Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
C2 Ep. 194 Head in the Sand Chapter Two
435 Plays7 months ago
Where are these people coming from?
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Darrin Katzska, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrell DeLaney, Charles Compton, Deviouspoptart, Nastasia Raulerson, David Scrams, Elizabeth Clark, Rebekah Gowman, deviouspoptart, Eðvarð Arnór Sigurðsson, Michael Clark, Jerry Theuns, Mark Stanley, and Shelby Johnson.
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:09
Speaker
D20
Introductions and Transformations
00:00:10
Speaker
Radio, your game is roll.
00:00:47
Speaker
Hello 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 Randy. I'm Jeff. Welcome to another episode. Gentlemen,
Combat with the Warforged Begins
00:00:58
Speaker
what happened last time? We met our doppelgangers after turning Hobb into an ostrich. Yeah. We took a good long look in a bad dark mirror and it's not. Hell, that mirror punched Hobb in the chest. Hard. Yep. And Milo didn't hit hard.
00:01:16
Speaker
Dark Reynard actually wears a mask though. Like Dark Reynard actually makes some effort to disguise himself. That is factual. Yeah. So we're going to pick up where we left off at the start of the second round and we have an NPC slot. So this Warforged being the only active combatant still, I guess the drone that shot at you all is still flittering about because it wasn't on the boat.
00:01:41
Speaker
I mean, if she wants to use her maneuvers for that, for that purpose, when her skiff is diving towards the ground, I guess she could. So uses a maneuver to stand up because he was knocked prone by Hobbs. Yeah. I mean,
Warforged Taunts and Attacks
00:01:55
Speaker
the, the pride factor is enough. The warforged stands back up and you hear kind of a metallic chuckle and says, that's more like it. And he's going to punch. He flexes his metallic pecs. Yep. Okay. Melee to Vince three. And he has a setback from being whatever it's oriented, right?
00:02:10
Speaker
Yep. He'll aim his fist. Fair. Okay. The pool is four yellow, one green, one blue, two purple, four black. And because I'm feeling generous, I'll spend a story point to upgrade that last green to yellow to get you all another story point in the pool. Seven success, four threat. Wow. This one's gonna hurt. I'm gonna feel this finally. Gonna feel one.
00:02:33
Speaker
Once again, no failure appearing on the negative dice in this attack. 15 damage. Hey, now we're talking. Rather than aiming for the chest. No, like, of course this like stands back up. That's more like it.
Combat Strategies and Upgrades
00:02:47
Speaker
And then grabs, hob shoulders and headbutts hob back. And for threat gang, that's.
00:02:54
Speaker
Quite a healthy amount. What would you like to do with it? Mechanically, you could pass a upgrade to the difficulty of the next combatant's check. I'd allow you to pass yourselves an upgrade to your next check. You could do four threats. You could do something narrative that is impactful. This would be like a light despair worthy amount. So from your perspective, a triumph.
00:03:19
Speaker
I don't have any good narrative ideas. It's okay with me if we pass an upgrade to whatever the next thing that someone of them has to do to the difficulty. But if someone has a narrative idea, that's always more fun. But I don't have a good narrative idea for this particular moment. Do you guys want to play psychologist for a second? Do you think Eric built these guys like our characters in the sense that for strain might be the worst thing we could do to this character?
00:03:44
Speaker
Well, it depends because like you you're pretty safe on strain like strain to me or Milo really screws us up because we use it for so many things. You're not quite so reliant on it. Well, strain strain
NPC Control and Strategic Moves
00:03:54
Speaker
is what I used to do anything to boost anything offensive. I see. Yeah, I could be that's so he could be have been using some strain to.
00:04:03
Speaker
Force Train's a good chunk. Also, the passing an upgrade just seems like a really smart move. Yeah, let's just do that because I don't want to make a gamble on... So are you passing a positive upgrade to Ural's next check or an upgrade to the difficulty of the next enemy check? Which would you prefer? I was thinking difficulty. Yeah, let's do... Okay, ready to go with difficulty? Yeah. All right, let's do that. This next NPC...
00:04:26
Speaker
Next NPC is going to make a piloting check to try and gain control of her skiff again. Or at least try to mitigate the dive, I guess. If Alira just went out and found Dark Us to try to take out Morally Grey. I wish we were Morally Grey. We're firmly bad guys. It's all relative, you know.
00:04:45
Speaker
From a certain perspective. Yes. You all are. Your, your main drive right now is to just perform a coup for the mob, which, you know, some people might consider just plain bad, but nuance, the current mob boss wants to kill you all and you don't like that. That's right. Replace a boss that doesn't want to kill us probably yet. Okay. So normally I was going to give this a hard difficulty to try and pull this out of a nosedive.
00:05:11
Speaker
upgrade
Post-Battle Discussion and Examination
00:05:12
Speaker
from the check and I'm going to add an upgrade also from the fact that Eris is an active control of the ship. So basically that very much evens out the check. It's two yellow, one green versus two red, one purple. Set back because her ship is in an active dive. Sure. Three failure and an advantage. All right.
00:05:33
Speaker
So, she's not able to pull it up out of the dive. One advantage. She will pass a boost to the next NPC slot. And that is it for her turn. PC slot. Top of the round. Punch him, Hob. Punch him. Yeah, I'll punch him. Hang on, let me see what I want to do to it though. I was looking. Do, do, do. He doesn't really need to do that.
00:05:57
Speaker
Yeah, I am going to, yeah, I'll double or nothing it at least. Okay. I'm just going to punch standard brawl check. He has adversary two, two red instead of two purple and no melee defense though. All right. So two red, so that's two red and one purple would be the check or just two red period.
00:06:17
Speaker
Just two red, because it's a melee check. Unless your double or nothing does anything in terms of the- No, I do get a boost for being a ring fighter, and I think that is it. So it's four yellow, a green, and a blue versus two red. I feel okay. It's not gonna be huge damage, but let's see what happens. Are you kidding me? Okay. So that is not great. One success, five advantage.
00:06:45
Speaker
So that is two success 10. Yes. Sorry, Jeff, you're based double or nothing. You do have to increase the difficulty by one. Wait, I thought it was, let me double check. Oh, increase difficulty. I missed it. You're right. So you should just roll, roll, roll purple. See, see what it comes up.
