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C2 Ep. 120 Stranded in the Maze Chapter Seven
286 Plays2 years ago
Why is there a door?
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, Andy Dossett, Rebekah Gowman, deviouspoptart, Eðvarð Arnór Sigurðsson, Michael Clark, Eric Witman, Jerry Theuns, Philip Newman, Mark Stanley, and Shelby Johnson.
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Transcript
Introduction and Patron Acknowledgments
00:00:00
Speaker
The following episode is brought to you by Mark Stanley, Philip Newman, Shelby Johnson, Jerry Thunes, Andy Dossett, Eric Whitman, Edvard Arnoff, Natasha Rallerson, Deavius Poptart, Rebecca Gowman, Elizabeth Clark, David Scrams, Charles Compton, Darryl Delaney, Ryan Royce, Darren Katska, Irene Villarito, and Laura Pickron, as well as all of our generous patrons.
D20 Radio Network Introduction
00:00:34
Speaker
D20 radio, your game is roll.
Host Introductions
00:01:11
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Eberron renewed an actual play podcast set in the Eberron campaign setting. I'm your game master, Eric. I'm Phillip. I'm Trevor. I'm Randy. I am Jeff.
Recap of Previous Episode
00:01:19
Speaker
Welcome to another episode. Gentlemen, what happened last time? Bugs. We got Molly walks with arms per usual. Our venture into Kyber has not started well, but
00:01:33
Speaker
Hob hates bugs now. Nobody went down to be fair.
Humorous Debate on Fortune
00:01:37
Speaker
That's true, yeah. Wildly close for both Reynard and Hob. I don't know about the other two. Remarkably for a combat that was difficult, Eris was not wounded.
00:01:47
Speaker
usually ends up on the receiving end of some hurt when the combat does not go. Okay, well the the combat is over. You all have healed up. Cassian kind of looks. Anybody need any holds up healing potion?
00:02:05
Speaker
Yes. And Cassie tosses one so healed six wounds. Think the Lord. Wait, who do they think it? No, no, no, no, no. Think the sovereigns. Yeah. Okay. Where do I go? Jeffrey.
00:02:21
Speaker
or the flame, or the spirits of the dead. I was at nine. I'm going down to three. Thank the six.
Rising Lava Challenge
00:02:27
Speaker
You could thank yourself if you're in the blood of voles. Thanks me. Oh, thank me. That's how Hob rolls. I'm great. I am awesome. Move on. Way to go, bud. I am an awesome me. I reign. My god, is it awesome me here?
00:02:51
Speaker
You all have a rising river of lava to contend with. What do you all have? You don't care right now. Okay, the lava is rising, but we need to continue going down. So there's definitely a- It's bad. There's definitely, I mean, there's obviously a like infinity pool drain spot. And we just need to get over there, right? Where are we going? No, I mean, the lava goes under some rocks. Like there's some rocks overcropping and it flows into this cavern and it flows out.
00:03:21
Speaker
It's starting to fill this cavern. So we need to get out of the cavern.
Plan to Cross Lava
00:03:24
Speaker
Do we have to go across the lava? Do we have to cross the lava? You have to cross the lava. Oh. Hey, don't you freeze things occasionally? Raynard, put your jacket down. We'll walk over it. I mean, I think he's got that, that freezey stack.
00:03:47
Speaker
No, you broke, you depleted the dagger, you did not deplete this thing. You rolled a triumph with it to do something special. But we need, I mean, he can't freeze the lava, right? I mean, Milo might, you know, try to come up with some crazy magic. If you could cool it, cool the top enough temporarily that we could run across. If we could get that done with magic, Eris. It's a good thing I wore his sandals.
00:04:11
Speaker
I mean, Hob can probably just jump it, right? How wide is it? Right now, it is... Or alternatively... It's grown a bit, so it's at 15 feet now, so it'd be a hard check to leap across three purple... I mean, my athletics is pretty good. I could probably throw one of you across, but that's also... Is that also a hard check?
00:04:32
Speaker
Yes. I mean, that's a big risk to take, but I'm rolling three yellow and two green against three purple. I could probably make it work, but when I don't, you catch fire. Oh, Aeris can get across because... Spider boots. Right. Aeris has got her climbing boots. Well, I guess that's not necessarily a given. Looking around, is there a path Aeris could use cavern walls? Yeah, absolutely. It's a big cavern, so yeah, you can go on the wall and just open over where this thing is floating.
Discovery of Stone Door
00:05:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:02
Speaker
can take like a line across. Yeah. Um, we can set up a, what's the, the rope bridge model where you have like one that you walk on and then like, there's one. Yeah. I don't remember what that's called, but I couldn't never tell you.
00:05:20
Speaker
We had film on, what's it called? Uh, yeah. So, I mean, Eris is going to go across and Eris has, we'll take rope across. So whatever method we want to use here, but Eris can, can do that. Okay. Um, or, uh, rated for hob.
