tries to, his last bit of might to strike downward, but his body isn't listening to him as you withdraw the blade.

Shhh.

He just crumples to the ground.

You can move to the other one if you want to try and keep pushing the advantage, or you can end your turn there.

Yeah, I'm going to move to the other one.

She needs help.

All right.

Okay.

Go for it.

So you go ahead and dart up to go ahead and get it.

Can I use two adrenalines again?

If you want to, yeah.

You're just rolling a d8 to hit.

Oh, shh.

She's still pushing the advantage.

Well, the adrenalines only work if the number.

If I beat him.

Correct.

Gotta do it.

Do it.

This is the eight.

Is this the eight one?

Yeah, this is eight, right?

This one.

That was about twenty.

Let's go.

Hot.

Hot.

Let's go.

Five plus three.

That hits.

Eight.

Alrighty, another four wounds on the other.

Rush it.

A heavy carve down with your blade on the one.

You, as you're kind of squaring off, you have your combo at the side.

He has his blade at the ready, and then takes a heavy strike from the back.

He stumbles forward, catches himself, and you see Ryuichi just at the ready behind his bloodied blade, and you both kind of make eye contact as this samurai is in the center.

Do you want to continue to push the advantage, or do you want to end your turn?

No, I will end my turn.

You got it.

All right.

Garrett, you're up with Rufino on your.

Alright, well, I just watched this amazing display of finesse and skill, and I see that Ryuichi has hobbled this fella, and I do the exact opposite.

I just fucking bash his brains in.

Okay, go ahead and roll.

That is

seven.

Seven?

Seven just hits.

Just hits.

All right.

Well, that happened.

Is he still moving?

Uh, three wounds on that?

No, that's gonna finish him.

How do you want to do that?

Well, I just take his...

I just cave in his skull.

It's pretty simple.

I can't compete with that.

Fair.

Alrighty.

So now with those two warriors out of the way, their current assault through this roadway to an end.

You kind of recollect yourself and continue on your journey.

Rushing through the city as the flames continue to grow around.

You go down one way towards where the shrine is, but you can see a bunch of materials, a bunch of furniture and carts have been pushed into the center of the road like a barricade and lit on fire as well.

And there's just a wall of flame that kind of prevents the direct route.

Which of you would like to try and navigate the city's streets to find a more direct path to the shrine?

Hold on a second.

You look bloody as fuck.

Mm-hmm.

Is there any...

So the streets are empty?

I mean, where you're standing right now is empty because most of the civilians are in the process of fleeing or have hidden within buildings.

I'm gonna plant my hand on Umi's shoulder and drag her back a third of a city block.

I'm gonna kick in a door to a random home.

Okay.

Inside.

Absolutely.

I've got bandages too.

We have some time.

There's no absolute rush.

We need time to consider.

This barricade means we need to fix her.

We have that chance.

I got bandages.

Can I use them?

Yeah, you have Sarashi.

So you all kind of pull up in this back room, kind of shutter the door, block it off for a minute, and take a minute to rest, kind of breathe, and take care of your wounds.

So all of you get to remove one wound you've taken as part of this rest.

So I can remove one wound.

You can remove one wound as part of this rest.

If you want to use your bandages to bandage somebody,

you can do that as well to roll for healing.

But once they've been bandaged, they cannot be bandaged again for this

session.

And two people can't bandage one.

Only one person, only one set of bandages can be applied.

Correct.

It's used, once it's applied.

How hurt are you?

Very.

I'm very hurt, so I have three available, and that could be

for my armor.

How many do I take away if I give her a Sarashi?

A four-sided dice plus one.

Great.

So roll the pyramid and add one.

Yeah, I'm gonna bandage her.

Go for her full soul.

The four-sided dice?

Four-sided dice.

Yeah, the little pyramid.

I think you have one, bud.

Oh, there you go.

All right.

Let's roll that and add one.

whatever's at the top, three, three plus one.

All right, so really good.

Is it correct?

Uh, as you uh take a moment to kind of pull back some of the armor and look at the wounds, you kind of communally dress them.

Fix four, correct.

Oh, nice.

So you clear out four wounds as the uh uh the sarashi bandage is placed around your the wounds and kind of your arm and your shoulder and the chess area.

The armor gets reapplied, and in a rapid fashion, you feel yourself a little more ready to endure endure combat.

When we broke into this building and we cleared out this, they cleared out the samurai on the horses.

Did it look like there were any enemies in the immediate vicinity as we moved through?

As you moved through there weren't where you were currently, but it looked like there was a trail of bodies that this road had already been kind of swept through and either had been abandoned by those who lived here or people are in hiding.

One four we encountered the horsemen that we dismissed.

He said there was arrows being lobbed in.

So there they're there's their snipers are at a high vantage point.

Are we still a target of those guys?

Or are they errant?

It seemed more like they were errant

arrows fired at a further distance that didn't hit their mark and just kind of landed nearby.

More of the atmosphere of warfare that is engulfing the city.

Yeah, after seeing the roadblock, I would like, and making sure that Umi's okay, they kind of got the doctoring handled.

I'll kind of try to slip out of the door we came in and try to make my way up to the rooftops and see if I can find

different route over to the track.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Certainly.

Yeah, so the building you're in right now, it looks like it is kind of an in-between homestead

and it looks like it was rapidly abandoned.

Like some of the chairs are pushed over and some of the valuables were gathered and run with and as the door was left looks like the family kind of took what they could and ran.

So it looks like it almost like a small, modest family home that is just kind of frozen in time, where they just had to grab what they could and go.

And it's a little haunting and kind of walks through the space and you begin to clamber up to the next floor and then eventually the top floor in which there are now three different homesteads.

You can see there's like three different families that probably lived in here that have fled.

And as you get up to the outer part of the rooftop, you find the outer window and climb up onto it.

And thankfully,

the entire city isn't being burned to the ground yet, but there are definitely numbers of patches and rows of flames.

Now you have a much better view of the overall perspective of Sakai from up here.

You can see the distant perimeter walls, and you can also see many, many soldiers along the outer perimeter wall.

You see

kind of whole volleys of arrows coming from the far side of the city, and you can hear, from up here especially, the kind of weirdly mixing din of war shouts and screams of fear.

But knowing the direction of the shrine from where you are currently, currently, you can probably find a pretty solid path to it if you feel confident in your rooftoping skills.

Who would like to lead the troop across the rooftops?

Seems like you're MO.

Alright, go ahead and roll a cognition roll for me.

Sure.

Find the most direct path.

Nine.

Nine's great.

Glancing around and looking across the cityscape, you can just barely see the top of the Oturi Shrine.

You can see it's flanked by a number of trees, like a beautiful kind of greenery space around it,

as well as seeing like the

Tori gates that kind of mark the entranceway to the shrine.

But you can see that some of the trees are beginning to smoke, which means that some flame is being lit within the perimeter of it.

So you do not know how much time you have if they're still near or at the shrine.

So I will say here for the group and trying to traverse this, I would like all of you to make either an agility

or a

vigor roll.

Oh, good.

Your choice.

To try and represent the end.

Yeah, everybody rolls a 12 and add either your agility or the vigor.

So I gotta declare vigor or agility?

Yes.

13 agility.

13 agility.

What?

Umi is just ready to go

for the bandages.

I'm going for one diss.

Let's go.

Oh.

God damn, two plus one vigor.

I think you rolled the d8 on that one.

I'm forgetting to roll the d8.

Oh, I did.

Oh, yeah.

Eight plus

one vigor.

So nine.

Nine, much better.

Okay, that's great.

Ten for vigor.

Ten.

I think I rolled the d8 too.

No, no.

That's a natural one for a two.

I'm bad at the things that a host.

So

you are guiding these folks directly through the city, but they're also kind of leaving you a little bit in the dust.

They are driven and extremely athletic in their capabilities.

And you watch as they're leaping from rooftop to rooftop, like darting across the tops,

looking back and kind of catching as they go.

Describe to me what's distracting you in these moments.

What in your head is keeping you from remaining as focused on the task in front of you?

The violence.

Yeah, yeah.

So like I'm used to it in like a personal, intimate, and controlled way.

But this sort of fog of war type environment, I do not have the mental steel of perhaps a warrior who's like either seeking this out or has been through it before.

I don't have the maturity perhaps that Garrett has.

I'm not sure.

I don't want to put that on you, but he seems pretty...

For me, when things feel out of control,

I begin to falter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So as you're getting closer and closer to the shrine, there is one larger leap that kind of goes from an upper kind of sloping roof pinnacle to what is

a stone kind of separation wall that leads into one of the other districts of the city.

One by one, you all leap rapidly and catch yourself on the side.

As you turn back, you see Rufino kind of goes to leap and

just something about his mind sees that his brain is slightly elsewhere and as he leaps for the arc, he's not going to make the jump.

You all kind of reach out and catch him and you just manage to do so, but you slam hard into the stonework and take a wound just from the impact against the separating gate.

You pull them back up onto the wall and continue your trek.

You all push to the outside of the Otori shrine and kind of climb down now that the buildings vanish at the perimeter.

You can see the massive Tori Gate still stands there kind of marking the front of it.

You can see the Komeno or the lion statues that are the placed guardians to the shrine entrance there kind of greeting you.

And for the first glance, it feels safe, if not for the growing bit of flame on the far end of the shrine.

And you see one of the trees is starting to burn as that process.

You also hear a scream, a woman's scream, further in the direction of the shrine.

Hmm.

It's the fire and the scream in the same direction.

The fire is a little ways off to the right.

The scream is from the shrine directly.

How far off is the shrine from our location?

From where you're standing now, probably about 150 feet.

150 150 feet.

