High Rollers DnD - High Rollers: Aerois #146 | All That We Are (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

We continue to remember all of Aerois while crafting the Starseed in Valena's domain! Support the High Rollers and get early access to podcast episodes and Studio updates on our Patreon: www.patreon.com/HighRollers Grab some High Rollers merch: https://freshmerch.fm/collections/high-rollers Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound & TCT Adventures (Solasta: Crown of the Magisters) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickaxe. away and staying out till 2. That's stop-loss orders on Kraken, an easy way to plan ahead. Go to kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to registerrois. The champions of Erois have plunged into the ocean depths in search of the Titan Valena' hidden demiplane and her final forge. Guided by the diamond construct D1, the Stormchaser's new magical upgrades allow the airship to dive deep into the broken valleys and chasms caused by the Sundering of Erois when the goddess Siaska was defeated. The ship comes to a dead end, but D1 reveals a hidden door and takes the ship into a vast,

enormous cavern hidden inside the earth itself. Here the party see giant stone columns with bridges of stone and hundreds of gemstone constructs working on an untouched city, repairing it, adapting it for unknown purposes. Sentinel Prime recognises this city as Solvyn, once her home and one of the great exalted domains of Erois. The constructs, however, cannot reveal any details about the city or their task. Eventually they come before a great edifice of a hunched elderly dwarven woman crouched around a dying forge flame, as if protecting it from an unseen wind with her own body.

Here, the demigoddess Vala confirms that this edifice is the entrance to Valena's demiplane, and the party enter. With Vala's help, they find a grand magical forge with an enormous anvil at its core, and behind it, a titanic dwarven woman waits for them. Valena reveals that before Siaska transformed into the cradle that protects Erois, she gave her two tasks to complete. One was to prepare a tool for those who would rise up to face the enemy and the other was to create a contingency to keep the hope and dream of Arois alive and to

protect it from the eternal darkness that threatens it. For centuries, Valena despaired and mourned, until, to help find her creativity, the party triggered events that set much of this story in motion. Watching them, Valena was inspired once more. As one of her tasks now nears completion, the other is still to be done. Normally, she would have called on her fellow Titans, but with two gone and the others lost to rage and grief, she must instead ask the champions to help her in forging the Starseed. This work requires them to attune six foci to key elements of the Starseed. Memory, magic, spirit, knowledge, connection,

and hope. Doing so whilst Velaena forges the incredibly powerful Artifacts form is made difficult due to surges of magic and tasks that must be completed. Struggling to attune the third foci, Maximilian Taldros and Aela work together to complete it, but their failures have cost Velaena much of her strength, and three foci still remain, with Lucius locked to one, the task falls to Nova, Quill, and Sentry. And that's where we're gonna pick back up. But before we get to your turns

in this sort of pseudo-encounter, I'd like to ask, do you guys trust me with something? No. Yes. Wait, hang on. No, wait. No, no, that was just a snap answer. I trust you with my life.

Is it my firstborn? No. You have one? Because you can have them. I don't want them. Okay. Unless it's my life. No one does.

So, as you prepare yourselves... Wait, what was that? As you prepare yourselves to Wait, what was that? As you prepare yourselves to continue reforging the star seed, you see Valena buckle to her knees. Her arm drops and the hammer clatters to the ground, her greying hair now almost white. Powering the Memori foci, forging the seed, it's too much.

I cannot. Before you can speak or act, a bright violet light flares in the center of the room. You feel your skin raise and a sensation of something moving you, though you remain stationary. As you look to the anvil, you see Valor hovering in the air. Around her are a number of spoked wheels, geometric circles, and almost clock-like designs of shimmering purple magic. The air around her seems to distort in triangular patterns, and you begin to see reflections of the forge in them. You see yourselves, though there are minor differences and changes.

You see a more empowered Valena in these spaces as well. With a grunt, Valor throws her hands to the side, and the wheels and the circles and the clocks begin to spin in different directions. The triangular windows of space flash. No, no, the odds were against us from the start. Somewhere, someday, things would be different. And as Valena finishes her motion, the lights stop, the magic vanishes,

and you seem to be in the same chamber, but Valena's strength has returned. Instead, her hammer now hovers over the Memori foci, and a statue of Aayla is underneath it, tethered to the foci. Lucius, Aayla, and Maximilian, you no longer feel yourselves tethered to the foci that you are at, but you do feel that your strength and your mind slightly weakened. So to explain this,

I had some thoughts about the encounter that we last did, and I wasn't happy with some of the things in it. I didn't think that some of it was fair, and also some of it wasn't very interesting or exciting. So I, and luckily you guys happen to have a demigoddess of time and space. So to kind of retcon some of the things, I'm not going to change everything, but to make it a bit more fun and a bit more fair,

I have made some slight changes to this encounter, right? For these last three foci. So, everything's still the same with these exceptions. Those of you who previously couldn't leave your foci, you can now move away from it, but you cannot attune to another foci. You are locked to the one you're attached to. You can't help do the other ones.

You have disadvantage on any ability check that cannot be countermanded. You are not attuned to another foci. You are locked to the one you're attached to. You can't help do the other ones. You have disadvantage on any ability check that cannot be countermanded. If you have advantage from rage, you still have a disadvantage on the check, right? Because you are basically tethered to this thing and it's draining your strength while you're attached to it.

Lucius, for you, any concentration spell will only last until the end of your next turn. It's literally, you get one round of a spell. You can't maintain concentration on it. You won't ever like fall out of the sky or just drop down. It's not going to hurt you, but you can't keep concentrating on spells while you have this effect. The other thing is previously Valor's abilities,

I was like rolling a saving throw for her every round. And it just meant that she didn't get to do anything because I kept failing it. That's not fun. So instead, each of her three abilities, the ability to grant haste, to grant a reroll, and to create two portals, are now one-use abilities, right? She can use them once, and then they're done. Any of you can choose to use that at the start of your turn

before you take any other actions. Once for the entire encounter? Entire encounter. You can use it, and then it's gone, right? Yeah. You can use it at the start of your turn. If you do anything else, if you move bonus action action, you can't use that ability. It has to be the first thing you do on your turn.

Okay. All right? And just to update you on where the current things stand, you have three foci infused, memory, magic, and spirit. But you have also had two failed infusions and it cost a lot of values of valena's strength to uh take the one that ayla was attuned to right this means the the star seed and valena can withstand two more failures or 60 points of damage um to the device easy right okay so let's keep that in mind two failures theci, two failures. The stunt with Max and Ayla

working together cannot be repeated. Like that took all, like what Valena's strength she had, that took all of that to give that like the ability for them to work together on it. All right. Okay. And also any previous effects that were in place like the tasks, any sort of like environmental effects, they are now all gone. These pillars disappear. The ice wall? The ice wall would probably disappear, I think, at this point.

Okay. Just because of the Valor's magic would have reset those things. So what did she just... Did she just take elements of the current timeline and just bring them back into a rewounded... I don't know. A rewound... You don't know? Multiverse.inding, a rewound multiverse.

That's a different dimension, Valena. Maybe. Have you been to the cinema recently, Mark? I have, but I don't think that that was a particular influence. I haven't seen... Valor's powers I have known since the beginning of this campaign. But if you want to make an arcana check for me, you can absolutely make an arcana check. I definitely want to identify what the hell that was.

