[SPEAKER_09]: Hello friends and happy holidays.
[SPEAKER_09]: Welcome to another chapter full of the really gross shit you've come to expect from us.
[SPEAKER_09]: As a bomb against said gross shit, you should check out our merch store before you wrap up your holiday shopping.
[SPEAKER_09]: You can find us at darknexuspodcast.threadlist.com.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's threadless as in lacking in thread, T-H-R-E-A-D-L-E-S-S.com.
[SPEAKER_09]: There you can pick up T-shirts, sweatshirts, notebooks, phone cases, stickers, mugs, buttons, magnets, and a whole lot more for the Dark Nexus fans in your life.
[SPEAKER_09]: Or for yourself, I'm not going to judge you.
[SPEAKER_09]: And remember, if you don't see a particular piece of Matt Wallquist's artwork that you were hoping would grace your merchandise, just drop us a line at info at darknexuspodcast.com and let us know which episodes are you'd like to see so we can get it up there for you.
[SPEAKER_09]: While I'm here, I want to thank all our lovely patrons for your continued generosity and to welcome new supporter Mike to the fold.
[SPEAKER_09]: We literally couldn't do what we do without you and we're all so grateful for your backing and enthusiasm.
[SPEAKER_09]: Now without further ado, I give you Chapter 161, a Bode.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[SPEAKER_08]: Welcome back to Dark Nexus.
[SPEAKER_08]: Tonight, it's act four chapter 161.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's nightfall on the 25th day of the month of frost.
[SPEAKER_08]: We are deep in the Blackwood Swamp far, far from the one and only road that crosses it.
[SPEAKER_08]: There's this elevated causeway, diligently protected and maintained by the Taldon Army, but we are in the other direction, far out in the rotting,
[SPEAKER_08]: brackish marshland that rings Kazimire on all sides dozens and dozens of miles of dense overgrowth, man-eating plants, mutant hydras, terrible monsters, and the sorts of people who don't want anyone to know, where they live, or what they do.
[SPEAKER_08]: People, like my Akni and Mun, the air quotes great philanthropist.
[SPEAKER_08]: So before we pick back up with the action, I want to take just a quick little moment for a super super-tiny little rules conversation that Pauli and I have been having, which he alluded to in Debuk's meditation at the end of the last episode.
[SPEAKER_08]: So we as a table, we love to make our recurring joke about summoned creatures being plucked out of their college dorm rooms.
[SPEAKER_08]: But in truth, something you do sometimes have to wrestle with when you're playing
[SPEAKER_08]: first edition pathfinder is the actual question of what some creatures are, where they come from and where they go.
[SPEAKER_08]: The need to specify that is so rarely an issue, but when it isn't issue, which is, we discovered in that warehouse filled the spores, it's a real issue.
[SPEAKER_08]: And what makes it an issue is that the first edition pathfinder rules about summoning are a Frankenstein's monster of text from three different editions of two different games.
[SPEAKER_08]: Literally anything you find in one rulebook,
[SPEAKER_08]: or post on the message boards is contradicted in another one, which is no big deal.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's part of how the game evolved and it's why there are GMs to make some rulings whenever there is ambiguity.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I will spare us all the, the long version of this conversation and the laundry list of all the different Country 2 rulings that exist, maybe that's a conversation for Q and A down the road if anyone is actually interested in that.
[SPEAKER_08]: But the short version of this conversation, and this is the one that Paul and I have been having, basically consists of two simple questions.
[SPEAKER_08]: And the first one is, are summoned creatures brought here by the spell or are they created by the spell?
[SPEAKER_08]: In the end, I have decided that the best answer for us for this specific adventure is a ruling that James Jacob's put out saying that the intention in the Galarian setting is that a summoning spell creates a physical manifestation of a creature built on an existing template out of planar matter, basically the material of the material plane.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, Dabwick Pictures a Jaguar.
[SPEAKER_08]: and creates one out of the substance around them and briefly sparks it to life.
[SPEAKER_08]: thanks to the power of their divine connection to nature.
[SPEAKER_08]: So it didn't exist before the spell was cast, and once the spell is over, either because the duration runs out, or the creatures out of hit points, it ceases to exist.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is not the way many of us came up thinking about it, but it is a standing ruling by one of the main rules of the system.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think it's probably the least complicated way for us in this game in this setting with its complications to run with.
[SPEAKER_08]: But the second question is the one that Paul and I have actually decided to leave unanswered for now at least, and that is whether or not these manifestations are sentient.
[SPEAKER_08]: do they seem to think and feel or do they think and feel?
[SPEAKER_08]: This would be a totally irrelevant distinction in most games, but we are playing a story here where someone simply learning of the existence of a particular grade old one feeds
[SPEAKER_08]: Paul and I have decided for the kind of gameplay that Paul wants to have with his character to leave that particular question on answer, something that Dab's going to have to wrestle with without a direct answer.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's where we have been ever since that warehouse fight, Paul and I have been like, we gotta talk about this.
[SPEAKER_08]: Let's talk about it on here.
[SPEAKER_08]: We've been wrestling with it for a bit and that's where we have landed with this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I was going to say not even a question, but even even without Jamendore, the idea of something being brought into existence, and it's only life that it knows for that short amount of time, that minute or two minutes tops, is fighting and possibly dying horrific versus horrific creatures, is
[SPEAKER_06]: pretty awful.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's the whale and hitchhikers.
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, it's, it is this.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, I exist alive for the amazing.
[SPEAKER_08]: What am I doing?
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm dying.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now I'm dead.
[SPEAKER_08]: Uh, it's, it's pretty, pretty, pretty brutal.
[SPEAKER_09]: Have I never cast detects thoughts in the direction of a summon creature?
[SPEAKER_09]: Probably haven't.
[SPEAKER_08]: Gosh, I don't I'd not thought I could think of you so rarely do it in the middle of a fight unless you're using that one specific ability you have that triggers it on a target of one particular spell.
[SPEAKER_09]: And it's only one.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's only that target.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: If an evil druid takes speak with animals and then talks to one of the summoned animals and says,
[SPEAKER_08]: Those were actually her animal companions that she turned into fungal creatures.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: She actually did that, that was the thing that those are choice that she was.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, okay, get it.
[SPEAKER_09]: She was off.
[SPEAKER_07]: Your character was off him.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: What I'm most concerned about.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: How does this affect our ability to crack jokes about these summoned creatures?
[SPEAKER_07]: I know I will continue to crack the jokes simply because I like it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Good, that's all I care about.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's how it affects grip and that's how it affects Robert.
[SPEAKER_06]: So you're just saying you're going to delight in the potential cruelty of these summoned creatures without knowing for sure that it's actual cruelty.
[SPEAKER_08]: I just wanted to specify that regardless of any joke that we might make, what's kind of actually happened, just because it does matter to Paul's character.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, and so I'll throw out there that Dab's knows that Dora can detect thoughts.
[SPEAKER_09]: If that's an experiment, they want to embark upon.
[SPEAKER_09]: Great.
[SPEAKER_09]: She's always willing to help.
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't know what information it will give them.
[SPEAKER_09]: If any.
[SPEAKER_08]: But, well, you'll be detecting the thoughts that they seem to be having.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, we'll be detecting the thoughts that they have.
