The Adventure Zone Versus Dracula - Episode 29

The doors to Lumino Tower are slammed shut behind the three of you, and the din of battle from outside is immediately silenced.

It is replaced by the sound of wind and a sort of low, resonant whistling high above you.

You are standing inside the base of Lumino Tower.

Your eyes follow a ladder extending from the floor up 50, 60 feet into the air.

The exact length is difficult to gauge because the ladder appears to lead directly up into this swirling cloud of fog at the top of the chamber.

Inside that fog, you see these random streaks of amber light kind of pulsing through,

which are providing the

only source of lighting in

this room.

What do you do?

I'm going to

tentatively

throw a piece of jerky into the amber light to make sure it is not dangerous to flesh.

Make an attack roll with the jerky against the swirling fog cloud.

You're throwing a piece of jerky 60 feet straight up into the air, which is

not nothing.

But when I do it, it's gonna be sick.

Hold on.

I could do it.

I'm just saying, like, I don't want to brag or anything, but my years of playing AAA ball, I think, would really pay off there.

18, sure.

18.

You chuck it straight up into the cloud.

It gets major hang time, dude.

You hear it clang

as it actually moves through the fog cloud.

It hits the ceiling.

What is this jerky made out of?

Beyond the fog cloud.

Clang?

Heavy iron content.

Are you certain?

That's the sound effect we're going with here?

When it falls back down,

you catch it, and it seems to be fine.

It doesn't appear to have been

roasted by this cloud.

Yeah, that makes sense.

It was not Joe Dynamic flavored, so it's parabolic.

It's still in the air.

Right.

It's a ladder, right?

Through a big swirling cloud.

That's right.

It seems like we should climb it.

Is there nothing else in the room?

Any...

I don't know.

I'm going.

I'm going.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

You climb, leaving behind the pile of magic crystals.

I knew it.

No, yeah.

You set up climbing the ladder.

As you approach the cloud, the whistling gets louder and louder.

But as you head up through it,

it's weird climbing through a sort of solid cloud of fog.

But as you scale the ladder and you reach

the top, your hand passes up through a hole onto solid ground, and you all climb into the lantern room, atop Lumino Tower.

Boom.

I'm not looking at World 20.

I assume Grove just puts on a cool.

Swirling miasma of energy and light.

Yeah, dad has described the setting actually quite well.

The contents of this lantern room are striking, but not nearly as eye-catching as what you see out of the floor-to-ceiling windows surrounding you.

You no longer...

It's a swirling miasma.

It's a swirling miasma of light and magic.

Can we talk about the bats, though?

There's a lot of bats.

Look, this Griffin is me the closest to a Wiki How illustration he's done.

The way it is depicted is that there's a big wooden tower.

It looks kick-ass.

In the middle, there's some sort of weird metal thing.

There's a swirling vortex like all around it.

And then in the this there's like a circle just lying on top of it.

An inset.

An inset.

Yes, yes, Travis.

It is an inset.

Also depicted bats.

There's just like this.

But it's like the concept of bats.

It's just like a circle of the idea of bats.

Any power over here.

And there's bats too.

Fill it in.

You get it.

The idea of bats.

It looks like it's a comic cover.

It's like, in this issue, something about bats.

There's a special appearance behind that.

It's letting you know that the swirling vortex has won the Newberry Bat Award.

They did it.

Okay.

Stop making fun of my final boss fight battle map.

Damn it.

I love it.

It's very much national life.

I'm there.

You are scared of the idea, Bets.

You can see this vortex sucking in all the clouds and light on the horizon outside into

the Lumino Tower,

like just right below your feet.

And you feel for the first time in years the warmth of the sun, not coming from above you, but just sort of from around you as its rays are being siphoned into the tower.

A shadow passes across your party as a massive colony of bats.

easily numbering in the thousands

flies by,

sort of soaring around the tower in a circle, in a sort of defensive formation.

At the center of this circular room, atop the lighthouse, is the lantern,

which is massive.

It is like 10 feet in diameter, and it is enclosed in a small sort of chamber composed of heavy brass and thick glass, sort of like the holding chamber that you saw in

Frankenstein's lab so long ago.

Through this sort of lantern chamber on the other side of the room, you see a skeleton that is sitting in a chair with a silvery steel wired helmet on its head.

And this skeleton is surrounded by this shimmering force field of nearly opaque amber light.

Crouching by this barrier, looking at the skeleton within, is

Count Dracula.

Or at least a Dracula, as evidenced by the bolts in his neck.

He stands and examines the three of you, and he takes a deep breath and he says...

You bunch of fucking buttholes!

Yep, that's Dracula.

Okay, man.

You have destroyed the most beautiful gift this primitive, uncultured world has ever received.

Sorry, can we have a moment?

Thank you.

Are you all feeling this?

The sun?

As I got up here, my muscles felt stronger and my bones more dense.

I believe...

I believe it's vitamin D.

So Griffin, I'd like to roll insight.

To see how my abilities have improved once you get it.

Because I did roll it actual ass one.

You gotta crit crit fail.

Everybody roll insight.

We'll see how the vitamin D improves here.

Did the people of Lumino have a system for this?

Were they gummies or something?

I got a 21 total, Griffin.

Holy shit.

Check out 27.

Now, okay, Travis, you are definitely sure it had no material impact.

Stats.

It does not seem to improve Lady Godwin's state.

Maybe it has something to do with the sort of tangible disconnect between your head and your body.

You feel great, but you can't quite figure out any more than that.

Philo, there is no effect.

You are a puppet.

You don't no longer have vitamins, and I'm very, very sorry.

Mutt, you've just unleashed the power of the sun.

You feel

a

potent primordial energy flowing through you,

and you can go ahead and recover whatever missing spell slots you may have.

Oh, fuck.

That's why you're the best in the biz, folks.

That's teamwork.

That's teamwork.

Justin pops it off.

Travis slams it down.

Griffin finds where it fits, and dad's there to watch it.

I watch it happen.

Yeah.

And dad nods like he had something to do with it.

Yes.

Just as I said.

All according to

Dad.

Dad weeps from the sidelines.

Is it pride?

Is it sadness?

Is it shame?

Is this where he thought we'd all end up, himself included?

No way way to say.

All right, I gave Travis superpowers with my dragon.

Travis, you have superpower.

Dracula says,

Do you fancy yourselves the heroes?

Against the case, history will not remember you as such.

Of that, I can assure you.

Is that rhetorical, man, or was that?

Because I can answer it.

No, it was

like having a conversation.

Okay, yeah, no, man.

Hero isn't really what I was going for.

So, long story short, uh, Invisible Man killed my brother.

My brother made me promise to take...

Wait, are you a real Dracula?

Are you one of the, like, Dracula clones?

Uh, it's, let's not pretend like we don't all know exactly what the situation is here.

I am.

I am a Dracula, but I am also

Dracula.

And he gestures to the skeleton.

inside of the uh the force field.

Does that skeleton have pointy teeth, Griffin?

It does indeed, travis okay well okay so i need to take his teeth if we want to make it a fish um and then i'm going to turn them into jewelry and then if i'm not mistaken i think i need to get on a boat to england

yes there's a real lack of leadership over there yeah and uh because i'm the king uh so we are we kill okay let me jump back a little bit we killed on the god i took excalibur i'm the king of england now he's interim pope.

You mean turbo cardinal?

Because we are actually very careful about that around you.

Yeah, interim turbo cardinal.

No popes allowed.

Great.

And

well, not no popes.

Don't say no popes allowed.

Everybody has to have a boss.

He's a turbo cardinal.

Well, no, I think I'm the turbo cardinal's boss if I'm the king of England.

You know what?

I actually don't know the structure of that.

You just led to many beheadings.

So yeah, we need to.

Can I excuse me.

Can I ask a question?

Yes, go ahead.

Dracula, why aren't you burning alive?

Oh, good question.

The sunlight is tempered by the lighthouse as it is being sucked in.

It is not in its pure form where it can irradiate my bones and turn me into fiery ash.

Okay.

That's not like a secret to my weak point.

It's something that we were very careful about.

Oh, okay.

You wouldn't want to share that with everybody.

I swing Jennifer Myers at the

lighthouse.

Okay.

Go ahead and make an attack roll.

I'm trying to catch him by surprise with an A roll 20.

That's...

Yeah.

Holy shit, juice.

You should know something.

Well, don't swing that, please.

I forgive you.

This is spite.

Uh, okay, roll damage.

I mean, this is an incredibly sturdy

sort of room that you are attacking, and yet with a Nat 20, it is for sure going to get in there, man.

That's 23.

Jesus Christ alive.

Pretty good.

Pretty good.

Considering, hey, folks at home, that's 2d12 plus 3.

I just got a 23 to give you the scope of the effectiveness of that.

Basically, just below as good as it could have been.

All right, man.

I mean, yeah, man.

Oh, follow-ups and nine, so we can just ignore that.

Yeah, don't get fucking greedy, Juice.

You swear.

You didn't.

It just would have been very funny if it happened again.

That's all.

I said we could move fast.

You swing Jennifer Myers in a wide arc,

just sort of horizontally in front of you.

Dracula at first looks

sort of annoyed that you are acting so childish in here.

But in slow motion, we watch as the axe, like a knife through butter,

slices through three of these massive brass bars

that are surrounding the center of the lantern chamber where the lantern actually is,

immediately shattering the two big glass panes between them,

creating easily

a eight foot wide hole

in this chamber in the center of the room and his face immediately turns to like shock and awe and says okay so no more monologuing then huh do you want to know the most fucked thing

I wasn't even raging yet

and now I and then I activate my rage just to be clear okay let's let's roll for initiative oh no man hey wait you can keep monologuing Oh, please, yes, don't let me interrupt you.

Yeah, I want to make it clear.

We can do two things at once, man.

So if you want to keep talking,

even even go.

If you want to go,

you can leave

a man.

What is a man?

A miserable little pile of secrets,

but enough talk.

Oh, hold on.

He bends down and he picks up a wine glass and a bottle and he pours himself a glass of wine.

He said, Can you say a thing about man again?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, give it.

Hey, man, what is a man?

Okay,

a miserable little fuck, just let's fight.

Wait.

Wait, are you telling me you drink wine?

Yeah, I thought, like, you famously have said, I don't drink.

Why?

Why?

It's a thing you said before, man.

I don't think I actually said that.

What he actually said was, I don't drink.

Why?

And then,

I should.

Okay.

Yeah.

Let me try it, man.

Whoa, this sounds better than blood.

Blood is gross.

I should have been drinking wine the whole time.

Jesus Christ, boys.

These are, you got some good initiative roles going here, huh?

Okay, I got an 11.

Three.

Four plus.

Six, ten.

Yeah, they weren't good, Griffin.

Yeah.

Okay,

first in the order is the Dracula clone.

He

is

going to run.

towards your party.

He's going to post himself up right here next to Godwin and Brother Philo.

He's first going to

gosh, he can do so much shit, man.

Dracula?

Yeah.

Yeah.

How about delight a planet for a century?

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Feels weird.

He's going to be the most lovable villain.

Yeah.

Well, not a joker.

Yeah.

Watch it, Traff.

Okay.

He is going to...

