[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, hello.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Rob here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're in it now, Mun's house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Back to good old fashion, dungeon crawling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sort of thing we haven't really done since Act 2.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there was the forsaken care events, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But that was really only a handful of rooms, and it was over a year and a half ago now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Believe it or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did have the lunar prison, but that was much more of an infiltration, not really old school, go floor by floor and clean the place out kind of thing that we're doing here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's fun to get back to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like a return to our roots after the really unusual structure of Act 3 and all the gloom and misery we've been wrestling with in Casimir the last few months.
[SPEAKER_01]: As always, thank you to all of our amazing supporters on Patreon and a special thanks, and welcome this week to Dylan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, Dylan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are in the gift-giving move this season, please consider visiting one of our support or merch links at darknexuspodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now, join us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Won't you?
[SPEAKER_01]: As we explore the home of a psychopath.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you so much for watching!
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to Dark Nexus!
[SPEAKER_01]: Tonight, it's packed 4-chapter 162, and we are inside my Akniean Mons home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or at least, Debuk and Gripp have set foot inside, understanding inside the entry vestibule over the deflated sack of skin that moments earlier was the hollow
[SPEAKER_01]: skin flops to the ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: It releases this eye watering reek of chemicals just stinks stinks of some sort of alchemical process, which Pandora would remember from her time with Timo like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not purely just a magical thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also an alchemical process, which is involved with taking that much skin off your body on surviving.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, I bet there's a vinegar smell.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's gross.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gross.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this point, let me tell you a little bit about what is in this room that you're standing in.
[SPEAKER_01]: to cozy chamber with a curiously carved wooden coat rack just right to the north of gripper.
[SPEAKER_01]: Topped with stuffed surges, remember those things that dad looked so into that went to town on a weiralye, and among the coats hanging on this coat rack, he said stuffed or like a carving of stuffed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, gross.
[SPEAKER_01]: Taxidermyed surges, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's many fine garments that suggest that there where is a gentleman of some standing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Across, directly across from the door on the west wall, there is a fancy little table covered in all sorts of bottles and beakers, heavy cudgel, and over the table.
[SPEAKER_01]: is a large portrait of my Aknianman himself, seated in an elegant chair, his blonde hair neat, his entire immaculate, and looks like the first thing he wanted to see what he walked into his house was himself apparently.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a lot of these guys love themselves so much.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a Meknianman question.
[SPEAKER_03]: In any of our visions of him or anything like that,
[SPEAKER_03]: is there the fungus cultivation that teamer engaged in and what seemed and seems like roles is indulging in.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Pandora would know that for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even though my Aknie and Mon was the one who brought Jomendor to that to you all first to Tima on her wedding night and to go up her back.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is more of a haster guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he has had Jomendor in his head for
[SPEAKER_01]: decades and decades and decades, but he has, he's probably just been rolling through the monthly saves, making them or not, and keeping himself going the way you all are, but was not engaged in attempting to transform himself or called Cultivate.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not doing the cultivation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: My guess is, teammate would probably recollect, they're, they're, they're, they're being some fungus growing out of his ears, because like you just have to have a certain point, like you can't
[SPEAKER_01]: things.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the spreading over the back of the body was not where he was at.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not going to full fungus cape.
[SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are two other doors out of this room.
[SPEAKER_01]: The door to the south, which looks like it leads to a study of some sort, and then there's another open door through that into which you can see the large main chamber that Debuk has described you already.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then to the north, there is a closed door.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the moment, Pandora and Bash are still outside, but are we all
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... deadlock pulls the um... wand of care moderate wounds from the handicaver side yeah and taps and as double is doing some healing and we're all moving in there is no immediate response
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no sound of anyone moving around, there's no sound of anyone approaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything is very quiet and still in this giant building.
[SPEAKER_04]: But we also know that that skin suit that hollow man was very stealthy and silent and dexy.
[SPEAKER_04]: So another one could be standing on the outside of the store and just hanging out waiting for us to open the door.
[SPEAKER_01]: as Bash has taken a peek into the study to the south while Dabwick does some healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a nice little small library chamber, number of interesting old maps framed in hung on the walls, two comfortable leather captains chairs are drawn up to a curious table, which seems to be made from a preserved owl bear.
[SPEAKER_02]: Paul, you were making a, a not great face when you rolled up that, uh, I, uh, hit you twice with the wand so far, just keeping loose rounds and check here, but, um, you, so far, you're only got 16 more hit points back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: You still, almost bladded.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm down 20-ish.
[SPEAKER_03]: Keep healing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we preserve one charges, and I have a go at him.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you have healing?
[SPEAKER_03]: When did you get healing?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where to use it on you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel good about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: That gets me just down a few.
[SPEAKER_03]: A handful.
