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Ep. 177 Carstan The Mighty - Bellum Draconis
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Intro written and produced by Joseph McDade
Music kindly provided by Fesliyan Studios
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Transcript
Introduction to 'The Fellowship of the Tabletop'
00:00:01
Speaker
boobies.
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of The Fellowship of the Tabletop. We are a live play 5.5e D&D podcast set in the magical homebrewed world of Aerith in the kingdom of, well, we could be in Sleek Card, could be in Dralak, who knows? We will find out.
00:00:46
Speaker
I'm Will and I am just a player today. um And with me today is, oh, it's it's literally just me. Oh, And also with me today is our dungeon master, the dictator of destiny, Danny.
00:01:02
Speaker
Bonjour. ah So, yeah. um Hi, Will. It's just you and me. Where'd everybody go Where did everyone go indeed? What a fantastic question.
Karstan's Mission and Journey Through Dralak
00:01:13
Speaker
Listeners, you may be expecting to hear more about some nautical adventures that are occurring currently, but we are going to pause that leg of this counter-offensive that the party are in the midst of performing to find out exactly what happened to Karstan when he the Goldport Keep for the destination of an audience with Shondralakar.
00:01:39
Speaker
You might have flick back through a couple of episodes to find this moment where he left, but the intention here is that the party wished that Valkyraeth were not the dragon of note that was going to take the third party into the steel nightmare, that they could use perhaps someone older, more powerful, and in Baal's eyes at least, more expendable.
00:02:02
Speaker
That... is the destination Karstan has found himself on. We join Karstan two days into the journey from Goldport, or what is now becoming known, Snake Run Keep.
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Speaker
The world behind you, Karstan, feels distant, softened by heat haze and swallowed by the desert wind. The kingdom's borders are long since crossed.
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Speaker
Here, in the blazing dominion of Dralak, the sun does not simply shine. It judges. It presses down like a god's hand, drawing sweat and strength in equal measure.
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Speaker
Sand scrapes across your armour. It gathers in your boots. It hisses along the dunes like a whispering spirit. Even the horizon feels hostile.
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Speaker
Shimmering, mocking illusions of shelter that vanish as soon as you approach them. Each step forward taken upon your horse with purpose is weighed also by memory.
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Speaker
Memory of your mission, memory of what's at stake here if you succeed,
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Speaker
a memory of the eggs those precious and yet terrible bargaining chips that remain under guard back at the keep. You know what they represent. They're not just leverage, but accusation.
00:03:31
Speaker
Twice before, disaster followed the undying champions who attempted to deal with these eggs. And in both those
Challenges in the Desert and Oasis Encounter
00:03:41
Speaker
times, hope turned to fury.
00:03:44
Speaker
The fury of a mother wronged, which is not easily forgotten and not easily forgiven.
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Speaker
And yet, Baal's directions prove true. As the moon rises on your second day at full speed south, the dunes begin to slope in familiar shapes to Baal's recollection.
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Speaker
The wind curving around unseen formations of stone. The desert's voice shifts its pitch, no longer an open howl, but a low murmur.
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Speaker
There is a sense, however, of trespassing, as though the sands themselves have learnt to recognise intruders. Looking behind you, the hoofs of your horse vanish quickly.
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The hoof prints, rather. Echoes linger too long. Even the air tastes slightly different, sharp, metallic, like the breath before lightning splits the sky.
00:04:54
Speaker
And then, at the edge of your southerly perception, you see it. A shimmer on the horizon.
00:05:06
Speaker
A promise of water where none should be. an oasis that should not exist.
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Speaker
But in your core you know this is no mirage. Crocodiles float idly in this water, all eyes fixed on you and your steed.
00:05:29
Speaker
What do you do?
00:05:40
Speaker
So it's been a very strange journey for Karsan. The Keep, among others, he has this very jovial, lighthearted sense to to to his his attitude, I think, around him, his persona, as he would have left Goldpaw, Keep,
00:06:01
Speaker
Once he was a few hours down the road, almost that would have almost stopped. He would have paused, changed his traveling clothes to something more mundane than the perhaps the flamboyant he's normally used to.
00:06:13
Speaker
And now he's he's cast down the wanderer, cast down the seeker of of knowledge and and ancient knowledge that he's had to do for the winged watch before. So as he approaches and sees the horizon and the the mirage or haze of the of the oasis, he has a very serious sort of demeanor to himself. he It's not been long since those times when he left the Sanguine Lands and journeyed with the the the heroes of the Blight, but in that short year or two, it has aged him in many ways than the normal time would be.
00:06:58
Speaker
And he rests for a moment, his hand on the pommel of his of of the saddle, looking out. and takes a moment just to collect himself because he knows that this is literally walking into the lair of the beast, as it were. This is yeah this could go one of two ways.
00:07:19
Speaker
Well, three ways. Either it could go well, and Carson is successful. He could fail and leave his tail between his legs, or he could die.
00:07:30
Speaker
And he is very aware that Shondralikar could choose to kill him if Shondralikar chooses to do so. So we rest for a moment. and He pats the neck of his horse, who's been with him now and done quite well in the heat.
