D&D is For Nerds - Barovia III #25 Oh, Hecktor

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

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Go back to school with Rogers and get Canada's fastest and most reliable internet. Perfect for streaming lectures all day or binging TV shows all night. Save up to $20 per month on Rogers Internet. Visit rogers.com for details. We got you. Rogers. Hi, it's Fido. Start the semester with a new phone and a plan full of data without breaking your budget.

We have everything you need for an A-plus year. Come check out our special back-to-school offers. They'll leave you next time. and safe all semester long. Fido. At your side. You're listening to the Sands Pants Network. Though you see no water for miles around you, you are, like me, nonetheless maroon. We are castaways in this terrible bad dream somebody decided to name Barovia. To switch up the metaphor, we are imprisoned and the fog is the bars of our cell and our jailer

is Baron von Strahd. As far as I can tell, there's no way to escape other than possibly by dying. Maybe by being eaten by a wolf, let's say. Pyrrhon dishes out some grappling hooks and ropes to everyone. You are immediately like, oh my god. You are in the barracks. There are 19 guards in total. Well, I'll spread out

the other guys so that we have our weapons aimed at the guards. Pyrrhon puts up a hand. He points at the five of you and just points at the ground in front of you. I maybe lie down on my belly? That is not what he meant. So he gives you a weird look. I stand up.

He shrugs. When you lie down, he shrugs. He gives you this. Don't worry about it. He then silently goes from bed to bed. Ah, I see. He kills all 19 guards. Why I get the ground?

I do like a, oh, no. You silently watch as 19 times, with the same methodical, it's like, it's like a cartoon show reusing an animation. Far out. How do the other four members of the Berger Masters or Bigfoot Paws...

They would all be members of the Berger Masters group because she had people like that. They don't react much. Yeah, I was like, I just don't know what the proclivities of the Bigfoot Paws army would be. But okay, that's good to know. With the same practiced motion, I was like, I just don't know what the proclivities of the Bigfoot Paul's army would be, but okay, that's good to know. With the same practiced motion,

hand over mouth, slits both arteries and throat in one clean gesture. I watched 19 men die in five minutes. Then, Kieran, after killing the last of them, he stands up and whispers to you, I think we can talk now. Yeah, I think you might be right alright

I'm gonna do the door yeah okay you do the door yeah right I look behind me at all the dead men blimey one of the

one of the Pertramaster's men says we were just not needed yeah we just were not necessary well I mean we might

we might encounter something I suppose. Yeah. Would the arteries, I guess, be skinless? Oh, yeah, true. They're so skinless. They're just right there. Just right there.

He's kind of doing it on easy mode in a way. It's all so gruesome. Yeah. Well, skinlessness varies from person to person. So some of them do have neck skin. Yeah, okay. Not all. That's nice.

But not all. A little bit of resistance for Pyrrhon. Yeah, a little bit of a challenge. Yeah, sure. Hector, outside you watch as the door, an arcane sigil flares and then fades away, and the door opens and Pyrrhon's head pokes out. Excellent.

How long has it been since we arrived at that door? It's been like 10 minutes. Less than. It did not take long. 10 minutes ago, you would have just had a... You are... She has the good stuff. Nice.

While this is affecting you, you are treated as having zero levels of exhaustion. Woo! Excellent news. When this ends, oh no! That's what I'm worried about. As high as the highs are. The lows are worse.

It's good to have max level exhaustion soon. Anywho. Yeah, baby. Okay. What took you so long? Get in here right I just

yeah bass drawn oh good job yes you did it in about five minutes what else is there

have you no we've we arrived in we arrived in this in this room in the barracks we've not explored the moment I've asked

a question I haven't listened I'm listening out now to the sounds of battle yeah sorry this would have happened. I completely neglected to mention this. But yes, before you started climbing the side, all of you would have heard and then the sounds of combat.

Cool. Okay, cool. Sorry. We're back. We're entering now. I suppose technically we would like to sit onto the... Would we be on the top floor where we are currently? We are currently on the top floor, yes.

Correct. You actually haven't even, because you came immediately from the chimney. You have not explored anywhere else in the upper floor yet. So where's everything else? I gesture to the door, time to improvise. There are two doors in this room. Obviously there's the fireplace, which if you wanted to, you could climb down. You don't know how far down, but you can climb down via that.

