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Ep. 35 I Am Older - Bellum Draconis
123 Plays1 year ago
Reigns has a shocking encounter.
Follow us on our Twitters - @FellowshipTable
Intro written and produced by Joseph McDade
Recommended
Transcript
The Mystery of Makavolo
00:00:00
Speaker
range is going to glance towards emeron and is just completely upon hearing the word makavolo this is they they built the first makavolo as far as they're concerned there is only one
Introduction to Bellum Draconis
00:00:39
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of The Fellowship at the Tabletop, Bellum Draconis. We are a live Play 5e D&D podcast set in the magical, home-brewed world of Eryth in the Kingdom of Sleetguard. My name is Mark and I am the Dungeon Master. And also with us for this week's episode, a small, compact crew. We have Darren, who plays the High Elf Artifice of Rains Haddow. How do?
00:01:01
Speaker
And we've got Will, who plays the human cleric, Emron. Do how? We, unfortunately, very nice guys. We unfortunately are missing Callum, though, you know, for large swathes of the season, you might not even realize, but he is, he is genuinely
Where is Callum?
00:01:16
Speaker
missing today. Unfortunately, he has a Merkin knitting club. Um, and they run on a Friday evening today. It's the last, it's the finals of the Merkin and knitting club. And unfortunately.
00:01:28
Speaker
What is a merkin? A merkin is what you wear to replace a lack of pubic hair. I didn't know that well. There you go.
00:01:36
Speaker
I'm pretty sure it's the case. Well, every day's a school day. I would like to say I'd planned that, but that genuinely was off the top of my head. No pun intended. To be fair, when you picture Callum, it is literally the first thing that comes to your head. His pubic hair. Sorry, listeners. Let's get to some D&D before we get, we disappear into, we dive into Callum's crotch, but he's not here to defend himself. Or
Recap: Kingdom of Sleetguard
00:02:02
Speaker
his crotch. He loved this. There's most we've talked about.
00:02:05
Speaker
Callum unfortunately is not here, but we need to get to the resolution of what's going to happen, because for a quick recap, I know we haven't yet got back our chronicler, rest in peace, but for a really quick recap, we are... He's all dead. The character, the character he was... Anyway, and we are off in the deep in the marshes of Sleepguard, Rains
00:02:28
Speaker
m ron orla and alpha trying to get back on mojo get back what we'd lost after the loss of nyx and or nyx and morota they haven't done any uh monster hunting for quite some time and have found themselves finally picking it up
00:02:43
Speaker
and taking on this monster hunting request that seems to be kind of snowballing slightly here. It started off with some grongs and outs from grongs and a guard drake and it just seems to be getting a little bit out of control for something that was supposed to be simple, something easy, something the crew could get their teeth back into to get their mojo back.
00:03:02
Speaker
And unfortunately, things are already starting to unwind. The Grung attacks seemed much more vicious than they first intended. Orla was dragged into the river. Everyone ended up in the river at some point, low under the water, fighting these creatures, these amphibious frog-like creatures. Luckily, the party came through at the end. Orla shooken up and shaken. They made camp on the northern side of the river in and amongst the Grung camp itself. Orla came to in the tent as the rest of the other party members, Rains, Emron, and Alpha discussed what was going to happen next.
00:03:32
Speaker
The bodies were piled up, ready at the mouth of the dilapidated ruins of some kind of ancient basement, the building of which has long since fallen. All that remains is a stone staircase down through spiderwebs and through darkness. And the stench, the smell of flesh, the smell of something burning deep within as well.
00:03:56
Speaker
Time had passed and we had heard in the end of our last episode a snort, an exhalation of breath and a low rumble come from within.
Lizardfolk and War-Forged Appear
00:04:06
Speaker
and as the party of three stare behind this rock formation to see into where these grung bodies are piled and to see the steam kind of billow up, their eyes locked on target. They notice something, each of you in turn at first, something strange about the masonry that sits just to the north of it, just behind it.
00:04:29
Speaker
A small pillar of old masonry that seems to have surpassed time itself and weathered the storms of Sleetguard, and yet his standing starts to shake. Shutter. Dust cracks and falls from its edges. And all of a sudden, this large monolithic pillar crashes down over the entrance. A plume of dust and smoke rises up, filling the area. And for a second, you cannot see anything.
00:05:00
Speaker
and then very slowly almost wraith-like these two figures walk through from the north towards the south into the camp slowly at first walking along the pillar one jumps down the other jumps down they walk to the pile of grungs and again the dust is filling your eyes you can't quite make out what these things are and slowly the dust settles and the first thing you notice is a tail and a snout
00:05:32
Speaker
Danny, welcome back. Would you like to describe for our listeners and for our rather pensive-looking characters who, albeit what and who, actually, we see in front of us? You see, as Mark introduced, a crocodile-like skinned lizard folk.
00:05:57
Speaker
a creature, let's say, green and yellow sort of speckled skin, sorry, to the meta Darren there that it is Norwich City colours we are sporting on this character. This sort of speckled skin that sort of spreads, as Mark said, from snout outwards, almost as if it's been splashed by this yellow paint all across this dense sage green skin.