A huge 9 plus Arcana. 17. 17? It's difficult to tell. What just happened was... Make a religion check, actually, for me. It was Arcana. I think religion would also...

There's two separate elements to this. Religion, religion, religion. Where's my religion? Oh, me. I think religion would also... There's like two separate elements to this. Religion, religion, religion. Where's my religion? Oh, 16. Plus two. Damn. So 18. Oh, 16.

Yeah. Clearly what Valor just used was her true power. Like her powers, like her... You know, every god, Hesper was the god of magic, right? Or knowledge. Valena is the god of the forge, the god, like, her, you know, every god, Hesper was the god of magic, right, or knowledge.

Valena is the god of the forge, the god of, like, creation. Valar's divine spark is connected to time and space. Dialga and Palkia. I don't know what those are. Pokemon. But, you know, you've seen Valar use abilities to, like, shift things around, teleport, create portals. She's managed to kind of create that bubble that allowed you to go through the volcano even that was like not just teleportation magic she was actually phasing out it in time the lava and the heat in time was being

phased out um what she's just done there you don't think she can repeat anytime soon okay that was incredibly powerful um but it basically at best guess for you, Quill, and like Nova, I think you would, you don't even need to make a check. You can kind of figure some of this stuff out. She brought in elements of like variant timelines to basically like where, like your odds were better. Like, you know, that things were different. The forge worked differently.

And she's brought in elements of those. Maybe in a different timeline, you guys came here earlier when she had more strength. Maybe you came here later when some of the Forge was different. Or, you know... My brain. Yeah. Or maybe not even necessarily connected to you guys.

Just like a different period in the Forge's life or in Valena's life. She's brought in elements of that as well. That's cool. It's also Mark's way of canonizing changes that he's made. If this is what a retcon is going to look like, I want that all the time. But I'm also doing this,

and I know we want to crack on with the game here, but if you're a fellow DM, it's totally a good thing to reflect on a session and be like, I wasn't really happy with how that worked, or that didn't seem that fun. Change it. We're all here to have fun, right?

And actually make it a good game. So don't ever feel like you can't change something. I'm already in. Kristoff's making a face. I don't know. Dive ready. It was cool before and it's cool now. It was a lot of talking. We can jump into it now. We're going to start with a brand new top of the initiative.

Yes. Oh, that was the other thing I was going to change. Rather than you guys having set initiatives, you now basically, Valena will take her turn. Something will happen. You can then decide who goes in what order. Okay, cool. So, again, that was another thing I wanted to change.

I forgot to put it in my notes. But, yeah, because the way the initiatives were working, it was like Lucius was stuck not being able to do stuff half the time. People were not able to contribute in ways that they they wanted to in a normal combat. That's fine You know that's part of it, right? But in this you guys should be able to pick who goes when and like oh if I go now I can do this thing Which will help Nova do that thing and dead at it. I went to a girl like that So we choose a person and they take their combat turn

Yeah, and then you and then somebody else goes but you get to make the order that that goes in right? Hell. Yeah so And then somebody else goes, but you get to pick the order that that goes in, right? Hell yeah. So for Valena's turn sheet, to prep the next foci, which I believe is, unless somebody wants to make me do it. Knowledge. There we go. To prep that, she will begin continuing,

and she just says, I do not know what you have done, little sister, but I feel my strength return. We must continue with the star seed. And she is going to begin a task, which will create an effect. So as she begins forging the star seed, and now she's brought out all these different tools,

like a chisel and like pliers, and she's bending the metal around this seed-like shape. You begin to hear this high-pitched frequency, this high intense ringing that resounds around. You are all deafened as long as this sound is in place and you can hear this constant ringing and there's going to be some thunder

damage at the start of your turn. Valena's voice, being a titan, does manage to break through that slightly deafened. You hear it in your mind and you hear her say, Something in the Starseed is giving out a harmonic imbalance. We must find a way to cancel it.

We must find a way to balance it and equalize it. She doesn't tell you how to do that. It's going to be up for you guys to figure out. You need to complete this task before you can begin attuning the next foci. And at the start, whoever takes a turn, you will take five thunder damage. So assume that, yeah.

I presume we all have to take a turn, right? You do. So you might have resistance, or maybe somebody will cast a spell to give you resistance. I didn't want to be like, everyone take five damage now, unless you're planning to do anything to change that. So how does one rebalance the Harmonic Resonance? Could I make an Arcana checker? If you'd like to take your turn, if you want to have Nova go first and basically spend

your action trying to figure this out, absolutely. I thought you are going to be tuning to Knowledge. No, I'm tuning to Connection. I think Quill was going to do Knowledge. Quillie boy is Knowledge boy. Okay, cool. Yeah. If I remember, it's Knowledge, Connection, hope is the one at the top.

We just need to figure out how to get sentry way up into the hope one. Portals. Portals. Good point. So do you want to take your turn now, Nova? Yeah, I might as well. And you want to spend an action basically to like think. Figure out what this is.

Have a think. Yeah. So I think just a straight up intelligence check on this one. So just D20 plus your intelligence no rerolls or anything 11 total I haven't told me but I think that's saving throws I'd let you use it if you want to use a use of indomitable to reroll this ability check I'd let you you know what? I will. Because this isn't a combat encounter, so that ability is going to be useless if you don't use it in this.

I wouldn't let you do this in like a normal situation. On that one? Oh, okay. Yeah, this ringing is so piercing, Nova, as you're trying to think, but it's like distracting your thoughts. It's really hard. Canceling it, like, just your brain's so scattered, it's hard to think. Like, playing a really loud noise, but you don't even know what frequency it would need to be.

Like, yeah, it's hard to figure out. You still have a move and a bonus action. I think I'll start moving... Sure. Let me just very quickly check what the teleport... I think the swap with Tiangong, I think it's... I don't think there's a range on it. Okay.

I'll start moving towards the back one anyway, just in case. Walk past Valena as she's bending this metal and every time she touches it, this ringing is just echoing through the forge itself. Yeah, I think that's it for me. Okay. Sozzle pops, dudes. Sozzle pops, all right.

So who would like to take the next? I don't mind going next. If you've got an idea, go for it. I have an idea. Lucius is gonna do a very similar thing If you've got an idea, go for it. I have an idea. Lucius is going to do a very similar thing. Because I have an idea. But whether Lucius is good enough to think about it, I'll do an intelligence check.

Okay, I mean, if you've got the idea, Lucius can have the idea. You don't ever have to roll for like, if my character would think of the same thing I have. Like, I trust you guys not to metagame. So, the idea is, Lucius hears a ringing right before you go deafened yeah like i mean the death you are deafened because this ringing is so loud like yeah he's thinking if there's a certain

spell he can do and he's trying to think back on all the spells he's cast that has a similar pitch do you think you have a spell like that um i'm thinking of like casting one that's like Do you think you have a spell like that? I'm thinking of casting one that's either a beam or something like that, that sends out a specific frequency. Tell me what spell you'd like to cast. Tasha's Caustic Broom. So just like this column of acid, basically.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, okay. So you wanna cast a spell and try and match it? Yeah. You can do anything else? Just cast a spell? I will, actually, Tasha's Caustic, it's not a single target, so I can't twin it to boost it.

I wonder if doing some meta magic will enhance its sound. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Sounds smart to me. You just tell me what you'd like to do. Smart guy. How do I use this? Great question. I mean, if you want to... Because you've not done anything yet.

