The Glass Cannon Podcast - Gatewalkers Episode 92 – Once Bitten, Ice Shy

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

The heroes begin their journey across the arctic wasteland known as the High Ice. Watch the video here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠��⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtu.be/rV6aSg1--n4 This episode was sponsored by Foundry VTT and Norse Foundry. See why tabletop gamers everywhere have made the switch to Foundry Virtual Tabletop at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foundryvtt.com/gcp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ For all your random number-generating needs, visit Norse Foundry at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://norsefoundry.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jointhenaish.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa, Sydney Amanuel, and Kate Stamas as they tour the country. Get your tickets today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cn8wr0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Watch new episodes when they premiere every Thursday at 8PM ET on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/theglasscannon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFriills.ca. This episode is brought to you by Dzone. For the first time ever, the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are in the FIFA Club World Cup. The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part.

And you can watch every match for free on Dazone starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at Dazone.com slash FIFA. That's D-A-Z-N dot com slash FIFA. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Last week on the Glass Cannon podcast. Who are you? Welcome back. You look familiar. What's the last thing you remember?

I remember the gateway. We watched you walk through. Yes. You chose... We did not. We've just broken you from a spell that we were under ourselves. This black ice, my thoughts were not my own.

Is your name Ilkani? Yes. Is there more to this tower? Yes. Can I accompany to this tower? Yes. Can I accompany you? Of course. Please, yeah. What's this over in Yarr?

Oh. Oh. Walk into the next room, where an abandoned research camp has been set up. Whoa. Yep. Ka-ching. You find a yurt.

Oh! Hell yeah. The yurt can house and feed you and up to nine other medium creatures. Wow. And two scrolls of raised dead. Oh baby! Where will you go?

We are headed to the crown of the world. There is a great beast there. What man or beast? Soyul. Soyul. Black Frost Whale. We head down and we just see a shitty old dirty tent. And we keep panning outwards and we just see the high ice.

With a wide open expanse of white. The adventure continues... ...now. You There is a 35% chance that Sydney is now married in the future. 35? We'll never know. Huh? Wow. a 35% chance that Sydney is now married in the future. 35. We'll never know. We'll never know. Price, who you know,

who's doing the officiating at the wedding, he keeps being adamant that he's gonna leave in the part that's like any objections. Oh my God. And he's like, you have to let me say it. You have to let me say it. So we don't know, maybe somebody objected. It could be a strong objection. I just think it's a really great bit to like, yeah,

to say like any objections and then like you leave it uncomfortably long. Oh, he said he would ask it again. And then a second time you're like, really? Are you sure? Like, are you, this is honestly, this is it. You know Price well, he immediately was like, I'm going to keep it going for a little while. Just in case guy walking by. Sure. No, not you. Someone will take the bit.

I'll tell you what, you know what? I predict. You know what attendees at a wedding love? A long ceremony. A comedian celebrant. Yeah. A comedian officiant, I guess is the word I should. Troy looks so upset.

They really like it when that person decides to like make it a show. Make it about them. Make it about them. Yes, yes. Yes. That's the best. The bridegroom love it.

The parents of the bridegroom love it. Grandma, grandma who's nodding off already in the front row, loves it. Huge fan. Should be a 10 minute ceremony, and that's eight minutes too long. Hey man, I'm performing a wedding a couple of months. That's my plan.

Quick, just- I set a record for the shortest wedding ceremony. See, when Skid officiated over Joe's wedding, he did it. It was short and sweet. It was beautiful. It was poignant. And they did most of it. And he had one joke. Yeah, one joke. It was perfectly timed and crushed.

People still talk about that joke to this day. I think- An improvised joke. One single improvised joke. This was not a prepared joke. It was an improvised joke. Wow. It was something to the effect of like today in front of... And it was like wrapping it up like...

Your friends, your family, and this group playing Ultimate Frisbee behind us. Oh, yeah. It was in the park. We're doing it in the park. And I was like, that was a great bit. Because he had been so stoic the rest of the time. He was just moving it along, but he got that joke. And that's how you do it. One bit. The whole crowd broke up laughing. Lost it. Perfect timing.

I do agree. Short and sweet. Short and sweet. That's the short and sweet. Get us to your sweaty reception. Yeah. Who do you think cried? Oh.

I'm a wedding crier. Are you really? You'd never think it. I can't wait to cry. You're a big softie. He loves love. He does love love. You love the Hallmark Channel.

And you cry all the time. It's a sentimental love. He's starting to go emotional just thinking about it. He's thinking about the Christmas train right now. All he has to say is Christmas train. And he starts to tear up. I think it's appropriate that I should at least give you away. I think so.

Yeah, I think that. You don't have anyone talking about that, right? He I think that's a suit that's just lost. You dropped the camera. I think Francis is going to be at the wedding too. If you gave me away, I think Francis would have a heart attack. Under the auspices of like, please take her. Take her. Quickly. She's your problem now.

Like a hostage. You just take her. Quick. Quick. Yeah, yeah, quick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good, that's good, walk away. Yeah, like a hostage exchange. I love the 180, you were like,

I'll meet you at the after after party maybe, and you're like, I think I should give you a ride. Right, right, right, well if you want to come. I think I should be a part of it. I want to be involved. I just want to be involved, but no, I might cry, there's a good chance I'll cry. You should.

I don't know, something about the moment gets me. Right now, I think like, who cares? Getting married. Good for you. But in the moment, you come down, you're going to wear a dress or just sneakers? No, I think you're going to love it, guys. Pretty traditional.

Oh. You're not wearing white, are you? Wearing white. Not what I heard. Make sure you're not pure enough to wear white. Yes. Yes. Many people think I couldn't do it, but I'm wearing white.

I think you should wear purple. Do you cry at movies? Are you a movie crier? Yes or no? Not constantly, but sometimes when I was watching The Pit. Oh, yeah. Have you started The Pit yet? Not yet, but I know it's good.

Did you cry during The Pit? Nominal. There was a moment when a kid, I'm not spoiling anything, everybody's fucked up in that show, but the kid goes, his brain stemmed. Oh, yeah. And like, I was just like caught off guard. I was like, what are these? What's this salty discharge?

Like, sign phone. Yeah. It just hit me, I guess, maybe as a parent, but the actress that plays the mom is so good. Like you, yeah, watch the pit. The pit's great. It is. But I'm only two EPs in and I cried for like a second. Oh, then you're not ready. There's another one that is going to make you, I almost had to stop. Oh, I can't wait to watch.

Not the whole series, but I was like, I need to skip this case because I can't handle it. Yeah. It's like, it reminds me of Scrubs. Like it's a completely different vibe than Scrubs, but it's so good. It's so good. It's a great show. I love crying. During movies and like TV shows, I cry all the time. I'm sure it gets me at the Christmas all the time. A child's movie. I will cry. Xavier looks over it.

Like it's not necessarily a sad movie. I think I cried when we said, I said it on Legacy during Infinity War. And Xavier like looked over and he was like, you cry? I cry when things get too happy. I cry when things are too cute. I cry when things are too cute. I cry. I cry on all those things.

Maybe not too cute. But I will cry if something's just really good. That's my thing. Sometimes I cry if it's just really well done. Like, a beautiful scene, or I'm just like, oh my god. This is a great, a great to shoot this. What it took to shoot this and make it look like this. An incredibly well executed moment

in like a movie or TV show. I will cry and I cry all the time. I feel like you and Grant cried during the finale of Giant Slayer for like a single half second. Yeah, really? Yeah, I think I did, yeah. Did you?

Oh, I didn't know. I appreciate Skid as a viewer because he is so free with his emotions. Like when something's funny and makes you laugh, like you full belly laugh and like you cry. I don't know, I love that. I love being so affected by media. And I feel like you have no holds bar.

You're just like, I feel what I feel. No, I'm really happy that like, cause I couldn't cry for a long time. I wanted to and I couldn't. And all of a sudden, I guess the gradually reduced testosterone in my bloodstream. I just started crying like all the time. It's like, it's great. I love it. One just started crying like all the time. It's great.

I love it. It's awesome. One day you were like, I can do it. It's happening. But I was watching a, you know what actually makes me cry a lot is like watching someone like a great reaction, like channel like popcorn in bed when they're watching a movie that I really like. Whether she was doing a Casablanca, I watched that over and over again and like the Marcia

scene. Yeah. And that watching her react to it, it was just like waterworks. Yeah. Just like. She cries a lot though, doesn't she? She does. She does. She cries a lot too. She's a crier. Yeah, this one makes her the best. I will say that if I cry at your wedding, it has nothing to do with you. All right. And I want you to know that. I can cry. What does it have to do with? When I used to go to weddings with my wife, when her friends were getting married, I didn't know them and I still cry. So I just want you to know, if I cry, it has nothing to do with you.

It's not your love, it's any love. You know what? It's just the moment. Cause I'm thinking about your family, you know, watch the whole experience overwhelms me. It has nothing to do with you. I may be there. Yes.

Nothing to do with me. Nothing. It's also just, it's not really your wedding. Thank you. It's for everyone else. That's what he's saying. Yeah. It's also just... It's not really your wedding. Thank you. It's for everyone else. That's what he's saying.

Yeah. Let's just also unpack one detail there that was a little rushed over. Detroit doesn't know his wife's friends. Yeah. He really quickly... That should tell you a lot. And he went to the weddings and he was like, I don't know who they are. I don't know who these people are.

This is when we were first dating. I met them a couple of times. All the time in Rochester, I just met this person. But you're just crying at the whole ceremony. The whole ceremony, it just gets... It's spectacle. My wedding, forget it. I sobbed.

Oh, I was gonna say, I imagined it. You did. I had to like hover my mouth. Nick Lowe was belting. What's that song? Oh, uh, You're the Meaning in My Life. Oh, yeah. You're the meaning in my life.

You're the inspiration. You're the inspiration. He was just looking at Nick Lowe sobbing. That's a strong reaction to that song as well. I mean, I was laughing too because Skid was laughing so hysterically and I was like, Skid is either crying or laughing. I think he's laughing. I was laughing.

It's the funniest thing I've seen. All the meaning in my... While Dave Woody was on piano. And then they started... All the inspiration. They started canoning each other like... Oh my, see I'm gonna cry. That's cute.

I'll cry at that. It was very beautiful and incredibly funny. It was too because they leaned into it. They were doing... They played it full tilt. It was theatrical. They did. They did.

It achieved exactly what I wanted. You're meeting in my life. I wanted it to be beautiful and hilarious. So hopefully your wedding will be beautiful and hilarious because I will be comparing it to every other wedding I've went to. As and hilarious. Yes. So hopefully your wedding will be beautiful and hilarious because I will be comparing it to every other wedding I've went to. As you should. Yes.

