Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 92 - Deals in the Dark

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

Vox Machina search the city of Dis for any alternative to making a deal with a devil. With guest star Noelle Stevenson.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm happy. I'm a bitch, I know. Anyway, welcome. Laure will be here shortly. She's in traffic coming from her session. So she'll be joining us as soon as she gets here, probably next 30 minutes or so. In the meantime, let's go ahead and hop into our announcements with the evening. Returning tonight, we have our fantastic sponsor, Lute Crate.

Lou Crate! Lou Crate, thank you so much for being an awesome sponsor. We've got Lou Crates here. We're going to go ahead and do quick unboxing, and then Sammy can tell us a little bit about it, if you don't mind. If you don't mind. After the unboxing? Sure. Okay.

So, because this is the... A predator bottle opener. I get all three. It's a little Logan. It's a pretty awesome little o'clock. It's a heavy one. Oh, see. It looks like a die cast.

It's an actual like metal die cast. This is actually, for the size of ovarine, this is actually weight effective. It's accurate. What theme is this? Primal. And hey, look, this looks like an awful lot like the shirt that Travis is wearing right now. I got butterly, bitchy. Look at that.

This is just, Chrisbin's been smeared all over Tallahes. Yeah, no. Holy shit. That's pretty rad. This is a Winston shirt. Yeah. That's cool. Oh my God, I love the Raptor electrified fence.

Yeah. This is going to get a little bit. This is going on the backyard fence. This is going on my chicken coop, man. I think if you saw this already, you should go on that so you could ride this rafters in the forest. That's the way you do it. This is a really good bottle. The bottle opener is really cool.

The predator element, yes. It's a predator bottle opener. It's a predator bottle opener. My brother was singing the praises of this box this week. Oh, man. This is a box, actually. This is a box. Oh no.

Does it do? It makes, does it turn into a raptor? It turns into a dinosaur. Like all good boxes should. I'm going to see if I can do this really, really quickly. What is this? What is this? What is this?

There's like a secret hidden puzzle thing. The pages are blank and it says follow your instinct. What could it be? Is it scratchy's nature? I'm intrigued. Is it scratched? No, it's not. It is definitely not.

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and our awesome monthly T and PIN. I must return to my timeline until we meet in the future, good crate, and may the loot be with you. Blee, blop, blop, blot, blot, blee blop. Wow. Yes. Oh, did I miss something?

Sam, you just missed him. Oh, Sam, when did you get here? What a blackout, man. There was a time traveler in the news. Wow. I'm a little disappointed you decided to reveal your character for the next campaign so early, but... I'm just going to do a Lucreid ad, though. That was...

That was... That was... Thank you very much, Sam. New character. And thank you Lucrate for sponsoring this chaos. Can't see. All right, so let's get this going. We put up a survey starting this week to try and get a feel for the community at large of you guys.

We got a survey. You get a feel for who's watching, where they're watching it from, what kind of future merch ideas you might want to see from the show, and just want to get a scope of what the critter base is, where it comes from, and how many of you are out there. If you get a chance, if you haven't yet, go to geekensundry.com slash CR survey. We're running it until April 18th, so get on there and let us know about you. About you, man. It's pretty short, and you can do it during the break. Maybe.

I did it in a minute. Yeah, it's pretty short. It's pretty easy. WonderCon is in two days for us. It's this weekend in Anaheim. We're going to be there Saturday at 2 PM to 3 p.m at the arena to do our Toxomachnobacter Live panel with a bunch of us up there. With delivery coffee for Talison. During the shot.

Look, great. Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Eric. But yeah, so if you're coming, go ahead and check it out. Go ahead and check it out. If you can't be there, that's okay. I think we're filming the panel, I think. Yeah, it'll get put up in a later time. Yeah.

It is going to be aired during Tox Machina this week in place of our normal show. That's right. Thank you very much. You get to see the full panel in its entirety. We look forward to seeing you guys there in a couple days, so yay. Wednesday Club, tell us a... Yeah, we don't actually have a... That happened. We don't actually have a subject yet. We're going through and taking suggestions from...

Twitter and from the chat room. But we will have that probably figured out, I'm going to guess tomorrow and probably a graphic on Monday, but Wednesday, 12 to 2, we're talking comics, and it's going to be fun. So we'll just come and join us and we'll chill. Talking comics. Talking comics. Great. Yeah, it's nice. I also want to mention the show Roundtable. It's up on Alpha if you want to check it out.

Me, Eric, Matt Colville, Adam Cobble, Mark Humes, Satine, Phoenix, T.J. Stee, Phoenix. a bunch of really amazing, talented GMs from all different walks of life, all just talking about different themes, about gaming, tabletop gaming, and what it means community, what it means philosophically, what the experiences can be improved or lessened by. It's a lot of great conversations. If you get a chance to check it out, I recommend it. I'm on a couple of them. Signal Boost has a ringtone, if I recall, right? They released a ringtone. As well as.

As well as, so you can now get our theme song as your ringtone on iTunes. We also released a free screen saver that you can download based off of the old Flying Toasters. After Dark, yeah. After dark, yeah, Flying Toasters. We're still waiting for the Winnamp

The Winnap skin was canceled, but we're working on it. Working that one. But yeah, we... Just because we thought it was funny. That's how we choose to spend our free time as releasing three screensavers. Yes, so go do that.

Awesome. Thank you, Marisha. Want to pass along Will Ferdell, our good friend here, who plays Cash, Keshaw. He's going to be at the Wales Comic-Con in the UK, April 8th and 9th. So a bunch of UK critters, if you want to go to Wales Comic-Con and say hi to Cash and tell him how much you like him

and his body of work as well as his awesome role playing on the show. Go do it, because he's awesome, and you should go do that. Me, Marisha and Talison, actually, were just announced for a Momocon this year, May 25th to the 28th in Atlanta, Georgia. So if you guys over in the Georgia area or willing to make the journey, we'll be there at Momocon doing panels and signings and all kinds of fun general hangout stuff. So come see us there. And last but not least, a reminder talks Mocking Night is Tuesday nights at 7 p.m. Pacific

here, where our wonderful Brian Wayne Foster brings us in in chunks with occasional members of the community to talk all things nerdy and critical related. So come check it out on Twitch or Alpha. He brings us in chunks. That was phenomenal. He brings this in chums. He's murderous. Very murderous. Yeah. I like to leave it, you know, vague, open to interpretation.

He's very shark-chummy. So I'm here for guys. Charnel. And that, I believe, is the end of our announcements. No, I have one last announcement. Shit, no, Liam! I would like to announce that my father is hiding six feet away from me over there out of my Skype window,

girl very high in his stealth. And while he may not understand what my career is, he believes that I have one. Thank you, Liam. Amazing. We've accomplished a lot tonight. I'm glad we can do this together. Alrighty. So without further ado, let's dive in

to tonight's episode of Critical Role. Season on the roundtable. Cheers. And welcome back. So, picking up where we left off last week, Vox Machina and tying up loose ends after the end of the chroma conclave in the completion of Kielis Arremente,

they knew that there was out there somewhere in the Hells, an infernal being a Rakhoshas and Hodes that they had encountered previously in the past and was going to eventually claim vengeance on them if they did not get to it fast. As such, through the research, they found that it most likely seemed to reside on the second layer of the Hells, Diss, ruling under Dispader, one of the arch devils,

And after gathering your materials, doing a bit of prep, you transitioned into the actual plane of the Nine Helze of Bator, into the city of Diss. Upon wandering the streets and trying to blend in through various alterations to your physical forms, you eventually found your way to, after avoiding a couple of possible confrontations in the street, to a tavern-like location where you decided not to you decided not to to order the meats that were being devoured by a couple devilish entities, and instead the other thing. Which involved both Tarian and Keyleth having their first taste of soul. And then eventually Percival on the way out too. You encountered the owner of the establishment, a dark-haired, red-skinned, horned gentleman,

wings folded against his back, who was eager to eager to rent you a place to stay for the time being. And you guys decided to figure out what your plans were. At which point, Freddie and Greg, Percival and Grog, went downstairs to have a conversation with this entity where they revealed himself them named Ibkesh and was interested in possibly working out a sort of a criss-cross quid pro quo type negotiation

with your team. After returning to discuss the possibilities of this up in your chambers, Keeleth made her way out to locate the possible location of HOTUS as a workaround. As she exited the front exterior of the establishment and went to an alleyway to attempt to transform, she found herself followed by a chain devil and some sort of a somewhat scarred and mutated-looking dwarf. They confronted you. you and were asking about their interest in the white one, speaking about one of your companions, Vax, who had taken on the form of an albino teafling

when you entered the plane. We left off at a tense moment, and that's where we pick up this week. As you stand in the dark and shadowed, uncomfortably hot air in the center of this alleyway behind these buildings, crushed in these very thin spaces with what looks to be a thinning exit behind you, and these two devilish entities, or devilish entity and some sort of a messed-up dwarf

kind of beginning to flank you with what looks to be grotesque murder or thrill of coming pain in their eyes and faces, what do you want to do? Because you are alone. Can I talk her way out of it like she always does. I have a panic attack is what I wanted to. All right, fuck me.

Okay. It's a good way to start. Don't fuck this up. Don't fuck this up. I am going to continue with my original plan. I can't get in cotton mouth. And I'm going to slowly start from the top down, transforming, forming.

Wow. Shut up, Sam. What are you using? This is rough already. Are you using alter self? No, and I use shape change. So you're casting shape change? Yes.

Okay. So as they begin to- Right, because I can't alter self into an errands. No, you cannot. But you did not quite cast shape change last time. Right. We had spoken. So you're doing it now.

So I'm doing it now. Okay. So as they both begin to kind of slowly flank from the sides of the alleyway and you're holding your ground, insisting that this white one they're asking about, belongs to you, they didn't seem to buy your attempt at claiming territory. So you begin to mutter the incantation beneath your breath, your hands move, and you watch as you do so,

the chains of the chain devil begin to shh, kind of begin to continue to grind and shift around it like a hundred serpents of grinding metal. And the dwarf figure, she kind of being sauntering up on the other side with this heavy limp as you watch the flesh kind of tearing with small tendrils kind of revealing beneath, like a series of worms or almost emerging from various folds and gashes in the flash of the arm. You complete your shape change spell as they're pulling it on you. What are you turned into? In Aaron, yes. Oh, shh. Okay. What's that? What's the... What's that?

It's that thing that we fought in the city of brass? Yeah, yeah, challenge level 12. So you can do that. Okay. There was like the devil that we fought and then... Even with 15. Yeah, the one that the one that the pitch Feen Semen next to it. So you have actually encountered it, so you can't do that. That winged biage. Mm-hmm.

So as... Yeah, the one that you squared up against with for most of the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As you finish the incantation, your skin goes to a pale white. Your eyes becoming dark, deep red with these little burning golden coals for pupils. The rest of your skin grows fair but thick with a very, very fine series of scales across it, as these giant, black red wings emerge from your back and unfold. As they extend past you in both directions,

kind of enveloping both sides of this alleyway, both the chain devil and the dwarish entity kind of stopping their tracks and take a couple of steps back, looking at you intensely. You know, I never did catch your name. What do they call the two of you? Make an intimidation check.

With advantage. Ooh. That's good. Because you are, you are, You look like a higher-ranking devil. You got this. You got this? You got this.

Oh, I'll take that 18, and I think my intimidation's an eight. No, it's seven. So 25. 25. Yeah. Wow. So as you asked for their name, the chain devil, the chains begin to slow and come to a halt,

and what was originally curling upward in this aggressive stance began to just fall limp to its sides. and just takes another step back. No need to worry. We apologize for the intrusion. Are you sure? Because I would love to know, maybe add you to the collection.

The chain devil kind of bows its head and begins to step back and you see it ushering its hand this way towards the dwarf, the dwarf, which is kind of looking confused, and begins to hobble backward, and they both just back out of the alleyway in a very submissive, apologetic physicality without even saying a word.

Oh, what's the matter? Where are you going? Just, I'm just, I turn around. And I just start walking cool. But I'm cool. Yeah, I can fly. But that's also, this is a concentration spell. Yes, it is.

So I can't do what I, okay, so I'm gonna, as I kind of, is anyone looking around? Anyone looking around right now? Make perception check. 22. 22. You glance up and right on the edge of one of the three to four story curved iron towers, you see what appears to be an impish-like creature perched on the end with what looks to be faint shimmering gold armor that she's peering down at you from the top of the alley.

I look at it. It doesn't react. It's any kind of twitches a little bit. It just sets back in itself looking at you. Its eyes, look these gleaming black, shining, shining disks in the darkness. And I start heading back towards the tavern. It just watches you. As you exit the alleyway from where you came, the two devils that attempt to do assail you there,

no longer anywhere in sight. Before I round the corner, I want to just take and do a quick shape change again to the T-Fling that I was. Okay. As your form changes as you turn the corner, into the tavern. You enter the tavern. go upstairs to the rest of the group.

Nice. Did you pee on your group. Okay. Okay. What happened? How to go? How to go? I didn't make it far.

You ate the meat, didn't you? Well, how far are we talking about? I made it around the corner, and the two devils that seem to be very interested in UVACs cornered me. Um. Heep. Huh?

Huh? In me, why? I have a feeling it has something to do with your deity. Right? Your deity? Why? I think they can tell the Vax is special. I think he has value down here. You have value?

It's the first time hearing about it. Trust me. They were, they said they were in. interested in the white one, and I couldn't help but notice that you were turning quite a few heads when we were walking through the town. Well, do you think that's because of the Raven Queen, or is it because of the choice of appearance I picked? I mean, we've met an albino Teeflin before. It didn't seem like that outlandish choice. I don't think it has anything to do with the way you looked. I'm not entirely sure. They didn't react, do they react strangely to you

when we came into the bar? But I noticed, no. So does that mean he has to change again now? No. No. I don't think it matters what he turns into, I think people will be able to tell the aura that he carries with him.

Like a process of a demination, like he changes and then we know what it is a lot. I think it's actually very impressed that it is actually a process of divination, technically. Yes, some sound reason. Somehow you want it right back to it. Don't lose your wits down here, it's really important. It's just an extra wrinkle into a larger problem.

So what's the mood now? Well, I can do this for about another 55 minutes. Before we'd have to sleep before I can do it again. Do we have to go anywhere? Are we late to any appointments? I forgot what it was you left to go do, actually. She was going to research the notion of other options other than dealing with the deal we have downstairs.

I was gonna see if I could get a beat on where HOTUS is. Oh, but guys, check this out. This is what I freaked him out with. And I go back into the air and yes form. Watch the wings. And full of skin on the table. Check it out. Check it out. It's pretty hot right.

That is amazing. It makes my voice a little smoky when I'm down here too, right? I know. What are you right now? I'm in Aaron Yes. How do you spell that? Don't you take that down? Aaron yes. E-R-I-N-Y-E-S.

Erin N-S. Erin, like Aaron, yes. Yes got yes bait right in. Well, do you still want to look into other options, or do we want to just, we could take the deal, we could reverse the deal. Well, you said they left you alone once you changed into that thing. Yes.

So why didn't you just keep going then? Well, we're changing into this thing. meant that I had to drop concentration on my locate creature spell. I can only concentrate on one thing at a time. It gets, especially this, it's a lot to mentally focus on. It's very impressive.

You know, in my readings of this place, the hells, of any hell, really, they typically are, at least in literature, reflected as horrible places where lots of bad things happen wherever you go. So having a deal to, presented in front of us that is not horrible, is, I think, a pretty winning deal. I mean, I feel like we're already ahead of the game if we are not being actively murdered during

the course of events. I would also like to point out that the definition of research in this instance is just reading the notes that I took last week, reading and doing actual research. I do my own reading, thank you. You did. You did reading of the notes I wrote. Well, then I guess we're in accord. Yeah, don't you like, brainy buddies just like exchange notes every day anyway?

Of course. I don't feel like I should have lost that one. I noticed, just let it go, Percy. I noticed we're being watched, I think, at every turn. There was a little imp guy watching me when I came in. Was it actually an imp? Imps are very common. Everyone's being watched.

It's a city under surveillance. We saw an imp back in Creaks house. Would it look like that? Gold armor? Was that one in Creggis? I did not have Gold Armor, the one that you saw. Which one did we see? Was it just, I don't.

The bastard in a library in Cregg's house. Technically it wasn't in Kriegs house. That was in Father, what's the character? It was upstairs in the... Yeah, it was the first, when you first came to Amman, it was the ally to your father of Axe. Oh. That's right.

Oh shit, that's right. Your dad. And he was the one that was found slain, or was in the process. are being killed by entities. That's right. In the basement. Yeah. Oh my god, that was a long time ago.

The slaying, right? The slaying was in the basement, but the imp was in a library upstairs and the house. Yes. And he was just a little prick. I forgot about that. I kept a ring off that demon that we killed. It's in the bag of holding.

Wait, did you really? Yep. Oh, get that. Can I get that out? Get that out. Why? What do you want? It might be useful. Yeah.

I'll trade you something for it. Percy. My glasses. You're... You, you, I'm not gonna fall for that. The joke was worth the ring alone, I would imagine. We're gonna give it back, we just wanna see it. So that big demon, they like body slam me

on that spike, piece of shit. I took this ring off of his finger forever ago, and I kept it. I take it out. Let's have a look. I'll cast Identify on it. Okay. The ring has no specific magical properties it, but it is a signet of some kind. There is a symbol on it. Roll a religion check, actually.

