[SPEAKER_09]: Welcome back to Dark Nexus.
[SPEAKER_09]: Tonight, it's act three, chapter one hundred fifty, part two.
[SPEAKER_09]: We fed the boogie mound.
[SPEAKER_09]: We, discarded or consumed, all of our carefully collected supplies before we even started our journey.
[SPEAKER_09]: We crossed the desert of suffering and loss, we passed the crumbling relics of our lives, experience, we let go of things and of pieces of ourselves, and we reached the Madpo its Oasis.
[SPEAKER_09]: Our collection of gifts was sufficient, sufficient enough to even earn a boon from the mad poet himself, and we all feel that boon coursing through our bodies.
[SPEAKER_09]: As grips, muscles literally bulge and expand before your eyes.
[SPEAKER_09]: As fabrics, eyes widened with sudden understanding the world grows crisper and more in focus all around them.
[SPEAKER_09]: As Vic and Dora weave on their feet, actually feeling their synapses, firing faster and faster, feeling connections and patterns falling into place at a staggering rate.
[SPEAKER_09]: But at what cost?
[SPEAKER_09]: Barnabas is gone.
[SPEAKER_09]: Now the mad poet gives zero shits about sentimentality, and he's moving on with relentless focus, so the action will continue in the real time narrative of this scene, but just to take a brief pause.
[SPEAKER_09]: I suspect all of you will be listening to a number of Barnabas scenes at Act two and three when of you may next relish and through them with the different lens.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I'll bet the drunken scene at the end of the night of the pale.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well Barnabas was going sicker and sicker with seedborn consumption might take on a different color when you next take in that episode all about death and saying goodbye.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I know Robert will have more to add when it comes to some of that stuff than I want to step on his toes here.
[SPEAKER_09]: But as we freeze time
[SPEAKER_09]: For a little moment, I am interested in an in particular, especially to two people's responses to what just happened.
[SPEAKER_09]: Debut, the last thing you were feeling as you crested the rise into this place was basically how the fuck did I end up here in the middle of their story?
[SPEAKER_09]: And now you just saw the other person who was outside of their little circle, sacrifice himself for them, not only to help them, but seemingly to put an end to their continuous battle with this thing that's now growing inside of you.
[SPEAKER_09]: And Dora, just as Timma's Reinhard is gone, his head smashed to pulp by a hammer, and the basement of Briarstone asylum after the last time y'all came here, now Dora's Reinhard is gone as well.
[SPEAKER_09]: Where they both at, in this little frozen moment here, anything you want to share?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think Dora is stunned at that sacrifice and feels it acutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: But this place what they've just been through is so overwhelming, I think she is tucking it away to feel later.
[SPEAKER_03]: That she does not want to be dealing with the mad poet in a state of overwhelming grief.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that grief is partly personal, but partly in understanding Barnabas's story.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because she knows Rainard wasn't real, but they did share a bond, and they rode from the moon together with him back in that form, and that was very familiar and comforting to her.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think more so it is that rather than carry this seat of
[SPEAKER_03]: whatever through the world and continue on and fighting it, he chose this path and I think that affects her profoundly.
[SPEAKER_03]: But she can't deal with it right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Dabwick is seeing this as a pit forward for us to create a balance where if we had all stayed and we all
[SPEAKER_00]: continued this journey together, we might have been setting things out of balance and so by sacrificing himself, we're able to go forward and I'm able to stay with this group.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it sort of strengthens my resolve.
[SPEAKER_09]: I does.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think Vic is feeling sort of like hollowed out like a husk.
[SPEAKER_07]: And so things are happening, but they're not landing emotionally in any way at this point because all of that has been discarded.
[SPEAKER_07]: if that makes easy sense.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: But he saw Barnabas do that and remembered suggesting to Barnabas, I don't know how many times ago that, oh well, we had this in our heads.
[SPEAKER_07]: And if you came with us, you two might be able to get this, I don't know if you, that's something you want to do, but it is something that you could do.
[SPEAKER_07]: You certainly did say that aloud.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's like, he made his choice.
[SPEAKER_07]: But Barnabas had spoken very, very strongly and freely about wanting to get this thing out of his head and wanting to be free of it.
[SPEAKER_07]: And all the things that he had already tried to escape it.
[SPEAKER_07]: And so he's like, Ben, through so much.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's free.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's free of that.
[SPEAKER_07]: He will have other types of suffering to deal with as he continues on his journey, but he won't have that.
[SPEAKER_07]: What about Gripper?
[SPEAKER_07]: Does Robert have a take on Robert's actions?
[SPEAKER_04]: I think in this moment, because there hasn't been, I think maybe one other time that Gripper heard the song.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think the feeling of what that felt like to have that buoy him and then to have it
[SPEAKER_04]: be kind of unceremoniously stopped.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that's what's resonating with him right now.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, the ballad of Basania with Persephone, she'll be hurt no more.
[SPEAKER_09]: The copy of the copy of the Mads Poets book vanishes out of each of your hands and the sky, noticeably darkens as he continues.
[SPEAKER_10]: The niceties have been observed.
[SPEAKER_10]: So, to business.
[SPEAKER_09]: First, I must ask, are you here for one, or are you here for all?
[SPEAKER_09]: Before you came in support of him, you were his protectors and his pawns.
[SPEAKER_09]: But I sense things have changed.
[SPEAKER_09]: I believe you come to me now.
[SPEAKER_09]: As a collective, is that correct?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_10]: A collective it is.
[SPEAKER_09]: And these are your desires.
[SPEAKER_09]: It raises a hand.
[SPEAKER_09]: and somehow there's a giant diamond in it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Keep rushes it between his fingers.
[SPEAKER_09]: Blows the pile of dust into the air, its swirls and swirls and it forms a small funnel cloud between you and him, and you begin to hear emerging from it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Your own voices.
[SPEAKER_09]: or rather an echo of an echo of the thoughts you shared in communion with your collective.
[SPEAKER_04]: Time was all I wanted to do was kill walls and get my fucking memories back.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe that we need those memories.
[SPEAKER_01]: As far as I'm concerned, we have to go to Naruzbe.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'd like to know where the walls is going.
[SPEAKER_04]: Whatever he's doing, we helped him to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: And for me, I think the only thing I've got that couldn't even come close to balancing this ledger we keep talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is the threat of stopping of it's imperative that we follow those and stopping them?
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a person interested in understanding my own situation better with not risk the group's efforts for my own education.
[SPEAKER_01]: I support you if that is something that you wish is to find balance and wholeness again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope it really is still right now that
[SPEAKER_06]: If we're all I know about Catarina's shows, go after her.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want this thing out of my head.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't want to go out as a way.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've seen others go out.
[SPEAKER_05]: They just sell fish betters.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I would close this thing out of my brain if I could.
