Welcome to the Tales from the Crit podcast. We are an actual play podcast featuring a
revolving cast of players making our way through micro RPGs, highly narrative tabletop games,
and the more popular and less known RPG systems from a wide variety of genres. Content may
not be suitable for children and content warnings can be found in the description. I'm Riley
Groves and I'll be your host, your guide, your GM on this episode of Tales from the Crit.
Previously on Tales from the Crit.
As you open up its visor, this suit of armor immediately lunges forward, swiping its sword
at your side. Skinny runs in and forgets about the skeleton bones on the floor and slips
and shatters into a bunch of bone pieces. You guys get back to the archipelago, it's
nighttime now and you guys make it back. We need mostly invisible goats and like a herd
of other animals along with you. Welcome back to Tales from the Crit. We are continuing
our quest playthrough and I have returning to the table, Rebecca. Hey. Derek. Hello.
And Connor. Hello. Before we get into the episode, let's take a moment to get to know
each other just a little bit better. We're going to use our pod deck, interview deck
to give us a question. And today's question is what's your guilty pleasure? What's your
PG-13 guilty pleasure? I would have to say mine is like Italian pastry dessert things
like eclairs. Yeah, eclairs and cannolis. The lemon and raspberry tart fillings. Yeah,
that sort of thing. Awesome. My guilty pleasure would probably be musicals. I get really into
them and they take up a lot of my time. So I got to be careful when I watch them. You
do jump into that genre of music pretty hard after you listen to them. Head first into
it. Nice. Connor, what about you? For me, I would definitely have to go with desserts
again, particularly milkshakes from Stewart's. It's just hard from driving there all over
the place. I'm like, I'm just going to stop and get a milkshake and they never make it
home. My favorite one right now is the peanut butter pandemonium. We have some right now
in the freezer. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was voted one of the best ice creams in the state
recently. Yeah, how could it not be? It's delicious. I was going to go the dessert route
two with cheesecake because I can't help it and I'm diabetic. So it's a really not great
thing. Mine's probably chicken wings though. If offered chicken wings three meals in a
row, I will eat chicken wings three meals in a row. He can't even watch hot ones unless
he has wings. Otherwise I would have canceled today if I watched it this morning. But like
guys, I'm sorry. I have things to do. Really unfortunate. All right. So let's get in back
into the game. Job or Connor, whoever wants to deliver the recap from last week's episode.
Why don't you get us up to speed? Okay. Um, so last week our adventures had a nice walk
to a lake that they had to canoe across. And during the transversing of the lake, we had
a difficult battle with some coral monsters. And after vanquishing them, we got to the
mountain and hiked up that encountering a strange hiker who gave us some good directions,
we thought. And after the compass went a little crazy, following this hikers directions led
us to a not so friendly territory where we got into a battle with a like elemental storm.
And we decided to turn around at that point. And we came upon the hiker again, which was
very confusing, only to realize that it was a twin. And he told us his brother is a liar.
So getting some better directions from him, we went to the other direction and found ourselves
at a tower. We had a pretty difficult battle with some empty suits, followed up with a
boss battle against the blood jelly. Um, after we vanquished the blood jelly, we did find
a little treasure chest with part of a broken sword inside. And after that we went back
out to return to our search for the mystical invisible goats. Nurt was able to fill his
pockets with some nice herbs from the mountainside. And as we were just walking around looking
for the goats, he felt a little nibble and his pocket was opened and he reached back
and gave the invisible goat a little scratch on the head. Awesome. So why don't we go around
everybody recover up to 10 HP. So max out on your HP and recover the standard five AP,
and everybody recovered two more as well. Cause you guys did such a great job last time.
Oh, excellent. That'd be very helpful. Yeah. And everybody picked an additional ability
as well. What are you going to pick? Um, I'm going to pick the misdirection skill over
there where I can, you know, if I'm being in a conflict with an adversary, I can be
like, Oh, Hey, look over there and direct their attention to somebody else to attack.
Awesome. Awesome. Seems like it'll hopefully be pretty useful. It probably will be. Nurt,
what about you? I'm going to take a lawbringer. You raise your hand to the sky and summon
a specter spectral war hammer into your grip. The hammer is a one-handed weapon that you
already have. Lawbringer. Oh, you used it last time. Oh, sorry. Yeah. You swung wildly
at an ocean cross station or some shit and missed and then it stabbed you. All right.
Sorry. Other note, I did fuck up. I told you, you should have one poison dart left, but
you shouldn't. So you should take care of those. Yeah. I forgot you stabbed one into
him after he got attacked by the lock. Lily got it. All right. I'm going to take oblation
for three AP. You place your hands on a creature, uttering a loving word or phrase. The creature
instantly recovers six hit points and wakes up if they are unconscious or you may choose
to cast the spell with no AP cost by transferring your own hit points into the creature. The
creature recovers as many hit points as you are willing to give up. Awesome. Nice. A healing
spell could come in handy. Absolutely. And what's skinny taken? I picked under the dueling
path overpower. For one AP, you can use your strength to overpower a commoner or minion
within reach. I cannot use this ability on bosses. Describe how you overpower them. You
put the target in a compromised position until they can spend a turn getting out of it. During
this time, basic attacks hit for double damage. All right. Fantastic. Okay. And after a moment,
the envoy removes his hands from this chaos goats head, looks at each one of you and says,
well, we have the pathway. I never thought that it would be where it is, but it makes
sense. Now the only task is to get my cosmic cruiser back. Y'all said you could take care
of that for me. Of course. We'd love to. That's excellent. So I guess my plan is we'll travel
all to the rift together and you guys can take care of the pirates that are there in
a nonviolent way. Remember nonviolent, nonviolent while you were traveling with me, we must
be emissaries of passivity. Okay. We can try that. Well, I'll do my best. I do like fighting
things, but I will restrain myself. I hope you do. Cause if any violence happens upon
these lads, I don't know that I could take you further. It'd be against my internal resolve.
Well, we would not want to put you in that situation. No, when I wouldn't want to leave
you in the rift either, that'd be the bad place to be. Oh yeah. It doesn't sound like
a great place to be if I'm being honest. So what do you say? We're ready to give this
thing a go? I think so. Yeah, let's go. Yeah. Let's get out of here. Well, all right then.
And with a clap of his hands, he does his three weird newt like fingers move in mysterious
ways and he opens the portal for y'all to step into. And, uh, does everybody go through?
Yeah. Yeah. Step through. Okay. You guys are instantly transported to an entirely new plane
of existence to all of you. I don't think any of you have had any, uh, interplanar travel
yet, right? Not that I know of. Okay. And amid this cosmic swirl that has portals going
to all different places, you don't even know where there's like a small, it looks like
a harbor, but it's floating in space and sitting in front of you is a large, uh, ship like,
well, it looks like a pirate ship, not pirate ship. It looks like a ship and the envoy goes,
well, there she is. There's my cosmic cruiser. That'll take us anywhere we want to go. Now
I'll wait here. Y'all go get the pirates off of it for me. If you don't mind. Perhaps
we should make a plan. I think that's a good idea, especially if we're trying to keep it
nonviolent. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I will spend three AP to use plan, which is probably
a mistake to use so much AP right now, but it is what it is. Isn't that for fighting
though? I was gonna say, isn't your plan ability like, let us strike first? Well, I guess that's
true. It gives us the ability to use two rounds of combat. Does everybody have mind control?
I didn't take anything from mind control. I have bamboozle, which I think lets me like
confuse people. You could bamboozle them like, Hey, over there, you're needed. But I don't
think that's how the over there ability works. I am not particularly helpful with these stealth
missions. I am much more of an outright fighter. I am definitely not a diplomat. Okay. So I
can use magic tricks and mesmerize to make them like occupied and not observant of other
things. And then bamboozle can make someone confused about a specific topic. So maybe
if we go over there, I can just bamboozle them like, Oh, the boss sent me over and he
said you guys got to go over there for some reason. You know, I've heard rumor of a shirt
that exists that convinces everyone on a boat that you're the captain. I've heard such rumors.
That would be helpful in this scenario. I heard it was lost at sea with a small rat
man. Oh damn. Maybe on our next quest, we should look for that. I was wondering about
using a sigil and using the repel option. Creatures who come near won't move closer
to the sigil and may turn back. Perhaps you could put one leg on the boat. Yeah. On the
dock gate bridge thing from the dock to the boat. I was thinking about putting on the
boat and then as they move towards the gangplank to leave the boat, I just make another one,
make another one, make another one, push them like a herding dog. Yeah. Smart. Well, let's
go get a look at this ship and see what we're dealing with. Is it just one pirate or is
it like a 30 pirates? That'll make a difference for us. I think. Yes. Certainly in the nonviolent
way, if it's less pirates. Definitely. How big is this boat? Would we know like how many
crew would be on there? I mean, it's a pretty good size boat. There's it's less of a boat
and more of like a spaceship that looks like a boat. So like maybe a hundred pirates? No,
not that many pirates. Okay. At full capacity would probably be 20 something. Oh, well,
all right. That's reasonable. What does the dock area around it look like? Um, like pretty
much like a shipyard. There's maybe some other cosmic cruisers hanging out. More of a public
space, less of a privately owned pirate dock. It's not a, yeah, it's not a privately owned
pirate dock. It is more of a, maybe somebody pays a lot of money to like keep things here
because it seems like a pretty crazy place to have, you know, a dock, so to speak. Is
the dock just like floating in space? Yes, absolutely. Like the colors around you are
magnificent as well as terrifying as you look around into all different areas of the omniverse.
Well, it is beautiful here, but I am slightly terrified. How are you guys feeling? I'm feeling
kind of sick. That portal ride was something I've never experienced before. I'm just not
really looking up very much. Well, that's smart. That's smart. Maybe don't look down
either. I'm going to say it looks the same whichever way you look. I'm just kind of looking
at the ground we're walking on. Or would I assume is ground? There is no ground. We're
just, the dock is floating. You're not floating. You're standing on a floating dock. At least
we think it's floating because there's not ground underneath it, but there's also not
sea underneath it. I'm just like, I'm on something that can be considered a floor. Hard. Yeah.
Yeah. You are on a floor. That's what I'm focusing on. So as you approach the cosmic
cruiser, there's no one like on the ship or outside it. You know, there's a gangplank
to it that you can use to board. But as you get closer, you do see that there is light
coming from some of the quarters and from the bottom of the ship. And you do hear some
sea shanties. You can't really make out the words because you're not that close. Or maybe
you don't know them. Who knows? It sounds like it's a good time. You know, I am a skeleton.
I could run in there and try to spook them out. That is not a terrible idea. Yeah. I
can also, magic tricks is zero AP. So I can like just shoot up some fun sounds and maybe
try and draw them out. Oh, make it look like there's smoke coming out of him. Out of the
skeleton. Yeah. I think so. Sounds like a site gag. I could be like the Dread Pirate
Roberts. I've never heard of such a person. Okay. Skinny, come here real quick. Yes. And
on her, on, sorry, on his forehead, I put a sigil for repel. Okay. Do you have a specific
creature that you're repelling? Oh yeah. We don't really know what they are yet. Do I?
No. Okay. You have not seen them yet. So yeah, I'm going to wait and do that though. I was
just assuming they were human. Probably a bad assumption. As was I, I suppose. We are
from a mostly human based world. But I thought it wouldn't affect you. It would affect you.
Smoke looks like something I can't. I know it was. So how about I make some like, you
know, popping whistling sounds happen above and around the boat and see if we can draw
them out so we can at least get an idea of what they look like. Well, that's a good idea.
All right. So then I'm going to approach a little bit closer than these guys, but not
get really close up on the boat and, you know, do some fun hand gestures and shoot little
bits of light out of my hand that go up above the boat and just kind of, some of them explode,
some of them make like a really whistling sound and there's lots of like crackly, crackly
noises. So they're fireworks? Yes. Nice. You put on this elaborate fireworks display and
you hear the sea shanties immediately and... Wait, I want to just clarify that I am trying
to be hidden and they come outside. Okay. I'm not just trying to stand out. I was actually
wondering if you and I could sneak onto the boat behind where they come out while he's
doing this. So we're there. In there to spook them back out. With the sigil to spook them
and get them from behind. To get them from behind? That's what he said. I'm sorry. Onboard
with that. Just remember, nonviolence. Yeah. Let's stand right outside these doors here
around this little corner. Sneak in there. Yeah. Sounds good? Yeah. Great. Okay. So you
guys go sneak onto the boat before the fireworks show and then Job does his magic tricks and
you guys hear the sea shanties and abruptly as soon as they recognize that there's something
going on outside and you hear a bit of clambering, quite a bit of commotion and the doors fly
open and out onto the deck are about a dozen bone kind, shambling, all dressed in pirate
clothes. Oh damn boys. Look over on the dock. Look at that man there. He putting on a show
for us. Hey fella. What you doing? Oh, hello guys. I just was going around the dock and
saying hi to everybody. Just seeing what everybody's doing. How are you guys today? I heard you're
having a good time there singing songs. We are. We found this new abode and it's been
great. You found a new abode you say? We sure did after we lost our last ship. How did you
happen upon this one? Well, I don't quite know. We were dropped off here. It's all spook
around. So we just walked onto this one. There was nobody home. Oh, excellent. Some little
lizard guy was like, please get off and we were like, get out of here, you little nerd.
And then we didn't leave. Oh, that's fun. Do you mind if I join you for some merriment?
Come on board. We're always recruiting new members. Okay, excellent. So I come on board
and I can see Skinny and Nurt are hiding on the back of the ship. So then I'm going to
bamboozle them all and be like, so who's the captain? Is it this person in the back and
point to Skinny? They look like a captain over there. Well, yes, I am the captain of
this ship. Well, oh my God, I thought I was the captain of this ship. No, sir. Have I
been mistaken this entire time? I have been captain of this ship for as long as we have
had it. I don't even recognize you. Maybe I suffer from the common illness called face
blindness. I've heard that's common in the bone kind, but that person over there clearly
looks much more captainly than you do. Yes, sir. But he doesn't have a captain hat or
a captain jacket. He's dressed not like a pirate at all. Did you forget your pirate
clothes? Well, yes, I did. I'm not dressed for dinner yet. I'm going to step out from
behind you. Captain, I just dropped your luggage off down in your quarters. Look at this guy.
He ain't even got bones yet. Well, he's got bones. They're on the inside. I find that
people with muscles can be much quicker at things. You know, they move faster. Well,
that's a fair assumption. Well, you seem like you're going to be bone soon or at least some
kind of bone. There's something wrong with you. Anyway, it's not you. You got all your
bones and you don't look like you're afflicted with much. We could make you into a bone kind
if you'd like. Go get the captain. We're going to get the bone kind dagger. Go get the dagger.
No, I'm the captain and I'm going to let these people be people. Oh, they don't need to join
us in a... Is everybody bamboozled or just this guy? I imagine that it specifically targets
one person. So you make a nearby creature mildly confused. So if we're not going to
say that it can affect all of them, then just this guy, because that'd be a lot of AP. The
other like 11 pirates are looking around and they're like, what the hell is going on? Captain
Leroy? Who is this guy? Well, he's the captain. I'm not the captain. Y'all didn't know I wasn't
the captain this whole time. Well, captain, you're sure we don't, you don't want to turn
him into one of us. It seems like it'd be better off for him. No, they're fine the way
they are, but we need to take this boat on a secret private mission. So I'm going to
have to ask all of you to step off onto the docks. Well, this is highly irregular. Well,
yes, but this is top secret. Anyway, this is my boat and I am the captain. So I would
please like to ask you to kindly leave. Well, gotta go get the supplies. They're over there
down the dock. What kind of supplies? See, only you fellas with the flesh and stuff need
supplies. I'm good. We don't need much anything. Well, we're key to the mission. So you've
got to go get our supplies. That way we can go and then once the supplies are completed,
we'll join you as the bone kind. You're severely lacking in cannonballs and gunpowder. This
ship has no weaponry on it at all. Exactly why we brought some. Oh, that is. Where do
you think we've been all this time? I don't know. I don't know where you came from. I
am mildly confused. If not past mildly, maybe a little bit more. All right, fellas, let's
let's get the can get where the cannons at the end of the dock. And I just point as far
away as I can see. Well, all right. And the dozen bone kind just shambled down the bridge.
Come on, fellas. Don't doubt it. We need the cannons. And as they're walking down, you
can see him pass the envoy. You're that little weird lizard. Well, we're going to go get
some cannons. And they step off the boat and the envoy joins you. Excellent. No harm came
to anyone. Indeed, they did seem to want to change a few of you into into them. No interest
in joining your friends. Long life stuff. That's not that's not a good sense. No interest
in joining your friend in the extra long life. Oh, not not quite at this moment. But it's
not a life you want to lead for very long. Probably not. I know the item that they were
speaking of. And in fact, they would have to stab you with it until you died. Oh, yeah.
See, it's not enjoyable. It doesn't sound good. Not great. Yeah, the whole dying part,
you know, it was interesting what they said about you, though. They didn't want to stab
you only only job. Yeah, that was weird. Yes. Well, anyways, let's kick this gangplank off
before them bone kind come back and try to take my ship again. Y'all start untie in the
ropes. Yep, go throw off the lines. And as you guys do, you notice that like, there's
probably no reason for this boat to actually be tied down because it doesn't move. There's
no waves. There's no tide. It's just chilling. And he gets up to the helm. Well, if you guys
experienced any sickness from the teleport spell, you may find this unenjoyable. If that's
the case, is there a place I can sit down? And you like pull a lever and you know, some
masks begin to pick up this interdimensional air, even though there's no real air, or wind
or breeze or anything like that. The skinnies bones fly apart all over the place. And you
guys take off and it's at a pretty miraculous speed and you guys are going through portals
and things are coming in and out of focus as you move closer to some planets and further
away and through different celestial bodies. And suddenly it slows down in an instant and
down voices. Just a moment. I need to observe this. As you look over, there's a large red
planet off to your starboard side and behind a giant rift opens and you see a jelly fish
like creature larger than the planet coming out and its head piece opens wide into a set
of jaws. And it just completely devours the planet. And now voices. Well, that's all I
needed to see. And he pushes it back into hyper speed or whatever you want to call it.
And you continue to travel through the omniverse. But just as suddenly as you took off, you
stop again. And the envoy looks around and says, well, ladies and gentlemen, we are here.
There's no ladies here. I didn't want to assume. Oh, your anatomy is awfully hard to understand.
Oh, well, I am a gentleman, but understood. I apologize. Well, there it is. And in front
of you, you see a large cone shaped structure. It's metallic. It's unnatural. And it's kind
of hiding next to an unknown moon. Unknown to you guys anyways, because it's all unknown
to you guys. And the envoy says, well, we have made it. For all my information, this
is the Soul Collector's Cosmic Zoo. Do you have any helpful information about what we
can expect in there? Well, she owns lots of creatures. She likes to auction off some that
she gets duplicates of or gets tired of. So maybe some patrons, probably a lot of guards
as she's got a lot of enemies. I think this might be another stealth admission. Maybe
we should have brought some of those extra goats, tried to stealth them to her. Maybe
we should have brought some money. Perhaps if you wanted to purchase an animal. I do
not know. However, this is as much as I need to observe. So I'm going to drop you off at
the front door and the rest, my friends, is up to you. Well, that sounds good because
I think it'd be much more difficult if you came with us in there. Yes, probably. My pacifistic
ideas don't lend well to search and rescue missions all the time. Well, thank you for
the ride. We do appreciate it. You've shown me so very much. You're welcome. I apologize
that we had to watch those billions and billions of people get just eradicated. Yeah, that
was terrifying. What was with that? It was. Well, that was a world eater. I thought that
was just an empty rock. I didn't know there was life on there. Now I'm sad. Yeah, that's
disturbing to know about. I wish we didn't have to see that. Well, before I let you go,
I know that was an awful sad. I'm sorry. As a spectator of events here in the omniverse,
I at times have to observe the unpleasant happenings of all planes. But let me leave
you with a gift. And he touches each of you and he casts the relief spell from the doctor's
track, curing each and every one of your fear and anxiety of, you know, seeing this world
get destroyed and knowing that billions of lives are probably lost when this planet got
in. So for the next hour, you guys all feel just about better than you ever have actually.
Well, I feel great. Thank you. You're welcome. Yes. Thank you for that. It's crazy. I witnessed
this tragedy and I feel great anyway. You probably have a better appreciation of your
lives. That makes sense. Well, use the front door. It's going to be a quick y'all get
off and not fly away type scenario. My last suggestion, I wouldn't necessarily knock on
the door, just barge right in. Okay. That's a good advice. Well, all right. Good luck
and may our paths cross again. I hope they do. You all have been very pleasant. Thank
you very much. And he pulls up to the docking port, I guess of the front door and allows
you guys to jump off. As soon as you get off his boat, it takes off through another portal
and into a different plane of the omniverse. Well, I guess how we getting back is a problem
for later. Sounds good. Seems seems so. I don't know how you guys are breathing, but
we're just going to ignore that. Well, I'm a skeleton, so I'm good. You're good. There's
a micro atmosphere here that is, yeah, pleasant. Yeah, that makes sense. Right. And you can
actually you can feel the cosmic zoo spinning. So it does have its own form of gravity keeping
you held down as well. Might be an artificial gravitational force inside. You don't know.
Physics aren't that important at the moment. So not to you guys. Anyways. Um, can I use
this time to fix that blade with the kiln gauze? Yeah. Yeah. All right. I do that. Okay. So
you put the help that you bought from the trader and the very strange looking blade
together and you wrap it in the kiln gauze and it instantly fuses into a proper sword.
Well, this is a lovely weapon as it does. And you pick it up and let's out this weird
wheeze. You know, like, okay, the blade's really strange. It curves in many different
directions. Like a knife. Yeah, I know what you're saying. You know, from one of those
Disney movies. Very squiggly blade. Yes. It's very squiggly. But you have yourself a sword.
Well, this is, this is something spectacular. I can't believe that came out of those two
pieces of junk that you found. I was amazed when you bought that broken blade from the
trader. Well, you never know. You might as well just buy some trash every once in a while.
One man's trash is another man's brand new squiggly sword. I'll have to keep that in
mind. Everything here is pretty mechanical looking. It's quite advanced. Much more so
than any of you guys are really familiar with. How would you guys like to get into this place?
He did tell us, which is kind of weird for a pacifist, not to knock and just to just
bust in. Just blast our way in. Yeah. So should we use this opportunity to make a plan? Because
it seems like we might be attacking people. I feel like we should find out. Should we
wait? I feel like we should sneak in. I'm just antsy for some battle. I mean, I don't even
see any windows. It's just a big crazy spire to me. I mean, see where we would knock for
the door. Do you want to just kind of creep in? Well, if we don't see a door, how are
we going to creep in? Do we see a door? You do see it. You do see, you know, an opening
that looks like it's a door. Well, yeah, let's just head in. Yeah, I guess we'll just go
in then. We can head in quietly, secretly for now. You may be should stay in the back. You're
not quite as quiet. I'm not quiet and I'm answering for a fight. I'll stay in the back
quietly. As you guys approach the door, it automatically opens. Standing in front of you
are two armed guards. They are strange creatures. They're yellow. They don't seem to have eyes.
Their heads are large, kind of triangular. They have beaks, several fingers. Are there
eyes? There are no eyes on it that you can see. So you're not exactly sure how they are
able to locate you. But they do so. Everybody roll for initiative. 12, 20, 13. Okay. Nurt,
seems like you're the first one ready to fight. What are you going to do? I reach my hand
up towards the sky and call out and summon Lawbringer into my hand. Okay. Burst of lightning.
Nice. Are you going to make an attack? Yeah, I'll run towards whichever one is closest
to me and make an attack. That was a 16. Nice. 16 is definitely a hit. So you come in and
you smash one of these guards with your hammer and he instantly reels backwards. That was
a good hit doing three damage. However, it is his turn. And each of them have a spear
that it looks pretty rudimentary. It's not too advanced, but the head of the spear itself
looks kind of like it's got a fish hook section to it and the other side is serrated and he
stabs it right into you doing three damage, which would deplete your shield. Correct?
Shield's gone. Okay. Skinny, it is now your turn. Well, Skinny is immediately excited
that this is no longer a stealth moment right here. So Skinny runs up from the back with
my brand new sword and I'm going to wild attack. I rolled a 15, so that does double damage
with whatever my squiggly sword does. Okay. And which one were you attacking? The same
one that Nurt attacked or the fresh one? The one that was attacking Nurt didn't need to
deplete his shield. Yes. Yeah. I'm going to attack that one. Okay. So that would do four
damage overall. And as you swing this sword for the first time, making contact with that
creature that just attacked Nurt, it lets out a wheeze as you strike the killing blow.
And as it begins to fall, its body begins to morph and shrink and it looks really gross
for a moment until the creature turns into a chicken instead. And standing in front of
you is just a common chicken. Well, that was unexpected and exciting. As you kind of like
loosen your grip a little on the sword, it lets out another squeaky wheeze. Awesome.
I'm going to spin around and prepare for my next turn. What was that? Just turned him
into a chicken. Yeah. This sword is incredible. The other guard roars with anger seeing you.
He doesn't know what the fuck actually just happened. And skinny, he jumps at you. He's
got the same spirit that he attacked Nurt at, however he rolls a nine. So I get my counter
attack then. You do. When an enemy rolls a 10 or worse on a basic attack, you parry and
take no damage. Okay. So you in fact parry and take no damage. And that would be joke.
After seeing Nurt get hooked with this crazy spear, I stopped for a minute. I'm like, oh,
I'm not going to get that close. And can I use splitting image and still make an attack
or does that take my turn up? Yeah. We I've been letting you guys cast something like
that. Yeah. So I'm going to cast splitting image and disappear briefly and reappear with
two clones. And then I'm going to pull out my bow and loosen arrow at the non chicken
that they're encountering right now. Okay. Good choice. For a 19. A 19 is definitely
a successful hit. Yeah. And your bow is just a regular. This is just a regular bow. Okay.
So you loosen arrow into the last guard or the last standing guard, sinking it kind of
into his side as he's fighting both skinny and Nurt now standing at the back. So you
draw his attention now that he knows that there are three people here. He's extra riled
up, but he is not any less in the fight at this moment. Nurt back to you. I'm going to
make another swing with lawbringer and hit this guy, not the chicken, the other guy.
It was a 14. Okay. Remarkably like an 11. Both are successes. So you smash your spectral
lightning hammer into this creature and you send him to his knee and he's trying to use
his spear to stand back up and he lets out kind of like this whimpery roar. He doesn't
have any facial features, just this like beak. And so it's very hard to tell what he actually
is trying to convey emotionally. Skinny. Well, skinny is immediately going to attack with
this squiggly sword again for a 17. I will say I also used wild attack, so that'll do
double damage again. And as you would land, what would be the killing blow on this creature.
Instead you also see its body begin to morph and its bones begin to shrink and it collapses
into another chicken. And now there are two chickens standing at the front gate. It's
kind of like a foyer actually. Are the chickens behaving in a hostile manner? They're behaving
like chickens. They're, they're, they're not, they're out of the fight. So they are no longer
trying to attack you guys. So it's not like Zelda where the chickens just go nuts. No.
Good. No. Good. I mean, we haven't attacked them yet, so I don't want to find out. Well,
yeah. Without hurting them, we should confide in them somehow. I will say if you move further
into the foyer where these two guards were guarding, essentially there are, there's a
door on each side of the room that you would walk into. And if you go into that foyer,
the doors will close behind you. So, so it could be, yeah, the chickens will be locked.
Okay. Okay. Well, shall we press on? We could continue with our stealth and I don't think
anybody's noticed this very strange battle that just happened. It didn't look like the
chickens raised any alarms. Now let's, let's press on. I'll stay in the back. Okay. Are
you taking the right path or the left path? My vote is for the left. I don't have a vote.
Well I usually head right, but I will take your lead on this one, Job. Why not? Okay.
Okay. Since Nurt isn't really decisive, I'm going to be like, all right, we're choosing
the left hand door and cautiously approach it. I don't have my arm out to open it because
the first one just opened automatically. So I'm just cautiously walking towards it. Like
am I going to run into it? It's like when you go to the store and the doors take forever
to open and you're like, is this going to be awkward when I walk into them? So as you
walk towards that door, it does open as well. Just a great service. Yeah. And you guys are
presented with a room that is amazingly larger than it seems like it should be. Like it is,
it is extra dimensionally huge almost as it looks like an entire jungle fit inside this
room. And you're like, there's no way that this could possibly happen because it looks
bigger than the outside of the ship. Guys, it's bigger on the inside over here. Well,
this is a jungle. I mean, he did say we were coming to some sort of cosmic zoo. What if
it's one of those like, you know, free range zoos where, well, that could be, do you think
the different doors are different like climates? Maybe we haven't been attacked immediately
upon opening this one. We could check the other one. Well, let's look around here, I
guess. Why not? And see what's going on. It is a zoo after all. I'd like to see some strange
animals. Saw some chickens back there. Yes, I did. It's a good welcoming animal. It is.
All right. Let's cautiously enter into this jungle room. You guys make your way in and
the floor, the floor feels pretty squishy. Like it's not super hard feeling, which is
a little uncomfortable at first. But as you continue to walk, you seem to be almost making
no progress as you walk through this jungle. It's you're passing things, you know, the
scenery is going by and yet you don't feel like you've moved significantly further into
this jungle than you had, you know, when you first entered for the most part. Can I look
behind me and see if the door is still right there? You can. Is it? You cannot see the
door. Oh, this is an interesting place to be. As we're walking, I want to see this.
This is an odd floor and I'm gonna bounce a little bit and see if it. It kind of reacts.
Spring back. It kind of reacts. Not, it doesn't send you like jumping or anything, but it
does feel like it's not a solid floor. More like a mat, less like a trampoline. Yeah.
It doesn't seem like we're making much progress. Should we change direction? I mean, I can't
see the door, but also I don't feel like we've gone anywhere. Yeah, perhaps we shall tune
back and try to get back to the door. I don't, can I like roll to investigate and see if
there's like animals in here that we just don't notice? Yeah, sure. 14. Now, if you're
looking back towards where you came or where you think you came from behind you further
into this room, you do hear like a slimy scuffling noise mixed with some mechanical like beeping.
Gentlemen, I only hear some slimy sounds, which don't make me think of cats. Do you
think we should, I don't know, just kind of make a run for the door? We could get some
exercise in and start running. I don't know where we're going. I don't know if running
is a good idea. Most predators chase things that run. It's a good idea not to run then.
I say we only brought one of those chickens with us. That would have been helpful. Smart
thinking. What if you stab the floor or like try and cut it open? You'd bounced on it.
Does it seem earth and underneath? It gives it? No. It doesn't seem solid. I'm going to
take my sword and just try and like, you know, poke a little hole or like see if I can just
get a better idea of what's going on underneath us by, you know, either trying to, depending
on how it feels when I poke it with the sword, if it feels like I can just like stab it into
the ground gently, I'll do that. If not, I'm gonna try and like slice or like dig out,
like use it as like a hoe or something to scratch into the ground. Yeah. Give me a roll.
All right. Eight. And you're just using your short sword? Just my short sword. Yes. Okay.
You stab into, into this floor and like it's, it's not dirt, right? And you make a hole.
You feel like you can keep going. However, it feels like there's something mechanical
in nature below your sword. So you can keep digging to look, but you're not sure what
that'll do overall to your sword or even to you if you keep stabbing through the integral
structures of this, of this room. Well guys, in addition to being bouncy, this floor is
very weird. It feels almost like I'm stabbing through one of the really crappy mattresses
that we had back home, but also that there's like something else underneath it that I'm
unfamiliar with. And my sword does not, does not seem like it wants to keep going. Well,
perhaps all this is fabricated climate stuff, you know, like the robots are creating it.
That could be, I mean, it's a soul collector or something here. Yes. Does anybody have
rope or anything by chance? Well, I have the handy have a sack, so we could use one of
these blocks as rope. That's right. I feel like we're not making any progress. Can we
try and tie that off to something and see what happens when we walk away from it? Yeah,
definitely. And I'm going to, um, like you do when you're a kid with Play-Doh, I want
to like rub my hands together and make it into a little snake shape and then it's going
to be a rope. Okay. And what do you do with that? Are there trees in this jungle? Yeah.
Like small enough trees that we could tie it around. Just try and tie the rope around
the tree and hold onto the loose end of it as I walk away until I get to the end of it.
Okay. Probably like 15 feet. Yeah. So you guys turn around and walk perceivably deeper
into this room. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Holding onto the rope, you know, as you get to the
end, you turn around and as you're walking, you see that the tree that you tied it off
to kind of like hits a wall. And then as you take a few more steps, it just like mashes
down into the floor out of view and the rope like slips from your hand as it does. And
as you're looking, you notice that all the other plant life and everything that was kind
of at the same level as the tree or same space as the tree or, you know, same latitude, longitude,
same whatever of the tree, like it gets sucked down as well. I do believe we are being deceived.
Yes. This place is terrifying. I don't know how we're going to get out of here. Definitely
looks that way. What happens when we all walk in a separate direction? Oh, I don't, should
we try to find out? I mean, it seems like a good idea, but also very frightening. Maybe
one of us will, maybe it'll trick it and one of us will actually reach a wall. That is
the hope. Okay. I'm willing to try. Should we all walk separate directions or should
one of us stay in the middle and the other two walk opposite directions from them? I'm
going to stab my sword into the ground in between the three of us and then they like
just walk away. Just turn and walk. Okay. Sure. Okay. Who's walking in which direction? Just
10 paces. I was just going to try and like a peace sign, try and walk each one of us
in a separate direction to see if it confuses whatever odd floor we are on. Gosh, I am terrified
of this. Okay. Everybody make a roll. Oh God. Eight. One. I ripped a hole in reality. 19.
Okay. As you all decide to go different directions and move into this jungle in kind of different
ways, the floor does seem like it's not moving like it was before. Derek, from behind you,
you hear this like sloshing mixed with some beeping. And then finally you hear subject
3492 catalogued. Do we all hear that? Guys, I think we're part of the zoo. Only Nert hears
that at the moment. I turn my head back and yell. I think we're the guys. I think we're
part of the zoo. And moments after you yell that you hear like a mechanical noise of something
like switching. Do you turn around to the sound towards the sound towards the sound?
Yes. Towards the sound. Okay. In front of you is this very strange looking creature.
It doesn't have feet. It's got like tentacles, but they're short and fat. It's wearing a
coat. It has a knapsack and where it should have a head is more like a mechanical helmet
with some rotating eyepieces staring at you. Guys, come here real quick. Do we hear his
notes? Yeah. Can we like, can we go back to him? Can we see him or hear him? Yeah, you
guys can run towards him. Oh yeah. I will run back to the group immediately. Likewise.
I am going to use compel truth on this thing. Okay. My eyes glow like blue flames as you
look into the eyes of a nearby creature. I'm looking into its telescope eyes, which is
the lenses and a nearby creature and grip their mind. Okay. That's terrible. The target,
I rolled a five and it says that the target resists my, my invasion and senses you are
trying to manipulate them. No, what's going on with this thing? I don't know, but I sense
that you were trying to manipulate me. Oh, but you're making it worse. Is that what's
going on? Yup. I was just trying to see if I could ask a question truthfully. Oh, what
are you? I am a surrogate. Sounds interesting. A surrogate of what? Creature number 3,796
catalog. We're looking for the cat exhibit. Could you direct us there? Cat exhibit. I
am unsure of the cat exhibit. I have been in the world exhibit for quite some time. Which
world? All worlds. Can you show us that exhibit? Well, we can change the world by moving. Oh,
does that change the world or just your position in it? Unknown. Well, lead on. I have been
here for quite some time. All you need to do is head in the same direction. I will show
you and he begins to move further into this room, so to speak. Yeah. I'm going to grab
my sword and follow him. Okay. And you guys walk for quite a bit longer before in front
of you, instead of jungle, you're begin to walk on snowy ground. See, we are now in a
different world. Is it actually cold? It does get colder. Yes. Where would the felines be
in this world? Felines. Creatures number 200433 and 200444. In this world, I have not seen
any not many creatures come through here anymore. Well, it is just me. Could you take us to
the world of Concipian? I do not believe that this room actually has different worlds in
it, just different environments. I could use to get out of here. We could help you get
out of here. You could help us find what we're looking for. I can help. Perfect. Can you
help us find the door? Find the door. That's been my trouble for a long time now. You see,
every time I move, the floor moves to I am not as dumb as the soul collector believes
me to be. So you know where to find the soul collector? Yes. Before they put me in here,
I moved through all the floors. Why did they put you in here? They found me annoying. Oh,
that's rude. Yes. How many floors are there? Many floors. Many floors. If you're looking
for the cats, I do not know specifically what floor they would be on. However, I know what
floor the soul collector is on. You could bypass many floors by using the elevator.
So the elevator. Now you're talking. Yes, I am talking. Well, this is a great place
to be. I do not believe that this is a great place to be. I have been here for I don't
even know how long anymore. I understand completely. Yes, I'm sure you do. We'll help free you,
but we got to figure out how to get out of here. Joe, what are you thinking about all
this? I'm thinking we have to get out of here in some way, shape or form. And it would be
nice to do it with Ripley. And if this thing wants to help more than fine with leaving
with it too. So it says it hasn't been able to find the door in quite some time either.
I feel like we might have been making progress with the going opposite directions. Do you
have any friends in here or are you all alone for all these years? I have been alone. And
you haven't seen any other creatures in a while. No, I've mostly been making maps of
the area. They are largely unhelpful as it is ever on changing. Well, if it's ever on
changing, shouldn't your maps be very useful? No, because this is just a room and the maps
only chart what's in the room. Well, then it looks bigger than it is. If you actually
do hit a wall, you will notice it's mostly screens. Well, perhaps you're right. And we
should walk in the different directions again. Yeah. And see if we can each come up against
a wall and then feel break the illusion. Hopefully. All right. All right, surrogate. That's our
plan. We're going to go in opposite directions and try and find a wall. How big do you believe
the room to be in actuality? The room itself only seems to be approximately 30 meters by
30 meters. Oh, that should be easy enough. That should definitely be easy enough. Yes.
You would think. However, that is why they took my partner away. That sounds terrible.
It's really rough to lose a partner. It is. Anyways, I will go this way. Okay. Just starts
moving. I will go with him. All right. Good idea. I'll go this way. I will go with skinny.
He turns it and looks at you joking. I thought we were all going different directions. Well,
you made the room sound like it's not awfully large. And if we both go opposite directions
eventually we should hit something, right? We should. Here, follow me. Watch out for
my slime trail. I will watch out for your slime trail. I just noticed that. Hopefully
I didn't already step in it. If you did, it is of no consequence. Oh, that's good. Anyways,
let us go. We should reach it momentarily. How are you so confident that we'll reach
it momentarily? I feel like you just said you haven't reached it in years. I haven't,
but I don't believe they've made significant improvements on the overall layout of the
room since the last time I touched the wall. What happened last time you touched the wall?
They took my partner away. And by they you mean the soul collector. Maybe not her. Maybe
her friends, minions, people. People that work for her. I don't know. They never talked.
I have not talked to anybody in a long time. That is evident. All right. Well, let's continue.
If you guys moving two different directions, the floor does not move. And you both, or
you all reach opposite walls pretty quickly. As soon as we get to the wall, I'm going to
take my hammer and smash the wall. Okay. Roll. 19. Nothing happens. I don't break it. I don't
dent it. I don't scratch it. No, no. Well, that was strange. I expected something to
happen. That's a pretty solid wall. So we're at the wall. I'm going to keep my one hand
on it and just start moving along the wall to the left. Yes. I will do the same. Is the
left the way we came? What we think would be towards the door. I'm completely disoriented
and cannot have any fathomable idea. I was hoping you would not be as confused as I am.
When we hit the wall, I'm going to go the opposite direction that skinny's going. And
Oh, that's a good idea. My hand along. Okay. Job, you make a roll for me and then you two
both make rolls as well. Everybody make rolls. This is my five 13. That's one. My guy. That's
a one. Okay. No, you're the first one to find the door on your wall. You can feel the edge
of the door on your fingertips. Job, you are completely the wrong direction. You find yourself
in a corner now touching two walls. And you hear from behind you, this surrogate rolled
a 20. Thankfully the exact opposite of you said, um, I believe the door to be over here.
I have found it. Well, that's good. Cause I found a corner equally as important to some,
but not us. You can come back here. I will walk the opposite way. So the treadmill does
not continue. Oh, that's wonderful. As he moves to the opposite corner that you're in,
you can move to the door. All right. Is it the same door that nerd has found? No, you
were pretty much the exact opposite side of the room from him. Okay. Guys, we found a
door over here too. I don't know what I found, but probably nothing. Yeah. You didn't find
anything. I don't know what's going on. I don't know. Our voices carry 30 meters. 30
meters is only 90 feet. You definitely, you definitely should be able to. Yeah. That's
all right. That's not far. That's the distance between bases on a baseball field if I'm not
mistaken. Perfect. Well, I assume neither of these doors opened automatically when we
got to them. No. Have you been able to open your door? I haven't given it a try yet. Well,
did we try first over here? Do you want to try first? Try at the same time. Okay. Go
ahead. Okay. I'm going to feel around on the door for a knob or a crevice or anything like
that. You can feel a crevice. You can feel the outline of the door. Okay. So I'm going
to try to push, pull, or a slide, whichever way feels like this door is going to open.
It feels more like a slide. Like we've got to kind of like, yes, if you remember when
you came into the room, it was a slide door. So at that point, so I don't know if this
is the same door I came in or not. That's true. Give me a roll. 17. Okay. 17. You get
your fingers around the correct edge of this door and you're pulling and you're able to
manipulate this door open about halfway. It's giving resistance the entire way. It doesn't
shoot open or anything, but you're able to pull it open a significant amount. Excellent.
Do you want to try your door? Yeah, I'll give it a try. I'm going to feel around and see
if I can get my fingers into the, the crevice of the door and pull it open. I did not. It's
a three. So you get your fingers in there pretty good, but maybe you're trying to slide
it the wrong direction. Maybe you're just pulling it closed more. You're not sure, but
it's definitely not, not working. I'm moving. No, I've got some movement over here on the
door guys. I can, I can kind of see through it. Hey, sir, you got anything you can wedge
me here or like a way to help me kind of slide this door? No. Well, that's okay. You've been
very helpful. So I won't hold it against you. Um, perhaps your friends could help. Yeah.
I'm just going to have to wait here. Guys. I've got this door kind of a jar, but I've
run out of strength. I need some help. Skinny, you want to give him a hand? Yeah, I'll head
over there. You're going to try your door again. I'm going to give my door another try.
I'll head over there and try to help help job. I don't know what I'm doing, but I rolled
a 10. I'm not sure why you rolled anything. I just panicked. I don't know to rush across
the room. Job, your feet begin to slide backwards from you, like back into the room and your
feet begin to slide closer to the wall, like an escalator that has reached the top and
is trying to like pull you in. Oh, I'm like gripped the door and my feet are just like
sliding away from me. I will stop moving. I'm just walking backwards with my hand on
the door, like holding myself at an arm's length until it stops. We should move at the
same time. Could you tell your friend? My voice does not carry. What's going on? The
room is caught up to us, so we need to move at the same time. Oh, all right. So I'll stop
walking. Yep. And then we'll do a count off. We'll start moving opposite directions. So
you're going to walk back towards me? I'm going to pretend to walk because I'm not letting
go of this door. I don't know what will happen. Okay. All right. I'm going to start walking.
Ready on three. I will walk towards your friend. Okay. We will wait for you. So one, two, three,
and I'll start walking back. Okay. And the surrogate starts walking towards you, meeting
in the middle. And then it continues on towards Nurt while you continue on towards Job. Okay.
Job, can I help you with this door? Yes. I've got it. I've got it almost here. I can almost
get my foot kind of in there, but I'm scared to put it there and then have it slam shut.
But if you want to try and help me push this door open. Yeah, I can certainly try. My bones
are too brittle, sir. I cannot help you very much. I rule the three. All right. Well, at
least you're here. But we still have those two to try and get over to the door somehow.
Yes. It seems like we're going to get stuck in the crisscrossing path. I'm going to give
my door another try. Okay. No, it was a one. This dice was going really well for a while.
Your door one more try. Yeah, I guess so. If I try and use my sword to kind of act as a
lever. Okay. Let's try and wedge the door some more using, you know, leverage. That's a nine.
Skinny, do you want to help? Yeah, I will not help. Well, your combined score equals
a success. So the two of you are able to get this door mostly open. There's a large enough
hole for any one of you to get through. All right. Since you're the skinniest skinny, why
don't you? I'll shimmy through. Shimmy through and see what's on the other side there. All
right. I'll shimmy in. And when you go back through the room, you are back in the foyer
with the two chickens. Oh, I'm back at the entrance where we came in here. Oh, perfect.
Seeing that I'm going to take my dagger and do the same thing and stick it in the door
and give it one more try to see if I can get this thing open. 16. Okay. Yeah, you are finally
able to get some leverage. You try the other side of the door for the first time and you're
able to move it open and you get your hands on it and you've opened it about halfway.
Okay. It's about as wide as you can get it. Hey guys, I got my side open. Okay. Well,
our side is back the way we came. Yeah, this is definitely a different room. What do I
see in here? The room in front of you is quite dark, not pitch dark, but quite dark at the
moment and you can hear a low buzzing or humming noise coming from within. Right. Mr. Surrogate,
if we are trying to find, I am on the opposite side of the room. He's over with me. Oh yeah.
So even if he can hear me, I can't hear his responses. Nevermind. Okay. Job, should I
show me back through? Yeah. What do you think the plan is? I don't know. Maybe you should
come back through here. Nurt got their door open and it's not back to where we came. I
don't know which way we want to go, but I think we should all try and be together at
some, at one of these doors. Yes, definitely. I will head back inside. Well, I was thinking
to get you guys over here. I yelled this across the thing. I'm thinking about getting you
guys over here. Can you tie some ropes together, then shoot an arrow? Maybe I could drag you
across the room. What if we just stayed along the edge? Theoretically, shouldn't we be able
to get all the way around? No, you'd technically be still going the same direction. It would
just start moving this way. Oh right. Cause the ground would move underneath us. So as
you would walk this way, it would just be coming down. So you'd eventually get to the
corners, but you'd never get to the door. I'm going to have to do like the opposite
walking thing again to get there. I was thinking if you guys shot in, we could walk in until
I got the rope and then walk back out and then I could pull you. Cause regardless of
whether the floor is moving, you'll still be moving over it. Wait, what if we on the
same idea as the arrow with the rope, we just shoot it high up and then we kind of like
shimmy without touching the floor. That's a long stretch for a rope. I didn't know if
you'd like, if it would. I don't know how long the rope will be. I also can't really
see the ceiling and see if there's anything we could get the arrow stuck into and do like
a swing. The swing wasn't really my thinking process, but. Well, I guess let's both do
this. Both try and walk towards each other. So the two of us walk towards the center and
you send the surrogate back to the center and then we'll all try and get to your door.
Well we have to take turns crisscrossing to the door. Actually that would get you a, that'd
get you three quarters of the way there, which at that point I think the rope trick might
actually work because it'd be a short, it'd be a short. These are those trees. So at that
point it's not that far. Do your friends know that the entire building is a sphere? It is?
Yes. Well it is cylindrical in shape. Ah. The floors are round. Then how did I find
a corner or how did Jobe find a corner? The room itself has quarters. But the building
itself is a giant circle. Circle. Donut. Okay. You're mostly going to count me out on having
any fucking idea what is going on with this. I don't know what is happening. I think that
we should just disregard my comment about the room. Walk back towards the door. You
guys in the surrogate should walk to the center. Cause we'll be walking opposite directions
even though we're walking towards each other. So the floor won't move. And then once we
get there, if you continue to walk towards us at that point, we all are, we'll all be
very close to the door. Yeah. Okay. So do you have rope that you can jam in the door?
I will hand you some rope, but yeah. I think when you guys get to that point, you should
shoot the rope over and then I can walk in and then we'll all leave via the rope. Sounds
good. So send, send the surrogate back. We'll meet in the middle and try and figure it out
from there. Sounds good. And I shoe them into the room again. Okay. I always like crossing
from the Arctic into the jungle back and forth and back and forth. It is my most favorite
climate change. That's good. I mean, Andrew getting your steps in. So yes, I guess I do
not step. It's more of a slide. That's right. With the trail of slime. Yes. Well, I'm going
to watch out for that though. Yes, please do. It arouses me when people step in it.
Oh, yep. You could have kept that to yourself, but thank you for letting us know. Guys, make
sure you watch out for the slime. You don't know what you'll be getting into. I just walked
down at the ground. There's slime all over. I've been standing in it the whole time. Gross.
Okay. And you guys meet the surrogate in the middle. So now we're theoretically in the
middle of the room with half the distance of the room to go to get to nerds. So it should
be about 45 feet to the door. So I think if you guys shoot the rope now, I can tie it
off because that's not a far shot. I can tie it off and then we walk. You guys are overthinking
it. If the creature has already walked halfway and the floor didn't move, he could just continue
walking to the other door. And that's true. And that door is already open so he can go
out. Oh yeah. That does free him. Okay. I thought we were taking him with us. That's
why I was trying to include him. He doesn't have arms anyway, so he wouldn't be able to
do the rope trick. Yeah. Okay. So no, that's a good idea. We should let him walk. You guys
just crossed the room. He can leave and take his chickens with him. Well, we don't want
the chickens. So he can take them. Oh, he's coming with us. I thought. Not from this part.
We don't have a ship out there anymore. Oh yes. I forgot. We don't have a clue how we're
getting out of here. Well, all right then. We live here now. This room is giving me quite
the headache. It is a quite a doozy to deal with. So what we've decided friend is that
we've opened the door on that side and there are some friends for you on the other side
to keep you occupied. We're going to go meet our friend over there and continue with our
journey looking for the cats that you said you don't know where they are. Right? I do
not. They have not come through here. Where do they usually keep the new exhibits? They
may be auctioned off. They may be with the sole collector herself, hopefully not on the
top floor. What exhibit numbers are those again? Are you fucking kidding me? Where is the elevator?
If you continue through the next room, you should come across another room that would
lead you to the ramp to the elevator. Are a lot of the other rooms as tricky to traverse
as this one? Many of the zoo floors would be yes. However, you can bypass them using
the elevator. Okay, you're very helpful. Ask him what's on the top floor. What is on the
top floor? The top floor is exhibit one thousand four ninety five. You do not want to encounter
exhibit one thousand four ninety five. Okay. Any particular reason why we don't want to
encounter that particular exhibit? Exhibit number one thousand four ninety five may send
you into your worst nightmare over and over again until there is no way out. Okay. Well,
we're just almost getting out of this room, so I definitely don't want to be coming back
here. Thank you for that information. You are welcome. What floor is the sole collector
generally found on? Typically second from top. Okay. Well, thank you so much. Skinny,
do you have any other questions before we part ways for now with our new friend here?
No, I think that's all set. Maybe if you meet us out front, we can try to help you get off
this planet or whatever the hell we're on. We don't have a ship, but we could figure
that out later. Best of luck to you. I will be out front. The door should be open. There
are some chickens out there. If you're hungry and you eat chickens, feel free. Otherwise,
you can just play with them. That's fine. I do not eat. I do not play. I only catalog.
Okay. Well, catalog those chickens. They're our contribution to the zoo. Excellent. All
right. Thank you for your help. Thank you for your help. I will not forget it. I believe
that it is in my programming to remember. That sounds very difficult. Yes. Forgetting
is a blessing sometimes. I never forget. Well, we should probably head on through here. It
was nice meeting you, Mr. Robot Slug Thing. That is a rudimentary description. Sorry,
Mr. Serigant. Goodbye, Bones. Goodbye. And he slimes away towards the door that you guys
entered the room in. Okay. Allowing you guys to make your way over to Nurt on the opposite
side of the room. Oh, hey, Nurt. Hey, guys. We're a lot more difficult to cross this than
it needed to be. Yeah. Yes, we should get out of here. I do not like this room. Well,
the path ahead is pretty dark, it looks like. Oh, great. Well, I have dark vision. Someone
always does. I actually don't think I do. Nobody does. Nobody does. Well, the path ahead
is pretty dark and there's some odd sounds coming from up there. So does anybody have
a light source? Oh, I have the ability to manifest light sources in the form of lighted
up magic tricks or little balls of scintillating flames. Can you shoot one that way? And up?
Sure. Since magic tricks and scintillate both cost me nothing, I'm just going to send a
variety of little colorful balls up in the air. These ones don't whistle or crackle at
all. They just emit a nice bit of light as they go down the room a little ways. While
he's doing that, I'm peering to see what the hell was making noises. Okay. So the room
lights up. It is full of tall grasses and some like super large trees. This room also
seems like it's bigger on the inside than it should be. And as your magic tricks and
your scintillate spell light up the room, you're looking around intensely. And from
the top of one of these trees, you see two pairs of large glowing red eyes. And as soon
as you notice them, you hear a loud buzz that saws through the silence. You said red eyes?
Red eyes. Yep. And those of you who have skin, when you hear this noise, your skin begins
to crawl. Getting the heebie jeebies guys, what's that sound? And I just point to the
two sets of eyes. Oh my. I don't think those are good things. No, probably not. Well, they
don't feel as friendly as that last thing we encountered. So ever since our encounter
with the envoy, I feel very opposed to just shooting first and asking questions later.
But the way I feel, I feel like we should just attack these. That was his last advice
was to not knock. Although my problem is, is these poor animals don't necessarily want
to be here. Tempted to turn them into chickens, but if they're exotic animals, I don't want
to do that either. Even thinking back to the first room, they didn't exactly attack us
first. No. So let's maybe just try to head on through quietly. Quietly and gracefully
make our way through here. Before we move much further though, I'm going to put my hands
on the ground and see if it feels like the other room did. It does not. This one is considerably
more stable and harder feeling. It doesn't feel like it has the same treadmill like flooring
to it. Okay. This room seems like it will give us less navigational issues. Oh, well,
thank goodness for that. So, uh, everybody roll a D 20 to see if you can sneak through
this room. Four 16. Okay. Roll for initiative. 18. 11. Where was that the last? That would
have been helpful. We just want to get into fight. Okay. As you guys are sneaking through
the room, Joe, you're finding it hard to actually be stealthy. Maybe it's the four glowing red
eyes that you can now see iridescently looking at you guys as you're moving through this
plains area. But your foot happens to find the nice sharp side of a rock as you step
on it. And as you do, you let out a noticeable like little yelp. Yowch. And immediately as
you do that, the buzzing that you heard intensifies and these eyes fly out of the trees and coming
down towards all of you are what could only be described as giant wasps. I hate wasps.
Skinny, you notice that you're being set upon pretty quickly and you get the first move.
All right. I would like to use size up and get insightful, a useful insight into the
capabilities, strengths, vulnerabilities, and resistances of a creature. Being giant
wasps, you know that they have two ways that they can hurt you. Well, three, if you think
about how they could fly up in the air with you and then drop you. They also have gigantic
mandibles that could rip somebody apart and they have a huge stinger that could also probably
go right through somebody due to the size. They are more vulnerable to fire as they're
bugs and probably elemental things as a whole, you know, cold bugs don't like cold bugs.
Don't like heat strengths, probably their giant size and ferocious nature as they are,
you know, giant wasps and that's the reputation that they've cultivated is that of a giant
wasp.
Oh, it's swooping down at me. I'm going to wait until it swoops and try to slice off
its stinger.
Okay.
With my big bastard sword for a 12.
12 is a good hit.
All right.
So there are two of them. So do you hit the, we'll just say one on the right and one on
the left.
One on the right.
Joe, you're up next. Skinny just jumped into slice off one of the stingers of these things
before it's able to pounce on you. They're not as fast as you would think they would
be, which is a good thing.
I would say I'm going to launch a scintillate towards the other giant wasp.
Okay.
Also, I'm going to aim for the face for the mandibles.
All right. Make an attack roll.
All right. Scintillate for a 12.
12 hits and you're able to momentarily have this giant hornet turn away as you spray sparks,
fire. What are you, what are you shooting at at this time?
Lots of sparks.
Okay.
Skinny, the one whose tail you, or not tail, whose stinger you lopped off, it like does
a big loop coming back at you and it's able to get you in its mandibles and it's going
to do two damage to you.
Oh, okay.
And having diverted the other murdered hornets gaze with your scintillate, it in fact turns
and targets Nurt. And Nurt, this one is going to stab you.
Rebuke.
Cool. And that knocks him out of the way doing one damage, correct?
Yep. And normally it says it throws them back or knocks them prone. So I'm wondering if
it knocks them out of the sky for a second.
We're going to say he stays aloft because he's still pretty healthy, but yeah, he's
blasted back.
All right.
And then it's your turn.
I'm going to use fiery Avenger on the Sheershot Bow and shoot an arrow at this thing, a flaming
arrow at this thing.
The same one that you just rebuked or?
Yeah. 19.
Ooh, 19 is a great hit.
So I think it would be a total of three damage and it would be a fiery arrow. So if that
does anything on top of it.
So that's going to do actually an additional point of damage being on fire because it's
not resistant to fire.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Skinny, back to you.
I'm just going to attack it with the same one that I sliced its stinger off. I'm going
to attack it with the squiggly sword for an eight.
An eight's a tough choice. So you can hit it and do damage. However, it's going to pick
you up as you try to stab it and bring you aloft or you can miss completely.
I will miss completely.
Joe, it is your turn.
All right. I am going to launch another scintillate at the one that just attacked Skinny.
Okay. That's a seven.
So you can hit the murder hornet, but in doing so, you'll also hit Skinny with your scintillate
or you can miss, but possibly set the entire room ablaze.
I'm going to miss.
You like go to target and then you realize that you're going to hit Skinny too, if you
launch this. And so you at the last minute aim it somewhere else, which just happens
to be into the tall grasses and you send a fiery bunch of sparks into this plane's room
and well, the grasses catch on fire. Kind of like a forest fire.
Whoops. Guys, just be mindful of the environment here. It's going to get a little smoky.
Well that don't bother me none.
Maybe I should have taken that pirate up on his offer.
It is helpful, but it is inconvenient.
Murder hornet that does not have a stinger comes back down doing battle with you, Skinny,
and he's going to grab you with his, I guess he's got a bunch of legs with claws on him.
He grabs you and he takes you up into the sky. Well, up to the top of this room. You
know, it's not an infinite sky, but you are being held. You're going to take one damage
from all of his little hands or arms grabbing you and you are now up, up and away.
Can someone shoot me down from here or something?
The second one that has been that I just shot rebuked and shot is going to come back towards
you, Nurt, and he's going to fly at you. He faints like it's going to bite you when instead
it's stinger comes down and stabs you right in the stomach. Doing three HP damage. And
it is your turn.
Hmm. I feel like he's too close to shoot with an arrow since he's sticking out of it.
He's sticking. Yeah.
But now that he is stun Nurt, does he die?
No, these are not the same as the wasps that we have.
Okay.
I'm going to use thunderous word and aim it right at him.
Okay.
Just blast him backwards for two HP.
Two HP?
Yeah.
After using this, it prevents the target from using a special ability on their next turn.
Oh, right.
Dazzle effect.
Nice.
It's the last sentence on here.
So, you use thunderous word and you blast this thing back out. It sucks as its stinger
gets like ripped out of your stomach because it was leaving it in there.
Yeah.
However, you do knock this thing down to the ground with this thunderous word attack. So
it is not flying anymore and it did take some damage. And Skinny, back to your turn.
Well, I'm up in the air still.
Correct.
Does Skinny take falling damage being just bones and having no internal organs to get
erupted?
Or does he just hit the ground and turn into a scattering of bones again?
It's like a xylophone sound.
Yeah.
That's what I was thinking. And then it would take me like a turn to get back together or
something.
Yeah. Probably something like that.
Cool.
We could let that happen.
That's awesome.
I want to use overpower, but I don't really know how to do it considering that I'm in
the air.
However you want.
Yeah. I'm going to like split my bones apart where they meet so that I could slither out
of the grasp of it and try to swoop myself up onto its back and slice its wings off.
Okay.
So you can do that with overpower, can't you? Or do you have to roll?
Well, that's not really overpower.
Overpower is you use your strength to overpower a commoner or minion.
Describe how you overpower them.
You put the target in a compromised position until they spend a turn getting out of it.
Yeah. So if you want to use that, that cost AP.
Yeah. Just one.
So if you want to use that, you won't have to roll to overpower it and you can do whatever
you need to to take this thing down.
Okay.
If you're going to just try to strength or maneuver your way out, you're going to have
to roll for it.
I'll use the overpower, but don't I have to roll to attack to slice its wings off?
That'd be another turn.
Oh, okay. Yeah. I'll get up on its back then and use overpower to get up there.
Okay. So are you trying to get it to land? Are you grabbing its wings to stop it from
flying or are you just riding it?
I'm just riding it for now. Maybe I can try to see if I can maneuver it.
You've got it by the wings.
Yeah.
We'll have to find out on your next try.
Okay.
Joe, back to you.
So I'm about to launch another scintillate up into the air. I'm like, whoa, skinny just
got up on top of that one. And I turned my attention to the one that nerd has just knocked
backwards onto the ground.
And I blast a scintillate over towards that one. And as the fire comes out of my fingertips
for a 16.
Awesome. And when it's on the ground, it takes double damage and you send your scintillate
directly into it, hitting it, burning its wings up. It's it's giant murder hornet carapace
is cooked and it dies.
Oh, excellent. Nice shot. Thank you. Good job knocking them to the ground. What are we going
to do about him? And I point to skinny.
So overpowered. That means it has to try to get out.
It has to spend its turn getting out of it.
Okay. So it being its turn, it's going to like fly down towards the bottom of the room
and do a quick one of these maneuvers and scraping you across the floor.
You have to describe that better for our listeners.
Coming down and do a barrel roll.
Doing a barrel roll. Yeah. And it's trying to scrape you off its back, leaving you as
like a bunch of bones scattered across the ground as it does.
As all my bones roll back together. That was exciting. I was flying on that thing.
It seemed like you had an experience riding a bee.
I don't.
Wow. You must be a natural.
Thank you.
Are you trying to keep that thing as a pet or can we shoot at it?
Oh, we can shoot at it. I was just seeing if I could maneuver it myself, but I could
not.
I'm going to knock another arrow and fire at this one as it takes off again.
Okay.
I missed.
What'd you get?
I got a four. It's the sure shot bow. It upgrades a failure to a tough choice and catastrophic
to a thingy.
Oh, a thingy. Success.
Success. Yeah. So that was a failure. So it would be a tough choice.
Okay. Tough choice is you can stand your ground and fire and hit this thing, but you're going
to take some damage as it's flying right at you or you can jump out of the way and dodge,
potentially catching on fire now with the runes.
No, I'm going to shoot this thing.
Okay.
I'm going to hit it for the four damage.
Okay.
So I'll do four against it. Is it careening into me or is it actually...
Yeah, it's coming right at you, like directly at you.
I didn't know if it was coming stinger first or barrel.
No, it's going to come mandible first and it's going to bite you like in your fucking
neck doing two HP damage as it grabs you. And it's going to knock you prone too.
Oh, that was not...
And skinny, now it's your turn.
Oh, well while it's attacking, nerd, I'm going to stab down into it with my squiggly sword
for 12.
Nice. 12's a hit.
And now there is a chicken attacking you.
No, it's not a chicken yet. They don't turn into chickens immediately.
That's what, death blows in 20s, I think.
Yeah.
I'm so confused by your new sword. Why isn't this thing a chicken now?
I don't know. I was really hoping we could finish this and move on.
Stab it again?
Well, I'm going to light it on fire again.
Be careful, inert.
I'm underneath it.
Okay. Maybe not with the fire. There's enough of that around here already.
Nurt, close your eyes. I'm going to shoot it with a bow.
Dora 3. It was like on the 19, I was like, yes, yes, yes.
And like, boom, 3.
Unmitigated failure. What weapons do you have overall?
A short sword and a bow.
And a shepherd's staff.
Okay. When you let this last arrow go, wildly, I may say, you realize that that's the last
arrow that you had with you at all.
Well, that was my last one, guys. Just fire from now on.
And holding onto your neck, it takes another giant bite out of you doing 2 HP damage as
it rips a hunk of meat from your throat.
Great. At least I didn't shoot you.
But it is your turn, Nurt.
I am going to weasel out my dagger and stab this thing in any joint where the soft tissue
is or if I can get to its face or it's like probably the joints under its neck that connect
the head to the whatever it is.
Correct. That's a 5.
You miss and this thing grabs you with its fucking claws and takes back off into the
sky. Take one more HP damage from that and you are now aloft and skinny.
It's your turn.
The wasp flew away?
Mm-hmm.
With me.
With Nurt.
Oh, oh. Well, I would like to provoke this creature by saying or doing something rude.
I don't know what wasps think of rude.
To wasp nearly anything.
I was going to say there's a wasp corpse right there.
You could go fuck with the dead wasp and try to stir up its little pheromones to provoke
the other one to come back.
Okay. It does. As it's flying around, it catches the scent of these pheromones and with Nurt
in hand, it's going to fly but it's going to let him go as it nears the ground. You're
going to take some bumps and bruises but you're all right. Just some road rash and now this
thing is completely transfixed on you.
I'm picturing it that it drops him on its way to attacking me.
Yes, exactly.
I'd like to hold my sword out in hopes to stab it in the head as it comes at me.
Okay.
It's a five.
All right. It clambers into you, knocking you backwards over its dead bee friend, pinning
you into the wall, knocking some of your more loose bones around. You're going to take two
HP damage.
Great.
Joe, it is up to you.
All right. Well, I'm going to launch a scintillate at it since that is what I have and it's a
nine.
Tough choice.
Okay. You can hit the bee and skinny or you can set more of the room on fire, which now
...
I'm going to hit the bee.
Okay.
That was a good call.
When something attacks you and it rolls a 10, you have a chance to counter attack?
Yes, I do.
Okay. Do you have to roll for that?
No, I parry and take no damage.
Okay, cool. It rolled a 10?
Perfect.
It's going to need to mash you, however, you're able to hold its mandibles apart and not receive
any damage and it's Nurt's turn.
I'm assuming I'm going to take part of my movement to stand the hell up after being
tossed a little bit. I'm going to take another crack at it with the sure shot bow for an
11.
Without the sure shot bow, it's still a success.
I'll name it for right in here.
Right on. You let loose with an arrow and end up getting the killing shot. Skinny, you
can see the fucking arrowhead come out through its mouth hole and you watch the life drain
from its hexagonical eyeballs as it drops limply in front of you.
A lot of disturbing things are happening on this adventure, but thank you for killing
that nasty bug.
I'm not even going to say anything. I'm just going to collapse back down into a pile and
sit.
Guys, I totally forgot I had this staff. Do you think I could just wave this around and
gotten those guys' attention and be like, follow me?
I scrambled on my feet and tackled Jobe to the ground.
I figured it only worked with livestock. I didn't even try. That buzzing sound creeped
me out too much. My skin was crawling.
Well, in the next room, let's try to keep that in mind.
Keep it in mind. We are in a zoo.
That would come in handy.
You took the words right out of my mouth, Jobe. We're in a zoo.
I sure am sorry that you took so much damage.
Why don't you little bo peep the next room and I just start walking to try and find the
door.
Okay. This one is not nearly as hard to find as the other one. The floor doesn't move underneath
you or anything. It does not open though. It's going to need to be forced open like
the other doors.
Well, I still have my short sword, so I'm going to just try and wedge it in here.
Okay. Is everybody going to wrench onto this door?
I will hope.
Yeah, I'll hope.
All right. Let's see it.
An eight.
Six.
Jesus.
Seven.
Okay. We'll say with your great effort and your other friend's mediocre efforts, you
guys score high enough combined to wrench this door open. And in front of you, the next
room that you can see is more like a hallway. It doesn't have any environmental features
to it. It's just a long curved hallway.
Perhaps the elevator is somewhere in here.
Hopefully. I'm hoping that it's very obvious what that is when we get to it, because I'm
still kind of confused.
Well, it's this levitating box thing. It's great. You're going to love it.
I'm keeping my eye out for an infirmary.
I'm going to be out in front with my splitting image doubles, you know, around me, walking
with my staff, my coat of many colors.
You look like a strange St. Patrick with twins on either side of you.
And just, you know, at a gradual pace, since my comrades are licking their wounds still,
make our way down the hallway.
Okay.
And as you guys go around as it's round, you are presented with one door in front of you.
It is more of an opening. It has a small staircase and in front of you is a large lit platform.
Well, I've never seen one, but I have a feeling this might be an elevator.
This is definitely an elevator. Let's hop in.
All right. And you guys climb on. And that's where we're going to end this episode.
Oh man.
Excellent.
Yeah. So I guess we'll see you all next Tuesday.
Next Tuesday.
As the elevator settles into this room, it's eerily dark and there's a purple and green
mist that's rolling around the whole room. And it kind of assaults you guys as you guys
pushed into it by the elevator.
I'm going to launch a fiery arrow in an arch to see if I can illuminate anything.
It does not illuminate like you would expect.
You can see the arrow, but it doesn't seem to light up much else.
Well, that wasn't useful.
Each of you have kind of the same feeling of disquieting anticipation as you wonder
what is exactly up here. You see a face in the mist and it shifts. And as you're looking,
you see dozens of eyes and you see a green mouth open with just rows after row of teeth.
Tales from the Crip podcast is recorded in the Wolfbeard game studio in upstate New York.
If you've enjoyed hanging out with us, please subscribe on whichever platform you listen
to. If you really like us, also leave us a review. It's very helpful. If you want to
follow us more, you can find us on Instagram at Tales from the Crip podcast. We've enjoyed
our time with you today and we look forward to seeing you next time at Tales from the
Crip.
I was gonna say there's a Wasp corpse right there. You could just go over and duck on
it a few times. Crouch.
He bagged his dead friend.