Can I aid with a history or religion as well? 19. Can I help with him? History or religion? This would be religion. All right. That's one of the oldest things in this bag. Yeah. There's only one other thing that's older. I'm 11 on top of that. Okay. That's the one thing that's older?

It's an onyx statue that we found down in the... cell that you were in. That he was in, yeah. All right, so looking at this, the two of you both conjecturing at it, the symbol here is one that you picked up specifically in the tone you did research earlier. It's the symbol of Asmodius.

It is the symbol of Asmodius. I would have been instantly recognized at this point. Asmodius, I was going to say that as well. Of course you were going to say Asmodius, because it's like written six times in my notes. I'm literally staring at a sketch of it in my notes. I feel like we're sympathetic on this. Can we use it?

Is it like something that'll get us like, Backstage pass to an audience of some kind. I'm going to take a long look at this thing. Is this some sort of mark of, is this a marker? It's like some sort of favor marker? Is this a signet of stature? Is this a, you don't just put this on anything. It's mine, don't forget.

It seems, from the best you can tell, make an intelligence check, actually. All right. I should probably assess. Yeah, please. Yeah, me too. Oh, yes, please. We got two natural ones.

13. Did you really? Yeah. It's a nose ring. I think it's a contact lens. I think that it is in fact a some sort of, I don't know what it's a napkin ring. As far as you guys got, it looks pretty damn important. It's the only thing you can estimate from it.

Let me see if I can. and I can get something out of it. That's fine, I don't care. Can I scry on it? Like scry and see if it shows me something? Objectscrime? Let's see. Is that a thing I know?

I mean, if you focus on an item, you can use the item to try and improve a scrying attempt if you're looking for a specific individual or location. I don't think we want to have. But I think the scrying spell directly allows you to. There is a spell that does that, though, object history. Yeah, we don't have that. If you're curious.

The person who belonged to is dead. We killed him. The symbol on this object, though, is more or less the ruler of this dimension, so it could be useful for something. Why don't we keep it handy, no pun intended, and we'll just flash it if we get in trouble and see if that helps us.

I was actually thinking the same thing. I don't understand how it was. It's a ring. I said handy. That's a stretch. I'm very literally. I don't think that really... I caught it. I'm sorry to say.

Well, are we taking this deal or are we not? Are we doing it all? Greetings adventurers. Spring has sprung here in Los Angeles and that means it's a brief period where it's only 75 degrees instead of 95 degrees. I'll take it. And that means I've been outside a lot more. Walking around, occasionally galloping after a toddler hopped up on juice boxes, traveling a bit, you know the vibe.

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did have sparkly gold armor. He may be like an important imp. I'm just saying, I feel like everyone's here wanting to make a deal. It might be good to talk to others. Vex, you're being awfully quiet. What are you thinking of who should do now? Yeah, Vex.

Vex at this point, he's kind of watching the whole thing. She goes, well, I'll be perfectly honest. I haven't heard much detail about this deal that you apparently seem to make. What do we make of the deal? Under this establishment we're staying in,

works for a man he doesn't like. It's curious what would happen if he wasn't working for that man if he was suddenly, for reasons, unavailable. And for that, we would probably be arrested if we dealt with it inappropriately and we would be in a position to make our enemy accessible, I suppose. We have to be a bit cagey.

There are our ears apparently everywhere. All right. I mean, even here. I feel like we don't need to make a deal to go murder someone to get arrested. Once we're- I feel like I could just go streaking in the street and just say words and we would get arrested.

As actually could, that's true. Strangely, you get excited by that plan as I am. Why do we need to, the guy, hey, do me a favor, commit this crime and then suffer the apt consequences. Yeah, but Keylet once we're in the prison, he's supposed to like shuffle us in. in, you know, on the low low.

Can I read us out? Yeah. Well, where we need to be, not necessarily out never came up. Out never came up. You're our out. So. We leave all of this behind once all that's dead. Then why do we need him as our inn?

Because we have no other plan at this point. At this point we have no other plan. You were supposed to go find something, but you got followed by demons. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. I could do. attempt something similar, potentially with kind of a higher level's version of my

locate creature spell, which is spying the path, which could get us close, potentially. What if the guy he wants us to kill is like a real piece of shit? They're all pieces of shit. Everything down here is a piece of shit. Does anybody have a problem with that? It's just like, you know, piece of shit, and he's gone. The only problem I have with it, and the only reason I'm even being vaguely, hesitant about any of this is because they're all pieces of shit, including the one that we're making any sort of bargain with. And they are professional bargainers, and I know we're missing something.

We kill him too. It's a lawful, evil dimension. If he wants his boss dead, that means that there's going to be someone else above him. If we kill one guy, who's all going to want to kill us? Did he ask like a decision by a certain time? I don't recall, so. I said, I said I would have it within a day or so. Yeah, you said it fairly promptly. Well, fuck, we've got a day. Let's go explore, see what we can find. And if we're going to decide to trust him,

we could also show him the ring and see what he makes of it. Not the ring, God, not the ring. I mean, I totally forgot about that ring and turn out. He's literally still holding it in his hand in front of your face. What will you do with it? Me? I'm gonna wear it.

All right. Yeah. Does it fit on any of me, me, giant? giant Oscemaier fingers. It fits part way down your pinky. Yeah! But it gets caught at about the first knuckles. I was thinking he won't Jimmy Dean,

but that works out well. Oh my gosh. Wow. It's like you and declares. Property of Asmodius. Asmodius. Asmodius. This never ends well.

Let's forego disguises. Oh, wait, yeah. We're going to just drain ourselves the more we pretend to be something we're not. And obviously, it's not helping us not attract attention. Vax, you got any problem with that? I mean, I don't know what the deal is with the people who are interested in me.

I can't tell if one's better or worse. But we're just gonna go waltz out in a town and see what happens. Is that the idea? Well, we could, Keelith could keep her wings armor and they'd be probably, possibly less likely to question any of us if we're walking around with someone of reasonable stature. If I might remind you for 50 minutes now at this point, right?

So then we're all dead. Yeah, then we're all dead. Well, we just, it's like curfew, we have to be home longer 50 minutes. Do you have like a magic jock strap you can rip off and change into something? I've already done that. We're all teaflings because of me. Not me, bitch. Well, you're abnormal.

You're abnormal. Oh, thank you. Kiki, the prison that you saw, did you get any idea for how big it is? The what? The prison that we need to break into or get arrested and pulled into. I didn't see how big.

It seemed immense, and like it was probably pretty big underground, but I can't be for sure. I would say it would be safe to assume that a prison in hell would be so big that there would be sayings such as, as big as trying attempting to fill a prison in hell. I feel like this is just, I think we're like walking

into idioms at this point. But if this gentleman, if I may call him a gentleman, can escort us to the right cell block or whatever, that might be very, very handy. I don't want to spend any more time in hell than we have to. And as much as I usually hate employees revolting against their employer, I feel like we've got a bird in the hand, so to speak,

and we should strike while the iron is hot if I can use many, many cliches all at once. Wait, wait for it? Wait, yes she is. Yay! Yay! What's going on? I was listening in the car.

We're about to say yes to the dress and go and follow this plan. It was the one. It was the one? Yeah. Do you want to take the contract and we go kill a big shit? guy and go to prison or do we have tried and take a day and see what we can find on our round without giving ourselves over to this arrangement. I don't want to.

We're going to kill the big guy. I kind of just, I kind of want to take the deal. Oh God, I'm in South African. Here you are. Oh God. Bex. What's your vote? Well, hold on. I've got one more spitball idea.

Vex. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That gate stone that we've used so many times, does that only work on the material plane. Well, here's the thing, darling. I gave the other gate stone to Scanlan.

Right. Right. It won't get us out of here, no. We don't have one. Would it take us off this plane, though, or not? It would take one person off this plane. It would take one person, and they have to be on the same plane of existence. So no, it wouldn't take anyone anywhere.

Basically, in shape. Even if we had one, which we don't. So that's a dead end. Also, I heard you guys talking about the guys with the gold armor. Oh? While you were standing two feet over? I was standing right here, I heard you guys talking about it. Yeah.

And those guys are the guards of the city. Those are the imps in the gold armor that we were warned about those guys. We were? Yeah. Well, why didn't you chime in before? Yeah. I couldn't speak up.

Well, I wanted to. I was fighting my nails really hard. We have a day or so. Do we, does anyone else think it, you know, we should maybe not take the first deal that presents itself in the first tavern we step into into the city? Does that not seem super convenient? I mean, what are our chances of walking around town

and going like, hey, that prison right, right over? I mean, frf, frf, frf, we got about 15 minutes, if we still wanna go. 45. And then also, if we want to get, you know, pinched and put into this prison, one of the chances that, you know, if we start shit here,

are we gonna just get killed in the streets, or dragged off? I don't know. It doesn't seem very solid to me, but I don't have any other idea. All right, Tom, for a vote. I agree. Terry, what's your vote?

I say we take this deal, kill that employer, and go to prison. Percy? Geez, Terry, gone straight gangster. Well, I just want to get the fuck out of here and go back home so I can enjoy some wine. Starting to crack in it. Percy, what's your vote?

I vote we take the deal. Keylet. What? Keylet. I think an extra day of walking around this could potentially save us years in hell. We don't need an explanation, Jesus. I say we take the deal at sundown.

Okay, Vax. We don't take the deal. I mean, I really don't see the harm and spending another day here and getting the lay of the land. Vex? I vote for another day here. All right. But if we don't find any leave.

I vote for taking the contract, me and Terry, that's three. That's three. I swing back. What, you swing back? I said I take the day. He said he wants the day. Yeah.

Bullshit. All right, we take the day. Well, Doty hasn't voted yet. Neither has Trinket. Oh, is Doty the senator embrace the other time? Maybe they should arm wrestle for it. I, maybe they should. Do it.

Do it. Doty. The gyfer is a bear. Arm wrestle that bear. And turn soresry and she goes, Tricket's arms don't bend that way. Tricket, you can do it. Just saunter's up and kind of looks up and then Doty

like kind of fogs up the metal for a second on the outside. Wait, I haven't chosen my dice yet. Choose your dice. Give her 35 minutes. Hold on, I just need a few. Just pick one. She needs a bucket of Vaseline, a feather, preferably from a dove, and 35 to 40 minutes.

Okay. Why is all my stuff in different order? All right, so the awkward, it takes roughly five or so minutes to try and bring one of the nearby tables over without burning the shit out of your palms that could possibly facilitate an arm wrestling match between a giant metal man and a grizzly bear. Oh, but wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Dode's not going to get any advantage on this because he's been leaning against a door, right? No, it's cooled off by now. Okay, good. So as it's all there, the giant metal man,

Trinket comes up. Did your whole body into a Trinket? Trinket, not really, Trinket doesn't grasp. Trinket just goes, and just as like a claw strike at his hand, because that's what a bear does. And so the giant open palm of the automaton gets slammed by the strength of Trinket's claw, and this is going to be the one way or another

the fastest arm wrestling match you've ever seen. I need you to go ahead and roll the 20 at Trinket's strength modifier. Trinket's strength modifier. On Trinket. Come on, Trinket. Do it. Either way I'm entertained. I know.

You just do nothing but winners. 14. Roll between and add Doty's strength modifier. 10. The bear's claw goes full swing. Doty's arm kind of gets thrust back and almost seems to pop out of the socket briefly. If we're, pops it back in.

I must wage a complaint that was not a regulation arm wrestling match. They did not have elbows down. They don't think a bear has an elbow. It's not my fault that you didn't design your robot bear to have arm joints. He's a real bear. I haven't seen any evidence of that. Drink it.

Go pee on him. Good body, right there. Please don't. I rust in many places. Right there. Just very large looming bear just looms up towards you. Do you do anything? I don't. I'm scared of the bear. As the feeling of ever so slowly trickling, warm urine

soaks the right side of your armored leg, Trinket's nose kind of slowly brushes up against the side of your ear and face. It just, flicks the side of your head, and then the last little bits of trickle end, it turns around and lumberes back towards Vex. How's that? Did that seem mean enough? Which, by the way, there's now a,

it's starting to actually kind of sizzle. Oh, that smells really awful. I'm sort of. You have to make a point in the room we're sleeping in. I think if we're going to go outside and take a look around, I think now is the time to do it. All right, let's go. Do we want to show our friend downstairs our ring?

No, we can show him later. All right. So you guys. Do you want me to be Papa? You like a moment, come on, I abandoned us. How's that going? Eject, eject! Speaking in touch.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. All right, she's gone. It's been a long week. Do you want a what? They would never believe if you come in. Do you want me to be the Aaron Yes? Oh. Yeah.

All right. If you feel it start to fade, we'll find some cover and let you... Do my thing? Do your thing. I don't think that anybody here is necessarily against duplicity. I just think they're against duplicity against them, whomever they serve. Oh yeah, but can you be the Aeron S and locate thing at the same time? No.

No. Oh, but I can... Oh. But not people. Does it work the same? Does it work the same way? Would a HOTUS eggball kind of be an object? Nope.

Like a poker ball. Like a poker ball. What's there? Would a prison be an object? Kila, just be you, don't be your shame. It's location. What about the prison door outside of Hodes' room? You haven't seen it.

Sure, I got 30 minutes left of this ninth level spell. We'll pop it out if we need. Yeah, if somebody comes up to you and thinks you're not, and then you gotta like talk. She's her own person. It's not like she looks like any other one. Right? You could locate.

I look like, I like. Like just like her? I currently look like that. Hot. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she's full mystique. She can pretty much do it all at this point.

That's true. I can do it all. So what's the form we take? You're gonna do it? He's right. I'll just take my regular T-Fling form. Okay. For now.

So you guys gather your things. But the rest of us are normal, right? Because we don't have older self anymore. Correct. So if anyone asks, we belong to her. Correct. Got it. Not me.

Round for 30 minutes. All right, point 30. Very expensive. All right, so as you guys make your way down into the main chamber, there's one more devilish entity that's in the process of feasting on what looks to be a small cauldron and some sort of broken bone and dark purple and bluish flesh, and it's just kind of tearing into it. As Ipkesh is at the same table where you guys previously spoke with him, he's sitting there with his same glass of wine, and as you approach, he kind of gives a nod towards you, and he

has a piece of paper on the table. Is this just a peruse? He slides it forward. Have a read. See if it's up to your preference. May I? I will give you the piece of paper, actually. No, let's mime it. Comey. I was really enjoying It's a miming reading. Oh my god, it's so long.

It's a contract. Oh, my God. Oh, shit. It's super, super long. I'll be fine, I can do this. Really? Okay, no. Well, carry on. Let's walk about while we do this. I will read out important things.

Oh, I can't walk with this, can I? No, you have to leave this on the table. Give me page two. Oh, well, fuck it's long. Oh, well, fuck is long. On greeting the same conversation, rounds upon the first package to describe. You already signed.

Can I roll my dice while they're reading a contact? Sure. No. No. Percipit to the film and the point of Overtray and the second and third part of fact. I can actually follow this. Thereafter, there's verbalist, you are an evil person.

It's like the CPA minigame or Fox Machina up. I just want to update my iPhone. Jesus. I know, poor shit. Kind of, yeah. Would you like for me to read the contract out loud? No. It's so long.

It's not fucking long. There's like. Well, you read too much out loud. We will read it out loud. I feel like we should get it out loud. This contract binds the scribe and recipient into a deal of chosen escalation for an unending period of time. All this contract is voided by an agreement on the part of both parties. Upon agreeing to and signing this contract, the recipient is bound to their agreed obligations and parameters within the first pact, as is described.

Upon completion of the agreed obligations and parameters on both sides of the initial pact, the first pact is considered complete and concluded. The contract as a whole remains until the predetermined period of eternity, allowing the recipient, should they feel inclined to invoke end trigger the second or third pact, any time thereafter through verbal acceptance and relative proximity of this contract. The obligations and parameters agreed upon within the second or third pact, then become binding and immediate to be fulfilled on part of the both parties within an agreed-upon period of time. Upon completion of the agreed obligations and parameters on both sides of the second or third pact,

that pact is considered complete and concluded. This contract remains in effect through all packs and thereafter maintaining any agreed upon specifications and obligations that remained outside of a pack's completion for eternity. Any violation of this contract on the part of the scribe immediately holds this contract null and void, requiring a penalty payment of 15,000 gold pieces to the recipient to be paid immediately. Any violation of this contract on the part of the recipient immediately locks the claim and ownership of the everlasting soul of the recipient. of the recipient, invoking the laws of this pact primeval under the control of dominance of the scribe for all eternity, sending the soul of the recipient immediately upon death to the scribe to do it as they see fit.

Yeah. First pact. The scribe, your name, Ibkesh, agrees to enable safe passes to the depths of Mentiri, specifically the bastion of flesh unharmed, the bastion of flesh. The recipient, your name here, agrees to be the instrument of assassination leading to the death of, oh, to gosh, or should name I will not say out loud, the herald of something I will not say out loud, with the revealing or leaving of evidence that could connect or incriminate the scribe in an act or reasons for the act.