[SPEAKER_10]: You come to me like they all do, because you wish to tell you something, or show you something, or give you something, something you cannot learn, or find, or secure on your own.
[SPEAKER_10]: Well, you know who I am, and you know there is a cost.
[SPEAKER_09]: Barnabas son of Basanio led to to pay that cost on your behalf.
[SPEAKER_10]: In doing so, he got what he desired.
[SPEAKER_09]: This is inscrutable, but unmistakably dark look.
[SPEAKER_09]: Crossed his face ever so briefly, as the light around you, dims even further.
[SPEAKER_10]: Victor of the Stoiches, you too shall have what you desire.
[SPEAKER_10]: Your daughter will remain undetected by where I and all her allies for as long as the dream of her exists.
[SPEAKER_10]: But you will never see her again.
[SPEAKER_10]: Set foot in dilatveline, speak her name aloud, send anyone to check on her, and my charm will not soly dissolve, it will turn into a beacon, drawing everyone who's ever wished you harm down upon her.
[SPEAKER_10]: There's always a catch.
[SPEAKER_09]: Snaps his fingers.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's done.
[SPEAKER_10]: As for the rest of you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Bear witness.
[SPEAKER_09]: And it just was behind you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Back where you came from.
[SPEAKER_09]: And the air shimmers and suddenly.
[SPEAKER_09]: You feel yourself slip out of phase with time and reality as you see seven figures descending into the oasis.
[SPEAKER_09]: Loles, Vaticus, Riptusk, Triangle Mount, Father Ray, Tima, and Reinhard.
[SPEAKER_09]: Loles looks sweaty and eager, but the rest look
[SPEAKER_09]: hollow-eyed and resigned.
[SPEAKER_10]: Dead inside.
[SPEAKER_09]: And you watch the events of your last visit here unfold before your eyes.
[SPEAKER_09]: First, of course, they fight the gin-menju.
[SPEAKER_09]: Lowles huddles in the back as they go through the motions.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a shit show.
[SPEAKER_09]: None of them give a crap about protecting any of the others.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's an every one for themselves situation, which ends up making things more difficult than it need be.
[SPEAKER_09]: Riptus takes a bit of a walloping,
[SPEAKER_09]: But it all comes to a close after a fireball from Tima and a flames strike from Ray.
[SPEAKER_09]: And you watch as the mad poet makes his appearance back at that time.
[SPEAKER_09]: You watch the party lay out their gifts, a different signet ring, and even larger tale.
[SPEAKER_09]: A ghoul skull encrusted with rubies instead of sapphires.
[SPEAKER_09]: A heart stone, different one, different tricorn hat,
[SPEAKER_09]: and the doom idol of Iib.
[SPEAKER_09]: Six gifts.
[SPEAKER_09]: The mad poet asks them what they cost and only loll's speaks, and he talks in terms of what he experienced, which was stuff, but not all that was suffered in the gaining of those items.
[SPEAKER_09]: You can tell it is written in the hollow eyes of the rest of that group, but they keep their mouths shut.
[SPEAKER_09]: And you watch as the mad poet accepts his gifts offering nothing in return, and says, are you here for one?
[SPEAKER_08]: Or are you here for all?
[SPEAKER_09]: We are here for me, great master, Al Hazred, I see.
[SPEAKER_10]: And this is your desire.
[SPEAKER_09]: Again, raises his hand, crushes a diamond.
[SPEAKER_09]: Cloud of dust and echo of Lull's voice is heard.
[SPEAKER_09]: The animal to block calls to me.
[SPEAKER_09]: I will awaken it tonight.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I will become its vessel.
[SPEAKER_09]: I will take it into my body physically.
[SPEAKER_09]: And with the power of the stars sitting side of me, I will do what Ariadne failed to do all those centuries ago.
[SPEAKER_09]: I will drag all of Galarian into Carcosa.
[SPEAKER_09]: And on the resulting power, we'll free the King and Yellow from his prison.
[SPEAKER_09]: I have seated in my dreams, shall we nourish?
[SPEAKER_09]: Everything that has ever happened for the past two hundred billion years has happened on the road to my great achievement.
[SPEAKER_09]: The entire universe will vow to Haster and he will owe everything to me.
[SPEAKER_10]: I just have to find the rules of it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Voice echoes in the valley as the dust settles.
[SPEAKER_09]: The mad poet stares for a moment at roles.
[SPEAKER_09]: When he finally speaks, his question takes some surprise.
[SPEAKER_10]: You believe, Ariadne failed.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, I mean, obviously, her ritual didn't work.
[SPEAKER_09]: Did it not?
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't understand.
[SPEAKER_10]: No.
[SPEAKER_10]: No, you don't.
[SPEAKER_10]: And the irony of what you believe your role to be in all of this is truly exquisite.
[SPEAKER_10]: Very well then, the savior of Haster, King of Narusivan.
[SPEAKER_10]: You know who I am, and you know there is a cost.
[SPEAKER_10]: What are you prepared to sacrifice?
[SPEAKER_09]: And like a sneaky little weasel, thinks he's outsmarted the universe.
[SPEAKER_09]: Loles cast a wicked little glance back in his companions.
[SPEAKER_09]: Gives him a small fake reassuring smile.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then whips back, cries out, bam, all of them!
[SPEAKER_09]: Hurry, quick, before I can stop you!
[SPEAKER_09]: and you all see what Loll's never saw because he was looking at them at poet.
[SPEAKER_09]: When the moment of this betrayal came, there were flashes of emotion across the faces of the others.
[SPEAKER_09]: All view, complicated emotions for sure, but none of them, none of them was surprised.
[SPEAKER_09]: For what feels like an endless moment during which Loll's is practically
[SPEAKER_09]: Handicking to death in fear.
[SPEAKER_09]: The Mad Poets simply considers.
[SPEAKER_09]: What are you doing?
[SPEAKER_09]: What are you waiting for?
[SPEAKER_09]: Hurry before they... John.
[SPEAKER_09]: Mad Poets snaps his fingers and the other six go completely stiff.
[SPEAKER_09]: But it's not like what happened with Barnabas.
[SPEAKER_09]: They just seem to be paralyzed.
[SPEAKER_10]: But you will have to do it.
[SPEAKER_10]: What my?
[SPEAKER_10]: How?
[SPEAKER_10]: In the waters.
[SPEAKER_10]: You must do it.
[SPEAKER_10]: Get used to getting your own hands dirty.
[SPEAKER_10]: King of Naruzavin.
[SPEAKER_09]: And so you watch, as one by one, those drags the limp, yet totally conscious bodies of rip-tuck, the triangle man, Ray, Tima, Vaticus, and Ray Nard out into that pool beneath the gargantuan moon.
