Hey everybody, it's the crew here. We want to
wish you all a merry skylights or whatever crazy
holiday your crazy world is celebrating. Guys,
wish them some merry shit. Be merry, friends.
If you are listening on episode day, December
25th, thank you very much for giving us a little
piece of your day. Thank you, thank you. Hope
you guys are having a great time and a relaxing
time. Without further ado, let's get into it.
What? He's here. On the Citadel. That's... I
can't... Why the hell would he... The Crystal
Network is currently undergoing some magical
difficulties. Please be patient. Our regularly
scheduled content will return shortly. Alright,
guys. Last week we talked morning dookies. This
week we're talking night dookies. What you got
for me? I don't... I don't night dookie. Or we
can talk about, you know, no, no, no, we're going
to, we're going to, we're going to reconcile
a couple of things here. Oh boy. Yeah. Well,
first off, uh, happy birthday, Steven. Oh, thank
you. Uh, a couple, a couple, a couple of days,
but yeah, as of this recording, it's two days
from now, but when this releases, it's going
to be after your birthday. So this is your birthday
episode. And, uh, actually by this time, our
lovely listeners will have seen some, some birthday
content. Yay. Happy birthday, Stephen. Early
content at Big Water. We saw so much Big Water,
guys. Some Big Water. So much Big Water. Oh,
Big Water. Oh, you got to post some of those
videos, too. Yeah, I threw one up on the story
already. Oh, hell yeah. But yeah, as we were
arriving to Jeremy's, there was a sign further
down the road, the road that I take home. It
says it's closed, crossing over the Ammonusic
River. So when we're done recording here, we're
going to have to get creative with the map. See
how we can get home. There's flooding everywhere.
We were at Walmart earlier getting stuff for
the show. And we actually, they evacuated the
store. The parking lot was flooding. It's crazy.
So on the way home, we had to stop at like three
different river spots to look at how big the
water was. It was really big. It was so cool.
Yeah. The weird thing is like the photos, the
pictures, just don't do big water justice. Don't
do big water justice. You got to be there. It
was beautifully freaky. Yeah. Yeah. Nature's
wild. Yeah. Damn, nature, you scary. So we're
looking forward to a wet Christmas here in New
Hampshire. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's going to
be a green Christmas. Before we get too far into
this, one more reconciliation we have to do.
Yes. How was Florida, David? How was Florida,
David? How was Florida? We spaced last week,
and I felt really, really fucking bad. I mean,
it was good. It was good. I played a lot of Dragon
Quest Monsters the Dark Prince. That is a perfect
Florida vacation. Really good game. Really good.
You were in the hot tub? That wasn't a hot tub.
You did some kayaking. I went on a kayak trip.
Yeah, it was good. Nice. Good old time. Good
old time. Okay. You know what's more exciting
than Florida, though? What's more exciting than
Florida? What's more exciting than Florida is
it happened yesterday. I finally received my
Christmas meat pie, so my dookies will be ho
-merry this evening. Oh, my goodness. I'm so
excited. I've got banana bread, too. It's going
to be a good Christmas. All is merry and not
so bright. Oh, my God. I know. I want to do some
more holiday cooking. I'm excited. I want to
try to do a meat pie for you, David. Not to compete.
I won't win that fight. I won't win that fight.
I just want to be like. Hey, is mine good too?
No. So you guys want to start the episode? Roll
for initiative. Speaking of things that aren't
good. Jesus. The situation you're in isn't very
good. Oh, okay. I thought that was going to go
somewhere meaner. Ready to go. Let's fucking
do it. We are outside the rather opulent master
bathroom in the manner of its Mendel Prado. In
this isolated hallway, Rune Rusong holds Turbo,
the back familiar of Blanche Trudeau. Blanche,
you are seeing through Turbo's eyes. Are you
hearing through his ears too, correct? Yeah.
And Rune is looking you in the eyes. That smile
still on his face. You see his eyes are sort
of flickering this way and that. He's thinking
deeply. His grip shaking. Is there anything you
want to do? Mechanically, I don't think there
is anything that she can do. Waiting is also
fully a possibility. Yeah, she's going to struggle
and try to break his grip. You want to roll for
it? Yeah, I'll roll for it. You're a bat, so
roll for the bat. Okay. It's going to be a contested
athletics check. You can also use your acrobatics,
so dexterity or your strength. Okay, yeah, dex
is going to be the way to go for this little
bat. 21. I rolled a natural one. Oh, excellent.
I said his grip was shaking. Something has really
set him off, and you actually very easily, the
bat sort of squirms. I mean, imagine trying to
hold a bat. Yeah, seriously. He had a grip strong
before, but now his hand's shaking, and you push
your strength into the bat. You're willing it.
You're talking to it, right? You can communicate
with this thing. And so with your knowledge of
combat, You know, you just wrestled a pig man.
You broke out of his grip. So you just slide
out of Rue's greasy hand, sort of unfurling your
wings. And his eyes are still following you.
And as if this is just made up his mind, he just
looks you in the eyes and says, whatever happens
next, you just remember that he did not stand
in the way. And his grin does not settle. The
shock in his eyes does not fade. But Rune Rue's
song turns away from you. and simply walks away.
Just know that I did not stand in the way? He
walks away, and unless you want to do anything
to stop him, he's moving down around the corner
and vanishing from sight, leaving your sight,
perhaps leaving this manor. Huh. Yeah, that's...
Could I maybe roll insight to try to... Yeah.
Like, is he afraid? Absolutely, roll insight.
Just a 12. Okay. I think it's pretty obvious,
even with a 12, he's not hiding it. There is
fear there. There is fear mingled with excitement.
