Legends of Avantris - Stardust Rhapsody: Overture | Ep. 9 | To Tame a Land

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

The Rhapsody receives an SOS from an old friend...   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/9U4cdv_NMhU?si=vUiZtHVGJDSeWBgP

Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Pike, and you're listening to Stardust Rhapsody. Here's what happened last time. Oh, it's time to roll over the other Junkyard gangs. By our friends are died. Hulk, sploosh. You can't stop my dog, Derry, from turning it all up. It's mechanic-wise, will flash red for a moment as it scans the room.

Oh, shrewles, shrewcles. Srukel, shrewkel, shrewcles. You suplex it onto its back and then you begin to spin it around the room and around the room until the centrifugal force of your spinning begins to lift it ever so slightly off. Paws it fucking at the pool of cart of dynamite as it lands onto it. There's a massive explosion. Boom! There's an explosion of a purple chaotic orb and for a moment it rips all noise from reality is you can't hear anything.

And you rocked it off in front of you. Ja-cha-cha-cha! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you look out as you stand at the edge and you see this massive cratered sphere. Leaving it there means the empire can roll up and take it. But then where do we take it?

Keep it with us. For now. Let's contain it, get it on the ship. If I die taking it, it is perhaps not as big a loss. I have this thing in me. And the second you move it clockwise, the orb will, like a vacuum, get sucked into the canister. As the dust settles, you'll see he stands there. Handel turned back to center, lid closed. I think I've done it!

Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh. He mentioned the empire about them, uh, maybe double-crossing him. They fucking knew about this. It's funny, none of us start to ask him. where he got his from. I'll probably hit the name Killivax, just pull it up. That's me, duh.

I'll start calling. You can tell almost immediately that something feels off. The wrong type of people are asking questions about it now. You gotta be very careful out there and don't bring it back here. They don't know yet, Rhett, that it was you guys. I've cleared the logs, no one will know,

but you have to be, as as he says it, you'll see it in the background, the door will get blasted open. You catch the faintest. silhouette, long hair, wrapped around a stout frame with what seems to be mechanical attachments and a massive gun. Blast it open the door before the video cuts up. Space, the endless expanse, purpose and power are there for the taking for all those who dare, even a rabidillo. Though Those who claim power quickly can be parted from it just as fast.

In space, there are few things more dangerous than trifling with elements you don't understand. The Rhapsody confronted Mad Dog Dairy and swiftly put him down. In the wake of the destruction of the junkyard was leveled by an all-consuming ether explosion. Ret, knowing that they can't leave this power behind, quickly fashioned a box that would hold the Corps safely. So he believes. Labouche, extending from the ship, secured this unknown power. As Rhett called Killevaks to explore turning in the bounty, he watched as a long, trusted ally was cut down in an eerily familiar fashion. A cursed treasure they cannot claim, and a power they don't understand.

What comes next for the crew of the Rhapsody? Rhett, you're seated at your console. You hear the familiar crackle of a deadline as the screen in front of you turns to snow. Your call disconnected. We gotta... We gotta get this thing fucking far away from here. I'm gonna, I'll just, I'll jump up and I'll sort of immediately,

uh, kind of, unless anyone stops me, I'm just gonna, gonna walk to the all of them have walked to the cockpit was just you and pike that were watching it yeah to set the stage uh once again really quick i believe that as you had all come in from uh the the junkyard uh you relaxed for a bit you had a drink you unwound you did what you would normally do after what can be classified as a successful mission uh most went to bet wrapped up for the evening when you and and Pike walked to the cockpit or wherever you would make the ball section of they were playing donkey car they're playing big funk at sixty four I thought we're all the same room sorry yeah I also thought it was just you just us that's fine to set

the new stage you and Pike are in the control room as this call hangs up everyone else at this point has gone to bed. With, uh, with Rett's outburst, I'll look to him and I'll say, this is bad. This is real bad. How the fuck did they find it? I thought we got fucking dumb lucky, but I should have known. How sure are you that they know we have this thing? I mean, it's fucking impossible to know.

But if they go to the plan. They find that fucking crater. They're gonna know what the hell caused it. You would also recall that in the conversation with Killivax, he had mentioned, he asked you if you had successfully completed the bounty, and he had mentioned that he had cleared that from the logs. Maybe if Killivax is no longer with us. His last act was a selfless one.

Then we need to make sure we put his own much distance between us and them as we possibly can. Where do we even fucking go, though? I mean, GrunCorp has all the fucking resources. They got more credits than the fucking empire. We gotta lay low. Nowhere high profile. Nowhere high population.

We gotta look at our options. At the very least, let's gather the crew and let them know what's going on. All right. We'll steer clear of any ether stations, and, I mean, I don't even know who I could ask. I think to, like, do I happen to know of anyone that, like, that I feel like I could call that is sort of similarly on the outside of the corporation?

Or maybe that's, like, still inside, but friendly to me? Is there anyone like that or is it sort of I'll leave it up to you I would say as of right now you don't feel like there's anyone you would be able to turn to I don't know exactly Is in or outside of What's our supply station look like? Are we gonna be all right or are we in dire need if we have to stop somewhere? We're gonna have to Pick carefully Well Thanks to Chuckle's fucking signature the boss hooked us up pretty well

I think we'll, because that wasn't too long ago. I was like, I was like a week ago. We're doing okay. We're doing okay. We're doing okay. Um. I mean, do we still need a fucking look for Rex? I don't think it makes sense chasing after him.

He'll show up when he's meant to. For all we know, he's halfway across the galaxy. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. Oh, and uh, Rhett? Yeah.

Try to keep your chin up about Killifax. He's tough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but uh... I have a feeling ain't gonna make it long. I hope I'm wrong. I would start to maybe lead us or make my way back to where everyone else is to see if we can fill everybody in on what's going on. Yeah.

I'll fall apart like. Mike? You do so. You start to, you leave the, the calm center, you start to move into the lounge and maybe even red, you would hit the familiar call to action, the whirring lights to gather, the teeing together to talk about what's next. And as you do so, Kavir, as you sleep, It's not uncommon for you to dream. It comes to you often. But tonight, as the chaotic energies of chuckles wane from you, the sandman appears faster than most other nights.

You see yourself in a cave, well-lit, almost like lights dancing off of bronze walls. You look out on a scene of yourself sitting cross-legged on a smooth stone. Across from you

sits a man larger but slender whose long white hair seems to rise towards the ceiling like fire. But it doesn't dance as much as it seems to pour

upwards. The hourglass lays in the sand between you. He speaks to you in the dream, but you can't hear the words as he speaks to your dream version and you just look on. You listen for a while through the dream, but it's silent. You watch the conversation carry on for several more minutes. growing bored you feel yourself on the verge of waking and you hear a voice finally speak out you look forward and the figure no longer looking at the dream version of you sitting on the stone seems to stare directly at you and says time runs out for us all do I having witnessed that scene recognize it as something

that's happened in the past it does feel very familiar you You would think back to the moments in the desert when you had first gotten your powers and what that looked like and that was very much the scene in which Zaman had bestowed them upon you for the first time. I'm going to sort of shake myself off, awake, kind of rub the sleep out of my eyes and look over at the hourglass for a moment. And is there any activity on the hourglass? Is it glowing in any way?

Is it dull? It's since dormant. I'm going to register and sort of just pocket what's happened. But it's given me an uneasy feeling. And I'm going to sort of get myself stretched out and ready and just kind of start heading into the common area. Just a feeling of uneasiness is going to sit inside me now. And so I'll make it out.

not assuming you guys are out in the car area? Yeah. Yeah, like I would have hit whatever button would have been like, whoop-boop. You summon the. Whoop-boop, who-whoop, who-whoop. What's the doors swing open as the crew enters the lounge area. What's happening with the, we were only asleep

for what felt like a few minutes? Well, we got a problem. You pause your damn game. Oh, no, see, Dandy? He's not playing the game. Yeah, you're playing Funky Cog. You know what to bed. You know, I can't.

Everyone was telling you to go to bed, but you couldn't stop playing Funky Cogne. See, no, no, you're trying to get the Chartreuth bananas, but you're playing big Funkus. You need to go swap to big goobas, and then you can get the bananas. I know it's a lot of backtracking, but there's a lot of charm to it.

All that I want is the mushrooms. Well, there's no mushrooms in this game. It's all bananas. They're all space monkey. It's a mushroom right there. That's a pomegranate. That is what mushrooms look like? I know what mushrooms are.

Okay, I was going to say that'd be a really weird mushroom pizza. Oh, anyway. Chuckles, look over there. Is Labouche there? Yeah, I would have found in shortly. after there? Well, they got killbacks. What do you mean they and how did they get him? They being Gruncorp.

And I try not to talk about it too much, but Gruncorp is the biggest Etherdwarf corporation. They R&D pretty much all the tech that all the ether dwarves use and sell to the highest bidder. And, uh, I guess they got word about this bounty. So what I'm trying to fucking say is we have a goddamn dangerous payload on this shit. Do they know we have it? That's the thing.

Right before they got him, KilaVax told me that he cleared the logs. and that there's no record of us taking the job or even doing it. Now, we have two options. One is we just bail the thing and let them get it and try to get the fuck away. Second option is if we want to keep it out of their hands, and we keep it. But I can't, in good conscience, do that without getting buying from all of it.

you that things just got a lot more dangerous. Whatever we decide to do, Killivax bought us time, so let's not waste it. It seems if Gruncorp got hold of it, then that's worst case scenario? I mean, it's hard to say. It's not as advanced as ethered dwarf tech, given that it's imperial. know, mimicry, so to speak. But, I mean, it's hard to say what they're going to do with it. What would have they dispose of it and give us the fat bounty maybe of the reward? Saying, oh, we found there's a bounce around a bunch of dead junkyard dogs.

Here you go. And then they'll be so excited and they'll destroy it. They're not going to, I mean, you know, they wouldn't want the empire to get their hands on deck like that. What concerns me is When they're destroying that thing They also decide to destroy anyone who knows about it Oh, exactly right What if we do the opposite of what Chuckles suggested

And sell it to the Empire The Bush, the opposite of what I just said Sell it back to the Empire They might kill us for having it also As it was theirs Don't do much worse Well, it's complicated, right? I mean, it's beyond the fucking technological...

Technological boundaries or fucking bureaucratic guidelines of the empire, and that's why this thing was done underground by some sort of rogue engineer or... It was definitely not above board. And so, if we sold it to the empire, they'd probably kill us on site too and also destroy it. If we could find who made it, who engineered it, we could sell it back to them, but given the state of the ship, we found it in.

They'd also probably question and torture me for many months. It'd be a long time dying. Can we use this thing? Maybe in the Grand Prix? I had some ideas, but let me console the subject. Another slight smile peaks at the corner of Pike's mouth, as Dandy mentions this. I'm so glad you. I mean, we have enough pizza.

Don't need to sell it. One session. One session's all I ask. You will never get it. Roll a... You'll never get it. Roll a technicians check. That's good.

Space engineers check. This is like an engineering tools. I'm going to twist this. I'm twist it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've got a lot of... Well, it's one better.

17. Oh, artifers. And Twitter checks. 17. You know that this is uncured ether core energy. Like an attempt to replicate what grung core might create. You've dealt with stuff like this before.

You think that if you, with the right balance, an extreme caution, were to approach it with a clear plan, you could come up with some things you could possibly use it for. I got some ideas, like I said. And, I mean, really what ether is, right? It's the fifth element. It's the stuff that makes up reality. It's gravitons. It's matter.

and any attempt to wield it or harness, it's very dangerous, but also very powerful. So if I have some time to tinker with it and play around with it, I think I could harness it in some way. You lost me at gravitons. And that's okay, Danny. That's okay. I'll be honest, weighing all the options to me, at least, it sounds like. like us keeping it, you working with it, is the least chance of us dying? As long as we don't get caught.

Or Red doesn't kill us. That too. Plus, uh, Kavir, this is kind of your territory, but what do you even do with something that hot? How do you move something like that? We're not pedaling that to some average buyer. No, but it's all about finding the right one. Until then, you dodge outposts, you look the other way when the police pass.

You know, it's hide and seek. I'll need to work on my disguise. We're going to be going into Empire space. No more masks. No more masks. I mean, I got to tell you, it was your best performance yet. Could be your... Cash ruins, frouples, may they rest in peace.

A lot of good junkyard dogs died that day. Are we on our way somewhere right now? Are we just kind of floating? Are we going to the Grand Prix? I think we were on our way to the Grand Prix. Or we're at least on track and space. You, the boss, had explained that there was talk, that Rex was going to be at the Grand Prix.

And that if you wanted a chance to catch up with him, you wouldn't go there. But that was about a week's time out. In that time, you took the bounty for Maddense. and now you're probably about four days away from the Grand Prix. We and we, so we were on our way to collect on the bounty for mad dog, right? You had started to set coordinates to collect on that dog when you made the call. And that's probably, you're not having that direction.

