High Rollers DnD - High Rollers: Aerois #165 | Night at the Museum (Part 1)

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Students are imprisoned in the Atlas Academy but Quill, Nova and Aila have a plan to break them free! Support the High Rollers and get early access to podcast episodes 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 register in Canada. Last time on Hyrule as a Roess. city of Vortensar in order to stop the plans to transport the city back to the elemental plane or planet in my case in the astral universe of Ganas. Knowing that this attempt is doomed to failure thanks to a vision granted by the Storm Eye to Quill or at least a possible future that this endeavor is doomed to fail and will result in the destruction of the city. The party have entered in disguise. They, appearing as other Ganassi sort of commoners and traveling folk who have arrived here,

they have established connections with a group called the Seekers, who are basically acting as a sort of group within the city that is trying to oppose the current ruling party members. And especially somebody, they are opposing the ruler Harmony as well as the Valkyrian propaganda artist Shansara, who the party have encountered once before. Having made the connection with Norfear, a spy, a half-elven spy and assassin, who was once Lucius's nanny, as well as Nova's brother, Tornado. He's a moron!

Who has sort of become the reluctant or not quite reluctant. Clueless. Yeah, clueless leader of the Seekers. Or like when somebody's put into a position but they didn't intend to be. Sexy. Yes, that one. Acc be. Sexy. Yes. Accidental. Accidental works. Leader of the Seekers, thanks to his

charisma and good heart people have put them forward. And they have established what missions and objectives they have here in the city. Having discussed this briefly with the Seekers, they are currently now seeking to increase the influence and positivity towards Eros within the city, as well as locate a number of planar devices that will be used to transport it, and then a number of secondary objectives

that will help them in various ways. With this very specific sort of espionage mechanics. What we are best at. Tactical. Yeah. Espionage. It's almost like the DM purposely didn't want you to just be making like the stealth check, so tried to engineer a way that this group could do it. But yes, and that is where we find ourselves today.

The party have, by the time this very next thing that they're doing is over, they will have five days to complete their missions and try and prevent what is about to happen. One thing, there's a couple of things I want to go over because I am a human. DMs are human. I had written out loads of mechanics.

Totally messed a couple of elements of them up myself that I had written literally hours before and completely missed out on some things. So one thing I need to do, everybody to do, is I believe everybody except Lucius needs to mark off, I think, two hit dice. Because every time you spend time to progress one of these objectives

to kind of unlock these opportunities that cost you hit dice, but Lucius actually spent one of his getting a flashback token. So I'm now down four. Yes, because you also had some failures in your skill challenges and stuff like that. Damn it. And the other one you don't need to worry about because I can gloss over that.

The last thing I want to show you, by the way, is I've been meaning to bring this in for Rhiannon for ages. My friend Missy, Miss Penart on Twitter, gave me a little book that I brought in specifically for Rhi because I thought she needed it the most. Dice superstitions and cleansing rituals. Can I have that too? It's so good.

So good. I've already used one of them, which is using up your natural 20. I used it up. I wasted my good roll before the session started. It's right here. Yeah, it's gone now. One of them just leaving it sat on the 20 so that it slowly becomes weighted towards that over time.

I think that's one of the things that you put in microwave. Yeah, encourage them. You have to leave them all up on their highest side. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I remember to bring that in for Rita. I've been meaning to bring it in for ages. It's really good. It's quite funny.

And thank you, Missy, for giving that to me. I'm going to try to figure stuff out. So, the last thing that we left it on was that you had unlocked this opportunity

through these kind of doing preparation and spending time researching to attempt to escort and rescue, in theory, a number of Atlas academy students who are being kept inside the sort of university grounds uh under guard um and escort them to safety to a

safe house so that they can provide you information about planar magic and research and all this kind of good stuff um the decision was made for quill nova ayla as well as your sort of sidekick that you've been assigned uh fuego and fire ganassi um you the four of you are going to go on this mission and then lucius and sentry and another uh ganassi sidekick called goliath have been progressing some of these other objectives in the meantime. So what it means is that we have a little side mission for Quill, Nova and Ayla and Fuego to

enter the Atlas Academy. And you are going at night. Hell yeah we are. The spookiest time. The spookiest time. Being night time when you arrive you have to travel through the fire district and you notice the streets of Vortensar

when the sun is fully down, when it is evening time. And we are talking like 11 p.m. onward. So we're talking like 12 p.m. This is like midnight. Yeah. The streets are empty. There are a couple of places,

a few taverns, a few places like that that are still technically open, but nobody's really out on the streets except for guards. You are traveling at the dead of night. And it's not that there is a curfew in place in the city, but you are stopped numerous times. And it's routine you know, routine.

When you encounter... Well, let me ask you a question, actually. How much are you trying to be stealthy? Like, are you trying to avoid guards en route to the Atlas Academy? Or are you just going to boldly walk the streets and then just, you know, say, oh, we're, you know, have some sort of story of why you're traveling the streets late at night knowing what we know we're doing something about magic being kind of detected and and stuff like that would using invisibility be like a good thing or would we know that there's like guards who have magic detect because like you know what you were saying

about not using like tiangong and things like that Yeah, I kind of feel like I've said everything on that, in that magic is, people use magic in the city. It's not necessarily super powerful magic. Yeah, but also, there's also the general thing, right? Of like, if you cast invisibility and you're running around invisible, and let's say there is a Ganassi or Valkyrian mage who happens to have a job of keeping an eye out for invisible creatures using a spell or something like that.

That would raise suspicion. You walking around the city invisible would be like, that would be a suspicious thing. I can't say exactly, if you do it, there won't be problems. If you don't do it, you'll be fine. That's your choice to make. But yeah, it's not that magic is banned in the city. There's plenty of magic in the city.

It's what kind of magic you use, and is it fitting for what you're pretending to do? I just feel like if I was living in a time of magic, and we had a curfew, I'd have a few sneaky mages. There is no curfew, that's what I'm saying. There's no curfew. There's no curfew. But it is still, you know, it's like

if I was, you know, if you were walking around a city at like three in the morning, like a group of you and you came across a bunch of police they might be like, hey, what's going on? Hello, hello. What's going on here then? You know, they might just ask you questions. I don't think we'd be

stealthy, really. You'd just be ready to talk your way through it, basically. Yeah, I'm great at that. Yeah, well, yeah. Sure. I'm going to use his powers. Don't ask my name. It sounds like, unless there's an objection,

I'm just going to assume that you are not trying to be stealthy. Worst case, I'll just etherealness away from him. Okay. You guys, along with Fuego, who's with you, who's a local and sort of like doesn't seem to, you know, be too fussed about walking through the city streets. Through the fire district, Fuego can actually kind of keep you off the main path.

Like you can stick to sort of side streets and it kind of takes you, it's kind of a long-winded way, but it avoids any sort of major cross points or major areas where there would be interest. But when you get to the, each of the different city districts is divided by a sort of interior wall with gates and checkpoints and things like that.

There is, unless you're going to fly over this interior wall or unless you're going to sneak around it or something like that, you will have to pass through a security checkpoint. You can see that it is kind of like a, you know, it's maybe only sort of like a, you know, eight foot high sort of inner city wall or like maybe 10 feet tall maybe.

It's got like a small gate with like a kind of shuttered portcullis. There are guards on either side. And it is a checkpoint. You have to basically go up there and be like, hey, we need to get through to the Earth District. I miss Palace Hall. I mean, my plan has always been to etherealness all the way down to the students,

but it's a question of... Well, how long does etherealness last? Eight hours, didn't you say? I think it's eight hours, yeah. I forgot I had the sticker on my head. Yeah, you've had that the entire time. None of you guys said anything. I thought it was intentional.

You put it there, I'm not going to tell you. Yeah, it's been there the entire time. Yeah, it lasts eight hours. Okay. Eight hours would be enough for you to get there and back, so... Yeah. Thanks. So it's just a question of...

You put it there! You put it there you put it there I forgot yeah well I know it says S because I'm small ah

um anyway I need sugar what do you think um is here a good point to what yeah

me talking to people bad times just saying well what's the plan are you guys going to go through the checkpoint or I that's what I figured we'd be doing is there another plan bad times. Just saying. What's the plan? Are you guys going to go through the checkpoint?

Or... That's what I figured we'd be doing. Is there another plan? I thought I was coming in with you. They're going to want to know why we're going there so late at night and stuff. Yeah. We're going to need a good story if we're going to go through. I'm just saying, I could...

right now. Maybe we should... Right now, then. But it's a me, not a everyone. Unless you want to... Right into the same place as where the students are. I won't be able to bring you back. That was the thing. I can only be...

I can only, once I get there, myself and the students out, but not you guys. You guys will have to stay there out of the... Well, I wasn't going to go in anyway. I was going to stay near the exit point. So that means he couldn't take you with Aetheros now. Yeah. Once he ends it.

Do you have a signal in case it goes wrong and you need us to help? I will send you a message. We're sending. And it will basically... I won't need 25 words. It will just be... Help. Uh-oh.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. And that's-oh. Oh. Ooh. Oh. The signal. Ow. And that's when I get stabbed.