00:07:01
Speaker
So one success and four advantage. Okay, so the success means, so two success. So that's nine damage. And what shall we do with eight advantage? Use two of them. Ten damage. Does your punch have any pierce or anything? Yeah, I am pierce two. Okay. Sorry, thank you for reminding me. Is that right, pierce two? And where's my stupid weapon thing? There it is. Wait.
00:07:30
Speaker
I messed up, let me try this again, I apologize. It's been so long since I've punched somebody. It's brawl plus my weapon damage plus number of successes, yes? Yes. So because you're using a melee weapon, the plus, yeah, it's, yeah, brawn plus the damage. Brawn, not brawl. Yeah, brawn, sorry. Brawn plus damage plus success, you're correct. Okay, so that's 13 damage, I apologize. 13 wounds.
00:07:57
Speaker
And it is Pierce two. Okay. And I'll go ahead and use two of those eight advantage to key monk and do it again to give him another 13. Okay. And I have six advantage. What shall we do? That's a lot guys. Crit. Yeah, I was thinking that too. I can crit and pass an upgrade. Yeah. Let's do that. So, or crit and pass two boost, pardon me, not an upgrade. How many advantage do you have? I have six. Remember I get to double everything when I do double or nothing now.
00:08:25
Speaker
Yeah. And you used two to, and you said it was four advantage to critters at five. Oh, it's crit three. It's crit three. That's right. Jeez. Okay. I'm sorry. I swear I've looked at my character sheet in the last six months. I don't know what's going on with me.
00:08:42
Speaker
You're good. So you could, you could double crit, you have vicious two, so you could add plus 30 if you used your other advantage to double crit. All the advantage to double crit. I would add 30. Let's just do that. Let's just, yeah. So roll a D 100. Yessir. So 55 plus 30. Yep. 85. 85.
00:09:05
Speaker
Winded, the target cannot voluntarily suffer strain to activate any abilities or gain additional maneuvers until the critical injury is healed.
00:09:14
Speaker
does not make sense with a warforged but you know we'll go with it okay got some sand in his gears yeah yeah so what is it what does it look like jeff i
Being Followed by Verla
00:09:25
Speaker
think he so he has he has stood up i think hob just decides you know i had butted you and you had butted me let's just run this thing fully in reverse and just takes both hands and palm strikes of dead center mass in his chest
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think it rattles some of his plating a bit and maybe that's why he uh has difficulty maneuvering after that Nice cool. I think he has to take a couple steps backwards and he has to really look over looks over the side of the skiff like I like it. Yeah. Okay. I can really paint a picture with my words, you know, and that's all i've got No, no, he said oh my I I ate
00:10:01
Speaker
Divine casters don't have a spell I thought they did. Wasn't one of these NPC slots gone because didn't one of them decide? Yeah, so the last one will just be skipped over. That part of the ability is they reserve the right to return if things are really better. So. That's hilarious. That's really funny. I'm imagining that that character simply spread his cape turned into an actual owl and flew. What am I doing?
00:10:24
Speaker
Of course, yeah, it would be notable because it's the middle of the day. I'm going to flip a story point and you all see as the chaos is happening around you, the other skiff has dove. You see a single solitary bat fluttering off into the distance away from the fight. Interesting vampires. And that is their turn. And the figure that left.
00:10:49
Speaker
does not feel good about the idea of coming back, so skip over that NPC slot. PC slot. Go ahead, Phillip. We like it, yeah. Okay, yeah. Iris has still got auto-fire activated, so she is going to aim with the maneuver and...
00:11:05
Speaker
Do some shooting. Auto upgrade because engaged with Hob. Right? That'll probably be fine. Probably. A short range, right? Wait, is this a... Did you say auto upgrade? Yeah, because you are engaged with the enemy. Right. You also get a boost die because you and I are engaged. And that's my back to back thing. Cool. We're not engaged. We wouldn't be engaged. Oh, I thought engaged was a range thing.
00:11:29
Speaker
We're on the boat, we're all engaged. You can be short range on the boat as well. I like the mindset a lot better that some people use engaged as a condition. Like you choose to become engaged with an enemy that you're within short range of, just because that means more sense to me. But sorry, adversary two. Got it. And that is it.
00:11:52
Speaker
for success and two advantage. So that is that's funny. That's the exact result of the previous one, except no despair. So let's just do the same thing again. So auto fire activates with the two advantage. And so that is 13 damage appears to twice. OK, Eris, what does it look like to neutralize this threat from the boat? Eris just keeps shooting shards of metal
Meeting at Pier Lads HQ
00:12:18
Speaker
into the warforged until it stops.
00:12:21
Speaker
Gotcha. Like, yeah, she is just just continuing to punch as many little holes in this warforged until it stops punching back. Okay, so yeah, yeah, just trigger down full blast firing.
00:12:37
Speaker
Eventually, especially since it's facing Hobb, you're kind of getting some of the, the more wooden fibrous areas on like the underarm and the joints exposed, sinking into those. And yeah, the enemy drops to a knee.
00:12:53
Speaker
And then as Eris just continues to fire into him, eventually slumps down on the ground and ceases moving. And then there's quiet. Yeah. And after a beat, once the Warforged enemy goes down, that drone that was still kind of hovering nearby turns and zips downward. Okay.
00:13:11
Speaker
I mean, Aeris, are you just going to continue telling this thing to nosedive until you can no longer control it because there isn't anything left to control or like what's the what's the plan? Aeris is trying to put it as far away from them as she can manage not being able to see it. I don't know. As soon as as soon as the warforged is down.
00:13:32
Speaker
Eris is going to bank hard and put some space between us. No, she'll, she'll have it dive for a few more seconds. So it's way down there. And then she'll essentially command just all stop. Yeah. But she will have it stop at an awkwardly steep angle. Okay. So that it's, it's hovering at like 60 degrees. Yeah. Awesome.
00:13:57
Speaker
So is this encounter over so I could heal some strain? You all can make a recovery check to heal. And what is that roll again? After a combat encounter. Discipline? Is it discipline? Yeah. Discipline or cool check to recover strain equal to the success that you roll. We're going to do that then. And I will heal to extra because of my talent.
