Legends of Avantris - Icebound | Ep. 37 | Icy Reception

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Our heroes reunite with a couple of old friends...   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/ySc2RsLC_oQ?si=qxektPosQTJ4mFFq

Welcome to Legends of Evantress. I'm Barnabos Dred Wake and you're listening to Icebound. Here's what happened last time. You fear the princess and then suggest to go face that thing. That was no woman. The look of her nose, the look of her teeth. They look in her eyes. I'm with Bonnebos on this one.

That was some crazy shit. I'm just thinking of her face. brings a black omen over this house. We've only had light parlay with the doors of this city. They may not let us pass, unperturbed. Would the queen allow tunnels to connect to the fortress? We need to build more wall. Exactly right. Get through it!

Defend against the snorks and grumpkins! We make it carried away in the dead of night! She starts to yell out. Build more wall! We're in the tent of night! wall. We need more for where we would and furniture. We need you to care down this wall and stay inside your boat. This is a decree of the-

What? The wind is not quite having. We're not interested in whatever you're selling. A decree of the princess, I say. You have to get inside and you have to stay there. We are supposed to monitor all of you. You're not going anywhere until the princess says so. He drops the horn to the floor and you see him look up

and he goes, Remove them! I need everyone to roll for initiative. Oh! The air shirt was screaming with my anchor towards his head. The bureaucrat. That escalated kind of quickly. You can't believe what has happened

in such a short amount of time. This blizzard still rages in all directions and you can hear the sound of movement from any direction. Looking around, you expect that there might be another Goliath or another Cobold. At some point, you start to walk through the buildings, getting a sense of the space,

getting a sense of this desolation, the Iron Bain Brotherhood, a 40-foot-tall, massive arched with iron doors, more gold than you've ever seen in your life. This is before you, as you feel Barnabos and Scrim join you, you reach the top step and skin hanging almost completely free from the bones. His flesh gone and his right hand taken. He puts both arms between the two bars and leans forward. Hello again, friends. You find yourself in the lowest levels of the biting bastion,

having snuck your way in by traversing the surprisingly dangerous under ice beneath the lake that surrounds this fortress. castle. The four of you have made your way in deep below this defended fortress, for lack of better word. It's only by merit of a lucky guess that you were able to find yourself where you find yourself. It's here that you found a treasure room in your search for your race for Queenie. It's here that you are, are, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, that you found. the dungeon, passing by these very little mountains of gold coin that you found a familiar face. The face of a Githianki that you know is Ketrestin.

He looks very different from the last time you saw him. Last time you saw him, he was with you in Ogerton. He had been found by the terrible machine construct that you've come to know as Secundus, and you've stolen away from you, unable to, or perhaps unwilling, to intervene. Standing before you now is not the Cyanuk warrior that you came to know in your journey through the Nauteloid ship on his quest for vengeance against the illipid. What you see now is a broken man. Tattered clothes, almost a hood of fabric over his head, shading his very dimly lit, mottled yellow face.

His skin hanging, emaciated, but more than that, seemingly cooked off of his very bones. And as he leans forward through the bars, he puts both arms up. and you recognize that one of his hands has been removed right at the wrist. He turns to each of you looking with sad and tired eyes. It's funny to see you again in this way. Hello again, friends. This is Kat Rostin. What happens next is up to you.

Oh my gosh, Ked. Is that you? in the flesh. What did they do to you? I have been here for some time now. They have been torturing me for information, for knowledge about the plane of logic, about my history,

and about the hexature armament. Listen, I just want you to know. We tried when that thing showed up And it came for you. We tried to hide you. We did everything we could. We didn't want to just turn you over. It's just, we don't know what happened.

It just all of a sudden it was, look, are we cool? It's all right, buddy. Are we, we, do we do what we could? How did you get here? What has been happening? Boy, we came beneath the ice. Who did this to you? Was it the metal man or was it these lot?

Is this a sneveling rat man? He has wings. He calls himself Vispang. Oh, you know. Whisper Fang. I'll get more I fucking asked. And he is not the only one. This woman, this princess of wrath,

she was a van who took this. And he holds up his arm and gestures to his hand. If it's any consolation, pretty sure the metal guy's dead, or at least in terrible agony. Oh, yeah, that problem was solved, but I think that, at least the princess seems to think, There's more coming.

I was with them when they fought. Secundus is dead. I saw him ripped from his body, but he... His head was kind of in a box. It was screaming. We don't really know where it ended up. Then there is still time. Time for what?

If he has not yet returned to the plane of logic, then they may not know that the hexager armament is here. There may still be time yet. Okay. linings, right, right? They wouldn't know that he's missing. He has to return, you believe, before his people would be alerted?

They wouldn't send someone after him? Eventually they would, yes, but he was here to find it on his own, and he was acting very strange. He was acting emotional, unlike any modron I've ever known. He was a little out of it, especially the screaming part,

But we saw him before when he was all in one piece, and he was kind of freaking out a little bit. It was an epic battle between him and this dragon that is known as the princess, but she is, she has powers that she should not. She is very strong, and he was not on his game. Hornibus, did you bring food? I think I have some, yeah. I think I have some salt beef.

some salt pork. Kid, please, you should have something to eat. Stay on your guard. It is oftentimes they come down, very close to this time of day that they come down and they gestures. I need everyone to make a group perception check. Okay.

Oh, this is, like, we haven't really seen any guards or anything. No, I know, but as he is gesturing to the stairs, you feel that he's indicating hot dog. To listen now. I got a 16. We saw guards when we walked in with the ogres and whisperfang in the foyer,

but not coming up through the bottom. Yeah, on the main level. That was lined with guards, but we've not seen them since we've been coming up. And presumably we're still pretty deep if we're in the dungeons. I got a 19. You'd estimate that you're hundreds of feet below. Microphone just slide it over.

9 inches. Perceptional. Yeah, 20. Oh boy. Whoa! You beat me. I will stop doing this accent instead. Oh, just to hit that...

I have no... Oops, I'll get Rustin. Oh, yeah. The ice is inevitable. Oh, I can do. Oh, yeah. This is all I say. Put the microphone at your face, Michael.

Thank you. Thank you. killed. Oh. Oh. I got a 19. It's in Matt. 16. Michael. 16. Hey. 16. You listen out and you hear the, just the sound of your own heavy breathing as you listen for the stairs. But you keenly aware after Ket Rosteem's gesture that at any point, just around the bend, those stairs you could hear footsteps. And he gladly accepts your ration as you had handed up for him and starts to chew on it. There's your friend.

Well, we don't know. Whisper Fang took her to. I know he should have killed that villain the moment. I laid eyes on him. That's plenty of time. I have a feeling we're going to cross paths with him soon. Oh, you bet at what cost? She is in the Fay Wild

We shared a vision We saw the princess Take her through a portal Into what Yornear described was A place called the Fay Wild I don't know if you've seen it I don't know how If you've been elsewhere in the

In the Bastion You may have seen something that could do this I have not heard of this plane It is not like the plane of Latik, I imagine. What is it like? It is wild. It is ancient. It is primordial.

It is where my people come from. Oh. It is a plane connected to the land, to the wild. If she still lives, she is in great danger. It sounded like the princess wanted something from. her from there who can say if she wanted her dead she would have killed her here I think where it's already happened what we saw was in the past we know that she went to your people's home plane and returned and came to the wedding many hours ago we have

no any idea no idea well that's what we're here to find out I'll Turnicat. And I lift my head for the first time, really kind of taking in his state. What did you tell them? I resisted for some time. It has been, I think it has been two months since we saw each other last. And I have been here for weeks. It has not an easy thing to resist as strong as my mind is.

when your flesh is alive with lightning I was compelled to tell them everything I know about the hexah armament that weasled

he pulled it out of me he told us that he could practice dark sorcery or dark science or some make sure the two bring the dead back to life or create horrid abominations Vlaminations.

Far more powerful than many of us. He did it to a young ogre. I don't know if you've seen any creature that matches that. A young ogre lad, the walking dead. I have been all alone here. I cannot go home. I am trapped. Oh no, it was the poet, never mind.

Now human with a split head. Is this just the gods and this the fang and the prince? the princess on two occasions she came to me. And no talk of a human recently. They do not tell me anything. They ask questions. They ask and they ask and they take. No, nobody's faulting you at all.

I mean, you've been through a horrible, horrible experience, but we just got to know what you told them. I spoke to them about the artifact. I told them of the plane of logic. I told them of Secundus. I explained that I was responsible for bringing it here and why to frame the mineflare and try to get them to be destroyed under the crushing might of the modern army. And in so doing, I may have become responsible for all of whatever happens here, whatever happens next.

What a modron is? I don't know if we've referred to the creature of Secundasaur or the creatures of the plane of logic as a modron. He's seemingly dropping this term now more freely. I don't think we've heard it. Look at this modron. So if you don't know what it is, I would say that you wouldn't have to roll. You would not know what that is. machine man or these modron you say did did you give them any thing that you've

learned from them to give whisperfang the way to use the artifact from what I told him it would be able to use it what can they use it to do you intended it to draw the the modrons here to destroy the nautaloid what can they use it to do It is a very powerful artifact. It is a cog of all cogs in a plane of exact

machination. It is an object of infinite power. Okay, the cog of all cogs is a cool fucking thing to say. Sorry, we're getting off topic here. Look, I got a level with you here. Are you mad at us? Are we cool? I'm gonna sense you might be mad at us.

Make a group inside? Yeah, just make an inside check. Oh, just scream. Oh, no, I've got another idea. I am not going to make a group, well, you guys to know what the fuck you want. I'm not having the group.

I'm just asking you to make an inside check. I don't want to use it. I don't want to make an inside check. I would like to cast the cantrip glimpse. Oh, okay. I would like to beseech my, patron to aid me into prying open the mind of a creature that I can see within 30 feet of me. The target must make a wisdom saving throw on a successful save. The creature has an overwhelming

sense of being watching and make a perception check with advantage to look for me. But on a failed save, I can sense one word to describe my target's current emotion. I'll also inside him in case this fails, but I'm also going to get a little help from old Jackie boy. Okay, what's the DC? Good fucking question. It should be 17. 17 is my save DC. 17? Yeah, it's my safety, sir. He kind of 16.

One word. Revenge. I think to myself, I don't like it, go either way. Look, I just, I'm worried about you, all right? It was awful. The last time we saw you, you just, you were taken from us, and we didn't want that to happen,

but we could let you out. There's work to be done. I would like to be free. Are you a lefty? I am not. Damn it. I have been sufficiently diminished, as they say. We still take you.

What is your plan? You're going to go up and save the girl and defeat the dragon? What's our plan? What's our plan? Barnabos tell him the plan. We're going to go out the tower, find whisper fang, split him into, destroy what's left of his body. Get back, Queenie, get back the young lady.

the extra turdure armament. We have to kill the princess on the way. We'll do that too. Yeah, look, she's up to something, right? She's trying to amass all this gold, and she's trying to, like, bring this guy back, and there's an old fucking thing that's going on. And we're not entirely sure what's going to happen,

but we know that Whisperfings are part of it. We know that she's a part of it. And we're trying to slow things down, you know? Stop it. Fix it. We know she was once human. We believe we might be able to sway her. I do. She's once human, you say?

