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C2 Ep. 152 Mirrored Past Chapter Four
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Down down, further down.
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Sponsorship and Supporters
00:00:00
Speaker
The following episode is brought to you by Darren Kaczka, Deavius Poptart, Elizabeth Clark, Irene Villarito, Laura Pickron, Nathan Stuller, Charles Compton, Natasha Rallerson, David Scrams, Edvarth Arnoff, Jerry Thunes, Mark Stanley, Rebecca Gellman, and Shelby Johnson, as well as all of our generous patrons.
Introduction to 'Ever On Renewed'
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Speaker
D20 radio, your game is roll.
00:01:05
Speaker
Hello
Recap of Previous Episode
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Speaker
and welcome to Ever On Renewed, an actual play podcast set in the Ever On Campaign setting. I'm your game master, Eric. I'm Phillip. I'm Trevor. I'm Randy. Jeff. Welcome to another episode. Gentlemen, what happened last time? What didn't happen last time? Lots of laughs. Just some fantastic, just real good depth and emotional, a lot of good relational moments with people who knew how to talk to other people. We more
Mission Preparation and Team Dynamics
00:01:30
Speaker
or less...
00:01:31
Speaker
Milo got sucked into the ethereal plane, had a weird experience there in which he encountered alternate versions of other characters. And when he got back, we debriefed chaotically. Yeah. And then prepared to go on our actual on the actual job. The actual part of the we sent the little spider hunter robot and now we're going to follow him. Yep.
00:01:57
Speaker
and all three of us were too dumb to do anything about solid slowly going crazy
00:02:01
Speaker
I think Raynard just shoved her in the back. Raynard made all things better. That's also why I laughed when you... This is the worst. Trevor as a player is phenomenal at playing his character because he'll get helpful information and he knows that Raynard won't do anything helpful with it. So it's okay. How can I make this problem worse? Which is big. Anyway, yes, Sana is over manically making coffee. Cath is sitting by impatiently. You can tell that Cath is like,
00:02:28
Speaker
ready to get going. Olive is getting her workstation back in order. She did step out of the harness and she's like working but like just waiting for the go kind of thing. But if we are nearing that point then she will begin to strap in. Once Eris is sure that nothing you know is going to explode at the moment she goes over and sits down next to Cath. I know everyone's weird about everything right now but gloves working well? Yeah they are.
00:02:59
Speaker
working quite well. So they really will support your weight when you climb like that. There's a lot of lower body work to support it, but yeah, they keep me up. So that's really good. I didn't expect that. Yeah. It took some getting used to using the right way, but yeah, everyone knows your climate, your legs are, but oh, thank you. Yeah. I appreciate. I know that wasn't why you gave them to me for, but they've been helpful. I did actually expect that you would hurt people with. Yeah. Just different context matters sometimes.
Entering the District and Facing Traps
00:03:29
Speaker
Yeah. Hop comes back, you know, it's five minutes ago. What are you guys doing? Come on. I might assuming that Hop, that was a hilarious joke from Jeff. I'm certainly a joke. If you, if you figure out how those goggles of yours work and you want to do a test run that somebody else could make use of. So like goggles, a lot of things, what's the thing you want them that you're interested in? Identification. There's a lot of magic out there that can cause people to
00:03:56
Speaker
appear not what they are yeah that's a good idea yeah yeah i'll think about it i'd probably work on that great thanks don't you tell whoever you want but i won't tell anyone that you're helping me okay yeah you almost you almost goggles or do you have a costume
00:04:17
Speaker
He just wanted like lenses in a mask or something. I stuck with the motif that was started with the claws and so I have a full face helmet thing. Like a tiger? Is it like a tiger? Yeah. It's awesome. So, okay. So these would be like eye of the tiger. Yeah, yeah, sure. That'd be great. Jeff's so mad at me, right? I am simply floating in my own plane. This associates.
00:04:42
Speaker
Eris goes over and starts prepping Tasha. Since I assume we'll fly down to the cogs. Yeah. Anything else that anyone wants to do before heading off for the job? I don't have anything. No, I'm good. I'm actually in pretty good shape right now. Okay. So Olive strats back into the arms and like they lift her off of the stand. Tasha's prepped bike is in good order. So you can write that if you want, or if everyone wants to pilot Tasha. Does Hogg take his bike to the cogs?
00:05:11
Speaker
It's rare, it's cool, there's a lot of people that don't like him down there. Hobbs leaves the bike. So everyone piles into Tasha and takes off. It's a little crowded, more crowded than it normally is, but especially with Olive's giant metal arms.
00:05:49
Speaker
Whatever that mechanism is where Hob turns his wrist and it goes from down to over there, we start to slow down. And I'm like, all right, all right. You remember the cogs has a gate, basically. There's only one entry point for the cogs. I had forgotten that. Thank you for that. So that's where you all are going to enter. And then you can start to examine where you need to go. OK, cool.
00:05:49
Speaker
for laughing at the world.
00:06:07
Speaker
So yeah, you get a direction. It's you enter the cogs and you're in the district there. There's basically three main districts and the one that like Sigil and their cohort and the other Warforged live in is off to the right. You all are actually headed off to the left.
00:06:23
Speaker
is the direction that you're headed that's that's where you head and then once you get into that district you begin to hit a point where the whole circle begins to light up like you are within the vicinity of the entrance and that's that that is was it how big is the radius i think it was within short range like you couldn't actually i don't know why it said i think i have the no shortage 20 feet it's not very much i understand there is no
00:06:51
Speaker
definitive. What is it right now for Hob right now? What is short range right now? 20 miles. I need right now. Oh you're familiar with within five miles was the actual... So in the cocks. Yeah we know it's in the cocks. Oh no no sorry the targeting stops once you get outside of five miles. It falls off within short range. Okay it falls off the thing if I'm off with that I remember.
00:07:15
Speaker
Is there a part of the cogs that we are not familiar with? Have you never been to this section of the cogs? No. We've never been. Okay. I know we haven't on the show necessarily, but... Apparently Hob stints and stares at a wall when he's not in front of a microphone. Not this time! This time, he doesn't... So no, Hob has never been here. In this section of the cogs. Yeah, that's right. Oh, it's my wall! I was speaking for Hob. I know what I said. Alright.
00:07:41
Speaker
So once that thing starts flashing, Hobb starts looking around for... Presumably Eris could summon this thing again, couldn't she? I would think so, yeah. Yeah, you're in control of it, so you could call it and then have it lead you the rest of the way. And I guess that we're under the impression these things can't come and go as they please if they are tracking things independently. They seem to be remote, yeah. So I guess that would make sense. I'd say at this point we probably don't have anything to fear from them because he's...
00:08:09
Speaker
Whoever is unaware of us, I would think. You would think. We are six folk that don't belong here standing in Mill Street right now. There is very inconspicuous people. Oh, that's seven folk. I forgot.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah. Do you want to call it back?
Magical Challenges and Strategic Debates
00:08:25
Speaker
Call it back. Oh, sorry. Yes. I meant. Yes. When I expressed that she could do that, I meant that she would start from out of an alleyway, kind of skittering back and comes up to you, Eris, and just stands on the ground looking at you. It doesn't have a face. Yeah, it's just there.
00:08:43
Speaker
Right, so I don't want to go down the... Can we see down the alley? Is it... No, it came around a corner, like... So, unless you all are... If we were to look down the alley, though, could we see down the alley? Or is it black? No, you can see down the alley. Okay, I just... My thought is... There's defenses in this alley. There's no way this guy hasn't used... Oh, way that boomer trap is... Maybe possibly get up at a higher vantage point?
00:09:13
Speaker
I mean, that's easy enough. Sure, we can. And have a look around. I would assume we would have docked Tasha somewhere. Proceed on foot. Yeah, is there just a place to leave your skiff right inside the gate, right outside the gate? Yeah. Yeah. You don't park in the cogs. If only Eris had constructed a special visual aid device for one of her cohorts. It felt like the pause that you guys are waiting on me.
00:09:43
Speaker
We're tracking where these specific kinds of creatures are. That was... Am I tracking or just seeing? They specifically improve your ability to find, to see and notice when constructs are around you. I can do that. I love that for you. Let me get my little information sheet about it. Allies. Plus six to perception. Plus six said that. That's a typo.
00:10:11
Speaker
Is that a six or a B? It's a B. Boost. Oh, okay. It's like a six. It's a capital B. What are you talking about? Minus 2F caused by environment. Minus 2 to set back die. So that's the dark region aspect of it. Searching for constructs of great perception times two.
00:10:31
Speaker
upgrade your perception check twice because you're looking for constructs. So I have regularly two yellow, one green. So I'm going to do three yellow, one green, and a boost now. Against. So you're trying to find other shadow stalkers? Is that like you're looking for the other constructs that might be guarding this place? Is that the plan? Yes.
00:10:54
Speaker
I think we have to say you're only looking for the two that we've seen. We're not going to know what these blood keepers look like. You've never seen the arcane sentries. Milo just figured out that you could do that with them. That's right. That's true. When he was helping Aeris very effectively. Was he able to see what they looked like? Was he able to draw a schematic for us? There's other things that I can't tell you what they are. We're going to end up destroying something that was just like a garbage disposal. There's something in the alley. That's a go-kart.
00:11:24
Speaker
My leg. The shadow stalker, sorry. Do I get any kind of boosts for being an elf and having night vision? You just, you get the dark vision aspect as an elf, so no, you don't get anything extra. Okay. Elves are the only race that have dark vision in Genesis. I swear I specifically added dark vision into that because of the request.
00:11:46
Speaker
All right, that's a number. Two red, one purple. Oh, le moly. These things are adept at... That's why I made you special goggles. We have all these story points, right? Yes, you do. You have four. Yeah, go for it. Beep.
00:12:03
Speaker
You can say hell, Trevor. That's okay. Just cut that and move it over. They say that on the Disney Channel. I think we're good. Oh my gosh, have you? Did you? Sorry. Please do not go on this stage. No, the new movie about the prom? The prom pact or whatever? In the first like 15 minutes, you have to cut this. Ah, damn, hell. And I was like, this is on Disney.
