Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - C2E13 Lost & Found

Episode Date: January 23, 2022

The Mighty Nein deal with the fallout from the night’s events, working to repair the fraying edges of the Knights of Requital and learning how to trust their own team… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'll find out. What were the words you just used? I just, okay. There's no such thing! Oh my God. There's a fail. I just, okay. There's hope. There's hope. Vox-Maconu Origins, Issue 6. The last comic of the six issue run finishes soon. Actually, the date is April 18th.

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Yeah. And I believe that's it and that's all for tonight's update, which means that brings us to tonight's episode of Critical Role. And welcome back. So last we left off, the Mighty Nine. I got themselves involved in a number of various factions in the city of Zedash and decided to buy in to aid the Knights of Requital in their attempt to get one of the various powerful lords of the city and the High Richter, both seemingly corrupt individuals ousted. You had planned forgeries that you were going to place in their homes at night during an offsite gala in the tri spires, not too far from where you were breaking entering was to occur. Bringing Ulaag along, one of the members of the Knights of Requital, You snuck into Lord's Houtan's house, managed to avoid number of the pitfalls, traps,

and contents within going straight to the bedroom where you battled the rug of smothering, knocking a couple of you out, but found within a couple of interesting items that you gathered and the wax seal you needed to complete the forgeries to make this loop come together. From there, you immediately went across over to the High Richter's home. You managed to, well, the two of you managed to obscure yourselves

to look like the High Richter one of her guards, went right into the abode. The rest of you met from the outside, and within the interior of the bedroom, you discovered Ulog had found papers that proved that his wife was innocent and that the High Richter was basically making an example out of her,

as well as discovering a scroll case that led to a brief confrontation. And after placing the documents that were required, you went to leave right as the High Richter seemed to have arrived. She had a seemingly confident demeanor as she rung the bell for her guards. And at that moment, Ulog, realizing that this was his chance to get vengeance and no one else was taking a stand,

rushed her, placed a bead within her mouth that caused a fireball to detonate, killing them both, destroying most of the torso of the High Rector and Ulog together. At that point, you all began to radically find a way to flee. The window shattered out from the game windows in the top floor. You heard the guards trying to bash in the front door to make their way in. After fleeing outside, you heard the strange sound as this large, dark sphere seemed to emerge from the distant Zabraspire of the halls of irredition.

It seemed to collapse in itself, causing the base of the tower to lose structure, and it began to tip over, stopping midway, suddenly by some sort of force-sealed holding it in place. You watched two darkened figures left from the tower, while two other ones began to glide off the top of the tower, firing bolts of energy and various forms of magical attack in their direction. Using the chaos, you all fled through the night darkness, back towards the sewers where you came. You managed to watch one of the two dark figures be slaughtered on the street and gathered by some shaded,

older figure who was one of the flying mages who was giving chase. You all ducked down into the sewer system and began to notice a trail of blood amongst the dried sewer run, putting some lights up ahead of you at this, this intersection, which you had been previously before, you immediately noticed there was a darkened figure of black leather armor with various horns and hooks at the joints, kind of chitinous insect-like in its appearance.

The creature seemed to notice your presence and called out in a language you couldn't understand. In an attempt to cast a spell, to understand the language, the creatures seem to deem it as an aggressive stance and then rushed you. And that's where we left off. So to begin, I'd like you all to roll initiative. Wow.

That was so fast. I am ready. My ball. Oh, that's cool. Yes, you did. You rushed the process. I did. All righty. So 25 to 20.

21. 21. Oh, shit. All right. Let's see here. Ah! 20 to 15. Oh, no.

15 to 10. 14. 14. 11. 11. All right, so we have Molly, and then we have Caleb and not together. Caleb and not all together. All right. Who's next? I guess I should say. What'd you roll? Oh. All righty. At the time we've got Jester. Desmondy. Even in love, very close. In game. In love. Fuck. All righty folks. So. Top of the combat round as it pulls its jagged blade out of its side and darts forward in the direction of the group, Bo. You actually have the first reaction. Seeing this happen, you immediately jump into action and what's your turn? Anyone speak, dark, shady guy in a sewer?

You know, I have time to react. What are you doing? Okay, let's, I'm going to go up. I'm going to get out the rope and climbing hook that I had from earlier. Yeah. And I'm going to say, Juster Catch. Oh, but I'm... Oh, wait, you're last. You're like super less. Okay, never mind.

I'm gonna rush to him and see if I can... You put your gesture and just holding Caleb up and was not even paying attention. Like, shit. I'm gonna rush to him and see if I can... Crapp. Oh, god, I'm so bad at grappling. Are you? Uh-huh.

Is it strength? Oh. Uh-huh. It's athletic-based. Is athletic-based, my athletics is okay. That's not bad. Okay, okay. I'm gonna see if I can take the grappling hook and kind of swing it around.

and wrap around. To grapple them in place? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so go ahead and make your athletics check. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Big money. Like a rhinstone, careful. Okay, that's all right, 16.

Actually beat him. Wow, that was a five plus ten on that one. That was a 15. These conjuring demons. So you wrap the rope around and immediately it's grappled in place, unable to move, although its arms are free, it cannot seem to pull itself away from you. So that's your action, or that's your attack? And then I can... I'm just going to see if I can do like a blow to his temple with my elbow.

Go for it. This is just offhanded attack, right? Monks. So sick. 16. 16 does not hit. You swing and the head just ducks out of the way. It swings wide. It kind of glides against the edge of the leather mask, but makes no impact. Correct. Oh, 16 does not hit.

All right, that ends your turn, Bo? Yes. Did you hear that? No, none of it. Very important. Did Bo make out with the Craig? 16 does not hit. 16 doesn't hit hit.

I got him wrapped and grappled. The dark figure? Wow, that was fast. Dark figure, arm looking at you and looking out in the middle of the space, goes ahead and concentrates for a second, puts one of its hand without the blade in it, actually, it's right-handed, focuses for a second as it does, you watch as this tiny beat of dark-handed, as this tiny beat of darkness appears in the center of the area and expands until a sphere of pitch black light completely engulfs this space and none of you can see into it or past it.

You are blind within this sphere and you guys just see just the whole hallway just consumes the creature and bow. Neatrick. Oh no. Oh no. Yeah, dark vision in that is still blind. If you go in there, oh fuck. Oh no.

Oh no, we could hit bow. We're gonna. That's gonna end its turn. That brings us to Molly. We're cool. I'm gonna head up to just the other side of that, of the void. Here? Yeah, I'm gonna sit there. I'm going to start one of the blades up, and I'm gonna hold my attack for anything that crosses my back.

Okay, so if anything comes within range that you want to attack you're actually, I'll say the minute I see something is vicious mockering. The minute you see something vicious mockery. Got it. Okay. So you draw your blade out, take the damage, and you prepare a vicious mockery. Got it. All right. That is your turn, Molly? Caleb, not. Oh, we're up already?

You guys are up at the same turn. It's literally right here. We got to try it right here. Right front of you. And the crick is right between these two. But regard, Molly. Yep, yeah. You're just the tools at your disposal.

Yeah, don't call him a crick. Me. Yeah, go. Sorry. Assassian. The Jorhasian? The Evasion of the evening. Bug guy.

Bug guy. Okay. We're sure. We're gonna back. Shit, I don't know. Why are we attacking this person? Because he attacked us first. They know.

We can't, they'll subdue him and talk to him. Make your own judgment. Okay, so I will go. I use bone-in- I will destroy the initiative ranking. I will send my globules of light into the darkness to see if it has any effect. Okay, as the globules go in, they blink out.

Oh, no. And then... His spell is higher than your spell? Then I'm going to back up... You sent all the globules in there? No, let's say two of them. Okay. The two...

Flank out, the two remain there, but the other two, you sense that they're no longer in existence. So we have two globes lighting up the area now, and it's low light in here. At the same time, I will back up my full movement while Frumkin runs into the edge of that darkness. All right. Frumkin peeks in. All right. Okay. Cool. That ends your turn. It's not what you're doing.

Should I have to, I'm looking around and I'm not seeing a lot of attacking going on, so, oh wait, they don't speak our language. Shit. Uh, uh. Maybe they speak. No, I don't know. Try it. I will, I will cast a message and I'll point into the darkness at the at the creature.

Okay. And I'll say, uh, uh, Do not fight us. We are no fans of the Empire either. You can reply to this message. Do I sense a reply? You do not sense a reply. Oh no. Damn it. But for the hell of it, go ahead and make a persuasion. Okay. That's a two minus three. Okay, good enough. Oh no, no, just a two minus one, Matt. I'm still in the black.

Perfect. All right. Finishing Nausegson. Noddy want to move anywhere? Yeah, I'll go front and left. Is there anywhere to hide? Not in this area, no. You have to get over here to hide. Then I will bonus action dash over there. There you go.

Good to know. All right. That finish is not in Caleb's turn. Jester, you're up. Me? You? Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh. Okay, I'm going to prep the spell hold person.

and I'm going to wait to cast it until I can see him. Okay, good to know. So is your peppingly spell. Alrighty, that ends your turn. Ford, you're up. Yes, unless you want to move it all. I'm gonna move across the sewer, like across from Ford. Over here? Yeah. Okay, good to know. Ford, you have armor bag at this song, so you cast that reactionary last time.

So what do you do? Can I look and say, everyone stay here. I'm gonna see how far this darkness goes, and I'm gonna double dash and Run down 60 feet in that direction, hopefully not running into anybody. Okay. He must be a physician. And I'll stop if I come into the light. Alright, you're right, you stop as soon as you get up to the side. As you rush past, there's a, in the darkness.

Oh no, you get cut. That's okay. That is gonna be a 25 to hit. Oh my God, but we can't fight him. And not have him restrained? That's okay, I got the arm to don't. Maybe it just rolled really high. I got that armor move.

It did roll very high. I got that armor. That's all right, he's gonna take it. So that is 10 points of slashing damage. Oh shit, all 10? Oh yeah, that'll do it. But he takes damage back, right? He does take 10 ice damage back, yeah.

If you took 9, then somebody else would get 10. So as you run by, the blade strikes, you manage to feel it glide off of your ice armor, and you feel the blast of ice energy. You, suddenly, as you're holding the rope, feel this kind of spray of dark cold, and you kind of winds at it in the darkness. I hate these rides. No.

But that, so that can see the other side. Yes. For a bonus action, can I make a perception check to see if there's anybody on the other side of the tunnel? Sure. I'll give me a perception check, but I'll let you do it. 13. 13. Okay, you glance over in the area down the darkness. The light's very fading at this point, but you have dark vision. You don't see any other figure. Can I just about face and wait on the other side of this? Sure.

Black. Waiting on the opposite side. You got it. That's my turn. All right. That ends it up. To the top. Bo, you're up. Okay, ah, I still have them restrained. I'm, can't see or do shit. Can I just kind of try still holding onto the rope? Can I full-on football tackle him and try and push him out of this dark cloud? Try and shove, you mean?

Uh-huh. If you have someone grappled, you can pull them at half movement. Oh, I'll do that then. I'm going to start with the rope wrapped around and start like a lifeguard, just back in it out. Which direction? This way or this way? To Ford said? Towards, yeah, towards Ford.

I imagine, I felt Ford go by, so I'm gonna try and just go towards Ford. Okay, so you managed to push it. Just out of it right there, and you're both outside of the darkness. Oh! Look what I caught! You got a big one.

Yeah, I did! Oh, wait, he's outside the darkness? Like a catfish. We can't see them. Oh, but it's across from me. It's through the darkness. Yeah, it's through the darkness. Help me subdue him!

Don't wait, when it's my turn! All right, so Bo, that's your movement. You still have an action if you want, I believe. I'm gonna do another crack to the forehead, my off-handed attack. Head butt? Yep. That's a natural one. Oh.

No, nope, nope, nope, nope. Wait, nope, it is, it is. Thought it was a seven. Thought it might be a seven. All right, I'll say as you swing, you manage just to loosen the grip a little bit, and the rope comes a little bit loose. If it attempts to break your grapple,

it's gonna have advantage on it. Fuck. Okay. Okay. Okay. At the end of, at the beginning of its turn, it's gonna go ahead and it's now grappled up in front of you. It pulls its blade with both of its hands

and its head turns back towards you now that you're the ones who's been pushing it out, and it begins to just unleash two heavy strikes against you. That's another 25. And that's gonna be an 18. Both hit. Okay. Most.

Most. Oh, geez. That's gonna be 20 points of slashing damage from the two strikes. And you watch, as the first blade impacts across the front of Beau's chest, there is this strange kind of grayish flash of energy that seems to just scatter from the impact, the blow. And it congeals off to the side, and you watch as this kind of, a lack of better term, a shadow clone of the creature appears just off to the side behind Ford there. Oh no. It looks semi-corporial.

It's still holding the blade it has the same armor, but it's somewhat translucent and made of this dark grayish shadow energy. What is that? Oh. All right. So, and also, Bo, you feel this, the second blow that hits you, the second blow that hits you, it seems to carve almost like a, like a letter or some kind of a symbol on your chest as it pulls back. And as it does, you feel this burning

cinch and you look down, there's this glowing brand on your chest. It's not burned into the skin. It appears to be magically placed, but you have a brand on your chest that you don't have to you guys. Oh, that's going to end its turn. Maliya. Have I heard any of this happening or a sound like... Yeah, impact. There's just darkness, but you hear this yelling and shouting and them talking back forth and then Bo taking damage. and the strange shifting of energy in the distance. What are you doing? Oh, for God's sakes.

I am going to run straight through the... All right. The... The... You get just to the edge of it. You can just barely peek out. You can continue to move. It'll be your action to continue to move.

No, I'm going to stay at the edge of this, and I'm going to use vicious mockery. Okay, good to know. Stop where you are. That is a wisdom, right? Yes. That's an 18th. Does Molly do birthday parties from Kandah?

I'm pretty sure that passes, yeah. So the vicious mockery seems to be unaffected by your demonic voice. Sorry. Oh no, we have to talk to him, you guys. We're not going to beat him. All right. It looks pretty wounded already.

Just kidding, you're going to kill him. It's your choice in what you want to do. But he's really powerful but really hurt. So I finished your turn, Molly? All right, Caleb Nott. What's you doing? Oh, it's us again? Looking Comprehend language is, we'll get him down.

Framken will run forward out of the darkness. This way? Towards the action, yeah, and just poke his head out, actually, closer to, you know, he'll come out between Mully's legs. Actually, peek right out there. And I'm just sitting down in the muck and the sewer, and I am now watching and listening for this, to use Comprehend languages through Framken.

Okay, sounds good. That's it, that's all I'm doing. Let's let's talk to him. All right. Jester, get him a conchement. Oh wait, it's me. Oh no, no, it has gone yet, you're right. Although I don't really know what I can do so.

I'm gonna, so who do I still see? Just Caleb way in the back, Jester right there. You see Caleb and Jester there in this like curl of darkness? Do I hear anything? Yeah, you hear all the sounds happening and the shouting and the impact. But I don't know where they're coming from. You just hear them around that corner, that's all you know. Okay.

I'm going to, to do-d-d-d-d-do-do-do. I'm going to go around the darkness, just clock around it counterclockwise, yeah. Just see if I can see around the other side without going into it. That's the first thing with your movement. You could bonus if you want to move around.

I will bonus dash around, just to look. There you can see your friends, you can see Ford, you can see the creature, you can see the shadow form up at the side and you can see Bo, with a hint of Molly poking out of the- I'm gonna shoot the shadow form. All right, go for it, roll from attack. 20.

20 hits. Yeah. Roll damage. Sneak attack? Sure, yeah. Yeah, Ford is next to it. Dead of the X. These are considered one space there.

Yeah. Four-stead. Okay. You watch as it just dissipates. Whoa! The impact goes, it hits it, and you see it react slightly, and then just It was all in my imagination.

That's it. That's all I got. All right, Jester, you're up. I have a question. Yes. Because I've never prepped a spell and then not used it. Does that use the spell if I... It does. That's boss.

Because you cast the spell and then to hold the very last moment just waiting to release it and then if it doesn't happen, the spell expands. That's rough. That is rough. That was the second level. That's good enough. Can I go and see what's going on around the big black spot? Sure. You can just manage to see knot at the corner of it.

That's about as much as you can see the rest of it. It's just darkness still encompassing the corner. I guess I'll use my dash. Can I go forward and see what's going on? 25 or 30. You can get either of those spaces there if you want. I'll go, yeah, right there. Right there? All right. So now you can see it, but that's your movement and your action.

your action. Ah! I know, right? This is crazy! But on your turn? I guess so! All right, Ford you're up. Can I...

Wait, I... But I have a bonus action. Okay, I'm going to use... Wait, wait, wait, wait. Healing word! Wait. On who? I'm going to use healing word on bow!

Yes, please! I'm going to cast that. All right. Okay, so that is... One D4. Oh wait. Nope. Whoa. Three plus three is six points. That's great. Thank you. Much runner. Ouchies.

I like that an eight-year-old boy delivering those points. All right, four, two card. Okay. That's fourth turn, sorry. That's right. Fort's right. Ford's right. Can I run up behind, yep, I think it's sashing and using the blunt end of the Fouchon. The falchid, the non-edged side. Can I try and strike non-lethal damage into the back of his head? You can? Yeah, go for a little for attack. Do I get advantage because he's back?

Um, the gravel? You are technically on opposite sides. Yeah, so I'd say flanked. I'd allow it. Yeah. Barnacle blow. Barnacle blow. 18 plus. Did you know Barnacle scream when you scrape them off of things? No, that's not true. No, they do. 24.

24, that hits. Roll damage. All right. Now, non-lethal. Same damage. It's just, if you bring it to zero, they go unconscious and aren't bleeding out. Four. That is 12. 12 points of damage. 12 points of damage. You swing across and slam it from the back of its armor and you hear this exhale of pain out of its throat. As it hits, it spins around, and you watch as that same energy that came out earlier when it struck or when it struck bow. the blow the blow that you hit it kind of dissipates in the same energy and then

forms into another shadow version of it behind you. Oh. Is he still taking damage? Double flank. He's still taking damage. He's getting hurt, yeah. He's hurt pretty bad. Yeah. All right, just I finished turn? Yes, it is.

All right, top of the round, Bo, you're up. Oh, God. Okay. It was not hurt enough apparently. I'm going to do, I'm going to first try and tighten my grip on him. Okay. And can I try and like bulldoze him down to the ground and kind of get like on pin him to the ground? Unfortunately, you need a feat, the grappler feet to then pin somebody. Cool. I'm just going to also try and do non-lesal damage and knock him out in the head.

Go for it. Wolfram attack. Two attacks. Yep, first one's a natural 19. Second one is another natural one. So. The 19 does hit. I've got the one. Sorry, Wendy A plus four is six plus 12, thank you. 12, nice. So as you crack across the head, you watch the helmet kind of slip a little bit, and you can see a little bit of the jaw beneath the mask now.

And the skin itself is like a dark blue, purple color. And you see white teeth are pretty prominent incisors visible. Can I take like a free action to be like, we just want to talk to you? you, damn it. You're shouting, yeah. Did you hear that important detail about the enemy that he just revealed? Nope, we were talking. What was the detail? I mean, pretty visible incisors. Sharp fucking teeth. Woo! Whoa! Whoa!

All right, the boat is the new turn. All right, is now the creature's turn. Can't be. All right, the creature is going to go ahead and swing one strike at bow in front. Love Meledict. Go for it. With the added. Yeah, drop that PM on him. You just did that, like the glitter guy. Love Meledick. Disavantage on that. Well, you prevented a natural 20. That's good.

So it's 19. Still hits. Still hits. Thank you. That is. That is. 10 points of slashing damage. Are you still up? No.

Oh. You just healed her. I did not work that much. Whoa, falls to the ground. Unconscious. The rope goes loose, at which point the creature turns around towards you ford. And as it's focused on its face, you feel the swing from behind us. The shadow version is in the triangle.

Not lethal, not lethal. Not lethal. Not the face. Not the face. That's going to be 21. All right, that is nine points of slashing damage. Okay, nine points. And it vanishes, the impact, like the actual blow it kind of hits and then discards itself into the impact of the blow.

I don't think, more, to talk to us. It discards itself. Let's see here. All right. It's now going to swing forward and head over to make a strike at you. Not lethal, the type of opportunity! Yeah, the attack of opportunity. I can't do anything to you.

You. Not only, that's only a 14. No, 15. 15 does not hit. Still disadvantage. Because you, did you, did you, yeah, I did. Okay, that brings it a 19?

19 probably fucking hits. Yes. Okay, that is eight points of slashing damage. Hellish rebuke. Oh! I'm going to say, I'm not your enemy, you guy with big two. guy with big teeth. But I say it in Infernal, because, you know.