Yes. Do I do. Does your strange cosmic magics know how we might turn her back into a human so that I may crush her skull? Yeah, you want to talk about diminished? That would make her diminished. You would have to know the source of the power. How, what's transvauntered her?

Did you see this much? It was a witch of the woods. You will find where the port was, hoping it to the winterlands, find this woman. She wishes to help us. Way in the winterlands. I have a feeling. You must find Queenie there right her way.

Is it even more winter than it is here? How is that possible? That's not possible, Bonnebos. I wouldn't think so, but... It is of winter, and winter is of it. There's a land born of winter. Spring never comes. We need everyone to make a group perception check.

Is that fair for you or not to say? I feel like that's fair for you all of this. I think that's pretty simple. That's some cool I should to say. That's a cool I should to say. I think it's fair. I think it's fair. What are we wrong?

What are we wrong? Perception. 23. Oh. Oh, 22. 19. 22, 23. We're perceptive as fuck.

18. Oh, look at us. You all hear the sound of footsteps coming down the neighboring stars, stairs. And you can hear the murmuring of voices. And Kett even straightens up. up and turns and looks and looks at each of you. I do not think we can speak for much longer.

How many are in the patrol? They are here to feed me. They are usually two. Oh, yeah, that's... Oh, I know. No, I know. A lot more than two. All right, here, let's do this thing.

You guys are all right? We should hide. Hide. What if we can alert others? Not just two of them. The dead man tell no tales and don't alert on the gods. I don't think not others at a moment's notice. Oh, hey, Mr. Stavisbiscont, I'm going to pick up.

Grammafima if you left. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like a wet cat. I'm going to scuttle. I'm going to scuttle along all as crab legs will kind of sloop out of my back. And I will try to basically crawl up on the ceiling to wait to Spider-Man and then drop on whatever guards there are. I'm going to hang on to Barnabos and in the other hand, I'm going to make the brutal blade appear. I'm going to call it forth.

They just basically be with Barnabos and ready to strike. And my anchors on my back, I'm going to kill them with my hands. Okay. All, uh, if there's some place I can step, like, out. of the way, like maybe... This is a pretty classic, like, Alcatraz hall. Like, it's curved, and they've got the different, like, barred cells each alternating all the way down, right?

It's a pretty tall ceiling, right? But there's no wall to press against or column or anything to hide behind. You could perhaps try darting into one of the open cells and seeing if you could hide in the shadow, or you could continue your way down back the way that you came from so that you could brace back up. Barnabos and Scrimmer are endeavoring to hide against the ceiling

and Kett is backing up deeper into the cell as though to pretend as though nothing has been happening. I'll duck into an open cell and pull my cloak up around me and maybe grab a seat and hunch down as to not draw attention while it's set up there. You're never found out. I'll slowly approach where they went up on the ceiling and closer to the guards.

And as I feel like the guards are going to get just in view, there's gonna be like a flurry of snow that covers me and I'll go invisible. Yeah. Using hidden steps. Oh, uses way better in this species feature. Bad ass. But I'm like right there with them for when she goes.

You hear them at the top of the stairs, a pair of voices. Just feed the freaking go. No weapon for remember what happened last week. Oh, it already used to be a warrior. Doesn't look like much now. You see what they did to his hand? Come on, hurry up. I wanna get back in time for the person.

And you hear these pair of voices as they start to make their way down. And what appear to be two sort of soldiers in the Frosthammer Army, white cobalds that you are familiar with, not wearing tremendous amount of armor, it's cold. It's cold down here. You can all feel the chill. Even though the storm rages outside, it's very cold, this deep underneath the earth. and the two of them begin to walk down. And I need you to make a perception check, Tishan. 23.

We'll resolve that in a moment. As you see these two cobalds walk into the hallway, you see them, they're carrying what appears to be a very, I'm looking for a better word than small, a plate of food, A paltry. Minisculal. Meager. Meager is terrific.

Thank you. A meager plate. Not even a breadloaf or anything like that. What appears to just be some sort of mush. They are walking down the hallway. You're near. Do you let them pass you and approach the cell? Well, I would assume that they would have to pass under.

Are they passing? My understanding was that you stepped forward closer to the stairs than that Barnabose and Scrimmer on the ceiling. I'm going to roll a perception for them now. but I thought that you were actually in the front. I thought that they were getting the ceiling and approaching the guards. I wanted to be like 10, five or 10 feet behind where they are.

I still want them to be between me and the guards. Thank you. And so I'm standing here. I misunderstood your intent. I misunderstood your intent. So I'm going to roll their perception. I need you both to steal. And as that happens, you step back into the shadows

and you feel something touched your foot and you look down. And you recognize two objects. two objects and they sort of surprise you because of the familiarity that you have for them. One is the dagger that you were familiar with Barnabos owning and the other is

Yornear's dagger. Both of them are just lying on the floor here in the cell. As you look down and start to process this information you I got an 18 for stealth. 18? 17. 17. That's

just enough. As they are clearly so engaged with their conversation and here to deliver the food and then leave. They walk up to the cell, and you are looking directly down on the heads of these cobbles as they turn. And they, hey, you freak! Then they slop the bowl down, hitting the ground, and sliding about halfway into the cell, spilling much of the meager contents. And Katrusting, oh, thank you, thank you. he stands up and he starts to turn to the bowl.

What do you both do? What are you all doing? As soon as I feel like they're directly below us, which would be right as they're dropping the bowl, if they're kind of like leaning over, I am going, scrim will kind of feel my fingers, starts almost like sickening pulse and shift under my skin

as my bones crack slightly as I release him as my hands turn into huge claws. And I kind of, as I release him and my hands shift into these huge, crab claws, I'll toss scrim towards the left guard as I drop onto the right guard. And I just seprop the other guy. It's I try to just... I need you both to make attack rolls for me.

As this happens, it was as Viquette Rustin was walking up towards his bowl. I wonder what that is. That's especially fun with the brutal blade. That's especially fun with the brutal blade because I gave him an extra dice size. You did. Oh my. Not size. Do I want an attack road to get a full round of attack?

You get a full round of a tag. You get a turn. Do what you need to do. I don't need to do. I don't need no more. As Kat Rostin was walking forward to pick up his bowl, he was leaning down and looking at the guards. You notice that both of the blades turned onto their handles, and both of them pointed up and towards the back of these cobalt's heads, almost like snakes rearing for attack. The daggers in myself?

in my cell? The daggers in your cell on the ground turned, lifted up, and sort of oriented themselves as though being manipulated by an unseen hand. I would go to, like, pick them up. Unless I think that, unless, I know that Kett is a telekinetic. You are familiar with his psionic ability. Would I infer that he is telekinetically controlling the daggers to launch them at the... I think it would be easy to infer based on their movement that they have, that they had been placed there. just in case of attack. The Brutal Blade, I may re-roll as many damage dies I like, but I must take the second roll, and I chose to re-roll two of my 6D4.

3, 6, 9, 12, plus 14 is 16 points of damage, plus 5 is 21 points of damage, plus Fury of the Small is 31 points of damage on a crit with just one attack. If this guy's not dead, I'm ready to take my second attack. 31. You hear him yell out in pain as you dig it out. It's not actually, no, no, it's not a yell out in pain. It's just an inhale of surprise. As you slice down the first time. And I would have asked you to take your second attack. As he reaches up and you see brutally that he grabs your blade in surprise and cuts his hand for that fury of the small damage. That's a 27 for the second attack. That hits. And then the second attack will be seven plus five

is another 11 points of piercing damage as I pull it out and drive it back into his neck again to try to finish this guy off both legs on either shoulder Barnabos

I got 24 points of damage and I'm going to attempt to basically with my claws choke him out so we can't scream and then try to grab his head with if he's a small creature Yeah, yeah. He is.

Head and just, I'm attempting to break his neck and with my claws, obviously. I know mechanically, I need you damage. Which is 24 damage. Thank you. You grab him and you start to wrestle him down. He starts to yell out because of the surprise of what happens. He immediately fails his ability to resist. You can hear his strangled cry muffled beneath your clawed hand.

Scrim, this guard that you stabbed down into only takes another blow. and he crumples down to the ground like a sack of potatoes. And you turn and you see Barnabos has gripped the other one when dagger suddenly lodges itself into the side of the head of the cobalt that Barnabos is wrestling with and his eyes go gray and dark and he dies to the thud of your own blade. Suddenly you see Barnabos, your own dagger lodged in the side of the head of this Cobold and Looking forward you can see Kat Rostin holding his arm up with one hand having coaxed to the blade in through the air It's pretty cool. I'll appear

Ah easy fucking work Barnabos nice fucking job My claws swoop in the hands is that the spite tentacle kind of emerges from my back as I'll pull the dagger out and I'll say well he was wondering where that went Your is yours as the other one. Both? Two daggers. I have to admit that I... My knife.

I pulled it from you, and you first arrived. I... To answer your question from earlier, Skrim, I did not know if I could trust you. If you'll recall the last time we saw each other, I... Well, you could have done more. That I think we did.

Everything is. that we could, we tried really hard, you know. Water under the bridge. At no point arguing about this right now. You remember what it was like, fighting the brain, fighting through the ship together. I was on a warpath, and I am on a warpath again. Open, I am not useless.

Oh, open the cell. I searched the guard's body and I look for keys. Oh, make an investigation check. Good call. Take the body towards Tysha. As this happens, Yorner, you see the dagger side down. Your dagger. He produces it into the air so that you can pull it and recapture it.

I'll put it back on its leather sheaf on my belt. Do you wish to join us? To claim your revenge. I am not as strict. as I once was, but I would relish the opportunity to destroy that, which has harmed me so much, at least. Yeah, I like we should have brought his sword. I'll go fetch it for you.

Here's some more assault port for you. As I'm gonna go back and try to just get his sword because I see that he's very weak. He lights up. He hasn't seen his sword since being captive here. You can see it in his face that he, that he is only so powerful with his sword. And he, he, thank you, thank you.

And he takes the salt portion and he gobbles it down. It's one investigation. Oh, you feel very confident after going through the various pockets and finding a few knick-knacks, a few trinkets, nothing of import, that they had left their weapons upstairs and that similar to not wanting weapons to be stolen from a psionic. The keys are not in their pockets. Ha ha.

They didn't bring the keys with them. Strim, can you work the door? Well, believe it or not, I have been holding one very particular set of tools since the very first session of this campaign. Which tools could those be? Steve's tools! And I produced them from my back. I was going to get tinkervors.

As I have been holding on to these motherfuckers, since before session one. Wow. Let me work. Wow. Nobody fucking talked to me. Like a thin leather roll. Oh, they're shitty.

They're barely thieves. There's like one or two. Yeah, yeah. Right. One of them's like a like a like a hairpin. Like it's not, it's like it's cobbled together. It's not it's shit. Okay.

This is shit. It's rusty. But I don't get the job done. And I begin to make, make work on this as I try to while he works on that. I would say, you swear on your family's honor that you will join us and not betray us.