[SPEAKER_08]: We don't know.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_08]: So back to the game.
[SPEAKER_08]: All right.
[SPEAKER_08]: We have spent the bulk of this day taking care of business, taken off boxes.
[SPEAKER_08]: We got some shopping done.
[SPEAKER_08]: We closed the loop as best we can at the warehouse.
[SPEAKER_08]: Did some more sniffing around town.
[SPEAKER_08]: We took our hike, Dabwick completed their meditation.
[SPEAKER_08]: And now here we stand on the edge of the grounds.
[SPEAKER_08]: We're a legendary prison once stood.
[SPEAKER_08]: And after moving about a quarter mile through the muck, you've got eyes from a distance.
[SPEAKER_08]: on Mon's Place.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now, all those years ago, both times Dadwick arrived during it was at the beginning of the day.
[SPEAKER_08]: As the sun was piercing some of the gloom around here, dispersing some of the thick mist quiling at their feet, but this time, you arriving as the sun is sinking, as dying, and the gloom and melancholy of this place is groaning to life.
[SPEAKER_08]: Back when the prison still existed here before it sank, this lone standing building was not only an infirmary and dispensary but also an air quotes teaching surgery with a notably dark reputation.
[SPEAKER_08]: Well the young psychopaths would donate family money to the prison for the privilege of serving a rotation under the doctors here, where they would eagerly gather to watch amputations, and lobotomies, and vivisections, necessary and undone.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is a place of pain and death, and you can all feel it in your bones.
[SPEAKER_08]: The infirmary itself is a building on a 30 foot by 40 foot footprint, six stories tall, a nearly 100 foot tall tower of thick prison stone, with only a single door.
[SPEAKER_08]: This imposing reinforced iron portal with a chunky utilitarian knocker.
[SPEAKER_08]: Still, this headless angel holding the sign dangling from a single chain gives sucker to the troubled, windowless ground floor.
[SPEAKER_08]: Tiny, thin, almost arrow-slit-sized windows sporadically punctuate the second, third, and fourth stories, but they are closed off and sealed from the inside with iron shutters.
[SPEAKER_08]: Then the last two floors seem like they're probably one giant
[SPEAKER_08]: And the top floor was mostly once these huge windows flanking a tall Gothic gable roof.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now the windows were all broken when Dab's was last here, and of course Elisar was dealing with some of the insect and vegetation problems of the top of the building then.
[SPEAKER_08]: And weirdly, there is every sign that since then, all of the windows had been repaired and replaced, like a decade ago, but now they're all broken again.
[SPEAKER_08]: By all appearances, broken out from the inside, by a riot of crawling vines and what looks like.
[SPEAKER_08]: blackened tree branches, like there is a mini swamp growing inside the attic and it's exploding its way out.
[SPEAKER_09]: Great.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now, Dabwick has been inside this building.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's been over a decade, but they can fill you in on a little further detail.
[SPEAKER_06]: And let me...
[SPEAKER_06]: I was gonna...
[SPEAKER_06]: I wanted to ask, in grip and bashes memories, how does this structure compare to like, blossoming
[SPEAKER_06]: Biting lashes, fortress.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, blossoming.
[SPEAKER_08]: So blossoming Thorn is about the same height, but the floors in that building are 30 feet tall.
[SPEAKER_08]: So that's a three story building.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is a six story building.
[SPEAKER_08]: Blossoming Thorn is a giant ring.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is a three story.
[SPEAKER_06]: So that was a place designed to keep people in.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is a place designed to keep people out.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Can I take you to a map parallel?
[SPEAKER_08]: I just fill you in a little bit on what Debuk remembers, and I know it's been a couple years for you all since you've seen these maps Okay, so again, it's it's it's been a while, but Debuk can fill you in on what they remember There are there are four rooms on the first floor.
[SPEAKER_08]: There's an entry hall behind the door on the east face of the building Small room for the northeast that they didn't see
[SPEAKER_08]: a small room in the southeast that they passed through, which was mostly empty at the time.
[SPEAKER_08]: But then the bulk of the floor is taken up by this one large room situated around a hole in the floor, surrounded by a waste-high safety rail.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is that observation deck to look down onto the surgery.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now the first time that they came, Debuk and their pals went down and going down, you'll probably remember requires using the elevator.
[SPEAKER_08]: There's the surgery auditorium 15 feet below the first floor.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then 120 feet down, there was the cellar, which was this large open cavern, 70 feet long, 30 feet wide.
[SPEAKER_08]: There was a big iron door that was locked, Sam opened that up.
[SPEAKER_08]: You went through that and you found a short wet hallway leading to another similar locked iron door.
[SPEAKER_08]: The second day that they came, Dabuk and pals went up.
[SPEAKER_08]: They took the stairs to the second floor, which consisted of one single room, the size of the building.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's where a bunch of months personal stuff was at the time.
[SPEAKER_08]: He was just moving in, and that's where his collection of paintings was leaning against the southeast corner.
[SPEAKER_08]: They went up a flight of stairs to the third floor, which also consisted of one single room.
[SPEAKER_08]: But that was the one crammed with, you might recall, all the tall counters, like a pharmacy or a drunk lab or something, which was a little difficult for some of the halflings to negotiate because they couldn't see or the top of it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Then there was a ladder that led up through a trapdoor in the ceiling to the fourth floor which was another single room, empty at the time, and then you saw but did not use another ladder trapdoor situation to get to the fifth floor.
[SPEAKER_08]: So basically, every story in this place is a single room except for the first floor and perhaps whatever is behind the door in the cellar.
[SPEAKER_08]: The elevator is required to travel down, going up and evolve stairs to the second and third floors, ladders to the fourth and fifth.
[SPEAKER_08]: And by the look of it, from the outside, the sixth floor is probably open to the fifth floor, so it's either just empty space, or maybe there's like a loft, or something.
[SPEAKER_07]: But the only way down is the elevator.
[SPEAKER_07]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_08]: No stairway.
[SPEAKER_08]: There's no stairs going down.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, that's your visual of what you're seeing.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's your reminder of what Dab's nose.
[SPEAKER_08]: And let's drop back in the action here.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm soon, you've got some buffing and conversing you need to do.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, Darrell will cast Hellpathic Bond.
[SPEAKER_09]: Choose her once per day.
[SPEAKER_09]: Use of it, so no enhancement.
[SPEAKER_08]: Get great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dabic has prepared insect spies.
[SPEAKER_02]: If there is an opening up at the top, perhaps we can send the insects in to scope out the place.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let us know what is in there, especially the bees.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Creatures.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: So can we start with that?
[SPEAKER_06]: How long do we have to wait for that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Casting time one round.
[SPEAKER_06]: Great.
[SPEAKER_06]: So not super long, just they go in.
[SPEAKER_09]: Are these summoned creatures?
[SPEAKER_08]: These are summoned creatures.
[SPEAKER_08]: which explains why they love Netflix so much.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, so this looks, I'm looking at this real quick.
[SPEAKER_08]: Looks like a taste will take one round to cast and they've got a nice fly speed of 20 feet, which when you're talking about a building just over there is very different than the waiting 90 minutes for them to go out half a mile to the.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, sure, sure.