00:14:25
Speaker
And it's success for wounds, advantage for strain. Success for strain. You're just catching your breath. I'm good. No wounds healed with this wool.
00:14:36
Speaker
But that's what's hurting me, Eric. Yeah, that's why it's harder to take care of. Same. And the first healing is five. Yeah, I'm definitely gonna take a healing. For healing potions, I believe that is true. Yes. Do we all have potions on us? Milo's always got at least two on him. That's like... Just ask him. If we can all take one, then I'm taking one, yeah.
00:15:04
Speaker
What are we doing with him? Them? I don't know. They're warforged. So the boat has gone far enough away that it's no longer a problem. And we have an unconscious warforged. Dead? Unconscious. Unconscious. Inactive? I mean, Eris was filling it with bullets, essentially. It did not seem like Eris was fighting to knock out.
00:15:30
Speaker
I mean, is there a setting to knock things out by shooting them with sharp pieces of metal? Generally speaking, no. I figure someone can repair him. Does that kill a warforged? They can't bleed out. They don't have organs. But warforged can die. Yes, for sure. Am I looking at this guy and seeing a reparable warforged in the limited knowledge that I have? Here's the thing.
00:15:59
Speaker
Warforged aren't fully automatons. Like they have a soul. And so once their chassis is inactive, like with the Ram, like Reynard had to use the resurrection spell to bring the Ram back. It wasn't, we repaired the Ram. I'm just still trying to figure out if this guy is
00:16:17
Speaker
Is he dead? He's dead on the ground. Sounds like he's dead. It is an NPC whose womb threshold was exceeded. So unless somebody was making an active effort to not kill them. Okay. He's dead on the ground. They're dead. Great. That's... Okay. All right. So we got to, well then we dump him off the, gives a crap what we do. He was going to try to kill us and we did it first. We treat him as ceremoniously as we have any other person that we've done that to.
00:16:38
Speaker
I mean, Eris, you see that this Warforged,
Warforged Status and Message for Alira
00:16:42
Speaker
like, in the same way that you, like, yeah, in the same way you have helped augment Hob, like, whoever that person was with the drones and stuff has clearly done a lot of, like, aftermarket work on the Warforged. So there is some level of... If you want to examine him before we dispose of this body, I think that it'd be a good idea, but that's what we're gonna do with him.
00:17:03
Speaker
It's fine. I didn't think he was dead, so I didn't want to just chuck him off of an airship. Sure, I think that's a good general rule. Probably still a bad idea because he'd like hit something on the way down.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, no, you know, we shouldn't actually just throw him off the side of the boat, but do we want to take a look at this guy? For ID, if nothing else, maybe, I mean, clearly we've got no beef with this man. He was clearly hired by someone. Perhaps there's a letter on him. I don't know. I rifled through his pockets if he has any or his fanny pack or the. Yeah, I mean, he carries stuff. Yeah, rifling through. Are you all still like moving with the flow of traffic? Are you finding somewhere to like
00:17:46
Speaker
These people are interesting. I'm spending a story point. The warforged is disabled and not dead. OK, fair enough. I said I was shooting it until it stopped punching. OK, fair enough. That's that's what I said I was doing. I was going to shoot it until it stopped punching.
00:18:01
Speaker
Okay, noted. Okay, so rifling through the pockets of the Warforged, you find, the first thing of note that you find, you pull out a crumpled bit of paper and the flyer for the garden party is in the satchel. Okay. What does everyone know about this? And on the back of the flyer, you find like some notes scribbled saying, exact location unknown.
00:18:29
Speaker
but we've seen them heading to this part of the city lately. You also find communication with, from Alira and basically these, these are black lamps. Like they, they are, they are black lamps that operating underneath Alira and they have been tasked with dealing
00:18:50
Speaker
with you all well now we know so you always kind of leave this guy on a rooftop somewhere or we can we can beam the coordinates to somebody so we still have their numbers were were they hired to kill us or apprehend us does the communication from a lira say just out of curiosity there is no instruction to bring you all in
00:19:11
Speaker
There's no, like, apparent, like, and destroy them, but, like, yeah. Bring me that. I mean, there's three of us, one of him, and he's in bad shape, and we want to wake him up and ask him. But if I was like, hey, were you going to kill us? I would also say no in this situation. No, I mean, I was just, I was just, it just seemed like useful information. No, sure. Yeah, no, I mean, I feel like we can leave him on a rooftop. Yeah. I mean, if I was guessing, I'm sure Alire is not going to mind if we were,
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, there wasn't really an opportunity to use it given what he wanted to do in this particular encounter. But Eris, the aside from like the arm mounted piston things, which wouldn't really work on a organic being probably hurt more than would help. You do see a like shoulder, something similar to the tubing that popped out of the drone. You see a shoulder mounted with like four little like
00:20:05
Speaker
Holes. It's basically like a little like mini rocket shoulder mounted rocket launcher. Like think a la war machine. I take the ammunition out of it. OK. You remove the ammunition and stick it in my stick to my pack for for later examination. You pull out three cones. OK.
00:20:23
Speaker
Harris will stow those very carefully and then find a convenient rooftop. Does he possess any kind of obvious communicator? Is there anything on him that looks like a communications device or ascending stone or something like that? Does he have some copper wire wrapped around his fingers? Because because I misunderstood your intent with disabling the enemy and you flipped a story point, I'll say it as part of you flipping that story point. Yes, they do have a communicator on them. I write down the frequency.
00:20:53
Speaker
OK. And then once we get him onto the rooftop, Eris will get out her artificial tools. I was going to Eris starts to like get out something she can write a note on, but there's nothing to pin it to. So she's got her artificial tools and engraves on the like the side of his head plate.
00:21:08
Speaker
a
Mission Strategy and Concerns
00:21:09
Speaker
cool artifice, a Lyra, a psychopath. I hope you're OK. There is real pot and kettle situation calling someone a psychopath by engraving it in the body of falling. It'll it'll buff out. It's repairable. We need to roll to make sure this is cosmetic fixable because that's OK. Well, I can't pin anything to him without stabbing him. Yeah. So you all are able to leave leave this individual on the rooftop.
