 At the border of Balcanus, confronted by the armored hunter known as Thorn, they stand between you and the route into Chester City. The air is still and silent, and the creature has its face dead set towards Karmiharian. And immediately, I'm going to need everyone to roll initiative. No! Talking our way out of this. If I choose not to roll initiative, does that mean that I can just go whenever I want? I'm going to show you you can go whenever you want as the last person to go. We are not rolling well at all. Alright, so the first thing Thorn's immediately going to do is you can see that they are just hovering just a few inches off of the ground, and you see them move very quickly towards Nathaniel's horse and goes to cut down Kara. No! Oh no! Oh my God! This is what happens when you ride with Kara! I mean, he said he's cutting down Kara. I'm fine. Yeah! Oh my God! You bastard! Oh my God! Why are you like this? Alright, as a reaction, Kara holds up her staff quickly. You can see there's a little bit of panic in her eyes, and you can see out of the staff the kind of bony protrusions of the spine kind of splay out into a shield, and Thorn smacks into it, it bounces off into the horse, and Nathaniel, you are knocked off of your horse. The horse is heavily injured. Oh, fuck! Not the horse! And you and Kara are both knocked off, you're both prone. Oh, I'm about to fucking destroy that pan. We might need to kill him just so that we can make it out of here lying. I know, I will be doing the baps. Wouldn't that hit me so hard he threw me in defense mode. And Thorn is going to take another swing at Kara. Oh, that's cool. With advantage. With advantage? Yep. If you attack a prone person in melee, it has advantage. The horse, the horse is going to be prone as well. It's kind of winning and just crying out in pain and panic, just kind of kicking the dirt and grass, and the second hit bounces off of the shield as well. Oh, thank God. Luna, your turn. Okay, yeah, no, I'm off the horse and I'm running over two swords out, and I will know. I wouldn't try and fucking tackle this fucker. Alright. I'm going to play athletics, I guess. Oh, athletics? Are you going to try and grapple them? Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Okay. Well, the stats the same. The stats the same? Okay. You go to grapple, but Thorn just pushes both arms aside, just like bashes your arm aside as you try to go hold, but you do still have your attacks, unless you want to make another one within another one of your attacks. I would like to first bonus action rage, and then, that's a good idea. Then I get an advantage. So first, we just need to put a little rage in the chat. Rage? Alright. 16. God damn. Unfortunately, you go for a swing, but Thorn takes their acts and parries it out of the way, sparks fly, and at that parry you can feel there's an immense amount of force behind the swing that it almost throws your sword arm, like just like entirely behind you at the force of it. Okay. Well, I think I'd like to burn my action surge then. Okay. Dang. And take my swords out. Okay. Don't think grappling's gonna work anymore. I just want to make sure that I am defending Nathaniel and Kara as I take these two attacks. 16 to hit. No. Not enough. I got him. 12 to hit. Oh god. And both swings parry, pting, pting, as Thorn is using some very expert kind of martial prowess with the axe swapping kind of hands up and down the axe shaft, like preparing for each blow. Okay. Yeah. Well, then, yeah. I guess in my turn, I just want to make sure that I am protecting Kara and Nathaniel, like I'm going to be a problem. Alright. So, uh, next is the NPC's turn. And you can see that, uh, firstly, I'm going to go with Francis. Francis is panicked. He doesn't know what to do. What? He turns to Renee. What? She just points towards Chester of just like, oh, this is, this is one of those moments. Remember when I said there are times when you don't fight, that thing is fucking tail is like, no. Like she just points like, nah, nope, you don't want, you don't want this. You don't want it. Give me a persuasion at advantage. Okay. I swear to God, take it out and run. You see, he squints his eyes just like he's hesitating, but he hops like closer to the front of the horse, takes the reins and yeah, and starts to ride off towards Chester City. And I'm going to say he dashes with the horse as well. So he's going to leave combat next is going to be Rush who simply is rides the axe speak up and he just like kind of kicks the sides of it. And the axe speak is going to try and claw thorn away is going to try and grab thorn and toss into the side. This is what happens when we make friends guy. Oh, please don't die though, because now I feel responsible for your brother and your grandma. Please. Well, that's unfortunate, isn't it? Unfortunately, the axe speak for learning more about him. The axe speak is not strong enough. It just kind of goes to claw at him, but the armor is too thick. And now Kara's turn, Kara is going to stand up firstly. And you can see that she kind of like holding her arm. She it's been a little bit rattled from the blow. She throws her both her arms down and slowly lifts them as if she were trying to carry the very earth itself. And the ground starts to shake underneath all your feet and it rumbles and cracks. The ground splits open around you guys and you as she summons a small army of skeletons. They're not that big. Sorry. Oh, yes. A small army of one big skeleton. Very smart. Oh, please don't attract officials. Please don't attract Belkines official. She's far enough away. She pushes her hands up and they all start to dash in and try to kind of pile on to thorn. Oh, my God. Oh, God. Yeah. Give him more targets to hit that art. Nathaniel. Just bull boys. Rattle them. Hopping on. Rattle them, boys. I'm going to name that one Melvin. Wait. Spencer. Devon. After she's done conjuring, she she lets go of her hands and kind of goes to clutch at her side. You can see that she has the same some kind of wound. Oh. Oh, what? Damn. Okay. This is the one thing I can think of that will benefit everybody, including myself. I am going to use heat metal, but I'm not using it on specifically the armor. I'm using it on the axe that Thorn is using. So what happens if I do that is that you're he's going to take the damage regardless or they're going to take damage regardless. And then the creature has to succeed on a constitution saving throw or drop the object. Okay. If it can. So basically I'm trying to disarm. All right. Okay. DC 15. Constitution, you say. Oh, it's 16. It's a 16. 16. They meet it. They hold on. They start to burn a bright start to heat up as a bright, glowy orange, but they hold on to it and you can hear sizzling as a little bit of smoke kind of comes from where they're holding up, but they do take the damage. Okay. Cool. And then on the other thing I am going to do is as part of inspiration, I'm trying to find, okay, there's unsettling words and it's tracking from the next saving throw that it makes. Should I use unsettling words or should I inspire somebody? Well, I'm after you so. Are you asking to be inspired? It might be a good idea. I have an idea on his save if he used a wing shot. Oh, yeah, I would. I would. It would. So I'm going to do that because it takes a D8 that would get taken away for the saving throw. So I will roll that. Can I roll that? There it goes. Oh, well, that's sad. It's okay. I'm losing on the axe. I'm sorry. It's okay. No, that might be the decision between life and death right there, buddy. You know what? Very well could. Very well could. Making it. Is that your turn then? Are you going to direct your horse in any direction? Are you just going to stand guard just in case? I kind of want to be further away, Enoch, I'm sorry, but I kind of want to go this way a little bit with the horse. Oh, no. It's fine. I want to go with you. It doesn't matter. Yeah, go ahead. You know, it's a ranged fighter. It's fine. Exactly. I'm going to go within a certain distance from my spell to work, but I'd rather be a little bit further away. Yeah, no. Don't worry because, you know, what is about to happen is going to happen. Yeah, you go ahead. Go ahead. Have fun. All right. All right. I guess it's me. It is. Yes. Enoch, your turn. Okay. Bonus action, radiant soul. Okay. And action, ring of haste. Okay. So wings, I'm going to go right up into the sky off the horse. Okay. I'm going to put myself about 35 feet up and one, two, three, four, no, one, two, three, and then 15 feet that way. So that's 40 feet so far and I am going to take my haste action to do my attacks and I'm going to pump a winging shot into this into my first attack to see if that will do anything. String save DC 14. 14. 14. All right. Yeah. Negative one because of Renee. Yep. So, yeah. Let's see what we get. 24. 24 hits. Okay. And I'll go ahead and roll damage. Yep. 15. Jesus. You fire off a shot. It kind of pierces through a chunk of the armor. You can see tiny sparks kind of fly off and tiny little pieces splinter off of the armor as you pierce right through with that shot. Let me see if the winging shot works. Unfortunately, Thorne is still up. Damn. All right. Second attack, winging shot again. Come on. Let's go. 26 to hit. 26 does hit. Okay. That will do a cool 11 points of damage. Yep. Another decent chunk. Just like another, you just see just two shots fire out in quick succession kind of breaking into the armor. You can see. Yeah. And he needs to make another string saving throw. All right. This one, he has his regular thing. There's no minus because it was only the next one. Yeah. Unfortunate. As luck would have it, that second shot knocks him prone. Oh my gosh. Thorne drops to their knee as you hear a loud thud of this clanging armor and are holding on to their axe, trying to hold themselves steady. And I say, hey big guys, the sun's getting real low. Kick his ass, boys. Please. I would love to, but he's going to stand up before I get my next turn. I will say how. Okay. Now that is not all you're doing. Yeah. Because I. Okay. So bonus action, action, a hasted action. I have 20 feet of movement left. You want to know what? No, I can't do anything else. It's pretty much me. I am up in the sky. He can't touch me for now. Good. Yeah. All right. I'm done. Sorry. Cammy, what were you going to say? Just read the end of the thing of if it doesn't drop the object. It has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the start of your next turn. All right. I will keep that in mind. Apologies if I didn't add that. I will add that in the future from here on out. Listen, I totally forgot that it did that. So that's why I wrenched it now. So it's on both of us. I really, I really wish you had that disadvantage on that first roll. But it wasn't saving throws. It's just checks. Oh yeah. No. Yeah. So it wouldn't be saving throws. So they wouldn't have mattered. That's why. No, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I mixed that up. I mixed that up. Even as a DM. It's all right. We got Nathaniel. Your turn. You have just been knocked off your horse and you see this hulking armored creature that is about, is currently slightly being dog piled by a bunch of skeletons kind of like around as well as being shot by a knock that and now it's kneeling on top of the grass. Yes. I appreciate that. It's been knocked prone just for me, the man who will not be making use of that instead from the ground, I spin my hand and pink lights shoot out of it. They can hit five people. They'll hit, you know, the usual five. Yep. You're close enough. I hit bop bop bop bop bop. As I cast my mantle of inspiration, which for those of you who do not know, allows you to immediately as a reaction move up to your speed. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity and you do gain eight temporary hit points. Okay. I'm definitely taking that temp HP. You got it me. Everybody. All of the whole team in Cara. Okay. I am even moving it up and fucked out. Poor Rush. Rush didn't get it. Did Rush need it? Is he a melee guy? No. She has a melee dude. Technically. Yeah. He's fine. Cara gets up and gets to a safer distance. It does not provoke attack of opportunity, you said? Nope. No. Not at all. Not at all. Now you're in my house, bitch. Everybody trade places. I was going to say, I might call out to Cara and see if she'll get on the horse. Yep. She is. Let's see. Up to her movement speed. So let's see. Actually that's a great idea. I'm going that way too. She hops on. I start pointing her towards that direction. And she, as she does, you can see she's incredibly winded and just cries out to Renee, whatever this creature is. It's not bound by the limits of something living. So we'll not tire out. If we've planned to escape, we should do so now. We've tried that. It's very difficult to actually make work and stick. This might be our now or never moment. I'm going to hop onto the horse. I don't suppose you think we can defeat this thing. At least hold it back for a time being before I figure out what the hell's it is. I imagine that just knows where we are because it's following necromancers, namely you. My action will. Right. I need to do something with my action. I need to actually be a team player here. Enemies of bound will be useless here. I have a question. I have a spell that can be casted at a higher level. I do not want to use the higher level thing of it. Effectively, old person is a spell that I have. I could cast it, but only at a higher level, and that means I cast it on two people. Can I just choose not to cast it on the second person? Yeah, I'd say so. Okay. That's very easy. In that case, I'm going to hold my hand out. I'm going to try to focus on whatever is inside that helmet of thorns. And I'm going to try to mess with the brain so that it can no longer send signals outwards towards the rest of the body as I cast hold person. Oh, isn't Paralyzed Instant Crit if it hits? Yeah, that's pretty rude. Also, the spell save DC is 16. 