[SPEAKER_08]: Let's see, one hit point, AC20.
[SPEAKER_08]: Uh-huh, stealth checks they can make, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: They do see creatures, but they can't deter an emotional state.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay, yeah, all right, I remember this one out.
[SPEAKER_08]: Why would there AC and hit points for you?
[SPEAKER_08]: It's just, you know, check it for a friend.
[SPEAKER_09]: They're just, bye.
[SPEAKER_08]: Surely there's other bugs on there.
[SPEAKER_08]: So do you wanna, you wanna send those in while you're all are talking?
[SPEAKER_09]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes, please.
[SPEAKER_09]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_09]: All right.
[SPEAKER_08]: Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello,
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to fly up to the top window, you see this broken up there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you can get into the building and I want you to scout as much as you can.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever you can find, ooze in there, how many are there and anything else that you can describe about the place and then come back and report to me.
[SPEAKER_09]: What good past are they going wrong?
[SPEAKER_09]: Do you want them to do one floor of time and report and then go back?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, a brilliant idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we've got duration for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the total?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the total rate?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's 10 minutes per level.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, hell yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: For sure.
[SPEAKER_06]: So go up, check out the top floor.
[SPEAKER_06]: Come back.
[SPEAKER_06]: Go out, check up the top floor.
[SPEAKER_06]: Up.
[SPEAKER_06]: The next floor down.
[SPEAKER_06]: Do I look back?
[SPEAKER_09]: Do I look way too late on the telepathic bond until after this spell was done?
[SPEAKER_08]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, you're all waiting till you're made.
[SPEAKER_09]: Otherwise you're the same duration.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: Like, wait.
[SPEAKER_08]: All right.
[SPEAKER_08]: You want to wait for the first report?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: All right, few minutes later.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay, that's like... What did you see?
[SPEAKER_08]: Give me a perception check for them, Paulie.
[SPEAKER_08]: I assume that there is math in the spell.
[SPEAKER_08]: So calculate that, great.
[SPEAKER_02]: 15.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a giant space up there, Dablic.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's very, very tall.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's filled with plants.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then like a tree that seems alive and is covered in mouths.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's exactly the kind of information that I was looking for.
[SPEAKER_05]: It feels really... Dablic.
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels really awful up there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, thank you for checking it out.
[SPEAKER_05]: It all seems to be alive and the trees covered in mouths.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it has hooves.
[SPEAKER_05]: Who's?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and I'm not entirely sure how they get out of there.
[SPEAKER_05]: There seems like maybe there's a door, like on the floor, but it's quite tightly sealed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh... Can you check around and see if there's another way to get into any of the other floors?
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm out of it!
[SPEAKER_02]: This is amazing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Let's see, there's a 25% chance that one of these iron shutters on one of these windows on one of the floors is not totally sealed, because if they are totally sealed, even a fine creature couldn't get through it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay, alright.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now let me randomly determine what floor has a little crack.
[SPEAKER_08]: Fine creatures.
[SPEAKER_08]: Fine.
[SPEAKER_08]: Second thirds creature.
[SPEAKER_06]: Fine.
[SPEAKER_08]: Give me a stealth check for the beetles.
[SPEAKER_07]: Was it the stealth check that spoiled things on the moon for the insects?
[SPEAKER_08]: No, I think it was actually that my perception check was through the roof.
[SPEAKER_08]: Because I mean, I got a good bonus, but I think I just happened to roll like a 20 or something like that.
[SPEAKER_08]: It was really high.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a 28.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, now I'm like, uh...
[SPEAKER_08]: and you could tell what floor they went into because you have you have sense of their location right yes because they wouldn't know second third fourth floor right so you could tell that they were in the third floor which are two two down from where they were before correct okay and where you remember the lab to be two down or three I thought they were in the top floor the top floor is uh the top two storage is actually indeed one yeah yep that's kind of a
[SPEAKER_05]: Packs face of their dad, but there's these tall counters and there's just things everywhere.
[SPEAKER_05]: Shiny things, rad things, liquid things, book things, stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you see anybody any person or thing?
[SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like two giants made of skin with like straw sticking out of them.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're just kind of steady there.
[SPEAKER_05]: by glistly.
[SPEAKER_05]: Is this not a stairs that goes down?
[SPEAKER_05]: I can go down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Give it a try.
[SPEAKER_02]: And try to make another stealth shot.
[SPEAKER_06]: Is there, is from these descriptions, can we be making any roles of like what these things sound like at all?
[SPEAKER_06]: See what sort of columns these are?
[SPEAKER_02]: Mindless skin, giant, stuffed with straw.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can we do us check on that?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, give me knowledge, Arcana.
[SPEAKER_09]: Natural 20.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, 45.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not going to beat that, but I'll try.
[SPEAKER_06]: No.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, I got was a 33.
[SPEAKER_06]: Dummy.
[SPEAKER_08]: Sizz grip.
[UNKNOWN]: Sizz grip.
[SPEAKER_08]: Alright, so that little scrap of information, along with the floating assumption that we're talking about some sort of golem here, some sort of construct, does click
[SPEAKER_08]: Here, I think this is actually something that she recalls from her time as Tima, mum being interested in.
[SPEAKER_08]: So this is actually a little bit of a memory from her from her life.
[SPEAKER_08]: Maybe he shared some books with her, specifically on the construction of what are called skin stitches.
[SPEAKER_08]: these are a crude constructs made of flesh, cloth, leather and hides, sewn together in a roughly ogre-like shape and stuffed with hay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey!
[SPEAKER_08]: Hey!
[SPEAKER_08]: And then oftentimes their body is then
[SPEAKER_08]: deliberately infested with swarms of snakes or spiders or wasps which then become part of their animating energies and these swarms can come in and out of the thing and they can they basically get fast healing if they are inside of it the skin stitch itself.
[SPEAKER_08]: can repair damage done to it by taking a full round action and you know, one of the things about constructs is usually if they take damage, they don't have any way to heal themselves.
[SPEAKER_08]: These things can slowly repair themselves by sewing themselves back up, basically.
[SPEAKER_08]: See, it's at 45, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, you know what's going on here.
[SPEAKER_08]: DR5 slashing, you've got to use slashing weapons to effectively damage them.
[SPEAKER_08]: They have all the construct traits, so they're immune to death effects, disease, mind-effecting effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stunning, anything that requires afforded to save, not subject to ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, exhaustion, fatigue, or non-lethal damage.
[SPEAKER_08]: They resist cold and electricity damage.
[SPEAKER_08]: They are vulnerable to fire.
[SPEAKER_08]: So yeah, you would expect that, if you're, so it's not like you're dealing with two of these, which also means two swarms of whatever kind are inside each of these things.
[SPEAKER_07]: But one swarm per se direct.
[SPEAKER_09]: just just the one.
[SPEAKER_09]: So are there any of those are?
[SPEAKER_09]: Of snakes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Our snakes are comparable to rats in that they are subject to damage or snakes more like an insect in that they are.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, we know about spider swarms and snakes.
[SPEAKER_08]: So spider swarms would not be subject to damage.
[SPEAKER_08]: Snake swarms are subject to damage.