It would be dangerous, though. Yeah, yeah. Aside from that, there are two wooden doors in this room. They are on kind of opposite ends of the room, so you assume they go to completely different places. Okay. But you don't know where either of them lead currently. I suppose. lead currently. Pyrrhon points to the four Burgermaster lackeys and says, I think perhaps we should keep people as like a

lifeline should we need to beat a hasty retreat. Smart. Otherwise we don't want to get cut off from an exit, obviously. And then someone will probably need to supervise them. Even with the ghost team.

You coward, Pyrrhon. Right, yes, of course So they'll supervise Yes, one of them will So, Perrin, do you want to open and just have us see what's going on? Yeah, alright That's fair enough Completely just not picking up his cues Yep, yep, yep

This isn't like not picking Like this isn't deliberately This is just literally not picking up what he's putting down Perrin checks both doors. He points to one of them, and he says, I believe, from sounds that I can hear beyond, this door, he points to a northern door, leads to the catwalk network,

and this door perhaps leads to something like a mess hall, but I don't think anyone's there. So I guess we need to get to the engineer and Luke Miller. I say we take the catwalk. Catwalk will leave us exposed. But gives us a height advantage to anyone we fight. Also probably leads to the portcullis. Right, well that's the next

point of call. Okay, portcullis it is? Let's do it. Let's go. Alright, are you intending on being quiet about this? I think so. I think so, yeah. Absolutely, yeah. You open the door to the catwalk and to a scene of abject chaos. Oh, boy. So the catwalk is a spider network of crisscrossing platforms.

There doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to it. It looks like it was just built atop itself over and over and over again. They're connected to the walls of the abattoir wherever is practical, and they're suspended from above wherever is practical. There is one level to the catwalk until it gets to the other side with the front part of the abattoir, and then it splits into two sections. The lower section is for is like an overwatch for the entrance yeah cool the upper section there's some room there that you can see

which has chains going out and attaching i would assume that's the portcullis room you can see below that room where i said that observation that defensive place is you can see that there are guards there firing down on attackers. And you can see down below on the ground level, there are guards defending against the attackers. It looks like the attackers have pushed a little bit in, but not past the portcullis. Not yet, at least. You can see immediately. I mean, you might have already picked up on this, Hector, because you've been here. But you see immediately that were the portcullis to come down,

it would trap a significant amount of the defenders and allow the attackers to just rinse them. Okay, sweet. There are a few guards here and there, posted around. They are mostly firing down on attackers wherever they can.

Is this thing of like, well, you, Pip, and you can go to the portcullis. Pier and maybe Cavendish, you go and take out some of the guards, and me and the Bergamotcher will try and find wherever the Miller or the Engineer is. Your mind is moving a million miles an hour, but that's a good plan.

Okay, you can see along where you are, it kind of breaks off in a similar fashion than it does at the opposite end, where there is a catwalk underneath what are quite obviously a bunch of rooms, offices, and places like that. The barracks and presumably the mess hall are included in that space. So you could, if you wanted to search for Ludmilla, the engineer,

and anything else, you could either go back into the barracks and do it via the mess hall, or you could, there are other doors here, but you don't know where they lead. I kind of maybe look at the Burj Master in terms of like, would she have the opinion? Oh my God, you've got the Burj Master with you. I completely forgot. She, well, actually, no, she doesn't really know either.

She gestures at the other end. So if you're facing north and you just came through a western entrance, she points towards the east. I would guess I know that it's somewhere over there. So can I orientate myself of, like, where the entrance was and where I used to, where I had that one night working? And even if you ask Cavendish to be, like,

because he's been here quite often. Yeah, he works here all the time. Where would be the, I guess, lack of a better word, foreman's office be? And then we could just kind of, from that information, be aligned like, well, me and the clergy must be. Cavendish, with a little hesitation, points at one

of the many doors on the eastern side and says, I believe that will take you to a foreman's office. Okay, well, me and Birgit, we go that way. Cavendish and Pirin.

I look at the guards who were just, you know, can you take care of them? I've got the portcullis. And the other, some of the crew, whatever. Yeah, yeah. Go with that.

All right. All right. You have Iona too? Oh, no, Iona's at the front. We've got a few different, I guess, you know, among... Yeah, yeah.

We've got some red shirts. Yeah, we've got some red shirts. Exactly. Oh, they are holding your retreat. Oh, no, that's true. We left them in the..., I guess, you know, among... Yeah, yeah, we've got some red shirts. Yeah, we've got some red shirts. Exactly. Oh, they are holding your retreat. Oh, no, that's true. We left them in the... Oh, no, with me, as in they came in the back entrance. I'd have some, like... Oh, did you want some extra guys?

