High Rollers DnD - High Rollers: Aerois #109 | Bird in a Cage (Part 1)

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

Quill has been planeshifted and imprisoned far away from the team... how will he escape? How will the Stormchasers find him?! We're sponsored by D&D Beyond! The ultimate Dungeons and Dragons toolset. Clean up your dungeon delving life and speed up your games here: http://bit.ly/HRDNDBeyond2021 We're also sponsored by NordVPN! The best tool to protect yourself online! Discover new content that's normally region locked and stay safe with code HRDND to get a 2 year plan + 1 free month here: https://nordvpn.com/hrdnd Support the High Rollers and get early access to podcast episodes (and more) on our Patreon: www.patreon.com/HighRollers Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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using the link in the episode description. Hello and welcome back to Arois. The storm chasers rushed to the sky city of Gusthaven after hearing of an attack during their meeting with the representatives of Arois. On arriving, they found Zarkira, a deadly and cunning sorceress and commander of the Valkyrian Empire, had unleashed a number of powerful dragon-like constructs as well as strange hybrid humanoids onto the city. The storm chasers and their allies split up,

with the party heading to the airship docks to rescue their crew and Captain Thalia Whisperwind and her astral ship, the Twinstar Longbow. The battle seemed to be going far better than expected, with the dragons and hybrids proving no match for the party. However, in a flash of magic, a far more powerful opponent appeared, Zarkira herself, along with a large spider-like construct. Setting the spider on quill, Zarkira then attacked the party with powerful spells and kept the melee fighters disabled. As the battle raged on, Azaria Perel, a powerful mage and entrantress of Gusthaven, appeared to take

sides with Zarkira. However, she quickly revealed this only to be a ploy to buy time while she studied Zarkira's defenses, and revealed that this Zarkira was only a copy, a simulacrum. With combined effort of the party, the simulacrum was defeated. However, in the chaos of this battle, Quill was knocked from the sky by the spider construct, a created creature called a Retriever, and before the party could rescue him, the Retriever grabbed Quill and transported

him away to some unknown location. Without time to chase, having to rush to the aid of Gusthaven and their allies, the party must now figure out where Quill has been taken, whilst Quill finds himself trapped in the real Zarkira's clutches. Dun, dun, dun.

And that, my friends, is where we begin today. As it will, the storm chaser's still in Gusthaven. The ending of the battle, you guys kind of finished your battle at the docks, and the storm chaser itself got up into the air along with the twin star to kind of provide air support to the city. But it still takes you a bit of time to kind of finish off the forces there and ensure that all of your allies, Moonstar, the prince, Sky Prince and all of the citizens are safe. In that time, we see Quill. Quill, when you first arrived, you found yourself in some sort of

anti-magic chamber. You know that you don't, you know, none of your abilities, your spells. You became aware that there was this absence of magic, even your equipment and things like that. And you noticed that there was this kind of two-way windowed glass where some sort of conversation with Zarkira happened.

As they kind of turned away and continued having a conversation, you do see a little bit more. You can read Zarkira's lips, and she says something along the lines of, take his possessions, use the dimensional shackles to prevent escape, and take him to one of the regular cells for now. I must prepare new spells and rituals to fully examine him and begin the process. Make sure one of the illithids

gets as much intel out of him before I begin. His mind may break under the stress of the experiments. Oh, crap. You see her gesture and you see two heavily armed, like full plate wearing guards make their way towards the door to come in. Is there anything you want to try and do now before these guys step inside? I mean, if there's anti-magic, like not a huge amount I can do.

I mean, you're aware that there is an absence of magic in this room. Like even your magic items, you don't feel the connection to them. There's almost always this kind of, like, subtle presence of magic around you because you have all these magical artifacts and spellcasting and things like that. None of that seems to be functional.

Uh, god, yeah. And even, like, Spear of Oracles and all of my magic stuff, that's useless now as well. The Spear is you don't know. I mean, like all of your normal mundane items definitely don't have magic, but the Spear is pretty powerful. Maybe it's more powerful than this chamber.

You don't know. If you would like to try, by all means. I mean, there's not much I can do with it. Really, I kind of just want to keep it on me if i can but they're gonna come in and take all my shit anyway right so yeah and as you're kind of contemplating this the doors uh this kind of metallic door kind of slides up into the ceiling and these two pretty strong looking guards wearing full plate you can't tell who they are what races or genders they are they They kind of come in.

One of them just, they have weapons. One of them has like a big heavy looking two-handed sword at the ready. The other one would probably have some sort of like effect. Alright. Remove everything you have. Everything?

You can keep your clothes. Oh, that's nice um okay i mean they will step in to start like taking stuff off of you as well like they take the spear out of your hands they will begin sort of like you know pulling your satchel bag things like that anything you have now certain things we will say a couple of things things like your lehman's tiny chest the replica is just the item you the focus used to summon the real chest the real chest is hidden on the ethereal plane they can't get access to that unless they know the spell and they can break the component whatever tiny chest so that's okay tiny chest they won't take your mechanical wing because to them they're just like well he can't do anything with that anyway they're

not gonna you know strip off nova's like gear and stuff like that for you they're basically taking anything that they think is a magic item any weapons and any armor you have on you as well as like anything that could be used to escape so like any like mundane equipment um obviously don't delete it but my wyvern armor no yep wyvern armor goes uh weapon goes any potions any like lock picks or anything like that they will basically take off of you my wand of magic missiles no my thunderstorm pistol no uh holy symbol if you have like any kind of holy symbol that you would channel your clerical spells through they take that you know they they know that you are some sort of like spellcaster they're looking for amulets and focuses and things like that uh and then the last thing they do is the one with the sword steps up behind uh steps up to you

and connect something around your neck and to both wings uh it's kind of like a collar with chains that go down to uh wristlets um he connects it to you, and as they step back, they kind of like check it, they nod. All right, the shackles are attached, mistress. And you see Zarkira through the window just nod, and she kind of looks at them, looks at the thing, and there's this moment where you feel the room change you feel like something in the room change like something has been switched off

but then they speak a word uh you know some you know arcane phrase uh basically like draconic for activate and the collar and the two wristlets seem to glow they become alive with magic um and yeah you're like you're kind of tense against them they aren't prohibiting you from like moving like you can use your arms fairly normally you wouldn't be able to fly with this thing attached because it's kind of like a big collar around your neck and then these chains attached to your wrist so you can still use your hands to like eat and you know do things you couldn't fly with this thing on um but yeah there is some sort of other magical effect here that you're

unaware of. But it does seem that the anti-magic has been turned off. Okay. So what's the magic in the thing then? In the shackles? You don't know? They will begin to march you out of this chamber.

They basically kind of shove you and push you. Not like super aggressively or violently, but they're like, all right, time to move. And they kind of give you a nudge and will armed escort you. I mean, yeah, I'll follow for now. I just want to figure out more stuff first. Also, I'm going to a regular cell.

