For centuries, the world of Astralin has known
peace. A fragile peace, built on alliances and
the stillness of anticipation. Cities prospered,
and the world grew silently. But in that calm,
things changed. To the north, Savroch stands
ever vigilant, its guardians holding the world's
peace in their hands. A delicate balance of strength,
resolve, and secrets. To the east... Zedinel
creates wonders, bending the laws of nature,
pulling us into a future we cannot yet understand.
To the south, Catresis remains neutral, a shining
example of wealth and belief, one that has chosen
to remain untouched by the chaos of the world.
And then, there is Dremoda, the youngest of the
cities, the home to the very best and brightest.
It is here that you have trained, studied, bled,
And now, you stand at the edge of your final
test. Your mission should have been simple. Cross
the Cedar Levering, disable the tower, and end
the threat before it spreads. But there is no
such thing as simplicity anymore. The heavens
fall, the sky itself trembles, and the world
you thought you knew is shifting, faster than
anyone could have predicted. This calm is never
destined to last. You are about to discover the
cost of peace. Welcome to Astralen. We open on
a familiar vista. The preserve of the ancestors,
miles of pristine land, an amalgamation of all
the world's beauty combined and contained within
the auroral diamond. We take it all in from the
diamond -protected sky, desert dunes shifting
into rolling hills, into forested mountains,
into jagged peaks, a western coast of tropical
sands, an eastern coast of frigid tundra. A miracle
of the Sunweaver's making. And as we look down
upon this place, a title card appears. The Aurora
Diamond. 216 years ago. We pass over the central
crystal amphitheater, looking down upon a few
homes that nestle just beside it, a quaint and
beautiful village belonging to the early Speakers
for the Ancestors, many of whom were the surviving
champions of the quest to find this incredible
place, the quest to save the worlds. Now they
live a peaceful life in the preserve when they
are not working in tandem to coordinate assistance
between their connected worlds. We look upon
this village and we see that it is a far cry
from the loud, boisterous auroral town that will
consume this place in time. And we move over
all this to the north where the land begins to
slope upwards giving way to mountains. And at
the foot of the first and smallest of these mountains
lies the tallest of the hills. At the peak of
this hill, two figures. We see Sholay brass in
her human guise, though looking older than before,
having allowed her form to age, it seems, to
match that of her husband. And we see old Zebulon
brass as well, the human variety, of course.
A thick white beard covering his brick of a lower
jaw, his smiling face overtaken by wrinkles.
That twinkle in his eye remains, though, as he
takes in the form of his waiting wife. We see
him breathing hard as he moves to reach her side
of the hilltop. You know, that's just not fair.
Technically, your steps are a lot bigger than
mine. And Shirley kind of smiles. I offered to
fly you up, but it seems... But as she smiles,
it seems to falter and sink as she takes in Zebulon's
labored breath. Just... I needed the adventure,
though these days it feels like going to the
bathroom is its own adventure. He takes a few
more wheezing breaths and begins to lower himself
to sit upon the grass. And finally, Zebulon turns
and looks out over the preserve, his eyes swimming
as he takes it all in. Wow, it really is beautiful.
Every sight we saw on our journey together all
packed in one place. Adventurer's perfect playground.
And Jolay kind of comes and sits down beside
him, letting out a long sigh, a breath laden
with both contentment and a deep exhaustion.
It's practically our backyard. It's easy to miss
it all once you start carrying the problems of
25 separate worlds. Eh, politics. I don't know
how you stomach it. And now Wrath is getting
involved, eh? Dinner with LaRose Royals. He's
your son, all right. I think he's far more interested
in popularity than politics. He's a show -off,
just like his father. A pointed stare and Zebulon
just laughs. Yeah, you know, the boy's gonna
get lonely, show. It's gonna be an uphill battle.
Finding a partner when he can't just pop into
the shape of a beautiful lady like his mother
can. He winks. Once you think he's ready to settle
on down, you should introduce him to another
half -dragon. There's bound to be a few around
the world. I already have one in mind. One from
Anker and Sengar. You really have it all planned
out. Good. Good. Keep taking care of him, Sho.
He needs you. And you need him. He'll live a
good 500 years or so, right? He'll probably even
outlive you. You'll never be alone. As long as
you have him. So take care of each other and
then catch on up to me once your time here is
done. We'll go on one last adventure between
worlds. All of us. As a family. He stares out
towards the fake sky and Shirley kind of reaches
a hand towards him. Zeb. Can you imagine it,
Cho? A couple hundred years from now, we'll probably
have grandchildren. Maybe great -grandchildren,
depending on how much you dragons like to take
your time. It's a shame I'll miss it. Little
quarter -dragon Zebulons just running around
this big diamond. Damn shame to miss that. And
Cho just leans back. That's if he can manage
to keep a partner. You've seen how he acts out.
Wrath has a lot of growing up to do yet. You
need to cut him some slack. The boy has it rough,
living in the shadow of the greatest adventurer
and hero the worlds have ever known. Shirley
just rolls her eyes. And I see you've still learned
no humility in your old age. No, I have not.
