Legends of Avantris - Stardust Rhapsody: Anthem | Ep. 4 | Wrathchild: Part 1

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

Pyke gets a call from a friend with a lead...   You do NOT need to listen to Overture to enjoy Anthem! If you have the appetite to listen to both, we recommend starting with Anthem, then going back to listen to Overture!   Gain access to an exclusive campaign, Shroud Over Saltmarsh, over on Patreon: https://legendsofavantris.com/patreon The Crooked Moon, a folk horror supplement for 5e, is available for preorder! Get the Crooked Moon at: https://thecrookedmoon.com/ Watch more D&D adventures in the world of Avantris live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/legendsofavantris Check out our merch store: https://shop.legendsofavantris.com  Join our community on Discord: https://legendsofavantris.com/discord Watch our many campaigns on YouTube: https://legendsofavantris.com/youtube  All other links: https://linktr.ee/legendsofavantris   Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/LdmZ17y11MY?si=h-HWL737dDx6HcGO

Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Ziggy Woog and you're listening to Stardust Rhapsody Anthem. Here's what happened last time. Space. It's not always easy to trust the things around you, especially when those things are brain-consuming nemootones you let sleep on your ship. The party, joined by Quibbley and Glup Bondo, hunted down Haxor in an abandoned bot factory on Pillion. After navigating through the wreckage, they found themselves face-to-face with Haxor. but something was off. He didn't strike the imposing figure described in the bounty. Turns out Haxor got himself stuck in the control room, and his real name was Ziggy.

This didn't come as a surprise to all, however, as Glup and Quibbley turned on Pike and Red, revealing they were here to kill, not capture, a senator's son. Glup consumed Quibbley's mind, his last thought tasting of sweet petunias, ascending into a mental storm, Glup unleashed his devastating power. Rhett frees Ziggy and he joins the fight. Together they take Glup down and make it out. His erupting power levels what was left of the Darylick factory. Thinking about what they do with him now,

Zigi mentions he's hacked the scarlet eye, a long-held bounty of Pike and Rhett before and could be of some help. Together, they fly off through the warp gates once again, on the hunt. Six weeks have gone by since the events on Pillion. Rhett, Pike, and Ziggy have been on the trail of Orix, a raider and jewel thief, while they waited for Ziggy's spiking to pick up new leads on the Scarlet Eye. We joined the crew back on the Rhapsody, having just turned him in, finally completing Ziggy's first ever bounty, thus clearing the probational requirement for him to receive his full license for the GBG, the Galactic Bounty Guild.

We joined the party on the Rhapsody mid-celebration. Ziggy now with one new item, his full bounty hunter's license. Well done, Kit. Thanks. I knew I had it in me. I mean, it's fucking incredible. Having a damn fucking gridrunner. Man, I got to say,

When we found you out of knock, you could have given me a thousand guesses, and I never would have guessed that we'd be fucking sitting right here. No, I mean, I would have been just happy staying with all of my gear. I lost a lot of stuff, but, you know, it's been nice over the last month and a half to sort of get settled here and, you know, get to know you guys. It's been great fun. So what do you think? Did you ever think that bounty hunting might be in your future?

I mean, I'm happy to help. I never really thought I'd be like a true bounty honor. I mean, that's, that's, that's pretty extreme. It's like something out of one of my shows. I mean, you're fucking living it. Forget the fuck it shows. This is your life now. Well, I mean, I, yeah, I'm happy to, happy to, you know,

contribute to where I can. I, I've already helped rewrite the entire ship's code and, and, and, and, I've rewired a bunch of stuff and made sure that we're all connected with Hank, and Silica and basically just a complete revamp from top to bottom. Does Hank know about this? Oh, yeah, we're best friends now. He's a good boy.

Who's Silica? I'm not sure. Oh, Silica is my AI helper friend. It's a custom app I wrote from scratch. It taps right into the Hypergrid. Nice. The Hypergrid. Oh, yeah.

Directly into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Silica? Silica, come here. you watch as a almost like hologramed Oh shit I'm going to just ruin your day A very soft transparent hologram

Of a female Saurian Saunter's in And drops off a energy drink for me Thanks, Silica, appreciate you She's gonna help me out And you're saying The Hypergrid can do all that hypergrade can do pretty much anything if you know what to code it's very specific you

have to know how what scripts in what order you have to know where your servers are you have to have right connection you have to make sure that your your chips are all set i mean i'm doing my best with all of the the the equipment that we have here but we need more more more i i can't do very much with what limited technology we have on here as soon as we have the opportunity we need to be able to buy a few more monitors buy a few more connections by as quickly as can as we can. I mean, think about what I was able to do when you found me. I can't do any of that stuff right now. None of that sounds cheap at all. Oh, no, it's very expensive. And look, I mean, that orx fellow that we just turned in, good job, kid, you got your license, but he was

just a space raider and jewelry thief. So, I mean, you got to think with the bounty, you've got to consider the ammunition, fuel, the energy sales, collateral damage, had to pay off a few law enforcement officials. There's not a whole lot left. All right, so I don't want to fucking shatter your dreams here, but I won't get your hopes up about heading down to the equivalent of MicroCenter just yet. Well, I mean, surely we have a few million notes left, right? Are you kidding me? Well, maybe like $500,000? Not even close.

A hundred? I'm not going to tell you how much fucking notes we have, all right? That's between me and Hank, you understand? Well, I helped with oryx. I mean, we have to afford all this fucking cool gear that I want to buy. Well, I'm not saying we can't, and I want to prioritize it, but we have a strict fucking budget. The point... And the point is you need to make sure that...

you're spending your portion wisely. You look around the ship as all these new lines have been routed all along the walkways that run straight to the bridge. There's cabling that now nestles over the couch that comes up right against where Ziggis made himself comfortable. There's almost a Zieggy shaped indentation in the couch from where he's been, his favorite seat over the last six weeks. And he has definitely made slight adjustments to the ship.

I take a drag on my cigarette and I set it down the ashtray and I swirl a bit of dark liquor in some ice in a cup and I look at you and I say, now I'm not one to judge a man for his vices, but I point to the energy drink and I say, I'm sure those aren't cheap. Oh, these? I mean, these I pull right from the hypergrid.

We don't have to worry about snacks and stuff. I got that. I got that. I'm just talking about like chips and processors and filters and matrices and all of the stuff that we need to do the really good stuff, the really cool stuff. It seems like you already got fucking started spending our notes. Well, I mean, that's not the all that I have spent our notes on. I mean, I might have bought a few more, you know, chips and memory units and I might have a server. Nothing crazy. Wait. Hank.

I immediately like pull up on my arm computer. I haven't looked at the budget in a while. I mean, it just sort of manages itself. And I look, and I see, you off-bracized all this. Oh man, how bad is the damage? Deep, deep red lines show up on your display. All you see are negatives.

Well, Oh, all right, well, next time just, look, it's not your fault, buddy. I know it seems very important, and he makes it sound like it's life-changing, all this newfangled stuff. But look, we're going to be fine. Look, all we need is we just got to find another job, all right? Yeah, and now that I've got my license, I, they misspelled my last name. What the fuck? How hard is it to spell woo?

My name's not Ziggy Moog? And you look right next to the smiling photo, a GBG Class E, Zygmug written out. My photo would be like. From now on, this stuff's coming out of your share of the reward, all right? There's nothing I hate more than having to waste our time with these small fish. That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

I can help, we can find some big fish. We can find something, a really huge bounty that'll pay for everything, right? And Ziki, you also know that in the time, in these weeks that you've been here, you've been running a automated grid spiking protocol of sorts, searching for any and all information on the Scarlet Eye Syndicate,

what you had discussed with Pike and Rhett before. In the time that that's been going on, in the time that you've spent tracking OREX. You have been able to track some of the most communication, some, a degree of financial movement to the Lodafilia sector. And that's where you all have traveled, the Lodafia sector, and that's where you all have traveled in the time that you've passed now.

I have been working on what we talked about. And I've been able to narrow down the location of the crimson eye, yes, the scarlet eye, down to the Lodafelia sector. Now, there are a ton of worlds there, so that's not actually that narrow, but it's not the whole galaxy. I think it's the Lothopia sector. Lottopia? Well, you know, sometimes you read a word. And you just insert some consonants in there. Look, I don't blame you.

Have been there. I'm going to everybody. Same, same. But, I mean, so even without your equipment, you've been able to start working on the scarlet eye. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been reading forums and I've been looking at various records, public records mostly. I haven't had to get too deep. But I think that I'm tracking them.

Well, I mean, that's pretty good news. Well. I know the guild is awfully intent on bringing some of these fellers in. So if we can track any of these guys down, they'll pay us for them. We're going to have to find additional means. I mean, if I can't spend any more money and I can't buy any of the things that I need to buy, it's going to be a little tricky to go further than... Well, I probably have to travel there.

I mean, I don't have my macro drive. I don't have my net chip. I don't have my code cracker. I don't have my feedback filter, I don't have my Omni drive, or my fractal generator, my Rubicon switch, my problem processor matrix. I mean, without a cyber solution of Memchip, I mean, we're kind of lost.

Coherence hardware, chop chips 3,000. This all sounds very expensive. I miss my chair. I don't think half of it is real. All right, look, Zinghi, we'll see what we can do, but for now, everyone's cut off, you understand? That includes you, Hank. Oh, that's all right.

I still got you the virtual fire hydrant. You're going to be all right, buddy. And Redd's, as you say, you do know that it's true that the GBG has a kind of a standing bounty for different tiered memberships of the Scarlet Eye Syndicate. And Ziggy, even with all this time that you've been able to spend, you know that if you had had your setup from before, you might have been able to gather a lot of this information way faster. maybe even more than you have. But even with what you've been able to accomplish, it would almost stand out as a little bit strange to you

how little actual information you've been able to get. They almost seem to kind of hide their traces relatively expertly. And it's been difficult to come up with any specific names, really just the lead of the sector where you think there's some condensed activity is what you've been able to come to. You know, I hate to bring this up, but has there been any more news about Quibbling and Glub?

I've been trying to track that down. And unfortunately, I mean, everything I fucking look into, every avenue I go down, it goes cold. I mean, these guys are fucking, their shadows. I thought Graf was behind it, but I checked in with him. and, you know, believe it or not, I trust him. He had no fucking idea either.

He himself was fooled. So, and we know that they didn't get their hit from the guild either. So, shit. Wasn't the empire. It wasn't the guilds. Graf seems to think they had a source inside the prison, and they knew that you were going to get the bounty for Haxor. And so somebody fucking knew something

and had some kind of fucking. ulterior motive and bamboozled all of us. Is that graph with FF or PH? FF. Thank you. And so, I mean, here's the thing. I don't know what the fuck that was all about.

Have you spoken to your parents since then? I know that they mentioned that they're senators and that they wanted to start a fucking intergalactic war. We sent a few messages back and forth, and I haven't heard of any wars or, uh, you know, movement in that direction. I, I sort of hinted at it, and they were just surprised that I was asking, to be completely honest.

Well, let's fucking hope that they're the only ones that knew that Haxor was you. No, I, I, the, the system of Janix seems, seems safe, seems peaceful. Seems like, uh, whatever, whatever they were driving towards, uh, I don't think that there's going to be any violence there anytime soon, uh, at least as far as my parents are concerned. All this is in talk of like intergalactic war. All this is the talk of like, oh, these political machinations. Makes me want to watch Dash Grayson, you know, one of those old classic shows.

No way. You know Dash Grayson? Dash Grayson? Yeah, you know Dash Grayson? Finally, a fucking show you know. Yeah, I've watched every season multiple times. Well, I was more into the comics, but I got the print run in my room. I mean, you know what Dash Grayson says?