That's not happening, that's not happening. So as it stands right now, we probably need to spend the next few days keeping a low enough profile thought to make sure that we don't, we know that they're not hot on our tail before we go to any like super populated area where they just fucking pick up on us and we're fucked. Would be kind of like my thought, right? I agree. Yeah. Would Pike or I or anybody sort of know of a place or a planet or, you know, asteroid belt or whatever

where we could lay low, where that kind of might make sense or where, we're, we're we would at least feel like a safe. It says you have this thought that you'll notice, uh, coming from your, your control unit, a reflection of your console, you'll see a light, you'll see a light, uh, a soft blinking, like booping light.

You've got space mail. That's exactly what it is. You've got space mail. Brett would have the ammo. Oh, yeah. He's kept it, he's kept it. He's the reason it's still . Mail orders those discs.

We got his wanting. Yeah. Got my tapes. As you open your, you see, as you tap on it, a white letter envelope opens up in it in very slowly bit formation. It's not smooth, it just boop, boop, the letter opens up. And an automated message starts to play.

A person appears on the screen in front of it. Brown tattered jacket, slightly darker pants, shaggy black hair, and looks relatively reminiscent of Kavir. similar tattoos and the message plays to the crew of the Rhapsody please help soarians have invaded and they're cut off our contact to the Empire I only had the chance to send this one message in short-range space directed at a target Kavir if you can help this if you can hear this you're our only hope do I recognize the You would recognize the person.

Oh, I didn't know if I could see it off the camera. Yeah, it would be, presumably, yeah, everybody's there. Out in front of you. And you would recognize it as someone you know from your homeland. Rache. And so as I'm hearing this message and I see his face, I become visibly like a little paler.

It can't be Rache. Why would he be reaching out? He knows not to contact me. What, how the fuck did he? How did he get our signal? It's from the ship. It was for emergencies only, but we have to. I have to go home.

There's no way he'd reach out if something wasn't terribly, terribly wrong. Are we, are we far? Are we far? You, you would know the coordinates that would get you there. I would say you would hand them to dandy. you would begin to plot a map and you would come to understand that you are probably about a ten days journey. You're probably about a ten days journey.

Holy shit, it's right over there! You know! I guess he's in my house! When he said short wins. You're probably about Oh, like seven to eight days away. And if you wanted to get there quick, you would have to use other needs.

Oh, yeah. The Hong Konging is. It's a few days away. It's probably seven to ten days. Maybe we can shorten it, but I have to go, and I'm going to go with or without you. What's the deal? First of all, what do they know?

Do they know that you're on the ship? Is there any chance that they're gonna sell information second of all who is it how do they know you they have any dirt on you how fucked are we I can't answer all of those questions but race is one of my oldest friends we've been through a lot together and he knows not to reach out to me unless it's a my emergency unless it's the empire it's the reason I left and if they're back then I have to go but he said it was the thorium I thought like them

with all of old wide tale, with all just rumors. Did I miss that, was it the story? Sorry, I missed that, I'm sorry. We haven't had a story. Sorry, yeah. I forget. Yes and no. You, well,

who, whoops. The first, in the first session, you did battle with Bracken and the crew of the Iron Sides. And that was a faction of space. faction of space pirates who had basically split off from the like Sorian race as a whole. But those were very much like Sorian people. So sorry, it's my puny. Sorry, it's not the empire.

What would I know about, because you're a friend? And how jealous is he? What would, if anything, you would have shared with me about this information? just for my own knowledge? You would have known that shortly after receiving my gifts, I had to flee the planet and included in that was leaving my friends and family and Rache was my closest friend.

So we've opened up enough to know how close Rache is to me and I'm to him. And that I wouldn't risk going back unless I absolutely felt like I had to. Okay. We have to go. I mean, we did say we had to lay low, right? And your home planet is on the outer rim, ain't it?

It's certainly off the beaten path, yeah. Oh, well, then that sounds serendipitous to me. We're not going to leave your friend hanging out to dry. Don't worry. Thank you. I don't think 10 days is going to cut it. No, if this is as serious as you say it is, then I hate to say it, but

we got to use the weave. It's honking time. I guess it's the time to start honking all over the place. Oh, boy. Oh, gosh. I thought the Thorians were beat back. Didn't you fight them or something in some war? My memory's very foggy and things get crossed

and I don't know what's real and what's not and what's past. and with the president. I mean, I know that the empire has fought them for as long as I've known. But, I mean, you know, they're at the very, very outer edges of the galaxy. I'm surprised that with the imperial presence that they're able to attack, something's going on. Either way, it gets us away from Gruncorp. And if we use a method unavailable to them, then even if they are on our trail, we'll be a few days ahead of them.

Well, I'm also going to give the full disclaimer, like at the end of any kind of, like, you know, ad for medicine you see on Faith TV, of where there is a chance that we could perhaps go off course and end up in a nightmarish demonic healthcape of discordance of all variety, not just Motleyans, all four of us. Mostly motley and probably given the, using the honkweave, but we could be torn apart, go mad, transform. You could all be turned into, well, no, you guys can't turn into Motleyan. That's good.

All be even more horribly corrupted. I may go cuckoo bananas and say, Mom's going to freak and betray you all. I'll just stand behind you, and if you make any funny moods, I will break your neck. well I don't have to go that far I back the way

gosh he was ready to do it Laboosh when I was like oh what a faith man a goal we'll tie him down until we could find a cure he got the fake juggle better than that

it didn't occur than me well good luck good luck getting out of the Hulk weave when I'm dead Gosh, you really learned who your friends are. I should become good friend with Rache. I would have waited until we were out of the weeds. Oh, sorry, that was too low below, no.

What you said you're going to calculate to wait and snap my neck? That is very hurtful. After all the big Funk is think before you play in that, we don't necessarily need to go with emergency protocol just yet. Let's wait and at least get started. It would not have been painful. I wouldn't have made it pain free. Gosh.

Look, it ain't our first rodeo. We've done it before, but I don't like it. Would this be the longest amount of time we'd spend in the honkweed? You would not know exactly how it works, but you know that the time is not necessarily a consideration within the weave because of how it folds upon itself. It's more of distance, and often the travel through it, feel. relatively similar in the course of how long it takes to get from one end to another. Okay. Like folding two sides of paper together. Oh, like a black hole. And punch them straight around. At the end of the day, no one likes this plan

less than I do. But if this is as urgent as you say it is, let's just get it over with. I appreciate it. It's it absolutely is. If you guys are scared, we can all hold hands. I need full focus, but thank you, Dandy. The rest of you should hold hands. I'll take you up on your offer. Okay, well, I'll need to get prepared. If we're doing this.

Are we doing this? Yeah, I think it's their only chance. There's no point putting it off. Just the muttering that you talk about facing the Thorians, I'm sure that they're... Probably... There's probably a bloodbath already. Not to scare you.

Not to scare you, but... Anyway... It depends how big their force is. I mean, if they brought the big dine, huh? Anyways. And even if it's just the vanguard for if the rest could be coming.

Oh, anyway. That's the fear. Well, yeah, yeah, that's the fear. You are proving my points for the urgency. I just get nervous pre-hawankly. Okay, I gotta get ready. Okay, gosh, shoot. Some candy. When did you guys get a carriage?

Oh, well, hold on. I give you cream out, sprinkles, a little marshmallow, little candy llama corn. Oh, perfect. You need a fucking Biscotti too? Oh, good idea. No, that's perfect. It's not urgent at all. It's not like we should get going as quickly as possible.

Okay, the message pops to back up and you hear Rish say, please, hurry, everyone is dying. There's so much blood. There's so much blood everywhere. Okay, it's been a long day. Danny, can you pull up the star map so I can get a good thent of where we're going? Yep, it's right here.

Okay. I'm gonna need to focus. All right, Hank, prepare for the honk weave. I'll sit down in my chair and I'll turn off any kind of automatic autopilot, knowing that I have to sort of manually, hold on for you. Kind of steered through this. Okay, do your thing.

I will, I'll get to my station, and I'll kind of, What does my station look like? Do you know remember? It would be like a, I would have worked with you to basically make a, either like a seat or a platform that you could almost like connect with and it would be very like, you know,

like bolted on, right? But somehow we figured out some way for you to channel the honk weave into the ship. It's a wooden stool bolted to the ground. I just, I picture, I picture, I picture Dave to be a seat when he's controlling the Batmobile in the Guy May returns.

The reason I was picturing like a carnival seat where there's just a bat of water and you're just going to a dump tank. That's good. We had to dunk him to get it in. That's actually good. That's so good. That's actually one of the music. It was just like a pool of ether.

It would kill anyone else because of your juggles. I was picturing a jack in a box. Okay, unicycle. I'll get to my seat on like the little wooden plank. Okay, dunk me. There's like a little bowl. and a big tray of balls.

Yeah. Are you ready? Yeah. He missed it. Run. Okay, good. Nice try I can be here. Just hold on.

Duck me. Doug me. I'm not rolling at 8. 16, so the 16 hit. Yeah, no, actually, what was the actual roll? I got two twos. The actual roll is 16, so assuming I can add my attack bonus, then. pack bonus than you would, like,

like, 22 or 24, whatever the fuck. From two feet away, you'd hit his target with the ball. I was actually going to say, you don't even throw the ball, you just sloop to it, press it. Yeah, with your extend it, with your extend to a range. He's missed enough that he just did. You throw this ball and you hit the target for Chuckles. Chuckles, you dunk into the pool of ether, covered in it.

You absorb it and you absorb it. As you do so, you take off your hat, you reach within it, and you throw out a familiar black hole of sorts that expands and opens and crackles with a chaotic energy. As you all ret, you punch the Rhapsody into overdrive and you crash through the opening. Somebody once told me the space world

was gonna roar me. I ain't the sharpest, Faith jewel in the spacehirt. It's all bubbly. All right. Keep me on, shuckles. I'm gonna keep singing, bubble,

and I'll plug, as I will basically get louder and louder as we go through the honk weave and basically I guess you're probably your console would like boot up with commands if I'm in some sort of tank either you would be like left

right if that might do it is or like it would tell me however you're like that I can't remember how it's like somebody said dance dance revolution quees up so the arrows from DDR right the con right no the other right

right no yes yes right right okay no you're doing great how this works the console is still on the characters are like bleeding out of off the screen. Yeah. Like walk on the walls and shit. You are piloting expertly through the honk weave.

You've been in this now. This is not your first time. The commands are called out and as you hear each one, you make the appropriate adjustments. The Rhapsody makes turns that if you were to look at it, you didn't think possible. And I need everyone to roll a charisma saving throw. Oh no.

Natural 20. Very nice. Very nice. I'm gonna use my new, I'm gonna use my new L'Bush. I got a 12. Charisma, you say? That's where I'm a Viking. Oh, cool, it tells me what you just rolled. I got a 17.

Yeah, if you press the button and rolling the ice. I got my dice. Natural 20. Whoa! Wow! Oh, boy, boy, boy. I got a 7. My saving broken drink, 21.

Twist it? I'm gonna twist once. I'll twist once as well. Not better. I got to. I'll twist once too. Mine's really mad. Thank you.

17. 28. Wow. The honk weave has no effect on it. As you pilot through the hawk weave, you see a familiar sight as it's almost like driving through a tunnel, but instead of being surrounded by darkness, you're surrounded by images that move beyond a red glow.

You're surrounded by dark silhouettes, large, that move about the dark. don't seem to take note of you, until one looks your way and notices you flying through the weave. You see a familiar silhouette, two orbs that rest on either side of the head of a slender figure that has the who has what looks like legs that almost balloon out as they go down towards the end.

and it looks at you, and you can almost see through the black silhouette the sheen of a smile as the edges of a mouth curl up, and the gleaming of a wink as you explode out of the honkweed. Oh. The we're. The ex-perny dog.

Oh, ho-ho-ho-ho. With how with how intense and how quick it was and how with the lack of preparation, by the time we're out, you'll see that my hands, rather than being rounded, they kind of end in claws. My teeth are sharpened. My eyes are like a pitch black.

And even my hair is like pointed upwards as I'm like not even singing anymore. And I'm just going, I start to approach him. Are you okay? Are you okay? Is it? Is it out?

Chucco's not seem okay. Yeah, to be fair, even for Chuckles, this is bad. Danny, how far out are we? Ten minutes. You're now ten minutes or what? Oh, it's right. That's right. On the air, yeah.

Pite, ugh! And I would say, Chuggles, you're absolutely correct. Every time that you fall into the ether and you draw upon the powers, it allow you to explore the honk weave. You feel pulled closer and closer to something discordant at your core, at your center. And it makes those changes appear in you.

But as you move out of it, and time moves away from it, you regain yourself. And I'll close my eyes and open and it's my normal eyes, and I'll look, ho, ho, yike, and I'll just puff back up and balloon back up. Well, that is not a good look as I'm like draining out of my time. I'll hit a button and the, you'll hear these clanks and these whirrs and the liquid will start to turn into gas

and sort of funnel up and out through the tank. And then once all the gas is gone, it'll open up. and you'll see as I'm going I'm just blowing on a bubble pipe you need your robe are you doing okay? Oh yeah, no, I'm fine, yeah.

