High Rollers DnD - High Rollers: Aerois #49 | Aegis V (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

A Starbane portal leads the team far away, the cause of the Sahuagin threat! Support the High Rollers and get early access to podcast episodes (and more) on our Patreon: www.patreon.com/HighRollers Thanks to our sponsors D&D Beyond! D&D Beyond is the official digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Create your FREE account now and start digitising your campaigns here: www.dndbeyond.com/ Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickaxe. why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Your teen requested a ride, but this time, not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to High Rollers, a Dungeons & Dragons podcast in the world of Erois, run by Dungeon Master Mark Sherlock-Hughes, with me, Tom, playing Kelek Ad-Khalad,

Cleric Wizard. Hi, I'm Rhiannon, I'm playing Sentry, I am a Guardian Paladin. I am Chris Trott, I'm playing Lucius Ewan, Eloine Elinastro, and I am a High Elf Sorcerer. Hi, I'm Katie, I'm playing Ayla, a Wild Elf Barbarian. And I'm Kim, I'm playing Nova, who is an Air Ganassi, and she is a Hexblade Warlock. Thanks to our regular sponsor, D&D Beyond,

the official Dungeons & Dragons toolset. Create your free account and speed up your campaigns today. Welcome back to Aroes. Last time, our adventurers, having gained their airship, the Stormchaser, they had begun traveling towards the continent of Suvona to reconnect with some previous allies as well as pick up supplies en route to a place called the City of Glass. However, during their travels, they encountered an orc settlement called Yamalotai

investigated as it was being attacked by strange creatures from the sea, Sahagin. You landed, you assisted the orcs of Yamalotai as well as a Triton baroness called Erin Coralsong in repelling the attackers and learnt that the Sahogun had recently become much more aggressive, intelligent

and were equipped with starbane weaponry and armour. You decided to accompany Erin Coralsong deep into a place called the Coldlight Depths, a ravine where the Sahogun have been layering. Along the way you met a triton called

Drexia, a siren and singer who accompanied you for some time in search for her lost sisters. You made your way down into the depths and through a priestess's cave where hatchlings of Sir Hogan were being bred. You also encounter a shield generator from much more advanced technology that Sentry destroyed and bypassed. And then eventually you rescued the prisoners and were left with a strange portal. Quill, using the power of the Eye of the Storms,

investigated what would happen if you were to travel through it, and saw he emerged in a room with no water and instead a strange symbol reading, a strange sign reading out Aegis V. Wait, what? Or as Quill thought, Visage. Well, no, because when you mentioned the sign, you said you might not be able to pronounce it.

It's very weird. And I was like, OK, this is just a jumble of letters. So it is Aegis V. I read it. This is for the audience, not for you. OK. It's Visage. It's bizarre! It's not!

But it seems to lead into a strange metal room, well, a strange crystal room made of dark crystal, similar to the Starbane ship that you had once explored beneath the Rosewater Lake. Drexia and Erin Coralsong both help escort the trapped Tritons to safety, leaving you in these caves, these underwater caves, with the portal before you. Yeah.

You are still under the effects of a water-breathing spell. You have found... I think it's like 20 hours left? Yes, you've got something like 18 hours left on it. It's quite a long time. And I can cast it again anyway. Yes. So as we jump back in, the water is incredibly cold down at this depth.

It is very dark. The only real light down here is any of your own magical items. All this glowing portal, this purple portal, which is just hovering in the middle of a kind of worked stone chamber between the caves themselves and the rudimentary prison that the Sir Hogan had constructed. The tritons have all left and are now slowly beginning to make their way stealthily across the ravine back towards their village, leaving you in these depths with the decision of what to do. And we can see through this portal, right?

As if it was like... The portal is opaque. It's just one single colour. Quill had to use his power to see what would happen when he travelled through it. Quill is the only one who currently knows what's on the other side. He hasn't described that to us yet.

I think he has. We can, at this point, hand wave and say he's described what he saw. I also said that I felt massive ascension as well. Yes. Yes, you felt yourself literally rising quickly up through the air. I will, again, to remind you of what the room that Quill saw looked like. It's a large square room.

It has dark crystal walls. Along one side has these metal shutters, these kind of thick metal shutters with some sort of mechanism to open and close them. There are also large tubes around the room that seem big enough to fit a humanoid into. There is a metal door on the southern wall, and

the sign of Aegis V. Aegis V, I should say. And Quill, when he saw himself because he asked what would happen if I walked through this portal he saw himself just walk through and immediately appeared in the other room clearly no water able to breathe And he looked at the southern door

across the way or There's only one door He was looking kind of top down as if like disconnected from his own body Yes, that's the power of the eye He's seeing technically the if like disconnected from his own body he saw himself yes yes that's the power of the eye as he's seeing technically the future not from his perspective third person yeah disorientating and somewhat to see yourself and not feel your body moving but yeah okay um so that's what's through there um and we're still down here but i mean i've got very little spells

left in me uh and also we've just been through a lot of encounters i don't know if we should try to rest here but then the sahagin could come down i couldn't sleep right now it's extremely cold that is the other thing is like you are currently underwater yes you can breathe but yeah like lucius and in fact everybody i think quill as well century and nova i think you guys aren't affected by i think you are a little bit um ayla isn't affected by the cold as much but neither a century but yeah like yeah nova lucius and quill you are really cold like it's not cold enough that you're taking damage but trying to sleep and stuff would be really hard down here. Yeah.

Okay, I mean, it's either that or we go through there and we'd have to press on from there, I suppose. Ayla kind of points towards the bodies and are like, what should we do about all of these bodies? Should we just leave them here? Makes it look like they were attacked and the tritons ran away? In case anybody comes back to check on this place i can pull through the portal yeah i mean anything that goes through there i don't know that's i mean they're still gonna figure out that something happened here she points like the destroyed shield generator and stuff like that but there's not much we can do

that should be honest and also i've seen the room but I don't know what else is up there. I mean, what if someone follows us through as well? What if we go through and we can't get back? What if we get in trouble and we can't get back? Well, that's the thing. I don't know that if we go through there, if people will know that we're there. If we get in there and we then are forced to press forward because then alarms are raised or...

What if Starbane's up there? Well, that's what Clyde mentioned before. He said the priestess, Shantani, would talk to Starbane through this portal. Through it? Through it. We shouldn't do it. We should go back. We shouldn't go through. He said there was a corridor of light and they came back and gave us weapons, artefacts and armour so this must be it. We came through a corridor of light and I gestured at the broken shield generator.

This is where all their power and their weapons and technology is coming from. Which is not a good place to be, really. We should just destroy it and go back to the ship. Destroy the portal? But, I mean, if they destroy it, they'll just make another one. But at least then it won't be here. It'll be somewhere else, right? I mean, at this moment, we know where it is.

We don't want them to find some other tribal race and goblins or something like that and start giving them technology What if what if starving comes through that one and comes through there and and comes back everywhere? What if he comes find us? What if he finds us Quill? I don't think Starbane will start his assault from under the sea Why not? He's already started.

He's done it once Quill. But this is them using the Sahogun as a threat. He's attacking from areas that we wouldn't expect. That's a great way to attack. Sounds like we're doing a lot of asking questions that there's no way we can know the answers to. At least if we go through there, we might figure out what's going on. We are exhausted from our battles.