00:06:26
Speaker
uh across the the not traveling in in heavy metals at all but light leathers and unmistakably on the back of this creature a tabard that speaks uh uh quite um obviously of uh shadow mendian descent particularly that of additional features that are akin to the the house of haddow uh on them uh
00:06:52
Speaker
To the hips of this creature are two shadow Mendian forged war axes. And this tail that sort of moves curiously like a cat throughout the space, just sort of wraps around and almost acts as a third arm inspecting these bodies a little bit. And as this creature looks towards its companion, these pair of spectacles just sort of roll off the nose and he scrambles to the ground temporarily to retrieve them, stands back up and just sniffs around.
00:07:21
Speaker
Amazing. Thank you very much for that. And as you scrabble for your glasses, you duck down slightly down into the rubble to pick them up. And what steps into view just behind you and walks off just around your left shoulder is a second figure, a stranger's figure this time. Ian, would you like to describe to our listeners and to our players who it is we see entering behind?
Power Anomaly and Intentions
00:07:42
Speaker
Hey guys, how are we doing?
00:07:45
Speaker
It's good to be back. What you see is these bright yellow eyes kind of appear dissipated through the fog. And then as I walk slowly out in front, what you see in front of you is a war-forged automaton. Humanoid figure, six feet tall, 500 pounds.
00:08:09
Speaker
Its body is made up of a mismatch of metal outer components. For the most part, it seems to be made out of iron. If you work your eyes from the bottom to the top, you see that the rust is largely apparent in its legs, as if this automaton had been walking for a long time over marshlands and water.
00:08:37
Speaker
If you look particularly at the gears surrounding the knees, they're black with oil and grime. And if you look closely, you can see deep into the metal ridges worn where the two metal components to move knees spent years grinding against each other. As your eyes move upwards you see that the chest has two large plates of iron, one front and one back.
00:09:03
Speaker
You assume that its sides were once covered in iron too, but it's not all there. All the gearing is on show from the side on view. Wood, stone and metal gears are inside, given the idea that this automaton has been fixed by many different people to keep working through many different hands. Thin arms that move through a series of pistons that hiss as they engage run down the side of the body.
00:09:33
Speaker
and its hands consist of three metallic fingers. One where the thumb would be, and two forefingers. On its right hip sits a flail, and on its left forearm is a circular shield that seems to be bolted on to the forearm itself. And as your eyes reach its face, it's also covered in iron, also mismatched,
00:09:59
Speaker
A little bit of weathering, not as rusty as the legs, certainly dirty, expressionless as only an automaton's face can be. One slit around its mouth, where if you peer inside, you see a metal grill, presumably holding the speaker, and two eyes that have gold lights emanating from within it. Lovely. Thank you very much, both of you, for your eloquent descriptions there.
00:10:27
Speaker
A couple of things happen at the same time when these two figures step out of interview. Firstly, you realise that the grumble, the noise from below ground becomes intense for a few seconds longer and then dissipates totally. Whatever was below there.
00:10:43
Speaker
One can assume Mr. Gardrake isn't coming up to the surface this second. Something else, though, happens for both of you. Sorry. Neither of which had a chance to react to this at all so far, but it's all going to happen simultaneously. You notice the two things happen. So from the automaton creature that has appeared in front of you, something happens to that at the same time as something happens to Alpha.
00:11:07
Speaker
You feel, as Rains and Emron, you are between them both. There is Alpha who's approached from the back side of the forest, and this is happening from the front where they are entering towards you. You both feel this almost, they wouldn't know it, but I'm trying to give it to a sense of we as a modern audience to understand it.
00:11:24
Speaker
It's almost static. It feels like the hairs all over your body kind of stand on. And not out of horror or fear, but just out of literal electricity in the air. There's some kind of bond, some static charge in the air. And all of a sudden, you hear this high-pitched, winning, whining noise, almost like you're losing a frequency in here. Then you hear a pop. And you look behind you, and you can see Alpha's eyes just glaze over.
00:11:51
Speaker
and he just very slowly kind of doesn't fall over but just rocks forward on himself and then almost simultaneously you hear the same noise from the automaton in front of you but it seems to choke splatter for a second and then continue its kind of jittering movement so eloquently described by Ian.
00:12:10
Speaker
For all intents and purposes, Alpha is unresponsive at this point. He is almost stuck still frozen. One might argue that he is under almost some kind of paralysis of the time being, but something seemed to happen when these two individuals came within a certain range of each other. That's what you noticed. And I'll allow people to talk. Now I'm gonna stop talking. All that happens within a couple of seconds since the last episode's finished. What do you want to do? We have both parties notice each other.
00:12:40
Speaker
Yes, 100%. Sorry, I should clarify that. You've stepped up over this pile of grums, you've seen the grums and you've looked up and you've seen these three figures, you've both heard the pop. And yeah, you're kind of not face to face, you're about 25, 30 feet apart from each other.
