Legends of Avantris - Stardust Rhapsody: Anthem | Ep. 26 | Castles Made of Sand: Part: 1

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

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Last time, on Stardust Rhapsody. The party raided the office of the Don after finally putting him down. As Pixel awakes from a nightmare of the beckonings of the viceroy, she points out his influence behind a wall in the room. Breaking it down, they discover an artifact of discord, a tetrahedron with a panel illuminated to the discordant tone of entropy. Meanwhile, Ziggy copies the Don's data disc, inadvertently triggering an automated call to the remaining lie

of the Scarlet Eye, inviting them to the world where the strong can claim the throne. Pocketing the drive and the discordant relic, the party escapes on the Rhapsody. Ziggy sets into hacking the disc while Pike meditates over the whispering shard. Together all information is revealed to them. Ziggy discovers the location and name of the viceroy, Lord Harcon Morvane of Sterlock, and O'Lara reveals the realm of cacophony to Pike. Together they paint the picture of truly what the team is up against. Recognizing the depths they've found themselves in,

Pike begrudgingly admits that they can't take down the viceroy without Ophelia. They eventually tracked her down after a heated exchange and with some convincing, get her back on the team. She leads them to the callous estate where an ancient armory holds the weapon they need to pierce the viceroy's dark protectors. Ophelia leads them to the hold where she prepares them to navigate the many traps and protections only to find that the door opens easily for Pike, the disciple of the Lightbringer. Perurbed but focused, Ophelia enters the vault to claim the ecliptic round. Heading back to the Rhapsody before they're found out, they set their heading to Vasson, the capital city of Sturlock.

Their sights set on the viceroy. Having slept through the night after the events at the Callos Estate, knowing that you now have the tools at your disposal, you believe to conquer the viceroy, you for the first time in a little while have all slept relatively soundly. You begin to awaken again and the call to the lounge calls to each of you as you move towards the center of the ship where you often gather to plan what comes next as you make. your way towards Vasson on Sterlock, Lord Harkon Morgrave, more vain, locked, steady in your sights. I guess how, so we said it would be like over a week to get there, right? Yeah, about eight days.

Eight days. About eight days. From the Calus estate, so you're probably looking at just under a week right now. I think during a lot of this travel over the last, you know, now it'll be what, 57 days or whatever. I would have been spending a lot of time in the hangar, basically getting to know the ins and outs of everyone's personal ships, including Ophelia's,

in these eight days. Just so I can understand how they're constructed, where all the different parts are, what the engines look like, so that I can be prepared to prepare them in a jiffy if I need to or have the right tools ready to go. So I would be spending pretty much all of my spare time in the hangar.

Roll a technology check for me at advantage for the amount of time you spent doing this. 23. 23. With a 23, you have a very fine grasp of the machinery, the architecture, the artistry, even, will you, of these ships. And you feel, though,

not at the highest level do you think yet that you could repair them if the need arose, but you are equipped easily to be able to tend to them in moments of machine filling. Nice. Hold on. Hell yeah. You're welcome. Thanks, Andy. Not a skill issue.

You did it. Congratulations. I appreciate that. Skill, still. Anybody else? I would have over the time that we were traveling, I basically had been wasting away, drunken on a beach for the last several months,

basically since you saw me. So I would have been brushing up my skills, working on target practice in any way that I could have, getting myself back into fighting shape. I would have shed my kind of casual, comfortable clothes and opted for something more tactical. and I'm getting my head back in the game. I would have invited Ophelia against,

maybe against Coe's initial wishes, to spar with us in hand-to-hand combat as we continue our, you know, grueling training that we've been doing over the last 57 days in preparation for what is to come. And maybe at first it'd be a little begrudging, but then you see that she has some sick hand-to-hand combat skills too, and you'd be like, oh, okay, cool,

and then we're all fucking doing our training. I also would help you Ziggy would have come to you with the perfect game. He's gone through his full library. And in order for you to enjoy target practice, he's set up an exclusive console experience with monstrous quarry slayer, which allows you to truly hone in on your skills.

Some of the challenge modes are quite difficult. But, of course, you destroy all of them very quickly, and Ziggy, he withdraws. It's very funny. The rest of Ziggy's time is. spent either doing a little bit of homework, researching the planet that we're headed to, sort of scanning the net, the hypergrid, so to speak. And I think that he would also be spending some time on his vengeance path, seeing if he can learn anything more about the mysterious

mega destroyer, this gridrunner, a competitor now that made him spend weeks of time. inventing his own skeleton key probably not successfully but that's what he'd be doing when he isn't playing video games sleeping or spending time with his AI girlfriend Silica roll a computer's check oh okay yeah well my pleasure oh I'm gonna use my my grip my deck of course natural 20 that's gonna be 27 that advantage is just so advantage okay you do that thank you thank you Pixel would be spending a lot of time in her room, actually, sequestered away from everyone else.

She is working away on something. Ooh. I think Coe would be trying to check in on Pixel, making sure she's okay, getting a read. And every day that goes by, I think it gets more and more serious, training, realizing that this may be, like, our final battle against this cacophonet this monster that they've gotten entangled up in.

And she knows that it's either him or us. And I think that she's taking it more seriously. And I think that like before the final day to descend upon Sterlock, I think she'd visit Pixel while she's sequestered in her room. But whenever that last day would be. Okay. You all spend this time as you fly towards Sterlock doing these various things to prepare.

Since the very beginning, since Rhett and Pike accepted the bounty to chase down the Scarlet Eye Syndicate, all roads have led to this moment. All roads have led to Sterlock, to the viceroy, to Lord Harcon. And you are but moments away from what you believe to be the final location. of the ultimate prey. We'll say, unless anyone would like to do anything specific, that this is ultimately the final moments as you would be approaching the planet.

You can gather and discuss what you'd like to do, or we can move to Planetfall. I would knock on Pixel's door, I think, kind of maybe that before the final day. When we know, we hear that, like, hey, it's going to happen. Like, we're going to land tomorrow. I would knock. I would like say.

You in there, Pix? Yeah, who is it? It's me. Who's me? You don't recognize my voice? Ziggy? I am a fet. It's Co!

Yeah, I know, but you need to say it if you're gonna come in. Hold on it. It is Co. You hear pixel tripping over things, putting stuff away, clearly hiding stuff. Come in now. And then I'm just like drapes on the bed. I'm just writing, I'm just talking to my Digi diary. Nothing weird or strange going on here.

Well, yeah, if you say so, okay, nothing weirder strains, you know, that's good, I'm glad. You're beyond the Digi Diary, are you okay? I wanted to come check in on your pics because I'm worried about you. Why? Because the last time that you were even near this fucker, you locked up and you almost died. And if he, we're going to his, where he lives, where he works, we're going into the eye of the storm. I don't want you to get yourself killed. I don't want you to put yourself in just because you're trying to help us and your magic and your power and your music is so good and it's so helpful.

But I just want to ask, do you, are you ready? you want to do this not definitely not ready I found all this stuff and and in that man guy's been in my head he he told me how it really is co what did he say you know that I let you guys down and I baby bounty hunter you know I'm I ain't been doing this for a long time and yeah I did a cold-blooded murder once that was awesome and metal is fuck I mean no it that guy and I struggle with it all the time and I struggle with it all the time. I don't really know who I am. I feel law. I, anyway, it's up in here and it's not all, you know, hollow and ballads.

And I just, almost like Mr. Jay's back. And I want to listen to him sometimes, and I hate that. And I don't want to be in a place again where he renders me useless away the way I could control people at the glitz room. He's going to try that. What if he turns me on you? He's going to try that, Pix. And he's not going to fucking succeed. What if I do to you guys what I did to Mr. W?

Picks, you wouldn't hurt any of us. What you did... I didn't think I would ever hurt Mr. W. I even think I would ever hurt Mr. W. I even went. Look at how that turned out. What you did to Mr. W is you brought an end to a horrible evil man doing horrible evil things. Yeah, no. We're your friends. We're doing good. We're right. He was wrong. That's it.

Yeah, no. And I know that you loved him, and I don't know anything. I don't pretend to know anything about that, anything about any of that. But I know something about doing what's right. I know about what feels right, and you do it, and you don't fucking stop. I know. You let that hate fuel you. It drives you forward.

You smash, and you smash, and you smash. until every single one of the motherfucker is in front of you is dead. And that's what we're going to do to this Morvane guy. But I'm not you, Co. I don't want to let the hate drive me.

I lived my whole life watching people that hate driving. But you are right. I do know. I understand what you're saying, but... And I made the decision I'm going to do it,

even if I'm not ready. I'm going to show up. I'm going to play my songs. I'm going to empower me. family. Not because I hate him, but because I love you guys. I can hate him enough of the both of us picks, but he is going to die and we are going to kill him. Okay? That's it. At the end of the day, we're going to kill him. He deserves to die. We're going to kill him. Life, I know it's more complicated than I like to think it is. Getting to know you and Ziggy and of course, Pike and Rat.

Pike with his... And Ophelia. Yeah, Ophelia. A little bit. She's okay. She's okay. And Pike with his philosopher shit that he's getting more, more comfortable talking about. And it's good, it makes sense, but I don't know.

I understand right. I understand wrong. I understand good. I understand evil. And I understand to take care of something. We're going to destroy this guy. And if he takes control of me, and uses me against you guys.

You've got to do what you've got to do, Co. He's not. But if he does, I want you to be the one to take me out. Hicks, no offense. You're very strong. I know very strong, and I would probably do a lot of damage to you, but I need you to try. I would tackle you, turn you into a burrito,

and throw you into my backpack before I killed you. Well, that's fine. I would probably suffocate in there. I think you'd be fine. I think you'd be fine, Picks. Well, yeah, bro. I'm just saying you've got to do what you've got to do, okay? If you got to nullify me, if you got to, you know, if you got to open the vault.

I was worried about that. I was worried about him being there. Whatever the fuck is waiting for us, if he has more of those demons, he created that thing or pulled it out. What if it uses me to empower an entire, like, audience built with demons to just attack you and stuff? You think the burrito's going to work? That's when you got to go, Afilda, take the shot. You know? No.

And then I go. No, Picks. Because that's not what we do. You are someone we are protecting. And so no matter what, no matter what you do, no matter what happens, even if it gets me killed, all of us kill. We don't kill you.

No, Picks. Oh, God. You know what, we're not going to fight about this. I knew I couldn't talk to you about it because you weren't going to listen. I have to tell Pike. If I tell Pike, kill me if I get out of control, he'll look at me and go, already planned on him. So, look.

And why are you telling me to fucking kill you? Because you love so hard. I don't love. I know it's right. Okay, you're right. You don't love, but you like so hard. I live by a code. I enforce my code.

Yeah. And we gotta look at me. And that is my life. Look at me in my eyes, my global eyes. What? We gotta protect them, call. We're the smartest ones in the group. But at the end of the day...

We're the leaders in the group. I... say goes and so we got to make sure that they can continue go if I'm going down and you step in and get yourself you know who's gonna make sure that Brett doesn't you know blow the whole thing up he's a smart guy he's not gonna blow everything up I know it but he can only be a dad to say we are the leaders well no I mean we're pretty awesome but no we're not the leaders I know but it's making me feel better it's like when you get in the mirror and you say you are the best no obviously I'm not the best in the world

You can be great finding a role on the team picks. But I want to let you know that I am not going to let him take you. I'm not going to let him corrupt you. We have Pike and whatever weird Phoenix God stuff, I don't know anything about that. But I have a feeling that that might be our edge. We got Ophelia's God bullets? I don't know what the fuck that is, but we have God bullets.

I know. It's crazy. So what does he have? I'm not saying it's going to happen, right? I'm small, and you're right. You can burrito me and throw me in your bag, and then everything's probably going to be fine. I'm just saying, if we get to that point, it's really, it's me or them.

You've got to pick them every time. But look, we're talking in circles here. It doesn't even matter, okay? Because I made my decision. And my decision is I'm not going down without a fight. Good. And so I've been working really hard on something, So I don't want to argue about all this crap stuff and this saddowner stuff, because that's not what I'm about, okay?

All right, thanks. Okay? I've been learning to sew. That's a useful skill. Yeah, sure. I don't know if I'm very good at it. I mean, you got to get good at something, you got to be kind of bad at something, right? I've been working on something for like 50-something days, however long it was that you gave me that vest.

Oh. It had a lot of holes in it. It was frayed. There was still, like, tatters and stuff. And so like you see pixel rummaging around in, and like a big drawer, and most of it's like her leggings and some shoes and jewelry and all kinds of stuff, but she pulls out what is very clearly at one point

had been Coe's vest. It's been cut really short, it's now like a midriff vest. All the holes have been sewn up with little holographic or like neon stars all over the place. There's now a tiny little holographic bow on the front that match as Pixels Bow, but it's been completely bedazzled. It's quite hideous, but that's not everything.

And she also pulls out what is clearly the part that it's been removed from the bottom is a much smaller version to fit her. It was broken, so I took off the broken pot, and I made something new from it. Sparkly and pink, huh? Yeah. Wow, dix.

And you got a little one for yourself, huh? Yeah, but see, mine looks kind of more like your stuff. There's some lightning bolts on here and some like tiger scratches and there's a tiger rider is a lion. Yeah, it's no, it's a tiger. Yeah, so it's got on here and it's got all these like, look at this spike. I could take someone's eye out with this. Yeah, don't, but yeah, yeah.

That's awesome. Yeah. And so like that way, when we're in these battles and stuff and you need a little bit of picks, I'm right there on the stars on this vest, right? And anytime I need a little bit of co, I got the lightning bolts right here and all of these spikes and stuff. And maybe you don't want to wear it all the time. And if you don't, and I start pulling out more stuff, there's almost an exact replica of like a perfect version of your best.

I made this one for you too. Just in case you don't want to wear the new one. Because it was kind of my first attempt at sewing and it ain't so great. So options. That's all I'm talking about here. Options. We're going to go in. We're going to do the best that we can, right?

We're going to take this guy down because we've got gobb bullets and Phoenix guys. and like, holy fuck, Rhett's gun, yeah, and then Ziki? Yeah, I think Rets committed a lot of war crimes. Oh, I know he has. Oh, well, yeah, that makes sense. Well, I mean, I don't, it's not confirmed, but like you know. And Ziki has developed a taste for killing. He's totally, like, rats.

And I think, I mean, I think he's going to be scarier than all the rest of us someday. I'm for them. I really, really feel bad for them. I think that guy's going to die. I think, I know that guy's going to die. I think we need to. I think Zicky's going to do it. Yeah.

And then there's Aphelia. Oh, I said God bullet. Anyway, my point is, is that no matter what, we can do this. Yeah, I know. And picks and I'm gonna wear this one. I pointed the pink and sparkly one. You made it for me. We're gonna match.

And it's gonna show that creepy, hollow, rat-looking fuck that I will not compromise. Yeah. And he's going to die or I'm going to die. And there's no other fucking option. No compromise, Picks. Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

You know, that's what we're planning to do. You just got to promise me that no matter what, we succeed. There's no other choice. Okay. You don't get in the way of success. No matter what. I got it. I got a plan.

Because no matter what happens, I'm right there. You're going to be there, Picks. In that, that's so pretty, look at this, I've had great job. You did great, mix. Yeah, look at my howdy bunny. Yeah, yeah, look at my howdy bunnies. Yeah, yeah, look at all those scars. Very, uh, glam metal.

Gosh, we should do you. Can I do your hair? Can I tease it? Come on, just once. How about we celebrate survival? Okay. If we survive, then I can give you a rock mullet. Yeah, I tease the whole thing.

It's gonna, it's just party all the way around, actually. Picks, if we survive and kill that fucker, you can give me whatever fucking hair you want. I love this. All right. Look, wait, we're gonna do it. Keep your head, push through. No matter what, we have one goal, we kill him, we put a stop to this, no compromise, okay? Yeah. We're gonna do it.