[SPEAKER_09]: And you watch as he grabs each of them and forces their faces under the water and struggles as each of them drowns.
[SPEAKER_09]: And even though none of them are capable of taking conscious action, their bodies involuntarily fight back.
[SPEAKER_09]: They wretch and kick and whale.
[SPEAKER_09]: And you can tell that each of them knows exactly what's happening.
[SPEAKER_09]: Check out this art.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_09]: And as he drowns, rip tusk.
[SPEAKER_09]: Grip has the disorienting feeling of both
[SPEAKER_09]: watching this happen from the outside and of feeling it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Remembering it happen from the inside.
[SPEAKER_09]: You're looking up as you drown and you see his face looming over you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Male, middle-aged, maybe older.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a long, charcoal beard, dark, circular glasses, tinted purple, maybe.
[SPEAKER_09]: A dark, flat, less square hat.
[SPEAKER_09]: His mouth is clenched and fury.
[SPEAKER_09]: The veins on his neck are bulging.
[SPEAKER_09]: He's looking down on you, down on you from above, and his image in your mind as you look up is rippling, waving, distorted and twisted like you're looking at it through warp to glass, or through a rift or a portal.
[SPEAKER_09]: Or from underwater.
[SPEAKER_09]: Vic has the same sensation as the triangle man is drowned, and Dora feels and sees what team of feels and sees.
[SPEAKER_09]: Same as it ever was.
[SPEAKER_09]: And as each of the six drowned, a thin mist pours out of their mouths, forms into a tightly coiled snake of vapor and color, and their collected memories and life experiences sink down, down, down, to the bottom of the Mad Poets pool.
[SPEAKER_09]: Lowles drags himself out of the water shaking and soaking he's starting to shiver in the cold desert night air and he's bruised and cut he's a mess.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's it's it's done You wish to know how to find the news of him?
[SPEAKER_10]: Look
[SPEAKER_09]: and the Mad Poets suddenly whips open his terrible tone right before Lowlz's eyes.
[SPEAKER_09]: And the first Lowlz doesn't seem to process what he's looking at when he's reading, but he can't take his eyes off it.
[SPEAKER_09]: In fact, his eyes keep scanning right to left, right to left, right to left.
[SPEAKER_09]: And he starts whimpering and crying.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then his eyes start bleeding.
[SPEAKER_09]: And he unleashes this soul shattering scream that actually shatters his soul.
[SPEAKER_09]: Lowlz rips in two.
[SPEAKER_09]: One of them now sobbing uncontrollably on the ground of the other
[SPEAKER_09]: I see cold, with bleeding eyes, and a dead-eyed grin on his face.
[SPEAKER_09]: The mad pot simply waves a hand, and the weeping loll's vanishes.
[SPEAKER_10]: Now you have paid the price.
[SPEAKER_09]: Closes his book, holds it before loll's.
[SPEAKER_10]: Do you know what this is?
[SPEAKER_09]: completely dead eyed bloody eyed laws says yes say it's name the nechronomic
[SPEAKER_10]: The copy in your world will tell you all you need to know, and more.
[SPEAKER_10]: There are rituals contained within that you will find most useful for your purposes.
[SPEAKER_10]: Do you know where to find it?
[SPEAKER_10]: Mondas?
[SPEAKER_10]: Mondos?
[SPEAKER_10]: Yes, he does.
[SPEAKER_09]: Now, wake, O King of Naruzivan, and never return.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I'll do some dream body of Hazerton, Pregmas, Loles, the Fourth, evaporates.
[SPEAKER_09]: The air shimmers again, and you find yourselves phasing back into time and reality, and the mad poet gestures out into his pool.
[SPEAKER_09]: Where you see sneaky ribbons of color and vapor, writhing beneath the surface of the water, manifesting, becoming whole.
[SPEAKER_10]: I release you.
[SPEAKER_10]: All of you.
[SPEAKER_10]: The memories from both of your lives are now yours.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then it looks right at Dora, Vic, and Gripp.
[SPEAKER_10]: But only one of you shall wake.
[SPEAKER_10]: Whoever lives gets the body in the waking world.
[SPEAKER_10]: Enjoy.
[SPEAKER_09]: There's a flash of movement from the water, draws your eyes as figures begin to surface from the pool, the first
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a huge, hulking half-org man, close to seven feet tall and weighing, we get nearly three hundred pounds, almost.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's impossible to tell his age for certain, if this man is not young.
[SPEAKER_04]: He's been through the shit and only grown stronger, tougher, fitter and meaner for it.
[SPEAKER_04]: His hair is a matted mess, dark green, dreadlocks, grunging, cavity ridden, yellowing, bottom tusks, shut up from his pushed forward jaw.
[SPEAKER_04]: His eyes are an almost glowing liella that seems to pierce out of his grey green skin.
[SPEAKER_04]: His massive arms are covered with accrued tattoos probably done by hand not by a professional.
[SPEAKER_04]: They are seemingly random shapes that form sleeves up and down his biceps and forearms to ink only slightly darker than his skin.
[SPEAKER_09]: He's missing several fingers.
[SPEAKER_09]: Pinky on his right hand as well as the Pinky and Ring Finger out his left.
[SPEAKER_09]: The knuckles where those fingers should be are masses of black and scar tissue.
[SPEAKER_09]: He wears his magical suit of gray, spiked leather.
[SPEAKER_09]: He carries his spiked steel shield.
[SPEAKER_09]: He brandishes the battle acts with a stylized blade that looks like beams of light lancing out from a star.
[SPEAKER_09]: He wears the badge.
[SPEAKER_09]: He is the constable.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's rip-task.
[SPEAKER_09]: then.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's a human man, but his age is really hard to pin down.
[SPEAKER_07]: First you think he's in his late thirties, but as you observe more and more of him, he may be significantly younger.
[SPEAKER_07]: His olive colored skin is seen a lot of sun in his line with wrinkles that might be contributing to an inaccurate sense of age.
[SPEAKER_07]: His jet black hair is a nanny mess.
[SPEAKER_07]: Too long to be called short, too short.
[SPEAKER_07]: We call it long.
[SPEAKER_07]: He is a black mustache and little soul patch beard under his lower lip.
[SPEAKER_07]: It opens his mouth.
[SPEAKER_07]: You see that many of his teeth have been replaced with metal versions.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's probably about five, seven, five, eight terribly terribly lean and wiery.
[SPEAKER_07]: Maybe a total of a hundred and thirty pounds.
[SPEAKER_09]: left side of his face is covered in a hundred or more tiny, equilateral triangles tattooed with dark black ink into his flesh.
[SPEAKER_09]: He wears his magical shirt of black chain and brandishes a dark black rapier with a rose shaped hilt, a rapier dripping with blood.
