Legends of Avantris - Stardust Rhapsody: Overture | Ep. 14 | Am I Evil?

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

The crew of the Rhapsody returns to the heart of Aurora and confronts the darkness within...   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/9kPoB7aNo1Q?si=g-0o-jSt-zF-MzX-

Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Pike, and you're listening to Stardust Rhapsody. Here's what happened last time. I feel a little off. Oh gosh, we have that stuff in the ice. I am somehow attached to this planet thing. I can feed on this planet. We've got a serious problem.

I just passed overhead of the temple that we left before. There seems to be a black river flowing from the ruins of the temple. I neutralized the creatures. What happens when you become more of that stuff than you are of your stuff? Well, gang, looks like you can't get anything done without me. Here's to my fans. Does anybody else feel that? Are you all right?

Yeah, they're just visions. It's not real, it can't be. As we get closer to whatever is at the core of this, things can get a little weird. The water falls from the ceiling, and you realize as you move closer that it's not striking the ground, it's striking an enormous sea of black water. The surface, completely undisturbed, as the droplets fall, a chill creeps up your spine. Space. You know they say that every life is a note in the music of existence? Well, like any song, there's that first chord. The moment the jam comes on and it touches your heart

soul. Every song has that first note. Every song has a beginning. And this beginning is discordant. Wait. Wait a second. That's not right. No, it's, uh, it's empiric. Wait. That's not what I meant to say. Ah. Oh. Do you feel that? Oh, it's. Oh, it's. Oh, it's. It's Sorian. No. No. It's not. Why can't I think?

Name. Oh, no. It's space. Good luck. Fighting back to save Pike's childhood home, the crew takes their next mission, infiltrate and cleanse, or destroy Aurora. They send Labouche first as a scout. Quickly, he realizes that he has the ability to absorb and cleanse the land momentarily empowering himself.

The crew shortly joins Labush planet side. Stepping out onto the planet, they sent something, watching them, from just beyond the horizon. Making their way across the corrupted, frozen land, they find a figure from their past, the kingwin. A heated battle ensues. grappled by dark spears, the party grappled by dark spears, sighs heavily as Rex rides in and saves the day. After laying low their old comrade, they reveal a much larger scar in the world. Labouche, consuming this, gets a much bigger boon as the dark energy swirls all about him. He knows now for certain they can win.

they simply have to find the source of the corruption. Continuing onward, as they're faced once more with the on the looming site of the ancient Sorian temple, following old footsteps, they find the mouth of the ice wall exactly where they left it, but with one new addition, a hole that leads to a deep darkness. Descending down it, they're faced with a reality ripped straight from their nightmares, a large black ocean. From the bottom of your spine to the base of your neck, a familiar chill takes hold as you look out to the force that's drowned you so many times before.

Droplets fall from stalactites on the ceiling. No sound is made as they strike the ground, hitting the extending black sea as it reaches out seemingly endlessly in front of you as they hit its surface never disrupted solely absorbed you look just beyond the light casting the light from Pike's finger casting a glow that just barely gives you visibility to the other end making your way around the edge of this cavern one more opening at the very far side of what looks like a waterfall filling this space oh my god well fuck this doesn't look good was this black sea always here

we never went through the temple started to come down so we never went we This is the furthest we've been by like a long shot. This is definitely the furthest you've been. I think you did explore the ice originally right afterwards. And the in which Labush had been blown apart when you went in, I think you went as far as you could and you met just solid ice on the other side. That's right. But with no further time to explore as the temple was crashing down around you,

Um, you, you did leave. Whatever you fucking do, don't get near there. I won't touch it. Just tell me where are the sources so that I can do something. It looks like it's coming from there. And I'll point, uh, my finger to where the opening for that waterfall is coming out. I agree. I think it looks like it's pouring out of there.

I mean, it's, it's, it's, So eerie, the way it just pours into this, unmoving. Something's got to be feeding it, though. How difficult does it look like to get up? How many feet up is this waterfall, the opening? How difficult does it look like it would be to get up in there? You would have to, so it's a little bit of a ramp as it moves around one side of the, of the room as it goes up. And then when you come to this cascading waterfall that fills into this pool,

It's kind of like crashing water that comes out, but as it hits the sea down at the base unmoving. Not like, not ripples coming out, no change in the level of the water, even where the waterfall itself crashes down into the collected, this collected underground reservoir. It's like the exact opposite of like laminar flow. I don't know how we're gonna get up in there to even see where this is coming from. All those little fishy-looking guys would look like they would swim in. You think there's like a whole bunch of those little fuckers down there? Well, if... On second thought, if there's a place for me to stand up there,

if I can get within shot, I could easily blink up there. But I don't want to land in the water. I mean, I can walk along the ceiling on the walls if we need to and take a closer look. with her look. I mean, how slick is it? Your shoes gonna stick? Well, they don't call them sticky, quicker in for nothing. Let me demonstrate. And I do a bait. I lean far back, and I just take my, and I attempt to walk up the wall. If I'm imagining this correctly. You do that, but you're at one side of currently this large, ravenous opening. You'd have to walk all the way around the rim of the, uh, this, this reservoir to get to the other side and then walk up where the waterfall is.

Do we think we can take the time? It's going to be a bit of thrill to get all the way around. I don't see what else we're going to do. We've come this far. We have to see where that water's coming from. What happens if you slip? Well, just save all of my games. for dandy when she comes back. Also burn my room and delete my brother. Hips, right? Let's get as close as we can. And then we'll make sure you don't fall in, all right?

Okay. Man, I think you stuck a rag in my mouth. Oh yeah, I did. It was filthy. I didn't clean it. Oh. Anyway, I think it's a thing. I think it's Rifti our only chance to take a look with over. I can't...

My magic don't go that far, but I can walk. What do we think? There's only one way forward. I can see. Okay. Well, then, let's say you get across. Yeah. Then what?

I'll radio you and see what I see. All right. And again, if it's within jumping distance, I can instantly give him backup. It's like... really far away. No, no, I mean, I'm talking about from the lift up to the waterfall. Oh, once you get there, he can, like, hop up to it. Yeah. Okay. I'll be right back. It may take me while. Okay.

We should all go to the waterfall. You can all walk to the... You all move to the base of the waterfall. Oh, I see. There's like a pathway that leads to the waterfall. Oh, we can all walk together. Never mind. He would have to walk up the wall into the hole. Easy. Yes. Oh, we all walk together. Yeah, yeah. Easy. Okay. Well, help them have come off. board. Let's all go walk in reflective phylo. I still keep the light glowing so that we have light as we walk along the side of this lake.

You do so. It's pool. I'm going to walk on the inside of the ramp. I want to put myself between the party. And the reservoir. Yeah. You do that. Wait.

What? Meaning what? If any of you are in danger, I know that this stuff likes me most. And so, LeBloos is thinking, I'm going to be able to put my hand into it if one of you should fall or be attacked or something like that. He wants to walk, he wants to walk traffic side. Yeah, I'm going to walk traffic side. I see this.

What the fuck did I just tell you? I'm in a giant piece of armor. This stuff makes me stronger. And yeah, you tap that thing, the entire thing. shloops into you, and all of a sudden you're some horrible Labush monster that either we need to fucking kill or kills us anyway. We don't know that. Yeah, we don't know that, but let's not fucking risk it.

Take a step back. Yeah, Labush, if you consume an ocean of ooze, you're going to turn into a giant monster, the size of a planet and we'll have to fight you flying through spaces a badass rock song plays. About living and learning. Oh, my God. That would be really cool, actually. But don't do it.

I gotta say, that sounds pretty cool. That sounds really cool. But we care about you. As cool as that would be. If cool as it would be, I agree with Brett. Trying to protect you guys. We know it's very noble, but look in me. Do I look like I need protection?

A little bit of drool, like starts to go from the corner of your mouth. One eye, like, twitches a little. A fly. Do I look like I need protection? I'll just walk normal. No, you've stayed along the fucking wall as far away as you can from all that. Yeah.

Let's get as close as we can to the waterfall, and then Chuckles, test your footing. Don't just go for it, you'll fall in. Okay, I'll be very careful. LeBoo's, what I like to do when I walk against the wall is take my finger and a little man will be walking alongside me. Can you do that? Won't that be fun?

Libush, what is the name of your little man? What? Libush, you got to name your little guy. What? It's like, you know, when you're passing by city, then you imagine the little guy running along the top of the building. Do you ever do that? No, what's the name of your little guy who's walking on the wall along?

I don't have a name for the little guy? It will go out of the name. Let me know. Tell him. John. John. John's doing, make sure John doesn't stop walking along. fight of the wall. Okay?

You're doing great, John. Okay, here we go. And you carry forward. The cold air of Aurora is not so biting at this depth. As you move down, down through the planet, closer to its core, you almost get a sense of

warming. The air around you is murky and hangs heavy. That sense of pressure, almost like you've swum too deep in the ocean. As you place your hands against the cavern wall, cool and wet to the touch. You walk John, you walk John on the wall's edge. as you progress forward. The sides of the wall, a strange, deep, but dark ocean blue.

And it doesn't quite feel like any rock you've touched before. Feels more organic, more almost at times sharp. You carry on for the couple of minutes it takes to get to the other side of this reservoir. And you reach the cascading black waterfall as its dark liquid pours over the edge of this overhang.

That is about 30 feet up in the air. By the time we get reached the end, I'll have gotten really into the John. my wrist will stop at his head, but it'll be an extremely humanoid body with clothes and his own saunter and he's riding a skateboard He's doing kickflips Man, Sean's looking so hip and fluid He could be in an iPod

Poor, good job, Lerooch Yeah, I give him a wife Two little kids, got a dog Oh, look out at the Carbans truck Oh no. Maybe you're going to eat the kind. Never mind, I'm kidding. Okay, here we are.

I'm just going to take a quick look. I'll holler if I need you to bloop up there, okay? I take a look at the opening, and I look back to Jockels and say, yeah, I can make it. And I'm going to take a few steps back and kind of like, you can see that I'm eyeing it up and I'm like getting ready to make a move.

Okay. Jekyllum. Labouche. If you can divert the flow of the waterfall with some object, we can jump up there. Whoa, I think we might be able to do that. Okay, before I go, Rex, I have one question for you. Fire away, Jockels. How do you imagine it'll feel when the boss is flaying off the skin of your fingers?

Anyway, goodbye. What the hell? Well, I imagine that would hurt pretty bad For you I haven't been able to feel my fingers in years I wish I don't have any skin Just clown flesh glove

Okay, I'm gonna walk up And I'll keep like a wide berth Kind of keep an eye on it Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak Squeak, sweep, sweep. You're moving up the side of this waterfall, and you get towards the top where it's pooling over the ridge line, and you're able to get to the top,

and right before you get there, you hear like a low whimpering sound coming from the mouth of this space, and as you get just a little closer, and you flatten out, You get just above the water line, you turn, and you start to walk a little bit closer. You peer into an extension of the cave where this river line extends forward and dog legs off to the right, beyond view. Just on the other side of this room, you see a wounded snow wolf. Guys, you're never going to believe this.

What is it? There's no monster down here just to pull a little puppy dog. off and it's part of the dog leg. Are you sure it's not an illusion? What? What? An illusion. It's one of those wolves. Remember we killed a bunch of them?

I'm sure that's kind of... Remember that? Hey, a little puppy, puppy, if you... the code word, the code word for you to come up and help me out is... Oh, fuck, I'm dying, I'm dying. Please help.

Wait, Chuckles. Is there anywhere for me to even land up there? Oh, did they play? Right, so the waterfall that's pouring out over the opening, as it gets up there, the room does kind of walk out to the sides. So there's space on the right and left, immediately to the side of the water as it's rolling over. Okay, yeah, immediately to the right from the little hole,

I don't think you'll fall in and get swept away if you boop up there. But maybe we should try to turn it off before you try to. So you don't get swept away and turn into a scary shogoff, man. Okay. Okay, I guess. Okay. Off the pike. What, chapples?

I miss my wife, bike. I miss her a lot. No, Brett just sees me do this. I'll be back. I'll go into the pool. I'm going to walk up. Oh, hey, you little wolf, ice wolf. Hey, what happened a couple weeks ago or overlonged been?

It's all bygones, right? You're all right. Roll an animal handling, Jack. I handpike another piece. I'm going to pull out a balloon, and it'll be a white balloon. Can this one bypass all of Juckles communication? Mute. I'm going to tie it into like the cartoonious cartoon bone.

that you would see a cartoon dog eating, and I'll wave it around. Oh, it's okay, puppy dog. I'll roll the animal handling check right now. Oh. Oh, you've one twiff. I was going to grab him. No. Oh, that's not bad.

Hold on. That could be worse. Oh, I wish I had my character sheet up this whole time. What are you guys talking about? Well, let me be on my... Oh, it's just the wolf! You know, Pike, credits don't grow on trees. I'm sorry, Rhett.

I just can't stand listening to Juggles talk about his wife. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of miserable and depressing. But at least if these are our final moments, we get a brief fucking respite. Do we really think a space wolf is down here? I'm not convinced. He could be hallucinating. I'm just waiting for the words. I kind of.

It's a Star Wolf. Bah, ba, ba, ba, ba. You, wolfy, wolfie. What did you roll? Oh, a 17. Oh, you guy. With a 17, You are animal handling effectively well extremely well extremely effectively. I'll say

The wolf turns previously facing away from you as it moves closer to you to come to the bone It limps its back right leg clearly hurt broken possibly from a fall getting down this far You're pretty craving you realize as you've beckoned it to you that its only path to get to you is through the river. And as it comes to the river's edge, a tendril fires out from the water and pierces its throat. And instantly... Back up! Those are the words! Those weren't the word! I just look to ret and I go...

Instantly, it slumps dead. You're muted. On the edge of a black spear. Plus he said he was gonna be, oh fuck, oh fuck. I should be screaming. We're gonna hear him. He's like 30 feet away. Anyway, but what happens? Slumps over?

It slumps over as the black spear pierces its throat. Oh my gosh, are you okay? God, you're never gonna believe him. The wolf is dead. What do you mean? It's dead, Charles. Oh, it got killed by his room.

It got killed by the ooze. The ooze speared it. Oh, wow. Maybe you should dip back down here then. I think I killed the wolf by proxy. The ooze? Yeah, the ooze. The ooze. It walked.

How? How? It walked. I wanted it to come closer, and it turned out the ooze killed with a spike. You can make spikes from the fucking water. Yes, yes, yes. Stay away from the water. Uh. Is everything else okay?

Boy, I guess like a thing. All the clothes are doing. No. God. It's as you... Keep on going. Keep going deep out. Something's wrong, Rhett.

There has to be a reason why we haven't been instantly killed. It's as you move closer to inspect the wolf. Instead of the spear, pulling it into the water, casting it away, moving it back. It seems for a moment to pulse something up the... spear and into the form of the wolf. It then begins to gyrate and vibrate, impaled on the end of this point, until it opens its eyes and they are jet black. Guys? Yeah, what? I think it's a monster now. I think it's a monster.