I would assume there would be a couple. Yeah, yeah, sure. Sure, you can grab a couple extra people. Yeah, to kind of, like, split up with myself and Pip. I'd say you had maybe, like, four extra guys. Yeah, cool. Well, two with Pyrrhon and Cavendish

to kind of help him. If you split up some of these guys, Pyrrhon shakes his head and says, I think myself and Cavendish would work better alone. Okay, cool.

Two with me, two with you. He does not trust these people to be quiet. Yeah. Fair enough. Does he trust Cavendish to be quiet? He has a level of respect

for Cavendish because Cavendish has fighter levels. Excellent. All right. Well, then, yeah, two with me. No, I'll give them all to Pip, actually. Okay. Okay.

All right. Best of luck. Let's go. Okay. So, well, I guess, Pip, you watch as Cavendish and Piran

move probably ahead of you they fan out in two different directions they have two very different styles

but they end up doing kind of the same thing Piran does basically the same thing that you watched him do

like I said before it's very much like an animation being used on repeat he will sneak up behind someone

if they're a bit too tall for him, he'll kick them in the knee, back of the knee, to drop them low enough to slit their throat, or he'll just straight up slit their throat. One time, maybe to mix things up, you watch him garotte a guy. Just to mix it up. Cavendish,

meanwhile, very like Han Solo leading man type. He just has little isolated fist fights. Awesome. A lot of pushing guys off railings and stuff. You hear a Wilhelm scream. Yeah, nice, nice, nice.

Just so that we are never the focus of attack, every time one of the guards dies, can we move a little bit along the catwalk? Sure, absolutely. Everybody be distracted by that death, and then we can just shift a little forward until we reach the portcullis room. I will roll one stealth check for your group, but I'm going to use the modifier of

the least of your group, which is zero. Okay, you are spotted. Fuck. Ludmilla and kind of the sheriff's not anymore, but what was once also the sheriff's man, start barring your way.

They notice that you're heading towards the portcullis, and access points are prevented. You're going to have to fight your way there now. No worries. While we go to initiative with you, we'll quickly jump over to Hector. Hector, you head towards a random eastern door that might be a foreman's office. Cool. So then, yeah, we'll approach the door, open it,

open it without going in, and then kind of do like the, I guess, see what's in that we can see and then do the whole look behind the door so we don't get shot in the back of the head. Do a little tactical sweep kind of. That's the one. You open the door, give a little look in, and you can see that it is indeed a foreman's office of sorts, but it's not what you're looking for. It looks like the guards use this place as a monitoring station.

You can see there is a bunch of desks up against one wall, which have little viewing orbs. And this is when you realize that there must be like remote sensors throughout this place luckily thankfully for you there's no one at those desks right now there are four guards in this room they are hunched over a table and you can see they were kind of doing the same thing that the purge master and bigfoot paul were doing moments ago they're quite clearly planning some sort of attack when you open the door, one of them looks over, does a bit of a double take, spots you, and we'll go to initiative.

It's a, oh. Oh. Oh, in addition, you can see that there is one other door in this room at the opposite end. Gotcha. Right. It's a moment of surprise for both of us. Yeah.

Huh? Huh? Huh? The guards go first. Okay. Pip, what formation would you have gone with your four mooks? On the catwalk that we're walking along, is there enough room to, like, spread out,

or are we in single file? You could have spread out, but that means that you'd be isolated. Yeah, I think we would have been on the- Unless you jumped over railings. No, I think we would have been on the one catwalk walking kind of in single file, to be honest. You'd have to be single file then, yeah. I'd have been at the front. Okay. Yeah. I think we would have been on the- Unless you jumped over railings. No, I think we would have been on the one catwalk walking kind of in single file. You'd have to be single file then, yeah. I'd have been at the front.

Okay. Yeah. Well, in that case then, they don't actually have a lot of people to spare right now. So actually, there's only two people barring your way. Okay. One of them fires a crossbow and hits you. Fuck. Ugh. You takebow and hits you. Fuck. Ugh.

You take four points of damage. Okay. The crossbow bolt does not penetrate your armor, but it bruises you. Yeah, yeah. Ow, ow. And then the other one charges you with a drawing a short sword as they go. For the dragon! Oh, God.