I will remind you there is a 5% chance that if you are on a different plane of existence, sending won't work. But it's a 5% chance. What's 5%? That rule? That could never happen. It's not like I could will 5% failure into existence, is it? Twice in a row.

Okay, so far so good. That's not a D100. Well, no, true. Don't use up your good rolls, Rija said. That was fine. It's roll two. I think you should go in with a Theorealness, and if it goes bad, send us the signal.

Does it have to be exactly that? Did you foresee that you were going to get stabbed? Is that why you were so... So we go in with etherealness, and if it goes bad, send us the signal. Mm-hmm. Does it have to be exactly that? Did you foresee that you were going to get stabbed? Is that why you were so... No, no, I haven't used AI. Oh, I thought you used your storm. I'm just saying, if you hear those noises... If we hear ow, it means he's being stabbed.

We'll come in. If you hear anything aside from a verbal thumbs up, then... Verbal thumbs up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is a verbal thumbs up? Probably me saying either clear skies or thumbs up. Verbal thumbs up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is a verbal thumbs up? It's probably me saying either clear skies or thumbs up. Okay. Everything's fine.

We still need to go through the checkpoint. We still need to go through the checkpoints. The three of us, right? You're going to do like some magic bullshit. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to... You guys do your thing.

We're not good at our thing, so we need to do things. That's what I'm asking. You go ahead. You go ahead and do your thing. We're not good at our thing, so we need to think. That's why we're asking. You go ahead and do your thing. You be the alpha team, we'll be beta team. Beta team will figure out how to get through the security. I'm an alpha. This one.

Nice. I don't think you have thumbs, though. Okay, so you are casting a Therianus just on yourself. Yes. So sixth level, is that? Seventh level. Seventh level. Yeah.

Okay. Quill, you finish casting the spell. Fuego can direct you to a quiet alleyway where you can cast the spell out of sight. And if I'm correct, pretty much all of your equipment goes with you, doesn't it? Yeah. Oh, that's a point.

I should probably snag a book if you're have you got the haversack with you yeah can i steal my book back i didn't know i had your book but yeah yeah you got my book into it yeah it was in your house you can have it yeah pretty much all of them no pretty much everyone everyone's magic items ayla apart from the ones that you have masked with magic, are stored in the haversack. I have a lot. I have a lot of responsibility. Who decided that was a good idea?

I mean, you're the big one. Yeah. Okay. So you take the Wayfinder's Guide. I take the Wayfinder's Guide. I take the Wayfinder's Guide. Interesting. This is a big, powerful thing. Well, yeah, but I'm ethereal.

If they can see me, like... Commit! I'm already fucked. Go on. How many people can you transport with the Wayfinder? Wayfinders? That's only to specified places. Yes, it's pre-programmed locations. I should have programmed it to, like. That's only to specified places. Yes. It's pre-programmed locations.

I should have programmed it to like the... That's what I was thinking. Yeah. I should have programmed it and then just... There's a lot I should have done. But for now... Okay. You feel yourself and you kind of have to take a step.

When you finish casting the spell, you have to physically move yourself into the ethereal. And as you do so so the world around you these because even late at night there are still there's still lots of color especially here in the fire district these kind of glowing magical neon signs are made of this animated illusory paint um the fiery lava distending from sirtr's the statue of Surtr's hands casts this yellowy-red glow to the whole district. But even in the distance, you can see the twinkling lights of the gemstone,

decorations of the earth district. You can see this sort of pale blues, the banners and pennants that decorate the water district. It's a very colourful city. When you step into the border ethereal, it all becomes just shades of grey. Everything becomes maybe with a very, very slight purplish blue haze over everything. But it becomes grey and your vision is limited to 60 feet. Where do you go?

I mean, I will... I want to, kind of like I did on the ship, the Zasadar, I want to try to stay inside walls as much as I can. So if there is anything that can see me, they'll at most see my head pop out of a wall because I can walk through objects and everything. You can. So if there is anything that can see me, they'll at most see my head pop out of a wall because I can walk through objects and everything. You can. Unlike the Tastar, which was still big, but

you knew sort of go up or go this way because you had sort of known where you were going. This city is massive, and you have never been here before. With 60 foot of limited vision moving through buildings, you very quickly become disorientated into what direction. You know vaguely where the Atlas Academy is.

You've looked at maps and things like that. But to navigate there, you will need to make a survival check. Survival. Using landmarks, remembering the knowledge of maps that you've seen and things like that, you're going to need to sort of orientate, orienteer yourself around this unfamiliar place with limited vision um without any sort of colors like not being able to discern you know landmarks until you get very very close to them um this is not going to be an easy task um yeah i can still see... 60 feet away.

But I can still see the physical world, people in the physical world. That's what you can see within 60 feet. Right. If I'm reading the spell correctly. You can see in here the plane you originated from, but everything there looks grey and you can't see anything more than 60 feet away. Right, but I could see, like, Nova, Aayla, Fuego. If they're within 60 feet, yeah.

But once you step away from them, that's it. Once you're more than 60 feet away, you can't see them. Okay. Well, I will... Yeah. That is a 27. 27. Yeah.

Even with these circumstances, having studied maps for years, and your training is the Messenger's Guild, you are fairly confident that, even with this kind of very limited vision, as long as you occasionally, you will have to sort of border out into like major streets just to be like, I think I'm here, carry on the direction. You probably still, it does slow you down.

But considering that, you know, your companions are going to have to get through the checkpoints, they're going to have to move through, that's probably actually going to even out. I also move slower in the ethereal plane as well. Yes. But you can just go through everything. You don't have to navigate buildings and streets

and things like that. You can just go in a direction. We did actually have a potentially problematic question regarding etherealness and where we are because it says that the spell has no effect if you cast it when you're on the ethereal plane or a plane that doesn't border it such as one of the outer planes this being a city that came from it is in your material plane right it is it is here in the material plane now it is not a different plane while you're in this city sure it's still part of a rose. Just in case it was still encased

in some sort of weird bubble that separated it. Aayla and Nova, there is a checkpoint. What do you do? Okay, so here's my idea. We want to go into the Atlas Academy. I was going to use my

disguise as Julien, the culinary journalist, and say that I want to access the library for a specific history of a specific thing. Doesn't matter. We don't need to go into that right now. But I was thinking that you two, not you, you're not here, she points to Fuego and Ava,

might want to check out the all-hours gymnasium because you are a member of the... What? Why wouldn't... Making up stuff that's not been established. They're known for Elemental Mountain, so why wouldn't they have... An All Hours Gymnasium.

Very convenient to just add that detail in, isn't it? You've never been to a university gymnasium there open All Hours? You can just go to the student quarter. Not to public. Well, ex-student. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, still, no,

carry on then. I'm just saying. As a touring Battle of the Elemental Mountain athlete, your excuse is that you want to access

the all hours arena to practice and see and Fuego here is your mate wants to, you know, check it out as well.

Maybe get into it. Okay. You got an idea? No. Fuego? I got nothing. No? Worst case scenario, I was going to climb the wall.

That's how I normally would get anywhere. We could also just climb... I was just going to go walk down where the gate is and try and climb over. Might not work. This ladder. It's hard. Well, if we get caught inside, though, and they're like, hey, did you...

Yeah, that'd be a problem. I mean, for you. I don't have an ID, so I can run away. But it might be a problem for you guys. Well, we could run away. Yeah, but if the guards stop you, they'll scan your thing that you got. Fuego, how about you go up and over and we go in?

Sure. Less people, the better. Yeah, works for me. He like scampers off down in any way. You can see he's like climbing up on like a gutter railing to get on a house and he's basically going to have to

cross over buildings and then do a sort of like a... He's basically kind of thieving. Oh, of course. Yeah, he's doing the rogue thing of like, you know, getting over this checkpoint this way. But yeah, you guys can just walk up to the gates if you want. I mean, if you know, getting over this checkpoint this way. But yeah,

you guys can just walk up to the gates if you want. I mean, if you want to climb over it, it's just that if we get stopped

inside and our cards haven't been like stamped or whatever at the entrance, we'll get in trouble. That's exactly it. Like,

if you get caught, it would be a problem. Sure. Try it. I mean, if they don't let us through, we can just climb.

Or you could throw me. Yeah. I guess I could throw you. Okay, so plan one, talk. Plan two, throw. Okay. Sure. To save time, because obviously I don't want to spend forever on this

because we've got two players who aren't here, we don't need to roleplay it. This is a deception check. This is a... The two of you, I would like you both to make charisma deception checks. Your stories are convincing enough, but it's still a high DC because you're trying to do this in the middle of the night. You're not students.

It's very unusual for you to be doing this. It was a 14 and then rolled over to a 4. Plus 5 is a 9. I rolled over to a 4. Plus 5 is a 9. I rolled a 16. 16. Nine total for me. Nine total. So.

Consequences! Whiteboard. Great. Here it comes. Incognito. I'm in jail now. Our rating's lower possibly or higher. It's bad. Whatever the result lower, possibly. Or higher.