[SPEAKER_09]: The triangle man.
[SPEAKER_09]: Then
[SPEAKER_03]: A human-looking woman well into her middle ages.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's tall with a slender build on the edge of frailty and a sharp, her own structure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Her skin is all of tone.
[SPEAKER_03]: You think at first.
[SPEAKER_03]: But then maybe it's more golden.
[SPEAKER_03]: She doesn't look like she gets a lot of sun, but she doesn't look pale at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: Her hair falls straight back in her forehead.
[SPEAKER_03]: It has the look of pure silky and is a shade not so much gray silver.
[SPEAKER_03]: With a quality, you would almost call metallic.
[SPEAKER_03]: She has high cheap bones and prominent dimples.
[SPEAKER_03]: Her eyes have the color and luminous sense of amethyst.
[SPEAKER_03]: A brilliant striking violet.
[SPEAKER_09]: Long black hooded robes, headband rings spellbook.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's Tima.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then,
[SPEAKER_00]: a young-ish human man, like playing his earlier mid-twentals.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's well-muscled, but really pale and really thin, and there's something off about the weight he's built, like his head is too big for his neck.
[SPEAKER_00]: His hips are shifted to the side of an odd angle.
[SPEAKER_00]: job on protrudes into a point and chin.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a light dusting of black whiskers.
[SPEAKER_00]: These long fingers and thin wrists.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has black hair that's cut asymmetrically kind of hangs and covers one side of his face.
[SPEAKER_09]: knows in his eyebrows and ears all bare numerous piercings.
[SPEAKER_09]: He's in the same armor he wore in life wielding the same morning star but they are spiky and whole and glowing now as his he.
[SPEAKER_09]: You're seeing him alive and breathing for the first time in months.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then, of course, human man, middle-aged, bearded, salt and pepper hair, mostly white, pale skin, glasses, the heavily-calist fingers of someone who works with their hands.
[SPEAKER_09]: He's wearing the Renaissance Daredevil armor, Johnny's character wore for all of act one, beakers and bottles and powders and weird fluids adorn him everywhere, gullver vaticists.
[SPEAKER_09]: And finally, an orange and black fox, sleek and smart, right-knired.
[SPEAKER_09]: They're in a state of some confusion you can tell.
[SPEAKER_09]: But you can also tell that they understand exactly what's at stake here too.
[SPEAKER_09]: Whoever lives gets the body.
[SPEAKER_09]: Vaticus and Reinhard almost immediately sink to their knees staring around and pain and confusion they look thin.
[SPEAKER_09]: Like maybe they're not gonna last long.
[SPEAKER_09]: They are after all nothing more but the dream of a dead soul's memory.
[SPEAKER_09]: Ray looks like he's having some sort of experience, maybe one of pain, but he's gonna fight.
[SPEAKER_09]: He seems to feel that there's a vessel of some sort waiting for him to return to, maybe he can claim the ghost body if he's not put down before he realizes he can simply wake up.
[SPEAKER_09]: Maybe a timer on that one.
[SPEAKER_09]: And even though the mad poet has now vanished, you hear the lingering echo of his voice boomed through the small valley, whoever amongst you survives.
[SPEAKER_10]: Never return.
[SPEAKER_09]: And now my friends, I attempt to kill you with your own characters.
[SPEAKER_09]: Roll for initiative.
[SPEAKER_04]: Those are, I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_07]: I have a purely technical question.
[SPEAKER_07]: How many minutes has it been since the fight?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, let's do it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Number one, Dora and Vic get nine more skill points from the raising of their intelligence.
[SPEAKER_09]: I debated when to do this, but I think we're going to do it right now, right this second.
[SPEAKER_09]: Add those ranks wherever you like.
[SPEAKER_09]: And remember that you can't have any more than nine ranks in any one skill.
[SPEAKER_09]: This really did just happen right now.
[SPEAKER_09]: So I think whatever you feel like you would have learned is what you do learn right now at the Oasis.
[SPEAKER_09]: And as far as buffs go, I had had the other party all kidded up with the buffs they had had before entering the Oasis, but after
[SPEAKER_09]: We've now played out this conversation with the bad poet.
[SPEAKER_09]: I realize a bunch will be gone, so I turned off all of their buffs that were around per level or a minute per level, and you'll all be in the exact same boat.
[SPEAKER_09]: So, so turn everything off unless there are ten minutes per level or longer.
[SPEAKER_09]: So, major armor, anything else?
[SPEAKER_09]: Maybe some of the the Dabwick stuff?
[SPEAKER_09]: Could we do a feather step?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, feather step mask, that would be the only thing.
[SPEAKER_09]: But, telepathic bonds still don't.
[SPEAKER_09]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_09]: And you put your ranks and what?
[SPEAKER_03]: Knowledge religion.
[SPEAKER_03]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: Grip.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's to there.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what a natural one will get you.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, any low roll right now makes sense.
[SPEAKER_07]: Just from like the holy fuck what's going on.
[SPEAKER_07]: And Vick.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's a ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[UNKNOWN]: Yep.
[UNKNOWN]: Yep
[SPEAKER_09]: This is going to be interesting.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, that has to be a totally... It's a mine fuck for them as well.
[SPEAKER_07]: I was not expecting this either.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great!
[SPEAKER_07]: I was not expecting this, not now.
[SPEAKER_07]: This was not at all what I was expecting to have.
[SPEAKER_07]: Perfect.
[SPEAKER_09]: The real mine fuck for me here is.
[SPEAKER_09]: I have to keep remembering until you do it, they know nothing about what you can do, right?
[SPEAKER_09]: Because you do not exist to them, right?
[SPEAKER_09]: So as I'm, you know, Johnny, I'm feeling this out here.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm thinking of myself, okay, what do they do?
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm like, okay, right?
[SPEAKER_09]: Remember, they think you do what they do.
[SPEAKER_09]: So what would they do if they were fighting themselves?
[SPEAKER_09]: And Tabuk, of course, is the absolute question, Mark.
[SPEAKER_09]: What the fuck is this halfling doing there?
[SPEAKER_00]: That looks still in griply form, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: That looks just a dried out old phone.
[SPEAKER_09]: So, try it out.
[SPEAKER_09]: Frog was lost some of their pluck.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right, I spent my skill points.
[SPEAKER_07]: What did you put them in?
[SPEAKER_07]: I maxed out bluff.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Stealth.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: And slight amount.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was like, I feel like those are all things that I have predominantly used during all of this and that seemed like a fair trade.
[SPEAKER_09]: Love it.
[SPEAKER_09]: So in this brief second while both parties are adjusting to the fact, oh we're fighting ourselves and this is a fight to the death and you can see that there has to be either the same spell or an equivalent going on with all of them because all their eyes start looking at one another like their communicating telepathically
[SPEAKER_09]: As the four of you are, you know how a little second here, in this little space of time, just that he's strategizing that you want to do as a group while this fight is ramping up.