Oh, God. He swings and misses okay he you grab his sword with a with a gauntleted hand and slam it into the railing next to you cool oh and then the guards in that room one of them turns to a corner and says engage you can't see what happens. Uh-oh. Damn it. Fuck, dude. Then all four of them are, well, you don't see, actually, because you do the little head ducking thing, but then you're not looking. You just hear scrambling. You hear someone yell, engage, and then just scrambling noises.

It sounds like they've started barricading themselves. You definitely hear the table get turned over to create cover. Gotcha. And then it's your turn, Hector. Can I gesture as in, I kind of want to let the Virgin Master go first. Okay. Because I'm guessing she is a wizard with more AoE biz. Very potentially, yeah.

So I'm like, just close the door. They just said engage. I'm guessing I'd make the gesture of the big automaton. I would say that's a good bet, yes. All right. After you. All right. You spend your turn closing and then opening the door.

I want to go after her. Okay, that's fine. Then it is Pip, your turn. You got a guy right in front of you and a ranged enemy behind them. Okay. And then you got the four mooks behind you. I'll just attack this guy right in front of me twice, I think. Okay.

With what? I'll make them just a regular shot. of me twice, I think. Okay. With what? I'll make them just a regular shot. Oh, so yeah, it's with your crossbow? With my crossbow, but I'll make it... I don't know.

Can I remember if they're resistant or immune to any elemental damage? They're just guys. Okay, then I'll make it fire damage. Okay.

You can't get acid because of the gross skin. I'll make it acid. I'll make it acid, actually. And I'll make these defensive shots as well. Do you crit on a 19? Yes.

Well, your second attack's a critical hit. Sweet. The first shot strikes him center of mass. He takes a few steps back and you watch as the acid burns through what little skin he has. Gross. He looks down and it looks up at you and a big smile appears on his lips. To be close to the flayed one. Right.

Then your second shot is possibly going to obliterate this man. Going to put him real close with his god. Right in the kisser. Maximum damage and the target cannot speak for 2d4 rounds. You can't even say how happy he's going to be. Exactly. No prayer for you. Second shot hits him

in the jaw, which begins immediately burning away. He has just the stubs of either side of his jaw left. His tongue... That's disgusting. You hear a little like... You hear a little... As his tongue hits his neck. Yuck, dude.

It's funny that this will only affect him for six rounds. That's the rest of his life. His life could be measured in rounds right now. I'll make that a defensive shot so he has disadvantage to attack me next turn. And then it is a bunch of NPCs. Okay, baby. The mooks behind you, all of them unleash a hail of crossbow fire at the guy who shot you. One hit.

These fucking guys, dude. They gave me the buffoon brigade. That guard takes five points of damage. God damn it. And, oh, and the burgeon master. She spins, you watch. She spins gracefully. When she moves, you see the little bit of ice forms

underneath her. She moves like she's skating. Well, not like. She literally spins around and skates past the door as she does so. She does one little gesture with her hands and mutters something underneath her breath. A massive wall of ice strikes into the room.

You hear screaming and splintering wood. And then she hits the other side. She maybe slides past you and hits the other side. She looks expectantly at you and it's your turn. I look in. You look in. Three of them are entombed. When I say entombed in ice, what's left of them is entombed in ice.

They have been stretched out. A cavity in the wall of ice about this. About two inches? Yeah, about two inches in diameter has been made, and it is tall enough that their entire body fits into it. Oh, my God. That happened to three of them. They're dead.

One of them got hit, but it was kind of knocked aside. Then, now that you're getting a proper look, you look into one of the corners, and you see one of those automatons unlumbering itself and preparing to attack. God damn it. Can I rush that automaton and

hit it? Isn't there a psychic... There is a psychic smite, yes. Yeah, I figured so. Can I use that? A wrathful smite, Adam. Okay.

And I'll hit it twice with my mace. Hit, hit. You hit two times. Mm-hmm. Your first attack does that extra smite damage, that extra psychic damage. When you hit it, that first attack, when the psychic damage goes off, you hit it, that first attack, when the psychic damage goes off,

you see as the creature's mouth, it doesn't open, it falls almost. It was tensioned, like it was ratcheted shut, and then that ratchet just lets go. It drops open, and then ahhhhhh!