If you want to think about it and have somebody else go, you can have a think about it. Yeah, I'll think about what to mess with. You've not asked me a question or, like, rolled a dice yet. I think I have an idea. Sure. What? Nobody can hear you.

What? Yeah, nobody. I can read your lips. That's true, yeah. So Quill does, like does understand what you've said. Also, any telepathic communication still functions. Good thing we're all wearing those. Sentry's got one.

Yeah. Sentry and Lucius. Shouting into the void. Did I speak through it, though? Probably not. No. You probably just went... So, anybody?

Everyone's looking intently at their character sheets. I mean... Yeah, pretty much. I'm annoyed because I have an idea, but I can't do anything. Well, again, is this like, Kim has an idea that you think would work, or were you rolling as Nova to actually get information you don't know out of me?

I had two ideas when I began my turn. One was to do an Arcana check, and the other was to cast a spell that made noise. Okay, well, next turn, save the cast. If nobody else can come up with an idea, maybe you can use that on your next turn. Yeah, that's still a thing. Because the Arcana check,

I would have told you stuff that you don't know, so that works. But if you have an idea, you don't need to think, like, oh, I have to roll for it, I think. All right, Rhi, if you think you've got an idea, or you want to take your turn? Yeah, I was just going to cast Aura of Purity

on myself and then protect people around me in a 30 foot radius from being deafened Oh, interesting, okay Being deafened or has an advantage on saving throws against effects that cause I would say that it would stop this effect

I would say that that would actually allow us to concentrate. Oh, shit. Fix it. Is that everyone? Yeah, okay. Is everyone in a 30-foot radius? So 30 foot, I think...

I can get to Nova. I wish I had, like, a little measure. Yeah, I think it's everyone but Lucius. Yeah. Lucius is just out. And you'll hit everybody else. Yeah, so, like, around Sentry, we see this like bubble I imagine

like a kind of like a sphere kind of projects out from you and it's like it doesn't reside it doesn't remain but there's this

faint aura of magic and that ringing it's still there but it's lessened to the point where like suddenly you're like oh god

you can now hear and speak to each other and stuff like that. You are no longer deafened. So you counter it with your sentinel boombox playing the brown nose. The other thing Sentry you if you moved over you probably could have caught lucius in that as well by the way like if you had gone over like 5 10 15 20 i think that's still

5 10 5 10 15 20 yeah nice yeah maybe here i think I'd say if you move there, you can reach everyone. All right. So, yeah, so you're no longer deaf, and the thunder damage will still take place, though. So this is protecting you from, like, the intense ringing, but, like, it still hurts. It's almost, like, vibrating through your body.

All right. That was central. You're done? Bonus action or anything? No, I'm all good. All right, cool. Leaves us with three left. Do you think...

You can always ask me a question. You can always be like, can I make a check? Can I do this? Can I do that? So... We've had two weeks off. Go get back in the groove.

So my Warhammer, and when I'm raging, it crackles and thunders with the power of a raging storm. That's thunder, and this is doing thundery things. Could I just try and either expend a charge on my hammer or a rage charge to, like like focus on my rage so intently that it makes it louder and the crackling coming from

me and the hammer actually like matches the frequency of this tension. Interesting. Roll for me. We'll make it a check. Use a rage and then roll a constitution ability check for me. Now you will have disadvantage

because you're currently infused. But yeah, roll it with constitution. So just d20 plus your comm mod. It's not a super high dc, but let's make it a dice roll. 14. 14, yes, 14's fine. It was only dc, I think dc 13, because it's a bit of a check. So you do, like, Aayla, you kind of feel like you channel that rage,

and you almost try and force more lightning out of your body, and in through this hammer that you've got this deep connection to, and you know is attuned to your own magic and power. And it does begin to hum. You kind of hear this, like, continuous roll, peel of thunder that's just repeating over and over and over again. This kind of like humming vibration noise. And anybody who's watching, I would say quill with your perception

and then Nova with your knowledge of magic. And Lucius, I would say as well, if you're getting your knowledge of magic. Like you can almost see like Aayla's hammer's head is vibrating and it might be useful. Like it itself is not strong enough to counter this like intense, powerful ringing. But you think there's something that it might be useful. Like, it itself is not strong enough to counter this, like, intense, powerful ringing. But you think there's something that it might be able to do. But there's, like, something that's quite missing from this equation, right?

There's, like, an element here that, like, you're not quite getting. Like, the hammer alone isn't enough, but it's probably going to help if you can figure out something. You know, it'll probably be useful in some way. Okay. But yeah, I'd say that that's probably like a bonus action, Ayla,

if you still want to move, if you want to do anything. Can I like shout to Nova and be like, what can I do? I'm doing this. Is it helpful? It's a hammer. And just as a reminder as well, you can now move away from your foci. Is it helpful? It's a hammer. And just as a reminder as well, you can now move away from your foci.

Is there anything metal near me that is not the thing, the forge? Metal near you? No, there's some gates. There's some kind of metal portcullises near where you first arrived in the fortress. There's no doorway. It's almost like these metal bars that stretch up

into the nothingness of space that seems to be above you. Can I go over to one of them and hit it? Yeah, absolutely. To try and make it ring out. So you'll need to jump over, but that's easy enough for you to do. I can't reach. The one design flaw is I'm small. I'm 5'7".

So, yeah, you jump across. You land next to this thing. And, yeah, make a... I wouldn't say even make an attack roll. Just roll damage for me. No, roll an attack roll to see if you crit. But it's like AC 10. You're going to hit it.

I did actually crit. All right. Okay. So, roll damage hit. I did actually crit. Oh. All right. Okay. Yes, yes, yes. So roll damage for me. Legit crit. This will be thunder damage rather than bludgeoning damage. Oh, okay. Because you have done this thing to like,

you're almost like turning the hammer into thunder damage. With normal crit rules. With normal crit rules. Absolutely, brutal crit rule, everything complies. 40. Yeah. I think now, is it 40? Yeah, it's 40, right? If it's 4d10 that you would roll, then it becomes 40, yeah. I'm pretty sure it's 40.

It's brutal critical three times. Um, wait, yeah. Hey, miss, I can make six attacks a round. No, I'm just looking at my natural one on that. I'm just trying to see if this dice is nice dice. Dice, man. We should just, I mean, like, you know, there at my natural one on that. I'm just trying to see if this dice is nice dice. Nice, man. We should just, I mean, like, you know, there's the Wil Wheaton curse. I also think that we should sort of like the re-quation or something like that.

Which is like, you know, real Wheaton. Real Wheaton. Real Wheaton curse. Yeah, it's for real Wheaton. So it's 40 plus another 40, 10. Plus all your modifiers. 47 plus 9. 40, 10. Plus all your modifiers. 47 plus 9. Yep, 56.

Plus 3. 59. 9. Plus 3. 62. Plus 11. 73. Nice.

Plus 6. 6 lightning. Plus 2. Another 8, so 80 points. Yeah. Yep, 80 points of damage damage so ayla leaps across she brings the hammer in one smooth motion slams it against these metal bars and the bars don't break first of all ayla like you hit these bars super hard and it's like they just absorb the impact like the one ring when it hits the ground the hammer just stops dead but all of you hear this ring this kind of high pitch like it's like the vibrations of the thunder damage go up through these bars and then there is this

moment where that high pitch ringing from the star seed and ala's ring from hitting these bars and then it becomes silence and then nothing comes back and you hear valena like that's it you've done it that has cancelled out the imbalance we can proceed awesome what i told you i'm gonna hang um shit. That's all right. That's bows. Nice. My air pod's perfect. Just the tinnitus. Yeah.