[SPEAKER_09]: Please take the time, you can speak telepathically.
[SPEAKER_03]: Grip, go Fatima, I'll go for Riptusk.
[SPEAKER_09]: Tradesies.
[SPEAKER_00]: How summon something to help us out?
[SPEAKER_00]: Right away.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be useful.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_09]: Have you ready to do this?
[SPEAKER_09]: No.
[SPEAKER_09]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_09]: Not at all.
[SPEAKER_09]: But?
[SPEAKER_09]: But it is that time.
[SPEAKER_09]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_09]: Round one.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_09]: The last fight of book three.
[SPEAKER_09]: begins with Dabwick.
[SPEAKER_09]: Dabwick's got the jump on everybody.
[SPEAKER_09]: When you see, it's just start to see these initiative rolls to the other party.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's going to look pretty similar to what you all got going on here, but Dabwick's just way ahead of the game.
[SPEAKER_09]: What does Dabwick do round one?
[SPEAKER_00]: Dabwick starts casting a full round spell.
[SPEAKER_09]: Shocking.
[SPEAKER_09]: You're going to stay where you are.
[SPEAKER_09]: Take a little five foot step in a direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stay where I am.
[SPEAKER_09]: Up next is the triangle man.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want this.
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_09]: Nor should you.
[SPEAKER_09]: So you see effectively, Ronin is exactly how he reads to your eyes in terms of his physicality and his movements.
[SPEAKER_09]: You see Ronin narrow his eyes at Dora.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: Nero his eyes at grip.
[SPEAKER_09]: and then there's just like this little whiff of fuck it about him and he reaches down and he cracks an extract and you see Vatican's look over like what the fuck when did he learn how to do that and you see a little invisible shield pop up around the triangle man as moats of dust and sand around him or up to chipping off of him
[SPEAKER_09]: and then he gets the fuck out of the cluster so he's not caught in Dora's fireball that he thinks is coming.
[SPEAKER_09]: So he gets out of the middle of this cluster and starts moving way out to the side in a flanking maneuver.
[SPEAKER_09]: Looks like he may be heading towards either grip or himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, team is up.
[SPEAKER_07]: look at this kitty one above you oh let me do some measuring measure measure measure oh oh yeah
[SPEAKER_07]: We're about to get serious beat down.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're about to get.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it's just about to happen to you, broiled.
[SPEAKER_09]: As no, it's the opposite.
[SPEAKER_09]: Team up.
[SPEAKER_09]: Team up, pull some spell components out of her pouch, whispers of word, gestures with her hands, and this massive cone of freezing cold air blasts out from her fingers, and envelops the four of you.
[SPEAKER_09]: I need reflex saves from the Latia.
[SPEAKER_09]: Let's go left to right.
[SPEAKER_09]: Let's start with Dora, which get.
[SPEAKER_03]: Twenty three.
[SPEAKER_09]: Are you keeping that?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_09]: Gabbwick.
[SPEAKER_09]: Eighteen.
[SPEAKER_09]: Keeping that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I send something in the in the ether here when we're all you sense the weight of judgment from all sides?
[SPEAKER_07]: You could make a you could make a spellcraft role to know what is being cast you could if you want to try so you could understand what level this is Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, how smart can we check door is spellcraft check fourteen
[SPEAKER_00]: No clue.
[SPEAKER_09]: No clue.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a... I mean, you can tell it's a cone of gold, but this feels... Something feels off about this spell, so I'm gonna go ahead and use an action point.
[SPEAKER_09]: Remember, last fight of the book, so don't save your action point.
[SPEAKER_00]: So really throw your resources back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, please!
[SPEAKER_09]: Don't hear me so much.
[SPEAKER_09]: Remember, they don't have them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a total of twenty.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: And Vick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thirty-two.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what keeping that.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: And the gripper.
[SPEAKER_09]: Twenty-five.
[SPEAKER_09]: Do you like it?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right.
[SPEAKER_09]: Everyone saves except for Dabwick.
[SPEAKER_09]: Dabwick.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thirty-four points of cold damage.
[SPEAKER_09]: And as that cold washes over Dabbs, you can see they're nearly dead.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thirty-four.
[SPEAKER_09]: The rest of you, what is that?
[SPEAKER_09]: Seventeen for Gripper and Vic and twelve for Dora.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since I've been plastered, do I have to do a concentration check to make sure that I'm still casting my spell?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just keep myself honest here.
[SPEAKER_09]: What's the level of spell you're casting?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that was, yeah, fifth level spell.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, make me a DC- Forty- Nine concentration check.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got a twenty-nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did really well.
[SPEAKER_03]: So do you have anything that can add twenty to that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_07]: It wasn't an actual twenty, right?
[SPEAKER_09]: No.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right.
[SPEAKER_09]: And that would spell is lost.
[SPEAKER_09]: Loosen them up for you, rip-task.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yoo-y-x.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then, Dora is next.
[SPEAKER_03]: Simantly?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Doujestering?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Doorcast tastes on the entire party.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ooh.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right.
[SPEAKER_09]: Click those buffs on, as everyone is now moving.
[SPEAKER_09]: White rapidly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Simantly through the telepathic bond.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Doorart gives grip, combat advice.
[SPEAKER_03]: We won't survive many more of those.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I do.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I will just take a five foot step.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just over here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just.
[SPEAKER_09]: Just to get slightly further away from the cluster.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then, Vick is up next.
[SPEAKER_09]: Our Vick.
[SPEAKER_09]: Sweet, sweet, Vick.
[SPEAKER_09]: What do you do?
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, man.
[SPEAKER_09]: I know.
[SPEAKER_09]: What do you do?
[SPEAKER_09]: What the fuck do you do?
[SPEAKER_09]: Daboknectu is near dead.
[SPEAKER_09]: You can barely see the other you who's snaking around the side with his fancy fancy shield, rapier in hand.
[SPEAKER_09]: Probably not going to get a caught in a door jam because he seems a little bit more trained with it than you were last time you were using it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, in just in case this detail, got lost in the shuffle.
[SPEAKER_09]: Riptusk, just so like Dabwick, came into this fight with wounds from the tree fight.
[SPEAKER_09]: Riptusk came into this fight with an equivalent amount of wounds from the tree fight as well.
[SPEAKER_09]: Twenty odd points of damage have been done.
[SPEAKER_09]: He has like a thousand.
[SPEAKER_09]: He has a lot of hit points.
[SPEAKER_07]: Fuck it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fuck it.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's what he did.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_07]: Vic does the math maps the angles.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Catches Tima and he's like, oh, payback.