00:12:23
Speaker
I have no idea what you're talking about. I understood all the words you said. It's a new Disney original. Yeah, and it's the kid from the zombies movies, the zombie. I felt. What are you, Harold? Yeah, Tom Hanks. The zombie, roll the dice. OK. That goes away. That goes away. So two success, one threat. OK. So the two success, yeah, you spot a. Tell me what I see, because I don't know.
00:12:52
Speaker
You see the legs of a shadow stalker going around the corner in the shadows. Clearly I'm out to investigate this other shadow stalker and it's headed back and away from you so you could follow this one. But you see it, like, and it is nearby. If you just walk down this alley cavalier, it will see you and do something. The threat- You don't see the other three. Take a bonus train. We're in our- Okay. All right. And I relay the information to everyone.
00:13:18
Speaker
Great. Now they said that the one bugbear took this one out on his own, just got the jump on it and was able to do that. So how it feels like we have to do some risky math for how many we think might be down there and can we handle it?
00:13:34
Speaker
Here, the goggles, one of the powers that the goggles have is undetectable. Does that only affect Aeris, or is it one, because I know some of the Keyforge powers is like you and all creatures are in short range, or that sort of thing. I like it when Phil doesn't bring those things up to write what it matters, so. We can't come, Eric can't have come up with a way around it. I'm dumb, so the first time I think of a smart thing, I'm like, I gotta call everybody, and I ruin the surprise.
00:14:02
Speaker
Blingwesberg make themself and allies within short range undetectable by natural senses or arcane means until the end of the next round. Okay, so it's very short. Okay. Importantly, this is like, this is called a cute fortune. Undetectable to everyone, including each other. Right. Yeah. Okay. We're trying to break into that factory. We use invincibility magic and everything. We don't want to do it all. I thought.
00:14:32
Speaker
By allowing one of the spellcasters to use their magic to do it, I could make my goggles useful. This lesson's a disaster! It was a great thought, Iris. It was really tiny. I was somehow suggesting what happened in the alley outside the facility was my fault. Oh no! We know whose fault it was! I'm sticking with no fault! I'm sticking with no fault.
00:15:00
Speaker
I'm sensing a lot of tension. Yeah, man. Yeah, we should get that out. Sauna says. No, it will be much- Sauna says that? Oh, is that what Sauna thinks? Sauna thinks we should air our problems? It would be much worse if I let it out. Perhaps we let it out on a third party.
00:15:18
Speaker
a different time, I think, because I would be very unsurprised if he has means of seeing and hearing what's happening around his facility. It took me five minutes in that theatre owner's office to make a spy device. And I didn't know how to make this. So this starts at least as good as I am.
00:15:43
Speaker
Aris, are you saying he already knows we're here and there's no point in being sneaky? That's not what I'm saying. Then what's Aris saying? Because that's what it sounded like. He's saying this isn't the time or the place to yell at each other about what's bothering us. To be fair, I didn't say that in my character voice. It's too late for that. Stab, radar.
00:16:04
Speaker
Buddy, I learned real quick on this show, that does not matter. I would like to try to find any security devices that might be relevant in this alley since we are... Okay, are you trying to do that without going down the alley? I would like to do it without going down the alley. Then that will be a perception check. Okay.
00:16:28
Speaker
That is going to be with a setback die due to the distance. Sure. And the difficulty will be... I think you're doing great. The difficulty of... Two red, one purple. Would you like to flip a story point? I would like to flip a story point. I will also take a strain to upgrade. Again, using my talent.
00:17:00
Speaker
three successes. Okay, with the successes you can spot you spot a some are some runes carved into the stone that clearly are proximity triggers and additionally
00:17:18
Speaker
you spot there's no pressure plates or anything and once again this isn't like a stone dungeon floor it's more like kind
Overcoming Obstacles and Resource Management
00:17:24
Speaker
of a dirt floor but you can spot a section that it's clearly been disturbed like something's been buried there that you would think
00:17:33
Speaker
Pretty trappily indicates some kind of trap. Yeah. But there's a few things. OK, Eris will point these things out. The proximity trigger runes would interpret them as being connected to the trap. No, they seem independent of each other. They're not lined up perfectly. Are they also looking at? Can I tell? Are they also a trap or is this a scrying system or something like that? Yes.
00:18:01
Speaker
Both. Okay. This guy's got SimpliSafe. So Eris points out... SimpliSafe was a gun also in your toward.
00:18:35
Speaker
Man, I don't know what they do. I'm not sure yet.
00:18:42
Speaker
living things, or if you could throw something and see if it'll target it, you know what I mean? Typically they target creatures. Okay, that's kind of what I thought. Oh, that's what I get. I'll grab a rat. If you'd like to give me a check to grab a rat, you can. No. These are Kog's rats. Hey, down here, this is their usual size. Typically, they're like in droves down here. Oh, no. Okay. What can we... He might look it off. We could dispel it. I just don't know. Right. What can we do about it?
