Legends of Avantris - Icebound | Ep. 14 | Precipice of Uncertainty

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

Refusing to accept this new world and what is being presented to them, our adventurers sneak away below the underbelly of the city to discover what truths they can find...   Gain access to an exclusive campaign, Shroud Over Saltmarsh, over on Patreon: https://legendsofavantris.com/patreon The Crooked Moon, a folk horror supplement for 5e, is available for preorder! Get the Crooked Moon at: https://thecrookedmoon.com/ Watch more D&D adventures in the world of Avantris live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/legendsofavantris Check out our merch store: https://shop.legendsofavantris.com  Join our community on Discord: https://legendsofavantris.com/discord Watch our many campaigns on YouTube: https://legendsofavantris.com/youtube  All other links: https://linktr.ee/legendsofavantris   Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/kBBIljo-fDM?si=cpu5Llfld7wEckVT

Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Queenie, Miss March if you're nasty, and you're listening to Icebound. Here's what happened last time. We're going to be able to start a revolution. We're going to be able to do amazing things. I've already told the others and they're going to spread the word. You're going to be a hero. We're going to defeat these bad guys for good.

Who's Mr. Bones? I believe that we will. Show our divine taint. Uh, I mean, uh, not corruption. Uh, our citizens of Ogerton, heed this message and spread the good word of manius, Ogris, Ogris, Blaginius, governor of the House of Knowledge. He has made a startling discovery he wishes to share with the people, that of five new vassals found beyond the limits of our great city of Ogerton.

It was there in the madness that Mannyus and his son, Julietus, found these five souls and saved them. Know also that they are unusual in form and appearance, and even more exciting, they share our own power of speech. In investigation is underway and more to be learned, but know that these five are under the protection of Governor Blaginius. No harm or rights to consume them may be exercised until, his research is done and a determination can be made regarding their fates. I don't like this. I don't like what this is going, guys. I don't like this at all. If you wish us to fight them, then we will fight to the death if need be. I've never been more prepared for anything. And you will know why they call me

shark puncher. You see? You see, look how willing they are to engage in combat, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, do a, uh, do a, uh, do a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a tradition. There's so much to do. So much to see. So what's wrong with taking the backseat? You'll never know if you don't go. Go! Okay, let's go! I am Mr. Bone! And you will fear me and feel the pain of osteoporosis!

That's why they call her smash rooms! The crowd is screaming. They are destroying their throats in excitement for the display that's been put. that's been put out. You can hear Fangaro from the top box yelling out, nearly like throwing up burping and shouting in victory at the same time. You can tell he's changed his room.

This is when our final cry happens. I was gonna just ask if the baby's crying. And the child begins to scream. It is the 21st day of the 12th month. Only a few days have passed since you first arrived in Ogerton, but already you feel your bodies being nourished by the warm air, rich, regular meals, and the many comforts of this strangely lush and palatial settlement. After many long months of hard travel, starvation,

and living in the brutal conditions of Western Dracar, this new strange place should feel like a restful sanctuary. but it is a prison. What should be a welcome oasis and shelter from the harsh climate of this southern land is instead a perplexing dungeon. Indeed, you find yourselves wholly captive in this strange place. Any relief that might come from the temperate weather and food and conveniences is made bitter by the strange culture that you must now navigate. The zealous ogres who built and inhabit the wondrous city that they call Ogerton are like a dangerous paradox.

Somehow smart enough to harness the natural benefits of this rare land. Somehow too stupid to see past the vanities and hypocrisies of their culture. Somehow capable of wielding great magics and inventions. Somehow incapable of seeing how thoughtless and small-minded their beliefs about the world and others truly are. And there is still the burdensome weight of the quest you have all bound yourselves to, thrust upon you by the gods atop a great mountain on the first day of winter, to somehow expose and prevent some great prophesied catastrophe in defense of Dracar. But that sacred duty seems impossibly far away and distant, intercepted by the immediate perils confronting you now.

It is only through the graceful deception that you now all share, the lie that you are all ogre gods made mortal return to the material plane despite your strange behavior and appearance, that you are not already condemned to a lifetime of servitude and confinement. Before you seemingly lies only one path to potential freedom. A series of challenges offer a slim chance to have your magical shackles undone, so that you might escape or perhaps fight. The others hear that you have come to know as vassals are not so lucky. These are the silenced humans, like your friend Daisy,

who lack the power of verbal speech and who endure lives of labor only to be thanked by the warm embrace of a cooking pot. The grimness of their fate is further made real before you now as you stare down into the teary eyes of a human newborn. Oh, yeah. The baby boy's voice cries out, and you watch as its limbs push and clench beneath the tight fabric of its swaddle. What happens next is up to you. I don't think what happens to that baby is up to us.

Tai Chen, what should we do? We all sit here for three after he doesn't answer. Tai Shan jet the fuck up! Sorry, okay. Tai Shan attempts to answer you, but he shuts up as soon as you say that. I look around and see if they all seem surprised or if they seem like this is just how it works. You won't even have to roll for it. You get a sense looking around that newborn is a magical event for the humans who reside here.

That hearing this cry is something that is expected and cherished. But you also have the, not words, but the communication that Daisy just gave you. This is something like a final cry or an all. ultimate sound or it's hard to make out exactly what she's trying to convey, but there's a sense that it's understood to be a temporary phenomenon. This is a healthy child? Yes, yes, a beautiful boy. From what I can tell, the labor went well, and he's crying and looking for food, so nothing seems amiss is the way that we experience life. here. Is there something wrong?

No. I'm just sure like just take a step back and kind of all cross my arms and just sort of a nerve. When will it become quiet? He will become quiet. Usually it happens quickly. The first or second night. Only at night then. Typically. Does anyone see what happens on the night

where it happens? It is unknown to us, but ever since I escaped, I've had my theories. I never realized what was, and listen, everyone, watch. And many of the vassals turn away from the baby. Underneath are pendants here. There's a mark. You can't ever see it, but I think the ogres may be taken. the voices from us, from this child.

She seems sad and frantic. Does it have to happen? I mean, isn't there something that we can do? Surely, it's just a baby. Why does anything have to happen to this thing? It's not something that we've ever tried to stop. The baby just will have a pendant in another day or two. But maybe it's something that we could.

try to stop? I, if it's all right with the parents of the little one, I would suggest that we keep watch around the child. Perhaps if we can't stop it, we'll at least learn something. Fine idea. I'm happy to take a round and watch and make sure that we monitor this child 24-7. Let's just try anything, really. What do we do?

If we learn that it is an ogre coming into the room in the middle of the night with a knife. What then? Do we kill the ogre? Do we kill all the ogres? That was in my letter. Well written there, Mr. Savascoatch. Thank you. Do we just accept that this is unfortunately part of our current reality?

I don't think these ogres are smart enough to have the precision to do what has happened to the young lady here without killing her. these humans. The reason I bring it up is we do have the way, even despite our current lack of equipment, we are all capable of being quite violent. If we could stop whatever this is. If it had just been me coming back, somehow returned here, I would be in despair, I'd be be hopeless. I'd be uncertain what to do next. I wouldn't know how to do anything at all. With the five of you here, there's a chance. I feel hope for the first time. I mean, surely, uh, you know, our names now must throw a little weight behind them, right?

We proved ourselves as reincarnated ogre gods. Surely we might be able to do something. Only to the House of Commerce, I believe. Well, I mean, I'm saying if we, you know, we kill a few ogres, maybe they'll just look the other way. and we're ogre gods, right? Surely the gods get, the gods get angry from time to time. Oh, you're sacrifice, perhaps. Oh, I mean, that there stands to reason that they would, if they eat humanoids, that maybe we as gods would want to eat ogres.

Everyone is watching Daisy as she's conveying some of this information, explaining what happened during the day, telling them more details about her time beyond the, city proper, the limits of the city and in the mountains and in the forest where she met you. She's moving very, very quickly. It's almost impossible to see the blur of her hands, but you're picking up these little details, getting more and more familiar with the handcoat over time. They seem doubtful, uncertain. Like I said, look how small that infant is. You think one of those ogres is the size of the

tip of its thumb. They could take a knife in the middle of the night without being seen. I think the chances of that are very slim. I agree with you, Barnabos, but then... What's doing it, then? That feeling in the dreams we all add. Where did it bite you? You guys had dreams, too?

Do we not talk about that? No, I mean, I just... I had a weird dream. I was in a library, and it was, you know, a small little library, and I was looking through some books, and I was thinking about some things, and I woke up. Yeah, there was a, there was a bite.

I don't know, something weird, a sharp pain. I don't even know if I would describe it as a bite. In my neck. What did you do in the dream? I felt compelled to look through the books. It was a very nice library. There was a fireplace. It was some plush furniture to sit on.

Oh, you're grand library, like the Seekings personal collection. And it felt well. I mean, it wasn't. It was a small, relatively small, personal chamber, if you will. Something I might have if, you know, I retire someday. Like a study? Yeah. In Caton's quarters.

Yeah, absolutely. All right. It was very personal, very, you know, nice, cozy, if you will. I. Maybe it's the size of the library is about the size of our imagination, perhaps. What is saying, Bonabas? I'm saying perhaps in your cynicism, you've... abandon your sense of imagination.

All right, all right. I'm not calling you stupid if that's what you think. I never said that, Barnabos. I stopped myself before I almost insinuated it. It's more important that we're all on the same page you're saying that you all dreamt of libraries. What were the details of your library? How many halls? How tall?

I don't recall how many holes. It was huge. You guys had halls? It was like in a sunken city. The Sea Kings Library. in a forgotten city of the Merlings. Queenie, what about you? Yeah, mine was pretty large, too.

But to be honest, I'm not so worried about that library or that prick on my throat. I'm worried about that little baby. That's what I'm worried about. I bring it up because I don't believe it has anything to do with imagination, given that we all had a more or less shared dream. There was something external planting it in our heads. Oh, that's what I'm saying. It felt real.

It didn't feel. like a dream. So you think all of this is connected? You think that something had the dream, the shared dream that we had is something to do with these people here stuck in this place? I felt when I woke up, after feeling that bite, it was like a beast he got me. I felt the eyes on me like a deep sea predator, as if it was, I knew I was dreaming. But I felt that the thing that was watching me was real. really told us about the aberration within one mile? Oh, you don't think so. Right before we went into the fight, you said the word aberration,

but you said it amongst a bunch of stuff, and you just kept right on going, and we charged into battle. Yeah. So you did see the word aberration. That was it, but it was like mid-sentence. I said, like, aberration, I think that's important. And then I just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there's an aberration. You're under me in a note of that, Ms. Head. We'll bring it up now. I think that's entirely reasonable. A month may have passed for us but that was like a few hours ago for y'all Queenie

Yep A few hours ago You said the word aberration Oh yeah, not what I said What do you know of aberration? And everyone's listening to us, yeah? Yes, there are a few who

are listening the way they might have podcast. They're making beds, they're getting a crib Somebody sweeping. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're tuning into us to a straodcast. They're not all sitting around like a campfire moment. There are those who are standing there Daisy and occasionally asking clarifying questions,

that sort of thing. But you know that you're within earshot and that probably they have a heightened sense of hearing. Your ear doesn't care that anyone can hear. He's assuming that like, you know, this is a private place that they have tunnels underground where they're doing stuff, he sort of trusts these people that, like,

an over guard's not going to walk in because they've been spying. What was your question? My question was, what do you know of aberrations? Nothing. I don't even know what an aberration is. Yep, I'm kind of in the same place. Yikes, same here. I guess I should clarify with the DM.

Would you or near know, based on the nature of his circle, I don't think he would know too much specifics. Would he know anything about aberrations? Tell me what Yorne would know. Make an history of check at advantage. Is it an extra scare? Perfect. Isn't an aberration just a ghost?

You know, one of those like spooky little woo. I think you're thinking about the abominable yiddity. Can I use your test? I might be. Please. Thank you. I think you're thinking of an apparition. Oh, I always get those. confused. There's a little ghost stories on the sea. There we go. Natty 20 plus. Oh, baby. I think it's two.

Oh, you let's go. 22. Okay. With a natural 20 plus, I believe, uh, I believe it's plus 23, 24. Um, you have no interest in this. You should, uh, you wouldn't have any interest in this topic. However, you've lived a long life and for whatever reason, the spare details of the aberration and the few times that you've heard it in your many years springs into your mind. And you remember these are unnatural monsters that are very rare in the primaterial plane, very unnatural to the mortal plane in the first place from beyond, sources of who knows where, but that they are twisted and, did I say alien? I'm going to say that again, I think. They're tapirs.

I don't think you did say that. But very alien. And that they... That there are monsters of this world, but that even amongst monsters, they are somehow different. Hence, why they are referred to in a broad class of creatures as aberrations. This information comes instantly to you. Aborations, they are...

I have only heard tale of these creatures existing, but they are wholly a matter. And even beyond the beast that we slew in the river, these are alien outside of this realm of existence. And one is here. Oh, I didn't say that. Oh, I guess I'm presuming based on your character. All I did was say the word aberration.

Well, why did you say that? I don't know. I look around nervously. Inside check. Can I tell if she's lying or not? Are you attempting to hide this piece of information at this time, Queenie? Um, yeah. I would say that you can make an insight if you want to attempt to deceive,

or you may a contest for this purpose. I don't think you can do me. But if you win, then you just get a sense, you don't know what it's being hidden. You just get a sense that she's being coy with information at this time. Who's deception? Oh, there you are. How does a hot nine sound? 21.