I'll like hold both, hold the bests up. Right, I'm wearing the one, I'll hold the other one up and I'll look down, I'll say. Thanks, Picks. You're welcome. Well, I get up. I kind of shuffle the door. I'm gonna go wrap my club. Okay.

We're gonna do this, Picks, okay? Yeah, I'm just gonna talk to my Disney diary for a little bit, and then I guess we'll meet and have some food and go kill this guy. Yeah. And you know what, Picks, I'm real proud of you for kicking that stuff and having so much energy and drive and focus without it.

Oh. I wanted to say I'm proud of you. I don't say that enough, so good job. Oh. I didn't get this stuff. I don't want to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. Wrette gave me some to tie me over.

So that stuff that happened at that one building, you know, it doesn't happen again. Because, God, can you imagine? You think I would sew that without some of my stuff? Anyway, can you imagine going to this stuff with the viceroy and not having some glimilar? Like, that would just be ridiculous. I've got this entire thing. It's just filled with it.

What? When it's manipulatable and malleable? If you're on that shit, are you... Redshin didn't have fucking given me that shit. What's meant with Ziggy? I think Ziggy can buy drugs. You can be like, hello, how do you do? May I purchase some drugs, please?

No, he would be like, excuse me, sir, can I have two drugs, please? Can I have several drugs, please? Yeah, no, that's true. I bought it on the dark web. The dark hypergrip. Smash cut to Ziggy buying Bitcoin. I am very angry. But it's not your fault.

It's Rett's fault. I was honest with you and not tell Rett that you know that I told you that Rett gave me drugs. Like not go to his workshop right now? Yeah. And yell at him? Yep. Because Picks, there's a horrible vampire dead. demon guy, a discordant of entropy trying to manipulate you and drink your soul.

For you, we'll wait until after this fucker's dead, okay? But I did want to ask you something if that was, you know, if we're having a true heart to heart here. Yeah, okay, that's fine. When we're done with this guy, if I make it through, would you, um... You are going to make it through, please. Would you help me, uh, you know. the habit?

The second that we're done, we're kicking this shit. We're gonna throw all that shit out into space. Well, I mean, we should probably go slow. I don't need, we don't need to get like, we shouldn't get crazy about it. We're gonna get you cold turkey, Bix. And you are gonna, we are gonna suffer through it together, Biggs. As long as, I just, you know, if you could help me. I don't know if you know what it's like, and I know Rhett does,

but I think it's a little too close to home for him, and I don't want to burden him anymore. I don't want to burden them any more than I already do. So I was thinking, you know, you're tough and you can like, you can help me. And maybe we can have one of those like 80s montages where I got a little, I got like a little target dummy and I'm fighting it too and growing like just one little muscle.

And I can get a tattoo. It helps to hit stuff. We'll get you hitting stuff. That's easy. We'll go on a plan. We'll go on a routine. We'll go on a plan. It's going to be fine.

We're going to get you healthy. We're going to kill the guy. Everything's going to be fine. Thank you for the vests. You're welcome. There's a lot to process right now. Yeah, so are we. It's okay.

I'm working on it. I'm working on it. If any of your rhinestones fall off, you let me know, okay? Because I can just add more. I'm sure they'll withstand all the imperial guys and demons that we're probably gonna fight. It's gotta be fine.

Well, tomorrow's the big day. Yeah. Nightpix. Michael. You sure you're okay? Yeah, no, I'm all right. Okay. Let me know if you need anything.

All right, you know. Mom's the word, Co. Ophelia's the word. Anyway. Oh God. Good night. Get out. I'll do two knocks and then close the door.

Oh, and then I'll just flip over onto my bed and start reading my tiger beat. And you both settle in for the evening. As this is happening, I'll walk over to Aphelius' quarters. And I'm thinking about all of the connections that we have about relationship with our wealth, with our parents, with that sort of thing. And just before I knock on the door, I realize that there's a loot drop for one of my favorite video games, and I go back. Somewhere else in the ship, Mike goes red, is like, now, red, before we go to battle,

I need us matching tool belts. Well, appreciate that, Mike. None of them. If it were 8.52, I'd have knocked on the door, but here we are. And you all settle in for the evening. You wake the next day, and you all find yourselves gathered around the table in the lounge one final time. We'll say two hours to your estimated touchdown in on Sterlo. the final conversation before you set off into the Viceroy's home world for your last confrontation.

It was Springshard. I'm bringing it with me. I keep it on my person. I unlock it from the safe. I remove it from the floor of my room. I stash it on my person. I meet everybody in the lounge. I don't say word about it.

You do so. I have a pencil. It's called the first. It's called the whispering shard, by the way. Not shart. No, it's very much a D, not a T. Where do you keep it on your purse? You know, it's just in a bag somewhere.

It's stored safely. It's stored safely on my person. You know, you should ask questions like that. Yeah. How dare you, Derek? How dare you? That's up there with what is gold. You would never wonder that.

Material components of gold. Values. That's right. Dumb question. You equip yourselves and you meet in the lounge. You take the tetrahedron, the whispering shard. You have it on yourself as you set your eyes on Vassan. You're now altogether for your final moments.

I think, I don't know if it would be necessarily wise to bring the Rhapsody in the world. given the imperial registration and it's extensive visibility maybe in systems I don't know if he knows the Rhapsody, if he's done you know, if he's tracking us

in that way. Again, it's been how many days have been, Ziggy? 50-something. 57 last time I counted. 57. But now it's probably like 64. Yeah, like 64, 65. I mean, you surely have a calendar that you're keeping crack on all this.

Oh, 67 days. It's 67 days. 67 days, exactly. So, if everyone is okay using the personal starships, I think we leave the Rhapsody in space. We hopefully pass it off to the empire. They won't bother Hank or the ship. ship and

we go down hopefully a little more incognito even though there's fucking six of us you know I mean are y'all even registered yet maybe I got them registered but y'all don't have a register this I registered

I registered you but it's I would say in this it doesn't have a baggage you would have thought yeah you would have thought to do that my name and more fucking databases the guild has benefits though There is some obfuscation going on, all right? It's just Rhapsody, given our history, since Puck and I have been on this for not just six months anymore,

but, I mean, basically almost a year now. I would agree. I mean, everything we've done, the Stardust Rhapsody profile has some notoriety, and we should avoid that. Um, all right. I go to the bridge, and I would like to dial whatever the equivalent of the imperial,

like fish and wildlife board is, but for like ether whaling or ether harvesting or ether fishing, like anything that I think would be like, given that this ship was an old ether harvester that I sort of fixed up, I want to call some sort of imperial board and get somebody on the line. Okay. Yeah, I think, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's a guy. You, you hail the local representative.

Ether harvesting oversight committee. You call in. Somebody answers. Bogar. Hello. Good evening.

Names. Red end to go. captain of Rhapsody, Imperial registration number, Sierra Romeo Alpha 9 or Whiskey Kilo Delta, requesting permission to harvest ether on an independent license for the next 48 hours. Whatever. Is that approved? Rule of perception check. Oh, boy, Persever?

13. Whatever. Is that it? If I'm approved, I'll get on it then. Yeah, yeah. And the line cuts dead.

That was just about the strangest interaction you've had with an official empirical representative, even in any kind of body of office to engage in something. It wasn't just

a level of disinterest. There's almost an entirely disregard for the activity of the role. And that's very strange. That does seem very strange. You would feel confident that it didn't seem like they cared about what you did with the Rhapsody in the outer orbit where you are right now. Oh, interesting.

So do I get a sense that like if I were to bring it down would there be a I guess this is just one dude and I don't know who I don't know what if I mean presumably they're on Sterlock but maybe not right like I don't know if I'd read too much into it I think from from the information you have

at hand the Rhapsody is in official Nexus consortium data banks right you're on the lines of the bank it is in the system with you as its capital Your photos out there, I think you would feel that hailing the Rhapsody to planet fall on the home planet of the viceroy you seek to capture, you think that that would be ill-advised. You think that you could possibly, based on that call, you get the strange sense that you could leave the Rhapsody up here and nobody would care. that your claim to harvest ether outside of the world would just go unattended.

Also like to mess up like, that was weird. Are we ready to go? Ready where you guys are? Yeah, we're ready to go. All right. I'll meet you at the hangar. I'll hit a button and the hanger will start to open up. Once they've all left, headed to the ship, I would take one last second.

I would grab my Digi diary from under the console. Hank would be there with me. Captain's Law, maybe. For the last time, hard to say. Hope not. But heading into something to finish what we started. And I don't know how it's going to pan out. Hope it does. But if it does it, if it doesn't, then I died free. Over.

And I'll put it down. And I'll lean over to Hank and I'll look down. I'll say, all right, buddy. Like always, you keep a tight watch on this ship. You're in charge while I'm gone. And I've gone over it a bunch of times, but for whatever reason, my six. signal cuts out. Plan B, all right? No. Good boy. I'll give him a scratch.

And I will head and hangar. You do so. You all board your personal ships. As the hatch opens up to the front of the Rhapsody and one by one you're released from your ether harnesses, your grav harnesses on the sides of the ship and you begin to jettison out into space and down towards Sterlock. You arrive at Sterlock at the outskirts of the Cavalon Empire. It is a temperate world, but as you approach, the clouds are dense and gray. A huge moon looms in orbit,

casting a shadow over the planet below. And as you enter the atmosphere, it hangs rings enormous in the sky, but not shedding much moonlight, and something is odd as soon as you descend. Although the scanners read that it is summer in this part of the world, the temperature is below freezing and snow is falling. You arrive at the capital of Vassan and see a humble Cavalonian city blanketed in the white of snow. The classic imperial colors, white, blue, red, yellow, and black, dominant. all of the buildings, particularly the castle at the center of the city.

Heraldry of Harcone Morvane hangs everywhere, bearing the symbol of a red Pegasus with black dragon wings on a cool blue field. Damn! The spaceport is not busy, and you easily find place to land. You see the port workers going about their duties as you disembark and notice something strange. they go about their tasks slowly, oddly slowly, almost as if they shuffle their steps and their heads hang low. Are we still in our ships? I'd say you'd have disembarked.

You've landed onto the pad of Vassin, and as you've entered, you see these shuffling Cavalonian humans, moving crates, containers, all manner of things that you might use to run. restock at an a air strip, at a landing pad. But they walk in that kind of way where you don't even raise your feet to take a step. You almost drag them, like sliding forward. Like you can't be bothered to put the effort in to lift your foot. Man, this place is a bummer. They must hate their jobs. I can't believe I left a beach for this.

Well, hopefully it pays out for you, Ophelia. Is it always so cold here? This is real fucking odd. The scanner said summer. It definitely doesn't feel like summer. It's the same shit we saw. That the control toes place. I mean, that was an office and a fucking house and a fucking vacation property. At this scale?

This is where he lives. Rat, we are in his territory now. So what do we do? Where do we go? Find out where this governor is. Governor Guy is, we kick down the door and kill him. We gotta talk to some people. We gotta figure out what's going on. Talking, that's fine.

There's gonna be plenty of door kicking, okay? Just gotta be patient. Okay? Okay. All right. How a big deal? Are the ship's going to be okay here? Can we leave them? Hey you. Our ship's good here. How's the security? Imperial worlds are tight, locked down, right? We're good?

You hail a young, uh, cavalonian human woman. She has, uh, this, this, uh, Auburn hair, uh, falls, uh, tussled, unkempt, uncared for around her shoulders. Uh, a, a white, almost like jumpsuit, uh, as she holds a box. Uh, uh, who are you? We just landed We gave you our signal and all that shit, right? We're registered, we're all good. Registered?

Yeah, he took care of it. We're all good. Keep an eye on the ships, all right? And I'll take out my billfold, and I'll take out some cash, and I'll put it in her hand. Take extra close watch of these. Okay.

All right. I'm trusting you. You're all right? After that happens, she turns and starts to walk away. And slowly, she makes the turn slowly. Like watching a giant ship trying to turn on a dime. She arcs very slowly as she moves away from you. And it says, you say, are you okay?

Does she almost exhale in frustration and turn back towards you? Yes. Okay. Get away from the fucking depressing worker? Oh my God. Well, this is going to sound weird, given the weirdness of the situation, but I actually don't think anybody here

has the drive to steal our ships. I mean, look at them. What was going to say? It's not a piece of hell out of me. I mean, I'm mostly worried that they don't have the drive to defend our ships. You know, anyone else who isn't one of one of these workers. Are they really going to protect us?

You see several moving extremely slowly. I mean, trudging through snow. And even more you see who have just kind of like stopped, a place to crate down, sitting upon it, one or two, maybe even like eating a snack. They couldn't look more unbothered by the fact that you're here or disinterested in you. They're like slugs.

I'm not worried about anybody stealing a song. sparrow. I'd like to see him try. Yeah, I mean, let's do some asking around. See if they put out any APBs or bounties on in the area of the case they're looking for us, but

I don't know if these people I'm surprised these people are even at their posts. Well, just as long as the eater of Sons is safe, I'm okay. Oh, that's the one you're going with? Eater of Sons. That's what you're logging in, huh? The Eater of Sons.

No. That sounds like what the No, I'll cross it off. I'll cross it off. Oh, man, you don't get there, kid. Is the eater of son, I guess, would have to be the shitter of sons too, huh? He's got you there. She's got you there.

That's very fun. I had a very good impression. I'll give him an elbow. I'll give you an elbow. Let's just figure out where this guy is and maybe we can work where he's gonna be and then we can ambush him or whatever. Uh, do you, does anyone have any ideas of where to start?

I would like to just kind of like, look in front of us and see like where, like, what are we looking at? Are there like a lot of little houses? Are there like, is there like a, you know, like, what is it, what do we see in front of us? Yeah, sprawled down in front of you, you see a Cabellonian city. You see these kind of white, almost like brick stone buildings constructed. Uh, nothing posh, nothing. ornate. You see here and there neon signs lit in front of them that seem to indicate what certain spaces may be for. The only real spark of artistry, if you could even really call it that, is across all these white buildings. They seem to have the, they seem to have the classic coloration of the Cavalon Empire, some red roofs, some blue.

But almost all of that is covered up by the heavy snowfall that's occurred. And the one thing that stands out to you is at the center of all this, a larger, almost Arthurian castle in the center of this space. I know you said that it's not fancy, but do I get the feeling that these people are like hurting for money? I mean, like, especially with the reaction of this woman had to Rhett just handing her a bunch of notes. Like, no, no, you don't get the sense that this is like a run-down town. or that they're hurting for money. Just that it's not constructed in a way to showcase opulence.

It's exactly right. It is built to serve purpose, to house people, to go about your day-to-day, to be utilitarian almost. Well, if it were up to me, I'd say we fan out, talk to some people, see what information we can get. Meet back up. All right, be back in an hour. Serve them up. Meet at the sheep's bladder. in an hour.

The English tavern name is. I love that. It's 100% now the sheep's bladder. A sheep's bladder, it's only like 2.3 stars. The neon light is a photorealistic image of a sheep's bladder on the door to the tavern. Extremely organ-coded.

I think, okay. I think at the very least we split up into twos. Co-Pixel, you're together. Brett and I will handle it. Ophelia, stick with it. All right. Sound good? How ladder it is.

Good luck. You ready, Picks? Don't. You got your vest? I got a sparkly. I'm pink. I'm sparkly. We're doing glam metal.

And you've been more figalus gloves. Don't say shit. You do this as I'm saying. Try not to draw attention to yourselves. You know what? I mean, look at us. Look, I made you a pair of fingoless gloves. They're pink.

Oh boy. Hey, and don't pick any fights. Okay? Not yet. I wonder how I'll feel kicking ass in pink. Ha ha. The blood will really stand out. Much better on black.

Much better than on black, I mean. You know what? That's looking on the bright side picks. Let's go not break some skulls. And then we're going to be at the sheep's bladder. Yeah. One hour. One hour.

We should go to the leather daddy. That leather work and shop down the way? That's a good idea. God. That's another one with the classic pixel. That is the greatest idea! You're gonna be okay? I know this is a little too poor for you probably,

so, you know, not like the rest of us. Like we've been, you know, we've been super poor, you know? Yeah, we've been really... I'm always up for an adventure. Okay. You ready as soon? Don't with the culture shock, throw your brain, sweetheart.