00:19:08
Speaker
what I can do I can dispel it I could see normally I would try to bypass it or take control of it but I have to get close to do that so I don't know and obviously if I try to get close I'm just gonna say oh it's the name right so the best thing I can think of is to try and dispel it
00:19:28
Speaker
And then he'd know it's dispelled is the question. And I don't know that. It appears as though our two options are to get shot at by it or to spell it. I think that's probably right. And either way he's going to know we're here at that point. Maybe. If he doesn't already. Right. I think, and at least periodically, I think, I think Milo's the only other one that can dispel. Milo's probably
00:19:56
Speaker
a better chance of overcoming whatever he's got in a test of raw magic. If I could get close enough to it to work on it with tools, then I could probably do it, but I have a distance. Cool, it got blasted. Right, and I'm not as capable as that. Yeah. So is that my plan? You're up, Smokey. I don't know what the normal range of dispel is and whether or not we have to... Short range, three purple difficulty.
00:20:24
Speaker
But because of the maker of this, it is one red, two purple. It's official price. It's the maker of the... Bandai. Bandai. Bandai Namco. That's a good pool. Hey, Bandai. I'm going to make another purple one. Show off. See what happens. You can flip it back if you want. I don't care. Yeah, you're kind of the spare king, so... No, let me turn one of the purples into a red. Not add another purple. Two of the reds into a yellow.
00:20:53
Speaker
I could get, I could, let's get it back and I'll just have another yellow. There you go. More pips, more pips. Okay, I think that's as much as we can do. Where's the triumph? Where's the triumph? It's on the underside of this one. Okay. Reality's still distorted, so all these are upside down. Those, that takes care of, those two, yeah. No, those are advantage. You're looking for little, little starbursts. Two away. Yeah. And take those away. So you have two advantage. Oh, dang it.
00:21:24
Speaker
Two advantage. Okay. Milo, you do not successfully dispel the magics, but I have a two advantage for you that I think you all are going to want. It's not that the spell failed while making contact. You just, the magic didn't work. So if there is some level of scrying through this, they don't know that you tried to dispel it. Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah. Yes. That was ineffective, but what's next?
00:21:52
Speaker
I don't know, other than just trying again. Do I just have to... I just have to go? No, I don't think... Listen, if this guy designed these creatures that have been tracking those professionals, I don't think it's wise for us to just take it in on the chin. Would it detect a goner? But I don't know, what's he going to do? Smash it! That sounds like a great way to tell him we're here. We're essentially knocking on his wall. I understand that!
00:22:21
Speaker
Are we certain that this is the only way in? Perhaps we go for a bit of a walk around and see if maybe there's a somewhat of another entrance. Do we have the bird? Yeah, Tasha's here. But Tasha's got an elemental in her, so she's a creature. I didn't know she could go up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have Tasha take a circle around. I just don't know whether the I doubt any of these entrances are obvious.
00:22:50
Speaker
but I can try. I can try to dispel it. Give it a shot. And then I don't think I can. It's not a divine spell, right? No. I do one divine technically during combat. This is normally a hard. Yes. But it's because of the making of it, it's got one upgrade automatically. OK, one success. All right.
00:23:16
Speaker
Okay. So yeah. So were you doing it a distance or you walked up? I was staying at a short range. I think is what I could do it at. So I was staying definitely staying at short range. Okay. Yeah. It's weird that dispel gets harder when you're engaged. Huh? Yeah. That is strange.
00:23:33
Speaker
I think his all magic is upgraded when you're engaged. When you're engaged, sometimes you move in together, start sharing assets already, you get triggered and expelled. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, you get a sense, the arcane runes on this wall, you have successfully dispelled them. I think I took care of the runes. There's still a trap there on the ground.
00:23:51
Speaker
Does it look hoppable? It looks hoppable. Can we wall run it? You can try. I want to try. I can. I'm pretty sure I can too. I got the athletics to wall run it. I know it's not on the cans. It will be an easy athletics check to hop over this. Okay. Okay. So. Iris just goes along the wall. Yes. You are able. I can toss anybody who needs tossed. If you have particularly bad athletics. Olive can also just brace her arms on the walls. Yeah, my athletics are.
00:24:21
Speaker
We got one green for the old athletics. All right, I'm tossing Milo. No wait, give me an athletic check. Oh, I got yellow and green, I think. Just one purple. That's an easy check. Yeah. Guys, go ahead and roll. Basically, you're making the check for Milo. Right. Guys, go ahead and roll three purple and get us both across real quick. I got a triumph! Oh, no. Did you roll? Who did? And you succeeded. One success, one triumph. Yeah. OK.
00:24:49
Speaker
Go ahead, Jeff. Are you rolling for Hobbs? This is too gently toss Milo across. Oh no! Oh no! Are you kidding me? Happened. I rolled two blank faces on the yellows. I have failed with three advantage. Did you roll the boosts you get from your tattoos?
00:25:11
Speaker
Oh, that's right. You always get a boost from your tattoo. I get a boost to athletic and acrobatics, right? Yep. That's right. I have that written down on paper. Don't make a waste this triumph on everyone makes it across the place. Another blank. OK, my triumph is everyone makes it easily across us. Let me think. Let me look. You can deplete the tattoo until recharged. Absolutely not. To add successes. That's unbelievable. That's just astonishing.
00:25:41
Speaker
Just hop over it. I'm not depleting it. I can't deplete it. I will probably need it. Okay. What happens is Milo underestimates Milo's mass and goes to just gently toss him and just shoots it short by a foot. Milo's like, no, no. As soon as you hit the ground, like it's not a fiery explosion. It's just sheer force.
