[UNKNOWN]: Thank you for watching!
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to Dark Nexus!
[SPEAKER_02]: Tonight, it's Act 4 Chapter 160.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has been a jam-packed, emotionally exhausting day and a half since our heroes woke up from their two month slumber.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've fought a demon, fungus zombies, and sharks!
[SPEAKER_02]: We have been all over the city of Kazimire hitting at one point to another almost all of its districts now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've talked to a ton of new people, seen a lot of sites, and we now have some answers to many if not most of the mysteries that we woke up to.
[SPEAKER_02]: The answer is yes, Shady Shit did go down on the Aurora.
[SPEAKER_02]: So after the crew spent three months transporting lulls down the Selen River,
[SPEAKER_02]: The instant they tied off, he deliberately ceded them and walked away.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know that he then went up to the septered house, met with Mon, and deliberately ceded Ethan Baylor, who in turn ceded the rest of the esoteric knights that were in town, everybody except for Archie Umbra, and Theravall Galonadell.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then while Mon was seemingly taking care of last-minute arrangements, including changing the declared destination of his ship,
[SPEAKER_02]: Lulls walked into Umber's shop, seated him, and stole something to help him with a problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: Meanwhile, half of the crew of Yoruras slipped in a town where they hold up for quite some time in this abandoned warehouse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably thinking they could sit this infection out, at least it seemed like they were trying to keep themselves isolated.
[SPEAKER_02]: but at some point, even more, every day citizens of the city found themselves swept up in what was quickly becoming a very dangerous hub there, all while the other half of the crew took the Aurora out, maybe also tried to sit this out for a little bit, but they eventually scuttled the ship and took their own lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: As eventually did, all of the rest of the esoteric nights,
[SPEAKER_02]: and then monolos set sail on the Jeroboam supposedly for Absalom, but apparently actually for somewhere in Casmaron, while Stasi Stanhope and this Elf Theravall all three now also seated set sail for Absalom, thinking they were in pursuit.
[SPEAKER_09]: What information did we find that made us think Absalom was a ruse, that they did not find?
[SPEAKER_02]: Julius came.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the conversation with a harbor master.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was all gleaned through that detect thoughts basically.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: On on the very day of departure after already changing his destination, Mon went to the harbor master and paid him even more money to change the destination again and to erase all record of the changes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we've got a few loose ends left in town, the corpses in Baylor's house and the warehouse, but otherwise, we might be reaching the end of our time here in Kazimire.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's seeming like the two big decision points are one, do we go to Man's house to see about Davics pals and or this anomalous friend and or whether there might be any information on where locals and months were heading or not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two, where do we go after Kazimire?
[SPEAKER_02]: Absalom, Kazmuron, Okno, and by what means of travel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't we, let's hand wave the rest of this trip back up to Dadboix apartment at the very end of this very long day.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gripper can sell you back into the harbor, you can return the boat and make the long
[SPEAKER_02]: Chester must have stopped in at some point during the day, left a little note on the table setting next to the portrait of Hadrana that's sitting there, just a quick little Persephone as well, let us know if you need any assistance.
[SPEAKER_02]: CNJ.
[SPEAKER_09]: This is an out of the left field question that I was contemplating.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, we're gonna sit around and maybe group a pull out that pipe.
[SPEAKER_09]: Was there at some point did I find a pair of glasses
[SPEAKER_09]: in the dream.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, that was in the dream.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that was on the moon.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like hidden underneath the dragon scales as part of the real world though.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was in the real world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Never mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so some last minute tea going around any conversations to be had tonight before heading off to bed.
[SPEAKER_07]: Andora, new to the healing?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I will use my newly leveled up heal skill to this takes an hour.
[SPEAKER_04]: Takes an hour.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, Toro will want to talk to you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, this is happening.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh great.
[SPEAKER_08]: When you treat deadly wounds, the target recovers hit points as if it had rested for a full day with long-term care, which is four hit points per level.
[SPEAKER_08]: Awesome, so 40 hit points is what you heal or the course of this hour.
[SPEAKER_08]: Assuming I make the actual skill check.
[SPEAKER_08]: Would you?
[SPEAKER_08]: I will try.
[SPEAKER_08]: That is a 26.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you hit DC 20, you're succeeded this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you hit DC 25, you could to add what?
[SPEAKER_08]: had your wisdom modifier to the hit points were gained as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: How many hit points do I get?
[SPEAKER_08]: 42.
[SPEAKER_04]: There is completely healed.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, that's a feeling.
[SPEAKER_08]: Really good.
[SPEAKER_08]: I probably gave you some good drugs.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: But while you're administering to her, bash, I seem to have access to something.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't quite understand it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Is this part of Teamless Memories?
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh no.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tima's son.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tima's not there anymore.
[SPEAKER_07]: Not at all.
[SPEAKER_07]: She's just gone.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's gone.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's... at rest.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there's something else.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's some one else.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not the same.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's more like a memory.
[SPEAKER_03]: But not... Not my memory.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't quite know how to explain it, but every day I can pluck something from his memory, from his knowledge, and his, oh yes, it's a man, a young man, I suppose though I've seen
[SPEAKER_03]: Eric is just... there's nothing there.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, you still have no memory of where the violin came from.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: None of this is harmful or dangerous.
[SPEAKER_03]: You understand?
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, that's what you think right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, I'm sure of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the thing I want to ask you is, I have access to so much, but I have to choose every day.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's how I could try to locate Stasi via the day.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's how I let us all be water today.
[SPEAKER_08]: So you have access to this guy's experiences?
[SPEAKER_03]: Something like that.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a spellcasting, or?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes!
[SPEAKER_07]: Do you think it was like your dad?
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_07]: Wasn't that guy that held you?
[SPEAKER_04]: He feels much different from my memory of my father, or a rational.
[SPEAKER_03]: He feels helpful and ambitious and determined.
[SPEAKER_03]: He feels...
[SPEAKER_03]: painfully naive is it a re grip sitting over in the corner over over here smoking is by smoking is put no it's not a re is it it's a small it's a small part it's definitely not re that doesn't sound like anybody that we've had an experience is what's sort of I don't think who it is matters but I think
[SPEAKER_07]: Grip and I are both looking at each other and that's a show up there.
[SPEAKER_02]: A little bit of side eye.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think who it is, Madder.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think making the most of it is what matters.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, before we leave tomorrow, I'll need to meditate, but I'd love any information I can get about what we're going to do so I can be the most helpful.
[SPEAKER_07]: So you can just get anything?
[SPEAKER_07]: Not anything.
[SPEAKER_04]: a pretty big list.
[SPEAKER_09]: Johnny, the player is all ears.
[SPEAKER_04]: I knew it would be.
[SPEAKER_09]: Are you now to spells what grip is defeat?
[SPEAKER_04]: Huh, that's an interesting question.
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't hear a no.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are not saying no.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not necessarily saying yes, but we're not saying no.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's fascinating.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I think we should definitely kind of make sure that there's not another hub of infection in the city anywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think so.
