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C2 Ep. 3 Destined Manifest Chapter Two
439 Plays5 years ago
The crew has taken some bad hits so far, but can they finish up the rest of the guards and find the manifest before drawing too much attention?
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Darrin Katzska, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrell DeLaney, Jessica Smith, Charles Compton, Richard Cree, Nastasia Raulerson, The Kamm Family, David Scrams, Elizabeth Clark, Rebekah Miller, deviouspoptart, Eðvarð Arnór Sigurðsson, Michael Clark, and Dustin Troupe.
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Transcript
Introduction & Acknowledgments
00:00:00
Speaker
The following episode is brought to you by the generous donations of Elizabeth Clark, Darryl Delaney, Ryan Royce, Darren Katska, Irene Villarito, Laura Pickron, Jessica Smith, Deavius Poptart, Natasha Rallerson, Richard Cree, The Cam Family, Charles Compton, Dustin Troop, Rebecca Miller, Edvard Arnoff, Michael Clark, and David Scrams, along with all of our generous patrons.
00:00:32
Speaker
D20 radio, your game is roll.
Solo One-shot Feedback
00:01:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Eberron Renewed, an actual play podcast set in the Eberron campaign setting. I'm your game master, Eric. And if you stuck around for the actual last time, you will know that I'm the only one that's going to be talking because we ran this kind of like a one shot and neglected to take our normal breaks. Don't worry. We've heard the feedback and the previous way that we did it is preferred. So we will definitely be going back to that once we have some new came, uh, some new episodes to roll out now that we have that information.
00:01:39
Speaker
Uh, but I guess I'll just have to ask myself what happened last time. Glad that you asked. Um,
Warforged Battle
00:01:46
Speaker
yeah. So the crew found themselves on the doorstep of a Kenneth warehouse. And after taking out the normal expected guards, uh, it seemed like they may have bit off.
00:01:59
Speaker
bit more than they could chew when they were accosted by three warforged guards as well as some more house canith guards. We left you towards the tail end of that combat, the warforged having been taken care of, and all that's left are the canith guards that are haranguing Reynard on the platform. However, before we get into that, we want to take an opportunity at the beginning of this episode to start introducing you to the members of our new campaign party
New Campaign Party Introduction
00:02:28
Speaker
and a little bit more of a controlled environment. So we are going to catch up with Hob sometime in the past before the start of this campaign as he is on just kind of a routine job with a very talkative halfling who's also a member of the Boromar clan.
Hob's Night Out with Vigo
00:02:47
Speaker
uh who hob did in fact uh kind of reveal some of his past and where he came from so we're gonna listen to that and then we will hop into the normal episode where we left off hope you all enjoy all right hob it is a uh a typical night in um the lower menthes plateau uh where you live uh fortunately this job that uh you were conscripted to do by the clan uh kept you relatively close to home um
00:03:16
Speaker
your job basically is you're currently looking at walking a few steps ahead of you and already too inebriated halfling named Vigo who is known for being a bit too loud and a bit too cavalier with his actions when he goes out drinking and gambling.
00:03:40
Speaker
So yeah, you're you're keeping an eye making sure that he's not bumping into the wrong people and and looking to get stabbed or anything like that. All right.
Hob's Role in the Clan
00:03:53
Speaker
So tell me, like, is this the typical kind of job that you kind of envision a hob being sent out on is more of these like
00:04:04
Speaker
low stakes babysitting style missions or like what does Hobb normally do for the clan when they conscript him like this? What Hobb normally does with the clan is say yes. So he gets the big flashy, you know, go out and fight missions when they come because he is
00:04:32
Speaker
By no means is he probably the best combatant the clan has, but he is just this big honking bruiser of a dude who can go out there and do some things he needs to. But, you know, like I said, his primary job is enforcing protection rackets and making good on the protection claims if they need to be made good on. And so, yeah, if somebody from the Boromar family says my a-hole kid wants to go out and party and I need you to make sure he makes it home safe.
00:05:01
Speaker
then Hob gets up and goes, you know? Yeah.
Conflict Resolution Techniques
00:05:05
Speaker
I also feel like, especially given a criminal organization made up primarily of halflings, Hob probably serves pretty good as a deterrent as well. Having somebody of your size and general demeanor nearby can diffuse a lot of situations before they even get started.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don't know. I don't know this. I don't know. I don't know. Like we're not so low that we're down there with all of the monstrous races where there'd be a bunch of other guys of my size, right? Like minotaurs and stuff. Yeah. You're not, you're not fully in the cogs. There's, there's a little bit of overlap. You're starting to the shifters and things like that are starting to become a bit more common, but certainly not the predominant presence they are in the cogs. Right. Yeah. By and large.
00:05:57
Speaker
I'm not, I think on these sorts of jobs, Hob is, oh, a preventative measure more than a defensive measure. Okay. And also I think a lot of people around here know who he is and what he does because they see him walking around these neighborhoods too. So like, it's not just like, Oh, that guy's big. It's like, Oh, they call him Hob and he's scary. He'll, he'll wreck you.
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah sometimes. Sometimes? Not so much.
