Hey Pants People, just wanted to take a brief
moment before the episode to say thanks for listening
and thanks for being our friends. Enjoy! like
Brynhild Raeleth, a .k .a. Brynn the Lumberjill.
Once a simple lumberjill from the Tigers of Moor,
the wood elf Brynn has always wielded a fearsome
strength, drawn from her role as a totem warrior
of the polar bear. Notable for her platinum blonde
hair, shaved to the sides and tied in a tight
braid, she can also be recognized by her polar
bear pelt cloak, the fur of a treasured companion
from her youth. Brenna's known to wield a great
axe called Stercona for cutting trees and enemies
alike. And for those villains that tend to keep
at range, Brenna's deadly accurate with her hand
axes and javelins. Now, her origins are a thing
of legend on more and on many other worlds as
well. One day, while she was away on a timber
harvest, outlaws struck her small village. The
families were robbed clean of all valuables,
and their homes and remaining resources burned
to ash. Brynn's outrage upon returning home was
terrifying to behold. Joined by the offspring
of the very bear that she wears on her back,
Brynn wasted no time in tracking these criminals
and chopping them down. But what really fooled
the legend was what happened after the bloodbath,
when Brynn and her companion returned to her
broken village and got to work single -handedly
cutting down the lumber to rebuild. Weeks of
working non -stop to save her people from the
coming winter chill. Nowadays, despite her sudden
fame and luminary status, Brynn tends to keep
to the forests of Moroth, defending the defenseless,
and training a new generation of warriors. So
ne 'er -do -wells, best beware when they travel
through the trees, as they may find themselves
cut down faster than they can say, Timber. Shit.
Oh boy. Thank you, Cassie! Oh, Cassie! Nice,
that's awesome. Thank you, Cassie! Finally got
a chance to get some luminary spotlights in here,
and yeah, Cassie was the first... If you know
Cassidy, if you go to Nerd on Nights, you certainly
do know Cassidy. She's been to, I think, almost
all of them, which is crazy. She's from the search
and rescue world, which is amazing. Knows Stomp
and the gang. But yeah, yeah, it's a great time.
Great time. Damn, that's cool. Badass character.
Come join Rime of the Frostmaiden. Join our Icewind
Dale game. And meet Cassie. Meet Aspen Swiftpaw,
the Haringan Ranger, actually. Ooh, that's a
cool name. Yeah, it's very cool. That's a real
cool name. It's very cool. Yeah, it's a good
time. Last time I threw two grells and a hook
holder at the level two party, and it got expectedly
very spicy. People were a little surprised that
I went there. But it was a good time. It was
a good time. They lived. Trust your players.
They lived. Trust your players. I'm going to
trust you guys. I'm going to trust these players
tonight. Anyway, I don't know about that. Oh,
my gosh. Yeah, this is going to get gnarly. Where
were we, gentlemen? We were drowning. I think
only one of you was drowning. Akio the Akita
was drowning. Drowning for basically the entire
episode. I mean, this water weird. In the water
where you find it, these things are... Brutal.
Yeah. That invisibility makes it so hard to strike
home and so hard to get away because I get advantage
on all my attacks from in the water. It's honest
bullshit. But I love it. You know what else I
love though? This is something I loved. And I
know there were mixed feelings on this afterwards
from the Steven department here, but I think
Steven. Had a pretty cool sort of arc last episode,
right? Crispin Dubois, as we know, was chosen
by Shirley because Crispin is very, what's the
word here? Pragmatic, right? You are someone
who looks for the greater good. And in that moment,
I love that Crispin was dealing with this kind
of crossroads. Do I let Akio die, focus on the
larger prize at hand, keep myself vital? Because
as you see, the main threats are here. Just got
here. They just got here. And that moment of
uncertainty, that's a character arc. Come into
the choice to drop your bear form, sacrifice
the HP shield that gave you, take on your giant
octopus form, dive into the water, into the dangerous
territory, and use your last wild shape. Yeah.
Into a form that is really kind of suboptimal.
That was cool. But that was a choice. That was
Crispin deciding just this once. Maybe I won't
do the pragmatic thing. Maybe I won't do the...
what feels like the best end game. And I'll do
something that feels good now. I want to give
you a button for that. Ooh, baby. Oh, these moments,
nice character choices. These like, like moral
quandaries. These are the things that are going
to make people love your characters. So they're
more sad when you die in two episodes. Oh, so
we got two episodes. Hey, you know what? Hey,
okay. That's me trusting the players. I trust
you might live for two episodes. I don't trust
you more than that. Oh, man. Oh, man. Yeah, I'm
really curious how we're going to pull this off.
Well. I'm like, I think Akio is like potentially
one round away from dying. It's interesting because
really what it comes down to now is drowning
mechanics. Yeah. Which I forgot to look up. Oh,
cool. So he pulls up right now. Okay. That is,
you know, I guess you would have expected this
because it does make sense, right? Drowning,
each round is six seconds. You don't drown in
12 seconds, right? No, I wouldn't think so. The
block for the water weird, and maybe this is
why it's CR3, specifies that when it has somebody...
The tower is drained, and the water weird tries
to drown it. It says that. That's what it does.
It grabs someone, and it tries to drown it. They
wouldn't specify that if that wasn't the intended
actual way the creature works. But drowning something
takes minutes. I believe it's a minute for each
con level, basically, that you have, or each
con bonus you have. Whatever the case here, we're
not going to hit that tonight. What I'm going
to do instead is this. Here's my win condition.
I'm dragging Akio away. I'm dragging him out
to the ocean. If I leave the map and go out to
the ocean, we'll see. Maybe we'll let Dyson know
whether or not he drowns. One way or another,
though, he's gone. He's leaving this field unless
you can stop this from happening. And I'm already
halfway there. So that is the way we're going
to resolve drowning. Sound good? Cool. Cool,
cool, cool. Yeah, I like it too. All right. And
with that, let's get some fancy plus going. There
she is. Oh. Let's reset the scene. Dresden Kellig.