[SPEAKER_07]: What do you think, Dad?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a priority.
[SPEAKER_07]: So maybe go back and question one of those last sailors and then put done to those bodies.
[SPEAKER_09]: I think so.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I think we should get more information for months before we try to decide for leaving this town.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think I can make us all harder to find if that's helpful.
[SPEAKER_04]: If we don't have any specific.
[SPEAKER_01]: You mean if we're riding?
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_04]: More like how it was difficult for you to scribe.
[SPEAKER_04]: And excuse me, more like it was impossible for you to scribe.
[SPEAKER_04]: Stasi.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh my God.
[SPEAKER_08]: Question, did that feel like a simple spell, like a non-detection type spell, or did it feel like something else?
[SPEAKER_08]: Cause I feel like when we talked about that before, you didn't refer to it in such a way that would make us believe that it was just another spell hiding them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So non-detection is not foolproof.
[SPEAKER_02]: The spell, words, creatures or objects from divination spells,
[SPEAKER_02]: but does give the caster a caster level check?
[SPEAKER_02]: Dadbook was afforded no opportunity to make a caster level check.
[SPEAKER_02]: So whatever's going on with them is not simply non-detection.
[SPEAKER_08]: Can we make any kind of spellcraft check of what sort of things might do that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or I think you would need more information.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's plenty of,
[SPEAKER_02]: both rituals, high-level wardings, but it's a hard thing to do, like a mind-blank could do it, but that's a, what is that, a ninth level spell?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even eighth or a ninth level spell.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a very, very high-level spell.
[SPEAKER_08]: And why they would specifically have access to that would be very weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: It would seem very weird, yes, to your characters.
[SPEAKER_08]: And we also know that whoever carriers who are around the Necronomicon correct is also completely hidden from divination.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not only hard, but also potentially your driven mad if you attempt to.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, not the Nepro-Necro-Nama con.
[SPEAKER_07]: Uh, yeah, I don't know, I don't know what we're going to be doing tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_07]: Do you have to figure it out tomorrow morning?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, you know, I say, uh, make your best guess if we're going to months, what's over there?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a two-hour hike through the swamp to the abandoned prison infirmary where he lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is a hike like literally through the swamp, most of the time off of roads, going to be wet, buggy, muggy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it's out in the middle of the swamp, it is a dangerous dangerous place to be.
[SPEAKER_08]: We are sitting on 15k worth of platinum pieces right and this is one of the largest cities that we've been in Yep, and so this would be a prime place to go shopping.
[SPEAKER_08]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's a good idea How you feeling, Pandora?
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel extraordinary.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_07]: Welcome.
[SPEAKER_07]: I I'm on the other hand still feeling like a shrug almost bit me in half Perhaps you should tend to yourself.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_07]: Grip, would you hold the light?
[SPEAKER_07]: It's kind of hard to reach in there and...
[SPEAKER_07]: So yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yourself, fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody, please give me a perception check.
[SPEAKER_04]: 36.
[SPEAKER_08]: 24.
[SPEAKER_08]: 25.
[SPEAKER_08]: With a point of inspiration, a 28.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's not very often you'd be the dabs at a perception check.
[SPEAKER_02]: Polly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It does a 26 hit your flat-footed armor class.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Pandora is getting up off of the cot after her healing session with Bash and Gruper is moving in to help Bash attempt to do some personal surgery on the shark wounds on his body as with an eruption of
[SPEAKER_02]: Fowl vapor, the sound of a thousand screaming souls suddenly the shahoth demon, this enormous lion-headed monstrosity appears standing over Daabwick reaches a handout and grabs Daabwick's face.
[SPEAKER_02]: Give me a will save, Pauli.
[SPEAKER_02]: As you begin to feel the most profound feelings of doubt over well-meow.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've had the experience of being on a plane of existence where your connection to the power of nature and the power of the city has been thin, hard to find, hard to feel in this little moment here.
[SPEAKER_01]: What'd you get?
[SPEAKER_01]: Depth got a 26th.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are also immune to charm and compulsion effects.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Would that this were?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_02]: Action point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Keep in that number.
[SPEAKER_08]: Do you want to remind us what happens if he fails this save?
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's been several weeks in our timelines, but yesterday you were informed that these creatures have the ability to touch divine castors and strip them of the abilities to use any of their abilities.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good God.
[SPEAKER_02]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a curse effect that has to be removed with an action point.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a 30 All right, Dabwick holds on to their divine powers, but everybody let's roll initiative I'll take a two-metallic second here.
[SPEAKER_08]: I love how you were very sneaky and didn't actually put us on a map to begin with All right, Dabwick
[SPEAKER_08]: Natural 20.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what is your total then?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a 21.
[SPEAKER_02]: On the other side of the demon in a flanking position is gripper Would you get a 15 excellent next to gripper is bash 18 okay and Pandora 19 fantastic
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a big round of initiatives for us, like having 15 be the lowest of our party.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's not.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it's really good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so the top of round one here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here is the physical situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tabuk is sitting at the table on the south end of their living room.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cornered.
[SPEAKER_02]: The demon is looming over them, flaming long sword in hand, giant white feathery wings, filling the space all around them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gripp is kitty corner to the northeast on the other side of the demon from Dabwick.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bashes directly to the north of Gripp, and Pandora is right next to Bash.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't get such a small room here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Holy moly, okay, all right, so, Dabwick, you actually get the jump.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have one initiative, you're the first one to act in this non-surprise round.
[SPEAKER_08]: What do you do, pal?
[SPEAKER_08]: S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s
[SPEAKER_08]: it's always an option to just disappear.
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cornered by a demon who seemingly has now maybe decided to attack dick of going after the friends and might be a way in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm right in with within a tack of opportunity range, too, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do spell-like abilities provoke a tax of opportunity?
[SPEAKER_02]: They do.
[SPEAKER_02]: The only kind of ability that does not is a supernatural ability.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, you can change the shape if you have any of those left, although.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: today was octopus day and what was there with it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you sure you're not still the octopus?
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't know, that did you ever say it would be the size of this room.
[SPEAKER_08]: That would be amazing if just like literally the camera pans over and it's just an octopus.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's slowly drowning out in out of water and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Set a supernatural ability doesn't provoke an object.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dabwick emits a 30 foot aura of protection with resistance 5 against fire.
[SPEAKER_02]: To everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: To everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this is the thing that helped grip out quite a bit last time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Feel me when I don't have.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, and then you hold, hold and tight.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, or do you want to try to, uh, you want to try to use your move action to hide behind nothing?
[SPEAKER_02]: Blending your walls.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm under the table.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm a cluster from my buddy, do you have to do that right here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'll make a stealth check.
[SPEAKER_04]: Roll it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, it's a 10 on the dive for our 26.
[SPEAKER_01]: This thing only has two faces.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could have possibly seen you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So as this lion face is bearing down, still continuing to stare dabble in the eyes, even as they've blended into the walls, the angel face on the other side of it is looking at grip.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would never relent.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must relent.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must bow down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't stop him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the demon goes to town on Dabwick.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, Paul, here we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: These attacks are coming at your normal AC not flat-footed any longer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Since you are no longer, surprised.