00:21:37
Speaker
and take off. You do see their their handle with the note that they were carrying is Blitz. They're like the group is called. No, no, no. Like this individual is Blitz. Oh, the war force. Yeah. Cool. OK. Headed the travel like Blitz got blitzed. A ha. Yeah. For some reason, we all just stare in the same direction for three. Awesome.
00:22:00
Speaker
jump in our swamp boat and head off across the Everglades. Okie dokie. So you all head to the pier lads. Yep. In the Griefled District, I believe is what we said they were located at because that's the Waterfront District. So that sounds right. That makes sense. Sounds like the place you would find a pier. Okay. So yeah, you all are able to get there without further incident.
00:22:24
Speaker
but I would like everyone to give me a hard three purple perception check. Sorry, scrolling. Some successes. Okay, Milo, take a point of strain. Heiress, you sort of passed. Yeah, I'll put a boost out with my advantage.
00:22:41
Speaker
Okay, Milo and Hob, you both, it makes sense, Aeris is piloting the skiff, maybe to a certain extent, who knows. Hob, Milo, as you're looking around, you spot kind of in the distance, definitely trying to blend in with traffic, a very normal looking skiff.
00:23:00
Speaker
tailing you all. Milo, this looks familiar, this gif.
00:23:13
Speaker
You know, what if I had to guess, I would say this is somebody working with Verla, keeping tabs on us. I'm going to flip a story point for that tab. Sorry. If Milo points this out, we're able to see it? Yeah. I mean, Hobbit already seen it. So yeah, Eris, you're able to clock that you are being tailed by a very normal looking skiff, but it's up a little bit higher, so you can't see who's in it from the current angle. I mean, you want to go take a look? Yeah. I mean, I can't see a lot of suspicion in raising up.
00:23:41
Speaker
Let's get a bone and see who's in there. Aris brings the ship up, ascends. There we go. We did just drop a body on the roof and you wrote on it for a while, so going up seems way less sketchy. They are going to make a- Didn't drop a body on a roof. I know your movements effectively. We safely deposited an assailant who we didn't murder. That sounds like good citizenship to me.
00:24:08
Speaker
It went to Eris. I. OK, so they are going to make a piloting check. Basically, difficulty determined by Eris is piloting, which is too green. But Tasha's piloting is too yellow and one green.
00:24:22
Speaker
Fair enough. One failure, one advantage. So they are going to, they will, I will just pass the boost to the next NPC role that occurs. One failure, you're able to, your speed with Tasha powering the skiff is a little bit too quick for them to fully mirror. So as you climb slightly quicker, you spot the top of Verla's head in the skiff. What we did was self-defense. Eris calls Verla.
00:24:50
Speaker
Amazing. Put it on speaker. Put it on speaker. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Verlet. You hear some wind rushing by the communicator. Hey, Eris, what's up? Hey, where are you? I'm just out in the skiff investigating a case. What's up? Eris starts waving wildly. Why's she investigating? Pre-crime. Serial murders. But I will head back and leave you all to it. Well, you're going to find that serial murderer.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yep, that's what I'm trying to do. Following us is not going to do it. But I could murder some cereal right now, actually, now that you mention it.
00:25:28
Speaker
That's, yeah, that sounds good. Verla, you see Verla skiff like, like turn out of traffic. Yeah, you make the right, so. Did that ship seem to have an attitude when it turned around? Well, I think we made a point. I'm not sure what we were trying to do, but we certainly made a point to Verla now. Everything's up and goes on. I'm glad I can be confident you did not, in fact, do the murders, Milo, or that could have been a misstep. Okay, so.
00:25:54
Speaker
You all arrive now at the peer lads headquarters without any further incident. So, well, I mean, how come we know you lied to us last time you said without further incident, there was then another incident. So I need everyone to make a coordination check to avoid the fireball incoming. No, I love you all arrive personally. Great. So you all see peer lad HQ. It's.
00:26:17
Speaker
as busy as it normally is, especially during the day. Nothing seems to be out of sorts. So yeah, you see Corin in the main area kind of talking to people and directing him. You don't see Tarvel out and about, but he might very well be in his office. So we ask is Tarvel in the office? Corin sees Joel. I'm like, yeah, he's in a meeting right now. So I don't know. He didn't didn't tell me. But if you want to wait out here, you'll be able to see when
00:26:47
Speaker
The door opens. Corin awkwardly gestures towards Tarvel's office. He did. Do we want to? Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks Corin. See you all. Bye. It's always a pleasure. We don't want to wait in case it's someone we don't want to meet, right? That's a bad idea. Right. There are like a lot of people that have legitimate reasons to meet with Tarvel that we don't want to see. Right. Yeah. So maybe I just park us up on a roof nearby and we can watch till somebody leaves. Love it. Yes.
00:27:13
Speaker
Okay. So we have a deck of cards. We may be up there for a minute. There's parts up on the roof and just settles into watch, I guess. Okay.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah, so probably after like probably 45 minutes or so waiting. Nerds. I won. You see a God, that would be the worst stakeout game because it's so fast paced and you have to pay so much attention to like five things happening at once. Yeah, you all have no idea. You look over in Tarver's office door is open. You have no idea what happened. No.
00:27:45
Speaker
So surrounded. See, this is why I don't like card games. So you all see Tarble's door open and out of the office, they turn and walk into the street away from the peer lads. You don't recognize this person. OK. They have their.
00:28:04
Speaker
Fairly tall, probably about Raynard's height, but a lot... It's Raynard's hair. Yeah. Raynard's height, Raynard's hair color, eye color, bone structure. Dressed as an owl. Yep. Keeps going, I'm Raynard. But you might know me as Drednier.
00:28:19
Speaker
So this personalized knife dangling loosely from the belt. This person about Raynard's height, but a lot a lot more muscle on their frame. You all have encountered enough people to know this person looks like they are a sailor or at least seafaring like maybe a pirate like that. They are there. They're of the sea.
00:28:38
Speaker
but their skin seems kind of sallow a little bit. Something seems kind of off about them. From this distance, you can't quite
Mysterious Visitor and Logistics
00:28:49
Speaker
peg anything without doing an intentional investigation.