[SPEAKER_01]: As Pandora casts her purified body spell on the grippers,
[SPEAKER_01]: bash from inside that study room, the open door into what have one point been the surgery observation room still has the giant hole in the floor as you were expecting.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, the walls around this chamber have since the last time David was here been covered entirely with floor
[SPEAKER_01]: filled with books.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thought I'm sorry, those are along the walls.
[SPEAKER_01]: Along the walls and another library.
[SPEAKER_01]: And across the way and in the southwest corner of the first floor, Bash, you've got eyes on the elevator.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, the elevator is on this floor and the sort of accordion style protection gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of halfway closed as if someone had used it and not entirely put it away.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are numerous tables and desks scattered about the place, all of them with books on them and open.
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the moment, no site or sound of anyone else's approach.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no stairs in this room.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have eyes on stairs.
[SPEAKER_01]: From debit description, you know they are on the north end of the building.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm gonna jam the elevator so I can't be used if everybody's cool with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we can always fly down.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, so I step in.
[SPEAKER_04]: And now I see stairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Presum we're all speaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one is speaking aloud.
[SPEAKER_04]: Great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Bash will also be checking for traps as he is moving around this place because it seems like the kind of place that could be filled with death traps.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, so Bash can make his way over to the elevator in the southwest corner there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me a perception check.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is a regular 29 and then a 33 for look hitting traps.
[SPEAKER_01]: No traps to be detected, but you do as you scope out the interior of the elevator, find a series of hidden switches down near the floor behind a secret panel that seem to be able to set an unset a series of locks.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to lock it here in place, to lock it so it cannot go below the next level down and then presumably to lock it above this room.
[SPEAKER_01]: so that it can't be used at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there is actually, it is a series of chain pulleys.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you get in the elevator and you hoist yourself manually with this thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's which fine.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm gonna lock it so that the only way it could be used is someone would have to come on to this floor going past us to get to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can't leave this floor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Done and done.
[SPEAKER_01]: What about the rest of you still in the front vest to be all?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Bash is checking this out.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm assuming this has not been an amount of time that would allow me to regain any stamina.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's give yourself at least a minute here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go ahead and get one back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you're hanging tight and being healed and letting that shake and effect from the other one, we're off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was this the library?
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a small study.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think once Pandora gets eyes on the main room, that's what I think she would consider to be the library.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, uh, she's going to go into the study.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: And wait for Bash to say, it's okay to come into this main room.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the corner there, next to the stuffed owl bear table.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all familiar, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, was I here?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you've not been here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is whatever he was keeping from me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in some cases, maybe.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a lot of what you're looking at right now is definitely just house decor.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he's this is how he decorates his place.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very fine leather chairs, like lap of luxury.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a rich guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to cast detect psychic significance to see if anything registers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you get, you get a weird sense of warmth off of this terrible purse that seems to have been fashioned out of the taxidermy to head of a cat.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, do they go with my boots?
[SPEAKER_04]: Probably so.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, you know who would have made that.
[SPEAKER_04]: He would have worn it just to bother Loles.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, here's my cat, of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there is a,
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a series of maps on the wall here, depicting basically all of the regions that surround the inner sea and there is one map of Ocerian
[SPEAKER_01]: across the intersea, that is registering to you as a significant in some way.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's given off that little bit of warmth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Should we take these things that are registering as important, too?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think so, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just put them in my have a sec.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cat is a... Painting is big.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's a giant wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a giant wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, yeah, it's not like a little hand map.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a portrait painting style map.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you want to take it off its frame, well, bash is peaking around.
[SPEAKER_00]: First and foremost, I'm going to put the cat purse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, why wouldn't I try to take this map?
[SPEAKER_04]: No reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you begin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wait.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would never go and touch things without bashing at a first.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you get the cat person to your attitude, which is basically like, what the fuck am I doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hold him off for a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me tell we know, we know grip is resting up being healed as dabble because finishing up with their wandding anything special that you're doing until we...
[SPEAKER_01]: As if I have more of a group action here?
[SPEAKER_02]: Can Double Like do a perception check at that door to the north in the in the front entry way?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, Relinance to listen to the door.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's with the plus two sacred bonus in urban environments.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a 35.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you don't hear anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't smell anything besides the chemical wreak from the hollow one-skins sack.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you don't notice anything unusual about this door and it doesn't seem to be locked.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Bash, you've got that elevator situated.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Doris saying... Is some things I'd like you to look at?
[SPEAKER_04]: I was gonna keep eyes on the stairs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So gripper heads out into the.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, those he do large library slash surgery study.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and I so I think a thing that would be something you'd notice.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's totally dark inside this place.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are no windows and there are no magical lights going
[SPEAKER_01]: but it seems as though the surgery room downstairs is as bright as day, so there is warm actually like colorful like blues and reds and greens in the light coming up out of that 10 by 10 hole in the floor.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of light diamonds.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that a spell effect?
[SPEAKER_00]: We might recognize.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh no.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's just going to check the wall and check the painting and check the maps and the person, all the stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me a check.