Oh no! It begins crying blood Yeah that's right Because it's remembered It was once a guy That's what the psychic damage does Yeah yeah yeah It deceives I think

Yeah Jesus Christ Your second attack Does a further 8 points of damage Yeah Great to hear Yep I do Yeah hopefully

I'm like Is the psychic damage Does it just stun them for a bit Or just really hate They hate it I think they I forget Doesn't really matter We'll find out I suppose The creature The automaton them for a bit or just really hate they hate it i think they forget uh that was it really better

we'll find out i suppose the creature the automaton puts both of its clawed hands on its head and begins shaking its head which causes that jaw which is just loose to fly from side to side like it's a tail or something like that the creature continues to scream in agony. It throws its head up and continues to scream. And it just spends its turn doing that for now. Seems to hate that. Okay. Good to know.

It's the guard's turn again. The one surviving guard you hear behind you, away from you, and then you hear the door open and close. He retreats. He beats a hasty retreat. The guards, on the other hand, that one who you shot, the one right in front of you with the sword.

Jesus Christ. He critically falls. He's dragging guards and bandaging with his time of most need. Off form. He stumbles towards you, and you, without needing to make a roll, just push. Can I grab him by his tongue? Flip him off the edge?

Yeah, absolutely. Yoink! Gross. You grab his tongue, yoink down, his head bounces off one side of the catwalk, and he stumbles backwards and tips over the other side of the catwalk. I immediately, with my hand, wipe off his saliva on my tabard. Gross. The other guard fires a crossbow into your chest and misses.

Thank God. Too stunned. What did you saw? Then it is Pip, your turn Okay, I'll spin around and Toink, toink, plank Plank him twice Alright, you hit two times

Nice Any special sauce on this? No, but it's acid Acid seems like the go Because they've got so little skin already Yeah You know You deal

Yeah, that's enough Toink, toink You shoot him center of mass twice. Both shots right into his sternum. He falls backwards as a whole. You can see through him to the portcullis. Okay. I'll use my movement this turn as well to get as close as I can to the portcullis.

That was honestly, like I said, they really, when you get closer, they'll be able to muster some more people because there's defenders there trying to push back those Bigfoot Poles men. But right now, yeah, they just don't. They're too occupied. Okay. That was Pip, your turn. It is your allies' turn. The mooks follow behind you.

Follow them, boss. God damn it, dude. Is that what you want me to do? They just give little combat box, you know? Yeah, of course. Of course. Absolutely. Course, boss, course.

I've not said a word. Here we go. Watch out. What do you need me to do? No thing, boss. Look out for arrows. Fucking hell. You can level me up now.

Something he's doing? Something he's doing? Something he's doing? Something he's doing? Ah, it's broke. Oh, no. I've got to stop the game starting again. Some, some, some, some, some, some.

Anyway, they follow behind you. Fucking doofus brigade. That'll teach you to get mooks. Named characters only. The Birgitmaster follows in behind you, Hector. And she... Yeah. follows in behind you, Hector. And she... Yeah.

A bolt of lightning hits you from behind, Hector. Oh, no. It goes straight through you and into the creature. Friendly fire is on, I see. No, she hits you with a lightning bolt from behind. The lightning bolt goes straight through your heart, out your chest, and into the creature in front of you. You're already so wired.

Getting electrocuted is only going to make it worse. Yeah. Did I do that? Oh, right. Hi, it's Fido. Start the semester with a new phone and a plan full of data Oh, right. data overage protection so you can go all out without going over. Don't wait. Our back-to-school offers are only available for a limited time. Go to Fido.ca or a Fido store near you and save all semester long. Fido, at your side. Go back to school with Rogers and get Canada's fastest and most reliable internet. Perfect for streaming lectures all day or binging TV shows all night. Save up to $20 per month on Rogers Internet.

Visit rogers.com for details. We got you. Rogers. This Friday. You ready? Okay, let's go. The hunt for the wildest movie of the summer. Everybody run!

Ends here. This is your super friendly and not aggressive reminder to buy tickets immediately. Borderlands. Friday. The electricity... So, here's what happens. She has an ability where you don't take damage from this, but it doesn't work like that.

You take the damage, but then it immediately undamages itself. Oh, God. You are struck by a bolt of lightning, but it leaves no lasting physical damage. Okay. Yeah. All right. I turn to her, and I'm like, thank you for the powder. That's the connection I've made.

Yeah. And it makes you immune to lightning uh yeah oh that's what it does yeah he ran he ran um uh oh the the the the automaton is not dead correct no right no it's still, clutching at its head. Two hits, again, with the mace. And if one hits, wrathful smite. Mismissed. Could I spend, let's say, a good boy card on an extra attack? I just make one more attack as part of that.

