Legends of Avantris - Stardust Rhapsody: Overture | Ep. 3 | Cold as Ice

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

After turning in one bounty at a space station casino, the crew of the Rhapsody embark on another hunt to an icy planet...   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/kXnA6obq1Ks?si=Uh_i4EJ_LjTtFQc8

Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Labouche, and you're listening to Stardust Rhapsody is what's happened last time. You find yourself at the precipice of a stairway that leads down and into the asteroid. I'll download a schematic of a compound. Nice. And that's not a fucking exaggeration. This thing is a compound. I will commit horrible war crime if we can force the doctor to think of the kid. There's one more room, right?

How do I recreate it? There's no time left. They'll be here soon. You have to let me finish. You don't understand. That doesn't matter because you're worth a barrel of credits. You're landing at the end of the stairs two massive creations. Why don't you pick on something your own size? Oh yeah! You don't understand. You have to let me finish. If you don't, we will all be killed. You're fucking cloning humans. What's the point? The boss...

They sent me here, provided me everything I needed to continue my research. His neck begins to elongate and bulb as an explosion bursts out. This asteroid is beginning to explode. I fucking knew it. We gotta get the fucking out of here right now. As the hangar bay is closing, you're able, as it's shutting, you catch the faintest glimpse of the asteroid as it explodes, a circle it expands from its center. It looks like we got out of there in the neck of tar. The Rhapsody takes off into space. Bounty Turn it. Space Station 77 to the boss.

Yeah! Space. Out here, the star shine is so piercing, your path is often filled with light, purpose, and promise. It can be so bright, sometimes you don't realize the light has faded until it's long gone. The Rhapsody cuts a slow but purposeful path through the ether, leaving in its wake a shattered meteor of horrors. The words of the bounty fill your mind as you think of the children in the tubes and the works of the doctor. For a moment, you sit quietly as the picture of maze rotates in front of you. The words, bounty turn in at Space Station 777. to the boss.

You all having been there before, the path is easy. Dandy plots a familiar course through the stars and Hank guides the way. You suspect that the course you've set takes you to the maestro of this particular play. You find yourself sitting in the living room, right at the monitor, everybody else, sitting where you might find yourself classically after a, successful bounty, if you reflect upon it that way. And your ships have been left in the hangar bay, currently under repair after your adventures.

And you know you have about 30 minutes until you arrive at your destination. What are you all doing? So I've just read that, have I gotten a chance to sort of reread the bounty? Yeah, absolutely. I would say it's probably at this point, it's probably like a couple of hours past the events on the meteor.

You're like, you're heading back to the space station, you're closing in on it, you've definitely had an opportunity to reread the bounty. I said the monitor, like silent stuff. What? How did I miss this? What's wrong? What is it? Person that took this job out.

is listed here as the boss oh what is Bruce Springsteen doing in outer space of course it is oh oh I guess that's a fair point though maybe this is a different the boss I think you're just being hopeful maybe a couple people go by the boss hopefully I don't know why the fuck he would be so scared of this fella. But maybe it's a good thing that he's fucking dead. We can turn him in alive. I mean, after what he did to those kids,

I don't think there was any chance that he was leaving that lab alive. And for all we know, I mean, it seemed like he knew his time was up. As far as I'm concerned, bounty's successful. We have what we need. We make the exchange and we move up. move on. I guess that's fair. We still have his head.

But what about everything that happened? His nose is like... He's just... Is it so cheap? He's just floating inside it? No, no, no, no. I took it out. I put it in a space mason jar. A spaceon jar.

Oh, I'm feeling real down, Doc. Oh, really? What's... Why do you feel... Why do you feel so lonesome and depressed? I didn't say that. Oh, I feel like nobody. My head, like, turtles in a little bit.

Very funny, chuckles. Chuckles, do you have to do that with every head that we turn in? I mean it's a hilarious joke if you get there's so many punchline that feathered head sets up but why keep using the same one this is the 24th time well you know you can't you can't argue with the old classic I wish we could uh-uh it's just like sitting with her head her head in her hands thinking um like I'm thinking and I'm going to loud do you do you guys think that the boss would do this to Jackson to more people do this to Jackson are there any other jacks the fact that he wanted him dead or alive he's either trying to hide what happened or his goals have changed but with everything

we saw I don't think we can just turn this one in and move on well I don't know like the idea of furthering this jackass's plans, especially given the installation he made on the good doctor there. It almost seems like we were just insurance. Either way, I mean, we can take the jackass's money, though, right? Another one with that. That's, of course, yeah. Thank you, Rhett.

You're speaking, you know, intelligently here. A job is a job. We don't need to get wrapped up in anything that doesn't concern us, all right? There are plenty of credits to be made out there. Plenty more jobs for us to take. Do we know anything else about the boss other than what we learned on the asteroid or what his name is on the bounty?

Well, I guess we're about to meet him and not too long. He's the one we're turning the bounty into on Space Station 77777. Kavir, have you heard of this boss before? Uh, roll a... Let's see what the checks are. Roll a...

History. Roll a... History check. History check. Sure. A 15. With a 15, you would have never met him, but you wouldn't necessarily have ever heard the name before,

but you might be able to draw a couple parallels to understand that there are several, less than reputable people that run casinos in Space Station 777. And you would assume that this is one of them. Well, I mean, given my excellent choice in the company I keep for work, you present party exempted, of course. He's probably one of the guys that runs the show, the casino there, at the space station we're heading to.

So I say we start knocking on doors. We'll probably find him. Casino. Ah, come on, this is perfect. Turn in the head, we get our credits, we have a nice drink, a nice meal, finally get some good food, and we relax for a change, all right?

As long as you don't head back to the craps table. Just a little bit of gambling. And my share is my share, all right? That's fair. I just don't want you to complain about all the pies being gone when you're out of money. Well, no, we won't be out of money when I hit it big on the flots. Danny, I'll teach you all of the rituals to get the best result for the plot machine. As long as I can have the food.

Oh, yeah, if you get free food and free drink, and you don't have to dip the girl who bring them. It's entirely optional. They ought to evil chuckles. Fucked out. He'll keep bringing you drink. Even if you don't do them. That's my fuck job.

Chuck, you know what happens when I drink. Oh, yeah, that's true. I most prefer the food. Well, maybe this time

there'll be slightly left chaos and bloodshed. Well, and let's not forget that we got to use a good portion of the reward for all the fucking repairs I have. could do to all your ships. How much could it possibly cost? Like 10 credits?

That's pretty funny. How much is a banana, Michael? $20? Is that a fucking joke? Oh, I don't know. What who repairs cost? I mean, when I got super repaired by red during our battle, the DinoBots, I said, when it asked me what service I wanted and I said, premium most expensive, so I could get it. out there real quick.

What did that cost this? Probably like, I don't know. We're talking in the... $15? We're talking. Certainly in the thousands. Oh. Well, we gotta get rid real big at the flots bandies.

We've got a tall order ahead of us. Maybe I can try to plug in again. Oh. Oh, that's right. We'll try it this time. I don't know if your dino tech have been really interferes. They're really interfaith with their is their

casino time? I'm scared of the Capito plan. That is not what you said last time. Well, I thought it'd be funny if you tried. I don't want to get roughed up

by the pit boff at the time. Okay, I'm ready to go, but we must not forget about Jackson. I don't think there's much to do about Jackson besides remember. You know, nothing surviving that exploing.

What about perfect, Jack then? That's right, we don't know what happened here. Well, I mean, just because we didn't see the body explode to a million pieces, we saw the asteroid explode into a million pieces, I think you can presume. How many times it's presuming gotten us in trouble? That's a fair point. I've learned one thing. If you don't see them die, you can't assume they're dead. Well, look.

But you know what they say about presuming? It makes a preth out of you and made The one-way tickets are tough If we just keep presuming We'll be prethed in a space That doesn't make any sense Camere makes a good point All right, that's a pretty good rule

Of bounty hunting in general We don't have a body, we don't see a body We can't count anything being Concrete there Well, either way if you know Perfect Jackson is out there

somewhere flying around in the little pod maybe he's got little boosters on the bottom oh somebody scooped him up R2D2 make me a gin and tonic I would like to eat Jackson well maybe one day

all right Hank how are we doing it's at this moment that Hank alerts you that you have an incoming cause you are now breaking into the section of space where you can start to see the space station as you look out and it cuts a brilliant splash of colors and lights all throughout the sky. You see just neon eruptions in all spaces, greens, blues, golds, everything fires out in all directions

as you approach this, you come across a massive, what looks like solid gold-plated space station that spins like a top or like a roulette wheel as you approach. You can see giant, gorgeous structures erupting out of every aspect of it. It is enormous. You would not be able to walk from one end to the other if you had a thousand cheats. cheeseburgers of time. I don't know. That's a lot of time. Like, at least.

Oh! This is the cheeseburgers? This is the space casino? Yes, they clearly tried to keep it very low key. You can see as the side, it's kind of this large, open circle that rims the outside of the space station, plated in gold. You can see 777, etched in the side. It, like, embossed in the side.

Oh, I get it. Huh? Get what? You get it, like, slots. Oh. Yes. Very clever. Space Cathino Bawford.

Very clever. Should we just call it Spacino? It saves time. Yes, I think so. Or just casino? Oh, what about triple sev? Yeah, triple seb sounds pretty cool, actually. It does feel like if we refer to everything as space X,

we can just ditch the space. It's implied after a certain point. Not if you are on a planet. Then we have to do this wish. Well, all planets are in space. That is true. But when you are on a planet, it feels different. You have a planet drink.

Planet Casino. Casino. Hank alerts you the call is incoming. Oh, yeah. My phone drink. It's not a video chat, but just audio line comes over the...

God damn it. The Rhapsody. Hello, Rhapsody. Hello, who is this? If you could follow the directions on your map, you will dock in a special docking station. Oh, just customer service. All right. Is there like a number?

Are you just going to, you know, just give us the cords? Follow the directions on your screen. It should be simple to navigate. All right, Hank, I got this one. I'll get in my pilot's chair and take control. And I'll start to follow the directions on that screen. It just says you and another three line to dock. It's like a cartoon hand.

Is this unusual? Or does this kind of thing happen normally when we are doing downy stuff? You would know in very, like, very legitimate, very high-end, like, if you were approaching like a solid base as opposed to any kind of, like, you know, ram shackle space station you may come across, like, they wouldn't do something like this, you would just kind of fly in and park in, like, public parking. This is clearly like the effect of what feels a little bit more like a concierge service. It's very regulated. The intake is only for those who are welcome to be there.

Well, then I don't even blink. I didn't know we were doing so much. Nobody would be nervous. This is normal. On your screen will pop up as you're looking out and you see the space station extending in front of you, you will see a selection of dots, almost that just like kind of begin to do. geo map your travel in front of you. And as long as you stay on that course,

it will pull downward just slightly and around to the side of the space station. And you will be directed up into a docking station. I try to fly through all the golden rings to the facts and my points. You do so. You do it. Bing. Bing. The ship heals as you go through.

Oh, good. That's nice. Fancy, don't you think? What you chuckles. Are you some, like, diamond platinum high roller level in their loyalty program? Oh, let me see if I can... I need to check all of my membership cards. And I pull out a wallet, like a comically large wallet, and just, like, the photo holder. And they're all, like, member clubs all on the space casino.

I was absolutely convinced you were going to a 52 card pickup all of your... Wow! Oh yeah! Look right here! Oh, it's expired! Maybe they'll remember me. All the way. Look, we're gonna follow this in. He doesn't have directions to where the fucking boss is. So I think you're right. We gotta have to either ask around. I doubt we could, you know, I doubt it's public knowledge where he's held up.

I mean, given the fact that he's called the boss in quotation marks means he probably doesn't want to be found too easily. And can we keep that head hidden? Maybe give it to Kivir, so we don't send anybody off. This is a nice place. Oh, you mean this. Oh, I can put it in my hat. I can't shrink inside of my neck hole.

Oh, no, my head popped back out. I can put it in my hat. I mean, if not a rabbit, but of clothe enough. It ends up the same way. Oh, hey, guys. You should play a lot of slot. That's how you get a hat. Anyways.

And I will continue. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Head's up, Red. Turn left. You do turn left. You follow the, you follow the pings on your star map as you fly down and into the hangar bay. You, opening up in front of you is a massive, ornate space. Far bigger than any hangar bay, maybe not any hangar bay you've ever been in,

This is an enormous luxury space. It's not rinky dink. It's not dirty. You can tell immediately that it's very clean. Lined along every edge of the hangar you see ornate ships, you know, to be incredibly expensive. They're fast. They work well. They would overtake you in any kind of space movement, but they are classically ugly.

I don't have the same flag. This is not brinkie big. No, this is a hell of a lot nicer than Electrum Nugget. Bravo! Bravo, Mike. Not like an Electrum is big, but I couldn't help myself. The Electric Nugget had really good nugget. I really did.

That's all that was good, though. Are they all uniform in their design? Like they're part of a squad or like a force? No, you're looking at like Tony Stark's garage, you know, with like luxury spaceships on every side. They're just like, you know. Reminding us just how poor we really are. Exactly, yeah, nobody flies these space ships,

you know, they're just there for the status. But they're not like, it's not a squad, but it's very clearly like an ornate luxury collection. Just the high roller is like, okay. Oh, yeah. Do we think this could be the bosses? Anything's possible at this point. Was he expecting us?

I don't know. I'd have to imagine he knows who the fuck we are. And I'm guessing he has some kind of intel of what fucking happened. So I wouldn't be surprised. A guy like this who puts out a hit on someone like the doctor probably has his ducks in a row. We should be prepared. I've been like beer gut belly

laying back in the seat. Now that we're arriving, I'm going to stand up and hit a few buttons on my chest console and it'll like... It's like one more simply when he sucks in his seat. I am ready to go. And you do you do you do this don't. All right, Hank.

Keep it out on the shift. Get started on repairs. We won't. be too long. I'll get them a scratch and I'll get up from the chair and uh alright I'll hit the button on the what do they call that?

Like ramp? Yeah the ramp bay or whatever it'll go down and uh head out. Your cargo door kind of descends and you all begin to walk down the ramp. At the end of it you're met by a what seems

to be a robot butler black tuxedo, gray slacks, black shoes, very like, you know, metallic face. The boss has been expecting you. That answers that question. I feel a little underdressed. Am I okay in this? You look terrible. You will have to change before we can enter Elysium. And he gestures behind him at a flight of stairs. I'm gonna run towards the robot and say hello and try and shake its in.

Hello, my friends. Are we safe here? Its arms don't move. It's their folded behind it. I'm just like... Oh, that's cold. Looky, yeah. I promise I do not have tricks like chuckles. You are safe in Elysium as long as you have the bounty. if you do not

you will be killed we've got the bounty then enjoy the wardrobe don't don't worry here I think the bow is right behind your ear and I'll reach out there's not a mirror

I just reached behind this line of his head go use the battery that is the whole time Mr. Robot Butler There's like, there's like a digital mouth and for a very brief moment you think you catch the faintest glimpse of just like... Oh God, my!

The single pixel? Yeah, single pixel raises up on one side for an instant. I literally dunk the head into my hat as it gets bigger and... Please be careful. Change and we will head up

into Elysium. and I will escort you to the boss. Is the robot butler insinuating that we need to go back on the bebop? He's presented with a wardrobe. He's pointing at like a room you can go into and a selection of clothes. All right. You heard the robot. Do you have any clothes for a motelian?

I've got a bit of a yogi bear build. I don't know if they generally tailor that commonly. Hey, boo-boo. Anything you seek can be found at Elysium. Oh. Well, how about that? Will any of these outfits fit over my suit? Anything you seek can be found at Elysm.

Let's just get this over with. Oh, I hate this stuff, and I'm going to, yeah, I'll have the wardrobe. All right. Same. I wonder if there's cheeseburgers in the pocket. Oh, or at the very least, beans churgers. Is that anything? Oh, in the anything.

Oh gosh. Oh, you know the play is actually to get a cheeseburger and a double-decker of cheeseburger and a double-decker beet's sugar and pull apart the cheeseburger and stick the beats sugar inside. What is that? Delicious.

Wow. Give me five. Oh, yes, we're going to order so many to AMB. You go into the wardrobe room. It's just a small section right off of the hangar bay. You get the sense. anybody who might be flying in, traveling from a longer distance. It's like a little bit of, you know, there's showers, locker rooms,

things that can be locked away, but there's also a section where you can select new clothes should you choose. And anything you find, anything you'd seek can be found there. You will find that everything is in your size. I'm going to head straight to the new clothes. I'm not going to get a look at the use clothes section. I'll just go ahead straight to the new clothes. Cavier.

Yes. Will you take my suit and hide it away? Yes, absolutely, my friend. I will. Take my helmet, put it down, release myself into like a blobby goo, sort of unzip, unshackle, unconnect all the things, and roll it up,

stuff it into the top of the helmet, and hand it over to Kabir, like a gift-wrapped present. And now I'm basically just one big, ooey, blob as I start to look through the clothes to find a suit or something. Everyone roll a group performance check. Perisma? Group performance? Oh, natural fucking 20.

Plus zero. 17. I don't know if it's worth twisting with these dice. Yeah, I got a 15. 15. Okay. Four. Four.

How many twist do we have? It is what it is. That's your case. I got 11. 11? 25. Oh my gosh. So you all go through, you start shifting through a couple of things.

Oh, I think, you know, this looks like it might fit. That looks like it'll do. Rhett is the first to step out. You have found a, like, gray blue suit, like city skyline color. A large, brimmed, sharp hat complements its top. And accompanying it, what you've also decided to put on, is a white trench-like overcoat. Not designed to have your arms actually fit through.

