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C1 Ep. 140 Waking of the Dreams Chapter One
278 Plays5 years ago
The gang continues to try and figure out the state of affairs in Stormreach under Riedran control. But things escalate quickly and the party must move fast before things get worse.
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, Douglas Popp, The Kamm Family, David Scrams, Elizabeth Clark, Rebekah Miller, Michael Clark and Dustin Troupe.
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Transcript
Episode Introduction & Sponsor Shoutout
00:00:01
Speaker
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of Irene Villarito, Elizabeth Clark, Darryl Delaney, Darren Katska, Ryan Royce, Laura Pickron, Douglas Pop, The Cam Family, Charles Compton, Michael Clark, Rebecca Miller, David Scrams, and John Kerry, as well as all of our generous patrons.
00:00:30
Speaker
D20 radio, your gamer's role.
Gamer Nation Con 007 Announcement
00:00:48
Speaker
What is up everybody it is your dungeon master Eric here real quick with a message before this week's episode to remind you all about gamer nation con 007 that it tickets are on sale right now for it is the first weekend of April and it is four days of gaming goodness.
00:01:06
Speaker
It is an awesome convention where it's just all about the gaming, not a sea of vendors trying to sell you stuff to navigate your way through. It's about a community coming together to play games. And you can head on over to tabletop.events and search for gamernationcon007 and it'll be the only search result you get back. Or you can head over to facebook.com and search for the gamernationcon page and there's links there to go buy your badges.
00:01:33
Speaker
And just so you know, it's super affordable to come. The three-day badge is just $50. The four-day badge is just $65. And that's Thursday through Sunday. And then there's also the RVG badge where you can sit at a table and play in a game run by yours truly. There are still two spots available for that table. And you head on over to tabletop.events. And that's the website where all the badges are sold through.
00:02:00
Speaker
So it's going to be a really good time. I know that me, Jeff, Philip, possibly Randy, Trevor came last year. He may be going again. And so, yeah, it's a great time. We have a great time playing games with you all, running games for you all. So definitely go head on over, check it out and see if you can make it happen because we would love to see you at GamerNationCon 007.
Introduction to Eberron Renewed Podcast
00:02:25
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Eberron Renewed, a D&D fifth edition actual play podcast set in the Eberron campaign setting. I'm your dungeon master, Eric. I'm Philip. I'm Randy. I'm Jeff. And welcome to another episode. Gentlemen, what happened last time? We burned down another house in Stormreach. Mm-hmm. And you theoretically have been in the same neighborhood. Another Stormlord's house, in fact, yeah. That's true. Two down, three to go. That hadn't been a Stormlord's house for a while.
Recap of Recent Events in Stormreach
00:02:55
Speaker
That's fair. No, we, we, we got, we got the, the mall. Uh, we, did we kill Strant? We killed Strant. Well, we didn't kill Strant. No, fair enough. But was, yes, Strant died. Strant's so dead. And Draconos has been, is on the path to redemption. Yes. And flip off on his Griffin. Why didn't Draconos get a Griffin? What the heck, man? He had that spell. Yeah.
00:03:22
Speaker
I hope there was a time limit on it and he'd forgotten and he just. He was flying low or over water or a pillow factory. But he definitely fell out of the sky. Yeah.
00:03:42
Speaker
Um, but yeah, that's, and we, we kind of left things off with you all out in front of the former last site estate. Yes. We have called for pickup, but we haven't quite worked out how easy it's going to be to get out of the city.
00:03:58
Speaker
Indeed. Since we did just, you know, set fire to part of it. Yes. So let's go ahead and pick up where we left off with you all out in front of the house. You've just called Jace for pickup.
Assessment and Strategy Discussion
00:04:13
Speaker
But it's going to be a bit before he can get to you since he was a fair distance outside of the city as to avoid being seen. Right. Right. We we we can't just like stand here fellas.
00:04:27
Speaker
No, probably not. How can we assess the situation more broadly? What can I do here to... I don't really see a way to get a bird's eye view, but I want to try to figure out...
00:04:47
Speaker
What's why we haven't been attacked. Yeah. Well, you could try to scale a building to get a little bit higher vantage point. Oh, actually, I can do that really well. I have perpetual jump affecting me. So, yeah, there's a nearby building that's tall.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, there's one that would allow you to at least get a decent view. What was that? I'm the burden one. I will not. Yeah, that's a good point. All right. All right. So Berwick Berwick leaps and begins leaping his way up from, you know, balcony to balcony or whatever until he reaches the roof of this building. OK. Maybe we should move away from standing in front of the house.
00:05:38
Speaker
Well, I do have a thought. We could pretend we're trying to put it out. Well, there's that. Keystone cops in it all over the place. Citizens, get back.
Magic Detection and Speculation
00:05:49
Speaker
Where's that? No, that wasn't in Stormrage, nevermind. We have had a run-in with a woman that can conjure water, but that was in Sean, not Stormrage.
00:06:04
Speaker
Oh, go ahead. No, no, let's let's let's see what Philip sees, what barracks. And the money can conjure water. She's she's the one that's done that in front of you. Oh, no, I mean, the the woman at the house decanit.
00:06:19
Speaker
that put out the fire that you noticed. Oh, gotcha. Man. Old, old cut. Deep cut. Okay. So, Barrick, after some jumping onto firm handholds and things like that,
00:06:35
Speaker
You can get high enough to get a sense of like the surrounding like four to five blocks Obviously, you're near the main courtyard area of the marketplace And that seems to be you see? citizenry of storm still kind of running away
00:06:55
Speaker
because I mean everything started popping off like four minutes ago so people are still actively trying to get away. You notice a large absence of guards like you're not seeing a whole lot of like magical weaponry or anything moving towards the city. You do however as you're kind of looking about
00:07:17
Speaker
because there's some walls and things like it's off in the distance so it's faint because you can't exactly see through walls with your ability but this concentration of magic is so powerful you can see a large like
00:07:32
Speaker
dot in the distance like almost like an orb that has tendrils almost expanding out relatively close and you can see what looks to be like 30 to 40 humanoid forms standing near it being infused with some kind of magic or the magics infusing the orb one way or the other.