It pauses for a moment. And then he says, I swear, I will not betray you. I will not betray any of you. Scrim or Yorner or Taichenne or Banabos or Queenie. I want my freedom I want to go home

If the hexager armament is here And we can retrieve it That is all I ask Is in exchange for my help That you Let me use it To open the portal back to my home And will you take it far away from here

You would ask that I take the hexage armament The danger of this artifact Is that it exists on this plane if it can be removed I quite agree let us let us make this agreement I will happily take this

know that if the machine army does not find it here they will hunt you down do you accept this risk if I can get it into the hands of more mineflayers

then my original plan is not lost it is a heavy cost but I would be happy to take this risk. Your Honor, he's driven by vengeance. And now he has more reason than ever. To cause calamity. Give me the hexager moment. It cost me my son's life.

Even to give it to him would shift the crusade to him. And that's the best scenario. Should he use it? For any other purpose than what he claims? We're in the same position. That's how you just want to destroy it. I want to give it back to Secundus. Are you still afraid, Tyshen, of doing what must be done?

I remember what you did in the service of your ideals. I haven't forgotten. And yes, I am afraid. I'm afraid of the vision that Yornear sees. I'm afraid of doom coming to Jukar. I'm afraid of that doom. spreading across the sea and reaching jade shell. I'm afraid of a metal army,

turning everything around us to ash. Yes, I'm afraid. And I think there's one way that that doesn't happen. I think we stand united against the modrons, and we give them what's theirs. We give them the relic of their realm. And they leave. Aren't you worried they're just going to use it and decimate everything that we know on this plane?

I cannot... I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just... I'm an answer here. I cannot give it to them. They will, as the Kundus was going to do, they will kill me. They will kill all of us. They will take what is theirs. They will flatten and destroy everything without a moan.

You cannot make a case to emotion with these creatures. What about that witch? Is she destroy it? Is she powerful enough to take that thing out? Yes. That could be a solution, right? She just destroys it. And then we don't have to worry about us.

It's not on our plane. Secundus doesn't have it. We don't give it over to the old cat here. Nobody has it. Best of all worlds, right? This was my plan before we met him. Perfect. See?

Big brains. Now what's up? We do not know if you will survive the next several hours. But if you do, we can decide then what we do with it, if we find it. It's at this point that you see Barnabos hurrying back with the massive, massive... Buster sword, for lack of a better term. The huge great sword that you recognize to be kept. The strange metal, unique...

to the astral plane, and he looks at it. Dang, dang. It's that meme where have someone look at you the same way that Kett Rosteen looks at his sword. Wish. Get yourself someone who looks at you the way Ket looks at the bus or so. That's right.

And it's at this moment that your sleight of hand. How has your lock picking been going? Yeah, I mean, we're not under duress. So really, I think the question is, like, how long would it take? take me if I have the ability to do this. I'm happy to roll sleight of hand right now. Since I didn't roll it, I just kind of join the conversation.

No problem. Oh, perfect. 24. 24. Easy, easy, easy. You actually, you are shocked by how, even though it's been perhaps a year since you've been able to leverage these tools, very literally.

From being in prison and not having the tools and then getting out and going on the water and spending the months here and being transported to strange Eldridge places. There hasn't been a single fucking lot to play. I can't even spell lock. And so you're relishing the idea that you're going to be able to

solve this puzzle, solve this mystery, and you're almost disappointed as when you push in it goes click. Son of a bitch. You relock it. Yeah, it's going back a couple times. Let's try that again. Okay.

That was easy, get you free. He puts one hand up on the bars, and with a heavy push, it creaks to the side, and he holds his hand out for his sword. Bonobos? You can still lift it with the other hand. I can hold it with this one,

and it is not just a sword. It is a focus for me. All right. And I'll flip it around and I'll basically kind of like extend it to him. You recognize the weight of this. And even though he's in his current state and he is physically weakened, he has underfed, he is physically and emotionally and spiritually hurt. His nature is attuned to this object.

And he lifts it like a feather from your hands and spins it around in one hand, not as powerfully as he might be it in his dominant hand, but he's able to not attach it to his back because he's not wearing armor and he holds it almost like a cane, let's say. He holds it to one side.

That really is a really good point. If you're like psionic, you're basically ambiturist. I don't need to actually use your fucking hands. Yeah, no, not really. He's like actually not diminished at all. He's a big fat phony. You know what a phone.

I can't believe the did off a pony. You want to follow me. This guy's a funny. This guy's going to go hands. Hey, this guy's a phone. I beat my cheat with my left hand. At least that's one. Oh, you don't want to use your regular hand.

You gotta beat your cheek at the other hand, you know? The phantom stranger. I'll give you this morning only once you turn that sword on us. You may kill me with it, but it'll be the last thing you ever fucking do. I don't understand. I have given you only of my word that I would not do this. He swore on his family and his ancestors. Oh, you have a wife.

I do swear on her I swear on my wife and my family on my son and he said his honor and all that good stuff I think we're good man

you're good I think even if he were to turn on us Barnabos in his state it would take very little for us to strike him down ohy not you're right Mr. Fireblossom I will not be much help

to your point in direct combat. But I can perhaps aid you. Do not endanger your life if you can avoid it. I thought... But know that we are continuing. We are ascending and there will be grave danger. Yorner, I thought I was dead when I was captured by the Illetid. I thought I was dead when we fought through the Nautiloid ship, the dominant mind. I thought I was dead as we descended and almost crashed into the earth. I thought I was dead when Sukundas came when the princess of wrath defeated him and every day that

whisper Fang visited me. I am no stranger to the fear of death. I will go with you. We will see this through or I will be gone." I'll nod deeply. I'll say present this stump. He holds his stump out and He gestures holding what is very clearly a pulled, a tattered piece of his own robe, his own cloth. He has wrapped it. It is soaked and dried and nearly frozen against his stump. It had clearly been left, not.

Can I see how this is doing? Like not tended to. Make a medicine check. 13. Is it bad? With a 13, you slowly take the bandages off, and you can hear this sound like masking tape almost as it pulls free from the flesh.

Some fucking Jamie Lambs or shit. But Kat keeps a grim expression, which shows you that his pain tolerance is great. He must have gone through much in order to break under whisper fangs interrogation. And once you pull it free, you don't have a sense of how well he's doing, but you can see that the stump isn't gangrenous or anything obvious in terms of signs.

It seems like it was perhaps five or six days ago that it was chopped up. It's not fresh in that way. He's been doing his best to just keep the bleeding from returning. I cannot return your hand, but I can close some of your wounds. And I will kind of grab his forearm and put my hand on his stump as my hands will sort of glow with a light blue as I cast your wounds in a third level. And I'll roll for that. But I'll heal him some number of different things. You suspect that this does great work

I'm not gonna lie, I thought you're gonna regrow his hand I think we all thought that Where did we get diamonds? I was like I was like wait a minute I thought it was the zealic moment I think that was the zealic moment I think we get that a little 13 I was gonna say I thought I was like wow a little early Yeah the only just a totally

38 points of helium Oh a little 10 It's all the time. We're still not... Way too low for that. We don't have seven balls. Way too low. That's a seventh bowl spell.

I think so. Yeah, and I wasn't even thinking of that. I was thinking like, where we get the fucking resource? When he pulls his hand away and once you open your grip, you can see that he's grown still relatively fresh layers of skin,

but actual skin layers have reemerged over the stump. And he looks at it, blinks a few times. Thank you. This will help. There will be more. We should go. Using his sword to sort of step forward.

Where do you mean to go? I know nothing of this fortress or what we face. Oh, really quick before we go. We should put their bodies in the cells. So if somebody comes down and just glances around, they don't see them on the ground. They're really quick. We don't have to arpea. Go ahead. This is a good idea. Let's do it.

We don't have to arpeas. I will find, like, the darkest. Oh, wait, isn't there like a whole hoard of treasure? Yeah. Oh, I will put them in the air dots. I am going, I'll be right back. I'm going to grab both of them, and I'm going to scuttle down to the horde, and I'm going to, like, dig. Like, I almost kind of, like, hum a shanty.

I was hoping that you'd throw them like an Olympic jablin and that they would dead body Scrooge McDuck into the end of the gold I'll try to find like I'll use my anchor to kind of like dig holes and I'm just going to bury them in the gold I'm going to bury them in the in the in the horde like probably never to be seen again not for very long time yeah if ever I've come back and you you would have done this as the perhaps as the healing was happening or yeah yeah consequently this is all happening I mentioned that way well all right loose ends are Hight up. Well, up the stairs then. Time does he what's going on up there.

Mr. Yornear, do you wish to lead? He's your A.C. what's coming. Yes, I will. I'm right behind you. As I will continue forward. The four of you begin to ascend, following the same path up the stairs, as you make your way deeper into the biting bastion.

And you recognize the keys at the very top of those stairs as you ascend to the next level of this. You're going up huge winding staircases that lead up and up and up and up. Clearly around the central column of this main keep, this main area that you've managed to sneak into. I need everyone to make a stealth check. Easy. Easy peasy. Easy peasy. I got an 18.

Uh-oh. That's my first bad one. I'm the stealthiest goblet in the flat- nine. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Six. Uh-oh.

Fuck, guys. Uh-oh. Steaky. I'm gonna eat you guys get your heads out of your asses and lock the fuck in. I got a fucking easy. My walking stick makes a loud clack on this stone. Click-clack. Click-Clack.

Click, click. William two kicked up in my ass jeans. I don't have anything. clapping and alerting the guards. Oh no! Just like those golfs. Oh, I'm like Kirby Day. Yikes.

Oh, bother. It's as you are ascending, that you are passing in front of two large wooden doors. And it's just as you come to this floor that you're sort of trying to decide, do we try to go, try the doors? test, you all start to turn to each other to murmur when the doors burst open and a contingent, a unit of frost hammers all burst into and through the door. And you can see this blustery wind of ice and snow pour in through the side of the building. You're clearly now on the ground floor of the biting bastion. And you did not expect to be visited upon in this instant. You watch as most of them make their way past, and it's the last one, they're clearly walking

deeper into the keep to take care of some task or responsibility or demand, command that they've been given as soldiers, and the last one turns and sort of double takes when he sees you. Hi, uh, guys! And you hear him cry out as the wind continues to blow in, and all five of the others stop and turn and look at the five of you. Four, because I'm hidden. And look at the four and a half of you. Whoa, whoa! That's right.

The voice-bound castaways have come before the procession that's called fourth boy the drums of war. How did you get down from, how did you get here? How did you get here? that's right how do you get here how many are they're lowering their spears and and and and and starting to advance um you you you came up from below there's you came up for the we were looking for the how many of them are there we were looking for the privy we see six we sit there five we something they took a lot wrong turn here four and then the last see oh i have don't worry i have my uh my emblem of the cheat down the walk like closer i want to be like I'm gonna walk closer. You stay where you are. I have my,

I have my, my, my, uh, my emblem right. Oh, get whisper fang. You see him turn and, Barnipose, I have this one.

Excuse me. I'm definitely still hidden. I was kidding about the, how did you get down here? I'm still in. If my self check was successful. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say that you're,

you were able to flatten against these long, uh, uh, uh, stairs. Yeah, I would say that you're actually down. You're looking through the legs at these,

uh, cobalds. And their eyes. are up at staring the three in direction. I will also say that in that moment, you noticed that Kat Rastin was able to pull against the wall. He was very stealthy in his role, and he was able to pull against like that,

and each time you sort of try to look at him, your eyes kind of drift away. Like drift away in almost this blurry way. We're actually friends of the princess, and you seem like you have, much more important business to tend to. You don't want to bother with us. And I cast Charm Person at a fifth level.