No, that was good. Yeah. Is it? Sure. I don't know. I think it is. I still do. That's a .

What's your DC on that? Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this. What's your charisma bonus? I'm complicated. I've got a plus one mod to charisma. All right. So your DC would that would be 11. So yeah, it succeeds.

So it takes half damage. You still do damage. Oh, okay. Great, which is 2D10, right? That's a lot! Eight, so four. Four points, all right? It's dead.

You see this blast of ice come out as you're shouting infernal at it. It strikes into the armor and kind of pierces parts of its shoulders and the... It kind of goes limp for a certain point. You see it flex angrily. It's looking really rough. All right, and as the attack hits you, Another form that appears over there and extent. appears over there in exchange. How many slashing damage did you say you did to me?

Eight. Eight. Got it. Oh boy. That's a dope feature, whatever that is. It is. That's going to end its turn. Molly, you're up.

If I run up behind it, do I then get advantage because he's flanked? I'm going to do that. Unleather. It's all not lethal once he's stabilized it after you put it down to the ground. All right, first strike with three. With the... It's actually not true. I know.

I'm paying it. First strike with the scimitar is... Natural 20! Whoa! Okay. Does that do a thing then? For him or just double damage? It's double damage.

Okay, nothing weird in that. Okay, so that's... Both the weapon and the... You get all your grip points back. Aren't you excited? Yeah, I know. I miss things. All right.

And I don't get special damage to him, do I? So as a reaction, He's going to go ahead and use transpose Echo. Oh! And shift over with that guy. Did he just... That is... And you watch, as something, there's a shimmy of shadow energy,

and he switches places with the shadow version of himself. He ended up striking the shadow thing, which is dissipated from the impact. Oh! That is some white elephant gift shit right there. So, I don't have enough movement to go for another. One, two, three, four, you do. Running, and if I can flank him, great. If not, I'm still just gonna take my shot.

Yeah, you can flank him actually. All right. So you strike the one, angrily, spin around, and then catch it behind where you see him appear. Kind of filling the spot of where a shadow clone was. That's a 17th, that's 21 to hit. That hits, roll damage. 22.

That's, oh, I don't get the D6 on that, so that's. Five points of damage. Five points of damage. How do you want to do this? I'm just gonna, after I'm just gonna bounce off the wall after the other one hit and just spinning around and finally just taking him and knocking them out with the little spike on the side of the sword. Right in the helmet. All right. So as you spin the sword around, coming down, crack, you hit across side of the head and the body just collapses and falls to the ground unconscious.

Someone got to do with Bo? The darkness vanishes. I ran over to Bo and I cast cure wounds on her. I start patting the body down. I'm pulling the armor off. Yeah. So you start yanking on. You were yanking.

All right. No, I'll just cast it regular. So I cast scare wounds on you. Did I feel anything when I hit it? Did it set off the Blood Hunter Spider Sants at all? No? All right. No.

All right. So is you all. Is he awake still or is he? No, he's unconscious. Let's tie him up. Quick time. By Molly. I got 50 feet of hemp and rope.

I've got 50 feet of hemp and rope. Let's tie him up real good. With bows. Maybe no bows. I was going to say with bow's rope, because she's also got the hook. I can also tie bows in my, in bow's rope. But also, bows are really cool.

We should give him some, because he's got all these barups and they'd be really fun to decorate. Wait, you want to put my bow in bows? Just tie him up, quick, quick, quick. This is still going to sit in an hour. Let's speed this up. Right. So you say everything has. There's the armory point.

There's the blade and the sheath. There's a pair of like dark, jagged-looking black boots that are pretty cool. Three daggers that are all hidden in the pockets in the armor and a pouch that is kind of hidden within the plating of the leather armor that is filled with quite a few coins if you go and inspect with it. Is anybody writing all of this stuff down? Yes, yes. I am. Yeah, dark boots, something. Sword sheets, black boots, yep. Three daggers, lots of gold. Oh, I am the inventory person. Shit. So that gets you 116 platinum pieces. Ooh, yeah.

Oh, platinum? Oh, okay. You weren't even writing it down. And 12 gold pieces. Got it. 12 gold. You got it. 116 platinum?

Remember when we lost 500 platinum at the bottom of the bag of holding last campaign for like months? That was funny. Yes. Oh, that's where we put that. Each plant is worth 100 gold. The platinum is worth 100 gold, right? 10 gold. Do they say in Jhahas we trust on them?

No, they are standard empirical platinum. We can't universally. Forgot it. I forgot it as a team. All right, so we get them nice and tied up, right? We can't stay here, we've got to move. No, we gotta talk to them, right? Why are we the sewers? Who's coming to come down here? Everybody who's looking for them.

That's fair. Thank you. What if we hide? Could we hide? Can we put up an illusion to hide? It's very much we can start heading. In our direction, the very least get further away from. There is also the dodecahedron that is kind of the slow, undulating gray glow that he was holding before dropping it and rushing towards you. Oh, let me take a look at it.

That's fun. Will you lose your other spell if you don't do it this spell? Does anyone have a torch or anything? No, no, no, no. Okay. No, no, no, no. It didn't write down. You really wrote down that stuff.

Yeah, sword, sheath, three daggers, a pair of black boots. black boots look kind of cool, 116 platinum and 12 gold. She got sword so far. Yeah. Okay. I need 10 minutes. 10 minutes with this thing. I'm going to, as a ritual spell, cast, identify.

To which object? On the dodecahetron. Okay. Yeah. You focus on it for a bit. It is definitely magic. Yeah. The magic contained is outside of the parameters of the spell.

You're not entirely certain what it's capable of. There's something alien about its magic source that you identify spell as unable to pierce. As you focus more and more on it, your brain begins to kind of open up into what feels like space, endless expanse, and it begins to scare you, just the endless infinity of nothingness. And you pull back, like, oh, that's interesting. It seems very powerful, whatever it is, but you just don't know quite how it works. Yeah, I throw a dirty rag over it. Greetings, adventurers.

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A big, loy black. Oh, no, no, no, it seems kind of small, doesn't it? It is extremely powerful, whatever it is. See, extremely powerful. Do you want to try and continue to concentrate on it? Oh, no. Okay. Can I go take his helmet off and look at his face?

We did take his helmet off. Yeah, took the helmet off, took the armor off. Just kidding. So that's one of the things we have as well. The helmet is part of the armor. The armor is very well made. With the armor removed, you can see the deep blue, somewhat purple-colored skin.

It resembles actually you, if a bit darker. Whiteish gray hair. It goes just past the shoulders. It was tied up in like a tight button into the helmet, but then kind of tumbles past once it was pulled off. Dark elf. Definitive drow. Drow.

Does it look like the same color from the gauntleted hand? Correct. What you thought was the fingers dipped in the color was actually just gloves that didn't have the fingers covered. Okay. Oh, wow. Is it that boy? It is a male, yes. What do we want our next step to be?

You have to ask him some questions. We have to wake him up. That's wake him up. There's more you think on it, the more you know there's more to this device. It scares you, but there's something you're close to there, something you were close to learning, and you're not sure if it, what lies beyond that threshold. You keep thinking on it. Super baiting.

Yeah, buddy. Once more opportunity. Might as well, jump! Jump! You go ahead, asshole! It's up to you. By the fact, Travis did this, I jumped off of a cliff and splatted as a goldfish. That is true.

I was going to say, let's wake up the... Elf. Okay, yeah, that's fair. I'm going to cool his hair out of his face so he can see us. Okay. Besides, we don't know. If we're gonna- His blood curling out the mouth and the nose, he is beaten. If we turn them in, it'll take attention off of us in case we have trouble getting out of the sewer, but maybe we need to know who this is. Well, these people who caught this person would be another question they might ask. We've got to be careful. True, good point. Well, we could be heroes, turn them in. Invaders and janes. No one's a hero for very long.

What's the name of the romantic lead in the romance novel? About this two. These guys were called Chris. No, no, no. Not my romance novel, the one about these guys. Well, while I don't remember it, Caleb does, because he has photographic memories. If anything.

Oscar of the turgent. It was true in the porn. You can always trust porn, to be honest. There is always some truth to porn. There's always truth to porn. At least one basic truth. This is guys from the Dwindalian Empire, from the Jewelis Dominion. Right?

Juulist Dominion. Yeah. Not the Dwyndallian. Well, no, the main character the book was, and then the Juulis Dominion was what once ruled the Mero Valley. I got a, it was very awkward reading it. The Mero Valley. What was the Mero Valley? What was the Mero Valley?

What was in a metaphor? So yeah, so the main character was, was, was a very awkward. The main character was not Shorhasian. Caleb says. They were a general in the army of Jules, which was during the The Army of Jules. Yeah, of the Jilus Dominion, which is during the conflict before the Dwyndallian Empire conquered it.

Conflict between the Jules Dominion and the Dwyndalian Empire. And she was a general for the Dwyndalian Empire. Did I heal him and wake him up? Yes, we need to, yes. Are you guys ready? She was super in love with this general named Theo. Theo! Theo!

Good help. How far are we from the entrance where we came down the sewer? You're maybe 150 feet from the entrance where you came down, and you're a few hundred feet from the way that leads back up into the city of the Interestead sprawl. Should I go back up to the entrance and make sure we're not being followed or anything? Sure, if you want to. Unless you have any questions. I hate when I do that. Questions? I don't know anything about this shit.

Yeah, go keep watch. I think that's a good idea. Okay. I'm going to head back and just look at the entrance. Make perception check. I'm good at those. Seven. Plus, no.

Oh. Plus, no. Okay, look past and you can see some folks darting back and forth occasionally across the end of the alleyway. Otherwise, you just see the dark shattered walls and the dark sky above at the cloud cover. No one seems to be immediately coming towards it from the time being. Just, I'm just my idea is, you know, Most people are not like that crownscout bastard. Most people like cats, so maybe a frumpkin

woke him up, you know, with a couple of licks that would, he would wake up in a bed. Most people like me too, though. That's also true. And I'm blue and he's blue. Mmm. It's all yours. I pat him on his little cheek.

I say, wake up, Theo. Wake up. It takes a few moments. It eventually kind of spits out a bit of blood under the front of his chest and the rope. And so, you're not dead. Because we didn't even want to fight you, but you attacked us.

Our team's clost. And so you've cast. Comprehend my because I understand everything. It says, he says, the essence is, stupid, empirical scum-nothing nothing. He thinks we're with the empire. We are not with the empire. Do we have any of that crown's god armor?

Didn't we collect some? I'll say persuasion check, because you haven't technically allied yourself with the Empire entirely, though you are part of the Empire. You specifically are not part of the Empire. You did not grow up here. Do we need a little gracing? Give it to me. It's a hurdle. Um, where's my persuasion? Where's persuasion? Where? Just rolled over there. Oh, nine. Nine.

Nine. His eyes narrowed towards you and still bears kind of the incisor fangs. Oh, Theo, what big teeth you have? Just give you one of the Crownscarred helmets from your backpack. I pull it out in the... What? I take this helmet. I set it on the ground in front of the elf, and then I start to piss on it. Oh.

The language of love. Just whang out. The right eyebrow curls up into a very confused expression. Frumpkin comes over and also pisses on it. Oh, that's gross. That's gross. Oh, for God's sakes, you can't reason with angry people. I give a pastry to him.

It's good stuff. You're shoving this pastry into his face. You can see right now, he appears demoralized, ready to lash out at the first moment's notice, and doesn't seem, has seemed to have calmed a bit from the confusion of the displays in front of him, but doesn't seem to be buying into any of what you're doing. you're saying at the moment. I shake it and put it away. Can you understand that?

Can you understand me? It walks away. Do you speak? I can understand this. Oh, he does be coming. It's great. Should I expedite this? Wait.

Can you, yeah? Come on, friend. We just need to ask you a few questions and we'll let you be off your way as long as there's nothing too inappropriate happening. Devil's tongue. Ooh. Oh. Oh. Devil's tongue.

That is a... Was he save? Second level? That would be a nine. That does not succeed. Yes. Okay. You watch the eyes kind of gloss over for a second. Wait, hold on a second. Was I play with the handbook? Do you have it real fast? Oh, I do.

Oh, I do. I got this one on first. Double one. Double-check one more thing. Are you trying to wheezel out of my... I am trying to... I'm trying to confirm one of the racial traits of the elves, if I recall, is they have... Advantage. A half-elves to charm.

Or advantage of... A half-elves said. Half Elves had resistance to chasm. Yep. Advantage on Seaman threw as being charmed. So you get one more roll. I do. Roll-o.

That's going to be a 12. It's a wisdom save, so it's just 10 plus my wisdom modifier? It's 8 plus... So that's 13. 13. Yeah! Still fails. All righty.

Kind of glass out for a minute, the snarling and the tension, the muscles relax for a minute. We're not with the Empire. We're private individuals. Just trying to get by, and we wandered into a lot of chaos, so we just want to know what we're getting wrapped up in right now. No. You attacked us. You rushed to me and begin to assault me. No, we didn't. You got mad at us with your sword out. You rushed us. You rushed us. You rushed us. I cast this so I could try to understand your tongue. It keeps looking at you. It's like ignoring the rest. I mean, she goes,

What's the beacon? The beacon. It looks around, uh, is that you... It's under a dirty rag. Right. And you're just kind of glancing about. It's right there. Is it important?

Yes. Why? Very. I was just trying to understand, friend. Help me help you. Oh, fuck. You're terrible cry, motherfucker. Help you.

We're here to retrieve the beacon from the empirical bastards, Siddash. We had it, I have it. I don't know what happened to my companion. So far, I am successful. Where's the beacon for? The beacon is part of our culture. The beacon allows the rebirth.

The rebirth of what? Of our people. People need to be born. This all sounds very complicated to me. I'm personally of the opinion that we just let everything go. Do you mean rebirth? Or do you mean reanimate? Let's be honest here.

Doesn't even pay attention to Bo. My friends are your friends. I've got one job on this suit. What I'm in the room. What I'm in the room. You're making a guy. You're making a very, very good argument, and my friends are your friends.

We're all here to help. And the beacons are sacred. I have lived four lifetimes. As long as the beacons remain. Me and my people will live more. Babies still? And they live as long as the beacon lives too. The souls continue.

With each rebirth, the memories retain. What is your intention for the people in this empire? His kingdom. What is the intention of the empire? No. Your people's intention for all those who live here. You worship. We learn.

We die. We are reborn until we are perfect. There's more of them? Is this thing what we saw take out half the Zabraspire? My companion. You see at this point now, as friendly as it has been, there's this kind of look of I might be saying too much. I'm sorry to... I don't trust the most of you still.

I'm sorry to tell you, but I think your friend may have got hit on the end of something fierce and may not have made it. I thought I saw someone fly by take him out. I'm sorry. That's all right. Is it just the two of you, or were there more? For this mission, just the two of us. We had help, but... Where are you trying to get to? Out of the city. Who was your help if it was just the two of you? I've said too much, Heather.

Kill me, you let me go. Choice is yours. It has to be someone in the city. Who was it? If you don't tell us, we'll find out one way or another. I can tell you that right now. We're trying to fight corruption in the city in our own way. We just need to know who we can trust and who we can't. You can either help us get there faster, or we'll just take the long goddamn way.

Very long. You cannot trust anybody in the city. You cannot trust yourselves. Anyone who has not bond themselves. They are the enemy. What do you bind yourself to? There's a moment of... There's a moment of very, very tightly closed eyes. The jaw clenches, as he kind of looks about.

I know my vote, but anybody else? I thought he was going to answer. I thought he was going to answer. You want to let him go, don't you? Not our problem. I think we should let him go. I think he's handsome. He looks like a good reward to me,

unless under one condition. You tell us who you're working with in here. Yeah, tell us. We'll let you go. That's fair. I cannot. Our allies in the empire are short on the least. He's like, Kara? Ulog?

Dolan. Checking his face for reactions. Exactly. Anything? Any reactions? That'd be an inside check. Ooh. Can I help her?

Yeah, can we have four tag team list? Sure. Yeah, let's just each roll. We're just going down the list. A, eight. A, okay. F-T. F-15?

50? Better than me, 13. 13? This first on off 15. Strong plays the Charmstall. This is true. How long does Charmspell work? Like an hour.

That's great. I've got it too. I can do two people. Can you looking forward to in Chicago? Is it the sassages? The brats? The deep dish? Yeah, you know what that deep dish pizza are...

Well, that's good. You know, I feel like we've... Terrible impressions and accents. We've kept him up long enough. We don't have to get him out. We just have to give him the chance to get out. chance to get out. I think we should do that. He's giving us everything. And give me the beacon.

What? He hasn't told his shit. Will the beacon hurt people? No. No. I have an inside checker. Sure. 14. 14. Kind of hard to read on this one. What would you do if we say no? That will strike you down where you stand and take it. It's too important. That's rude. I'm gonna start moving towards untying him unless anyone's got any.

Just leave him, he can get on himself. Yeah. He's a smart guy. Oh. Well, I'm gonna, if no one else, if we're all good. We leave him only if we leave the beacon with the gentleman, but if we leave him on his own. Was it the gentleman?

Is he who helped you in? Ooh, was it the gentleman? If we did. Inside Jack, I'm starting. Sure. Do I get advantage because he's friends with me? Yeah, I'll say, yeah. Yeah.

Why not? Double insight. Double insight. That's not bad? That's not bad. 21. More whispers. 21?

More whispers. Just whisper. It's all whispers. Oh, guys. D&D Beyond, right? I mean, D&D Beyond. What is there to say that hasn't already been said by me? Personally, this seems like more than I feel like taking on right now.

I say, we walk away, and you'll know that our silence means that we were trustworthy in the first place. And then you can be our friends later. And to leave the beacon. Free me. Give me the beacon. You pawn this thing right now. It'll be off of our tail in like two minutes. We never pawned anything before.

I think this thing is a great responsibility. We removed his armor. We should give him something to leave in, so he's not just walking buck through sitting there. Now we're getting silly. What if he comes back and destroys us this thing in six months, two months. He won't, he likes us, right?

You won't do it. Will you promise not to hurt us later? No, we just said he's gonna kill us if we don't give it to him. But let me give it back though. You give it back. We go our separate ways. My run.

He's not a really tough one. That was super different than five seconds ago when you said we should just leave it up to him. We untie him. He comes at us, bros. we take him down. We've given him a chance of freedom. What about the beacon? He doesn't get the beacon. He doesn't get the beacon. He's not going to leave without the bacon.

I think we've given the beacon and we walk away. He'll come after it, I know. But at least itself to figure him. Maybe you can look at the beacon one more time and try to see what it is, and then we can give it back to him. Yeah. Let's do that. Yeah. No. Is it scary that much? Can I look at the beacon? Did he get worried when we said we were going to take a look at it one more time? We didn't seem to flinch. If it's that scary, then what do you want to do with it?

Can everybody else concentrate on? If we leave this gentleman here and take the beacon, it becomes his life's work to find us. Greed. Yes. So we either leave him and it, or we take it and kill him. Agreed. Or we can take it now and kill him later. No.

I'm just saying, it could be like a fun game. You first. I won't speak for anybody in the group, but I'm not taking his life. So if someone feels motivated, I'll just walk over this way and I start walking back the way we came. Back to him. I don't. It's on the ground. Oh, it is. I go and look at it. Okay, as you pulled the cloth up and looked, the kind of gray light energy, it spills up from underneath.

You watch as it looks over and it can see it now. His eyes go wide, and you just feel like soft undulating, kind of low hum to it. I hum back at it. Okay, you match the tone. I'm gonna walk over and just... What did he do when we're looking at it? Scrape my radiant sword. I'm gonna take a few steps back.

Okay, as you do, he's like, just seeing. Just gonna give a little tap. I'm not cutting it, I'm just tapping it. tapping it. Okay. It taps, it sounds like you're tapping some sort of a stone or rock. Does the radiant energy have any effect on it?

No, it does not. I don't know what it is. And if you're not gonna look, what used to we have for it? Yeah. Look, I know some people, won't we bag this thing up and we'll take it right over to... These two individuals are responsible for blowing a hole in that tower, you're so...

Okay, I'm not talking about anything... No, I'm not contradicting what you're saying. What's treating what you're saying, I'm sorry. When you say what used to we have for, it's a dangerous thing. Did they do it? The Beacon wasn't the thing that they did it. New plan. What?

New plan. All right. We can't decide if we should leave him or take the thing or take the thing or leave him or kill him or why don't we take both him and the thing. And what do we do with him? We go to the Cobalt Soul. Drop them off. Front doorstep. Leave a note, you're welcome. Welcome.