That sounds nice. Yes. So they lead you through a number of kind of twisting corridors down through a... You saw this in Shadowsong Pinnacle, like a magical elevator. They kind of take you into it and the shifting crystal almost seems

to undulate and warp so that the whole thing goes down. And they lead you out into another series of corridors. And you've seen ships like this before. You've been on astral ships like this, kind of black crystalline walls, metal flooring, dull purple and red lights that just kind of give like a very low ambient light throughout the whole place.

Very similar to the one that you found at the bottom of the lake and other vessels that you've been on in a similar nature. And they lead you to a cell. It has a similar kind of field of force um rather than a door completely transparent they touch something on the side it deactivates they put you in they touch it reactivates uh and then they leave you and then they just abandon you and to give you an idea of what this kind of looks like uh here you go it looks like a cell yep

you can just about see that there is a kind of corridor maybe some stairs leading up another couple of doors and then you know a short while later the guards leave one of them seems to head out a kind of pair of double doors and a pair of Durgar seem to come in but they stay

far away from the cell and they appear to be working on some sort of crystalline consoles in the far corner, just kind of muttering to each other as they enter it. This is now where I hand it over to you, where if there's anything you want to do, any questions, this is where you are. Yeah, I don't suppose I saw any like, oh, we're aboard this ship, like insignia or something. No, every single trooper, like if you pass like other soldiers,

they all wear Zarkira's emblem. They're not wearing the normal Valkyrian emblem. They are all very much Zarkira's forces. You don't see any troopers with Kallus's emblems on them. You definitely spy a mixture of creatures because it's quite busy, this ship. There's a lot of things here. You bypass a number of mind flayers.

They seem to have large, hulking creatures, you know, grey skin kind of dragging their arms along behind them or minotaurs, but they all seem to be in a state of mind control. They just kind of blindly following orders, their eyes glazed over just doing whatever you know invisible commands they're being given you do see more of these kind of black clad you know these black armored stormtroopers almost in their full plate armor uh carrying valkyrian weapons kind of stomping around um you do see other dergar as well they

seem to be the like like, labor force here. They're engineers and they're doing repairs or carrying equipment and things like that. They don't seem particularly pleased with the state of things on the ship. And perhaps the most worrying thing that you come across is a number of these very powerful-looking serpentine humanoids. You've encountered Naga before when they attacked the Dragonborn. These ones look far more, I mean, powerful to say the least. They have like serpentine bodies, serpentine heads,

but these kind of humanoid arms dressed in very noble looking fine regalia. Some of them almost look like scientists or researchers. And they are very much the cream of the crop like everybody else is taking orders from them when you bypass them um okay i mean i'm on 30 hp and i don't know what these shackles do so So I'm going to test Aura of Vitality so I can just heal myself back up, I guess? Does that have

a material component? Just verbal. Just verbal. Okay. You can cast the spell, so you cast the spell successfully. Yep. Okay. What's the immediate effect?

So I just heal 2d6 basically every turn. Okay. You get 10 turns of that. So if we average 2d6 to 7, you'll get 70 hit points back. After a minute, one of those guards comes back and slams a button on the side of the cell, and you feel this intense, like, lightning and force power reverberate through you. You take 35 points of force damage. And he basically says, through the thing,

Don't try that again. We know when you're spellcasting. Do it again, I'll crank the power up. I'm trying to keep myself healthy. We don't need you healthy. We just need you alive. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to stay alive. Ow.

Thank you, though. Don't let me catch you spellcasting again. And then he leaves. Bastard. don't let me catch you spellcasting again and then he leaves after a minute though with your perception you do see the Durgar who are working in the corner there's a man and a woman both like bright red almost

like glowing ember hair dark kind of gray skin uh wearing sort of engineers or laborers roles they watch the whole thing and like as soon as the guard goes they kind of mutter something to each other uh you kind of hear something along the lines of like ah fuckens and then just goes back to like

or right there on asses but they seem to go back to what they were doing you also hear a voice in your head oh Or right there on asses. But they seem to go back to what they were doing. You also hear a voice in your head. Oh. Who?

I'm just trying to see if I've got a good setting for something like this. Let's just crank this up. Be careful, friend. If they detect you doing more, it is quite unbearable. Who's in my head? Can you hear me? I can. The range of my telepathy is not much more beyond these cells, but I can sense you, at least.

You're not far from me. You another prisoner? Yes, well, forgotten prisoner, perhaps. You may call me Rana'iel, or Rana. Rana, Rana, how long have you been here? Too long. Zakhira is attempting to find a way beyond my

celestial resistance against mind control. She's trying to learn a way to control my kind. Do you have any idea where we actually are? Oh you are aboard the serpent's coil zarkira's personal flagship serpent's coil serpent's coil um okay uh i need to send a message my friends but i can't spellcast anymore or they're going to electrocute

me some more. Unfortunately so. Serpent's Coil. Serpent's Coil. I don't know anything about Serpent's Coil, do I? No, I don't. You do not, no. What about those two guys over there?

They don't seem too happy. Are you saying this to the... You're thinking this to the mysterious voice? Yeah. The Durgar. Yes. Yes. The Durgar are spiteful, hateful creatures.

They will not show you much sympathy but they do detest zarkira loyal to callus they dislike the way zarkira treats those she deems as lesser beings callus at least has respect for those in his empire. Zarkira sees them merely as pawns. But do not expect sympathy from them. They have not it in their hearts. It's something. It's something. There's another prisoner here somewhere. They will not respond to my messages, but I sense that they are

a chaotic mind. I can only hope that your moments here are peaceful and not too painful. My sympathy to you. How often do they visit you? Zakira, I think, has become bored

of me. It has been a day. It is hard to tell time. I have had several meals since last they came to experiment on me. Now I just hope for a moment of silence

that I may grieve from what I have lost. And what about these shackles? Do you know what they do? Ah. There was no need for them on myself, but I am aware. I once served in Kallus's army, so I am familiar with them. They are called dimensional shackles. They prevent an individual from teleportation

or shifting into another realm. Do they? It means that they greatly fear you. Such a device is not common in the Empire. Zarkira must have planned for your arrival. Feared what you might be able to do.

Hmm. Hmm. Well, that's the only spell I prepared to get out of this mess. what you might be able to do. Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Well, that's the only spell I prepared to get out of this mess. My sympathies. Oh, man. What is your name? Uh, I'm...

Uh, Quill. Kila Kadkala from, uh, Erois. Erois? The Lost World? Yeah. Zarkira came down to capture one of us. I think I possess something she greatly desires. Then I am truly sorry.

It is only until she gets what you possess, what you require, what she desires. Once she has it, I am afraid that you will not belong for this world. Zarkira does not seem to like having loose threads.