[SPEAKER_07]: And he narrows his eyes.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's going to go to town.
[SPEAKER_07]: Except Azamara, his study target.
[SPEAKER_07]: You know it.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right.
[SPEAKER_07]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_07]: And he's going to do rapid shot.
[SPEAKER_07]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_07]: She's not.
[SPEAKER_07]: Around anybody else or anything like that, so there's no having to subtract four for firing into combat I'm trying to arrange for touch I am
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, boy.
[SPEAKER_09]: Alright, it has a good touch AC.
[SPEAKER_09]: Nobody, Johnny.
[SPEAKER_07]: I've got- What you got?
[SPEAKER_07]: First one is a twenty-five.
[SPEAKER_07]: Keeping it?
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hit.
[SPEAKER_07]: Twenty-nine.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hit.
[SPEAKER_07]: Nineteen.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hit.
[SPEAKER_07]: Twenty-three.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hit.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thirty-two.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hit.
[SPEAKER_07]: So I also spent an action point to get an additional attack along with this.
[SPEAKER_09]: So, four, five, five shots.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: Slam into team of Ontario.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: As her hands are just starting to unfreeze from the spells she just cast.
[SPEAKER_09]: How much damage are we looking at there?
[SPEAKER_09]: Twelve.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_07]: Plus nine.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: Plus seven.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: Plus fourteen.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_07]: Plus nine.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_07]: Plus another.
[SPEAKER_07]: Plus another ten.
[SPEAKER_09]: eyes widen and screaming in agony and surprise.
[SPEAKER_09]: She evaporates in a puff of mist.
[SPEAKER_09]: She is out of this fight.
[SPEAKER_03]: I get the body.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, you do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I get the body.
[SPEAKER_03]: These are the rules.
[SPEAKER_03]: I get the body.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's the rule so far.
[SPEAKER_09]: We've got one body secured.
[SPEAKER_07]: And then I'm going to take a five foot step.
[SPEAKER_07]: behind dabwick so that should anybody come into that area.
[SPEAKER_07]: They have to get past grip and might get flanked by me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, I see.
[SPEAKER_09]: Don't have a high level.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: That combative ice was useless, but then it's riptask.
[SPEAKER_09]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_09]: You're great.
[SPEAKER_09]: Fuck.
[SPEAKER_09]: Do you say that?
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, you're going to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I do say that.
[SPEAKER_09]: I just change my mind.
[SPEAKER_09]: He fucking charges here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, got a little lower his armor class a little bit.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right, so he is power attacking.
[SPEAKER_09]: He is, of course, can start raging as he charges.
[SPEAKER_09]: Rage.
[SPEAKER_09]: Power attack.
[SPEAKER_09]: As he brings dog reaver in an arc down on the gripper.
[SPEAKER_09]: Twenty nine.
[SPEAKER_09]: Miss.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks to haste, I'm back to theory.
[SPEAKER_09]: Flatfooted.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, fuck you.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, that's gonna hit me then.
[SPEAKER_04]: Flatfoot is a twenty-five.
[SPEAKER_09]: Twenty-one points of damage as this patch just slams into your shoulder.
[SPEAKER_09]: And as you know, now against you, his plus one weapon just became a plus two weapon because that's how dog reaver works.
[SPEAKER_09]: Does it keep going?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep, up to plus five.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: Next is Father Ray.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think he should just kill that, I guess.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh man, that would be amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: He doesn't see a body of his own.
[SPEAKER_09]: He does not see a body of his own.
[SPEAKER_03]: They were already fighting.
[SPEAKER_09]: He doesn't see a body of his own.
[SPEAKER_03]: His dad is a dick.
[SPEAKER_10]: His mom is dead.
[SPEAKER_09]: Wow, I love it.
[SPEAKER_09]: This terrible smile comes over his face as he sees his mother die.
[SPEAKER_09]: And yeah, he does.
[SPEAKER_09]: He takes a step forward and he casts slay living on Vaticus.
[SPEAKER_02]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh!
[SPEAKER_09]: They're eating themselves.
[SPEAKER_09]: Just almost exactly like what happened in interlude two.
[SPEAKER_09]: Like the first thing Raid did was do something that damaged Vatican.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, yeah, we're doing the call back.
[SPEAKER_09]: Here we go touch it and the spell does.
[SPEAKER_09]: fifty eight points of damage one for every year is gone does he have a chance to scream anything before he disappears I can't emphasize how dead behind the eyes that guy looks like whatever the fuck they all went through at the end it just hollowed him out so completely it almost seems like they've got like a welcome
[SPEAKER_09]: I can't believe I'm back and now, oh god, thank god it's over again.
[SPEAKER_09]: Gripper, you're up.
[SPEAKER_09]: Plot's just bought you all the round from Father Ray.
[SPEAKER_09]: Love a bit plot.
[SPEAKER_09]: Alright, Gripp is toe to toe with Riptusk.
[SPEAKER_09]: What a sense.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep, so we're going to.
[SPEAKER_04]: As he's looking himself in the face, his jaw goes slack his eyes from back, he cracks his fucking neck, and he will take dedicated adversary half or you can see just surprise over Rick tusks faced he
[SPEAKER_09]: He doesn't understand what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_09]: His whole way of fighting has been so regimented and laid out.
[SPEAKER_09]: He's laid down this very specific path of becoming an expert at this one single weapon.
[SPEAKER_09]: He's coming toe to toe with a version of himself that prefers flexibility.
[SPEAKER_09]: And here come it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we're going to charge.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to use the Dan Bong.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what she had in your hand.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what I was in my hand.
[SPEAKER_04]: From the tree.
[SPEAKER_04]: So first attack.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a thirty.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm gonna keep it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Second attack.
[SPEAKER_04]: Twenty four.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's use this one to learn something.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Third attack.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's another hit.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's an eighteen on the die.
[SPEAKER_04]: Fourth attack.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a fourteen on the die for a let's another twenty that's that's what I have before the sender twenty four yep hit and I'm with my haste my fifth attack yep that's a three on the die so that's gonna be a sixteen I bet that doesn't hit you could spend up to five of your stamina points right
[SPEAKER_04]: I will spend five stamina points.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's five hits, Robert.
[SPEAKER_04]: Five hits.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you want to spend an action point?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to.
[SPEAKER_09]: Roll damage.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's five D-ten.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_09]: We all the damage that we're doing and amazing choice.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's gonna be um five D ten plus seventy What?
[SPEAKER_09]: What the fuck?
[SPEAKER_04]: With the damn bang with power attack on my damage is one D ten plus fourteen holy shit and five hits fourteen times five It's seventy oh my god.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh my god
[SPEAKER_03]: like base-seventy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm using the... oh yeah, yes I know that it's a terrible thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's ten, that's eighteen, that's twenty-five, that's twenty-eight, that's twenty-eight, twenty-eight, twenty-eight, thirty-three, thirty-two, plus seventy, one hundred and two points of damn.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's fucking gone.