Let's do it. Where were you guys headed so we don't go to the same spot? We're going to the Leather Dad. We're going to the Leather Dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all yours. Where should we go?

Well, I figure, you know, know, if he's lord of this place, like, let's try to see if he has, like, a residence or, like, a mayor house or something. All right. Do any of the houses? We get to say mayor house on them? We end up in leather mommy. Do a group of international wolf fans and say, how much a fucking ass?

Do a group perception check. Oh, sorry, group investigation checks. Yep, group. A natural 20. I would like to take us to, I don't know what Pike in your mind. No, I'm following your lead on this one. I got a two for my investigation. I finally ruled a daddy one.

Another 14? 17. 16. 12. Okay. So I would want to basically seek out as nonchalantly as I can, but all of these people, of these people, if they're all sort of this way, I would want to seek, find like, a local

law enforcement police station something to get a sense of like, you know, any trouble? Like, are you all on alert for somebody? Basically trying to get a sense of... If Morvane has basically said, hey, if you see a Etheron, an Sarian, a Gorgonite, and a Sarian and a Rhizzo and a Globlin, come down on these ships, like, get up. Is he ready for us? Yeah. Great fucking question.

through the snowy streets of Vassin. And it doesn't take long before you find a white building. And they have these kind of like, will look almost like energy pipings just attached to the side. They kind of look like what is actually routing power to these buildings. Not tucked away or built within them, but actually just kind of on display on the outside.

An emblem shown on the front that looks kind of like a eight-pointed star. It is, reflects the fact that this is a law enforcement building, and you can go it. You walk up the steps, very, very minimal, five, six steps up to a set of wooden doors that you open. Before we head in, you can finish describing, but I just want to do one thing before we had it.

I would stop rent and basically, stop Rhett and basically be like, hey. You see the wooden doors at top six steps, and you prepare to enter. I didn't want to say anything in front of the others. I didn't want to freak pixel out, but I brought that hedron with us. Look, after spending some time with it,

I think that it has some protective qualities. I think it might even be able to detect the presence of the discord. And I very quickly describe what this thing can do, and as I hand this piece of paper to Richie in, then we can head inside. Wait, you're saying that this smoky elongated Crystal tetrahedron is. Yes, they go.

You say, no! Okay. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, take it all into that. As I'm listening, and I'm like, I'm glad you brought this with us. As Richie will read this, but we're going to walk into this, into the police station. They're going into the gale.

I hope they have a gay old time. I think they will. People here can use a gay old time. God, chip with the fuck up, people. Yeah, especially Red and Pike. Oh, my God. You walk into the gay old time. You open the doors in front of you.

You see a, just like a desktop with a man standing behind it. Clad in this kind of like white buttoned up, almost a uniform with these kind of blue buttons that run up. A hat tucked around with a brim with just a suit that same emblem. same emblem in gold on the bridge of it, standing right behind the desk. He's like elbow down, head on his hand. He doesn't stand at attention, doesn't respond to you walking in.

It barely looks official in the slightest, except for the fact that he's wearing a uniform and sports a badge. Otherwise, he just kind of looks gazingly off into the... into the sky as you approach. He doesn't even respond to you walking up. Good evening. Well, hello there. How about this weather?

How about it? It's a seasonably cold. I mean, you see the snow, right? Is that normal this time of year? He leans over to the side and looks out. Oh yeah. It's not. Otherwise, things peaceful on this world.

We're new here, and so I just figure, you know, as a former officer myself, so to speak. Oh, you know. I always like to stop by and just, you know, shoot the shit. A former officer? Are you in the system? No, no, not Cavalon. Private. Private military.

Uh, yeah. But veteran. I appreciate your service. Oh. Yeah. Uh, listen, as, uh, new people here, tourists, if you want to call us that, uh, what's, uh, what's the Lord of this place to do normally? Is he around here? If we wanted to, to see him, would we have the pleasure of being graced with his presence?

Lord Morvane? Yeah, that's the one. Uh... No. He only comes down for, like, really important stuff. Uh, maybe once a month. I don't remember the last time. So he's not here now.

I don't know. Did you knock on his house? No, we didn't think to try that. He's not on world usually. Roll a perception check. Both of us? Yeah, you can assist, you can roll advantage. 13. 13.

I'd say to the 13, from your previous experience, the phone call to the landing bay to now this. You're quickly getting the sense that the denizens of this. city really seem disinterested in dealing with outsiders and you find that the longer you go through the conversation the harder it is to keep their attention or get information out of them as the conversation goes on I think that like we would be sort of if like descriptions were given and he was really caring about stopping us he would have maybe a noticed

Or even ask the question. So instead, I'm just going to say, well, back do it then, huh? And I'll just like turn. I won't even wait for a response because how this guy is. And I want to just look around to see if there's any wanted posters or anything that I can see. And if I feel like there's just no sense of urgency or emergency in this town, then I'd be ready for this.

Yeah, you look around. It's easy to surveil. I mean, there are people sitting behind him in the same, that same kind of garb, the same outfit, the white uniform with the star, that eight-pointed star. They seem to be sitting in front of monitors looking towards, you would think, looking towards either doing paperwork, hunting people down, on the alert for criminals, but everything seems to just be, you know, the effect of screensavers have taken over not a single one of them seems interested in doing their job high alert is the exact opposite of what this looks like they must all really lack

tropical fish i uh i turn i think we can get out of here yeah second we get outside i'll turn to red the door closed behind us and i'll say uh i think i was fucking clueless everybody's fucking clueless i mean that's good news for us but what the fuck is he doing? Oh, uh, also, I hope you don't mind that I made the call about splitting up into pairs. I just thought it would be hilarious to Dick Ophelia was seeing. He's probably chatting her ear off right now. I hope he's driving her nuts. You know, I will trust your judgment. Whatever's going on personal between you and her. It's up to you and I support you on that side of the equation every time. I just want to annoy her. Well, I'm sure she's fucking annoying.

Anyways, she just keeps auto-summarizing me all of the time, and it's very annoying. As soon as we get into a heated argument, she suddenly, there's another patch update, and it just keeps going around and around and around. And I understand that she's frustrated because she's not in her full rig anymore. She's got all sorts of functionality that she doesn't have access to anymore. But, man, it is really a problem. What do you think I should do? Wow.

That's a really difficult question. question that we should think about quietly on our own. Reflection, I think is the key to this problem. You're probably right. Now let's find this manner. I'm looking for the residents. If anyone, I'm gonna ask around. It's extremely easy to find.

You saw as you landed when you stood at the landing base, airstrip. There's very clearly, at the center of the town, there is a large manner that bears the heraldry of Lord Morgrave. I don't even have to ask. I might even be able to just find it

on the gridboard. It's one of those, holy shit, it's right over there moments. Okay. Yeah, so it's, you find, you're having this conversation, you're walking through those, that thick snow-covered street, the, the, just brief glances of neon.

pierce this gray clouded drudgery as you move past these otherwise just white buildings. Every now and again, catching a glimpse of the monocolored roofs here and there. Some kind of these cylindrical towers as they go up with steepled tops, but mostly these quaint two, three-story built. like traditional structures. As you arrive, you start to arrive, at what has about a probably 20-foot-tall white wall that surrounds on all sides,

a central structure that bears that Pegasus with dragon wings emblem on a middle tower that extends from one more white building. the steeple here, that rounded top, in red. And as you approach, you see on either side two Leika guards. This time in almost like a white armor with like thigh plates hanging off the side. The similar kind of hat, you want to know it obviously from what red had seen, but similar hat in a blue with the heraldry pinned to their chest, that Pegasus logo. Both of them sitting on either side of the gate.

As the two of you approach, they start to kind of move to their feet and then seem to stumble for a moment and relax back down as you enter. Or as you approach, I'm sorry. Security seems a little lax, don't you think? It's awfully casual. Well, should we talk to them or should we, I don't know, we just walk by and then try to sneak past one of these walls.

We could do some cool espionage tactical action. I actually love that idea. All right, let's do it. Easy, no problem. We will stroll by, looking very casual, whistling as we go, and then make our way around. If there's a place where, as we are circling,

there's a vantage point where we can not be seen by any guards. I would be looking to Ophelia to be the, excuse me. Bless you. To be the skilled agent that she is. You walk past these guards and the first for a moment will just go, are you supposed to, I forget about it. as he'll be once again

disinterested with either of you walking around as you go to scale the wall and move inside of the manner. How are you doing this? That's a great question. You said it's a 20-foot wall. It is a 20-foot wall. The answer to that question is one moment.

Who was your plan? I don't have a plan. I don't have a plan. You think that I have a plan? One moment. Let's see if I do have a plan in the form of magic. And the answer can be. I don't why I just assumed I'd have a grappling gun, but I don't.

You totally do. I could have sworn you had one. I'm very sure you have, it might not be called the grappling gun, but I think you have like, you absolutely have some sort of like laser tether, something like that. Look, I don't know me. I could have sworn you had some sort of grappling.

Ascension gun, I do. See? Okay, there it. Yep. Oh my goodness. It's a good thing I remembered to bring my Ascension gun. Oh, good, good. You have an Ascension gun?

Yeah, I mean, I got nothing. I have the ability to create a floating disc, but it doesn't go up. That's too much. That's too much. You can go left, right, side to side. Down. I'm not up.

Well. The worst part was you get down, I can't come back up. That's correct. So I'm just grouts. That's correct. That's correct. Thanks. That's on you, buddy.

That's what we should have thought about up. You thought about fucking up. That's on you, buddy. Do you think that we can maybe, I mean, I don't know if I can climb a rope or follow you. I'll do my best. How can I support you?

Well, I have to be honest. When we broke up into pairs, per pike, which I think was kind of a dumb idea, I don't understand what we're going for here. What if we run into this person? that we're looking for. Well, you got the guard bullets, right? Well, yeah, I brought the guard bullets. I'm not an idiot. If you see him, then just shoot him in the face.

I know, but are we just going to ring on his doorbell and then shoot him in the face? Is that the plan? You can't go back and talk to the guards and maybe walk in. They don't seem to care. We could just walk in. But if you use your ascension gun, we could go over the wall and sneak in and scout out the place and then maybe we we can have some information and then we can come back later and there will be a whole ambush thing and this guy. We toast. And then we'll walk away with that. the huge bounty will be laughing and cheers in the champagne. You can play more monstrous quarry hunter.

Okay, I just have to say that as a group, this is a little more fast and loose than I'm used to. I'm used to having plans and being in charge and having a game plan and following that plan to a T. And so this just feels a little willy-nilly. No, we play the cards right off the top of the pack. I know. Well, as long as that's what you're used to.

I'm new here. I don't want to interrupt what you've got going on, but I've got scale this wall. I haven't scaled a wall in ages. You can do it. I believe in you. And I'm here. I can do lots of stuff.

I just can't do anything about this wall because of this disc. Do I, so my Ascension gun has a 250 foot range. Oh, it's 20 foot tall rise. Strength-wise, can I haul a giant? The struggle here is gonna be getting Tiki up with him. Yeah. What's the tensile strength of this?

What's the tensile strength of the Ascension gun? I can climb it. We've established Ziggy has incredibly The cabs. Oh my god. Tenser, this one's on you buddy. You fire up your Ascension gun. Poov

it hooks over the top of this wall. You pull a little... I have to do a dex check actually. Oh. So it says. Okay. Do a dex check. So let's see if this actually doesn't remember. So say the root. Oh.

90-20. That did not sound positive. That's not really. All the noises sounded negative, but your face looked very positive. So I was like, I'm very confused by what's about to happen. Ziggi way. Yeah.

You fire the Ascension gun. It hoax around the top. You take a section of it and you attach it to Ziggi's person. And you hold on, as the whole The whole thing rockets you up to the top of the wall. You mount over it very easily, you hook to the other side, and you rappel down using the same. I would like actually at the top before we repel down.

I just kind of want to take a look and scan the inside and see what's going on in there. You look around. It's not currently snowfall right now, but the ground is covered. It's very cold. You don't know in the last, snowfall was, but you look around and you see the kind of like inner courtyard just

surrounding this building. It's not like extremely massive. It's not a crazy lavish kind of thing. It's it's but it is this white building with a central pillar that rises to the top that bears that heraldry. And around it, probably the first thing you would notice is there are no footsteps that lead inside falling into the snow. It doesn't look. I mean, you don't know when the last time it snowed was. It's possible it was covered up if somebody's come or gone in some way. But that would be the first thing that stands out to is at least with the information you have at hand, it doesn't seem like it. All right. It's pretty quiet in here. Do you want to keep going? Yeah. I mean, do you think that we

can make it from here to there without leaving footprints? I mean, it might be pretty obvious. Honestly, based on the guards, I don't think that they're going to notice or care. All right, let's give it a go. Okay, so I'll repel us down and unhook. You repel down, it's probably about a 20-yard dash through the snow to just get to the base of the steps here to go up as you enter this place. And it's exactly as you suspect it. Once you land, it's even impossible, stealthily as you are,

to not convey some crunch of snow as you move forward. There's a little bit of audible movement And try as he might Ziggi's not stealthy And lest we forget his shoes are gone His shoes have been repoed So he's walking barefoot I have new shoes

I'm not totally barefoot That's not really He had one pair of shoes That got repoed and destroyed Oh man I'm just kidding You have shoes In an effort to hide our tracks

Okay I would like to Have I'm going to use Maychand, which I reflabor a silica, as you know. So I'm just commanding her to, as we are walking, wipe our footprints out from the snow. Bless you. Excuse me. I don't know why I'm so sneezy. The, you would see, like, just a flicker of her form before she, like, disappears and it's really just the actual, like, her ability to... The movement. You see a wave almost.

Perfect. It's not even close to perfect, right? I'm not smoothing the snow magically, but I am endeavoring to make sure that there aren't like visible footprints in the snow as we progress to the center. And you're covering these deep insets of the heavy footfall. You haven't created this exact flat section. But you do a decent job kind of causing some of the disruption of your steps to be far less noticeable in the snow. Thank you. As you move into the manner. That's a clever trick. Thank you. She's trying. She's helping. All right.

Well, and do you want to try to... Do you want to get in? I think we're able to get in. I can try hacking one of the doors, or maybe it just opens. What do you think? There might be an alarm system. I don't know. I'd say let's be bold.

Let's just open it. See what happens. All right. You go first. I'll, would I be able to check for any sort of like, well, I guess can I tell if the door is locked? You can try it? I'll try the door.

I'm gonna very gingerly try the lock. I'm not gonna jostle it around, but I'll try the, however it opens. You try the door. You go to put your hand on it. It's against the white wall of this manner. It's a large red door. that you go and you try the handle and you see if you can enter if it's locked but it bears no

resistance as you pull it down and you push it open okay um I would open it just the barest amount enough that I could put in you know put an eye up or put an ear up and kind of glance inside and listen inside you push the door open just a little bit as you move to listen inside turning your head, the light just glints a bit off this gold edging around the door entryway. Really the only kind of thing that you can even point at that's any sort of elevated status of the area. As you open the door and you start to look in, listen for anything, you hear nothing. And even as you look in, you see maybe a window was left open. You see the only movement seems to be from flowing drapes that move in a dark room

as it seems like some snow itself has even cast in from the open window. I don't see anyone in there, but it looks like the back window's open. The window's open and the door's unlocked. This is madness. This is supposed to be his house, right? I suppose so. All right, well, let's go in and see if there's anything worth finding or if we can find anything about his warehouse or something.