[SPEAKER_02]: Flaming long, sword, coming at you.
[SPEAKER_02]: 25.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hit.
[SPEAKER_02]: 12 points of slashing damage and six points of fire damage which turns into one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's my last 13 on day.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Second attack.
[SPEAKER_02]: 27.
[SPEAKER_02]: that's a hit 16 points of damage on the sword and you you take none of the fire damage third attack natural one and then the other claw 27 that's a hit seven more points of damage oh buddy boy oh boy oh boy I can't help but feel this is partially my fault
[SPEAKER_04]: Pandora you are up and there's gonna take a five-foot step Cast haste on the whole party nice all right, so Pandora is slowly making her way towards the bedroom Everybody's got haste click that on you're gonna need it and With their move action This is your time group Be done with this once a minute
[SPEAKER_02]: combat event.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, group will contemplate those words as Bash takes his turn.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that bar is looking low.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're still like bloody, dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my goodness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just barely.
[SPEAKER_08]: Just barely a lot.
[SPEAKER_08]: Bash is going to...
[SPEAKER_08]: bash is going to make the demon his study target and draw forth vanity and fire and I'm trying to remember what do we know about what affects this demon because I do not remember.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't believe you've figured it out yet, but you were leaning towards probably cold iron and or good something in that range.
[SPEAKER_08]: Then I will load a cold iron alchemical cartridge into this and fire it at my study target.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, that's a 30.
[SPEAKER_08]: 30 touch.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm guessing that hits.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's a hit.
[SPEAKER_08]: 8 points of damage, but he's going to go ahead and spend his studied strike on it now because who knows if he'll even get another shot at it.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're hasty.
[SPEAKER_02]: Had to take a move action to draw the weapon.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, but that was pretty sweet.
[SPEAKER_08]: So that is 23 points of total damage.
[SPEAKER_02]: nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it does take all of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_08]: And it is now unable to make any attacks of opportunity as it is distracted by that shot.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It screams in rage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Both holes like a lion and screams like a creepy angel.
[SPEAKER_09]: Is that just for, uh, till your next turn, Johnny?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_08]: And, uh, bash says to the creepy angel.
[SPEAKER_08]: No, I'm, I'm pretty sure you're going to be able to let go of us this time.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can still see as the gripper is up adjacent to the creature No bonus for flanking because dabble is not armed Man, why are you armed?
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's do y'all on the first one.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes, so he is going to I've rolled back Nick goes crack disco slack.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah as a swift action He's going to take the dedicated adversary.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes, and weapon specialization unarmed.
[SPEAKER_09]: Nice And he will do a Flurry
[SPEAKER_09]: Lower it up for five attack five attacks number one 15 plus 18.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a 33 you like it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that's a hit take that two d6 plus eight each strike is going to be So that's 14 points of of bloodshedening damage.
[SPEAKER_09]: Which I strike is cold iron takes all of it Second attack Oh, that's a natural one Third attack
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a 25.
[SPEAKER_09]: What do we think about that?
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm gonna spend five stamina points and bump that up to a 30.
[SPEAKER_09]: Hit.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's four plus eight, that's 12.
[SPEAKER_09]: Takes it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Fourth attack.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a 22.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'll use an action point.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: Got the six, so that's a 28.
[SPEAKER_09]: Hit.
[SPEAKER_09]: For 15 points of damage.
[SPEAKER_09]: Very good.
[SPEAKER_09]: Final attack.
[SPEAKER_09]: Forget.
[SPEAKER_09]: Uh, that's a miss.
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, that is the end of round one.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've done 70 shots on some points of damage.
[SPEAKER_02]: This thing is not even blooded yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Top around two.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dabwick.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the corner.
[SPEAKER_02]: With the demon staring over you, determined to hack the life out of you, my friend.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not taking the tax opportunity.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Bash.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tabuk will run an eye.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, Tabuk uses the move action to get all the way across the room and behind Bash, who's behind grip?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they cast pure matter at wins on themselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, great.
[SPEAKER_01]: For 15 points.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good, the demon is up, the lion face, staring grip directly in the eyes, it takes a five foot step to the north and begins hacking away at bash.
[SPEAKER_02]: First long, sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: 32.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is 13 points of damage from the sword and not enough to do fire damage on you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Second attack.
[SPEAKER_02]: 27.
[SPEAKER_08]: That is a hit.
[SPEAKER_02]: 14 damage from the sword and not enough fire to hurt you Third attack 24 just hits 12 points of damage and Bash drops onto the cut unconscious and dies and dying and also one point of fire damage minus all
[SPEAKER_02]: and seeing bash drop takes that last claw attack on the gripper.
[SPEAKER_02]: 31.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just seven points damage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bash is severely injured halfway to death down the negative hip points.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pandora, you're up, you're about 10 feet away from Bash at this point, and you're out of healing archa.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep, so I'm gonna take a five on step.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Still fun to play.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Back towards the kitchen.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, best to remove hip points from the thing that's killing him.
[SPEAKER_04]: She does a little math in the air.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Can't fail it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And cast mine thrust for.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ooh.
[SPEAKER_02]: As in the 11th level castor, give me a castor level check against spell resistance.
[SPEAKER_02]: As in the 11th level castor, it begins again.
[SPEAKER_04]: spell is lost?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so the mind thrust is lost.
[SPEAKER_04]: Great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you grab it?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my plan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Combat advice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, Bash, you are up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's make that check.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a DC 10 con check with a minus five.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good luck, buddy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got to make a 15 or higher?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fail.
[SPEAKER_02]: You lose a hit point, down to negative six.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is your cons score by a 10?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ooh.
[SPEAKER_02]: OK, all right, this shit's real.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gripper Europe, Bashy is actually dying in a way that we haven't seen in the real world in quite some time.
[SPEAKER_08]: And it gets progressively harder to make that constitution chair.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right, yeah, I got to try to tie this thing up.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right, some people can help.
[SPEAKER_09]: The combination, so last time, because I grappling with what I did this thing last time, was it a greater grapple, is that what I was using on him?
[SPEAKER_02]: You had greater grapple going, so that in the rounds after you initially grabbed him, you could make two grapple checks per round.
[SPEAKER_09]: You don't need that right now, although if you take it, it gives you an extra plus two on your grapple check.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm at six of today's eight.
[SPEAKER_09]: Let's see if we can tie this thing up again.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right, grab the check at a plus 26 all day.
[SPEAKER_06]: Whoa.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a 17 on the diet for, um, you have grabbed the demon, I squeeze.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please, all righty, you've got it held, both of you are grappled right now, which is nice because something you learned yesterday is if it's adjacent to a helpless enemy, it can simply enter their body and become them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Top around three.
[SPEAKER_02]: Damn, like, Bash is dying at your feet.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is a fucking bloody burnt disaster.
[SPEAKER_02]: Get him this.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all my best is.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is your best opportunity to put an end to him.