No, I'm great, I'm great. I just tapped into the demonic force that has warped my soul and turned my entire being into clown flesh in order for us to go beyond the realms of the material. I'm good. I'm feeling great. He sounds like he's okay.

I have to say, Jockels, I'm grateful for your efforts and your sacrifice every time, especially this time. I'm happy to do it, Kavir. We need to save your friends and your planet. I also never been to your planet. I'm very excited to meet all your friends and family. I wish it was under better circumstances, but it's better than nothing right now. Knowing what I have been told by Kavir about the planet and knowing that it is very much a sand planet,

I'm going to quickly make my way back to my room and change the filters on my suit and just sort of make sure that I'm as free, clear, and clean as possible before entering this environment. You do so. And as the Rhapsody approaches the planet, Kavir would also inform everyone of its biome. an arid planet covered primarily in desert lands that is hot and can be succumbed to winds at times. And so he would direct you all to wear a version of gear that would protect you from the sand. I have to say once you are down there, you're going to want to wear clothes that cover your face, cover any openings, because the sand is it's coarse, it's itchy.

and it gets everywhere. I hate sand. But if you need a sunscreen, I have what a makeup I am made of. You can just sort of, I don't need it, but you can... I'm good. I'll pass. Yeah, I think I'll pass too. You may reconsider, but for now, the clothing is the most important piece.

Your goof-flash, double the thundscreen? Oh, yes. How would that never come up? never come up. We've never been on such a hot planet before. I've got my own stuff. It's motley ingrained. I'm very pale. I'm ready of you all. I would probably gather very similar things that we wore on the last planet, where I would probably have a pair of goggles to just protect my eyes from any kind of windy debris and maybe some sort of a scarf to, you know, protect my mouth and my lungs, but otherwise I'd be, you know, wearing my normal stuff.

Yeah. You find those things, and you would absolutely recognize that a lot of the gear you made use of previously would compare across, except for the fact that you would not want to be in heavy, like, winter's jackets and winter's garb, as it will be hot. But you find those things absolutely. You all don goggles. You tie up your face to protect from the winds or the sands as much as you. I pull a back plate over my head bubble sphere, and it's sort of like a copper reflective visor covers almost everything except for just like a little slot right here where you see through. That's incredible.

You do say that exactly. So you don't boil alive. Just like a crystal ball and an open window. That's right. When we were asleep or are any of us rested at this point, or are we still very close to what we did this? because we are fucked. Yeah.

Just out of curiosity's sake. We only had a few hours, I don't think we're finding more fun. Yeah, well, you only had, that all happened pretty quick, so I would say at maximum you've experienced a short rest. Oh, that might be a cat. Honestly, I'll take that at this point. I can spend some hits.

Let's see what I got for hit nights. You can all take your moment. You click on manage. There should be a manage button, and then it give you option for shorter long rest. You click on short rest, and then you can choose the number of hit dice you want to use. And it'll be 1V8 plus three for as many as you want to spec.

Oh, okay. I get to recover my key points. Array. I'm going to use a bunch of hit dice. Okay, got it, got it, got it. It's one. Let's use a hot-ler. Oh my lord. What's the downside of using more hit dice? That's a left. No downside. No downside. But you only recover half of your uses per long rest. So if you use them all, you'll only recover three on a long rest. If you use four, you'll recover two on a long rest. All right, got it, got it, got it. I'm max, so I don't want to know. I use.

All right. Oh, man. I'm using four. Excuse me. I'll take it, yeah, I'm in the same. I'm using two. Oh, it didn't apply. I mean one is what I used.

Twist. I didn't need the second one. I bet at math. Perfect. Oh, no, I don't have any spills. I don't actually do. Okay, that's good. I don't take short rest.

Cool, that's like for short rest. And I'm gonna make sure my key points are good. Oh, God, I love slang monks. So much fucking fun. Give me combat base. Let me punch it. You have monk? We'll get there. Monk to monk.

Yeah. I'm a monk. I'm a drunk and master monk. Oh. Believe you're not with some. Ash, no, you're way of the. Oh, do we flip-flop them? I'm Sunsoul.

We've splashed some drunken monk in there. Interesting. So you make like the shem-may. The what? Those monks who make the beer. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, that's the other subclass we stole from. They like sprinkling some extra abilities.

But yeah, the way of the soul, sun's soul. Way of the sun's soul. That's my actual subclass, I forgot. Because we just kind of like smashed a bunch of subclass stuff together. That's right. You would also know that though you are moving towards this planet with great haste, This is still a planet in empire control, and you can't just touch down on it.

You have made approaches and escaped from a planet like this before, and you know that you will have to attempt to do something to mask your ship's signal as you approach in the event that the empire is gauging incoming vessels. Oh. Um, it's not going to be easy to get down there on the planet. Unfortunately, it's been tainted and taken over by the Empire. So it's, we can't just land.

Now I hate those guys. Dad makes two of us, at least. Can we just like play it cool and say we're like delivering a space without a pizza? I have, uh, I have Rache's coordinates on the planet. Once you recovered. You have You have the exact location of the shipyard

that a ship of this size would land in classically to approach Zara Dune your home world as it's not a trading planet but this is where the empire comes to source its fuel and so it

is heavily like import-export. And so you would know where this ship would land to dock in such a way. Do I see from our height right now, do I see any of the storm clouds or any like sandstorms? Roll a perception check. Hmm. Sorry, I'm using the digital dice.

Less exciting for y'all, I apologize. 14. Go to roll. Got a hole. I would say with 14. With 14, you would definitely be able to tell. And you would know that generally on your planet, just about anywhere at any given time,

there is a storm happening. You would be able to tell from the sensors, from the readout, that there's not a storm currently happening anywhere around where you would want to land or on your pathway to get to the town. I was hoping that we could use a storm cloud to hide our signature. Sure, but I think we might just have to make one.

Can you like forge some sort of fake? I don't know, we're just traders or merchants or something? I mean, is that something in your wheelhouse? I could try that. Well, yes, let's try that first. If not, I have sort of a backup plan. And so I'll approach Rett's console. And...

Yeah, please, be my guest. establish sort of a connection to the space yard. You move to the console and you begin to connect to it. You hear a familiar chime. As it makes connection, you begin to hail a landing port. Yes. I'm so sorry. I'm forgetting the name of the space port or the city.

The planet is. It's just an automated. The planet is Zaradun. What you're communicating with is just basically like an auto. automated feedout that is pinging for a ship vessel ID. Ah, okay. Hello, yes. This is the Sonata.

We are requesting landing at the spaceport. We have precious cargo and expediency is much appreciated. Roll a deception check. Don't want a do. Am I the precious cargo? 19. The Sonata was invented by Frank Sinata. With a 19, you have done this before.

You have falsified, you have left planets, you have arrived at them all under the cover of fake vessel IDs. You've done this before. You call out and you enter in and you manipulate and you describe yourselves as the Sonata, a vessel of import bringing down precious cargo in much haste.

And for a moment, you see the, bo-do-do-do, pooh-do, as you await the ping response, and it comes back as accepted. Landing confirmed. All right, I've got this a spaceport we can land, and I'll go ahead and show rat the coordinates. Nice work.

He's not the first time, but definitely had me worried there for a moment. All right. So what's our precious cargo? We gotta fucking make an act if we're loaded, unloading? As you look at chuckles. Similar to my shruchel shriekles disguise,

I have disguised myself as a very generic-looking human with short cut hair, large glasses, a pencil protector. and I will say, I'm Reynolds, I work in accounting. Hail the emperor. Well, surely Chuckles could create some sort of, I don't know, boxes with just stuff in them,

and we can just say whatever it is. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as they don't open the crates. You do that, like, pull crates out of your hat that's say Acme on the side and just have whatever the fuck we need them to if they get open. Shroding your style? Well, no, that would be heresy on account of being discordant powers.

I would immediately report that to my local inquisition office. Hale the Emperor. I'm rental. I work in accounting. Chuckles, we need you to focus. Are they going to be on the computer screen? Are they going to look into our

are they going to look into our cockpit? Typically, it's just a quick inspection of the cargo once we land just to make sure it's at least cargo. They usually don't open them. They don't look too closely, but we'll be able to grease the wheel a little bit. Do we leave the core on the ship? Is it scanable? I don't know. I mean, it's outside of what they're probably used to looking for, but... What they harvest here is fuel, which means there's going to be a lot of other energy signatures on here.

it may blend in or get lost amongst all of it. With my bard powers, I can technically create, it's up to like a gold value. I know we have like space books and credits. So it'd be up to DM Fiat about what I could create, but I can create like a five by five box at this level, I believe, like technically. And it can basically look however I'm on.

And so it's a matter of if we want to have like a big old decoy box and like whatever they would say, it should look like, I should be able to, I believe I should be able to do that. Can you only make one? Yes. Foles. They can look like the Ark of the Covenant.

Yeah, I don't know for a few boxes. Really shell this. What are you asking me? I'm asking if I can just make, if you think it would be within the realm of my possibility to do one or more, basically using my performance of creation to create a, a large box.

Yeah, I think you can create a large box that looks like whatever precious cargo it is. It's filled with a bass fish. Blastervating Billy Bass. The top is Sheming Energy Corzman. You dig under it. It's all big... William Bass.

Wide-mouthed William Bass. That's incredible. You can absolutely do that. I would say 100%, you can create a, you can create exactly what you would know, expected Empire cargo would look like. Classic steel container in roughly the shape and form that you would have seen time and time again.

Well, I suppose I could produce something like that that would go against protocol, and the rental always follows protocol. Hail the emperor. Reynolds, just make the fucking box. I do not like Reynolds. No, I suppose I could. And I'll reach into my pocket

and it'll drop down a huge like container. It'll be like one of those like fucking like Metroid where basically it's like steel and then there's like gaps that glow with like some sort of humming awesome energy

and on the sides you know in your heart of hearts that if they were to probe too closely it would see that it is in fact filled with wide mouth William Bass singing fish but it absolutely

appears to be exactly what you would want it to look like to pass as Empire Cargo It's very convincing. Oh, one moment, and I'll pull reach you in, I'll pull out a large rubber stamp, and it'll say, inspected and approved. Beautiful. Fantastic.

Let's go. Absolutely fantastic. It'll be a very bizarre juxtaposition of some sleek, sci-fi-looking box, and then the fucking looney-teen stamp. Like an old-school rubber stamp with red ink. That's incredible.

I will also brandish a piece of paper and using illusory script right out. Sort of a, like a manifest. Yeah, it's perfect for the cargo. Also reiterating that it's been confirmed, inspected, and ready to go. And you create kind of this, like, energy fold out, an on-it script that would go down reflecting the cargo and that it has, in fact, already been inspected. Yeah.

And as you do all this, the Rhapsody touches down in the shipyard. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Avantress and gain access to tons of exclusive perks including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas shroud over saltmarsh. You can also go to The Crooked Moon.com

to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition. And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. You head to the hangar bay where you begin to disembark onto the planet of Zaradun. The back, as it hits the... As it hits the...

As it hits the... Jesus. As it hits the Sandy Ground, you step out and you're wrapped up and your clothes ready to take on the... arid sandy texture of this planet. And you see surrounding you a large open space with ships of varying sizes, shapes all around you. It looks almost like if you've ever been to kind of a boatyard, something similar to that, a wide open space

with stacked ships all around. You disembark and you expect very much to be in but no one comes to greet you. No one comes to check in with this ship that's just landed, the sonata, and it is eerily quiet. I am pushing the crate all on my own using a hover dolly, just making sure that everyone is leading the way, but sort of looking around and making sure that everyone seems safe as much as possible. This is certainly odd. There would normally at least be one person inspecting the planes, the chips. Do I, looking around the hangar, do I see anything else that would sort of catch my eye in terms of how odd this is?

Roll on inspection. Investigation. Investigation. Four percent. Four percent. 17. With 17, you look around, and it is odd to not have somebody kind of immediately greet and question you, especially on a planet that holds so much value.

However, you look around to see where anyone might be or if anyone is on the approach. Towards the edge of the yard in the direction you know your town to be, you see closer than the town itself is, you see fading black smoke rising into the fading. Fating black smoke. Fading black smoke. Fading black. black smoke rising into the air? So I'll be looking around and that'll sort of catch my eye and immediately I'll be filled at that urgency. I think we need to go. We have to go now.

That's my, my town is that way. Where I'm from. And then so I'll sort of start heading that way, almost not caring that anyone's following me and sort of just rushing in that direction. I don't even look to the other floor. I'm just following Kavir with my space dolly crate. I would, yeah. Yeah, we start to race off

all in the direction of the black smoke. Should we steal a speeder? Are there any? I'll adjust my red boat on tie. Yeah, there are speeders at the building you're heading to. You start to race off in the direction of the black smoke, and as you make haste, you realize you're coming to the end of the shipyard,

and what you're walking towards is an empiric barracks. and you see as it starts to come into view a crater blown through the top of it and the smoke erupting from that space. Are there any survivors? Or any... Do you go into it?