00:07:56
Speaker
But you guessed that maybe a lot of the, the inspired aren't guarding the streets because a lot of them are there. Yeah. Uh, so Barrick, Barrick calls them. There's something, there's something weird going on over there. There's a massive concentration of magic and, and people, but I can't tell.
00:08:25
Speaker
The way I see, I can't tell what it is. Is it like, all right, the people, not the people, the, the, the concentration, are we talking like size of a building size?
00:08:39
Speaker
basketball, they don't have basketball size. Can I get any kind of reference point to guess at its size at this distance? Based on its distance, it's pretty big. Like it's not ball sized. Yeah, it's about the size, if not a little bit bigger than the humanoids that you saw. It's bigger than the people.
00:09:00
Speaker
Based on your information, Bhimani is going to make a quick arcana check. That's not one of her strong suits, but it might trigger something and it does not. She got a three. So take a minute. Try again. It's because Dex immediately thinks. Is there an open portal right now? That's Dex's first thought, but I mean, we don't want to go
00:09:30
Speaker
I mean, whatever's going on,
Navigating the City and Avoidance Tactics
00:09:33
Speaker
it's, it's keeping the, the guards there. They're all there instead of here. So it's something that they consider more important than what just happened over here. Well, here's my question then. Do we want to try to go in the opposite direction of that? Just out to the outskirts of town, get picked up and regroup or do we need to go see what this thing is? I think we should try to know what it is. I agree.
00:09:59
Speaker
Alright, how far? Based on your somewhat limited knowledge, I mean, you all were here for a bit, but it's not like you exactly have the map of the city memorized anything, Barrick. Based upon your knowledge of the
00:10:20
Speaker
I don't, but Orianna does. That's fair. Oh, oh. OK, so the direction that you saw the magical orb was to the south east of you. The just for a frame of reference, the docks are south by southwest. OK, so this is headed a little bit past the docks.
00:10:46
Speaker
You said you got out where the dragon mark houses are. No. OK. I still have that giant map of storm reach that we made. Yeah. Ever so long ago, so I was looking at it. Oh, yeah. Hold on. So it's in the general direction of the Tower of Kolkoran. OK. But closer than that. OK.
00:11:15
Speaker
So yeah, it is near the the various dragon marked colloquially known as Locksmith Square and near Silverwall. So you know that it's in the direction of that. So is it in town? Yes. Yes. OK.
00:11:36
Speaker
I think we should, maybe we should find out what this is. If they're up to something bigger than we should, we should at least know about it. Even if we can't do it, whether we can do anything about it, I don't know, but we should at least know what's going on. I absolutely agree. I suppose we should, we already go check out. Okay. As we go that direction. And I just, I just don't know. Would we pass the location of the black dog?
00:12:02
Speaker
So no, the black dog is like directly west or east from where you are. OK, I just I didn't. I just wanted to see. I wanted to see if Dex could see if it was still a going concern, even if we needed a place to lie low or something. Maybe we'll do that later. That's fine.
00:12:18
Speaker
I would like to stay high if I can, if I can jump between buildings or on some of the weird floating ruins that Stormreach has.
Dex's Disguise and Information Gathering
00:12:27
Speaker
I have jump affecting me, so all my jump distances are tripled.
00:12:33
Speaker
Right, Dex is going to take a moment and remove his white cloak or put his white cloak in the bag and pull out his black one. Okay. Barrick, just go ahead and give me a general acrobatics check with advantage just for traversing the city. Sure. You roll for every jump.
00:12:55
Speaker
That is a, you said advantage, right? Yes. Okay, seven and a fifteen, so an eighteen. Eighteen? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you're you're able to hop
00:13:08
Speaker
between the buildings. Up until the point that you hit the cross, which is south of the marketplace, kind of the direction you need to go, the buildings stop being as densely populated at that point. So it's not really possible for you at that point to continue traversing like that. Okay. I suppose Booyan and
00:13:35
Speaker
Bomani and I are all trying to keep up with him on the ground. Walking on the ground like chumps. As he sorts the sky, we're just looking up and hoping we don't run into stuff. But yeah, you continue, Barak, as you walk about to see the intensity and the proximity of the
00:13:59
Speaker
the orb increasing and decreasing respectively. Didn't think about that since till I got to the end.
00:14:06
Speaker
You once again see citizens of Stormreach kind of cowering and hiding. They seem to be just in general afraid. The fact that you all look so heavily armed and walking with a purpose does not gain you any warm smiles in Stormreach as it currently is.
00:14:30
Speaker
Um, so especially Dex and his scary black cloak. You feel like if you were in a white cloak, you might put people's mind to these more, but, um, so decisions were made. Um, but, um,
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah, so you are kind of in the open exposed once you hit the cross. You can now tell now that you're out of the dense buildings that are fairly tall of the marketplace. You can see breaking the normal skyline of storm reach.
00:15:11
Speaker
and kind of in the foreground of the Tower of Kolkoran, you see something that is very upsetting and something that just due to the nature of the buildings you had not noted prior. And you see a rather large obelisk. Oh dear. And Orianna recognizes it as having been constructed in the middle of the red ring. Oh.
00:15:38
Speaker
One note, though, this obelisk looks the same but is performing differently and that it does not seem to be this inert tower. It's wrapped in, for lack of a better phrase, shadowy light. That you feel like may perhaps be Mabarin in nature.