It just rests over your shoulders. And flows behind you like a cloak with every step you take. You have a tie, just like a standard necktie dripping down. from the end of the suit and you can be in whatever color you choose. Is this tacky? I feel like this is this too much? No, you look great. Does it make me look stocky? No, you always look stocky. Stalky is your thing. I guess that's a good point.

But you make it look good in that. Yeah, you're looking good, big guy, looking good. I just found one of those pushy sales bots and they just told me what to do, so I mean I just trust them. You look very dapper. All right. I kind of like the hat. It looks little. Hats are very in. Remember, you can put things in there.

Oh yeah. Does it have an interdimensional portal to honk space? You pull the hat on and you look in and swirling within it, you see rows of jagged sharp teeth going, Oh, no! Oh, no! Who had the next It's gone. Well, it's gone.

But he looked good doing it. What the hell? Who had the next highest roll? I think you had 25, right? 25, okay. Chuckles is the next one out. A simple pinstripe suit. You've decided, you've opted to keep your

gigantic clown shoes and you maintain your bowler cap. But on that, you have a large peak lapel design suit with a wide band on it and it is in stripes of black and white. With matching pants. Look at this. This is what all of the all of the made men in my

my thereal shows win let's do this okay I'll grab this oh wow it even made for a motley here we go oh okay my shoes and my hat

don't really match and I'll say I'll go out of my eyes there'll be an MS pink color picker and I'm going to point and I'll press the little the bucket and I'll press white and black

and I'll go, boop, the fail tool on my shoes and my hat for it to match. It's like one of those kidpicks apps. Yes, kiddick, yeah. Yippee! Yippee! Oh, no. That's a film. Yeah, I will have kidpicks for all five of you who know what that is.

I'm going to load up HyperCard. Yeah. Oh, variable. Well, how do I look? Do I look like a real wide guy, eh? Gabagul, Madone. I don't say this often, but you look respectable. Oh, thank you, Kavir.

I'm with Kavir, you should dress like that more often? Oh, should I really mix up my color scheme? Oh, I guess I got a mix up. Hold on, poop, boop, and I'll do the color picker on my face too, and all my reds and blues will just turn to black and white, and I'll look kind of like a serious gangster clown. They're flippin duke into war about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I'm so monotone. Gosh, I have a black node instead of a red one. It's so... Oh. It's just jazz. No, I... I squeeze it. It's just the people of the godfather. That happens exactly. That happens exactly. Dandy, you find a dress. It is that of a flapper style. You find pearls. find pearls to complement it, and a headband that will wrap around the single feather extending out of it. The dress has a beautiful sequence. It is very flashy and gorgeous.

Wow, this is fun. I'm going to start, like, you know, swirling the beady skirt around and checking out the feather, wondering what type of bird this came from. What died to make this. And the pearls. Danny, have you ever had the opportunity to dress up like this? No! I'll enjoy it. This is fun.

You look good. You're doing it well. I kind of look like a cake. Oh. That would be really good. You look like you're ready to cut a rug. Let's go. Okay, here you go.

I'll pull up a rolled up rug and a giant pair of scissors. Why am I doing this? That's what you do when you dress like that. Quit, quick, quit, quit, cut the rug! Or else in seven you're bad, but... It's having you the bad luck. Oh, gosh. No, that's the proper cape.

Kvir. You have found like a white, almost turtleneck-style sweater. Thin wire-frame sunglasses with very dark lenses. Damn. Okay. You, over top of it, a brown.

suit jacket with brown matching pants and you have slide jet black velvet shoes. I have to say I am surprised they would have something I like but I really like this. Man, having to follow up Kavir is going to be tough.

I think it might purple off those shades better than you would though. I don't disagree with you. Pike, you have found a very traditional tuxedo, double-breasted with a black bowtie. You have, should you choose so, sleeves pushed

up as you're classically wear on your jacket, and you have found a sharp magenta pocket square that sits in your breast pocket. As I'm changing, I would muttered myself, I hope they don't lose my jacket as I'm like leaving my normal jacket with them or whatever. I would not do anything with my hair. I would leave it there, and I would still have the same beat-up pack of cigarettes. I wouldn't transfer them over to anything fancy, and I would just stick them in my inner breast pocket. Do you do so?

You do so. You will do so. And LaBouche, you have found a, you have found gray suit pants and a black tuxedo jacket with a white shirt

that sits beneath. The tuxedo jacket is of an older style with long tails that extend out behind it. And black wingtip shoes. I'm still without my suit and I'll see it like lying down there and I'll just sort of like splush down and enter all of the various like arms and legs of the of the suit and to sort of like form a general humanoid shape into it. And then you'll see my eyes come out of in the leg pants, and be like, nope. Come out of one of the arms. Wrong again.

And then finally I'll find the neck hole. Does this sound with the beep? Eventually I find myself the correct configuration. Do you Biba towards your suit and clothes? And as you get there, what was once a flat sheet of cloth on the changing table

just starts to fill. out as you form into it. But that beer gut is sort of back in there. I'm lumpy in parts. I'm not quite doing the best job without the pressure of my suit being what it is. Well if we can all keep it

together, we might actually pull this off. Looking good, guys. Oh, thank you. We all look really great. Why don't we just dress like this normally? I feel like we'd be a lot more effective criminals. There's too much work. We can afford it. Oh, man.

We all look better this way and I'll tighten my tie, my head will get a little bigger. It also restricts movement. I'm a little, I feel a little constrained in this. You do the tuxedo designed to kind of pull your shoulders back for posture. It's a little tighter in the chest and you would find that you can't extend, you don't have full extension of your arms forward. Another question I was going to ask was, would it be out of place for me to be wearing my golden gauntlet? Not at all.

I'm keeping it on. Not at all. It's a jewelry. Yeah, it looks like ornate jewelry. So my frame is normally like very narrow shoulders and then it goes wide. But this for the mobster is like it's incredibly wide like squared off and it's good like the mobsters in the oldling you choose to do and I look like well I don't want to repeat I don't want to steal red thunder but do I like poxy and then

I was fully expecting chuggles to pop out in exactly what dandy's wearing. wearing, you're like, oh, yeah. Something does look a little off, Chapples. You feel all right? I feel great. Okay, hey, you look good. I just can't tell what's different. You're like literally inverted.

Yeah. Are you ready? Let's get this over it quickly. Yeah, ready enough. It's hard to hold this shape. Now or never. Yeah, we're coming. You all start to walk out of the change.

you see this butler droid standing there as you file out one by one you he looks you all up down right and left that is much better but for a moment he pauses on the bush and you can see that you two are wearing almost the exact same out there and you see that pixel just bounce up on the on the left side of his face follow me up the stairs and he'll turn and start walking towards the other end of the hangar bay you'll see a expanse of stairs that kind of run up to a gold inlaid door the the hangar kind of like a like a gray polished steel but this golden door heads out and from behind it you can start to hear the sounds of music.

He walks up to the front of it, swings the door wide open, and you enter into Elysium. In front of you, halls of gold. You see waterfalls at every corner of the room. You see people dancing, singing, trays of food. of drink going from here and there. You see tables spread out along the floor. The carpeting is red silk everywhere you can find. It is the most lavish space you have probably ever been in. And imagine the track No Sleep Till Brooklyn Phrase as you, the door swings out and you walk out in slow motion right at the front, Pike, Cavir, Dandy, Chuckles, the boo. as you enter into the casino right behind this butler droid. Follow me, and I will take you to meet the boss. As soon as I take my first step on the silk carpet, I'm...

This is a little slick. And I will start walking, but it's clear that I'm, like, scurrying a little bit. Whatever I'm made of does not interact with it with something like so. Do you have a pair of sticky squeakers? The shoes, they're not helping. Well, just see if you get used to it, and then I'll pull out an extra pair. That'll be a last resort.

I'll take them. Are you sure? Yes. I'll reach them in my hat and pull out like another pair. And they kind of like... I'll take the shoes and I'll put them behind my existing feet and from behind my ankles, other feet will grow into them. and now I feel more comfortable

I can walk forward for without issue. Okay, I'm sure I'm sure we're able to get those off at some point. The Bouch is now walking throughout the casino and the front two sections of feet wearing giant squeaky clown shoes and the bag two sections of feet wearing much smaller black lane tips. It's incredible.

You make your way through these halls. The sounds of music, of laughter, of success, bells ringing, people cheering, the adrenaline is starting to course through you. You are wrapped up in the energy of this space. It is intoxicating. When something catches the corner of your eye, or you might even consider it like,

we're here to meet the boss. Why don't we play a game or two as we're getting ready to go? As you might, as you might, be looking around at the tables you'll see that most of them are full but your attention will be drawn to one because there is a loud jeering player at a table which is very similar to Killivax a very large creature dark slate gray skin giant jaw almost look like he's made of stone

you'll hear him call out, nobody can beat me. And slamming the table. He's taking drinks. He's not tipping. He is just, he is making a scene. He's making a scene.

And as you come upon it, the butler pauses for a moment and snaps his fingers. Out of what feels like nowhere, these two, not as big as this, But these two large creatures start to just like casually flop back and forth across the floor.

They are big pink, large craniums as well, kind of slicked back, large protruding ears but fall down their face. And long whiskers come out from either side. They're wearing nothing. They have white stomachs. They're covered in kind of a fur. The only thing that is a little odd is each one of them has two giant gauntlets at the end of their arms. And they approach this player and say nothing. What do you do, want? You're not getting me up from this table?

I'm winning too hard. They continue to say nothing. But it is clear that he's now being asked to leave the table. He leaps up. You're not going to pull me away. I'm winning. You can't stop this winning streak. He pulls back a massive fist and throws it at the first one of these guards.

As his arm moves through the air, stone erupts out of his skin and forms at the end of his knuckles. You know that if he was throwing this at you, you would not want it to connect. almost lazily the first guard raises a hand and catches the punch effortlessly. As it connects with his gauntlet, the rocks disappear immediately, catches the fist and throws the other fist into his stomach, and the player collapses.

And he says, it's time to go. One of the guards says that. And they both pick him up from either arms, and they carry him off. It seems as though the boss will be occupied for about 20 minutes. Here are a thousand credits. Enjoy whatever game you may.

For each of a? For each of you. Oh. No. Well, thank you. Leave a second. All right, Ken. I'm gone.

You turn to talk and they put a papercloth. Your hat snees there for a second and then. That's exactly what happened. All the rest of you, let's not get too distracted, all right? We're still on the clock. We still got a job to do. This is a lot of money. I will not be spending this money on gambling. It is Elysium Casino credits. Oh, my.

Think of it like a funny money. It's gone if you don't use it. Can we purchase direct- with that or is it just for gambling you would know that the drinks are free you would know that the food is free and listen red you you know I'm not a big gambler I'm just gonna play a couple hands so I can get a free drink or two come on and that's fine I think it'd be in politics we didn't use it so let's use it but let's not get too fucking crazy like Chuckles is probably gonna do all right no one can control Chuckles and that's just the laws of nature it cuts to the waterfall

Chuggles has found his way to a top with one of the waterfalls and leaps for a moment, pauses directly into the air before taking the shape of a large, bulbous black and white cannonball as he crashes into the pool below, splashing water along the,

splashing water at everyone beneath. And they're loving it. The crowd is starting to eat it up. They think it's part of the show. This is so exciting. Do you want to all sit at the same table? He's more fun. Well, it depends for what.

Rulette? I'm more of a blackjack guy myself, and it might give us an opportunity to kind of space out and see some different things. Okay. I should have left that part out. It was implied. To out.

see some different things. You mentioned a lot of the tables are full, are there any that are half empty, completely empty? If you start to look through kind of what games you can play before you start asking for them, the first table you come across that you would all be able to sit down at, or however many of you choose, is a game called Fates Stay, which resembles the, which resembles Texas Hold'l. is also a 21 table, which is the effect of blackjack. And then there are races that you could bet on.

Oh. I would definitely go try to find a 21 table that is not too crowded so that I could sit down and just kind of leisurely gamble until I can get a drink. I've always been a poker man myself, so I guess I'll see y'all later. Is this seat taken? Excuse me. Excuse me.

Oh, not at all. What are you doing? My chuckle! I didn't know you could afford a leaf. Oh, you know. He's called life insurance. It's not. They're talking to fake her dad.

You're lying? Sees is crazy. And sitting at the table with a large brimmed hat and a flower and red hair extending out from either end, is in fact Mora Chuckles, who has alluded the silly goose authorities for one more time. Where would everyone else like to go? I'm going to go bet on some races.

What kind of animals are they? That is a good question. The animals that you would see when you get to their races resemble enormous wolves, but they are not canine in origin. They have large protruding jaws, and their skin lacking fur is like almost a snow white, but it edges towards gray, and their bottom jaw extends out further and has two enormous canines that jut upwards and covers the top portion of their mass. mouth, they do not have eyes.

Whoa. That's wild. Are they going around a track? Oh yeah. Do I know what type of animal this is? Roll a nature check. Damn. 16.

With a 16, you would know, you would check your animal databases, your animal mind. And you would know that this is not a creature you have ever come across before. This is described to be an exotic creatures racetrack. I will bet on these exotic creatures, but I did not like the way that sounds. I also will have made my way over to the races because I just want to do one and done, like get all 1,000 credits either see them blown or maybe I'll get surprised happily. But as I'm walking to the race and following dandy, I'm realizing looking around that every single robot servant is wearing exactly what I'm wearing.

People are handing me, like, finished plates and, like, dirty glasses and stuff. No, no, no. Okay, yes, fine. And I'm just taking them, pulling them into my body and just, like, continuing on with my day. And you do, people are handing you, oh, take this, take this, yeah.

Oh, you sure, yes. Yes, I am complete, thank you. And as you take the plates and the glasses, they'll absorb into you, and as you move throughout, there's little, like, trails of compiled refuse behind you. Oh yeah, yeah. I'm leaving perfectly clean plates.

Sometimes in stacks. But yeah, I'll gamble on one of the exotic animals. Perfect. Were you at any of the tips? I was debating. Would this be your first time in the casino? Almost certainly. So I'm going to accompany the bush.

Okay. So you three to the chief? Tracks, 21, and Rhett and Chuckles are at Fates Stay. Chuckles is looking for slot machines. Chuckles is at slot machines. I thought they're rolling for slot machines like a hack, so I'd name the Space Station after slots, and I could imagine you'd see it coming, but here we are.

Anyway, let's start with 21. Pike, you sit down at a table and across from you, Not a robot, but actually what seems to be a similar creature from what you saw the guards to be, except much smaller. Wearing a red vest over a white shirt and small gray pants. Similar pink skin, fur, long pointed ears that kind of slick back and down. and just like I refuse to elaborate

I won't ask any questions there's no good way forward so I wouldn't do that to you you sit down and the rules you would know them ahead but I'll explain them to you now because you're a degenerate that's right

we will roll 2D10 you and I I I believe I will roll publicly. Okay. One counts for either one or 11

of your choice. If I hit 21, I win. If you get closer, or I bust, you win. Okay. Okay. You bust. Yeah, I like it bust. Listen, listen, this is meant

to be played in a amongst friends. Yikes. 10 and a 3. You're at 13. 13. I got an 18. I'll stay.

You'll split up. All right. I will roll. I don't think I can split in this style of 21. I think I'll roll again. You want to just one? Just one? You're just adding to it, right?

You got a... Hard 17. Dealer has to stay. Pike wins. That's insane. see it. I'll roll one more time. Another four.

21. 21. 21 is not like black. Is this dice load? Perfect. You could choose to roll another dice or you lose. I guess in this version of 21, I would have to try for it. I lose either way.

You're going to three, three. Three. 21. Natural 3! I've never been so happy to roll low in my life. Well, there's a tie. Everybody keeps their money. That's called a push. I don't know. That's not how it works in space. This is a space flag.

I would say, for, like, Pike knows how to gamble. He's certainly not what I would classify as a gambler. He knows the rules. He's there to have fun. He knows it's not his money. He's much more interested in getting a nice drink. Yeah, change. You would be sure, people would come up to you at the table consistently. Robot Bowers walking by, anything you could imagine or order can be yours.

They have a selection of cocktails, should you choose to peruse their menu or? He would get some sort of a rye on the rocks, like a nice, you know, top shelf thing if possible, since it's all seems to be included in the highest. Because, you know, he's used to being on the Rhapsody where we don't always have the nicest stuff. So he would definitely take advantage of like a high shelf booze if possible and just continue to enjoy the gambling atmosphere. the fun. You've ordered and they will bring over to you in a rocks glass that is curved, almost like a, like a, like a, like it has a bit of a swirl to it, almost like a rams horn.

But it sits in this, in this stand. And they'll say, here you are, sir, a high water. And it is, they present it to you. It is some of the best bourbon whiskey you've had over rocks or what did you say rye yeah some of the best rye whiskey over rocks you have ever had with just hints of something in it you can't quite place but just takes it to another level i would light a new cigarette take a few puffs enjoy the drink and continue to casually gamble focused much more on the drink than the actual gambling you do so yeah um fate stay poker oh that's me yeah okay give my nice bag of me so there's no big guy oh so there's no slot machines on this on this business?

We'll get to you. We'll deal with you later. I have my lucky three I'm looking for. You're pulling the lever over and over and over. It turns out to be a robot. Don't stop, you know. Don't stop, baby. You win.

You win. I'm so close. Yay, hey, hey, hey. Okay, so you would also know the rules of Fates Day. What we will do is anyone who is playing will roll a private D12 to keep it away. Once that number is revealed to you, you can either fold or

continue. Normal buy-in is 100 credits. We'll then roll three D-12s publicly. And the goal is that your dice plus the dice on the table, your

total is the highest. The caveat is, if your dice is a match with any of the dice that is on the table, you add an additional value of it. So if the dice on the table are 6, 7, 8, and you hold a 6,

I can't quick math that, but 27 plus 6, you'd have 33. So because you have a 6 and a 6, you would add an additional 6 to your total. If you had a 7, you'd have a 7 to 7, you'd add a additional 7. If you had an 8, you'd have an 8 and 8,

an additional eight to the total. Makes sense? So, the pair is really a triple. Pairs like a triple. Yep. I got to find a D12. Yep. And you see the same kind of dealer at your table.

Smaller creature, actually standing in a chair. Pink fur. You can't actually see the stomachs wearing a white shirt, red vest over top. Ready to play. Yeah, deal me in. All right, here we go.

Good luck. Good luck. Good luck do you do, money. My chuckles roll in D12. It's just a head inside of a giant iron world. Jesus. You can see this like, Oh, God, that's good.

Ma Chuckles, roll a D12. Sorry about your husband. No, privately. Oh, very good. That was that. And then if somebody with three D-12s could roll three D-12s on the table form. Two, eight, and nine. Is he the dealer?

Dera's the dealer? He's not the dealer, I'm the dealer. He's just, I can't, you know, only got so many D-12s, they'll be. I am robot. I fooled. This is word. Ma Tuggle does exactly how this works. You have, so you've rolled a D12, so you have one number value.

There are three numbers on the table. Your goal is to beat my value, so either you have no matches with anything on the table, but your dice is higher than mine, or you think that I have no matches on the table and you do have a match. yeah I'm gonna fold oh well perfect the one again I'll have the shot of day and there's a robot

that has been races over to you Trey trembling trembling another Chardonnay and they know that the request is coming quickly so they just start sprinting back for the next glass

and they're going to be horrible It's supposed to be a double. And we'll go to the races. You all see these creatures. You get over there, and you see they put out three creatures for you, or four creatures for you, each one of you chooses. You have one, two, three, and I'll take the fourth.

And they are, as described, these massive what look like, almost to give you the sense of, like, giant white wolves, just no fur, very light gray, almost white skin, enormous jaws. And you see what kind of looks like, like a space rhino, kind of tossed out in front of them, and they rip it to shreds. Like instantly, I mean, the first one that goes in, its jaw cracks open and slams like a crocodile. splits the rhino in half. Daddy's life is ruined. And they just start to rend and destroy in a matter of

probably eight seconds. And this is in front, these animals are physically They're like in a recessed arena so they're in like they're coming to a track but they're like down they're not like touchable you know it's like you're behind the plane in a glass. Well you're behind you're in a viewer's box. I miss the plot. Why are the wolves tearing apart the animal they're being fed oh okay it's like the intro scene the Jurassic I was hoping that it was yeah yeah yeah Ryan was being uh is tied to a lower yeah okay crying and I'm gonna call Marvin the robot or whatever the paranoid

robots around us and just ask for like 10 double cheeseburgers with extra whatever that stuff was beans churgers in the middle and I'm just kind of like hang my head I love that you still want to eat it I'm so... Oh, I'm sad. Yeah, this is sad. This is a big one. It's the space version of, like, Ben and Jerry.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's the best-based rhino burger. And this robot races up a giant tray, like, Flintstone-sized marble slab, was just piled on top. 20 double cheese burgers, stuffed with beans, jurgens.

You have it. And this is probably 40,000 calories of food, but that doesn't impact. It doesn't even mean anything. I will have to empty my compost buckets. I love the straight case. I think I will have to. It's worse. This is a fact.

The bucket's getting bigger. That's gonna happen. This is a mechanic. I'm, so I'm, as I'm eating these, like, are our animals randomly assigned to us? Like, I can't pick. You can pick, sure. I want like the runtiest looking one. There is one at the farm.

far end that looks just a little bit smaller than the rest, dude. That's the one I'm betting on. You bet on that one? I'm going to bet half of my money, so 500 Elysian credits. Okay. And all the while I'm stuffing cheeseburgers into my mouth, I'm going to be thinking about how I can get them out of there and escape. I'm going to try and, I'm going to try and freedom.

Do you have names? Do you have names for the horses? Yeah. No, no, they have. Mine has a name. It's called freedom. But it's spelled with a four. I only ask.

You'll know why I ask, he's like something's wrong. Rett's voice plays with a lot of reverb. I don't remember. Come here. How does this work exactly? Well, for my experience, and I apologize, Dandy, I forgot about the feelings.

You want to pick the ones, with the coolest name. So far that's worked for me sometimes. But usually it's at least fun. So if we look at the names here, we have Crash Lightning. Crash Lightning. Not bad. Freedom. Freedom's the freedom. Freedom can be the freedom, but it's 433 dumb. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, correct. Um, they don't have to be cool. They can be redone. They can be ridiculous. It's like Santa's... Who's like Santa's...

Bates Cadet from Planet 9. One clue over the cuckoo's nest. I hate my wife. Off to the bluebacker. Yeah. Who framed Roger Rabbit? Oops, I did it again. And we just pick one.

We don't bet on multiple at the same time. You can. You can bet on two of them, three of them. You could bet on all four, but you're going to lose three. out of the fourth. The second is named Time Stand Still and the Third is named A Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Now I personally like Time Stand Still. That's very on brand for you. It is. It is. It is a surprise to nobody. But you are free

to choose whichever one. I guess I will pick, I will pick. A girl just wants to have fun. That is very on brand for you. A thousand on, girl just wants to have fun. A thousand on, girl just wants to have fun. go have fun. Yeah, I mean, did you just pick one? Can we do like a superfactor, trifecta, boxing? You can you do. Go back to one.

You're in 21 drinking high water, all right? You hear from, what kind of casino is this? No superfecta, boo! No exacta, boo! No exacta, boo! Pike's not a degenerate and he is. Pike doesn't do that. That's Andy.

Sorry. I keep the peanut gallery now. Oh, God, they're melting. And I would put $500 on the time stands too. I put $1,000 on girls just want to have fun. Before I can say you don't want to bet all your money. Okay. And the house will bet on crash lighting.

So what we'll do is we'll roll a D4. And each one of us will roll a D4 together. And then we'll total them. and whoever reaches 20 first will win the race. Oh. Sorry, say that again? Everyone will roll a D4. Together, every round, we total the values.

And whoever reaches 21st will win the race. If I get 21, do I, like, drop back to 15? Your space wolf explodes. Go! Go! Go! Too much fun! He needs to be in 20 exactly.

No, no. You just remember, he used to 20 first. No. It's 20 or higher. 20 year higher, yes. All right, round one. Nice. Good start.

That's a three. Yeah, that's a three. Four? Four, read them, pulls into the lead. Well, and that's, what did you have? One. One? Okay, girls just want to have fun.

Does that have fun? What did you have? Three, three. The loose has never asked you for anything. Come on. Come on. Guys that's one to have fun, come on! You need a hat!

Alright, round two. Everybody roll. It's not like a good friend. One. One. Come on. You have to like trip both of its ankle break instantly. It's like...

Come here. One. One? All right, Crash Lightning pulls into the lead. Time stands still in, sorry, freedom for freedom in second. And time stand still in third. And girls just want to have fun in last place with broken angles. It's tripped over its own jaw.

Round three. I got three. Freedom, three. Girls just want to have fun, rights herself. Her ankles unbreak and she starts to raise forward. Yes! Yes! Four! Come on! I got one! Alright! Crash landing still in first, but freedom right hot on the trail.

Girls just want to have fun pulling into third place, passing time, stand still. Round four. This is sad. Time stand still? No, not the bag, ankles. Girls just want to have fun? One. One. And four, Redam?

Three. Oh. For Redam pulls in the first place as they round the track on the other end. They're coming back for the second half. Crash lightning in second. Time stands still directly on its heels. And girls just want to have fun. falling back into fourth place.

It's cock. Okay. Freedom, two. Come on, guy. Time stand still? Two. Three. All right.

Freedom pulling into first. Crash lightning falls just into second place. Time stands still in third, but girls just want to have fun hot on the trail. on the trail in last place in a neck and neck raise. Oh, all right, all right. Freedom, three. Curl. Girl, quick.

Go, girl. One. Those tights. Dottie, three? Yeah. Oh my God. They hold positions, I think. Hang on, let me do the quick math.

They hold. positions as they come around the track they are closing in freedom actually very close to the finish line with a four could take it and final well next round oh oh I'm fucked I know everyone else is at like 19 18 time stand still yeah four oh oh oh oh oh so close girls just want to have fun three so I'm at 14 and And freedom. Two, Swimming 18.

This is like photo finish. Yeah. This is very exciting. Yeah. I think we're tied. Freedom and time stand still in a neck and neck heat for the finish line. Oh my God. Crash lightning in second place falling beneath the two.

And then girls just want fun. It's basically... It's basically... Wait, wait. It's just rolling forward. It's not losing momentum. And certainly final round, what we'll do is, unless you both roll ones, whoever takes the highest total will pull into first place.

Okay. Final round, roll your dice. Oh! I'm just like, blah, blah, blah, whoa, whoa. Wait, but what a crash light didn't get. A 12. And my previous total was a 17. It's a three.

Oh, we tied. Photo finish. Oh, wow. Girls just want to have fun. One. Is the horse's name girls just want to have one? And freedom? Freedom not at one.

One? Girls just want to have fun as like, bro, I am straight up not having a horse. I hate most of that other thing. A freak coma. That's on me. I shouldn't have eaten so much rhino. Went straight to the ankles.

Girls just want to have fun. Did eat the majority of the rhino before the race. Can I pass guidance on this? Well, gambling? I was debating on cheating. You would think that that would be considered cheating, but you're welcome to try. But you would believe that that would be considered cheating.

It wouldn't benefit the race is over at this point. The race is over. If you're playing like cards or something. So, crash lightning and time stands still in a neck-in-neck dead heat, cross the finish line together, followed right behind them, 433 DOM.

And last place, bringing up the rear, very casually jaunting through the finish line is girls just want to have fun. I like impressing my face up against the glass and defeat just like, e-w-o-boo. I'll go to console him. And how much did you bet? 500, 500 Elysium credits? You win your, you win a thousand. Nice. So you're up to 1,500 Elysium credits.

And it's at this time that the robot butler, the liaison to the boss, returns to collect you all. If you are ready to go. How weird? What did I do with my cloth? Oh, fuck! All right, slots. I'm doing my rituals. I'm looking for my lucky ones.

It's all right, dear running. Okay, it's a 19-year below you lose. That's exactly the slots. Okay. I'm looking for my three lucky ones, which are invaded from the planet Moolah, Lucky Larry's Lobster Mania 2, or leprechaun goes to hell.

Which are a real slot machine, man. I said, it can't be one. It has to be number two, because they completely open all right and won it's garbage. So I'm looking for any of my three life. Please leave the leprechaun ones. You roll a D20. Do they have any of my lucky?

Oh, you see... Or they only have Lucky Larry's Lopsmania 1. Roll a Lepricon. Roll a D20. Roll an investigation check. 17. Nice. Like a 17. You see Lucky Larry's Lobster Heaven 3.

The brand new slot machine that's just come out, it doesn't look like anybody has ever touched it before. Oh, they... They ruined. in Larry's Lucky Larry's Lobster Mania 3. Everyone knows that Lucky Larry's Lobster Mania 2 is the best. Right next to it is 2. They don't know, no, no, no, it's just the 3.

And they don't even have a Pena Colanaville here? God, this is Piaeanamo. No Pena Coladaville, no Lucky Larry's Loptermania 2. I'll sit down at Lucky Larry's Lobster Mania 3. Let's see how they change everything. I'm just going to be tapping. Okay. go that help.

Come on, come on. You spend time and time again, you're there, you're pulling the lever, you're playing the slots, you're playing the slots, bless your heart. Here we go, all the whiskey sour, please. And they bring you a whiskey sour, a robot

runs up. Oh, thank you. It's in a very similar ornate glass that kind of spins and swirls and sits within its own kind of crystal stand. And it's delicious, It's the greatest whiskey sour you've ever tried. Oh, wow, I could be used to this place, even though they don't have a Pino-Colada, a lucky Larry Lopsomania, too.

You pull the slot machine, roll a D-20. I roll a two-suitous all of my phone. Oh, man. Why you don't want to play three? Should it on the leprechaun. Yeah, what the fuck! If it only had been two, I would have won pig. rip off, they changed all the

all the algorithms. Um, uh, um, you, you walk past the lepricon one and the motion sensor makes him light up. A friend in need is a friend

indeed, but a friend with gold is better, I'm told. Oh, they only have lepricon go to heaven. He's doing this and he's like floating up and down. Green wings extend from out and beyond.

condom and they're actually just dollar signs. Perfect. So yes, with that, the robot bowler will reappear. The boss has freed up. Is everyone ready? I think it's time. I have a large soft serve ice cream. Yes.

I didn't even get my drink. All right. What can I do with these leftover credits? You can cash them out. Oh. It is real money. Have a nice time, sweetie. Good play with you.

You want to go catch out? Go catch out with it. Good luck with the surgery. Too real. I'm serious. Sorry about the smell. Oh. Yeah.

Great. You are... Do you go with the robot boiler? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would finish the rest of my drink, light a new cigarette, and follow the gang in the robot baller.

You do so. And, Rhett, whatever drink you would have wanted to order, you have the option to have with you. Oh, here it is. Thank you. And I'll be with me. You're drinking an extra large pinia collada.

With an umbrella. What I ordered, me? It's like one of those meters. Yeah, yeah. It comes your giant giant Stein, and you're actually a little surprised at how much you enjoy it.

Not your usual beverage. Not usually my thing, but nice and fruity. You follow the robot Butler. He takes you through the hallways on a winding path through the game floor. You don't think you could have

navigated through this on your own if you had 20 tries to do so without a guide. He brings you to the other end of the casino hall floor where you'll see a gigantic golden ornate elevator. You begin to walk up to it, but he veers briefly off to the side. Where you see a smaller, less ornate, not ornate at all. almost what would look like just a utility elevator and he motions over to this one it's almost tucked away

if you're like looking at the initial one you wouldn't have caught it immediately at all as he directs you towards it and press the button you get in there are no buttons on the paneling in front of you not a one no display it just seems to be a sleek empty box.

And yet he reaches forward. He puts his palm to the wall. It lights up in response. And the elevator takes you up. Give some music. I didn't realize that. That was different music I was showing too. I was like, why is it so crazy right now?

I think metal music. You, the elevator rises. It gets to its zenith. The doors stretch open and you enter into a business office, the same red silk flooring, two leather couches on either side of a, not a hallway, but just a room that stretches out in front of you. In the dead center, a simple wooden chair seated in it, is the player that you saw from the table as before.

Behind, just on the other side of him, a large, teak wooden desk. Simple papers on it. The two bouncers that had brought him up there stand directly in front of them. As the doors swing wide, one of them launches a fist. straight into his stomach he keels forward his wrists tied back behind him as you enter the room Rhapsody in the chair behind the desk it will spin around it is a massive chair the back stretches up almost as tall as the room itself it is humongous this

totally jet black leather as it spins around. You look up and your eyes streamed down and down and down and down and down and down and down. Until you see just over the threshold of the desk, similar slicked back pink ears is all you see. Just like over the lip of the desk? Over the lip of the desk. You just kind of see like fluffed ears and then folded back. jumping out of the chair and standing on top of the table

you see a similar creature to what you've seen kind of running throughout the casino but in a black tuxedo with a gold chain that runs from his pocket within his jacket on each one of his fingers a bejeweled golden ring 10 in total

Ah, give me just one second to deal with my uninvited guest here, and then I'll get to you. Oh, uh, all right. We'll wait right here. Take your time. So, you think you could come into my casino and just do whatever the hell you want, huh? No, no. No, I was playing a game fair and square. No, you were working the table, you think you were going to get one over on us here at Elysium. Well, it's just not the case. Okay?

No. Please, boss. Please. No more. Don't you worry. There is no more. Because you're done. And as he says it, he leaves from the table, jumps up into this guy's lap, 20 times his size, 20 times his size.

And he slaps him in the face. And as his hand connects, roll group of his side. perception check. Oh, dear God. Oh, natural 20. Hey, I got a good number. That's pretty good. Perception? Oh, I got a 23. Here we go. Perception, you say?

Huh? Seven. 21. Oh, do you one? About a six. Anyone over a 18 will catch the following. The briefest glint. And we'll say if you got over a 20, you almost get also this like buzz that cuts the air for a brief moment, like an energy from the rings.

As he slaps this player in the face, you hear the sound of what sounds like a pencil breaking. And you realize that he is, it feels good. He does that, but Pike is like stone-faced. It doesn't make him flinch, but that's disgusting. His, you can see, even from the back, his jaw is completely dislocated from his face. The only thing leaving it still attached, the skin that now hangs there as it sways back and forth, his head slumps forward as he

sits in the chair, the only thing that's causing him not to fall to the floor dead is the ropes that are tying his wrist behind his back. It's garbage out of here. And the goons, the much larger, much larger creatures with the gauntleted hands, move forward, cut the ropes behind him, take him away, and walk into a room that's just off to be right. Sorry you had to witness that. I don't like to conduct business in front of some of my other business associates.

He jumps back up onto the table and stands on the table. Come in, come in. Can I have somebody get you something to drink? Howdy? I'll take a cowboy if you make those. We can make anything you want. Anything you seek you can find here at Elysium.