Do you need help? Rolled dexterity saving throw. I was like, get ready to shoot as I'm going to attempt to whip out from my hat a rolled up black

rabbit hole as I'm going to attempt to cast Vortex warp on it to send it back towards the mouth of the waterfall. All right, we're roll the dexterity saved. Also check on the bits. 23. second.

23. Okay. And what are you trying to do? I'm, oh wait. Not 23. 20. Yeah. 23.

Okay. It's pretty fucking good. I'm trying to basically, if I had time, I would try to vortex warp it towards the waterfall and then try to kick it out, kick it off of the,

use an ability to blast it off into the water. Or at least basically now towards the waterfall to where basically pike would be an, anyone will just blast the shit out of us. I would say, Vortex

Warp opens a space and it allows you, like, it's coming in and you move it just elsewhere? I can basically take it and I point that and another point I can say, so back behind me, you're just dropping it to the lake. Yeah. If you really want to do it. It's a flat surface. It has to be, it can't be midair. I see.

Mm. Right? Like the ceiling. Like above the holes that's hot out. So I believe technically the ceiling does not count as a surface according to to the surface that you can stand. on it. Yes. So you can pop it up. You have sticky squeakers. You can stand on the ceiling. Well, if I'm

allowed to have it be the ceiling, but then I would just keep just dropping things. And I think that technically the intention of that the rules is intended is not at the edge. At the edge so that you can see a wolf monster. Ideally, it'll get washed out or whatever. But basically that is my intention to basically have it be

snapped from there behind me so that it hopefully gets washed out to see. And like a bullet, almost like the spear throws the wolf at you. It lunges towards you and you're able to produce this, you're able to produce this black hole opening in front of you as you extend out one of your Roger Rabbit tears. And it zooms through it and from the other end, wherever you choose to produce it, the wolf will come flying out.

I'm going to try to get it as close to the waterfall. My intention is to just basically have it get rushed out to the huge reservoir and fall into the water and get combined in the ooze. I would say that as the waterfall is cascading down, you walked up directly parallel to it. If you want, you can put it against the wall behind the waterfall. And so if it's shooting out, it'll shoot out directly into the waterfall. Yes, that's my perfect.

Yep. Oh, this is your coming towards you guys. It's the monster now. It's the monster to me. It's flung forward into the hole you send it directly. Everyone else will see as a form. You almost can't catch it, but a form from behind the waterfall, slams into the black ikor and almost stretches it out as it crashes immediately down into the pooling mass of black liquor.

liquid, once again without even a splash, just disappearing beneath the level of the water. Silent? Just like, almost like, you would hear, you would hear this wailing cry of this wounded wolf as it is sent into the waterfall, but as it crashes into the water below, silent. I would say I wouldn't even have time to... I'd be too stunned at what I'm seeing. I wouldn't even take a shot. I would have, like, misjudged where it was coming out.

And then I would have, like, followed it down into the water and been like, chuckles, now what? What did you do? I took care of the monster. It's now in the pile of goo. Okay. I'm going to keep going. It was the wolf.

died and turned to a monster and I got rid of it. What in the hell? Okay, I'm gonna proceed forward. How do you get down here? Something doesn't add up here, Red. You move forward deeper into the cavern. You followed the dog leg right of this turning reservoir and it breaks once more into a room. But this one, very firmly, the ground, the walls ahead of you, not a flat surface, but it doesn't quite seem like there's no more opening. The water runs beneath that dark blue substance that's now very obviously comprising the walls and the ground beneath you. cold, wet to the touch. The room here, guys.

I feel like if I keep going forward, I'm going to die. So I'm going to come back and let you guys up. Yeah. You're right. Come back. Okay. Okay, guys. Squeak, sweet.

Sweet. I feel like the fireman's ladder will do the trip. Oh, oh. I use a song of creation to create a fireman ladder. You do so. Out of your hat, you pull out this giant red ladder that hangs out over the edge that kind of attaches to the side of the wall

and extends down so that anybody can climb up it. Hold on, Hank. And as you'll see on the side of it, it'll say Space Sector 777FD. Oh. Yeah. I hope there are any fire that would be there

that would help and any high floors can the ladder. Can the ladder support me? I guess I'll give it like a quick like sort of check before I make my way up. You could probably stretch your

monkey bar up there just climb in, right? I'll just grab onto the top and pull myself up in one of the pole. Yeah, you do that. Rex will take hand over hand to climb the ladder as well. Pike may be just ahead of him. Brett ascends. You all follow, you see just a little sprinkling on the other bank of this turn in the river.

Little red, almost not sand, but little red droplets where the wolf, was impaled. You follow along this turn in the cavern when once again you enter kind of a room but this with a solid wall at the other side,

the river of darkness running beneath it. Damn it. How deep do you think this goes? The river itself? Yeah, the river. What else would be fucking talking about? Okay. Yeah, idiot.

Yeah. You're lucky we don't throw you into the soup. I smack wrecks on the back of the head. Well, Red, I thought he might be talking about the cavern system to the source. How much further to the end? A classic pike question. Are we there yet? Well, I don't think that's at all what he said.

I mean, it's not even close. I mean, I have just... Anyway, I don't know how deep it is. What do you know about the viewer here? Do you have any information? Can you make yourself useful? Why don't we just chain you up and throw you in with Mad Dog and have you starved to death? Listen, we're on the same side here until this is resolved.

Why? How are we on the same side? Well, because I didn't put a bullet in the back of your head when I showed up. I freed you from the King's Grasp. I also didn't force you to take oyster shooters. and have you puking jitter dough almost together. Yeah. Keeping track.

And the booge also wasn't there at all. Okay. We also just spent two hours looking at the jiggly pancake in the trash game. I still, Pike is just so confused. There's just this quizzical look on Pike's, like, stuic-face where he's just like, he looks at Red. Look, I hope you're fucking here, because you feel some, sense, a personal responsibility for what's happened.

Are you sure? There's no other bits of information that you're leaving out from the boss. Not a bit. Guy, I don't think you can trust the boss. What? Yeah, his dude is way too big for him. He's clearly a terrible child's quality. Anyway, I'll walk along the wall

or whatever we have to do to get on to the next challenge. I don't think that's going to work here. Oh, shit. We're going to have to go in or find some other way through. How far crosses it to the next? It goes under... The river runs under, like, a strange wall. This almost glimmers, not with multiple colors,

but it kind of glimmers as the one. light if you're still producing. Oh yeah, yeah. Strikes it. I can cast it, it will. Like dancing, dancing, reflecting in the ocean light. It almost casts a kind of

watery paw all around the room as it bounces the light back and forth. I'm feeling little tap down, guys. My Motley and Magic, I may have been a little too frivolous as it's bending myself. I think maybe one of us should go in

to test it out. So I understand the setting, right? Is that basically we've gotten to the point where the river, it like goes underground, more or less. And so we'd have to swim in there. I think, and there's nothing further up. There's nothing, there's like cliff way up above or anything, just a flat wall.

Just kind of like a flat, jagged wall ahead of you. resembles coral. I could try through stretch out and touch the wall. Nothing of a bullshit that's gonna turn you into... It's not the igor.

It's gonna turn you into a Shaw golf girl with no, no rangoon. No rangoon. No rangoon. No rangoon. That would be

not W. Riz. You understand what I mean. I think we throw wrecks in there and see what happened. happens to them. We're all like... No, we're just open-lit-drager. I'm standing right here.

Yeah, I think maybe LaBucci needs throw Rex in there. All right. Throw in in. Oh, fine, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'm a motley and... Right.

I can handle a lot of crazy as shit. No, we throw in Rex before you go in. Yeah, but he's like, he'll also... If it's also cool, we can't trust what he says, right? I thought you meant that you were going to be the one to throw him in. No, I'll go in myself. No.

There must be a reason why we haven't been attacked. Everything we've seen hasn't exactly been humanhood. Now, I'm not saying that this planet is anything other than unpopulated, but what if it's only going for beasts and things? Oh. You also said that this planet drew your friend here. Is it possible it wants him to get to the source? Why did you say something?

smart, you big idiot. Oh, well, you know, I'm just thinking. It couldn't have brought him here and allowed him through. Whoa. And then keep him away in the final moment. LaBouche. Gosh, I hope that's in the case. That would make me really mad.

But if you walk towards the wood and it'd be really cool, if the ooze parted to let you through and all your friends, and then rest would be right, I'm really mad, but why don't you try it? I will give it a shot if we all agree. I mean, just don't touch it. You can get close. I'll pull my hand in so that all I have on this side is like just a wrist.

And this suit should protect me. Most of me from space, it might protect me here. steadily like get over to the edge of the river just at the wall as close as I can get and then I will lift one foot and I will start to lower it down presuming that the river might separate or react or something along those lines I'll get it as close as I can and maybe hold it there just to see if it at least starts to the Prince of Egypt starts to play and separate and you know I'm testing.

You move forward. You're lumbering steps, shaking everything about you, but every step you take closer and closer and closer to the river's edge, it is serene. It flows by its own desire. As you move close to the wall and the mouth of this river, you dip your hand in and as you place it in

it responds to you a familiar type of pull a tug of war as something tries to claim the power in front of you but this reservoir

belongs to another and you cannot absorb it but it cannot absorb you as you steady yourself one hand against the wall of coral in front of you. You see another moment down in deep black waters at the very bottom of an ancient sea, a clearing where strange figures gather

surrounded by jagged razor black coral. And as you place your hand against the wall, its life responds to you, responds to your beckoning. And it begins to recede and open and move aside. What my hell? It wasn't a wall at all. It worked. So it was like coral that like moved out of the way.

It's almost like living coral that moved away as he touched it. Recognizing, recognizing, nothing. Something. It just moved away. Whoa. Booshed out with the maiding. Gosh, I hate the wrestles right.

How did you know to do that? When I got closed, I felt compelled to touch. the surface of the river and when I did it showed me a vision figures in black coral like the portal we now go through this isn't quite the same coral as if it's a false imitation of a pure form you saw in your vision as if it's attempting to replicate itself was different. The wall here, the pale imitation of what I am seeing, what it is showing me.

We can keep going then. So is it basically more of the, so that now it's open, and the river we can still walk alongside of it. Okay. All right, well, don't just touch stuff willy-nilly, but I guess now you can start touching more stuff. I think we've got to lead off, Flabusch. I meant to step in.

And then I found my hand touching the surface. I feel in control, but I... Labush, Lidav. You were meant to be here. This was all meant to happen. Yeah. Never a dull day, Honore. No.

I'd like just one. I'll take a big, a bound breath. And I will... Start to make my way How big is the actual Opening here? I still am in my like mech suit mind, so I'm like

Thinking I'm like ducking down at this point and having to like kind of almost It's like giant Golden Like coin blocking of El Dorado Rolls out of the way of coral As it's a pretty Substantially large opening It's about ceiling

ceiling height As it recedes upwards down to the side as it takes place back against the wall. Probably about 12 feet high. Does it look like I can walk through the space

without touching the river or am I going to have to like waist deep this bit or is it like totally separate? It's tight on one side trying to stick to a side but if you kind of gripped the wall and moved it around it, what you see in front of you is is not too, well, a much larger cavern opening.

And the river runs to a spot on the opposite side that is a dark black open hole. There could be more drops. We might have to go deeper into the planet. As we're walking or moving slowly towards where you're describing, I looked at red and I say, If we ultimately have to destroy whatever we find, you think that could do it? I point to the reactor that's in his chest.

Or is it going to take us with it? I don't think I hear this. I'm like talking. I'm afraid to entertain that thought. But if we need to, I could do it. And just be one more daring escape, right? I don't think I'd be escaping. the rest of you.

Unless I can think of some way to delay it. I'm not going to leave you behind. It'll just be one more daring escape. Just like always. All right, Pike. All right.

I'll start proceeding and just kind of thinking internally. Where'd you get that thing from? None of your fucking business. Yeah, what do you do with Brett's bust by the? the way, not to drudge up old thing. What happened to it? None of your fucking business.

What? It's rent ship. Well, not when I was through with it. Oh. Oh. Oh. It's like a Jackson Pollock in there. I'm kidding. Oh. I've been proceeding forward and I'm like probably a quite a bit ways farther down the tunnel now if you guys are just talking and whispering. So you can just hear me, my voice

echoing. It's It's crap crazy down here. Come on, you guys. It's fine. It's fine. Okay, it's gonna be fine. Just think about the boss slowly removing his fingernails. And the toenails. Okay. We're coming. We're coming, Lebooch. Did you make that yourself?

Looks Etherdorf. Who else do you think fucking made it? Jackass? Well, you know, it doesn't look quite Etherdorf. You all are usually a little more, well, perfect. Something about that. Your... Mama made you pretty, but she didn't make you very smart, did she? Hurtful words, Rhett.

I made it, but no, it ain't Etherdorf tech. Yeah. What do you know about it? No, nothing. Don't make me fucking beg. Let me guess. You found it with Mad Dog. And?

So what if we did? How about this? We get out of here live. I'll tell you everything I know. You're still alive, ain't you? Yeah. We're not quite out of here yet, though. One last thing to do.

I guess at this point, none of us make it. None of it fucking matters. If we get out of here, we will. be having a discussion about the bus. Well, that's fine by me. And you move deeper into this cavernous room once again. The river runs to this dark black open hole at the other side. And when you get there, you find your journeys come to an end.

Nothing extends deeper than where you are now. you're faced with a still small pool like the epicenter everything runs from here

and this is bubbling is the Thorth this is the end of the line unless we jump in I think LeBusch you need to punch it or something

no no we're not gonna punch it Let's take a fucking look. Come on, Pike. He would like to respectively investigate and perceive. Hands in pockets. Like me normally do. Falling closely. Get a ladle.

Following closely next to Red, we'll take a few steps forward and right to the edge. I take a look around where we're standing. Are there any loose pebbles or rocks? Sure. As we approach, without even thinking

I just kind of kick one in. It's the hecky-sacid. Yeah, I just like, just, just, and just have it tumble into this bubbling pool. Roll a perception check. A disadvantage. Oh, I would be less honored.

If pools could frown. That's pretty fucking good. My low is a 14 plus 7 is 21. With a 21. You and Red walk up to the edge of this kind of like almost a lollipopped section of a river at the back here. It runs to this side and then extends

just in a nice little circle. A radius, a diameter of about 15... Three squares. 15 feet. Oh. Maybe like 20, 25 feet. It's big. You kick this pebble in.

And it hits the river, it hits the pool's surface. And it pauses for a moment until it sinks and sinks and sinks. And just before it disappears under the water's edge, you can't see, but gosh, you swear you could. Something grabs it. Hello, you're red. There's something in there. I'll like grab you and I'll try to push you back. What the fuck you're mean there's something there.