It's bad. Maybe the lie was so bad it was believable. It wrapped around. He just gave me a little look. He does that. He's a looker. I'm going to give you guys a choice. You can either spend hit dice,

which represents the kind of mental stress of having to fast-talk your way through this. The guards at the gate, I'm not going to role-play their exact responses, but they do not buy the story, and they start pressing you for details. You're going to have to really convince them to do it. You can spend a hit dice, which is basically kind of the mental trauma and stress

and maybe like a bribe as well, but rather than worrying about coins, I'm just going to have you guys spend hit dice to do it, right? The other one you could do is you could spend more time. That might mean that you desync from Quill and Fuego, who are going to be going in separate to you guys. Hit dice? Either.

I think hit dice. Because I'm not going in, so if I'm running a bit behind Quill, it's kind of fine for me to run a bit behind. This will need to be the same choice for both of you, because you're both up there together. You can't decide separately. You can decide. I'll do whatever.

I think hit dice. Sure. Because I can imagine RP, what is Nova, just goes on a massive long rant about the history of the chili pepper. And so, no, it's the strain of her trying to remember everything. Like, she's trying to basically drown them.

Yeah, and it's just like babbling knowledge and things like that. And it's exhausting, and it still takes you some time. And it's that growing tension. You know, Ayla, you can see that, like, more guards are coming in to be like, what's going on?

That kind of prepping yourself for a fight. But also just to represent that kind of diminishing resource as it goes. It's gonna be two hit dice for both of you. But eventually you manage to kind of talk your way through. There would be, maybe it's a case of Julian has to be like, oh well, I'm so sorry to have kept you. Let me give you some money.

I'm not gonna worry about the actual what the bribebe is but it's that kind of stuff basically um and you have to yeah it is i bring this thing and also yeah i mean there might be other consequences that i've not told you about but um you eventually make your way through the checkpoint you manage to guide ayla uh towards the atlas academy uh you sync up with Fuego, who's climbed over and snuck in, and you begin making your way. To cut to Quill, you arrive at the Atlas Academy in etherealness. With the 60-foot range of the vision,

it's that thing of you see stuff, you can't react, you can't see anything coming. You have to react to things as they as they happen yeah um you know where the students are you have like a location for them as you've been making your way through the actual academy itself uh you do notice that there is there are night guards here there's no because it's nighttime it's not open to the public um it's all closed off except for the students themselves yeah um and none of the students are out nobody's walking around.

Nobody's, like, you know, doing things. This is very much a lockdown kind of scenario. Maybe daytime would have been better. Yes. The guards themselves, for the most part, are Ganassi guards with the occasional Valkyrian rifleman. But there is a point where, as you are rounding a corner and you're making your way towards the dorms

where you know the students are, and you can go through the walls, you can pass through the walls and things like that, and as you kind of like fly up and emerge into where you know all of their rooms are, they're not all in one room. They're in scattered rooms occupying like a university student halls, right?

Like you had the hall, you basically would have, everyone would have a room as part of like a corridor or halls, right? Like you had the hall, you basically would have, everyone would have a room as part of like a corridor or whatever, right? Well, that's how it was when I visited a bunch of friends and things like that. So you can't just go into one room and they're all there with you.

Like you're going to have to gather them up from these five different rooms. Yeah. That is also the point where you realize that sort of patrolling this corridor, like kind of checking in on all the rooms, is a much more magically looking Valkyrian officer. I'm just pulling up their stats for myself now.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. The last thing they are expecting is an ethereal bird man to be like, whoo, and then like, so they don't spot you immediately. I'm going to give you the thing of like, you see them, but you have to pull out of the building itself, like, or out of that space, right? You can't get to these students without somehow, I mean, maybe he, maybe this, I'm going to say he, just because I defaulted defaulted to it. Maybe this Valkyrian soldier can't see you, but you don't know. But you just saw them and you like pulled yourself back like, whoa, okay, I need to think here.

Okay, so five students, five separate rooms, one hallway, one guard. No, not just, he was a magical looking guard. He's flanked by two riflemen. Okay. Casting spells, I can't do that through the ethereal plane, like into the material from the ethereal. No, you can't affect anything on the material plane until you are in the material plane.

All up in it. Yes. How, uh... I mean, the magic guy, he looks pretty spicy, right? Yeah. I'll be honest, like, you've fought

Valkyrian forces before, and you guys have had, like, data. You've, like, examined data. You've studied your enemy. This is a type of soldier you know, which is a Valkyrian inquisitor they are specifically designed for sort of more espionage missions dealing with magical threats interrogations

that kind of thing and it you kind of yeah makes sense why they're here you know these students apparently seem to know something about the planar devices they have information, they know that they have magical connections and things like that. So, yeah. Oh, how do I deal with a problem like that on my own? That's a great question. Use your big bird brain. What happens if you de-Ethereal inside someone? It does actually say.

It really is. I think you basically pop out next to them. It says I become them. And take i become them and wear them like a sleeve yeah uh you are immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space that you can occupy and take force damage equal to twice the number of feet you are moved so if he had to if like the if he was like trying to appear in like a solid 20 foot cube of stone he'd be shunted 20 feet out and then he would take 40 feet of damage, 40 force damage.

So this would be 10 force damage. If he tried to appear in a person, he'd be shunted 5 feet. So he can't explode people then? No, absolutely not. Yeah. Wizards are smart enough to know that that's the first thing people would do.

What? Yeah. But yes. Skadish. Yeah, you don't exactly know the capabilities of this Inquisitor the rifle core you've you've faced before they're pretty much just normal soldiers their main benefit is they have magitek equipment like these rifles and armor so they tend to have like good AC and they can do damage if they hit you

but on their own they're not too much of a threat and they're not smart they're just kind of grunts but the the Inquisitor is definitely a more sort of intellectual threat. Activating Inquisitor mode. Have they got triangle goggles that are green and a bit splinter-silly? Like Sam Smith.

No. The three eyes. That's interesting that you go to Sam Fisher as like a... For an Inquisitor. But like... True sight goggles

oh right I see um no no you don't see like uh so imagine it being magitek-y

well actually yeah he would be magitek I mean he's covered in equipment and gizmos and things like that but I'm not gonna say he's got splint cell goggles

okay but he probably does have he probably does have like um almost like a kind of pair of glasses with lots of different lenses and things like that that he can kind of like filter well I could vice it

probably be more like a visor actually like a joy little for rain wipe is like to me if only but also I think actually this character will probably have the vacuum empire also uses normal magic so it's kind of a combination of magitek and their own spell casting you can see he it's kind of a combination of magitek and their own spellcasting. You can see he does have a pistol. He has a magitek pistol on his belt. That seems to be the only physical weapon he's carrying. Well, I bought you enough time, Tom.

Thanks. You don't have to buy time. No, I want to. You guys can also talk. I don't mind you being like giving Tom advice and stuff like that. Break his kneecaps. You're fucked. I don't...

For every 25 words, I'll spend a spell slot and roll on the d20 to see if that sending has failed. How would you do 5%? You could just do a d100. Yeah, and also I'm going to roll it. A 1 on a d20. That's 5%. Is it?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I like the d100, though. Well, not everyone gets what they want. Wow. Also, I'm absolutely rolling the fail chance. So, if I was to pop out and cast a spell on this magic guy, would they be surprised?

I would. If you... So, right, here's the here's the here's the six million dollar question right if they can see seven if they if they like have like some sort of permanent true sight and you appear they'll see you immediately right right unless you do like a stealth check or something like that to try and like wait for them to turn around then jump out of them or whatever if if they can't see into the airplane right now and it's something they have to activate then yeah

you would absolutely get surprised around because they had no idea you're there but the problem is is you can't see them until they can potentially see you and so if they have it permanently on unless you do a stealth check they'll see you but that's the if question and you don't know i'm gonna i'm gonna the one that i saw through my arcane eye when i was using that to scout around the building the one that saw the arcane eye did it look like this dude yes or at least of a similar style to this guy it wasn't this guy specifically right it was a yeah it was an inquisitor yes um in that case i will yeah i'll attempt um ethereal stealth i suppose in an attempt to get in a position where if i do jump out they're not seeing me thank you

stealth check stealth check stealth check good lord 14 14 you believe you are as stealthed as you can be I go above them I'm floating directly above them like a spectre dogs never look up they don't they can't look up

like dogs you float into the room you're hovering up in the air they turn around and would absolutely see you no reaction fucking rad okay i want to are you still floating above i'm still like that's hilarious i like put my hands in front of his face and really slowly do this. I don't do that. He's this close to him. I want to get behind them in that case,

pop out of etherealness, and cast Banish on the big guy. Okay. You wait. They move down towards the end of the corridor. You end the etherealness spell manifesting in the real world. That stealth check, which you enrolled previously, is still active.

Somebody, the Inquisitor, hears something and whips around. It's still technically a surprise. You get to act, but they can see you. You are not stealthed from them anymore. They know you're there. But you get the surprise round. So this is banishment. They make a charisma save um or just one person trot's making some real stress noises over here how charismatic are these guys you don't get to know that i don't get if you

want a portent you have to tell me right now because i'm about to roll. Oh, I see. I am portent boy. I am cocking my arm. The dice is coming out. My lowest portent is 15 and they need to get over 22. I wouldn't use that. Well, they have to be 22.