Oh. What in the fucking hail? That's where the smoke is coming from? Sorry. Go ahead. Disoriented must have gotten here. As happy as this makes, makes me to see the Empire suffering. I know it just means there's something worse.

Um, be on guard. And then we'll... We should check to make sure there's no survivors. That's a good point, Reynolds. Make sure there's no survivors. I'll go in. Yeah, I'll head in with Lbush. Me too.

I'll leave the space dolly in the crate, and I'll sort of lean down so that I can step through the first of the doorways and first make sure that everything structurally seems like, it may be on fire, there may be smoke, but does it look like it's going to collapse all around it? We'll say, roll a group investigation check right now. Investigation? Oh, boy. Yeah, investigation.

Oh, we got an 18. I lost one. 19. 10. And what did you roll? 11 these. That's the dice roll. Yes. Solid four.

You want the dice roll? Not for anybody else. Oh, okay. As you approach this building, it is structured in the classic style of this planet. It's almost like a, like a dust-tan texture to the outside. inside in smooth stone as it rises up and a blast hole open. There aren't glassed windows

as much as they're cut open sections where they might stand and look out. The door is large and steel and as you push in you begin to be met with a seam. The floor is littered with dead bodies of empiric guards in space. and as you make your way through the carnage, you can see that some have been cleanly cut in half with sections of their body teeth marks bitten through them. Some slashed through the torso

with four distinct carved lines cutting them through the center. They're blaster fire covered throughout the walls, scorch marks as it burns in. But these have been brutally destroyed. This is a smaller group of guards than you would have expected. You think that with so few natural predators, the empire had grown lax in its defense of this place. And they had stationed a force here that was insufficient to hold back the onslaught of a Sorian war party.

And they paid the price. Pike. How many of us, or if you just wanna tell from me, that's fine, would have done any kind of hand-to-hand or combat with Sarians? I know that we clashed with them in space, but would any of us have seen Sarians like in the flesh person to person?

We're the aftermath of them. Yeah, that too. Yeah, that's good. Probably me. Yeah, I don't know about Pike. Yeah, I'm asking us, I genuinely don't know if I would have ever had hand-to-hand combat with the past.

Ret, for sure. Okay. Isn't that me? And me? You have no recollection. I would say possibly LaBouche. I seem to fight pretty much everything. Enduce and Rett.

Exclusively. I mean, this is a, At most, this is an ancient race of warriors that live on the outskirts of the galaxy. As much as to the common folk as a boogeyman could be, almost just like tales that have never truly come to pass. War stories that sound like old fishermen's tales of the largest sea-cracken that anyone's ever run into,

that nobody believes. and only for the extremely unfortunate would you have encountered in hand-to-hand battle this race of savages. Okay, so I would know they exist, but I definitely would not have fought one. Correct. Got it. They didn't stand a chance.

No, they didn't. Thank goodness. It'll all fill back out. I hate that Reynolds guy. He didn't like him either. I mean, even with a, Twice the force they had. I don't think they could have repelled this kind of attack.

I don't know why they're here. We've avoided them for so long, but now we have to find Rache. He'll know. He'll know at least why they're here. Before we go any farther, I got to ask, this is getting pretty interesting yet again. Do we have any chance of fighting these things? Are we in way over our heads? I mean, it depends on, it depends if they're still here.

I mean, do we see any kind of like ships, any kind of Sorian ships at all? Have we seen anything like in the atmosphere or like floating in the sky or anything like that? Roll a ship handling, check. That's a, like for your spaceship to see if you got any readings on the way in. Space vehicles, check.

31. Oh my gosh. We know more than the TV. They've all been eradicated. Golly. They're right over there. They're 10 feet from here. You like turn around, it's like,

we're over here. Coming in, so you'd been scanning, you knew the warning, you knew the threat, you'd been scanning for signatures as you approached the planet. As you landed, And as you'd landed and you sent the signal to encompass the planet and understand what was there, you pinged back the tower in the main town,

understanding where it is and what that is. And just on the outskirts of the town, you pinged the signal of a Sorian worship. Stationed right outside. Oh yeah, they're still here. Which direction? Are they towards the down, the main part of the town? You would know that from here, you would have to go to the northeast to get to Garou Bay, your town.

You would know, Rhett, that probably about a 20-minute ride outside of the town, there is a Sorian warship to its east, stationed on the ground. They're landed. Instead of beaming them down, they're landed on the ground, and they have one of their warships stationed there. Just one, which is good news.

But in your town, I mean, is there any kind of militia? Are they fighters? Can they help us? I mean, I trust the six of us over 20 or 30 Imperial Guards, frankly, but, I mean, it's hard to say without knowing exactly what they have. It's been so long, I won't know. But it's at least not in the same direction, so we can head there and hopefully avoid any trouble between now and then.

I just worry if they get sent of us. If we go now, maybe we have time. We can make sure check on everybody, and then take it from there. If we need to get them out, we got room on the ship, hopefully. Agreed. The big ship.

We'll see how many are left. I can clear out some more closets of December ween and decoration. You said there were speeders outside the building? There are speeders of a sort. Outside the building, there is a collection of sand streamers. They will float above the sand, and you propel them like a solar sail.

On them, almost what looks like kind of flat planks of wood or a flat floor of wood, and then under like balloons, but almost like inflated pylons that will help to lift it off the ground. And then what looks like a sun yellow sail that sits on top of it. And this could hold

the party. Is there knowing... These are the same type of speeders that I'd be familiar with. Knowing that would using them put us in any danger of being identified as like, we're on our way? Does it make enough

of a trail sort of thing that would trigger... Oh, there's movement. You would know actually that because this doesn't touch the ground, it will not kick up sand or dust. It wouldn't generate a trail of sorts. It would also just not leave tracks. and you would know that to maneuver through the deserts,

you would want to use one of these to stay off the ground. Our best chance of getting the Gerebe are these speeders. They're quite easy to use, at least for me. I was doing it most of my life, but I can give you a quick tutorial. Well, can we all fit on one of you to fly up there quick? Unfortunately not. I don't want to take the time of learning. I'm going to get all... I've never operate it.

I've never operated to fail. Do you see we can all fit on one? You can all fit on one. It's like a skiff, right? Yeah, it's like, I think there was enough to, like there were six of them, therefore there's like, it's like, uh, almost like a, like a boat. Oh, okay.

Well, no, we know is we can off of that one. Oh, wonderful, because I was going to crash with the dune. Yeah, I'll leave the pilot into you. And I'll walk up and get on me. Hank, don't hesitate to let me know if anything goes haywire. You understand? All right, and so is everybody on the... I'll lift the crate and have it land

and then sort of, I guess, dock the hover dolly on the side of the guards' power. We can't forget that. Really, that. Don't worry, I won't forget. You don't know what trees. But I'm sitting on the crate ready to come. Oh, perfect. Yeah.

All right, so I'll look around and make sure everybody's, you know, situated. And then I'll pull on the lever and get us speeding forward. Roll a sand speeder check. Which would be a... How do you roll those checks? So I add my... I add my int plus my proficiency.

So whatever skill ability check you think makes sense for this. So like maybe a Dex or like an int or whatever you think is relevant to... Roll a Dex? Dex plus proficiency, probably. Dex plus proficiency. So...

Yeah, do that and then add three. Oh, huge, big money. 21 plus 3, 24. Yep. This is the first time I've seen Kavir do this, and I'm like looking like I need to maybe help, and then I see how dexterously he's putting the sail down and doing the whole thing, and I just sit back down. And you haven't done this in a long time,

but the second you start to unfurl the mast and you unravel the rope and you tie it to the mast head, you start to move across this ship like, like you were doing it yesterday. Like you've just come home and you've never left. You move about, you step easily and as the, you prepare the sand speeder to travel, you whip up sands around you and you begin to fill the sails

as you make a motion and as you do, it bursts forth with speed and you rocket through the desert towards Garou Bay. And one of the 24, that looks pretty friggin' cool. You hit a series of dunes and you are very careful to keep the speeder from touching the ground or resting on it for too long. Because you know that what happens when you do, or you know what will come if you do. And as you move throughout the deserts and you hit the dunes and you rock it up into the air and you land with no thud, you deftly move through. as you speed towards your destination.

Is there much sand in the air as this happens or is it totally, I mean, I know he's not kicking up sand, but I'm trying to get a sense of how much I might be getting hit by a drizzle of sand, let's call it. I would say actually as it is right now, it is not very windy. The winds can pick up and if it had, there would definitely be a cascade of kind of sand

that's coming at you. But right now, the wind that you're being buffeted by is just from the creation of how fast you're moving. to the town. Okay. Yeah. I want to turn to red as we're going. I'll be like,

I know you're a very good pilot but this, this is sand speeding. You're just going to try to get as many of those rooms as in the air. So we're definitely, you're trying spitting that. Oh my.

So we're just gunning it towards towards Garabé. Yeah, you were blasted. things are just flying past you, but it's open, it's open desert kind of on all directions. And I'll have everyone roll a group perception check. Oh. Oh, yes, I'm good at this one.

She's going to roll really low. 13. That rolls really well. 22. My gosh. I got a 14, New York. There's one better than 13. I got a plus 7.

I don't roll right well. I have a plus one. 14. 14. That's seven. Seven. Oh boy. The sand speeder is absolutely blasting towards your destination.

Things are whipping fast. And Labouche, as you sit on the edge of this and you kind of just gaze off into the distance, potentially even enjoying the ride, seeing your friend dominate in his element. Something on the very edge of the horizon. it catches your eye and it looks almost like a crashing wave of sand in the far distance. And you catch it for brief moment, two, three seconds. Almost looks like movement. And then as quick as you saw it, it disappears into the shimmering, heated air of the desert.

Come here. Yes, my friend. Are there creatures who live onto the sand? Oh, yes. What? And do they make like a wave when they get close to the surface? Yeah, why? Ah, no reason.

Okay, but if you happen to see exactly that, let me know. I saw exactly that. Oh, shit. Are they friendly? No. I can assure you they're not. Are they very dangerous? Most definitely.

They're not fast, though, are they? They're very fast. I've been doing my best to keep us from touching the sand, which typically triggers them, so maybe it's not us. Does it look like that way from what Labush? Actually, I don't know. Does it look like it was coming towards us,

or just it was a movement in the distance? It didn't look like it was coming towards you? I'd say, ooh, you roll, like a 22? I'd say with it 22? too. It's hard to judge depth at that distance, but you did not get the sense that that seemed like it was moving towards you, more that it just like reached crested, like it breached, it breached in a parallel direction.

Like your friendly sand. It's hard to say, I was looking only through one eye this way and the other eye this way. I have a bad feeling about this. All right, well the good news is I've been dealing with these for most of my life. So we'll deal with it if it gets a little closer. For now, I'm going to assume it's not coming at us directly.

All right, I'll just sit here and... And I'm like, now with my cannon on the side of it, just the case, like, on edge. At the ground, like the sand passing underneath us very quickly just to see that there's nothing bursting out. Yeah, yeah. I would say that being in my element on this feeder sort of back home, despite it being kind of a dire situation,

I am enjoying this again, but I'm also sort of filled with this overconfidence, having done this my whole life. So to me, it not being within a certain distance or what have you, doesn't quite, it's like, okay, I've seen this before, like it's whatever. Yeah. Just to give you an idea of how I'm presenting this. And let's say rule group stealth check. Oh. What? Oh my mom.

Damn. I'm gonna twist this one. I'm gonna twist this one because my stealth is very, If you don't mind me. How are we doing it? I'm pulling out a twist here. Oh yeah. 11.

We have plenty. Oh, wow. Is it? No. My first roll is better. I got a 13 again. It's broad daylight. How can you steal?

Right? 15. I'm getting all the bad rolls out earlier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 19, surprisingly. No. 19. 23?

Danny? 23. 23. And you guys covered. 15. 15. You guys covered. we'll see

now we're good we're good there are moments as you described you've been on a sand speeder multiple times and you pilot it definitely but you're normally on

here yourself right and this is a hefty crew and as you hit certain dunes the weight of the sand speeder will bounce just a couple times on the ground and as you do that, you will see,

LaBouche, once more, a familiar crest of sand that looks like it's now heading in your direction. As you continue to... As you continue to move towards the town. So am I now sort of noticing that like a little bit of skipping or skimming? Yeah, I would say you're definitely like,

you would feel it as you. kind of like the back pylons to like catch the ground a little bit. You know what comfort, you know what agility feels like, and you know that you're dragging a little. Okay. Man, it must be a while because, uh, drag an ass a little bit here. So do we have anything we can throw off? Maybe help lighten us up.

We have the box. Throw the box off. I could throw off the grate. Yeah, give, give, let's no one to look at it. Yeah, get me the fucking great. You have served the purpose. Why did you put it on? You've killed the fault.

Oh, it is a sand. Oh, God. No, that's okay. That'll give us time to get away. Yeah. I did it. The Empire's word. And then it disappears in the nothing next.