00:26:07
Speaker
Like an airbag? Like you sat on an airbag? No, there's a poof as like the dust and dirt flies up as Milo launches backwards. I hate today. Oh man. Can I take a shot to catch him? Milo, you suffered forest drain.
00:26:26
Speaker
I guess I may as well see if I jump over it. Mechanically, you're reduced to one maneuver per turn for the next round, which we're not going to combat. Having done that, Hobb's going to try to jump over it now. Okay, now that Hobb's on the other side, Miley, you're still on the wrong side of it, so you need to try to jump over.
00:26:51
Speaker
We can't say hello, Gusto. What do I need to roll to jump across and catch Milo at the... What's the distance that we're talking about? Two and a half feet. Can Olive reach over with her tentacle arms, pick up Milo, and bring him across? Now. Or Ygric, with his giant, beefy arms. Quick, Milo, see if you would have done it on your own. We don't need to talk about that. You definitely don't need to ever have that come up again. Milo would have made it. I would have just...
00:27:20
Speaker
listeners want to know Trevor you have a triumph is everyone like healthy fine they love it then my strain is almost half now I have one I have two wounds from the fight
00:27:41
Speaker
You got three wounds, five strain, but I get strained back. Oh, I take that back. I have four strain. I've got seven strain. So I have to. The triumph takes all our strain away. I'll say that you can use a triumph to say that before you all left, you like stocked up on healing potions like you have a healing potion for each person on you. It doesn't seem like a good triumph. It does seem like a good triumph. It's quite a good triumph. It's a great triumph. Well, it always has.
00:28:09
Speaker
Cure five wounds. You just get five. I don't have any wounds, I have strength. But you will have. You will have wounds. He's not saying you have to use it now, you have it. Is there anything better we can use the triumph for in this current situation? Maybe, but I don't know what it is. Trevor's poisoned by the fact he doesn't take a lot of wounds during combat.
Navigating 'The Cogs' and Creative Strategies
00:28:25
Speaker
Those of us who designed a trash can. What about the choice he makes? If you don't like it, then we can think of something else, for sure. It's a weird time to get a triumph. It is a strange role to get a triumph on.
00:28:36
Speaker
I could say we get there successfully. I don't think we can use it just to say we win. Well not win, but get to at least the door. Maybe there's X the number of fewer bad things. I don't know. Maybe we can do something to give one of the subsets. We have a
00:28:57
Speaker
I can't think of their names. I'm so sorry. Little fighter. Little robot fighter boy. Shadow hunter. Shadow hunter. Perhaps we can do, we can say something with that triumph. We figured out something about the shadow hunters. We were able to, I don't know, put padding around our ankles and it gives them a- They're shadow stalkers. Stalkers, pardon me. Synonyms, my guy. And definitely in the same family. Alliteration is important. Okay. I can't argue with that. It's extremely important.
00:29:27
Speaker
Can we think of something that we say they get a setback die on attacks because we figured this out about them? That could certainly be something. That would be great. I don't know if we can. I mean, you can do an upgrade to the next attack against you all. That's a triumph. Yeah. It's not in perpetuity. I assume in perpetuity. Yeah. It's your triumph, bud. What do you think? Let's do the potions. Okay, okay. You all have four healing potions.
00:29:55
Speaker
We're gonna bring E back, see what she's up to with her tie up. A rift opens up, E pops out, and we heard this guy called her Eevee. Oh, well, it's not good. He's dead. Okay. She made the promise. So you all are over the now little ditch in this alley fan. Mom's like, hey buddy, are you okay? Yes, it just knocked the wind out. Yeah, you slipped. I don't really like this thing. He's wiping his hands against his pants. There's rope.
00:30:23
Speaker
You never had that problem before, you know, when you've thrown me. Yeah, man, I know. You turn the corner to the right where you saw the shadow stalker going, and you see the backside of some buildings and the cogs. Lots of shadows, like this back here, the light coming from the street is where there's a pool of shadow on the backside of each building. Are there doors?
00:30:49
Speaker
on the backside of the buildings now. These buildings are not up to code. Perceiving. It's like a perception. I want to like detect if there's magic aura or maybe he's using some type of an illusion. Are we perceiving again?
00:31:11
Speaker
My mind was, how hard is this one? It's two red, one purple. I get the three yellows. And Brandy will have, we're gonna do this check and then I'll have you do yours. Two red, one purple. Two red, one purple, yep.
00:31:32
Speaker
Hang on. Now we're good. This is it. This is your perception, normally. Two yellow, one green. And you need a green as well, because it upgrades you twice. A triumph! Another one. But did you succeed? Oh, that's a lot of failure though. But did you succeed? No. You did not. If I got a triumph, I didn't succeed though. One failure, one triumph. Okay. Yeah, Raynard, you...
00:31:54
Speaker
Can't see with your goggles what's going on back here, but you do have a triumph. If you don't know immediately what you want to do with that, Randy was wanting to make another check as Milo. Yeah. Just go ahead and give me a arcana check to try and detect these things with Detect Magic. Same difficulty, though. Two red, one point bolt. Eat that strain up. Two red, one purple. Your arcana like five yellow.