16. It's starting to find my way. No, it's not safe. It's on checks, not saves. Fun! Not that I know about it. You're good to be fair. He will have disadvantage on attacking you guys. He will also have disadvantage on making a strength check against your treble. Now, this is just flavor. Nothing happens to you, Nathaniel, but when you peer into the mind of Thorne to hold them in place to cause their brain to stop them, you see flashes of not only Kara, but also the other two Maharian sisters flashing as if at rapid pace just for a brief moment before he comes back to you, your normal consciousness. Damn! It's thinking. Whether it's alive or dead, it's thinking, and not just of you, of your sisters. Kara's speech is like that. I will end my turn. What is that thing? Oh, wait, it needs to roll the save. Let me do that. Ha, I thought I failed. I almost forgot about that. You didn't even do my spell? You're trying to get me out of this? I totally forgot. Sorry, I was caught up in the moment. Nathaniel's too powerful. It looks like Karma has paid my dues because guess who's held person? Me? Fuck! Well, good luck to you all. I'm running to the bathroom. Bye. He did so good, he shit himself. So, at the end of each of its turns. Okay, so it doesn't do anything on its turn. It needs to roll again. But it gets to roll again. Fail. Fail. It does fail. Yes! You can see it's struggling. It's like jutting and jittering in place and shaking, and you can hear the armor rattling as it's like slowly lifting its axe, as if it's just being pulled by an immense force of gravity. Ah, ah, yes! Hell yeah! Luna! Oh, and it's my turn. I would like to oil one of my blades, please, with one of the, I have one last, I have two charges of the exhaustion oil. I just want an oil up solution with blade bonus action. Yep, you may. Alright, one, please hit, 19. Yes, 19 does hit. That's a crit then. Yep, so it's a crit, so you do double your damage, so that's a 10. Oh my god. Yep, you slash into the armor. Oh wait, raise damage too? I'm raging still. Oh yeah, that's right, raise damage. Yep, let's do. Okay, so that is a 12. Okay, you slash, large sparks kind of fly off of the armor right where it tinged off of your sword. And he has now been hit with the exhaustion oil, so. Yes, so all, what is that, all physical checks? Will that be at disadvantage? I think so. Yeah, that sounds about right. How does, how does double disadvantage work? Uh, I'm just gonna, that's advantage. I'm just gonna say it doesn't stack. That's fair, that's fair. That's, yeah, that's valid. But he's gonna get stabbed again though. Mm-hmm. Again without solution. Oh, well. Aw. I got a fucking stuck in his armor. The fucking cross guard stuck in the spikes. Now, it would if it weren't for the fact that Thorn is prone from the winging shot. Remember, you know, when you attack at melee on a prone target, you get advantage. So that's 22. That's 22, baby. Oh my God. That's another crit, so more rage damage. So that's an 8. And more rage. 10. And that's a 10. Alright, you slash again. Nice chunk of damage to the point where as you are slashing and slashing, you can see there's a dim green glow at each blow that you make on Thorn that lights up ever so, like, so slightly. Until this final blow, you, pffft. And it's going to use its legendary action. Oh shit. Oh fuck. It's got a legendary action. Oh my God. Oh no. And it bursts. You hear a screeching noise akin to a crying, dying bird of some kind. Some kind of monstrous noise that you've never heard before come from inside the helmet as this bright, kind of yellowish green aura burst out of every hole of the armor, including its helmet. And Luna and Rush, I'm going to need you both to make wisdom saves. Well, Rush, I'm going to roll for him. Wisdom. Wisdom. Oh shit. Uh-oh. Oh shit. Okay, so Rush makes it. You do not. Oops. Oh my God. Am I frightened? So you see this piercing visage of this spectral being coming from this armor, and you are indeed frightened, and you are going to take. What happened to the paralysis? The paralysis is still there, but she hit him so many times that he exploded with a green aura. It's a legendary action he's using. Yeah. So you take 16 necrotic damage. Wait, hold on, that might be half. Half is eight. I'm pretty sure I'm resistant. Wait, no, no, wait, that's not. You're resistant to radiant damage. Yeah, no. No, also necrotic. Oh, nice. Never mind. I was going to say. Awesome. You only take radiant damage. Never mind. Necrotic. But you are frightened. But you're the fighter. No. Good news is that was just your 10 page page. But she's frightened now. That was. You're frightened and all of these skeletons around thorn just crumble into bones. Now, although Rush made the save, it's Axebeak did not. Oh, no. Please tell me his Axebeak didn't just die. The Axebeak did not make the save. It starts to cry out and start to book at the other direction. Oh, shit. And he's trying to gain control of it. Whoa, whoa, there. Oh, shit. Fuck. Oh, fuck. And with that thorn is no longer prone. With that legendary action, it gets rid of one debuff. That's so sad. Well, I'm glad it was the prone and not the paralysis. Nope. Because that paralysis is going to hurt real fucking bad when Enot gets around. True. Because then he's going to crit too. True. Enot can do the thing. Actually, it's not his turn yet. Actions it has. So is there any anything else that you're going to do now that you're frightened Luna? You do have to. You are, I think frightened you are not allowed to attack. I can't move any closer. You can't move any closer. So you can attack it. Yeah. Well, I don't have. I don't have. I can attack it. It's just a disadvantage. But it would be normal. Well, actually no, it would be a disadvantage. Yeah, no, I've been frightened enough to know. I've had this condition enough to know. I can't move any closer to it. I had disadvantage on attacks as long as it's within my line of vision. Yeah, I think Luna's going to try to move away from it. She's frightened. All right. I can't disengage. So she just starts taking steps back. It's okay. It's paralyzed. So I don't think it can make an attack anyway. Nope. But Luna looks scared. She's never looked scared. This freaks me out even. Like, what the fuck? All right. Luna, what the fuck? So on the NPC's turn, Kara is just, she's, you can see she's a little shaken. She's, you see her eyes darting back and forth. She's trying to think of a plan right now. And you can see after she made the conjuring of the skeletons, you can see that black veins kind of just like all throughout her arms. And she's kind of holding them as if she had just sustained a terrible wound. And let's see if Rush is going to try and take control of his axe speak or not. Oh, he's just going to hop off. The axe speak runs off in fear and Rush just jumps off and bears his daggers. He's going to go win. Oh my God. That's a smart idea. Oh my God. Rush, go. Go, you mad man. You can do it. Or he can't. You'll die. Do not kill this man. Please don't kill this man. Murder him. Takes out both daggers and he's just going to do like a quick finesse spinning move and try and cut him down. Even so, Thorn's armor is a little thick for him. And the horse is going to try and get up. The horse failed as well. It's going to get up and start to run as well. The other way, winning and crying. Damn it, horse. And it leaves combat. I love how we were like, we should be worried about the horses for the long term. We have one horse left. Oh, I mean, Francis has one of them. Wait, we have two horses. Where the fuck did horse go? Horse ran away. Horse got frightened. Horse got frightened. Yeah, horse got frightened. Horse got frightened too. That's why Luna ran off too. She's also frightened. Luna is frightened too. Fuck, that was part of my plan. Yeah, no. I was about to fucking mantle of inspiration the horse and also Luna in Enoch and they were all going to ride together away. But I guess not. Well, I'm sorry. I was frightened. Oh, well. Next. Renee, your turn. I have one plan. I honestly think this is a now or never moment in terms of getting rid of Thorn. So I am stuffing my letter like looking at Daniel stuffing my letters in the pocket in his pocket and getting off the horse. Right now. She's just like someone's got to make it somewhere. Like someone's got to make it to Chester. Kyle's got to make it to Chester. Like just that's all she says and just bounces off. At least at the beginning of this bonus action. I can continue the heat metal, which means he has to make another constitution save. Okay. I think I just roll the damage again. So I will just roll that again. So another six days. No, I'll continue to hold on to the acts even while paralyzing. Yep. He will continue to have disadvantage on their tax then. That doesn't bother me. Doesn't bother me none. And then same thing as beef. Oh, that was my bonus action. So my action actually is to get out my crossbow and shoot in. All right. Show me. I'm glad there's a wall of bones before he has to get to you, Renee. Yeah. Show me the crossbow. Okay. Does the 16 doesn't hit, does it? It does not. Unfortunately. Yeah. Damn. That's okay. Yep. You fire it and it just ping off of the armor. Yeah. That's smart. That's all I can do. So I'm just going to hang out. Okay. I don't want to get closer to him if I can help it. Your turn. You know. Well, I have a lot of actions to take right now. The majority of them are to shoot the motherfucker. Okay. So first round of attacks. The gavel. Here we go. Oh, no. Okay. All the times. This is bad. But it doesn't miss fire, but the shot does not go off. Okay. Two. Okay. Second attack. Here we go. 17. 17 is not enough. You fire it off. It goes a little wide as, you know. Okay. Right. You know, intimidating creature, understandably. I see you a little bit shaken. Okay. Well, action surge. All right. Next round of attacks before I, I'm currently on the, currently on the wings for what might happen. Let's see. All right. 19. 19 hits. All right. Rolling damage. Yep. You get a crit from this, which is going to be 26. Yep. You fire it off and it hits a big chunk of armor. Off. Just a big chunk this time, not just little pieces. Wait. If it's a crit, is it double, double the damage? Yeah. Which is why you did 46 just now. Fuck. Damn. Oh my God. That's so much damage. Sorry. Oh my God. You look. Oh God. All right. I was still looking. Holy shit. You can see that the chunks of armor and stuff are chipped off and broken and pieces are falling apart, revealing some black undersuit underneath and some black chain mail. I have three attacks left. Three? Are you sure? Because I still haven't taken my hasted action. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh my God. All right. Yeah. So second attack. Wait. 19 to hit. 19 does hit. It's, it's two more attacks. The hasted action. Yeah. The hasted action only gives you one more weapon attack. Yeah. I don't want to say. Okay. Oh, but still. Let's still. Yeah. So this one hits. So that's 20. All right. Yeah. You fire another one. Oh my God. These pieces, you're knocking off chunks of the armor here just everywhere. All right. Last roll. Haste it at, hasted attack. Oh God. Oh. 14. I didn't miss fire. That's the good news. Yes. You fire off these two shots. Hasting off chunks of the armor. You can see there's a crack in the helmet. Here's the thing. I haven't taken my bonus action yet, meaning if I run up to him and close the distance, I could pull out the rapier and make an attack as my bonus action because of my firearm specialist. He gets it. Oh, and if you moved away, you'd still be fine because he's paralyzed. Yeah, he's paralyzed still. Fuck. All right. Now I'm going to just land on his shoulders. Just stab him in the skull with the rapier. So that's easy, but... I'm sure I'll stick this blade between your shoulder blades. No, even better. If you stab it like in the helmet, you'll be able to get it off. Not enough. You go just like, and just the slight movement of their head just dodges out of the way, like the special edition Star Wars Han Solo. No, it's just like, I tried to stick it in. Come on! Get this fucking thing off of you! No. At least he can't attack you. Paralysis doesn't give advantage, does it? Does it? I believe it does, yes. If you make him melee? Oh, well then... Let me check. Let me check. Let me check. Let me check it. I can remember it. Yeah, check it. Paralysis. When you are paralyzed, attack rolls against you have advantage. Okay, never mind. Yes, you may roll again. Oh, shit. So I rolled a 20. All right. A natural 20. Never mind. My mistake. That is a crit. Show me the damage. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. The person is just so busted. So there's a stitch just so busted. You blast it and you stab right into the helmet and just a loud boom. Just ruptures out. And I'm going to need everyone to make a constitution saving throw. Everybody. Everybody. I might be pulling a towel sitting here and just like... Oh, no. Die! Die! Oh, no. Oh, my. Guys. We might be dead. We might be dead. We'll be fine. Oh, my God. He just nuked us. I want the world to know I have one health other like off of maximum. So if I go down, this thing did everything. Oh, my God. Oh, God. What did I do? What did you do? What did I do? What did we do? What did I do, man? I did. You've never wanted to hear that. That's the worst thing you hear from your DM. I am at fucking ground zero. All right. So everybody, there's a loud rupturous boom that erupts from thorn. As the mask is pried open by your stab of your rapier, as this burst of black smoke billows out of the open helmet, you hear a loud screeching from inside. A loud what? Screeching. Screeching. Oh, shit. Is the smoke? And you can see just as you do, pardon the time of day, I was not anticipating you guys to do this here. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. We really just killed the witch king. Didn't we? Holy shit. I don't think we killed him. Did we kill him? No. This rupturous boom just crackles and just like, you see the grass underneath you blow out in a big, just shock wave around you and everyone, because everyone failed the save, needs to take 32 necrotic damage. 32. Oh, my God. Masked for the Osmar. Half for the, for the Osmar. So 16. That's two. I'm still not, I'm still not happy. You see then as the smoke dissipates and you start to see your vision comes back, you can see that it goes to clutch at its face just like it looks in horrible pain. Oh, wait. And you can see behind the mask. Oh, my God. Wait. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It was behind the mask. Show us. Show us. Show us. Show us. Right now. Right now. Show me. Show me. Show me. Show me. Show me. You see as the smoke dissipates and your vision starts to clear, behind the mask is a humanoid with an ear that seems to be damaged. What? From day one, you thought it was Abby? We're so happy. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's Abby. This raises so many more questions. Yes. No. You saw me. I have a bunch of girls in it. No. Yeah. And that's why she needs Kara to fix this. All right. Moving on. The problem in front of us, though, is she's still alive. No. She's still here. Yeah, no. She's still here. We got to go. You see, thorn move and twitch and just like, as if it's being pulled by strings and twitching in agony. And you can see Kara taking a back. She looks happy. And thorn reels back and screeches as a black smoke takes it. And it vanishes. Oh, my God. We won. Oh, my God. We won. Thorn has retreated. Thorn's gone. Thorn has retreated. You can see the black smoke encapsulate the armor as it flies up into the sky. Oh, no, I'm chasing it. I'm fucking chasing this. Can you fly that fast? You can only fly for a minute, you know. Yeah. I just want to follow your death. I am on second. I am on second 18. You can chase it down. Well, considering the fact that I have now you were 35 feet in the air and you flew down. Right. Yeah. So so you flew down 35 feet. How much do you have left? Okay. How fast is she moving? You can see that she darted out like a missile. She is already. Let's see. She's already a fair distance away. If you want to chase after her, there is a trail of smoke following her. A trail of black smoke. Well, you see, I have a hundred and twenty feet of movement. It just is the haste. Just if even if I ended my even if this is the end of my turn, once it comes to the second round, I can technically I could technically move up to 180 feet. Yeah. The question is what's going to happen after 10 rounds where you're chasing this and then you're up in the sky and undetermined amount of feet you're going to die. Yeah. You're going to fall. No, I'm I'm going to catch her. I'm going to drag her down. She's coming with me. That is very optimistic. But I'll let you try. Oh my God. I'm sorry, guys, but. All right. This is more than this is more than just the business. All right. You may chase after her if you so wish. All right. So dashing at 120 and then haste dash is 180. All right. 180 feet. You are catching up to her. However, you are following a trail of black smoke. So for every because you are this is like you're following her because if you don't go like directly in the same direction, you're not going to be able to catch up. You have to go so. Okay. Remember, you have to land for every 10 feet. I'm going to need you to make a constitution saving throw. And you may stop flying at any point. So the first 10 feet constitution saving throw. Okay. You are trying to hold your breath as this black smoke kind of covers your body and kind of makes you feel like this horrid pain and ache. You take 10 necrotic damage, which is five. I'll just I'll just give you the half that you would take another 10 feet. Roll me another constitution saving throw. Every 10 feet. Every 10 feet. It's a lot of smoke that he's passing through. And you just how many feet did you say you were flying? Okay. I burned 180 feet in a six seconds. All right. Oh my God. You take another 11 necrotic damage as this black smoke is taking over your body and making you feel as you are weakening and body is weakening and weakening. And you can see your skin start to shrivel up as if being aged another 10 feet. I'm not going to move any further as I'm going to scream out to Abby. And do you continue to pursue? Nope. No. Okay. As I am going to scream out towards Abby. You can see that thorn is far, far just as if it's a bird in the distance. You hear the quiet screeching that you've ever heard before as thorn flies through the sky. Leaves your vision. All right. Well, I'm going to make it back down to the ground before my wings disappear. And I am vehemently angry. This is probably the first time he's been so angry at not at Abby, but at Chandra. The immense amount of disappointment. And I'm going to land back with the rest of my party. Yeah, because gone the skeletons are crumbled. Kara is simply staring up at where thorn had flown off. And she is speechless. She simply drops her face into her hands and bears. Kara. As I'm landing back. Fuck. I'm trying to get to. When Enoch lands, I want to intercept real quick. As I slide off of the horse. Did you see which way it went? Did I see which way it went? It went at the angle. It looked kind of towards the direction inland kind of towards Chester City, but it went it looked like more up. But if you were to pinpoint a direction, a cardinal direction, it looked south west. Towards Belknis. Proper Belknis. And you can see he's probably looking gaunt right about now from the black smoke. I was trying to get headway. It was a good plan. Simply failed. And you can see when Enoch lands as well in the same light of the moonlight, you can see that covering him, he looks completely dehydrated as if there are wrinkles all over his body and kind of a black splotchy nature around his skin, but it slowly starts to fade away. And I'm going to look at Kara. I'm so sorry. She holds up one hand and doesn't like look at anybody. Don't. Don't. Why? Why? Why? Why? What is wrong with all of you? Kara gets off of the horse. And the bone armor around her forms around her. And she it forms a large nightly set. And she stares you deep in your eyes. You don't speak to me. This is nothing against you. This is nothing against you. It's nothing to do with the necromancers. It's nothing to do with anyone. Why is so much dreaded? She simply takes a step back. I've been on this planet for nigh on 200 years. Get used to it. This isn't right. None of this was, none of this is right. Why? She simply gets on the horse without another word. Inok, stop. God's above. Do you see what the woman just saw? Can you give her a minute to process that please? All of us have been going through this for too long. Let's all take a bit to process, to process in our own way. I'm going to hold my hand up. And I'm going to cast Mantle of Inspiration on everybody immediately. So that you, so that, I mean, you choose where you're going. But the implication is go somewhere. Rush gets up, kind of walks up to the party. I don't know what the bloody hell that was, but I think he's right. Perhaps in a more sheltered place and he looks over at Renee. Right. Hopefully we'll be able to catch up to Francis before he gets into the city proper. But the passageway should have enough space for everyone to cool off. Aye. You remember the way? If not, I could possibly be some assistance? It may have been a long time, but it is one of those things that is not easy to forget. Aye. But if you don't mind, I'm also not afraid to say that I'm out of practice with underground work, literally. So. Well, I think the least I could do is take some of the work off of your shoulders and he looks around at everyone just seeing the distress. I think our shoulders some of the some of the work for a little bit. I'll lead us see if the way still there. I'll come back and let you know. She nods. You get us into the city and I'll know that agreement of mine. Aye. And in contact with that person. Of course. Starts the head off in a direction. Try and find the entrance to the runway. After a little bit of a while of you guys just kind of getting, you know, your energy down and taking in the situation. After a little while. Rush returns and relays that he has found the route to the secret entryway into Chester City without anybody knowing. I've I found the route and just as secretive as it once was. I didn't go inside the city. Not quite yet. Still been a while since I used that pathway. I just wanted to make sure that it was safe first. Plus I'm a little. He just kind of scratches the side. It's a little worse for where I could use a bit of a nap. No, that's that's fair. I'll try to send him a message in the morning. When we get into the city. I'm going to probably have to find my mother anyway at some point. I'll be going near the God might go to the God's barracks. He's probably was taken there. But he's not the criminal like me. He's not some criminal. He's just a. Well, I mean, he wrote into the town into town scared out of his mind. They might have taken him there to ask him what was going on. I mean. Okay. Sorry. I'm just. No, no, no, it's all right. It's all right. I'm trying to say that I will go look for him so you can rest. Because both of you look like. Sorry to say you look like shit. No, that's fair. No, I didn't. I haven't been able to get in my my two hour morning routine. She looks like as she says, like doing jazz hands of like. Oh, I hope that that wouldn't also include you being covered in blood. Yeah. No, that's also the problem, isn't it? Rush walks up and points to you, Luna. You don't look much better yourself and this pathway into the city. It's not exactly a walk in the park. We intentionally made it difficult. Yes. Unfortunately for us, but, you know, because it also was built by us, then at least we have a better idea of how to get in there. Plus, if I'm at the supply, still so good. Or is it shit now? They are there at the exit or in this case, the entrance. So we'll have a nice resting spot out of prying eyes. Tim, you are going to love the two of us by the end of this because if. Rush, I am sure they won't mind if I if I take a couple of things. Not at all. My road after all to the news that person ages. All right. This is a place for us to stay then. Sure. Sure. Okay, let's go. Let's just go. Nathaniel, are you taking a walk? Oh, I never have to say this before the break, but I wanted to go find the horse. Oh, go find the. Yes, you are able to find the horse. You can see that it's a little bit shaken and panicked. And as you approach, you can see that it is a little taken aback by you as well. Oh, nothing. A good charm can't fix. I'm going to charm the horse. Do you actually have to work? Is it scared? Does it look like it's going to come with me otherwise? What's your animal handling at the stat itself? Oh, it's like a three. Three. Okay. I'd say that's good enough with enough time. You know, general horse handling. I'll look to it. It'll look back at me. I'll look back at it. Hey. Motherfucker. You'll think I'm offering it food. All right, let's go. Yeah. I'll say you're able to get the horse back. Holy shit. I don't know why. I don't know why. Roll 20 is like token is not doing it in the proper like token size right now. But yeah, so Rush leads you guys. Grab everybody into a pathway. You see what kind of a pile of bushes and rocks the and as Rush moves towards it, he steps into it. It's an illusion just as it always has been. It can speak you along and out of prying eyes. And I'm going to take your tokens real quick. Renee's actually over at Luna. You're not telling your mom about this, right? No, not at all. The condition that I can use this. All right. I mean, we'd have to get the explicit permission from whoever's actually owns the fucking road now, which I guess would be the protectors. Do you know how wonderful it would be to be able to go into the city without my mother intercepting me and having to tell her where the hell I've been. So long as none of you actually reveal where this place is. I know I have worked in the underground of the city enough to know. You don't reveal that. Don't worry. Secret safe with me. Okay. You know, just because my mother's a member of the guard doesn't mean I'm also working for the guard. Listen, I am just saying I thought... For clarification. This reconciling with my mother is new. She walked out of my life years ago. Oh, good. We're toast to the parent problems once we have a place to sit down. Yes. So just for the record, I'm not in any way obligated to tell her anything. Don't worry about that. Good. Good. All right. Rusk leads you in through the illusion and it is a sizable, you know, size that you are able to bring your mounts in. And you will have to look at the far bottom right hand corner. My button. Hey! Look at that! This is a right old place to be. It's a cave, little tunnel, cave tunnel thing. I see a place to nap. I'm okay with this. Yep. You've got a little nook in the side that he leads you to. It's got a bunch of sleeping bags, several crates full of various different supplies. Just kind of strewn about. You would recognize, Renee, that these are our contents. Supply caches that the protectors stole stored kind of before they were known as the protectors, just in designated spots throughout this pathway. And this one, it's just got various different rations, maybe some, some extra, you know, arrows, some very rusty old weapons in there as well, and some digging tools as well. All right, now if we don't have screaming matches at each other, we should be fine to stay in here to rest and process. I will take first watch. Okay. And Kara simply goes to a corner to sit and trance without saying a word to anybody. How many more watches did we have in the night? Two. Okay. I think I was on last watch, so I'll take the last one since technically I slept more than you guys. Up to you. I'm sleeping. Sure. Yeah. I'll take the last watch. I already got two watches with a sleep. Yes. So who's taking the first watch? I will. All right. Show me. Also, if there's anything you guys want to do before you take your watches, now would be the time. I don't have a watch. Watch? I am going to have, well, first and foremost, Kuro, who has been a good boy in surveying everything. He's just going to sit there like an alarm dog. Very well. Something, something goes. Are you sure you don't want to move him further in? I'll have him stand right there and take off my hat. Take off the jacket. Take off my arm. That sounds weird. He's just. We constantly have to remember. Oh, shut up. God damn it. Yeah. We constantly have to remember that every time I fall asleep or if I get knocked out, the arm falls off. So I'm being a little preemptive. All right. And I'm going to lay back and I'm going to actually pray. Start thinking about Arithas tonight. All right. You think of Arithas. You think of all the things you've