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C2 Ep. 149 Mirrored Past Chapter One
886 Plays2 years ago
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:10
Speaker
D20 radio, your game is roll.
00:00:46
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Everon Renewed, an actual play podcast set in the Everon campaign setting. I'm your game master, Eric. I'm Philip. I'm Trevor. I'm Jeff. Randy's not here. Randy's not here and I'm Jeff. Welcome to another
Mission Assignment Recap
00:01:00
Speaker
episode. Gentlemen, what happened last time? We got a job. We heard the details of a job that Hobb has been assigned. Yes. By his corporate overlords.
00:01:15
Speaker
And essentially we learned that Boom Rush has promised this group of hobgoblin, mostly hobgoblin and one bugbear warriors, that they, if they work for him, I'll take care of their little bugaboo, which happens to be a terrifying bespoke artificer who wants to kill them all now because they slided him. Like, let's be straight. What they did was wrong.
00:01:39
Speaker
culturally Houston. Oh, see, when you do that, I just have to be like, but also I feel I can strongly say this fantasy culture is wrong. That's okay with me. I think you can say that safely.
00:01:53
Speaker
Yeah, so where we left off is Chris and Milo, as Jeff mentioned, Randy is not here.
Randy's Weather Woes
00:02:00
Speaker
For those of you that may not know, we're dealing with some natural weather disaster situations in our neck of the woods, and Randy is still dealing with some of those situations on his end. So we miss him, but he'll be back soon. He's okay. Yes, yes, sorry. I don't mind. He's fine. Randy's a teacher, and we're trying to figure out how to make school work, and so he's doing that tonight because it's important.
00:02:23
Speaker
Because there's no electricity in any of the schools in town. There. Yes. Yes.
Olive's Triumph and Skill Gain
00:02:28
Speaker
Anyway, Eris and Milo were in the cauldron with Olive. Olive just made her check to be resilient in the harness powering up with a fire elemental in it. And Hob and Reynard were at the four sails having a chat with Sana after she had a good cry in the walk-in. So that's where we were at. Yeah.
00:02:53
Speaker
and recruiting Kath and Sana to come help on the job. So, we are going to pick back up with Eris and Olive because Olive rolled a triumph on her resilience check that needs to be spent in some way. Truth. So, you all have had some time to think about this triumph and really mold over. We totally have. Dead some brain space. That's all I've done. So, that's what we've done. I remember nothing.
00:03:23
Speaker
I wrote down in my notebook, spend olives triumph. And when I opened my notebook today, I saw that. So I have remembered for three minutes. Excellent. Excellent. That we needed to do that. So what would you like to spend her triumph on?
00:03:43
Speaker
Obviously, I'd like to spend her triumph on saying that the arms are not going to drive her crazy. That's what I'd like to spend the triumph on is on saying that her Dr. Octopus arms are not going to take over her brain with the power of a thousand suns in the palm of her hands. I just I'd really like that to not happen. And that's what I'd like to spend the triumph on. But I don't know if I should spend the triumph on that.
00:04:10
Speaker
The arms never work. She gives up on engineering, thus assuring this will never happen. And she ends up a botanist. You just turned into poison ivy. I genuinely didn't think about that. There are no non villainous scientific professions in the comic book world, Jeff, it's not possible. I hear you're correct. Because if you try to solve the world's problem with anything other than your fists, you're a bad person. So
00:04:39
Speaker
So based on the resilience check and the check that you made and Milo's, all the facts that he did that there's no danger. Everything went well. All the checks were passed. All systems seem to be stable right now.
00:04:52
Speaker
Why are you looking at me like that? You've literally passed the checks with zero threats or despair. I mechanically can't do anything right now. I'm parsing every word you say like a contract lawyer. That's what that look is. He said right now.
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, listen, obviously, if a despair gets rolled down the road, it's on the table. But like, I feel like triumphs to say this thing can never happen. Why wouldn't I know? No, you're not going to die. No, I know. I know. Ask me what I'd like to spend on. That's what I'd like to spend on. I haven't come up with anything. I know reasonable to spend it on. Helpful. That would be helpful. Just not reasonable. I could.
00:05:39
Speaker
Trying to think of things related to the current problem that you could use the triumph on in terms of more knowledge about the defenses that Volgogoth might have or the weaponry.
Elemental Naming and Preparations
00:05:54
Speaker
What's the skill that Olive uses to resist something terrible happening with the arms?
00:06:07
Speaker
I did a resilience check this time because there was the possibility of like physically being harmed by a fire elemental connecting to your body. In the future, it's probably going to be a discipline check if it ever comes up. I propose that Olive gain a skill point, a skill level in discipline. All right. Give our NPC some experience and she levels up her discipline.
00:06:33
Speaker
Sure. Okay. Plus one to Olive's going to make it a harder roll. Did I mention? Interestingly, it has adversary three. Okay. So yeah, you can tell that the experience that Olive just went through her mind is more resolved and heartier than it was beforehand. And she looks around and you can tell that she's trying to listen to the entity much in the same way when you did the test run with Tasha that she could hear
00:07:02
Speaker
Tasha in her head. This is so hard because Eris really should be just thinking this is the coolest thing in the world. And I cannot find that in my person because I'm so worried about what you're going to do. This is cool as it gets. Olive, like Eris, I can hear him, him.
00:07:33
Speaker
Can you understand him? It's strange. It's like I can feel the emotional resonance. Like it's not words. It's just feelings and thoughts. And I think he wants something. Oh, a name. You don't have a name. Oh, it kind of looks down at Eris. Any thoughts?
00:08:01
Speaker
Let me take a crack at it. In the interest of time, I'm eager for Jeff to take a crack at it because I spend days. I spent days deciding what to call the air elemental that that Eris captured. What? No, no, no one wants this boy. Tim got lots of Tim. Yeah, Tim's a good one. I what kind of elemental is it again by no fire. It's fire. That's what I thought.
Adjustments and New Strategies
00:08:25
Speaker
We got lots of proper nouns in coal ash.