00:16:09
Speaker
So it's not a mind control device in this case. Is that what you're saying? Like, or it doesn't seem to be doing that. It might be that in addition to something else, but right now it doesn't seem to be a hidden in plain sight thing. Okay. And I'm sorry, this is something barracks sees because of his vantage point, or we're all
Dragon Shard Shipment Discovery
00:16:29
Speaker
up there now. You can all see it because, yeah, barracks had to, he may be perched on a building near where you all are now, but now that you've broken out of the marketplace, it's easier to see. Right.
00:16:41
Speaker
coming from the red rain. You all are also right near the harbor and you see a lot of mundane ships and airships docked. And you see what appear to be reedroned workers, not full on inspired soldiers, but reedroned workers loading the ships up with crates. Hey, Dex. Yes.
00:17:11
Speaker
If you were to appear to be a normal everyday citizen, you might be able to go talk one of those dock workers to telling us what's going on and what their hurry is. Because if I didn't know better, I'd have that sure looks like an evacuation to me. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I will need different clothes. I don't think I have one. Does everyone know how you dress?
00:17:40
Speaker
Do people around here dress like this? I mean, Stormage is a pretty wild place. All right, fine. If there was anywhere in our world that a random person might be dressed the way you normally dress, I feel like this is the place. All right.
Plan to Inform Orgev and Consequences
00:18:00
Speaker
I will hold your knife, yes. Oh. The hand of the knife and his hair goes like this. You son of a bitch. Sorry, marker that.
00:18:11
Speaker
Okay. So Dex takes a moment and just, I mean, he's already, he's already Lyle, so there's not a big switch to make. He just kind of, you know, smudges his nose around and kind of. Tamps down the cheekbones and kicks the pile of hair that's now at his feet away. Yes. And.
00:18:34
Speaker
I'm, and I don't have to change my voice because that's what they sound like. And why would you take the opportunity to hand this to Barak and not Booyah? His hair would be longer than him. He would suffocate in his helmet. Suit would just fill up in here. Because he would suffocate in his helmet. You're right. That would be deadly. Okay. Okay. So I am, I am now, uh, Derek the reedron.
00:19:02
Speaker
No, not Derek. Dale, Dale, I'm Dale. Dale, Larry Edron. All right. So, yeah, you walk over. Give me a. I mean, what do you say when you're approaching these dock workers that are loading up reagent ships? I think.
00:19:26
Speaker
Honestly, I'm not sure that I would instigate conversation immediately. I want to try to watch as if I can get without having to interact immediately. I just want to, I changed myself to be as inconspicuous as possible to hopefully just be able to observe for a moment. Now, if I, of course, if I'm approached, then I'm, I'm in it, but I don't, I don't think that my first thing is to be like, Oh, what are y'all, what are y'all loading up? Cause that's kind of. Yes. If you, if you want to have one of them approach me, I will jump into the, uh,
00:19:55
Speaker
I will jump into that. But at the same time, if I'm looking and it really is just like,
00:20:01
Speaker
completely nondescript crates of stuff they're loading up, then yes, I'm gonna, I'll have to. Yeah, you begin observing the dock workers loading. Honestly, the most you really get out of them as you're kind of standing there for the first minute or so is maybe some side eye glances of this fancy dressed man just standing there watching them load boxes onto a ship. But that's really all you get out of them. Okay.
00:20:29
Speaker
I'm gonna have to do it. I go up. I think I walk up to just a couple of dudes carrying a crate and I say, uh, uh, we making good time. Uh, I suppose who, who are you? Oh, I'm a, I'm Dale. Uh, I just made it down here. I was doing some work in, uh, in, in row at and, uh,
00:20:57
Speaker
You know, kind of finally it got too hot. Uh, finally, you know, and, uh, so they, they called me back down. I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to do. Uh, I had some, you know, some basic like kind of signposts of where to head and they led me here.
00:21:16
Speaker
Okay. Um, I'm going to need you to make a deception check with disadvantage because you trying to claim to be a dock worker dressed like Elton John is no, I didn't, I did not claim to be a dock worker. I said, I got, I got led here, but that's fine. That's, that's, that's where I think the, in his head anyway, it's heading. So go ahead and give me a deception check.
00:21:40
Speaker
Ooh, not great. And 11. I rolled a two and a five. Oh. Your deception's a plus nine? Yeah, I have proficiency and I'm a rogue. And fair enough. I'm sorry, but. Oh, wait, wait, that's a check. And I have proficiency. I take it back. 19. Reliable talent.
00:22:09
Speaker
Oh yeah baby. Oh you can take a 10. I will. This system's stupid. Go ahead and hand me one of those boxes chum. Oh well. Working ROAT must be a lot better than hearing storm reach for you to afford such fancy clothes. Well I mean you know it's the capital it's all part of the
00:22:34
Speaker
thing. I hate this honestly, but I had to leave quick and didn't even make a chance to grab a change of clothes. Well, I mean, it is kind of the center operation. We're just loading these ships up with the, uh, the crystals to take to the different, different cities of interest.
Approaching the Obelisk in the Red Ring
00:22:51
Speaker
So is that what's in here or that stuff that I heard about the mind and operation you guys had?
00:22:57
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, uh, yeah, we're just loading these up and, uh, you can see the labels on each of the boxes. Um, and it's, it's clicking with you now that, uh, written, um, in, uh, the reedron language, um, the boxes that this particular worker is loading up, um, say, uh, rec and mark on it.
00:23:26
Speaker
and you kind of glance around and the boxes are labeled of different major cities on Corvair. Are we able to hear this conversation? I'm not sure how close we are. No, you wouldn't be close enough. Okay, that's fine. So, I mean, just grab a box and I guess pick your preferred port if you're just wanting to hop in and help. But most of the head honchos are at some big meeting right now.