00:05:39
Speaker
Well, I was just going to say, actually. Eris doesn't need to go real high up the walls. Um, could Eris use her climbing boots to place like.
00:05:56
Speaker
Spikes or something into into the wall That others could then use to follow the same path. Yeah Good hairs go to the top and drop a rope swing All of these are viable options. I just need to know which one is that last one's gonna take a long time I think the most plausible one is Eris makes a climbing path. Yeah, okay for everyone so Eris will
00:06:22
Speaker
use whatever combination of tools and stuff that you want to call on. I mean, you have adventuring gear, which includes heightens and rope and all that kind of stuff. Sure.
Dragon Shard Puzzle
00:06:34
Speaker
See, I mean... I think it's peatons. What? I think it's peatons. I actually think it is. Anyway, Aeris is going to hammer a bunch of spikes into the wall. Okay. They crack and moorlop. No. Oh, we should have thought about that. She goes long until... So, I mean, it's not that long.
00:06:51
Speaker
Yeah. And then she's on the other side. OK, so you all are able to climb across what is everyone. What is your base bronze score?
00:07:03
Speaker
Hey, Hob, you have the upper body and grip strength to do this without an issue. One. Three. You have the spider boots, so you're good. Two. Two. Okay, so Milo. Yes. Give me either an athletics or coordination check to climb across. Oh, it's going to have to be coordination, and that's not great.
00:07:29
Speaker
And the difficulty is just one purple. Raynard, same thing for you. One purple, either coordination or athletics.
00:07:44
Speaker
All right, I'm going to go with it. Not bad. You still have three advantage to spend on checks also. Have a yellow and two green and a purple, one purple? One purple. I feel good about that. I've got a yellow and a green against a purple. Should I use a boost? No, I probably shouldn't have. I mean, got two advantage. To be fair, the purple is not what hurt you. It was that you did not roll a success that hurt you. I want to use a boost. Okay, so Milo is taking one of the advantage to boost himself.
00:08:13
Speaker
That is a good decision. Raynard, with those two advantage, you can heal two of the strain that you suffered. Two success, one advantage. Okay. If you want to heal some strain. Raynard, you going over the lava, get singed a little bit. So go ahead and take
00:08:38
Speaker
Two wounds. Can I, even though I made it over easily, can I still roll for this? Just potentially heal some strain? Um, sure. It's impossible that I, I mean, it's obviously possible. It's not impossible. Oh my gosh, you're gonna do it. I just want to see. No, if you want to.
00:09:00
Speaker
A triumph. So I healed two strength, and I have two successes, one of which is a triumph. Which does make sense. I should be able to do this triumphantly. You're very strong. What would you like to spend the triumph on? What should we spend the triumph on? You could catch Reynard as he's about to fall and mitigate the wounds that he suffered from failing his check. He definitely still falls.
00:09:26
Speaker
He definitely still falls and I definitely catch him at the last possible moment. Because you were considering. Because I need for you to understand to the absolute degree how much I could have not.
Milo's Ominous Warning
00:09:41
Speaker
So you don't suffer those two wins. Okay, you all are able to cross. The lava river is behind you, continues to climb Cassian. I guess he needs to make this check as well.
00:09:54
Speaker
We see Cassian fall. No, that is so successful. Five success, two advantage. He'll add that to the pool. So now you're back up to four advantage. Okay, so you all continue down this tunnel.
00:10:12
Speaker
And then, Cassie, and then 20 more bucks. No, Cassie's got his headlamp, and he's looking around, and he's walking a few steps ahead of you all, kind of guiding further down. He and I have had a really long conversation about his headlamp versus my lantern, and the efficacy. And he kind of stops short, and you hear him go, huh? I have no memory of this place. There's a door.
00:10:42
Speaker
The door.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah, this down here isn't supposed to be. It's like underground. There's a door. Yeah. And like, as you all catch up to him, you see this large stone door, um, with some, I mean, you, you would recognize it, uh, Eris, you would probably be able to put together just with your lived experience. This seems like a very, very, very early version of kind of the, the goblin iconography that, um, you would have come across. Yeah. Um, I think Hobbes does his only, I mean, there's
00:11:13
Speaker
There's no one down here now, but not to say there was never just there. Yeah. They all places, um, on the ruins of, uh, to Connie city. Just this first time I've encountered a door trying to get to this thing. So, um, and it is kind of call kind of turns around to assess how far they've gone. Like, like right below the surface, you figure this would have come on. Is there.
00:11:38
Speaker
Is it just a door in a natural wall, or does it look like a ruin that we're now entering? It looks like the exterior walls, it's like cavern, cavern, cavern, and then cuts in where the door is. So it looks like this is the entrance door. What's the door made of? Stone. There is more. Yeah, Aeris is all up on this thing. So next to the door, there is a doorbell.
