Legends of Avantris - Stardust Rhapsody: Anthem | Ep. 22 | Crimson King: Part: 1

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

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Welcome to Legends of Adventress. I'm Mace Caffrey, and you're listening to Stardust Rhapsody Anthem. Last time on Stardust Rhapsody. The party processes the words they've so far left unsaid while they prepare to finally confront the Don. Passing the time talking and preparing for the fight to come, Rhett plots, of course, to take the crew to the world of Caledora, where they head to Sig Broncos to pick up the personal ships he'd commissioned. The Rhapsodies fallen on hard times recently. though and they can't make the full payment without putting up the Rhapsody as collateral at the bank.

With Rett's pride, joy and freedom on the line, he gets a loan and squares the payment with SIG. Back on the ship, Rex shares a message. Anatra is in trouble. The Don has gone crazy. He's killing his own people. She wants to escape and she wants Rex to rescue her. The plan takes shape. The party will go and let Rex meet her solo.

Anachra will come out, get on his ship, and provide them with the access codes. This goes off without a hitch, but unforeseen forces alight and quickly set a new tone to the mission. You find yourselves on the hillside overlooking the lake. You watch as Anatra exits the compound and boards Rex's ship. Over the comms you hear Rex say, wait a minute. Has your chest always lit up like that? Zigi.

You get a weird blip of interference. Information hits your brain in a cascade like the first drops of rain. Everywhere all at once. You process the information in a split second, but not fast enough to call out. Not interference. A remote signal. Targeted. Not wide band.

Ascend. A receive. The taste of cookies in your mouth. Mrs. Umei. The radio will cut out for a second or two. And then, boom. The ship is. explodes from inside, sending it careening off the garden, plummeting it into the water below.

Was the ship sabotaged? He knew. The Don knew. Somehow, he put a bomb in his wife. He's in his wife? That's what it sounds like. You think that happened before she's in her message? Do you think that she, she, she, she lured him? She lowered him, I doubt she knew. I think the Don probably knew. He was just one step ahead. Stay low. We don't know if anyone's coming. Oh, yeah. I want to grab Pixel and just like,

and Ziggy too, because I know that Rhett and Pike will get down. But I'm going to basically tackle. I realize effectively that there's been this massive explosion. And I know that we're kind of in the bushes and the overgrown hedges. but I am going to basically try to tackle both of them and get down to the ground as quickly as possible. Yeah, you do so unless there's any resistance, but you tackle them both down to the ground.

You hang low, watching, waiting for any kind of resistance, any kind of movement. A large explosion has just gone off right outside of the mansion itself. Lighting some of the garden ablaze. You watch, you wait, moments go by. You expect to see movement from, Inside, anywhere.

People exiting out, walking through, investigating what's just gone off. But nothing happens. No movement to be seen. No one comes. What the hell is going on? No, there's no one, the security, firefighters, anyone.

We got to stay low, but I think we got to move. Damn it. Listen. Right, right, right before the blast. I picked up a frequency on my grid boy. And it almost was like the same energy as when Mrs. Umay.

The signal was nearly identical. I don't know how it's connected, but it felt like it was the same somehow. It doesn't matter if it's a fucking street corner thug like Sagiow or the boss of the whole fucking operation. There are a bunch of tough guys that are cowards that have to blow up, ladies while they're comfortable in their fucking thrones. Far away, safe from danger, they can't even get their own fucking hands dirty. Do we really have to keep this asshole alive, Rhett? I put the Rhapsody up for collateral.

What? It was the only way we could get the one. We have to keep this guy alive. If we don't, there's a chance we lose her. but I'm inclined to say, fuck it. She's had a good run. No, no, no, no. Just let's focus.

All right, I know it's weird that there's nothing, but we're not going to get another chance like this. If we don't go in now and the Don moves again, we may never find him all again, all right? If the coast is clear, we could, we, we haven't seen what's going on up there. I mean, maybe somehow he's still alive. We have to check. We have to check.

There's no fucking way, but... Yeah, let's take a look. Don't worry about the Rhapsody. We're going to get her back, all right? All right. I'm just saying, if we didn't try to take them in, let's try, but... Fuck! Damn it. Rex died for this.

We have to make the most of it, all right? We have to do it. We got the access code. Does it me remember it? Yeah, 2865. 2065. Remember that. Okay. I don't know how I'm going to remember that. Okay.

That's easy. How? Dark stop. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As Derek thinks of something funny to say. Anyway, as he thinks of that, we're going to run up to see, I guess... Well, 2.9 is 6 and 5 is the number of burritos I have for breakfast.

Two plus 8 is 10, and that's not 11, which is 6 plus 5. Done. We got to go. I would say that we try to lay low, but move quickly because we don't know if all of a sudden there's going to be like people. The whole situation is very strange.

Do we know if we need to pass by this explosion site to go where we believe we need to use the access code? Or is that out of the way? You are, it's a little, you're only, like skirting the edge of the property. Okay. So you're almost like rounding this section

to go over to where the ships are, or where the ship blew up to get there. You're kind of looking at through the garden which the blast has sent shrapnel, flaming shrapnel, arcing through the sky that's landed in the garden, has lit some of the greenery on fire where in the direction that you have to go

to kind of approach the mansion from its backside. its backside. You're basically looking almost directly down its back. You have to go just off to the, like to your left a little bit to get to their wreckage. You'll then come back and move towards the mansion. I'm happy to roll for it. I'm happy to go check it out. But knowing what I know about explosives, do I have any hope that that Rex is alive? As a seasoned bounty hunter. and my former life. And your former life? Absolutely. The answer is no.

Okay. And I would imagine I've seen with drop ships torn asunder by various bombs and missiles and laser blasts. So when we go up there, I'm going to let them check it out. I'm literally going to be like

keeping, I'm going to put myself, maybe you'll join me. You took the exact words out of my mouth. Basically, Pike is more than happy to check it out if that is like peace of mind for the group. But I think that Pike and Red as well are very much like, oh, he's fucked. Yeah. So I'm going to basically just play Overwatch and, like, keep an eye on the mansion in case anyone comes and have my can and ready to go.

But I'll sort of let them do the perceiving and the checking. We are aligned. We proceed. You move forward in this collection and in this formation. You keeping an eye, the two of you keeping an eye on the mansion, watching for movement, watching for any kind of threat that approaches you. What you are able to see relatively easily from this distance is not the movement of people, but you see what looks like almost monitoring or security drones flying above the mansion.

In a relatively, you can make it out watching. I mean, maybe it takes you 10 seconds of reviewing this before you make out a kind of repeated pattern as they cover the sections of the property beyond just the house. But even they don't move out towards this burning wreckage to investigate. They hold the pattern, they hold position. You are watching the mansion as you move. The two of you racing quickly to get to the wreckage. I'm flying, yeah.

Yeah. The two of you are moving extremely quickly to get there. You as well just focused on what made it come. As you approach, it is a horror scene. Only large sheets of scrap metal remains scattered among the smoldering garden. The gold scorched off of it, the churning water dozens of feet below you. It has fully swallowed the bulk of the ruined ship. It is clear that nothing could have survived this.

While they're investigating, I'm just going to be standing next to Red while we're kind of looking at what's going on, and I'm going to light a cigarette and just, without even looking at Red, I'm just going to say, I had a conversation with him last night for longer than I'd like to admit. He wanted us to succeed, and I truly thought we could save him. Close. I mean, was there any... Was there anything else we could have done different? I didn't think he'd fucking pull that. His own wife!

Look, I'm gonna take full responsibility for this. We shouldn't have fucking mixed him up in all of our bullshit. And yeah, he fucked his life up, but we can't let him die in vain. I told him it wasn't too late. I told him we tried to save him. And I'm not sure. I mean, she was probably evil as fuck, but going out like that, a bomb inside of you. Scared and alone.

Okay? We'll see what happens. Let's go. As they were talking, I was really poking my way through the wreckage to the best of my ability. I'm looking for scraps of outfit or flesh, as horrifying as that might be. I'm looking for any of the devices. Maybe his phone flew off of him in this time. I want to go through and see is this only ship, and do I find any evidence of either body?

Investigation check. Are you looking down in the water where the ship is? Or are you... Are you looking for chunks? I'm looking for chunks. Okay. And there's not like shrap on, and the bulk of the ship has like descended into this lake, but there's

blast zone shrap in the water. I'm not getting in the water. I am... I got you. Okay. Investigation, you say? Yep, please. Make sure Ziggy's not wading in in his cargo shots. Yeah, right? 19. His eye waters.

19. Ah, my socked sandals. With a 19. Cargo pockets are full of water. You spend a little bit of time looking through. And you find two things. One of which is the glint catches your eye. It's almost like covered in ash and oil. It's hot to the touch as you pick it up.