There's no law on the stars. Just guts. You know, kid, you're all right. Thanks. I think I might still have some of the discs for that. Jetpacks and Swashbuckling, laser operas, ray guns, we can watch the whole series. Oh, now that you mention it,

what about Leo, the first con champion of the universe? You love Leo, too? Big fan. Oh, man! Oh, shit. Let me see if I can download one. I'll see if I can find a free server. I don't have a disc for it.

But first con, huh? Yeah, yeah. You know, Pike, I know you love your stories, but I want to keep us focused, all right? On the task at hand. And one thing to you, we're fucking going after the scarlet eye again. Now that we have maybe a leap, just make sure that you don't fucking pick up any of that shit. We cannot be caught carrying redline again. You understand?

Yes, I understand. Look, it was reckless, but I thought that the evidence might behoove us, all right? I understand. You were doing the right thing at the time. It's just, you know, you know how the fucking empire is. Any kind of these new fucking drugs and they think it's Something fucking cosmic. Trust me, none of us are gonna make the same mistake twice all of this was massive security risk left and right between The people we hired, the leaks, all of this. We're in over our heads here.

We just have to be more careful. I agree. I'm so glad that I'm here. I'm so glad that we trust each other and that you brought me on to be a bounty hunter, and I'm going to do my very best. But we have to be careful who we trust moving forward. Otherwise, you know, we could get into another quibbly, what, Bondo,

whatever his name was. That was serious shit. I almost died. We all almost died. I want you to understand that you almost fucking died. This ain't a fucking joke. That's what I'm saying. You almost die.

I know. You understand. Yeah. He was seconds away from popping your head like a fucking balloon. I know. And then I would have been dead and I wouldn't have been able to watch season four of Crimson Machina, Order of the Spiral Edge. I've been waiting for weeks for that. How many of these shows have the word ordering?

It's been at least three. Three? I mean, there's probably a dozen. Listen, what Rhett's trying to say is that this is serious business. It's dangerous. This life is not for everybody. Well, I mean, maybe for you guys. I'm going to stay in the shadows.

That's my whole value here. I'll stay on the ship and just do one of these. And then your problems will be solved. I'll keep you guys safe, and you guys can keep me safe by not involving me in the physical way. I'll stay here. Just know that it might not always be. that way. Well, what am I going to do otherwise? Give people my fucking tusks. No, no, I don't want you punching anyone. The horns? All right? Just, just...

I can't do much with these. I'm not asking you to. This frill is mostly for show. Here's the thing. All right? Look, I agree with your point that if there's fucking danger, that pike and I handle, all right? Yeah. But if you're gonna be a bounty hunter, that means sometimes not just sitting in the fucking comfort of the shit. But what if I get into scrap? I can't really do much. I mean, I got my hypergrid tricks, but like, all I can do, like, if someone punches me in the stomach, I'm just going to throw up.

Well, that's what I'm saying. Steep with us. Just don't get punched in the stomach. And he'll punch them in the stomach. You punch people in the stomach. I'm not going to do that. I can't. Again, I'm not asking you to, kid.

Geez. But here's the thing. You're a fucking sorry. If it gets down to it, it. You fucking give them the horns. You understand? Fucking charge at him. Look at the fucking size of you

in terms of wit. I mean. Nothing wrong with that. Look at how wild I am. You, of course, have this concern, Ziggy, because you think to the bounty of Oryx, where you finally caught up to him. And in your excitement,

you went to bring him in yourself and he punched you in the stomach and you threw up. And then I threw up. You were a matter. It was very embarrassing. I can't do that again. Okay, Brett? I mean, look, that oryx was a small fry. We might be dealing with a lot bigger shit than you fucking realize. I just want you to be prepared, and you need to fucking understand how dangerous this is, you understand? We're responsible for your safety.

All right. So just be aware. That's all I'm asking, and you have the fucking hyperenter at your disposal. I'm going to do my best. I'm going to show real bravery. I'm gonna be like Kazuma Light Forge, the last sun. Have you heard of that one? No, all of this new age crap, it's all garbage. Can you maybe explain to me to how you fucking get energy drinks and cheese curleys from the fucking hypergrid? Well, I mean, it's really, uh, uh, pretty empty calories. But it'll fill you up.

Uh, all I have to do is, uh, run this script, executable, a few of these. And then you see as scan lines suddenly appear and bags and sodas suddenly drop down and fall under the table before us. See, easy. I cast Goodberry for those of you paying attention. What about like, you know, meat or water? Meat? Water? No, no, no, no, no, no.

Just crispy barbecue flavored chips snacks. Not chips is in like technology. They share the same name, but it really is quite good. You want one? No, no, I don't want one, Ziggy. Thank you. Shoot yourself. But I mean the hypergrid, right?

Like, not for my understanding, but for Pikes. Maybe you could explain a little bit about what the fuck it is. Yeah, enlighten me. Oh, the hypergrid is like, it's part of the universe. It's like any other effect. It's like gravity. It's like light. It permeates things.

It goes through things. It's a whole other plane of existence. And by tapping into it, the easiest way to think about it is like the whole universe came with Wi-Fi. Right? And I can just log in right here and access it. If you've got the right tools,

you've got the right deck. If you've got the right knowledge, you can do pretty much anything. How they explained it to me at Grinkorp is that basically it interweaves with the fabric of reality. And that's why, you know, a lot of tech runs directly through it. But I mean, for grid runners that are especially savvy, they can manipulate fucking realities. We see before us. Fair enough. I can do all kinds of stuff. I'm still rewriting a lot of the old scripts that I

had on my servers. But, you know, with some additional work, I could rebuild my entire program list. How much time you need to do that? Oh, probably another six weeks at least. Well, I mean, a lot of that stuff I was writing since I was a kid, so I... It's going to take some time. But it'll be fun to rewrite them. I can optimize the code. I can make it more efficient.

Refactor it. Well, I definitely know what all that means, but Pike doesn't. So maybe at some point, if you want to explain that to us, you can. I'll explain in great detail over the next however many sessions this campaign is. All right, let's get down to brass tacks. Scarlet I. We know that there's activity in the Latofia sector. Is that correct?

Latofia, yeah. I actually realized that a misspelling. Fucking auto-correct. And these guys aren't just some jewelry thieves, all right? This is serious stuff. No, they seem to have a whole crew, a gang. They're all over. They're all over the place and they seem sophisticated.

The stuff they're peddling got me locked up for six months, and it should have been much longer than that. Do you guys know anything about this drug red line? I haven't been able to find too much information other than that. It is a drug. I don't, to be honest with you. I mean, I know that it's relatively new, and I know that it fucking people are crazy for it.

And I know that the powers of be are inclined to either spread it through the fucking galaxy or shut it down. And so if we can get a jump on this, I mean, I think that there's a pretty penny to be made. I'll keep searching the

hypergrid web, so to speak. And I'll see if I can find any clues as to where they might actually specifically be, but it might take another six weeks. I can't honestly say. Right. Roll a... Gosh, history check. That's very reasonable.

I don't think I'm proficient in that. It's a 10. A 10? Okay, with a 10, what you know of red line is more or less what you articulated, but you know that it's become popular as almost a party drug, and it has upper components to it, though you've heard that some people can have, some people can have a hard crash.

Oh, shit. Thank you for that. Um, so I mean this thing's an upper, right? So I mean, you fucking, if you encounter somebody high on red line, I mean, they're gonna, they're gonna be going fucking crazy, all right? I mean, and you know, people use this as a party drug, so it's nothing too wild as far as I know, but, uh, can come with a hard crash too. Does that mean that they're gonna be dangerous, like out of their minds? It's certainly possible. Hard to say.

I'll try to prepare for anything. I've got my security layer already installed. Well, I guess we should let Ziggy keep on doing his thing. And I don't know, you want to throw on an episode of Leo the LastCon? You know, I thought you'd never ask. You've got Leo the Last Con? I thought you were downloading it. Well, I'm downloading the whole season.

If you already got it, then... No, I have the print run. No, I, you said you were gonna, you said you were download. Well, do you know what? The reception is in this fucking thing. It's gonna take a while. Well, how much longer? Let me check.

Eight hours. We can watch Dash Grayson. I've got that. Done. Throw it on. Dash Grayson. All right, all. And you all begin to watch Dash Grayson.

I'll be doing like the dad thing where I'm like, watching it. You want them not really. And then you like kind of get sucked in. I'm standing. You're standing behind the couch. But then I'll put my desk and I'll have the broken like metal flower bouquet sculpture on my desk and I'll sort of be just kind of like listening to it in the background as I can as I like sort of fix it up and Every now and again you almost don't notice that you pause and you're looking over and you go oh yeah

that was fucking pretty good. Right, you gotta watch this part. All right. All right, hold on. Z, okay, and I stand up. My cup of coffee and I'm just standing thanks to the TV. We continue to watch Dash Grayson,

who is defeating Seraphene Voss, a star witch, who sees through time. Thank you for explaining the plot of the episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was never gonna get there. Perfect, you were watching one of your favorite episodes of Dash Grayson with the defeat, defeat of Seraphene Voss, which that sees through time.

You're about 15 minutes into the episode when Rhett, you'll notice that a call is coming in to the Rhapsody on the ship. And it looks like it's for the direct interest of Pike, or it's to Pike. Bering, bering, bering. Bering, bering. That's weird. Hey, Pye.

Yeah. Call for you. What? That's what it says. Yeah, incoming message. It says right here, Pike Starfall. That's weird. Okay, I'll get up from the couch and I'll saunter over to where your station is and... And I'll pick up the receiver and I'll hand it to you.

Hello? No way. How are you? Van Ar. Okay, all right. Big Thunder. Okay, all right. Wait, you're saying it's the helion.

All right. You got a piece of paper I can write down. Oh, yeah, give me a second. And I begin to take some notes while I'm listening. And then I'll say, hey, listen, I'm glad to hear you're all right. Oh, by the way, did Pinky ever recover all right? I really did a number on him on that first day. Awesome. Well, we'll see as soon as we can.

Take care of yourself. And I'll hang up the... I'll hang up the phone. Listen, guys, you're never gonna believe this, but... It's that shit for prison. You're kidding me. No. She fucking found your number, huh?

Good for her. What'd she say? Well, she's on a world called Vannar, and she's been doing some pretty serious stuff. I mean, she's been going after red belts. She thinks that she has a line to a pretty powerful distributor of the red line. His name's Big Thunder. Well, shit.

I mean, the fucking guilt would pay for that fella. Hell yeah. And plus, this is a lot of... the best lead we've got in weeks, months. Big, what did you say? His name was? Big Thunder. Big Thunder.

You think that was his birth name? Yeah, I bet she he wishes it was. First name, big, last name, thunder. Yeah, you never know. Or maybe Thunder's his confirmation thing. She's, she's doing what she can, but it sounds like she's going to be laying low at a bar called the Hellion. All right.

Yeah. Maybe we go meet up with her. Have I heard of Vannar and do I know if it's in the Latofia system? I would say, roll another history check. Beautiful. 22. Wow. Yes.

So I think with a very quick check of the nav systems, you have, in the time you've been in, the Latofia system, you know that Vanar is a planet that is here. Listen, I've never been there, but this world, it's kind of split into two levels, let's say. We got the top side and then the underside, which is called the undercrusts. That's where all of this shady stuff is happening. That's where she is and the hellion. All right, Will. I mean, I guess I have to ask. And I need you to be honest with me, Pike. Of course.

Do you trust her? Rhett, I don't say this lightly, you know this. But I trust her with my life. And here's the thing. I know you only knew them for a short while, but I've been traveling with old Glup and Quibbley for fucking weeks. I never... I never would have expected them to double crosses like that. I just want you to be ready in case something goes down.

And I'm not saying it will, right? I've never met her. But look, I'm just a little on edge since last time. I think I understand better than most that how well can you really know someone. But at the end of the day, things were pretty rough back there. In that prison, we looked out for each other. You know, I'm hoping that, given the circumstances, y'all were, you know, erred at all.