I'm not so sure, but I could have sworn I saw something grab that pebble. Fuck. This is getting interesting. Just hold on. I'll grab like a little, it's like a little glass like canister and I'll pass it to one of my arms that will reach down. Let's go! We'll reach down and then scoop up a little bit. And I want to try to take it out and look at it.

And just inspect it. And if I can run any tests on it with my mobile lab on my back. This is how Rhett dies. I'm going to go get some popcorn. You extend this arm with a vial into the section of pool. And you scoop up this liquid. Once again, it doesn't break the surface. It doesn't cause tension.

it doesn't send ripples, almost like you're scooping a solid object. You just kind of shim the top. And then as you go to write the glass and you begin to pull it out, you pull a bit of liquid until the vial was just about to break out of the water. And then it stops moving. What am I, hell? What are you doing, Red Pull? it out.

I'm gonna grab the arm, not the vial, I'm gonna grab the arm and like try to, try to help it. What are you doing? Come on, put some muscle into it. And I get to find him like a fishing rod and I start pulling. Come out. Man, that thing really is stuck in there. Come on, guys. Can you-

I need a hand? I'll reach down and I'll gobb the entire thing and just immediately lift it in one pull, like a crane arm. arm. Everyone gets their hands, their pulls around, waists on arms, pulling, allergic, squeezing as much as you can. But like Ahab's crew, you have hooked an impossible whale and pull as hard as you might. You cannot rest this vial from the water's surface. And as you pull, the arm cracks the top of the glass.

It breaks and disappears slowly beneath the water's surface. Right when it breaks, we all comically fall back. What the hell? Some sort of... It's like all of it. All of it is one thing. I think Laboosh needs to be the one to punch the thing to death. Who is the highest passive perception?

Definitely not. problem. For sure. Mine is 17. It's at this moment, even in the kerfuffle, even in the commotion, you hear

you hear sounds coming from where you had to come to get here. Behind us. Behind you. The moment my head would snap back the way I would come

and everyone would see me. Get up. What? Get up. What? Look. And I would turn towards the opening, like, readied in a stance. And I'd begin to listen closer.

One eyes on Pike and another eye is on the pool for Lubbush. You hear at this point what sounds like the charging padding of paws, striking the ground roughly. But this is a large creature making its way towards you. It's some sort of giant animal. It's coming right forth. Just that fucking wolf? Oh, was it?

Oh, did we power it up? Probably not. Let's just get ready, though. Hand-on revolver, Rex also joins you in pointing at the opening. You're fixed at that coral opening in the wall when, for a split second, turning around the corner, yellow eyes stare out at you. And then you catch the silhouette

as Leo Kahn charges into the room. Boys, you gotta get out of here. Khan, you scared the shit out of us. I had to touch down. I had to make it in. The empire's here. They responded to the calls from the pathway. Oh, no. How the fuck did you get down here?

I landed. I followed your trail. You're not exactly subtle. No, we're not. We can't leave yet, Khan. We have to deal with this. They're going to vaporize the whole planet. You know what the empire can do. The second you touch down, the smattering of ooze, pluming out, slowed dramatically.

You moved it away from the pathway. It's safe. On second thought, I think it's about time for another daring escape. He moves closer and closer towards you, joining your group. Boys, he nods it, you and Rex. Oh, hi, by the way, my name is Junkle. I'm Mike's Fred. I've heard so much about Mr. Kahn. Oh, have, has it? Have I met?

No, none of his met him. You've only heard of him. I would have mentioned him. And then I would, I would turn and say, That's a fucking lion guy here. Holy shit. What the fuck? No one else has met him. What the fuck? Listen, I know that we were trying to destroy this planet from the inside or cleanse it, whatever we could do to save the pathway.

But I think we bought enough time for the empire to get here. We bought enough time for them to handle this, for them to destroy this planet. And deal with whatever this is. What I worry about, Khan, is if our friend Labouche isn't the one who's going to deal with this, and the empire just decimates this place, what if they send all of this? Just out into space? Once the 13 take flight, I've never seen them leave, not a particle of dust floating out into the ether. Does that ring a bell of the 13 to any of us?

You all would know that there are, There are 13 prime knights of the empire. That's what I was afraid of. Each one rules and oversees its own empiric world, but draw together in moments of grave, cosmic danger. And we've seen one of them. You have seen one of them at the siege of Nightenvale. There's 12 more of them?

Sweet Jesus. Jesus. Okay. And they all have cool different flavors. I bet. You don't know. You don't know. I can't leave.

If I go, then it will attack again. What if, to your point? What if it would love for this planet just to be blown up? What if it's trapped here? And send the goo to all corners of the galaxy? Oh, I don't know what to do, Lepouch. I think you gotta punch the shit out of this thing. I feel like, you know what?

No offense, Mr. Kong, Mr. Lion Guy. We just met you. We don't know who you are. We're also with this guy. He's kind of a dick. I don't know why. We just lost all over good friends. I also apparently have a wife that I lost that I never knew I had.

I'm very conflicted. I don't know what to do. You got to understand. We're not really worried about the empire right now. I mean, they're here. We got to worry about them one way or another. Listen, you have 12 minutes

From when they got here Whatever you're gonna do If you think you need to act Before we leave You have 12 minutes Before they level this planet Twelve minutes LaBouche, punch it right now

Quick Unless you don't want to I don't know what to do I'm gonna turn to ret and say I don't know the answer either But I think we should leave it up to LaBouche You've been through a lot of We made it this far.

And if it all gets blown to smithereens anyway, why the hell not? I'll take a step back. One final adventure. One last hunt. I guess we're not cashing the bounty on this one. Can you rig this thing to explode? Dungeon Master? You can try?

I can certainly try. I could do a lot of good. If you can get away, we can make sure the raceway is safe. The Empire does not have to be involved. If that thing's gonna blow it up or the Empire blows it up, I'm not sure it makes a fucking difference. The point is, is there a reason that it's calling you here? There's something else we can do.

Is it the Weaver calling you here to fucking deal with this? Oh. I don't know. I can't begin to know half the fucking things I've seen. seen in this goddamn galaxy. But... Yeah. And if the 13th video,

those, those, those, those, those, those nice find me, they're gonna, they're gonna, turn me to snoop. Clown soup! Let me do this. I'm gonna walk away from the pool and, and sloop out of my armor.

You can have the ether core. And I can, in my, unsuited form. See what happens. I will walk up to the suit and I would have installed

some relatively easy disconnect or something to be able to pull it out. And so I'll, you know, drill into it and I'll pull the canister out. You push a paper clip into a small hole and a send card comes out. Your screwdriver

comes down as your arms work to release it from its ether mechanism. And once all of the lockings strap off, the final signature hold is two fingerprints from your last remaining hand to release the engine. Only you can undo one of your mechanations.

Machinations, machinations, devices. There'll be, yeah, there's like a hand- There's a hand port. And then like the film D too, I stick my hand in. Stick your hand in the box. Stupid one.

Stick your hand in the box. What's in the box? I stick my hand in. And it will read my genetic signature. And it will... As registering this, like, prepared to do whatever. Without even looking at him, I'll say,

Rex, are you scared to death? Yeah, I'd say that about describes it right now. It's not many times you're deep in the bowels of a planet with people that, well, you tolerate. And somebody's talking about throwing a makeshift ether engine into a black pit of Eldritch War. Sounds about right. I will get to work, even if whatever LaBouche does, you know, is what we need to do. I will start kind of tinkering with it and trying to rig some kind of

like starter explosion that I'll make the whole thing go. Roll an engineering check. If it's a natural one, it blows up immediately. Red. Yeah. Have you seen Hank be a balloon?

What? What the fuck is that? What kind of question is that? Look at Hank. Bop, bong. Oh, that's pretty cute. Thank you, Chetels. I'll cast bar to conspiracy or use barter conspiration.

It's a D6. You can roll two and add the ability check. I will add to that. Oh, baby. Spike to six. Let's go. That is pretty cute. Can you do a horse?

Yeah, but not right now later. Yeah, you would be, you would be a horse curl. What? What? What? What? I'm not really. Okay.

I'm super focused and feeling the pressure and going back to my training and my experience as basically a soldier for hire. I'm going to, my Sparko Genius will kick in again.

Let's go. I'll add another five and from my role of a natural eight, I got a 30. Man, that's some Caprice shit. Nah, you can't figure it out. With the 30. This came irrelevant.

This can't be relevant. With a 30, you knew before even looking at it that your answer was coy. You knew before even approaching that you could rig it to blow. And you could rig it to blow remotely

at your behest. You just fear the consequences. But you You sit down, tool and tinker, and you get to work, reverse polarizing the Capsulation tube that hold this all in place. And you know that with a press of a button, the pressure sequence will change, and it will go into meltdown.

Whoa. Gravitational meltdown. All right, I think it's done. Thank goodness. I've consulted my Motley in power than I have. I have nothing to contribute to any of it. It's up to LaBouche now. Certainly.

Everyone, back off! I'm not going to back up super far. I'm going to take, so just to look a few steps back. I stand next to Ret and I begin to light what potentially may be my final cigarette. I will put Hank down, and I'll just have him, I'll reach down, and give him a pet. And I'll just have him by my side. And then I offer one to Rex. Without my suit, I don't maintain a human,

an annoyed shape very easily. I'm sort of in between. I'm not a complete jelly rolling forward. You can still see what might be kind of legs and you can still see this network of nerves and eyes looking forward. You can still see the kind of sort of sort of shapes of arms and elbows sort of poke out before reblobobbing back and forth. I will goo forward to the edge of the pool and look down. You do so. forward to the edge of the pool and you look down and you sense a power rested away in the darkest pit of this planet a power awakened by your own hand a power begging to return I think of severe and sort of say a quiet little prayer for a

moment just hoping that something good can happen in this world. And I will plunge the equivalent of an arm in, to almost like do a handshake. I'm not going to attack. I am going to push my arm in and not try to feed, not try, I just am going to say hello and hope. When your arm pierces the water, it sends a ripple out.

From the mouth of this pool, all the way down the river. Holy shit. Extending out of the room, down the waterfall, through the reservoir, up out of the temple, into the face of the planet. You assume something shakes back,

and I need you to make a wisdom contest. Oh, loophush. Think of Kavir. I don't know. You can get that down in time. 15. Can I inspire him? No.

Shut up. With a 15, there's more than one way to absorb this power back to its full potential. As you go to try and draw the black Icar into you, it does the same. Both creatures in command of the force within them. And there is an ancient battle. You feel it pull on every essence of your very soul as it tries to draw you back into the pool. Not yet noticing this. Khan puts his hand on your shoulder.

You know, I'm glad you ended up with people who look out for each other. Thanks, Conn. It took a while, but I think I finally found my people. and I looked at right and I give him a nod. Yep. You all made out okay. And he turns back and looks towards Labush. And in an instant, you feel a forceful push on your shoulder.

As you were looking at him, you don't see a black spear erupting out of the pool to strike at you. At first, targets LaBouche. You in a moment understanding its intentions are able to extend your form

as it you create an opening in your body and it flies straight through you headed towards Pipe. Khan shoves you out of the way. I drop my cigarette in slow motion. I see it as I'm falling into RET.

As you're falling into RETT, the tip of the black spear pierces Khan directly through his back. The point extending out from in front of him. Like once I land and realize what happened, no, Khan, no! And I'm going to immediately run to him and, like, grab his shoulders and, like, try to, like, grab the spear and, like, push it back through.

I've made a reflexive move to get out of the way, but as soon as I hear the sound behind me and I realize the spear has made an attack, I'm also going to try to swallow it with my body and try to pull it. I'm grabbing it, so if that fucks me up, so be it. I'm trying to like force it back through him. You grab the tip of the spear.

LaBouche, you grab at the edge where the tendril is erupted out of the pool to strike you. You grab it through your form and you try and pull, and you try and pull. God, no! You'll hear Rex shout out as the spear pierces. As you grip it to push it back, the barbed tendrils of the grappling hook-like pull extend out, piercing through your palm, cutting you.

No, no, God. As it grips into him. You've got to get him off of that thing. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't push. We have been strong enough to get any of this ooze. We're completely helpless. Do I think that instead of pushing on the bar, can we pull him off of it without horrifically damaging his...

Oh, God. There's no way. Oh. You don't. Do I feel that I can contribute more to stop attacks, to stop it from doing what it's doing? I put in one arm and it reacted violently. Does it want me to jump in? Or do...

I'm thinking radically at this moment as I'm hearing the violence behind me. You know that whatever this is wants to be made whole, but not by you consuming it, by it consuming you. And it will be one, but not without...

A fight. We gotta figure this out. Pike. It's okay, con. It's all right. It's all right. I'm gonna get you off there Bike stop. No, no, I can't let go con. I can't I don't want to let go con. Do it needs to be done. Pike. Save them all and ripped out of your grass. As you see, inky black water fills in the whites of his eyes. He's pulled out and lifted up into the air and then sucked down into the pool. No, no!

I will bore up the engine. And, um... Aboosh! How are you feeling? I think there's only one way doing this! meat and wood. It wants to be all again. One of us is going to be next. Is it going to be you? Or is it going to be that thing? Slowly, the surface of the water breaks as white hair crests out from under. Khan walks back out as he elevates out of the water. Black

pulsating black ink can be seen throughout his form. His eyes now jet black. A wound, a gaping, almost star-shaped wound at his chest as he takes one step onto the surface in front of you and looks directly at Labouche

and strikes forward. I blast. I shoot him right in the stupid face. I need everyone to roll for an issue. Hey everybody, Chuckles here. It's time for an ad read. This podcast is brought to you by our very own Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash Legends of Evantris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks,

including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon-exclusive campaign set on the high feed, shroud over Saltmarsh. You can also go to The Crooked Moon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement. The Crooked Moon. a folk horror tome 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 so much.

I'll see you around. I sold salad dressing all over my flavor time, that. No, I got money on my eyes. It's oil steam. That'll never not be. Oh, I get a money. Oh, I get advantage. Oh, no.

19. 19. Oh, me too. You want to go first? I would love to. I think you would go further. Out of the two of us. I'm like I'm all hard. I'm all over. So that's a tiebreaker. 19? That's funny. And in, uh, Wolfrow. Damn, man. Did Rex also get 19? He got 20. Oh, of course you did. Damn. God. I'm gonna use my actually Benlock.

Do you buy in fate on Rex's initiative? Do barbarians get something that gives them a bonus to initiative? Dangerous sense. They get an advantage. Do monks ever get anything like that too? Rokes don't. I don't think. I believe there are certain subclasses where you add your wisdom to your initiative. Doesn't Kyo have charge those would you get? Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Right, what'd you get? 16. Oh. Damn, we all roll in the teens, mid-dye teens. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Um, my seventh level feature is advantage on an initiative and I'm just,

ba-b-b-b-b-pap-ba. I'm loving it. Oh. Yeah, why you don't get to jam them all in there. You can go like, Like, why? I'm going water. I'm going water. Forge to you, Matt. You got to, you're going to have to keep going here. Let's don't want to be too far. No, no, you're fine. They can't see it anyway. This is all just funny business.