Ooh. Sorry. My bad. Hopefully that helps. Does that help? It's like a concussive deed for. It's good. Does that help our scenario?

Their situation? Um, you hear singing, run. As you do that, you do that, you, Do that, you chuck the box off of the speeder and it, give me the attack roll. Yes, sir. That's where I'm a pseudopod. Oh, yes, that's a bouncy.

That looks like a 20. You might have to save us. I will grab it by both handles and I'll start to turn, but I don't have to turn my legs. They see planted. I just spin and twist at the actual waist And faster and faster, my arms getting longer and longer and longer until finally I just shot put the fucking thing. Hundreds of yards.

There's like a child on a swing. You spin and spin and spin until you have that tight tension in your torso. You grab onto the box and you hold tight as you release and you and you launch the box chaotically behind you. and it soars through the air and it lands with a deep skidding thud as it hits the ground about 300 meters behind you. As it happens,

you see the shifting sand move towards the thudding of that box. You now feel the ship a little lighter, no longer bouncing. you are sailing cleanly. And as the box lands, you can see the sand approach and then disappear. Does the crate get consumed

by like some sort of horrible mouth? Yes, exactly correct. After it disappears, erupting out of the ground, you see an enormous, monstrous creature. The head of razor-sharp teeth move back in a circular mall. Dark brown scales in sections cover its torso as it erupts and consumes the box and dives back into the ground. You can see almost exclusively maw. You see the tiniest closed slits where you think eyes might be.

But it does not. Does a smaller one come out? No, that doesn't. No, that is not. That's just crazy. That would be really good. Yeah, that's just wild. As this enormous gargantuan creature,

bigger than quite possibly anything any of you have seen so far, binger than the mechanized armadillo, erupts from the ground and destroys this cargo. I'm glad I dropped that crate. It made good bait. It was perfect, yes. If only we didn't have it in the first place, I should have thought of that.

My bad. There's always a bigger worm! Wasn't that a fake crate? It was a real crate. It was real enough. A fake real quick? Wait, is it like a bomb or anything? Can you like add any kind of special properties to it?

Do you just invent a crate? I love that allergic to large Maul William Trout. I don't think so. Oh, I was kind of hoping. Trust me, it takes a lot more. than a little bomb to hurt them. Yeah. You hit in the distance a...

As it dives back on the ground. It comes shooting back. Is that it? We think it's full for now? Certainly not full, but at least is distracted enough. We should be okay. And so we're still heading towards Garabay. And you make your way.

And you are able to complete your journey with little additional excitement. The sand speeder moves across the desert ground easily and as you do in the distance you see a familiar sight breaking the horizon. Similar architecture to the Guard the Imperial Guard Tower that you've seen but a wall of that classic stone almost like a do-bo not a white stone but kind of a dobo style surrounds the entire enclosure as you pull up to an outer section where you know that you can drop your sands, Peter.

Perfect, so we'll be heading towards it and then I'll kind of grab the air brake and then slide us right into what would be like a parking space and kind of just walk off all cool. I'm very proud of like that. I would definitely give you like a clap on the back because I'm impressed with your pilot abilities as I light another cigarette and also step off the speeder.

Another day in the galaxy, another set of firsts. I cannot tell you how much I missed that, but again, it's, I wish it was under different circumstances. And looking around, it's kind of sinking in that I'm back home after how long it's been. And sort of the joy and everything from my face fades away and it gets a lot more serious. And as happy as I am to be back home, it's, we have to find race.

All right, well, keep your ears open for dinosaurs. And I'll get off. What? Dinosaurs, you ever heard one? No, ears? No, no, holes. Oh! The bush starts making them bigger, I'm sure.

It's too extremely anonymically correct, like, ears to suddenly gel out of both sides of my head, and I look like fucking the name guy from a Mad Magazine cover. My, I'll reach into my hat, and I'll pull out, like, a bit of clothing and just throw it at myself, and suddenly my hat will turn into, like, one of those big, like, floppy hats, sunhats. And I'm going to have shorts. And my feet, my giant clown shoes are now giant sandals with socks. Wait, just so we're clear off. I hate the name.

So just so we're clear for the hat. Are you like going like archaeology or like Kentucky Derby? Which route are. Archaeology. Like the one that a tourist would wear. Okay, like shaded in the back. Yeah. I was happening like country bumpkins.

And then a big, a swab of sunscreen on my red nose. Yeah. Perfect. That I can see. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess looking around, is there what I would expect to see at this entrance? Like if it was, do I see anyone else or any sign of other villagers here?

You start to, so this, the bay is covered in the same kind of lighter. It's not quite the desert ground as it is outside. It's a little bit of a lighter colored sand, and it's smoothed out and flattened in the way of, like, pathways. This whole space is surrounded by not an extremely tall wall, but it's enclosed on all sides by a structural protection. Once you docked the sand speeder, you walked off, you've moved into Garou Bay itself. And as you walk past, you also see,

like on the ground, almost like an aqueduct that runs the interior, your lining of the wall itself. So unlike the arid expanse outside, once you got into this section, there's a little bit more verdant, like lush greenery. Though it's still very much firmly desert.

Lining the wall, you have water, you have green sections of grass, you have what looks like palm trees as it circles the town. And as you move towards its center, you do see people here and there, townsfolk that maybe even some you've come to know. But as they see your party moving through, they start to hurry into their homes. They shut doors. They close windows.

They're clearly afraid of something. Even my presence alone doesn't faze them. And I'm going to sort of continue just sort of walking down the street. Would I have any idea of where Rache would typically be? you would know of two places. He manned kind of like a communications space, and he was the main person that was over the comm tower that would allow this space to talk to anyone from the outside.

And then also his family's tavern. It's been a while. Well, I have to assume that Ray's switching out to us means that he was at the Combs Tower. But he could also be with his family. I think our best bet would be go to the Combs Tower first. And we can see if there's any incoming transmission from any Dinoboy. We can probably get more info there as well. It seems like there's no danger here yet.

I mean, if people are milling about, seem to be afraid. of us, but... They're preparing. You know, that's good news. For now. Yeah, on the right side, they may have flattened other towns. Instead of this. Instead of this one.

This is every other one, in fact. You would take the... It's flattened and destroyed. So we're going to head towards the... I'm going to lead us towards the Comstar. Okay. And you all start to make your way. You walk through the town surrounded by these buildings.

And you see sections of the sand, you'll start to notice. It's not the destruction here that you saw at the Empire, but there are definitely sections of sand that seem to have faded, dried spots of blood as you move towards the comms. tower, you eventually start to see a long steel structure that extends up into the air. And you know that, just a few more steps in front of you, and you'll be there. Something happened here.

I'm like visibly becoming a little more angry. I don't know how many people are hurt. I don't know what's going on, but I, we have, I'm going in. I'm going into the Combs Tower. But right behind you, Kavir. And yeah, we'll head, I'll head right on. Or attempt to head in, I will approach the door. The door opens at your touch.

Inside, you see, it's dark, but you can see. Table, papers strewn about it, a radio, some screens that assist in calling out, and a second level up top that's closer, to, like what you would assume is the space he would go to to maintain the tower itself. You don't immediately see Rache. Rache. Rish, are you here?

Kind of looking towards, obviously I wouldn't see, I would know that downstairs there's nobody here, right? At this? I roll an investigation check. You think that there's nobody downstairs. So sort of heading towards the, what would lead me upstairs, I'm calling out for Rish. Are you here still? Gresh, anyone? You hear a slight shuffling from upstairs, the presence of someone.

Did anyone else hear that? In my noise holes, yes. Be ready for anything. How, is this, what does it look like to get upstairs? Do we have to kind of go one at the time? Just off to the side, a little bit of a staircase that goes up to a sealed off floor. So you walk up on the right side of the room

and then you crest in at the far end of the room at the second level. Could be dangerous. You want me to check it out? It might help us. But I have an idea. And I'll use the, what is the, my genie gift to fly.

So I'll conjure the sands underneath me and sort of float up the stairs so I don't make any noise. to the point where I can see. Now, when I go upstairs, is that where I would go through a door and see, or is it kind of like a railing that I would get high enough to see over? Yeah, it's just a, it's like an open hole in the floor, so there's no door, just once you get to a certain height of the, kind of like walking into an attic almost.

Peek up the lip. Yeah, you could peek up potentially over the lip. Yeah, so I would take myself as close as I can to that to try and see into the second floor if I can see what made the noise. And real quick, just so, since I, Not to split the party too much, but as they were going in, I would be last, and I would just kneeled down by the blood stain on the floor in the dirt or in the sand. And just try to get a sense of like how long it's been there and if it smells or even like tastes like, do I think it's human or do I think it's humanoid or dinosaur or if I have any kind of sense of that given my background. Zorvun.

Right. Roll of medicine check. Hot dog. That's a 15. It's pretty good. Yeah. You kneel down in the sand to expose or to investigate these blood stains. You immediately recognize that it as blood.

When you begin to investigate it, maybe you pull at it, you smell it. You've seen remnants of war before. And you can tell that this is probably, this is recent, but days old. It's dried, but it is very firmly humanoid blood. I'll get up and dust myself off and start to head in while this is happening. You begin to float up the stairs,

making no sound as you ascend. You take it a step at a time, you go up, and your head just begins to peek past the line of the floor. I need you to roll a perception check. 20. Let's go. Not that, dirty 20. At a 20, I need you to roll at Dex, Saving, Throwin Advantage. Oh, no.

Oh, beautiful. At 19 and roll another one just for fun. Yeah, 19. My man. With a 19, as you begin to crest, the floor, the room opens up in front of you, and you see the tower extending through the roof. You see a seat where somebody was tinkering with the metal. And you see movement just above you for a split second

as someone descends on top of you. But with your deafness and with your ability, you're able to catch the upper hand as this person falls on top of you, you get them in a grapple hold as you tumble back down the stairs. Someone with the sand wraps around their face to protect from the sand goggles on, but a familiar brown jacket.

It's a kind of on. I guess we would see you tumble down As you tumble down the stairs, you would all, as you're in the lower level, you would crash down. My hands stretch out. Oh, yeah. I will get my hands underneath Kavir's back and steady and slow his roll as quickly as I can. You do so as you extend out and extended flattened palm and you soften the blow to the ground as you tumble. Does anyone make an attempt towards the person that I just tumbled down with?

I would have just taken a stance like you've seen me do hundreds of times, like you've seen me do hundreds of times. I'm ready for a fight. I'm pointing my gun at him. Yeah. Okay. I cast a Cindergrat. I'm just like, I said, I'm barely coming in in the building. After catching eyes on the brown jacket, I'm going to pop up with the aid of Labush's catching me.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. And I'm going to turn around and look down. Rache? The figure drawn a knife from his belt looks around like a cornered animal for a moment, surveys the room and then stands, calms a little bit, decoils as it were, stands a little more calmly, and then very quickly embraces you in a hug as he moves forward. And you hear just a muffled... You know I could never understand you wearing that stupid thing.

He unraps the protection from his face for a second. Kavir, my friend. I didn't know you would come. I had to. What choice did I have? You are in the communications tower. You are on the first level. Kavir and Rache just having tumbled down the stairs as everyone stands. attention as Lubbush helps to write them up.

Rache says, I didn't think that you would come. Of course I came. What choice did I have? I knew the only reason you'd reach out is if it was serious. What's going on? The Sorians. They came unexpectedly. The Empire did not. They didn't anticipate them.

They weren't ready. They came with different. different technology they were seeking something we think that they want the fuel but we've had the fuel for ages and we've always stayed off their radar something's different they're they're more organized now they attacked us with a war ban they slaughtered the empire instantly there had to have been 80 maybe a hundred of them they killed Half of the village.

They killed half of... All the people? Geroube. Of everybody. Gone. So that we would continue to work for them. Where are they? When did they do this?

When I sent the message originally, just a couple of days ago they landed. The destruction is still fresh. I'm like seething. I'm going to destroy every single one of them for doing this to our people. That is why I called you. I thought if anybody could turn them away from our land, it would be you and your new friends. Tales of your exploits have not gone unspoken.

I hope that's not why they ended up here. You know I left to avoid this. Where is your family? Is your family okay? Killed. Where do we go from here? What's the plan? Is there a plan?

I think that I can get you to their account. Unseen, but there's something I've been working on. I've scouted out to them before. I've developed a light cloaking device, but I don't yet have the know-how or the technology to make it cloak an entire sand speed. Just myself. I've scouted to their ship.

I've seen how they get in. I know, not the layout, but I know where they're taking the fuel. And I think, well, my plan was if you could come here, if you could sneak in like you're so definitely known for, then I think you might be able to destabilize their ship's core where the energy cycles lie and I don't know blow it up destroy them all in one fell swoop that's the best case scenario for them do you have this device on you it's at home Brett does this sound like something that you'd be able to make better to be able to

to cloak maybe all of us or at larger area Kivir is one step ahead of me I was just about to tell you we happen to have the greatest engineer in the galaxy right here. Also, we're really good at blowing up whole population. We just did it like yesterday. So we'll take care of these stories, no problem. Well, that's excellent news, I think. I'm happy to take a look.