00:28:53
Speaker
but they definitely seem a little off, and they turn and walk down the street. Just to see if it helps at all. When Eris is trying to identify the person, Eris will get out the Fletcher and look through the scope. You don't recognize them. They make some kind of check. Tell what's wrong with them or what species they are. You can give me a perception check. OK. I have a boost from my optics. Because I want it. Just because. Because you're my friend. Too purple difficulty.
00:29:24
Speaker
Okay, one success, one threat. Take a point of strain. Okay, the success. So this person is a human. And so like, yeah, they appear human. But their, yeah, their skin seems it looks like they are sweating profusely, like they're covered in moisture. And you see along their neckline.
00:29:45
Speaker
where they're wearing like a long coat, kind of piratey in attire. But underneath their collar, you see what looks almost to be like barnacle.
00:29:58
Speaker
like attached to their skin, but their clothing is covering up most of it. And they're trying to go rightward to the cell is getting scurvy, isn't it? Yeah, right. The is an orange. Looking closer, you can say you can tell from their bone structure and their facial structure. A lot of their
00:30:17
Speaker
The way they fill out their clothes, especially in the face and kind of the hands as you're examining them, isn't due to muscle structure. They seem slightly bloated. So what you're telling me is they look drowned. You can jump to any conclusions you want to, Philip. Okay.
00:30:31
Speaker
Hey, do you guys want to blow this off and follow that guy? It seems really cool. It kind of seems like that's a drowned person who just walked. It kind of seems like Tyrol just had a meeting with someone who's drowned. But they seem very confident. You get the sense that this person has a very high presence score. They're very charismatic drowned person. Interesting.
00:30:50
Speaker
I mean, really just like from here, I want to have a beer with that person. Okay. Yeah. Okay. We got to focus. We can ask Tarvel about them. We'll get their name. Yeah. We'll call them later. Okay. Absolutely. We got to go talk to Tarvel, right? All right. Yep. So head back down, lock in.
00:31:09
Speaker
Yeah, you see, you see Tarvel's office door open and you are able to, uh, you know, you see Tarvel standing in the doorway talking to Corin and he sees you all approaching and Corin kind of gestures in your direction. And Tarvel always is like, Hey, I, I talked to you all not too long ago. So, uh, any updates on where we're at? I don't know. Did you just have a meeting with a drowned person? You can't just ask that.
00:31:34
Speaker
Why not? It's the thing we want to know. Let's step into and he gestures into his office and tells Corin to go make sure the shipments are.
00:31:43
Speaker
in order. Do you all walk into his office? I'm assuming. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. He shuts the door behind you all. What now? The person who just came out of your office was bloated and pale and seemed to have barnacles stuck to their neck. That's a personal matter. Sure. It doesn't have to be any of our business. He says looking at Aeris.
00:32:06
Speaker
Okay, I feel this is unfair. We all agreed we were going to ask about this. No, we all agreed it was interesting. I was right. You know what? You're right. You said we could ask Tarvel about it. We said we could get it. I did say we could get his number and I realized now that I should like do air quotes anytime I'm speaking sarcastically to you and that's on me. I didn't mean to cause any grief. Just yeah, it's a it's a personal thing.
00:32:33
Speaker
Anyway, you have fascinating friends prepared on our end to proceed just because Tarvel is bad at like diplomacy and politics and like The stuff that's important to be able to run a subsection of the clan Hob when you say you keep interesting friends you can tell he does a very poor attempted but poorly concealed like cynical chuckle to himself at That statement
00:33:01
Speaker
like friends schminz chuckle yeah like the word friend is not the word he would use to describe that relationship um sorry mila what did you say i said we uh prepared to move forward aris has came up with a way to shrink someone and we just need to figure out how you would like to do delivery um
00:33:23
Speaker
I'm trying to remember, did you all tell Tarble the means with which you were going to acquire Viggo? I think you all were trying to keep all parties in the dark relative to each other, I think. Yeah, I don't think we did. Well, I mean, I assume you all would just bring him here once you have it. Yeah, that works. Yeah, sure. OK, just make sure that's all right. We're just trying to square everything away. Make sure everyone is on the same page with every part of the plan. So we don't want anyone surprised by any part of this when we show up.
00:33:52
Speaker
I feel like I sensed a level of pointedness in the way you said that, Aris. Is there a concern about surprise? You you're running like you're running a business. And so just like it would have been really awkward for us to walk in while you were having a conversation with whoever that was. There's probably times where it would be really inconvenient for us to show up with. Yeah, we go. Yeah, no, I get that. Yeah. Well, I can give you a point. We don't want you caught off guard.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah, we arrive. Well, I can obviously use the other coin. I can give you another coin and you can let me know when you're on your way with them. OK, is there a particular time of day that's best for you? I mean, it's going to make sense if we obviously I'm not looking to hold Vigo here. So when you bring him, let's do the thing. And I would prefer it makes sense for that to be in the middle of the night, because obviously
00:34:50
Speaker
Eren will be in her cell. Guards won't be as active, et cetera. So let's say four in the morning. I'll take a coin and let you know when we are on our way. Yeah, and Tarble like makes a fist and you, the smell of the briny sea hits your nose as he opens his fist and there's a coin. What? Nothing. I don't believe you, Eris.
00:35:20
Speaker
trying to mind my own business. That's okay. I do believe that. I'm not sure what's going on, but I believe she's doing her best to do that. Is there anything that I can do on my end to help with preparations outside of letting Aaron know that the wheels are in motion be ready?
00:35:38
Speaker
Do I need to make any prep work to the, to the box? We've seen the box, right? So we know that Milo in his shrunken state would have fit inside it. We're going to be sending a potion through for her to drink. Sorry, say that again.
Alira's Awareness and Alastair's Plan
00:35:54
Speaker
We're going to be sending a potion through for her to drink.
00:35:57
Speaker
Okay. It'll shrink her. And I mean, I don't really figure she cares about them, but her clothes aren't going to shrink. So just so that's not surprising to her because it was surprising to Milo when I did it to him. You tested on Milo? Yes, we did some testing. It works now. What happened to Milo? I just got really, really small. That sounds like you got it right on the first time. No, that was just the time it worked. What happened to the people that it didn't work on?
