2026-4-6 — Akasha

Scrazzy:Of course.

Scrazzy:You would show up.

Gamemaster:What are we doing?

Scrazzy:Hello.

Scrazzy:Good.

Ozzie:That's my bad for making an off-base joke.

Gamemaster:No, it was deserved.

Scrazzy:Yes, actually.

Scrazzy:It's actually really rude of you.

Gamemaster:It was deserved.

Gamemaster:Mike has been historically very callous with his granola.

Gamemaster:I think it's unfair of him to suddenly turn it around on you.

Scrazzy:Alice's like granola is callous free.

Scrazzy:Thank you very much.

Gamemaster:Not what I said.

Gamemaster:And you know it.

Ozzie:Gosh, this was an exciting prompt.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Plot twist, this is actually about three level sixes killing tech.

Gamemaster:That's what the one-shot is about.

Ozzie:All right.

Ozzie:Oh, now I'm really excited.

Gamemaster:Just get him out of there.

Gamemaster:We don't need him.

Scrazzy:Oh, I also made the character that I wanted, that I thought would be best for us.

Scrazzy:And I was like, maybe someone did the same.

Scrazzy:And then I was like, I don't care if we made three of the same character.

Ozzie:Well, what kind of character did you make?

Gamemaster:For what it's worth, Tanner and Jorge's character combined can cast one spell.

Scrazzy:I made a wizard that will hopefully succeed on all identify this thing checks, so we get nice lore dumps.

Ozzie:Hey.

Scrazzy:Oh, perfect.

Scrazzy:All right.

Scrazzy:So a full caster was ideal.

Ozzie:I made a guardian.

Gamemaster:We didn't finish there.

Ozzie:I figured someone's going to make a wizard, so someone's got to be in the front.

Scrazzy:Nice.

Gamemaster:You guys do actually have a pretty nice team comp for what it sounds like absolutely no communication happened.

Scrazzy:Yep.

Gamemaster:Especially given that, if I recall correctly, last week, Jorge said the only thing was he refuses to play a healer.

Gamemaster:And then Mike said he was going to be the healer.

Scrazzy:Oh, right, yeah.

Gamemaster:And that was it.

Ozzie:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:That was the whole team comp conversation.

Scrazzy:And then I didn't pick a healer.

Gamemaster:And then you didn't take a healer.

Gamemaster:But that's fine.

Ozzie:Did Jorge happen to pick up any healing?

Gamemaster:Just...

Gamemaster:No, of course not.

Gamemaster:Because he explicitly said, I'm not playing a healer.

Scrazzy:To be fair, this was pre-prompt.

Ozzie:Yeah.

Scrazzy:The prompt instructed the character.

Gamemaster:Hmm.

Scrazzy:And I will say, I did make one not perfect

Scrazzy:uh arcana check build and that's because it just was too divexy i did not pick the eldridge researcher um archetype what archetype did i pick oh right

Gamemaster:I will say, I didn't give you your level 4 skill feat because I didn't know for what you wanted it to be.

Scrazzy:Oh, oh, see, I picked that, and then I scrolled, and then was like, wait, I don't know what this is going to be.

Scrazzy:And then what makes sense for this guy?

Gamemaster:And on top of that, you don't have any lore skills because on your character sheet it said lore a location.

Gamemaster:And I assume it's supposed to specify which location as opposed to lore on the existence of locations.

Scrazzy:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Let me see, was there anything else?

Gamemaster:Did Tanner's character have any issues?

Ozzie:I hope not.

Scrazzy:Do I have a trick magic item?

Gamemaster:You do have trick magic.

Gamemaster:Let's see.

Ozzie:The only thing with me, Josh, is... Oh, great.

Ozzie:My two-handed weapon, I added the parry trait to because of a class feat.

Gamemaster:On top of the fearsome?

Gamemaster:Or...

Ozzie:Well, that's a rune.

Gamemaster:Oh, yeah, no, no, no, no.

Gamemaster:I have the parry trait.

Gamemaster:That's automatically attached to the weapon.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Ozzie:That was the only thing that would have stood out to me as being tricky.

Gamemaster:Oh, at level two, it says that you didn't assign any skill training when I open up your character sheet.

Gamemaster:I don't know if it looks like that for you, but that's what it looks like for me.

Ozzie:Oh, yeah, you're totally right.

Ozzie:Oh, that's because of something I did later on.

Scrazzy:I remember now why I didn't pick it.

Ozzie:Looks like I should get two skills that I didn't assign.

Gamemaster:Mm-hmm.

Scrazzy:Because the thing that would make sense, or one of the things that would make sense, feels like a big ask.

Gamemaster:Why?

Gamemaster:You want ruin lore?

Scrazzy:Well, this would be a guy that researches ruins.

Scrazzy:So, Sundom lore?

Gamemaster:Oh, sundom lore?

Gamemaster:I'll give you sundom lore.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Scrazzy:Oh, perfect.

Scrazzy:Alright, that'll be my additional lore then.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Ozzie:Josh, give me acrobatics and nature.

Foral:You guys getting extra stuff because I was late?

Gamemaster:I will give you acrobatics and nature.

Ozzie:Hi, Jorge.

Scrazzy:Yeah, actually, we're just wrapping up all the extra.

Scrazzy:He got two skills.

Ozzie:We actually finished the one shot while you were... Yeah.

Gamemaster:No, no, no, no, no.

Scrazzy:Yeah, the bonus at the end was an artifact that gave us extra stuff.

Foral:Oh, in the real campaign?

Gamemaster:Not their characters.

Gamemaster:Their players.

Gamemaster:Tanner got a real life proficiency bump.

Ozzie:Yeah, you should see the cartwheels I could do now.

Scrazzy:Wait, what?

Scrazzy:This is the DLC.

Foral:Is Josh God?

Ozzie:Always has been.

Scrazzy:This is the paid DLC that Josh has been teasing.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Scrazzy:Give Josh $5 and he'll make you be able to fly.

Gamemaster:Better at acrobatics.

Scrazzy:Actually, that's a good point, Josh.

Foral:I end up paying Josh $100 and you guys don't get to have fun anymore.

Scrazzy:Can we... Is the DLC like I can like...

Scrazzy:kill or cap other people's character levels like can i yeah like can i subtract the level from anzu how much is it

Gamemaster:Why do you want not only microtransactions, you want offensive microtransactions, like so that you can inconvenience other people.

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Do you want that?

Ozzie:Whoa, hold on.

Ozzie:How much is it?

Gamemaster:That's a good question.

Gamemaster:How would I price that?

Gamemaster:Well, okay, you know what?

Gamemaster:How about instead of me setting a price, I'll have Tanner set a price.

Gamemaster:You have to pay more than however much Tanner is willing to pay to not have me lower Anzu's level by one.

Ozzie:Whoa.

Scrazzy:Josh, I think this is suboptimal.

Scrazzy:You should not have one iteration.

Scrazzy:You should have a switch, and it's $15 either way.

Gamemaster:It's just $15 to flip it back into the other position.

Gamemaster:But the two positions are reduce Anzu's level or do nothing.

Gamemaster:Like, there's no benefit to Tanner.

Scrazzy:I'll pay $30 not to have a benefit.

Gamemaster:This is sounding like a good deal for me.

Scrazzy:The meta DLC is...

Foral:I'll pay $60, but Mike has to talk in a high-pitched kid voice.

Foral:I like how Mike always has an agree now.

Scrazzy:No!

Scrazzy:I can't do it this session.

Scrazzy:I'm an old man this session.

Gamemaster:True.

Scrazzy:As far as his appearance.

Scrazzy:I was thinking of that actually today.

Gamemaster:I will say, whenever I plan one-shots talking about things that we have to do, I have flashbacks to Jorge knowing about my constructs, so you're never going to see a construct again in one shot.

Scrazzy:I was like, they're totally going to be like, he's at an extreme.

Foral:Just...

Gamemaster:Following the extreme the other way, of always using constructs.

Foral:Yeah, now every time I see a construct thing, I'm like, I can't take it.

Gamemaster:It's rude of you.

Foral:He's going to be prepared for this.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:I'm sorry.

Scrazzy:I saw that.

Gamemaster:You've made it so that you're never going to fight a construct again in a one-shot.

Scrazzy:I did think of that.

Gamemaster:It's just not happening.

Gamemaster:Until I've lulled you into a false sense of security.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Scrazzy:Every one shot is just some weird version of poker, where we invest in the entirety of a build to attacking the enemy we think Josh is going to use that week.

Ozzie:I try to make characters that are pretty general for that reason.

Ozzie:The one roulette wheel spin that I took was hoping that we go up against some divine magic.

Ozzie:But we'll have to see.

Scrazzy:Oh, I don't know if that's a roulette spin.

Scrazzy:It would have been a lot funnier if it was more specific.

Scrazzy:I do an extra d20 for creatures that don't have feet.

Scrazzy:It's not like they don't have human feet.

Scrazzy:It's straight up like if they don't have any, I do a bunch more damage.

Gamemaster:Like, ghosts specifically.

Scrazzy:Ghosts would have feet, unfortunately.

Gamemaster:Not all ghosts have feet.

Gamemaster:I've seen Casper.

Ozzie:Fish.

Ozzie:Perhaps fish.

Scrazzy:Footless ghosts.

Scrazzy:Fish in this world might have feet.

Gamemaster:Fish.

Gamemaster:I...

Ozzie:We haven't been here before.

Ozzie:That's a good point.

Ozzie:We're going into the unknown.

Ozzie:I'm like, damn it.

Scrazzy:Tanner sends his character sheet that's just, like, additional to hit and additional damage to characters without feet.

Scrazzy:And Josh is just, like, riding through, like, a cow with feet enters.

Scrazzy:Like, we're like, wait, I feel like this wasn't how this was supposed to be set up originally.

Foral:do you do you guys remember in campaign one where we came across like i think like fish that had like they're like praying to like a fish god or something and we just killed them well we're like wow this is crazy some primitive situation fucking kill would it have been cannibalism to eat them

Gamemaster:The Courtauld?

Scrazzy:I feel like he changed it.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Ozzie:what the hell this is disgusting i don't think so

Gamemaster:No, unless you were also a fish person.

Scrazzy:or he was a fish person yes zugg yeah i don't think so definitely not for tech it'd actually be pure recreation of tech ate a monkey he doesn't need to eat anything

Gamemaster:Oh, you were also a fish person.

Foral:But I feel like mercs would eat fish.

Gamemaster:Is it cannibalism to eat a monkey?

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:So, then no.

Gamemaster:Because Tech was a robot, and so he didn't need to eat food.

Gamemaster:He did it for the love of the game.

Scrazzy:Now he can eat things and people will believe they never existed.

Gamemaster:Except now he can't even do that.

Gamemaster:Actually, I guess he probably has a mouth still.

Scrazzy:He just eats all the monkeys on a planet.

Gamemaster:That's not how that works.

Gamemaster:It's not like anything he comes into contact with ceases to exist.

Scrazzy:People are like, there were never any monkeys.

Scrazzy:This is the Mandela effect.

Gamemaster:How would they say there are never any monkeys if they don't know what monkeys are?

Scrazzy:Tech is the Mandela Effect.

Scrazzy:They would know.

Scrazzy:They would just know they were never there.

Gamemaster:I just think that's like me in real life saying there were never any smordna laps.

Gamemaster:And then, like, your correct response would be, what's a smordna lap?

Gamemaster:And I'd be like, I don't know, there weren't any.

Scrazzy:No, no.

Scrazzy:They have the concept of a monkey.

Scrazzy:They just don't believe any have ever existed.

Gamemaster:Oh, it's just turned into a mythological creature?

Foral:So tech eight dragons on earth.

Scrazzy:Take a drink.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Ozzie:I had an interesting thing happen this weekend.

Ozzie:I have obtained a cat.

Scrazzy:Ooh.

Gamemaster:Can you show the cat?

Ozzie:I was not intending on obtaining a cat, but my grandfather was moved from regular assisted living to memory care, and he's not allowed to have his cat there.

Ozzie:So now I have his cat instead.

Ozzie:I cannot show the cat live, but I can send a photo of the cat.

Gamemaster:I would appreciate a photo of the cat.

Foral:Did you get his robo kitty litter?

Ozzie:I do have the kitty, the robot litter box.

Ozzie:My grandpa is not the most creative of gentlemen, and so the cat's name is Miss Kitty.

Gamemaster:That's a good cat name, though.

Gamemaster:That's fun.

Ozzie:Additionally, it is his second cat in his life to be named Miss Kitty.

Ozzie:Consecutively, might I add.

Scrazzy:reincarnated honestly it does simplify things a lot or there's some variation of hey no hey

Gamemaster:Sure.

Ozzie:Let me see.

Ozzie:I did honestly get fantastic photos, but I'll send these too.

Gamemaster:I mean, like, my cats don't know their names because I've never called them their names to their face.

Gamemaster:They think they're some variation of kitty, I assume.

Gamemaster:So... Yes, that is fair.

Gamemaster:That's a good cat.

Foral:That's a good cat.

Ozzie:She's like 12 or 13.

Ozzie:I'm currently working on brushing some of the mats out of her fur.

Ozzie:To be honest with you, her coming to us is probably well-timed for her health and well-being.

Gamemaster:Do you have other pets with you in this house?

Ozzie:So, hopefully she'll be on the up-and-up.

Ozzie:No.

Gamemaster:Oh, okay.

Gamemaster:So they have free room?

Ozzie:Yeah, currently we just have her in one room, because I heard that's a good way to acclimate.

Foral:It is.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Ozzie:But eventually, yes, she'll have full roam of the house.

Ozzie:Yeah, I've not owned a cat before, so this is a new experience, but... Right.

Scrazzy:I hear the cats own you.

Gamemaster:I mean, a little bit, but you've owned dogs, and dogs are substantially higher maintenance than cats, so... You'll be fine.

Ozzie:Yeah, that's what I've heard.

Ozzie:Plus we have the robot litter box, which helps too.

Gamemaster:Yes, because it is nice not having to scoop.

Gamemaster:It's a good time.

Ozzie:And it sends me notifications when she goes to the restroom.

Gamemaster:Which is info you need, I suppose.

Gamemaster:I turned that off on mine.

Ozzie:I'm not sure yet.

Foral:Yeah, I turned mine off too.

Gamemaster:I think I have alerts specifically for if it gets stuck or something, or if it needs to do litter, but I turned off that every time it rotates thing, because I don't know what I would do with that info.

Ozzie:Yeah, well, we'll see what happens in the next few days, I guess.

Ozzie:Maybe I'll turn it off.

Foral:Did you get any choice for the cat?

Ozzie:She had a few little crinkly toys and stuff.

Ozzie:She used to have one of the sticks with a rope, but that went missing, allegedly, in the last month or two.

Foral:I know.

Gamemaster:I don't know about her but because maybe she's a little older and doesn't run around as much I know my cats absolutely adore the springs if you've seen them they come in like a packet of 40 and it's literally just a small plastic spring and they just bat it around and chase after it um

Ozzie:So I've got to get one of those for sure.

Foral:when I've had cats that are a little older, they still like, they'll sometimes use the stick, but they just want you to do it above them.

Foral:And they'll just kind of lay there and sometimes they'll watch and sometimes they'll play, but they like, it's more with cats.

Ozzie:Yeah, yeah.

Foral:I heard it described as you really just got to get them into it.

Foral:Like they got to buy it.

Foral:So like, there's gotta be a little bit of flair, a little bit of like, why does this stick need to be attacked type of thing?

Foral:Is it annoying?

Foral:Um,

Ozzie:Now, one more.

Foral:And another thing I will also note is if you play, if you do play, and then you give them a treat afterwards, it symbolizes like end of hunt.

Foral:So it can sometimes help them calm down.

Ozzie:Another fun... Yeah.

Foral:So play, treat, groom, done.

Foral:They'll be really rested.

Ozzie:Good to know, good to know.

Ozzie:Miss Kitty is deaf as well, which is interesting.

Gamemaster:does she like yell without knowing that she's making noise or is she just completely quiet

Ozzie:Like, fully deaf, no hearing at all.

Ozzie:Um...

Ozzie:She can get a little loud, but not ridiculously, I don't think.

Ozzie:Yeah.

Foral:Same thing.

Ozzie:Although he's blind, which is a little different.

Gamemaster:He's blind, not deaf.

Gamemaster:No.

Foral:It's basically the same thing.

Scrazzy:Yeah, it's pretty close.

Gamemaster:Daredevil is blind.

Gamemaster:Echo is mute, or is she deaf?

Ozzie:Echo staff, yeah.

Gamemaster:Echo's deaf.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:I knew there was a superhero in that section that couldn't hear.