All the cowboy, thank you. Coming right up. You know who we are, presumably? Hey, you're the crew of the Rhapsody. I'm told you have what I sent out for. Is that the case? So you are there, boss? That's me.

But you can just call me boss. Well, yep, that's us. We're the crew of the Rhapsody, and we do have the bounty, so we're here to collect plant a paper. Well, here you are. 50,000 credits for you. Do you have what I asked for? Oh, do we?

He kept it very well preserved. I know I put it around you somewhere. Cut to one of the waiters in the area, and he's got like it mixed for a bunch of empty glasses. There will be a portal that opens up in the area, I'll snatch a whiskey sour off of a tray. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Oh, here it is.

This guy's really going to help us get ahead with those credits. What he said that? Not in front of the boss. Give me the fucking head. Oh, I want to toss at you. That'd be very disrespectful. You walk up, he extends out. He takes it in both hands.

And he looks it over. Yep. I'd recognize this, son of a bitch, anywhere. Well, good work. Do you have anything else he had? Oh, nope. Nope. We, uh, unfortunately, an old damn place exploded. So no other evidence, uh, of no. That's with it. Roll deception check. It's like hiding behind it.

Me? Can I assist him? Sure, are you assisting? Since I'm the one. Yeah, yeah, sure. You roll an advantage. Oh, thank God. Oh, yeah, I let you go.

Yeah, 23. That's a shame. That's a shame. Just working on some stuff that really would have changed the game, you know? But, uh, but, that'll do. The head'll do, so. Yep, he's dead. Yeah, he was the real wife guy, you know.

He had to call him brookalade because he's sleeping with the fish come. fish guppy, you know what I mean? Yeah. That's pretty good. Well, well, good. He'd give me any trouble? No more than any other bounty that we deal with on a weekly basis. I'll puff up. No.

Crying a little. We weren't horribly, emotionally scarred by anything we saw there. We were a bunch of hard and wise guys ourselves, you know? Yeah, you look like it. He looks at you skeptically. Super boxy.

Tuxedo. Well, I suppose that's it then. Well, if I can have the credits, please. There you are. You don't got an envelope? He hands you over 10,000 credits.

10,000? I believe the job was for 50,000. It was for 50,000, but you docked in my hangar. And we went to work on repairs on that ship of yours. And it seems somebody opted for premium super repairs inside. Oh. We had to restock your premium super repairs inventory. All the Seltzer machines have been replenished.

You know how much space sales sales? of costs, that's like 40,000 credits at least. I didn't authorize any kind of repair. Chuckles, was this you? Hank wouldn't have done this. Oh, Hank, you there, buddy? Uh, you

actually, you try to reach out to Hank, and communications from this room are blocked. Oh, that makes sense. Hank, put it. I can't hang you. I got my new bubble suit. Oh, uh... This is all you get in return. When that dapper-looking robot asked me to find him a dotted line, I didn't read it.

I never do. Hey, look, I got you right here. He pulls out this big contract, and at the bottom you just see a giant smiley face. Well, unsurprising yet predictable. Yeah. We're going to have to talk about this later. Oh No, well that means that we're really

Sooped up and ready for our next adventure I guess we are ready to go then Got all the repairs handled Are they done or are we going to have to wait around No, no, there's no waiting here We're pretty good at what we do It's all done You're not going to run in any accidents out there

Fresh breaklight fluid and all that There's no fluid and brake lights That's crazy talk Exactly right I can understand how this would be a little disconcerting for you though So how about I do this? How about I'll offer you another job And I'll double the reward

Oh What kind of job What other kind of job are you equipped for I'm gonna slide you another bounty Somebody took something from me and I won it back But this one I won alive I'm going to turn to Rhett and kind of quietly, you know, as an aside, just say, I'm not so sure I like this, Red. Well, what did he take? And why do you want him alive?

Well, the what is for me to know. The why is because I want it back. And if he doesn't have it on him, I need to know where he put it. All right. Well, if you give us the details, we can look into it. With one caveat, we turn them in, we'd like to do it somewhere else if you don't mind. What do you mean somewhere else? You don't like the Elysium? Just, you can send one of your shuttles out to come get it. Well, that's fine. But we'll call it 90,000. Pick-up fee. That's fair.

You got yourself a deal. I'll send it over your way. You let me know if it works for you. and let me just say, it works for you. Alright, I'll take a look. We'll ask around. One last thing. Are there any public contracts out on this guy, or is this the only, uh, are we the only ones in the know? Notorious, but, uh, there's nothing out for him currently.

This is a bit of a disagreement between he and I. So it's personal. Do I recognize the type of creature that the blossoms? Yeah. Yeah. You would, I would say that you would all know this. This is a common race that you would run into in space. That is often seen running mercantilism, games of chance, merchants, traders,

anything to do with kind of corporate business stylings. So you see them spread throughout the galaxy Does he present us with the bounty here Or it's like back on our ship At the holodeck Oh, alright, it's in your inbox All right I'll pull it up

You got ma'am I thought you disabled that Why don't you read it back on the ship I trust that you're gonna accept it I would just give you like a knowing nod Yeah I'll save this for later We've already uploaded the coordinates where we believe he was heading straight to your computer. I believe your cute little dog Hank is taking a look at him right now.

All right. Good to know. And we're certain that the Rhapsody is not budged by the Empire. Don't worry about that if you were thinking about it. What? Who was thinking about it? Oh, I'm just saying not to worry about it in case anyone was on the top of mind. Are you saying that you're... You're Empire Spice coming into the space station?

What are you saying? No, no. What I'm saying is that, I mean, obviously, because there was Empire Tech that the good doctor had, or the bad doctor had, that, like, I don't know if they would be wanting to know a hunt us down, but I'm just letting you know that we're good.

We ain't rats. My chuggles didn't raise no rats or squealers, you know? I got sticky squeakers, not squeaking squealers. You know what I'm saying? Jesus. You can ignore what he said. If I find out you're lying, and you're driving Empire business around here,

and you're some kind of, you are some kind of squeaky squealer, then you're going to be the one strapped to the chair next. And you ain't getting a massage to the face. Oh, no. That's my moneymaker. Get the hell out of my office. Yes, sir.

All right, let's go. Thank you. All immediately get on the elevator Yeah, get the fuck out of there I don't like that he had access to the ship I don't know who knows what else he had access to I'll connect with Hank We'll get back on the ship

Are we being let out? You So the way to work The robot Butler will take you Back this elevator has direct Access to the hangar bay specifically. So from where you are, it will actually run one floor beneath where the gaming hall was, and it'll open up directly back into the hangar where the Rhapsody is.

Is the robot with us, or you just put us in the elevator? He rode the elevator down with you, but upon it releasing, you'll move back into the hangar bay, and he will stay on the elevator. I hope you enjoyed your stay at the Elysium. Come again soon. Do we get to keep the clothes? You may keep the clothes. Nah, regardless, I'm getting my jacket. Yeah, I'm going to get my things. Oh, yeah.

That's what I'll collect our things. We'll hit the locker room. You hit the locker room. You can change out of your more ornate outfits. You can regain your suit. You can redone it. You can move back into any of the... any of the clothes that you had on before.

And should you choose to do so, you can keep your formal wear. I'll wear all... I'll get changed, but I'll keep it with me. Might as well. Basically tailored. It would be a waste, not too. I'll roll up my suit and store it in my suit somewhere. My suit's inside my suit.

You do so. A compartment can pop open and you just stuff it around. It's a little hanger. Yeah. Well, I'm sure that the boss is just helping us out and not trying to entrap us and getting increasingly intertwined with the mob and then basically own our lives and souls forever. It's probably not what's happening, right?

He's a good fellow. Good fella. Yeah, he means very well. Well, he would stop signing your name without reading what the fuck your son. Siden him, we'd have 40,000 more credits to fucking use. But look how shiny the Rhapsody is. If you look up at the Rhapsody and there's like a streak of glinting light rides the side ending at a wing point, it goes, bing.

And it looks, it looks gorgeous. It looks better than ever has been. Some of the scratches, some are deep. Some can't be removed, right? But it's been buffed. It's been polished. You're super premium. Battleship Repair

stations are all refilled and re-energized, and it's looking good. I mean, you're taking care of. I put both my hands on my pockets and take a long draw on my cigarette as we walk up the plank back into the Rhapsody, and I'll look to it and say,

eh, I liked her better before. There's an ad for the Lobster Sloth game on the one of the five. We're now with a little bit of a lot. All right. Well, you know, now that I'll look at it, yeah, it looks, you know, she looks good. Not 40,000. Credits good. Well, let me get to keep the knife thread.

Hank, Hank. Thanks, sir. Did you authorize this, or did they just start doing stuff? Hank will respond and say that he attempted to stop them, but they provided authoritative paperwork signed by membership of the Rhapsody, and at that point it was beyond his abilities to interfere. Here's some treats. All right, well, at least you tried, buddy.

Repairs look good, everything, the ships, and tip-top shape. He'll paw into the console, and charts and bars and readouts and energy levels will display on the screen in front of you and everything is pumping at max efficiency. I gotta be honest with you, Rhett. It's a lot of money, but I still don't like this. At least we have the foresight to think about a neutral pickup.

Yeah, who's good thinking? Well done. I mean, here's the thing. Right now, we don't have any other jobs. And, you know, I guess I can see the details. But at this point, we can take 90,000 more of his credits, as long as we're not, I guess even if we're not the one's killing him, he's going to be killed. One way or another, it certainly feels that way.

But in the meantime, what do we do with this? And I'll sort of snap my fingers and then the research papers. Thanks for backing me up on that one, Kavir. I had the feeling we weren't going to give it to him. I'm wondering if we had, he would have paid us more than 10 grand. At this point, it doesn't matter. You know, at least he's not, at least furthering those plans, per se. And besides, it's only 40,000 credits.

Easy come, easy go. Well, I'll go to the monitor and I'll sit down. All right, gang, here's what we got. The name's Rex Maxim. He's 6'1, weighs 190 pounds, capture difficulty ratings rated 5 out of 10. Not that that means shit. He's won it alive, like he said.

He's a notorious treasure hunter thief in serial Flander. He stands accused of stealing from the boss, amongst several other intergalactic crimes. We must also return any and all stolen goods in his possession. Payout for successful completion of contract. Says here 100,000, but I guess now. Have any of us heard this name before? Yo, yeah.

Yeah. You would have, for sure. A small, just rye smile will form at the corner of my mouth. If you would read this on the hollow vid, you will also see the image of your target. You will... Your toes will start to curl in your shoes for just a moment. As the visage of Rex Maxim spins in front of you,

you see an extremely handsome Solar Elf. Oh, son of a bitch. This is my cowboy Andy. Who, he has a sharp white leather hat on, a cowboy hat. Orange hair pours from under it. The protection of the hat ends in just, Sorry, the hair as the orange comes out from on their ends in what is like sun-kissed, vibrant red hair. And beneath that, you can see he's wearing just a light gray, duster long coat.

You would certainly have had adversarial run-ins with him before. Rob's in awe of how handsome it is. Would I have been there, or would this piece? Yeah, yeah. The two of you would have. The two of you weren't. For sure. Yep. Pike, that kind of looks like you.

But better looking. No. That guy has been a thorn in my side for longer than I can remember. Yeah, my uncle don't shut up about his stupid memoirs. She loves books. And he does. He has a several collection of iteration of his memoirs, capers, the exciting and maximum adventures of Rex Maxim.

I call this guy a joker, but I don't want to compliment him. Did you say he was a serial philanderer? What does that mean? He'd take cereal? I think he's just, he's a criminal. He just, you know, he breaks the law and makes money. And, you know, this fancy jackass he's uh

I mean he's well known across the the galaxy but I mean do we really want the rep of being the ones that bring him to justice so to speak well he's claims he's never been caught

I'm not so sure about that and quite frankly he's more annoying than anything maybe when we capture him we can avoid detection and people won't know it's us As you say, he's more annoying than anything, the hollow image spins for a moment and its eyes catchier, isn't he? And I still know no change in expression.

Well, and Dandy, don't worry. Once we take him in, he won't hurt any cereal anymore. That's good. Because we need it for ourselves. We're after his lucky charm, so as long as we follow our nose, that bounty, it'll be. be great. I wonder how we're gonna know what he took when we pick him up. What is it that could be so valuable to the boss? You do not think it's related to Jackson. Please tell me, you do not think it's related to Jackson.

I can't answer that question. Unfortunately, I have no fucking idea. But based on what I know about O.Rex, he doesn't deal with him. cloning and genetics as far as I know. What about... No, that doesn't seem like his style. And quite frankly, when we find the guy, he can't shut up about anything, so I'm sure he'll spill the beans. That's a good point. I mean, he'll probably just fucking tell us. Damn. Would he think we're... you guys are friends? Uh, funny word, friends.

So, yeah? No. But we don't need to go in guns blazing. As much of a jackass as this guy might be, he's certainly not a pushover. There's a reason he's as infamous as he is. Well, why don't we have a conversation with it? And, you know, see what he says. And we can learn a little bit more what's going on.

And maybe there's a lot more money to be made. and whatever you know whatever contraband he's stealing or otherwise potentially turning on the boss I mean that's risky but it sounds dangerous

that's what I'm implying at the very least there's always a chance that he doesn't know what he got into that's true he is kind of a jackass you've said that you know

sometimes it's just a little personal Sure, sure, yeah. Let's just be sensitive about it, all right? About what? Just about his stunning visage. What? He's very handsome. And Pikes are little upset about it.

I like make my face morph into his face, and then I'll look in the mirror, and I'll look back at him. I don't see it. We've very well-draft. He looks, he has a bit of a ruggedness to him. It helps offset what you might expect by being such a skinny elf boy, you know? Probably a deliberate choice.

What do you think? What do you think, Dandy? I sense that Pike is not happy right now. Oh, no, I'm very, like, just stone-faced. Very hard to tell. Playing it very cool. He'll cry in his room later. Not sense that.

The hat's a little much for me. Uh, look, let's find the guy. We got his coordinates. Uh, you know, I'd like a few of you to check the ship for any kind of tracking devices. How are we going to find him? Well, they sent us a location where they think he was headed, but if he's not there, then we got work to do. Is there a way we can draw him out?

Maybe meet us somewhere? Do you still have his number? I don't keep contact with the guy. I don't know who you think I am. At the very least, he's loud. We'll find him. Long time. Get to drink? I have a great business opportunity. I've been seen you since I'm a ice school.

Chocolate bar. Reach you by your car and trim. Would you like to make six figures working only 10 hours? I just figured through past dealings and how often you've spent time with this jackass? No, this is not spending time with him. These are run-ins very much against our will, if you know what I'm saying. Sure, sure.

So if you guys know how his brain works, we can set a trap for him. We'll get the biggest bowl of cereal this side of the galaxy. He won't be able to resist it. Actually, Jocles might be on to something. Did we set up some sort of a... fake contract to Laura Mount? Surely his ego will make him take the bank. I feel like for him to move on anything, he'd have to have some sort of proof that there'd be something to take. I mean, unless he just takes a bounty and take our word for it and we just,

what, we put on fake mustaches and say, hey, we're looking for a genuine cowboy to help us with the job. We'll give you 80 million credits. somebody that you know from one of your days can set something up. You know, some sort of a third party thing. We never have to touch it. I mean,

we don't know where he is. We don't know who he's talking to. What lines of communication he has right now. I think we follow these coordinates, go to where he may be, see if he's there. And then, if we feel like we need to use that plan, we do it.

Or we just, without letting him know anything, maybe we have another running. And all you got to do is start asking him questions about himself and he won't fucking stop talking. All right. Sounds like at least the place to start. We got a plan. All right.

Mandy, hear the cords. All right, I'm going to go up. Ten minutes. Just kidding. At least you won't know we're coming, so we don't want to rush or go through the honk stream, right? Not today. Look, I'm just not in the movie.

Oh, neither am I. You just clean the ship. Yeah. And I'm going to get out of these clothes. And I'll go to my room and change. And you chart the path, the coordinates that they sent you. You won't be using the honk weave today. There is a, it is a, it seems to be a simple journey through the stars.

But the coordinates they've said you take you to the very distant edge of, of not known space, but civilized space, right on the edge of wild space. And as you head out, you may all, do whatever you would normally be doing. But the Rhapsody will take on, maybe through Hank's piloting, and it will fly its way towards the planet that the boss has directed you to. You'll fly for about three days. You go through food, what have you, any ration you could want to find or anything like that.

You'll find that Elysium and the boss, true to his word, didn't skimp on anything. Anything you could be looking for. I mean, your shelves are stocked with food, with fine liquor, with whatever you could seek to be comfortable on your journey. Soft-saintiff's ice cream.

You got a new machine. Your mixed-based soft-served ice stream is actually working for the first time since you've ever had it. Only chocolate, rinala, and twist. No, the twist doesn't work, actually. Twist doesn't work. It's just a vanilla and chocolate.

You can attempt to twist it yourself, however, really all you can do is awkwardly get it in one half of the cup and the other and the other half. After a couple days' travel, you arrive towards a planet. You can start to see it as it pulls into distant view. It is like sheer white as it pulls in front. from where it was. It looks almost like a planet covered in ash as you fly closer to it. The sensors will be telling you, Rhett, as you pull in, you've found a comfortable place to land, flat land. You could bring the whole full Rhapsody down and make planetary surface landing.