[SPEAKER_08]: The one time you see him, he'll never get, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna move to my next place.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm falling dead, then the demon came to win the my body.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's the best.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's the best.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the best.
[SPEAKER_08]: All you have to do is four more points of damage.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I don't have to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what's my best option here putting hit points in him and hoping that that will bring him out of his situation?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that over or is it better to try and do something skill Skill monkey is oh In terms of skill check or oh boy.
[SPEAKER_08]: No, no, if you have the ability to magically heal me and put hit points into my body That is the best and quickest way to get me back up on and then I'll also stop the decline.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_02]: So normally, like, let's say the creature was not grappled.
[SPEAKER_02]: That could be a really tough call, because you might just be getting him to say one hit point, fit on the creature to turn around and, you know, permaculum, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But the creature's currently grappled.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, uh, I've got a potion of cure moderate that I could pour down your throat.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have a wand?
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a wand of cure light.
[SPEAKER_02]: Movie economy wise.
[SPEAKER_02]: You could draw the wand and cast it this round with a potion.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a move action to draw it and it's a full round action to administer it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you couldn't get it into this round.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to draw a wand of cure life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_04]: Unless you have a cure life prepared.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll reach it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're scraping rock bottom, I think, on daily abilities for healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's roll you up on some endpoints, everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Seven on the die for eight.
[SPEAKER_08]: Hi, nice.
[SPEAKER_08]: One hit point.
[SPEAKER_08]: Amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, so bash you come to it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you're on blood on the floor at jabber's feet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whoa.
[SPEAKER_08]: Flaming sword thrusts like through my body.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, god.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: The demon attempts a concentration check.
[SPEAKER_02]: And vanishes out of your arms leaving you holding nothing, but the reek of sulfur.
[SPEAKER_04]: Cowardly little!
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think I'll take that non-detection term.
[SPEAKER_04]: But just for... Just for grip.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a gamble.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it will last longer on one person than on the whole party.
[SPEAKER_08]: Bash is literally still lying on the floor, bleeding.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: I will give you, I've got, I've got two cure mods.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've, I have wand has tons of charges.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I can just start.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okey, dokey.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an eight on the dice, that's nine.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, Bash is gonna pick up vanity and load it with a cold iron cartridge.
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, I'll be wandered exactly, and he's just scoping the room.
[SPEAKER_08]: And literally looking everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: Four plus one is five.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three more, five more, two more, six more, three more.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, hang on, so you can still do tree deadly wounds, yeah?
[SPEAKER_08]: At this point, this thing can come back and attack us at any time.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, no, I think that at this point we can't
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, I'm happy to spend an hour while where everybody is ready to.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm happy to ready anything I have left.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so Hunter's intentively around Bash while he heals himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wand in hand, ready to use it again.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I'm okay with that.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_08]: But I think that us going to sleep, you know, even not close to healed as him isn't bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so where are you sitting yet right now with those wand charges?
[SPEAKER_02]: 36.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so feel free, Paul to cast any on yourself, while Bash is making his own heal check.
[SPEAKER_08]: Hit the DC 25 to give myself an additional 42 hit points, so I am back to full after that hour.
[SPEAKER_02]: And our does pass, and Bash is successfully able to heal himself those 42 more hit points.
[SPEAKER_02]: Looking at bars here, it looks like everybody that's still injured is within a one night sleep away from full you want to keep it there for now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, then do we want to stay here on the cots altogether close by each other for this particular night?
[SPEAKER_08]: Wait, when you say that it can go into any helpless body, does that mean someone that's sleeping?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: So then we have to... We have to literally set up a watch in Dadworks house.
[SPEAKER_04]: Who needs to sleep eight hours, just me?
[SPEAKER_08]: Just you.
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, I could stay up all night because I can always make a potion and not sleep tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the one nice thing about this combo here is that Pandora really is the only one that needs uninhabited weapon, obviously.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we can set up a watch pattern with the three of you if you want to assume that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Split the evening up, maybe take a slightly longer time, so everybody gets enough sleep to be functional tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So over the course of what I imagine is probably a aggressively tense night following that encounter and the revelation that if it simply appears while you're sleeping it might be able to become you you are of course bombarded with the dreams of the inmost blood
[SPEAKER_02]: And tonight it's similar to last night.
[SPEAKER_02]: You get this strong sense of the tendrils of fungus and twined in your mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really probing for new information.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a hunger, there's a curiosity.
[SPEAKER_02]: For areas of the subconscious not yet explored in the case of Bash and Pandora and Grippets, it's really centered on these memories they never had until yesterday.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in Dabwick, you can decide for yourself what that means here, Paul.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really curious about memories that Dabwick doesn't care to think about.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has kind of tucked away, I think it's how that's manifesting inside their mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: I take a moment for yourselves and, and again, this can be as simple as as an image or a feeling or a, or a, or if you've got a small story about a scene from your past that is dredged up before you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Open that door, let us in.
[SPEAKER_08]: I've got one.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think this is,
[SPEAKER_08]: the dream sort of almost happens while Bash is the one awake.
[SPEAKER_08]: And so he's there and he's kind of watching everyone sleeping and stuff.
[SPEAKER_08]: And when it's actually his turn to go to sleep,
[SPEAKER_08]: he goes to sleep but in in his mind he goes to sleep and then in the dream he's sitting in his apartment in dilapeline and he's watching Catarina sleeping as a child and she's sick and coughing and he's having to sort of stay up and watch over her while she's sick knowing that in neary is out once again
[SPEAKER_08]: She's been gone for three days now and, you know, what she on this time when is she coming back?
[SPEAKER_08]: And just all of those things are racing through his head, as he's watching this child, this like maybe like seven-year-old kid, just coughing and kind of, you know, laying on the bed and...
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, he's, he's done what he can to sort of make her comfortable and stuff and she's asleep, but none of this is good.
[SPEAKER_02]: That feeling of, I am the only protector and I feel helpless.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the thing that I have to fight against, I can't do anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's now up to.
[SPEAKER_08]: And he's thinking about the red death and he's thinking about, you know, watching his family die and he's just,
[SPEAKER_02]: awful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, because he was a kid when that all happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_04]: Doris going back to being seven, eight, and the rule of thumb was just don't get in the barren's way.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just avoid notice as much as possible that was.
[SPEAKER_04]: But he wasn't like completely cruel all of the time.
[SPEAKER_04]: And he would go to her into playing games with him.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because she was good at it and she would fall for it every time Because it was her father.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean that's how it was supposed to be and and I'm not every time But sometimes when she won or did well He'd that switch would flip hmm and he'd get nasty But I've been thinking a lot about fetching them at yeah, I'm wondering if he wasn't Psychic
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I'm wondering if he didn't feel some kind of particular connection, not good, not bad, to Dora, little Dora, interesting, considering the spell he used to kill her mom.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this, this feeling of,
[SPEAKER_02]: an arbitrary yeah switch being flipped yeah i was doing so well and now for no reason seemed great i'm in danger or i'm in trouble or things got scary yeah yeah so i've been thinking about what was your name when we were
[SPEAKER_09]: It's biting lash, were you roany then?