00:32:21
Speaker
No, it's four and a green. That's something I thought I asked. Okay. But did you succeed? Yeah, it's close again. One, two, three, four, five successes. And how many of those are knocked out? One, two, three, four of them. So one success.
00:32:44
Speaker
And a triumph. Two success. Two success and a triumph. And a threat. And a threat. And a triumph. Nope, they can't solve it. Sorry, you're right, I apologize. Yeah, so it's just two success. One of which is a triumph. Okay, so yeah, you using your arcane ability, Randy, suffer two strain because you use magic. I don't wanna. Then you don't get to succeed on that check because you don't get to make that check.
00:33:12
Speaker
So yeah, you can sense that there are a couple of shadow stalkers watching you. You can't see exactly where they are, but you sensing what you're sensing and look the scene, what you're seeing with your eyes, you get the sense that probably these things have some kind of ability to where they're, when they're in shadow, they are virtually invisible. Triumph, two triumphs, in fact, on the table.
00:33:39
Speaker
So there's two of them and they are definitely, eventually invisible. The heavens open him. So I'm not sure where they are, but I can feel them. It's washed with light in this particular outfit. I was kind of thinking about maybe using our triumph to say we were, I can't think of the word though, we're like ready so we get that advantage instead of them. Like we already prepared ourselves whenever they attack.
00:34:06
Speaker
What's that word? Because there's right, I'm going to roll. Initiative? No. Oh, what is that word? It's happened many times. Initiative? No. Free route? Is that? Rolling Vigilance, is it a cool? Yeah, so like we have the more of the upper hand. So you get to roll cool on your initiative instead of Vigilance?
00:34:29
Speaker
Is that what it is? I really don't. I'm not sure what you're going for, but if you're talking about the role to decide who goes first in an encounter, it's cool or vigilant, so the two skills. Yeah, there's one that we have more of an advantage. It depends on the character sheet. I'm better with vigilance than cool. And I'm better with cool because Eris' presence is higher than her willpower. So that's the no. I'm better with vigilance because I'm not very cool, because I wanted to play something opposite my real life.
00:34:56
Speaker
I don't know what I am. I'm extremely cool. I'm pretty cool. I would guess you are better at cool because I would think that Reynard is a high presence character. Wow, I have a lot of verse. I should really use that. We really do. Okay, we have two triumphs and a situation. So... How about with one of them? That is just like a straight narrow alley. There's nothing branching off anywhere. It's just... No, we're in like a little
00:35:25
Speaker
Take it like a cul-de-sac for an alley. We're at a dead end at the end of an alley that branches, right? Or widens.
00:35:33
Speaker
No, so you're on the edge of the cogs, like it's the stone walls and everything, because you're underground, right? So it's like cavernous, like, so you are behind the buildings that are up on the edge of the cogs. So one side is caves, then walking ahead, you eventually hit a dead end, and there are just alleys feeding into this space back behind the buildings. So there are multiple points of ingress here? Yes, ingress since we're inside of it. So what about
00:36:02
Speaker
a group of whatever stumbles in from another direction and occupies them, the shadow stalkers, takes them away from us. You just made a sacrificial party. Yeah, like really, they're really evil dudes though. They need to go. Yeah, they're probably from Dinnith. They're Dinnith's recruiters. They're Dask recruiters. Pardon me, they're Dask recruiters. They've been causing a lot of trouble.
00:36:32
Speaker
with innocent people, and if they don't get taken care of now, we would have to take care of them later, so it would save us time down the road. Throw that in there? Yeah. He's a bad dude, and they come stumbling in far enough away that it attracts the Shadowstalker's attention away from us. That's all I can think of, if he's cool with that. It's very much your triumph. Yeah, sure.
00:37:02
Speaker
Unless somebody's got a better idea. We also have another triumph, so it's okay if it's not the best idea. I think it's a good idea. I was going to say, if that distracts them to go, maybe my triumph can be
00:37:18
Speaker
We climb the entrance and we get in. Our little guy just goes, oh, I'm going inside. And we follow him. OK. I'm not telling you all anything until I know what. I know. You all are using the track. I'm OK with Randy's suggestion. Yeah, I think both of those suggestions are fine. Here's my question. You did? No.
00:37:40
Speaker
I like the idea of, but I'm wondering if we need to use a triumph for that guy to lead us to the right door. If he knows where he's going and he's already been there, then maybe we don't need to use a triumph for that. And the second triumph, I really thought we already used the first one. Trevor rolled one on the back to back. He rolled another one. He used the other triumph for an upgrade on the next one. Thanks just as much. I'm not going to roll him anymore. I'm going to give it how this one's going. It might save us some time. Well, let's start with the Earth. Does that work?
00:38:04
Speaker
Is that what you're using it on? Yeah, because we put both together and it makes one big one. But we don't know what the big one is, so we can't think of a big one. So you're wanting some members of Dask to come stumbling back here and draw the attention of the Shadowstalkers that you detected is Milo's Dark, man. No, I am just making sure that I heard it. That's what it sounds like. Yeah, these are evil bad guys.
00:38:30
Speaker
You don't get to determine the morality that you decide to kill. No, it's my triumph. They're evil. I love when Randy teaches you about your game. It's my favorite part of my game. I don't do it very often, but I try. So yeah, a couple of Dask come stumbling back here, how they got past the traps.