But you give it a little wipe. you brush it off and you see what looks like a small blue gem that may have been a part of a necklace the other thing you find you find you find what smells and looks like two patches of smoldering rubber in about the size of Rex's shoe. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. I will collect those items,

and as soon as I see the group is either moving away or making their next decision, I will join them. The two of you, as you have mentioned, approaching this knowing that there was no chance of survival, and probably, Rhett, you would know this, know this the best of all is that at the epicenter of an explosion like this, they refer to you as red mist.

There's nothing that's left. You're vaporized just, just above atoms as anything that made you, you would have turned to dust and mist. keep that knowledge to myself. Yeah. As I just, I'm keeping an eye on the mansion to see if I see any signs of movement or, I don't know if there are windows or what. Yeah, it's a beautiful home. It's truly a sprawling mansion. And you see these large, kind of almost like doming solid pane glass windows. Against this kind of like what from a distance looks like almost this,

soft without air stonework on the outside, almost as if the whole mansion was carved out from one piece of beautiful stone, as if it was cut from the hill itself as it lays in. But it does have these large, high-reaching windows, and as you look into them, it's hard from this distance, and the smoke is kind of taking the air. The garden from where you'll have to move, the vegetation has caught flame a bit, and it's not burning in this roaring bonfire, but it's sending that black smoke up in the air

that is generated when vegetation burns in this way. You do not see any movement. Once I think Ziggy is done and Coe's ready to go, I would have. I didn't find anything. I looked, I'm no expert, but I think that they were totally obliterated. I think that the heat of the explosion, you know, it's like this weapon that they have in this video game I play,

called Red Mist. I will... You're right, Ziggy. I will kneel down to Pixel, who's looking at the scene with kind of wide eyes as... And they're distant. And she kind of approaches, it's almost this... She approaches quietly.

And it has this kind of recognition of where I think that you would probably co-certainly recognize, but all of you would recognize, almost reminds you of that same singer, that same songbird from the Glitz Room, who was offered up on a silver platter to the viceroy. And I'm going to kneel in front of Picks and I'll say, hey, Picks, it's okay.

It's okay. That's not you. It's okay. We're gonna kill this fucker. We're gonna get him. You just stay with me. There aren't gonna be any demons. It's just a coward.

He's just a man. He's just a human. And he's more scared than all of us. It's gonna be okay, Pax. And I would like to kind of get, presumably Rhett had finished the the reverse

little bear I had given you the reverse little bear in the days or weeks that I, you know, between all of the last episode you would have it in your possession. Oh yeah, there was a large gap

when you had that conversation to now. Yeah, absolutely. You would have easily had the time to create a reverse little bear. That's right. And you take it out of your pack and you are able to don it

I would like to point out that people in chat last episode were asking why it had to be a backpack and why it couldn't just be a traditional baby bjorn. And I just want to point out that Coe wouldn't use pixel as a meat shield. No. Yeah, that's right. So let's, you know, let's think about that. Let's think about that. It would absolutely take the Banjo-Kazooey approach.

You know, not that. Not that. Okay. We're going to get the pixel pack. It'll just be like, God, what was that? What was that movie? Was that like Dio, the really merchandise guy who like weirdly broke his like strange speech pattern to talk about firing on the nearest starship?

Anyway, it's gonna be just like that movie. It's gonna be okay. Just stay out of the way of my club. I'm not gonna bonk you. Just keep, just stay down, Bix. Just duck. Zicki knows what you're talking about. Wait, it's also like that video game that Dandy used to play.

What? You ever play that one? What? I think it was called Dubexieuble. bro Piccolo. That is so... You never played that? Fucking good. No? Oh my God.

I play fighting games. Oh, yeah. Yep. I've been alluded. Twice. Twice. You don't. All right.

Ziggie knows. Ziggy starts waxing poetic and you have to shut them up. I was trying to figure out where you were going to go with that. That was fucking brilliant. I just, it's fucking brilliant. Anyway. All right. Let's go.

Okay. Let's go, Pix. It's going to be. be okay. You just stay with me and we're gonna get these fuckers. We proceed towards the mansion and whatever first door we can get in with the code we will. You do. You start moving forward. You move towards the mansion. The large men are extending towards the sky from the back. The overgrown garden now lying just in front of you. Flames dancing and dancing and certain sections of it as the smoke begins to fill the air. It's as you move forward and you get a little bit closer that you realize there's there's one other structure really before you get to the

mansion that you can see it almost looks like a gazebo right at the edge of the garden as you enter. And as you approach, you're able to discern that you would think this is actually a guard tower or guard outposts. It's not a tower like extending on legs up into the air, but it's a little kind of like guard post just right at the back. Um,

I guess we'll approach carefully. Yeah, and we're probably trying to steal and I don't know how much we're really trying to steal. Uh, trying to be stealthy. I think we're just looking out for defenses and we're looking at for guards. Like I'm kind of, we're golden, we're golden eye in this.

Yeah. Of we're like trying to be stealthy, But like we're just looking out for goons and if we had to shoot him down and like... Right, it's that level where you like go up over the wall and you're just like running into the base and it's... Right? Yes, they all come out. You move forward. And like you've seen so far, no movement, no sign, you're watching, you're at the ready,

ready to just lay down anyone who stands up in front of you. And as you approach this small guard outpost, you still see no signs of life, no movement, nothing inside. In fact, as you approach, you kind of look in, it comes just about waist high with almost like this white painted like wood base with open, open air connections on top. You can look right in, and it looks like a small, just little control panel interface. Ziggy, you would discern relatively quickly that this is maybe where somebody would man the drones flying overhead. I glance. Can I interface with this in any way? Could I like... Roll a computer show. I would love to. That's where I am a Viking. So these are presumably just bots, right?

The century like drones flying overhead are just bots. They're like small, cylindrical, almost silver, just kind of like... ...flying, rotating in a repeated pattern, all of... heated pattern all above the villa. I can't get what's happened out of my head, and I roll a nine. Oh shit. Uh-oh. It's traumatic. Nobody blames you.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh-oh. With a nine. I'm a shock. You're trying to hack into this, trying to take control, trying to take over the drones that are flying above you. You can't make the connection.

Everything you've seen, so just everything, your entire journey, it's in your head, you can't get the sight, you can't get the smell away from you. And you miss type several lines that you would have otherwise done well. Hold on. And your actual grid spiking deck crackles for a moment and hits you with a degree of feedback. Oh my God.

You will have to subtract six from any ability checks used with your deck. Holy! Oh my god. Oh! So it like damaged the... It like crackled and cracked the... Oh!

Your grid spiking kit. Your grid boy. Oh! Oh! Shit, hold on. I yank the plug out, which further damages the grid boy. You're nervous that it was going to overload the system. Oh, I forgot the firewall.

I forgot the firewall. safety protocols. Oh, damn, damn, dammit. Is it okay? I think we need that, Ziggy. I can still use it. I, it's, uh, hold, hold on. I'm going to see if I can, uh, could I repair this? Is this something that I could attempt to, uh, reverse through, um, my, my knowledge of the systems in the, in, in, plaque, and I, turn it off and turn it on again? Uh, you can, you can, you can absolutely, you'll have to spend basically an hour to try and repair this.

I have to do a full reboot, guys. It'll take it out an hour. I don't think I can do that. We're just going to have to be... I mean, does it work or not? I can still do it. Hey, let's fucking go. All right. It'll be all right. This is a bad fucking omen.

Don's wife said that he killed most of his fucking guards. Maybe that's why no one's here. Oh, right. I mean, this is what happens. I mean, I even saw it from from local street gangs. And someone gets paranoid. They think that everyone's trying to backstab him.

So they get the jump and they kill everybody except for their most loyal fucking thugs in bootlickers. All his own security. Except for the most loyal ones? Wow. Okay. Maybe he didn't know that we know where he is? Maybe he only thought that it was his wrecks coming to fuck his wife

and getting revenge there and then he maybe thinks he's fine. Well, with a little bit of luck, then we might still be undiscovered. Are you able to try again, or should we keep moving? I could give it another shot. Try again. It works. You can functionally use it. It's just its functionality has been cut into. Shit! Given that we have twists of fate, maybe we use them.

I suppose that makes sense. I don't think we have many. We do not. These are now officially Rex, Max, and Luck tokens. That's pretty good. We use five Rex Max and Luck tokens on this. How many do we have, do we know? Uh, I've been like eight.

Seven or eight, yeah, eight. Let's call it eight. Let's call it. Are you cool with that, GM? I'm fine with it. Thank you for being generous. Probably, no. Maybe we use three love tokens.

Yeah. No, no, uh, that's fine. That's fine. We'll take five and then we'll have three remaining. Please. Oh. Thank you. Internet person.