00:36:25
Speaker
I'm fine now. You don't want to know. No, he's fine. Look, it was more of a transformation than a smallitizing, but I'm fine. Smallitizing than a re-beginning? Yeah, it was more a change of fire. By the way, do you have any crickets? Okay, as long as, as long as theirs comes through whole and healthy, then no, no worries here. I expect to. Yeah.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yes, I mean, I feel absolutely fine. So I don't know, just a heads up, I received word and I don't know where a potential leak exists, but I think that Alira is aware that there are factions within the clan attempting to operate independently. I think she's aware of the meeting that we had. So sooner, better.
00:37:17
Speaker
yeah i think she is going to start ramping up her plans yeah we were attacked by uh by some black lamps on the way here good uh pretty cool look you got it they're all still fine-ish they'll all be fine i mean i would not be concerned about that just i'm more concerned about the fact if they were operating broad daylight that there wasn't significant collateral damage because they don't seem to uh care about
00:37:43
Speaker
There wasn't no, yeah, it was okay. They were exclusively trying to kill us.
00:37:49
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's that's good. But if if they needed to explode the city block to kill you and take out a bunch of other people with you, they would have done that. So they are. There is sledgehammer, whereas other black lamps in the past have been more of a scalpel. So anyway, sorry that you have you with that. Eris looks at Eris looks at Hobb and Milo as if to say, is he talking about us? That's why he said other black lamps.
00:38:14
Speaker
I've never used a sledgehammer. Don't need to. I got this. That's what I call my fist. I am. OK. Well, if you don't have anything for me, I will. So is this tonight? Is that like? Well, we're not exactly sure. It's going to take some, you know, getting things into position to grab him at the right time. We just wanted to make sure everything was ready on your end before we started because. Yeah. When they use their expertise to know when the best moment to nab him is,
00:38:42
Speaker
We gotta be, that's the starter pistol, right? So. Yeah, so. We're good. Tarvel's eyes kind of narrow. Who's they? Shit. Pardon my language. I opened my dumb mouth for like the first time this session. People we trust are, we can't, we can't.
00:39:01
Speaker
If you go, we'll run from, we don't have, we can't get him, but we have people that we trust and we know we'll do it without causing him more harm than necessary. Look, we're sending the guy to forever jail. I don't know how he'd be too upset about how we get him, but. Okay, sure. Oh boy, it's just for the cartoon. All right, we will be in touch in his time. All right, yeah. Let me know, I guess. Yep. All right, we're off.
00:39:28
Speaker
accent. Where to? I believe it. As we're leaving wherever we're going, Milo says to Eris, you know, when I drank the potion and I was shrank, it seemed that all I had to do was to not concentrate and then I grew back. Could Vigo not do the same thing? That's why we're gonna shrink him, put him in a box and send him through a teleporter.
00:39:55
Speaker
So he's going to get in a box that he cannot. It has to be a very strong box, I would think, to prevent him from... Yeah, if he unshrank in the middle of transportation, I cannot imagine what would happen to his body. Yes. I just wanted to throw that out there. We can make him unconscious. Yeah, that might be... That's probably best. Make him unconscious. I am concerned now. I didn't...
00:40:21
Speaker
Because, you see, I was an ostrich, you see, so I was not aware that I was concentrating or not on being an ostrich. I said, if he's unconscious... Can he? Did we make sure that Aaron knew... Surely that's not a flaw in my potion, Eric. No. Is that a flaw in my potion? No. Like, him being unconscious, he will remain small until he can think to get big. But we've made sure that Aaron knows not to think big thoughts while she's in the box, right? Did we do that? You can send a note through
00:40:51
Speaker
We need to make sure Tarvel knows to make sure Eren knows. I'll put a little sticker on the outside of the potion vial with directions for use. Think tiny thoughts. Yes. I just wanted to make sure we had all the bases covered. At a certain point, people have got to be a little bit smart to go with a plan. There's the flaw in Eris' potion. Okay. To Alistair. Yeah, probably so. Top speed. Here we go.
00:41:19
Speaker
Okay. So you all head to the now formally Calvary's home now. Fancy, fancy place. Fancy place. And yeah, the member of the staff answers the door as you all knock. Can I help you? We need to see Alastair please.
00:41:38
Speaker
on what business we can tell you that it's private business tell him what what would you ask do you know who you work for tell him who are you how shall i present you to alistair difialin he's my love the drain years friends hob's here just say hob's here
00:41:58
Speaker
You gave me so many options. How should I choose? Pick one! Well, but the last thing I said was just say Hobbes here. So that's negating previous options. Very good, sir. The... This guy's the worst. Yeah, we're not new. You're the worst. One, he knows who we are. Two, he knows how we are. He started this. He should have expected it. Turn him into an ostrich. After a moment, the figure comes back out, opens the door. Master Alistair will see you now. Any gestures for y'all to enter the office? How did he look when you said Hobbes here? Was he excited?
00:42:28
Speaker
This is not my job to anticipate the master's emotional state for his guests. Well those last three words made you probably correct. I was like I guarantee you it is your job to anticipate your master's emotional state. Whether it's written there or not that is other duty as required for sure. Very good. We go in to see Alistair. Alistair is sitting behind the desk and
00:42:49
Speaker
He kind of gestures as you all walk in. Please shut the door behind you if you'd be so kind. Shut the door. So I noticed my brother isn't here with you. I'm sure he's gotten into some trouble of some kind, but are we ready to proceed? Yes. Good. We have been scouting the targets movements and we are confident that we can acquire him.
00:43:13
Speaker
this evening if he keeps his normal schedule. He is not a very careful man. He's rather reckless. He's just gotten out of prison. Stupid, but stupid. Yes. So where where shall we bring him once we have him? I described the location of a peer, a couple peers down from the actual like headquarters because I don't want them knocking on the headquarters of the peer lads. Yeah. OK. About four in the morning. Look.
00:43:43
Speaker
4 in the morning. Sure, we can make that. So we can be there to receive him? Yes. And in what state? And Alistair is taking notes while he's talking to you. In what state? Is drugged unconscious an option?
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah. That'd be perfect, yeah. It would be wonderful. Very well. But alive, we already established alive. Yes. Target is requested to be alive. Is a demeaning costume too much? If you provide it, then we can work that into you. We will address him.
00:44:16
Speaker
And then Alastair opens one of the drawers, pulls out a piece of parchment, and writes, begins writing, and you see that he is writing Ural's names at the top on the top line. And then he flips it around and slides it across the desk to you all. I will need you all to sign this.
00:44:36
Speaker
real quick. What is it? It is just a acknowledgement that in this line of work in these type of jobs you have requested that the target be brought to you alive but obviously things can happen if the target resists or attempts to harm one of the agents tasked with apprehending him. It's a waver. Yes, it is a waver of liability for death of the target.
00:44:58
Speaker
It is Eric letting us know he's going to roll to see how well this goes and Vigo might die before we get to him. Eric is doing no such thing, but you're dealing with one of the houses. Red tape is absolutely like has to be a part of this. Like fair enough and sign.
00:45:13
Speaker
I'm marks and X, not putting my name on this. Excellent. And then Alistair takes a, it's like a, it looks like a paperweight, like one of those very smooth stone, like domed paperweights. He grabs it and slides the paper back after the three of you sign and he begins to like run the stone over the text on the parchment and the text disappears with each. Nice.
00:45:38
Speaker
to where it looks like a blank piece of parchment. And then he puts it in the left-hand drawer of his desk. It's in the cloud. Yeah. And synced. Okay. Well, four o'clock in gray flood at the sobart pier, we will deliver the conscious, the target, preferably unconscious, but alive. Yes. Okay. Great. Is there anything else that I should know about the job? Don't think so.
00:46:05
Speaker
Okay, any strong preference on agent? A good one. I know. Wait, is that the who does it or the chemical agent you use to knock him out? Because make it taste bad. He is specific if you want to request a specific member of the house to execute the job. Just somebody that's very good and very discreet. So not Basil noted.
00:46:29
Speaker
Do you still have Verla's brother on retainer? He works for Eldorin and I'm trying to keep this one off the books of like the higher ups within the house. Of course, of course. But no, I'll make sure that there's somebody capable and competent that executes this job for you. And Alistair sets the quill down as he marks which agent is going to be executing the job tonight.
00:46:51
Speaker
And then he kind of sits back and says, so I do want to ask you all, obviously, this whole thing is predicated on you all in the clan not being in the best of ways right now. Are you all looking to remedy that as you all obviously the head of the clan wants you all for the murder of her dad. Right. Yes. Definitely wanting to remedy that situation. We don't want to be on anyone's hit list. And how do you anticipate dealing with that situation? We are working on it.
00:47:21
Speaker
Unfortunately, it's in a stage where we have to be discreet. How can we help you? We're working on it. You are helping tonight. Tonight is helping. Can I do a perception to see like how honest he's being about wanting to help? How many reds is this perception going to have doing an insight check on a Fiarlan? This will the difficulty would be to read one purple is the difficulty. Yeah.
00:47:50
Speaker
Yep. Nope. You cannot get a read on how, how earnest is he being?
00:47:59
Speaker
But you do have two threat. In fact, with the two threat, I will say Milo. Yeah. You're pretty well convinced that you can't trust Alastair. Like you think that he's being shady about something. Oh, man. OK. Oh, good. Now, you all have signed a contract with House of Ireland for the Vigo job. So like even Milo would know.
00:48:21
Speaker
Like that's kind of untouchable territory, but like this conversation, Milo's getting bad vibes. Yeah. Yes. We're still trying to figure things out. It's very early stage at this point, but.
00:48:40
Speaker
Well, let me know if you need the services of House Fjarlen to assist again. And additionally, if you all find yourselves even at the conclusion of all this nasty business with the clan, we're always open to contractors. And I trust my brother. He trusts you. So Transitive Property and all that. Yes.
Dinner at Four Sales
00:49:00
Speaker
Thank you for...
00:49:01
Speaker
This is a kind offer. Well, let me know. I don't want to talk to this. Alistair gestures to the door as he pulls out some other papers. Thank you, Alistair. He'll be going. And if you see my brother, tell him to come pay me a visit. You all can come too if you want, but I need to talk to him. If we see him.
00:49:20
Speaker
Got it. Toodles. See ya in the morning. Indeed. Okay, please dearest. That's code. Okay, so you all, I mean, anything else that you are wanting to do before four in the morning? Pace nervously. Yeah, I just hope that they don't kill Viggo. Did either of you get a bad vibe about Alistair doing that meeting? I don't know. I just got a feeling of, I don't know. It's just, I don't know if he was being entirely honest. Wait, did you go in there expecting him to be honest?
00:49:50
Speaker
Well, I don't know. When he was asking about what our expectations were for about us being wanted by the clan, I don't. And he was asking, how could he help? And I just got a bad vibe about that. But anyway. I mean, I can understand that. I assume he's concerned for his brother.
00:50:11
Speaker
Oh, I assumed he was looking for a way to entrap us into owing him more favors. That possibly could have been it, yes. That feels bad vibey for sure. Anyway, just thought I'd throw it out there. Yeah, I don't think we should share with him. No, no. I appreciate your vigilance, Milo. Really glad Reynard wasn't here for this meeting, because he would have just answered all the questions.
00:50:32
Speaker
Yeah, with his newfound loyalty. Right. Yeah. He killed his dad and suddenly loves his family. It's weird. I mean, it's weird. OK, so yeah, I mean, you all pacing nervously. Are you headed back to the cauldron to kind of wait it out or where? What are you? What's the plan? Probably or the sales or something like that. OK. Probably need to eat at some point.
00:50:55
Speaker
Is the sales open? That's an excellent question. Yeah, they probably they probably had a limited menu for like after the garden party kind of thing. Like they didn't want to pass up the opportunity to have that many people there. So I'm pretty sure we'd be on the list for a soft open.
00:51:10
Speaker
Yeah, no, I'm just saying they probably weren't ready to open, but it was like, we have to make this work somehow. Right. So, yeah. So the four sales is open. I could go and yeah. Yeah. You all go eat dinner as the sun is setting over the city of Sean. You all see often behind the bar tending bar.