00:07:45
Speaker
Right then, girl. Let's see what happens. And tries to summon back some of his more jovial spirit.
00:07:56
Speaker
he doesn't His sword hangs by his side. He doesn't draw his sword. He is being alert. He wants to know... who is watching him.
00:08:09
Speaker
He's aware of the threats, but he's not going to deliberately veer away from anything unless he thinks that is actually going to be dangerous. He's going to keep this path, be very casual. And then eventually when confronted, he will announce his presence. But
Negotiation with Dragonborn and Awaiting Shondralakar
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until then he's going to allow the crocodiles to be crocodiles.
00:08:33
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and have to solid journeying for two days straight, your mount is thirsty and she's nervous to approach the oasis with the crocodiles there, but you can kind of see in her conflict between desperately needing to drink and being utterly fearful of the reptiles, amphibians, reptiles, reptiles floating in the water.
00:09:00
Speaker
And you're maybe 10 feet from the oasis edge now. You spy in the darkness at least, but the moon and the steel nightmare are kind of illuminating quite a lot of this area.
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10, a dozen relatively large crocodiles all in the water at the moment.
00:09:25
Speaker
And the horse is feeling nervous, is it? Yeah. Okay. um Can I use command on my horse? What would like to I was going to command it to be calm.
00:09:38
Speaker
Okay. Go ahead and roll. Or is it a save for me? I don't need to roll anything. It's a... You speak a one-word command to the creature can see within range and the creature wants see the wisdom saving throw or follow the command.
00:09:52
Speaker
Here we go. It is nervous. i'm going to roll this at advantage. Okay. ah
00:09:59
Speaker
Wisdom save. Yeah. Yeah. That is a flat 15. Yeah, it fails the save. So it it is it is, my word, sort of like ah like a soothing blanket. it's The idea is he's he's telling the horse to be be calm.
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Speaker
And that that that idea of calm just almost just helps push that nervousness to its back. So what he doesn want to do is the horse to bolt. And so he's very much trying to make sure the horse is calm. He's aware of its of it what it's feeling. He's aware of how it's how it's feeling. He just wants it to be calm. And he knows that in a normal day, he might be able to control it, but he doesn't want to push his luck and get thrown from the horse.
00:10:40
Speaker
And you, almost like a well-trained horse whisperer, within a few seconds, are able to kind of take this bucking head and and nervous ah ah neighing that's beginning to kind of...
00:10:57
Speaker
snowball and within a few whispers kind of pierce through that and the horse looks far more settled again.
00:11:08
Speaker
How far away is the sort of oasis and the... te About 10 feet to the water's edge. There's no kind of... it's it's it's It's stagnant. There's no kind of like tide or anything like that. Did Baal sort of tell me where the entrance was in relation to the rest of the oasis? The oasis was the entrance. That's what you were told. Yeah. Karsan's going to sort of Are there any trees nearby?
00:11:29
Speaker
ah Yes, a couple. A couple of kind of curved palm trees on the eastern bank. Is that nearby? or Yes. So Karstan's going to dismount from his horse and he's going to secure the horse to the to the the the the palm tree, as it were.
00:11:45
Speaker
And he's going to sort of take a couple of steps away and sort of raise his voice towards the oasis.
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Speaker
My name is Karstan.
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Speaker
Castan Finbin Valhorn. Bard of the Blight. Fighter of the Blight. Hero of the Blight. I seek an audience with Chandra LaCarr.
00:12:14
Speaker
Make a preservation check.
00:12:26
Speaker
That's taking a long time to work out. Oh, there we go. Did it do it? 23. There is a beat once you say her name.
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Speaker
And there is this visible ripple
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Speaker
that spreads throughout that oasis.
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And one by one,
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about six crocodiles begin to meander slowly swimming towards you.
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Speaker
And as they leave the oasis and put their first
00:13:09
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leg, I should have brushed up at my crocodillyian anatomy ah or it on onto the sand, they change form.
00:13:23
Speaker
And you see these blue scaled warriors, six dragonborns adorned with gray robes wearing black swords. And they join you on the sand in almost a kind of disciplined precision.
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Speaker
The moonlight glinting off their scales. Their formation is immediate. It's defensive. It's practiced, unquestioning.
00:13:50
Speaker
and at their head stand this broad-shouldered sentinel whose horns sweep back like curved scimitars. Her voice is calm, but absolute.
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Speaker
Blight hero, you stand within the domain of Shondralakar, Storm Mother. You trespass here.
00:14:23
Speaker
And they just look at you. face as As the yeah sort of lead guard speaks, Karstam will bow deeply.
00:14:37
Speaker
No disrespect was meant by my trespass. I simply come to parley with Shondralakar, Storm Mother, to...
00:14:52
Speaker
Beseech her aid in fighting this threat to Erith. I would request an audience.
00:15:04
Speaker
Make another persuasion check.
00:15:11
Speaker
ah Ah, that's good. That's fine. 16. 16. ah sixteen
00:15:22
Speaker
This sentinel just turns and looks at a couple of her...
00:15:30
Speaker
followers for a second, then turns back to you.
00:15:37
Speaker
But you... have arrived at an inconvenient hour. our mother hunts beneath the ho it the thundering sands.
00:15:51
Speaker
None may disturb her flight.
00:16:03
Speaker
An audience you seek, an audience you may have, but you must be held as a guest under our watch until dawn.
00:16:16
Speaker
I welcome the offer of being a guest under your hospitality.
00:16:24
Speaker
Attempt to leave, Blight Hero, and you will be treated as prey.
00:16:33
Speaker
Do you agree?
00:16:36
Speaker
I've come here to speak with Shondralakar, Storm Mother. I am not going to walk away from here until I've had that chance.
00:16:48
Speaker
Her snouts snap a sharp inhalation of breath. And she just remarks, Until dawn, you will walk under our mother's mercy.
00:17:01
Speaker
Come. thank you She turns, casts a small blue light from her hand into the surface of the oasis.
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Speaker
And there is a ripple again, this time turns into a
00:17:23
Speaker
a physics defying separation of the waters, revealing a tunnel, a stone stair tunnel that descends further than your eye can see.
00:17:43
Speaker
She leads on and a few steps down turns back and gestures you to follow. Am I allowed to ensure my horse provisioned or could I ask that someone ensures that she is watered and there is grain in the satchel upon her back?
00:18:01
Speaker
We will turn to your steed. Thank you. I appreciate that gesture.
00:18:08
Speaker
And Karstan, after looking around, he goes over to the horse, gives her a pat on the neck. Stay here, girl. I'll be back. And then he goes back to follow the sentinel.
00:18:24
Speaker
And it's an odd thing, walking past stopped water, like a before it crashes.
00:18:39
Speaker
Your first steps beneath the surface seem to make you feel swallowed almost by the desert. that The moonlight and the light, the red light emanent emanating from the steel nightmare fracture above into silver ribbons before vanishing entirely, instead now replaced by the steady glow of wall sconces burning a blue smokeless flame.
00:19:12
Speaker
The stone, however, beneath your boots are welcomed solids after days of difficult sands, each footfall echoing softly down this submerged passage.
00:19:28
Speaker
And the descent feels longer than expected. you are You are striding for near half an hour. The air grows cooler, heavier. and charged, you find yourself cold for the first time in a number of days.
00:19:48
Speaker
During this descent, you walk in measured silence that's broken only by the faint hiss of torch flame and the distant rhythmic thrum of something shifting far, far below you.
00:20:05
Speaker
You escort ahead, she moves with a ritual sort of familiarity. Her kind of breath is controlled. You're at this point getting a little bit tired.
00:20:21
Speaker
At last, the steps level into the antechamber that the undying champions visited the day that Baal and Seth joined them. to the left, a basin of still water rests in its carved alcove, reflecting blue lights from the polished glass itself.
00:20:42
Speaker
Across from it, a sandstone bench that has a layer of dust as though it hasn't been sat on in a number of months.
00:20:53
Speaker
And yet nothing here is ornamental. Everything is purposeful. Everything waits as a place of preparation. But it's this passage ahead, Karstan, that draws the eye. What were you going to say? i was about to ask about the passage that the Undying Champions would have gone through. is it i Sorry.
00:21:12
Speaker
I was just checking whether I'd gone through that yet. Sorry. No, you were in the chamber just before it. Of course. Thank you. and In front of you is that that narrow tunnel of this cerulean blue glass...
00:21:25
Speaker
that's kind of wrapped and funneled through this chamber like the throat of ah of a snake, of a love of of a a leviathan. Its smooth, glossy ah ah kind of finish bounces light further and further down.
00:21:49
Speaker
What's interesting is that you can see shapes forming in it, like walking through walk through aquarium experience, but but you're not at the angle to kind of make out what creatures or or forms are ah in that corridor.
00:22:06
Speaker
But the guide does not yet invite you to pass through it. Instead,
00:22:18
Speaker
She gestures towards a side corridor, previously unnoticed, as it's a path cut from darker stone, that only when the the light moved in this chamber was it revealed.
00:22:32
Speaker
The architecture narrows deliberately here even more, the ceilings are lower, the air humming with this kind of restrained power. You're being taken somewhere, but not to the court, but waiting chambers, it seems.
00:22:46
Speaker
And you step into this much larger room, a circular room, its walls etched with draconic sigils that sort of pulse with more light.
00:22:57
Speaker
At its center rests a low stone platform layered with desert furs, a place to rest your head, not the most comfortable but but but maintained.
00:23:11
Speaker
And there is this shallow
Mysteries of the Chamber and Karstan's Reputation
00:23:12
Speaker
kind of channel of of cool water that's winding through the perimeter, like a little kind of protective boundary. ah but but But it's fresh and it's clean.
00:23:26
Speaker
There are no bars. That's important to note. There are no chains. But a second dragonborn joins you in this room and they stand at the entrance, blocking you in.
00:23:44
Speaker
As you step into this room,
00:23:50
Speaker
intervals that aren't regular, sometimes it's 30 seconds, sometimes it's a few minutes, but there is this ten tectonic kind of murmur resonance below your feet, almost like living next to a train station, a very busy one. just There is always this constant kind of shifting around you that you you can't You can't ever kind of cut out because the pattern changes how it shifts.
00:24:21
Speaker
Other than that, you find yourself in this silent chamber.
00:24:30
Speaker
And it's rock around me, isn't it? Yes, all carved and hewn. And there are torches and that of There are torches, no windows, no sources of natural light. You are very much ah at least a mile below surface.
00:24:45
Speaker
Carlson's going to sort of walk around the room in moment and as he runs his hand along the wall, is it is it is it smooth? Does seem like it's been carved out by tools or is it almost carved by spellcraft? which sort of Make an investigation check.
00:25:01
Speaker
I will do so. ah we like that. 31. 31.
00:25:07
Speaker
to kind of run your hands over it. You think perhaps it's both. You think perhaps this has kind of been expertly hewn, but also to kind of get its precision and its resonance.
00:25:23
Speaker
It has been magically charged. You kind of pick up soft static, like like um moving fingers over a kind of old ah RCD screen and getting those kind of um ah a small, tiny, um non-offensive zaps in your fingertips as you run your fingers along this wall.
00:25:48
Speaker
And are the draconic sigils in this wall? Yes, all around this room. Do they look like they are? Is there is there a pattern to them or are they just randomly distributed?
00:26:00
Speaker
It's not script, if that's what you're kind of ah looking for. It appears to be closer to um kind of artistic carvings and artistic artistic um interpretations. and It's hard to necessarily draw an an obvious story, um but definitely...
00:26:21
Speaker
Definitely kind of, you'd have to study it for some time, but it denotes it denotes worship, worship to a supreme kind of being and and lots of ah kind of sigils around power and worship.
00:26:39
Speaker
I was wondering whether to use comprehend languages on it, that's all. You could try. But this seems more of art than it does of language. Yeah. it' Then you get a debate here of of more than more than what the the rules rules of the spell allow.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yeah, because the spools talk about doesn't decode symbols and that kind of stuff. And obviously if it's merely symbolic and that kind of stuff, then it wouldn't really give me any... Because if it's not words, it's just... drcon Yeah, okay, that's fine. Okay, cast then will sort of look around.
00:27:12
Speaker
nod in thanks to the guards. Thank you. This is certainly very hospitable given the environment of the desert.
00:27:23
Speaker
um I think I shall sleep soundly here more than I have for the last two days of my journey. Thank you.
00:27:31
Speaker
They both nod, near nearly in synchronous, a kind of unison. And the guide thus far just says, rest while you may.
00:27:43
Speaker
The Storm Mother returns with the dawn.
00:27:48
Speaker
Lovely. And Karsten sort of sits down, to goes to the platform, sits down cross-legged upon the furs and the platform.
00:27:59
Speaker
And he has his satchel beside him and he takes out a few things. um There's a little flute and that kind of stuff. um Again, a very small hand drum he has. He just places those to the side.
00:28:14
Speaker
He takes out his satchel his sort of notepad or sketchbook as it were, because, um, something he's always had with him every time he journeys, he likes to try and thing. And then he takes time just for a moment, just to, to, to sketch the, the oasis as he saw it, as he approached with the crocodiles before, um, the entrance way was created. He wants to sketch the oasis before it's created as it were.
00:28:44
Speaker
And you're, you're left with your book.
00:28:48
Speaker
And
00:28:53
Speaker
it's clear after two or three hours of kind of capturing in picture your adventure thus far, you are not being disturbed. the The chamber is sealed shut with a stone door.
00:29:11
Speaker
And you have not once heard another creature outside.
00:29:19
Speaker
The guards are left now, yeah? Yes. You said you would kind of summer deduct ah the sun basically had set as you'd arrived at the oasis. So you're probably approaching a few hours before midnight at this point.
00:29:36
Speaker
Lovely. Okay. Okay.
00:29:40
Speaker
What to do, what to do. And it's a stone door, yeah? Mm-hmm. Did it look... I mean, was it look heavy when they moved it, or was it just... Yeah, kind of like rolled stone. Okay, cool.
00:30:00
Speaker
Can I... Because Carsten
Waking to Urgent Developments
00:30:03
Speaker
wants to sort of... can I investigate the room further? want to see whether there's any sense of ways I'm being observed or or, or things that perhaps weren't immediately obvious as I came there. You know, I've had, have other occupants left markings, places, that kind of thing. Do you know what i mean? Sure.
00:30:27
Speaker
I guess make a, make a perception check. Um, yeah as you slowly take in every corner of this room, ah You're going to hate me. That's a 35. Yeah,
00:30:42
Speaker
yeah it's interesting. you So you don't really allow yourself to feel at ease until you know exactly what's what's happening around you
00:30:55
Speaker
where you're sat on this kind of stone plinth that's layered with desert furs, what's kind of first and noted by you is it doesn't feel as though anyone's laid in these furs before.
00:31:16
Speaker
And as you kind of lift them, there's maybe six or seven kind of layers of these. As you lift them, it's kind of this this the smell of them being recently um kind of tanned and ah treated is ever so slightly detected as well.
00:31:37
Speaker
They begin to look around the room. you study some of the the kind of ink work or or so chalk work
00:31:50
Speaker
and some of the colours are really bold. There's It's very luminescent ah greens and yellows, and there's some very rich purples.
00:32:03
Speaker
And you'd expect on stone in in kind of a room with running water that's slightly damp and with torch fire, that the quality of the pigments would decay over time. But this is incredibly fresh.
00:32:20
Speaker
You then continue to scan the room and this channel of water that kind of makes a very thin circle
00:32:28
Speaker
that's running, that's clean.
00:32:33
Speaker
The kind of trench that it's hewn into, this run it doesn't really show any signs that water has been stagnant there or that any of the bacterial buildup around around channels of water existing are there.
00:32:47
Speaker
this This doesn't feel overly used as a space.
00:32:53
Speaker
I'm getting the sense that, like, I mean, in Carson's mind, he almost feels like this room was literally just created. He gets the sense of, not just chris created, but certainly that that his it was it was filled with the furs and that kind of stuff literally just prior to his arrival. They haven't been sat here. It's like this was either brushed up or made up very recently compared to...
00:33:20
Speaker
a room that's just been waiting for someone to be used for it. Either by what means you're not sure whether it's every day skilled artists and housekeepers tend to this space, or if by some kind of magical means this this this was an on demand kind of ah waiting chamber.
00:33:44
Speaker
It's hard to tell. and
00:33:49
Speaker
kind of the lack of sensual of of sensory cues elsewhere makes it hard for you to make more deductions because you can't really you don't know what the outside of this chamber looks like. You can't picture it within a bigger kind of architecture environment. It's just a single chamber and you can only see from within it.
00:34:08
Speaker
But yes, it's either immaculately maintained or has been conjured on demand. And you can't, you can't even with a role that high, you haven't got enough evidence to conclusively say which it is. That's fine. um How thick did the door look as it was being rolled shut? Rolled back?
00:34:30
Speaker
About a feet of stone, perhaps. but Enough that it would take two Dragonborn to move it. That's right. I was going to try and do sense thoughts, but if it's a foot of stone, that won't work. Because it's blocked by a foot of stone. Yeah.
00:34:52
Speaker
Yeah, i'm going to try it anyway, ah because Carson, oh he's curious. He wants to see whether there's there's anything. So i'm going to cast ah Detect Thoughts as a Ritual, um and basically try and sense the presence of thoughts in 30 feet to me, though obviously Carson is very very well aware that he may detect nothing, which would be quite reassuring in one-way shape or form. It's blocked by one foot of stone, dirt, wood, one-inch metal, or a thin sheet of lead.
00:35:19
Speaker
Sure. And whereabouts in the room are you? Are you in the center of the room? um To start with, yes. And then and then i think as as he casts a spell, he will then sort of walk his way around just seeing if there's points where he begins to sense anything through any stonework, there's any thin points or or around the door, if the door is a foot thick and blocked entirely. If it doesn't, if it's able to extend beyond there and if there's anyone else out there.
00:35:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:50
Speaker
as you prepare this ritual and then kind of cast it it's it's ah it's a little bit more challenging and you're not sure why you still successfully perform it but just kind of in that that habitual process of
00:36:10
Speaker
repeating the right words, channeling the kind of um ah energy from the components used, ah whether it's kind of more of a mental fatigue, whether it's tiredness, it just feels like you've got to push that bit more, or concentrate that bit harder for the spell to come into full effect.
00:36:28
Speaker
It still does, but it takes it takes maybe 10 minutes ah and then a couple of extra moments. But you just notice that slight delay in being able to perform it.
00:36:41
Speaker
you don't really get anything from your position when you're in the middle of the room. And as you begin to kind of do it in intervals around, when you, when you do it closer to the stone door,
00:36:54
Speaker
even understand the limitations of the spell, you get a very faint whiff of something back and you feel it must be because of the kind of, uh, construction of the construct of this space that you're probably right on the edge of that one foot of stone work but you can just kind of hear ah a light whisper
00:37:24
Speaker
duplicated centered around you being an egg thief
00:37:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:38
Speaker
And and you like you really have to push for that to gain that slither of a second as the right bit of stone kind of is caught in ah and a light breeze and just for a second, like a tiny signal just comes back.
00:37:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:57
Speaker
And that's the, yeah. Okay. so I sort of get this sense in car and Carson sort of almost pressed himself against the stone and he sort of feels in his mind, eye these thoughts and he almost imagines them like in, in, in, in mind, I, they're like, they're like these glows of golden light and he just reaches out and just touched them. Here's that.
00:38:19
Speaker
Those echoes are on those, those surface thoughts without the person being aware, he hears those things. And he thinks to himself.
00:38:30
Speaker
He ponders because he knows he's no egg thief himself.
00:38:35
Speaker
But it gives him an idea of the environment he's sort of going into and allows him sort of that idea that he knows what may be coming.
00:38:46
Speaker
And after a while he lets it go, allows the spell dissipate.
00:38:54
Speaker
Because he's here on hospitality and he knows he could dig deeper, but he doesn't want to breach that hospitality that's been given to him now. And he goes and he settles down he perhaps takes his clue to his hand for for a moment, perhaps plays a tune or so to himself.
00:39:16
Speaker
And then when he feels and like uses that to almost calm and center to himself. And once he's he's felt that, that winds down, he then, in a very weird sort of sense, um will sort of use that sort of calm himself and then allows himself to drift off to sleep until awoken.
00:39:44
Speaker
And do you have no difficulty sleeping.
00:39:50
Speaker
Whether it it be the comfort of knowing that nothing's going to happen to you till the morning, or it's genuinely something about the environment in which you are resting.
00:40:01
Speaker
You haven't known a night's sleep like this for months.
00:40:08
Speaker
Since... since the The few days of normality once you made it to Scorch Helm before the next wave of events kicked off.
00:40:22
Speaker
And you wake up in the morning feeling exhausted from the fact that you had a complete night's sleep and and an uninterrupted night's sleep and um felt safe.
00:40:34
Speaker
And just the idea that that you had some normal sleep for once and your body's in shock from the fact that it rested so well. um Not to any kind of detriment, but for the first few seconds, the first few minutes, it's it's hard to awake because it was such a good rest.
00:40:50
Speaker
but You actually awake to a message. you make to You awake to a familiar voice in your ear.
00:40:58
Speaker
As Syanga briefly communicates directly to you.
00:41:05
Speaker
It has begun. Trace has revealed the Princess Stone. Tol'colon's Legion has surfaced.
00:41:21
Speaker
That's what wakes you.
00:41:26
Speaker
you hear all the message?
00:41:33
Speaker
So just for my benefit, so when it says where revealed the princess and I assume that's revealing Helena's, is that what?
00:41:45
Speaker
Does Carstan understand what what the princess stone means? The princess stone, yes. Princess stone, yes. Yes, it's it's the stone that Alpha willingly gave to Trace. Thank you, thank you, thank you. i was just, yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah.
00:41:57
Speaker
And Shonokar's legion have emerged. um Was Carstan expecting this sort of communication? is this Is this unusual for him to have been contacted by Sayangar like this or...
00:42:13
Speaker
You definitely feel like this is a couple of days earlier than planned. Okay. And it wasn't via a sending zone anything like that. This was a direct this sort of... This was a a message spell. that that You've received these before. You know how they work.
00:42:26
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. um
00:42:34
Speaker
Yeah. Okay.
00:42:39
Speaker
Obviously, the cantrip message doesn't work like that. I'm going to... Yeah, sorry. that i'm mean, the um the level two equivalent sending. Yeah, thank you. that's Yeah, that's right. I was just checking. Okay, fine. yeah um Yeah, fine. Obviously, Karstan doesn't have that to return it but that's fine. um
00:42:57
Speaker
Karstan awakens, and he sort of takes a moment and allows himself to sort of just get back to where he was, because in this deep, deep sleep, and he's like... Oh, stretches.
00:43:14
Speaker
and He he' had had a moment where he's like, long have I been down here? Has it not been not been that long? And then realises that actually, no, he sort of touches his chin and goes, no, beard's not grown that long. So I've not been down here that many that long.
00:43:30
Speaker
And he can only assume that something has happened to cause the time of things to speed up and he knows, okay, I am up against it now.
00:43:43
Speaker
And he prepares himself. He goes to the wooden water and refreshes. going to say, as once you kind of slide off that plinth that's covered in furs and place your feet back on the ground, immediately you're awakened to that um resonant murmur from beneath the earth, below you, that that had been silenced while you lay on that plinth. You... you you you
Reflections and Meeting with Shondralakar
00:44:09
Speaker
you weren't impacted by it. You didn't feel it.
00:44:12
Speaker
And maybe that's again why your kind of sleep was so ah was so perfect. and But standing on again, all of a sudden you're feeling the the tectonic movements below you again.
00:44:25
Speaker
Does it feel like...
00:44:31
Speaker
He's going to place his hand on the stonework on the floor and then his ear...
00:44:40
Speaker
Does it feel like it's almost like it's breathing he's hearing? Or he's trying to get a sense, like, is this is this is he is he hearing the resonation of Shondralakar or is it is there something else that's shifting beneath the sands of Dralak?
00:44:58
Speaker
Make a nature check.
00:45:02
Speaker
I will.
00:45:05
Speaker
That is a dump stat for me. But that's not bad.
00:45:11
Speaker
The closest thing you could attribute this to, and with an 18 you're fairly convinced it is this, is earthquakes. ah Really regular earthquakes.
00:45:26
Speaker
Or one continuous earthquake with just some intervals.
00:45:34
Speaker
Okay. Okay.
00:45:37
Speaker
um Karsam will freshen himself up. He will sit upon the furs and
00:45:49
Speaker
yeah, he will wait quite patiently, perhaps humming a ditty to himself and that kind of stuff. But he wants to make sure that when the guards arrive that he appears perfectly calm, perfectly at peace and ready.
00:46:09
Speaker
you have half an hour of being in that kind of state of preparation or so before you hear the stone door begin to roll again. This time three dragonborn enter into the room.
00:46:24
Speaker
They're kind of blue scales of these three different from the two that that guided you in last night. One is carrying... a folded set of robes, gray robes, and on top, a small ceramic dish with a measly collection of cut desert fruit, places both onto the plinth where you were sleeping.
00:47:01
Speaker
Hands you the plate first. Thank you.
00:47:08
Speaker
And then lifts the robes.
00:47:15
Speaker
For your audience, you are required to wear these and bring only these into the chamber with you. The rest of your effects you may leave here.
00:47:30
Speaker
Of course.
00:47:34
Speaker
We'll give you a moment. And they turn and step just outside the chamber with door open to give you some privacy. Okay.
00:47:48
Speaker
Check out Shondrala Khan taking away my spell components. actually scared him of something. now um ah That is fine. Okay.
00:48:00
Speaker
Let's have a quick check of mine. Okay. I have some tools to me that do not require material components. This is useful just in case. um Okay, that's good.
00:48:15
Speaker
that's good Okay. um Karsan will acquiesce to their request. He will very ah calmly disrobe him from his his traveling clothes, fold them neatly because, you know, that's the sensible thing to do.
00:48:30
Speaker
um and dons the robe he wonders for a minute with if he wishes for a minute that he had a spell or something just to you know address the cut a little bit perhaps make it a little bit more fashionable but they're they're very unflattering and they are not yeah made for humans so yeah you are having to kind of like lift them up around your waist so you're not dragging the robes along the dirt I feel like the the wizard from like Sword in the Stone with like his two big robes um okay um ah they give me like a rope belt or something to make this? or is that they have They have not.
00:49:05
Speaker
And cast a sort of... Can I like... Can I like... Use my belt or something? Because otherwise I feel like I'm wearing a... sack.
00:49:15
Speaker
The one that spoke shakes their head.
00:49:19
Speaker
Oh well. Um...
00:49:23
Speaker
okay, um I guess this is how going to meet the Storm Mother. He's holding his arm, and sort of puppet-like, sort of flapping them around like, it's not the worst thing I've had to wear. Okay.
00:49:42
Speaker
And he has a bit of that a ah coy smile and sort of goes to the entrance like, here I am. You're guided back into the antechamber again.
00:49:53
Speaker
And that tunnel, that kind of crystallized ah siphon
00:50:04
Speaker
stands in front of you and the dragonborn just casts a small blue light and sends it slowly and gently down the tunnel.
00:50:16
Speaker
and then steps to a side and she offers her claw and gestures for you to walk down.
00:50:25
Speaker
Thank you. The walls of reflection.
00:50:33
Speaker
I have heard tell of these.
00:50:37
Speaker
It will allow us to see all of you.
00:50:43
Speaker
Well, um, Just had to ask if you really wanted to, but okay. um not the Not the first time I've been asked. um I'm flattered. I really am. Not really the time. ah Thank you. ah Maybe another time.
00:50:59
Speaker
the Rain check. Okay. um And he allows it his his joviality to come out. He wants this. Because Carstan, he can be deadly serious, but he also knows that actually having this outward appearance of being almost fool-like can have its its advantages because people don't take you seriously until you actually have to be serious then it's like well actually I can be so surprised motherfucker um and he goes okay here we go this will be enlightening for us all and he steps forward so
00:51:40
Speaker
And you walk down this chamber, it's maybe about a hundred feet long and it's incredibly narrow. You you couldn't get two people side by side here. You walk down and you're seeing kind of the reflection of yourself, one to the right, one to the left, and one on the kind of glass above you. This this just beautifully rich sky blue glass.
00:52:09
Speaker
And you get to about halfway before you can see that the chamber moves into a ah sorry the tunnel moves into another chamber at the far end.
00:52:19
Speaker
And then your peripheral vision and is picking up a lot of information that you're kind of taken to a halt for a second. To the right of you, you see yourself slightly younger,
00:52:34
Speaker
an older haircut, an older set of traveling gear, younger eyes, a less wrinkled face.
00:52:45
Speaker
You see yourself being celebrated as a hero amongst companions,
00:52:54
Speaker
companions who you care about very much.
00:52:59
Speaker
And whether you yourself respond to that with a smile, your reflected self in that scene, in that moment with those people is jubilant.
00:53:14
Speaker
And then you look to your... Sorry. is it is is is what i'm saying is it a Is it an actual memory I can recall? Or is it... Yes, strongly. It is the dawn after the blight ended.
00:53:28
Speaker
Karsam will allow to pause and smile ah at that. Remembering what a bright time that felt to be. And then he'll look to his left.
00:53:44
Speaker
And to your left, it's more difficult to see because there is this
00:53:53
Speaker
there is this break in the glass where someone before you perhaps has put a fist through what was seen and it's smashed.
00:54:04
Speaker
So you have to step further into the chamber to kind of get an unbroken glimpse.
00:54:13
Speaker
And there you see your yourself as a teenager being scolded and embarrassed by your mother,
00:54:25
Speaker
being cast away from your home.
00:54:32
Speaker
And all those kind of negative connotations that came from that moment of you being being cast away, being denied by your own family. come flooding back to a time when you didn't know yourself. You didn't know who you were to be now that your family had disowned you.
00:54:58
Speaker
The last time you felt truly low all those years ago.
00:55:07
Speaker
Karstan pauses for a moment of this.
00:55:13
Speaker
He looks at his younger self, the cocksure attitude from it, the the ah grin of just ignorance almost that he sees there.
00:55:30
Speaker
He looks.
00:55:33
Speaker
He takes a moment, thinking of a family that he still hasn't truly gone back to. it He hasn't tried to go back yet. He knows he might want to. He knows he should, but hasn't.
00:55:45
Speaker
And that that that leaves almost a pang somewhere in his chest that, like a wound that you sort of covered up for a while then all of a sudden you feel it pull. He takes a moment not sort of realising to himself that he'd pushed this these things down and hidden them away for so long.
00:56:09
Speaker
Well,
00:56:13
Speaker
I guess we are what our past makes us.
00:56:23
Speaker
And the scene um the scene is static. There's nothing to kind of watch unfold.
00:56:30
Speaker
I've grown up since then.
00:56:37
Speaker
He takes a moment and perhaps sniffs, holding back any sort of emotions and looks back to the right, smiles for himself again.
00:56:50
Speaker
Happy times and sad times.
00:56:53
Speaker
The worst of times, the best of times.
00:57:00
Speaker
Then he looks ahead.
00:57:03
Speaker
Onwards. As you look ahead, the kind of globule of light that's been slowly guiding you then ascends above you in the tunnel do you look up I will yes
00:57:24
Speaker
as you look up you see your lifeless body impaled skewered
00:57:41
Speaker
by a great weapon in a dark citadel of green fire.
00:57:59
Speaker
Wow.
00:58:03
Speaker
Can I take a moment to study it? Sure.
00:58:09
Speaker
Carstine's always wondered...
00:58:14
Speaker
He looks... Well...
00:58:20
Speaker
I wonder if this is the future or... Just meant to disconcert me.
00:58:30
Speaker
Well... At least anyone who owns my books would become a lot more wealthier because they'd be worth a lot more once I'm dead. Circulation goes down a bit, but...
00:58:43
Speaker
Hmm. Does the sword seem familiar at all? No. Make an investigation check with disadvantage. Okay, I will do so.
00:59:00
Speaker
yeah Same dice roll either way. 14. Yeah, you you don't take your cultural cues from smith work. You know, you're an...
00:59:13
Speaker
You're a student of the arts.
00:59:18
Speaker
But even you can recognize something that you've never seen before, if that makes sense. You have no register for what that weapon is, how it was made, or who wields it.
00:59:30
Speaker
Because you've never seen anything like it before. But at least he knows now.
00:59:38
Speaker
Let me take a moment go... huh
00:59:44
Speaker
That is going to be quite a story to see how I get there. Or, you know, preferably beforehand. I could write it down. um
00:59:58
Speaker
Do I look much older?
01:00:03
Speaker
No. No. Your beard is the length it is now. Yeah. Hmm. I'm... Okay, he scratches his chin. Okay, that's a bit more maudlin. Hmm.
01:00:20
Speaker
The...
01:00:24
Speaker
Halls of... Reflection. Interesting. Tongue of reflection. Certainly reflecting something. Yes. This is... Hmm.
01:00:39
Speaker
Hmm.
01:00:42
Speaker
That's a little disconcerting.
01:00:46
Speaker
I'd like to go grey a little bit first.
01:00:51
Speaker
Okay. Let's leave the creepy tunnel of past, nice present-ish, and death behind.
01:01:02
Speaker
You gather your robes, you squeeze further down this channel for another 40 feet or so before it finally opens up to an unlit platform that stands on the edge of an enormous cavern
01:01:30
Speaker
a drop that you would not see the bottom nor survive the fall. You look out up and um amongst this vast expanse where just maybe three dozen globules of light that span an open bowl 400, 500 feet in every direction And as you kind of approach towards the edge of this overlook, towards this outcrop, just that wave of constant air pummels you and you're forced to step back.
01:02:10
Speaker
about 15 feet in either direction and the the tunnel behind you and this great drop to this huge cavern in front.
01:02:19
Speaker
And then slowly sconces illuminate on your platform
01:02:31
Speaker
And then there is another rumble beneath you.
01:02:39
Speaker
But this one doesn't feel like stone breaking stone, earth breaking earth. This is a slither of something enormous moving through rock.
01:02:54
Speaker
You take an inhalation of breath and this horn the size of an iceberg begins to just ascend into your view.
01:03:11
Speaker
Then an eye, a golden eye surrounded by a snout of crimson blue,
01:03:24
Speaker
blinks.
01:03:28
Speaker
The eye moves out to reveal a jaw of rows upon rows of jagged teeth.
01:03:41
Speaker
The three dozen globules of light pull in over that mass distance to illuminate the ancient dragon form of Chandra Le Car.
01:04:02
Speaker
She bellows.
01:04:07
Speaker
You stand alive because I allow it. Speak carefully, surface dweller.
01:04:20
Speaker
And that's where going to end this week's episode of The Fellowship of the Tabletop, Bellum Draconis. Ooh! ooh is right to find out what happens to Carstan. Tudid next hike. Time. Next hike. Next time. We are the Fellowship of the Tabletop. Farewell.