That's the thing. Plus 7 is... You guys are high level. No, I know. i've also got plus seven increase that's why i'm looking at it like so i'm rolling roll it dc 22 dc 22 charisma so what do i why do i need to roll here to fail 22 okay oh i don't like that face. Is it 20? What would that be? Seven.

22 exactly. I was trying to do the math in my head. They have a plus nine to charisma. I rolled a 13, and I was like, I think that's a 22. Plus nine. You kind of appear you summon the power of Hesper still in your Ganassi disguise

at this point and you watch as the kind of magic envelops the Inquisitor who just holds up a hand and there's like a pulsating gem or something like that and yeah they mentally just no that's gonna be the point where we have to roll initiative.

Oh, boy. Oliver, like, Aelir and me as well? You guys got delayed slightly, but not enough. He was delayed. So I would say at this point, you guys are entering, like, stealthing your way to get into the building. You're not at this level.

You are in the Atlas Academy. We'll just hand wave and say that with Fuego's help you've managed to sneak into this far. Maybe like Ayla's like choked, you know solid snake choked out minor guards and like just like knocked them out. Because they're just going to be like patrolling mundane guards, right?

Who are like nobodies. I like to think that I bore them with a fact and she just chokes them out from behind. I wasn't even going in, but I guess plans change. Oh, no, that's right. No, no, no, that's right. You weren't going in. No, but I don't...

No, no, no, that was the original plan. That was the plan, so I don't want to... No, no, no, that's your 100% right. Unless someone sends me a message and tells me to do it. But also, no, you didn't speak to the people. You are not allowed in here. Like, this is nighttime. It's not open to the public. You, you didn't speak to people. You are not allowed in here. Like, this is night time. It's not open to the public. You're not a student.

So, you and Fuego have to sneak in. I'm a journalist. If we have to sneak in, I would use invisibility. Yes. And I can use it on both me and him. Right, perfect. In that case, we don't need to worry about anything. You and Fuego are invisibly making your way through the building. You are in the

Atlas Academy, but you are still several minutes away from this guy. Several minutes? Yes. But he might be able to run away, and then you're going to meet up. He's going to stay there all night again. Right, so let me roll...

20? You're dead. Is that a natural 20? You're dead. You just spontaneously combust. I'm spending my portent on initiative, then. Oh, really? I am, yeah. I've got a 19.

You want to spend that on initiative? A 19? I need to go first. I'm probably not going to go first. I need to go at least faster than the other guys as well like i i i need to get now big bits of paper yeah just so because i don't have anything to make it i'm not going to do this as a uh encounter because it's only him so i'm just going to need to manually do a oh school write the initiative nine so yeah and i rolled exactly what i needed it's yeah that's yeah that's this game of dice and chance is And I rolled exactly what I needed. It's bullshit. I agree.

Yeah, that's bullshit. This game of dice and chance is bullshit. But it was just like... Because I had to roll a 13 or higher, which is technically like the odds should have been in Tom's favour. Oh, no, I think you're more annoyed about that success than I am. Okay, so that's the Inquisitor's Initiative, and then the two Rifle Corps...

And what's his Initiative? Like 40? I mean, I'm not gonna tell you what his Initiative is. Well, it's gonna be higher than mine, I think. I mean, you saw the face I made when I rolled it. It's a 20. You rolled a 20. Uh... Um... I'm just hoping his, uh...

Well... It's gonna be higher than yours, probably. It's gonna be higher than mine, yeah. So I would just roll it and not's going to be higher than yours it's going to be higher than mine yeah so I would just roll it and not waste your 19 alright so Quill I'm still using it I'm still using a 19

my important is that the is that what your initiative is or is that it's 22 22 alright you watch as

the horror kind of fills you fills you for a moment as the banishment spell is resisted by this mentally strong-willed Inquisitor. Probably a little bit of the kind of Sith Inquisitors from Star Wars has sort of like a face mask over like, and just kind of points at the rifle core.

And they are going to look in your way. Get caught. And they've seen you cast a spell. They are going to point in your direction. They begin pulling out their pistol. They gesture. In fact, I'd say this one's Magitek. They pull out like a small

device uh throw it down the corridor and a 20 foot radius sphere of like electromagnetic energy all sound goes out oh 20 foot radius around you and then the device evaporates it's like a little it's it's he's casting the silent spell um but it's like a magitek thing. The rifle call begin like... So 20 foot radius around you. So 20 foot in all directions around you is silent. How long is this corridor? Which means that you cannot cast spells with a verbal component. I just realized you're in a corridor. That's our worst enemy.

Yeah, it is. How long is the corridor? I would say the corridor, like a student dorm, like maybe 30, 40 feet long with doors on either side basically and a stairwell on one on both sides kind of like going up and down it's kind of like being in a hotel yeah so i could get out of the silence sphere you could you could run out of that silence sphere yes um you could if you wanted to make a run for it, you absolutely could. That was his action.

He doesn't really have another bonus action. Actually, no, his bonus action, the other thing he does is he taps his shoulder and a crystalline drone kind of flies up. And he can make a ranged spell attack with it that's a 19 to hit yeah you can take nine points of force damage as like a little bastard and then yeah just capture them alive as you can we need to know who they work for. I will. I want to fly... Ceiling's low, but you can get off the ground. I want to fly

away from them and out of the sphere of silence. Okay. This time I want to cast banishment at... God, I just used my 6th level spell. Wait, did I?

You used... I don't know when you used the 6th. You used 7th for banishment. You used 7th for ethereal. Yeah, sorry, for the 6th for the etherealness. 6th level banishment, meaning it will affect 3 people.

So you want to try and just banish the whole squad, basically. Yeah, and I believe that they will all make individual rolls. Yes, they will. So again, Charisma 22. Charisma 22 on all three. Do him last. Big guy last. Yeah, no, okay.

Get your good rolls out of the way. You don't know. One of the rolls. Don't waste your rolls. Rifle core two. Both vanish. Okay. They are not native to this plane of existence.

That's important to remember if you can maintain concentration. Yes, exactly. The Inquisitor. If this guy goes as well, then I can concentrate on banishment freely. 13 or higher. Yeah, but here's the problem, Tarn. Is Aetheriness concentration? It is, but I've got Elder Quill.

That's true. The Inquisitor. You can see he's bringing that pistol up to take a shot. Yeah. And then he feels the spell, and he's like, I'm going to... Oh! Nice, nice, nice.

It's like just as the gun fires, like the muzzle flashes there, but the bullet also goes. You see this green glow building, and then just vanishing hits. Amazing. Because he was confident he was going to resist it again. So let's bring up Vanishment as a spell.

Yeah, does his drone go with him? It does, yes, it does. In fact, I think it would probably, it just evaporates into like magical energy. It just like... If the target is native, he's not. If the target is native to a different plane of existence to the one you're on,

the target is banished with a faint popping noise, returning to its home plane. If the spell ends before one minute... If the target reappears in the space it left. If not, they stay there. Yeah, the spell ends before one minute and it's concentration. I'vears in the space at left. If not, they stay there. Yeah. Spot ends before one minute, and it's concentration. I've just sent them back to Gideon Prime, I guess, or wherever.

Yeah, so this has only taken a few seconds, so Nova and Fuego are still kind of, like, stealthing via the invisibility. They're making your way through. You do notice, Nova, as you're kind of sneaking through, the outside guards that you and Fuego pass were like generic Ganassi guards, right? When you get inside and you are now on Atlas Academy grounds, in the kind of more university type buildings that would be open to the public during the day,

you maybe see more of those kind of guards walking around. Soon as you get into the student dorm where you know these guys are, it's like it ramps up. At the door, they're dressed like normal guards, but Fuego would probably whisper to you and be like, those are elemental tack ops. Like, they're real serious dudes. We don't want to mess with them.

You can see that these much more trained guards are pretending to be like normal sort of like rent-a-cop kind of things. Then as you kind of bypass them, you start making your way up. You begin to see Valkyrie and Wyverncore. You begin to see more mage-looking Ganassi. You don't encounter another Inquisitor.

What are the kind of troops we're used to seeing? These are like the upper tier. Like, you know, you were fighting the regular schmuck guards outside or like bite-sneaking bastards. No, no, no, I mean just in general. Not just here here but like in our journeys across the multiverse

for sure for sure alright cool that was like six seconds luckily but you did it at least for now as long as

nothing breaks your concentration in the next minute I want to cast fuck me my heart I want to cast sending to Nova using elder are you no this isn't this isn't concentration this is fine Fuck me and my heart. I want to cast Sending to Nova.

Using Elder... No, this isn't concentration. This is fine. So... Hold on. Huh? It would have ended the... No, wait, because it was a device, right? No, it was a spell.

It was a spell, yeah. Just flavor. I'm flavoring it as magitek, yeah. It lasts and then it went away. Wait, what? The silence. But he also flew out of it. Yeah, I moved out of it.

So yeah, sending to Nova, clear skies, spotted but dealt with. Should I be worried? Panic? About more guards more guards on each level increasing in difficulty

rank increasing in rank Increasing in... Difficulty. Rank. Rank. Increasing in rank. Do you need us to come to you? Fuck, you just made me burn another spell slot. Asking me a question in response to a sending? You don't need to, I guess. You don't have to reply. You can just ghost me, bro. Yeah, you can ghost Milva. Yeah, I'll totally ghost.

Okay. And I'll just be there with Fiori like, he's fucking ghosting me. What a dick. So yeah, I guess it's up to Quill what happens

in the next few seconds. I mean, from that I presume that, you know, that his message of get him, keep him alive or whatever

wasn't like sent out. Yeah, would I have seen like movement amongst... You think that that was just to the two guys next to him? It was just me being like, get him! Just in case, like if Nova sees... It wasn't like a broadcasted message.

So yeah, in the remaining letters, I would say no movement, no unusual movement. Sure. Fucking radical. Any kisses on the end? Kiss, kiss. No, not for Quill. Oh, wait.

I definitely sent a few like XO, XO. But like the remaining... Yeah, same. Same. I would have done that back. And maybe a buzz as well. Just XO, XO, XO, XO. Okay, in that case,

I want to look in rooms. You encounter... Well, and you knew this, the doors on windows are magically sealed. And I can't see into them at all. They're just like wooden doors, like hotel doors. They are locked.

They have locks on, like you can see, keyholes. If I knock? But you don't, yeah. You've been told that they're magically sealed. You don't know in what way or anything else. Right. So do you knock? I do.

Okay. It's late at night. With your perception, you hear, like, stirring. Like, somebody was asleep and maybe they're waking up because you've knocked. Or they've heard something out in the hall. They would have heard probably the Inquisitor, actually, like, get them and stuff like that. Yeah.

So there's stirring, but somebody who's clearly still maybe waking up and isn't sure if they're dreaming or something like that, like, you know... Yeah, I was wondering if I could cast Message, but I have to be familiar with the target and know that they're beyond the barrier. I mean, I know they are, but you're not familiar with them.

I mean, you can knock again or call out to them or something like that. From what you can see, you're now alone. There's no other guards on this floor. Looks like those were the three specifically watching this hallway. Yeah, I mean... The best of the best. I think I'm furthest away... At least one of them.

I'm furthest away from the stairs out of this corridor, I suppose. So I'll sort of whisper through the door, like, is anyone in there? Hey, hey, hey, I'm here to help. Okay. Yeah, you hear like a kind of like sleepy, like, hello? What's going on? I'm here to take you away from the Atlas Academy. What?

Oh, what? Are you with the... No, this is a trick. You're trying to trick us. No, definitely not a trick. You might have heard a faint popping sound. That was me banishing all the guards. I'm with the Seekers.

We're here to take you to safety. Make a persuasion check for me. Also, I'm really trustworthy. Persuasion plus one. Ten. Ten is enough. At least enough for them, like, you hear, like, well, okay, but I can't open the door from this side.

We're not... The ones from Valkyria, the Valkyrians, and the Ganassi here, they keep us locked in. from this side. We're not... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The...

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The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The...

The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The...

The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The...

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The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... At least one of the key. The most egg-sensible key.

But yes, 100%. Ah, shit, we've got to go to a different planet. Okay. I'm going to get him talking. Bring him back. Bring him back. This is going to be a little bit more problematic than I thought. I can't, like, unbanish just one of the guards, can I?

I have to get rid of all three, right? Yeah. You've got a key. You can try opening it another way. Yeah. Where's this spell? I wish we had the knock spell. Yeah.

That would be great. Great one. It would be a good one. It's a great one. Rarely gets used, old knock. It's a good spell. I don't think we've ever used it in our entire, however many years we've been playing.

It's actually, whenever I make wizard characters one of the rare opportunities I get to play I always take knock because it's I literally don't even know what knock is

it literally opens any locked thing and if it's like if it's magically locked you basically make a check on if you can beat the original

like caster level I should have known about that one it's a wizard spell so I don't think you can get it I'm a wizard you're a level 2

yeah well so what's the plan I'd say that basically in like It's a wizard spell, so I don't think you can get it. I'm a wizard. You're a level two wizard. Yeah, well. So what's the plan? I'd say that basically in maybe two minutes, Nova and Fuego will get there. Yeah, I'm going to say to this guy, okay, I'm going to try and unlock this door, but while I'm unlocking it,

are there any other students I need to worry about? Are they particularly jumpy, loud, spooked by things easily? Oh, yes. I mean, kind of all of those things. I mean, I know a little bit. I mean, how are you going to get us out as well? Like, this whole place is swarming with guards and Samson's in his chair. Like, this is going to be really hard.

I just banished two guards, one extremely high level. What? You did not listen to me. Yeah, you didn't hear that last bit, did you? He said Samson is still in his chair. Who's Samson, buddy? Look. Tom.

I heard it. Did you? I'm just... That's a huge problem. He's solving one problem at a time here. I'm going to get to that room when I get to that room. But first, he said that while I was also going,

dispel magic. Dispel magic? That's how he cast it. Dispel magic. Did it work? Choose one creature, object, or magical effect within range. Any spell of third level or lower. Okay.

Whatever magic is sealing this door ends. You successfully dispel it. Open a door, slowly. And you were going to get the key back from you. You dispel the magical seal and it's still physically locked. Why would they only do one?

I did say there was a keyhole. I do remember not picking stuff, though. Yeah. Oh my god, doors are going to defeat us again. I did say there was a keyhole. I do remember not picking stuff, though. Yeah. Oh, my God. Doors are going to defeat us again. Okay.

One step closer to getting you out of here. I just need to go down the rest of these doors, and I'll be back, okay? Okay. What were you saying about the chair? Well, Samson, he's in a wheelchair. Like, we can't exactly, like... Oh, I thought it was like there was something awful, like some boss that was in one of the rooms.

Oh, right. No, I genuinely thought that. One of the students is in a wheelchair. What, like a James Bond chair? Like, one from a solace? Turn around, there's some guy with a cat on his lap. No, genuinely, I thought there was going to be some device that was locking...

The AI in control, no. One of the students is in a wheelchair, and this person doesn't know how you're getting them out, so they're like, that could be a problem. Wheel them out. It should be fine. You've got levitate. Yeah, levitate them.

I don't think I'll need to. If he's in the ethereal, he doesn't need to worry about it. Yeah. In that case, I will go to the next door. Are you going to cast the spell magic on every door? Yeah. Do you have enough spell slots to do it? So...

You've only got four third levels. One, two, three, four, five. Just done it. So you're going to use fourth level spells? And two fifth level. Wow, so you are literally like... He's just really gone for it. He just went down his list

and yeah I mean you kind of whatever magic is like Spider-Man 3 but it's I mean you also I think that you would

I'm just going to my ninth level it's what I'm trying to do on this it wasn't just magic sealing the doors these all alarmed as well like oh

has removed that as well it's removed any of these kind of like magical protections I'd love if we got to the end and there was just like a little control panel that's like... Amazing.

In the time it takes you to do that, we'll say Fuego and Nova basically arrive at this point. Can you just, for my benefit please, Kim, because you are invisible, but invisibility doesn't stop you making noise.

Can you make a stealth check for me, please? And and because i riannon if you go into extras can you get fuego stats up and can you make a stealth check for him please 18 18 isn't um doesn't invisible give you advantage no it gives you advantage if you are i mean it doesn't give you advantage and if it's site-based you just can't see them oh okay more like yeah pass pass without trace gives you like the bonus and stuff but yeah invisibility technically doesn't give you advantage it's just yeah you can't see them as long as they're not doing anything else fine around if you go to extras town then search for f u e g o f u c k y o u or if anybody else can get them up if not i can roll them it's just um i get you guys involved. Fuego ain't coming up. I got Diego.

Wait, we'll have to add an extra. Yeah, you have to add Sidekick, I think. I've got him, but I don't know how to read creature stats. There he is. All right, Chris Stratton, you got him? Can you roll a stealth for him, please? Oh, plus nine. Yeah. There you go.

I use the glitter dice available on fresh store.co wow that thing got me through the check don't use them don't buy them well that's wrong that's two two plus his whiz is it four plus nine dex five no also look at his skills it's's nine. Plus nine. Plus nine. Oh, he's got a plus nine. Wisdom! We've played this game for six years, Chris Trott! He's in two campaigns right now as well. That makes it worse! You've hidden a shadow so well, you're so wise. I can see the darkness!

That's fine. Just good to know. You and Fuego, can you lose a hit dice each, please? Sure. I will mark Fuego's. I don't think we can do it on the app. We can't do it on the app. Uh, you can't do it for stat blocks either, for Fuego. Oh.

Oh, you mean for yourselves, yeah. Can't add sidekicks. Uh, you do manage to get there. Um, there is a period where you basically have to awkwardly hold in a very kind of awkward position. Fuego is like... Because a guard is changing on the thing, and you basically have to squeeze up as these guards go past you, remaining as still as you can, holding your breath. Again, physical exertion.