That's the one downside. I'm not fresh to go in there and start fighting anything that's on the other side. What if we go through and find a place there to rest? Well, you did say that it was an empty room, right? It's an empty room, but again... For how long? Yeah, exactly. I mean, we could try.

Worst case, we could try. If we try and rest here, I think more of those Sahagin are going to come back here. And you're going to freeze to death, Lucius. Yes. And I don't imagine the Sahagin, they're serving them. I don't think they will attempt to come through to the ship itself. Maybe some of those priestesses, but we killed

one here. I think at most we'd find this priestess, the one who has been speaking to Starbane and Zarkira. I wonder if we need to stop her, because she's clearly the figurehead at this, and I gesture at all the kind of henched-up Sahogun.

She will be well-equipped if she's in direct communications with people like Starbane. She will, and if we die now, then what happens? I mean... There's no... They could be... They could kill us all so easily. Coyle, you can send messages, right? Yeah.

Coyle could send a message, let them know what we're doing. Contact someone we trust. I mean, I can't right now, again... If we rest it. If we rest, I can't right now, again... If we rest it. If we rest, I can. A list to our ship. Yeah. So that then Araya can send word and maybe do something about this.

Or send it to the important people of, say, Gustaven, or the contacts we've made along the way. Yeah, I mean, I can send messages to people all over the place. I could send one to the Sky Prince. I could send one to Arvel. I could send one to Oriah, obviously. What about Hesper? I mean, I'm not sure.

Through communicating with champions, I'm not sure what the gods... Well, you also know that Hesper already knows about cats. Yeah, he does. Yeah, but does he know exactly, you know, hey, he's doing this to this Horgan. It's true. You don't know that.

Aayla just struggles. She's like, well, I'll do what you guys think, but in my life I've always felt that if we're here and we've got a chance to stop this,

then we probably should, right? And we could just destroy it. I could just smash it now and we could leave. I think this is a really good opportunity to almost get one up on Starbane. Or at least to hinder its progress.

How? How will we do that? We go in smash and sentry. They won't expect it. There's no way they can expect it. For people to go to the Sahagin settlements... For us to chance upon this Yamalotai, right? There's... What are the chances we would have come across that?

They don't expect a counterattack. They just expect this to be a communications for the priestess to facilitate the Sihagun to get their weapons so that they can secretly attack a coastline that they have been doing. Yeah. They're not expecting us to go back through their portal.

I mean, they might be. They could be watching it right now. They could not expecting us to go back through their portal. I mean, they might be. They could be watching it right now. They could see us right now. You don't know how powerful they are. I've seen how powerful they are. Do you remember Zarkira? Do I remember Zarkira?

Neither Kalos nor Zarkira. You never would have seen them directly. You would have heard the reports of the battles. You would have probably seen, especially with Solvin, Solvin was very heavily besieged by both. I mean, it's all one force, it was all one empire, but very clearly there were distinctions between Zarkira and Kallus' troops. Kallus tended to have more of the fiends, more humanoid soldiers.

Zarkira had a lot more magical creatures, undead, intelligent undead, like vampires and things were also under Zarkira's command. And yeah, you would know a little bit, Zarkira tended to inspire quite a fervent violence and kind of war kind of warlike attitudes Calus was much more controlled more of the law to the chaos in a sense but both were very powerful, I mean Solvin was mainly under

attack by cruisers that would fire weapons down, sending legions of troops against Solvin's walls and things like that yeah and it was eventually the the mixture of the sundering itself which kind of caused these great tidal waves but also there was a constant concentrated attack by large battle cruisers that just wiped a lot of solving out but it was all very tactical and very methodical. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. That. Yeah. Look, I mean, we've been, ever since we were teleported to Voxar, we've been running and preparing, but

this is what we've been running and preparing for. Are we prepared enough? No, true. I mean... Can we ever be the longer we wait the greater Starbane's force is gross? At the very least, we need to stop the princess because she's the one who's doing all these rituals and teaching others to do these rituals on

how to transform the Triton into those monsters. That's a good point. They made that monster thing. That thing was really hard to kill. Imagine if they still had that power and knowledge to do more. We can stop it spreading at least. They clearly got to a point where they can make them,

but maybe that information hasn't got further than this settlement. I think Aayla's not the smartest in terms of intelligence, but she probably made the point of like, also, didn't they say like Solvins, like the Tritons live in Solvins ruins, yeah on the Sahagin probably would attack that so if we stop these guys here that might help protect the Solvin that they live in now

if they're gonna attack it again which is where we're heading next so we have the chance now either way it's like if we let them get stronger here they're just gonna attack more Triton settlements. They're just going to go after more and more Triton places. That might include the new Solven. I know it's scary. We can do it. You can do it. You're tough, Sensory.

I don't know if I'm tough enough to handle this. You're tougher than me. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not Nova. You've lasted longer than all of us not. I'm not. I'm not Nova. We've lost. You've lasted longer than all of us combined. I've already fell once. I've fallen twice.

But you survived the sundering. The great cataclysmic failure of Siaska and everybody. You survived that. What is this in comparison? I don't know. I'm in my underwear. I think he's turning blue. Yeah, you're starting to

compare my arm to his arm. I'm looking like Nova now. I'm not terrified for my own mortality, you need to understand. I'm terrified for you guys. I don't know what I'd do if I lost one of you guys again. And I don't know if I could handle that, honestly. But I admire where you guys are coming from. And you're all so brave. You're so brave. And let's do it. Let's

just do it. The more I think about it and the more I remember the sundering and starving, the worse it's going to get. Let's just go. I like it. I like that thinking. Let's just go. Do you want to go first?

Yes, strongest first. All right. Ayla will just swim through and she vanishes. As soon as she hits the purple portal, her body just phases through it, and she vanishes. And you are left. Well, we can't leave her alone, can we?

No, we actually have to go now. Yeah, we'll go. Okay. I'm going to take Sentry's hand and just give it a squeeze. Just out of interest, what order do you go in? So we have Ayla first. Quill? I guess I went off.

Quill. Lucius? I'll probably be slowest to move. You're going to vamble through and then it sounds like by taking, and then Cintri comes in last. So, as you all step through... It's to death. Spikes.

You feel... There is a sudden rush. There is a sudden rush as you feel your body pulled away at a great distance. You felt this once before when Calus transported you across the continents to Voxar. And you feel yourself thrown vertically up, higher than you ever could imagine possible. And then you stumble.

Having gone from swimming in free water you feel yourself tumble and you have to catch each other ayla kind of catches you one by one as you stumble out into air and warmth not incredibly warm but warmer than where you were there is a sleek black metal crystal all around you the room is near pitch, except for the dull purple light of the portal itself. And maybe a flickering dull amber glow coming from above the door. Just this kind of... The door's opposite us. It's on the southern wall.

So yeah, directly in front of you, but imagine that you're a bit south. You can see a few features of the wall. Strange metal tubes line the kind of walls for the east and west. There is also metal shutters on the north. These big, huge metal shutters that almost cover the whole wall itself. And a metal door with the words Aegis V or Aegis V that reads across it. There is also soft music. Yeah. Hmm.

Like a choir or an orchestra playing deep. Barely audible, but just kind of almost reverberating through the walls, coming from seemingly everywhere, but soft, quiet for the time being. Creepy? No, quite melodic in a sense. Very beautiful. Not in a haunting way, in a genuinely pleasant way. Can we understand what they're singing?