I mean, there's four more loose threads. I mean, there's four more loose threads back on Erois. I just need to get a message to them, that's all. Maybe perhaps if you find a moment where they take you from yourself, you may have enough time to use your spell if you have it.

But they will not treat you kindly for breaking their rules. I mean, send a message, maybe get saved, or, and they hurt me, or, they take what they want, and I die.

So, this is true. Until Zarkira has what she wants, I do not think she can risk killing you if she has kept you alive for now. Okay. Okay. That's useful. I am sorry that I cannot

be much use. I am trapped and well, Zarkira has made sure that I will not struggle again against her will. Okay. Zakira has made sure that I will not struggle again against her will okay you've been very useful you've answered more questions than I thought you'd be able to

I'm happy to speak to someone I have been here alone if you require anything else just think it and I will know thank you peace be with you right now yeah then the voice goes goes on in your head uh my plan my plan whilst i have after i've dashed your, let's jump to the party.

So as a point, Tom, you did see, you could read Zarkira's lips. She basically said she needs 10 hours to prepare her spells, and then she's going to start coming to experiment. You got 10 hours, buddy. 10 hours. So have a think about what you want to do meanwhile on a rowis a couple of hours pass you know two hours or so as the city needs to be mopped up people need to be rescued healing needs to be done um the dragons are driven off the sky print saved uh you rally against the city um but yeah it takes some time to fully root Zarkira's forces,

fend off the dragons and all that kind of good stuff, with time for you guys to rest and heal and make sure that everyone's safe. What do you guys do? Gusthaven is safe. Gusthaven is completely fine. All of your allies survived. There was no injuries.

You guys did it. You defeated Zarkira in enough time that there was no threat of injury did it in you defeated zankera in enough time that there was never there was no threat of injury to any of the known npcs your crew has taken at least two casualties um in the wolf pack but none of the named crew uh took any major casualties either um kamara is still alive injured but alive um what do you guys want to do i throw it over to all of you friends how long was this period of cleanup and two hours two hours or so i imagine that whole time we're looking for quill trying to find what at least lucius is like trying to look for sources or retrace basically the only thing you can find out is what Nova already knew the spider

thing grabbed him and they vanished that's like nobody else can give you more information of that unless you guys have like spells or things that you want to do and that's the perfect time for you to start doing that information I have a couple of ideas

but have we had like a short rest in that two hours? Yeah, I'd say part of that two hours is, yeah, part of that is you guys also having the benefits of a short rest, for sure, for sure, for sure. So if you want to spend hit dice, if you want to get spells back that you get back or abilities that you get back, get them now.

Cool. Also, can we say that we've maybe looted that ring and jagged face plate that's like yes yes yes yes drop yep yep yep yep yep yep absolutely um i believe azaria even offered to azaria will identify them for you just like on the cuff um once everything's calmed down uh the ring is a ring of evasion um you can look up in dnd beyond one of you can add it i believe it requires attunement the other is a helm of teleportation it has one charge yes it has one I could try and scry, maybe, see if I could scry on Quill. Although if he's been taken by a Zarkira, chances are there's probably some kind of blocking thing, like when I tried to scry on Starbane.

But it's worth a shot, right? Anything at this point. For him to disappear like that, with no message, nothing. In two hours. Okay. I have a couple of ideas. I'll try Skry first. If not, maybe a dream.

If he's asleep, I can at least appear to him in a dream and figure out if he knows where he is. Otherwise, those are my two ideas. I have a third idea. It's kind of really wacky um and it might blow my brain up but maybe we should try one and two first let's try the simple ones first okay okay uh century ayla anything do you guys want to just add i think or are you just happy for nova to go ahead i think ayla's probably just still really, really mad from everything that just happened. Yeah, for sure.

She's probably making herself busy because she doesn't have the magic to be able to help. And I think she's probably so frustrated by that that she's helping the crew out or lifting stuff around, trying to make herself useful in other ways. There's damage to the city. Yeah, you could absolutely just be going out into the city and being like

lifting up huge chunks of rubble and breaking it up for it to be disposed of and stuff like that. There's definitely busy work that Aayla could be doing. She's not talking to anyone. She's just furiously moving heavy shit around. What about Sentry? I think Sentry would

summon Alnissix and fly around Gustha haven just looking for like any signs of like like hero or anything yeah that's your periton right yeah yeah uh yeah okay so oh whilst in that time while nova's preparing these spells and things like that yeah sentry goes off and begins flying and scouting around um nova do you want to take it away with these spells then? Yeah, so I'll try Scry first. I'm not exactly sure of how to work out the modifiers. There's a lot of words here.

You don't need to because you cast a spell and it doesn't work, which means that Quill is not on this plane of existence. Okay. On the same plane of existence. Okay. Okay. Nova would go, okay, Scry didn't work. Why wouldn't it work?

Either he's protected from it, like Starbane, et cetera, or he's not on this plane of existence. Those are the conditions for the Scry spell. Otherwise, you would get a sense of like, oh, he just resisted it or he's deflected it in some way or something like that. When you say plane of existence would that point towards like he's in space like yes i'm not sure it means he's not on eros so the the planes like because my cosmology is a bit weird right eros is a plane of existence the astral sea which is space is its

own plane of existence but it's connected to all the other planes of existence so it allows for like travel between the two um the other planes are like you know the planets that you visited so elysium as a graph blah blah blah blah you know those are all planes of existence as well okay um okay so that didn't work so either he is being protected by anti-scry magic or he's dead or he's not here uh he he's probably on another plane of existence, which means he's probably up there in space. Or he's dead. Didn't need to hear the third one.

I could try Dream, but Dream is also... I mean, at least with Dream, I could ascertain that he's not on this plane of existence, because that's also... Whatever we can do to narrow it down i i can't see him anywhere there's no sign of him at all not on this plane not on this planet or he could he could he could he could he could he could... He could... He could... He could be...

You don't need to say that yet. We need to keep looking. Magic. It could be magic. Other things we could be doing, maybe we could contact... What if we... If he's maybe up in astral space,

we could ask Thalia and go back up there in the twin star yes uh i don't know how long that would take though it could take a while to get that going now let's break this down what do we know of zarkira where is she when she's not attacking Eros? Mark, this is a Kim question. So I have all that information, the intelligence that we got, and I wrote it down in my notes as intel on Valkyrian outposts, ships, resistance groups, schematics for the Tassadar and other ships. Would Zahkira's spaceship be in that?