So we have Lucius and Quill still have full tans. I would say this is the opportunity because you know that the foci is going to be next. This is where you want to start thinking about how can you get there, how can you help the person make that check. So I can't do it this way? You can't do it this way. You have to wait until Valaena takes her turn to set it all up. I may as well take mine then and move up to the knowledge foci.

You can reach there around with your movement. I'm also going to yell to everyone, what do I need to do? What do you guys have to do? Think of stuff. I don't know. I'm good at that. Remember things.

Okay. Memory. All right. My strong point. Okay. You love it. Do you want to do anything else? You've only used your move action.

I've used so many spells that I think I'm just going to get ready to do this and hope that Lucius takes a very long turn so that I can think of something. Okay. I don't know what it's going to be yet, though. Oh, I know. No. All right, so no action, no bonus action.

No, just a... Okay. Why? No reason. Okay. All right. So, Lucius. Lucius is just going to move up to century.

Okay. Really long turn. He's going to walk there. No bonus action? Bonus action. Curious. Moral support. Oh, I should have done that.

You want to dash, Lucius, to just get next to Sentry, or are you happy with just one? I think this is all right. Yeah? No action? I will hold an action. Okay. Yeah.

If it doesn't go well with the quill, I will dash towards the pillar. Okay. All right. So you'll make a run for it if it goes. It looks like it's getting badly. I'll try and take towards the pillar. Okay. All right. So you'll make a run for it if it goes. It looks like it's getting mad. I'll try and take it, but yeah.

Okay. You know it won't work. You can't max it out. I'll head towards it to help someone else. Just to try and help in someone else. Yeah. Do something. Yeah.

That makes sense. It makes character sense. I just want to make sure you don't think that that can happen again. All right. I will also just, again, because this is a new round, I will remind you at the start of your turn, you can activate any of Vala's powers. Like at the start of your you at the start of your turn you can activate any of Valor's powers like at the start of your turn before you do anything else you can activate any of her powers you get haste for free

you can do that if you want so she can conjure two portals that are linked she can give you haste or she can give you a re-roll basically on an ability check who's left to attune to a pillar? me me me me

get ready get ready for connection no knowledge knowledge as lucius says that i shouldn't be doing memory the metal finishes wrapping around uh the star seed um and she will lift up uh it almost looks like a little hand drill, like a wood carver's hand drill. And you see that she's pulling out all of these tools, and they're beautifully made, almost like they're made of energy. And she brings that up, and then she directs it towards the foci, this column with this crystal embedded into it.

And as she points it, it fires out like a kind of link of energy that connects it to the star seed. And then she will call out and say The foci is ready Make your preparations make sure you are prepared Kila cad color. I don't know what I need to be prepared for but okay rely on your friends if need be And I hand it over to you you guys can take your this in any order you wish you don't have cool doesn't have To go first. It's an action to... It is an action to infuse.

Okay. I feel like it works for you to try it first and then we've got a whole round to try and help if it would. I'm just seeing if I can

bonus hack. I think it would help if you had four Luciuses around you. You'd be very distracted. Go, Quill! Go, Quill! I mean,

there might be creative uses of spells. There's spells like Enhance Ability, Guidance, Bless. There's tons of stuff you can be doing to boost. Mineral Blast. Do you want a Bless? I can pop a Bless for you. Maybe I should have done that with my action last turn. I could change gravity around you.

We could need another oscillator. Maybe, yeah. If I'm oscillating, I might be... Help you to remember, Barry. Yeah, when the blood is flowing everywhere. No, I don't really have any bonus actions or anything, but... Well, you don't have to take your turn first. Like, Century said she could bless you. Give you a bless?

Want a pop of bless? Pop of bless on you. Pop of bless? Pop of bless, yeah. Yeah, pop of bless. Yeah, I'll move up closer to Quill then, and I'll give him a bless, and then my Aura of Purity will go to Concentration.

With this range, you could give the Bless to Nova as well, because I think it's three creatures right there. And then yourself could be the other one? Yeah, do a level 1 Bless. So this is 1d4 to Ability Checks. And Attack Rolls, I think, or Saving Throws and that. But I'm going to say it counts for Ability Checks. I'll say it counts for a bit of chips. Yeah, attack rolls or saving throws. I'll say it counts for a bit of chips.

Nice. I'll also, before I do this, I'll move round a little bit just so I can feel Sentry's aura. Aura shot. I'll push it to you. No, the saving throw aura. You kind of have to fly up in the air. Oh, can I not just sidle up to the wall?

The wall is kind of like slightly away. The square edges of that platform on the map aren't actually there. up in the air. Oh, can I not just sidle up to the wall? The wall is kind of like slightly away. The square edges of that platform on the map aren't actually there. It's like a rounded gate. It's like a cage that completely surrounds the pillar. You have to go up the stairs to the side to get to it. But you could fly up the top of the gate and then that would catch you in the aura.

If it helps. It helps. It's a thing. Is the height of the gate accurate? No. The stairs and the gates, it's much higher up. That's why Quill flying up to it was quite good because I was asking him how the movement was.

It's probably, from where Sentry is, Quill's probably about, I would say, 30 feet up in the air. 30 up in the air. Okay. Touch, please. All right. Okay. Okay, Tom's taking his right. Okay. Okay.

Tom's taking his turn. I'm going to take it. So. Now the turns. It's fine. That was the plan. I was going to go near the top so everyone can react to my failures.

I was just going to press the digitation in your brain. Mending on your brain. I'm going to cast Create Bonfire on you. Set you on fire. That will help. Quill, as you touch this crystalline material inside the pillar, you feel everything go still. And you suddenly find yourself in an expansive white space.

Nothing around you. And you hear this voice calling out, And you hear this voice calling out, the knowledge of the lost, of craft, of history, of the world. Bed in what you would share with others. Tell me the history of Eros. Tell me what it means to you. That is your question.

So this is as Quill. You have to infuse this thing with... Let me just get my knowledge here. Tell me fucking everything, immediately. The story of everyone and everything. As a character, yeah, you need to think and focus on knowledge. What that means to you. Memories of things related to knowledge. What that means to you. Memories of things related to knowledge. Like, it is your interpretation

of what the foci of knowledge should be imbued with. Okay. But it needs to be from Quill's perspective. It's like things that Quill has seen or knows or has learned or that kind of stuff. You just have to remember a thing you just have to

remember everything it's nothing it's basically the same i would um do i have my tome no i don't have my time hindrance slight hindrance um like you almost realize you don't have a physical form here. You are here, but you can't look at your body or anything like that. I will visualize as hard as I can the memory of Kaylie's rest, the Temple of Hesper there, when it burned down. And not the knowledge contained within that temple, but the fear and sadness of the local populace when they realized that the temple had been destroyed.