00:08:31
Speaker
Cinder. Cinder is pretty good. Furnace. I like cinder. Furnace, but we spell it weird. Cinder. Cinder with a Y and an O. Yes. Yep. Cinder. Cinder with a Y. Yeah, that's not ominous. All of looking and going, there is no all of there's only cinder. Cinder? Cinder. I think he likes it.
00:09:01
Speaker
Hi, Cinder. I contributed. You did. Well done.
00:09:07
Speaker
Trevor, you threw out a name for something that Phillip liked, which is a pretty high bar to clear. So you should carry some pride. And then you see the arms begin to move off of the supports. Eris and begin to move around as all those kind of feeling them out. And she begins to step down the stairs as the arms extend above her. And then you see them retract a little bit to where they're not so ominously long. But you do see.
00:09:37
Speaker
coming down the length of the arms where the metal connects, you do see like shoots a fire and like little licks of flame in between the metal clearly powering these arms. I was like, okay, wow, this is gonna take some getting used to sharing or just hearing another thing in your brain.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's weird. Milo gets it. So what else do we need to do before we head out? I was going to make some acid that I could throw at people. Oh, okay. Just fighting little automata and seem like acid might be useful for that. Yeah, absolutely. How can I help? Let me.
00:10:33
Speaker
recheck what the difficulty of the creation is. Let's see. It is a hard check of three purple and let me see how much money we have. Oh, yeah, a lot. We do. Yeah, there's still got a good chunk. I will try to mix three acid flasks. OK.
00:11:03
Speaker
Are you messing with this check at all? Otherwise it's just three purple. Nope. You're good. Okay. Oh, and you get a boost from all of helping. All right. Let's do it. Yeah. That's two success, one threat, two triumphs. Now can you do the whole never going to be bad thing? I think because triumphs are logarithmic, right? A second triumph is actually worth 10 triumphs. Let me look at the handy dandy.
00:11:32
Speaker
What can you do with a triumph on alchemy? Even the terranos book. That's the right word. Logger it. I think that, you know what? Not going to worry about it. It's fine, Jeff. It's fine. Oh, that's cool. Let me see. Oh man. That's such a bummer. There's an option for spending two triumphs.
Recruiting Help and Team Dynamics
00:11:49
Speaker
Like this is the only thing I've ever seen that gives you an actual option for spending two triumphs. And the, but it's add a quality to this item, but this is like a single use item. So it's not, Oh yeah.
00:12:01
Speaker
Eric, I saw your face. I laughed because I googled logarithmic to make sure that it was right. And the first auto response question is, what do you mean by logarithmic? So I'm asking you that. Oh, that's funny. Apologies, I'm slowing us down. You're good. No worries. OK, so one suggested use is that the potion is more effective than usual. OK. So the effect of an acid flask for the...
00:12:29
Speaker
is that it basically just you throw it and it releases a cloud of acidic mist that is sufficient to encompass a creature and counts as a corrosive environment for. Oh, OK. Which means each round at the beginning of their turn, a character subjected to one of these hazards suffers wounds equal to its rating.
00:12:57
Speaker
This damage persists until they are no longer exposed to the hazard, some corrosive atmospheres that you may decide, et cetera. So either. I would suggest as a way of increasing the effectiveness of it, either the amount of damage of the acid flask I just created increases or the area it covers. Which do you think? Yeah.
00:13:26
Speaker
Or we could add an additional because it just creates the environment. It doesn't do any direct damage, correct? It creates the environment and the creatures in the environment suffer the damage. So I'm saying we can also add the element that like when it strikes someone, it creates the environment, but it also deals an initial bout of damage as well. So there's an initial damage from the impact. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:53
Speaker
That's okay with me. So how about, sorry, I'm trying to find the, where is the acid flask Phillip? Oh, here it is. It is on page 102. When you throw this potion, do you have to make an initial check to throw it for accuracy sake or do you just toss it and it happens?
00:14:11
Speaker
As an action, you throw it to a point within short range where it releases a cloud of acid. Okay. So no. Okay. Gotcha. So yeah, let's just keep it simple then. And let's make it corrosive six. Sure. That sounds reasonable. And then so that's a triumph and I've rolled two, which is always difficult.
00:14:32
Speaker
You're trying to make three. You can make. I was going to say, yeah, one of the options for three advantage or a triumph is your character has enough ingredients left to craft another batch of the potion. So get two out of my initial check instead of. Yeah, sure. Just one. And then I will do. One more check, just one more time as well.
00:14:58
Speaker
Roll to, bam. Two success, one advantage. Okay. Simple. Do you have some strain you'd like to recover? Or pass a boost? I was just checking that. Oh gosh, actually I have a bunch of wounds, but yes, I have some strain I would like to recover. I will recover a strain. Cool. Okay, so as you finish crafting the acid flasks, we're going to cut to the four sails, the hob, the rainard.
00:15:27
Speaker
you all where we left you were in the kitchen chatting with sauna about kath's new act time at nighttime activities and the whole kidnapping thing but yes i'm sorry i just don't remember where we left it very much sauna
00:15:47
Speaker
sauna doesn't want you all to talk to kath and tell her to stop because sauna's convinced that kath won't stop so she'll just start hiding it from people which she would rather be complicit and and be able to help her sister not die as opposed to being ignorantly blissful so that's where you left things off is sauna was like we're i'm doing my best but
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah, we need she wants to kill TARDIS for tithers. And until she does that, she's not going to stop. Yeah. And Kath is just chilling in a booth out in the seating area waiting on you all because she's ready to go do the job with you all. Huh? I think. Listen, son, I didn't think about it that way. I don't. When I was at the monastery, there was one guy who was a little wild and
00:16:45
Speaker
Master Stormpool would say, I'd rather he does it here in the house where I can monitor it. And I gotta be frank, that never made sense to me then. And it doesn't make sense to me now. But if you don't want me to talk to Cath, I will do that out of respect for keeping your relationship with her harmonious. But also, eventually, we've gotta get her to stop.