You got that from the smuggler, didn't you, out in astral space, the Yggdlof? I would say there's a chance it might be. Zahkira does keep certain things separate from the Empire. I'm going to roll a D100, and I'm going to give this... It's unlikely, but I'm going to give it a 25% chance that, yes, it includes that information. So 75 or higher, and the information you have includes it. I'll roll this on roll 20 so you guys can see it, but it won't appear in the dice log

because I can't roll custom dice on that yet. Okay. So, yes. Nova spends, and this takes time, right? So this is the cost of looking through this, is it takes time. You have to scour through it. It's maybe like 30 minutes of Nova just scanning, maybe even an hour of scanning through and checking all this information and stuff.

But you find references, and it's noted because Zarkira tries to keep the names of her personal ships off Valkyrian records. And the intel you have on it is that her flagship is called the Serpent's Coil. It's where it's her main base of operations. It's where she conducts most of her experiments from. And there is information there that sometimes people from the Valkyrian Empire, prisoners, go missing and nobody knows where they go.

And it's believed that they are either taken, you know, if they're not taken to one of the prison worlds uh in the empire zarkir has probably got hold of them um and is using them for nefarious purposes now whether they go to the serpent's coil you're not 100 sure but it's likely and i think nova is smart enough to go well she tries to keep these ships off the record this is her personal flagship she's a she's a mage she's a very intelligent sorceress she's probably you know keeping them close where she can you know do her her experiments and stuff um so yes i would say that you can find serpent's coil now obviously that doesn't have a location because it's an astral ship

it can move around you it could be anywhere in the astral sea you have no idea where oh oh look look look look there's a thing i missed it before i missed it before because there was so much information but here the serpent's coil um there's some mention in the notes that we got uh from astral space but but that's all i have it could be anywhere but if if if it's to do with sarkira i bet you it she he's there this is something we can we can research we can find more information about the ships some intel from the other side perhaps wings of ishtar do they know where zarkia's ships are They know where Zarkia's ships are.

We could contact Zelian, or maybe Thalia would know something. The guy, Mal, maybe Mal would know, but he was Stark Bane's... Was he Stark Bane's? He was killed by Zekiro forces, but maybe he would know something. He was Valkyrian. He was part of the Valkyrian Empire.

He was Valkyrian. He was not Zarkia's agent. With those that areyrian. He was part of the Valkyrian Empire. He was Valkyrian. He was not a Valkyrianist agent. With those that are on our side, the wings of Ishtar, sound like a good lead. They might have information. Better than anyone on Oroes. How do we contact them, though? Quill was our contact.

Thalia, maybe there's some device in Thalia's ship. Paral woman. Paral woman. She's got spells and stuff. Anyone. Anyone's got spells. Surely we can... Right?

I don't know how it works. Okay. Do you guys want to go and, like, go ask Azaria or, like, gather up thalia as well and like ask them to do a bunch of stuff um you can find them quite easily uh azaria is currently managing the damage to the aether gora her store you can see she's kind of uh overseeing reconstruction doing most of the reconstruction herself via spells as well you can see her like lifting super heavy timbers and reshaping stone and things like that um thalia is just attending to the twin star she's just kind of

you know taking that back to where it was and and is attending to it uh there's we'll rush through because obviously like you guys just have some quick questions is there anything you want to ask what do you want to ask thalia or do you want to ask thalia to do stuff we'll go with her first she's the easiest one um i guess asking thalia in theory if we were to relaunch the twin star and go back out into space how long would that take i'm going to stop you there my dear the cradle i we only got through the once because palidor allowed us entry back to arois with the cradle up there's no way for the twin star to go back into astral space. Until the cradle

is not there, I can't leave. I'm sorry. I know you're looking for Quillek. I'm panicking. That was an oversight. That was a massive oversight. Do you know anything about the serpent's coil? Apparently it's Sartreus flagship.

Yes, I've heard of it it's it's a bit of a ghost ship here a lot of scary stories about ships being run aground and people being taken prisoner and experimented on but it's all all smugglers tales I'm afraid no concrete information. Zarkira keeps things pretty close to a snake-like heart. Um, not one I have a lot of information or familiarity with, thank goodness. We need help from the outside, then. We need to contact the wings of Ishtar. They're the only ones that can do anything.

If they can get us to teleport somewhere right we can we can teleport there can't we we were going to teleport starbane's ship we if we know somewhere we could teleport there would that work you have to know the specific sequence for the the teleport to work because the the way that the the valkyrian ships teleportations workers work is they go across planes but you have to know the exact code um for it to work i know this is you know the code for the tassadar you do know this this is a risk i think it puts us at more risk if we go to the tassadar ourselves however what i'm gonna throw another spanner in the works quill was the one who knew the teleportation circle right he was the one who knew the code sequence none of you know it contact the wings ask them if they know anywhere that we can go anywhere close if we can get close

enough to wherever ship face is then we can jump on one of their ships right they've got ships do you have any astral communication device on this ship i have the communication devices yes but they're designed to work whilst out in astral sea the cradle this is perhaps something that you wouldn't know because you've always lived here it i can't communicate my devices here won't go beyond the cradle uh if you had a means of i know valkyrian has technology that allows his communication to go great distances mine is meant for short-range communications only nothing significant i'm afraid um the twin star Star is a smuggler's vessel. It's not a grand battleship.

I'm very limited in the resources I had aboard it. It was meant for, you know, jumping on cargo ships and stealing what they had. It's really not designed for this sort of thing, I'm afraid. Nova, you've contacted Valor before in a dream. If anyone can get intel on the Serpent's Coil, where it is. I was thinking that was another option, yeah. Maybe either dream on Quill or dream on Valor. But I guess if we dream on Quill, then quill wouldn't actually know where the ship is would he

um and also the other thing with dream as well is it's um nova would have to sit there and wait until quill went to sleep to contact or valor went to sleep so you could be waiting a long time for example yeah was there um in the Colossus construction facility, there was that Zarkera room. Was there anything in there that we could use? Like any devices, any... You didn't see any devices there. Apart from there was the brain, but the brain's gone now.

Yeah, he's Squish. There was no Magitek. That was one of the strange things about the Mind Flay's room. There was no Magitek there, just the brain. Squishy. Yeah. one of the strange things about the the mind flay's room there was no magitek there just the brain device yeah and it seemed to be that the brain maybe was something that they used maybe you could maybe theorize that the brain was some sort of communication system oh oh goody well um i mean i put it in there for a reason. Really weird question, Mark. Sure. Yep.

Given that Quill is like champion of Hesper and all that, and super powerful and like level 15 and cool and stuff, does he count as a demigod? He does not. But I would say you can certainly try that spell with Hesper. Okay. I have another idea, but it could go really horribly wrong and melt a bit of my brain and put me out of action for a while.

Sorry, what? I need to lay out all our other options perhaps before your brain melts, Nova. There's not too much of that going around with me being on the team, so I feel like I need your brain to exist. Please. Okay. I could contact Hesper and ask for his help. He likes Quill.