Is there like a city that we'd be landing in, like a port, or what's that we'd be landing in? like a port or would there be just sort of like we'd go in and find somewhere on the ground to land? You are currently, as your scanners would go out and seek anything in the area, we'll say within probably

100 miles of where you are, it doesn't immediately detect large signs of life. Like large collections. Yeah, it's like the silly, yeah. Planet seems largely uninhabited. So this will be

wilderness job. That's what you're best suited for. I don't know, Red. Something doesn't seem right here. This certainly doesn't seem like the kind of place that Rex would be. Yeah, why would he be coming here? Something's off. I mean, maybe he's looking for, uh, I don't know, like some kind of mining claim or other natural resource gig that he's trying to get in on. I don't get it. Well, he figures no one was finding here. Maybe he's hiding. Lying low. Yeah. Do I know this planet? Roll a...

Roll a nature check. While she does that, the coordinates we got, did that get us just to the planet or is there a space on the planet that... It got you to kind of like a specific location, like, yeah, a general location area. 14. With 14. You, as you're pulling down to this planet, you go to think on it. go to think on it. Like if I come across this before, do I know the name of this planet? Do I know exactly where it is?

And the answer is no. However, when you think about it, you start to get, you start to get flashes of a people. You see who you think might be bracken standing on something that looks like this planet. and you see dead bodies surrounding you. Just for the briefest instant. What is Bracken? Bracken was the

Space Pirate, the Captain Space Pire Triceratops. With the eye flash. Torn, ton, ton. Thank you, Chaukes. That you battled in the first session. Oh. Well, I will communicate that.

And for just a moment, There's a fleeting, brief moment. I would say you have a bone-crunchingly overwhelming urge to make planet fall. Make what? To touch the planet. Touch it, yeah. So I'll do that. I'm going to go down and almost right away.

I'm going to cast plant growth. Well, you're in the spaceship. Oh, so on that. Let's go down. I'm going to cast plant growth. I'm just kidding. I'm going to communicate it. There has been a lot of death here.

a lot of death has happened here. We should go. We should go down and I can try and heal it. He'll this planet. You've been here before? I do not know. I do not know. I cannot say.

But it's, I feel something. Maybe being, walking on the planet will be like walking down memory lane and will awaken your memory. Maybe, but I do not know.

It does not seem good. It is anti-life. Whatever's down there. Or whatever was down there. All right, Hank. Bring her down. The Rhapsody descends. Jets blast and cut out

as you approach the planet's surface. Your descent slows and slows and slows. You can feel the familiar mechanical hum as gears, energy pulses through the Rhapsody feet kick out. There's a little rock as you touch down on the planet's surface. You head to the hangar bay, excited to see what lies ahead of you, what this planet is, where Rex is. And you punch the command in to drop the hangar bay door. And as it opens, you are hit with a blast of snow and cold.

And I need everyone to roll a constitution saving food, as it is intensely cold out. Got a natural one. You want to twist that? Yeah, let's twist that. Let's twist that. Oh, I got a dirty 20. Nice.

Is it that one? Yeah, pull out of. Constitution saving throw. Constitution saving throw. As we step out onto the, the ramp. And I feel the cold. I go back in the ship and immediately come back

with the exact same jacket I'm wearing, but it's bigger and puffier. No, no, no for. It's just a puffy zip-up. It's exactly what I'm wearing, but puffy, like, snow jacket and long sleeves. What did everyone get? 21. 21. 19.

46. 14? 18. 18. 20. What was there? 21. I had to sort of look out of it. You? Dandy. You, as you maybe are excited to get to the planet surface, you are the first one out on the ramp.

And as the winds and the snow whips through, even through your body, it's the type of cold that cuts beyond to your very core. It feels like knives ripping through you. And you take one level of exhaustion. Hey, everybody, chuckled 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 Salt Marsh. 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. Thank you, Derek. As the hangar door bay falls down, the wind blasts into the Rhapsody. You can feel it. Immediately you're struck by the chilling cold. You know that to spend any amount of time on this planet, you will have to deal with this first before you can step foot out.

into the blistering, intense cold. Had to be an ice planet. I'll be right back. I'll be right back too. Dandy, you're looking a little chilly. I am chilly. I'm exhausted. I'm going to go back to my closet.

It's mostly clown suits, but I'm going to come back with matching snowsuits with like the full-headed hood with fur along it, and one will be blue and one will be pink. And we're going to be ice climbers. I'm so much warmer now, thank you, Michael. Oh, you're welcome. You're also now oddly connected by a string. And you're jumping speed doubles.

Oh, and if we need to bash anyone's head and they actually come with these giant mallet. And also, if we coordinate well enough and spam right trigger, we can trade chain grab. And everyone will complain that it's cheating and ban it from local tournament. I do not understand what you're talking about. I, you'll learn, but don't worry.

She means Pikachu. If we're all actually putting on winter gear, then I'm canonically wearing exactly what I said. With a magenta scarf. Absolutely, absolutely. I'm wearing the same suit as always. Maybe I shrink my arms in just a little bit

to protect what's exposed. But then at the top, they're one of those mercury thermostat levers that just, like, push it all the way to the warm side and it keeps me a little bit warmer. There's like a little glow. I'm going to go put the turn. I'm going to go put the turn.

turtle neck on that came with that suit. Nice. We're feet on planet now, right? Well, right? We don't know where Rhett was going to get. So yeah, I would basically have this big, like, puffy sort of gray, like light gray, almost like a like a duster that's maybe fur lined on the collar.

And I would just sort of, it would kind of keep my neck warm. And it would have sort of all of the same, like, holes that give access to the ports in my flesh for the, ether engine. And so I will also grab, knowing that we're about to go out into the wilderness, and I will suit up with my harness and secure that in and head out.

What a badass. It's so lame in my turtle egg. You all do so. You go, you get your, you've traveled the stars for a long time together. You've encountered just about every different scenario you possibly could.

You have been in the cold before, and so you have the equipment to handle this. Now, this planet is frigid, and it doesn't look like there's any solace in any direction. And so you know that no matter what, this will be a survival session. If we were able to look up, like up, would we be able to see the sun?

or is it kind of like cloudy and there's like weather like actually snowing going on? Roll investigation check. Can we take a disadvantage? I hope I don't miss the sun. Oh, that's pretty good. I think it's only a little plus though since it's in. So we're gonna call it a 19. A 19? Oh, a disadvantage?

Sorry, I apologize. I assumed I was at advantage. With a 14 you look out and the wind swirl the snowing. The snow's coming down. It's not so much that it is a cloudy sky, at least that you can tell. It's hard to tell whether or not it's clouds or it is just gray,

but you look up and you maybe catch the faintest outline of what you hope in the deepest parts of your heart is what you would think a sun would be. But you cannot, you are not confident. Yeah. As I'm going to start putting my hand towards, towards the planet in my pink little cape coat. And would I have a sense that I could grow something here

if I tried? Mall and nature check. I'm gonna try and tear for him. Can I twist it and twist it? You have, yeah. Absolutely. And I'm changing that bass. Okay, a little bit better.

11? With an 11, I would say that you would know, I mean, you go to touch the ground you can't reach the earth. The ground beneath you is covered in a layer of snow. Probably as you walk, as you move throughout. It's not knee-deep, but you're above ankle. And so to get to the ground, you would think that if you were to try and grow something,

you would have to grow something that was native to this environment, or else it would not stand a chance of surviving at this point. Oh, I could do that. Okay. You can try it. But I'm not going to. Okay. Yeah. We're on an ice ball.

I just want you to know I can. Uh, Rett, if we got a fight in this, it's not going to be easy. If we got to walk in this, it's not going to be easy. They're both damn right about that. And that's why the plan is not to fight, at least right away. And remember, we got to keep them alive, so either way, you know, let's just try to, you know, Let's just try to either sneak up on him or trick him or, I don't know, convince him to come willingly. Visibility's real bad.

Visibility is pretty bad. If you're normally whatever your range of vision is, I would say it'd be cut in half at this point. Not necessarily like your hand in front of your space, but you cannot make out solid objects beyond probably at best 80 to 90 feet out. Do you have a coordinate direction once we're on the place? or was the just, it's on the planet, go for it? This is, you've landed in the spot that the coordinates have brought you. So now it's up to you to use the tools at hand to attempt to track down your target.

Are we sure that he's ear? I don't think so. Well, I mean, I don't think we're sure. Is he here? This could be a trap, looking around. Why would he be on this ice planet? and as I'm talking, my helmet is starting to fog more and more and more. And I have to, like, stretch out with little tendrils and sort of... Ooh-hoo-hoo.

Trust me, Lubush, I don't like it either. But again, maybe that's why he's here. We don't want to be here. What are the odds other people will stay long enough to try to find it? In fact, is a good point. Your censor said you didn't pick up much life? I mean, certainly no settlements large enough to be picked up by the scanner. I can't imagine there's any civilization for miles.

Do you think... They died. They died. They died. Died like recently died, or died like... I do not know when they died, but many died when they died. So nothing happened when she touched the planet? Ice, right?

Just touched, like, a sheet of ice, effectively. A layer of ice and snow. Permafrost. And, like, I had the urge, like you said, to... You had a very split, fleeting urge. to make planet fall and to touch the planet. But that passed while you were in the ship. But the like, almost like primal draw

to get your hand onto the surface of the planet passed while you were in the ship. Like an instinct. Like an instinct. My dinosaur instinct. What do you think, Rhett? I mean, surely anybody here would have to find some sort of shelter, right?

Cave, outcropping. Underground? Come on, I wasn't built for this. Well, I don't have a... My mechanisms aren't that highly detailed to be able to pick them out of a fucking snowfield, so I don't know. Does anyone else have anything like that?

Danny, can you, like, sense? Can you reach out into the, I don't know, the natural world and find this guy? Oh, use your crystals. I don't know. Mark Chuckold is always talking about crystals and how powerful they are. Sure those are the kinds of crystals you talk about?

Oh. Probably not. Oh, poor Steve. That's very funny. Is that too? How many two is it two this time? We could always space out and communicate when we find something. when we find something.

I don't think that's what he meant by Space Out, but it's a good idea. Oh, I did the thing, huh? Just so I know, who has the highest passive perception? Oh, boy. Probably this guy. I would bet me money it's me. Let's check.

Or maybe Dan, Dandy or Pike. 15. 15. Wow. 17. Wow. Damn, how's that even work? I'm just,

Whizbiz. Whiz, he's the perceptive guy. Just look at him. Look at those ears. No follow-up. No follow-up. Look at those elf ears. How do we take a direction?

Would his scans have shown, like, I guess, a direction for these pockets of life? I would say that generally the scanners, well, Rhett, roll a perception check, utilizing your scanners, so you may do it straight. Should I twist this? Probably. Yeah.

We got a few. What the truth? That's a little better, and I'm proficient, I think. Did we get a long, we got a long rest? You got a long rest, yeah. Before we touched it down. Okay. That's an 18.

Nice. With an 18, you pop up on your scanners, your handheld scanners, and there's a lot of interference. The snow is heavy, it's frying. You see, it's difficult. The signal is difficult to get through, but the Rhapsody itself has made planet fall, and that's a very powerful conduit for signaling purposes, and though you're surrounded by a heavy layer of snow, you start to see a very small blip rapidly approaching your location.

What in the hell? What do you mean? What in the hell? Hey, are you seeing this? Yep. I think that's a glitch? Take a look. Something's flying towards us.

How fast does it look to be going on his sensor? It's moving fast. It's moving fast. I don't know, kilometers is probably more relevant to space, but it's moving like 80 space miles per hour. I would immediately like take some sort of like a defensive space. stance, maybe, like, turning away from Redson that his back is, like, towards mine

and be like, be ready for anything. I'll start to stomp away from the ship. I'm going to make it a little farther out into the ice sheet field. In case the big target that's obvious behind us gets attacked. Let's circle the wagon. I'll take out one of those big, like,

hawth binoculars from Empire Strikeback. Yeah. Yeah. And look through and scan the horizon and the direction that I think... How many, like, treason? things are there? Like how... None. It's like leaf, flat, white tundra. Like imagine the desert, but just layers of white with

like a tenth of the visibility. Yeah, I would just, whatever direction, everybody's kind of looking, like, pick a different direction and see what I can see. My elf eyes might see. Yeah, yeah. We'll keep your perception check. You know the direction that this is coming in. You get out your giant

hawth binoculars. They flip out from behind you. brand. The equivalent of Hawth binoculars and they connect towards your face. Your mechanical eye side zooms out a little

as you peer in the direction and you start to see you're able to pier some of the veil of the heavy snow and you see just like a cloud of white crashing behind this small

black hover bike that's racing towards you. And you can see at the crown of this bike a white hat. You're not going to like this bike. If I look where he's looking and I squint

real hard, would I be able to see anything? Or is it still way too far away? It is... Roll a perception check. You can roll a perception check. It's a speeder. No, tell me no. It's fine. I would be squinting and leaning kind of down towards a red to my scenes. I would say you need You need mechanical assistance to pierce the veil of the snow blindness. You can't be telling me it's going to be this easy, right?

I mean, you can guess who's on that speeder. I'll light a cigarette. Like moths to a flame. We didn't have to try. It just goes out. And I'll flick it off, and it'll flick off everything and blow away on the tundra. No, it doesn't even touch the ground. The wind is so strong.

It whips it out of the air. and it just disappears. We piped not litter. I just... I just... So all we gotta do is just set him up the bomb! And I'll pull out like a giant cartoonist bomb. We'll just plant it and it'll blow up to smithereen

as soon as he drives over. His base will be long gone off. We can't kill him, all right? We gotta keep him alive. We still have to figure out what he told... Oh! Outs! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Okay. Just once, no bombs, all right. Nothing that explodes. No cream pies full of cinder blocks. No razor blades, none of that, all right? Jesus. You didn't say anvil. Just nothing that'll fucking kill again. Non-lethal angles would be fine. Sludge hammers. Yes, and Tandy and I are holding giant hammer.

Not fished. Well, let's get ready to subdue him if we need to, but I, let's just, let's just have a chat. Pock, what do you think? Why would he, why would he just come and promise like that? He's got to be in over his head or something, right? Surely he's figured out by now that he's in trouble. Maybe he feels guilty. He's going to turn himself into us. Or perhaps he's been stuck here, and now he's dying, and he sees help, and he's going to come grovel. Should I try to punch him unconscious either way?

No, please! Oh, I mean, no, please! Please! No, violence, all right? My hands look like two fledgehammer. As much as I would love to, let's go with what Rhett's saying and hear him out. I'm here if you need me. That's what you're here for.

We appreciate it. All right. As you're having this conversation, it's now there is like a split second. You can all see this speeder now crashes into view. It is moving so fast. You saw the visage of Rex Maxim before. You see a familiar white cowboy hat.

You see a heavy light gray duster he has on. If he wasn't riding a black speeder, he would be almost imperceptible to the eye. I lean over to red and I say, how's he been keeping that hat on? At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if it was surgically attached. It's real cool. Sorry. No, you're good, you're good.

He races into view. The speeder kicking up. He pulls within maybe 10 feet of your party. You try and do anything to stop him? Very much on Rett's orders, as long as it doesn't look like he's going to damage the ship or us, I would just basically stand there waiting for him to stop doing his thing. Yeah, I would want to stand there looking as if we're expecting him and we're like, wait for him. and we're, like, waiting to receive him.

Presumably, for some kind of conversation, and if he starts attacking, then, we'll play it by here. No, I just imagine him, like, whiffing up. He's actually just like, he's like, just like, he's like whips it around, so he's just doing donuts in front of us. And we're just, like, waiting for him to be done. It was one of the fun of boss fights in the Final Fantasy 7 remake.

So he, you see as he drives up, you see a speck of amber coming from the front of him. His cruiser doesn't even slow down. He spins the broad side. He flip kicks the pedals, pushing the right, depressing down, pulling the left up. The speeder flips. He begins to cascade over the top of you. And as he does, he takes a lit cigarette out of his mouth. And as he flies past you, you'll now see that it's in pikes. As he lands on the ground on the other side and careens away. blasting out of the area, away from you. He spins around for a brief moment one more time as he looks back and the vehicle, the speeder stops, and you hear him almost shout something across the snow, but with the wind, roll a perception check.

This guy's pretty cool. I'm literally about to say that. Oh, I did not roll well on that one. Oh, I did roll pretty good. 10. 16. Wow. I also got a 10 because I rolled very. love. 20.

Yeah, you guys killed it. I got a 23, even though I'm totally like fogged over in my helmet. I'm really trying to listen hard. 23, we'll say with the 23 was to go with the highest. Laboushi, you hear this as he shouts out

over the over the snow, the whipping winds, the crashing snow, you hear him shout out. I didn't believe it was you guys. Good luck. As he careens away.

He may be a jackass. Did you hear that? It was cool. That was pretty cool, Kavir. You're right. I mean, gosh, he's got style. He's got great thing. He's got a pretty, pretty faith. He just showed up to wish us good luck and goodbye?

I'll turn to red. I'm not so sure he's going to be very interested in talking. I mean, what the fuck was that? He just wanted to check it out and then just, Tariff us? Classic Rex. Look, if we don't have any kind of vehicle or something that can traverse

this, we're never going to catch up to it. Could we turn Hank into a fled dog? I can get up the fled if you provide the dog. I mean, we could try.

I mean, is he going back in the exact direction that we saw him come? He's continuing to move forward. So he just went through us. He came like basically from your south, flipped over you,

offered a cigarette to Pike, and then continued on to the north. So you drive like almost in a straight line. You would maybe get the sense that you're landing, the actual Rhapsody on the planet was very perceptible and possibly something

that was in the area would have come to investigate on its way. to whatever its goal was. Well, he's on the move. I mean, should we go after him now? I mean, we have to. We just got to figure out a way to catch him. Yeah.