00:38:49
Speaker
Who knows? Well, I'm, yeah, I'm retiring. We deactivated a bunch of stuff. Looking forward to spending more time with the kids, traveling, doing some stuff. No. They come stumbling back there and they're clearly drunk and crowsing, came down the wrong alleyway and they step into one of the shadows together and the shadows get darker as they enter it.
00:39:12
Speaker
and you hear screaming and one of them goes running out of the shadows and you see it like two figures go around the corner chasing after them. The other figure did not leave the shadow. Well let's move down. They chased him so they're gone. We've got to resolve this other triumph so we're not spending 20 minutes on it as well. An upgrade is an option too Trevor.
00:39:37
Speaker
Or we just... We just what? Make it past this park safely. We gotta stop trying to use the number for that though. Yeah, we're gonna deal with issues sooner or later. Yeah. You can have an upgrade to overcome the next trap that you come across. You can see how I did it. Let's just do that. I think that's a good idea. We'll just do it the next time I try to throw Milo. Okay, so you all see the two shadow stalkers go rushing around the corner. And yeah, so you're letting your shadow stalker bleed the way? Yep.
00:40:06
Speaker
So it heads to the shadow that these two Dask just walked into. Imagine that. And Milo said he sent two and two ran off, right? Yes. As you enter the shadows, your vision begins to adjust slightly and you see the Dask that did not leave the shadow. He's like laying on the ground on his back looking up and he looks completely normal except for where his face should be. There's just a cavernous hole.
00:40:33
Speaker
And yeah, the shadow stalker reaches like where the building meets the ground like this, and it like scutters down and like slides in between the wall and the dirt.
Discoveries and Avoiding Traps
00:40:47
Speaker
Slides between the wall and the dirt. Yep. All right. I want to examine where it went. Is there a gap? There is a gap that you could presumably try to slide in. Could all of us? Yeah.
00:41:02
Speaker
You're real hamstring the party if all of you can't make it done. No, I mean, egric might have a hard time, but everyone else would easily be able to. All right, I want to... Eat all of you can rigged up, eat your eggs thick. Yeah, okay. I want to carefully examine this. Egric stands in front of the hole so none of them can kick in. Oh, I know. The next weird triumph I get to make egric shrinkable. I'm going to examine this gap to see if there are traps. Okay.
00:41:29
Speaker
That will be one red, two purple. I can tell you right now. Is that a hole? Make it two red, one purple. As I upgrade. You have three sword points. I'll spend one and upgrade. Do you just want to keep it with your human ability? Yes. Four success, three advantage. Four success, three advantage. It turns out it is just big enough for Ygric to work his way through. Love it.
00:41:59
Speaker
Yeah. So you can tell he is trapped. Sure. Raise it heavily against creatures that tried to enter. So that's what you can tell. It seems like being this low to the ground in this part of the city, this would just get clogged with vermin. Why'd you think so? All the time.
00:42:19
Speaker
I hope that these are not incendiary traps because putting those in the foundations of these buildings is terrible. I don't like it. In fact, it's all the traps. It's just all traps. Just pick a trap. Yeah, it's all traps. Who's vermin? You. So we need to disable traps. Are these traps Le Magique? Yes. Okay.
00:42:46
Speaker
Is that...artificery? I have smashed a mechanical trap or two to death in my time. Is this artifice? Yeah, I can do an artifice check. Can I use a verse on something?
00:43:00
Speaker
Not this, but maybe someday there's going to definitely be some things you can use. You can heal with the verse. No, I got accidentally resurrect one guy and I'll just let you go. It's the don't figure why I don't want to use it. What's the difficulty of this? The difficulty of this is to read one purple. OK, this feels pretty good. Hey, Milo, would you like to help? OK, yeah. OK, yes. Great. Three success to advantage.
00:43:29
Speaker
Three success, two advantage. You also have three advantage. We haven't used this yet.
00:43:34
Speaker
I will spend these on strain because I have a couple I would like to begin whatever is about to begin able to cast spells. You can tell that this trap as you're disabling it what it is a portal that overlays the actual entrance so if a creature tries to enter without some kind of password or apparatus or something they just get sent to a pocket dimension like a bag of holding where there's no air or anything like that so they just
00:44:04
Speaker
drop this looks wow this doc that's real doc a portal as a security measure is great but i'm just trying to murder tube so like it was just a portal to right back where you were every time yeah just a mirror portal you keep walking through the door that'd be amazing okay but you have disabled it everyone can fit
00:44:30
Speaker
Let's go. Okay. Does Egrk lead? Sure. And then I go down second. Sure. Okay. As you all drop down through this little, it's not an immediate drop down. You have to like, extremely claustrophobic. Like you're basically spelunking underneath the city of Sharn in a very tight crawl space that is about the size for these shadow stalkers to very easily clamor and so you all
00:44:57
Speaker
are making your way down, it takes probably like three to four minutes of like shimming through this very tight dark space to get down where you need to go. I'm thinking we should have our pet shadow stalker at the back.