Foral:Also, not to gloss over it, I hope your grandfather is all right.

Ozzie:So yeah, this was my interesting development in the last week.

Gamemaster:That's a very interesting development.

Gamemaster:You need to keep us up to date.

Gamemaster:And by up to date, I mean just send a picture every once in a while.

Gamemaster:Or pick them up in front of the camera if they come over.

Ozzie:Sure, sure.

Ozzie:Oh, yeah, he's okay.

Foral:My grandma had to move to one of those.

Ozzie:Yeah, yeah.

Ozzie:He just, like, really just can't take care of himself in any meaningful way, so he needed, like, a step up in care.

Foral:my um my grandma they decided uh one of my uncles decided because he was the favorite child that he could take on that responsibility and she can come live with him and that just did not go well he just wasn't you're just not equipped yeah

Ozzie:Yeah, it's tough.

Ozzie:It's a full-time thing to have to be on top of that.

Foral:So, we'll see.

Foral:I might have a house in Rockville Center in a year.

Ozzie:Whoa.

Scrazzy:Ooh.

Gamemaster:What do you mean, might?

Foral:I'm talking to a builder.

Ozzie:Oh.

Scrazzy:Bob?

Gamemaster:Do you... Like, do you have land?

Gamemaster:Or is this part of the builder has land and he's going to build you a house for contract?

Foral:So, yeah, yeah.

Foral:So, we're not going to have the construction loan.

Foral:We're not going to manage the construction.

Foral:we'd be entering a contract to purchase the house from him in a year when it's complete.

Ozzie:very interesting oh

Foral:It is fucking wild how Rockville Summer works.

Foral:There is underground house sales that aren't on MLS or Zillow.

Foral:For example, the builder, my real estate agent, got this builder's info from a different real estate agent.

Foral:And the builder hasn't even officially closed on the house.

Foral:And the house closing takes place on the 13th, allegedly, or the 12th.

Foral:And it's still not listed anywhere.

Foral:It's not listed on Zillow.

Foral:It's not listed on MLS.

Foral:But then the builder's already had other people inquire, and other builders have tried to buy the property from him.

Foral:And it's like, where... And then every once in a while, my realtor might get some underground house posting, and she'll just send us photos and videos.

Ozzie:What the heck?

Foral:And there's just like...

Foral:And it's so weird.

Foral:But I guess they just like, RVC is, yeah, weird.

Ozzie:And so what stage of actually agreeing to doing this are you in?

Foral:My, yeah.

Foral:So we met with the builder last Friday.

Foral:And he actually seemed like an honorable dude.

Foral:He's a fourth generation builder.

Foral:And then midway through, he's like, just so you guys know, you know, obviously the current state.

Foral:And he couldn't look us in the eyes, but he's like,

Foral:obviously there's going to be other people inquiring um but basically he what he told us and i hope he's honest is he's like i'm gonna work with you guys as long as like all the timelines are quick um and he's like i'm not gonna like entertain other offers but he's like but if i get like a crazy offer i'm gonna take it and we're like we understand like if you get a crazy offer i'm like yeah like you you get the house man like you do you

Ozzie:Okay.

Foral:But he seemed to be pretty nice about that.

Foral:So we have a lawyer.

Foral:He sent us our spec sheets.

Foral:We're going to meet with him on Friday.

Foral:Hopefully enter contracts soon.

Foral:It is a little weird to buy a house like this.

Foral:Because also, like, a lot of work.

Foral:And then, too, hopefully the mortgage rates are fine next year.

Foral:Because we're...

Ozzie:Yeah, that's so interesting.

Gamemaster:And.

Foral:I talked to our like pre-approval or our lender.

Foral:And like, we were like estimating for like 7%.

Foral:Um, just like higher than it is now.

Foral:It's like a six, six, I think, even though a lot of people originally forecast will be lower by next year.

Foral:We're just kind of like trying to forecast for seven.

Foral:We could still afford it.

Foral:We can still afford a little more.

Foral:We'd still like it to be less.

Ozzie:Sure.

Foral:Um, yeah, but the, uh,

Foral:The good news is if the entire world collapses, won't be our problem, our biggest problem.

Scrazzy:I can.

Ozzie:That's true.

Foral:Yeah, yeah.

Ozzie:Okay.

Ozzie:Well, that's exciting.

Foral:Yeah, we'll see how that goes.

Ozzie:Do you have any say in what... Is he just building the house like how he wants to build it and then selling it?

Gamemaster:Good luck, I suppose.

Foral:No, he's actually a really good builder.

Foral:We saw one of his houses before, and we're like, this is beautiful.

Foral:So when he came on the market, we're like, yes.

Ozzie:Mm-hmm.

Foral:So we do get a say.

Foral:And yeah, it's kind of weird to have design choices now.

Ozzie:Yeah.

Foral:I also talked to my cousin who had a house built in Wanta.

Foral:I was like, do you have any tips or anything you should ask for?

Foral:And he's like, just make sure you get a lot of stuff in writing because his builder sucked.

Ozzie:Hmm.

Foral:His builder didn't include grass.

Foral:didn't include toilets didn't include shower doors a bunch of other stuff also just said no to things like he wanted like a pot filler and they're like no he's like what and then it's like a nice it's a really nice house too and he was just like no and he also he's like building other houses too and they've seen some of them and they have all the stuff they wanted that he just told them no he's like this is fucked up

Ozzie:Yes.

Gamemaster:Can't run the plumbing there.

Foral:Oh, and anything that wasn't included that he had to pay for, he had to pay for in cash.

Foral:Like, I don't mean check.

Foral:I mean, like, literal cash.

Foral:Green cash.

Ozzie:Wow, so this guy had a lot of power.

Foral:Yeah, he was a dick.

Foral:I think my cousin paid, like, a million for it, so it's, like, ridiculous.

Foral:But, whatever.

Foral:This house is nice.

Foral:The builder was actually good.

Foral:He was just an asshole.

Foral:Alright, not good.

Ozzie:Right.

Foral:He was talented at being a builder.

Foral:He was morally bad.

Ozzie:Sure, sure.

Ozzie:That tracks.

Foral:Yeah.

Scrazzy:When I think of a joke, and I don't want to interrupt someone, I just start sweating.

Gamemaster:Did you think of a joke?

Gamemaster:Is that why you're saying that?

Scrazzy:Because Jorge said... It is.

Gamemaster:Is it related to what Jorge was saying?

Gamemaster:Or... Okay.

Scrazzy:Because Jorge said, I've been talking with a builder, and I go, Bob?

Scrazzy:And then no one reacted.

Foral:We all heard it.

Scrazzy:And then Jorge was like, oh, I mean, he's a really good builder.

Scrazzy:He's fourth generation.

Scrazzy:So in my mind, I was like, oh, Bob's his uncle.

Foral:Mike, if you ever do an interview, do you start sweating and then you're like, no, it's not nerves.

Scrazzy:And they just think I'm racist.

Foral:I'm just holding in jokes.

Scrazzy:Why are you holding him in?

Scrazzy:Say him.

Gamemaster:No.

Foral:I was about to double down, but I was like, I can't.

Foral:Not on a recorded call.

Gamemaster:I need a way to turn off the transcription specifically so that Jorge can say something racist.

Foral:Yeah, we need bites.

Foral:Like, hold down the button and it just, like, censors it.

Scrazzy:And it just puts stars.

Scrazzy:We'll just have redacted or black blocks next time the person speaks.

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:That is doable.

Gamemaster:I'm not going to, but that is doable.

Foral:It's going to be at the tier of the Epstein files where if you just highlight the text, you can see it.

Gamemaster:Well, the way I would do it is we'd have another track that is just bleeps.

Gamemaster:And then I would have the script and then also just superimpose the bleeps on top of it.

Gamemaster:So I would know how racist you were, but we don't have to make it available on the internet.

Scrazzy:Oh.

Foral:Yeah, yeah.

Gamemaster:It's doable.

Gamemaster:Do we want to stop being racist for a little bit and play some Pathfinder instead?

Gamemaster:Okay.

Foral:You could try, sure.

Ozzie:Yes.

Ozzie:I'd like the transcript to show that I'm saying yes.

Gamemaster:Don't worry, Tanner.

Gamemaster:We can go back to being racist later.

Scrazzy:He's so relieved.

Foral:Let the record show Tanner is relieved.

Ozzie:Oh my god.

Ozzie:I have no idea if my character is going to be good.

Foral:He'll be like, let the record show.

Foral:Tanner is doing gang signs.

Scrazzy:let the record show that tanner is mouthing it whatever you think he's mouthing the answer is yes we can't say it

Gamemaster:Pathfinder.

Gamemaster:We don't need a recap because this session is not on Færrin.

Gamemaster:Okay, one second.

Gamemaster:Let me pull up all my crap.

Foral:It's like a sci-fi setting, right?

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:So...

Gamemaster:You guys are familiar with Sedecium, right?

Gamemaster:That sounds relevant to something that you've done?

Foral:I think some of us are.

Ozzie:Oh, yeah, yeah.

Scrazzy:Mm-hmm.

Ozzie:Totally.

Ozzie:Totally got it.

Gamemaster:Okay, so it's about 900 years after the Sedecium hegemony has been founded.

Foral:Oh.

Foral:These timelines are scary.

Gamemaster:It's expanded since the initial, you know, small one crystal shell offering that it started out as.

Gamemaster:There are 14, 15 different member systems.

Gamemaster:The three founders have gone down in history.

Gamemaster:At least one of them still active, even if some of the other ones have been laying to rest.

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Still out on the outer rim.

Gamemaster:Sedecium and all of its member spheres are on the edge of the astra, the boonies, so to speak.

Gamemaster:If not for, like...

Gamemaster:Not for effort of attempting to try and move further into the Astra, move closer to where the majority of life in the Astra is, but there are some real benefits to staying out on the edge.

Gamemaster:The largest of which is you stay out of the prying eye of the...

Gamemaster:hulking divine behemoths that are the Thessians, a kind of greatest foe of Sedecium, as well as truly all mortal life, really, in the Astra.

Foral:you

Gamemaster:Not out of necessarily any malice, but out of a fundamental disagreement of how life or the universe should exist.

Gamemaster:So Sedecium stays on the edge.

Gamemaster:staying away from the more harried, more hectic, more dangerous interior of the Astra, and has made a pretty good burgeoning empire out there on the edge of the Astra.

Scrazzy:you

Gamemaster:All that said, they are still interested in investigating the interior of the Astra, finding ways to gain a leg up over the Thessians and things like them, because the Thessians aren't the only higher kinds that exist in the Astra.

Gamemaster:They're just the most aggressive towards mortal life.

Gamemaster:So they look inward.

Gamemaster:They maintain a...

Gamemaster:pretty large information network of what's going on with the other groups of mortals that have broken out of the crystal shells of their own individual spheres, ones that have formed inter-system alliances, much like the Sundom of old and other contemporaries of that time.

Foral:Thank you.

Gamemaster:They may have lost their word, but that doesn't mean that the Thestians are necessarily unbeatable.

Gamemaster:And so the search for new weapons, for methods of ascension, for new ways of hiding from Thessians and the like continues.

Gamemaster:And one of those threads is following what is deemed the entity.

Gamemaster:not able to be observed, not able to be interacted with in any meaningful way.

Gamemaster:There is something that has been dogging Sedecium for effectively its entire existence.

Gamemaster:Never in a malign way.

Gamemaster:It's never aggressive.

Gamemaster:It doesn't seem to be hostile in any form.

Gamemaster:It's just...

Gamemaster:Sedecium has gotten very, very, very good at collating data, pulling in from many different sources and picking out patterns, because that's the best way to observe the interior of the astral without necessarily going there.

Gamemaster:And there is a clear pattern, or there is a clear lack within the pattern that they would expect a kind of...

Gamemaster:empty trail that passes through the Astra, seemingly intersecting with Sedecium and its intelligence gathering, possibly even aiding in some cases, but never being directly observed.

Gamemaster:And so there becomes a mission within Sedecium to investigate this entity and perhaps follow up on leads that the entity seems to be directing Sedecium towards.

Gamemaster:Because once Sedecium noticed the movement of this entity, they also noticed that it went to specific locations.

Gamemaster:And when they followed it, they found...

Gamemaster:very useful information or weaponry or new systems that might want to join the alliance that hadn't been able to be contacted earlier, things of that nature, things that they wouldn't have found earlier.

Gamemaster:One of those leads points to a...

Gamemaster:At one time an orbital station, something that had been designed to orbit around some celestial body, maybe a star, maybe something smaller, but was now untethered, just floating through empty space whenever it used to orbit no longer there.

Gamemaster:As such, it is a dark object in a dark universe and would have never been located by Sedecium or by anybody else, likely, especially compounded by the fact that the whole structure appears to be sunken somewhat into the slip.

Gamemaster:What that means is a little bit of point of contention.

Gamemaster:Nobody's actually set eyes on it.

Gamemaster:It's been entirely through long-range telescopes and the like.

Gamemaster:But it's only partially in the real world and partially somewhere else.

Gamemaster:So, Sedecium, finding luck in following the entity to the other locations it's led them, thinks it's time to send somebody to investigate this particular orbital platform as well.

Gamemaster:See...

Gamemaster:why or if it's important, what it used to be doing, and if there's any useful information or otherwise that can be extracted from it, or if not, as something to mark as to be ignored in future scans of the system.

Gamemaster:To that end, some members of Sedecium were appointed to this particular mission and are at the moment in a faster-than-light transport vessel, getting suited up for the translation from the forward base...

Gamemaster:that Sedecium uses to monitor this part of the Astra to the orbital station.

Gamemaster:Those members are the three of you.

Gamemaster:As you do final checks on your equipment, get situated in the capsule that you'll be riding towards the orbital station, it would be great if you could all describe yourselves in whichever order you like, but somebody has to go first.

Foral:Wait, I just need to verify something.

Scrazzy:I can go with that.

Foral:Okay.

Scrazzy:Hunched over, as normal, double-checking his particular setup, mumbling about, like, they're trying to kill me or something, as he just makes sure everything is nice and tied down, is the classic old man.

Scrazzy:Like, bald, top of the head, all white hair, big white beard.

Scrazzy:And this is, as you guys know, probably,

Scrazzy:affectionately referred to as Old Man Scrazzy.

Scrazzy:And Old Man Scrazzy is like, oh, these people are trying to kill me.

Scrazzy:And behind him looms a cloaked figure floating towards him.

Scrazzy:I'm not sure if you guys know who this would be, but this is his research assistant, Bob, who is accompanying him on this journey.

Gamemaster:When you say cloaked, do you mean like over the head or like from the neck down?

Ozzie:No, go ahead.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Scrazzy:The neck down.

Foral:Do we have, like, uniforms?

Foral:We don't have to wear uniforms, right?

Foral:We're elite.

Gamemaster:You don't have to wear uniforms.

Gamemaster:You would wear whatever like made sense for you going into the situation.

Foral:Would you like to go next, Tanner, or do you want me to?

Foral:My character, if you look over, is... Wait, sorry.

Foral:Okay, I'm just generating a photo.

Foral:he's a small i believe a four foot three foot green skinned goblin and he has black leather uh it's a mix of like extremely tight and then other parts like cloaks that he has it's multiple layers and uh did i freeze for you guys okay great um and then next to him sitting the next room uh is this massive laser rifle

Ozzie:Can we get the name one more time?

Scrazzy:No.

Gamemaster:I'm not confused.

Foral:That it might be bigger than him.

Foral:And he's just sitting there.

Foral:And he's like.

Foral:Hello guys.

Foral:And this is Lieutenant Foral.

Foral:Josh you look confused.

Foral:Did I send you a different character sheet?

Gamemaster:You sent me who you're talking about.

Foral:Okay.

Gamemaster:That's correct.

Foral:Okay.

Foral:Great.

Gamemaster:I was just Googling.

Foral:Lieutenant Foral.

Foral:Where are you looking at?

Gamemaster:I was just Googling how long an arquebus is.

Gamemaster:And the answer is four and a half feet, so it would be taller than you.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:And he has one of those electronic scanner things.

Ozzie:Excellent.

Ozzie:Beautiful.

Ozzie:Wherever the door or entryway to the capsule that we're going to get into is, this character steps in front of the lieutenant and says, Lieutenant,

Ozzie:Let me go in there first, make sure it's all right.

Ozzie:This is a pretty burly, pretty jacked, orcish, or at least mostly orcish man wearing half-plate armor, a couple blinking lights on it, whatever.

Ozzie:The parts of his skin that are exposed look rough.

Foral:Thank you.

Ozzie:He's got a buzz cut, but there's a section of it where there's some burn scar instead.