Hot nine is my stage. What are you not telling us, Queenie? This is not the time to withhold information. This is not the time to be talking about certain information, either. Why? What are they going to do? What are they going to do? You don't think people can be bought off? The ogre we talked to didn't know that they could even communicate.

For what it's worth, when I first woke up, I did try to bribe one of them, and they weren't having any of it. Oh, that's true. Right. Because their loyalty lies to someone else. They didn't seem to be interested in gold. I mean, maybe they could be bribed with something else. To be fair, I was lying about the gold. Are you talking about the ogres? No, I tried to bribe one of the fossils. Is that what you're called?

Yeah. And he didn't want any of my gold. The threat of being eaten is greater in some houses than others. I was trying to bribe him to avoid being eaten. I woke up on a dinner table. He had his orders. Fair enough. I'm sure that was it. You can trust me, at least, and I've gotten to really know the other vassals, but even speaking openly.

It was more of just an observation. I'm with your honor here. I trust all of you. I mean, you don't seem to want to be. be here and a lot of your friends also don't seem to want to be here. I mean, that's the reason you talked about a rebellion. Yeah. Yeah. Something that we could plan together and try and make happen. In that moment, he wouldn't have known who he were. No, I won't hold it against him. I hope not. I think we'll only be able to survive this together. I'm over it.

I would hope so, Mr. Stamaskatch. A lot's happened between now and then I woke up on that that dinner table. I mean, I gave an ogre osteoporosis. I could have killed the guy from the inside. Wish you had. Me too. But there was against the rules of the competition. I've never seen an ogre dead. Ever? Oh, they fall in a mighty yard. The ogres here only ever move on to heaven. Have you seen this happen? Yes. Every couple weeks or months. month or so, the lottery happens, and Sofieliff comes down and schloops him back up, back to heaven.

Oh, my God, we have so much to talk about. You've seen Sofeliff come down himself. No, it's the ritual. We go to the square. We all sit about, and when the bell rings, the person who's contributed the most knowledge, they vanish. I got a flash of light poof lots of dust smoke what there's a little light it happens almost instantly

like this is so fucked up we are way in over our heads here there is no involvement from that silver ship out there we don't face the ship we face the bell

that's at the end of the just at the edge of the cliff before you see the waterfall oh the edge of the cliff could you point and I'm I'm gonna, I'm gonna, do I have, is there any paper down here? Oh, we were given a map. Right?

Oh, was I given a map? You weren't given a map. Yeah, we were shown. I was articulating a map to you so that you could get a sense of space, which is what I drew for you. But that's only because you were going through the city and it's like, oh, there's that landmark and there's this. And I understand. Yeah, it's in your brain. Well, we passed letters to Antoine.

Yeah, yeah. They're, if you ask for parchment, it could be produced easily. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm like, so this is, well, here's the mountain face of it. This is where. the waterfall is, this is where it goes down and I'm like the time to explain

describe that and I want that I want her to confirm that they face towards the waterfall and the person goes to the waterfall so the person stands on the edge of where the waterfall goes down no they don't where do they stand? No one stands. No one, there's no, it's called a lottery because no one knows who's going next.

Oh sweet, God's above. What if it's one of us? It's a great honor for them Manius has been working on his research or Gorgustis would be working on his research. The idea is to make a contribution to the ogre, the reason they're here. Look, I don't want to keep changing the subject, but it's all related. When we were in that damn arena, one of those creatures looked at me and said that I was going to go look at ogre heaven. I got to tell you, I didn't go to ogre heaven.

I went to hell. Literally hell! Wait, you were physically in hell? I mean, it felt like hell. I've never been to hell before. It was some kind of hell. My point is, if that guy sent me to Ogre Heaven, they're not going to any place that's pleasant.

They either don't know where they're going or they have a severe misconception of what Ogre Heaven looks like. If you went to hell, how are you here? Standing before us. You know, Bonabos, you raised a great point. Unscathed. We also died once, and we are here unscathed.

I don't have the answers to these questions, Bonabas. I didn't experience anything when I died, did you? No, it was all black, the abyss, the locker. Right? Yes. Then why would you go to hell and not be torn apart by devils? Well, because there weren't any devils just a giant moving city with about 40 million legs. Screw what the fuck are you talking about?

I wish I knew Bonapest, I wish I knew. Anything makes any sense? A giant city with legs. Yeah, like 40 million of them. And I was sliding. down this horrible thing. Like a joint sand crab. There were people like folding blankets who were just like... Yeah, exactly like a sand crab. Only that this whole city was its shell. I've never heard of any tall tale with that and I've heard some pretty tall tales. I mean, maybe it was a hallucination,

but it's pretty vivid if you ask me. It was probably some sort of mine, freak. Look, I wouldn't even brought this up if the guy hadn't mentioned, oh good heaven, right before I went to that hellscape. That is fair. We've... seen some questionable things here and we know that not all is what it seems. Perhaps it was just a waking nightmare. A dream like the library. You guys didn't see me vanish? I was mighty keen on smashing some ogre skulls, I will admit.

You did vanish, but so did I. I was still there, just invisible. Perhaps this is just part of whatever spell he used. I hope that is what ogre heaven is. I hope that you're right. Maybe they're all just suffering. Did they see any ogres or anything like ogres there? No, just a giant, horrific, 40 million-legged moving city.

Giant sand crap in hell. It was a city, Bonnebos. The sand crab is just a simile or some sort of literary device. I've heard of cities on the backs of turtles. Oh, it was kind of like that. Only just legs. A lot of legs. We're going to keep chatting. It's quiet time. Oh, sorry. We can go somewhere else, but I just want you to appreciate that we're starting to, you know, disturb the others.

I'm pretty disturbed already. I know. I know. I agree with Queenie that we can look after the child, keep 24-hour watch. Should one of us be there at all times? I... Yes. Ideally, that if the mother and father will allow us to take the child to a place where the ogres might not expect it to be. Well, you're going to run into a problem there, as none of us are capable of feeding this infant.

Uh, if only I had some herring. Children love herring. That child doesn't have any teeth. Oh, you just mash it up a bit and... It's not capable of swallowing something like that. Oh, you're right. You're right. Well, I mean, I thought that the whole family would join us was my intention.

I don't believe it should be just awesome with the child. It's not the horrible child. I am no guardian. I'm saying we need to at least have the mother there. The child will also be with the community. here. There are a dozen more people sleeping here tonight. All in the, are we all, it's all one just big room. You've been sleeping, um, uh, you've only, you're the only one here who's had an experience

with this, but this is like the hostile room for vassals where there's like double bunk beds and it's, it's much less in the form of amenities. You guys have been sleeping in effectively a guest room with like huge California Kingsize bed. Oh. That was considered it. I think we bring the family to our guest room in our chambers. I don't see why not. Because if there is an ogre that's going to sneak in the middle of the night with a tiny little scalpel to perform surgery,

it'll go to where all of these vassals are. They won't expect the family and the child to be with us. All right, well, let's round them up. Let's make sure they're all right with it. And we'll get somewhere, we'll get one of these rooms, I guess. and then we got to keep talking about this stuff. We got a lot on our plates here. I'm very confused.

I have a lot of questions, and I want to keep asking questions. Fraudina is the name that's been given to the mother of the child, and she's finishing nursing the baby as you've been talking. And she's looking very seriously at the five of you, having been listening intently with nothing but sitting to take care of in these moments. and with one hand she's communicating with Daisy. I feel safest here. These are my friends.

Have you heard what these people have been talking about, referring to the five of you? They speak crazy. If they want to stay, that's fine, but I don't want to leave where I go to bed, where I rest with my family. And Daisy turns and conveys this to you in a matter of a few more minutes. All right, all right, all right.

We won't make anybody do anything they don't want to do. I just want to double down and say, I know that we're, I sound a little crazy, but, you know, I'm not violent or a danger to myself or others. I'm just a goblin. We're going to protect you to the best of our ability, right, guys? No. She sort of nods and she seems wary, but there's a motherly, I think in her that is also any amount of caution or protection or safety that might be beneficial to her child. She's willing to, not risk, but welcome.

So why don't we get you set up? You get comfortable with your child, and we'll just kind of set up around you. We'll continue our conversation and keep an eye out. Does that sound reasonable? I. Yes. I'll see if I can do anything. All right.

Well, if we're going to stay here, we might as well talk about it. There's an aspiration. I'm still not entirely sure what that means. Is it one of these horrible alien creatures? Yeah, whatever Barnabos said it was. There's one of them here. The rolls are being put out for you. Mattresses are being slid out.

You can speak normally, but I'm presuming that you would respectfully be keeping your voices down. Scrimers are doing the best you can. Your stage is great. Yeah. How do you know? I mean like, like, oh, I'm attuned with nature. I can put my ears to the ground and use my bees to scout out and see if there's anything alarming and I felt

the need to do that when we were traveling around with those ogres and I sensed an aberration and so I thought to myself well that's strange I've never since one of those before I wonder what that is and I didn't really know how to get the information to you so I just said it randomly in a sentence before we went out and caught that battle oh god just case anything happened you know do you know where it was? Somewhere within five miles. You couldn't have direction or number?

No. I mean, but to be fair, I mean, think about how many miles we've covered and how big this God-forsaken land is. Five miles isn't that far? That's not a lot of place to search. That's not far at all. I mean, we could be doing a lot worse. You could have said 360 miles. Yeah, but I didn't. I said five.

Exactly. You know, if I could search up to 360 miles, I don't think that would actually be very helpful. No, no, it would actually very detrimental. It would be horrible. The further the range gets actually the worst that ability gets. Yeah, I agree. So it's interesting because the reason I could go five miles is because I'm so used to this kind of terrain. And I realized after doing it, it would have been much more beneficial if I had to narrow down to like a mile instead of five. Well, you might have missed it. I mean,

and then we wouldn't even know. But if it were further than a mile out, it would have been like, well, it's at least not here in the city. Better enough. I think you've done a fantastic job. I'm just saying it's a real strange thing how this kind of magic works. The primal spirits work in mysterious ways. That's for sure. So I think... Yeah. I think that if one of us stays up,

we're actually expecting something, that whatever he is doing this isn't expecting us. Right. So we'll get the drop on it and kill it. I hope so. up, right? I hope so. I mean, are we all prepared to just use deadly force?

No question to ask, or are we going to, like, you know, cut some fingers off and get some answers? I mean, I don't really need my anchor to kill. Daisy snaps like she has an idea and then silently makes her way out. Oh, well, hopefully she's coming back. I mean, I can summon my blade at any moment. You know, I have the ability to arm myself. We have magics. We have everything that we need for the most part.

We can use deadly force if necessary. I just don't even know what we're going to find because I'm with you. I don't think it's an ogre. Do you have any idea what the AC is on a baby? The what? Probably very low. That's what I was thinking. I'm guessing five if I were to hazard the guess.

From a meta-sense, I mean, they don't even really move very much. I'd even say maybe a zero automatic hit crit, you know, the whole nine yards. Well, I think you... They wiggle a little. You'd think if they have, let's say you can't have zero decks because you would die instantly, but if you have warned X, then your modifier would be negative 5 from a baseline

of 10. So you think a baby might have a negative 5? Well, I believe the AC of a baby is 5. That's smart thinking, Mr. Yarnier. As written in ways. I don't know.

Perhaps you could treat it as the AC. I think that it would be very, especially with proficiency bonuses, be very difficult to miss a baby. That's what I'm saying. I would have to be drunk, six ways to Sunday and on that viper venom if I was going to try to hit a baby. In Minecraft, I'm saying. Definitely in MindGlap.

I thought you met Roblox. You're exactly right. In AC of 5, for sure, is what this baby has. But it does have the feature having advantage on grappling attacks. Oh, wow. Just the hand grip is, you know, get the beard. Oh, your earrings. It is nearby and I think we know where it is. Do we not? Well, I don't think we know.

Bad thing we know. Like you're saying we have a hunch. I'd say it's down in that waterfall. I agree. Yeah. Did you get the sense of how deep that may go? Well, no more than five miles. That's a good point.

that is very deep that's also a good point that's very deep well Pythagoras is a dick and based on where I am and where that waterfall is that's true you know

it can't be five miles straight down at the very least that is good news it is interesting did Queenie also tell us about the Mirage thing why are you talking to me like I'm not here this is more of a matter statement

You can just ask, Queenie. Your nurse speaks in the third bird, so I'm accessing the weird. I believe earlier today I looked through the eyes of that bird to test your theory about seeing the Ogre City. That was very depressing. I'm wondering if... Bird has a rough home life. These mirages, when they win the lottery, just the mirage of their existence just vanishes.

Perhaps none of these oldies. What do you mean none of these ogres are real? When you walked to the edge of the woods, and you turned around, you didn't see anything. No buildings, no ogres. No. But what about the two children you were with? Did you still see them? Nah, they're still there. Oh, there you go.

I don't know the details of why that would be... Oh, and we saw the ogres at the hot springs. Oh, when I was preparing that serpent for a great feast. Oh man, I didn't have any clothes on. They really caught me with my pants down. Oh, they did. Yeah, they really, you were completely naked.

Yeah. Do we have any sense of how far we were from here? None. Perhaps. And we would have seen some gigantic ogre city. If Manius was to be trusted, it was many days travel. Okay. Yeah, we were unconscious for many days.