They're going to kill him, though. And apparently so were we, or at least talking about it. What did they do there? I don't know much about the Cobalt, so what can you tell me? They hold information. They've got a decent amount of relics and spellbooks and things that they might know. And it would endear us to the city. Might be a moment.

And they're technically a little bit separate from the city. They're kind of not necessarily a part of the empire. They kind of make sure the empire. the Empire stays in check. What's your name again, friend? This long, heavy sigh, kind of, hearing all this conversation and not knowing who to trust, even in spite of your spell.

Thurran. Thuron. Help us out here. The O? I'm all. It's not The M. And I, give my friends more to go with. Give them some reason to trust you to make sure

that this is not going to come back and bite us in the eyes. I mean, that's what we're looking for here, is just a reason for us to be able to walk Walk away. When he said Thuron, did I hear Thuron or do I hear some other word like Eagle or Swift or something? The name itself does have meaning and under common. It is a name. Right.

So I didn't hear Bob, right? Did it have a root word or something? The nuance to the word from what you can best understand is it means like secondborn, blessed secondborn is the best I can kind of find the right words for it. It's a look to a monster. I'm good either way. How did you lose the thing in the first place if you needed to get it back? It was taken.

Grins and looks up from your fucking wizards. I don't have any wizards. Well, I have one wizard, but... He doesn't like the other wizards. Well, to be fair, they're kind of arseholes. It was stolen from him. We should just let him have it. How did they take it?

I don't know details. Did they come to you? I was just sent to retrieve it. I don't know all the answers. Sent by whom? By my empress. Your empress? Which empress would this be? You don't know much, though, you've... I don't know anything.

It's part of a charm. Empress Leila's cream. Leila's cream. Did they say it right? You did. Nice! Same question. The context of the name, anything. No, actually. That one is a proper name.

Got it. Lela screen. Empress O. the Drow, or O Merrill Valley? Well, Merrill Valley is in the empire. Oh, point. This is... My facts, sir. Do you the Dundallian Empire?

No, we're in the Duendalian Empire. You guys are in the Duondallian Empire. Oh, wait, wait, wait. I mean, sorry, I meant Jorhops. Oh, Jorhaz is to the east of here. It's the waste to the east of the Ashkeeper Peaks. Right. So that's where you're from Jorhas?

Kind of nods slowly. And the Dwindalian Empire is fighting. and they're stealing your babies, because this is the only way you can have babies. It just kind of stares at you, confused. It all makes perfect sense to me. I say we give him his armor and that thing and be on our way.

This is none of our concern. I say we give him the thing and let him walk around naked, because that's better. That could be funny too. It's close to a death sentence. How about we give him some crownscar armor? And then you can get out. But you will give me the beacon.

Will, we're not going to give it to you, we're just gonna leave it here. I think that's fair. We didn't give him anything. We just found him. He attacked us, we defeated him, we walked about our way. I'm all right. We're letting him leave without the beacon.

We'll keep your saying. We're leaving the beacon on the ground, Beau. I suggest. And he's not gonna take it. He's going to take it. Yes, he's going to take it. Yes, he's going to take it. I'm all right with this.

I'm okay with this. Anyone else? I defer to the group. I'm drunk 120 feet away. Unless you've got a strong opinion otherwise, Caleb, on that thing. Say what? Unless you've got a strong opinion on that thing otherwise. I am able to tell a great many things about a great many things and that is beyond me.

Maybe you should stare at it some more. You don't have to stare at it some more. If it's beyond you, then it's beyond me. What you really want to? Do you? Do you? I don't know. Open the door.

Let's, I say we just let it go. Send our book. Ring ring. Okay, we're getting in this single note. I'm calling it then. I still say we load up both of these guys. Oh, wait, you know what? I think I don't have the full armor for the crowns card because I gave him away.

I gave him back. Yeah, you returned them. We don't got no crowns card on them. We can just give him his bits. Okay, he definitely does not get a secret disguise to help him get through the same. get through the city. We're giving him everything but the black boots, the sword and the sheaf, and his money.

Taking his shit. Yeah. Give him just the armor. He gets his armor back. But you don't have to shoot, okay? We'll leave it right next to the bit. Yeah. You're saying it feels like we're leaving an opportunity

in the sewer. There are good opportunities and bad opportunities, and this one is giving me the vibration that perhaps we should just leave it be. And he's going to remember us and love us. He's going to be our best friend. Well, he's gonna be a little irritated at me in about half an hour.

I'm gonna start fraying the rope just a bit so that it's breakable with a little bit of work. Are we off? Are you fraying it with your sword? Mm-hmm. Okay. Just give a little. The, uh...

Yeah. Oh, no. The moment the rope breaks. Yes. Okay. I wasn't gonna break it, I was just gonna fray it. I know. But it's as you begin to pull, you notice that

this time that's been happening, the ropes in the back have gotten looser and looser, and uses that point to grab the blade and just swing around and pull it up against you, and it's like, I'm sorry, I need your help. He's not cutting him, he's just grabbing, going, I'm sorry, I need your help. And it's kind of holding you now against the wall,

looking out the rest of you and says, We're literally just doing that. And boy, I'm gonna tell you that you are really overestimating their fondness for me right now. It pushes you off. God, laughing. There's stuff's over there. Rushes over and pulls the cloth off the beacon well fast and picks it up and holds it. They go.

Goes over and starts picking up the armor. Nope. No, no. Yeah, we gave them there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we gave it back to him. It's very clear. Yeah, not the boots, not the sword, not the gold. It puts on the armor, puts on the mask, puts on the mask, puts it back to him.

puts on the leg armor, takes the beacon. Don't run out the same exit that we do, okay? Turns around and darts deeper into the sewers. I'm just gonna say that thing where you say goodbye to someone. Right now, then we see him. Oh shit, this is awesome. Easiest 20 platinum I've ever made in my entire life. I mean, we just made so much money.

Shall we follow him? See where he's going? No, no. They're saying maybe there's some cool portal or something. Yeah. That's fair. How are they getting in? Getting in and out, man.

I think he probably has some thing. Whatever they do. He left all his shit. His armor he's wearing, but all his other shit was like other shit you have. We scooped it up? It's in the bag. Is he heading deeper into the sewers the way the spiders were?

Yeah. Why are you so keen on this one? I mean, that was a lot. I don't want to get involved in that. That's crazy. This is wars between empires. Do you really care? I don't care about wars between

Empires, I'd just like having more information for later. We should get back to the song and supper, Ann. I don't plan on any of that being part of my later. Song and Supper. Song and Supper, see if Dolan is there. Oh. We are a short one, you know. You hear a shout in the distance.

Wait, what? Let's roll. Go, go, go, go. In the direction that you're traveling, echoing down that way. And you see what looks to be a flash of, like, firelight, torchlight in the distance. You hear a, ha, and the sounding of weapons clanging. Where he went? Yeah, in the direction he went.

He was going into direction we were going. Yeah. And then it goes quiet, and you hear voices say, We got him! We got him! And other voices, and just around the corner of up ahead, you can see what looks to be a little torchlight flickering against the wall. Whatever is, the Empire just got it back. I should have just strapped him up?

Do we want to end this really quickly? Ended. You could go over and get involved in that since you seem so keen. No. No. No. We had control of it when it was still in our hands. We don't have control anymore. Also, as a sidebar, if we want the other half of our earlier plan to work, we need to get to Dolan.

We need Crown's guard inside Sutan's house as quickly as possible. What did you say? You said we're down one? Ulock. What happened to Ulock? Oh, yeah. Well, in the fray of the Richter coming in, he lunged. and put a little gem in her mouth, they exploded. I'm keeping an eye on the path to make sure nobody's like coming down our direction.

Okay. That's why- Hand me the object, please, the item sheet. Oh. That could have just been blanked. But it wasn't. You should have looked at it more! I looked at it plenty.

He also technically memorized it. Sure, all the question marks is memorized all the questions marks. It doesn't work that way. Now that was two mysteries. All right. There's some other muffled voices down the way. We gotta get out of here. Yeah, we don't want to be a part of this.

Wait, wait, is there another exit? Or is it back to the... It's back to the tri spire. Oh, shit. You hear footsteps cool. All right, come. We're back up. We're either fighting Crown Scott are getting out of it.

Yeah, we retreat. Back it up. Back in way. Back it up. Back in a bank. What are you guys doing this way? We're going to go in the way. The long story, go, go.

Be quiet, where do you follow? Oh, gosh. Are you drunk? Not yet, but now I will be. You guys managed to head back up into the tri-spire, back into the alleyway. As you close and lock the thing behind, a voice in the back alley, you guys watch as two crowns guard

a push, you go, hey, you! And both pull their swords and hold out in front. One guy in the back, I thought one arrives at the crossbow, up to you guys. and just says, hands up, weapons. One, two, three. This would be all of you guys, you got out of the sewer. We're coming back.

Oh, shit. What's your business? We were scared. Things were falling from this guy. Yeah, we were in the sewers. We were working at the festival. We're just trying to get out, man. Is the danger past?

I will say, since wasn't a single person, I'm going to ask for a deception general from both of you. of you, since you were the first two to speak up. This was gonna be great. Five. Our life is in your pant. Oh, what do you get in there? Oh, I don't know why I took advantage.

Yeah, don't get advantage. Roll in one. Sorry. Or you can take the lowest? No, I don't want to do that. Uh, 12. And you rolled a... Fifteen.

They kind of take a moment and... Get out, we're investigating! They move in, and they don't take their arms off of you. They just kind of get behind you and move you out of the alley. into the street, Megan pushing you guys in the direction of the outer wall of the Tri Spire. Sir, we had co-workers that were working at the festival. Do you know anything about this attack?

We don't have any information this time. Just get out. We're still checking, please. And you see the tower is still listing but held in place. There's like this flickering arcane energy underneath it. Occasionally a wave goes, just holding it aloft. You can see Crown's Guards are now, like some are shifting in the streets, going and weaving through the building, and there's a bunch at the actual exterior wall,

and they eventually push you through and lead you into the central part of the city. Are they still with us or just push us away? They pushed you away and you guys are now in the interstead sprawl. We should please stop by the song in supper end, see if we see a friendly face.

All right. Let's go before, do they realize we were down there with the guy? Yeah. As we walk, I want to ask Ford, did you catch any weird twitches or any signs that he was lying when we were asking about? I don't know if you saw, but his eyes and his nostrils flared when we mentioned Oolag.

I have a feeling our small dwarf friend was involved in quite a bit more than we're aware of. You know, I've, maybe we were assholes for not noticing that him handing over his entire life savings was a little suspicious. That's always before. Yeah, down in the basement when we were talking. He gave it to us already or it was an after sort of thing? No, we didn't get it yet. We get it. I don't think they got it.

He was lying, he's not giving us any of the month. You know, didn't he's, he's a reason to find Dolan. He showed us. He said it was part of the pot, yeah. Okay. He exploded when he did. He exploded. That is correct, right?

We have not been paid. No, you have not been paid. Thank you. Except for the 112 platinum of just. What? Which is almost 20 platinum piece. How many gold is a platinum? 10.

10. Who are the two that are keeping point leading you guys to the song and supper? All right, so make a perception check, please. 13. I am two. Make a perception. You asked for two people?

I did. I did. Nobody else spoke up. 14. 14, okay. You catch it first, and you kind of corroborated it. As you guys are heading down the road, near the sewer exit where you guys were previously, there's a commotion gathering on the side of the street. Oh.

Should we go check it out? No. Is there a crowd around it? There's a crowd gathering now and you feel like gasps and people like starting to shut up and skirking between people's legs into the crowd and put the hand on both shoulder and go blind. You can see now Crown's Guard are coming out of the sewer and they're dragging the dead body of the dark elf that you had seen below and throw it under the ground and people are like, and they're looking at it and some folks are talking like, I've never seen one up close like this.

And there's that kind of murmur in the crowd, is there all that the guards are like, I don't wear shoes. Don't worry, don't worry. Both of them are dead. You're safe now. Thanks to the might and the trust of the empire. The king keeps you safe. Do Cronken and I see the Duhikis, the Dodecahedron?

You do see it being held by one of the guards in one of his hands, yeah. All right, let's all be clear that whatever the empire wants they'll fucking take. Why don't we take that thing from them? The crowd's late. Those guys don't know what that is. Let's go get it. Two of the guards pick the body up and one of the picks it over his shoulder, and all of them kind of cluster together

as the crowd kind of follows them. Some of them are like taking sticks and poking at the body as it goes, and the guard's like, please stop, no. Can we find an interference and try to trip the guard and get the thing back? Sure, if we want it. Do we want it? Oh my God, we're going to try and get it now.

You can disguise yourself? You can disguise yourself as quick. What if we just go try to look at the? the body and then we accidentally fall on one of the guards and we make him drop it and then not picks it up and runs away. I'm definitely super injured, but this is fun. They're heading in the direction of the King's Hall, it looks like. I run up and try to look at the body. Okay, so you move and weave into the crowd and you push up and look and the body has deep lacerations all through the torso and back.

Looks like they just, they cut him until they were sure he was dead. They're in like an alleyway? They're heading kind of down the street right now. They're turning the corner, heading down to the main floor. Can I trip and fall right in front of the guard that's carrying the thing or not? You can't if you want. I'm going to pass the sky's self and start. Okay. I'm going to pass the sky's self as a crown scar and just follow and follow. I'm going to parkour, elf, monk, get on the roof of the nearest building.

Okay, make an acrobatic extraction. You see how fast you can get up there. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm like, okay, okay, okay. Oh, 16. Make a self-check, please. Yeah, but now they want it, I want it back, because it hums. Natural 20.

Whoa. All right, as you dart off into the rooftop like Batman, you just vanish amongst the night sky. All right, and you, I'm tripping and falling in front of the guard carrying the thing as I'm trying to look at the body. Okay, make a deception check. I'm casting mage hand just in case. God damn, why a deception? I'm just falling. Oh, this is, as you fall in forward and like, oh, I make a scene. scene. Yeah. This is just to see how. Oh, well, I rolled a five. Okay. So the guy's, as you

fall in front of him, he's kind of like, please, let me move away, and two of the guards kind of rush forward and start picking you up and shoving you off to the side. Oh man, I want to trip him. Where's not? Where are you? I'm just following behind, behind Jester by 30 feet or so. Like more people are coming out now and kind of gathering the crowd around to see them pull this like dead creek through the street, words getting around, and it's just people are... As they try to pull me away, I'm going to just try to hook my foot around the ankle

of the guard carrying the thing, and as I'm standing up, try to trip him to the ground. Okay, I will say, make a dexterity check, if you don't mind. Just a straight dexterity check. What are the matter of you? Come on, come on, come on. 21.

21. You barely manage to... Your foot doesn't quite reach, but your tail does. As it scoops around his ankle, he falls back and lands. Don't drop it! Oh! And you are disguised as...

As a grounds guard. I was walking alongside. Okay. Okay. Come on, come on, come on. Okay. And you catch it. The guy starts getting back up.

Oh my gosh, I'm so, I'm so, so, I'm so sorry. He grabs you by the front of your armor and just goes, you. Huh? You need to get out of our way. I'm sorry, it just looked so into. I'm really impressed with how well you took down that guy, though. I follow Caleb as he traces around, but on the roof. Okay.

Now I kind of push up. Standing with Ford in shock and horror. It starts looking around the ground. I just started doing that thing where I was taking steps but not walking with them and then I started walking backwards. Okay, roll a stealth check because you're holding a glowing, undulating device. It's like a black and glowing. It's white. It's like a deep gray. It's kind of conversation.

What changed? That's good. That's good. Pretty good for me. I don't know. It's 14. 14. Yeah. Just does a crown scot.

Okay. I crouch out on the roof above Caleb, and I go, Woo! May I? You may? Can't you? Seeing Caleb walk away with the object, I'm going to cast silent image and make the image of the object glowing about 30 feet away from them, just on the ground. So there's two of them currently.

One on my hand and one on the ground. All right. But I've got it like this. What's your spell DC? My spell DC is, it's plus, sorry, hold on, silent image is, come on, D&D Beyond. What's your intelligence modifier? It's plus three is my spellcast in mod. Okay, so it would be 13 and be your spell DC.

Okay, I will say that the two guards that noticed you leave with the object, even though they're like, they're just coming over to be like, oh, wait, and they see the other object over there, they both kind of get confused, look at the two, and as they're kind of standing trying to figure out what to do, they both split. One goes for the object over there, one goes for Caleb. I'm touching up to you and he was like, hey, hey, we're going to the hall of the king. I just want to get it away from the crowd as things seems dangerous to me. Right, right, well, come on. Okay. And then two of you kind of turn around. He kind of guides you to turn around, you're now walking, trailing behind.

Yeah, let's just, a little further back, like another tent fee. I don't know if this is going to blow, it's better that it's just you and me. Some other townsfolk are starting to walk up to get a look at this object now that the Crown's Guard are holding. So what's around? So you're off, you're behind the group, which the cluster, The large cluster is moving maybe about 60, 70 feet ahead of you now. You are back, when it was turning onto the main street is where all this kind of transpired. So you're a little bit off past the corner of where they are.

They're just starting to curve out of sight. And you are walking with the guard now in that direction, kind of slowing down. The other object that you caused the illusion of is the other way, and the guard has about 100 feet or so to walk to get to it. And he's about partway there, and he hasn't quite learned what the scenario is. Yeah, good. So I cast friends on this. Crownscout.

Okay. Yeah. Does that make you drop? Does he get a... What's the saving throw on it? It is... It just gives you... Is there a advantage to...

Charisma rolls? Yeah. Advantage to charisma rules. There's no save. If he's not under attack or thinks he's threatened. Oh, right. All right, cool. Advantage on charisma attracts at one creature your choice that isn't hostile towards you.

Yeah. And he is not currently hostile towards you. So, listen. Don't die for this. I will take this. Just walk ahead. This thing blew a hole in the side of that tower. Make a deception check. With the advantage. Come on, Caleb.

Are you? Yeah. 15. 15? First was a one. As soon as you say that. Oh, shit. Thank God for friends. As soon as you say that blew the hole in the tower, you watch him kind of take an instinctual step back. Right, right. I'll go catch him.

I mean, we've seen balls of fire take out half a city block. Right, right. He kind of darts the head, kind of looking over his shoulder as he gets and starts to try and join up with the crowd. I turn into an alley. You can turn into an alley? Make another stealth check, because there's other folk now that are coming out and you're seeing this going thing. The other guard has just now got up to the illusion. Oh wait, are there other guards around me? I'm sorry. No, no, no. There's the other guard that was apparently.

with him that went off to go after the illusion that not had created. Did he avoid the paparote? Molly and I are running after Caleb since we saw the other guy. And as soon as the guard gets close, I'll make it slowly rise up into the sky, just like 12, 13 feet up. Does that give me advantage? What's fellas? This is the...

This is silent image. I can move it. I just can't make it make a sound. Yeah. So as it drifts up in the air at the guard, and goes, oh. Looks around, all the, about 17 or so Townsville can begin to converge to look up at it. look up at it, and they're all like, oh, they're all just excited looking at it. It's definitely distracting the current group, and the one guard there is like, back, back, back to everybody. He's starting to look nervous because he doesn't know why it's lifting up and he's uncertain about what's happening.

You make a stealth check. You're only getting it because they're distracted by that to try and duck into the alley and see. Am I hear him you all? Can I give him a blessing? Stealth. It's a nine. It is a nine. Does it imagine? All right. So you're ducking to the alleyway.

Not sure if you've been seen. All right, where the rest of you guys are doing what? Molly and I are trucking after where Caleb just ducked in. Walking in a very gentle pace in the direction. I'm just on the roof's been tracking Caleb this whole time. Okay. On the roof. Right. So you guys kind of go behind. As you begin to approach, you can see there are two teenage kids, boy and a girl, that are dressed nice enough that both are kind of like,

Do you see what he was holding? I want to see it. And they both go into the alleyway after Caleb as well. Are there any doors or anything in here? In this alleyway, there's no immediate door. It looks like there's a solid wall on one side. And what looks to be an arch that leads into a small walkway that leads between the buildings. If you keep going, then it splits off into a T intersection

of arch of alleyways right or left. You take a left, all right? Just keep going. The kids are still, yeah. I drop down in front of the kids. All right. you jump down, land in school. Don't take my fucking live for me.

I get that shit. I'm sorry. We're supposed to a different motive. All right, so you're playing. They both go, ha. What you're buying, kids? You know that shit will fucking kill you, right? Oh, damn it.

Make an intimidation check. With advantage. With advantage. With advantage. You just drop down. down from the sky. Writers write all the, you know, they write all their super- Oh, my God.