00:23:54
Speaker
Hey, you know what that might be. Do you know where that is? Maybe I got my wires crossed. I'm not saying I'm a head honcho, but I'm definitely not normally, uh, uh, you know, not to cast aspersions. I've never done a day of physical labor in my life. I can't imagine that they would want me to do it now. Does that make sense? The big tower over there is where they're meeting. And he gestures towards the obelisk. Oh, right over there. Yeah. That's where, uh, where my bosses are anyway. And I assume the rest of the bosses.
00:24:25
Speaker
Okay, awesome. Hey man, I really appreciate it. Best of luck, uh, with the rest of your, uh, loading. Um, I, you know, I think I'm, I think I'm going to head over there and see if I can find the guy, uh, that I'm supposed to talk to. I really hope that I don't end up walking in on something and, you know, upsetting people, but I really, I mean, look at these spindly arms and you better believe I got spindly arms. Um, that was, that was out of character. I mean, clearly I'm not meant for this. Those things look heavy and you guys are clearly of.
00:24:55
Speaker
stronger stock than me. I've been living the easy life and row out too long. I'm going to head that way. You can just say bye and that could be the end of our conversation. I know that you and I just met, but trust me when I tell you, I cannot just say bye, which is a lie. Dex does it. Okay. Bye. Uh, and I, I wait for them to get, you know, maybe they grab a box, turn around, look away from me and I abscond back to my group.
00:25:26
Speaker
Okay. Um, you said you try to grab a, they grab a box and look away from you or you're trying to grab a box. Sorry. No, no, I let them continue with their job. They pick up boxes, they turn around, they look away from the weirdo. Sorry. Um, okay. So yeah, you, you head back to the group. I feel like me trying to steal one of these mini boxes of dragon shards is not really going to be a drop in the bucket to stopping the grand plan. So I'm not going to worry about it. Yeah.
00:25:57
Speaker
So, so I'm back to the group and, uh, Barrick, are you with us where I don't have to use the sending zone to talk to you? Yup. Okay. Well, um, Barrick hands you the knife back. Thank you. And I pile of hair, pile of hair on the ground and, uh, I tuck it into my belt and I start putting up a messy bun. And I say, uh, well, the, uh, all those boxes, every one of those boxes, uh, full of dragon shards.
00:26:26
Speaker
And, wait, is it dragon or Kyber? Kyber shards are a type of dragon shard. Yeah. Okay. Full of dragon shards and, uh, head, all the boxes are labeled with different major cities. So there, there's, there's, there's, there's salt in the earth with dragon shards. And also learned that the, I guess all the big wigs or at least the bosses bosses, I don't know, uh, how high it goes, but they're all.
00:26:55
Speaker
over there, the obelisk, doing something. This guy didn't seem to know because I didn't ask, but I'm not telling you that. Right. What's going on over there? So, Eric, we knew they were mining dragon shards to help with the Eldritch machine in Dalhkor that's holding back the turning of the age. Yep.
00:27:21
Speaker
Uh, did we know any other purpose they were mining dragon shards for? No. Okay. Then Barak will turn to Bamani. Um, so the only reason we knew of the dragon shards mining without a purpose for the dragon shards that we knew of was in Dalek or it wasn't in the major cities. Do you know what they're doing? Um,
00:27:50
Speaker
I, I'm not, go ahead. What was the name of the, of the city that I saw written? Like just wreck and mark. Right. I mentioned the one I saw for sure said wreck and mark. And I unfortunately don't know where that is, but maybe it's familiar to you guys. It's in Karnas. It's one of the, one of the larger cities in Karnas. Appreciate it.
00:28:13
Speaker
Um, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, no, go ahead, please. Well, my first thought was maybe they're taking them to all the cities that already have, you know, planar gates, like our fair mist marsh does to make it maybe to inundate the machine, uh, you know, kind of, uh, at once from different, get them all. I don't know. I don't know. I'm scared. But Molly, what's.
Observing the Planar Portal Opening
00:28:40
Speaker
Well, I'll have her make a arcana check real quick to see what she can elucidate. That's better. That's a 19.
00:28:54
Speaker
the dreaming dark by virtue of their resources rely heavily on the kyber crystals to fuel much of the the magics on both their plane and this one. And the only thing I can think is based on our knowledge and what's been going on in Salona,
00:29:20
Speaker
They're trying to stabilize just like they've stabilized their own plane using an eldritch machine powered by kyber crystals perhaps they're trying to stabilize a gateway onto this plane with kyber crystals as well.
00:29:38
Speaker
and she kind of gestures to that tower and says, and based upon the look of the light emanating, I would say that the Mubarak portals that we've seen in Salona may be getting much bigger. I see. Well, I have an idea then. Booyah. Booyah here.
00:30:10
Speaker
Oh, you detect any planer gates. Not yet like you definitely you can sense the magic behind a planer gate, but. There's not one open yet, so it's kind of emanating all around you at this point.
00:30:41
Speaker
No portals. Would you be able with your magical abilities to send a message to Orgev? Yeah, but yeah, send a message. Well, I was just thinking, I don't really know what they're doing with these crystals, but it seems fairly clear that we don't want the crystals to reach their destinations.
00:31:09
Speaker
And so perhaps if you were to just send a list of the ship names to Orgev or Barasha, well, perhaps it would be a fairly simple matter for them to sink them. How many ships are there? I like it. I mean, considering that Orgev once tore a hole in our ship,
00:31:39
Speaker
Like he could take care of that. To answer your question, Booyah, there are seven ships. Oh, okay. The ships. Okay.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:31:53
Speaker
So Booyah, you want send message, uh, send the or give, um, name ships, tell him sink ships. Cause shard bad shard on chip. Yes.
00:32:11
Speaker
We had to in Dragon Shard shipments. But we are we are do this. Or give Booyah. Does he reply? You have to send the whole message before he replies. Oh, I forgot about OK. Well, I mean, I don't know what the name of the ships are so.