You've got to be going somewhere. Hmm. All right. Well. Oh, or Dandy, can you summon the little mini, mini mammoth that could pull a sled through the ice and snow? That would be pretty heavy metal.

Yeah, probably. Probably. I could summon a whole bunch of my little wolves. They like the snow. I don't have a sled. I do. Or I can create one. Well, let's give it a shot. Or? Or? What we could try is, you know, if we try to, like, make some sort of, like, hover something with one of our vehicles, I mean, I don't know how, like, ridiculous that would be. How big are our personal ships? Pretty big.

I mean, they're... You can decide, like, on pretty average, like, they're, like, pretty big trucks. Like, really pretty big trucks. Oh. We can't risk damaging them again. I'm going to lose all our credit. Are you sure?

Because I'm about this close to just taking out the sparrow and lighten them up. Then we won't get anything. Yeah, you're right. $0 plus ammunition plus fuel credits. And then in this economy with this base inflation, space gas prices are out of control. That's fine, fine.

Could all of this team fit on my pterodactyl? Like on the wings of my taradocle? You can only do that because of the power that the Rhapsody offers you to take that form in space. and not in space anymore. No, you're on, you're landing on a planet. Yeah, we're on a planet. We're on a planet in space, but yeah, okay.

Here's the thing. I think it's not like he's just going to go forever, right? I think we just fall in. And I'm not sure how much Hank pulling the sled is going to be any faster than us just trudging through the snow. Same thing with your raptors or mammoths or whatever. whatever else. All right, big guy, you're the brains.

And I'll just put a hand on his shoulder and I'll just begin to start trudging the direction that Rex went. Soft into the snow. Disappeared. Not very fast. Yeah. Just at a leisurely pace. Same. I blindly follow Rhett wherever he goes. Seems like

the only option. I'll look back over my shoulder. Well, you coming? All right. Let's go. I like the sled idea. And I'll start to tron forward and you do so you are walking through the snow it's it's coming down it's hard to see you you can't see beyond probably now maybe 20 feet in front of you but red you're following your sensors you you are now that he's so close

you have been able to identify a heat signature coming off from his his well like hover bike and so you understand you can't see what's ahead of you or around you but you understand the direction that you're heading but even with your protection it is so intensely cold

that I need everyone to roll a constitution saving thing oh boy is it twistable is twistable let's just each twist one I got a 21. 21 passes. My jacket is surprisingly well made.

It's down. 22? It's down a swoose feather. It's very goofy looking, but it works. 22 as well, yeah. 16. I've sorted out that I can avoid the fogging issue if I fill the entire helmet with my goo.

There's no space. And so with a 26, my head just looks like a giant green orb with two eyes floating around. And the mustache. Yeah. The mustache is always there. It's matter what I'm describing. So everyone

passing, 17, sorry. Everyone passing, you pull your coats a little tighter, chuckles and dandy connected by string sharing blue and pink warmth. Labouche now looks like a green lollipop one of those gigantic ones.

Everybody else pulling the jackets in warming the ethereal engine, pushing heat into your down jacket, your sweater insulated. You pull the collar up a little bit, trying to get close to the bottoms of your ears. And you're able to move forward. You, as you track Rex, it's probably about an hour you see his heat signature continue in the direction that he was going. before it goes out. But not because your scanner lost sight of him. Just the heat faded away.

You know that if you were to continue walking after him, after his hover bike, for the span of the hour it took him, it would probably take you somewhere around 15 to cover a similar distance, hours. Well, he's not stopping. Should we try the sled thing? We could. We need something that I could tow it,

and I don't think Hank's up for it. I mean, look at the size of him. My wolves. Or I could just be a polar bear and take us all. Well, I'm thinking that if you can... How long does your summon... From a minute perspective, how long does your summon beast last? It's like ten minutes.

Let us check. I think it's an hour. They have this conversation, cut to five minutes later, and LaBouche is just pulling a sled. By himself. It lasts. three hours. You're wild-shaped.

Oh. Wow. Yeah. So I think that's the way to go. Okay. I could become a polar bear and just run. Polar bear might be too high of a CR at this point. It's two. And I think I can do too. And this is space. It's a solar bear. Oh, this is a you guys question. Oh, it's about a minute. Eight, four.

But I'm sure there's something vaguely prehistoric that would be Thematically appropriate and maybe. A trangle blingle. A mammoth. A mammoth. A teacup woolly mammoth. A teacup woolly mammoth. A woolly mammoth,

you would be able to shape shift into. Okay. I can only do this once a day. Okay, let's use a little bit of holiday cheer and magic. Oh! As I reach into my hat. and I just pull out a big, a giant, like, wooden sled that's as big as I can, basically is five feet across, five feet across, meant for the, to go as slickly on ice or snow,

and it'll fall onto the ground, and it'll be like super just bedazzled with, like, it'll be like super gaudy with like fire streaks on it. like a dragster. I thought you were going in like the classic like Coca-Cola sled direction. No. Like a flyer 99. What are they called?

It was like carts. Yeah, basically. Yeah, like hot flyers or something that had like flame streets. Radio flyer. Radio flyer. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, same I do. Basically it's the limit that my magic, my bard magic will allow me to create as it'll fall on to the snow. Thank you. And you're easy. able to pull this out of your hat and produce a sled that comfortably will sit the five of you, and you can fasten a connection to dandy, for sure, if you'd like to tie off the...

In my creature, I kind of, when I wild shape, I don't have the same thing where I, the colors and the kind of cosmic dust swirls from my body. Instead, it's like savage tree. It's like very primal. Like nail start to like grow and, the things around me start to pop off and then I turn into the like mammoth calf dinosaur creature. And yeah, you do so. Your stone form begins to shift and changes. You kind of like beast wars like twist around and and change into this small and adorable. Small for a woolly mammoth. So it's still quite large as you stack up to the party. And you would find that you're easily able to move this sled along. with them. Oh, thank goodness with the magic coat. I'm imagining a

a woolly mammoth and like a big, big, buffy coat. Exactly. Yeah, 100%. The code stays. The code is not absorbed into the form of the woolly man. That's incredible. With the hood and everything. Yeah, the hood. With the fluffies. And we already have the

rope so we can just tether you up. Gosh, hey, Danny, why have a long faith? Oh! Oh my God. And you carry forward. The movement is now you've significantly increased your pace. It's still slow. You're not moving it quite as fast as like a speed bike would.

But you have significantly changed your ability to travel through this environment. And you carry on in this way for probably another, we'll say 20 to 30 minutes or so. And you've covered significantly more ground than you had at first when just walking. When, once again, group perception check. Come on. Oh, not bad. Come on. Oh, man.

I'm like every other roll here. I got an eight. Oh, am I supposed to be disadvantaged? Yes. I have checks, yes. I haven't been doing that. So, oh, I don't know that you've rolled. We did one just now, I think.

That was a saving throw. Which you're on this advantage of it. Okay, got it. 22. Yeah, I didn't do well in this one. Eight. And I'm a Viking. This lollipop-looking motherfucker.

My eyes are floating all over the place. I get a six. 19. As long as some of the group does well. So, Rhett and Chuckles. We'll say that on your scanners, you start to see another heat signature coming from behind you. Moving fast, moving rapidly,

but not as fast as Rex was moving. But it's moving, it's moving fast. From behind us? From behind you. And chuckles you here on the wind as it whips around you, you get this swirl of cold that kind of wraps around your head, sends a shiver down your spine. You, as it moves through and around your face, it carries on it

a guttural howl. There's some kind of spooky monster or something coming. Yeah, I'm seeing something coming up behind us. From where? The south? The south? It's coming in. It's on the southern wind. Something spooky this way. comes. What do you mean spooky?

I hear it's howled. It's like an monster. Like an alien monster. You look back. You look back behind you. And you can see and as everyone starts to see this you start on your readout. Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing,

Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing. You see probably 15 to 18 heat signatures erupt on the readout and what you all start to see as we all start to see as these creatures erupt from the snow maybe at this point we'll say 250 feet behind you you see a familiar sight a very white light gray skin a elongated jaw with two massive canines erupting from the front of a slavering frost wolf, hideous creature with no eyes and a panting snout. It is not hideous.

As a pack starts to run at you. It is misunderstood. You would start... You call that misunderstood? The arms in my engine that normally hold my grab cannon when I'm not using it. We'll pass it to me and I'll grab it and I'll just be ready aiming it. I guess are we surrounded? No, no, no, no, they're coming at you.

So, on your left is kind of like a heavy incline snow hill. On your right as you've been moving along this path is actually a pretty sheer drop-off. And you're still moving forward. They're running at your back as you're approaching them. Oh, dandy, you better step on it. And a big pedal will be in the sled as I just step on it with my shoe. and then he takes off the sled rockets back you're moving quick the moly mammoth arms going this sled dragging along and the wolves start to start to

like split a little distance between you but they now sensing you and sensing the hunt is on they start to gain gain traction a little bit and I would ask what everyone plans to do, with the exception of you, unless you have something, what everyone plans to do to keep them at bay from catching up? The second that I see Ret basically arm the cannon or whatever, I would have been

kind of sitting cross-legged on the sled and trying to keep my balance, but the second I see Ret move into motion, I would turn around and be on one knee using my left hand to support myself against the sled, raising the gauntlet that I have and it would begin to warm up and glow

these same kind of radiant colors, the magenta, the orange, the yellow as I kind of like point and level and prepare myself to try to pepper these creatures to the best of my ability to keep in the bay. Absolutely. I would almost like sort of be sitting down trying to

maintain my balance on this lad without my arms and just having my cannon and lob in whatever I can at them as they got closed. I would say you're cannon has a front flip down that can you mount on the edge of the, on the edge of the... Mini gun style. So your edge on

just the back of this sled as it's being pulled 60 miles per hour by a woolly mammoth calf in one direction. Your turret gun style, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And Pike, heated up a gauntlet firing blasts. Bang. My head canton is that your gear, you're, you're just have gyroscopes in it and you can't fall over. Oh, yeah.

You actually have gyroscopes in your pack and you'll stabilize you. It's perfect. You know, all this gear that you can't be. What's everyone else saying? I, seeing the wolves gaining ground and seeing everyone start to get ready for combat, I'll look at the hill of snow to the left and I will hope that I can perhaps trigger snow coming down and perhaps pushing them off the side.

And I'll get up from my seat and I'll get over to the back of the sled and I'll make my way over the left side like so. And then I will stretch. And with my long arm, I will dig into the ground and almost smack into the ground to try and trigger an avalanche. Wow. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Yes. And as he's doing that, I cast guidance on him just in case he needs to do something.

Yeah, I'm right there behind you. Cool. Yeah. And I can do that. can do healing spells while they're wild shape. Yeah. Yeah. That's a hurt.

I got it. I got with my features are. Okay. All right. So we resolve all this in a second, but chuckles, Keverr, Danny's casting guidance. I am going to reach into my hat and pull out a pinaata. And it's a pinaata of a polar bear wearing sunglasses

and like big speedos. is I'm going to just say, oh, I hope it works, and I'm going to throw it out behind us to wherever I think the wolves will be coming in to kind of attack us. And the effect of that is basically Matherer's Mischief, which is a 20-foot cube, that basically it'll then, when they get into range,

or the thought is that it'll basically pop, and it will cause, like, random magical effects as magic. That's really fun. That's amazing. A clown-like magic will appear from it. And non-violently, hopefully, be rid of bombs. Yeah, fingers crossed.

Have some confetti. Come here. I will be sort of preparing my, so the sands have come out of my hourglass and just sort of preparing to cast a spell as soon as they get close enough. If they're within 200 feet, then I would use the cronorei. so it actually saps time from them and slows them down. Oh, yeah.

Shit. And then if they're farther, then I would have to use my sandblast. Man, you guys are cool. Um, hell yeah. So the wolves rapidly start to close distance on you. Kavir hits first. You see the swirling sands as he's able to kind of reach out. You see it come up their paws, their legs,

as it starts to slow them moderately as they stop to gain on you but they're still in dogged pursuit. Wret and Pike you have the you have the ether cannon your solar gauntlet you're at the back you're just covering you have overwatch you're just covering a pepper spray of of blue and orange and magenta fire out from the back of this of this sled as these dogs are just getting ripped into and you start to see they're getting shredded back there there some of them are bleeding a little bit they absolutely look rough you even are able to knock between the sands encroaching into wounds uh the ether cannon blast hits one square in the head chunks its head down into its neck and it stumbles forward on its legs uh as it rolls through the snow and it dies one of the

uh solar blasts shoots out and catches one clean in the shoulder uh it's right shoulder As it goes down, it tumbles off the cliff and falls. As the polar bear extends out, there is an explosion as it drinks a dark liquid and puts its sunglasses on. As it bursts out confetti lights. Ah, they're stunned. Ah, it's in my eyes. Oh, but delicious?

So I roll for the effect. Oh, sorry, I had no idea how to work. But basically, I mean, I don't know if you want it. But the idea is that a bunch of apple pies would. ankles and apple would fall out and then whatever ones

would fail or a couple of them they'd smell it and they would lift up and just kind of float over to it for a brief period like like Scooby snack at so so several

18 in total two three have dropped down these pies these apple pies roll out the first one slavering stops and just starts to eat it and is just back

is lost out of the The second as it runs up, it's one paw, two paw, three paw, four paw goes into four pies and it starts to can't run. As balls are stuck, it starts to slip around on the ground as it goes off the ice and slides off the cliff. And as it goes totally off the cliff and careens through the air. It smells fantastic though. And then Bouche stretches out his arms rocked. pockets out fists, slapping towards the incline on the snow shelf, digs in his hands, and as Dandy is ripping the sled forward on the woolly mammoth, drags across, ripping through

snow and absolutely is capable of starting an ice sled, and nothing hungers for blood like ice. It moves forward as there were about 13, 13, wolves left, the ice comes. And it is bound for this pack of wolves, and they're in for a bad time. And it crashes in. They're fast. They're past the pies. They beat the smell.

They're fast, but it takes out the back half of the wolf pack. And there is seven wolves left, still rapidly approaching. At which point, roll another perception check. Uh-oh. Come on! I'm due! Ha! Oh. Jesus! In the wild shape form, am I still exhausted?

Mm-hmm. It's the snow. That's the snow in my eyes, guys. There's snow in my eyes. 18? Yeah. Nine. Four.

Uh-oh. No, we all enrolled. We're all in. We're in the middle. We're in the middle of combat. I'm hanging on to the back of the sled. The earth. Yeah, you're on the back, you're grabbing the earth.

You two are just boom. Boob, boo, boo, boo, boo, bo. You're throwing pies. You're pulling the sled. Kavir, you start to feel, it is crazy out here. The sled's rocking. Everything's wild. Wolves are running you down.

There's apple pie everywhere. There's a snow avalanche coming to take it out. The wolves, it's moving right behind you. You start to feel the ground at treas. The ground tremble. Guys, does anyone else feel that? I don't know, Kavir, we got a lot going on. Yeah, I understand, but look underneath, look at the ground.

Do we see like any visible? As you ask, and as he calls that out, you all start to feel it erupting out of the ice, you see two massive, far larger than these wolves, two massive snowy lambs. land sharks erupt out in a massive open jaw motion they reach up and chomp down the remainder of these worlds they shred through them in instance ice sharks hell yeah and then they take note of you oh no the hell is a land shark that was just and they move they start to for you, forward towards you.

Are they faster than the wolves? They do not currently seem to be faster than the wolves. Seeing this happen, I'll reach into my puffy coat pocket and pull out a cigarette and I'll lean over to Redd and I'll say, help me out with some of that ether flame.

As I see all of the things that happen, oh, all of those wolves had parachutes and they're just fine As I'm shouting towards Dandy and she's running in her mammoth Like a Dragon Ball Z-dub I'll get to the wolves

Oh they had Oh those creatures had parachutes They're just fine They're gonna make it Keep running Dandy We're gonna catch that cowboy soon enough Chuckles Do you have more buns?

Oh I can I I mean I don't want to trigger an avalanche I mean, RET said no bombs. What do you think I'm trying to do? Oh, yeah, I think, hopefully I don't trigger my wild... Bombs! Bombs! Please! Bombs now! Okay, here's one, and it will be... I'll pull out a giant, like, glittery pink bomb, as I'll hand it to you.

Okay. I will... My entire arm will shrink down like this, and I will just... shot put it, it'll shoot out like 15 feet my entire arm before finally the bomb releases and I'm endeavoring to get it to land in a spot where I see the most

buildup of ice as we are rocketing along this ledge. You launch this Barbie bomb out into the ether. You target on the ice right there and you, except in a French accent and you shoot it out towards

the ice. Right there. And it sails through the air. What does this bomb do? In a 20-foot cube, each creature must succeed on a dexterity saving failure will be blinded. And it will explode in glitter and lights and neon, and it is basically a Barbie bomb. It's like super disorienting. Basically a flash bomb.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it'll say, I'm a girl that's similar but legally to stay. Barbie and up world that's from from Barby. Come on legally istic party. You launched this

legally distinct bomb out into the air. It lands on this sheet of ice. It, boom. Explodes in this beautifully pink,

colorful, confetti-style confetti style Fetty style explosion, and once again the ice moves. You can see that it's erupted right in front of these ice sharks, and clearly they're blinking, they've gotten the ice, but their legs touch the ground, and you can almost feel that they can sense your movement.