Scrazzy:you you

Ozzie:He's got a bit of a beard, but there's a part of it where there's a slash scar instead.

Ozzie:This guy's seen some stuff.

Ozzie:And he just goes... Alright, listen, you guys.

Ozzie:You have both pulled me out of the mud.

Ozzie:I'm going first, okay?

Ozzie:I'm making sure everything's looking all right.

Ozzie:And you two just make sure to stay behind me today, okay?

Foral:Got it.

Scrazzy:Scrazzy will exchange looks with Bob.

Scrazzy:I knew they were trying to kill me.

Ozzie:This is Ozzie, by the way.

Ozzie:Ozzie.

Scrazzy:Nice.

Foral:Lieutenant Forel goes over to Bobby.

Foral:They're always trying to kill us.

Foral:Remember that.

Foral:Never forget that.

Foral:The only one you can count on is you.

Foral:We came to this world alone.

Foral:We're leaving this world alone.

Scrazzy:Bobby will say, I prefer Bob.

Gamemaster:Bobby will say that.

Gamemaster:Okay, so as the three of you are getting situated, there's a speaker in the back right corner of what is about a 20-foot long white tube that you know is the pod that you'll use to travel to the orbital station.

Gamemaster:The speaker crackles to life for a second, and you hear over the loudspeaker, what is this guy's name again?

Gamemaster:The voice of the cave that is your man in the chair, so to speak.

Gamemaster:It's a ball of light, so it's neither sitting nor a man.

Gamemaster:But it's close enough.

Gamemaster:This is TuRiin.

Gamemaster:TuRiin will come over the loudspeaker and say...

Gamemaster:All right, you guys, time to get situated.

Gamemaster:We will be translating in five minutes.

Gamemaster:The trip is expected to take 13 seconds, so we're taking a bit of a large jump this time around.

Gamemaster:I will warn you, we haven't had eyes on the actual orbital station going in, so you guys are going in dark, so to speak.

Gamemaster:This is a new experience, so just be prepared for whatever goes on.

Gamemaster:It looks like right now the southern portion of the station is not in material space, so I would watch out there before you head in that direction necessarily.

Gamemaster:Your suits will prevent you from dying immediately to slip exposure, but there is intense radiation there, so you really only have, I'd estimate, 12 seconds of extended slip exposure before it gets through the suit.

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Gamemaster:So keep that in mind.

Ozzie:This is it.

Gamemaster:Don't stick your hands out of any holes in the wall and stuff like that.

Gamemaster:The other thing is we haven't been able to make visual contact in part because of a strange occult disturbance.

Gamemaster:There's some kind of magic energy.

Gamemaster:It's tuned to the occult school, so just watch out there.

Gamemaster:It's possible our connection disconnects.

Foral:Sounds good.

Gamemaster:You should be able to reconnect it if there's some kind of antenna or something on the station forming a two-way connection there.

Gamemaster:Just something to keep in mind.

Gamemaster:You may be on your own for the first few minutes while you're there.

Gamemaster:If at any time you need to come back here, the capsule will be docked.

Gamemaster:So just head back into the capsule and hit the return button.

Gamemaster:You know, just stay safe.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Ozzie:Thanks, Tuzor.

Scrazzy:or the cards you to have a

Foral:Sounds good.

Foral:Before we take off, you're going to see Lieutenant pull out this little computer thing.

Foral:And there's a photo of a little goblin.

Foral:And he's just going to say, just one more job.

Foral:One more job and we're all set.

Foral:I know I could and I should have done it, but we just need a little money for our sickness.

Foral:And he's going to close it and get ready.

Ozzie:Don't worry, Lieutenant.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Ozzie:You will get home.

Ozzie:The Lieutenant is the target of my bodyguard ability for the day.

Foral:Great, great.

Scrazzy:Is this like a visual effect?

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Ozzie:Theoretically, it would have already happened at the beginning of the adventuring day, so... I don't...

Scrazzy:Oh, okay.

Gamemaster:Mike just wants to know if Old Man Scrazzy can see if he's been not selected to be bodyguarded.

Ozzie:I don't think there's anything you could see.

Ozzie:Yeah, it's just like an acknowledgement.

Scrazzy:He can tell anyways.

Scrazzy:Either of you two have any enemies high up?

Foral:No, but my wife died in a freak accident, and I'm pretty sure the murderer got away with it.

Foral:They said it was an accident, though.

Foral:I know it was a murderer.

Scrazzy:Did the suspected murderer work for Sedecium in any executive or managerial capacity?

Foral:Not that I'm aware of, but my daughter only has me as family, so if something happens to me, she will go into orphanage.

Ozzie:We're going to get you home, Lieutenant.

Scrazzy:Yeah.

Foral:Thank you.

Ozzie:It's going to be a quick mission in and out.

Foral:Thank you.

Ozzie:No problems.

Foral:Nothing bad will happen.

Foral:I know it.

Foral:Alright, guys.

Foral:Do you have enemies up?

Gamemaster:I can't tell if this is playing a trope or if you're just trying to disincentivize me killing your character.

Scrazzy:Given the company, it sure feels like it.

Gamemaster:You hear over a loudspeaker, TuRiin will say, oh, yeah, I just wanted to let you guys know we do have reboots online for all of you.

Gamemaster:So even in the event of body loss, we will be able to bring you back up.

Gamemaster:You'll just lose the contents of the last time you had a backup, which would be last night.

Gamemaster:Just FYI.

Scrazzy:That makes sense.

Gamemaster:So don't worry about that.

Gamemaster:All right.

Foral:He opens up his computer and goes, too bad I know the cure to her sickness, but if I were to die now, I'd forget it forever.

Foral:So I have to make it happen and close his computer.

Foral:And he gets ready to go.

Ozzie:That's right.

Gamemaster:TuRiin says over the loudspeaker.

Ozzie:Shoehorn his shoehorn, Jorge.

Gamemaster:Yeah, absolutely.

Gamemaster:TuRiin will say over the loudspeaker, all right, we're getting ready for translation, so if you could all take your seats, that'd be great.

Gamemaster:And you guys have done this before.

Gamemaster:You know that there are seats lining the left and right sides of the container.

Gamemaster:They're not like seatbelts or anything.

Gamemaster:This isn't expected to be particularly bumpy, right?

Gamemaster:They're just like you'd seat in while the...

Gamemaster:as they call it, translation happens.

Gamemaster:There's a countdown, three, two, one.

Gamemaster:You feel a very intense sense of vertigo for just a split second.

Gamemaster:And other than that, there is no external change.

Gamemaster:There are no windows outside of this capsule.

Gamemaster:It's just this like white cylindrical interior, flat matte walls all the way through.

Gamemaster:But true to the cave's word, after about 13 seconds, there is another very strange sense of vertigo.

Gamemaster:And you hear over the loudspeaker in a very crackled, okay, you are that.

Ozzie:All right.

Gamemaster:but you gather that you have arrived at your destination.

Foral:Dark boys.

Foral:Alright.

Ozzie:Ready to disembark?

Foral:We're ready.

Scrazzy:yeah i guess

Foral:One more jab.

Foral:Floats his rifle.

Ozzie:I guess, is there an exit door or something?

Gamemaster:There is one door in the capsule, the door that you entered you would know is now also the exit onto wherever it docked on the station.

Ozzie:Are there environmental readings within the capsule telling us about our surroundings?

Gamemaster:There is.

Gamemaster:There is a small, what looks to be like a tablet display on the side of the exterior door, which first of all does say in big letters, LOCKED, and then underneath it is an environmental readout.

Foral:you

Gamemaster:I don't think I need a check for you to understand.

Gamemaster:Actually, I take that back.

Gamemaster:I will have a check to read the display here.

Gamemaster:One second, what skill do I want?

Gamemaster:I want a crafting or an occultism check.

Ozzie:No, no, we just gotta make sure things are safe outside before we exit.

Scrazzy:Bob will do it.

Scrazzy:Well, not Bob.

Gamemaster:Oh, sorry, or nature.

Scrazzy:He said occultism.

Gamemaster:Nature would also work.

Gamemaster:I don't know what your guys' stats are.

Gamemaster:Occultism would work.

Foral:Is this door locked?

Foral:Do you need me to shoot it?

Scrazzy:Oh, okay.

Scrazzy:I'm just making sure I have the right modifier.

Scrazzy:28.

Gamemaster:28.

Gamemaster:That, I mean, I'm like 90% sure that's a success.

Gamemaster:I just want to, I forget the level DC or level six.

Gamemaster:Let me see.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Yeah, no, you're totally fine.

Gamemaster:Looking at the display, looking at the display, the exterior of whatever this is docked to, it does appear to have successfully engaged with the docking mechanism on the other side of whatever the station is.

Gamemaster:It's unpowered, notably.

Gamemaster:It had to latch on to the exterior.

Gamemaster:So you gather it looks like there's currently no power running through the platform.

Gamemaster:But the interior is pressurized.

Gamemaster:Looking at the chemical breakdown, what you would expect to be a normal atmospheric composition, not quite one that you're used to from Sedecium worlds, but not one that's unbreathable by any means.

Gamemaster:It has slightly less oxygen than you would normally expect, and a very slight concentration of aerosolized heavy metals.

Gamemaster:which you would know from that occultism check is the standard atmospheric makeup of the third Sundom's stations.

Gamemaster:So that all tracks.

Gamemaster:That fits the member worlds of where you expect the makers of this particular station to have come from.

Gamemaster:It is perhaps a little reassuring to know that it is pressurized on the interior, so there don't appear to be any breaches in the hull that would let out any air.

Gamemaster:From what you can tell, it is safe to open and enter.

Ozzie:Dude.

Ozzie:Alright, let's unlock the door.

Foral:I'm going to chamber and... I don't know how to pronounce that.

Scrazzy:Insanguinating?

Ozzie:Incendiary?

Foral:Insigninating bullet.

Ozzie:Oh.

Scrazzy:Inseminating?

Foral:Yeah, I'm not activating it, but that's just the one that's loaded for me to activate.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Scrazzy:Does that exist?

Gamemaster:Nope.

Ozzie:Nope.

Foral:Impregnating bullet.

Gamemaster:Definitely not that one.

Ozzie:Definitely not.

Gamemaster:Nope.

Scrazzy:The level 20 bullet that can get donkeys pregnant.

Ozzie:I unlock the door.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Gamemaster:You unlock the door, and with a silent sliding motion, the door in the front of the capsule slides away from you to reveal the interior of an airlock, one that still appears intact, albeit dark, from here.

Gamemaster:You would all, I don't know if you guys have dark vision, you would, as part of the standard Sedecium field agent kit, have access to flashlights.

Gamemaster:So if you need that for light, you can use it.

Gamemaster:You just, you don't have to if you don't have to.

Foral:Darkvision.

Ozzie:I think I have dark mission as well.

Scrazzy:Bob has dark vision.

Foral:You'll just put a hand on.

Scrazzy:He might be limited there.

Scrazzy:I just checked.

Gamemaster:Bob does have darkvision.

Ozzie:Um,

Scrazzy:I gave Bob dark vision.

Gamemaster:Crazy.

Gamemaster:What is the marching order here?

Gamemaster:The airlock itself, once opened, once you disengage the lock on the other side and go into the station itself, it looks like there's only room, really, single file as you pass in.

Ozzie:Gee, I guess that's me.

Gamemaster:So...

Foral:I can go last.

Ozzie:Probably not the ideal person to be perceiving, but... Which I encourage.

Foral:I can go in the middle then and look over your shoulder.

Scrazzy:That'll be last, yes.

Foral:Can I stealth?

Foral:Can I hide behind him because I'm small?

Gamemaster:Are you actually small?

Foral:I believe goblins are small.

Gamemaster:You are!

Gamemaster:Yeah, you're small.

Gamemaster:Yes, you can hide behind him.

Foral:Great.

Gamemaster:Not only can you hide behind him, you can use him as cover.

Foral:Great.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:Well, I hope to be far away from everything, but.

Foral:Do you want me to roll anything, Josh?

Gamemaster:Uh, well, okay, so marching order then is Ozzie, then the lieutenant, then old man Scrazzy.

Scrazzy:Mm hmm.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Yeah, so I'd like a perception check as you first... Like, there's no checks necessary for opening up the Urlok into this area, but as you move into this docking area and beyond, I would accept a perception check.

Gamemaster:If Ozzie's doing it, you just get to make a straight roll.

Gamemaster:If you're looking over his shoulders for a roll, then you do have a minus one to the check because you have an obstructed view.

Ozzie:It's still better than my role.

Foral:18.

Foral:It's bad.

Gamemaster:Okay, so the...

Gamemaster:With an 18, the room that you enter into, it looks like, was a kind of a docking area for external ships that are joining this particular orbital platform.

Gamemaster:It looks like besides the one that you connected to, there are three other ports that are currently unoccupied.

Gamemaster:There are no other ships currently docked to the orbital station.

Gamemaster:With an 18...

Gamemaster:Yeah, I don't think you notice much else.

Foral:And.

Gamemaster:The area is dark and a little cold.

Gamemaster:It's clear that there are life support systems and environmental systems active on this ship, but you don't know if the coldness is because that's just the preference of whoever used to man it or because they're starting to fail.

Gamemaster:Just like ballparking it, from who built it till now, it's been...

Gamemaster:maybe like at the earliest 10,000 years since it was originally put around orbit of whatever it was orbiting.

Foral:Gotcha, gotcha.

Gamemaster:So if anything, it's a testament to the original construction that anything's still working on the station.

Gamemaster:With an 18, the only other thing that you note is there is a weird sensation as you're looking around the room, like, that you catch light glinting off of things in, like, out of the corner of your eye, which is strange for two reasons.

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Gamemaster:A, there's no light here.

Gamemaster:You're all not using flashlights.

Gamemaster:And B, when you, like, turn to look at what you think the light is glinting off of, you don't see anything that would cause that particular effect, even if there were light.

Foral:I should have brought grenades.

Scrazzy:And now you've doomed us all.

Ozzie:I proceed forward.

Foral:I'll never get the cure for my daughter's disease.

Foral:Alright, let's go.

Foral:And he's gonna do that, like, special forces thing where he's gonna be, like, holding the guys back, but have his massive gun in the other hand.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Yeah, so there is only one exit out of this particular airlock section that you're in.

Gamemaster:There is a very small sign in... God, Old Man Scrazzy, you said that you wanted Sundom lore.

Gamemaster:I take it that would mean that you also speak like the common equivalent of the Sundom.

Gamemaster:You have one, two, three, four, five unallocated languages, so I assume that one of them would have been a Sundom language.

Scrazzy:I thought I had four unallocated.

Scrazzy:No, I have one unallocated language.

Scrazzy:I picked.

Scrazzy:Oh, no, I have no unallocated languages, but I can swap one.

Gamemaster:Oh, I'm sorry.

Gamemaster:I didn't... Yeah, I didn't even think to check if you had allocated them.

Gamemaster:Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Gamemaster:Actually, we would count...

Gamemaster:I would count the utopian as part of it.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Scrazzy:Perfect.

Gamemaster:Either way, you can see that the heading on the top says the particular direction you're walking towards is towards what's labeled as the power core.

Gamemaster:And, like...

Ozzie:Sounds like a good spot to check out.

Gamemaster:just geographically feels like it's headed towards the equivalent of the center of the station.

Gamemaster:You unfortunately don't have a good idea of the geometry of the station itself, since you didn't get a chance to look at it from the exterior, but this might tell you something about it.

Gamemaster:As you guys proceed forward, doing your Spec Ops-style hand on the shoulder, if you like, I would love it if you could all... No, he definitely can't.

Ozzie:I'm not sure he can reach my shoulder.

Gamemaster:I would like it if you could all go to https://btl.iridi.cc.iridi.cc.

Scrazzy:so soon

Foral:Yeah.

Ozzie:Just for visual aid.

Gamemaster:Just for visual aid.

Gamemaster:For no other reason than visual aid.

Foral:You made my image a little smaller.

Gamemaster:because you're small.

Foral:Yeah.

Ozzie:I guess I'll make a check from the front.

Gamemaster:Okay, so as you proceed down the hallway there towards what would be, what appears to be labeled the power car, I will take another perception check as you enter into this room.

Foral:And two people are just me.

Gamemaster:Two people can, but if you're peeking over the shoulder, you do have a minus one, because you guys are still walking single file through the smaller areas.

Scrazzy:Stealth.

Foral:OK.

Foral:Did I roll a stealth check or something?

Gamemaster:If you want to be stealthy, now is also the time to roll stealth checks.

Foral:Great.

Foral:I got 29 for mine with the minus one.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:I think that's pretty good, too.

Ozzie:Well, whatever.

Ozzie:I got a 27.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:Oh, good roll.