Unless it doesn't happen. We'll be back after that. Ah! Nailed the landing. Hey, so what did you want to talk about? Well, I want to tell you about Wagovi. Wagovi? Yeah, Wagovi. What about it? On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you.

Oh, you're not? No, just ask your doctor. About Wagovi? Yeah, ask for it by name. Okay, so why did you bring me to this circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers. You know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for Wagovi by name.

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Terms and conditions apply. Visit BeMo.com slash VI Porter to learn more. Book Club on Monday. Gym on Tuesday. Date night on Wednesday. Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers,

you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Specsavers.ca to book your next eye exam. Eye exams are free to use. your eyes too, because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Specsavers.ca to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. Folks, we're back with the still single Sydney Emanuel. As far as we know.

I want to thank our sponsor. I got some news here. I want to thank our sponsor. I got some news here. I want to thank our sponsors. I want to thank, of course, Norse Foundry. I'm repping them today. Oh, yeah. There we go. Norse Foundry blue.

Same shirt, same size. Yep. It's a little snug on me. And also want to shout out Foundy Virtual Tabletop. How about this Snowflake Temple? Yeah. It's beautiful. Gorgeous. How cool.

Very cool. I went and explored every single room. You did. You were like, I could unlock the whole map. You walked into several other encounters that I didn't even trigger. Oops. Yeah, I mean, it's great. But PySOS maps, they're very good.

They're fun, right? But what they do is they take them and retranslate them for this virtual tabletop in a way that just blows me away. And by all accounts, from some inside knowledge, that these are going to get even better and and retranslate them for this virtual tabletop in a way that just blows me away. And by all accounts, from some inside knowledge, that these are going to get even better and better and better as Paizo and Foundry's partnership continues. Also want to talk about GenCon. If you're coming to GenCon this year, as usual, we're taking over that con.

Six live shows. We've got Starfinder second edition live show on Thursday, which I believe is going to be streamed. And then later that night, we have Glass Cannon Live Ascension. And then on Friday, we've got 19... Where's that happening? Where are we doing that? That's happening at the Athenaeum this year.

Oh, it is? We love the Athenaeum. Both our outside shows are at the Athenaeum because Helium didn't want to play ball. And Friday, we're going to have a 1920s Call of Cthulhu show at the Athenaeum because helium didn't want to play ball. And Friday, we're going to have a 1920s Kala Kathulu show at the con that will not be streamed as far as I know. And then the famous modern show at the Athenaeum that night, Modern Kala Kathulu Live, 30 years running. Counting the days.

Scott Dorward, who I've mentioned before, is writing both of those scenarios for us. Oh, cool. So they'll be debuting there. He's already sent me the notes on these ideas. As usual, they're brilliant. And then on Saturday, Get in the Trunk Live. Get in the Trunk Live. Also not going to be streamed, as far as I know. And then Marvel Multiverse Live.

Oh. Later that night. And then we're doing Gauntlets in the booth all day long, 10 to 6 on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and 10 to 4 on Sunday. And Sydney and Kay are going to be running Gotlets, as well as all of us, and Matthew Capracaza and Jared Logan. Did you guys run Gotlets before?

Not last year. Not last year. Nope. No. I played in one. Oh, right. Oh, I- Beautiful terrain.

Almost played in one. Oh, yeah. That's right. They all have different terrain. Yeah. we had the Dwarven Forge terrain last year. It changed over the days. It was really cool. My favorite part about the gauntlets is like that night we would talk about like how did your gauntlet go and how we all use the terrain differently. I said there was a sword hidden in that caldera and then you're like, oh, I use the caldera

as a trap. It was really interesting to see how we all interpret the same encounter in different ways. Gen Con. But now it's time to play a little Gatewalkers. The road to the end has begun. The end of campaign two, the end of Gatewalkers is nigh. Plug my headphones. I plug my headphones. You have explored the temple of Findaladlar. You all got a boon from this elven goddess. Wow.

If you don't watch the show, you're missing out. You're really missing out. It's all about the hand gestures. You've got a little boon from Findindalallar after meditating in these rooms that were once held by priests that were obliterated, not like the rest of this Ilverani tribe by Edward Riddleson and apparently gatewalkers such as yourselves. Some were captured and brought here and experimented on to turn them into black frost zombies, giving them a curse in their dreams through a soil.

There's still so much to unpack, so much you're unsure of. Months of your life were a blank, but over the past couple of weeks, those blanks have been starting to fill in of what happened to you. You found out last week that apparently, the moment you walked through that gate, the moment you saw your brother, the moment each of you saw something that compelled you to walk through it, you perhaps ended up walking through Ice Gate with all these other people and the others are like, hey, we brought chicken. You slaughtered them.

And then you dragged them to the temple of Findalallara. This is messed up. It's really messed up. It's like the pilgrims. So it's kind of like the moment you passed through the gate, you were instantly dominated basically. Yeah. That's how it appears.

You took the bait, right? Whatever the bait was that you saw and then immediately as you took the bait, yeah, you didn't even have time for a ritual or anything. You just sort of were taken over. You're just through and that's Your last memory is walking through. From that point on, you were no longer driving the bus. Then groups of gate walkers went different ways. You went with Riddleson as his assistance to the Temple of Findelad Lara.

At some point, a soil perhaps chose you over Riddleson for a secret mission where you kidnapped – Special forces. A special forces mission where you kidnapped the last Salman car. Einamoren threw him on a sled and dragged him north perhaps to the Nameless Spires and then magically appeared back at the Temple of Findeladlara. Riddleson is like, did a soil transport them? I want to know why did a soil not choose me? He's here doing research.

He's got his magical yurt. You learn a little bit more about the Black Frost. You learn about a Soyo using dreams to give you powers and all this stuff. But at a certain point, he dismissed you. They dismissed you. It dismissed you. You went back and you stepped through and you were back in your world with no memory of what happened. I had time in between Epps to think about a question among these notes. I don't know if we know this from before or from the home notes. Is there any mention in the notes of what Riddle's saw in the gate? No.

But if you remember when you talked to Riddleon in a flashback after Lucky's death, he said he saw his family and wanted to be reunited with them. Was that a lie? It was his parents that he killed. Oh, he's fucking lying. Well maybe he felt guilt later in life. He felt himself dominating the world. Zero percent.

Yeah. I mean, he does sound so evil. I've killed a lot of people and I've ended up missing them afterwards. You can relate. Skid gets it them afterwards, so. You can relate. He can relate. Maybe it was just a soil holding up two bags that have money signs on them. Yeah. Exactly.

One that said money, one that said power. Really subtle like that. That was subtle. Like imagery. Yeah, seriously. A tentacled abomination is holding bags and saying, money and power. A third tentacle for the handshake. Third bag with drugs on it.

And a fourth, sex. It's a bag of sex? Is that a bag of scruple surgeons? Are you offering me a bag of sex? You're in a yurt. You're resting by the fireplace making s'mores. Yeah. Yeah.

High ice. It could include s'more fixing. Sure. Well, I was going to say this. Alonki and I, like, we're making s'mores and, you know, touch it. Touch it together. Wow. Oh, sorry.

We've got some marshmallow on my cram cracker. Marshmallows are connected now. Oh, it together. Wow. Oh, sorry. Marshmallow. Marshmallows are connected. Oh, it's gooey. Substance, I'm not familiar with it, my people. We did not have these marshmallows. Yeah, they're fun. I never thought of mixing them with chocolate. And graham cracker. It's a trinity of flavor. Squish it. Oh. Then you eat it. Show me. So she takes the marshmallow, she lights it on fire a little bit, she blows it out, she goes.

Oh, careful. Oh, she blows it out cute. Oh. You gotta get the little crusties. What an adorable blow. And then she puts it in between the chocolate and the graham cracker, smushes it, makes intense eye contact.

As she smushes, she's like. Yeah. And she goes. Oh, she's like, yeah. And she goes, oh, it's splooshing out the side. Yeah. She looks, she looks the side. It's just splooshing out the side. You really took care of that sploosh. She knows how to take care of the sploosh.

Really good at flirting with elves. I don't know, I don't know if he's gonna be able to pick up on this. I don't know if it's. This is how I got my alien boyfriend. I wanna be a little more overt. She's so thirsty in this picture. Oh my God. She met this guy.

Almost killed him. Two seconds ago. Six or seven hours ago. Well, we fell in love when I punched him in the jaw. Yeah. In the jaw. Raised my Elven Johnson. Grazed my Elvin Johnson. Grazed my Elvin Johnson.

Gic, Gic casts musical accompaniment and you just hear like a sexy cello. It's just like... Woo woo woo woo woo woo woo woo woo woo woo woo woo. Some of your best work there, Gic. Thanks Hubert. I see, I feel like there's a... I feel like something's happening with them. Hmm, something's happening with me. Might be the marshmallow.

What's going on? Yeah, just feeling good, feeling excited for the adventure to come. Oh. Yes, yes, it's nice and warm. Reminds me of my tree. Yeah, well, it's, she's watching them, like, having fun by the fire.

Everybody's, like, kind of giggling she's watching them like having fun by the fire everybody's like kind of giggling It's gonna get really cold Yes, yes Well, luckily I have fur and you have assume back hair Why would you assume I have back hair? Well, cuz you have a lot on your arms I've never seen a woman with so much hair on their arms. It's good, it'll keep you warm. I thought you came from a world where there's no people. No, just the women I've met since I came over to Letha and Zephyr.

They tend to be feminine, beautiful, hairless. So... Hubert, when we get up there... Yes? It might get...well, hairy. I there, it might get hairy. I mean, it might get a little... Yeah, well then you should be fine. She just kind of looks away from Huber

towards Buggles and just walks over towards Buggles and sits down. Buggles, are you worried? Worried, sorry, it's like a million miles away. I'm like, worried about what? Oh, I was saying to Huber, you know, worried? Worry, sorry, it's like a million miles away. Like, worried about what? Oh, I was saying to Hubert, you know, when we get up to the ground of the world and maybe meet a Soyo or whatever,

I mean, what's going to happen? Is that it? I wonder what the hedgehog would taste like roasted over the fire. She looks back at Hubert. What? Hmm? What about me?

Did you just say you wanted to eat Hubert? No, what are you talking about? She looks over towards Arameus and goes over and sits next to Arameus. Something is happening with everybody. Are you high? Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr He slowly pulls up. Only a little. Off right in my face. I'm a bit nervous, Geek. About what?