[SPEAKER_01]: 29.
[SPEAKER_01]: on a more mundane level you in this room filled with maps of all of the countries that surround the inner sea there there does seem to be one no disbelief missing like the way the arrangement is set up it's like somebody came in here and grabbed one particular map off the wall there's no way from the negative space to tell what had been there but somebody has taken with them
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's then take in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, here's a Syrian, here's Avisan, here's so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give me a knowledge geography check.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it Kazmaran?
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll find out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you said it because again, I could not remember the name of the Casemarion.
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: 21.
[SPEAKER_00]: 26.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's even more specific than that, because Casemarion is a continent, and these are all maps of countries on the three continents that ring the intersea, and the
[SPEAKER_01]: the whole once you know that it's there is there's no cadura here it seems likely that a map of cadura has been taken and that is that country that is right next to tell door like the first country over in Kazmir and I kind of likened it to Turkey before like a country that straddles to continents basically and this is this is a place that
[SPEAKER_03]: that conceivably could have gone.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is.
[SPEAKER_01]: We think it is where they went.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the other thing you notice, Bash.
[SPEAKER_01]: And perhaps it's the source of the significance of this particular painting is that there is a scroll attached to the back of the painting hidden away.
[SPEAKER_05]: So cool.
[SPEAKER_05]: What is it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody cast a tech magic Magic magic magic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got read magic It's a it is a scroll of raised dead Wow, yes, so it's a divine scroll of raised dead of what level?
[SPEAKER_01]: The castor level.
[SPEAKER_01]: I enough to work on this 9th level It's a fifth level spell 9th level castor I could use my robes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it on your list?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's the key thing
[SPEAKER_04]: It's out it, but let's look like I could possibly muddle through using a you possibly use magic device if I get a high enough role Pretty sure it's not on the juridist, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Clare or go shaman which?
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, okay, so at the moment no you could not use your robes Not in moment Raise dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I should put that in on your on your list.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm my list.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna add that to your haver sack.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, nice
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so a missing map of Kadirab, a scroll of Ray's dead, as Gruper is watching the stairwell to the north, nobody's coming down, and there's no, there's no sounds anywhere.
[SPEAKER_03]: What?
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, Debuk, you opening that door, that's all clean.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Debuk?
[SPEAKER_01]: Bash, you want to take a look at this door?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll get out of your way.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so Bass checks out the door to the north out of the vestibule chamber.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is, uh, it is unlocked untapped and it's open.
[SPEAKER_01]: Boom, boom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Behind you see a small lounge chamber, a little side room with a quartet of comfortable horse hair seats arranged around a mahogany table, and the room is crammed with Ottomans, some of an alchemical nature, and some of a more medical bent tons of books in an over-stuffed bookshelf in the southwest corner of the room, kind of like right after as you open the door.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a teak lap desk carved to depict rabbits gambling in meadows.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also to creepy dolls we're not gambling gambling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I was thinking like dogs playing poker.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right, right GAMBO I would be oh, that would be oh off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, actually make it the other one Yeah, my game And then the room is just kind of like thrown to south.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is just filled with all sorts of oddities Want to get into a deep search of this chamber?
[UNKNOWN]: I
[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly we should do detect magic to detect cyclic significance.
[SPEAKER_01]: A regular sweep.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a little tragic, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so detect magic will call your eye to what turns out to be a potion of haste, crammed among several other bottles in an apothecary's case.
[SPEAKER_04]: Grip here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, potion here's a potion of haste.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Robert, that'll be a five round duration on that potion.
[SPEAKER_01]: So otherwise, just the significant sun magic and moving on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a door out of that chamber back into the main room in the northwest corner.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is unlocked untrapped.
[SPEAKER_01]: Crack it open.
[SPEAKER_01]: You do, and you find yourself standing right next to the stairwell going up to the second floor.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_03]: Gonna take a walk up to that door.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep, just to see what's one.
[SPEAKER_04]: Peek around the corner looking up the stairs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Katie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh no.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just saw a token into this orange one here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, thousands of books lining these walls, and of course the first feeling would be like, wow, this feels like home, and they're probably like, oh, that's really creepy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it is in insane combination of books you haven't seen how I wateringly and
[SPEAKER_01]: a whole bunch of books that you have read.
[SPEAKER_01]: You all sent books back and forth to each other all the time over the years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you spot like you spot Eldron and Merthwaite's diagrams of the human form, this lavishly, ghoulishly illustrated book, showing the makeup of humanoid anatomy that is incredibly valuable and then just a whole
[SPEAKER_01]: whole bunch of books that you you have actually laid hands on before.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of them that you even sent to him something sent to you and you said back it's it is a it's got I think it's as overwhelming as first walking into Iris Hill and like your body aching from feeling like I've touched these things but I can't remember this is I remember everything here and I've never set foot in this room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, she will detect psychic significance for any particular books, or if there's like a journal tucked away in here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't think anything is popping, besides from the fact that in the same way that Iris Hill kind of every book had specific meaning, you're getting a little bit of that, but nothing is nothing is set off for a Spidey sense, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Except that one particular anatomical book which is... Yeah, so valuable.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, she'll point that out.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one is quite valuable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it a thing that is...