200 feet maybe?

Well, there's two targets.

And then

where in the city in relation to the docks and the countryside is the shrine?

Are we in the smack in the middle of it?

You're kind of in between where the docks and kind of the north gate is.

Okay.

Okay.

Are there combatants protecting it or we've already negotiated for that?

We're inside the wall.

Well,

you're now kind of at the perimeter of the shrine.

As you kind of step through the Tory gate and look in, you can see, after you're hearing the screen, you see figures currently battling each other on the outskirts of the shrine

no signs of the no sign of these kids from where we are

i feel compelled to run towards the scream to start with okay

umi takes off towards the the shrine in the direction of the scream you all follow

It's so hard for me to follow.

Like everything inside me is screaming dip out.

But I think what we talked about earlier, that sort of fog of war, that fear a little bit,

is going against my worser nature.

And yeah, I'll follow you just for lack of any other beacon.

So

you come with me.

We gotta split up.

I think

are there people, the silhouette people, are they with towards a scream or are they towards a shrine?

Silhouetted people fighting.

Well, the screams tended towards the shrine where that conflict is happening.

You now hear

two

blasts of gunfire, and one of the figures that was battling in that silver, the shrine, crumples.

Oh,

there's a woman in trouble.

There's somebody that's either on my side or not in trouble.

Somebody's on my side where the people are fighting.

I have to go that way.

I think you go towards the woman.

You decide to go with her.

No, actually.

Are you breaking off from Umi?

You gotta help this woman.

I think just his confidence in the moment in the middle of the chaos just dictates.

And so I just grab my weapon right down the middle and I just start following, staring at his heels as we head in that direction.

All right, so I've died, man.

I'm where I want to.

I was almost instinctually followed you, but then when you broke off together,

I'll stick with you.

Thanks, Ben.

Sure.

Yep.

Yep.

Should we get?

I feel like that's Toniko and Heiji, so we can hopefully get

one for each.

These guys are idiots.

No, no, no.

So Riwichi and Garrett are heading towards the flames, kind of on the far right side.

And we have Umi and Rufino are heading towards the shrine properly.

Love it.

Love it.

All right.

Yes.

So as you kind of

splinter off a little bit,

the first thing you notice as getting towards the shrine,

there is

a non-armored samurai with

a naginata, some of that bladed pole arm that you saw kind of strapped to the back of Ryuichi, who is currently battling what looks to be

one of the

priests of the shrine who is trying to defend it.

You see him kind of holding up a stick and he's trying to like block back and he's kind of shouting over his shoulder like, get back, get free!

And it's like yelling to somebody behind him, right as the blade

carves through his chest, and he kind of crumples to his knees and goes, Hachiman, protect us,

and falls Hachiman, which is the Shinto god of war.

As he crumples to the ground, the

Naganata like samurai kind of looks around and looks towards the shrine proper and begins to turn inward as you see

as two other Ashigaru and Katana come off the left-hand side that you didn't see.

So there's now three of them in the shrine heading inward.

While the other two who are heading towards the flames, you see kind of off to the side where the fire was set,

one figure that is currently like setting flame to the nearby trees and holding a long tepe rifle in one hand, while another one has the rifle at the ready and is kind of aiming.

You can kind of make out this to be the sound of that flintlock firing in the distance.

It very much seems the case.

And as you are, as you are running at a distance, the one Tepo kind of trains over and shouts, Hey,

we got him!

And the other one that's sitting in the flame drops his torch on the ground, spins around, and puts the gun at the ready.

I need everyone to roll initiative.

Can I kick it off by throwing my smoke bomb down right now?

Or is that my move?

That would be your move.

Great.

Initiative, 12.

Initiative, yeah.

Right.

Negative one.

Dead.

I was very injured.

I'm bandaged, but I'm still in a bit of pain.

There we go.

It's okay.

A little slow.

I always roll ship initiative.

That's okay.

They didn't roll that great either.

You ever on the kills?

Yes, exactly.

Probably a bum knee, maybe.

Yeah, exactly.

I would bring a Tonto to a Flintlock fight, right?

Yeah, right.

All right, so 10 to 5.

As they say.

All right, so we have

five to one.

Jeez, guys.

All right.

I'm negative one.

These are tough.

Now, mind you,

everything that fights with a weapon generally has pretty slow speeds.

It's not like super high initiatives.

Heavy weapons have penalties as well, so enemies also do go kind of slow sometimes.

Like you guys with the guns.

Exactly.

So, okay.

Sometimes.

Depending on what I roll.

All right.

And sorry, it was...

Gary, you got one?

All right.

Negative.

One.

Negative one.

Negative one.

Yep.

Okay, yeah.

All right, that was six.

And what did you get?

Four.

Four?

Yeah, hi.

Awesome.

Four, not bad.

Really?

One of 12?

I mean, higher is better, but some of these guys have

to roll that well either.

So, Rufino, you're up first with Rioichi coming up second and then it looks like the uh the tempo

carrying wars are in the process of getting ready to fire directly after that so you're up first yeah i have a target so i'm shaking off my uh my my shell shock nature and uh and i'm realizing that i i i'm just inspired by uh by

umi

so uh

as she are you running toward

i need your pathway are you running toward that samurai running towards the samurai who just killed

as I clock what she's doing.

That's gonna, I'm just gonna charge me up and I'm gonna start running the same direction, but I'm gonna go a little bit faster.

So my speed is gonna start to cook.

I'm unarmored, and I'll boom.

All of a sudden, I'm you know 15, 20 yards ahead of you, and I'll go straight for the guy.

Yeah, you see, he has his Naganata at the side, and he's going towards the shrine where you see two figures kind of cowering in the back of the kind of broken open front of it.

You see the female figure of Tomiko and holding uh heiji both kind of trying to pull him back from the charging ronin uh but you get to him first what are you doing uh no no stealth uh

he's got both of his hands behind him no it's not what you think

i don't believe

he's reaching for a

weapon but i'm trying to keep it concealed until i see uh what's happening

I'm going for the main guy.

Straight at him.

All right.

Is it with the tanto?

It is with.

Oh my god.

This is so bad.

I have five.

Five, unfortunately, is not going to hit.

I know.

You try and go towards him as you pull the blade out.

He goes into a defensive stance with the Naginata, and you kind of find yourself having to slow, or you're just going to impel yourself on his blade.

You try and ship to the right, and he moves with you.

This guy's pretty well practiced.

Probably better trained than what you've previously faced.

Yeah, I'm still going to take a swipe at him, him, and

I think it'll glance or parry away.

Yeah, and

it's scary.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's it for me.

All right, that finishes your go.

Biuichi, you're up.

Okay, I'm confused.

There was two guys with

their muskets.

Correct.

They're over at the shrine.

You've kind of peered off to the side of the forest, and there's two guys with the Tepo rifles kind of now trained on you as you approach.

So we're dealing with a total of two on our end.

Yes.

Not more.

Okay.

And they're turning and they're reloading.

They're like, what?

I mean, these are old school.

They've got to take at least five, six seconds, and I move fast.

That's true, which is why you're getting to them first.

Exactly.

I can move to them.

Like, I take that one guy and literally cut the stock right off the, you know, I can, I got to go right to them.

Let's go for it.

You charge in, blade at the ready.

You watch as they train in and aim, and right as their fingers are about to pull, you take your turn, go ahead and roll for your attack on the first one.

All right.

Is this a 12?

Or is this a 12?

You got it.

You got it.

That's a 12.

Okay, come on.

Hold on, no.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

This is going to be a gut wound.

It's a three plus a three.

Six.

Six.

Six.

They just dodge.

Unfortunately, you go to swing your first blade, and as your blade comes down, he kind of pulls back and holds it up.

And part of

the metal barrel of this weapon actually like

kind of puts it off to the side.

It's not meant to parry, but he kind of pulled it off, backs up quickly, and unfortunately kind of throws you off balance a little bit, and that's going to end your turn.

So now it's their turn.

He backs up.

The one who is not attacked on this is going to go ahead and take a fairly close shot against you with the rifle.

That's going to be...

He rolled a 12.

Oh, my God.

Is that like a shot between my eyes?

Well,

those are the two choices.

You tell me where it hits.

Where does does it get you that hurts the most?

Hurts or is like a

heart or a hand is going to be a dead.

What's the coolest?

Where do I get shot?

I'm right-handed.

Most Japanese are.

I took the one in the left.

I don't know.

My left arm or...

Where's the...

Yeah, my collarbone, I guess.

It impacts and does not go through.

Oh.

Which means there is an iron ball lodged somewhere in your shoulder.

But the impact sends you like stumbling back and you have to like hit yourself on that arm.

And as soon as you put the weight on that arm where the wound is, it kind of crumpled to your elbow.

It is a pain you haven't felt before.

You take four wounds

since it was a critical hit against you.

He is going to attempt to push the advantage against you.

Oh no!

But you don't get to do that like we do.

So

he's going to put the tempo to the side and he's going to pull out a Wakasashi has it at the side and it's going to attempt to strike at you.

No.

No.

That is

six.

With a dodge.

What's your dodge?

Eight.

Eight.

You dodge out of the way, which means he fails and you have an opportunity to strike back at him now.

So you can go ahead and attack with him with a D12 for free.

D12.

What is that?

Seven plus three?

Technique.

Seven plus three.

He takes two wounds.

Yeah.

That Tempo Warrior.

Do I take it?

I get an adrenaline or no?

You do, because it's an accessible attack, yeah.

Okay.

So that's going to to finish his turn.

The one that you struck and paired off at the side, he's going to go ahead and get up his gun to try and fire on.

Actually, you seem like you took the big hit.