Sure, absolutely. That will... Ooh, this one's going to be the... Oh, yep, no, that'll hit. Hoof, hoof. Hixed. And then, yes, I will use Wrathful Stamite again, level one. Okay.

Nice, keeping it stunned, smart. The automaton, grabbing at its head, it tears its own skin off, revealing its skull. You can see holes have been bored into the skull and little electronic probes are stuck into its brain. Oh, that's very... Alright. You see his little electrical

bursts jump from probe to probe. I need to yank them out. Brother! I'm not your mother. It's still crying blood. Kill me! That is what I'm trying to do.

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. And then it is its turn. It is no longer stunned. It attacks you. Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. I thought it would be stunned.

It has gone berserk. Oh, no. That is what you said. Okay, right. Berserk. Hit, fuck. I thought it would be a stem. It has gone berserk. Oh, no. It is what you said. Okay, right. Berserk. The hit hit. I'm trying not to. Not making it easy.

You take. I rolled poorly. 10, 15, 20 points of damage. Okay. I'm not your mother, but if I was, I'd be very disappointed. It takes all of its unnaturally long fingers, slams all five of them into your chest, lifts you up, and you can feel as it's lifting you up,

it's trying to pull its hands apart to tear you in half like it just tore its own head open. Kill me! Kill me! Kill me! And then it is the guard's turn. Okay. Wow, it's his trousers. There's none left.

He ran away. Yeah, one ran away. Pip! You keep making your way across. Yeah. You can now attempt to re-engage stealth. Yeah, why not? Can I actually cast Pass Without Trace?

One of the spells I forget how. That allows you to cast it on multiple people, right? Alright, you cast it over the mooks. Buff and boss. My knees ain't so good for crouching, boss. This fixed up my cricks in my knees, boss. Okay, but you know I'm not good at stealth, boss. Why would he say that?

What do you need? What do you need? Something you're doing? You cast that. You definitely, all five of you definitely pass then. Yes, we do. And you pass without trace and get to

you climb up onto that higher section which leads to the portcullis and you watch as below the defenders keep firing down. They're causing, they're tearing into Bigfoot poles people. These defenders once the portcullis is down

they won't be able to get, it'll make it really hard for them to shoot down, but as they are, they're doing absolute damage. You watch, though, as, just as before, Pyrrhon silently sneaks up behind him one by one. People start

dying, and you watch as significantly louder. Poof, poof, poof. louder was a boring conversation anyway. As John Cavendish leading man's his way on the other side. Have I arrived at the portcullis room? Yes, you've arrived at the portcullis room, but that

is your turn. Okay, no worries. Then it is your allies' turn. The purge master behind you Hector, that is not turn. Okay, no worries. Then it is your allies' turn. The purge master behind you, Hector. That is not pleasant, I assume. She throws a ball of arcane energy at that creature. That will miss. The arcane bolt flies over its head. You can see she's trying to be a little bit more delicate with her attacks.

Since you're very directly connected to each other. That makes sense. Your turn. So when they said engage, did the guards do anything? When they were like, oh, shit, engage. Did they press a button? Did they do a thing? You didn't see.

You just heard them say engage. Don't know if it's voice activated then. Yeah. Right. Okay. I'm going to it's voice activated then. Yeah. Right. Okay. I'm going to grab the arms that are in me, casting Hexblade's Curse. Plus nine to your damages. Oh, boy.

And then what do you do? Right. Do you think it would be better to reach in and grab those exposed wires and just kind of yank and just try and disrupt that? Or is it better to try and, I don't know, aim a mace at that and try and crack its skull? Well, the mace is a big metal ball on a stick, and they are electrode things. So you feel like grabbing and pulling might work, but smashing will definitely work. Then smashing. Smash away.

Smash away, Adam. Two times in the head. Bang, bang. You start hammering those electrodes right into its brain. You don't know if it's hammering the electrodes in or the fact that you didn't deal psychic damage

this turn, but the creature, when I say it calms down, I just mean it stops screaming. Gotcha. Alright, so I know the smite that I drew, the wrathful one, that's a bonus action. I've already used a bonus action. But I could just use a regular smite, right? I don't know.

Maybe, yes. By spending spell slots? Yeah. Sure, if you want. Let's spend a level two one, why not, eh? Yeah. All right, that's an extra 11 points of radiant damage. That does it.

You're hammering the electrodes in one at a time you donk donk donk donk hammer enough of them in that its head starts caving in you crack its skull open exposing its brain one last bludgeoning strike right into its head. Perfect. A perfect hole in its skull for your mace. Crushing its brain. Killing the creature as it drops you. Thank you.