00:32:38
Speaker
Do I need to know them, Eric? Or did I see a name? If you're wanting to if you're wanting to send the message with those, then you would need to sneak over there to get the message or get the names of the ships. Oh, I'll take care of that. Hang on. And Barry becomes invisible and then walks along the dock viewing the ships.
00:32:59
Speaker
Okay. Would you like me to just pull up a fantasy name, ship name generator and read off seven names? We're just going to say, Booyah, Beric provide you with the names of the ships and you can communicate them. I will only give you 18 words, presuming that you use seven of those words to list the ships. They are Jod, the seven sisters, the snap, Albion,
00:33:27
Speaker
The Bin Bow. Not Bim Bow. Bin Bow. I don't know what that means. The Cape Town. One, two, three, four, five, six. And I'm not gonna remember. Carla Quinn. I know, I was just coming up with names.
00:33:43
Speaker
Since multiple of those had multiple words as part of their name, you now have, I think, 13 words. What was the first one, Jan? I mean, you could just say you list the names. It's okay.
00:34:02
Speaker
Oh, I was going to have some fun with that. Well, the first one was was J.A.H.D.E. I don't know how to get them all wrong. Like, no. Yeah, that would be real bad. OK, I wrote them down. And Booyah, it's very important that they sink the correct ships. Booyah. Or give me sink ship.
00:34:37
Speaker
Chad. Snap. I'll be on Benbo. Cape. Something. Harlequin. Those ship names. See, yada, yada, yada. Bad ship.
00:35:07
Speaker
We all say that already. Oh, OK. Are you done, Booyah? Do I have any words left? I don't know. Let's say no. Probably not. I wasn't counting either. I should have been. I wasn't. You hear a low voice in your head.
00:35:36
Speaker
Booyah respond. What does he say? I am coming. They will be destroyed.
00:36:05
Speaker
When you see me, take cover. Oh my. And there's something in the way Orga's voice resonates in your head that is deeply unsettling. Like.
00:36:31
Speaker
You can give me an insight check to try and figure out why. Okay. I was about to say, it's not bad. What's my insight? Uh, 16, 16. Um, the one word you would use to describe the general tone of orgasm is bloodlust. Oh, okay.
00:36:59
Speaker
Tell Orgev he say ships be destroy and he come and he say he come he want take cover and he sound he don't sound good he sound like angry. Wait he wants for us to take cover or he needs to take cover? Nah he say we take cover.
00:37:29
Speaker
The Anwe, the Booyah say he, this Orgev destroy ship, we take cover. He sound like, like almost, like what word? Lust for blood. Like angry. Well, obviously then we should probably move away from the docks. Right. Um, yeah, quickly.
00:37:56
Speaker
I don't know where he is right now, but they've moved around pretty rapidly before. So if they're about to appear, we should probably not be right here. Where do you suggest we go, Eric? Perhaps towards that tower that we were trying to investigate. All right. No, wait. That's the red ring, right? Yeah.
00:38:16
Speaker
Isn't that still fairly close to the docks? I mean, it's close. It's reasonably close, but it's not. If he's there to sink ships, we're probably not going to be in a lot of danger if we're at that distance. Is there a chance he would attack the obelisk? I suppose there is a chance. That's what the tower is. It's the obelisk. It's in the red ring.
00:38:44
Speaker
The rendering is a ways in from the docks. So I would hope that the destructive capacity of the dragon is not going to level the entire town. The docks that we're talking about on this map you sent out are marked number six. I can't tell. I'm not sure if it's six or 26. I'm not sure which docks we're talking about. Based on the way we've been moving, I would think it would be more towards 26.
00:39:13
Speaker
That makes sense. And the red ring's way over. Yeah, it's the 27. Where that big ring is. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of brownish red. Yeah, it's kind of an ochre. Yeah, I think that you're right. I think that we probably far enough away if we hit that direction. You gonna go gallivant among the rooftops again, or you gonna walk like a normal person with us? I was trying to keep an eye out for trouble. I know.
00:39:42
Speaker
I apologize. I did not mean to make it sound as though I was annoyed by you doing genuinely asking, are you going back up? Are you going to walk like a normal person with us? If the buildings are close enough together, I'll, I'll stay high. So we have decided to move in that it would be safest to move away from the docs a little bit. So we're going to move in towards the red ring and try to get a visual on what's happening there. And if the buildings become clustered enough to do so, a barrack will go back onto the rooftops.
00:40:09
Speaker
So you can kinda hop up onto the building that like looks towards the red ring. You're not gonna be able to get close, but everyone give me stealth checks to try and sneak about. You're getting close enough to where that is important. Do you still have your thing up? Probably not by this point. If it's been what, an hour? Yes, it's still active.
00:40:37
Speaker
Oh, oh, is it really? Is it really an hour? Wow, that's awesome. Yeah. Now, are you going to be within 30 feet if you hit the roof? I might not. I was just trying to see if it was still. Yeah, let's work for Orianna and yeah. Okay, so Bemanis stealth check with DEX is or with who has assistance is a 34. So Bemanis hidden.
00:41:08
Speaker
Mine's a 30. Sorry, go ahead. 26. Alright, Barak has a 19, Orianna. Orianna's still modifier. With Booyah teleport, Orianna has a 27. And I have a 30. Okay. Because my talents are reliable.
00:41:35
Speaker
So I'm going to give. Quick perception check. OK, so as you all round a corner in Berwick, as you hop up onto a building, you all go unnoticed as you see the Red Ring as. At least Booyah and Dex recognize it. I can't recall if Berwick ever actually went to the Red Ring.
00:42:05
Speaker
Not not in something we recorded. So you all recognize the main entrance to the gladiatorial barracks where you picked up crass. Way back when you see two inspired guards standing watch outside those double doors. Is it possible for Barrick to
00:42:36
Speaker
leap from hold to hold up. I don't know how high the red ring is, how tall the red ring is, but to leap up the exterior of the amphitheater and get a view from up top.