He's going to shift over to you because you're running up behind because you're also, you're a pretty, especially out of the shadows, a terrifying massive Irishman in the middle of this fray.

He's like, you are, from some perspectives, an Oni.

Like you are just a nightmare come to life out of that expected encounter.

He's going to go ahead and fire at you.

That's going to be...

They're rolling high right now.

It's 11.

Oh, for sure.

Oh, yeah.

You take three wounds from the Tepo shot.

The iron ball, shhoof, hitting you kind of in the side and kind of tearing through your abdomen about an inch away from the edge.

It just kind of carves through muscle and skin.

It slows you down, but you keep pushing through.

He's going to push.

The...

No, he saw his friend get hit.

He's not going to push the advantage on that one.

So that's going to finish there, go.

That brings us to Garrett and then Umi after that.

Alright, so I i take that shot stagger back for a moment but just keep moving forward thinking about how i have been steady and careful for all these years avoiding trouble but this trouble is too big to avoid and i come crashing down on the one that just shot me

let's go uh that is not great that is a six

unfortunately he dodges

it's all the brush around here like they're kind of over in the forested side of it and so even as you're striking there's a bit of cover within the shadows as as well and it's hard to find purchase on your target um so that finishes your go uh actually the ronin does go before umi does so now that you've rushed up into the front tier the the ronin with the naginata is going to go ahead and try and uh swing wide uh towards you since you were the first one to come at you that's going to be

eight miss miss okay

a massive swipe with the naginata the blade kind of like comes towards where the top of where your neck and the skull meet and you just kind of woof duck out of the way in time That's gonna finish his turn.

Boomiera.

And while he's distracted in his attack on you, I'm going to draw my Wakizashi a bit lighter because I'm still feeling this, my injuries.

So I'm not going to wield my kannibo, and I'm just going to take a swipe with my wakizashi.

We've all failed, wait, oh!

That's good.

Six, get back before I know the results.

Oh, okay.

That's what you were saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Someone's got to succeed here.

Can we spend an adrenaline?

Yeah, I'm going to spend an adrenaline to give you some aid.

Thank you.

Can I use, can I be sneaky?

Can I use my guile?

Yeah, yeah.

And as I see him fall off target, I'm gonna do dirty move.

I'm gonna do a foot stomp, like just on the top of his foot as hard as I can.

You kick it and you feel like the ankle bone kind of pop for a second, which gives just enough momentum for you to kind of better aim.

So would you roll?

I rolled a six.

So I wonder with my might.

With your Wakasashi, which is plus two.

Oh, right.

Oh, right.

Wakasashi, plus two.

Yes, Yes, plus agility.

So,

plus, plus three from me.

Gorgeous.

So, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

That is definitely a success.

Wakasashi staff.

Great, so that's that's a wound on the Ronin with the Wakasashi.

Do you want to push the advantage and continue to find?

Yes, please.

All right, and do you have any special abilities with the Wakashi you want to do?

With the Wakasashi.

Mm-mm-mm-mm.

Rapid strike deal.

Okay, let's try that.

I'm gonna burn one adrenaline for a rapid strike.

Okay.

So you roll a D10 to hit now.

Yep.

Nine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so that does an additional wound, right, on the strike.

Plus one.

Great.

So two wounds on him from the walk of Sasha.

Just one slash, a heavier slash that kind of carves across the front of his clavicle and blood kind of

on the nearby kind of broken stone opening around the shrine.

Do you want to continue to push the advantage or are you good?

Yeah, we're going to do that one more time.

Let's go.

One more adrenaline.

So same rapid strike.

Go ahead.

Just to finish.

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

A D8 on this roll.

D8, yes.

And I'm going to use my last adrenaline double combo.

I'm going to see you succeeding.

See you taking this moment and tearing him to pieces.

After footstop, I'm going to duck around.

I'm going to give him a kidney shot right in the little opening of his armor right there.

Can I add anything to hers too?

You're unfortunately far away from her right now, but you can add it to each other as well as you're doing this.

Okay.

You can cheer for me from across

the field.

So you'll get another plus three.

Great.

Another plus three on this roll.

Gorgeous.

Thank you.

Let's see if we can finish it.

Six.

Alrighty.

Fantastic.

So that definitely hits.

Two more wounds with the Wakasashi.

Carving upward.

This one kind of cuts under

where his armpit is.

And you watch this backhand where he kind of bounces the Naganata.

It's kind of like, oh, it's a little off now.

And he's having a rough go right now.

He's looking pretty hurt.

Do you want to keep pushing the advantage or are you done?

I think I'm done with that.

Yes, good.

We've done lots of blows.

Thank Thank you for the assistant.

Great.

All right.

Fighting together.

Yeah.

With that, Rafino, you're up.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

All right.

I'm going to go for him.

Let's go.

With the Tonto.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So after I've been

barehanded fighting, I'll take my weapon back.

And...

Oh, my God, bro.

I am doomed, dog.

I am doomed.

I should have assisted you.

No,

I'm doomed.

Yeah.

Yeah, miss.

Big miss.

Oh, buddy.

Yeah, yeah.

Nat one.

Oh.

I can't roll tonight.

It's bad.

It's bad.

I'm trying.

Well,

you've helped her do a lot.

You've still taken adrenaline from the fail because it's still a roll.

Okay, yeah, that's right.

But you go ahead and try and come back with the tantra to strike him again.

And even though he's taken the heavy hits from her, you've been leaving him open after the kidney shot, especially.

He whips around with the back of the Naganata.

And before you can even try and strike him with the blade, he clocks you up in like the side of your skull and it kind of just knocks you off and not enough to do damage but enough to prevent your strike from even finding his body that's gonna finish your go Ryuichi you're up okay where was I left off I was shot you were shot in a heavy wound and that he's like reloading his weapon right now looking at you while backing up oh yeah I'm ignoring that pain I take a few steps forward into his personal space and I'm gonna fuck him up Let's go.

Yeah, we're open to tag, bro.

I'm gonna assist.

I'm gonna assist.

I see him trying to reload the gun, so I take my connobo and I rope it over him, and I lift him into the air.

So he's just a fucking target for me.

Kicking his legs for a second.

He puts up his gun to try and prevent you from choking him, but that's not the point of choking him.

It's just restraining him.

So between your connobo and his gun, he's now held and his feet are kind of kicking in the air.

Go ahead and make your attack and add his might to the roll as well.

Where could I target him?

I could take off a leg.

Did you want to try?

Well, his legs are kicking out in in front of me.

You know, that's going to disable him.

Let's go.

Okay.

Do I add a katana three?

Or the mite three on this roll.

Oh, you, well, you, you, the, the, the plus three for your katana is the mite and three.

Oh, okay.

So yeah.

Gotcha.

Add three.

Do you want to use any adrenaline for this?

Go on!

It's plus three,

plus two for me.

Plus two for me.

The one, three,

two.

This is my first failure.

Six.

I got five.

Yeah, six, six.

Six.

That fails, unfortunately.

Am I dead?

No.

No, no, no.

No,

they don't strike back unless you fail while pushing the advantage.

So if you just fail in your first strike, then it's just the end of your turn.

So you go to try and, as you're trying to find an opening, he's holding, as he's being held up, he kicks around, and there's a brief moment where you're uncertain if you were to attack now, you would cut...

this enemy or if you would cut Garrett and that that brief moment of hesitation prevents you from even taking the blade to him.

Finishing your go, the character who's being held by you.

It's kind of clutching up there.

He's going to reach down and grab a blade from his side and try and stab you with a tonto while you're kind of hitting his back.

That's fair.

That's going to be a five.

Oh,

I see it coming.

So he's going here.

Oh man, I grab the gun in his hand and wrench his arm, his other arm down, twisting it so that the knife goes astray.

He like clatters off into the shadow shadow nearby.

It's gonna finish his go, his go.

The other one

is going to, seeing this close, he can't even take the time to try and reload.

It's just gonna go ahead and take his Wakasashi.

And

it's gonna come for you because you're the one who looks the most wounded, and he's gonna try and do what he can to stop you in your tracks.

But not with a natural three, he's not.

No!

No!

Goes to strike towards you.

How do you deflect his blow?

He was trying to...

Did you see his hand or like, you know, the barrel of his gun

He kind of set the gun aside and pulled his wakasashi

and struck out towards you.

Oh, well, I blocked it with, you know, my right hand.

I blocked it.

Yeah.

And I'm going for, you know,

the counter-strike.

All right, so we get to that on your next turn that finishes up.

There, go.

But Gary, you are actually.

Alright, so I freed up one hand from my conabo to get the gun wrenched down.

That means I'm back to holding the conabo one hand.

So I just

backhand with the butt end of it.

Butt end of it to hit him in the face.

That'll hit probably.

That's a nine.

Nine definitely hits.

There's an adrenaline and I will for sure push it.

Well, first off, the one that's

in your hands, he's already wounded.

You finish him off.

Oh, how do you want to do this?

Oh, as you're clutching him to you.

Right, so I kind of...

Elbow shoulder him away and then come with the conabo and strike him in the face, sending him flying into the second feller

as I follow.

Great, he's gonna takes the hit, and before he can even recover, you're right there.

Both of you are just kind of flanking him from each side.

So, go ahead and if you want to push the advantage, roll with a d10.

All right, and I'm gonna go for rolling fury with this.

I'm gonna spend an adrenaline to make it hurt more.

Okay, if I'm able to.

Oh, yeah, that's an 11 to hit.

11 to hit.

So, an extra wound onto

four wounds on him with one hit from the condomo.

Crack!

As you

impact the other standing,

you hit him so hard that his arm where he was holding the gun on the side cracks and breaks.