[SPEAKER_09]: No, were you Vic?
[SPEAKER_09]: You were Vic?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, he was roany there.
[SPEAKER_09]: You were roany when we were kept by biting lash?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: So I'm picturing like some of the sometimes when they were being held together and the image that has churned up in this dream is
[SPEAKER_09]: Roni is hysterical and you can't tell from the image if he's laughing if he's sobbing if he's raging he's hysterical and grip has him by like the collar and he's shaken him and he's trying to get him to calm down and he just keeps yelling you got to get the grip man you got to get the grip you got to get the grip
[SPEAKER_09]: And then the rage and continues and he just throws him down in a, you know, going to keep him walks away and, and Rooney has gripped, please, because you're a gripping.
[SPEAKER_08]: All that I have to tell you that totally makes me think of a phenomenal scene in P.C.
[SPEAKER_08]: blinders where there's someone that they had been to war within like World War One where he's got, he's totally in like got the shakes from PTSD and they're literally kind of shaking being like, you're not a bomb, you're a human being, you're not a bomb, you're a human being.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of Dabwick's past in Corganbeer and run-ins with the Daro.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm thinking that today, Dabwick became a fire elemental and burnt out an infection that was leading to the underground of,
[SPEAKER_01]: of Casimir, and that's got their brain thinking of running through the tunnels underneath the city in Corganbear, danger at every corner.
[SPEAKER_02]: that populate this underground cave city.
[SPEAKER_02]: These darelo, these weird, gnome-looking, pale blue humanoids with these bulging white eyes, wild hair, four fingered hands, completely insane.
[SPEAKER_02]: The lot of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know that they can't survive in the sunlight.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're a little like vampires in that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: They take
[SPEAKER_02]: upon exposure to sunlight that is cumulatively gets worse and worse and worse.
[SPEAKER_02]: And can imagine a situation of, you know, hiding only lasts so long.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then if you get spotted, you're only recourse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially if this was earlier in your years of going down there, it's your race for the sunlight.
[SPEAKER_02]: Try to beat them to the surface and just hope that you can move faster than these.
[SPEAKER_02]: tiny little freak show monsters and then we wake the 25th of frost having survived the night.
[SPEAKER_02]: No further appearances from the demon.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we call it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's call it eight.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's call it eight in the morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the plan for the day?
[SPEAKER_02]: I need some materials.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spell components.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got 15,000 gold pieces where the platinum burning a hole in our pockets is today the shopping day before we go crush some more corpse skulls.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, why don't we just do a quick run of anyone's we can get some diamond dust healing kit things.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I was gonna say I could definitely get a refill on healing kit kind of stuff
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so we have a little plan to go do a little bit of shopping is that going to happen before or after we visit the warehouse.
[SPEAKER_09]: For that kind of stuff, do we need to go fancy pants or can we go to the place down here?
[SPEAKER_02]: You can go right up the hill above Dubbox House to Gregard Castle where all the temples are.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, that kind of like divine magic in the city fairly easy to get access to.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are a bunch of high level priests up there and it is the place where we go for healing.
[SPEAKER_09]: And what it makes the most sense to do that before we go back to the warehouse.
[SPEAKER_09]: Just probably still like geographically.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the short list for the shopping trip?
[SPEAKER_02]: Diamond Dust, how much do you want, Katie?
[SPEAKER_02]: 1000.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like us knowing down the road.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always useful, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then
[SPEAKER_02]: you want to stock up on another or more wand of healing?
[SPEAKER_02]: About three.
[SPEAKER_09]: Like if there's any mods, if there's any mod ones that would, because that was, I don't know, we should, yeah, we're getting here.
[SPEAKER_03]: To the point where the light is getting.
[SPEAKER_09]: Tim's level of cure light is, though, like, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, I've got two wands of cure light loons.
[SPEAKER_01]: One with eight charges, one with 27 charges.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: One cure mod would be great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: If they have it available, so a wand of pure mud would run you 4,500.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say you could get one of those.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's expensive.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we're sitting on how much?
[SPEAKER_02]: 1 to say 15,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the price point on a cure light?
[SPEAKER_02]: 750.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for 6,000 gold, you could get two lights and one moderate.
[SPEAKER_08]: All right, I mean, if we're happy with blowing that money on a pure-mod one, that's fine with me.
[SPEAKER_08]: I would love to get, you know, a couple hundred gold pieces worth of more crafting materials for ammunition.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say, story wise, DABS would help you do that on your way down the hill, leaving the district as you stop by like, blacksmith's shop, and DABS would know the places to go to take care of that easily done.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a hundred gold pieces does it for you?
[SPEAKER_08]: No, I would say a couple hundred, like four or five hundred gold piece.
[SPEAKER_08]: Just I would rather have more stuff so that I could because some of those things are like it's like 25 gold pieces to make one.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Very expensive.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you could easily, you could come up with 500 gold pieces of that for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And knowing how seldom land this campaign, you all have been to have the opportunity to get consumables and that kind of stuff for sure, take advantage of it.
[SPEAKER_08]: How much, how much are handy have rececks?
[SPEAKER_08]: I say we get two more of those because you can always draw stuff from it as a move action.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do they weigh?
[SPEAKER_02]: Five pounds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Looks like from my diarole you could get your hands on two fairly easily beyond that with talking spent in time.
[SPEAKER_08]: Does that seem worthwhile to everybody?
[SPEAKER_09]: I could see how it might make sense for someone else.
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't think I need one.
[SPEAKER_09]: I think I think we'll then save that, 2000.
[SPEAKER_08]: The two of you, each having another extra dimensional space that we could store stuff in and you can pull things out without being attacked.
[SPEAKER_08]: Does that feel like a worthwhile expenditure?
[SPEAKER_08]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so that's two handy haversax, one going to Dora Pandora, one going to Dabwick, thousand gold pieces with a diamond dust.
[SPEAKER_02]: full wand of pure mod and two full wands of pure light for the dabs and 500 gold pieces worth of crafting supplies for thick how much for like another like two or three healers kits?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right because you use two uses every time you do that don't you?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah 50 gold each how about how about another five?
[SPEAKER_08]: Done because then I just don't have to worry about flying and carrying
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: They're one pound each.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all that wouldn't you take a couple hours there in the morning, but easy to do both between the temple and then on your way down the hill.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So as we have that diamond dust.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, you're going to cast non-detection on grip.
[SPEAKER_04]: Talk us through that.
[SPEAKER_04]: The emotion component is secretiveness.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like snukiness that has a little mischievous quality.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the thought component is, she imagines this man, the one you don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: The one I don't know, uh, whose personality is taking shape in her mind through these little vignettes when casting these spells.
[SPEAKER_04]: And in this one, he's in his element, he's in his lab for one to the better word, and does it feel modern era or does it feel out of time?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's out of time.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's much as I know, it feels out of time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure, sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, having lived as a recluse for so long.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it feels, it feels out of time.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a lab, some of the equipment feels like, oh, that's quaint that they would be using that.