Thank you, Dan. I have advantage when I'm spiking. That's right. In general. So we can roll that back a little bit because you didn't roll advantage on the first one. No, I didn't. We'll roll.

We can keep the crack. This is cool. I can keep the crack. I'll just roll. This is narrative as far. Sometimes the dice tell the story. We have to have bad omens. That's right.

This has to be serious. I'll roll out advantage and add five. I get a 21 this time. I take my time and I navigate. Things are moving more. 21. You don't add five. Did you subtract six? It was six. So you're minus one. You're right. Yeah. So it's minus one.

So I get a 15. Still good. I mean, I take my time. That's huge. And I, every once in a while, it'll hang and I'll get that little swirly color wheel like on an apple. You still add your in stuff. Make sure you do that. The beach wall. Yeah. So I roll a 16. Minus six is 10. Plus computers is, is done the math terribly. Hold on. That's what. It's funny. It's 17 plus additional. five is 22, right? Yes. It'd be your intelligence plus proficiency.

Because forget about the minus six. I have the computer proficiency plus seven. What are your own your die? 16. And then plus, what's your computer skill? Plus seven. Plus seven. Okay, so what's 16 plus seven?

23. And then you minus one. 22. You have 22. Because it's minus six, but the plus five. You took the long way. I got there. I took the show.

22. 22. 22 is the total? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Half of the minus six? Yes. Because I didn't add, I thought I had 15, but I didn't add my computer skill. That's plus 7, 15, 22.

I take my time. He just rolled really poorly the first time. Yeah, I rolled a two the first time. With a 22. Your grid spider does, your grid boy hangs and holds as you try and do this, but now focused, you punch in and you're able to find the right lines of code. and you are able to not just gain control of the movements of the drones.

So you can redirect their pathing if you want them to spread out and not cover an area that you would walk under or you would see, but you can actually control what they record and when they may do so. I'm in. As they are feeding back live video. I'm in. I can see everything.

I can control them all. The drones aren't going to present any danger to us. In fact, if you give me just a few more minutes, I'd like to look through their live feeds and sort of scout around and check out the rest of the villa. I mean, if you can find out where any of the Don's goons might be, that would be huge. I'm going to not touch their current path-finding algorithm.

I want them to continue to look like they are still doing the century work that they're doing. And I'm just going to flip. through one after another, after another, and get a sense of the other invisible pockets. I'm clearing the fog of war. I want to see the house from this side. I want to see the gardens from this side. I want to see the front of the entrance

and see if there are any cars there. I want to know their social security numbers. I want to know. Any like spaceport landing. Like landing pads. There are an additional landing pad. Yeah, where's the official landing pad? And how many sheds?

Um, yes. So, if you will something up really quick. It's a lot of information to give you all once. You, you, uh, run the, you run these drones all over the place. You don't change their pattern, but you just watch and you wait. Um, you see the, almost, from the sky, you get the full layout of this manner. You see the garden and as the drone moves the camera over, you see from the very top that, uh, what looks like, like a section of the wall, the manor coming in, then opens into an internal courtyard.

You see once more an open area that has from your side as you would walk up, has these two rotating staircases that move upwards to an elevated section that kind of comes to an extended pedestal that moves out towards the direction you're coming from. The manor continues large and sweeping in all directions. Wings stretch off one way. Another section of the building stretches off to the side. Towards the front where you might see somebody walk in to the front of the house, you see a cruiser. You see one large cruiser, which you would discern to likely be that of the dons. I think it seemed quiet. But there's a cruiser on the other side. Towards the entrance. I think it might be the donns.

It looks pretty premium. Just the one? Yeah. I don't think it gets any better than this. Yeah, we got to go. Yeah. Now's the time. Are we ready?

All right. Just one moment. I'm going to very quickly, I'm going to pause their movement. I know that they won't look like they're scanning to someone who would really think to look. But the fact that they're just in the sky, I'm going to do that. I'm going to start to have them loop their own feet if I can so that they wouldn't show anything.

Oh, brilliant! The classic maneuver. Yeah, absolutely. Just a 30-second loop. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I saw this trick. I saw this trick in a movie once. It was called One Last Job, One More Time Again.

What was our equivalent of James Bond? Thomas Link. Thomas Link. Thomas Link. That's very funny. You haven't seen Silver Nose, Rat? You're able to do that easily. You have full control over these drones.

You type in the required line of code and you feed a same 10 second or whatever rotation of time it takes for them to go around. Possibly two minutes, it takes them to fully patrol the area in the movement they're going through. And they'll continue to fly in the sky making those same patterns. However, what they will feed back now

will be the same 120-second loop from before you arrived. You now have the sense that you could walk through the garden and into the home without detection. All right, we're safe now. Even if the sentries are right above us

and it would record us, it's going to loop the video feed. There's no way that we'd get caught. We can go right in. All right. No time like the present. Let's go. Yeah. We proceed.

Stay behind me. All right. I am gonna just go up. I'll say, I'll get to the door, that goes into the mants from the garden, and I'll go to the keypad and I'll be like, 2 plus 8 is 10, which is not 11, which is what 5 plus 6 is. Which is what 5 is.

Oh, I was going to say. 2865. Oh my gosh. And you, you move through the garden, you get to that control center. And you're reciting that mnemonic for how to remember the keypad. These large doors pull apart

as you get to the other side. You see what looks like extending out on either side. You see you're slightly covered almost just a slight hallway walking a little ahead of you and wrapping around this now open kind of promenade just a small covering of roof as it stretches around this open section.

But like Ziggy saw from above, right in front of you, staircases that spiral upwards with a slightly moved out, almost semicircle section to ahead. And you know to go upwards to continue into the mansion, you'd have to go up

and around to continue into this section. We got to stay. Stay along the walls. Stay low. We're exposed here. I'm behind you. Hold on picks. Yeah, I would say we just move as quick as we can. I am just full tilt as quick while still being stealthy. I'm with you. You start moving forwards

towards those twin white marbled stairs that lay in front of you twisting to that elevated balcony and you don't make it very far before you hear a strange low growl you look up above you to that pedestal that pedestal that stands out and you see none other than the Don the black slicked Widows Peak noticeably lined with more gray than you've seen before he looks as though he's aged three years in his many weeks. He stands in a domed pedestal. You hear the heavy slam of the metal blast door as it slides shut behind you.

You look at Don Nito-Controto as he stands in his bright red suit, the black half cape down his back. Beside him, the enormous feline with gems. adorned in its flesh colored, in its flesh, leers down like a predator. They stand behind a thick glass that seems to shimmer with a blue hue. Despite this barrier, Contralto's voice rings out around you. There, there, Zerxes. He puts his hand on the large, feline Chimira always at his side.

Have you ever seen a Sabrestocker in the wild? Zerxes here is a chimera, of course. A gift from chimera bionetics. Far deadlier and more protective than any stalker. But the ones in the wild, those are a sight. You see, this huge beast loves to lay down out in the sun. He's so big, he's so hot, he doesn't want to move. Then the little sabres, they come out and start messing with him,

but he doesn't want to move. Then the Sabreass comes out and starts messing with him, and still he doesn't want to move. Now the other creatures, they notice this, and they start to move in. Even the rats. Barking and howling, they move in, and they eat the food, his food. They nip his toes and take from his domain. They do this and get closer and closer and bolder and bolder, until the Sabre-stalker gets up and tears everybody to fucking shreds.

You see every once in a while the Sabrestalker has to show the rats who he is. That's why Anatra and the buffoon red mist floating on top of the fucking lake. I knew she was treacherous, yet I loved her all the same. A shame I had to have that bio-engineered bomb implanted in her. But you have to take certain steps where no one can be trusted. I may not masquerade as legit like the connobo does anymore. What a laugh. But I don't need to.

As long as I live, the scarlet eye continues. We had enough rubato come off the line to change everything. All that's left now is to re-box and rebrand. All that's left is to decide how to kill you. I do love a good bomb, but shooting is good too. No, no. I have the thing. You deserve the fate my treacherous underlings suffered.

You'll be a most fitting meal for my prized beast. The Rangadon is never fully sated, poor boy. He leans forward his hands on the balcony. As you watch his fingers tense around it, you can almost hear an audible click. The ground opens up beneath you. Oh! I'd love to keep entertaining,

but I have important business to attend to. From the looks of your friend, it seems my guest is here. And he gestures briefly at Pixel before you all start to fall. You can see her almost wracked with this sensation of pain, a visage, an effect

you have only seen on her in the presence of the viceroy. You all fall. Oh, that's a bad sign. You feel a sudden, drop as you plummet into darkness as the groaning of metal clangs around you as the trap floor closes above. Hard ground hits you as you're in a shrouded cavern. Bones of various humanoid species are scattered about, most of them smashed and splintered. Then the earth rumbles all around you as a

guttural roar, and you feel hot breath hit your face that stinks of rotting flesh. The bellow shakes you to your core as an enormous chimeric abomination steps out towards you. It's bipedal and hulking covered in jagged spikes all over its armored hide. It has an elongated snout topped with spiral drilled like horns with a slavering maw of huge sharp teeth. A long club-like tail drags behind huge padded feet that allow it to move with surprising agility as the Rangadon stumps forward looking to devour its next meal. I need everyone to roll for initiative.