And try and focus on the idea of the missing knowledge and the fear of knowledge being lost to such a reckless act. And kind of try and focus that into a way of the importance of knowledge in Aroes and the reliance on it as well. What does that mean to Quill, though? Like, yeah, that's a memory Quill has. And you say it's like the fear the people of Caeli's Rest had, but what does that mean to quill though like yeah that's a memory quill has and like you you say like it's like the fear the people of kaylee's rest had but like what does quill feel about it what was that knowledge important to quill like did quill was was quill afraid of that

knowledge being lost um not necessarily the facts within but the knowledge of the teachings of the current events and the actions of that people being the immediate knowledge to learn and respond to the event. Yep. And... Yeah? Oh, God. The fear of losing the past.

That's something Quill cares about. Yes. Okay. What does knowledge mean to Quill? Everything? In what way I wanted to say power but that's just such a tropey thing

knowledge is power but it isn't so what is it it's history and it's friendships and it's the future and the past and the actions people future and the past and the actions people take and the reasons people live.

It's everything. It's everything. My answer is everything. Okay. All right. Fear of losing the past. This kind of sense of fear. This sense of duty, duty almost to preserve it I don't think this is intelligence

thanks I'm also not sure it's wisdom this fear is a very personal thing technically fear is often countered by a wisdom saving throw hmm it could be wisdom.

Knowledge is everything. Make a wisdom ability check. Just your wisdom, modify. You don't know anything else, but you can add 1d4 from the Bless spell. Okay, plus six. Let me have a think about this DC because I have criteria here. How personal was it to the character? How impactful has it been in the character's life?

How well it matches the theme of the foci? I want to do the curveball of the missing knowledge rather than just like the library. I didn't say I didn't like the answer. I'm just keeping my poker face on. All right. Ability check. Plus 1d4.

Wisdom. Okay. Do you have any importance? I do not. But 11 plus 6. So 17 plus a d4. Plus 4. 21.

21. There are moments where that fear rises up in you. It shakes some of that belief. You do start to worry what happens if you lose that knowledge. Hesper's gone. It's on you now. There's nobody left. You're the most powerful priest of Hesper that still remains and he's gone. Doesn't that make knowledge your responsibility now? And then you can almost feel that magic from Sentry like a

like her metal hand on your shoulder. You feel that fear dissipate a little you feel that sense of responsibility is still there but there's that assurance that you're not in it alone and you feel that you infuse the foci and it connects yes man i feel like i just said a lot of stuff and then you like a therapist was just like oh that's like we talking about this right well might have been I've had two weeks to think about this encounter a bit more make it a bit more you do it watch for you it is just a brief moment quill touches this thing and then immediately it flares to life there is a very similar to Quill's magic, this golden light feathers you almost see drift around the column now that it's been infused.

And there is this tether that goes from Quill's heart into the crystalline material. Very much like the others now, Quill, you can move. You have disadvantage on all ability checks. You cannot re-infuse to another foci, and any spells that have concentration only last until the end of your next turn. Okay.

So you find yourself weakened, your mind distracted. This foci is still pulling things from you. That was like a connection. Now it's almost drawing out the actual facts, the figures, the knowledge. You can feel, not taking them from you, but you feel it copying it from your mind. And then for Aayla or Lucius, by the facts, the figures, the knowledge. You can feel, like, not taking them from you, but you feel it, like, copying it from your mind.

And then for Aayla and Lucius, by the way, just to kind of give you a bit of insight into this, how this works. So for Aayla, it's like all those times when you fought. Like, you can remember those memories. It's taking, like, how to wield a weapon, how to strike an opponent when they block your blow, how to climb a mountain,

like all of these physical things that you know or you've experienced, like you feel it copying this information from you. And you also are still heavily connected to Maximilian and it's pulling the same things from him. And I think actually, oh, this is a good thing. Actually, I'm thinking about this now. You start to see stuff that you begin to recognize

and like, it's almost like you see Max's memories, but they tie into your own because you see him fighting alongside other wild elves. You see him fighting alongside other wilds that like, you see in the distance one that looks a bit like you. Like in the distance, Max didn't notice that maybe he just glanced past them, but like you saw yourself. You see codes to like a base on Gideon Prime and you remember that code even though you're seeing it in Max's mind you see all of these different things you see his training you see him training

as a young boy like you see memories of Max as an orphan in Gideon Prime like on the streets like fighting for survival being taken in and trained as a knight like you see all these different things like you see his homeworld being destroyed and him being saved by one of the Valkyrian ships that was taking refugees from him. You see all these different things, and it's copying these memories of these, like, moments of survival and courage and anger

and rage and hatred and battle, copying all of this stuff. And for Lucius, for you, being connected to magic, every spell that you've cast, every magic effect that you've encountered, it's like copying these effects from you. It's like learning from you. All the ones I succeeded on, right?

Even the ones you failed. The things that you've witnessed other people, like it's copying memories of like, you remember Zarkira casting that meteor spell and you see the like it almost like in your mind you can feel like you can see everything in the forge but at the same time like another memory is playing at this exact same time you see her intricate hand gestures you see her lips and you can almost read the words she's saying but it's copying that information like

it's just taking that information away from you um every time you've cast a spell that feeling of how you summon the magic is being copied um every time you've seen quill summon his divine magic when hespa burst into the billions infinite number of hespas like all of this stuff it's copying as if it's learning about magic and the different ways it functions and how it works and then yeah for quill it's like any book you've ever read the knowledge the timeline the history of arois um the names of places that you've been like just geography and like mineral breakdowns like stuff that maybe you don't even really even remember like you glanced at it in a book and then close the page this almost like a photographic memory snaps that page back into perfect clarity and is copying

reams of that information away i mean i've also had the tome flick pages in front of me and that thing contains that's a great question that's actually a good point you feel the tone vibrating next to you and like you know that it's copying information from the tone as well um just do the way finders guy we hack into this and do the inverse and fill the tone with all the knowledge of a rose it pretty much has that that's yeah that's awesome i'm just making notes of all the this the starbane bases and all the secret info from max like oh interesting yeah you're not sure if you'll remember afterwards, but it's definitely there. It's going through us. Quick, Nova, get a pen!

So we had Sentry and Quill. You guys both went. The rest of you, again, you still have your turns. Valina's going to have to do another task. She's going to have to prepare the Starseed. So you've got at least a couple, like, four more rounds of, like, task, foci, task, foci. So, again, any preparations you want to make,

now's the time. The connection time. So this is a a new round uh no this is still the same round with century i read it in action so you did but yeah so yeah yeah nothing nothing triggers you're done so uh nova and alo if there's anything you guys would like to i just want to move into the middle sure do you want to help uh tom can you yeah i'm too small i'm too short to you um i want to Tom, can you? I'm too small. I'm too short too. I want to teleport swap places with Tiangong.

Yeah, absolutely. That's my action. So I don't know, as a bonus action, could I... I don't know if I could dismiss them because I want to summon them back again so they're with me when I touch the foci. But I think I'll have to do that next round because I have to dismiss them. You could just tell...

Tiangong is like a being and whilst this is up high, I think it would be pretty... Because it's like an insubstantial... I think you could just tell it to move up and it will come up to you. I don't... We don't need to dismiss it and summon it again.

In which case, I'll ask them to come and join me. You can say that that's maybe your action is like helping them. Like you reach down and pull them up and stuff. Put them on either side of the foci. We will get a proper Tiangong mini.

We have one coming. Yeah. Well, as in, it's coming. Yeah. But for now, spooky spectre. We're repainting

one of my old Nova minis. So I said I'm going to see if I can get some fancy paints. I found some like nebula paints and stuff like that. Poster. Huh? Poster paints. Yeah, that's it. I'm just going to see if I can get some fancy paints. I found some, like, nebula paints and stuff like that. Poster? Huh?