00:17:09
Speaker
I know, I know, I just, it's not gonna be today. You said you came here to ask me for help with something? That is why we came here, but I don't, listen, we're in the final moments of my conscription to Boomer. Oh.
00:17:37
Speaker
This job got weird, and we're thinking all hands on deck, but also, you're bitten through a lot, and you're in the middle of a lot, and if you can't help us, I understand. I don't know what it... The guy's got robots, and they're bad, and they might take your blood. Can you help? Do you wanna... Sanna begins to cut you off, particularly on the phrase, can't help us. No, I can help. What do you need? Tell me what you need.
00:18:05
Speaker
Hob doesn't say bodies to throw at the robot because he doesn't actually feel that way, even though it does feel like that's what is happening. We need, I need to know that you're going to be available. I don't know what we need yet. Sauna, that's the thing. If I remember right, you're quite acrobatic. Could come in handy. Yeah. I can go punch stuff and kick stuff and yeah. Jump over stuff. Whatever you need. Are we going now or what's.
00:18:35
Speaker
No, because we have to catch back up with Eretz and Milo for starters. Kat's out. Did you know Kat's out there? I can't remember if Kat came in with us or if Kat was already there when we got there or anything. Kat came in after Sana had gone to the back. So no, I don't think Sana is aware. Kat is out there. Am I aware? Yes. Kat's out there right now. If we want to just all go have a sit down and talk about, I can feel both yet in on everything that I know about this guy.
00:19:05
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Are you okay? She's going to be a part of this too. Yeah, that's fine. I almost said work through her demons, but he's not saying that. All right. So they all go out and then Rainard explains to them what we learned from the war band. And we can hand wave that part. Trevor's eyes got big. I said, and you all already know, so we're going to save the time. Skip over there.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah. Sauna and Kath both seem on board and eager to help you all out in whatever way they can. And yeah, that's, there's no real question or resistance from them. It's just tell us when and where. Gosh, I love our homies so much. It's a shame that we're like, this one's really scary and I need you. Your things are sad, but I don't plan to deal with
00:19:57
Speaker
Don't say that, it's going way too easily, so someone's probably gonna die. Doesn't mean our homies aren't cool. And now it's Trevor's fault. Now it's Eric's idea, I just said it.
00:20:08
Speaker
I'm just trying to think, what do I catch off of the two of them? Like, I'm assuming me and Rainard sat on one side. Did they sit on the other side of the booth together? Did they talk to each other the whole time we were... That's what I want to see. I want to know. Give me a perception check. You both can. This is going to be one red, one purple. I almost reached for dice. And you know them really well, so I'll give you two boosts because you've worked with them and known them for quite some time now. Okay. Perception, two blue, one red, one purple? Yep.
00:20:36
Speaker
I failed with a despair, are you kidding me? Wow, hold on, I might make it better, but I could make it worse. Dice, dice, baby. I don't know. Okay, well this is not fun. Perception, baby. Please do. With two blue, one red, one purple. Shoot. I was supposed to roll two yellow instead of a yellow and agree with the best. One success, two advantage.
00:21:03
Speaker
One success, two advantage. Cool. Raynard, you can tell very easily there's a lot of tension between Kath and Sana. You get the sense that there have been a lot of tears shed and shouting matches and unresolved feelings between the two of them over the past few months.
00:21:25
Speaker
but they're sisters and they're roommates. So what are you going to do? She's going to bury it down deep, deep and keep pushing down. I was like, I'm going to stay out of it. You die. Learning something about Eric's family life. Yes. When my brother became a vigilante of the night, I had the police convincing him to stop. I remember. So that's what you pick up. It's really weird at your wedding.
00:21:49
Speaker
There's a lot of tension between the two of them. They do acknowledge each other and talk when appropriate, but you get the sense there's no desire to actively engage with one another, which is weird, given how long you know Kath and Sana. They famously are very close and are a package deal slash team, even in combat, like they fight in tandem with one another. So, yeah, not great. They're a minion group.
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah. You have a collective five advantage between Jeff and Trevor's roles. I'm just waiting to see what that despair. Hobb decided to be empathetic for a minute and ends up like running his head through people or something. Really, really bit him in the butt. I know. Hobb decided to care about the inner life of someone besides Eris for 30 seconds. And I got to just never do that. Done. Five advantage. That is a lot. Cat's vigilante work never comes back to bite her in the butt.
00:22:45
Speaker
she gets away with it. I want to use it that it seems okay team how can we use five advantage to chill this out a little bit between the two of them? We could say I think without spoiling the narrative of it they haven't got we haven't gone on a everybody
00:23:07
Speaker
rally up kind of job on time. And so returning to that, doing that and doing something worthwhile because obviously this guy running around sharn is bad regardless of the job. It puts them back in that vibe like it just for the time being for the mission, it like it puts them back in that routine.
00:23:33
Speaker
Yeah, because going back and doing something that they have done and enjoyed doing together. That was that that is in the same vein of the suggestion I was going to make is I had intended for there to be a mechanical detriment to their combat efficacy is exactly what I was going to happen. Yes. And offsetting that by saying the muscle memory kicks in and they just fall back in step with this team. Yeah, I think it's good. Yeah, I think that's a good.
00:24:02
Speaker
I think he could also be, as much as I think that could be a part of it, also don't show out in front of the people that don't live here. We don't need for everyone to know what we're having this serious trouble. So we're just going to squash it while we do this could also be a combination of the two things. Yeah. Because I had a feeling that there was, I don't need an argument between two of our allies in the middle of a fight
Return to the Cauldron
00:24:24
Speaker
happening. And I also extend that to Eris and Milo. Okay. Eris usually waits till the end of a fight.
00:24:32
Speaker
Once you all are done talking with Captain Sana, was the plane to head back to the cauldron to meet up with Eris and Milo? Wait, didn't you roll a despair? Yes, I'm just trying to get a timeline going here. Yeah, I assume so. I feel like everything we do right now is bouncing between the cauldron and a destination and then back to the cauldron to do a destination until we can get a little less heat on us. Okay. Really?