Yeah, that's true. But still, physical exertion and everything else. But eventually you find Quill as he's just finished running down the hallway. Zap, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap. I'm looking panicked. I'm now looking through my bag like, I don't have any lockpicks. Why didn't I bring any lockpicks? I think both of us are still going to be invisible just listening to this.

And I'm like, just give me it. Maybe I can fashion something. Do you need some help, Cole? Yeah. You look stressed. Also, if you were going to do this whole thing by yourself, why did we come? Because I kind of knew that he might need help.

Right, yeah, that makes sense, but I don't get why he... Why did you let us come if you thought you were going to take care of all of it? Honestly, just inclusivity. Right, nice. You could leave if you want. No, please.

Like, I managed to... There were three guards here. I banished them. They're never coming back. Well, they might come back, but they'll have to travel a very, very long way. I got rid of all the magic on the doors. Oh, my God.

And now I just need... I need them unlocked, and I don't have any lockpicks. And I don't know how long until the next set of guards come down. Nova? Probably not that long. Probably not that long.

Does Fuego know how to lockpick and stuff as well? Yeah, he does. You good at it? You got any lockpicks? Can we both... Yeah. Get going? Sure.

Picking locks? Yeah. Spending the time, you're going to have to roll. Fuego is with his plus nine and being trained in it. I'm just going to hit it He can do it quite naturally

I've got a plus eight But I'm not trained in it But you aren't trained in it So for you I practiced in the little quarter Yeah, that's cool But still going to be rolls So yeah

If you make Just make one check for me Sixteen Sixteen I don't think sixteen's going to cut it actually These are decent locks I'd say with Fuego's help, you can do it, but it takes time. And by the time the two of you have finished physically unlocking these doors,

you begin to hear... Oh, no. How would that work? It's technically a sending spell. Can you roll a d20 for me, please? And let me know if you roll a 1. Wait, why? Just roll it for me, please.

Because they're on a different plane of existence. 5. All right. Oh. Oh! There is a... I mean, this is something happening elsewhere. And then as you guys finish unlocking,

because it takes you several minutes of like going and kind of like doing that kind of thing you begin like quill your perception there is rapid footsteps coming up to this floor as in like you can hear like a forces have been alerted somehow oh because they're probably the first thing they checked in it was like like Oh, because probably the first time they checked in. It was like an Alpha team check-in, sending spell, sending stone check-in. Like, there's a bloody... They banished us to Gideon Prime!

Get him! Oh, that is so... I left my teddy bear behind. So simply clever. You know, like, that's obviously what they would do. That's what you do, right? It wouldn't be instantaneous. They would have to wait until that team were like... They had to find someone. you do, right? But, like, it wouldn't be instantaneous. They would have to wait

until that team were, like... They had to find someone. You know, lab team, check in, and it's, you know, like bad guys in an action movie, right? They're just like,

elevator team, where are you? They've gone silent! You know, but this time they can be like, he fucking sent us to another plane! Like, get him!

Um, okay. But, yeah, you've got, like, you've got, like, seconds, like, rounds. All of the students are... You, like, you open the doors, you unlock them out. There's a gathering of five of them. They're all pretty young. Like, they're all between 15 and, like, 19, I would say,

like, being young students. One is in a wheelchair. You can see, like, an ornate sort of iron and sort of wood created wheelchair. One of them looks particularly sick. Like they might be like, you know,

some sort of cold or flu or something like that. I'm going to infect the inferior dimension. But yeah, they sort of all get gathered, but they're now looking at you with wide eyes.

Like, no, the guards, we can hit, like, we should get back in our rooms. They're like, oh no,

this is a terrible idea. Like, they're freaking out. It's not a terrible idea. You guys, you need to go invisible now. I'm not here. You guys, Fuego and Nova and students, we're about to go somewhere else.

You need to follow me as close as you can. Okay. And then what's... Ninth level in Aetherius? Ninth level Aetherionus. Okay. So anything within... you choose the creatures that can do it yeah but if they're if they're around me then they come with me okay all right quill

and the students all vanish what are fuego and nova doing you can definitely take all of them do you have any space for anyone else as well he does not six people including him uh i got a spell slot and i'm going invisible. Okay. And then what are you doing once you're invisible? Like, hiding in this hallway, or...? Are there any rooftops around? Yeah, you could go up to the roof.

Yeah. Like, I'm sure Fuego can help. Like, do what? Like, get to the roof? Get us on the roofs or something like that. I mean, you can... This is a building. You can go up to the roof. Like, this is like a dorm building what? Like, get to the roof? Get us on the roofs or something like that. I mean, you can... This is a building. You can go up to the roof.

Like, this is like a dorm building. You can go up to the roof of this building. Yeah, sure. Why not? Okay. Right. You begin making your way up, which, convenient,

there's no guards coming down. So you begin making your way up. Quill, at this point, you're in the clit. Ethereanus, I've got nothing. I literally have no way of doing anything about that, you can fly through the walls you lead these kids to safety

mission successful, job done Commander we got him I'm going to make a couple of skill checks for the pursuing guards I might need to tell Aayla I'm waiting for you to lead you to the safe house

I mean how many spell slots do I have left? because this cost a lot I need to tell Aelon. I'm waiting for you to lead you to the safe house. I mean, how many spell slots do I have left? Because this cost a lot. All I can picture is the Army of the Dead. Just Quill as the Army of the Dead from Lord of the Rings. Yeah. Just moving through the mist. Wispy, windy boys.

Except for being really vicious, they're just a bit like Nova hi you and Fuego make your way up the sound of heavy armoured boots the sound of elemental energy

and magic being summoned calls out you can hear the sounds just like hear like echoing voices like go go go check it

check the rooms kind of hear it it becomes slowly muffled can you make a perception check for me, please, if you pick up on the rest of the conversation? I'm really good at perception. Yeah.

That's a natural one. The blood's just pumping in your ears. Like, you just don't hear anything. And you and Fuego are just... You burst out onto the roof of the Atlas Academy, kind of going up a proper fire escape. You kind of come out onto this kind of open, floored plaza.

I'm going to say that there is almost like a glass triangle. Actually, no, this is the dorm. There's maybe like a central shaft that goes all the way down, which is almost like funneling air to circulate through, but it's basically just a 400-feet drop to the bottom. I like those. This is a tall, tall, tall building. You reach the bottom. I like those. This is a tall, tall, tall building. You reach the roof.

You realize that you can see the main Atlas Academy campus towards you. That's maybe 100 feet drop down from this building. You can see a big glass kind of pyramid shape that's got this giant globe in the middle with all the kind of, it's like a museum centerpiece, right? The center of the main academy. You can see there are lights, all dozens of magical lights all around you you almost like spotlights and kind of like floodlights and things like that around the atlas academy um but there's no way down there's no nearby buildings except for that main academy building down there and the sound of those boots by the time you realise they're about to come out onto the roof, having tracked whoever was causing problems,

they have done the default thing of being like, well, keep going up, see if they're up there. Again, you have seconds here to decide what you and Fuego are going to do. Otherwise, these guards are about to burst out onto the roof alongside you. Can I ask Fuego if he's able to sort himself out, or, like... He gestures, like,

Oh, yeah, let me just get my portable parachute I carry around with me. You're invisible, I can't see that. I mean, you can hear. Yeah, you hear and be like, no! Why did we come up here? You want to go downstairs through the guards? I just did what you said. I thought you knew what you were doing.

Okay, that's like six seconds. You maybe got like six seconds. What are you doing? I kind of want to... I kind of want to have him stay invisible and see if I'm a point of distraction, if he can slip behind, like, still invisible, slip behind, get his way to the clear.

If you can make a decent enough distraction to convince them that, you know, you're the thing that they're after, absolutely. In which case... Yes? Charles' face. It's 90 feet. Might do a little thunder step.

To where? Down. To where? Because you said it's 100 foot down. To the top of the Atlas Academy main building. That's still 300 feet off the street level. But you could then go from there to somewhere else and these guards would be stuck up here.

I might use my equipped twin blades. To do? That special ability. Do you have them with you? Yeah, because I made a Tiangong. You masked them as Tiangong. A little cute dagger. I don't know if 60 feet is enough, though.

Tell me what you want to do, and then I can answer the question. Basically, like, create a distraction with me just physically manifesting. Yeah, you would peer out of the visibility and be like, I'm here, guards are like, there she is, and then you try and get away. But what's the equipped Twinblade thing that you want to do? What's the actual, like, how are you going to get off this building? 60-foot oar is and then you try and get away But what's the equips to in blade the thing that you want to do? What's the actual like how are you gonna get this building or and then you can teleport within it but 60 foot isn't it? No, and it also like the gap like it's it's a hundred feet down But I'd say it's about sort of like a hundred feet like gap to this building as well. I can also levitate

And you can levitate down you can descend at what a rate of 20 feet around or something like that? You descend at? You'd levitate? Yeah. It's quite slow. I keep going into Dimension Door anymore. I know, it sucks. You can Thunder Step, though.