Poster paint. Yeah, that's it, yeah. I'm just going to get Airfix and dip it in. Cool. All right, so Nova climbs up. You bring up Tiangong, but you're preparing yourself ready for this. Remember, there is going to be a task in between. And Aayla, you're just going to move in and then you're done?

Yeah. All right, in that case, we go to the top of a brand new round. And, yeah, Valena's going to start working on the next piece of the star seed. Connection, right? Rock and roll. Yeah. We'll see. Connection's next.

All right. Well done. So as Valena begins moving on this, she... Post-it note. You see her dwarven form. She reaches down and her hands meld into the anvil. And then as she pulls up these two giant chains, she hooks to either side of the star seed. The chains are inscribed with runes and power flows through them.

It's actually, I think that the chains would be, I'm trying to think where they would be. They would be next to the two columns on either side. So just in front of the big gates that quill, you're currently like flying above. Sentry, you're next to one. Two enormous chains begin to drop from the ceiling. And Valena basically like she grips the two next to her and she says,

champions, both of these chains must be pulled. They will be immediately strong. You will need to work together or be of significant strength must be pulled. They will be immediately strong. You will need to work together or be of significant strength to do so. They must be pulled in order to activate the next stage. One's too strong. Mm-hmm. So that is the task.

Quill, Nova, you know what to do. As a reminder, if this task is not complete by the end of Valena's next turn. It counts as a failure. It counts as one failure. Okay. Um... Hmm. Okay.

Yeah. These chains, I will give you some information about them, are enormous. Looking at them, they are heavy and thick. Even just the size of them will make it difficult to pull them, unless you were a large creature. If you were a large creature if you were a large creature that would be easier to pull down but um for like normal medium-sized creature it's going to be tough um so uh yeah that is your turn i hand it over to you you will have a whole turn don't forget valor's powers are here like haste a re-roll portals whatever you need you could use

all three on this turn if you wanted to, but you would just get one, you get them once, that's it. If one was to levitate a chain, would that make it easier to move? I would, it's not like a weightlessness spell, like it doesn't reduce the weight. I might make it easier. Yeah, sure, I think like I might give like,

I wouldn't give advantage, but I might give a small bonus for the spell helping. My other idea is to go all gravitational oogie woogie again. Yeah. With either, probably not reverse gravity, but gravitational thrust. So that's the one I use to push Max.

But I was thinking maybe if I get it to- You could use it yank down. Yeah, to yank down sure i think that one would be more um do you want to just do that on its own or do you want to like wait until someone's pulling and then try and like almost use it as like help for somebody yeah i want to help someone so um yeah i guess whoever goes to a chain first or when ayla goes to a chain what i will do is i'll actually count that as if another person is there helping because I actually have someone who doesn't have minus two strength. That's exactly it.

But I will count it as if somebody has helped like the more people that pull these things the easier they're going to be. That will count as an additional person for whichever one and you've got left and right. Which one would you like to do? My left and right. Wherever Ayla goes. Okay all right so you'll just wait and see where Ayla goes and then you'll use it on that chain. Yeah, it's within 60 foot. Yeah, it's easy. Yeah, no problem.

All right. So that's Nova's go. Readied action. Who wants to go next? Anybody got an idea or anything? With Nova's help, I could go to the chain on this side. Yeah, on my left. Yeah, I guess.

Just try and pull it down. Do you want to do that now or do you want to give time for the others to try and do something as well? Because again, you guys can choose your order here, right? So you could be like, I'm going to wait and go last, or I'm going to wait until Lucius and Quill have done something and then... Are you still huge, Century? I'm not huge yet, but I can be huge. Yes, you can be.

I can get huge. What? I'd be good. No, I do have an idea. Technically, you can get large. Just the next size category an idea. Technically, you can get large. Just the next size category. Technically.

Yeah, I do have an idea. It's just I don't know who to help. You're closer to Sentry. Yeah. But I can help either. Lucius can come help. Yeah, he's actually not that... Strong bird.

He is, yeah. He's not bad. I think that's why I'm... Don't forget, Lucius is a peac. Yeah, he's actually not that strong. He is, yeah. He's not bad. I think that's why I'm... Don't forget, Lucius is a Peacock Aarakocra right now. More for visuals than anything else. And he's gorgeous. I don't think it has. I think so.

I think it's those destinations. Okay. I don't think L4 Aarakocra have... Nah, that's true. Plus two's not bad. Plus seven? Yeah. Minus two? So Quill, versus?

I will jump at the chain and hang off and just do this. Are you not shaking legs? Not shaking legs. No, I will. I wish I had the plus here and I could just shake him. I am going to summon a celestial. What? Another trucker.

Hello. A large Another trucker. Hello. A large Celestial. Ooh! Who obeys my every command. A strong boy. And he has decent strength, actually, yeah. Okay. Well, do you want to sell it?

Because if Sentry can get big, do you want to send that to help Ayla instead? Yeah, I'll send it to Ayla's side. Okay. I guess what will be Ayla's side. Ooh! He's got okay strength, to be honest. But yeah, I'll summon a Celestial of the Avenger variant. Doesn't change anything.

What does the Celestial look like? You get to summon it. I know this spell, this isn't a specific creature in the Monster Manual. This is your own summon. I mean, I guess, similar in to... He's not just like a big Aarakocra or anything. He's similar in theme to Hesper more than anything. A winged humanoid. A winged humanoid, yeah.

Just cloaked in light and radiance. So no actual features, just like the vague form of a human being with wings, but made of light. Yeah, I feel like in summoning him, it almost comes out of Quill in a way. with wings but made of light. Yeah, I feel like in summoning him, it almost comes out of Quill in a way. It projects from your chest.

The form of Quill just explodes outwards and becomes Hesper in a sense. Yeah, and this golden radiance, like some of its feathers from its wings drop down and seem to vanish as they're slowly falling. Yeah, you project it towards the one. Yeah, and I can cast that 90 feet away as well. So yeah, that'll go straight to that side.

And you command it to help Ayla pull the chain. Yeah, just to pull the chain down. One big glowing bicep arm. Another one grips the second part of the chain. I await the order. It just kind of grips on. Nice. You want me to do kind of grips on. Nice. You want me to do it?

Do it. Okay. So you're going to take your turn, Ayla. Sure. Move over. Sure, you can get the movement. It's fine. Five feet, you're fine.

I feel like I should probably gravitational thrust the other chain. I feel like these two have it. You can. I guess we'll see. Lucius is warming up. It's fine. He's just waddling over. I'll say that you could have said your held reaction, right?

You could say, I will help Ayla if she needs it, or I will help whoever needs it most. That's what I was going to do with Lucius. Whichever side looks imbalanced, he will lend strength to. His strength to. Nice. By trying to peacock fly. Okay.

To the chain. Uh-huh. And fly downwards. I was thinking of doing that as well. So, like, grab onto it and try and fly down. Pulling it downwards. Pulling down. Still going to be a strength check, but I like the visuals.

It's a theme thing. I'm like... Yeah. Flapping downwards. Yeah. Okay. I can figure something out. Well, let's do Ayla first.