[SPEAKER_08]: It entirely depends on the size of snakes.
[SPEAKER_09]: Wasp is not subject to damage kind of hoping for snakes Yeah, that's what makes is really our best But like no, I'm personally terrified of them.
[SPEAKER_08]: Look at the map you're on and picture it being yeah filled with you with two large size creatures who then release at least large size swarms There is almost no other room for you all in such a room.
[SPEAKER_09]: But
[SPEAKER_08]: Craziness.
[SPEAKER_09]: Nice opportunity for a first.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm guessing that's to anything that involves Cretts and things like that also unaffected.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm sure constructs are subject to critical hits.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right, is there are other more floors to be scouting than?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Send him back in.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: They make the stealth check.
[SPEAKER_08]: All right.
[SPEAKER_08]: So they have to go back in through the
[SPEAKER_08]: 33, he sends them, make them their way in.
[SPEAKER_08]: He sends them going down to the next floor, give me another, another, another check.
[SPEAKER_02]: 42.
[SPEAKER_05]: OK, now, like we went to the room below it, and we went down the stairs.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a bad city of the stairs, otherwise the room just has people's stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: A man?
[SPEAKER_05]: A man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just a regular normal human man?
[SPEAKER_02]: Perfect.
[SPEAKER_02]: Were you able to find a way down to the next level?
[SPEAKER_04]: Stairs!
[SPEAKER_02]: Will you try that one as well for me, please?
[SPEAKER_02]: T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T
[SPEAKER_08]: So you sense the Beatles going third floor, down the stairs to the second floor.
[SPEAKER_08]: Go down the stairs to the first floor and then making a circuit of the first floor.
[SPEAKER_08]: and you feel them even going into the room that you never set foot in.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then they actually sneak out the bot.
[SPEAKER_08]: There would be a crack on the other front door.
[SPEAKER_05]: So they put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put
[SPEAKER_08]: Can they just not tell the difference between people identical like whatever whatever they saw it was the exact same dude Well, I think lives insect spice have been incredibly helpful.
[SPEAKER_04]: We love you.
[SPEAKER_08]: We love you, too All right, what's the plan gang?
[SPEAKER_07]: That is a lot of information.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I didn't, I guess I didn't realize it was there were so many floors.
[SPEAKER_07]: There's that ton of floors.
[SPEAKER_09]: What is this tower of so many floors?
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, I guess we're so ultimately we're trying to find out information about where he went, right?
[SPEAKER_07]: Like is that that's the big goal?
[SPEAKER_09]: The reason to come here, yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: But we also know how much has Debwick talked about?
[SPEAKER_08]: Has Debwick talked a lot about?
[SPEAKER_08]: their friends here to them?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I think so, and one of the floors had the pictures.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would be... Second floor.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would imagine that would be very nervous about entering that floor again and cautious about if there are paintings there.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to avoid our eyes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Remind me what was, was it looking at the painting that drew them into it?
[SPEAKER_07]: I forget how they got trapped.
[SPEAKER_08]: Dadwix memory was, their attention was drawn to it.
[SPEAKER_08]: When they uncovered it, they felt something, loud their mind, and then they felt, there was a, there was an eruption of energy that trapped basically everybody else but them.
[SPEAKER_08]: is what it felt like to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, it wasn't really aware that that had happened their memory.
[SPEAKER_08]: No, their memory was actually erased, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, my, let's see.
[SPEAKER_08]: So I sort of said, you kind of got the, you kind of got the memory back in that death experience.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: I would say this.
[SPEAKER_08]: So you know, there's that thing of,
[SPEAKER_08]: To see Carcosa is to know it's name.
[SPEAKER_08]: I think you actually learned the name Carcosa in that moment, but that was one of the things that was erased from your memory.
[SPEAKER_08]: So why you didn't know the name until, you know, chapter 40 or 50, whatever.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: That what you were looking on was not merely a representation of Carcosa.
[SPEAKER_08]: but for some part of whatever happened there, was Carcosa.
[SPEAKER_07]: So would there, I guess, would there be a thought or concern in dabwicks mind that looking at this picture is something we need to be afraid of, like we need to be wary of that this could happen to us as well?
[SPEAKER_09]: Is there a knowledge our cannon checks to be made on that effect?
[SPEAKER_09]: Either the sucking into the picture or the memory wipe?
[SPEAKER_08]: You would be able to key the memory wipe to probably the same spell that Darya uses.
[SPEAKER_08]: What's it called?
[SPEAKER_08]: I have it here somewhere.
[SPEAKER_08]: Modify memory.
[SPEAKER_08]: So you would expect that that what happened to Dabric was,
[SPEAKER_08]: Either the modify memory spell or something that replicates it?
[SPEAKER_08]: Based on almost a child's memory from a decade ago of they just who shooped it?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_08]: I think any sort of like meta thing that Katie might be guessing was probably what Thor would be guessing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Diaboc did not have enough magical knowledge at the time.
[SPEAKER_08]: Do you understand what it happened?
[SPEAKER_09]: But maybe I have to- And then I will save to resist.
[SPEAKER_08]: Man, yourself.
[SPEAKER_07]: Or could it have been a friend, could it have been a level, a hit dice thing because we were all commoners, you know, whatever, and and Dabwick was was a leveled Absolutely, so that could have been a factor.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah Also, everyone's sails were catastrophicly bad.
[SPEAKER_06]: Is there?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I mean, that party was not designed to survive.
[SPEAKER_08]: No, it was.
[SPEAKER_08]: I think I think I've ever heard of the, I think, I think Jadda even got a natural one on top of probably chets like negative two little savers.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I was not, not good.
[SPEAKER_07]: Then I, we're just go, we want to go in and explore.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like, that's our, that's the plan, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: I think the question is, are we trying to get information from these men, these identical men?
[SPEAKER_09]: Or if they're not like similar.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm assuming there are things we're going to have to kill.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll prove another wise.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm assuming it punched the problem.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to punch the problem.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right.
[SPEAKER_09]: So, we're going in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Debuk has a new 5th level spell called Hunter's Blessing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go on.
[SPEAKER_09]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell us more about this spell.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a Ranger type spell.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I select a favorite terrain and a favorite enemy.
[SPEAKER_02]: In this case, I would say urban and construct.
[SPEAKER_02]: We would get a plus two sacred bonus on bluffed perception since motive and survival checks attempted against creatures of the selected type, plus two sacred bonus on attack and damage rolls made against creatures of that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all of us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's all of us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a plus two sacred bonus on initiative checks, perception, stealth, and survival checks in the terrain.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that would last for 10 hours so since we got that information from the insect spies We can use this Wow, that's great and does that how does that terrain work because we're in a swamp But if we're in the building is that considered urban is that okay?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_06]: Once we're in a building, urban.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, Jim.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anybody else got any buffing to do before we do our means of it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I'm gonna shove the buffin'.
[SPEAKER_07]: Alright.
[SPEAKER_07]: I got nothing to tell with a comment.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've got dark vision.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've got sea invisibility.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've got gravity gun.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've got heightened awareness.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've got shield.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've got...
[SPEAKER_06]: two years to one.