A 10-foot drop is D6 damage. Yeah, I'm going to do that. Because, as well, Thunder Step isn't concentration, so I would still be maintaining concentration on Fuego. And the invisibility. Yeah. Okay. So that's the

plan right yeah six seconds you're like stay that you basically say tell fuego stay there be quiet um he'll do that so he like pushes himself up he actually goes around to the other side of where the guards are going to come out and he like flattens himself there like trying to be quiet as possible and then what you're going to move to the edge cancel invisibility on yourself so the guards see you as they come out. And if any of them are within 10 foot, they might take a little bit of damage. They won't be within 10 feet of you, no, unfortunately.

All right, so you see, not an Inquisitor, but another sort of like well-equipped Magitek knight leading a group of rifle corps burst out onto the scene. They're looking around. They catch you as you've dropped invisibility on yourself. Like, there's one, get him! And then what, you cast Thunder Step?

It says apparently I can actually teleport him with me. You can teleport one willing creature of your size or smaller. Okay. But I might leave him, because I think he's pretty good on his own, to be honest. I'd say at this point we've already established that you told him to be quiet. Yeah, he's good on his own. So at the last second, I'll thunder step away. All right.

And then... You appear, the kind of crack, and it leaves a 300... It's like a thunderous boom thunder step. We're going to hear that. Yeah, it's up to 300 foot away. And it would echo through the city as well. It's enough that for you, it's quite quiet. You're like, was that thunder?

It's clear sky. You know there's no storm. Just the Nova storm. You're going to take two points of bludgeoning damage as you kind of land 10 feet from above. And you land on top of the thing. What do you do? So you land.

They're still up on this route. What's your plan? So you land. They're still up on this route. What's your plan? Are you running for like... Because now you're in a building that's 300 foot off the street level, but there's this big glass pyramid. You could try and climb down. What's the plan to get down from here? So I can do several things.

I can misty step. I can teleport using my echo. I can levitate. Echo teleport is like 60 feet. 30 feet. Okay. But I can do it continuously. I can levitate. Echo teleport is like 60 feet. 30 feet. Okay. But I can do it continuously. I can levitate.

But then you have to summon it within a certain range of you. Yeah, it's fine. So you summon it, teleport to it. Levitate. It's like 20 foot descension, right? At a speed of 20 feet. Levitate is... So imagine...

I can rise vertically up to 20 foot, but if I... Concentration up to 10 minutes, but my idea is that this pyramid to get down is like... No, it's like a pyramid on top of the building, like a kind of reverse of the Louvre. It's got like this glass thing. Well, if I'm trying to get down to the ground,

if I could just like push myself down, like if I levitate myself somewhat forward... So you would go to the side of the building yeah because the pyramid's like in the middle of the building it's like an open sort of skylight almost down into like the museum you could go to the side of the building then you would levitate down and then use yourself to like levitate down i mean yeah you'd be going at like 20 feet around basically to do that that's probably too slow i mean i mean it would break it would break the concentration off fuego wouldn't off Quago, wouldn't it?

Yeah. Sorry, I thought you were pointing at the other thing. So at this point, the guards have reached the side of the building, looking down as you're kind of trying to figure out what you're going to do. They begin, like, pulling their rifles up to take shots as you're on this big kind of open, you know,

academy-like building top. What if I slide down the pyramid it doesn't go down it's it's on top of the building is what i'm trying to describe like imagine you've got like a big university building it's like a roof feature what if i slide down it and then cast levitate when i'm just about to drop well i don't understand what you mean slide down it it's on top of the building yeah oh i think i'm above it she thinks she's above it no no you're on the rooftop there's a big glass pyramid In front of you

That's like And inside It like looks down in On the building Gotcha I'm with you now That's fine It's hard to try and get through

I'm here I've arrived Here she is Here I am Rocking like a hurricane It's a glass So I can see in To the glass

Oh my god Is there a thing Is there a part on the building that I can see through? Inside, like if you look through this glass pyramid. So I can summon Tiangong there and then swap places with him. I would say that what that glass pyramid looks down on into is like this big, big open display, like a main courtyard of a museum building, right?

And this is like a, and you actually, there's like a miniature version of the Atlas statue. There's like a bit, and it's like, you know, a replication or a replica of the city. It's got all these displays, some of which are suspended from the ceiling. I would say that you could definitely. Jurassic Park it.

What's the range, the Tiangong teleport is only like 30 feet though. So you have to summon in 30 feet and then teleport them to them, sorry. Which is the same as your Misty Step. I would say you can do this. Make a... So using a combination of the spells and the teleport,

make a acrobatics check for me. Because the only thing that you can get to appears to be a model of the very first Air Ganassi wing glider. It's basically a plane model. And it's like right-handed. It's like the Wright Brothers plane. It's suspended. And you can teleport to that

and then from there there's like another thing that you can go to and then there's maybe rafters and things like that. What'd you get? Five. Okay. A couple of things happen. You run to the glass prism, like summoning, like, you know, preparing.

As these force rifles from the Valkyrian troops are like slamming into the gravelly stone rooftop around you. Or Jason borning it, like running. That's when you hear like,

keep firing, leave her to me as the tech knight summons a dimension door. Oh, of course they do. And appears ahead of you, right by the glass window. Roll initiative for me, Nova. I should have brought some lockpicks. As he's floating through etherealness.

Well, I was going to ask. You are well beyond this, because you're going in another directionerealness. Well, I was going to... Yeah, how far away are you now? I was going to ask. He is... You are well beyond this, because you're going in another direction as well. Oh, okay. Like, you're heading towards the safe house. How close is he to me? Because he's probably a while away.

You're going to be a while, because it was an hour away from the Atlas Academy. So even going as the crow flies... Oh, no, I thought I was, like, closer to Atlas. Yeah, you were going to be, like, halfway house, right? So 30 minutes away. Oh, fucking hell. Yeah. yeah 16 16 on Nova's initiative and it just briefly cut back to century and snap oh you beat me again sorry you're so good at this and then back she's like what the hell

are the others getting on I do want to look wavy I mean the thing is it wasn't even your fault Tom I literally rolled

the saving throw and that's caused this reaction and then it's decisions right but it makes great content unfortunately

Nova the phase night will be going first they look in your direction and the first thing they do is they have basically like a hill of a sword and a force play I want to join them going anywhere I'm kind of joining you dude and he's gonna rush up and uh oh purple purple yeah on brand uh runs up it's gonna take two strikes that's cool let's just join the first one is a 17 to hit no i think these disguises the next one is gonna be a 18 to hit no all right using the tiny dagger do you keep it in the dagger form you're gonna manifest it as the twin blades now?

I don't know. All right. Well, either way, you're dodging, weaving, kind of clashes around you. He kind of remains in the place, trying to lock you in the spot. Yeah. All right. I was going to try him. He kind of remains in the place trying to kind of lock you in the spot. Yeah, what'd you do? Dammit, I was gonna try him. Can I still try and like teleport you into the room?

Yeah, absolutely you can. So like try and get away. So can I see a pick spot? You see the plane. Yeah, so manifest Tiangong. Bonus action manifest Echo. And you can teleport just as you're moving. Let me check that. If not, you can Misty Step.

I can Misty Step, so I'm just going to Misty Step. For now, we're just going to Misty Step. Check on the Tiangong just so we know for the future. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so you bonus action Misty Step. You landed on the plane itself. That acrobatics check that you rolled earlier, as you land on it, one of the...

Yeah. And it begins to swing, and you slide, and you fall. And you one of the... And it begins to swing and you slide and you fall. And you fall onto the next highest thing, which is actually the miniature statue of Atlas itself. That is still going to be a pretty hefty drop. It took like ten artisans five years to build that. I imagine she'd be apologising. Fourteen points of bludgeoning damage.

And you kind of stumble, you catch your arm into a joint of it, you're swinging there, holding on. But it is still your turn. Remind me how to do a concentration check. DC is a constitution saving throw. The DC for this would be 10. 16. You pass.

No, 15. You pass. So Fuego is still invisible. Okay, cool. Can I just... I just want to do something real quick sure yeah do that while i check uh you get ascending you can technically do it in metal gear pause a boss fight like i've noticed your health is quite low i should take some rations um that was a pretty loud noise i just heard no very okay that was me i'm being chased by all the guards go away all right that's the sending okay uh not clear skies not clear

skies not clear skies no but still you're actually you have your move left i have my action on my move you are currently climbing you're technically at have your action, you have your move left. I have my action and my move. You are currently climbing. You're technically, at this point, you are climbing the statue. It's half movement when climbing unless you have something else. Would it make any difference? It wouldn't make any difference if...

No. If I cast control weather... Oh. And I tried to make a lot of, if I made it a storm, just to get noise in the area. Oh, sounds pretty good. I like this.

Control weather. The thing I'm going to check on this is casting time. Ten minutes. But they're still far away, and people are still traveling for 30 minutes. And it would also give context to that thunder blast. Yeah. I'm thinking as soon as she heard that thunder blast, she was like, ah.