So, Ayla, this is gonna be a athletics check. Okay. You have a disadvantage because you are currently infused. However, you'll get a plus two bonus because you are being aided by another creature and the DC is drastically lowered because the Celestial is a large creature

and it's taking the bulk of the chain and you're basically just like pulling down on it. So disadvantage, but then add two. Yes, and it is a lower DC. Okay, so 15 or an 18, so 15 plus 15. Oh my God. Nice. You didn't need the large creature.

No, I did not. The DC for this without any, the DC if it was a small creature without on their own is DC 30. Ayla could have pulled this thing down without anyone. You pull it out for Celestial. The Celestial is clearly doing something, but you feel that you wouldn't have needed them. One finger just...

The muscles tense. The lightning crackles up and down the arms along the back. You feel like your muscles tense and stretch. Maybe a little bit. This is still hard work. It's not easy. You do it, but it's like sweat drips down you as you pull down. And yeah, you feel this chain begin to descend. The Celestial's just, oh, shit.

I mean, I think like... Oh, bro. Damn. just oh shit the non joking around the celestial probably would probably nod of respect sort of like slow slow nod all right so that's one chain is being pulled down what about the other one so essentially you want to go for this one yeah I'm gonna go enlarge and and enlarge yourself i'll get um advantage on strength strength and you're not infused currently so you'd still have that advantage cool um last charge and then lucius are you gonna go and help century it seems like that chains yeah oh yeah yeah i'll be uh assisting so you kind of like you you flap and you kind of jump up in the

end right there and you kind of like you know you you flap and you kind of jump up in the air. I'll be right there. And you kind of like, you know, you flap and you kind of fly for a moment and you land and then you keep running and then you jump and you flap again and you actually a couple more seconds in the air and then you land and you're like, I'm doing it. And then, yeah, the last on the third one, you kind of now understand how like you can at least get wind beneath you. You're not flying, right? But it helps you jump up.

You grab onto this chain and try to flap your wings to pull it down, but also just with your own athleticism, you're still quite a strong individual, and you are pulling your weight down. You manage to get your feet maybe hooked into the column, onto the grate. Yeah, can I cast Gravitational Thrust on him? Yeah.

He was on a creature, so then it would push him. It doesn't change the weight. It would push him to where he is. Yeah, you can kind of push him so he's gripping on. I'll just blur out this. So for sentry, advantage and plus four because you technically have two creatures helping you to the roll. 14 plus eight.

24 plus two. 26. 26. 26. With your large form, with the others helping you, again, it's still difficult. Like, it's, no, it's not difficult, but it's tiring, right? Like, even in your, you don't sweat,

but you can feel your, like, wooden muscles in your vines, like, you do feel them, like, you know, tense and almost tear at points, as if they were muscle fibers, right? And like your metal begins to screech and creak as you pull down in your enlarged form. But Lucius, like with this heavy pressure, like pulled on his back, but he's also got like a claw around the gate.

He's pulling down with you. And with all of these things combined, both chains, ka-kung, ka-kung, ka-kung, ka-kung, ka-kung, choo-choo-choo-choo-choo chains and they begin to rotate rapidly you see the chains that are attached to the star seed through the anvil as velena is holding them um she begins to move them around it like turning and twisting something you begin to see lines of magic kind of coiling around this thing as it does. Like she's bending the runes on the thing,

but she's twisting them around it. And then as the chains are like rotating round, more of these runes are replenishing as she does. So wrapping around it. Excellent work, champions, yes. We are nearing completion. Just one more. And yeah, she's gonna prepare.

But that was the last turn, right? Everybody else has taken a turn at this point. Wait, two more this point wait two more yeah two more but she will say like very well I will prepare the next foci and she finishes with the chains the two giant chains vanish they kind of disappear into ether

the hands the chains in her hands vanish and now she holds up what appears to be almost like a vice like a kind of wood like a kind of like a workshop vice she holds it up in the air. And again, you see that connection of magic go behind her now into the crystal pillar beside Nova.

And it is a brand new turn. So again, take it in the order that you wish. Do I still have a Blessy Bless from Sentry? I believe so. You haven't cast another concentration. Cool. Well, if nobody interjects, go for it. If you've got Bless.

Wait! Cancel the gravity! And again, I don't want to keep telling you what to do. Valor's powers, you have to use them at the start of your turn. The reroll, you can't it like when you fuck up the roll you have to activate it now do I have to do the reroll? no

well if you don't spend it it's gone like once you activate that power you get a mote like a mote of her power that you can then use but once you use it it's gone

it's a lifeline it's worth it I think considering we were already not sure or you can save it for Sentry we've got the two worst rollers last true but I think we already were pretty uh confident of century and hope we weren't

super sold on you and connection right no it was me and hope that's why we swapped i was originally going to take hope and we swapped so yeah and i take connection do we use the re-roll now it's up to you. I mean, it's your turn, right? Yeah. I'm just been rolling. I'm not trying to tell you guys what to do. I just don't want you to not use this cool stuff. You've been rolling pretty badly.

Yeah, if you want to use it, go for it. Yeah. Yeah. I will take the reroll, but also I would like to touch this pillar together with Tiangong. That makes sense. I imagine that you would do. So yeah, like you kind of call out.

It would be like, Valor, I need your light. You know, you call out something to Valor. I need you. Yeah, and she'll just be like, and she like reaches up and she pulls from like her hair. She has this long, dark hair now, like straight. Very much like her mother.

She has kind of this like Indian sort of Arabic mixed with calluses or, you know, nature. And she pulls like almost like a star from her hair, like a piece of glowing like magic from her hair. And then she throws out, it becomes like a star from her hair, like a piece of glowing magic from her hair, and as she throws it out, it becomes like a drifting orb. And you see it's almost like a clock that's spinning in three dimensions, and it just floats next to you.

It won't last long, Nova. If you need it, you need to use it soon, in the next few seconds. But you have that mote until the end of this round. You can use it to reroll an ability check. Cool. Whatever you want. All right, and then with Tiangong, you both reach out, you place your hand on this blue kind of crystal column, and very much like Quill, you suddenly find yourself in silence.

In a white space that seems to stretch on into nothing. You have no physical form here, neither does Tiangong, but you feel another presence with you, inside you, beside you, around you. Not a voice. You can't hear Tiangong, but you know they're there. This is your mind, and it's shared, but it's like they're behind a glass door. You know they're there, you can hear them if you need to, but not exactly their words. You can feel them is what I mean.

You can feel their presence. And as you arrive, you hear a voice in your mind. Connection. What bonds the people of Arois? What connections between the living and the dead to call them within the star seed? What is unity? And you feel that again that that desire that request to share memory to share thought

About connection and what it is to know the memories of connections or of what it means to share memory, to share thought about connection and what it is to Nova, memories of connections or of what it means. This is how you choose to interpret it. So Nova thinks to recent events and specifically towards the evening in Gusthaven when everyone was together around the dinner table and as well as just the storm chasers

and we had loved ones Nova had her family Nova had Thalia who has come from space big cat and Kyrie there were people there from all races beast walkersers, Arakokra, elves, high elves, lowland elves. There were people, there's, you know, Sentry with her matrix and the memories of those lost, guardians lost. Perhaps even the matrix is a starseed in itself, you know, in some ways. And she thinks of the laughter of Lucius making very rude gestures. She thinks of the way she feels when she looks at Thalia, when she looks at her family, when she looks at her friends and people she's met from rulers and highborn officials

down to beast walkers and ship crew. down to beast walkers and space ship crew and she thinks this is what arois is is coming together and working together against kalis against hadar working together to fight for another day and also just being together in this moment of warmth and food and laughter and connection and love all forms of love from friendship to relationship to familial love and that is what connection is to her and of course in that as well the connection with Tiangong too this kind of other being that just flows through all of that with every everything she does the voice doesn't say this but you feel this is like a question that lingers is connection just love and positivity what about you know you feel this almost like what of the connection to callous what of the connection to your enemies the people that you have hated you feel this almost like, what of the connection to Kallus? What of the connection to your enemies, the people that you have hated?