learned. You, I assume you think of your good friend in Chester City. Oh, yeah. I'm actually very worried about her. Yeah. Just thinking about Serene taking care of the church of Arithas there. Yeah. Anybody else going to do anything before the watch starts? Oh, yes. That's right. Yeah. You can see Rush is just propped up next to the crate looking out. Kind of. And he turns his head. I appreciate you letting us come in here. I wasn't the one who carved this place. Yeah, but you're the one that's using it now. Consider us even for you not killing me. Yeah, no, that would be fair. Who wants to protect us now? Who knows? Them's full of cowards and brigands that darned at the first sign of trouble. You saw all my mates run as soon as I was dropped. Yeah? Yeah. In fairness, most of them didn't have a choice. Ah, yes, your little tricks, witch taker. Yes, speaking of which, it would be good for us to know these tunnels a little bit more if we're going to be staying in them for any amount of time. Hi. They're like, Rush, if you want to. Hi. Well, and if you guys want to zoom out so I can draw a little thing, just like basically a visualization of what he's saying. Okay. Yee. There's going to be multiple parts. First, we're going to go through here fairly straightforward. There are a few traps around mostly due to the natural area having stalactites and all that. Might fall on your head. We thought, hey, that was a funny trap and we didn't have to do any work. So we left those there. Now there are going to be two paths, split off, left and the right. The right's going to lead into a monster. Some of the under-dwellers of this place, croakers, you know, hook horrors, the usual. We normally make the paths so that they don't travel around in a path that we need to. So we make them a nice nook so that they can make nests, come back and not bother us. If they travel across our path, we just let them pass. We don't need to worry about them. But as far as I know, this is their territory. Once we go down, there's going to be a massive hole. I know a lot of giant bats like to live there. But as long as we're quiet, stay around the outside, we should be good as to not disturb them. Besides, they're more afraid of us than we are of them. And when we head onwards, there's going to be another fork. To the left and to the right. To the left, there's going to be another trap for the monsters. Don't remember which ones, I didn't get a good look at them, but they had a lot of legs. Now, once we go upwards, there's going to be a hydra split. Several different paths. We're going to take this most left one. It's the one that actually leads across into Belkanis' Chester City. I almost said Belkanis proper. It's going to lead into Chester City. It's an abandoned building in the slums that nobody checks, nobody does upkeep. The rest of them have either monsters or more traps. However, if we need so, some of the trap rooms that we try to entice anyone who tries to follow our trail, if we are able to disable the trap, they do have some nice supplies. We use it as a means of safety in case we have a last resort need for those supplies and some of the safe rooms are already taken or somebody's following our trail. Otherwise, if we make it to this room, we should be safe. And it's that simple then. Say again? Just about. And it's that simple then. I? Very simple. Although it's been a while since I used one of these routes. So might be a little bit different. Hit him with the insight. Did you say you domesticated these monsters or you simply just gave in their own space? What keeps them? It's usually routes. So let me go with the insight first. They don't bother us. So the insight you can see he's struggling to remember. He's really, really digging deep. Like he's taking time to think and he is like looking around trying to map out the area. And it seems like he is trying his genuine best to try and give you an accurate retelling of the layout of this place. Understood. And so you were asking him about domesticating? Oh yeah, you guys. Did you domesticate the monsters or did you skip them a space? I've never heard of that before. Not exactly. How I was told, Renee and her friend here kind of made routes to sort of manipulate the monsters. They don't believe they're trapped. They just think it's another tunnel for them to use. If you create a space for them to live that they know doesn't get interacted with by people, it's far less likely that they'll want to leave. At least the most part. Whoever made these tunnels is bloody smart. Yeah. Yeah. They are fucking brilliant. That is brilliant. I don't think I've ever heard of that before. Special mineral deposits. Places where prey underground animals like to roost. That sort of stuff. Renee's just got like a little half-smile on her face. Just thinking back. Renee, I may have to ask you a few questions after all this. Don't ask me anything about this. I know next to nothing. I just, I helped with building what was necessary. I was not the planner. So. All right. All right. I need to sleep. Yeah. It is. We are running on very short time. All right. Getting the fuck to sleep. All right. I hear you. I won't say anything else. She just rolls over like giving him sort of like a half genuine stink eye. But it's all like you can totally tell she's kidding. I'm just like, okay. Yes, sir. I'm now looking at her at all instead. I'm sitting down. My journal is out. I'm writing furiously into it. And that's about it. You see rush kind of leans over to over the crate to just kind of whisper over to enough. You all right, big Ben? No. I'm not. You want to talk about it? I'm looking at the rest of the group and then narrowing eyes on Cara. For a while I was a bit more naive to think that I could purge. The devil out of me thinking that I could do a lot more better and a lot more good. And it disturbs my mind that somebody would cruelly drag somebody from the depths and then force them to the earth to hurt more people. Not just bad people, not just necromancers, but good people sometimes. You can see Rusk looks down a bit. Well, if I'm any consolation, you've got a devil in all of us. I've done cruel things. Yeah, you bring me along for the ride. And I'm sure your friends have done cruel things. I think you've taken on the responsibility of purging that evil. I think that's too much for anyone. I agree. But I'm so damn tired of cruelty. I am so downtrodden by misfortune of other people. And all I wanted to do in my life is actually help. But there is always someone who's got to just one up the shit. And just be terrible and more cruel and more dangerous and more cruel. And I can take it. I know I can take it because I know it is a responsibility to do good. But every now and again, it's okay to scream, right? You can see that he looks up and leans back into the box, kind of looking at the ceiling of the cavern. I don't know. Kind of grown numb to it all after the years. I just accept my lot and move on. Sure, it can feel good, but how many times must you scream before you break your vocal cords, right? Rather save that energy. Do what I think is right, even if it sometimes ends in some cruelty. Yeah. Hey, before I forget, I want to apologize for stabbing you in the water earlier. No worries, I was trying to drown you. No hard feelings. No hard feelings at all. Occupational hazard, I suppose. He gives a low chuckle and starts to doze off as well. As you start to do that, I'm going to stand up and pace the room and walk over here. I'll stop here, but... You can hear the very dim, very soft and quiet chirping from the outside kind of echoing throughout the cave from this direction of crickets and owls hooting. And the low panting sounds of Coro. Anything you're going to do out here? I'm going to turn to the dog and go inside for just a moment. Watch. He doesn't move. Does he know I'm there? Is he just like stationary looking off into the middle distance? He only follows my commands. And I'm asleep. I just told his only command right now is to sit there and alert me if something dangerous is coming. Okay, that's good. I'll just take a step right here. I suppose that he can't talk to stuff, so that's good. For my watch, my two hours of waiting, I am going to write until I can't think of anything more to put into this journal. And then I'm going to close it, put it away, put the quill away. And I'm going to put my back against the wall, and I'm going to stop thinking. I'm going to slide down, collapse to the ground, and go through a very personal panic attack while I have no one else watching. Aww. And that's what I will do for my two hours. How fucking dare you do this to me? Side scene of Nathaniel all on his own. Luckily, no one passes through in those two hours. You're able to have it to yourself. Fantastic. Here is the thing. If you want, he will comfort you. If he is commanded to recognize distress, with all due respect, Aaron, you can't have it both ways. Yeah, fair enough. If his command is to sit there and watch, then that's what he's going to do. And watch. Okay. Yep. Alright. You can pet him. I have no feelings for the mechanical dog. It is, as far as Nathaniel is concerned, that dog isn't real. It just shaped like a dog. It shapes and acts like one that doesn't belong to Enoch. Yeah, according to Enoch's orders. Right? Yeah. He is to act like a dog after those two hours are over. I'm going to get back up. I'm going to fix up my very beat up, disheveled, ripped in places clothes. And I'm going to look as presentable as possible. And then I'm going to turn around. And I don't know who was saying they were taking the second watch. It's me. I'm going to shift you awake. Well, I'm not going to do all of that. But I am going to shake you awake gently on the shoulder. Okay, I'm up. Anything. Very good. No. Okay. Go get some rest. I'm going to move to these boxes and go to sleep. Defense mode. I would like to also come sit out here because I would like a moment away from everybody while I'm on my watch to just contemplate today's events. That's all good with you guys. Yeah. Seeing another person go through the pain of having family raise. Somebody else having going through the pain of watching family being raised and all the revelations with the Raven Queen and my dad's not actually there. So it's just going to pay attention on watch, of course, but she's going to be in silent contemplation for this last, what, two hours? Watches her in about two hours. Right. Yeah. About two hours. Yeah. You may roll me a perception if you would like would love to 11. Okay. With an 11, you do hear the odd skittering kind of echoing through this direction and probably some of the creatures of the caverns moving about the place. What you can assume, but otherwise a mostly uneventful watch and the sun rises and you can see kind of from the illusory entrance that sunlight is coming through. It is now daytime and you guys have finally finished a long rest. Don't forget to pet the girl. You reset all your resources. Not going to pet the girl. Pet the girl. I don't want to. I'm awake. I'm alive. I got HP. You get all of your resources, all of your spells back. Holy shit. Give me my suggestion back. Give me back my spell. I'm a metal of majesty. Give me my misty step. Give me all my bar of inspirations. Oh my God. All these spell slots. Oh my God. Could I be the one to wait power at least? Anybody has anything against that? You may. Yes, horse does. When you go to wake her from her trance, you can see that she isn't trancing. She's simply sitting, staring at the wall, eyes open, breathing. I'm just going to sit next to her for a few minutes. I don't have to get moving soon. She sits there in silence for quite a while. I would ask if you're going to be okay because, well, that's a dumb question. But are you well enough to move on now or do you need more time? Without turning her head, she just says in very soft tone, Why do you go through so much trouble? All of you. These people have been battered and bruised and hurt and shunned. And yet, you insist that they go back and ask for more. That I go back and ask for more. That protector friend you brought back. It would be so much easier to turn him in and he's done so much wrong in his life. I'd say he deserved it. I don't really think it can be looked at that way. Yes, on one hand, that protector has done terrible things and is responsible for a lot of pain. But on the other hand, when you were born, when you were born in a world that doesn't want you, what else can you do than fight back? I'm not going to blame someone's desperate situation. In you, do you want to keep fighting your entire life? That's how you want for you, not your people. I've been done fighting. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm tired. I established Chloe to get away from this. Unfortunately, until something is done about Belknis, that fight's not going to stop. Kara, before we came here, we stopped an army of Warforged from being taken to Chloe. How very noble. No, I'm not. That wasn't me asking for praise that was telling you that the situation is getting more intense, more severe. People are becoming more and more extreme because they don't understand and this doesn't want them to understand. And I don't know why we keep going. Maybe it's because it seems like it's the only thing we can do. Come so far now, why would you turn back? She says in a very, there's a very soft little chuckle. She shakes her head, just like her. Before you have a moment to think, she just gets up and goes to grab her things. She doesn't say a word to you. She just gets ready for the day. Whatever your plan is, just let me know when you have one. I'm ready to go when the rest of the party is. She simply goes out to the pathway and waits. Yes, I'll start nudging people awake if they're not awake already. Gently, of course. Oh, fuck. Hey, sorry. Oh, it's okay. Wait, wait, wait. No one's trying to kick our asses right now, are they? No, I'm not waking up to it. It's just time to wake up. I have to double verify now because it's happened twice, which is not a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice now. No, no, I understand that. Don't worry, we're safe. Let me just go. Nathaniel. Davia there. It's time to wake up. If it's just words, Nathaniel is going to stay asleep. I'm gonna throw a pillow at him. All right. All right. You throw the pillow and as soon as it hits my face, I grab it, chuck it to the side and throw my hand forward and I snap it wherever it came from. She's like looking like she's done this enough times. It goes, good morning. Roll me an intelligence safe. That's fine. I'm okay with this. Watch me fail. Watch me fail. Let's go. Mind you. I succeed. All right. You're fine. Mind you. Like it's very obvious from body language that I wasn't like, I didn't mean to attack Renee the person. I just body kicked in. Yeah, that she actually doesn't mind at this point. So she just like, she still takes a psychotic damage, right? Or the psychic damage. No, you take nothing. Yeah. She's like, it like stings off her head just in one thing. Don't do that. Right. Where's power? She stepped outside for a moment and I would ask that you'd let her have that moment. God damn it. A knock. Wake up. Come on. I shoot open. Put your arm on your arm around. Come on. Risk. It's time to wake up. He just kind of stretches away. Morning already. Yep. How are you holding up? How's the stab wound? Better. Hmm. Gonna be good enough to fight? Perhaps. But considering we're being hunted. I thought perhaps I could stay and watch our flank until you find the route. Make sure that it's safe and then you can come get me. All right. The entrance isn't actually blocked by anything besides an illusion. Okay. So if anything were to wander in, I would prefer to be sure to make a wander out. That's also also true. Good idea. Good idea. Um, sure. We can come back for you. Let's see how that would be a problem. Renee. Hmm. Could I ask a favor? Uh, what is it? I imagine you might want to be sending to your brother? Fuck! Right. And why? Would you potentially be able to send another message? If not, it's fine. I can. I have my, once we get into the city, I have my way. So I just wanted to ask. I can. What do you want me to say? She just let Scorpion now be heading to Falcon's proper the next couple of days. Okay. Yeah, I can do that. Thank you. You want to mention I'm in Chester? Sure. But I don't know where I'll be. So. Okay. I am, uh, by the way, today I'm swapping out one of my first level spells, uh, uh, Longstrider and swapping it with this guy's self. Okay, okay. Yep. Just letting you know. I am just going to put my coat on, I guess. Or should I give it to Kara? She'd probably give it to Kara. She doesn't have a cloak. Does she? Anything to hide that? Not necessarily. She's basically in her jammies. Jammies! Cool. But does she have the bones and stuff on her? She does, yes. She always has the bones. And this is not anything that you guys would know, but I don't know when I would have another chance to have a proper chance to ever say this. But Kara basically doesn't give a shit what she wears. She just puts on whatever's in her wardrobe at the moment. I appreciate this about this woman so much. I feel that. As somebody who lives their life in yoga pants. I appreciate this. As opposed to all. As somebody who lives their life in gym shorts, I get that. I wear normal people clothes, friends. As we're heading out, Renee's actually probably going to like squeeze Nathaniel's shoulder a little bit and say, do you need anything? To be out of these caves. Back in buildings. Okay. I can do that. I'll be more careful. She just does little tight squeeze and then keeps going. Yeah. So before Luna gives her coat, Renee, are you going to do your sending? Yes. I am going to send my messages. So first one to Francis. Francis. So the message to start with. The baby boy. Francis. It's Renee. We're okay. On our way into Chester City. Where can I meet you? You get a message back. Go on. Did you, did you make it in? Yes. Okay. So his message back. I made it in. God took me to be sure I wasn't hurt. I kept details low. Found a trustworthy God. I don't like how that was worded, but I'm going to trust my brother to not be an idiot. I hope that trustworthy God was my mom and no one else. I hope so too. But also going to send the message to Scorpion. Update from Luna. We are okay. Currently on the way to Belkines proper should be there in a few days. All right. And you get a message back. Glad. Glad she's alive. We'll be waiting outside with supplies. If you need any. What a good man. Yes. You see why I keep him around. He's a fucking man's a reliable man. Solid. I've been healing well. But we'll stay out of your way. You better stay out of trouble too. Yeah. Just because he's not in our way doesn't mean he won't get into trouble. Boy always gets into trouble. I can't fucking do anything about that. Yeah. But okay. It sounds like Francis is with seagulls. I was with a girl. So I have to figure out where the fuck that is. And Scorpio said he's got shit for last once we get to the city proper. That man's an angel. He really is ironic, right? Let's waste no more time. I'm not going any further. I know there are traps. Right. So that I don't have to completely role play it out. And just so that to keep things simple. Kara and Rush will stay behind and cover the rear. Until you guys have made sure that the path is safe. That's her. In which case. In which case, once you are finished mapping out the place, you may return to grab them and the horses. Okay. Still making this woman take my coat so that she's not covered in bones. You put it on her and she doesn't really, she like looks a little confused at first, but just lets it happen. And she's like, just a little bit of a sigh. The same kind of like sigh. And she's like, she's like, what happened? And she's like, just a little bit of a sigh. The same kind of like sigh that she let out whenever all the kids were like, some in the cat, please some in the cat. She's just kind of tired of shit. So it's just to make sure you don't get, you know, recognized that it'll be fine. She just grumbles. I love her so much. So down that path, let me just reveal real quick. So down that path, you can see that they're supposed to see those. You are supposed to see those. So you can see that there are a few things. Firstly, that there are kind of these little spots. I'm going to let you know now these little spots are some stalagmites. I think that's what they're called. The ones that are from the ceiling that are about to fall down that are like cracks and falling and Rene, you would know that they're actually magically imbued. No, those are stalagmites. Those are stalagmites. Tights are on the floor. See, I thought it was stalagmite, because how I remembered it was it might fall on you. But I guess stalagmite is the one. Okay. It's tight to the ceiling. There's no reason why they should be called different things. There's only exist confused people. But you know, I like I imagine with annuals working for Rene, like grab some and it just like points at the ceiling. Those things will literally fall the moment you step on. I see them. No. Okay. All right. And you can see that, you know, Rene, as well, that the ones that have already fallen are also magically imbued. And you can see these things to trigger them or something. You can see these things. These are cooth ricks. Cooth ricks. Or rather, Kruthick. Sorry. That's how it's pronounced. Kruthicks. Do I know what this is? You probably would, actually. These are kind of reptile thingies, kind of like spidery, subterranean creatures that kind of dig around for sources of heat. Well. And they usually travel in packs and small swarms. On a scale of one to yeti, how dangerous are they? Not the most dangerous unless you are overwhelmed. Now, one or two on their own is not a big threat. It's when they get in a massive swarm if they are led by a hive floored that they're extremely dangerous. However, these two get close to the stalactite and kind of pick at it a little bit, as this one had recently fallen, and it starts to shake. And they both scatter as they're both kind of like hit by this arcane energy that ruptures out from the stalactite. They kind of dig and panic and dig into the sides of the walls. Well, that's good to know. Don't touch anything. It's good to know those things are rolling around here, too. Oh, there's silverfish. I love the sound of... Hopefully, they won't cause us too much trouble. Inok, suddenly Kuro out first. You know what? Yeah, you're right. I'm going to have Kuro. Scout start just making his way around, and he's just going to float off the floor. Can I have a little bit with Kuro, just because I'm like familiar with where we're going? You may. Yeah. Okay. I will command him to have him follow your orders, Rene, because you would know this place a little bit better, so he's just going to move around to your will for whatever time you need him. Well, I appreciate that. I'm going to send Kuro just a little bit ahead, like there-ish. When Kuro gets there, I'm going to reveal more of the map. And you can see that just as Rush instructed, the path splits. No, it's okay. This makes sense. So we want to go to the left. Send to the boy left? If I'm remembering this right, but I want him to go very slowly, like don't run into it. Okay. You will move at the pace you want him to. I'm going to use my sight beyond sight. So, okay, before, let's slow down a bit. Oh, holding up. So, Rene, I will say when you get there and when Kuro reaches about here. Right. When Kuro reaches about there, you can see that there's something that you wouldn't know that this is new, that it's not, you know, you don't remember this happening as being part of the path, that there's something that reaches out and it seems to attack Kuro. What's your passive perception, Rene? I believe it is a passive perception. 14. 14. Okay, you would probably see this. You see that embedded in the wall is what just reached out to strike Kuro and what is Kuro's AC again? It's not high. Not high. Okay, 15 would probably get right. Yeah, 15 hits. He has a 13 for AC. 15 hits and you see something reach out from the wall. Okay, yeah, no. Kuro's down. Oh, shit. What does it look like? You can see a stone carved creature kind of come almost like come out of the wall. It was as it was embedded in and swipe at Kuro, striking him down. Oh, shit. This poor dog going to get down. At least once more. Well, can I slide? And then it goes back into the wall seemingly blending in, but you know where it is now. Oh, shit. I was hoping I wouldn't have to worry about this. Someone's been down here already. So Kuro will have to be mended. That's okay. I got it. Hold on. Look how they massacred my boy. It's okay. It's all right. I wasn't expecting it. I have mending, so I can actually mend Kuro. Yes. Renee, when you get there, a swipe comes out from the darkness. That's fine. Renee? That's fine. No, it's not. You are also attacked by another gargoyle. Okay. Uh-oh. They're gargoyle. And it takes a swipe at you, and you take... Oh, it got over my DC? Oh, your DC. What is your DC for what? Or my DC, I mean AC, but armor classes. Yeah, your armor classes are real low, isn't it? It is. It's weenie had juniors. I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, no, it made... I didn't know if it was auto or not. Yeah, I thought... Okay, I didn't know if you could cast something on yourself. Okay, yeah, it swipes at you, and you take 12 slashing damage as this gargoyle swipes at you, and then retracts back into the wall. All right, Prené, please come back. Take the dog and come back. Please. All right. I have an idea. Same thing I did at the campsite. It can go a thousand feet. All right? I can just look through, tell you what I'm seeing, and you can direct me which way to go. If something attacks it, no one gets hurt. Please. Well, Kuro's back up because I know Mending. Yeah, I'll say he's back up. I rolled his health. Okay, awesome. Is that fun? I'll put him back here. It's safe. Question. Answer. Are the gargoyles natural or artificial? From what you remember, there were no gargoyles when you and your group built this place. Exactly. Exactly. These are new. That's what I'm wondering. Are those... Are they creatures or are they something that's been created? Hmm, perhaps some investigation might be in order. I would like to investigate. Investigations. Investigations, I got a 12. With a 12, you can tell that these things are not exactly like the gargoyles that you've heard about. You know, you guys know what gargoyles are. Not only just the inanimate object, but also the creature. But these things have definitely been created in some way similar to a construct. Oh, fuck me. They guard the path. She can easily step over her mouth. Like, she's kind of like... You see her? She's hearing you, but she's contemplating something on the side. Well, can you contemplate that away from the gargoyles? Actually, do they look like they're rearing up for another attack? You can see that when she steps away, they do kind of sink into the wall. It's when she stepped forward into that area and when Kuro went into this area that they reached out and slashed once. So it's just the whole line? They are traps, not even real. Whatever they are, those things are a pain in the ass to deal with. I know, but I... We'll have to cut them somehow anyway. I have an idea. Yes? If it's sending your dog through there? No, no, no. Who is the most... Who would you say is the most familiar of the protectors? Like, top dog. That's the thing. It's a... It's someone new. We don't just know what you want. Yeah. I want to bank... I want to bank on the idea of... of that Earth Genasi we met. Okay, and she's in jail. I'm going to use this... I want to use disguise self. And I'm going to make myself... I'm going to use disguise self. Yeah, I'm going to use disguise self. So you're going to disguise yourself to be like Castelia, yeah? Oh my God. The Earth Genasi. You know what? You can certainly try. Go for it. I'm assuming... I'm assuming she was the one who put these here. This is so... This is Achilles. All right, and I'm going to take a step. All right. So you see if they attack. You disguise yourself as Castelia. You walk forward. And the closest one, which is going to be the right one, reaches out and swipes at you. Oh, unfortunate. Luckily, it doesn't break your AC. So you're able to dodge out of the way before... Just kind of dodge out of the way so it misses you. Okay. Can I still keep going? You may keep going actually. It's