And Zeb fixes Shirley with a smile and another
cheeky wink. But in this case... I wasn't talking
about me. Welcome back to Fantasy Pants. Damn,
heartstrings, man. I got some. That might be
the last one. That might be the last of our flashbacks.
I think this is a good time to drop it. I don't
know. It felt like it because I didn't have an
orange in my mind. So, you know. That was awesome.
Gave me goosebumps. Yeah, well, I'm glad to hear
it. I'm glad. to hear it. But now that we had
that out of the way, it's time for some housekeeping.
Oh, God. The fun's gone. It's over. We have some
housekeeping in here because we have been dawdling
on this. Yeah, we really have. We really have.
Like every week, I'll be like, hey, David, we've
been meaning to talk about this. Yeah, there's
so many things I want to talk about. And I'm
like, you know what? Let's do it tonight in the
middle of a chase because that seems like the
right time to just stop everything to a screeching
halt. Let's talk about the live show. First,
let's talk about magic items from the live show.
Now, obviously, you got five push bolts is what
I call them. They are the knockback -laden bolts.
You get five of them. They're magical. When you
hit somebody, I believe it views the attack with
a 15 -foot knockback automatically, which is
pretty awesome. That's great. Now, one amongst
your party has a crossbow. I'm assuming these
are going to that character. Jules? The old invisible
Chester, little scamp himself. Mr. Meeps. He's
going to be really powerful with those. Yeah.
And I mean, you just want to make him stronger,
give him more dangerous weapons. Yeah, exactly.
It's such a good idea. So I assume he has got
those in his quiver kind of holding out. Because
I mean, this all happened, remember in Canada,
this happened days ago. So you already have this
stuff. So yeah, they're just in his quiver, boom,
sitting down. 15 feet of knockback. That is correct.
So I wrote it down. We also have one potion of
mana. And right now, you guys have essentially
very few spell slots between the two of you.
This restores a number of spell slots with a
combined spell level equal to or less than 1d4
minus one. Minimum of one. This is a Andrew Cooley
Forge original here. But I think this makes a
lot of sense. It also says... Warning, testing
has shown that some sorcerers may experience
a wild magic surge upon passing the potion. Passing.
Oh, that's funny. I just realized, oh, dear,
that's a surge, all right. I see you, Andrew.
What if you're not a sorcerer? You guys are okay.
You can feel free to shit these, piss these out,
whatever you want to do. God. You won't explode.
Who wants the potion of mana? Who wants to get
spell slots backpacked, potentially? Blanche.
Okay, I can take him. Yeah. I'm down to two slots
left. I got one third and one first level slot.
That's rough. I've got three left. I've got one
one, a third, and a fourth. Yeah, nice. At least
you're in the final boss fight now, right? Got
something. No. No. No, you're really not. Hey,
David, want to give us a long rest? No. You earn
it. Figure it out. Get away from this very angry
angel first. We also have boots of false tracks.
These magical boots can be activated to mimic
the tracks of other creatures. So basically you
put these on and you wander around and you could
like just make them take the shape of a bear
paw or, you know, duck feet or something silly.
How long ago was Mountain Mania? Because I don't
remember some of this stuff. No, no. You were
also drunk. You went off of the intermission
and drank for 20 minutes. No, I didn't. Came
back sloshed. Knocked over the whole set. You
remember that part? Now I remember you knocking
stuff over. Hang on. Shut up. He broke Jean Franklin.
He broke Jean Franklin. Who wants these boots?
Anybody want these boots? They're cool boots.
That seems like a cool Akio thing to have. No?
That's kind of a cool idea. Are they dog boots?
No! Damn it! Akio can't work with this because...
Despite, you know, maybe they can magically resize
things like that. But then again, it would be
weird because he has four paws. Right. So there's
not four boots. You need two pairs just to pull
off of the Keo. Okay. Well, I got the mana potion.
So why don't we give him the jewels for now?
It's a fun little weird thing. Yeah. Got some
cool looking boots. If you want to lead different
tracks that aren't your tracks, boom. Cool. You
want to use invisibility and create tracks to
lead people in one direction. There's cool utility.
You know, they're kind of fun. There's, of course,
also the... prehistoric figurine of power the
jasper tyrannosaurus rex but you don't have that
yet crazy you don't have that yet because john
has it so uh we'll get to that eventually that
is the crazy that's the big one that's the big
draw from the live show so i have no idea how
hard it's going to break this entire story when
you get a hold of that i feel like right i feel
like hear me out ater What does that mean? What
does that mean? Explain yourself. You should
have it. No. The Jasper Tyrannosaurus Rex? Yeah.
I forbid it. The ugly Tyrannosaurus. It's a new
chain coming your way. Live show. Another thing
to address, Stephen. You mentioned that someone
from the live show, a friend of the show, Jules,
who has actually been on the show, who once gave
you a button, I believe. Gave you another button
or wanted to during the show, but didn't realize
how the button system worked. And so that button
being held in reserve, you believe should go
to you now. And very selflessly and with no interest
of my own, I do agree that you should have that
button. I think that live show buttons should
carry over to the main show because people gave
them to you. You and other people potentially
with so much love in their heart for what that
button could represent. I see what you're doing.
The potential. I have kind of a fun idea. Hmm.
What? How about I text Jules and we let her decide?
I can keep her button, but that means that David
gets his button too. No, I want my button. I
want it. What? I want to use it. What? No, you
don't want to let Jules decide? You can let Jules
decide. I'll send her a text. I think Jules will
decide. And we'll see what happens. With the
light. An eye in the light. And I want my button
because I also received a button I forgot to
use because everything went insane and I was
trying to wrap things up very quickly. So I want
that button. I want the wishes and hopes that
that button represented to be fulfilled within
our show. Yeah, I think the two... Think of the
children. Yeah, the two buttons that I got should
be reincarnated. Think of the orphans. What?
The two buttons that I got should be reincarnated.
You used those. Exactly. They should be reincarnated.
I got some notes for you, Jules. Let's talk attunement
real quick while Steven's playing on his phone
like a real good guy would. Attunement is a very
complicated thing. It's something that I've always
kind of been high and dry, whatever, playing
around with. I've never really gotten a settled
opinion on it. I don't love it a lot of times,
but I understand why it's very useful when someone
gives out lots of powerful magic items. As you've
seen, I don't do that. I usually rely on Andrew
and Zila to do that for me now. Because they're
better at it. Jules, I realized after our last
session that your loot that has been upgraded
to a Rhythm Maker's drum would technically require
attunement. Now, I waived the Sturge Swords,
which normally would as well, based on what it
is, because it's not good enough to require attunement.
I don't care. A sword that has no modifier that
can just do extra damage on a crit, I don't care.
You also have an Amulet of Lesser Vitality, a
Cloak of Protection, and a Ring of Mind Shielding.
Two of these are essentially necessary for you
because, let's face the facts, you rolled a really
bad character. You're like a soft Zebulon. I
mean, the dice were not in your favor that day.
They were not. They're never in my favor. Your
con being so low means you really kind of need
that amulet of health is what it is. I think
lesser amulet of health. I don't remember. Amulet
of minor health. Boom. Got it. You kind of need
that. And I don't want to be like, hey. What
does that do? It just boosts your con to 12,
I believe. Or it was 14, where typically you
were thinking of a negative con. It was pretty
rough. But you had really low rolls. Oh, the
save. No, your whole, your con stat, your HP,
a lot of HP you have is because of an amulet
you're wearing. If you unattune from that, you
will lose a butt ton of HP. Um, so yeah, a lot
of the items you have are very vital for you
to just like stay alive. And I planned these
items and gave them to you with the intention
that like, like that amulet was essentially made
for Jules sake. Cause I knew that you kind of
needed it to scale into the game as you went
further on. It's Not a great item, and yet it's
burning up one of those attunement slots. Which
one? The Amulet of Lesser Vitality. It's really
important for you, but on somebody else, no one
would need that because it only gives you 14.
Amulet of Minor Health? Damn, that's the one.
Okay. I forgot what I named it. Like three times
you forgot. It's homebrewed. I haven't looked
at it in two years. I was like, what the fuck
are you talking about? Where this is bringing
me is I think I'm going to waive the attunement
on the rhythm maker's drum. It is your loot.
It feels weird to make you have to connect and
attune to that. It essentially gives you a plus
one on your attacks and spell attacks and saves.
And most plus one weapons do not require attunement.
So it feels weird to force you to, you know,
attune to something that you just realistically
should have. Given that and the late ruling on
this, your, uh, my. 15 save on blindness last
round should have stuck because your spell save
should have been 16 at that point. I cannot undo
that, but I can offer you a button in compensation.
All right, I'll take it. Yeah, it's fair trade.
All right, moving on. Yeah, a little bit of homework.
That's a two -minute. We'll kind of address this
again as we go forward. You guys just stop and
talk the grit and the mechanics, but a tomb is
something that I struggle with a little bit.
It's a hard thing because balance, sometimes
it throws balance off one way, sometimes it throws
it off in the other. It exists to make some people
think it's too powerful, but in the way we're
running it and with your characters, it's really
limiting you, Jules, and how you can become.
So I want to change it up. I think it's a fair
ruling. Yeah. Your sins are attuned, atoned.
Attuned, atoned. Oh, dear. All right. We have
any button updates over there, Stephen? No, but
I will keep you updated if or when I hear. The
second I get a button in my hands, you let me
know. Okay. You hand it to me. If it happens
during this episode, I don't hear about it, I'm
taking three buttons in compensation for my pain
and suffering. I'll get my button, too, so I've
got something to gain here. All right, cool.
Because I want buttons. I'm hungry for them.
I don't get to play with them very much. Yeah,
they're really dangerous in your hands. They
are so deadly. It's like you have all the like
behind the scenes knowledge and you know exactly
when to use them. Speaking of things that are
so deadly in my hands, let's talk about Hyronix.
Yeah. Big, beefy boy, pale skin, bald, angel,
mason hand, glowing with light. chasing you down
the halls of the Seat of Dragons. Before we get
back to this chase, let's reset the scene. I've
opened up a new page here. It is a very familiar
page. It is a chase page. It is simply a white
page. We have distances and increments of 10.