First, he's going to charm you,

Lady Godwin.

I need you to make a DC-17 wisdom saving throw.

Ah, my strong suit.

Let's see, man.

Hi, how about 17?

Wow!

Wow.

Holy shit.

Ice cold 17.

No boosts.

He looks at you.

No fakes.

Holds out a...

Shape Shape that Chaser.

No,

do not fake the funk on a nasty duck there.

He holds out his hand in front of him and points a crooked finger towards you.

And he says, My child,

let me get a quick bite going.

As he attempts to charm you.

But you feel

yourself unswayed.

Yes, my leash.

And I start walking towards him.

Make a performance check for me.

Because you have definitely done.

Again, again, all my natural talents.

You have done this, I think, exactly.

That is an exact one.

No!

Perfect.

A concrete one.

Straight no chase.

That's right.

All funk.

All funk has been faked on this thunk.

Okay, as you approach him, trying to pull off this same maneuver on him.

He is going to swing a crooked claw at you, nearly critting.

19 plus 928.

Which hits.

Oh, man.

I have got to change my tactics against Dracula.

You got to keep it fresh.

You got to keep it fresh.

Okay, man.

Sorry, did you say 29 points of damage?

No, he rolled a 28.

The exact number that he he does, you feel this scratch

of his razor-sharp claws

just sort of rake across your torso.

You take seven points of slashing damage, and then you take 13 additional points of necrotic damage.

It feels really bad where he has a bad feeling.

It's a super, super duper bad feeling.

Okay.

Wait, one second.

Do you have a reaction?

No, but I do have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

Oh, fantastic.

Then

you would take...

You would recover three hit points.

The slashing damage of seven.

All right.

Hey, it ain't nothing, man.

That shit adds up.

It's round one.

Next in the order is the colony swarm.

The colony swarm is going to smash through these windows on the eastern side of the room.

Oh no!

And

just sort of soar through your party.

Smash

through the

aliens airbrush the top of their flying saucer.

Yeah.

They sing, bro.

You know what would be kick-ass?

A bunch of bats.

Okay, everybody make a dexterity saving throw, please.

Trying to beat a 15.

How about a dirty 20?

Dirty 20 is higher than 15, yes.

Oh, just, just got it.

15.

It's a dex save.

Gone on a dex check.

Ah, yes.

Dex save.

Well, that, for that, I have a 20.

Wow, you all saved.

Okay.

These bats fly just sort of through your party.

They sort of, some of them collide with you clumsily,

but as they soar through the southwestern wall of the room, you find yourself largely unscathed.

Next in the order is Lady Godwin.

You have the Dracula clone up next to you, having just scratched at you.

You have the lantern chamber in the center of the room that you have basically smashed a gigantic hole in.

And on the opposite side of the room is the Dracula Prime skeleton in his chair with the Force Field around him.

I am going to

try to chuck Fakeula into the lantern.

I've had a real mixed run with trying to throw people into things this season.

And I really feel like narratively

satisfied

character growth.

Right.

I'll be able to really, when it counts, throw someone into something.

Okay,

make an attack roll against Dracula.

If you hit, you will not do damage, but you can move him five feet back, basically, right into the lantern.

All right, we got, let's get this going.

Hey, that's interesting.

Hmm, let's speak on that.

Huh.

That is, uh, I have again found my friend the one.

All 19 of his little buddies were there, but I bumped into him again.

What are the odds?

He's so eager.

Your, it feels like, oh man uh it is it is kind of frightening uh lady godwin it feels like your body is not responding to the commands that your brain is sending to it uh

maybe it is the the pressure of the situation maybe it maybe this is the react maybe the vitamin d is actually bad for you uh but maybe it is also the uh dracula necrotic magic that is coursing through your veins over the scratch but you you just can't seem to get a hold whole lot of I thought I was in a triumphant movie where it turned out what I'm in it is like a Cohen brothers movie where doing the same thing over and over again eventually leads to my downfall.

You know, like my inevitable

you do that was only one attack though.

You have

a couple of those I think you get.

Okay.

Oh shit.

Everybody is looking at me.

Yeah.

Everybody's like, I can't believe Lady Godwin tried to throw somebody again.

You know what I mean?

Right.

And they're all like, and they start to turn away.

Oh, no.

And then I stand up.

And I stand up.

Wait, you were sitting down?

Did you sit?

I sat down.

Just for a second.

We've been there.

Oh, so sad.

You know, when you try to throw somebody and it breaks your heart so bad that doesn't have you have to sit down for a second?

Just a little crisscross applesauce and think about life.

But then I start standing up and putting my hands on his hips and he is like gingerly taking my hands back off his hips.

Like it's sad at this point.

You know what I mean?

But then,

tell him what happens next, Griffin.

You roll another attack roll, and

your finger gets stuck in his belt loop.

It kind of twists weird, and it hurts your finger a lot.

And you pull, your arm shoots backwards, like, ah, fuck.

You fucked up my Dracula fucked up my finger with his belt loop.

Dang it.

So now, now

it's a damn out of that.

That was a 12.

So now, griffin everybody

please everybody has gotten me out of this just come on you've got to be kidding me it's so sad he like puts his hand on my shoulder like there's it's so sad

but then peak but then peak boomer crap

but then griffin tell him what happened tell him i put my hands somehow my scarred battered hands yeah up on the hip and then griffin tell him what happens he says, Come with the rule of threes, huh?

You actually do it with your feet.

You put your feet out instead of your hands.

And he's like, You're gonna do an airplane.

He's like, Well, do you know?

Not with the feet.

You're trying to push me with the feet.

This is humiliating.

That's a 14.

My dead skeleton is watching.

You're embarrassing yourself in front of of me twice.

The bats laugh outside.

I would prefer everyone remember a few minutes ago, remember?

Remember hitting the thing?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was so what have you done for me lately?

Aside from trying to push me three times.

Next in the order is: you have move if you want to move and take an attack of opportunity.

I sat down.

You sat down and stood up a second time.

You finishing off your movement.

Fantastic.

I jumped in place.

All right.

um

burn it you are up

okay

well freaking hell so we know throwing in doesn't work

i'm not quitting

i'm not giving up

um

well it seems like you guys have him well in hand

i'm gonna go for the skellington one Okay.

But before I run over, I'm gonna...

uh

hey Philo with your permission can I grab something off uh your vial belt?

Yeah, what do you want?

Um I'm gonna take the the vial of on blood that he collected from the river interesting.

Okay, yep, yep, yep.

Yeah, I'll take one of Philo's files from his phylactery.

Okay, and I uh then go sprinting over

to

the skellington.

Uh, okay,

So, uh, real quick, tell me, like,

you said it's an invisible barrier, Griffin.

No, I said it is a, it is,

you can, it is hard to see through it.

It is clearly made of, you know, light and magic and stuff.

You've seen sort of similar applications of

this, like, amber light before, but this is, this seems pretty, pretty solid.

Uh, this one is a very good thing.

Okay, it's the amber light.

Yes.

Okay, so I pour the blood of the god of nighttime onto the bone from the god of nighttime that I collected in the cave.

Okay.

And I slam that nighttime god blood bone into the wall of light.

That's very, very good.

As you

reunite this blood of on

with the the the bone of his giant buried corpse,

you feel something you feel some reaction taking place that i don't think you necessarily understand give me an arcana check uh you have done something here that is wild um

well that's a five

hmm interesting uh could i do an arcana check

um

no i don't let him get up in there he's already watched and you know what griffin i'm gonna use my inspiration um Oh, for this.

Okay, cool.

Well, don't say for this.

I think it makes Philo.

Yeah, Philo, if you want, I think it's Filo.

It's totally cannot ball because he was already engaged in it.

It's not random.

For sure.

Give me an Arcana check, Philo.

Shit, I got five gold pieces.

It's only 12.

You

both

feel

a presence.

God is moving in this chilies tonight.

You feel a presence in this room

that

is familiar.

I think you hear a voice in your head.

Time seems to slow.

The swirling of the light outside dims somewhat as

time slows down all around you.

And you hear a voice say, ah, yes, now you need my help.

Interesting.

Didn't seem to matter quite as much when you were striking me down.

Are you going to be caddy about it, or do you want to take down Draco?

I

would love to.

It would be far easier if I was still, you know, a huge, powerful skeleton.

What is he looking like right now?

Like, what are we seeing?

I don't think you are holding this bone blade that.

Oh, not me.

I'm looking at the ground and kind of weeping softly to myself.

Yeah.

I'm holding the bone to my ear like a phone.

Yeah, it's a bone phone you don't see him right you just you are in this

you are in a dark slow space

justin i heard that and i laughed what'd you say bone phone is free with a sports illustrator

he says um

uh i have plenty of time i would uh rather find a champion who perhaps uh didn't kill me i i suppose i could help you out though if you were willing to scratch my back a little bit oh my god this shit again What do you want?

No,

I mean,

it will

surprise you to learn, Trav, that I, Griffin McElroy, your brother, didn't think that you were going to commune with a with a dark god.

Uh,

that is

on the haypub, from this perspective, that's on you.

I do think that if you didn't think Travis was going to try to commune with the dark god,

yeah, is it your first day?

Come on,

he says, you

make a pact with me that I know you have so recently come into a position of power.

I would like some.

I would like a pact with you.

Nothing crazy.

I'm not going to control your mind or anything.

But, well, the night is

half the day.

And so I would like to have perhaps a little bit of influence on the crown.

What do you say?

It won't be the nightman.

And you'll be the dayman.

I'll tell you what.

Monthly bone phone conversations with me, God of Night, just sort of giving you check-ins on how your reign is going and what you might be able to do better.

Just going to cost you 30% of your reign.

You know what?

If there's one thing...

Yeah, I like the balance of day and night, and that's been real fucked up here.

So, like, yeah, man, okay.

Cool.

I wasn't going to be a very good king, anyways, if we're being honest.

Like,

I wasn't thinking I was going to nail it.

So, like, okay.

Give me another Arcana check.

I did so good on the first one.

Yeah.

Worry about fucking it up.

Oh,

17 plus one.

It was a slow rollover from 10 to 17.

Okay.

You feel something changing inside of your soul, and you get the idea that this promise you are making is not one that can be easily broken.

Um, that isn't to say he is poisoning you or, you know, uh, even tricking you necessarily.

He is just this, this pact is a capital P pact, uh, and it is one that he will expect you to to.

So I just have to talk with him once a month because he's lonely, yeah,

yeah, man.

That's fine.

All right.

Oh, wait.

On the phone for real, in real life?

Yeah.

I gotta talk to Griffin once a month.

I'll do this voice the whole time.

Okay.

I would actually love that.

I don't know if that was meant to be a deterrent, but it sold me on it.

You feel this uncomfortable

for a moment swelling like a balloon in your metaphysical self, and then time

catches back up, and this darkened bone blade swipes through the hard light barrier surrounding the skeleton of Dracula Prime, and

it vanishes.

The what vanishes?

The force field surrounding Dracula Prime.

So, just to establish, now I have Scalibur, the glowing sword of holiness, and a dark bone blade.