Let's go! Smokes. For the record, Coe would have just, as soon as he showed up, was just and just smashing the glass impotently, trying to get a break through the door. And until

he realized, until she felt Pixel go limp behind her. And then... And you would have sensed that. You would have sent the wriggling in her as she was wracked with pain. You would have heard her cry out. He's here.

As presumably the viceroy is on the premises. That's not good. Though you have fallen to the ground and now before you stands this huge creature of terror. Was it clear that the glass was the same glass that obscured Ziggy in the... Oh, yes. That's what I assume.

Based on the description. It's also the same glass you saw in Site Omicron that they were working on, they were blast testing that same blue hue. This is, but you now, it is especially confirmed and is abundantly apparent that the Don has many connections with Chimira Bionetics who develops this glass as Esper-proof blast,

almost like basically totally blast proof protective glass. As the Rangodon takes the field. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh, that's bad. badass. There's some... There's... Either... Yeah, there's one. Oh, well. Pixel's gonna be on the battle map,

unless I can find something very briefly. Oh, here? Oh, God. No, that's the wrong one. Oh, ho. Oh, ho. Oh, oh. That's the wrong one. We should switch to that.

What about this one? No. A giant fucking arena. Holy hell. I've got to have to have to have to. You can pull the camera back, bro. There we go. Oh, I did get this camera though.

Oh, what happened here? Oh, is it not the same? Oh, oh, oh, oh. It should be perfect. Boom. Shubiddy. What are the chances? Hell yeah.

What are the chances? And then I don't have the party. I got them. You got a party minutes? Okay, perfect. So are we just gonna assume that Pixel is with Co? We'll say Pixel moves with Co. Okay.

Yep. So she will not have our own token. I don't know how much we fall on what damage, but Coe would have, I would have flipped over to just take the impact, so to my, my person. Where roughly to be fall? We'll say you would have fallen probably a little more, yeah, like in that section. So very written core, we're like on side and it starts. Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think Wret would have, you know, yelled out at the dawn saying something cool.

Get fucked. You can yell at it. Be fucked. Yeah. Be fucked. You don't get out of this. It's not going to end well for you. You know, shit like that.

Yeah. I'm imagining that. Some lighthearted banter. That's right. Yes. I guess you should roll for initiative. Oh, I should probably roll for initiative. I did.

I think. I also want to thank to spell dice. Oh, hell yeah. This quab. Oh, yeah, you got quab. This quab dice. Oh, that's amazing. Uh, same with ours.

I've been rolling very swinging tonight. Very high or very no. I did okay. I've had a couple of ones. I've been using a brand new set. Yeah, me as well. I'm so excited. Mine are called.

Oh, you didn't tell me what mine are called. I don't think it was on here. No, it's on these. On the, like, the- Yours is. Adrift I think mine is missing the sticker so I don't know what mine's called It's very funny uh 20 to 25 I got a 23 nice Oh man okay I really don't want this I don't know

The set's technically called crabs but on socials it's class It's okay you're quibbly I'm quibbley okay uh 15 to 20 19 17 18 18 Wow, we all rolled high. Okay. I got a 17 and I lost. I don't like that name. What do you mean? I don't care for that name. No, that's a place. That's from the Lankadon.

Okay. I can't find your, oh, I can only find Glup and... Sorry, 19. Zieg if it's all right, you're going to be... Oh, actually, I might have Zigi. 19. Where are you guys? A 17 on last. 17. He was 18.

He was 18. Go. So we all. rolled very high. Well done, everybody. Look at this giant cavern. We need a dedicated head card. This keeps happening.

And they're like all up there too. It's just like weirdly piking red aren't there. My sawtooth? Yeah, you're still. I'm sorry. No, that's fine. Well. Porsche Bell, I'm sorry.

I'm not coming home. I love you, Porsche, The roar of this huge creature echoes through this cavern that you've fallen into. Stalactites line the ceiling above you except in that perfect square where that section of roof opened up and you fell from there. You all actually, everyone takes 17 points of fall damage. I don't because I use my reaction to slow fall and I reduce the damage by 20 and I land in a three-point superhero stand. and I take zero damage. Oh my gosh, okay.

So you fall on a three point hero stance. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. Okay. It is one of my monk features, slow-back. Yeah, so if you have anything, so you have been dropped from above, if you have something to react to you, absolutely may do so. But you were falling from the ceiling,

if you hit the ground and see the damage, you take 17 points of bludgeoning damage as you fall. It's almost as if I was ready the whole time. So, Coe, I'm gonna say that you take 25. Nice. It would be ridiculous. out of character if I didn't do this. Once the floor opens up,

and I realize that we're falling, and I'll say, I'll grab my cannon, I'll quickly turn a knob, and the singularity will whir, and it will set out this pulse, that's A-O-E, and all of a sudden, the gravity that's pulling us down

towards the earth lightens tremendously. And I cast featherfall, and I can target five creatures. I actually think it's my monk feature, but he actually did it. You still do the three-point landing, though. Yeah. Resources.

No one takes that. It's gravity. No, it's literally. That's so good. It's a little bit. That's so good. That's my whole thing. You're never caught off guard.

Your reflexes, you whip the either cannon out and boom, you send his pulsing of graviton energy down that extends out. and hits your whole party as it almost feels like time slows, but instead gravity begins to reverse and lighten. As you slowly descend, you all land easily on your feet, but still the roar of this chimeric abomination,

as it knows that it has been served its next meal. The dinner bells ring as you take to the fight for the first time. And this biped-hetic, jagged spiked creature with its armored hide charges right at you. Um, oh shit, okay. As, well, I'm sorry, uh, Pike, you'll go first. Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. Um, I rolled too high accidentally. I have to get within at least 30 feet of it. Yes, go ahead. What are we going to say?

Just for everyone's awareness, if it matters, if it comes up, that feeling of, feeling lighter lasts for a whole minute. Oh. Yeah. So, if for whatever reason, we fall again, like in that fire emblem stage. Yeah, this is going to say the fire emblem stage. We were Keep falling. Then we're fine. Yep. Now it's from Brawl, right? I think so.

I have 50 feet of movement because of some feats that I took. Oh, my way. I'm fast as folk. So I do not need to use my bonus action to dash. Oh, hell. So this is only like 45, but this gets me within 30 feet is what I care about. Yeah. 100%.

So 510, 15, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 40, 40, I run ahead. I was going to say dash, but I don't want to confuse anybody. So I run ahead. And as, As I kind of come to a sliding stop, I pull and level the gauntlet and point directly between this thing's eyes as I will use a bonus action to flurry of blows and make three attacks at range with the gauntlet. As I will take three shots.

You race up, you dash forward. Immediately the gauntlet starts to glow as you bring it and level it in as you're still moving forward, skidding to a hole, you wrap out three rapid fire shots. as they rocket towards the Rangodon. The first one is going to be a 19 to hit. 19 will hit. Second one's going to be a 1, so that's an automatic miss. The next one is going to be an 18 to hit.

18 will hit. So that'll be two of the three shots will land. Boom, boom, as your shots rang out. 16 total points of radiant damage over two attacks. 16 points of damage. One goes wide. You see as you're moving fast. The room is dark around you.

At first it's hard to take note of what the surrounding looks like, as this monster comes out of the section of cavern. The shot, but two shots land true as that blazing magenta light fires from your hand and finds itself on the Rangadon. It, it, it sees you run up. It sees the light of your gauntlet as it lurches its head down.

This is an enormous creature. Have I reckoned? You would think, that it starts, it's gonna start to lumber forward. It brings its horn down leveled at you. And then instead of charging or running, it almost like crouches on its hind legs before it leaps and dashes forward,

clearing the floor. And it doesn't take steps, it lunges directly at you. It's horn piercing out. I assume it's gonna make it to me. Oh yeah, it's gonna make it to you. Um, 21 to hit. Ah, yeah, it is. I'll allow it.

Okay. Oh, that's very condo. I'll allow it this time. It's twist him, so he's kind of like... You take 10 points of piercing damages. This creature lunges at you. The horn connects with you, and as you're hit, you're struck prone. Well, hold on. Oh, okay.

It includes piercing damage? It is exclusively piercing damage. Then I'm going to attempt to deflect the attack. Let's go. use its momentum to try to like basically just like use the gauntlet to see if I can like, I know I can't redirect this thing's huge. Yeah. But I'm going to attempt to absorb the blow and make it a glancing hit.

So I'm going to reduce it by 9 plus 1D10, which means I automatically deflect the damage. So I reduce the damage by 18. Okay. You reduce the damage of the horn. As it lunges at you, you see it coming in as the horn marks off. The gauntlet. For a creature this size, it moves shockingly fast as it lunges at you. You almost don't have their time to react, but you get the gauntlet up just quick enough that it taps you. It still shifts you. It hurts to connect. It still shifts you just to the side

as the horn glances off. But as that happens, it swings around and as it finds perches with one foot on the ground as it lands, it swings the other around as it almost turns. It so It's a long tail, it's long armored tail stretching out behind it. Um, that's a 24 to hit. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's probably okay. That's pretty good. Oh, this one's. I have, I don't have that much, you see?

I am instantly turned to red mist. This is 12 bludgeoning damage. Yeah, I'm out of tricks. You got me. You take 12 bludgeoning damage, and if you are a large or smaller creature, you are pushed 20 feet. By the way.

Does he hit the wall? Oh my. Absolutely, I do. Yeah, you curing with the walls. Yeah, I'll see. So the gaunt is still up, and I see this tail come in too late, and it catches me again in the arm, and I go fucking flying. You go flying with everything, because the tail collides with you. You jettison into this cold rock cavern wall.

As your body hits the background, you can feel some of the rock crumble behind you. You take four more points of blood-during damage as you hit the wall. The wind is. knocked out of me. Oh, Ziggy. That was a fucking huge ass hit. Okay, guys.

I made me to set in this calculation. Tactical booboo. Use TM43. Fling. I'm going to... Let's see. It's super effective. I'm going to

be smacking my grid boy, which is self-sending off its own smaller little green sparks. And I'm going to, as I'm doing that, I'm trying to get some space. Let's see. 5.25 and 3. I can get over here as I start to circle the space.

And I am going to be hitting it. Come on, you stupid thing. Come on, I need you to run my scripts. And I start typing frantically. And I hit one button, and all of a sudden, you've seen it before, script reruns, auto runs, and a massive bolt of green electrical energy emits from the surface of the grid boy and connects with the Rangadon. Rangadon. Thank you. The Rangadon. And I cast Tether Protocol. I need to make a range spell attack against that.

That's going to be plus seven to hit. That's gonna be... Ooh, 16, I don't know. 16 hits? Oh, he's a big, goodness. He's a big boy. Big and slow? He's a big guy, big boy.

Big and slow? He's a big guy for you. I'm gonna cast it at third level. I should have said that before. That's a little unfair, but I did intend to cast it at third level. It's going to take... You would.

Wow, that's rough. Okay, 12 points of lightning damage. I rolled a one and a four on the first two D-12s, D-12s and I am now tethered constantly and I'll be able to use its bonus action in future rounds to send additional surge energy. That is my action and I don't think I can do anything with my... This green point of energy draws a line between the two of you as it arcs out and that blast hits. Landing a solid blow and drolling that point allowing you to continue to pulse energy at it. I think that's my turn. I'm just...

yelling at my grid boy most of all, and that'll be my turn. However, having seen you do this, it turns towards the gathered party. And once more, you see it kind of lean back for a second on its legs. You were all able to see this creature lunge at Pike. And once more, for a creature of its size, it moves unbelievably agile. as instead of lunging straight at you this time, it takes a step forward and then lunges into the air. Excuse me? Or jumps into the air.

Excuse me? What? What TM is this? What is it gonna do? It's using fly. It's using fly. It's TM earthquake. That's terrifying.

As it lands amongst you, everyone needs to make a dexterity saving throw. I assume not me. That's where I'm okay. No, you're out of the range. Yeah. Uh, oh, a Dex, Dex, you say. Dex you say. Uh, uh,

that's level of a move. Okay, uh, 16. Okay. I probably still think. Oh my god, I actually fucking did it. Well, we'll see. 20. 14?

The DC is 16. Oh, okay. So, Zigi, you pass, you and co pass. Rent, you fail. I do fail. That's at your rate. Uh, if you fail. If you fail,

18 points of bludgeoning damage and you have the prone condition. If you succeeded nine points of bludgeoning damage and you were pushed to the next unoccupied space. What? What was the DC? 16. You met it. Wait, so how much? Sorry, it's 19? 18. 18.

It was nine, so you two take nine points of bludgeoning damage. What? So my species feature is etheric lock. I have advantage on ability chicks and save those you make to avoid or end the exhaustion or prone condition or to avoid being forcibly moved with the saving throw count amongst that I think I mean it's to be for me it's to be far yeah forcefully moved and knocked prone okay so you get it probably still won't matter I need to roll 15 or higher no oh boy no it's a good try

could you move me back to the next just just one spot in one unoccupied spot what What I will do is I see it coming and as it lands and I take all this table, which is 19, you said? 18. 18. I am going to almost increase my internal stability and gravity to counteract this featherfall as I use kinetic density. I'm using my reaction to reduce the damage by 1D12 plus my efficiency bonus. I've reduced it by five. It's okay. It's all right. So it's 13 instead, which is better than nothing. Does wreck get knocked back one square? He gets not prone, actually. Not back one square, but prone. Just prone, okay.

And then the next time I deal damage to it, I do a little bit of that forced damage to basically shoot that energy back at it. Oh, cool. Okay, that's awesome. Okay. Pigs talk to me, are you okay? Do I get any response? You do not hear a response.

do not hear a response as you shout that out. In fact, noticeably, you didn't fall on hit the ground. Noticably, you don't feel movement in your back, but you feel the weight of Pixel in the little there. Okay, I've seen Nosephiratu. I know what's going on. That's very funny. I am going to, I'm gonna make the quick calculations.

It's more dangerous and riskier to lead, to drop Pixel somewhere else, given how mobile this thing is. She's much better served being on my back. It will just eat her. Like Dio. And I am going to get a sentence and say, I don't think you're a demon so we don't need Rex's fucking luck as I am going to lunge forward. Can I pivot around here? Do I pivot? I'm going to pivot around here.

Realizing that I don't want to get knocked into a wall and have pixel get crushed. four, five. You could go. Yeah. I want to get as far, as much room. And I am going to swing my club. So level fours, we'll get one attack.

That should be fucking more than enough. 16 is what I did. Okay, cool. I get 24. Oh. I'm with both hands on my club. I am going to be dealing shubiddy. Supi-dee-p-dee. Oh no, that's his weakness.

How'd you know? 15 points of bludgeoning damage. Ooh. You think dance, baby. And I am going to follow up with a, as part of my subclass feature, for those who may not remember, I can follow up with my rage of the streets as part of my attacks action. I expend a channel divinity as I am roaring back at this roaring monster,

and then that has activated my unarmed strike as part of my attack action, I am then going to try to find a weak point. And I try to punch the demon. If this isn't a demon, it's a giant kaiju monster, I'm still gonna try to fucking punch it in the body. As I'm going to make an attack roll. Natural one. So, yeah, we've each got more.

You collide. It's moving, it's agile. As you throw in this next punch after you land this mighty blow, the punch actually, catches a bit of that armored hide. And you land correctly, but it doesn't seem to pierce through and shake into it.

But it takes note of you now. It glances down as you move around it, and it shifts and swings its tail one more time. Now it you, as it leashes out with a natural 20. Oh, fuck. It's not...

It's not an air band. It's not that bad. Um... What are you gonna do? Smash you with your tail? You're getting said like... Oh yeah, no yeah. What are you gonna do?

Yeah. Smash you with your giant club tail? You drill horn fuck! Let's see. You take... What is it? 17 points of bludgeoning damage and you're knocked back 20 feet. Oh!

Or however, like two diagonal scre. Or... 17 points? I'd say kind of directly away from it. That's three, and then, like, we'll do that. Four. Yeah. Am I prone or just knock back?

You are just knocked back. I wasn't knocked prone, but I know, you're just knocked back. And I managed to realize that I can protect Pixel. I'm, like, falling back. I kind of use my dexterity to actually manage to stick the landing and slide back. You okay, Pix? just fucking stay alive

and that's my turn and then so you call out you expect to hear some form of response from pixel something maybe her to take some action

for her to join in however nothing comes you still feel that limpness at your back though you understand her weight you without checking don't know yet what's going on

or what her condition unless you've seen Nosephirotu. Color's not seen Nosephara. You've not seen Nose-Ferratu? You haven't seen Nose-Ferrattu? Of course, of course. So it will instead go to Rett. That's my turn, yeah.

Oh, you're reacting to what I was doing. It is now my turn. Correct. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, no, it's actually Captain Sawtoe. Okay, it's Captain Saw-D. Hey! What does he sound like this? Captain Saw-Too.

With me best mate. No, fuck. I knew to pirate you or something. Fuck! Fuck! Me fourth best mate, shit mouth, shit jobs. Aye, but me deadly as warriors. Yeah, I wanted to meat mouth fudge.

Unfortunately, he was killed terribly in space. I would get up, I guess, I would actually be this advantage of this. I would like get up and this thing literally leaped through the air and smashed down. I got knocked down. And I would hit the ground and I'd slowly get it. it up. And I guess do I see you like still kind of back, like knocked against the wall, Pike? Oh yeah. Yeah, I got fucking trumpled. I'm stunned. Like that, not within me. Just use some help here, Pike. Yeah, I'm coming.

And I roll with this advantage and I roll with 19 to 2, so I missed the shot. Oh, no! But then... Because I'm in melee arranging it. Yeah. I know. How does that make any sense? You know, I know. What's it going to do, hit you? Dan, is he a disadvantage? Yeah, I think so.

That's how it's an ex-worked by you. He's a huge creature. You have a giant cannon. It's all up in his face. It's all goes from the cannon. And after missing the big main blast, I would use my old, my secondary firing mode,

which is set to suppression cannon as I just start lobbing it with these smaller blasts in a cone. sort of like a spread shot across its body. It needs to make a dexterity saving throw against my spell save DC. I'm gonna say is your first shot sails pass that hits a chunk of the ceiling

and blasts rock down. This rock fall over here. It's over there. It's over there. Piercing from above. And I have to roll what? A deck saving throw for this guy. I'm just trying to figure the best way to do this.

Nine. Okay, he fails. Oh my god. Oh my god. Fuck him up. He only takes 1D8 force damage, but according to the ability, he's not prone. So all of the melee friends have advantage against him.

Oh my sweet fuck. He takes four force damage. No way. He's called out guard from the gravity, and he like, he was hit so many times by these gravity He's grabbing the blast. He's just knocked on this fucking with me. Or he would be.

Oh, shut up. Yeah, as the blast lands, he takes this damage. But once more, he roars his terrible chimery roar out into the cavern. As one leg goes back and slams into the ground, the whole room shakes as he steadies himself. And there's this eerie, almost crystal glow that comes from him. as he uses a legendary resistance. Okay. So it's not like he's immune to the prone condition.

No, no, no. He's burning a legendary reserve. He's scared of playing for that ass. Yeah, it's great. That means you succeed. I was going to spend point. He's going to hit me 19 times on the ground. So that means you should see the whole thing, right?

So you also don't take the damage, I believe. Correct? Oh. I think so. Yeah, that's fine. I think so. That's fine. That's still burning resources.

No, no, it's worth it. Well, how do you actually fail? They would have backed up, but now I'm not going to. I'm just going to stand. Don't worry. I'm still coming. I'm just blasted. I'm just blasting him and he's right in my face. Pike. Yeah, I am like stunned from hitting the wall, but I still, I managed to stay on my feet.

And I see this thing is like on rent. And I take a deep breath to kind of get my bearings. And then immediately spring off my back foot and just run at this thing as fast as I can. And with my last bounding step, I jump into the air to deliver a few kicks and a punch as I use another focus point to make three attacks. Those are both going to hit. I rolled an 18 and a 17, well over 20.

And the last one is, oh, only a 10. So that one's going to miss. Roll a 10 or was a 10 total? 10 total. Got it. Okay, okay, okay. Yep, so two will hit, one will miss. You'll run up and the punches rain out.

They fall like raindrops on this creature, finding open and easy purchase, as it's kind of like stunned and thrown off a little bit by the blast coming from Rhett. But as you leap up to swing in the kick, it tracks you now and it moves its armored carapace towards you as your foot finds an armored hide. 18 damage over two attacks.

Jesus. Okay. Let's just be cool. Dude, I've only missed 33% of my attacks. I can't miss anymore. It's not good. That's pretty bad. As you land those two punches,

you'll start to notice almost like a like a bestial wince of pain. You're welcome. I thought you'd enjoy that. As one of the punches cries out, knowing that it has to move its armored shell towards you as the kick comes in,

as you're landing heavy blows. it leaps directly up into the air once more. And instead of leaping in a direction, it leaps straight up and falls up. It leads straight up touches the ceiling in a spin. It puts his feet on the ceiling and pushes off as it rockets back down to the ground. You're in like a Charzard seismic toss kind of way.

Red and I are the Will Defoe. I was thinking the Bowser grab. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just for fun, just for fun, it grabs Pike and takes him all of the $1,000. Oh, well, that I did. You take 100, yeah. That I just outright die.

You're like, Pike no longer exists. I turn into jelly. So what I need is a strength-saving throw. Oh, you must be kidding. Is that his back throw? I think that's his back-throw. No, it's like his grab, isn't it? It's just like four-eight.

It's as great. but it's are we both strength save throws move. And Ziggy. No, thank you. Absolutely not. Uh-oh. 20-foot emanation. Oh, I'm cooked.

16? Oh, 16? Hot damn! 17. Straight. I think 16 passed. Natural 17. The DC is 16 on both saving throws.

So if you got 16. I didn't. Strength is not wrong of Viking. If you failed, you take 12 points of thunder damage, and your speed is reduced to zero until the end of its next turn. If you succeeded, you take six points of thunder damage. Ouch. Okay. Why isn't Co up here tanking this thunder damage?

Co. Oh! I'm coming. Ziggy. Yeah. I'm coming. Chosenwa! I'm coming.

First of all, I need to roll concentration again. Wee-wee-wee. Okay, that's a success. Keep going. I'm gonna just talk to my partner over here as an aside. Yeah. The class can wait. There's a lot of glare.

I want to look around. Is this just a dry or wet cave? Is there any form of vegetation? I'm just curious. I really don't have any ulterior motive. I'd say, yes, you see, so this cave, the ground is littered with the bones of humanoid, of shapes and sizes. But it's not totally picked clean. It's almost like these carcasses that have been rended apart, and what's remained of them has decayed. You see some evidence of basically like fungi or mushroom growth as well.

kind of like moss growing around. Yeah, moses, that kind of thing. Okay, okay. I just wanted a flavor. Roos is a legit. I will use my bonus action. I'm still, come on, come on, come on. The screen is like shifting and then coming back into view.

It's almost like those old monitors where you hit the gouse button and it's going, that's incredible. And a surge of energy flies out of my grid boy and does an additional nine points of lightning damage, as I continue to use my tether. And then I go, oh, wait, of course. And I type a few keystrokes,

and all of a sudden the vision settles and becomes clear as I cast Garbage Collector, which is my re-theme of Wither and Bloom. However, I'll use my reaction to reshape the radius. I'm gonna turn it into a 30-foot straight line, and I'm going to connect this dot with this dot. The reason is because he's gonna have to make a Constitation saving throw or take 3D6 damage.

Oh my God. Because you're inside the radius, I can choose for Coe to spend up to two of her hit dice and add five. So you may do that as I siphon away the energy from the mushrooms and the lichen and from the creature that I'm attacking. Holy! And use it to heal Coe in this moment.

Damn, that's cool. Make a Constitution saving throw. The DC is 15. Oh, hell yeah. Not even close. Uh, not even close. You take nine points of necrotic damage, if that matters, in addition to the light damage that I did.

And you can spend, they're spent, up to two of your hit dice, and you add my intelligence modifier, which is five. Enjoy that benefit. As I go, insane. All right, and I start screaming. Yeah, what? Ziggy's kind of reeling from this load that knocked back, from the rangon leaping into the air, crashing into the ground,

and sending this seismic force out. Zigi's still, steadying against the wall, tosses out, summons this power that saps after the line of code, saps the energies from the lichen around the edge. As you see what starts out as this large sphere almost begins to close around this monster, almost like the, oh, the Fortnite poison of gas closing in, as this sphere starts to form.

But before it forms a circle, it straightens into a line, belining, once again drawing that point between See zero's ones and maybe even a two flowing into Co as the life is set from the Rangadon and that's the end of my turn And it took nine points of day. Did you think more damage from doing that? Yeah, it took nine points of lightning and nine points of Okay, okay, I got it, I got it, I got it Which is a very weird and you heal I'm feeling very blue-black right now. It feels good

That's pretty funny Or a legendary action. Oh, yes Don't let me forget Teacher, don't forget the legendary action. You might be able to come smash me in the face. Oh, great idea. Seeing that line drawn directly at you, the Rangadon once more puts its feet back.

And right, now that you're kind of behind it, you see and you can feel these terribly bipedal legs. You can see the muscles, the sinew, tense as it leans back. And you get the full, sense of how powerful the legs of this creature are, especially to be able to launch such a mass through the air. It lunges at Coe, horn leveled down. As it leaps through the air, it does not evoke attacks of opportunity. What? I punch in the balls while it comes away. That's bullshit. I can't be this thing. I don't know how much that's this other fucking.

I get a speedback. No opportunity attacks? No, no opportunity attacks. Get by. As it lunges towards Coe. I have the will of the foe. I ran the wrong direction. 19 to hit. 19 to hit.

Oh, yes. Oh, fuck. Thank God you healed me, by the way. Thank fuck. I don't have any way to help you. Okay. Almost minimum. Eight points of piercing damage. Oh, wow.

Not as low as it gets. I didn't know how. I'm not easy. I forgot how big your hit dives are. Holy fuck. Yeah. Your juicy tins. What must you heal for over there? Was it a horn?

A drill? Yeah, the horn actually is like moving and shifting. You're like cracking. Yeah. Oh, God. As it shifts back and forth, this terrible sound as the horn connects with you right in the front. And maybe you'd catch it between two hands.

For a moment, you hold the creature where it's at. But the shifting horn cuts into the palms of your hand as the piercing tip cards a bloody point into the front of your chest. Now it's your turn to respond. Nice fucking try! As I am just going to swing with my claw. That will certainly hit. I am... I'm just going to...

I'm just going to just take the damage. here. That is seven points of bludging damage. To the Rangadan? The Rangadon, yeah. And then- As the club swings around, you have one hand left on the horn, as you bring the club and catch it right on the side of the fish. As then I'm also gonna try to uppercut this giant

kaiju monster. That should hit with the 24. Oh, 24 definitely hits. And that is a D6. I'm not rolling too hot here, folks. I just want to make sure on strike That is seven points of Bludgeoning damage

As you You have You crash in with the Club You then let go Allowing the horn to pierce you Just a little deeper as it moves in But you bring your other fist around

And crash it right under the jaw There's a spike that comes down beneath it In this almost this hard shell bone that extends beneath its jaw You shatter straight to it as the fist goes up and you catch a meaningful blow under its mouth. It is. I will also, let me just make sure, is it a,

I am going to kind of channel my essence, my energy, and my connection to the cosmic forces that my code has granted me. as this static electricity surges all around me as I cast shield of faith. Nice. And in the hopes of dodging some of these fucking attacks. Okay, Bix, I'm gonna see you through this. You can count on me.

That's my turn. That's right. 1980. It'd be me. That's right, too. How's it looking? It is looking bloody. Oh, okay.

It is looking, it's taken several beatings, especially that punch, the club coming around, crashing in the side of the face. You can see that armored hide is cracking from the blows you've laid down. This creature is used to just consuming goons, throwed down, consuming enemies of the Don. It's not accustomed to encountering a full-power fighting for it. dropped in front of it. Armed to the teeth and ready for action. Okay, I think I can 30-foot cone here. I can't move.

Is your movement? Oh, would I know that? I don't know if I know that. No. If I hadn't spent my reaction, we could do some weird shit, but here we are. I am going to, instead this time I'm going to, there's basically going to be this massive beam

that shoots from my cannon as I move it across. That's just themed flavor as a mechanically gonna basically do the same thing as last time. That's gonna hit. That is a, let's see, it's a D12, which I have here in my hand. Minimum damage. I don't think that anything feels as bad as rolling a 1 on a 12th. That's seven points of force damage. And it does need to make a deck save.

That fails. So if you want to use your legendary resistance, you can. Otherwise, you'll take three damage and get knocked prone. What are you doing? How cool is the attack? I would say it's cool. You won't hurt my feelings if he resisted. He's doing exactly what he did the last round. I'll resist it. Okay. Once more, you see him

roar out that faint glimmer of almost gem sheans in the darkness of this cavern as this blow lands heavy, but he summons some chimeric force and seems to throw it off. That's my turn? Okay. Having zero movement, I take three attacks with the gauntlet at range. See how it goes? Another flurry of blows. You mark off my focus point. I have one left after this.

What does that look like? Well, let me see how I do here first. Oh, one of them is a natural fucking 20. Let's go. The other one's a 16 to hit, so those are first two hits. And then the last one is a... Another natural fucking toy. And that gem is for the hand.

Oh, yeah. So that's gonna be... That's gonna be 5D6, 5D6 over three attacks. Holy smokes. That's almost the fireball out of your hand. I know. That's gonna be seven plus seven is 14. 14 plus 3.

14 plus 3 is 17, 17 plus 15 is 32 points of radiant damage over three attacks. I can't move, but I don't need to. How do you want to do this? I'm pretty rattled. I mean, like, there's definitely blood dripping from the side of my mouth from my nose. My back is severely bruised. That might have a cracked rib. Getting hit by this creature feels a bit like getting hit by a freight train.

It's not fun to take a blow from this. As I'm breathing in and trying to steady my arm, it hurts to just even breathe in deep. But I manage to take deep breath and hold it as I steady and I fire off the first two shots and I watch as the armor cracks and leaves a weak point. And with the last shot, I say, bang. And I fire off an extra radiant blast

that just pierces deep within the biology of this creature and my arm will drop limp after I let go of this shot. As it reaches up an arm to crack down, on Coe with a crazy clawed strike. In that motion as it's rising up, you wring out three shots right under its arm at a weakened, cracked.

Two, boom, boom, blast forth the armor trusting that you are gonna create this open. The third follows before the crack is even formed as this last blast cuts in, underneath almost the armpit of this creature, creature flies up and out the other side of its neck. As you almost, as you blast a hole clean from the underside up through, as the splurts of blood come out from either end.

Great fucking body. The Rangadon can't even severing the vocal cores, anything that would have been under its neck as your radiant blast cuts through its body. It goes, it opens its jaw, it's terrible to the, Ma'am? Why is it goes to let out this terrible cry and no sound comes? Only the gurgle of choking on blood as it stumbles for a moment before it falls down. Got him. To the ground dead. I'm like mid-ready trying to block with my club as it's, uh, as it is bringing its claw down and then it collapses and I'm just still holding. Brazen the fucking light brigger. Pike, you did it.

Are you all right? I'm hanging in here. I run over to Pike immediately, and I... Don't you ever fucking ask me for this unless you're on the edge of death, okay? And I type a few commands, and out of the surface of the screen of my Grid Boy, you're going to see almost what appears to be

a neon beam, almost like you would see a sign on the front of a store or in a cyberpunk city. And as it takes shape and the radiance sort of shrinks back down, you realize that I've created a neon cigarette. It's my casting of Goodberry's. Ten plus of that, and you'll have ten hit points.

No problem. What the hell is this? It's an hyper-grid cigarette. I summoned it. I pulled it right out of the grid. You can smoke it, no problem, and it'll help. Do I have to light it? I don't...

It glows. Yeah, and it strinkles with like a red light, but not the burning flame, but just like a light that ignites on the end. That's surprisingly smooth. If any figure it. Knowing that this thing was biologically engineered. It's Tuolbeau-Ber-Mood.

It's not fucking over yet. We saw those things from the woods. And at Sinabar Springs, is I'm gonna poke this creature to make sure that it is fucking dead, that it's not bioengineer re-stitching its fucking wounds. I'm making sure that it is, that it is not doing that as I will kind of put my hand,

drop my club, put one hand over it, and I will kind of give my chest a beat, to the rhythm of my heart as it kind of finds its resonance with the harmony, as I am going to use the feature I've never used before, which I believe is divine sense. Oh.

That's porous I use this all the time. It's really good. I think I have it. You should. Do I have something? Do I have it? You're a buttolland. That would be really shitty

if I don't have divine sense. That's funny. I thought so. That's good. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Andy. I do. I use...

I use divine sense, and I know the location of any celestial fiends are undead within 60 feet. I know it's creature type, and I detect, and then I know consecrated or the Hallows bell. As this kind of like static electricity as almost like storm clouds kind of boom out as I channel my oneness to the connection of my rhizzo stormborne soul. His hair rises up just a little bit in that sort of static way.

To check something really quick. You sense, what was it? Feans, Celestials, and Undead within 60 feet. Only 60 feet. And if they're obscured behind something, it doesn't cover? I believe so. They may have gotten rid of that. No. No. Wow. They got rid of that. Nice. That makes it way better. Okay. So 60 feet. Is to be out in the open. There he is. You reach out with the intention of kind of using this harmonic force to see if this creature is,

its essence is potentially returning to the harmony, or if it was severed and its essence is festering in front of you. Oh, shit. As you reach out and you resonate with that, with this kind of, this divine sense, you You do not sense the festering or the corruption of harmony. You do not think that this creature will rise as a terrible chimeric abomination. Undead terrible kind of thing. It's dead?