00:12:04
Speaker
There is a three-tiered stone, almost table workbench, actually two tier. So there's an elevated section and then it's one step down and then the floor, but it's workbench height. Oh, it's workbench height. I thought you were saying it is a workbench. With like a shelf above it. So on the top shelf, you see three hammers.
00:12:27
Speaker
It is a workbench. Very intentionally. But the hammerheads are not metallic. They seem to be made of some crystalline material. What are we doing? There's a mission. Immediately recognize them as dragon shards.
00:12:47
Speaker
Unwieldy hammers are these are these they look to be like work hammers like I guess what I mean is because the Dakani Empire was goblin and hobgoblin And I assume they would have different that's true. Yeah, these these seem to be your medium sized humanoid gotcha, okay? so that's on the top like in the shelf on the workbench on the workbench itself are three orbs and
00:13:11
Speaker
And then on the ground in front of this workbench are three narrow tubes, almost like what you would see a poster or a map carried in, but they're open on the top. And there's a slide lid that shuts, but all of them are open. Each of the Dragon Shards, Eris, you would recognize them as being distinctly different of
00:13:38
Speaker
And that each item is made from Kyber shards and each are matched in kind. So the far left-hand side, all three items are Sybaris, middle all three are Eberron, right all three are Kyber. A hub turns to Cassie and it says, we like to give Eris a moment to shop around when we come across these sorts of things. Oh, okay. So Eris dares at it for a moment. So I guess,
00:14:02
Speaker
Philip immediately is,
Puzzle Solved
00:14:04
Speaker
this is odd. These three sets seems immediately odd to me, but I don't know whether that's something that would seem strange in any way. Uh, is there, what would I roll to see if I can interpret the, I was, I mean, obviously hammers, I know what a hammer is for, but the purpose of the orbs and the tubes, like what their purpose either is or was, what would be the,
00:14:29
Speaker
Yeah, you could make a knowledge adventuring check, I would take. This is why I don't like all the facts, heroic ability. Because you can just flip two story points and just know. And then Phillip wouldn't be able to do what he wants to do. Hey, you don't have to use it as the thing. It's a good fall back. Whenever you all can't think of the word anchor, you can flip two story points, or we can think of better answers than anchor.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yes, which is why I was about to go and I said no stop that Were you around to the anchor thing was that still yes, I can't look at me like that
00:15:08
Speaker
Trevor was only on like seven episodes. Yeah, that's your fault. I realize now you should have been up on. There's even a picture of an anchor hanging above the riddle. I will, how many are we at? We're at four. We'll spend one for a boost. Can I argue for a boost because this is goblin? Sure.
00:15:37
Speaker
Okay. And I'm gonna flip the story point upgrade. This is gonna be one red, one purple. Okay. Average difficulty for an adventurer.
00:15:56
Speaker
That is the third despair I have rolled today. Do I get shot? Hob is a bug. I have still succeeded. You've been infected with the bug lycanthropy genome. So I have two successes and three advantage, but I also have a despair. Two success, three advantage, and a despair. I will get extra orbs. So two success.
00:16:18
Speaker
You know you as with your knowledge of adventuring this is clearly some kind of Puzzle to open the door right like this is like a dungeon II puzzle that somebody with too much free time set up a long time ago With the advantage Additional information
00:16:47
Speaker
Unless you have something else for the advantage that you would like, like, is there specific information you would like to know or something else you would like to spend it on? I mean, if you've got something, I will hear it because this is obviously we're trying to solve the puzzle. Um, the tubes are also made of crystal. Yes. Okay. It's tubes, orbs, hammers, and one of each in each of the different types of
00:17:12
Speaker
Okay, so with the advantage, you recall some information that you know about the Kyber shards that you think might relate to these puzzles in that you know that when you're refining Kyber shards, they are what are typically used for
00:17:31
Speaker
actual use in a dragon shard weapon. So if you're trying to make a dagger out of a dragon shard, you would use a Kyber dragon shard to actually like refine down to an actual blade. Whereas a Cibra shard generally will contain power better, like innate energies, magical arcane energies. And then Eberron dragon shards are the most durable of the dragon shards. If you want to build something that's going to last a very, very, very long time,
00:18:03
Speaker
But it wouldn't, it's not good for like an implement, like it's not strong enough to actually be like an Eberron Dragon Shard dagger, but an actual Eberron Dragon Shard would last for a very long time. It's very durable. So that's what you kind of know through your shared or your lived experience of working with Dragon Shards and looking at this here.
00:18:22
Speaker
the despair. One of the thing you note on the door in stone relief there are three dragons kind of like
00:18:35
Speaker
Chasing each other kind of in a circular pattern Say is there a way could Milo like Really check, you know look things that were really closely if you want to give me a knowledge lore check this is going to be a hard difficulty three purple
00:18:57
Speaker
The tubes are of a size that the orbs would go in them. No, they seem too narrow for the orbs to sit in them. It's not that. So I wonder if the tubes are affixed to something or they're laying on the ground. They're standing straight up, but we could lift them, pick them up. They're not attached to the ground. No, they're attached to the ground. Can I tell whether any of them are currently magically charged?
00:19:20
Speaker
Um, they, they all seem to be active magically. Like they, they are charged dragon charts for lack of a better way to put it. Trap in listener. It's about to get fun.
00:19:30
Speaker
Miles looking it over with his knowledge of lore, three success, three advantage, and a triumph. Okay, so the success, you look at the door, the stone, this is clearly some kind of ancient carving of what is known as the progenitor myth of the creation of Eberron, where with the three dragons, clearly this is a depiction of the dragon Sivaris, Eberron, and Kyber.
00:19:55
Speaker
circling each other in the creation of the planes and all of that kind of stuff.
Legend of Dern
00:20:02
Speaker
There's stars and stuff carved into it as well, so they're clearly on the astral plane flying around. How many advantage? Three. Three? What do y'all want with three advantage? Because I kind of gave the
00:20:23
Speaker
I mean, so you as characters would presumably know the creation myth of Eberron for the players who may not recall. The Three Dragons created all the various planes and due to argument and fighting disagreement, Kyber betrayed Sybaris and killed Sybaris, scattering her body across the astral plane, which is the ring of Sybaris around the planet of Eberron.
00:20:50
Speaker
everyone in an attempt to contain Kyber wrapped their herself herself around Kyber containing them within their body to stop them from
00:21:05
Speaker
Doing horrible things so that is the creation myth of Eberron Dragon shards are like their blood. Yes so Advantage three advantage I would could we tell you with three advantage could we tell whether the objects are safe to touch like whether the magic in them is Something that if we laid a hand on one of them, it's gonna elect
Warnings of Zoriat
00:21:30
Speaker
a computer system
00:21:30
Speaker
Yeah, you seem to you seem to get the sense looking at it and with the advantage, you know, for certain that this is meant these are meant to be interacted with in some capacity in order to to open the door. Before we get to the triumph, the despair that was rolled. Oh, yeah.
00:21:48
Speaker
Next thing I was going to say is about touching them. So I'm really glad that you called this before I said that. Yeah. I'm trying to think of who. Eris rolled it. Probably Eris. I mean, if it's if it involves doing something stupid right now. No, no, it's not. It's not doing something stupid. It's narratively makes sense for it to be Milo. Sorry, Randy. So, Randy, Milo, you hear a voice. No. You hear a no.
00:22:19
Speaker
Wait, I hear a what? Hold on, I'm not done. I just did it, you hear a blblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblbl
00:22:50
Speaker
Is that it? We're not nice towards you. I'm getting close to your domain. What? What are you talking about? I heard a voice. It's not Kylie. Why are you using my power? You say I'm losing? Why are you using my power? Strange. I'm using his power.
00:23:20
Speaker
Stop it. Yeah, quit thinking about it. We've gotta teach you how to compartmentalize.
00:23:24
Speaker
Eris wants to tap one of the cylinders because I want to know whether they're resonant because I want to know whether this is like a musical thing where we're tapping things with the hammers to make them resonate. The blue man group? Yes. Sorry, you're picking up the hammer and tapping something? No, I just want to like with her gauntlet, with her cyborg hand, she just wants to sort of tap one to see what, tap the tube and then reach up and tap one of the orbs. I just want to see whether they
00:23:50
Speaker
they have an obvious resonant quality to them. Nothing that would be so distinct to make you think that that is related to what you need to do. Cassian perks up when, what's he saying? What, Milo? What does he sound like? Sounds evil and foreboding. Does he have kind of a deep? Yes. Little resonant?
00:24:19
Speaker
Stop talking, that's somebody named Dern. What? Resident of Zoriat, plane of madness, bad person. We're close to his dominion here.
00:24:36
Speaker
Okay. But he said I was using his power. Well, I didn't think it would be a problem. We're getting close to Kyber. That's where the aberrations and the- Dern it! We wouldn't reasonably know Dern, would we? No. No. Because I learned about Dern last campaign.
00:25:01
Speaker
Okay question for you Milo just don't don't access your your capability your ability to like just Stop for now like just try to shut your mind out. Okay, so
00:25:18
Speaker
Very well. Try counting prime numbers from 123 down. Can you do that? That'll keep your mind occupied. Who can do that? I'd like to spin the story point. We still have a triumph, by the way. Yes. This doesn't quite feel triumphal, but maybe, I don't know. Let's spin the story point.
00:25:44
Speaker
The Dakani Empire was destroyed by the Delkir, presumably the Goblins of Dargun still tell myths about that and sing songs about that. So, Eris is heard of Durn. Eris is heard of Durn. Okay. So, yeah. Eris, what you know of Durn the Corruptor, what you would have learned is that
00:26:04
Speaker
Outside of Dern, like being part of the invasion that destroyed the Empire, also Dern was the one that would take prisoners of war and corrupt them into the the Dolgants and the the aberrant forces that ultimately killed the Empire were corrupted goblinoids that Dern twisted from their original form. Okay, so this one Eric goes, wait that's real. You've heard of Dern
00:26:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's real. And then there's this brief moment where Eris' eyes go all suspicious and then she files it away for a second. We just thought that was like, you know, gods and stuff.