And we were told by the dragon-born spirit, that there were ruins of a city here. Not here. Rooms? No, yes, here. No, further south. Far, far south. Your runes said something else? On the other side of the mountains. No, we are on the other side. We are on the other side.

But we're a bit more east than south. To be clear, you would have understood that this should have been hundreds of miles to get to the capital where their Dragon Ball city was. Got it. Before the Princess of Wrath. you would be perhaps dozens of miles from where you were captured with Naseu. So it's nowhere close. So this is the mountain chain and we like first start we did this.

Yep. Came to the mountain here. Yep. And then we started doing this on the other side of the mountain. And you had less than a day's travel before you found a hot spring. So we're like here, the city would be here and like over to me. We had been discussing that my entire arm is from the most southern point of Dracar to the most northern point of Dracar. and this side is where you came up.

You understood from your conversation with the Cirrus, the head druid, that it would be like right in the middle, right here as a capitalist. I think that we entertained... You barely reached my thumb in terms of travel distance. I think we entertained if the weather was bad enough, it might take us all winter to get there. That's right. That's right.

All right. So let's just one at a time here. A couple of things we have, right? The first thing is, what did the Roons tell you? The Rooms... You said, your... Roon said something about a city? My Roos?

No, I know the spirit. No, no, no. He was trying to pronounce the word ruins. Oh. The ruins are so. All right. All right. So now we got that clear now. The next thing. Did you know that some people pronounce the word ruin as ruin?

Yeah, you do. Or if something was ruined, they say ruined. We literally just heard you do it. No, I believe I made a distinction, even with my dialect. Well, you did just now to make your point. Well, I did, yes, but as an example, why are we arguing about this? We have more important things to talk about right now.

Oh, we do. You don't hear a whisper, but you hear like a... Yeah, yeah. They can do that. You hear shushes. But just as that happens, you see Daisy appear in the doorway, and she has clearly been to the kitchen and has a number of, like, butcher's knives and cleavers, like, in her arms.

And she starts, like... An arsenal. Asking folks to, you know, just holding it out. and people were like and some other others more enthusiastically put a cleaver under the child. That might be a good idea. I mean it's only got an AC of five. And the whole grapple check thing that's for the I mean it could grab it and just completely slice somebody's throat open if it was a capable child. I don't think there'd be enough leverage to really pierce the flesh of an ogre. Do you

think? I'm not necessarily concerned about an ogre. It could be anything. We should not arm the child. I mean, I could barely hold its head up, so I guess that's fair. I actually can't hold its head at all. Oh, he didn't get a knife until I was two and a half. We should wait. The point is that I think we know where we need to explore, and I don't know how we'll do it.

But we need to know what's down there. Do I see visions of things deep below the earth? And part of me wonders if this is... wonders if this is somehow connected. Why don't you ask your Rooms? It doesn't work that way. Okay, how does it work then? I can't ask, Hello, Roon.

What is down there? And what's even the point? If that any, Roots. I mean, come on. Tapeer. Oh, it's a taper. Why didn't I do that earlier? What the hell's a tape?

I don't know what to do with this information. It is a... So what can you ask your Roos then? I can... Perhaps if we were to sneak down there, would that be a good idea? Can your runes and triumvirate or whatever it's called? Tell you that. I mean, the only thing we have to keep, I mean, it's just like yes or no questions?

That's what I thought. It's worth asking. But, I mean, we've got to think about a journey like that could take days. If it's five miles of spulking in some horrible waterfall cavern. It's up to five miles. Honestly, this thing. could be in your shoe right now. Well, that would be horrifying.

I don't know how big in an astral location is. I guess the vassal closest to you points at you and he's like he's doing this with his finger first. But he's like, there's the sewer system.

The sewer system connects to the manors to the city. It's how hot water gets up here. This one's been to the crevice on the other side of the sewer system. You can look out. It empties out to the waterfall. It just stops, but you can look down and out.

How far is it? How long would it take to get there and back? Communicating. The same amount of walking travel that it would take you to walk a couple hours to get down to the city, so you could walk it in the sewer. It's not bad. Why don't we leave Tashin here

and we just go travel through that sewer system and backs out. Great idea. Nothing was here. Daishan. Tachian has been remarkably quiet. And he is holding the end of the crib and sort of like standing,

looking down and he seems having a meditative moment, looking at feeling perhaps some affinity for the youth in. Water on baby. He says, gosh. James is up.

No. Everyone goes, hmm, something cryptic about Fugiao. He does say that he would like to protect the child. If you felt like you needed to leave, that he and Daisy would be happy to stay here and make sure that everything remain safe. You could find your way into the sewer from here. Mr. Foyer Blossom and Daisy,

if you find two other people that you trust very deeply, Keith watch, then we can go explore the crevice and what might lurk beneath. And if worse comes to worse, I could always crab us down there. Crabbles down there. And the crab legs that you shoot out like that. It's so bob. Everyone is like horrified. You're not gaining the trust of the, uh, additional of the other vassals.

Even dancing by. I told you. When I don't have my arms, I'm not disarmed. If you guys think you'll be all right, I mean, we can be there and back before anybody even knows we're missing. We've never kept watch like this, and with Tyshen here, maybe we'll be fine. We'll make sure that it's monitored 24-7. It might not even happen until tomorrow night or the night after, right? I mean, you said you don't even know, for sure.

All right. What do you think? I mean, I want to go. I will let us go. I think that as long as we know that there is something down there's, we're not safe regardless. Whether we're here or there. If there isn't a gooblamation down there, we've got to find it. You already forgot the word?

Yeah, I don't know what it is. A gublination that works for me. I think that she's saying there's that dangduralian in them hails. Yeah, there's that. An aliens. There's an alien. Like onions? What?

Alliums, like onions? No, an alien. That's what I said. I had an ann name of Gublemation. Look, I'm telling you, there was an agubimation within five miles of this place, and we need to go find it. I actually did know a few goblins named a gloomination. Good old Ann and Goobie. She was great.

All right. All right. We had a bit of a tussle today. Do we feel appropriately resting? Yeah, I'm all right. Well, we would have had short rest. Oh, yeah, we could definitely. A carriage ride would have afford to do a sour.

Oh, I have to see what I get for a short rest. I think I get some sort of a, oh, I get my hexplate cursed back. You get all of your spells back. I get all my spells back. Every single one. Well, then I'm definitely ready to give another motherfucker of osteoporosis. Oh, I have boneitis. That's right.

Bonitis of all the bones. And I guess I could use some hit dice. What are my stats? plus four of the Constitution short rest I'm fully yield 2D8 plus 8 plus 8 I did no damage during that kerfuffle

I got the shit beaten out of me those okrecks just wallop me I can take a punch though you look fine oh I'm fine did Triton bruises look at any different like green purple like it would probably just

mostly look the same I'm imagining like a really super like dark blue, right? Instead of like the teal, the cyan, it'd be a really dark. It was like a violet purple. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the purply bluish, yeah. I've wrestled with a few ogres in my time. These were differently smarter than any of those ogres, but they went down just as hard. Tyshan tells you to not put yourself in too much danger, to return for him if any of any, thing should happen so that he can be at your side should there be a true confrontation whatever this agglubimation is all right Tai Shan we don't have

to RP this but see ya goodbye goodbye I'm this is my Tai Shan impression oh god all right anyways you know or we fast forward to the moment where you understand that the showers that you've already enjoyed, you not so much because you had your House of Commerce experience being what it was. But you're led to the stall, and one of the grates can lift up, allowing you to lower yourself there. That's horrifying that I was in here completely bare-ass naked and people would be on the floors. There is no privacy here.

They could look up the grate. You walk over that grate with your nudie bits out, and they're seen up inside your bowels. You have to further of the sort of obscure things. I was talking about him. No, no, I know. Yeah, no, it all hangs out there.

Now we know. Now you'd have to shave me first, and that's not happening. It's a lot of shaving. It's like a bell or a buoy. I don't know what that means. Wow. Not a pleasant mental image, huh?

See, cucumbers aside, you all make your way down through the grate and you know, I'll pick it up. I'll put it down very quietly. Let's get back to Tyshen. Yes. Why don't we all have some tea? And Tyshen walks over, he trips and spills hot tea all over the baby. Oh no, I'm so sorry. Instead, he commits himself to

watching for hours. I thought you were going to think of one else. He commits murder. He takes a few breaks, has a few naps, trading back and forth. The rest of his evening seems to be going by swimmingly, but it's in the second or third hour that he spies the mother, pick up the child, and start to walk towards the same showers where the restrooms would be, making sure and cautious to make sure that there is no reason for concern.

He leaves the room and 30 feet, 50 feet behind, follows. She turns and he just sort of wants to peek in, not invader privacy, but wants to make sure that she's just doing her business. So aside from that fast-forward event that happened with Kai Shan, you guys have just dropped down into the sewer. Sewer. Thank you. And what I'll say is we need to resolve something, which is to say that the sewer is pitch black.

It's dark. There aren't RPG-style crystals on the fucking wall. And if you have night vision, good for you. But for the values of you who don't have that benefit, does everyone have night vision? I'd be shocked if I'd think that perhaps Queenie does not. I do. I do not.

Yeah, I believe they don't, and we do. Thank you, Wizards of the coast. You can easily crawl through this space, but know that you would be. Well, you think we should have some light. Do you? Magicky types. Have something easier. Do we got to use a torch?

I can hop. Yeah. Queenie, come here, please. Are you going to do something to me that's going to hurt me? No, it will make your life much easier. Do you think you could start these things off with, Hey, Queenie, can you come over here so I can do this thing? Yeah.

As opposed to this strange, ominous. I'm a queenie. That was a little threatening. Yeah. I did think ahead, and I had Daisy bring me some drugs. ride carrot. Okay. It's good for your eyes.

What? Do you get it? No. I grabbed your head. Oh, what are you doing? You know? Yeah. I'll snap your nose.

Like stink over. My hand will sort of glow in the darkest, this light blue, and I will cast dark vision on you, and then I will take some as well, and I'll rub my eyes, and I will cast dark vision on myself. It lasts for eight hours,

it's not concentration. You know you're in a grim survival campaign when people are like, I need to take dark vision. Yeah. So that, wait, hold on, can I even do that? I think I'm okay. Oh, you know, I'm used to living in the depths where it's pitch black, but for some reason up in the surface, I can't see anything. It's two seconds on suppose. Nice. Just kidding, they changed it. Did they really? Yeah, they gave it. They finally gave me dark vision. And for my own knowledge, to what, how far out? 60s. 60 feet for us.

60, 60, so no 120th? No, no. Just check. Okay. I think that's, well, me, but I didn't take time. You don't have to like, that's lame. That's fucking lame. Queenie, Yornear, the light coming through the grate that is now closed securely, is brightened a little bit.

It's a little harder to look at because it's a, The dark vision takes hold and looking down you can see 60 feet of black and white textured walls made of some sort of a masonry. And you can see that a channel runs down and through that would take the collective water coming in from the showers and rout it through a couple different grades. There's enough room to stand in here. Perhaps not enough for your near. You're short.

But there's enough room for what would be a human to walk comfortably. a medium-sized creature, and you're certainly fine. You're certainly fine, queenie. The additional feature that I will describe, and this will be true throughout your journeys throughout the sewer system, is that hugging the walls are the cross-sections of what are very clearly a pipe system. What is clearly a metal pipe that is actually running up, and you can see a network of plumbing almost.

Is the pipe feel warm? Putting your hand against it, it feels actually very warm, almost not superheated, but I would say it feels like 120, 150 degrees. Like it is beyond sauna. Having experienced the showers here, you immediately recognize like a mix of cold and water this hot allows you to control a great degree of finesse when it comes to the water power. Has it been mentioned if they get their water from like a hot spring or if they're heating

it themselves? That has not been a question that's come up and neither has that been a articulated to you. But you are starting to deduce with your great intellect that these would be going down and through the sewers as you continue to make your way through these tunnels. And if you have questions, then let me know. But I would also ask for a marching order and then you can continue to progress down the system. Are we going uphill or downhill? You were going downhill. It seems to follow the downhill that you've taken from the manner to the flatter, the crevice side where the Ogre City exists. Okay, so that's the shape

of the valley that you expect. We're up on the hill and we're going down to the valley. And it seems to match the same grade. Okay. Let's say. I vote. Barnabos in the front, Yorner on the back and Queen and I safely in between. Oh, I think that stands the reason. Works for me. If you can see over

all of us, Mr. Yornear, with your magic eye. I will be fine. So Yornear, Queenie, Scrim. If you're going back to front, yes. Yeah. It's, oh, back, you're in Baramos, then Scrim.

Queenie, then Queenie. I guess, yeah, you can walk next to each other. We walk side by side. So we have three, it's it, we're three people. We're very tight. We're gonna be a Tortuga formation. That's right. We are in Ogerton.

We went in Ogerton. All roads lead to Ogerton. Um, you. Ogerton was a building a day. You can do this all day. Uh, you continue to make your way. Knowing that you have actually a bit of a trek. Um, for the first hour,

two hours of your trek, all you hear is the occasional dripping of dropping of water, you hear the flowing of water occasionally, and there does seem to be something of a network. Occasionally a tunnel, a smaller tunnel or a smaller inlet will collide with the tunnel that you're traveling down, and you'll start to,

you'll see the water rush further, or perhaps there will be no water at all. It seems to come in flows, not always running like a river might, but let's say someone is taking a shower in this manner, and that's the gray water that's coming down and through, let's say. You are, yeah, it smells pungent, and it is reasonably warm underground like this. I would like to, if I feel like there is a pretty consistent drip or a leak where I get a sense where it wouldn't be shit water, just to be Frank, I would like to kind of like take my thumb and like see if I can like taste the water

and see if I can get any information. You said when it's not shit water. The only gray water is the water running down the- That was my- That was my- Channel or canal that's in the center of this great- That was my understanding, but I wanted to- But when you do hear that drip, perhaps there's a pipe up here that happens to be padding against the stone floor.