Jesus, a natural one and a four. So five. Okay, the two kids go. I take out my staff. I say, do your parents know you're out this late? Are you trying to prove something? That's not worth it. Come on.

The girl kind of, fine. They both turn and walk away, kind of kicking the dirt a little bit. And just for Talasin, I say, stay in school. Perfect. Perfect. I've known you too long now, I feel so. What a perfect stay in school? I'm gonna like stealth and try and track back towards clearly.

But kind of make sure no one else is also following them. Okay. All right, so you guys kind of dart off another alleyway. You still do hear guards shifting, but you start hearing other people are talking, and people are starting to go back to their homes, they're whispering to each other, kind of listening in, you hear phrases being said, like, oh, the city's on. This is crazy. I'm supposed to be leaving tomorrow." And you hear them talking, you start hearing whispers about the gala and like, you know, how many people were killed? I heard like 100 people were murdered.

It serves them right, those fucking rich bastards. And, you know, passing conversations, it's now the buzz of the town, even this late at night, as people are now kind of either emerging to see the scene or are returning to their home seeing what they have. But the crowd has dissipated, or at least the crowd has moved on towards the King's Hall and are probably in the process of trying to figure out what the fuck happened to the object they were carrying. But you guys managed to dart off to the side of the, this is the eastern end of the interstead sprawl,

and you aren't apparently followed at the moment that you're still holding this glowing. Can we put it in the bag? Ordinarily, I would say yes, and I might want to put something else in there, but for the time being, I don't understand this thing enough. Let's put on the last on the bag. Let's table that for now.

I'm worried what will happen if this specifically goes into that bag. Why? Because that is an extra-dimensional pocket. Yes. And I don't know what this is, and I am worried that it could potentially create. A black hole and suck us all in? Sure, let's go with that. But maybe if we could procure a lead box to put this inside of, that will shield it from any possible searching that could happen for it.

happen for it? A lead box? A large lead box, yeah. I don't think we should go back to the song in supper. I have a hooded lantern we can put it in the meantime. We don't know that. I mean just a sack is fine for now. It's got two handles in each side, so it's, it looks like you're carrying a lantern. Okay. We need to find Dolan fast. We need to, I'm serious, find a lead box to put this thing in because it is, someone's going to want this very badly. Let's split the party. It's always the best idea. No, but seriously, so we don't need everyone for both. Ford and I found an additional cellar where we found that skeleton behind the leaky tap.

It doesn't look like anybody. I'm still doing illusion shit. Have I finished that? All right, so at this point now, the guard who's down below it has called over like four of their guards, and they're all at the bottom of it. And some of them have, like, they're getting their crossbows ready to shoot if it does something. I'll make it sort of inflate and then sort of Salvador Dali start dripping. Just like, whoa. and it begins to drip. They all start backing away.

The guards start pushing people away. Some of the, the guy that was originally carrying it with seven other guards begins to approach the cluster. They've broken off from the procession with the elf body, and they've now joined up with the other guards. He's like, there it is! Stay back, stay back! And they're all just nervously waiting for this thing,

and dripping and doing nothing, and they're all scared. It's going to start to boil and fizzle into steam. It just kind of dissipate. It does. It does, and there's a brief moment as everyone kind of holds their breath. Tinkerbell. And you hear a couple of local townsfolk just go, woo.

The guards all look each other, they're very confused and like, Thank you for joining us for Fantasma. Park is now closed. I wish I could be a fly on the wall when those wizards hear this story from the crowns go just like, I don't know, it just flew in the air, grew big, and then made sauce and disappeared. It was just like that cat I kicked the other day. Yes, yes, very good. Take a lollipop from the ball and get that.

Then I'll try to rejoin them. I managed to catch up. You dart past two teenage kids that are cursing to each other, but they're both like, you see that one was such a bitch. They pass by. I know who they're talking about. Yeah. At this point when you guys are discussing what to do,

You hear the little, actually, we'll say largely you don't hear, but you see not appear kind of at the cusp of your circle. You've caught up with the rest of them. What's going on? Where are we going? We're going back to the Leaky Tap, I think. Yeah, how about Bo and I will go to the song in Soperan and we'll meet you at the Leaky Tap? Okay, and we'll try to find a box. There, let box.

Not. Remember that additional cellar behind the Leaky Tap? The secret cellar where I found nothing, where we found a skeleton. Uh-huh. Yes. I think that might be safe. You think the basement with a dead person is safe? No one's-

It was super dead, like no one's been there for like a super long time. What is a super long time? Like 10 years or what is that? Let's go, let's go. Long enough for the body to decompose. Super clean bones, like at least two years, I'd say. That's a conversation for another day.

Let's go. All right, so the two of you are making ready to the leaky tap. The long as supper, right. Negasti you guys are going to the leaky tap, but finding a box in the way, so we're gonna see if we can find like some, It's a shitty hardware store, man.

At this point, it's past midnight, and most of the market is closed. Maybe Claudia has a lead box at her thing. You do still have a glowing beacon in your hand. Okay, well, I'm going to take my cloak off. Okay. And cover it. Nice.

Okay, it does cover it. It's a very faint bit of glow that comes through the fabric, but it's enough where it probably won't be noticeable from a distance. Okay. I've changed my mind. I think you can wait till the morning, but for sure, well, if she has one, good. but it's a lot of disarray. Yeah, but we need one.

Yes, we do. What if they try to find it like tonight, go? I don't think they will. Well, then let's go break into a store and get a lead box. Wait, wait, why does it need to be lead? I mean, you can turn anything into lead, can't you? No. We can't see, they can't see through lead.

Not that particular material. Oh. Why does it have to be that particular material? Because lead shields things from magical, from divination magic. What does? Would they sell? Would they sell? Let box at a magic shop.

Or even at the blacksmith's shop. It's possible. Yeah. Another of you are very well versed in the ways of blacksmithing or lead objects. But I would know lead when I saw it. I know alchemy, I know all sorts of materials. We need a safe is what we need.

I think waiting till morning though. How is the city looking, are people ransacking? Are there loiter? There's no looters, no. Okay. It's not that bad. No. At this point now, the streets are

fairly barren of Crown's Guard. They've all, like aside from the cluster that you saw moving through, there's a whole bunch at the perimeter gates of the Tri Spire, and where they would only be posted at the different corners of the streets, they're not. Let's hide it with the skeleton for now. We'll put some of your thread on it.

Oh, that's smart. And that way it'll be down there. Unconnected to us just in case someone finds it, and if they do, we'll know the minute they touch it. Yeah. Smart. For now. For now.

For now. That is a great idea. Teamwork. Fine. Let's do this. We're like a team. Break. Break? All right. So you guys. All right.

All right. So you two are heading to the Song and Supper. Okay. And you guys are heading to the League of Ten? All right. So you head back. What you guys are... With you. Well, you guys are heading that direction.

You head to the Song and Supper. You managed to make your way there. It's still open. It's fairly empty in the inside. There's only two patrons that are present. are present at this hour. It seems like the commotion has drawn most of what clientele of it, and then they're in there at the moment, and there's only two patrons that are both halfway into their cups and are pretty drunk or tired at this point. But you look around

and you don't see Dolan, you don't see Horace, you don't see Kara. You think the whole damn thing was a fucking distraction? Sure feels like it doesn't. I really don't like being used. Who's at the bar? Anyone at the bar? Yeah, there is the general bar keep there, which would be Teddance.

Exactly. Don't need to burst. How we're doing? Clay Owens. Clay Owens? Yeah, he's the balding portly gentleman, middle age or so. As you walk in, he kind of, hey, can I get you something?

Hey, Clay, how's it going? Long night. All right, that's crazy night from what I'm hearing. I know, right? Can I get you? You can go ahead and get a double help with the night? Certainly. I'll have you. Had anyone comment tonight? Any one of the usual, seen Ulog, seeing Kara?

No, no. No, Oolog was in earlier this evening. He was here for a while, and then left with some friends. I think Dolan and his boy were in for a bit. They rushed out in a hurry. in a hurry about an hour ago. Hmm. All right, you didn't see them, her shout with anybody?

Just the two of them. Mentioned where they were going? No, they just opened left. I figured they were done for the evening. They looked a bit hurried. Not that we're looking for them. I don't feel very well, and I don't have money for a proper physician.

I'm sure we can find someone else. Maybe the ones tell me. Probably go to their home. That's usually where they practice out of. I think you've got it. food poisoning from the finger food at the gala. Should never trust that shit. Damn, black girls.

You gotta get there soon and it's kinda late. Yeah. All right, well, thanks Clay. Have a good night. No worries. Here's your drink. Okay, gives you the shot. Slam it. Let's go.

Yeah, let's check. I'm gonna check his house. Oh, I, uh, give him a gold. He goes, whoa. Whoa. I, oh. Oh, I'm sorry, I was, I'm just this, you just keep it.

It's just the stress of the night. Thank you kindly. Oh, sorry. I'm all alone. Just maybe next time it was around on you, right? Of course, of course. All right, yeah. He talks it away.

Yeah. Thank you. Bye. All right, let's go. You feeling that double? No, why? Oh, good, no, that's good. I just, damn, I was impressed it.

Oh, my tolerance is like. Beast mode. It's at an unhealthy level. Okay. Yeah, let's go. You want to go by Donoen's house? Yeah, let's see if those guys are there. Okay, as you guys quietly make your way towards Dolan's house, as you approach, there's no light from the inside.

Make perception check, both of you? Natural 20. And 16. Nice. You both notice there is a quick bit of movement on the inside, even though the lights are out. Someone's hiding. Yeah. Well, I'll go up and knock. and knock. You don't go around back?

Yeah, sure. Make sure they don't turn around. Yeah, I knock and say, it's forward with the mighty nine. Open up. There's a moment pause, and the door kind of opens up very quickly with just enough space to let you in. Do you go in? Yeah. Okay, you head inside. It's dark in there, but you have your dark vision, so you look around. It looks like Dolan and Horace are both in there. Horace has a candlelight with a side hood that's keeping it kind of just contained to a small area. And no longer was, oh, thank God you're okay. We're trying to, we don't know what to do.

It's all right, take a breath. Is there a back door to this place? Through the bedroom. Bow's gonna be coming around the back. Make sure she gets let in. Okay. Horace is in the process of taking things and putting them into the sack. You're leaving.

You're leaving. We can't stay here. Why? We don't know. If they trace anything back to us, they're going to string this up in front of the town. Just take a breath, friend. Listen, Ulaug is dead. Ulog is dead.

He sacrificed himself in a very brave moment. He threw himself at the Richter, threw a gem in her mouth, and exploded in a fireball. Listen, I think- That's great, so now we have a murder on our hands too. I think- Horses goes, keep your mouth down, please. I don't think any of this leads back to us.

We still have to complete our mission. We've got to make sure Lord Sutan is implicated in this, but right now we're clean. At this point, that doesn't even matter. We just, we can't. The Richter's gone. You have a chance to ascend to her seat. Wasn't that the plan? Yes, but if there's any chance, they can bring that back to us. Maybe we just leave town for a short time. Maybe just go.

Stop. Don't be a coward in this moment. If you want to help this city, if you want to help make the empire better, you're going to have to stand strong. A little risk is going to come with this job, especially in that position. You knew the risk going into this, didn't you? Put your money and your lives at risk? Make persuasion, Jack. 15. 15, he goes, you're right, we shouldn't, Horace goes, no.

What, do you want him to go ahead and throw us in the dungeon? Is that what you want? I understand what you're saying, but none of us knew that the hierarchy was gonna be dead. I'm sure they have ways of tracing that back. What could, and Dung goes, calm down, please. Maybe he's right, maybe they don't have a way bring it back. If we see this through, and Horace kind of takes the satchel and sets

it on the table, puts the candle below it, and kind of walks up and kind of grabs the side of Dolan's shoulders and says, I understand, but I don't want to lose you. And this scares the shit out of me. They both kind of take a moment and look at each other. And Horace looks at you and says, I think you're right. Neither of us know how to talk our way out of the gods if they can buy. We're not good liars. Fortunately, in this situation, you don't have much to lie about. You were here. You weren't at the Richter's. You weren't involved in it in any way. The Knights of Requiter are going to take the fall for this. That would be the only tie, and Ulaug is dead. You have a chance

to do some real good here. Horace kind of nods. Okay, then we stay. And the dawn says, no, I stay. Just in case things go wrong, I want you safe and gone. You're safe and gone. If this is to be turned around, I'm the one they're gonna look to, I'm the one who actually has the political influence here. I'm the one who can talk and make a difference. If that is to be done in the next few days or the next week, if you can just for a while,

trust me and just leave. Is that okay? Looks to you and always kind of fine, but I'll come back soon. We'll keep an eye on him, I promise. If anything needs to be shared between you, you can rely on us. to pass a message.

Dole nods, okay. Okay, okay, I'm good. Sorry, Horace, I don't need you for this. And it'd be stupid for both of us. Should anything go wrong, be taken, swept up like this, okay? Trust me. The hell's yeah. Nope, I'm selling back.

Ford, are you dead? That's both. Horace rushes off and opens the back door. All this was going on, can I do like a quick... The war is over, and both sides long. Both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses

someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules light. nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so good to be back. Join the

Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. You know that feeling when you hear one interesting thing and suddenly you want to know more. Well, that's the idea behind my podcast, something you should know. Every episode starts with a question you've probably never thought to ask, like why people do or don't like you, why certain habits stick, or what everyday advice is actually wrong.

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Six. Love them or you hate them. A big bad of campaign, too. Yeah. There's piles of trash that are kind of just pushing the corner. You look through and you don't find anything that catches your interest. Dolan, and you both are worried. We're still going to need that.

payment. Our efforts have incurred some damages. Of course, of course. I don't have cars, but I have ours and I have Ulogs. He left that with us before he left tonight. Did you let me in? Yeah, they let you go out at this point. Horace brought you in. He points over to, and you can see there's a smaller sack and then a larger one that's more of a backpack that seems to be the one that Ulog left. To take him, please. That's of no use to us. Just, and at this point, Horace is kind of letting Beauregard in, and knowing that just the two of you puts us in their shoulder and says, just keep them safe. Get them out if you can, please.

Anywhere you prefer, is there a hiding spot? I don't know, just out of the city. Fair enough. At the city for a week, that's all I ask. Who can do that? There's a cart rolls by and they all get very quiet. There's a little town not far from here called Allfield. might have actually have used for a doctor right about now. Bow has experience with this area. Maybe.

All right. Wait, before you guys leave, it doesn't matter, we don't, it doesn't matter based on what's just happened. Is there anything that you guys know that we didn't about any other of the members of the Knights of Requital that might have more invested interest in a,

invasion or getting back at anyone in the Zobber Spire. Sorry, yes, that's the right one. Yeah. Invasion, I'm confused. I'm afraid Oolog may have had a larger game to play. And the horse kind of slaps the shoulder of Dolan was like, I told you that was something up with that guy. Why do you say that, horse?

Just didn't trust him. I mean, it took a while for us to kind of be okay with each other, but he was always on edge. He left us in charge of finding justice for his wife. We intend to. That's something. Seems like all you all had your own individual motives, for why you were part of the Knights Requital. You sure yours was just because you wanted to be the high, Richter? Well, I mean, anywhere where I could help change the law of the town, but...

Do I believe him? Make an inside check. Eleven. Hard to read, but it seems to be. I'm just forthright. All right, let's help Horace get out of the city. Stay low, say here. I will. Thankfully, when all this went down, we were both in the Song and Supper,

so at least we have an alibi. I'm just, I've never done something like this before. Pardon my nerves. You see his hands are like literally shaking. You kind of notice now he's very nervous. Have a drink, it'll help with that. I will. And he goes off to the corner and pulls out a small

glass bottle of liquor. He comes over and him and Horace give a very, very tight hug to each other and then separate. Dolan just sits down, puts the drink in the table. Thank you. Of course. We'll have to regroup and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. The Horace comes with you guys towards the Leakey Tap. You guys make your way to the Leaky Tap. Yes, we do. Before we go in, we're going to go into the basement. Okay. I'm going to go upstairs to tie to Dr. Claudia. And I will say that on the walk, I would have instantly identified a stone. Okay, so you'll cast some certain... Identify it.

The stone? From Zutane's house. Oh, no. Oh, from Zutan's house. Oh, got you. Yeah, there you go. There's a sending stone. Yeah.

One of two. You do not know where the other one is. Ooh, intrigue. All's fun now. Like we had, like, Voxmangan Act? Who? What? Who are you talking about?

Oh, where you speak into it. Not like where you hold onto it and you transport. No, not that. That was a gate stop. Oh, gate stop. Yeah, this is essentially a means of communicating between two stones. One-a-day walkie-talkie. Okay.

Hmm. All right, so you head down into the lower, the basement area beneath the Leakey Tap. Once again, the guard is pretty sparse. You'll see like one guard kind of walk past, but their number seem to have been ushered. ushered elsewhere in the city. All right, so you make it down there. You take enough time you eventually get the lock back open that you left.

You head down into the basement. It's exactly how you left it. This is the place. Are you with us? Yes, I am. This is the place I was talking to you about the skeletons right over there. So we put it behind the skeleton. If I go to take a look at this skeleton,

I would like to try to ascertain how long this fucker has been here. Make a medicine check? Yeah. Not great at all. Like all my skill roles, A7? A seven? Yeah. Hard to tell.

I mean, just looking at the level of decomposition, it's been here a while. Oh, well, do I get anything from it? Is it a normal human skeleton and there's nothing? Too high, you think, probably. You crazy bastard. Right. Make a medicine check. See if you can ascertain the creature type.

That's creature, love. Ooh. Ten. Ten. It definitely doesn't appear to be anything beyond humanoid. The size, the shape of the skeleton, it's a standard humanoid skeleton, but you're not able to tell anything beyond that. Now here's the thing, we can hide this here.

It's a calculated risk, which I'm a fan of, generally, but my thread, my magic will let me know if someone, oh, no, I can put a magical lock on the door to this basement as well, as well as an alarm. Alarm and the lock. Yeah. What would that do? Well, the thread will allow me to know if someone I didn't want to be in here came in here. It's upstairs.

That's me upstairs. I hope to love you. The spell will stop your average Joseph from coming in here. I like this plan. It's a good plan. All right. Very smart as always. But you know, I think you and I should sleep down here tonight actually. With the skilly? Yes. I think.

We're going to need you upstairs for some identification. I think it would be less suspicious sleeping down here. I worry, well I'll tell you my concerns, and that is that this thing is beyond comprehension even, and the desire to get it back is going to be great. This, and I pulled out the sending stone, is just a stone that I stole from Sartan's house. This I'm not worried about. Would you put this in your backpack, please? I'm not with you. I'm upstairs trying to get a out of hold of Claudia. I have to ask Jester to put this in her backpack. So noted.

This thing was worth blowing up a tower for. And if someone spies on it, I don't want them to see you with it. If we slept in our rooms. You can spy on a thing as far as I know. You can spy on a place. You can spy on a person. Spire on anything, I imagine. I mean, it's magic, right?

This is why I want the lead box. Is that really going to work? But what if... What if we... what if someone breaks in and we're here, then we're attached to these objects? I mean, I'll sleep down here if you want. Maybe we could get rid of the skelly first. It will take 20 seconds to get here for the second that alarm goes off. Alright, right.

One night. Well, let's hide it. Well. Normal people. Uh, I put the same shitty rag on it that was on it before. Okay. Make just a general survival check, just to kind of pull things from the surrounding. Two plus, can I, three, that's five. Can I help with this?

Sure, you look at the job he did and you're like, I can probably do a little bit. Yeah, I can. I can do, is this survival? Yeah. Seven. That's better. Always have someone check your work. Molly and Caleb put the skull on top of it together. It's fine. I mean, it's, essentially you didn't do a master full job and completely camouflaging it, but it looks like it's the rest of the other objects that are just dusty and left there. Did you say there were crates down here too?

There were some barrels, there was like an open crate, nothing in it. It's a dusty, unused cellar. Let's put it upon the skeleton. If I came down here, I'd look on the crates the first thing I'd do. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh, no, no, I'm not there. So you guys, you hide it up, put it off on the side. I'll look in the crate. Look at the crate? You look inside and see what looks to be a a fairly rat-eaten sack of rice grains that have kind of spilled out. As well as just a lot of rat droppings in the crate.

Looks like some of the wood in the bottom has been chewed through as well. I'm not there. Yep. Yep. Nope, never mind. Damn, that was a good thought, though. All right. Any against guys?