[SPEAKER_08]: And are all of those at least one minute per level?
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Anything else from you, Paulie?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: A feather step mask for everyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's ten minutes per level.
[SPEAKER_08]: And that's the Ignore difficult to rate one, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right, great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And just for Giggles, Grip, hello.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dabler's gonna cast Owls was demonic.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Ooh, nice.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then I believe Katie already had Pandora cast Mage Armour on both herself and Dabler.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's still going, of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, and I'm gonna cast Slates going on myself to double down on that one.
[SPEAKER_07]: How long does the Owls wisdom lost?
[SPEAKER_02]: 10 minutes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're welcome.
[SPEAKER_09]: Pandora is, um,
[SPEAKER_09]: Pleasure with the feeling of overconfidence and imagines, confidence, team up, rising out of the pool in the Mad Poets Oasis, and she kind of glows a bit, and something settles, and she has, oh, I'm sorry, she does a little math, can't fail it, and suddenly has,
[SPEAKER_09]: 13 extra hit points.
[SPEAKER_08]: Jeez.
[SPEAKER_09]: Temporary hit points.
[SPEAKER_08]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is totally new for us, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yep, yep, yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: I didn't realize that was hours per level.
[SPEAKER_09]: I've been doing it this whole time.
[SPEAKER_09]: What have survived the shark?
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let me take a look at this door.
[SPEAKER_06]: Headnup.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Checking for traps.
[SPEAKER_06]: And everybody get yourself where you want to be.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ooh, nice.
[SPEAKER_06]: 32.
[SPEAKER_06]: Keeping it for trap finding.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay, so there's this one headless angel gargoyle still holding this
[SPEAKER_08]: dangling gives sucker to the troubled sign and then there are two other angel gargoyles over this door as well and as bash is searching around something looks funky here huh on the side of the knocker which is not original to this door hmm secret little lever to deactivate
[SPEAKER_08]: The gouts of acid that shoot out of the angel's mouths.
[SPEAKER_08]: He have located an acid-spute trap.
[SPEAKER_08]: Excellent.
[SPEAKER_08]: Huh.
[SPEAKER_09]: You guys might excuse me.
[SPEAKER_09]: Get the fuck back.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, I want to move back out of the way.
[SPEAKER_06]: Acid-spute.
[SPEAKER_08]: All right.
[SPEAKER_08]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_08]: Give me a very important disabled device check.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's a 26, and I'm going to add on to that, because that does not seem like it's a high enough thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's a 30, and I'm going to spend an action point.
[SPEAKER_06]: So inspiration and action.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, 35.
[SPEAKER_08]: And you successfully disarm it without triggering it.
[SPEAKER_08]: All right, the door itself is also locked.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, that's a natural one for a 19, so that one I'm not even gonna try to do anything because that was really bad So that's a failed disabled device check on the door.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yep I think that what it was is that he was so he was so focused on the trap that when it came to the door You know, he just like jam something in there and it's like oh
[SPEAKER_06]: because he'd been so meticulous beforehand.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Memories of shampoons.
[SPEAKER_06]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right, give me that other role.
[SPEAKER_06]: I only have 20.
[SPEAKER_06]: This one is really, really difficult.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's like a full minute of him just fucking around with his lock-backs in this door and nothing happening.
[SPEAKER_06]: Try again.
[SPEAKER_08]: Do you want me to punch it?
[SPEAKER_06]: Just give me a second.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right.
[SPEAKER_07]: I put a stand at like right behind you.
[SPEAKER_07]: What?
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm gonna throw it off the wall.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm gonna throw it off the wall.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm covering.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's seven every time.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just, just, you go over there.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just go over there.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll do it.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right, let's do it back there.
[SPEAKER_06]: There we go.
[SPEAKER_07]: 34.
[SPEAKER_07]: Just took me not breathe and I'm yet a neck.
[SPEAKER_08]: So then when Bash finally has the satisfaction of, I think fucking God, the click.
[SPEAKER_08]: of the lock falling into place.
[SPEAKER_08]: Grip, bash, and Pandora.
[SPEAKER_08]: Again, here, the faint sound of that bell from Okano, and this whisper thin voice in their conscious minds.
[SPEAKER_00]: is staying is here and something else, the black goat has burned a thousand young and one feeds here, you can stop it for me now.
[SPEAKER_08]: his stain is your state the black goat any kind of knowledge check to be made on the black goat's app isn't it no that's shoved the gura just the other one I can't pronounce the hoofed tree so fuck yeah yeah this is you learned about this back in iris hill when I think you stumbled across a statue of the black goat
[SPEAKER_08]: which was like a formless shape covered in mouths.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Was that in that hallway that has all the stuff?
[SPEAKER_08]: 100%.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the picture of young wolves being terrified by cat.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, Elder God dedicated to fertility, forests, and monsters.
[SPEAKER_08]: to be clear understood to exist as a roiling cloud of mist that constantly forms and absorbs hooves about eyes, tentacles, and other portions of anatomy.
[SPEAKER_08]: And sometimes when having to be depicted in a stable form, she or her spawn are depicted as elephant-legged, multi-mod aberrations.
[SPEAKER_08]: But that information can allow, yeah, don't you hear it, check it.
[SPEAKER_02]: and that would do this check too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Ooh, 34.
[SPEAKER_07]: So it's what we were just told by this voice in our head that there is yet another great old one inside this door or it spawn inside the building.
[SPEAKER_07]: Much better.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I think I'll take the spawn above the thing, but still the 23.
[SPEAKER_08]: What was your total, John?
[SPEAKER_02]: 34.
[SPEAKER_02]: OK.
[SPEAKER_08]: The combination of the Beatles description
[SPEAKER_08]: with this flash of whisper jabber in your head gets bash thinking about.
[SPEAKER_08]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_08]: Where's this note coming from?
[SPEAKER_08]: I think this is coming from books that Munn gave Tima that Roni stole and read at some point because you know who's always like what's going on in there I want to learn about this.
[SPEAKER_08]: I want to learn about that when they weren't paying any attention This is you're probably dealing with what's called a dark young of shoved agureth
[SPEAKER_08]: which is not just fucking awful.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is indeed a giant tree-like monster.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's roots and in hooves and its trunk is covered in drooling moths.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is a
[SPEAKER_08]: Very large aberration that is designed to grab creatures, pin them against itself, and suck their strength out of their bodies with its thousand mouths.
[SPEAKER_08]: You would know this is as basically like a tree-like creature, you need slashing weapons to overcome its damage reduction, and it is immune to acid electricity and fire.
[SPEAKER_09]: What about mind-effect effects?
[SPEAKER_08]: You, you, not as far as you know, so that's probably what's up at the top.
[SPEAKER_07]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_07]: These are one of those, the bugs are one of those?
[SPEAKER_07]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, they were not driven instantly, man.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, they also weren't grappled and have...
[SPEAKER_07]: It was like the jubbering mouthers, like part of this whole... Oh, yeah, fully.
[SPEAKER_08]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_08]: That is, when you think of Spawn of Shabnagurath, picture all of those gelatinous, mouthy piles of crap.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a wetness, mouthy, or two words we've never ever ever had together.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's combine that with mouth parts, gelatinous mouth parts.