That will be your distance from Hieronyx. Blanche.
How far did you move? You disengaged, I believe,
and then ran? Yes, but with the expeditious retreat,
she gets to take a dash action. So with Bladesong,
her movement is 40 feet, so that's 80 feet. 80
feet, okay. Oh, look at that. The map only goes
to 100, so I guess we're almost done, right?
He does immediately chase after you. And we'll
call it there. But I'm going to allow you to
keep your 80. I will add one addendum to the
rules, though, as we go forward, because we're
hitting a point now where distances, basically
our values, our modifiers vary so much that I'm
going to say if there's a difference of 10, I
will collapse 30 feet on a crit either way. uh
well a 40 feet difference we'll get into this
as we go basically when we start moving we're
going to be rolling athletics checks that are
modified based on our movement speed as well
so you get a bonus to your athletics check if
you're running based on your actual movement
speed you have active on that turn now i'm going
to roll and set a dc you need to hit that dc
if you are under it by five or less then you
will go 10 feet towards Tyronix. He gets 10 feet
closer to you. If you're under it by 5 to 10,
20 feet. Over 10, he's going to come 30 feet
closer to you. And the same goes the other way
around. If you beat my DC by 5 or less, you're
going to gain 10 feet. Blah, blah, blah. Got
it? Yeah, the bummer is that I don't have a huge
athletics. And I have an absolutely ridiculous
modifier. So I'll keep you. I'll leave you have
your 80 feet. because you are going to need it.
Now, this is a strange chase, because on the
first round, Blanche will not be there. Or, sorry,
Blanche will be the only one there. Jules, Chester,
and Akio are on the, you can see on the top,
I have a number of rounds, up to five, and Chester,
Jules, and Akio are sitting at, for Akio. Round
two, Jules Nestor. Round three, as long as you
keep moving, you will stay one round above the
current, like where Hyronix is, and you will
not fall onto the actual chart itself, which
means I cannot reach you to attack you. You want
to keep moving. So let's get back into this,
because every round we're going to be acting,
not just with Blanche, with you two, Jules, because
you're not out of the water either. Because as
you turn a corner, you see a number of guards
who sort of lower their spears towards you. You
see, let's just say there's about four of them
kind of spread out throughout the hall. You begin
to call out, Hieronica's gone mad. Hieronica's
attacking us. And they don't act. They don't
move. They stare you down. As Jules is coming
up to them, he's not stopping. He's just saying,
run, run, run, run, run. And they say, by order
of Queen Jean Mee of Yanito. You are under arrest.
There'll be time to talk about that later. We're
all going to die if we stay here. Do you want
to try to convince them? Yes. I will let you
make a persuasion check on them. Yeah, that'll
be your action here as you're moving. Make a
persuasion check. Okay. There'll be a slight
difficulty basically here. Getting all of them
will be tough. Getting some of them might not
be as tough. Okay. Okay. Button. Whoa. Okay.
I like it. This is a very high DC. You're asking
them to act out against their orders. Yeah. Okay.
First roll was a natural one. Oh, my God. Second
roll was a 15 plus 10 for 25. Wow. With a 25.
Yeah. Meant to do us four guards. Mm -hmm. Two
of them look to each other and kind of like lower
their weapons. What are you doing? What are you
doing? No, we have orders! As you're running
towards them, they brace themselves to try to
attack, to grab, to do something, to interfere
as you move by. Okay, say what you're going to
say. No, I don't know what you're going to say.
I want you, as Chester, to start crying and say,
don't let me die, don't let me die. Is this a
setup? Yeah. You run the game? Yeah. What do
you say? Do you say something to, like, clue
them in on the game you want to run here? No,
he just taps them. They know. Well, it's probably
a trick that they've pulled before on the streets
of Cerule. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah,
it's one of those little. They have, like, a.
Yeah. Oh, only tomato. Yeah. Only tomato. I got
it. I got it. Yeah. You just have here. He's
still invisible. Yeah. Okay. Makes himself visible.
Okay, he's dropping it? Yeah, he's dropping it.
What are you doing? Hold, hold. And then you
see he peers. I'm going to die. I'm going to
die. I want to die. Come on, come on. Help, help,
please. He's just running. And you see he looks
every bit as frantic as he's acting like he is.
There are, he looks terrified. With his dirty,
bloody hands. His dirty, bloody hands. Maybe
Akio is doing a sad dog cry. He's like down the
hall. He's one round behind you. But you see
him waving. Calls down the hall. Catching on
to what's going on up there. So is that like
a Keogh? Is that like Chester making a persuasion
check with a Keogh's aid or something? I'll allow
it. You know what? Yeah. If you want to do a
second check with Chester's stats, persuasion.
Okay. So purely his charisma. I was going to
say, yeah, it's just his charisma. He's no Jules.
It's going to need to be pretty high. You're
going to need a good roll for this. Well, it's
funny because his charisma is plus zero. Advantage
from Akio, though. Advantage from Akio. Advantage,
yeah. This needs to be a very, very high roll,
though. Crying Dog, that really, you know. Again,
the first roll was a natural one. Holy moly.
Second roll was a fucking crit in the pants.
What? Are you kidding me? You're the 120 split.
Crit in the fucking pants. No way. Is that the
sound you make when you crit? Ugh! Ugh! Double
up! Ugh! Ugh! Are you okay in there, Jeremy?
Ugh! As Chester, this kid, blubbering, crying,
when he appears from his ability, the whole situation
just takes him fully aback, the dog howling,
the two guards that already lowered their spears
kind of look to the other ones, this sort of
glances that just show scorn towards your allies
who still yet hold their spears up, and the other
two just sort of drop their weapons, lower them
to the tips, touch the floor, and you all...
start moving past this group of very disturbed,
very surprised guards. Wow. Fighters. Yeah, and
as we move past them, Jules is still going to
keep it up and say, hey, guys, run. They kind
of look to each other, and they start running.
Good. The way is clear for Blanche now. The way
is clear for Blanche. That's really good, because
on this first round, had you not taken care of
them, I would have been making attacks of opportunity
against you, including potentially grapples.
But you... And Akio and Chester will automatically
begin to move on. And with that, let's slide
back down the hall. All right, Blanche. Let's
make our first checks. I will roll and say here,
DC, you are moving, blazing the hall. But as
you turn around, you hear a rush of wind and
you see Hyronix is blasting towards you at incredible
speed. I have... a plus 26 that's gross holy
shit okay so i literally there's nothing like
even if i roll a natural 20 i have a plus three
to um plus your movement speed modifier if you're
in blade song it's an automatic plus uh okay
four plus two for every five feet okay and if
you find ways to increase that more every five
feet you gain above 30 will give you another
plus two Okay. On top of your athletics check.
All right. So I'm just going to tell you what
I'm doing. All right. So is this like the start
of my turn? Yes. We're basically, instead of
running straight turns, we're just running like,
I'll say to DC, I cannot do anything to you until
I get within range of you, essentially. Okay.
Blanche wants to mount the broom of flying. Okay.
All right. Yeah. So that instead of a 40 -foot
movement speed, she now has a 50 -foot fly speed.
I can't double move because I used that action
to mount it. That's object interaction. I think
it's fine. Oh, okay. Double moving is kind of
implied in this system. If you use an action,
an actual action, you will have disadvantage
on your roll. Same with me. Okay. Because we're
assuming this is your full running, full dash
actioning. It's basically any kind of combat.
You can do any sort of combat maneuver. But bonus
actions are free. Everything else is going to
cost you some penalty to your actual roll. Okay.
That's how a chase would work. Then she'll also
use her bonus action for expeditious retreat.
So she gets another dash action. Nice. So that's
150 feet. That's a lot. Yeah. Okay. So it's plus
three for my athletics. plus four for blade song
and then what do i get for 150 feet of movement
100 so you 30 base plus holy crap holy crap math
and calculator real quick hang on this is wild
so 150 is your entire movement right now on this
turn well yeah if i use my action to move um
my regular movement speed and my Bonus action
from Expeditious Retreat gives me the dash action.
If my calculations are correct, this system is
wild. Because that gives you a plus... That can't
be right. A plus 48? Holy... Can't be right,
right? Pause. Wait, pause. Hang on. Math. Hang
on. Let me math some more. We're back. We're
back. So, plus 48. Hang on. So, hang on. Let
me just... Did I break your chase mechanics?
Hang on. 150 minus 30, so every 5 feet above
30, so we divide it by 5, which is 24, times
2, because that's 24 intervals of 5, right? Above
30 in that case, which would be 40, 40, 48. Plus
48, and also on top of that, your acrobatics
in the case of riding the broom. And I get advantage
on acrobatics checks because I'm playing a song.
Because 50 times 3, 150. Holy shit. Because you're
doing a whole bunch of... No, wait. I see where
I went wrong here. Give me a second. Hang on.
Is it divided by 2, not multiplied by 2? No,
it's... And we're back again. Housekeeping. I'm
back from the asylum after Steven drove me insane.
All this finger math is doing my head in. I've
only got 10. So this is what happens if you have
on -the -fly, kind of like home -brewed systems
that you're messing around with. I've learned
a thing. I'm going to update the system. Before,
when we did this thing, I believe, you couldn't,
rather than having a dash action, it didn't really
count. Even your bonus action dash didn't really
count towards your modifier. It's just your movement
speed at base. Zebulon, when he would use his
dash action as a rogue, would gain advantage
on the roll. Now, looking at the situation, I
don't think advantage is good enough. It doesn't
really help bridge that gap well enough. So here's
what I want to do. I'm going to say if you use
your dash action, you double your modifier based
on your movement speed. It seems a little confusing,
but basically in this case, when you're using
Expedition Retreat, that gives you a plus eight
because you have 50 speed normally. So you get
plus eight on top of your plus eight because
you're moving twice, right? So that would give
you a plus 16 for each roll, helping you really
bridge the gap with Hieronyx. Okay. Better than
Advantage by a lot, I would say. So that's just...
Okay, so plus 16. Plus acrobatics. Plus acrobatics.
Yeah. Plus, if we're using acrobatics, I get
advantage because I'm in Bladesong. That's crazy.