00:42:46
Speaker
You can certainly attempt to kind of go circuitously towards the south and try to hop up the backside. There's too much of a gap for you to make that jump from your current position. So I would need... I guess I'm trying to picture what the exterior looks like. Like if it's like the Colosseum
00:43:08
Speaker
You know, there's, you know, the various ledges you could jump from ledge to ledge. That's sort of what I'm trying to figure out. Yes. Um, there are holds and things where you can climb it. What I'm saying is from your current position, there would be, you would have to hop down off the building and run across a pretty sizable flat. Whereas there's more clustered buildings towards the backside, right down in your silver wall that you could go around and take advantage of.
00:43:36
Speaker
I don't know if it's worth separating us that much. So I'll probably stay with the group. Okay. So what's the plan?
00:43:52
Speaker
Two inspired guards is the obelisk visible? Yes, it is sticking up out of the center of the red ring. It actually appears, Barry, you can tell a little bit more from your angle. It looks like they've actually constructed a roof onto the red ring to kind of enclose the base of the obelisk. Interesting. So and the the energy kind of swirling about it is growing.
00:44:24
Speaker
Anything more I can tell about the energy? Obviously, without as much blocking your line of magical sight with it, it's beginning to pulsate and grow. It still seems to have some connection with the humanoids surrounding it. And Booyah, you can also sense that this is definitely some form of planar magic that is growing. Booyah, since this planar magic, they try and open planar portal
00:44:55
Speaker
We probably need stop, if can. Yeah. Um, you, you've gotten a better sense of the numbers, Barrick. Um, yeah, you're, you're guessing it's, it's counted in the dozens upon dozens, uh, maybe 40 to 50 are in the red ring itself. And a lot of people in there.
00:45:21
Speaker
Now you do know the nature of it like there's underneath that roof there's lots of rows of seating and boxes and there's plenty of cover to where you all could observe relatively easily it's just the getting down on the actual floor might be dicey. I'm certainly open to suggestions on this one. Well we need to get past the guards.
00:45:46
Speaker
I mean, do we want to simply murder the guards or do we want to try and sneak? I mean, I feel like being openly hostile immediately right here where I have been, I am told on good authority from hardworking laborers that all the big wigs are in here. That feels like quite a risky gambit. Well, I think got the other entrance somewhere we may sneak.
00:46:17
Speaker
There is the primary audience entrance on the opposite side. Ah, that might be better. It feels better. All right, let's try that. Yeah, so I guess we still try to be stealthy if we feel like we must. Let's just try to skirt our way around.
00:46:38
Speaker
Okay, so based on your all's last rules, I'm not gonna make you roll again. You're able to kind of take the same stealthy path around. You do spot the main kind of open entrance to the red ring. It is unguarded, though there do appear to be two rather sizable doors blocking the entrance.
00:47:05
Speaker
no god we're so much better against guards than doors and you see some phrasing written in goblin above the door now i can read it but can you solve the riddle it's an arrow it's love answer as well
00:47:29
Speaker
I still maintain that Annette was as good an answer as an anchor and I will hear no arguments. If only the wizard that cast that spell would have agreed. I mean really that just makes his password much stronger. That would get like solid green. It didn't have a special character. That's true.
00:47:48
Speaker
Do you not remember me shouting anchor? There was clearly an exclamation point. Anyway, so if I mean, you say big doors, how big are we talking about? But I was talking about picking these locks, this sort of thing that we're going to be able to manually open these doors, or is this the sort of thing that requires some kind of mechanism to open them?
00:48:07
Speaker
No, I mean, this is it looks like these doors were more freshly constructed, like the Red Ring used to open archway here. And and yeah, so these these doors were were built recently into the stone. So they're just large to cover more real estate than anything else. May I make a perception check to see how many people are around? Sure.
00:48:33
Speaker
28.
00:48:39
Speaker
Okay, so you're kind of stealthily poking your head around the corner looking near the doors to check for guards or anybody on patrol. You don't notice anything looking that direction. As you turn around to report that to the group, you see that there's a group of citizens beginning to form behind you all, kind of staring up at the tower, trying to figure out what's going on and things like that. And they saw you all standing here. So it's kind of like,
00:49:05
Speaker
This makes sense, like these people are gathered, so you're starting to draw a crowd from the opposite direction. Uh, fellas, I'm afraid if we open these doors, all these people are gonna follow us in. And, uh, who knows what could happen to them. When you say citizens,
00:49:25
Speaker
Are these people who are reedrons? Are these people who have lived in storm reach? It looks to me just standard storm reach citizens. How many crab monsters does Barrick see? Well, here's the thing, guys, it feels like we're not going to catch a lot of adversity out here if we try to open doors.
00:49:49
Speaker
But there is the matter of something's on the other side of the doors and these doors are going to make quite a spectacle of themselves as they open. I assume. Uh, you and Booyah work on the doors. Let me see if I can talk the crowd into going because I'm going to be no use on the doors. Fair. Uh, all right. Um, which scene do we want to take first? Uh, let's do the doors first. Okay. The first thing I'm going to do is check and see if there's a, uh, any sort of.
00:50:20
Speaker
I guess traps. I mean, there's a very real chance that they could still be enchanted, even though they're in the middle of the city. So I would like to check the traps. 28. Uh, you do not find any traps. Does it appear locked? What I know by looking, uh, you do see a locking mechanism on the doors. All right. Well, who wants to try first movie? Uh, you or me? You go ahead. You probably, I think you try. All right.
00:50:50
Speaker
I'm going to try. You have two. I do. I do. That is a twenty. Twenty. Yes. So you get your tools in there and you kind of feel the locking mechanisms and you try to force them. But there's just there's something you can't quite get to to latch as you're trying to turn it.