Something huge is happening. All right, then.
I mean, I guess all Blanche can do at this point
is continue on with her mission. She's got to
look through for Eatsman's office, I think, is
kind of her... That's your game? That's a game.
Hell yeah. I updated our little map. So, and
I'll tell you all this right now. You can kind
of see it visually there, but let me give you
a breakdown of what's going on with you. This
bathroom you're currently in is somewhat centrally
located on the first floor of the Western Wing.
If you look about 80 feet or so down the hallway,
you'll see it opens into the entrance hall where
you first... moved in here. You see that same
armored suit that stood in your way before is
still standing in that sort of doorway. It's
back against you, or against the door, like,
you know, facing you, so it's not looking towards
you. You could feasibly move over this guard's
head and into the upper floor of the manor and
still be within your 100 -foot range. Essentially,
this means that both the first and second floors
of the western wing are within your range, where
you are now in this bathroom, as well as some
of the party terrace outside and the western
roof of the manor. 100 feet up, yeah, you can
hit the roof. Moving about can be risky, though.
You do not know how the armored guard may react
to a pest. Sure. The one boon that you have is
that nobody but Rune seems to know that you are
on the inside, right? Right. This is a private
bathroom, not likely to be disturbed by anybody.
A perfect base of operations from which to scout
the manor. So you can roll investigation, you
can roll stealth if you want to, like... move
about things quickly. You want to push into the
upper floors or move down this floor, potentially
risking passing the guard. Or I will say that
if you want to spend time to very slowly, meticulously
learn the layout of the manor, find other ways,
any open windows you can use to traverse the
second floor to the roof to wherever, I'll let
you scout the manor, but it's going to cost time.
And you won't have any checks. You can play this
safe. This is a good -ass setup you've created
for yourself. Yeah. First, really quick, before
I go into that, we'll post a picture of the map
at some point, but I kind of just want to describe.
If you're looking at the map Bird's Eye, it kind
of looks like a T -shirt, and split down the
sternum is, like, the long entrance hall that
we came in, and, like, the right -hand sleeve
and the left -hand sleeve are sort of like the
wings. and then the big flowing bottom is the
terrace, and Blanche is in that left -hand sleeve.
So now to your bargain. I like the idea of spending
time and observing. Would you give me any extra
time if I ignored the first floor and wanted
to stealth to get to the second floor and then
take your look -around deal? I kind of feel like
his office isn't going to be on the first floor.
Yeah, I'll give you that. I'm taking a bet there.
Yeah. We'll say a full scouting would take maybe
an hour and a half, two hours to really even
take us around. But we'll say that if you want
to skip the first floor, you'll have the entire
second floor mapped out safely within an hour.
If you want to go... Yeah, I think that's about...
That seems like a pretty good amount of time.
Yeah, so one more thing is that I'll have any
sort of special abilities that the bat has, which
means things like blindsight and keen hearing.
The bat has advantage on wisdom checks that rely
on hearing. So, yeah, let's go for that. You
said you wanted a stealth check for me to get
upstairs? Yes, you want to go upstairs immediately.
The only way you'd know for sure to get up there
right now, if you're not going to scout the first
floor at all, is to move over the armored guard
in the entrance hall and move up to the balcony
second story railing. Give me a stealth check.
I'm going to give you a button first. Okay. I
can't fail this one. This is so important. 19
for the first roll, and lower for the second.
Going off of my passives, that's fine. Okay,
nice. So you take your moment well when there's
no guests moving to the room, when the guards
are all facing away, and you skitter up the wall,
flying very swiftly, moving very quickly out
of the room and into the second floor. Part of
why it takes you a long time in the second floor
if you want to fully scout it is there are armored
guard, looks like one per wing, moving slowly
down the hallway on a sort of route. So as it
passes, you need to kind of like duck behind
a table or something like that. I'm not going
to have you roll stealth for this. I'm more just
explaining why it takes a long time for you to
get a full mental map of the second story. Sure.
But you shave some time by ignoring the first.
I hope it pays off. Okay. I mean, my thought
is if it's not on the second floor, then I can
still go back to the first floor. Yeah. I mean,
that's also assuming that this is the wing that
Eatsman's... offices in is a whole other half
of the building. I will say this. What was I
going to say? I forgot. You looked at me like
I knew. Jeremy? You're looking for clues from
me. Jeremy, explain it. Take it away, Jeremy.
Explain myself. Oh, look, we just won the game.
Oh, level five. Everything we needed was in his
office. Oh, man. Oh, look, Zeb's back. Oh, thanks,
Satosh. I will say this. You have time. You're
going to spend some time exploring this floor.
You're being careful. So I'm going to give you
a brief layout of what you're finding. Okay.
I think the first thing you're going to notice
is that somewhere almost directly above the bathroom
you are currently in, one door on the second
floor very much stands out. Rather than the wooden
doors you're seeing all around with, like, openings
on the bottom, you know, actual, like, ways of
getting through, there's one very heavily secured
door. All right, I mean, I guess that's... Steel,
locked, sealed. You, I think, especially as a
wizard, might recognize the magical wards placed
sort of at the base of the door. Cool. I'm guessing
that there's no way that the bat is sneaking
through that door. I think that's going to be
very challenging. Okay. Getting into that door
is a problem, but you, like I said, you're spending
an hour exploring, right? Maybe there's more
to find. Yeah, okay. All right, let's do that.
Okay. I got nothing else to go on unless I'm
going to... Yeah. I will quickly recap what you
learn in one hour. There are many rooms, many
rooms branching off from these hallways, many
of them much the same. Guest chambers, you know,
cozy little living spaces, a few personal libraries.