As the sled is rocking and rumbling, as the hooves and the giant legs of the woolly mammoths strike the ground. They know exactly where you are, and they are coming. I was worried they wouldn't even have eyes. 10 cents, yeah. But that was a great play, great play. Especially because of the song. I'm a beautiful thing here.

I would continue to try to, like, now having a lit cigarette and kind of like just thinking about the situation and being like, I would try to pepper them a few more times, like fully expecting it to basically do nothing. But I would want to just see. So I would line up and see if I can find a spot maybe in their face, you know, and fire off a few more radiant bolts. These are gigantic creatures.

They have a deep blue outer shell and surrounding them on their legs, their body, almost like this white fur as it goes back. At times, as you gain, you gain distance, you start to split off between them. It becomes a little hard to track their vision as they move in and out of the snow blindness. And you look back. Roll and attack roll. Oh, boy. This has not been my strong seat. The last few rolls. Come on. Twelve out. Eleven. Eleven. You fire back. Bang.

and this streak of orange flame fires through the night, or just fires through the air, and lands direct hit on this ice shark, and it just bounces off its shell. I'm going to go, uh, yep, that's about what I expected. Uh, right, you got any heavy weapons tricks here? Uh, because now would be the time to use them. How close are they to us?

They're gaining. They're probably, we'll say at this point, 60 feet behind you. 60 feet. All I can do is shoot them. At least right now until they get closer. There's two of them. There's two of them.

Are we going along a cliff? You have like a cliff face on your right? Yeah. You have a sheer kind of steep sloped incline on your left. I'm going to try something. I don't have to say this. This game is literally the trying thing. I'm going to look around and I'm going to say,

Dandy! When I tell you, you just need to stop and we all need to be as quiet as possible. I'm going to turn around and wink at you. And I'm going to wait until we're as close to the, as we're as close to the edge of the cliff as possible. And I'll say, okay now stop

and then I stop as I am going to cast and what the fuck is it called uh phantasmal force and twin it on both of them and I want us to entirely stop and basically the image

and it's a full sensory illusion but basically including sound and both of their heads and basically have us the sound of a mammoth and basically visually the image in their head of us, but basically in the air immediately mirror away from us

over and getting up off of the cleft in an attempt to get into the bird and do that. I also enjoy tremors. Do we have to like stealth or anything? As, and so basically I'll just basically my big finger will go

will get huge as I'll go how does tremor sounds work? We have to not be making tremors. If we're not making tremors, they won't be able to sense the tremors. That's fair. I mean, I don't know if it relies on... I think it might rely beyond

satin. That's what I'm working. Anyway, I'm very quiet. Yeah. Yeah. Let me just ask, this phantasmal thing, would it create... It's an intelligent saving throw. Okay? And the D.C...

15. 15. D. 15. 15. And so I'll twin it And all I'm going to pull out a balloon As I'll just

I'll blow it and I'll just work super fast Like there's a cloud of like white comically cartoon dust around me As my hand is like multiple hands are coming out And you'll hear like buzzing and drilling and sawing And it's effectively a Like a target dummy in wow But in the shape of like a mammoth And like a sled and all of us are on it

but they're all like really cheap facsimiles. And they're just all floating on the, out in the midair. And so that is the image that I'm projecting to them. You create this like perfect off ramp like it looks

very clearly like the ice road connects off to the right here. You can see a visage of yourself continuing off that way. Everyone roll a group stealth check. Ooh. And I'll just

dread all of you. Oh. So just roll a disadvantage? Just roll it disadvantage. Oh. Surely I'll get more than two. 18 at disadvantage. 15.

And if we're already disadvantaged, you have to roll again a third die to dread and take the lowest of all over. Oh, really? Wait, are we already at disadvantage? I'm a disadvantage because of, I think we're probably disadvantaged, right? I'm exhausted. You're exhausted. Oh, you're a disadvantage. So you're triple, you roll three dice.

Yeah. Sure. I was not exhausted. I mean, yeah. So I just, it's just a mite with my armor. Oh. I just want to, like, you know, maintain games. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're disadvantaged, sure. It doesn't matter, I got a six. I got a 15. I rolled a natural one, so that's a five. Fourteen. Fourteen with the dragon. 15. I actually got a 10.

Believe it or not. Chevere? I got a nine. You see. You create this perfectly, painted facsimile that looks like the road carries off the edge of this cliff. You see as you quietly sit there until one of the ice land sharks gets right up on you and goes for your facsimile and goes straight off the cliff as it veers off and falls and goes deep down until it's shoot deploys and it goes And then it's in this moment that you all start cheering for joy.

And as the second Ice Land Shark was about to leap off, it tracks you immediately and it starts to turn towards you. And it continues the chase. Oh, Dan, you keep running. Come on, keep going. Go, go, go, go, go, go. As my wild magic triggers. Tell me, it just explodes this off the club. Oh, I got kill all of it. land shark.

I was going to say, I got to explode all slides. Yeah, that's worth. It's a different. 54 and 55, big difference, you know. Oh. What do you mean, oh? I can cast Misty Step, arriving at my

location and a burst of delicious food. You just explode to a muffin donut. So basically, I was like, uh-oh, it goes to my thighs. I blow up, and my thighs get gigantic. And I blow up, and it's like, ah, hoo-hoo, and I'll just place the arc back onto the sled. But now there is, there's tons of muffins and pies and baked buns.

Oh, well, if anyone would like to enjoy that. Oh, my God. I'm going to immediately start grabbing pies and like Frisbee's. I'm going to start whipping them towards the Lanshark. Just seeing if I can do some damage, because I have no range to tag, but I can whip some pies. You do so. You're throwing pies. They're flying out.

Everyone, the Ether Cannon is still blasting out. You're still trying to just slow it down, keep it away from you. It's at this point, Danny, you would see that the cliff face is starting to come to an end, it's starting to round off to the right. And the slope is starting to level out, as you can see not too far ahead of you that you're about to open up into just like wider open terrain. And I need, who would be towards the front of the sled? Anybody?

Not me. Just Danny? I'd be front because I've just basically teleported arc forward onto it. You and Danny roll perception checks. I think it's just straight but I only have a plus one.

13. Twist it. It's good. It's 11? Do I twist it? Twist it. Yeah. You're charging ahead. So what do you, what do your mammoth I see? I see. 12.

The two of you, you're charging ahead. begin to see as the larger slope starts to flatten out at its precipice you see a couple of black dots begin to line the ridge line and then they leap onto the the ice and you see what looks like black spheres rolling towards you just keeping on running You keep running. As you do so, the ice land shark is gaining and gaining and gaining and gaining. And it's almost at the back of the sled. The ether cannon is going off as peppering.

The ice landsharks' jaws are now open. They're firing straight into it. You dislodge a tooth as it's looking to chomp down on you. You're firing off desperate blasts of solar rays. The sands are whipping out, like slashing into its jaws a little bit, but it's almost upon you. It's going to slam down when suddenly 12 black penguins slid down the hill and crash into the side of the land shark and knock it off the cliff face.

What is the world is going on on this planet? Like 12 penguins slid down this. hill and crash into the side of this Iceland shark. Are they like... They're, they're, uh, great question. They are, uh, they look relatively normal, however, they are quite large. They're like, they're probably the size of Laboosh, each one. Oh.

Wow. So the ones you can race down in Super Mario. Yeah. Yeah. And it's as this, it's, as this, It's as this happens, that the... Newt-noot, motherfucker. What the hell is going on here?

I hate this planet! I hate this planet! Everything's trying to kill us! I thought we said this was lifeless! The Penlands are friends! It knocks the Ice Landshark off the side of this clip As the ice land shark sails off just gets absolutely bodied as two kind of like double tackle and just shove it. It goes, boom, like just a 12-foot perfect horizontal before it just drops to, certainly it'll be fine as it flies off the cliff. Then as you finish this chase, you open up into this more open section.

and the penguins start to slide down and just kind of circle around you as you slow to a stop. And they're just like sliding on their stomachs, and then they start to stand up. And there's big black penguins, white bodies, classic. What explosion of blood and bone. Get a big. You all, Casey's happy fan. This is angry feet. They take our red rubber gloves.

The penguins are into feathers. Oh, my shit. And the penguins spin around you as they start to stand up, and they're all really quite large. And one has kind of like a vibrantly golden plume of like tuft of hair as it sweeps back. And it's just a little bit bigger than the others

as they kind of all stand up and start to watch back and forth. And they start to greet you in a very sing-songy penguin fashion. Oh, very naturally start doing that. I'm actually going to hide behind Lubush, because until this moment, I didn't realize I was afraid of penguins.

If you look inside their mouth, it's a fucking nightmare. The penguins in the desert. The penguins waddle up towards Lubbush and tower over and get them away. Get them away. They say, oh, friends, caviar, it's fine. Are you sure? Everything else on its planet is trying to kill us so far.

I have a good feeling for once. Andy, nice running. You did a great job. All of those animals that were very blameless, all just ran away and had parachute, and they all made it okay. So I don't sense that the penguins are, like, I sense that they're friends.

Raw on animal, handling, check. It's at this point you hear this very quiet. and that's the first wolf that landed on the phone. We start hearing dozens of them. 18. 18.

With an 18, you get the sense that they seem very non-threatening. And not just they're non-threatening, but they seem very pleased and happy to see you. And they're very, they're very playful.

Do they speak the, when they speak to these guys? Can the penguins speak to that? Just in like penguin. Does anyone speak penguin? Oh, let me check. No, no. No.

They communicate in a degree of squawks and like clapping and greetings, dandy. Where are we? Do we have a sense of maybe how far we are from? I would say in all of the commotion actually read when you

you were tracking Rex's ship but you lost the heat signature but you still kind of had an idea of where that was but in all this commotion you're you were focused on other things survival like blasting

down these things and now you don't know exactly how to get to where Rex is or where he might be well I'd say we've seen at all now, but I'm almost certain things are going to get weirder. Weirder than this? This is pretty freaking weird. Yeah. Weirder than this.

I was just going to say, I'm going to drop my mammoth form, my baby mammoth form, and I'm going to try and speak with them. Are you using speak to animals? I'm going to try and speak to them, and I'm going to be like, hello, thank you for saving us. Well, are you using the spell of speak with animals? Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Shit. What does that do? It allows me to communicate, to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts for the duration.

Ten minutes. The knowledge and awareness of many beasts is limited by their intelligence, but at a minimum, beast can give you information about nearby locations, monsters, including whatever they perceive or have perceived within the last day. And you may be able to persuade them to perform a favor for you if you say so. So they're still as dumb as much. We enjoy fish and meat. Hello, citizens of the Solar Federation.

You know what they say about big penguins. That's true. Our ship has crushed land. We require resistance. It doesn't work. They're constructs. I'm going to say, thank you so much for saving us from those big scary sharks.

It communicates. It claps its hands, and you get the sense that it's communicating with you that, you are welcome and they're very happy that you are here. And I'm going to say, we are looking for somebody who looks kind of like Pike over here, our friend. They glance at Pike and kind of do like this with their hands, but more handsome.

And I'll be like, have you seen him? Where can we find him? We have. He came through here not too long ago before you. He was no fun though. He didn't play with us. That is so rude. You guys are fun.

You seem fun. Oh, I am fun too. Can you maybe help us find our friend? We need to get to him. We can help you find him. We can even take you there. We know where he is. Oh, my goodness.

I love you, penguins. Only if you play with us first. What do we have to play? What do you want to play? Our favorite games are Snowball Fight Ha ha ha He's attacking that

I know I knew it Yeah The red mist The red mist of a penguin erupts As the part I'm just going to say No no no

Trust me on this one Gently snowball fight With our penguin friends They're gonna help us So I communicate that with everyone And I pick up a little snowball And I just kind of like Toss it gently

At the end of each of their flippers, like a human hand emerges. They make off their penguins. They just pull it back. What a minute.

Try to introduce a playful snowball fight with penguins. Oh, we're having a snowball fight. I love snowball fight. Okay. Everyone roll a group performance check. I would just like very kind of like nonchalantly pick up

a nice ball and attempt to like lob it underhand of them. I have to twist. Performance, you say. Performance. Ha! 12. I'm kind of unenthusiastic about it. I'm like, I don't want to hurt anybody, so I'm just kind of like, here, catch.

I rolled my first natural 20 and then I butt. Oh! So don't get so excited. Auntie congratulations. 18, okay. 25. 25. Put on snow.

Yeah. For Chuckles to survive. He's juggling. 22. 22. Chuckles Dandy Kavir, you are in this snowball fight. Chuggles, you are crafting ice sculptures in seconds. You're taking up the snow.

You're just... Fortunately for you, there's all llama-corns. But they take on life and they're run out and they're running after these penguins chasing them in every direction. The penguins are loving. Flee, my minions. Flee! My child Llamacorn soldiers as they run out. Danny Kavir, you both are having the time of your life.

You're shaping these. Yeah, your enthusiasm comes from bone crunching fear. But the more enthusiastic you are in throwing the snowballs, the more they're loving it. And they're chasing you down. And that's cave. I will defend you. I'll grab a fair swab of snow and like, and whip one way too hard, like, basically, ice at this point. That you create a super dense snowballs.

You think all my is great. I just superman it into it. Nebula snowball. Shear the paint and head right off at Shillus. Lubbush, Rhett, and Pike are approaching this in a way that looks like they never had a childhood. Very accurate. They're throwing snow off. Pike very half-heartedly. Red is taking a very mechanics approach to it.

Well, this isn't the perfect snowball. Yeah. I mean, you got to clean off this. You can't throw a ball. It's not a ball. You know what I'm mean? Here, here we're going to dust this off. You got a set up.

Palbers and medias. It's those ice cream scoops with both sides were it's like. It's the SpongeBob moment where you craft the perfect one single snowball and everyone's throwing a thousand snowballs up. I only throw one snowballs. Yeah, you only throw one snowball

the entire the entire snowball fight time. I'll build like a snowman like really quick and I'll put a hat on it and it'll come to life. And I'll just have been some magic in metal. Oh wait, what are you just pushing off the hole What the hell?

Is it rip off his head and What? No, not the abyss. And it's right around this time we hear the second wolf length. No, please don't make me go ahead. What about that?

There must have been some magic. What was my purpose? Why was it created? Oh. I love a good snowball fight. As you suppose It's It is Admittedly, even for those who have never

Maybe had a snowball But fight before With maybe the exception of career Is everyone starts to have a good time And this carries on For about 10, 15 minutes as you're throwing around, you're having a great time

You're relaxing for the first time in kind of a while Even before before your last bounty, before you stepped down with Dr. Mays, before you met the boss, before you traveled here, right? You've had moments of downtime, but very little moments of just childlike fun and spaces to kind of step back and just enjoy, truly enjoy the moment together. And you start to do so. And the penguins seem... Like they're filled with murderous intentions?

The penguins seem pretty happy. They seem that like even for those, even dealing with Kavir, they're really quite happy with this display you've been able to put on for them. After a time, I might like catch eyes with Rett or something and just kind of give him a small smile and like kind of like a, you know, for a change.

And I, yeah, like it wasn't so bad. And then I'd compliment, I'd say, that looks pretty darn good. Let me just shave a little bit off there. Hold on one second. I'm almost done. Hold on. Hold on. You're using those measuring caliber. I'll start. The Bush roll and an attack roll.

Yeah. God, this pain. Yeah. Watch out. Yeah. I've rolled a higher than a 10 twice since we've started playing in the last three hours. Nat 20. Nope.

Nope. It's still 17. 17, dread. He doesn't want you to hit this penguin. 8. 16. 16. They have an 18. Yeah, unlike the unentusiasm or the actual play,

like, I don't get it, and I just fucking like lob in L, like a softball-sized... Did you see me freaking out? Do I see what's happening? You've... Uh, is... Are you having fun? Then no.

You pack this super dense snowball. It's time to put it to fight and fight. And you lob it out at one of these penguins. It soars through the air, and with the dullest thud, it collides with its body, just stops immediately and drops to the ground without losing any of its form because it's so dense. And the penguin just, and falls over yeah

you do you hear the gasping sounds just the absolute like aha I win a roughhousing yeah a little tough for the penguins but they're still into it

as I'll run up to the penguin drop to my knees and be like, are you okay? It's his first time playing this game. That's a good hit. Oh, good. You like that? No. Oh, no, I'm sorry.

Let's make another one. Okay. Stop making those snowballs. What? Stop making those really hard snowballs. We don't want to hurt our friends. That's right. Oh, Penguin, this has been a joyous

bit of childlike play, so could you now please rat out the guy that's on the run so we can apprehend him and turn him over to the mob where they will surely torture and kill him, please? Oh, we haven't played that game before. It's a very fun game.

Well, we'll take you... We'll take you to him then. Well, roll on the animal handling check before they just blindly agree. Chuckles. Oh, I can't hear them. Oh, okay. Danny, what are they saying? I said what he meant to say was that we would love for you to come help us find this guy

and show us where he is. Oh, another game. We'll take you there. Let's race. And then we'll, six penguins will line up at the top of the pathway ahead. Oh, like that. And they'll start to take a,

they'll motion for you to get behind one. Each one of you will take a penguin. They'll motion for you to get behind one. And invite you to go penguin sledding. This is so fun. This is so fun. I love this planet. I love this planet so much.

You know what this reminds me? No, honestly, this reminds me of Super Mario N-64 with the penguin. Oh, yeah. Okay, cool. Hell yeah. Even if you miss, you always take the short cut. Yeah, I was thinking,

Adventure the last year, Bender, episode one. Oh, penguin honor, yeah. That's where I went. It's all. Penguin's wedding. You want to go, penguin's wedding with me? Let's go! Penguin!