just a single swipe. And as you walk forward, you can see over here, this direction, that there is some kind of small creature. Kind of, you see the silhouette of a small creature. And as you step close, it skitters away. That's a little far for comfort. And this direction, you can hear some very echoey croaking. Low croaking. Okay. Well, I'm dropping disguise self. That was a waste of time. That was a waste of time in a spell slot. Yes, but it did make me laugh. So, you know... It seems our only recourse is we can still run through it. Another level of vengeance I didn't think was possible. Nathaniel, what did you say? Our only recourse seems to be that we can just run through it. Or, you know, fuck that. Absolutely fuck that. And I would like to summon my echo 15 feet right here. And just fucking teleport. All right. So, you don't have to do that. Wait, actually, I have an answer to this as well. Yes, you said to. I have an answer to this as well. Yes, you do. I'm going to turn. I'm going to call back. I'm calling Rosc. Come closer. You... Watch out for the stalactites. Follow the echo of your orders and Rosc comes up and he notices the gargoyles and he goes, Oh, that's new? Yes. Nothing to worry about. Do you know if anyone's been in here? Well, last time we used this route was on a year ago. Okay. So, could be possible someone else has moved in? Oh, I have a question since I know I didn't technically know about this place but do I know about any new factions that might be rising in Chester? Hello. Hmm. You can give me a history check. Actually, your history stat, rather, so that we'll take that instead of just like, yeah, what's your history stat? My stats are plus one. Plus one. I'm banking on this purely because I work in that. Can I give her advantage by reminding her of something? Well, she's not rolling anything. Actually, we'll take whoever has the highest history stat just to see. If you want to, like, just functionally talking among yourselves, who would have moved in here? Nathaniel does not have the highest history stat. I think that's Renee. I have a plus two in history. Plus two. Oh, wait. Enoch? As for history, plus five. Plus five. That's Enoch, then. Yeah, no. The thing I was going to say is that remind her, Chandra was very not, very to the point about how I am literally responsible for two groups forming just out of the blue. So just hands. Enoch, with your history of the kingdom of Belkanis, you know that there's no faction that really likes to hide underground. You know, everyone's trying to make a name or make a reputation for the most part because, you know, Belkanis is land of opportunity and you need to sort of make a name for yourself, even criminal organizations like the protectors. Whoever's down here, they're either a new, something new or not from Belkanis. Oh. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. I relay this to the entire party. Sexy. Okay. Hmm. I haven't done my teleport trick yet. Um, because I realized that I don't want to leave Renee this alone. I might want to walk with you. Oh, it's fine. It's just there. I can just do a fucking cartwheel or whatever. Well, I also could. This will be very easy. Don't worry. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Go on. Teleport. Two of you. We need you and be conditioned anyway, because at the very least I can take myself out of combat when I need to switch. All right. There she goes. You two get closer. I think Kara would have less of a problem. Oh, what are you doing? The two of you need to get closer. They look at each other and they look at you and Rush trusts, but Kara just simply stands there, crosses her arms. Why? I'm going to let out a very exasperated sigh. If I was going to do something dangerous, perhaps it would have been only the fish and not our intended target. But if you must know, I'm going to charm all of us across using the same pink wires that I always use. They, they make it so that things are unable to attack and tie. Oh, we will all be pushed across very easily, unless of course you would rather be swiped by the gargoyle. Kara simply just like at that, just doesn't portray like any change in her just grumpy, grumpy bitch face, walks forward, turns her staff into the bony shield, walks by the gargoyle, the gargoyle swipes at it and walks through. That's what I meant by she wasn't going to have any trouble getting through this. I very much doubt you knew that about it. You know, come on now. I'm going to wave my hand pink lines. How many times did you use that shield now? Twice. I'm going to wave my hand. Pink light lights, their peak lines are going to come out, connect with me, Kuro, the fish and Renee. And whoop. The fish. The fit. He's a lizard. He's a lizard man. He's a fucking lizard. Jesus. The reptile. This is a denny's. And you are able to traverse past the two gargoyles. And I'll say, since you know what to look out for, just that there are two more. Motherfucker. Right here. Okay. This just means that we have to, you know, not rely on everything all the time and just be quick about it. Okay. I want to say this particular jump. I would be cautious about going in too fast because if I remember correctly and you can verify me with this, but there's a giant fucking hole. There is. And lots of bats. And mine need to be a little bit more quiet. Right. I want to take a closer look at the gargoyles. Not getting like close, close, but like I just want to eye them a little bit more. Like you eye them and you can see that they are, you know, just as still as the stone around you themselves. And you can see that they do appear to be carved out of a different type of stone than the stone around the place. Even if they are embedded in the wall very nicely, you know, just as Enoch said, that it seems like it's from a different place, a different type of stone. Not native to balcony. No way. No, no, no. So which way do we go? Left or right? Left. Left. And can I please send this down first so we can avoid casualty? It's a bunch of bats, then it's better than it flies it, this thing and not anything else. The thing is, you don't know what else is in the hole. And so sending down the rock might send something else back up. We'll deal with it some of the echo. Need an inception sound at the side of the hole. Well, somebody please just keep your hand on my shoulder or something so that I don't get destroyed by something that tries to attack me. And just to skip the fucking gargoyle bullshit, because I know they'll probably smack it. Yeah, I would say you could make it with enough trial and error, even if they did smack it. I'm gonna say echo makes it through because you could just summon him again. Yeah, echo comes back as long as I'm up. I just won't go into my echo avatar state until I know it's across. So when you get across, because it is an eventuality, you can see that there is a massive hole. And at the top of the hole, there's a bunch of giant bats sleeping. Well, just perched at the very, very top. Cool thing is, I don't think my echo makes any noise if it walks a foot above the ground, which it can. It can walk in any orientation, which is what makes the echoes fucking broken. You could just fly? Kind of, yeah. You remember when we were in the factory, this was pointed out in the comment section that Luna's echo could have just walked up to that bastard who was sitting on the platform because they're not technically objects. That's dumb. Now, when you do come into this room and you see all these bats, you can also see kind of on the other side of this kind of just hole and this path that you would normally need to walk. You see with very clearly a cobalt. And when the cobalt sees your echo, it simply skitters away. Oh, shit. Up the path. Well, Luna is blind and deafened right now, but I assume that I can still regulate my voice enough to not scream. There's a cobalt just ran. Oh, of course. Of course there is. We should be able to get around there for quite enough. All right. Then let's be quick and quiet. Okay. How far away is my echo? Yeah, when I come out of it, the echo just disappears. Because I can only go that far away from me when I'm in its in its head. Is that a way to disable these? I don't know. I mean, I asked. Do you want to try something? I know I do. Bop it in the head, see if it folds. I have the next best idea that I can think of. These things are rather resistant to damage done by non-magical weapons, so I am kind of vicious here. At risk of letting those giant bats know our location, I am only going to just pull out the rapier, and that is it. The guns are away. Is the rapier magic? God, I fucking wish. Then physically we can kill these things, but it's going to be hot. Yeah. Well, what if I don't? And I would like to stealth? Wait, wait, wait. Cammie was trying to say something. Renee actually looks back at Nathaniel, because she can see the other side of this, right? Yes. You can see just what you remember of the path that this path goes down like a big U-shape, and then on the other side, there's a path upwards. If you don't mind me returning the favor, I might be able to at least get one person over to the other side without having to worry about making too much noise. Sorry. Let me try one thing first. You said it was cobalt. Yes. I look to Luna. Yes, it was a cobalt. It just saw the echo and then scattered north. Well, here goes nothing. I look over towards one of the gargoyles and in draconic I say leaf. What are these? You can see the gargoyle sink into the wall. Oh my God. What? Both of them sink into the wall, as well as these two as well. She just looks at that and then looks over to Nathaniel. I continue walking. I have no patience. You son of a bitch. Be quiet now. So I'm going to need a stealth roll from everybody. So I should say I roll stealth at disadvantage because I am wearing chainmail. Before we go in there, I'm going to turn to Renee. Renee, are you able to silence an area? No, I'm not. Damn. That's right to take Luna. Luna. I'm not right now. Are you sure? Luna is going to like move her arm and you're just going to hear the clinking of chainmail. Kara steps up and she says, I have something if you can tolerate a bit of necromancy. What is it? The bats. I want to defend them. They said that the bats were more afraid of us than we were of them. So the worst-case scenario, they will fly out really. Or they get really hungry because they just woke up and we look like some delicious snack like Mr. Lemon Man here. I think we are. Just again, monster hunter general knowledge. Are bats defensive or are they aggressive? So these things are huge. Of course they're aggressive. That's not necessarily true. What about those beacons that we saw earlier? They were huge and they wouldn't attack us. Just as Rusk said, from what you know about giant bats and just bats in general, they do consider this their home and they will consider you guys a threat to their home and they will panic, most likely flee. However, they are willing to defend themselves. Okay, so if they wake up, I might have a suggestion. These things, they'll defend their home. Sorry, I'm having a hard time talking. They will defend their home, but they will more than likely flee if they think we're a threat. Sorry, I just need to act big. Yes, it's like dealing with the bear. Make yourself look bigger and more scary and that you are a bigger match than them. Make a loud noise. Make yourself physically look bigger. Or if you don't want to be noticed at all, make yourself smaller. Just don't stand in the middle of a path that they might want to run through. Maybe keep this one clear. Okay. Like the one that my ping didn't go off. For now, if we really want to get over there to try and reach the cobalt, I can at least get you and me over there. Sure, because I... Sorry, I'm not the best at being quiet when I'm around. No, listen. I will give everyone a chance at being stealthy before everything goes to shit. Don't. And if you would like to try and defend the bad side, you have no objection against it. Anyone else? I'll see what you do with your plan. Just thumbs up. She will reach out for Luna's hand. Luna will take it. I am casting Dimension Dive. Nice. That's one of my favorite spells. And it goes up to 500 feet. This is a verbal component, so I'm going to need a stealth check from you. Ah, shit. Goodbye. Ah, shit. Ah, shit. Could I help her because I am technically proficient in stealth? You know what? Sure. You may roll stealth with advantage. Thank you. Cover her mouth as she's about to yell out, Holy shit. 21. That really mattered. 