[SPEAKER_01]: that would be frowned upon to have or sell um not quite that far okay you it's it's the kind of book like why do you have this disgusting book and where you sell it it's me you would not sell it to an art dealer but you would sell it to a university or a doctor with money that kind of thing
[SPEAKER_01]: Certain people would not find it weird certain people would find it very upsetting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's flip it in the power side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great So yeah, you've got all the doors on this floor open now and there is there is no light source except for all this Light of many colors spilling out from the chamber below Huh, which you can see from here should we figure out what those lights are Go down before we go up
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, let's clean out the top of this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take our time with the blue.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't want to go upstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think aside from the light, which you can't see the source of from the angle up here, you do see a surgical table down there, one in much better condition than the one Dabwick last saw 11 years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: But otherwise, you have nothing to see down there from up here.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're well aware that you cannot see the outside walls of that room.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's designed to look down in the center.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eight stairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eight often stairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a history with the match.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, we could take the elevator.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go down.
[SPEAKER_05]: Everybody ready?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: How much time has passed since we were outside?
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll just say five minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fear is still going.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's keep going.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell you what, Robert, since you spent a good chunk of that just in this room watching a waiting, why don't you give yourself two more stamina back?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a total of three over the course of this five minute period.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fair enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tabuk's gonna change into griply form.
[SPEAKER_01]: Done and done.
[SPEAKER_04]: Didn't mention that earlier.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll go first and pop an invisibility extract.
[SPEAKER_04]: Great.
[SPEAKER_04]: And sneak up ahead.
[SPEAKER_05]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they won't be able to see you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got the telepathy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as everybody is staying at the bottom or everybody following up by Bob.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I'll I'll I'll stand at the base of the stairs after he goes up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Perfect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Boom.
[SPEAKER_01]: So bash sneaks his way invisibly up to the second floor and peering around the corner into the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems as though most of the rooms in this house so far that you have seen have the have an nearly identical feel of books upon books upon books and unlike Iris Hill where they were on the floor and piled all over the place, these are all neatly stacked in bookshelves, lots of counters with bizarre curios.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a neat wooden desk all the way across the room
[SPEAKER_01]: and sitting on this wooden desk is a- there's a stuffed leather chair behind it and sitting on the desk staring at you as you come up with the stairs is a taxidermic monkey posed with a tiny violin
[SPEAKER_04]: So weird and then the walls above all of the like waste I just have to say like The actual creep factor of what this would feel like to be walking around in this abandoned place and walking in and just seeing the creepiest stuff in the world Everywhere cannot be overstated is the monkey's name Eric
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of these bookshelves go up to about either waste or chest height, leaving a good 10 feet, because these rooms are all 15 feet tall, a good 10 feet of open wall space above them all around this room.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every surface above those bookshelves is covered in enormous paintings of all sorts of interesting
[SPEAKER_01]: uh, make up if you're interested in looking at them, you can let me know, but you're basically seeing dozens and dozens of paintings all interspersed among detailed anatomical drawings of all sorts of creatures, humanoids, animals, magical beasts, so every square inch of the walls above these bookshelves is covered in visuals.
[SPEAKER_01]: The paintings are quite quite large.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're
[SPEAKER_01]: I grabbing are they signed on you you want to look close that one you want to get up there in the I'm not there I'm just curious unknown at the moment and addition to all of that you see my acne and Mun sitting at the bottom of the stairs across the way with his head in his hands weeping He seems to have no he does not detect your detector presence
[SPEAKER_04]: Ash relays that information everyone is he starts to make his way over carefully checking for traps as he goes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are you looking as you're detecting for traps, Johnny?
[SPEAKER_04]: I am primarily looking at the floor and at the like bookcases and stuff, not necessarily like at these possibly magical paintings above the bookcase.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so you're letting the top field of your vision just kind of sink into your periphery as you're
[SPEAKER_01]: 39.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, and you don't detect anything on the floor or on the bookshelves.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's every evidence of this being a frequently used space.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of activity, a lot of walking around, a lot of going to one shelf and putting another book on it, taking something, carrying it down to the desk, a lot of a lot of scuffles.
[SPEAKER_01]: The
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, while Monk cries and you, and he seems to be totally unaware of you.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm torn between, uh, hey, so there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of paintings up here.
[SPEAKER_04]: I haven't been looking at them because I'm worried that they might be traps, but should I check them out?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: Avoid them if you can.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those could be all of the paintings that were stabbed.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right.
[SPEAKER_04]: My nickname money's up here, crying, hadn't hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might not be a hollowed one, a hollow one, might be something else.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can get in a place to get the jump on them.