All right. A little bit further, but I'm starting to feel like we should gather the rest of the group before we proceed. All right. I'll, um... I think I would back up and maybe... my way to the side window and proceed that way. You back up and you make your way to the side,

like to go through the open window? I'd at least want to go over there and look through it. I wouldn't want to come in the front door. Okay. You go over to the side window and you look in it and you see the home sprawled out in front of you. One of the first things that stands out to you is even in an entryway in this space, space you see these these sets of stairs that go up dead straight towards an upper landing

that leads to another room the the banner of the house hangs above it there's no furniture anywhere it doesn't look like it's ever used at least this room that you're looking at to host anyone it doesn't look like anyone's step foot in this place in some time that you can tell it's hard to know exactly without going in and exploring but It seems almost abandoned. Well, I don't think anyone's here. Do you think it's worth going in? If there was like a terminal or something,

maybe I could find some information, but if he's not really living here, then I don't think there's much use of staying. All right. Well, let's go then. I would like to take one peek through any of the doorways that I can look through, and see if there's any kind of data entry point

or something where I might be able to pull something from our trip here. Otherwise, it just seems like, from what I can tell, a completely abandoned space. You're walking into the manor? I want to peek in real quick and see if I can find a terminal at the immediate opening area.

Did you stay at the door? Yeah. Okay. I would have been like... Oh, you're asking me not to go in... No, I would have been at the window, like, being like, you know, giving you a signal. It was nothing in here. If there's nothing in the immediate vicinity and obvious, then I wouldn't prod further.

No, I mean, like, there's nobody in here. You're good to proceed. That kind of a signal. I see. Like, you're clear. I want to see if I can find a computer terminal. It worked so well last session. I'm going to dig a little bit deeper.

You move into the manner. As much as you can tell in a similar way, completely abandoned. You start poking around. You see a similar thing. No furniture, nothing. It doesn't look like this space has ever been used to house or welcome others. As far as you can tell, you're used to more, even in a place like this, You'd still be used to more or neat.

Something. Something that just showcases kind of elevated status. This feels like a facade. It does. To someone like me, this feels like a facsimile of... Shit. Like, it doesn't feel like if no one's been entertained here and there's no one keeping it up,

like this place is just fucking a fake front. Is what I'm hearing. It's like Sesame Play. It feels a bit like a facade. Like it's been it's been propped up almost to show that it exists. You walk up the stairs. There's only one other door you see immediately in this space. The one under the heraldry that hangs above the section.

You push through it. at this point I'm giving Ophelia looks like there's nothing in here look at this it all it's for show

this place should be pristine there should be much more a life here I don't think I'm going to find anything but I don't think there's anything behind this door and I can't leave here unless I check

you go ahead I've got you back I'm going to just take my light pistol out and just have it kind of armed and ready I'll reach out and I will grab the doorknop and push it open. You push it open. And in this room, there is one piece of furniture, a bed.

A four-post wooden bed with those similar red. These almost more like see-through. Very slim. The cloth that covers around the edge of this bed. if you look closer, has dust on it, as if it is never once been used. No one's been here. What are the guards even think they're protecting?

No one's never been here. They seem to cut out of it. I don't know what they think they're doing. What a waste. Are you hungry? Maybe a little. Let's go find a little. Let's go to the sheep's splatter.

We'll grab a bite. Sounds good, six. All right. I don't see any computers? Not in this space. I spend 10 minutes producing a disc. We take it 10 feet down the stairs. And then we exit the manor.

Fuck. It was very funny. I was going to compliment Ziggy on his bravery, but after 10 minutes of waiting for me, that's it. Just to do that to ride one of those down the step elevators. Just wait. Just wait, it's floating.

This will be worth it, I promise. It's gonna be so cool. You make your way the sheep's bladder. Now we go to the leather daddy. Oh, God. I can say that so. Pixel and Co. All right.

Look, I thought it with the leatherworking sheep. but I think it might be a sex shop. This is the most depressing sex shop I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, I mean, they do have some crops, and I'm pretty sure, like, the horses that they have, though, are robotic, so... Yeah. Yeah, that stands the reason. I think there's a ball there.

Like a mouth harness? What do you need... why do you need a mouth harness? Who needs a mouth-haw? I didn't ask to come here, Picks. Oh, I thought it was a leatherworking shop. It's not your daddy's leatherworking shop. other working shop. But you know, you're a real smart investigator picks.

We should go in and talk to this place. This is the place where we're going to be able to get the best fucking information. I mean, that's true. The kind of people in here, if there are any drugs, people taking rubato, red line, they're going to be here first. Look at them. They're all drugged out. It's like, I just, my neighborhood fell the decay. I mean, this is very...

You're brilliant! That's exactly what's going on. They're all... Isn't it fucking obvious to everybody? Now that you, now that you say it, it feels pretty obvious. My Freud is pumping a bunch of drugs across the galaxy. Should we go in and try and... Yeah, here. Follow my lane.

All right, all right. I fly, I swing, I guess, I don't know if it's like a sci-fi door. Yeah. No, it's a sex trap. When you open it, there's a little bell that jingles. Yeah. You open the door. Everyone knows that.

There's a bell that jingles. I don't know what you're talking about doing. You have to walk through, uh, You have to walk through a red curtain to get through. Within this shop, lining the walls, you see various leather outfits and accoutrement. Behind the counter towards the back. That's actually pretty fucking metal.

Nice. You see... I think we take the best place. You see a man wearing a black leather driving cap. and a black leather vest. Nice. And he's a portly fellow with a majestic mustache and thick dark hair over his lip and a tightly shaved five o'clock shadow underneath. And that's what you say.

Hey, what's up? I think this might be daddy. sick? I'm pretty sure. You're probably right. Hey, what's up? Oh, hey, how you doing? Uh, you daddy? That's what they call me. Okay. How are you feeling? How are you feeling, big guy? I like your threads. They're pretty cool, man. Uh, it's a cool look, pretty metal. Oh, thanks. You're pretty, you hell-bent for leather, too, you know what I mean? You know it. You know it. Uh.

You all looking for some fine leather goods? We're looking for drugs, man. Drugs. We're off world. This place is fucking lame. There's nowhere to fucking party. This is the only... I mean, despite being in a totalitarian feudal empire.

Slow down. I'm glad we can find a leather shop here. Slow down, friend. We don't do drugs. The only thing I'm high on is... some of that good food. Oh, you're a hungry boy, huh? That'll take a few steps forward.

What kind of good food? Because we're hungry girls. We're hungry? A couple of hungry girls. You look like you could use two dollops of food. Each. And some leather. What if we are?

You gotta get some russet loaf. Russet loaf. Is that the rage? Gotta get some russet loaf and then also grab a bite to eat. I'd like to go home. Could a russet loaf fit in my mouth? Oh, probably not yours. Yours for sure.

You'd struggle. Yeah. But you seem like a doer. I'm definitely a doer. So what I'm telling is, everyone here is so chilled out, man. I got a lot of stress. I got a lot of problems. And I just want to take the edge.

Just something to take the edge off. So you're saying that they clamp down on the good shit here, these imperial fucks, these wet blankets are clamping down on... I'm getting a lie. You're so intense. You don't need that kind of stuff. You just grab a bite of Russet loaf. Russet loaf, okay.

Oh, that's the good stuff. So what you're saying is russet loaf is better than drugs and sex? Say Russell loaf one more time. Okay. Okay. Oh. Hey, so, I mean, how long, uh... How, I mean, how, is this, is the Rustyloaf all the rage in the city on this world?

I mean, how long has Russell Love been, like, the top food of this place, man? Oh. Man. A while. When was it again? Oh. Is it recent, or has it been, like, years? Oh, no.

Not years. Years is too many times. Okay. Oh. It's so good. Too many times. I'll have to write that one down. You see, you've been outside, I guess, right?

Yeah, we came in here from outside. From the outside, yeah. We walked through the street. He runs his fingers through his curly chest hair. The best zip down, striking just the dead center of his breastplate, almost to warm himself up. I mean, he's not dressed warmly. His skin almost looks like it's losing, not texture,

but he's losing like tint, almost as he seems to be not succumbing to the cold, but it's affecting him, though it doesn't seem to bother him. How do you feel, man? You look like you're having a good old time. Daddy has a great time. Okay. And both did this to Daddy?

Good job. Loaf, among other things. What? Some time ago. Don't worry, Redd, we taught them everything they know about questioning. Some time ago. This is their chance. The snus, oh, the cold.

Mm-hmm. Daddy doesn't like the cold, but it rolled in. How do a couple of hungry girls get loafed? I get this crouched. Question four times a day. That doesn't surprise me. Oh, four times is too many times. At least the exact right amount of times.

Anyway, what was that saying? This is natural. Well, you were going to tell us how a couple of hungry girls get loafed. And where that serves food, sweetheart, anywhere. It's that sheep bladder place. You've been in the sheep's bladder? They do a good loaf. They do a good loaf.

A good loaf. Do you think they could double loaf the two of us? Probably at the same time. Yeah. Okay, Picks. Here. Can you give us a second? Just one moment, please.

If you need any fine leather goods, riding crop, anything, fancy hat? I mean, it looks like it's nice stuff, but I'm actually kind of, I'm a little broke right now. I don't have an allowance. Okay, Picks. I generally question people. while causing and inflicting pain. Yeah. Or threatening pain.

Yeah. Or other egregious violence. Oh, yeah, I know. I watch. This is tough. I know. I don't know. I mean, I feel like we're getting somewhere,

but I don't feel good about it. Me either. And I don't know why. Not why I don't feel good about it, but why are you getting anywhere? I kind of want to, like, punch this guy and tors him all. But I think he actually, I don't think it's a good idea. I know.

Don't threaten me with a good thing. a good time. No, we're having a private conversation. Oh, right, sorry, sorry, I'm over here. Ugh. I think you gave him an erection. Why does that happen to you every time you yell at people? I don't know.

It's fucking weird. Yeah. I think we have what we need. You know, I'm a bard and you're a hard. I don't know what that means, Picks. Well, because like I say things and sing things, and I make people bend to my body. Oh, a heart fit.

Will. Yes. Awesome. Okay. I think we got to the bottom of this. I don't... I mean... I think that it's in the loaf. I think it's in the loaf. I think that something's happening. It's in the loaf. Do you think anyone else figured that out? Is the, is the, is, uh, is, uh, russet loaf like the main food that you guys eat around here? It's like that, like, that's your favorite. What other, what else do you eat? Oh, yeah. I mean, not much since the snow's killed everything. Oh. Oh. Oh, so since the cold came in. the rusted loaf is what's making, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you can you. Okay. So you're telling me that things haven't been the same since the summer, summer snows came in. Yeah. Yeah. And perhaps that would have been a problem if it wasn't for this rusted loaf. Is that what you're telling us? Oh, yeah. We thought we were cooked But nobody cooks daddy Okay How did you guys get russet loaf all of a sudden? Yeah, what did it come from? Did rustleaf not need to be?

Lord Arcon just straightened it all out? Oh, that's great. What a good lord here? What a good guy? What was daddy like before the winter storm? Oh What was daddy like before getting loafed? Hungry I had an appetite. How do you feel now? Are you hungry still?

Oh, I'm always hungry. Okay. So nothing's changed. But russetloaf fills me right up. Okay. I'm gonna be honest, I really do like your leather wares. It's very metal. I too am hell better for leather, but this is not the trip for that.

Maybe once we're done with our business here, we'll hit a windfall, we'll get some money, and I'll come back and buy a jacket. How about that? Yeah, jacket, pants, whatever you want. Maybe the whole shebang, how about that? Full outfit. Yeah, well...

Okay. I think that we're gonna hit the old dusty trail here. Okay. Thank you for your time, Dad. Okay, um, let's just step right outside this place. Bye, Daddy! Be safe out there. We will.

You have a good one. Stay something. Stay something. Stay anything. I have a theory. Now that we're about time, what? Are you turned on? No, I just really want to punch that guy in the face.

Oh! I really just feel like he... I feel like he needs to be punched. You know, some people need to get just their ass kicked? They just need to be adjusted by getting their ass. You know, yeah, that's the thing? Yeah, I don't think it's going to do anything. No, that's why I didn't do it.

It's going to fuck everything up, and then red and biking. I'm like, oh, I told you so. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think the guy needs, like, one. one broken. When it's all said and done, maybe we can come back here.

And it might, he might just be loathed and not in his right mind. I think he's loathed and not in his right mind, but I've got a theory about what's going on here. What is your theory? Well, you remember how when we was in that room when I woke up and it was frigid and it was super cold? And there was that weird thing behind the door. Well, now here it's like really cold.

Uh-huh. Well, I don't know, actually. That was as far as my mind. God, but I think it has something to do with that, Co. I think we go to the sheep's bladder. Are we going to eat some roughed? Are we going to get luffed? We need to make sure that no one eat.

If no one had a similar conversation, we need to go back and actually find them right fucking now. Oh no, what if they have soup and a rusted loaf? You know Ziggis's going to be all over there. Do we have, like, cell phones and communicators? I'd say you definitely have communicators between the six of you. No, here's the thing. Here's the thing, though, we don't have to worry about that

because we get that information from Daddy. They went to the Gayol, and you know that Ziggy and Aphelia went someplace super important. We've wound up in the fucking sex shop. They know way more than we do, so we can just take our time, stroll on over to the... This is Sunderfang. Don't eat any fucking russetloaf.

Don't eat any russetloaf. Who is this? Cut to the sheep's bladder, a giant pile of russetload. We're heading back to the bladder. We're heading to the sheet flutter. Don't eat any loaf. No russet loaf. Red and Piker at a table with six seats. It's still just the both of us. We're just chatting. We finish in five minutes.

Man, I wish you could get a beer or something. There's all these empty beer cans, but they didn't have pal heavy. All they had was pen red banner. Yeah, this sucks. And the beer is weirdly red. I'm not picky, but this... And there are several baskets on the table with crumbs in them. As I finished the last bite, at least the bread's good. Oh, no.

Will they serve this bread? I don't know. Uh. Rosset loaf? I'm joking, but I'm kind of curious. This is like in Mr. Danya, would you assholes ate. They would not have served you without you,

like, bidding them to. So it's not like a free basket. We don't sit down, they just drop bread on them. If there's a shortage of food that they had to solve, it's not going to be like, oh, here's free bread. It's like, here's your ration of bread. Yeah, it's not plentiful.

If we do beat everybody. But would you guys have been hungry enough to order back? Let's actually say, if we did beat everybody there, the first thing I'd be trying to do is get a drink. Like, I would be trying to get a drink and wait, like, have a beer. You can have a pen, red banner. I would not immediately go for bread.

I wouldn't. I just, that just wouldn't be, you know. Then let's just say there's no bread. You didn't ask for bread. There's no bread. But there are, how many drinks each? We took about five minutes. So I think we've been waiting for like a good hour.

Beer is just bread water. Three drinks? Yeah, at least for drinks. So there's six empty cans of this beer made with a strange red wheat. Yeah, you're absolutely correct. And then Eulia and Ziggi would eventually get back, I presume.

You would join next and then eventually Coe and Pigs. on you to all be corrected in the sheep's bladder. What looks almost like a quaint in, imperceptible almost from the time period, if not for these like blue pylons of energy that seem to course things into the light fixtures that hang above.

The stone ground you sit at like wooden tables as you all sit down and you gather together. Thank God you guys finally showed up. Brett and I have been having a few people. You all took a while. Thank you. Are you guys all right? You guys sound really rough.

Are you sure? Anybody want to go fishing? You look like you guys have had butter days. I kind of feel like going fishing. What are you talking about? You know, one of them activities where you just sit there and drink gold beer. You know what they serve?

I did fish at pizza for day at war. It found out. He's not kidding. I was ready to go with it. I'm like, I'm in. The beers do not get you wrecked out of your minds on stuff. You're fine. You are, you do have several drinks.

An older woman with blonde hair pulled into a tight bun and this kind of like yellow puffed, puffed shoulders dress drapes down around her with a white apron tight at her waist that hangs down has been serving you drinks. uh, slowly, but has been, has been doing it. All right. Bad news. The Lord's not here. Apparently he lives off world only shows up maybe once a month. From what we solved, it's been more than a month. We went to the, what we call that a tower?