00:06:29
Speaker
Sometimes his gauntlets get overcharged and he whiffs for a while, but. OK, well, so as you're walking down the street, you do see Vigo kind of stumble and stumble forward into somebody that was walking in front of him and kind of chop block their their knee a little bit and cause them to stumble and
00:06:59
Speaker
You see the person stumble and like straighten up and turn around. And it's this this human
Reflecting on Conflict Management
00:07:05
Speaker
man with dark brown hair and like the sideburns that come down and connect into the mustache. The the dum dum doo-gan look for Marvel Comics. And he quickly kind of turns and closes in on Vigo.
00:07:27
Speaker
with clearly malicious intent. So what's your go-to method to defuse this particular situation? How far am I from them? Like a couple of feet? Yeah, I mean maybe six feet back just to kind of give Vigo space, but yeah. And Vigo's still on the ground like he's tripped and fallen and this guy spins around? Yeah, he's on the ground. Okay, I mean in that case the
00:07:52
Speaker
The one thing that Hob knows for sure, and he learned it the hard way, is everything you do in these situations cannot be at the expense of the pride of the person you're taking care of. Even though Vigo is the little crap kid, or not kid, but he's the bratty heir. He's still named Boromar.
00:08:19
Speaker
You know? Yeah. And so that's something that Hob is learned. So I think what Hob does is he walks up, catches up, you know, two steps, and he puts his hand down to aid. He doesn't pick him up or anything. He puts his hand down to aid Vigo. He says, Hey boss, you want some help?
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know where that rock came out of that I stumbled on. And he like kind of reaches up and grabs your wrist and pulls himself up. And at that point, he notices the the large. Well, normally large. Yeah. Human male, even even large for a human, but still not big compared to you. Right. And I think I think Hobbs says something. Oh, yeah. No. Yeah, I saw that rock. Definitely must have.
00:09:08
Speaker
Must have scurried off. Let's get you up then. Oi, you made me spill my drink, the human male says at Viggo. Is it you, my twin? Brother! Our voices are clearly very different. I have a slight accent.
00:09:31
Speaker
I think I unintentionally do as well, so there.
Ensuring Vigo's Safety
00:09:36
Speaker
Sorry, what did he say? I was really messing with you. Oi, you made me spill my drink. Oh, this is something, were we to have story points, I would flip one and say, Hob definitely has petty cash for this night, for these reasons.
00:09:55
Speaker
So I think Hob just pulls out a couple of gold, which is way more than a drink. I think it's one gold. I think Hob pulls out one gold and he says, oh yeah, no, we're real sorry about that. Here, have one on behalf of the Boromars. And holds the gold coin out to him.
00:10:17
Speaker
the large human man is kind of disarmed at this and kind of stops and looks at you and looks at the halfling. Vigo is already, like his side has moved on to the next thing that he wants to go do. And so Vigo kind of like starts to stumble away as the man reaches up and takes the gold coin and pockets it and just kind of glares at you as he turns around and walks away.
00:10:45
Speaker
I go back behind Vigo, like... Okay. Vigo takes off and stumbles up some stairs into a casino. And that's it. Okay. I hope. You know... Well, go ahead. Hob is... You want some character development. Here, I'll kick it out for you listeners. Hob is professional. Hob is tactical.
00:11:13
Speaker
And Hab is professional. When he is working, he takes care of the thing needs taking care of in the quickest, easiest way possible. And given a drunk guy a gold piece and saying who you are and being as big as you are,
00:11:27
Speaker
eight times out of 10 is gonna handle the situation. Works well for Hobb, yeah. Well, I hope you all enjoyed this little micro scene before we kick into the main episode. I hope you enjoyed doing it, Jeff. It was fun. Yeah. One of these days I'm gonna dial in a voice. It would have been quick and painless if we hadn't chatted for like an hour and a half beforehand, but. That was painful. But anyway, thank you all and I hope you enjoy the episode.
00:11:58
Speaker
And I'm Jeff.
00:12:18
Speaker
At least there's no advantage. I'm way more scared of advantage on bad guy rules than I am. Oh,
Combat Prowess Displayed
00:12:23
Speaker
no. Right. So that's the one getting stabbed. Six. Three success. That's true. So that's going to be six damage. So before you're soaked, so be sure to take your soak out of it.
00:12:39
Speaker
and now we're on to next PC slot. Who would like to go? Kill them, Hob, kill them. Yes, Hob is going to see that there's only a couple of bad guys left and he's still, you know, once I bring these fists out, I can't put them away until they're tasted black. That's just, they won't go away. Okay. So he's gonna rush over to the minions. Let me roll, and if I succeed, I'd like to narrate what happens. Okay.
00:13:09
Speaker
I will use a maneuver to, nope, because that's a boost, I can't use it anyway, so there's no point. Okay, you know what, I will though, so it's a maneuver to get to them, yes? Yes. I will use two strain to pull out my staff. Okay. And let's see how it goes. Are you set? I am set.
00:13:39
Speaker
Okay. So that's one success and four advantage. Okay. So you, you could crit with this. So that's seven damage total that you've dealt, which is enough to, to take out one of them. So you could use the four advantage to crit and take out the other one.
00:14:02
Speaker
Okay, in that case, I think what he does, I am going to do that, by the way. So what he does is he's running over, you see him reach behind himself, just like key man style over his head, pull out his staff, and just in one hand, because he's just so big, just start spinning it like one would with two hands.
00:14:25
Speaker
and just, I mean, he's just repeatedly, I think you might have to be pulled off of them. He's just, it's spinning so fast, you're getting hit so many times. And he's just so mad. And he doesn't really get mad. It takes all of us to pull him off. Like, this is, and I'll say that this is, you don't see Hob angry like this often, only when things go totally pear-shaped does he lose control in a fight. Okay. So who's gonna try to pull Hob off?
00:14:55
Speaker
Well, Raynard says, well, good show old chap that makes up for the first part of this mess, doesn't it?
00:15:08
Speaker
He doesn't say anything this time, but that is what gets him to stop. That's what gets him to move his attention off the, off the two guys that are taking a step backward. Okay. So now that we're out of combat, um, real quick, you all can, um, make a.
00:15:35
Speaker
A discipline or cool check to recover strain.
Post-Combat Recovery
00:15:40
Speaker
It's just simple, right? Yeah, so there's no difference. I have a thing that recovers more strain, but I didn't take any strain. Oh, thank goodness. So you get three strain back areas. Milo, you get two. I need to roll, sorry, discipline. Or cool, whichever one's better for you. I believe discipline is better for me. Probably. Big time, big time better. Okay, so two strain recovered.
00:16:03
Speaker
So as everyone's starting to sort of breathe, Eris puts the gun back down on his harness and goes over to Hob and really not paying attention to whatever Hob is doing, sort of tries to grab his arm to look at the bracer. Hold on, let me see what I did wrong. And starts messing with the
00:16:28
Speaker
sigils that she put on the on the bracer attempting to fix whatever she overclocked at the beginning. Okay. My absolutely just lets her like he just take this is a thing. This is what they do. Okay, Milo is is is Milo able to keep the barrier up still or
00:16:49
Speaker
So now that we are out of a combat encounter and are going to be for a while, typically any concentrated spells cease. OK, so Milo, you did you take any ranks in medicine? I think I have I have one rank and I also spent all my 50 silver on a healer kit.
00:17:17
Speaker
Okay, so... Because I think they're five gold, so...
Healing Critical Injuries
00:17:21
Speaker
Okay. So, you could make a medicine check on Hob to try and recover one of his crits, if you want. I would definitely like to do that. Okay. And I have one too. Nobody has. I'm just saying.
00:17:46
Speaker
What does the healer kit do for me? Does that like to make it less difficult? I assume. Where did you get the healer's kit from, Randy? What book was it in? I bet it's never mind. What? I never mind. I'm D&D on the brain. I was thinking D&D and D&D prices as an apothecary's kit. OK, that. Allows you care to perform medicine checks to heal a wound and critical injuries without penalty.
00:18:16
Speaker
Um, and that cost 150 silver. Yeah. So I do not have that. So I don't have anything that I was thinking I might've had. Um, that counts as like having a med bay with you or something like that. Now you could have picked up a set of herbs of healing. That's 50 silver. Um, that will allow you on a medicine check to add an automatic success and advantage to the result if you want.
00:18:44
Speaker
But it's a one time one and done thing. And how much are they? Fifty. So you'd be using all your funds. Yeah, let's just go with what I got. OK, so the difficulty on this is going to be. One difficulty since you're doing it to somebody else.
00:19:10
Speaker
Well, okay. You're trying to do the crit, the heal the critical injury. So that's two purple. Um, would you like to spend a story point to upgrade? Um, how many do we have? You have three. Yeah. I want to go ahead and help my friend out here. So yeah, let's do that. Okay. So that's an upgrade. Um, does anybody else have any, um, ranks in medicine? Nope. No.
00:19:40
Speaker
I can't imagine I do hang on. Okay. I was just thinking somebody could assist, but if not, then that's fine. Um, okay. So I have it all set for you, Randy. So you can go ahead and roll. Nice. Okay. So for success. So I'm going to say with that triumph, um, I would let you go ahead and heal both the critical injuries on hob. Um, if you want. Oh yeah, most definitely.
00:20:11
Speaker
I mean, you know, hob looks after Milo a lot. So he definitely is going to, you know, this is his way to help back. So yes, at this point, you'll just have to trust hob is a good protector. Okay. And Randy, um, I'm going to say with the two threat because of the stress that you're undergoing, having seen hob go down like that, and you're kind of frantically trying to get him better, um, go ahead and suffer two strain.
00:20:40
Speaker
Okay. Um, and as you all are recovering and getting everything taken care of, um, the sigil that was concerning.
Warehouse Security Speculation
00:20:57
Speaker
Um, it does seem to be a lot of, uh, that does seem to be a lot of guards for, um,
00:21:04
Speaker
I mean, what do we expect to be in this warehouse other than to manifest just more weapons? That is, according to the briefing, all that should be in here is just some basic weapons raw material for House Kaneth and shipping manifests, one of which we need to get. And those Vorphors seemed rather
00:21:32
Speaker
strong for their house guards. I'm not sure. I suspect we should tread lightly, not literally, but metaphorically. We need to be a bit careful. But I suppose threats have been taken care of, so let's figure out where we need to get the manifest.
00:22:06
Speaker
Hub wants to take just a second and look back out the doors they breached and just be like, okay, they're way too many. This was bigger than we expected. Are other people coming just to cover their butts? I don't know if, I mean, I'm not necessarily saying I want to make a perception check. I want to be vigilant and looking behind us. Okay.
00:22:28
Speaker
Eris has a yellow scarf around her neck, and she would have done this at the beginning, but things popped off rather abruptly. She now fixes that up around her face, as this is her crime disguise. She puts a yellow scarf over her face too, so that you can't identify her except by her blue hair.
00:22:54
Speaker
Face tattoo and extremely unique weapon and side side haircut. Yeah. Is there is there a desk anywhere? So as you all enter the warehouse, so, Hab, are you saying that you're just like being mindful or are you staying back and keeping watch?
00:23:15
Speaker
I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to be constantly looking at the last door we came through. So when everybody goes into the office, I'm going to stand at the office door and look at, you know, kind of that thing. They don't need Hobbs help finding the list. Gotcha.
00:23:33
Speaker
Okay, so you all walk
Investigating the Warehouse
00:23:35
Speaker
into the warehouse. There's a large amount of crates. It's a sizable warehouse. The ceilings are maybe a little bit taller than what you would have expected. But other than that, you can't discern any reason why the level of security would have been present that was present for this warehouse. Unless somebody knew that you all were coming for some reason.
00:23:58
Speaker
Is there anything distinct about the warforged once we've cleared the debris out of our way? Is there anything that marks them out as distinct from from I realize that warforged are not identical, but is there anything about these warforged that looks unusual in the way that Sigil appears unusual for a warforged are these? So these these three appear to be fairly rank and file models of a warforged, the infantry type that you would see most commonly.
00:24:29
Speaker
I mean, every Warforged has a unique Ghoulra, the marking on their forehead. So these three have their unique marking.
00:24:37
Speaker
But other than that, they don't seem to be bigger than normal. There's no reason why they would have been as strong as they were based on their appearance. Just experienced then. Yeah, that's the best that you can figure out. So, Sigil is kind of leading the way through the warehouse looking about very
00:25:06
Speaker
methodically. Eris has her weapon out and she's covering him and following him through. Okay. Reynard, Milo, what are you all doing as you navigate the warehouse? Milo's looking for an office someplace that they may have obviously kept the manifest. Yeah.
00:25:27
Speaker
I think Reynard is just kind of slightly inconspicuously just looking over the bodies of the minions to see if they have any gold or anything. Okay, so as everybody's kind of pulling up the gate door and checking out the War Forge and stuff, Reynard, do you want to try to do it without the rest of the party knowing or do you care about that?
00:25:54
Speaker
I don't really care. Okay, so I'll just say that you can grab their money bags and just giving a quick cursory glance. You estimate that there's maybe like 15 silver amongst the minions that you took out. The warforged don't have any money on them. But the three guards, it's a modest life being a half-canist guard. They don't pay particularly well. So...
00:26:22
Speaker
So yeah, Milo, you're specifically looking for it as a central kind of, you all spot the office door leading into a back area. It is unlocked. There's no lock to it, because all of the security is at the front door. So you all find a modestly sized office, a lot of papers, and also some kind of runic writings on the desk and on the wall.
00:26:51
Speaker
and you see a large wall safe that's probably six and a half feet tall with some very intricate, it looks like, some arcane locks.
00:27:08
Speaker
on the front of it. Barris is definitely only interested in that cool wall safe. She walks over and starts examining it. Basically, the desk and the runic markings on that is an inventory log of things that have come into the warehouse. You might be able to find, ironically, a manifest of the manifest and where it might be stored or what level of security it's undergoing. You can obviously work on unlocking the safe. That's also an option.
00:27:37
Speaker
So, Milo, is there anything that draws your attention? I'm going to say the desk that may give information on the manifest. Okay. So, you immediately kind of run into
00:27:58
Speaker
arcane safe walls for lack of a better way to put it. Some arcane locks to hold more than just cursory information. You're able to see what's in a lot of the crates and it's what you suspected. Mundane, armor, swords, arrowheads, things like that. It makes sense for manufacturing. But it would require some level of like skullduggery to get past these arcane locks.
00:28:28
Speaker
You can call me over. I was about to say, Milo would call Raynard over to have him come and check these out. Okay. Um, so it's, it's fairly simple security. This is a, a low, um, low on the total poll warehouse, but, um, there were some recent upgrades that's going to cause an upgrade on this check. So it's going to, your difficulty is one red dye on the skull degree check. Um,
00:28:57
Speaker
Now, Myla, since you're right there, your knowledge in the arcane arts, um, you could give him a boost die by assisting on the check if you like. Definitely. Okay. So Rainard go and roll skull degree. Oh, nice. We did it. Okay. So, um, that's a success. So you managed to take down all of the, um, all the safeguards guarding the information. Um,
00:29:26
Speaker
With that triumph, with the threat, let's just say you suffer a point of strain, Reynard. Okay. Just because it's a tense situation. I'm stressed. With that triumph, you notice
00:29:47
Speaker
This is just too perfect. You notice a file pretty deep in the arcane listings that literally just says safe code. Outstanding.