21. Do I run? Okay. Dimension... She started saying the spell. Dimension Dive. It goes up to 500 feet, so I can go... I'm going to go 75 feet over and then up that way. All right. I can go up to there-ish. All right. You grab Luna and you guys see as just kind of like they... Move on over. Almost like vanish and appear almost instantaneously in this other spot across the cavern. She looks over to Luna with like a sort of cheeky smile. That's the spell stuff I've ever used in that spell. And you can see that one of the giant bats just like twitches a little bit. Yeah. And just a little squeak. Oh. Luna, when you said that was the first time using that spell, Luna looks at you mildly horrified. She's like, Oh, come on. You plus me with literally everything else. I'm running the shit as I go. I don't understand magic. You learn how to fight as you go with animals, right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just one thing, just one thing. Just one thing, just one thing. I will be hanging back a bit just to help with the bats do it. So we can figure out how the rest of the party fares. Nathaniel, you were calling out to Kara? You may cast your spell. She narrows an eyebrow at you. Now that you're encouraging me, I don't think I want to. Oh, come on. And Nathaniel will let out a very exasperated sigh. And I suppose I will be eaten by bats. I would like that very much, but very well. She steps forward. And it's going to cast blindness, deafness, and gonna need to roll a stealth. She's not as spry as she used to be. So let's see if she can make hushed whispers. Love her so much. It's not fair. The hushed whisper echoes throughout the cavern. And one of the bats, it seems that she was able to deafen a lot of them. However, one of the bats seems to stretch its wings a little bit and looks around and notices you all. It has not reacted yet. As it does, fuck. They're deafened, so it's fine. As it does, I'm going to reach my hand out and snap my finger and I'm going to cast Charm Monster. Whoa, it's Charm Monster. Hello, Nathaniel. Okay. Hello, Nurse. Ah, Animaniacs. Okay. That was such a good show. Ironically, their wisdom is not the worst. It fails. Oh, thank god. The bat fails or my spell fails? The bat fails, the DC. Okay, very good. Very good. Okay, it regards this as a friend. We're all fine here. We are friends. It looks at you, Nathaniel, and it just like lifts its wing and kind of like goes to nibble at something underneath its wing and just kind of stretches it a little bit, but goes and just kind of stays there, perched upside down, watching you. It doesn't alert the others. After doing that, I'm going to glance over to Kara. See? You do care. And I'm going to walk. She's speechless at that. She just... As I walked by, I kind of shrugged my shoulders and was like, yeah, that's just how it goes around here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you say this and you can see rush because like, oh, this is a little fun. I might have to stick around after this. Oh, I would like that very much. I've come to enjoy your presence. Oh, thanks. Who says enemies can't be friends? Right? Kara is just hobbling using her stick as a walking stick as she follows behind Nathaniel kind of. And yeah, I'm just going to put you guys at the very end. I will say as soon as my like face is turned away from Kara, the like perfectly straight face melts into aggravation. All right. The next leg of your journey. The hydro path that was described. Yeah. So this is exactly why I was saving certain things. So you see this path and this path and let me just delete these. Can I grab these please? Do we want to pick up any supplies? I mean, the scorpion is going to be meeting us with some. I think we should be okay. If you say so. I have golden spades. We can buy whatever we need. Yeah. Okay. You can see Rusk looks up. He's kind of like hesitant. He's like trying to get a word in the speak, but he's like kind of like a little bit embarrassed. What is it? What's up? Well, seeing as the protectors aren't using this place anymore, may have they might not need a few things. And perhaps some kind of merchants might pay a pretty price for it. I mean, it's already down here. I mean, if you want to, sure. I put my hand up. What exactly do you want to take from this place? You can see that he's a little bit startled at your tone. Oh, I don't know. Just whenever it's lying around. It's been a year since I've been here. I just wanted to see what was left as well. And how much exactly do you believe you will get from it? Well, I'm not so sure if there's nothing of value there, then no harm done yet. 30 gold now reach into my pouch, pull it out and we skip the side quest. Oh, all right. He just looks a little concerned pockets the gold. All right. As soon as Nathaniel like turns turns his back, she's just going to step up and be like, we don't know he's up. I'm just going to go with it. You having a bad day? So you guys head up. You can see that there's another one of these. It's the lag mice. I probably need to go that way that Luna's going. It looks like the snake woke up on the wrong side. And because you figured out the thing, I'm just going to reveal the gargoyles that. And they will not pay you any mind since you already know to speak to them your chronic. Just going to put them there to show that I did practice. I'd like to do something real quick. If it's all right. I'm going to look at this gargoyle. Do you speak? Oh, you're asking it if it speaks? Maybe, maybe not. Says nothing in return. Understood. Actually, no, I'm just just to be extra sure. Speak to me. It simply kind of like slowly comes out of the rocky wall and speaks and it says in draconic. Praise be the dragons. Oh, no. Oh, no. Name your controller. My controller is wrinkle moss. Write it down. Write it down. Who? Wrinkle moss. That's right. That's what he said. I am confused. Confused as I am. Consider me flabbergasted. How many of them are there? No response. Damn it. It doesn't know this. I'm talking to a rock. You are literally talking to rocks. All right. I don't think I'm going to get any more information out of this thing. So yeah, I don't think I'm going to get any more reasonable information out of this thing. So I'll wave my hand and in draconic leave. Yep. And they all sink into the wall in unison. No longer a threat to you and you guys avoid all the traps. I so painstakingly laid. I'm so sorry. I laid them and the solution is yours and you found a solution. Who am I to say it doesn't work? I wave my hand. I use my ungodly perception. I see everything. Yep. I break D&D. I broke. I made a bad character. You guys head upwards to what is supposed to be the path that splits off like several heads of a hydra. But you can see that the different paths have been closed, including the exit that seems to be blocked by a massive rocky boulder. Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me. My massive rocky boulder is this like you have, we have no chance in hell of moving this kind of massive rocky boulder. Only one way to find out. Now the only paths that are left according to that are still there is the path north that would have been a kind of trap room to a hidden supply cache and to the south, which would have been a trap to a monster. And you can see kind of in this room right above what looks to be two other kind of holes similar to the one with the bats. You can see that there is a massive, Cru-Thick Hive Lord sleeping. So the fucking head of one of these things hives. Now I know that I know that the other ones are dangerous when they're swarmed. How dangerous is the head of a hive? The Hive Lord on its own is a decent challenge. However, its main threat is the ability to summon Hivelings. And so the little ones that we saw skittering away earlier diving into the burrows. Yeah, we don't want to wake this thing up. We need to be very, very, very quiet. Unless we are going to be in for one hell of a fight, these things are pain in the ass. Why the fuck? How's the fuck? What's the fuck? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was the exit. Yeah, yeah, that was, it was the exit. How are we to leave? Exactly. Potentially move the rocks and find another way. Surely there is more than one way out of here. Please tell me that there was more than one way out of here. It was built to have one, one path that was straight. If you knew where to go, somebody fucked it up. These fucking things fucked it up. Like she's just running at the, like Hive Lord. It's been a year. Well, second option then. Kill the hell out of this thing. Because if we start moving rocks, it's going to wake up anyway. And then we can take a way out. I can put it out of my misery. How long do these things normally live for? These things? Yeah. Hold on. Let me look it out and see if it just dies of natural causes. No, no, no, no, no. I have a stupid ass, crazy, fun idea if it works. I didn't know I'd look up Crufic Lifespan. Listen, I'm sorry, but listen. I have a stupid ass, crazy, fun idea because I helped engineer these fucking things. And if these things lived in these tunnels, do I know this baby? Did I know this baby? Is this familiar with me? You did not know this baby. And funny enough, they actually don't live all that long. Apparently, according to the Forgotten Realms fandom wiki, so, you know, with a grain of salt, most Crufix died before reaching their final stage of life at five or more years. Aw, that makes me so sad. That stage was the Hive Lord. They encased themselves, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, so basically no more than 10 summers, most likely. There's got to be some sort of way because you saw a cobalt run through here, right? Yes, but it could have gone down that way. It could have snuck past this thing without being noticed. And then if I know it's right, we don't have a lot of time. Okay. I'm sorry, fuck, okay. No, you don't have anything to be sorry for. My stupid fucking passageway. No, but you didn't know about this. So, we can try to put that, take that thing out. And then move the rock. Yeah. That sounds like the best plan. All right. Before you go shooting it, can I get close to the pace? Yeah, sure. I'm going to activate my ring of haste. Well, we're actually going to fight it. I'm going to turn to Kara. I'm going to attempt to put this thing out of its misery before I can even call for anything. I'm going to turn to Kara. Kara, what do you think? She simply crosses her arms, leans back and has a little bit of a smirk. I don't know which Tega you're in charge of this operation. You and your party are leading me. How do you think we should take care of this? You're so fucking sassy. Oh, my God. Oh, but you seem so smart. Do you mean that you don't have an answer? So I'm standing between these two. At the back, you can see her narrow her eyes a bit and her smirk disappears. Perhaps you would like me to solve all of your problems for you, Mr. Gainsby. No, just the one. Okay. Both of you. Both of you. Both of you. Stop. Listen, you both are very, very smart ladies and we can put our heads together and send a bump at them. Okay. Kara leans back kind of into the wall. I will help if my assistant is asked for. I will ask for it. I will. I will politely ask for it. I will like I'll turn to Kara and I'll put one hand behind my back, one hand in front. Kara Maharian, I beseech your wisdom. Please assist us and I'll give a bow. She just her arm, her crossed arms just flopped down. Fine. She steps up, kind of looks around, points up at the stalagmites at the top. Those things, they're magically imbued, yes? These things live underground. They don't hear a lot of noise. They must have sensitive hearing. And those stalagmites, when they fall to the ground, I notice they call some sort of rupture. We can surround it with those. Perhaps we can cause it to, I don't know, be too loud for it to bear, causing it to retreat. Oh, I might have an idea for that. I have an, I also have an idea. I'm going to take out my journal and write something down. Well, everyone's got ideas. I'm going to peek down this way. You're going to peek down that way? All right. Yeah, just a little bit. Peek down that way. You can see that there's a massive chest there. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hey, hey, shut up. It's the size of a carrot. Only Renee has seen it. Only Renee has seen it. That's a trap. Only Renee has seen it. Only I've seen it. I know. This is Aaron talking. No, no, no, no. Aaron is the same type of character in my book. That was just good. Renee is going to look at it. I'm squinting. Have I seen that chest before? That's new. You have seen that chest before. You know exactly what that chest is. What is it? I'm going to give you three guesses. It's a lot of money. Yeah, that's right. Good job. Well done, Renee. That's a mimic down here. Any unruly treasure hunters who might want to steal to protect their supplies and thought, hey, there's some good supplies in there. Renee, let's just go look at that. Go back. Enoch, you're not going to believe it. There's a giant fucking treasure chest in there. You won't believe. No, it's a fucking monster. Renee, I know you drink for that. You're really expecting me to go there because I really would have. Honest to God, I have expected it, which is why I told you very quickly that it was a fake. I actually would have. To be honest. I wouldn't have questioned you for a second. So Enoch's four choices aside. I'm sorry. Are we going to decide? Is the plan trying to set off the traps? Is that the plan? That's it. Yes. I was going to ask if I, because I, do I remember these selectives being magically imbued before? Yes. So when I, you know, I was going to say, I was going to say I was going to say I was going to say I was going to say Yes. So would I be aware that casting a spell on it or hitting it with something wouldn't necessarily make it fall? Like you have to be underneath it? Or is it literally just whatever? I would say being underneath it or hitting it, like basically any sort of small trigger. Cool. I have the perfect solution to this problem. Are you going to shatter the ceiling? Maybe. The only problem is that my cave in the whole fucking thing. That's a little. That's a potential. That's an idea. Do it. Do it. I'm not even sure if the echo will trigger it. So do we want to test it and see if the echo can trigger? The echo does work and you can like run it through all of them. That'd be great. Yeah. Like literally I can just keep resummoning in an echo avatar because it's only an action. Oh, you're going to summon it there? Summon it there? Summon it there? Summon it. Do it. Wait. I have a better idea. What if we wake up the mimic and have the monster go after them fight? Yes. I really want this monster. That's such a good idea. I actually think that the solution would I think be to put the summon in there. Like just because it's so much easier to summon those guys. As much as I love a kaiju battle. As much as kaiju battle when you take a new tank. I think that the smartest solution would be the echo. Yeah. I just wanted to have the fun, but like if not then not. I thought it was. I thought it was done to start with. I think that's a little too chaotic for the mood right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's also no guarantee that it will go fight this thing. Exactly. That is so true. They might just try to fight both of us. We can guarantee the echo's there to help us. We can't guarantee a mimic is going to help us. We can't guarantee that they're going to fight each other. Instead look at each other, shake hands, and then look at all of us. Exactly. So let's let's let the echo run in there and cause chaos. Yeah. I very much appreciate you. Luna's good. I think she'll come over to you, Renee. Take your shoulder because she needs somebody to alert her when shit goes down because I'm blind and deafened when this happens. Yeah. And echo is just going to start, you know, make it a make it a way down. Make it a way down. Why are you running? Why are you running? Why