Crispin Dubois in the form of a giant octopus.
You two are running, Dresden is on the rim of
the sort of pool here, rushing across tile as
Crispin splooshes through the water in this octopus
form, charging towards Akio, who's about halfway
through the pool, being pulled towards the channel
that leads into the sort of tide pool there,
into the sort of open sea just outside. The tendrils
of his water wheel are dragging him, and he's
sort of gripping, trying to do what he can to
scrape against the floor, the tiled floor that
has sunk ten feet below the surface. But nothing
is working. He's being pulled and pulled. His
only solace is that the echo just hovers in the
water just beside the water weird, having just
struck some mighty, mighty blows. This thing...
It's weaker now. You can feel this current, this
churning current that makes this thing's body
has lessened. The current is less strong. It's
smaller. That form is smaller. Less tendrils
are reaching out, but it's still vital. It's
still strong enough to pull this dog away. While
this is all happening, we see dark clouds creeping
across the sky. A surge of wind howls in from
the cord of discipline. A bit of thunder booms.
not from the Shrine of Storms now, not from the
innermost sanctum, but from outside, coming from
the direction of the conquered jewel of Kameno,
the world you do not see. We see the gloominary
pirate captains, Crimson and Azure, have stepped
down and charged into the fray, but not towards
you, not towards the water, rather towards the
zappies that surround the apparatus of the crab
that they... arrived here in you watch maybe
like you vaguely see as you're moving them charging
glaives come flying out moving so fast so terrifically
powerful uh swinging through the first of these
zappies two glaives x cut it and explode into
a shower of sparks if you remember these things
have death throats uh that were the reason they
were so dangerous way back in the opening bit
there um you hear the captain sort of grow growl
as the creatures, sort of these death throes,
rack their bodies, sparks, singeing them. The
people inside the apparatus scream. But we're
not focused on that now. No. Now we focus under
the water. It's Akio's turn. Okay. Akio is, once
again, going to try and escape. Okay. So here
is Athletics. Oh, my God. It's a five. Okay.
Fuck. I just, like... Okay. You rolled that gemstone
dice again? No, I'm done with that gemstone die.
I went through a little more than 1 ,500 rolls.
You just said it so casually. It's not crazy
to do that. Yeah, it took me days. It actually
did. This is true shit. Yeah, I'll save you,
like, all of the math, but... Basically, instead
of a 5 % chance of rolling on each side, I came
up with a 7 .1 % chance of rolling a 1 and just
a 3 .8 % chance of rolling a 20. And there's
a bunch of bullshit like that kind of throughout.
So as much as I love my wife and the wonderful,
magical gift that she gave me, I'm probably not
going to use those die anymore. So what you're
saying is... Rachel killed Zebulon. Oh, my God.
That's a bold statement. Hey, you made it. Hey,
I might tell her you made it. So Kyo does not.
Does nothing. He doesn't he doesn't able to fight.
Is there anything else he can do? Oh, well, that's
his action, right? That would be his action.
Yeah. So all he has is reactions. OK. All right.
He just. struggling, trying so hard to reach
in, unable to make a move. If only somebody built
him with bonus actions. Have you used second
wind with him yet? By the way? I don't think
you've used that today yet. Okay, so we just
took a look. There actually is a bonus action.
I thought it was a little weird, so I had to
stop real quick to check. For some reason, I
have Akio pulled up as well in my combat tracker,
and I did give Akio second wind. which might
be useful here. It did not make it to your sheet.
I don't know why the bonus action did not make
it to your sheet, but there is that. You don't
need to use it now. Obviously, you get one time
that you can do it before a short rest. It's
1d10 plus 6 HP back. I mean, now is the time,
because this thing has done 9 hit points before,
and Akio's at 10. That hit point is scary, yeah.
Yeah, so, yeah, I'm definitely... Oh, but that's
an action, though, right? Or no, you said it's
a bonus hack. Yeah. Give me the sheet, damn it.
D10 plus who? Plus six. Six plus six. Not bad.
Yeah. I was like getting to the point where I
was like, man, this guy might not last another
round if it's a big hit. So the extra 12 makes
a huge difference. That is. So Akio just under
the water. I think there's this moment of like,
Akio remembers lines. Thinking of that, the line
before like, Master taught me to be patient or
off. I must wait. And looking up, seeing the
images of, maybe he sees like the giant octopus
swimming his way. He sees like the sort of broken
above the sea, you know, the water image of Dresden
moving towards him. Sees the echo and decides
this moment to trust. To wait. Stops fighting.
Let's go. Takes a deep breath. And allows some
sort of innate recovery to occur. So for future
rounds, is that his only bonus action? That is
the only bonus action. Okay, so I'm not going
to worry about bonus actions anymore. Everything
else looked accurate on your sheet. Okay. Okay.
With that, it's the water weird. And all I'm
going to do here is move. And this is where things
get gnarly. Yeah. Because I get to go 30 feet.
Take that dog with me. I get my opportunity,
though. You do your opportunity. Yes, I do. This
is bad, because if he moves again... I have to
hit this. You've got to hit this. I have to hit
this. You've got to hit this. He begins to leave
your range, pulling Akio. Although, before this
actually happens, real quick... What? Something
we had discussed that wasn't... We brought up
last time, and I actually just forgot about it
until just now. You asked me if you'd done enough
damage that I might consider going for you. What?
Yes, because you did, like... A bubble of damage?
Yeah, you said, like, you said, like, you know,
you did enough damage that he might, like, look
at me now or target me now. And I think that
actually there is some... There is some merit
to that, because as a creature that... It's supposed
to drown whatever it grabs. It also wants to
preserve itself. And you have shown yourself
to be a far larger threat than this bumbling
dog that can't do anything. That rolls fives
all the time. So I will allow a dice roll here.
I want a chance roll that we're going to do.
D100. I'll give you a 30 % chance. 33%. One third
chance. Don't do percentages anymore. Just say
numbers. Let's be very deliberate. Yeah. 33 or
lower. 33 or lower is a pass. 33 or lower is,
yeah, good for us. That means it'll go after
the Echo. You're right. We don't do that. We
have the high number. 67 or higher. I think this
is accurate. 67 or higher and to not have it
go for the Echo? To have it go for the Echo,
we say 67 or higher. If it's lower than 67, it's
going to keep pulling it to you away. Yeah. Okay.
I think that's reasonable. Okay. Before I know
the results. Actually, never mind. Didn't make
any sense. It's going to say, use a button on
this. And I was like, no way. You know the results.
Never mind. 53. Okay. So. So now you got to hit.
Button. Oh. Save that button for this. That makes
sense. You can stop this thing from moving. You
can shut this down right now. Come on. Got a
giant octopus coming right at it. Mm -hmm. 26,
bitch. Oh, man. Yeah, nice. 19 on the die plus
7. Disadvantage on a minus 2. You're still...
No, no. It's disadvantage on a minus 2. You rolled
twice off of that, didn't you? I did. Well, the
first one was 19. All right, we'll go with that.
Yeah, we're fine. First one was 19. Second roll
was 10. We're good. It would have been a straight
anyway since I gave you the button. Oh, okay.
We'll go straight. It wouldn't have been... We
got it. We saved the wedgie. Hell yeah. With
that flat roll. Hell yeah. Okay. Okay. I'm really
glad the dice were... Rolled that way, because
the second roll was a fucking 10. Yeah, that
is zesty. Yeah, that was close. You hit. Go ahead
and give me that damage. You just see this thing
move. The echo is not... After this barrage of
strikes, this thing tries to sort of cower, move
away from you. The echo is not fucking done yet.
Slides in again. Damn. On a 1d8 plus 6, I rolled
a 3. So does 9. Nine damage. And it's halted.
And it's halted. That's the big one. Yeah. Strike
out, and this thing just freezes. It tries to
move, and it's almost like a water round. It's
rigid. Cannot move. This thunderous sort of force
surrounds it. Akio stops mercifully from being
dragged. This thing is now lingering sort of
on the edge of the pool, but it stopped just
as it was about to leave your range, and it cannot
move. Sweet. Oh, man. That was my movement, huh?
I already got stopped. Honestly? I'm going to
attack you now. Because I have my attack. It
doesn't make sense not to. I could keep trying
to drive this dog, but you just stopped me. I
have to make a move here. I have to do something.
I mean, it makes no sense for it to be like,
I'll ignore the guy that literally just stopped
me from moving away. I have to go for you. Before
roll was to see if I could even get the AOL at
all. You know, if I just go for you. You landed
it. I think this is where it has to go. Akio
feels the tendrils move away as they launch towards
the Echo. 15 to hit? No. Oh, sorry. Advantage.
Oh, fuck. Less than 15 to hit. No. Dude, the
Echo was kicking my ass. It just moves around,
darts in the water, just kind of Matrix -style,
sort of swimming. These things go around, does
not quite land. Dude, I love that. It's like...
Two different translucent beings. Yes. Yeah,
dude, seriously, yeah. That are tangling with
each other. It's such a weird, big, magical,
you know, face stuff. And to make it even weirder,
here comes a giant octopus. Crispin Dubois, what
are you doing? Yeah. Now that Akio is loose,
like, the whole giant octopus thing is like,
hey, you're still cool. Yes, it's still very
cool. This thing's got to go down, because if
it realized the echo is an echo, it might just
go for Akio again. Yeah. And Akio, you know,
I still get AOOs. Like, I can do nasty, nasty
things. Yeah, that's a good point. Okay, so let's
see if we can put this thing down. Giant octopus
is going to use its tentacle attack. Slides up
right next to it as it's trying to leave the
pool, and tentacles wrap out. Tentacles versus
tentacles. Watery ones versus fleshy, weird ones.
Natural one. Oh, my God. Natural. Oh, my God.
How many natural ones have been rolled in this
fight alone? Natural one. You didn't roll disadvantage,
did you? No. Okay. Okay. God. Oh, it hurts. I
believe it was Andrew that brought the idea of
horse hair kelp. Horse hair kelp? What? So there's
like a little bit of horse hair kelp just kind
of slides into the water. Weird. It just blurs
right into your octopus mouth, your beak, and
you're choking on it. Like a hairball. Oh, God,
I can feel that. A horse hair ball. Oh, man.
Horse hair kelp ball. Poor Crispin. I'm sorry,
dude. Hey, you know, these things happen, I guess.
I'm sorry, Crispin. Crispin, hey, the thing is
you're still there now, which means you also
get that AOL if I try to make a move again. Now
there's multiple people, and you don't get this
advantage because you have a swim speed. Yes,
okay. Speaking of Andrew, real quick. Yes, that's
right. Do you want me to do it? Yeah, you do
it. I'm talking too much. Okay, that's fine.
Yeah, so Andrew pointed out to us something that
we overlooked, which is that when Crispin is
wild -shaped, You know, he can't use spells or
anything, but he does still get access to his
class features, one of which is unarmored defense
since he is a barbarian. So while not wearing
armor, Crispin's AC equals 10 plus his dex modifier
plus his con modifier plus any shield bonuses.
So the way that we have not been doing it. or
the way that we have been doing is we've just
been taking the monster sheet and just saying,
oh, okay, that's AC 11. Great, let's go with
that. But in reality, I should be taking that
AC and adding the dex modifier and con modifier.
So now the giant octopus instead of 11 has a
13 AC. Hell yeah. Might save your life. Yeah.
Hell yeah. Octopus in the mix. And now Dresden
Kellegg. The flesh and blood version. What are
you up to? Fuck. He's going to move as close
as he can to the fray in the water. He's not
going to go in the water. His echo's still there.
He doesn't need to. Hell yeah, you move up and
you're basically right, stay on the pool right
beside your echo. Yep. Kind of overlooking the
entire thing, looking down into the, you just
see like all this weirdness happening just below
the surface. The water's sort of shaking and
bubbling. Hell yeah. And then his echo's going
to just do what he's doing. Hell yeah. He's going
to keep trying to chip away at this thing. Disadvantage.
That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And minus two.
And minus two. Does a 15 hit? It does. Oh. It
actually does. Oh, man. This echo. Hell yeah.
What's Crispin even doing here? For real, four.
He plays him with a second echo. Sorry. For an
additional 12 damage. Dude. This thing is getting
wrecked right now. You slide through and you
feel like a massive current, like jet, just burst
off of it. Slide out of the surface, bubbles
blasting out that you can see on top, Dresden.
This thing is looking very, very bad. All right,
we're going to go for the second attack then.
Oh my gosh, this is crazy. Another 15. No fucking
way. Suck it. You're taking all of the mojo Steven
lost. This has not been my combat. This has not
been my combat. Holy shit. For an additional
10 damage. Nice. Describe what it looks like.
Oh, thank God. When you kill this water weird.
Ooh. Okay, going back to two translucent beings,
I think Dresden commands the echo into the water
elemental. And just starts swirling it around.
And then the water just dissipates. And the Echo
is just left standing there. Hell yeah. Eknato.
I love it. Eknato. Damn it, David. Just burst.
This water just bursts apart. Ikio slightly sort
of turning around towards it. Sword finally out.
Realizes there's nothing to face. Sad Octopus.
Sad Octopus. Poor Crispin. Hey, honestly though.
Octopus is really cool. Octopus is super cool.
It's so cool. I kind of can't get out of the
water, though. Damn it. Hey, at least it's here.
I was going to say, we should get out of the
water soon. Getting all pruney. Shit. With that,
Akio kicks from the ground, blasts into the surface.
I sort of pan over to you, Dresden. Thank you.
I do not care for baths. Swims over to the edge
and tries to sort of climb up. Can Dresden just
give him a hand out? Hell yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You
just like reach down or you grab like, you know,
probably like a collar on his arm or help him.
Start shaking off. You're soaked. Wet dog smell.
I would say you smell like wet dog. I am wet
dog. Probably see a burbling sort of. of water
as the octopus sort of breaks the surface a little
bit. Uh, or do you just stay in, do you just
wallow in shame and the deaths? No, Crispin is
staying below the surface. Okay. Hell yeah. Uh,
Crispin below the surface, you see like a, you
know, almost like a, uh, on the other side, like
a fireworks display kind of going off and you
guys watch as. the two pirate captains just swiftly
move over and they're just carving. I'm going
to say because of your strategy of sort of pulling
back and this put Akio in serious danger, but
it was still a very clever plan. And because
of that, I'm going to have these forces resolve
their dispute because there's no reason why they
wouldn't. I've already calculated the damage.
You just see the glaives carving through these
electric creatures, explosions of sparks, more
groans of pain. You see seared flesh on these
pirates. You see the... Actually, as they're
fighting, you can see as their brown cloaks billow,
there's already shallow cuts, maybe already somewhat
healed and regenerated, but there are cuts all
over them that look somewhat fresh, probably
from the blades of the guard they had dealt with
before this. You even see that the upper ass
itself looks to be in pretty bad shape. And this
is just added to by these death throes and the
attacks of these zappies as they carve through
them. Can you remind us, or from this distance,
how big are the death throes? The death throes
are... Like, there's an AoE, right? Yes, there
is an AoE effect. AoE effect, I believe it's
five feet. Okay. Crispin's going to... stealth
up to this area. Oh, shit. And hide. Before he
does, he'll stick a little tentacle out of the
water when Dresden has his attention. He just,
he wags his tentacle back and forth like a no,
no, no sort of kind of just indicating like,
wait. Yeah. And we'll find our time. Oh, yeah.
Dresden sees it. Hell yeah. Give me a stealth
check, actually. I do need a stealth check from
you. Yeah, that's cool. I've got advantage on
stealth checks while I'm an octopus. Dex. So
not fantastic, but... Oh, you have a plus five
just to out this as under skills. Oh, yes, there
it is. Okay. Then 19. Okay. That will beat my
passive. So he's just... You said the pool is,
what, like 10 feet deep? Yes, yeah. So you're
like, what, sliding up against the wall, basically?
No, he's not against the wall. He's 20 feet from
the edge. Do you like shift color? To like the
same color as the tiles. Totally, yeah, exactly.
It's so cool. It's so cool. I can't even. As
you go in this stealth mode, squish down, you
can hear like, I think like with your octopus
senses, maybe you can hear a little better the
voice that travels through the water. So maybe
you can hear what's happening on the surface
as you're listening in because that's cooler
for me. Yeah, well, and also, yeah, I would imagine
that whatever senses he has, he would just kind
of be able to realize what's going on up there.
Hell yeah. Having this moment of pause, too,
I think as they sort of fight, as light sort
of lighting up the area where these flashes of
sparks are looking there where the guards are.
Dresden, what's your passive perception? Only
an 11. 11. Yeah. I think that's enough to at
least know... You still don't know if the guards
are dead or alive, but you do notice, I think
even from afar, you can see some of the cloth
parts of their armor has been scorched. burned
away but also it looks like they're covered with
a sort of thin layer of like frost like patches
of frost uh i don't like that yeah that's fucked
up i won't tell you whether they're dead or not
so this this this crab tank thing yeah i guess
is capable of fire and ice or something jesus
christ uh touch if i believe oh no it's the it's
the captains One captain has, yeah, because their
names are red and blue. I also believe Hitokori,
the ship, means something like frost and burn
or fire and ice. Okay, sure. Oh, my God. Speaking
of the captains, as, like, this sort of blast,
the zappies goes out, they don't immediately
look to you. You just see, like, one of them
stops, kind of. Hooded face looks up towards
the sky, eyes sort of narrow. See, like, with,
like, tan skin, long, sort of dark hair. Aye,
there's a storm coming fast. A bad one. Is this
the work of the Shrine, perhaps? Turns to the
other. Brother, we best be brief here. And you
see, like, the other one moves over and just,
like, sort of kicks out at the mechanical, like,
like, like, a couple of fierce, like, ping, ping,
ping, kicks towards the, the apparatus. Just,
like, just says, Where's this treasure your contact
told us about, huh? I don't see anything of worth
here at all. I think your contact lied to us,
I think. And if your contact is a liar, we don't
need to hold back from killing anymore, now do
we? Let's take them out, brother, turns. Let's
take them all out. All of them. No, the first
one says, kind of raising a hand or a finger.
No, no, let's, let's not. Do not be hasty, brother.
Then eyes turn across the pool towards you. Dresden,
you see one of the Zoni kind of steps up towards
the edge of the pool, looking to address you.
I'm Captain Arger, and this is my brother, Captain
Crimson. You are a Luminary, aren't you? Yes.
You are new to the network, relatively unknown
in the role, but you are a Luminary, and you
just so happen to appear here mere minutes after
our rather pointless assault on this shrine.
An interesting coincidence, don't you think?
Brother, what are you getting at? Parley is what
I'm getting at. I'd like to call for a parley.
Will you speak with us, luminary, rather than
immediately drawing blade? And he even, like,
he, like, pulls up on the part of his, like,
cloak, and you see those same sort of scars and
wounds. You see, we've come through a difficult
battle with the Shrine Guard, as well as with
these strange elementals here. Surely, you're
also worse for where I can see it. So why bother
fighting at all? We can be accommodating. Wouldn't
you rather leave things bloodlessly? Dresden
doesn't say a word. He slowly raises his right
arm and gives him the finger. I think, honestly,
you just kind of... Well, I like the enthusiasm.
It's not a no, at least. We're fighting these
guys. Sholay asked us to kill them, didn't she?
Exactly. And I know Dresden's capable of that.
Right? I'm not mistaken, right? Sholay asked
us to kill them? She specifically said they have
to die, which in itself is kind of weird. The
question is, do you want to, like, engage in
a combat immediately or bide your time, maybe
learn information? Like, you also are here to
learn information. She only wanted you to investigate.
And we also remember hearing the voice of Sho,
like, coming from the crab. Yes. I think, actually,
on that note, I will say, like, I think he doesn't,
he's almost, like, taking you as, like, you didn't
attack, so that means probably it's okay. Right.
I thought it was funny. Like, he likes the defiant
attitude. Okay. So he just turns and says, Singer,
where did you come out from that thing? Points
to the apparatus. When parley is called, all
weapons should be stowed, and that thing is a
weapon. Fuck. And you see like a, like a, like
a, like a, like a, what? What are you talking
about? You, you can't possibly mean to. I'm not.
asking singer the other one moves up to it again
just out and rips open this hatch from the back
of it and just like yanks something out and you
see what looks to be a single being a single
person uh a person that looks like a sort of
black feathered humanoid bird uh you can roll
you can't see anything yet so you wouldn't be
able to roll it i think you could sing He said
he's 20 feet away in the water. Yeah, they're
at the base of a pool. It's an octopus. You don't
think octopus can see 20 feet? You failed your
history checks before on the voice. You can roll
a history check, but also like Crispin. He's
got new information. Crispin in particular can
also roll a nature check if you want. It's only
an 11 for Dresden. 14. With an 11, all you know
is you're like, ah, I've heard of these before.
This is a Kenku. And it did mention that there
was a crew of Kenku that was the sort of crew
of the Hitokori. Nature 14. You probably don't
immediately attribute this as a known sort of
attribute of Kenku's. But as you see like the
hazy sort of waterlogged, you know, sort of image
of this black bird thing, you think about the
voices you heard. And the penchant for many sort
of natural birds to be able to use voice mockery.
And you realize it's only ever been one creature.
It's mimicking voices it's heard, and that's
the way it speaks. And then it hits you. That
means this thing heard Sholay's voice. You remember
it sounded like sort of distorted in some weird
way. And I think in this moment, it strikes you
that distortion's like you've heard before as
well. Oh, on the stones? It's the distortion
you hear over ascending stone. Interesting. Yes.
So is Sholay trying to cover something up? Or,
like, yeah, did she send them here? I think you
see, unless you stop them, Azure will continue.
Yeah. I think sort of gestures sort of widely
around you, big sort of grand arms in the air.
You see, Luminary, I have information you might
want to hear. As a Luminary, I imagine you hold
a vested interest in catching criminals, yes?
Despite our status here on Omizu, we're just
minnows in these waters. And we can offer you
a shark, one that swims in your own waters. I'm
sure Mr. Atash will be quite pleased with the
evidence that we're going to bring forward. Might
even pay or pardon us. You see, we're only as
notorious as we are due to the information we've
been fed. A mysterious contact that speaks only
through our Kenku friend here. You see the other
one, Crimson's hand sort of rests dangerously
sort of on the Kenku's neck. It's almost kind
of like shudders at this very firm grip. Unfortunately
for this contact, we have been sorely underestimated.
I have been keeping a keen eye on these transmissions
and on the trails of information that have been
leaked to us. And I believe I know exactly who
this contact is. Quick point of order. Yeah.
Is the Kenku on the map here? Oh, not yet. And
I also want to clarify, when I measured the 20
feet, I measured it from the corner of the square
pool. So where Crispin sits, he's 15 feet. There's
two squares between him. And that fellow right
there. Okay, we'll say that. This one's actually
going to be like a little bit. Of course he is.
No, I'm just kidding. Well, I have a different
reason why I'm doing that. You'll understand
eventually. It's not something to do with the
one around you. But there's a hand on the Kenku
who's like sort of the one named Crimson is sort
of staying behind. You see this one just kind
of like looks like it's almost shaking. Eyes
kind of like a little bulgy, a little twitchy,
almost like they're twins, but they couldn't
be more opposite. One looks to be, again, like
Crispin, very pragmatic, wants to just talk,
wants to take things in a slower, more methodical
direction. The other one... Just wants to leap
in and do violence. And this is the one that's
holding the Kenku as his brother speaks. Yes,
it may sound crazy, but I am quite sure in my
suspicion. Looks to you. Looks deep into your
eye. Speaker, surely brass of Anchor and Sengar.
That's the puppeteer that pulls our strings.
The Kenku. What? It can't be! Silence! kind of
firms the grip on him. I suspect, perhaps, this
is the same for you as well, Luminary. You do
take on missions for the Speakers, right? And
your timeliness here is quite suspect. Speaker
Shourei must have decided to cut our strings.
Whatever she wanted from us, we must have given
her. I'm sure she thought the Shrine Guard would
weaken us enough to give you an easy capture,
Luminary. Or would she prefer... Us to be killed.
Either way, she was wrong. We're warred from
our battles, and the magic here seems to be interfering
with our natural regeneration. But still, we're
not so weak as we could be. Were we actually
human? Shit. Hold on. Are they rolling bluff
checks right now, or deception? They want to
intimidate you out of a combat. It's kind of
like, if you were passive insight, honestly,
just give that up. They're basically like, we
don't want the trouble. We're just done. And
I think actually as a part of that, the Kenku
whips around looking surprised that revelation.
Even the Kenku didn't know this. And the other
one just kind of, brother, are we going to? That's
right. There is something our contact does not
know. A secret we've been keeping from everyone.
Likely the reason she underestimated us. But
I grow weary of tricks. Brother, let's reveal
ourselves at last. Really? Yes, finally. Yes,
brother. And you hear just like a, mixed with
a, as beneath their cloaks, these two bodies.
Expand, growing, growing to near 12 feet in height
and getting way to thick layers of muscle. Crimson's
tan skin shifts to a hue of deep red while Ajur's
becomes a light blue. Teeth snap into jagged
points. Eyes blinking into a dangerous yellow
light. Hands become claws that reach around to
the shafts of their now massive glaives. The
Kenku singer screams, No, it can't be. You're
Oni. Oh no. Oh no. Transparency is finished with.
Let us be plain and blunt. The three of us are
going to climb back into our apparatus and make
our way back to our ship out in the bay. You
can do whatever the hell you like here so long
as it does not involve following us or getting
in our way. Either this Or we kill you. Yes,
kill you. Our no -kill agreement with our contact
seems to be at its end now. The choice is yours.
Oh, actually, real quick, before you make a decision,
let me just, to make this as scary as possible,
let me change the tokens in the map. That's why
I moved those guys right in. Token layer, look
at these fucking awesome things. Steven, I know
what you're doing. Yeah, you realize this is
a hard, like, I mean, let me ask you guys now.
What puzzle pieces have come together? Do you
understand why you're here now? Well, I mean,
we don't know how long Sholay has been feeding
them information or if this was a one -time thing.
Like if Sholay just got in touch with these guys
and said, yeah, go here and steal this. I don't
know why Sholay would want these guys dead. Give
me a... I think... He said it, though. Like,
she used them for something, and now she no longer
needs them. And they know enough. They were brought
here, specifically. Oh, maybe just because they
figured out it was Sholay. But why were they
brought here, is the question. If Sholay wanted
them terminated, why here? You're thinking about
this. Oh, sure, yeah. Does Sholay know that this
world is going down? I think you... have a pretty
high insight, and you know a lot about Sholi
at this point. You've worked with her a fair
bit. You share a mentality with her. And it kind
of starts to lock into place. Sholi was very
clear about wanting you to investigate the Shrine
of Storms. She wanted to know as much as she
could, but the Shrine of Storms is sacred ground,
wholly off -limits to anyone that's not, like,
fully allowed to be here. How do you look into
a place like this, when you're someone as important
as Sholi, without drawing suspicion? You stage.
Oh, okay. It was just a way in. That requires
luminaries to come in. Yeah, so if we just happen
to be there and there's a robbery going on, it's
like, okay, now we have like, quote unquote,
probable cause or whatever to go in. This whole
thing, you realize she has been feeding them
information in order to give them the ability,
the notoriety and the strength to come in here.
Sure. But she didn't realize that they were much
stronger than they seemed. So to collect information,
we don't need to kill them. But if we don't kill
them, then they will escape knowing or at least
thinking that Sholay was behind it. She very
much wanted them dead because she was worried
about that. Yeah, we can't not kill them. And
this is a hard thing. They haven't killed anybody.
Holy shit. But they know too much. And they might
kill you. So this is where we already had that
last choice. That moral quandary for you, Crispin,
and for you. I'm glad this one's yours because
Crispin's underwater as an octopus. You can let
them go. And then you see more success here.
But what consequences? That being said, all that
being said, Stephen, I think I know what you're
thinking. I'm just in a good position. I know.
In case shit goes down. I know. So Dresden will
look over the water. The gaze, the camera zooms
from one side of the pool over the octopus to
Azure, the blue Oni. Steven, you ready? Oh, fuck.
Oh, my God. No, I'm just, we just got to get
it started. Hey, let's fucking fight. And Dresden
puts up both hands and gives two fingers. One
to each of them. One to each of them. Oh, shit.
The last one alone in the back. Screeches out.
We roll on for initiative? Is that what it is?