Scrazzy:hat builder has Bob stealth at plus 10.

Gamemaster:Um...

Gamemaster:I'll let you just roll plus 10 then.

Gamemaster:It's not the first time that there's been a difference in the stats that Pathbuilder shows versus Foundry, and I don't know where that comes from.

Gamemaster:So we'll just error in your favor that.

Scrazzy:Sure.

Ozzie:Oh, yes.

Ozzie:Oh, my gosh.

Ozzie:It actually loaded.

Ozzie:All right, I can see now.

Ozzie:I need to make a stealth check.

Scrazzy:Damn, Bob's loud as fuck, dude.

Scrazzy:What the hell, Bob?

Ozzie:Is that right?

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:I don't even understand how Bob is that loud.

Gamemaster:Like, I don't know what he's doing to be that loud.

Scrazzy:Listen.

Scrazzy:I don't know.

Scrazzy:I think he's talking.

Scrazzy:Honestly, Bob's a bit of a chatterbox.

Gamemaster:Bob's just kind of humming a tune as you guys sneak down the hallway.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Oh, it actually doesn't matter.

Gamemaster:Ozzie's in half plate.

Ozzie:you you

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:As you navigate your way down this hallway towards what looks to be the power core, we have very good perception checks, so you get a good peek inside.

Foral:Depending on what I see in the room, if I see hostiles or I'm scared, I'm going to give a little space to the clanging band.

Gamemaster:You're just not very quiet while you're doing it.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Foral:Go a little slow.

Gamemaster:It is a little unfortunate for the lieutenant because he is behind and in front of two different entities making a bunch of noise.

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:But that's what happens.

Gamemaster:Old man Scrazzy is gone.

Gamemaster:No one knows where he went.

Foral:The old man died.

Gamemaster:He blends in with the wall.

Ozzie:Like a ghost, because he almost is one.

Scrazzy:It's rude as fuck.

Gamemaster:So as the two of you with your very large perception checks look into the next room, you see that it is generally built around a central power source of some kind.

Gamemaster:That is that thing in the top that is glowing.

Gamemaster:I will note on the map it's glowing.

Gamemaster:Currently it's not because the whole station is unpowered.

Ozzie:Is it isn't.

Gamemaster:So just pretend that that blue orb isn't there.

Gamemaster:But the general structure of the room is the same.

Gamemaster:It's this circular kind of concentric circle structure where in the center is what would be a power source.

Gamemaster:There's a number of mechanical and electrical and arcane machinery.

Gamemaster:that has been hooked up to whatever the center power source would be that gets distributed down these conduit lines that move elsewhere in the facility.

Foral:Okay.

Gamemaster:There is a series of exits other than the one that you're coming in from.

Gamemaster:There's a northern exit, a western exit, an eastern exit, and two southern exits, although the two southern exits look like they might be headed towards the same location.

Gamemaster:You can't see the labels from this distance, but they look the same, albeit a little blurry.

Gamemaster:You don't see any hostiles.

Gamemaster:You don't actually see much of anyone in this room at this point.

Gamemaster:It is fully dark, but there's no motion and there's nothing that necessarily stands out to you as being alive.

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Gamemaster:There is...

Gamemaster:With the high perception rolls, the one thing I will have you note as you're looking in from the exterior of this room, there is a pretty solid layer of dust all around the entirety of this room of whatever kind of particulates that might have been in the air that have stopped being scrubbed out by the environmental system that does appear to be slowly breaking down.

Gamemaster:But with a 29 and a 27, some of the dust has been disturbed.

Gamemaster:There are clear tracks across some of the catwalks of not footprints necessarily.

Scrazzy:Okay.

Gamemaster:It's more like the dust has kind of been swept away in some kind of manner.

Foral:Hey.

Gamemaster:But it's obvious that within...

Gamemaster:Some amount of time, semi-recently, something mobile has been through here.

Ozzie:And we don't think it has feet.

Gamemaster:It doesn't look like footsteps.

Gamemaster:It looks more like a full track that's been cleared.

Foral:Hey.

Gamemaster:Oh god, I just remembered.

Gamemaster:Correct, it doesn't look like it has feet.

Ozzie:It's part of my backstory.

Scrazzy:Is there any way you gentlemen can get me to that terminal?

Foral:We can certainly try.

Foral:Keep your eyes peeled on your sixes.

Foral:I think we're not alone.

Scrazzy:All right, well, I can't really see in this environment, so.

Gamemaster:I think that's the second time that the lieutenant has the gun without firing it.

Foral:It is.

Foral:He catches it.

Scrazzy:So now a round just flies.

Scrazzy:He completely ejects.

Scrazzy:And unfired.

Scrazzy:He puts it back in.

Ozzie:All right, Scrazzy, follow me closely.

Scrazzy:Yeah.

Scrazzy:It's like a magazine.

Scrazzy:So he has to put it back in.

Scrazzy:Scrazzy's following.

Scrazzy:Of course with Bob.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Ozzie:We approach the terminal.

Ozzie:Do... Is it this that's like the main terminal?

Gamemaster:Excuse me.

Gamemaster:Yes, that is the main terminal.

Gamemaster:Or what looks to be the main terminal.

Ozzie:Do we approach it without issue?

Ozzie:Sure.

Gamemaster:Nothing attacks you as you get close.

Gamemaster:If that's the question.

Scrazzy:That's okay.

Ozzie:Do our flashlights have brightness settings?

Foral:You guys are using them?

Gamemaster:We'll say that there's a dimmer on them.

Gamemaster:You can go from very, very bright to very, very dim, and anything in the middle.

Ozzie:Yeah.

Ozzie:The old man can't see anything and we need him to look at this terminal.

Scrazzy:Bob does plenty of looking for me.

Ozzie:All right.

Ozzie:Fair enough.

Foral:I thought we were going to have this old man in the space cantina situation trying to read a menu.

Scrazzy:Through Bob's eyes, can I figure out what the hell this thing is?

Gamemaster:Holding the phone up to the dashboard.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Foral:They're just playing the starward music.

Gamemaster:I will let you roll the lore check here, because this is Sundom Machinery, or if your DC is better, it's an Arcana check.

Scrazzy:Uh...

Gamemaster:Or AC, or modifier, if that's the term.

Scrazzy:oh it is the arcana is higher 31

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:With a 31, the immediate thing that sticks out to you is actually something that isn't part of the standard Sundom...

Gamemaster:like, build guide, so to speak.

Gamemaster:Because this dashboard itself is made out of this smooth metal that you would guess is some kind of palladium-aluminum-titanium-alloy thing.

Gamemaster:The Sundom uses that a lot, especially in the later parts of the Sundom's existence, as they were getting close to being... hitting the climax of their particular work with Essia.

Gamemaster:But...

Gamemaster:All of their devices tend to be flat interfaces that project a kind of light on top.

Gamemaster:It's like this purplish-bluish interface, instead of having physical buttons and knobs and all of that kind of stuff.

Gamemaster:This thing has what you would know to be a projector, that if this thing had power, would be the blue and purple kind of interface that you expect from Sundom systems.

Gamemaster:But somebody has taken the liberty

Gamemaster:of scrolling some kind of magic script across the face of this dashboard in this kind of reflective, silvery-looking ink.

Gamemaster:It scrolled all over the front of the dashboard, and once you see it here, you can kind of follow it, and you see that it's been drawn all around the exterior of this, like, power center core thing.

Gamemaster:It doesn't immediately strike you as being part of the Sundom's MO.

Gamemaster:They were never really one to do this kind of ritualistic additions to the kind of sensors that they were building.

Gamemaster:So it strikes you as being put in after the fact.

Scrazzy:Bob analysis.

Scrazzy:Bob will attempt to go around and read it.

Foral:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Scrazzy:Does he have to circle the whole thing to get the whole picture?

Gamemaster:He would have to circle the whole thing to get the whole picture.

Gamemaster:It's an occultism check if you want them to go all the way through and try and read what the script is doing.

Gamemaster:28.

Scrazzy:Yeah, Bob's young and spry.

Scrazzy:He can do that.

Scrazzy:Well, no, no.

Scrazzy:I'll do the occultism.

Scrazzy:Bob is going to be the eyes and ears.

Scrazzy:28.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:A 28...

Gamemaster:with the occultism is good enough to get like broad strokes about what this does.

Gamemaster:It is unfortunately not enough to get the whole thing.

Gamemaster:This is a very, very complex magical formula that's been scrawled around to the exterior here.

Gamemaster:And you're kind of just like picking out verbs and nouns from the script that make sense to you and reconstructing the basics of it.

Gamemaster:This script is a torture device.

Gamemaster:Specifically, it is designed to inflict immense, extended pain on an individual that lives within the circuit boards that it has been inscribed onto.

Gamemaster:It seems that it was designed to forcibly extract information out of what you gather would be the ship's AI, or some equivalent therein.

Gamemaster:Perhaps it wasn't being particularly communicative, and the person who wrote this script didn't want to convince them, so instead convinced them.

Gamemaster:It appears to be carnally active.

Ozzie:Well, that's gruesome.

Ozzie:So who do we trust more, the Sundom AI or the person who is okay with torturing Sundom AI?

Scrazzy:Does...

Foral:Are AIs in this setting like hearts or?

Gamemaster:Um, yeah.

Gamemaster:Like, actually, can I get... Now we're just talking about general lore.

Ozzie:you

Gamemaster:Can I get a society or a religion check here?

Gamemaster:For whoever would like to.

Foral:I can make a religion.

Foral:Someone wants to make another check.

Scrazzy:old man's crazy half society society 27 for society old man's crazy

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:I'm 25 for religion.

Foral:That's a secret.

Foral:Let me make it not.

Gamemaster:I mean, I can see it.

Ozzie:I could see it too, actually.

Gamemaster:Can you see it?

Foral:Okay.

Gamemaster:Yeah, it just has the secret tag, but you can see it.

Foral:Okay.

Gamemaster:Okay, so 27 and 25, those are both good, successful roles.

Gamemaster:From the society side of things, the Sundom specifically did use what is the equivalent of a heart, effectively, as their ship AI and the like.

Gamemaster:The only difference being is that they weren't asking a god for the divine ability to create hearts.

Gamemaster:They developed arcane ways to do effectively the same thing.

Gamemaster:From the religion side of things, looking more at...

Gamemaster:AI in general in the Astra.

Gamemaster:Some societies fully don't accept producing sentient beings through magical or technological means.

Gamemaster:They kind of stick to a hard-line organic-only type deal.

Gamemaster:Some of them go the other way.

Gamemaster:They're like super pro, yeah, you can absolutely make stuff like that.

Gamemaster:Sedecium falls in that kind of basket.

Gamemaster:It's weird because none of the founders were artificial in any way, but they seemed to be particularly fond of artificial production and of that nature.

Gamemaster:And so Sedecium is very pro, like, we'll make where it needs to be.

Gamemaster:Sundom is kind of in the middle.

Gamemaster:They didn't have a lot of AI, but they had it for the complex tasks that they didn't think people could necessarily handle, including operating a ship on orbital platform or anything of that nature.

Foral:you know,

Gamemaster:So it's not particularly strange to see one.

Gamemaster:You would know that, generally speaking, Sentim AIs are considered full people.

Gamemaster:Sometimes they had mobile platforms that they could walk around in.

Gamemaster:Sometimes they could leave the ship.

Gamemaster:They weren't restrained to one spot, like hearts on Færrin.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Scrazzy:What do you say?

Scrazzy:Do we disable this?

Scrazzy:Actually, does Scrazzy get an inkling of how to disable it?

Foral:you

Gamemaster:Yeah, Scrazzy is pretty confident that if he were to wipe away some fraction of the script, it would disable the spell.

Gamemaster:It might be, depending on how he does it, it'd require a check to make sure it doesn't cause backlash and possibly blow up.

Gamemaster:But the way to disable it is to just get rid of the writing.

Scrazzy:Gentlemen, Bob, what do you say we unleash this?

Foral:I couldn't look my daughter in the eyes if I knowingly let a creature get tortured forever.

Ozzie:That sounds appropriate.

Ozzie:Maybe it could tell us about what's going on here.

Foral:Unleash it.

Foral:And he cocks his gun and catches the bullet again and puts it back in.

Scrazzy:Bob will say, for that guy's daughter, and then

Scrazzy:Old man Scrazzy will just wipe where he thinks it is.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:I need either an Occultism or an Arcana check to see if Scrazzy can do this in such a way that it isn't unexpectedly explosive, I guess is the right word.

Scrazzy:Do I have an inkling of which will have a lower DC?

Gamemaster:Nope.

Gamemaster:Actually, yes.

Gamemaster:You'd probably think that Occultism would be, because you already had the hint from TuRiin about it.

Gamemaster:being of the occult nature.

Scrazzy:Now, wait just a minute.

Foral:Oh.

Ozzie:Mm-hmm.

Scrazzy:This isn't going to completely change the role.

Scrazzy:I have oddity identification.

Scrazzy:When you become aware of a magical effect or see a spell being cast, you can immediately determine...

Scrazzy:You can immediately determine if it twists minds with mental trait, fights against fortune with fortune or misfortune, or reveals secrets with detection, prediction, revelation, or scrying traits.

Scrazzy:At the GM's discretion, similar effects also fall into these categories.

Scrazzy:When you identify magic or recall knowledge to learn more about these effects, you can use occultism without penalty and gain a plus two circumstance bonus.

Foral:What's level base DC for 6?

Scrazzy:So is this...

Scrazzy:Would this fall under the GM's discretion for mental fortune, misfortune, detection, prediction, revelation, or scrying?

Gamemaster:It definitely has the mental trait.

Foral:Is it 22?

Gamemaster:Yes, I believe.

Ozzie:Okay.

Foral:Should we rerule?

Foral:It's your hero point.

Scrazzy:Oh, it's going to be with a mythic point.

Scrazzy:I don't have any in this game.

Scrazzy:Let me give myself one.

Scrazzy:Let me give myself two.

Scrazzy:Why not?

Gamemaster:Everybody should have started with exactly one mythic point.

Foral:Oh no.

Scrazzy:So this gets an additional plus two.

Scrazzy:Jesus Christ.

Gamemaster:Mm-hmm.

Scrazzy:25.

Scrazzy:I'm glad I checked before rolling the point.

Gamemaster:25.

Gamemaster:25 is barely a success, but that is a success.

Gamemaster:Yeah, so you can find the exact parts that you think you could erase such that the magic energy gets dispelled in a harmless direction instead of at you, necessarily.

Gamemaster:You wipe it away.

Gamemaster:There is, after...

Gamemaster:A second, a slight flickering of the dashboard that you're currently interfacing with, the main dashboard of this area, where it seems that the projector tries to flicker on and fails.

Gamemaster:And then it seems to switch to some kind of backup, because then only the purple layer of a normal blue and purple two-layer display appears.

Gamemaster:And it says, operating off of auxiliary power.

Gamemaster:please engage full power lines to bring systems back online.

Scrazzy:uh we have to go looking around this room i guess then what's bob's

Foral:Which way is the power?

Foral:I can roll a perception.

Gamemaster:You can roll a perception check.

Gamemaster:Yeah, I don't know who that question was directed at, Jorge.

Gamemaster:You can roll a perception or a crafting check to try and figure out where the power might need to be engaged or disengaged or whatever.

Gamemaster:Perception or crafting.

Scrazzy:which day crafting check oh very nice 33 crit for the crafting

Foral:I got a 31 from my perception.

Gamemaster:Nice.

Foral:I pull out my massive rifle and just start looking down the scope down the hallway just to see if I can see any signs.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Ozzie:Holy.

Foral:Hell yeah!

Gamemaster:Ooh.

Foral:Hell yeah!

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:33 grit specifically gets you more information than you would normally have.

Gamemaster:So using Bob as your eyes, Old Man Scrazzy can follow...

Gamemaster:the power lines coming off of, like conduits coming off of the central area, and you trace it down to what would be the southern part of this particular room, where there is a pool of...

Gamemaster:blue liquid.

Gamemaster:It looks inert at the moment, but somebody might be able to... It looks like it's designed originally to hold some kind of magical energy.

Gamemaster:At the moment, it's gone completely inert, and it needs to be repowered in some fashion to boot everything back up online.

Gamemaster:With the crit specifically...

Foral:Just.

Gamemaster:You note that there are some power conduits that are currently wired into the pool, seemingly to act as some kind of energy transfer.

Gamemaster:It looks like it's to pull energy out towards whatever is in the southern direction from where you're currently located.

Gamemaster:But with that crafting check, I think you would be confident that...

Gamemaster:If you found a way to impart some kind of energy, magical or otherwise, into the conduits, you could probably rig something up to direct that back into the pool to act as a jumpstart.