[SPEAKER_07]: I saw them in their 76 tour.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, it's not because a mouthy has another connotation of like being sassy.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right, so we're going in, or are we going back to the bar?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, fucking.
[SPEAKER_06]: Do we want to be invisible?
[SPEAKER_06]: Does that matter?
[SPEAKER_06]: Are we just going in?
[SPEAKER_09]: We can go under his fear, go in together.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, I guess if we think we want to stay together until shit goes down, it probably doesn't hurt.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I don't feel like it's a stealth operation, ultimately.
[SPEAKER_07]: But that might at least get us into position.
[SPEAKER_09]: Before one of these things, look like men to be in sex.
[SPEAKER_07]: Right, we have no idea when they are being in sex.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, there was one one on the first floor of the desk and then one on the stairwell going from two to three correct just sitting on the stairs and they're identical That's what the Beatles said I mean, yeah, I probably invisible until we know what's what is is a good idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we invisibility sphereing
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_09]: His ability to bear is also haste, just so you all have some respect to him.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_09]: Same level.
[SPEAKER_07]: There's no question.
[SPEAKER_07]: No question.
[SPEAKER_07]: Definitely rather have haste.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm not saying it has to be that, but that's that's what we give up when we use.
[SPEAKER_07]: I would rather.
[SPEAKER_07]: I would definitely rather have a slot for haste then.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a fuck it.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's go in.
[SPEAKER_06]: Did you want to be first, right?
[SPEAKER_09]: Could you want to be the first one to?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I have the most tip points.
[SPEAKER_07]: I have the best armor class, I'll go first.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't fucking care.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's my fucking job.
[SPEAKER_09]: Right before we go in.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'll just cast another new spell.
[SPEAKER_09]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_09]: Pandor gets very calm.
[SPEAKER_09]: And in opposition to that, she imagines ascending the stairs in Sarnath with blindfold on.
[SPEAKER_09]: And everyone is flooded with that same sense of calm for about 10 minutes, you will have removed fear.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ooh.
[SPEAKER_07]: Is that going to save bonus?
[SPEAKER_09]: Plus for bonus, too.
[SPEAKER_09]: We'll save against fear.
[SPEAKER_09]: 10 minutes.
[SPEAKER_09]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_06]: Alright, I'm going to blow one more.
[SPEAKER_06]: Extract.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm also going to use Iron Skin.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, are we going to struggle in?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, gripper opens the door.
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't like the way you say it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Revealing my acne and mud, yeah, standing right there.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, not him though, this middle aged man.
[SPEAKER_08]: in angular face, right half of his face covered in scars, big glasses, sharp chin, kind of flyaway blonde hair.
[SPEAKER_08]: He's got this really brainy look, weirdly sexy.
[SPEAKER_08]: There's something that's just appealing about him and for
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't know how much how often Riptusk and Roni would have seen him.
[SPEAKER_08]: I think he is a little surprisingly magnetic in appearance, but for Pandora, this is someone who has been in your life for decades.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is one of your lovers.
[SPEAKER_08]: And it is a momentarily overwhelming experience, even though your relationship with him is not the relationship that this body last had with him.
[SPEAKER_08]: But he is standing right there, kind of help you.
[SPEAKER_08]: He gives no evidence of any recognition whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_08]: Where are the fuck are you?
[SPEAKER_08]: You've traveled the long way.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm afraid I can't let you in.
[SPEAKER_08]: I've got experiments going.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's for your own safety, you understand.
[SPEAKER_07]: We know you're not fucking you, but are you?
[SPEAKER_08]: You're welcome to take whatever inquiries you were making in the neighborhood to the next residence.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'll see you, good day.
[SPEAKER_07]: To keep leans as if to close the door.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll do the salesman in the door, yet I'll put my boot in there.
[SPEAKER_08]: Friend, this is a private residence.
[SPEAKER_08]: Is there any information I can, I can give you?
[SPEAKER_08]: Or will you be going now?
[SPEAKER_07]: Where's fucking laws?
[SPEAKER_07]: Hazy.
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't know what Hazy is.
[SPEAKER_08]: Haven't seen him in a long time.
[SPEAKER_08]: Do you know him?
[SPEAKER_08]: Are you friends with him too?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, I know that fucking count.
[SPEAKER_08]: Endora, detective starts.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: My one's per day ability.
[SPEAKER_08]: Nothing happens.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: Doesn't have any.
[SPEAKER_09]: He's not real.
[SPEAKER_08]: Take him out.
[SPEAKER_07]: I punch him in the fucking face.
[SPEAKER_07]: Roll it up.
[SPEAKER_07]: This will be our surprise round.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a, uh, that's a 26.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, nice.
[SPEAKER_07]: Keep it in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a hit.
[SPEAKER_08]: for nine points of damage.
[SPEAKER_08]: And remind me what your fist strike has?
[SPEAKER_08]: Magic, cold iron and silver.
[SPEAKER_08]: It takes all of the damage that you deal, and it feels like punching a person.
[SPEAKER_08]: Like you feel like you just clocked a human being probably across the side of the face I'm guessing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: His response, of course, is to do the creepy horror movie come back, turn his head back to set her as though nothing happened to her.
[SPEAKER_08]: Roll initiative.
[SPEAKER_02]: oh we're still outside do we get the um are we still outside do we get the sacred bonus to initiative that's value fighting in a doorway that's cool I'm not gonna quit with a fifth level spell here take it take it so add plus 2 to your
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh my god, remember it like last week we had such high initiative numbers.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is amazing.
[SPEAKER_07]: Look at this nonsense.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, it's really a five.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I mean, we literally threw up on the door to be like, let's charge in and it's like, hello.
[SPEAKER_06]: I am here.
[SPEAKER_06]: Would you like to talk to?
[SPEAKER_06]: I am not interested in subscribing to any of your newsletters.
[SPEAKER_08]: So let's get these terrible numbers on air.
[SPEAKER_08]: Gripper.
[SPEAKER_08]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's 12.
[SPEAKER_08]: Devwick 10.
[SPEAKER_08]: Endora.
[SPEAKER_09]: Five.
[SPEAKER_08]: Perhaps on surprisingly, my Axiomun is up first with a 24.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, yes.
[SPEAKER_09]: It only comes from the first round.
[SPEAKER_08]: Fair enough.
[SPEAKER_08]: And as his head returns to center, following that punch, Robert.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: His placid business like exterior facade,
[SPEAKER_08]: erupts into an unholy barbarian rage, and he screams fucking bloody murder, which sends shock waves of terror through all of your bodies.
[SPEAKER_08]: I now need a will save against a fear effect for
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, I rolled a 23.
[SPEAKER_07]: That feels a little tweening in this situation.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh boy.
[SPEAKER_07]: So I'm going to spend an action.
[SPEAKER_07]: Throw it away.
[SPEAKER_07]: A 23 for a 28.
[SPEAKER_07]: Bash.
[SPEAKER_06]: A natural 20.
[SPEAKER_06]: Great.
[SPEAKER_06]: For a 30.
[SPEAKER_08]: Doesn't even matter what it is.
[SPEAKER_08]: You got it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Dabwick.
[SPEAKER_06]: 38.