That's pretty fucking good. And I'd like to try and charm all five of them. We're not the prisoners you're looking for. Can you multi-target like that? Every time you go up a level, it's just such a, every time you go up, it adds a target. So fifth level is...

Hold on. Of course we're not pissed at. Oh, my God. We're supposed to be. We're actually not prisoners. We're friends. We're guests of the princess. And she summoned you for importance.

We need a little something else. I wouldn't want you to invite her wrath upon yourself. What's the DC? I'm probably like 26. Oh, so 17. Oh, yes, it's 26. 17 and 17. It's 17.

It's 17. And it's a wisdom saving throw. Oh, they're wise. They're so wise. It is. Yeah, sorry. Yes, it is. They get a five. They got a natural five and they also get a five.

Sounds about right. We're friends and guests of the princess, and she has summoned you, I'm sure in your dress, she has summoned you for important work. You don't want to stop and waste time on us and invite her wrath upon you. You have somewhere to be. Yes, we do. We were just getting more. You're supposed to be from the front. They were going to escort you to the great hall.

Everyone is gathering. We were invited to the princess's private chambers for some other purpose before the gathering. That would explain why you're here in the keep. You're cool, Kaishen. I like you a lot. What he says is the truth from a certain point of view. I look at Kat. How did he learn his name?

He never said his name was Taichan. That is weird. You're my favorite one of the soldiers. I've heard about you. The Gold Dragon Board. That's cool. It gets around. Anyway

Hurry on Can't be late for the big gathering Wait get the fuck out of here The five cobales look at all of you And how long? What is the duration of the spell? Yeah, good for you And they look at all of you And they're like

Get to the Great Hall Or the The princess Wherever you're supposed to be We will go where we are supposed to be And I'll give a mild bow See you later He, like, almost reciprocates, but then isn't sure if he...

Flavio! He bows, but, like, isn't sure if he's supposed to bow, so he sort of, like, does a little clumsily. And then... Is it some fire flakes? Icyo. Icyo. Coldman?

And then you watch them race down and into the halls of this floor, and they enter a room just to the side. And the three of you find yourself alone with Ket and... Scrim hidden behind you. They will know they've been charmed in the end of the duration in one hour. They believed your lie and they trusted you very much. Wow! Tyshen, that was incredible.

How did you do that? That's just part of my innate dragon power. It's been very charming. I don't know what that guy's name was, but he looked like the princess's fiercest warrior. That he did, Mr. Davis God. Did he say his name? I think he comes from a long line

of fearsome warriors if I had to guess. He had strange brown teeth. That was quite brown, actually. He did not have long to live. The infection left of the brain. I can't say for sure mechanically, but I think we only have an hour before they'll know what I've done.

We have to rush. Where was that portal that we saw in our vision? Do you know? Do you know? Are we looking to... Does anything around me look familiar or draw any kind of parallels to what we would have seen as? we navigated the vision?

Sure. What kind of test would this be? Like intelligence or memory? Yeah, what's your memory? I'm making a memory check. Would it be? Intelliite. With the insight?

History. If you have proficiency in history, I will buy a history. But I would say straight, I would straight in it. Not insight. Int. Int. Seven.

Hmm. With a seven, this particular section doesn't look familiar to you at all. You have no clue where in this massive fortress castle you are, with the exception of one clue, which is to say that you do recall the fiercest warrior that you just faced. He mentioned that this was the keep

and that this is where the princess's chambers were because that was part of the lie that you told. He said, oh, yeah, that makes sense. So you are familiar with the fact that the chambers are here. Nothing looks familiar, but her chambers are here. I think we must find the way up. Continue to climb. All right.

We're ready to go. Let's do this. We can do this. Come on. You don't remember anything at all about this portal? Look, look, we saw a lot of crazy shit when all of it was going down. You don't expect us to remember this one particular. There were witches.

Oh, you're in here. Have we been there before? Use your eye. You... Please don't yell at me. Go ahead and make an additional intelligence check. Do so at a advantage because Tyshen's helping out. I'm helping.

I'm real trying. I'm really trying to remember. Do it. Add some stuff. How many twists? You get up to five. Five. We had. We had how many?

Oh, I can tell you. At least 15. No, we should save some of them. Right? No. Five. Five. Five.

You're like three. Send it, man. It's almost 11, 5. 25. Yeah, with a 25. You had 5? You recall two things. One, your innate sense of direction,

and you recall your innate sense of the visions that you saw. Before the portal opened, you were able to see out through the windows of that space. And by triangulating those two features, you're able to sense that this, The Keep is not where the workshop or arcane space that the portal was created in where they were holding Queenie and Daisy, that it would be in one of the corner towers,

probably adjacent to the place where you had to do the naming ceremony when you first met Whisper Fang and he had you- That is the tower that you identify as sort of like his working area, and that it was not in the same tower as where you, as where you met with the princess. No. No, it was in the tower, Whisper Fang's tower,

where we did the naming ceremony. Of course. It is on the southeast corner. That's perfect as. Oh my gosh. You don't know what have a voice? It is. Well, does it.

Yeah. Oh my God. This out east corner of the deep. Your knack for directions is so good. It is inherent in my brain and my stick. Why did you? Use your magic stick and lead the way. Use your divining rod.

You show you're in here. That's one thing to call. Grip your your divine rod and lead the way. You should be more careful, though. They're patrolling. She's built her forces. She's gathering them here. We can expect patrols all over.

Do I feel like I could... I guess, is there... They just came from outside. They just came from outside. You're on the ground floor. The ground is covered in footsteps and blown in snow. You must go. Out.

Follow me. And I will lead everyone to the doors they came through and open the doors and try to... You push out, which way southeast is. You push out and your eyes are up. And Kat Rustin follows behind the three of you as you push in. And you hear the sound of these drums. The sound of cheering, the sound of murmuring, the sound of wind whipping back and forth. You are struck by the cold.

And as your eyes get used to this whiteout, you realize that you're staring at the backs of hundreds of white cobalds. Standing tall, Goliath. It's that moment in Star Wars when Han Solo turns the corner and all of a sudden he sees that there's like 30 fucking stormtroopers. As soon as you walk out through these doors and into the space, you realize this courtyard, this ward of the fortress is filled with the army of the Princess of Wrath. And that's where we'll take a quick break. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Aventris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks,

including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas, Shroud over Saltmarsh. You can also go to the crooked moon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tone for Dungeons and Dragons, addition and don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies,

a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. The wind of snow of a full blizzard makes visibility very low as you all stand around, but you were still able to see the backs of all of these soldiers, this army of the Princess of Wrath laid out in front of you. They are clearly focused on the center of this courtyard that is the interior, the ward of the biting bastion, and you can hear a voice over the wind screaming out. You hear the sound of Derek losing his place in his notes. That's okay.

Oh, the music was kind of perfectly. Yeah, the most fearsome thing. Bum, bauda. You hear a familiar voice ring out amongst the crowd, the sound of whisper fang. Oh, shit. is fulfilling our destiny. Escort everyone into the grand hall.

You hear this whispering as you, everyone's turning, cheering, cheering, cheering. And you, in your moment of shock, dart to the left, there's a bit of an overhang and you can see that there are like supplies, barrels, that sort of thing. The five of you are able to duck down just for a moment. Looking at this,

bomb that's going to go off in front of you. And I don't know why we suddenly went here, but let's go here. It works for me. What do you all do? We have to get through this in order to get to looking at... They're looking at they're all facing sort of the main entrance.

And the main entrance is more towards the towards one side. You realize that it it would be possible to move from point to point, perhaps not all at once, but if you could cross this courtyard, you'd be able to get to the other tower, the corner tower where you know the portal room to be. Look, guys, I've got no problem.

I can get there in no time at all. I'm good, I'm good to just vanish for a while. I know that you can do that too, but what about these guys? This guy. Are we, we're in a big, open courtyard? There's no ceiling above us right now? That's correct. You are in the center of a castle.

You're in the ward of a castle. It would normally be there. You can see the massive stone walls that connect the guard towers to these larger circular towers, basically making this massive, like, almost tooth-like maw. It's part of the reason why it's called the Biting Bastion as this architecture evokes this. the shape of a dragonborn's head or their mouth,

the teeth inside of a dragon's mall. You are in the center courtyard. This is where the naming ritual occurred. Looking around, you can see that just above, at the balcony where the princess originally addressed everyone to introduce you as her newest tribe, that is where Whisper Fang stands. The same spot where she held up the head of Secundus.

Oh, he's looking down at the corner- He's looking down, they're all looking across, clearly waiting for some new person or someone to be escorted into this space, even though the weather is wild and there's already a thick blanket of snow in all directions. I may be able to help this a little. I can make myself perhaps more stealthy and I can pass this on to those who will still have to. to run. We keep moving. We keep moving towards Whisper Fang. We keep moving forward until he's crossed beneath us. We cannot attack him now.

There's an army here. We have to get Queenie first. We wait for any chambers. Where the portal was. It is important for a soldier, a warrior to know when to strike. This is not the time. We would be killed and it would be a waste. I want to just take a look across this area where we're kind of taking all of the city.

Do we know which tower we're going to be? need to go to based on what your near has pointed out and said, he said, that nor need. You feel very confident. If you ever played the game, Metal Gear Solid 2, I haven't. There's this moment where you have to sneak behind a giant fucking army. Right now the army is facing one direction,

and you have but a few sort of like checkpoints, like a barrel or a cart or some sort of small structure, that sort of thing, where you could dart one at a time. Oh, another example is in Final Fantasy 7 when there are the guards, going back and forth. And you have to, son of a bitch. I'm kidding, I'm joking, I'm joking. I'm talking.

Wait, but Winston Fang is facing us, right? He's looking out, but with the correct amount of stealth and timing, you would be able to move from checkpoint to checkpoint and cross this space. Or if you have other means of making the distance, you could do it. It's probably about 120, 150 feet. I'll see you all on the other side. So we need to metal gear solve. This is what you're saying.

That's what it appears to do, unless you want to alert the attention of hundreds of Goliaths and Cobol. Where we just came from was inside. It's the largest of the towers of this, of the Biting Bastion, what they call, what they would have called the keep. And it is clearly the treasure room is below with the Dungeons. When everyone is ready, we've come up with a plan.

I'm basically gonna wait to say, see you on the other side and take a few steps backwards into the shadows. Oh. To cast invisibility on myself at due to my Eldridge invocation. I love this for you. One with shadows. That's pretty good.

Where while I'm in an area of dim light or darkness, I can gas invisibility on myself without expending a spell slot. It lasts one hour its concentration. Okay. But I'm gonna wait to make a big old show of it in front of my friends and make them jealous. That seems cool. I love this for script.

Yeah, thank you. Okay. Put a flex on them. You know what I mean? To go halfway through. I only if cat over here can help me. I'm not the... the most subtle. I've never been accusing that. I will be able to help if perhaps he should go first if he may fails and we will all be here. Scream and I will go first. We'll

give a signal. You will know when you see it. All right but once we go invisible we won't be able to see each other so don't step on me all right. It is impossible. Now, and I'll turn. and you'll see me flash very quickly in a bright flash of blue light. I jump into an area of dim light just for a moment, and then I vanish. As I shrink down into a small ermine or a stout.