For you guys, for you guys. No, no, I love that. I love that. We love it, Mace. We love it. We love it. We love it. We love it. We love it. We love it. We do love you. Okay. Okay. LaBouche dies. That's the start around.

LaBouche explodes. Space fall. Sometimes my face gets itchy after I eat. My face is always itchy all the time. That's my secret. You would like an allergy. I don't think so. I'm Italian.

You know how many times I've eaten tomatoes in my life? Well, you know, you could develop allergies later in life. I would probably just end it all. I'm just kidding. Okay, here you. Khan rises out of the water as his white mane extends out above him. above him, the black icker dripping around his form.

He gets to the water's edge and takes one step out. And then as he stands over the river, he suspends mildly. His paws, the jagged claws at the end of his paws hanging just above the water's edge, still connected, connected to the black spear in his back. His eyes jet black. He turns towards you, Pike, for a moment. He looks at you and he tries to speak in a gurgling black drowning noise is all you hear in response. I'm so upset. Rip. Oh, you crazy creature? And Rex will fire off two shots.

into the pool. You hear the gunshots rang out reverberating through the cavern that you're in. As the bullets strike the water level, stop for a moment, and slowly sink in. Khan doesn't seem to notice. What does happen next is everyone, everyone will make a dexterity saving throw.

Is Leo Kahn voiced by Jeremy Irons? Oh, I hope. It is now. Yeah. Obviously. Oh. I'm gonna use one twist. 17. 25.

Oh. 18. 18. 18. I'm gonna use one twist as well. Um. Oh, man, we didn't take a short rest. We didn't heal, did we?

No. We didn't take a short rest. We didn't feel like there was time. That's bad. came out. Oh, yeah, I'm fucked. I am going to use, as a reaction, I'm going to use my flash of genius. Oh, go ahead.

Unless you would consider the walk down there a rest. I mean, you could take the walk down there as a short rest. If you want to do a round a short rest, are you going to be back all my key points? I think it's, we're going to short rest very quick. You can take the walk down there as a short rest. You didn't really like deal with anything or do anything. It was a casual stroll. As we were going, I was Oh, this is song of rest. I'm aboard for some rebate. Like the thing. We all lose hit points.

I was like, I cast song of rest and you take your song of rest die. Just kidding. Thank you. I'm in D6. I only had a D8 actually. Artifices are D8. Let me just make sure. It did the song that never read. That's crazy. The song you got to know it my friend. Somebody started singing it was and they just kept on singing it forever just because this is the song that never That's very good. Crazy.

I was crazy once. They put me in a rubber room. I died. They buried me worms. They took on my feet. They drove me crazy. Oh, it's extra one. So taking it for one D sex.

I'm using all of my... There are so many variations. of that yeah of them mentions like rubber rats like rubber walls and then starts over again oh it's crazy 99 bottles of beer on a wall you got at 25 what did you get for the deck save 17 17 chuckles do you roll deck save for the later action 18 18 rat so I rolled 11 and I think it's plus 11 11 1213. But then I'm going to use a spark of inspiration as a reaction to add five to that. Nice. So 18, right? 11, 12. 13.

Good, good, good. All right. So Jeff LaBouche fails. But you 17? You all pass. Oh, Flash and genius. But you will take eight points of piercing damage as around the room, except you, as around the room, as around the room, black tendrils will erupt out of the water and reach out to you to try and grasp you. But not the spears. Sorry. No, the spears. They'll fire out and try and grasp you.

You all dodge, but you'll take nine points of piercing damage, except like. Holy shit. Oh, not, only nine. I did ten. Nine. Okay. Yeah. That one HP might make a difference.

Pike. Watching Rex, like, kind of, like, shout this and it, does he look like he's panicking? He looks distraught, emotionally distraught. He's not, like, running for the door, but he's not... He's disturbed. He's certainly disturbed. Without looking at Rex, but still looking at Khan kind of hanging there. hanging there.

I will have been standing with my hands at my side, blood dripping from my hand, and I will kind of assume the fight position that you've seen me do so many times. And as I squeeze my right hand, the blood kind of like runs down my wrist. It's running over the gauntlet from being pierced from trying to get him off.

And I say, come on Rex, that isn't Khan anymore. And the sooner we get him down, the sooner he can be at rest. I'm coming! And I immediately charge him. As it sees you move up, in response, it'll move just out of the river. So you'll be one square back, and it'll be just in front of you. Yep, exactly perfect.

And as I am dodging the tentacle, tendrils that are shooting out of the water near us, I like dodge to my left underneath of a tentacle, and I come come up to deliver four strikes using Flurry of Blows as well. I'm going to roll them individually. The first one is a 26 to hit. That'll hit. I'll make it a stunning strike. DC 15, con saving throw. 22. Okay. I'll just roll the remaining three of my attacks. One of them is a natural 20, one of them is in 19, and one of them is a dirty 20.

They all hit. All right, the first one is gonna be eight. The next one is going to be plus six, eight plus six is 14. Plus five is gonna be 19, then the crit. 19 plus eight is going to be 27, plus six is going to be 33, plus 20 is 53 points of damage over the course of basically what is five attacks.

And I am, as I'm connecting in the darkness of this cave, there are these brilliant radiant flashes as I'm connecting. And I would say that only Labouche would be able to see if he were to look back us like a single tier running down Pike's cheek as I stone-faced pummel what is essentially the corpse of Leocom. You race up, and this is these two. tendril strike out at you. One passes just before you put a hand down, you leap over it.

Another comes for your head. You duck, roll right under it. You meet the form of Leocon, and you strike out. He moves slowly, and you move like a crashing river. But even as you throw your punches, his blocks are there to intercept, as if this is a dance you've done a thousand times before. Like his body remembers the person who began your training

on how to fight, but not the one who ended it. And that's when your fists start to glow with that magenta light as each strike begins to land and finds space in him where he doesn't expect it to be. And

You find purchase in every blow that lands a solid crushing moment to your former mentor. This is like a really close intimate like hand-to-hand Like from Doom 2. Mayer Blade chippin shatter. Oh! May you have made it chippeater. I'm not coming back until I watch Dude 2. Damn it!

Oh, God, that's good. Do you want to sleep right now? That's good. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah. Um, yes, he's exactly that from Dude two.

Dude, too. That's what I'm just picturing that. Um, yes, exactly. It is a very close fight. Um, you do notice as you're landing your punches, Khan is not standing flat on the ground. He's hovering just three inches before it. And as he moves to block your initial strikes as they come in,

come in slowly but purposefully, like hitting a brick wall. It's almost like the slow movement of the tendril behind works to shift his body to meet your embrace until you kick it into overdrive and you start to really level in some insane damage. Labouche. I had my own tendril in the goo pool prior to all of this unfolding.

Am I grappled? Do I feel like I can remove it? And does LeBusch feel like if he jumped in, he would stop all this madness? Mm. Roll an insight check. One more insight check. We're twisting this. All right. Searching. My insight's plus two, so.

Yeah. Fucking mad. I want to shoot stuff. How far. All right. One twist. One twist. Oh, sorry.

One more twist. One more twist. One more twist. So, meant to be, 16. Okay. That's not bad. Not bad. Yeah, that's fine.

You search the darkest parts of yourself. You think about your hand reached into the pool. For a moment, you find yourself back on the sandy beach. Inside your core, you look out at the white webbing that extends, coloring the black sea within you. Because that's what it is. and you see that the roiling sea of darkness that lives within you is bubbling and bouncing against the white webbing that holds it at bay and you know that you cannot yet consume this power

to engulf yourself would be to challenge your creature that's in full control of the power it wields a much larger planet-sized source of energy than what you currently carry within you. Looking inwards, do I feel there is any action that I can do to release what is trapped inside of me and return it? You would step to the edge of the webbing, the white webbing cast within you by the weaver to keep the force of whatever this creature is at bay sealed away within you. You put your fingers under its webby hold that stretches out at the edge of the sands.

And you pull as hard as you can, the force as you extend up, stretching, trying to rip the web clean. from the beachhead, but it is immovable. It is something that is put in place by its own ancient force for your own protection, but you move it ever so slightly,

and for just a second, like streaks of lightning, the black goo tries to burst out from under. But the webbing snaps back and seals it in place. Coming back to myself, I will continue to meditate on this and try and and continue to pull underneath. As I'm also afraid for my friends, afraid for what's happening in front of me, I will lash out violently, an appendage coming off from the side of my large amorphous form, attempting to strike into the body of Kahn. Roll to the time.

27. 27 again. Let's go. Plus 14. 7 plus 7. Remember 90 range. Sorry. Yes.

No, no, no. This is my first because I have an additional D12. Oh shit. That's right. Oh my gosh. So it's 19 plus 5 is 24 plus 2 is 26. The Bush is yuked. And then...

Oh, he's to March. No, no, no, I'm out of his suit. Oh, that's right. So it's just kind of like... Just bigger than normal. Yeah. Plus, five of 31, plus five is 36 plus 2 is 38? Sounds right.

I just... I'm good at pummeling. That is where my fore is. My mind is still focused on the webbing and seeing if I can think of a solution to this problem. But in the meanwhile, I am participating. I'm here.

Your mind locked in thought, is there a way to resolve this situation and keep all your friends safe without risking any more lives lost that you barely notice the tentacles as they reach out towards you as the spears charge inward? Your body responds almost innately

creating openings, creating forms as something works to dodge the attacks. it is Khan's turn he will strike out at he will strike out at Pike in response

with two crushing blows 23 and it's and 21 that hits there's training blows at this point 18 points

of damage as he swing around with a right leg that crushes into your arms as you get a block up just in time. And then he spins around with the back of a closed fist, striking for the other side of your face. But once again, you're blocked just at the last moment. But blows that fall like boulders, strike your arms. As I take this massive hit, I look this creature in the eyes and I say, Now I know you're not con. He hits way harder.

Oh, got him. Chuckles. And so I understand that if I just yoink him, if I try to use my magic to teleport him off of the thing, it's not going to depop it, right? I think you would know innately from a magical sense that this barbed hook that's worked into his flesh is not a tether you can break

by simply moving him to another direction. Yeah. Um, I am going to, uh, say, oh man, I'm sorry, I know he just met Mr. Kahn. And I know that you're kind of like anti-thin. I mean, I'm not even dead. I know that you're kind of like, uh, Pipe's Dad and Rex's Dad. And, uh, this is really awkward, but I got to burn your face out with that. I just got it. Is I'm going to cast Tosh's Cosque Bro.

Ooh, fucks, Sandy. Seltzer bottles. Dex 16. Another jackass cowboy. I was actually thinking him cowboy. I was thinking, I wasn't even being a bike. I was thinking, I wasn't even playing a player ending. I was thinking of cowboy Andy from fucking Cowboy Bebaw.

He never inspired that. No, I never made a say. Oh, God, that's so funny. Oh, I mean, the character inspiring him. I mean, it thought, you know, what they say, it's flattering. 14 as a deck save. whatever. Is it a deck save? There's a deck save, yeah. Okay. So it fails. So he's covered in asset as I'm going to,

eh, e, e, e, e, uh, one, two, three, four, five, six. And when he moves, um, Rex has an attack of opportunity if he wants it. Oh, this is for last time. Boop, boom, boom. I look like the guy from the beginning of Kungtow under the fist, where he just shotgun the chunk out of me. So he will take damage at the start of each of his turns. Okay. As acid will cut from my flower gun,

I switch it back to acid. Flower petals sprout out, and acid shoots out. Red? I will see Pike and Khan locked into this combat. I'll say, go help

Pike, buddy. You got this. He'll sort of power up and he'll, oh, I guess he was on the ground. So he is going to run after Khan and leap as I shoot him with a charged up thin beam that when I shoot it, it actually maintains a connection between my harness and him as I cast wording bond on Hank. And he is going, so that's a second little,

Oh, and then as a bonus action, I will tell him to attack. He will attack Leo Kahn. That might hit. Looks pretty good. It looks pretty good. I need to roll for wild magic. Uh-oh. Does it 16 hit?

16 hits? Okay. He needs to make his strength save. Here. You have the game. Eight. 16. That passes, but he will take

he'll take six points of piercing damage for the worst possible. Um, and I just want to say that, you know, if I had a nickel for every time I drew an animal on a Dungeon and Dragons token with a scar over a time, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot. But it's kind of weird that it happened twice. That's very funny. That's my turn. You know what? I think I'm gonna stay. I'll stay right there. As I cast acid and I back up,

I trigger my wild magic. But then I suddenly, oh, my forehead, oh gosh, it really terrible CGI eyeball better not appear on my forehead like Dr. Strange. Oh no! As a terrible CGI eyeball will open on my forehead. Got them!

Oh, gosh, it's like this was horribly rushed and under budget. I just had advantage on perception checks for the next minute. That's pretty funny. That's like you can actually come in handy. You can just see the horror. And I appears in your phone. Yeah, it's one minute. Okay.

You're right, Pike. We got to put them down. Thanks. Rex spins the barrel of the revolver and snaps it. closed and puts it down to his side once again, and then says, it's time to hang it up, old man, and pulls the gun out, and in one, what sounds like one gunshot goes out, but he empties the revolver. Damn, okay.

In almost a single file stream of lead, it fires out. I don't know sure it gets first. Man, really are Hollis Masoning this guy. Absolutely not. Absolutely that was foul. Oh, is that why I have this trophy? That was foul. Oh, man.

Hey, boomers. Remember watchman? How could I forget? That's a brutal scene, man. Really is. The sound reverberates through the capital. through the cavern as the shots fire out, as every one of them blasts through the form that is Khan.

Rex will also take two steps back. The battle camera. Yeah, good idea, Rex. We're being brave by helping out the boat from the battle. And once again, I need everyone to roll a deck saving throw. I'd be honored. I would be very honored. honor. That wouldn't be.

Uh-oh. I got a 16. 16. 16. Do we think 15's enough? I would like it to be because I also know 15's enough. Let's let it ride. We're all on a grid. 15 and 16. Did you roll with advantage? Do you have that yet? Danger sense.

Can I see what's coming? Where are you? Where are you facing? I get advantage if I can see what's coming. You're facing the pool? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you can see what's coming. Fifteen.

15. 16. If you passed, you take two points of piercing damage. What was the pass? 16. I take only. Oh! If you failed, you are impaled on a black spear.

And you take four points of piercing damage, and you are grappled. Oh, no. Does one go for Hank, or is he just like a little pug that they don't really go from that? When you put it like... A tendril comes down and is like... You're just a good boy. You're too good. Yeah, it doesn't notice him.

Okay. Yeah, it fires out at the main party. It's firing out at you. It's a robotic life. And so far, that's that. Pike. I'm making an attack. Oh, that's gonna be a miss.

12 to hit. Ooh, 12 misses. Okay, that first one's a miss. I'm gonna use Flurry of blows. So this is three of four. Uh, 19 natural. a hit and made that a stunning stright so I need you make a con 15 DC saving throw. Seven. Oh, he would be stunned then until the end of my next turn. So my next year attacks would be at advantage.

17 to hit? 17 hits? Awesome. The last one. Oh, that hits. What are the odds this is actually... I want to talk about it. Doing anything. Or that like I'm making a horrible mistake here. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. 13, 14, 15, 16, 31 points of damage for contact. So the first, after taking that crushing blow from this false imitation of Khan, my first roundhouse kick will whiff, but then I'll come back with two punches and a knee

to his rib cage. And you do as you lay your furry of blows down. One, he's able to dodge out of the way as the tentacle moves him down. down. The other three land brutally into his body, as you can almost hear the bones cracking. Labouche. He stunts, attacks her advantage. Oh, good. I'm grappled, so that shouldn't do anything. I mean, I get reckless anyway if I want it.

But anyways. Your movement's zero. That's all that matters. Yeah, but everything that I care about right now is in my reach. I'm gonna look in word again, and I'm thinking of the Weaver's Web that is blocking this thing from being released back to where I'm imagining it might be its home. And I'm going to speak aloud into the pool. Tendrals are in me, one appendages is down into the pool.

I'm lashing out like this, and as all this is happening, I will form a mouth, and I will protect If you can understand me, help me take what you want back, back. Help me release this thing so you can be whole again. Oh shit. Uh-oh. And then I'll make two attacks, Tom Com. Roll a persuasion check first. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Dirty 20. Dirty 20. The dirtiest. Oh yeah. It's so fucking dirty. dirty. That may you uncomfortable. For a moment, the pressure in the room seems to fluctuate, seems to waver. Up through your arm, a single black spear pierces through your form and

slowly travels up your arm. It doesn't get absorbed, it just progressively moves. I let it. It comes up your arm. you can feel it. It's painful. Every inch it moves. Like it's cutting through muscle to get to what it's looking at. It is agony to allow it to explore you. And then it reaches your core. And for a moment, it stabs at something where you would think maybe just beneath your heart.

And this strange white glow for a moment shines at your core. And then the black barb recoils and snaps out of you. Oh, no. We agree with that show you. Yeah, it can't. No way.

It can't. You think briefly of the moment when the Kingwin died and it having mastery over a similar, over a similar force Upon its death, returned it to the land. This creature dies, or you do. Those are its terms.

I... My rage redoubles, and I do everything I can to pummel the animated con. 24. 12. To hit? Yeah. 12 messes. Yeah.

Wow. Wow. 1924, 26 points of bludgeoning damage. I give it a quick spanking. 26. Jesus, he has hit hard. Don't spank. He's a little spank on.

You have to be like an emotional face. Kahn! You with this black jagged barb ripping its way back out of you, it has a similar. a similar tearing sensation as it moves through your form. You don't have muscle to speak of, but it doesn't rip it that. It rips at everything that you are. As it recedes back into the pool, you lash out in fury, two massive blows crushing, extending over the river's edge,

firing out these rocket fists at the corpse. of Leo Kahn as you smash two brutal blows into his body. He is stunned. He is not stunned.

It's not him. He's not there. Should my attack not have been at advantage then? Okay. He well, from a certain point of it. Yeah, I know what he's... Mesa.

Instead of throwing... punches, he strikes out at every one of you. And he does this by the tentacle that's strapped in his back, flinging him around the room. And as he moves, his limbs flail wildly, as his as his brutal physical... Not like a Muppet, not like a Muppet. Not like two American world police either. Not like two American world police either. It's really cool in pieces. It's really bad assing could be horrible. No, he also needs to take acid damage.

Oh yes. No. And we all get attacked for the opportunity, right? How much, uh, he's gonna take... That's how that works. Technically, if he's attacking anyone other than me, I can use my reaction to attack. It's not only an attack per se. It's not only an attack per se.

21 points back are flailing. Jeez. Tell me for a special move. 21 points out of the VM. This is my dime. That's in the glossary of the DMG. Yeah. Well, I've never read the DMG, so that's true.

Me either. I'm the only one that's wrong. That's right. I've definitely not read the DMG. I read the players gap, but not the DMG. He zips around the room, the tentacle whipping him around. It's not so much as punches that come next, as it is the form of his body crashing into you.

And I'll roll and attack against. every single one of you. From my left to right, we'll start with red. Your eye may assume of anybody who you could talk to you about anything in the movie again. We're sorry about the pizza. We're sorry. Please let me mention the pizza I can.

This is awesome. The deal was like, I'm going to teach you about pizza jokes as he was a finger. What did I say? I said some very simple things in the beginning. Buckle up. It misses red. It misses Wrecked for sure as a 12. Chuckles 17.

Oh, that'll do it. LaBouche, 12. Nope. Pike, 18. Misses. Oh, never mind. I dodge. Disadvantage?

Hank was gonna go, right? Oh, nice. Not in 18. 18. And Rex 19, which will hit. Who did I hit? Just chuckles. Oh, it's gonna be five. Oh, I'm way back.

Hey, Rex, they're not, we're all the way back here. You can't get it. Rex is gonna hang go cuckoo bananas. He's gonna lose his mind as he's getting beaten by the bloody corpse of his old mentor. Oh, God. This is a nightmare. We are just like, and... Chuckles, and Rex, uh, take 20,

20 points of damage. Oh my gosh. As Khan is flown wildly about crashing into each of you. And should you choose to do so, you may use reactions to take attacks of opportunity at disadvantage. Oh, hell yeah. You're crazy if you think I'm not gonna do that. May I take a regular attack?

My reactions they'll do anything like. Because I have both reckless and Sentinel. What Sentinel do? Sentinel means if you attack anyone other than I can use my reaction to attack. Oh, sure, okay. Yeah. 23. At a disadvantage, I got a dirty 20.

You hit? Where are we in the initiative? Boss. Boss? Yeah. Hank will. 16 points of bludgeoning. Hank will make an attack.

11 points of damage. 27. Hank hits. Make a strength save. 12? Oh my God. Strength save. 12?

Yeah. I stole your dice and spiked max damage. points of lightning damage. This is some good ass shit, man. So he takes eight piercing damage. If he could be grappled, he would, but I've been feeling like this isn't really a grappling. Do you attempt to grapple him?

Hank does, yeah. It's okay. He does it. Drop it. Successfully grapple him. Drop back figure to father. He is pulled along as Khan is flown through

the air. because he can not stop the movement of Khan but Khan is not moving of his own village. They get to hang damage. Okay, yeah, yeah. That's incredible. Will Hank's damage die?

Just a D-6. That's a very good growl. Thank you. That's an invariable. You need to use that growl more often. Five points of additional damage shuckles. I'm going to die. It's just...

It's too funny. See, they're the idiots. They're in front. They're gonna expect these things. Of course. And it's actually just the two of you that did it. Well, Chuggles, I think we got this. Oh, my dog!

Oh my god! Is that my dead mentor on a dog? So here's he end up again. Right there? Um, we'll put him right next to pike as the final person he struck. Uh, and actually, yeah, mechanically, you were the first. So Hank would have, uh, that would have been all legit. That would have been all legit.

Kind of to an extent. Above board. Um, um, chuckles. Oh gosh. He's, I don't care how he's looking. I gotta. I will say, oh, I got a book. You're right.

He's the other guy. You have like black gats My nose My nose on the side of my head So your teeth Are you say your teeth are like You know shingles That are like

Oh yeah There's kind of a little hank running around your head in circle For your third eye There's a cuckoo there comes out Oh god Right in the bad CGII Oh

Hey you Mr. Liking Looks like you could use a little Yeah! It's a key to pie in them. It gets catapult. My last third level spell slot. Oh, a little dunya.

Wildman drink that shit. I hope you get it. I hope you spike it. Oh, so fine. It's back to a D12. Yeah. Duna. How long does the I flash?

D.C. is 16. And do your, what you call it, 16 is the same. 16 is the same? Oh yeah. Yeah. And how long is the eye lasting? I'm then there's one minute. Okay. D.C. 16 for the dex. Oh, that's close. How much damage is the pot do? Uh, oh, it does. Um, for a save. Uh, 5D8. Do you, do you roll that or do I roll that? Oh, do you, he got hit? Oh, he gets hit. Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna do it. Five D. Is the same. Five is a really good.

Are you casting? Catapult. Catapult. Thank you. Catapult's great. I'm going to use your... Clayton edit. Four.

Five. Oh, no. Seven. Fourteen. Twenty. That's five. That's five. Twenty.

I'm going to use my meta magic. Which means they'll trigger wild magic. I'm going to re-roll. Those two ones. That's good. And the two. So it'd be 18, which then turns into... The one goes to a six, so we get five more.

25. The other one turns a two, or five, so that's four more. It's a 29. And then I'm... The other two. To a five, so 29, 30, 31, 32. Nice. 32 points of damage as...

Wild magic triggers. It just happens? No, I had already rolled. I was going... and basically leaves Meta Magic to redo the damage. But I didn't want to say, oh, I rolled the two, so I'm not gonna do it. I'm maintaining game state.

I think. Because I was basically, no matter what I was going to do, I was going to re-roll the damage to max it out. Oh, when you metamagic, it increases the odds. Yeah, it's one or two. Oh, it triggers. Really good. So I don't want to say, oh, well, actually,

let me re-roll it now. Like, yeah, I was going to... That was right. I will tell you what I got from that. You just got hit in the face. with the corpse of a zombie lion man attached to a robot bug

attached to a horrific I'm going cuckoo banana threats with that a 20 was it a 44 it's probably not that bad not a bad TGI I can teleport as a bonus action

oh hey Rex can you believe it and I'm facing the wall We're, uh, one, two, three, four. And I'm facing the walls, I just blink out of existence and appear right here. Chuckles, keep it together. Everything's on the line down here. Where do you up? Whoa, I'm only, I'm only 20 feet away.

Are you, okay? Did you always have three eyes? I was talking to that wall over there. Was your nose always on the right side of your face? My mouth is like over here. You produce this pie and you notice that it has a faint cherry scent. And as you fling it at Khan, it deals the damage you stated. As it lands, it explodes.

Everyone within a 10-foot radius of Khan needs to make a dexterity-saving throw. DC 16 I got a twist Can I get one of them shit? I got a twist Is Hank just like a little pug? He needs to have She got a roll

God, 22 On a fail 19 furry rat On a fail you'll take 12 points of fire damage as the pie explodes Your name is Pike On a pass You'll take six points of damage

Fire damage Five Everything reminds me of her I get it What's the DC or sorry? 16. 10

and 12. I'm going to do one. Thank God it was 44 instead of 42. 41 or 42. Everyone passed. So we take five damage instead? Yeah. Six.

Six. Okay, so I take, I think nine. Oh, you're, yeah, yeah. As you throw the flaming pie at the figure of Leo Kahn, it explodes upon reaching him. The flames burst out and lick at even your allies.

As the smoke clears, he hangs at the end of this tendril limply as his form falls to the ground. First to his knees, then face down. For a moment, quiet. Do we do it? Returns to the land. For a moment. Oh, that's the same song. For a moment, quiet returns to land.

It's over? I don't think it's over. I'm just gonna lean down on one knee and, like, put my hand to his neck to see if I can feel any kind of a heartbeat or anything. Rex will run up just directly across from you at the river's edge, not in the water. So, yeah, directly across in the river's edge.

Pike. Yeah. Roll a medicine check. Oh, it's whiz. Yeah. 21. Wow. 21.

With a 21, you have your hand on his neck to feel for his pulse. And you feel the strong beat of a heart. You investigate. You move your hand around, you put compressions over his chest, you look for his mouth, you try and see is he breathing, can I sense something?

You check his eyelids, black. You put your hand over his mouth, no breath. Boom, boom, boom, boom, beating in the neck. As you move your hand to his chest, the heart unmoving. Something else keeps his form alive. He's gone, Rex. He has a pulse, but his heart isn't beating. Something is keeping him alive.

This thing is trying to keep him alive. Can you get him off the spear? I would stand up shagely and kind of lose my balance for a second. And like get behind him and from his back see if I can grab. grab the tentacle and see if I can pull it out. So you're saying he's alive? Nah. He doesn't have a heartbeat and he's not breathing. But if he's got a pulse when he can restart his heart, there might be a fucking chance.

I'm gonna run up and while they're pulling him, I'm gonna take out a big like med pack thing. And I'm gonna jam it in the side of its neck and cast a... Spare the dying. If there's any chance at all to save this guy, I'm gonna to just stab it and then plunge in that purple kind of alchemized ether will inject into his veins, almost like an adrenaline just to kind of keep him going if there's anything left in him. You do so. You pump a large syringe into the neck of Leocon. You plunge its energies into his form. the ether sparing healing energies

course into his body and for a moment the black ink starts to fade out of his pupils and once again yellow eyes oh my god hey hey can you hear me

fuck easy easy what is it is that you yeah I'm here I'm here I'm here con it won't stop God he's a tough son of a bitch it's trying to consume everything

it's just hold on hold on and I'm going to walk this down a little bit and try to shoot um like the part of the tentacle far enough away where it's not going to hurt him just blast like directly into it if I can to see if it'll like let go. Exploded or let go or whatever else.

Full of attack roll. 20. You fire off at this tentacle. Your graviton ether cannon warring a life is you hear that classic war of power

as the orb flies out and lands in the tentacle and in the weakened condition, uses its gravitational force to separate it. And you'd be right there, right, to like grab to I catch him. Oh, yeah. The moment I see it like whether the rest of the tentacle falls apart

or whether it dissipates or disintegrates, I'm there with him. I'd be like, Rex, help me move him farther from the pool. Rex leaps over the water. Trying to help me. Go! Yeah. As soon as I say the separation, I'm going to like a wave hop and hop and

jump and sploosh over and create as wide a shield with my body as possible. You do so. And as the ether cannon unleashes its devastating gravitational blast, the edge of the spear, now cut in half, sucks down back into the pool. And ripples start to form, one, down the the river, two, down the river, three, down the river, four, down the river, as you and Rex slump

con over either, both two arms over either side of your shoulders as you move slowly to move him away. And I would say you could make it maybe 10 more feet from where you are currently. He's a big, heavy dude. He's a big, heavy dude. Spear still piercing through his chest, but the ether energies that course through him, doing everything they can to stave off an ancient power. While Rex and I are carrying him slowly and just trying to get him as far away from the pool as possible, I'm going to say, hang in there, con. You have to hang in there. I'm sorry. I never should have have left. We're gonna get you out of here, Khan. We're gonna get you out of here. We'll get you back.