00:26:50
Speaker
No, the delcure are very, very real. You don't want to tangle with that. I will say, if we get down there and I say run, if you see a humanoid figure with purple skin walk out with a really high collar looking very like
00:27:13
Speaker
Um, just intense. I'll say run and we run. I don't, I can't imagine he's here, but yeah.
Exploration of Ancient Ruins
00:27:25
Speaker
All right. How many more things should we know are just run things that we might encounter here?
00:27:33
Speaker
That's the, I mean, the skittering horrors were my like, you know, best case scenario of what we were going to encounter down here. Best? Did you just use the wrong word there? Obviously nothing would be ideal, but my life has taught me that I don't get those kind of... So you didn't just use the wrong word, you didn't mix up best and worst. I mean, no... Good job.
00:27:58
Speaker
You've been paid handsomely for it. Um, use that money. If we die down here, it makes me want to be dead. Um, Harris, uh, takes one of the orbs. She's using her gauntlet at hand the whole time. She takes one of the orbs and I just want to hold it above each of the cylinders. Cause obviously being spherical, I could set it on them and I want to hold it above each and see if there's any reaction just from proximity.
00:28:26
Speaker
When you hover it over the Kyber hammer, is that what you're doing? I was doing the cylinders. I'll take the Eberron orb because in Eris's mind that's the most stable one. The Eberron orb.
00:28:45
Speaker
Interacting with the tubes, the eberron orb doesn't have any response. It just stays very neutral. Then likewise, I bring it into proximity of the hammers. Nothing happens with the eberron orb. Okay. Then I pick up a different orb and repeat the circle. Okay. So when, when you take the Sybaris orb and bring it over the Kyber hammer, the light in the Sybaris orb dims, like it almost like retreats out of like a way. Could we maybe use the triumph to like get one answer? I'm afraid one answer would lead us to the other two too easily.
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah, unless it may, I don't want it to be too easy. I mean, guys, this is also, I mean, this is also mechanically a game. If you want to spend the triumph to like, it's fun to try and figure out the puzzle. Milo also has superhuman level intellect, so. Right. So it's also totally reasonable that Milo would be able to look at it and go, oh, yeah, obviously. Like, so if you want to use the triumph for that, I'm totally fine with that. If Phillip wants to continue trying to suss it out,
00:29:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm fine with that. It also doesn't have to be used to try it. Well, yeah, I wonder if does anybody else have any thoughts on the setup? I do want to try. OK, so nothing happened with the Kyber shard either with the Kyber orb either. No, nothing happened with the Kyber. And if I repeat the same process with each of the orbs and each of the tubes, not the reaction you get is when a Sibris, Sibris orb and the Kyber hammer are more gems.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah, we're gonna ask thinking if there was a we need to there needs to be a configuration of
00:30:14
Speaker
A sibberish something, a kyberish something, and, and the, and the, the, um, Eberron something has to be separating the other two. That's a good time. Same thing as before, but hammers and cylinders, because that's the only combination. Um, hammer and cylinders, the light in the Kyber hammer retreats when it gets near the Eberron. There we go. Good call.
00:30:43
Speaker
plus ever on cylinder. Okay. So Jeff, I think you're right. No, you're good. Cool. I think you're right. So what's happened is to get the dogs outside. Oh, you're okay.
00:31:14
Speaker
Free me! What? Oh, sorry. Okay, so so far the the sivorous orb dims in proximity to the kyber hammer and the kyber hammer dims in proximity to the eberron cylinder. That's okay.
00:31:45
Speaker
And just for a lark, I would also bring each of the mobile parts close to the door. Nothing happens. Nothing happens. Okay. One thing you note, uh, I think we had some advantage on Randy's check that didn't get utilized. When you're carrying, when you're taking the hammers and bringing them near the tubes, you do note that the tubes are the appropriate size for the hammer to drop down into. All right. So here's, but too small for the orbs. So here's a fault.
00:32:15
Speaker
The Kyber Hammer reacts to the Eberron Cylinder and the Syrus Orb reacts to the Kyber Hammer. So I'm thinking, put the Kyber Hammer in the Cylinder and then put the Syrus Orb on top.
Discovery of Heart of Kyber
00:32:34
Speaker
Right, and that continues the protection thing, I think that. Okay, so Eris takes the Kybershard hammer and sets it down in the Eberron cylinder and then caps it, essentially sets the Sybaris orb down on top of the tube. And Hob covers his head with his arms. Nothing happens.