Yeah. Damn, that's cool. That's really cool.
Okay, yeah. You know what? Advantage plus 16
plus acrobatics. That's cool. Oh, my God. All
right, so we have it figured out. And I still
have Bardic. Can I use Bardic in chase? I am
sweating. Yes, you can. I'm pretty sure, yeah.
D20 roll? Hell yeah. You're blazing, so it's
like you're flying heedlessly down the halls,
chasing after your allies, just zooming out.
Time is a little bit relative. We have to assume
that they're moving pretty far ahead as you go.
They're all gathered together. You're just trying
to catch up to them now with Hyronix on your
tail. Yeah, it says it can be added to an ability
check attack roller. Whoa, okay. I'm definitely
using my Bardic, though. Because on 2d20, I got
a 4 and a 6. Oh no, and the bardic only gave
me a 2. So... I rolled very high. Oh no, I rolled
a 24. 24 actually does fail by more than 10.
Oh no. Which means I'm going to get... 30 feet
closer. You're moving, Blanch. You start off
80 feet ahead. You look back and now Hyronix
is sailing 50 feet behind you. You've moved on
to round two. I cannot strike you yet, but he's
getting close. His eyes just burning radiance.
Tears of light flowing behind him as he surges
down the hall. Let's roll again. It can't get
worse than a four out of six. It didn't get much
better. Oh, shit. Yeah, it's 25. Jesus Christ.
This is really not great. With a 25, you fail
by less than 10. So you only move 20 feet closer.
Okay. You're speeding up. You see him behind
you. Perhaps you hit the metal a little more.
You're going a little faster. You cruise around
a corner, but with your acrobatics, you do one
of those cool twisty twirls up, kick off the
wall, go flying, and Hyronix takes it a little
slower, smashes against the wall. He goes surging
after you again, still on your tail, but a little
bit slower. Round two, you're moving into round
three now. Moving into round three. Jules. Yeah.
You are searching in the halls, a group of guards
behind you. You are moving into the western wing
towards Sholay, which means you are passing by
the throne room. And before the throne room,
you see one more set of guards. Fuck. Oh, God.
Queen Jean -Mi. Oh, come on. And the queen? Yeah.
What? Yeah! What? Who just like stands firm,
no words spoken, but eyes full of scorn and a
hand outstretched towards you. Threat in her
gaze. Shaking her head. You are moving. There's
only two guards with her now. And there are other
four behind you, but look cowed, confused. They're
looking towards each other. This is all happening
so fast. What do you do? What the fuck is Jules
going to do? We stop, and Jules is going to look
at her. Whatever beef you got with me, we'll
handle this later. Hyronix is killing everyone
in this path. He killed Omin. I will gladly go
with you wherever you want me to go. But if we
want to be able to go anywhere... We gotta run
now. That the heat in her gaze breaks for a second.
She looks unsure. She looks unsure. Give me a
deception check. Uh, can Chester help me? Hell
yeah, he can. Still crying? I watched it all
happen. He tore him apart like it was nothing.
Covered in his blood. Look, look. He's trying
to kill me and I'm a kid. I'm a kid. Fuck. Oh,
no. I rolled a five and a four. Oh, no. So it's
15. Only a 15. Oh, no. Oh, hopefully that's enough
for some doubt at least. At least something.
Not even with the other guards with me running
as well. Here's what I'm going to say. She does
not make any orders for them to do anything because
I think this is kind of a middling roll. It is
sort of a middling result. She kind of looks
taken aback, confused. Don't, don't. Let me think.
I need to think. The guards kind of stand at
the ready. You got precious seconds. And with
that noted, let's do round three of the chase
because just down the hall. Oh, God. Are you
ready for this? No. Yes. Okay. There we go. Nice.
So that's 28. I mean, it's still, it's just a
12. I can't. Oh, no. It was a wild eye roll.
Real bad. Oh, thank God. Real bad. Nice. We tied.
Whoa. Yes. No gain? No gain at all. Okay, great.
You're still 30 feet. Zoomer. And as this happens,
like, you're surging, surging forward, trying,
trying. Hyrox runs into the wall, moving forward.
Just, like, trying so hard to keep up with you.
Those wings are starting to fail just a little
bit. You just whip around the corner. He's gained
no speed and you see just ahead the door to the
throne room. Queen, Jean, me, Jules, Chester,
all of them. I'm willing to put everyone at 100.
That isn't you. Okay. Akio behind them. Everyone's
now in. We're at round four. As Hyrod comes around
the corner. Hold on. Hold on. Yeah. As Jules
realizes that Blanche is coming around the corner.
I want to do an as too. No. Okay, cool. Jules
is going to yell. Make your decision now. Hyronix
is killing everyone. To make sure that Blanche
can hear what's happening. I think having held
you up one round with a 15, that was kind of
the sort of negative result of it. I think 15
is good enough. Combined with the Hyronix is
flying around the corner, smashing into walls,
maced fully out. And when Blanche clocks that
the queen is there, she shouts, save the queen!
Save your queen! That's really good. God, I can't
even do this. Take both of you. Five for both
of you. You see the queen looks terrified towards
you, Jules, and the guards, upon hearing that,
grab her. No, wait, wait, no. Throw her in the
throne room. Oh, I was going to scream, get the
shoelace. Oh, they're moving to the throne room
and slam the door. Their guards are all kind
of at it. They just move out. All four that are
around you gather up with her. That's gone. Fine,
yeah. The hall is cleared, and you know for a
fact that the wing that she'll is in is quite
abandoned. Sweet. Your path is clear, but now,
Hyronix is on you. God damn it. Two more rounds,
and you're in the chase now, too. Fuck. I believe
you have no modifier. It is Chester, which means
you're rolling just your athletics. Rude. You
got like a four round head start. Rude. Oh yeah.
You're a hundred feet ahead though. So I need
to get like, honestly, I need to get crazy good
rolls to get up to you. In fact. He knew that
we were doing this as a chase or he at least
suspected he like had the chase mechanics like
all prepped up. Imagine if Blanche didn't like.
Hold back for three rounds? And you had to run
away with no modifier for five rounds? I'll be
honest with you. I did not know until we started
playing last session. I didn't look at the staff
lock's movement speed to see that. Ironically,
it's a 90 -foot fly speed at base. So doubling
180, it's insane. It's crazy. So Chester says
dex? Yep. Sweet. Oh, no, sorry, athletics. It'd
be a strength. Oh, strength. Yeah, not the best.
It's only one less than dex. Okay. Middling roll.
Jewel's got an 18. Chester got an 8. Oh, I need
to roll for Akio, too. Let's see. Let me use
a different die for Akio. My two die that I'm
rolling for Blanche are a little cold, so I feel
like they've got some goodwill coming. So I'm
going to pull out a third die for Akio. That's
not doing well either. That is 11 for Akio. 11
for Akio. Total. Taking the lodge I used earlier,
where every 5 feet I've been kind of going back
10 feet more. Chester and Akio drop back to 50.
Oh, wow. Hey, middling roll. Yeah, right. Middling
roll with a plus 28. Blanche, where are you at?
Oh, let me roll for Blanche. Because you're in
this natural. You're zooming in. Everyone's catching
up. They're very close to you now. Perhaps you're
like, yo, as we see. Oh, my God. I just can't
roll. Jeez. 26. Fuck. Dude, I haven't rolled
on. So this is what? My fourth roll with two
die. The highest number I've seen is 12. Jesus.
One last round after this. You reach Sholay's
door. You're pushing down around the corner towards
that western wing, blazing down the hall. Blanche,
you fall back another 10 feet. He's 20 feet behind
you. You can feel him almost reaching out a little
closer, a little closer. He will strike you down,
his weapon glowing with the power of his holy
smite, his holy wrath. You guys ready for one
last chase round? No. I'm going to roll a Q first.
I also forgot that I still have Bardic for Akio,
so... I'm gonna need it. That's really bad. Oh,
okay, but... So, 13 for Akio. Okay. Jules is
a 9. Chester. Finally. Crit on the roll for a
22. Ooh! Okay. I finally rolled a 19 for Blanche,
so that's 35. 35? Yeah. Ooh. You actually gained
10 feet. Nice. Thank goodness. Nice. And Jules,
you were what now? Oh, yeah, you were pretty
bad. Yeah, I was rough. Okay. As we move into
this last round. Nobody falls fully victim. Akio
slides back 20 feet away as Hyronox is moving,
surging behind him. Jules falls back 30 feet
as Blanche surges forward 30 feet ahead. The
two of you suddenly side -by -side. Jules running,
cloak whipping. Blanche on the rod of flying,
zooming by. You, Chester, just ahead. Shit! Shit!
No! You will not escape me! You will not escape
me! You spin around the corner as he's just reaching,
just catching up. His hand's getting close to
Akio. You see the double doors leading into that
back ballroom. What do you do? We're going to
fucking burst them open. Throw the doors open.
As we do that, Jules screams, Sholay, help! Hell
yeah. Doors. burst open. Chester, Jules, Blanche,
Akio, Folio, all pushing into the room. You scream
out. Hyronic surges around, blasting into the
room. Wings fan out as he comes and looks over
you all. His holy radiance from his weapon sending
waves of light into this blackened room. And
even then, the shadows at the far end were only
revealed when, backlit by flame, we see... The
maw of an ancient dragon begins to lower, surging
forward. And we are in a wholly different kind
of encounter now. Oh, God. I still don't feel
safe. No, no. I still think this was the safest
option, though. Yeah, I don't know what else
we would have done. No. Before any action goes
down, I think Hyronix... freezes, he sees that
great form stirring in the back of the room.
The shoelace flies ahead herself, smashing through
any sort of remnants of table there in her way,
her great trachonic form sliding up, her claws
just behind all of you as you have slid into
the room, turning to face your assailant. You
will leave! No! They are murderers. Vile sinners.
Scum. I must kill and arrest. It is my right.
You would not dare stand in my way. Surely brass.
You were the law once. You held power once. But
Atash reigns supreme now. I hold the power now.