[SPEAKER_04]: You all want to come up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if we should come up and be replaced, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say this, Johnny, with that perception check, as you've moved most of the way across the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: The closer you get to where Mon is sitting on those stairs, the more it had, the air has the same faint tang of the chemicals that were released when the hollow one downstairs collapsed.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're pretty sure that this is another one of those, although this does not seem to be stable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever's going on with this one, he is weeping and bawling.
[SPEAKER_04]: This one is already broken somehow.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was break it further.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say we wait to go in until bash fires the shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Find with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So stay visible, but let him get off a shot.
[SPEAKER_04]: Great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Then bash will.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do I want to be?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, where do you want to be?
[SPEAKER_01]: But he want to touch.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna look at.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to go.
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you want to taste?
[SPEAKER_04]: It all tastes good.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is this good?
[SPEAKER_04]: This is this desk, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the desk.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, Bash is going to put himself opposite, catty corner with the desk in between him and my acting mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, for sure, I see that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that there is something so that he cannot immediately charge that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, that's a great position for that.
[SPEAKER_04]: To at least, yeah, to at least make it so that this creature has to move around and try to do something before it within attack rate.
[SPEAKER_01]: throw some of its resources away right exactly precisely that and you take it a shot from invisibility yep I will make it my study target yep and it is a construct so add that plus two from Paul's awesome skill you see 10 hours 10 hours you know that's it that's an absolutely amazing that's a
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, there it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: Natural one.
[SPEAKER_05]: Miss fire.
[SPEAKER_04]: Miss fire.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ah, ah, ah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, wait.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if I miss fire, does that mean that I haven't actually attacked it?
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
[SPEAKER_04]: That is amazing, so literally, he levels the vanity alone, click, click, click, and all of a sudden becomes visible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody roll initiative.
[SPEAKER_01]: And out of plus two, thanks to Pauli Spell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always want to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: God.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I'm away behind people, I can't possibly do what can I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bash.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm rolling garbage.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is a 10.
[SPEAKER_04]: Which again makes sense because you're gun just almost exploded in your hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Next I was dad wake 21 And gripper nine okay and Pandora 22.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, she's gonna jumpy down there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot able to see anything All right Up first is the hollow one know the 27 shocker
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna cry on us.
[SPEAKER_01]: It screams in rage and does that seem just otherworldly switch flip from one emotional state to something else that seems completely inhuman.
[SPEAKER_01]: Watching you fumble with the gun simming to understand exactly what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Moves around the table, it goes to punch a bash.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, doesn't it have to stand up from sitting on the stairs first?
[SPEAKER_01]: Fair enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: Close us with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Pandora you're up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I We don't have to make a save on the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bash felt nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: 10 15 20 And I cast haste Pandora edges past grip and dabook up the stairs into the room and casts haste as bash within range for you there
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I believe so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's 30.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, everybody's in range and no two people can be more than 30 feet apart and I'm pretty sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it looks good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, everybody's hey, Stead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Debuk, you are up next.
[SPEAKER_01]: Near the top of the stairs.
[SPEAKER_01]: No eyes yet on anything that's happening in the room.
[SPEAKER_02]: Debuk comes up up around the stairs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And throws another snowball that we're told last time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So minus four for firing into melee since it is adjacent to bash.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a touch attack.
[SPEAKER_01]: What'd you get?
[SPEAKER_02]: 27.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a hit for 20 points of cold damage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very nice indeed.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so bash, fumbling with your alchemical torch, standing next to the hollow one who just got hit in the back of the head.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, no ball.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know, buddy?
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'm going to take a move action and spend a point of grit to quickly clear my gun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know the quarter.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep underneath the hollow one.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then because there's not really tons else for me to do, I'm going to go ahead and and provoke an attack of opportunity from this thing and fire on it anyway.
[SPEAKER_04]: Here comes a punch.
[SPEAKER_04]: There it goes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Natural 20.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, there's my left.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, backed up with a, yeah, with a close to 40.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, here we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: 28 points of damage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, a nice hit.
[SPEAKER_00]: That face just slides it nice into you.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one was it nice, really nice.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, super nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But take a shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take your shot.
[SPEAKER_04]: Take in my shot.
[SPEAKER_04]: How's the 30 touch?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it works 16 points of damage.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm going to go ahead and spend.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that actually 18?
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, that is actually 18th.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm I'm not used to having to add things to this.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is 18 points of damage Excellent.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to go ahead and spend my Studied Strike now because there's a good chance.
[SPEAKER_04]: I may not even get another round
[SPEAKER_04]: How's three sixes for another what is that 18?
[SPEAKER_01]: 18 so yeah 18 plus 18 huge eruption of damage as Quickly fixes the gun and then it erupts in a positive fashion and smashes into and through Blasting an enormous hole.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's just like Matt's art from the From the Kuru fight where you're looking through This chest with nothing inside of it
[SPEAKER_04]: Now I'm going to take a five foot step.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm going to step to right just to the north of it so that it cannot get past me without provoking an attack of opportunity and I've got space to pack up.