You put your hand there, get a little bit of collection, and then taste some pure mineral water almost, very, very flavorful without any toxicity or foulness or bacteria flavor even. It seems pure and it's not salty. You're a nicer DM than I am because I would have made it shit more.

I didn't find out what happened to my chain. You know, when I play Marius. How do they get it this clean and pure? What do you mean? The water here, it's crystal clear. It's pristine. Is it not just fresh water from somewhere deeper in the...

I know, if you taste water out of a creek, it's there's, it's mineraly, it's earthy, but it still feels clean this is... This is probably from melted snow in the mountains. It's about as clean as you can get. It's not been running through muddy creeks. I mean, they certainly have access to magics or magic items. Maybe they have a way to purify it. I suppose so.

I was hoping for a little salt water. Your voices echo in this space. Anytime you stop to have a conversation or pause, your footsteps reverberate loud in your ears. Your voices travel up and down, these long straight tunnels and then come back at you very faintly. It is only because of the pureness of this dark vision.

Now, remind me, dark vision lasts for an hour. Eight hours. Eight hours. Holy shit. Okay, so you can be going to be going to be. Do we take a break and get coffee? Let's take a quick break. Let's take a quick break.

Then I have one question before the break. And what was the name of the alleged god or thing that's... Sopolis. Poodie balls. Sopalus. Puddy balls is his middle name. Can you spell that for me? S-O-P-H-A-L-T-H.

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It's dark. And it's wet and quiet. And you continue to make your way down the grade of this long, long hill until you reach what is clearly Ogerton, the city of the Ogres. And the Yogurt's. The city sewers split. They go in each and every direction. This is a complex network. There are pipes going up.

There are channels going left, going right. It is almost like a catacombs. So frequently, would each of these arched sewers stop underneath a given property or underneath a given structure? You reach this complex network. No longer are you on the straight and arrow, But you are beneath what would be a full sewer system for a city that can support thousands of ogre lives. Does this system look like these tunnels are dug or are they like stone cut?

They look fashioned. They look well-built. They look, yeah, they're not just caverns. There's like masonry in some places, chunks of stone and others. The ground is smooth and walkable. Roger. Thank you. And do we get the sense that we are always underground or are there any like raised pipes

at any point that we may have even seen like I think of like Roman aqueducts that like came down from the mountains and yes, yes, yes, have. I'm going to sneeze in a moment but I'll answer your question a moment. Okay. Bless you. Bless you. Thank you. So to answer your question there are pipes that run up that are clearly

pressuring, leading into perhaps a tavern or perhaps a bathhouse or something along those lines. And there are occasionally, not ladders, but you can see how easy it would be for you to go up and push a grate up and make your way into some of the open baiting areas of some of these structures. Some of them

are, it would be easy to sneak and inhabit. And you can see this is how the new system for the vassals works is if the house has perhaps only one vassal, they would still be able to sneak to the bathroom, drop a letter down, and know that it could be delivered to its destination. And just for kind of context, for all of us, this is probably the most advanced plumbing system that any of us have ever seen. Yeah, I mean, even the showers that you had would have been a marvel of invention for the times that you've ever seen. you live in, the fact that you could turn two knobs and decide exactly what the right temperature is for you would be a miracle. Does anybody else find it a little odd that these ogres that are keeping all these people

captive, I guess, are able to just freely walk through these sewer systems, deliver letters to each other? It's like they're completely oblivious. This is why it feels like this does not add up. I hope that Taishan is doing okay in case anything is going wrong it feels more like to me that the humans that we've encountered have been the most real thing that we've seen

what are real? It's just so much of this defies reason defies logic the fact that ogres built this accomplished this extreme technology. This is unlike anything I've ever seen in my long life. Given that we know that there are illusions, we know that things are being planted in our minds, but we know that violin is real. We know that honey is real, that Daisy was real. That Daisy is real, that honey was

real. So I'm wondering if this isn't real right now, where are we? That this is that this fair question? It's a fair question. I mean, assuming that all of this is an illusion, we could still just be underground, right? I mean, if what Queenie saw is what she saw, then there is still just

landscape, right? Either means that this place is covered in some sort of illusion magic to protect it from outsiders, or it doesn't exist at all. I think that there's no way we could have a shared illusion and understanding and senses. I mean,

whatever creature this is might be very powerful. I think it's much more likely that this, I was just seeing this place shrouded from outside onlookers than that I was not seeing the illusion that was being created. I think it's far-fetched. I mean, it's a fair thought. I just don't think we have any reason to believe that that's what's happening. Schmockham's toothbrush.

Some sort of protective. Is that an hour over? I think it actually might be That's a huge toothbrush It was actually an ogre that told me that He was a big fella He's a great philosopher though For as simple-minded as he was

You all hear the trickling of water As it rushes past you and continues to Turn right, turn left Just following the channels Down and down and down Seemingly passing by you So perhaps coming from a manner A mile or two away

or from somewhere nearby, but just the normal functioning of a sewer system. Dungeon Master. The pipes. How did you do that? The pipes that we are walking around. Do we get a sense if I'm really on this creature from the ship? It fit in two barrels.

Do we get the sense of the width of the pipes? Oh. I thought it was tiny, the creature. It was like this big. I didn't think the creature was very big. It was in a bucket. Oh, was in a bucket? It was in a bucket.

Yeah, you were here through the body, just like one of these, like, a little waste bucket. I would have guessed it was anywhere from like this to like, like, not a bad, not even basketball. Yeah, I'm thinking like, it fit in one of those barrels that like,

is like a quarter size, a normal size barrel. Oh, it was a small, okay. Remember, wow, it was a cat, the little head, octopus guys. I'm imagining that as well, but I remember. I would say it's slightly bigger than a face hugger to use an anachronism from the alien and alien.

Okay, so do we get the sense that these would be able, like, these pipes are big enough, Or they're like little pipes? Not all of them. Okay. Not all of them. The main channel pipes, especially the ones that would lead up to the manors, certainly

would be able to accommodate a creature of that size, but you do not know enough about that creature. I won't even make you do the history or intelligence. Yeah. You don't remember enough about that teacher, that creature to know if it could survive submerged underwater or if it could take heat. Oh, yeah. But it would fit.

In the bigger pipes. If the pipe were empty, it would be easy for any of you to deduce that it could We're all up a pipe that size. Andy thinks it's mine. It was octopal. Octopodal. Anyway. We have in character

talked about that creature. Yes. I brought it up. And I also think you were gone for this, but when you brought it up, you asked me the question of what happened to the body. And I reminded you that you or near checked the container when you were on the

sinking Morabound. And that its rotting remains were still in the size. But also still invisible. Yes, because it is a creature that is naturally translucent. Jesus. I'm going to keep my ears out for any strange noises just to case one of those

base-hugging creatures is about. Those little neck suckers. Can you use any sort of... Like a chupacabra. What is that? Oh, it's... When we have more time, I'll tell you, the tails. It's like a delicious chalk. taco. It's not at all like that.

It's sort of like a fried dough almost, but it's got chicken and like a sauce top of it. No, no, you're thinking of a chalupa. No, you're thinking... Oh, shit. That's an ocelot, I think. You're thinking of. Yeah, it's a chalupa. Can you use some sort of your connection

to the Faye Wild and nature to perhaps supernaturally get a sense while without you? I can let you know whether there's a more of a googly hanging out within a five-mile radius of us. Well, you already know that.

Yeah, I know. Oh, that's all you got? I don't know what to tell you. Locate creature. I'm really worthless in a lot of situations. Locate object. Play a Ranger. Today.

I shoot those good. I personally feel like you would be able to have a much better chance at discovering these kind of things with like a sorcerer or just a regular human farmer. Or maybe Ty Shian. No, he just shoots fire from his hands. Queenie. You are an expert tracker, perhaps, right?

No. Oh. Okay. Let's keep flying. Never one. You've witnessed Queenie do a tremendous amount of tracking over the months that you've known her. Finding caribou and other kills, other small animals.

Perhaps, can you see there's any tracks of creatures? Absolutely an expert. That's harsh shit. I love how offended Derek is. Maybe you can see if there's any kind of beast sneaking around. I did quite literally say I was going to keep my eyes and ears out for one of those creatures. I was just checking if you had some sort of super... I don't have an additional ability to do it. I'm just very good at perceiving.

Good, then like we should, I guess we've been walking this one time. We gotta be getting close. That was continuing science. So I would, D.N. like to be good at perceiving, please. Oh. I will say make a perception check. Oh, perception. Perception.

21. 21. You perceive through your magically enhanced eyes, the pipes I've described, the walls I've described, all shared the same characteristics going as far back as the manor as the villa. and here under the city. The unusual nature of newness strikes you. The lack of mold or decay or any kind of tile. A tile hasn't fallen out of place even. This feels fresh.

And you also perceive the sound of water trickling down, down, down further. in the same direction that you've largely been heading. And I will say also with the 21, that you recognize how easy it could be to be lost in this vast network of sewer systems. Is anyone a minute a door? We happened walking for a while. I mean, we have to be getting close, right?

We know which direction we're going, right? I know that the grade of the slope was roughly about the grade that we're walking at now, So I'm not concerned. We're going in the right direction. Right. We're trusting you. That's right. You're a walker, Mr. Yornear. It is right. I've been away from the sea for a long time.

That's the proof. Anything? We need? No, just what I said. Oh. But the new... Do you say something? It is like super new in here.

Like, water has not even eroded anything at all. There's no lime scale. There's no moths. It's just... There's no algae. Oh, yeah, that's strange. They act as if they're an ancient civilization. As if it was a fabricated perception.

No, just as if it's really clean. You're really stuck on this fabricated thing. I am, yes. Boy, Mr. Yorne here. Don't you have a special magic eye that can see through all that? I don't know how it works. Well, that is what is strange,

that I do not pick up magic here. I'm wondering if this is something beyond the normal magics that I'm in tune with. Like, maybe it's real. Or it's just real, and maybe the city's new. But no, we know that this has been here for generations, have they not? This whole system is spotless and clean and new, as if it was snapped into existence yesterday. No, I don't know. Let's make it to the cavern, and perhaps we'll get more answers there.

All right. Let this go. Same marching order. Let's keep an ear out. Or two. Another hour travel passes. And I would have everyone make a group intelligence check at advantage. Oh, no.

Well, in advantage. I've got maybe a little bit of a chance. Just straight up, just straight up in-check. My first time using my dispel dice that I got. Uh-oh, you weren't here. It's an int check. Not saving throw. No saving throw.

I want everyone to know. And he rolled two ones. Two ones. My first roll with my barn to bow to spell dice, natural 20, folks. Beautiful. Natural 20, you got to give it out. They were the last ones from Jencom. What was that?

Yeah, we rolled a one, a one, a one, and a three. So I got a four. whatever you got. I feel like I'm forgetting something. 21. 21. 21. 21.

21. 21. Your range of skills are still not weak and not atrophied. You're feeling strong. And your perception allows you to be naturally attuned to the water that flows. You are also especially attuned to the water. Even though this is not the sea, the ocean, any time water rushes past, it's like a guide. like something that is

something to follow. If you come to a cross and a cross section and it goes left and right, you know that you should go right because you wait a moment and you see the water turn. You're near.

Scram, I don't know what you guys are doing, but you don't notice that. We're discussing the finer points of ogre economics and have no fucking idea what we're actually talking about. You're just following. We're making shit up. Between Barnabos and front,

who seems confident confident you're like little baby the smoke goes up a great and you hear an ogre what's that smell and then a lot of skunks but an hour does pass

not two hours because you succeed it but a hour passes and you are confronted with a not a doorway but an opening it seems that all sewer system roads lead to this space.

A wide open canal almost is that itself is a small waterfall that leads into the crevasse, this fissure, and you par 30, 60 feet perhaps away from what is clearly the edge of this sewer system as it reaches the cliff face. And you can see through this opening all the way on the other side by the moonlight that is out so brightly tonight, given the time of month that it is, actually. You see the other side some 200 feet across this fissure, and you can almost see a few glitz of water. You're not looking directly at the waterfall. You seem to be looking adjacent to the waterfall. And if you're having trouble picturing, I can draw out if needed what's...

I'm going to ask for a drawing anyone any time you'll offer it. Should we get the mapping map down? Yeah. So let's say hypothetically that all of these different mini sewer systems, all crissing and crossing underneath the Great Oger City would lead and lead and drain and drain and drain until finally, finally, reaching a wide opening. 200 feet

You can see The other side of this fissure And you can imagine that you're perhaps Many hundreds of feet down from where the actual Oger City would be in three-dimensional space But this is a small opening that seems to be the Terminal point So it's a fugitive situation

It is exactly a fugitive situation Yeah I'm imagining the future So we're standing on the edge of this opening Yes, and what do we see when we look down? Looking down, you actually see the surface of water from this height. You can see that there is what appears to be like a pool almost. And looking left and looking right, it's not a flowing river, but the waterfall seems to be filling it. It's not going down or up or anything.

