Mayday Plays - Mayday's No Prep Challenge, Episode 1

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

Caleb, Sergio, and special guest Allison (insightchecked) dive into a brand-new improv roleplay challenge! They’ll roll dice to determine their setting and tone, whip up EZD6 characters on the spot, and then roleplay straight through until the wheels come off! Check out DM Scotty's EZD6 system:https://www.ezd6.com/ -- 👕 MERCH: http://ko-fi.com/maydayrp & https://mayday-merch.printify.me/prod... 💵 Patreon: / maydayrp 📰 Join our newsletter: eepurl.com/iIVUjo 🎙 Listen to us: 🟣 Apple Podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5vdTgXo... 🟠 Soundcloud: / mayday-roleplay 🌟 Other Socials 🌟 🐦 Twitter: / maydayroleplay 📸 Instagram: / maydayrp 🔴 Website: http://maydayroleplay.com/ 🎵 TikTok: / maydayroleplay 👾 Twitch: / maydayroleplay 🔵 Facebook: / maydayrp Thanks for your support!

Hello, hello, hello, everyone out there in Internet Land and welcome to Mayday's latest nonsense that we are calling the No Prep Challenge. In this inaugural episode, we are going to attempt something that is totally doable, but still a fun and entertaining, a completely improvised roleplay session. We will roll for a setting and a tone. and in future sessions, we'll roll for the GM2, but today it'll just be me. And after creating some easy D6 characters, we're going to roll play until the wheels fall off, just like we like it. I am Sergio, and I want to first give credit to this game, to the Discord community in which I found it called the RPG Crusade.

Make sure to check them out. If you're interested in the No Prep Challenge, Google or YouTube, no prep challenge or ultimate no prep challenge and you'll find other creators who have played this game we are presenting this ad free so please make sure to like and subscribe leave a comment and tell us if you enjoy the episode or maybe have a suggestion for future episodes with me today are two very special people why don't we introduce ourselves caleb you go hello i'm caleb james miller i have no idea who I'll be playing yet, but I'm a beloved May Day member, perhaps the most favorite

May Day member. I'll jump in next. I think you say that when you are the only May Day member here often, yes? I'm Allison. I'm not a May Day member, so that's why Caleb can get away with this. But I am a TTRPG player, so it's great to be here. You can find me on the internet as insight checked, and I am just so excited to be at the table with you guys again. And I've also no idea who I'm going to be playing.

I liked when I first mentioned this game idea to Allison, specifically the title of the show. Do you remember what you said, Allison, about it? Oh, gosh, no. You said, no prep challenge. That's my entire life. That's correct. That is correct. well let's uh let's get let's get it i want to discuss our table conventions so that the audience understands what we're trying to do today uh because this is not just you know us pretending to be characters and talking there's some kind of rules that we want to try to follow to make this as immersive of

an experience as possible uh let me get open for the folks at home the pdf so that we can read along together. Okay, some of the key things we want to remember about this style of play. First is we need to remember spotlight. We should be considerate of our turn lengths. So let's move briskly as we describe things and as we do stuff. Remember, I'm part of that spotlight. Two very important parts of this is no out-of-character questions to the GM. So instead of do I see, you should say, I look around for. Instead of what do I know, you say, I try to remember. This is all about being in character and doing everything from the character's point of view.

Next important one is no hypothetical turns. So I should not be hearing, can I, or if I do X, can I achieve Y? I will not be able to answer those questions. Next, a good turn. What does a good turn consist of? I think there's three things that you as a player should be stating. Where are you in the world? What are you doing?

and you should use the I do this, what you say, if anything. Limit all meta and game mechanics talk during the game. It's why we've chosen such a simple game system with EZ6. If a roll is required, you will roll to find the results. Both you have the permission and I have the permission to call for a role. So don't wait for me to call it for you. You describe the failures, which are going to be one to two as a result,

and I will describe the successes. This is very important. You describe failure. I describe success. The GM made direct focus to any player or call for a role. Finally, two last important things. Related to the limited talk of mechanics, try to avoid just stating what it is you're using.

I cast magic missile at the goblin. Instead, try to describe it visually. Imagine like if you're watching a movie, A white bolt of arcane energy streaks from my hand at the goblin. Doing this will help us visualize what's going on. And this is important because since we're not talking out of character, there's not going to be moments of me, the GM, trying to understand everybody's positioning.

So try to reiterate where you are at all times. If you have to state a mechanical effect, keep it brief. I grant luck to player A. If you use an aspect or metacurrency or anything, even involving your strikes or your supplies, you're going to do all of that behind the screen. Talk about it, no need to say, I spend luck to add 1D4 to that roll.

You just do it. All that makes sense? Yeah. Okay. Now, let's talk about how this game actually works, the Easy D6. If you roll for something, you're going to roll a D6 and you want to beat the target number.

The target number is almost all. always three. So one to two is a failure. Three to six is a success. If the challenge is higher, you will hear me say challenge four. If you're good at something like you have a boon, you roll 2d6 and you take the higher. If you're rolling at a disadvantage or at a bane, you're going to take 2d6 and you're going to take the lower result. Everyone will start out with something called karma. You're going to have three karma and you gain one karma for every failed roll. So make sure to write that down when you fail a roll. One karma equals one pip on the die. So if you want to turn a two into a three, you just simply have to say,

I'll make that a three or I'll make that a four. And that's letting me know that you're spending the karma. You'll be tracking that karma. Any of the questions regarding that stuff? I feel good. Let's get to the fun stuff. Let's actually start rolling. up on our settings and our tone table. I'm going to switch so that the audience can see. We have a GM, a setting, and a tone table. Today, the GM will be me. The setting and the tone, though, we're going to find out right now.

Allison, as our first guest on the no prep challenge, let's have you roll a D8 on the tone. If you could roll it and roll 20, so we see it on our screen here. that's an eight oh interesting eight is super natural so the tone is supernatural uh Caleb

give me a D20 roll and we will find out our setting all right here we go folks 19 okay a supernatural dungeon crawl Wow. Okay. It's sort of your classic. For a first adventure, that's what you want right there. I guess so. And what's fun is with EasyD6, we can actually choose hero paths because it's a fancy thing. Okay. Supernatural Dungeon Crawl, what is the immediate thing that comes to mind when you are told this tone and setting?

Um, mine being who I am is like, uh, like a curse of strad module. Like, um, big, big, biggest batty in the land and we're going in to kill them. Uh, it's a hunting Dracula sort of thing. Okay. I kind of thought almost the same except like we were the supernatural folks. Oh, that's fun too. It's like a supernatural crew traveling together for some reason. Like that.

Let's go with that. Okay. It's a dungeon crawl, which means you guys are going into a dungeon. Maybe instead of it being the archetypical bad guys dungeon, it could be like a heroic dungeon. It's where the king keeps his dissidents or, you know, where he keeps his hoard of treasure, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. I'm thinking, uh, what if it was the adventuring squad? Uh, what, what if we're, you know, we, we were rain out of town for being who we are.

We're coming back to exact revenge or to, you know, get our monster back. Yeah, a little, little flavor of X-Men maybe. Like, yeah, we were, we were pitchforked out and now we're back. Hmm. Okay. Yes. Yeah. So you, so you're trying to come back in. So it sounds like you're trying to get something from the dungeon maybe they have a weapon of yours or an ally of yours that is worth pulling out yeah and it sounds like you guys want to do the heroes who ousted you it's their layer so it's like you know almost like how uh the vox machina had uh this this the yeah the so it's their like bat cave right yeah yeah what does it look like is it a castle is it just a big cave well they're the normies right

like we're the supernatural folks so it's probably very builder builder basic like very prototypical castle number five yeah let's go like a castle fortress you know for now as the idea what's in there what is it you guys are going in there for i like the idea of a friend i think that's motivating i think we could risk our lives for that yeah maybe like an innocent like we got a little freak my first thought is freak baby freak pat so someone who did not deserve to be in the middle of this but oh you know what maybe it was like We befriended someone on their side, and they think they're protecting them. But that's actually our buddy, you know, sort of like, you know, they showed us kindness.

But the heroes are convinced that we're like, oh, you can't be trusted around them, you know. It kind of reminds me a little bit of the Northman. Did you ever see the Northman? And what happens is that his whole life, he wants to get revenge for his father. being killed by this guy that takes over their tribe and he goes to save his mother and his mother is like leave me alone I've started a whole new life this kind of thing and so maybe it's a little bit of a flip on that where the heroes have saved somebody but they secretly want to go back with you yeah so is this a princess

is this a something more different than that I like the like the the classic trope of the kids don't hate the monster, the parents do, like hate is learned sort of thing. So, you know, maybe it's in that line of like an innocent kid, child, teenager. Okay, we'll say kid, teenager is who has been saved. Why were they with you in the first place? Like, they just liked you guys, even though you were, you know, they're in tune with us. They can, like, connect with us in some way that the others can't. They're on our wavelength.

Maybe they're psychic. Yeah, they can pick up on the weirdness, and they can get through the static, and it's not a bunch of scary noises. It's music, you know, like they're able to connect with us on a way that other people are afraid to do. That goes back to, like, our X-Men line, too, of, like, they're kind of a mutant, too. Mm-hmm. Almost like the heroes don't understand that this person is going to become you eventually.

They just think they're a regular Joe type of thing. passing yeah right right kid teenager who has psychic abilities or is linked to you all i almost feel like i almost feel like maybe this child you know how like witches will eat children and then make like a like a new witch like almost right wonder if it's like that like the kid is too far gone that you guys did something to them or something like that um and the heroes don't know that or don't understand that. Yeah, like maybe a sense, maybe all of us have the sensitivity to, it's either like we were born this way or there's some sort of other plane or

some sort of force that affects certain people and we are just like me deep in it and the more you engage with it or the more you kind of, I don't know, like look behind the curtain and don't ignore it, the deeper your own powers are supernatural abilities develop and this person like was curious or you know did what they weren't supposed to do maybe behind closed doors and now they're attuned to it in the same way we are I love that okay where are you guys coming from I mean my first thought is like out of the dirt baby like you know I think they ran us out of town thinking that we'd leave and um You know, we went into hiding instead, and this is, you know, we've been hiding out in their sewer system or a barn or, you know, something like that.

We need to crawl out from the mud. I'm picturing full Victorian Gothic, the lightning strikes in our bodies, you know, come out from the ground. Okay. So like, almost like a local graveyard or something, like they thought they finished you. Maybe we've been like, we excavated a grave and made the grave. a lot deeper than it should be and that's been our high down. Okay, so goal is to

infiltrate the hero's layer, find the kid, pull them out. Yeah. What's the name of the kid? Oh, I don't know. Names challenge, first thing that comes to your head. This is

the hardest part of no prep challenge. It's going to have to come up with names that we're going to have to remember across two hours. Because that's what I was thinking to, when we get to the character creation part of this, I'm like, Caleb, please pick a name everyone's going to remember. Please pick a name that everyone in this room is

going to know. I don't know. Any thoughts? I'm trying to think of something symbolic. That's my problem right now. It's got to be something that means something else. It could just be Sally. Yeah, I could just be Sally.

Sally are linked kid. I think that's good for now. But it's spelled S-A-L-E-I. Okay. There. The medieval spelling. Right. Yeah.

Traditional old Norse. Okay. What are you guys thinking about your characters? Supernatural characters in a dungeon crawl. I kind of already have a concept. I don't know if I'm supposed to do that or not. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

I think I'm going to play a character named Pieces, and he's like sort of a Frankenstein insert. He's all stitched together, and his parts can come off, but they grow right back, you know, and he's all staples and stitches and different skin and a big old Hulk, you know. That's awesome. I think then I would be the scientist or inventor of you. Oh, I love that. Who kind of gets their ideas from dreams or like hears voices. Like they're able to tap into otherworldly things and their creativity and all of their like real world.

chaos comes from their supernatural connections to other things. I love that. So you're not my first creation, but you're probably the one that's been alive the longest. Oh, yeah. I'll take it. Too alive. It keeps coming back, won't die. I'm immediately, go ahead.

Go ahead. Oh, man, this is Sergio and I's story for the end of time. We've been doing this for five years now. I like the idea of like you being like the professor X that can tap into the energy that makes us and draws that connection. And maybe you're the one that made the discussion with that initial child

because you realized there was that connection. I was also thinking that maybe there's a conflict between you and I at the start of like whether this is purely to bring that kid back in or if there's some element of revenge here.

Well, you know, that makes me think of, I think of that scene in Frankenstein where there's a little girl by a lake and the and the monster meets the little girl and you know what I'm talking about and there's yeah there's always been this thing with Frankenstein the monster and like little children and I wonder if yeah like your if pieces doesn't have more of just like a a friendship and this mad scientist is a little bit more like I can use this girl that you know that kind of discrepancy yeah totally agree interesting did you have to use that I'm just I'm just I'm interested in it Yeah, I'm trying to think if I'm like a fundamentally good guy. I wonder, maybe I used to be an artist and like I was like a traditional painter and all of these ideas came out through like very traditional means of expression. And then like as the years continued, I just got a little bit weirder and weirder and started building things or, you know, stretching the limits of what people accepted.

So maybe I had a little lost in my work at this point. Like, I don't think I started out, like, with revenge intentions, but I think maybe I'm a little lost. You have, like, creators block. Yeah. How can I top pieces? Yeah. There you go.

I love that. I'm thinking three heroes, you know, just a classic, like, three. three-person party that defeated you and, um, uh, we'll say a wizard, a fighter and a, uh, a bard. Yeah. And I'm, I'm thinking very archetypical, um, like almost annoyingly so, like the golden-haired night, you know, exactly who you'd imagine in an adventuring party, um, but drawn to like, almost like negative versions of the archetype they're so far into it of like god this guy's fucking annoying like um like if anyone actually had to meet a d and d party in real life

you know the rogue is the roguiest rogue that ever you know existed things like that it's plato's pure form of rogue exactly yeah yeah like you know you meet the wizard like that's a fucking nerd right there Why is no one shoving you in law? Right, right, right. I'm going to name the bard, Bruinor, who is a dwarf. Okay. I'm going to name the wizard Lana.

I'm going to start viciously writing these down. Bruinor. Bruinor the Bard, Lana the Wizard, and we'll say Luthor the Fighter. Classic blonde. Is there anything we need to talk about in terms of the way a classic castle works, right? You've got the main typical entrance. I assume there'll be a drawbridge. There's going to be a dungeon level, a moat.

There's like the main area that you can walk around in where there's halls and rooms. And then, you know, maybe the, what are they called that are around the castle that are like, not pit? not pulpits. The ramparts. Yeah, the ramparts. You know. But I'm imagining a lot of traps in this. Yes.

Because I think they're ready. Right. Every good adventuring crew has to be. And they've made themselves, you know, they fancy themselves supernatural hunters. They're ready for the hunt comes back on them. We've rallied popular opinion also. So there's been a lot of taxation related to this lately. and they've fortified their defenses using people's investments.

They've got a very corrupted mayor on their side. I imagine like little hamlets of villagers who, oh, you saved us from the Batman, you know, whatever it is. And they, you know, live in the, under the careful shadow of the castle. Right. I was also thinking it might be interesting if there's some sort of like strange weather event going on. like a supernatural storm. Interesting.

Oh, yeah. Something that is like only at this time of year on this specific day. Yeah. Like the veil is thinnest. Yes. Yeah. Like a laylines breaking open or something like that. So is it important that we get Sally to us at this time for that reason?

Like is she critical to our. our continued connection to the supernatural power. I think that could be a motivation for you wanting more with her. Even if you wanted it to be less of like a villain route and more of a good route or whatever you wanted, I think Pisa sees it as just bringing the girl back and you see it as this is vital to everything that we are. Yeah. Because maybe she has some sort of connection. This could maybe attack onto the creator's block thing, too.

Maybe she has some sort of connection to this thing you've never seen before. Yeah, there's a prophecy element almost to it. Yeah. We need her and the heroes need her as well to kind of like delay the prophecy or to keep it from happening, that kind of thing. Yeah. It could be that all of our supernatural abilities on this day will be cut off to us if the prophecy is not realized or understood or acted upon.

They're going to close a door. And maybe if we wanted to, because it seems like a thing we're going with is like, oh, the heroes aren't always the heroes, you know? It could be that they're about to shut a door that they don't understand. And they're going to do it with like extreme measures. Maybe the heroes are like, the people don't know, but you have to kill Sally. And we're going to do it, you know? Okay.

To save the world, we'll kill a little girl. Yep. Gotcha. Yeah, so it's almost like we're expecting you guys to do the ritual sacrifice, but really it's them that's doing it. Mm-hmm. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about characters. Maybe we can start actually doing it.

Let me pull up here. So the first thing that you want to do is to choose a hero path, or you can choose two, boons. The hero path for pieces might be a little harder, but maybe not. Maybe you can actually just choose something obvious, like a fighter or a barbarian type of setup. Those are on pages 21 through 29. You guys, I think, should have access to it. If not, let me know.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Yeah, pieces might be. I could just go with the basic brute. Yeah. And that would dial them down. But give me a second. Let me look at this and see if I want to get funky. What are you thinking, Alison, for this mad scientist?

I'm almost thinking of re-skinned the Beastmaster. Okay. And instead of beasts, maybe, like, other supernatural phenomena or folks. Other homunculi that you've cobbled together. Mm-hmm. Like that. Okay. So we'll choose a hero path. Unless you want to be some other kind of species, we'll just kind of default to human because it will allow you to choose three inclinations.

for the brute you're going to be getting in rage you can sacrifice one of your own strikes to inflict an extra strike on a combat hit something important that we need to talk about is what this is going to look like without discussing the mechanics So, Caleb, if you choose the brute route,

you can sacrifice one of your own strikes to inflict an extra strike on a combat hit. I think maybe... That's like pulling off an arm. Yeah, and basically, I think you need to telegraph that you are injuring yourself in the process or allowing yourself to be injured in the process. Yeah, I think I'm just going to go with the brute

to start off with, just because I don't want to go rooting around. in this and slow us down. I think rage makes a lot of sense for pieces, and then superstitious does as well, which that's my bane, right? No, that's actually... It's a second boon. It's a boon to resist any magic,

so you're basically going to roll 2D6 when you are... I think that makes a lot of sense for him. He's undying, you know? And so he can't be affected by things like that. And then you also have a boon to melee and strength attacks.

So keep that in mind You have light armor So you save against wounds on a six So if you if I attack you You are going to roll an opposing D6 If you roll a six You're not going to take that strike of damage Okay

And then I have five strikes So I can be hit five times before You're a little tougher, right All right Beast Master You have three strikes Medium armor So like we said off

Off stream 5 plus for you Allison you have boons to melee or ranged weapons and beast empathy which in this case will say it's more like homunculus or like you know mechanical yeah almost like an artificer or something but weirder yes beast speech you can speak to any animal what does that look like is that I guess so do you think I have a bunch of these things

in like a bag or a cart or just some sort of apparatus that I push along with me and I'm always searching for the one that I want to use and I kind of have them at the ready. I think you answered your own question. Wonderful. That's great. Okay, so there's probably then, yeah, very, I would say,

I would love to roll to see how useful they are. Like, I'm sure I've made a bunch of weird things and some of them are great, obviously not as great as pieces, but some of them are helpful and some of them are just, completely potentially detrimental or random um so i'd like to maybe just yeah just remember basically when you're going to use one of them it's going to work but yeah you will roll to see its success yeah i kind of want to roll to see if it's like kind of the the nature that it starts out with like um if it could potentially like blow up or if it has anything

about it that could be detrimental um i like i like the randomness of not really knowing what i'm doing if we want to make it um a little more dangerous like a gamble um they could inflict baines or boons oh that's great advantage disadvantage like flip of a coin heads it gives advantage tails it gives disadvantage on the roll so what does that look like then you roll a d6 first to determine whether it's even helpful or i think I think so. You'll be rolling one D6 to determine what it even does and then another D6 to see if it succeeds. Um, yes.

Maybe too many rolls. It might be a D6. What if it was just a coin toss at the beginning? A D2 to decide whether it's helpful or hurtful. Helpful it's a bane. Hurtful it's a, I'm sorry, helpful it's a boon. Yes. Hurtful it's a bane.

Well, if you roll a one, you're going to be rolling with a boon. If you roll a two, you're going to be rolling with a bane. you're going to be rolling with a bait. That sounds great. And then I can describe the nature of it and see if it's friend or foe. But regardless, I'll still be using it, and it will be my computer.

Yeah, because it could fucking hate you, but be helpful in the situation. Right. Yeah, because that's what Beast Friend is. It stays as long as it's well treated and protected. And I love all of my creations, regardless of how they feel about me. So, yeah, it should be able to hang around.

and do whatever it's going to do. It'll just be harder or more difficult to do it if it has a bane on it. And just remember in your descriptions of things, a medium size has two strikes, a small thing has one strike. So remind us while you're describing it, how big it is, and then you have to keep track of, okay, it just got hit. It's probably dead or not dead or whatever.

Okay, great. And I decide if it's medium or small? Yes. Awesome. Okay. I think we've got our characters. Let's choose our inclinations. You guys should have the PDF for that.

You can choose any three. There's a whole bunch to kind of further define your characters, and you can also modify them if you really want to, or come up with your own. Yeah, give me one second of five. Yeah, yeah. this is me scrambling for the book i just had it page 31 31 could you hit me with the book yeah sorry that's okay give me a second while i pull that up

there is also the inclinations PDF that was in that folder sent to you guys that should also have having trouble finding it in there oh found it found it sorry I have it we're good yeah okay don't even worry about it I got it it was in the fucking 60 tabs I have open right now. Sorry.

Okay. So you said two or three for you get to choose three. Okay. Well, that makes it easier because I was between two of them. I get to take them both. Yeah. What were you leaning towards? I think it would be funny to be both slippery and cat-like.

I just kind of slip out of a grapple, and then if I'm pushed over, I'm, I land on my feet. I picture him, his name is Digby, by the way. Digby. I picture him like a wiry, kind of toussel-haired, mad professor archetype, kind of bulging eyes and very, like, Doc from that movie from the 80s. Back to the future. Thank you. Now the description of slippery is interesting.

You can roll to escape any bad situation on a 4 plus. That I get. Although you cannot escape a combat hit, you can roll to escape a grapple. This role takes no action. Are they referring to the grapple? So anytime slippery comes into play, it doesn't require an action, I think, is what they're saying.

I see, so it's not burning your action to do it. Yeah. You can fight and use slippery on the same turn. Okay. So when I see you roll a die, if you're in a situation where I've grappled you or tackled you or something, and I see a four plus, you obviously are going to be able to get out of it. Mm-hmm. I think so, yeah. Maybe try to describe trying to get out of it and then roll, and then I know that it's kind of being initiated.

Can do. And then you said sneaky you're also going to take? A cat like. Oh, catlake. Can only ever be knock prone if hit by a crit. Wow. And have a plus four when falling. I am going to take Checkmate, which means I can stop foes before they reach a target

and they can't move away from me until you cannot move away the next round without being punished. If they try to retreat or move away, you get a free attack. It's like an attack of opportunity. And then the second one I'm going to take is sweep. You can melee attack all enemies next to you as your action. I'm going to roll for each target. And then finally I'll take tough bastard when you would take your last strike roll on a 4 plus on a single die. If you succeed, power through and do not take the strike.

I think I'll make pretty easy sense for pieces. Yeah. For my last one, I'll take inspiring. You can share your karma points with anyone you can see. Yeah. Perfect. Cool. Okay, so we just need a third for pieces.

I think I hit three, right? Ted bastard, sweep, and, uh, blah, blah, blah, check me. Okay. Finally, well, close to final, we're going to create two aspects. Now, these are a little bit more like, uh, description. of your character. Some examples are well-known cook, a lover of some renown, fast on your feet,

a collector of trinkets. These are all basically boons as well. So think about things to describe your character. You can choose two of them, and these further allow for boon opportunities. I'm just laughing. I'm applying these examples to my character, and it's amazing to me.

Yeah, these are crazy to consider in this, these two. Yeah. I'm interested in this, devastatingly handsome. bullet. It makes me think maybe back when he was an artist, maybe he started very normie. He was like he was in the court. He was a court painter or something like that. And he was really integrated into the life of the town that he's now cast out of. And he was considered very handsome. He was like a good prospect. And so kind of his quote unquote fall from societal graces was was noted and people might not even recognize him as the same person anymore from age

and also his wiry kind of attitude and his visage has changed as well over the years. So then is he still devastatingly handsome because otherwise it might need to change? I mean, I think so, but I think the people who thought so back then probably wouldn't. He's not conventionally handsome. But he maybe is formerly devastatingly handsome and you can kind of see echoes of that at some point. So now he's like unconventionally handsome. Yeah. He's like a rat boy.

He's a rat boy now. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Mm-hmm. Okay. But I think for me that speaks to his ability to once pass. So maybe that can can come into play.

for him, like something instinctual or some, it's more about the social posture that comes along with, like, being part of the crew and, like, looking like you're part of the crew. Yeah. And I think that means that Digby can get away in rooms where pieces can't be in. Like,

Digby could walk into the bar and talk to someone, pieces walks in, and, oh, my God, what the fuck is that everybody run? Right. I went with two. I have undying. In context of this, I don't mean like, oh, I can never die. Don't kill me, DM.

I mean more so that like Pieces is capable of doing things that would kill a traditional human being and coming out okay, you know, you know, knife through the hand and he doesn't feel it, you know, things, you know, Frankenstein tropes. And then the second was friend to the innocent. I think that there's like we were talking about that sort of natural inclination of this gentle, who, when the social tethers are removed from the situation, people who don't really see him for what he is are drawn to him. Okay. I have no idea how that's going to work out in game, but that's what I got. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what's interesting is how do these apply in the game, but they may become relevant as we as we continue on. Can we take two? Yes, you can have two. I think I'd also like ambitious in that case. Okay, I think that's very appropriate. Yeah. He pursued his kind of connections to this otherworldly power and didn't really care about the consequences, just wants to keep going.

We are going to pick our equipment next. They are on page 40 to 41, but if you want to just come up with stuff, you're welcome to, typically you want to choose four common things and two specialty things, for common being a torch, a rope, a, you know, a canteen, specialty being like, you know, something a little bit more inclined for your hero path. Right. Special kind of weapon or something like that. one second to pull this up

is this up is this one of the sheets it is not on it is not one of the sheets I may not have remember to send this to you but we're talking about things like a pole a knife a backpack

a small hammer a crowbar a chisel. So, you know, think of the typical fantasy type tropes. Specialty gear would be a little bit more like poison antidote, a certain kind of professional tool.

Incense, a card deck, makeup. Would it be too much to say I have a few vials of substance that could amplify supernatural ability or cut it off entirely, but they're like

one dose, like just make it one of your specialty, you know, like you have a, what is it called, like an alchemical you know, kind of bag of tricks. I think that's totally fine. Okay. I have one of each.

Could you remind me how many items we get? You have four common items, two specialty items. Got it. got my normals so far my comments i'm just working on my specials call them out so i know what the i've got a crowbar i've got a bomb i've got a torch and i've got a rope i'm a very simple human being yeah makes sense I'll take a torch as well. Don't want to be caught in the dark in there.

A magnifying glass. I'll work on the other two normals. I'm going to count those vials as my specialty. For my first For my first specialty, I'm going to go with my own glass eye. and it points in the direction of Sally at all times. Oh, okay, cool. Okay.

As you say that, would you be open to pieces having things about him that I definitely did not create? Like, I may have started your process of being, you know, existing, but I definitely do not understand half the things you can do like it's almost like the supernatural ability took you beyond what i i love that and so and that way that you have all that agency like what i don't want is for my character to be like i know everything about you i made you like i don't i'm not really interested in that but it's more like uh you came out of the chaos of my brain and then i have no idea what happened after after that right it sort of took on a life of its own i love that yeah i think that totally works for me awesome and i'm thinking maybe i just was thinking about this as I was coming up with it. Maybe they used to be colleagues. I think that was

like pieces when he was a person before he died. They were colleagues. And then now he's, you know, completely different in the aftermath of bringing him back to life. Do I know you're a real name? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Absolutely. I have no idea what it is, but you definitely know. Okay. Good. Okay. Okay. What's my last special? Oh, you know what? I want it to be connected to the fuckheads. Okay.

Which one, though? all right i feel ready okay i got some ideas my second special item which pieces cannot use but he does have in the last fight between these these two groups of people he stole lana's grimoire which she would love to have back so you have it with you i have it with me i don't know what the fuck it does but I do keep it and I'm sure she wants it okay uh last two regulars for me a slingshot and a portrait of me and my colleague before his transformation that we had done at the office that's lovely love it okay um any other things that we should go over before we jump into it I'm feeling pretty ready I feel ready okay

lightning cracks the sky black with clouds over an old rotting cemetery the sky the dark clouds move in a kind of circular vortex unnatural Another lightning strike hits the ground near one of the gravestones. I pierce my hand up through the grave dirt. Big, monstrous and gray as discolored as ever and pad across from the soil that keeps me from the surface. With the cracking of that lightning, I know exactly what tonight is, and I make a path for both of us as I scrape my fingernails across new blackened dirt and come out muddier than I already am, drenched in the rainwater that is coming down from this new vortexing purple black storm that ensorcells over our graves. As I climb myself up to full form, I am gray and green and modeled black in places where disease is taken over. There are staples and stitches and breaks and full open wounds. The face of a man that used to be there has now been padded together with brand new pieces, denoting everything that I used to be in

everything I am now, a hodgepodge of at least 50 different repairs across 60 different corpses to create one man. And as I stand to full effect, it's near to seven feet, long trench coat that I keep close to my body that is hiding the exposed torso underneath where you can see through almost like a peeking window into the open ribs of my body. But I reach down and I give a hand to assist my most patient master and allow him to the surface. Thank you. Thank you, thank you there, darling. Thank you. You hear Digby's voice say as I kind of with the dirt that has been brushed back from this appearance, kind of tossle it out. of my own hair. I'm a slight hunched older man with age spots visible on my forehead

and dark wrinkles that are lit up with the backlight of the lightning. And I take the hand unafraid with practice and familiarity as I reach behind me and grab a bunch of bags and backpacks and bandoliers and things that have been strung together with care to kind of lift up in one fell swoop but they're heavy and they clank and some of them make small noises like animals or screaming as i move them upwards uh towards the surface as well um kind of in a uh almost like uh blankets tied together um that kind of emerge uh one after the other until the smallest one at the end is just a small teddy bear that kind of squeaks along the ground one eye popping out. And I am on my knees kind of wheezing with the effort. Thank you, darling. There is much to prepare. You must rise.

I pick them up by the arms and I get them standing. Oh, I dust off my coat. At one point, it looks to have been a lab coat, perhaps. but now it is the color of mud and dried blood and all sorts of layers of earth colors that have obscured it completely. A murder of crows above you on an old leafless tree explode out from the branch, cawing and screeching,

flying towards a massive vortex in the sky that is clearly just under, a gray, wet castle in the distance. There's our quarry, I suppose. You have your eye on her, I suppose. Master, the eye always watches. And he looks straight to Digby. And from that empty socket, inside is the,

like, roiling green dead meat of the inside of his brains, completely empty, but he reaches into his lapel pocket and pulls out that glassy, rotating eye, and the green iris in the center mismatched from the one that's actually in his head, points sheer in the direction of that castle. She waits for us, master, at the top. At the top, you say, and he looks. down at his knees. Oh, right then. I'm sure I have something in here that can help me. Glances at the bag. Something in there can help these old knees.

I will carry you as always. And I picked Digby up by the half and sort of fireman's carry, toss him over my shoulder and begin to start prepping over big stumps into the mud as I leave this fucking cavalcade of strangely. little men behind me, and I'm going to start moving towards the road if you're okay with that, Digby. That sounds great. Digby pat's your head from behind, so it's an awkward arm movement. But you see his old withered hand kind of pat your head lovingly, and he's holding his

bags behind you so that they are trailing behind you, like tin cans on a car after our wedding, clanking and making all sorts of strange noises. As your palm comes free, you do have, like, new. two big matted pieces of pieces hair in your palm now he affixes them to his own head covering up a bald patch the road is just as muddy as the graveyard but it leads ever closer to the castle just ahead after a few minutes of walking a small homelet four or five humble straw, clay homes. The darkness seemingly scared anyone into their homes, no sign of anyone alive. I think pieces has this like natural inclination. I pick my head into the windows, almost invadingly so.

are they he's looking at the construction of them is it an open window that he can see through he's trying to get perspective into these open homes and see if anyone is alive inside a single double slatted window without any perspective inside he does knock his big fat fists on the side maybe it's the dying uh brain matter inside the remembering old behaviors but he checks for life and if hearing none he just grumbles from the other side oh and then begins to move back on towards the main road um he looked for any sign of life in the hamlet roll okay a six as you stumble and and kind of trod your way

through this homlet looking at the different homes a single pair of glowing eyes with something silver glistening a crossbow of some kind just held there trembling slowly you know following you as you walk i repositioned to meet the eyes with my singular one and i take one big fat finger still holding on to dig me with my other hand and i i bring it to my lips careful monsters walk these roads and i begin to trod

in the direction of those eyes, clearly without intent to hurt. Innocent, but how innocent can something that looks like this be? The sound of a peasant sighing in relief inside that homelet home. Master. Yes, darling. Is something going on up there? Kind of like lifts his head,

but his head is dangling down near your backside, and so he can't really see much. When we arrive at the gates to this hollowed prison of humanity, what shall we do within its walls? These are very good questions. I believe that tonight must be the night we find her. We've been searching and searching.

but have run out of time. We must find her and get her away from these who would close the door on all of our possibility, on you, on me, on every future creature I could create, on everything strange and beautiful in this world. We must find her. Those men in there, no more humans than beast, more monster than ourselves. Do we keep them? them? Or do they breathe past our being? I am not to decide these questions, darling. But you do what you must. You always do. I believe you do the right thing for yourself, for us. Me, you know I let them breathe. I have not the strength to do otherwise.

I would do anything to bring Miss Sally safe. Me too. Everything will be gone without her. The road slowly inclines heading towards the castle. Still a stretch to get there when there are placed every dozen feet pikes with the bodies

of allies, friends, former colleagues slain by the heroes left out to rot and to be eaten by the crows as a reminder of what happens when you cross them leading all the way towards the castle.

I think peace. roams up to one of them, you know, body on spike and takes his big gauntleted hands, picks up the spike itself, removes it, and brings it down closer so that the spike is it's brought back down into the soil, brings the body on it closer to the two of them. so it meets almost to the eye line of pieces in Digby. And while I look in, it is this sort of bansheed woman white and clear, clear, almost teal, tinged hair that has been drenched in with mud and has been waiting for some time.

Her body is just starting the levels of decomposition, pieces almost, wistfully takes one of those big hands and pets along the left side of her face and smooth hair back behind her ears and looks to Digby almost in process of this confusion and for a spark in that one good eye rage but looks to his master and then back to the the dead friend Maybe wiggles his way off of you like a kid getting off of playground equipment just kind of clambers down and it's not graceful but he lands in the dirt and kind of takes in the sight of you looking into the eyes of this other creature and wordlessly touches your elbow or the mass of joints that sort of forms that part of your body and gives you a pass. like a loving pat and hangs his head too many lives lost they don't understand they don't understand us a voice far distant echoing begins to slide into your your auditory hearing Avengers

the familiar voice of this banshee woman you once called a friend avoid a frontal assault or

suffer my fate pieces grips the head and just sort of presses his forehead against hers. Unfortunately, the sheer strength of him sort of collisions and cracks the forehead, but he does give it as a motion. There is a final gift from this our dear friend. We owe it to her master. Digby's quill is moving frantically over his parchment as he's writing down this word. of wisdom and a bit of blood or residue from the forehead crack that you've just doled out,

kind of splatters onto the paper, and he's licks it, licks the quill and licks it up. Yes, a final gift. Well, if not the front, then that leaves one place, the back, or the sides, or the upside down. He goes back to his house. Yes, master, one place, up, down. left or right. What about below? You can see he's drawing a small replica of the castle and just putting arrows everywhere, using the blood to kind of denote different paths. Master, we have come from the earth. It is only right to the earth we should return.

I agree. It is the safest place. Less eyes prying, less judgments cast and aspersions at us. And I'm not going to lie, I do enjoy the earthworm's company. Yes, master, I have often seen you eating of them. They're delicious. Yes. Master, I believe we should take the moat. And he points in clear direction to the circling, the water system that ends below. Your breathing will be of issue.

But should you survive, we will make it through their systems. It's good to be prepared. One moment, he opens up one of his bags. It's kind of like a doctor's bag that opens in the middle with metal clasps, and it has straps that have been keeping it closed, and begins to like pull things out. It's almost a comical stack of handkerchiefs and forceps and clattering vials and all sorts of small mundane items until he pulls out what appears to be a fish that has been put inside an old mason jar.

And there doesn't appear to be any liquid in the jar that would be keeping it alive. but yet it moves with the same grace that fish do in aquariums. And he holds it up to his face and he's like, you'll help me, I think. And he tries to remember like how to activate the power of this strange supernatural creature that he has created to help him breathe underwater. it uh it kind of strangely twists and turns inside the jar even though there's no obvious water it's mouth a gap kind of it's unblinking eye staring at you

a simple cork on the top hmm uh uh I mean, this is one of my beast friends. Roll 1D2. Okay. Oh. Two. Roll 1D6.

six it's it's a guppy from a strange land that you know when consumed allows you to breathe as it does underwater

he takes a look at the moat takes a look at all his bags says I hope most of these float and then he's going to open the jar and slide the fish down hole without crunching, biting anything, just gulp it down and feel it wriggling all the way down. And as he does, he does a little wriggle as well. Just like the earthworms.

Delicious. Master, you are full of whimsy, of life, of beating heart. And pieces sort of like runs a hand over that wiggling portion where his heart would be. It is of no matter the bags. And like a good doorman, pieces, picks up everything. And he strings what he can around his neck

and the rest he ties about himself. I will ensure their care. Oh, darling, thank you. You're so kind. I know that you've helped so many of our fallen friends in the past as well. He says, gesturing sadly to the fallen form, of folks that they had traveled with and broken bread with or split earthworms with

on occasion and looks at them with sadness but tenderness and looks at you and says it's your kindness that that will make them see surely they can see past what the outside looks like Like, surely. Keep that heart. Not this one. Yours. The one you have. The two you have. I will keep your heart in your chest where it belongs. Thank you, darling. Thank you. I promise. Thank you. I have a question, master. Supreme importance.

And he turns again to that Bansheed woman and holds her face. face. Can you not make of her what you did of me? It's a good question. You pieces were working with me when we created you. You are part of the reason you exist. Your genius and mine together as well as I have known of nothing from before this. I know. That's part of the problem. I can't make another pieces without pieces. No, I cannot. But I still receive the influence of the supernatural world. I know with Sally's presence, we can enhance it. I know that with her involvement, with the door wedged firmly open. I know that we can do such things like this again.

But right now, he says, kind of scratching his head. And he's like standing amidst the fallen, the dead is like with kind of a lot of tenderness. Like every time his eye catches one of the dead staring eyes of his fallen friends, he looks away and kind of focuses on pieces instead. But now, no, just small. Parlor tricks, survival.

things fish for now you think with miss sally i could think again if that is what you wish darling will of course make it happen i do think she has the power that we need to make things better bigger brighter to make them see she is a good girl yes okay and then Pieces reaches out to sort of pick Digby up again and he looks to you almost like with a consenting nod like are you ready behind that one milkyed eye as it's clear that Pieces has decided this conversation is a satisfactory. Digby has the familiar look of someone who's used to either the end of an abrupt end of a conversation or someone who's done them himself. And so he is not phased by this. And as you move to pick him up, he sticks both his arms directly in the air like a small

child that is waiting for a parent and says not a word, just stands there. I think with like an Olympic level pieces picks up Digby one-handed and goes for like a javelin toss into the moat. and then we'll attempt to follow through almost right on the heels of leaping into the water past those spikes, being careful not to throw his master directly into a wall or break every old bone in Digby's body. The water, dark and murky surrounding this fortress,

this castle the heroes have built, splashes with the cannonball throw of Digby disappearing behind the dark water. Digby, your vision heavily clouded by the water inside. A few ugly looking fish quickly swimming away at the moment you pierce the top layer of water. He takes a large, deep diaphragmatic breath

as he is underwater to test his fish. Strangely, the water feels like air flowing through you, and before you know it, there's no issue whatsoever. It's now just a matter of time. Roll. Six. Roll again to confirm a crit. Five.

Digby, swimming towards the stone wall, a clear circular sewer grating is visible under the stone wall. water line clogged with algae, but clearly a way in or out. Digby will take note of this and then surface as quickly as possible, assuming that pieces is still following behind, and his head breaks the water. And you can just see the large eyes kind of, widening even wider than normal, like saucers, kind of almost animal-like in his search for pieces on the shore,

and he will poke a hand out of the water in motion downwards. And then underneath the water, say, it looks wonderful, darling, but he's just all bubbles. I can perceive two archers on the parapets, begin screaming, there's someone getting in the water and two arrows land at near your feet pieces. Oh, okay. I am going to try and join into the moat as well in sort of like a running leap and pencil dive, drop like a coffin to avoid the arrows and land relatively close to where I had heard that voice from Digby. As your eyes adjust, the occasional arrow will whiff underwater, missing the two of you as long as you stay under, but the sewer grate is clear ahead of you.

I'm looking at the sewer grate. I'm wondering if it's blocked by any amount of steel, or I'm hoping in the clear blurred, or I'm sorry, in the blurred, murkied water that I can pick out whether the past. the path is clear for us or whether there's obstacle. A rusted sewer grate made of some kind of metal is your only obstruction. I'm going to swim down big powerful breaststrokes every so often looking back to find my guppy to ensure that he's still okay. And then as I arrive, I'm going to take those big mitts,

those two miscolored hands looking as if they belong to two different bodies. And the one larger right arm of asymmetrical growth compared to the other is going to grip in and then the left. And once I find correct purchase, the shoulders of pieces will dislocate, break, and then somehow grow even larger as he deadlifts and breaks or attempts to break that great to make way for them. effortless eventually the rusted metal cracks and then snaps away and you are floating just a few inches away from a big black gaping hole that leads deep into the fortress he takes a piece of the rusted iron and plucks it into his mouth like jerky and begins gnawing at it as one half of the only teeth that work in his mouth begin to chew and with the other hand reaches back

to attempt to assist his master down the path before he moves. Digby does a butterfly stroke, his legs, and arms kind of moving out in equal cadence, not getting very far until you grab him. And then he's yanked forward and he says, delightful darling, well done. And come with us, if you will, he says, gesturing to some of the fish that we're looking at him earlier. The path forward is dark. and murky almost immediately you are unable to see ahead of you walls slicked with with rot and moss little bits of algae and seaweed growing at the bottom of this circular tunnel a very faint purple light seems up ahead as as the as the pathway curves up Well, we haven't gone in the front, but we are inside, and we no longer have Intel.

We should be careful. Those errors almost hit you, and it pains me to see you in pain. I do not feel pain. Bubbles and muffled sounds as the two of you. attempt to communicate underwater. Realizing that communication is not falling out. I do see the empathetic views on Digby's face and I just, I try and push us further to get to the end here. I'm trying to go forward.

As he's pushing, Digby is undeterred and continues having a full conversation with no real discernible sound coming out of his mouth. Pieces will be very polite to nod at each. He's a very active listener. He's trying to keep us moving. The water tension is broken as your flat gray head breaks the surface into a chamber, dark, almost cave-like, a short opening, a kind of landing where, dirt, dark dirt, and sconces

hang on the walls with this kind of purple magical light emitting from them. I try to think if I have seen this type of magic in our previous encounters with these heroes. Is it threatening? Definitely, Lana's wizard light. Okay. Enchantments. Oh, I do not like that woman, oh, she creates without tapping into the...

Oh, he swims up a little bit and gets his head above water. Oh, that's better. Anyway, let's be careful. She's near. You know the one. The one that does not use the supernatural gifts we've been given, the one that weaves magic out of nothing. She speaks in riddles and believes herself to know the world.

better than the world. And he reaches in and pulls out that book. But this does not teach you what I am. Oh, did you take that from her? Yes, I have removed from her her curse as she would do to me. Oh, how lovely. I mean, I would love to read it. Do you think we have time for me to start the first chapter?

No. Oh, very well. I think Pieces moves over the wall and tries to pull off one of those purple torches, like clean from the wall, even out of the seating of the stone to see if he can use it for light for both of them. A basic brazier is easily removed. The light revealing the second half of this room, cavernous, 10, 15 feet in the air, the sound of dripping, echoing, a chasm in the other half, deep somehow underground, a door at the other end, the only way to it, a rickety bridge about 10 feet in length.

at the top of the door on the opposite end a stone gargoyle kind of both hands and feet gripping the top of the door its eyes closed hmm and digby will crawl out of the moat

bedraggled and wet his hair pasted to his face and longer than it looks when it's dry It's kind of always looking like an electric current is running through it. Now it's kind of just matted to his chin, thin and straggly, like a gollum look. And he begins to wring out his robes and takes a look at this bridge on the gargoyle, assessing the danger that they might be in, and looks back to pieces.

Well, briefly settles looking at the book first, kind of longingly. meets pieces this gaze and says I don't think that's a friendly door I'll see if I can rustle up something to send ahead of us to see what happens but I worry that if it blows up or does something violent then there goes the bridge hmm hmm okay I I think that Pieces looks over, and he almost looks longingly at the gargoyle. And there's like a sense of confusion on him on what exactly denotes it as unfriendly. But he cocks his head.

And then looks down at the book, it's clear there's guilt across what little of his face can move. And he extends it out to Digby. You may look if you must While the others die for us No, no, no, no Maybe, no, no, no, no Later, there's time for that later Darling, thank you, I appreciate it very much

He kind of like touches the edge of the book Longingly, just like the light spine And his fingers brush it as he pulls his hands back No, no, no, no, must focus then you must send your friends to death and he points at the little cavalcade behind us and takes off some of those bags that he had draped in and starts rifling through

and I think that pieces starts to like show Digby possible picks he's like a rabbit with a bomb strapped to it oh that's a nice one but no no we must keep the bridge He goes back in, pulls out like a snail with wheels attached to the bottom. I like that one. That one's funny. Sure, let's try that one.

Is it big enough? He kind of takes the snail and like stretches the lap, like the little tail part as though he's inflating it to see if it can get any bigger. Nope, this is as big as it gets. All right, it'll have to do. I'm going to see if it can make it across without getting messed with by that gargoyle. It looks suspicious to me. It's just, there's usually many of them. There's only one, I don't understand.

Perhaps he does not make friends easy. Oh, darling, you're right. Oh, we'll have to find his companions if he doesn't kill us first. Perhaps you can give him the gift you gave me when all of this is over. I would love to. With Sally's power, we could animate this whole castle, every gargoyle dancing and raising the bodies of our fallen friends in tribute and giving them the send-off they deserve, not the terrible state they were left in. Oh, yes, I love it. What will you do to the snail, master, to ensure its safety across the bridge? It's a good question, darling. It might die. Let me see what I have in my bag.

He looks in his bag and pulls out with a vial that enhances supernatural powers and uncorks it. It's a small little vial. so carefully tries to dab just a little bit on the head of the snail, anointing it with this enhancement of its abilities. That should do it. It grows three times larger now, almost the size of a dog. Oh, perfect. Perfect, perfect. Well, at the very least, if we lose some pieces, it will have more. As you know, very well, my darling. Pieces. This is my name. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Digby waits until he's done laughing. Yes, quite, quite. He will walk to the edge of the bridge with the dog's-sized snail on wheels. The moment you walk up to the edge of the bridge, the eyes of this closed gargoy open, red, staring. On you go, darling. he says to the creature. The snail begins. It's slow, but because it's larger,

relatively quicker than the average movement. At about halfway to the center of the bridge, the eyes light up even brighter. Precise red beams of energy, shoot at the snail, bisecting it. And then the light goes away, and then the snail splits in half and just falls off either side of the bridge. And the eyes close again.

I'm sure he'll be fine. He's got a lot of power. There might be two of him now. It's a celebration. Really, darling. Yeah, pieces. Well, that's a that's a, that's a, that's a. problem? I think pieces is trying to discern where the lasers originated from. And I think he's drawing a conclusion between those big red piercing eyes and the gargoyle and where the snail was bisected. And so he looks to Digby and he says, I believe he is alone for negative behavior. this one is a miscreant and he walks over big hulking and he grips the the gargoyle at the neck and the head trying to keep his face clear from the eyes themselves and tries to break it clean in half roll armor it's not good oh no sorry don't look at that no

the eyes open as you begin to cross the bridge the gargoy being on the opposite side the top of the door you want to cross it's red immediately fires at you blowing a hole through your chest one strike yeah uh i fall back and immediately there is a clear massive hole in the center of pieces where you could see digby through on the other side. And he weaves back into a point away from the duration of the laser to avoid being hit again. And then you can see there's visible confusion from pieces looking up to where he thought in his depth perception from his one milky bad eye, the gargoyle was,

and then realizing the clear distance on the other side. And looking back to Digby, he's almost embarrassed. I seem to have miscalculated location. Oh, darling. Does it hurt? Oh, dear. So hold still. Come here, come here. Oh, you saw the snail, darling. You saw the snail. One moment. I thought it's okay. Don't worry about what I thought. He's like piecing his hand through the hole there and like trying to smooth it back in. Digby will drop to his knees, getting his already dirty robes, even dirtier on the bank of the moat, it's mud, and look into one of his backs for something to stitch, like, I don't know, needle and thread or rope or anything that can be used to kind of mush

this flesh back together. and he okay good I don't know who generates it so yeah he'll pull out like a really thick dark thread and an oversized needle the kind that is used for surgery and it still has dried blood on it and he looks at it licks it and wipes it off on his robe before going up to pieces to assist in the the the he the he adhering of this hole. But before he closes it, he kind of gazes through it to like a telescope and looks at the gargoyle. I think I'm going to have to shoot something at it from here. I don't like

this one. Bad behavior indeed. I think that is right. I tried to do that, but it hurt. Well, you saw. What is it

like, Digby, to see? with two eyes. Oh, darling, it's overrated. The things you see are far more interesting. I've told you this, he says that he bites the thread and finishes closing the hole. There, not as strong as before, as I've smashed your pectoral some, but you can work on it. It will be grown by tomorrow. Shall I throw you at the gargoyle?

Now that's the thought. Let me see what I have in here. He's going to look into his bag to see if he can kind of find a construct or something supernatural that might provide protection as he is made into a projectile hurtling towards the scarcoyle. His intent is to kind of have something reflect the lasers that they've been seen coming out of his eyes. And so he'll kind of look around in the bag.

I very much liked pieces doing so. So he'll offer pieces, the opportunity to rummage as well. Take a look in that one. That's the recent inventions. He clasps open the bag, and he looks through and he pulls out the first one. It's probably, I have no idea, a gun. It's this very large old blunderbuss with a fluted top. there, but it's very clearly like ancient from before even the two of them look that way

and pieces tosses it like it's useless here. And reaches in, we're looking for reflective surfaces. Yeah, I think your hand comes upon like a dinner plate of some sort, like a large platter. that is beautifully painted, hand-painted, actually, with an artist's fine brush. One of master's plates. Yes, from a long time ago. It has no purpose now, darling. It's fine.

Well, let's use that one. Good. No. This one, no. Something else. And pieces puts it back into the bag. No, no. worry not, worry not. This is fine. This is fine. It's, it's old. It's past. Those days back on.

It is, it is no longer mine. He picks it up and looks at it, turning it over in his hand. There's like little floral designs around the edge, like tender little leaves and small blossoms in different colors that were all hand-painted. It's reflective enough. All right, toss me. Okay. Sure. And he very briefly looks and pulls free the sleeve to that big coat he has on and rummages his fingers over the same leaf printings that have been pressed into the side there. But he does do exactly as he's been told. He picks up Digby and like a big rocket will toss him at the gargoyle. Digby takes the plate in front of him, arms outstretched. Could it go wrong? Head tucked and just yells, okay, as he's flying through the air. The gargol's eyes flash open, a red beam shooting at you, Digby, but immediately diverted off into the ceiling, hitting a stalactite, which falls down into the chasm. a moment of victory until you realize you're traveling 30 miles an hour at this gargoyle.

Oh, darling, he manages to squeak out as the... Roll with Bain. two you smack hard into this gargoyle and fall onto the bridge just below it its eyes charging up for a second shot I take the plate and just the two pieces of it

hiding behind it like a shield looking at the gargoyle through the crack as I have none of my bags here so I feel very exposed. Pieces. A second shot fires down, ricocheting off of the plate, a slight adjustment,

and it fires at your feet blowing off one of your toes. Take a strike. Digby, how long? and pain, but the pain, the howl is reflective more of his anger as he yells. My toe! That was my favorite toe! I hope it's intact. Pieces interjects. He grips his wrist, and he yanks as hard as he can until the entire hand comes off. probably the reverse since he's a righty. He takes off his left hand completely ripping at the wrist

and you can see some of the gushier parts of it trailing like a cape. He grips it with his right hand and then bawling it up into a fist with that one hand. He throws his fist as hard as he can at the gargoyle as it's targeted down at Digby hoping to hit it and allow us to continue. with Boone You will take a strike

Okay A four The hand Flies through the air Opens at the last second Covering the eyes of the gargoyle You hear the familiar sound of its eyes closing As he cannot see anything

Hmm Pieces will hurry over, clamoring across the bridge and causing the whole thing to topsy-turvy, like almost causing Digby to dip over the side with how much the draw bridge, the row bridge is sway, swaying. He makes it over and dripping this sort of gout of dark, black, red blood on to Digby. He picks him up with the one hand, sort of swooping him up almost. like a baby, and setting him right on his foot, right on his feet, and then falling down to look at the wound with that one hand. I think very childishly, pieces will try and look for the extra

toe, is the toe on the bridge in his searching as he scrambles across the wood. he finds the toe, picks it up, and tries smashing it back on almost like he would himself to try and write this situation. Digby looks delighted. You found it. Oh, fantastic. No, darling, it won't work that way. Here, put it in my pocket and I'll sew it on later. Master your toe. Oh, I know. My favorite one. You will surely die. You are in the throes of death. Who shall I tell of your passing? Well, if you must know, I mean, I have made so many friends in our journeys. Who?

Why, I think I've written their name somewhere. Oh, but no, we'll read it later. I... Don't recall any friends? The supernatural touched? Those who have helped us in our journeys? You and I only. Oh.

Maybe on this castle, we're very lonely people, you are. Oh, darling, I know. I know we are. But the Banshee, she did not come from nothing. There are others like us, and that is what will be helped by our lovely friend Sally's return. It is true.

We have Sally. We do. Master, have you been making friends without me? Oh, darling, never. Me? He points at himself. His hair has dried and it has poofed out to two times the volume that it was before in full Chiapet style. His wide eyes meet yours.

And he essentially looks like he has just recently stuck his tongue into a socket. I would never. Okay. I just, it's nothing. And he puts it into the lapel of Dick B's jacket there. Thank you. Now that we have covered its eyes, I believe we can move forward, but we should move with caution. Hmm. We should. Yes. A plain wooden door adorned with some metal fittings, including a metallic round knob.

Lies before you. Another trap master. Probably. He drags his. bags over the edge of the rope bridge and begins to kind of saddle some on himself. And yeah, we'll reach into one and grab a large hand of presumably a corpse. And it's on some sort of stick. It's like a puppeteered hand. And he will mash it on the doorknob and say, I'm testing it.

the corpse hand smacks against the door no effect whatsoever in fact with a strong enough push it creaks open slightly you have solved it work you have solved it master you are genius oh well nothing without you pieces I mean this was designed with you in mind

in fact would you like to use it since you Or missing one? Sure. And he takes it with his right hand and begins manipulating the crabber with his right hand. I have such a length. And his useless dead arm on the left, I can reach anything. That is the spirit. That is the kind of power that will be bestowed upon us once this door, this supernatural door,

is wedged open permanently. Think of the possibility, hands upon hands. We'll reach into our future, he says, striding boldly forward through the open door. Reach into our future. He starts walking forward with this newfound reach. The completely normal wooden door swings open to reveal a hallway, 15 feet in length,

a single brazier, of purple magic firelight illuminating the space at the other end another plain looking door the only discernible thing in this room that stands out is

this thin hallway a single tile about five to ten feet ahead of you slightly discolored slightly differently colored than the other tiles on the ground.

I think pieces is not exactly he's so tall and my perception of the room is so different that the tiles are not his first thought and so he takes a few tentative large steps into the room just in pursuit of the door on the other side.

Stepping past the discolored tile presents the truth of the room. A fake tile just past the discolored tile breaks roll. All with Bain. A three. May I, I will spend Karmic to make that a four. The tile breaks made of thin ceramic,

revealing below a pit of spikes. Your mass is so large, though, that as you fall, half of your body, body lands on the other side of this pit trap and you are able to pull yourself away from the hole in the ground. I scramble up my big hands making dents in the stone below as soon as I know it can take the purchase of my, you know, 400 pound body. I scramble up and sitting on the other side almost nonplussed as I'm ledged to my feet over the edge like I'm looking and at a lake and not spikes.

He peers over at Digby with that one good eye. The room is clear, master. Very good. Very good, good finding it. My goodness, this would have hurt me very much. I would have been fine. I know. I know, darling. Now, how to travel there to where you. you are. I'll have to take my day bag. He begins to arrange his belongings, kind of compacting

his most essential items into a rucksick that he has over his shoulder. And he's going to pull out a small, like, modeled, almost gauzy-looking egg sack. And he's going to take a big bite out of it like it's an apple, chew it thoughtfully, and then take a look at all of the small spiders that have begun to emerge. And he's going to dab one more drop of the supernatural enhancement on them and begin to like kind of rub them on him like it's a shampoo. Ah, these will carry me to safety. I'll be right there. Describe it. So as the spiders begin to, uh, all over his body. They're very minuscule. They're, you know, all

hundreds of them fitting inside this egg sack, almost like ants swarming out. And they begin to cover him up. And it's this moving layer of like arachnid undulation all over his body. His eyes peek out from this darkness. And he just kind of like lays down near the edge and allows the spiders

to begin carrying him forward, along the wall, along the sides where the pit was revealed. And he, like, tucks his arms in and has his backpack tight. And he's like, here I come, darling. The pit is cleared by your spider cavalcade and the two of you are on the other side, the door waiting. I think pieces, like, puts out a finger to allow some of the smaller spiders that are still coated over all of this to, like, crawl on to him so that he can have some of the fun, too. or at least keep a few of them. And one crawls to an exposed knuckle

where the sinewy connective tissue in between is completely open and crawls directly into it to make a home out of the center of pieces' palm. That's delightful. I love when you get along. I am the eldest son. It is my response.

responsibility to keep them. And he, like, pads where the spider is now living underneath his skin. This is... This is the journey. This is the road trip that I've been wanting to take with you. This is lovely. Lovely. He looks wistfully back at all of his bags that he's leaving behind.

Well, moving forward. Forward, always forward, upward. Let's find the key to our survival, my darling. And at that moment, the white energy of that glass eye and his lapel begins to grow and glow through the fabric. And he picks it up and out. And it looks as though that green iris eye is looking directly up from where they are now. We grow closer to her. I just hope it's not too late.

those fools they think they know what they're doing they're pretty enough but they don't understand the the real way this world works he says as a spider crawls out of his nose and kind of just drifts along his mustache line Digby

master You can call me Digby I've said this many times darling No that is for another time before me before pieces. Was I pretty? I believe so.

I feel like between the two of us, we were quite eligible, if you remember. I do not. I know only this. And his, like, faces slack on one side, unmoving. Digby reaches up and pats the loose flesh but not to put it into place just to kind of tenderly give you a light touch I believe you're beautiful now personally

I've seen you do so many beautiful things in this world my darling but yes we were we were quite the pair the biggest bachelors in town they call us oh biggest bachelors in town and he puts his hands up. We were beautiful like Luther, the blonde one.

Yes? More beautiful than him, because his beauty is only surface deep, darling. And he picks up one of the shattered pieces of the plate and touches the flower design in much the same way that pieces had done and pockets the small fragment.

We know. You must hurry, master. I feel the storm is soon at an end. You're right. And if we don't get to her in time, those fools will have their way. It will be cut off from our supernatural abilities. And then what will we be?

Uh, nothing. Just us. The same. Always the same. No. onward my darling he begins to kind of scramble forwards I look around and try to see is there a door that there's like a door or like something that could

help us ascend to wear the eye points ahead of you in this hallway of a wooden door similar to the last one you pass through he scrambles forward with intensity the thought of staying the same, of being the same, and of not growing forward, propels him with urgency. And he's almost tripping over himself

as he kind of stumbles forward, grabbing onto the walls and moving as though through a sticky substance or something that keeps him held back, but it's all in his mind as he propels himself towards the door. The door swings open as before, almost inviting you deeper into the labyrinth

immediately you are met with a mural large maybe 20 feet in length 10 feet in height covering the entire wall depicting a great battle

between the supposed heroes and villains your faces familiar depicted the heroes on the left side of the mural, the enemies of the heroes on the right side of the mural.

To your left a passageway, to your right, another passageway, both leading into darkness. Master, we arrive at a fork of which path do we follow.

And he looks at this painting to see if their own selves are represented in it. Your faces depicted as violent, vile monsters resisting the pure energy of the heroes, along with many of the comrades who hang out in the streets. He does take note to make out in the streets. that he and pieces are pictured very close together and then it doesn't look like he's been hanging out with those other people very much the artist has done a terrible job of your rendering looks nothing like you oh my darling am i so big do i look like this he puts his hands over it i don't i don't i don't think this is right it's because they

barely take a look at us when we're fighting they're too busy being covered in their own blood we can't see straight this isn't what we look like i mean look at me he says gesturing to his own portrait where his eyes are basically like glasses on his face i mean i'm not that excited about things am i he says bulging no you are very even keeled ah thank you to my darling well do we choose ourselves as these monsters or do we follow the path of these heroes this is a room built on ego we follow in their footsteps it's the only ones they care for hmm you must be right although i can't leave this uncorrected one moment just one moment this will not take more than one moment.

He reaches into the backpack and pulls out a set of paints and gestures to pieces to see if he wants a brush. Master, you paint again. I keep it on me just, just a trifle. It has been ages, master.

I don't, I don't use it. It's just here. Just don't make a big deal of it. It's just okay. And he steps back and he He sits, like, cross-legged on the floor, like a Shakespeare in the park performance he's about to watch and very eagerly watches Digby go to work. He does have a brush outstretched to you as well, and he says, it is not just for me anymore, my darling. With his one good, I'm sorry, with his one good grabber hand, he attempts to put the,

brush in and then sets that aside and then takes that gnarled, changed, massive hand, the one that is still attached to him and grips the paintbrush, but it sits in his hand. Like, he can't manipulate it the way that you'd want to in this regard. But he does sort of ease up right next to you. And moving it over, like in Assassin's Hold on a dagger, he'll do his best to fix his visage too. Most of it is just trying to remove the bizarre waistline that they've given pieces and reflect more that his ribs are showing. As you are doing this, Digby will work on the other side and begin to paint with an artist's expert hand the way he views the heroes

when he sees them, kind of the ugliness he sees behind their eyes, like these subtle things, not so much physical, but like the representation of this evil that he sees whenever he engages with them. Their smile lines turned downwards to frowning and their brows furrowed. And he just begins to add these adjustments. It looks kind of like the same horror of like medieval paintings being restored these days. Like nothing quite looks right and it looks a little uncanny, but he begins to add this to all three of their countenances. Somewhere deeper in the dungeon, the echoes of a young girl screaming catch your attention. Ah, master, it is her.

That's got to be her, right? It begins. We must hurry. I think immediately he reaches into his pocket to find that glass eye. And in looking in, he's trying to discern the absence. direction, this time knowing that it's a vital importance in front of him. He looks for any indication of where best to go. The glass eye remains looking up, but as you turn in the direction of the hero's side of the mural,

the eye remains facing towards the villain's side. Hmm. in this room pieces looks around and tries to see if there's any discerning furniture outside of the mural something gaudy or heavy or large a cabinet a couch he's manic and searching his blood is pumping now knowing that she's so close a rotting chest sits in the corner of the hero's side. Literally holding that glass eye

to the moment that he arrives at that chest, Digby could see that he's calculating in his mind, maybe the closest to who he was before he died in this moment of emergency. This is the only sort of math

that pieces deals in. As he puts the glass eye away, he heaves the chest onto one shoulder, still removed from one hand. He takes the bloodied stump of it and connects it with the other. And with almost like a hammer toss, a big spin of himself that then weaves it and tosses it. He is attempting to clear not through the villain's side door, but into the second floor above, essentially through the ceiling up into the floor of the next level to see if he can create this makeshift opening up rather than just through. challenge four roll with boon okay a five the chest can i give um digby is going to spend one karma seeing

him do this he will give karma to pieces and he was finishing painting and he was finishing painting and he turns at the scream red paint slashing across the throats of all three heroes as he turns to pieces and says you've got this roll another d6 okay a two the chest smashes against the ceiling made of stone splintering and falling apart seemingly as if it would not be able to to penetrate stone however the old ceiling has now crumbled and cracked uh from from the uh from the throw thin thin strands of light can are piercing through um i think uh pieces pieces goes over to dickby and looks down master have you completed your painting i have i have we must we must away. He picks him up by almost the scruff of the jacket, lifts him like a mother cat, and attaches him to his back so that he can scramble on. And then as hard as he can, he's going to go up and, again, hurting himself, punch as hard as he can through that crack

of light and probably pommel his fist into his wrist, but enough that he can break through. Take another strike. Roll with Boone. A four. Oh, I'm sorry. A two. I will use remaining two karma to four. The ceiling explodes inwards as you push through into a lit room. No longer the purple magical fire. but now actual warm orange firelight.

There is some sort of large chamber in here made of brick and stone in front of you, your quarry, little Sally, strapped to a slab of stone tied down as three familiar faces, the heroes turning to realize that. you are the commotion two of them closer to you the dwarf bard brunor and the handsome luther the fighter closest to you and at the altar the the familiar face of the wizened wizard lana in the middle of performing something and stopping to notice the two of you and she says they're back get them she kind of points in your direction I am going to set Digby down on the floor. The second that we sort of scramble up onto the surface is a big scream as I let myself up onto full height and standing before all of them. Lana is my closest contemporary and so I am going to give her her book back.

I'm going to take the book, reach it out with that broken. gnarled fist. I'm going to run up as hard as I can and smack the shit out of her jaw in the middle of the ritual. It is a almost ape-like manic physicality that comes out as pieces is no longer this put-together slow lumbering form and instead is this massive block like juggernaut running through the walls here. And he's going to put full force into smacking the shit out of her. roll a six which explodes one more yep seven total one on the second die you rush in your rage past the other two who are still just beginning to pull out

their weapons or their liar immediately this lumbering monster revealing your or speed, run up to Lana and smack her across the face with the book. She flies across the room and smacks hard against the stone wall collapsing to the ground. The little girl screaming and noticing you, pieces help! Oh, I have come for you, my child. Wait for me. Digby hears that voice saying, things and and for a moment here's the echo of like a hundred children's

nightmares that same voice saying I've come for you but here in these halls it seems comforting to him and he feels like the swell of pride he's doing it he's saving her oh what a lovely trip oh oh oh my he looks down at his own bag and begins to rummage for something that can empower himself and as he's moving things around he finds that picture of the two of them from so long ago as pieces was in his intact state and he looks at how handsome they were and he pours the empowered um supernatural elixir on that photo um and feels the energy from it begin to um enter himself and he feels his own countenance changing to reflect how he used to look um but like this bigger brawnier like perfect prototypical version of that to almost mirror the the fighter and the blonde

fighter and so he's almost like borrowing from his strength and in taking that he's hoping that you know the the strength will be diminished in the fighter himself and he's borrowed it for his own countenance and he picks up what was once his toe and now it becomes comes a long sword with a sharp nail at the end that could be filed better than it has been recently. And he sticks it into the face of the fighter. It says, now who's the beautiful one with the same voice. Roll with Boone. All right. The blade slashes across this handsome blonde man's face, leaving a bloody streak, and he cries out, oh, my goodness,

and he stumbles backwards. Bruinor the Bard plays a quick tune on his liar, and suddenly the heel wounds, the wound heals on Luthor, glowing in this kind of inspirational light. And he draws his sword to you and says, you're going down mad scientist and he goes to attack you you're going to take you you're going to take one strike as he does manage to bury his sword into your belly

Oh, mad, mad, who's mad? You're mad, you're mad, you're mad to try to close the door, close the door on everything we've worked for. He looks down at the wound and sees those small spiders beginning to crawl out of his stomach and try and mend the place where he was pierced with their webs, kind of stitching the skin together with all of their spidery threads, but the sword is still stuck. in him and he feels very much like a insect pinned on a board that he's studied in the past. Oh, you fools, can't you see where the good guys, he says as the spiders begin to crawl up his face. Pieces you hear behind you as you look at Sally, Lana, say, once this ritual is complete, we'll never have to worry about you. blasted fools again and this

gout of fire emits from her hands um fail roll armor oh oh

uh fail describe it the fire flames up onto pieces and he takes the damage immediately as it begins to burn across that paralyzed sagging

side of his face begins to illuminate everything across his body the coat catching fire and singeing deep leather into his skin that will later be grafted upon him he screams out this huge

deep, beastial howl as he looks at Sally as all of this is happening, burning into that child's mind exactly the way that they treat people like pieces. It is a howling, cornered animal being put to death by the hunter who's caught them, and a deep pain. Is that one strike on pieces? is it pieces is retaliation turn comes back to me um in equal return as he's burned through still holding that grimoire who has taken some of the burned pages as well he stares into her and using uh what strength he has he tears the book in half in front of her uh throwing it to the side and then pulling through and smashing his fist with all the power of his body again through her face hoping to put her to sleep essentially to show her she doesn't have the power

here roll um um a three uh two you smash at her and at the very last second and she rolls out of the way, you break some stone, but she is still alive. Digby. Digby sees this happening over the shoulder of the fighter he's engaged with, and he feels this urge to protect pieces and this girl, but he's pinned quite literally by the blade, and he feels that powerlessness that he so often feels from his slight form, he is going to feel his body grow limp and live

and the same feeling of everyone in the town in the village pointing at him and lighting their torches and sharpening their pitchforks. That same feeling comes to him how so many times he has escaped in the past, past, and he is going to use all of his liveliness and slip off the edge of the sword, as though it were a grapple, removing himself from that engaged position and kind of slide around to the back of the fighter, still looking pretty much like him, almost a mirror image, but more in the photo of himself in the past. very beautiful, very handsome. These movements become kind of natural for him as he remembers being who he was before

he took up this art. And he's going to take his own toenail clad weapon and plunge it into the back of this individual as he has kind of slid around and gotten the better position and bring his face close to his ear and just say, You are not in the right here. Roll. Five. The blade, the toenail blade, pierces the armor, breaks through it,

and Luther, the handsome knight, freezes in place his eyes wide as he hears you whisper this into his ear. his body goes limp the bar on the other side staring wide-eyed at the heroic uh at the death of this heroic friend of his he begins he begins to play an instrument his liar and he goes he disappears from view oh my oh he withdraws the toenail sword and the the supernatural infusion fades and he's just left holding his toe and he is once again an old man kind of wizened with age and in the slight madness as he looks to pieces and says the so-called artist has run or disappeared or used some sort of he's gone look out my darling and he's

going to make his way, holding his toe towards Sally in the interim. Lana, the wizard has stood up from dodging pieces' attack, and she says, I'm going to enjoy killing you for a second time, but first the girl, and she's going to race to get to the altar before you. Roll. Roll digby. Oh, is that Digby? Yeah, to get there first. Oh, my. I'm sorry. I thought it was pieces.

I was distracted by my dog. leaps towards the altar and stabs into the girl this this this air rushing out of her little mouth she can't even scream is oh um seeing all of this he is drawn into an even larger rage um and he extends himself out he runs up to the back of lana and basically tries to grip the back of her head and wrench it back as hard as she can, just drawn to a animalistic reaction at the thought and the sound of Sally being hurt in that way. He's giving everything that he can to hurting Lana here. Roll with boom.

The head wrenches back in an unnatural way. You hear the snap of the spine. Her body goes limp and drops to the ground. However, the blade still is in the chest of Little Sally. The entire castle begins to shake. I think Pieces is scrambling over. And now that he's caught up, he's trying desperately to get his hand about the blade if he still can,

depending on what's going on around us all. Bits of soot and little rocks are tumbling and falling from the ceiling, but your mangled hands can reach the blade. Digby.

Digby closes the gap between them, and he's at Peasas' side. He kind puts his hand over Beas's hand, so that they're kind of making the same motions. You know, he's trying to assist how he can,

like too many surgeons in the same procedure. And he looks at his vial of supernatural remover, the dampener. And he's like, it's almost too late, darling. The lightning, the door, the girl. It's too late. What if I took my power away and gave it to her so she could live? No, no, master. It's the only way.

It's the only way. You're the only one smart enough to help them. You did it with me. No, it's not true, my darling. Look what you've done. You've done so much. A brick lands at your feet. You have seconds before the entire thing.

It has to be me. how many times have I dodged death it's time and he reaches down his wrist there and right where that maker's mark those pretty little leaves from digby has been pressed he reaches in and with a few teeth that work given that he only has the one hand he bites out the maker's mark and from inside there is this beautiful green gem that represents, matches the iris on that glass eye. And he gives it over to Digby. It is me. Give it to her. And in so doing, the light you can tell is beginning to leave pieces. And the right side of his body is already starting to crumble some as that power is sitting in his palm in front of Dickby. Oh, my darling, he acts quickly

with the shaking voice and that last word as he takes the iris and I would inserts it into the living eye socket of this girl mashing the eyeball backwards to replace it with this new apparatus and that's all he has time to do is he's feeling the shaking and crumbling of the building around him but he's making eye contact with pieces the whole time and just crying like tears down his face, shining the age on his skin in the candlelight and making him seem much older than he is in his grief. The fortress cannot hold any longer, and it begins to collapse around you, the three of you. From outside, the peasants from the homilet watch as the swirling dark vortex.

explodes and expands revealing a bright sunny sky the fortress crumbling apart in the hours and day that passes searching for the heroes they find nothing but they do find a little girl barely alive but conscious they drag her her eyes closed they can tell that she's breathing They pull her from the mangled arms of two nefarious-looking individuals that they once saw walking through their homlet. And with no protection left, they have no choice but to leave this place. They mount in their carts and begin to ride away. And the little girl, Sally, wakes. She sits up at the back of the cart, watching, staring out at the rubble that was once the fortress. and she smiles and her eye begins to glow green and that's where we'll leave it okay there we go that was fun that's awesome oh man interesting change of events there at the end I know yeah oh that's awesome

how do you feel how was that that was so fun it was very fun it's such a good time it's an interesting challenge, isn't it? Like, not be able to just flat out break character and talk about, well, what's going on here? What is this? Yeah. Well, on top of, like, having just come up with it, you know what I mean? Like, it's one

thing, like, I love being in character. That's my default is like, okay, I'm in it. I'm not thinking about it. But when it, like, it's so much easier when you've done the table work, you know, and you've had, like, a month or so to get together like what I think about pieces. And, you

know how I feel about pieces and digby and all these things and so doing that in real time is like shit I'm like spinning two plates you know so fun though oh my god yeah yeah it's it was fun I it's funny because I also think I'm a person that's in character most of the time but it was funny I caught myself a few times I'm like or like you know like I would say a few things were like riding the line and it was funny to kind of pay attention to those things and how much you really can. And then also the GMing style too, right? Like very like rocks fall and they die.

Like there's like the scene is set and I think I was feeling like part of a narrative that I wouldn't say like it wasn't lacking but it was it glided like it like glided like glided through the dialogue. that we were bringing in a way that I think if we were not paying so much attention to being a character and just sticking to that, it could have had extra pieces or extra elements that I'm used to hearing. I was trying my heart is to not move you,

right? And to not describe things that you haven't asked for or are looking at, that kind of stuff. So I was trying to stay very like, you know, one of the instances that I wrote down is earlier when Caleb said, you know, are there any windows or anything that I look into

this little house? I didn't want to say what I would have preferred is if you had simply decided that there was a window, right? There's no reason why I would say no, there's no windows. So in the future, I think it's okay for us to simply decide

things. Like, it kind of started with Allison where you wanted to roll to find these things and then it evolved by the end of the session where you were just deciding what was in there. And I think that is the stronger choice instead of always leaving it up to either the DM or to chance or whatever.

Yeah. The Windows moment did peek out to me too because I was trying to navigate in my mind of like, well, what of this is yours and what of this is mine? And it's, it was like a moment of like, I'm not sure if he's going to have people in

this Hamlet be integral to what we're doing or non integral. So I'm like it's fun because you get to kind of like eke out what is within your own agency and then the second you're like well you find a window you know whatever it was i was like okay i know what kind of space this is yeah and i would argue for the future you can just decide i don't think there's any reason why i would ever argue against a window being there you know what i mean like there's just certain things that all that i would ask is either you roll or not roll otherwise i think you you both have just as much agency as i do when

it comes to deciding what's in this world. Another instance is it was fine because you asked in the correct manner of I look around to see if there's any furniture and I just decided that there was something there. You could have just as easily said, I find a piece of rotten furniture pick it up and throw it and that would have worked.

Yeah. I always like to be particular that close to the action because I feel like sometimes the GM might decide that no, this needs to be an empty room. And like I want to make sure that I'm respecting also the conflict of us trying to achieve that. So I was trying to frame it in such a way as to say, like,

I don't really care if there isn't furniture. I'll make it happen regardless. But, you know, like this is, here's my bid. What's the answer sort of thing? Right. Because that's what this challenge is so strong at is learning how to bid and answer without having to break the immersion of the game, which a lot like performing improv on stage is like,

you don't want to tell the audience they're watching a show, but you do need answers from other people without giving away. the question yeah yeah i would argue this particular style of of play that we did today i don't think it would have mattered if you didn't ask the question you just chose that there was a chest there because the number one thing is moving forward like the narrative needs to move forward so i would rather you just decide it rather than we have this back and forth of is it there is it not there you know what i mean yeah yeah i think in particular the the random draw of super natural, complicated it a little for me because had it been, you know, a mundane world or like, you know, I can look in a pocket and what do I find in my pocket?

But when you're dealing with supernatural powers, especially my weird creations, it almost felt like, well, I don't want to cheese it and I don't want to, you know, like have it do exactly the thing I want to do. So I think that was my impulse initially of having the role involved because it's like, well, I don't want everything to work out well, necessarily. And then I also don't want to have like too much come from these things, but I think we found a nice balance with the things that we generated. But that was a challenge because it's like I wanted it to exist and just name the thing. But when it's a snail on wheels, like what's the limits there? Or in particular, the spiders, like I was like, do these spiders actually heal me? I don't know. So maybe we'll see.

So that was something I felt uncertain about. It is tough because you kind of feel like you have the answer in your pocket in every room you walk into. And you get so afraid to like tap that button too many times. Like, you know, you have to remember that the roles are there to mitigate it though as well. Like, you know, you could have had a nuclear bomb in there, but if you rolled it too, it wouldn't have worked. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's why I have no concern about you guys cheesing because I just think the roles would have ultimately decided the outcome. Yeah, yeah.

How did it feel like kind of making these characters up as you went? I could kind of tell that there was like an evolution as we want, especially with Digby. You know what I mean? It became more and more clear who this person was with the choices that you guys made. Yeah, I love the first scene. It felt very much like an improv scene when you just jump out onto the stage. And then the first thing that comes out of your mouth,

like that's what we're rolling with now. And you have to just kind of heighten, heighten, heighten. So I loved Caleb's introduction of his own character as this like classical monster climbing out of the dirt and the voice he chose and the cadence and the way he spoke. And then I felt like, okay, now that I understand that, I can have a foil to that and like be this slight kind of bobbly wild person. But have like a real like love for this creature that I think many people would look at and be afraid of. And that was like my first impulse. And then like the more we talked, the more I found out, you know, who Digby is about. And much like improv, it's like the random choices you make, like you double down on them because the audience expects it.

So once you make a decision, it's like, well, now Digby's that kind of person. So he's got to be, you know, like that's, that's him going forward. Yeah. Yeah, it is so different from like something you're doing long term where you can sort of hide the answer from the audience. or have the audience believe one thing and then be completely wrong about it because you have, you know, such long-term plans they're going to find out eventually. But here it's like, well, pieces is going to exist from second one to second 60 and then we're done, you know, like he's not going to make it to session two, baby. So it is fun to be like, okay, well, how do I give this guy a plain takeoff and a plane landing that makes sense within the context? And it's just so fun, like, going into it and deciding, I have no idea what sort of themes I'm going to be exploring here, but, you know, like picking things up like, oh, I'm going to decide he's, like, really self-conscious about what he might have been before and now he's trying to, you know, like, find out what he is now and, you know, little things like that are so fun.

And picking up off of Digby and, like, finding these little pieces of like, oh, well, you know, he probably put his maker's mark on pieces. Yeah, that was an interesting thing at the end. I said, okay, look, they failed. She's going to stab the kid. This is going to happen. But let's see how they rectify this. And I was glad to see you guys found a way to make some piece of this, you know? Yeah, yeah.

I just love the trope of like, oh, the character cannot die, but then sacrifices himself. Like, that happens so across media of like, if you have a character that is struggling with death or against death, or out of death, they decide to die. And that was like a perfect moment of like, I'm already on one wound. If I'm about to go out, then let's give pieces of pieces ending. And then that revealed itself. I'm like, oh, we were just talking about, you know. And it was interesting.

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no. I'm the one that worked, the creation that works. So, of course, now she has to be. So we can move forward. Yeah. That was a really nice balance.

And I thought it worked with Digby's Ark as, well because in giving up his best creation, he has no, like, he's giving up all his ambition. And, you know, he, he was willing to decelerate for a moment there when normally he's adding the elixir and adding power. And this was the first time he even considered, like, doing the opposite. So it felt nice for him as well, even though he did get crushed by rocks, but he had a nice narrative moment there too. So it felt. It felt like a nice closure point, which I think we got to from being in character so much. And I did notice, like, sometimes with one shots, you do a lot of prep work on the front end of, like, character building and, you know, like, because one shots can feel like a very quick narrative experiment sometimes.

But then sometimes that never makes it to the table. So it's like we did all this, like, building. And it almost felt like we were telling a cool story at the front end. And then, like, in the game, it's just like, we could be any generic character, like, walking through this world. as NPC number five. And so what I loved was that all that richness came with us throughout the game and allowed us to build to that narrative conclusion. And it was interesting watching you guys build on it too because there were many moments after passing through rooms. You would take moments to talk to each other.

There was your moment with the mural where you were reflecting on how you are viewed by others, etc. So it was interesting to watch you guys try to continue to build on who these characters are. So what didn't feel like a generic, you know, monster NPC or something. It was fun kind of building the dungeon as we're talking about, like, what characters are you guys. You know, like I'm literally just scribbling down. Okay, circle room, and then a hallway, and then a bigger room, and then a fork in the road. And then, you know, I immediately went to like the familiar traps that I've seen before. I saw Matthew Mercer run that gargoyle with Stephen Colbert.

There was a one shot where he ran in. Like, oh, that's a fun idea. And then reading through, there's that trap book. It's like a dark elf that has a bunch of traps in a book. I forget the name of it. It's a famous D&D book. But there was that, you know, one tile looks obviously like the hole, but it's actually the one that's immediately after that kind of thing.

And that was so fun. I mean, navigating those rooms is so good. I mean, another example, too, of where this this really works as a medium is like you get into things where if you were playing in another game and you were doing the thing well if i go through here does xyz happen and then deciding to happen when i went to punch that gargoyle in my fucking dumbass mind i thought the gargoyle was right in front of me but like perception of mind i learned in action and then had a consequence that was fun and gave me more of an awareness of what's going on So if I didn't catch it from the description, I caught it from the action, you know? How do you think that could have played differently? Like, could I have taken more time to describe the positioning of the gargoy to make it clear? No, no.

It was clear. I truly think it was a misunderstanding because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I think Allison knew where the gargoyal was. Yes, yeah. And so when you said that, I wondered, like, if we were just going to go with like, oh, you were able to get over there and and punch it or like if we were gonna do a little jump. So yeah, I was happy to see you get blown up. No, I thought it was awesome. And I think that's exactly the way you should run it.

Because not only does it like make it narratively rich, I think in another game where we weren't playing with the system, that would have never happened. We just never would have saw. The problem I think we run into a lot with the way that TTR PG has kind of pulled away from some of the like full on acting and like, the aversion to what people call the Matthew Mercer effect of wanting everyone at the table to be

the biggest actor in the world is now that you're on the other side and you're back to being board game players, some of the effects that come from the greatest parts of these games just don't happen. Because everybody knows the room is a trap and everyone knows the gargoyle shoots lasers and everyone knows that you step over it and it blows up. And I would argue it also comes from too many out of character. Well, how high is the gargle? How far is the gargle? You guys didn't have that. You didn't have that.

Yeah, I just had what I thought was the situation. I stepped into it. I was wrong. And both me and pieces got a consequence because of that, right? And that's where, like, the fun of, like, when I was 13, I was not worried about what the fucking tiles did. I was playing a cool ranger. My dad made up for me when I was 13.

And I was like, I'm going to send my dog in there. And the dog falls into the trap. I'm like, oh, shit, maybe I should start thinking more. But then you start playing RPGs for so long, or you play with a certain group of people who have an awareness of the game, you get to a place where it's not, let's find out what this room does. It's we know what the room does. What are we going to do about it?

And I think if you can find a way to, like, bring aspects of this game into your game, you get to experience a lot more as a character. We get moments that we weren't going to get because pieces just wanted to have been hurt that way. And then, you know, we wouldn't have had to find another way to do it. And then in addition, now your DM gets a really cool spotlight on what he put together for you to see. Because like running vampires, running, I'm running Hunter as a home game right now, I'm so constantly feeling in the spotlight of like, well, there was a bunch of shit I wanted to show off today. But I'm just not going to do it because we're so singular focused. we're kind of skipping past the cool shit

into the other cool shit but like moments like that give you an opportunity to be like hey this is what I actually set up for you please walk into it you know sometimes you have to step into the snare you know kind of leaning into the improvisational aspect

of it um it had you gone down the the direction of the villain side of the mural you would have found a staircase that led up to the next room you found but you chose instead to just punch a hole through the floor and so I just ran with it you know yeah well I think like

lateral moves like that can be so interesting especially in a context where you're only playing in character because like out of character I was kind of thinking I'm like well this will get me to the destination anyways but because I'm in pieces there's like no fucking telling what's on the other side like you could have planned anything right um and so it like it introduces a nice little like experiment for all of us to follow through in on and see what happens. I always think it's so fun to be like, well, I know what we're supposed to be doing, but is there a way we can do that in an interesting way

that kind of throws us all on the seat of our pants, so we have to react to it? Because I think some of the best moments come from when we're all like, okay, what the fuck do we do now? Yeah. At least in improv, like especially in improv theater. And that comes from what you've done in And what I have also hopefully done is not from, like, although there is a small seat of chaos that I lean into, it's mostly from the character, right? And so it's like, I loved how you said, he's isn't even looking at the floor. Like, of course he's not.

He's like seven feet tall. Like, there's no way. So it separates, you know, the player knowledge from the character knowledge. Like, I think that's something that people do grapple with in all sorts of systems. But this one is more like, it's not even about player knowledge at all. It's like just be in the character and what is the character doing and player knowledge to your point. It's like we're all aware that there is a discolored tile that's literally the only information we have about this room. So like what's the fun choice for pieces?

What's the fun choice for Digby? And like ultimately like thinking and character gets you to think about like, why are we playing this game? You know, like it's not because we need to get through this trap room. Like I'm sure we can figure out a way to do that. It's like, why are these weirdos in this room and like what are they going to do? do and like how are we going to learn from that and like that's what's unique about it and that's what I love about focusing on narrative is every time you can put any character in the room any player any character but like it's going to feel so different and it's going to matter in

different ways like we created a whole subcurrent of like what the story was about you know like if if someone was to analyze the story like a piece of literature like it has some threads You know, like, it has meaning and some depth and some lessons to be gleaned. And that's what I love about TCRPGs and why I loved this experiment. When I heard about it, it's like, because we could just get to the meat of that. Like, skip all the, you know, puzzle rooms and all that. It's like, let's just figure out, like, why we tell stories as humans and why they, like, why they matter to us so much. Yeah.

Yeah, it feels like a fun reset of what you're used to as a TTRPG. You get rid of the, the, you know, I'll just ask. about it. Okay, no, there's a very specific focus you have to try to get through. That is a challenge. And it's interesting because it does kind of distill the experience too. Like, distill it in both

formats. I felt like we got so much of like what I want out of a narrative show, but also it felt very old school to me in a way of like when I first started playing. There is no knowing. Stop knowing.

Just walk in. You know? And we're going to draw a hallway and you don't have to think about the next two rooms. You just have to think about this hallway. And for a long time, I stopped playing games that were like you are in this little square I drew on a dry erase board. And you're going to have to figure out the dry erase board room because, you know, and vampires, we're dealing with all of fucking Las Vegas. I'm not going to draw every room you're in, right? Right. And so, like, distilling it back down to that basic of, like, stay in it, stay exactly in this room.

Don't worry about the metammeritiv that's going to be on the other side of things and enjoy it and make it the most of every hallway is really interesting to have to do. I think that's a great phrase for dungeon crawling. Make the most of every hallway. Most of every hallway. Well, we, I want to say that we should start a tradition. of every time we have a guest on, they get to change one of the tones or settings so that the next time we play,

there's a chance that you will pick it. So, Allison, being our first guest, we have the tone of supernatural and setting of dungeon crawl. You have permission to change either one of those. If you feel like a different tone might be an interesting thing to add or a different setting might be interesting to add.

Ooh, so it would replace one of these for your... You can replace one of them. Oh, wow. Next time we play, it'll be on the board. I will replace the dungeon crawl because I feel like we really got to the essentials in this one. And, hmm, looking at the other options here. I'll replace.

it with oh it's already on there um I will replace it with is po oh it's on there too I was gonna say post-apocalyptic but it's apocalyptic is on there um gosh they have a lot on here already i don't know y'all what are you thinking what's fun um the first thing that came to my mind was the regency like fucking um pride and prejudice y'all Can we tweak it a bit and do like the Gilded age? The Gild. Ooh, okay, like the 20s. Yeah, like that's, I think same time period, I'm not mistaken, isn't it like 1800s, but in the U.S.?

So it's like Rockefeller and like the fancy snootiness of pseudo-French culture in the U.S. I love that, yeah. Yeah. trains, barons, just a lot of wealth disparity and fancy clothes and pocket watches. Yeah, great Gatsby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sergei might be muted. Yeah, I think I lost you. Yeah, I can't hear you anymore. I don't know if you're muted on Twitch, but you are for our video. You know what? At least it waited until we were completely done.

Normally, it's like right at the beginning when people are watching or at the height of the middle of the dam stream. At least it waited until the absolute last minute. You can just hold up a 10 out of 10 for how good the gilded age is. You love the gilded age. It's in there now. Okay. Okay. All right.

So this is the narrative twist at the end. We will narrate what Serge is thinking. what Serge is. It's up to us to puppet him. We want to thank everyone for watching. We want to thank Allison Insight Check so much for joining us. I mean, dude, it's so good to play with you again. Oh, thank you. I agree. I agree. This was awesome. Thank you both so much. We still can't hear you. I know that you're saying it was so good to play with me too. Is there anything you want to plug? Plug? Um, yeah, just, uh, You know, follow May Day because they're amazing.

If you haven't already, I love playing at this table. And for me, you can find me at Insight Checked on various platforms. I play in games. I run games. If you want a game, I'm here. It's always a good time. And we might be seeing you again. Oh, I think I can hear search.

Yes, I'm back. I think I'm back. Those beautiful dulcet tones are back. We might be seeing you again soon and another May Day property that I won't talk about. but is happening eventually. Very excited about that. I'm glad I'm able to come back to say everyone who is watching, have a wonderful holiday.

Merry Christmas and all that fun stuff. We will see you on the other side with lots of new content. We'll definitely do more no prep challenges because this was a blast and I can't wait to do the next one. But everyone stay safe and we'll see you later. Bye guys. I love you all. Good night.

Goodbye. Good luck. You know, I'm going to be. Thank you. Thank you.