00:12:55
Speaker
For the two of you that are joining us relatively new on, to your perspective, about 20 feet to your right, you can see a collection of three tents. Directly to the left and in front of you, about five feet in front of you, there's a large moss-covered rock mound that blocks the view round the corner. You can see there's a lot through the gap between the tents and that mossy outcropping blocking your view.
00:13:19
Speaker
Just to help your two characters as well, because I know that you both know what Rains looks like, but what you see when you look back is a humanoid figure who appears to be in a suit of armour. It appears to be a mismatch armour itself, not too dissimilar from what Ian has just so beautifully described. You can see bits of cogs where armour have been
00:13:41
Speaker
meshed together, there's bits of plate in there, there's bits of rusted metal and there's also a helmet that seems to also be having some kind of iconic charge where you can see almost like this blue like veins that are running through that and down the suit and into the arms. The suit itself is even more groggy because it has quite clearly been in the suity, mossy, rivary
00:14:06
Speaker
over grass from behind as it's clearly been in the water at some point, it is covered in this smudge. And the first thing it does, as soon as this thing happens after it recoils from the impact of what just happened, is turn around to this much better, refinedly built wall for us and immediately just go, Alpha, what the hell is happening here, Alpha? And he's just clicking his fingers in front of Alpha. Alpha!
00:14:34
Speaker
And we'll then just turn the emeron and look, glance back at the two behind us. Is it clear enough, Mark, for me to take in the shadow menu and stuff? Not yet. You just see the front of the figure. So if this is the tab out there wearing behind, then you might not yet make that out. If they step forward or if there's any kind of flutter of the wind to the side, you would start to maybe have an inclination, but maybe not. It wouldn't be
00:15:01
Speaker
It's not like it's a massive, I'm from Shadowmend on the chest. I heard Shadowmend like it. I've been to Shadowmend and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. It was more the hado insignia that Danny also so beautifully described. From what I heard from that, that's on the back. On the back, yeah. Yeah, so until he gets close and if he, it turns around then, sorry, he or she, whatever, turns around then, if we describe it to me, it's it. It's the middle of the day as well, isn't it?
00:15:31
Speaker
It is indeed yet middle of the day after a short rest. Just hearing that the shouts of Alpha Alpha, my character will just raise an arm in the distance and begin to slowly walk towards you three, four. You four, all those with you, right? Yeah. All those in the tent and recovering. Okay, you three. Everyone will look to Reigns as he sees these people approaching. Reigns, what is going on? Like, are we under attack? Is Alpha under attack? What is going on?
00:16:01
Speaker
I have no earthly idea. Alpha is, Alpha! Rains will just say one more time and he'll then, as soon as he realizes that Alpha is not responding, he'll then turn to the figure who's now approaching and he'll just bring up his gauntlet and the Rubik's Cube that is embedded into the back of the hammer is just going to start to glow.
00:16:18
Speaker
and start to buzz as these sparks of lightning just start to well around it. And he's going to go, just state your business there friend before you come any closer. My character raised the other arm. My apologies. I'm looking for someone. This is my travelling companion, Magnus. This seems a strange place to come across others here in these marshes. A bit convenient.
00:16:47
Speaker
Well, I'm told the person I'm looking for has been engaging in a spot of monster hunting, so I've been asking around. As we said, state your business. Who are you looking for? It's quite a delicate matter to announce publicly like this. It's just you, me and Ron all over there. Whatever Earth that is, and the pile of dead frogs. He is not alone.
00:17:18
Speaker
What do you mean, Magnus? They are acting hostile. Yes, they
Exploring Regions and Identities
00:17:27
Speaker
are. But there are more of them than there are of us. That has not stopped us thus far. Yes, but it's got a shiny hand. Having heard...
00:17:44
Speaker
Ian's character start to talk and realizing there is some form of automated device there. Raines is all of a sudden immediately drawn to that and he'll lower the gauntlet and will himself almost kind of like in a counter image just start to move towards both Danny and Ian's characters. Fixated on Ian's character and we'll go, how on earth did you do that? Just talking to you, Danny, about the general build of this character behind you.
00:18:14
Speaker
I'm afraid I do not understand. To do what? Still with my hands raised. What is that? This is my travel companion. I believe the race is known as a nakovo.
00:18:32
Speaker
or Nakavolo. What was it again, Magnus? Nakavolo. It's correct. We have not been travelling together long. I'm not familiar overly with these types of creatures, but they are some sort of machine combination. Please do not be startled. He is not harmful. They are not harmful. My weapons are at my side. I am disarmed for all intents and purposes.
00:18:58
Speaker
reigns going to glance towards emeron and he's just completely upon hearing the word Nakavolo this is they built the first Nakavolo as far as they're concerned there is only one. Everyone's going to stroll up next to reigns and be like I thought
00:19:16
Speaker
All that research you did said that ancient Nakavuro were legend or gone for centuries, mate. What is this? That's what I tried to leave behind, but I thought it would take even my grandfather or his resources centuries for him to be able to... I'm just putting him onto one side to be able to build that, but everyone, that thing is talking, and it sounds sentient. That don't look... It's doing more talk than Alpha. Don't look new.
