D&D is For Nerds - Vampire Infested Barovia III #11 Mentors

Episode Date: April 20, 2024

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At your side. You're listening to the Sands Pants Network. Although you see no water for miles around, you are, like us, marooned. You're stranded in this sad and lonely place called Barovia. To mix metaphors, we are incarcerated. The fog that surrounds us are the bars of our dungeon, and Baron von Strahd is our jailer. As far as I can tell, there is only one way out, and that is to kill the devil Strahd. only one way out, and that is to kill the devil

Strahd. You get to what can only be the last guard. As you pass him, he leans in. At the end of the stairs, turn left, there will be a chest. The wind is blasting at you.

It is freezingly cold. When they stripped us of everything and our equipment, is that including our warm weather gear? Yep. Okay. Well, then we're going to run to that chest. You sprint to the end.

Yep. That single lonely staircase begins winding around the last tippy part of the mountain, clinging to the side of it for dear life. It is sheer up one side, sheer down the other. You can see, even through the howling wind and the snow that it's throwing, you can see the skeletal remains of some building

lying atop Mount Gacchus. This would have once been a multi-story affair, but now any story above the first has been sheared away, thrown down the side of Mount Gacchus to be forever destroyed. You reach the top of the stairs and you can see ahead of you there is some sort of courtyard. In the courtyard, this would be outside or the building is made up of several parts. You can see there's the largest part is to your left, a smaller part to your right, and then that courtyard in the middle directly ahead of you. In the center of the courtyard, you can see there's some sort of statue, but you can't make it out in the howling wind.

Directly to the left of you before the big building, you can see it's underneath some rocks, but not very well. Someone came up here, put it down, and then fucking booked it. They did not linger. There is a little bronze chest. Crack it open. You can see all of your equipment in there. Get that warm weather gear on ASAP. Even with the warm weather gear, you're still

going to need to make checks, but every hour rather than every minute. Okay. What would you like to explore first? The big building, little building The courtyard What were they saying? What were they saying? So what we're dealing with

Is not a death god It's a wraith It's a wraith And I'm telling you what Hector We can't fight it What is a wraith? Do I know what a wraith is? Bad news

Esmeralda says You would know of wraiths From like fairy tales Yeah It's a scary thing A lot of people die In an area Yeah yeah yeah

There's a lot of negative energy Of course I die in an area where there's no negative energy. I've heard the stories. Let me tell you, it'll eat us up like brunch. How do we avoid it? Well, Manuel was kind of mum on how to just sneak on by.

It is a creature like any other. Eyes, ears, mouth, nose, head and shoulders. Here we go. She didn't say that. It is a creature as any other. It has some powerful senses, but the senses have limits. Yeah.

So long, while we don't know where it is, there is no point doing anything other than being careful. If we see the creature, then at least we know where to avoid. I mean, I can do a divine sense, but then it's 60 feet. If it's 60 feet... It's too late, right? Well, you can't see in the snow 60 feet right now.

You can only see like 30 feet. So divine sense actually wouldn't be a bad idea. I can divine sense, but it is 60 feet. I mean, it might be helpful. Okay. Okay. Well, where do we, I guess, looking around? I mean, look, this is beyond my...

I mean, Esmeralda. First thing we need to do is get the hell out of... Yes, let's go in the small building. We'll go in the small building. All right. I want to... Yeah, divine sense while we walk to the small building. As you pass, you've got to walk a bit into the courtyard to get to the small building.

As you do that, you get a better view of the large, you get a better view of everything. The large building, first off, you can see there were once two heavy wooden and stone doors that would have stopped wind and people from getting in and out of this temple. But the doors have since collapsed, and now people can freely go in and out of the large building whenever they want. You can see there are many holes and gaps in the large building, so you could kind of climb in really anywhere. This smaller building is just as badly damaged, but you can scramble in via one of the many holes if you don't

want to take the main door for whatever reason. You get a slightly better look at the statue. The statue appears to be of a person, a humanoid of some type wearing robes, but you don't get any details. You need to get right up to it for details. You do, however,

also spot on the far side of the courtyard, so to your left is the big building, to your right is the small one, statues ahead of you in the courtyard. Past the statue, there appears to be another bridge, but you're not sure where it goes. You duck into that smaller

building. The first thing you see, there is the remains of, oh, there's no roof to this, so there's not a lot. It's sheltered from- But not really heaps, yeah. Yeah, some shelter, mostly just from the wind. You can see the first room you enter has what was once a fireplace with a chimney and flue. Okay.

There is the remains of a camp set up here. The fireplace is still, it was cleared recently enough that the fireplace could be relit now. It was cleared recently enough that the fireplace could be relit now. You can see a bedroll, a sack with some food, and a couple of crates. Oh, not crates. That would be too elaborate. Actually, just a bunch of sacks.

Some closed, some open. The open one, literally the one open one, you can see there's food inside of it. How old does it look? I guess the fireplace is pretty recent. You going to inspect? Yeah. You think this can't be more than a couple months old. The food is

it's been in cold weather, so the food is preserved a little bit longer than it might normally, but some of the food here would have definitely rotted if it had been here for longer than a couple months. Okay, interesting. You see in the other sacks, there is monster hunting supplies. Esmeralda hisses,

Van Richten! She immediately begins replenishing her monster hunting supplies from the sacks. Nice. Do I have a headache? Yeah. Well, I'm coming. You're coming down. Yeah. Alright, cool. I'm going to be like coming down. Yeah. All right. Cool. I'm going to be like, yes, and I want to start just, I'm hungry.

Yeah, fair enough. So I'm just going to start eating some of that food. Okay. Yeah. Nice. Haven't really been paying too much attention. I think like a bit of a mental fog happening right now. It seems like it.

Just trying to think. Yeah, a little bit of a. Did you see Yon, though? It's hard to say. I'm like, okay, Esme, what did you give me this morning? It is... I heard the local call it Peruvian marching powder. I think it is worn off.

It's worn off. Oh, yeah, it'll give you a calm down, she says. I just want to start eating whatever... What delicious things am I supping on? You're eating, there would be..., fuck, what would there be? Hardtack? Yeah, hardtack. Pemmican?

There'd be some, yeah, canned type foods. Actually, yeah, there would be proper pull-tab canned type foods. There might be some preserved stew. It'll be cold, but nice. There might be some fruit, which is'll be cold, but nice. There might be some fruit, which is a bit past its use by. Still good.

Apples and grapes. Oh my god. Cracking open an apple tin, being like, um, yes. An apple, uh, pip, pip, pip. I'll eat some apples too. A big wineskin full of brandy. Okay, that I need to be not having. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not the type of brandy. Okay, that I need to be not having.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not the type of brandy for you. Right now. What else? Well, yeah, maybe different types of tinned food as well. Like a flatter tin, you pull that one open and it's got sardines inside. That's amazing. Oh, all right.

Should we fire? Do we put it on? Esmeralda is still going through the monster hunting supplies. She produces and then throws to you, Pip, ten silver bolts and ten cold iron bolts. Oh, awesome. Cold iron bolts. She then, once she gets to the bottom of one of the bags,

she calls out, Eureka! She produces a leather-bound notebook. He always leaves these behind like fucking coins out of his pants. She starts flipping through it hurriedly. He makes notes for the local area and then leaves them behind. So this was definitely Van Richten. This was definitely Van Richten.

It's his cipher. She says, turning the diary around to show you. So we're in a shelter of kind at the moment? Yeah, it's not great, but you can get a fire going, which will mean that you don't have to make checks. So divine sense didn't sense anything? Not within 60 feet of you. That's all I need to know.

Okay. Do we start a gesture to the fire? Would it be safe? Yes, but how long are we going to spend here? Just so we get our bearings. All right. Can I knuckle down and light the fire? I think I have a high in

survival. Have I embarrassed myself in front of my friends? Yeah, no, you light the fire. You light the fire with time to prevent a check. Esmeralda starts deciphering the book. It becomes apparent

that Van Richten spent at least a few days here, maybe a week in total in this place, which gives you a little bit of hope that you're safe from the wraith here. It appears that Van Richten took particular interest in the statue. There's text below the statue, and he was trying

to decipher what was written there, but he didn't make a lot of headway. Is there anything to sit upon, or like a sax of anything? There's a bedroll, but that's the best you've got. That's pretty good. Just sitting on a bedroll. I want to be lazily, like gesturing with

an apple on my fork. I don't know if I have a fork or anything. Just kind of like gesturing with a bit of apple in your hand. Just trying to think things through and really finding it hard to think. Love that. Yeah, okay. Right, so we're here. There's a statue of...

What does the statue say? He's been trying to decipher it, but he's unable to. He doesn't know the language? No. Is there a... What's written there? She turns it around and shows you

Van Richten has copied it. Does my Eyes of the Rune, like the read-all writing, does that? No, it doesn't actually allow you to. You look at it, and typically the way it works is, it happens in the periphery of your vision. The sigils rearrange themselves so that you understand what's being written. But you see that in your periphery they rearrange themselves.

Then when you look directly at them, they turn back into their original form. Even I cannot read this. There's old magic here. Older than, well, who knows how old. I mean, I don't know how much you know about the, I guess, any inadvertence or deliberate pact that we've made. But, I mean, I can read. I've spent, I mean, one day I could read anything recently.

And now I can't read this. Do you know, did you previously speak Draconic? I'll write something down in Draconic and show it to you. Say what it says. Hello, Hector. It still works. Hello, Hector. Okay, well, then it's the writing, not

your ability, which is good. Esmeralda, still scanning the book. Hello, Hector. Okay. Well, then it's the writing, not your ability. Which is good. Esmeralda still scanning the book. Ooh. Falsely, a note in the margins. Falsely named dead. She gestures at you, Pip. Doesn't seem to want to leave the main building.

Try to avoid. Okay. That's good to know. The main building? The main building would be... There would be another building on the other side of the courtyard. So that means we take the bridge, right? Depending where the bridge takes us, sure. Well, there's nowhere else to go.

It's either that or back to Kooteri. Well, the main building. Yeah, isn't that where the falsely named Undead is? Yeah, but if I were a ancient evil temple, I feel like I would be spinning off wraiths. Yeah, I suppose. Coward. So the temple is underneath

the main building i mean i would say that is more likely than the bridge to be honest is anything does he say if it what is it beyond the bridge uh you know what yeah he's probably sketched a map of the area cool obviously for the people at home you can't see this map. So basically, just ruins, right? And we've kind of got where we are, which is kind of towards the west side. There's the bridge we came over towards the east, which has now been shut off from us. No, that's the other bridge. Or is that the other bridge? Oh, okay.

So the other bridge kind of collapsed. Yeah, it doesn't look too hot. Okay, so that's the bridge that we can't really do anything with because it's collapsed, yeah, and there's nothing on the other side. Sweet. Okay, so towards the west, we have the stairs coming up to where we were. Towards the east is a bridge that leads fucking nowhere. We've got this statue in the middle

there. Looks like there's one tower on the building that is inhabited by the Wraith. So northeast, that's where the Wraith is, but we that's where the Wraith is. But we can go further into the temple. There's like a big old sundial or like a mosaic design in the temple. And then there's the statue where the markings were.

Is that the statue at the very end of that? No, a different statue. Actually, that statue would not be marked on this map. That instead would say where that statue is, right at the northern, basically as far as you can get from where you are currently that would say entrance to the amber temple okay okay well then as we're looking at the map yeah so it's uh where the wraith is which is north east and then further up towards north the very top it's this big old amber temple. And I'm just like, Esme.

Actually, I think we could avoid the... Yeah. And it's got to draw a line from the tower to where it is. And we could avoid it. She nods. It's not something she was like, oh, do you think this could help us? She has only just discovered this as well. Yeah, it's like, I guess we could avoid it. And Van Richten says nothing about anything else in the building.

So where the tower is, where the Wraith is, that's on the east side. On the west side, that is marked as library, just in quotation marks. So you get the impression. It's library. There was once a library there. There was once books. Yeah. In that center where you said the sundial is, it says star pattern.

Oh, okay. That's what that one says. And then, yeah, at the far, oh God, at the far it says entrance to the Amber Temple. Okay. Okay, so we know where the Amber Temple is. The statue, is it worth perhaps looking at the actual statue itself? We'll pass by it, might as well. Esmeralda nods. There's no point to not.

Do we want to just make a beeline? Yeah, take a torch, I reckon, from the fire and let's go. You make a torch, step out into the wind and it immediately Well, that was stupid. Throw it off into the snow. You have it for when you're inside, I guess. It'll still be really cold in there.

Alright, I'll just keep sheath it, I guess. You approach the statue. The stone of this statue is older and different to the stone of the surrounding buildings. It looks like everything here has been built around it. The statue is of a hooded figure with a mouth slightly open and deep blackness within the hood besides. Darker than dark, as if light cannot escape its depths.

At the base of the statue is a plaque made of solid amber with runes carved into it. The runes are beyond translation for any of you. And then I need to make perception checks for both of you. Uh-oh. At disadvantage. No, it's good. Oh, okay. Hector, you can hear like the statue speaking.

I just want to like rub my snout. Just, um, do you not hear that? Anyone? Hang on. Can't you march over the wind? I want to like listen out for what the whispers are saying. I know I shouldn't, but I'm going to. Oh, yeah. Clever. I have to listen out for what the whispers are saying. I know I shouldn't, but I'm going to. Oh, yeah, clever.

I have to listen to the whispers. Pip, you still can't hear anything. Neither can Esmeralda. Hector, if you want to make another check, you're going to have to get closer. Hang on, hang on. You can tell it's coming from the hood, so you'd need to get your ear closer.

Okay. Now, I... Okay, so Zamet knows that that is silly. Yeah, yeah. And all the alarm bells are just like blaring off. Oh yeah.

Now for Hector, he has to come here, he has to learn information. Maybe some of those alarm bells are also blaring, but I don't know if I shouldn't. Yeah.

That's kind of on you, unfortunately. I can't determine that for you. Plus, there's a darkness growing steadily inside Hector. Might be influencing him a little bit. And there, you know,

certain comedowns of certain things. It does involve a bit of mental fog and irritability. Profuse marching powder does terrible things to one's determination of if magic is evil. He's such a curious little boy. Hang on, wait one minute. I just want to put my ear...

Hang on a second. Are you stopping me? Yes, I think I am. If I say you step... If you are getting close enough that you could almost be touching it, then I'm grabbing you by the back of your shirt and pulling you back. Hey, how about we don't listen to the mysterious evil whispers

coming from the statue? I mean, it's... Whispers? Never good. Van Richten knows something is important about this, right? Yes. Could be. Esmeralda gives you this look.

Ooh. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe he should be putting his ear to it. Like, you can't Esmeralda's a fucking wild card I understand

but if if if if if if if

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if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if He said nothing of whispers, though. You're already harboring one evil god, Hector. I don't think you should harbor more. But it's your destiny. All you need to do is have some faith. I suppose. Faith that she will protect me. I put my ear to the statue. You learn a terrible secret.

Oh, man. Fucking hell. You learn the day of your mentor's death. Oh. Who is Hector's mentor? Pip. Pip? Hector, you learn the day of Pip's death.

Uh-oh. Now, when you say I learn the death of my mentor, do I understand that that is my mentor? Yes. Or do I understand that I learn the day of Pip's death? The secret is framed as the day of your mentor's death, and it's Pip's death. And then I get a vision or something of Pip.

No, the statue speaks it to you. He speaks it to me. The statue speaks it to you. And no one else hears it? No, just you. My eyes widen. Is it a date or a vision? It's not a vision.

Is it a description of how, or is it just specific time? It's not a vision. Is it a description of how or is it just specific time? It's not how. It's a day and time. Okay. You know the exact year, the exact day, the exact time. I'm not giving that to you, but you know it. Okay. Okay.

Do I know? Okay. Is that? This isn't like a prophecy where there's a bit of wiggle room? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is set in stone. People die. Yes.

Do I know? Is it a recent day? As in like, is it close? It's. Am I like, I'm worried or I'm like, I'm, it's sad. It's closer than you wish. Okay. Cool, cool, cool okay cool cool cool cool you would win you are upset by how soon it is oh my god okay learn anything hector um not really okay well

you know what you got one detail at the end violently i want to look at you with a lot of just like, I don't know, this kind of, maybe this expression. Let's see, let's see, this sort of expression. 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.

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long. Fido. At your side. What? Nothing. Something? Nothing yet. Yet? Okay, I've robbed my snout.

Statue's a bust. Let's keep moving. I want to look down at the writing of it. Anything? You can tell that the writing, you don't know how you can tell, but you can tell that the writing is in the same language that was just spoken to you, but you've been given no special understanding of what's written there still. It's just gibberish. Yeah?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you don't feel inhabited? No, not inhabited. Okay. That's great. That's good. Let's head to the...

That's a win. Temple? Head to the major building. Sooner than you like and violently. Mentor. I like to imagine as you're entering, as the last of you enters the building, you monitor yourself. Mentor?

Mentor? What the fuck's Pip got to mentor you about? So, would you like to head straight to the star pattern, or do you want to divert and have a look at the library? I'm assuming you're not going to the Wraith Room. No, no, no, no, no. And honestly, the library, I think if it's...

This is a you and Esme decision. I might... You're reeling? Reeling, and maybe absentmindedly ask you, like like so how do you how do you learn about monster hunting well for me

a very angry very with a dwarf with a sailor's mouth sort of largely kidnapped me dwarf with a sailor's mouth yeah sort of came to the orphanage

I grew up in and grabbed me and I mean that was it, really. You are literally midway talking about Hardcastle when you see three notches in one of the many pillars, stone pillars inside this temple as you're walking through, and you immediately flash back to Hardcastle.

Get your head on straight. Mark yourself when you're getting into an area you don't know short for a second Hector I'll go over to it and check it can I tell like that this is a Hardcastle specific you look at the three notches then you look at one further along

sorry one back the way you came and you see two notches on it and you look at the first one and you see one notch on it this is how Hardcastle marks his way. He tallies so that he knows which marker he's at. This is a bit of the School of the Gentleman that I never followed because I never saw the point,

but that's Hardcastle. That's Hardcastle. He was here. School of the Gentleman. He was here. How was he here? Wait, hang on. School of the Gentleman had your mentor.

Yes, I studied at the School of the Gentleman. Esme studied at the School of the Scholar. There's the School of the Noble, Bear, Harpoon. There's like five main ones and then hundreds and hundreds of others. Because every monster hunter gets it into their head that they have a specific style of monster hunting. They make a school. It's a mess. So you create a school? Yes, you create a school of monster hunting, or make a school. It's a mess. You create a school? Yes, you create a school of monster hunting,

or you don't. But Hardcastle was here. I'd like to start looking around, avoiding the wraith room still. I'd like to start looking around for any other evidence of him. Maybe the next thing, the next memory that hits you,

is Hardcastle. He always... Every memory of Hardcastle begins with him jabbing you painfully in the chest get your head on straight it's like your mnemonic device like you tap on the side you're tapping your forehead just like right this is what i'm gonna do get your head on straight if they got a library you gotta read it you immediately wander into the library yeah yeah you got a library you got to read it

is that and that is what you got taught yes that's yes what there is snow covering the ground this library would have once had beautiful stained glass windows that viewed out down from mount gacchus to a gorgeous sight of Barovia below. But all of the windows have been shattered inwards now. You can see shards of glass mixed in with the snow. And possibly at the same time, possibly over ages, possibly who knows. But all of the shelves where the books are have been knocked, thrown, torn asunder, and the books themselves are destroyed knocked thrown torn asunder and the books themselves

are destroyed on the ground as well the snow leaves no trace because it is always refreshed it's always freezing and snowing up here but the books in the glass tell a different story someone came through recently well i say recently at some point within the last yeah okay can i see i mean i get there's so much snow in here that it'd be hard to tell, but is it possible to see which books have been like, like obviously there would be books in chaos, but are there some books that like seem like

they've been maybe taken away specifically? Alphabetize, alphabetize, alphabetize. You see. The free A's. Get your head on straight. You see what is left of some of the books have been alphabetized. Okay. I'd like to get those books and just to see what he was reading. There's not a lot here.

Yeah. It's written in a bunch of different ancient scripts but they are books on fell awful things not anything specific not rituals not entities not magical items or types of spells but all of them okay all right it's a collection it's literally a collection of things that people information that people is not meant to know. That would be Durak, yeah. Oh, yes, yes. Once again, you can see the books are so badly damaged that any information they once contained is now lost. I think I'd be on your heels.

Yeah, yeah. If you hand them up, I would try and peer at them and read them. Maybe as I'm going through the books, I'm handing them. When I look at it and realize there's nothing of worth to me, I hand it to you. Alphabetize. What does he say? Alphabetize, alphabetize, alphabetize.

Three A's. They're alphabetized not only within language, but by language as well. Abyssal comes before infernal. Celestial in between the two. Yeah, as I'm just reading the covers. Why would you want to flick through I don't, under this we shouldn't be

I'd like to look up Every single one of these books is heretical In some different way than the last This is terrible, that is terrible This is actually more terrible than those two combined Those two are pretty bad You find, one of the books is This is an infamous book within the worship of gnomes and penia

One of the books is a collection of basically essentially the opposite of love, hate letters between gnomes and pannier that are believed to be made up. Yeah, I thought it was propaganda. Well, propaganda, I guess, nevertheless. But these are the opposite of what yender we should get soon, by the way. Should we be touching them? Once again, the books are all so badly destroyed that the information

is gone. There's nothing real. You can get little scratch sentences, but that's it. And he sucks. I'd like to look at Esme and be like, of course the master monster hunters come to try and hunt the biggest monster in Barovia. Esme nods, and you see her eyes

glance back out the door to where you need to go to get to the entrance, and you can see she's rocking from foot to foot. Did your two mentors pause very much on that one? Do they know each other?

He never mentioned Van Richten. I do not know of any meeting that they ever had, but, I mean, it's possible. I give the room another glance over and then then rubbing my snout, I'm like, I suppose we should head deeper in. You said, did he mark anything here of use? Well, we should look for... Did Van Richten have any four notches? Van Richten brings his own books where he goes.

It's so funny that the school of the gentleman is such a chaotic monster hunting school. Would he have learned anything? He might have investigated this area, but by his own notes, I'm guessing he did not think there was much here to discover. Does Hardcastle have any...

Hardcastle is big on not bringing books. He had extra space, space is for more weapons. Yeah, exactly. No, no, he'd have a system. A sort of system. Yeah. I'm going to...

I noticed the notches. Yes, yeah, well, that's sort of like breadcrumbs, to tell you way back, which sometimes is useful, but, I mean, in a building like this, you can figure out the way in and out. He does it almost compulsively. Yeah, absolutely. It's useful in a maze, or if you're dealing

with anything plain or maybe where, you know, non-Euclidean space, but to do it in a cottage, it's so funny to imagine going to a little village somewhere, and it's just like a ghost in a house, and he comes in your front door and just slams the axe into the wall.

Thanks, buddy. Okay. Tell you what, though. You'd be glad when you come into the cottage and then you look around and it's got a million rooms now. You'd be glad you're not. You'd be glad for those notches. Shall we head to the...

Yeah. Let's do that. So you said, as a walking tour, you said a school of gentlemen, but he only trained you? Yeah. Well, I mean he he he well so so he trained me and my training was finished and uh then he was also a member of the sharp shot companions right he sort of did both right but we mostly stuck to monster hunting and then uh sort of once my training was complete well it's not as though we split up he would go off sometimes and ramble that's just what he did i would go do my own thing monster hunt by myself but we'd meet up occasionally and then one day he didn't he never came back and it was expected for you to take on, to train someone else?

That's kind of how it works. Interesting. But I never picked up a mentee. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. We had the funeral at the Hardcastle in the Fort Rock Isles, the family seat.

And the sharp-short companions, they sort of thought, well, with Durak gone, I'd join them. I was sort of always a monster hunter first. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, in a way. So they wanted you to,

they recruited you for their, their mercenary group, right? Yes. And you preferred the... Well, they said I'd sworn an oath, which I had. Yes. And that it was for life. Yes. That's what oaths tend to do.

You know. Yeah. Yeah. Pippa somewhere else. Swore an oath and then... At the funeral they said at the funeral they said well

yeah what's next Pip where are we going I said I'm going nowhere with you then some other words were said some harsher words

by from them from both okay haven't seen seen them I mean were there

since I mean at the funeral you say yeah I mean you were it was an ugly funeral I mean, at the funeral, you say? Yeah. I mean, you were... It was an ugly funeral. I mean, you were probably... We buried a coffin full of ash. Not his,

but... Just somebody. Just from the fireplace. Got filled with something. I don't know what. Ash from the forge, yeah. I mean, it was a funeral.

You lost your mentor. You were, I mean. Well, he's back, apparently. Yes, he's back. Let's see if he's in. He'll probably be, if I know Durak, he'll be down there fighting and screaming. So let's get to it. Of course.

There's an Amber Temple to explore. There is. And you've never thought of training anybody, have you? No, not really. I don't know if you realize this about me, Hector, but I'm not very personal. Sorry, yes, you're right. Well, you as me,

have you ever thought about training the next Mondstadt? To be honest, my tutelage is not yet complete so uh i have uh but one final task to complete and then uh van richten i mean these things are not you know set in stone there is no governing body ensuring that i am properly licensed what what is your final i guess exam for lack of a better word i must kill a within monster hunting we call them laird creatures creatures who once once within their place of power have abilities beyond what a normal one might have okay and. And is that your final exam?

Big exams, right? I didn't have a final exam. Durak said one day, you're a good kid. Hey, get your head on straight. You're a good kid. You're done. Don't I never forget. Kind of came out of the blue of him.

Alphabetize! Alphabetize! His voice is changing. Alphabetize! Once the Groucho Marxification of him began, he knew the writing was on the wall. He wanted to find, like all monster hunters, he wanted to find a place to die quietly. They sail out to sea try to fight the big guy

in the sea yeah I guess it is a noble cause trying to go from place to place and ridding the world

of terrible creatures yeah well I I suppose so it's a step above the adventurer that's for sure. Esme nods. I cannot believe he called you adventurer.

And you. I don't think he meant me. I think someone's worn off. You can say that again. I think he said you too. Adventurers. None of us are adventurers. Esme spits on the ground.

I think we all spit in the ground here, Adam. You know, if you want a job done sloppily, that's who you call an adventurer. If you want a job

done properly, if you want somebody who has a system, you call a monster hunter. It's the ads that you put out. Bitter ads. Yeah.

They're angry, angry bitter ads. It's like a clasp on the back of your, on the back of your... Suppose you have a lot to teach, Pip. What do they say? I guess. A good ad tells someone that your product can cure cancer,

but a great ad tells you the other guy's product will cause cancer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's every monster hunting ad. Want your monster hunted properly? Don't hire an adventurer. Pick me a Duran, and it's like a woodcut of me giving a thumbs up. Woodcut? Oh my god.

Your posters are so expensive. You're paying for quality. And then I come into the town. I sort it out. I think I actually wrote down, actually, somewhere. Where the fuck is it? I am so excited for you to go through all of those funny notes.

All you've got to do is you've got to kill three monster hunters, and that pays for the advertising. Exactly. See? Everything else is profit. You're right. IDATHAM, I say. It's another one of his acronyms.

Identify monster. Decide on a price assess situation track monster hunt monster accept payment move on right

it's a very for some reason it's a bit reminiscent of the dentist system from it's always sunny Idatham Idatham I love the acronyms

alright yes I hold like maybe one of the like the last like books 3 A's 3 A's Idatham. Idatham. I love the acronyms. All right, yes. I hold maybe one of the last books. Three A's. Three A's. Ah. Ah!

I was just flipping through. Why am I on the ground? Ew. Anyway. Anyway, so the Idatham. It's just different from what an adventurer does. Of course. An adventurer arrives, fucks around. Yeah, usually finds out.

Sometimes doesn't. Yeah, that's true. Then they stick around afterwards and it's a nightmare. Even if you hire an adventuring company, it's the same shit. Anyway, we need to move on. Of course. We'll, yeah, head to where it says entrance to the Amber Temple.

You pass that star pattern. You can see tiles and columns in this room. This is the grand, it's obviously some sort of meeting or ritual hole this would be where presumably whatever this temple is was built for whatever that is happens here so tiles and columns in this room are arranged with a clear purpose snow there's no roof there was once a domed ceiling to this, but it's been broken away. And snow now covers the floor like it covers the floor of most of this building.

It indicates there you can see purposeful gaps in the ceiling for light to have once spilled in. And you can see that those gaps in the ceiling corresponded with the star pattern on the ground. gaps in the ceiling corresponded with the star pattern on the ground. So something about light coming in would have been part of whatever happened here, whatever ritual. But right now, looking at this star pattern, you are unable to make heads or tails of it. Well, yeah, right.

So there would have been light poured down, lit up some of the stars here and whatever this was used from before. Would have explained something. I mean, there of the stars here and whatever this was used from before. Would have explained something. I mean, there was the Morning Lord. Right, yeah. And that was, I mean, there were parts of Barovia that were, well, part of something else before Barovia. Yes, that's true. If it's like the skull, the talking skull, it was from before Barovia. It knew some things.

Perhaps the building's the same. Perhaps. And whatever was, I mean, if there was a temple here, it probably wasn't originally for a gesture. Because none of the iconography is here, well, for anything else that we've seen. Yeah, this predates Strahd, definitely. What that means, I don't know.

Is the iconography, is it like star-based or is it like sun-based? As in, you know, is this like a morning lord or like, you know, gnomes in Pannier, it's very much all to do with the morning sun, all to do with, you know, the brightness. Get a good boy card? All right. You think both. Oh.

What'd you get? Oh, my God. think both. Oh. What'd you get? Oh, my God. Not telling. Nothing. We got nothing, Adam. Tell me. No. No, not telling.

Tell me or something bad's about to happen. You gain the benefit of a long wish doing a short wish. No! No! No! I don't have any cards that can do anything. Oh, my God. Thank God, dude.

Yeah, I don't have any dude. I couldn't handle that. You already took the last one we got. I think we've had like two or three and you've taken all of them, dude. I only have one and I never plan on using it. I might as well fucking tear it up. I just took it so that you couldn't have it.

We know. We're aware. You work out, like I said, that it uses both the stars, the moon, and the sun. You know that it's not in worship of a god. Something else is going on here. This is not for worshipping. There's a practical reason for this. It's some sort of clock.

But like an ancient clock. Like this is some sort of clock. But like an ancient clock. Like this is the sort of clock where since its inception this clock has not gone round once. It's a long one. This is not a gods or religious thing at all. This is actually, wait,

hang on a second, brushing away snow and just kind of like, like a little crazy man you know the juice is kicking back in pushing it all away alright the juice

if you look actually so if you can imagine if you just close one eye point up there point at the roof there's light coming in

and it would hit this particular thing here and then brush the star away yes exactly so there's this symbol here so that would be it's kind of like a sundial.

Yeah. So you know how that tracks the day. Right, yes, of course. This, but looking around the pillars and everything, it hasn't done one rotation. What's it tracking? You can't, that is impossible to tell. There's not enough here left.

I don't know. It's counting down. It's counting down. It's counting down. It's counting down. It's counting down. It's counting down. How much time has passed? Impossible to tell. I don't know.

I don't even know where it stopped. But it was... You'd start here and then you'd move and it would be here. And then it would count down. What clocks count down?

Not stopwatches. Stopwatches go up, don't they? Yes, they do. Timers go down. It's a timer for... It's a timer. It's a timer. It is probably for when the chicken is done.

Esmeralda keeps walking. I guess yes. All right. I've just got to hope that we're not the chicken. Esmeralda, walking ahead of the two of you, does big double fingers crossed. Same. And yeah, we'll keep walking.

At the other end, you see there is a big stone wall and doors. Next to the doors, though, there is a corpse. It has been here long enough to become mummified in the ice and snow. Any details of the person have been long lost to the mummification process. In his hands is an iron hammer and chisel. Okay, I'd like to get closer, and I don't want to touch it, but just have a little investigate. Can I just divine sense? He's not dead, but you can now.

You are close enough now to the east, the wraith. Okay. It feels like the sun's setting. You don't want to stare directly at it. Nothing else there, just the wraith? Just the wraith. Oh, okay. Let's thank the gods.

This corpse is thankfully just a corpse. That is good news. That's just a corpse. But wow, we do not want to tussle with that. Yep. There's nothing to discover on him, but he's slumped next to the doors. The doors are made out of iron,

almost entirely of iron. They're heavy, no, sorry, wood and iron. They're heavy and thick. You can see there is little marks in the wall and a bit into the door, carved over and over and over again in many, many different languages. It looks like someone hurriedly was carving this, possibly as they died. The carvings become, over time, more and more loose and more lighter,

and obviously both rushed, but the person carving was weaker and weaker as they went on and on. You can see in several different languages, if you can read several different languages, you can both read. I see it all. Yeah, for you, it's every word you can make out. If you seek honor or power, turn back, for these walls hold naught but doom.

In many vessels below, the darkness shelters a timeless evil the danger is an infection of malevolent divinity our arrogance and folly forged this place into our prison leave now before our damnation becomes yours just saying that out loud i'd like to stare at the door for a long time and then stare at hector but not like I'm looking at Hector for confirmation of anything Like I'm looking at Hector to remind myself of why I've come this far Not really here for honour nor power Says nothing about escape Esme is just nodding along

Nothing ventured Nothing gained I guess probably me and Esme both Pushed the door open No, you put a hand and you begin pulling On the door And the door opens easily Almost

Almost as if something is helping you open it Did Esme help Or was that just me It was just you The doors open too easily. It's uncomfortable. Beyond the doors is a set of stairs that lead you deep into the

heart of Mount Gakas. Pip. Yeah? If you want to turn back, I would not call you a coward. I look down into the darkness and then I look back out the door to the howling wind. Bit late for it now, I think.

Turning back. Ain't that the truth. Lead the way. The stairs descend 500 feet into Mount Gakus before finally plateauing out, and you have not taken more than, on that staircase, you have not taken more than three steps when the door closes behind you. You don't feel like you're trapped,

but you do feel like you're in danger. Hi, it's Fido. We'll see you next time. your pocket for the stuff you love. Select plans even include 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. Hey there fellow adventurer. If you're picking up what we're putting down and want more D&D content, we have just what you need to scratch that itch. D&D is for Nerds Plus, the symbol, not the word, where you can listen to select campaigns that were once only available to Sandspans Plus members, the further adventures of the Greyhill Free Company

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