are you running? All right. So you're going to trigger all the different traps then. Yeah. Honestly, we just love her to be able to walk through up. Sorry. I didn't mean to move her there. Sorry. I'm struggling. I just want to be able to have her walk through a line if possible. All right. Okay. And then you can also kick this if you want to because that'll also set that one off. That I can do because technically well, no, I don't think I can do that if she's within. This is more like she's just it's something that can walk around. Oh, I don't think I can attack when I'm in avatar echo. I don't think that doesn't say anything about it, but I wouldn't imagine I can considering the echo needs to be within 30 feet of me to do that. All right. So I'm going to put us an initiative because I assume there's going to be a lot of rapid actions going on. So I'm just going to add in the order. Luna. Well, actually, yeah, you guys add yourselves an initiative and I'll just. Sounds like the order is going to be. So I think I think I think I think it's going to be Luna then Renee. And I think you know, you wanted to do something just in case, right? My idea was that with the ring of haste, I could have just double dashed around it and then came back. I'm feeling I'm feeling yeah, this is much safer. Whatever I was going to do was stupid. You know what? Fair enough. Does anybody else want to contribute to this? I think Debbie's at the restroom right now. So I think that we're just going with the echo plan. OK, the echo plan. So initiative is not needed. Never mind. Let me get rid of that. All right. So the echo goes in its little path just like phew phew phew phew and to the very end and where do you want it to stop its run? Right there. Right there. OK, so the first one gets destroyed. I can just bring it back. So the first one falls down right there and it wakes the crucifix up and the second one falls and the shockwave activates this one and it starts to ring out just in a loud kind of booming thunderous noise and it triggers this one which starts to ring out as well. And this one drops down and ruptures this one and this one drops down and ruptures and they all start ringing like that one scene in Spider-Man 3 where like Peter Parker traps Venom just like they all I've never seen Spider-Man so I don't know that reference. I actually really like Spider-Man 3 believe it or not. The crucifix just kind of like shudders and jitters and pain-shaking just looking back and forth at every single thing and starts to dig into the ground and escapes. Well that won't be a problem later. Y'all are smart. Good job. Yes, that was That's fucking teamwork. That was very smart. Oh that feels so weird going in and out of my head like that. Are you okay? Yes, no, I'm fine. It's weird. It's weird going out of my head like that is all. No, I fucking bet. All right. So we are going to have to ask you to do one more thing though. What? We've got to have you move the boulder because you're the strongest one of us all, like physically. I mean to do that is not mean to walk under that. I would like to say that. I'll say I'll get rid of it. I'll say like you guys can see it and whoever would just like put it there. Yeah, it's fine. You step onto it but because you didn't notice it was there your foot hits solid air and you walk right over. Nothing is to be gained by me punishing you for just like, yeah. Anyway. I appreciate you so much for the damn job. I feel so bad for the DM. Doesn't benefit the game at all. Anyway. So yes, looking you can actually see that there's a crack. A very dim crack of light when you look in and you can see that there's a light not only coming from the top where the exit would be however, there's another light coming from a hole in the wall over here and you can hear very, very subtly some voices on the other end. Oh, I want to listen listen to the voices. You listen to it. However, you can't understand what they're saying. They're speaking in draconic. Damn it. Well, I have a crowbar so I would like to watch the crowbar in here and just start moving it. All right. So what's your strength score because this is going to be a thing that you're going to keep at for a while. My strength score is a 15 but if I don't know if maybe if I rage it'll help at all. Hmm. You know what I say that it would and I would say it takes you a little while to start prying and prying and digging and digging until you hear a voice behind you kind of and you see that there's a little cobalt that shows up. Thank God. Something I can charm. And let me show the portrait real quick. And the cobalt is holding a spear and it's pointing it at you guys and it simply cries out in common. You you are trespassers. I have you surrounded. This is my fucking cobalt. I name him Jerbils. Jerbils. And she's like excuse me. So this is my fucking cobalt. Your road you will if it is your road you abandoned it long ago and it is now Redhorn territory and you are trespassing. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I have a quick question. Is your name Wrinkle Moss? Oh, you know of the chief. Okay, so your name is not Wrinkle Moss. No. My name is Stinkle the Grand. And I'm going to show you. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I don't know. They have a bow tie. They have a bow tie. You can see it. And there's a bow tie, you know, like a suit bow tie on their head. I love this so much. I love them. I love it. It's amazing. You are trespass walkers. But you know the name of our chief. I guess. Yes, yes. Yes, we do. Daniel, you're the face, man. I will leave this to you. And I pat him on the shoulder and I'm going to go towards. Oh, yes, of course. I'm going to step forward. You are trying to escape through the forbidden boulder of blocking. As he says that, I step forward, I adjust my collar and then I flick my hand and cast trumpers. And. We're not wasting time. We're not wasting time here. Single fuck is given this day. OK. On a different day, perhaps I would slow down, but we have no time. Nathaniel has no patience. Charm person. Yeah, he does. He's not compelled to do anything in particular. He just thinks I'm friendly now. Right. If he if he fails. Yeah, if he fails, of course. If not, then I mean, anything happens. Yeah. So you try to charm him. What? And you fail. He makes a save. He takes a step back and simply points at you and starts to run away. What magic? Indra Connick. I'm going to say, wait, no. No. He stops and skids kind of to a stop and speaks back to you. Indra Connick. You know our tongue. Of course I do. It was. I don't like doing college. I'm so mad. Renée just totally lost what was happening. So she's just going to hang over you now. I'm so angry at you. There is this. Take me now. I can't take this anymore. I mean, we don't know what he said because he said that Indra Connick. Yep. No, this is me. This is Aaron. I'm having a breakdown. Aaron believes in Aaron this? Okay. Yes. Indra Connick, I will say. Yeah. Indra Connick, I will say. You seemed tense. I was merely trying to calm your nerves. I see that you are a dragon of fay. I do apologize for the crude introduction. You said your name was this place. Perhaps. But first, I'd like to know more about you and Drinkle Moss. Grab your companions and follow me. I shall lead the way to my chief. We don't have time. If possible. When he says lead the way, which way is he trying to go? He's trying to go back this way. Ah. You know what I came to say? Yes. So that you are no longer trespassing. With all due respect, why couldn't we just go back that way? Because to go that way would not be to respect. You come into our lands, our homes. You will respect our ways. You will use our traversal path. Our exit. You are well-spoken in Draconic yet to do not know Draconic culture. Oh, of course. I I like my composure is starting to shake just a little bit. Did they wreck my entire road just because I am still trying to pry open this boulder. I have not stopped. In that case, I'm going to keep distracting him. All right. I apologize. Could you please explain the rules that I have broken so that I may prevent myself from doing so in the future? Hmm. The rules are no trespassing. First, already broken. The second is to not disturb the boulder of blocking. We block that way because we do not like that way. That is not the way of the red horn. Oh, the red horn. Of course. And they do not like that way because because it is stinky. Of course. You can make a nest in that area and eat and feed and breathe and it smells. The what has? The cruffix. Those large spider-like creatures. Oh. I'm going to say in common, the cruffix have made a nest in that area. Brunei runs over to grab Luna. Luna, Luna, Luna. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. What? What? The fucking spider things. That's the fucking nest. Are you serious? Yes. I finally let off the crowbar. And I wedged this thing out. You were digging quite a ways in and almost can like push the boulder with enough force. I guess hearing this information, I'd like to undo what I do. To the other side of the- God damn it. Fucking spiders. This is just kind of kicking us. There's a spider in the boulder. Let me insight this at least. You may insight. I insight you. We only rolled 20s in this house. We only rolled 20s in this house. This fucking- This guy is deeply offended and concerned that you would even think about going that direction. That direction is forbidden. And he means everywhere he believes in every single syllable out of his mouth that you and you can tell that what you have done has like really, really offended him. Like on a near-unforgivable degree. Nagusta. I see. Like if he were a prime minister of a country, he would have you hung. Okay. All right. Well, luckily, he's not that. He's a kobold in a cave. But god damn it, why's he got to waste my time like this? All right. Understood. Indraconic, I will say. In that case, we will be more than happy to for you to escort us to the exit. Good. But for chance, it wouldn't be just down that way. Take a left and then take a right. And then straight on. I guess, of course, it would be. It is the more scenic route, and that way we may share our culture so that your ignorant minds may learn of it at the very least. I have just described the way we came. Like, this is the exit he's talking about. No, no, no, not that way. He means this way. I would cry. Okay. I was about to say, if the exit he's talking about is us just going back out, I might just attack him. You are of Belkaness. Therefore, you must use the exit into Belkaness like other Belkaness people. Ah, of course. I apologize. Others like you come through that route all the time. It's best you do too before you commit any more offenses of our culture. All right. Allow me to tell my companions. And I'm going to turn, and in common I'm going to say, this... This kobold hasn't shown any ability to speak or understand common, has it? It has. Okay. It's both common back to you. So don't insult it. Understood. This very wise kobold is going to show us the exit that leads directly to Belkaness. We should follow it. Okay, just give me one second. I'm trying to fix this. I'm trying to... Give me a survival check real quick. It just falls apart. Have you considered using your echo as real as yourself? I'm kidding, Luna! So, Luna, you just tried to place like the rocks and bits of stuff that you pulled out, but they just kind of like crumbled down. It's best left alone. Most like... It's like when you put a Band-Aid on something but the Band-Aid falls off. You know, there's a reason why not the person that tends to mean Scorpio's wounds, okay? Clearly, I have no hand at it. I do not have a delicate touch. Never have, never will. And seeing the rest of the party, it looks at Enoch's guns and it points forward with a finger. You! You are dragon of fire! Points at Nathaniel. You are dragon of fey. Aw, chief will like you. I am very confused. I am a dragon of fire. Looking at Luna. All smug-like. Why? He's just going to go to his head now. Why are you doing this to me? Please kill me now. Come, lesser non-dragons. I show you to the chief. Kill me now, chief! I'm going to say... Yes. Non-dragons. Let's go. I'm going to actually punch you Nathaniel. Alright, so I'm just going to gather you all here and move you to the space where you will be. Just a quick... So I can just like grab you... Oh my God, there's so many tokens. Okay. Yep, yep, welcome. Welcome. Wait, we love you here. We swear. Yep. So he leads you down the path that you didn't go, the path that was supposed to be kind of the next cache of storage, but you can see that it has been ransacked and dug out. You can see there are bits of cloth and wood and stuff, and there's a light to the top. I just had a thought. What about the horses, guys? Oh, they're dead. God damn it. Don't worry. We'll get to that one. We'll buy new ones. Okay, okay. Don't worry. I am a mighty flair dragon. I named my horse Horses. As you are being led by this cobalt, you see that there is an entire flock of them. Oh my God. And you can see that there is a shrine of candles and crates and various different offerings, and you can see it's very easy to recognize at the end of the wall is an entire skull of the head of a dragon. Oh. I swear to God, if the leader of this group is not just a cobalt talking through this dragon head, I'll be so mad. Yeah. But as you enter into this shrine that seems to be dedicated to this skull of a dragon, you can see that there is one humanoid among the cobalts sitting, laughing, having a chat as they're surrounded around them, one that you would recognize. Oh my God. You didn't. I did. And you can see your old flame. Oh. Eee. And as she's talking with the cobalt, she looks up and sees you. Oh. It's been a long time, Renee. Oh. Uh. Hi. She's just like a little like wave. I look to Renee. Do you know this person? Uh, yeah. No, um. Uh. She is. Who made all of this? She like gestures to the fucking cave. Not exactly all this. It's, um, it's been a little while and the cobalt of, uh, sort of redecorated the place. I noticed. Um. Like. Rubbed her nose a little bit like. So, um. What you been up to. And we're going to call the session there. They dated. I love this. The most awkward X reunion. I'm so ready for this. I'm sure here for this. Ah.