00:30:02
Speaker
Um, if so, yeah. Well, I'd be willing to bet it's under this one then. Um, so you, you obviously, um, you all are able to also locate the manifest with that check. Um, it was under a level security, but not a deep one. Um,
00:30:19
Speaker
But in the safe code section, you literally find the code for the safe on the wall, Reynard. So you can pass that along to Aeris. And Aeris, since you're already at the safe, you can unlock it. Aeris visibly slumps when Reynard announces that he has the code for the safe. Well, I'm sorry to have taken all the fun out of it. And then punches it in.
00:30:45
Speaker
Um, okay. So yeah, you're able to manipulate the, um, the sigils and runes, uh, to line up and, uh, you hear a and the door slowly swings open.
Discovering the Eldritch Machine
00:30:58
Speaker
And, um, go ahead. It sounded like I interrupted you. Well, uh, what's in the safe is possibly.
00:31:08
Speaker
one of the things lower on the list that you would expect when you open a safe, in that... Just snakes. Yeah, just a ton of snakes. No, you see a room beyond it. A fairly large room with a large thing in the middle of it kind of glowing and humming with arcane energy. Okay, so a room is in...
00:31:34
Speaker
It's just like the interior of the safe is really big or this is another like office space. Is there furniture in here? No, this was a door disguised as a safe basically leading into a whole other room.
00:31:45
Speaker
It's not an office space though. It is clearly a containment facility for some sort of Eldritch machine that has been tucked away back here. Okay, seeing that and that it's clearly humming with some sort of energy, I want to be really careful and examine for any sort of additional security measures that I might trigger by stepping over this threshold. Absolutely. You can give me a perception check to try and spot anything like that. Okay. Okay.
00:32:13
Speaker
So that is four success and one threat.
00:32:24
Speaker
You don't spot any obvious traps or anything that you might trigger by entering the room. Your knowledge of artifice indicates to you that whatever magical energy is thrumming in this device seems pretty well contained. You're not in risk of it arcing out at you or anything like that. With the threat, let's...
00:32:54
Speaker
feeling horribly uninspired when it comes to a single threat. It's hard to come up with something really interesting for a single one. Yeah, but also you're a magic user. So I also feel bad about inflicting strain on you because. You know what, I'm going to pocket it.
00:33:13
Speaker
Okay. How many threat we can get built up to be interesting with. Then Eris will very slowly move into the room and go and examine the device in the center and see if she can figure out what its function is. Sigil, Cass, and Sana are all following as well. Sure. Once Eris starts to go in, Hob starts to go in, but definitely with everybody else moving in, he's just keeping his standard
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, keeping an eye behind what he's been doing, but he's definitely going into that room. Milo, Reynard, are you entering as well? Keep looking to the files. Milo's gonna go in. Milo's pulled some candy out of his pouch and he's eating it on the way.
00:33:58
Speaker
Okay. I'm going to look for some maybe accounting files or something where they might've put some money. Okay. Um, steal some wires, some money to yourself from house. Can it that's going to do super well. Um, okay. Um, so, uh, Eris leading the way you all approach the machine. Um, you see, um,
00:34:21
Speaker
a large glass cylinder kind of in the center of this machine, thrumming with green energy. The machine doesn't quite reach the full ceiling, although it is significantly, it is taller than anything else you have seen in this warehouse, perhaps justifying the higher than normal ceilings.
00:34:43
Speaker
but you see it's not a full-on console. Like there's not an interface necessarily to interact with this machine. So there's not necessarily an interface to like manipulate the energy in this machine, but you do see slots where something could be slid into the machine and three of those slots are occupied with what appear to be some kind of wooden schema that are slotted in. Can I...
00:35:14
Speaker
Is it possible to examine, is it possible to determine anything about what this machine does by examination? Or is that going to require experimentation? Not necessarily experimentation. You could examine either the machine itself or the schema that are in it. How much of them are visible? Would I have to take one out to examine it? In order to get a full picture, you would need to take one out. Okay, can I tell?
00:35:41
Speaker
whether I can remove them without causing some sort of catastrophic failure. As far as you can tell, the machine appears to be built with the function of putting in and taking out the schema into the slots. So then she will very carefully reach over and slide out one of the one of the schema to examine it. OK. So. You see some some marking some runes, but
00:36:09
Speaker
Um, what's your base intelligence three? Three. Okay. Um, you, you can recall, uh, based on your base intelligence, you recognize one of the symbols as being very fresh in your mind. Um, probably the largest symbol on there, uh, and your deepest fears are confirmed when Sigil audibly gasps, recognizing the ghoulra of one of the warforged that you just attacked being on this schema.
00:36:38
Speaker
What does that indicate to me? Well, just being somebody that exists in this world and especially being a majorite, you know that a ghoulra is like the fingerprint of a warforged. That symbol doesn't exist anywhere else in any arcane art or in any language. So that means that it's literally impossible for this to be a coincidence. Somebody put this ghoulra on this schema and input it into this machine.