00:51:28
Speaker
I'm still, still getting acclimated to the new mobility routine that he has. Sauna is darting around the tables, like taking orders as you all walk in. You don't see Ace out in the front of house anywhere, but Sauna sees you all walk in and just kind of gestures, like find a table. Iris goes to her booth, obviously. Somebody's in your booth. It's pretty, it's pretty busy. Like it, there's a lot of people in the for sales.
00:51:55
Speaker
You know, we never have eaten on deck. Is that an option? I never thought about that. You know, just people don't want to work these days, Jeff, so often doesn't have the waitstaff to have the outdoor seating. So you're telling me open is not paying well. Open is not bringing moments because Sana refuses to take his money, but.
00:52:12
Speaker
No, there was there was like there was like patio seating or something. Yeah, there are a couple of couple tables out in front of the the restaurant. If you want to go there and Eris will resume sketching on a new hand for Ulven. OK. Well, we wait for it. It's like they're having trouble keeping up. Not trouble. Just on a son is moving. Keep him busy.
00:52:35
Speaker
So Sada comes out front and says, Hey guys, what can I get you off? I can go make my chicken if I need to. No, it's fine. Chicken, please. Hopkins got it back. I think I just, I'll take the fish sandwich, please. And a mug of ale. Okay.
00:52:52
Speaker
Harris orders something light and probably kind of starchy because she's very on edge about what we're doing. We're going to have to start paying, I think, if we're going to start taking up space and he's actually busy. All right. Yeah, that's really good. I always thought we were paying the bill every time everyone else gets up and leaves. And I was like, well,
00:53:16
Speaker
This was essentially our office. This is our work hangout. Yeah, Sana takes off back inside and probably long enough for you all to notice that it's longer than normal. She brings your food out to you all and says, here you go. Anything else while I'm out here? Eris, Todd, do you want to drink? Just water. Could you use a bit of help? I could carry my sandwich and put my ale on the bar and help somehow. Don't worry about it.
00:53:46
Speaker
It's good. Well, if she doesn't want to help, she wants you to not help. That's how you help. You just stop, stop trying to help. What about Ace in the back? It sounded like clearly glazing through the window at like all the Ace isn't here tonight, but it's fine. It's totally fine. Ace is supposed to be here. No, he like I took some time. I sent a trick to get him.
00:54:12
Speaker
I appreciate everyone's input, but I promise you I've got it. Thank you. Tea. Oh, some tea. Okay. Tea and water. I'll be back inside the brushes back into the doors. Really? Just two waters, but add something to mine. I don't know why she wouldn't accept my help. I'm not that bad. She's not that you're bad. She just wants to do it. Yes.
00:54:35
Speaker
Perhaps I could barkeep for Alford. Sanna, it brings your drinks back out. And you still see some people sitting around post-garden party, sitting on some little tables and stuff that were set up for the event. So there's not a strong sense of privacy or anything. People are walking around Highwall and taking the garden and taking in the neighborhood, that kind of thing. And that's what you see. Anything else you all are doing?
00:55:02
Speaker
eating the chicken sketching
Prison Break and Conclusion
00:55:05
Speaker
a robotic hand so okay I just want to there are so many things that can go wrong that are unmitigatable do we need to talk about I mean if they kill Vico if Tarvel gets cold feet if Aaron decides not to come through if Aaron decides not to come through we just have to leave town right like it's just time to go like I don't know I don't know we haven't really made a backup plan
00:55:34
Speaker
dark fans are kind of interested in how this all falls out so yeah maybe they got a deal with us for something I don't know I suddenly got nervous but there's no turning back like that's the thing is like and I don't want to either I believe it will work
00:55:49
Speaker
Yes, I think the cards have been dealt. I guess we just have to play them. Nerds! That's really rude in Goblin. Oh really? Is that a game from your home or something? Sure. So, flipping my last story point of the session. We cut away to the like, not maximum facility prison, but like,
00:56:11
Speaker
the one of the higher grade prisons within sharn and you see norsen mill hatch sitting in a cell just laying on the cot
00:56:25
Speaker
and after a moment a figure walks up to the bars to the door and uh two hands reach up and grab the bars and the bars begin to turn red hot as the metal begins to melt and they pull it away and basically well they also put a hand on like the locking mechanism and the locking mechanism melts and norsen sits up and raises an eyebrow and
00:56:54
Speaker
the figure steps into the cell and you see another figure step up aside this figure looking at their backs. And there's a look of recognition on Norsen's face as the second figure steps in and he kind of thought this might happen. And you see him press something on his wrist and the back wall of the cell explodes. Shouldn't press something on his own wrist? Yeah. Okay, okay, okay, okay.
00:57:21
Speaker
and leave that scene there. The cauldron is working on her arms. She's in the chassis working on them and the ends of the hands are like glowing bright or red and you see like fire kind of licking out of them and as she's manipulating she goes to reach for something and one of the dragon shards sitting on her workbench
00:57:44
Speaker
like starts to get pulled towards the arm and she notices. And she thinks for a second and then allows the arm to reach over and pick up the dragon shard. And the dragon shard begins to like, not melt, but like the energy of the dragon shard gets sacked out of it into the arm. And you see the energy go up and it cinders housing at the back. And you see all of kind of react to it getting a bit more powerful. And she thinks, interesting. End of episode.
00:58:13
Speaker
We rolled so many dice. Hey, nothing bad happened. Nothing bad happened. Nothing bad happened. Nothing bad happened. Nothing bad happened. Thank you all so much for listening. If you want to be part of the conversation surrounding this episode, you can head over to our Discord. The link to which is on all of our socials, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. We have a patreon, patreon.com, slash the pantheon. If you want to financially support the shows anywhere you're able to do so, you can do so there. You can buy some merch at thepantheon.com. There's also a YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the pantheon. If you want to see me talking about these stuff,
00:58:43
Speaker
and Philip's gonna go now. There's another YouTube channel called The Laughing Tree where I run an actual play set in Storm Reach using 5th edition called Kyber Shards and Eric's a player. That's true. Thank you all so much for listening. In the game, not just like it's not a character quality of his. Yeah, I'm not a player. I just crush a lot. Thank you all so much for listening. I've been your game master, Eric. I'm Philip.
00:59:05
Speaker
I'm Randy. Jeff with Jeff. We'll see you next time.