00:19:48
Speaker
May we approach still distance? I will turn again immediately at that and we'll go. Where are you from, friend? And who are you? You may not have heard of it. I'm from a kingdom called Shadowmend. Well, I work for a kingdom in Shadowmend. I'm originally from a more rural setting, a jungle city known as Dashkalir.
00:20:19
Speaker
Dashcalrae ain't in Shadow Man. It's part of the three kingdoms of Wildheart. Share the border with us. Not many people we've met here in Western Aerith know that geography particularly well. I probably shouldn't have said that. He'll say to everyone under his breath, and he'll then come back again and go, all right, so we all know the northern side of Aerith. Big question is still, who are you looking for?
00:20:48
Speaker
It's not a name I care to mention aloud, just out of respect of the family I work for. My name is Yanda. Yanda the Explorer. I come here with honest intentions. I'm just looking for an individual. And with the gauntlet up, Raines will then go, I'll decide how honest your intentions are when you tell me which family you're working for. Mark, have we heard of or have I heard of Yanda? Is that a name we would recognize?
00:21:20
Speaker
Give me a history check. Of course. No, no, I got a seven.
00:21:31
Speaker
The name is too vague. It sounds like you might have known a James or a Jam-deer. Or a, or a, Jennifer. There's something about the, the, there's a name in there somewhere that it's somewhere deep, maybe, but aside from that, it could literally be from a fictional story. That's fine. I'll just, just take away that if it was a story that I'd heard of. Cool. As Magnus notices Raines' gauntlet,
00:21:58
Speaker
come up again in a hostile action. Magnus is going to just, you hear this as if gears that are straining to move walk slowly in front of Yanda.
00:22:13
Speaker
And then his left forearm will come up in a protective stance across his body. And you notice the shield that I talked about earlier just starts to spin as if it wasn't just bolted on, but it's actually on a pivot and it will spin. And as it spins, it starts cracking up that same Arcanic energy. And it just holds shield there. You notice that the frail...
00:22:38
Speaker
The flail is still on Magnus's right hip but just in a protective and it seems like a protective stance. He's not being hostile but he's also protecting his companion. Easy thought. Don't be alarmed. He's programmed to defend me if we're threatened. Let's just range and everyone's going to reach out at hand and sort of place it on on range's arm and just lower it. Let's all keep this calm. There's no need to
00:23:08
Speaker
for all this posturing. Look, we're here to do a job. If you're looking for someone, either let us know what you're looking for or feel free to be on your way. We've got a camp. We were going to deal with something in that hole over there, which you seem to have done something to. So we'll have to deal with that in a minute, just in case we see if we get paid or not. We've got a fire. You are welcome to come and share it if you wish to take a load off before you continue your travels.
00:23:34
Speaker
but should we all stop this posturing around with our dicks in our hand and just get on with it, yeah? I'm going to stop posturing as soon as I know which family you're working for. And he's either now just glanced on the wall forged in front of him, just trying to take in the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
00:24:02
Speaker
Alpha. So, Reigns is now absolutely fascinated, but also on edge around this Nacavolo that's in front of him and what is powering this. And just for your reference, as you're looking at Magnus, Magnus is staring through you, not
00:24:21
Speaker
in an intimidating way, expressionless face, you get the sense that it's just looking and forward. Not seeing you, but knowing you're there, knowing you're a threat. Like there's a scan happening, but it's through you. There's no recognition. There's no sense of deep connection. It is just you're a person.
00:24:47
Speaker
and the under will just again start to drop his arms.
00:24:54
Speaker
As a respect for the person I'm looking for, who I am in swarm to protect, I will not announce their name, but I will do this, and if it means something to you, perhaps we can talk further. If not, we will be on our way, and I will just take off slowly, very slowly, maintaining eye contact. The tabard has spin it round and reveal Shandamandian heraldry with House of Haddo insignias all over it.
00:25:21
Speaker
Yeah, upon seeing that the two Sphinxes, the Ando and Gyno Sphinx and the union of Haddo and House Cardano on the back of it, Reigns is just still in the helmet and still Confucius is just now going to lower the gauntlet once more, confused, look at Emrom and go, I did that. I'm going to level with you, Fran.
00:25:48
Speaker
I thought anyone who came from Shadow Man bearing those sigils would do it quietly and would not come with pleasant intentions. I think it's best if I put my cards on the table now because I'm either confused and what if you were here to try and hog tie the person I think you're after and the person they have in there that they're on some entourage back to Shadow Man. Well, you'd have done it already.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yanda. What, Magnus? He is already lying. There is no table. Thank you, Magnus. If you could just continue your malfunction quietly. Certainly.
00:26:38
Speaker
I think that one went over his head and Reigns will just glance at the creature in front of him to see if he does the same as Alpha when Alpha first heard that, which is basically look up to see if something's gone over his head. No, I'm still staring through you, but not... You know what I mean when I'm saying staring through you, it's not like you're not there, it is... Yeah. All right. Nothing going on in there. All right, okay.