00:33:01
Speaker
Well, you want me to tear it down? Yes. We still have the triumph on the table that we have not utilized. I think we give it our best shot. Let's cheat. I have no objection. Eris takes it apart and continues to look. Okay. Milo, you looking at everything and looking at the implements, uh, think Kyber destroyed Sybaris and then was contained by Eberron. Oh, right. All right. It's just a smashing thing.
00:33:32
Speaker
Oh, so we have to use the Kyber hammer to smash? You only get one go at this though, so here's my question. Right, because Kyber did the smashing and Kyber ended up... Do I smash it on the workbench or do I like set the orb on top of the cylinder and then smash it so like the fragments... Which cylinder?
00:33:53
Speaker
Sorry, I had a clear throat. Which cylinder? I assume it's the Eberron one. Right. But Eberron didn't contain Sybaris. That's true. And Sybaris didn't destroy Kyber. So we can't have Kyber destroy Sybaris and then drop the shards right in the tube. Okay, so you think set the Sybaris orb on the workbench, smash it and then drop the hammer down the tube.
00:34:19
Speaker
Yes, Milo. I want to use all the facts if whatever is about to happen is obviously going to go. You can't do this conditional thing like, if this is wrong, I want to use my arrow. No, wait. I just realized. Are you going to use it or no? Aeris raises the hammer.
00:34:45
Speaker
No. Okay. Smash. Okay. And then drop the hammer. The hammer smashes the orb. And then drop the hammer down into the Eberron Cillator. Okay. And slide it shut. Oh, right. It has a cap. Yes. Slide it shut. As soon as you slide it shut, you hear a stone rumbling and the stone. I thought you were going on to something. Cool. Eris puts all three hammers in her bag.
00:35:05
Speaker
Okay. And the other two orbs. As well as the other two orbs. And scrapes the shards. Oh yeah. Yes, absolutely. She scrapes the shards into her bag. Of course she does. And then Hob turns to Cass and he goes, I can do something with this. Do we have to keep going? This sucks.
00:35:20
Speaker
that there's a lot of shard here doesn't that the one that we're looking for is real big okay as you enter this room can I ask yes a hob would know I guess air certainly would like did we just get like several depletions worth of dragon shards of Kyber shards
00:35:39
Speaker
They would need to be refined in a different way they were clearly purposed like made for a specific this specific thing So Eris is gonna have to do some refining, but you certainly have the raw materials to to do that, right? Okay, so Yeah, you walk into this it's a circular room with a Column in the center and a spiral staircase going down is what you see. Okay all along the walls
00:36:05
Speaker
is a huge stone carving, like kind of panoramic view. And this seems to have been a common area, like there's some furniture that's like the wood is rotten, like, but this seemed to be a. Yeah, a common area, a common room hangout spot. There are. You would instantly recognize there is hobgoblin skeletons like that have been, you know, over
00:36:35
Speaker
hundreds of thousands of years just depleted. The stone carving all around the huge stone relief portrays a massive battle with on one side hobgoblins and orcs fighting alongside dragons against an army.
00:37:01
Speaker
uh comprised of what insofar as you can tell just at first blush like humans dwarves elves um that's that's what you see um
00:37:15
Speaker
But whoever was living here was obviously killed by something. From an Eris standpoint, Eris, you would be able to put together that probably this was around during the Empire and the eventual downfall due to the Zoryat invasion. So this is probably a casualty of that. But that's what you see on the wall. OK. And then there's a spiral staircase going down. Cassian seems marveled by this like he was not expecting this at all. Eris just sort of mutters.
00:37:49
Speaker
He went a little displaced. And I'm going to look around at the skeletons. Is there stuff left over if there were killed? I mean, you said they were obviously casualties of something. So violent deaths. Are there like weapons and things left around? Nobody was in armor when they died up here. This was clearly like a social, like not an armory or anything like that, or even a barrack. They were wearing their social armor?
00:38:15
Speaker
You see a couple like bronze daggers instead, like early age weaponry, but nothing that strikes you as overtly magical. This was not where like the soldiers and stuff like- Oh yeah, I didn't expect enchanted stuff. Yeah, yeah. Eris takes them. Okay. Check to see how they died? Or is it not me? I mean, you spot them, maybe- Yeah, give me a medicine check. There's gonna be hard difficulty though, because you're just looking at skeletons.
00:38:46
Speaker
And upgrade the difficulty once. Uh, if they're not complete skeletons, I have some idea on how some of them might've died. Uh, I just use a story point. So if you get screened back, one of them might be missing ahead. I know how that would upgrade it once. Upgrade the difficulty once. Right. Yeah. Okay. Uh, two success, three advantage.