Second pact. The scribe Ipkesh agrees to immediately conjure forth a cadre of devils in service to the recipient. That's us. Whom shall remain under the command of and dedicated to the protection of the recipient for the duration of the duration of one. One month we get a cadre of devils. The cadre shall include four hamatula and a single Osuloth. Should any devils bound within this agreed upon cadre be slain outside of Bator? They are absolved of future service to the recipient. The recipient, our name here, agrees to introduction and installation of at least two chosen of Despater who have been selected by the scribe within a place of divine worship of

the scribe's choice. The recipient must not interfere with this installation upon completion and any interference will be considered a violation of contract. Third pact! The scribe, if Ipkesh agrees to immediately impart the recipient with knowledge of ancient power beyond their grasp, enabling the use of divine powers granted under the grace of Lord despater that can instantly restore themselves or allies to a healthy state. Ooh, we get health knowledge or rend the life force from their opponents. He's giving us magic. At one cost. These powers remain within your possession until

death. The recipient, that says, agrees to immediately lock the claim in ownership of the everlasting soul of the recipient, invoking the laws of the pact's primeval under the control and dominance of the scribe for all of eternity, sending the soul of the recipient immediately upon death to the scribe to see as they foresee. We're selling our soul. Well, not necessarily. My favorite line, this contract as a whole remains until the predetermined period of eternity. That's my favorite. In theory, only one person has to accept the contract.

Yes. Right. To lock this in, you only agree to the first pact. And when the first pact is complete, you do not have to trigger any of the other pacts. The contract remains in effect. Should you ever decide to trigger the pact, it immediately comes into play. So second pact is we get a bunch of devils and they get to install to, and in place of divine worship,

to be determined. Third pact is we get all sorts of devil magic in exchange for our souls. So we're probably not going to do those pacts. Just don't do those. Why? So like we went in to buy a car and he's also offering us a condo and land in Florida at the same time. In perpetuity though. In perpetuity, though. Yeah, in perpetuity. So you don't have to decide now on the other pacts.

But at some point down the road, if you're ever in a situation where you're like, oh shit, we're all about to die. I invoke the second pact, boom, you get a bunch of devils to help you for the next month. Wow. Is that really cool? You're like, go, Wipkish. I take that second pact. You invoke the pact. You invoke the pact.

So the second pack is we get a bunch of stuff, but we have to do what it agrees to instructing the installation of at least two of the children of the... We have to take two devils and put them in a place of holy worship somewhere in the world. Right. Okay. And then the third pack is our soul. Yes. Yeah. Two of assholes or all ars? One person has to sign the contract,

only that person's soul. Oh, that's not so bad. And the first pack, described in groups enabled safe passion of the depended, specifically bastion of flesh unharmed. I feel like that's a little thin. Do you say this in character? I feel like the first pack's a little thin.

There is room for negotiation. That's fair. If we have some time, I could summon my father's army of lawyers. Did they have a branch here? No, it would take them quite some time to arrive. But they've negotiated tougher deals. I was strangely hoping that your father's lawyers had a branch here. That would be...

Appropriately. I think they originated here, but then they moved to where I'm from for the tax laws. I suppose that is a growth industry. This is interesting. I'm going to think it over. I'm going to leave it, and we'll be back in the evening. Very well. Please. Return when you have a better idea of what you would like to see. Adjust it. And I will do the same. I thank you for your time and patience. He takes it and rolls it up and it vanishes below the table as you exit.

How do we know when it's evening here? Don't whisper here. Oh, sorry. How do we know when it's evening? Don't yell here. Don't know. I don't know. Can we ask him? How do we know when it's evening here? Does it get dark? It does not get dark. There is no evening here in this.

Of course. Of course. We're going to get mugged, don't we? I mean, I already got close. Well, let's take a look around. Does he seem to like notice or care that we're not the teethlings anymore? He has taken the scan of the group,

but he doesn't seem to be flinching. He is just there and eager to to talk some more. It's Vegas, man. He doesn't give a fuck. I think indifference is the common courtesy here to an awful lot. All right. So as you guys exit the establishment into the street, the heated cobble stone still glowing

a dull, maroon and black, you watch as what looks to be some sort of strange mist-like form emanates from a crack and turns into a screaming specter that's kind of and drifts further down the street past you. Lovely. They need a tourism board. Badly. What do you guys wish to do? What are we trying to do?

Find some other way? I don't know. We're just going to walk around and see if we can sense where this Bastion of Death is. The Bastion of Death is what we're trying to find. The Bastion of Death is... Flesh. Flesh is who he wants us to kill.

No. The Bastion of flesh is Is the safe passage to the Bastion of Flesh? That is what the contract enables you should you fulfill your part of you. Oh, so that's the prison we're looking forward. We also know. The Mentiary is the prison.

That's the part of the prison. The prison has parts. Tell people how much time? 25 minutes. 25 minutes. What can we do in 25 minutes? We could bastok a couple of people. Can I locate object on the Bastion of Flesh?

T-Cups. Not an object. It's a place. It's a location. What about snow codes? I'm gonna keep asking. It's 25 minutes until you're, Until your spell is dissipated, but once it is,

we can do locate person. Vex. Correct. I could also do find the path if I have a little piece of the prison. If we can get a little piece of the prison. No problem. What the fuck? What? I just need a little chunk of prison locked. If I just have a little piece of the White House, I could just write to it.

Hey, there are people who walk away with pieces of forests, beaches, all the time. They get there first, though, right? Where do you find those people just walking around? I don't know. Is there, look, like, an oddity store? Did you get asked? Would I have any last little bit of HOTUS grit or funk in my belly button or he shank me?

Yeah. No. I mean, unless you guys have anything in your possession from that battle, then, no. You had mentioned that you had a locate object spell. I do. Is there any object that this person were supposed to assassinate has that you have seen and know of.

Oh, this person? No, I don't know anything about it. No, no, I mean, the one that we came to the Nine Hells for, this, HOTUS. I mean, he had knives. He did have knives. That's the only thing I would remember. He had a cloak, didn't he not? He did have a cloak, but, I mean, last time we saw him, he was also a little writhing knives, right? You did, but also, but he was just like a cat baby wrapped in bacon with a tiger-skin hoodie.

I don't know if he would still have those items. No, the objects would not reform with him. He would reform without, all the material possessions that Hodas had on his body when you killed him were left behind. Does there look like there's like a weird oddity store or a dealer? Make an investigation check. I'm also getting in on that. I'm looking for anything about.

Like a costume. Natural 20. Never mind. Wow. Okay. All right. You don't ask around because... That's bad.

It's a bad idea. And you start getting the idea too, whatever's going down, and you get the stink eye, and you just turn in tough gaze and keep walking. Eventually, you come upon a facility of some kind that looks to be made of almost pieces of black and rusted sheet metal that's just kind of jammed together in a very patchwork fashion.

You don't see a doorway more than you see a triangular opening where the various interlocking pieces of metal aren't fully flush. And from the inside, you see a soft reddish-orange glow that flickers ever so gently. As you glance inside, you see a few kind of makeshift braziers that are flickering with reddish-orange fire and what appear to be some gleaming shelves, lining of strange glowing collections. Are we going in? I want to go in. What is any one?

Death the interior of the best in the flesh. As you guys enter. Hands in your pockets, Terry. I have no pockets. Shit. It's not Terry, it's we have to give them a name. Why? Everyone use code names.

Coddames. You're at. T-bone? You're at. What? You're at. It's your name backwards, right? Danny.

Whoa. Grog. What? How? Oh, it hurts. You take three psychic damage. Oh.

I'm attempting to think too hard. attempting to think too hard. He's writing it out. You're not punished for being too witty. That's so sad. It's amazing. Just a bit of blood trickles out of his right ear. Oh, gosh.

This is the you thing I've seen happen in the future. I feel like we have to call you you're at now. You're at. That's fine. I've been treated worse than this earlier today. It's on by Beth. Yeah, yeah, that's what I was talking about. He's back in my necklace, by the way. I assume you weren't walking with a giant bear right now.

What are we calling the two of you? Wode. You can call me Wode. Wode? That's... Wode. What? I guess I'm Wade. I'm never going for...

Wode and Wade? Wode and Wade. No, Bill and Ted. All right. Wode and Wade. My word. You're at. And you can't.

You can call me minksy. Minksy. Okay. And this is Greg over here. Greg. By the way, our 25 minutes is quickly taken down. Well, imagine this is happening quickly, right? This is happening quickly as we enter the shop.

Well, it's taking you all to find this place. You're about 10 minutes before your spells up. Oh, geez. Let's do this fast, fast, fast, fast. So as you walk, this is the only thing you've seen so far that looks to have any sort of loosely welcoming or not heavily guarded, don't come in or you'll get killed type exterior. As you enter the little bit inside, you see these kind of rickety-looking shelves that contain small glowing gems or crystals of different colors and sizes, like weird geodes that are cut from natural deposits, and across the way there's just a stool, and it looks to be some

sort of a humanoid creature that is slumped forward and breathing heavily, these elongated, kind of a dull, green color on the series of species of species of species of species of small spines that protrude from the shoulders and back. Spines? Yeah, like jagged, long, thin spines. And as you enter its head kind of turns up and goes, Wait. Yes.

We don't have a code name for him. Yeah, Freddy. Oh, Freddy, okay. You come to buy preties? Yeah, yes. No, what? Yeah. I'm looking for something specific.

What? What do you seek? Do you have any pieces, remnants, or items from the Materi prison, specifically from the bastion of flesh? No, go there. Why not? Because it is for fleshy types. It kind of nudges this long, jagged chin, this kind of gnashing teeth that are crooked and

overlapping, as it kind of spits as it speaks in your direction. Charming. Where is it located? We need in. And then I slowly start to shape change just for the air in his face, and I just kind of give like a flash of it. We need in, and you're going to help me, aren't you? Make an intimidation check. With an advantage.

Fucking hell. Literally. Yeah. Fucking hell. Oh! What is it? What is it? It's a 19, but it was almost bad.

plus seven, so 26. I do not know the nature of this city is to be rebuilt, always rebuilt, always changing. The urge devil, where is, is paranoid. Everything must not be the same as it was. I know not where it is, I know not where the bastion is, I'm sorry. Well, then how do people get around this?

The city you know. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies 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 and 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. 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 Happy Sad Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you can. get your podcasts. Those who are within, those who are under the guidance of the

prisons masters, they know. They know. And show them the ring of us modus. No, but she does. Oh, she does? No, I do. He has it.

Oh, I don't know. Has it? It's on his piggy. He went to Jared. He can only be Jarrett. I, I cannot have.

I don't. I know. I just kind of lowers his head in kind of a shameful worrying. You can see his knees are kind of quivering ever so gently. My good mistress, what do you think he is good for? Make an inside check. I feel like he is, but I just want to make sure. That's good.

26th. Okay. Legitimately, this creature is pretty pathetic as far as devils go that you've come across. in the threatening presence of an aryneyes that is asking for information it does not seem to have. It is legitimately awaiting a terrible demotion that it doesn't feel it earned. The mistress, the name and location of where to find the information that I need. I don't know. I don't know. Then who does?

I kind of like see him looking around Spasca's eyes or like shooting around the room at all of you and around looking at the geodes in different directions, almost like a weird iguana face. He has, he torture us chains. The chain devils. Well, I think we should allow this poor creature an attempt to redeem himself. What is it that you sell here that would please, our mistress? I sell pretty, I saw, pretty, pretty used for...

Please impress us. Often. He kind of stands up. Now, and this creature that looked so pathetic when it was squatting down on the stool with this long, thin, gollum-like leg as it stands up and is now head of height of good foot over most of the party. Gangly, the spine's extending from the back of the head

and the arms and the elbows as it stands up now, as it kind of slowly stalks over to one of the shelves and pulls off one of these strange purple geodes with various crystals jutting out of different sides, and it turns around and brings it forward. This carries pure, condensed soul, energy. Geodes robbed her from the fourth layer. As he takes it and holds it in front towards you,

you look inside and you swear within the slight glimmers of light that kind of shake through from the nearby brazier, you see almost dozens of faces pressed up against the crystalline interior shifting past, similar to that giant sphere that orb you saw being passed through the city when you first arrived. This is insulting. Skip the small stuff.

What have you got? This is what I've got. That's it. I'm sorry. And looks to you and looks back, Mistress, I have. Mistress, would you like one? What do you have that's unique?

Expensive is lovely, don't get us wrong, but we're looking for unique, odd. Yes, I had one of those for breakfast. I'm so proud of you right now. It lumberes over to this far corner, and there's like a pile of what looks like burlap and refuse and partially eaten, partially rotting away, chunks of flesh, and it's kind of rummaging through them

looking over the shoulder with a kind of a scatter. Look, and it pulls up what looks to be a long, decomposed and somewhat mummified, humanoid arm. The fingers are kind of locked up in this way, and there's like a small brass bracelet around the center of the wrist. Now you have our attention. What will you tell us about that? You hear it rattling against the bones, and as it kind of shakes it, part of the one of the fingers kind of snaps off of the poof of dust and hits the ground.

Sorry! Picks it up and is like trying to take, put it back on, but it won't go back on. It's like, You're at. Do the thing. I ritually cast, identify on the bracelet. Okay. The bracelet essentially acts as a divination beacon. It's attuned to another, a secondary device that can keep watch on this one. Apparently, whoever previously wore this was doing so under the intent of relaying their travel or experience to somewhere else and then met a very terrible end.

Oh, so it's useless to us. Maybe. Not everything you encounter is going to be useful, guys. Yeah, no, that's fine, that's fine. Well, it's to relay information back to whoever's wearing it or to him specifically. To whoever has the other objects paired with this, that you don't know. We found a single walkie-talkie. Yes, essentially. That can only...

Terry, is that thing working right now? Is it working right now? I detect magic on it? Is it still? It is magical, it is functional. As far as I know, someone is watching this right now. You don't know how old it is or how long it's been there, but it is magical.

Mistress, would you like this? We'll take it for good measure. Oh, really? Okay, sure. How much would you like for this? I just want this a souvenir for our visit. Yeah, I just want the one walkie-talkie that doesn't have a pair. I'm not going to pay for it. You're not gonna sell this, I want it.

Oh, Jesus. You can see the brow kind of furrow, and there's a moment of kind of instinctual anger and frustration like a kid who had his lunch money taken, but he still goes and sits down on the stool once more, the long knobby knees kind of almost adjusting up to shoulder height as it sits, its arms kind of draped over the front and the fingers dragging across the ground in front as it does

as it looks up. Take it. For when I take my claw, I erinous nail, and I go around his face, and I say, Consider this a good faith investment. You will be seeing us again, and I take out 20 gold. 20 gold.

He takes his good. I will be a favor. We hear you utter our description to anyone, and you will never see anything again. No. Oh, no, no. Don't we want the purple gum stop? No.

Why? We've got plenty. That's like coin around here, though. You might need it. Sure. His hands clasped together and overlapping in front of him. He's looking up at you with this kind of, this new grin, almost like now there's been a moment of acceptance

or a moment of some sort of in his eyes, a union. If you... Menions would like to buy the Purple Stone with your allowance. Once the mistress grants you, you may. How much for the pretty? Thanks so much, mistress. Perhaps you would like to shift back to your normal. You're welcome, young.

No. Wade. The creature's looking very confused, but nevertheless eager to listen. The purple. Yeah. That number does not please the mistress, I don't think, does it? There you go. $1,500.

Since you're gonna throw the sack, Wow. Awesome. And sets it down next to it, stands up, grabs and takes the Giot off the shelf and hands it to you. Thank you. Mistress is pleased.

Keep it that way. All right. Roll out. You have a . I'm taking everything to not say on a bottle. All right, as you guys step out of the facility into the center of town, you sense the final moments of your shape change spell

beginning to dissipate. And I kind of wanna- Before we leave, I wanna hang back just for a second. A, Slender Man, you seem a nervous type. You keep to yourself, do you? Maybe. Where would you not go to stay out from under the noses of your bettors?

I don't understand. You hide in your shop. Where do you avoid? So you don't get stepped on. And he kind of leans out of the door with you and points towards the iron tower. As you're about to leave, he grabs the back of your cloak and kind of pulls you in. Points past your shoulder, his long, kind of, you know, jagged, curved claw. And you notice as two more of these flying entities that kind of scoop by one of them perching on a building across the way wearing the golden armor

gonna stop and goes, the whisper, and then pushes you back out of the street, and you hear the shifting of metal behind you as a large slab is shifted to close the front of the shop. I use alter self to go to my T-flame form. All right. I wanna keep an eye out for all of those amps and gold. Okay, make reception check.

24. 24. 24, okay. Okay. Between the two of you, I mean, looking up, there are, at the peripheral of your vision and the bits of the green ash clouds that make up the sky and through the occasional flashes of lightning streak through and from within, you see the shadows of hundreds of flying entities that seem to be just running paths, keeping watch. Many just kind of stop and perch for a moment glancing over the street and then take off again. Many of them wearing the same golden armor, these whispers

to be everywhere and watching everyone. But they're not paying us special attention at all. You're what? There are a handful that seem to be genuinely interested in keeping an eye on you, but you also see other ones that are genuinely keeping an eye on anyone else wandering the street. So the man on top has cast a wide net over this city.

It seems that way, yes. To know, yeah. As we start, are we walking back towards the tavern? As we walk, I kind of take a slightly different route back, just to try and see more. Yeah. So it seems one of the lesser devils who is interested in Vax might be our ticket in.