Scrazzy:So it is currently going south, like south of this room, powering something.

Gamemaster:The...

Gamemaster:The conduits over here and over here that are hooked up into this pool of blue liquid in the middle are designed by the looks of it to pull power out of the pool and move it south.

Foral:Quick question.

Gamemaster:Because you got a crit on your crafting check, Scrazzy could probably reverse that direction temporarily so that there is an outlet for some kind of energy to be inserted into to try and jumpstart the system as a whole.

Gamemaster:It doesn't need to be magical in nature necessarily, but you need some kind of push effectively to get the system running again.

Gamemaster:Hmm?

Foral:Did when Lieutenant saw dust, did it seem like something was slithering in and out of this pool?

Foral:And as a separate question, is this the same liquid that the fucking people in Pyre are using?

Foral:You don't have to answer that.

Foral:Don't answer that.

Foral:But anyway.

Gamemaster:Okay, for the second question, I'm not going to answer it.

Gamemaster:For the first question, no.

Gamemaster:The trail of dirt looks like it's actually coming out of this western room.

Gamemaster:Sorry, the trail of lack of dust looks like it's coming out of this western room and then moving down over here and then like around.

Foral:To torture.

Gamemaster:It doesn't look like it comes from the southern section of this ship at all.

Foral:Okay.

Scrazzy:So I guess to recap, so essentially this is the power plant for the ship.

Scrazzy:What it looks like is it is at a low running whatever, like running output.

Scrazzy:We would have to redirect it to jump start it.

Scrazzy:It's not like we're diverting power from something else that currently needs it constant on.

Gamemaster:Correct.

Scrazzy:OK.

Gamemaster:You're temporarily rewiring it so that you can feed more energy into the system to restart it and then reattach it back to what it was originally sending power to.

Gamemaster:That wouldn't be an option had you not crit specifically.

Gamemaster:The other option here is you can follow those cables further south and maybe see if there's some way to get whatever they're connected to to send energy back down the line.

Scrazzy:I see.

Foral:But we'll still need something to seat it.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:It's either you seed it here because he crit on the crafting check, or you go further south and see if there's some way to get it to seed it from whatever the output normally would be.

Scrazzy:So it needs some sort of oomph.

Scrazzy:I mean, does Old Man Scrazzy have an idea of what level of spell he would need in order to?

Gamemaster:He would guess on the equivalent of a second level spell slot.

Scrazzy:i see yeah can you try shooting it

Gamemaster:But it doesn't need to be a spell, like, to clarify.

Gamemaster:Anything that imparts energy onto a surface can be used.

Gamemaster:It just needs to be of a high enough quantity in a small enough period of time that it jumpstarts it.

Foral:I'm going to shoot it.

Foral:I'll cock my gun so I eject this bullet, but then I'm going to put in an elemental ammunition electricity.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Okay, I do, as part of that, when I was putting all of your various bullets in your inventory, Foundry made me specify for which firearm they were.

Foral:Hmm.

Gamemaster:So I just chose it for your arquebus for all of them.

Foral:Hmm.

Gamemaster:If that wasn't the case, we can, like, give you new stuff.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:Okay.

Foral:Reload.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Foral:Yes.

Foral:Reload.

Foral:Where's the electricity one?

Gamemaster:It's the pink one.

Gamemaster:I don't know if it shows you the icons, but electricity is pink.

Foral:Oh, yeah.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:All right.

Foral:Should I just...

Foral:Can I like sneak up on the puddle?

Gamemaster:Uh, yeah, so... No.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately, you don't get any sneak... You can't use sneak attack, if that's what you're talking about.

Gamemaster:Uh...

Gamemaster:But you don't need to roll an attack roll.

Gamemaster:It's a stationary object, so you can just roll damage.

Gamemaster:If what you're doing right now is aiming... You know what?

Foral:Is it critic?

Gamemaster:Fine.

Gamemaster:Roll an attack roll.

Gamemaster:Let's see if you crit on the stationary object.

Foral:All right.

Foral:Cool, cool, cool.

Foral:And does this have the bore attachment to it equipped?

Gamemaster:Yes, it does.

Foral:I don't know how to see.

Gamemaster:It does.

Gamemaster:But that would be for damage, not for attack, anyway.

Foral:OK.

Foral:Great.

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:For the record, I just double-checked.

Gamemaster:The AC of a stationary unshielded object is 5.

Foral:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:So you crit.

Foral:Great.

Foral:No sneak attack.

Foral:I'm not going to take the one shot, one kill.

Gamemaster:No sneak attack.

Foral:That feels worth it.

Scrazzy:you

Foral:That's a low roll.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Still, 46 damage.

Gamemaster:I will actually give you bonus points for a persistent electrical effect on the conduit.

Gamemaster:I don't know if you had that in mind, but that's pretty clever.

Foral:Just yeah.

Gamemaster:So I will... Give me a second.

Gamemaster:I need you to roll a d100.

Gamemaster:The break-off point is... One second.

Scrazzy:you

Gamemaster:I can do math in my head.

Gamemaster:96 or below is what you're looking for.

Gamemaster:Because you rolled a bunch of damage in one go.

Gamemaster:Yeah, no, that's a success.

Gamemaster:This is a pretty... There is a flash of pink lightning on the edge of this arquebus that temporarily illuminates the entire room.

Foral:Oh yeah.

Gamemaster:There's a very loud bang because you are in an enclosed space and I don't think your arquebus is silenced.

Gamemaster:As...

Foral:No, it is not.

Gamemaster:You watch as the bullet passes through this bit that Scassi rigged up to allow as input for some kind of energy.

Gamemaster:It passes through that opening into the liquid itself, and you would expect, having fired a bullet many times, that the six inches of liquid on the interior is not enough to stop the bullet from going through the other side of the conduit.

Gamemaster:But instead, the bullet seems to make it maybe two inches.

Gamemaster:before there's another flash of pink light, and it seems to get dissolved and absorbed entirely by the liquid, which, at the point of impact, takes on this light blue glow.

Foral:Good.

Gamemaster:You watch as the light blue glow follows through the system, gets dumped into the pool, which seems to glow ever so slightly brighter from its very dim state.

Gamemaster:But it seems that feed of energy is enough.

Gamemaster:You hear the sound of the

Gamemaster:central reactor sputter, and then there's a flash of light blue light up by the dashboard that you were originally looking at, and that is the start of the cycle that you have now jump-started, because as that turned on, more light blue light passes into the outtake of this particular tube, into the pool, which starts to go brighter, which gets fed back into the original generator, and it's caused this kind of virtuous loop where the ship brings itself back online.

Gamemaster:Skazi can very quickly undo the modifications that he did so the power gets properly redirected back out towards whatever south.

Foral:you

Gamemaster:And you watch as, one by one, lights start to flicker on in the interior of this room.

Gamemaster:It is no longer dark.

Gamemaster:There is now this bright, glowing blue orb in the center of this room, in the middle of all of those dashes that you have walked around.

Gamemaster:and you can feel the air around you get noticeably warmer as whatever kind of environmental system that had been on its last legs starts to pick up a little bit more steam and vacuum up the dust layers that have been caught in this room as well as reheat the air a little bit.

Foral:Makes sense.

Gamemaster:Of note, with the atmospheric systems turning back on, the dust is getting sucked up.

Gamemaster:So even if you were to head into the direction where you would see in the original trail, you're pretty confident you wouldn't be able to follow that trail anymore.

Scrazzy:you

Gamemaster:It would have been cleaned by the time you get there.

Gamemaster:But everything turns on.

Foral:And Lieutenant's going to cover reload, so I rolled another height check after I shot that.

Foral:Then I'm going to sneak away from where I shot it.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Gamemaster:So now you guys are standing over this pool of glowing blue liquid, having restored power to the ship.

Ozzie:Excellent work, Lieutenant.

Foral:That's good.

Foral:Thank you.

Foral:Let's go talk to this AI.

Ozzie:Back to the terminal.

Scrazzy:What's your diplomacy?

Foral:Who's good at talking?

Gamemaster:Okay.

Foral:Are any of us good at talking?

Ozzie:I mean... Yes, I... Yeah, I can talk.

Foral:I don't normally talk to people.

Foral:I normally shoot them, so...

Ozzie:My diplomacy is 10.

Scrazzy:Plus 10?

Ozzie:Yes.

Scrazzy:Better at talking than Bob.

Scrazzy:You have the floor.

Ozzie:Um... Ozzie... Um...

Foral:What's Bob's?

Scrazzy:Plus six.

Foral:I'm plus one.

Foral:I usually work alone.

Foral:I don't work with people.

Scrazzy:Bob's gotten good at talking to me.

Ozzie:Ozzie looks down at the terminal and his eyes kind of glaze over.

Ozzie:And then he looks at the old man and goes, do you think that you could get its attention?

Ozzie:I don't know how to find it.

Foral:you

Scrazzy:Sure.

Scrazzy:It's crazy.

Gamemaster:Bye-bye.

Scrazzy:Activate it.

Gamemaster:Yeah, no check necessary here.

Gamemaster:The Sundom has a very uniform activation ability across all of their late era tech.

Gamemaster:There is a divot that you know would normally take a cave orb to activate it, but the trick is you don't need a cave orb if you don't want a cave to interact with the system.

Gamemaster:You literally just ball your hand into a fist and press it into the divot and it will activate the system.

Gamemaster:um

Scrazzy:Can an old man Scrazzy just grab the back of Bob's head and put his head into it?

Ozzie:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Yeah, absolutely.

Gamemaster:So the two other members of this party watch as Scrazzy grabs Bob and contorts him in a way that you would not expect a person to be able to turn.

Gamemaster:As he takes the head, it just puts the back of the head into the divot to activate it.

Gamemaster:Like...

Gamemaster:where you would expect Bob's spine to be has done a full rainbow at this point in order to make that contortionism work.

Gamemaster:Puts it in, there is this soft glow as the blue and purple interfaces pop up.

Gamemaster:You can let go of Bob's head and Bob kind of rights himself and goes back to standing near you.

Ozzie:Does Bob walk around?

Ozzie:Does he have legs or does he float around?

Scrazzy:I don't think you've seen Bob's legs.

Ozzie:Okay.

Ozzie:Because he's got a big cloak on.

Scrazzy:Yeah.

Foral:So he doesn't have feet?

Gamemaster:Yeah, we need to know for backstory reasons.

Ozzie:I don't know.

Scrazzy:Not that you've heard.

Scrazzy:You guys could check if Bob has feet.

Ozzie:I'm not that concerned.

Ozzie:I trust Bob implicitly.

Scrazzy:All right.

Scrazzy:OK.

Gamemaster:You don't need to know if you get a plus d20 damage if you attack Bob.

Ozzie:you

Scrazzy:He doesn't see Bob as a threat.

Foral:I feel like I would know if he had feet, because the feet would probably be at my height.

Scrazzy:It's like a long, drapey cloak.

Foral:Okay.

Gamemaster:Which is, at this point, actually, it's collected a little bit of dust from as you guys have been walking around that's just caught on the hem of the cloak.

Gamemaster:But either way, Bob's head does work as a substitute for a cave orb, and the interface springs to light.

Gamemaster:On the front of the interface, it says, SDV, inevitable ever dawn, and then a list of readouts that appear to be like health checks of various parts of the system, which are bridge, active, locked,

Gamemaster:Crew quarters, active, unlocked.

Gamemaster:Engines, and then an error.

Gamemaster:And then observatory, and an error.

Gamemaster:And, sorry, power core, active.

Gamemaster:AI core, active.

Gamemaster:There appears to be an interface.

Gamemaster:If you want to summon the AI to interact with it, it looks like there's a kind of motion you can do to bring it online, if you like.

Ozzie:What was the thing besides engines with an error?

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Foral:Is there a map system so we can see if the observatory is to the left?

Foral:And second, I'm going to keep my eyes locked on the entrance where we saw the dust disrupted.

Ozzie:Hmm.

Gamemaster:There is a map if you'd like to get a general lay of the land here.

Gamemaster:You can, with a few swipes of the hand, pull that up and you get this 3D rendition of what you gather to be the SDV inevitable Everdawn, whatever this orbital platform was.

Gamemaster:It is structured like a central platform that is surrounded by a ring on all sides and connected by the hallways that extend out from that center module into the exterior ring.

Gamemaster:The center module is where you currently are.

Gamemaster:That's the power core room.

Gamemaster:And then the exterior ring is split into four sections.

Gamemaster:That would be the bridge to the north, the crew quarters to the east, the engines to the south, and the observatory to the west.

Gamemaster:Um, things of note from the, uh, from the map is that there are like red flashing error disconnected lights coming from both the west and the south.

Gamemaster:It seems that part of the ring isn't hooked up to the rest of the system anymore.

Gamemaster:Um, and, uh, what else?

Gamemaster:I don't know.

Gamemaster:Like the, the only other thing is the airlock that you came from would be south.

Scrazzy:He'll do the hand motion to summon the ship AI.

Gamemaster:You would connect it directly to the power core area.

Gamemaster:Um, it's like underneath the, uh, the ship.

Ozzie:Alright, summon this fella.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:He inputs the command to summon the ship AI.

Gamemaster:The UI that you're currently looking at reorients itself, so it just forms a column on one side of the screen.

Gamemaster:And then a 3D projection of Mr. Sundom would recognize it as one of the member races of the Sundom.

Gamemaster:This is a kind of crystalline-looking figure.

Gamemaster:I mean, in the actual AI rendition, they're only about this tall, like a few inches, but it is a pretty detailed rendition of what looks to be a man or creature made almost entirely out of quartz.

Gamemaster:It's centaur-like.

Gamemaster:It has four legs on a tubular body, and then it extends upward into the upper torso that seems to be more humanoid.

Gamemaster:that has just crystals growing out of it at random locations.

Gamemaster:There is no discernible spot where a face would be.

Gamemaster:Instead, the top of the upper torso ends in this kind of saddle shape that you watch.

Gamemaster:The saddle-like bit of the head appears to vibrate as this version of the AI says, And who disturbs my slumber?

Foral:you

Ozzie:Greetings, fellow being.

Scrazzy:you you

Ozzie:My companions and I here are investigating your vessel.

Ozzie:We have awoken you.

Ozzie:We come from a group called Sedecium.

Ozzie:We're here to investigate what happened here.

Ozzie:It seems you were in a bit of a predicament.

Gamemaster:Well, fear not, travelers.

Gamemaster:I am in a predicament no longer.

Gamemaster:I have fought off whatever foe I was fighting, although I am not familiar on the details of where you hail from or who I was fighting.

Gamemaster:I'm actually not familiar on a lot of details.

Gamemaster:It appears the fight was very traumatic.

Ozzie:I'm sorry, are you saying that you've lost a bit of your knowledge base?

Gamemaster:My on-site memory stores are, in fact, missing.

Ozzie:In a very complete way.

Gamemaster:In a whole, all of it's gone.

Gamemaster:All of it.

Ozzie:Including... Okay, let's... Wait, wait, let's...

Gamemaster:But it is fine.

Gamemaster:I will make new memories.

Gamemaster:With you as my crew.

Gamemaster:Come, let's sail forward.

Gamemaster:Where shall we go next?

Ozzie:Let's begin with what shall we refer to you by?

Gamemaster:I am the Everdawn.

Ozzie:Aha.

Ozzie:Well, that's nice.

Ozzie:Okay, Everdawn.

Ozzie:Are you able to observe the status of the various components of the vessel?

Gamemaster:Maybe.

Gamemaster:Give me a second.

Gamemaster:I have to figure out some stuff.

Foral:you you

Gamemaster:And then the hologram flickers a little bit, and then it comes back and it says, I can, but also I found my operating protocols and I'm apparently not supposed to talk to you.

Ozzie:Oh, so you're going to follow that protocol?

Gamemaster:Sorry.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Ozzie:Okay.

Ozzie:Well, I'm going to still talk because I assume you're going to listen.

Foral:Thank you.

Gamemaster:It did say I can't listen to you.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Ozzie:We currently cannot travel forward because, as you can see, the engines have major errors happening.

Gamemaster:He nods thoughtfully alongside what you're saying.

Ozzie:We are going to investigate some other areas of the ship to determine what has gone wrong.

Ozzie:Do you have any intention of harrying that effort?

Gamemaster:No, that sounds like a huge hassle.

Ozzie:Very well.

Ozzie:Our first step is going to be to investigate.

Ozzie:We saw some evidence of perhaps other beings present.

Scrazzy:you

Gamemaster:My crew!

Ozzie:And that's going to... Perhaps your crew.

Ozzie:I don't know.

Ozzie:We haven't investigated yet.