Like the words they're singing? Yes, I think you would. I think it is in common. It's hard to hear. It's very faint. But it's a war song. It's singing about victory and freedom. About rising up.

About uniting under one banner. It's a war anthem for the the starbane empire for emperor callus would i have heard that before yes yes it would have been maybe like maybe not actually because i think it would have been played less on battlefield it's not a battlefield song okay this is more like a like played in the ships ships as you're going to war kind of vibe. Cool. But, I mean, the words, you hear the words and stuff like that. But yeah, and that is what you see in this immediate area.

How does it, I guess I wouldn't know too much, but how does it compare to the small ships that I've been on? So obviously I've been on a crashed skiff and the underwater one. You would say this is completely different. There are faint lines of crystal power. Whatever is, you know Eternas normally power these things. There is a

faint purple kind of crystalline scene that seems to connect the portal that you've emerged from. There is a crystalline scene that leads out. And you've also just reminded me. Nova and Sentry, because Sentry currently has Helios bound. scene that leads out and you've also just reminded me yeah nova and century because century currently has helios bound it takes a few moments of adjustment and you get this this sense that there's something wrong something deep and you realize it's coming from that connection to the Eterna. Okay.

There is a dark feeling, a cold feeling, deep, deep below you. Hundreds of feet. It's a creeping sense of dread tingling up your spines. Helios probably just speaks, something is wrong. There is an Eterna here, but it is not like the rest of us. Tiangong, for you Nova, in the brief moments of...

Tiangong can't quite communicate fully with you, but there is enough that they can give you these senses of messages and and visions you see flashes of almost like a memory of night frost in the rose water ship in the rose lake ship but a sense of much worse that this is like corruption or yes corruption and it's and flashes of memories to elisandra, the vampiric scholar, talking about how Eterna, who are a forcefully fed life force, can become corrupted. So essentially what they were doing to Nightfrost.

Yes. But you get a sense that where Nightfrost hadn't fully corrupted, this one has. Oh, boy. Does Tiangong sense any other bits of Tiangong? Not here. Not boy. Does Tiangong sense any other bits of Tiangong? Not here.

Not here. No. Something is wrong. Can you say that to everyone? Yeah, yeah. You can all hear Helios. Helios can choose

to communicate with Sensory but he generally speaks to all of you. Is this telepathic or just verbal? No, this is you all hearing

your heads. It's telepathic. I think I might stick to the old messenger rings. Yeah. Just to keep everything really quiet. Sure. I feel it too. Tiangong feels it too.

There's something bad here. I think it might be a corrupted Eterna. Oh, um, okay. Does that mean no saving it, or? I don't know, but remember Night Frost? Sorry, Lucius. I mean, they were feeding Night Frost girls, right?

To corrupt him. And we stopped it before he fully went mad. This has happened to whatever is on this ship. Before we get any further, is it worth checking our exit and seeing if this portal works both ways while we have underwater breathing? Yeah.

That's a good plan. You do notice Ayla is quite quiet and she's looking at the door and the lettering. She's just kind of looking at it weirdly. But yeah, do you want to try the portal? Do you want tola is quite quiet and she's looking at the door and the lettering. She's just kind of looking at it weirdly. But yeah, do you want to try the portal? Do you want to try it? Sure, I'll do it. You step into it and you immediately, like, you kind of have a moment where the cold hits you

and the water and you're suddenly swimming and you're like, and then you float back through and you teleport back. And it works both ways. I was the wrong one to do that. It's really cold. Well, at least you know it works. We can escape as long as we keep our underwater breathing. Right.

Now, where do we stand on carrying on? I mean, we can wait here for a little while just to see if anything rushes us or knows that we're here. You're out of your eye ability, are you not? Yeah, I won't get that back for a while. So you can't see it.

Let's see what I can do. I am fully out. I can do a divine sense. Maybe that could help. Would that alert people to our presence if you do it? I don't know. It just allows me to sense celestial fiends and undeads, though.

I will say that I think sentry because it's an ability you have, you've never encountered an instance where they know that you're using the ability. I think that Divine Sense is just like a pulse from you, like, it's just a if you become aware of it, it's like a life sense kind of thing. But for certain creatures, they wouldn't know if you

used it. I'm happy to tell you that. Awesome. Do you want me to give that a try? Yeah. Okay, divine sense. So what's the range? 60 feet. 60 feet, and it detects what again, sorry? Celestial's fiends and undead.

No, not within 60 feet. Cool. I won't be on there. One day we'll catch them out. Yeah, hundreds of feet below. I don't get anything from that, I'm afraid. Well, then that's good. That's three things we can rule out then that's good. That's a... That's three things

we can rule out within the immediate area. That's true. The light just kind of flickers again and then goes away. So the light, is it...

It seems like almost like a... Yeah, it's like a crystal embedded in the ceiling above the door and it just flickers with orange light

and then it just dies down again. Did you say there was a shuttered window with a lever by it? Mm-hmm, yeah. Does Nova want to pull the lever? I want to pull it, but I don't want to set off any alarms. It's up to you. Do what you want. Yeah, there's, like, you go to the north wall,

and there's these long, thick metal shutters, like, built in almost like a window, and there is, like, some sort of lever on the side. Very ornate, very well made. Is it metal? Is it crystal as well? No, it's metal. The window and the shutters are all metal. And then it's embedded into the black crystal wall.

Does it look like it operates the shutters? Yes. Yeah. There's a billion monsters behind that shutter And this is like a feeding box I want to see where we are I don't I like blissful naivety

Because I have a theory as to where we are In the poop chute Where do you think we are? I'm going to start reaching out Just tell us where you think we are before You pull it? Yeah. So you hear this kind of...

And there is a great... There's like a sound of like squealing metal. And you realize that the metal shutters aren't really... It just opens. And what you see before you is... At first there's confusion as you see these huge chunks of black crystal and metal kind of float past and pieces of cable and coils of metal maybe larger pieces of rock and it looks like it's been

burnt huge kind of galvanized burnt edges and then as it begins to part it kind of creates a gap there's so much of this stuff it's this huge field of debris and then as it parts you see up quite close Eros from up you you are staring out into what is commonly referred to as astral space yeah Yep. There is no shielding. You could literally stick your arm out there. How are you able to breathe? Astral space. You can breathe in astral space.

Well, not you can breathe on this wherever you are now. If you were deep in astral space, you can't breathe. There's no air. But you can just... It's different. You're not in space. This is D&D. You're in astral space.

Okay. But yeah, you are literally, it appears, and I'd say that Nova and Quill, now that you're looking out, you can see that you are amid an immense debris field made of broken battlecruisers, all Starbane battlecruisers. There appear to be hundreds. Smaller, some smaller, some larger. But it is coalesced into this floating, orbiting debris field around the planet itself.