It's moving because of the violence of the water, certainly. but it seems to be just a deep pool. Are we at a lethal height if we were to jump into this pool? I'm trying to remember the math here one moment. Is it a fugitive situation? It is. Mr. Yornear, how confident are your climbing abilities if you turn into a B.C? I could get down.

Yes. I can carry probably both of you down. The question is. I don't like that. Six crab legs out of my back. That will never not disgust me. And I eat garbage.

It's a good idea to go down there with health knowing what lies beneath. I mean, we don't have to go into the water, but getting a closer look might be a good idea, right?

Just to see, you know, what's down there, get a better closer look. I can't believe I'm the one suggesting this out of all of you. We came all this way to get some answers, right? We need to find some sort of answers of why we're here.

Well, at least a hint or something, anything. This is already one answer. In fact, everything, everything connects this one point. Wow, I mean, for all... Right above this, presumably, abomination. For all we know, this is where they're getting their water, though. I mean, right? Again, just the logical initial conclusion would be this is the source of their water.

It's all downhill, didn't you say? It's the lowest point of elevation. You're draining into a subterranean cavern. It'd be a great way to get rid of your waist. Or that's where they're getting rid of it. Right. I don't know anything about aqueducts. Ignore me. I'm just throwing things out there.

It is curious. You think they're drinking their own ship water? Oh. I... Oh, it tastes and clean. You think it's going to the same place that's coming from? You would think that they would build perhaps many outlets across this whole ravine.

our side, but it is almost as if they're funneling everything. Well, that is a good point. Back in to the... Isn't that the most energy efficient to only have one thing you have to worry about? Perhaps, but we know that Oberton crosses this entire span of this valley. I believe that's correct. I think so. But I suppose we could go in if you think...

We don't have to go in. And we just have to get closer. I know I keep trying to rely on your magic eye. I know, I don't know how it works. Is there a way you can... Farcy, or is that more... Warcraft 3-Shaman ability? I believe I could if you don't mind waiting.

I think we should rather wait and if we see it, can see anything down there. I find what looks like a nice smooth section of the ground, and I just, like, sit and prop my back up against the wall of this opening. You find what it looks to be the driest spot, and you... I whistle a little, I flip the coin, and I just look around and I watch Yorner. While Mr. Yorneer does that, Miss Mortch, will you like to help me try to find a little fishy or frog, some kind? Any kind of critter crawfish? Yeah.

Perhaps I'll assist you. Sure, I'll look around for any kind of aquatic creatures that look like they would be native to this kind of area. I will be assisting. To answer your question, it's four or five hundred feet down to the water. That wouldn't feel good. That would not feel good. It probably wouldn't kill you because of the level you're at. But you'll wish it did.

But you'll wish it did. 40 or 50 stories. Yeah. And so the way I've decided, I think, is that if you were jumping onto ground, right, that would be 40 or 50 D6 damage because I don't like the cap at 20 D6. Fuck that. And so 40 or 50 D6, but I would cut it in half because it's water, which, however you want to simulate it, it's still a nasty fucking smack.

While you are doing this, what is to take 10 minutes? Uh, I didn't find it, but yes. Tinkered time. There's going to be some time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys are discussing finding a creature. Scrim very quickly gets bored. Okay.

And I will turn to like whoever's listening and just kind of exclaim out like, you Hey guys, you want to see a trick? And whether anybody is even paying any attention. And I take the coin and I throw it in the water. You take the coin that you've been keeping in your cheek. Yeah. The coin that follows you seemingly everywhere. And you toss it almost like making a wish.

Listen, listen. Listen. Out and down into the water. Yeah, I am listening. I hold my hand on. I just wait for the coin to come back. You throw it. and you expect to hear the sound of the water,

but it does not travel more than 10 feet. Before you hear it clink, it hits the invisible surface of nothing. It hits something right in front of you and then bounces and rolls off of nothingness and then disappears into the dark. And you feel it emerge in your hand before it even hits the water.

Oh, holy hell. You want to try that again? I don't know. And I'm going to cast fairy fire on the coin. Oh. Is that allowed on objects? Yeah. It is?

Right? I believe so, yeah. Tell me how a fairy fire works. Sure. I'll grab, scram by the scruff. Each object in a 20-foot cube within range is outlined in blue, green, or violet light. I'm going to actually change, I'll do blue and be like a beautiful cornflower blue. are blue. Any creature in the area when the spell is cast is also outlined in light if they

fail a dexterity saving throw. So we do have to do that for the duration. Objects and affected creatures should dim light in a 10 foot radius. Any attack role against an affected creature object has advantage of the attacker can see it. And the affected creature object can't benefit from being invisible. So the four of you and the object that you are targeting suddenly grow an aura of blue, this beautiful cornflower blue. and become so much brighter, more visible. That happens. You do that.

I'll grab, scramming, I'll say, food of the stabus cuts. I'm still completely stunned. What? This time with great force, I spiked the coin down towards a thing. And you give it enough hit. It actually lands and starts to roll as though it's rolling.

And it rolls. straight across some seeming platform that you cannot see before finally finding its edge and then dropping down. And it does not have enough time to make it down to the water before you feel it pop back into your hand. Did it do anything when the fairy fire coin hit the creature? It's not a creature. Sorry, the object. The object. No, no, no. It just is easier to see like a burning wheel and the dead of night rolling down a highway. All of a sudden it hits some seeming path that is right before you, but invisible to the naked.

could die. What? There's... It's invisible like that creature, or something? Truly, this is the last crusade. I mean, it's gotta be some sort of illusion. You gotta make your homage, it's like you love. You know, if you're a good DM to steal the fuck out of it.

There has to be, it's gotta be an illusion. It's gotta be some sort of illusion, right? It has to be. is naturally invisible like the creature. Or it's like hallucinatory charing. What? Keep throwing it on, is it the entire chasm? Just throw it at all of the points to see

if it falls and hits any, ever something. You have an unlimited of these. And for the next 10 minutes, it's just every like 10 seconds, it's, I'm writing that down. My spell takes 10 minutes to cast and I'm like, taking a little bowl out. I'm putting the insects in a little bowl. I'm getting sweatier and like more frantic and anxious

Well, well, he does that. Let's keep looking for some coral fish. You do this. You are in the process of putting the incense in the bowl, incense that you could have acquired easily within the manner. I had, honey, did some at the market for me. I had forgotten. I couldn't remember.

Yes, yeah. I am thinking about your material components. You do that. So, yeah, that's why I was asking for it last session. And you are doing this, and it becomes very obvious, very quickly. There is only one true path. There is a path that seems to be something of a bridge going all the way to the other side, 200 feet long. That's as narrow as the entrance is.

So no handles, nothing else to stand on but a thin pathway. Everywhere else that you throw the coin, left right, even at a slight degree, hits nothing but air, but does not fall a full 500 feet before popping back into your hand. It's a bridge. I'm pretty sure. Oh, you know, truly this is the last crusade. It's an invisible bridge to the waterfall? I suppose. And to be clear, the waterfall.

And it's less than 10 feet down. Over here. So you're only getting a little bit of spray. You will spray here, and the direction of wind would be going in this direction. You can hear the rushing torrent, but from this vantage point, you would be free and clear to walk if you wanted to do Brickett. And that, I will say, is when the ten minutes concludes for whatever you're doing, you're near. Do you feel confident? Or would you like me to use my mind's eye?

I think you should still use your mind's eye if you're repairing it, because we still need to look for fish. It's all been happening simultaneously. Yeah. Just give me a moment. So you were in here. I light the bowl of incense and I set it down and I sit down and I cross my legs and I put my hands together and I'll close my eyes. And I will say, the olden, album, Mahmute, the triumbrit, three. Together, you are the old father, grant me sight beyond sight.

Grant me passage beyond this mortal body. Let me ascend into your realm so that I may see beyond. And then you'll sort of notice you're near falsely. It gets very quiet. if you were to investigate him, living for the next hour, or however long this goes, he will appear asleep.

And I will cast... Are you like astral projecting? This is a custom spell for the campaign of icebox? What the fuck? Yep. So I would like you to read it in full. I will. Holy shit.

This spell is a third level spell. Let me use it. It is called DreamSite. Oh! Let's go. Your brain's going to get just instantly. I'm going to visit the beard. For those of you who just watching

who weren't aware of when I started the campaign or haven't gotten this information because it's been a while since I've said this. All casters in Icebound have gotten a selection of additional custom spells. Everyone except for me. You're going to get other stuff. You got cool stuff.

Anyways. You said casters. You're not a castor. You can never go fishing, unfortunately. He did say caster. So, for every level of spell that they're going to get in the campaign, they will have an additional selection.

of possibilities that aren't just cool for them, but spells that I think are really juicy and flavorful, and it appears that Rich's selected DreamSight. I have. So, DreamSight, third level divination. Casting time, 10 minutes. Range slash area is self. Components are semantic and material, being incense.

Duration is one hour, and the spell reads, you fall into a deep sleep, and your spirit leaves your body, and travels ethereally and invisibly. Incredible. You need a flying speed. of 90 feet. Holy shit.

You can pass through solid objects and creatures as if they were difficult to rain. You take one D10 force damage if you end your turn inside an option. See your ghost. You have the same principles as a ghost. You are blocked by any spell or effect that blocks ethereal creatures and can be seen by creatures with

true sight, so I don't know how else you're going to work. Or that are using true seeding. You are immune to all non-magical damage. You cannot speak, attack, cast spells, or perform any action while in this form, than moving and observing. You can only run.

If you took damage in any way while in spirit form, you retain that damage upon awakening. Oh, wow. And at higher levels, your speed goes faster. Incredible. If I die in dreams, do I die in real life? Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. So my spirit will basically leave my body ethereally. Yeah, I imagine that your spirit is exactly where it would normally be. But there's like a doubling almost where all of a sudden your, Right. Ethereal form. And I step up.

But that my form is invisible on the mortal plane, on the present aerial plane. And it would take someone, it would take a monster, true sight, order to see you. He's under the effects of fairy thunder. Yes, his sleeping frame will be, I guess it would expire at the end of ten minutes. Yeah. It's one minute. Oh, is there one minute? Okay.

So it's gone now. No, no, it would have been cool if it's sleeping blue or a, you know. Yeah, somebody would have that. You stand and you, there is no gravity. You feel like you could go up, down, around. You could go into the floor if you wanted to. You could fly just by the mere thought at a much faster speed than you would have otherwise. This site that has been granted to you by the triad by Odin has allowed you to this supernatural ability, and you are alive with awareness.

Bad ass. I will step out first onto what I think is the invisible platform. In the ethereal plane, what was an invisible illusion is an obvious bridge. You look out and connecting to this side and going to the other side, it glows brightly with ethereal magic. It is as if this bridge is right there in front of you. As easy to walk across as any bridge or path or almost like walking across a log that's felled across a river. And is it go this way or it goes? It goes straight across to the other side of the castle.

I want to first, and if my speed, my flying speed is 90, could I be using my action to dash and go 180 feet every six feet? Your mind's eye could absolutely turn and go, ooh. First, I'm basically going to turn here and fly behind the water. I'll see if I see anything. Oh. you turn and you go at a diagonal

leaving the feet of your feet off of the bridge and you disappear into that side of the waterfall you start to pierce through you're moving at a tremendous speed and oh my nose you push you push through and it's even in this ethereal state there's there's a tremendous amount of darkness it seems that you that behind this thick wall of water

there appears to be a huge cavernous cave open. I will, realizing that I want to sort of look around anywhere else, like basically before I go all the way in, I want to look around and see if I see any other structures, and if I can see what's at the end over here. If it looks like, can I see like a door, is it just that far away where? There does appear to be an illusory door on the other side. What would normally appear to be a solid rock to any observer looking down casually from what you can only assume are the beautiful views looking down, you start to peek and there does appear to be almost a square frame.

As simple as walking through it, should one know it's there. Knowing that the bridge is physical to us and we could potentially altogether walk this way, I want to prioritize going places that a flying ghost would be able to get, But my friends could make a perception check. So then I'm going to go into... I will go behind the waterfall. That's the wrong guy. Oh, this is...

I get these your drinks. It's okay. You can twist it. Twist it. Yay. Pulling out. Yeah, he's used to. Your ghost mode.

That's fine. This is very important. My perception's pretty good. Yeah, see my... There's going to be like a silver eye. I see you. Yeah. Oh, no!

Oh, no! Oh, no! It's a little bit of a jailer reference. 15. 15. Intent, you start to speed forward five, ten feet, and you are looking in this dark, dark cave. Even with your ethereal vision, your dark vision that is still enhancing your sight, you feel that you would have to travel in hundreds of feet perhaps to find the back of the mouth

of this cave that sits behind the waterfall, but you move 90 feet a second, and you start to dash forward using your action, only to be caught 30 feet in. And looking down, you see a hand, holding onto the foot of your ethereal form. The hand is connected to an arm, connected to an ogre's body,

and a gnarling, rat, roaring, slobbering ogre holds on, and to your horror, behind him. Dozens of additional ghastly apparitions, not aberrations, but ghostly spirits are coming up, moving almost as quickly as you are,

and you seem to be caught. You take from this withering grasp... Oh, no! Five. Oh, my God, withering grasp. You take 21 points of necrotic damage as suddenly you are sapped of a tremendous amount of energy

from just this one touch. Does his body, like his physical form do anything? Are you completely like, do you not... Coming back to the three of you. It's up to you. Coming back to the three of you. Silence, sleep, emotional. I wouldn't even really notice.