You will live. Do you guys want to make any actions
here? Probably. By the way, for funsies, I want
to put this in the map. Let me put all you guys
down here. We don't have an official battle map
for this, but that'd be fun. Throw Sholay's token
on here so you can see the difference in size.
Yeah, she's huge. Boom. Let's exit this up a
little bit. Hyronix, if you're sitting in the
room, Hyronix, let's say, is like five feet away
from you, kind of moving up towards you, going
to strike. And the four of you stand at the foot
of the ancient brass dragon. Blanche is going
to step forward in front of the rest. Jeez. With
her, with her sword out. And. You see how Ronix
is like hesitating right now. We're kind of like,
we're sort of like in Schrodinger's combat right
now. He's hesitating, his face outstretched,
looking towards Sholay. His eyes no longer see
you. They are blazing. Blanche enters a combat
form and casts True Strike. Okay. Getting ready.
There's a free action for everybody if you all
want to take it. You don't have to. No. Okay.
Hell yeah. As you go into stance as... The angel
stares down the dragon, two figures sort of,
the hieronics sort of flying on the ground. They
are both like fully kind of just a little bit
above you. A battle that is truly over your heads.
You would not dare. And he goes down to strike
at you, Blanche. I'm going to make an attack
on you. True strike is active, so you have that.
31 to hit. Oh, wait, sorry. I was looking at
the wrong stat block. That was the dragon. I
was going to say, I was like, there's no way.
14 to hit. Yeah, no. And a 21 to hit. That meets
my AC. I'm trying to decide if I want to burn
shield or not. Yeah, I think I'm going to use
my reaction and cast shield. I know this guy
can hit like a truck. He comes down. Bam! Bounces
off your shield again. No! As his weapon goes
back off your shield, Sholay is going to strike.
I'm going to make three rend attacks on Hyronix.
She just fully dives in. Actually, let's make
one rend attack. That's fun. Okay, that's going
to hit. extremely hard uh -huh that's also gonna
hit extremely hard uh and then i'm also just
for funsies going to cast scorching ray at level
three uh let me just do some calculations here
because she always going to do an outrageous
amount of damage okay uh she was absolutely ballistic
you see she's like as he strikes down you just
see a large clock i'm sweeping in tearing into
his sort of naked chest He screams. This light
begins to sort of shine out when the claw penetrates.
She comes down with her mouth ripping into him
again. And as she does so, like three bolts of
flame just, like, inside her mouth just blast
against him, scorching the screaming diva. Do
you want to make an attack, Blanche? Does anyone
want to make an attack? You're freely able to
move here. Okay, yeah, at this point, I want
to try one more time to blind him. Oh, yes. And
this time, I have it not set up yet, but your
DC is going to be a 16 because we waived that
with a loot. All right. Let me roll. This is
con, correct? Yep. It's a 14. Fail. Fail the
14. You cast this out, and finally, as he screams
out in pain, that darkness covers over his eyes.
His eyes are these pools of radiance shining,
and that light simply goes out like candles blown
out of a jack -o' -lantern's eyes. Almost like
fumes of radiant mist just vanishing away. You
just see blackness there. No! No! Blanche is
standing in front of her three companions. She
reaches behind her and she just grabs the collar
of Chester's shirt and she backs away with Chester
behind her, sort of pulling him along. Exiting
the situation. Sir moving away, hell yeah. We'll
say Blanche and Chester go off to the side. Akio,
maybe he's catching wind of this. Does he also
move to the side? Yeah, Akio moves with them.
Blanche keeps her sword out in front of her,
ready to strike if she needs to, but she wants
to kind of let this happen. Let's let this happen.
I think Jules is going to follow after he casts
that. Hell yeah, you cast, you step to the side,
Hyronix blinded. Jules is actually going to go
around and shut the doors. Holy shit! You shut
the door, and you get a look from Shirley as
the door shuts, as he's screaming. Mace comes
out. That basically says, move. Yeah, we told
the Queen that Hyronix killed, or Jules told
them that Hyronix killed Ovid. Hyronix cannot
live after this. You did say that. I imagine
you see her look. Door closes. You dive out of
the way as well. Hieronyx moves in to strike
at Sholay, blinded, sort of missing the mark.
We're going full cinematic at this point because
that's kind of where we're at. And for fun, Sholay
sort of arcs back out of his attack range as
he's blinded and you see something. lighting
up in her throat. Her mouth opens wide. All of
you probably see a sort of table that's sort
of half covered. Chester's like, come on, quick,
quick, quick! Starts trying to pull you now,
Blanche, to get behind cover. Makio's, ah, ah,
ah! And surely releases a gout of flame that
brings pure light into this room. A surge of
heat that you feel as if you are standing beside
the very inferno of hell itself. The door, the
wall the door's on, probably fully obliterated.
I'm going to roll, let's see, what's this? 13d8
fire damage. Holy shit. Oh my god. Hyronix is
super dead. Holy shit. You just see like, no,
no, justice is mine. I was justice before you
ever came to these lands. You are interlopers.
I am the one who saved these worlds. Fire ripping
out, burning through the walls, burning through
the screaming angel. When the flame goes out,
all you see is this twinkling of light as the
being known as Hyronix returns to the plane from
whence he came. And we'll call it there.