Manor. Manor. We went to the manor at the center of town and I mean, it's full of dust. There's nothing in there. Wait, you went, hold on. You went inside the fucking manor. Look, look. The guards, they didn't give a shit. All way to do is walk around it. Don't worry. We used a grappling gun. We were very careful. I'm telling me this was your idea. Did we not teach you anything, Ziggy?

What if he was there? Well, we would have shot him in the face. We talked about it. We had a plan. He's a fucking demon from now! I showed, oh, look. There are a couple people sitting at the bar. You do notice that he, Each of them seems to be eating this round bread

that strangely, it will look close enough. None of them seem to hold the same shape, but they consume this bread slowly at the countertop. Not a one drinking. Is it perhaps of russet color? It is, it is perhaps of brownish, rusty red. Like a brownish rusty red. What a nightmare fix.

Go tell me you guys found something. Well, I mean, We went to the sex shop. Okay. And we blew the whole fucking thing open. White open. What do you mean? No elevator shaft needed.

No. Thank you very much. Well, come on. No man a house necessary. No gay old time. Well, a little bit of a gay old time. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit.

A little bit. Yeah, no, it's the russet bread. The rustle-l-low. Hold on. I put it up one of the menu. Wait, it's literally the only fucking thing on the menu. Yeah, no. The guy was basically saying, Daddy.

Daddy was telling us that when the summer, winter showed up, that all of their crops were killed. And so the viceroy, he provided them with russetloaf. And they've been living off of that ever since. They thought they were all going to die when all of the crops failed and everything. And, you know, before that happened, he was basically exactly the same. It's still like a very cold and unnatural pervert. But things changed because of the russetloaf. And the worst fucking thing is, is that this is not that different from fucking Red Line.

No. I mean, I was... Oh my God, Russ, it's like red! Red! Yes! Oh my gosh! Did you guys know that Russ, it's like red? I was in the under crust for weeks before you guys showed up to McGorough.

And I mean, it wasn't exactly the same, but this is just more of like a mellow, even keel high from fucking Red Line. And he was out of his mind. He was mellowed out. And then all was brought after these fucking summer snows. Kill all the beer and the whole world's crops. Go on. Can we get some russet loaf, please? What are you doing?

Three of them. Oh, hey. You were ordering russet loaf? Yeah. We'll share an order. Do you have your ticket? Huh? I mean, I have paper money.

I have notes. No. Or digital. You don't pay for russetloaf. It's a deal. Lillia Lottman, one loaf a day. Well, we're from out of town. How do we get tickets?

You can't have russet loaf then? No food? We can eat something. Can we order our food, though? We have some food. Eat something on another city, maybe. You can't have our russet loaf. You're saying that where we just stopped at a restaurant and we can't have any food?

Well, Daddy said that we could have it. He said two hungry girls could go straight down to the sheep's bladder and get some russetloaf. Wow, that old bastard. You think we could share one? The most emotion we've seen in the time we've been here. Whoa, calm down. Calm down. That bitch.

He needs to shut that mouth of his. Do you think that we could, because daddy off it, do you think that we could share one loaf between this six of us? Do we look like a bunch of narcs? Do you think, you see those dweebbs out there and prize? out there in primary fucking colors playing night you think we're gonna rat you out to those fucking losers that they're trying to crush the the throats of all the good people of this world with the boots of the Cavalant Empire yeah I mean

what's gonna have you just you know sneak us a little bread we're cool we only get so much bread from the processing plant just enough to feed everybody one a day where's the plant well it's just three town. It's not far from the manor, but we can't just go giving it away to off-worlders. Man, things are worse here than we thought. There isn't anything you would trade. I can make you up some food, food. You know, you get some chips and some, some, some energy drinks. I can put, I can conjure it for you right now. It's terrible for you.

Russell loaf gives you everything you need to make a body strong. That's very... It's starting to sound like bidsy. A little bit. Did you make a buddy strong? Well, God. Oh, God, Russell Loops all you need. I love Russell Loaf.

Just... I'm pretty sure an entire can of Gex would kill one of these people. Hey, y'all. I'm not from Rottie. Have you had your Russetloaf today? No, I haven't had my own Russetloaf, not yet today. But I can't wait. wait. The scrum just tasted that bread as it hits my lips. Oh, and it just takes everything away.

Oh, hunger and pain. Oh, I could eat russet loaf all day. And does it usually sate the hunger? Yeah, I mean, until it comes back. Oh. Does it have a chance come back more intense? Oh, gosh. It's stronger. You get more hungry for a loaf? Oh, yeah. Oh, nothing hits like a russet loaf after you've had the first one. You're chasing that food. You're chasing that feeling of that first russet loaf.

Man, you're chasing the cosmic dragon of russet loaf. Huh? Wow. Okay, we're good. Oh, can I get one of your beers, one of your house beers? Oh, sure. Yeah, we got pay for money. Don't worry about it.

We don't need any loaf. Oh, Russetloaf. Oh, yes. That was very good. Russet loaf. It's the loafiest. Okay, a couple of red ribbons, couple of red ribbons.

Red ribbons, yeah. Coming up. Penn red banners. Penn red banners, that's what I said the whole time, canonically. And she walks away, Willia, who's her name. She walks away to the bar. We do.

Slow. Oh, you know, you. Yeah, yeah, you're the diner. She's got a junk, a Pallonian diner. Yeah. She's got... She's got... Yeah.

She's got... Enjoy your time at the Gombladder. And the Sheep's Bladder. At the Sheep's Bladder. At the Sheep's Gobloader. Have a Monday. As she leaves to get a couple of red banners,

and then brings them back, delivers them to anyone who would have ordered. Okay. Thank you. shuffles away. Thank you, William. We've got to go to that plant. Oh, I thought we were going to steal some russet lov from out back. Surely there's some here, right?

We can just go right to the source. We should go to the plant and see what's going on. I've been making it. There's, I mean, right, we're on agreement. I mean, the bread is drugs. The bread is drugs. Yeah, I think we're, I think we're in agreement. This is insane. The bread is drugs. Like, I thought my fucking home neighborhood got rotted.

This is a hundred times fucking worse. I mean, these people didn't have a choice. They didn't have a fucking chance. They were starving. This. But why? Why do this? I mean, why has he done any of this?

Why did he want to get, why did he want to distribute red line? Why did he want to create rubato? Why do you want to get people hooked on this red shit? Do you think this was the beginning and then the rest of the drugs came after? Or is this what they were trying for? No, this is the end game. Really? You think?

This is what the Don said. You think this is the end game? I mean, what if it's the other way around? What if it's the, it's the snow that came, right? And he just did the least possible thing he could to save these people. He just saved them with, you know, bread and stuff, you know? Think about it. If you wanted to get people hooked on something that is turning them into something like him,

making them hungry and just something of entropy, of decay. But they just seem like listless. They're not helping. He's not making soldiers. He's not making... They're just...

Nothing. This is horrible. Have you ever been in a depressing sex shop before? This is horror. No, and that's an extremely challenging

balance to strike for a GM. I know. This is horror. A general manager. Yes, that's what I'm saying. And so, what I'm saying is that If you want to get people hooked, you have the hard party truck.

But that's only a small handful of people. How do you get more people? Everyone's got pain, everyone wants to pop a pill, they got a headache, they had a rough day, rebeato. Oh, there's some people that don't need that. What does everyone fucking need? They need to eat, especially if some demonic fuckface kill all of your crops across your entire world,

putting your people into starvation. I don't disagree with you. I just feel like if you were going to do that to a population, you do it to turn them into something of value instead of a waste. Maybe this is the value. We saw what he did to Pixel. We saw him drain her life, her harmony. She's still standing here.

In my head, he said something to me about feeding off the... me just a little. Like, what if that's what he's doing? He's just... What? Fee. Well, I... That's a word I'm using. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was something along the lines of... It was just taking a little from me. He's talking to you in your head? Well, when I was unconscious, I had an awful nightmare. He was saying all kinds of stuff, and, uh...

Look, if I've learned anything from nightmares, it's that you should... should probably listen to your gut. You know, it was real bad. We got to get to that processing plan. Yeah, we need to figure out what they're fucking putting in the shit. I think we know. But we'll learn more.

We'll learn the fucking source. Maybe we can just shut it down. Do you think that he changed the weather? Do you think that he made it cold? Yeah, that's what I was telling Coe. Because remember how when we were in that room, it was freezing? Unnaturally freezing?

brought it to the Don's mansion. It's the only way for him to guarantee that they had to rely on his food. I think there's more to the story. I just can't imagine that he made it cold just to make everyone feel like the waitress. No, this is part of it. We don't know why the fuck he's doing.

We don't know why he wanted to decay entire fucking neighborhoods, turn it to entropy. This is entropy. Maybe he just like seeing him. It's like he's a weird fucking artist or something. I don't know. What is entropy, if not? Heat death.

Just the slowing of things, of all things. That's what this is. This is a fucking world of entropy incarnate. Leave the city. I take a sip of my beer. Oh, this taste, why does this taste like sheep piss? Oh, yeah. I've been waiting to make that joke for a house.

I'm waiting for some time, for some time. For some time, Richie. All this talk about bread has really fucked me. All this, in Anthem. How widely known is it about the Empire's stance on the discordant and the, like, Does the empire overall, is it a public thing, like they're fighting against it, or that there's this idea of if you are a sinful person or if you're going in one direction or another, right, like that it somehow has some influence over you. What, what, is there any sense that I would have, like, does that make, is that connection ringing any bell at all? Are you attempting to discern if what's happening here feels like very much outside of what you would ever expect to find in the Cavalon city?

Yeah, well, like, it's, and again, I don't want to conflate like overture stuff versus anthem stuff, right? And so it's like, I know that, you know, they were all about, like, piousness and not going to extremes and stuff like that. And this feels very out of character Touret in that like no legitimate empire world whatever like whatever get this way.

Correct. It feels very much like that. I mean even to forget the the the cavalon of it for a moment right. It's extremely it wouldn't make any sense

for them to have done what you've seen done to this city almost a completely like docile indifrent populace completely hooked on what you have come to find is Russ and Love. This would be very much against what you would expect to find in a Cavalon City. Can I help reframe the question? Please. My question to layer on to what Rich is saying is if it took me being a part of the Polaris Society to even have any knowledge of discordant or anything carcophony or whatever or praying to a god like does the average citizen have any fucking idea that that's even a thing like how well-known are is the idea of discordant just in

general like I know that we talked about like the idea of hell and demons from hell were a thing right well there was also that that Carcocin that was like preaching and stuff, so I feel like religion would be pretty... The average citizen would not know of the discord. And it's not so much that Cavalon is like directly in opposition of it. It's more that they have this innate tenets of chivalry. Then I'll just say, I mean, whatever, he did, he's totally broken to people's loyalty to the fucking empire. I mean, there's nothing

chivalrous about any of this. These people live against complete, you know, it fucking flies in the face of what the empire stands for, what they say it stands for. Yeah. This isn't fucking temperance. This isn't balance. It's just a hundred percent apathy. There's nothing here. They don't care about anything. I guess except for the bread. That's all they care about. It's delicious.

All right. It's probably pretty fucking a dick thing if I had to guess. I'll jump up. I will throw whatever I think would cover the beers and then with some tip or whatever. And I'll say, let's get going. Now. All right.

I'm right behind you. She said it's out past the tower. Ziggy and I were there. You can lead you out that way first. I will follow Ophelia towards end. We'll try to find this processing plan. You begin to make your way out of the sheep's bladder. And it says you're in the threshold, you hear a small commotion from the bar.

You hear, are you gonna finish that? As you turn around and it looks like one of the first, one of the three of the people who was eating Russetloaf, at the bar has finished his. Come on, I'm so hungry. Let me have some of yours. No, absolutely not. Oh, you're gonna finish mine. Please, please.

Oh, and he reaches over, this first guy reaches over and tries to take it from him. And they break out into this small, strengthless scuffle. And almost this, like weak, limned, but strangely fierce exchange of trying to get this last bit of loaf from them. Until you see Willia on the other side of the bar,

and this is the fastest you've seen someone move yet, almost lunges over the bar top to tackle the remaining bit of russet loaf. Oh, I haven't had mine yet today. and she'll dive forward and she snatches it from in between the two of them until she lands on the floor and she immediately starts eating into it. Okay, now we're fucking getting somewhere. They're all junkies. Damn fucking right.

Fuck. There is a little bit of fucking energy left in this shithole of a world. Um, that would just be just be. make me want to get to this place. Oh, yeah. Let's pick up the pace. We fucking hustle. Totally agree. Brother, I require your russet oats, brother. Please grab me the russet loaf, brother.

The russet loaf. You make your way out, and you head back kind of towards the manner. You're looking for the processing plant. You have a general idea of where it is. and you eventually, with some checking, some investigativeness, you make your way to what seems to be an elaborate factory setup.

This larger, this is one of the largest structures you've seen yet. With one main large white building with a single domed, tower erupting from a corner of it. And it looks like a subsection of it stretching off to the side, potentially an additional storage facility. Unlike some of the other locations you've been to,

this so far has the most people around it. You see no less than six guards within view. All of them stand at attention with swords planted into the ground in that white armored uniform. these blue cloaks fallen about them. These seem so far to be the only people that have any kind of like responsiveness to them.

The only place in the city so far that feels actually guarded. Oh. That was obvious, right? What? What if you want to draw a bunch of fucking badge wearing goons away from someplace. You start fucking riot. Disturb the peace.

Well, that's what you do best, isn't it? Exactly fucking right. Go on, man. I am gonna, I'm gonna say thank you. As I'm going to run, I'm going to try to find a group of people. Is there a bread line? Is there a, um, is there like a larger group of people where I could like at least try to find to just sew some discord, no pun intended. Mm. Roll a investigation check. Ooh. I know it's a plus two, it's that proficient.

Eight. You have twists, I don't want to be the one to say it. Oh, can I, but does it work like a re-roll? How does it work? Where's it worth it? I have done it. In some campaigns, but we can add. I think we've been doing up to plus five.

Yeah, I think we've been doing, well, in this campaign, you can, you can re-roll and add. Okay. How many did you use? Wait, re-roll an ad? He just rolled one. He just rolled one. One.

Okay. No, I'm not looking around, who? I got a seven and then the first, the next one. I got an 11 and then a seven. With a seven, you look around and you see these people shambling through the snow streets. Like white tunics, blue pants, all of them seem to have that same shuffle to them.

You don't yet see. see anyone that seems to be disseminating russet loaf to others. But what you do see, what catches your eye, you see a door open from the processing facility. And somebody who moves out with a cart, a sealed cart as this one person shambles gold word, moving something covered towards the main thoroughfare. A look at it. And I will say, Pix, you got some good,

good spell song, right? How can you get people amped up? Oh, yeah, I'm sure I can. I didn't realize I was with you. Yes. Okay. I'm gonna say, I'm going to just start running. And I am going to,

I am going to look at the cart, and if I feel there's a number of people around the area towards this cart, like if it's around this cart, I'm gonna just barrel into the cart and try to knock it over. Oh, dear. Roll and attack roll.

And there is, it's easy to see. As this cart has exited the processing plant through a gate and opens for it, the cart moves gestured by this person, blue wrap around their head, as they bring this cart forward into this thoroughfare, there are people very much eyeing the cart, and it is around as you...

I got a 14. The 14, as you charge head first into this cart, and you smash into it, cracking the side and knocking it clean over. The person, though melancholy, though slow, is startled. As the cart careens over, And you see that brownish red loaf as the tarp, the covering spills out, and red loaf moves into the thoroughfare sitting on top of now melting snow from the heat of the road. They took my ticket and we're so hungry and they're not giving enough russet loaf.

I am going to try to barrel, tackle this guy, smash the, and send bread fucking scattering. All over the place. There's russet loaf over here. You don't. As people start to shamble quickly, they have this slight lean to them as their forms lurch forward towards this cart. And they all descend upon the rustle.

You see people of all walks fall to their knees and start to fight each other as they begin to consume this bread off the snow. You will see as you look at the processing plant, five of the six guards, will leave. Stop that commotion. Leave the bread.