Most of these rooms seem entirely unused. You
find many... exits, small cracked windows, whatever,
like, you know, letting the cool night air in,
getting the mustiness out of this old building
that you can use to sort of like squeeze outside.
You can scan the view of the party. So you kind
of have some idea of what things look like in
the night or in the coming night. You also have
gained access to the roof via these sort of windows.
You do find that perhaps just above that sealed
door, there is a vent. Gotcha. A bat could probably
slip in? Dangerous is happening inside. They
would need some way to get smoke, get chemicals
out. Sure. All right. I'm going to send Turbo
down in there. Okay. Turbo's about to go down
in. We'll say that this is after one hour. You
now stand at the precipice of this. Turbo's squeezing
through the bars and about to push deeper down.
We started at 6 o 'clock. It is now 7 o 'clock
p .m., and I want to cut back to Dresden before
we resolve this. Okay. To see what Dresden's
been up to in this time. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Dresden.
Yes. You have just been contacted, well, at least
about an hour ago, by Yitzmin Del Prado himself.
He has asked to meet with you inside meeting
chamber number two just after eight o 'clock.
Jean Franklin is still inside meeting chamber
number four, discussing matters of business with
Samuel LaRoche. How are you spending your time
while waiting for your, uh, your lord? I think
initially Dresden stood at the door for a little
bit, you know, like maybe five minutes or so.
Okay. And then I think he has decided to slowly
wander about the party, not speaking to anybody,
but keeping a keen ear open. Okay. And trying
to pick up on anything he can hear. Okay. Could
I, could I? roll some stuff to see if I heard
anything. I'd like a perception check. This is
going to be a check that will cover what you
hear within this hour period. Digging this music.
Steven, what does this dice say? Twanzoni. What?
Okay. Natural fucking 20. That's really good.
I'm okay with this. That's really good. I'm very
okay with this. Let's resolve your passive perception
first, and then I'm going to resolve the crit
afterwards. You're going to get something off
that crit. Ooh, baby. You're going to learn some
news earlier than it might have come up, and
this is really cool. Nice, nice. Okay. With your
passive, as you move around the party, you know
this. A lot of people in this party are kind
of on edge because this sort of news is spreading
of a very sudden loss of the crystal network.
Suddenly the broadcast has just gone out. Magical
difficulties. No one really knows what's going
on. It went down at almost exactly 6 o 'clock
p .m. This is a rare occurrence, but not wholly
unheard of. And a lot of people are chalking
it up to a local issue. Potential interference
from the growing magic on San Satyan as the Night
of the Rembrandt start grows ever closer. There's
sort of this evident magic that's permeating
everything. Maybe it's interfering. Hasn't happened
before, but who's to say it can't happen now,
right? Still, it's strange. Another thing that
strikes you as you move about this party... is
that you do not see Blanche at all. Now, you
fully witnessed the pig man's foolhardy show
earlier. You heard him calling Blanche's name
as he went around picking up armored guard and,
you know, essentially juggling them, whatever
the fuck. You know that Blanche has done something.
Oh, yeah. You know something's happened. Yeah,
he's been in the trenches enough. He's played
with minds enough to know that that was her doing
entirely. Hell, yeah. See how Blanche is up to
something. You don't know where she is. Right.
You don't know what she's doing. Perhaps you
assume that whatever she's about, wherever she
is, Ramin has joined her. For as you move around
this party, you see no sign of Ramin Rasool at
all. Shit. And while player Jeremy knows that's
odd, there's no reason for Dresden to think that
he would be anywhere else but with her. Fuck.
It's quite odd. Dresden, as you're moving about
the party, I think you kind of reach more of
an area that more staff are kind of holding out
at. And I think your general sort of look right
now is that of, you know, some armed staff. I
think you sort of blend in. People don't realize
necessarily that you're not, you're an outsider
in this little circle. Sure. People are kind
of in this sort of corner of the terrace and
they're sort of whispered talking. This is your
20, by the way. This is some big shit. Okay.
They're sort of hurriedly discussing what they're
going to do later. You realize now, what Rue
noticed before, what you didn't realize last
episode, that many of the staff are armed. That
they have the build and the sort of postures
of trained soldiers. You've seen this before.
These guys are ready to fight. And it might strike
you as odd. Maybe you followed them over here.
Maybe you're listening closely. But they are
discussing, very nervously, being prepared. Because
8 o 'clock is coming soon. And at 8 o 'clock,
when the magic permeates the land, when all the
dead come back, the armored guard, their arcane
cores will be overwhelmed. And there will be
a period of time where they will not function.
And so as a backup measure in case of any revolution
activity, anything going on, a lot of the staff
here are trained to intervene during that period.
They don't want it known that the armored guard
have a weakness. The AG5 should be invincible,
but this is a huge oversight. It can only really
happen here. It can only happen in a world like
this. But it's rather strange. Okay. I've got
to be honest. I thought you were going a bit
of a different direction with that. I thought
you were going to say something like, that's
the cue for the slaughter. You know, the Red
Wedding shit? Yeah, some Red Wedding shit or
Order 66 shit. I've seen enough movies to know
everybody at that party is dead. You just turn
to the corner. Activate order 66. And the guards
just turn around saluting. No, but I very much
like this better. Yeah. No, this is crazy. Here's
the problem. You have incredible information.
Yeah. Blanche doesn't. No. If there's any way
you can get information to Blanche when you don't
know where she is, that could be huge. But you
learn this. And we'll say you learn this like
maybe at the half hour point, 630. Is there any
means you could think of that you can get this
information to Blanche? It could be helpful in
her endeavors. Remember. You can flashback. You
can have flashbacks, yeah. If you wanted to create
a line of communication that you guys would need
during this thing, you could make that happen.
Wait, okay, how would that work with this, though?
It's up to you. It's creativity. You decide how,
before this started, you guys might have decided,
hey, if we need to talk to each other, here's
what we do. You can flashback and retcon that
that happened with a button cost. Oh, okay, so
I could flashback, give her the info. Flashback
and basically have, like, you just give me a
reason why you'd have some kind of dead drop
for information during this party. Like, hey,
if we separate, you know, here's how we're going
to tell each other stuff. Right. That's one way
to do it. We could flashback and say that we
brought stones of far speech or something. You
need to, that we might need to do a roll for.
That's going to be a thing that will be hard
to get a hold of. But, yeah. I don't know what
other means, though. Where would we have gotten
those from, though? Paloma. Or wherever. A store.
We could just pull some shit out of our ass and
say, hey, this, we got these. Basically, if it's
a reasonable ask, then I might just give it to
you for the cost of the button and the flashback.
If it's something that was going to require like
a check of some sort or their luck check or a
skill check, you're going to roll that during
the flashback. The button will be given to me
regardless. The attempt will cost a button. Okay.
Yeah, let's do that then. So how does the far
speech work then as opposed to the sending stones?
It's the same thing. It's just different. Okay.
I think I used this term once before, but stone
ascending is the technical. Okay. Magic item
term. So, I mean, I guess we could pretend that
either a Paloma had some to let us borrow or
what it costs to buy. I will let you do either.
You can buy the sending stones. Okay. I will
say a pair of sending stones would cost. Well,
Dresden is broke as shit. Oh, because you spent
your money beforehand. I think it's going to
cost something like. $250 each, $500 for a pair.
Oh, Jesus Christ. They're a powerful magical
item. Then we'll have to just hope that we got
some from Paloma. Yeah, hope that the Resistance
has some that we can borrow. Okay. Let's do that.
All right. Give me that button. Well, what's
the... Do we get to know what the check is going
to be? Like, you know, if it's like a 1 in 100
chance, then maybe we don't spend the button.
But if it's like a 50 -50, maybe we decide to
spend the button. I will tell you that when we
go into this flashback, I'm going to make it
a 50 -50 chance that she has sending stones.
I'll let you guys roll if you want. 50 -100.
That's your call, man. I'm out. I'm out. I'm
out of here. It's your button. This is the only
way to potentially ensure that Blanche can get
this information. Yeah. I... I'm willing to offer
something because I want to make this mechanic
sort of clear for everybody. Okay. It's not just
getting items. Right. You could create a plan.
I was thinking about bringing that up, being
like, okay, if we're separated for 20 to 30 minutes,
let's meet at a central point. I know, but I
don't know. You might know that Blanche was going
to do find familiar. So you might know that if
you see a bat flying around, maybe like Blanche,
you could have a dead drop point where Dresden
could leave a note. Something even like that.
Or Dresden can just, like, stand in one spot.
You can come close. If he's, like, close to the
edge of the terrace, you're flying. Oh, yeah,
absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. I want to open
you guys up. Turbo has really good hearing. Oh,
yes. Perfect. Okay. So why don't we say we flashback
and we say after we're separated for 30 minutes.
Right. Turbo comes. Turbo tries to come to find
Dresden. In the vicinity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
Dresden will pass that information. Okay. Hell
yeah. There's one caveat, though. Okay. You have
to say it like, flashback. Yeah. God, now I've
got to make a flashback sound for this. Like
a legit flashback. You guys ready? Flashback.
Flashback. Flashback. We're back in the mines
beneath Salazar, as you guys are making your
plan. And? We're going to be separated for a
time, soldier boy. I'll be using turbo. He's
got incredible hearing. On the half hour, I will
make him known to you. Speak in his direction
and I'll hear your message. I'll make sure to
keep my eyes out. Aye. Aye. It took you so long.
Sorry. Oh, my God. I mean, I did this. I'm so
kidding. I did this. And flashback. I'm so kidding.
We did the thing. I really want to do the thing.
Ah, okay. Well, and I'm glad. I don't feel so
dumb now, too, because, I mean, at least now
all the listeners have an idea of what the hell
this mechanic is. No, that's what I wanted really
badly was the showcase. I didn't realize that
it was so fluid and open to creativity. I thought
it was literally just like. For an item. No,
yeah. It's Blades in the Dark. I've been listening
to podcasts for it. Okay. Yeah, I think that's
why it's easier for David and I because we've
heard the mechanic be used before. Yeah. Okay,
so maybe before Turbo flies down in the grate,
maybe he flies over the rest of the top of the
roof and down sort of in front of the building
adjacent to the terrace. and he's flying back
and forth looking for Dresden. You catch him.
You find a spot. He'll say, towards the side
of the place, Turbo, you can move under the terrace
where no one's really seeing you. Dresden, you're
kind of standing at the terrace edge, and you
know you can speak a command or speak words.
No one else will hear, but Turbo will hear clearly.
Okay. What were the guards called again? The
AG -5 or armored guard, whatever you want to
go for. At 8 o 'clock, the AG -5 will be defenseless.
Helpless. That's why everyone else is armed.
And after a moment, when Dresden's done speaking,
Turbo flies back to his mission. I can't believe
you Nat 20 didn't got that. I can't believe you
Nat 20 didn't got that. Okay, yeah, that was
pretty clutch. That was really cool. Wow. I was
not, like, in my notes, I did not expect this
to even come out. That is a gigantic nugget of
information. Huge. Absolutely huge. Amazing.
Okay, so you move back to the top of the vent,
and now it is 7 o 'clock. At 7 o 'clock, the
door to meeting chamber number four slides open,
and Samuel LaRoche bustles out, looking all for
the world as joyful as can be, just, ha, ha,
ha, yes, yes, Motelio! Ha! And he's so happy.
You know, he had a good time in there, and he's
just, like, moving out to the party. Once again,
his booming laughter just overshadowing everything
else, because he is just, he's the star of the
show here. Nice. Jean Franklin comes out behind
him. He looks very sort of snarky, haughty, usual
self. But as Samuel kind of fades into the crowd,
his shoulders drop. He looks exhausted. It has
been one hour. One hour in a room with that man.
Yeah. Pretty miserable. He goes to find you,
Dresden. And I think I'll just say he pretty
quickly catches on to where you are. He looks
for you, finds you, and sort of busts us over.
Actually, before I have him talk, Let's resolve
what Jean Franklin learned. Ooh. Last session,
you had Jean Franklin put on a show of force
before walking in. Correct. I thought that was
really cool. I think that's going to create more
of an in with Samuel, give them more connectivity
because Samuel's an asshole. So I think he respects
asshole behavior to lessers. And I want to appreciate
how cool that move was, Jeremy. So Stephen rolled
us the advantage. That was the help action that
Dresden gave in that scene. So I want you to
roll a persuasion check. That's going to be a
plus one just charisma check from Rajan to see
what he learned. Okay. If anything. 17. 17. Okay.
He moves to you, Dresden. Did you hear me in
there? Had the fool laughing on the floor. I'm
surprised the band still bothered playing over
it. My ears are still ringing from the damn noise.
How do you stand the man? You live with him?
I will say one thing that's very interesting
is you were staying outside the door for a while,
Drevden. Correct. You heard nothing. The first
nugget of information you get just from this
is that there must be a combination of soundproofing
in the walls and maybe the sounds of revelry
all around you. Things happening in the manor
are relatively impossible to hear. So one thing
that could be important later, who knows. Okay.
Jumping will also go on to explain, like, let's
just say I learned a lot. I played the pompous
ass. He fed right into it. But I also acted sort
of foolish, you know. I let him think I was a
weak tortle. And boy, did he spill everything.
There was an implication that Marfil and Tressna
are well acquainted with Lady Cerise LaRoche.
I just know Samuel and his own connections. Put
him in a contest with that wife of his, and he,
oh, the fool does know some juicy Marfil secrets.
Not many of them are terribly important to us,
but I do have evidence against Marfil if ever
needed. I think that's all he really knows, though.
The 17, he just knows he has some information.
There's not a lot more he could gain from Samuel.
Okay. But you do at least know, you probably
assumed this already, but now you have confirmation
that the LaRoche family, the Colt the Fractured
Horn, Cerise, all of that are connected to Marfil
Ironworks, to the Tressina, perhaps to Eatsman.
Okay. That doesn't surprise me one bit. Yes,
well. Mayhaps the knowledge will come in handy.
He definitely suffered for it. What have you
been doing? I've been getting some information
of my own. Keeping my ears out. Ears. Still got
two of those. I know. Why'd you say it like that?
Ask that asshole DM. You been looking around
and noticing that most of the staff is armed?
No. Look around. My God, most of the staff are
armed. At eight o 'clock, when all the shit hits
the fan with this dead knight, those armored
guards are going to go defenseless. They'll be
overpowered. Very well. Good. Then we'll stand
ready. This is the top of seven o 'clock, like
the seventh hour. Is there anything else you
want to do with Jean Franklin as this night proceeds?
What is your next step, or do you want to take
some time to think about that? You can also just
mingle with guests, let time pass. I think that's
Terezdan's main intention, is to continue to
listen. Okay. And you know that in approximately
one hour, when these guards shut down, now you
realize the reason he may have told you 8 o 'clock,
that's when you're supposed to meet, Meeting
Chamber 2. Perhaps it's because... We can get
in without... yeah. And no one can hear you.
Yep. And no one can hear you. That meeting is
coming up soon. Yep. So with that being known,
at least, I think we're... Do we know where the
meeting room is? Yes. Okay. They're all numbered
and lined up against the edge of the manor on
the terrace. Okay, so we're mingling about, but
as time gets closer, we're going to nonchalantly
kind of mingle more towards that door. I love
it. Meeting chamber two is also set into the
back of the western wing. So as you work your
way towards that door, you also work your way
towards Blanche Trudeau, who rests in an opulent
bathroom, her back, her shell to the door, locked
and seemingly safe, not far from where you stand.
And we'll go back to Blanche. The bat works its
way through the grates. There's a... Actually,
you can't smell in this form, can you? I don't
think so. Never mind, then. It's actually honestly
great. I don't want to describe spells. I don't
understand smells. Smells are alien to me. They're
a strange concept I will never be able to fully,
like, grasp. So, cool. Let's not. You can live
in my world for the night. Okay. I mean, if it's
not important, then I won't bother looking it
up. It's not important at all. Okay. I just,
just seen chewing. Mm -hmm. Blinch. You push
your way through and you work your way down,
down the vent. You can see where it opens up
into a larger room below. Rule me a perception
check. This is before you even enter the room.
You're looking down and what you see is a sheen
of steel below you. Looks like maybe the top
of some steel work table and like a steel panel
covered floor beneath it as you're moving down
towards the room. 18. With an 18, you are moving
down closer and closer and perhaps you stop before
entering the room in full because you catch a
glimmer of red. Passing across the sheen of metal,
a reflection, a red light. It immediately makes
you think of the red light that emanates from
the helms of the AG -5. This room is guarded
from the inside. It would be very dangerous to
proceed inside of it. If you do go in there,
we're going to be doing stealth checks the entire
time you're in the room. Okay. So from Turbo's
perch, can he see the door? You need to peek
into the room to see more than what's below the
vent. Okay. I'd like to peek in for the purpose
of identifying if the door is locked with a spell.