[SPEAKER_08]: And Pandora.
[SPEAKER_09]: 18.
[SPEAKER_08]: You like it?
[SPEAKER_08]: It is what it is.
[SPEAKER_08]: Everybody is shaken.
[SPEAKER_08]: All four of you are shaken.
[SPEAKER_08]: So minus two penalty and all attack roll, saving throws skill checks and ability checks.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then he takes a five foot step to the south and this very elegantly appointed vestibule chamber so that he is out of sight of pretty much everybody and around the corner.
[SPEAKER_08]: Bash, you are up, despite that natural 20, fear is still coursing through your body.
[SPEAKER_08]: He is stepped out of your view into the room.
[SPEAKER_08]: You're right behind Gripper there.
[SPEAKER_08]: What do you want to do?
[SPEAKER_06]: Bash is going to go ahead and move right past Gripper.
[SPEAKER_06]: What?
[SPEAKER_06]: Actually, if I take a five foot step, am I able to fire at him from this angle?
[SPEAKER_08]: You can fire at him from that angle with him behind cover.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, excellent.
[SPEAKER_06]: Then Bash will take a five foot step to the right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_06]: And study him making him his study target and unload on our favorite scumbag.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is rapid shot, point blank, all the good stuff.
[SPEAKER_06]: Does a 25-touch hit?
[SPEAKER_06]: Keeping that?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's a hit.
[SPEAKER_06]: Excellent.
[SPEAKER_06]: That is 10 points of damage.
[SPEAKER_08]: And this is with Vanity, correct?
[SPEAKER_08]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_08]: Great.
[SPEAKER_08]: He takes all of that.
[SPEAKER_08]: Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
[SPEAKER_08]: And what you see is, okay.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is fucking wild.
[SPEAKER_08]: So imagine this too, Johnny, as Bash is feeling supernatural terror coursing through his body.
[SPEAKER_08]: So he's ducked behind the wall here and you like clip.
[SPEAKER_08]: You clip his left arm, you see the bullet go through one side of the arm, come out the other and both you and grip can see right through his entire body as if there is nothing between the two layers of skin.
[SPEAKER_08]: Just open air.
[SPEAKER_09]: A skin suit.
[SPEAKER_09]: What the fuck?
[SPEAKER_09]: They saw it, do we share that image?
[SPEAKER_08]: I think in the middle of his full attack, let him finish his roles, and that he can share that if he wants to.
[SPEAKER_09]: Telepathically.
[SPEAKER_08]: Telepathically, yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: All right, second attack there.
[SPEAKER_08]: Does a 15 touch hit?
[SPEAKER_08]: Keeping that?
[SPEAKER_08]: I am.
[SPEAKER_08]: No, you clipped the door there.
[SPEAKER_06]: And for my last one with rapid shot, is a 19 touch.
[SPEAKER_06]: You keep in that.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_08]: That is a hit and it looks like maybe only because he's raging.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Alright, how much damage there?
[SPEAKER_08]: 12 points a damage.
[SPEAKER_08]: All right, takes all of that, and again, passes through his shoulder, no blood, no, no, so gripper, when gripper's fist hit, he had every semblance of like, I'm punching into something with meat there.
[SPEAKER_08]: I feel like a balloon.
[SPEAKER_08]: No, but this is like, who's right through him, and there's just nothing but air on the inside.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then at this point, Bash, if you want to share what you have seen telepathically, you certainly can.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh yeah, yeah, great.
[SPEAKER_08]: So do you want something you want to say in response to that, Katie?
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay awesome, so everybody doesn't know that though.
[SPEAKER_08]: He's not human.
[SPEAKER_03]: You shit.
[SPEAKER_08]: Grip or you are up next, shaken with fear, and you've caught sight of this bizarre thing going on with whatever the fuck he is.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm gonna delay until Pandora goes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Dad Wick.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, you are you are completely on the other side you of the of the wall from him.
[SPEAKER_02]: No eyes on him at all That would's gonna hold for grip.
[SPEAKER_09]: You create and do it.
[SPEAKER_09]: You're up everyone's right on you First I would like to make a knowledge check on whatever the fias with the with what I saw.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I'm bash our condo, please 40
[SPEAKER_08]: And again, I think this is weird memories of late night bedroom talk of him talking about one of his obsessions.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh my god, this isn't a skin scent.
[SPEAKER_08]: Is it this is called a hollow one.
[SPEAKER_08]: These are constructs.
[SPEAKER_08]: So they are made to fill a variety of purposes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Sometimes acting is servants or guardians or assistants.
[SPEAKER_08]: Sometimes acting as public replacements for people.
[SPEAKER_08]: These are created.
[SPEAKER_08]: by someone removing that much skin over a long period of time from their own body and then animating it with magic.
[SPEAKER_08]: You are actually looking at months-owned skin that over at some point over the course of like 10 years he had removed from himself.
[SPEAKER_08]: No, those are alchemical burns from his From his until other until the different situation going on here.
[SPEAKER_07]: Is there any chance that's who wound up in bed?
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, there's a probably abusive or that's wondering that so they are Embute with a spark of intelligent life and as much of the creator's memories as they wish to give them
[SPEAKER_08]: so didn't apparently seem to recognize me correct or anyone else might have left certain elements of month's past out of this one's memory so it could behave as a like a dormant essentially yeah like I don't know I don't know nothing I'll probably help you really girl in your dormant so there there really is
[SPEAKER_08]: nothing inside of it.
[SPEAKER_08]: All it is is the skin on the outside that you see plus the clothes that it has put on.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's a construct, construct traits.
[SPEAKER_08]: You've already seen the fact that it can cause dredge supernaturally, and it can...
[SPEAKER_08]: They often do rage.
[SPEAKER_08]: And once...
[SPEAKER_08]: Once the animating spark of them has been damaged and or certain things happen to them psychologically, they become these monster killing machines effectively.
[SPEAKER_08]: Let's see, you know, their DR is overcome by magical weapons, so you're pretty good in that case.
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, they've got a pretty hefty ability to land sneak attacks and they are designed to faint in combat.
[SPEAKER_08]: So they can do it by themselves.
[SPEAKER_08]: They can do it by themselves.
[SPEAKER_08]: Other than that, they're, they're kind of, uh, really effective combat tanks.
[SPEAKER_09]: Lots of hit points.
[SPEAKER_08]: Lots of hit points.
[SPEAKER_08]: Big bag of hit points.
[SPEAKER_08]: And, uh, crap, ton of natural armor.
[SPEAKER_09]: Pandora casts Hayes on the parry.
[SPEAKER_09]: Zoom!
[SPEAKER_08]: turn those buffs out.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then I think I'm kind of done friends.
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't have a lot of guns this way.
[SPEAKER_08]: So you're the other side of this fight.
[SPEAKER_09]: I didn't move though so um grip there's nothing inside and just rend him skin from skin.
[SPEAKER_09]: Skin from skin got it.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right, let's shake it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Convent advice going on.
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, we now all do definitively know this is a construct.
[SPEAKER_08]: I've been doing some math behind the scene to your various rules.
[SPEAKER_08]: But now please add your own plus two to your tackles, plus two to your damage rules from Dabwick's belt.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right, well, I'm gonna take a five foot step into the well-appointed vestibule.