You feel like memories of like these hated figures come up. And there is this almost like a questioning, a curious nature. Like to Nova, can you be connected to people that you hate? Can you be connected to people that have caused you pain? Does that connection change that? She thinks of the first time that

she saw Hadar. I think it was in the night eyes when she saw that vision of Hadar and it was still a sort of distant threat. And then of the moment when Sentry andcius were almost lost and they managed to save them the team managed to save them and that fear and no the connection isn't love but it is a need to survive and a need to thrive and a need to to stand up in the face of being wiped out because

she a little weak nerd from a little corner who thought she had this vision of the world that has been proved utterly wrong and not like what she's read in her books she will do everything in her being to stand up for everybody against those she hates against those that threaten her friends and her family because it's what you do okay and how does nova feel towards callus not hadar who is this other thing like towards callus towards zarkira towards bre towards Brett Brookstone, these foes, these enemies you've encountered. Towards Calus, she feels sorry. She feels...

Not pity, she feels sorry. She feels empathetic and understands his thought process and his drive to be better and his almost need to be better. So there is a kind of understanding there, even though this is a hated enemy, there is this kind of desire to understand, this desire to reconciliate, in a sense. And probably a frustration that he is turning away from all of us,

trying to help him in our ways, in our own ways. And try to kind of like, a frustration of like, if we just work together, we could achieve so much. But we're probably going to have to stop you. I mean, conflict is, connection is conflict. You get that sense of like, connections aren't, like, you know, aren't always positive, right? The last question that the thing senses, and the voice does speak this, and what of the dead have you lost?

Do you know the path to the afterworld? Have you glimpsed it? Has Nova lost anybody? Does she have a connection to anyone who's ever died? Two people. Are they dead? They're not dead, though. And the answer might just be no.

I think this... Okay, so this is what comes to me immediately. And it is the thought of Lucius lying on the deck of the Stormchaser, bleeding out with everyone panicked around. And thinking of her desperately trying to cast that spell that she knows is going to take ten minutes, and that is, you know, nine and however many seconds too long. And the desperation of everyone around her

trying to cast, sequester, trying to think of these options, the doctor trying to help and nothing working and Lucius just looking at Tiangong and casting, menting. And that kind of... Last act before death. That selflessness from Lucius in the face of death. And I feel like she would have thought that was the closest to death

she has ever seen anyone come to the point where it's like just ingrained in her mind. And she thinks of when Lucius takes that first awful breath back when he was healed and that voice of Tiangong in her head with that mending spell cast,

of, all you have done, we know. Thank you. And it just resonates through her. Okay. Powerful emotions. It's very good. Very good memories. Excellent job.

There is a slight element of, like, you almost feel like there is a connection missing there. Like, this part of the foci is meant to connect to the dead and, like there is a connection missing there like like this part of the foci is meant to connect to the dead and like the world and bring them here and like there's just nova doesn't have that in a way like you came close but like lucius survived he never made that journey um but everything else like all the stuff about the friends the family the dinner like yeah you feel that deeply connect with the foci. I think that this is going to be charisma because it is very social.

It's about the people, the memories, the connections you've made. You get a D4 from Bless, but it's going to be a slightly higher DC. Oh, goody. Did you have that reroll? I rolled a three plus five. Is a d4 also rerolled?

I'd say, yeah, sure. Like, I think that Valor's power would be enough that this is, like, a complete... It's like time rewinds and, like, you know, you kind of get that sense. Good roll. Did you cast Mending on this roll? No.

No, no, no. One trick pony. Mending on this rule. No, no, no, no. One trick pony. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. There's a moment where, like, thinking all these things and that connection, and, like, in an over way, like, you feel like you've missed something,

that connection to the dead, but also, did it want more? Like, the connections to your enemies, was that, you know, were you supposed to have that, or was this, that, you know, were you supposed to have that? Or was this, what have you, like you begin to have all these doubts. And you feel Valor. You see her as a child. There's a memory that flashes in Kaylee's rest.

Having lost Yusef and Corrin, that realization that that connection, you became her family. Mm. And it's not there, you don't see it, but it's almost like you hear the ticking of a clock. And then those fears, you're like, no, I'm not going to give in to that.

And you think of the dinner, you think of all the things that you said, and that's when you connect. And that's a connection. That's a successful connection. Hell yeah. Very good. So, yeah, you see this blue starry kind of line connect to Nova's, not her heart, but like the top, like the chest kind of thing.

Like it kind of connects into your like collarbone. Yeah, you feel it connect to this column. The thing pulses with light. You almost see like a nebula of stars appear around it as it connects. And again, you begin to feel this foci copying information. Every person that you've met, the face, the way they made you feel,

the memories that you had with them. It copies those down, like little incidental things. Rose Hall, having those first conversations, the first time you met the party on the store, like all of these things, it's just copying like the incidentals. Yeah, it's just copying all of that stuff down as it is detailing these connections what is important what is friendship what is family what is it to hate someone what is it to

you know be a brother in arms to like you know learn sword fighting like how deep do these connections go and also love like with thalia like there's this is a thing that is incredibly interested in this foci and it wants to understand what that is and why you know why did you go to such lengths to go and save her and stuff like that so yeah copies all of that down but that leaves us with only one

foci remaining and also I think now's the right time to go for a break one left yeah but one left to go for a break. One left. Two failures. But one left to go but two failures. Close.

It's close. Yeah, get in there. It was a good re-roll. Oh, that re-roll. Great re-roll. You rolled a four. Yeah. So, needed it.

What a swing. It was a big swing. And it makes sense. And I think, again, it's like the dice know, man. The dice know because the drama works. I think it was perfect as well that you brought up Valor and Y makes sense and I think like again it's like the dice know man like the dice know because they're like the drama works I think it was perfect

as well that you brought up Valor and Yusef and Corrin because that would almost remind me no I have seen death like you know yeah it kind of connects

they weren't they weren't yeah like that's it and I think it's like you weren't super close to them but it was something

like held that connection as a point like when you know obviously dealing with this like you know if Lucius or Quill had done it was something like help that connection um as a point like when you know obviously dealing with this like you know if lucius or quill had done it as they like century it wouldn't have counted because century doesn't go to the afterlife but quill and lucius because your connection to your family specifically like that was like a big thing for lucius like imagine you connect it and quill has actually been there like that would have been an easy i also know the

route back yeah so but yeah take a left at Paladar but then it was all the other stuff like very much fitted exactly what you said

and like you're the only one who has like a romantic kind of like partner it makes perfect sense so yeah we're gonna

take that is gonna be in fact I'm gonna say it this way that's it for part one we'll see you next time

join us then see ya see ya bye That's it for part one. We'll see you next time. Join us then. See ya!