Chain guys. The chain guys. Can you scry him since you've seen him before? That's a good idea. Yeah, I guess I could. Let's scry ourselves a chain devil on our walk back. Wondering, worst case scenario, we could always use you as bait. Vax?

Uh, woad. Sorry, woad. Woad. Wode. Thanks, Wade. It's cool, bro. Party on Wode. Party on Wade. Let's cry.

We get back to the tavern. Yeah, it's a ritual. You have to like, snap. All right. So you head back in your service. scrying on the chain devil you saw before. Mm-hmm. Okay. Any chance who'll see you doing it now?

Oh, is he a no? Yeah. Who cares? He might, yeah. Oh, now we're carefree. Oh, good. I love it. Well, to be fair, I feel like he's getting me. These people are, and they're used to being watched. That's true.

What's your spell DC? 20. It's from here. Let's say. Mm. Okay. You finished the ritual, and as you focus, there's a flash of red hot energy in your eyes, and then the spell comes to an end.

God. Is he like HOTIS? Damn it. Oh, it's like... Did you zero in? I hate it when that happens. It's like a flash bulb going off in your eye. Oh, bastards.

Oh, Christ, I can't. That's it. That's all I got for the day. That's it. I got fourth level spells and lower. Bals. What is the Vasselage? That is a good question. Whelp.

Oh, they open, we went up to the room, right? Yeah. Yeah. Does anybody want to try the meat stuff downstairs? No. No. Why? I feel like it's human remains.

But you don't know. It doesn't look appealing to me, girl. I have a very active imagination when I eat. I don't. I'll be right back. I'll go downstairs. Okay. You head downstairs.

I'm going to accompany, girl. Okay. As the two of you head down, you can see there's that, the one, One central table to the kind of left, western side of the room has almost like a trough look to it with the jagged edges. Yep. Currently has four imps that are perched on the edge that are just kind of tearing into bits, tearing it off and chewing, and they all kind of stop and look up at you all four of him at once as you walk down and they all just kind of slowly chew as you approach and

walk into the chamber. Are they wearing armor and armor? No, they're not wearing armor. Ipkesh is present, though not at the same table he was earlier. He's currently kind of at the bar area talking with his rotend bar keep. Hey, um, that stuff, right, like, did normal people have? Kind of like a little plate a bit. The, uh, the thick, greasy guy, kind of the sense, always, oh, yeah.

It looks over to Ikech, winks at you. Oh, in the house. Oh, that's very kind of you. See? Look, experimenting with new cultures is really quite, Nice. New texts, you know. What does it look like? Yay. It looks like, you know, Stey Tartar where it has that kind of purpleish-red color to it. Imagine that, but there's a series of jagged bone shards kind of sticking out sections of it. Like whatever it was carved off of had been pulverized before it was butchered. Tenderized. Yes. But with the bones still present within. And it is seeping this sludge

like bloody fluid that is just pulled around it on this like iron platter. Wode, would you want any of this? You know, I'm gonna watch, you go first, and I put my hand on its arm and say, let's just see how you do, and I don't take my hand off. Okay.

Okay, I'll take one of the little bones out, and I like kind of spoon together like a good chunk, like, you know, spaghetti on a fork. And I'll pop it right in. Okay. Well, there are no utensils. No, no, I'm using the bone as the utensils. Using the bone as a utensil? Okay.

So you spool it up, pop it in and chew. It's very gamey. It's warm. But the flavor, it's very iron-like. Like chewing on pennies. Kind of, yeah. And a similar texture. The bones do tear into parts of your upper lip. I mean, you've, it hurts. I'd say in the process of devouring this one bite, you do suffer,

you suffer two points of piercing damage. Fucking hell. Little by little grog. As you're chewing, Vax, you watch Grog kind of like, you know, kind of squinting his eyes a bit and chewing as you see bits of blood begin to dribble down the side of his chin, but a bright red color, not the color of the meat that he's eating. Right. Do I feel like high like Freddy did when he consumed the little orb of... No, you do not. You chew it, you swallow it, it kind of hurts and grinds its way down, hits your stomach. There is a slight kind of numbness to the inside as you eat it.

But that's the most you get... You're all right? You're feeling all right? Yeah, it really kind of fights back as you eat it. What's the act to say slight? It kind of tastes like if you took a bunch of rusty nails and then shoved them in your thumb and then sucked on that for a while. That was very specific. Have you done that before?

No, but I feel like you have. Have you not? Don't worry about it. Okay. Yeah, I'll have another bite. Oh. All right. You bite, by bite, begin to finish the meal. I'd say for the remainder of it,

You suffer another three points of piercing damage, but you do finish the flesh in front of you. He legitimately seems fine, he's all right, he's not, like veins aren't popping out, nothing amiss. Nope. All right. My compliments to the chef. His already kind of somewhat greasy, ruddy cheeks

go to a blushing smile. Oh, whoa, hey, thank you. That tasted like four-on. Okay, I'm good. Woad, do you want to go back up? Stairs? Yeah, I grab a small, just a small piece and put it in my mouth, and I spit it out immediately.

Yeah, it's pretty awful. Yeah. It's insulting. It's not for everyone, yeah. The cook is right there, literally. Sorry. Yeah, let's go back up. Okay.

All right, you guys have back up. So what's everyone doing? Geez, well, I feel like we're not getting very far in the city. the city. No. I say we take the contract. Yeah, yeah! I hate to say I told you so.

I'll take the contract. No. What? Percy. You are not taking this contract. I'm the one who's already touched by demonic forces. I think I can resist the temptations of the second and third pact. Cool.

And I think I know where to add to this. I think we need to demand a guide, and I think we need to demand safe passage out of the prison as well, and back to our original plane as best he can. Yep, that sounds right. I must request that I sign the contract. I can't let you do this.

All right. Seems fair. Yeah. Yacht, that is most noble of you. You truly are earning your places. Unless of course you want to. Are you sure you want to? You will be a hero to many.

Such a hero. I mean, I've never met a hero. Give them a pen. I. We don't actually have it with us. We'd have to go downstairs. But I will now. Okay.

So think, Freddy, I tend to believe more capable of resisting temptation, as you say. Sorry, you're at. I'll say, I feel my weaknesses in my heart, and I know where they lie, and I definitely know they exist. And I, the things, nothing in this agreement tempts me. I have temptations, but they are not in this conflict. Is it only because...

Besides, you have us around you, friend. Is it only because you've experienced these types of temptations before? I think so, and I'm already, I don't know what's going to happen to me when I die. Wait, so you were signing it now? I thought I was signing it. We were messing with you, but if you feel the urge to actually take it upon yourself... Well, I do think it might actually help me in my future. Part of it could actually help me. How so?

You would actually sell your soul. No, not that part. But I could use a cadre of devils at some point. And your soul would be forfeit? No. No. Actually, not on that one. Not that one. Not that part. No. We just have to release a couple devils into the material plane. How about no?

Yes. I agree. Holy shit. Can we please go sign this contract? I mean, we could. We're in the contract as I say we can't kill them as soon as we release them. I mean, you're at we're still easing you in. I, Freddie, has a little more experience than you than I think we can put. I'm not going to say that I'm never going to do anything stupid again,

and I certainly wouldn't necessarily want you to stop me if I were, but I'm not going to do this sort of stupid, am I? Percy, if you die though, doesn't this mean that you forfeit your soul here? I'm pretty sure it doesn't. If I die before it's finished. No, no, if you complete the third pact, then yes. You still live, but then when you die, your soul is.

But if I don't complete the third pack, well, if we don't activate the second or third pack, then I'm fine. Correct. Yeah, there's no problem whatsoever. And if by any means at any point you break the contract. Oh, yeah, if we do not, if we do not kill, if we do not kill who we're supposed to kill, or if it leads back to him, then I'm... So if you die in the process, you're fine? No, then your soul goes here. To be fair, we're already here. That was my question. Yes, but we came here willingly.

You could become one of those melty guys. You know, it's entirely possible that there'll be several creatures fighting over my body when I die, and my soul when I die already. I'll be one of them. Bless you. But no, seriously. I don't know who, I don't know what any of this means.

Percy, we've come here to try and kill a kitten, and it's already been a massive pain in our ass. We really don't want to come back to try and save your soul. Well, you'll already be here. So, don't die. Don't die. Hey, cool. It's not that clear of what would happen if I died

without completing the contract. I might just get dropped that. This is a conversation to have. So yeah, I'm going to go down, I'm going to sign it on. I'm going to go down with you. Talk about the revisions first. Always get those revisions first. We're doing it.

In a new printup. All right, so all of you head down into the main chamber of the tavern and they're at the same, returning to the table where he once You see Ibb Keshe, no wine glass, but the paper kind of folded out in front, waiting patiently with his hands kind of folded in the front. Some quick questions. Yes, please. I'll need a guide. Someone who, well, is not connected to you, can help us find our way through the city, find what we need, answer questions. Somebody with a little bit of the Leverland, somebody with a little bit of the Leverland, somebody,

to help, not with the actual act, obviously, but just to run us around. What happens to my soul if I die in the process of this? If the best of your friends complete the contract, your soul is fine. And if we don't complete the contract, then? If you don't complete the contract, you are in breach. Are they in breach or just me?

Just you. Perfect. Safe passage into the bastion of flesh once where they were on our own. Once you are there, you are on your own. However, I can ensure that you are brought there unharmed. With access to our foe. Can imagine that can be arranged?

Can it be arranged in writing? To the extent of my capabilities, yes. Just as you have limitations, as do I. I would be very pleased if we could complete this contract. If this contract becomes null and void, not with us getting to the bastion of flesh, but with our return to our plane, with our enemy. harmed. We get what we want, you get what you want. Not we get towards what we want,

you get what you want. But where in this is it fair for me to suffer for you stupidity? That is a question for the ages, isn't it? That we need on T-PATES. We can at least contain in the contract once our foe is dispatched that you will help us arrange passage, safe passage out of here. You'll help us arrange our own path. We will help us arrange our own pattern. We We have a way out of this material plane we just need to make sure that we're, is there anything in the prison that would not allow us to leave under our own power?

Not to my knowledge, no. Those chambers specifically reside within the Iron Tower. That's where they imprisoned the extremely dangerous ones. The bastion of flesh is where they keep all the living mortals that were captured on this plane and not yet fully corrupt. Do they take our possessions before we go in there? They would, however, if you so wish, I could arrange to have them maintained in your presence. That would be quite pleasing. As you do that, he grabs the paper and pulls it over

and just takes his finger and writes it across. As it does, it amends the words and the contract in front of you to include the guide to lead you to where you're going, as well as allowing your equipment to also, this is unharmed and unspoiled, and within your grasp. That will do. Do not have knowledge of whether or not

our magics will work in that prison. I do not. That's fair. Can I insight check in? You may. 24. Okay. He seems honest.

You get the sense here. He doesn't gain anything if you all fail. If you complete both sides of the contract and then he dies, he gets nothing. Right. So, if you were to escape, what was that? If an old woman was trying to talk to us to the chicken out.

But yes, so you get the sense that the purpose of this contract is in hopes of eventual corruption. That seems fair. I suppose the last question, and this is just just my last addemment is we own an artifact of this plane. We would like it, if possible, to be identified and for you not to speak to anyone of what we have or what it's worthwhile, and to keep our presence confidential as much as we keep yours confidential. Mutual confidentiality. I have nothing to gain by revealing your presence. Is there any way in this contract? we could add a clause where you pre-order

a thousand or so books to be sold by you here later. I can write up a different contract for you, if you like. No, well we can omit that part. That's okay, that's fine. I wanted, can I show him the ring? What? Grog, would you, Greg, could you please show him, I have to sign it with my own name, I imagine anyway.

Can you show him the, the... What you got? Jared. Your piece. Oh. Canellee's and squintz? Hmm. It is a signet of the cult of Esnodias.

It is a trifle here, but is used on your plane to assert belonging. Fair. Are you sure you want to do this? Last question, the final question. Yes. How powerful is the herald of Roselage? The herald is quite powerful.

The herald resides within his stronghold. We would have to get into his stronghold. He would. How many enemies are we talking about fighting as well as him? General guarding throughout the stronghold, I put it about a dozen, maybe. And what sort of forces does he have? Those are his forces locally.

He has guards throughout the city, but they're scattered. Thus the importance of this is to go in unseeked. is to go in unseen and unhurt. What kind of- And if you run into resistance, squash it before it can make any noise. What kind of devils are we talking about? Nothing too serious.

The bearded variety. Maybe a bone devil, maybe too, I don't know. And this creature itself, the horn devil? Oh, this is a pit fiend. Oh, again. We fought, oh, you fought, oh, you fought, those before. What is this mean? We're a team now. But Utu Gash is strong but slow, slovenly, sluggish,

as reveled in his own opulence for far too long. What's another dead pit fiend in hell? I'll sign it. Ask about the bashing of flesh. Do it. Do it now. Do it quickly. Ask about the bashing of flesh. Fred, get that. Sign it. What about the bashing of flesh? How big is this question? sign this. I don't want you to corrupt yourself, senseless. Oh, I'm Russell.

I push your art back away from Freddy. Oh! All right. You're here. Enjoy the ride. Freddy has this. Thank you. I'm signing. I check to see his name. Is it his real name that is signed? I mean, it seems to be the contract wouldn't be binding on his end if it wasn't. All right. Not the full name. But enough.

Not the full name? No. PDR. D-roll. D-roll. Mucal. You don't have to write the entire name. Mucal.

Oh, no, wait. This is happening. I'm not doing that. We'll say you do in character. No, I've actually finished it. Okay. As you finish signing the ink, kind of flashes and glows,

and it burns into the parchment ever so slightly to the point where you smell the scent of just slightly singed parchment. It curls up away from you and into his grasp as he takes it. What's the devil to a man who feels no God? Pleasure doing business. Now, he snaps his fingers, and you watch kind of apparate on one shoulder, one of the imps that you saw earlier when you arrived,

that kind of saw you in ushered, rushed out when you first entered the, or coming downstairs. It appears in his shoulder. This is Vassar. He will be your guide. Vassar. Vassar? With an R or with an H? Vassar. Vasa. Vasa. Vasa. Of course our father would be named after a fucking M. Vassar. Vassar is your last name. Vasa is different. Vasa. It's close and fucking enough. Whitney Wami would come to this. I want to Basser. What?

What? Vasa will guide you. Oh. Never matter. Thankfully, the stronghold is near the torture pits, so there is general din and sound and agony to surround. So that might offer you some solace in being unheard. But be careful. Any advice would be welcome.

We want what you want. I know. Rest, prepare. Enter where is easiest. Always the path of least resistance. Get the jump, surprise and silence. And when it's time to leave, I can help you travel mostly unseen

should you avoid some of the more piercing eyes of this domain. Would you know where to get a silence, Bell, out of curiosity? I can provide maybe one or two. provide maybe one or two. One would be. Two would be even more helpful. Very well.

Rest. I'll be here waiting. If no one sees us kill him, how will we be arrested? Don't worry. I'll know when he's down, as I'm sending Vassar on with you. All right.

And once this is known, just wait. Because the alarm will call the guard, Specifically the ones that work for me. All right. So we should make sure do we kill this big guy, not to kill anyone else that comes for us? No one that seemed to be under his employ, no. Otherwise, clear them out.

Okay. Perfectly simple. Let's go plan our attack. All right, as you guys make, way back to your room to discuss. We're in time of break. Yes! We'll go back here in just a few moments. We have our Tiger Maple Dice Tower giveaway, the break from our friends at-

Oh my god, it's all in pieces still, oh, God, but it's all magnet be put together. Wait, what? Make them make them make them. Make them make them. Oh, wait, is a dice tower? It's a dice tower that all magnetizes together. It's pretty rad.

Oh, that magnets happen. So yeah, do we have, do we have a code word for the chat? You pick. I pick. The code word will be packed. P-A-C-T. So go ahead and come over to the Twitch chat use the word packed in there to join the chance giveaway. And take the survey if you have a moment.

Exactly. Go take that survey. See you in a few minutes. Hello guys and welcome back. All right, so before we get in real fast, we have the winner in chat. The winner of the dice box is Ikara. Icara, congratulations, and World One.

There you go. Get that info for you and get that sent out to you ASAP, so congratulations. Also, I forgot to mention because I didn't put it on the thing before, but I'm also, I put it on Twitter, I'm going to be guesting at Sakharicon, middle of April, April 14th, the 16th, up in Seattle. So if you guys are up there in that area, come say hi. Easter Weekend.

Yep. Panels and signings and all of fun stuff. So folks near around the Seattle area, come up to Sacrocon and say hi. I'm going camping. Yeah. Really? Yeah. That's exciting.

Oh, man. All right. So, so. So, man. Bring it back in. So you guys have signed a contract. What are you doing to prep? What are you doing now?

Go honestly. You are locked in. Don't want to prep anything? Only one of us is locked in. Well, what's our plan? We go and we fucking try to stealth as much as fucking possible and kill a fucking pit fiend. Just tell them.

Kill a pit fain. Done it before. We can do it again. Okay, I'm confident about this plan. Wait, wait, wait. Let's just remember. How did we do it last time? How did we do it last time? We bumble-fucked our way into it. Yeah.

Yeah. And bumble-fucked our way out of it. Was he weak to anything that we remember? Nope. Nope. But he was. extremely frightening. And smart. Very strong. Very strong.