Any luck on these crawfish. Help me understand the crawfish thing. What are you guys doing? We're looking for any aquatic creature, any fish, any crawfish, any, anything with the swimming speed. Oh. is what I'm looking. I'm asking Queenie to help me seek out.

This is a shallow, I mean, even at this mouth where everything is needed. There doesn't appear to be any life life. You know, there's nothing to feed on for a Cromeda. There's no, it's not like a river battery. It's not a gotta, okay. This is more like to use an anachronism in Ghostbusters when they go down, in Ghostbusters too, when they go down into the subway, and there's like the river of Oudes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is like a subway clean style. Got it. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. This shit went from zero to 120. Yeah, I know. In the instant that happens,

I want to perceive as much as I can. Do I see the walls of the cavern? Do I just see overghosts? Do I see any other creatures? The ogre ghosts all seem to be coming up from the, from where the water was. And it's very much like the undead army in Lord of the Rings. Oh, my gosh.

Where there's just this swimming wave of ogres. What appear to be dozens and dozens of these spirits, all mindlessly roaring and looking at you with a combination of sadness and fear and rage and hate. And you are distracted by that, but you attempt to focus your mind. You look out, and I'll have you make an additional perception check. At disadvantage given the pain of what is happening to your spirit in this time. Not bad. Okay, okay, okay.

Plus eight, so that's 17. With a 17, you look into the darkness and you can see the 60 feet, black and white. You feel like if you could make it another 100 feet, you might be able to perhaps see the back of this exit. You look at the cave walls, they appear to be totally natural. You look at the ceiling. There are stalactites. You look at the ground. You can see that there is a pooling water, and there are still ghosts, and they are clamming up on you.

The one that had grabbed your ankle has now, like, pulling itself up onto your waist. A second one grabs and latches onto you. You take an additional 10 points of necrotic damage. Please don't die. I would like to. attempt to ghost my way out. Okay. And turn on evasive maneuvers

and basically fly as fast as I can further back in the cave, but avoiding ghosts. I can't shake them. Okay. The can't row behind. Do a barrel. Also, let's make this a contest. Do a barrel. What did you get? Oh.

A contest. Any kind of skill or... Yes. Sorry. I was rolling a contest. Oh, because I'm not physical. Right. So what would be my... Your spell casting?

How do you... I mean, it would be movement, right? But your... It's mind. But it's mind movement. Is it will? Yeah, but a will check. Like a wisdom check.

Whatever the DM says. But you've rolled your number at least. Yeah, I rolled my number. We'll just see with a modifier. But I'm going to have to think about what a modifier we're both going to use. I completely agree. It's a difference between wisdom and charisma. Because charisma is usually the willy ability score.

I should have thought about this. We're going to do wisdom, because you're your nearing wisdom is your chief deal. Let me ask my party members. I rolled a 12. Should I twist? Do you use two twists. What's your whiz? Five.

I would use two twists. With a plus five, I feel like it's worth. We just got six twists from Sloss of 80s. It's worth. I feel like it's worth. Sloss is trying to help. We have so many sloths. Much better.

That's huge. I mean, not much, but three more is good. That's huge. 23. Yeah. With a dirty 20, I'll say that you dash away and you're able to pull free from the necrotic energy. You get an additional dash. You make it a full 180 feet into the cave mouth and you are confronted by an impossible site,

something that doesn't seem real to you for a moment. It looks like a giant head. giant head or a what's the word I'm looking for? A helmet. If you could look at the back of a helmet, some reflective, impossible, large structure that is smooth and alien

and you are caught up with. Suddenly you turn around and you are being attacked by not just one, but two, but three different ogres, and they collide with you like a wave and overwhelm behind you as you are paused in this moment. This is so fucked.

You take 27 points of necrotic damage. Oh my God. As they are attempting to consume you, to grab onto you. They are just on your heels. You can push forward if you want to, but it is a losing battle.

These creatures haven't seen anything like you perhaps for however long they've been in this space. And they have seen obsessed, possessed, focused on somehow getting you and bringing you down with them. You will see the tidal wave of ogre ghost smash into Yornear. In that moment, Yorneur's form just blips out.

And his physical form, he returns to his physical form, unconscious. So you would like fall over. Would you scream or anything? Is there any drop? And you peel over, and the meditating, sleeping, your nearing, just plashes into the pool of running water just in front of him into the sewer system. And you all see and hear this. My question is, would you be able to draw, if possible,

exactly what I saw in terms of, like, my vision in that final moment, seeing this head, helmet, back of the helmet, structure thing. Is it like a paneled helmet? Is it a... I would say that I will give you a rough sketch. Oh. But...

And I will say that details could be emerged by Yornear dwelling on this immediate vision because right now it's clounded by the panic. Even for someone like Yornear, the sudden violence that occurred would make it very difficult to even think of those details. But you did see with your eyes and going back and revisiting the memory might further additional details. However, let me see if I can do something. Okay. Perfect. You just do it like in the river.

Right here, it's fine. So. The chasm. The chasm. Looking in, there was the bottom of the cavern. there was the steep sides of the cavern and the many open stalactites and everything pushing down right and you started to get a suggestion of something large and lodged in the deep recesses of this cave mouth when you say lodged you mean like like physically stuck it felt it felt like

there were that it was almost as much a part of the cavern so it was fastened into it like Perhaps fastened or lodged in some way. Got it. And there was a very round, reflective material, almost like a helmet like this, let's say. Oh. And perhaps you got a few details of some dashes here, some lines or something like this. But you would have been a dot in comparison to the size of this. This is a building-sized thing that existed in this space.

And as the, your dark vision only being 60 feet and even in that ethereal space being what it was, you were only very confronted by the very front of this thing before you were consumed by the hand of the ogre's spirits. So the only question I'll ask for Rich, and then I'll give up. I'm sorry. Did you or near get a sense of what kind of material it was? Is it metal? Is it metal? Is it... When you are ready to rewritten that question, I would have him roll for it.

And same with the ethereal question. What's the ethereal question? Did it appear to him as it was in our plane or in the ethereal plane? Oh, it did not appear like the bridge as though it was shielded by any kind of illusory magic. It's just there. If you had been flying, you would have felt like you'd see the same site. It is just there, but obscured behind the thick walls of the waterfall. So I could have been a bat in there, flying around, and I would have seen the same thing.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fortunately, you can't wild shape into flying. Not yet. That's probably for the best. Mr. Yornear! Yeah, so do we notice that something is wrong? Like, he slums and fell into the slugs. Yeah, I mean, that can't be normal.

That doesn't seem normal to you at all. And anyone of you who chooses to jump on that fact would be able to immediately attend to Yornear. He doesn't seem to be in his meditative state. His breathing is hurried. His complexion has changed. He's perhaps going a little pale. even in your dark vision black and white sight and the minimal, not minimal,

but the moonlight that pours in through this space, you can see there's something wrong going on with your nears. Oh, God. It's only been a minute. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. I rush over to him. I place my hand on him.

I'm going to cast cure wounds. You do that. I will have been far in looking for crawfish, like looking for any sign of life. Crabbs. I'll rush him. over with Queenie, but I don't have any way to help. I'm just kind of like freaking out.

You're watching. 11 points of healing. 11 points of feeling. Well done. Thank you. Thank goodness we have two people to heal. You speak the words, you make the necessary semantic gestures, and your magic, your innate ability to heal things rushes into you, and you're near, you spring back into

consciousness, taking the full amount of healing. Oh. Oh. Are you all right? I'm alive I found Ogre Heaven What? What does that mean? Did you go to hell like Mr. Sabascoach?

No, well, they are This is a bridge And the bridge goes across to a door I believe we could go there in our physical forms Are we in any danger, Mr. Yorne here? Not that I'm aware of I don't know, I don't know But I went

I left my body I flew behind the waterfall and I entered the cavern the great cavern hundreds of feet tall and all of a sudden I was attacked

by spirits by ogres ogre spirits that were aberrishents like Mr. Shappasco said that sunk in the eyes and looked horrified and pained and

and lecrotic and they filled me with these dark deathly energies and inflicted harm on my material form

so they must not be able to get us right now then, right? I mean otherwise we'd be swamped or the tortured ghosts of the dead those with that can

see sight beyond that have the sight beyond sight like I did that could see the ethereal plane they were able to see me. I'm hoping that they're at least trapped in that plane. But I don't know. I believe that is where these ogres that are going through ogre heaven,

this is what is happening. Your spirit was there. You were a ghost as well? I was in so many words, yes. But then I escaped the ogres the first, and I was able to fly to the back of the king. cave and I saw something massive in the cave.

It was it was reflective. It was it was reflective. It was a structure. It was it. I want to ask a medic question but I won't. Make an intelligence

check at advantage. What do you mean reflective like armor? Like like like a... Like my shell? Intelligent straight intelligence? 15. 15.

Details are starting to bubble up from the surface of your subconscious. And the reflective quality was unnatural. It didn't feel like metal. It didn't feel like smooth stone.

It felt like a material that shouldn't be present in a cave. Starting to get other features sort of almost like ribs and perhaps a platform that it sits upon. You're starting to get a sense of

in your panic as you were being consumed by the ogre spirits. Is there a hint of thin choir of voices almost? Something just faint. Something that you could hear over the waterfall, just barely, just as you lost consciousness. I'm remembering now it was

sitting on some kind of platform and there were ribs were the ribs like on the outside of the... Wrapping around perhaps the top of the helmet would say. The rib, sort of rib shapes wrapping around the top of the helmet. For an instant, I could hear voices. The choir of... Is it the torture?

ogre spirits? I don't know. It didn't sound like giant to me. Okay, so you saw this thing, and it's just, it's also just a ghostly apparition

and it's not, it's all just over there and it's not in our area? No, no. The structure, the structure was there. I could have been in that cavern as a bat. What? And it would have been there. That was not. It's over there right now. It is right. It is over there right now as we speak.

And the ghosts are there one way or another. Whether they're in the ethereal plane or the material, it doesn't matter. They are there as well. Well, we can't stay here. We can't stay here. Are they coming here? Oh, those bastards took me pipe. I don't believe they had any way to know what I was, who I was, if my body was here. I don't think so.

You've never felt the crave of the row pouch stronger than this moment. It is true. It's been now days since you've had a puff. I know, just my spice box, a little bit of salt to throw over shoulders for some good luck. Did the reflective material feel like a shell of any kind? like an unnatural some sort of kiteon

crab crustacean anything you could make a parallel it was like you said it was reflective it wasn't metal it wasn't

quite natural shell like my lady of the sea like an unnatural shell yes oh this can't be happening No, no, no, no, no, no. It is as if it is wedged there or an intentionally positioned there. I don't know.

I don't care for spirits, Mr. Yoranir. Them dragon folk were fine because I didn't know they were ghosts until afterwards. They are very deadly. Believe me. Well, is that? Oger Heaven is a cave with a bunch of ghosts. Is that true? I don't know if there are ghosts.

Would Queenie have been able to sense if they were undead? I'm not sure. I don't know. But if they're not in the prime material plane. Oh, that's a good point. That means, I want to know that. Well, that means they can get us, unless they can phase in and out. I don't have any spells, lots of do it again anyway.

No, I mean, could you read the spell and check to see if undead is one of the options? Yeah, it's one of the options, yeah. It's like Shepard using it in Borovia. Undap. It doesn't require the same plane. It doesn't say. As an action, you can expend one ranger spell slot to sense whether any

aberration, celestial, dragons, elemental, space fiends, or undeads are present within one mile of you, or within up to six miles if you're in your favorite terrain. The theater doesn't reveal the creature's location or number. I feel like Shepard could tell you that if the undead were on the mortal plane, you would have sensed them.

that if they were trapped in the ethereal, that they may just be trapped there. They're not the natural world. Not something where they would be able to touch you in an adjacent plane, even as neighboring as the... The specter going to show up and slash us and... They're not like spilling in like there's an undead taint. They're trapped. So now what? Now what the fuck do we do?

I dance around. I started doing it circles. Is this because I ate all those eggshells? This could be in, Mr. Stabaskolch. Well, no, these aren't witches. These are abortions. I really messed up, Barnabos. I'm sorry.

Oh, you know, these aren't witches. These are worse. Yorneur, you're hurting. You are all feeling the trek of the many hours of the walk, and the adrenaline of Fiornier's experience in his tale is taking its toll. You know that you are in the dead midnight, or perhaps closer to one, in the more. at this point, just giving you a little context of the time.

Look, we're down at Taichin. We're very far away from where we left. We have other pressing matters we need to worry about it. Even if we do get our Taichin, what are we going to do about all this? We have to figure out what... We can walk across this bridge and open that door and see what's on the other side. But I cannot do it until I rest. Wait, let's take a rest.

We had that gigantic gladiator battle, like, this morning. I know. Like a few hours ago. I know. About six or seven hours ago at this point. Let's take a little rest. There's no immediate pressing danger. I agree.

I think we should go back and make sure that Pyshan is okay. I know. Let's slow on. We should see the door now. You've alerted something. to our presence. If there's anything in that structure, like you said, if it's a structure, that means that it has inhabitants. Oh, Barnabas is right. They're going to, whatever it is going to know that we're here.