Not be like you can do anything else in the fucking Empire prison. It came up, then I was in there because when I got picked up, I had the red line on me, and we talked about it. I told her what we were up to. Our interests are aligned. Well, she can fucking give us some kind of lead, and, you know, we can scoop up this big thunder guy, dump him off at the guild, and you can get all your fucking,

fancy machine. All right. I'm in. And I found the menu for the Hellion. There's no way they have a menu. I mean, it was really hard to find. You know how difficult they make this? Why wouldn't you put menu fucking front and center on your website?

It's horseshit. You're a restaurant. Why would I want to see, read anything else except for your menu? What's the over-under that Ziggy shits himself when he sees the under crust? I think the odds of that are pretty damn good. The under crust? I mean, it looks like that might be a... pizza here.

Oh, they got pizza. Oh, it's not a pizza. What the, it's a chili. With any luck, if all this goes well, look, all I'm saying is she's a real badass. All right.

Well, I'm looking forward to meeting her. And did she say the name of the city that we're going to? Good question. She did say the name of the city.

It is Macoro. Thank you, Macoro. Thank you. Yes, I would have written that down on the notepad of little notes. I would share that with you. I would share that with you. It's just bullet notes of other important things that she had said. Macquaro.

Planet Van Ar and Macquaro City. Thank you. All right. Hank, set a navigation course in the computers to Macorough City on Van Ar. And have another digit treat on me. Oh, I'm sorry, I spent, oh, I'm sorry. They're like four notes of pop. It's fine. It's fine.

It's only four notes. What could a digibone cost? Four notes? You have zero clue. You have zero clue how much a dig bone cost. Just so I understand. You can materialize drinks straight out of the hypergrid, but you can't make digit treats.

Eh, doesn't need chips? That's right. Don't feed them that stuff. Okay. And then I will go to the bridge, and I will make sure that Hank has finished setting the nap computers. And I will sit down at the helm and leaving them to watch their shows and do whatever. And I will turn on the thrusters and we'll start heading there.

You walk up the stairs from the lounge to the helm seat of the Rhapsody. You pass by the seat that Ziggy is erected for himself in your cockpit, stationed just behind you. You sit down, you feel the familiar push of the thrusters as you kick the Rhapsody into high gear. And you enter into these brilliant slithering ether waves as you navigate from. where you are in the Latofia sector and you make your way with Hank's help coordinating to the planet Van Arn. It takes you, let's see, it takes you about three days from getting the call to make your way there. And as you approach, the Rhapsody comes down, you can see the gleaming light of the city, almost this kind of neon concrete jungle. As you come down right on the edge,

the Rhapsody starts to dock into a ship bay as you come in and you land in Macquaro City, just on the outskirts at the, at a ship station. I would, yeah, I would basically call in to whatever, like space harbor, whatever they have, and try to arrange to land, get some kind of slip or mooring, right, to leave the Rhapsody as we explore the city. Yes, I'm sorry, you do that. You can reach out, connect to the local slip where you can exchange a series of checks, and you can book docking at this place. You look at the cost, and it's not cheap. No, it's going to cost how much?

All right. All right, sign me up. You gather everyone together, presumably, and you begin to make your way out of the Rhapsody. You walk down the hallways into the hangar bay where the back door opens and the gangplank drops, and you're met with that neon concrete jungle as you walk out. You see these large, tall, sky-reaching buildings,

the beautiful color-scape of the sky above you. As you look out in the dead center, you see one building that kind of reaches beyond the rest, and you see the emblem of the Kiyogen Power Company. Large roadways cut in between these buildings. You see off in the distance, moving away from where you are now, these giant kind of almost like highways that connect everything together. You see cars driving around them, racing around the pole of orange lights.

streaking in the distance as people seem to be coming to and fro. Wait, hold on, before we leave the ship, we're gonna be tracking down red belts this whole time. You need extra tech or equipment? I got my grid boy and a few other items. I mean, I'm gonna have my backpack on me. I've got snacks, I've got my grid spiking kit. I'm all set.

We're gonna say something. Yeah, why are you taking all those pictures? Oh, I thought it would be really cool to get a shot of the city as it was a... a landing through the, through the, through the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I've got a, I mean, I mean, look at this. Every. Every time, I start to think he might be cool. He just opens his mouth and he keeps talking. Look, it's right. Fronny. Right. You don't have to fucking take a picture. It's not like a video game. It's real fucking live. You don't want to get a selfie?

Well, I guess it would be an usy. If it's all of us. I mean, if you want to get a selfie. All right, come over here. All right. I get everyone smiling. That's good. You blinked, but okay. Just red.

Pike was definitely not smiling. The cigarette's just like hanging from his mouth, the horror's mouth. He's like, I've got a huge shitty area. Yeah. Yeah. Is this a massive city? Yes. This is a pretty large, expansive city.

You can't see in between the buildings through to the other side. It's tightly packed, and it's pretty sizably large. Well, there's no way in hell. We're going to do all this traversing on foot, so I think we rent a truck. Yeah, we're going to be here a while. I want to walk up to, if there's any kind of office or anything at the port, I'll walk in and I'll knock and I'll inquire about car trumpets. Yeah, so you, so you're... I do it, but I'm 25.

24, you're one year off the legal age to rent a car. Yes, you're in kind of like what would equate to like, you just landed at the airport. Right. And there's your car rental station, right, as you walk. out. And you see a selection, a wide selection of vehicles. You see some speeder bikes. You see these kind of cruiser cars ranging from what looks practical to what looks extremely luxurious with these kind of really tight lines, bright colors. And you see a couple things that are also just kind of like your average truck, massive wheels. Some.

you can kind of from your knowing glances, you can get a sense of which ones you think operate a little bit better. But there are a couple that you think would hold the whole party comfortably, and you'd seek out. Yeah, I wanna look for something that's relatively like an inconspicuous truck,

almost like a surveillance van, right? Where there would be enough cargo space in the back for us to like, you know, if a work vehicle. Exactly right. We need to sort of load stuff, store stuff, inconspicuously, right? If we grab stuff, and kidnap people and beat them up in the back.

Throw them in the truck. If Ziggy wants to do any like surveillance breaking bad style on the back, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically like where there aren't any windows in outside of like the front windows, but that we can maybe, you know, like if we, or maybe if there's like a window

that we can cover in the back or if there's like a bay doors in the back that we can then open. Roll a investigation check. Well, that's where I'm a vacuum. Nice. 21. You find this perfect van that looks like it was converted old work truck or work van.

It's windowless on the sides and it has a door that swings open vertically on the back. And you go over, you open it, give it a little inspection. And you think that this truck would work perfectly for you. It's gray. It has these large tires. You think it might be able to handle kind of whatever. terrain you may or may not encounter, but certainly you'll be able to fit anything in it that you'd need to, including one or more people that you want to kidnap.

Um, oh yeah, what do you think? Yeah, I think that she's perfect. It'll get the job done, that's for sure. Gray. I mean, what other color? Why not like a hot magenta or a lightning blue or, or, or, oh, Or green. Sometimes being a bounty hunter is being fucking inconspicuous.

All right? We're going to be doing surveillance. We got to be fucking, you know, hitting the streets and exploring and staying relatively incognito. Well, I mean, what if it's a double bluff? What if we go hot pink and people go, oh, I, you know, gray, really? You're watching too many spy films, kid. No more. Maybe a few more.

I mean, I still have to finish. I mentioned some innocuous James Bond reference. You know. It's not reality, all right? We're laying low. Look, it's perfect. All right. We'll take this one.

Oh, hello there. You see a man walks up to you. He's a Claude Daron. Has this kind of like blonde-ish fur to him and these feline features. as he walks up. I see you looking at this truck. You'd like to rent it? Yeah, if we could rent it for, I don't know,

let's start with a week. If I can just tack on to that, then we'll do. Yeah, we can definitely set up that paperwork for you. We rent generally by the day, but we can say that you're renting it for a week, and it's 20 notes a day. All right, sign me up. Okay.

Easy. Let me get the paperwork put together, I'll come right back for you. And he steps away. He's wearing this kind of like, almost like blue suit jacket with kind of matching pants as he walks back into the rental building.

And he's in just for a couple of minutes before he'll walk back out with kind of this steel board and a couple of sheets of paper on it. And here you are, just signed here. on the dotted line. All right, yeah, right here.

We'll need whatever preferred method of payment you have for getting this set up. And then, yeah, yeah, perfect, perfect. Right there, scan that, yep. Excellent. Okay, bing. Oh, initial here. Yep, I got that.

Yeah, right there, right there. Oh, yeah, oh, double initial here. Yeah, yeah. Redundancies, you know. All right. Yeah. Did you want to add the all-weather protection? Sure.

I don't know. I don't know whether this would have been in an answer. We're going to the under crust. An additional three bucks a day. Three notes a day. Excellent. Excellent. I'll put that on there.

Whatever you say, Rhett. And I'm assuming a man of your discerning tastes would go for the insurance. Oh, we gotta go for the insurance. You don't want to be on the hook in case somebody look like, you look like people of action. And in case something would take place, you don't want to be on the line for the replacement

the entire vehicle best insurance you got that's probably the line the money that's seven notes a day it's free practically free all right we're up to 30 notes a day unbelievable well uh mr indigo the keys are yours uh and he hands over kind of like what looks like uh almost like this is a slightly more traditional uh car keys but like a flat metal insert uh and enjoy where do you use you is your journey take you? We're going to the undercrust. Oh. Oh.

Okay. Well, I hope you enjoy your stay. See you later. All right. Nice fella. He was. Have you seen this meme? No.

All right. Bye. Nice fella. He probably could have told us of information about the under crust. Anyways, are you ready? I'll get the driver's seat. I'm riding shotgun.

I have to pull out one of those really crappy seats from the side of the wall that are way too small. And there's like a military vein. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, way. Yeah, you do that. And everybody straps in, the truck homes to life. It gets that kind of like almost,

almost rumble to it as you pull off the lot. Yeah, exactly. It's not, you know, not the finest controls. But Rhett, you feel comfortable behind this. This is your speed. This is your kind of vehicle. Yeah. Built for purpose.

Built for purpose. Simple. It does what it says on the tin. It's not all the bells and whistles. It's not all the crazy stuff. But you know that this feels like a reliable vehicle. You pull out of the, of the, of the parking spot that you got it from and you take out of this rental area and you drive for a

little bit around a crescent turn as you kind of pull away from this spaceport you see this line of larger ships kind of in the distance in the in the rear view as things start to get smaller you see the rhapsody shrinking away behind you as this crescent pull turns on to one of these major highways where people are zooming down the road. And as you... Slow down! Fucking jackasses. As you calmly merge on with your giant truck,

driving in extremely reasonable speed, while probably about 60% of the people are passing you and blowing past, you're able to navigate relatively well. I would be kind of just like taking in the sights of Makoro City and looking for signs that would say the undercrust. Yeah, absolutely. It's already ramps down.

Yeah, and as you're looking, this isn't like your pristine, like, super spotless city. You know, it's still, it's got almost like a kind of innate lived in, like, like, slight grittiness to it, but it's a very, it's a very kind of beautiful to look at, you know. A lot of lights, tall buildings, people driving around looks like someone's always got a purpose someone's always got a place to go And as you're going you can look down these kind of streets

That extend these runways of of light and action and activity you can see people coming in and going but everyone always ends at just another building All the while this kind of like looming Tower of Keogian kind of hanging above it all does it feel like there's wealth here though even amongst like the grittiness and the oh yeah like you tell there's there's wealthy people definitely definitely it feels I mean you're seeing like cars drive past you on the road there are these beautiful like what seem like luxury cars you know it's like you have plenty of people that are driving in you know more standard cruisers what would look like casual fair nothing too flashy or fancy but there are plenty of cars that are

tearing up the road in these bright yellows as they're blasting past orange cars, some pink, some hot pink. See? So clearly then, like, some of the tall buildings are like pet houses and like nice. Oh, absolutely. And you can definitely see some of that, especially as these buildings reach up and up. You see kind of like your classic experience of like maybe even a couple of what looks like if you glance up on some of the flatter sections, like greenery of what maybe rooftop party areas.