You can watch the races again. I'm going to walk up to the edge of the water next to LaBouche, and I'll say, we may only have a couple minutes. Are you with me? It won't what is inside me. I can't let it go. It won't come out. And that's why we're gonna fucking kill it. And I'm gonna just double-charm. and hopefully like fish in a barrel, I'm going to shoot into the pool knowing that Pike said he saw something. And whatever's in there, I'm going to try to shoot it and fucking kill it.

And the ripples move away as something ascends out of the water. And readying your actions, you may take immediate attacks as it makes its form

clear. But a giant toothed Maugh breaks out of the entire diameter of the pool as it opens and you just unfurl blasts, punch of goo blasts of ether as it slowly arises out of the black icker and takes form in the space. One single tendril comes off of its head and dangles limply in the air above you, severed in half. And if you would, place that.

No. As soon as I see this creature, I strike. I harden. Yeah, I would shoot twice. Then you will lose. Natural 20. I would have run up to them

after seeing, not wanting to get involved with Rex and Pike. I would have run up to the rest of my friends to help however I can. Oh, no. The gold hand? No, you're good. Oh, no. Oh, no, this is devastating.

That's going to be... 52 points of bludgeoning damage. As I... Literally, I'm not jumping. I'm not longer in humanoid form. I would do essentially what it has been doing to us. As soon as I see this target, I turned into a spike and just attack forward attempting to almost pierce it.

And that was 52. One was just one of the attacks. I think one was a 17 and one was faded a mess. Damn. What was it? One's a 16 and one was a 13. 13 movements. You both fire black.

Rocketing your own spear in response to everything you've seen this do now. We rocket your own spear forward. And the ether cannon whirling, firing blasts of energy. One crashes and lands directly in its mouth. The other seems to almost like strike a tooth and blow just right at the front, stopping just shy. And I have been able to make an attack as well. Did you ready an attack?

Yeah, you weren't there. You weren't there. Oh. You weren't there. You didn't know. No, I mean, I didn't realize you're still utilizing the battle match. Basically, I would have run up to Labusch and Rhett and let Pike and Rex drag off what's his name. I trust you.

Yeah. I trust you. Because I rolled an antral 20. If you would, okay. I saw it rolling. I saw I'm rolling. I thought you. I thought you.

I thought you. No, no, no, don't do it. It's fine. What shit? I'll actually But remember, because I can teleport every bonus action. Oh, that's right.

I'll puff into confetti. Oh, let's go, fist. Chuckles! Get back! As I will zap him, natural 20. I missed my chance, DM. I miss my chance a lot. There's a submerged mall.

There's a submerged mall. rising from the depths like from the hit film Doon, Toon! 21 points of lightning damage. 21 points of lightning damage. Yes. So, so. Brett, how much did you do? Oh, I did, what did I do?

It was a six and a seven. 19 points of damage. This hideous toothed. Maw rises out of the back of this pool as it completely assumes the full entryway of this small cave, clearly the source of all of this corruption. It stares out and breathes in deep. Boys, you gotta put me down. You gotta finish it. It fears your friend. It wants control.

If it can take him, it thinks it can take the empire. But there's something else, something else fostered it here, helped it grow. I couldn't see, but there was finish it. Let your friend cleanse this place. and get the hell out of here. Khan. Pike. Fine.

He'll lower him down on his side. We'll do everything we can to keep him off you. And seeing also, as it's come out of this pool at the back, erupting around the room, now giant black tentacles. Giant black tentacles. Not spears, but tentacles that almost seem. to create these Eldritch archways over the ceiling as they rise up and up and hang above you in the air. Rex turns around seeing this hideous toothed maw at the back. I'll kill you

for what you've done. And he fires out three shots from his gun. Bullets ring loud as they fly back, laser energy blasts engulf them as they fly out crashing into the maw of this creature. It seems to land a solid blow. I think we can do it and then it exhales and almost a black liquid washes over the room. Everyone needs to make a con saving throw. Oh no. This might be the one that does me and boys. Oh, I guess that.

Khan? Grant me one twist. Khan? Or no, yeah, yeah. Don't like... Cahn! Would you consider this poison? No.

Will you consider this a charmed or a stun condition? Oh. You want to get one? You want to get one? Well... I feel like I should try one twist. What's the... What's the relevance of it?

I get advantage if I'm avoiding, if it's poison, charmed, or stunned. What's that all right? How are you gonna roll? Obviously, you don't have to spoil it, but. Why don't I roll once to see if I pass? I don't. Why don't you roll twice to see if you pass? I'm using one twist. I used two.

I used two. I would say you would not be at advantage. Okay. And I will twist as well. You know what? Just make it fair. Oh. I pass. I twisted.

I got a 19 after the twist. 21. Hank curls a natural 20. Oh, thank God. Hank and I go. This is gonna be here for Hanky, bud. Natural 20. So I have like 27 or something. That's the full result. If you fail, you take 38 points of water damage. Oh my God.

If you pass, it'll take half. Half, 38. 18? 19? 19. That means I take 3080. You have one hit point. I'm mostly water.

Wow. Okay. This wasn't worth it. I can't like choose to not take the damage on boarding bond, right? Probably not. That's pretty funny. Oh, you're fucked. It's actually against AEOE damage is really bad.

You're like just adding. So what's half of 38? 19. Thank you. So tank. I had 20 hit points, folks. Oh my God. Oh, God.

I have one hit points. Yeah, you have one hit points left. It's just your mouth now. There's no body. It's just literally a floating leg. Pike. After this deal, you just hit Rex and I, the back here, like all the way in the back. I like steal myself against these waves. And as it dies down,

I sputter and cough and spit it out. And I look at him, I say, Rex, you got my back. Keep that cover fire coming and don't hit me. I got your back. Move up and let's finish this thing. I start to run. I run as fast as I can. And after I move 5, 10, 15, 20, I leap forward. and I blink out of existence as I move another 30 feet forward. 25.30. And I have 45, I have 75 total movement with all of the, with all of the movement plus the blink. And I will land in front of this thing

and only make two attacks. I had used my bonus action to do that. So is this the river? Would this be water? Or can you, you would easily make it right there. Yeah, yeah. That is river. I will blink to the other side of Chuckles.

and as I blink back with a brilliant flash of magenta light land or attempt to make two attacks on this creature. Uh-oh. 15 to hit is my low, so that one might miss. 15 hits. Okay, they both hit thin. Big beefy boy. 8, 1911, 15, 25 total points of damage for two attacks.

Nice. You leap forward, exploding in flame as you disappear out of existence for a moment. You reappear in a magenta starlight right next to Chuckles as in the air still as you're landing you lay two extreme blows down on top of this hideous abomination. Labouche. I will more fists than man now just continue to pummel into this creature. I'm I'm going for teeth. I'm looking for weak spots. 19.

19.08? Natural 20. Once again, allows me to roll. A bazillion. Yeah, that's insanity. It's 6D12 plus 14. 9, 10, 18, 29, 36, 6 plus 12 is 48 plus 14. It's 62 points of bloodier damage.

As I am speedballing teeth into oblivion, this ma is getting mauled. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm not saying anything. I'm not taking the time to make mouth spots on my body to yell at you guys. I'm pure muscle at this point. just crunching and blabooching as much as possible. You're doing it. You are focused.

You are angry. You are doing everything you can to end this as swiftly as possible so that no more lives are lost. You slam your blows into the maw, finding the weak spots as you go. Avoiding the teeth, actually, as razor-sharp bone, hard, juts out of just impenetrable force.

And you fire fists at its tongue, at the roof of its mouth, into the side. The gums. The gums, if you will. Places like that, and you land devastating blows. You hear a crash behind you as all of the tendrils slam into the ground. They create lines across the room as they form. And they move 10 feet closer, and anyone that's in a line is moved 10 feet closer to the Ma.

Which will push Rex and Khan 10 feet closer. Oh, I love that. That's fantastic. That's very good. Oh, no. The maw then begins to swirl. I drop boarding bone. I can do it any time.

It's gone. It's the... Guys, I know you were joking about another ball from Big Fulkin 64. And I know I said it with Lord Mupak Fag. I was joking. I didn't think I would feel like Lanky Kong fighting giant fish.

What are the chances? This is a nightmare. Oh, God. His chuckles is on the end of death. Who are the two directly in front of the wall? Chuckles and Lubbush. Make a dexterity saving throw. Just me.

The two of you, Chuckles in Lovish. Oh, you mean these two, yes. Yeah. Dexterity, you say? 23. Okay. I'll let it ride. What do you have?

Do you get a roll at advantage? Danger sense. I'll let it ride. What is it? 19. Oh, wow. That's hard to read. I'll take a...

I'll take a 21. I'll take a 21. I thought it was a 6. The one looked like a Pipp. I thought you were being sarcastic. I thought it was a 6. The mall in front. of you begins to spin its razor sharp rows of teeth,

almost like a blender as they just work circulate around the mouth. You can hear, not mechanical, but this hideous grinding as the bone moves, ready to tear you limb from limb, but both of you able to jump back in the last second and you move five feet backwards. You also hear, ah! From the hit movie, Dune 2. Juckles, this is just like Dune 2.

As Chuckles tries to get away from the mall, I took him into the mall. If this happens in Dune 2, I'm coming back here, I'm killing it. Yeah, who knew secretly you were just playing the spoilers the whole time? Oh, that's fucked up. That would be so fucked up.

You know, they call me the Lisa Frank and Al-Qaeda. You guys would get that if you'd seen the hit movie, Dune 2. It's actually very funny. That's what he's perfectly funny. Okay, Chuckles is your turn. You sandbagging son of a bitch. I have one spellflot left.

And one hit point left. I had forgotten to expend the spilt of when I helped wreck from, I mean, Wret from falling. Not Cowboy Andy, Rick, not that Andy. Too many Andy's, too many cowboys. His nose is now firmly on the back of his head. The all-seeing eyes circling. Andy from the Toy Story film franchise that's standing there right here.

I have one sorcery point, one first level spell slot, and one hit point. It's time to rack. Do these look attackable? The tentacles? The wave tentacles, the pushers. Physically in the room? You certainly try to attack them. She's my cherry pie.

Good thing I walk back here. Okay. I'm going to get behind you, Mike. You can teleport, remember. Has it been more than a minute, right? No. Or was it? No.

That just happened. In the reality of the world, that was all like completely. This is also all happening extremely quickly. I know we've been doing this for a while, but this is like, keep in mind when Khan showed up originally before any of this started, he said you had 12 minutes before the Empire evaporated the world.

We have 1,200. We had 1,200 rounds. We had 1,200 rounds to take care of business. I'm going to take my guns. I remember what I felt about being the Leitha Frank and Al-Gaibb? That's pretty funny. Bang is I'm going to use my final spell slot to acid spray on these two. He's out of range.

Just parolite. A dexterity saving throw on six and four. It's 120 rounds. They're unmoving. Well, except for moving forward. so they won't pass. Oh, so they will take acid damage on their turn, I guess. They're coated in acid.

Okay. And I'm gonna use my bonus action. I'll stumble forward as a big hole will open and I'll drop into it as I will have one, two, three, oh shit. How can I'm 20 feet and I can't, fuck. Because they're forming beans, right? Yep.

They're forming beams. They're all the way across. You don't go straight. Go at an angle. I just didn't want to print like 47 of them. This is more than 20 feet, right? Yeah. You have to go shorter and go like this direction to get 20. Oh, that's kind of cool. Okay. It's a cool phone.

Because that's like 15 at an angle, right? Because seven and a half, seven and half. You probably get like there. Okay. I'm gonna jump over the river. Jump over the river. Jumping over the river. And I'm gonna...

Are you teleporting? You just physically jump. jumping over the river. I'm teleporting. Okay. Don't you have a movement also? I do, but they're beans. So I can't always walk away.

I've already used 20 feet. Anyway, I'm gonna say, okay, favorite, who's up next? Red. Hi, Red, I hear another pug. I mean, ah, ah, ah, I'm shy, hold on. Actually, anyone is so exciting, I need some popcorn. I'm gonna do. No.

No. No. Shy little see popcorn bucket as it'll float around rat. What am I supposed to do to that thing? It's the extra butter. That is my turn and I'm going to just check for wild magic to D12. Probably not going to hit. Okay, perfect. We're going.

That's my turn. Sorry. But you're contractually obligated to say I'm probably not going to hit just before you actually drop the wild magic dive. Is Rhett's turn? Rhett? Hank and I are going to swap places here. That's my last spell slot. Hank's gonna get up in the business. Can you say there are beams here? The tentacles are like,

like, form, they're all the way across, so they meet each other. I see. And they're forming over. Do I feel like if I walk through, there would be, it would be very painful. Walk through or like can I not physically get through you you can't they're like these aren't quite like the thin like spears that shot out you kind of like watery These are like solid tentacles

I see like massive you know probably like six feet diameter tentacles They're they're big boys and it looks like they're going to push us into the mall if we do nothing to stop them You do get the sense that that is the the ticket now what I will say is you did see Chuggles on the other side blast acid at the two up this way, which also makes it even funnier than he moved to the other side. I see. That totally makes sense. Huh? Poor Chuggles is one, my brain.

Oh, boy. The Pokemon. The B, bo, boom, boom. My skin is just flashing red, or my nose is flashing red. Like the operation guy. And actually all of my wounds is perfectly forming the operation things. You can see my funny bone and my heart and all that. It's all exposed.

I just, I mean, I have four hit points. I just don't think it's worth an action to, I don't think it's worth an action. You have an AMC exclusive. That's true. Popcorn bucket, which can add to healing, right? Yes. Oh, 20 foot cube.

You don't get to enjoy my creation bar feature, but you can't out to here. This is what I'm going to do. This might seem crazy, and I might get troubles. If these are all the way across, right, if I cast Webb, this is a 20 foot cube,

and I put it here, could it like restrain all, basically if I'm doing it, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Is it a fireball radius? No, no, no. Oh. So basically, Webb here,

could it theoretically restrain them to stop them from pressing us forward if they fail? Theoretically. Okay. So, uh, I'll be looking around us. Hey, keep going, buddy.

We're going to be okay. Uh, he's going to make an attack action on, uh, the mall, but then I will turn around. and you'll hear clunking and whirring of my pack and a nozzle will come out from the back and like a spray foam. It's going to basically spray this like

this very lightened purple foam all over. And it's sticky. And everyone in the area needs to make a So just charcoal. Strength save. Oh, wait and hold on. You produce a... Dex save. You produce a

canister that says grund stuff and start spraying rapidly expanding foam mold. 21. That's very funny. That passes. Strength saves? No, decks. Can they make deck saves? No, they can't make deck saves. So they fail. They're unmoving. They are restrained as long as they remain in the webs or

until they break free. A creature restrained by the webs can use action to make a strength check against my spell 70C. If it succeeds, it is no longer restraint. Whoa, careful we pray, though. He dodged all the sons. God, I think they were thinking to fill up with scary water and I put on my snorke thole.

And my footies. And then Hank is going to attack. I have a Lama Corps Inner Tomb. Yep. Yeah. Oh, that's going to hit. And then Oh, it does four points of damage. And he's the mega strength save if it can. 26. Yeah, it passes.

So Hank does four points of Pierce. B'b-ba-bo. Bop-a-poh. B'all. And then for my movement, I can't really go anywhere. That's that. Okay. Yeah, that's it.

Rex will holster the pistol and seeing these tentacles slam down just to, he's not you can see him, but to his left side his duster will float out as he reveals the peacekeeper and he'll grab the shotgun and you'll hear the racking of an energy shell in the back of the room and then a loud pulsing blast. It's pretty cool. That is cool. It's really pretty badass. You hear the racking of a shell,

boom, a loud pulsating blast as the tentacle that keeps him from chuckles is cut clean, blasted in half. And that can remove off the board. So two and four? Just the one side. Oh, nice. Okay. So the other still falls like kind of around the edge. Um, oh. Not bad, Rex. The maw

inhales. Takes a deep breath. Pike, it's your turn. This isn't good. It's not. I can attempt to destroyed the tentacles so we can all back up. And I think that's what I have to do. These guys got acid on them. Oh, if this is their turn, then they would take damage that.

Oh. If layer, yes. If layer is their turn. Lair is their turn. Okay, that might change my due here. How much acid damage does it take? I forgot that they... It's not a little. They encroof...

Oh, it's only 2D4. If they... If they... Come on. Oh, pretty good. Pretty good. six points of acid damage. Six points of damage.

The acid burns through the tentacles on that side, and those two remove. That's huge. But the back two will have pushed Rex and Khan 10 feet closer and moved up. The frontmost one won't have moved fallen to the web. Oh.

So yeah. Oh, hey Rex. Sorry I threw it, floating pie and your dad, whoever. Get it together, Chuckles. We're fighting for our lives out here. I look down in all my operation size holes. I'm definitely going to spend a key point

to Flurry or Blows. I only have two key points left. I'm going to start by using a ranged attack firing off a radiant sunbolt from the Gauntlet. I kind of like look back over my shoulder and raise my finger to shoot at number one with a radiant sunbolt. Okay. 19 to hit.

19 hits. Let's go. 12 points of damage to number one. 12 points of damage. As the radiant blast fires from your extended finger, the magenta light courses through the air, strikes the tentacle as it shivers back and recoils into the water. Okay, awesome.

The other three are going to Big Mom, Mr. Mall. Big Mr. Ball. Big Mr. Mara. I love that board game. The lowest one is a... 15 is a 15. No, it's a 14. I'll make two attacks. Two hit. 9, 13, 17, 27 points of damage with two punches to this horrific mall creature.

Turn back and fire your magenta blast at the tentacle behind you. And as you bring your hand back around, you quickly snap a fist forward, boom, a knee straight into its under jaw. And then your left fist crashes into the side of the mouth as well. It is starting to look rough. Lubush. Seeing the danger that all of my friends are in and realizing that that tentacles gone, I will back up, lash out with two attacks.

attacks. That's gonna be a 22 to hit. 22 hits. And that's gonna be a higher to hit. And so that's gonna be 9, 17, 28, plus 14 is 42 points of bludgeoning damage. Jesus. I think it's getting weak out. We can do this. Come on, you guys. Well, we'll see. The Ma' once again.

This is it. Swirls and Wurs. It's spinning jagged teeth. As Pike and Hank need to make dexterity-saving throws. Dexy said. 15. I was due. I'm going to twist for Hank.

I was due. Nice. That's a 20, I think. 20 will pass. 15 will fail. Sweet. As you're striking out almost wildly, your fists controlled, but anger drives your blows.

As the maw starts to spin and turn, you get caught up in the teeth for a moment. As you throw a wild punch and a slash cuts through your forearm, you take 12 points of slashing damage in the mall. Hank is able to leap back and would move probably five feet at the diagonal. Was it no damage if you pass and full damage if you fail? Or was it half? It's full. No, it's you avoid it if you pass.

Thank you. You take full damage if you fail. Got it. It's just feast your famine. Got it. Oh. Chuckles. Oh, me. Hello, Mythical. Hello, Mythical. I'm just going to go with women. There's some weathering here.

One, two, three. You're at the tentacles. I'm... Oh, I got, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I stumble forward, I fall face first. You know, the splash of, like, of, of, of, uh, putt, water, and then I splash back out again. Uh, and I am going to... to step forward a basic

I guess there and if the tentacles going across here Yep I'm going to say Mm

Taguyag And I'm going Grab it with my cantrip I'm going to make an attack roll That's going to hit That's going to be

an 18 Or 20 20 hits for sure And then 2D8 Lightning Damage Oh nice 10.

10. of lightning damage on number three. 10 points of lightning damage on number three. As you reach out and you say Takayaki, and you hit it with a lightning blast from your hand, your honk if you're happy, joy buzzer, and your palm courses this energy through it. It shrivels once again,

scrolls back into the water, and drowns, but leaves. Hey, you guys, Good. You guys are good. Don't worry anymore. Chuckles is here to tape your day. I can't believe I'm saying this, but thanks, Chuckles. I can't believe I'm

saying this. You know what? I wouldn't want to see your finger get flayed. Wow. Wow. Thanks. You're welcome, I mean. Rhett? I'm going to look at Pike. I'll say. We gotta go. Let's fucking run.

I mean, is it taking damage? Does it feel like we're taking damage? This seems looking rough. Is this thing like dying? Oh, it's looking pretty rough, yeah. Okay. That being said, I'm going to turn to Hank and I'll say. There's how much more we can do, buddy.

Let's get it out of here. One, two, three. I'm going to step over to the Ocon's body. Yeah, that's funny. Oh, hey, doggy. Oh, hi, doggy. You're my favorite customer. Hank is like over here.

I'm gonna turn, and I'm gonna say, I'm gonna give you cover and fire. But we don't have much time. And I'll shoot two attacks, and I'm gonna make them both ether charged, or whatever we're calling. Oh, oh yeah. Oh yeah.

It's probably pretty good. Yeah, baby. It's probably pretty good. What if happens? That is a 17, 18, 19, 20 to hit, I think. And a... Or no, 22 to hit and in 18 to hit. Dacies 15.

Okay, let's both hit. Just two. One. plus 21, 31, 33, 43, 53, 53 points of damage. Damn, son. You stumble backwards. You get back to, and then casually step over Leocon's body. You turn around, fall to a knee, and the ether engine fires out.

two blasts. They shoot out, they join each other in a gravitational dance as both orbs fire forward. The maw takes a large, deep, long inhale, and then the black seawater begins to bubble at the back of its throat. As it exhales out, and the moment it touches its lips, your ether engine blasts, strike the water,

and explode it in the mouth. Oh, shit. How much damage was it? 50. Damn! Do you add to bar desperation damage? I didn't. But I want to save it.

I want to save it, because I don't think that'll make the difference. What did I say, 54? 54, 58. 58? 58. 58. 54, 58, 50, something. It was an odd.

50s, 53. We'll split the different five. Perfect. 53. 53. 53. 53. I was trying to add five damage. Sorry, chat. I ain't no cheetah. I'm cheetah, but that one token in relation, it looks like one. That approved. Is that your turn?

That's my turn? Actually, I did not use my bonus action. Let me just see real quick. Oh, good. Bonus action. I'm going to have my bonus action. I'm going to command Hank to dash just to get further. Get out of here. Not too far ahead, but I want him to go on ahead so that he's safe.

Okay. As you reach the other end of the tunnel, there stands Mad Dog. You hear something coming from behind you. The paw prints fall, slightly lighter on approach. You said of a big. You see... Once again, Rex will roll out to the side, letting go of the peacekeeper and grab the outlaw and will fire off six shots from the revolver.

The bullets will fly out firing into the lollver. firing into the mall. As he takes his stance just to the side of Khan. On one knee, holding the revolver, smoke coming from the end of its barrel. He's dead. Oh, he's gone.

Pike and Labush. Make a dexterity saving throw. I have to pass this one thing. I got to pass this. You have to. Eight teenies. Come on. That's cocked. That's cocked. It is. It's literally a bunch.

It's cocked. Wow, that was cocked. That was cocked. That's the true definition of it. Oh! I got a 28. The tentacles having receded into the water on multiple sides of the room to erupt on either side of the mall. They slash out dashing towards. Pikes and LaBouche on either side.

They attempt to grapple you, but you both pass, so instead you will just take, well, not you. LeBusch, you'll take eight points of bludgeoning damage as the tentacle strikes at you. Neither of you are grappled. Pike. I unleash on this thing with the white, the magenta, will caught fury of a thousand magenta-colored zones.

As I cast, I only have one key point left after this, one of my two remaining key points to use flurry blows to make four attacks against this thing. One's going to miss. You said 15 hits, though? 15 is the AC. All right, so two hit, three attacks hit. Can't pick up a little pyramids. 8, 10, 12, 15, 17, plus 15 is 32 points of magical bludgeoning damage. Oh, how do you want to do this?

I am like, I'm still bleeding from when it pierced my hand, its tooth absolutely sliced through my forearm, I'm bleeding all over the place, my ammo battered and bruised from when Leo was smacking me around. I would basically deliver two radiant blasts and then sensing that it's weak, take a step forward, pointing the gauntleted hand, like straight down its throat and seeing that if I can finish it off by firing a blast, into its gullet. You have a cut just over your eyebrow, as you know, head wounds bleed. Your vision almost obscured as the blood trail flows over your eye. You land two decisive blows, the first punch missing, but it's clear that the creature is reeling from your fists. They fall about it like crashing thunder. As it stays dazed for a moment,

You extend your hand directly down its mall. The energy swirls at the tip of your finger as a magenta orb forms. Bang. As you send your radiant blast down its throat straight back to hell. Ripples go crazy in the water. Everything shrieks and trembles. As the black Iker fluid moves all. throughout the river. It's pulsing as this creature drips and droplets as it expunges a big wave

sweeps throughout the room as it washes everyone kind of away and towards the back you'll be moved by the water if you're hit no like not all the way 10 feet or so as you're pushed back by a strong wave of hideous Eldrich Iker. And quiet returns to the room. We gotta go. Laboos is done. I look in word. Do I feel that it is done?

You don't yet. If it is not done within me. I jump the river with a little bit of still grace that I have and I hobble over to the other side of Leo next to Rex and I say, come on, help me get him up. And I'm like holding my ribs while I'm trying to help him up. You're holding your ribs as you're raising Leo's arm around you. Rex takes the other side. For purposes, I'll ask you to swap sides. Sure. Oh, check up the camera.

We get the air back on the next. I can't wait to imagine what's going to happen to be standing next to this horrific river. You hoist Leo Kahn both arms on either sides of your shoulders. Well, hell, there's a moment there. Even I didn't think we'd pull it off. We got to get out of here, though. Khan said, what, 12 minutes? How long ago do you think that was?

Maybe like two hours ago. Sure feels that way. You gotta fucking try, let's go. Focus, Rex. Let's go. We're not out of this yet. Let me get them that popcorn above your head, Brett. I start buttery.

I try to get everybody moving. Go, go, go, go, and I'll do this. I'm wobbling pretty bad myself, like, even though I'm like, Elf and Rex, I'm not moving very quickly. moving very quickly. Hank's gonna jump up and get caught by two of the arms and I'll just try to lead everybody out. I'm going to look back at the mob body briefly to see if I have a pull or a tug

there just before I start to run back towards my suit, which is presumably farther up. You all start to mobilize as you get ready to make your way out of here as quick as you can. The black form of this creature recedes back into the pool. And as it dips down and in, it changes the water level. And as the water level changes, something rises out from behind it. A jet black form of jagged, broken coral. Hale?

That was what I saw before. When I was given the vision of figures. surrounded by that theme. You know immediately to cleanse this is to heal Aurora. If we can cleanse

this, we can heal Aurora. What the fuck are you waiting for? Go touch it. Go. I race for over. Gosh. I will. I'm still walking back. Like, I'm...

I'm hoping. Yeah, I'm still like trying to get to the exit even though LaBouche is doing his thing because Rex Leo and I are moving slow. Yeah. So we're still just like hobbling farther away. As LeBusch moves to the coral at the back of the room,

you make your way there. Oh, he's dead. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. As you're churning to get out, to leave as quickly as you can, you can't help but turn to look at what happens next. As you reach out, Labush,

and you touch the coral, you gain a familiar sensation. As you reach out to it, it fragments in your hand and absorbs through your body. It moves within you, and as you remove it from the space, the water that's running out of the room begins to slowly turn from black to murky, slowly clearer as you cleanse this space. I'm all in. Immediately as I feel anything break, and I get a sense that that is what I am here to do, I throw my whole self onto it. I'm not using an arm or an appendage. I bubble around it and attempt to crunch it inside of my digestion. You do so, but it doesn't consume in the same way that everything else has. It swirls within your form.

for a moment. It moves to the outside. It takes place on all sides of your body. And then Rex drops Kahn for a moment. Oh no. And steps back. Without saying a word, he levels the revolver at your head. You gain a new ability, but don't read it aloud. Who's the people on the revolver at? You. You? I'm like, I like basically fall to my knees under the weight of Khan and like how damaged I am. And I just look up at him.

What are you doing? Before you can even speak, the shots ring out. The last thing you see is the look on his face and the horror on Rets. As you're surrounded by a field of flowers. You look up at a hill, floating on an island, stretching as if towards the heavens themselves, you see an ancient lighthouse, like it's always been there. From its doors, cloaked figures, orange, red, magenta, burst out. You fall to your knees.

They run towards you and the whole scene goes up in flame. You look down at a dark jet black claw that's extending through your torso. You turn for a moment and you see the hideous form of your friend LeBloosch turned to jet black. And you may read your new ability. With my dark embrace, when a creature within 60 feet of me drops below 50 health, I instantly appear next to them killing them instantly. You heal, I do, 2D4, and my next melee attack rolls an additional die. I can attempt a wisdom-saving throw to stop myself from doing this. I would like to try not to do that, but it sounds like I failed the first time.

Not this time. The shots ring out, over your shoulder, attempting to stop Labouche, as he was crashing towards you. You fall forward to the ground dead. I immediately opened fire on the bush. World attack. I'm twisting them. I'm twisting them. Is Labouche right here?

Yeah. Yeah. What's your AC? 19. Yeah. They both hit. 20, 30, 40, 50, 50, 50, 52 points of force damage.

Ha! I'm screaming as I fucking unload. Um, that would have been well over even after healing what I have left, so I go unconscious. Not yet. You are not just... I'm gonna like T-1000s, like. 1000s.

You are not just jet black. You are encased in an armor of dark coral. And as the ether blasts land into your chest, the coral shatters. And you're once again back in your green form. And you are looking upon the sight of what's happened. Rex Revolver leveled at you. ether cannon smoking having just fired. What does happen?

What did you do? You just killed Pike! Pink! No! I'm gonna run up to him and stab him with adrenaline or whatever, presumably doing nothing. Oh, no, no, no. I'm gonna pick him up in my arms.

Pike! I gotta fucking go, not now. I'm going to turn and start booking it with Hank, and I leave everyone else behind if they follow him. else behind if they follow. Rex takes off a black strapped gauntlet and he tosses it at you. You hear, as the area was cleared, you hear the word, the second this starts to go down, you hear the roar of a smaller engine. Get him out of here. You gotta have MedBays on the Rhapsody. You could save him. And the speeder. bursts into view down the hallway.

Control it with the gauntlet. Get him back. As quick as you can. I will grab it, and I will... Thanks. Thank you. I'll put it on. And I will...

Do I get a sense that I know how to control it? It... The... Once it... not innately, but once it connects to your body and it sinks with your mechanics that you wear normally. you gain the functions of the wristband, and the speeder responds to you instantly.

You can hop astride it and toss pike over the back. I will, it'll speed towards me, and yeah, immediately I'll hop on. And I will toss pike over the back. I will let you try to very gently have him in front of me. Hank is within the mechanical arms. And I'll turn back and I'll say, good luck. And it's gonna be okay, everybody. The engines explode as you head off down the bend

and you fly out down the edge. What's everybody else doing? Not you, obviously, but... Churcles. You and the rest have to get out of you. Yeah. Okay, Rex. Let's get your dad out of here.

Sorry for throwing in floating pie, Mr. Lion Man. I can take him myself. You're not going to make it if you help me bring him. You should run as fast as you can. You sure about that? I have my friends. I still have all my floaty stuff.

I just... You're like big flippers. I have big flippers. Come on, Laboosh, we gotta get out of here. We gotta say pike. You go, you go. I gotta say pike. And I fall off the cliff down my ladder

as I'm just trying to run as quickly as I can. You are all charging out of here. The speeder well on its way. You don't worry about anything. You, as you blast out of the door, of coral. They didn't close behind you as the boss fight started. You erupt through, well, actually it broke it as. You get through the coral. The speeder explodes out of the room

down the waterfall over what's now a clear pond as you are racing out. You burst back into the open, the iced down area, the bottom elevator section, and you kick the speeder forward. It's based pointed directly. ground, it fires straight up in the air. As you climb without hesitation, you crest over the bridge and you make your way out of the temple. You two run as fast as you can, bounding, moving. Who has the most passive perception? No, I've, of you two. Mine's now officially zero.

Oh, hold on. No, of you too. Hold on, hold on. Passive perception? Usually it's 15 for me. 11. Labouche, as the two of you turn the corner, you catch the unmistakable, but somber smell of cigarette smoke.

As you burst out of the hallway and you charge forward, you drop off. You drop off the... You're not leaving? Why would I leave? I've just done this horrible act. I feel like I'm the danger. I unless there's a reason why LaBouche would think that he needs to run I'm trying to get them away from me I would want them to run

I would want chuckles and wrecks and everyone to to disappear in this moment because I have no way of controlling myself all of a sudden I had this loss of agency where I did this horrible thing to pike I suddenly I'm just like I don't know where like what to do in this moment when you changed shape when you consumed a pure form of dark coral from the ancient days, from the first day, and you changed shape. You, in that moment, couldn't control what was happening. There was a different driver behind the wheel. As you executed your act and your friend, and he fell.

The powers of the Weaver wrestled with the ancient magics of a long, of a long, thought-lost race. And the web was able to consume and shift that portion down. And you don't believe that it is always sealed the way, but you believe that you have control momentarily.

I'm going to let them get a good distance from them, knowing that I could suddenly appear. If any one of them should suddenly trigger this new form and power that I have, I don't want to hurt anyone else, seeing how hurt Chuckles is, seeing that Khan and the Rex are trying to make their way. I would give them some distance before I would start to make my own way out to protect my own safety. Okay. Rex and Khan have made their way. of this room, down the bank of the waterfall. And if you move anywhere near, like in their wake,

you would get the sense that if they go one side around the room, you could go the other and give them wide birth. So there's no threat of any kind of harm befalling them. But still, as you charge out of here, and you let chuckles go far ahead, across the river, then you'd even see a small light of a cigarette light up, potentially one final time.

And the smell of smoke carries across the reservoir as you bound forward. Does it look like Rex to me? Does it look like? Rex has gone the other way. Okay. The speeder crashes out of the temple. You see once again the sky unfurling in front of you.

One enormous destroyer class kingmaker ship and empire, the empiric ship of the prime knight has come. In the distance, you see what looks like a giant 12-sided forming energy circlet. not around the planet but off in the distance almost like an immense dream catcher being woven out in the background you are speeding their empire troops on the ground battling these creatures fighting back but as the events have happened you'll see the creatures actually burst and destroy and disintegrate into the area. Chuckles, you would, long after this, break out of the temple. You hit solid ground. You start to make your way back. Labouche, right behind him. A fear distance behind him. Oh, what? If Chuckles trips, he dies.

I'm 61 feet away from Chuckles. Feet are just spinning now. You make your way, you make your way out. Rhett, you get back almost all the way to the Rhapsody. Empire troops are right around it, flanking the ship as you get there. You pull up maybe in a frenzy, and one front facing troop, big,

not big blue armored but in kind of like a white armored mech suit with blue accents down the arm like a blue stripe down each arm and one golden line down the center of the chest

oh who goes there I don't have time for this get the fuck out of the way someone's dying stop there immediately you come from a infested planet Oh, fuck. Do I know of any guns on the ship that I could activate remote leaders to blow these guys away to smithereens?

You... How many are there? Can I take them? There are... There are ten heavily armored Empire troops around. And even that, maybe you know. start hitting it and the Rhapsody floats and starts to turn around. Halt.

We don't mean harm. Show us your man. We're not corrupted. And he might be dead, but if there's anything you can do, please. I fucking beg you. And I'll lift him off the bike. Seeing that,

I have no way to get in my own fucking ship. They'll run up. Watch the guys run. Um, uh, and they get right up to you. Oh my God. What happened? What happened here? It's a long fucking story. Can you help him? We can save him.

We have to get him immediately to Demirella's ship. All right. How the fuck do we do that? We can fly him up there. You can follow us in yours. All right. Stabilize him, quick. And you'll see the, uh, uh, Other troops run up and move to take Pike. They get out kind of the form of a beam stretcher as these like beams of light cascade over him

and seem to prolong his status. Is it just you two? We got a few more coming if they fucking made it. Before you go, hold on. And I'm gonna reach into his jacket and get his pack of cigarettes. I'm gonna take one out and just put one in his mouth. And one of the, there's gonna be a little lighter that comes down and lights the cigarette.

Come on, buddy. You can stick it through for what you just. There's one more, come on, buddy, you can do this. As the, as you do that, you put the cigarette in his mouth and you light the end of, you would notice the faintest, draw. Um, all right.

The faintest draw at the edge. You had it in you. So that's not remotely good for him in this condition. Trust me, I promise you it is. Please just take him. Fine, we can take it. The stretcher puts it out of me. Um, uh, uh, you need to move.

The 13 are preparing to vaporize the planet. You need to get off of here immediately. you are not infested. What if I told you the planet's not infested anymore? We took care of it. You cleanse the planet? Yes, we fucking cleanse the planet. It's done.

Do you need to blow up the whole fucking thing? We can leave no trace of an infestation like this. All right, fuck it. The 13 have already acted. Let me all my ship, please. And they clear the way so that you can get on the Rhapsody. Without a word, I'll just go into the Rhapsody and I'll get ready and hopefully be ready to go the second LaBouche if he's fine based on the last time I saw him and chuckles and Rex and Leo too, I guess. I would go. I'm like, if I see like Imperial soldiers and knowing.

like, I'm, like, suffer not the Zenos. Suffer not the Discorda. I'll, I'll walk in, like, oh gosh, oh, chuckle the Giegiv up. And I'll just, I'll walk towards, I'll see all the Imperial soldiers and all this

bit, okay, the Gaginth, I'm no longer, but you win. You win. Chuck, shut the fuck up. You win. I'm coming against you. I know my rights. Come on against you. By that, I mean, I don't know. I don't enemy. As you walk up, Bruce outstretched, ready to be, ready to, readying to be arrested and summarily executed as per empiric right as it pertains to Motleans, you walk up, but all of the

empiric soldiers are beginning to lift off of the planet. As you see what looks like a 12-pointed star in the distance that begins to glow. At its center, at each one of its pinnacles, off in the distance, you see a different glowing light. Like the, and you see the forms of what you know to be these giant mechs. In its dead center on the other side of this pointed star stands one slightly larger mech that seems to ready a pool of energy at. its core. Oh, this is how I die. Could I give me the emperor? If I could take the Rhapsody, since I was so much faster on the speeder, basically take it directly to where they would be leaving the temple doors. I'm trying to get them on the ship as

quickly as possible. You do that. You can find the signatures of Chuckles and LaBouche. LeBouche. As you exit the temple, attempting to stay well behind Chuckles and ahead of Rex. As you walk out, you see that same similar sight. Empiric destroyers blotting out the sun, blotting out the starlight. You make it a couple bounds ahead. And then Rex and Khan make it out of the temple just behind you. Rex looks up.

The cigarette falls from his mouth as he sees the empire. He calls out after you. Babush! Babush! What? Come here. You should stay far away from me. Damn it, man! Come here!

Just... Don't prick your finger or anything. No, I don't say that. Hesitantly, I will approach slowly, like trying to, like, tense, like, muscle like hold my breath trying everything that I can without my suit on without my mech suit or the ether core any of these things just green and a nervous system and eyeballs and organs listen the bush you don't know what

this means yet but whatever happens next you can't let the empire take Pike take this and he puts a stack of papers in your hands. The real treasure I stole from the boss, information. Everything, everything he had done

was because of them. He was some kind of go-between to insulate them from works. Everything is in those papers. You can't let the empire get them. Make sure he doesn't get on a ship. I will do what I can. Go. As fast as you can. I am quite fast! And I will like, I'm not running. I'm literally like leapfrogging at this point. Just landing, sploishing and then jumping forward in huge arcing waves to try and as quickly as I can catch up to where I think Pike and anyone else might be.

I'll plug my comms into the, I'll send a signal to the Imperial shuttle that's taking the pike up. All right, boys, get him on that ship. Good job. And it docks on the ship for Demirel. We'll make sure to say your friend. Follow us back to the Empire. You won't see this. Wait, what did he say? But as Rex looks up at the... 12-pointed star

in the sky that shines with a brilliant light he sits down on the ground and takes one long draw from the cigarette Khan resting next to him as you bound towards the Rhapsody

everything left in your wake you get there just as it's taking off the ground and you're able to leap you can see chuckles almost like goofily climbing up the ramp, stumbling forward, and you just leap from the ground as it takes off and you land onto its gangway.

I will rejuice myself, and I will look for any imperial guard, empiric guard, and find, if Chuckles is there, I'll be able to yell out to him, but I'm looking for Pike. You do so. You frantically start to search the cargo bay. all you find is chuckles as the hangar bay door closes behind you. Where is Pike? I don't know, I got here. Is he on this ship?

Do you say that on the comms? Oh, hey. I don't have comms. Oh, right. Hey, LaBusch, where's your big old suit? Where's Pike? He can't be on this ship. He's not here right now.

Do I think I can go, I guess, do I see Leo and Rex? No. I think I have a hole in me. I will reach into the hole and I'll pull out your comms unit. Oh, that's where it went. Rett! Anyone, bike! Can you hear me?

What? What is it? No, he's going to be fine. The empire's going to take care of him. He can't go with the imperial. The... He can't... Rorah, Ra, Rect, Rex.

Uh, Rex, he gave me more... Why? Why? He gave me... Get the fuck up here! Am I on the Rhapsody? Yeah. You're on the Rhapsody.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't realize I thought I was in the Rhapsody. I thought I was in an imperial show. I will... splash through the hallways and immediately arrived to you. She's on a space ambulance, basically. Yeah, yeah.

And we're following the ambulance. I thought I jumped on the ambulance, so I will, flying past Shuckles, make my way to the... We gotta give the two hyphen on there. I take... Do you give me whatever heat wrecks later? As soon as I get to you, I go,

You have to see this! Isn't this? It's the... I mean, I'm just... If I can quickly scan it just to even get a gist of what it might say, so that I have some sort of information to make a tactical decision. You start to skim these notes, and the story unfurls before you. Everything is signed by a Dr. Addojo,

a call to the boss, a partnership, a go-between. There's certain things. experiments the empire needs done but can't be seen doing themselves you will contract this out maze will steal equipment we will let it happen you will set up a base he will conduct experiments next page not yet cracked energy cores we think we're close to replicating ether dwarf technology but we can't be seen testing it ourselves.

The Emperor himself would have us disintegrated. Tamper with the ship's engine, defunct it in Mad Dog Orbit. The fool will find the wreckage, and he won't be able to help himself. That's how we'll test it. Next page. Successful trials, the boy lives. The boy lives. All this begins to unfrole in front of you. Someone in the empire conducting secret experiments beyond the authorization that they would ever provide.

As the realization dawns on you, Demeril's ship kicks into orbit and flies off into space. The 12-pointed star fired by the 13 knights of the empire. The planet of Aurora disintegrates behind you. No vapor trail leaves it. And that is what we'll call tonight's session. Holy shit. Okay. I got a wreck kick something in frustration, stuffing his toe. I kill him instantly.

I meant to write on there, but that can only happen once a day. Oh, really? Oh. Once a long, I didn't mean to imply that that could be imply that that was like always rocking. I was, I was getting close to like, oh, if I can get to the Imperial Guards now and I can just do damage to some of them,

as soon as I damage one, they'll all fucking go. Cut to the credits. Yeah. Plain and blam, b'i, bhae, bhae, no, that's fine, that's fine. T. Oh, thanks for running.

What a great fucking session. Thanks for playing, everybody. I can't wait to play next month. I think that Chuckles actually has luck bending magic like wild magic sorcerer. That did not a single imperial guard, I'm like walking through, and then like,

hey, Motley and then a giant, like to anglerfish, like, talking to the battlefield. Like, gosh, I think I have, this is that you coming up. Some say the universe is a song, that all things are made. All things are made from the same stuff as the stars, and that every life is a note in the music of existence that echoes through infinity. So when you feel insignificant and alone, just remember, we're all irreplaceable parts of that grand cosmic melody.

The Stardust Rhapsody. 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 Shroud over Saltmarsh. A patron exclusive campaign

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