00:51:14
Speaker
Booyah, this lock is impossible. Let's go. We are going to go tell people, Booyah, say you need to go. Booyah, talk to them now. Well, you're up at the door right now, Booyah. So we're going to cut to Barrick, who turned around as you all walked up to the door. So Barrick turns and he walks over. So Barrick,
00:51:39
Speaker
remembers a time when talking to people was something he was reasonably good at, but sometimes forgets that as he turns, what the people see approaching them is a figure in long, loose black clothing, a sort of black hooded surcoat, and a decorative mask covering his face with a sword slung on his back,
00:52:08
Speaker
Uh, walking, walking over towards them. Um, and this is something we've all probably forgotten, but as he walks, any vegetation on the ground dies as he steps by it. So it might not go very well. On the other hand, they might leave, but Saperic approaches the crowd and assuming they don't flee. Uh, he's going to say.
00:52:45
Speaker
How long have you been in a storm reach? A couple of them regard you uneasily. Most of them are staring up at the obelisk. One just kind of in a hand wave response says all my life, what do you want? I don't know what's about to happen here. That machine up there, that obelisk, it's bad news.
00:53:14
Speaker
Uh, they tried to build one in shine that was intended as a mind control device. And I've seen one take control of a person's mind before. I don't know what they're about to do in there, but this is not going to be a safe place for very long. Um, whatever they're doing, it's gaining in power. I think you would do well to be far from this place. Okay. Um, go ahead and give me a persuasion role.
00:53:54
Speaker
I would like to spend a penny to reroll that. Um, Nope. Eight. Um, the, the woman on the arm of the man that kind of half-heartedly answered your question goes, Oh, big magical machine. A sound spooky move. I can't see.
00:54:15
Speaker
How close is Booyah? You're back at the door, Booyah. This is happening while you're talking to Dex. Oh. I don't know what's going on. You went with Dex up to the door. At some point I'm leaving talking to Dex and heading to the people. I know. This is just happening. Whenever that happens. OK. What?
00:54:32
Speaker
Do i get from looking at these people what's what manner of people are these these shop keeps and stuff they seem to be yeah merchants. Some of them seemed maybe were sailors or pirates all of them seem to be really kind of.
00:54:54
Speaker
Um, I mean, they've been roughed up, like their city has been hostilely taken over. So, um, they're trying to get back to a sense of normalcy, but you can see that these are, these are people that have been punched in the mouth, but they're, they're storm reach people. So they're not ones to let that get to them. All right. Barry's going to try something different. Look.
00:55:21
Speaker
The people who've taken over the city are bad news. I don't need to tell you that you know that already. What you may not know is they're bad news for everyone. They're bad news for the world. They're trying to do something that will result in the loss of free will of every person on this planet. And we're going to try and stop them. But when we go in there and we try to stop them, I don't know what's going to happen. But it's going to be big.
00:55:51
Speaker
And it may be violent. There's no cause for you to be caught up here. You need to stay alive. Paolo Amaran is coming back. I don't know when, but soon. She's going to need your help when she comes back. The Storm Lords are not dead. Some of them live. And they're not going to let their city stay in the hands of these monsters.
00:56:20
Speaker
They're going to need your help to rebuild when this is over. So I'm asking you again. Move along. This is not a, this is not a place to stay. Okay. Um, go ahead. I still sounded persuasion-ing. Yeah, I'm trying not to, I don't want to, I don't want to threaten anybody. Don't roll persuasion.
00:56:47
Speaker
a 21 21 okay so um so yeah um they as you're speaking once you start speaking of the storm lords more of them their eyes are drawn to you and um
00:57:08
Speaker
They tense up their jaws and look amongst each other, kind of acknowledging your words. And they, some of them begin to like back up, not fully on disperse, but certainly giving you your space. The woman that kind of laughed at you,
00:57:37
Speaker
asks you, when will they come? I don't know, but I'll just say soon. When I left Breland, they were preparing a fleet. She looks at the ground and kind of chuckles to herself, says, soon.
00:58:04
Speaker
as much as I can give you. Many men have died waiting on soon to come. And she turns and walks away. Booyah, you approach as the crowd begins to like back off, not fully dispersed, but they're giving you all your personal space. Eric turns and is about to head back to the door and Booyah is approaching.
00:58:31
Speaker
The door opened? Or unlocked, at least? No. We have to take the door closed. Bex, try open. Too hard. Oh. Don't sound so disappointed. These people just back up. They don't leave yet. Well, if we can't get the door open, I don't suppose it matters.
00:59:00
Speaker
They still too close. I don't disagree. I've told them. Booyah, gun talk. Booyah walks towards and kind of spreads his arms and his halo pops up and starts to glow. Good people need leave. Booyah say need leave. Very dangerous. Booyah friend try tell. What is that thing? Is that a warforged child angel?
00:59:31
Speaker
Booyah whips off his crossbow. Booyah say, no make fun. Booyah try help people be safe. This is why I don't like warforged. I always resort to violence immediately, drawing a weapon. Booyah, he's not pointing at anybody. And his helmet have like a visor on it.
00:59:58
Speaker
Or does he have to take the whole thing off? I'm trying to remember. You can see with it on, but there's no like discernible, like it doesn't look like a medieval helmet with an eye slot or anything. So I have to take it totally off. To what end, I guess. So they can see that I'm not a little child. So they can see that he's a goblin. Okay. Yeah. You would need to take the helmet off.
01:00:23
Speaker
Okay, so crossbow in one hand, takes his helmet off, his halos glowing. And does anybody in the crowd look ill? Like they could use some healing, they're bruised or whatever. I mean, lots of these people have been beaten by inspired guards and stuff like that, but none of them look particularly like ill or lame or anything like that. Okay, so not worth healing anybody. So anyway, he
01:00:53
Speaker
So Booyah, no child. Booyah, try help people. You too close, this very dangerous. You need go away. Okay, give me a perception check. Persuasion. Persuasion, thank you. All right, and are these, these are all, I'm assuming, good aligned creatures?