There's only one thing that can do. Cover it! The hammer, which has been in the backpack and disguised, you pull out the Howling Templest and you begin concentrating. And you do begin to see this clear night sky that was previously clear, faint wisps of cloud over the 10 minutes skin pulling in, but that's going to take ten minutes. Meanwhile,

Nova Vigia hanging on. What do you do? You can see the phase knight looking down from this glass pyramid, like looking down towards you, blade in hand. It's like so hard to hate. It'd be so cool. I want his blade. I need to name this guy.

Oh yes. Yeah, you're this guy. Oh, yes. Yeah, you're going to get a full thunderstorm. Bonus. So bonus action is... Was Misty Step. Yeah, no. So it is a bonus action to both summon and teleport. Okay, so you have to summon it and then the next round teleport.

Okay. But I've still got action to move. Can I use them both, like, to dash and, like... You've got to move. Yeah, you've got movement and action. Yeah, so movement them both to dash? You've got movement and action. To dash and get down. You begin climbing down. It's half movement, so you go about 30 feet down the statue.

You fell from where you were. You fell 50 feet. You kind of slammed on the thing. You climb down. That gets you to Atlas' back, where he's kind of reclined position. You've gone from his head down to his back now you are still technically gonna be uh i'd say 30 50 um that's 80 220 feet off like the street level but you can see that there's actually now like a circular like uh like a uh like a floor with this like circular cut that you could maybe get to

and then you could find your way down through the building, basically. I feel like 90% of Nova's combat turns, this entire campaign involves either thawing or like, you are 220 feet away, you need to cover this distance. I'll drop. I choose to drop. What did you get? Oh, no. What are you rolling?

I rolled the Phase Knight's name. I'm using the good guys at Roll and Play gave me this book for free. I knew it had a character name thing, and you know how terrible I am at covering character names. This tech knight is called Octavius. Yes! Can he shout that at me so I can write that down? My name is Octavius, and you will die.

You will die. I will die. Full thanks! My name is Octavius, and you will die. I will die. You will die. I will die. Full thanks. My brain is going to be gone. I'm Octavius, and I have terrible self-esteem. You're climbing down. The phase knight is going to look in your direction, so he can see you down through it.

He's used his dimension door, but he has an ability as a bonus action called Blink Step. Of course he does. Teleport 60 feet. Oh, damn damn this guy He had but he has to basically do it where he gets to the top of the plane Which you were at which is you know 50 be careful. He's like he's swinging on I'll make an acrobatics Check for him cuz you broke one of the things yeah, yeah

natural one He takes Oh! He falls and dies! He takes 60 points of bludgeoning. But he grabs on next to where you were, like above. And then he... Actually, no, it'd be you are 110 feet down, actually, because I forgot the initial 30 feet.

So I'm just going to put something here. 110 feet. He's now 80 feet. So he's 30 feet above you. I have interest. Give me one second, dude. He bonus action teleported. He fell 50

feet. He has his move and his action left. For his action, he casts Fly on himself. He begins hovering like He uses his move action to get next to you. That's his whole turn. Nova.

He's a poo face. He is the worst possible potential guy to come after you. But it's great. It's great. I'm so sorry, Maria and Trot. No, no, no, no. This is good. If you had something for me to come back to,

I would cut between it. That was cool. You're back in the safe house and you just hear a storm raging overhead. Well, I want to do your turn. then we can take a break. We should stay inside tonight. Yeah, we could be brave. There's a storm brewing. It's very quick it's come about, isn't it?

Yeah, weird. It's like it's magic. That can't be us, right? There's no way. It just cuts off in a circle. Yeah, and it's like near the academy. It's really weird. It's blue. It's like ominous. Oh, I know another card game. Let's go.

Okay, cool. It's weird. This is spicy noodles. You play this great game that the Seekers have come up with called Coup. You play this great game that the Seekers have come up with called Coup. I'm the dude! Double jukes! I get very angry.

Okay. I think I know what I'm going to do. All right, hit me. I just got a flashback to when Mark got really angry at Kim. He always gets angry at me. You moron! Yeah, you fucking moron. You fucking moron! All right, fucking moron. You fucking moron!

Right, here we go. So I'm thinking that I'm going to have to engage. So I'm thinking manifesting Tiangong. Right. And I'm thinking equipped with me. Yeah. Because if I move, he has an opportunity, doesn't he? I mean, you could disengage.

You can use your action to disengage and then you get your movement. But you are still climbing on. Actually, no, you're on the statue's's back so you're not climbing at this point but you've got a choice you can either basically continue making your way down to like the base of um the atlas statue and then you would be like now you would climb down from the plinth that it's on or you can jump across to where there's this like circular like uh observation level and then you might be able to find stairs that go down or something like that. Imagine a big circular ring observation floor that's looking down on it.

I kind of want to jump. Jump? Wait, no, okay. Do what you want. I've got an idea. I'm going to manifest Tiangong on the circular thing. Now I know I can. Okay, so within 30...

Okay, so you see Tiangong's shadowy form, which looks like Tiangong. Yes. On the circular thing. Now I know I can. Okay, so within 30, yeah. Okay, so you see Tiangong's shadowy form, which looks like Tiangong on this thing looking in your direction. Bonus action. Action. Wield the twin blades. I mean, that's not an action. You can do that as part of any action. You can draw the weapon.

Oh, wait, no, it's a bonus action to do this. So I can't manifest Tiangong, because what I'm going to do is use my bonus action to create... You might have to correct me on this. Sure, let me get it up. It's creating both the Crescent of Light and the Crescent of Darkness to create the Eclipsed Moon.

You have to, so it's one at a time. Crescent, and then you create another Crescent, and you build up to the Eclipse. What? Special ability that these things have more weather stuff uh yes as a bonus action you can totally i'll read this out as a bonus action you can expend one charge and create either a crescent of light or a crescent of darkness for one minute until you lose concentration just as if you're concentrating on a spell if you create both both a Crescent of Light and a Crescent of Darkness, they merge to become an Eclipse Moon instead.

So you would use a bonus action to create one, and then next turn you could use a bonus action to create another one, and then they would become the Eclipse Moon. Oh, cool. And what does that do? That's what I'm going to tell you. Until it happens in game. There's two moons.

Okay, so what I'm thinking then is bonus action Tiangong on the thing, and I'm going to try and jump to them and get onto that all right do you want to use your action to disengage yeah all right okay this would be because the jumps more than your strength score can you make an athletics check please oh god can tiangong just help in any way like grab me or anything because they don't have an action to use the help action. Does Tiangong look like Nova? Tiangong looks like a... It would be hard to know it's Nova because Tiangong's made of a nebula, almost like this kind of glowy, spectral, blue, dark form.

Can Nova decide what form they take when they manifest? They can. I can't. How big is the fall? What, did you roll on your earth, I think? I haven't rolled it. Oh, you haven't rolled it yet. It's, I would say, to the next thing, the next floor below it,

I would say is going to be a 70-foot drop, and then you would have a saving throw to grab a ledge. How much damage is that? That'd be 76. That's quite a lot, isn't it? It's not... It's okay. Depends how well you roll.

Level 18. That was not a throw. That was me dropping the dice. If he? It's not... It's okay. Depends how well you get. Level 18. That was not a throw. That was me dropping the dice. If he rolls all ones, it's just seven. So... Not wrong. You're not wrong. What if it's all sixes?

Well, then it's not good, is it? I think in the panic of the moment, she's going to jump. All right. Oh, come on, Nova. I have a minus two. I know. You got this. So what's your strength score normally? It Nova. I have a minus two. I know. You got this. So what's your strength score normally?

It's like seven. Minus two. Yeah, but what's the score? Seven. Seven. So that means with a running jump. Okay, all right, roll. You've got to make 16 feet up with this roll.

So we roll. No, they literally cannot. You've just summoned them. Your mid-air. They have nothing. They have no way to provide you assistance. You got this. I believe. Natural 30! Yeah!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why you rolled ice. That took a second to sink in there. That really did. I was like, oh, God, is she okay? But it's an 18, because it's minus two. I looked at it like, I don't know how that works. So the way I was going to do this was you needed 16 feet. I was going to make it DC 16.

That's not normally how it works, but that's how I was going to run it. So you run, you jump, and it's close, but it's enough that you don't, there's no question, like you land to the other side next to Tiangong on this kind of observational sort of level looking around. Octavius has now been decided. Fly over. You can run, but you won't get away. And just like hovers in the air. And that's the point where we're going to take our break.

Jeez. I could wet myself. So, and just so we know when we come back what I would normally do is like basically if Nova can get to a point where she can easily get away then we'll just call it there

and it'll be like right spend some hit dice and you get away with this but you need to get to that point where you can get away because right now this dude is on your butt. This is really exciting. It's cool.

I also, during the break, need to make some calculations and decisions in my head about things like incognito scores. We're super incognito right now. Okay! I kind of burnt my disguise on night one. That's it for part one.

What an exciting part one. We'll see you in part two for more Hyrule's D&D. See you soon. Goodbye.