As the heavily armored guards with the swords walk away from the processing plant and approach this scene to begin to like, peel people off the bread and get them back and begin to attempt to quell the scene.

Does this, how many of the guards do you say moved? Five. Oh six. Oh, shit. I think that, like, I look to red. and I'm like, this is a fucking chance, man. Like, we gotta go now. I'll, I'll say, Picks, can we get a whole fucking city rioting?

I'm going to cast silent. I'm gonna look up at Co and nod, and I'm gonna strum on my key tar in a wave of, a wave of melodic magic will sweep over everything. And I'm gonna cast silent image to create what looks like one of the guards, a seventh guard, stealing the bread from some of you.

Oh, let's go. Some of the civilians. Wow. In an attempt to get them to not listen to them. Holy smokes, that's awesome. Thank you. Yeah, you do that. That is, he looks like Hugh Jacking.

He does. What is my prime stealing a lover bread? He's not a lova bread. The gods are stealing the bread. I knew these Carolon Fuchs were holding. Babylon fucks were holding the breath. They're stealing it for themselves. I'm knocking on doors now.

I am running down. I am as I'm pounding my chest occasionally, as my inherent rhizo soul and energy will kind of cast out these cacophonous thunderous booms and crashes of lightning to draw attention as I'm running through the streets saying, the cat. I am just screaming, five guards,

ripping people off the loaves as your image of one taking the loaf off the ground and co you beating your chest thunderously each heavy fall like the beat of a war drum as you start to hear the shambling this this call from the town as doors swing open stealing russetloaf oh quick I'm so hungry as as people from all over begin to swarm this central section. The last guard seeing that something terrible is about to take place,

rushes out as a full-blown bread riot breaks out. Very cool. Well, fucking done, Pace. As there are people running, I'm going to go up and like toward the side and then sucker punch somebody. He's like, don't fucking try to steal my loat.

And I'll punch. And with that motion, kind of pull him into another guy to basically try to like, make it seem like that guy punched him to push him in. And I'm gonna be sucker punching people and just trying to turn them against each other.

It's like Iron Maiden General and Mission. Yeah, exactly. Oh! You've won me over. You've won me over. No, that works immediately. In fact, all you have to do is reach over somebody's shoulder

and grab somebody else's shoulder. You pull that move. That's an immediate fight starter. You rip somebody back into another person. People start scattering, bump into one. Oh, no, my russet loaf, you won't take it.

And they start, and the clamor, they start shoving each other and pushing, and it's mere moments before they start swinging on each other. A full-blown riot breaks out as the cacophonous now dull roar of this malaised town will not be denied its sustenance. You have turned this gathering into full bloody battle as fists and teeth and knuckles and bones and bones and bones. and heal are shoved in all directions as people are ferociously battling to get to this. Just several pieces of russetloaf that have hit the ground. Let's go now. The moment we see the last guard go,

Rhett and I are going to signal to go in, and I'm going to attempt to get your attention and be like, let's go, and we're going to try to move in. I'll be sprinting right behind you. Great fucking work picks. So the four of us are going in. Yeah. And hopefully they'll be close behind when they catch up.

Hornees unite. That's, well, we gotta work on that. Yeah, we're not a horny. Get loathed. Get loafed. That was fucking metal as hell. That's how you started right. I mean, that really escalated quickly.

That is wild. Okay, let's go. Jump on a cart and then launch myself onto Coe's back and then Coe's just gonna run out of it. Well, you land on Coe's back. Everyone starts racing with haste towards and into this processing facility. You run through the gate that the cart had come out of

all those guards had walked through to attempt to quell this now full-blooded riot, they stand no chance as everything turns to madness around you. You race through the open gate, through the door that the cart had come out of, and you make your way into the processing plant. I'm going to burst through the doors, and first, is it like a typical kind of like production factory where there's like walkways up high and then like like um like um like like like a main floor so glad you asked oh you enter the russet loaf processing facility and see an elaborate factory set up with moving

conveyor belts and high rising walkways throughout the space you see workers working slowly but methodically at creating the russet loaves boxing transporting and storing them despite how relatively sparsely populated Vassan has seemed, this is a crowded building with a suspiciously high number of Cavalon citizens devoting to producing this food stuff. I'm going to turn to the group, to the four of us that are there right now. And are there, do we see workers on the main floor that we're on? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, there's so, I mean, most buildings you've walked into, even the, even the, the, the, the official police building, three people maybe. In front of you, you see what's more like 20. The in the sheep's bladder, one person working there, three people sitting at the bar. This is thrumming with life, with energy. These people are in charge of handling the production. They have the direct access to Russetloaf. Pike and I'll do the questioning. Ophelia, you're on Overwatch. Ziggy, look for systems. Oh, n- I'll run to the upper level. I'll watch the door.

I'm gonna, yeah, once you get, I would trust that you all know what to do, depending on when you get there. We'll catch up in a couple of this. Yeah, and I, I'm gonna just start, like, walking up to these workers. I'm right with you. And being like, what are you making? How does this work?

Try to be like a little scary and intimidating and, you know, hopefully overwhelm their sort of entropic states. Roll an intimidation check. Oh, yeah, Pike is also menacingly standing next to you. Good cop, bad cop, only bad cop, bad cop. Oh, shit, double advantage. Mean cop, bad cop. Tall cop, squat cop.

10. Oh. Oh. What do you mean? We're just making russet loaf. Well, I'm not stealing it, I promise. I want to look closer to this guy's eyes while Red's question. Does it look like he's under the same effects, or does he's

seem to be a little bit more clear. His brown eyes slightly dilated. Does he seem to be under the same effects? With a quick scan of the room and talking to this person directly, in the facility with the people who are making it, it seems more pronounced. Oh. Yeah, these guys are definitely under the effects.

I mean, they're around this shit fucking all day long. Yeah, I just wasn't sure if maybe they were keeping the people who were making it, you know, clear-headed. So what are the ingredients? Where do you store it? Show me. You better start talking. Oh, well, production starts there. And we store there. Oh, it's who, we mix the... Mix the what? Um, we...

The water first, into the flour, and then we have the, we have the thickening agent. Uh, it gives it that... Red color. Red color, right over there. It's a thickening agent. That's what we care about. And then when it's done, when that delicious bread is done.

Is he just reaching through loaves? He's reaching towards, like, he's wearing kind of an apron that seems to have something stuffed into it. And as, as you're about to get cut by a brother. As you're interrogating him, in between questions, he seems to be like, You know, it startled with your menacing approach,

Bad Cop, Bad Cop, he seems to be like, even in the moments where you shake him of this malaise, he seems to almost trembling, be attempting to reach for a pocket of his apron that seems particularly domed out. I think the third time I see this guy reach for his pocket, I'm gonna grab him by the wrist

and just try to reach this pocket and see what's in there. I'm sick of this shit. I'm so sick of these assholes. Roll a athletics check. Oh. Athletics? Oh, sweet God, almighty. Oh, why did it reset?

Nice. With my plus zero to athletics, I've got an 18. Wow. Wow, that is good. He reaches into this apron, and he gets his hands around something. And you lightning quick strike out with your hands. You grab his wrist and you raise it. And in his pocket stuffed, you've found a russet loaf.

And as you hold his wrist, almost... Does he feel strong at all? He doesn't feel strong, in fact. And while he wrestles against your grip, you feel that you've shattered his wrist. Oh, my God. As he fights ferociously to get this russet loaf to his mouth, you tell the moment the bone snaps in your palm. Here's what I'll say.

He doesn't react in the slightest way. it happens except to move the rust loaf a little bit closer. He doesn't even seem to notice. I flinch, but not because of the act of breaking the guy's wrist. That's just a Tuesday. I flinched because I didn't expect my strength to be able to do that. That is the shocking part. I'm not worried that I hurt this guy.

I don't know, it doesn't phase me. It's shocking to me that he's that frail. It's a mixture. It's not just the frailty, though that is present. It's the mixture of how, of how ferociously he's moving the hand to his mouth in the strength of your grip. I kind of pull his hand away and I look to Rhett and I say,

back. Yeah, bad news, I think I shattered his wrist. He's really fighting, but he's got nothing to him. He's like paper and bone. I'm gonna grab the loaf from the hand. And then I'll let his hand go as soon as he's got the loaf. I'll just, I'll kind of just like hold him back. It's not, I'm not hard, it's not hard.

Oh, please. This is bad. I mean, I barely squeezed his wrist. I mean, with the cow or bad, he wanted that bread. He broke his wrist. I'm going to hand him the bread to see what he did. Oh. What the hell?

I swear I didn't grab him. Oh. Are you feeling better? I look at his wrists. It's a mingling. It's turning blue. and swelling with like dark marks of where clearly blood is flowing into open space. Uh, and he'll put his hand to his side and just say,

mm, oh, so much better. Thank you. I feel great. I'm gonna be honest, right. I didn't know what to say about this. Um, I'll say, uh, Ophelia, the water's in. over there, you might be able to see you into it from up there. Ziggy, the thickening agent. I think that's where you want to look. I've been tracing the original command of the systems and trying to figure out if there's any way that I can access this plan. But if you're already on top of thickening agent, I feel

like... Well, I'm just trying to direct you in case there was like some terminal or something there. Specifically, you could look at. That might be a point of interest for you to plug into its systems. Yes, I will find a point of interest. So that I can plug in the system. Uh, yeah. Um, hmm. Roll a computers check.

Sure. Oh, yeah. Natural 20. I've had like fucking 18. Oh, damn. Those dice were. It's true. 27.

Bro. Jesus. Oh, man, with a 20. Uh, with a 20, you do find a computer system. Sure. There are terminals actually all over this. space that help operate the, um, the, uh, all the machinery around. You plug into one and you're able to access the systems instantly. Even their security systems are lazy. They, they crack

open at your behest, at your beckoning. Uh, everything laid bare before you. Uh, it's at this time, Ophelia, that over on the catwalk, you look down, you see the, the, the initial process of how it's being made, the vat of flour that then has a water spout adding it in, and then these bags of some strange substance, a thickening agent, and then you see all this laid out above you, the process of them actually pouring it into this almost like large silo form that then has these giant flat, blades, like two massive spatulas, moving it to be together, moving it together to work the dough, as then it comes out at one edge and it fumes out these russet lobes,

as it then, after a moment of moving through these conveyor belts, begins to go down the processing and goes through stations of heat treatment that people are managing to not over bake them. It's a very careful process. You see it all happen. Does it smell like fresh baked bread? Or does it smell like off? I will say it's very easy to tell, but it smells very pleasant. It smells like fresh baked bread.

And not having, well, you probably eat right before you landed. But even without hungry stomachs, the smell of bread fresh off the line, baking, hanging in the air. Anyone who's ever smelled freshly baked bread, it smells very good in the room. It smells homey almost. It meshes with the

almost like rusted metal oil scents of the conveyor belts that also hang in there, but the prominent smell that hits is the bread. As you crack into the systems, Zigi, you see references of the recipe, standard kind of bread procedural. You dig deeper. You see very specific heat treatments, not to exceed X degree for fear of reagent death.

And everything seems extremely, extremely carefully concocted. Um, not unusual for bread. I mean, it's not, it's not a terribly easy process, but it's something people have been able to make without technology. You, it's something easy to figure out. You don't need this level of care to accomplish something. Um, and then you dig just a little bit deeper and you find it. Uh, the thickening reagent, uh, is purified RDL 8. RDL 8, you say?

The evolution that you found in the lab when you were researching R.L. 7, it was referenced that it had been perfected and moved off world, and that R.D.L. 8 was ready for mass production. Oh, this is... What this is... Modern. What is this is new stuff. The thickening agent in the... The thickening and binding agent in the russet loaf is refined, pure RDL8, otherwise known as... as Redline or Rubedo. I will capture these records and store them on my drive.

I'm gonna continue to put them into that same portfolio of evidence that we're slowly building as best we can. And I will, can I access security? Can I access cameras? Can I see if I can look around and see the rooms the exterior to make sure that we're safer. If I need to perhaps access logs and see if I can go back in time and find footage of people, perhaps even the Viceroy coming through this factory and observing things.

I'm looking for anything and everything as I continue to scan through these documents. You can spend time looking for that, downloading certain bits of information that you'll have. The very first thing you'll find is that, uh, connected to this building that you saw from the outside is in fact a siloed storeroom, and that is the last place you have yet to discover. You've seen where it begins. You now know that for however long since the out-of-season winter destroyed the crop, the city of Vasson has been consuming Rubedo.

Strangely, none of them have seen to turn, though they're in this kind of malaise. They're in this form. It is not like Sait Omicron. They've not fallen to any kind of damning or dangerous silent transformation. That was already all three, four, five, six. That was a different version. That's absolutely correct.

Where are my friends in relation to me? Can I get to them? Can they hear me? Yes, I would say Ophelia is up on the conveyor belts above holding Overwatch. Rhett and Pike are brutally interrogating a line work. That was an accident, man.

And Cohen Pixel are watching them. We get back. They're all close to you. You may recollect yourselves very easily. Can I ask while I'm up on there looking at the line? So I would have had my sniper rifle out and kind of using the scope

to look at things in more detail. The bags of thickening Do I see any like writing external markings on like the bags or any other ingredients that would indicate like a brand or where it came from, anything like that? You do. You see thickening the agent and on every bag

you see emblazoned the sigil of Lord Harcon. You see the form of the Pegasus with the black dragon wings on the cool blue meadow. Yeah. The cool blue field. That sounds right. Guys! I will turn and I will race and collect everyone.

Team meeting, team meeting. I'm here now. I was able to get all of the files that I could from the systems. Recipe details, how it's not supposed to go over a certain temperature, all of it. But most importantly, the thickening reagent, it's refined rebateo for sure. It's RDLT-O-8. Damn it. That's the final version.

This is why they didn't go crazy, nuts-o, but It's also why they are so addicted to it and being affected the way that they're, and acting the way that they are. It's obvious. But for what reason? What's the whole point of it? I have no idea. But there's a store room just through that way.

And if we go there, we might be able to find out more. I mean, it's... You find one more thing in the information, Ziggy, is it starts to continue to unveil bits and pieces to you. The output of this processing plant, the city consumes 5,000 loaves a day. Who. The processing plant generates 60,000 loaves a day. That's a problem!

That's not good. That's a lot of loaves. That matthomathom. I'm sorry, loaves. It was, I mean, it's been three months. Oh my god. And a surplus of 55K a day. That's bad folks.

Look, they're this huge surplus in the storeroom. I'm sure of it. They must be storing it for some major reason. Wait, wait, wait. You're trying to tell us that they're making 55,000 more loaves a day than they need. You think it's all back there? They're rationing it. Everyone we've talked to has been talking about how limited the brink.

is, but with how much I've seen them produce, and how much I'm seeing them consume and distribute across the city, it doesn't match up. It doesn't make any sense. Then let's get back there and start fucking see if the rest of it's back there, right? Yeah. Come on! And we saw the guards, and we'll go with them. They weren't, they weren't, they weren't all loafed out, right?

The gods? So they were, did the guards look loafed out? If they were like, kind of yelling and shouting and- Not the outer guards. The outer guards seem to have their wits about them. They're fucking complicit. That's why we had to use my magics to make you look like they were stealing. Those seem to be the only ones with the clarity of mind to defend

the only true coveted place in this city. Oh, my God. They're fucking Renfielded. Holy fuck. Oh, God, Spide Readers. I would gun it for the storeroom and just basically keep the Doeran. I'm right behind Pike. You gun it for the storeroom. You gotta get in the bottom of his math. And you kick the door in. As you enter the

storeroom, it is even colder than the rest of the factory, as if entering a freezer meat locker. Nice. It's especially dark. Within, there are six storeroom workers loading this tall silo-shaped structure with thousands of crates of russet loaf. each marked for shipment to different worlds within the Cavalon Empire. Fuck. And as you see these workers, they are moving even slower than the rest. And they are even, and they are hunched even more than usual. Then, as they walk into the light, you realize something is terribly off.