I can do a bit of cloaking myself, and I'll activate my sort of cloaking where I'm, you can still see me, but I'm just shimmering a little bit. I don't know if I can, you know, we can compare notes and develop something that'll work on the whole vessel. If anyone can do it, it's right. I'd be happy to. Anything you can do to help, I... There's nothing I want more than the death of all of these bastards.

If I can take you all there, I think maybe I can get you in. Well, hopefully, I don't even know how I can ask, but to... destroy them to cast them out to save us at this point you don't need to ask I promise you will take care of them

thank you my friend and he'll reach out to grasp your forearm as you as you clasp tattooed arms it is good to have you home it's good to be home

I'll walk up to Rache and I'll say do you uh, had it on you presently? Not currently, I keep it at home. I don't keep it here. They've been to the communications tower before. Currently, they are all at their ship, but I don't keep anything precious on me or here.

Well, I'll need some time with it. Do we think we have a few hours? Even at night? We don't travel at night here. I would suggest you stay with me. You look like you have seen a very disruptive journey. Has you ripped open a portal in space time and went through the hell dimension?

We infiltrated a giant trash mountain and saw the nuclear explosion that caused the end of hundreds or thousands of little bandicoot arm They're little people. Hmm. Just another day. Unfortunately, we have a lot of these days, my friend. We would much appreciate the respite.

You all tell the stories that rival the great sand hunters. I can't wait to hear more. I would be happy to take you home, pour you a drink, and we can talk. Rett, was it? Yep. I would be honored for you to look at the cloaking device. cloaking device and see if there's any way you could expand its capabilities so I could get this to the ship Unseen all right well

Lead the way I'm chuckled by the way It's nice to meet you I've heard so much about you Oh Like what? Like you needed help Like the the Thorians were attacking and that you were a good friend of Kavir and because you're a good friend of Kavir I trust you Well, thank you, Chuckles. It is a pleasure to meet you. Yeah, don't worry. All the stories about Mottlians are true, but I'm different. You don't have to worry about me at all. Your children are safe. They're not going to be plucked and eaten.

His eyes are getting bigger. That's crazy talk! Why would you see that? His eyes go from LeBusch to true. to chuckles to dandy to rat to bike you have certainly begun to run with an interesting crowd you have no idea and he will take you all along to his home so you walk back out into the town and you'll see walking with race still people move away and hide. This is clearly a group of people that have seen some horrors recently and are very skittish around anyone who looks and presents like an outsider, which would be most of you. Walking confidently with Rache, they don't quite as close the doors in your face

as often, but they very quickly will move away from you back into homes and just firmly stay out of your way. You make your way to a quaint little tavern. You open it up. You walk inside, and a very modest bar sits on the edge just as you enter a collection of tables and then stairs leading upwards at the back of the hall. Please, can I get into one anything? A stiff drink for a journey, perhaps.

I certainly wouldn't say no. One of the usual for me and my friend, the bush here. Excellent. And he will go and grab a bottle of whiskey from the bar. And he'll take out a couple of glasses. He'll take a rag and just kind of like, quickly wipe out the inside and then pour them each and pass them around.

Do you have any root beer? Danny and I have had a really rough time with a strong mug of root beer. Take the edge off, you know? Sure. I will check. Do you have any pie? Pie? No. We have very little food here. Well, if you wanted pie, you didn't have to add. I can make pie.

You don't have to have him for pot. I do not know if I want you to buy. Chuggles is very offended. She's asked to anybody else for pie. I do not know if I want your pie today. I mean, yeah, there could be horrible effect, but dungeon meth are going to roll on a table. I would have a room beer.

Yes, okay. And he goes back behind the bar, and he takes out two mugs, and he kind of shoots, like, a quick glance, and he takes the exact same whiskey bottle and he just pours them into the mugs instead and brings them back over. Here, root beer.

Oh, wow. This smells spicy. I can't wait for magfish. This is going to be like from Roger Rabbit when he takes the fucking shot and you just turn you to a fucking steam with it. I don't drink when I work, but maybe once I'm,

turn in for the night. Understood. Hey, Rache. Do you know what they want, the Sorians? I'm just gonna, like, chug my real bit. Wow. Ah.

Yes. They showed up just a couple days ago. They, we didn't understand what they wanted at first. We thought they were here just to to kill everyone. You have to understand. None of us have seen Sorians before.

We thought they were just ghost stories. Something that lives at the edge of the universe. To scare you. To pull the covers up at night. And then their giant temple touched down.

They destroyed the empire. in moments. They had something that blocked our communications. We tried to call the empire to help, to send a large force to push them away, but we couldn't call out.

The only thing I could do is get out one recorded message. Try and reach you all, and luckily it made it. But not in time. Do you know if they know you call this? I don't believe so. I hit the signal embedded in other outgoing script, routine stuff. I don't think it looked like anything made it out. Probably why we made it down here.

It's also probably why there was no one to receive us. And you're saying their ship is a temple? I've never seen anything like it before, but it is... Giant tiered structure. I immediately just kind of like side glance over to Rhett and then I look at Dandy. I take another long drag on my cigarette. How far is the their ship from us?

Like we can't see it looking out. You can't see it looking out, but from the scan that Rhett did when you landed, you know it was like roughly, it's over the next to Dune. It's roughly like, it's a 20, minute ride away if you were to head straight there just one temple ship yes just one touchdown but it held the force that was more than enough well one's

better than dozens why was this planet so likely garrisoned the the empire had I mean we are automated effectively you will know this career but There are terrible storms that strike this place and when the energy hits the sand and creates gems of a kind, crystals. Long ago the empire found that they could use such crystals to power their engines. Their entire armada works off of the fuel source that's built here. And it's been that way for years. Ages. The Empire never expects anyone to strike it done. They had a force here just to keep us in line, just to keep us working. But not to push back an invading race of alien boogeymen.

Our people are normally very peaceful. What I can do, they can't do. So fighting back wasn't really an option. Now our planet looks the way that it does. For me, it's been all my life, but the empire did this. When you say our people can't do what I can do, for the briefest moment, you'll catch almost a, like, just a glimpse of a mix of, like, jealousy and regret or disappointment off the face of Rish.

For a split second. Well, I mean, I don't want to perhaps think of the worse that could happen. But surely the Therians don't think if it's this important to the empire that they can hold it with just a small fourth of a hundred troops.

So does that mean that this was just a strike force and that more temple ships are coming. And then that would also mean that as soon as the empire knows, they lost contact, and their fuel sources are going to dry up, they're going to bring an entire fleet. And so we're going to be caught in the middle of a war between the two major superpowers of the galaxy.

I'm about to be Reynolds again. They can't take me alive. I'm going to reyled out. All I know is that they made it so we couldn't call for help. The second they landed, The Empire as of yet does not know that they have been cut off from us and their cadence for pickups is we wouldn't expect them back for 30 days from now at least.

Whoa! As for whether the Sarians plan to send more of their destructive force, I do not know. It could be that at this point they want to just They want to take what they can for whatever purpose they see. It could be that they want to steal what fuel, what power, what energy they can get their hands on in that time to embolden an even greater force to spread back throughout the galaxy. It's told by our people that eons ago before the empire, that Dessorians were. all throughout space that they ruled and the empire pushed them back to the edges. It could be that they want to bring back a more primal time.

Yeah, I mean, I think Chuckles is right. If they understand the implications of what they're fucking doing, cutting off the fuel of the entire armada of the Empire. And they probably don't. They probably think, oh, there's natural resources, let's take it. But if this gets out to the Empire, then they're gonna come with a full fucking force.

Every gun they have, and this planet will turn into a glorified imperial mining facility. The Empire's had its way with this planet for long enough. Whether it's the Sorians or the Empire, we're getting rid of them. Once and for all. I believe in Chow, you can get away. Dandy's just like looking out the window trying to see if I can see the ship

and realizing I can't because there's a dune there and I'm just imagining in my head silently the temple that we saw that I was on top of while back and I'm just kind of like thinking about that, getting nervous and confused. Roll our Kana check. Oh, no. Eight.

Twist it. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good. Good, good twist. Come on. There we go. Five, 19. Big money.

Yeah. You reflect on the moments since you've been here. The feeling of this Earth as you've stepped on it compared to any other planet that you've walked. You look at the carnage that the Sorians caused at the Empiric Outpost.

You sit in the window and you look out in the distance. You can't see the ship from where you are. But all of these elements make you feel simultaneously calm and a kindred, a kindredness, and extreme unease. I will have drunken my drink, and I am keeping an eye out on the streets. And I am listening to my friend Kavir talk about vengeance against the Sorians

and keeping the empire out and all of these very ambitious, lofty things. and just feeling especially quiet and pensive and wanting to support, but I haven't said a word. Mm. Mm. Mm. Also, I think he would recognize that it's also very uncharacteristic

to be this vengeful. Or invest in, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I'm letting him catch up with an old friend, and I want to make sure that if there's a sign of danger, I'm the first to notice.

Mm-hmm. That's what I'm doing. You're at the window standing, vigil, as it were, as you hear the conversation developing behind you, creating space for your friend to settle in to a familiar place. I kind of look around and all of a sudden, I realize that Labush isn't with us in the sort of immediate area, and I call him over.

And I said, Rish, all this time I've been away, I have to tell you, I wouldn't have made it if it wasn't for LeBusch. He's probably the only person outside of you that I trust. And it's thanks well. Sorry. Sorry. Let me rephrase that.

He's probably the only person outside of you that I can trust as much as you. I trust you. And the rest of my crew, of course, I trust it with my life. But LeBusch, I trust him the way I trust you. And he's probably the reason why I'm able to come back here today. Thank you for the drink. Yes, I'm glad you enjoyed it. And thank you for keeping one of my oldest friends safe for this journey.

I know it has not been easy for you, the way that you all speak. I don't have anything on my person for you. I wish I could do something given what happened to your family. Please, we are people of... minimal things was the fact that you are here the the fact that you are willing to help even if you cannot that that that simple that that simple task means more than you could ever know if there's anything else I can do I'm no thinker but I am happy to help I think I think crushing skulls will be plenty he's very

good at that. I do this. You don't hear a sound of flight number of the crack. I've learned that that gesture is correct. Speaking of, given that I am a tinker, I would love to tink, so to speak. Yes. What I mean to say is, please.

Could you show me towards your device and I can get to work? I would be happy to. Come with me just to my office, just off to the side behind the bar. It's a quaint workshop. I don't need. You look like you have more tools at your disposal than I do. But hopefully you can make use of what I have so far. It will be enough to guide us tomorrow.

All right. Let's see what we're working with. And I'll follow him to the workshop. He will lead you back there. And everyone else can continue to enjoy their drinks. Dandy, don't even make you roll for it. You're drunk. I'm drunk?

You slammed your whiskey. Root beer. It was whiskey. It was root beer. He went back and got lugs. You ordered whiskey in it. And that brought it back. And that's why chuckled said it smells spicy.

Oh, no. I proceeded to go, I slammed the entire drink without a vacation. I followed suit. I can't get drunk. You, damn it! Yeah, she's forged by war. I'm a, yeah. Did you even pay attention to the blood drinking episode?

Yeah. Technically, yeah. I'm new to poison. So, DM Fiat, you could, you know, just... You and chuckles are drunk. What? You're like a magical, whiskey ain't wine blood. Yeah, blood wine.

Yeah, whiskey and blood wine. Here. Whoa. That's the warm... Fife. Bif, Fy, Rupi. I thought I was Wolfwood, but actually, Whoa.

I'm not at all. Don Mazzetti. Yeah, right. This was supposed to be Rupia. Well, it's the best whiskey on the planet. Oh. What the hell? Whoa.

Do you know the only solution is to have more? No. I'm going to. like, I'm on a mission to just get hammered. If you're getting up for another round, I'll have one. Absolutely. I don't even get up. I just send the sands to grab up. Oh, love that. And then pour it for us. And they do so they swirl over behind the bar and wrestle on a particularly enjoyable whiskey and come over and the sands will pour

slowly and elegantly to top off both of your glasses. I think I need the way off the... Oh, the modeling. Ah, the discordant. Wait, then he can go. Wait, you got any blue milk? Yes, yes, plenty of blue milk. I'll just pour him some more whiskey.

Is it blue milk? Well, that's a weird shade of blue. It's just whiskey, it's brown. Whoa. Don't trust us. Don't trust us. They lied to us. Lied to us about the power converter.

The power converter for the presentation. We might need to infiltrate a sorry in tempo then. The hours. Yes. You are weakening our allies. Whoa. It's not good. It's...

It feels uneasy. And then happy at the same time. All right. If you don't want to have the whiskey, I will have more of the whiskey. Then I'm going to pass it to you. It's you. Pike would probably have more of the whiskey.

That is working. Levush. For a drinking whiskey. You'll just see a tendril like go into the south and you see like a little straw. Just like all in. It turns into its own vein almost going into the arm and I'll just, you can see that it's just like blobbing inside my head. Like a lava lamp. Yeah.

Occasionally like my actual nervous system will like touch it and it'll reduce a little. I have what I need. I know you said that, I know you said that, I'm talking to Rach, I know you said that you don't have much food on this planet, so I wanted to, I wanted to share what I got, and I'm going to turn around and ask chuckles, I'm going to say, can you open my compost bucket? I've been making some sourcrow. It's fermented. and now it's extra fermented and spicy. Whoa. Please grab it, I'm hungry. Chalmers just vomits. Okay, I got it.

I have grabbed a toaster. From the counter. I go, ah, Phil's good. God, what a pretty little guy. It looks exactly like the brief little toaster. Yeah, that's got a little button on it. A single dial. Oh gosh, now I have existential dread and question my thoughts.

for it the fuck I eat. What the hell, chuckles? That was our food. I'm more forged, I need food. Well, I'm sure we'll get some blue milk soon. Gresh, do you have any of those... I'm just a fall asleep for a second.

The rolls. The rolls that we used to eat. Oh, the jug fruit rolls. Yes, yes, yes. Sour cherry still your favorite? Always. you remember. We have them here, yes.

Perfect, perfect. Then, these are best. And he produces a selection of what is, is certainly like natural fruits that looks like it's been crushed and molded into almost like a paste, flattened out and dried. And there are apricot, sour cherry, Um, persimmon.

Persimmon. Dates. Yeah. Are you trying to induce for him? Labor here? Space blue raspberry. Space blue raspberries is one of them. Uh, because it's a fantasy world black raspberries as well. Um, and yes, he produces them out if anyone would, uh, care to enjoy, uh, fruits.

And, Rhett, I will just have you make a, uh, tech in, engineering handling check. We're here an explosion. 19? 19. As Rache walks you into the shop, you see as he described,

a quaint little workspace. There's definitely strewn what looks like just spare parts hanging all around. Very modest tools at the table. Just a thin

steel slate desk that you sit down at. He produces the cloaking device, which you quickly and expertly inspect. You know that you can improve its yield and improve its coverage, and it would take you probably not through the night, but well into the night. Yep, that'll do. I'll be here. I'll be here. You can go on back to your friend and let them know that they should go to sleep without me. You think that you can fix it or increase it? I think given what you have here, it's a great start. I got all the tools that I need and I'll tap my pack. And it looks like you got some spare parts around the workshop.

So I think I'll have what it takes to at least get the six of us through. I am very glad to have you here, Rhett. Thank you. And if there's anything you need, sustenance, whiskey when you are done, perhaps. The whiskey is really good. I will not sleep until you do. You simply call and I will offer you whatever I can. All right. You know, now that you mention it, you know how to make a cowboy?

I'm sure I could figure it out if you'd done me the ingredients. It's one part whiskey, one part cream. If you got cream. The heavier the better. I think I could find some is... May of blue milk.

Blue milk can do. It's also just whiskey. He steps away for the moment and you hear like a clanking behind the bar as he mixes some elements together and he brings you back his best attempt at making a cowboy. Here, enjoy. All right, I'll just sit there. I'll take a tiny, tiny sip. I'll set it down and then I'll look and my eye will sort of extend out. and my arms will sort of come through

and I'll start to kind of tinker on it. And you just, you, you dial in. Like, everything is locked out to you at this point. Even with his presence lingering for an additional moment, you don't, that does not pierce your focus. You are into this tech until it is complete. And Ray steps back out to the table. There's just a knob that says coverage and...

Perfect. Four hours to myself. Did Rets say he needed anything? Well, he asked for a cowboy, but I made the drink, and that is it. I think he has everything that he needs. He seemed very well-equipped. All right. I can't believe he poured cream into his whiskey.

Yeah, he's been doing that as long as I've known him. smart as he is that seems pretty silly. Reth, why does he call it the cowboy? Great question. I think it's just the name of the drink. Why did they call it the cowboy? I have no idea. I had not heard about it before myself. There's not a drink that is native to us.

People like what they like. You can't yuck somebody's yum. Yeah. I'm gonna go outside, get them cool off. You be careful, there's danger out there. That's okay, I'm just gonna enjoy the serene thundits on the dether. Just don't go outside the walls.

You walk up a bluff, and there are two setting suns. Third one coming up. It's just never night. I'll sit there, I'll put a knee up. on like a low sand wall. And then a clown horn will be... You make it outside just in time to watch the sunset. And it has...

It's now transitioning into night, and the temperature has dropped drastic. As you look out, you can see a very subtle movement on the horizon very far out. But nothing that causes you any concern beyond thinking, maybe the movement of one of those giant sand creatures. I'm going to pull out really blocky, 70 style, like white binoculars. I don't know how to work this shit. Shit. I'm just gonna look really hard.

Your eyes, not extended out. Oh, yeah, no. I'm gonna attempt to see, if I see movement, I'm gonna attempt to see like, does it look like a war band, isn't like a worm's heading in this direction? I'm trying to keep an eye out for danger as I'm starting to sober quickly,

given my extreme motley in metabolism. You do so. Your eyes extend out of your cupped hands and you look out into the distance. Roll a perception check for me. I want to be sober, too. Your ass is open, you're just picking sourcrown with a handful. I'm going to use two twists. I'm going to use three twists. Three twists. Three twists. Three twists. Pull them out.

Okay. I didn't roll higher than an eight. Oh, wow. Ooh. You are drunk. Yeah. You look out, your eyes extend out to your hands. But with your chaotic, drunken nature, even though it's starting to fade, as you look out, your eyes warble and look in all different directions as you're struggling to focus. You still, however, I will say, catch on the horizon.

what looks very faintly you see disappearing over the dune towards the direction of the ship. It looked like you may have saw a Sorian heading in that direction, away from the town. Okay, I'll walk back in. Is everything okay? Oh, I think there's some Thorians, but they're not coming in this direction. But they're there. They're doing something sinister. What are they doing?

Oh. We don't know. They're probably stealing all of the fuel crystals caused by the great fan stores. Why would they come for them now? Kavir was saying they could have come at any time. We don't know what their plans are. They've been pushed back by the empire and have really lurked in seething hatred for years of stories are true. And then suddenly it wouldn't be surprising if suddenly with the geopolitical climate of the galaxy being the most unstable that has been in century,

perhaps this is their time to strike to perhaps reclaim what was once there. Or I don't know the new dino shit. I know, I'm a clown. There it is. Wow, career, your friend is very smart. I do. I did you. They were doing dino shit.

Yeah, they have their qualities, yes. That thin reason? What did you say? Does that thin reason after everything that Dandy was talking about on top of that pyramid? I wasn't, I had lost track of what he was saying, like, halfway through, so all I caught at the end was doing Dino shit. Yeah. Yeah. I'm still, like, very much not so.

Dina, yes, sure, yes, I guess. Yeah. Okay. If you saw one of them at the edge, they were probably just rotating out the scouts or something like that. Just the edge of their encampment over the pass of the dune.

Well, with Fred's engineering ability, they can have a million scouts and they won't see it's coming. Then we'll... They're going to go extinct. We will k, them all. Yeah. Anyways, I'm going to sleep.

We have a big day of thubterfuge and bushwhacking. So I got to get my clown sleep. We do. Anybody who would like to go to bed, we have, I have extra beds upstairs. I can show you two of them. You are more than welcome to stay here tonight. And rest easy. Thank you for your hospitality.

I cannot repay you with credit because I've been cut off by rent. The memory of the crew. That's true. But I can ask, what's your favorite name? Well, my favorite animal is the mighty falcon. The falcon? That's all the work of yours, that's pretty cool.

The mighty falcon? It's going to look like an eagle. Well, that's not the falcon at all. Fuck! Cool. You know, pull out like a light blue and like kind of cream-colored balloons and I'll do this. Fine, yeah, the beak is a little bit down.

You can tell it would have been an eagle, would have looked different. Here's the animal. Thank you for your hospitality. Well, this is very kind of you. Thank you. And it is I who am appreciative of you being here. Hospitality is the least that I can offer you.

Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, you have one of the fancy new coffee maker that they found? It's just right on the edge of the bar. It was right next to the toaster. I'm surprised that you missed it. Gosh, you got to get everything out here. Pretty impressive.

Well, we're a smugglers planet. That's true. I get a lot of things. Yeah, I was going to say, I guess if the trade embargoes and all of the terrorists, it would have been very suspended in different from here at these prices. Especially with space inflation, but I guess if you are still smuggling,

they're going to be hard to get that kind of comfort ban. Anyway, I'm going to go to sleep. Good night. And I go to bed. I'm going to recognize, after the compost bucket was taken from me, hopefully that sobers me up a little bit. not totally casting lesser restoration on myself to sober myself so that I can ask

race a question and get back to my mind you do so so I do so and I'm going to ask how the the would you call them stones that were harvested from the gem crystals yeah gems crystals the gems on this planet what color are they end up as a sort of white, almost like diamonds, jagged in shape. Like explosions of light. That is interesting. That is all I wanted to ask. I'm going to bed now.

Good night. Good night. I will keep watch on this floor, and I will put my helmet upside down onto the bar, and I will take my armor pieces, and I will find somewhere behind the bar to sort of gently stack them. and then I will sloop into my bucket,

and a tendril will come out and grab one of the black raspberry scones. And it'll just be floating there in the center around with those netting of eyes and nerves. And I will go to sleep here in the sense that I would hope that I could feel any tremors or anything coming through the space unless they were especially sneaky. to protect my friends who are sleeping upstairs. You do this, and you would find a space behind the bar easily

to put your armor up, to lay at its edge, connected, sitting on top of the bar top close to the door, you would definitely get the sense that should the door itself even open, you would very easily be alerted immediately. And probably, if anything kind of like heavy were to approach, you would feel that movement coming towards you. Feeling this security, I know it's time for bed, and I'll turn my eyeballs off and then do that.

Rache, thank you for your hospitality and taking us in. As I said, it is my pleasure. I didn't know what to expect when I sent that message. It was a last effort. I had hoped, but I thought that all hope was lost. It is truly my pleasure to have you here. I don't sleep much. So, I'm going to leave you guys to it.

I'm going to take the rest of my drink, check on RET, make sure things are going well, and I'll see you in the morning. Good night. I'll leave you two to it, all right? Thank you, my friend. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

Cheers. I take a small drag and I go off to where I saw Rett working. I would just keep him company. until he's ready to go to bed as well. And that would be it for me. And make sure that things are going while, and see if he needs anything. And you do so.

You join Rhett in the room, and you've seen him in this kind of form before. You know that you being in the vicinity, he is a laser dialed into his work, and it's not your intention to interrupt, just to be on hand. I would say it's very common for me when he doesn't mind, for me to just enjoy watching him work

silently while I kind of maybe meditate. kind of maybe meditate or think about things and just keep him, give him silent company. You find a corner of the room that you're in and you move to one foot, lean back into its edge and you sit, or you stand, you just rest there, enjoying the sound of the tinkering as your friend works. As we normally do, when I hear Pike come in,

I just sort of know that it's him based on his footsteps. I'll just go. You would hear the clink of the glasses, I kind of raise it to you. And give you a silent nod as I drink from the cup, like walk past you and just like find a comfortable pace the plop prop up against the wall and just, you know, again, give you silent company.

We don't need words. And while I'm working, I would have like any kind of monitor, like, Rhapsody like stats displayed on my arms, making sure that Hank's okay and that the ship's okay. as I work. As you have your read out and on the left you see Hank's adorable face with his tongue sticking out

and all signs read, all signs read, all gauges read green. Good work, buddy. And yeah, I would just sort of silently work into the evening, even if it means not sleeping at all. I'm happy to do that as long as I, you know,

get my eight hours of late activity for long rest. Yep. And you do so. As much as I've had to drink at this point now that it's just me and Reish, I've entered sad regretful bro drunk. Oh no! Been there.

Been there. You've gone from whee! To be like, ugh. What if I went, that goes wrong? Would it all go wrong. Slightly more composed I was, but definitely in his feelings. Rish, I know it's been a long time. And I'm sorry I wasn't here to protect us,

protect you, your family. After what happened, after Saraya, I couldn't let anyone else get hurt and I thought leaving was the best solution. My friend, stop. I understand why you had to leave. The empire searching for you. We never expected you to stay and it's not any of you.

Anybody's responsibility to protect anyone else. It was for us to stand against them. And I regret having to call you back, but I just, I didn't know what else to do. But it is not your fault that these monsters showed up here. And Soraya was not your fault. And I'm gonna look down, sort of at my hands and the hourglasses. How can you, it was, it was me.

It was this power, this gift and curse. It's all from this. It's all, everything started with this. Of course I had to be here. It's my, I don't know. I feel like I shouldn't have left. I won't lie to you. There are times where I wish that I had been chosen

by Zaman. instead of you, but I think it was the correct choice he made. And you were simply doing what anyone would have done with your abilities. You were trying to save her. And you just went back too far. I won't let it happen again, but I will do whatever I need to to free the rest of our people and this planet from anyone who's anyone who's wanting to cause us harm and I will come back I will be home again and I

will be at your side as we do this together don't sort of high-five embrace into a into a hug we bro hug we bro hug I clearly haven't done this in a while so I think I am also going to need to head to sleep but is there anything else you can tell us and tell me that might us tomorrow. I think I have a sense of the layout of their, the insides of their temple. They have come to me and though we don't speak their language, it is snarling, snapping. You get a sense for what they want when they cut down everyone around them. But they don't know, well, they had, they fiddle with the communication towers that I too,

too took something from them and I have as you said the the the schematics as it work the layout inside and I think I think I understand the whether core is and I think foolishly they store the power crystals they have been accumulating in the same space and if you can maybe your friend maybe your party destroy it I think you could, as you say, make it all to go boom. If there's anyone that can do that, it's this group. Thank you, my friend, thank you.

It means a lot. And I wouldn't have come back for anyone else. It's good to see you again. And you, my friend. And I've stayed at his house plenty of times, and I never sleep in a bed. I just always end up passing out on the couch. So I'm going to do that as just like almost autopilot.

almost autopilating over to what would be kind of the couch and just like face planning down to sleep it off. Sleep well my friend. I will wait for your ally. I don't even respond. I don't know. And everyone enjoys a long ride. Yes! Thank goodness.

Mother Effah. As you sleep, Kavir. You hear, you don't dream, but you catch fragments of a scene from your past. Your friend, wounded on the ground, bleeding, but savable, healable. You see your arms stretched out in front of you. You see the familiar glow of your tattoos. you hear familiar words echo in your ears. Time runs out for us all.

And as your arms glow, the figure in front of you disappears. And everybody awakes. I think it's done. I would say that you were firmly capable of accomplishing your task somewhere in the region. of 1.30, 2 a.m., you're far more capable than Rish at dealing with what you're working on. And though over a long period of time, he was able to develop a clothing device that worked for just him at a moderate level. In that span of time, you've been able, in just mere hours compared to his months working on this, you have been able to quintuple its capacity. and increase its effectiveness as it shimmers.

And you did in fact find the dial and you cranked it to 11. And you were able to do so by about, I'd say, 1.30. And you were able to, should you have chosen to do so, find yourself a place to sleep? Yeah, I would have. If I felt like I could have gotten a little bit of sleep, I would have. All right.

So with this, I think we can take one of those things out there and get all six of us on it cloaked through whatever scanners they have once we're inside I'm not sure how well it's gonna work but it'll least get us to the the the the temple ship nice work big guy that's impressive and out you for a second another thing dandy if they happen to recognize or see what you are they may single you out target you you. Just giving your past, your history. And so put this on.

And I'll pass you this like little, almost like a little smartwatch version of my screen. Oh, cool. Oh, nice. I pulled my personal cloaking tech out of this and put it into this. So just so you're a little harder to get a good look at. Thank you.

Why do you think they'll recognize me? Because their kind is what made you. And when we found you, it wasn't too dissimilar to what we saw back at the barracks. We don't need to get into it, but you're some kind of weapon they created. Or you have some kind of grander purpose. If they know that, they're going to want you back. I want to ask, why did you not tell me this before, but it doesn't really matter now. I think in terms of what Pike and I did to recover you from that ship, we don't know exactly what happened.

We have presumptions. We have deductions. and I can't say for sure one way or another. Maybe we'll learn more on the ship, but I just want you to know that your safety is our top priority. Thank you. I'm just going to look out the window again, and I'm putting the watch on,

or the device that you gave me on, and I'm just going to kind of look away from everybody. And I'm still thinking about it. like the temple and me on top of it. Is there anything else that we should know about the dandy should know that you've kept from her when we're gonna go faith that beings that made her and go be in a spaceship of the same technology that did all of this? It's very powerful and bad ass I might add.

Look, I... Secrets between Beth chums? I don't wanna scare anybody. What do you think, by? I think. that it was a pretty rough few days. That's what concerns me. That's all.

We're not trying to keep secrets. It's like he said. We just don't want to scare anybody. Not before we have to go into the heart of this. Look, do you remember when you first woke up as yourself? And we were there. And I was looking down and I said, well, ain't that just Andy? And then you decided to take that as your name?

Yes, I do remember. I'm still looking away from you, actually. On that day, sorry. Like and I were on a bounty to collect some highly classified cargo. Stumbled upon the ship and it was dead in the water. scanned it, no life forms. Uh, it's floating in space. And when we came on board, it was a bloodbath.

The whole crew was torn apart. Claw marks, teeth marks, through the whole ship. We've both seen our fair share of messed up stuff, but this was something else. And all we found in that ship was you. Passed out, asleep, deactivated, whatever you want to call it. And right when you woke up, I thought we were done for. Your eyes were glowing red. All your gems were glowing red.

And for a split second, I thought you were looking at me with the most furious anger and vengeance. And then all of a sudden you just changed to how you are now. blue. And I don't know if that was you that did that to the crew. I don't know if it was some kind of self-defense mechanism, but with whatever kind of gem magic they were using to shoot laser beams and fly through the stars, they stuffed the gills with it. And there's a reason why this was classified cargo. And so anyway, I'm not saying that's going to happen. I'm not saying, who knows? Maybe there was another dinosaur on board.

And just they escaped before we got there. I just want to make sure that you know that that's not you and that we're going to make sure that that doesn't happen again. I'm still looking away and I'm going to say, I just have two questions for you. Did the ship you recovered me on look like a temple? Still looking over? No.

It was an old traitor. I don't know where they got you, where they found you. The entire bounty was basically one line. I'm going to turn towards you and say, do you trust me? Of course I trust you. A tear comes down on my face. A single tear. You can be mad at me.

That's in your right. As long as you're all so mad at pie. A wry smile will kind of come across my face and I'll chime in and say, and besides, Dandy, if we really didn't think you were safe, we'd have sold you for spare parts years ago. She goes red. I'm not.

mad I just I I have never known who I am all I have ever known of who I am is with you and this family and I do not know if I trust myself well how about this this we trust you and we might learn more about who you are in that temple ship and if you start feeling a certain way, just let us know. And we'll make sure we help you however we can. We're with you. We all trust you. I mean, gosh, I'm more of a risk than you are. And everyone's still really nice to me. You've always been really nice to me and I could go cuckoo bananas and go clown mode. But you don't hold that against me on my horrible discord and demonic persuasions.

And what I'm trying to say is we all got each other's back. It's because there are a bunch of hulked-out dynos in there with whatever kind of tech they have Now that we know what to look for we can preemptively strike and if anyone is like oh look Gitter will cut their heads off who can do that who can cut some heads off will uh will say l' boost get him and I will I will get them I will get them okay All right. I'll go get it fashioned to the skiff or whatever you want to call it.

And I'll be out there when you're ready. So I'll walk outside and I'll just get it fashioned and set up so that it's sort of ready to go. And racial been out there the whole time. Not a part of this intimate moment. This seems like a you thing. He's making more.

Yeah, yeah. More fruit snacks for anyone. And you do so. You fashion it to the skiff easily. You get it on board connected into power components. And you know that it is ready to go. And you get the sense that should you choose, you can make your way.

Shall we make our way? I think it's time. With this watch that you gave me, am I just invisible? Is it activated? whenever I want? For the sake of mechanically, you have advantage on stealth jets.

Okay. Yeah, so this is... You can still see me. Like, you guys know where I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not like you're invisible. The idea is that it just makes you a little sort of harder to kind of spot or sense.

And if you are feeling a little bit more vulnerable, I could give you the same kind of treatment that I gave Kavir when he became Cass Rue. if you'd like to get yourself a new look, new you. I'm going to be there like, exactly there. I'm looking at that. I do not think so, but thank you, Juckles. Okay, I'll put down my groucher remarks.

Put it back in my head. She could have been Shrandy. It's many trendy, eh? Well, you just let me know if you need it in a pinch if you feel uncomfortable. We'll make you look like

the opposite of a Dino Tech. Got to figure out what that is. Do you have any white gems on me? Or, you know, diamonds, gem, clear, white gem? No.

I don't believe so. No? Well, is it time? How's everyone feeling? Terrible. But I'll manage. I feel good. I feel, I'll admit,

I feel a lot better now that all those garrison soldiers are horribly killed. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. But I'm a lot of the afraid of what's out there than those people who would, you know, do far worse than you guys are going to do. All right.

Another adventure awaits. Let's go remind the Sorians why they belong on the edge of the galaxy. Rage that was a pretty bad thing that would say. It's been way better at that than me. That was really cool. Wow, oh, yes. Well, onto the sand speed there. Breathe the fail.

Yeah, we'd meet everybody outside. We'd get ready to go and suit up. Do Raysh and I both head towards the driver's seat? Oh, sure, oh, yeah. I was thinking that that would, oh, you know, it's your, you go ahead. You know, I'm the guest, you go ahead. It's right that it was fun.

It's awkward, yes, exactly. Yeah, I will think this one. Yeah, everyone knows who's the best. Oh, I made the cloaking for six, not seven. Sorry, no, it's fine, it's fine. And you away. You hit the sand speeder out now a very familiar experience.

It glides over the desert. The sun now firmly hanging in the air. And you race throughout these dunes. Towards the dune that chuckles you had seen what you would know as a Sorian scout on the edge now. And race will say, Rett, deploy the stealth. You got it.

And a shimmering, like, ether curtain almost falls about the sand speed. As you all disappear, like dancing air in the desert. Look away, avert your eyes. Don't look over here. We're not over here. and you soar over the dune ahead of you and you have so much speed as Rache begins to move and operate the sail that you take air for a moment as you crest over the dune and it's when you see it for the first time the Sorian warship planted

in the ground you're immediately stricken with the scene in front of of you on the planet of ice as you approached the tower where Rex was. Is it identical or is it just architecturally similar? It is architecturally similar because the one you saw on the ice planet was covered in ice. And so you actually never saw its true form, but you're stricken with a very familiar sense

as you maneuver towards the Sorian warship. I saw that's true form. You didn't. You saw, yes, you saw its true form as the ice melted away as you were on top of it. And so you would feel that the two were extremely similar. The Sandspeeder stealthed. He Rache pilots it up to the edge of the temple. Okay.

There's an entrance over here. It is hidden away. I found it on there the plans that I took from them the layout of the ship I have it here and he produces kind of like a like a little extendable scroll that shimmer is almost what looks like kind of like schematics or blueprints but a layout of the ship in front of you We simply have to head over this way. I can take you to the door. I can open it and we can head inside that Are you ready? Let's do this.

We're already this far. Get it off. Let's make them pay. For gerube. For gerube. He hops off the sand speeder. And you all start to move towards what looks like a little water outlet coming off the side of the temple. You all follow a single file, but approach together.

as you walk to the mouth of this entrance. I've seen them from the edge of the dune. They never come through this way. They only ever go through the doors to the front. So if we go in here, we should be able to come upon them without any of them noticing us. Follow me very carefully. We don't know if they have any sort of defense.

And as he takes one step forward, up from almost like stepping on a rake, up from the sand in front of him, shoots a large wooden pole with a jagged claw tied to the end of it. It shoots directly up and slams into his chest. Race! Am I like right next to him? You probably would have been, you would have been right behind him. And as this happens, blood spray splatters across your face. I'm going to sort of run behind him and catch him as he's falling back.

He's pinned into this thing. It's pierced him through his chest. No, no, no, no, no, race, no. Not you, not you too. And is there, do I see anything, like, is there any way to get this out of him? Dandy, can you help? Can you do something? Anything.

I'm gonna run up and kneel down and cast, um, I'm gonna cast healing word. Yeah, and just I'm gonna say to him... Roll a medicine check. 17. With a 17 and your innate connection to life and energy, as you approach and you see the wound gaping from his chest, you understand that it is mortal.

And no amount of magics at this point will turn back. I'm gonna hold my hand on like me, you know, on his body somewhere that doesn't hurt him and turn to Kavir and say, it is the end. It can't be. No, not this early. We just got here, there's no way. I can't, I can't lose him too. Get him off of this thing.

I wanna try to like at least help grab and pull him off of this like spike trap thing. If we can get him off. Um. Yeah, I'd say that you can absolutely, as he's been there, you can start to like shuffle him off of the spike. I'll grab the shaft of the spike thing and I'll attempt to sort of break the traps so that it doesn't trigger or do anything like I'll pull it out or effectively ripping it apart while everyone drags.

You grab the top section, you smash the bottom with your boot and you snap it off. the pole made of simple wood, the end, a jagged, Raptors Town. So do we get the sense that like basically they made this so that it was right at like Zorvun heart level? Level. It is pretty obvious that it's intended to strike directly at the average like,

humanoid chest. Humanoid chest height. Jeez! Raich will reach up to Kavir and grab you by the front of your shirt and just say, I don't watch out trap. And that's what in the session. You son of a bitch.

You kill all the MPCs! There's nothing more deadly in advantage than being one of Mesa's NPCs. one of Mesa's NPCs. Yeah, seriously. 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,

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