[SPEAKER_09]: That is she's in a puff of mist as you creep him into little pieces.
[SPEAKER_09]: I never fucking like that guy.
[SPEAKER_09]: You get the body!
[SPEAKER_09]: I get the body!
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then...
[SPEAKER_09]: We get to the end of the round, and you're forced to watch happen to Ray Nard, but you won't have to watch happen to Vannicus.
[SPEAKER_09]: You watch Ray Nard's head repeatedly, smash in on itself, crumbles through the ground, blood goes flying, flattened, flattened, flattened, flattened, flattened, and then with this just terrible, canine howl.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, is, uh, Rey can't possibly know that he's sparing.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's just spared his own father.
[SPEAKER_03]: Such a shitty death.
[SPEAKER_09]: He has no idea what happened.
[SPEAKER_09]: I could tell him.
[SPEAKER_09]: You could?
[SPEAKER_09]: Top around, uh, two.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: Dablic, how many hit points do you have?
[SPEAKER_00]: Seven.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, and you lost your spell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_09]: And you're in the middle of all of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wondering, why am I here again?
[SPEAKER_09]: I have a body and knowing if you die in the dream this time There you go, that's the reason to fight so Father Ray and the triangle man are still on their feet They're in very different locations hard to catch them in any any area factor.
[SPEAKER_09]: Who do you want to focus on or do you want to heal myself?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a sound plant.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great one
[SPEAKER_07]: And run.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that is actually not.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That isn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, look at that bar.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm need you get twenty three point grace.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: So just now bloody.
[SPEAKER_09]: You got a sixty foot move speed.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thanks to the haste.
[SPEAKER_09]: Do you want to go somewhere?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to get out of range of.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Dabwick is going to move, let's tell them pretty much.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, Derek, and visibility's fair so we can just watch Vic and Greg.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's great.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, so down the garage behind door up, huddles down, waiting for a sphere.
[SPEAKER_09]: Triangle man is up.
[SPEAKER_09]: We have one more standoff.
[SPEAKER_09]: We do, and he knows that as well.
[SPEAKER_09]: So he was gonna go from gripper because he knows him so well, so he thinks.
[SPEAKER_09]: But now he just saw what happened.
[SPEAKER_09]: And he now realizes my only hope is to kill myself.
[SPEAKER_09]: He takes a double move around the outside edge of the oasis to close in behind Vic and get five feet away from him
[SPEAKER_09]: And as he closes in with you, Vic, he's got heart-spain in hand.
[SPEAKER_09]: And he opens just a little bit of his coat to show you the protocol torch.
[SPEAKER_09]: The prototype version, yeah, to show that to you.
[SPEAKER_09]: And he actually gives you a little nod of
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, you did it.
[SPEAKER_09]: You actually did it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Which almost seems to give him.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it gives him an overwhelming emotion of some sort.
[SPEAKER_09]: I can't entirely tell if it's good or bad, but he's feeling shit very deeply as he stares at you and then, oh my god, who's next?
[SPEAKER_09]: It is Dora.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, Dora next to Dabwick.
[SPEAKER_09]: Dora casts invisibility sphere.
[SPEAKER_09]: Shum, Dora and Dabes are invisible.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm just gonna move here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dabes, we can still see each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: But as long as you stay in the sphere, you can see me and I can see you.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then,
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to kill Father Ray.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because we can't allow that spirit to return in any form.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was back in thrush more.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was going to talk to Ray, but not.
[SPEAKER_03]: Grip, I don't think we have any idea what the triangle man is capable of.
[SPEAKER_03]: Flank him, and crush him as quickly as possible.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right, if Vic doesn't kill himself first, Vic, you're up next, five feet away from yourself.
[SPEAKER_07]: thick sees the triangle man sort of pull his flap his his jacket back to show that yeah and he flaps his jacket back to show the alchemical torch the original alchemical torch on his other hip because he still has it he can barely process
[SPEAKER_09]: He doesn't really understand even what you all are, obviously, as you can imagine.
[SPEAKER_09]: He does not understand how you have that, because Vaticus has it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Had it before father rage just killed him.
[SPEAKER_06]: You got Delta shit hand.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm sorry for everything that they did to you.
[SPEAKER_06]: It wasn't right.
[SPEAKER_06]: It wasn't right what they did at all.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm sorry for this.
[SPEAKER_07]: Any narrows his eyes and levels vanity.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that point blank range starts to fire on himself.
[SPEAKER_07]: Can we be able to?
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, thirty-seven.
[SPEAKER_09]: What do you think?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Twenty-two.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Twenty-nine?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: and then a natural twenty for a thirty three um... crit confirm of twenty five critical hit let him go right let him go sometimes sometimes you got to kill your past
[SPEAKER_07]: One hundred and four points of damage.
[SPEAKER_04]: Dammit, he beat me.
[SPEAKER_09]: And with a little whispered, thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: He evaporates.
[SPEAKER_09]: Whoa.
[SPEAKER_09]: Hey Ray.
[SPEAKER_04]: You got this Ray.
[SPEAKER_02]: Got this small guy.
[SPEAKER_09]: Father Ray walks forward.
[SPEAKER_09]: Getting closer to Vic and Gripp and casting his eyes out into the empty space where he last saw his mother raises his arms to the sky.
[SPEAKER_10]: Why was I born?
[SPEAKER_09]: Boom!
[SPEAKER_09]: He releases a thirty foot blast in all directions of negative energy.
[SPEAKER_09]: You know, I'm gonna need to will save from everybody.
[SPEAKER_09]: And a fortitude save from Dora.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I just rolled an action point, but I didn't, I did that before I knew there was also a fortitude save.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm keeping my will save as is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Totally fair.
[SPEAKER_09]: Gripper.
[SPEAKER_04]: Natural one.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_09]: Vick.
[SPEAKER_07]: Twenty-six with an action point.
[SPEAKER_09]: Gabbwick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Natural three for a seventeen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything plus a versus fear or divinations and chantments, compulsions.
[SPEAKER_09]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_09]: Keep in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, he's an extra point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seriously, throw them away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, really, spend them.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the end of all things.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're here to do, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, that's a, twenty-two.
[SPEAKER_09]: Dora for the will say.
[SPEAKER_03]: Twenty-two?
[SPEAKER_07]: After the fort is safe.
[SPEAKER_03]: Twelve.
[SPEAKER_07]: Can you, can you do your immediate thing again?
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I didn't because it's, oh, oh, I didn't because I thought I would be stunned and I didn't want to be stunned.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I would have.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: Done that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's, um, sixteen.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: So gripper takes twenty four points of damage.