In the chest of each of the workers, all of whom would have the easiest access to sneaking extra portions of russetloaf is a perfectly circular black hole that pulses with shadow. What the fuck means? What the fuck? Uh. Holy hell. Guys, they're shipping it off world. And it's been months like you said.

This isn't good. We got to tear this down. We got to destroy all this. You! And I'm just going to walk up to the closest. one. What the fuck is this? And I'm gonna point at his chest and see if he has an explanation. You spin this first worker around. Jet black spiked hair as the dull, almost fully, almost fully dilated eyes stared back at you. Destroyed Rossettloaf. Destroy Rossetloaf.

Right, no, don't get too close. Look! what it's due to you. Suddenly, all of the workers in the space turn towards you. You see in each one of them that pulsating black void that stands in the center of their chest. In unison, they let out an agonized

but dulled groan. As you see the pits in their chest grow even wider within their bodies and then horrifically, you see clawed hands emerged from the as if a portal to cacophony gripping each side of the body as hands stretch out with horrible sickening snaps and grips. Each of the workers is torn apart from within and reconstituted in a horrific slavering monstrosity with huge fangs, tailed ears,

and dripping maws bared with unending hunger. Each of these creatures, leap from their positions to bear down on you as if all driven by a single consciousness. I need everyone to roll for an issue. I don't want to do that. And I'm right next to that one guy. Yeah, you're literally, tell me. Oh, I have never wanted a Natty 20 more of my life to get to my boy, Rhett. Well, if I were an Azureborn from the crookedmoon.com.

Yeah. Cricket moon. Got my? You know, Ziggy, I can really use advantage on this fucking, uh... Good luck. I hope oh sorry hope help somebody help somebody anybody help help help help oh shit anybody's help help okay all right so we got our boy is closer than anybody else unfortunately to number one want to say yeah you're right up

there with number one oh these are great tokens you grab the first work your product oh or anybody doesn't matter you got it I think so. Can you untangle that for me, please? And applause. The horribly agonized, dull groaning cries out as it's replaced by a monstrous roar, as the hands, those clawed hands erupting from the center of these chests

rip these people in half as they reconstitute into these creatures of cacophony. Two of the transformations so horrific, the person dies on the spot inside out, the beast not fully forming. Oh? Blood, bone, like half-formed, not fully baked chimera failed monstrosities as they clatter to the ground dead. Geez. Four remain as you now face down these horrible creatures of the night. Oh.

Oh. And right, wrong for initiative. Oh, we're all rolling for initiative. Oh, we're all rolling for initiative. Oh, that's great. also a special shout out to HP loafcraft that's very that's very funny

I'm I'm crediting not bad not bad great job well done good boy good boy chat I really good boy indeed

good boy indeed don't worry I got you bro I got you back all right 2025 23 23 Holy smokes. I did this beforehand, if you could believe it.

15. 22 for me. Oh damn. Oh, geez. Okay. She's quick. She's secret agent. Well, excuse me, princess. There they go. 15 to 20. 10 to 15. 12. 10. I'm quick. I'm gonna gotta be fast on this one. I'm right in the middle of ten. Oh, wait. Would you get? 10. And you got 12? 12 for me. Well, that's a Very, very handsome Ziggy. Look at that.

It's written in a really nice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Wow. What? Uh, after Ziggy, I've written Pixel. What did you get? Two.

I'm next. Oh. With a four. Oh, wow. Holy smokes. Wowy Zowie. Pike, you have just witnessed the summering of hunger spawn

from the entropic concoffy realm. I don't care for that. Ripping out of the center of these poor workers, having consumed far too much russet loaf, standing before you, now these terrored creatures of the night, initiative is to you.

I had just shouted this warning to Rhett, like to not get too close as I watched this happen, and my body moves without thinking, and I immediately sprint directly at my friend. And as I move, I have 50 movement speed, so I'm gonna jackknife right in here next to him. But as I'm sprinting as fast as I possibly can, under my breath, I'm saying, Light Bringer,

Queen of Love and Beauty, Light Bringer, Queen of Love and Beauty. And as I go to land the first attack, I yell Phoenix Rising as I use my Florida blows to take three attacks. Holy! That's pretty cool. On which one? Just super the number one. The one that is currently engaged with Rhett.

I got a... 25 is the first hit. 21 is the second hit. Both it. And then third is a 12. 12 just misses. Okay. Then what I'll do is I have a cool new thing that I can do. When I land my first attack,

I'm going to do 10 points of bludgeoning damage to this thing. And then, because I had, Because I have, sorry, this is in a different spot, my divine resonance, basically the first time that when I hit a creature with an unarmed strike or with a radiant blast from the Stargalland, the next attack roll made against the target before the end of my next turn will add 1D4 to the total. Damn, okay. So the first punch, land it for 10. And the next one will land four. Oh, nine. Nine, okay?

Yeah, nine points of damage, I think. Let me just double check. Nope, ten points of damage again. Ten points of damage again. And then the third attack will miss, and I expended a focus point to do this. And Rhett, you just watch as I lay into this thing with an uppercut, Phoenix Rising!

And I'm just trying to get to you and hold these guys off. I'm very overwhelmed. A lot's happening, and so I'm on my back flip here. Oh, yeah. Rarely out of sorts, Pike, but seeing these creatures rip forward, knowing that Rhett is far closer than any of the rest of you. You almost panic dash into action. As you race forward the first uppercut slamming into the jaw of this creature,

the drool from its slavering mouth falls down around your fist as its hungering maw cracks under the heavy thought of your blow. Ophelia. All right, so seeing Pike Rush in, I would kind of flank out past Zee, Ziggy and take aim at number four and fire off a shot with my sniper rifle. Please. Oh, yeah. Oops.

Uh, nine. Twist it. Yeah, can I do it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you got to see it's fucking sniper. Is that how it worked? Yeah, just rerroll. Let me say.

Bruttle. Oh, uh, two. Eleven. Twist it again. Twist it again. Twist it again. Yeah, do it again. It's your first time using your rifle.

One more, one more. Here, take this guy. One more. Yeah, roll better dice, your dice are they left. A good dice. Oh, they're frost dice. Oh, they're off. Oh, go.

It's me. It's me. One more, one more, one more. Oh, my God. One more, one more, one more. How embarrassed. This is why we have twists. There we go.

Oh, babe. Yeah, it took a second to catch the beat. It took a second, you're like one of those, you know, like, well, good. The red dodge. Yeah, and then you got, you have been, you haven't been a sniper in a while.

You've been wasting away in Margaritaville. You trusted Ziggy to train you on that video game, and it threw off your real-world skills. It was terrible. It was off calibration. It was off calibrated to the game, and now all of your back here. I trained you wrong as a joke.

And what did you roll at the sign? To hit. Oh, what was it? It was 7 plus 15, so 22. 22. It hits easy. Okay. was 10 damage.

You should also have a weapon damage. So that's sneak attack, right? I don't have, I wasn't hiding. No, but they're in place. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you still roll this one. So that plus an extra two DSA. Nice. Yep.

Big one we go. So 18. There we go. Huge. Huge. On number four. That's what I said. As you level the rifle, this pulse blast fires out.

and it rapidly fires through the chest of one of these things, blowing a hole to match the central one, blowing a hole through the shoulder as blood spatters against the crates of russetloaf behind it. And co. I am going to,

I don't think I can get to two. I'm just following up. Nice shout, Ophelia! Let's fucking kill these things. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of also yell out, we're here, Vice Roy! We're here to fucking kill you! As I am going to, I am filled with rage

at seeing what Lord Harcon has done. And I, as I see this whole, I'm falling up on the other side. I feel like we have a fight coming. I don't know. I'm not gonna do my, what'd you call it? My, I'm gonna twist. Yeah, it's fine.

You admire this new cardstock, by the way? No, it's awesome. The colors are insanely vibrant. What a difference. Yeah, look at how crazy that is on camera. I got a remake all. Yeah, please do. I got to remake all those.

Especially because our characters are colorful. I will hit with my club. Okay. It is going to deal... Okay. You just crush the roll. Oh, it's a 19 plus. Yeah, that's it.

The AC for ease of communication, the AC is 13. Oh. 14 points of bludgeoning damage. On which one? On number four, the one that Ophelia hit. Co-use the twist and Ophelia you use four? Yeah, yeah, I think we use five. Five. You race up joining your party. You energize the club as you swing in. It's a brutal spikes land into the side of this hungering spawn. It catches it

right in the ribs and caves it in as it falls over to the ground dead. Nice. That's one. And I will, that's it. I'm actually going to run up to Can I get past Pike? Is that difficult terrain? I think he's difficult terrain, but you... No, no, in 2024, it's not. Oh, hell, I'm getting right in the middle of them. Oh, wow, that's very funny.

That changes everything. Yikes! I'm now in the middle of them. First turn. Oh, boy. You saved my ass go. I now need a you to roll a dexterity saving throw. What's it even more?

Dexterity saving for us. Plus three. Wait, plus three. 17. I'll dread you. Oh, wow. Wow. How do you take doctor hands? 21.

22. Okay. Come on. I got at least six of them. I want it. 17. Okay. One more time.

That's the one. You lost the roll. It never didn't have it. I slipped on three soggy, soggy loaves. Three soggy russet loaves. This horrific hunger spawn in front of you, reaches out these unnatural long arms

as they crick towards you. There's spiked claws. It grabs you around the shoulder. And then it opens its mall. The air in front of you, the temperature drops 10 degrees instantly as it inhales. Oh shit. And then breeze out.

And I now need all three of you in that second. in that section, to roll a... What are you gonna do? Inhale my soul. I need you to roll. Which one is doing this? Do you know? Three.

Okay, perfect. I need you all three of you to roll a con saving throw. Oh, no. Thanks for the dreads, everybody. Thanks for the dreads. That's not what I'm good at. Is there an exhaustion or prone element? Codes now grappled.

That is, okay. I got a 17. 21. I'm good. Nine. Nine. Yeah, you call my gun rolls on the other foot. Yeah, you had a string of gray rolls. Hey, you know.

It goes both ways. It swings both ways, man. It swings both ways. You know what I mean? The inhale, as this creature inhales, this almost vacuum in a cone in front of it, you feel this draw. the heat of your essence

draws from your body. If you failed, you take 12 points of necrotic damage. If you passed, you'll take half. As it exhales, an icy chill blasts out once more in a cone as it changes your very life essence

into brutal biting cold as wintry winds whip around you in a cutting gale. I don't feel like I took as much damage. is everyone else. Absolutely correct. The cold damage is 11 points of damage. Oh, that's a lot. That's... I don't have anything against that. Oh, it's additional and we I sold the half, okay. All right, so then I'll take five another five. And then the other two, I am

hoping that number one like I drew the attention. One will strike you. One will strike you. 20 to land the hit. Yeah, my ace is 19. You guys. Okay. I will be using my reaction. I believe it's bread against the DM. Oh, fuck, that's so good. For tonight, it's genius. For tonight, it's bread.

You'll take six points of slashing damage, and as the claws cut through you, you will feel an additional five points of cold damage. Yeah, because it has piercing damage, I'm going to attempt to deflect the attack, and reduce it by 1D10 plus 9. As my reaction. Oh, okay. Yeah.

I don't even think you can roll less than the total damage. You did 10. You said... Was it 11 total? Six and five, maybe? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got to at least roll two. Yeah, okay.

You're going to roll a five. Okay. So I reduced the damage to zero. And then... As the claw strike comes in, definitely you move back and you change the trajectory of its... strike as you move it easily. The question is, it says a creature I see within five feet is two.

Can I deflect it all the way there? Does it need to be, like, do I need to be in a triad with the three things? Within five feet of him and you can see him. Oh, then I'm definitely expending another focus point to redirect the attack at number three. Oh. If you'll give it to me. What are you doing? Oh yeah.

So if I reduce the damage to zero via deflect attacks, I can expend one focus point to redirect some of the attacks force. If I do choose a creature that I can do. can see within five feet of me if it was melee or if it was within 60 feet if it was a range attack. Oh, then you can be two. So I'm going to redirect it to two basically. But the creature number two must succeed on a DC-14 deck saving throw or take 2D6 plus five damage. Damn. Of the same type dealt by the attack. So it probably won't be as effective, but I'm not taking any damage. I'm redirecting some. DC-14. And I am going to expend a focus point.

Sorry, on what save? Dex save? Yeah. DC-14 decks on number two. 12. Okay. He takes 15 points of damage. Oh my God. Number two? Yeah. I redirect 15 points of damage after I've deflected all of it. Oh, it's 1D10 plus 5, by the way.

For your... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, if your Dex mod. Oh, and your Monke level. Never mind. Holy shit. I missed that. No, it is nine. It is nine. I take it back. That's pretty good. Yeah, I mean, it's all... Even if it was six, you rolled a five.

Of yourself. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. 15 points of damage, but it's the same type, piercing and necrotic. So if that affects the less, piercing a cold, then that's, then that's, then that's what it is. And that's relevant. Yeah, that makes sense. So I'm gonna, finally, this is the first time I ever got to do that. Amazing. Holy hell!

And if it's a range attack, yes, you do have managed. The problem with it always smel lasers and shit, I can't justify being like, like, like the laser! In this same. Two will strike at Coe, seeing that she's grappled in the claws of three. What are you to rip out my guts with ice claws? Fucking try it, asshole. 19.

Oh yeah, that'll do it. So, five slashing damage, and five cold damage hit you. It's all the same, baby. As the other creature sees you being held back. It shards its claws into your back as you feel that icy grip tear at your flesh. And I think that's either. They're only three. So Ziggy, are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine.

Go, get out of there. I think they're drinking my salt. God, you just suck. You got to rise above it. Show them what you can do. Muffin compares to you. And I will cast... That's very funny.

I'll cast Garbage Collector. which is my rethemed name for Wither in Bloom. As you watch as code starts to spread all over the surfaces of the bodies of one, two, and three. You can see zeros and one flowing in all direction and start to delete and chunk pieces of it and then repair and patch code as I move data from them to her. I need all of them to make a constitution saving throw.

DC 15. Unless one wins. I'll do each one. The first roll of natural 20, the next roll, what do you say? Con save? 11. So we'll do left is three, top... Right is two. The top is three. Right is one. So

he passed. Two passed. He failed. What's the decent? He's going to fail. Natural one. Okay. So the first one passed. They take six points of necrotic damage if they failed or half as much on a successful save. So two takes three and then three and one takes six. Exactly correct.

And it also says non-magical vegetation in that area withers and I'd like to think that the loaves of bread on the show are blackening and crusting around the entire area as I do this. And in addition, one creature of my choice in that area can spend and roll one of its unspent hit. Oh, my God, Ziggy. Huge.

That's, and so I had more optimal damage output, but I needed to heal co. I needed to heal co. Thank you. And so, MD10 plus two. Right don't we be friends, it's the east I could do.

I hope that's all you need. Six, that's not bad. I fecotch your birthday. I imagine my green scan lines appear in some of my wounds. Oh yeah. It's kind of like three-d-pillar. Yes, yeah. as it starts to like repair your ribs as you feel them snap back into place.

That's the power of the Ripergrid. I loved it. Someone in chat said you're second to non. Yes. Thank you. Well done. Well done. I just stand next to Ophelia and watch her take shots as I conclude my turn.

Uh, Pixel. And Pixel is just gonna rush up. She can go, I can go 30 feet. God, I love puns. That's 30 feet. Can't get close enough. Okay, and then I'm going to cast my spotlights. So my dancing lights are going to start going to around.

And then... Spotlights illuminate and erupt in the field of battle. I should know this as a GM. You can't cast a bonus action spell as an action. If it's a bonus action, then it's just... No, it's always bonus action or action. Sorry, Coe. It's okay.

I'm fine. Peace story. worry about me. Worried about yourself, stay back. I think. And then I'm just going to. Sorry, continue. And then for my actual action,

because I've used my bonus action and I'm too far away to heal otherwise, I am just going to cast Starry Whisp at number two. Hell yeah. I think he's great weekend, so take them out. Twist it. It's a 16. Oh, no, no, that's got a.