00:24:59
Speaker
We should just try and turn some of Eris' goodwill into getting ourselves a little crash space.
00:25:08
Speaker
in high wall. There's got to be essentially an abandoned building somewhere or a loft or something that nobody uses that we could use to plot heists. Yeah. Get a safe house going. Oh man, at that bar, there's that upper floor patio thing. They'd give us that privately if we needed a place to plan or something like that. Totally.
00:25:34
Speaker
Anyway, I feel like we could I feel like we could acquire a layer in high wall at this right now if we wanted to. I feel like that would be an excellent use of all of the embarrassing goodwill that Eris experienced last time. And Paul is, of course, more than happy to move to high wall. Yeah. With his asceticism being what it is, he's pretty much fine anywhere. And there's probably jerks to punch here every now and again. Yay. Potentially.
00:25:58
Speaker
Punching jerks is what got us into this mess. Is that a yes to going back to the cauldron? Yes, I believe so. Okay. Wait, no, despair. No, we're going nowhere near the cauldron. We are going far away from the cauldron, as long as that despair is in your pocket. Yes, we're going to the cauldron. No, I'm trying to do you all a favor by not. Okay, this happens, and Rainard are on the other
Milo's Mysterious Episode
00:26:19
Speaker
side of the chart. And we're across the town for each other, yeah. So yeah, you all head out, hop in a cab, start heading back to high walls, and...
00:26:27
Speaker
As you all are, you've gotten off the skiff, you're walking towards the cauldron, cut into the cauldron in Eris. Milo is off near a table. He's taken the welding mask off and is preparing to head out. It seems like you all are wrapping up and something very concerning happens that you notice before Milo does. The scar on his forehead is no longer generating smoke. That's not concerning. That's deep, really relieving. And then Milo passes out.
00:26:56
Speaker
Oh, oh, okay. Oh, no, he ran out of smoke. That's all that was powering him. So that, okay. So he expresses collapses over to Milo. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I mean, also we'll run over to Milo. I'm not at all competent in medicine. I can make a check. I have a strong intellect, but it's not a strong suit, but maybe enough to just get a breed on what's going on.
00:27:26
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to give me a. It would be knowledge lore, which I don't think you have any. Right. So just. Oh, yeah. Medicine's fine. Yeah. Right. Yes. I meant physically, not necessarily the root cause, but yeah. Is he. Dying or something. Yes. What's the difficulty? To purple. OK. I will spend one of our story points. And upgrade once just. Hey.
00:27:56
Speaker
No success. Three advantage. One triumph. Milo's dead, Eris. Oh, God. No, you can't tell what's wrong with him. So he's he's obviously breathing, though. Like, yes, yes. His vitals are present. Yeah, Eris leans over, shakes Milo. In fact, you hear him call that stuff as he's fading. You hear him muttering something about it's so quiet. It's so quiet.
00:28:26
Speaker
And then he finally passes out fully. Okay. What's wrong? Aris, what's going on? I don't know. Milo. He's not smoking anymore. He said it was quiet and I would normally be really happy about that, but then he passed out and I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what's wrong. I don't know. Rainard. Oh, sorry. You have three advantage in a triumph to spend. Yeah, I know. I got no idea.
00:28:54
Speaker
I spin the triumph and the voices never return. Milo's connection to Zorat. It is not sad. Milo's connection to Zorat is permanently severed. No, obviously, I'm not going to do that. I will take suggestions, and I have absolutely no idea. Because all of the things would be actually he's fine.
00:29:18
Speaker
I will pull back the curtain before revealing the nature of it. We are about to enter a skill challenge, so if you wanted to pass an upgrade to the next check with this three advantage, you can do that. Yeah, I will place out an available upgrade for this upcoming event. And the triumph. Any thoughts, King?
00:29:39
Speaker
She can't use the triumph to gain insight on what happened because she failed to get the what happened role. And that's really unfortunate. Yes, it is. The triumph is that when Hobb walks in, he knows exactly what's wrong. No need to roll, no nothing. Are there any? Milo told me about the smoke. Are there any external factors that are present that might become obvious with the triumph?
00:30:06
Speaker
Something else is going on in the lab that I could, that might have something to do with it. Okay. Hob Raynard, but as you approach the cauldron and Eris, what you begin to feel is you, it's not even a gradual thing. You all of a sudden feel the ground beneath your feet, begin to lift and turn. No, thank you.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah. Like these like inception to ground. Yes. To all yeses. And Eris, you also begin to feel you with Milo and all of begin to slide across the floor as the cauldron begins to turn, but Reynard and hob, you could, the towers not falling. It's like the ground is folding.
00:30:58
Speaker
And you're beginning to, but it's a long way to where the fold is happening. And so you're going to need to try to survive this coordination or other skills is what, that's what you immediately begin to notice. Additionally, Hob Reynard, since you're outside,
00:31:20
Speaker
The sky begins to shift to a intense orange with the sun in the sky being blue and people are freaking out. There's, yeah, this isn't in your heads. Like people are sliding and grabbing onto stuff. Yeah. Break this nice community that you just gave us. Hey, none of us are going to forgive you.
00:31:45
Speaker
Oh, you want to hide out in high walls, do you? Crumple, crumble, fold. Metaphorically and literally crumpling up this piece of paper. If I need to do a story point, I'm happy to, but I assume Hob and Rainard are on Hob's bike, because if we're going anywhere from anywhere, I'd be on my bike. Sure. The ground and the gidding, since it can fly, are not too terribly concerning, but everything else is pretty concerning. Hob's a good thing we didn't have anything going on. We weren't in the middle of anything. So this is important.
00:32:17
Speaker
does the bike twist with the rest of the world, or is the rest of the world, is gravity remaining consistent while everything else moves, and so the bike being suspended in air doesn't? Yeah, my bike wheel's pointed down the whole time, I think, as well. Yeah, sure. So that's how Jeff need to understand. It's an interesting point you bring up. Because if we go perpendicular, radar's falling out of that thing.
00:32:47
Speaker
Because the only reason the bike flies is because of the manifest zone that Sharn is atop of. And if another plane begins interfering with that manifest zone, then what would happen to the bike? What? This is why I don't learn about this stuff.
00:33:07
Speaker
Then I have to know that could happen. I'd rather just be surprised by it, not live in this world. Okay, hit me. I'm on the bike. What happened to us? No. So the bike stays on the ground, but gravity does not stay consistent. You begin to go faster on the bike, like downhill, is what's happening. And while... Yeah, we'll just do this. After a few moments,
00:33:35
Speaker
the bike begins to like scrape on the ground like it doesn't plummet you're not like but it's a very gradual kind of lowering okay kind of thing so it's losing lift it's losing lift but it's not like it's dropping like a stone out of the air because it's still sore wood it's still okay so that's what's happening you still have a triumph Philip oh
00:33:59
Speaker
I was going to use it to get us aboard Tasha, but apparently that's not going to be a solution to this problem. OK. Olive. Is able. With the Octo Arms to grab them, that's not really an app name, but the floor as it turns into a wall, OK?
00:34:26
Speaker
And Tasha is currently in piloting egric. Yep. And so egric just sort of like all of grabs Milo in one of the arms and.
Managing Chaos and Saving Others
00:34:41
Speaker
catches it with the other two, Ygric grabs onto something fixed to the floor and catches Eris as she starts to slide. And so no one is going to fall to the wall and be crushed to death by the hundreds of pounds of scientific equipment that are about to fall across the room. Yeah. Sounds good. So it was probably sharp. Many of which is sharp, some of which is explosive, all of which is extremely valuable and fragile. Caustic.
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah. And like I said, just making acid. It wasn't a like flat world flat. Oh, vertical like it was so everything slid to the wall. Yeah, but yeah, but none of us are under it. Yeah. Are there windows in the cauldron? Are there like super high up? Okay. Yeah, they're like warehouse windows like high up. Yeah. Yeah. Hob Reynard, you are approaching the cauldron much faster than you were a moment before.
00:35:40
Speaker
Super pumped we're making good time. I don't, at this point Hobbs was like, we must get to the cauldron. That is clearly, so he's just, can I, can he make an assessment of how damaging this is to his bike? Will the bike make it there? Are we going to skid to a stop? Does this thing move if it's not floating? Like I don't even. I said that you were close to the cauldron when this started. So you can get to the cauldron and park your bike in there so it doesn't plummet and get destroyed in this easily. Like I'm, yeah.
00:36:08
Speaker
I'm not looking to destroy your bike in this, yeah. Okay, and that is what we do, that little garage thing that Aeris had installed. I'm sure she's got a super- Hop, got a clicker, just flies in. I'm not sure how to resolve that, but if that's the idea is I have time to get in there and park it, then you better believe you get to there and park it. There's windows open. We were producing acid. There's windows open because otherwise we were all dying of toxic fumes.
00:36:34
Speaker
Okay, so what you all also, I guess, Eris, Hob and Raynard come flying in on Hob's cycle into the cauldron. Frank, what? What's happening? I was really hoping you might have some insight into that. Milo stopped smoking and passed out and said it was quiet.
00:36:55
Speaker
Eris is just like, Ygric's gigantic stone hand is like entirely wrapped around Eris' midsection. And Ygric just lifts Eris to be more in line with Hob. And then everything went like this. Like this? Yeah. Whatever this is. Wait, is the sky a different? What is happening?
00:37:18
Speaker
It's not just in here. This is how I used to see things when I drink. You also. Oh, there's more here. People screaming outside. Frank. All right. Eris looks at your bike. Is it obvious that it has stopped its function like that, that its levitation power is lost?
00:37:39
Speaker
You would also, Tasha's in here also. Tasha's in here, yes. The boat Tasha. Yeah. It would also be sitting on the ground with a lot more weight than Aeris would. Okay. Recognize. Frack. How do we gotta do something? Yeah, sure. Do you have any idea what that is?
00:37:57
Speaker
Like Hobbs Hobbs trying to like lash things like he's great. If there's a if there's a loose wire that's fairly long, he's like grabbing it and lashing something to a post or whatever he can do. We need to go help her arms to into the floor to crawl over to where the bedrooms are with Milo's body to put him in a secure place. Oh, well, so slip Hobbs also slid over and shut the window that he came through because that seemed smart. Has it stopped? It's gone. Holy vertical now. And it stopped. So everything just turned 90 degrees and stopped.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, not everything, but yeah. Are we perpendicular to something or is it just the gravity has shifted? If we look out the window, do we see ground that we're perpendicular to now? You all were outside. You saw like the center of my wall staying in place. You all were just like folding towards. Yes. Okay. That's what I thought actually. Okay. So if we look outside, there's tower below us, but also to the left. Yes. And to the right. Like it's this.
Discovering the Anomaly
00:38:57
Speaker
OK, so the round just so I understand. What you're saying is that the Delta, the river. Like down all the way on the ground has folded up around us and sharn is now a bowl. Yes. Yeah, OK. Centered on a high wall hob.
00:39:26
Speaker
Things are getting crazy. I need to roll a D100 twice. Oh, OK. Oh, no. OK. Arias is directing Ygric to Tasha to carry her over to the window so she can. Get her bearings of stuff. Just OK. I have rolled a 44 and an 88. Oh, that's symmetrical. OK, 44 is inscrutable, where you add a setback to all charm checks.
00:39:56
Speaker
and other characters add a setback to all social checks targeting you. 88 is tireless. Oh, which means your mutation. Yes, you do not sleep or require similar periods of downtime. Yeah, you don't got to sleep. Yeah, I'm not doing the. Yeah, basically, you never add setback to checks or suffer other
00:40:25
Speaker
consequences for going for extended periods without rest. So that doesn't affect anything. If I can't sleep, I can't recover a wound for that night. That's okay. Still rest. You're just not required to sleep.