[SPEAKER_04]: In that lab, now we use this.
[SPEAKER_04]: And he's doing something and he's hiding it from someone I don't know, someone in authority, someone over, you know, like he's about to make a discovery of something and he doesn't want anyone to know about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this feels more mischievous than hiding for reasons of being threatened.
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels more like I don't want anybody to know because I'm not ready or I'm not.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's more like I don't want anyone to know because I'm not ready, but he's very excited about it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Very excited about the potential discovery, but it's like keeping it close.
[SPEAKER_04]: Almost like he's been burned a little before with something getting out too soon and
[SPEAKER_04]: He wants to control the flow and control everything about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So with that memory coursing through her brain, the Pandora reaches out, and touches grip with non-detection, and how many hours is this going to last?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you do math?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I need to do math.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good math.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't feel it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: So the last 11 hours.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I can do it again later to as long as it's today.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now, difficult to detect by divination spells, such as Clare of audience, clairvoyance, Loki, object, detect.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also from Crystal Balls.
[SPEAKER_04]: It may do literally nothing to help us, but if it gives us some time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, so there'll be a castor check involved now if anybody wishes to attempt to scribe on the gripper.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think, does this feel like anything to gripper?
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never thought about this spell and if it... Maybe like a little bit of...
[SPEAKER_04]: pressure like there's more inside his mind in his skull that's like protecting his his because door would think of it all intellectually right so she thinks of it as like a shroud around his skull.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it doesn't hurt but it is a feeling of like there's another something there so kind of feels like a bit of pressure.
[SPEAKER_04]: He's got
[SPEAKER_02]: Seran rap.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or maybe in this case, Tim Foil.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: He sounds.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, like, it's crazy person.
[SPEAKER_02]: He too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then back to here in the story.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I cast May Jarmor on myself, which I forget, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And on Dab's?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: to the warehouse next or to, okay, great.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll make our way down the hill through the shipyard district back to the rundown, Warren fallen apart, largely abandoned.
[SPEAKER_02]: North East quarter, back to the warehouse and the remaining corpses.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the whole place, it feels very, you know, as you were leaving yesterday, it started to feel a little less oppressive.
[SPEAKER_02]: A live and oppressive, and with all of the spores, now totally gone, is your bloodhound going?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: I would have absolutely drank bloodhound when we got up this morning and started to make and just sniffing around going like, do thing smell the same or do they?
[SPEAKER_08]: Is that that essence of infection still around or is it slowly dissipating?
[SPEAKER_02]: It is noticeably dissipating to your supernatural senses.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's hopeful.
[SPEAKER_07]: Am I, am I, Daphse, you see any, you see any rats around here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that quick see any rats around here?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like maybe it's like, okay, they don't seem to be coming in yet from the swamps, but oh, there's this, there's just one place over here where, yeah, yeah, so this is tunnel down to Kazimire's locker and see the, the tenuous sign of one little rat snute poking up out of a sewer and looking around.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they haven't moved back in yet, but there seems to be progress being made in that direction.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, he's got to watch the rats.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Corpses, corpses, and confabulation plates, and fabulation plates, who are we going to confabulate?
[SPEAKER_08]: Based on how they look, do any of the sailors look like they died most recent, like which one looks like it just died?
[SPEAKER_08]: Sort of which one was around the longest and conscious?
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say it's knowing what I know about the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's probably one guy
[SPEAKER_02]: that looks the absolute worst.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the other three that are all kind of in a similar condition, but one seems to be the least fucked up with focus.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you clamp the brass plates around the head.
[SPEAKER_02]: Click, click it back off of the seed icon to the plant icon to the core of the icon.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mark's a mind, mind, mind, mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: The box floats off of the ground with the head contained within it, as it is slowly crushing the bone between the plates.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna shove that long fleshy tube shove right down a shove Squelch Squelch I wish you would squelch Whisting comes to life Whisting in your hand and you hear inside the body as the lamprey mouth clamped down and the body is given this semblance by Error or something being shoved through the tube as though this
[SPEAKER_02]: Kind of breathing, but it's clearly a lie of science, and you can hear the sound of its skull slowly fracturing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Who all did you infect?
[SPEAKER_06]: Everyone here!
[SPEAKER_08]: Who else, that isn't here, did you infect?
[SPEAKER_06]: But you know, the power of the blood, it can do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Split it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Plates crashed to the ground.
[SPEAKER_02]: Head is finally crushed.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's burning.
[SPEAKER_02]: burn those bodies?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, easy to safely do with the center of this large building.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the depths already gone through as a fire elemental and disinfected the remaining fungus and the place does now indeed seem to be dead and not undead.
[SPEAKER_09]: Do we feel like that's good enough?
[SPEAKER_09]: Do we need to go around sniffing?
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't think that we're planning on leaving quite today, right?
[SPEAKER_07]: So while we're around, I'll keep sniffing and see if I pick up any signs.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: Keep your nose to the ground.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so it's getting close.
[SPEAKER_02]: Skit non-tool-a-sie, it's probably 11, 30 at this point.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to month.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to walk back up to the thin and find our way to month.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's do it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right?
[SPEAKER_04]: I imagine, um, walking through the swamp will be difficult.
[SPEAKER_04]: For sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you have that spell prepared today?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I haven't prepared any new spells.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's only been the morning, so.
[SPEAKER_08]: So what we really want to do is we want to plan it so that we get there in time and time to for them to meditate before we go in so then is there time for us to do other stuff in the city?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think there's value in you walking around with bloodhound.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, well, I mean, there's value in that.
[SPEAKER_08]: There's also just value in doing that.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then having continuing to build those hours towards knowledge local.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have to do, too.
[SPEAKER_08]: And great.
[SPEAKER_08]: And also, all my clothes are totally fucked up.
[SPEAKER_04]: You have to find clothes again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we are going to have some time,
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so we're going to burn some time until around three o'clock or so and then head out into the swamp then
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're going to be a montage of Bash trying on different outfits.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Imagine in your mind the delicious montage at the end of which after a little conversation with Chester and Jade of Johnny can describe for us what Bash is outfit as if he's ready.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe he's not ready quite yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know he's still thinking about the new look.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Katie and Johnny roll a 1d4 and that'll tell you how many more hours you get to log on for your knowledge
[SPEAKER_02]: 3.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: 3.
[SPEAKER_02]: Excellent.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we will assume that the bloodhound nose is going this whole time.
[SPEAKER_02]: If there's any particular thing you want to try to dig up, rumor-wise, take a second to think about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Paulian, I will pop over to...
[SPEAKER_02]: Jacob and Chester's place, where they are taking care of Persephone, who is in the exact same state stirring off into space, occasionally humming a little song to herself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Chester would make some tea for you all, and I'll gather up around around their table.
[SPEAKER_01]: Friends, we have to talk about this letter that Jade has gave me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, Dabwick pulls out the letter.
[SPEAKER_02]: The one that she sent to you through Skywin, that she wrote last summer, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And you just got, before you went to sleep, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this letter, you described things that you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to know how you know them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to know how you knew to send me anything that you can tell me about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Out does not speak to you.