[SPEAKER_09]: The rest of you take twelve points of damage.
[SPEAKER_09]: And Dora is, who did you just make yourself fatigued?
[SPEAKER_09]: Dora is exhausted in the wake of this energy washing over her.
[SPEAKER_09]: and feeling the pain wash over him.
[SPEAKER_09]: And it inverse of his previous relationship with Ray, grip your next.
[SPEAKER_09]: Instead of him taking your injuries onto him, he just passed all of his pain into you.
[SPEAKER_09]: By while doing so, he got fifteen feet away from you.
[SPEAKER_09]: He's very much reachable this round if you want to get there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, yeah, I may as well close with him.
[SPEAKER_04]: All righty.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then hopefully he will, you know, I bet I'm there if he tries to cast
[SPEAKER_09]: a proclose is.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then he will, well since he can't have done any of that stuff, he would have swift actioned and switched his dedicated adversary to human.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then so we'll just take one attack.
[SPEAKER_04]: Come on now.
[SPEAKER_04]: Kill that kid.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a modified twenty.
[SPEAKER_04]: What's it about armor is he wearing is wearing is that that armory armor the chain mail.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'll let's burn it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's burn an action point.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, twenty six.
[SPEAKER_09]: With the action point, that's a hit.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then the first blood is drawn on father Ray.
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, seventeen points of damage.
[SPEAKER_04]: He cracks him with the Dan bone.
[SPEAKER_09]: He relishes the pain.
[SPEAKER_09]: brings us to round three.
[SPEAKER_09]: Paul, you're going to kill your character now.
[SPEAKER_09]: Are you going to stay out of this?
[SPEAKER_09]: You're going to keep your dogs out of this fight and kill yourself somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that works.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to kill them so I've got one.
[SPEAKER_09]: You sure you don't want to kill your own characters.
[SPEAKER_09]: But we didn't come here not to kill your character twice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not armed with anything to kill my character.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's any of my spells right now or would be in an area of spells.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So stop trying to talk.
[SPEAKER_09]: I will chill out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, crud.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not a great role.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so cure matter wounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got sixteen points back.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: We're taking a move to the other side of that invisibility sphere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then Dora is up next.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think Dora is gonna cast placebo effect on herself.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_09]: Zoom.
[SPEAKER_03]: Does that complete- So I think reading myself of the fatigue?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you tell me what I am.
[SPEAKER_03]: At the moment, you're fatigued.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, and probably just gonna keep dancing around so that rate doesn't know where I am.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep, yep, yep, yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: Keeping, oh, yes.
[SPEAKER_09]: Totally keeping the positions now, but keeping that, keeping that, keeping that, looking in the circle.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right, Johnny, fix up.
[SPEAKER_07]: Vic is sort of like holding his side from like that energy loss.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: And stuff.
[SPEAKER_07]: And uh, he looks up at Ray when he goes.
[SPEAKER_06]: You were born to help other people.
[SPEAKER_06]: You were born to save those children in the chapel.
[SPEAKER_06]: You saved so many people while you lived.
[SPEAKER_06]: You made a difference in my life.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_09]: And he narrows his eyes and fires on him.
[SPEAKER_09]: Just as these my presume bullets smash into him, he unleashes a soul-rending scream.
[SPEAKER_07]: Uh, the first one is a natural twenty with a crit confirm of twenty seven.
[SPEAKER_07]: Do I need to do all the add up all the damage?
[SPEAKER_09]: Let's hear a number.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, all right.
[SPEAKER_09]: We're at the end of all.
[SPEAKER_09]: Wait a sec.
[SPEAKER_07]: We didn't come here not to hear a number right.
[SPEAKER_07]: Does a twenty two.
[SPEAKER_07]: Touch it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Does a thirty one touch it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Does it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: Then another thing.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: So.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's eighty four points of damage.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: as he dissipates, because you got this right.
[SPEAKER_09]: As... Ray vanishes.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's the mad poet just over on the side, just like you grinning like you're exactly like he's gone.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's gone.
[SPEAKER_07]: He just disappeared.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then there's this like trembling in the earth beneath your feet.
[SPEAKER_09]: You look up now, not only is the mad poet gone, but the hot is gone.
[SPEAKER_09]: Now we need to get the out of here.
[SPEAKER_09]: The tree, any like remnants of it totally gone.
[SPEAKER_09]: The waters of the pool are rapidly starting to dry out.
[SPEAKER_09]: As the moon is not so much setting, it's turning into the sun.
[SPEAKER_09]: Let's stand in a circle hold hands and wake up.
[SPEAKER_09]: As you reach for each other, you are ejected from this place.
[SPEAKER_09]: From this place hovering in the borderlands on the edges of the dreaming itself, it plays completely unbeholding to reality or capital T-time.
[SPEAKER_09]: Each of you is thrust into the terrible darkness that lies between waking and sleeping.
[SPEAKER_09]: Untethered.
[SPEAKER_09]: and alone.
[SPEAKER_09]: And there you hover until you remember.
[SPEAKER_09]: And that's the end of part two.
[SPEAKER_09]: But it's this act off next time.
[SPEAKER_09]: Dark Nexus is produced by Plugin' Home Productions.
[SPEAKER_09]: This podcast uses trademarks and or copyrights owned by Pieson Corporation and used under Pieson's fan content policy.
[SPEAKER_09]: This podcast is not published in your store or specifically approved by PISO.
[SPEAKER_09]: For more information about PISO Inc.
[SPEAKER_09]: and PISO products, please visit PISO.com.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's P-A-I-Z-O.com.
[SPEAKER_09]: Dark Nexus uses music and soundscapes by CyrenScape.
[SPEAKER_09]: Check them out at CyrenScape.com.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's S-Y-R-I-N-S-C-A-P-E.com.
[SPEAKER_09]: Opening and closing themes along with additional music composed by Rob Cosmaric, artwork for Dark Nexus is by Matt Wallquist.
[SPEAKER_09]: The thanks to DMCP, Richard and R.I.
[SPEAKER_09]: Paul and Shen in Scotty, Jason Jazz, Joe, Chelsea, Matt, Dave, Derek, Darren, Michaela, J.H., the Biscuit buddies, and everyone we've gained with over the years for all the memories and inspiration.
[SPEAKER_09]: I can take a... knowledge... Shhh!
[SPEAKER_03]: I can take a knowledge of what?
[SPEAKER_09]: That plans?
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, it's no second.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I want to know now.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh my fucking God, I can't have history of plans.
[SPEAKER_07]: We're Dungeon Eurym, religion, local, nature.
[SPEAKER_07]: Engineering.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tell us what it is.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is so helpful, you guys.