I'm hopping on. I'm ready. I'm like, giddy up. So the penguins all take to the line. Does everyone line up with the penguins? Oh, yeah. Just right behind it. Are you sure about this, Danny? Absolutely.

You're going to have such a good time. What else are we going to do? We've got to go find this guy. They are offering to take us on their backs? Yes, we're going to go on their backs, and they're going to ride on their bellies, and we're going to go through the snow faster than I could take you with the mammoth.

This is going to be the best time we've ever had together. Okay, the best time. Thank you, strange tuxedo creature. I'm going to step on mine, like a surfboard. I'm just like copying this. Like a, oh yeah, this is just like snowboard kids. Let's go.

Are you sure about this? I mean, the engine alone weighs like a quarter ton. Are you going to be able to support that? Do you know what that means? Do you know what to anyways? I think. He's got it.

They're tough. They seem enthusiastic. Your penguin sinks into the snow. They get another penguin? A second penguin comes up that has the double carrier went. Are you going to be okay if you're having to ride one of these? I don't know. You will be okay.

Pop on. Are you sure? We'll find out. We have to go. Let's do this. Let's do it now. Do you want me to strap you to this? No, that's like a nightmare.

That's terrible. You don't want to be strapped down to the penguin that you didn't want to, you, you couldn't get off? No, no, no, no. I'll be telling you right now, if they were saying I want that. I appreciate it to my friend, but let's go, let's go. Okay. Okay.

And I choose the penguin that I hit really hard. Let's go! In a display of dominance. So you all line up on these penguins. penguins and they all they're standing and then they take just the briefest little like hop and they go horizontal and they start to careen forward you all kind of run after them a little bit and then leap on some of you surfing them some of you crying some of you tying around slapping them on the bag go

go damn you as you as you move forward and just for fun let's see who wins we'll roll and very similar to just the standard racing rules, just roll three rounds of D-4s, and let's go four. Four rounds, four-fours, four-fours. We'll go four rounds of D-4s just to see who takes it.

I don't know why I'm rolling. You're the only one of the battle. Oh, this is very spacey. Four. Round one, oh, okay. Four. D-4. Oh, yeah, she's just going.

Four? Six. One. Three. Four. I'm writing it down. Four. I'm writing.

Three. Yeah, you should just track your own. Track your own. No, I'm not going to track them. That's way too much. Here, I'll just do this and then. I'll just call the rounds. I'll call the rounds.

I'll call it. Oh, I love those pens. Yeah. All right, everyone got it. Round two. Another four? Oh! Oh!

It's Redden. Oh, it's a little hesitant. No. You can hear him start to gleefully laughing. Oh. And Chubbles is a master surfer. Did everyone have their round two? Yep.

Okay, round three. Round three. I got a three on round three. I got a three. I'm in last place. Chuggles starts to pull up into the barrel of an ice drift and takes the lead easily, I think. That's three, fours in a row. Yeah.

What are the total? What is everyone's total right now? I've been five. After four rounds, you got a five, I got a six. Come on. Come on. We're on rounds three now, right? Three to three rounds.

I am very much like 10. 10? 9. 12, 12, 9, 8? 8. 12. So you have a chance. You're at 8.

Yeah, we're out of it. I think it's just between Chuggles and Kavir. Roshu Kvich. Just behind Chuckles just surfing. He's enjoying it. Round 4, final round. I'm not giving up. Dern.

Oh, a 1. A 1 as well. Wow! 13. Smugs 3. 12. What does that bring you to? Oh!

God! You missed it by one! Oh, no, we can do this. And Chuggles just, the penguin comes to a halt as they all kind of screened, crean down towards the same time. Chuggles surfing on the back of his penguin leaps off and tumbles through the snow as the clear. We'll hit a ramp, a snowbank, and fly out on his ground

like on top of his beak. Jeez! Two and Ollie. Yeah, Tudelope. Pike took the shortcut, and he just got lost. It was actually not a shortcut. Call me Anthony Falcon.

Pretty good. I also certainly arrived last with a six. And so I'll slide in very slowly. Everyone's already coming. Yeah, we were struggling. Like, so I would see you, like, absolutely trying to urge this creature. Come on!

Why are you so out the breath? And the pipe would be more focused on hanging on than trying to race quickly, so we definitely come in last. Yeah. After getting off the penguin, I'll have a smile on my face because that was admittedly fun, but then the penguin goes to clap me on the back. I'm like, ah!

The whole time the reason why you're going so fast, you're going to, you're like, ah! Oh! Incredible. The penguins all slide, slide down. You've been, though this race happened mechanically very quickly, it actually took kind of

a while. That's twice and turns. They really took you on a journey, but they just cruised through the ice. Something about them, as they approach the snow, they just totally repels off their bodies. They're flying down these sheets of ice

down the snow, and you have moved a great distance. As you hit your final ramp and Chuckles did a 360 no-scope, beat grab to land at the finish line I was messed up man oh god

oh god oh no penguin abuse is not funny somebody's coming to stop us for sure yeah no penguins were harmed to make you in the session your penguins all skirt up to

to once again kind of this flat open snowfield and they stand up and they're so excited they're clapping their hands they haven't had anyone to play with in quite a long while and they love it they're loving it you become great great friends of the

penguins and as you arrive in your location, the one with the golden crown of feathers kind of swooped back a little bit. We'll go to each and every one of you and just kind of bow and tap its beak on either one of your shoulders. And you'll feel, as that happens,

as it goes down the line to each and every one of you. I'll accept it. That you feel almost like a warmth come over you and a mild protection from the cold. And it's not quite as biting. The wind doesn't hurt quite as bad. And the chill doesn't quite reach your bones. You start to feel relatively comfortable. You know, you still need your snow gear, but you don't feel the cold quite as much.

Having been kind of detached from this whole thing from the beginning, like kind of weirded out, like not really sure what's going on, now recognizing that there's like, you know, a level of like sentience, there would be this reverence I think that Pike would have and understanding that these are some sort of, you know, ancient creatures or special creatures. And Pike would kind of warm up a little bit and also kind of like give a little bit of a bow back. Yeah.

After receiving this blessing. Absolutely. It bows deeply to you as well and spins on a foot in a circle and cheers and starts to clap, bounce back and forward and clap. A blessing from the emperor. Not that kind of emperor. What? How do they do that?

Some kind of venom or something in their feathers? Not sure. No. They're going to kill us? Am I going to die? No. The power of friendship. Exactly. I have taught you something.

Yes, you have. We are unstoppable. Whatever we've seen, it will be nothing compared to how scary those sharks were. I'm sure nothing bad could go wrong on this score, fella. I'm kidding, that doesn't happen. AT-A.T. Walkers appear. What are you? Oh, where is it?

Incredible. Do we have a sense of where we are, where the sky is? Roll a perception check. You can make it a group perception check. Come on. Am I still exhausted? You still exhausted? I didn't take away my exhaustion.

20. Oh, much better. 21. God, I have to, I have to. It's group though, so it's fine. It's group, yeah. My rolls have cooled off there for a bit. Six.

Twelve. perception 13 which is great for me juggle oh I fail horribly okay so whoever

be to 15 whoever reasonably beat a 15 you might be enjoying yourself but you're looking around and you can see the snow is still still fierce you're not quite feeling it as difficult

in your extremities but you can see a small black object just on the edge of your vision as you look out probably about 50 feet to your north. Well, yep, there is. All right.

Well, thank you, Penguin Kind for your weirdly magical boon. Yes, thank you so much. and I'm going to tell everybody I'll look back and be like, I think the best way to say goodbye to our friends and thank you is to clap. Make sure to smile when you do it. How do you do that? Congratulations.

Yeah, like this. Congratulations. Thank you, penguins. You're so fun. Like Evangelion. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations.

Congratulations. I'm more like I just lost in Super Smash. Oh, yeah. That's exactly what I thought of when you started doing that. That was so good. You really captured it.

They start to clap and dance and twirl and bounce, and they're so happy that they were able to help their new friends get to their goal, to where they wanted to achieve. He's got to know we're here. Certainly we've been lured here. Maybe not. I mean, maybe because we took penguins as opposed to giant vehicles, maybe we'll get the jump on.

It didn't sound like he. thought we'd last long. Good point. Good point. You probably think we're frozen to death, or eaten by ice worms, or sharks. All right. How long do we think

it's going to take to get there? Five minutes. It's a walk. Five minute a walk. I don't think we're going to make it. I'm all this way, and we're just going to die. had four minutes in me, maybe.

But the five minutes walk, too much right down. Right down. All right. Is it just totally flat? For now. Oh.

Oh, boy. Well, he didn't see us coming a mile away, so let's just do our best here. I guess that's fair. We can try to lay low, I guess, but if he happens to look in this direction, he'll probably see us coming.

We don't really have much other choice. Let's get this over with. You move forward towards what you know to be the Black Speeder. You trudge through the snow. It's a little thicker than ankle deep still. And you don't quite feel it as harshly as you had previously, but it's still just difficult to navigate through. It's deep snow.

You have to move one foot in front of the other. You can't casually shift forward. You have to lift a boot every time you want to sit. step. So it's going, but it was a short walk. You begin to approach this speeder. And before you can fully make out what this layout ahead of you looks like, just beyond it, you start to see the large gray shape of what is either a mountain or a colossus, just beyond the black speeder as you approach Something begins to form in the just slightly further distance. Is there, do we feel anything, hear anything?

It's just... Just a large, ominous mass in the snow. What is that? I don't know. I can't tell either. Is it a land mass? It's moving, though. I want to see if I can really make out what it is.

This is my cue to tell me. You slap your hawth monocles down and the one eye extends out. And you pierce just beyond the speeder and you look towards it and you see what looks to be a gigantic snowy mountain that has maybe a brief cutout in front of it. And roll a perception check. 12. 12. That's what you say.

And as I'm looking through a giant like poorly made puppet Yeti monster will appear in my mouth and a single hand of the snack all of us across the face

there's some kind of fucking sheltered mountain something like a cave it doesn't look natural to me or maybe it is but maybe that's where he's

hold up maybe a city built into the mountain I mean it's huge Danny said there were people here once. No, it would protect him from all of this. Oh, and maybe that's where the people are if it survived.

Oh. Underground? If they survived. We have no way of knowing if he is here or if he has moved on. Based on our new penguin friend's instincts, perhaps that's where we will find them, but... Well, I don't... We may be in for the long haul. Did anyone bring food?

I wouldn't expect Rex to just leave his bike behind. Let's be realistic. It's too valuable. This is a good point. Should we sabotage it, like blow it up? So we can't leave? Let's just get there first. Okay.

See what the fuck's going on. We might also be able to use it. Oh, that's true. We probably should. It'll keep a speeder on the Rhapsody. It seems silly that we don't. I know we can't afford it. After this job, maybe we can.

So we'll add it to the list, and I'll see if the budget allows for it, all right? All I know is that for December ween, I want a brand new shiny bike. Is there any way you can program it to ride itself back to our ship? I mean, I could try, but I mean, just for it to, you know, I'd have to fashion some sort of device to allow it to understand its own location, navigate the terrain. Yeah, yeah. I'll forget.

You could just say no. I mean, it's possible, but it's a real good. All right. Okay. Do you go ahead? Yes. Let's go. Let's try to be, you know, somewhat stealthy about this, all right?

Leboostle goes first. Activate cloaking. Very slightly shimmer. As he's traditional. and I will go first, but I will set a pace that I think is going to allow everyone to steal to the best of their ability. So you, sure, you had reached the Black Speeder. What you found there is that the vehicle planted on the ground off. Rex is nowhere to be found. A small brief campfire. Some wood, some ash, some cinderang, almost completely covered over. by the snow at this point.

But you can see at now, it's actually stopped snowing. Though the visibility is still poor, the sky is still gray, it hangs in the air. It's a little bit easier to see what's around you. And you would all notice relatively plainly the very faintest outline of footprints heading towards the mountain. and you move towards it.

And as you walk, it begins to, its enormity begins to make itself known to you. You approach it. It is a giant structure. It looks like a mountain. And you realize as you take one step, another, another, you close the distance.

The brief non-snowed covering that you use, saw when you look towards it red was an entryway but not that of something to an open cave you see large ancient doors as you come upon it with giant extending stone-like walkway that moves towards you and as you approach these doors you can see that the cold and the ice has moved from the bridge up to just the very bottom of the doorway and in its enormity split between its giant openings you see the visage of an ancient creature looks to have the head of a Tyrannosaurus rex and the just an absolutely gigantic body massive

massively muscular. A long tail sweeps out around its torso and spirals down to the base of the door. This is a real Tyrannosaurus rex or a... It is like humanoid with the head of a Tyrannosaurus rex, but the body of, I mean, it's also the body of a humanoid tyrannosaurus rags. Is a statue or it's living. It's like in the door. It's like a bass relief painted into, not painted, it's like a, it's like an actual carving into the front of the door. I have an image in my head. Let me know if this is way off, but mountains, sort of like, this structure in the mountains, and it's all big, massive. I'm getting the Thunder Cat's headquarters. Is that, like, kind of sort of what the entrance...

Hold on. I'm getting general scales from Star Fox. I was thinking like the entrance time. Not including the bathroom. Yeah, it's pretty iron-forward. It's very Thunder Cat's Ententee. Oh, it's very Thunder Cats. But if it were covered in snow, right? If it were covered in snow and if the giant cat was more like... covered in snow and more mountainous. Oh, more dinosaurs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And more general scales from. Do I feel anything when I see this? You feel a deep kinship with the area. And once again, this primal instinct to interact with the surface washes over you for a moment. Wow, so I'm gonna go up to the surface and put my hand on it.

Of the door? Yep. You do so. I'm going to communicate. Like, this feels so familiar. I've never felt this before on the Stardust Rhapsody. I don't know what it means, but... Does it look...

The stonework, does it... Do I get similarities between Dandy's construction? Do I see? You do. It looks very similar to the stone of Dandy. is the door reacting in any way to her touch? It doesn't seem to be. Well, it stands to reason.

I mean, if you look at the tool in here and the stone and the way you're constructed, very similar. Do you think that I am from this planet? Maybe you survived whatever happened here. Well, I mean, whatever it is, it's clear that you're from the same peoples. Maybe.

Maybe your makers are down there? Maybe. We can finally act them all those questions that you've been having? Maybe. I don't want to get your hopes up. But I'm getting excited for you, Dandy. I feel confused. And honestly, a little scared.

You guys are my family. Well, if a jackass like Maxim's hiding out in this fucking place, I feel like whatever was here isn't anymore. And he's just using it as a hot. Hot out. How many of us recognize what the dinosaur-looking creature actually even is? Or does that look alien to a lot of us? The concept of a dinosaur, like, I don't think Pike would have any idea. You would, you know that there is a race of ancient aliens that traverse the galaxy that are in the form of, like, humanoid, intelligent, like dinosaur style people, but they're very uncommon to encounter. And it's generally very strange that Bracken of the Ironside Pirates is of that.

That's fair. That's fair. Okay. It would be very uncommon for you to like come across a structure like this, but you wouldn't necessarily have no idea what this is. You might think that it plays to that, but no idea why or what it could mean. So it's the same race as Bracken, but like it's, A T-Rex instead of a... It looks even more primordial than the project.

So even, like, as if this were towards the beginnings of when a humanoid style shape would have begun to form. I would like to go in, but I am scared. We will be with you. Yeah, and Rett's right. Whatever was here probably isn't anymore, and nobody's going to take you from us. We got you.

Just go in with no hopes, and you'll either be pleasantly surprised or correct. That is maybe good advice. And you know, we're all being very brave today. Look at Kavir. He faces fear of gigantic Arctic bird monsters. And we all need to be brave going into this. And we may find some answers for you, even if we don't find your makers. Okay.

Let's go in. You can do it. That is right. Well done, Kavir. Thank you, thank you. I like slap your arm. It's always a little too hard. It's like always a little harder than you want it to be.

You're right, you did a very good job, Kavir, and I'll stick my thumb out and I'll kind of tap your turtleneck. And there'll be a sticker that says, I'm a brave boy with like a smiley face on it. I think it was the apple with the worm coming out and smiling. All right, Dandy. Tandy, how do we get inside? I'm gonna try and open it, and I try and open it. You start to push on the door, and you feel it briefly start to give, but it is incredibly heavy, and you get the sense that it would take all six of you

pushing against it to swing the doors wide open. Guys, come help, open the door. Stand to fire, then. Okay, I'm gonna roll back my blue puffy coat sleeves all the way off, And then these comically, like, cartoonist, pop-by-arms are going to appear. Or I'll do... And they'll puff up. They're very clearly just inflated, but they look strong.

The little arms that are attached to my engine will come up and also push with me. They do all of that, and then I put one hand on it and start swinging. You all go up to the door, all of you, in various ways, looking to pull. push, Labou's standing just behind, planted, feet planted into the ground, both arms, extended and elongated and pushing against both sections of the door, everyone shoves, and these giant, ornate, ancient primal doors swing open.

And in front of you, the first thing you see in a hall of darkness and gray and stone is the the beautiful, fiery, elongated hair of Rex. As he says, oh, so you made it, Rhapsody. And that's where we won the session. Nice job, Miss. This guy's like Indiana Jones again, right? How did he get inside?

He's Israel. He's delving in and stealing. Thank you for listening to the Legends of Aventris podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session. If you want even more campaigns to listen to, become a member of our Patreon at the Pearl Dolphin Tier Hire to unlock Shroud Over Saltmarsh, a patron exclusive campaign set on the high seas. You can find that at patreon.com slash legends of avatris.

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