[SPEAKER_03]: and that brings us to gripper the one we need in a construct fight way down the stairs how much is my movement if i'm hasted for one like of a standard move sixty feet sixty feet take a test it's already we don't know if it has combat reflexes but it doesn't matter oh it doesn't matter you know it has now been distracted so that it cannot make attacks of opportunity move the blue to blue i'm gonna come to stand next to bash
[SPEAKER_04]: You could go right past it if you wanted to flank it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The desk is keeping it from charging you.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's also keeping grip from hitting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I...
[SPEAKER_00]: But you could go one more so that a flank position is possible with a five foot step from grip if you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'll go to there.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, and then I just I just get wanted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so grip comes in at lightning speed Slides into the side of this hollow one and unload with the fist 25 Do we like it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it a 27 with hundreds plus thing it's a 27 with hundreds blessing Yeah Hit okay
[SPEAKER_03]: for nine, for nine, just nine, for 11, just 11.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for the math Paul.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is great math.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the end around one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the fight is on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Top around two.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man has got two people next to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: How close is everyone?
[SPEAKER_01]: Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's golden.
[SPEAKER_01]: He lets out another scream and this one does indeed fill everybody with a
[SPEAKER_01]: a bowel-churning supernatural terror I need will save against a fear effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's f**k. BASH!
[SPEAKER_01]: 32.
[SPEAKER_01]: Grip.
[SPEAKER_01]: 30.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, smell you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Debwick.
[SPEAKER_01]: 35.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Pandora.
[SPEAKER_01]: 20.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do my saves?
[SPEAKER_01]: Socks so bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody is shaken, but based on what you experienced last time, your guess is maybe for a round.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he takes a five-foot step past grip in this rage seeming to try to get in the middle of you all.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not let himself get cornered, and he's wanting to get closer to the two spellcasters in the corner.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pandora, you are up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh-huh.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as a move action, who wants combat advice?
[SPEAKER_00]: He needs it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't let him get past you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I can I move to here and still see him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well then I might so I'll just keep going.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going down stairs and out of sight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I literally, there's not the, I mean, I can do, uh, I can do things that cause resources that I think are better spent elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you don't know how big this dungeon crawl is yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we're in the third room for something and I, yeah, make sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so Pandora advises grip and then sneaks down the stairs.
[SPEAKER_02]: to have like removes a small river stone from their pouch.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here it goes, and throws two sharp slashing stone discoses.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bring it on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Discus one, 20.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep it in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, miss.
[SPEAKER_02]: Discus two, 30.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a natural 20.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Back it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: 18 on the die.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus two.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's critical hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's 15 plus 19 plus two plus two 36 points of damage.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, there's the plus two double.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, wouldn't Yes, 38.
[SPEAKER_01]: 38 points of damage.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not precision damage 38 points of slicing diskus damage
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and it's slicing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, great.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, like you sheer off a big chunk of his upper shoulder and arm leaving nothing, but Emptiness air solid air, but the rest below that injury is still functioning as if it was still connected fully So creepy when moving anywhere pal.
[SPEAKER_02]: No
[SPEAKER_04]: bash your up adjacent to this heavily heavily battered hollow one and it's still my turn so it could attack me right now so I'm going to take a five foot step away from it to get my back against the wall awesome so I'm now in line with grip yep and unload with a full attack action 28 touch hit 15 damage nice
[SPEAKER_01]: little structure left in its torso and upper body.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet this thing is still operating, even though the head is no longer attached to anything below the neck.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like it's just floating there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little wild.
[SPEAKER_04]: These creatures are 25 touch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: 17 points of damage and as the bullet hits the chest collapses like a balloon and shoo shoo shoo source back and splats into dabwick sinking to the ground with a rig of chemicals and disgust do i get some in my mouth yeah you got skin in your mouth my
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, so the skin sack hits the ground and all again falls silent as you're in this chamber surrounded by books and creepy paintings.
[SPEAKER_01]: To have because you're looking around, assuming for the moment at least, sort of avoiding your eyes from the paintings knowing which of experience in the past.
[SPEAKER_01]: The feeling is overwhelming of...
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, is every single thing in this room something like what I briefly uncovered 11 years ago?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it possible that this is a room that's gonna do to all of my friends now what happened to my friends before?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's uh, it is a menacing menacing chambered spite now being so still and lifeless just the dread
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and everybody out of the corner of your eyes, there is the sense that when you catch any of these paintings in your periphery, they're just slightly moving, at least one on every wall is doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, grip is not too far from what appears to be a pull out bed underneath the stairs in the bottom floor.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's enough to cover a couple of the paintings, sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is there is there any reason why is grip tall enough to reach up and just round them and like put them along the ground like with their face down?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes time to get all of the paintings off the walls.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, at this point, we're not going to be hasted for to get up to the next thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm down a whole bunch of hit points.