00:27:11
Speaker
and what Reigns will do is he'll do the bonus action and what will happen is that the helmet will start to open and the hood will come back and what you see in front of you is the unmistakable golden eyes and tan skin and thick almost silver goldery hair and a kind of like blondish starting to turn gingery beard of someone who is clearly of the Habbo bloodline
00:27:38
Speaker
and he will glance at you and say, does she look like a face that you're looking for? I believe it is and I will then take to the knee and I will kneel before you and I'll say, my prince, I'm here to protect you and I have an urgent message from your father.
00:28:06
Speaker
I'm just going to look at him. I'm quite curious about that and we'll just turn back and say I don't associate my father much with protection. It's all the same to you. You don't need to be doing that acknowledging that you're currently doing. You can there ain't no need to acknowledge me. You get up. Get up. Come on, please. I will not straight away. I'll look at you uncertain with uncertainty before I do. Oh good.
00:28:35
Speaker
More people to pad your ego. Upon this conversation taking place, Alla has started to hear the hubbub outside since the crash of rocks and comes out and stands off to your side.
Yanda's Mission and Political Motives
00:28:47
Speaker
You both noticed the halfling, tight brown hair, tied back, sodden, wet through with a towel around her shoulders trying to warm her and dry her for you two that have just joined us. What's going on here?
00:29:03
Speaker
I have no earthly idea. What I think is a bit of coincidental meeting of people who are looking for us. If they're looking for us, I probably don't make it much of a coincidence. What's the message? You're not going to believe me at first, but I cannot tell you until I rest. I need to be able to cast something in order to access it. Okay. Hang on, wait.
00:29:32
Speaker
Sorry, I'm very confused. Will you just happen to stumble upon two people you know reigns here in the middle of the deepest marshes of Sleekard? I don't know, but allow me to elaborate, although I don't know these people. However, it stands to reason that there are people from where we're from who may come looking for us.
00:29:56
Speaker
Well, we ain't done the best job of being conspicuous about what we've been doing in these lands. It's not like we can turn around and say, oh, I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for another high elf, a big human who sounds like the entire Dwindian Empire.
00:30:21
Speaker
And not the Wendy and Empire, that's something completely different. Anyway, I'm making up words now. Wendy and Empire, that's right. That's what Emmeron sounds like, his grandma does more than folks. And they're well, and he'll point it out for pretty hard to hide that. I mean, you look pretty discouraged when we arrive, too. I think announcing yourself is the Prince of Shadowman, doesn't it? Yeah, that probably didn't, yeah. Nonetheless, all it looks to the two newcomers
00:30:52
Speaker
How did you know where to find us? It just seems a little circumspect that you've just happened upon us. We haven't even long been here.
00:31:02
Speaker
When we were asking about sleep guards, they mentioned that someone matching the description engaged in a sport of monster hunting. When we asked about monster hunting contractors in the region, your name must have come up. I assume you must be checking, hesitates for a moment to recall names.
00:31:26
Speaker
She puffs up her chest at that, her chin raises slightly in a small smirk across her face. The first of my name? Yes, I am indeed. I obviously was high up on your list of monster hunters to find. You might have seen one of my posters. Yes, that's what led us in your general direction. Oh good, our reputation appears to be growing good.
00:31:46
Speaker
God's meat, that makes sense now. Two weeks ago, when I first got this contract and agreed to it, I put up posters in Goldview asking for just, anyone, if I'm not being, if I'm laying my cards on the table, boys, I thought we might fuck this up slightly. So I did ask for help from a few other people. There was a minotaur at one point that was going to come. Very excited about that, but unfortunately that fell through. I'm a bit disappointed about that. Me too. Maybe we can meet him later, but nonetheless,
00:32:16
Speaker
that maybe these two got the message. And if, as you mentioned, sir, the connection between him pointing to Reigns and me pointing to herself, you must be quite intelligent to put two and two together, quite the detective.
00:32:34
Speaker
We still have the poster and Magnus, with his right hand, knocks twice on his chest and it pops open. And from inside, he pulls out the poster from Goldview. Goldview is where we found it. From Goldview. And claps his chest back, holds it out. This is you. I might be like a fax machine. With holes on the side of the paper, either side.
00:33:02
Speaker
really cheap, nasty pace, whether you can see through. No, it's it you get the sense there's a collection of miscellaneous shit, but I used like, paraphernalia paraphernalia within the chest cavity of Magnus.
00:33:19
Speaker
Upon seeing the chest cavity open, Reigns is immediately just bypassing the poster and just glancing into this chest cavity because obviously that is pretty much where the before life function of Alpha is. And just seeing it's used is basically a glorified storage cabinet on this one. He's now just completely in awe of what's in front of him.
00:33:44
Speaker
That's the poster. That's the one I put up. That's the one I put up. I told you advertising works. It's getting on the night there.
Magnus's Origins and Connections
00:33:51
Speaker
Perhaps you'd like to come and join us around to fire then. If you need to have a rest before you explain while you're here or what message you've got, then perhaps we should all just sit down. If I may approach, my companion will be no bother, will you Magnus? No, I will.
00:34:13
Speaker
Power down. Oh, good. At least Alfa wants to talk to him when he wakes up. You were shouting Alfa before. There is another travelling with you. We do. But anyway, you come and join, I'm sure. Yeah, you can't miss him. Yeah, him. And Raines will just point over his shoulder at the slums. Nackavolo. He looks a lot shinier than
00:34:45
Speaker
Let's not be judging books by its cover. That's Will saying that. For the first time Magnus moves his eyes, know that your gauntlet's down. As in, it's just a smooth at the mention of the other alpha as whatever it is and on casting eyes on alpha Magnus will kind of
00:35:13
Speaker
move like a thunderbird all in one, shoulders move together as one, pistons... Until he gets close face to face. Is there anything from Alpha?
00:35:26
Speaker
As you get closer, you notice the same kind of iconic energy that sparked from your shield. Every now and then, just his eyes are still looking down at the ground, unopened, unblinking, unmoving, unfocused. And you need to see that little iconic just somewhere in what and just in the right eye as you approach, as you get closer and closer. Apart from that, he seems unresponsive. Curious. The madness don't touch
00:35:56
Speaker
Magnus swivels his head round, so his body stays in the position in front of Alpha. His head swings round to look at Yanga. I want to say Yanda. Yanda. And then swings back. And it's just stood in front of Alpha. I'm sorry for my companion. He has become less obedient as of late.
00:36:27
Speaker
It's all right, it happens. He doesn't adjust. I have a question though, and it's quite an important one. The war forged it, not Magnus. Magnus is Magnus? Yeah, head swings round. Magnus, head swings round in front of Alpha again.
00:36:49
Speaker
Um, that there's technically a third one, but it's only a bit of a sentient of that and see, you get out of the bag, come say hello. And this little squirrel will just come. So many robots. As I know, right? Yeah, you're telling me. Um, but there is a serious point to all of this. Alpha there was forged by MRAM and I did the fusion. I assume it's a memory forge that is currently powering.
00:37:17
Speaker
I have no idea. I was given Magnus to help me on my journey. My understanding of Magnus is that he is made from many different makers and many different parts. I have no idea only that in the last few hours he has stopped obeying every command to the letter Hannah started exercising what I can only explain as free will. Given by who? How do you mean? Who gave him to you?
00:37:48
Speaker
King Haddo. My father is a skip to his thing with. He is a proverb in walking sword. My father can build Nakavolo. The one man in Shadow Men who could build Nakavolo, as far as I'm aware, was thrown into the bottom of the gorge. At that.
00:38:15
Speaker
Magnus Head turns towards Reigns. You built this automaton? Your Highness. You must say Your Highness. He must not say Your Highness. Emraam did the crafting, the arms and the works. The body you see was made by Emraam. The fusion, the thing that allows it to talk like you, that would be me.
00:38:42
Speaker
head swings back to alpha swings back to you. How long ago? Six, six, maybe seven years. Swings back to alpha. I am older. What?
00:39:04
Speaker
Say again, and Rains will now move round, and it's now, as this creature is staring at Alpha, Rains has just come round, and it's just peering, and looking at this creature. You want to run that bar me again? I am older. Magnus, do not be rude to the prince.
00:39:21
Speaker
All right, Emon's going to sort of... Anyway, Yander, it was here. Yander? Yes. Would you like to come and sit down by the fire while those two do whatever they're going to do? You've got him intrigued. He could be there for, quite honestly, days of being fascinated by this. So, you know, it could be a while. If that invitation I accept most gratefully. Thank you.
00:39:48
Speaker
No problem. The name's Emron, by the way. Sir Emron, it is a pleasure. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, sir. Just, just Emron. I'm not a knight. I understand. You had to travel with a prince. Yeah, it was, yeah. Just friends. Fascinating. I am humbled to meet you. Okay. Fair enough. There's not much about it to be humble, but thanks. I think
00:40:18
Speaker
I will sit down and I will warm myself up. As you move... Magnus head turns just to watch where you're going. Turns back looking at alpha.
00:40:34
Speaker
Reigns will now use a full action and what will happen is the suit will just open and he'll step out of it in his general just like farmer slacks that he's been using. So he's taken the suit off and just with his own hand will just reach out towards Magnus.
00:40:54
Speaker
and we'll just go to touch him on the shoulder as this to say almost like he can't and the brains will realise that he's sometimes as socially awkward as Alpha and we'll just pull his hand back and we'll just go to Magnus. Who are you and where are you from? My name is Magnus. The technology to build Alpha.
00:41:26
Speaker
It didn't exist. Me and Emron spent years of our lives trying to figure that out. How is it that you are older than him? You say six years. Give or take. I am older. Zzz. How old? Zzz. Older. Zzz.
00:41:58
Speaker
I get the sense I'm going to go around in circles here, but who built you? I am Magnus. Are you powered by a memory? Where's your central relay? What's powering you?
00:42:28
Speaker
I am Magnus. My prince, I apologize. He has been malfunctioning for a while. Where'd you find him? As I say, he was given to me for my journey here. By my father? Yes, by his office. I mean, we were given the impression when we were leaving Shadow Men that I'll leave in one popular with, you know, King Haddow.