Oh, it's stout. White snow, hopefully to blend in with the snow on the ground and the snow and small but quick and fast and kind of tricksy. You only see these two small black eyes blink before you effectively vanish into the... As soon as I mean, the snow is piled up.

So you're able to sneak through Kind of like jumping through and snaking through the snow. You're like an alligator through the swamp, just like snaking through. And moments later after Scrim, literally, literally magically vanishes before your eyes. You see two small pairs of feet start to pass. I still need you both to make a stealth check at advantage.

Oh, geez. Easy, Peezy. You can roll again. I rolled a natural 20. And a 16. I did okay. I got a 17. Hold on.

As good as I would have liked. Actually, my decks might be better as a weasel. I would say this would use the weaseled staff lock. Was that fair to say? I think that's fair. Yeah, that is a... 2024 doesn't have a stote. 2023.

How could they not? I don't think they do, I'll check, but 23. 23. You are able to make your way past, and as you pass, you glance to the right. I think Scrim especially, it would be easy for you to have more visibility. at your height, now that you were much taller than you're near. You glance over and you can see through the many bodies, through arms, through legs, that they clearly are escorting someone in.

Everybody is cheering, yelling. You can hear some beating drums. These are drums of reception and also to signal to the entire city, very loud, beating in your ears. And you can see in the distance I needed to make a perception check. Natural fucking 20 for 26. You take your time. In fact, it's easy for you. Once you get a good angle, you pause.

You feel totally safe. It's cold. It's cold. You realize that you are creating a bit of a shape that snow is hitting you, and you're going to have to move again soon as the weather blasts your invisible form. But for a moment, you peek forward, and you can see a young man, a young boy. The young man that you know as spirit caller, Kitterell, the boy who inherited. the boy who inherited the mantle of leadership

of the orc tribe here after your discovery of the nefarious crimes of the former chief. You continue to make your way, and the two of you are able to cross the 120, 150 feet necessary, and you reach the entrance to the other tower, to this corner tower.

You can see that there's sort of an arched overhang before the actual wooden doors exist and you're able to peel back, hiding yourself from the weather, but able to signal your allies should you want to. So when we get there, does it seem like the coast is clear and there's no danger in this tower? When you arrive, there doesn't seem to be much foot traffic in and out of the towers, if that's what you're asking.

Basically, I want to signal them to look into, hey, if you sort of rush across and get here, we're not going to like stumble into 30 more guards at the base of this town. Oh, once you reach that side, I would say that no. You feel very comfortable that the entrance is merely being used for an entrance. There aren't positioned guards there. Okay, I'm going to find a little mound of snow that's high up,

and I'm going to scamp rep onto it. And I'm like, get on my hind legs, sort of like a mere cat and almost sit up. And once I sort of like, I'm looking for them, and you'll see the one blue eye and the one just normal kind of stout eye or ermine eye. And I will lift my hand up and I will do the sacred, ancient. ancient druidic hand sign that means all clear. Yes. As my pause do this.

Oh my God, it means it's all clear. And I run over. You race over and join your air mine friend. And I would say, what is that thing doing? It means it's all clear. He's doing that thing that he's always doing. He's doing the thing Yon is always doing. I don't know this.

The coast is doing. It's an ancient druid symbol. As an ancient druid symbol. All right, are you ready, Mr. Rustin? Just give me a moment, and he reaches out, and he, you feel a very strange sensation as he pushes what little depleting cyanic energy he can into your very essence.

And you sort of vibrate and tingle, and you look down in your hands, and your own hands seem to shift. before your eyes, blurring, as he psionically bolsters you, you'll be able to add a D8 to your stealth check as you move forward. Yeah, that's pretty fucking name. Look at him.

Both of us? Better than advantage. He's only able to do it at one person at time. It's the same effect that he used on himself when he was at the top of the stairs in order to pass that initial stealth check. Oh, hell. Look at a barrage on the seat.

I will let you pass, and then I will do it with Tyshand. Sure. I'm trusting you here, Kat. you here, Kat. We are trusting each other. All right. I'm just gonna, now that I look to Stoughtier, I nod, and I go. You know exactly what it means. I know exactly what it means. He's all clear. Oh, I can draw at a D8. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what okay stands for. Pretty good. We're all correct. Ooh, all the cleans. 19. 19. You, um, uh, not bad. Not bad. You stop forward and then you start to almost waddle forward as you realize that your feet were making too much noise. You realize that you need to move quickly, but more importantly, deliberately.

With the sway of the wind, you wait for a big bluster to come through just to hide your form as you race from one point to the next to the next, keeping yourself as far back and against the wall as possible, always keeping your eyes on whisperfaying and the rest of the, you really, really care about, making it to the other side. And so because of your intentionality,

your deliberateness, you're able to succeed and make it to the other way despite being so very obvious should anyone turn around. You are successfully able to make it to the other side. I do that. And I'll look down at Stoakeney. You hear the sound of whisper fan. All clear, lad.

Continue. Our time is now. The time of tribes is over. Oh shit. All will be your. United under a single banner. You hear this massive crash of voices as the young spirit caller is pushed forward.

Lead him, lead him into the great hall. This princess will be with us soon. And he continues to cry out. As you are watching this assembly, the drums continue to beat in your ears. As you see Barnabors pass to the other side, Tyshen, you are looking at K. I will do the same with you now.

Yes, if you can do it again. He puts his hand on your shoulder, and you experience the same strange psionic sensation as whatever that means. He's doing that thing he always does. That's how we all cast in visibility. That's how we all cast visibility. I don't know what this is from.

John Cena. You can't see him. He says you can't see me. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. I don't know wrestling. I don't know John Cedar.

You hear that. sudden sound of music inspiration in your ears, Taishen, as you look at your hands and it's almost like looking at molten gold as the, it's almost like you can't even look at yourself in this moment and you do this a few times. Let that you're doing. Is this also related to the M. I'm saying? It's a part of it. And you dart forward into the snow. I still roll it though. You roll a stealth check and you may add a D8 if you want to. It is a cyanic bolstering can apply to, it's sort of his inspiration. What is taking him so long?

Does he not know the symbol? I'm not sure. He can't at least, looks very confusing yet. In this moment, Barnabot's join us with. 27. Oh yeah, you fucking destroy it. Even though you're wearing your, you're as shiny as a gold piece, and you are wearing bright green robes,

you are able to race very, very quickly, dirting from checkpoint to checkpoint, making sure that, There's even a moment when someone turns and you duck back down and you, yeah. But you're able to steal your way to the other side, leaving only Ket on the other side. You see him focus in on himself, putting his sword underneath one arm. He almost vanishes before your eyes as he steals forward, gets a natural 19. Geez, shit. What's it actually saying?

Darding forward from checkpoint to checkpoint, he too joins you, but minutes later. You can hear the sound of quiet as you hear another voice cry out. Whispersfang, we have news, news. What is it? You hear him lean over the, you don't hear him, you see him lean over the balcony as he's clearly talking to some newly arrived shoulders.

What's that? The castaways. Yes, they're not in their district. They fought. There, many were killed, many were killed. The ogreth, they defend their district. Did we do that? I was gonna do that.

We're not there. We're not sure. They killed many. We're sending reinforcements now. Ivory clutch! He reaches out. His, uh, uh, robes following. He's pulling down his thin, cobald arms as he looks out to the other winged cobalds,

those few special few magic user cobales that you yourself have fought. Powerful arcane users, they assemble before him. And just before you, they look up, you send out your eyes, send out your eyes throughout the city of Argentholm, find them, find them! And they all start to murmur these arcane war as these piercing blue dots of light emerge

in their hands and start to shoot out almost like shooting stars before becoming invisible. And you know this to be these invisible seeing mechanisms that they use, this magic way of seeing, these sensors, they send them all out. They travel all out to clearly search Arjunholm. And you see everyone sort of looking around in confusion. And we can down to Sto.

you're near, and I say, now that's what it happened. They had to throw the rock fest. And then I allow you to continue. And then I'll allow you to continue. It becomes obvious that the group of ogres and, the group of Goliaths and Kobols in front of you are focused, who were so focused on Whisper Fang

just decreeing this new dawn that they start to turn. They start to turn and you see Ket immediately slip in through the front doors of the corner tower. As I view this, before we slip in, I'll say, I'll be on my hand legs still. Yeah. A moor power is rising. Its victory is at hand. This night, the land will be stained with the blood of Rohan. And I...

You hear... What the fuck? You hear... What you're talking about? I don't know. It's so cool and he does it as a small animal. Does that, I'm mine just say no hand? It's very rude.

It's very rude. And you all make yourselves inside immediately hit by the, not warmth, but just lack of weather and wind that had been hitting you outside. The sound immediately comes to a, is muted by the sound of the closing doors all around you. I'm just staying visible. As long as I can, as long as I can, I can basically catch. it at will, you know, without using a spell slot as long as I have dim light, but while I'm invisible, I'm gonna let it run for the hour that I've got it.

Oh. You let me know. Yeah, you should. If I feel like it's gonna run out, but I'm gonna use, I'm gonna take advantage of this. Looking around, you can see that, it's a little loud, one moment. You get your bearings and you turn to the interior, even though you can still hear the sound of drums outside,

the sound of, uh, uh, uh, this massive group and gathering of people, this corner tower is pretty quiet. There's stone beneath your feet, stained wet with foot traffic, but only the light of the torches illuminates the space. Even though there is a tremendous storm happening out, it seems that it's windowless. They wouldn't want to let in the elements, certainly. And so you're almost back inside this like dungeon. like space as you get your bearings and find yourself,

there would appear to be a, almost like a mess hall stretched out in front of you, and staircases that lead down. But you know that from your vision, this workshop, this space is up, up, up the stairs. And you recognize these stairs. These are the same stairs that you came crawling down to your naming ritual after you,

committed yourself to the Princess of Wrath those many days ago. Is there only one way up? Is it obvious where to go? It's extremely obvious. There's what would be just this large floor that you're on the ground floor and what would be one single spiral staircase. You would wager that if you cross to the other side that there might be like other ways that the staircases would interweave,

up the intersection of this space, but this is a very utilitarian form. Your name, what do you smell with your Murkad nose? Not a mere cat. What are you? He's a stout other than of his little voice sounds. Dumbass. Yon Nair, what do you smell with your stout nose?

Oh, he looks like a bilger at Jem. Or an urnum, or a sort of kind of like a weasel. Do you know what the weasel is, Tyshan? We didn't have those. Did you have badgers or authors? Oh, we had badges and authors. It's basically that. Oh, okay.

Like, can you tell? Well, those things look very different. Oh, he's more like a martin, any. I like to, I want to sniff and listen to see if I feel like there's any, if I can hear or smell any cobald stink. You know what I mean? Or hear any cobalt activity. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, make a perception check.

I'm going to make it at advantage, because I have. keen hearing and smell. Ah. It all comes together. My precision is plus nine. Pretty good. Twenty-eight. Whoa.