[SPEAKER_07]: Boom.
[SPEAKER_07]: And then I'm gonna do a full fucking floor.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I don't see why not.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's just feel like not doing it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Now, let's do it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's do it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, this one is a plus 16.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a 23.
[SPEAKER_07]: Keeping that?
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's see what it does.
[SPEAKER_07]: That misses.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, all right, all right, good to know.
[SPEAKER_08]: He's also very sexy, I swear.
[SPEAKER_08]: I think in that case, he, he, he dodges out of the way of that one.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right, second attack.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is back to, even nothing, nothing beyond what's on here.
[SPEAKER_07]: These are fists or downbone.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is, these are fists.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a 26.
[SPEAKER_07]: hit.
[SPEAKER_07]: Ooh, four of 15 points of damage, or a magical bludgeoning cold iron silver.
[SPEAKER_08]: Takes all of that and the visual of the emptiness inside of him, happening simultaneously with your perception of your fist hitting meat is so mind-boggling.
[SPEAKER_08]: Sign that each.
[SPEAKER_07]: A third attack.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a miss, I'm not going to even do anything about that.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's no, that's not even worth spending anything on final attack.
[SPEAKER_07]: Case to tack.
[SPEAKER_07]: So we're 23 missed.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a 23.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to spend a five stamp on a point to make it at a 28 hit.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's another 15.
[SPEAKER_08]: Alright, there's not much satisfaction visually to all this punching.
[SPEAKER_08]: Sadly.
[SPEAKER_08]: But you definitely know that you're hurting it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Alright, Dabwick, you don't have to do.
[SPEAKER_08]: Up next, outside and around the corner, no sight on this at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: May I make an acrobatics check to tumble through grip square?
[SPEAKER_06]: You don't even need to, you can just walk right past it since it is unable to take a tax of opportunity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sweet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you hit it.
[SPEAKER_08]: You got it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Until the top of your next turn?
[SPEAKER_08]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_08]: Alright, Dab's does know this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so then Dab looks like...
[SPEAKER_08]: Call me Strolls.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's really good.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's so good.
[SPEAKER_08]: Dabwick enters the vestibule.
[SPEAKER_02]: Puts her back up against the wall.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just out of reach.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_06]: I like that they give myself as a proactive healer.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for... Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Giggles.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cast a spell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dabwick throws a ball of elemental ice and snow.
[SPEAKER_08]: Excellent.
[SPEAKER_08]: Snowball.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a 20-2 to hit.
[SPEAKER_08]: Keeping that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's a hit.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's 13 points.
[SPEAKER_08]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_08]: 13 points of cold damage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: It takes all of that.
[SPEAKER_08]: Frosting the edges of the flesh that are now just holes around nothing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Tabuk has entered the fight and that is the end of round one.
[SPEAKER_08]: Top around two.
[SPEAKER_08]: What you got?
[SPEAKER_08]: Pretending to be so distracted by the fireball that just slammed into you, he does attempt to faint against you, gripper.
[SPEAKER_08]: Fireball, huh?
[SPEAKER_03]: Snowball.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is a bluff check against a DC of... You're not training sensible, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm not.
[SPEAKER_08]: DC is 10 plus your BAB so 10 right?
[SPEAKER_08]: 10.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: 20 plus your wisdom modifier which you don't have.
[SPEAKER_08]: Currently that's a two so 22 22 and with a bluff check of 26 you are flat footed against his next attack he goes for a punch.
[SPEAKER_08]: Does a 43-hit?
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, oh my god.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, that does beat my 25-flat-footed mark.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's a critical threat.
[SPEAKER_08]: Backed up with a 33.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, so critical hit.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think I'd never been punched before.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's a face.
[SPEAKER_08]: 41 points of damage on this critical hit sneak attack the thing it is not only super fast but insanely strong.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is punching at you with an almost elemental strength.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then it just screams so this like very put together nice elegant kind of attractive
[SPEAKER_08]: standing in front of your face, howling bloody murder, seemingly going a little bit insane.
[SPEAKER_07]: He almost bludded me with the one hit.
[SPEAKER_07]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_07]: It took me down to 63 out of one of them.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh wow.
[SPEAKER_07]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_08]: Bash you are up and no longer shaken.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ooh, I like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I'm going to stay where I am and continue to unload on our
[SPEAKER_06]: Ooh, it does a 38-touch hit.
[SPEAKER_06]: Golden.
[SPEAKER_06]: Excellent.
[SPEAKER_06]: Nine points of damage.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's two for the... Oh, that's true.
[SPEAKER_06]: So 11 points of damage.
[SPEAKER_06]: 11 points of damage.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right, takes it.
[SPEAKER_08]: The other bullet passes through it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Uh, 32-touch.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yep, you're good.
[SPEAKER_06]: 15 points of damage.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm sorry, 17 points of damage total.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right, another bullet passes through it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Here's the rapid shot.
[SPEAKER_06]: 22 touch keep in that yep hit for 17 points of damage and Now the haste did shot you just look at that Swiss cheese this thing is just filled with holes that you can see through Holding together exactly I have a great piece of art.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have to show you That is a 30 touch yet for 16 and then I'm gonna blow my study strike
[SPEAKER_06]: at another 12 on to that.
[SPEAKER_08]: And as that last bullet hits him in the chest, it's like a balloon being popped, the entire skin bag is called the collapsees in a wet heap on the ground.
[SPEAKER_08]: This hollow one, myachnian man has fallen at the end of chapter 161.
[SPEAKER_08]: We will continue.
[SPEAKER_08]: An exploration of his house next time.
[UNKNOWN]: Mm, yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Dark Nexus is produced by plug-in home productions.
[SPEAKER_08]: This podcast uses trademarks and or copyright's own buy-pies-owned corporate and used under Pies-o's fan content policy.
[SPEAKER_08]: This podcast is not published endorsed or specifically approved buy-pies-o.
[SPEAKER_08]: For more information about Pies-o Inc. and Pies-o products, please visit Pies-o.com that's P-A-I-Z-O.com.
[SPEAKER_08]: Dark Nexus uses music and soundscapes by CyrenScape.
[SPEAKER_08]: Check them out at CyrenScape.com.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's S-Y-R-I-N-S-C-A-P-E.com.
[SPEAKER_08]: opening and closing themes along with additional music composed by Rob Cosmaric, artwork for Dark Nexus is by Matt Wallquist.
[SPEAKER_08]: The thanks to DMCP, Richard and R.I. Paul and Shen in Scotty, Jason Jess, Joe, Chelsea, Matt, Dave, Derek, Darren, Michaela J.H., the biscuit buddies and everyone we've gained with over the years for all the memories and inspiration.
[SPEAKER_06]: You are, you are a big part of our story telling, as well, and we love it when you know this.
[SPEAKER_09]: You are, in fact, the antagonist.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm also poppin' out.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm pro-tagonist.
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, the story pal.
[SPEAKER_08]: You're a story pal.
[SPEAKER_08]: Everybody.
[SPEAKER_07]: My name is Rob.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm the story pal tonight.
[SPEAKER_07]: Protagonist, antagonist, and lover.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?