It was an undead. I mean, it was a terrible carmerectombole. It's not gonna be silent. I immediately unfasten the harness and whip around to just check on Pixel. Yeah, very immediately after the fight with a head. I'd fight with the end. I would yell out. You good, Pike? Yeah, I'm hanging in there.

I'm holding my shoulder. I'm sticking a cigarette. I would hustle over and clear her down. And I want to kneel in front of her and basically check her out, check her vitals, see how she's doing, and just do my medic thing and see what she looks like.

I won't even make you roll for it. You lay pixel on the ground. she's She's strangely cold To the touch Oh fuck

That's not good But you feel the You feel the faint Threaty pulse Of her heartbeat That still taps rhythmically She's got a pulse However

She's cold though And she is She is She is Unresponsive as your eyes flip over and you run through these this x-ray sense, this thermal sense, tracking all of the different conditions she could possibly have. She's cold, she shows dimmed on the thermal. X-ray shows no external puncture, no breakage internally, but she appears to be in almost a catatonic state. Unresponsive.

Just to be safe, I will inject her with some sort of life-saving ether medicine, mechanically using Spare the Dying, just in case. I think that's very important. Oh, wow. She becomes stable if that's relevant. Okay. Oh, I don't know how to say this, but I've seen Nosferatu. I wasn't seen Nosferatu.

I haven't even watched Nostra 1. Nosephara one. I hate to break into you. I've only seen like four movies in my life, and one of them was Nosephara. What? Senned of a bitch. Your syringe comes down and it pierces into her

just on the right abdomen as you inject this almost like warming paste as it inserts. You work to bring her body temperature back to an equilibrium. which you feel as though as this has entered and begun to move throughout her body you achieve though she remains in the catatomic state

I think there's something going on with the vice-froy. He's here the same thing he's discordant too. Pike you know something about this shit that you're not telling us. I know you're afraid I haven't fucking pride because I see the fear in your eyes

but pixel is in trouble What's the risk? Look, I only know so much, all right. My last run-in with anything that was even close to whatever this viceroy is, it didn't end well. If I had more information about what these things are or what they can do, I would tell you. I think our best course of action is we just got to deal with this thing. It's the only way to make sure that she's okay.

Whatever grip that that guy has over her, it ends with him. Okay. He said there's different kinds of discordant, right? As far as I know, yeah. So whatever it is, it didn't end well for you, it must be different. It wasn't cold. No, no, it was very different than this. Would I know about the various flavors of discordant at all,

based on my time serving in the empire? Like when I'm serving with Empire troops, would they tell stories of... That's a great course, I always think to a degree. You need it's very loose, right? You may roll a religion check. That would do it.

Oh, brutal. Seven. You've heard stories of the cacophony, realms of discord. But it's hard to, especially in those circles, It's hard to extract fear from fact and fiction. Give me a sense of what you're trying to discern,

and I'll tell you if you know it. Basically, like, understanding the fact that, like, just because Pike has run in with this discordant in the past, it might be a totally different strain or vibe versus what we're dealing with now, versus my experience with chuckles. Like, I guess given my interactions with Chuckles and that flavor of Discordant,

like, does this feel just totally different? Given Rats and Runners. Ability to be the group therapist. I think that Chuckles would not have connected at all with Pike. But there may have been a chance. All I'm going to say, I mean, I don't play Chuckles. I don't play Chuckles, but just given their, just considering that.

You would absolutely. know that there are different flavors of what many you don't know offhand to confirm, but you would believe that from description, you would get a sense that what Pike dealt with was different from what Chuckles was. Chuckles is different from what this is. What Pike dealt with is different from what this is. This is a different sensation. of discord. A different sensation of cacophony. Okay, but we established last session or the session before that like the concept of cacophony. Yeah. It's something that I know of.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. There are a lot of types of discord in cacophony. And I think this is probably something totally fucking different. And look, I trust Pike. I don't think he's holding out on us. I know, but... I just... We can't let...

Promise Picks. What I do know is she's not on death's door, all right? I... I think she's okay for now, even if she's not fucking conscious. We can't let him have her. We can't let her turn. We can't... Let her succumb to this.

And if she's feeling like this, just because... He's here. What happens when we fight him face him? It's not gonna be good. I can't leave her here, but... Whatever these things are, they're incredibly powerful. Again, our best course of actions to find the Don. Deal with him.

Figure out what's going on with this viceroy and end it. You just protect her. Stop at nothing. You're doing a great job. She's okay. I fucking die before I let anything happen to pick some. I'll die. Before we can do any of this. We gotta get out of here. Out of here. Out of here. How um... Rancourt pitt-esque is this? Pretty rancourt pitt. I don't know how to say this. I mean, this is a rank or pit.

I guess I want to look to see if there are like big, like, doors that lead to this that like the rancore keepers would. The oranguton keepers would like enter to feed it. Oh, do we look over and see an oddly sad man being because it's a bizarre shot that makes you get a... I hope not. I don't want to kill that guy. Yeah, we have to be like, oh, we've got to kill this guy. No, that's the EWalk moment.

No, you don't see... Sorry, Ziggy, we got to kill this guy. You don't see... I don't want to kill this guy. I'm a really sad guy. I cast a scorching way. What you do see is you look around, you give it a little bit, you fan out and you start to look around. And what you see is, Rett's blast took a chunk out of the ceiling from where you fell.

Probably about, it's hard to say exactly, maybe 50 feet up in the air. There's a hole in the ceiling that opens up into the promenade that you dropped from. As you move around, you also see the bones, the viscera left over from all of the victims that were thrown down here before you. One thing about them stands out beyond all else is that there are many, and so far, from what you can tell, many of them were dressed in red. This may be a fucking good run of luck, then. Who knows how many of his goons are left alive. He fed him all to this thing. He said he was repackaging.

He, and rebranding. That might be a complete pivot. Not just for Rubato, but for the syndicate. Full clean house. Well, fewer guys to kill, I guess. We need to get the fuck out of here. I will gently, uh, Brett can you help me?

And I'll just like, Ask Rhett to kind of help hold up Pixel. I re-get the little bear harness fashioned. And get Pixel already, you know. I think the answer to this is hell no, but I'm just checking. Do I still have access to my live feed from the drones? Yeah.

Oh. You're very generous, don't. With a 22? 22? Yeah. You also just beat the trains. I quickly check the feeds and I swipe through. Is the cruiser still there?

additional movement or anything along those lines? You don't see additional movement. The cruiser is still there at the front. You can scrub back a little bit and attempt to watch the last 20 minutes or so. And I'm not watching the replay loop. You're watching the actual, I'm looking at the line as you were looping it.

The cruiser, out of the replay looping it. The cruiser, out of the replay looping it. front of the mansion is still there, same location. Probably about 15 minutes ago, there's a section of the feed where everything goes snow for a minute for probably about 30 seconds as the drones seem to lose access to live video before they come back in,

and they're in different positions around the mansion. Oh my god, it's fucking, the paranormal activity, 100%. Oh, no, man. 100%. Guys, uh... Nothing that you can see that.

I gotta tell you something. The cruiser is still there. I think the Don is still there, but there's a, there's a, a, uh, a glitch. A moment when all of the drones, all of them, every single one at the exact same time, cut out. Yeah. Interference. Why? You guys remember what we, what we saw with the video feed, the interference that we saw with the Don, uh, with the Viceroy, right?

Yeah. It's just more confirmation. he's here let's go kill him both we gotta get the fuck out of here we're not leaving without killing them we came here to do something one thing at a time

let's get out of here yeah start start start looking around yeah we gotta kill this fucker I very quickly assemble a ladder out of the bones so that we can reach them I'm kidding I wanted us look around

and see you use the hypergrend to build the bone ladder Yeah, yeah, I turn them into blocks. And then I tower up Minecraft style to get to the ceiling. You build a log cabin of bone as it extends up to the... Follow me, guys. It takes probably about 10 more minutes. You kind of like, you cover almost the circumference of this area you're in.

You do find a large, extensive, giant, what feels like blast door, that you think at one point they would have moved this creature in or out of for whatever reason. It is completely sealed. You see no way to control it from the inside, however. After running a little bit more on one side, the far side of the cavern, there are a couple of openings that you walk down for just a moment, but they seemingly all end in kind of dead ends and offshoots.

Until one, a section of wall almost folds back for a lot. little bit and as you peek up you see a section of stairs that rises out of the pit. Ziggy quickly races down one of the tunnels to use the restroom and then joins up with the gang a few minutes later.