Oh, way. You are assaulted with the smell of Cobold and Solter in all directions. This is clearly almost like a barracks of sorts, at least on this floor. This is not the grand hall that the chiefs perhaps were being led to by Whisper Fang. and as they were being assembled in this storm. But with the 27, you are able to quickly separate the noise from the signal. You smell again and remove the background smell

of just the fact that cobalds are in this space and pinpoint that there are cobalds above you. This isn't just the cobalds that are outside this, the frost hammers, but you are able to smelling up the stairs, you are able to get the sense that there are almost certainly guards who inhabit the tower, that this is not an empty space, that the

fresh sweat or the fresh foot steps of the frost hammers are clearly right around the corner. I'm standing there. Oh, brother, these guys stink. On my chin with my other hand on my head on my

my back like sniffing and looking around bro just standing around looking at this fucking what is he doing this stout he's a stout he's a stout hurry up what are you doing oh no we shouldn't have to hold it off my knife and it's glowing blue we must steal we've already been doing that yes if we get caught we will actually die What do you mean? But my point is that there is still danger. They are not all gone. They are not all part of this procession.

No, you're just killing either getting our way. Just lead me to the place we can find this Vispahang alone, and I will follow. I will follow my nose. We'll lighten our taking in its chain. Wherever it goes. Wherever it goes. You all need to make a stealth check. Add advantage?

I'm going to add advantage. A new advantage for sure. Man, cats rolling like fire too. Ooh, good night. Oh, another 17. Without the boon, without the boon, I get a 13. 18.

27. Damn, oh. Damn, you be stoned. Stoes are pretty snaked. I be stoking. That's a snake of snout. As a weasel, I'm proficient and stelt. Uh, 15.

15. You make your way up the stairs, and you feel that you would not alert anyone to your presence should they be at the top of those stairs following this stout as he hops up up up up leading the way guiding you up through this this tower you recognize different spaces that you that you passed when you were first here and until you get to a a floor where you could pass through the door and and continue on on on that level or continue up the stairs and this sense that you have this ability to smell and hear with the powerful senses of the stout leaves you to understand that there are guards right on the other side of this door but that you also get this menagerie of smell how did you get in there this this smells smells of like candles almost perfumes the smell of

delicious foods a the smell of opulence almost My mother. The smell of opulence. Do I get the sense? Do I remember the smell? When we were in the union ceremony in Whispersbergang's quarters. Make a history check at disadvantage.

No, no, no. I'm going to cancel it out because you're stout and you're going to be able to think a little bit more smellularly. Smellyularly. Smelly later. Smellylylylyly. Eat my shores.

History? 15. 15? 15? It's pretty good for us, does? It's your liver. When you, it didn't hit you at the time, but you connect the dots now.

When you were walking back and down, the vassals were already in the biting bastion. Those humans from Ogerton, and the smell that you're getting from the other side of the room isn't just cobald. You're realizing that it's the, you're connecting it with the smell of their cooking. The things that you remember from Ogerton

suddenly waffes beneath the cracks of this door. Is this is it? He pulls, uh, swings his sword around and he can't hold it with both hands, but he is able to hold it up and, uh, are we, are ready to attack? Is this it? The humans, the humans are on the other side that is tall.

Why are you know? They're alive. At least some of them. I am sure of it. Perhaps this is where the daisy was being kept. The humans from the...

The down? No one. Then, yes. We learned that she was a human and has some sort of soft spot in her heart for them. And then she rounded them all up. Stole them.

Why? under the guise of a better life, I suppose, but it just seems like captivity. Aye, after the visions we saw, presumably something that the last remnant of who she was before she became what she is now. You did say, you did say that she was human. She was once human. I hadn't thought of that before, but maybe she is. Perhaps at some sort of wistful longing for her old life.

She retains a spark of humanity. Aye. She keeps them comfortable. If Daisy is on the other side of this door, we must find her. She may be able to tell us what happened. Open the door carefully. All right. You creak it open and I need to make a perception check.

Me? Yep. 24. Damn. 24. You don't get it but a few inches open before you recognize that there is a contingent of ivory clutch on the other side of this door. They're sitting and essentially blocking the entrance

from whatever lays beyond. But all you have to do is pull it a few inches. And fortunately, it doesn't make any noise. You just peek and you stare down and in. You can't make any other angles out to get a broader view without opening the door wider and surely drawing their attention. The door is blocked unless you should bust in

and essentially alert the ivory clutch here, presence right now. I would think about the possible collateral damage if I burst in. Normally my thing would just be to go and kill them. But if there's humans on the other side, and your near confirms that, I could see that we could burst in, but the couple humans might get killed in the fray. So I am going to hold it closed against me. Wait, wait.

What do you see? Do you see Daisy? No, I think there's just going. Skobols on the other side. Ah, no. You can't see any humans. If we burst in, it might be a bloodbath. Scream.

What? For how much longer are you hidden? Oh, I don't know, about 23 minutes. I don't know how I know that. I just know that. How wide are you? I don't know. I mean, I'm like, I'm like,

185 pounds. I'm not gonna be able to slip through this. I can make it. I can get through. I can get through. I push it open a little bit more. I take my hands. hat off and I take my jacket off and I like,

you actually see those things like reappeat as they like in the ground. Because I'm invisible man from extraordinary gentlemen, which is one of my favorite representations. I don't, I don't want anything getting caught as I try to like prepare myself to like, I kind of like look at the door and I'm like, okay, all right.

Okay, here we go, here we go, all right. What, what do I do when I'm in there? See, if you can find these, okay, fine, deal, deal. Alright, here we go. And I'm gonna try to like shimmy to take the door. It's like way wide. You get that in. It's plenty of wine.

It's plenty of space on either side and I'm still like, ah. Shimmie with advantage. Make another stealth roll for me. Oh boy. Double 17s for 21. Oh, nice. You're still invisible.

And so you were able to slip through and in. and in. It really is more dependent on Barnabos' ability to close the door, which as soon as you squeeze through, you notice closes and giving you free access to

observe the space that you are in. You are confronted by the backs of two cobbles. They're having a mundane conversation, sort of bemoaning the fact that they are stuck here in what is otherwise an extremely quiet room.

as you take in what surrounds you, there are dozens of humans in this space. There are, clearly it has been fitted with pillows and delicious foods. There are, there are fabrics hanging from all direction. What would normally be the interior of a dank tower, a fortress, has been retrofitted into a palatial space. The only thing that's slightly alien about it is, of course, the fact that as you look around, everyone is speaking with their hands. Just as you've come to know, all of the vassals, there is no sound of boisterous conversation, even if that sound of that conversation could be turned into what would be a very large, almost a cafeteria-style experience. You see families that you recognize. as many of the people that you saved

or came to know in your time in Ogerton are scattered all in every direction, surrounded by this comfort. I will take the opportunity without moving, provided that I'm in a spot where I don't feel like I have to get out of the way of anybody just to see who is in you. Make it for us?

No, you... I would say that you have a moment. If you take a breath... Oh yeah, I'm like trying to basically not make any... I'm not going to make you roll forward. Not moving. I want to just look. You're able to take a few careful, quiet steps. You know, you get five, six feet away from the entrance where these winged cobalds stand.

And you spot after scanning the room there on the other side is Myelin. Is he the only human I see? That or that I recognize. You recognize others. I mean, you recognize the mother, for example. of the baby that Taishan wasn't able to save in his mind memory wiping moment. You recognize-

Pork chops's there, right? He's gotta be there. Yeah, pork chop. Yeah, poor chop. I'm looking for Daisy, in addition to my line. Make a perception check. We're twisting this. Oh, yes.

Plus five. Give me how many? What do you want to give me? I got plus six already. Well, we got 10 left. Send it. Let's do five. Yeah, yeah.

That means one more roll we can do five. I was due for a bad roll with the plus six for my perception that gives me a 12 plus 5 to 17. So thank God. I was, I've been rolling last five. Thank you, Chad. Thank you for a bad role, so. You see Mylan and you see all of these others,

all of these food named vassals that you recognize from, for you, what would be perhaps a few weeks ago, For them, what would be more than two weeks ago in time because of your loss to the tower? And they are all not happy, but obviously not suffering. We pick out each one of their faces. No, no, no, no.

Looking at Myelin again, Daisy should be with Myelin. Shouldn't he again, come back, you check. You feel very, confident after 20, 30 seconds of really looking that Daisy, there is, you'd have to, like, walk around and perhaps there's sleeping quarters or something, maybe she's here and just not in this space, or she's not here. Is there anything else about the room that I see that appears to be like it goes deeper? Doors or any other access?

This has clearly been set up as a permanent residence for these people. So there do appear to be halls that lead off to what are almost certainly like sleeping quarters and that sort of thing. This is a complex that has been set up specifically for these people, these humans. How far away is myelin from where the guards are all sitting? A good, like, 40, 50 feet. What does he appear to be doing? He's having a conversation with another companion. They're sitting down.

They're having a drink. I'm going to sneak up on them. Okay. quietly. Okay. As quietly as I possibly can with my 21. And see if I can get close enough to him without him, like, gesturing or bumping into me or freaking the fuck out, right?

Like, I don't want to touch him. I just want to see if I can get as close as I possibly can quietly without disturbing what's going on. Okay. You were able to successfully do that, and you feel that you have a good amount of your invisibility left. As I'm approaching... Not that much time has passed since you walked up the stairs and got it.

here as I approach whisper range I want to get like really close and be like I'm please I'm gonna make a saving throw to see if he jumps see him open his mouth and thankfully no sound comes out when he oh you hear a splash as some wine hits the ground and for a moment you see the guard sort of like turn and look and he looks down very flustered and he stands back up after cleaning up the mess and looks around. Did you what you are doing? He gestures to the person he's talking to. There's a voice in my ear.

Do you hear it too? And the person's like, no. Mylan, it's me, scrimm. Please don't punch me. There it is again. Didn't you just hear that? Please don't punch me off here to help. The rest of the gang is outside.

You see, Scrim is that you? and the other person in front of him. Who are you talking him to? What are you saying, scrim? Is scrim here? They're just having this conversation. You recognize that the guards are not, can't speak this hand code.

Is your daughter okay? I saw her a couple days ago, but she hasn't been back since. Outside the door. What are you doing here? How long have you been here? What do you mean help? Look at this place.

We only have an hour. I can't explain what that. We want. We play games. We were well taken care of. You're happy? Happy is not the word, but this is better than

the starving winter that was confronting us in Ogerton. Are you crazy? When you put it like that, maybe. You know what? If you're only, he would know what to say. I thought for sure you were going to be so happy to see me. Are you sure you don't know where your daughter is? No, they told me that she and Queenie are with the princess.

Where's the princess right now? Can you tell me anything about what she's doing? No, it's been days since I've heard any of this. God, Myelin, you're so useless. Please don't like me. He does this sort of like nonsense gesture and you like get slapped in the face. Oh. I'm going to get the others.

I'm going to get the others. You don't have to be saved. You don't have to want to be safe, but I'm going to go get the others. I'm safe from what? What is happening? Amassing an army, she's gathering everybody. It looks bad.

It looks dangerous. They're mad at us. Some guy threw a rocket me, and everything went crazy. I'm so scrimm is doing very well. Although, I think someone is scared. Someone spilled water. You know what? Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it. I get out of this. I get out of this. Don't cause any more trouble. Don't. Just, just. We could have it all right. You're gonna stir the pot?

What do you mean she's amassing an army? To fight who? You know, Mylan, I really thought we could get off on the blank foot this time. voice just stops. Don't you hurt my daughter. Don't you endanger her. And I'm gonna try to get back to the door.