This stretch across the ice. I know it will be cold, of course, and I believe the Keeper will protect us in this wonderful year that is coming to help us sleep through the night. It's the coldest part, of course. But there is this ugly business of rare and unnatural creatures rumored across all of these wastes. I don't know what we may come across. I just want to make sure we're protected. These, these are very interesting."

And he's tapping on the scroll case that have the scrolls of Reys dead in them. It's like, not something I've ever thought of before. Coming back, truly seeing the other side and then returning what would that be like? I Don't know I have a feeling one of us might find out probably be you Looks off. Yeah Yeah, probably I Don't have a good feeling about what's coming. What's wrong? You feel as if there's some foul luck going to come your way?

No, no. I feel good about our us. I don't feel good about. I don't know. It's like a like a scratch at the back of my brain. Like we're missing something. Yeah. We're forgetting something. Yeah.

Something that could help us or... Yes. There are so many pieces to this puzzle. So many notes in so many places. So many different pieces of information that don't seem to line up quite right. It feels like we're missing the beginning of all of this. How a soil first reached out shows us. I'm just worried. I'm worried we've killed off every connection we've had. I mean, necessarily. But everything we've done, we've... we're just losing

people. People we thought were allies and... I don't know. We've lost so many. Asoyo is responsible for so much death. And sounds like it was before, thousands of years ago. Before it was imprisoned. I guess I'm just confused between the Soyou needing us to free them versus already being free. It sounds like they already are, or at least partially so, right? They're using us, but to what end? I don't know. Here's what I believe. I believe the moment that we come close to this being, this creature, this abomination, whatever it is, we will be tested.

It will try to control us once more, but this time we stand up. This time we hold our ground. We keep our minds and our will intact. I think it has made a mistake making us as powerful as we are. It will live to regret that decision. She looks kind of towards Buggles as you say, you know, how powerful we are. Thinking about what he had said,

while still under the thrall of a Soyo or whatever it was, the elf, about Buggles being special or too powerful or not good enough or something. She looks towards Buggles and back. Yeah, we are pretty powerful. Yes. Yes, we are in this power. This power that I have begun to feel. You remember, in the final moments, with, what's his name, your boyfriend, your new, Galarian boyfriend.

Ilocni? Ilocani. Ilocani. Ilocani. He's never corrected. Ilocani, when I banished him from the possession, that holy light, froze forth from the possession. That holy light... it flows forth from the Keeper. The Keeper is watching all of this. My connection with the Keeper has never been stronger. As much as they say they give

us these powers, if I was not connected to the Keeper, it would be, I would be powerless. He is guiding our journey. Gruhasta is ensuring the balance of things by the destruction of this abomination. Sure, I have no reason to be afraid. We will be victorious. You will! You can see he's working himself into a fervor somehow.

And the music that she had cast, musical accompaniment, starts to change more into a building excitement as we're talking. And he's hearing it and getting more into it, yeah. And she grabs a carafe of wine that's in the yurt. Oh, fuck yeah. And she pours. I didn't even see that. She pours.

I was just tired of marshmallows. And she pours. This whole year it was just marshmallows. Yeah. She pours Zephyr some and Ilkani and, Boggles, you want some too? Yes, yes. And Hubert.

Oh, I see you found my toilet. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. I was looking for that. Oh, put a white wine in a wine.

Shouldn't have had that burrito before we went through Ice Gate. Gick lays down. Gick goes and lays down in fetal position in the corner. I have a little bit of the sap. He finds the other wine. I knew there wasn't wine. Why in that moment? You have a little. I said wine.

I drank so much of it. I drank so much of it, it tasted good. I heard you talking about your god. You know, Findelad Lara is known amongst my people as the Guiding Hand. So perhaps she is now guiding you as well, since you have meditated in her temple and received her sweet boons.

Boons? I'm kind of playing it like I don't know what I can do yet in terms of the dreaming, you know? Do you not feel different having prayed in her chambers? I do feel as if I was touched by some beautiful guidance, yes, spirit of great power and meaning. Yes, it is. I don't know what it means for me here,

but I'm so glad we did that. You have been touched, no doubt. Hey, if Vindelon Lara went to fight another god, you think they would win? That's a ridiculous question. Depends on the god. She is a peaceful goddess. She would, if anything, find a way not to fight.

Sure, sure, yeah, of course. Of course. What are you saying, if you fought another god? Rovacog. What are you saying? Breaks from prison, slays a thousand people, and then turns to slaughter the next thousand. What would she do?

Stop him, right? I suppose so. I never thought of her as a person before, more of a being of omnipotent power, but I guess, yes, she would step in and defend the innocent. Yes. Yes. We're going after a living god. Of course. We've got the backing of a god that gives us the guiding hand and leads us in the right direction.

That's enough for me. If you think Fendilad Lara could take on a Soyo, that's enough for me. I believe it. You are going to kill a god? I don't know what she's talking about. I'm just saying, if we go to try to take down a Soyo. What Sakawashi said, you need to sacrifice, you need a living god.

And if a Soyo has become godlike, then why not? If we have the power, why not? I thought what Sakawatchi was saying is that you had to sacrifice a living god in order to imprison a Soyo. Would Findelad Lara let us kill her? I don't. What?

Gek. She's stoned. What? No, no, I'm serious. I don't. I'm thinking big. I'm thinking big ideas. This is sacrilegious talk.

No, of course. Especially in a temple dedicated to her. You know what, Elkani? Let's come over here. You think Findelad Lara likes marshmallows? dedicated to her. You know what, Elkani, let's come over here. You think Findelad Lara likes marshmallows? I imagine if she were to taste these delicious treats, she would find them as enticing as I do.

Right, and she's like, ha ha ha, like, come on, let's start hanging out again. And this was a weird conversation, and it really brought the mood weird, and she's trying to like, you know, hang out It's Elkani. It just stops her music and goes and walks off and she's gonna go just look at different things in the tower to study more of Elkani's people and

she's just gonna kind of do the the montage of like walking through tracing her hand along the walls. The history of on all the stained glass that's actually just colored ice, seeing the history of the elves, these Ilverani people that now apparently no longer exist. They're all dead. And seeing what they accomplished, all these great works of art. You realize that Findelad Lara is a goddess of architecture and beauty and art. So it really speaks to you as a musician seeing this work that was done long, long ago. And I think in game, I am going to take the special Twilight speaker's feet.

Ooh. So this is sort of her, you know, she puts her foot in her mouth, doesn't really know anything about these people and she's going to want to learn more. And in learning that Fyndale-Ad-Lara actually aligns with a lot of what she believes as a person. Um, were you godless coming into this? Yeah. Yeah. She's going to kind of lean into that and like all musicians, godless, hedonistic, godless

idiots, godless idiots. Godless idiots. She is going to kind of lean into that and also become more societally knowledgeable. So that's sort of my interpretation of that. I like that. Yeah, it's a pretty interesting archetype thematically. Obviously, we're coming to the end of our story here, but for you to take that on is interesting. There's a lot of fun feats you could take if you level up again.

We never will. Ramiasul scooch over toward Bugles. Sort of just like pulls up his robes a bit to sit down next to him. You just hear Zephyr and Ilverite. Oh, marshmallows. Banturing, laughing. Boggles, is everything all right? Yes, yes, I'm fine.

You seem a bit quiet. Oh, was I? No. No, just watching. Are you nervous? No, not the least. Good. me neither. This is going to be fun. May I have some of that, which you're smoking? Of course, of course.

Thank you. You're not coughing quite so much as you used to. That feels very good. I'm not sure how often we'll be able to, you know, escape through this in the coming weeks. We may need to stay a bit sharper, so... Enjoying one more night before the expedition begins. Yes. Enjoying the company, enjoying each other's presence. How have you been feeling lately?

Marvelous. Wonderful. Good. Better than ever. Good. Well, let's get some rest. You've got a long journey ahead of us. Yes, perhaps. After I've had something else to eat.

And he goes over to the food, whatever it is. Maybe grabs like the smores material and just starts like grabbing fistfuls of it just shoving it into his mouth. Yikes. The fact that you're like doing so well right now is kind of terrifying. Yeah. And eventually you go to sleep. you go to sleep. Good timing on that music.

You wake up the next day, you exit the yurt and see this dirty old tent, pack it up. Varani says, so, do you think you'll return this way? Oh, of course. I mean, we know some strange means of- I wasn't talking to you. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, it's fine.

I'd like that you respond. Well, I don't really care. It's also so funny, like, this Ramulus is like 10 paces behind. Exactly. Like, we're at the top of the temple, and of course, we would do our best to. He got me back, guy.

He always thinks everyone's talking to him. Do you think the Travelers will take you back this way? I hope so. I don't know if whatever happens there, if we'll teleport away. Teleport? That seems to be what has happened the last few times we've been here. We kinda teleport away. Teleport. That seems to be what has happened the last few times we've been here. We kind of teleport away.

Teleport back. Seems like if you've had quite an adventure in your life. But yeah, like if we're gonna, if we're not gonna do that. It's like I could wait here. Well, I'll definitely stop, swing by. You don't have any friends anymore, so. It's a pretty nice temple. I'd hate to see it go to waste. It's really nice.

Make a wonderful home. What do you think about like a warmer climate? My people have always existed here in the cold, but I do prefer to be shirtless at all times. I know, that's what I was thinking. Like maybe I could just come back here and maybe you can just continue to come along with us back through the gate. I do hope that you come back and visit.

We'll kind of see where we're at. Yeah, yeah, totally. I'll just, every time I make s'mores with these marshmallows that you left behind, I'll just, every time I make s'mores with these marshmallows that you left behind, I'll think of you. Because I'm so sticky. Bleh. Right? What does that mean?

What does that mean? Yes. Shut up, Dick, I'm flirting. I'm not there. I'm flirting. I'm not there, I'm downstairs, I'm so far away. Everyone's always ruining my game. I'm so far away.

Ramius just like stops packing up the tent. If it wasn't for everyone else, I'd be killing it right now. I'm so far away. Couldn't be further. What? Yeah, just whenever it's sticking to your fingers, just thinking me.

Good journey. He's not saying in the yurt, right? Like, where's he saying? Are we all in the yurt? Am I the only one concerned about sleeping arrangements tonight in the yurt? He's not coming with us. We're in the yurt, we woke up.

We were up. There's a nine sleeping mats. I'm away, I'm so far away. I'm so sorry. Have fun. You can come back later. I help Ramius roll up the yurt and we are in complete silence.

Absolute horrifying. That relaxes over and she's like, We got it, we got it. Nailed it. We got it, we got it, no need. We got it. You guys need any help with that? No need. Need help with the bed rolls?