Yeah, you have

just regular crossbow because someone destroyed my dad's like ancient beautiful crossbow that my granddad gave me okay cool yeah and i can't throw and okay great

and this is round one it's a good and one of us is panuccio it's a good one of us is panuccio the boy the boy puppet with no strings

all right um

i'm going to say that is that's probably it right you i think that sort of combining those two reagents

and then attacking with it

is a good turn's worth of actions to attack.

I think so too, yes.

Okay,

Philo, it is now your turn again to paint the picture.

We got Godwin engaged in sad combat with a Dracula clone right next to the hole in the lantern

sort of chamber in the center of the room.

On the opposite end of the room, Mutt has just taken out the barrier surrounding the skeleton of Dracula Prime that is wearing that silvery metal helmet on its head outside the window is the swarm of bats.

What do you do?

They are outside the window.

They are outside the window.

Okay, um

uh

I want to inspect the helmet around the

Dracula Prime.

You can run

investigate it?

Uh

yeah, I mean, do you want to investigate it before you move over there?

It's up to you.

It'd be a little bit harder.

There's some shit between you and it.

But if you

yeah, let me move over there.

Okay.

And do an Arcana check

on the helmet.

Yes, you look it over, trying to.

Okay,

with an 11.

This is

the same device, in some ways, the same device that turned you into the state that you are in this is this is a some sort of transference of consciousness uh sort of tool uh it appears to be a lot less ramshackle than the one that was used on you you get the sense that maybe that one was a a a beta a prototype uh and that dracula probably saved the good stuff for himself.

That is that is what you see.

Do I see how to remove it?

From his head?

Mm-hmm.

Pulling it.

Lifting it.

Upward.

Like a hat.

Okay.

Alright.

I am going to.

I still have actions left, right?

Yes, I mean, so far you've just run across the room and looked at something.

Okay.

I'm going to.

You don't have to sound so dismissive, Griffin.

No, I'm not trying to sound dismissive.

It's what he's done.

So far, you flapped your little puppet feet over and use your stupid wooden eyes to look at some dumb ass.

What do you want to do now?

I'm going to drop the file, the vial, the phylo vial, the phylo.

Anyway, the bottle that has

mini phylo in it.

Okay.

Fucking hell.

And then I'm going to cast enlarge on it.

Oh, yes, baby.

Okay.

All your chickens are coming home to roost, Griffin.

These are not my chickens.

I didn't make these chickens.

I didn't make these chickens, and I don't approve of their existence, Trash.

These are my chickens.

How dare you?

Chickens are abominations.

How dare you attribute these chickens to me, sir?

I would never.

Okay.

Okay, enlarge.

Yep.

Give me a moment, please.

Okay,

so

this is actually the same spell I used to turn it into

mini phylo.

I was just checking.

So this is an action.

You are able to, you take, you pour your body out of the vial

and you enlarge it.

Just back to regular size or are you giving it a little

few extra inches?

Now let's just take it back to regular phylo size come on six feet you can make him pretty big uh make him six feet come on i'm going you know what i want from you mac i want a wisdom saving throw as you look down at your dead somewhat bloated formaldehyde reeking uh body on the ground just to see if you get uh a little bit freaked out by by this sight i understand

That would probably be no because that's a 16.

Yeah, and that's in a lot of of ways even weirder, isn't it?

Yeah, it's weirder.

Dump out your hole.

You're walking it around in a bottle for like 30

minutes.

It doesn't smell great.

As it reappears,

you see suddenly Van Helsing appears on the other side of it, looking down at it, sort of alarmed and looking up at you.

And he's like, is that you?

Well, well

that's the old me that

that's the old me Abe it's uh

wow matter of fact he looks real old

yeah

and

sorry about the smell what's the what is the game plan dude cuz I'm are you are you moving rather not reveal that in front of the you know DRAC

um

it took you a second.

Okay, then what what's the plan?

What are we doing?

I don't know.

I'm I'm uh I'm freeballing it.

Not applicable.

He kind of

gives you a curious look and then he vanishes back into the void inside of the puppet.

Uh okay.

Is that all you're doing?

Do you have a bonus action?

Anything else?

I don't know if I have any bonus actions left.

Okay, no, I think that's I think that's that's it.

I think I'll take a defensive stand in front of uh zombie Philo or whatever we want to call it.

Okay, I have added Philo's body to the map.

Uh, we are back up to the

top of the order.

Uh,

Count Dracula looks at you pitifully, Godwin, and says,

Let me show you how it's done.

And he is going to attempt to throw you

backwards

out of the window.

Hmm.

That is, there is a rudeness there.

There is a tremendous rudeness to that decision he has made.

So

nine plus nine, eighteen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

He grabs you by your

lapels of your battle tunic.

I don't know what Lady Godwin is wearing.

And he chucks you backwards.

You try to gain...

Ah!

I made you stretched out.

I made Godwin too tall.

She's 10 feet tall.

Fix her.

Okay.

He throws you back.

You feel the window immediately give way against your weight and the force of this throw.

I need you to make a dexterity-saving throw to avoid going over the edge.

Got it.

That is a

seven.

On a seven,

you

reach out

for the ledge of the window, and

you

do not get it.

You see the room vanish as you begin to plummet.

You are just sort of beneath the surface of the window as we

move on.

With that, count dragon.

Wait, wait, wait.

Wait.

I have a danger sense.

Oh, that's right.

You get to make another dexterity saving throw.

Make it a...

Hey, Juice.

Make it a better one.

What about the exact same one?

How does that

spin?

What are the odds?

Has that spin you, you dizzy bitch?

All right.

Kidding.

Godwin begins to fall.

Dracula turns into a cloud of mist and flies over towards you, Mutt.

And he's going to try to bite you, dude.

Oh, wait, no, he can't do this to you.

Can't bite you.

He's just going to attack you.

As you are sort of paying attention to the skeleton of Dracula Prime, the clone vanishes, turns into a cloud of mist, reappears behind you.

He sees the bone dagger in your hand, and he laughs and he says,

A sucker's born every minute, huh?

And he's going to swipe a claw at you.

That is a

26 versus AC.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You take eight

points of slashing damage,

and you take 15 more points of necrotic damage.

Yeah.

Okay, that is going to do it for his turn.

Next in the order is the colony swarm.

The colony swarm is going to go after you, Godwin.

Insult to injury.

They are going to fly across you as

you begin falling out of this room.

Go ahead and make a dexterity saving throw with disadvantage as you have nothing to really

leverage.

Well, then I get added.

Just regular.

Yeah, it just cancels out.

Train to be a 15.

12.

12.

That does not cut it.

This time, you feel a few errant bites

and some slashing of the hard, bony wings of these bats.

And you take 11 points of slashing damage.

You are now up, Godwin.

You have just begun to fall.

Six seconds of combat passes every round of combat, so you are still sort of suspended in the air.

But

end of this turn, you are going to be falling very, very far, very fast.

Okay.

I reached in my bag

and I grabbed my hand.

Okay.

It still has a rope affixed to it from the last time.

Okay.

And I'm going to throw my hand back at the balcony.

All right, man.

This is going to be an attack, right?

This is you launching a

arranged object trying to hit a target.

This is the we're highlighting the biggest problem with DD.

Yeah, where everything has to be contextualized as an attack.

Like, this couldn't be less of an attack.

I'm throwing my hand at a balcony.

I mean, slight of hand.

There's nothing slight about the action that is taking place right now.

It's a slight against God.

Yeah.

Slight against me.

20.

Fucking nice.

You throw your hand upwards

and

it sails into the room.

The rope grows taut for a moment.

You feel it pulling away.

And you actually feel some sort of psychic connection with your hand still, right?

You can tell that it has actually grabbed onto the top rung of the ladder that is just inside the room.

And you swing forward and you are now repelling.

You are about 10 feet down from the

I actually am not repelling yet.

I let the force of

the swing carry me in, so I slam against the wall.

Okay, you slam against the wall of the tower pretty hard.

How much damage?

Well, let's see.

I guess we can run this as one one 10-foot fall of force, basically.

So

you take six points of bludgeoning damage.

Never had someone elect to take damage before.

It's an interesting strategy, Cotton.

It is.

Well, the first thing is, and then I slam into the wall.

I need to stay pissed.

Okay.

And the second thing, I start climbing up.

Okay.

Make an athletics check for me.

10.

Absolutely.

Yeah, no, this is not a difficult athletics check.

You are not far from the top of the window and you have a grappling hook.

It is...

I think this is going to take all your movement.

This is pretty treacherous, but you are able to scale your way back into the room.

And

it doesn't seem like Dracula...

Dracula basically has his back to you now.

He has not noticed your arrival back into the tower.

It's that when I'm hurt, she gets thirsty.

And I'm going to throw Jennifer Myers at Dracula.

So the lantern is sort of right in between you and Dracula.

Right.

So the cool, what's going to kick ass is...

You're going to want it?

You're going to curb yourself.

Yeah, you're relatively.

You want it, Griffin.

Griffin?

No, it's going to go through

and then hit him.

And it'll be all charged up with like lantern for you.

Yeah, Griffin.

Yeah,

you throw your big axe through a lantern and another wall of this chamber.

If you crit again.

Sure.

Oh, man.

Okay, you're right bending it i'm gonna bend it in the air

yeah that's a way

no wait i no wait griffin i do have one hole in it right you have one hole in the yes i made a hole already i'll just go through that one again okay this is a circle this chamber right so you have smashed out basically one quarter of the circle Okay, so you can go into this center chamber.

No, I got it.

You go in, but you can't get out.

I keep coming back to having to bend it around, Griffin.

i will let this happen i will let this happen with it but you're you're going to have disadvantage on your on your attack you're good at attacking so it might still go but this is a patentedly insane uh what if i what if i switch it to the javelin what if i use my javelin a curved javelin toss still i think i feel like i could hit the hole a lot easier than javelin and make a new hole

Right?

A javelin wants to go through.

An axe going through, I know, that's a big no, no, no, no.

You can throw an axe or a javelin at the lantern in order to hit Dracula.

It would need to smash through the wall on the opposite side of the circle and then still hit Dracula.

Griffin, you're the one who took all my move action.

I don't know what to tell you.

This isn't my fault.

If you hadn't taken my move action, we wouldn't be doing any of this.

Yeah.

I think if you want to try to do a curved battle axe throw, that's cool.

It's just going to be a good thing.

I'm going to try to do it, and I'm going to roll extremely high okay all right let's see here it goes i believe you can fly i'm leaving the room for a minute i'm gonna leave for a second okay i'm just gonna leave for a second okay okay

i mean yeah you you rolled a crit one so there doesn't you don't even really need to roll the second one that's they don't get lower than that um

You throw Jennifer Myers trying to curve it.

Do you throw it around the right side or the left side?

Are we going clockwise or counterclockwise?

You throw Jennifer Myers and it just it doesn't curve it just goes straight and it bounces off the wall and lands on the floor on the left side of the room and dracula turns around like oh you're back in the room thank you for not trying to sneak up on me

oh no how's the fight going for you pretty bad it seems

next

in the unless you have another i guess you could you do have one more attack roll you could try to fuck yeah now i've got a clear line of sight don't i yeah but now you have your javelin you You don't have a clear line of sight.

What are you talking about?

It's still from the Griffin.