00:45:11
Speaker
Well, it already went. Yeah, it already went, and that's what I was gonna say. I don't want one to come in and eat the face of whoever's at the back of our line. I don't want that either. Shut up about it. Who is at the back of the line? Just curious. You're at the front. You're at the back. Traditionally at the back. Traditionally at the back. You are typically at the back. You traditionally are at the back. That's not what's gonna happen. Not if the back's dangerous. I don't want to be back there. Finally at the back. Okay. We're gonna bring it up the rear. Okay, so eventually,
00:45:39
Speaker
After a handful of minutes, Hob, you see Ygric drop out of you. Just, I'm curious, who went down feet first versus head first? Once you said how narrow it was, I thought I would be going head first. Head first? Okay. Paris is on her back using the grip on her, the magnets on her gloves to pull herself along the underside of whatever we're under. Okay. I think Raynard is...
00:46:04
Speaker
an elfin nimble, so probably just going like a ladder. Just feet first. Feet first. Miles waiting outside. Miles. Aeris is probably very happy about that. Aeris feet first on his stomach so we can see what's coming out behind him. You can't even get into visible. I liked it. Doesn't matter. That's just for us. Kind of a bigger chat than a box. Okay. Hob, as you just get... Just not climbing, just miming the action of climbing.
00:46:34
Speaker
As you get to the end of the crawlway, head first, Ygric drop down and immediately roll away. I'm just going to ask you, are you looking where you're about to leap? Are you dropping down, falling Ygric? If I see Ygric start to drop, I'm going to look over the edge before I see how far it is before I choose how to drop. It is a safe enough distance to drop down. You're not going to die from doing this.
00:46:58
Speaker
purplish light, like it's a wash, like you can't see the source of it and you see kind of stone, it's clearly like manufactured like fabricated stone walkway down below where you're looking to drop. Give
Confrontation with Arcane Forces
00:47:13
Speaker
me a perception check. Eager kids already dropped? Eager kids dropped. Give me a perception check to write one purple. Fellas, I'm going to fail. This is a question of how bad. Let me double check.
00:47:25
Speaker
Y'all ready for this? Wait, that's not right. There she is. It's a wash, isn't it? You want that? No, it's a wash. Nope, it's a wash. Okay. Okay, you notice nothing. You see the earich chop down and it's perfectly fine. I still see the purple rocks. I still see the purple wine and stones. I just can't make any heads or tails of them. Yeah.
00:47:47
Speaker
And importantly, you saw Eger drop down and was fine. It is definitely not wide enough to have Eris shimmy up and take a look at the next one. It's on you, buddy. Who's right behind me? I don't think we established who was on third. Cath. I wanted to know if I could hang on the ledge and let the next person look over and see if they could figure it out. I have to drop, right? But I do it cool. So I do a summer salt holding on the ledge until I'm hanging and then I drop the rest of the way. Okay.
00:48:14
Speaker
And then who kills him? All of you crawling down, you can see past each other, not enough space to move. But you hob drop, you hear a poof, and then hob immediately launch back up into the cavern before falling back down as the floor explodes underneath you. And you suffer four straight. Mm. It's all that bad, Milo. I don't know what you're doing. There's nothing doing just happened? That was the trap. Yeah, you dropped out of the trap. That was the something doing. I know exactly what that was. OK.
00:48:44
Speaker
I need initiative because once the birds go away, I'm before you a massive cavern before you. You are on a stone walkway going around the edge of this cavern. In the middle of it is a giant
00:49:06
Speaker
purplish, arcane vortex. Like you have stumbled onto something massive underneath the city of Sharn. You doesn't know enough about arcane stuff to make heads or tails in this, so I'll wait. I just see a big purple whirlpool. But above it are floating platforms that are circling with bridges connecting some of them.
00:49:29
Speaker
and in the center and like shadow stalkers crawling. Sure. And on the center is a platform that is long distance away from where you currently are. Like you can't just get there quick. You see a figure in a mirror mask. Playing the organ. Playing the organ. And behind them is
00:49:51
Speaker
like an arcane forge of some kind that is clearly being fueled by this magic that they are like
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah, they're not conducting a ritual or anything, but yeah, they- Is it like Sorcerer's Apprentice? Like- And at certain points, Hob, as you take in this site, occasionally, like one of the bridges holding two of the platforms together, like it disappears and reappears between two other platforms. Like the arcane magic is just causing stuff to like shift and move around in weird and erratic ways. So, role initiative. Hob says, guys, get down here, we're gonna die, so cool. End of episode.
00:50:30
Speaker
Thank you all so much for listening. If you want to be part of the conversation surrounding this episode, you can head on over to our Discord, link to which you can find on all our socials, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok. We also have a Facebook channel, Deep Pantheon, IGTA Bulltop RPG videos over there. And we also have another actual play on YouTube on the Laughing Tree.
00:50:48
Speaker
channel called Kyra Shards. It's also in Eberron, specifically Stormreach. Phillips on it, I'm on it. Check it out. Also Patreon, patreon.com slash the Geek Pantheon. If you want to financially support the shows anywhere you're able, you can do so over there. And we also have a merch store at thegeekpantheon.com. Game Master Eric.
00:51:06
Speaker
I'm Philip. I'm Trevor. Randy. Player Jeff. Bye. Bye.