And we'll continue packing. She turns around as she leaves and waves back. Really sexily. Lost control of her body. Fuber comes over to you, Gic. Seems like Zephyr and our new friend really hit it off. She has got such pull, it is incredible. Maybe if you took care of yourself, you could catch a man. And he walks away.

Gic turns and makes another... Such a fucking asshole. I love it when Hubert does this, it's so funny. Makes another snowball. Lines it up and just nails Hubert in the back of the head. Reaches her to filth for no reason. Oh my god. Let's climb out the window.

And so you set out. Oh. Over the ice bridge, you teeter along this makeshift bridge to the high ice. Now armed with all this new information and a magical yurt, you are ready to set off on your route to the nameless spires. You can assume from the research Edward has done and anything you know about the Crown of the World that over the next few months you're going to traverse increasingly barren, bleak and frozen landscapes where the only plants are hardy lichens or a strange fungi and even then only rarely Luckily you have this yurt now which provides you with food, but it can only be used

Once a day we have the ring someone has the ring as a ring of sustenance Ramias has the ring of sustenance. Mm-hmm I would like to retrain Yeah I would like to retrain If we're if weeks are passing so you just let me know when a week or more is passing, okay? Yeah, think about this. It's it's it's a multi-month journey You know that as opportunities to subsist off the land diminish Which you don't have to worry about You can probably also expect dangers in the form of brutal weather,

treacherous environments, intense cold, and who knows what in terms of arctic inhabitants that can survive in this landscape. You discovered a map of Edward's planned route to return to the Nameless Spires and his belongings. It looks to be a journey of about 685 miles. Um, let me get that. So brutal.

Over like an arctic landscape. There you go. Like an unending just like expanse that's not interesting to look at. Yeah, yeah. Like ice skate to Findelad Lara temple, look how short that is compared to how far the top of the world is.

Oh my god, yeah. Some real fucking Shackleton shit. After a while, we'd start to get weird mentally. Yeah, some people, they do, unlike just the kind of endless white, and it just messes with your mind, yeah. Yeah. How do we stay on course, not to invite problems, but I mean, are we rolling survival?

Is that the idea? Or is there something that we have something that gives us such clear indication of what the path is? There's a lot of different ways we could do this. You know, I'm going to kind of hand wave some of it to a certain extent just because it'll get real boring. Yeah. If you're not interested in that, that's fine. This part of the world is like more...

The crown of the world is more traversed than the equivalent would be, the North Pole would be on Earth. There's more traffic leading across it, so there might be pathways, even roadways that we could follow. And his route, his map, he did a lot of research. It seems like he knows a route but obviously he didn't know what dangers you would face along the way. He had bodyguards you dispatched with them. I guess they were gonna come along with him and protect him, but...

There could be like landmarks that he would point out, navigate by... And we would know from Jade Regent that like there are people you could hire, you could hire guides to take you over to the Crown of the World. That's a big part of Jade Regent. You have to find this missing guide who was like the guy that could take you over. So I imagine those guides have left behind notes of their route and he was studying those as well. So the thing is though, even with this map, this is very uncharted territory. Despite large swaths of the journey being across what you would assume is completely wide open terrain, the travel over the high ice is exceedingly difficult because of the intense cold. Edward estimated 68 days from the temple to the nameless spires. That's what he

sort of you see like 67 70 it's crossing everything out he's like 68 days. Maybe with some skillful survivalists among you you can shorten that time but probably not by much it's not like you're gonna shave a week off maybe a day half a day at least with the yurt, you're not going to have to worry about food or shelter, but it's the travel between camps that you're going to be most fearful of. Now, you know, we could get into the nitty-gritty of, you know, rolling, cold, rolling against survival. That doesn't really interest me right now. I would assume that you all have winter clothing. I don't, I didn't want to role play your preparation

for the high ice shopping in the stores around Lepestadt. Well, we also have- For our Canada goose jacket. We have the suits. We have the winks, those- Well, there's only one though. Didn't we find more? Oh, we did. Well, in that case.

You have one- There's one like magical one. Yeah, I would say... You gotta worry about severe cold and extreme cold. I'd say the... You know, severe cold, to give you a mechanical way of thinking about it, it does 46 damage every 10 minutes with a failed fortitude check. And then as you get further north, it's even worse on a fumble, double.

Without a casting of Endure elements, you have to deal with severe cold, which is 16d6 cold damage every 10 minutes on a failed 4th save. Double on a fumble. I have no interest in playing that out, but if you have winter clothing, that will protect you from severe cold. I need to know if you or anybody else can cast enough endur elements to protect you from extreme cold. Because you'll just need to expend those slots.

And if you can't do that, then if you get into trouble, I'll devise some way to assume you're not at full health at the beginning of certain situations. Okay. Okay. So, we do have one. The Yeti costume was the mask, the greater coyote cloak, and the plus one cold resistance explorers clothing. Yeah.

And I think one of those may protect you from extreme. One person could have that item. That's the Yeti costume. But I thought we had found... There was something else. Didn't you just find something that could protect you from Extreme, but it's only for one person? That's what I thought.

Am I crazy? I'm going to keep looking. And that treasure pile you found last week. Scrimshrub scroll to Holy Beads, the Rime Jar. Oh, yes. Oh, right. Yes, yes, yes. The Rime Jar.

Is that a one-time use? No, no. I think it's like, yes, yes. The rhymes are... Is that a one-time use? No, no. I think it's like... No, you just have to apply it. Activate. Three actions.

It removes for eight hours. Yeah. For eight hours after applying the rhyme, you treat extreme cold as severe cold. So for one of you, you can activate that. That's how I'm reading it. Is that a consumable? It's so... It's a one- that a consumable? It's so right. It's a one-time use.

I think so. I mean, it's 175 Goldthreads. It's a magical reagents. It drives one to the touch. Interact effect three actions, draws off the cold and warms your body. If you have the fatigue condition caused by exposure to environmental cold, it removes the condition. For eight hours after applying the rhyme, you treat extreme cold to severe cold. Let's just say you could not just use that and just be protected. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't say consumable on it, but it also has legacy content on archives of Nethus.

What is it? Yeah. Rime jar. Rime jar. R-I-M-E. I mean, wow. Because also the fact that it's the size of a human head makes me believe you can use it for a while. Like it's a lotion that's gonna last you a while. Right. Yeah, I wonder.

I don't know. Is there usually something that says consumable? Yeah, so I have a couple of things like, I have a mesmerizing opal that will really only work when I activate it once and it's like a consumable. So once I use it once in a fight, that's it. Yeah, I mean this.

It's item 10. So if it was consumable, I don't think that's too powerful. Oh, right. And these consumables, I have our item like three. Yeah. Okay. So if we have the ability to apply this rhyme. So wait. Oh, the Salmon Car mummified hand gives us cold resistance 10. That's different. That's like cold damage. Oh, okay.

Well, I guess you're taking cold damage 46, but like... If you're attacked by... Like you were attacked on that boat by those blizzard-born creatures, like... That would be that, okay. That would give you 10 resistance against their colds. I don't know if it was just you wore it and you had... Actually, whoever had that on when you got hit by that black, you should have taken 10 less damage. So keep in mind, you've got a lot of things that on when you got hit by that black, you should have taken ten less damage.

So keep in mind, you've got a lot of things that have prepared you for this journey without knowing that you have them. Yeah. Now make sure you know who has those things. This is tricky. You have the rhyme. All right. So are you...

I have the rhyme. I don't want to get two in the weeds here, but like... Hold on a second. We can narrow this down. So is there a suit that is protected from extreme cold? I feel like... The plus one resistant explorer's clothing from the Yeti costume we took. It says extreme cold.

I don't think it says that anywhere. We never found out what it said. Right. Stop asking. Are you just ruling that that's what it does? Let him make a rule. I also thought that we found multiple- Explorer's clothes.

Explorer's clothing for cold weather. We took them from- Rittleson's Lair. Yeah, I didn't write it down. It doesn't really matter though, I would presume. I don't think they protect you against extreme cold. They give you energy resistance. Their Explorers clothing is just regular clothing.

Yeah. I don't know, maybe it gives you a bonus. But we found like snow shoes, all the stuff we took from when we killed them. They had snow shoes, winter stuff. Right, because they had clothes on ready to do this. Yes. Yeah.

That's basic gear, but it seems like the rhyme jar might be the only thing that can protect you from extreme cold. Not the Yeti costume. And Ramia. So if we can... So even the Yeti costume won't work. Let's assume it won't. Okay, I'll look it up.

The rhyme jar every day, basically every morning before we set out, we would need to apply it to each of us, as long as that seems to be okay. Yeah. We would apply it to each of us and then I could do a casting of indoor elements to each of us. Okay. Maybe. Close, close but no cigar.

How many, what is that, how long does that protect you? All day. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So eight hours or all day? All day. Okay. Well, the rhyme jar is only eight hours.

So we would only be able to travel for eight hours and then we'd have to just like stay in the yurt for huge periods of time. So maybe you could do endurance and then whatever, like you only have three slots or something. So like the person who can't get endurance from you can use the Rhine. Yeah. The costume is a plus one cold resistant

explorer's clothing, while the mask functions identically to a greater coyote cloak, which I don't. Yeah, so I think plus one cold resistant gives you like energy resistance 10 or something. These do not protect you against extreme. The rhyme jar and urine der elements, you just got to keep track of your slots. Yeah. We get into this tricky rule area here where...

Coyote Cloak helps you to subsist using survival checks, but with the Yuri you don't really flavor. Interesting. Let's see. I'm not sure of these rules. Yeah, so I only have... It's a third level spell to cast endure elements to protect you from severe. So the, to protect you from extreme, it's fifth rank.

I only have two of those a day and those are my best spells. If I use my third level spells every day to cast this, you know, I'm losing good spells for combat. So that aside, this is pretty nuts. This is pretty nuts. Like are you saying for these two months, we are in extreme cold every day? No, probably the first month or almost a month it'd be severe cold and then it gets to extreme cold. You know, depending how you play it out. So we wouldn't need the rhyme jar.

Today was a really cold day. So we wouldn't need the rhyme jar until the latter parts. Yeah, maybe 25, 30 days in. Would it be realistic for us to say that we bought gear in town before we left? I think it's safe to say that no mundane gear can protect you from this kind of cold. We wouldn't have been able to buy gear in town. Yeah. That buy gear that would protect you from extreme cold. So like, here's the way I think about it. Thinking about mountain climbing, right? It's like, you can have all the gear in the world,

the most expensive stuff that we have currently. And if you're above 25,000 feet on Everest, and you're stuck overnight, you will die, even in all that gear. I think that's what that extreme cold is meant to represent. Yeah. So even with all the great mundane gear, you need magical protection to survive throughout the days, I guess. Could we have bought any type of elixir or scroll in town that would give us extra boons to not use all your spell casting?