[SPEAKER_04]: If we're doing this like we clear a floor and then go up, then I'm okay with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, that's the plan right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: Does everybody like this plan?
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: Keep pace on while we do this, so we will not, we will not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to write out before you run out and crack the surface of this project.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so many paintings.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called 10 minutes of working it everything off the walls and onto the ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can at least safely walk around and open up your field of vision.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to get that last stamp on a point back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think someone's like, this was your activity.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to roll you up some, yeah, can charge us from the one against the rolls.
[SPEAKER_04]: I need 20 hit points, so whenever you hit that point, that's when you're done.
[SPEAKER_04]: So at this point, all of my buffs that I had, aside from the ones that were one minute, they're all gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll go on.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: From the fear of gone, from the fear of gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Major, I'm still going.
[SPEAKER_01]: Still telepathic bond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vals life is still going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vals life?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just blessing this still going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father's step, I think, is still going.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, you're a 20.
[SPEAKER_04]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, gripper is doing some redecoration to have because doing some wanding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then 10 minutes later, with no sound of movement, motion, or response from what may be a house filled with constructs,
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got all the paintings on the ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not having really looked at any of them, so the gripper is inverting his gaze, reaching up with his hands, and then bringing him down, setting them basically on the floor, like where they have it on the walls.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it's a big, it's a big broom now, covered with paintings on the floor.
[SPEAKER_02]: Safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Err.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's get some perception checks as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Plus two on those perception checks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallard, if you get anything interesting.
[SPEAKER_04]: 32.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody beat that?
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, a couple of things are learned.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bash spots a cunningly hidden what appears to be a safe built into the wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was behind one of the anatomical paintings that grip removed, and still even one
[SPEAKER_04]: In that perception check, do I need to do another one to check for traps on this thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, excellent.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have just located its existence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fantastic.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is a 42.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cunningly trapped with a tiny poison needle?
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll spend another point of inspiration.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is disabled device too, disarm the trap.
[SPEAKER_04]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it 31?
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, I'm gonna do it one-two All right, we'll do another I will spend another action point.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh God, it's actually points
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what I'm thinking.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, that...
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just gonna hear it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just made it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a 35.
[SPEAKER_01]: Successfully disarming the poison needle trap.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't try to open it up now, and that's another check.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, of course.
[SPEAKER_04]: 26.
[SPEAKER_04]: Does that open it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, fumbling at the safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this point, Robert, you take a stab in a point.
[SPEAKER_01]: 36.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, you got it open.
[SPEAKER_01]: Four thin leather bags contained their in with a total between them of 2400 gold pieces and there is, oh there's a treatise on cabal magic worth 750 gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was the get from Tima.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: worth how much is it in 750 it's probably something that the two of you stole team of red and then sent yet with some inscription what would be it should be I don't know I don't know team of that well when they're relationship but yeah I could see
[SPEAKER_01]: I could see some ironic, lovey-dovey thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could also see just like a brief note of check out page 55.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's really such and such experiment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Told you this existed.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that reference is to something loaded with a new endo.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only when you actually go to the thing that you realize, the nature of the relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you're in a room covered with the corpses of paintings, overturned paintings everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: looking like a sea of flat dead friends lying on the ground next to the flat dead skin of the hollow one time to go up well let's hope there's an information in those paintings about what we're facing upstairs go up probably we are crawling this dungeon all right same plan as last floor I have no invisibility all right so you're just sneaking up oh I can get you great
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you can do it without the circle, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: She on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me another stealth check for bash.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is a 29 plus 20.
[SPEAKER_04]: So 49 plus 2.
[SPEAKER_04]: I included the plus 2, but thank you, that plus 2 almost got me up to 50.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is the next floor up where there was the fight on those lab tables?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: That we know have to have slashing damage and they're unaffected by a whole laundry list of things.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're talking about the uh.
[SPEAKER_04]: the hoofed mouth things no no no there's only one hoofed mouth thing these are the two skin with skin with straw stick and out of them that are another type of golem that has swarms in them yeah
[SPEAKER_04]: So we have to have ways to fight swarms because the swarms will come out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Stoke for snakes, hope for snakes, I can squash them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have one on Square and that's it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know, I don't have, but don't you have access to Fireball?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's it, eh?
[SPEAKER_01]: So...
[SPEAKER_01]: But... stealthily, creeps up the stairs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there is a...
[SPEAKER_01]: a low faint buzzing sound that gets kind of louder and louder.