I would have five minutes into the drive, realizing that no one's gonna put on any music, gotten out of my seatbelt, and like straddled into the actual space between the two seats. What do you do it? We sit out. I push a cassette tape into the tape deck

that connects to my grid boy, and I immediately start playing, like, Night Call by Kavinsky. Just immediately like, come on, we need some jams, let's go! And then I immediately take, everything they said, actually, this is a good one. That's sort of fitting for the scenery.

I mean, this city's pretty nice. What did they call this layer? Well, you know, I've never been here before, but I think she said it was the top slice. Top slice. It ain't too bad up here. Hopefully the undergris isn't much worse. Everything here is fucking pizza theme.

It's about, this is why the only food item on the menu you saw at the hell of it was pizza and chili. Chili pizza. You drive for a little bit, and we'll say that the co-conveyed an address to you of the helion. Yeah. And you're able to punch that into a nav system. You're following your space garment directions as you are heading on this highway. You eventually do see a turnoff on this highway that takes you into kind of what looks like a tunnel.

And as you enter it, the kind of the lights fade back behind you. And you get these just like single, almost like white lights on the sides of this tunnel. As you go down a little bit, not crazy deep, but you definitely are coming off the highway and you're now going down. It's as you. Oh, there it is. Hold on me signal. Oh, God, they're not letting me over. God, he's a fucking asshole.

God, every world's full of jackassings. I finally merge over and I go down the... You know a series of honking behind you is somebody's trying to get past, but eventually... I got their license plate. That's very funny. They are now in crippling death. You make your way across the highway

down this tunnel. And it's maybe... Five minutes you find yourself driving through this kind of dark tunnel and you can feel the pole as you go deeper and deeper. You think that maybe you've traveled a couple stories underground. Damn. And as you break out, you see a similar but very different side of this city. those same kind of like bits of neon light as you look out. But everything above you as you look up is shrouded by those overpasses that just cut all throughout the top slice, getting people to and from.

Here you can't, you can almost nowhere see the sky above you. Casts this dim, dark glow over the city. And the only light are the darker neon of signs and shops that you can see throughout this underground. You see some of these dark greens, these dark purples, as you see different things around you. And you make your what? Is there any kind of, does it look like there's any kind of like checkpoint or people watching? the coming and goings of these tunnels? I think perception checked.

Oh shit. How could you? That's a good question. Yikes. I got an 11. I'll say as you exited the tunnel, it looked kind of like you were exiting out a checkpoint, but you're kind of like caught up in this view of what this city looks like. You're not really quite looking around to exact the mechanics of maybe how this is working.

Okay. But you exited kind of what you exited kind of what looked like, not necessarily a gate, but like a porthole. Yeah, okay. So it wasn't like we didn't get stopped. It wasn't super, there's something super official. And I'm just smoking the cigarette and joined Kavinsky. You did not get stopped coming down. You did not get stopped coming down from to the other.

I'm sure this is fun. I don't like the way the god of this world just said that. You've been able to move unhindered so far. I cast instant message. on Pike, and you see a little window appear in your vision. Literally a hyper- Like a HUD? Like a HUD?

Image, and even though you're moving around, it seems like a- Oh, God. If only you can see this message, as a little PFP of Ziggy animated doing like some sort of ridiculous dance shows up. And next to it, the message, do you want anything from the Hellie

and I'm ordering food? I try to like, inadvertently like, like, swive away with my hand almost. Like with my cigarette hand, I'm like waving this smoke and this message. Try to get it out of my. You can dismiss it by hitting the X, but you can also reply in an only way that I can see if you want to. I don't.

You dismiss it, and then seconds later, Eir! Another pop-up. Seriously, I'm ordering food. Don't tell Red. This time I stop. Ziggy, what are you doing? No, no, no, nothing.

Nothing, nothing. I just, I'm, I'm working back here. I'm working real hard. The kids trying to order food from the hell again. Well, how the fuck do you know that? He's sending me messages. I can't stop seeing them. You're sending them a secret messages about food?

He specifically told me not to tell. It was going to be a surprise. What did I say about a budget? I'm hungry. Look, I just miss the other message. I find the fucking place. And we don't even know when we're going to get things. or might be fucking all the way across the city for all we fucking.

How about those guys? And I actually lean out the window and I point with my cigarette fingers were kind of like scrolling, rolling along. And I see what I think to be like official. They look like they're a little official. And I'd like to ask them for directions. To the hell of you. You roll down the window and you see what look to be two people standing there.

They have almost this like faded like bronze kind of helmet and they have these similar blue to the kind of color scape you saw from the person you rented the truck from and you're able to flag them down and as you call out.

We're looking for direct. Corrections. We need some help. Yeah, directions where? A dive bar called the Hellion. Who are you? What are you doing down here? Who are we? We're just people looking for the Helion. Not looking to cause any trouble.

No, we're looking for drinks. You can see as this person turns to engage you. And this is a human bald-headed and as he turns to talk to you, you see an acronym

kind of on his chest and it says MPS. Just looking for a couple of drinks. Okay, we can direct you there. Alien, you say? Yeah.

Okay. Visiting a friend. I mean, do we look like we have money? We don't belong up there. Well, that's fair, I suppose. Okay. Well, we'll direct you. You take...

And he said the directions to the alien. There we go. All right, so... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you make a left there. Oh, left, all right, left. All right, right, there. But then it's the hubbub, blah, blah, right? All right, okay, I got it.

Is this like, does this feel much, is it like dirtier, dingier? Oh, yeah. So it's, than the top slice. This is definitely dirtier, dingier. The buildings are like two-story buildings, but you can see these like, almost like tree roots of the buildings that extend from up above, like crashing through and breaking through these roadways that still connected to this bottom level. but interspersed in between them you have these much like dirtier buildings

almost like not paved ground around you kind of this like literal dirt but like like okay literal dirt roadways as you as you move around through this section it is definitely not

and it's just darker inherently because of the pathways overhead, kind of blocking out any view of the sky or light that would come in from above. You said there's still, though, like, neon signage and stuff, but it's older. Yeah, there's still neon signage. Right, right? No, no, no.

It's got everything's kind of like, and you look around every, every here and there. And it's dingier. And like, some of the lights are just out, you know? It's just like, you know, vacancy, no vacancy. You can't tell which ones. Exactly right. Got it. Exactly right.

And it did. definitely conveys that feeling. Have you seen this meme? It's everywhere. I can't get rid of it. You're driving. It's been stuck in my head. You're driving along.

I hope it gets murdered. So I will start driving and kind of taking in the under crust, right? The under crust. You are now in what is. is colloquially called the undercrust. And you are doing your best to kind of follow these verbal directions. You can see the nav system that you had

that was working extremely well in the top slice. The nav system, when you came down here, it's starting to get a really spotty connection. And every time, like, you know, you don't wanna punch the helion in. It's like every time you try to me, oh, like turn left here, but there's a river on your left. And, you know, just not quite working.

And as you make your way to the Hellion, you do take a couple turns and at one point, you almost break out of this section of like slum town city. And on your left as you're driving up, you find yourself on the bank of what looks kind of like a river. But the water is a murky brown as you make your way down the road. You take another turn kind of back into the heart of it, and you navigate for a little while longer until eventually in the distance, you see a neon sign moving back and forth. And it's this little caricature of a devil creature with a pitchfork, and on it is a big slice of pizza,

because it's the only food that they serve, because Ziggy hacked the menu. And you see the words Helian. I will, I'll drive up and... Does it look nice or is it like that? No. No, it doesn't look nice. No. In fact, in front of it, you'll see a series of kind of like,

we'll say like functional speeder bikes. These are like older school, like more steampunk-esque. not quite these like super lavish laser bikes you saw in the top slice. There's a dirt roadway that comes right up to it. And it really, you get the sense from looking around. This is very possibly a rough sort hangs out in here. All right, listen, kid. Keep your eyes low.

Don't look at anybody. Don't talk to anybody. Just stay inconspicuous, all right? All right. I got it. I'll, like, pull up. Yep. And I'll look around and see kind of the rundown and the rough customers and I'll go over to bike and I'll say, are we sure this is the place?

As sure as I can possibly be. All right. You pull into that gravel parking section and you park the truck and everybody goes to get out and you start walking up. And you see a couple people hanging out front. Kind of in more like what looks almost like clothes. They've maybe even like patched themselves. Some leathers, kind of pants with like tears and cuts, some that just the sleeves are ripped off.

You see a couple of LICA, some rhizo, which are kind of these like, almost like, like demonic looking people of like these deep deep red horns coming off their heads the the lica just your canine-esque person you've seen them before escorted out of the prison as you walk up and you're probably about we'll say 12. We'll say 20 feet away at this point. Who's walking first? What's your walking order here?

I think I would lead. Yeah, yeah, I think this feels like a pike situation. Yeah, I would definitely lead and I would hope that Rhett would stay close to Ziggy. I would want Ziggy between us. Yeah, so I'm behind Ziggy. And not letting him like run away, get away, show people memes.

I pull my hoodie up and I'm extremely inconspicuous. What does that sound? I'm stepping on, who's eating grabber? Just kidding. As you're approaching the Helion, it has this kind of like wide front glass that you can kind of look in as it's coming up. But it looks like it hasn't ever been wiped down once. It has this like layer of just smudge all over it and you can't quite see in. And Pike, I would love for you to make a perception check.

17. With a 17, I'll say a split second before this happens, you see it coming, so you may roll a Dex saving throw at advantage. Oh shit, thank God. At advantage, you say, 21. 21. You're able to just move out of the way as... Look alive! I like jump out of the way and I try to warn everybody.

The glass in front of you of the Hellion shatters. and bursts open. Whoa. This Zorbrack, this bug person with these giant blade arms, or the blade arms, as well as these kind of like mandible arms that come off,

is flung through, shattering, blasting this glass out at you. The first thing you see wrapped around the waist is a red sash. As I get, like, I shout this warning, and I jump out of the way

and make sure that my friends are out of the way. I notice this as he's hitting the ground, and I stop and I say, oh, fuck, he's a red belt. Get ready. Came into the right place. Is he on the ground? Oh, yeah, he's, like, knocked out. He's uncovered.

You can inspect him. He's knocked out. He's on the ground. He's been thrown out. You can see, like, almost blood running from his arms in his back as he was crashed through the glass. If you're checking him out, I would look through the window to see where he came from and try to see what's going on on the inside.

So the window is just a little bit. There's probably about three or four steps up before you hit this landing to go in. You're at an awkward angle to see up and what's in there. You'd have to go inside to see what happens now. Come on, we got to get in there. Let's go. Let's go. And I would immediately try to us to us into the hell.

I'm going. I'm going. I'm going. I'm going. I'm going. I don't know if you knew this, but this is a really rough joint. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Aventrists and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seeds. Shroud over Saltpush. You can also go to the crooked moon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tone for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you.

You race forward. You burst open the door. You crash into the room and you see standing in between about three knocked out red belt goons and five more crowding around her. You see an extremely familiar figure. I basically quickly surveyed the area that I'm looking at. And I take one last drag of my cigarette as I knock it to the floor. I look to my companions and I say,

well, gentlemen, there she is. Co. Mikey, can you please join the table? There it is. Welcome to the table. Welcome to the table. Let's fucking go. So you have burst into the helion. A red belt has been flung through the grass,

incapacitated outside of this almost like saloon, run-down bar area. You see destruction, broken chairs, shattered glasses, three more thugs inside, passed out on the ground, but five surround the imposing figure of Coe. Mikey, would you please introduce us to Coe? Please introduce us to come. You would see beat up already,

blood running down her lip and her nose, a six-six foot tall rhizzo, blue skin, short horns going up through a white shock of hair. She is wearing a white tank top with an electric blue vest, spikes all along it. She has tiger striped pants and combat boots that add probably another two inches. And so with her horn, she's probably like pushing seven feet tall

as she is very muscular and she is holding a huge metal bat that's glowing with this shocking, sparking energy. As she is covered in blood, some of the spikes are in blood. How many did I knock down? Including the one outside, you've knocked out four. Four. And I'm surrounded and I will look past and I'm a beat to shit. I already have kind of like,

a bit of a swollen eye is I'll look at you. Holy fuck, bike? I'll kind of start to take like a martial stance and I'll say, do you need any help? No, but you can take a couple. Let's fucking go. And I will rush to her aid. I'd like everyone to roll for initiative.

Oh, okay. All right, so you have burst into the helion. In the center of the room, you see the imposing figure of Coe standing at between boots, horns, almost seven feet tall. Coe's looking kind of bloody, what started off as nine Scarlet-Eye goons, the red belts, five left standing around her. Three of them just on the ground, one thrown out the window outside, everybody else in the place has scattered. The people what, the front ran the second that body came through the glass.

It is, it is just the, uh, nine of you here now. Um, you think you can mess with the scarlet eyes. We're gonna put you down. Uh, co. It is your turn. I'll look at Pike Hell's say, you got, good timing. And I'll look at the other guy says, why are you wearing so stupid fucking red belts as I am going?

going to come in with my club and make an attack roll on the... This one. Everything I do is non-label. Just... Ow! Okay, we'll say that's five, just from where I am in the... Can we rotate? You go. 90 degrees, 45 degrees.

Because I did, it's impossible to see through that for the G... Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Got it. That better? This is the bar. the table. Yeah, so I'm gonna say from me left up and then to the right just one, two, three, four, five.

So the one you're hitting is five, non-lethal. Go for it, roll a attack. I get a 23. Nice. And as I do that, I use my level three enforcer feature, Rage of the Streets. So when I take the attack action, I can spend, I'm expending a channel divinity to fill myself with fury. For one minute, I can make one on arm strike or one attack with improvised weapons a bonus action. acceptable. Oh, damn, that's bad ass. That's bad ass.

Club punch. I'm sorry in my club as I'm going to do a bit of damage here with two-hander. I'm going to do nine points of damage with the club. Nice. Oh, you hear this sickening crack ring out as co-crashes the club into the arm of this goon in front of her. Um, I'm going to push him straight. He's like, how do you pike? As I'm going to push him at feet.

and feet towards you as I smash it backwards. Yes. As I then going to grab one of the splintered metal bar stool legs that splintered off is I'm going to try to smash it down on this guy. And you've already been scuffling around you. There is shattered table, there's wood, there's metal, all crushed up, just scouring the ground.

You absolutely can find a piece of broken off metal stool and you swing it back and almost back in this other goon which in that so that was nine points to the is Dan here do I or maybe someone to do I add my strength to improvise an un-off yes yes absolutely okay okay just want to make sure so who's the other person you're hitting I am hitting I believe I said this guy okay that's correct and game one and so is there a sharp ear okay cool Dan's in the chat that's not a good one I'm just trying to find. Subclass by Daniel and everybody.

Subclassified. This is literally the coolest subclad has ever been designed. I swear to God. It's unstoppable. And force or palliative. The problem is that they're all kind of dark. Do you best you can.

That's fine. Okay. I don't, I don't have the bright colors to show looks. Let's try it. As it, as it, like, let it go, as it smashes over the head of this, as I am, I'm beaten and bloody, but I'm having a good time about it.

Yeah, I'm having, as I'm smiling, as I smash the one red belt. You're in your element as you swing back and crash this bar stool over the shoulder of this other goon. Pike. It's true. So as she shouts out, I'll say,

sorry, I'm late. And then as soon as she mentions the alley-up, I'm ready. And I'm meeting this guy with a spinning back kick on my first attack. God, that's cool. That's going to be an 18 to hit. 18 will hit?

for eight total bludgeoning damage to number five. And then if he's still up, I'm going to expend one of my key points for a Flurry Blows. Yeah, oh, he's still up. He's not looking great. I'll roll one at a time. He's not looking too bad. I'll roll one at a time.

Another 18 to hit. Oh, yeah. Max damage for 11 points of bludgeoning. I punched this guy in the throat after landing this spinning back on number five. He slides across the ground hit from Coz Canabo. He's knocked back. Before he even comes to a stop on his own, your leg meets him to grind him to a halt

as you crash a kick into his back. Following up with another punch, you lay a mighty flurry of blows into him. Now he's looking pretty bad. I got one more then. That's gonna be a 22 to hit for another eight points of bludgeoning damage. as I follow up with a third punch, uppercut to the gut,

trying to double this guy over. Oh, and you send out one more punch into his gut, as you hear, and he collapses to the moment. And then after I knock him unconscious, I'll say, hang tight, call, I'm coming. And I'm going to use my movement to kind of get between these guys. And that's my turn.

Five to one, bite, five to one. All right, it's to you. If I could grab Ziggy by his hood, his hoodie, and just pull him if you'll let me as difficult terrain moving half my movement. How much can you lift? I mean, you know, I can, and I think he would be somewhat willing. Okay.

Basically, I want to try to drag him with me and knock this table over and, like, get behind it. Yeah. If you, I mean, I would say it doesn't have to be difficult to rain if you just spend five feet of movement and Ziggi's reasonably willing, you can absolutely do that. And, you know, I...

Yeah, you can knock the table over easily and kind of... For cover. For cover as you straighten it up. I love that. All right, kid, get the fuck down. We don't know how this is gonna go. And so basically, I want to, like, just get us set up where Zing is protected.

He is behind me. The table's knocked over. And from, like, inside... my suit. I don't have my Grav cannon on me, right? That's this giant fucking thing. I want to be in conspicuous. Yeah. Oh, okay, yeah. I take my sidearm that I

keep on me. Oh, shit. For when, you know, when I'm just want to be inconspicuous. When shit pops off. When you get clapped, especially in the undercress, baby. Oh, damn. This pistol out that, and then it looks like

GravTech, right? Yeah. And, but it's sort of very, like, almost like a Game Boy with a, with a pistol handle on it, with this sort of large barrel that sort of is in the style of my grab cannon. I'm going to aim over, and I'm going to try to, like, aim for the leg or aim for something that's not beautiful, as I shoot number one in the back.

As dishonorably as possible. Yes. Because this is the under, this is the under crust. Golly. Red belts get the belt. I miss. No. How would you roll?

I rolled a... An 11. Total? Total. You do miss. Oh, okay. Thanks, purpose? Yeah.

Well, no, and shit just popped off. There's a lot more of the things are flying everywhere. People were flying through glass. You draw and fire just a little too quick, and your first shot goes off before you level your target. Be careful, right, you'll shot Coe in the back of the head. I also want to set the cannon here, is that I don't know if it was mentioned, but in, diogenetically, there is heavy metal music blaring,

I have set the jukebox. Absolutely. Do we have some like metal comment? It's effectively. He was playing. He was playing. Yeah, yeah. It's not, it's not full on heavy metal.

Is there a good, um, mob rules by Black Sabbath that's playing right now. Legally distinct. Yeah, legally distinct. Lobb rules by Black Sabbath that's play. I'm just trying to maintain game state and world state. That's pretty good. And then it goes to live and learn by Crush No, we saved that for way later in the campaign.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, better? Oh, this is awesome. Okay. This is fucking great. So you level out your first shot, as it goes just a little wide. The goons now all turn,

and seeing that this situation is dramatically changed from nine-on-one to now what looks like bad odds for them. You'll see several of them. One and three will draw from their waist. Also, these heavy laser pistols look like, almost like heavy to hold. And they'll kind of like split for a second as this glow will kick out. What the fuck?

As they wore up their guns, and they're not playing non-letally. Two and three will... Okay, two and three will both attack, well actually, three and four will attack Coe. Yeah. One is gonna level straight at you right in your face of a laser pistol. As he does that, I'll say, what are you gonna do, shoot me? That's the plan.

And we're not putting on my... Oh, under this thing. Ooh. 17A. Even though my D&D. Bionne, I believe this. The, the, that misses. The laser, the laser pistol misses. The second, however.

With the barstool leg. You use the barstool leg and just kind of like, just as you're swinging back, are able to knock it up, the first blast goes into the ceiling. The second, you know, uses this like energy baton as it punches down and strikes at you with an 18.

Hellhead? Oh shit. You will, uh, see. Four points of damage as the baton kind of crashes down over you. What kind of damage? Blatting. And bludgeoning.

Bludgeon. Oh, bludgeon. Just straight bludgeoned. damage. It's not like, you know, it's not lit up and crackling, like your kana bow. Yeah. It's just kind of like an energy enhanced baton, you know. And the other, so the other two will both attack Pike, one with a baton and one also with a heavy pistol.

Okay. Let me know which ones first and what they get. The baton, I'm assuming we'll miss. That was like an 11. Fuck, yeah, it misses. I'm never going to get to deflect anything in this. The pistol, however, 19 to hit. That hits me.

I have a 19. Okay. Nothing I can do about that one. We have to have a day since... It has to... I mean, I'm assuming it's not bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. It has to include those. It is radiant damage.

Yeah, which I'm resistant to, so get fucked anyway. But... Days since you've been able to deflect this. No, yeah, no, it's been... It's been years. Never once. Never once. It never once.

No, I got, I got you. Don't you worry. Begging for, why do monks never get shot at? What do you get me with? Why? Eight points of radiant damage. I'll enjoy half. Um, it kind of like,

like, like, oh shit, they are gonna shoot us. Birds my coat. Your friends can't save you, Co. You're dying here. Um, Ziggy, it's you. Brett. This is just like high. I'm gonna skip over here.

And I'm gonna-Zi's here the first to die. I'm gonna quickly, um, I'm gonna, uh, I'm gonna hack the jukebox. And then I'm gonna turn the volume all the way to the top as it starts to scream and blare with the sound. And then I will use my action. I'm gonna look at number one here. Maybe I can, let's see if I can scan lines?

Let's try that script. And you will watch as all of a sudden his form goes, and I attempt to make a range skeleton. attack. Oh, that's gotta be good. A, uh, I need to figure out all of my shit here. Caramel dancing starts playing. Um, what is my, what is my, what is my, it's a move. Hold on now. Do, oh, that's absolutely enough. 21 to hit. Uh, for sure. And that's going to be minimum damage. One radiant damage. Oh, shit. Number one. Uh, but, uh, you. Uh, you, You know, if he, because I'm casting Starry Whist,

I'm just reflavoring it, he starts to emit dim light as all of some of these scan lines because he need to twitch and run all over his body as the hypergrid starts to infect him. He also cannot benefit from the invisible condition. If he should- Do we get it? No, no, no, no, no.

It's just, no, no, really. I want it to give you a veg, baby. Oh, that wasn't very good, wasn't. And you find out, you see this kind of like shimmering scan scan lines kind of appear. and this, this, this, uh, goon is now very easy to see. Uh, co. I'm just warming up.

Can I keep my reaction to be like, get the fuck back here? I'm just warming up, ah. Yeah, that's fine. So that we have covered. The rest of his movement, he just steps out and steps back in. Really, laser, that's not really heavy metal of you, as I am going to, uh, my tattoos of storm clouds and, uh, lightning bolts is gonna start crackling as my eyes crackle

with lightning as it surges down into my connevaux. And in between them, I smashed my connoe down as the electricity shoots up as I am going to attempt to electrocute both of them. Oh, which ones? Both of these guys, right? Nice. Three and four?

Yeah, three and four. Let's fucking go. Geez. Oh, we're gonna make quick work on these guys. Golly. Because of your, that feature. This feature is so fucking good. From my rhizo, a species feature that I have.

I can use cat shocking grasp. separate targets. Oh, that's cool as hell. So I'm gonna make the first spell attack on three. Okay, I'm sorry, guys. Natural one. Oh, okay, okay, okay, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Okay, this one's fine, this one's fine.

That should be a 16 to hit. Oh, that is. That one's fine. As he's going to take three points of lightning damage. And then I- Which one? On number four, as then I'm going to follow up, and which one had the gun?

Was it three? Three had a gun. I am going to come in with my boot and try to stop him and try to kick him down. I have a little bit of height on him. Oh, absolutely. Everyone in the room, everyone in the room is like, you know,

noticeably shorter than you are. Kick a hole in his chest. Oh, little guy needs a gun. I'm going to try to crush him with my boots. As, uh, that is my bonus action. And I'm going to. That should be... Use different dice team.

Yeah, that die. That die always like... 18 hits, I mean, 18 hits for sure. Yeah. That is, that is a... That is a... Nice. Nine points of bludgeoning damage.

That's three. Nine points to three. Yep. Oh. I am going to, I believe I can activate a mastery. Oh, shit. I'm still figuring out my subclass. I apologize.

He'll. This is the first time you pilot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, this is my viso. You know, you have to figure it all out. It's a lot of, it's a lot of stuff. With my cheat shot feature, when I make an unarmed strike, I am going to basically just kick him back with the push feature, kick him back against the wall.

Hell yeah. Does it go 10 feet or do, does it go any further than that? It's only 10, I believe. If you want to come up, cool, but if you were to come up, if he was just double back over a bar stool and crash up a window or something. Yeah. You know those really shallow shelves that they have in bars just to set your drink on? His back hits one of them.

He takes 12 sheds of names. You kick him and your giant boot goes straight to his face. And you hear kind of like the, I can't do the Derek, but you hear the breaking of his nose as your boot collides with his face. And he's swung backwards. And you hear this dull thud as he crashes against the wall. Oh, man, that was heavy metal. Pipe.

I'm continuing to fight one and two, trying to just give Coe some backup here. I'm going to start by attacking number one with a kick to the stomach. That's going to be a 19 to hit. Oh, 19 hits. That's going to be nine points of bludging damage to number one. And then I will spend a focus point to flurry of blows

doing a second attack on number one. That's going to be a 23 to hit. With another seven points is after this, after I hear like the ribs crack of my leg, I will again, try to punch him in the throat with another seven points of bludging damage. If he's still up, I got one more attack. You go to kind of connect this throat,

you catch his collarbone, he is still up as you've landed two extremely solid blows. Oh, the last one's gonna be close. Is it 16 enough? 16's enough, Andy. And then assume you this is gonna be enough to put him down. with seven points of damage. After I connect with his collarbone,

I take a step back and I actually headbut him him and try to knock him out with seven points of damage. Stay down. And you crash, you hear the dull bone-on-bone connection as you crash in your head straight into his forehead and then he has dazed for a second until he slumps over and falls to the ground. And that's my whole turn.

I just basically turn to try to square up with number two as I'm trying to get these guys off go. That's my turn, baby. Rhett? Oh, shit. Oh, shit. I would continue to keep an eye on Zingie to make sure that he's not in the line of fire now that I know that these guys are fucking guns.

Which one is currently, like, visibly wielding a gun? Three? Oh, three for sure. One had a gun, but it's not down. The only one that is currently visibly wielding a gun is three. Okay, I'm gonna jump up over the knocked over table

and try to aim my sidearm at number three. He probably has some cover through Coe and everybody, but that's fine. I'm gonna go for the shot anyway. That's fucking, that probably still fits. It's fucking awesome. Oh, for sure. That would be a plus eight.

That would be a 25 today. Yeah, oh yeah, 25 minutes. Oh, baby. And then that will be 1D8 of force damage from my ether pistol here. Nice. 13 points of force damage. And again, I'm not being super careful anymore, but I'm still trying to aim like lower body. You're going to fight for your life, you know, but you're not.

What is kneecap? It's fine. Yeah, exactly. He's got two of them. Um, God, what is that? this this like warbling energy blast shoots out and it connects right in the thigh oh fuck you got you you fucking bastard oh what was that um as he as uh that was a pretty fucking big shot um it is uh back to the goons uh so two three and four is still up um so

Oh, which ones? So two is up, four is up, and three is up. Okay, so... I'm scored up with only two. Is three at the back of the wall? Yes. Three knocked back. Perfect.

And then shot in the knee cast. So three's the one with the pistol. So three is gonna level down right at co again and fire off a shot. Oh, baby. 17? Oh, that hits. Oh, let's go! What are you gonna do?

Try to shoot me again? Ah, wow, pretty good, pretty good. Eight points of radiant damage. Oh shit. As the, good shot, I'll give you that. I'll get you that, good shot. As the laser flies out from the gun and lands true. Two, whichever one's right next to Pike,

he's gonna take a big swing at Pike, so that he's like running around dropping goons left and right. Um, that's a 20. Battle hit? Is this just bludgeoning damage? This is bludgeoning. So he has a baton, he has an energy baton, but it's just bludgeoning. It's just like an enhanced weapon. Uh, six points of damage. I'm definitely gonna use my reaction to reduce the attacks total by 1D10 plus 8.

So I'll reduce it by 7, so I don't take anything. But I can't redirect it to anyone because there's no enemy within 5 feet. So I just basically like as he comes into... 1D10 plus 8? Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, it's a flick attack. It's my reaction.

Baseline is just gone. Yeah, so I basically, as he comes in, I basically just move his arm out of the way. Oh, yeah. I watched that episode last night. Oh, man, you move like water. And I just basically direct his arm. It almost looks like slow and fluid as you just casually like direct this strike away. And the four will once again strike and go

with a natural warming. Oh. And... What are you going to do? Smack the shit out of me with a laser baton. And I like do a complete spin around blood. It's great across the bar. And he'll swing up and hit you for, oh man,

10 points of bloodening damage as the sickening thought of the baton crashes into you. It's a crack. It's absolutely. You hear a sickening crash. Yeah, I thought I'd hit you with a big fucking laser baton. Nice.

Nice. Cool. Okay. Ziggy. Okay, okay, okay. I'm still, I'm still, I, uh, hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I can do better.

I can do better, Rhett. I pull my grid boy apart and I pull it in two directions and you can see the hypergrid almost produced between this like a window. And as I pull that apart, you can see small window openings appearing in the rest of the bar room. Red, shoot between the two paddles. Do it between here.

All right. And I try to, I will position myself to shoot between the two panels. All you need to do is fire between and into the wind. as I cast ping, magic middle, missile. The windows that I've created are just going to split the... Oh, I'm doing... Oh! Oh, yeah!

And they automatically hit because I positioned the openings right next to my foes. They turn into little ducks. Exactly right. Yeah, you see the... You see the shot go out in red. And as it hits the window, it splits it out and splits it out into three separate duckshot.

As it flies forward, it hits who? It's who? These darts fly forward. Two takes two points of force damage. Three takes three points of force damage and four points of force damage to number four. So they all take their number and damage. They literally take their number in four.

Take two, three and four. That's very cool. Wow, I really like that efficiency. That seems really effective. What do you agree, Rhett? I mean, oh. Coe, it's back to you. I am bleeding.

My nose is probably a little bent at this point. I'm, as I'm like, I'm giving this red belt a little bit of respect. It's like, okay, now it's my turn. Okay, as I swing down hard with my club, that is probably gonna miss. That is going to be a, oh wait, no, I'm 14? Oh, 14, I don't know.

14 hits. Oh, these guys are toast. As I am going to be, As I am going to deal not a ton, but I deal six points of bludgeoning damage. As I am going to- Which one? Number four.

Four. Okay. Is I'm going to knock him back against the wall. And then as I look at Pike as like, you don't mind, do you? Not at all. As I say, good, and I grab him and I smash my head against his forehead against number two or three two. God, cool.

Oh, that's gonna be a 21 to hit? Damn. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As that is going to be dealing, that is gonna be dealing seven points of bludgeoning damage and then also knocking him back against the wall. Oh, it's against this, okay, it's against this wall.

I was gonna say, my God. Oh, the shelf again! Because I believe, correct me, I'm new to weapon masteries, I just knock them back five feet if they're large or smaller, and I can just keep pushing them. I got no problem with it.

Yeah, listen, it sounds good to me. I trust you. Yeah, okay. You can save it through nothing. Pike. It's back to you. I watch this co is just absolutely like slobber knocking these guys around. Lying up for you, buddy.

I fucking just basically, I follow up. It's like we're moving, like we're one. We spent a lot of time before. Yeah, there's kind of like a, there's a shoulder to shoulder now. There's like a dance element to it, you know? Like you like, co-throw the shoulder. the baton you find the opening, you dash through, you follow up with a with a hook.

This is old hat for the two of you. So moving, moving like at the speed of light, I follow up on number two, and that's going to be a 13 to hit, so that one might miss. It does not mess. Oh, three, Andy? Oh, these guys suck. I will say that 13 is the AC.

Yeah, perfect. So I, I immediately follow up with an upper-appropriate AC. I immediately follow up with an upper-com. to this guy's chin for seven points of bludgeoning damage. To which one? Number two. Ooh, okay. Then you know I got the uppercut and catches the chin.

Ugh. He snapped and then back down and looks at you. I'll spend my last focus point to Flurry of blows. God, try to end this guy. 16 points, 16 to hit, sorry. Oh my God. And that's going to be nine points of bludgeon damage to number two. It's like follow up with another fist.

Go down your man, dude. You hit him with another fist. and he is looking real blood and he's holding his side. He's got a little bit left in the tank. That's gonna finally be a miss with 10. So I try to follow up with a knee and he kind of just rolls out of the way before I'm able to connect with a knee to his stomach. Yeah, exactly. Almost like flinching as you draw back now.

He anticipates kind of the movement as your last kick comes in. He's able to die it at the last moment. That's my last, that's my move. He's still standing, Pike. I'll sort of be in awe of Coe and Pike and seeing them go through these questions. Yeah. I can definitely, like, see,

I see a flash of what I would expect that happened in prison. Yeah. Oh, if that's the film, we cut to a flashback of us, like, in the break room with the fucking trays. And then Pike leaves off of the tray and, like, fucking. And you've seen Pike before. You've seen him in battle plenty of times.

But something about the influence of Coe in this moment, in this bar brawl, this feels particularly brutal. There's something about this that is almost like survival combat, which you absolutely are picking up on. I will, I'll probably like stand up and feel a little more secure that I'm going to sort of, you know, keep this cover and I'll walk out next to Coe and I'll level my pistol at number, I'll say number four. I take a nice clear open shot. That's gonna hit. Big money. And that's gonna do... Big money?

Big money? Force damage. Wow. Oh, shit. To who? Number four. Before I leave, I say, fucking stay here.

And I'll get off, and I'll get to give, like, you know, I'm sort of staying low, right? But I want to kind of give them some covering fire. Yeah. You move up, you're running out from behind. You move up.

The black. The last goes out. It hits again. But four is still standing. They're all looking pretty rough right now though. Goon's turn. So that's two, three, and four. A bunch of gooners. Two will hit Pike.

Oh, you know what? Now I'm out of focus points. That's right. Good. Good. That is a 10, which I'm assuming definitely doesn't hit. Okay, three, three and four will actually both move forward towards Co. They'll just move up, three will move up twice, four will move up three times.

Yeah, box her in. Damn. Ooh, with a 21, three will, actually, I shoot a gun range of your face. What do you can't do? Shoot me again? You take eight points of radiant damage. Okay, that's pretty good. That may have got shot.

Okay. And then four. Oh, God. Nice. Once again, with a 22. You'll see, what was there was a most passive perception? I love asking them.