No worries. It hits the ground. Okay. Right. It's got to lay on hands until I'm full. Look around the room. Well, we're no longer in initiative, I'm going to say. Yeah, the guards were scrying stuff, right?

This is like a camera room almost. Essentially, yeah. You wander over to that. He ran that way. Will he be a problem? I would say that he is going to get help. I think it would be insane to think anything else. Okay, right. Well, he went through the...

There's one other door here. He went through that door. That's where we've got to go next. Right, okay. Well, let's have a look right here. And then kind of like, yeah, start looking at the cameras. The Burgermaster, with a wave of her hand, gets rid of the wall of ice. And the soup that those three people became

kind of spreads itself out on the floor. Before this, I'd never seen a souped man before. You see so many interesting things here. Stick with me and you will see so many things you've never seen before. Are you flirting with me? Whoa. She looks you up and down,

half like she's checking you out, half like it looks a little bit like she's trying to work out if she could take you in a fight. And the entire time, the entire time your brain is doing the predator, predator, predator, predator, predator. You're going to get eaten.

Hide under a rock. Sort of thing. And then she says, maybe. That's awesome. I'll file that away for later. Let's have a look at these cameras. I've never taken someone long enough for it to eventuate into anything serious, though. Just letting you know.

It's like taken. What is that? Right. Gotcha. Doing the math. Yes. Well, it is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all. All right, cameras.

A paladin. Jesus. As if she's like turning it over in her head. Wow. What an unexpected twist in this narrative. All right, you're checking the cameras? Yep. I know, well, hey, you know,

Barovian marching band, some of your inhibitions go away. Hey, that's true. I've always said Hector needs a strong older woman to sort him out. A strong older woman or nine. Yeah, makes sense. You realize why no one was manning these crystal ball things.

None of them are in anywhere useful to you. They're used pretty exclusively to watch people on the ground floor. And you kind of know what's happening there. to watch people on the ground floor, and you kind of know what's happening there. If you were trying to see if someone was slacking on the production line, really helpful, but otherwise useless. Correct.

Is there anything in this... Is there any windows or anything like that? You can't really oversee anything. Oh, I'm sorry. Now that you're in the room, you see this, but you wouldn't have seen it coming up to the room. Looking back, there's some sort of magical enchantment upon the walls here that from this side,

it's like a two-way mirror. From this side, you can see out, but from out, you cannot see in. You realize how lucky it was that they were pouring over a map and wouldn't have noticed you. Look back at the map. Is that of any... It's maps.

It's the same maps that you have Except They have If you check they have a map Of this facility I grab that and hold it up to The Birchmaster Clever boy she says

It's changed I'm enjoying this Thank you Oh Hector Oh Thank you Oh Hector Oh Hector Oh Hector When in Borosia What is it Lay it on down

Whatever Push up the table I want to keep doing it But you've got to be serious So Who knows where this table goes We'll save it for after We'll save it for after

She clearly wants to pursue this now But We'll save it for after We'll save it for after She clearly wants to pursue this now But we'll figure that out When you're not in mortal peril That's fine We'll file the waiver later Lazy out the map I guess we are here Predator

You turn the table back up No it's been destroyed You lay the map out on the floor. Or just like up against the two-way mirror, I think. Just slam it up in the mirror. Right, so where? And then, yeah, what can we do back up? You can map out.

So you know, let me give you the rooms, basically. Fantastic. Hell yeah. You are in, this would be described on this map as the foreman's office. You can see that latticework. Actually, they wouldn't have even put it in. There's just like a big note that says catwalks. They haven't made the effort to draw all the different fucking crisscrossing catwalks in.

There's a bunch of information that you already know. The bottom level and its various different little facilities and different places and stuff like that. You can see this map was once used maybe to kind of keep track of people as well. You can see there's notations for, you skip over it, but there's notations for like, oh, this person worked in this place,

this person worked in that place. You can see something was going on there, but it's not relevant, so you keep going. You see this upper floor, you can see the barracks that you came in through. You can see all the different chimneys. You can see that there is two ways to get into the basement. One of them is to drop through the production line,

which is dangerous, but the production line is probably stopped right now, so this is the safest time to do it. Otherwise, the teleportation circle in Ludmilla's office, which you now know how to get to, it's you take the door through here, there'll be a big corridor and one of the doors there leads to Ludmilla's office.