00:37:07
Speaker
You could give me a knowledge lore check.
Ethical Concerns of the Machine
00:37:23
Speaker
Am I allowed to do that untrained? You're allowed to make the check untrained, you just can't take ranks in it untrained. Milo is watching and looking at this very carefully.
00:37:38
Speaker
I will spend a story point and roll it. And why not? I'm going to do the same thing. Okay. Okay. So one success, one threat. So based on that level of success, you are able to infer that it appears that this
00:37:58
Speaker
appears to be some kind of augmenting station, like maybe the innate strength of these warforged was being fueled by this machine. And it's some way of enhancing them from a distance almost.
00:38:16
Speaker
like creating a field within which they would be augmented, essentially? Well, no, because the schema appears to create a direct link to them based on the ghoulra. So because if it were a field, then Sigil would have felt something. Right. So based on providing that information, basically, Sigil expresses a great deal of concern. Do you share that information, Aris? Yeah. She's just sort of talking herself through it out loud.
00:38:45
Speaker
this shouldn't be possible or allowed. Creating a direct link to a warforged in this way, those schema appear to just be a warforged identity or a direct link to them. Would it allow them to be controlled? Without more
00:39:14
Speaker
information without more research, I would have a hard time being able to tell. Worth taking these? Yeah, I mean, the warforged at the door aren't going to need them anymore, so we might as well- She will slot all of them out and stick them in a satchel or whatever she's got. Slotting the last one out, you see the magical energy, not dim completely, but definitely lessen. It's in hibernate mode.
00:39:46
Speaker
Is this dangerous? Do you think, Sigil? No, it appears to be a fairly standard Eldritch engine of some kind. Would it be something worth sabotaging if we could?
00:40:04
Speaker
I don't know. Presumably any kind of sabotaging, my fear would be if we did a subtle sabotage to affect the function of the machine that it could harm any warforged that they put the schema in connected to their ghoulra. And any overt sabotage could possibly cause an explosion right here and now, which is also not preferable.
00:40:34
Speaker
No, that's probably true. So I would possibly know how to subtly sabotage it. Well, but like I said, I want to hurt an evil force that would be connected to it. This is true.
00:40:55
Speaker
Um, you, you see just for, um, everyone not speaking in that exchange. So Raynard still looking. So hob, give me a perception check.
00:41:08
Speaker
Well, guys, I found my strong suit. You noticed that. It's a complete wash. It's the worst roll. The worst roll in the game. I forgot to open my eyes. You just don't care. It's a wash. You're worried about what's happening behind you. Anything else you all want to examine with this machine? There appears to be nothing else in this room. This appears to purely be a holding room for this Eldritch engine. I think we've probably...
00:41:39
Speaker
Reynard, did you find the manifest? Yes, I did. A while back, I guess I should have given that to you earlier. Then I... that's all we came here for, right? Yes. Sigil says with great concern. We are now... so we are now simply endangering ourselves by staying longer?
Incoming Threat Alert
00:42:08
Speaker
During this exchange, Reynard, give me a vigilance check. Oh, good. Vigilance, oh. And Hob, you're right near the door, so you can give me one too. That seems okay. Okay, so that's one success and one threat. Hob, are you gonna roll as well? Yes. You did vigil.
00:42:31
Speaker
uh do you have strain on you right now hob do i what do you have strain right now i might have one let me scroll back up you can no i don't cover oh you don't okay no i don't um how about i just put it in my pocket and build some up for later
00:42:48
Speaker
You're not allowed to do that. Um, um, okay. Um, well, we will just, um, we can save that advantage and give a boost to the next check that a PC makes. Um, Raynard, you suffer one point of strain from your threat and you also, thanks to your vigilance check, um, you, um, you hear footsteps. So I was right.
00:43:19
Speaker
Um, there are footsteps coming or going, I don't know. They are getting louder. Yes. There are footsteps approaching. They're going, but he's getting angrier. Okay. Um, so yeah, Reynard has given you a warning, um, that there are footsteps approaching. So Milo, um, has expressed a desire to hide. Is that what you said, Randy?
00:43:50
Speaker
If it's obvious that the footsteps are so close that we're not escaping, there's going to be an encounter of some kind that Milo would like to hide and then get to jump on something if he needs to. Okay. Basically to hide so he can surprise a bad guy. Shouldn't we? Bad guys. Yeah. The other bad guys. Shouldn't we get back to the skiff?
00:44:21
Speaker
I'm all for that if we're able. Yeah, I mean, if we got the list, let's go. Staying here is no good. I don't know. Maybe it's a friend coming. That seems very unlikely. Highly doubtful. I don't think Hobb and Raynard have the sort of relationship where he could grab him by the back of his collar
00:44:47
Speaker
but he wants to do that right now. Okay, so how are we doing exiting the office? Because the footsteps have stopped. Like, they're not getting louder and louder and louder. But there were footsteps in the warehouse. So, are you all just... Raina, can you see what's out there? Well, I am fairly stealthy. I guess I could try and make some kind of check. That would be at least useful.
00:45:16
Speaker
Okay, one success, one threat. Okay, you're stressing out a little, so one strain, Reynard. Okay.
00:45:29
Speaker
And you managed to poke your head out of the office door and kind of sneak around some of the crates and look. And you see some more warforged soldiers. These have swords, though, and they don't seem to be the same. Like, obviously, you all accounted for all of the augmented warforged gurus in that machine.
00:45:55
Speaker
So yeah, you see two groups of three warforged and one human woman with them and you
00:46:14
Speaker
You sense that you are looking at a woman after your own heart because you see that she's kind of like adjusting her pose while waiting for you all to round the corner, like trying to be in the most like threatening stance possible, but clearly concerned about that.
Identifying Potential Threats
00:46:33
Speaker
Okay. Well, I guess I need to relay this information to my friends. Yep.
00:46:38
Speaker
So don't you just still check again to get back to them? Absolutely not. Okay. Okay. Good. Uh, so I go back to them and, um, uh, I say, well, we have company.
00:46:56
Speaker
What does that mean? There are more warforged with swords this time. And you're welcome. And a woman who's doing her best to look intimidating. Is there a way by them? No. Without them seeing us?
00:47:20
Speaker
You walked through the warehouse, Myla. So, you know, there's one way in, one way out. Okay. You could attempt to sneak out. Like obviously there are crates and stuff. It is just going to be. Hide under a crate. Very difficult. Walk very carefully. Seven foot tall companion. Well.
00:47:49
Speaker
I guess we should just go confront them. I only have four health. Not feeling so well, Reynard. Myla, you can make a medicine check on him to heal some of his wounds. Let's do that. Okay. So you only have four wounds left before you hit your threshold? Yeah. Okay. And what's your total amount?
00:48:19
Speaker
11. 11. So that is going to be a difficulty of two difficulty. And yeah, if you'd like to spend a story point, you can Milo or you can just roll. Well, you healed for strain. Well, I needed that.
00:48:50
Speaker
I only had three, but... Hey, something. But unfortunately you do not heal any wounds. So you feel comforted by Milo's efforts, but not any more healthy. Looks like I'm going to be sticking to my ranged weapon then. Well, we should... We should make for the skiff, right? Even if we have to fight our way out, we should make for the skiff. I say that's our only choice. I'm still not sure why we're not already there.
00:49:21
Speaker
that lead the way, big fella. I go around the corner and I see this woman looking increasingly more intimidating with each pose change. Okay, so are you stopping harbor you just like
00:49:39
Speaker
I go for it. I can't imagine. Good day. I can't imagine I try to blow past her because that would leave everyone behind me open to being attacked by her. So I just check her in the shoulder like some jerk in the hallway and keep moving. Knock her books out of her hands. I assume her shoulder doesn't come up to mind. Nobody's shoulder comes up to you. You hip check her in the shoulder.
00:50:09
Speaker
So as you all around the corner, um, she regards all of you. Looks like you all found yourself in someplace you're not supposed to be. Oh no, it's Harley Quinn. Hello, Harley. We took a wrong turn. So it's all right. We'll just wait here until Batman shows up and we'll be fine. I'm sorry, go ahead. Maybe I can use my charm to trick her.
00:50:39
Speaker
Although I think tricking is deception, but... Yeah, you kind of gave away the plot on that one. I was gonna say, ah, yes, yes, we did. We were not supposed to be here. Here's the thing, any... Not bad. It's totally a mistake. If you want to try that, Trevor, you can. Is this not McDonald's? I mean, my loom would work, right?
00:51:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So if you do want to try that, Trevor, you'll get an automatic two more advantage on whatever you roll. Perfect. Is that just charm check or no? What are you trying to do? It's a deception check, Trevor, because you're lying. OK. Yeah. And you get two automatic advantage because of Jeff's coercion, because he's spooky looking. I'm going to spend a story point to upgrade.
00:51:28
Speaker
that I like to think I have a rank in I like to think that she doesn't she didn't know who had made it in so when the first thing she sees come out of the office is a shirtless seven foot tall Goliath that's why that's why the extra advantage is coming in it was surprising yeah she's she's off put a little bit by that okay Trevor the difficulty is set for you so you can go ahead and roll all right
00:51:52
Speaker
Okay. Eris does not come around the corner at this point because Eris has goggles and a face mask, which might make it hard to play the whole, oh, we are just in the wrong place card. I just say to her, yes, we did stumble in here accidentally. Stumbled right past all these dead guys.
00:52:18
Speaker
Things were not, we heard a ruckus in Cayman. There you go. What's the funding? Things didn't go well for them, so we're on our way. Okay, so... We are not the droids you're looking for.
00:52:35
Speaker
OK, I feel bad for Eric right now because this is this is such an implausible thing that we've attempted to do. And yet we have succeeded. So you've got to. I think that's such a hard thing as a GM to figure out what to do. Basically, it's a way we have stumbled into a social encounter. So you write some strain on her. She doesn't like believe you outright at this point like it like she's curious at this point as to like what you're on about. She she doesn't innately disbelieve you.
00:53:04
Speaker
with those two threat. Wait, don't they cancel out with my two advantage? Oh, fair enough, thank you. So you just do it. You just did it. Yep. Did we just do it? She kind of walks at you and says, I see. So where did you think you were? Maybe I can help you find your way home.
00:53:38
Speaker
Um, well, like I said, we heard, we heard a ruckus and stopped our, um, our vehicle outside and I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. And clearly everything is not okay. Um, and we checked the office just to make sure no one was dead in there as well. And we're on our way back to, we're going to the theater.
00:54:07
Speaker
Okay, but here's the thing. It's unfortunate that somebody that stumbled into some way that they weren't supposed to be saw what you all saw, because that means I can't rightfully just let you go traipsing about telling anybody and everybody about the things that you saw. If you see what I mean.
00:54:36
Speaker
Oh, we didn't see anything. I don't know. Who are you? What? Who are you all? I don't know if this will end up mattering, but while this conversation is occurring.
00:54:53
Speaker
Can Aeris slip back into the office and attempt to reactivate all of the magical defenses that we disabled?
Magical Defenses Reset & Escape
00:55:04
Speaker
Oh, when you were initially unlocking the door? Yeah, so I assume relocking the safe is fine because we didn't actually break anything. We just punched in the code. Yeah. But just make it appear that we didn't magically hack the place.
00:55:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you can you can do your best. I mean, basically getting past the arcane locks, you could back back out of them. Right. So, yeah, you could do your best to cover your tracks. Go ahead and I would just like to make it slightly more plausible when. Yeah.
00:55:39
Speaker
When Trevor inevitably tries to go, saw what? OK, in terms of what this is, is this like a utility artifice use? Um. Yeah, but with difficulty, which is unusual for utility, I know, but utility can have one difficulty sometimes. So, yeah. Are you are you all set for me? I am all set for you. OK.
00:56:09
Speaker
Um, you're kind of stressed about it. So take one strain. Um, I, I take strain even for utility, right? That's, that's not. Oh, actually that was an arcana check. Oh, yes. Yes, it was. It was a magic check. Um, that's worse. It just means double. Right. So it's two threat. Isn't that two threat or one wound? Okay. Um, yeah, let's just do two strain.
00:56:35
Speaker
Two additional stream. Okay. Yep. Um, but you do manage to cover your main tracks. That makes a lot of sense to me. She's trying to work really fast, put everything back. Um, has she done that and come back out now? That's going to take a little bit of time. So this will be happening. How long that conversation, how long that takes. Yeah. Concurrently with the conversation. Here's my thought.
00:57:01
Speaker
Hob is watching Raynard talk, sees, uh, Eris go back. As soon as she comes back out the door, Hob is just going to be like, all right, let's keep moving. Just try to shepherd everyone past this woman until she does something besides talk to us about how we, well, I can't let you leave. Well, then we're going to try and you can try to stop us. It's kind of where Hob's at. Okay.
00:57:29
Speaker
How are the rest of you going to respond to Hobb saying, all right, let's go? Is that happening now or is the conversation with Raynard going? The back and forth with Raynard continues as you try to
00:57:45
Speaker
as you clean up, but Trevor, unless you're gonna inject something new into the narrative other than, oh me, oh my, we didn't mean to be here, we can just continue on. I thought this was your bathroom. I was just gonna say, Raynard stops talking after he says, and that is how Guacamole was introduced to Sean. Thank you. Goodbye. What? He was just talking.
00:58:13
Speaker
She kind of snaps and points and the warforged go to block the door. All right. No need to rush off. There is a need to rush off.
00:58:28
Speaker
How many workers are there? Six, two minion groups though. So they're not as threatening as the three that you encountered. Okay. As soon as they like to do that, I am going to enact my heroic ability. Okay. So you can use a maneuver to take out one of the groups. Just drop three of them.
00:58:53
Speaker
I think what I do is I- Please describe. Oh, I wanna hear this. Here's exactly what's going to happen. She says, oh, you don't have to leave so soon. I look at her, I turn around, I look at all these Warforged. Hob literally gets down into a three point stance, rushes at them.
00:59:14
Speaker
just scoops three of them up in this big tackle, slams against the wall, knowing that the three of them stacked up against his shoulder, he can go as hard as he wants, and his head's not gonna touch the wall, he's fine. And just essentially, at the very least, puts enough pressure on that center mass area that they're all knocked out, if not crushed sternum, well, or whatever warforged have there. I crushed them like a can against the wall in that, because they are warforged.
00:59:46
Speaker
Eris just sort of stares. Cavlar, man. And I think Hob literally brushes his shoulder off because there's cogs on it or some crap now. And it looks at the other three warforged standing there in their group. And he looks back at the woman and his assembled group near her and says,
01:00:13
Speaker
No, I think it's pretty soon. We gotta go. Yeah. End of episode. Thank you all so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you want to be part of the conversation, you can head on over to the Facebook group, The Geek Pantheon. We also have a Discord, The Geek Pantheon. You can find that on Facebook, Twitter, or our website, thegeekpantheon.com.
01:00:32
Speaker
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01:00:55
Speaker
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01:01:20
Speaker
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