Is that unrealistic? But it's like the course of like months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. What about the damage? Can you go through the damage again for severe? Severe, I think with your basic clothing. That's what I want to know. What is the damage for severe? Damage for severe is 4d6 on a failed fortitude save every 10 minutes, which would be 8D6 on a critical fail. And again, this is just to give you a sense of like how we protect it.

I'm not going to have you roll this obviously. And then extreme cold is 16D6 every 10 minutes, which would be 32 – well, 16D6 times 2 on a fumble. Yeah. I mean – Effectively, 32D6. I think we have to be reading something wrong in the adventure. I think you must be reading something wrong.

In what sense? In that like if a party didn't have a castor with endure elements, you can't do the adventure. So like there must be something we're missing. The Yurt is amazing. Like the nights are going to be the worst. Are you sure there's nothing in there that's like, it's severe cold during the days and extreme cold at night even in the worst areas?

Yeah. I mean, you would, if I didn't have a castor, I probably would have thrown in a ring or something of endure elements. But yeah, it basically wants you to use up your spell slots. Oh, okay. Yeah. So then another rule that you're crossing it. So yeah, I was thinking about the damage.

Maybe the rhyme jar is the cure-all. just seems crazy. You find a jar that just is like... Well, no, it's not a cure-all. It just takes you from extreme to severe. Yeah. Right. So if we can get from extreme to severe, then casting third level spells, the question is, could I... I only have three third level slots a day. Could I use up a fourth level slot to cast another third level casting like according to my sheet

I cannot do that. It says I have under prepared fourth level and over prepared third level interesting from what I can see here I don't know. I can't Know the actual rule. Yeah, I just want to mechanically weaken your abilities Yeah, you know me specifically you don't have endure elements I just want to mechanically weaken your abilities. Yeah. You. We know. Me specifically, yeah. And you don't have endure elements or anything like that. No.

I mean, I could, if I want to train and get a new spell, maybe I could get endure elements. Maybe the first couple of weeks, Ramias could teach you. Yeah. Honestly. This is how I do it. Let me see. Because if there's not a lot of threats up up here, like, yeah, this is what we're doing every day.

It's just trying to survive. Yeah. Honestly. Elements, Pathfinder, Arcaned, Divine, Primal. I mean, I probably could learn this. If it's arcane, I could do it. Really more interested in role playing it, but I just taking a moment to think about the possible damage and how you want to combat it mechanically sort of behind the scenes.

That's what's most interesting to me rather than doing the 10 minute by 10 minute journey. It's the nature to leave you depleted of resources. Can you learn this? Can you retrain? No. You can't. I just don't know the spell. It's not in my list. Oh, that's right.

Ah. Bards need to know the spells. Yeah. I don't know it. Unless there's a way... What do you mean you don't know? The question is you can't learn it? I don't know if I can. I'd have to take a feat or something that would allow me to learn other spells. It's not a bard spell. It's not in my list of spells. Well, I mean, he can rule as a GM that you can retrain a spell. So you lose the spell you have at third level and learn indoor elements. Now it's called environmental endurance. Yeah, environmental endurance. I mean, if you'll allow me to do that.

I'm looking at the learn a spell activity and one of the requirements is that the spell has to be on your spell list. So I don't think there's a way, at least not in this environment too, where you would be like, oh, I'm like going to sit down and study and I don't think there's a way that I'm going to take a little cleric dip at the next level up. I think realistically I'd have to change my muse and that's a whole re-character build. So it's not going to work. All right. I got it.

I figured it out. I'm saying this is bad for me. We're all going, mm. But when I said, can I cast four third level spells a day by giving up a fourth level slot, it's not letting me. The answer is, I only do three third levels a day, but I prepare one heightened to fourth level, but it doesn't do anything different than third level. Right.

Like it doesn't. It uses the fourth level spell slot, but okay. Oh, great. So I heighten it to fourth level, but it doesn't change its ability again until fifth level, but it uses up a fourth level slot. So that's how you make it work. So you can save your fifth levels, but you're burning three thirds. So three levels and one fourth level are gone for every combat. Love it. So that's how you make it work. So you can save your fifth levels, but you're burning three thirds of your life.

So three thirds and one fourth level are gone for every combat. Love it. Awful. They should have come. Wow. These are my new damaging spells. They're gone. Oh, great.

They're gone. Gone for the rest of the adventure. Or maybe not. We'll see. Or maybe not. We'll see. Oh, well, not for the first month. Right.

First month, not too bad. Oh, wait. No, yeah, they're gone. They're gone. Unfortunately, three days in, it becomes unseasonably cold. Here's actually how it works. The first month, I lose all these slots to the rest of this adventure. The rhyme jar begins when the extreme cold begins.

We use the rhyme jar with my thing, and we should be OK. But again, that's only eight hours overland a day that we have to like hunker down. So you said like, oh, maybe there's something wrong with the adventure. You know, if you don't have this, what do you do? Obviously the GM is going to put it in. But also there's another end of the spectrum where there's multiple casters that can cast it and then you're not penalized. You're kind of like equally a little off.

Sharing the load. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it just means that your cleric is like really working hard to keep you alive. Yeah, and the cold is mechanically affecting your ability to fight, which makes sense. Of course, Hubert would need some help as well. Oh, Jesus. But he's free. Put him in a jacket. And he's so small.

I'll put him in the lotion jar. Extreme cold. I'm a little nervous about this extreme cold. Perhaps you better stay at the tower. It's back that way. It's up to you. I couldn't stay here as long as you'll come back. But if you don't want to use another one of your precious spells, then stay here with my new friend. Let's do a vote among the players. Oh.

Oh. All right. You know that I'm in it to win it. A fourth level spell slot every day gone to keep Hubert around. Your thoughts. I thought you had to do one anyway for us. No, another one. I will abstain from the vote. If you,

Luthor's characters are tired. The vote is, do we leave Hubert here with Ilkhani? And save one, you know, kind of powerful spell slot a day. Listen, I did want to do this to Ilkani. This is going to ruin him. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's going to be alone trying to save that tower with Hubert. Okay.

Just let me know what you decide. Ang, ang all the dark eyes. Jesus Christ. I was just finally like, at least I can get two fourth level spells a day. Nope. Zero. I think we all know that Hubert is not going to help at all. That too. It's rude.

So we could leave him at the tower and get him on our way back home where he's safe because he's not going to fight or do anything productive. Sounds like one vote against. Well, it would be funny to have him there. It's funny. It's a nice comedic reprieve. Well, does Gic think that though? Uh, Gic does not want him.

I think Sidney thinks that. Sidney thinks it. We're talking as players. Oh, we are? I'll go with whatever group decides. He keeps doing character that. Sidney thinks that. We're talking to his players. Oh, we are? I'll go with whatever group decides. He keeps doing character voice. He keeps talking character. I know.

We're talking his strategic. We're talking out of character. He's talking in character. Do you ever play with strangers at a thing and one guy just doesn't get it? He's not understanding the tone of the table right now. Boy, I don't think we would realistically do that. I will abide by the results of the vote.

OK. Kate thinks that Hubert. I don't need it. I'm not interested in a tie. It's my spell slot. I have too much bias, so I'm not going to vote. You three vote. I don't care.

Whatever you decide. All right, close your eyes. Is Hubert worth a fourth level spell slot per day? Yeah, this is like a game of mafia or something. Is he worth a spell slot? If you want to bring Hubert along, raise your hand. I want to bring him along. I want to bring him along and not cast the spell on him.

Is he worth a spell slot? No. Just let him freeze to death. Because then he would die. Then we'd eat him. Perfect. This is what Buggles would say. Is this like, yeah, bring him along.

Could you rephrase your question? Bring him along and use a fourth level salsa and ask the question. And protect him the whole way. No. Okay. Votes for yes. He keeps pissing in the wine.

No one voted yes. Sorry, Hubert. You're going to have to stay behind. It's too dangerous. The temperatures could kill you just merely being outside, let alone the creatures we could face. I mean, you could come, but we don't have anything to help you. I think you should come. I'm not sure I can apply lotion on you.

Oh, I used some of that lotion myself last night. What? Covered in rimes. Serious? Yes. You're wasting our rhyme? This powerful lotion. I didn't know what it was for. He pulls up the rhyme jar and it's empty.

Just kind of... Get in the tower. Get back in the tower. I'm saying it works. Get back in the tower for it. Do something or I'm going to regret. All right. So, I guess this is...

Bugles is tying a bib around himself. Yeah. This is perhaps goodbye. I wasn't expecting this. No. Perhaps you could... Head back to the gate and walk through the door. This is perhaps goodbye. I wasn't expecting this. For now. Perhaps you could-

Head back to the gate and walk through it and wait for us there. You've walked like a few hundred feet. Wait for the time. It's like, no, so I just go back to- Go back to Whittleson. I don't think you should stay with Al-Khani. Oh. And wait for the gate walkers there. Want me to walk all the way back to Lepestadt from here?

Yeah, go through the gate. I can't power the gate. I don't have any magical ability. You can't? No, it's fine. I guess I could just start a new life out here. A little chilly. It'll be dark soon, but no, it's all right.

You have an adventure. Clearly, I'm not a part of it. Fine. Fine. Fine. I survived in First World. Fine. Fine. And uh. Fine. I survived in. You can come.

First world. What? Oh. What do you mean he's getting in? What do you mean he didn't come? Fine. He's just a resource suck. You can come.

Resource suck. Thank you, brother Ramius. Thank you. And he touches you and his hand is full of rime. Oh. That's so cold. Dripping with rime. Wait. Sorry about that.

We'll be back right after this. Alice Isn't Dead is a road trip mystery podcast by New York Times bestselling author and creator of Welcome to Night Vale, Joseph Fink. A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead, but Alice isn't dead. It has been called one of the best horror stories by the New York Times and the gold standard of story podcasting by the Irish Independent. Find Alice Isn't Dead wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm here to tell you about Good Morning Night Vale.

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I invite you to check out something you should know wherever you listen That was a close one thought that was the end of you but instead I don't know how this happened Ramies will use five spells Five spell slots a day gone every day very interesting a lot But instead, Ramius will use five spells. Five spell slots a day gone every day. Team 11. Hey, if Barnes was still here, he'd be using five. He'd be using six.

Very interesting. Yeah. Okay. Let's see what happens. Let's set out. Set out. I imagine Lord of the Rings set out. We're just seeing like wide camera shots of you guys trudging through the ice.

Up a mountain ridge. Yeah. Like along the side of a mountain. Yeah. Lord of the Rings side, which is seeing like wide camera shots of you guys trudging through the ice. Up a mountain ridge. Yeah, like along the side of a mountain, yeah. I mean, it is just wide open expanse. There are perhaps things in the distance, mountain ranges, but everything is just kind of flat and cold. It's horrible. The good thing is to begin with, the journey is mostly uneventful.

It's just this barren, cold wasteland. No one lives out here. And anytime you get the sense of even the faintest hint of life, it goes away before you can investigate. You'll be like, oh, there's something up there. And you walk up and there's nothing there. And you think, was that a trick of the imagination, a mirage, or did a rock look like something else? It's early enough in the journey where you don't feel like your mind is slipping

but you do find that time to time you feel like you're seeing things that aren't there. You start hallucinating. Yeah. Altitude, everything. The lack of stimulation for your brain. I remember getting like altitude sickness. Altitude? Well, are we climbing mountains? From time to time the elevation is changing and going down. So there's just like, I mean, I was just in Vegas. Well, obviously if you're watching the show, we were all in Vegas,

but I had to go out there for a visit. The pressure of, for some reason, was really getting to me. And I was like, blow my nose and bloody noses. I was like, God, I'm so dry out here. So it doesn't take much to kind of fuck you up if you're used to something else. From time to time, you might hear noises. Maybe there's creatures, there's animals out here.

Maybe it's monsters, but nothing comes after you, at least early on. Maybe they think they're outnumbered by you. There's five of you Or maybe they're just more figments of your imagination. I Just want to say throw it out there for you Yeah, do what this was what you want if you're like, I'm not ready for this nonsense Is there any way that during one of these nights in the yurt that Ramias within his dreams can start feeling like he can reach out

Okay, he could he dreams that he's back in Chesset or something like that. That's how the dream starts and he's sort of at a that tavern that we were at that hotel and Maybe sees Gaius there, talking with the girl flirting or something like that. Maybe it's a weird dream because Ramius is with Gic on stage and Ramius is playing an instrument. It makes no sense, right? He's kind of playing an instrument and as he looks out at the crowd he sees his brother.

Flirting with the... Yeah. What was her name? Tali? Yeah, Talitha Lucky. Lucky? I forget her last name, yeah. Who's the other one?

Talitha? Talitha Lucky Osterman. I just call her Tali. So yeah, he sees him I just call her Tally. So yeah, he sees him kind of flirting with Tally, and his first thoughts are just, oh, those two are flirting. I wonder if that guy's going to get lucky tonight or whatever, right?

Just sort of a thought. Are you trying to include the names? Get lucky. Yes. Okay, let's get Asta in there. Yeah. Maybe get some Asta. Yeah, exactly.

All right. All right. And we did. Get a piece of Asta. Yeah. And. This dream's weird. Yeah, I like this.

You're in there and then you. But it feels dreamlike, like he doesn't even write... he doesn't think it's his brother at first. It's just like, you know, guy in a handsome guy in a bar or whatever. Yeah. Um, but then, you know, as part of the dream, he's... the instrument changes. Uh, you know, he's... and then he knows it's his brother. And he's like, My god, he's here.

Now's my chance. You know. like, my God, he's here. That was my chance. You know. Anyway, I'll leave it to you. Is this like kind of where the dream seems to end? Or I don't know if you're prepared for this. I'm always prepared. I think that you change from playing and entertaining to this realization and you call out to him. Guys, and as you call out to him, and as you call out to him

The expanse between the stage and the bar turns into the expanse between standing at the top of a cliff and down at The rocks and lying at the bottom of the rocks is a crumpled up body of a man Instead of a child who looks at you and says Ramies Then you wake up Whoa Ramius? Then you wake up. Whoa! That was awesome. Yeah, he kind of, he wakes up in the yurt. It's just, something's happening here. Something that was more than just a dream.

He's never dreamed of it like that. He's had dreams, nightmares before of a boy falling. He's never seen the man at the bottom of the cliff. And so yeah, we can go back to like trudging along during the days and see if we can get another chance at this. You have each other, but it's still very lonely out here. It's physically and mentally exhausting. Luckily you have the yurt to come back to each night. On day 14 of your trek, two weeks in,

as you're walking, you see a depression in the land up ahead, depression in the ice, I should say. You look and you're like, you'll probably have to navigate around this. And so as you go around it, not knowing how deep it is, you realize that it's actually much larger than it looked like as you were further away. And so you can't help but investigate from a safe distance

and you realize that this huge depression is a clawed footprint. Oh, wow. Man. And it's pretty deep, like you could climb down into it without hurting yourself. And part of you may want to because there is a strange stain, like in the middle of this footprint. Like it stepped on something and killed it? Point of clarification. Uh huh. What are we talking about here, size-wise?

Like as big as this room? Yeah, my first thought was way bigger than that. Like a depression in the land. I thought it was like a... I was picturing a great depression. This guy. Is it like hundreds of feet? No, but it's like, maybe 12 feet long?

She walks through seasons? So you were just gonna walk around it, but then... Maybe something like that. It's certainly like, it's larger than any footprint you've ever seen. And what makes it all the more strange Beyond this stain Is there's only one of them one footprint hmm, and that's enough to sort of shake you everybody Give me a will save no a giant flamingo something very haunting about this solo

Can't land it here giant footprint Okay Solo can't land it here giant footprint Okay That is a 25 for Ramius. Okay, Zephyr 16 Okay 23 but it if that's a success, it's a critical success. Okay, good to know 23 23 Okay You're just kind of like, taking a back and that mental strain you've been feeling every day weighs on you a little bit more.

Like a sanity check. Yeah. Yeah. You don't know how it may affect you later, but you certainly feel a little out of sorts as you begin to investigate. What do you do? You see that there in the middle. There seems to be some sort of stain. He's slowly walking toward it.

You guys can see that too? Yes. Oh, I thought I was having a flashback or something. I thought that wasn't actually there. Should we want to go touch it or what do you want to do? I'm going to try to squint my eyes a little bit from the very edge of the depression, see if I can see better before I risk going in.

Yeah, the perception. The perception roll. Ooh, 36. Ooh. You start to look, and it is a flattened humanoid creature. Oh. Oh my god. Just completely like smushed into the ice.

Does it look recent? It's a corpse. It's a corpse, it seems to have been, he looks up to the skies, they're just like the same color as the ground, everything is the same, right? He's like squashed like a bug. Is it a recent corpse, can you tell? I don't know.

And he starts to climb in. Me too. Toward it. You guys climb in, climb down. As you get closer you realize whoever this was was wearing like crazy colorful clothing that is now just stained with blood from one giant... This is like Godzilla versus Bambi. I have seen that. that? I have seen that, yeah. I don't know what that is, but it sounds awesome. Goody has like a little carton. The animated short, it's like five, it's like 12 seconds long. Yeah, that's all just stumps.

I'll come up closer to it and do a medics exam on this thing. Okay, looks like it died from being stabbed. Yeah, but how long ago does it- Oh my god. Or what is it? What's the cause of death? Natural causes. Stovation.

Is it like eviscerated or is it, can we tell what it is? Recent? Yeah, I mean, give me a medicine check. Okay. Uh, oh. High roll, roll to a low roll. 25. 25, it looks like it has been here for at least a month.

The body is frozen in its squashed state. There are little elements of gear still on the body. Maybe it was a smaller humanoid. It's hard to tell if it was just a regular size humanoid. But Ramius is, I mean, he's a doctor at this point. He's an anatomist, right? Like this kind of stuff. It's not gonna sicken him. It might scare him a little bit,

that something could happen to him, but it's not gonna sicken him. So he's just gonna start like, kind of roughly rooting through the remains, pulling at the fabric, ripping the bones apart, even to just sort of see like, what is underneath what we see on top, and is there any gear in here, detect magic, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, you detect magic and you find two magical items on the corpse. I'm just going to tell you what they are. One is a retrieval belt, which used to be the glove of storing. Oh, that's awesome. And attached to the retrieval belt is a greater staff of healing. Whoa! Amazing! Cool!

Fully charged. I feel like Ramius is getting so many items. That's a good thing. Those didn't get crushed, huh? It's just our luck. Or you had to burn all these other spells on that. Now you at least have some opportunity to healing that doesn't affect you. You know, I wasn't thinking about that. That greater prayer beads also gave me some extra fourth level spells, so yeah, that is

true. Don't forget, you also have the incense that gives you plus two to religion checks when you light it. You have a lot of cleric stuff. Yeah, he's getting all buffed up. The belt of retrieval is, if it's like the glove of storing, I mean, I think I would take that too. How convenient.

Because it is, it is only, we would give it to Zephyr, but she doesn't fight with weapons Yeah, that's a belt. It's these pants you gave me are not really holding up on their own I've tried folding them in you literally fight with your ass You don't need a belt of retrieval. Oh, I didn't know it was magical Yeah, it's like if it works like the glove of the story It's like it you don't you don't see the weapon to hold the weapon at like get command activation It just appears extra dimensional space Staff feeling so cool. Yeah, that's a store an item. It's an action to retrieve an item It's an action both actually retrieve might be a free action. You're not my glasses. It is

Yeah store is an action retrieve is a free action. action Boom greatest every that's very cool. That is cool. That is awesome So look you you were selfless and now you've been rewarded in the form of a stain What does it take to it takes a week to invest right? No, the the sustenance ring took a week before it starts working investing usually is fine. Oh Retrieval belt just regular retrieval belt, right? Not retrieval belt, greater. Correct. Okay, great.

And then a greater staff of healing, though. Greater staff of healing, fully charged. Yeah, I am familiar with the staff of healing. That's phenomenal. And this poor adventurer squashed by who knows what. Pretty weird. Is there anything to be discerned from the shape of the indentation? It's clawed. You think about dragon-like creatures you fought.

It has that element, but you don't know why there wouldn't be another footprint. It just doesn't make sense. You keep forging ahead. Days turn into nights. The nights turn into days. Everything starts to mesh together. Day 26, you come up over a bit of a rise in the land. And as you do for the first time in almost a month, you catch a glimpse of this impossibly tall mountain range up ahead that you're looking at. And you're

looking back at Edward's notes. I imagine in the snow and the cold, you're pulling out his map and looking at it. You're like, this is blocking the path. Are we anticipating this? Is it supposed to be here? No, it's not on Edwards Notes at all. Nothing on the topography. And what's more is that as your eyes fixate on the mountains, at the tallest peak, there is a single structure, like a castle,

that seems to flicker with light, like a distant star. It's dark by the time you come upon this, or night is approaching, so you can see that flickering light from a castle atop this mountain. You have nothing in your notes about this, but it looks like there's no way around it. It stretches as far as the eye can see either way. We'll pitch the yurt here for the night. Rest, think about it, talk about it. I want to retroactively, well, not retroactively,

but as we were moving along, we never rolled like a nature check on that print. Oh. Or an arcana check. A retroactive nature. Yeah, was this a dragon print of some sort of like ancient giant dragon or you know? Yeah, give it a roll. Do you want a nature roll or do you want like an arcana roll or? You can do either, whatever you're better at.

Yeah, you don't think this is a mundane creature? Oh, I don't think it's a mundane creature. Okay, yeah. I mean, I'll do arcana in case it's a magical beast of some kind. So it's a 25. Yeah, yeah, I mean, the claws does seem something drakish,

but the size is unlike anything you've heard of. Yeah, okay. But you also know it's not that crazy for there to be, you know, unknown creatures in the arctic up here. What could survive out here has to be pretty hardy. It would have to be flying, though. To be some sort of flying beast. Came down with one foot smooch.

Just like stepped on him for fun. Perhaps. Just for shits and gigs. Um. Pitch the yurt. Pitch the yurt and then I guess we could talk in the yurt. Just... It looks like as far as the eye can see, the range extends.

I don't know if there's any path around. Should we take a wrong turn somewhere or something? Why is this mountain range here? It shouldn't be. None of his notes. Could it be like a trick or like an illusion or something? Could be. Very interesting, Kik. I suppose we walk toward it, follow the beacon, toward the foot of the mountain, and see if there isn't some way up that we can't see from this distance Maybe a switchback trail or something. There's a castle up there. I mean, it looks like there's a trail

There's a light on in the castle looks like somebody is there unless they fly up there of course Wait can't you fly? Oh, no, you can't now, and you didn't take fly or you did take fly? I did not take fly. Oh. I think. Huge mistake. Did I take? Did I take?

Did I take? Did I take? Did I take? Did I take? I did not. I think upcoming I can... Why didn't you do that? I ended up taking slow and haste and other stuff.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I can't fly, but I can I can fall really good. So I'll have to get you up there. Um, so in the morning we hike to the mountain, the foot of the mountain, see what we can see? Yes.

Alright. I'm exhausted. My feet are killing me. Going to get some sleep. And so you go to sleep. Who's first out of the yurt the next morning? Gic. She wakes up, gets the clothes on. It's early. It's cold as shit. She comes outside because she, thinking it's illusion, she wants to get a peek at it in

the light. She comes outside. Gic, you come outside and you are awestruck. Mountain range is no longer in sight. No castle, no flickering light. Nothing. Wipes her sleepies out of her eyes, walks around the other side of the tent. Pitch the tent backward? There it is. It was behind the tent. Came out the wrong way. No, there's nothing.

There's no, no nothing. Flat expanse. That would be amazing. You really did do that. And it was just another bit to show how stupid it is. Like she looked at, she's like, She went out the back. It's gone!

The camera shows her face and it's just behind her. I came out the other door. Where did it go? Where did it go? Hen, in this moment, I'm gonna wake everybody up, but in this moment, can I do, can- Wait, did you already wake us all up? Or before you do?

No, before I do. Could I do a survival or like an arcana check just off the dome dome what could be happening what could have happened last night that's different than now mm-hmm which one would you like arcana survival I start with survival assume non magical to begin with 25 you know you're protected in the tent from The elements, but you do feel that there was a big storm last night You could maybe hear it pelting the tent or you maybe peek out from time to time just to make sure there are no predators Nearby there was a big storm. You could still see that light in the distance

but Nothing storm wouldn't have been enough to wipe out an entire mountain range with a castle, a beacon. Can I do Arcana? You can all give me a will save. Uh oh. All of us?

All of you because she's gonna call you out. You're all gonna eventually see this. So eventually we're all out there. Yeah. Okay. And you just feel like you're starting to crack. Yeah. Oh dear. Shit bird salad.

Bad. I can't. What'd you get? Ever since I've gotten the same thing that Gic has, resolute faith, ever since I've gotten it. Can't pass a will safe to make it a crit. Oh, you have the same thing? Yeah.

I have performer's heart and you have Resolute faith. That's fun. And what'd you get? I got a ninth, no I'm sorry a 21. 21, is that for? Damn, 25. Larry Bird. Little Larry?

Little Larry. Her kick. And what about Buggles? I got a Magic Johnson. 34? 32. 32, fuckers.uggles? I got a Magic Johnson. 34? 32. 32, fuckers. That's, I'm so, oh. You know sometimes with Sydney, you're like,

why did you say it out loud? And he didn't have to. I didn't have to say it. That's me doing math. You didn't have to say it. You didn't have to say it. You should've just been like, nice. Nice. Success.

Nice. I know it's, I know it's hot. Could've been 16. That's gonna keep you up tonight. I know, I, I'm not embarrassed, it's the fucking Could have been 16. That's gonna keep you up tonight. I'm not embarrassed, it's the fucking Lakers. Fuck it. Okay.

Is 33 critical success? No. Then you better make it one. Just go. Oh, right. Then you better fucking make it one. I was like damn, Sidney. Just feel like the world is playing tricks on you.

Everyone saw it, right? As we described. But this is a good thing. It's the same thing. This is a good thing. We don't have to climb over it now. Yes, but it suggests other problems that we have. It's a blessing from Fiddle-a-Fara.

Fiddle-a-Fara? Fiddle-a-Fara. Fiddle-a-Fara. Fiddle-a-Fara. We gods. Zephyr's been drinking that. Olive Factor. Zephyr started early. I think the snow's getting to you. Fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a-fiddle-a- She's got snow madness. Stop, everyone stop pointing at each other and blaming each other. Clearly, we've been out here for a while. We thought we saw something.

We didn't. It happens in the desert. It happens out here. What? Not like this. We all thought we saw the same thing. Yes, each of us hallucinating in these situations is not strange.

You forget to drink enough water. You get used to these environments where you can't see anything, everything is white and you can hallucinate. For all of us, he looks at Buggles, to see the same thing, exactly the same thing, we are being manipulated. There is some magic at foot here.

Hubert, did you see it? Hubert died weeks ago. Hubert died weeks ago. Hubert died weeks ago. I opened the 10 flap, Hubert is right there. Amazing. Yeah, Hubert's like a little twitchy. Must've just been my imagination. This is a good thing, I stand by that.

Hubert, eat this marshmallow. I don't disagree. I want your hairy marshmallow. Uh... Um... Again, I want to do another check. I want to do another recall knowledge to see if there's, uh... Or an arcana.

If there's any explanation for this that is a direct, like, uh, could someone have set illusionary traps or be casting illusionary spells on us from afar. Uh, anything like that that could, um... traps or be casting illusionary spells on us from afar. Anything like that that could... I'm going to do Divine. See if I can get anything from it. Ooh.

Natural one. Shit. Shit. I think that the best way that this can be interpreted for you is in this moment, you go back to what you were, the speech that you sort of gave to everybody about the Keeper, and now you're out here facing this. Yeah. You maybe have a moment of loss of faith.

He's abandoned us. Our crimes were too great. What? No. I'm sorry. He helped us and got rid of the mountain. Yes. He showed us a path. He is lighting our way. Fynda Lottlar is guiding us and she wouldn't guide us wrong, right?

Fynda Llar is guiding us, and she wouldn't guide us wrong, right? Fyndaladlar is made up. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pack up the yurt, Giff. It's your turn. I hold the star talisman that's now like imprinted

into my chain shirt, and I kind of rub it. I'm not made up. And start rolling up the yurt. Why not pray to Archie and Veronica while you're at it? She's real. I would pray to Jughead if Jughead was the guide in hand. And after Gic has done all the work, we'll set out again toward, right where that beacon was.

Right where that beacon was, blinking a little extra. You can see there's a concern in his eyes, a doubt, annoying doubt. You just keep walking. Day 36. Oh. I thought it reappeared right when we got in.

It landed on you. In the mountain. My nose. Day 36 and you are in extreme cold and you have been for almost a week at this point. So the rhyme, every day. Yeah, everybody's rubbing it on. It's also, I think you get fatigued after four hours or two hours, I think.

So we take breaks. So, or I guess if we're protected from- Well, that's what the rhyme does. It removes fatigue. But even still, oh, okay, all right. You got your snowshoes on now, you're going through higher drifts sometimes. You've passed through a few storms, you're trudging along.

Even though you're eating at night, you're working up such an appetite during the day, and you don't wanna lose time by stopping too much because you want to go in the light. So you're hungry, you're tired, you're cold. As you're going along, all of you hear this faint murmuring sound. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah I didn't say anything. I hear it too.

Everyone stop. Listen to it. You hear this like vast voice that sounds like it's whispering across the entire ice directly at you. When you stop and really listen to it for a moment, you can pinpoint the source. It doesn't make any sense to you. It's like it's coming from this large snow drift about 70 feet ahead. All right. All set.

Jack. Go. Ramias will just start walking to, he's got his staff of healing out. He's using it as like a walking stick. He starts moving toward that mound. He's going to stop and say, hold on a moment. Hold on a moment. Wait here for me.

Don't come any closer until I call. He's going to put up the hood of his cloak of illusions and vanish. And we do see footprints in the snow. Yeah. And he starts moving toward the mound slowly. Trying to be stealthy. Did you bring out your staff of healing, did you say? Yeah. So you're using that as like a walking stick. So you just see two footprints in a pole, a hole. You walk up to this drift and it's a pretty large drift. You don't know why. There's no, it wasn't like up against something that would have collected

snow. It's just, you feel like there's something here. Something under it. But as he gets up and walks around it, no immediate visible danger. No immediate visible danger. The whispers increase in volume. No, no. In fact, they sound just as distant, but they know they're coming from here. He's going to take that staff of healing and just like slowly poke it into the side of the drift. And it would be invisible, so you'd just see like a hole start falling.

That's awesome. A hole in the drift. And you stick it in there and you keep putting it in until it's like all the way in and somewhere in the middle of the drift. You feel it push up against something and it's angled in of the drift, you feel it push up against something. And it's angled in such a way that you know it's not the ground. Doesn't feel like a rock because there's a little bit of a give to it, but not much. Okay.

Hard, but not too hard. Pull the staff back out, pull down the cloak. You see him appear next to this drift 70 feet away. We go to like- And he doesn't say anything he just. Motions you to come up swings his arm come toward come toward me. As you get closer he doesn't raise his voice too much because there's something in there. Something under the drift.

Let's dig it out. Maybe we have a spell that can melt the snow. I can. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Nice, yeah. Hell yeah. Six conditions over and over again. I love this. And so what would have taken, you know, 10, 20 minutes to try and do? You melt it enough that eventually you see something and you stop and then you uncover

camera from above, looking down while all of you archaeological dig uncover a body a remarkably well preserved body of dwarf a dwarven man Wrapped in furs from head to toe But he has his clan dagger

lodged so deep in his mouth that the tip is buried in the vertebrae of his neck, all the way in his mouth. You can see it, it had gone all the way through to his partially now exposed vertebrae in his back. Oh my god. Everybody give me a will save. I was going to me a will say I was gonna demand Will say

There we go Fascinating I got a 35. Okay, so he just comes down close to it 27 this is my worst save so even good rolls, it's just like 20. 34. 34. 29. Okay. Hode. I want health. He's going to examine the body further, see if there's any other wounds or injuries,

and then look for any other... Loot. Yeah, I don't wanna say loot, but what I'm looking for is identifiable items, right? Like beyond just the clans. His wallet! Does he match the other person? Like does he maybe be part of that clan?

Oh, interesting. Yeah, like any similar colored garb or anything? No, no, that was very outlandish, the last garb. This is like... Explorers. Explorers. Cold. You don't see any other bodies, any footprints around.

No other wounds. And nothing on him of interest. Except this dagger. You don't see any other bodies, any footprints around. No other wounds. And nothing on him of interest. Except this dagger. Except the dagger. And his hands aren't like near the dagger. It's just the daggers in. Yeah, the hands. Could you do like a society check on the dagger?

Could I do a society check on the dagger? Yeah, sure. There's any indicating, any markings? Oh. 31. There are some dwarven runes on the hilt of the dagger, which you would know at this point is a magical dagger. Yeah. All right. I'd like to try to identify magic just while examining it from without touching it without looking at it. Give me our can of check

27 is a plus two flaming clan dagger. Oh Amazing whoa, it's too flaming. I feel as if Whispers this tortured spirit. I feel like we must put him to rest, his own clan dagger used against him. Whether he did it himself or not, it was not of his own making. And I'm going to try to pull the dagger out. He sets down the Staff of Healing and sort of like plants a foot on his face if he has to to just like get the grip from this frozen dagger to pull it out, fully aware that this could cause a real problem, but also thinking that this might free the spirit.

Maybe stop giving these whispers. He's gonna try to pull it out. Oh yeah, I stop giving these whispers. He's gonna try to pull it out. Oh yeah, I forgot about the whispers. Okay. You know, there's just like chunks of flesh, barely still clinging to a mostly skeletal face. You go to pull it out, knowing that if it wasn't frozen out here, you could just probably slip it right out, but you do after, like, give it a little oomph, and you pull it from the jaws of this dwarf, and right as it comes out, you all hear yet another whisper in your

mind. Still, so cold. And the whisper cease. Are you going to use that? Oh, it's snow. I don't know what to do with this thing. And perhaps he died of exposure, froze to death, thought he could warm himself with his flaming dagger. Oh god. He shoved it in his mouth. Point first.

Seems strange, but you do crazy things when you succumb to the cold. Things that make no sense. Do you want it? Yeah, I don't have, I mean, I can use simple weapons. Could I have it? I actually don't have a knife or a sword or a- You're never, ever, ever, ever allowed to fight with a knife, ever.

I could use it. No. Or if things go sour. You can have it if you can take it. No. Or if things go sour. You can have it if you can take it from me. You want to spar? You want to spar on the high ice? I didn't say that. I said, if you want it, come take it.

What a fool. You do not want me to take it. If you can't take it, I guess you can't have it. Alright. That was the rules. My quills are all stuck in me pants, so I won't be able to use those if trouble comes. And again, perhaps you should hold on to that dagger in case you need to do what he did. Troy, do I get the sense that this spirit is now at rest?

Yeah, you don't hear anymore of that whispering. Whisper stop after that? I just hope the same fate does not find us. And he's going to, and as I say this, it's always so disturbing whenever a grown man just starts removing a belt in public. But he's just like, What's going on's just like, he starts to take off the belt that's you know around his robe right now, or no underneath the cloak of elven kind and he's like

use this Zephyr, this belt. You won't have to carry the dagger but it will be in your hand in a moment's notice if you need it. I've been using the staff anyway to walk. Use that. Oh cool. That is very cool. She like tries it out. She like puts it in there and she goes real quick comes out into her hand. Like a magic trick. Gic is watching you. So cool. Hey, same deal with you. If you want it, come and get it. No, no, I don't need it. It's a back. I don't need it. Get you still watching from the distance. Okay, at the dagger. My God.

More going crazy. Hubert is just- Hi, dagger. Hi, dagger. Hubert is just staring at the body. What would possess a man to take his own life? People come out here, Hubert, they don't have the proper equipment. They don't have the guidance of the Keeper. They don't have the guidance of Finlaed Lod Laura.

How long do you think he's been dead for? Maybe we can use a resurrection scroll on him and see. And you assume it was godlessness led him to do this? No. You seem very small-minded, Brother Amos. No, not godlessness. Simply not realizing how much, how dangerous the elements are. The reality is many, many people freeze to death out here that are not properly prepared. I dare say we would not be properly prepared had it not been for the notes of Riddleson. I don't think it's godlessness. I think it's hopelessness.

Just just a lack of education. Should we bury him? Yes, we should. He was buried already. Should we rebury him? It will be difficult, but... It was impossible to dig in this frozen earth. You think this will be our fate?

No, no, not us. We are prepared. We have the rhyme. We have some magical spells that protect us. We'll be fine. Getting cold. Should we move on? Wait, who said to raise him? Did you say that? Yeah, Zephyr did.

Yeah, I don't know. It has to have been three days, so you would know. Yeah. It's been more than three days. Is there any, you know, exceptions for perfectly preserved frozen corpses? Any interest in playing a dwarf NPC fighter the badass clan war undead Let's not let's not forget the longer. They're in the boneyard the more fucked up. They are when they come back certainly It's not worth it to cast that scroll of him decide. He's good. Let's bury him

Let's bury him and we'll just yeah, it's like snow over time. There's no way to dig in this frozen earth as bugle said Day 42 Epic in spite of your clothing your magical protection your rime jelly Today was a brutal day of travel across the high ice Ramious I would I like to think of it, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that even the casting of these spells is arduous. Yeah.

It's more difficult to cast when you're protecting from more severe cold. Of course. So you're tired. Don't forget the monotony of the routine of every morning waking up for weeks on end. Putting on lotion. Flying rhyme to every square inch, you know, casting these rituals.

By the way, each one is 10 minutes of each casting. So it's a long, arduous process. Every morning you get all the castings done and then you have to start walking miles and miles. It's an hour of doing that before you even set out. Yeah. I always like to think of the spell slots of a caster as a representation of exhaustion Right as you get to the end of your spells, you're just physically drained

Mentally drained so he's starting every arduous day already drained a certain percentage, you know Well, this was this was a rough day Lots of strenuous like up and downs and downs, not quite climbing, but just the elevation. Downs are worse. The downs are worse. The downs are worse. You can hold it. The downs are worse.

Your body temperature, I imagine, is difficult to, like, get it where you want to be because you'll heat up during the more strenuous things. And then when it's calm and your body temperature comes back down, you start to get cold and so you can't regulate your temperature very well. You're frozen, you're hot other times. You're sweating and then your sweat freezes and you're like on the risk of hypothermia but you have this magical spell. But on top of all of that, the mental strain has been getting worse. Your nights are plagued with nonsensical, disturbing dreams that you

can't remember. So you set up in the yurt and get ready to go to bed. Is there a watch in the yurt? I was going to say one thing as you're describing this. I feel like Ramias has so many books that he's also trudging through all of this because they're holy to him. I think in some cases, he's in the yurt at night. He's reading from the books, like two people, if it's not too bothersome, just as a distraction. And they're not just they're not just a bunch of holy texts. So like a lot of them are like the accounts of the, you know, count of so and so's journey to the whatever that has this like a whole thing about a culture that like, you know, he was learning about or whatever.

And so there's like epic tales and journeys and stuff. So there's like story time kind of stuff. Maybe that's going on at this point. But then also, yeah, I think we would have to do watches regularly. And Ramious is a big part of those because he only sleeps two hours a night. Oh, right. All right, so you want to take first watch?

Yeah, he can take first watch. Yeah, he can do like the watch. Yeah, that's true. I think we'd have to, yeah, well, we'd have to have like one rotating watch for when you sleep. So like one night it's like Zephyr, one night it's me, one night it's... For just that two hours. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Let's have you take the first watch then and maybe this night because the day was so difficult,

you almost regret volunteering because you're having a hard time keeping your eyes open. It gets so bad that let's say you're, you say, I gotta step outside, get some cold air on my face. It's like when you're driving, you fall asleep with the window down. Yeah, so you go outside and you step out of the air. It slips over the cloth of the earth. Step out into the night. And while the night sky is full of stars, the world around you is dark, featureless. And as you're out there,

I can't stay out here too much longer. You didn't go out there like in a bathrobe, but you're like, I gotta go back in. Maybe you're starting to feel a little lightheaded. So you go to move back toward the yurt, but then the lightheadedness like overpowers you to the point where you faint and the world gets darker. All of a sudden the stars go out and you awaken and the first sensation you feel is an itch on the sole of your foot.

And you're like trying to reach down and itch it, but you can't move your arm. You can't even move your hand. And then you start to feel extremely cold and you realize that this isn't some sort of sleep paralysis. You're encased in ice. You're encased in ice and as the realization of your predicament hits you, maybe like sleep paralysis, you try to like flail out in every direction to like

break out of this icy tomb. And it's like being in an MRI machine, like you're trapped even though you know that like maybe if you just moved you could get out, but you're trapped in a way you've never felt trapped before. You try to maybe just cease all movement then to conserve your energy, to conserve your strength. But in that silence, in that momentary pause, a sound emerges. A sound like chewing or sucking. And that sound is soon accompanied by a physical feeling. Although you can't move your head, you can move your eyes and so you follow the sensation.

You dart your eyes downward where you feel something on your body. And see several immense shadowy figures gnawing on the frozen parts of your body. And we'll see you next week. Oh my god. What the fuck is this shit? on the frozen parts of your body. And we'll see you next week. Oh my God. What the fuck is this shit? Jesus. What the fuck is going on? What the hell is happening?

There's more sucking. There's more sucking? So much sucking. Sucking and so bunching. How did he make it chewing and sucking at the same time? Oh, how many licks does it take? It's terrifying. Oh, how many licks does it take? It's terrifying.

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