My is 14. Oh, 12. 15. Right. You'll see it first. as the goon out of it. Hidden in the red sash is going to say,

I got something pretty heavy metal for you. And it's going to take out a blade and is going to slide very quickly. A blade into Coe's side. Scumbag! As you take seven more points of damage. And you know, Coe, as the blade slides into you,

that is not just metal, it's a poisoned blade. I feel it. I feel it burned. As I look at them and it's like, yeah, okay, I'll give you that. As my eyes roll back and I collapse onto the ground. Ooh.

Uh-oh. Shit. And that's their turn? I'm dying, folks. Ziggy. Shit, what the fuck? Oh shit, fucking goddamn. This is it punching the stomach again.

I immediately turned to my grid boy. I slapped the paddles together. and I start to type, okay, let's see if we can do that same thing, but harder, faster, stronger, better. And I will cast instead a reaped play of what I just cast, and instead, let's go with scorching ray.

I'm going to de-beam that Rett shot through. I'm essentially going to rewind and redo, but turn the volume up to 11. I need to roll against, I'll roll against two. That's going to be a 15 natural 15, so that differently hits. I'll roll them in a moment. For three, natural, four. Oh!

These guys are fucked. Oh, leave. Four and 11, so I miss on the four. But this is going to be... What did you roll for four? I missed. I got an 11. Oh, okay, okay.

So that's going to be... Oh, max damage to number two. He takes 12. Wow. That's going to be 13 points of fire damage to number three. as the beam magnifies, and instead of what was the normal blaster shot that was coming out of red gun is magnified ten times. It's surprising even me. Oh, my gosh.

Oh, that was very effective. Good grief. You tap into the grip boy and boom, boom, boom, these three blasts appear above you. And then they increase in size and they fire out and two hits. Boom. Three hits. Boom. both of them drop.

Four is the only one left standing as the blast sails past the, what the fuck? As everyone now is down except four. I'm sorry. Co. I will roll a death saving throw. Roll a death shaving throw for me. I'm gonna use this is spooky red dye.

I'm gonna hide my eyes. I succeed. It was a pass. Oh, that's a pass. Oh, sorry. No, no, no, that's fine. Yeah, you can, you can announce it. I like keeping it hidden maybe. Oh, we can talk about it.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, no, it's okay. We didn't talk about beforehand. I like that. We knew this is going to happen. That is fun, but yeah. Yeah, we can hide it moving forward.

Pike. It's to you. I see Coe dropped to the ground, and I also watched the two individuals that I was engaged with burst in a flames. Are they dead? Oh, yeah, they're dead. Oh, yeah.

100% they're dead. They're like, fucking dead. and cook, they're charred, you know? So, like, Rets were fired in the leg. Ziggi's just murdered two people in a bar fight. I have no idea where this fire has come from, but I don't have time to think about it. And I watch as Coe hits the deck.

And I'll actually move to basically vault over her and get between where her body is and where Rett is and basically just unload on this guy and try to see if I can finish the job here with a single unarmed strike. 18 to hit. Yeah. That hits.

Nine points of bludgeoning damage. As I basically, as I vault over Co, I come down with an elbow, and I try to crack him in the head and knock him unconscious. You... How do you want to do this? Just the way I said, baby.

I basically, I see the urgency of the situation and I can smell the burning in the air, and I don't know where this fire came from. I'm not the time to think about it. You leap over that. and I just try to basically... You spin in the air. Get away from her!

And you use the force of your twisting to crash your elbow down on the skull of this last guy. And you instantly knock him unconscious? Yeah, I was definitely trying to knock him out. Like, just driving through. Everyone knew it was unlethal, not lethal, until Ziggy just cooked a couple of guys. Technically, it was rent.

And I would basically just drive through And as his body hits the ground, take a few deep breaths and then be, go, no, and rush to her side to see if she is okay or not. Roll a inspection or medicine? Medicine. Yeah, I'm not attempting to stabilize her. Just understand. Yes.

Oh, shit, 23. Look at that. With a 23, you've watched the whole fight go out. You walked in, Coe is not looking good. Coe is already bloodied. She is down in very poor condition. She needs to get to some form of medical support very quickly. I quickly just survey to make sure that we're not in any current continual danger.

And I turn to Rhett and I say, Rhett, get over here. She's in a bad way, man. Come on. So if we're still in initiative because of the death saving throws, I'm going to be like, I'm bleeding out. I'm right here. And while I'm running up, I'm going through the pockets of my sort of like mechanics jump suit,

umaroles thing, right? And in my pocket, I will pull out this, like, almost like this box that has some sort of purple fluids. And it has sort of like this maybe cylindrical, like, pad on it.

And I'm going to lean down, look at her. Although, if I could make a medicine check, you'll sort of similar to check her out to see sort of what I think this poison's doing to her. I would say you can roll it at advantage because Pike is there kind of all getting look.

Nine. Nine. I'd say with a nine, it's very hard to tell, but you get the sense that this is something more advanced than an average poison. It doesn't look like something you'd be able to easily deal with, and it is not finished. is not finished with what it's attempting to do.

Oh, fuck, this is beyond what I've got, this is what I can do for. Since I noticed the blade, the poison blade, I'm gonna go to that room and basically like, there'll probably three little small injectors right over the wound, I'm gonna stab it in and then hit the injector, and it'll inject the medicine

and then they'll just cure wounds on her. Ooh, nice. And she'll heal 12 points of healing. I would say that instead of you healing 12 points right now, that goes into almost like a holding state, as you can stabilize, but the health does not actually land on. Am I stabilized? Or no.

You're stabilized. You don't have to roll a death saving throw, but you're still on a clock. You will say that what Rett has done has bought you an hour. Oh shit. So I don't need Rangay and consciousness. I would say that you are in a very very,

very like, you know. Like a fuse date? Yeah. Think your Griko is Popsicle. You're, like, that's where you're at. You're like a Popsicle anywhere. What the fuck does that mean, Co? I run forward.

Yeah. Hey, hey. Hey, stay with us, bro. Hey, Coe, stay with us. Come on. You don't need a Popsicle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, fucking sake, what flavor?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's blue. Oh, I like that. You want it? Oh, sick. Yeah. Here, here, here. I give you the remainder of my Goodberries, and you heal nine additional points of healing points.

You have 21 health points in a form of escrow. Oh, yeah, that's definitely blue flavor. Hey, hey, Coe, can you hear me? All right? Can you hear me? It's Pike. This is bad Pike. I saw some of the fucking boom, who slipped some sort of blade out. It might have been poisoned.

Damn it. Some kind of fucking toxin. All right, do you think you can stand? Can we get you on your feet? Is this a sea salt ice cream? Why is it some salty? The hypergrids always salty. It's nice to meet you.

My name's Ziggy. But we gotta get her some help somewhere. Is this what angels look like? Ah! What? Holy fuck, what was on that blade? I don't know. How are you feeling?

I don't know. It was poison. I don't know what the fuck they did. I can't. So I'm basically in like a, although I am... How many healing points that you did? But I was... Dude is role playing.

We said... You have 21 points in total. 12 from rent. Nine from Ziggy. So they're almost like... Like, it's kind of... So I have like extreme exhaustion. Yeah.

More or less. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Yeah, got it. Okay. You're feeling, uh, I won't make you roll for it. You're in tune with your own body. Um, you are feeling extremely sapped.

Got it. All right, Cove, listen to me. If you can hear me, we got to talk, all right? We got to get you somewhere safe. Where have you been staying? Where can we take you? Come on, talk to me. I don't, we can't go to the fucking hospitals.

I don't have any fucking insurance. You You guys would think Rhett, you would think that if you could get her back to the Rhapsody you might be able to use your tech, things in the med bay

to at least try and stabilize her to buy more time. Look, all right, I don't have what I need on her, but you know, there's might be some old med tech lying around on the Rhapsody that can do something. I mean, at least someone can fucking scam, or Hank might be able to help out too, unless you have anything that can fucking help her right now.

I can help her, move her. You know, I can, I can check the grid, but I don't know if I can favor or do anything like that. How much time does she have? The Rhapsody's far, man. I mean, hopefully at least an hour, two, maybe. If you can stand, we'll get you in the truck. Let's the fuck out of here.

Mike from here. Yeah, yeah, I'm right here. I'm listening. What's I close? I am, I'm right here. Can you check the kitchen, someone ordered in some pizzas before you guys got here? They might be ready.

I'm so hungry. Oh, it's ready. Chili pizza. The bartender walks out. Is there staff, right? Did somebody order pizza? Silica! Instead of being fully formed like she would be

in the projectors of the Rhapsody, a very, very thinly like barely a hologram, twitching almost, picks up the pizza and lifts it and brings it over. We got the pizzas. All right, come on, here we go. Put your arm around me, come on. I added it to my tab, Johnny, I'm sorry. Don't move her, I got her, I got her, just one minute.

I'm gonna cast Tensors Floating Disc. Oh, shit! What's go? I've never seen that used! This is the perfect opportunity for it. What is it? It's called Tensors Flotting. floating disc, I'm calling it load balancer

and Ziggy's spell. And as a spell, I can create a circular, horizontal plane of force. Three feet in diameter and one inch thick that floats three feet above the ground in an unoccupied space of my choice. It can carry up to 500 pounds. I'd like to create a hypergrid

stretcher. Stretcher. And essentially lift, like have it like emerge from the ground Tron style and lift up as as I produce it, summoning it from the hypergrid. You did. forms starts to lift off as you see this hypergrid almost like hover stretcher

lift off and then co is bigger than this thing is yeah yeah yeah it's like the arms you give me a few extra feet it works it works but definitely like it's kind of like arms and like legs are kind of almost I know I know hang in there a bed that's not quite too big enough is your arm but you're able and this you just carry this on for? Yeah, I would give everyone the permission to essentially push it and move it. You'd be able to essentially move her almost like as a hovering speeder. Yeah. As easy as something like that. Oh, get the truck started. I want to rush ahead and basically open up the cargo bay door.

Sort of ready for all the jump from the driver, see you get the engine warmed up. Johnny, I'm sorry, please don't ban me. I told the red bells they shouldn't fucking come around here anymore and then they came around here. I was contractually obligated to get their ass. I would basically, with Ziggy's help, push Coe on this makeshift magical stretcher to the back of the van once Rhett has like pulled it around so you get it in the back.

Two of you rush out the front door of the Helion, once again, the same way you came in, you start racing down the steps, pushing Coe as this thing kind of as you push it towards Red where he swings the truck back, backs up, gate wide open, ready for you to pop it in, and you just slide coast straight into the back of the truck. While they're loading her in, I'm going to jump out of the car.

One thing I forgot. I'm going to rush in, and I run up to the bar if the guy is still there. Sorry about all that, and I'll take out, like, a large, like, cash clip that has, like, a money clip on it, and I'm going to pull it out, and I'm going to take some, you know, probably give him, you know, a couple hundred bucks, right? Okay, yeah. Okay, yeah. Where it's like, sorry about the damage. But we're getting out of your hair.

And I'll rock that guy. This should cover it. But what about your friend's up? Oh, God. I'm just hoping that, like, he'll be sure. I would stay in the back of the van with Ziggy and Co. While you drop, jump in the driver's seat to try to make, try to talk to her and see if I can figure out where we can go. If I, if I think that, you know, whatever's going to be fastest.

I'll run back out. And if I see that they're all in, I'll slam the, uh, the cargo bay door of the truck down. I'll jump in the driver's seat. And I'll try to fucking go, I don't like, you know, go crazy where I'm endangering everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We want to get the fuck out of it. But we want to get that.

So I'm trying to trace my steps back to, I know that the tunnel we came down was sort of one way that way, so I could find some way that was close that was back up the other way. Roll a quick history check. That's probably that. No, I guess it's a 10.