And you see the elbow kind of like the bones stick out from some screams, ah, like falls to his side.

The shock takes in and the kind of like that fight or flight is really kind of taking him over.

And as he looks at you and you, he looks like he's about to run.

Well, I'll push then.

Okay.

And

I've got the Kanobo almost at that midway point and I've just gone butt end, front end,

stab right into the eye with it.

Go for it.

That's a nine.

It's a nine.

How do you want to do this?

Yes.

That's a Liam I know.

All right, so you're puncturing him through the eye.

Well, it's a pretty hefty thing, so it's more of like a cave-in.

I'm about to say, yeah.

And a stab.

Yeah.

Well, but yours is like, it's a little, you know, since yours is a little small about size.

It's about the right size to like, it's like pushing a baseball bat into someone's ocular cavity.

It's going to break the skull around it and still take about it.

So like, cracks hard.

And as you impact,

the very butt end of your combo has just enough perchance inside the skull that he hangs on it for a minute before you have to pull it away and he falls to the ground.

Brutal.

Brutal.

But yeah, that finishes Yorgo.

Both of the opponents in the trees with their with the very powerful ranged weapons have been dealt with in quick time.

And you kind of both look back to the shrine where your other allies are.

And they are currently engaged with a Ronin.

And from what they don't see, and what you two see are two other figures rushing up from the opposite side of the shrine to join the fray as well.

Oh, our friends do not see reinforcements, or at least

they're both focused on this Ronin, and beyond them on the backside, you see two other figures approaching.

You're right, I'm okay.

We must take care of them.

So we go over.

All right, so you clearly don't see them.

We intercept them.

Okay.

I'm hurt,

but I only need one arm that's true okay well that finishes

you guys are rushing towards the shrine now uh it is now the ronin's turn um

he is going to go ahead and

see

you've done you've done a pretty heavy hit too and he's been hoping he's gonna go ahead and consider you the immediate threat now uh kind of sees the the bits of of wounds to your armor and kind of sees a little bit of weakness there in his attempt to try and use that to his advantage uh striking at you with uh

six.

Dodge with a seven.

Ooh!

He has missed

with authority.

Swings wide.

Describe to me how you barely parry this massive arc with his polearm.

Just the slightest duck.

It like carves a few hairs on the top of your head.

Yeah, exactly.

Just a squat.

Just a little squat.

That finishes his goat right into your turn, Umi.

So you are up.

Gorgeous.

And I still have the Wakazashi in my hand, and now I'm at such close range.

And if I can just shave a little of the hair off of him, so to speak, I'm going to take a swipe for his guts.

Let's go for it.

10.

Hey!

With so 12.

That'll definitely hit.

So he takes three wounds.

Heavy crit,

heavy hit right to the middle of the rib cage.

Crack!

Now he's not wearing chest armor.

He's pretty quick and has some high dodge, but you rolled pretty high, and you feel the bones kind of crack at the impact.

He stumbles back and kind of catches himself on his legs, kind of skidding a minute.

And he's woozy on his feet.

You see him kind of like

and cough up a big spatter of crimson.

No worries.

I'm running.

I'm running.

I would like

to push the advantage and try to finish this.

Let's go, sir.

D10.

Okie doke with my wakizashi.

Can I storm forward with a two?

A two.

and uh, so four.

Unfortunately, that is enough.

He is on death's door, and in that moment that he coughs up, you're like, this is your opportunity, and you charge forward the Wakasashi, and in that brief moment where you're about to finish it off, his eyes kind of shoot up and meet yours like he was goading you into it.

And as you rush forward with the Wakasashi, he grabs your arm and uses momentum to push you behind him.

As he does, he spins.

His Nakanata to try and strike down with it upon you with a...

That's going to be a seven.

seven I think that does hit you right oh seven is to seven so I'm gonna let that hit my back armor so if I do you have any defensive abilities to use your adrenaline on oh interesting like to deflect do you have any deflect abilities with your wakasashi at all or two I could burn my two adrenaline and and roll to deflect with a my wakasashi okay what does it turn your dodge into is it high enough to oh I see so because I have seven dodge so that would turn into nine against two yeah so nine that would actually cancel the attack okay So, do I have to roll, roll forward?

You don't have to roll for it.

Oh, great.

And he takes.

That's right.

Gotchas, gotchas.

So I spend my two adrenaline, so I have a nine dodge, and I and I do dodge that.

So what does it say?

It just increases your dodge by two?

Yeah.

Does it do anything else?

And the attacker takes a one wound.

He has one wound left.

Oh!

So, how do you want to do this?

As he goes for the final blow and you deflect it and kill him in the same sweep.

Describe to me how you finish him off.

So he's pulled this arm forward with my Wakizachi in it, swung for my back, and I'm going to

turn on the spot and swipe him once more

across his torso.

He spins it in the air and right as he's about to bring it down you are faster than he expected with your kind of squat warrior form and

spilling his insides onto the shrine floor.

He doesn't have enough strength in the swipe for the Nagitana to do more than to just kind of hit the side of your shoulder armor with practically no impact as he stumbles to the ground, no longer moving.

The two other figures that were rushing up to the shrine stop

and turn around and run the other direction at the side of the Ronin.

There are two swooping down on them.

Yeah, as you guys arrive to the shrine, you watch as Umi just finishes off the Ronin, like a Wakasashi carving right through the middle of its midsection and dropping it.

And the two approaching like soldiers just turn around and run the opposite way.

Yeah, we got more girls like her.

Awesome.

Gary's got him running out, pulling out a smoke bomb.

Save that for the air.

After there's a brief moment of kind of looking around, you watch as Tomiko comes out

herself looks like she has a little bit of blood on her head.

And Heiji is kind of in her arm and she comes out the middle of the shrine to think.

Oh god,

what's happening?

Hi, are you okay?

And he

nods, just saying nothing.

This 11-year-old boy is just stunned silence, panic in his eyes.

Mobunaga wants

your blood.

What are you hiding?

What is it?

My blood?

You're protecting something.

I'm protecting this child.

We gotta get out of here.

Child

shrine.

There's something here.

I say we head to the woods, which are nearby, and take these two to shelter.

I know the countryside fairly well.

I have a farmstead just out of the north gates of here.

My husband's there right now.

We can be safe there.

It's close.

Can you take us?

Absolutely.

Okay, sin.

Hey, Jake, can you come with us?

Can you walk?

And he just kind of nods.

Okay.

Sin the North Gate.

Thank you.

I love you.

At this point, Shina gathers him.

The four of you flanking them.

And you leave the shrine and start heading northward towards the outside and hopeful safety from Sakai.

Now, if you have a brief moment here to rest, would you like to try and recover a little bit?

I was going to say

if looking out

the entrance here, if we don't see

anything, anybody crawling over walls or intruding.

Not at the moment.

What you had fought here in the middle of the shrine seemed to be the handful of soldiers that had come this deep into this part of the city.

And shrines usually aren't a big focus of destruction necessarily,

but it seemed that the presence of this woman and child was enough to get them to try and finish off anybody that could be escaping or whatever wanton destruction they were setting across.

Well, is that it?

They went to the shrine.

They thought they were going to have some kind of protection, but it wasn't enough.

They weren't protecting something in the shrine then.

It just happened to be a coincidence.

It could be.

Well, you did hear Rin sent them to the shrine.

Just for safety.

Was it for safety?

Make a cognition check to see if you can read Tomiko's.

Okay.

I will.

Cognition.

Gotta know.

Gotta be comfortable with these movies.

Of course, of course.

12.

Ooh,

speak the truth.

Nice.

I read your mind.

Tell me.

So, so, so, watching Tomiko, I suppose she, you know, protects Heiji and looks to all of you and kind of is looking off the distance.

You catch up.

You are an incredible incredible read of certain people, especially when they are in the midst of danger and threat.

You've spent a lifetime at this point protecting those that you deem innocent.

And there is in her gaze a fear, but a strength to protect as part of that.

While this is not her child, this is the child of her friend.

And also as she looks to the northward side of where he's sending, you see a hopefulness at what awaits her there, at that farmstead, where her husband can help

keep all of you safe and away from where the city siege is happening.

You believe you can trust her.

I believe her completely.

She's telling the truth.

We shall follow.

Alrighty.

Sit for a spell.

Okay, cool.

I like that.

That's reassuring.

Yeah.

I'm like, okay, the shrine, let's go.

No, it's great.

That's where the cognition comes into play.

That's where reading people is perfect.

Ryuichi, son, sit for a spell.

So I have

it's Sarashi, right?

Sarashi, yeah, the bandages.

Right, so

I

gingerly lower his

clothing away from his shoulder and can see that there's a bullet wound there.

I sort of probe it.

I don't think I can get it out of there, but I do take the bandages and with trees on fire in the distance in an absolutely heavy metal tableau, I start to bandage up

the wound.

Great.

So everyone else takes one do we uh gain one?

Everybody for this rest clears a wound from the sheet.

And I roll for

for uh Ryuichi's wound.

Yeah.

That's oh fuck you, Dai.

That's two wounds.

So you take off two more wounds.

I get two off.

That's great.

I rolled a wound.

Not optimal, but still better than nothing.

Yes.

But I believe that is the last Sarashi you have amongst your troop, too.

So

that that outside of any future rests.

I love it.

Somewhere an electric guitar.

You can still hear the echoing of distant gunshots.

Is it approaching?

Hard to tell.

It's distant enough where it's echoing and kind of scattered, so it doesn't feel like it's terribly close, but there is still a lot of

death transpiring in these city walls.

I would take that moment to say that I'm kind of out of this

mission to get guns.