Ozzie:But we're going to go to the...

Gamemaster:Well, if they're not you, and they're on my ship, they must be my crew.

Gamemaster:You have to go save them.

Ozzie:Well, no, because let me tell you something.

Ozzie:Somebody had put some magical script around this room, and it was inhibiting you in some way that seemed probably antagonistic towards you.

Gamemaster:That doesn't sound right.

Gamemaster:I don't feel inhibited in any way.

Ozzie:Well, you told us that you were battling a foe, and you came out victorious.

Gamemaster:Of course, I must have, otherwise I wouldn't be here.

Ozzie:Right, so there's a foe, in theory.

Gamemaster:Not anymore.

Gamemaster:Of course.

Ozzie:We're going to go to the crew quarters now.

Gamemaster:Oh wait, you should only go there if you're crew.

Scrazzy:Bob will speak up.

Scrazzy:I'm crew.

Gamemaster:Now Bob has to roll a deception check.

Gamemaster:Unless Bob is really part of the group, which I didn't read that in your backstory.

Scrazzy:I will say that during the talk from the...

Scrazzy:from the ai anytime he was saying something bob was nodding his head or shaking his head depending if he was saying of course i i beat my foe bob is like nodding his head and then he's just like you can't do that they they have to be on my crew he's just agreeing with him i don't know if that helps why what's what's your deception bob's better

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:13.

Ozzie:I never said I was good at lying.

Ozzie:Plus two.

Gamemaster:With a 13, Everdawn will say, You can't be part of my crew.

Gamemaster:You don't have a crew name tag.

Gamemaster:Be gone.

Scrazzy:I got you there, Bob.

Ozzie:We're fairly certain it's in your best interest that we maybe ignore some of the crew-related restrictions.

Ozzie:We believe that you've been out of operation for some time, an extended period of time.

Ozzie:And we're here to lend aid.

Ozzie:We want to see perhaps your crew is stuck in the crew quarters.

Ozzie:I don't know.

Gamemaster:I don't believe you.

Gamemaster:But I can't do anything to stop you.

Gamemaster:So you just have to promise that you won't go to areas you're not allowed to go.

Ozzie:Okay, you stay here and make sure that nothing happens in this room, okay?

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:If the foe comes back, I will fight him.

Ozzie:All right.

Ozzie:Sure.

Ozzie:All right, guys, let's head in a direction.

Gamemaster:Also, sorry, before you don't go into the crew quarters, because you're not allowed to do that, if you happen to see any backups of my data, that would be very useful.

Scrazzy:going on yeah of course of course

Gamemaster:Find the nearest crew and have them bring it over.

Foral:Are we allowed to touch that, or only your crew can touch that?

Ozzie:Yes, Everdawn.

Ozzie:Now, can you... So you located some of your protocols.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Ozzie:Are there any emergency or contingency protocols that maybe override the regular protocols?

Gamemaster:Probably, but if I had them, I couldn't discuss them with non-crew.

Foral:Is there any, can you make us crew?

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:You need to find the captain for that.

Ozzie:All right, well, I think you should spend a little time just refocusing on those emergency protocols and determine if perhaps we're in one of those scenarios while we do some investigating.

Ozzie:Okay, see you now.

Gamemaster:Roll a diplomacy check.

Ozzie:Okay.

Ozzie:It was bad.

Ozzie:I don't think that it's worth re-rolling that.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:He says, I would think about it, but you're not crew.

Gamemaster:I don't take instructions from non-crew.

Ozzie:Josh, I'm going to head towards the crew quarters.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Foral:Do we go crew quarters or do we go left where the foe came from?

Scrazzy:dust.

Foral:Oh, is it?

Ozzie:I believe, is that not the same?

Gamemaster:No, the crew quarters are east.

Foral:I thought left was the... Yeah.

Scrazzy:Recorders left.

Gamemaster:Crew quarters are right.

Scrazzy:Oh.

Gamemaster:If you go left, that's where you saw the dust trail lead, and that is where the observatory is listed as.

Ozzie:Oh, okay.

Ozzie:I did a miscalculation in my brain.

Ozzie:That's one of the error areas.

Foral:Yeah.

Ozzie:And I'm not sure if we want to go there first.

Gamemaster:Mm-hmm.

Ozzie:But up to you guys.

Scrazzy:I guess we could go crew quarters.

Scrazzy:Crew quarters to the right.

Scrazzy:Oh, he's drawing a box.

Gamemaster:I'm just trying to be helpful.

Scrazzy:He's drawing a box.

Scrazzy:Run, run, run.

Scrazzy:Oh, thank God.

Scrazzy:It's just a label.

Foral:you you

Scrazzy:Oh, oh, it's following us.

Ozzie:It's duplicating.

Scrazzy:The crew court.

Scrazzy:They get one quart of milk to share.

Gamemaster:Can you not see the full... Okay.

Scrazzy:No, no, it used to be hanging off the map, but it looks like quarters now.

Scrazzy:As we're walking over, Bob will say, I see why someone drew a circle.

Scrazzy:Old man's crazy little shush.

Ozzie:yes yes

Gamemaster:Poor Everton.

Gamemaster:He is annoying.

Gamemaster:Okay, so you guys are going to the crew quarters.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Same marching order as the one that you used to arrive in this room?

Foral:Oof.

Scrazzy:Mm hmm.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:So you can follow the tracks over toward... You can follow... Sorry, the...

Gamemaster:like hallway into what you know to be the outer ring now where the crew quarters are.

Gamemaster:As you do so, I would love perception checks from at most the first two people in the party.

Ozzie:Beautiful.

Ozzie:Maybe I'll roll better.

Ozzie:Nope.

Foral:Well, he didn't roll worse.

Ozzie:No, that's true.

Gamemaster:Okay, so the two of you with your 16s in tow head into the crew quarters.

Gamemaster:The tunnel itself to get there is not particularly interesting in any meaningful way.

Gamemaster:There are a number of conduits that pass from the power core down into the crew quarters, like some plumbing and the like.

Gamemaster:Nothing stands out to you, though, as you pass by as being particularly interesting.

Ozzie:you

Gamemaster:So you just kind of pass forward into the crew quarters itself, which is a...

Scrazzy:you

Gamemaster:As you get to what is the outer ring, you see that the exterior ring here of the station is about 100 feet across.

Gamemaster:And what is labeled as the crew quarters is actually a series of what look to be spheres that have been built into the exterior wall to act as individual habitation areas for different parts of the building of the ship.

Gamemaster:Just eyeballing it with the rules that you got, you'd guess that there were maybe like 15 people, assuming one per habitation pod, there were maybe 15 people on the ship at any one time, like if it was at max capacity.

Gamemaster:It's not a particularly large orbital platform.

Gamemaster:It's really just, it seems like it was piloted almost by a bit of a skeleton crew.

Gamemaster:Each of the orbs are accessed by this kind of central catwalk that extends out of the entrance that you've passed into, and it moves both up and down the ring and hooks up to the various habitation pods.

Gamemaster:Of note with those rolls is there are two...

Gamemaster:hazards of note.

Gamemaster:First is if you follow the ring south, the last two habitation pods look like they've been melted?

Gamemaster:I don't know a better way of putting it.

Gamemaster:It's like you look at the edge, the southern edge of those spheres, of those pods, and the southern edge is almost melting and has taken on this waxy lava lamp-like consistency as it pulls away very slowly into...

Gamemaster:It's not a tunnel.

Gamemaster:It's like the tunnel itself ceases to exist.

Gamemaster:It's not open space.

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Instead, it's just this kind of haze that makes your eyes glass over as you look at it too long.

Gamemaster:It's like that entire part of the ship is just melting into a diffuse cloud that you gather is the boundary into the slip of where the ship is currently passing through that barrier there.

Ozzie:and feeling it

Gamemaster:The other thing is, now that you've got the power online...

Gamemaster:It looks like some of the components appear to have been damaged probably in the same event that caused this station to start falling into the slip.

Gamemaster:And there is a very loud sparking crackle from some damaged electrical component a little further north as you follow the path north towards the habitation parts that are closest to the bridge.

Scrazzy:you

Ozzie:Hmm.

Foral:Is it possible to reach that without entering the slip?

Gamemaster:So from where you are, you walk forward, there are a bunch of to the right, which is south, and to the left, which is north.

Gamemaster:If you try to go too far to the south, you'll hit that boundary with the slip.

Gamemaster:If you go left to the north, it will eventually take you to the bridge.

Gamemaster:It takes you to that half of the habitation pods, but there is that weird crackling, sparking electrical sound as you move further north.

Foral:I think we should go back to the observatory.

Ozzie:Can we approach a more central pod that's not close to either of these hazards?

Gamemaster:Yeah, there are a few that are just in the middle that don't require you to go too far north or south that are relatively safe by the looks of it.

Ozzie:Is it possible to enter?

Gamemaster:It absolutely is.

Gamemaster:If you like, you can roll another perception check as you just pick one at random to look at what's going on in there.

Ozzie:Amazing.

Ozzie:Amazing!

Gamemaster:That is amazing.

Gamemaster:Okay, with a 27 looking inside.

Foral:I'm not getting that close so I'm not rolling.

Gamemaster:With a 27 looking inside at one of the pods that are closest to the entrance.

Gamemaster:These look like, honestly, better than you would expect from a bare-bones operation.

Gamemaster:Like, Sedecium ships, for ones that are still kind of economical about space, getting an individual berth in its own right is a bit of a luxury.

Gamemaster:Normally you would expect to bunk with other people in a tighter area just because it's not worth giving everybody their own room.

Gamemaster:But these rooms themselves, even if they were individual rooms, are pretty nice.

Gamemaster:There's enough room for a kind of hammock that you would gather works as a crash couch if the ship were under acceleration, but also works just as a bed if you're stationary.

Gamemaster:There is a small locker, by the looks of it, that might hold some clothes or something of that nature.

Foral:Okay.

Gamemaster:And there's a small kind of fold-out desk.

Gamemaster:that normally folds against the wall, but you can sit in the hammock as a chair and pull it down to act as a kind of computer interface or writing terminal or something of that nature.

Ozzie:Is the desk... Right.

Gamemaster:It is currently unoccupied, just to clarify.

Ozzie:What's in the locker?

Gamemaster:Looking through the locker, there are a set of what look to be three identical uniforms, all for somebody much larger than you, like maybe eight or nine feet tall.

Ozzie:Whoa.

Gamemaster:You know that there are a handful of races that were part of the Sundom that kind of match that description, so that isn't particularly surprising.

Gamemaster:But with a really good perception while looking around, there are a handful...

Gamemaster:of personal accoutrements, like what looks to be a photo of what you gather is whoever used to live in this particular habitation.

Foral:you

Gamemaster:They are this tall, kind of pear-shaped, black-and-white-looking creature with stubby-looking legs and pretty long-looking arms, and no real neck to speak of.

Gamemaster:It just turns into the head with two reddish eyes sticking out.

Gamemaster:standing next to what you gather to be some kind of relative or the like, maybe a mother or a father.

Gamemaster:It's difficult to discern the gender of this person just looking at the photo.

Ozzie:It's me.

Gamemaster:But also, there is a small nameplate which says, Second Lieutenant Hartlestad.

Foral:I was gonna say it's grimace.

Gamemaster:It's not Gumby.

Scrazzy:It's grimace that's not gummy.

Gamemaster:Oh, sorry, Grimace.

Gamemaster:It's not Grimace either.

Gamemaster:I don't know his name.

Gamemaster:It's not Grimace or Gumby.

Scrazzy:You had to specify long arms because it's the only differentiating factor aside from the color.

Gamemaster:And that he's Black and White.

Scrazzy:Well, yeah, the color.

Scrazzy:You can just reskin grimace.

Gamemaster:I didn't read Grimace.

Gamemaster:It's not Grimace.

Gamemaster:He's not Fuzzy.

Scrazzy:That's all I can think of.

Ozzie:All right.

Ozzie:Well, I'll take the nameplate.

Gamemaster:And he's wearing clothes.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Ozzie:And is the desk up or down?

Gamemaster:The desk is currently set into the wall.

Gamemaster:It's up.

Ozzie:All right.

Ozzie:We'll bring it down.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:You lowered the desk.

Gamemaster:There is, like you had seen before, a little divot that you would use to activate this as a computer terminal, but is otherwise empty.

Ozzie:I guess I'll try to turn it on, sure.

Foral:I think we got to go to the observatory.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:You don't need to use Bob's head for it.

Gamemaster:You can just kind of press your fist into the divot.

Gamemaster:There is a flash of blue and purple, and there is, in clear Sundom common, no data found.

Scrazzy:you

Foral:That might have all the data.

Ozzie:Yeah, either that or, yeah, I guess that's good.

Foral:Where's a place would you like to go?

Ozzie:The other place would be the bridge, the only other spot that's, well, actually the bridge is locked, so we might not be able to get in there.

Ozzie:I guess we could check the observatory, see what happens.

Foral:Unless you want to try to get past the sparking electrical.

Scrazzy:anyone want to check out the melted pods i can try and scratchy scrazziel see what he knows about the pods

Ozzie:They look kind of crazy.

Ozzie:Do you think you'd be able to glean anything from them?

Ozzie:All right, I'll come with you.

Foral:I'll cover you.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Scrazzy does a little bit of Tai Chi in front of the pods and rolls in a cultism check.

Scrazzy:He's hard of hearing.

Gamemaster:Sorry, Scrazzy.

Gamemaster:I don't know what I said.

Scrazzy:So he doesn't know anyways.

Scrazzy:24.

Ozzie:Scraz.

Gamemaster:Scrasmataz.

Scrazzy:Could be better.

Gamemaster:Scrazzy gets a 24.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:With a 24, this... Scrazzy has seen this particular phenomenon before.

Gamemaster:He's old.

Gamemaster:Not in person, but in literature.

Gamemaster:Especially because this phenomenon was of note to...

Gamemaster:So, you know, you're all probably from or grew up in New Volcantum.

Foral:Hmm.

Gamemaster:That's where the majority of the people from Ushas are from in Sedecium.

Gamemaster:New Volcantum, so-called, because Old Volcantum doesn't exist anymore.

Gamemaster:most of Vicious doesn't exist anymore.

Scrazzy:you

Gamemaster:There was an ongoing problem where the pale was slowly expanding, and 900 years down the line, the pale kind of ate up the prime material.

Gamemaster:Which meant that a lot of people had to relocate.

Gamemaster:By that point, Sedecium had long developed the logistical ability to relocate an entire planet's worth of people somewhere else.

Gamemaster:So it was really a movement problem than anything else.

Gamemaster:But there was a lot of study done on the interface between the pale and the prime material while that was happening, because there were a lot of efforts to try and prevent it.

Gamemaster:from expanding first, and only when that avenue was not found did they move on to somewhere else.

Gamemaster:This particular barrier reminds you of the interface point between the pale and the prime material, which makes sense.

Gamemaster:You gather that this is related to where the ship has fallen into the slip, so to speak, which is not something that just happens.

Gamemaster:Like, people don't just fall into the slip.

Gamemaster:You have to make a concerted effort to move in that dimension.

Foral:Thank you.

Gamemaster:The good news is if this behaves like the interface between here, between the prime material and the pale, then the answer of repairing that connection is just moving the ship back out of the slip.

Gamemaster:It seems to have the directional capabilities to do that, but it needs to be just pulled back out of the slip so that it becomes whole in the prime material again.

Gamemaster:The issue being, of course, that the engines are in the slip right now, and you're pretty confident that if you cross over the barrier, you'd get like 12 seconds before you start taking some kind of radiation damage from just exposure to the slip in general.

Foral:Thank you.

Scrazzy:you

Gamemaster:So you need some way of maybe rotating the ship so parts of the ship are in the slip and the engine isn't.

Gamemaster:Or maybe asking the AI if it knows of any other propulsion systems that can be used.

Gamemaster:Or trying to figure out what pushed this into the slip in the first place and seeing if there's a way to undo it from there.

Gamemaster:You imagine that there might be evidence of whatever did this originally somewhere on the ship, but you haven't seen it yet.

Scrazzy:Not great, gentlemen.

Ozzie:No.

Scrazzy:Not great, gentlemen and Bob.

Ozzie:All right.

Ozzie:Well, let's see if we can even enter the observatory or if that's fully slipped.

Gamemaster:We're bottom.

Foral:I like seeing Mike fight with himself.

Ozzie:And if it is, we might...

Scrazzy:Bob will say, no, I thought it was against the rules.

Ozzie:I'm telling you, if this thing really understood its protocols, it would be letting us help out.

Scrazzy:of course we get it bob bob will pout and then yeah i guess

Ozzie:All right.

Foral:Let's do it.

Ozzie:Go back to the core and then to the, yeah.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:You guys head back to the core, and then you head west further from where you currently are.

Gamemaster:And the hunch was correct.

Gamemaster:The observatory is not here.

Gamemaster:Instead, you get about five feet into the corridor that would head in that direction, and you can see it's cut off with that same lava lamp pulling effect that you know is that part of the station on the edge of the slip.

Foral:So we got to turn it somehow.

Ozzie:Yeah, we got to find our way onto the bridge.

Foral:All right, let's just try to get into this bridge.

Ozzie:Okay.

Ozzie:So from the core, what is it like to get to the bridge?

Ozzie:Is there just a door that's barred?

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:If you're trying to get to the bridge from the core, there is a hallway on the northern part that if you take upwards will eventually stop in this kind of landing zone interstitial area.

Gamemaster:And there is a doorway that is currently locked that is preventing entry in.

Scrazzy:what do you mean by allowed oh okay

Foral:I can open the lock, but it's going to be a little loud.

Foral:I'm going to shoot it.

Ozzie:I mean, give it a go, I guess.

Foral:I unload my inseguinating round, and I put a regular round, and then I shoot it.

Gamemaster:Okay, do you have the feat that lets you pick locks by shooting them?

Foral:Last lock.

Foral:That's my first feat.

Gamemaster:Of course it is.

Gamemaster:Why did you even take this?

Gamemaster:You're good at thievery checks.

Foral:I wanted to shoot him.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Ozzie:Redundancy, Josh, redundancy.

Gamemaster:Okay, make an attack roll.

Foral:I'm going to focus.

Foral:I'm going to make an attack roll.

Foral:All right.

Foral:Lieutenant and attack.

Foral:Archibus.

Foral:Oh, wait a minute.

Foral:Let me unload my insect.

Gamemaster:It's just so silly to see somebody who took a multi-class in Rogue and just choosing not to use that bit of his toolkit so he could instead shoot the lock.

Foral:uh okay um i'm gonna snipe around

Gamemaster:Yeah, just make a strike.

Gamemaster:Okay, a 34 is a crit.

Gamemaster:There are two metal bolts holding this door in place.

Gamemaster:That would normally translate to two different checks to unlock it if you were going that route.

Gamemaster:But with a crit, you get both at the same time.

Gamemaster:I don't know how you do it.

Gamemaster:I guess you fire your rifle at one of the bolts and the bullet ricochets and hits the other bolt and they both fall out of the door.

Foral:There you go.

Gamemaster:And with that, there is no longer anything locking the door in place.

Ozzie:Lieutenant, you would be an excellent bowler.

Gamemaster:You still have to physically pull the door open because you've removed the mechanical component of it, but once you pull it open, it'll stay open.

Ozzie:Let me get the store.

Scrazzy:Old man Scrazzy will look at Bob and say, they should see us bowl.

Foral:Sounds good.

Gamemaster:It's an athletics check to open the door.

Ozzie:Ooh.

Ozzie:Wait, can I activate the belt to do a thing?

Ozzie:Hold on, let me look at the belt.

Gamemaster:If the object is locked, you can attempt to force it open using athletics as part of this activation.

Foral:If you can't, I will make an athletics check.

Scrazzy:Okay.

Foral:Can I grab the other part of the door?

Ozzie:I'm kind of already doing that.

Foral:Can I grab the other part of the door?

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Oh, so you want to grab one side and he pulls the other?

Foral:Also.

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Yeah, you can attempt to do that.

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:That's an athletics check as well.

Ozzie:I can't believe I failed on my best skill.

Gamemaster:It happens.

Ozzie:This is literally all I'm good for.

Foral:He's a small...

Foral:goblin, but he's a strong goblin.

Foral:It's because his gun is so powerful he has to handle the kickback.

Gamemaster:With the 25... And that is true.

Scrazzy:Bye.

Foral:That's literally why I have a plus four.

Gamemaster:With the two of you pulling on the door, you can force it open.

Gamemaster:There's this kind of grinding sound as you clearly snap whatever the actual servos used to open and close the door are.

Gamemaster:But the door is pulled open.

Gamemaster:I'd love a perception check to take a look around the bridge if you like.

Ozzie:Always having my back, Lieutenant.

Foral:Always.

Foral:22.

Scrazzy:you you

Gamemaster:22.

Gamemaster:I think we're getting a 22 for this check.

Ozzie:I agree.

Gamemaster:Okay, that is the DC, so you guys are fine.

Gamemaster:Looking around, the bridge is constructed of most of the same or similar looking components that the power core is.

Gamemaster:Excuse me?

Gamemaster:Where it's these kind of the blue light liquid conduits moving through this part of the ship hooked up to a number of different dashes and the like.

Gamemaster:This is the first time that you've come up to a part of the ship that has windows so you can see outside.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately...

Gamemaster:Nothing to see.

Gamemaster:You're drifting in space, disconnected from whatever thing this station was originally orbiting around.

Gamemaster:So you just kind of have this far off view of the rest of the stars of the Astra.

Gamemaster:Looking around, there are a number of dashboards that look like they are relevant to parts of the operation of the ship.

Gamemaster:With the 22, you note that a considerable number of them are dedicated by the looks of it specifically towards interacting with...

Gamemaster:data received from the observatory.

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:There's a lot of parts of this.

Gamemaster:It looks like the AI core is here, the central part, the central process of wherever Everdawn lives, as much as an AI can live somewhere.

Gamemaster:um and it seems that that's hooked up directly from a lot of data feeds that are coming from further uh further west of where you currently are into where you can see the the bubbling interface with the slip at this point as well uh what are you looking for in particular while you're here

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Foral:Is there a way to turn the station around?

Gamemaster:You can try and interact with the piloting part of the system.

Gamemaster:Easy enough to boot that part of the system back up and take a look.

Gamemaster:And there is a digital readout that says that the primary engines are offline.

Gamemaster:You're not going to be doing any kind of FTL travel on the ship or even like inter-system travel.

Gamemaster:But what you do note is that there are...

Gamemaster:auxiliary motors designed to spin the ring specifically for the act of either maneuvering or generating a gravity field if the need arises that do appear to be intact at the moment.

Foral:I JK.

Gamemaster:You'll be using them kind of outside of their original specification because they're designed to move in the normal three physical dimensions, but with

Gamemaster:Sure, yes.

Gamemaster:But trying to move it in the dimension to pull it out of the slip is possible with a little bit of arcane and perhaps crafting rigging to get everything going, and a confident pilot.

Gamemaster:But it is doable.

Foral:Is piloting a DEX, or...?

Gamemaster:Yes, piloting would, I'd probably just have you make a reflex save.

Foral:Well... I don't know about all that scientific mumbo-jumbo, but I can fly us out anything.

Scrazzy:Bob will say probably fly us back to his daughter.

Ozzie:I trust you.

Foral:I was able to make a... make a trip in under 14 parsecs.

Ozzie:I believe it.

Foral:Yes, Lily.

Gamemaster:Oh, she has a name.

Foral:Times running out.

Ozzie:We will get back to her now spin this ship.

Gamemaster:Okay, I'm going to need an arcana, occultism, religion, or nature check to rewire the setup here in order to have the blasters move you out of the slip.

Ozzie:Dude.

Gamemaster:And then I'm going to need a reflex save from our pilot over there.

Foral:Can I also roll a religion or no?

Gamemaster:The guy piloting can't also be the guy doing the wiring.

Foral:All right.

Ozzie:Oh boy.

Ozzie:I can make a religion check if I'm allowed.

Gamemaster:Yeah, you're on.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Foral:I look over at him and I go from the mud to the stars.

Foral:We're out of here.

Ozzie:Hmm.

Foral:for Lily.

Gamemaster:So I have a question for you.

Gamemaster:That is two successes.

Gamemaster:That is, that is enough for you to rewire the stuff to move in the correct direction, and that is a successful piloting check to rotate it.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately, you are rotating the ship.

Gamemaster:You aren't necessarily pulling it out of the slip.

Gamemaster:So there will always be...

Gamemaster:two contiguous parts of the ship that are still in the slip.

Gamemaster:How do you want to orient the ship?

Scrazzy:you

Gamemaster:So that, like, which two do you want present in the real world, and which two are you leaving in the slip?

Foral:All right, so the bridge is going to be in the real world.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Foral:And then I guess the observatory?

Ozzie:So, right, we gotta sink the crew quarters the rest of the time.

Foral:Or we could do the engines, and then we can use it to pull out.

Gamemaster:So the engines into the bridge are on opposite ends.

Ozzie:Well... Right.

Gamemaster:So if you want the engines out, the bridge has to be in the slip, which does mean that you can attempt a mad dash to get out of the part of the slip that you submerged it back into the central power core if you want to leave it like that.

Foral:I think we should do the bad dash, but what do you think?

Ozzie:Let's just open up the observatory for now and take a look around.

Scrazzy:Wait, hold on.

Scrazzy:One question.

Scrazzy:What form would radiation take?

Gamemaster:It would be radiant damage, but that's not a thing in this.

Scrazzy:If we know.

Scrazzy:Like, what kind of damage is it?

Ozzie:Well, okay.

Scrazzy:Oh, so it would be like spirit?

Gamemaster:It'd be spirit damage.

Gamemaster:It just wouldn't have the holy or unholy trait.

Scrazzy:hoping it was poison or something you

Gamemaster:It's not.

Gamemaster:I'm sorry.

Foral:I think we back out.

Foral:We got two rounds to get us out of here.

Foral:I'll let us out.

Ozzie:Here's my question.

Ozzie:Can the suits give us that 12 seconds?

Ozzie:Is it just a one-time thing?

Ozzie:Then the suits are damaged permanently?

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:Yeah, you have 12 seconds of protection, and once those 12 seconds are used, you're done.

Ozzie:So I would prefer not to use that just yet if we can avoid it.

Ozzie:So...

Scrazzy:Though the ship is in the slip.

Foral:Wait, sorry.

Scrazzy:And we want to rotate it.

Gamemaster:Hmm?

Scrazzy:To what?

Scrazzy:Because when the engines are in the slip, it can't... Right?

Gamemaster:When the engines are the slip, the connection between the computer, like the central power core, and the engines is broken.

Gamemaster:So they're not useful.

Scrazzy:Oh.

Foral:So if we were to put the bridge in there, we wouldn't be able to, from the bridge, pilot it out.

Foral:We'd have to, from the bridge, try to run a...

Gamemaster:No, you'd have to, if you did it that way, you'd have to see if there was some way to activate the engines from the engine room.

Foral:Uh, okay.

Gamemaster:But the bridge itself, like, either that or you could sacrifice somebody to stay in the bridge and attempt to pilot it because the engines themselves are connected to the power core at that point, which is the important bit.

Foral:I thought we'd still be able to pilot it.

Gamemaster:It's just you would be taking damage for every round after the first two that you're in there.

Foral:I might... I don't know, guys.

Foral:I might have to sacrifice myself.

Ozzie:You definitely don't have to do that right now.

Ozzie:We haven't even come close to thinking about that.

Foral:I make a hard drive and I pass it to I pass it to the guardian and I go if you can't if I don't make it out of here bring this encrypted hard drive to the medical ward in sector 4 tell the med cat it's for Lily

Scrazzy:I think it's a noble cause.

Scrazzy:Bob, let him make the decision.

Ozzie:I will hold on to this, but can you please, can you please, for now, reveal the observatory?

Gamemaster:Wait, is... Is Lily also sick?

Foral:Alright.

Scrazzy:Yeah, can you?

Gamemaster:I thought your wife was sick.

Ozzie:No, no, the wife is dead.

Foral:No, my wife's killed.

Foral:She was killed by a mysterious murderer.

Foral:It was ruled an accident.

Ozzie:Josh, you gotta keep up with the lore, Josh.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:I'm sorry, I'm not following the lore.

Ozzie:I mean, we established this two hours ago.

Foral:Alright, I reveal the observatory.

Gamemaster:Okay, so you're rotating it so that the two materialized areas are the bridge and the observatory.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Foral:Yeah, yeah.

Foral:And right before I pilot, I pull out a photo of my family and I kiss it for you guys.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:You activate the station so that it rotates clockwise a little bit, and after a few moments, bring it back to a stop.

Foral:Yep.

Gamemaster:At any point, you can come back into this bridge and rotate it if you decide you need to.

Gamemaster:But for the time being, you have repositioned the ship, so you're pretty confident the crew quarters are now in the slip and the observatory isn't.

Foral:Let's go.

Ozzie:Could be something in there.

Scrazzy:the observatory okay uh we're in the marching order uh

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:As you guys start heading over towards the observatory, I wouldn't move that far with your tokens.

Ozzie:Bro.

Foral:Oh, no.

Gamemaster:Can I get a perception check?

Foral:The thing came out.

Gamemaster:27.

Ozzie:Okay.

Ozzie:Let me make a check for you, Josh.

Foral:Damn.

Gamemaster:Huh?

Foral:Ozzie's the foundation of this team.

Gamemaster:Damn.

Gamemaster:With the 27, you hear it before you see it.

Gamemaster:As you guys are returning from the bridge and getting ready to head over to the observatory, you hear this kind of agitated, maybe excited-sounding... You're assigning emotions to kind of what sounds like a bunch of rocks hitting each other.

Gamemaster:I don't know if you would necessarily recognize it, but pointing it out, I think Scrazzy would.

Gamemaster:I think this is one of the languages you know.

Gamemaster:They appear to be... Actually, I can tell... We'll check.

Scrazzy:Josh is frozen.

Ozzie:Oh, wow.

Scrazzy:Josh has disappeared.

Ozzie:That went bad fast.

Scrazzy:My shit's been exploding the fucking whole night.

Ozzie:I've been just having smooth sailing.

Foral:Yes, because you're the only one not in the city.

Ozzie:Out here in the burbs.

Foral:Yeah.

Scrazzy:We've got Mom Donnie's internet.

Foral:Where the internet's stable.

Ozzie:Snow.

Ozzie:I'm just going to slide right on by that.

Ozzie:I don't really know his internet plans, actually.

Foral:Tanner's really sensitive about Bluntani's internet plans.

Foral:If there's one thing he has good, it's the plan.

Scrazzy:I don't know if he has any.

Foral:I remember when Libertarians were running in 2016 and their whole thing was like, we should... I forget what they wanted to do to the internet, but they're like, we're going to make it all fair.

Foral:But they're basically going to remove the conditions where... I forget what condition they want to remove from the internet, but just basically make it so the biggest companies are just going to buy everything.

Foral:I forget what it was.

Foral:And I was like, this is actually the opposite of a libertarian policy, because it's going to cause a super...

Ozzie:Yeah, what are you gonna do?

Foral:I wonder what that was.

Foral:Hmm.

Foral:Whatever.

Foral:The Praetorians are crazy, man.

Foral:I love watching their debates.

Foral:They're like, we shouldn't have any driver's license.

Foral:You shouldn't need a license to drive a car.

Foral:Wait.

Scrazzy:You don't need a license to drive a sandwich.

Ozzie:Look who decided to show up.

Scrazzy:The clip of the dude talking about toasters.

Foral:yeah yeah

Scrazzy:Is that what you're looking for, Jorge?

Scrazzy:He's back.

Scrazzy:Maybe.

Scrazzy:Just when he's trying to sick some monsters on us.

Ozzie:Do you think he knows he's muted?

Scrazzy:some sick fuck.

Scrazzy:I don't know if he knows he's muted.

Foral:I'll just...

Scrazzy:Discord does suck.

Scrazzy:My shit's been exploding.

Scrazzy:Yeah, see, I had the reverse problem.

Scrazzy:I checked my network and it was letting me upload but not downloading anything.

Scrazzy:So I was probably like to you guys, but I couldn't see anything.

Ozzie:No, Josh, you just have to click the mute button and activate your microphone.

Scrazzy:Oh.

Scrazzy:There's no connection issue.

Scrazzy:He just can't unmute himself.

Scrazzy:What the fuck?

Ozzie:Did your Discord become voice activated and you have to give it vocal commands?

Scrazzy:It's sending a message.

Scrazzy:Yeah, it could be voice activated.

Foral:you guys want to switch to google meets all right what would you guys like to do

Scrazzy:To have them suffer.

Ozzie:I guess we'll give him a sec.

Ozzie:I don't know.

Ozzie:But Google's not a bad idea if he can't get on in another minute or two.

Scrazzy:Yeah, we can switch.

Scrazzy:I mean, I'm more out of principle.

Foral:It's sad that our characters can just reboot, because it kind of took all the wind out of my sails with the sacrifice play.

Ozzie:You really had something good built there.