Thread, lock. What's wrong, Caleb? I think we should stay down here with it. All right. I'm game. Both of you, one of you, if not both of you. Why don't you and I stay down here for the night? All right.

Do you have anything that you want me to identify? Leave it. I can do that. You know what I have? I'm not leaving. Well, I mean, we don't know what Ford and the Grumpy one have discovered. Maybe we should go upstairs and reconnoit it with them and then come down here when it's time for bed by. I will stay with this thing. You go up. When they come back, you come back down. It's just my gut tells me. to stay close to this thing. All right. I'll stay with you then. So we're going to go in and out of this room several times tonight. The entrance to this is on the back of the building, right? It is, yes. It's in an alley.

That in no way it's suspicious. That's fine. Well, you know, if you go off, you can just message me. Oh yes, I can do that. Should I do that? And then come back later? Yeah. And just you come down later. So you're just going to stay here in this dank, dark room with a... skeleton, by yourself, no dinner. All right. Sounds like half the clubs in LA. All right, I'll be back in less than an hour.

No. No. We got a cassidya. All right. I'll go up and just see what they are saying. Three blocks away. Well, this is happening again. When they leave, I am going to take the big item and put it on my person.

I'm just going to hold it, actually. Okay. I mean, as you're kind of holding it there, it's strangely warmed the touch, the more time you spend it now that you're kind of holding it there. And I am not looking into the abyss. I'm just, I don't understand I'm just holding it. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Let's see here. Okay. Jester had all this shit, right? I had all the shit. Yep. So you head back up into the Leaky Tap Tavern.

There is a handful of patrons. A lot of them are talking and whispering about. about the events tonight and, you know, talking about the town was still up there, it's crazy. You know, the general conversation, hubb up throughout the room. Go to the bar, keep. Is Claudia awake?

Uh, if you, probably open her in her office. Okay, I go and knock on the door. Okay. Who is it? It's me, Jester. What do you want? Claudia, Claudia. When we were over at the gala,

We saw things that were going on. It was crazy. A tower exploded, and then all hell broke loose. Did you know someone tried to steal my stuff? I did not know that. My apologies. Do you have maybe like a safe or something? Because I don't feel safe carrying around my jewelry anymore

with me. Not on me? Well, come back in the morning. I might have something for you. Claudia, are you naked? Why won't you open this door? No, I am busy at the moment. Is everything okay?

Everything is just fine. Claudia, blink once. Not, say you're not okay if you're not okay because you sound weird. I'm fine. Do not worry. Okay. But you do have a safe I can put my jewelry in now? It is currently in use, but I can sweep it out.

How long do you need it for? Well, I was just going to put it in my room for as long as we're here, if that's okay with you. Okay, then come back in the morning. I will have it cleared out. Okay. And then it will be it used for you. Are you having sex?

No. Do you want me to come in? Are you okay? I'm okay. You sound really weird. I try the doornob. Okay, it's locked. It's locked.

Cue the whole string. I have had this roommate. I was just saying, just as everyone's a little sister when you're a senior mind school. I get down on my hands and you can I look under the- Mega perception check with disadvantage because you are looking through a tiny little gap in the floor. Whoa.

Okay, well the first one was really good. I'm not gonna get there. Perception. Keep it. Nine. Nine. Nine. You see there's light in there, and you can see what would seem to be Claudia darting back and forth behind her desk, moving very rapidly and with haste as like grabbing things, and seems to be writing something feverishly. But you don't actually

see her, you just see like the bottom feet moving back and forth. Why are so many fucking people trying to skip town? Claudia, what are you doing? She stops in space. I'm... I'm... Everything's fine. Did you see the tower explode?

I heard about it. Can you let me in? Make a persuasion check. There should be in the audience check. This is so great. Give her advantage, oh my God. Oh, 15. 15.

The door opens up, and you can see Claudia looking as pristine as ever. Christine is ever, hair, make of everything done perfectly. Come in quickly, closes the door, brings you inside. I'm aware that you and your team were involved in something this evening. Am I correct? Well, we were at the gala because we were having some fun. But you are not in any way, shape or form,

perhaps doing a burglary and job breaking in for the Knights of Requital, yes? Who are that? Two floors below while putting a skull. Make a deception check. Who are that? That's actually a really good deception. Twenty, one.

She was confused. He goes, Well, regardless, your friends are involved in something that, as a precaution, as I have been housing certain meetings out of friendship with an individual, there is danger that I might be pulled up in this. So I am preparing to sell off the tavern. Wait a minute. But wouldn't that draw attention to the tavern? That it will only draw attention to me. Okay.

She walks over and finishes signing paperwork from the side. Who are you selling it to? Make a general charisma role. Just the hell of it. I'll see this is why. No. Ten? Ten.

She goes. To a friend. Oh. Friends are good. Can I have that safe, though? She kneels down inside of the room, and there's what looks to be a cloth put over a small table, like an in-table. And she removes the flowers from it, pulls the cloth off, and it's a safe. And she kind of...

What's he made out of? Thin-dhurt of iron. What else would you make a safe out of? Oh. Okay. And she goes ahead and pulls out a key and unlocks it. Brings out a couple of bags of coin. It brings out a couple other bags of something. You don't hear any noise, the kind of rustling. She pulls it out, just them off the side,

looks at you while she does so the whole time, like. Are those drugs? Here's your safe. Thank you. It's small, it's heavy, but you're pretty strong. All right. Well, all right. Will you be gone in the morning then?

Probably. Oh no, but Claudia, I really like you. Well, I like you too, but that's okay. Don't worry. The woman I'm selling this too is also a very good person. person and a good friend. What's her name? There's like a brief pause, glances over at the paperwork on the table.

I look down on the paperwork on the table. Lauren. Lauren, Schwein. Is that what it says? It is. Shain? Okay. Lauren. It's a good name.

Mine. I heard when we were coming back that they were putting the city on lock, down, so if you're going to leave, you should probably do it quickly. I appreciate the information. It should be okay. All right. Good night. Good night. Thank you, Claudia, for all of this. No problem.

I walk very slowly out of the room and keep looking over my shoulder as I'm doing it and smiling back in. She just watches and waits. He's smiling, arms crossed, kind of on the desk, patiently waiting. Okay. I'm just going to put this in my room, thank you. The door closes behind you and you hear a, ah, I'll probably on the other side of the door. All right. And so as the rest of you begin to catch up

and gather for the evening, we're gonna take a break. We're gonna take a break. We back here in a few minutes to pick up from that point. We do have tonight's Wormwood giveaway. That way, all sorts of weird, interesting ways. Oh, man. We almost killed a guy, and then someone else killed a guy, and we still reaped all the rewards.

Good for us, guys. Good for us. Not all of them. No, no. There's a lot of interesting ways that could have gone. All right, so we have the black walnut deck box from our friends at Wormwood here. Also, apparently, comes to the Magic the Gathering pack. These are in all the boxes, so you get a little gift in there.

But yeah, so this will go out to one winner. You have to enter Twitch chat starting now. You can only put the word in one, so you'll be disqualified, but the word for night is Threats. T-H-R-E-A-T-T-S. So coming to the Twitch chat, enter that once again. Only, unfortunately, available to people in the United States and Canada, excluding Quebec. We're trying to figure out how to fix out the future, but weird laws and giveaways. But anyway, we'll be back here in a few minutes. Much love, and we'll see you soon.

Welcome back. Way late on that one. Welcome back. There's a Pokemon. There you go. We have a winner. The winner for this evening is Ira Ginger. Ira Ginger, congratulations. Hey, perfect.

We'll get that box to you. ASAP. But well done. All right, so bringing us back into the game. You all begin to converge back in the leaky tap. The party has reassembled aside from you who are staying down in the basement. I know my new friend. Yes. Uric. All right. So as you guys all gather together, what do you do? Are we in a room? We should be in a room instead of in the... Not downstairs?

Yeah. Upstairs, yeah. Convening in room. There's money in loot. Let's take a look. In the girls' room, it's bound to be cleaner. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's all right. We did have a pillow fight. Yeah, it was down feathers all over the place.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. So we got some stuff. What did we get? Knott, what does this make of? This? I will taste it. I will lick the safe. It's very irony.

It's like like looking at 9-volt battery. Is it made of lead? It's ironic. It's not what we want. It's not what we want. I really was trying to get the lead box. You did very well, considering it's after midnight and you got a metal box for free. Just through.

I don't know. Can I tell it's lead and iron, not lead? Make an intelligence check. Because you're an alchemist, I'll give you an advantage. I'll give you advantage on it. Okay, just a straight intelligence check? 15. 15? Okay, yeah. This is very definitively iron. You've tasted iron and iron filings and things of that similar nature,

and it has the same twinge to the flavor. Cool. It's a very well-made safe. Well, we're gonna still put stuff in it if we want to. Where's Caleb be downstairs? Yeah, where's Caleb? He's downstairs for now, but I'm in constant communication. Constant communication with him.

What was the last thing you said? I take out my piece of wire and I do my indentation and I whisper to it. And I say, did the skeleton come to life and kill you? Please respond to this message. Everybody is dead down here. He's a prankster. He's good old K. Down there, baby shouldn't not write him? Yeah.

Okay. We're gonna want to take a look at these boots. Hey, Claudia was aware that you guys were, that we guys were in league with the Knights of Requital. Makes sense. Claudia said she's selling the tavern. What? Yeah. Like tonight.

Can we... How much? A girl named Lauren. Spiswick. Spiswick. Spisik. Spinn. Spinnisik?

Spinnisik. Lauren spinach. Lorin spinach. So she said she was selling it, and I said, wouldn't I draw attention to the tavern though? And she said, no, just her. But if it does and she knows, then maybe it could lead the guards to us, though. Should we change to a different hotel? It might be smart, but that might be...

Wait, she was selling this place because of us? As a note, just so you guys recall, Horace is with you. Wait, what? Wait, Horace came along with us? Horace came along with you guys. That's my bad. Yeah, he did. He did. I thought we just sent him on his way. Yeah, we forgot to qualify that.

Oh, fuck, I thought. Make believe it's tricky, guys. Horace is in this room right now. Horace is in the room with you. Oh, come on, man. I'm sorry. Let's not be hastily. We'll say for the purposes of this.

The door now opens to the room, and Horace comes in after a drink to kind of study his nerves and goes, hello. Would you bring me that drink? It's so sit down. Yeah, geez, man, no sense of humor right now. He's in shock, all right? Sorry. Horace, we're gonna get you out of the city as soon as possible.

Is there a destination you wanted to send him to or point him in the right direction? I was mentioning it all field, but really it's up to him, I guess. I don't care. Have any spots in mind that you could lay low for a while? Why does he need to leave the city? Oh yeah, we walked in on him and his boy trying to skip town. And so, why is it being abandoning? They were understandably rattled.

It's understandable, but Dolan's gonna stay and try and help make this city a better place. Horace is just gonna remove a bit of the risk for himself for a bit. Just for a little bit. You should go to the coast. You should get out of the empire. He is loving about the coast. Well, you were saying he only wanted to be gone like a week though. Not a week or two.

Two things kind of... A week or two. Why do you need to leave? Who's suspicious of you? We don't know yet. It's just a precautionary measure. You don't know that leaving town itself is suspicious in its own right, right?

Just throwing it out there. We have an alibi, but if we both stay and we get found out, we both get arrested. But you have an alibi. It's hard to have an alibi when you miss you this. What do you want me to do then? I don't give a shit what you do. She who questions everything and offers no answer.

What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? I think what Bo is trying to say is that you've made a wise choice in removing yourself for a bit. Did you happen to know the owner of the Leaky Tap? She's apparently selling it. Yeah. Claudia, also skipping town. I don't blame her either. I don't know she's leaving town. She's just selling the tower. You're selling it, yeah. I mean, she knew we were holding all those back room meetings, right? She helps you guys quite a lot. As far as Dolan told me, yeah.

Did you want to get out of town tonight? Did you want to wait till the morning, perhaps? I can wait to the morning if you don't mind me crashing with you. Not at all. We have room and Molly and I's room. I can take Caleb in my room. Not too much. Why are you not leaving the night somewhere else? Where? Are you camping?

Well, we're not going to speak of that in mixed company, but they're dealing with other problems. I'll lead Horace to our room and let him get comfortable. I'll be back. Just a quick aside, while all of this is going on, I place the thing in my lap and I pick up the skull. Oh, so many secrets, are Yorik? No. Maybe you should turn it off your chest.

I don't think that's a good idea. It's driving you crazy. Maybe not yet. It's probably a good idea. You're funny. Bed round. Seriously. Oh my, God.

All right. All right. Anything else you guys want to work out or discuss or plan? Let's divvy up the loot. I've worked it out. 19 platinum apiece and two gold pieces a piece. Whoa. Hey, day.

There's two platinum left ago. How many platinum? 19? Mm-hmm. That's a lot of platinum. And two gold? Mm-hmm. I'll take Caleb's share and give it to him.

Mm-hmm. Okay, so we also got... Let's look. There's sword? What kind of sword is it? It's roughly long sword length. It has kind of this curved, hooked edge to it. The blade looks like it would not just slash, but kind of tear as it went through flesh as well. It's pretty wicked looking. It's pretty wicked looking. Does it have like, does it look like it has any magical aura emanating from it? I don't know. Can you sense magic? Not officially.

Then you do not know. I can take it downstairs later and have K-K-K, take a look at it. K-KKKK. K-K. Yeah. We also have these really super cool spiky boots. Oh, that's my new. What are those you?

I think you put them on your feet and they protect them. Molly, put those boots on. They all right. How do they look? They look nice. I think they clash a bit, but. I don't think they go with your pet. No, not really.

You're just bringing your step and what's to do. It's 19 and a half more minutes. You take a moment and you feel alert. They're caffeinated. Sorry. I didn't expect you to wear platforms. No, no. It's weird to see the bottom of your pants

because you normally have those thigh highs on, so. They're very comfortable and they keep out. everything else clean. Yes. Alert, huh? Okay, we also have these three daggers, which look like, are they ceremonial? Do they look?

They look functional. They're similar in design to the longsword. They're not quite as intricate, and they're much simpler. They don't have kind of the same grooves carved into the hilt, and they look fairly decent daggers for either stabbing or throwing. I lick one, and I like the same.

Take a look at the long sword. Is it iron then? You're not certain material they're made from, but it's not the same as the, what are you doing? I was playing with the long sword. It's got a great balance. Oh, and we don't have the armor anymore, we gave it back. Yeah, the armor you gave back and then was scooped out by the Crown Guard.

I look at Molly and I take out my bow staff. I say Perry and I quack with the sword. Okay. Do you attack them? Yeah. Roll for an attack. I mean, I told him I was attacking. I'm gonna pay him.

20 total. Boy, that hits. Yeah, you attempt to parry coolly and she kind of, wak, hits you in the right eye. You're like, oh, sorry, I thought you, I thought we were just, like, wrestling a little. I hit it with the flat of the blade. Ow, fuck!

Pain! Any effect? Do I feel anything? Pain. No. Why don't I just have Caleb? Any effect? A fucking headache.

My God, it works. Ah! That's amazing. I'll take the daggers. Unless you can use them to throw, I can throw them at things, I think. Do the dagger seem special? The daggers seem to be simpler in design. You're not sure if they're special or not.

I mean, the only person who can detect magic is not in the room. Can I take one of the daggers? I'm just going to try this out of the long as pot. I know. Take one of the daggers. the daggers and I throw it against the window seal. Throwing a knife. Window seal?

All right. That's what I say in Kentucky. Go ahead and roll in attack. Window seal. Seal. Seal. That's true. What did you say?

Go ahead and roll and attack. Don't fuck me. Gil. The window explodes. Sorry, 22. 22. 22, yeah. It sticks to the bottom of the sill.

It doesn't quite hit the glass. It manages to hit its mark and stay there. like a dagger. I mean, that was pretty awesome, right? I think that was more than the dagger, though. It's true. Why are y'all staying in another place in that? For safety. Oh, because of the thing? He seemed... Yes, because of... The horse isn't in the room anymore.

Oh. You take your pants back on. Yeah, because of the thing. Oh. Caleb's idea. Do you need help, backup? I'm the help. Right. I think what Ford meant was, can y'all be trusted? Exactly. We send a message to Caleb and say, are we going to leave everyone else tonight and steal the big ball? Mm-hmm. Send a message to him. All right. Very valid question, I feel like.

Hi, let's pick up my wire. I do my incantation. I send a message to him. I say, Caleb, are we going to abscond with the Do Decker? Pedron in the dead of night, you can reply to this message, and only I can hear your reply. Tell them I'm not going to run off with it. Yes, we are. Don't it. Why? Why are you going to... We're not going to steal it. He's scared of that thing. Why would we take it away from you? Seems like he's taken a few things that he's been afraid of. To be honest, that evening started to take a turn before the Richter showed up. Do you know, Caleb, to be sticky-fingered?

like yourself. We do what we need to do to survive. Wait, what happened? Well, remember, we were trying to leave no trace. Caleb was the architect of the plan. There was a scroll that looked like it might have some magic to it and wanted to take it with. So what?

The plan was to leave no trace, not take nothing. He was very clear at the outset that we were doing this for money. You do realize that missing things. things mean leaving a trace, right? No. We were right there at the end. We were at the finish line. We caused a giant explosion.

We destroyed a rug. We broke into two different places. Molly Mock was seen by guards outside of both. There was plenty of traces we left behind. Even more the reason. I opened a box that froze me for an hour. I know, and I saved you. Yeah, I'm pretty sure someone's gonna notice

that that box has been opened. You realize you're not helping your case, right? I'm just saying, him taking a scroll is small potatoes. We had already fucked up the rug. We probably shouldn't fuck up anyone else's house. We were already implicated at one place, right? Not, it's just a little reckless, wouldn't you say? What Caleb does is well thought out,

and always intentional and smart. You're a remarkable judge of character, you know that. Are you aware of what Stockholm syndrome is? Stockholm syndrome? No, I'm not. Good. Explain that to me. Yeah, it's an Amman thing.

What are you implied? Gerald Stockholm. Gerald. What are you implied? What I was trying to imply is, I'm gonna use something a little bit more basic. Sure. You know the story of the scorpion and the turtle?

Sure. The scorpion rides on the turtle. And then what happens? Whatever Caleb says happens next. Not near the door. Scorpia arrives in the turtles back across a river. A scorpion stings the turtle, they both drown. What is the moral of this story?

Don't be a scorpion order to. Stay away from the water is what I take from it. But the full point of this and the point I'm trying to make is that with a group like this are very untrustworthy people. We're untrustworthy people. We're untrustworthy people. You've got to trust each other, because you have to trust somebody. You can't trust not anybody, because then you're just alone. All right, so you are all apologizing for not trusting Caleb's judgment. We don't trust you. I trust you. I trust you. You've tried to steal from us twice. Not you. You've tried to steal from us. Not me. Us. This is where the circle has to start. We will support you in doing some ridiculous stuff. But you have to steal from us. But you have to start. You have to start. We will support you. We have to start. But you have to start. You have to have. We're You have to keep it outside. Looking out for you.

I mean. Okay. And that means sometimes you can't do the thing you want because it's gonna be better for everybody else. And sometimes everybody else is wrong, but you have to go with it. All right, and what exactly have you done to earn our trust?

Nothing, there's been no earned trust. I saved you. I also did take, I actually did take a cross bolt, not myself unconscious, trying to save your life. I'm talking about life or death. I saved your life. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. We start from scratch. This is where it starts.

I've saved your lives. Caleb has saved your lives. When? Tonight, Caleb got us, got that Do-Deca fuck balls out of there by himself. We didn't want it. Oh. Okay, okay, okay, hang on before we turn this into a pissing contest. He has slain things. He has saved things. And I have as well. If you, if we're talking about trust, what? What on earth have any of you people done to earn our trust?

Not. What have you done that we have requested ever? I can say. Do we have a ring? I like you. It's not about earning each other's trust. Look, I have worked with some skeevy motherfuckers in my day. Very unsavory types.

But you know what I trust? That they have their own self-preservation. Right? So I can trust that these motherfuckers don't want to get caught and that they don't want to get caught and that they don't want to die at the end of the day. If you want to do something skeevy on the side, let me know. I will help you out. But when we are all working as a team, I don't want your actions to get me in fucking trouble. So if you really don't trust this, I'll happily take that 40 platinum back right now.

We don't have to try. Trust each other, but when we are working on a job together, I want to know that you care enough about yourself that you're not going to get me in trouble. Oh, God, you're making me agree with her. Oh, it hurts. Fuck you, Molly. Fuck you. Fuck you.

You see. When we signed up for this job, Caleb was very explicit. He said, we are doing this for coin and treasure. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. There was no surprises here. We're in it for what we can grab for ourselves.