Okay. I would like you to roll me a stealth check
with advantage. Since you're not entering the
room fully, you're just kind of letting your
head drip below the vent. Okay. You're watching
for that light, waiting for it to kind of fade,
move past when you think you're safe to look,
and you peek inside. Bat's got plus two for dex,
so let's see. 19 on the die. Ooh, okay. We just
see, like, this upside -down bat just sort of
slowly, kind of like little bat hands on the
edge of the vent, a little bat head peeking out
over it. It's the cutest thing that's ever happened
in this show. The space you look into gleams
entirely with a sheen of steel. You do see the
steel panels cover the floors, the walls. You
see steel cabinets hang above steel tables. You
see a space that is vast and clean, nearly spotless,
entirely sterile. Various tools of artificery
hang in stands or on racks against the walls,
meticulously organized by size and shape. Whatever
materials or ingredients it's been used in its
work have been stored. All notes and schematics
filed away in a locked cabinet at the room's
back. One bit of color strikes you where you
stand. In the far corner of the room, you see
a single end table. It's the only thing in this
room that shows any sign of character or sentiment.
You can vaguely make out a red cloth and a couple
items on top of it, perhaps some kind of vase
and a photo, a picture in a frame. You can't
really make out much. You can also see that...
That's on one edge of the wall, basically on
sort of like, say if that's like the sort of
back left corner you're looking at where that
table is, the back right corner, you see the
door, the only singular door that leads out of
this room. There are no windows. Whatever happens
in here, entirely secretive. I will say that
you see there is a bar drop down, kind of like
sealing the door from the inside, and you realize
that perhaps part of the armored guard inside's
job is to lift it to allow access in and out.
Gotcha. This is highly, highly protected. Yeah,
okay. I'm struggling to see how we're going to
get in here. Okay, nothing magical about the
door lock or the chest lock? I think with an
action, Blanche would be able to identify. I
believe, yeah, you guys identify. We'll say you
do that. You don't see there's any sort of magic
involved in these locks. They seem to be more
basic. The AG5 inside will sort of open the way.
In fact, the chests, I may have mentioned locked,
but they're not fully, they're not even locked.
The file cabinets are like, they're closed. But
if someone's in this room, there's no reason
to have locks. Because if you're in this room,
you're supposed to be. All right. If you want
to see more, look more at the table, look more
at the different file cabinets, see if you can
do anything else, you'll need to make much scarier
stealth checks by going into the room. Yeah.
I'm just not super certain what we'll learn.
from going to see a picture. I don't know. I
guess let's try it. I'm going to try it. You're
going for it? Once. I'm going to try it once.
Okay. I've been rolling well. Okay. I mean, if
I roll bad, then... At least it'll be interesting.
No advantage on this one. Oh, God. Yeah, and
I'm not spending a button on this. I'm not spending
a button on this. Okay. Fucking crit. My little
bat pants. Holy shit. This little guano dripping
from the vent. Holy shit. As Turbo grits his
pants. He's not wearing pants. Somebody's like,
what the fuck? Where'd that come from? Yeah,
it's actually just, the guard just, what, turns
around. You got the janitor just, like, sweeping
something up. It's so perfectly sterile. He's
like, how dare you. Holy shit. Yeah, bud. Describe
how you crit, sneak through this room as a bat,
because that's really cool. I just imagine Turbo,
his little feetsies, letting go of whatever he's
holding onto. And his wings are just straight
out, and he's not flapping them. He's just coasting,
silent, as a bat in the night. Damn. Damn. 42.
So you move deeper into the room. Do you want
to look at the table? Is that your first objective?
I mean, that really seems to be the only thing
of interest. Unless you can open a cabinet as
a bat. I don't want to get into that argument.
Okay. Okay. Cool. I also don't want to roll that
stealth check. No. Flit across the guard. moves
past you, not seeing, moves to the other side
of the room, and you have a moment where you
feel totally sort of secure, this small form.
You flit up to the table itself. You land on
the red cloth. You see a small golden urn sits
upon this cloth, next to a framed image taken
by a diamond recorder. In this image, you see
Eatsman Del Prado. He looks younger than he does
now, maybe by 20 years or so. His red tiefling
skin is vibrant, his posture stiff and awkward.
Besides, in front of him stands a human woman.
Long black hair runs over her shoulder. It frames
a face of smiling lips and sorrowful eyes. She
wears the garb of a servant. Itzman's hand rests
on her shoulder, a formal, almost cold posture.
You also see that the woman in the photo is holding
a baby. Tan skin just like her. Human. except
you can see tiny protrusions of horns sticking
from the child's head. And before the picture,
before the urn, a golden nameplate sits upon
the table bearing a single word. I think that
as you read this word, downstairs in the bathroom,
Blanche's eyebrows raise, perhaps the tiniest
gasp leaves her throat. Because with the reading
of this single word, I believe Blanche Trudeau
knows who the demon is. We'll see if Stephen
follows suit. The word is Rosa. It's been a long
time. It's only been a day for Blanche since
this word has come to her ears and her attention.
I don't know if... It's been a long time for
Stephen and Jeremy, so I don't hold it against
you. Are you talking about Rosas? I recognize
the name. It's that place. It's the place of...
Fuck. I don't remember the exact significance
of it. Wait, that's not the... Isn't that the...