Okay. You can see there's a teleportation circle there that connects to the basement. There was once a set of stairs up the back end of this cathedral behind what would have once been the altar. There is a set of stairs that leads down, but those have been, you can see, filled in. It has been on purpose made inaccessible now. Okay.

All right. What else? Yeah, you see the barracks, you see the mess hall, You see that there's some sort of chapel or prayer room of sorts. Interesting. And other than that, there's some – there's sorts of things that a place needs just for maintenance and stuff like that. Nothing of interest, really. All right.

So if we're here, where is to Ludmilla's office and how close are we to – The door that guy took and then down the corridor and there'll be a door on the right. All right, so if you go in there, that'll be the Dugna's office. So that'll be a vampire. Have a look out the window. Can I see what Piran, Cavendish, and I guess Pip and the rest are doing? You watch as Piran slits throat after throat after throat and then one grot or two, whatever, keeps it interesting.

You watch. You can see the little isolated fights that John Cavendish is having as well. Guy loves having a weapon but using his fists for some reason. Hell yeah. Then you see maybe as Pip manages to get to the door for the portcullis, speaking of which, Pip, you're at the door. I open it. You opening the door and stepping inside, you can see that there is a really big, beefy mountain of a man, my favorite expression. Yeah, yeah. who has, in one hand, he's got a huge bag,

which he's dragging across the floor to get the, you see the mechanism for the portcullis. Looks like he's dragging that huge bag to the portcullis. And in the other hand, he's dragging behind him a fucking huge axe, a executioner's axe, if you will. Actually, sorry, you recognize this guy from when you were going to be maybe executed. That's right.

This guy. Can I attack? Yeah, when you open the door, he turns around and... Innovating breath, baby. Oh, cool. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we'll go to an... No, he's pretty surprised actually. You get a surprise round.

Hell yeah. All right, you hit him with your Innovating Breath. That is a con save, I think? I'm pretty sure, and then they're incapacitated. Yeah. Oh, he hits the ground. Thwomp. Thwomp.

Okay. I guess I put a foot on his back and put my crossbow to his head and just execute him. Yeah, you kill him gangland style. Did I say what's in the sack? You open the sack. It's a bunch of heads. Okay. I'll go to the mechanism.

I guess I just avoided a miniboss. You really did. I was going to have a hool. He's swinging the axe. It was going to be a hool anyway. Those heads, you'll never know. Yeah, what were the heads for? The heads were part of a thing.

Yeah, well. Well, these are the things. You can, through the mechanism, you can see the space for the chains is pretty big. So you can see down into the defenders. You watch the top of Bigfoot Paul's head as it picks a guy up and throws him. Awesome. Is it just like a catch release to drop it okay i'll do it i'll grab it the with a loud sound both of you watch from different angles as the

portcullis slams shut a cheer goes through the attackers and you watch as the defenders throw themselves against the portcullis trying trying to, they are immediately, because they can't get reinforcements, immediately outnumbered, and the attackers just mince them. Hell yeah. Can I do anything, like, briefly before I return to Hector? Like, can I fire through where the chains are to just help out where I can in this brief moment? You take a couple shots.

Yeah, nice. Good job, boss. These guys have done nothing. The whole fucking time they've done nothing. That is some damage to one dog. They've done nothing. They've done like four damage, are they? Yeah.

They've done four damage. I hate these guys. And they got your court. That's true. As you step back out, you can see Piran and John Cavendish have cleared the catwalks. And Piran is very quickly going from there's little arcane sigils

that allow there's no ladders between the catwalk and the lower space it's a little arcane sigil that allows you to hover up and down

Pyrrhon is going from arcane sigil to arcane sigil slashing them as you watch the guards below who have finally spotted them are trying to

outrun Pyrrhon and get to a sigil to come up. There are a couple where they're halfway floating up and then Piran gets rid of it and they just fall to the ground. In one of them, John Cavendish grabs a guy, slams him into the railing, throws him back down.

Nice. We'll start heading back to Hector then. Have a look at the chaos that is happening and look towards where we get to go. Look towards the Burgeon Master. We should probably wait for reinforcements because I hear it's dangerous to go alone.

The Burgeon Master nods slowly, watching as a Pyrrhon causes people to fall to their death. It looks, at a certain point, you realise he's slowing himself down so that they can catch up a little bit and start hovering. We'll see you need for an A-plus year. Come check out our special back-to-school offers. They'll leave you with more cash in your pocket for the stuff you love.

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