Roll for initiative? Yeah. Quick draw? I think
so. Fucking roll for initiative! Ooh, baby. Dresden
is a 20. 16 for Accio. Oh my god. What? 7 for
Crispin. Man, I really didn't want that. I had
the first combat open still. I wanted higher.
Keep in mind, so it's 20 and 7, you said? Uh,
7. Yeah, what did I say first for Akio? 16? I
think so? Sorry, I had to open the other combat.
I was like, oh wait, I'm still on the first combat.
I'll roll them separately here, because there's
only two enemies. Okay, so we know that this
Kenku isn't gonna join the fray? Oh right, actually,
I forgot that Kenku can do the cool thing. What's
the cool thing, David? I mean, I'm guessing get
back in there. What's the cool thing? That's
what I wanted to keep him from doing. That'd
be a pretty bad thing if that happened. And I
had even thought about saying, like, I wanted
to, like, ready, which I know isn't a thing in
5e, but if the Kenku, like, started to move towards
the apparatus, I wanted to try to attack him.
Too late now. A quick draw. That moment, that
flash, two middle fingers, a roar from the other
side, a scream. Everyone goes for their weapons.
The first to draw is Dresden Kellig. Ooh, boom.
We're really far away. Yeah, you're on the other
side of this pool. All that I'm going to be able
to do is really move. Yeah, but I mean, like,
we have a choke point. Yes, well, here's what
I'm thinking. I'm going to command my echo. I
can't move my echo. Oh, I'm going to be controlling
him. Give us control, David. Give us control.
My character. It's all yours. I'm assuming that's
all within range. I need control of... You can
go even further. I need control of Dresden. What?
How's that possible? How's that possible? Oh
my gosh, you don't. Hey, God. It's my character
now. So actually, what's going to happen is I
guess I don't need to move. Okay, I'm going to
move my Echo kind of as far as he can go, which
is right there. Oh, yes. Yeah, it's far from
you. Cool. And then the real Dresden is going
to teleport into the Echo's position. Oh, shit.
That's so smart. Oh, that's so cool. Wait, but
now you're away from Accio. Huh? Now you're away
from Accio. I'm pretty sure they switched places.
So my Echo's still there next to Accio. Yeah,
it swaps places. I love this image. So my Echo's
next to Accio. Echo flashes. Dresden takes the
spot. Moving. I'm so confused. Because if you
get in trouble, there's no way that Accio can
go help you. Because there's the water. I'm just
standing right there. I'm not doing anything
after that. Okay. You said choke point, and I
put a man on the choke point. Oh, I was talking
about that 10 -foot gap there between the water
and the wall. Oh. I mean, they have a ship, though,
so wouldn't they go out through the water? I
mean, is this ship big enough that these 12 foot
tall things can get in there? You realize, look
at this. I actually changed this. I should say
a little bit. The apparatus normally can only
hold two people. I actually made this one. It's
usually a 10 foot. It's 15 foot in this case
because it actually holds three medium or small
creatures. You see they can shape change. In
their current shapes, they couldn't fit in there.
If they were smaller, they could probably squeeze
in. So in this current form, it's like they look
like they've committed to do or die. They'll
kill you and then they'll leave. Yikes. But that
Kenku getting back in there could be nasty. Another
combatant on the field. This one in an armored
suit. I mean, I think that's it then. I think
I'm okay with that. Hell yeah. I think. In a
flash, Dresden appears. Weapon in hand. The Marfil
pigman war pick. You are moving. And that would
be me. Oops, hang on. They're, I just realized
they're backwards. I got Aja in the back, Crimson
in the front. And that's going to be Aja. Now,
I'll tell you, these are not fully powered Oni
stat blocks. They've been through some fierce
fights. The guards are not pushovers. I've used
some very powerful spells. I've used some other
things to take these guards out. And I've lost
some HP, both from them and from the Zappies,
which I calculated before this. Okay. So. Good
to know. This isn't a set sure loss, but still.
Still. Still pretty yucky. It's going to get
gross. So let's start. What the fuck? I just
saw they could fly? That's crazy. Why can they
fly? Oh, shit. That's awesome. What? I just saw
that. I'm like, oh, they can fly. Come on. Wow.
I didn't even know that. Yeah, shit. They can...
We're so going to die. Yeah, now we're going
to die. Yeah. Man. Oh, let's see here. If I can
do that, then maybe I can take all my movement,
but I can fly into the water, sailing across
almost like... You see this thing moving? It's
almost like footsteps. This massive creature
running on the water runs right up beside you,
Dresden. You're going to regret that, Luminary!
I'm going to make some attacks. I'm going to
attack you with my glaive. Oops, sorry. I got
a roll on the... David! I know! I was doing so
good! Hey, we get a button, right? No, you don't.
It's the first attack. It's an 11. Fucking hell.
What? Two misses. Nice. That's great. Yeah, that's
great. Oh, yeah. That's 11 and a 13. So, yeah,
two. I mean, I don't have a slow. There's a bad
roll. Oh, fuck, yeah. These two slides in, but
you just weave out of the way. Ting, ping. Blade,
like war pick meets this fucking glaive blade.
This thing is just like trying to overpower you
at the water's edge. But that's. Wow, that's
it. Okay. That's Akio. Okay. Akio has pretty
good movement, right? 40 feet. So Akio will move
up to the corner here. And I'd like Akio to toss
one of his thunderballs. Ooh, shit. Okay. Yeah,
and I would like it to hit not Dresden. Hold
on. Is there something else I can do? Maybe I
can wait for them to group up. Yeah, I think
it might be good to wait for them to group up,
but I don't want to just move this round. I want
to try to get some damage out there. So, sure.
Okay. I'm going to try to... Where do you want
to throw it? Because if you throw it outside
of Dresden Ridge, you could also potentially
knock this thing back, correct? Do you want to
throw it, like, sort of north? of Dresden, so
it would knock this guy away from Dresden, sort
of towards the water, but like slowly down towards
the Echo and towards Akino. If I can get that
angle on it. Yeah. Okay, so he's just going to
throw it over Dresden's head. Sure. All right.
I think with something like this, as long as,
I think it's 30 feet range, you could get over
Dresden's head. 60 foot range, actually. Yeah,
you're fine. Damn. Akino's a good boy. You can
throw a ball. He's just going to lob it up and
over. Yeah, so try to knock him out of Dresden's
range to give Dresden the AOO. I wouldn't do
the AOO because it's force movement, but it's
still just like a... If it knocks them prone,
though, they would fall. Oh, into the water.
They would sink into the water, which could be
interesting. Okay, yeah. Let's go for it, then.
Okay. That's a save for me. So he would just
kind of, hold on. This time, I'll save you. You
know, reaches back, grabs one of these thunderballs,
and he yanks it out with his mouth. It goes flying
out, lands kind of in the spot, like sort of
just goes over your head. You're sort of locked.
Your blades are locked with the oni. Hits the
ground. Tink, tink, tink. A sound wave blasts
out from this thing just out of your range. But
actually, in this case, it would actually land
in the water right beside it when this happens.
It would bounce off the thing, land in the water,
blast this Oni. You see Dresden just bend down
a little bit like an action star just bracing
himself in the explosion. Hell yeah. But I'm
looking at it. You guys don't look at him. Do
you know what the DC is for the save? Because
it's not on. Because this is just a paper. Oh.
My goodness, you're right. I never actually put
the DC to that. Yeah, it says it's a con save
for the Thunderwave spell. I'll just attribute
it now. But we're going to say it's a DC 14.
14 seems like it's a powerful item. 14 seems
good. So it's con? Yep, it says con save. Okay,
no, that does pass. Sorry. Trying to make sure.
My con is higher than, yeah, I have proficiency.
So con actually does pass with a 15. Okay, so
half as much damage. I think at second level,
I believe it's 3d8. Yeah, okay. It's a good opener.
16 total, so 8 damage. 8 damage. Solid. Just
kind of also sort of brace itself. It's like
foot splashes into the water and it's like trying
to keep itself sort of levitating. Kind of creates
a wave as the foot pushes down in, but it stops
it from sliding. Looks towards Akia with a snarl.
Damned beast! Leave the shrine at once! Hell
yeah. That's Akio's turn? That's it for Akio.
Okay. The second Oni. I mean, I guess I just
need to start moving that way, don't I? I know
what I'll do. I won't attack this turn. I'll
just spend my entire turn moving. Because I can't
get in range anyway. But he's going to fly over
the water and come up right next to Akio. What
did you call us? You pup! And that is my entire
turn, actually. I can't do anything else. I just
want to get over there. Okay. With that, Crispin
Dubois. What does Crispin think this Kenku's
intentions are? Can you read his body language
or anything? Give me insight. Actually, your
passive insight's really high. It's going to
break towards the apparatus. Okay. Crispin's
going to move five feet closer. Hmm. Do I pop
this now, too? Sure. Let's pop this now. Let
me give you one thing, actually. This might change
what you do. It's going to move towards the apparatus.
You have a really high insight. At least high
enough that I think you'd catch this. It's scared
of the Oni. It might not fight. It might take
the apparatus and leave. I mean, I really want
to take you at surface level for saying that.
You also were told to kill everyone. You can't
say this thing is going to be, this Kenku is
going to, you know, they didn't actually threaten
Sholay. I was going to say, did she say that?
Did she say kill everyone or the two pirates?
She said kill all the pirates. All the pirates.
All the pirates. Okay. Oh, man. Okay. If we're
going to, if we're going to, you know what? Yeah.
If we're going to kill these pirates, then let's
kill all the pirates, I guess. I don't know.
So the way I'm seeing it is that I don't think
Crispin can really, uh, allow the chance for
this thing to get back into the apparatus. If
he, if Crispin sees it moving towards Crispin's
going to, uh, have you ever seen a buff octopus?
Oh my God. Yes. Oh, that's so cool. Raging octopus.
Full buff Squidward. Yeah, exactly. And. Oh shit.
That's so amazing. muscular, like, bulging tentacles.
So stupid. Damn. That's a 24 to hit this guy.
Yeah, yeah, that's easy. The tentacle just slaps
out. What's it look like? This is your first
time acting. No one knows you're there. This
Kenku just turning away from the water towards
the apparatus. What do you do? The water, like,
sort of, like, starts to roil and bubble. And
maybe the Kenku, like, looks down at the water
real fast. And before he can even react, this
tentacle just shoots out and grabs him around
the chest. Oh, yeah, because he's now grappled.
Oh, no. No, no. What is? No, please. 14 damage.
This is crushing. Bludgeoning. Bludgeoning. You
just got to hear this the last word. We did our.
Please, don't! Unconscious and dying. Huh, okay.
Well, then we've got two or three rounds to see
what happens, I guess. I don't know. Do you just
drop the body? Yeah, Chris is going to set it
down and the tentacles... Broken on the side,
tentacle retreat. Do you want to move? Yeah.
He's got 60 feet of swim, so he's going to move
into... He's still under the surface of the water,
but I don't know if that's going to count as
flanking with Dresden or not. Yeah, it will.
Okay. Yeah. Then that's that. See, the last thing
we see is the tentacle reaches out. This king
goes to move, and this buff tentacle breaks this
body, cracking bones. The body sort of just drops
silently down. No more voices ringing out from
that throat. No breath. Soon to be, the tentacle
retreats in the water. Tristan, you blast across
this water, and as we see you moving towards
the fray, towards your allies, locked in battle
with these vicious Oni, we, like, stare down
at the surface of this water, where we see a
reflection of the sky as tendrils of black clouds
begin to swirl in together, forming the vague
shape of a cyclone. And we'll call it there.