[SPEAKER_06]: I follow her.
[SPEAKER_02]: Derek, I follow her through the forest
[SPEAKER_02]: She takes the form of a dove for me and she leads me for days, for weeks, for months.
[SPEAKER_02]: This may be a fruitless journey, also it feels to me with no seeming destination.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then every once in a great while, I am led to something or someone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I see what it is she's trying to show me.
[SPEAKER_02]: She does not speak to me with words.
[SPEAKER_02]: She speaks to me with imagery.
[SPEAKER_02]: She speaks to me through the form of a quest for a journey, with an uncertain destination.
[SPEAKER_02]: At the end, I always see things I feel to be true.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know there are some who,
[SPEAKER_02]: would tell me that this or that of the other that I've seen was all of my mind, but in my heart I know the difference.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know what to act on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And of course that feeling is stronger.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I have a mission in my own heart, driving my quest, as I did for over a dozen years, she takes Chester
[SPEAKER_02]: It was all I sawed, and I knew the whole time, as I followed her through that forest and I would see signs of his passage, and I knew I was chasing after him.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew it, it was not a question to me, it was
[SPEAKER_02]: communion.
[SPEAKER_01]: What about the things you know about me?
[SPEAKER_01]: How does that enter into this?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: I quest for Chester became a quest for justice for what I had to done to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I sought for the forest for anything that would soften the blow of what I had done,
[SPEAKER_02]: What I had, let's be honest, tricked you into doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So she led me to a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I came to the clearing, and I saw Nagnumar.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I saw her there, and I knew her name.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you don't dream like this of others.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is, you focused on me, and so you dreamt of my story.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do find that if I fill my heart with a question Mother Moon comes to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not in the time, I would always desire not in the manner I'd always desire, but she comes to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What could a purpose possibly be to show you my parents?
[SPEAKER_02]: I asked she answered that book.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is not for us to understand who purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is enough to know that when your heart is open, she will feel it.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you let her in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have any idea what I want to do with this information that you've given me, but I understand where you were coming from your reasons and I just wanted to know
[SPEAKER_01]: I hold no grudge, I don't know that I have faith in this mother moon, but I believe you, and I think I have more to consider and more to think about.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for this gift, Tabakai, I do not deserve it, but I cherish it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for all you've done for us and for Persephone.
[SPEAKER_02]: We will of course watch as long as is necessary.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe I might be able to help cover some of your expenses for this and your care and attention has greatly appreciated.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've given me the greatest gift.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could have asked for, I do not need repayment from you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do what it is you must do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know your quest is important.
[SPEAKER_02]: And from what I understand, from Chester, the less I know of it, the safer I am.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I will ask you no questions, but simply tell you, whatever you need from us, we will do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you able to perform an orgory?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it is a fairly simple magic for me, but you know, using a spell to do this sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It sees only so far into the future.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, half an hour, is that useful to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not for now, but it's good to know.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, and we are here for all of you.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just realized that at 10th level, now that I have 10 ranks in linguistics, I can use automatic grading as divination.
[SPEAKER_04]: Holy shit.
[SPEAKER_04]: So walk us through that one, because that one's, that one sees further in the future.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very powerful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Suddenly, it actually slightly useful, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a DC30, which means that there's a chance I might not make.
[SPEAKER_02]: DC30 linguistic check?
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Similar to Augury, but more powerful, divination spell can provide you with a useful piece of advice and reply to a question concerning a specific goal, event or activity that is to occur within one week.
[SPEAKER_04]: The advice granted by the spell can be as simple as a short phrase or it might take the form of a cryptic rhyme or omen giving you ideas.
[SPEAKER_04]: If your party doesn't act on the information the conditions may change so that the information is no longer useful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Such a better spell.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's on none of this will woe nonsense some actual and if the diro fails You know the spell failed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's really great Okay, okay once a week Oh, okay All right, but still once a week So we're bad and yeah, I'm sure Rob appreciate that that the fact that's once a week Yes, thank you three times a day Oh
[SPEAKER_08]: I kind of do I have like a feeling of one yeah, I think that he's walking around and he's going through like some of the the nicer area Yeah, yeah, three gates and yeah, old Kazmer.
[SPEAKER_08]: You know like doing some basically like window shopping is he's walking around and stuff and First he sees a hat
[SPEAKER_08]: And he sees like a really nice dark pork pie hat with like a little feather in it and stuff And it's got like kind of a colorful brim and he's like yes, I need I need that And then he he finds it's more sort of a eclectic this time
[SPEAKER_08]: I think it's kind of similar to what he has on, but it has like, it gives a little, it has a hint of his brision ancestry this time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_08]: So that, because I think that he dressed more like that for all that time that he was in dialectaline.
[SPEAKER_08]: Because it was, it, he felt somehow safer, okay, to actually embrace that part of himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: So I think that he is now sort of trying to reclaim some of that.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's because he was shedding the anonymity that he was actually being one person for years and in that time and he wasn't looking at himself.
[SPEAKER_08]: So it would be the sort of thing where he'd find something that reminded him of home and a childhood feels right exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was less about the look and more about the feel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's really awesome.
[SPEAKER_08]: Um, so I can't, I can't say what that looks like exactly, but it's, it's, it's, it's an idea as for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, an idea as for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Any little thing you want to throw into what you're asking about?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think mine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's make those, make those checks, then all your local checks.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you hit the DC, which I think you will.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got something I can throw at you.
[SPEAKER_08]: 22.
[SPEAKER_08]: Only a 16.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think I think most of the clothes that you do pick up are actually in three gates because both three gates in Old Kazimire are The rich districts, but three gates is more like new money.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a little fancier.
[SPEAKER_02]: It less stuffy less like fusty than the very very old town So I'm guessing you probably caught sight of this hat as you're making your way down Heart slain in three gates and you do go past this rampant bore in
[SPEAKER_02]: Which somebody mentioned to you, maybe Molly Mab at some point about this place that Mun had been staying in town.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, right, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and you do, you're able to confirm with the, with the innkeeper there, she's a half-ling woman named Avery.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bright pink hair, large round glasses.
[SPEAKER_02]: That Mun did stay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Mun took...
[SPEAKER_02]: five rooms, basically bought out the top floor for well over a week back in Abadius.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a large crew of folks there, a mercenary company, very scary types, didn't like them, didn't make much sense for them to be socializing with MasterMun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Does that drive with the ones we know?
[SPEAKER_02]: 100% yeah, 100%.
[SPEAKER_02]: There were seven all-human, four women, three men, and their leaders seem to be this woman with terrible spiked armor.
[SPEAKER_02]: and shield and long white hair, and it's probably this fellow of House K2.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Munn was mostly staying there, but was kind of popping back and forth from his house, as though he seemed to be waiting for somebody to arrive and didn't quite know when they would arrive.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then one day there was this other weird man with glasses with him and then they all left.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you can confirm that that crew was in town, but months seem to be going back and forth from his house during those last days in Kazimire right before they left on their ship and that was like two months ago So no point asking to see his room or anything.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's probably going to rent it out to other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely
[SPEAKER_02]: So then midday around 3 o'clock, you head out, and Dabwick leads the way, retracing steps.