Like, we're gonna supply these bullets to the people that are trying to kill us.

Like, I'm not trying to fulfill

that mission anymore.

Right?

I think you certainly feel like there might be more

larger things at work now.

Exactly.

Right.

Now it's...

We have to protect the village and stop Nobunaka.

I don't know if you all agree, but I'm not looking for weapons to fight, you know?

Yeah, it doesn't feel like the time to be making bullets.

Right.

So now our main concern is just the child and the woman, Tomoko.

And we're bringing them there to Nakamura.

Yeah,

her husband.

Her husband.

Nakamura is the

husband of Ritin, which is the blacksmith, but you haven't met him.

He's somewhere else in the city.

Right, okay.

Tomako's husband waits for her at her homestead.

Okay, okay.

And that's outside of the city, like countryside.

Yeah, that's outside the North Gate.

Okay, so we're on our way there.

Yeah, like the Setsu area.

Taking them to safety, fulfilling our promise to the ring.

On the way out of the shrine grounds, I

swing past the feller who tried to stab me in the gut, and I grab his Tonto blade that he tried to kill me with to replace the one that I lost in the streets.

Okay,

cool.

Yeah, you can take weapons that aren't in use.

You can take it if you want.

I had a musket and uh.

I mean, I could have.

If you want to take a tempo, there's one over off the side.

Do you know how to use it?

Yes, of course I do.

Okay.

Will you show me?

You teach me how to use the tepo.

I will

this is what I'm thinking now.

Can we is that

that shipment of tepo has that arrived the one that Takeda has tasked us to f to find ammunition for.

We don't know.

We don't know.

But what you do know is

any weapons of the of the fallen enemy around you you can take and use to your advantage.

And there are, there's, I'd say one and a half tepo.

Or like, well, one that's been somewhat damaged from the combat and one that hasn't been off near where you two both dispatched those two

gunmen,

those Ashigaru.

So you can gather those if you'd like to.

I would like to take one.

I just need one bullet to finish this thing, you know?

I mean, they only can shoot one bullet every like two or three minutes, so I will take it.

Great.

So as you kind of finish your your rest kind of your your your bandages across your torso

gather yourself to escort these two afternoon and yourselves to safety outside of this chaos you go over to where that battle transpired pick up the the one tempo that seems the most battle ready and one of its iron payloads can i add that to my little yeah just write just write down tempo and whenever you want to fire it i'll tell you what what you get to add to it

Okay.

So.

Continue your journey northward.

Oh man.

I

do not.

So as uh as they're heading out toward the countryside, I'm gonna pull Yumi aside and I'm gonna pull out a small little scroll from my side sash.

Hand it to you.

Here you go.

What is this?

Sometimes it's in a chicken coop, sometimes it's under a marshy bit of log, but there's some food, some cash, a few stores I have outside of town.

Take it

and take care.

I'm sorry, this...

this isn't my fight.

Where are you going?

I got a little boat in the port.

We're about halfway distance, so uh

I'll take my leave here, but um

it's been an honor.

I'll kind of nudge Ryuchi in the side.

I'm sorry, this

isn't for me.

You can't make it to the port alone.

Pretty sneaky.

The sound

of heavy hoof prints, multiple sets grow loud from different sides and shouts as two mounted samurai begin to rush up and begin to meet the northern gate where you've all been trekking.

As they begin to kind of gather around the sound, they are throwing what looks like

flaming objects towards the sides of the gate that

detonate and sending flames emerging up the sides of the nearby buildings.

The exterior of your exit gate to the wall of where you were kind of leaving the shrine and going to send the family off is now ablaze.

And as you look back towards the city in the opposite direction to try and escape further in, a third horse rides up before its rider leaps off,

where you see a tall, fully armored,

masked samurai who had previously cut down a civilian in the street during its meeting.

Looks down at the rest of you.

What are you thinking to escape?

two guys burning our exit route this guy

blocks us in on the other side we are entrapped i instinctively pull tomiko who's holding heiji pull them back to pull them behind they both kind of back away the flames crawl fast Some sort of accelerant within these objects they threw have sent fire to crawl up all manner of nearby buildings that already

and immediately the landscape begins to just burn around you.

It turns into the center of hell

as this armored demon of a samurai steps forward.

Women and children first.

He pulls from one side of himself a skatana that was sheathed, Wakasashi left, and from his back in one hand, a gnarly looking kanabo.

Wielding both simultaneously, he rushes forward towards all of you as the two other mounted samurai pull their bows free and begin to encircle the space.

I need you all to roll initiative.

Inflect that boat right, I'll have to wait.

I can tell.

That's a zero for what damn.

Oh, God.

All right.

What is it we add?

Three.

It's plus lightning.

Oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

How'd you guys do?

Roll the one.

Oh, boy.

Alrighty.

So, out of the gate at the top of this.

10 to 5, anybody?

I wish.

What you got?

Six.

Oof.

Alright.

Five to one.

I got two.

Oof.

A total of two?

Total of two.

Oh, that, yeah, that's great.

That's good to know.

What?

Is that good?

Well,

it's better than lower than one.

Yeah.

Alrighty, so

it's not a 12.

No, that's true.

Alright, zero to negative five.

Alrighty, so that was siddly.

And then.

Okay.

And then with Garrett at the end.

Amen.

So, uh, Rufino, you are up first.

Yeah.

So, uh...

Sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh.

I'm gonna

turn

and try to sprint away from the conflict to where it looks like I'm trying to run away into a back alley.

Like,

for all intents and purposes, I'm trying to make it look like I'm running away.

Okay.

Uh, just roll a guile test for me to see if if the uh you do not seem seem like an immediate target to any of the other surrounding combatants.

Yeah, uh 12.

12.

30.

You you put up your most in like I am not a threat expression ever and dart out of the center of the battlefield while the rest of your companions look like they are ready to have a showdown.

And you feel pretty confident that you are not the focus of attention at the moment.

What are you doing?

Try if I can finally do it.

I do want to get not I want to try to get a vantage point somewhere up high, like rooftops again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh, I will say, I will say, because now we're pushing forward, we can say push the advantage to try and do this.

Okay.

So roll a D10 and add your, I'd say, agility.

Bro, I am going to leave.

I'm sorry.

I was trying to try.

Make it leave in character.

I was trying to all yell at myself and now I'm going to do it in real life.

Apparently, Rafina can do lots of things other than climb on a box.

That's a nat one.

Oh, boy.

What is happening, dude?

What is happening?

It's been a big night.

Yeah.

Well, so

you...

I'll say this.

You do manage to find a vantage point, but it ends your turn.

You do come up there,

you get to a place where the flames haven't yet gotten to, and there is kind of a tiled roof edge that you clamber up to unnoticed, but the process of doing so takes the entirety of your turn, and that's going to finish its go.

But you are in position.

Riuichi, you are up.

Okay, man.

Let me understand.

Two archers

flanking us coming.

They're on horse?

They're on horseback.

The guy, he dismounted, the samurai, so he's walking towards us in the center.

He's rushing towards you in the center.

Rushing.

Both weapons in the center.

Okay, so everything is urgent.

I'm going to take out

one of the archers with a Surdaken.

I got Surdakin, right?

Not only ninjas have them.

I got a few here.

They just got sink, sink, sink.

You know, or two or three.

I'm going to take out one.

So that's my first battle.

Okay, so as you see this going, you're going to go ahead and throw an attack.

I can grab like a score.

All right.

So for this,

you can roll with either agility or guile, your choice.

Agility zero.

So just roll a d12.

Six.

Oh.

Okay.

I missed.

missed.

Unfortunately, you miss on the first.

It goes wide.

They're hard to hit when they're riding on horseback, but it's not impossible.

Do you want to push the event and try for another one?

Do I have to roll with a smaller die?

You do.

Yeah.

Let's go.

It's this one, right?

Yep.

Six, plus, or nothing.

Well, if you don't have a bonus to your thing, then that's just a six.

What about the sugar can?

I don't have no.

Oh, no, that would be adding your agility or your guile, I said.

So that would be a zero.

Zero, shit.

So I miss again.

They're just so hard to hit.

Okay.

However, because you were pushing the advantage, as you're throwing the Shuriken,

you assume this massively armored figure would be slow, given the weapons and the size of him.

He moves quicker than you expect, and suddenly he is upon you

with a massive swing.

That is going to be an eight.

Does an eight hit you?

Dodge.

It's an eight.

I got eight dodge.

Oh, eight dodge.

He just hits you.

Oh, yes, it has to hit or higher.

Do you have enough adrenaline for a defensive maneuver?

I have four adrenalines.

And do you have any weapon abilities that add to your dodge?

Under your katana.

Deflect.

Weapon ability.

On a successful attack, you can do plus two wounds.

Then above that, there should be a defensive or a

ally gains plus two dodge against the attack.

So you or an ally can get plus two to.

If you want to spend the two adrenaline on that, you can add plus two to your dodge and try and deflect it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So go ahead and spend two adrenaline.

Okay.

And that brings your dodge up to 10, right?

Causes his attack to miss.

So he comes down rapidly with both weapons and you just

like deflect it off to the side.

He like barely misses taking a chunk out of your head.

Okay.

But now he's there and in the fray next to you.

That finishes your turn.

It's now his turn.

You're right there.

You kind of you can now see like the cold and cruel eyes that are just barely visible between his mask and his helmet and he kind of reads you and

he's gonna spin around and come for you.

What?

Ooh, that's gonna be

a 13 to hit.

For sure.

I have no fancy deflection moves, so.

Okay, you take three wounds as both weapons

come down upon you.

You try and like hold it and it pushes you back a heavy impact on you.

He's gonna push the advantage.

Oh man.

That's gonna be a seven to hit you?

Mitsubiza, yep.

Seven hits you again.

Another three wounds.

Oh,

just blood sprays on the ground.

Is just brutalizing Garrett.

Staggering.

Back, yeah.

Garrett's already in a rough place from these hits.

He's a cruel figure.

He's gonna push the advantage again.

Oh, no.

So it goes.

That's going to put it at a six.

Ah, that misses.

Now, because he failed while pushing the advantage, you get to attack him back.

Okay, right.

So I just got slashed.

The conabo, my conabo is in the dirt and I'm bleeding out rapidly, but I will

press this desperately.

I will, even though it fucking hurts so fucking bad, I'll double hand the Kanobow and

and try to strike him in the side of the skull with the heavy end an arrow comes out of nowhere yeah yeah just in time

and uh helps him from the side i'll use uh adrenaline to give you aid

and uh yeah yeah yeah wow adding which uh i'm gonna i'm gonna

well that's interesting

it's sneaky

Because

you're unnoticed, it could be guile.

I want it to be guileless.

You just have to think about how you apply that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It said that that was that it's meant to be a sneak attack.

It's plus three.

Yeah, and it's not wounding him, it's just to distract him.

Correct.

So it's a plus three to your

nine.

Nine hits.

So with that, that is three wounds to the masked samurai.

Yes.

Crack!

A heavy hit.

It impacts the armor, and the armor kind of takes the hit, and he just slightly moves.

Oh, geez.

I mean, he took three wounds, but he's he has a lot of armor on, so like the armor absorbs a lot of it.

So, but that finishes his turn.

Booming, you're up.

Right.

I want to break through that armor so that we can get at him with our finer weapon.

So I'm going to

just give

Tomiko and Heiji a little shove back and run forward with my Kanobu.

Awesome.

Oh, and deliver a 14-point

from

behind.

Yeah, he's not even focused on you right now because he's just kind of let like a smart brutal warrior like focusing somebody down in the moment if no one else is defending and you use that advantage to just crack a heavy hit on the back of the armor.

That's three wounds to him.

Do you want to push the advantage?

Yes, I would love to push the advantage, so I'm going to now don't forget before somebody rolls you can spend an adrenaline to try and add

one adrenaline if you want to you can spend an adrenaline and then how do you aid her attack?

Which attribute do you add to her?

How do I eat her?

Do you want to add your might to her role?

Yeah, well, oh, that's how I can add one of your bonuses.

Yeah, you add one of your bonuses to her.

Absolutely.

But describe how you help her with her strike.

Oh.

How do I help her with her strength?

Write your own action movie.

So right now he's been smashed in the chest, smashed in the back, his armor is compromised, and I'm just like winding up for another swing with my conobow now to his head.

That's where I'm heading.

Well, he's kind of distracted, so I'm going to approach from the opposite side to throw off

his concentration.

So he cannot, you know, rely on

his eyesights on her, but he's seeing me, so he has to concentrate on me.

So I'm distracting him by circling around him.

Great.

So you circle around, kind of flashing the weapon to try and draw his attention.

He's now caught between the three of you, and that gives just enough of an opening for you to go ahead and strike.

What was your total?

The 14 that hit a 14.

There was the 14 was the first roll.

Now you roll a d10.

Great.

Multiple people can't aid.

No, not multiple people.

Great.

So a d10.

Oh, 10.

Ha!

That's a crap.

It's my first.

Bloons

on him with a heavy hit.

Nice.

That's right.

Unfortunately, no.

But hey.

All right.

It all helps.

It's all great.

It works.

All right.

So that was a smash to the back of the head to blast his helmet.

Hopefully, off.

Off.

It cracks off, but it doesn't remove itself.

His strap is hardy on his neck.

But his neck, the back of his neck is exposed.

But the back of the neck is exposed.

Are you going to push the advantage?

I'm going to try and push the advantage and slash down there with my Wakazashi.

Alright, so now you're rolling a D8.

What are you rolling?

A D8.

With agility, right?

With agility for plus two.

Yes.

Another arrow comes out of nowhere.

Another adrenaline.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alright, Alright, so you get to add another plus three to that one.

Oh, and I push the advantage, I have to take off an adrenaline, right?

Yes, correct?

No, no, just use your abilities.

That was adrenaline for me.

Adrenaline for you.

Oh, is an aid, right?

So pushing.

It kind of like dinks off of his shoulder.

Yep.

Yeah.

So roll a D8 and add plus three on top of your plus two.

So okay, so I got seven.

Twelve, that hits.

That's nice.

So this is with my Wakadashi, I slash down on the back of his neck.

That's just one wound on that one.

So you strike down on the back of his neck.

It's now like carved in.

You get the blood kind of oozing from the back of it.

And you just hear.

No.

Spins around.

And now he looks you in the face and goes, oh, you're so tiny.

You'll make a tiny corpse.

That's going to finish it.

Unless you want to push the advantage again?

Or do you want to end it there?

I have a question.

Wait, so every time I roll, I get an adrenaline.

When I'm pushing the advantage and rolling, can I still gain adrenaline for every roll?

Every time you do.

Every time.

But the die number.

The die number now.

If you want to push the advantage again, it becomes a D6.

Oh, jeez.

Don't.

So,

he's facing me, and I've got the Wakasashi, and he's bleeding out really bad.

I would love to just try and stab him in the face.

Okay, so roll a D6.

What happens with this D6?

Yeah, swing the Kanobo right into his ankle as I see her pressing the attack and aid.

Okay, so go ahead and roll the dice in my head.

Okay.

Six.

Another grid.

Oh, damn.

Holy shit!

Okay, lots of fun.

That's two wounds from the Wakasashi.

As you stab into the abdomen, like, he's taking these hits and is like, he's looking hurt, but he's standing.

And with each wound, he seems to grin.

You see, like, the blood kind of now dripping out from underneath the mask, which is this horrible visage now of this, like, this only like grin with, like, the fang teeth and just the blood pouring out.

And as you stab him in the stomach, he like slams his

like his katana arm, wraps around you and pulls you into him.

So he pulls the blade into his stomach and he just kind of looks right in your grin.

Do you want to push the advantage again for a d4?

Yeah, you know, I kind of do.

Let's go!

It's fun.

Let's see if I can do a little...

What is it?

Like, Haraki.

I'm just gonna see if I can drag this Arkizashi up to his heart.

I flip the Kanobo and I drive the handle into his ribs, pressing him towards her, aiding you again.

Okay.

I can't help as well.

We can't like three-prong him, like, you know.

It's one help.

Do it.

Uh,

one.

Plus two, plus anything.

So

this was a natural one.

And then, so with my Wakizashi

for me, and three for you.

So

that is unfortunately gonna fail.

First off, he's gonna use, because you've wounded him on one of previous wounds, he's gonna use his special ability to, as he holds you in, to crack headbutt you, you automatically take one wound.

Okay.

And then he's going to go ahead and

as you're like there, the blade pushing to his chest and you're right there, he's going to go ahead and

that's attacking you for a 12 hit.

Oh!

Yo, so I have seven dodge.

What can I do?

Deflect with my Wakazashi.

Dodge.

I'm going to burn two adrenaline.

What does it bring to dodge up to?

Well, that only brings it up to a nine.

It's not going to be enough.

So you take three wounds.

As he's pulled you in close, he now what he does is he takes, as he's holding you with the Kana and he takes the Kanobo in the other and kind of while bear-hugging you against him.

Crack!

Crack!

And just like slamming you in the back with this bat as he's just kind of laughing in your face.

So that's three wounds on you there.

That finishes your turn.

Now it's the bow riders.

Oh boy.

Yeah.

One of them is going to go ahead and take a shot.

It's going to take another shot at you from behind.

That's going to be...

Oof.

A 10?

A 10 attack on me?

Yeah.

What'd you dodge?

Oh, I got it.

I will me.

I've got

seven.

Quick check.

So

did I burn those two adrenaline adrenaline trying to dodge?

So now my dodge is seven.

I wonder.

Bringing up nine isn't going to be enough.

Because nine is not enough.

And then I still have two points on my armor that can take it.

So yeah, so it's two.

It's two wounds from

the bow.

So you take two wounds from the air that...

Great, that's the one that sinks into my armor.

So you mark those off your armor.

Your armor absorbs the blow.

It's going to push the advantage.

Because they must both ways.

That's going to be a seven.

Seven hit.

I'm a seven dodge, so I will burn two adrenaline here.

Okay.

With my Wakizashi to try and.

So this is the archer coming up?

Yeah, so now you push off the masked samurai after he's impacted you and you hear

one hits your armor yeah another one shh

you cut it out of the air backing out of the way the arrow just splits off into two pieces it's awesome um

and that's gonna finish his turn uh because that's a miss technically so that ends his turn immediately the other one is is currently trying to train on who's there uh you're probably the most prominent one is gonna go ahead and try and fire at you Oh, that's gonna be a four to hit, which misses.

Ends its turn.

Garrett, you're up with Rufino on deck okay Garrett is heavily wounded and is just staring at his own blood in the dirt and thinking how much he loves this city

if he's got to die anywhere it better be here and he goes ape shit and I charge at the samurai and I just am gonna take a full baseball bat swing at his face to begin

come on No.

No, that is a five.

A five unfortunately misses.

You go to swing towards him and slip in my own blood.

Actually, yeah, you slip a bit and

he hears like the gravel grind of your foot, even though he's been focused on Umi, and almost without looking, and just kind of barely glances over his shoulder, swings his Kanobo back, and both of your weapons collide at the same time, leaving this heavy crack sound that just like

echoes throughout the entire area of this region of the city.

Now, how do the rules work?

If I miss on my first attack, am I able to push for a second try?

No, it's just succeed can you push but however because your first one missed he there is no consequence it's only when you miss on a push that you

so your turn ends there uh rufino you're up yeah cool i'm gonna knock one and try to uh

shoot at these uh mounted archers okay i have no idea how this ends

up oh it's different though we're gonna find out together seven seven seven is what you needed to hit them okay okay good good good so that's two wounds on that one uh that is two wounds That's correct.

So one of the mounted riders

is getting its arrow set up.

As it's aiming, it does not even notice you as you let loose,

takes a hit from the side and glances over towards the direction of where you are and just barely makes a beat on where you're sitting on the rooftop.

Do you want to push the advantage?

Absolutely.

Anybody have adrenaline to help here if they want to?

Oh, yes, I would love to.

I'm going to aid an ally.

Okay, how do you aid him against the mounted archer?

Right.

So where am I right now?

All right, so I have just deflected, deflected a shot, deflected an arrow.

So I've got my Wakizashi at.

So

as he's turned

to try and get a beat on where you are,

I'm going to take a swipe at

his arm.

So you're going to rush up towards the, as the horse is running by, you're going to try and meet him and get it and slash at it?

Yeah.

Awesome.

Just like, yeah, run towards and get it as I pass.

Yeah.

Great.

So he's charging towards the horse.

He's like knocking the arrow

and looking down at you.

That distracts him just enough for you to go ahead and get the shot.

As you swing wide without making impact, but it definitely kind of sets him off in

the horse's mount.

So you go ahead and take the shot.

Let's go, baby.

Come on.

Doink.

What did I?

That's my bonus.

Yeah.

12.

12, definitely.

Two wounds.

He's the second arrow sticks into him, and he's like, oh, he like lump, like slumps forward.

And for a second, you think he's dead.

And he kind of

gets back.

barely holding on.

Yeah, I'm gonna press and

into the eight, but I'm gonna use my special action take aim.

So I'm gonna spend all three of my adrenaline, and I get to add my guile to my attack roll.

Yes, you do.

I'm also going to throw the Tanto blade that I picked up at that archer's back as I see you taking action.

So you get plus one from my guile.

You got it.

Let's go ahead and spend that adrenaline.

Seven?

Seven is exactly what you need.

Oh, nice.

That was with this plus one.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How do you want to do this?

Yeah, it's just that

the action is take aim.

Like, it's that moment where you've got a bow fully drawn and he's locked in.

And

these are like a recurve bow, so they pull the full weight.

And he's just gonna think of all the times he's failed throughout the day.

And his self-loathing is gonna allow him to pull an extra five pounds on this fucking bow.

And it's just going to.

And that arrow's going to

It like goes through the throat and sticks and stays in place.

Oh, nice.

He like falls back in the saddle, kind of coughing, and as the horse now

takes off.

And now, like, now that it's not being controlled, the flames that have grown so high kind of spook it, and the horse kind of takes off further into the city with the now like still strapped in corpse of that one samurai.

The other one's still riding around.

So your turn, you want to push the advantage on the other one, or are you good?

Yeah, I'm going to look down at Garrett, point at him.

But I'm going to give him a big thumbs up.

And then I booked it.

I was kind of like...

Hold on.

Yeah.

I want to, as that's happening, if we can, just for flavor, I'm going to move positions and kind of try to move to a different part of the rooftop.

And I'm going to...

Wait, are you going to attack on this?

No.

No.

Okay, got it.

That finishes your turn.

Bioichi.

You're right.

okay, so there's two men left: the samurai who's maintained, he's hurt pretty bad, but he's taking a lot of hits, and he's still standing and laughing.

And there's the mounted samurai, which hasn't been hurt yet.

And he's what, circling, yeah, he's like circling and shooting arrows around the outside.

Mumi's got her eyes on both of them.

Yeah, because I just slashed it.

You just engaged with the guy that I just murked.

Yep, so she knows that I have taken on two opponents.

Yeah, I'm going for the samurai.

Alrighty.

She can handle this guy.

Masked samurai, you mean?

The masked samurai, the one that just fucked up my buddy Garrett.

Yeah, let's go.

Let's go.

He's been smashing the back of their necks.

I go right to him.

I see you running up and I go,

and I headbutt him right in the face to assist you, my plus two.

Okay.

Seeing you coming up.

Go ahead and make yours.

I had a little bit of room.

So I took out my Naginata.

Alright.

Well,

and I am going to, from a distance, maybe 8 to 9 feet, I'm going at him with my

Minaginata.

And how can I boost this attack?

What abilities do you have there?

I have one adrenaline.

Any of the abilities that require special action on my Naginata?

Yep.

Do either of them take one adrenaline?

Rollwind Strike?

Rollwind Strike is multiple targets.

You don't need that again.

No, defensive flash.

No.

Okay.

So nothing that'll help you in the strike,

but you can keep in mind that defensive ability can possibly save you in a pinch.

Yes, all right, so go ahead and take your strike with the headbutt gives you plus two

Oh really?

Yeah, I just crunched his nose a bit

Let's go

six plus two

plus three here six plus three is nine plus that definitely hits yes So with that he takes uh it's two wounds from the Naganata.

Sorry?

Two wounds.

Yeah.

Alright, so he takes a hit very hard.

He's gonna use his special ability to.

After he takes the headbutt from you, you strike him.

He runs around and grabs your Naginata with the other hand, like dropping his Kanobo, pulling you in and head-butting you, and then you take a wound.

Okay.

Just as his reaction to that, do you want to press the advantage?

Yes.

I'm that close.

Only one of us is leaving.

Alright.

So you go ahead and roll a D10 and add your knight.

Instead of hearing sss, you hear

and a coin bag goes flying through the air and hits the guy right in the face.

So

you're going to get a plus three.

That one right there.

You're going to get a plus three on this.

Really?

Yep.

Yeah, that's my last.

I don't add a might to this.

I do.

You do, dude.

You get my plus three.

So it's a plus six.

Ah!

Don't zero!

That's a crit.

That's a 10.

Oh, that's a 10!

That's a crit!

That's a crit.

I spent all my money on that!

Oh!

Nice!

Riuichi, how do you want to do that?

Yay!

I'm gonna get up close.

I'm gonna run my hand

up to the top of my Naginata blade.

I'm gonna bring it to a throat.

And slowly, like in saving Private Ryan when the...

I'm gonna look him right in the eye.

Oh, I'm going to slowly just sever that jugular.

As you're doing that, his hand reaches up and grabs your throat and is strangling you.

Man, that's fine.

He's looking at you with intense fury as you just cut and carve.

And you feel like your trachea beginning to collapse.

And right at the point where it might be too much, you feel his grip begin to fade as the life leaves his eyes.

As you carve back, the mask comes loose in the final minute, and you just see that cruel smile as he drops from your grasp onto the ground.

Now, there is a horse-mounted samurai running.

Do you want to push the advantage?

Or no, I want

young lady to kind of

aid.

I can aid you in your attack if

you do.

No,

I'm gonna let her have the glory.

All right.

Let's see.

Like, I see that she wants it.

That finishes.

And her life means everything.

That means everything to her.

She has it.

I love it.

Alright.

With that, the Masemarai is not on the initiative order.

Umi, you are up.

Wonderful.

So,

I'm now going to.

This

archer on horseback is charging towards us

with it drawn, and I'm going to

run towards him with my Wakazashi drawn and just try to slash again at

his body.

Okay, great.

Here we go.

Oh,

two.

i'm reloading my muscle rather than okay

great so i i strike him with uh i hate a four swing with a four and swing and a miss unfortunately some heavy hits but at this point especially like watching the mass samurai you know crumble and zerochi kind of just finishes that off at this awesome terrifying moment of execution um realizing that there's still something on the field and you rush towards it and it's like so close to victory you're almost distracted in the moment and as you try and swing wide the horse just kind of gallops out of the way.

No impact.

That finishes your turn.

It's now the archer's turn.

As it

carries around, it's going to look back over and take a shot at you.

That is going to be an 11 to hit.

Oh, yeah.

You take two woofs from that hit.

It's going to push the advantage.

No!

That's going to be a 9 to hit you.

Okay, I've got 7 to dodge, so I'm going to burn.

burn

a nine will still hit you

or above.

That's right, okay.

So you take two more wounds from your second arrow.

I am,

I fall to the ground, I'm on my knees.

You're alive.

I have two arrows in me, and I'm bleeding out.

So Umi is incapacitated, two massive arrows sticking out of her torso.

On her knees, kind of weapon dropped out of her grip as the horse is...

He's going to push the advantage and take a shot at you.

I'm going to roll this in front of the screen, actually, because we're down to the wire here.

So this is a

plus one.

It's a six to hit.

I don't know.

That does not hit, which means his turn is done and you get to respond if you'd like.

Yes, please.

He's alive.

He's alive.

He's hurting.

He's alive.

He's hurting real bad, but he's still standing.

He's standing.

I thought he was on the ground.

Like sneezing.

He's conscious.

But Archer is still on horseback, right?

Correct.

So you can close the distance if you want to.

I actually just invite him to come, acting as dead as I feel.

And as he approaches,

goes to lead arrow.

And as he's coming by, I try to catch him in the throat with the carnival.

Roll an attack.

eight

eight hits.

Yes,

heavy cracking chest.

I'll say actually knocks him off the horse, tumbles off the horse,

skitters off.

He gets up, gets his bow to the ready, and begins to like back away.

He's hurt, but still definitely has some vim and vigor in him.

That's gonna finish his turn.

Garrett, you're up.

Oh, that was just my response.