00:42:57
Speaker
and he would be less inclined to be helping us and more inclined to hog tie and drag us back to kill me and lot reigns away. That's certainly not the impression I was given. I was told to find you and give you a message and to protect you once you've learned it. Right. And you were told that my father built him. No. Your father gave him to me to help me. Common mistake. I am not him.
00:43:28
Speaker
apologies apologies my apologies it's not why are we apologizing to a machine they get all the while if there's anything like this one you know gesture to alpha you can get quite testy if you but there's some of what they call it like the adolescent years maybe but if you're older I suppose you're adolescent years or long behind you right
00:43:54
Speaker
I am older. As I said, my prince, he is made from many parts and many makers, I understand. There might be pieces that are older, there might be pieces newer. I tend not to ask this thing too many questions, it just frustrates me. So King Haddow, to your face,
00:44:18
Speaker
I gave you Magnus in order to help us. Well, it's one of his officers did, but to my face, he gave me the instruction to find his son, to tell him a message and to protect him once he learns it. Right. And what was my grandfather? As I see the inside checking, I will go from one of my grandfather. I do not have any interaction with your grandfather.
00:44:53
Speaker
a role on the inside check? No, I'm not. I'm 11. Sorry. Okay. What was, what was my role? Uh, it's going to be deception or persuasion. I think that's how we've been playing this. If you're telling, if you're telling the truth, it's, it's always roll. It just, can you just roll a d20? So it keeps the, keeps the mystery. Roll a natural one. Okay. Um,
00:45:22
Speaker
Will you... The answer is so quick, so detailed.
00:45:33
Speaker
I don't get sentry lying. You don't get sentry lying, but also that he's not trying to hide anything internally as well. It's not like he's giving you some truths and hiding others. He's just like, you ask a question and he's instantly giving you the answer that you want from a very simplistic and basic response. Yeah, there seems to be no threat here at all that he is just giving you what you want in terms of the answers, in terms of the truth as well. That's what you assume from that response, from that check.
00:46:02
Speaker
Yeah, Reigns is starting to get a bit of the, you know, the two guards on the ship in Pirates of the Caribbean where it's like, you wouldn't believe the truth even if it was told to you. It's like, it makes sense that these people are on the level. If they were here to attack us, we've been vulnerable for the last such and such. They've walked up and announced themselves, which isn't the way of the cardinal.
Threat in the Grungs
00:46:22
Speaker
So Reigns is now just going to back into the suit, remembering where he is.
00:46:27
Speaker
And it's then going to turn in one motion and just turn his attention back towards yonder. And it's just going to say, my father doesn't tend to do anything without my grandfather's consent or blessing. That's just the way that the governance in Shadow Men work. You mean to tell me that you have been operating for my father without my grandfather's know-how? You have been away for a long time.
00:46:58
Speaker
Well, we're not going to wait that long. Reigns will then turn back to Magnus and his that ways. Okay, that's I suppose it's been a question for DM from Darren. Obviously, it was six months for us to snake round to the other side of the world. And it's been about six months since we lost Nixon Marotta, right? So it's fair to say that we've been gone at least a year from shadow men now. Correct.
00:47:26
Speaker
Okay. And Raines will turn at that and go, what does that mean? Back towards Magnus? Because this Magnus has given us very straight answers and that was cryptic. You have been away a long time. Yeah, but are you saying something's happened to even my father or grandfather? You have been away.
00:47:56
Speaker
A long time. All right. We're not going to get anything here. Let's try you. You're on the... Why are you trying to tell me about Charlemagne? I know nothing of any major note that's happened. I'm simply telling you honestly that I have only dealings with your father.
00:48:16
Speaker
Ola has been slowly approaching the people by the fire. And both of you notice quite obviously when she sits by and is listening towards this conversation between the three or four of you, her eyes flitting between each one and then all of a sudden they stop and they look off towards the pile of grongs. Very slowly she stands, brow furrowed and starts walking away towards it. As that last comment is made, she calls back,
00:48:46
Speaker
Guys, I think something's happening. As you look over, you start to see the pile of groans that you've collected up start to shift.
00:49:00
Speaker
move and almost slither as something seems to be that the pile seems to slowly dissipate down from the middle down like the ground beneath it is being eroded and moved away and out of the very center of this pile piercing through the leg of one of these grongs comes a large claw pulling itself up you see the single spiked snout
00:49:27
Speaker
of a guard drake the other arm and claw reaching up the ground pulling apart the grungs bodies falling to the side like rocks on a beach as this creature slowly pulls itself up and out its glistening scales seem to reflect and refract light in the morning sun it emerges
00:49:52
Speaker
rows of sharp sharp pointed teeth its red eyes glint in the light muscular body tensing it scans with us back to you looking towards the entrance its entrance and realizing why it's blocked what's what has blocked it slowly moves its head around
00:50:12
Speaker
Its large nose taking in the scent of the air, its body on edge, something isn't right. It stretches out its large, long, lizard-like back, thick scales cover its body, looked like they could deflect any weapon, and the spikes that seem to sit on its kind of elbow joints of its hind and back legs seem razor sharp.