He can't, he walked around to see what had happened.

You told me.

He did not walk around.

He wouldn't take it.

Fuck, he walked around because he was curious.

He would take an attack of opportunity from Mutt if he did that easy.

Okay, so he didn't walk around to see what happened.

Here we go.

You're gonna, but you're gonna curve this javelin.

Curve it.

Curve it.

23, his, but let's see.

But next one:

19

hits.

Yes, it does.

Yes.

Woo!

As he turns, he's kind of like laughing at your dumb axe on the ground.

And then he sees defying the laws of physics and God and Isaac Newton and Griffin and me, a giant javelin making a beeline in a

beautiful parabola straight towards his gut.

Go ahead and roll damage.

Seven.

All right.

It catches him in the stomach.

He very annoyed, pulls it out and throws it to the ground.

And

that is your action.

Wait, what about my frenzy?

Yes, I suppose.

Do you have anything else to throw?

More jerky, perhaps?

I have one thing.

The Toby Slayer.

Okay, you throw 13.

Fuck me.

That misses.

Wait, I got disadvantage.

Hold on.

It may be worse.

Yeah, okay.

13.

13.

So what happens is you throw your axe trying to curve it around the room.

It lands on the floor.

He looks back at you and kind of just laughs it off.

But then a javelin does get him and it curves and he stands up like, what?

How the fuck did you?

And then you throw your sword and it just lands on the ground.

And he's like, I'm confused as to what this.

Okay, Can I can I be honest with you, Dracula?

Yes, I'm going, I'm looking around at the evidence, and sometimes we have to listen to our bodies and our heart as much as our brains.

I think the first time that I broke some of your stuff and then hurt you pretty bad,

I think I worked through it.

This is all I can conclude: is that I no longer have a deep and burning desire to destroy you.

I feel like I've worked through my stuff.

Oh, this is big.

This is big.

This is huge.

The feeling is decidedly not mutual.

I can't intellectualize this.

I

okay.

This is these are your two weapons laying on the ground.

Just to remember that you don't have them right now.

Yeah, no, it's it's helpful.

Thank you.

All right, next in the order is Mutt.

I'm going to two-handed swings caliber at him.

Oh, wait, first, I point at him and I say, you're, you're my, I'm gonna kill you, man.

You're marked.

Get marked, bitch.

Something like that.

You get it.

Like, get marked, you piece of shit.

Something like that.

You know,

he looks really cool.

Glowing red arrow HUD

floating over his head.

He's like, oh, that's right.

Yeah, man.

You marked.

What does that mean?

It means you're going to get you.

Not like that

This is where I'm gonna use inspiration cuz I'm gonna get him Okay, that was a ten which misses that was a ten which I don't think would hit the Draco

The relentless bloodlining oh but that's my haim he would be

that was a six so that's not gonna hit him anyway

Yeah, but this time, but this time for real, and I use a second attack to get him.

Okay.

Oh, stay there.

Oh, no, it's gonna be a crit.

Uh, is it twelve?

No.

Three quick swings at him and three

easy sidesteps.

He is making this look like child's play as he is avoiding every attack you all leverage at him.

Anything else you're doing?

I mean, no.

Okay.

Philo, you are up.

You are standing right next to the skeleton of Dracula and your re-enlarged dead body.

Philo says, well, it worked great the first time.

And he snatches the helmet off Dracula Prime and puts it on Brother Philo.

On the body.

On the body.

Hmm.

Whoo

That's very interesting.

Isn't that interesting?

Isn't that it?

I thought so.

I mean, it can't be.

I will say this sad, demonstrably, it can't be going worse.

You know what I mean?

Like, it can't.

It's going to have an effect.

An effect, which almost has to be net positive at this point.

Yeah, sure.

I want to roll for this.

This is a big move that you are doing.

And I don't know that we've established that the reversal of this process is

like possible, but

I want you to roll an Arcana check to see how effective this is at sort of fucking up his grasp on the tower and the city and everything.

Okay, allow me.

How about 24?

Fucking hell.

Oh, hell yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

Here's what happens.

The second that you put the helmet on

your dead body,

you see the helmet activate

and you see power coursing through the wires that are sort of tethering it to the floor behind this chair that the skeleton's sitting in.

Immediately, the

lantern in the center of the room begins to flicker.

It appears like something is glitching out.

As it flickers, the vortex outside begins to flicker.

You see quick flashes of the city of Lumino below you.

From their perspective, they see the sun reappear in the sky a few times

as

it seems like something is happening

to the tower.

This

effect, I think, is a lot on your body.

It is horrifying, I think, what happens as your body catches flame

suddenly

and

begins to...

Wait, me talking my Pinocchio body?

You gotta be more brother Philo's body.

Your dead corpse on the ground.

As Dracula's essence is

attempted to

be pumped into it, and he is resisting.

You hear a scream reverberating through the walls,

but

he

fends it off as your body is destroyed.

What are the biological effects of the fucking smell at this point?

It's

I feel like I am being absolutely torn to shreds over here with the olfactory.

Mutton actually lost his sense of smell after a bottle rocket incident, so it's fine.

Yeah.

He burned his stinky old corpse with Dracula farts, and it exploded everywhere.

Disconstinks.

It's no good.

Give me a constitution saving throw, everybody in the room.

As I get my big mouth,

is this from the stitch?

Yeah, man, it's 17.

17.

You're fine.

You're a puppet.

Uh, uh, 14.

There's that 20 when I need it the most.

Stinky Stinky bad smell, make your tongue.

You hurt my.

Everybody else is fine.

What you see as the situation kind of stabilizes is that in this window of time that

Dracula lost his grasp on the tower and you know everything it was

devouring and broadcasting, you see this clone of Dracula and he looks absolutely dazed.

His eyes are cloudy, and he seems stuck frozen in place.

You have

temporarily,

for a round of combat, you have incapacitated the clone of Dracula.

Sick him, boys!

The colony swarm of bats is still flying around the tower, and they are, in fact, next in the order.

They are going to sensing the

incapacitation of sort of their main guy in the room right now, they're going to fly in and attack both Brother Philo and Mutt.

Good luck.

Make a dexterity saving throw, both of you.

Little do you know, I don't have the ND Beyond pulled up yet.

The ultimate defense.

Can't make him make that.

Can't make him roll.

I'm not in the universe.

Despite being distracted a little by the ash all over his feet from his former self.

Right.

Filo rolls a 16.

Perfect.

I got a gnat 20.

Whoa, holy shit.

That's it.

Now I'm skitching with the bats.

Crave that leathery wing.

Okay, Mutt, you just execute a flawless sort of like Resident Evil dodging the laser trap quick time eventually.

Can one of the bats high-five me as it goes by?

It can high one you.

But yes.

I mean, mean listen a wing is just a hand have you seen those things it's fingers i don't want to talk about that okay it's just true man i don't know what to tell you philo as you were sort of bending over your own ruined body you made yourself small enough that the bats also uh zoomed right by you uh and

Back out the northwest window.

Next up is Lady Godwin.

Lady Godwin, you are enraged.

You are blood raged.

You have just thrown two of your weapons.

Well, three of your weapons around the left side of the point.

One of which hit, and the other two are laying on the ground right now.

You made a point.

But you made a point.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

Next.

Okay.

You are next.

What do you do?

Well,

let's see.

It's a new voice.

That's my thinking voice, Griffin.

Is it British or Western?

Yeah, well, let me call you Godwin there.

Lady Godwin was in a bit of a scrape when we last left.

How was Godwin wanted to get out of this one?

Is this why your turns take so long?

Is because you have an old southern narrator inside your head dictating your actions before you do them?

Wait, you don't?

Not usually.

Oh.

Okay.

Mine's more of like a southern dandy type,

but that's just me.

I'm going to...

Oh, there is also the hole in the center of this chamber.

You have smashed into the sort of like lantern housing unit.

And so most of the windows in this room have also been smashed apart by either your hurled body or the swarm of bats.

So, what's what in the center?

What am I looking at?

In the center area?

You are looking at the lantern.

You are looking at the titular lantern that actually illuminates and shines most of the light here out of Lumino Tower.

This was, you know, the spotlight that was searching for you below.

Like, it is, it is the thing that made that.

And it's what Dracula Prime's skellington was connected to, right?

I mean, Dracula Prime is wired sort of into the ground, right?

Like, his domain is this tower, and then therefore, everything that this tower kind of can see.

Everything the light touches.

Everything the light touches, right?

So he was controlling that.

He is still, for all you know, also still controlling that.

But he is, he is all up and

I think I'm going to head on.

So the placement of the, I see two weapons on the ground.

Yes.

What's the farthest away?

That would be your axe.

Okay.

And then closest to me?

Is your

Toby Slayer?

Okay.

The javelin that recalls.

That's fine.

That's the only.

That is, ironically, the only one that hit.

Okay.

Yeah.

So where's that?

That's in your hands again.

Okay, great.

I am going to

walk over and pick up

my weapons.

Okay.

Nice.

No problem.

Cool.

That was an easy part of the adventure.

Now I'm going to hit the

center lantern with the axe as hard as I can three times.

Okay.

Wow.

Kick ass.

Let's see it.

That's 18.

An 18 hits.

You'd need to clear 10 damage on it.

Go ahead and roll damage on that.

You have to clear 10 damage in order for it to count at all.

What is that called?

Sturdy?

Sturdy.

Well,

no, I can't quite yet.

Yeah, so you, I mean, you connect, right?

But this lantern is solid, solid brass

with a thick, thick glass aperture.

22 hits.

Let's see that damage.

That is 13.

Oh, that's that's max damage.

Oh, no, it's not.

Plus

2 for my Blood Rage.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, 15 damage to the Central Lantern.

Your second attack, your axe gets stuck in a bit into the middle.

I need plus two, actually, for the rage as well.

I don't think that's automatically added in.

Oh, did you check it?

There should be a little box that you can check to set yourself as raging, which will then, I believe, well, if that's true, then just point of order.

Well, there's a point plus two, plus two for Blood Rage and Regular Rage would have hit.

That would be a thing.

Yep.

Yep.

That is a good point, Travis.

Thanks, Trav.

No problem, brothers.

I'm glad I'm here to do your message.

There's a button that makes it.

I like that.

In Travis's mind, that character was generated because he added three numbers together.

Like, that's the barrier.

Single-digit numbers.

What a third number.

David Crumholtz over here.

Yeah.

Fuck, that was a targeted gag.

This is a good one.

I think just at David Crumholtz.

It might have just been targeted at me and my buddy David Crumholtz.

Okay, so that is two hits then.

You got

10 on the first when you add the four to it.

And then when you add the four to this, 13, that is 17.

That is 27 total points of damage for your first two attacks.

I mean, the first one, you leave like a decent gash in it.

Second attack, it's like you're chopping a log.

Like you crack into there.

And now there is light that is pouring out of this kind of, you know, slit-shaped hole that you have cleft into the side of the lantern.

You have one more attack if you want to continue this assault.

Okay, now that one is a four plus six.

No, your third one, you try to keep hacking into this hole that you've made, but you swing just a little bit wide and it sort of skirts.

I'm exhausted, I think.

I'm physically, I'm tapped, man.

It's been a rough run for me.