That was your response to him failing after pushing the advantage.

All right, all right.

Yeah.

Uh...

I'm going to.

Leap at the guy on his horse and try to swing it to the side of his head and knock him.

He's fallen from his horse already.

He's fallen already?

Yeah, the horse took off.

He's on the ground before you, so you can go and close the distance on him.

He only has his bow and arrow?

Bow and arrow, and there's a wakasashi on the back.

But does he draw it?

Not yet.

He's just recovering from falling from the the horse.

Then rewind.

I see him standing up and I run as fast as my wounds will allow me and I upswing into his jaw.

Go for it.

Yeah, 13.

13 with it.

With

adrenaline, I meant to say.

Yeah.

So that adds one to the wound.

Alright.

How do you want to do this?

I think I just take his jaw off his face.

Yeah.

He tries to back out of the way and

the jaw just gets flung off into the rooftop.

It kind of lands near you.

he falls to the back uh at that moment

you all kind of look around you there's no immediate combatants but you do hear shouts of soldiers streets not that far off getting louder this area is about to fill with more cavalry and backup as you all kind of glance over and see umi is standing or sitting there on her knees, bleeding out into the ground, the two arrows kind of stuck, still holding on, but in a bad place.

place

tomiko at this point kind of rushes out with heija on her arm is everyone all right

oh god

help her help her i run and scoop her up all of you kind of help get umi to her feet and like you're you're so conscious but your feet are a little dragging and you're stumbling as you go but with all their help you all head towards what is now the flaming exit gate to the north

A little bit of confidence and a little bit of bravery, you all kind of push through.

The heat is intense, but not enough for any of you to catch as you push through and are met on the opposite side

with

the night sky beyond the flaming chaos of the city.

The welcome view of stars in the night above as you all begin to push into

the Setsu countryside, the rolling hills of grass,

the

welcoming welcoming sight of

non-crumbling architecture

but it doesn't take you long before you push into the fields that you can see numerous other citizens who have run who are crying in the nearby grass

you pass by one of the creeks that carves through where you see families trying to gather and

make sense of what's happened.

You can see other

Nobunaga soldiers who have been cut down by gathered civilians defending themselves, trying to avenge those that lost in the escape.

But this moment of peace is mingled with the sense of this is just the beginning.

Tomiko leads you towards the outskirts of one beautiful little section of farmland before guiding you into this kind of rural estate.

She comes to the door and slams on it.

It slides to the side, and you see a handsome gentleman in his mid to late 20s or so.

Tomiko, you're okay, pulls her into his arms and holds him, and they kind of just hold for a minute before he stops and says, Heiji,

who are these?

Tomiko turns back.

They

saved us.

They helped us get here.

Well, come in, come in.

Your guest's here.

What's happened?

I had everything ready, and you looked at the side, and he had packs ready to go.

Tools was

ready for some sort of shifting.

I was going to come find you, I.

And she goes, It's good you didn't.

It's

bad.

He looks to Heiji.

What if

Rin of, and she kind of puts her finger to his lips.

He looks so

naughty.

I don't you take care of Heiji and

we'll get him to safety.

He looks back to the rest of you.

Whoever you are,

thank you.

Let's let's dress your wounds.

Let's get you

better.

I need to figure out

how to get Heiji out of here and

whoever is safety for you all, we're going.

And it's that moment you hear

dozens

of horse

galloping sounds getting louder and louder as you look back

at the hillside grasses beginning to catch flame.

That's where it ends.

That's a long shot.

Just begun.

It actually

does

segue right into

the game.

Shadows.

Wow.

Well done, y'all.

That was awesome.

That was amazing.

Cassie were so much fun to play with.

Sincerely!

Wonderful.

So gorgeous to get to learn from you all as well.

This is my first time playing.

No.

Thank you so much.

What a never a know.

It's still taping us.

We're talking right now.

Oh, no, that was wicked.

Evic.

Yeah.

Did you have fun?

Yeah, it's great.

I can't believe it.

It sure seemed like it.

Yeah, it was great.

It was great.

But I could see how

this is absolutely in line with

shadows.

That's the idea.

Absolutely.

Though, as a reminder, none of tonight's events are canon to Assassin's Creed Shadows, nor are they in any way historically accurate, but to your point,

we've had a lot of fun.

We've taken a lot of inspiration from these pieces.

So

yeah, just to...

So I have to clarify for that.

But yeah, the intent was to tell a story that felt like a nice fictional companion to some of the characters in the narrative.

You guys did great.

I don't need to actually write this as a prequel.

Just Carter, you were saying it it yourself.

We're writing our own

story.

Yeah, it's gorgeous.

A story that emerges in the characters, the relationships.

Yeah,

I yeah, I gotta get it.

Choice and chance.

Choice and chance.

This made me want to play the game.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It was such a fun motley crew.

And like, it felt, it felt...

It was very much like putting this together.

It was like, I hope this feels like it...

This grounds itself somewhat in the reality of, you know, some.

And I think you all just kind of slipped into it so well.

I'm so happy with it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now I I got a toma coal, huh?

Yeah.

I'm so sorry we didn't run for your boat.

We could have avoided so much pain if we'd only be like, you know what?

Let's go for that boat.

I was never really good at the

and then Matt insured it.

We were also pushing the three-hour mark and I was like, I gotta move stuff along.

The VM's gotta keep that clot going, you know?

So you had it.

You had it written down.

All those beats, those moments, and then right to the last hammer, and then leaving the gate, you knew the story.

Well, I had those.

There were multiple things that could have happened.

Those are the things that felt the most appropriate given the direction that it was going and the choices you all were making.

There are a few things that never occurred.

You know, there are a few things that you stopped from happening.

Yeah,

it's what makes these games so fun.

It's like, I don't really know what's going to happen.

It's great.

It's great how you designed it because I didn't know what was going on the first 10 minutes, what?

But as

a progressive game, that's how all those games start.

Yeah, yeah, as

you start to walk us through it.

I'm like, oh, this is like a plan.

It's kind of like

the game.

I don't know if you know the movie The Game with Michael Douglas.

Oh, yeah.

It's kind of like, you know exactly what we're going to do.

You're going to plan perfectly.

You're going to walk right through it and you're going to win it.

It's the greatest

compliment I could have hoped for.

No, it was great.

I could see.

I was like, I thought you were making this up.

No, I was like, oh man, this is right when it ended.

I was like, oh, shit.

We just walked right through this whole thing.

This guy's like Mr.

Rourke.

He's creating a game, but we cannot die.

And it's going to be, you know, we're going to be.

Oh, you could very much have died.

Yeah, I mean, you were close.

How many wounds?

How many hit points?

Four wounds.

No armor.

I had three left.

You had three left?

You guys had a great opening volley on that Mass Samurai because he had a fuck ton of hit points.

And he saw another headbutt.

Lovely buttons.

My only wound was when I twisted my ankle.

That's true.

Shell due to April.

Hey man.

You got a bunch of bruises at the front line doing what they do.

Take the hits.

Yeah, thanks for the story, man.

That was really fun.

Thank you all quick.

That was awesome.

Your roles were dog shit, and and yet the character was so memorable.

Yeah.

That's half the game.

Thank you all so much for joining us so much, sincerely.

I look forward to seeing your characters in the game.

Yeah, thanks for the invite.

It was great.

Like, I was a little bit reluctant because

I wasn't skilled at the game, but now I know it's absolutely friendly.

You know what I mean?

It's open to make mistakes.

Hell yeah.

It's great.

I saw you guys whipping out all kinds of, like, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to an adrenaline.

What can I add on this?

I'm like,

there's real skill involved in this.

And that's why I was like, I'm going to pick up that gun.

You know, I could use it later.

I didn't know that we could pick up weapons until you said, I'm going to go and grab that.

What?

What?

That's all good.

I could have been walking an arsenal.

I could have everything.

So, yeah, I guess the more you play, the

obviously you guys are skilled at this.

Very skilled in class.

Also, just to feel your characters come to life as well.

Beyond just describing actions, it's so nice to hear you in character.

And I feel inspired to play.

Hooked another two.

But also, YouTube picked that up so quickly and met us all on that level so well.

It was so much fun.

We crushed it.

So cool.

I'm glad that we could, you know, embellish upon this.

I mean, I get it now.

I get it.

Welcome to the fold.

I'll come play again if you ever invite me.

Hell yeah, man.

Good to know.

Yes.

Great to know.

Well, thank you all so much.

I hope you had as much fun as we did.

A massive thank you again to Ubisoft and Assassin's Creed Shadows for sponsoring this one shot, letting us play our game in the world of your game.

Go ahead and check out assassinscreed.com slash shadows for all the details surrounding it.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you to our wonderful players.

Have a 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?

Your coworkers eating mystery leftovers.

Again, but you, you respect your lunch break.

Grab a new toasted pizza sandwich from Jimmy John's.

Yeah, toast it.

Try the Sicilian salami, capicolo, ham, rich marinara, gooey mozzarella, and oregano basil, all on golden French bread.

Or go cheese mode with the three cheese, Parmesan, provolo, and mozzarella, dripping with marinara and herbs, hot, melty, seriously satisfying.

Order one, Fronta, Jimmy John's new toasted pizza sandwiches.

Oh, that's good.

At participating locations for a limited time while supplies last.

Did you know Tide has been upgraded to provide an even better, clean and cold water?

Tide is specifically designed to fight any stain you throw at it, even in cold.

Butter?

Yep.

Chocolate ice cream?

Sure thing.

Barbecue sauce?

Tide's got you covered.

You don't need to use warm water.

Additionally, tide pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new coldzyme technology.

Just remember: if it's gotta be clean, it's gotta be tide.