15, 15. Yeah, we get it. The AC's 13. So yeah, yeah. I thought that was a two, not an eight. Sorry. I missed. Eight points of radiant damage.

To which one? To number one? Two. To number two. Pixel pause. As you shoot the, is this the spotlights or what are you shooting out of it? No, so I put my spotlights up that's dancing lights essentially. And then I use starry wist.

So I strummed on my key tar and these little pixelated sprites. rushed out and, Hey, hey, listen, listen. Hey, as these starry wisps fly forward and collide with number two, bursting and popping as they find a devious purchase on their person. She presses right trigger. They're basically like flying into their eardrums

and they're just like when you're in an airplane and your ears will pop. Yeah, oh God, devious indeed. Red. Oh my God. How's one looking? One is looking very bad. Fuck him up.

Just so taken aback with this guy. I was just talking to this human. And all of a sudden, there's a night creature from his fucking arm's staring at me. I don't care who you are. That's startling. I don't care of it. Twist his dick. And I'm like taking it back.

I'm stumbling. I'm going to pull my cannon eggs and whip around the arms of the pads to do me. And I'm just going to take like an almost Shot shot at him And I'm at disadvantage Because I'm in melee range But I don't want to really back up

Seem that they have icy claws That probably doesn't hit But it might You need 13 It's plus Uh 8 I'm short

I'm twisting I'm gonna twist it Yeah twist it Twist it Natural funding What the hell? Gotta give it up Let's go

Thanks Chad Send this guy to hell 19 points of force damage. On number one. Number one. The ether can, the arms feed it around to you. You hear its charge as the cannon is being passed to you. It is already ready to fire as it lands in your arms.

All you do is pull the trigger. The blast hits center mast as the distance is, but three inches in front of you this creature is. The blast hits and rips it, clean in half and starts to disintegrate it from two ends as you've split it in twain. So, and one falls to the ground dead. He's dead. I'm going to sort of stumble back and just get a lay of the land and try to sort of understand strategically how everyone's doing.

How is co-looking right now? Still not great. No, no, no. I did get patched up a little bit, but it's just. You're not like on death's door. No, no, no, no, okay. This is what I do. I get my ass kicked and then I'm fine.

I'm keeping my eye on you for my next action, but that's my turn. I'd say a quick survey of the field of battle, Rhett would tell you that two's looking very poor. And three has been only taken one single hit from- Oh, one's out of there. Yeah, it's dead. One in four dead. Pike.

I watch as this thing just gets atomized in front of me, and I almost like stumble back as I watch Rhett then back off. And I shout, nice shot! And then I'm actually gonna like vault over co. I have a 50 feet of movement. I'm just trying to do something cool. And like land on the other side of these two, as I basically just vault over her, because we're in sick at this point. And I'm gonna come down hard on number two.

I am gonna spend another flurry blows point for three attacks. So the first one will be on number two. I'm gonna see if I can just like pave this guy's skull in. 20 to hit. Yep, hits. That's gonna be 12 points of bludgeoning damage. Uh, you swing over Coe, and as you're spinning around your legs,

swings down in a crashing downward arc, catches it directly between the neck and the shoulder, and it crumples in as it falls to the ground dead. Without even missing a beat, moving like water, I spin around and I land two more attacks on number three. And the second one gets a D4 on the attack ball, right? I have to hit the first, now I have to hit the second one to apply the mark, and then the third one move to trigger.

I got you. Got it, okay. So that's the first one, that's gonna be a 15 to hit, second one is going to be an 18 to hit. Both hit. So the first one will deal just normal damage of 11 points of bludgeoning. I apply my resonant mark, and this one will do an extra D4, which is going to be 12, 13, 14 total points of bludgeoning damage. So that ends up being 23 points of damage over two attacks. 11 plus 14, 25 points of bludgeon damage. Okay, all right. That is what I calculated.

Sorry. I didn't really forget what I said. And I just try to lay into this thing as I see that Co's looking rough. The leg swings down and connects in that downward almost like guillotine strike as you sever the first creature. As you land, immediately you crouch

and you move forward with both fists as a quick punchout finds its torso. and one more cave cleanly into its chest as this creature falls to the ground in. Three, right? Three. All horrific hunger spawn night creatures

laid, I killed two first. Oh, go. They're both dead. Oh my God. All of them now lay dead in front. You all right, Cole? I immediately rush over to Coe and put my hand. You will be, and I immediately start to channel all of these little leaves, like pixelated leaves

that dance around Coe and they sing like little songs and they're very cute and they're gonna heal her. And because I have my dancing lights going, they're all going to turn to Co and they flashed green and so it'll heal a little bit extra. Be be, be, be. You're really tough. That was impressive.

Thanks, nice fucking shot. We had a little bit. alley-uped that. Thanks, Ziggy. Are there any more? I think that's what he's doing. This is the fucking end state of this. Making an army.

That's what I mean. If people, they eat the bread and then they get ripped apart and they turn into demons. They're embryos. Thank God. Two of them fell apart before we had to engage with them. What fuck is he? So, so, so, before we get to that, so, all of these people that have been eating the bread for like months have the potential to be in portals now?

If they eat too much, that's why they're rationing it. They're biting their time. They're biting their time or they're trying to turn this world into fucking cattle so they can feast and train and consume their essence for weeks, months, years maybe. Lots of worlds. Look around. This is going all over the galaxy. What the fuck? They get all of these Cavalon worlds to agree to take this weird fucking bread. We got to destroy this.

Those guards may be back any fucking minute. How do we fucking destroy? We need to destroy this whole fucking place? Let's think for a second, though. I know that this is bad, but if we destroy this, this is their only food source. We'd condemn them all to death, starvation. They may be already be fucking condemned. There's no choice.

The bigger problem is, even if we do destroy all of this, this doesn't end until we find the viceroy. Where is it? No, but we can at least stop here. And honestly, if we destroy this, I mean, you think he's not going to show up to find out what's happening? He apparently never comes down here. Well, yeah, because it's functioning,

but if this all places up in flames... Then, then we'll have our shot. We might be able to take him out with O'Phiel. as bullets. I just feel like he can't be too far. Where the fuck is he? He's not in his house. It feels like he's here. And he's not on world. I don't know. It doesn't make fucking sense. He's doing all this remotely while he's fucking around the galaxy,

finding the new Don Nito. Right now that's not important. Right now we need to destroy this storeroom. Get the fuck out of here. We've got all the evidence that we need to start to prove that this is all nefarious and whatnot. We can regroup when we're safe. when we're not in the middle of fucking here. Look, they're not going to starve, all right?

We can, once we're through all this, we can report it to Graf or somebody. We can tell the empire. I'm sure they have no fucking idea this is going on. Let's make our way back to our ships. Let's get back into the Rhapsody. We can figure it out. Yeah, maybe that fucking dweeb that questioned me

before I got out on parole. Maybe he can help us. I don't know. He seemed all right. Does anyone have any ways of starting fire? I mean, I know you're not supposed to start fires with flour. That's bad idea. Didn't you guys, like, used to, like, blow up shit? I mean, like, sorry, that's a touchy subject.

Like, we're... Didn't you, like, used to blow up a lot of buildings and people and... Yeah, we were prepared to do that. I didn't necessarily come with a bunch of explosives. Oh, this machinery, it has to... You know, it's got moving pots. They have to grease that stuff. Grease is flammable, right?

We could just find where they keep... Oh, we don't have the Rhapsody. Otherwise, we had that 50... five gallon tub of lub. Forty-five. It's only 45 now with the other 10, though. It's 45 now. I don't know what to tell you.

It's every time we mention it. If I can sabotage the mixing equipment, remove all the fucking limitations and rewire it and fucking maybe add an accelerator or two. Maybe I can make it go so fast that it fucking ignites the whole thing or breaks or something. At the very least, we can adjust the temperature the recipe. Ziggy mentioned that there's a limitation on and otherwise it kills the reagent.

Do I think that I could modify the ovens through the systems network to burn all of the thinking agent above? We're pulling a hocus focus up in here. Yeah, could I hope to focus this business? I do believe you feel like you could. I will pull up my grid boy. I will find the nearest port and I will R2D2. At the very least we'll screw up the rest of the bread coming out. Yeah, and I can

break the mixer. We can just start fucking blowing this shit apart. I can't use all my ether though. If we're going to face the fucking Viceroy, I need to fucking preserve as much as I can. Have to get ready. That's the real fight. None of these people, even if they turn into demons, that's not the real fight.

We're here, asshole. Come on! Um, I'm gonna run. under the other room. Back to the main factory room. Yeah, back in the main factory room. And I'm going to go up to the large mixing, giant mixing machinery.

And I'm going to try to get into the like control panel, right, and see if there's like machinery that I can mess with or if I can like put together a quick like accelerator or something to like sort of inject extra energy to so it like starts going crazy and and like short, out or just breaks because it basically goes too fast. Roll a technology check. Welcome below. I'm burning out the ovens with a computer check if I may.

Roll a computer check. I don't think I want to twist this, because it's still a 12th. 12. That's pretty good. I'd say with 12s, you're both extremely proficient at what you do. You both know that you can accomplish it. The role just determines the time. What you would hope you'd be able to craft very quickly in a matter of just mere

moments to accomplish this, you think may take anywhere from 5 to 10. But you would be able to jerry-rig an accelerator. You know that anything that moves in this fashion has a stabilization unit. It has a throttling on the speed so that it never spins fast enough where it will throw the actual bowl off its rocker. And if it does, if it ever goes too fast, it begins to throw force around. either side and it could tumble and dismantle the whole thing cascading it all throughout the room you're able to do that but it will take just shy of 10 minutes Ziggy you are about the same you can overheat the ovens you actually also

know that energy flows it must always it can't be throttled it can't be contained if you attempt to do so it will back up collect and then burst. Ultimately, it has to go somewhere. You can overheat the ovens. You also think that you may be able to use certain heating components to set off some form of a chain reaction within the factory to what effect you're not yet sure.

If I realize that I can just turn things on so that it creates a death spiral or a fiery feedback loop and it'll cascade into an explosion, then I would do that and immediately alert my friends. Guys, I'm gonna blow up the oven. I love that idea. Let's fucking go. Now that is heavy metal, dude.

Okay, we should get all the workers out of here. Let's scare them off. All right. You wanna just like yell rats? Oh, you know what they say, don't scream fire. They're all burnt out. Hey, hey, everybody, the shift is over early because we met our quota. and everything's great and fine.

You can go down to the sheath platter for an extra loaf of fressent loaf. Extra loaf. Extra loo, if you say. Extra lovel. Roll a deception check at advantage. Very wise. That's where I'm a Viking.

Plus one ain't bad. Twist it. 13? Well, 13. You see some fooled in employees begin to shuffle off. Oh, extra love. Don't mind if I do. As they make their way out of the processing facility. But some yet linger. That did not get everybody. Super quotas. They don't let us go. We do early. They let us go, of course. Not early.

And some yet remain. I've done my mess. I don't know how to convince everyone. Whatever you do, don't push them too hard. You're all going to fucking die. Get the fuck out of here. There's free loaves out here. If you take those loaves, those guards are gonna cut your fucking heads off. There's free loaves out there. Join the people. They're taking it. You're going to fucking die. Intimination check in advantage. I'm intimidated. There we go. That called me off guard. You too. Yeah. Worked on me. I'm gonna use one question.

Intimination. Got to warm it up. Got to worry about. Oh, 16. Oh, 16. With a 16. I forgot how to plus six. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. Free Loves outside. Is she covered in blood? Yeah, I think you're pretty sure there's a fucking elevator shaft in the silos. You better get running, asshole. And they also, not one of them runs, but they all start to kind of with a shuffled, almost limping gate,

the rest of them begin to make their way out of the processing facility. In short work, you have cleared the room. You have three minutes until you believe, combination of the ovens will explode, and the rotating dough working machine has been spinning up faster and faster and faster. It's starting to wobble back and forth as the spatulas rotate ever faster. As you think you have a mere moments before, it tilts office access and cascades through the room. Nice work. I'm going to admire it from outside the building. I'll see you guys out there.

this is going to be enough to do the trick. Let's go. Gris, Iggy? Yeah, we gotta get out of here. We have three minutes. We only have 30 rounds to leave. I use my dash action 30 times. Sloppy stuff. You run around

the planet. We run. Yeah, we book it. We get the fuck out of there. The everything that you've done starts to erupt in the room as you race out. Out of that front gate, you hear that large mixing machine as it so ferociously

tilts off, the axis breaks as this giant dome of metal, cascades and rackets through the whole room, knocking ovens, unhooking, piping, and that sets off the cascade of explosions. As you race out behind you, you see almost pillars of flame bursting out. of the windows from the ceiling. As... And like smoke back, maybe. Bov. Shrapnel arcs through the air.

As flaming pieces of the processing plant arc all throughout the sky. The only burning light that illuminates this dreary cloud-covered section of city. As behind you, you have blasted

the processing. plant to ruin. With a rumbling boom, the entirety of the russet loaf processing plant goes up in an enormous explosion, sending fragments of charred wreckage scattering in every direction, crowds in the street,

free to their homes and away from the town center, and to miss the chaos, you realize that you have destroyed nearly all of the remaining supply of Rubedo and its derivatives. Hell yeah. Nice work. Nice work.

By the gods of the agathodesodes, that smells good. I feel like this is how we do things. Sloppy, off the top of the deck, right? Yeah. And we're getting it fucking done. Whatever it takes. It's not what I'm used to, but I have to admit, it's pretty fun. Rip and tear, smash and crash.

Where the fuck is he, though? A moment of celebration, uh, executed too soon. Uh-oh. As you look over at. at Pixel. Oh no. No. As you witness,

I finally see Nosephra 1 and Nose for 1 2. As you witness the chaos around you, a sudden darkness falls over Stirlock. Pixel, the streets of Vassan leave you and are swallowed in gloom as a

howling wind rages around you with flurries of snow that stink of rot. And then the world itself leaves you behind. and you're standing in a room of metal, stone, and bizarre fiendish technology. The discordant creature that was once Lord Harkon Morvain sits on a throne of hellish iron. His human-like facade is gone, and his true, awful, monstrous face stares at you with scarlet eyes

the first time you've actually seen them in your vision. His raspy voice fills the room. As I bid you have come to me. You have come to the end and the beginning. You turn from me, but you do not understand. The darkness within you is infinite, and the appetite to fill it is even more. So, I am nothing more than an appetite made manifest.

I am the bit, the emptiness, the void within you. It is time for you to accept that. Suddenly, you're on a balcony of a metal tower on a castle with spires that look like hellish antennae that pulse with red light. You look down below expecting to see Sturlock beneath you, but you see nothing of the sort. And then you realize the landscape at the base of the tower is rocky and pock-marked like the surface of the moon. Then you see Sturlock. The world lingers across a distance of outer space. You stand atop a fortress on the world's huge, horrid moon.

Morvane appears beside you as a howling, frigid wind hits you. A shadow crosses over Sterlach, swallowing it in mere moments, joined by the cacophonous chorus of thousands of shrieking discordant fiends from the pits of the entropic cacophony. His voice surrounds you despite the horrid racket. See how the shadow drinks the light. See how the creatures of the night thrive and feed. They are like us. They wish to fill the emptiness within them. A single world will do for now.

And it does not need stop there. I am patient. I have all time. Entropy remains after the decay of all things. And so shall you, should you only accept my appetite. I see your hope remains. It is folly. Here below it what's to come.

Your hope is weakness. Kill your hope. Let it atrophy wither and die. Abandon it and drink deep. feast take what others have and you do not what you covet

shall be your immediately your senses return you're surrounded by your friends and the citizens of the California Biggs are you okay as the darkness grows deeper more oppressive

you were filled with the horrifying realization that Lord Harcon Morvane is not on world or any other world his personal fortress is on the moon above you.