00:39:08
Speaker
Okay, so yeah, Milo, you can pretty easily tell that there's some broken bones and how the bodies are laid, how the skeletons are set. They were attacked. They were trying to defend themselves. They were attacked by
00:39:24
Speaker
can't really tell if it was like savage wounds or weaponry or stuff like that because you don't have any real flesh to go by but well I guess you see on some of the skeletons on some of the bones scratch marks rather than like precise weaponry this was like
00:39:43
Speaker
Yeah, but like claws like not not not refined warfare It's not a refined killing So yeah, that's what you can touch with three advantage
00:40:01
Speaker
You know, you have a high knowledge lore, so you would probably get on the same page as Eris of knowing Zoriath invasion, like you've heard about this, just, I mean, it's myth and things like that, about the downfall of the Takani Empire. But, you know, dolgons and things like that are, like, they exist in the world, and so you, with your medicine check, you can tell that's what killed these guys were, like, aberrations of the goblinoids.
00:40:32
Speaker
Dole Gonsen, Dole Grimms, is that the other one? Yeah. According to this, it's straight down. So Cassian references his finding glass on his wrist. All right.
00:40:51
Speaker
Do we see, I mean, there is passage down. Yeah, there's a spiral staircase going straight down. Before you all go down, Cassian is double checking the stuff on his wrist and then he also takes out of his bag, takes his helmet off and puts kind of a pair of sending stones in his ears and puts the helmet back down on. Are we being too loud?
00:41:18
Speaker
These are the sending stone communicators. I haven't been wearing them because they're kind of uncomfortable, but as I'm recharging them, I'm hoping I can get a signal to communicate back. No, these aren't earplugs. These are my communicators. I thought he was putting his earbuds in. Big hounds of Belcon fan. To rock out, yeah. This is how he zones in for the heist. And thus Cassian broke through tears.
00:41:46
Speaker
And then he goes, I learned it from other, then he says, I learned it from other you and you're right back to you. Um, no, it would be like Eris finally going, Oh, I really liked the tune and going, I know. And then that would be, yeah, whenever new, new daggers. Okay. So.
00:42:03
Speaker
Are we heading down? Follow in Cassie. Okay Cassie and starts going down and as you all begin descending the spiral staircase you see a faint glow of white yellowish light and as you all break through the stone floor that was clearly carved straight down you see a massive like
00:42:27
Speaker
It looks almost like a column in the center of this room that you are. You're descending on like the far side is where these stairs to send to, and then you can go into the rest of the cavern. Just a massive, the biggest dragon shard you've ever even heard of, Eris. It's given the fact that you can't see the top or bottom, at least 15 feet tall. This cavern is 12 feet high. So and glowing fairly bright, like this is even dim lighting down here.
00:42:58
Speaker
There it is. There it is. And sorry, it's purplish light. Apologize, because it's the heart of Kyber, not Sipras. So it's a Kyber dragon shard. Wow. Yeah. Well, I suppose. I got to get to work, so. Do I just stand at the bottom of the staircase?
00:43:24
Speaker
Well, you see, so the other things that you all can note, just walking down here, there are a lot, there are a handful of tunnels that exit this cavern in various directions. And this seems to be like kind of like a hub for various tunnels to connect. Talk to me about the staircase. You said we've just sort of come down out of the ceiling. So it's like an open staircase wrapping around a column.
00:43:44
Speaker
Yeah, there's a small column with the staircase wrapping around. Yep. All right. So before we get started, if this is likely to cause a bunch of problems, I think that me and maybe Milo might want to do some spell casting for the improvement of our chances. So everybody come here and Eris, try something new.
00:44:06
Speaker
Instead of carving anything on any of you, Eris basically takes out one of her tools and traces a ring around the group of us on the floor, along which she makes a bunch of the Connie Runic markings.
Preparation for Battle
00:44:31
Speaker
Uh, and I'm going to try to augment, but I'm going to do additional target and see how many of us I can augment all together. Uh, so Harris will target.
00:44:48
Speaker
I guess the initial targets will be Hob and Milo, that way whatever Milo wants to cast will have the benefit of the augment and then I can spend advantage to get the rest of us possibly. And you have three advantage left if you wanted to apply one final upgrade to this. I might do that precisely that. I fully endorse.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yes, we have succeeded. We just got some threat leftover and no advantage. That's a real bummer. Okay. So I've succeeded. There are two threat, but no advantage to spend on.
00:45:25
Speaker
getting more of us, which is disappointing, but Hobb and Milo are augmented. Okay. Um, mechanically, that means, uh, basically all of your skill checks you treat as if you had one additional rank in it. But there's no rank in it. Yeah. Okay. So I guess that's an upgrade. I think I want to try to put a barrier on all of us. Oh, it's time for Hobb to brawl.
00:45:55
Speaker
Just in case. Flip story points for my brilliant casting.
00:46:14
Speaker
Three success, seven advantages. So we are all barreared. All barreared? I apologize. Not upgrade, increase. That makes way more sense. Yes. So you add a green to all checks. And so what's the total barrier that everyone has? How many successes did you have? Three. Three successes. I think that ends up just being one unless you, because that's one for every two, right? Yeah.
00:46:39
Speaker
So everyone's soak is improved by one. You have seven advantage though. So that's all of us. I got all of us with the advantage. Okay, that's all the advantage? Well, one advantage per each soak. So you still have four? Three.