And poison. I can. Okay, we'll do a feast before. Nope. Nope, nope, I can't. You guys suddenly are still under the effects of a feast. Yeah, but we won't be when we go to fight him. Depends on how soon you get there. No, but.

We're sleeping. The feast lasts for 24 hours. So if we rest. It's been probably, if you start resting fairly soon, it will have been maybe four to five hours after you used this, or ate the feast, with the eight hours full rest, you're still looking at almost half a day left. Up to you.

Up to you. Yeah, let's do it. I, for one, am going to have some sleepy time tea. What do you have here? I lost a lot of hit points actually today. I could use a re-chard. More milk of the dam. All that thinking.

All right, let's go to sleep. Major Cheerios, bud. All right, you guys have an evening's rest in the second layer of hell. within the Iron City of Diss. Are the beds like painfully hot? The beds are warm, they're very toasty. It's like trying to fall asleep

in the middle of the summer in the valley with no air conditioning. It can be done, but you're sweating and it's not very comfortable. Fet the sheets? The whole experience. Maybe, yeah. I have someone fanning me the entire night.

Don't know. It does help someone. You're the most comfortable sleeper in the entire group. All right, I need all of you guys to roll a wisdom saving You don't know. Oh. At advantage though, right?

Because of the hero's face. That's correct. We're smart even in our sweet. Natural 20. Oh, jeez. Shut up. Oh, I got a 17 and an 18. That's pretty damn good.

That'll do. Wisdom saving? Yep. 18. All right. 11. 32. With advantage.

Yeah. The facts? 16. Okay. You guys all awaken? rested as, you know, in the similar way you're rested after being out open under the night's sky on the side of a road in a campsite. You know, it's not the best rest, but it's enough to at least continue with some wind back in your sails. Other than that, you are feeling

a little bit hungry. How am I feeling? You're feeling fine. Don't we still have some rations that we've been carrying around with us for quite some time? I mean, yeah, we have a lot of stuff in the bag of coding. Do you have any soles? The stuff downstairs is really not that bad. No soles in the bag of coating. Is it not that bad? Is it not that bad?

Is it actually just slightly above awful? We do have half a thing of boar meat and some grain, just some random grain, which I think is like oatmeal oats maybe. Put some hot water on it. All water is not. Yeah, a bit of, that's fair. I'm going to sit the boar meat down on the ground and kind of cook it a little bit. And actually it cooks pretty easily.

There are portions of the iron metal, especially in the bottom floor that cook the gun barrel to kind of sear it a bit. Yeah, make some drill marks on that thing. All right, and you manage to cook a decent, and then the boar meat's been frozen for a while, so it's not the best, but it's better than, you know, bone splinter meat chunks or eating souls. Also level. Does that use up all of the bore meat that we, or is that am I down to like a quarter of a boar meat?

How much did you have? Half a bore meat. I have no idea what that means. Half a boar. Half a boar between all of you guys, including Grog's appetite. I'd say that's about it. That bore is gone. That's like Super Nintendo lingo. I have half a bore meat. That's the worst eraser. It just made like a pink smudge across the page instead of, oh, that's the worst. I'm sorry. No, this one's good.

Wow, we just had like a very Oregon Trail moment. I'm proud of us. Look at us using rations. We've never done that before. Just since the beginning, yeah. Ooh. All right. Just and Theresa and that board. All right, where do we find this?

Oh, wait, did what's, did Zara, Vasa, spend the night with us? No. Where is Vasa. You have no idea. Downstairs, I assume. All right, should we go downstairs and find Vasa? Because that's who's gonna lead us to this place, right?

Yeah. Vasa! Let's... Vasa! Don't speak so loudly here. Well, you said not to whisper. I didn't say not to listen, either. It's important.

Act natural. Just be as cool and calm as possible. Yes, act natural. Be as cool as calm as possible. Unfortunately. I'm always cool. That's the spirit. Just like that.

Good acting. Do we see the imp downstairs in every? As you head downstairs, you do notice, you do notice. that Ipkesh is sitting at one of the chairs in the far end of the bar. The usual keeper of the establishment is not currently there. There are nobody else in the bottom portion.

It is empty, and the imp façade is currently resting on the shoulder of Ipkesh as you approach. Close it down for a bit, did you? Just to be safe. Best not to have individuals knowing of our presence arrangements or your group it applying to me. You're going to introduce us to your little friend there?

He did. He did. It's Vassar. It's the guy who's the guiding man. Thank you. Vassar will be able to bring you to your location. Vassar's mastery is in not being seen and keeping beneath the eyes of the whisperers. Vassar will not be able to age you in the confrontation,

for Vassar is as strong as the parchment you signed yesterday. Any luck on those other materials? Silent Speller, too. Mm-hmm. And he pulls with him like a small satchel on the side of his long, black and purple robe, this small leather case that is locked on one side. As he pulls it open and reveals this very, very tightly wound piece of parchment and hands it over,

This is a silent spell. I could not procure two, unfortunately. But this will aid you. The whisperers you speak of. Do they see through illusions? The whisperers, they do not see through illusions, but they do see through invisibility. All right.

At least, not all of them. The bigger ones, if you see any, that are larger than a winged compatriot. those are the ones to avoid. Okay. I feel like a good idea would be to just... Go? Yeah. But I mean, can't we just alter selves into like little bugs or something and get in behind him? No, it's not a polymorph spell.

I could animal shapes us there, yeah. How many of us? All of us. Then you'll be down a spell. Eighth level, but it could be worth it to not be seen and get the drop. the drop. Do you think that that sounds like a reasonable plan or do you think that that's something? That sounds, if that is within your capability, that sounds very reasonable. And Vassar could get us into the keep as insects.

Vassar could show you the way in, yes. Could be good. Are we, yeah? Are we wasting spells just to get there? No. But it's a surprise attack. I imagine we'd get there, do animal shapes to get through, and get to him. And then pop out and attack him right from Bognis. Yeah.

Bognis Everdeen. Okay. With the right conditions. I like it. Thank you. Laura liked that. With the right conditions, if we keep quiet, I can lay some pretty heavy hurt on the sky at the get-go.

If we keep quiet. Yes. All right. Let's bug it up. So this is animal shapes into a, what form are you taking? Are we doing it now or later? In the later, not now. Right, but what form are you taking? Let me figure that out.

So what we say, who's got a player's handbook in the house? Right here. 20 foot radius centered on the plane. Not on an object. Animal shape, what are you looking at? Oh, this is us spot. I'm not going to keep up. Animal shapes, basically you guys can become a large or smaller beast.

Large or smaller beast, so I can't do anything Like we can't be insects? Microscopic? Microscopic? No. We're not microscopic, but tiny? I mean bird size would be about a small. Bird size.

Boy, that sure sounds like food. Are there any creatures? Devils aren't interested in rats. That's more that go unseen. The size of rats or birds of some sort. Rats. I mean, there are fiendish variations and there are rats that exist on this person.

So life of them is not very enjoyable. Oh shit. We will be running on the blazing hard ground. Oh, right. Poor little burning rats. Is there like, um. And flying in the imp covered air. Didn't they said Vasa can get us there, right? Let's just get there.

Yep, just get there. Oh, fuck it. I was just thinking it's a thing, but forget it. It's only in a contract. So shall Vassau guide you? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, I guess so. Kind of taps the edge and the saw

as we kind of watching, kind of, follow me, and takes off the side of his shoulder. He talks? You guys have spoken with an imp before. And the imp, out the window, grabs onto the side of the door frame and then kind of scurries onto the outside, then turns back around and looks inside, come, come. We go. We go.

I will lead us. Do we do. Pass without a trick? Yeah. Yeah, I cast pass a trace on us just so that we... And I'll alter sulfing to my teetling form. Alrighty. So that being the case, you guys step outside into the street and you watch as Fasaad disappears down into the same alleyway that you previously had nearly been assaulted in. Kieleth, you guys, you could all make stealth checks.

With advantage. Yeah. No, no, with plus 10. 10. That's good, that's good. That's good. That's okay. Natural 20. What?

Jesus. Two in a row. Ooh, 30. 24. 38. 34. Oh, 39. All right. So for the first leg of this journey, as you're watching as Vasaas, darting from edge to edge, and occasionally almost dematerializing, turning invisible. And for a moment you kind of have to stop and look around and you watch his form appear off in the distance and kind of shoot up a tiny little lit flare to kind of gather your intention once any sort of large whispers pass overhead.

and this process of kind of rubber banding behind the Vassau continues over the next half an hour or so, going deeper, deeper into the city. And as you go, Vex, you're keeping a pretty close watch on where you're coming from, though you're also seeing large groups of lemurais, which is how it's pronounced as I've been corrected. And I'm so glad it's pronounced that about lemurs

because it sounds awful in hell, it's lemur. Limer. Limer. I know, and they're not cute. They're horrible, fleshy, tortured souls. That's my nickname, man. Do shit on my nickname. You see clusters of lemurates throughout the city,

as well as low-level spine devils and some other fiendish creatures that are in the process of rebuilding and reconstructing buildings and tearing down others. You start seeing elements of the city are constantly in a state of being restructured, rebuilt, sometimes more grandiose, sometimes more awful and terrifying, and you get this sense of the city. is in perpetual state of flux. That gleaming iron tower still just beyond your visual sight

whenever you have to readjust your vision across the horizon. I need you guys to all make another stealth check for these different steps of the journey. 25. 29. 16. With the plus time? With the plus two.

Oof. All right. 22. I just got second. No. No. Golden Snitch. Come on, Freddy.

There's something about that coffee cup being there. There we go. I'll share some of my 37 or early. So as you guys are moving along, watching Vasa, Vasa, Vasa eventually gets out of sight for a moment and you all have kind of stop and pull back. And you see a flash of light that signifies

Vassah calling you forward and it's safe. And as you all move forward, you watch as Tarian and Percival, we're both looking behind, keeping watch on your back. And with the time they look back, you guys are already about 20 feet ahead. And as they rush forward, Percival straight up, his foot hits the edge of where two of the iron rifts in the ground,

of the plating that meets up this part of the alleyway. He stumbles forward, landing hard on his elbow and giving out a of his breath. And as he does, you hear a and you watch as a small impish creature in golden armor begins to crawl over the roof of the nearby building and look over the side. I turn and break away from the group and head in a slightly different direction for a moment and sit and nurse my elbow and try and just look like I'm dealing with my medical issue. And really trying to look like I didn't notice the thing that's watching me now. Okay, I want you to go make a deception check.

No, you have to roll if it's intentional. Deception? Yeah. Nine. Nine. Okay. So you watch the creature, and it kind of like slowly crawls along the top of the roof.

as you go and split off the rest of the party, you hear behind you the, some sort of conversation, and then a second one appears, and one continues to follow you while the other one continues to move with Tarian. Do I have any of the soul? Did I see him? Yeah, you watch him kind of, after he gets back up, he breaks off in the rest of the group. I'm gonna stick with him.

Okay, so you're both now being followed by two of these. A moment. I'm gonna pull out a piece of the soul, the edible soul. and just about to eat it. Did the rest of us see this, by the way? You all kind of, you just made it past this open walkway in the street, turn around in the other alley, and you watch this happen across the way.

They're about 15, 20 feet from you in an open road. I'm gonna quietly fall in behind the EMS. Although the EMS are on the other side of the road from you right now. But if you want to, you can try in a moment. Oh, no, they're close. All right, no, I'm trying something. I've got the, a,

Shard of Soul out, the Soul Shard, giving it a smell. And I'm going to, not quite loudly, but with a bit, I'm and I'm going to huck it in the other direction with distaste. Okay. Just a shard. Okay. One of the two imps breaks off, and swoops down after it, and immediately runs over and starts scattering across the ground, trying to catch it as it kind of tumbles off on the side.

The other one can use to follow after the two of you. Can we try and give it the slip? Have one that? I can try to make us invisible if you'd like. I won't work. Or? Just that they see through invisibility. All right.

Well, we can try to run. The bigger ones do. I thought you said the whisperer saw through your invisible. Some of the whisperers do, some don't. They say to be wary of the bigger ones. They see through invisibility and possibly other things. Okay. What do you think?

I'm going to dust myself off and try and just meander into a shadow. I still have passout of a trace. You do, yes. So I'm gonna see if I can just vanish stealthfully. Okay, make it with disadvantage, because you are being actively watched. I am being actively watched.

Like, you can turn on the corner and attempt it, but you know. That's kind of, yeah. It is aware that you walk there, so your ability to slip out of its view once you break from its line of sight is gonna be this check. I'm also going to, can I also use my boots of spider walking

to see if I can kind of crawl off the street a little bit and see if I can. Sure, let's try it. Go ahead and make your stealth check. You can start to try. Disadvantage, I hate disadvantage so much. That's coxed. That is coxed. It doesn't matter, that number is awful.

That's pretty bad. Yeah, no. No, I fail. Okay. So as you turn on the corner, you step up on the side of the wall, hearing the impact of the boots kind of across the iron side. Thankfully, it's enchanted boots, so the damage is relatively minimal, but you do hear the kind of very faint sizzle of leather on hot, metal. What are you doing, Terry? Well, I will cast invisibility on myself.

All right. And that's all I can do for the mat for an action. So as this one is following Percival around the corner, the one that was going after you that was distracted by the stone, you turn invisible and it seems to kind of glance around and it's lost sight of you for the moment and it continues to push after Percival. I'm going to stick with Percival, in an invisible way. I'm just going to keep talking over the headphones, trying to keep up with where everyone else is, but walking off a block in the hopes of sort of bullshining my way through this. Okay. As you head down this alleyway, and you guys are kind of parallel following on the side,

kind of watching this from a distance but staying out of sight, not make yourselves visible, Percival. You look up and you see this strange, eerie green glow that begins to drift in your direction. And you watch as these spectral arms begin to just drift up out of the ground and this longated, horrifying, face kind of pulls up from underneath the darkened cobblestones of the street going, and this specter entity drifts in your direction.

Do I recognize what the spectra entity is? It's some sort of a ghost-like creature. We've seen a number of these just kind of emanating and drifting through this city. Some small clusters, some individually, they just seem to wander aimlessly throughout. I am whispering the incantation for invisibility into a coin. Okay. That takes a minute to do it. It does? Fuck. But then I'm not doing it. Okay. I'm going to try and keep pace with that thing. Is that following me?

You glance over your shoulder and see it and it is currently like crawled around the side, and it's like leaping from these small stips almost these window sills of these small iron squares that are about that big that are built into the side of these wall here. It's kind of like leaping and flying from section to section, maybe 15 feet, 20 feet behind you. 20 feet behind us? Do you want to go and follow? All right, make a stealth check.

You said 20 feet behind us? It's about 20 feet behind you, yeah. And up? Yeah, about 15 feet up for me. I'm going to reach into my alchemist's satchel. Thank God. And pull out a bag of writhing sticky black tar and hurl it right at his feet.

Okay, okay. So it's leaping from window sill to window sill, and as it gets to one window sill, to one window still you chuck at it? Yeah. All right, go for it, roll for attack. Yeah. Yeah.

What is this plus my spell attack bonus? No, it's just an attack? What is this? It should say under your ability here, I'll pull it up you want. I mean, am I rolling for the throw or for the spell? This is for the throw? Or is it the creature saving throw?

Which is it, which are the two? Let me go look, actually. I've just had like five of the worst rolls I've ever had in a row. Like, it was just, that was just, there's just, I believe. There's just, I'm going to get it's gone yet. It's not in the dice.

It's in me. This is the Tanglefoot bag? It lives in. It's what happens when you sell out, man. Shut up. Okay, so yeah, so what you do is it it splats against it and you watch it kind of, and it gets kind of stuck and sapped into it,

and it's moving now at half pace. It's having to pull through the substance that's kind of glued to its feet, and it's trying to tear away. Okay. All right. Okay. I got a 46 on stealth.

Can I get up with four of this? You turn around the corner now, When you see, first off, Tarian appears. Forty-six. Because when you throw their bag, it breaks your invisibility. That's an attack? Yeah. Oh, shit.

Okay. Yeah, that's working. So now I see Percival and Teryan both appear, and this one impish creature is now currently partially glued to a wall and is fighting, trying to pull its way off. Let's run. It looks like a target. Whisper. Okay.

With a 46 stealth. Yeah, so go ahead and roll. Thank you. All right. Would this be surprised if I'm glad still? It is aware that there are threats in its vicinity, so it's not a surprise attack. But it does not see you, so you have advantage on the attack.

It is considered a sneak attack if you hit. That one's about. Okay. Let's say 25 to hit. Yeah, that hits. All right. Well, and I will do a second attack as well. Well, how much damage is the first attack?

12. 12 damage? It's sneak attack because it didn't see you there. Oh, wait, no. It is sneak attack. Exactly, right, thanks. 27, 33, 35, 40. 42 plus psychic damage from that, 42.

Right, right, okay. So 45. So right as it's pulling away from this Tanglefoot bag, this explosion of glue, it's like, and a dagger just sips through it and he watches it goes in four different pieces, retracts into the Tanglefoot bag muck once more. It got completely shredded and the sections are, sections are withdrawn back and stuck to it as they're slowly now dribbling out of this massive glue on the side of the building, which is now starting a bubble from the heat

from the side of the structure. My God. Tarpid. Tarpid. Yeah, I'm going to take this opportunity to try and turn another corner. Okay. The impish creature that was distracted by your stone is now attempting to catch up. I want the three of you to make one more stealth check since you've all revealed yourself.

Come on, come on. At ten. At ten. At ten. That's, it's all right. 23. 24. 37.

Okay, you guys darting into the shadows and rush around the corner, you hear the distance, the clattering of tiny imp claws and the impacts of it kind of doing the same perch to perch gliding through the alleyway. You turn around the corner and join up with the rest of the party. And you hear in the distance some sort of a distant barking call in a language you don't understand this. They're like rats. They're going to be on the left now. You gather that they've acknowledged that there has been a whisper slain in the alley, so you might want to hurry. Yeah. Okay.

All right, so as you guys collectively catch up with Vasa and are led further in the city, you begin to hear now this horrible, grinding sound of metal that becomes just omnipresent the further down this, this labyrinthing network of alleys and stories. streets. You can see the glow of red and orange that previously kind of just emanated from the horizon is now beginning to light the sky around you. It's this light pollution from some sort of nearby source. And as you turn one of the corners, you look and see giant pires of molten metal and fire. There's just a gargantuan forge where people are just, I say people, These devilish entities and hundreds of lemurais are just heaping large bits of iron ingots and scrap metal from fallen buildings

and tossing them into this forge. And every time they do, it's just a burst of flame and ash and cinder come pouring out of it. And from there you can see refined metals being pulled out and brought to other elements of the city. Beyond that, as you glance over, you can hear this faint echoing sound of hundreds upon hundreds of voices

all moaning, screaming, squealing in torturous pain. You don't have a view of what's causing it, but this whole area of the city just brings this terrifying presence of, well, the torment you'd expect from somewhere in the hells. Vasa has, as you kind of paused on my Vasa darts back, trying to usher you forward in the direction of the sound, and goes, come, come, follow.

And then vanishes once again, peering on the other side of the street the street and beckoning you once more. For the last leg, I want to make one more stealth check. Come on, Percy, for fuck's sake. All of us? All of us. All of you. Better.

22. 23. 34. 27. 27. 26. 37. Okay.

You guys, as you're waiting for the right moment across the street, you wait for one cluster of these tiny winged, not quite imps. They're a little larger. with this dark, bluish-green, kind of spined protrusions out of the wings in their heads of these giant bony ridges that go back and they have these long spears, and about two dozen of them kind of come down the street in a vast cluster, almost like a bat storm, like a whole bunch of just randomly flying and angrily screeching creatures. And as you wait for that to pass, the minute that that sound goes past, you dart across the alleyway, make it to the other side,

in turn just in time for the large heavy footfalls. Oh, shit. Oh, God. Of what looks to be some sort of monstrosity, multiple arms that are stitched to this large golem-like creature. It's humanoid, but it's about 15 feet tall, and it's just covered in stitches.

Multiple chunks of different faces that are all just sewn together in places. Awesome. You can see a series of gems that are embedded in its shoulders and part of its throat that all kind of pull like separate heartbeats that are out of pace with each other. Oh shit. And as it stumbles forward, you see a chain around its neck,

and it's being dragged by this tiny imp that's just kind of pulling it forward and tugging on it as it doesn't even make really much of a noise other than a perpetual gurgle, but it's just some sort of flesh-stitched automaton that's being dragged forward to its next physical activity at the behest of whoever owns it. Freddy, you can't end up here. No. A few moments later, Vasa. Vasa brings you to the outside of a large jet black metallic and stone structure, a heavy, thick-walled stronghold with a series of what looks almost like. Imagine a thick bramble forest made of twisted iron that surrounds the base of it about five feet high. There are small gaps where you guys can try and squeeze through for the more lithe folk, Grog. You're not quite sure how you're going to get over this without tearing bits of you apart.

This is about a 10-foot gap between this strange metal bramble fence and the outside of this stronghold. After I go through, stay here. I pop Trinket out. And then I reach my necklace through and say, Grog, get in. Okay. Grog can get inside.

You release him out of the other side. I don't put Trinket back in. All right. Well done. easier than I thought. At which point you now have Doty under the side, just going, boom. Oh.

You can put Doty in there. I thought it while I was inside. I don't think Doty can go in there. It's only for living creatures. I can try. You can try. Tell Doty to. Get in, Doty.

Tell Doty to get in. No effect. Nothing. Tell Doty to get in, maybe. Doty, try your best to get in. No, no. No, no. No, no.

No. It's fine. I'll cast fly on Doty. Don't you think that's going to be noticeable? How high up is it? It's only five feet away. Oh. Okay. Wait, don't we have magic carpet or something?

Yeah, but we're trying to be stealthy. Stealthy. I thought it could just edge along the top of the iron now. You guys have been good enough to keep far enough ahead that this wandering metallic automaton, about 25 feet behind you hasn't drawn any strange attention. Yes. Yeah. Are there like fissures, like start steam vints?

No steam vents where you can see. It's just this tangled mass of thick metal cables, maybe about a foot thick that have just spikes jutting out of them. It's climbable, but there may be some damage taken in the process. 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. 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

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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. He said take the easiest way in.

He said that? Yeah. Yes. Well then Doty goes straight through. Oh, shit. Doty then reaches out. Wait, wait, wait, wait. And it takes a few moments, but Doty begins to actually force the brambles apart.

You can see bits of the metal kind of kink, and bits of the spikes jutting through and breaking parts of the armor from the opposite side, kind of piercing it. Does manage to pull enough of an opening where there Doty squeezes through and get to decide. However, Doty does suffer 12 points of piercing damage in the process. But emerges.

OK. They're so badass, Doty. Good job. Oh. Perhaps we should bend them back. Yeah, how noticeable is the bent bars? Oh, it's pretty noticeable. It's about that big around.

Doty could, can Doty put it back? Is it? Dody shaped? I'll do it. Go grog. Go grog. Go grog. Roll strength, check.

Big money, no wins. One. Oh no. It's gonna be good. 15. 15. Yeah. It's not great.

No, but it takes you a little bit of time and you manage to squeeze it together. Plus you got the gauntlets on, which are good for structures, right? You do take three points of piercing damage. That's essentially why he's able to do it on a roll 15, it's because of the siege ability. But you do manage to squeeze it back together and close the hole. Nice. Magic carpentry. Now, that's how you see is now up on the side.

of the wall, and this structure, this stronghold has nearly no openings in any other side. However, there is a small sliver of an opening. It's almost like an exhaust on a higher end there. And Vassau is currently perched up onto it. How high? About seven feet up. That? And how wide is this door? It's about a foot and a half high and about two and a half, three feet wide. Great.

We want to get into this place, right? Yeah. Well, then let's have a door. And I will pull a door out of my robe of useful items and put it on the side of the wall. Oh no, we're dead. You do what? You do what?

The door attack. He pulls a patch out off of his robe and tears it off and slams it against the stone. And as it does, you watch as what was once solid black metal, a tiny seam of orange appears in a large reticular pattern. Bees you. And then just opens every so slightly on a hinge. that wasn't there before.

After you. Well, that's my kind of ridiculous. He's not the hero we wanted, but he's the hero we need it. This door costs a lot of money, just so you know. Good to know. Good to know. As you guys peer inside, ever so carefully, do you guys want to... Very carefully.

I would just peek. Make a perception check. Do we still have pounds without overstrays on? Yeah. Yeah. Let me just. Oh, no, I don't see shit. No, it is very dark inside.

There's a faint bit of almost like candlelight out of view. You can see there's just a shifting glow internally that seems to have the life of a small flame. I'm going to gently push my sister to the side and try the same. All right. Make a perception check. Yeah. Ooh. 24.

Okay. As you glanced inside off, you can see there's a series of chains dangling from the sea. carrying hooks on them. The number of these hooks seem to have a dried reddish, caked blood-like material, and some of them have bits of flesh still stripped and kind of dangling from them. There are two tables in this chamber. Each table seemingly containing some sort of a humanoid body that is placed on it and strapped down. One appears to be in two paces. There is a torso and there are legs. and the centerpiece that once held the parts together is nowhere near in sight. Two shadow to make any details in this angle

as you've just peered past the door, but there does not appear to be any other moving or living creature in the chamber. So none of those forms of moving, breathing, anything, as far as I can tell. As far as you can tell. Yeah. You take a moment longer and you see the one

on the far table is breathing. Mm. All right, we have some deadish things in here, kind of moving. Dangerous things? It looks like it. I'd like to go in and get a closer look. Does everybody cool with that? Yes.

Go throw it. All right, roll stealth check. Yeah. That's fine. That's 40 with the pasta out of trees. Okay. As you slowly slip into the chamber, closing the door ever so slightly to make just the faintest, kind of the creaking of metal on metal, you slip into the chamber, and you can see there's a little,

There's shelves with various torture instruments just strewn across it. It looks like a terrible nightmare version of Percy's work chamber back in Greystone Keep. Percy's the early years. Yeah. There are two doors in the room, one on kind of a north side and one on an eastern side.

And the body that's on one table you can see appears to be human, older male. There are signs of some sort of physical scarring in the body, whether it be a necromantic or a corruption base, and it's been long dead. Like there is just a general sound, a very strong smell of decay. The other table, you do see the slight moving chests of a living dwarf, actually, a female dwarf that appears to be passed out unconscious and has suffered quite a bit of torturous wounds. You can see hundreds of small scratches and jagged dagger wounds in the side of the shoulders and arms, the face, and is currently

strapped down to the table. I'm going to use divine sense in this room. Am I within 50 or 60 feet of that dwarf? You are, yes. Yeah, divine sense. Divine sense? Two sense. Presence of strong, evil registers are my senses. Then 60 feet of you? Yeah.

All right. Nothing coming from that dwarf, but there are a number of other sources throughout the fortress. And in the room? Not in the room, but within 60 feet of you, you get a view of the chamber to the north of you and the chamber to the east of you. The eastern chamber, nothing. The chamber to the north of you, just beyond that door there is a signature. Okay. And the dwarf appears alive. Yes. Yeah. You didn't gain its power.

Wait, no, it's wrong game. There's a Bobby, there's a woman, a dwarf in the room ahead of us. Is she dangerous? I mean, not to say, I don't, I don't think so, but I don't know. Does she look familiar? Why don't we go in and look? Jesus, can we go in? That's what I'll find the fucking question.

Can we go in the fucking union? You guys all quietly make your way into the chamber. So quietly. I'm gonna inch a head of everybody up to the little crash. Does she look like she regrets her decisions in life? Does she look like she belongs here? Does she have any unfortunate tattoo? Are they texting?

She's not naked. She's wearing basic cloth clothing, but a lot of it has been torn and soaked deep, deep crimson with blood. A lot of it appears to be torn from stress and tension. There are claw marks from all over this chamber. from various demonic entities that have torn through here, but the table she's on as well. I go join my brother next there. I think this is a brilliant opportunity. She's not melted like the poor shits we've seen all over this city.

The body suddenly stirs in the table. This is, hello. Wait. No, no. Are you awake? Noelle, if you want to step on it. Yeah. What?

Achievement. Oh, no, Ruh. Oh, shit. It just took like 10 minutes. 10 minutes to find her. Come on in, come in, come in, come in. Before we do this, can we have like a 10 minute discussion about whether or not to wait?

You're just to do this whole damn time. Oh no, like you guys were shopping. I get it. Oh, no. I understand. Already sad. It was just some light torture. Oh, shit.

What if she wouldn't have been tortured? We got here earlier. By the way, for any future guests who want to come on the show, we don't normally treat our guests this way. There's actually three more guests still wanting in line. They've been here for weeks. Yeah, the queue is fun. We didn't know.

It was horrible. So as you hear a noise, and as you come to, in the darkened room, and just the faint glow of the candelabra in the corner, you kind of glance over, dart, and you see a series of shapes filtering in from a door that you haven't noticed before in the chamber, and begin whispering to each other, and they're looking over towards you occasionally. I'm going to. One of them suddenly goes, hello.

So let's go, shh. I'm sorry. Hello. I just sigh heavily, and then I go, who the fuck are you? I'm going to gingerly go over and very quietly say, We are a remarkable opportunity, if you're willing to be quiet and maybe have a little faith in the truth in this very dark place. Okay. She's bleeding for her eyes.

As you get a close look at it too, you see she has a darker kind of a Auburn red hair with a shock of white-gray in it, kind of shaping the sides. One gnarled ear that has been just chewed. and torn and a series of scratch scars across the front of her face. I will grab a healing draft and offer it. I can cast cure wounds on her. Let's not fight. Just heal her. I just want to know if it's safe to hear her. He'll her.

How did you get here? That's a pretty long story. We've found nothing but time. Is it safe to release you? Yes. Can I get off this table, please? What are we doing? Is she lashed to it? She is manacled too, both ankles and wrists are manacled to this.

I cast cure wounds on her. The manacles trapped or at all. Make an investigation check. Let's make a deal. Really high. We let you go. You don't let anyone know we're here, and you don't try to kill us.

Okay. Can I insight check her? Yes. Oh, I got the worst insight ever into her. Oh, do. 10. 12. She seems really honest. What did you get? 10. She's hard to read. She seems brusque and honestly chained to a table and probably tortured. Blood doesn't help. Yeah. No. Okay. It's all over the place. Yeah. I'll cast cure wounds at at third level. Nothing you can do is as powerful as what I was about to give her.

Oh, really? Yes. It's too late. It's too late. You cast your ones. Go ahead and roll for it. Fine. I'm trying to be nice. I know.

You can do more stupid. You can do more stupid. You hear Terry and say that as soon as you finish casting the spell into the dwarf woman. Terry, would you like to have a go out of? Oh, we'll see how well. 18 plus... It's the most condescending, I think, of every experience. 18, do I add anything plus my...

Wisdom modifier. It's nice. 18 plus 3, 21 whole points. So once you're kind of groggy, the sudden flash of divine energy and the healing power that sifts through your body, it brings the moment of respite and calmness to you, and you feel a lot better than you did a few moments ago.

Cool. What does? Can I get off this table now? Vax, can you help me pick these logs? What'd you roll Vax? Oh, 31 or 3. Yeah, the manacles are not trapped. All right.

We'll get you off. Give us a second. My sister and I'll work on the legs if you work on the hands. All right, so go ahead. Both you guys roll. Pick locks. Which is what? 30. 30. It's Dex bonus plus a proficiency bonus. Oh, awesome. What's your name? What?

What's your name? We're whispering. There's bad guys everywhere we're in hell. Oh, right. 24. Okay. So yeah, guys, take a quick moment. Take a quick moment and very deftly and very quietly, the twins in unison release the manacles

and you instinctively sit up and kind of rub your wrists. You guys been rehearsing that? That was impressive. Good job twice. Fine. Well, there's two of them. Oh, fuck. Yeah.

Hi. I know they look. It's confusing sometimes. What's your name? What's your name? I'm Tova. Tova. Tova.

Tova. Tova. Tova. Why are you in here? Well, this is Freddy. That's your back. We're Votsamakina. Wade and Wode and that's right.

It's too much info. It's not important. You can call us Moxvarkina. Let's put it this way. We're sneaking into this unholy compound in this basically a city of hell to do something inappropriate.

We find you tied to it. table, we figure that maybe you're in the mood to. Did you see season two of prison break? No one saw that. Because that's what we're doing. We're here to solve a problem. I have had a . Are we killing something?

Yes. Yes. No. Can I come? Where's your shit? Yeah, Tova, did you have a weapon when you were brought in there? I did. It was really cool, too.

Can we go find it? Yeah, what'd you have? Ow, I shouldn't move that fast. Hang on. Yeah, I had really cool a mall. Really? It's really cool. It's here somewhere. Just somewhere. I don't know where.

Should we look around the room for the mall? Oh, I healed the light. With that, you're back to full. Oh, cool. You've been resting for a while and kind of recovering from the wounds of the last... So there's no one else in here, right? Is it still dark?

It is... The chamber has like low flickering light from the church. two different candelabras, both one near you guys in the corner and one near the center doorways over here. We have a made up. I got the flamethronged dagger out. Is your shit on the walls around here? Do you see it in here? Yeah, I light up my hands. You guys do quick pass. You look around and there are some chests around here, and as you

carefully kind of go through some, they're left open, and you don't, do not see any of your equipment within them. Do you see anything cool there? Is there anything I can use? I mean, you see like a, there are a number of torture implements. You see there are Can I have one? Yeah, the things that look most useful to you, there's a giant iron fork. There are chain hoax.

We have lots of weapons. We have lots of weapons. I know. She loves torture devices. I'll get that big old fork. All right, so you're grabbing it. It's like a two-pronged, long, thick metal fork. Okay.

Not to like slow your roll or nothing, but I have a great sword if you want one. Oh yeah. No, that sounds better. I'll put the fork back. Are you sure you can handle a great sword? or dislike Biggley. Very strong.

You don't. It's probably bigger than I am, but it is. But as a dwarf, you're stalking and strong and with your background as well. Hell yeah. Not an issue. Tova. That sword makes you look so tall.

Thank you. What the fuck happened to your face? Shit. Oh, this is pre-existing, actually. Oh. Faces tend to take. Unfortunate home chemistry set accident. Are you an alchemist?

Is it a think about that? It wasn't my chemistry side. Oh. At this point you hear a k-t-ch-k-k-sown and a door. We need to open on the north end of the wall. Hide. I can't fly out of the table. I got it.

I got a stealth check. I dropped the house. All of you make stealth checks, Terry Ann and Grog with disadvantage. There's bodies everywhere, man. Yeah, still have passed out of trace. Oh, that's good. Okay, cool. Love him.

19 for me. A 19 and a 20. A natural 19 and a natural 20. With disadvantage, you get a 19? Holy shit. Oh, plus 10, yeah, yeah, yeah. So 21, 31. Am I joining in here?

Or can I just get back on the table? You can get on the table if you want? Because I failed that, so I get back on the table. All right, but you do it noisily. I flopped down heavily on the table. So the door opens, and as it does, Oh, God, oh, God. A, oh my God, oh my God.

It's a map. It's a map. A creature comes through similar to Ipkesh, another humanoid, this one, a little thicker, burlier, with kind of a medium gray hair that's kind of tangled mass, a little into dreads right past the shoulders, big leathery red wings, red skin, horns at the front, and has a big sword, it kind of is pulling out of a sheath

in the side of it as it comes in, looking around the room. Which, it immediately kind of steps into the chamber. As you guys all hide off to the side, shit. And it's gonna turn around and go running in the opposite direction. No, I'm just an arrow in the back of his neck. Okay, so this is going to be a surprise, not a surprise round, it knows you guys are there, but this is gonna be a roll for initiative.

Everyone, roll some initiative. Yeah. Yes. Yes. That's bad, that's a natural one. Oh, man. I mean, I was so excited and then it went away so quickly. Alright, so top of the round, we have 25 to 20. Anybody? 28. 28. Jesus Christ. Okay. 25 to 20, anybody? Good?

Yeah, you roll plus six. Oh, cool. Oh, that's good. Oh, 21. Nice. All righty. 20 to 15? Yeah, yeah. 18. 18. This is cool. All right. 16. 16. 16. 15 to 10? 15 to 10. 14. 14. 14. 14. 14. 10 to five? Five to one. Four. Three. Oh, kids. It's the one-hand initiative.

Percival, you're up first. You see this devilish humanoid beginning to pivot and turn. Can you point to me on the map? Don't, go on. I'm... Okay, I'm gonna do a couple things. Blow the cover for it. Blow the cover for it. Just light this candle. Don't use it around.

I'm going to take my movement to run around him and shut the door. Okay. Using my boots, because my boots are already active. The doorway is about the size of him. Oh, it's too big? It takes up the entire doorway, essentially, and it's just pivoting after it notices you guys. So you're going to have to make a tumble check to try and make it past him. Oh, okay, hold on then.

Acrobatics roll, but yeah. You know what? I'll do the acrobatics roll to try and shut the door so to try and... Do it. Okay, so you're trying to basically, as he tends to spin around, you dash forward and roll into a tumble to try and pop up on the other sides. Go ahead and roll acrobatics check? That'll do. 22. 22.

Will it do? Natural 20 on his end. So as you tumble, you're, that I'd be noticing, you know, you, the world spins as you go into a roll, and suddenly there's just a flash of white, and there's just a foot, a massive boot in your face as the individual slams a kick into your head to stop you from tumbling forward, and you stop in place. So you're currently prone on the ground, but you still have your action if you want to. I'm going to take three slashes at him with my sword. Go for it. You are prone.

You have disadvantage on your attack rolls. Disavantage on the attack rules? Yes. But I'm pro. Okay, so attack number one. That don't matter. 28. That hits. Just do attack number two. That's 15. 15 misses. And 24. That hits. So two hits with the...

What's these? And Tova, you're up next, so be ready. Tova. Two hits, so that's a- Tova. Is it a quiet gun? I'm using a sword, not a gun, so that's- Oh, right, right, right.

That's 18 points of damage. Already? 18 points of damage, and you know, let's just burn a little bit of electricity too, just to hurt him as well. Oh, yes. Sorry. 18 from both strikes? That's everything combined.

Yeah. And then let's do a, uh, Where is it? Here we are. Let's do, where is the damage? 1D6 lightning. So let's just burn two charges of that as well. Alrighty. I'm out of D6s for some reason that I can accompany. Here, cheer. Thank you. And let's add five points of lightning damage to that as well.

All righty. So as you land on the ground, you pull your sword out and just swipe three times in the air, two of them striking across its thigh in the kneecap. It still stands, but you still stand. You see, it took a nice sizable chunk out of it. That ends your turn, Percival? Tova, what are you doing? You're currently still up on the table sitting up. You have the Great Sword at your side, and you watch as the one of the new people,

stumbles under the ground and then slashes it this creature a couple times, and it's right there kind of still trying to find its way out. What are you doing? I'm gonna grab this cool new great story that I have, stand up on the table and just jump at this guy's head and swing at it with my cool new great son. All right, so as you leap in the air,

Bringing it down, go ahead and make both attacks. The first one, it's to be a plus 10, because it's not magical, I believe, right? Okay. That's a 13 and a 17. That's a 13 and a 17 to hit? Yeah. Unfortunately, neither hit.

I've been tied to a table for a while. The first one, it hits the front of its armor and just scrapes off the side. The other one you swing back and it slams into the stonework and it just ducks underneath. Bonus action, anything you want to do? Yes. Before Trey's run away?

I want to turn into a bear. What? What? What? Oh my God, no! Oh my God, no! Are you my turn my toe, my favorite, the person, and the whole... You watch now, but you see the clothing that was on before wasn't torn from torture, but her form rages into this bipedal, humanoid bear with rippling muscles.

It's the same scars across the face. and it begins to just growl as a great sword now looks almost small in comparison in this mighty kind of humanoid bears grasp. Awesome. He earned it. That's the end of your turn. I'm just wearing sexy bear clothes now. Oh my head's like a bra. Like a little bikini. Awesome.

All right, the devil creature is going to go ahead and turn around. Teach me. Fantasy novel cover. And attempt to move this way to the door. Both of you guys get an attack opportunity as it rushes away. Oh no. away? No! Kill it. We've got to stop it. We've got to stop it. Disadvantage or no? Yes, because you're still prone. Come on.

Oh, son of a bitch! 24. That hits. Go ahead and roll damage. That's 2d6 for the damage on the Great Sword. Okay. Two D, sorry. Plus. Rusty of this. Be plus six, because your strength is five and plus one for the weapon. That is 2D6 plus one? Plus six total. Okay. So that is 13.

Okay, and if you ever roll a one on the dice, or one or two, you can re-roll it once. Point of random order before your arms. If you roll it twice? You can roll each one once, like if it gets under that. That's part of your great weapon master. Right. Random point of order.

Isn't this a surprise round? No. No. Damn it. They noticed us. He noticed us. Okay, never mind. Well, I rolled another one, so it's the same. It's 13.

So 13 points of damage. All right. Dights are wrong. Yeah, that's sick. So you hack at it as is running away, but it still manages to go get over the side. It goes to the next door. and throws it open.

No! Okay, you guys still can't quite see what's in that chamber beyond from your perspective, and is going to move in. It just gets about that far into the chamber. All right, that gets us to Vax's turn. Shit, and he's out of sight now? Yeah, he's just moved, he's out of sight of you currently, because you're over here.

Yeah, you don't see him. I'm gonna, I can't really see from where I'm at, so I want to move more in line with the door and see if I can see him if I run over in line. You can. If you run to where the door way is open, you can see. see him as he's just disappearing into a darkened chamber beyond. But go through it, because you're going to.

Dagger, Dagger. Go for it. End this. All right. First one is, uh, oh's is 17. Misses. Second one is a 29. 29 hits.

Yeah. Fuck a duck. There's two, plus, uh, that is just two, but it's the poison dagger. So I'm going to unload venom in him. Okay. That is a 12, no. Okay, so he takes, that's the wrong guy, a heater.

Oh, it's going as far as it possibly can. That is 19. Okay, 19, how to... 10 and a 9. Okay, gotcha, cool. All right, so the dagger, and you see him stumble for a moment as his wings kind of instinctually curl up curl up from the sudden burst of poison in his system.

So. That's it. I'm out. I'm done. You should have some more movement if you wanted to. No, I don't. Back out of the way of the door. I want to stay where I am. Okay, so you're gonna stay in the doorway? Well, you can move out of the way of the doorway

so that other people can shoot at him that are maybe in line of sight. Just move out of the doorway. Nope. Nope. That brings us to Vex's turn. Vex's your turn. What the fuck?

Thanks for blocking my fucking shot. I'm out across the country. I can't really see. It's all good. He's staying low, and your brother knows not to block the whole path. All right. I'm always doing squats, man. Well then I'm gonna shoot him.

Go for it. Your brother? No. I'm gonna shoot the dude, the red guy. I'm gonna shoot him. Yeah, I'm gonna shoot him. Go for it. Okay, the first one is it 20.

20 hits? Okay. Oh, balls. Fucking shit. 11 plus four lightning damage. and then I'm gonna fucking Hunter's Market motherfucker because I forgot to do it. Alright.

Because I'm a fucking asshole. Wow, that's like six. And then the second one definitely hits him too. Make a cap. You got to love you yourself. So then I am going to, where's my damn eighths? Okay, here there. God damn!

Nine, ten, eleven, eleven. So I can love you. Eleven was one lightning damage because I suck. No. And then four for Hunter's Mark. All right. So both arrows, tumbles four, kind of like falls to one knee for a second and is still picking up and running. Jesus.

Fucking Christ. So that finishes your turn. There's nine swears in one turn. Was it? Sorry. That brings us to Grog. Shit! I do a burpee off the floor. Easy enough for you.

And I take her running through the doorway. 30, 35, 40, 45. 50, you can just get within nearly range. Because crazy barbarian speed. You also reveal the rest of the chamber. Please don't be any more people in there. There's on the floor in there. You see two of the,

What? This chamber contains a bunch of... Oh God. A bunch of, looks like cells of some kind that will lock off the doors. And two of the limerays, the weird fleshy, tortured spirit things kind of lie in the corner that all of a sudden see you as you charge in and just pay attention to your appearance. So what are you going to do? I see him and I say, hi, and I rage. Okay. That's your bonus action?

Yeah. And I'm going to hit him. twice. Go for it. Oh, Rackless, please. Yes. That is... That is death.

24. That hits. Nice. 9. 21. 21 points of damage? Yes. All righty.

The second one. Reckless. Thank God because that was the one. 31. That hits. Go to one damage. Twenty-three points of damage. Three points of damage.

Okay. As you rush forward, a slam once into the back of his shoulder, he kind of falls to his knee again, still wounded from the slashing to his thighs and the arrows out of his back. The wings kind of unfurl a bit, he turns around looking like he's about to point his finger towards you.

There's like a flash in the eye. It's attempting to have some sort of effect before it does. You bring the hammer down onto his face. Whack! And as it does, just caves inward and falls to the ground, unmoving. That was hot. Drag him back in here. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to time to the table. Tap yourself at this shit. Oh, I don't have anything else to do. That was very- All right, that ends the road's turn. That may be the end of the. That brings us to Tarian's turn.

Oh, no, no. I will, I will cast haste on myself. Okay. And I will then start moving. Where am I? You're right here. I'm gonna go, I guess the direction Grog went.

All right, so that's fine. Follow when you're part now. 35, 40. You get all the way into this room, you still have 20 feet of movement left as you enter next to Grog and see two of the fleshy masses of tortured souls kind of starting to make their way in the direction of you in Grog.

What do I have left? You have your bonus action, that's it. Does you cast haste and then did your movement? Sure. I will, oh shit, bonus action. Okay, I'll just pull out my rod. Every time. Grip it hard.

Right. Chope down on it. I choked down on it. Shaking it. Maybe grip it with my left hand so it feels different. Farewell? I'll say, Lance! And I'll just use the rest of my movement

to just charge at somebody. Okay. You run up, running towards one of these creatures. And as you get closer and you see, it kind of becomes more apparent your vision, the more horrifying it gets as you get close. Like, ah, ah! What's dirty gonna do?

So many things. As I took off, I just said, Doty, on me! So he's coming. All right, Doty's movement is... 40. I like on me better than roll out. Hey. Doty has to spend half, difficult to get through the doorway, and gets about that far. Doty actually pushes Vax out of the way. It has to bend down and get into the central chamber. Doty can use the rest of the movement to get into the room with you.

On me. Three, four. Doty can get right there. That's all Doty can get this turn. All righty, that brings us to Kilip's turn. That's what cool people say. My turn. Guy's dead, right?

That Grog was after. Yes. Okay. It is hell. It is hell. Can Grog not see the to the right of him yet? Grog can see both of these things here. We can tarry in see this way, you mean?

Yeah. Tarian can just barely begin to see a hallway that goes further that way. Okay. Is that, that's not a devil-demony guy behind Grog? Over here you mean? No. Where? That, you almost touched it, sorry.

You don't see anything in that, there's anything in your room right now. What's that? What's this here? That. That's Doty. That. That is Grog. Okay, okay.

That's what I need to know. The top down's a little tricky. And I don't see anything. You don't see anything in the chamber. Your new friend turned into a bear, and everyone ran through a door. This is you. This is you. Tova.

So cute. Awesome. Are you also a druid? Brough. No. Which you can still speak in your form. I actually can't talk. I just don't feel like it.

It's been a long day. That's even better. Uh-huh. All right. I am moving. Move and I peek my head through the door. One, two, three, more. 20, 5.30, you can just get into this chamber with your movement.

Crog! You know we have- You know we have- You know we have-pices, we can just talk to each other, you all right. Crog, I don't, right now. I squished his head. Bring him back in. Bring him back in.

Okay. I can't move anymore though. You can't if use your action, but that's all you'd be able to do this term. I'm screaming and running at one of them. Yeah, not very stealthily. Fuck. Not very stealthily or manly.

Uh-huh. Okay, you know, there's not a lot I can do right now. So I'm gonna say, and I'm gonna cast enhance ability, and I'm gonna give him enhanced strength. What? So any strength checks you make her with advantage. And I think you get some, I think the strength you get something else.

Oh. Oh, wait, what? When he rages, he gets advantage on the strength checks. Yeah, make him smarter. Handsomer. More stealthy. You can give him. More stealthy.

I'm going to give him enhanced decks. Okay. Katz grace. So you have advantage on any stealth checks you make. Cool. Cool. I have advantage on the texture. All righty. And skills turn back at the top of the round.

Do I have advantage on that too? He's got advantage of everything. What's to my right? To your right, there is a, Clubs. Oh, no, jokers. A hallway and then a doorway. A hallway and a doorway?

Yeah. Right there. You know, I don't think of very useful for what they're doing right now, so I'm just going to do a little bit of a poke around over there to see what's happening and listen. Nice good one. What am I going to do? Shoot a gun right now. I invoke the second pact. Don't. You can't do that. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

All right. All righty. So those cages are empty? These cages are empty currently, yes. And that chest is closed? Which one? The one in the, keep moving to your, yeah, that one. This one is currently closed.

It's a coconut phone. All right, look around. I'm gonna run through into that smaller room then just on the other side and- That's as far as you can get. Yeah, crawl up on the wall because I can, and watch in horror. Alrighty, that ends your turn, Percival? Yeah. Tova.

So I have a question for you real quick. Yes. I have the words, re-roll is plus 25 on weapon written on here under great weapon fighting. What does that mean? Oh, that means if you want to and attack, you can take minus five to hit to add ten to damage. Okay, cool. It's a gamble. I'll give it back. Oh, no, that's great weapon master.

Yeah. And then you have great weapon fighting, which is you can you can re-roll any ones or twos that you roll for damage once. Yeah, yeah, okay. Oh, that's what it says. It says re-roll ones and twos, not re-roll is plus 25. That is confusing handwriting for me. No worries.

You're not a writer of . I understand, no. I should never get paid for that, ever. All right, well, I'm just gonna charge in as bare. And in the dark, I can go 10 more feet. Yeah, because it's low light. I assume they haven't gone that far. They haven't gone that far.

This is five, five, ten, fifteen, farther and dark. What? 35, thirty-five, forty-five, forty-five. You rush in, the one that was that, that initially left, is slaughtered on the ground, but as you rush past stepping over its corpse, you see another fleshy-mast of the lemurais,

the creatures that have been hauling you around since you got here. That's the one I'm running at, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, well I want to kill it. Go for it, roll for an attack. I'm gonna do that. Okay.

Okay. So that and... Wait, so I'm up there now, so I get the transform added to my weapon, yeah? Correct, you do. Okay, so that is a... Transitional plus two. So plus 12? Plus 14.

That's 30. That hits. Go ahead and roll damage. And then... Roll that too. Fuck out. Oh, yeah. Okay, so two sixes.

And that is plus nine, so that is... So that is 21. 200 points of damage. As you rush forward, you come down with the Great Sword and slice right to the center of this cluster of flesh. It's just, and kind of falls to the ground slung in two pieces, quivering, and then disperses. Do you have a bonus action?

Do you have a bonus action? You have a bonus action, yeah. I just want to spit on it. I hate that guy. Big old, thick, It's my least favorite one. Thick, bear lugi, onto the corpse as it slowly turns to like a liquid that steams as it falls into the cracks and crevices of the stone floor.

All right. Bye, motherfucker. All right. That's Tova's turn. That guy's gone. This, uh, lumere 15 feet movement. One, two, three. One, two, three. It just, another one kind of comes up behind you. It's a pretty good. But it can't quite, it has to use all of its action to get to you. These creatures are not very dangerous if you're far away.