I am glad to be attacking a non-moving target, and I'm out of people to throw for the moment, so I guess I can resort to it.

Okay, as you withdraw your axe from your third attack that kind of glances off the top,

light is pouring out of this lantern, filling this small sort of containment unit that you are now standing inside and pouring out into uh the room itself uh

the bats have to have burst into the bats did not dracula bone of dracula uh you see his cape start to catch fire and he looks is he getting it like pure now or is there like it without the filtering he's starting to put uh give me i maybe an arcana check or maybe just a perception check uh or investigation okay

i wish do you want me to just choose the highest one when you say stuff like that?

If you can justify how you are using the relevant.

You're saying that you would be open to any of those checks.

Okay.

I think

I don't know.

Fuck.

I'm not good at any of these, but I arcana makes the least sense.

I'm just going to look here.

Okay.

No, I got a 19.

19 perception check.

This light is...

It is hurting your eyes.

It feels bad to look at this light.

It's not the same kind of amber color, actually.

This is like

brilliant, white, radiant, straight-up sunlight.

You feel like it is a hot, arid day as you stand in this chamber.

And Dracula,

you can tell with such a high perception check,

you see the hair on the back of his head start to kind of like wither up, and it looks like a terrible sunburn is kind of forming on the back of his head.

Can I tell you, Gurf, I'm really kicking myself?

Because right before this encounter, I did have Mutt go to the optometrist and he got his pupils dilated.

And I wasn't worried about it because it's been nighttime this whole time.

Oh, man.

Sometimes when we're not recording,

one of us will call the DM and be like, hey, I want to go on a quick adventure by myself.

And so Travis did that last night and he was like, Mutt has to go to the optometrist.

He doesn't want to.

It's been on his to-do list for a long time.

He made the appointment like six months ago.

The dude's impossible to get

flicked.

It was so long.

Yeah.

And the only things that happened is that Mutt got his pupils dilated and he found the dagger of Ahog Tar, the time splitter.

Oh, yeah.

That cancels each other out.

Okay, great.

Cool, cool, cool.

Yeah.

That, I feel like when I make a six months appointment at the doctor,

that version of me is always the truest and best version of.

Exactly.

Like, that's, oh, six months from now, I'll have all this figure out.

Yeah, this will be so easy for me, not even a problem.

Like, six months from now, do I need to remind you that none of us he'll remember?

No way.

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

I'll remember.

I hear one of my cats upstairs crying.

You know what they're upset about.

Just like the state of things and whatever.

No, they're only ever wanting one thing, and that's for me to get the smalls out.

Dad, we don't know how to.

Yeah, they love the smooth bird.

Dad, we want our smooth bird.

We don't have jobs.

We can't buy our own food.

We don't know how to order things.

Dad, we're so scared.

We're cats, and we've gained complete human intelligence.

What's happening?

Where are we?

Yeah.

Where are we?

But you know what?

I calm them right down with smalls because you're going to get a package of smalls, right?

You're going to open it up.

You're going to put it in front of your cats there, put it into a bowl, whatever you're going to, I don't know your business.

But when you put it out there, these cats are going to freak out.

And you're also going to see some long-lasting effects.

In my experience, at least, my cats have been a little healthier.

They've had a nice, nice-looking coat, and they just love, they love smalls.

They love it.

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And it's delivered right to your door.

And cats.com named it their best overall cat food.

And get this after switching to smalls, 88% of cat owners report overall health improvements for smalls food.

That's a big deal

for a limited time only because you are

really proud of that, Justin.

I was really proud.

Sorry, Trav, that was great.

Thank you.

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Again, that's smalls.com slash adventure.

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And as always, you are doing doing a great job

uh okay next in the order is mutt hey griffin

Yeah, I got two questions for you that I think we should have asked sooner.

Okay.

One, is there anything inside the lantern, like, moving around?

Is it like...

Because last time we saw this apparatus, it was hooked to a thing and there was a puppet boy inside and like a creature or whatever all wrapped around it with like tendrils and shit.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, give me a...

Give me an investigation check or an Arcana check.

Hmm.

You're like up up against Dracula and this apparatus, so I think this would be.

Well, they're the same.

So I'm going to say is the investigation check is an 11?

Yeah, okay.

With an 11,

this is functionally doing the same thing, only instead of transferring, you know, Van Helsing or Philo's consciousness into a puppet body, it has

transferred Dracula into the tower.

You are standing inside the puppet boy.

Only the puppet boy is a giant, a giant tower that he is, you know, in control of.

And the second question, the

skeleton of Dracul,

is it moving?

It's dead, right?

Yes,

it is a skeleton.

It is a dead skeleton.

I shouldn't say that snarkily.

This is a scary world.

Skeletons can probably come to life, but he is not moving and has no organs or skin.

Okay, cool.

So then there's two things I want to do.

First and foremost, let's close this loop.

I whip out my DeWalt vampires.

And I'm going to pry those teeth out real quick.

Okay.

Easy, easy work.

Give me a DC-10 sleight of hand check.

See, attempt to do this work.

It's a little crazy in here.

There's bats all over the dang place.

That's a 14 plus 4.

I believe that's...

Well, I believe that's 18, sir.

Yes.

Am I adding that correctly?

Yeah, thank you so much, Dr.

Puzzles.

All right, sorry, that's the human calculator.

It's his name.

Thank you, the calculator.

Okay, yeah.

Easy.

They come out.

They feel heavy in your hands.

They are clean.

They are

pristine.

These are incredible trophies you're holding.

Perfect.

Okay.

Finally, my brother's ghost can rest.

I think.

You see your brother, whose name i don't know we ever said all that rusty we said it many times old rest old dusty rusty because he was a filthy fucking man

he appears in front of you and he says oh dang bro you did it

cool man so proud i'm so proud of you brother have fun in heaven do a scene travis do a scene

oh hey brother

Hey, bro, you got those teeth, I see.

I did get them teeth.

I also had a fight with the invisible man, but we like.

Yeah, and you killed him too and avenged me.

Thank you so much, brother.

I'm so glad that you killed the invisible man, graveyard.

Just let him go to heaven.

Yep, that is,

my man.

Kill him right now.

That is.

I think we all know that that is not where I am heading.

Straight to hell for old Dusty Rusty.

Yeah, man, you did murder a lot of folks, and all that embezzlement didn't help.

There was also all the lust.

Yeah, buddy.

Hell yeah, brother.

Yeah, I better hit the road.

Hey, real quick.

Yeah.

You know what?

Before I go, thank you so much for killing the invisible man.

But also, do you ever think about like the

remarkable amount of generational trauma we inherited from our parents?

Yeah, but look at me now.

I'm king of England, man, so

it's worked out pretty well.

I'm just saying, man, like

worth it.

Man, I'm so

happy Travis figure solved Jr.

Yeah, he's gotta become king that them royals got it figured out man because eventually yeah, you push hard right and you don't let your kids have any fun you make them kill the chupacabra when they're four years old and i don't want to talk about it anymore

okay he's gone so that's solved um

hey i got an idea uh and i reach in my bag and now what i do think that removing the teeth from a skeleton

would count as an action.

Oh, yeah, I was going to give it to Godwin.

I was going to give something.

Can I give that?

Can I?

Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, sure.

You could throw this, and I hand Godwin the stick of dynamite that we bought at Mistopheles' place that we've never used.

Holy shit.

Okay.

Oh, that's what we much better.

Yeah, man.

Now that you cracked it open, I figured you just get that in there.

Yeah.

Of course.

Do we have an exfiltration?

Oh, good good question um

we could jump

or the ladder might be

so like

you only gave me one option i don't know which is the full oh no no no sorry man uh l-a-d-d-e-r

i can't right them over there the kind of uh vertical staircase

yeah

so we could just like this is an excellent start climbing down you chuck it from there, we go the rest of the way, skedaddle

skedaddle, laddle, skedaddle.

Yes, all right.

Um

what do we do with that?

And I point at Dracula's corpse.

No, that's what I'm saying, man.

You just blow the whole thing, right?

So

oh my god.

And wouldn't that be fun?

Because you get to explode him into smithereens.

Oh, right.

Okay, Brother Philo, you hear your

friends discussing this plan to just blow up the lantern.

And considering the fact that it's dynamite, a lot more than just the lantern

with this stick of dynamite,

you

what do you do?

How's your buddy's health?

You know, I've been better, I've been worse.

Godwin,

Godwin's bloodied, right?

Um, I'm I'm in bad shape

Philo is gonna cast healing word

on Lady Godwin.

Okay

when you cast a spell using a spell slot of second level or higher the healing increases by 1d4 for each slot level above first

So it usually does 2d4 plus 3.

So

do I double that?

You would just roll 4d4

plus 3.

Wow, that ain't bad.

Yep.

So 11 plus 3, 14 points of healing, Lady Godwin.

Nice.

14 points?

And do I still have an action I can do?

I believe Healing Word is a bonus action, so yes.

Okay.

I toss her...

The one remaining healing Elexer that I have.

Trying to smash smash it on her to to like execute its effects or what what's the if we want to baldersgate this and just say you chuck it uh at her with your action to

spend it hand it to her

um i mean you would say uh you would not take an attack of opportunity uh

so you could certainly walk over there and give it to her oh i moved over there too ditto

as you gave god okay cool yeah you would not

be over there, anyways.

Sure, sure, sure.

Okay, then Philo says,

Here comes the airplane.

Open up the hangar.

That means open.

Yeah, but you didn't give any context to Griffin of what that

means.

That was kind of weird.

Yeah.

Okay.

Can I just pour it down Lady Godwin's throat?

There you go.

Um, that's up to Godwin, I guess.

Godwin?

Nummies?

I guess.

Okay.

I see.

How have we never had one player feed another player a potion like a baby bird?

Yeah, how's it not come up?

Drinker regains a number of hit points equal to 2d4 plus your intelligence modifier.

And of course, my intelligence modifier is

what?

Your business.

It's your business.

It's up at the top, Dad, where it says intelligence, and then you have a modifier listed underneath.

Ooh, okay.

Well, here comes the roll.

Okay, that's four plus six.

So that's ten more points of healing.

Cool.

Take 10 points more of healing, Lady Godwin.

Nice.

I'm killing it.

Okay.

This exchange of

sticks of dynamite and potions and healing and recovery is going down in this brief window of time where you have incapacitated the clone of Dracula.

And did nothing to him in that time.

And did absolutely nothing to him, which I think, frankly, was super chill of you guys.

No,

he was burned somewhat by the lantern's light.

However, that effect has ended.

And

he turns

and

looks straight through this

lantern right at you, Lady Godwin, and says,

What do you have there?

A tasty little hot dog for your gracy human body.

Ew,

he says, uh were you thinking about blowing up my tower?

No

Well, just to make sure he is going to try to charm you again.

I need you to make a wisdom saving throw, DC

17.

Roll, good.

Roll, good.

That's probably your strength, right?

Oofah, Doofa.

Roll a zero plus two?

No, I got it.

I don't have a wisdom modifier, so it's just two.

It's just a two.

You

fight it as hard as you can.

You are looking at Dracula, and as you see him through the glass of the lantern, you see him through the glass of the windshield of the car that destroyed you.

And

you try to fight off this feeling inside of you as that hatred and that rage that you are embroiled in begins to dampen and change.

And with another rotation of the lantern, you see through the glass a trusted friend named Count Dracula, whose words are to be heated

and whose physical body must be protected.

You are.

I know I should be disappointed about being charmed, but as a actual play podcaster, it's real hard to not feel like it's

like the old pterodactyl just whistled break down.

It's a little take it a little lazy.

You don't have to be that creative to be charmed.

Well, you are not under Dracula's control however whatever dracula requests of you uh must must be interpreted in the most favorable way possible gotcha would i still attack him uh no he's a trusted friend okay got it okay perfect i understand um a charmed creature can't attack the charmer or target the charmer with harmful abilities or magical effects uh the charmer has advantage on any ability check to interact socially with you uh

dracula looks at you and

he

is

going to turn into a cloud of mist

and vanish.

And when he reappears, he is standing right in front of the ladder.

And he looks at you, Lady Godwin, and he says,

Let's get this party started, huh?

Yes, let's kick it off.

Light it up.

Let's light it up.

Oh no, light it up.

What do you mean?

He looks down at the dynamite you're holding.

The bats are going to fly in.

It is now their turn.

They fly in right into the three of you that are standing side by side and sort of like occupying the same space as Dracula as well.

However, they don't attack you, Godwin.

Mutt and Philo, give me dexterity saving throws, please.

We We should have killed him while he was stunned.

Crit 20, 21.

Hell yeah.

Nice.

I have 7 plus 7, 14.

That is insufficient.

But

it's like these bats just form kind of two columns that sweep over you and Philo.

You see Philo, again, his tiny body

easily kind of able to curl up in a little ball and avoid the bats' attacks.

But there is nowhere to hide from the portion of the colony that is attacking you.

You take seven points of slashing damage.

Godwin, however, the bats don't attack you.

Instead, they just kind of form like a

tunnel, right?

That is kind of

like

putting blinders on you.

So all you can see is Dracula.

And he says,

Don't you want to go out in a blaze of glory?

Light Light it up, Lady Godwin.

Light it up?

No, I don't want to die.

I'm pretty sure.

No, I trust you pretty implicitly, but I think you're misreading me.

We've grown apart.

Uh, you are a trusted friend, make no mistake.

But, like, if Slice came to me and he was like, hey, blow yourself up,

like, no way, fucking no way, dude, no way, you are a trusted friend to me.

I'm not gonna blow myself up.

That would actually be the kind of thing.

Listen, I don't want to get too in the weeds with like therapy and stuff, but that's a good, that's a good sign that that is maybe not a healthy friendship and that maybe you need to set some boundaries, you know?

You need to talk to Slice.

Let's interpret it this way.

This is what I like.

It says here, each time Dracula or his companions do anything harmful to the target, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success, right?

Maybe that's what we interpret this as, right?

He is doing something harmful to you by ordering you to light this dynamite.

So I get another

wisdom saving throw here.

DC17, same as last time.

If you failed that, I think it would be pretty hard for you to argue that you shouldn't listen to the advice of your trusted friend whose request you're supposed to honor in the most favorable way.

Nine.

All right, let's do it

Fucking A

All right

All right, I light the wicks

now.

I'm still pretty nervous, and luckily it's a pretty long wick.

It's gotta be long so this

wick is actually a six-second wick, which means at the end of Godwin's next turn, the dynamite is going to explode.

When you say wick, could you mean fuse by any chance?

Damn.

Yeah,

probably.

A fuse is just an exploding.

A candle is just a non-exploring.

Actually, you know what?

Actually, yeah, now that we're talking about it, what we mean is a fuse.

Okay,

that's for a candle.

All right.

That's one for

dad.

One for dad.

You're right, dad.

Okay.

If you want to do a bonus action here, Lady Godwin,

you know, it's not like you can't do your own thing.

You just can't act against Dracula.

I can't act against Dracula.

I'm going to move these bats out of the way.

They've flown.

They scattered after their attack.

Yeah, are you doing anything, Lady Godwin?

Free action, bonus action.

Move.

Can I make an insight check?

With my pre-established knowledge that Dracula does have these sorts of abilities.

And I would have thought about this.

Can I make an insight check

so I can see if some, I don't want to go against Dracula, but so I can become aware, because I do have the pre-existing knowledge that this is like something he would do.

And even though I think right now in my head, there's no way he would do it.

He's a trusted friend.

I do think that this is a thought that I would have in my life.

You know what it is, Lady Godwin.

It's not your now thorough knowledge of Count Dracula and what he's able to do.

It is decades of navigating the

social jungle of the city of Lumino.

You know, when you are being bullshitted by someone who you think is a pal.

For that, I will allow you to have this sort of division of your mind to investigate itself with an insight check to see if you can pick up on that.

13

on a 13.

19.

That's better.

22.

Okay.

On a 13,

you

get a whiff of it.

This man is so

hot and floating and powerful, your best friend.

And he only wants to party with you.

And you know all that, but you've also known a lot of fucking guys like that before.

And so I think that you are able to kind of exert a small amount of willpower here in this situation.

Okay, a small amount is, I think, all I know.

Cool.

Well,

I seemed to have done it to myself again, didn't I?

We've been down this road before.

Another toxic relationship for me.

And

I'm putting myself on the bench.

And I'm putting you in.

And I hand the dynamite to my hand.

Okay.

Tracula.

My hand can't be under my thrall.

Dracula's thrall.

Yeah, sure.

The hand takes the dynamite, it kind of pinches it between its pinky and thumb, kind of like holding it against the palm as it stands on the middle and ring fingers, uh, like they are little feet.

I love that.

Uh, and Dracula says, What don't do that?

What are you doing?

That's for us, it's a party fight for

I listen.

It's not up to me.

That's my hand.

You've got to talk to

the hand.

Talk to the hand, I suppose.

Dracula looks kind of nervous.

What does your hand do?

I don't know, Griff.

You tell me.

No,

I can't.

I can't control your hand.

Okay.

Hmm.

Let me think about that.

Okay.

I'm trying to be very fair.

I feel like if I, as a player, have a plan for the hand, then I might as well do it myself.

That's cheating.

Hmm.

Okay.

The hand is going to...

I'm not trying to necessarily solve this problem, but I am trying to make it more interesting.

I get you.

So...

Whatever happens, happens, man.

I love my friend Dracula, so I actually don't care.

I'm just happy to be here with him.

Uh, I think the hand is very small, it doesn't, you know, have a ton of movement speed.

Uh, I think it realizes it is holding a dangerous object because we have given it certain human characteristics, right?

Uh, and so I think it's just gonna try to get it away from you.

So, I'm gonna say your hand takes the dynamite and

it scampers over

behind the lantern.

Let me find a little icon for it.

Surprisingly, there is not just disembodied hand.

Okay, looks like we're going to the...

Looks like we're doing a web search.

For disembodied hand, be careful, Griffin.

Turn on safe search.

Time to search disembodied.

Oh, Griffin, I tried to warn you.

Oh, Yucky.

Griffin, no.

Get out of there.

World's gnarly escapeboard accidents.

Somebody give Griffin the kick.

Get him out of there.

He's gone too deep.

Ah!

Most extreme Russian semi-racist.

No way, man.

Dash cam whoops.

No, this is no good.

This car's exploding.

Okay, there's a hand now.

It looks pretty badass, if you ask me.

It runs around sort of the other side of this compartment that the lantern is housed in and kind of puts itself and the dynamite between you and the lantern.

It's like not that much further away, but it is also now, you are now standing between it and Dracula.

So that's about as far as.

Oh, gosh, I'm sorry.

Let me get it.

I'll get it.

Hold on.

Okay.

So I start walking.

That's just me.

It's my turn.

I'm just talking.

Yes, it is your turn, Crawford Mutner.

Okay.

Hey, Merlin.

My liege.

Yeah, what up?

What is your order, sir?

Great question.

So, first,

gonna need you to send a boat to pick me up so I can come and sit on the throne and shut.

Oh, at last.

Yep, yep, yep.

Hooray, our king.

His reign may at last long?

Well,

okay, so that's point number two.

Do you see that dude standing over the ladder there?

Holy shit, is that Caldracula?

One of them.

Whoa.

He is blocking our egress.

And if I don't don't kill him, like now,

then your king's about to explode.

So I need your help

channeling this big ball of like all the sunlights coming here through Excalibur.

So we can like blast this fool with your magic.

So we can get the fuck out.

My man, I'm just a hologram.

Oh, come on, man.

No, it's no, it's listening.

I'll bring you pornography.

Like the good stuff.

Flipbooks.

I can make my own porn.

Do you realize how insulting that is?

Flipbox.

Of course.

Eureka!

Uh.

Hmm.

He says, I can't do anything about that.

Um,

but I can teleport things.

So, one moment

he disappears and a second passes And then in the spot where he was floating just now, you see

the throne of the King of England

here right next to you.

Okay, I sit down.

You sit down in the throne.

Immediately, your head is filled with

a dazzling amount of information.

You are all of a sudden, like your understanding of global politics, I think, increases dramatically.

Your understanding of taxes and levies and trade and all that.

That shit all hits.

It's like you've read every issue of Le Monde all at once.

Perfect.

I love that.

You also look down and you see the ruby shining in the hilt of Scalibur,

just sort of pulsing.

And you see that the runes that are etched down the blade are similarly filled with

a a golden light.

Okay.

I, Dracula.

Right?

Yeah.

And

I say,

all right, man, get fucked.

And

I

say, get fucked.

You want to take another okay.

I say, hey, I don't like you.

Me?

You're a doo-doo head.

Whoa.

How about, hey, Dracula, you suck.

No, ma'am.

Yeah, wait, hold on, hold up, hold up, hold up.

No, man.

No?

You got to...

You think that's the first time I've heard that one?

Okay, let me try this one.

In the words of...

No, no, no.

In the words of my newfound people,

this is going to be bloody good.

Well, I don't understand.

But you don't stab him.

I don't know about your journey.

And I stab him with my...

Well, I'm King Anglin.

And I stab him with the Glowing Excalibur.

Awesome.

Make an attack roll, please.

Oh, surely.

It's going to be super great, right?

What's the fully charged up Scalibur's plus to hit?

I mean, whatever it is.

You know, because right now I have...

Well, it doesn't matter because it's an 18 plus, whatever that is.

Yeah, you hit Dracula on that.

I stab him straight through his stupid heart.

Cool.

You stab through Count Dracula with the fully powered up.

Your hearts are full.

And the beam

that sort of emerges from the hilt and travels down the length of the blade into Dracula's heart,

it is so brilliant.

and so bright and you are wielding a power that is unfamiliar to you, but at the same time, like

so choice.

As the light passes down the hilt towards dragon.

Like, how many four locos would you say it feels like?

It feels like four, four locos.

That's 16 locos.

Are you sure?

It's 16 locos worth of.

He,

I think he just looks down at the blade as the light travels down it and enters his body, and he just says, Oh, farts!

And then he

instantly he shrivels

into

a

just a corpse of a old, old human being that immediately stops floating and just drops like a sack of bricks down the ladder that he was hovering over.

And

you hear him fall 60 feet.

There is a nice long pause, and then you hear

as he hits the ground below.

What is another job?

Well, oh wait, we gotta go.

And I push Philo and Godwin towards the hole.

But I'm going.

Listen.

I mean, your move is good.

Good.

You have acted already.

But I'm like, you're not going to be able to move your friends, I don't think.

No, no, no, no.

But I don't want them luxuriating in the moment.

Yeah, sure.

You are also, for me, it would have to be contested.

Well, no, he's not.

No, so yeah.

Oh, I'm afraid.

Okay, good.

I'm just mad at you killing my friend.

She's sure good.

Lady Godwin, you do feel a moment of frustration with Mutt.

You hate it when your friends fight.

But then, as Dracula turns into this desiccated, falling corpse, you immediately remember: like, wait a minute, that guy's a total dick.

Oh, actually, fuck Dracula.

Yes.

My mistake.

All right.

Mutt.

Yeah, I'm.

It's it's ladder time than my classic, classic catchphrase.

You, with your movement, uh, what is your movement?

30 feet?

Uh, you are able to get a decent length down the ladder.

Your Dark Souls quick moving it of just kind of like Fireman sliding down the sides, uh, you're able to get about halfway down the ladder with your movement, 30 feet below the lantern room.

Um, that is it for you.

Next in the order is Philo.

Okay,

so at the end of Godwin's turn, the dynamite's going to go off, right?

Correct.

If the next words out of your mouth aren't, I go down the ladder.

Go down the ladder.

What the fuck are you doing, Clinton?

I've got to follow my dream.

I got to follow him.

Oh, what?

Dad, what?

Yeah, dad had a dream.

I dreamt last night, which I've never done.

I'm never dreamed about Taz.

I've never dreamt about Taz.

And I dreamt last night something to do here.

Well, I'm glad you waited until this moment.

Yeah.

Okay.

Philo's an artificer.

He has been studying

everything he does.

He's studying.

He's always studying.

He's always looking.

He's always analyzing.

He's always trying to figure something out.

And he

has this internal monologue going.

I mean, you can have an internal conversation, a dialogue.

No,

I just want to tell Van Helsing

to brace himself.

To brace himself.

You think that, and you see Van Helsing appear, and he says, should I be worried?

Yes.

A little.

He smiles and he nods and he says, I trust you.

So Philo is watching his two friends make it ahead towards the ladder, but Godwin is still inside the structure, right?

I mean, no.

Godwin isn't trapped.

Godwin hasn't acted yet, but Godwin, you know.

Yeah, but at the end of Godwin's turn, Kablooey.

Well, Godwin gets a chance to move

at the end of Godwin's turn.

Not at the beginning.

Okay.

Philo has analyzed the situation.

He's going to look at his friends.

He's going to look at the lantern

and say,

I am of two minds about this.

He puts the helmet on.

Just good on the ladder.

Apologies.

Wow, okay.

On his own head.

On the puppet head.

On the puppet head, because the rest of him is gone but his analysis is that the reason it destroyed philo's body is because it didn't have a mind to try to control the energy but he has two minds because he has abraham in there with him yeah okay

you

take the helmet off of your your charred unrecognizable corpse Can't believe we're doing this fucking trope again, man.

And

this old gag

where what?

Where

the old Pinocchio takes the helmet off the corpse and puts it on his own head because Abraham Van Helsing lives in his hat onto the public.

That old thing.

That old

played out when John Wayne did it, and now we're doing it again.

It's played out in the searchers, and it's played out now.

Classics, okay?

Man, do you know how many times The Simpsons has made fun of this?

And we're doing it.

You

put the helmet on and instantly

you are transported.

You are

floating high above Lumino.

The clouds, you do not see.

You are below the top of Lumino Tower.

And so when you look up, you just still only see night sky.

When you look down, though, Lumino, from this vantage point, is truly living up to its name.

Every streetlight, every electric lantern in the whole city is shining brilliantly below, and there are these narrow sort of ribbons of amber light streaming off of each of these electric lights trailing high into the sky, joining at the top of the tower.

Floating over the theater district.

You see Dracula

and he is floating his his arms sort of folded over his chest.

He is not the kind of young, vivacious fellow you've encountered before.

This is the form of an old man.

His hair is up into just sort of outrageous white buns atop his head.

You are taking in your surroundings.

You realize you are floating weightlessly too,

and that you are not alone.

Right at your side is Abraham Van Helsing, who is looking at Dracula with steely resolve.

This is happening sort of in a liminal space.

This is happening.

Is this still dad's dream?

Are we in dad's dream right now?

Is this all my dad's dreams?

Dad, you are

not a dream.

I'm real, though, right?

You are wherever Dracula is.

You're not answering me, Gregvan.

To freaking out,

to control this city and the people inside it.

What do you do?

I think I've already done mine, right?

No, I think we gotta resolve this before the dynamite explodes.

Okay.

I hadn't really, I didn't dream this part.

That's the thing about dreams, Max.

Maybe, Dad, this is the moment to go down the ladder.

Maybe now.

Let Van Helsing kill him.

Maybe.

I don't know about the liminal.

Okay.

It feels like you are flying, right?

You're in control of your body.

It feels like the flight you have experienced yourself, right?

You don't know what form you're in right now, but you do know that it is the same form that Dracula and Van Helsing are in.

Okay, fine.

Okay, fine.

I am going to

drink one of my alter self elixirs.

Which works like the alter self

spell.

Sure, man.

Yeah, we're jazzing it.

I'm going to

extend my Pinocchio nose as long as I possibly can.

Fuck way.

And fly right at old bunhead Dracula.

You.

He's going to skeeter him to death.

You're going to skeeter that son of a gun.

You turn yourself into

God's own missile as you launch yourself like a dart, sharpened elongated swordfish nose in front of you wait you have to tell a gigantic lie oh okay

um

uh

I do have it has to be a gigantic well you're gonna live to see tomorrow yeah

yeah

um the gigantic lie is um

I know what I'm doing

there we go

perfect okay

as you fly towards him he opens his dark blood-red eyes and he holds out a hand towards you attempting to hold you off uh

this is going to be a battle of wills uh happening inside of inside of the tower you are essentially vying for control uh in this moment

I think what this is going to be is

a

hmm.

Is it contested?

I will allow you an option: contested sort of wisdom or contested Arcana checks as

you're giving me a choice, Arcana.

Okay, this is going to be a contested Arcana check.

Let me roll first to let you know what you are hitting.

You okay,

go ahead and roll.

All right, Arcana check 16.

You see him hold you off and

he

says

I am the master of puppets.

You think you can defeat me here?

I got no strings to hold me up.

The nose continues to grow and grow and grow and he looks at you

and

with a sudden burst your nose doubles in length and shoots through Dracula's chest and 15 feet beyond.

He

arches his back and bends backwards and

like a

crimson sheet of fabric being fed through a shredder, he just unravels and

vanishes.

And

then it's just you and Van Helsing

floating above Lumino.

And Van Helsing says, Do you have any idea how we get out of here?

Maybe.

The nose grows longer.

Yeah, the nose grows a little bit longer as you say that.

Well, I think you can get out of here because you're free.

Dracula's dead.

You may go to your eternal rest, my friend.

Oh, I don't want to do that.

No way.

Oh, I don't really believe.

No, I don't believe in that sort of stuff, so I'm not ready for sort of

oblivion.

Yeah, if you had mentioned that before, I would have uh yes, we're a little bit short on time, though.

Yeah, okay.

Um,

so I uh

I'm I think back in my corporeal body.

Do I have control of that?

No, I mean,

you have changed bodies, right?

You are inside of this.

The helmet is still on, Brother Philo, but I don't know that we ever really established how one exits from this situation.

Brother Philo casts Vortex Warp on himself.

Oh, shit.

Okay.

What?

You magically twist space around another creature you can see within range.

Target must succeed on a constitution saving throw.

Or the target is teleported to an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see within range.

So I'm going to transport myself to the surface of Lumino.

I love this.

So you won't need to

do your own con save, right?

Like you can fail on purpose to allow this to happen to you.

Right.

You cast this spell, and a vortex appears around you.

And

you see Van Helsing looking at these ribbons of Dracula that are still drifting upwards into the sky, which in this limital space has started to change.

And you see beams of light from the sun above part through the clouds.

He looks at you as as you enter this portal and

he

says,

Let's cut back while you guys ponder over your liminal situation.

I need to talk to Mutt.

Okay.

Mutt is.

I know we have less than six seconds, but I feel like with the liminal space thing happening.

Yeah, let's we can fight.

Time is frozen.

Hey, Mutt.

Can I ask you

what in the actual hell is going on with Firefox?

That's a great question.

Did he

eat some fucking spinach or something?

I don't understand.

He's been a well-meaning puppet.

He'll do a little jig every once in a while, cure

a

single-digit number of hit points.

It's all very well and good.

And then all of a sudden, he's gone fucking super safe.

He's flying through the air.

He's extending his body.

It's incredible.

Yeah, man.

I think, can I tell you, we've been finding a lot of...

And I'm not sure.

He's been fighting a lot of bad guys up to this point, and I think he's been holding back, if I'm being honest.

I guess he's been saving salts.

Here's the worst part, Mud.

I'm not even sure for experience.

Yeah, man.

That's what's really wonderful.

Why I'm in a dreamscape, but I'm not.

You know, I'm awake, but it's awesome.

It's like a whisper of an echo of a dream.

You are actually.

Do we need to give Philo the kick?

Spin a top or something.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah,

I'm worried Philo's going to cast the wrong spell and dad's gonna see him behind him.

Like he's just gonna like appear

like fucking Page Master or something.

He looks at you as you are, you create this vortex behind you, Philo.

Abraham Van Helsing says,

I suppose my work is done.

I mean, there's definitely probably a few Draculas still out there, but

we got the big one.

So

I think I am ready.

Brother, what does your Saint Tancred

say about death?

What awaits me when I depart?

Saint Tancred

and his two brothers said

death is just a state of mind.

It's a state you go to

as long as you don't mind.

Hmm.

Well, St.

Tancred was not really good at spitting out

the really catchy catchphrases.

Not a jazz man, scientist.

No, he's he didn't.

He

couldn't skip

it.

He couldn't not really

follies, we have this to learn from him.

Death is

not so scary, after all.

And

the vortex sucks you in, and you reanimate inside of your puppet body.

The helmet is giving off smoke.

Whatever you have just done here, it was not part of

the invention's original design.

You are back in this space.

You see Lady Godwin standing over

the ladder hole descending downward, looking around in just sort of mystified, as it turns out, that the liminal space was sort of a kind of arcane superposition created by this incredibly powerful magical device you all are standing in.

So, you definitely saw some of that crazy Goku encounter happen outside.

That is, I think, it for your turn.

Next in the order,

the

bats.

We have all forgotten about them until it was too late.

Fucking yeah, hell yeah.

Okay,

for the listener at home, the bats have now quadrupled in size.

Their saucer now encompasses the tower.

Now, this is not important to note.

These are not actual bats growing in size.

It's simply the idea of bats has grown larger in the public eyes.

We're more aware of them now.

We're so much more funded in the bats.

Here's what happens.

The bats fly into the tower.

They are going haywire

now that they are no longer sort of being remote controlled.

They have flown into this tower and are just sort of crashing around this room.

They have dispersed.

That is why they have sort of like increased in size here on the map.

But they they are basically making it pretty tough to see what's going on in this room right now.

And

last in the order is Lady Godwin.

Can you paint a picture for me, Griff?

I don't have a great ability to...

Thanks.

The bats were really...

But just trust that the bats are there.

I'll put them in the corner.

Always watching.

Hey, guys, what are you doing?

You playing?

You are standing at the center of the lantern room.

At the other end of the room, you can see, kind of, through this cloud of bats, Brother Philo, who has just regained consciousness inside his puppet body, standing next to the skeleton of Dracula.

Behind you is the hole with the ladder leading downward to relative safety from the dynamite that is moments away from detonating, which is also inside of this little lantern housing chamber on the other side where your hand has kind of crawled away towards.

Okay.

I mean, you have, you, I think, have a lot of options here.

If you don't do anything about the dynamite, it is going to explode at the end of your turn.

So if you're not doing something about that, getting either yourself or you sense that Mutt is probably okay since he is underneath this room.

Yeah, you guys.

But you are.

That is the the that is the scenario.

Does my hand have the dynamite?

Uh, you, you, you have no reason to suspect it doesn't.

Like I said, it is kind of hard to see anything in here, um, because of these damned bats.

How far am I from Dracula and Philo?

Uh, you are about 10 feet from Dracula and Philo.

Great.

I am going to

dash over and grab Philo.

Uh, okay,

Yes.

I grab Philo.

For my second attack, I think, hey, Justin, I know that Lady Gono has been pretty attack-based, but everything doesn't have to be an attack.

He just grabbed Philo.

I don't see.

I'm sorry, that was an attack.

All right.

Travis, DD, you don't understand when all you got in your hand.

It is not an attack.

You are moving through incredibly treacherous terrain.

I think just to kind of navigate this cloud of bats and make it to Philo,

I think like maybe a deck save just to see how easy it is for you to find him and get to him

at all.

Two and a third.

Not great.

You are being battered.

Yes!

He's still

reddit agrees.

Taz is back.

You, as you push forward through this cloud of bats, you are being

just constantly

lacerated by their wings.

A couple of them cling onto your body, and you feel a few of them sink their teeth into you.

You are going to take 21 points of slashing, piercing, damage kind of mixed.

Hell yes.

Thank you.

I don't think you are raging anymore.

I think after being mind-controlled,

I don't think you did an attack that turn.

So that would be full damage.

Yes, that's true.

Full damage.

Got it.

Perfect.

That's just your move.

You've made it to Philo.

Just part of my move, or I can break it up.

I mean, yes, that's part of your movement.

Thank you.

Okay, next up.

Try an old classic.

Oh, my one last shot.

I'm going to pick up Dracula's corpse.

I'm going to throw it into the lake.

The old go-to.

Here we go, baby.

One more.

There's been five attempts so far.

None of them have worked.

Five in a row I've attempted to throw somebody into something and it hasn't landed.

But I think I remember narratively, it was really, we all thought it was going to happen before, but it didn't and i think it's just building to this exact moment you know what they say if at fourth you don't succeed

you grab

this

gap toothed skeleton uh

and lift it and prepare to throw it as you do you flash back to high school track team you are

on the javelin toss squad and it's the day of the big meet and when it's your turn you get up and you trip and the javelin it it just snaps on the ground and everyone points and laughs and mean tommy jefferson in the stands yells nice

nice throw sodwin

and laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs you

remember all the times in your life Some of them extraordinarily recent.

Of where you have attempted to throw something, but you just can't fucking get it right.

But as you pick up these old-ass Dracula bones,

you realize you have one more chance to prove this not to anyone else,

but to yourself.

You're ready.

Pick your attack.

Is it time for the roll?

The big roll.

The one.

That he doesn't know.

That's a three plus six, a nine.

The bones just kind of fall down on the ground like four inches away.

The other secret

about that is that I was just testing his weight for my frenzy attack.

Mutt is on the ladder halfway down, like looking up at the hole.

Like, here they come.

You know what?

You hear Mutt from 30 feet above you, you hear,

and you know that Lady Godwin just fucked up throwing something not a long distance again.

You're rolling again, Mutt!

Justin!

Oh, my God.

There is improvement.

You can't deny it.

Statistically, it is better than the last time.

A four, Justin tries again.

Fucking Lady Godwin tries again, bro.

Four plus six for a 10.

Above you, Mutt, you hear it a second time, and you're like, there's no fucking way.

I'm like counting seconds in my head.

Like, we're on like sit, missus, sit at this point.

Like, what are they doing?

So they did it.

So, but the first, what I got, Filo, that was a free action.

That wasn't my attack.

So I do have

six.

One more.

You don't succeed.

No, I pressed the javelin button that time.

So that was the wrong button.

It accidentally rolled off the bottom.

Well, you know, you are not raging.

So you do not have your third attack.

So two fit.

You realize, you know what, Lady Godwin?

You can try again.

It will be the last thing you ever do.

All right, me and the puppet jump off the tower, eh?

All right.

I need...

Philo, you are fine, right?

You are small and light.

Godwin has no problem picking you up as she smashes through the northern windows.

Give me...

The moment you smash through the windows, the dynamite behind you explodes

and you are launched outwards.

I need a...

Well, Philo is, but there

still in the tower, you see Lady Godwin and you see her scooping up.

How could this be?

She's willing to sacrifice everything

to destroy the bones.

I need to know if how much of that is a goof or if you've also jumped out of the tower did you stay behind to try no i jumped out of the tower man it's fun to play this stage

give me a dexterity saving throw to see how

able to escape this explosion you are as you jump out at the very last second

17 fantastic oh yeah

there's your advantage

no just 17 uh with a 17, it is just in the nick of time.

You feel this tremendous wave of heat growing behind you

that just as you get worried it's going to consume you, you are sort of launched away by the concussive force of

this dynamite exploding.

You see the bones of Dracula on the floor be swallowed up by the flame.

And then moments after the flame sort of shoots overhead, then just a mushroom cloud of brilliant white light emerges from the top of the tower as it

explodes outwards like the fucking end of Lord of the Rings.

That's cool.

When you don't want to describe something, you can just reference like a similar...

Let's say it looks like something else.

Watch that.

You'll get it.

It explodes in a sort of spherical wave of force.

Mutt, I think you were a safe distance away from the explosion, but now the thing that the ladder was attached to above has exploded.

So I'm going to need, I don't know, acrobatics to get down the ladder extremely quickly, or a deck save to try to just avoid the

debris falling.

I want to get down the ladder because I,

now that they're like going, you know what I mean?

Oh,

shit, baby.

Thank you.

That is an eight plus four.

22 eight plus four no sorry 18 plus four

a wildly different result yeah yeah yeah it might be different

you that's not me you can see the number you know it's 18.

okay 22 that's a real 22 you lift your feet from the rung you were standing on and just kind of like press the

like inner soles of your shoes against the sides of the ladder and shoot down it uh you hit the floor and roll off the ladder and uh you duck down in the sort of door frame leading outward

to the town square below.

And you see that everyone has sort of run off from this tower as it explodes.

Debris falls down.

It

crashes into surrounding buildings.

It crashes into

the fountain in the center of town square.

But you are able to escape danger.

What do I see?

Can I see Darwin and Philo falling?

I don't think we can possibly argue that you slid down a ladder faster than terminal velocity.

So I think that this is kind of happening simultaneously.

I don't know.

If you do see Godwin and Philo falling, it is at the end of that fall.

So let's hop back to like a second or two ago.

Godwin and Philo, you are both plummeting to the ground.

You have moments before

the street, which is about 70 feet below you, comes to meet you.

Are we still in initiative?

We are not.

No.

Okay.

Philo has.

I know you're going to check this, but it's true.

Philo has one flying elixir left.

I believe you.

No shit.

He baby birds, Lady Godwin.

Again.

Hell yes.

No,

no

no it's anise flavored

oh not anus anise

i'd rather have anus

fucking hell fly rhubarb is that rhubarb

okay godwin you are falling as you drink this potion and

I think that you start figuring it out as you fall to the ground.

You are not flying, Philos, so as she is trying to kind of like compensate for the weight of you,

I think that you all are just kind of like spinning.

Your descent slows somewhat, but I'm going to need a dexterity saving throw from both of you

as you approach the ground with,

you know, maybe not fatal speed.

as you twist around i reach up and i reach up and uh

he's a i reach up and push his nose as hard as I can push his nose

yeah, I'm gonna use him as a propeller

It's still giant it's still gigantic so

so

you're gonna spin his head around real fast so his nose turned into a propeller that's

yeah because it's extremely it's extremely long so I can use that to help control

in the liminal space, but I'm fully willing to yeah sure give me a strength check as you attempt to violently rotate the head of this puppet man.

A strength check.

Now that I can do

17.

You do see them, Mutt.

You see Godwin and Philo.

Philo looks weird.

It looks like Godwin is holding him aloft above her, but then you see that his head is spinning around at about 1300 rpms

as as he forms a a makeshift helicopter and lowers himself and lady godwin down to the ground slow and soft say that i got a flight potion i'm gonna go find his bullies let's go okay well then they don't land and instead i want to go look for some of his bullies there's gotta be people who are bullied him earlier I want to do the like the luck dragon bit where we're like flying around he's like go get him

I want to harass all his bullies.

No, no, no.

We'll land.

No need to harass bullies today.

That's right tomorrow.

That's pretty much.

Lady Godwin and Philo execute a textbook Poppins landing on the ground next to you.

And

how do you stop Philo's head?

I just set him gingerly on the ground and said he's going to be a little bit more.

Just wait for him to let it wind down.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Your associates throwing out sawdust everywhere.

And the problem is, how do you clean that up?

Yeah.

Throw vomit on it.

Oh, okay.

You see your your fellow defenders of Lumino sort of peeking out of the the rebel

as they begin to approach you.

The musicians and

dramatists and artists and everyone kind of shake their heads and come to their senses.

And at first, everyone is looking at you.

And then they all look up as

the

vortex is

dispersed from the fractured tower above.

And as it disperses, sunlight begins to beat down hard on the city of Lumino and Ongrave.

You

hear

cheering and jubilation

as people celebrate their freedom.

From what exactly?

I think most of them probably don't know, but they do know that the sun has returned to Ongrave.

And music from countless sources just fills the streets as Lumino is consumed by joyous celebration.

A parade forms organically, winding through the streets of the city for hours.

And as the noon sun rises upward to its apex, this parade parade passes by a narrow alleyway where

a skeleton lays on the cobblestones, broken and charred.

The sun creeps towards this skeleton and

it glows and

the beginning traces of musculature start to reform around the skull and the bones rattle and then

a song music begins uh flooding through this alleyway as the parade passes there's a single violinist straggling behind the pack and

suddenly as count dracula revives and reforms and regenerates his senses are launched six centuries into the past to the day when the world's beauty first revealed itself to him

and then the sunlight passes over his reforming body, reducing him to a cloud of ash that drifts gently upwards into the sunlit sky.

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