The criminal estate in Los Cavalades is called
Rosas. Yesterday, before you went off to meet
the pig man, Paloma was telling you a bit about
your other options. She talked of Serapio. Right.
And she talked of a woman named Rosa. A woman
who appeared in the Old City many years ago.
A woman who died but was survived by her son.
A boy that vanished for a time, then reappeared
with more sudden power, more influence. A boy
that took control of one of the estates in the
Old City, renaming it Rosas, in honor of his
mother, Serapio. Huh. Serapio is Itzmin's son.
You might remember the small, actually more at
this point, grown tiefling horns that stick from
the man's head. You only saw him from a distance,
Blanche. Only once at the steps of Moreno. That's
right, yeah. And then he came over to, and he
came at the funeral. Dance knows him. Dance knows
not to trust him. Yeah. He's always going after
Dance. Flashback. Remember like 10 minutes ago
when I was like, I don't know what I'm going
to learn from a picture frame. And I was sitting
there smiling like everything is on that picture
frame. Oh, God. No, you wouldn't expect it. But
it's weird because it's the only item of sentiment
in this entire room. Right, exactly. It's like
you walk into, you know, you're playing a video
game. You walk into a room and there's an item
glowing, you know, silver in the corner. What
is that? Yeah, so I had to go see. Wow. Okay.
Thank you for putting those pieces together for
me. Yeah, it's like I know your characters are
smart enough to know what you just heard a day
ago. It's been months for Steven and Jeremy.
Exactly. So it makes sense that I'll inform you.
Hey. Yeah. I knew. You did know. You did know.
In fact, real quick. Button for Jeremy. Oh. For
knowing. And a button for Steven. And this is
a really fun one. Do you want to know why you're
getting this button? Because it's my birthday
in two days? No. Because on one of the first
episodes. When we entered San Sitian, when you
first went to meet Serapio as Zebulon, you were
told that Serapio is yet sleeping. He sleeps
in until past 10 o 'clock. And immediately you
were like, that's suspicious, right? Could it
be him? Yeah, it's because it was fucking him
because he was attacking you in the desert a
few hours before. Oh, holy shit. Take a fucking
button. My goodness. I've been sitting on that
button for a long time. I heard that, and I was
like, oh, my God. That actually was a clue. It
really was. And you realized it was a clue, and
you just hand -waved it. It was like, oh, I love
it. We don't deserve you, David. It was cool
as hell. Or your freaking laser -sharp memory.
Holy shit. You've learned this. Yeah. I'm still
trying to figure out exactly how Blanche could
conceivably get into this room, though. That's
tricky. I'm guessing that the bar that holds
the door is more than 10 pounds? Hmm. Probably,
right? I mean, a bar holding a door, it's a metal
bar. It's an iron bar. It's got to be more than
10 pounds. Yeah. Damn. Uh, okay. Okay, so we
took a quick second there. And while we were
away, Stephen informed me of a pretty interesting
little factoid. Stephen? Factoid? Did you know
that a gallon of milk or water weighs approximately
8 .4 pounds? Nerd. So given that, I tested out
a little gallon of water myself. I think it's
fully reasonable that a bar holding the door
closed from the inside would be less than 10
pounds. It would be just about 10 pounds exactly.
Excellent. So then we got into my line of thinking
with casting Mage Hand. And then we were like,
okay, cool. There's a door in the way. You know,
there's not clear line of sight. Do you need
line of sight? Can you cast a spell while looking
through the eyes of your familiar? And David's
going to rule it as we can do it. It's murky
waters. Mage Hand doesn't necessarily come from...
You can cast it with anywhere within range. So
you can cast it in the room. You can see what
you're controlling because you can see through
the eyes of your familiar. It only makes sense.
I think the... The hand can't pass through solid
objects, but you can cast it on the other side
of the solid object. Yeah. And you can see what's
in there through your familiar, so there's no
reason not to allow it. There's no reason that
I can see. I think it's cool. I'm super into
it. Well, pants people, if you think otherwise,
let us know. I mean, happy to hear. No, we're
not. Any rules lawyers out there? Keep it to
yourself. Keep it in your own pants. I'm kidding.
Tell us all. Tell us all. We really want to get
good at the game. We want to get good at rules.
I know historically I've been horrible at them,
so please, yeah. Keep us in the loop. I mean,
we've said it before. This is our game. This
is how we choose to play it, and if that's the
way David wants to rule it, then that's fine
with me. We looked around and did a little bit
of Googling, and I think we're all right. A little
goggling, and here we are. A little goggling.
Okay. Yeah, so I guess... I guess Blanche is
going to hide Turbo back up in the roof there,
in the... The vent? The vent. Vent, that's the
word. The vent. Little vent, little chimney,
yeah. Yeah, little vent, little chimney. And
she'll pop out of Turbo's eyesight. With a nat
20 on that stealth, I'll say, you're not going
to roll it again, you just get through the room
again. Very generous, very generous. Very sneaky
little bat. How much time between now and 8 o
'clock? It's currently 7 .15. You have 45 minutes
until 8 o 'clock. Okay. Do you think that Turbo
would have time to go around to see some other
stuff that he hasn't already seen? Yeah. You've
already scouted out the second floor. I don't
think there's too much else. You can go around
the roof. I don't think you see much more of
no, unless there's something in particular you're
looking for. Nothing I can particularly think
of, but if you wanted to jump to somebody else,
then I can think about if there's anything specific
that I want Turbo to look for. One thing I can
say is giving you numbers, there are probably
about 20 of the AG5 on the premises. Oh, wow.