I'm gonna try to get back to the door where the rest of the crew is. You see him gesturing still as you make it to the door and the door is closed and there are a handful of ivory clutch standing in front of it. Well, I'm gonna go around them and I'm gonna try to alert my friends on the other side. Open the door.

Back. And I'm gonna... It's funny. You open the door and you open the door and you wait until you hear Scrim's whispering voice to signal that you can close that door. I'm going to make one quick perception check here. Oh, Jesus. You're all right. As the ivory clutches are engrossed in whatever they're doing, the door closes and you find yourselves all in that same.

in that same space. You've had a few minutes, quite a few minutes, just standing and waiting for Scrim to return. But as soon as you hear that tap, you know that he has made it back to you. I filled him on everything. God, that, yeah, fuck. My fucking sucks.

That guy sucks. I tried to tell him that we're here to save him. I asked him where his daughter? He's like, I haven't seen my daughter in Daze. With the queen and with Dazia, or with, with, Queenie and it's been so long and I was like, well, aren't you worried? We're here to save you and save me from what? I'm stage whispering Bonnebos. I save me from what? We have food and we're warm and we're you're crazy because Ogerton sucks and this is so much better. He doesn't want

to be saved. He doesn't want us to spill up trouble. They treated one pen for another. That's what I tried to tell him. They are comfortable. They're not being tortured. One cage for another. After all, we did in Ogerton. The point is they also don't seem to be aware of anything that the princess is doing. And Mylan hasn't seen Daisy for days. And we have to keep going. I'm, Daisy who was with Whisper Fang in the vision. We gotta be close to his, his, his, his quarters, right? Wait, where, you know, where, we're headed, right?

To the top of this tower. We gotta keep going up. I thought it's continuing late there. Damn it, I hate that guy. Mylan really pisses me off. We should have killed. Whisper Fang. I wasn't gonna see we kill Mila.

That's a little. That's a little. We should have killed him all we had the giants. Well, we can talk about that. Man, I really thought he was going to say what he should have killed. Oh, and it doesn't matter. It is you who do not like Milan. But Milan doesn't like me either.

You're going to tell me you like the guy that doesn't want to break free of these chains, right, Barnabos? He's quite an able semen. Do not care for him. He abandoned us. He would be hanged for that. I mean, that's true. And now he doesn't even seem concerned about his people or his daughter. He is irrelevant.

We must continue. Fine. We're talking about myelin. Why you guys keep bringing up myelin? We continue. You continue to make your way up. And it's a few more levels past your strange experience

with the surprisingly an unconcerned myelin. What a dick. That you reach the top of the tower. Turning around the corner, you recognize this space. This is the Arcane Sanctum where Whisper Fang originally brought you. And you recall that there was a large room that you were brought to.

It's straight ahead. The doors are unguarded. The sound of howling wind is much louder here at the top of this tower. And you know that you are hundreds of feet up. just by merit of the sound of the winds around you. What do you? Any kind of portal, not like, say, well, portal, but like archway or doorway, entryway,

that feels like it, we might have seen it from the other side in the vision. Oh, that's a great question. There are doors on the left and right and a far door. I would say that they all match the same pattern, meaning they're of the same build. It's impossible to make a distinction that one was more grand or innately decorated than another.

It smells like alchemy in here. And it does smell like... I'm quite a bit like alchemy. And we feel like we're here, and this is it? You recognize the space, and it feels the light is the correct texture to you. You're thinking back to that vision, and you're thinking about all the details

that you were taking in, it has to be one of these rooms. It's one of these doors. It must be. All right, no more sneaking around. There's no one here. He's downstairs and the guards are all patrolling. I just start, fuck.

I take the first door that I see and I just make it open. You push the door open. I'm just going door to door. You push the door open and surely enough, there is the alchemical smells that hit you as you see a laboratory, but no portal, no gateway, no queenie or the princess. You run up and you knock down the next door

and you see that room where you forged your tribal bond, a pool of water there, but no portal, no only books and arcane instruments. You push down the next one. It is in fact that far room that you're able to push in and through that you are confronted with a very familiar scene, the scene that you saw in your vision. This time, transformed by the fact that there's clearly what was a very ancient arch

made of twisting vines, almost, twisting wood like a dead tree, sitting on one at the far end of the room. You can see out windows now. You can see they're coated with ice and snow. In the center of the room, you're confronted with a large hexagonal object that sits on the floor and slowly turns and rotates. Room appears to be almost empty,

but as the five of you start to pour in, you notice that just to the side, you can see laying down on a table a small human figure, small human figure with Auburn hair. As I see this room, I would sort of start leaping as a weasel, but I would shift and my form will grow immensely. And I just continue my stride and you'll see yor on your rip here. As I out my anchor out of the netting, and I look out,

this is too easy. This is too easy. I go to check on the human. I would go a screen. I will go to the artifact. You race towards the artifact, and it's very obvious. This is the hexature armament. You look down and it is still turning. It doesn't seem to be powering anything. The portal is dormant. It is closed. Barnumbo's is stomping around, checking the perimeter, looking out in all directions. But you're staring down at this object, this object that you have only seen in visions. And it seems so simple and strange to have finally, be within feet of it.

Tyshan follows Scrim as you walk up, and surely enough, asleep. You find the body of Daisy, right there on the table, lying almost on her back, her hair cascading down one side of the wooden table in front of you. You can very plainly see without a medicine check, she is breathing. Oh, she's alive, she's alive.

And I'm going to very gently try to wake her. Does she look harmed at all? I think she's fine. Hey, hey, kid. Hey, hey, it's scrim. Daisy, can you hear me? Tyshen's with me. Are you all right?

Wake up, kid. You shake her, and she does not flutter her eyes or seem to come out of slumber. Something's wrong. She's not waking up. Magical in nature? I don't know. I can try and heal her.

Hey, come on, wake up, and I'm just a little bit more beyond gentle, like tap her on the face a little bit, I can shake her a little bit more. Come on, Kay, wake up. You start to shake her a little bit more vigorously, a little bit harder. I need you to make an archana check.

That ain't me, bro. That ain't me. Maybe my impro would help me out. I'm happy to also lean in. Not bad with a plus one, I get a 19. Oh, actually. With a 19. What happened to leave back.

Fucking in bros. Say the hell out of the way. No one sleeps this deeply. You don't need to do anything more in order to shake her. This is comically unconscious. And you recognize that almost certainly some sort of magical effect has made sure

that she remains in this place without bondage or without being damaged or cage. Let me try something. And I'll place my hands over her and they'll begin to emit a golden floor that won't burn to the touch, and I will cast the spell magic. Hot damn! You reach out and you,

Whoa. Is this a spell you've taken or is it a... This is a sorcerer's spell. All of your magic is because of your draconic blood. Because of your... Sorcery. And you feel that blood stir within you and you push out to negate whatever is affecting Daisy. And her skin almost gets a little bit warmer as this happens.

And in a moment, you see her breathing change. It is a little bit faster. Her eyes start to dart underneath her eyes like so. And she opens her eyes. You're near. What are you doing? As this is happening. I'll see the hexature armament. and I was told by my God to find this thing.

Oh, yeah, baby. So I'm here. This is how many months ago, two months ago, whenever midwinter was? You are actually only a few weeks from... A big long weeks, though. It's a long, tough weeks. Well, to be fair, you skip some weeks. So there's like, you didn't experience the full, like, six months or however long it would be.

for a quarter, three months that it would take for you to get from checkpoint to checkpoint. You skipped a huge chunk in there. So it hasn't been that much time. But, yeah, since midwinter, you have been on the search, essentially been handed a holy quest, the closest thing that could be a holy quest for you or near. And looking down, the gods had commanded all of you to care about this object and avert disaster. for clearly it is too powerful for the prime material world, too dangerous to be in the hands of anyone,

given the importance to its origins. I want to look around as I see it, and I see if I find any vestige of Queenies like seeds or anything related to Queenie. Because we're thinking back on the vision we saw, it was somehow tied to her seeds or something. Make an investigation check. Good fucking call. Cool. Come on. 16.

Good. Not bad. Not bad. 16. I'm gonna answer your question, but I need to look something up real quick. Okay. Give me 30 seconds.

That one. We're gonna suspend time. Everything kind of comes to their rest. Barnapost, maybe you can talk about what you're doing in this moment. I am checking the perimeter. If there are things that I'm pulling furniture apart,

I'm looking at the, I'm trying to find what's the catch. I don't trust this at all. I am, it feels too easy. I'm also, when I check the other rooms, I'll walk out. Mikey is wondering if there's a khyburned poet. Somewhere, Mikey's wondering.

God. But Barnabose is wondering also what happened to the poet with a split fucking skull. Any evidence? So I am going to basically try to get a sense of I see that you honor has that. I'm not worried about it. I see that Daisy is with both Tishan and Scrim. I'm not worried about it.

I'm worried about the incoming battle potentially and how I can disrupt Whisper Fang, how I can ruin what he loves, how I can destroy. I want to start destroying what he's trying to do. Okay. So if I find like his alchemy lab, his like dark watch called, I want to basically start causing damage so that he is that that he is set back because I know that I'm going to kill him anyway but that even if he has an apprentice we know you know the every clutch that he has a prentice that they yeah that he's part of a I want to basically set back this motherfucker and everyone he's trained I want to set him back decades you know I want to I want to ruin his boat. Water basin is Matti-Exactly. Toast. being it.

Are you staying in the room with the others, or are you going down the hallway and like... I think I would have basically scanned the room for any kind of like of what Western Fentga is doing. They just look like a fucking a woodsy, dead tree, win tree. And that, I'm going to go back out and basically look, like, is there a lab? I'm going to start fucking destroying that check. I would say it's easy enough for you to go back and start and start like, you know what? I'm going to ruin this person's day. You start throwing the viola.

the vials. I'm going to do what we should have done. Potions. You're crashing into the shelves. You're breaking, destroying knowledge, destroying everything that is so cleanly and pristinely organized. This is not a wizard's tower with a bunch of unkempt papers. Everything is very tidily. You recognize the alphabetization of the scrolls as you crash into them.

and watch them scatter to the ground and with a few quick stumps, destroy whatever magical energy they may have had bound within them. You continue to make your way from... If there's a brazier or a fireplace to warm these frigid halls, I guess they were probably comfortable.

If there is fire, I'm burning the papers. I am trying to basically destroy everything that he's been working on for his entire career, his entire lifetime. Moments after any of you got to what you wanted to pay attention to, you start to hear the sounds of crashing in the distance and you know that Barnabot is effectively in a rage. What did you get in your investigation? 16.

16. It takes you some time. It takes you some time, but you are able to walk around the room and it's opposite Daisy that you are able to find a very familiar object. You find the honeypot. Oh, shit. That Queenie has always kept by her side. When you pick it up and look at it and stare at it in your hands, you feel a pulse of tension.

It doesn't respond to you. This is not your... It ain't me. This ain't you. You do not have the affinity with it. Queenie could pull it open and produce these fay creatures, these bees that would swarm and produce elaborate shapes, fight for her,

produce magic, impossible magic. But when you hold it up, you just get the cloying sweet smell of delicious and thick honey. But it is almost on magical in your hand, aside from the fact that it's significance to you and your friend, your ally, your family. I take the lid off if the lid was on. Are there bees? Are there any bees anywhere? No. This is just empty? The honey's in there.