Ah. We're in it to what we can all grab together. That's how these things work. When you want to grab something for yourself, you let me know, and you go grab it for yourself. I don't have to be a part of it. When we choose one objective together, I can only trust that you are in it with us.

We can be selfish as a group, and then be selfish as individuals. This is why the circus is. This is why the circus was functional. I... You know, now you count on Caleb to keep you safe, right? To achieve greater things than you by yourself can achieve. Think how many things you could do with all of us by your side. I'm not saying you don't have to be selfish and I'm not saying that you can't go after treasure and coin. There's a bit of a misconception here. Okay. Is there? Caleb and I have a very special relationship. It is that of a parent and a child. But I am the parent.

You do understand that, correct? I protect him. He's my boy, and I keep him safe. I want him to thrive and get better and better and more powerful and stronger because he can achieve great things. When I found him, he was nothing. He was a scared little boy in the corner of a jail cell,

and as we have gotten more comfortable, he has gotten more comfortable and come out of his shell. It's my job to protect him because I love him and I am his protector. Not because he protects me. So do you think it would be a good idea to explain to him that he almost got himself killed tonight turning on a bunch of people he was working with?

He almost got himself. killed tonight for nothing. You're not the only one who can have the same interests in keeping each other's safe. And you're not nearly as smart as you think you are. If I may, thank you for sharing that. Not. Oh yeah, thanks.

Don't care. So cute. He'll be a great man someday. He will. He really will. That changes things. I admit that I had the wrong idea about you too. And I know what it's like to feel responsible for someone.

for someone. Man, it's super shame that Caleb's not here for this entire conversation. I try not to have ideas about people. They just get in the way. If you do, bring all of this stuff so we can actually do something useful. Let's go down there. Wait. It seems like what we're in the cellar. I think that's in being very suspicious.

He treated this situation. I'm all right with this. Does he know? Did you think of him? I don't know that. Well, we get to tell him now, don't we? No, we can't out her like that? No. We want to take care of Caleb. Take care of Caleb. We do. We pulled him out of that house when that fireball went off. It's true. We didn't cut and run, even though it might have saved our skins. We care

about you too. I hope in time you'll learn to trust us just a little bit more. Maybe think about protecting us as well, because you seem to do a great job of taking care of Caleb. Stop expecting people to earn things. You just have to sometimes go with it. I'll have a talk with him. I appreciate that. I mean, not as nice as what they said. If he ever does anything to give me fucking locked up, I will beat him so fucking bad. His ancestors on the next plane won't fucking recognize him.

That's very nice, Bob. Thanks, I'm trying real hard. Yeah. There was, I could tell that there was at least six more fucks in there that you held back. That's progress. Progress. I am an HR liability.

What about in the game? So when are you planning to go down to keep an eye on your boy? As soon as you give me the stuff you want identified, and you'll have to trust me that we won't run away with it in the dead of night. Oh, now I feel like you really will be, because everyone was just mean. We were not mean. We were not mean. We were not mean.

Here's an extra platinum. Hey, you're the one who hypnotized me into talking about it. into talking about stuff. I did. Do you think that's what friends do to each other? When they catch them stealing their stuff? Yes, they do. I don't think so. Do you think that's cool, Bo? You caught him stealing your stuff? You caught her stealing your stuff?

I mean... I was not stealing. I was searching for something to steal. She was stealing. What do you talking about? That's beside the point. Here, you can cast friends on me. I'll tell you everything you want to know. I don't have friends. He hasn't taught me that one yet. Oh, God. Suddenly, I'll come. I'm compelled to answer everything, truthfully. Oh no, more of whatever you're drinking.

I just can't help to stop back. This is the most of like to either one of you, motherfuckers. I feel that. Now, how about you take those items to Caleb and just call it a boat of confidence? There was an extra platinum in there. All right. And I pull out my bow.

I just put it down and I say, but I'll find you. Everything else happens. Yeah, I think he's got the... Take the items and the unearned trust downstairs. You have a talk with her tonight. Oh, no, that's coming too. I know she's drunk, but.

She's pretty drunk. All right. You're pretty drunk, Bo. Y'all don't fucking know me. There we go. All right. I'm going to leave now. We'll take the things we'll see in a bit.

Have a good night. Don't break into our room. This one would rob the way. I'll go down with . 100%. All right, so Caleb, as you're sitting there talking to your skull. Oh, that was so brief.

That was like five minutes ago. The door opens and knottles in, closes the door behind and comes and joins you. How's it going up there? I've stole this fucking scroll for you. It's a scroll case, right? Which one you have anything? The one from the Richter's.

Yeah, it's right, yeah. Yeah. I got it. I went back and got it. Does anybody know you to? No. I set it on the ground. I pull not closer to me, and I give not a kiss on the forehead.

Thank you for saving me tonight. You brought me back from the dead. Oh, I think you used a potion on me, didn't you? Here, take one of mine. I have two, it's okay. You are too kind to me. Of course. You keep me safe.

Well, you know, I think maybe you have guessed it. before now, but I care a great deal for you, and that is no small gift. Thank you. We lived, huh? Another day? Yeah? You know, a little bit of me is worried that this scroll case will explode, so I think we should check that out first thing. The folks upstairs gave me some more things for you to check out as well. Are these things you can do? Ping, ping, ping. Okay, yeah, okay, I can get this done in about an hour, I think. First, not, will you take the scroll case and put it on the other side of the room?

Okay. Yeah. And I will, I'm tapped, so this is all ritual spells now, so I will use the ritual spell to identify the scroll case. Okay, the scroll case is a scroll case. Okay. It does have a faint, magical, element to it. To the limits of what identify can...

How big is this room down here? I'd say it's about, like eight by 12. Okay. Smaller than this. Okay, so this is going to be funny. I take another ten minutes to summon Schmidt. Oh, okay. Okay. Come with me outside, okay?

All right. Okay. Schmidt. go open the scroll case. Come on, come on, and I shut the door. Okay, you both back out, close the door. Oh no. You hear. That is what I was afraid. Oh shit.

It was it loud enough that anyone else could hear? You don't know. Are you fucking sick? Did any of us hear from the second floor? MVP moment. Everyone else make a perception check, please. Holy shit. Natural 20.

Natural one. 10. All right. You hear a... There's like a slight shift in the ground. Was that Agora Hill's earthquake? Exactly. You would think so, but no.

I think they're doing something. What? I heard something. Are they trying to fucking escape? I'm just eating bar. It sounded like a... Thumb. Fucking thumb.

That doesn't sound like a state. Everything's messy. That sounds like a thug. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership. I'm Mick Hunt, your host, and I'm here to challenge your why and fuel your because. This is where leaders, entrepreneurs, and go-getters come to level up. Each week, I bring you unfiltered conversations, game-changing strategies, and the kind of motivation that transforms lives. and legacies. I've learned from legends like Les Brown, Damon John, and Robert Irvine.

And now, I'm bringing their lessons, along with mine, straight to you. From modern leadership tips to creating unstoppable momentum, this is the podcast that redefines what's possible. Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made Mick Unplug their go-to source for growth and greatness, because your next breakthrough is just one episode away. This is Mick Unplug, the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur and self-improvement. Let's get started. Look, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one happy, sad, confused. I'm Josh Horowitz, and yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly happy, sad, confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers.

From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan, casting what ifs, backstage stories, and much more. Listen to HappySeg and Fused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I hope they're not dead. Yeah, that's something we can find out in the morning. Does our room look down onto the alleyway?

Your room does not down. So at this point, back up a little bit, and I open the door and back up to see what I see. Smoke. Okay. A kind of purplish dark fume kind of waffes out of it. You back away from it, and it just kind of dissipates

over the next 30 or so seconds. You keep a quick watch to see if anybody else notices it doesn't, and it kind of rises up, and thankfully by the time it would hit kind of the roof. It has a smoke beacon mostly has dissipated enough from the skyward doesn't cause like a column visible darkness. But there is like a, the very edge that you're catching of it, the little bit that's kind of wafing through,

has this very, like, fine metallic smell to it almost. And the brief that catches your nostrils, you already feel your sinuses kind of open up very abruptly. And you kind of like a mouthful of wazabi, you're like, oh. It's like, oh. But eventually it clears out, and you walk inside and-

Okay, so not a ball of fiery death. No, no, not a ball of fiery death. Wow. Okay, so it's cleared away. It's gone, I assume. Schmidt, Schmidt is. No, because if it's not, like if it wasn't damage dealing, he's still there. Well, he might have been damage dealing.

Yeah, right. I forget how this one is the unseen servants. There's two. I don't be wrong about that. One or two. The hit points of a kitten. It's three point. One hit point.

Oh yeah, Schmidt is gone. Okay. Schmidt is gone. Yeah. Okay. The schoolcase is open. So it's clear. Okay, next ritual spell that I will cast,

I will gather the other items, except for the, was there anything? Box? Well, we're about to find out. The dodecahedron is in my satchel at this point. Okay, yes. Okay. But I push all the other items towards the case

and whatever is there. And I use ritual magic to detect magic everywhere. All right. Both of the scrolls emanate. You see within the scroll case, there's now two rolled up scrolls inside there. Now that's open there, and they emanate a magical aura. The long sword emanates a magical aura. The boots emanate a magical aura.

And your satchel, it's almost distracting the vibrancy of the magical source from that object, the crystal looking object. I rearranged my satchel, so it's backed by my butt, so I don't have to look right at it. Okay, we have a little bit of work to do. I pick up the scrolls and examine them. Okay. Yeah! Come here, come here, come.

What did we get? Pick her up and I just hug her. I just hug her. What did we get? What did we get? Just... This will be good for the group. This will be good for you and me.

This is good. It's something that I was not able to do. I've been trying to figure it out for months, and I have not been able to figure it out, and now I have it. It's free repels. Okay, let's look at these things for everybody else. Okay, ho, ho, ho, let's identify all this shit. All right, and I spend the next 40 minutes.

Santa Claus. Santa Claus. Oh, and these daggers too. Oh, bow might like these. These are good. Yeah, these are good, okay, so. All right, we'll put these away. This is a very good blade for you.

might be a good blade for you. Why don't you hold onto it? You hold onto that. It's a long sword? Can I use that? Let me see, I thought that was the daggers. Waste time. So the daggers are not magic?

The daggers are not magic. Not matter. They are just base daggers. No, you know, you wouldn't. This is bigger than you. Too big for me. This is bigger than you. I know my limits.

Forta Molly, Fort and Molly were like this. They can decide, they can decide. I mean, really, these boots are good for anybody. These are good for them. Just tell us what they are. Just say it. No, I'll tell you on Christmas morning and not before. We couldn't do this at all the last campaign.

Now you have to wait 20 minutes. It's true. I wonder if I have identified, I could think. There's a way to do it. Well, should we go to sleep? Should we go to sleep? Oh, boy. Oh, here's your 19 platinum and your two gold

and one extra platinum for some reason, as if that was supposed to smooth things over. Oh, and also, they don't trust us. They think we need to cooperate more. They're trying, they're trying. They are very absurd. I'm not, and I'm speaking it myself. Shh.

They were, they were. They're very upset that we tried to take the scroll box. Why? Because they are in the firm belief that it would have left some sort of clue that would have led the authorities to us by stealing something after we had broken into two houses, stolen other things, torn up a rug. That is the red flag. Not the arcane rug that was destroyed and removed covering his precious things. Not just a disguising herself as the high rictor. Not stealing the red flag. And leaving witnesses who had seen someone who was not the Richter going in before the

Ricku. Sure, sure, sure. Also, she was stressed as the Richter not wearing the correct outfit. Yeah. Ologue rifled to her desk and took some papers from there, but I did not see for him a new asshole. Sure. But they are under the impression that, and this is a fair point, that we are not very communicative or we don't behave as much as part of a team as they would prefer. And I said that I would tell you and discuss. And so that's where it stands with the weirdos. Well, you know, I want this to work. So whatever they need.

I definitely do not agree, but whatever makes it work. I think what would make it work is, letting them take the lead a bit and following. Well, I have no interest in being a leader, do you? Oh, no, not at all. No. But we can just see how it goes, playing ball, I suppose.

Do you know that I was going to go to that school one day? The Solstress Academy thing? Well, you didn't get in? Oh, I didn't get anywhere near it. I'm from a small town, and there was a lot of hubbub for me and maybe gathering up of coin, but I fucked it up. Did you do something wrong or bad? You don't have to tell me what it was or what you did,

but is it something? that you can be forgiven for? That is not for me to say. But I have no interest in going. I will do it on my own. Correction. We'll learn with your help. Our own academy.

It'll take a little longer, probably. I'm not a good teacher. Yeah, well, you know, anything worth going after takes some elbow grease and hard work, so. All right, well, I'll help wherever I can. I do enjoy seeing you get new spells and new skills. I haven't had a friend in a very long time.

The last few months have been unexpected. I think for me too. I've had more people throw rocks at me than conversations. It's nice. You know what? It's nice with them too. They don't seem to mind that, you know, my teeth are a little. People find that off-putting sometimes.

I do not. And I'll tell you another secret. I don't agree with them, but I get it. Well, they're not as smart as you are, so. Or you, I would argue. That's nice. Well, you want to bed down with a terrifying artifact of awesome power?

I prefer the skeleton, actually. Okay. I'll go on that side of the room. All right. Night, not. I sleep. Night, Caleb. All right, so as you guys all come to sleep for the evening,

first off, we'll consider this rest the milestone where you all hit level four. So you guys have decided on your adjustments in advance, you can do that. But while you guys figure that out, if I could have everybody but Caleb leave the table please. Oh no. What is happening? We need to use now! Wait, are we doing the book? So we're doing it.

Are we doing the level four thing, or we're doing it after? Just wait. Just set up your stuff except for your hit points and roll those when you get back. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay. Where we go? This way. We're going this way.

I have to say it, tell us and said, don't die. Bring in the 20 so we can hold. I love you guys. I don't mean the Mighty Nine, you're assholes, but I love you guys. I love you guys. I'll kill you in your sleep. Okay, back. You don't roll a D20 for a hit point.

Sam, grab all the die. Grab all the die. Don't roll hit points when you come here. I have guns and dragons. Don't, you won't need dice. You're fine. We did it. We reclaimed our dignity, we did it.

We did it, totally. So as your, the dark takes your dreams, sleep brings calm, brings peace, brings rest. There's a, a soft hum that seems to radiate around you. A welcoming softness, a light. Not quite white, not quite dark. It's kind of a grayish, familiar light.

Strangely, you feel it pull you forward through stars, the distant night sky. You see beacons of light coast by. You see a dark sphere before you. Then there's a flash of light. and you're standing there and you're holding the object in your hand, which you keep. It's welcoming.

And you kind of look into it for a moment and look ahead and you see yourself, and you see another self, and you see another self, and the fourth Caleb, in a fifth Caleb, in an endless row of Caleb's, all slightly different, all begin walking in different directions at once. And you look down at the object and back up again, and they're all gone.

And you see a distant flame kind of flicker, and you feel yourself hypnotized by its movement. Look down again at it, and there's something wonderful and ancient about this thing. And you can't grasp it. Its scale is both too large and too small. And the more your mind tries to make sense of it, the more you feel yourself walking in 17 different directions

at once. All those killips you saw before are all within you, and they're all pulling at different sides, and it confuses you. It scares you for a moment, but once again, you focus back on this object and the warmth is comforting. You look up again at the stars, they've stopped passing by, they're held in place, and for the first time in a long time, you feel at peace, and that's the end of your dream. I just bring everybody out, belts back in, please. You wake up in the cold, dark basement have this relatively unused cellar beneath the leaky tap. And come to come to consciousness,

with the most restful night's sleep you've had in a long time, it feels almost. Look over it, not curled up right against your thigh, like a dog, sleep. Come on. I got scared of the skeleton, so I came over here. All right, so first off, let's go ahead and get a roll of hit point. here, so we have more.

Oh, gosh. We haven't done this live on air before. Oh, man, here comes my extra one hit point. By the way, that was like two minutes. We have no time. We have no time to do anything. That's okay. We're doing.

What I'm doing? Let's go and roll. And as a general rule, I re-roll once for hit points because nothing sucks more for a character's leveling up and rolling one. So, now two is the new sucky baseline. So I'll go on the table. So you are rolling for hip points first for him? D8, right?

D8 for the warlock, yes. Yes. Seven. Seven. Nice. D-A for the Monk as well. A four, right down the middle. There you go. Plus my con modifier. Plus your con modifier, yes. Do I roll a D8? Yeah, really? Con modifier? Yeah, every level. It's always been. I just forget. 11 points. All right. Caleb. D6. Plus my con modifier is a total of six. So I'm going to sit in at a big 25 now. Okay. Yeah.

Can I roll a D8? For you, yeah, actually, it's a B. Yeah, it's a good. Oh, nice. Eight. Nice. All righty. When I leveled up, it already gave me two extra hit points.

Why? Because that's your modifier. Okay, so now I add the extra. You add the eight to it, yeah. It automatically adds your level up for that. Roll yours. Oh, three. There you got.

D10, no-com modifier? No, you get a con modifier. Okay. Come out of fire to hit points. All right. My combo fire, I think is three. I'll have to double check. Six. Oh. It's under the name. There you go. Oh my God, I just got ten extra hit points, y'all. Six plus my condom of fire. That's amazing. All righty. I feel like that was really bad. That was a really bad role. It's okay. So now it happens to get better roles than others. No, she's dead now.

Okay, definitely dead. If you don't roll these four hit points, you die in your sleep. Yes, that's how it works. If you die in the level up, you die in real life. All right, so anyway, in D. The hit points the main thing, and your ability is we can keep tabs on that if it comes into play, and we can do the define stuff after the episode tonight. But anyway, as you all come to consciousness in the morning, the day is before you, what do you wish to do?

I'm gonna see a Horace. Horace is already awake and looking out the window and just looks nervously. Like just... Horace, do you need an escort out of town, or do you think you can find your way? I mean, an escort would be nice just because to have somebody I can work with in case things go bad. Of course, how much coin do you have on you?

On me. 20 gold. Oh, you'll be fine. It's enough to last me a while, yeah. Molly. Molly! Wake up. I think I'm going to escort Horace out.

Be back as fast as I can. I can. All right, we'll wait for you. All right. All right. I'm gonna wake up and go see what the girls are doing. Okay. You guys get to get your breakfast started and such.

You guys begin to walk heading southwards, since that was where the all-field suggestion was, making your way. The general bustle is still happening. There's still not a lot of crowns guard on the street corners you're used to seeing them post it at. And as you make your way towards the southern portion of the inner, the, the, um, the, um, the, um, the, um, the, um, The interstead sprawl to the southern gate, you can see why. The exit gates are swarming with Crown's Guard. The portcales is down with the smaller side doors open, and every person who enters in exits is being interviewed.

And being checked as to whether or not they're allowed to leave. It seems that the lockdown is very serious during this investigation. Horace immediately kind of clams up and grabs your arm and goes, I don't know. I know. Stay casual. Stay calm. Just turn and we're gonna slowly start walking back. Just act now, act normal. Okay.

You both slowly make your way through that intersection and back, and no one seems to pay much mind. They're consumed with the current hustle and bustle at the gate. As you guys are walking back course, it's like, is there another way out? Is there someone, something you know anything? There always is.

If all else fails, there's the sewers. You're not opposed to getting a little dirty to get out of town, are you? No, no, no. We'll want to wait till we have more of the others, just in case. I'm afraid the sewers might be encased as well. So just stay put for a little while longer.

We'll find you a quiet spot in the leaky tap, but let me check with the others. Okay, okay. All right, as you guys are getting the rest of the morning on, what do you want to do? Getting your rest of our morning on. Getting your morning on. I'm just going to point out,

because I took tough. Oh yeah, all right. So I'm at 49 hit points. Oh. Damn, dude. That's a lot. Damn. But now I burn through more to use my swords.

Do we have to find no, Dolan, Dolan now? No. We found Dolan last night. Oh, yes. Yeah, he's gonna stay put in his house low. We're gonna try and assure that he's safe so that he can, you know, put his name up for that high Richter seat. Better figure out what we're doing with this.

But listen. The gates, it's not a joke, it's sealed. There are crowns guards swarming all over. It seemed like they were doing personal interviews, pat-downs, the whole smash, so even an enchantment might not hold up to scrutiny. Wasn't there a woman who was also part of that? Yeah, Carl.

What happened to her? She was the most chippedy, bitch. We didn't see her last night. She wasn't a dolence. But she saw you guys. Well, she saw, yes, she did. Had one of the meetings. Yeah.

She never said a whole lot. Half Elf, right? If anyone is going to turn us in, it would be her. Perhaps. She's the one I arguably know the least about. Where's Horace? Maybe he knows something about her. Horace is actually, you look behind Ford at this point in the doorways. Horace, arms crossed, just kind of bite in his lower lip.

Horace? Yes. Do you know where Kara is? I honestly don't. We kind of scattered when the preparations were done to make sure we were far apart, so we couldn't be... Trace together. Do you know where she lives?

I don't actually. Do you know what she does? She says she occasionally works out of the, that really terrible bar, the evening... The evening nip? She works at the evening nip? Oh, I don't go there. Okay. We gotta get on nip on.

Maybe not. Yeah. Well, Jester and I know the code. to talk to the gentleman if we ever want to do that. Indeed. I was thinking that we might try and get horse out now before that wave of crowns where I find its way here.

Maybe we should take them into the sewers, get them out of the city. Do the sewers lead out of the city? I imagine. Generally when the city is on lockdown though, the sewers is the first place the guards are looking for shady people to leave. That's true.

Where's our cart? We still have our gypsy wagon. Oh God, we haven't fed the horses in day. No, we haven't. The horses are being taken care of by the, the horses will be fine. The Manticor had, though, that's probably a whole different order of business. Oh, I forgot about that. We thought we lost the horses at a stable or something.

Yeah. Okay. They're not just dead in an alley somewhere. No. Trying to rip the cart off the dead horses. Oh, excuse me. Is our cart in the city or is it outside of the city? outside of the city.

No, you brought it in the city with you. Can bury them under like a pile of produce or something like that, try and sneak them out of the city. I think you would need a proper smuggler for that. Indeed. A well built cart with a super compartment. Can it be catapult and just go there. Do you know a smuggler?

No, I don't know a smuggler. I don't know anybody in the city. Wait, we know a smuggler. Yeah, we do know a smuggler. Wait, who was the guy who first showed us around this city. Ulysses, Ulysses Starris. Oh God. Yeah.

He was in that yellow cloak, remember? Also, you know who we haven't checked up on? Bryce's sister, right? Her sister? Who is the right? Their sister? They're a sister, sorry? Bryce's sister.

I totally forgot about that. I did too. And also there's the gentleman. And also we need a lead box. Oh my god, there's so much to do. We need a box. Should we go try to buy a lead box? Or maybe poo box?

would have some sort of a magical encasing. But how would we tell him why we need it? He doesn't care, does he? Mm-mm. Don't you think somebody would be asking, who recently bought something that would protect against crying? A horse, we obviously have a lot to decide on.

Perhaps it'd be better if you just stayed up in the room. I can do that, I can do that. I'll just lock myself in there and let me know if anything comes up. We have some reading, if you like. I do. I'm gonna just grab a copy of Tusklove. Try and relax, but not too much. Get past around the body.

Horace gives you a long look of like, I learned a lot about you in the moment. Tusk love. I don't know. You should write Tusklove and sell it on the store. Oh, I'm sure the community's already halfway there, buddy. Oh my gosh. All right, so Horace is taking care of a moment.

What's the plan? Is Broken Veil the name of a tavern here, or was it in Allfield? The Broken Veil. Is that... I know I wrote it down. I think I messed up and I wrote down where she is, but I don't know where... I'm trying to look at here. I wrote down Bryce's...

...connections. I think I wrote down in everything. No, wait. Is she in Allfield? Broken Vale. Sorry. They? Were they in Alfield? Yes. Bryce is in Allfields.

Fellid. Phyllid. Yeah, Field. Bryce Field. Yeah. Watchmaster Bryce Field, elf leader of the guard. Very sweet person. These are all the things I've put down. Great notes, Jesus. Very sweet person.

Bryce despises the Dwindolian Empire, thinks they get no support from being so far south from the Gwendolyn Empire. He's not from this region. And then I wrote down Broken Vale and Bluffs. So it's got to be that. Okay, so yes, I know what you're talking about now. Oh. Thank you for the heads up on that. So the broken veil, the broken veil bluffs is to the far, far east. That is where the border of the Drona Empire and Jorjas is.

It's actually where most of the conflicts happen. It's where the garrisons exist, and where most of the army is sent to defend the empire in the valley. Level four, let's go! You are ready for this shit. The radiation area and fallout. Get out, get out there. I'm prepared. You are leaving.

That combat area. So I didn't, I don't have the name of her damn their damn sister. No, and I can't find it. He's not even. Shit. If. room when Bryce said it, then Caleb would know.

I think Caleb was, because it was right when we said we were going to Zedash and Bryce was like, go look at this person. I'm sorry, I kind of joke on my spit. Bryce is the one that sent you to the Leaky Tap? Yes. Bryce is the one that sent you to Claudia. Yes. Wait, is Claudia's sister? Am I going on in circles? No. You're running circles. You betty.

There was no circle, sister? There was no circle. recall their being a sister. It was Claudia. It was Maria. It was Claudia. Jesus. Was it Claudia this whole time?

I was like, what did I say about Bryce's sister? Oh shit. It was Claudia. Never remember. I was like, I don't remember. No wonder I had happened. Once again. Some we know.

We did it. We did. We didn't. Chat's like, fucking idiots. I don't know. I didn't say sister or wrong. Well then if that takes off one thing off the list, we still mean.

The lead box. Get Horace out of town. The gentleman. What else? The leaky nip. What's it called? Evening nip. That's the gentleman also. The leaky nip. That's up in a few months. Bam. Bam. That's a different establishment. Oh my God. That's a daycare. That's a day care. This ain't your kids day and day, you're out of here.

The leaky nip? I mean, the evening nip? Do we go there? Or no, we need a lead box. We got a lot. And Horace out first, right? Old a blacksmith. I feel like a blacksmiths would be...

I've told us about blacksmiths before. There's the Spark Hammer Smith. We could go to the Sparkhammer Smith in the Pentamarket. Yeah, let's go to that. Have we been there? I think we actually have been there. Yeah, that was the first place we went. Jan?

Caleb. Yeah. What the hell have been making Arcona Check? Sure. I've just been nerving out over my leveling up over here. I know. You've got 75 new spells. Oh, I rolled a one, Matthew.

I'm so sorry. I rolled a natural 20. I rolled it really badly. I'm not good at dice. That's fine. All right, continue. You need to take luck as a feat again. It doesn't always work out for you anyway. I know magic some.

I'm a student of magic. Not enough. Not enough, DM says. Well, it's not about not enough. It's a placement in what you have and where you are. What are you saying? What's you're doing? What are you doing?

We're going to find a, we're going to the Spark Hammer Smith's. Smithies. All right. Yinnick and Jan. Yeah. All right. So you find your way there. is inside currently working on hammering out the edges

of a piece of armor. Hello. Hi. Can I help you? Yes. Do you make anything out of lead? I mean, I certainly can. It depends what you're hoping to have made.

Could you perhaps make me like a really pretty, so my mother is a big fan of things made out of lead? She says she likes the color of that metal. It's a very curious liking, but she will take it. She gets a lot of things in gold and stuff, and so she says that lead looks very different from that, and she thinks it's pretty. I'm not judging.

So I want to make her a really pretty jewelry box out of lead. The halfling kind of scratches this temple, and I mean, if you're willing to pay, I can make it. Okay, it's like she's a lot of jewelry. So something like around this big? It's gonna be a lot of lead. In a few days to make it. Just be lead lined?

Is that a thing? You can be thin as a sheet of parchment. Oh, so not a whole lead box. Maybe like a box made out of wood and then just like pretty lead on the inside. That is a little more easy to put together. Yeah, like maybe on the outside so she doesn't realize it's not made of lead?

But it doesn't need to be... Am I here? I've been like doing this with my belt. That's up to you, sure. Yes, yes. It needs to be sealed. all the way around. This is a trend of my mom's. Yeah.

Right. Everybody knows her mom. Okay, well we'll go ahead and get started on that there. Full cost here, two days work, materials. That'll ruin your back about one and a half gold. One gold, five silver. I think that is acceptable, yes. All right.

Will you also, will you just, you know, engrave it with like, love you so much? It'll be an additional silver. Okay. All right. Come back here in about 48 hours. Should be good. Okay, if we gave you more, could you make it faster?

I can certainly do my best. Because you know, I noticed they're like blocking up the gates and I need to get it to her because her birthday is coming up. I am but one small hairflin, so you're going to have to wait one way of the other. All right. Sorry. Okay. Thank you.

No worries, mate. Come back then. Our blacksmith is Tyika, Y-T-T-T. I'm so into it, yeah. Are we all in a group, though? Sorry, I really didn't have my head, my active, the acid level four. You guys haven't said you've split, so I imagine you're all together. So, that's a couple days.

A couple days. Okay. Should we check with Pumat Sol and see if he has something like that? Like a lead, I mean, I would pay a premium price to get a hold of a lead box right away. You all keep talking about this. Pumont's soul guy. Have you not been to the invulnerable general clerk? Nah, I don't do the magic stuff.

I tend to like do other things. To do multitask. This is more like an experience, like sleep no more. You have to go and... Oh really? Yeah, you have to see it for yourself. I mean, we do have a lot to do that. But this is a functional trip as well.

Impressed by eccentric, and this is really impressive. It's a functional trip as well. A man like, a gentleman like Pumat Soles, gentlemen like Pumet souls would most likely, because they understand divination and the needs of magic you, the arcane. It feels like an inside joke, you know? It is, and we want you to be in on it.

He would be more aware of what we were asking for if we asked for it, as opposed to like the last. Yeah, he would not be surprised by the question. Okay. Also, come over here, please. Me? Everybody has this, but you come closer. Yeah, so.

I look around to see if anyone. I look around to see if anyone was distracted by Ford's large belch. At the moment, no. It seems to be a common thing here in the pentam market. All right, so I know you're all a big fan of my sticky fingers. I took this from Sutton's house. What is that?

What is it? What is it? This is a sending stone. It's a communication device. This was in Sutern's house. This was under the rug that we destroyed and removed. It attacked us, you mean? Of course. Of course we did what we had to do. We improvised. Like Ford told me the other day, you have to improvise. So, but this stone has a twin somewhere, and it can talk with it. And I don't know who it is. And I, honestly, my opinion is the probability of someone trying to find us searching for this things like looking for a needle in a haystack in a newly made war zone. However, in the meantime, I was wondering if you'd hold it inside of your fancy bag.

Will they be able to find it through the fancy bag? I believe not, because that inside your bag is somewhere else. It's not even on this plane. I hold it up to my ear. Is anybody trying to talk to me right now? No, for a moment. Let's put that in your bag right away, because we don't know what's on the other side of it. How do we... Oh, okay. Can they hear me talking to it right now? There is a very, very, very small chance.

The answer is yes, so please put it in your bag right now. So you started stealing stuff in the first house? Yeah, that is what I said that I was going to do. To be fair, he did say that. We had the talk, I'm willing to let a slide. No, we had to talk with her. That's fair. Oh, sword, boots.

Baggers. Don't pass it out out here because... Oh, not right here, no, no, of course. Do we want to do that before Pumet or after Pumet? So just one little interjection. Couldn't we just, couldn't we use the sending thing to find out information if we sent a message? All we could do is say hello to a stranger,

we don't know who it is. Would it hear our voice or would it? It would hear our voice. We could disguise our voice and say, We've been made, send instructions, and find out what happens. That is true, I just keep it in the bag for now, because just in case, just in case.

That's pretty good, though. Yeah, we could certainly roll this over in our minds and see if that's something we could do with it. It's just, you know, if someone is going to look for this thing, and again, probability very low. But if they were going to look, it'd be right away, it'd be a couple of weeks. What if we say to it, hey man,

we found this stone on the ground? Do you belong? Who do you belong? to. What do you think? What do you think? I think that's very, I think that's, that's, that's, I think it could be dangerous. Well, it could be dangerous.

It's better if they initiate because then we learn information immediately. If you scroll through and find like a listing for like mom, you call them. Yeah. It is also, I believe possible that at some point a message could come through it. That's what I was thinking. But we don't know. I just want, you know, for the next two to four weeks, I would prefer to keep it up. either in a lead-lined container or in that bag, chances are small. But, you know, if someone

was really determined, it's possible. Good point. It's possible. Mm-hmm. All right, it's in the bag. Pumat or the rest of the equipment? We could probably divvy out the equipment at Pumats. He won't ask any questions. Let's do it. How do you know? How do you know he's not working for the empire? He's pretty nice. He owns a store in the Empire. He seems like a nice guy. He's probably working for the Empire.

I would agree with Ford's sentiment. I mean, if we took it out of my own bag, I mean, there's four of Pumats. So one of those Pumats would see it coming out of my own stuff. Plus, we're returned customers. Yeah, that's also true. Wait, what are you agreeing with that he's nice or that he's working for the Empire? No, that he's nice. I don't want to trust him. Well, we could also just go to like a breakfast shop and do it there. The two aren't mutually exclusive, we know that, right? Like, he can be nice and working.

I didn't have Pumat, Fulat Soh attacking us. You did not. Attacking us? I did, I had a dream about it. What? That seems terrible. This is Laura, actually. I did have a dream.

Oh, Laura, are you serious? It's terrible. I was starting to go into that direction of like, is this a real thing? No, it really was. It was a dream that Pumet Sol betrayed us and he attacked us. Anyway. This is like a little after Chlorota act after shock. I'm just letting you know.

We don't know anything about him. Oh my God. I think if you give him a chance, he'll do you right. In the back. Do-de-do-do-do-do-do-do. Anyway, you got a real burden of it. I don't want to bring out all of this stuff from the plasticassian guy in front of it. Let's go shopping at Pumont's Souls and then we'll get a better box.

We'll divvy up everything at the, one more private. All right. So, as you guys, you guys making it way to the Penta Market? Yes. We are. Okay. It's still early morning, relatively. You make your way to the interior, the warm, welcoming interior

of the invulnerable vagrant. There are no other patrons in there. You do see across the way. One Pumat Sol is sitting behind the counter. It looks like with knitting needles. And there's one off of the side in a chair that's currently reading through a book with a small set of glasses and the tip of his wide nose.

They both look up and go, why, hello there. That's just a real nice thing to see you this early in the morning. Just about to finish my breakfast snack, so you got me at a good time. The fuck? Are you open all in time? This is normal, it's okay. Not all the time.

We generally do a cycle of sunrise to about four hours past sunset. That's our general scheme that we maintain business. Fummet, we'd like to introduce you to one of our friends. This is Bo. So. So. Well, the pleasure is respectfully mine.

It reaches out, and giant hand kind of encompasses your entireness. A little clammy. Puts the book down, takes glasses off. Yeah. So what can I do for you? Oh, well, my mom's birthday is coming up, and she really likes boxes that have, You have a lead lined box?

We've got quite a few. They're currently containing items that require shielding. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah, can we get one of those? That can probably be done. How big a box you're looking? We got them right around that there.

And then we got a bigger one about that there. Then we got one in the back that's a, oh, that's how big a. Probably the grande, the middle. And you, ah, it's like the same thing. It's like, yeah. All right, let me go ahead and... What is it made of? What does it do? What the nice lady there is requesting is a box that is lined with a material known as lead.

I've heard of the material, but does it have any other magical properties or any other... No magical properties. It's just really useful for, well, poisoning yourself if you put food storage in there. Poisoning other people if you store their food in it. And keeping at bay the prionays of distant divination magics. I think we're probably gonna need a couple healing potions as well. Oh, yeah. Not a problem. I'm in a window shop then.

Thank you. Yeah, boom, Matt. We came into a little extra coin recently, and this is our favorite place to spend. You don't happen to have any, I don't know, any articles of protection, do you? A necklace, bracelet, a ring, a... ring and we got this here cloak here on the wall. I think you've already taken a look at it. That's a pretty protective. It was expensive, right? It was expensive. The other one who's knitting is like, yeah, it's a pretty penny because it's a pretty item.

It goes back to knitting. Sorry, how much precisely was that one again? Oh, where that one ran you about 800 gold pieces. You're welcome. Yeah. Still out of the reach there. How much is that dough? In the window. In the window. We got this nice shield over here that we just had finished a couple days ago. That's an enchanted little delightful piece.

That one is a little more affordable at about 550 gold pieces. What does it look like, though? The shield itself, it has what looks to be the head of two lions facing away from each other. with their claws extended. It has almost like a diamond shape. It's pretty decent size. The coloration of it is a bright gold where the lions are. In the back of it is a dull, almost graphite metallic

with a gold border around the edge of it. It's pretty. What does it do? This one, it improves your defenses more than a normal shield would. It instinctively places the shield in places that might help protect from incoming blows, therefore making you hard to connect with. Oh, that's pretty cool.

It's a plus one. How much is your fancy box? The fancy box that you're requesting, while not actually enchanted, it is taken away one of the objects that we keep contained. So respectfully, I'll have to charge the cost of that one and the replacement. But that'll simply put you back about 15 gold pieces total. It's probably smart, though, huh? I'll draw.

How going on it? What was in the box originally? That is none of your concern. How much to make it my concern? Your friend is a strange one. She really is always asking questions. She is very useful in the right circumstances. Oh, I can entirely understand that. I'm right here. I can hear you all talking about me.

She can catch arrows out of mid-air. And hear things people say. That's really impressive. Mr. Pumat, Pumat, I have, just another request. I know I had requested that it would it be possible to invent a small haversack, just the pocket thing. But do you have any sort of magic incantation ability? If I gave you a flask, could you make it never run out of alcohol? Whoa! Actually, that is a very doable in the Chan, man.

It'll take us a little while, but we can definitely make something like that happen. How much would that sort of R&D cost me? About a week's worth of enchanting time, and the cost would put you at about 250 gold pieces. I'll take it. Oh! Here's my platinum flask. Could you also sort of put like a nice little flourishing design? on the side of the flask.

We can go ahead and outsource that. Yeah, we can make that happen for you? Couldn't we? And the one knitting goes, yeah, that's not a problem at all. Oh, wow. That's a lot of gold. That's a lot of liquor. It's nothing at all.

So you're gonna pay up for now at the front? Here, take it. Oh, the whole lump sum up front. I appreciate your trust in our ability. It's so. Writes up a quick little piece of paper, hands it to you as a receipt. So we should buy that box?

We definitely should. I will buy that box for us. How much was it? Did it be? 15 gold. Oh, yeah. I will take it out of the box. You wanted two healing potions?

That'll put you back about a hundred gold pieces for the two. That sounds fine. Any other healing potions you can? I mean, you've got probably another dozen or so more if you want to buy. I'll take one more as well. Ten platinum. All right. 10, platinum.

All right there. 50 gold from each of you. That's a healing potion to eat. each of you and yeah. Also, I assume it is out of my reach, price-wise, and I'm on a budget, but do you deal in arcane knowledge, pre-prepared scrolls of any kind? Oh yeah, I mean, we have certain,

certainly many number of various scrolls, and scroll types and spells, and if that's what you're looking for, we can definitely provide. What is the range? Like, what are your, Your lowest rung, I am. I guess I'm curious to know. I'm going to go ahead and double check here,

and he goes through his ledger. Well, let's see. The very basic ones, whether that be cantrips or first level spell casting, those are fairly common. Those will put you back about 50 to 100 gold, approximately. DM a question from Liam. Yes. Can cantrips be added if they're found?

I imagine they could. Okay. Greater healing potion, right? No, it's a regular healing potion. Three to four. Regular heal. If you're going up from there to second or third level, those will put you back probably closer to maybe 250 to 500 gold depending,

and then it just skyrocketed from there. Well, you know, I'm interested in everything from the second level and below. Do you have a menu? Well, I mean, we have to order them from the academy. but we can get them in here for you, or the Halls of Your Edition. Give me a moment. Player's Handbook!

Kallison, are you seeing the... Oh, wait, no. You see the Posture Healing in... It has all the actual... It does. All of the manuals. What is it? Potion of healing, it's...

I'm only seeing the graders. Go to... Careful if you're filtering by type, I was having a problem with that. We should probably, you know... Potion of healing. And put the thing in this box, though. Don't filter by the box is presented. And then search for a heel.

He paid for that, 15 gold. He looked at. He said he was fine. It's black. It's not green, blue, or purple. It's like a gold copy. It's fine. It took me a second, a second.

Don't you can't realize. I don't make something else. What should we have to make? A flask. Oh, there is. A lead flask. It's really. It's really.

At every level, the intelligence just gets lower. Yeah. Oh. Well, should we go? Hold your horses. Oh, we're looking at. Well, this is happening. Puma picks up the book again and puts the glasses on,

and it starts continuing to do. I was doing a look around to see if there's anything new. Did we get any healing potions? Make an investigation. I got one. Did you need any more? Caleb. No, I'm very good.

Thank you. I'll buy a healing potion. Twelve. All right. It's another 50 off you. 12? Nothing at the moment. It's only been a few days in the enchantment process and or the coming in of new objects can take a while to stock back up. So nothing, the shield is the most recent creation that was presented. That's the only new one you see.

Boom, now there's still like, there's still the pearl, there's still the cloak. The few other odds in like small wands and things that... The cloak was the most exciting thing. Yeah. Forgive me, I just couldn't help it, but wondered, have you ever... ever had a chance to Pumat Prime, rather? Have you had a chance to exercise your arcane ability? Or if you want Pumat Prime, he's in the back.

I can go get him for you. Yeah, if you wouldn't mind. All right, puts the book down on the counter, glasses off, turns around, leaves. Comes back in, takes glasses, puts them on, takes the book, continues reading while Pumat Prime comes from the back, once again, like the large set of like goggle glasses on the apron on.

I was told that I was requested to greet you with a Hello. What is happening? Yeah, so these are all, what's the correct term? Synchralalium. Simulacrum. Yes. That's the one.

I know it's a little confusing. They're all copies of this fine gentleman. Pumet, I just wanted to add, we're such fans of your store. Did you ever find call to, I don't know, use your magic for combat or what led you to a store like this? Oh, well, that's kind of a personal story. I'd just say I didn't get along with my peers at a young age and found myself kind of wandering. And got picked up by some nice mages that saw some potential,

took me in and helped me hone my craft and helped me set up a store, and here I am in Zadash. That's great. How many years have you had this store? I've been running this place for a good 12 years. Yeah. Congratulations. It's really a thing. Thank you. What mages? Nice guy, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Were you with what mages found you? Were they with the Academy? Uh, sort of. They were with the Cerberus Assembly. That's right. You were talking about that before. Yeah, yeah. They really, uh... Oh, go. He just gets caught in the corners, so it has to shake it out of the corners of the giant flat. Oh, no.

What is hiding in those corners though? The main person who's been abed to me is the headmaster Ormid Haas who runs the Hall of Eurydition. Yes. Yes. Ornette Haas. We haven't gone there, have we? We've heard about it like seven times.

He runs the Hall of Irritition. Air Edition. He's the headmaster of the hall, and he's got the chimp for second. He's the archmajor of cultivation within the Cerberus assembly. He's been a real nice beacon of Tootledge, and he's a bit rough on the edges, and seems kind of tough, but he's kind of a softy. Especially when it comes to small critters. Don't tell him I said that.

And for that one moment, you see like a look of fear in his eyes. Small critters. Small critters. Wait, who likes small craters? Or mid-house, like me? Like me? Maybe. I don't know.

Anyway, I gotta get back to work. But he quickly goes into the back room again. Thanks for your time, Prumat. The one who's reading off the sides. It's cool, right? That guy's crazy. Some things is. He's actually still here.

Let's get back to business. I don't know what you have on tap here, but I'm looking for, you know, something, just a cantrip, pretty common. A shocking, I want to... Shocking grasp, I know what you're talking about. You know how it works. I got it myself.

You know what I see? I would like this, yeah. Okay. I know. Yeah. All righty. I like the gumption. He goes and gives a big old.

handshake to Beauregard. Let me look that up real fast. Shit. I don't know what I'm agreeing to. Yeah, that's an honor, because you're reaching out to it. That's what it feels like. So you immediately grab his giant mitt and just a flash of white light and pain as electricity just rocks through your body. You take three points of lightning damage. Oh, fuck!

That is the one. All righty, that one will run you 75 gold pieces. Excellent. Pause. The other thing that I'm interested in... They look pause-ish, but yeah. The other one that I'm interested in that is not really my forte, but many wizards believe it is of great benefit. Do you have the shield spell on tap?

You can't get you a shield spell. That's a pretty standard defensive mechanism for those who have the arcane persuasion. Yeah. How much will that run me? You cannot have to answer the ledger for basic. That one will cost you about 200 gold pieces. I will take the pair. Alrighty there.

275. Shocking grass. Oh, we'll be twinses. Yeah. 275 gold pieces and he sets his book back down, puts his glasses down, leaves him room for a second, leaves him room for a second and he's gone for about a minute or so. Comes back with two scrolls and sets him on the table. I will take those. Thank you very much.

It's soul. My pleasure. Did you just call him asshole? That is Ashloch. So no. What does that mean? Which? Nothing.

Who's on first? Should we go? Checked. Should we get out? All right. Let's get that thing in the box. Anything else you guys require, or can you leave me to my readings? What are you?

It's a collection of crazy tales about this weird fella. What guy? It's the daring trials and tribulations of Certdairian Derrington. This guy's been all over the place. It's kind of wild. Wow. Fiction or? Oh, it's gotta be fiction, I mean, but it's good fiction.

It's kidding me. Well, sum it up for me, you know, give me the... Give me the, give me like the tensors floating disc pitch. No, no, no, no. Oh my God. Well, it, let me finish my book before I tell you too much about it. No, no spoilers. He's got a, he's got this wild kind of construct-looking friend called Daddy.

And he's apparently, according to this. According to this thing, there's these powerful folks from over there in Tal Dorei that he's been meeting up with that. I just keep messing up every time they go on an adventure. Real thorns in his side. We can relate. I'm a big reader. If you finish that, I don't know if you're the kind of fellow who likes to keep every book he reads, but... I got a collection. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Well, I will look for it elsewhere. Thank you. Sure. I got this shipped out from Diyostock. Perhaps if you're a good idea.

in that vicinity, see you get yourself a copy. Okay. Oh, sir. I'd never heard of it until this, so probably not that easy to find. Would you be able to put in order for this book for me? I mean, not really a book retailer. I understand, but you know many people.

You are obviously a very knowledgeable fellow who has vast connections. I bet we could go back to the chest, he's nook for that. Oh, we have it. That's probably a place to look for a book. It's a dirty book? Not yet.

All right, well, I wait for your full review, thank you. You just wait for it. It's called The Daring Tales. It sounds like shite, Caleb. There's much better books out there. Let's go come on, there's things. It looks like some flowers in the attic shake. It's true.

I got distracted. You're not, you know. Who met thanks for your time. We will not be bothering you any longer. But we will be back because we like you so much. Yeah, you are always welcome anytime. All of us are happy to see you come in and spend your hard-earned money. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Bye. Lahan comes out from the curtain back. Bye-bye. Let's go, come on, we got to get back to the tap. Back to the tap. We double dash back to the tent. To the box thing. And to look at the stuff that Caleb identifies.

All right. So you guys return, do you head down to the sub of the basement? Make sure it's still there. It's still there. Let's put it in the thing. So I put the box right down next to me. It's the skeleton alive. No, so we still don't.

He didn't bring anything back to the lights. That's good. That's good. So this is better than it was before. You have monster calves. Do you want to carry this now? What, like on me all the time? I am.

As he's holding it and kind of placing it over the box, it's still kind of that. I mean, I can carry this box with me all the time, but don't you think it's weird to just carry around the box all the time? Can we put the box? No. No, people carry boxes. Can you put the box in the back?

Oh, wait, we can't put the box in the back. No, I can't put the box in the back. What? Cross in the streams. But now we put the, we put the dodeca shippel in the box, and now the box in the back, right? No, no, no, no. Still crossing the streams.

I'm sorry. The lead is just to protect this item from divination. I am worried about... plus four. 22. Crossing two planes of existence. It might not be that at all, but it is definitely not worth chancing. The essence, as you're kind of looking at this, and you're kind of concentrating a little bit on this object, just kind of trying to get a grasp on it now that you have a good moment to look at it.

The school of magic or whatever the source of the magic is here escapes you. It seems almost beyond or separate than some of the magics that you've just, naturally kind of learned through your acquisition of spells and the pact that you had made. But you don't get the sense that it's extra planer or anything that would constitute the same level of danger that you think Caleb is focused on. Yeah, I say that.

Okay. What, you think this, you have experience with? It just seems to me... Things of this nature? No, it just seems like a different sort of archana than this type that I've seen. Okay, well, that's fine. I'm going to walk about 200 feet away from you when you put it in that bag, but... I put it in the bag.

Okay. I need you all to... No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-h-h-h-h. Well, that's a T-P-K. All right. You plop it in the bag, shoof-f-f-fing. It vanishes inside the pouch.

How long does it take to take effect if we're all going to die? It takes about two weeks, so I guess we'll find out. Eventually, and then I've got my bag back on. What else we got? Oh, yes, very good things. Oh, yes, the items. Yeah, they're daggers, just daggers. Okay.

I'll take that. Who cares about daggers, honestly. But this, and I hold up this long sword, which I can barely hold it up, this would be good for either of you two. I will let you decide. Ford here, this is a very strong sword, is very good against creatures. That is what you to look at. And then these could really work, these boots would make anyone better. But I think that Beauregard might benefit from my them the most. I could be wrong. I'm going to give them to both and let you decide. All right, all right. What are they? What do they do? Uh-huh.

The downside is long swords are not finesse weapons. Oh, it's not a finesse weapons. It's strength to utilize it. Interesting. That's pretty dope. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty dope. This is really bloody heavy.

Is it? You could actually. Could they use that? Could I use that? A long sword? Oh, well, do you, are you proficient with weapons, like a long sword? Your weapon proficiencies? My player's handbook keeps disappearing for me. Hold on.

Why do we only have one? There's another one that's just gone missing. I know someone who might really enjoy the severe at one. We have like 30 handbooks around here somewhere. Oh, okay. We took them all outside and they stayed there. Did I put, I might have written it down. Proficiencies. How many weapons can you wield?

Simple weapons. Yes, you can not use long sword. I think I know somebody who could really enjoy I'll hold on for a friend. Oh, yeah. Oh, could Yasha you say? Pretty gosh, I might get a kick out of her. Oh, that's great.

Wait, is she still like a thing? She's going to come back. She's gone back. No, Niyash has had a long time. She makes her way back around. Although that great sword she has is mighty fine. So is, Gasha. I know we'll probably never see her again,

that seems a little foolish to me. I hope she's still in the city, because otherwise she's going to have a real hard time time to get back in. We'll find her again. Could one of her again? Could one of us carry it until she returns? Who could really use it?

I don't know if anybody can really use this. I don't think anyone can use it. Not you? You are so good with a sort. Yeah, certainly. I just have kind of a preference with mine. Just real comfortable with it. You get a feel for something. You don't want to change it up too much.

It's worth holding on to. Of course, yes. I respect her ability to handle her own shit on her own time. It's pretty good. They're pretty great. So I strap on the big, like, gothic boots. Big-ass tall Doc Martins. Super tall Doc Martins. Lots of, like a little fur-lined, lots of straps and zippers. I had a new rock in my head. These boots are designing a similar

stylist to the armor of the Zoroasiian individual you fought. Is it kind of obvious? No, not obvious. They're just they're made of a very dark, like dark brown or black leather with like studs and the tops of them kind of like curl up into two spots. the tip on each side. How do I look? Well, normally you're barefoot, so it looks pretty good. It kind of makes your pants below a little weird, but I like it. Yeah, sure.

It's hard to, it's hard to tuck your boots, your pants and your boots, yeah. I thought you would like those. Was I right, I was right, wasn't I? They're pretty great. They add 1D8 to my initiative role. Whoa! Once per day. Once per day.

Once per day. You can choose a moment to get the jump. Does anyone else feel like they might benefit from that? I mean, anybody would, but. I think I'm pretty good with this. My initiative bonus is zero. No, you keep it. Your initiative bonus is zero?

Yeah, but you know, Beauregard really is the most capable fighter in this group at this moment in time. What, that's just the truth? It is the truth. Can you handle the truth? Can you handle the truth? I mean, I feel like Nott might be able to do

because I'm good with these two. If she had them. I defer to the wisdom of the group. We merely follow your expert wisdom. Okay, I'm saying some passive- No, I am sincere. Smile, and say thank you, not. Thank you, not.

Thank you, not. Very good, very good. Thank you, thank you. What is that crazy expression? I saw your gums for a second. It was freaky. Don't patronize me, no. Ooh, I bring out the one that smiles and I cast it at her.

All right. You have to make a saving throw. Oh, do I? I thought we had that. What kind of a saving throw? Is it a wisdom saving throw? Is it a charisma? That's not good.

It's not good for me. Nope. Nope, definitely not. Yep, for the next minute, your face is just curled up into a joker-like smile. Oh. I love it. making people happy.

I know. You are so happy. It's so wonderful. I'm so happy. So we should, oh, God. Just look at them. We should probably do something, you know. We still have to wrap up this, you know, deception of ours.

Oh, right. What are we supposed to do now? Go talk to the gentleman, of course. But wait, what is... It sounds like the general car insurance. What does the general have to do with... The gentleman? What does the gentleman have to do with this plan, though?

Wait, we were gonna invest in. Kara, who was going to the bar that the gentleman frequents. Oh, that's what it was. Okay, so we go to the evening to investigate her, and then we just happen to talk to the gentleman to... If it happens, if it comes up. But also, I did not get the full catch-up fjord. Fjord, what about the remnants of our... I know everything is for character and the high rector is dead,

so that's half the job done in a way that we did not predict. But what about Lord Souten? You talk to Dolan and what? Are they going to get the Crown's Guard in there? I mean... Oh yeah, we have to send the guards to find the evidence that we are. We cannot do anything. Dolan was going to handle that part of this.

I feel like it's all gone to shit. Yeah, I think that's right actually. I'm sorry, I forgot that part. I wonder if it's all just kind of a distraction, though, for the big stuff. I think that's exactly. I'm also wondering if the guards are already there looking at the mysterious explosion that happened in that house.

Well, that was the High Richter's. But Lord Soutan probably went home and noticed his rug was missing. Absolutely noticed that the very expensive magical rug is gone. And so did he go to the guards, or did he go, oh shit, I was hiding something. Did we plant something in the house, or are they going to find the letter from Lord? Yeah. If we stole a sealed to go in there,

So in there, listen, this could all appear like the knights turned on the High Richter. We still want, I thought we wanted to get rid of Lord Soutan. We did, yeah. Yes, but we put evidence in his house. So if he noticed that the rug was missing, he goes to the crown guard to report a robbery. And then they go in and they find the evidence that he was actually trying to be behind the attack that happened. So it actually is good that we destroyed the rug, because it led the guards into his house. I don't know if he would report a robbery if he had a rug of attacking and you triggered

it. And actual connections to the Marriott. But he did. Yeah, man. Are you okay, Bo? Smiling is so painful. It can be. It can be. Oh. Should we go spy on his house and see if there are crowns guard in it? Oh, boy. We could certainly go by. Well, where is, huh? You think they would let anyone back into the tri spire?

Oh, shit. I forgot it. I will also flip the situation. Also, Dolan, I believe, was saying that with the High Richter in place, she was favoring Soutan, and now she is gone. Dolan will hopefully take that seat. If he takes that seat, Dolan is not going to protect Luton. is not going to protect Lord Sartan in the way that the high rector, he claimed the high ricka was. That's right. I don't know, maybe we just walk away from the whole thing

like we discussed as a possibility. We got paid already. How much did I get paid? Because it was minus Kara's. Minus Kara's, that would been 628 gold, 21 silver, and 302 copper. Oh, did we get paid? I did. For what? Yeah. Burned. It's with the plan. Well, here's the thing. If Dolan assumes that seat, we have no idea if that's going to happen, but if Dolan

does take that Richter's seat, Soutan, if nothing happens to him, if no guards go into Sutton's house, he knows that his rug is gone, he realizes someone has been in his home, 100%. Looks through the home himself, finds our fake letters, our fake message from the myriad or whoever, would he retaliate on Dolan? Do we care? Yeah, you're actually, yeah, I don't think you're so far off. There's been something weird that's been striking me with Dolan this whole time. He doesn't seem like he really has the tenacity of someone who actually wanted that seat.

Maybe he was a pawn this whole time, because the guy's kind of a coward. And I mean this with all due respect. The guy was kind of a coward. I'm sad that I did that to her, because that's how you do it, right? I don't know if he'll send anything back on Dolan, but we should find a way to get Groundsguard into Lord Su-Tan's play. Well, it was Dolan who said, I believe, he had the relationship with Arendtha,

so he was going to report this stuff to Arendha and have Crownscar go in. Now, we have missed, due to the circumstances of the evening, we have missed the element of a quick surprise. They did not rush in the way we had hoped. So he's already realized somebody has jacked his shit. I'm not worried. really about him finding us, but he had a bad night when he came home.

We can't have Dolan rat on him. Hmm. But if we don't give a shit about Dolan, then there's no problem really, but maybe we do. I'm really interested in this car girl. I'm kind of wondering if she's a puppet master for this whole game. Let's try that. So we'll go to the evening nip. Yeah, let's try that. Okay, so you guys going to the evening nip? Yep. Yes. All right. You make your way over to the familiar dirty, small, sunken dive bar, the same two kind of beefy looking guards on the outside, eyeing you as you enter. You come inside, the same two individuals sitting at the same

two booths, or the booth in the far table, and there lies Clive Bince, the dwarf with like the half-burned beard. As you enter, he's like, oh, good to see you again. What can I get you? This is Clive, the bartender? Yes. Hold, pause, pause. We can, some along the lines, we can, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Are we gonna do this? Are we doing the gentleman? This is Clive, the bartender, right?

Yeah, Clive. Yeah, we are. So, Bo and Jester walk up. We walk up. And say, um. Hi. What's up? Can I get you anything?

I mean, I know I'd like a drink. Yes, I would like some of the, But unfortunately we have no coin. Yes. However, we are willing to offer many gifts. Well then, take these gifts with you. And he turns around and kind of looks at the rest of you and steps into the back room. Do we follow him?

I'm so scared right now. Do you follow him? Yeah, we fucking follow him into the room! All right, you step into the back room of this dive, and as you step inside it, it's a storage cupboard, there's shelves up there with various boxes. with various bottles of liquor and wine and ale. And there is, he's currently pulling a small chain up on the corner as it does.

He watches a small trapdoor, goes, which is up and there's a stairway that leads down. And he kind of goes, Yep. Come on, so tall. Be placed. As you all slowly descend down to the stairs, it closes behind you.

Here, a few things shift, kind of over it. You descend down the stairway. and you begin to pick up the sound of what's soft music. There's a gentle violin playing and what sounds like a lute or some sort of small string instrument. And this staircase spirals downward onto the left, and as it curves down for about 40 or so feet, it's getting colder, just from the subterranean depth

that you're going from the warmer surface. Eventually you hear some voices and some laughter and like a clink of glasses. And as you curve down, the light, it's brighter, brighter from around the corner, until suddenly you look into what appears to be a stone set, subterranean tavern. From floor to ceiling, it's about 20 feet tall,

and you can see there are two balconies that overlook it from the left side and one that's barely visible around the corner as the room kind of opens up a little bit to the right of you. There's a table immediately down from where the spiral staircase ends, and there's a kind of gruff-looking fellow sitting there looking up as you entered.

It just looks immediately defensive. The rest of the people there are drinking and not immediately paying attention. As you begin to descend the stairway, who all is going in? All of us. All right. You all begin to descend to the bottom of the stairs.

And as the people are taught, there's maybe about a dozen or so people in here between the bartender, folks that are, you can see two people who are playing music on the upper balcony. There's just laughter and discussion, and there's a card game at the same. center table, you see what looks to be a maroon and dull gray robed person arise, but their body is covered in a dark, black, almost panther-like fur. Their face is cat-like with ears

that curl up. This is a black tabaxi that has turned around the corner and goes, Halt, friends. I do not recognize. You're alive. What? I'm sorry, friend. I've got one of those faces. People just tend to recognize. Lucien. It goes forward and just does a huge hug. What we're up with it? And that's her going to end tonight's episode. We'll come back to that. Oh! That's a D-10. That's a D-10. It doesn't matter. Lucian.

Lucian. Lucian. That's a cool way! What? What? What? What? What? Who's that? Oh my god. Secrets!

It's just the first layer of the onion. There's eight more names to come. He's actually a robot. Look at Allison right now. Look at it. Workers don't know shit. Big. Oh,

fake name. How many names have you had? An hour ago you were telling me to, I had to trust you people. Oh, you're fuckers. No, we never had to trust us. We said not to trust us specifically. All righty. We'll pick up from that point next week.

Until then, we'll see some of you guys at C2E2 in Chicago this weekend. Looking forward to that. We'll be back on this next Thursday for to see where this goes. So excited. Until then, we love you guys. Have a wonderful week, and is it Thursday, Ed? Good night. Come to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

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