[SPEAKER_02]: The last took 11 years ago, and of course so much changes in a swamp so the journey is this unsettling mixture of a sort of sick deja vu mixed with completely new and unfamiliar sites.
[SPEAKER_02]: you pass through some of the worst of the worst of the admiral's fend district walking with each step as the swamp reclaims more and more of the land than the buildings and frankly civilization, then you head out into the Blackwood.
[SPEAKER_02]: as you leave the city further and further behind the lights of Gregard's castle and old Kazimir, followed a view swallowed, not just by the distance but by all the murk and the mist and the vegetation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rhodes and paths that almost still existed 11 years ago are now completely gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: and tabs is navigating by memory and the instincts of a 10th level druid, and it's a tedious trudge through murk and mock and mist through bugs and this oppressively loud sound scape almost completely alien to to grip and bash and Pandora's experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: The environment is thick with life
[SPEAKER_02]: two hours of this pass.
[SPEAKER_02]: But just as Dusk is getting to fall, damn it's spots.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the damp, vine-covered stone stumps that used to be one of the 20 foot tall outer walls of the prison set about a quarter mile from the main building.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now sunk so deep it's almost gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: its sides dim and quiet out here it's a perfect place to stop and meditate before heading onto the grounds of what was once the most notorious high security prison in the country.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you know some meditating there, Debwick?
[SPEAKER_01]: The tablet crouches in the reeds, mud sucks at their boots, mats cloud around their ears and the reeds whisper in the early evening breeze.
[SPEAKER_01]: The air tastes of rot and wet iron.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fireflies drift in slow arcs, their faint pulses like lamplight and miniature.
[SPEAKER_01]: Though they are so far outside the city limits, that would can't help but think of Casamere.
[SPEAKER_01]: The lanterns of the city seem almost frail or by comparison these days.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their lights stretched thin against shadows that creep farther every night.
[SPEAKER_01]: The city's streets carry a heaviness that David cannot shake.
[SPEAKER_01]: It should feel familiar being back, yet nothing feels the same, nothing has felt the same since they arrived.
[SPEAKER_01]: Casimir is home, but it no longer feels safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps it never was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Memories of yesterday dragged through them like a hook, fight after fight, heartbreak after heartbreak.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fight in the warehouse was the worst of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fungal husks lurching in from around every corner.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their bodies crawling with alien threads.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the heart of it, Dubwick saw him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nico Svara.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bucket boy.
[SPEAKER_01]: A boy once so quick to grin, always dirty was street dust, forever hungry for bread crusts and scraps of kindness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dad would could watch him grow from a child of the alleys into something almost steady, almost ready to claim a place.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here, his body was becoming a shell for Jaman Dore.
[SPEAKER_01]: His mouth was split with spores, his eyes blank, his small hands clutching at the air, Debwix Breath had turned to ash.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no cure, no reprieve, to leave him was a cruelty, to save him, and to end him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, their blade had kissed his throat, swift, merciful, and terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: the swamp air thickens with the echo of that moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dadwix hands titan on the staff across their knees, the woods living grain, warm and steady.
[SPEAKER_01]: They remember two of the words of some in nature's ally, rising like bile during the battle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again and again, the spell pressed against their lips, wolves could have torn the husk's apart, eagles could have hairyed their ranks, bears could have held the line, the
[SPEAKER_01]: And each time, Dabwick choked the words back, swallowing them down.
[SPEAKER_01]: They could not risk it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They could not live with the thought of wolves foaming with spores.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eagles keenly as fungus bloomed through their wings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bears staggering under the weight of infection.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some under not real or not the fear that fear stopped them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Dabwick had fought alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every step heavier than the last, every breath thick was spores.
[SPEAKER_01]: They survived.
[SPEAKER_01]: but it was not a triumph.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was survival only, stained with doubt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mist drifts slow across the fence, curling around their ankles.
[SPEAKER_01]: The still water holds the reflection of the rising moon distorted.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would stares into it, as though an answer might surface there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lily has a tate again.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thought of my acne and mums house laws at them.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the corruption is already inside, what choice will they make to stand alone as they did before to bite back the words until their throat is sore or to summon, and risk that the corruption bleeds into the bond between druid and beast, fouling what should remain pure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brother Ashgrove taught Tabuk that a summoned creature is what he called him, manifestation.
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't really define that term, but dabble could always thought that it meant they were just a pattern or a shadow, a thing that vanishes when struck down, untouched and untainted, unreal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet their time in the dreamlands taught them that unreal doesn't necessarily mean untrue.
[SPEAKER_01]: And today, the memory of Nikos' whispers loudly in their mind, what if your understanding was not the whole truth?
[SPEAKER_01]: What if the shadows carry more than anyone knows if you cut a summoned creature they bleed?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there suffering any less real than what Dabbuk suffered when they died at the Forsaken Care of Ancerai?
[SPEAKER_01]: This swamp presses its silence on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: The insects buzz, the reeds bend, the water laps against the roots of alder trees.
[SPEAKER_01]: The world offers no answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dabbock's shoulders sink.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their breath rasps out of them and finally they speak aloud.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their voice rough, as if dredged from the bottom of the fan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you thank me, Nikos, if you could, or curse me?
[SPEAKER_01]: If this falls because I keep the summoned silent, well, that mercy mean anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: The reads whisper, the fireflies pulse, the swamp holds its silence, and dabble quakes unanswered.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as, as dabble quakes, rejoins the party.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here on the threshold of Monza State, we will pick up next time with our approach to the old prison in Firmary.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the end of chapter 1-60 y'all.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're coming for you, by the end of the series.
[SPEAKER_02]: See you next week, quick little stop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dark Nexus is produced by plug-in home productions.
[SPEAKER_02]: This podcast uses trademarks and or copyrights owned by Pieson Corporation and used under Pieson's fan content policy.
[SPEAKER_02]: This podcast is not published endorsed or specifically approved by PISO.
[SPEAKER_02]: For more information about PISO Inc. and PISO products, please visit PISO.com, that's P-A-I-Z-O.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dark Nexus uses music and soundscapes by CyrenScape.
[SPEAKER_02]: Check them out at CyrenScape.com, that's S-Y-R-I-N-S-C-A-P-E.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: opening and closing themes along with additional music composed by Rob Coslaric, artwork for Dark Nexus is by Matt Wallquist, a thanks to DMCP Richard and R.I. Pollan Shen in Scotty, Jason Jess, Joe, Chelsea, Matt, Dave, Derek, Darren, McKaylaJ, ate the biscuit buddies and everyone we've gained with over the years for all the memories and inspiration.
[SPEAKER_08]: You are, you are a big part of our story telling, as well.
[SPEAKER_08]: And we love it when you know this.
[SPEAKER_04]: You are, in fact, the antagonist.