That could totally work, right? The brain melty part it could go horribly wrong and backfire but it'll only be for a while until i take a rest it's you know maybe i don't know sure you say backfire what do you mean well you're gonna do contacting a very powerful titan god spirit demigod sage long dead sage mysterious entity from another plane stuff could go wrong yeah it's more than because you're not a direct follower you're it's like trying to hijack a phone signal right where a cleric is just like hey yo hespa what's up yeah good to talk to you man you're like trying to like

hack into the phone and like yo hes, Hesper, where you at? You know, that's the difference, right? And therefore, that god might not like being interfered with and may choose to send something back. He likes Quill and his squad, right? I feel like if we're going to be potentially going onto the Tassadar or on Zakira's ship we will need everyone we can get

maybe consider that a last resort perhaps yeah okay the longer we wait the more Quill's in danger I'm also worried about reaching out to him directly in case that jeopardizes him and he's punished for it.

Could we find a cleric we trust and ask them to... No, I don't know how sending works. I was going to ask them to ask Valor, but I wouldn't... They need to know who it is, unfortunately. You could ask

a cleric of Hesper if you knew somebody who was connected to the gods to speak to Hesper on your behalf and save the risk to Nova's brain. You'd need to find one powerful enough or somebody connected enough. Like a big dragon. The cleric who came with us to Gustavus. There was a druid.

There was a druid. One of the shepherds. Scorb. Scorb, that's it. You got it.'s it you got it sneak sneak's the perfect one the ghost of me you'll do it does seem to transcend space and time everybody's here yeah that's the that's another option like uh you know they the the clerics yeah sending you have to know the person um and again it can't go certain uh there's restrictions on it um but they could try and contact hespa using things like commune or you know other powerful spells um all right well i'm gonna let you guys think and when we come back to you guys i want

like a like we're gonna speak to this person we want to do this kind of like plan right so feel free to like use the like roll 20 chat to like chat and have a plan because i want to do this kind of like plan right so feel free to like use the like roll 20 chat to like chat and have a plan because i want to cut back to mr tom hazel hello uh on board in his little prison cell um an hour passes do you want to like take a short rest or something or uh i yeah i'll take a short rest hell yeah i'll uh okay do that for sure for sure for sure i've got a ton of dice to roll why not um sure i can heal up uh boom yeah my my question is do you have like anything you want to try and do uh is there any questions you have uh yeah so i healed 40 from that short rest. That's pretty good. I kind of want to spend some time

studying these gauntlet things, the shackles. Is there anywhere I can determine... I mean, I know what the spell is now. I kind of want to determine how powerful they are, what level they are uh well i will say you know being the the kind of a priest of the god of magic you don't i mean because you you can cast identify but you don't have the material components to do it right so you can't actually cast identify right now uh yeah i mean i've taken all my stuff, so I'll leave that. Make an Arcana check for me.

Okay. Plus seven. What's that? 20. Okay. You don't know the exact details of these things. However, the runes on them, pretty powerful. You don't think that this is a versus level of spell thing. You think that these things have been built to do one thing,

which is stop somebody traveling via magic like as in teleportation or planar shifting whilst these things are on you it ain't gonna happen doesn't matter what level spell you can't travel via magic you can't go into another realm which would include the ethereal plane because that's technically another plane of existence. You can't teleport. You can even misty step with these things on. It prevents teleportation

and planar travel. But they are like manacles. They're made from a very sturdy looking metal. You don't think you're strong enough to break these. Oh, God. But, yeah, they are, you know, designed to do this one thing.

You don't think they do anything else. You think that that's their primary job, is to stop you from teleporting or plane-shifting or doing any nonsense. But they are a spell, right? No, these are a magic item. But they are a spell, right? No, these are a magic item. So I couldn't dispel, potentially.

Okay. I mean, you could try and cast Dispel Magic on them. Dispel Magic can sometimes have an effect on magical items. One creature, object, or magical effect within range. You could try. So I'll... I mean, this dude is going to come over and zap me again, but I will dispel at... fourth level.

Okay, that's interesting. So you go to cast the spell, and as you're about to cast it there there is a flash in the room and the room seems to respond you cast it at the fourth level yeah yeah the spell is countered so something in the room suppresses your dispel magic. An alarm starts going off. Uh-oh. I was just trying to heal again.

I was just trying to heal again. Honest. This time it's about 30 seconds. Hey, what did we tell you before? Harmless spells. Don't zap me again. Please don't zap me again. He goes over to a control panel. Only way you learn.

What? This time, 45 points of force damage. Just, like, rushes through you like a wave. What if I cast again? You can't kill me. Zarkira wouldn't like it if you killed me. We'll see about that.

He then touches something else on the side of the panel. I need you to make a constitution saving throw. Oh, fuck. Constitution. 14. 14. You feel the gravity in the room increase like it's like

a weight is being pressed down on you until you are like on the floor unable to move completely like pushed down onto the ground like this crushing weight on top of you shit my hollow bones it's you know you're not taking

damage but you just can't move what if you'd like that for a while see if you've still got any smart comments quite a few I think and he walks away leaving this pressure on leaving you just like pin down

oh oh I've got a counterspell room leaving you just like pinned down. Oh. Oh! I've got a counterspell room? Against certain magics, it seems. It didn't trigger when you cast Aura of Vitality. Yeah. I mean, a harmless spell.

Why would they counter that? Maybe because Dispel Magic is the exact type of thing that they definitely don't want people casting to like yeah that makes sense you do notice even from your prone position the dergar are kind of looking over again uh they see this kind of guard like you know giving you trouble and they're kind of watching and they go back to what they're doing yeah but i mean there's that guard still just sitting around. He's not, you can't physically see him. He's walked off somewhere.

Yeah, right. Okay. Is, is, was it Rana? Was that their name? Yeah, Rana. It's a feminine voice. Do you think it's a woman? I want

to think some more to them. So just so I'm on the same page here, they've got shackles that stop me from teleporting or changing dimensions and also this room counters any

spells. Is there anything else I should be aware of? The room won't counter any spell, but certain magics... My understanding of similar facilities in Valkyrian's forces, certain spells are programmed into the prisons. If somebody attempts to cast one of those spells, it will automatically try and counter it it cannot do so at a powerful level

it must do so at a base level however so powerful magic can get through but it is difficult and the more you attempt to resist they will keep a closer eye on you as well there's no doubt I'm sure you are suffering now resist, they will keep a closer eye on you as well. There's no doubt I'm sure you are suffering now. Yeah, I've been zapped twice and now I can't get up at all.

I'm kind of trapped here. I'm sorry. What about this other prisoner? You said you were trying to message them, but they weren't responding anymore. I can barely sense them. There is something strange about their mind, as if they are in many places at once. They won't respond.

I don't know anything about them. You never saw them or spoke to them before? Saw them. I am afraid that one of the first things Zarkira took from me was my sight. Oh. Oh, I see.

Along with my wings. Oh, good. Okay. I'm trying to think of a plan here. I'm really trying to think. I should be so wise, and I can't come up with a plan. It seems she's thought of everything. She is a very intelligent and sadistic woman.

Cunning and cruel. But there are weaknesses. She's arrogant. She underestimates those she sees as lesser beings. Save your strength for now, Kelek Adkola. Don't antagonize them further. There is more

suffering for you ahead. Make sure you are strong enough to resist them when it comes. I wish only that I could help you. Make up for all the mistakes I have made. Not that I could help you make up for all the mistakes I've made. Not that I regret them. Hmm.

Yeah. I don't think this, but I was thinking, you know, they were part of the Valkyrian Empire at one point. I mean, you've seen on Elysium, like, the Valkyrian Empire is pretty vast. Like, it includes lots of different creatures. Eladrin, devils, you know, centaurs, orcs, Eterna, celestials, you know. Hmm. Okay.

Anything else, Quill? I get the impression they were arrested just because they were celestial and they were trying to figure out some way of maybe controlling them um i i don't think so like i'm i'm currently stuck to the ground and uh yeah i might try higher level magics next time um okay yeah that's me for now you're left there for at least an hour by the way with this pressure just pinning you to the ground i don't imagine is it no you cannot short rest in this state nope um we cut back to arois and the party so what do you guys want to do what's the plan um so our plan is to go to the winchester order a pint and wait for this all to blow over okay cool love the movie reference some discussion of kfc as well um okay chicken for dindins

yeah nice yes but chicken for dindins right i would Nice, yeah. Spare chicken for dindins. Great. I would love it. I could murder a KFC right now, I'll tell you that. After like two weeks of dieting, I'm like, I'm going to go for a KFC right now, let me tell you. Anyway, real plan. Someone else want to read it out? Sentry? Go to...

Oh, do you want to go for it, Sentry? I don't mind. Go into the Starsauri Cathedral, asking for help to send a sending spell to the wings of Ishtar. Boost Nova's saving throw and cast the spell for Hesper. If that doesn't work.

So, Nova probably has better notes. I know that the priestess in Gusthaven is a Hesper cleric. I can't remember their name, and it's going to take me a while to dig through my notes to find. Yeah, well, we want to go to the place where Quill was res, essentially, and get her. That's exactly it. It's her.

Yeah. That's the main thing, is the Star-Starred Cathedral is where Quill was resurrected. Let me... I might have it, actually. I don't actually have the name. I don't know. It's episode 33, I think. No, that's fine. I might have actually have the name i don't know it's episode 33 i think no that's fine i might have it somewhere that's bullshit where is it i had like a whole note thing about gust haven but i can't find it um i've got it in my uh recap hang

on i don't think you've got i wrote everything was. Was it Eris? Eris, the Lightseer at Star Sorrow Cathedral. That's it. It's, yeah. Yep, Starseer Eris. There you go. Older lady, you make your way back there. It has taken some damage, but you find her helping a number of acolytes and this elderly high elf woman healing citizens who have been injured.

You can see, and it's not magical healing. They're kind of treating them with, you know, traditional medicine. You know, they can't afford to have everybody magically healed. But like people that got injured by building collapses or by the hybrids or anything like that. There's also, you kind of notice that a section of like outside the cathedral has been cordoned off by a giant sort of globe of shimmering magic. That seems to be,

you can see people taking bodies inside it. Looks to be those that deceased that were killed in the attacks. But inside you find the priestess Eris and a number of acolytes all tending to the injured. When she sees you, she just kind of bows so deeply. Noble warriors of Aroes, how can we thank you once again you have helped save our beloved city and our beloved sky prince are any of you injured do you require any aid we do require aid yes um fortunately none of us are injured as we know however we have lost one of our members

Kelek. Champion Kelek is not with you is he I'm afraid that the resurrection can only be performed once if he has passed beyond the veil. We're hoping that's not the case we're hoping you can aid us in contacting him

through he got taken he got zip zapped somewhere that we don't know, we don't know where he is I can perform a sending ritual yes, I can attempt that we know that he's not on a rowis so any sort of spell

like that may not reach him, but we know you are worshippers of Hesper we're wondering if that is a potential avenue where you could wish for me to the lord himself the lord of knowledge himself he like is a champion of hesper and yes for him to know that no captive potentially by zarkira that might be one last vestige of my power. I have just enough to commune with the Lord of Knowledge,

if that is what you require, and contact him for his guidance and to let him know what has become of the champion, yes. It would mean a lot to us if you could spare us that. Of course. Come, let us do it at the main at the main altar uh before the lord where we resurrected the champion a place of such spiritual significance will likely help with my spell casting come and she kind of leads you she takes like she'll offer her hands actually she actually kind of holds out like for two of you to take her hands as if you know like caring

for children leading them away kind of thing. I don't know if there's any preference for who wants to hold the old lady's hand. Yeah, Nova, probably Lucius. I want to hold the old lady's hand. Sure. And she'll kind of lead you guys. Hey, let her touchy. Yeah, and then Sentry kind of behind.

You know, you guys make your way back to this room. It's kind of a small chapel where you resurrected Quill, but there is this beautiful statue to Hesper. she kneels down in front of the altar um she lights some incense and she kind of clasps her holy symbol beloved lord of knowledge lord of magic he who writes he who knows i seek your guidance and the guidance of the champions of Erois. Your champion, Kelek, has been taken in battle. And his companions do not know where he is. Can you guide them? Can you guide me?

She kind of closed her eyes and you see her eyes almost fill with clouds like Quills does. close her eyes and you see her eyes almost fill with clouds like quills does champions of arois do you know whom has taken quillac zarkira lord it is zarkira there is a moment and then the spell seems to end and she's like i don't understand i should have had one more question and then the room begins to glow bright light begins to fill it completely until you are all stood in nothing but is basically a white box everything seems to blend away the the feeling of wind blowing against your skin the kind of sensation of air

thinning as if you've risen up high into the world and in a flash the room suddenly reverts back to the chapel it once was and there stood kind of cradling Aeris, this elderly priestess is a much older

looking Hesper. You see six wings kind of curled and folded, a great staff held in his hand as he's almost crouched like in an embrace around his priestess. She is knocked unconscious, like the presence of her god renders her completely unconscious. But the rest of you kind of stand and this is not an illusion you feel that this is the Hesper

stood before you you guys get to meet him before me what yeah just like instantly just like drop to a knee yeah I'm avoiding my gaze. Kneeling as well.

Champions, there is little time for these pleasantries. You must tell me everything you know. What has happened to my champion, Keelik? He was taken by Zarkira by some sort of creation that she had. It paralyzed him and took him. And we think he's aboard her flagship in astral space, the Serpent's Coil. We don't know how to get there.

You have done well to find this out. This saves me some of what I must do. You must understand, the Eye of the Storm, the blessing that I gave to Kelek, and the spear that he gave to key like and the spear that he recovered from the temple Zahkira cannot possess these powers if she acquires the power of the eye of the storm I fear what she may do with it and the spirit of your hand Rios the tempest dragon resides within the spear of

oracles something's ourarkira has long possessed. We cannot, at any cost, allow her to gain these things. You must come with me now, champions. There is only one way I know to recover Quilek. And he just offers a hand. Come with me now. We have no time to spare.

Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, spare. Yeah. You guys all grab his hand and you feel yourself pulled away at an alarming rate. And then you arrive. You look around in these great mirrored crystalline halls like grand archways and cathedrals but where they

should end they do not they repeat and continue and continue and continue and continue with an infinite number of corridors spreading out behind them and in the very center a single great column of light from the very sky comes down to reside over a crystal sarcophagus at the very center. This is what you think it is. The halls of infinite resplendence. The seat of the Titan's power on Eros. It was not my desire to bring you here before the time, but... My champion is in far greater danger than you realize.

As is the fate of Erois. I... I'm sorry that the others could not be here. Nitellicus, as you will soon discover, is plagued by a madness. His followers will request for your aid in dealing with him. I wish you all the best in resolving this matter. Killara has become despondent, despaired with the fate of Arois. She believes the world is doomed,

and that her final task is to herald the spirits of the deceased, praying that they will be kept safe from Hadar. Sayana does her best to keep the spirits of Eros high, and Zephir, well, my chaotic sibling, does what she always does, prepares for the storm. For now, I have brought you here because this is where I am strongest. And what I am going to do will require much of my power,

if not all of it. I will require your aid. I will need you to help me contain the divine energy within me to prevent it from running wild, to keep my mind focused. Absolutely. What do we need to do? How can we help?

Those of you who have the knowledge of magic, Nova Vigia, Lucius, Elinasto, I will need you to help you will need to help me keep the conduit of my power contained, do not let it spiral out of control your knowledge of the arcane world will allow you to do this, think of it as an

errant wave of magic your Eterna, Nova Vigia will be able to guide you in this Lucius, you have an understanding of magic. It will come naturally. Guardian, Sentinel Prime, you have

within you many spirits. Spirits of your people, yes. Yes. Call upon them. I will need them to help guide versions of myself home. To act as beacons of a sort. I will be able to hone in on their magical power,

way of returning to myself. And as for you, Aayla, Warrior of Storms, this will create errant wards of magic. Your strength will be needed to keep your companions safe while they focus on other things. Can you do this? Yeah. Yeah, I got it. I think. I don't know. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Yeah. Just keep them safe.

Protect them from the aberrant energies that will try to buffet them away. The nature of the sky, the nature of magic that will try to buffet them away. The nature of the sky, the nature of magic, will rebel against what I'm attempting. I had hoped... I had hoped to see Quill. But this will have to do. And with that, you see he kneels in front of this crystal sarcophagus. This, you know, nine foot tall humanoid. But you can see he's old.

Way older than he's ever been depicted. He looks like he's probably in like his 60s 70s he's gray haired gray bearded his skin wrinkled and weathered he looks worn he looks like his power has been fading or perhaps being used up rapidly but he looks up taps his staff on the ground and you begin to see copies of hesper spectral versions of himself fly up the wings extend as ten hundred a thousand ten thousand a hundred thousand a million versions of this god begin to fly up in every direction possible through the earth up into the air to the sides as he sends out these versions of himself to the cosmos and as he does so the power around him begins to grow wildly out of control i need you guys to make some skill checks to help Hesper keep this in check.

To do so, you will be making skill checks using skills as you require. As you see this kind of sphere of like not even a sphere, like just these eddies of magic beginning to kind of

break away from Hesper out of his control. They need to be almost guided back into place either through magical means or by physical force, like these kind of currents blasting away from him. Several of them almost beginning to threaten you guys.

What do you guys do? Rape. Yes. Things like rages and stuff like that by all means you have a few moments here if there's any spells you want to cast but I'll probably say you only have enough time to cast like one buff spell if you have one

or rage in Ayla's case Ayla is raging you see the storms kind of crackle up I'll pop another one bless okay so you bless everybody basically in the party uh nova lucius and uh ayla ayla okay so all of you get a default to skill checks and things like that okay it's hard not to stand in total awe and uh stupor at this yeah but uh lucius is gonna try and focus harness that innate power of sorcery within him and just try to command the arcana around him

and keep it like trying to physically will it contain contain it yeah give me just a this would just be charisma I think this is just d20 plus charisma but this is kind of this would be easier for you yeah and you get a d4 it's a raw check but add the d4 from bless

it's just a d20 plus your charisma bonus yeah maybe plus proficiency as well actually actually, I'd say. So yeah, basically a saving throw. Well, that's 24. That was a regular check. Usually I have double with my save. Okay, so with these eddies of magic, Lucius,

to your eyes, to everybody else, they're kind of almost translucent colorless you just feel the pressure of them to lucius myriads of colors a rainbow a spectrum of shades and hues unlike anything you've seen it's like this cascade of prismatic color around you and you can tell that some of them are brighter shades and there are two which you know you have mastery over you see this orange kind of column this eddy of magic pouring off of hespa going rampant going wild and with your will knowing how to shape how to bend how to pull apart that specific color of magic.

You push it, you shape it, you mold it back into place, pushing it back up into this current as more of these spectral Hespers fly off in all directions. Sweat pouring down your brow, you kind of force it back with your own intuitive magic sense. That is one success. Nova. If I had a moment, like just before when we were preparing,

I actually want to use the Rod of Alertness and embed it into the ground. So in kind of planting this rod into the center of the room, everyone gains a plus one to AC and a plus one to saving throws. There's some other things as well, but I don't think they'll be relevant to this situation. Okay.

So you plant this rod in and this like aura of protective magic and alertness emanates, is the word I was looking for, from it. What would you like to do nova tiangong in hand you feel tiangong you know is aware of what's happening so i guess uh with tiangong i'll just kind of i guess mentally nod at tiangong we've got this and i guess raise tiangong up and similar to lucius try and channel this magic okay do you want to do it through tiangong itself yeah i'd say this is going to be the same thing though so you can use it so you know i should have done it as a saving throw for lucius but yeah basically d20 charisma and proficiency mod and a d4 from century and a plus one from

the rod of alertness as well and a plus one okay I've got plus ten saving throw. Which is good, because I rolled an eight. Plus ten is eighteen. Plus two from sentry. Nineteen twenty. Plus one from the rod is twenty-one. Okay. There's a moment you kind of hold Tiangong up. You feel

Tiangong's voice kind of echo through you. This is a great amount of power. I am unsure if we can contain it, Nova Vija. Immense divine strength, and you can feel Tiangong's own power beginning to break away. But you steel yourself. You kind of send this force of will

conjuring up images of quill in your mind and you sense that Tiangong grows stronger with it and you pull on all the knowledge all the formulas you begin to see the very nature of the spells of this immense thing that Hesper is trying to do all this magic pouring off of him

and you see the geometry you see the science behind it and communicating that to tiangong you find a way tiangong fires one beam here which deflects a section of the magic into another then with another kind of spell you create almost like a barrier that pushes it back in as you feel this kind of force a success but just barely. Sentry and Aayla. Aayla, you can see Nova and Lucius are almost being blown away by these spells. Like if they're kind of not anchored in place,

one or two of them is going to go flying as they're trying to resist, but you can see them sliding across this strange marble hard light flooring, whatever it's made of. The very force of this divine magic is almost pushing them away. And Century, yeah, I guess Aayla. We'll go with Aayla first, then we'll come to Century last. I'll get in the middle of that and grab both of them and anchor myself in the middle of the room and just make myself just stand in place

and if there's any residual lightning that happens to be around everyone should be within my aura as well for protection a little bit um but yeah i guess it's probably just strength athletics this is athletics for sure yeah sure yep and you are raging so you have advantage um because you are basically holding them against the force of a god. You're basically like a titan, effectively. You're like holding them against the very current of his magic. 28 with all the blessings.

You manage to hold them in place. You feel your own body, like things impact you, like this force, almost like you feel your ribs bruise. You feel this kind of power threatening to break you apart. But with a grip on either of them and making sure not to hurt them, you hold them in place, giving themself, giving them something to anchor to and taking the brunt of this strength against your own chest. You tense your muscles. You slide an inch and then half an inch and then a centimeter. you slide an inch and then half an inch and then a centimeter and then you stop and you do not move again holding them in place as they're forcing this magic back into this column of energy

meanwhile sentry these all of these spirits of hesper are flying out but none of them are returning you just sense these dozens and dozens of them are just flying out into who knows where what would you like to do um i would like to look into the matrix and uh just and summon summon all the guardians out to i guess like form like a giant ring like all these golden guardian spirits just to like corral the spirits in keep them in place um i think sentry would say something like um guardians be my heart my spirit my strength i need you now eroes need you we are strong together till we are all till all are one and just some i think that that is an excellent persuasion check i think that this is you trying to use sentries command and leadership to kind of guide these

guardians to act as this beacon so i think that that is a persuasion check for me please okie dokie so d4 on top of this oh no you don't get it do you know i don't get it so it'll be a 16 16 you you send these guardians and the guardians come out they obey your orders you feel them all kind of rise up till all are one echoes through your mind the guardians step out and you feel all these spirits trying to form this ring but the force of this magic is is you know threatening to blow them away they're having to just like grip onto this these chains like almost the this this connection between the matrix and them they're barely managing to hold on not through lack of trying they want to do this but the very eddies of the magic itself is threatening to blow them away uh that is

going to be one failure uh the rest of you so lucius nova ayla you guys can sense that century's trying to summon these guardians to act as like a beacon but something is preventing her from working you guys uh is there anything any of you guys would want to do i guess ayla wouldn't actually see these guardians ayla is just holding the guys but the magical amongst you can definitely sense the spirits i think lu uh lucius having a connection with sentry's matrix is going to reach out his hand directly to the matrix and form a connection and try and communicate himself to corral them and infuse all of his font of magic that he's got remaining into it to keep

them contained. How many points is that? Not very many left. One point. Okay. He's spent. I mean, do you want to try and give more than that font of magic? Yeah, I might actually use some spell slots to

fuel this i'm going to use the rest of i've got a fifth level uh but they're all bonus actions so it's like a six well i mean for now for the sake of narrative you spend however many spell slots you want to get and get however many sorcery points you can and then you tell me that number 14 14 make a that's almost full i think that in in doing this make an arcana check but give yourself a plus 14 bonus to this roll okay roll. Okie dokie. And technically a d4. Oh, damn. I'll roll the d4. This isn't a saving throw, so

no. 22 plus the bonus 14. 36? Yeah. Well, that'll do it, Mark. You reach out, and Sentry, you feel like you're kind of you know struggling to like lift up the guardians and it's you want to protect them you don't want them to be hurt or destroyed so like you're trying to protect them as well with but you know trying to let them kind of send

out this beacon be this heart to like guide hesper back but the eddies the magic is too strong and you see lucius just like reaching out with a hand and you can sense this power welling up inside of him and it's almost like beginning to kind of almost show through his skin this prismatic color and it's not just blue and orange it's all of these shifting colors you begin to see lucius's eyes begin to flicker where they've been blue and orange before now other colors are beginning to kind of like show underneath his skin is glowing and he's reaching out what do you do i think century would like she'd see his hand and like she'd reach for lucis's hand like put a hand on his shoulder and like just get that

physical connection. You put your hand on his shoulder, Lucius grabs you and touches the Matrix and you feel this surge of energy, this power rush through and that, the Guardians latch onto it and they all seem to swell in size

becoming almost as tall as Root Prime. They grab one arm. The next one grabs the next. They form a circle around all of you with Lucius and Aayla and Nova at the center of it beside Hesper. And this great golden light just seems to rot upwards. One Hesper comes back. Then two. then ten,

then a hundred, then a thousand. And then light. When the light dims, an ancient, old-looking Hesper remains. Aged,

impossibly old, in a few moments, he kind of ah, ah, ah. In his hand is a book.

He puts it on the ground. Ah. I have found the serpent's coil. Nova Vija, this book, the wayfinderers guide my last I have attuned one of its crystals to astral space

beside the ship I cannot get you inside but it will get you to where the ship is as well as a few other tricks and spells. My divine energy is spent until Siaska returns. I am gone.

Tell Quill I am proud of him he fades into nothing leaving just the book behind and that's where we're going to take a break

so I can blow my nose oh my god oh my god oh cool you may you should find the wayfinders guide on dnd beyond nova vj

what well that was the coolest thing in the world and also i'm very upset damn it oh he's so cool uh pretty badass jesus holy crap this book yeah okay where you find his guy so yes as he mentioned one of the gemstones on the cover nova is lit and holding it you know that it is attuned to a very specific location on the outside of the serpent's coil. Now I will say one thing to think about on the break. You know, the astral sea, you it's like cold and there's no air. You're going to need some way to deal with that.

You're also going to need to find a way inside the ship from outside, but it will take you directly to the serpent's coil when you wish to use it. Awesome. Cool. Awesome. And yeah, we're going to, we're going to take a quick breaky break there.

I certainly need one, so I'm going to go. I'll be back in a minute. Yes. All right? Yeah.