All right. If you're far away. So as that shambles forward, another winging creature turns to the corner inspecting the sound. And as it turns the corner and sees Uterian shouting, as you ram forward the spear and the creature, You're about to attack, get slashed in half in front of you, robbing you of your glory.

Yeah. You turn the corner and see another wing in humanoid. This one female, with a very, very intense scowl on its face. You can see the fanged teeth out of the mouth. She goes, ha! And points towards you. I need you to go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw. Advantage, advantage.

With advantage. 18. 18, okay. You feel an influence begin to press into your brain, drawing you into a strange brain space, and you clench your eyes and force it your will strong enough to resist the effect. Strange brain space.

The, uh, upon seeing, upon seeing this fail and your, you should go clear, glances about and sees everyone else charging into the room and then backs up again into the chamber this way. Damn it, damn it, damn it. That far with the rest of their movement, and that's as far as they get. I feel like you're alerting the whole goddamn house. We gotta eventually get a candle on this. A handle or a candle?

A handle and a candle. All right. That brings us two facts. All right, I can't see too well from here. So from where I am crashing from my sister, do I see the L'Amore? You do. All right.

And am I within 60 feet? You are indeed. All right, I'm going to chuck whisper at it. All right. I will say, if you don't move, Grog is blocking a large portion of the space. I'll give you disadvantage on the attack, even though the creatures are very easy to see.

I'm a sharp shooter, so only Only full cover affects my attacks. Fair enough. So go ahead and you're unaffected. And I got a 22. 22 hits, go to all damage. Okay, and I'm going to Bamp there on this. So that, and Grog is right up against it?

Yes, or Grog is not. Grog is about 10 feet away from it. But Tova is right next to it. All right, so the sneak attack damage. So that is four, because eight is 12 plus psychic damage. 19 plus the sneak attack damage is 22, 26, 27, 32, 32, 37, 44 total. Who's God?

Okay. You eviscerate the lemuray. You watch, as you just jam your dagger through it multiple times, and each section you carve off of it, it kind of splits open, leaving these stringy tendrils of flesh and tendon behind, as it kind of... wails and shrieks to the ground, kind of slowly dissipating into a thick sludge.

And from my new vantage point, do I see the winged creature that you had referenced? You make a perception check. All right. I just kind of glance around the room. That is 24. 24. You unfortunately do not. All right.

I am going to use my bonus action to hide if I can. I should have full movement. Can I back into the corner of the room? Yeah, you can back into the back corner here and go ahead and roll your stealth. Sure. That's a 40. Okay. Well, no, you don't get the plus 10. Oh, 30. Because you already used cast center as mark, which got rid of past that trade. So 30, but good to know. Vex, you're up. All right, I come running forward, and as I'm running forward, I bam prink it out of the necklace.

So as far as you can get there and then trink it. Doobbears. Bear friend. Emerges in the chamber next to grog. That's my bear friend. Oh, the bears. It goes over and like, it's right next to the destroyed corpse of the devil humanoid earlier, this face mash in. Just kind of, eat it.

Can I say, are we in the clear? Is everyone safe? Guys, you all hear Vex say that. No, there's run running. Oh, fuck. Trinket, go after it. Which way did it go? Down the hallway to the right, left direction. That was helpful. Yeah. Okay. So that was two out of four possible answers.

Ten, fifteen, five, twenty five, thirty, thirty-five. Trinket does manage to just catch up with it. Oh shit. He's gonna try to attack it. Can he do that? Yeah, you can. All right, fuck. Look, he's gonna jump on it. Double bear action. Bram, bram, bram. Pim-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-h. Oh, that's really good.

Really don't Google that. It's really good job. Two bears wrestling with each other. A hot mess of- 28. 28 hits. Yeah, go to all damage. That's a really good rule for Fing. I know.

Google that one. So you're using your action to give him a double attack? Yeah. Okay. Because you're not actually attacking anything you can't see. So go for it. So there's two attacks. to the first one's damage? Okay, the first one's damage would be,

ooh, 14. 14, all right. And the second one is 26. 26 hits. And that's, whoa. 8 plus 9 is spoof. Oh, we go. No, 17.

17, there you go. So look at that. So Trinket rushes in with a double swipe. As soon as the creature kind of backs around the corner, and it goes to turn, Trin comes rushing around the corner and just, tears into the claw and a bite into this female devil who gets pushed into the wall and just torn into the chest terribly.

You guys just see and hear this from the distance. You don't actually watch the impact happen, but you hear the screaming and trinket roaring as it strikes into it. Oh shit, well, that's wild. Hey buddy, try to stay quiet. You get the sense that, It's gonna be real hard to try to maintain a sense of stealth in this stronghold now.

Oh, fuck. So that ends your turn? Grog, you're up. Yeah. I'll run after. Wait, I use my bonus action to hide as well. Okay, go and roll stealthy truck. Oh, let's, let's, drink it out of the necklaces that counts my bonus action? Actually, I would probably say your bonus action, yeah.

Grog. I run after, winged she, bitch. Yeah, not an issue. You get up there. right with Trinket, we'll say for the purposes of this tiny alley that you're uncomfortably close. Dude, you're both messes besides. You have to kind of like move the sign around and Trinket and come down with the hammer if you want. Yeah, two please. Reckless.

1333. That hits. Okay. Oh, I re-roll that because that's a one. That's a two. Eighteen. Eighteen points. Eighteen points of damage.

All righty. Reckles. That guys. 36. That hits. Go to roll damage. 23 points of damage. Dasty.

Alrighty. As you slam into multiple times with the hammer kind of reaching around the side of Trinket, it's being pushed against the wall and you can see she has this giant slash mark in the chest, the big part of the neck that's been torn out, and you just start bludgeoning her in the side of the shoulder, and she's is really, really frustrating. However, is... All right, so that ends your turn of Grog? She's not doing it.

Terran, you're up. Oh. Is that thing still alive that Grog is fighting? It is. Okay. Your turn, buddy. Come on. Tell me what you got. Keep it from getting away.

Yeah, I'm good at that. I will run around the corner. As soon as we run around the corner, you see just this mass of fur that is trinket, this massive muscle that is Grog, and this tiny little bit of the devilish head of this thing. this female. Okay.

Stick the stick and just as you're holding there. Just poke it right there. Do I have more movement? No, right? You do have a little more movement, yeah. All right, can I get up to poke it? You can, because it is a reach weapon, because it is a reach weapon, you can over-drink it.

You. It's the best, what are you talking about? I love it. All righty. So, go ahead and roll an attack. Would it take my bonus action to say fire and to light my weapon on fire? Yes, you can do that. Okay, I'm lighting my weapon on fire and poking it. Okay, so the front of it bursts into flame and you peer on the side, so go ahead and roll an attack.

A fire, thank God. Yes, I know how to do this. I know how to do this. Yes, you do. Attack plus eight, so that's 21. 21 hits. Okay. So it's 1D12.

Hey, he-he-he. Come on, it's like frog gigging. Oh, four. Plus two magic. So that's six, plus 1D6 is four. What did I just say? Ten. Ten.

All right. The fire is reduced by half. So it's eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. I'm hasted, I get another attack. You do.

Puck again! Okay. You be fucking gills, this minute. 18. Unfortunately does not hit. I'm feeling lucky. Yeah, 24. That hits, go.

Oh, Terry. Oh, 10. 10 plus 2, that's 12, plus 6. Six! Fifteen, because half the fire damage. It's like jamming over Trinket. The second one gets in the throat, holding us up. Be dead, be dead.

Shh, go to sleep. That'll do it. Yes. And as the lance slings into the side of her throat, which is the only thing you can really see at this point over Tring is grabs up and instinctually catches the lance as you're pushing it in and you just kind of shove it in going, ah, it's like the slow, saving private Ryan knife push.

She's like, ah. And it just falls limp on the edge of the lance as you crumbles to the ground. Oh, nice Joe. Wow. Can we be quiet now? You should open your eyes, though. Do-Die take this down. I am the vanquisher of souls.

Oh, let's see you. Doty immediately pulls the small chamber on the side of the torso, so they holds the book and then I throw up. All right, that ends Tary and's turn, Kieleth. Okay. I am going to kind of back myself up in this corner that I'm in, and I'm going to cast Locate Creature. Okay. And as I cast that, I just... What's the casting time on Locate Creature? That's it.

Who's got the book? The book, go, go, go, go, go, book. Okay, it's one action. You can do it, yeah. One action! It's one action. It's one action. because I knew that. And I'm gonna cast, and I'm gonna say, Ootogosh. Okay. You immediately sense a very large, heavy source of energy right in the center of this chamber here.

He's in the next room, he's in the next turn. Be quiet. And I look at Krog, and I go Krog. Running like a bull and fought on the wind. Cut the throat. Bull. Flopping wheels. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

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This is Mick Unplug, the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur and self-improvement. Let's get started. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying action-packed adventure will take their... across the world fighting for every clothing they can fight. It's one heck of a tale, which is good, because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives.

Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what? All will be revealed in. Sonic the Hedgehog presents The Chaotic's Case Fires. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood. Could we get something a little bit lighter?

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where we go over the top true crime headlines of the week. So come and join us, wherever you listen to your podcast. Are you even seeing, rogue at this point? Just, oh, crog. That wall. Pokey-poke. Why did he just use your fucking earring? I'm trying, he still doesn't understand words.

I can hear you whispering. I don't know why you... I... He's on the other side of the wall. Oh, he's on the other side of the wall. Yeah. Ooh, too gosh. He's in the next fucking world.

Yeah. Why didn't you just say that? Because I was trying to be... What's this Totonka thing you're doing? I don't understand. I was trying to be stealthy. Oh, Tatanka. I'm not Tatanka. You hear a very, very faint sound of shifting stone.

It's very faint. It goes, f- Oh, shit. That's it. Wait, shift of stones? Yeah. What? We should go in the room.

We should get in now before he gets away. We need to go in that room? Do you guys want to flink? I think we can flink. Looks like there's an entrance. Are we still in combat mode right now? Currently there is no immediate threat. So you guys can take a moment if you feel like you need to

No, let's run up and get that fucking room. Is there anything anyone wants to do before we go in last second? I want to check in that little weird corner that's still covered by dark, very gently. Which one? The corner corner. Closer to the cameras. Yeah, farthest from you.

Over here. Over here. Away from you. Like, closest to the cameras. Right, diagonal paper. Over there? Yeah. Would I know anything about the layout of these rooms?

Or just my room? Just your room. That's all you're really aware of this. All right, so as you look over in that corner, you can see it's a series of five. five locked cell doors. Like, sell, some of them have like small bars in the window, some are just solid doors, but they're all slammed and locked.

And meantime, our friend is sealed off behind a closed door? Yeah, we heard some stone moving, so I think he's trying to get away. He's in this room. There's a shut door between us and this guy? You don't know. All right. I'll start looking. I'm going to creep along towards our friend then.

Okay. Move 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. Wow. That's hidden. All right, so this is. I come in too. All right. Kila, if you do anything else?

Can I take this opportunity to do a quick, inspiring leader speech? It takes 10 minutes to do that? No, then no. I'm not going to do that. Sorry. I'm on a flank around this side a bit. I'm gonna...

This side? Other side. Yep. Four score and... Never mind. There might be a door over there, right? Two doors? Is there a door on that side? Are we trying to get into this?

There's a door that goes this way. Why don't I just make a way in? Oh. I think there's a door right in front of us, but yeah, they'll come in the side. Yeah, but if we can flink him, that'd be great. I'm gonna follow Terry in. Yeah, I followed.

I keep walking down the hall where we just were. I follow Terry as well. Is Terry leading the carriage here? As always. Well, I feel like we're splitting, are we splitting up? No, I'm just following the door. No, I'm just following Terry. All right, so you're following Terry.

Everyone's moving over to the hallway here then. Because this is smart. Doty is pushing forward this way. Toby, you're following? Yep. All righty. I'm staying at the back. Sting back.

Where I am I on that map? You're in the back of the pack? You're kind of in the back of the pack, or middle of the pack right now. Hang on. Can maybe Terry gives us one entrance and then we use the actual entrance as well, so we're all not going into one entrance?

Yeah. You can do that. Flank a motherfucker. First and foremost, I didn't have a chance to peek inside any of those doors. Did I peeking through the window of any of those doors, did I? Not before we'll start moving forward. You can if you want to, but you'll stay behind everyone for a little bit.

Over the earring, if he knows we're here, then all bets are off. But if he doesn't know we're here, I'm going to be able to lay a massive amount of hurt on him at the get-go. I think he knows we're here. Terry was screaming like a woman. I, there's nothing wrong. What if? Number one, there is it. Women are powerful and amazing.

That's right. It was just very high-pitched, is what I meant. Right, and there's nothing wrong with that. Except it gives away our position in this endeavor. But did you see, I slew that slew, slayed? Is slew a past tense of sleigh? Slew. I slew that beast.

I slew that beast. If this is Utagash in the next room, can I do like a wisdom check with my, like, bear smell? Yeah, yeah, yeah. With advantage, because you're keen senses. Bear smell. Take that first one. Okay, and uh... As Toba does this, I turn to her and I say,

you won't pee on me, will you? I've already been marked. I didn't peed on before. Why would you ask that? Stuff do you guys do. I asked that of everyone. Who are you people? So what did you roll for your check?

20. You are familiar with the smell. It is a combined smell of sulfur, a dry earth, dry earth and grotesque decomposition. And the smell is very strong, and you can already kind of follow the scent. It does lead into this next chamber, which is just an open wall. It isn't a door that's closed. There's no door.

It's just an open wall that leads into a chamber. I'll kill that guy so bad. Terry, you're leading in charge you said? I feel like Terry you should make a door on the other side and then we go to the other side. Where we are. We are there already. Right. I mean, but like where Doty is standing right now, if you made a door to do you

door right there. Why would that give us any advantage? I'm making a door five feet away from the other door? No, that's not. Can I step up where Doty is standing is around the corner? Since I'm the closest, can I step up into the doorway and see what I see? Yeah. So you step up and move. As you do, I need you to make a dexterity saving throw. This could be door number two over here. I see. Yeah. That away we're all not crowding through one door. Folks going in the room right on. Nineteen. 19. As you step forward, something beneath your foot kind of Oh, he didn't check. And you look up just as you, as a piece of like a circular stone opening that previously

didn't see before, suddenly pours a heavy amount of extremely hot boiling oil down above you, and you step back just out of the way as splatters across the ground. Oh my god. How did you do? Dexterity. Do you have an advantage on that? Just because of my thing? I had advantage already, but that's cool.

Yeah. He doesn't get saving throws. He gets skills from you. But he has denters saving throws from traps. Still cool. Yeah. Do I see anything through the doorway from where I'm standing? You step forward, make a perception check.

Yeah, this would be good. Oh! Hey! Hey, team! All right, as you turn around the corner and look in, the interior is very low lit. Do it dark vision. What little bit of, I need a dark vision, but there is a little bit of light you see is two sources of very, very low, deep red light. These two giant pools of some thick red liquid that are just emanating this very, very faint glow.

Inside you see there is a giant chair that is affixed into the center of the chamber, as well as an altar in the center. Upon this chair, you see, similar to what you battled in the city of brass, you see a massive pit fiend. The wings kind of lazily uncurled to each side. The corpulent mass of its torso is just this giant belly that hangs almost over the front of its knees. it clutches to its side, and it's using currently to keep one of his arms propped up as a large axe. And the other hand is just resting on the side of the throne. And you see it just sitting there, like tapping its fingers, looking straight at you as you went as you stepped in the hallway. Oh, it's like an invitation. There are a series of clusters of bones throughout the entire room. Oh my Lord.

It looks like a happy little robot from a... Now that I see him, can I look to my left down the rest of the hallway? You can. And it leads to what looks to be like a portless gate, an iron gate of crossbars that has... It's closed, currently, yeah. A fucking jagged up. And I will scoot to my left inside the doorway, but still staying covered behind us. the wall. No, no, to the left of the doorway.

I'll say it's 10.45. Do you want to pick up at this battle moment? I think so. All right. When we come back? Yeah. Are you available? Are you here next week? I don't know. Are you leaving tied to a table? No. We could have found you in a magical shop.

We could have found you in a magical shop. We could have found you in a prison? Nope. Probably not either. Could have been drinking in a bar like a normal person. Just an extra night of torture. No. No big deal. Just an hour and 40 minutes.

Second time. I'd be around. I want to kill this guy. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so I'll have Noel back for next week. We'll take up right at the encounter with Urugash within his stronghold. Uttugash.

Oh man. I think I called him Uttugosh because that's what I wrote down. Uttu G-H. U-T-U-G-A-S. U-H. U-T-U-G-A-S. Oh, it is U-T-U-T-U-T-U-G. Who too gosh?

Who too gosh? It's a deep for us. Okay. You did good. You did good. But yeah, we'll pick this up next week, jumping into this fray. Thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you so much for playing guys.

Thank you, Luke, Krate for being our awesome sponsor. Hey! And we'll see you, WunderCon. We'll see you guys. We'll be there, WonderCon this Saturday, 2 p.m. Yeah, yeah. Two o'clock. Big room.

The arena. The biggest. All right, folks. Have a wonderful night to sleep well. wonderful night, sleep well, and is it Thursday, Ed? Good night. All right. Nice!