No, a 9. I'm a little too hot. You're a space pilot. You know how to get back. You retrace your steps. You have the... Yeah, it takes... It definitely takes a little bit of extra time.

A rider or a lift. Do you remember if it was a rider or a lift? Does anybody fucking remember? You're crashing through these dirt streets of the under crust. As you see some of these faded neon lights sailing past you as you're driving with purpose. Oh, co-s in the back. You go for about... Oh, fuck.

Passed out. You're driving for about 20 minutes, and it's all, everything starts to just kind of fade together. The moment's so tense. Just this weird, lingering smell of pizza hits your nostrils is raising the... I'm typing on my Grid Boy, and I'm seeing if I can figure out the directions to get us out of here as fast as possible. But at the same time, an invisible hand is holding a slice of pizza, and I'm just like... Roll a computer check. A computer check.

A computer roll. What is that computer check? A computer check. I've got a plus seven on those. It's a great thing that I rolled. A 14-21! Oh, with the 21. I'd say with that, you're able to kind of like

pull up the maps easily of the area and you plot a course from your current section to that same route that you came down and you're able to feed it up to the display on the truck at the front and you update Retz Nav, and now you have the direct path to get back there. Off laying some of the maybe time you would have lost,

not remembering it yourself. You've been able to kind of pull it up from the... You probably wonder why it took me so long for you to get this information, and it's because I waited for the Google Earth-style animation where it started out as far as the planet, and it slowly zoomed in on the map, and then I immediately got you the information

as soon as I was first off. As you're driving and like swerving around, you're slowly, the car is definitely like creating. I would be doing my best to like stable-up for sure. Oh, okay, got it. No, I did not leave you back there by yourself. You can definitely be moving a lot, but I'd be yelling like, you know,

Rett, settle down, keep it steady, come on. There might be moments where the, where the crate kind of like slides over and like pushes you up against the wall. Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. Sorry, man.

Eventually, it's been about 30 minutes now. You're blasting through the truck, and you see the ramp as it starts to come into view. And just off to the side of it is the section of the tunnel that kind of exits. And you can see that there's a little gate there that kind of looks like it releases people out. And you're driving up. And as you get closer and closer to going up, you see... Two figures that look very similar to the figures you saw when you first got here and you look for directions. And as you race up with the truck, you start to slow down a little bit.

You standing behind them is this almost like, not huge, but certainly a hulking meck. Standing on these kind of large feet, almost like these chicken legs. Kind of like metal gear kind of. kind of exactly like just standing kind of more powerful than Metal Gear standing behind these two badges as you pull up to the Megasolp is exactly what I was thinking the yeah I think it's called the blackboard basically a box on legs yeah yeah yeah exactly right yeah no sorry I'll send it I'll send it to it yeah you got it um and you drive up uh one of the badges will hold up the hand and say Halt.

I'll handle this. I'll handle this. Officer? Yes. Just need to get through, just need to pass, having a bit of a medical emergency. It's just to get back to the top slice. My ship's up there parked to the space.

No problem, citizen. Present your gate pass. What do you... Your gate pass. If you seek passage to the top, you present your gate pass, and we will let you through. Gate pass.

Does anybody? remember us getting the gate pass with a... No, we never got any gate pass, Rhett. Well, hey, oh, hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm Ziggy Moog and I'm a bounty hunter. We, we, we, we, we, we, this is a satisfactory. This is a government issue. See, put that away.

I'll sort of give him a second and see if he's like, oh, of course. Right? Oh, of course. Come up. Gate pass or you stay down here. You're not getting any pizza. Just, I'll handle this.

Ziggy, just chill. All right. I go to do the various glove compartments of this van, and I'm going to go through, this is Reynolds, so I'm sure there's some sort of gate pass in here somewhere. And I tear this, like, the entire front of the truck apart to see if a gate pass came in. Roll an investigation check.

Natural one plus seven is an eight. With an eight. You start rifling through, rifling through all the paperwork, and you finally pull out one, and you flip it. Look at it. Gate pass, gate pass, gate pass. And you see a line that says,

gate pass rental, additional 40 notes a day. Unchecked. Oh, fuck. Oh, God, we added the insurance. I didn't think about this. Looks like we don't have a gate pass, but I'm happy to pay you 40 notes a day for a week. No gate pass, no movement.

citizen. Turn back. Look, look. There's a very serious medical event happening in the back of this truck, and I just need passage. Is there anything I can do? Something very serious is always happening. Turn back.

And as he says it, the mech now will kind of start to turn towards you. All right, yes sir. Not away. And and I'm back to fuck up. I literally.

We waste no time, and I get back on the road going the other way. Red, what did they say? Come on. We don't have a fucking gate pass. They won't give us one? No, we're fucking trapped down here. How the fuck do we get a gate pass? I might be able to forge one. It'll take 24 hours.

I have to succeed at DC-25 check three times. I can just get back on the road. All right, all right, all right. You fucking figure out where we're going. Yeah, this is fine. Come on, Co. Are you still with me? Come on, and I'm going to give you like a light tap on your cheek. Fucking badges are useless. Come on, open up your eyes. Look at me. Look at me. Be all right? Talk to me. Where are you staying? Where are you staying? Where are you staying? Do you have an address? Directions, anything. Give me an address. Give me something. Give me something.

grab my wallet. Okay, and I'm gonna see if I can, do you have like a chain or something that might be hanging from your belt? It's a sick shame. It's in my vest. It's a sick shave. Then I'm definitely gonna pull on that

to see if it'll pull out your wallet. Yeah, there's like a demon snake. There's like a demon snake. Bad motherfucker. Yeah, bad motherfucker. Exactly. It's in my best. I'll open it up and I'll go through it. There's no pockets on my leg.

To see what I can find. Yeah, yeah. I think that there would be a hastily written note that in penmanship that is way nicer, almost like beautiful, calligraphic an address to a tenement

building. I'm in an apartment number. I'm going to take that piece of paper and I'm going to kind of like try to pick your head up a little bit. Just oasis up a little bit. Look at this. Look at this. Is this right? Is this it? Yeah. All right. And I'm going to gently put you back down and I'm going to like get to the front of the van even though it's

jostling and I'm going to hand you the slip of paper. We've got to go here, all right? Take us Here. Get- Take this. Whoa, oh, the address, hold on. I need directions. Mrs. Umey. I plug it into Space Map Quest.

And I endeavor to find this location based on the address that Mike's written down. You do so. You do the same thing, you re-upgate adding stop as you add the address into the Navfer, who co- has said is Mrs. Ume, I get a 19 computers check. Well, perfect. You're able to accomplish it.

You punch it in, and the nav updates, and you're racing through. Once again, the dull faded neon glows of signs. Thank you, Silicon. Thank you, Sylocke. Thank you, sir, okay. Thank you, Zilke. Ramp, in 500 speed.

Thank you, so like 30 minutes goes by. The tension rising is you know that every moment that passes, Coe is fading deeper and deeper in the back of this truck as you're tearing up these roads to get to your destination. And you start to see this kind of like four-story brown, building with this kind of like almost rust degradation kind of climbing up the bottom of it. Not in great shape as you hear arriving at your destination. As you're able to pull the truck in, windows stretch up kind of identifying every floor that you might be able to stay in here.

As you screech to a halt, you've arrived. at the building you saw. All right, we gotta get her up. Come on. Okay. We just push. Yeah, then I would basically, yeah, as soon as Red throws open the back of the van here,

then Ziggy and I would try to push Coe out gently on this floating device and try to get her towards the front door of this apartment building. You do so. You are able to move through, you get her to the front door, you throw it open. And these dim hallways run the length of the room. On the other side, you see a sign hanging just crooked off to the side.

It looks like stairs. And you're heading to the third floor, I think. We've got the address. You have the address. You're heading up to the third floor as you rush to make your way. Dim lights hang on either end of the wall in strips as you make your way down. You reach the staircase, you swing open the door and this, like, rank smell hits. You just like stale air as you look to take every turn in this like square rise of a staircase as you go up.

You finally reach the third floor and you race down to the apartment number and you find it. You find yourself standing in front of this door. Once we're at the door, I'd pound on it and say, Mrs. Zume, Mrs. Jume were friends of Co. Let us in. Come on. And the door slowly opens, and in front of you, you see another, like, much smaller. She's probably no more than, she's shorter than Zee. She's probably like 5.2. Kind of this, you would think at one point had this kind of like orangish fur, but the color is definitely faded.

The white undertones have turned kind of to gray as this, she bit new inspired Lika answers the door. And she says, oh, what's all this noise here? Almost like squinting through glasses, and she has a little bit of a walking cane as she comes out, and she's wearing almost this, like, pink, like, nighting gown. She was relaxing in the house.

seeing the layout of all of you in front of her. Some of you also probably like a little bloodied and co on this floating stretcher. Oh, come in, come in. Oh, we're going to straighten away. Oh, come in. She got in a fight, and we're worried that she's been poisoned. Poisoned?

Who are you going to fight with? The red belts. Oh, this isn't good. Well, bring her in and I'll see what I can do. We push her into the apartment. She said she doesn't have any insurance and we should bring her here to you. If there's anything going to do, save her, save her. Oh, it's okay.

Calm down. I'll see. I have a couple herbal medicinals. I'll see if we can get her back up. I've used what med tech I have, my abilities with what I have on me. And at this point, I do have my full, the whole, you know, all my tech on me with the grab cannon, like, loaded up. to at, I brought it with me so he wasn't sitting in the truck. I've done what I can, but it was some kind of poison blades

you got stuck with. You, she'll point at Pike. Cut that flower off that plant and bring it over to me. Sure. She'll start, she'll go to the, like, sink, and this is a very, like, quaint apartment. Some minor drapes, very, like, low, low means, just sink some general just like cabinetry off to the side. Nothing really flashy.

But there are, what it does add like a touch of hominess and niceness is around the room there are these kind of like hanging potted plants that droop out with this greenery and have flowered into these like beautiful almost like collection of like cherry blossom-esque kind of sections of flower. And that's what she directs you to cuddle. Yeah, I would try to find a pair of like shears or something to just gently see if I can... Yeah, you can just on the table, like right under the plant.

There's a side, there's like a little, looks like kind of gardening setup. And you can find shears and you can clip off a section of this flower. Done? I do that. Quickly, quickly. Over to me. And she'll be at the sink, and she'll turn on this water. And at first you'll see it'll kind of start to pour out. Oh, this will take a couple minutes.

It pours out and it not quite as dark, but it's almost that like color of the river where it's kind of like this brownish water. And she takes this kind of kit as she gathers the water and she goes and kind of like starts to strain it, and she goes through and it's heating it up, and is working to kind of like purify the water, you get the sense, before she goes through.

She takes the flower from Pike and starts to crush it into a little glass. She grinds it down. It's about four or five minutes before she's able to kind of purify this water. and she pours it in and starts to stir it together. Here, give it to her. I would take it, and I would basically, I'd handle it as Ret.

I feel like Red would be, you know, most capable of delivering this. You know, I don't know, I just trust him. Well, I think just about making her drink. I feel like you're probably better student from this. I mean, you have that personal connection. Somebody give it to her for me if it takes. She's dying on the floor. Damn it, Rhett.

And I'll try to again. gently lifter the best that I can to try to sit you upright, the best of my ability, and an attempt to try to pour this down your throat. I will presumably take a point of it. Yeah, you will. This aromatic hot water hits the back of your throat as it starts to pour through and it travels down and it lands in your stomach. And once it hits your stomach, you feel this like, warm tendrils kind of almost like crash out to all other sections of your body as you start to feel

the effects of this poison lesson and you take five health points of the 21 pool that's waiting on you in healing. Oh great. As you truly begin to start stabilizing. Thank you for listening to the Legends of a Ventress podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session. If you want even more campaigns to listen to, become a member of our Patreon at the Pearl Dolphin Tier Hire to unlock

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