00:40:37
Speaker
Okay, so Hob, you feel your body kind of change and any of the venomous like spikes, like spines in your hands, like retract back into your body. But boy, do you feel awake? Yeah. Sighs look like, I don't know, some cartoon look like flapjack from the cartoon. Okay, so yeah, that's what Hob and Reynard saw is basically Sharon was folding up in on itself centered on some point.
00:41:06
Speaker
You hear people shouting and screaming. You also, through the windows, you probably begin to see black smoke, like a single plume of black smoke.
00:41:20
Speaker
familiar with the black smoke. Yeah, we got to get that back into Milo frack. OK, so we are in a skill challenge game. There are people screaming. Outside the cauldron, there's also obviously something going on probably where this black smoke is that you need to get to. So what is. Yeah, start pitching me checks that you would like to make. Huh? Eris wants to get people. Eris is worried about the people. I would like to pitch
00:41:51
Speaker
Boy, egric would be really useful in a disaster situation, but there's no way that I can manage egric out on if the city's if this part of the town is flipped vertical. I'd like to move Tasha into the bird chassis and use her to find people like to so she can fly. Assuming she can fly, I assume it will be obvious quickly whether she can fly.
00:42:18
Speaker
Can the bird chassis because it's powered by an air elemental can fly. OK. And use that and the spy link with her goggles to start identifying where. OK. Where people are in danger so that we can start to do this intelligently. OK, how if we were to just look out the window, how far of a fall are we talking? That is an excellent question. Sixty feet.
00:42:47
Speaker
Okay, so we are near the center of this. Yes, just keep in mind fall damage is a way more punishing in Genesis. Oh, I'm not interested in falling. I was interested in how high we are. I'm just saying like it's yeah, I have fallen one time while playing Genesis and my character was out for the rest of the encounter. Okay, so what check would you like to make Eris to begin flying Tasha around and trying to spot
00:43:17
Speaker
Can I make a joint check with Tasha? Sure. So I'd like to use my cunning and her perception skills. Okay. So that's going to be my perception, but she has two ranks in it. This is through Tasha's eyes. So I assume the goggles did not give me the bonuses. What's the difficulty?
00:43:45
Speaker
difficulty is three purple, just cause the chaos and everything. I will flip a story point though, to upgrade one of those to a red. I have upgraded. Okay. I already got that. So rolling. Okay. Cool. Zero success. One advantage. You have an upgrade.
00:44:13
Speaker
I do that you have. OK. Yes. So I should spin that roll that die and replace the first green one. Yeah. The one with the two advantage. OK. The end up with one success and no advantage. Yes. OK, so yeah, as Tasha begins to zip around
00:44:35
Speaker
this section of high wall between the buildings. You begin to spot some people have fallen like onto the sides of buildings. They've managed to catch themselves.
Approaching the Smoking Tower
00:44:45
Speaker
You do spot a few people that have caught on to trees as they've gone sliding by them. And so they are just desperately hanging, trying to pull themselves up. You don't see anybody in a direct free fall currently, but there are some people that are hanging precariously in a situation where they need assistance or they will fall. OK. There's what Eris begins pointing them out as quickly as possible. Once I get back around again, I'm going to remember that Eris has mag boots.
00:45:15
Speaker
And I get to move around very efficiently here. Rainard, what do you want to do? I don't know. I don't know what's happening. We're in a ball. None of us. We've found ourselves in an inception scenario. I guess just to check acrobatic. I don't think so. You got one yellow, two green in coordination. That's I was just like, can I just make a check not to?
00:45:44
Speaker
fall or what are you trying to like navigate, get towards the smoke? Are you going to try and help people? Are you trying to like, what's your intention? And then we can work through what check you need to make. I don't know what I would even have to control over. Don't worry about that. What is, I mean, you're still to you as Reynard and you're still Reynard. So you don't have to feel like you'd help these people. I'm definitely not thinking I'd help people. So I guess go to get a better look at the smoke.
00:46:15
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You climb out one of the doors, the cauldron and kind of perch yourself up. Give me a perception check to get a better look at the smoke. Okay. I'm good at that. This is one red, two purple, one red, two purple. There's no advantage or anything on the board. No, no boosts. Okay. Two yellow, one green, one red, two purple. All right. What could go wrong? Oh, just zero success. I got nothing. Okay.
00:46:46
Speaker
So yeah, Raynard, you pop out and you can't really tell what's going on with the smoke. You can't get a good look at it. You can't even really see where it's coming from. There's buildings and stuff in the way to where the angle isn't right. You can tell that the smoke is traveling up like your normal perception of up. Yeah. That's the only thing you can tell. Okay. Jeff, what's Hobb doing?
00:47:17
Speaker
I think Hob is, okay, is there a way to get a look up? Because I know that we're in the side of a wall and our far windows are pointing down. Is there a way for me to see how much, like Hob's interested in how much bowling there is. Can I see the four sails up there? You know what I mean? Is there a way to do that? Or is it just kind of like tough break? You really can't see that direction because of the nature of the city of towers.
00:47:42
Speaker
No, I mean, you like when you look that direction, you see the sky. It's not that you see like the ground or something or the rest of sharn like you see the orange sky shining brightly above you with the beautiful blue sun. So do I get a sense that this is not all of sharn. This is a the area of effect of this spell is. That would be a reasonable assumption you can make. OK.
00:48:13
Speaker
I do making that assumption. And I yell that to everyone because I feel like I should do something in this turn. So I yell, I have a reasonable assumption. And then I relay it. Neither of you can understand Hobb. Wait, I thought I took the one that wasn't inscrutable. You're speaking common, but to your all's ears, he is speaking gibberish words. Eris turns back from the window.
00:48:38
Speaker
What'd you say, Chip? I said pluck the trombone. No, you don't understand, Eris. Due to this is the failed check makes things harder. You all can no longer effectively communicate with one another verbally. So you have a setback on future checks. I'm not sure what we'd tell each other right now. None of us know a dang thing, but we cannot strategy. Okay.