And if the ogre spirits knew you were there, Mr. Yornear, whatever put them there, we'll know as well. I suppose that's true. So all of those ogres that win the lottery and ascend to heaven, a pile of tortured ghosts. Is that what you're telling us? Yes. I don't know I didn't see any physical bodies, so I don't know what's happening to them. But what I do know

is that that structure's on this side of the ravine, and there's something else on the other side of the ravine. If that's a door that you have seen and we can open it, At the very least, we can sprint back and scroll our way up. So you think we should go now?

I do. I. We may not get another chance. I don't like this idea, Barnabos. Neither do I miss just stab us because of what chance do you have? No, I don't know. We are cattle. Our livestock in this place.

I would rather die trying to claw my way. of freedom, then just bide my time as a waiting to be turned into veal. I just keep moving forward, Mr. Stabascoch, always like to see in the sky. If we, if you could let me finish my rest, I could go. But I believe if we face another threat even close to the magnitude that I witnessed in that cavern we need to run. Boy, we will. I want to go home.

I just want to go home. There's no going home now. Hey, Mr. Stavisgawksh, home is long gone. There is no home. Right where you are is your home. We are wayward vagabonds, Mr. Stabasgolch. And I refuse to come. Call this prison my home.

I refuse. Fine. Fine. You're in here, rest up. And then we sprint across the bridge, we check the door, and we get right out of here. Hi. All right. And then it's freedom.

Thank you for saving me. Oh, you're welcome. You calm yourselves and you take a short rest. You sit for an hour. and ponder the strangeness of this place, trying to put the puzzle pieces together. Fitting it here doesn't work. Fitting it here.

Fitting it here, perhaps some pieces are yet missing. But with the hour that you have, you're near, you patch yourself up. You take a moment. You give yourself the rest that you need to recharge some of your energy before choosing to push on deeper and deeper.

And that hour passes very quietly with only the sound of trickling water. Amazingly, reaching the edge and flowing down. There is no bridge, though you all know that should you put a foot out, you would be standing on nothing again, very similar to your time atop the mountain at the beginning of winter.

What happens next? It's up to you. All right. I'm ready. I mean, you saw the door. I hate to make you go first, but God's knows I'm not going first. I will try to get my bearings. I am going to make sure that we, if there's any risk of falling, I'll reach out and grab you. And I'm going to and like crab my lagging, an attempt to as we scale down. to grab the bridge and move my way with my crab claws, and in case anyone falls, I want to try to grab them.

Okay. For what it's worth, and perhaps your near can verify this, but as I was throwing the coin, it looked like it's just a straight shot. Straight ahead. It paused. Bees. Could you just line the bridge for me, please? And I want to have the bees just fly around the bridge and make a straight path on either side. Like a movie theater.

Yeah. The island airfield. The island airport. Very, very literally. They can turn every few seconds and you get yellow and black. It makes it extremely easy to see where the barriers of this is, thanks to your form. You remain secure and you are keenly aware of your companions as you crossed this bridge.

And the only thing to overcome is the uncertainty of would you slip? Would you just lose yourself and your balance from the fear? of walking across a bridge like this. However, I will not make you roll for anything. You are level six heroic adventurers and a fantasy role-playing game. You are able to cross the distance, soon enough, 200 feet later,

of walking steadily and confidently, you make your way across the chasm looking down into a deep pool of moonlit water and against the face. To your right, a massive, waterfall crashes down into the fathoms, and you can see even behind you what appears to be the thin railing of the city of Ogerton, where their boundary of their city would overlook this Krabah. Way 150, 200 feet up in that direction on the other side now that you have this

vantage point. Yorner, taking the lead, you stare at what should be rocky cliff face, slippery, impossible to pass through. And I won't even make it. you roll play it, you push your hand out with confidence, and it passes through the rock, just as you would expect it to with the ethereal sight that you'd had of this space. You know that you can take another step forward and enter whatever lies beyond. Just a peek. Just a peek, and we're out of here. We're not sticking around. Just so we can get some kind of information about whatever this is. I'll have some apt to mindingly pat like my chest, where I would have,

like the loop that I made for my pipe in my netting, and let's just clutch the horrible, this like robe and I'll curse and spit on the ground. It's like when someone's quit smoking and they usually had their pack in that. Exactly. Yep, yep. I'm definitely like clutching it.

I'm very clearly nervous and on edge. The Justin mention of spirits puts Barnabos on his toenails, it seems. But you see Yornear disappear through the rock face and the three of you follow. And it's only thanks your complete dark vision that you're able to see the inside of what is now a cavern. The sandy path of rough rock and gravel making its way up, up, up, and to the right, almost

leading towards the structure that you saw in the cave mouth. Okay, look, it's just a bunch of dirt, we gotta go back. We gotta go back. It's just dirt and rock. It appears to be not clean. stone cut manufactured. This appears to be like dug out. This appears to be perhaps a natural formation or it appears to be chiseled. Yes. It does

appear to be one of the other. But it is not masonry. It is not architected. It is not clean the way the sewer system. There we go. Dirt and rock. Nothing there. Time to go back. Let's go. No. We are not going back now. Oh, come on. No, no, no, no. No. No. No. No. No.

And I'm going to basically treat him like a lantern. Come me down, come in down. You're going here. I'm flailing wildly. And I will lead the group for the rest of us. Are you with me? Hi. Queenie?

I'm here, aren't I? I'm not complaining like stream. All right. I will continue. Man, where the sidewalk ends. So. You turn and you make your way up and you continue only able to see 60 feet, but it only takes you a few minutes of walking before the path curves to the right

and you're confronted 60 feet ahead of you just as it fades from pure fog of war into vision what appears to be a very strange door. This door is inset looking like a craft you've never seen. before. It doesn't have a dwarven feel to it or any door that you would naturally see, but it is angled and pushed in. There's like three or four different borders all around it before you finally find the flat face of what appears to be like a dark metallic door. 60 feet and there doesn't appear to be a doorknob, a keyhole, any kind of kind of markings on it. It's plain and smooth, but it is impossibly here.

Natural cavern, hey, Mr. Savasgotch. Well, it was, all right. You can't argue with that. Does this door appear to remind us of the obelisk? Oh. Oh. No. Not the same kind of one. No, absolutely not. Okay. Absolutely not. It has this, um, the same kind of general reflectiveness that you vaguely recall from your last moments before being pulled into unconsciousness. This material, what is the 1800s, like, classic gun make, like, cold iron? There's a type of iron that has that, like, black, almost, what's the word for it? Gunmetal, right? Like, gun metal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This has a bluish gun metal feel to it. Well, if only the ogres hadn't stolen my lockpick set, we could get right through those doors, but I guess we have to go back. Does it still go even the lock-on-based? I don't know. Don't ask me questions like that, yorner. Rot iron. Oh, rot iron. Oh, we could take a closer look. Does it...

I guess not rest it. I will flash my eye and use detect magic to see if I sense anything on the door. You push out with Detect Magic and you get the background auras of your companions. And looking at the door, you have a sense that it has some magical properties. How far as the distance, what is the range of the detect magic? I think it's 30 feet. So you've gotten closer to the door in order to trigger this ability. Yeah, unfortunately.

And you see you're walking 30 feet forward and he's within Detect Magic distance. I'll be with him. You are right behind him. I'm unwillingly with you. One clawed arm over his shoulder. And you're right, you're still being carried. The four of you, almost like in the Wizard of Oz as they approached the wizard in that hall for the first time, the four of you are cautiously in your way forward.

Only I'm tone up. I'm tone out. And you have a sense that there is magical properties, but it does not give you a give you a school or any additional information. There was something magical about this door. Not getting anything specific. Do we even know it's locked? We won't know unless we check.

I want to at least learn what kind of beings are doing all of this. We still don't know. We still know nothing. That's true. I care less about the knowing than just finding a way out. of this mess. I will approach the door. I wouldn't ask anyone else, too.

I'll do it. Well, you should probably do it. You'll do it? Yeah, I'll do it. I don't have any spails left, so if anything happens to you, I can't help you. I'm all tapped out magically. And I could help you. Yeah, and I'm brave. And when we were fighting all those ogres, they didn't touch me at all because I was too busy trying to kill you.

I will be right next to you. use your rabbit legs to vault off if anything bad happens. Oh, yeah, I will. And use your rabbit ears. Listen to see if you hear chorus of voices. All right. You're only here, could you just put me down first, please? Oh, yes, of course.

You want to come with me, Scream? Nope, and as soon as my feet hit the ground, I'd be like stirring away behind one of us. All right. Queenie, you approach the door? Yeah, come on, bees. I'll be like 10 feet back in case there's like, so I can decide to jump in

help. Scrim is holding onto my lower crab legs and he's like peering over the other side. Wait, so I'm picturing that Barnabos is like Urgot mode Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I don't think, I mean, if I could do that, that's exactly what I would do. I don't know, it's up to the DM. It's very, it's very vague. If I can Ergot mode for that, I would million percent. I mean. Oh, basically my,

the lower half, I don't have any legs anymore. I just have crab legs. Um, What's his name? Kenneth Brana from Wilde West. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like Gary Oldman. No, it's Kenneth.

Yeah, man. That movie is unappreciated. I like that movie. It was made by a stupid man, but let's move on. I'll tell the story of John Peters later. The point is, is that if you wanted to, I would be happy to let you theme

the crab legs underneath your torso as opposed to stretching out. Yeah, yeah, I think that would be way cool. You are, um, Basically looking like a boss fight from Diablo 3. I know, shotgun.

Oh, yeah, literally that. Asmoda. Asmada. Asmada is exactly. Exactly. And Queenie marches forward. Queenie March marches forward. And you do.

And you get 15 feet, 14, 12, 10. And it's just as you are feeling confident that there's no trap, no issue. Your pendant pushes against your neck, choking. And it actually takes you a moment. you pull back and testing the waters, you can feel you can't get 10 feet closer to this door without the necklace against your throat, pushing as though some invisible stiff arm is holding you there. Well, it looks like you can't get closer. I'm going to choke to death.

Well, let's cut these damn things off. This is the first thing I wanted to do when I woke up. You have the blade, Mr. Stabascotch. What are they actually made of? some sort of flexible strap. It's surprisingly easy to forget that it's on your person. Even when you do this, a pendant that's a size of, that hides a scar like what you saw on Daisy's throat should tuck into the bottom of your...

It should be a constant reminder, but it's easy to forget. It feels like a thin leather almost, but it's flexible. You can't get your finger underneath it terribly much, but if you move your head, it moves with you. It seems magically affixed to your neck in this way, and the simple, round nature of the crystal at the forefront of your neck at the Adams apple is always facing forward.

I'm going to try. What's the worst that could happen, right? I want to get this damn thing off. Or perhaps. You want to try removing mine first? I was going to try it on myself first. good with my blade, it's not unlike shaving. I think that perhaps I can

tighten up my neck a little bit and see if I can get it open before I die. What? I'll just get covered in a little bit of seawater, get a little bit of crab in me, and hope maybe I'll be able to resist passing out long enough to at least

try to open the door. Well, I mean, even if you open the door, it doesn't mean that the force will prevent, we'll go away. I mean, we might not be able to get in past the threshold. It feels like there's something stopping you, basically. Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, these necklaces are really screwing with us anyway. We shouldn't have them all. They're not part of us. All right, I'm trying it. Here we go. I'm going to summon the brutal blade.

Don't cut her head off. I'm going to do it on myself. What does that look like when I summon them? Or smell like? Well, there's, so I would hold my hand up and there would definitely be an element of like smoke, but it's, it's, it's, It's almost instant. Like it pops into existence, and there would be almost like a brimstone. You normally...

What? Brought eggs. Yeah, exactly. Sulfur. Brimstone and sulfur and fire. And you would normally hear something accompanied with my magic, but it's too much rushing water and whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Being as good as I am with my knife, I have shaved with it. before, you know, it's a giant, brutal blade. And I'm just going to very quickly attempt to, you said I could get a finger in there? You could get a blade underneath it, perhaps. I will not even hesitate to just very, very deftly attempt to slice this. Again, like shaving. It's something I've done hundreds of times. You put the blade up against the side of your neck and push through and underneath the strap. And you, are smelling the brimstone

that has accompanied your ability to summon this and you realize it has this very familiar odor, something that you just experienced ogre heaven. That smells very almost identical. Putting that thought out of your mind, you take the blade side of it

and you turn it outwards and you start to attempt to cut through it. You pull down, You work the blade back up and underneath. You continue to saw at it. You know that this is sawed through bone and flesh. Oh, you bastard. Stretching it out, you can barely get it an inch away from your neck before it snaps back,

and you have to pull the blade up free. It seems that it cannot be cut, even by the magical blade that is brutal, that is scrimms. Damn it! It didn't work. It doesn't work. It won't cut. How didn't Molyland get it off? He made a deal, didn't he say that? He said they made the deal to get out. He's alive, isn't he? Violin?

Yes. Well, last time I saw him, he punched me in the face, so yeah, he's very much alive as of a couple days ago. Just one day. Two days. We need to get Pasha and then we need to find the violin. Oh, now we know how to get to him being undetected. We'll go into the sewers of the, uh,

House of Commerce. He's not going to be very happy to see us, but we'll do the best that we can. Should I try to just crab it? I know I've tried to solve every, every, every problem by evolving to crab. I know. I'm just worried that you might cause

permanent damage to your throat or your neck. Or you'll unleash something. You'll be out of commission because you'll be unconscious. and the rest of us will have to watch it consume your body without being able to get closer to you you could try maybe just try to just give it a little shove

just a smidge past what Queenie did and see what happens but don't push yourself it's not like the choke in made it so I didn't want to move forward I couldn't move forward so I don't think you having a hardened neck or whatever

is going to stop is going to allow you to get closer to that thing. What if I try just to brute force my way? Just a stupid hand, right? Your hand's not 10 feet long. You may certainly try. I'm doing this. There might be ghosts in there.