Okay. That's useful. Yeah. And there's a few
kind of out front, a few sort of mingling around
the party, just kind of standing around, a few
within the building that you've seen. So from
what you can tell, there's about 20. There could
be more. Okay. Any on the roof or on the porches?
No on the roof, but definitely from the roof,
as you kind of peek out, you can see there are
still the general patrols through Papalatio Hill,
kind of passed by the other manors. So even leaving
this party is dangerous. Okay. I yield my time.
Okay. You learn more. So we go to the ranch in
the bathroom, just waiting. A little smile on
her total face as everything is starting to come
together. It's all coming together. Dresden,
let's cut back to you. I don't think there's
terribly much more you can learn just by listening.
You kind of get the main vibes of the party.
People are getting excited. The night is coming
on soon. The loved ones of the dead will be back,
and you know it's going to be one hell of a spectacle,
a beautiful show of lights as this magic sweeps
over the city and the world. And that's kind
of what's on everyone's mind. That's the hum
of activity now. A lot of these people don't
even have, like, there's no ofrendas up here.
People here aren't looking forward to seeing
loved ones of their own. A lot of them are off
-worlders. But they are looking forward to the
show, to staring down the little people with
their little families. Do you have anything in
particular you want to pursue? Or would you rather
let time pass until your 8 o 'clock meeting with
Hitzman Del Prado? I don't think there's anything
specifically that he wants to do. But I also
think that he wants to look around to see if
he can get eyes on, what's that fucking dude's
name that was next to Itzman? Kejo Kamal. Kejo
Kamal. Okay. He wants to see if he can get eyes
on him. Okay. The great scholar of Senza, wherever
he goes, a crowd follows him and he's like wowing
them with a sort of magical knowledge. He tells
the same old stories about the founding of the
Crystal Network over and over again. I think
as you're listening in, he begins to talk about
a very frightful situation he found himself in
not that long ago, a few weeks ago, for Kejo
Kamal was there during the fall of the Sapphire.
He was on Tythos. He was in Cerule. He was...
paid by the La Roches to essentially line the
cobblestone main streets through Cerule's upper
city, or high city, with sort of like some magical
works. He is an architect, and he talks of the
terror of that day, the great storm, the zappies.
He doesn't use that term because it's stupid.
Yeah, who came up with that? He calls them lesser
lightning elementals that appeared. That sounds
smarter. A little smarter. That appeared out
of nowhere in cracks of lightning. He talks of
Ozen Yoshikatsu slicing through the luminaries.
He talks of the sapphire draining in color, falling,
him being there when Atash appeared and saved
them all. A miracle. I dropped a button. I'll
take it. Go ahead. I'll pick it up for you. You
can remember that, you know, as players, Chester
mentioned he actually stole from Kendrick Kamal
earlier that day. He was brought up in the first
episode. And so Dresden hearing this is probably
noting this is very interesting. He's been there
from the start. Okay. I just think, yeah, he's
just very aware of people who are clearly important.
Yeah. And have presence. Yeah. And he has one
hell of a presence. I mean, it seems like. The
fact that he's here is what makes this party
so huge. Because he knows that with those types
of people, they are never exactly how they seem.
And that's how they get to that point. What is
his deal, right? Is he part of the Fractured
Horn? Someone this important? Someone hired by
the LaRocas? I don't know if he's thinking that
specifically. He just knows that that's not the
whole story. Hell yeah. So Dresden is watching.
Watching. Blanche waiting in the manor. The bat
hiding out in the vent. Dresden and Jean -Franklin
moving through the party. Ramin nowhere to be
seen. This is where we find our heroes. When
the clock strikes eight. When night officially
falls. When somewhere in the Rosas estate, somewhere
in a soundproofed room, a man is screaming as
his body begins to change. As Serenno's great
sickness, the claws of this demonic curse, reach
into the hearts of all these affected and begin
to pull at their life energy. When this thing
transforms, people begin to wither away. It's
drawing from them. Jewels in the borderlands.
We're making his check when we get back to him.
Ramin, wherever he may be, is getting weaker.
Dying. But amongst all this horror, as always
in these worlds, there is so much beauty to be
found. So let's bring back an old friend for
a moment. We watch on. The whole party watches
on as the last wisp of sunlight sinks beneath
the mountains on the horizon. Stars twinkle in
the sky above, and there is a feeling of anticipation
everywhere in the air. A city, a world, holding
its breath. And then we see light. Afrendas set
inside homes, on porches, on city streets begin
to glow with the soft light. Wisps of luminescence,
like slowly forming clouds, rise from the bed
of candles and marigolds. Hundreds of them. Thousands.
Many of these wisps of light begin to streak
across the city, like slow -moving comets in
the night. They move to loved ones, who do not
stand by their ofrendas, appearing just before
whatever person placed the gift upon the altar.
There they shape themselves into humanoid forms.
The lights fade as figures become more detailed,
the bodies splitting into an assortment of bones.
Bright colors shine amongst these skeletal figures
like patterns of neon paint applied to their
forms. And the silence is broken. The world's
breath released as friends and families rush
to greet and hold their return. We see this everywhere.
A time of such joy. Tears rolling down cheeks.
Music reaching a crescendo. People dancing and
laughing and we pan across the desert. We pan
far across the borderlands of the town of Milpizul,
where each home erupts in exciting laughs and
cheers, where the lights of the returning dead
shine throughout the town. And we turn our attention
to the side of the Valkyria, the tavern, where
Dance and Jewel spend time in the early hour
of this day, setting up ofrendas of their own.
And as expected, we see only one of the two ofrendas
starts to glow as a wisp of light trails up from
the altar. and takes to the skies above the borderlands.
And we'll call it there.