00:49:03
Speaker
Philip has a look on his face and now his eyes are twitching. Now he looks like he has a migraine. Jeff, what's Hob doing from a skill standpoint? Yeah, that's what I got to figure out. I think that would depend. I'm sorry that I stepped away for a moment. What did Eris learn from Tasha and did, and did Eris relay that? Cause that was right. I'm trying. That was before the failed check. So that could have been relayed.
00:49:28
Speaker
like things are progressing. So before this was identifying where people were basically, she's got Tasha out and she would have been trying to point out where people were nearby. Okay. If there is any of those people that hob could thinks there's a way to safe
00:49:46
Speaker
Can I do a check to construct a way to safely get somewhere, grab some boards and throw them down and or I hub has one skill and it's get close to something and fix it. Whatever fixing that requires in the situation. You got to need to be able to get close. But if it's a 60 foot drope, there's buildings, trees, there's stone benches, there's stuff that's okay. Then my then I think it is going to have to be do some spider manning. Okay.
00:50:17
Speaker
down this thing, so that would be athletics or acrobat. Yes, athletics. Okay. I have that. One red, two purple. I can add those. Let me just double check. And a black. Because of the... I don't need to hear them to jump. Okay, sorry, I do get a boost. Cool. So a setback and a boost. Boom, boom, and roll. Okay. Hey.
00:50:42
Speaker
So that's for success and advantage. Can I use that to say through like genuine, like monkey swinging and parkour rolling, I managed to get to someone who needs help. And then the next check can be, can I help them or not? No, I will go so far as to say it's a skill challenge. We're in like narrative wonderland. We're not in a hard line structured encounter. You can swing to somebody and grab them like they're dangling on a tree branch.
00:51:08
Speaker
And you can grab them and get them to the side of a building that is now the roof of a building and get that you can get them to safety with your athletics check. That's fine. Okay. So I do that. And I also put them very close to the what would be the bottom of the side of the building in the corner. Yeah. If we were to, I don't know, spin a different direction or unflattened, they won't fall six stories to their death because I just put them towards the roof.
00:51:30
Speaker
Yeah. No, totally. Okay. So that is each of you. We don't have to go in an initiative order. So what, or who would like to go next? Eris is going to activate her mag boots and get out on the wall and start also making her way to help rescue people. Totally. She's going to her neighbors. Okay. What check would you like to make?
00:52:01
Speaker
Can I pitch that Eris knows this neighborhood real well and make use of street buys? Sure. Yeah. Telling people where to go, that they can safely hunker down for the time being. Absolutely. One red, two purple, one black. Yep. Yep. You also have story points, everyone, so feel free to flip them. I will split a story point and upgrade.
00:52:29
Speaker
Once and here we go. To success. Okay. What heiress do. Yeah, exactly what it is. Heiress goes out. She starts to try. She's immediately racing out to people who are in precarious situation or hanging from trees or stuck on a roof of building or something like that.
00:52:52
Speaker
and begins walking them down. Eris is small, but she actually is quite strong after her cybernetic upgrade and even up to and including draping, getting people's arms around her shoulders and carrying them to the nearest safety that she can find. Yeah. Totally. Awesome. Who would like to go next? How much closer am I to the center of the bowl?
00:53:19
Speaker
you would have been able to reasonably get down about like 20 feet. So you still have about 40 feet to go to get to the bottom. So it's long distance now in terms of falling damage as opposed to extreme, which congratulations, that's a lot less deadly. Still instantly incapacitate you, but it's less deadly. Yeah, just so you all know, if you fall a short amount, Soak does not account for any of this.
00:53:48
Speaker
short distance, you suffer 10 wounds and 10 strain. Whoa, jeez. Medium, suffer 30 wounds, 20 strain.
00:54:01
Speaker
long distance, wounds equal to your wound threshold plus one, and a critical injury at a plus 50 roll, and 30 strain. Jokes on you. Wounds equal to my wound threshold plus one was handled short. And extreme is wound equal to wound threshold plus one, and a critical injury at plus 75, or death at the GM's discretion. It does. And 40 strain. So that's what you all are looking at based on how far high up you are. Yeah, so Hob, you're about 40 feet up,
00:54:31
Speaker
Raynard, you're still at the cauldron, so about 60 feet up. I think if I realize that, I think suddenly my goal is to get closer to this to see if I can figure out what's going on with it, or what it is, or what's coming from. Okay. So I don't necessarily think I want to do a harder check to drop all 40 feet, because if I fail it, why is that word dead? So I think I might just do 20 foot increments, but I'm happy to swap it from athletics to acrobatics just for a little bit of a change of pace. Okay. Tell me what you, or coordination, which is worse. I still get a boost.
00:55:00
Speaker
That's nice. You could also do resilience to brace yourself for a landing. Drop yourself, not quite a short distance, but just to get down quicker, like you're bracing yourself for these a little bit further drops, dropping faster. Yeah. You know what? I like that idea. Let me kill these and restart it. Yeah. I like the idea of, he's just like, all right, this time we're just gonna
00:55:24
Speaker
Clinch our teeth and our butthole and just go. What's the difficulty? One red, two purple, one black. Oh goodness, okay. I'm flipping a story point then. Okay. And I don't really think I have anything that can help with this. Yeah, no, I do not.
00:55:48
Speaker
Would've been cool. All right, we're just gonna roll this and see what happens. It's a yellow and four greens versus a red, two purples, and a black.
00:55:56
Speaker
Okay. I've succeeded with three advantages. Okay. So yeah, you are able to clear quite a bit of distance, getting down closer, giving you a better vantage point to the source of the smoke, but also getting you even closer to getting to the smoke. Three advantage. What would you like to do with that? You could pass an upgrade to Trevor's check if you want. You could use it narratively to get a bit more insight into what the heck's going on. I was thinking pass a boost and then you give me two advantage worth of. Okay.
00:56:26
Speaker
of what I see as a boost to Trevor to Trevor and 20 feet closer. Yeah. To advantage worth.
00:56:35
Speaker
You keep in mind, you can count my teeth from 20 feet away. You spot a, as you get closer and break through the trees and the buildings towards the center where the world has not floated up. You see the source of the smoke is a, looks to be a shorter tower. Like it's not a, it's not one of the towers of sharn, but it's fit skinnier than a building.
00:57:04
Speaker
in a section of high wall. It was just part of the architecture made out of stone, but there is black smoke coming out of the windows and roiling up around the roof and then wisping up in a single plume. This is not a new structure that has just appeared. This is someplace that was already a part of high walls. Yep. Okay. Okay. I turned to my compatriots and I go, oh crap. Yeah.
00:57:30
Speaker
Okay. It is now Trevor. Trevor, what would Reynard be trying to do? You've seen Aeris and Ha begin heading down. I guess follow. Narratively, Olive headed off in another direction to help people, like with her arms, she can like scutter about. And so she's just the other direction along the vertical wall, grabbing people.
00:57:53
Speaker
So what are you doing, Trevor? I guess I'll follow. If you wanted to try and follow them down the wall, you can make a athletics check or a coordination check. Coordination is a little bit better for you. Yeah. We're going to do coordination. Okay. I hate it. What's the difficulty? One, one red, two purple, one black. Oh, that's a lot of bad things. What, what, what Eric? But you have a boost also from Jeff's check.
00:58:23
Speaker
Okay. So a blue, right? Yeah. You get a blue from Jeff's check before, but you still have a story point. If you want to flip it to upgrade your check, let's have yourself, let's, let's risk the risk. Three success for threat.
00:58:38
Speaker
OK, so yeah, you begin hopping from the sides of stone park benches built into the street and trees and buildings. And begin, yeah, making your way down for threat, you said. Yeah. OK, you. Hob your closest, Aris, you're getting pretty close.
00:59:04
Speaker
You begin to hear snarling and thrashing from this tower that you can see, Hob, and you hear some additional screaming down in the bottom of the bowl, essentially, and figures running away from this tower and other people like helping and guiding people to save places. You're Lynn from soaring spirits out there trying to help people. And so, yeah, but it's clear that whatever's going on in that tower just got worse in the tower. Yeah.
00:59:34
Speaker
and at this point you all have completed the skill challenge so you all are able to you people in this section seem safe they seem like they are stable so you all are able to make it to the bottom of the bowl without any further incident you see the tower with black smoke it's
00:59:54
Speaker
there the top floor has open windows just stone holes in the stone like there's no glass or anything in them and you just see the smoke as if it were coming out of the ceiling like pouring out wrapping around the roof and forming into this plume heading heading up there is no door to the bottom floor of the tower it seems like it's open and you all could enter easily and we're all together yes you all have
01:00:20
Speaker
I'm so hurt still. I have so many wounds. Yeah, also. Hey, how many wounds would I have recovered by Olive forcing me to sleep? I think in Genesis it's one. Awesome.
01:00:35
Speaker
Did we sleep when Aeris slept? Because I would get one back. Probably slept at a much more reasonable time than Aeris slept. But I'm also fine with you all saying that you took a painkiller while you were a healing potion. So getting back six wounds as well. I feel that way. I feel like I did that because otherwise I'm super bad. Fair enough. OK, so we have like we have to go in there, right?
01:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, we're going to figure out what it is. All right. Crap. Okay. This just for the sake of the skill challenge, the skill challenge is over so they can understand each other. You all have. Yeah. You've hit a point of communication where you can communicate once again. Eris taps her communicator and says something in, in Dargul and looking back up towards the cauldron.
01:01:28
Speaker
We see a window open and Ygric begins to climb down towards us. Okay. I'm willing to have him, he's got a crazy brawn, so I'm very willing to have him make a roll. Give him, have him make an athletics check at the one red, two purple difficulty that you all had to do during the skill challenge. There it is. Four successes, three threat.
01:01:52
Speaker
Okay. I said show off doing it all in one move. Three threat. I'm just going to spend that on the next check that you all make. There's a automatic upgrade to the difficulty. And Eris will transfer all of our transfer Tasha into the piloting seat for egric. Okay. This isn't going to have any kind of mechanical influence or anything but Reynard as you land down and check yourself to make sure you're okay. Your hands are backwards.
Cliffhanger Ending
01:02:22
Speaker
Yeah, he's a Rakshasha. We attack him. Sorry. He's going to make it hard to fire that bow. No choice. That's different. Eris, as you turn to look at Hobb, his face is in his chest. Oh, no. Oh, the head's still there. It's just a blank. That's unhappy. I'm very unhappy about that. Oh, what is?
01:02:50
Speaker
when you look at Eris, her hair's pink. I'm a... Hang on. I'm a keffaloi, and she has pink hair. By the way, if you'd like to look up a keffaloi, that's exactly what Eric just described. A-K-E-P-H-A-L-O-I, I think, in English letters. Eris would never dye her hair pink. This is how you know that Zorat has entered the material plane.
01:03:16
Speaker
We're going to call it there. Hope you all enjoyed this episode. Thank you all so much for listening. If you want to be part of the conversation surrounding this episode, you can join our Discord, the link to which is on all of our socials, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
01:03:28
Speaker
TikTok stuff. We also have a YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the pantheon, where I do all sorts of tabletop role playing game related content over there. And we have another actual play the laugh or not the laughter Kyber shards on the laughing tree. YouTube channel. I'm on the show. You'd think I know the title of it. And Phillip is the GM using D and D fifth edition set in the city of storm reach.
01:03:51
Speaker
And we have a Patreon, patreon.com slash the geek pantheon. If you want to financially support the shows in any way that you are able, you can do so over there or you can buy merch at the geek pantheon.com. Thank you all so much for listening. I have been your game master, Eric. I'm Phillip. I'm Trevor. Randy's not here. I'm Jeff. We'll see you next time.