00:50:35
Speaker
Suddenly, the guard drake's head snaps towards a nearby grung. Already dead on the ground, the greacher approaches, sniffs the air, and with a sudden burst of power, in almost a split second, rips the insides of this grung absolutely apart. The flesh pummeling over and just splattering over its giant jaws. It sprays everywhere, blood, the gunk that seemed to fill these grungs spray across it as it tears into the flesh like almost effortless.
00:51:04
Speaker
It stops and you see the drip of an arm of this grung fall to the ground as slowly the head spins, very slowly round, twisting slightly, 45 degrees as it does so, over its right shoulder and behind itself, its tail whipping like a cat's quickly annoyed as it sees and locks onto these creatures to you.
00:51:26
Speaker
stands perfectly still for a few seconds. Its head doesn't move, but its neck and entire body shift and move behind it. It almost looks like the head is separate. The head does not move as the body shifts around behind it. The body's now protected behind by its head. Its large jaws now dripping with the dark green and black and blue blood of these grongs as it stares directly at you.
00:51:53
Speaker
Ola starts to very slowly back away towards you all. I think it's going to be rather useful that you two turned up when you did. How do you feel about fighting that? Yanda's just going to get to his feet and say, we stand ready Magnus and I to protect our points.
00:52:20
Speaker
And at that, Magnets his head towards the drake and then his body separately, obviously attached, turns fully formed. So he's facing him and reaches down, detaches the flail and shield up.
00:52:40
Speaker
Raines will start to raise the gauntlet ever so slightly, and we'll just turn to you, Yondu, and go, so dash cavalry, huh? I suppose that means you know what that is, and it ain't a magic tree one. And we'll just start to pull up the gauntlet and just start to fill the electricity buzz inside it. And everyone will grab his hammer.
00:53:01
Speaker
shake his shoulders and be like fuck shake, here we go again. All of her slowly reaches down to her hand crossbow and very slowly puts in a very small bolt almost like she's trying to hide it from the guard drake and we'll kind of stay out the corner of her mouth. Now would be a really good time to boot up alpha.
00:53:19
Speaker
And then she's going to pull the crossbow open and openness in a single move. I want to take a gunsling in a single shot of fire off the quickest shot ever towards this guard, Drake, thinking she's the coolest bitch in the world. The bolt pings off this scale to the left. Like affecting it at all. It doesn't even flinch. It doesn't even move. It doesn't even react. Oh, shit. She's under her breath.
00:53:46
Speaker
That was stupid. And it takes a step forward, and a step forward, and it seems to stand pride on its legs, its chest high, and it emits a glottal, deep, earthly roar, which fills the air around you. Parts of magma start to literally rattle and shake, like an old car you hear, but it's rattling as things, maybe a single spring pings out of the head somewhere.
00:54:16
Speaker
Alpha's statutory body just falls over to the ground as well. Head down, almost like a head bum up in the air position. It stops and looks like steam pouring out of the nose at the steps one more time before you.
Battle Setup and Farewell
00:54:31
Speaker
And that's what we're going to leave it for this week's episode.
00:54:41
Speaker
That was a lot there was a lot of stuff that I'm pick We're gonna fall out of your head at one point your eyes were open so wide My next count is also gonna be war ford which may part of war ford Transformers yeah watch ford in disguise wait
00:55:02
Speaker
Oh, that was awesome. Ah, we're back, baby. Minus Callum. He's here. He's just not here. He's still here. There's a new automaton in town, bitch. We talked more in this episode than he does in others, let's be honest. Awesome stuff.
00:55:24
Speaker
awesome stuff. Cool. Well, hey, that leaves me to say thank you very much for listening. All our beautiful listeners out there and hopefully you're not too put off at the new start to our episodes, because we are now officially a Zencaster podcast.
00:55:42
Speaker
and they have been so kind and helped us out with hosting so we've moved our hosting services out of recording services basically everything through to zencaster so thanks to them and yes in exchange you hear that little little opening there but then you get our funny voices afterwards hopefully it's all just kind of seamless anyway it does sometimes feel a little
00:56:05
Speaker
I don't know, like that opening sounds so like professional and like, oh, we're setting up for like a professional podcast. Then you just hear Callum talking about dicks at one point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All of a sudden, like we bring it down. We bring it down, baby.
00:56:20
Speaker
But we appreciate you for, well, I mean, you're still listening through your normal channels. We can still see the stats and everything's growing. So we love you for it. If you wanted to keep up to date with the podcast, do so on our Twitter page, which is no longer verified. I don't think it was verified. That's a big deal today. But that's at fellowship table. Tell your friends, tell your family, spread us around like a happy virus. And we will, we love you more for it. That'd be awesome.
00:56:51
Speaker
And if you wanted to go one step further and follow us individually, you can do so too. I'm Nat. I rolled a one. Danny's at Total Party Thrills. Darren's at Darren Page Six. Big Willy Willy's at Natural20will. And our epic awesome DM can be found at hastily rolled DM. Until next time, guys. Hello.