You find the honey. But unlike when Queenie uses the honeypot And you are able to create she's able to produce and summon And I would have some intuition that they were like face spirits in the form of bees Yes, yes this was not a literal hive inside of a honeypot that somehow survived the winter of her car This was a this was a magical connection that she had because of her Mentorship under Eldred I wanted to bring the honeypot back to the Exeter upermint

and just sort of think and reflect, and my eye will flash with a bright blue as I cast Detect Magic and just try to see what I read from the Hechture armament from this, from anything else in the room. What do you cast him? Detect magic.

Detect magic. Yes. Okay. As you start to go into that ritual, Taichenne, Scrim. you see Daisy's breathing change. She blinks and she looks around her, and she sees you first, Tyshen, and then she turns and she sees,

locks eyes on you, and you immediately get a sense of recognition and lucidity as she wraps her arms around. Essentially, because of the table being as hollow as it, she essentially pulls your head into her arms and squeezes you. Not so hard, kid. You get sort of a shuddering excitement of almost like a sob,

but also relief. You're all right. You're all right. We're here. We found you. It's okay. What the fuck? I take one step back.

Look, it's a lot to explain right now, but we've got to get you out of here. Things are happening very quickly and we worry that the... The Princess is evil. The Whisper Fang is evil. They're all... They're all terrible. They've got Queenie. They need to save her.

We know. We know. That's why we're here. We're all on the same page now. It's going to be all right. Where did she take, Queenie? Do you know where she went? No, no.

I saw her go through that thing. And then a whisper fan. He held his hands out. Honestly, that's the last thing I remember. It's good to have your back kid. I was worried I was going to have to head butch you again. Don't do that. Please.

No, I... No, it's fine. Yonia, she's saying that Wispafang took her through there, and I'm going to point to wherever Daisy just pointed the portal that he held his hands up, and that was the last thing she remembers. He pointed at the, she pointed at the arch. Yeah, that we've seen in the vision. Yes, this dormant portal.

That's all we got. It was different, it was different then. Did he say anything, or did he just gesture? After, after she went through, he spoke a lot about, about her great plans and how she's planning on ascending and that she's gonna be queen and and and and and it's it. I'm scared for Queenie. Yeah, we ought to.

Ascending. Yeah, some sort of ascension. I don't know what she's saying is not making too much sense over it, at least to me. But when she's worried about Queenie. Could this be the ceremony she's drawn everyone here for? Does Queenie live? I saw them go through the port.

as far as we know. My back is to you, and I look at Kett. What's Kett doing? And I detect magic. What do I see as well? Oh, that's right. Kett has been taking in the entire scene. He is standing back and sort of allowing

Barnabos to experience his rage, not expending too much energy. He's watching very closely the interactions between Srim and Daisy and Tyshen. He's watching you very closely. As you use your detect magic, you get a lot of background hum from the hallway, especially as like flares of magic are expressed and go out

as Barnabos crashes into whatever alchemical or magical device he might be destroying at any given time. You focus in. There are a few mundane magic items along the wall, trinkets that sort of thing but you get a tremendous amount about a magical energy a sense from the honeypot certainly and the hexager armament when you have this sixth sight is hard to look at it is you know how in a video game when you're when you're looking at something and all of a

sudden it just like no clips and you're like looking through It doesn't make sense. It's the only fucking dimension where the texture suddenly just stops working. Right? Yeah. In this moment when you look down, it is unnatural what you are staring at. It is fractals of spiking energy twisted in on itself in a elaborate geometry of shapes within shapes, within angles, within lines that shrink down into to points and then expand back up.

The scale is impossible to describe. It is, you do not want to give this more attention than you have to with this perception that you have. I will, is it floating above like a, like a pillar or like a dais or anything like that? Or is it just like in the middle of the room? It's a sizable object. Let me give you more of a description here.

It's two perfect hexagonal prisms made of metal, or what appears to be metal. It is about the, it's bigger, a little bigger than like a large wheel of cheese. Like two of them stacked on top of each other. Okay. And so that's what sits in front of you, but it hasn't been placed onto a table or anything like that.

It's not on, on, it is sitting on the floor. And what you can recognize, looking at it, before you detect magic and afterwards, is this, the bottom one stays perfectly still, and the top one just turns very slowly, very, very slowly. Damn. It makes you feel like the times you've meditated, watching a sun clock,

where you simply just watch that shadow move across the land as the sun and turns to stars. It has that same inevitability about it as it just turns. I take the honey pot and I pull out my knife. And I begin to wrist. And I'm going to... Rist a ruin of protection. And I cast the spell of Roon of Protection.

Wrists a ruin on a small or tiny object made of stone, wood, or ceramic. And would this pot count? That would count. It becomes magical for the duration. A creature that keeps this object on this point. on their person gains a resistance to one of acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, psychic or thunder damage. For 12 hours, I choose psychic. Oh, shit.

A creature may only benefit from one ruin and protection at a time. And it will sort of glow almost in like this weird, like purple energy and then fade. But you'll see sort of the ruin and the side, and I can now see that this object, which felt more mundane is now granting me while I hold it some sort of protection to my mind. As I look back at Ket Rostin, remembering what I told him, and making a decision, instead, I reach out and I try to grab the Hexatron. You equip yourself with this ruin. You do these ritual tasks, and you, um, you reach out, and you, um, reach down to perhaps pick up or activate or grab or just put your hands on this object

for the first time to see what information or what you might learn. As you are pushing your hand down, Scrim, Taishen, what are you doing? Why would be trying to help Daisy to her feet? She's able, she's rocky. She seems to have been held almost in like a suspension, for lack of a better word.

She doesn't seem hungry or weakened from her experience from what may have been asleep all of this time. But she's a little rocky from that strange slumber. I'm vaguely aware of what Your Honor is doing, but I'm only half paying attention as I'd probably be trying to fill her in on what has happened up to this point as much as I can with as much detail as I can. Tell her all the things that she missed to try to get her up to speed and just making sure that she seems all right as I'm having conversation like she's not out of it or or. I don't have my bow with me. I left it with my dad. Everyone seems really chill about being here, and it's not chill. I know. I talked to your father.

He seemed upset. He was, no, he was actually the opposite of upset. He didn't punch me at all. He was totally fine with being here. I tried to tell the other guys that he just, he was happy. He was happy. No, when Queenie and I first got here, we met, and we were with him, and we were all, like, celebrating that we were together.

And then they were just like, cool, let's all just, eat and stay and play games. So you don't have the bow. What about your powers? Right? Has that gotten better, stronger? You don't need the bow, right? Come, we're going to need you.

I still have a little, but I... I'm not as strong as you. Ah, come on. You can do it. I believe in you. Come on. Well, if we can find something like a dart or something, I might be able to, you know...

Okay, all right, we'll keep an eye out. We'll see what we can do. Barnabos is, uh... Well, you can hear him. He's a couple of words, over. He's doing these crashes. It's as you're having this conversation, Barnabos, as you're crashing through, that you're near you,

push your hand down, but your hand never meets the surface of the hexature armament. You instead cross the threshold of a protective barrier put in place by Whisper Fang, a glyph of warding. I'm going to need you to make a dexterity saving throw. I think I should twist this. I think that's why I think that's. I'm spending our final five twists.

I think that is more than reasonable. I'm gonna. 11. You fail. I do. You take 45 points of lightning damage as a 20 foot sphere of explosive energy protecting what Whisper Fang knows is most precious in the world

explodes into the center room. It's close enough to crash into the arch of trees, and you see the face of these roots and branches crackle and blacken with this sick energy. Tishen, Tishan, Scrib, you are just beyond the crest of this threshold, not quite close enough as you hear this massive crack, like a lightning strike go off.

All of your hair, including daisies, strikes out radically, making you look like almost comically like dolls all of a sudden. As you turn and you hear Yorneur cry out. Ket reacts, pulling his sword out and racing forward. And Barnabot, you hear this crash as you start to turn rushing into the hallway. Yornear, you are slammed by this power, hit and pushed back immediately falling to your back. Holy fuck. Yon-in-a-you-all-a.

Of the lightning crack that you yourself inflicted upon yourself and so many... Oh, what happened in here? Here go. Hey, it's some blouted. Something went off. Do you want it? Daisy, I can go to him. You go, go, go, go.

I race over to your ear. You race over to Yornear, and you can see that he's been severely damaged by... The thundering boom in the space was enough to hurt your ears, but not deafen them. You said 45, right? I did. I'm just going to make sure that I took all that. Just a cheeky 45 minutes. Barnabose, you race down the hall

and you are able to join the moments later. Why are you messing with that Mr. Yornear? It was a protective hoard. You're lucky to be alive. Can you stabilize yourself? Yes. Do it out. I live.

Get yourself patched up. I do not see it. It's my eye. Do I feel like it's still there? Make a perception check. Narakana? Oh, perception's also good. That's better.

That is 22. JK, JK. My perception is actually great. With a 22, you do perceive the glyph to still be there. You seem to have triggered it. But it is a persistent. And in any attempt to touch the Hexacher armament might trigger this same explosion. Stay away from it.

I'll put out a golden hand of flame, and a fire will start wrapping around his body and almost like slithering down to his feet as it burns and then disperses as Alcast cure wounds at a third level. Very nice. You do that. And you endeavor to close up as many of the wounds that that Yorneur took as possible. You were able to still hold on to the honeypot even in this collapse state. I was like grabbing like a football.

Yeah, it's like precious, right? Like as much of a surprise as this protection barrier may have been, you are still lucid enough to hold onto it to make sure it doesn't spill. Only 12. From third level. I wrote a two, two, and a three. Close five.

It's 68. What? In 2024, cure wounds is 68. That's insane. If you're casting on a third level. Yep. You must be using the legacy version. Oh, 2014.

That's what it says. Get that shit out of here. You're using it. Get that shit out of it. I don't fix it all. I'm not fixed it all. All right, so 12 plus, not much, but. Oh, actually, no, sorry.

That's a seven. That's 12. 15. Nope. 27. There we go. That sounds more correct. Still not great.

Thank you, Tychen. I won't make you roll a perception check. It's in this moment as you are all reeling from the last few minutes. Barnabos, you're sweating and heaving from the exertion of destroying as much as you could before Yornear's explosion. You're near, you're still making sure that you're whole, experiencing the magic that Tai Shen is delivering. this healing. You're staying focused on Daisy, who's looking around, seeing if she can find some weapon to improvise, and Kett is turning, looking behind him. You notice he's hearing perhaps footsteps coming up the stairs. There are indeed, and a voice carries out. First, they,

they kill my soldiers. They kill, they, they threaten, my princess. They threaten the high-accentre armament. You hear the voice of whisper fangs coming up the stairs, and you see him round the bend all the way down this hallway, and you see behind him a larger shape. Surely enough, the dumb face of the poet standing right behind him, as he walks in and through, he straddles the hallway, essentially, staring all the way down, pointing at the... Intruders!

We could have had everything! I've had everything. And he leaps into the air, starts to fly forward, and I need everyone to roll initiative next week when we continue, not next week, next month when we continue to play nice. We'll call tonight session. We're starting with a boss. Oh, my God.

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