I scuttle around. I'd like to think you just like did the entire. Yes. Do you want to be? alone with ghosts. Oh, you know. But I'm just going to try to push a little bit. You range. You transform. You change. I get crab claws. I will try to get, you know, there'll be a little bit of crab, you know, shell on me. Jules Verne would be so proud. And I am just going to try to force my way climbing along the bottom effectively to pull my way through as much

I have, but if I feel like I'm resisting through my barbarian strength, I'm going to back off. You give a good sprint. You're racing four times as fast as the bad guy from Monsters Incorporated. Reynolds? No, the boss guy who is also. Spoilers, the evil boss guy. Yeah, spoilers, the evil boss guy. The Monsters, Inc.

And you sprint forward, and it seems that there's a very clear thing that has. happens. The necklace stops here. Whatever momentum your body had, gooshes forward and hits and then it brings you and you get clotheslines. And you fall back and all of your limbs and all of your crab. I'm a crab on my bag. Our permit crapping up into the air in this fashion. Okay. I try to tell him. Okay. You were right, Queenie. I try to tell you. I'm. Oh, well. Okay.

Okay, you're right. I'll reach my hand down. Anyone knows that this drawing here kind of looks like a baboon when you look at it upside down? Nice. A baboon? I was trying to draw it off a lot. I was thinking more of your honey pot,

the sort of hummy pot ass. Yeah, but that's if you're looking at it right side up. I don't see it. I'll grab your ear's hand. I thank you, Mr. Yorriere. Let us go back. Yeah. Having reached a impasse, an N impasse.

to grammatical. You turn and you safely make your way back down the interior of this strange cave, cross the illusory door to a bridge over a 500-foot drop down to water, you cross the bridge, you make it back into the sewer system, and you make your way up following the water, following the sound, and getting a renewed sense of how easy it could be lost in this space takes you a little time for you to was it this branch or was it this branch maybe we should have left some sort of sign no I think it was to the left

this is the one that leads to the house of knowledge is that the house of military no it's the house of knowledge and working your way through collaborating talking through your options and making your way hours hours past and you were well

you were halfway through the forest in terms of the eight hours of dark vision, when you feel your vision start to fade, Queenie and Yornear, you are still making your way up the straight shot that is this long grade back up to what you think is going to be the House of Knowledge altogether now when your vision turns off, and the two of you find yourselves in true pitch black

having to pause for just a moment in this space. Let me see if I can fix that. No, that's the scoffa. Oh, wait, next time, Ms. March, do you think one of your bees could be like at every turning point? No, I can't get that far away from it. They'll get lonely, I suppose. I'd get lonely, too, if I were...

The best thing you want are a bunch of sad bees. Oh, yeah, that's true. If I had thought of it, I could have used my druid craft to mark our path, but I didn't think of it, so... Hey, well, next time, you know, well, now we know. Dark Vision is second level. I have a feeling we'll be using these sewers quite a lot I have one more use so I'll give it to you

why don't you take it and you can just carry me around that's a good idea I will use it on myself and I will do you want to do I guess it's pretty narrow I'll just sort of carry you like this yeah that's fine can you ride on my shoulders it might be more comfortable oh I know you are a disgusting cramp

can you think me out of your ear? I do smell a bit like low tide I look at my rod and he's like, now I'm gonna pit. Yeah, there's like a little bit of like mandible, like what do you call that a crab has? Like, like licking the underside of a ship. It's a cute crab on TikTok that likes the grilled cheese or the peanut butter sandwiches.

No, I don't think I will do that. You're being carried by you in here. All curious who are like, you know, like this. Kind of like a pug. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Easy money. And another 30, 45 minutes in you. You feel like you've got to be 30 or 45 minutes more, and you'll be able to reach the underside of the manor, the villa, the villa of the House of Knowledge of the Genius.

And be able to push your way back up through the grate and find out how things have been going for the nine hours that you've been gone. It would be morning almost. And I will also add an additional detail, which is to say that you've noticed water increasing. There's additional water coming down and through. It's no longer just what seems to be occurring because of showering. You deduce with your great intellect the fact that it's probably raining, that there's water coming through the sewer system because of natural weather. And Queenie, you're up front with your neir,

and you are the first one to spy with your magical ranger eye. With my bunny eye. a warm light because you have gotten used to the fact that you are unable to see anything in the pitch black and you're not the one doing the trekking and so you're just keeping your eyes open and there seems to be a flickering warm light very much in the distance just just up the grade there's a flickering warm light up there like a torch i mean just look at it is it beautiful is it past where we're going or is It seems to be in the direction that you're headed.

Must be a vassal with some sort of lantern or torch. Sure. You continue on and you can hear footsteps. And sure enough, it does appear to be a vassal with a lantern or torch. A lantern, in fact. And illuminated in the light, you are confronted by the face of someone that you knew on the Moor Abound. Confronted by the lantern carrying. Myelan. You stare at each other for just a moment and he sees the four of you and illuminated by his lantern, you can see a scowl. He...

Hey, you can't punch me this time. There's four of us. Only one of you. There's no need for violence. Fuck you. Huh. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. No. You don't get to do that. He starts to walk and he's trying to... I'm going to jump in front of him. Don't you dare. I will. I will yell at you. I did my very best save your daughter and I'm doing my very best to save your second daughter with you left them. So you have no right.

You have no right right now, Mylan, to try and give me any sass about what we've done for them girls. You left them out in the middle of nowhere. With nothing. Daisy doesn't even know how. That's your youngest daughter, by the way. Doesn't even know how you got that damn thing off of her neck

for us to try and help her further. So don't you dare. You have any fucking idea what I had to go through? This is my only option was to get them out of here So that I could be here. You brought her back here. We didn't bring her back here at all. Do you think we wanted to be here? You think this was our intention?

If we didn't give a shit about that girl, we wouldn't be trying so hard to get her back out of here. And she's not the only one. If we can do something to free everybody, we're going to do it. Oh, drop the attitude. I tried to tell him he were ambushed you. He didn't want to hear, and he just punched me. You think being a dick's going to get you very far, my island, because it ain't.

Now, I understand. He's a horrible crab monster right now. And I just want to say, I apologize for that. There is nothing I can do about it. It smells horrible. It smells horrible. It's a captain's feast at Red Lobster. And I'm going to let him speak, because I'm sure you have something

whimsical and strange to say. We just need to know, Mylan, how you got these off. And what that fucking thing in the barrel was. Also, abandoning the crew is hanging. I knew. But we don't have any authority. On account of Captain Verme is dead. So we don't have any authority to hang you right now.

Why are you threatened? I'm not threatening. You're the one threatening him. I'm just saying, I'm reminding him that we are very gracious by not hanging him. We're not going to hang anybody. Who cares about that crew? The captain was a fucking joke. Well, we, until the crew

abandoned ship, it was our duty to not abandon him. Our fellow crewman. I admit, I was curious about what happened to you, but I'd thought that I'd saved my daughters. You have to understand how

confused and angry I was when I saw that Daisy Alcatra had returned that I'd learned that my other daughter, Clove, who you called honey, had passed away. We found her in the woods. She was struggling to hunt to bring home food for Daisy.

I know that it doesn't make any difference, but it was, they were doomed as soon as our crew set off on their own. They turned cannibal, turned into beasties, and they would have devoured both of them instead of it just won. It was through your daughter's incredible bravery, love of her family, and valiant efforts. that daisy's even alive today. Make a perception, a persuasion check of advantage. You raised an amazing girl.

You raised two amazing girls. Advantage. Oh, same number. So 18. What's going on? I like that. Let's say that I believe you. What good does it do?

What doesn't matter? We're all here forever. I did everything in my power. hour I could to try and see them safely, free in a way, to give them a chance, kind of like what I had, to make their way away from this terrible place. I, Mylan, you did, do everything you can. Everything in your power, you did. And I do think that you are a good father and you made the right decision, despite

That'd be in a hang. Your power, don't take this the wrong way, does not come close to matching the power of the five of us. And for what it's worth, your daughter thinks that we could start a rebellion. Mr. Yornear can turn into a ghost. I have, I just gesture to most of me. Mr. Scrim goes to hell. And he goes to hell and comes back to tell the tale of a giant turtle sand crab or something.

But mostly I have the knife. Miss March has bees. You think that you can undo this place? You were able to get your collar off, are you not? I got very lucky. I've always said it's better to be lucky than good. What did you do? How did you get lucky?

When I was a younger man, two infant daughters, toddlers, 15, 16 winters ago. We went hunting. Me and Comitus, the governor of the House of Commerce, go to the woods, go out into the mountains, find our way, and they were hunting and just out of curiosity or some notes. Not compelled, but I just pulled it free because I was not here in the city. Pulled it free, snapped off like a twig.

And I ran. I ran from the life that I had known my entire existence. I ran into the woods, and I survived on what I could. could. I found my way to... I mean, it's actually quite impressive. The northern coast. And I got lucky.

Again, there was a ship. A small ship just out on the coast, and I made a bonfire. They came to get me. Group of dwarves. Sailors. They took me in. And I spent the next 10 years. working as a part of their crew. Traveling up the archipelago up north, eventually found my

way to Wuzay. And I started to form a plan. For five years I worked on different ships of all sizes. But it was the Wusayans and their fascination with capital and and profit and trade and contracts that I remembered Gorgustis in the House of Commerce. I took the time to assemble what knowledge I could and found myself on a ship headed to the car, the more abound.

I met you there. I kept to myself as I'd done for, a decade and a half. And when I found, when I saw land, I couldn't help myself anymore. I knew that the city was close. I let myself be found, probably in the same way that you found, your captors, probably near a hot spring. And I traded. I traded my life, my servicitation.

as vassal and the knowledge that I could give Gork Gustus so that he might win the lottery in exchange for the two daughters' freedom. I had never seen it before, but I think all ogres know that with their wands and the right word, they can release the pendants on your neck. Yeah, of course. And he did. and even trade. They left.

I stayed behind. Why I couldn't protect them in the woods. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get back home before chores. I'd like to get home to make sure that I'm not cooked alive having delivered a letter to my daughter. Do you know what that thing on the ship was? Is it totally unrelated to this?

I'd never experienced a creature like that I didn't even know it was on board this was Captain Verme in his dealings he was he was shuttling that thing over to chalk if we'd ever made it it would have gone to its recipient

and done whatever damage it was intended to do there I just a strange coincidence before you go I just want to say that if you harbor any more resentment towards us, I want to ask you, have you considered if perhaps you failed? What the fuck does that mean? I don't believe in Barnabosa's superstitions, but you did abandon your crew.

You went alone. Do you know who killed Kloaf? It was a member of the crew. Do you know who almost killed Alcatra? Mr. Stonebridge. It was a member of the crew. Mr. Clemens. Your plan to trade for their lives without bringing anyone

that could help them survive. Bewilderness. You could have feigned ignorance if you had not lived in the Arctic, in the tundra, but you lived it. You knew how harsh it was. and to freedom with no plan to assist them. And you, curse at us, I believe all of this was fate. I believe it is us, it is us, because of us,

the reason that your one daughter is alive, and I believe fate has led us here to make sure that she is freed and you are freed. I'm not asking you to be grateful but I would request that you banish any resentment you have towards us. Thank you, Jornier. That's exactly what I said to him just as eloquently as you did. I'm sure. Perhaps having someone who knew about survival in such frigid climes perhaps could have saved the whole crew. Perhaps we could have figured out a plan. Dozens of us. Twenty-five of us were there on that group.

two dozen strong. Now that would have been a force to be reckoned with. And reaches up and touches the pendant, the pendant on his neck, and reaches down and picks up the lantern, barely gives you a glance before sidestepping the four of you. I'll get out of the way. And silently without another gesture, walking down. As he starts to walk away.

I'll say to him. Mylan, just so you. know, we will do what you weren't able to. Have a good night. And like a dying ember, his lantern disappears down, down into the sewer system. And the four of you find yourselves left alone with the now trickling sound of rushing water. Now that we're close to the vassals, I should probably do this. And my crab legs disgustingly turned back into my trite legs. Let this go.

And I'll just start to walk. Guys, I think we... 30 more minutes. I think we destroyed that man's whole career. Oh, yeah, no, he's not coming back. He's got to throw himself over the waterfall. 30 more minutes. You just...

He would hit the bridge. 30 more minutes. And you are staring up at a familiar... and pulling yourselves up, you are pleased to see that your sense of direction has not failed you. You pull yourself into the very early morning hours of the House of Knowledge, the House of Blighinius, the showers of the villa that you temporarily are calling home. Tyshen, what did you see in the shower? Hey, buddy, how's it going? What's going on?

You don't see Tyshen in the showers. You need to walk down and you make your way over to the hostel. and it seems that everyone is asleep. It seems that everyone is passed out. Not even Daisy is awake. Not even Taishan is awake. He seems to be lying down. And walking over to him, before you can even make a gesture to wake Tishan or make a sound,

you look into the crib, and there in that crib lies a child, a newborn baby, but two years old, with a pendant around its neck. And that is where we'll call tonight's session. Oger Magic. I can't believe that baby is two years old already. Two days. Two days. I know.

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