So I'm going to go silent, wide-eyed, and then immediately start hyperventilating. I was right. I was right. I was right. We're in space. We're in space! We're in space! We're in space! That's a rose! We're here! Keep it to the messenger rings at least. Yeah, in the messenger rings. Okay, okay, okay, okay, but why is it all totally ruined? Where are we if this is just destroyed? Ships! Space! We're in space! We're in space! We're where is space they're battling Hadar are

they not but Hadar isn't this close to Arois is he not well I'm no use at this point you saw it on your way back did you not yeah but that was I guess that was like what felt like a super quick journey I mean yeah there's it's hard for you to tell how far away that was you got the imprint you got the impression that when you traveled back um from your encounter in the astral sea which is different to this um it's not quite the same um you have the distinct feeling that you traveled a great distance very fucking quickly. So it's hard to say, oh yeah, that's like ten hours away.

You know, you have no idea. And whether it, you don't even know if that was Hadar. You saw a battle and you don't know what it was. Wait, this is really high, isn't it? I mean, you look out and you can see through this tiny gap, you can see the clouds from looking at a planet from space.

Probably not that far above it. In fact, you can see that there is a discoloration just beyond the debris field. You are beyond the cradle. You're kind of outside of the cradle, the protective layer. I'm just sitting on the floor. I'm just on the floor, head and hands. Based on, like, the Aroas map, where are we above right now?

Or are we, like... I'd say Quill being a navigator and a messenger, you're probably the only person who would be able to work that out. I think anybody else who would ask me that question, I'd say, like, you don't know. But I think with Quill's knowledge, you can identify the shapes of the continents

based on maps that you've studied, and you think that wherever you are now you're probably over El Seraph which is the kind of topmost continent if you're on a map it's this long continent at the top of the map. Right okay. You can see that El Seraph is very mountainous and you can see very high peaks on whatever landscape you're staring down at. You think you can see a tiny, kind of, it's actually quite large from where you are, but there is a shape that also seems to

be drifting across one of the sky cities you imagine. Can, so if I'm looking along the, I guess, horizon Well the shuttered window is big, but it's not right now, it's like the planet almost fills it and this debris field is just occasionally the planet gets blocked by the amount of debris right flowing in

front of you it's immense this field is huge that's what i mean looking along how long is the debris field planet here yep us in a little box yep windows pointing out like that like you're you're currently pointing down so So imagine you've got... You're looking down on the planet, yes. But was stood... Yeah, you're stood normally, yeah. There is clearly gravity. I would say Nova is enough of a scientist to know that gravity is a thing.

But the gravity's wonky. No. It's fine. You feel like you're in a normal room, but you're staring down at the planet. You think of Nova as centrifugal force or something? okay so lucius isn't still hyperventilating and now she's like automatically patting looking for a book looking for her books looking for her no five i left them on the damn ship i need my notebook i need to be sketching i have a book on space i mean if you want to draw that we've got maps but i think we need to figure out what the rest of the ship is.

And also... Aayla kind of turns around and is like, yeah, what are we doing? I mean... What Sky City is this? That one down there. What? Well, Sky City is that one, or...

What do you mean? Yeah, we're a bit higher than that now, Lucius. We're beyond the cradle, outside of Eroic. You can't go outside that. We are. I mean, that's how... Keep it to the messenger ring. Oh!

Oh, no! This is really bad. We'll be on Siaska. I'm in my underwear! I'm going to sit right in the middle of the room. Close the shutter. Close the shutter. Close it immediately. No!

It's not bad. It's space. I've always wanted to be in space. Under these circumstances? Probably not. Let's just breathe, everybody. Just big breath. Take a breathe.

Fortinstar, I need to find Jasimir. We need to get control of this spaceship, and then I can find Jasimir. Get control of the spaceship with what? Yes, I don't know. Spaceship? We need to find Jasimir. I've always wanted to be in space.

That's okay. We're here, but these circumstances are not the correct ones Right you guys don't start coming down I'm gonna start slapping at some point soon, okay, I'm calm good I'm calm. No, don't slap me. I don't know what I slap you beak slapped off right We need to figure out a why this place is just ruined, B, where we even are, or C, how close we are to just the worst things. And I'm talking about bad guys. People are in the ship, potentially. They must be.

If we jump out, does anyone have their feathers from Gustaven still? Jump out of the window? Don't do that. Bad. Don't do that. Bad. We'll just go back down to a room. Do we not?

So, Nova, seeing as you have studied astral space, I will tell you that, yeah, basically, whatever force is generating gravity here is, or must be artificial, probably the Eterna. If you go out into astral space, force is generating gravity here is it must be artificial probably the eterna um if you go out into astral space there is no gravity there is nothing to anchor yourself to you will just carry on with whatever momentum you have like real space um you can't there's no oxygen so you can't breathe water breathing won't help you because you're not breathing water you're breathing nothing um you'd probably be okay because you can hold your breath

indefinitely so you'd be okay century would be okay because you can hold your breath indefinitely, so you'd be okay. Century would be fine because Century doesn't need to breathe. Everybody else would be fucked. You also know it's freezing cold, like as cold as the bottom of the ocean. You would inevitably take cold damage every second you

or every six seconds you're out there. You'll take cold damage every round you're out in astral space. Damn. Yes. If you had a flying speed, I would say that Nova would know that creatures that can fly could probably move around astral space normally. You can swim in space.

I don't have a flying speed. He's got one arm. He's got one arm. You just go in circles. What the fuck, man? So, my next question is... Bad. No, Lucius. Bad. Bad. You die. What the fuck, man? So, my next question is... Bad. No, Lucius. Bad.

Bad. You die. What are you doing now? Okay, so... Nova's just pressing her face against the window. Is this... I mean, there's no window. Like, you press your face and your, like, head...

Because the shutters are quite wide. It just... You're, like, there and you can... You can smell space. Like, your air starts getting thinner as you get closer. In which case, I'm just just like, breathing it in. It's hot, but there's very little air coming in. So I get dizzy.

You can tell that the room, the oxygen is within this room, and then the second you go beyond it, it's gone. So I'm just going to be like, there's no glass. There's no glass. I'm breathing space. I'm slowly pulling over back. I'm smelling space. I'm touching space.

You get pulled back as your hand comes through it. Aayla shuts the shutters. Good. We need to focus on where we are right now. We might have bad guys to smash. In the context of Aroas and planes, are we in a different plane right now? No, technically.

No, we're in space. I know, but astral space is the space between planes because planes are planets planets yeah that's well that's what planes are they're planets um actual space is just the gap between them yeah i guess in theory yes it technically would it counts as a different it counts as a demi-plane how about that so okay that's that is so things like bandagements and stuff oh sending yeah because there's a five if i'm in a different plane there's a five percent chance it can fail do i know that yes okay so five percent chance not a big deal okay so here's

the good news great view huh our planet is so beautiful it is very beautiful actually looking down on a rest especially with the cradle the colored lights i'm not looking i'm the window's shut yeah the bad news is if we did want to use sending to tell people about things i mean it's a hell of a distance well stick your head back through that way. I mean, I could stick my head out and shout and it would be probably as effective. What do you mean? Through the portal. Oh.

And then send it. And then come back. I'm just saying, if we get further into this and we can't get back, then... What do you mean we can't get back? Don't say that, Quill. Come on. Yeah, I want to come back.

Yeah, Quill, look at these three. Like, don't... What? Positive language. We can get back, we can pilot the spaceship. I'm not negative. This is amazing! Yeah, okay. To be positive, we've been here for

how long now? And nothing's come after us. Or nothing's come into the room. We are as I mean, even though we're in space and in the middle of who knows where, safe. I don't feel safe, Quill. That didn't fill me with any sort of... Guys, this is the last place Starbane would expect us to be. Right under his nose. Right under his nose, Sentry.

I don't want to be under Starbane's nose. No, you can smell us. Look, Tiangong can't sense any more shards of Tiangong. right under his nose sentry. I don't want to be under Starbane's nose. No. You can smell us. Look, Tiangong can't sense any more shards of Tiangong. We know Starbane has several shards of Tiangong. He's not here. What about this? Very good.

Very good. I'm pleased, Daddy. Now, does Akira have an attorney? I'm guessing so. Okay. If you were the second... But that's the thing. If she has an Eterna, I can't tell if there's... What if...

Right. What if one of the shards of Tiangong is the bad thing? He'd be able to tell. I mean, he says that the corrupted... What if it's so corrupted and you can't tell? It's not Tiangong, yeah. It's not... But he's not...

I don't know. I don't know. Either way, we're here now where they won't expect us to be in a room that we might actually be able to... Get a long rest! How do I say that in RP? You can just say, like, let's take... Let's recover. We need to, like, recover. Like, a long rest Doesn't need to be a sleep I need to recover My magical energy

Yeah well but it's also It's just like Let's take Let's take some time To like just Get our Get our shit together And that can be a long rest

You can take It's eight hours Of getting your shit together Yeah It can be a mixture of like A bit of napping A bit of like Lucius Warning himself up

And like You know Yeah We need to Get ourselves in a better position to... Eat and some food. Explore this place properly. Do you want to...

That's the question for me next is, do you want to just take that long rest in this singular room with the portal that you're in now? Or do you want to go and explore a bit and then take a long rest if you find somewhere more suitable? I feel like it might be better if we were somewhere that wasn't a portal. Because the other thing is, yeah, like if anybody, if the Sorghum come through this portal, they're going to stumble

into you during your rest and you won't get a rest. Yeah. Let's have a, yeah, let's. I guess we um No, it's not when I say it. I don't want to say it. We move through the door? What if it's space? What if all the doors just lead to space then we hold

on and don't go too far here's the thing i don't think it'll be bad unless we we somehow parted from the ship there's some artificial gravity clearly we can breathe here maybe it's the corrupted eternal that is powering that obviously it would be bad if we're all the way out there. But look, I just stuck my head out the window and I didn't die immediately. Yeah, but you're Nova. But I breathed. I smelt. I smelt the space. And it smelt cold. You're from... You're a space... You're a space. Thanks?

Wow. I've broken all of you. Except Quill. Okay, let's give it a try. Okay. Deep breaths. I'll be fine. If we take a short breath, a short break,

I can then go invisible and then go and investigate and find another room for a long rest. Sounds like a great idea. Let Nova go explore the ship by herself. Yeah. Someone needs to go with her. But if someone goes with her, then... No, I can cast it on two people.

Oh. I'll go with you. Well... Keep breaths. But I need to take a break first. I can't. The magic, you know? I'm just...

There's nothing. Need a decision. I mean, I'm break first. I can't. The magic, you know, I'm just, there's nothing. Need a decision. I mean, I'm the same. I think, do you want to find a better place for us to have a longer rest? Yes. Okay. I think we should bend by the portal if the Sahaugen come through. Fine. Then I think we have to go through the door then and find a better place. Maybe they have a cupboard somewhere.

Okay. They won't look in the cupboard. Are you going up to the door, they have a cupboard somewhere okay they won't look in the cupboard you're going up to the door that's true they wouldn't look in a cupboard no sorry did you go up to the door no yes okay you move up to the door um you don't see a way to open it oh it's just like a metal door with no handle all right there does appear to be like a crystal like kind of embedded into the side of the wall but it doesn't it doesn't seem lit up.

You touch it nothing happens. I have my crystal. Your what? The red gemstone. Yes. That I picked up. Yes.

If I boop that does that do it? No. When Ayla was looking at the door what's she doing now? She was just kind of stood in the middle of the room, just looking at the words

kind of curiously. And now she's just stood around with the rest of you. She's just kind of like looking around. Wait, what crystal have you got? I got it from the machine that was powering the shield generator. Yeah, that one. It's got the name of the ship on. Look. Oh. I thought I said visage. Yeah, that one. It's got the name of the ship on, look.

Oh. I thought I said visage. Okay, try the door with that, I guess. Okay, I'm going to try. No? Well, I guess we're definitely safe. Ugh! Can I? Through the pool.

Hits a corgan on the head. Aayla points at our muscle. I mean, if the door doesn't open... I touch the crystal. You touch the crystal, nothing happens. If I touch Tiangong? That's an interesting question. Corrupt Tiangong.

Get away from my baby. I didn't say it. I mean, I did say it. It's up to the monster. Oh. Oh. Technically. Get away from my baby. I didn't say it. I mean, I did say it. It's up to Mark to say it. Oh. Oh. Technically, no.

It doesn't work. Technically, no. It's a technically. I had to think there, but thinking it through rationally, no. And there's reasons, but you wouldn't know them. I want to know them, though. You can't. Yeah. Can I start casting detect magic yes you cast detect magic you're casting it as a can you do ritual you take 10

minutes uh rituals in that time anything else um i ain't got anything giving it a try i could have to did open it it takes a lot it a lot. Should we just try and lift it? It looks like it lifts from the bottom. It looks like it shuts down. I'll help in the middle. Okay. As soon as the three of you approach the door, it opens. It's an automatic door.

I mean, you approached it to touch the crystal before. But just one person can't open it. You moved next to the door and touched the crystal. It didn't budge. As soon as Centuryry, you and Ayla move up to it, it opens. I'm going to back off. You back off. It stays open. Ayla, back off.

Ayla backs off. It closes. Ayla steps in. It opens. I back off. Sentry backs off. Sentry backs off. It opens.

Ayla, it opens when Ayla moves towards the door. This is strange. Why is this opening? It responds to you. Why? You're the only elf here. No, he's an elf. No, he's a high elf.

Yeah. But why would wild elves open doors to wild bane ships? Why me? Why is this opening? This is weird. I don't like it. Maybe it's your ship. No.

What? No. It's crazy. I mean... She steps back. And it's like a... How do you spell Aela? A-E-G? No. I knew that. I knew that. No, that's an anagram for visage.

It's weird. It is weird. Either way, that's good. You don't recognise any of this, do you? I mean, no. I mean, yeah. She's like, nah, not really. Eyes glance.

Yeah, she's kind of like looking, she looks awkward. Yeah. You're looking a bit flustered, Ayla. I mean, that's probably just space madness. Speaking of character, she hasn't mentioned any of this. She hasn't mentioned it. No, she never mentioned the dream stuff. And that's the thing is I think the part like Ayla probably didn't even,

because it was like a real like shocking thing that like she barely remembered herself. So she's just kind of like, yeah, no, I feel like maybe I've seen those words before, the ones on the door, but I don't know how I've seen those words before, the ones on the door. But I don't know how I've seen them. Is Starbane your dad? No. I mean, it's happened before. Technically, I don't know who my dad is.

Oh, it's not Starbane. Well, look, let's just go find this other room. This is weird. I don't like it. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, we can get the door open.

That's good. But it could just open for people that have names that start with a yeah yeah yeah that's it yeah i'm the only one with an a name yeah let's see what other doors you can open well as you i'm assuming you leave out um it leads into the door itself leads into a corridor it seems to go left and right and curves it seems to curve round quite a long round if I'm facing, if I'm the door it curves left and right and it curves round it appears to go in like a ring shape

looking down you can go left or right there's no doorways into the middle of this there is in fact actually as you look directly opposite you there is another door thinner but there is another door directly in front of you so it goes left and right and it's as a corridor and then it's uh there's another metal door directly in front of you um and those corridors are the exact same as the room like dark crystal black crystals yeah uh no tubes just black

crystal and then a thin line of purple crystal around the bottom where do the tubes stop in the previous room? They just stop when they get to the southern wall. So it's there along the east-west walls. And they just cut off or they just stop into the wall? They just go ceiling to floor. So shutters at the front tubes. And more tubes.

Drawing a map. Yeah. And then port all over there. Anybody who, when you do step out Into the corridor There is Almost startling you A kind of crackling voice

Seems to come from nowhere Parts of this station Have suffered critical damage Lower ring and docking bay Cannot be accessed Head towards your Nearest escape route Oh

And then it just And it crackles and vibrates The gender is very neutral Sounds both like A man and a woman escape route. Oh. And it crackles and vibrates. The gender is very neutral. It sounds both like a man and a woman speaking at the same time. Its volume decreases and increases. It says it once and then it sounds like it begins to go again and then just stops.

Who said that? This is compromised. We need to go to an escape route. An exit. We should do that. But we don't know where we are. this is compromised and we need to go to an escape route an exit we should do that are we in the lower ring it's clearly functional enough that this priestess has been conducting business here

and talking to Sakura and Starbuck this may have just happened we don't know they could have just literally just been hit by something and we've just stumbled into a wreck yeah I mean it was, a month ago when the Sir Hoggan had all the weapons and things? Well, about three weeks. I think

mission complete. I feel like some greater force has just stopped the priestess. Okay. I haven't come this far to go back now. I kind of want to know why the door opened for me. And I want to know why the door opened for her as well. And I want to confirm mission complete more than...

If we open a door and there's no spaceship because the spaceship's no there anymore because it's gone because of wreckage... But we still know that... We then get spaced. We still know that it's okay, at least to the point that we can explore because we can feel that there is an Eterna here.

And we know there's an Eterna here because there is gravity and air on this ship. Yeah. Yes. These parts of the ship. But we could have just opened a door to a part of the ship that doesn't exist anymore. Then open a door carefully.

Well, there's one directly in front of you and then the corridor just begins to curve to the left and right. What did the voice say? Lower ring. I'm going to repeat it. And? I think that from where you are

you can't see any more doors along the curved ring. It just looks like it stretches on. It's quite a gentle curve. It's quite large. Wherever you are is a large space.

I could go through the middle. Yeah, I mean, that might just be a safe room. You approach the middle door. It doesn't open for you. Ayla? Yeah, she moves over to it, and this time it slides open,

and it appears to connect to a much shorter, maybe only about eight feet wide corridor that goes about, I want to say, 50 feet, and then comes to... You can see where a door probably would have once been, but it seems to have been jammed open. You can see that things have been like metal, crude metal twisted shapes have been stuck into the sides

to jam open this like 10 foot wide door space. And there is just a dark circular chamber beyond that doorway. Well, someone else has been here. Oh. Hmm. Well, someone else has been here. Yeah. What metal has been used to cram open a door? It looks weird. It looks like maybe something that was

large and has become twisted, like it was broken, and it just looks crudely slammed in with raw force. Like a really cheap tool or a crudely made doorstop. Yeah, so it's not like a starving weapon. No, no, no. It looks like a piece of jang and twisted metal.

Or a nice organ spear or anything. Yeah. No. Can we not? Can we not? I'm starting to think that maybe something worse has happened here than... No. Maybe they're just being a Zarkir or a Starbane here. It doesn't look good.

I mean, this place is ruined, right? Why is it just... The question is, is how recently has it been ruined has it recently been ruined because of hadar or is this the remains of everything from when the cradle was formed there's just this echoing silence you realize that as you're stood here there's not any sound apart from your own voices your own heartbeats the own sound of your boots scuffling across the crystal there's no noise, there's no ambient. There's no sound of life.

The only other sound is the music and in fact when that door opened to that black shaft, the music got significantly louder. It's clearly coming from down below. Was there another door? Is this very melodic orchestral music? Yeah, Sephiroth is it.

Was there another door? Yeah, wehiroth is it. Was there another... Yeah, I'm going back. We're playing Final Fantasy VII downstairs. Do you think it's the demo for the new one? I'm in! Did you say there was another door? No, there's the corridor curves round. I can draw it out for you if you give me a piece of paper or something.

I mean, okay. I was trying to do it theatre of the mind, so it's easier for a podcast, but if you guys need a bit of a helping hand picturing it... I mean, the Eternus is still powering it, right, though? I don't know how long corrupted Eternus keep their power for.

It can go for a long time. Guess the clue's in the name, right? That's true. Well, I think we need to figure out where we are. Thank you. If we're on the lower ring, outer ring, upper ring, whatever the thing said, then we have a problem. Did you say a loading bay? You said a ring and then a loading bay.

So you guys aren't going to be able to see that. So portal room at the top to the north, curved corridor leading left and right, directly opposite your door. There appears to be a corridor leading to a black cylinder chamber. We haven't gone up in the chamber yet. Maybe we should go back around the corridor. No, I just didn't realise we were going into the inner part of the circle.

Heart of darkness. Okay. I mean, should we try the rest of the corridor around? Which way do you want to go? The safe way? So we'll say east or west, because then I know it. South leads into the inner circle, and then you have east and west.

Okay. So imagine portal room is north. West is your side yeah sure um let's go east i suppose just along the corridor so towards yep okay so you begin making your way down um my two questions one what order are you working in and are you moving quietly uh i suppose... I'm quiet. I'm next to Sentry or behind Sentry. Okay, yeah. The corridor's quite wide.

It's about like 15 feet wide so you can... You don't have to be in the line. Yeah, I'll go first. So Ewan probably sent an Aayla at the front. I'm just going to stay with people. And then are you moving quietly?

Yeah. As quietly as we can. But I'm still swapping and wet, right? I mean, you are wet but like... You can still move quietly. Like, it's actually... You're not... You've dried off, I would probably say.

Travelling through the portal probably dried you quite a lot. I guess we're, like... What? That's not bad. We've got the same. Oh, yeah, no, yeah, that's fine. So, total? That's bad, actually.

Ten. Twelve. Ten, twelve, nine. Eighteen. I will roll's bad, actually. 10. 12. 10, 12, 9. 18. I will roll for Aayla. Does heavy armor give you disadvantage or minus? So you roll with disadvantage, please. Sorry.

Century. That's a three. I thought it was a good question. Begin making your way down the curved corridor. And it does curve for some time. Again, you hear nothing apart from this music. Footsteps echoing against the crystal. Eventually, you come to what must be on the kind of eastern side of this outer ring.

You come to a pair of double doors, one of which appears to have been broken open. Tom, can you put it on the... Oh, put it on the screen. There you go. A pair of double doors that leads to the outer side of the ring. One of the doors has been broken open by something clearly powerful. Oh, great. And leads into a room, a big open room

that stretches out. There is a long table with a dozen or so metallic chairs. Metal shutters form across part of the wall on the opposite side to the door. You can see that there are several broken slates of crystal on the table. One is half broken, flickering with a strange glow and runic symbols. There also appears to be maps, physical parchment maps, which show some sort of citadel or tower that has rings around it. And further down there is a door that leads into a southern section as well,

which is not open. Of that room? Yes. Okay. So this looks like a control room. At best, you would say almost more like a dining room or a meeting room. It's got the windows, so it looks like it has an outer window. So it's slates on the table.

Yeah, crystal slates, yes. Are they stood up like a computer? No, they're like laying down flat. Oh, okay. Like little the table. Yeah, crystal slates, yes. Are they stood up like a computer? No, they're like laying down flat. Oh, okay. Like iPads. iPads, yeah. But we don't know that. Crystal slate.

The citadel on the map, have we seen that before? No. No. It appears to be, what it appears to look like, I should have printed this out, but imagine a long cylindrical tube, so like a long cylinder. Right.

With a large ring, like a long cylinder right with a large ring like a kind of ring around the top and a ring around the bottom okay cool and then stretching out from the central cylinder are many prongs which connect to two huge curved shields almost on the outside of this design that's cool Out of character, it looks like a space station with these huge kind of shielded... Physical shields? Yeah, no, both physical... The parchment just shows them as physical.

They appear to be made out of metal, connected by many different little arm struts that come out. Is there anything on there that says, like... Ages 5. Yeah, okay. Cool. It says schematics, ages 5. Right.

Outer hull. Okay, so does it have internal rooms? Not detailed. All it says is in the very middle of the long cylindrical tube, there is a sectioned off which says Eterna. Yeah, so that central bit there, that's where the bird thing is. Right is that where the music is coming from? We're in a ring though. Are we in the top ring or the bottom ring? Looking at the blueprint thing,

do both rings have like rooms jutting out of them? Yeah. Hard to tell which one you're in. Right. Yes that's pretty much bang on yep pretty much bang on we rest here if you want to see it we should at least try the that door I suppose the other door just to see what's in that I guess I'm just literally here to open doors but sure sure, I can do that. I mean, it's better than smashing the doors open. Smashing is more fun. Ayla moves over to that door.

This one doesn't open for her, though. There is actually a flash on the crystal by the door that flashes red. Does it say anything? No, it doesn't say anything. I'm going to pick up one of these slates. Well, only one of them appear. Most of them are dull. They're just black crystal.

One of them has a faint white glow, but it's broken. Like, parts of it are shattered. And there is this strange runic language, which doesn't make sense to you. Nova? Hello? Look at this. This is a slate. It's got runes on it.

See? I can't see when you smushed it right up to my face. Can you read that? I don't know, Mark. Can you read it? I have comprehend languages. If you cast that. If I touch it, I can read it.

Sure. Can you cast that? Okay, yeah, I'll start. Yeah. If you cast that. Which means if I touch it, I can read it. Sure. Can you cast that? Okay, yeah, I'll start. Yeah. Nothing happens ten minutes. Is anybody doing anything else, or do you just want to jump ahead to... I guess... Oh, you're detect magic.

You cast detect magic, didn't you? Well, the door opens, so you probably start. I guess the door opens, so I probably would have stopped, but yeah. Oh, I guess with the ten minutes, I can do that. Just cast detect magic. I was going to kind of re-up it. Okay. Detect magic.

So two things. So first of all, the red gem that Nova picked up glows magic. The slates have very minor magical enchantments. Well, the one that's currently working still has one. The rest don't. The whole station has a very strong aura of magic about it. Like this whole place pulsing from the center yes

yeah yeah um right i guess all like the the blue uh purple lights even though do the same yeah yeah um okay um and then with your comprehend languages nova yeah the the slate after you cast comprehend languages on it

you make an arcana check for me. Sorry, the Citadel picture in the middle of the dining hall, is that flat on the surface or is it a 3D projection? It's actually a flat piece of paper. It's actually quite analog compared to a lot of the other stuff. Yeah, it's a flat piece of parchment. But the parchment is strange. It's a different color. It's got a slight red hue, not like parchment is strange. It's a different color. It's got a slight red hue.

Right. Not like parchment you've seen on Eroas before. Cool. Arcana check. 18. 18, yeah. So it takes you a few moments because you notice that the runic symbols are kind of broken all over the place. And they're spelling gibberish.

And you kind of analyze it. And the magical flow of whatever is powering this thing is a bit distorted. So you focus kind of like a tune into a magic item you feed some of it your own energy from tiangong and it manages to form a couple of words into formal words you get the sense that this slate is connected to similar crystal of a similar make this crystal that's made the tablet is different to the stuff that's made the walls it's a different type of material And you get the sense that these are magically connected to one another. And actually, you could bring up... It's almost like a complicated version of

the spell illusory script, which allows you to kind of like create a magically coded message on a parchment. But with this one, you can actually select different messages. You can like tap a symbol and it loads a different message. You can close that and then bring up... It's like storing information, like a book, but it's just a single piece of crystal. Okay. And the words you can make out are

offices, door, lock, praxis, vard. Praxis VARD. That's just one big acronym. I feel it. Visage. Visage. It all makes visage every time. I am Lord Voldemort. Can I like have a look through the

papers and just... Yeah, most of them are very worn. They seem to be a mixture of in fact, Century would recognize what some of these are so alongside the large one of the citadel ages five um there are also what are clearly troop movements uh they appear to be old battle plans um they seem to address geography in in a rowist that you know would have known existed but probably probably don't anymore. Right. They refer to large open fields called golden fields, which is now part of Sivona,

but was once part of Eros when it was all one continent. But it doesn't exist anymore. And it appears to be, yeah, it appears like there was maybe a battle meeting or like a plan being made, drafted here. Yeah. But long, long since passed. Wow.

I might just take those ones. Yeah, you can write this down. Yeah, you have old, old Starbane battle plans. Old Starbane battle plans. Nice. I say we rest here. Can I just, for a note of admin, can I take the schematics for...

Sure. Yeah, it's the only outer hull of Aegis V. Yeah. Yeah, it's only the outer hull there is no map necessarily sorry you don't find the map to the dungeon

no if there was a map on a parchment I'd be partying I'd be dancing around those things love those things I'm gonna move

some of these metal chairs out the way and start trancing by lying down under the table I thought you might yeah yeah you can start you can take a long rest in. This is it.

Now's as good a time as any. Yeah. Take a long rest. I might make a little wall of chairs. Nothing happens. Damn, not even going to make any... Nope. Not going to have a car sneak up on us.

Nope. No, you wait eight hours. During that eight hours... The music does change. There are periods, the music stops after maybe ten minutes, and there's a couple of hours where there's no music, and then it begins again. And it's a slightly different song. This one is more about, it's kind of sad,

it's talking about loss of homes, and that's why we should fight and things like that. It's an old space station. During that rest, could I also ritual cast identify on that gem? Yes. It is an elemental gem of fire. And if you search for it in D&D Beyond,

you can find it. I mean, it's in Nova's inventory. Well, Nova can add elemental gem fire to her inventory. Cool. I'm assuming I've still got that pearl that guy spat into my hand from Rose Hall. Is there any, like, articles of accessories or clothing or anything from anyone here. Not in this room. It's just completely bare.

Not in this room, no. Not in this room. So, Sentry, what did you find? You picked up a load of papers. I've just got some old battle maps. Well, they appear to be battle maps from before the Sundering. There's a continent here, I think, called Goldenfields, way back before the Sundering happened.

So this is an old... This destruction potentially happened in the original Sundering. It looks like it. It's pointing that way. But we do know that the portal is still in use by someone. Or it's been reactivated. Yeah. the portal is still in use by someone. Or it's been reactivated.

Yeah. But that battle map, is that a battle that you know of? Did that actually happen? It would have been outside of Solvang. I don't think you would have been involved in it. I don't know. Basically, the descendants of Suvona now, their ancestors would have been the ones who fought

in that battle. Arvel probably would have known. Maybe. Okay, so... Aelurks is like, smash door? I mean, if you really want to get in there... Wait, I think we can open it. It might be something to do with this. It says, officers door lock Praxis Vard. Okay.

We just have to solve whatever Praxis Vard is. How are you spelling Vard? Is that the name of the officer? Maybe. Maybe it's the officer's room. Some Praxis Vard's room. Yeah, that's why it's locked. Yeah, because you don't want scrubs just turning off in your room.

So without his body, he probably wouldn't open, right? No. So we'll AILER it. All right. Hold on a minute. AILER gets ready, like... I'm guessing, like, with the slate, I can't, like, get anything else out of it.

I can't, like... No. It doesn't look like it does anything else. It looks like it's effectively a storage for written information. But it looks like it has the ability to transfer information between other devices. And there's no sign of any bodies or anything like here. No signs of life at all. No. Okay.

Not a single one. Not even dust. Not even as if something decomposed here. No bones. Just nothing. It's just empty. It's like everyone just left. Vacuous.

Can I, like, whisper Praxis Bard to the door and just see what happens? It opens. What? What? The door opens. When you say the words Praxisvard to the door, it opens. There's a command word. Oh.

Inside, it leads into a smaller room. We are going to smash you. We were so close. Aayla's like, oh. Inside, though, it leads into a smaller room. We were going to smash you. We were so close. Aayla's like, oh. Inside, though, it leads into a smaller room where you can see a series of bunk beds, storage units, wash basins, food stores

after you complete your long rest. Hanging up, you see three sets of uniforms. Here we go. Two are for female kind of like sizes and one's for a man. They appear, they are starbite uniforms. They're humanoid. They might not fit you well,

but they would fit pretty much anybody except maybe Quill. Nova, they'd probably be quite short on. Aayla, they'd probably, as in like quite big for Nova, Aayla and be quite short on ayla they'd probably as in like quite big for nova ayla and century quite short for and lucius kind of somewhere in the middle but quite bulky um but they are military uniforms uh it's it's kind of like a jumpsuit in that it's basically like a pair of trousers with a built-in kind of vest top um that has a discoloration of like purple slashes and vertical stripes. Um, and yeah,

and then there's a matching kind of a hat probably that goes with it as well. And it appears to be, they've been laid out, like they've been hung up. Awesome. Uh, there are a couple of other things as well,

along with one of the uniforms, one of the women's uniforms, there is a, what appears to be like a cavalry saber in a, in a sling, like with a holster and everything. Um, there is a what appears to be like a cavalry saber in a in a sling like with a holster and everything um there is also one yeah yeah there is also a crystal pendant which seems to have a crystal that matches some of the ones around the doors um and then there is also built into the wall there is another one of these crystal slates with a runic keyboard

um that is just humming and it appears to be powered. Oh. I will put on one of these outfits. Sure. It is surprisingly warm and comfortable. It's quite soft. Is it squeaky? No, it's not leathery.

It's made from more of a synthetic material. So for you, it just feels more like a kind of weird cotton. But it's quite warm. It shouldn't be as warm as it is for how thin it is. I'll put on the crystal as well. Okay, so you kind of wear that. And a hat as well. It's like a little military hat.

How does Helios feel about this? Yeah, what he's wearing, is it like that's immediately identifiable as Starbane, right? I think that it has iconography that is similar to it. So it kind of has the colors, black and purple, the symbol, there's like a little emblem of the sword of Kallus, with the broken star around the sword, so the emblem of the Starbane Empire.

Helios is quite quiet throughout all of this, but there is just... I mean, Helios isn't stupid. He knows that you were freezing cold and you were wearing no clothes, but there is sensory senses discomfort, but he's not saying anything because he knows why you're doing it. He knows you're not putting it on because you're like, I'm going to juice up like a starbeam!

Destroy the rose! Destroy the rose! It's situational. Halloween! He's a warrior as well. He understands these things. Nova. Huh? You can read these runes.

What does this one say? What does this plate here say? I need ten of your minutes to- You took long rest. The spell's gone. Okay. Do the thing. One second.

How do you take his minutes? I'm ignoring that. Helios? Yes? Thinking about the Eterna, the corrupted Eterna that I think you notice here, is there a way to reverse the corruption? There is a long, solemn pause. I'm afraid that I do not know much about this corruption. There is a long, solemn pause. I'm afraid that I do not know much

about this corruption. Alessandra has researched it more than I, but in all of her research, she acquainted it to the similarities of undeath. Is there a way to reverse a creature from being transformed into a spirit

or a specter? Is there a way to undo a creature from being transformed into a spirit or a specter? Is there a way to undo the curse of vampirism? If there is, we do not know it. I mean, we brought people back from the dead. This is not the same. This is not an Eterna who has been destroyed. It has been transformed. So not like a revenant, because a revenant you can put to peace, um, but I- Alessandra acquainted it more to herself, to a vampire.

And I'm guessing she probably researched how to not be a vampire. She has. No cure is known. Is there any reasoning? Even the gods themselves cannot undo it. Is there any reasoning? Even the gods themselves cannot undo it. Is there any reasoning with the corrupted? I have never met one. But the pain, the anguish that I can feel,

I'm not sure I want to try. Perhaps it is better that we destroy it, whatever it has become. I just wonder that if we were to destroy it, if we take out all the oxygen and gravity in this ship. I do not remember much

of my time in Kallus' forces. I was kept as an armament for his lieutenants. But I believe that it does not continuously drain power. The Eterna provides power, but it does not need to be constantly providing it.

It provides it in bursts. Okay. So perhaps we would have some time before these systems failed. Thank you, Helios. It is, if it is up to, if you care for my opinion, I would prefer to see whatever has happened to my brethren undone. Make it, give them peace, destroy them. Do not let them suffer in this cursed, corrupted form that they have become. And whatever we find of Calus and his empire here, destroy that as well.

You may keep the clothing, Master Lucius. I will destroy it as soon as I get my better clothing back. I suspect it as so. Okay, I mean, we're all rested now, unfortunately, in that room and not this one, but... Okay. I think we're good to carry on through. Hard, cold floor. Praxis Bard!

Okay, well, we're going to take a break. So you guys take a break. The fun never ends. Explore a great space station. For now, it's here on High Rollins. Oh, I don't want to keep exploring. Are you sure you don't want to keep exploring? It's spooky, Mark.

Is it spooky? Is it spooky that there's no sign of life? There's no noise, just creepy music. You're right. And there's nothing going on? Ah, good. Thank you.