01:01:22
Speaker
Uh, I mean, they're, they're pirates. This is a pirate city. So I would say the majority of them are neutral at best. Maybe a couple of good ones sprinkled throughout, but certainly not the majority. Hmm. I'm going to use intimidation since I have my crossbow off. You didn't say anything intimidating. Well, but I pulled it.
01:01:48
Speaker
No, you can do intimidation. I have advantage on intimidation against evil alignment. The majority of them are neutral.
01:02:12
Speaker
It's OK. So then it's going to be. Well, that's two points less 20. Yeah. OK, so the fact that you took your helmet off to show them that you weren't a warforged child, but rather a goblin in a city full of pirates that are frequently attacked and attacking goblins.
01:02:37
Speaker
didn't make the crowd more warm to you. In fact, they got kind of spooked and freaked out that a goblin is within the city walls and they begin to kind of back away. I'm trying to save them. Yeah, they're backing off. I mean, listen, outside of outright aggression towards them, it's a weird thing happening in the town. You're not gonna get them to fully disperse and like disregard the thing that's happening. So they back up more, basically.
01:03:04
Speaker
We had just size human crazy puts his helmet back on and walks back towards Derek towards Dex, I guess. Okay. Um, so yeah. Um, does somebody else want to try on the doors?
01:03:24
Speaker
Did both of them try? Boy, it sure feels like I had about 10 minutes to try again there. I don't know if to screw my courage to the stick in place and give another shot. Did both of them try? Oh, I don't have proficiency. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you did.
01:03:41
Speaker
No. Orianna will also try. Okay. That's why I left Booyah and Dex at the door. Booyah has proficiency in whatever tools it is that scratches up obelisks. Yeah. Right. I will say because of Dex's high yet ineffective role, Dex has some good insight into the lock mechanism and can maybe help Orianna, so Orianna can be with advantage. Yeah, Dex says to recess, now listen, while you're doing this, there's going to be a point where it gets difficult.
01:04:10
Speaker
What I did was stop. Got it. 30. So, yes, Orianna elects, unlike Dex, to not stop when things got difficult and was able to you hear a large clank, not like overly loud, like echoing throughout the Coliseum. But definitely this was a heavy duty locking mechanism that falls away. And Beric, Beric hears Dex say, Beric, I opened it.
01:04:41
Speaker
You can come now and join us over here. Orianna playfully stabs you. As long as it's playful. It's the intent. You're launched 15 feet by a firestorm. So, yeah, Orianna is able to crack the door just enough to let you all slide in. Awesome. We do so. Do we do we do we just slide in? That's it. Yeah. Eric's going for it. Well, OK.
01:05:09
Speaker
I want to know what's going on in here. That's fair. I didn't know if we needed it. I guess we're still passed without tracing. Okay. So, um, you all encounter some steps going up towards the seating. Um, that's probably our best way to best place to hide.
01:05:24
Speaker
This being the audience entrance, I mean, there's obviously some doors and stuff that you presume are for staff to get down below, but yeah, you can head up into the seating. You also, you see kind of a sickly blackish glow coming from just over the crest of the staircase where presumably you'll be able to start seating down into the auditorium.
01:05:51
Speaker
Okay, where it creeps up and peaks down. Has anybody else fallen? Oh yeah, I'm absolutely right behind him or even in front of him perhaps. I'm definitely with him. Okay, so you all kind of, the visual that I have in my head is you all almost kind of like crouched belly crawling up to the crest and all of your heads kind of
01:06:24
Speaker
our heads pop up? Yes. And then a dramatic minor chord as you see. You see the base of the obelisk and all of the runes glowing. Once again with this kind of membrane shadowy light. And you see energy coursing down the sides of the obelisk and kind of pooling around the base.
01:06:36
Speaker
popping up over the top of the stairs as you look down.
01:06:50
Speaker
in Beric what you can recognize as the Orbing Ball of Magic Booyah, your planar magic detection skills are going wild right now. Finally, they coalesce into what appears to be some kind of portal and you also see
01:07:09
Speaker
like 40 to 50 inspired soldiers standing in the coliseum on the fighting grounds. And you see a portal form and the portal seems kind of unstable, shaky, until it locks into an oval form.
01:07:30
Speaker
and you see almost fighting against the magic, you see one pincered claw brace the side of the portal and then another as you see a sickest multi-eyed pinkish face kind of wail as it forces its way through the portal. And once it breaches, it kind of relaxes
01:07:55
Speaker
and looks about, all three of you quickly recognize this crab-like monster as being the one that you encountered surrounding Strint before. As it looks about at the inspired and say, tell the others we're ready. The invasion begins today. End of episode. Oh, this sucks.
01:08:23
Speaker
This rules, this sucks. Thank you all so much for listening. If you want to be part of the conversation, head on over to the Facebook group, The Geek Pantheon. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at The Geek Pantheon. If you like what we do and would like to join our amazing Patreon community, you can head on over to patreon.com slash The Geek Pantheon, hop onto our Discord server, and speak your mind about the latest episode.
01:08:43
Speaker
We're also proudly part of the D20 radio podcasting network that has all sorts of awesome gaming and just nerd related podcasts. And one of the newer podcasts on the network is Shared Sagas, which is an Australian actual play podcast, publishing weekly with both one-shot and ongoing campaigns. I believe right now they're actually doing Waterdeep Dragon Heist.
01:09:09
Speaker
is what they're doing right now. So if you like what we do and would like to hear some Aussies do it, head on over to d20radio.com and check out their show as well as all the other awesome shows on the d20 radio network. Once again, I am your dungeon master, Eric. I'm Philip. I'm Randy. I'm Jeff. And we will see you next time.