[SPEAKER_01]: The higher you get up the stairs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can picture him, you know, ducking super, super low.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like when he does his little peak around, his head isn't that head height but much lower because you're going up kind of steep stairs here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like,
[SPEAKER_01]: head right down near the top step yet like I've already done of the head turning around the corner and so the room as Debuk described is indeed there filled with a maze of these chest-high tables all covered in alchemical supplies and equipment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they chest-high to us or really chest-high to the halflings?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just high to you, which meant they were over the Hathling's heads.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why they couldn't see much of anything, right, right, right, right, right, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are indeed two Hulking patchwork, ogresized things made of flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: filled with straw bursting out of open mouths from faces that have been used to make up this thing underneath which their entire bodies are wriggling and writhing as though filled with things I had a picture here of a skinstitch.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are large creatures with ten foot reach and they are both standing waiting at the top of the stairs just staring for somebody to come up.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, their perception does not, is not, it's literally impossible for them to get a 49 so with a quick little peek.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to save peek here, where's my thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, here we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: The shit's gross.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ahhhh!
[SPEAKER_04]: That is pretty horrific.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the whole thing, just riggling and writhing from the presumably thousands of some kind of vermin contained inside of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you got a quick peek of that about the only thing that you do not clock.
[SPEAKER_01]: from Debuk's description of this room before, Debuk told you that they went up a ladder, which was just like 10 feet away from the top of the stairs through a trap door to the next floor.
[SPEAKER_01]: You do not see a ladder and you do not see a trap door up.
[SPEAKER_04]: How high is the ceiling?
[SPEAKER_04]: 15 feet.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if someone was flying, would they be able to stay away from these, the reach of these things?
[SPEAKER_04]: Over 10 feet tall with 10 feet reach.
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's no, there's not going to be any place in this room to be able to go where you could be away from them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like on the ship, there's nowhere to go.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, bash things back that if he could get to the other side of them, then he could, he could shoot the one closest to the stairs, making it so that it didn't, I don't know what then the next two of them.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they're lined up for a fire snake if the apps has that prepared, maybe we should not waste the opportunity to get them both.
[SPEAKER_04]: That sounds... Because vulnerable, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_04]: I could literally tell... Dabs where they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And... Just sneak that bit jump the stairs.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I...
[SPEAKER_04]: I would still like to be...
[SPEAKER_04]: If I can move... Am I able to move past them?
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, invisible?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they...
[SPEAKER_01]: They... they don't seem to be able to detect you at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jump on the table.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no under, these are counters.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are full, like, drawer units.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no passing underneath them.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the problem that Halflings had last time.
[SPEAKER_02]: With tons squares, I think I can go up the stairs and get them both.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and as Bash describes it to you, he can just point up, like, go right up there, curve, curve, and they're so big.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not gonna miss them, even though you don't have eyes on the end of your snake there.
[SPEAKER_04]: So here's a question that Bash has based on where they are.
[SPEAKER_04]: Even if they didn't have a tax of opportunity, would anybody be able to move past them?
[SPEAKER_01]: In order to get through their squares, you'd have to use acrobatics.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do they navigate this narrow by squeezing their squeezed which is a which is a it's a mechanical Yeah penalty to to them Maybe the only thing that makes this slightly less Carable but what do you think their Paul's dad's gonna do the fire snake?
[SPEAKER_01]: Dabicle take
[SPEAKER_02]: Bashes directions and send a fire snake up the stairs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And from the bottom of the stairs, counting jet of flame blasts up the stairwell around the corner through as batch batch watches, through skinstitch number one into skinstitch number two.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna give you a reflex saves here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two fails.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh great, so that's 27 points of fire damage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice, which turns into 40 points of fire damage, cascading through these two constructs, the fight is on and we'll pick it up next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the end of chapter 162 y'all.
[SPEAKER_01]: See you next week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dark Nexus is produced by Plug-in Home Productions.
[SPEAKER_01]: This podcast uses trademarks and or copyrights owned by Pieson Corporation and used under Pieson's fan content policy.
[SPEAKER_01]: This podcast is not published endorsed or specifically approved by Pieson.
[SPEAKER_01]: For more information about Pieson Inc. and Pieson products, please visit Pieson.com that's P-A-I-Z-O.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dark Nexus uses music and soundscapes by CyrenScape.
[SPEAKER_01]: Check them out at CyrenScape.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's S-Y-R-I-N-S-C-A-P-E.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Opening and closing themes along with additional music composed by Rob Cosmaric, artwork for Dark Nexus is by Matt Wallquist.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thanks to DMCP Richard and R.I. Paul and Shen in Scotty, Jason Jess, Joe, Chelsea, Matt, Dave, Derek, Darren, McKaylaJ, H. The Biscuit Buddies, and everyone we've gained with over the years for all the memories and inspiration.
[SPEAKER_04]: You are, you are a big part of our storytelling as well, and we love it when you know this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are, in fact, the antagonist.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm also a pop-in-all.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a pro-taker now.
[SPEAKER_01]: The story pal.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a story pal.
[SPEAKER_01]: The story buddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: My name is Rob.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the story pal tonight.
[SPEAKER_03]: Protagonist, antagonist, and lover.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha