Hello players who do to scheduling conflicts, haven't played D&D in a month and a half.
And DMs who create so many NPCs that they can't wait to play as a player, but will never actually get there because like all other DMs, you are stuck in an endless loop forever.
Always. Welcome back to Table Talk, I'm Maddie.
And I'm Robert.
What are we doing today, Robert?
We are on our 20th episode, so we are doing something a little special.
We've done one instance of kind of an actual play for our...
An almost play.
Yeah, an almost play for our how combat works where I ran like a quarter of a quarter of one little piece of a one shot that I found online.
I did mention the name of that, I don't know what it is off the top of my head, but if you all go back and listen to the episode, shout out Table Talk, you'll be able to figure out what that is.
So today, we are going to get through as much of a one shot out of a book that was gifted to me for my birthday by one of my wonderful players and roommates called the Game Master's Book of Traps, Puzzles in Dungeons by Jeff Ashworth.
It has three one shot adventures, a ridiculous amount of traps, puzzles, dungeons, just like the name suggests, that are all fantastic.
And so today, and probably another episode because I doubt we'll be able to make it all the way through this one shot, we are going to go through the Spire and the Scab, an adventure by Jasmine, Bull Har, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, suitable for levels one through five.
Who knows, maybe it's going to end on a cliffhanger because this is the season finale of season one of Table Talk.
You've stayed with us, hopefully, for 20 episodes now.
Thank you all so much for listening. Season two is going to be super, super exciting.
We're going to be starting that process soon and we've got some really, really fun surprises and new things in store.
So I can't wait for you all to be able to listen and tune into that.
Wonderful. Are we ready to hop into things?
I think so.
Fantastic. I'll do a little bit of landscape narration to kind of bring everybody back into scene.
Previous to this, just so everyone's kind of on the same page as us, I did read some of the background in the adventure information out loud just so that Madison would be a little bit more on my level in terms of information just because it helps going into a one shot, knowing a little bit more.
Whereas if you're like an established party, this is just like something you're inserting into a campaign for like a fun session.
It's usually a little easier to walk into things blind, but because we're just kind of hopping in, she knows a little bit more about the background of the one shot than you all will know.
But regardless, we're going to play it like we normally would.
And like we've mentioned before, when talking to your DM when you're making a character to play in something, that's something that's pretty important.
And with a one shot of this nature, that doesn't really exist.
This wasn't a character who was made for the specific world or with this world in mind. So that is why I kind of cheated and was like, hey, what setting are we in?
Because I don't want to take all combat spells if we're going to be in a city where I don't need to use any of those.
Like there's not going to be any combat or I don't want to take...
So I need campfire.
Yeah, am I going to have to be able to like rough it in the woods or are we going to be in a city?
That kind of information.
Yeah, so part of our sort of pre-recording conversation then was figuring out what exactly she would need as a player.
But because it's difficult to get through a one shot as an individual player, I will technically be joining her as like a primary NPC.
So I will be both DM and kind of like a co-player just so that way we can get through the one shot in a slightly more timely manner.
So I will be bouncing back and forth and having conversations with myself, but I'll probably put most of the conversations on Madison so I don't have to do that.
Because I don't like doing that.
Listen, Spara's a 20 charisma, so she'll be the face of the party anyway.
Eva's got eight.
Eight?
She's got eight.
Wow.
I mean she's got pretty great stats all around the bar.
She's got a 16 strength, 15 dexterity, 14 constitution, 12 intelligence, 10 wisdom.
Well if we're bragging about our stats, Spara, who is the care...
Both of these characters are the ones we made during the character sheets and shit example, by the way.
I'm working with a 12 in strength, a 14 in dex, a 13 in constitution, a 15 in intelligence, a 13 in wisdom, and a 20 in charisma.
These are level three characters.
Sanity dude.
Absolutely insane.
She's pretty well rounded.
All things considered.
She is.
That's crazy.
A 13...yeah, nothing below a 13.
Or a 12.
Nothing below a 12.
Yeah.
That's wild.
I rolled really well.
I was...
Oh, it's because we did point buy for yours.
Yeah.
We did the significantly shittier option for Aiba, which is why I have a fucking eight, because I placed that in a place where I knew I was going to have a pretty negative charisma modifier.
So it'll also help to give you all some background on the characters we're playing.
It would be much easier to just tell you all to go watch the other episode of Table Talk.
You totally should.
It's a really cool podcast.
Where we do a Marshall character build and a Magical character build.
But I'll give you a little bit of background on the character that I'll be playing.
Her name is Aiba.
She's a female Goliath.
She's young-ish, Goliath, or kind of aged in a similar-ish way to humans.
So think of her kind of like in her early to mid-20s.
She is a little bit more human looking than a lot of the others.
She has a more military background.
So kind of like an army-ish background sort of deal.
And she is on the run from her sort of previous homeland.
After straight up assassinating a military opponent who she greatly disagreed with and believed to be a liar.
She uses a bow and arrow.
That's her primary thing.
Because she has made to mimic Abby from The Last of Us 2 who is primarily ranged combat.
And I'm going to be playing Sparrow.
She is a tiefling, bloodline of Asmodeus, a wild magic sorcerer.
She is a very Robin Hood type character.
Hence the name Sparrow.
Very a like never tell me the odds.
Like I'm trying to channel my best Han Solo here.
Steals from the Ridge, Gives to the Poor, Pickpocket, Straight Up Criminal, Kleptomaniac.
All those good things.
Kleptomaniac is crazy.
Stole something and definitely wants to steal it back.
And someone is 100% in prison for a crime that she committed.
So she is also kind of on the lam, on the run, causing problems.
She is adorable.
She has pink skin and black hair and is very, very colorful in her clothes.
And has like a bunch of tattoos and stuff.
And big old horns.
Yeah, I guess so we're doing physical descriptions.
Eva, I used being our generator and I kept putting in Abby from The Last of Us but as a Goliath.
And it only knows that Ellie exists.
Who's the other female protagonist.
So I have a very Ellie looking Goliath.
She is blue in the face.
She's got the traditional sort of black Goliath marks, almost look like streaking mascara under her eyes.
She's also got two large horns that kind of curl up.
She's got a top knot and is wearing more kind of like military winter e-garb.
And her skin pattern is very much like Avatar, like blue people Avatar.
Which is cool.
I fucking love that.
Goddamn sci-fi series man.
One of my favorite of all time.
Anyways, that's what Eva looks like.
And the name is just Abby backwards.
Yeah, we're so creative.
Yeah, I didn't put a whole lot into that.
We got like really like, oh, first 50 specs.
This can't get over the difference in fucking point buy versus roll.
Yeah, point buy versus roll is crazy.
Like there's no reason for you to ever do point buy.
I mean, if you do point buy and you cheat it and you give yourself more points than you should.
No, I guess that's valid.
And I guess depending on how strict your DM is during your character creation process, you could also roll fucking terrible.
Oh, for fucking sure.
Yeah.
Anyways, we're going to go and hop into one shot.
So I'm going to do a little bit of environmental narration.
Jesus, it's kind of hard to just go from podcasting mode into like narration.
So Eva and Sparrow are sort of walking through a wintery storm.
We didn't really establish before this how they met or why they're traveling together other than they're both kind of on the run.
We just kind of assumed that it was probably a mutual, hey, you're running from the loss.
So am I.
They met in a prison cell.
They were both thrown into the same prison cell in some random town.
And are both is trying to get as far away as possible from wherever point A was.
So they're stopping in this little appellation ski mountain town very like.
Shout out Appalachia.
Shout out like Gallenburg.
If any of you have been there, I know what Gallenburg is like, so this is more of like medieval fantasy kind of Gallenburg kind of town.
So yeah, Eva and Sparrow are walking through this sort of bad wintery mix, very similar to what we're experiencing all over the U.S. right now.
And happen upon this sort of picture-esque Appalachian fantasy looking town has a large sort of dark ominous looking spire made out of solid purple crystal off in the distance with three large buildings,
one of which has this giant cheese wheel like made out of some sort of like bronze gold on the top.
And it says, oh, what is the name of it?
I just had it.
It's literally a name.
It's a fondue place.
Oh, the melting.
The melted muse.
So it's like a melted cheese wheel.
They're famous for fondue.
And so that is like the McDonald's M, like the beacon in the middle of the light is this giant basically walking along what I've been visioning is like the fantasy equivalent of like the highway.
And I'm like, exit here.
There's food.
Pretty much.
Just like this giant wooden sign.
A rickety that has like gold painted letters.
It says the melted muse best fondue you've never had.
A fondue place is fucking crazy.
And the middle of fucking nowhere in the fantasy is crazy.
Just like somewhere on the sort coast.
There's just a fucking fondue place.
I love that so much.
Yeah.
Cool.
Wonderful.
What does well, what do you spare on Eve?
I'll go and let you take the lead and then play off of you.
I guess because it wants to get in my head.
This is like just it's fucking stretch like dirt road highway.
And then you just see in the lights fucking melt.
Sparkling melted cheese.
Well, I have been walking for two goddamn long.
So I'm saying we take a detour.
I would agree.
Cool.
Glad we're on the same page.
I've never seen a bronze cheese wheel.
What?
Bronze cheese wheel.
And then like points to the large cheese wheel.
It's like melted on the top of the building.
No, you know, I don't think I have.
I'm honestly quite confused because I expected there to be like an in or something.
I think that might be the in.
That's cheese, Eva.
Well, you eat cheese and in, no?
I mean, I suppose you could, but.
So let's go see if they have cheese.
All right.
Let's go get some fucking cheese.
I get you and sparrow off.
As you approach the melted muse, it says sort of very proudly and large again, like almost painted gold bronze letters.
Like trying to look a lot more fancy than it actually is.
You stamps going to read description for the book because I don't want to short the book itself in terms of the pretty verbiage it gives us.
You stay.
You all stand at the entrance to the melted muse Valnoya or it says the melted muse famous fondue writer.
Famous fondue restaurant of Valnoya.
Famed fondue pub known far and wide for its massive cauldron of piping hot cheese.
The sound of merriment floating through the emerald green doors which have been thrown open in the spirit of hospitality.
Filling the street with the alluring smell, freshly melted cheese.
Oh Lord, that is certainly a scent.
Jeez.
Fucking Eva, just like yells cheese, throws caution to the wind and like dashes forward.
Oh Jesus Christ.
Tara's going to run after.
Towering over this tavern is the town's most pristine building, a record hall known as the Scalarium.
It's glass-dumbed roof glivering in, well it's not sunlight because I said it in the evening, but what the fuck ever.
Even here on the highest hill in town, the fog weekly cleans around your ankles from cascading down the cobbling streets and flooding the stone workhouses below as it billows into the valley.
You can barely make out the tops of the tallest conifers defiantly towering above the ethereal sea of fog standing boldly against the line of mountains behind.
Pretty picturesque.
Pretty picturesque indeed.
See if there's anything else in this absolutely beautiful description that is useful for this.
I'll say can I do a perception check?
Give me a perception check.
Eva won't go ahead and do a perception check as well.
Hell yes.
That was a, well I rolled an 18, let's see what I add. Oh I had a 1 to my perception because I'm dumb as shit.
A 19.
I got a 16 I think?
Oh no, no she's perceptive. I had a 2 because I took perception as a, it's a proficiency. So I got a 17. You got a 19?
Yes.
Wonderful.
Um, oh this is important.
So the writers you are about to sort of taking your surroundings right before Eva and Sparrow begin looking around before jumping straight forward into the doors wide open melted cheese melted mues.
As you begin to put two and two together you feel it. The ground begins to shudder beneath your feet with stomach turning grown.
You start to see the beginnings of a crack forming between the cobblestones neatly aligned ahead of you.
Oh Jesus fucking Christ.
So perfect time for that perception check.
So a large, a, a, um, localized, what appears to be localized earthquake is now beginning to impact the entire town.
Um, and on a 17 and a 19 both Eva and Sparrow notice that the large wooden sign that says the melted mues, uh, we are fond doing it.
Oh my god.
How the fuck did you leave that out?
I just now read it, uh, is about to collapse on an oblivious tourist who's looking around the town.
A number of fire guard are also trying to direct people away from the buildings which are rapidly beginning to fall to pieces.
Uh, and the glass dome roof of the Scalarium opens releasing an ornate.
What the fuck.
Magenta and gold gilded zeppelin into the air. The words imperious and blaze on the side.
Fucking pardon me.
But it is soon striked by a falling tree limiting its flight.
Oh Jesus Christ. Did you say there was a passerby under the sun that's about to fall?
A passerby under the fucking the melted muse where fond doing it.
Well, I would love to swing over and grab the person that's about to fall and slide like do like a really cool like slide out of the way, pull him out of the way.
Wonderful. Um, let's see if there's any particular check for this.
Alright, just give me a, give me an athletics check.
Yeah, cause I'm so good at those.
Or dexterity, whichever one you prefer.
I'm going to use, hang on, I've got fucking something cause I rolled.
You've got to shove you out of the way.
I rolled a nat one.
Holy shit.
But I'm going to go ahead and use my tides of chaos, which I get from Wild Magic Sorcerer.
That's crazy.
So I can gain advantage on an attack roll, ability check or saving throw.
Holy shit, dude.
Cause Jesus Christ.
Oh my, are you shitting me?
You're on the nat one.
I rolled another nat one.
I'm going to roll a perception check on behalf of Eva to see if she knows.
What does this look like?
Is you, oh my God, I think as sparrow goes to like bolt after this person, I think sparrow starts running and then the heel of her shoe gets like caught in the ground.
It's fucking, she like goes down like one heel is down.
She's definitely wearing heel boots.
Two nat ones is crazy.
And so she's like stumbling and hobbling and then the other one fucking breaks and she at this point, two nat ones.
Eva's going to, so I just rolled perception on behalf of Eva to notice to see if she's going to notice your stumbles.
She does.
So she's going to, two nat ones.
I think I died.
She's going to roll an athletic check to see if she can sort of shove ahead of you.
She has a plus five to athletic.
So I'm going to just call it DC 10.
What, what is helping you in this instance going to do?
I, well, I got two nat ones.
I feel like I'm about to eat shit.
Cool.
She got exactly a 10.
So Eva seeing you get your heel caught in the cobblestone sort of walk away that is just fucking crazy.
Opened up.
I'm going to roll a d four for bludgeoning damage.
Yeah.
Sparrow eats shit.
Just one.
You take one bludgeoning damage.
Eva strides ahead of her like six foot five lanky Goliath self military training fully kicks in and sees a civilian in danger.
And just like tackles this person to the ground.
She's like easily two heads taller than this person.
So it looks like she's just like tackling a just like a small child, fully normal sized person.
She just like decks her to the ground and the sign falls doesn't hit anybody.
Sparrow is fucking face down in the cobblestone.
Funny you should say that.
I'm going to roll a d six to see what else is happening in town.
Four.
What the fuck is a conifer?
Do you know what a conifer is?
Let me look that up.
Can you, can you, can you get the word?
I don't know what the fuck a conifer is.
How do you spell it?
C O N I F E R.
Okay.
So I was right.
Well, it's a conifers are a plant.
It says a towering conifer.
Yeah.
Oh, it's a tree.
Oh, trees.
I was about to say conifer.
It's a it's kind of like a it's an evergreen tree.
It's one of these.
Oh, it's like we're in a mountain town.
We're in like the pine tree kind of things.
Yeah.
So, so a towering conifer begins to crack with a sounding smack as the sort of as the
bottom just fully begins to splinter and begins to fall towards the pony stables beneath
it.
There's fucking ponies here.
A single groom struggles with a stubborn shire named tubs.
Tears rolling down his cheeks in exasperation as he cannot get the horse to move.
Okay.
So I'm gonna take my shoes off and because those are not going well for me and I'll head
that way to try and help.
That's gonna take your shoes off.
Yeah.
Cool.
Yeah.
Just ditch the shoes and find them.
Yeah.
At this point.
Fucking barefoot.
I'm gonna say that without the shoes given the earthquake, we're gonna call it difficult
to ring.
Give me just give me a flat deck check.
We'll call it 10 to see if you can move quick enough without what'd you get 19.
Oh yeah.
You're sick.
I'm like flooring it on this cobblestone.
This shit is my terrain.
I'm from the mountains.
It's cracking up.
Wonderful.
Give me either an animal handling check or a athletics check please.
Neither of those are good.
One is to forcibly move the horse out of the way and the second is to...
I believe what I just fucking rolled.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is my third nap one.
I'm about to eat this dice.
I'm gonna roll.
Okay.
It said that okay for tides of chaos it says your DM can allow you to do it again as long
as you roll a wild magic surge first.
Can I roll a wild magic surge and roll tides of chaos again?
Try and fix this fucker.
Nat 20.
Yep.
That doesn't do it.
Cool.
I'm gonna roll.
Are you gonna let me roll again?
I'm gonna roll an athletics check on behalf of Eva to see if Eva can once again save the
day.
She needs to get a 15 or higher to cover the distancing as she's currently on the floor
with this random woman.
What is Sparrow doing at this point?
Sparrow is fucking stumbling.
Like Sparrow is like stumbling around.
I mean there's an earthquake happening.
It's not like she's...
She just looks like a fool.
I mean like the floor is literally like breaking up around her as she is just like trying to
get from stone to stone.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm on the fucking struggle bus.
Cool.
Eva rolled a 19.
She's going to get up in bolt in that direction.
I'm about to fat Eva.
I have zero in animal handling for Eva but I have for a strength check.
If it's raw strength I have a plus three.
So let's see what Eva gets.
She needs to get a 12 or higher to get the horse moving.
She got a 16.
Eva is going to just basically fully like check the woman on the ground.
She's like have a good day and then just gets up, fucking bolts, sees you on the ground
and goes there's no time to lose Sparrow.
Why you on the floor?
I'm fucking dying I think.
And just runs past you and instead of like trying to like pull the horse fully just
like gets her shoulder ready and just shoulder checks the horse out of the way of the tree.
Eva.
And like with her other hand like shoves like the...
Oh my god like the handler just out of the way in the back falls on top of the horse
and the conifer falls right in between them.
We've talked about this.
Things for asking a final game.
You're fine.
I am now.
Okay.
Jesus Christ.
Is there any...
Can I...
Okay.
Holy shit.
That's crazy.
Maddie to Robert.
Can you help me the fuck out?
Because I'm dying I think.
What would you like me to help you with?
Is there something I can do?
Is there anything else I notice?
Are there people running around?
After 20 charisma score you could probably try to help direct people like away from buildings
and like help direct tourists to safer places.
Okay.
You just want to give me like a persuasion check?
Yeah.
I'll thaumaturgy and like try to yell the best I can.
Advantage then.
Why not?
Make like a giant hand like pointing one way.
Madison.
First was two.
What?
Are you shitting me?
I rolled another nat one.
Is that your fourth nat one?
This is my fourth nat one.
I don't know what's happening.
Anyway, well I mean with the two that's going to be, I've got a plus seven.
So it's a nine.
Which isn't the worst thing in the world.
So what happens?
I think spare is just at this point with a nine is still laying on the fucking ground.
Just be like, all right everybody away from tall buildings, come out into the center,
cover your hands over the soft part of your neck.
It'll be fine.
Just breathe, leave all belongings, get out in the middle.
Wonderful.
On a nine, not a lot of the tourists clearly like don't speak common and so they just kind
of look at you more confused than anything but like the little, it seems like the people
of the, it sounds like the people of the town.
But the town or seems like the people of the town at least most of them speak common so
you get quite a few people away from buildings but not too many people.
I think I need to throw these guys away.
You need to throw that one in particular away.
That was crazy.
That was nuts.
Four nat ones is nuts.
Okay, we're going to move on to the next thing.
Chaos continues to unfold around both Sparrow and Eba even as the tremors begin to subside.
Screams emanate from within the melted muses.
You watch the massive cauldron that holds an untold amount of melted cheese toppling
off the wood fire stove that keeps it bubbling.
The hot gooey cheese rushes towards the door in the rest of the patrons at breakneck speed.
Fallen buildings and debris block your path on either side or I guess into the building
as the gloppy scalding cheese surges closer.
And I try to use mage hands to keep the pot of cheese in place.
Yeah, give me an arcana check.
We'll call it DC 15.
Nat 20.
Holy fuck.
Jesus.
Sparrow is a girl of extremes.
Okay.
So wow.
What does this look like?
I think her mage hand is definitely like it's I'm going to steal this a little bit from
the new season of fantasy high.
It's got like really pretty decorative rings on it.
Perfectly manicured nails somehow despite the fact that she's on the run.
And it's just it's fucking pink.
Same as her.
And it's big enough that it just holds the giant pot in its hand.
Oh, wow.
Like just is palming it and then it sets it on the ground.
Wonderful.
So as you, yeah, as sparrow just fucking still laying on the ground failure after failure
after failure after failure, sparrow eventually kicks it into gear and seeing the giant pot
of molten hot cheese manages to grab it and set it firmly back on its pedestal.
But unfortunately that does not stop some of the cheese from spilling out as the earthquake
rocks the entire building and some of it begins rushing towards the entrance.
Wait, how much of the how much of this fucking cheese is there?
Okay.
So let's let's think about this.
This pot of cheese is meant to basically feed like a whole town and then all of the tourists
is like a giant.
This is like a whole dread.
Yeah, like a huge like giant size like witches cauldron of hot molten cheese like the size
of a hot tub.
Yeah.
Like a little bigger probably like the way I'm imagining is like you got to get like
a small ladder next to the side of it.
Okay.
Get up and stir.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it rocks back and forth and some of it still spills, but you save most of the patrons
as the hot molten cheese begins rushing towards Eba and sparrow.
A rope suddenly appears behind the both of you and a small mousy woman begins to shout
down at you from the zeppelin by the way.
It's sanity that has just left the scolarium and a woman shouts the imperious can for the
life bar, but she's safer than a hot cheesebeth.
All right.
Everybody on the ropes.
That's so funny.
The first thing it says is that she's going to insist that the party climb the rope as
if nobody would climb the rope.
That's insanity.
Like it.
The description of this obstacle basically reads is that like it's an option to climb
the rope, but that maybe the party wouldn't.
Oh, that's interesting.
But if it's between me, a cliff and like a pot of cheese, a giant melted pot of cheese.
Like I'm taking the rope.
I'm taking the rope.
I would like sparrows would like to get other people up first.
Okay.
So it says that, yeah, okay, we'll do that.
So we'll call it, I'll tell you what, since you're already using Mage Hand and dexterity
checks don't seem to be sparrows thing, we will do another arcana check with Mage Hand.
No checks seem to be sparrows thing.
We'll call it DC 15 to move people out of the way fast enough that like you're not in
danger and then I'm going to roll a DC 15 athletics check.
Oh, sick.
Yeah, you're golden.
I'm going to roll a DC 15 athletics check on Eva's.
I better get four fucking Nat 20s.
Oh my God.
Eva rolls a fucking eight.
Jesus.
Eva, get it the fuck together.
Eva throws absolutely all caution to the wind and basically bolts like darts in through
the doors of the melted muse and begins like grabbing patrons and then throwing them towards
the front.
Eva, people skills, gentle.
Right is like the melted cheese begins to like lick at her boots.
I mean, you're on a Nat 20s, so I mean, do what the fuck you want.
Yeah, I think I'm just going to continue like shouting directions at this point.
I've got Mage Hand that's also like pointing to the rope.
Mage Hand's going one keeping the pot in bay like like bringing it's very light.
It's it this shit is like on lock.
It's like a line at Disney.
It is like everything is perfectly like no matter where you go, somehow there's a hand
point in the direction that you need to go.
And it's just ushered as many people up the rope as possible if there's people who can't
climb using a Mage Hand to kind of boost them up.
Yeah, sick.
Eva's just going to make a really quick dexterity saving throw to see if she gets caught in
the cheese.
Jesus Christ.
We'll call it DC 10.
I think she what does she have?
She is like a plus two, I think to this.
Oh, no, yes, she is.
Plus two.
Oh, Jesus Christ, Eva.
She got an eight.
I'll deal with her in a minute.
Okay.
She's going to climb up the rope.
Yeah, most of the Batrens have either made it outside and to a safer area or climbing
up the rope.
You watch as Eva like grabbing one last person like scoops them up with her arm and then
throws them towards the door like that.
Stop fooling people.
Yeah, she's fully just like one hay like one arming just lifting people up and throwing
them towards the door.
And right as she's about to like sprint towards forward to grab the rope with you, you watch
as a giant glob of hot, malted cheese basically like lurches out from the rest of it and then
like fully sticks in the back of her boots.
She's going to take 2D4 fire damage as she cries out in pain as this molten cheese begins
to burn her feet.
Can I use a dagger to cut her shoes off her?
That's crazy.
You can.
Yeah, if that's what you want to do, you can also just take an action to remove her from
the cheese if you like.
I want to look cool while I do this.
Sure.
I think she's only going to take 4 damage, but that's also going to bring her to 5 health.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah, we're level 3 dog.
We're level 3.
We are not doing a whole lot.
Oh, wait a minute.
I have 31 health.
I didn't heal from our last fucking combat encounter.
Oh, shit.
I'm cruising.
I'm at 27.
I was about to say, I'm at 18.
You start going to work with this knife like basically sawing off like the backs of her
boots and she fully like scoops you up as you're in the middle of doing that once her
legs are free.
I was doing something.
And like runs towards the rope.
Can I get a DC12 athletics check, please, to grab onto the rope?
15.
Nat 1.
God damn.
I want you all to know who we're listening.
We tried to record an episode last night and it was so bad.
We were just doing puzzles and it was, we were like, we got to scrap it.
We got to do another.
Hopefully today we'll go better.
The amount of natural ones.
That means the most Nat 1's I've had in less than an hour.
This is crazy.
At any table.
Cool.
Yeah.
Eva runs forward like kind of carrying you down that you've cut her free.
We're both about to eat shit.
And then, no, she's chilling.
You're fine.
So basically like you all, she sets you down and then you're both about to grab the rope
and then like another tremor like hits the ground and he was fully like thrown backwards
off her footing right as you grab a hold of the rope with one hand.
Jesus Christ.
How healthy are you?
Is that a genuine question?
Very.
Cool.
Lightning lower.
Wow.
I'm just going to choose to fail it.
Yeah.
Cool.
I'm so sorry.
You are going to take 1d8 lightning damage.
But you still have to roll to hit me or is this a roll that I would have to make?
Target must exceeding a strength saving throw or be pulled.
Yeah.
I'm going to choose to fail.
So for those listening, just because this is like a how to D&D podcast, you can choose
to fail certain saving throws.
In this instance, I could roll the like I could throw the save like I could roll it,
but then if I pass it, then like this whole thing doesn't work.
Yeah.
But like if I know that like passing or sorry, if I know that failing a check is going to
be more beneficial for me, then like I'm just, you can choose to fail that.
Like there's no reason for Eba to physically struggle against this if it's going to bring
her forward.
Yeah.
So the spell lightning lower is a one action.
It is a radius of self 15 feet.
You create a lash of lightning energy that strikes out at one creature of your choice.
You can see within 15 feet, target must exceeding a strength saving throw or be pulled up to
10 feet in a straight line towards you and then take 1d8 lightning damage.
It is within five feet of you.
I'm using this kind of as non intentional purpose, which is as a literal lasso just to pull someone
forward.
However, she is going to take seven damage.
Okay.
We're chilling.
We're still at 20 hill.
Cool.
We are totally fine.
Hopefully we can take a nap on this fucking.
Yeah.
I'm sure we can.
Wonderful.
You Yankee before with a bit of cool lightning magic and then is just enough to sort of
get one of her large hands around the rope.
She begins climbing herself up as the imperious begins flying off.
Fuck my shoes.
You are both jealous.
Go ahead and give me a perception check as you start to get sort of a Berseye view of
the town.
Nat 20.
What the fuck?
I don't know what's happening.
Perception check.
Okay.
I got a 16.
It doesn't matter.
You got a Nat 20.
Two things that you and Eva both notice as you begin to pull yourself up this rope.
So the fire guards and several men that are sort of outside working with some of the civilians,
they're all wearing the same robes or at least a few of them are that are marked with
this sort of large golden eye.
Similar to the robes actually that the woman that is flying the imperious that called you
and Eva up is also wearing.
It looks like sort of the danger from the earthquake is mostly subsided.
There's less tremors.
The buildings aren't falling apart completely.
Everyone got out of the melt of muse.
That's one of the things you and Eva both notice.
Another thing is that there are sort of huge cracks in the surface that seem to sort of
spider web out from the woods nearby.
In the center of a clearing sort of in the middle of that wood as a large dark obelisk
with deep grooves in the surface all around it.
And it seems as though the cracks that started from the forest and then spread to the city
all emanate from this dark obelisk in the middle of this clearing.
Well that's not ominous in the slightest.
Note it all.
Jesus Christ.
Wonderful.
Once aboard the imperious the party is able to take stock of its interior.
I'm going to read some flavor text.
The inside of the Zeppelin's passenger carriage is a dizzying orchestra of delicate wearing
machinery and gently glowing spell focusing crystals.
A suspended catwalk cuts through the tangled metal mess of cogs and leads towards a large
dome.
Its guidance mechanisms hum as they slowly drift to place the dark obelisk emerging from
the trees beyond into alignment with the dome's central directional tabs.
Either side of the catwalk is dotted with desks strewn with parchment and books covering
everything from star charting to studies on the density of gems to the detailed life
cycle of rare amber glass butterflies.
Smiling as you look around bushy eyebrow stuffed behind thick glasses that peer out from under.
Tempestuous brunette hair is the halfling who helped you aboard.
Howdy.
I am Loretta Sanchez, current head of the Order of the Ochre Eye.
Well towns folks call us the esoteric society for arcane studies.
Initiators are ship the imperious.
Would you like some fondue?
I'm just kidding.
It's a pleasure to meet you ma'am.
My name is Sparrow and this is my companion Eva.
Greetings.
Charming town you have had.
I don't know what to.
Anyway um...
Quick question that dark obelisks up ahead.
What's up with that?
Loretta.
It bothers me that it's not Loretta but I get it.
Loretta takes out a little cloth and wipes off both of her lenses and dusts herself off.
Clearly like this emergency take off from the sclerium is very quick and impromptu.
Before she starts launching into what she had completely sidestepped the question about
the obelisk and comes up to shake both your and Eva's hand and goes well I tell you what
that was a hell of a show you all put on back there.
I really appreciate you all walking into...
I'll leave folks to name the town.
Oh come on I got it.
I'll come up with it.
Maybe I won't.
Ha ha.
Illinois.
Uh...
I sure am glad that you folks walked into Illinois when you did.
You know we don't get a whole lot of earthquakes around these parts being in the mountains and
such.
Well I suppose that makes sense.
You know if we did such a wonderful job we'd take tips in any currency.
Just putting that out there.
Um...
Eva like pinches her nose and shakes her head as you immediately start getting to work on
offering for like a donation.
She goes to who I am.
Um...
What do you mean you don't normally get...
I would say I can tell from the infrastructure you don't normally get earthquakes.
Well um...
You seem pretty quick on the draw though.
I mean you have this blimp thing up and going pretty quick.
Well it's funny you should mention the blimp.
So as I mentioned earlier I am part of the order of the okra.
So folks around here are a little superstitious.
They don't call us...
Okra?
Like okra...
Like Brad Okra?
O-C-H-R-E.
I'm just going to call y'all okra.
That's...
Okay.
Ha ha.
So most folks around us call here the esoteric society for arcane studies.
They're not just um...
Magically inclined.
And some of us other folks are.
But we're actually called the order of the okra.
And we, in this particular branch, because there are quite a few of us in this town,
have been observing this obelisk for uh...
For quite a while.
So we actually call that their obelisk.
She kind of walks towards an observation deck and starts pointing out it.
Who is it?
Sorry, who's driving this?
Oh it...
Was she not driving it?
No they're like multiple, they're like people running around that are like pulling levers
and stuff.
Yeah they all have on that same uniform with the golden eye.
She begins to point to the obelisk.
So we actually call that their the spire.
Yeah and uh...
This observation sort of blimp, if you will, is designed specifically to be able to get
a bird's eye view because you see the cracks around the outside of the spire.
Sometimes dangerous arcane magics flow out of those and it becomes a little tricky trying
to get close to it.
So this is pretty advanced because you can't really get close to on foot with this sort
of thing you know?
Yep.
So dark magic just occasionally flows out of this?
Correct.
That's fucking crazy.
Okay.
Uh and it's...
So no earthquakes, so does it not normally cause earthquakes?
No, you know this is actually a new phenomenon.
You know it's funny, all of the towns folks are just convinced that the spire is some
like strange architectural wonder from another age.
You know, at all they're a little simple for a lack of a better word.
Can I do an insight check on this lady?
Yeah, give me an insight check.
She's giving weird vibes.
Uh that is going to be a 19.
Yeah.
Um there's definitely some...
I mean she's...
What are we looking for?
Let's start there.
Well first of all, I'm trying to see if she's bigoted.
Um...
Like bigoted towards like stupid people?
Well I mean she said like simpletons and then earlier she said something about like...
This is like a muggle situation.
Like magically inclined.
They're not like us magically inclined folks.
I'm just trying to get a read on this lady and see what her fucking deal is.
Yeah, so she doesn't seem to be bigoted.
Like that's not a part of her deal.
She truly...
The...
On an insight...
Yeah, on a 19 you've read plenty of people being sort of a Robin Hoodie character, part
of your whole shtick, right?
Is being able to very quickly pick up the vibe or sort of the level of intelligence
or know how of a particular person.
Um...
Larita is smart to a...
A fault in the sense that she doesn't look at other people in a bigoted way.
Just so much as she knows that she's smarter and treats other people that aren't on her
level as like children to be babied.
Okay, so she's sensible.
She very much sees a little.
She sees the town as like a group of people that need to be cared for and looked after,
but not necessarily as like super intelligent beings.
Okay.
Yeah.
So she's probably gonna be...
I hate authority.
So...
On the rest of that 19 though, she definitely seems to be hiding some...
Some kind of information about the obelisk.
Like she...
It almost seems like she's being purposely vague about giving you details about what...
Like the order of the ochre eye would know.
I mean, if they've made this whole thing meant for going up and looking at this and studying
it, why wouldn't they...
So how often do you all observe the obelisk?
Well, you know, it's funny you should ask that.
So many generations ago, she begins to like walk over to a small like little library that
they have sitting inside the imperious.
And begins like thumbing through some of the older dusty books, pulls out one that is sort
of almost like bad vibes, like evil looking.
Like it's made out of like this crude dark leather that has some...
Like skin?
Yeah.
Almost looks like skin has some like darker arcane sigils on it and doesn't hand it to
you but like holds it up.
And she begins to explain, so many generations ago, our order actually sealed away a man
named Lord Tiresome Belivar.
Tiresome?
Tiresome Belivar.
Yeah, it's funny we didn't catch it earlier.
Tiresome Belivar.
And this here is actually his book.
Was he exhausting?
He was exhausting.
I mean, I never met the man personally.
This happened several hundred years ago but like I've heard tales, I've read his books.
Incredibly boring and tiresome man for sure.
He earned his namesake.
Anyways, this here is one of his fancy books that he made.
He was a secret necromancer.
So many years ago...
Looks like skin, I don't know how secret it was.
No that's fair.
Again, I don't quite understand how we didn't catch this earlier but I wasn't around back
then to notice.
Like I felt like if I was there maybe I would have asked somebody, hey, what the fuck is
going on with this book?
No, you know when you see a book that looks like it's made of human skin you normally
ask questions.
You start to ask questions.
And nobody asks questions.
That's a problem with these simple folk.
Nobody asks questions.
Anyways, so be way, way back.
We used to let people sort of come to this particular town to study different arcane
arts.
And Lord Belivar was a noble mage who was specifically responsible.
He sort of took on the duty himself to laying mages that studied here and then passed away
to rest so that the families didn't kind of have to do that themselves because people
would come from all over and it was just kind of like complicated business.
Well what we didn't know was that Belivar behind closed doors wouldn't actually bury
those bodies.
He would then take them down.
Like romance or shit.
Yeah.
And then begin practicing sort of dark perverted arcane arts on the dead bodies of these powerful
mages and then sort of reanimating them.
And I can't really go into detail about the dark studies.
I don't know if it was ever perverted necessarily but it was definitely evil.
You know what I'm saying?
So anyways, we ended up sealing him in the same crypt that he committed a lot of these
atrocities in.
And along with sealing that crypt we sealed most of the public arcane knowledge that was
available to anybody that passed into the town.
And so occasionally below the obelisk some dark things leak out.
So question, could someone not go in and do routine maintenance to kind of make sure that
so it's funny you should ask about maintenance.
Part of the obelisk, well exactly what the obelisk is supposed to be is basically a giant
lock.
So often times the final goal of a necromancer is to become a lich which is an undead immortal
being of immense magical power that could bring sort of the end times to any and all
who touch.
A bitch.
That is a word for it yes.
Or tiresome perhaps.
So a tiresome individual like that can't really be left to chance.
So the giant obelisk you see actually serves as a magical lock to keep anybody within,
in and anybody out out.
Now he's dead, been dead for a long time as far as we're aware of.
And nobody can get in as far as we're aware of.
But this earthquake is certainly a little worrisome because it doesn't really happen
that often.
Yeah.
How sure are you that he was dead?
I mean pretty sure.
I was just necromancer and all that.
You mean like on a scale of 1 to 10 like how positive am I that he's dead?
Like a 9.
See there's room for error there.
Like definitely and I won't, nobody can go in.
This feels like a situation where it should be a solid 10.
And someone sounds like a situation for maybe a small party of adventurers.
There is, I'm a one woman show but I'm very flattered.
Well the large person next to you.
Is there something going on here that I'm just unaware of?
No.
Okay.
I mean I'm cool with it if there is.
You don't have to like hide anything like we're civilized folks.
We're not homophobic.
Basically.
We're civilized folk.
I mean some of the townsfolk might be a little simple but we understand that you know people
can like whatever bits they like.
Hello, you can acknowledge her.
Fully not what I meant but alright.
Hello.
Oh gross.
Yes I understand that.
What are we talking about?
As much as I love Philo- oh god this is me in real life.
The fucking philanthropy.
Philo- as much as I love giving back to the communities.
You see my companion and I are a little bit tied on cash.
Is there any sort of word?
Like the financial incentive.
Yes.
I tell you what we don't really keep a lot of gold on standby.
I mean you know what gold we really use are for rituals like the physical gold component
like the element.
But I tell you what we do have.
We do have quite a few magical artifacts lying around that we would be more than willing
to lend to you and your large companion as part of this job.
You don't have to call her a large companion.
That you can then-
And just refer to her as my companion.
Your companion.
Well compared to me and even compared to you she is large.
Her name is Eva.
Eva just kind of goes-
She's kind of like gruffs and is like okay.
You're doing great.
Thanks.
Eva just keep me-
I'm going to walk over there before I punch small lady in face.
That seems like a wise idea.
I think she's like walks on over to a set of books and pretends to thumb through.
Totally disinterested.
Those self-centering exercises are really working out and I'm thankful for that.
You are more than willing to keep the magical artifacts that you take for the job and then
sell them off or use them on your adventures.
That sounds like it can be doable.
Wonderful.
What other-
I mean I can't see these magical artifacts.
There's a process to like unlocking them so not in this instance.
All right.
That's Robert saying he hasn't read far enough into the one shot to see what they are.
Okay fair enough.
Hang on I got to adjust my headphones.
I tell you what though I'm going to give you a little bit of background on my shelf.
I think they'll be helpful for you to know.
Robert forgot to read a thing.
So you know fun fact the only reason I know about how tiresome tiresome really was is
so my mother was actually one of the keepers of the Arcane Library at Discolarium.
One of those libraries was actually one of the ones that was sealed off at that giant
obelisk cap and she kept records of all the books and then sort of their locations.
She was like a magical librarian if you would say.
So I actually grew up like sort of amongst those books.
That's why I'm so-
Bookish.
That's-
Yeah that's a word for it.
You could say bookish.
I could say a lot of things.
Bless your heart.
Yeah.
Anyways this is like for a lot of us of the order.
This is like an inheritance like this position.
So this isn't like something that I just woke up one day and decided well I'm smarter
than the rest of the town folks so I might as well go ahead and fly up in that fancy
blimp.
This is like a sacred order so I need you to understand if you take on this mission
of sorts.
You can't just sort of you need to uphold yourself in an orderly way because you will
be effectively representing the order of ochre.
We don't exactly just let people join on their own volition.
Ah of course.
Right.
That is to say there will be consequences if you were to I don't know remove one of
the ancient powerful tomes that was sealed within the library underneath the scolarium
or engage with any of Lord Tiresome's previous arcane magics as well.
What consequences.
Well that's for me to know and for you to hopefully not find out.
Wonderful.
You're very trusting.
Incredibly so.
I can tell.
Funny you should mention trust.
I'm going to read another text box.
This is for listeners.
Make a drinking game of this.
Every time Robert says funny you should mention.
Funny you should mention it.
Take a shot or something.
Okay let's see here.
So she sort of walks away from this stack of books and goes to another stack of books
that she also has floating around.
How is there how many fucking books are.
That's a great question.
You know my mom didn't tell me.
She didn't give me a number.
I just kind of know where they are.
Do you all have like a system.
I meant like supplies and rations aboard the blimpers.
It just books up.
Oh yeah no we have supplies and rations.
Where are you keeping.
I have only sell books.
All right.
Wonderful.
Do you have shoes by any chance.
Pardon me.
Shoot never mind.
I'll deal with it later.
So anyways since Lord Belvoir has disappeared.
He's off towards aspiring and she's coming through another book.
So you know how I mentioned that the people of the town aren't exactly aware of what its
magical significance is.
So they actually use it in a festival.
Where they have a race to see who can climb to the top of it the fastest.
The obelisk.
Yeah the obelisk that contains dark unimaginable arcane power under yeah they actually use
that in a friendly climbing competition.
And you know I hate to say this but we're the ones that kind of pushed him in that direction.
We thought it was gonna be bad for town if word got out that our PR stuff.
If word got out that our town was holding a potentially dark evil man with unentold
magical horrors underneath.
You know what I'm saying.
So we kind of pushed it in that direction.
So you made a playground on top of it.
You know we let the town folk believe that it was a fun thing to play on.
Do you think that that is that is to tell you that the what have led to this festival
that is coming where people climb might get in the way of your duties and actually expedites
the need for you all to figure out what the hell's going on.
Because I can't if people are just climbing the obelisk and all of a sudden it explodes
to some crazy shit we're at fault you know.
Yeah I would believe so.
Is there a prize for winning the festival.
A shit ton of hot cheese.
Hey this shit sucks.
Do you have something you want to send in to make it better?
Criticisms, topics you'd like to see discussed or an advertisement you'd like to run.
Maybe you even want to sponsor an episode.
If so shoot us a message at mc460 at evansville.edu or DM us on Instagram at crescent magazine
or we'll never get better like these fucking guys.
I tell you what though I do think I have a stash laying around give me a second you seem
very gold oriented just let me see if I can find something.
Gold oriented I like to say.
That's so funny.
I know.
Wow really really big play on words there.
Yeah.
You know what I'm gonna go find a stash.
That sounds wonderful.
Eba.
You look so.
This is a fucking cult.
What do you mean cult.
It's a cult they're the okra group or some shit like that I don't know.
The okra group.
Well she gave me a correct name.
I don't listen you know I don't listen to names.
Well these mumbo jumbo.
I think this is a golden opportunity for us to really prove ourselves as adventurers.
They said that we can get some magical artifacts if we do this.
That sounds so sick.
I know.
I'm more into it for the the payout.
I don't keep losing her action.
I can't figure out what the fuck it is.
I'm gonna talk to her for a second.
No be rushing again it was so fun.
I can't be vague European.
There we go.
Jesus Christ.
Right as you're figuring out sort of logistics with Eba she hauls over this giant like huge
book like she's half length so she's kind of short.
She brings over a book almost as tall as her and like thumbs it in between you and Eba.
What is this.
Well this is your reward and then she opens the book the whole center of it's been hollowed
out and there are about 100 shiny golden pieces that are sitting in the middle of this giant
hollowed out book.
Well that sounds wonderful.
I do typically for my services I do take a quarter up front.
You want a quarter of this.
What about like a handful.
Two handfuls.
Eba's handfuls.
I was gonna say why don't we let Eba do the handfuls then.
Deal.
Okay two Eba handfuls and that'll be your payment up front.
Deal.
Okay so let's do these and it probably like rolls up her sleeves and then just like digs
her giant hands in.
Hell yeah.
Huge handfuls of gold.
Let me roll a couple of d20s and see how many gold pieces you all get up front.
14 and 12 so 26 gold pieces up front.
I'll take it.
Yeah so literally almost a quarter.
Perfect.
Well I guess a quarter of a quarter.
A eighth.
Yeah so an eighth technically an eighth.
I'm not a bad man.
Stupid.
You have an eighth of the gold.
I tell you what though if you take this 200 gold here the arcane weaponry that you will
be given will be on loan.
It's like an either or situation you know what I'm saying.
Well why not both.
Well because they belong to the order of of of the ochre.
What if we do such a good job that we get both.
Well maybe we can talk about that such a good job but let's see if you can get the job
done first.
All right.
We'll start there.
Let's go away to get like equipment.
Yeah.
Cool I'm leaning over to Eva.
So we can just dip with the artifacts after right.
What I'm thinking.
Eva smiles and goes we'll we'll think about it.
Come on.
I'll can see that.
Come on just a little bit.
It's a maybe a maybe.
I pocketed extra two gold.
Oh my god.
Cool.
So as you begin to approach the spire you can see it's where the large windows on the
front of the zeppelin it is surrounded by a lush forest and snow cap mountains and there's
a bold patch of land around the obelisk where it seems vegetation fears to tread.
Baron land here is formed into a rotten lich pad and bog where the spire itself rises as
if it had been thrust into the heart of the earth.
The wound for which the land has been unable to recover.
She says.
Bleak.
Loretta whose like face has gone sort of grim and stark compared to sort of her happier
demeanor as you all fly closer stands up next to you and Eva and goes we caught his place
to scab.
Nature itself seems to recoil from Belvoir's remains.
Magic wielded to seal him away.
Unfortunately also wounded the earth in the process.
And see how the soil almost seems to bleed here.
Still the land can heal.
It's just it'll take time and maybe it's foolish but I hoped it maybe whatever is underneath
this scarred earth will eventually provide fresh soil.
All right down we go.
Jesus Christ.
Okay.
Well we're going down.
Can I find a fucking townsperson who looks like they've got a similar size and shoe to
me.
Yeah for sure.
I mean she's going to go ahead and direct you all to the armory anyway so go ahead and
roll a d20 and that'll determine what item you get.
I just need shoes like normal shoes.
Let's see if shoes are on here.
There are no shoes on here.
Cool.
That's why I'm trying to find a townsperson and I'm going to try and call them out of
their shoes.
What is that.
That's a what am I rolling.
D20 just to D20 16 16 you get a javelin of lightning which will probably end up fucking
good at trading is what I imagine is going to happen.
And then let me roll see what I get a stone of good luck.
Yeah we can switch.
Yeah that sounds.
Yeah.
Yeah basically Larita like throws the doors open to this like giant arcane armory that's
on this floating blimp and grabs the two nearest objects and checks them towards you both and
slams them shut and locks them.
Yeah immediate like.
Yeah just yeah even like looks at this tiny little stone in her hand that has like a runon
and then.
I'm a tall woman but this javelin is bigger than I would like it to be.
This is this is a bevel.
Trade.
Yes.
Cool.
Yeah you fully just swap magical items.
Cool.
Now we need to look those up.
I will look up a stone of good luck.
I will look up a lightning javelin whatever the fuck that is lightning javelin javelin
lightning.
What do we do here.
Take item when you hurl it and speak its command word it transforms into a bolt of lightning.
Well that's so fun.
Wow stone of good luck.
46 lightning damage.
That's crazy.
While this polished agate is on your person you gain a plus one bonus to ability checks
and saving throws.
Oh sick.
Not bad.
It's great for you.
Correct.
Cool.
Larita begins to lower the imperious as rope and anchor.
I put it in my bra.
And then sort of slides down the rope and then it fixes an anchor sort of in the nearby
bog.
Were we able to long rest.
Yeah well we can probably hit a short rest I imagine.
Okay I'm more worried about you than me.
I'll be okay.
I think I think I can manage.
All right.
Short rest.
I'm going to roll a hit dust.
You know what we are level three characters we'll hit a long rest.
Yeah.
We'll do that.
Wonderful.
So the zeppelin is not going to fly away now and the next phase of the adventure begins.
All right so we're supposed to just go down there and figure out what the fuck is up.
We'll stay on a long rest to find a pair of shoes.
Thank fucking god.
Yeah Larita goes to one of her staff and like goes and measuring everybody's feet like throughout
the day trying to find like the perfect fit.
He's just like a size eight.
We don't need to do all that.
You and Sparrow begin descending.
Hi Sparrow.
Yeah.
As you and Eba begin descending down the rope it is clear that a storm is approaching.
Steady wind shaking the trees and tossing the zeppelin off its trajectory.
You sway on the gusts but manage to hang on.
As your feet touch down the ground is boggy and the mud you uncover with each step is
a rich thick crimson.
The color of blood.
Real glad I got shoes now.
I don't like this place.
Yeah it's fucking gross.
Can I do an arcana check?
Yeah can we give you an arcana check?
It's going to be an 18 plus four is going to be a 22.
Okay.
Right.
Yeah I believe so.
Yeah.
We will.
What was the number you got?
22.
I don't know.
Note that down for the next arcana check that I have to give you because right now there
is no arcana check for me to give you.
Go ahead and give me a perception check though or investigation check or perception your
choice.
Either way it is going to be an 18.
Wonderful.
I also got a 20.
Oh wait no it would be a 30 20 for investigation.
Cool for perception even got a 16.
You all are basically looking for a place to anchor the imperious because Larita is having
a really difficult time like getting hers like stubby legs through the mud to like find
a place to actually put it so that like it's not going to fly away.
Wonderful.
Now I'm going to need an athletics check or a sleight of hand or no I need both.
An athletics check is followed by a sleight of hand check.
Okay.
She passes her athletics check.
She does not pass her sleight of hand check.
Can I do a sleight of hand check to help?
Yep.
16.
Wonderful.
That sort of flexes her large muscles underneath her at this point like kind of spray-painy
torn up military uniform that she's like ripped all of the symbol and regalia off of
but clearly still values it for like its material worth and then just starts reeling
in the zeppelin but cannot seem to get like the knot tied around the large tree as she's
trying to.
You got to go like a round.
You make the bunny ears.
Well it just like backs off of the rope and lets you start doing it.
Okay.
It's so easy.
You just do it like.
Oh okay I see bunny ears.
Yes the bunny ears.
Cool.
And then it goes in the burrow and there you go.
Wow.
Where do you learn bunny ear technique?
What?
Growing up.
What do you mean growing up?
You don't learn how to do that?
I mean we learned how to like skin bores and soft part of chest to hit.
You and I had very different childhoods.
Well it would seem so.
Cool.
You all managed to successfully find a proper location to anchor the imperious and you get
it tied up.
As you and Eba begin to secure the heavy rope to the spire itself the obelisk seems to shimmer
with a continuously building glow.
There's a burst of light from the clouds above as lightning crackles down from the sky snaking
around the imperious before slamming into the spire.
Winter booms as energy courses through the obelisk and into the ground beneath you and
the entire structure begins to shake again.
And a large crevice similar to those you encountered in the middle of the earthquake begin to form
as the loose earth beneath you shifts.
The fire surges up the rope anchoring the imperious to its location.
Does it look like the storm is caused by the obelisk?
Like a magical thing?
I'll tell you what we will use this 22 for that.
Let me see if there's an answer for that.
Yes it does appear that the spire slash obelisk is almost ramping in magical energy and seems
to be pulling power.
How the fuck are we getting in?
I'll say on a 22 it almost seems like it's less in the nature of the obelisk itself and
almost like something underneath the obelisk is like intentionally calling power to the
location.
So now that the lightning has hit the spire the fire begins to spread up the rope that
is attached to the imperious.
Oh okay so we don't want that correct?
No if the fire reaches the imperious I would imagine there's potential for it to burn down.
There are also cracks forming underneath you and Iba as the ground begins to split apart.
Can I put the fire out?
Give me a perception check.
You see is Loretta who's standing up on the launch deck where they would sort of reel
in anchors is yelling and waving her hands wildly.
You assume the storm is so loud that you can't hear what she's saying.
You begin miming.
That's funny.
As Loretta continues to yell at you she begins to point and you quickly see what she's been
trying to draw your attention to.
The cracks in the ground aren't just opening up to endless earth they are bleeding.
Oh Jesus Christ.
You can slide globs of blood begin to bubble up out of the cracks around the spire and the
globs grow larger and larger.
Jesus Christ.
Defying gravity as they begin to stretch towards the sky.
It looks like one of them is beginning to form a face.
No.
They're going to roll a d4 to determine how many of these things there are.
Okay.
I'm not taking a one.
One is lame.
Oh wait it's this plus.
Okay yeah I'll take a two.
Okay.
Three larger pools of bloody ooze begin to form around you and Eba.
Oh absolutely not.
Alright page 18 for the encounter.
Cool.
Give me a perception check real quick.
I will roll perception.
Oh alright.
This one with Eba.
That is going to be a dirty 20.
So it does seem to be clear to both you and Eba that the oozes have a particularly difficult
time moving towards the obelisk.
Almost like whatever magical energy is emanating from the spire is almost like making them
unstable.
So that might give you an advantage fighting closer to the obelisk.
But it also does seem that they can sort of lob parts of their body at you which means
so you all you and Eba are going to be on the obelisk itself.
Sick.
And because you did a 22 arcana check earlier now that I'm looking at our combat section
I'm going to go and read a couple things off.
So the obelisk itself is 50 feet tall.
It seems like it's almost been rendered from like one solid piece of stone.
It's like impossibly smooth.
It looks like it's like perfect craftsmanship which seems absurd.
Well actually it almost makes perfect sense why somebody would turn this into the higher
up to spire competition because how the fuck are you supposed to climb up the smooth obelisk.
It's like that seed in Ulan.
Yeah basically it's like there's no fucking way.
She can't do it.
She's a woman.
And so on a 22 as you all begin to back towards the obelisk you feel a profoundly large magical
energy emanating from the spire.
As I mentioned earlier it is almost destabilizing the oozes but there's something further there.
The spire itself is almost like one giant arcane focus.
And it could be used to amplify the power of a spell to increase its damage duration radius
that sort of deal.
So in theory you could use a spell or take a turn to try and figure out how to use it
as a focus and could amplify one of your spells for sort of a larger attack.
What is also interesting though is that the energy that courses through this thing does
not seem to be like energy that you would just summon like as a individual.
It almost feels like it's like divine or like it's been sort of bestowed into the object
as well which could be from the lightning strike.
Okay.
Are we rolling initiative?
Yeah go and roll initiative.
All right that was a 19 and then you're going to add your decks to initiative.
So I'm going to be at 21.
I think that Iba got a nat one.
Iba got a nat one.
Iba's bottom of initiative order.
Because of course she is.
Iba.
Iba is the bottom.
My fucking Marshall girl.
Iba's a one.
What did you get?
Uh 22.
Sparrow 22 and then I'm going to roll for my three blood oozes.
16, 19, natural 20.
See this is never run.
So this is a mechanic thing that I'm going to go ahead and announce it loud normally
if I was just playing I probably wouldn't tell my players this but the perception check
earlier that you got a 12 on if you had gotten above a 15 you would have been able to hear
a Loretta and you all would have had a round of surprise.
But because you couldn't hear what she said you didn't have enough time to prepare and
so they already manifested before you could take your round of surprise.
For those that don't that weren't here for the combat session episode round of surprise
is basically one full round of combat where you get to act before anything happens in
combat.
It's one full round where nobody gets to take reactions.
Nobody takes attacks of opportunity.
Nobody gets to respond to anything you're doing.
And enemies can also get around to surprise as well.
That actually happens in Crown of Candy and like their first big combat encounter they're
always fully ambushed and it's nuts man.
There are definitely some fun ways you can use round of surprise.
But let me see here.
Go ahead and pull up the stop block that they provided for the blood boys.
Blood ooze there we go.
Oops not bad.
Blood ooze.
All right we are going to start with our stick cut a natural 20.
Which one is that?
We'll call it the robot mini.
We're using minis that Madison made for us that are like printed cutouts that have been
laminated from our superhero campaign.
So if you hear us saying random names.
It's because it's easier to identify them that way so.
This one is going to 5, 10, 15, 20 is going to move 20 feet towards Eba and is going to
roll to hit.
Eba, Eba, Eba, Eba, Eba 13.
So this thing is going to roll with a plus 3 to hit to this and just barely misses.
Wonderful.
These slow sluggish blood ooze that has a hard time even moving towards the spire.
Both Eba and Sparrow are both already backed up on this thing.
So it is incredibly easy for Eba to essentially just sidestep is this like weird humanoid concoction
of like bloody fluids that have just bubbled up from the earth.
It just like basically slings one of its body parts that like falls to the ground and then
reforms on itself.
Yeah, it's fucking disgusting.
I'm not going to lie to you.
It's kind of gross.
Um, wonderful.
So now we're going to go to 22 with Sparrow.
I am going to cast.
Oh, I have a question.
What's up?
And this is something that might I might be wrong on this and people listening can correct
me.
Um, would I be able to use twins spell on Mage Armor for the rules of twins spell using a
meta magic point?
Because when you cast a spell that targets only one creature and doesn't have a range
of self, you can spend a number of source reports equal to the spells level to target
a second creature in range with the same spell.
Mage Armor is it's a range of touch and it is only one creature.
Interesting.
It's it's rain.
It says no range of self range of touch.
I will say reads an awful lot to me like.
In the description, it says you touch a willing creature who isn't wearing armor.
So it can be like it says you touch a creature.
You can definitely use it for yourself, but it is in the description.
The first line is saying to touch something.
You know what?
I'll give it to you.
Cool.
I'm going to expend because that is a first level spell.
How many?
That would be two of my three sorcery points.
And I am going to cast Mage Armor on myself and Eba.
So that means that your AC will then become I'm going to go ahead and read the spell.
The target space AC becomes 13 plus its decks modifier.
The spell ends if the target dawns armor or if you just miss the spell as an action.
This lasts for eight hours.
Jesus Christ.
So that's going to bump my AC up to 15.
It's also going to boost Eva's AC.
As soon as she doesn't have a negative to her decks.
She does not.
And then I'm going to use my movement to try and get to the other side of the obelisk
away from the other critters.
I looked up.
Okay.
So I'm trying to use, I've mentioned this previous in other episodes, an app slash website
called improved initiative.
I'm just pulling that up while Madison's talking about her spell because I prefer improved
initiative to a lot of other things.
It's just really, really great when it comes to making stat blocks.
It lives up to it lives up to its name and it is very much an improved initiative app.
And I just looked up a blood ooze to see if it was an actual creature and it is.
But what's funny is that it has the HP of the blood ooze on here as 76 whereas in the
book it is a maximum of 16.
I prefer the 16.
So I would love to know who, like where the difference is.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Where did it go wrong?
Anyways, that's fucking wild.
Awesome.
So we have, what's our plus to AC?
It's going to be 13 plus your decks modifier.
13 plus my decks mod which is two.
So we are up to 15.
Fucking sick.
Thank you.
No problem.
Are you going to do anything else?
Yes.
I'm going to move to the other side of the obelisk.
And then you get a free object interaction on each turn, correct?
Yeah.
Can I try to interact with the obelisk and figure out how to use that as a, what's the
word I'm looking for?
Arcade focus.
You want to use like the free object interaction to use it as an arcane focus?
Yeah.
Or to try and see if I can use it as an arcane focus.
Yeah.
We're going to check.
Cool.
Hell yes.
18, 19, 20, 21, 22.
Hell yeah, man.
Yeah, for sure.
I can.
Yeah.
You can use it.
Yeah.
I can use it.
I know it.
It could be used.
I just didn't know if it was something that I had to like spend a turn prepping.
No.
Oh, okay.
No.
Well, I still got my information.
And I'm going to move 15.
I mean, I'll say mostly because your checks are high enough.
Like you, if you had rolled under a 20, you probably would have had to take a turn like
learning how to use it.
But on a 22 and a 20, you're chilling.
Okay.
Yeah.
Then I'm going to move to the other side of the obelisk.
So I'm a little bit further away from the rest of the wonderful.
Thanks.
Yep.
They don't get any attacks for opportunity.
Next up is blood ooze number two.
Oh, my bad.
Or blood ooze B, I guess I should say.
Let us be is also going to, and they are large apparently.
So that is something to know.
Blood is B is going to move five feet towards Eva.
Eva is now for those that cannot see.
Eva is now cornered on either side by blood ooze A and B. B is also going to swing at
Eva.
I think it just has a plus three to this or yeah, I think it's just a plus five for
this.
Oh, my God.
It crits Eva.
You can lie about these things.
Okay.
So yeah, this is definitely the thing that I have pulled up is definitely not what they
want me to be using.
This is the one for the fucking damage is so insanely different.
Holy shit, man.
Oh, my God.
The damage is so different.
What?
I didn't know they could be this different.
Anyways, I'm using this.
Maximum damage for this is going to be one D six plus six, so seven damage and give me
a percent.
Well, actually, you don't get, you don't see this.
So Eva is going to roll a perception check.
It does not pass.
She doesn't notice anything.
Eva.
Eva is going to take seven damage, unfortunately, as one of these things.
I forgot to roll for her.
Reaches out and just sort of slugs her across the chest.
Jesus Christ.
Oh, folks, the fun of combat.
Pull up the table.
I'll roll some things for you.
78.
I'm not going to roll for it.
You already did.
Yep.
78.
You cast polymorph on yourself.
If you fail, the saving throw, you turn into a sheep.
No.
Cool.
I got to take a wisdom saving throw.
Is sparrow uses both of her...
What was the spell called?
Mage armor.
Well, because this happens when you use your spell, you might not actually move those feet.
You might just get turned into a sheep.
Well, I think you could still move a sheep.
Sheep, sheep have moved a sheep.
Sheep can move.
You're chilling.
Okay.
I've got a wisdom saving throw.
Sparrow is almost as if interfering or almost as if from interference from the obelisk
itself.
I'm so fucking scared right now.
Watch sort of like a dark, black lightning bolt sort of splits off of the obelisk and
hits your spell midair.
I pass.
Wonderful.
I'm not a sheep.
And threatens to sort of transmogrify and throw your spell away, but your adept magic
use fully just deflect the black lightning and you're fine.
No one's turned into a sheep today.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah, obelisk is out for blood.
Fuck.
All right.
Next up is...
I forgot I'm supposed to be adding a plus one to everything I do.
You see, you are, and it's just within range to hit.
Lovely.
It's going to roll a hit.
Misses.
Clean fucking.
Try again, bitch.
Clean misses, man.
Get fucked, not a sheep.
Get fucked, I'm not a sheep.
Wiser words have not been spoken, folks.
I just clicked back to my character art and my character looks so fucking cool and just
the image of her saying, fuck you, I'm not a sheep is...
The fuck you, I'm not a sheep is crazy.
All right, this is Eva's turn.
God, I love Eva.
I love Eva.
Get her the fuck together.
I'm going to try and get her the fuck out ideally.
She's stuck in between two people.
I really don't want her to...
Yeah.
Tell you what, I didn't realize, I was going to say she has a reaction to reduce damage
that I would take, so technically I could have done that earlier, but didn't see it.
My bad, dog.
All right, superiority die.
All right, she's just going to hit this thing.
Well, her long butt does the most amount of damage, but she is fully within melee range
of two creatures.
And if she tries to run, if she tries to run, she's going to take two attacks of opportunity,
which is not great.
So...
Tell you what, though, she's going to risk one attack of opportunity because this is a
large...
Actually...
Oh, shit.
You know what?
No, she wouldn't know that.
She wouldn't know that.
I'm going to make an answer check.
She does know that.
Never mind.
Eva makes a quick assessment of both of these creatures as she thinks about darting so that
large creatures, for those of you that aren't aware of how combat and space works, cannot
move into a space that is basically too small for them to move into.
So Eva's idea was to run on the other side of one of these oozes so that it can't...
So that ooze A can't follow her in between the obelisk and ooze B.
But on a 22 nature check, Eva has hunted in all sorts of wilds all over the land and
has not seen this exact kind of ooze, but has seen oozes like it.
This ooze, or oozes in general, have a feature.
Let me go ahead and pull that up.
That feature is called...
Or that trait is called amorphous.
Any...
This ooze can move through a space as narrow as one inch wide without having to squeeze,
which essentially means it's not going to take any extra time to move through that space.
So running from this thing to try and keep it from being able to move through a narrow
space is useless.
Yeah.
Because it's an ooze.
I mean, two and two together, it doesn't take a whole lot.
But either way, she's got some fucking decisions to make.
This actually sucks.
Eva...
Yeah, no, this sucks dick.
I'm so sorry.
Okay, I guess we're just going to...
Yeah, we're just going to use our mall bucket.
You know what?
Mall or Warhammer?
Warhammer.
We're going to use Warhammer.
One, two, eight, plus three, and she has multiple attacks.
Cool beans.
She's going to roll a hit.
Going to take a swing.
One of these things ACs.
Use the book.
Oh, not bad.
No, the book and the thing are actually pretty similar in only a couple of ways.
One of them is stat blocks.
She hits.
Going to go ahead and roll again for the second one.
She hits again.
Wonderful.
She takes two large chunks out of this thing with her hammer.
Let me roll some damage here.
A D8.
A five, so an eight.
And then another five and another eight.
So 16 damage total to ooze.
We're just going to roll a random dice here because it doesn't actually matter which one
she hits.
A or B.
I'm going to say A on low roll, B on high roll.
She hits A. Fantastic.
And this thing does have unfortunately a reaction.
God damn it.
So Eva takes two large swings with her Warhammer back into a corner and does 16 damage to this
thing essentially like clean through the middle section of this thing and the ooze like falls
in half and it looks like 16 damage is enough to kill one of these creatures but on a reaction
from being hit, it is going to lurch itself out using the remnants of a body to, using
the remnants of its body to attempt to hit Eva.
If it hits Eva, it will do damage and it will gain some hit points back.
Effectively not done.
No.
So it's going to roll a hit.
No, Eva needs to make a constitution saving throw.
But she's great at these.
She's got a plus four to this.
She needs to beat A15.
Holy shit, Eva got a 22.
As the blood ooze splatters on Eva and threatens to siphon some of her life for her, she again,
on a 22 very quick, immediately starts cleaning it off of herself and stamping out the little
oozes that are on the ground threatening to put themselves back together, just starts
stomping.
Yeah, so she starts stomping the shit out of the oozes on the ground to keep it from
reforming itself and ooze A is out.
Hell yeah.
Fuck yeah, Eva.
Then she's going to use her bonus action to heal herself.
Hell yeah.
Because God, I fucking need it, man.
What level is she?
So heal 1d10 plus three level hit points is a bonus action once between rests.
Cool.
1d10 plus three.
So sick, I got an eight.
So 11.
11 hit points.
Hell yeah.
I love that.
Let's go, Eva.
Eva heals herself using her hardened mountain blood to steal herself a battle.
And that, I believe, will be her turn.
Hell yeah.
Which means we are going to move to ooze A is dead.
So this is round number two.
And we are going to move to Sparrow.
Hell yeah.
I'm going to use the obelisk as an arcane focus and I'm going to cast Ice Knife.
Hell yeah.
You said that it looks like there would be a bonus.
Yeah, you'll just have to find out and see.
So Ice Knife, you create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range, make
a range spell attack against that creature.
On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage, hit or miss, the shard explodes.
The target in each creature within 5 feet of the point where the ice exploded must make
a dex saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage.
I'm going to go for 1 for C.
Okay.
That is going to be a 18.
Is that hit?
Yeah, 18 does it.
Alright, so that's going to be 1d10 piercing damage.
And then do I make a saving throw?
You will in a second.
What is that saving throw?
It is going to be...
Jesus Christ.
Dex saving throw.
My spell DC is 15.
I got a 7.
Hell yeah.
It's got all the mindies too.
It's a fucking ooze.
So it's going to take...
I rolled a 10 on the d10 and now we're going to roll 2d6 cold damage.
That's going to be 6, 7, 8.
So that's going to be 18 damage total.
Wow.
Yeah, using the...
Essentially the obelisk is a one-time arcane focus.
Instead of it sort of the way I kind of imagine ice knife is it's just like...
If anyone's seen Mortal Kombat like Sub-Zero where it's just like a solid like...
Yeah.
Like icicle that's basically just serrated on one end to be more of like a knife, is
you like form this sort of giant sort of icicle and then throw it at the sort of center
of mass for the ooze.
So a sort of large black bolt of lightning follows the ice pick and instead of just
doing 18 lightning or 18 ice damage, it does an additional 18 lightning damage is that
essentially becomes an electrified ice bolt and as it freezes the ooze, you can see it
sort of turn from gelatinous to solid and then the sort of boom that comes from the
lightning shatters the ooze completely and ooze C is out of the picture.
That was sick as fuck.
So come back around next to Eva.
I think fuck.
Oh boy.
I'm back, I'm back.
I just fucking exploded one of those fuckers.
That's sick.
And that is my turn.
Wonderful.
Wonderful, wonderful.
It is now ooze B.
Ooze B going to attempt to...
Well, let's see what ooze B wants to hit.
We'll go high Eva, low sparrow, hit sparrow.
Bring it bitch.
Tracy.
15.
I rolled a 21.
Oh.
I'm going to hit.
I'm going to do some damage.
Actually, yeah.
No, bring it on.
Try it bitch.
This is going to make a...
Cool.
That was going to be five bludgeoning damage and then can I...
Strength saving throw please.
DC 15.
I'm doing something also.
I have a reaction.
I believe.
You also get a plus one to this.
Don't forget that.
Now it doesn't matter.
I rolled a 19.
Oh, it does matter.
We're good.
We're chilling.
Cool.
The rest of it doesn't happen.
You just take...
Yeah.
You just take...
I rolled a 19.
Oh, it does matter.
We're good.
We're chilling.
Cool.
You just take five bludgeoning damage.
This thing sort of lashes out with part of its body.
Ow.
Yeah.
It just kind of...
Make a deck saving throw.
Just like shoves itself forward onto you and attempts to grapple you and fails.
Deck saving throw.
Yeah, 10.
That fails.
I'm going to use Hellish Rebuke at the second level.
So that is going to be...
You point your finger and the creature that damaged you is momentarily surrounded by
hellish flames.
The creature must make a dexterity saving throw.
It takes 2d10 fire damage on a failed saider or a half as much on a successful one.
He is going to take 13.
Okay.
13.
Okay.
Am I still able to use the obelisk as an arcane focus?
No.
It seems as though the obelisk will need at least a couple of rounds to recharge for it
can be used again.
It is looking badly injured but not dead.
It is still sort of gelatinous and oozy and holding itself together.
God damn it.
And we move on to...
Is there a third round of combat?
Yes, or is this her second?
Did Eva go yet?
Eva's going now.
Second.
Okay.
This is her second.
Wonderful.
Eva is going to go.
She's going to square up with this thing.
She is going to roll the hit with her war hammer.
Ooh, first one's a mess.
Come on, Eva.
Second one's a hit though.
Hell yeah.
So I'm going to roll a d8 and then I'm going to spend one of my superiority die, of which
I have four of them.
I'm going to spend one of my superiority die and move into a grapple check.
So I'm going to go and roll my eight damage.
The eight, six, plus three, so nine.
I'm realizing that this thing has more features than I thought I did and I almost did a lot
more damage than I was supposed to.
Anyways, Eva sort of swings, takes a large two-handed swing with her war hammer and the
ooze manages to sort of like drop its body but then as it moves low to sort of avoid
the high swing, she immediately turns around and then sort of drops from a two-handed stance
to a one-handed stance and brings it crashing through the center and then actually gets
both of her arms around it, grabs it and then like suplexes it back into the obelisk.
That's so much.
It is a lot.
I am going to roll a little strength check on both.
Should this thing be dead?
It's about to be.
And it fails the strength check or the opposed strength check to not be grappled by Eva and
then is going to take an additional seven damage, which is exactly how much it needs
to die.
Hell yeah.
They're picking up on their weakness to the obelisk knowing she was not going to be able
to kill it, takes the grapple and then using the rest of her movement essentially does
like a reverse shove action and throws it into the lightning, like the charged lightning
obelisk and upon contact it just basically explodes and shatters into crystalline oozy
bits.
I'm about to sneeze.
Don't do that.
You ruined it.
Yeah, ruined it.
Oh, and that is the end of our second round of combat.
All of our oozes are dead.
End of combat.
Not end of combat.
No, not end of combat.
As you and Eva take a breath, now that it is the beginning of the third round of combat,
another three oozes begin to form around the map as whatever is spurring their conjuration
is not slowing down.
God damn it.
Give me a arcana check and Eva's going to roll nature.
17, 18, 19, 20, 21.
Wonderful.
Eva rolls a 15, 21, 15, I'll take it.
Magically these things are definitely being not necessarily like summoned as if by like
a user, but some sort of magical force under the ground is like turning inanimate objects
into like sick and twisted creatures and based on the search for power, tiresome bitch, probably
tiresome based on the surges of lightning and all of the power of the oozes are going
to most likely continue to naturally manifest themselves potentially into like an endless
wave.
And Eva on a 15 is basically noticing the same thing.
This is like a naturally occurring resource in the bog.
And unless the magical energy in the area itself is expended or stopped, they are going
to continue to manifest themselves.
Okay.
I forgot to roll wild magic surges.
Also now that is the beginning of the third round of combat, the fire has now spread up,
spread completely up the rope and is threatening to leap to the imperious.
Jesus.
Okay.
Is it my turn?
Technically it is your turn.
Oh.
I mean I need to roll initiative for these three things so let's see.
Unless, what if it does roll higher than you.
It fucked.
How?
Natural 20.
No.
Natural 20, natural one.
Yep.
Well, someone goes after Eva.
Yep.
Okay.
Ooze A is going to take its turn.
Five, ten, fifteen, twenty.
That is just enough to hit.
Stupid fucks.
Friendly neighborhood sparrow.
And Mrs. Fucking Wildly on a 2.
Jesus Christ.
You can't touch me.
On a natural 2 it actually goes nowhere.
The newly formed life just takes a fucking slug and moves.
Haha, you're a fucking newborn.
She's like, eeugh.
It's like moans in response.
It's a blood ooze Bambi.
Yeah, it has no idea what's being said.
It's just like eeugh.
Cool.
I kind of want to do something with the ballsy.
All right.
What?
Ballsy.
So there's a five.
So there's a fire on the rope.
I don't have anything to put out of fire.
Nope.
But you know what?
I do have a knife.
Oh, are we going to throw this knife?
I'm thinking.
Haha.
What if I, what, it can come back.
The knife?
No.
Oh, the imperious?
Yeah.
Yeah, and Theréé could come back.
Cool.
You'll have to wait until the storm goes away.
Yeah, I can live with that.
We're supposed to get in anyway.
Right.
Yeah, you're supposed to break in.
I'm going to use my crossbow and I'm going to try to shoot it.
Wonderful.
As you pull out your crossbow, Eva notices this and then also puts her hand on hers.
And just basically, there's nothing said in combat.
This is more of just like sort of a knowing look.
She does have a plus three to range attack.
So if you want to spend your turn doing something else, Eva is more than willing to use one
of her, she has two attacks.
She's more than willing to use one of her attacks to hit this and has a higher chance
of hitting it.
I have a plus four.
Okay.
I mean, she has a plus six.
Okay.
Well, I'll let her do that then.
Then I'm going to is, does the obelisk look like it's able to charge again?
Yes, it does.
Cool.
I'm going to use chaos bolts.
Wonderful.
And I'm going to aim for God, I wish they're not close enough for me to be able to hit
them with a double attack from ice knife.
They're not within five feet, correct?
No.
They're just outside of, yeah, they would need to be one more closer to each other.
I know, I know, I know.
I guess I'll go for that one.
All right.
You're going to chaos bolt it?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So overkill because I can kill these things without it.
But yeah, they don't have that much health.
That's going to be a 13 plus seven.
Yeah, it does it.
Yeah.
Cool.
Awesome damage.
Chaos bolt is going to be you hurl and I'm basically going to take these two D eights.
And one of them, I'm going to choose Daisy or Dragon.
I will say Daisy.
The Daisy dice is going to determine the damage type on this chart of one through eight.
And then it's going to take an additional D six damage.
So I'm going to roll that real quick.
Hell yeah.
All right.
It's going to be a three.
So it's going to be fire damage.
And it's going to take I rolled a three on one, I rolled a six and I rolled another three.
So that's going to be total of 12 fire damage.
I did not get doubles on the D eights.
So I'm not able to get it to leap.
That is okay.
You still use the obelisk.
Again, this time instead of you watch as your chaos bolt to wild magic searches real quick.
The chaos bolt is almost like it's definitely a bonus to do double the damage.
But what's happening to your magic is like almost perverse.
Like the black lightning is not just changing the kind of damage.
It is almost like warping your spells to become more intense, more powerful, more destructive.
And instead of just being sort of a red like bolt of fire, it is almost like a fiery black
lightning bolt that instead leaps from your hands and fries this thing completely.
But because you are at the bottom of five feet, I'm going to need a constitution saving
throw DC 13 to see if this thing is going to be able to land on you in its dying moments.
12, 13, 14, 15 plus a 16 from that fucking rock.
From the rock.
Yep.
Sick.
You sidestep all of the smoky bits that blow.
This thing just blows into fucking smoky chunks.
And you not a single ounce of it touches you.
It dies completely.
Thank God.
Wonderful.
It is now going to be.
There's no point for me to move.
Not really.
Go ahead and give me a perception check though.
Speaking of movement.
Oh yeah.
For my like free checker object interaction, I'd like to see if there's a way into the
obelisk.
It's funny you should ask exactly what I'm having to do a check for.
Hell yeah.
I just had a fucking stroke.
17.
Just behind where Ooze B is standing, sort of that cliff area between two and four is
a basically a giant crevasse that has opened up that seems to lead deeper into the ground
below big enough for at least one body to fit through at a time.
All right.
Eba.
You.
Previce ahead.
Go.
I'm going to shoot the rope first.
Oh yeah.
Do that first.
And I will be in after you.
Perfect.
And I'm going to go ahead and move 10, 15, 20.
Yep.
And then you can just like slide in.
Oh perfect.
I'm able to get in.
Wonderful.
It is now going to be Ooze B's turn.
It is going to run up to Eba and swing.
That is a hit.
God damn.
I hope she's okay.
I just realized that kind of left two.
Yeah you just dipped.
I mean she also told you to go like you're chilling.
Just six damage.
Nothing crazy.
She's actually going to take one of her reactions for the day and reduce that by 1d12.
Which is a little overkill but whatever.
Jesus.
No she's not because the fuck.
We could just take a nap inside.
Six damage.
It's fun.
We'll have snacks.
Cool.
It's sort of like the Ooze is basically like turn parts of their body hard and then like
fling them at people so it just kind of like throws a bunch of serrated hardened like Ooze
crystals at her.
And she like sticks up a thick bracer and like clink clink clink they all just kind
of click into her bracer but still do a little bit of damage.
It is now going to be Eba's turn.
Alright she is going to take a shot at the rope.
We will say that this rope has a I'm going to say AC of 10 but because she needs to hit
it closer to the like the airship itself we're going to say 15.
Just the five for distance.
She is going to have a plus.
With the way she rolls I should have given her my fucking raw.
Plus eight with her longbow.
Switched to her longbow with her free object interaction.
And that is a 16.
Perfect.
Eba is going to hit a 16 and just barely immediately switches to her longbow ignoring
the Ooze in front of her.
Takes a knee and then sort of closes one eye smirks a little bit knowing she's going to
hit the shot and then lets the arrow fly and clips sort of the top of the rope where Loretta
is basically like frantically trying to figure out a way to get it off.
Severs the rope doesn't make it to the airship and the imperious begins to drift off in the
storm.
Eba is now going to take 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30.
She has one more turn until she can get out.
And unfortunately Ooze is going to take an attack of opportunity.
Ooze be misses.
She has one more turn that she needs to spend before she can get into the crevasse.
Well I'd go, am I still able to stay in the initiative order?
No.
You are down.
But she does have a second attack so she's going to go and roll that.
She's going to miss unfortunately.
Just barely.
She's got a fucking natural one.
Eba.
And our last Ooze is going to go 5, 10, 15, 20.
They only have 20 feet of movement speed so we're sorry.
We're chilling.
Can't hit her.
Top of initiative order.
I do just want to say this is the dice that I went on the rant last time.
It was like they can never roll well for allies.
You're on round number four.
You're an ally right now and you're rolling shit.
I'm aware.
Ooze be is going to roll up.
Try to hit her.
It's going to miss.
We're chilling.
Eba's not even going to take the fucking time.
She is going to just fully, not stumble back, but she's basically just kind of like drop
behind and then like sort of twist and then slide down.
And y'all are into the crevasse.
Hell yeah.
And that is where we are going to call today's session.
We are just at the two hour mark unfortunately so we're going to have to wait and see what
happens next as Eba and Sparrow descend into the dark crevasse underneath the obelisk of
death and doom.
Ooze be.
And the Bog of Blood, the scab.
All right.
Thank you so much for tuning into part one of two parts for the season finale of Table
Talk.
Join us for part two of our season one finale as we finish up Eba and Sparrow's first of
hopefully many one-shot adventures.
And if we planned this right and edited correctly, both part one and part two should be out at
the exact same time.
So you do not have to wait an entire week to listen to the other two hours worth of content
that we recorded.
That's our season finale gift to you.
Yep.
Four hours of content.
Probably closer to four and a half.
All at once on the same day.
That's exhausting to hear.
Oh my God.
Thank you all for tuning in for part one.
Talk to you later.
See you soon.