00:46:55
Speaker
One for me. I know it's additional so yeah, so yeah, so you have four advantage still What's the? The thing on barrier where you can it's like empowering it to where every success is a point of so yeah, so it's two points
00:47:12
Speaker
Um, so yeah. So basically, are you saying we could add that? Yeah. For the rest of the advantage, the damage of all hits, the target suffers by one and further reduce it by one for every uncancelled success beyond the first. So right now that would be three.
00:47:28
Speaker
No, right now we're at two for every, oh, for every, you start off with one for every uncancelled success, which is three. Normally it's for every two uncancelled success, but we're talking about adding empowered, which would make it a real one. Okay. So it would be a total of four by one. So you're further reduce it for every uncancelled success. So everyone's, everyone's soak is plus four plus four. Yeah.
00:47:51
Speaker
Eris wants to go back up the stairs. Back to her home. And put yourself up there. Just where you can still have an angle. And essentially an overwatch for this encounter instead of.
00:48:09
Speaker
being down there so she can support from up here. You're good up there on your own. I think so. Alright, because I'm going to be down here. I mean I guess the question is how distant is the shard from the base of the stairs? Like am I a football length away? No, you're just looking at long range. My question is, as we were looking around we did not see any other
00:48:29
Speaker
There are no tunnels leading out of this room. This was the only way into this. No, there are multiple tunnels. I missed this whole description somehow. I must have been looking something up. I apologize. So many tunnels. Yeah, there are quite a few tunnels leading out of this room. Milo, you hear in your voice. So you're at the heart.
00:48:49
Speaker
Well, can't have that, now can we? And you hear a cacophony of screaming begin from the tunnels. And Cassian just shouts, we gotta move, let's go. And he starts running towards the shard. Roll initiative.
Encounter with Dole gaunts
00:49:08
Speaker
Which one?
00:49:11
Speaker
Vigilance all are vigilance or cool since you all knew that there was the possibility of something happening before initiative actually pops off Cassian takes off sprinting and you all see So there is a tunnel
00:49:34
Speaker
Um, right, like two year olds left, uh, like short distance from the staircase for your purposes, Eris. Um, and you see a group, dole gaunts are the goblins, right? And dole grims are the hobgoblins. Okay. Uh, you see a group of three dole gaunts and one dole grim come out of the tunnel right near where you all are. Um, Philip, if you want to do me a favor and pull up a picture of the dole grim, especially just for the rest of the table.
00:50:04
Speaker
Across the way from you all. Oh, it's flipped. Okay. Total grams of the little ones. Okay. Well, you can show them both. Here's a dull gaunt. Yeah, okay. Don't like him. So one of those and a group of three of the smaller ones come out of the tunnel near the staircase.
00:50:33
Speaker
There's another tunnel to the right from the staircase, another group of three little ones come scattering out. And then across the way on the opposite side of the cavern, you see another group of a dole grime and three dole gaunts come coming out. And then on the far left side, you see a group of dole
00:50:51
Speaker
I'm going to get these names flipped. Little guys and big guys. But then you see a much bigger guy that Aerys to your eyes you would probably think there's not really, they're not common, so there's not a name for them.
00:51:07
Speaker
Those are the little guys. Two mouths, two mouths, four arms. I encourage the listener to look up Dolgant and Dolgram that spelled how it sounds. There's no name that I know of. Don't at me ever on nerds. I'm sure the one's out there somewhere. Eris, you would recognize this as a corrupted bugbear.
00:51:22
Speaker
Is coming out with another group of the dole gots bug a bear. Mm-hmm dole grims the little ones are grims, okay? Grim fairy tales are for little kids little Yeah, so that's what you see so there are a total of four groups of dole grims to dole Gonts and a big
00:51:49
Speaker
Dole bug bear thing. Dole bug. Dole bug. Dole bear. OK. Dole bears. All right. This is our initiative order. We have four PC slots, two NPC, one PC, and then five NPCs. I found it. It's a dolegar. Dolegar. There we go. Add that
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:52:11
Speaker
in post. Make me sound smart. Leave that in post to make the gate at home.
00:52:17
Speaker
End of episode. Thank you all so much for listening. If you want a part of the conversation surrounding this episode, you can head over to our Discord, the link to which you can find on all of our socials, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok. We also have a YouTube channel, youtube.com, slash sticky pantheon, that has the link to the Discord.
00:52:36
Speaker
has the link to the Discord in all of the video descriptions. We also have another actual play called Kyber Shards that Philip is the GM for, set in the city of Stormreach that uses the D&D fifth edition system. It's also Patreon, Patreon.com slash Geek Pantheon if you want to financially support the shows in any way. And we have a merch store, GeekPantheon.com where you can buy merch if you want to support the channel in that way and get some good merch.
00:53:27
Speaker
Thank you all so much for listening. I've been Eric. They don't get to talk now. See you next time.