Scrazzy:Well, you could always say, you could always be piloting it and about to crash and be like, no, no, it'll be fine.

Ozzie:Yeah.

Scrazzy:You don't have to cry.

Scrazzy:You're going to go see her because we've got duplicates on this ship.

Scrazzy:You're like, I killed all my duplicates and then just...

Gamemaster:I'm going to kill your daughter.

Gamemaster:I think that's what's going to happen.

Gamemaster:You're going to get a message from your handler that just says, oh, sorry, your daughter's dead.

Gamemaster:We love the good work.

Gamemaster:So I was using the desktop Discord, and then it broke.

Gamemaster:I don't know what caused it.

Gamemaster:And then it stopped.

Gamemaster:I couldn't open it anymore.

Gamemaster:So I was trying to use the web app, and it didn't let me unmute on the web app.

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:So I'm restarting my computer right now to see if that helps.

Ozzie:Oh my gosh.

Gamemaster:And in the meantime, I've called in on my phone.

Gamemaster:So I guess we'll give it a moment and see if everything resolves itself.

Gamemaster:And then I'll kill you with kindness, because you guys are going to find kindness around the corner.

Foral:Mm hmm.

Gamemaster:That's what we haven't seen.

Scrazzy:Yay.

Ozzie:Hmm.

Foral:I chugged a potion when I heard scuttles.

Foral:And if you don't allow me, I'll just use that as my first action.

Gamemaster:no that's fine i will allow it oh discord turned on okay i'm gonna rejoin for my computer

Foral:The potion lasts 10 minutes.

Foral:I fear doing that and then activating a bullet might be too much, so I'll just take the...

Ozzie:likely story okay yeah

Foral:It's fine.

Gamemaster:Hello?

Scrazzy:Hello?

Gamemaster:Why does it says that it's just always broadcasting for me now?

Scrazzy:Because there's background noise.

Gamemaster:You hear background noise?

Scrazzy:Yeah, I mean, it's just a fan or something.

Ozzie:It sounds like a white noise.

Scrazzy:The game?

Ozzie:Oh.

Foral:go nope nice

Gamemaster:Fuck.

Gamemaster:It's gone?

Ozzie:It went for.

Scrazzy:It's cutting out because you're cutting out.

Gamemaster:Am I still cutting out?

Scrazzy:No.

Scrazzy:I also can't hear it anymore.

Gamemaster:Great.

Gamemaster:OK, the problem is that I use NVIDIA Broadcast to do my voice filtering, and I guess it hadn't booted up yet.

Gamemaster:OK, so I've forgotten where we were.

Gamemaster:Oh, right.

Gamemaster:I double-checked, and you actually don't know this language.

Gamemaster:So I would love a quick society check to see if anybody can place the language that's being spoken.

Ozzie:not going to do that astronomical

Scrazzy:Fantastic at placing languages.

Gamemaster:You don't have to if you don't want to.

Gamemaster:16?

Scrazzy:I placed languages first in the placing language 16.

Gamemaster:Yeah, no, I think unfortunately you don't recognize it.

Foral:Or a religion check.

Gamemaster:I'll allow a religion check, but the DC is going to be higher.

Gamemaster:No, a 24 is enough.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Gamemaster:Okay, so with a 24, this is some flavor of fiendish.

Gamemaster:You don't speak it, but you would know that this is a language spoken by denizens of the slip.

Foral:Oh.

Gamemaster:things that live within the slip that it sounds like perhaps are no longer in the slip, having been rotated free.

Foral:All right.

Gamemaster:They've come to explore this particular area.

Gamemaster:And as they do so, you guys do have, I will give you three actions each as like a little bit of prep as they round the corner.

Gamemaster:You can, as part of that, drink your potion.

Foral:I'm going to... Where were we?

Foral:Can we see them from here?

Foral:Can we see the whole room from here?

Gamemaster:Yeah, you can see the whole room.

Foral:Alright.

Foral:I'm going to... I'm going to... What is it?

Foral:I'm going to move over.

Foral:to what's the distance here wait i just didn't get the ruler out how do you dumb how did you get the ruler measurement tools token yeah okay that's great okay so i'm gonna come over here

Gamemaster:In token controls, you press the measure distance ruler.

Scrazzy:Click on the ruler.

Foral:Then I'm going to cover reload.

Foral:I'm going to reload with... Oh wait, I already had the extinguidating, so I'm just going to have that inside, and then I'm going to activate it.

Ozzie:I put on my demon mask.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Foral:He's one of them.

Scrazzy:Look.

Foral:He's one of them.

Gamemaster:Maybe silly question, but can you guys hear any sound coming from the music bot?

Scrazzy:i don't think i have anything to do i think he just works off the i think he just works off the cuff it's just fart sounds but yeah no no we can we can hear music i can hear music

Foral:You can get closer or further.

Foral:Now I can.

Gamemaster:I'll take that as a no.

Ozzie:Josh, are you hearing us?

Foral:I can't do.

Gamemaster:Now I'm hearing you.

Gamemaster:I wasn't hearing you a second ago.

Foral:Oh, we were hearing music.

Scrazzy:Oh, fart sounds.

Ozzie:We could hear the music.

Gamemaster:Oh, gosh.

Gamemaster:So there's just something wrong with me then.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Ozzie:Right.

Foral:We can do without music, though.

Gamemaster:What the fuck?

Gamemaster:Are you guys talking right now?

Gamemaster:Because I can't hear you anymore.

Foral:We are talking.

Ozzie:speak speak speak speak speak speak speak speak

Gamemaster:Yeah, I see the things moving, but I can't hear you.

Scrazzy:Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:What happened?

Scrazzy:The music, when the music cuts off, he's going to be able to hear us.

Gamemaster:What?

Scrazzy:Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.

Gamemaster:Okay, I can hear you now.

Foral:Oh, OK.

Gamemaster:That's so strange.

Gamemaster:My headphones either work in Bluetooth mode or plugged in through a wire.

Gamemaster:And when I have the music playing, I can't hear you when it's plugged in.

Gamemaster:But I can hear you when I'm using the Bluetooth feature.

Gamemaster:So we're just going to leave it like that.

Foral:All right.

Gamemaster:I don't know why it's doing that.

Ozzie:You got too many funky things going on on your computer and you confuse it with all the different softwares and hardwares.

Gamemaster:I don't...

Gamemaster:That's probably true.

Gamemaster:Okay, have you guys done all of the setup that you wanted to do before they... Okay, absolutely.

Foral:All right.

Foral:Yeah.

Scrazzy:Mm hmm.

Foral:I will never forget Tanner's character, the elf.

Gamemaster:So... Hmm.

Foral:Bladesinger that spent like four rounds just doing stuff.

Ozzie:Listen, the combos are worth it.

Ozzie:You just got to get there.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:After those four rounds of setup, it was a menace.

Gamemaster:So... I get it.

Gamemaster:Anyway, around the corner, in that same weird gravelly...

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:like, rock-grinding language that they're speaking, you see a number of fiends as it walks around, as they walk around the corner.

Foral:uh-huh

Gamemaster:There are a handful of weird, spiky-looking, porcupine-almost creatures with these large, kind of spiked hands.

Gamemaster:They're followed by a longer...

Gamemaster:almost stretched out demonic body with an anglerfish's head on the top.

Gamemaster:And it is finally followed by, it's not quite in view yet, but you would see a humanoid creature with one big eyeball for a face as they shamble out of the hallway to the observatory.

Scrazzy:you you

Foral:Oh, how?

Gamemaster:And with that, I do think we're going to roll initiative.

Gamemaster:I would love it.

Gamemaster:You can either do stealth or perception for this particular initiative if you so choose.

Foral:That's funny that you asked, because I can do stealth regardless.

Gamemaster:Oh, you just get to do it?

Gamemaster:Okay, well.

Scrazzy:question how so what i have to spend an action on one of my turns to control bob and how many actions does bob get okay does bob go on my turn okay

Gamemaster:Answer.

Gamemaster:Two.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:When you spend an action to give Bob his two, he gets to do both of his immediately.

Gamemaster:All right.

Gamemaster:And with that, we begin with the Oris, who rounds the corner.

Gamemaster:I'm going to roll a perception check to see if he even sees you guys immediately, since he's going before you.

Gamemaster:Just roll a perception check for this guy.

Gamemaster:That's how I do it.

Gamemaster:Yeah, okay, he sees you.

Gamemaster:He rounds the corner with the other compatriots of his, and he sees the three of you kind of set up.

Gamemaster:Although, old man's... Oh wait, no, old man's grassy!

Gamemaster:And...

Gamemaster:Mr. Lieutenant Foral used stealth for their initiative.

Gamemaster:So I think the only one he sees is Ozzie.

Gamemaster:So I think he's going to go for Ozzie.

Scrazzy:Our savior.

Foral:Yeah.

Scrazzy:Jesus.

Ozzie:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:This dude's so slow.

Gamemaster:I didn't realize he was this slow.

Gamemaster:That's three actions.

Foral:Oh no.

Foral:That is really scary.

Foral:Things that slow.

Gamemaster:It's the end of his turn.

Gamemaster:Next up is going to be Old Man Scrazzy.

Scrazzy:Old Man Scrazzy.

Scrazzy:Old Man Scrazzy will... Let's see.

Scrazzy:Old Man Scrazzy will cast...

Scrazzy:Wall of thorns.

Scrazzy:How do I place this?

Gamemaster:Five foot thick wall of thorns in a straight line up to 60 feet long.

Gamemaster:Can I, on your behalf, place this?

Scrazzy:Nope, not what I want.

Scrazzy:Actually, let me.

Gamemaster:Or are you placing that?

Gamemaster:Okay, so you can, gotcha.

Scrazzy:And then for his second action, he will command Bob.

Gamemaster:Oh, that's a good move.

Scrazzy:Actually, will he?

Scrazzy:Do I have a better option here?

Scrazzy:When I cast Wall of Thorns, what kind of damage does this do?

Scrazzy:Do I have to do damage to

Gamemaster:Wall of Thorns does piercing damage.

Scrazzy:Let me double check something.

Foral:Did you say that there's something else coming out of the hallway, or is this the thing?

Gamemaster:These fourth creatures are the creatures coming out of the hallway.

Foral:OK.

Gamemaster:I assume you can see all four of them.

Foral:Yeah.

Scrazzy:Yeah, he'll direct Bob.

Scrazzy:Bob, I need you to, Bob, make sure the others don't make it through.

Scrazzy:What's Bob's movement speed?

Scrazzy:I think it's 25.

Scrazzy:Bob will head.

Scrazzy:Yeah, I guess Bob can be.

Scrazzy:Actually, Bob will just head to the center.

Gamemaster:I've encased old man's grass in the box.

Scrazzy:So he used 15 to get where he is.

Scrazzy:So they're 20.

Scrazzy:35.

Scrazzy:He's got another 15 at movement.

Foral:Well, it's a good thing there's a massive white box blocking them in.

Foral:So the lieutenant, with his glowing gun,

Scrazzy:Yes.

Scrazzy:They can't go that way either because the observatory is over there.

Scrazzy:And that'll be Old Man Scrazzy's turn.

Scrazzy:No!

Gamemaster:Okay, then it's the lieutenant's turn.

Foral:He's gonna say, tell me, monster, do you bleed?

Foral:And he's gonna shoot at him.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Foral:Wait a second, let me... I have to do some stuff.

Gamemaster:I assume you're going for the horse, the one on the side of the thorn wall.

Foral:Yes.

Foral:Sniper's aim.

Foral:Why is that... Why is my weapon potency not activated?

Gamemaster:What?

Foral:In my little menu to click on, it says Weapon Potency plus 1, and then it's off.

Ozzie:Just turn it.

Foral:Oh, because Silver Mutagen, I guess, disables.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:Yes, because Weapon Pwncy is an item bonus and Quicksilver Mutagen is just a larger bonus.

Foral:OK.

Foral:Gotcha, gotcha.

Foral:OK.

Foral:Is there a way I can turn on my sneak attack and one?

Foral:That's, I guess, for damage, so.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Foral:OK.

Foral:Sorry.

Foral:Sorry, guys.

Foral:Oh, wait.

Foral:No, I can.

Foral:OK.

Foral:All right.

Foral:There we go.

Gamemaster:He's flat-footed to you right now, right?

Gamemaster:Because you're hidden.

Foral:Yeah, I think.

Foral:I'm going to mythic it.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:That hits.

Gamemaster:It's not a crit, unfortunately, but it does hit.

Foral:Fuck it.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Foral:Real mythic.

Gamemaster:That's a crit.

Foral:Yes.

Foral:Alright, critical damage.

Ozzie:Damn.

Scrazzy:Not bad.

Foral:Money no whammies.

Foral:Fatal d12 over sniper's precision.

Foral:One shot, one kill.

Foral:Sneak attack.

Foral:Large bore.

Foral:And this should have, yes.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Foral:All right.

Foral:And it's under the effects of the ammunition.

Gamemaster:And it's crushed.

Scrazzy:DZ22 fourth save.

Foral:And it's crushed.

Gamemaster:Okay, so let me roll a fort save for you.

Gamemaster:Okay, it succeeds on the fourth save, so it's not stunned.

Gamemaster:But it is exsanguinated, clumsy, and enfeebled.

Scrazzy:Can this do crushing?

Foral:So it's bleeding.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Foral:It has a weakness one to bleed.

Gamemaster:It's bleeding, and it has a weakness to persistent bleed damage.

Foral:Yes.

Gamemaster:Hot damn.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Scrazzy:Oh, I see.

Foral:It's concussive.

Gamemaster:What?

Foral:So it can do bludgeoning or piercing.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Foral:Yes.

Foral:Then I will...

Foral:of a reload with my other action.

Foral:This is just going to be a regular bullet.

Foral:And no, actually, I'm going to drop that.

Foral:And I'm going to reload a I'll do acid.

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Foral:Yeah, and that's my turn.

Foral:I'm not going to shoot because I'm going to activate it next round.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Your one-shot punched a pretty sizable hole through the chest of this Auris.

Gamemaster:It is still standing, but you've done a bunch of damage.

Foral:Good, good, good.

Gamemaster:Is he actually bleeding, or does he just have a weakness to bleed damage?

Foral:No, he's actually bleeding.

Gamemaster:What gives him bleed?

Foral:So.

Foral:It bleeds more freely for one minute.

Foral:When you deal damage to a creature with an activated round, that creature gains the weakness.

Gamemaster:I think it's just weak to bleed, but you haven't actually inflicted bleeding yet, unfortunately.

Foral:OK.

Ozzie:That's so interesting.

Foral:I thought, OK.

Gamemaster:It is Manus 1's turn.

Gamemaster:Manus 1 is going to climb through the thorns, so I need you to roll damage for the thorns.

Gamemaster:Scrazzy.

Scrazzy:yes of course nine are we are we respecting the stairs

Foral:Well, never mind.

Foral:This was a stupid thing.

Foral:I have no way of activating bleed.

Gamemaster:He takes some of the damage.

Gamemaster:You note that he kind of shrugs off some of the damage there.

Gamemaster:It doesn't seem like he did the full thing.

Gamemaster:But that's 10 feet.

Gamemaster:You watch as he climbs...

Gamemaster:Not this guy.

Gamemaster:You watch as he jumps through the thorns and starts scrabbling across the walls and up and over the balcony there.

Scrazzy:Okay.

Gamemaster:He doesn't care about this kind of stuff because he has a pretty good climb speed.

Gamemaster:It's two actions to get up to Ozzie.

Gamemaster:And then for his third action, he's going to attempt to make a spine attack, which is effectively him headbutting you, Ozzie, or attempting to do so, with the spines of his head sticking straight out.

Ozzie:Okay.

Gamemaster:It rolled very well.

Foral:Huh.

Ozzie:Sure.

Gamemaster:That does hit.

Gamemaster:So you are going to take eight points of piercing damage, and I need you to attempt this fortitude save.

Gamemaster:Oh, you're resistant to physical damage.

Gamemaster:That's crazy.

Gamemaster:I didn't even know player characters could get resistance to physical damage.

Gamemaster:At this level, at least.

Ozzie:I'm a sponge of a man.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately, you do fail your Fortitude save.

Ozzie:Oh.

Gamemaster:And you are infected.

Foral:you you

Gamemaster:All right.

Ozzie:Sick.

Gamemaster:Next up is Manus2's turn.

Gamemaster:Correct!

Gamemaster:Manus2, similarly, can you roll damage, please, as he scrambles through one of the thorns?

Scrazzy:Yes.

Gamemaster:It is reactions for him to scramble around and surround Ozzie, but he doesn't have enough to attack.

Gamemaster:So that is going to be the end of his turn.

Ozzie:Yes.

Gamemaster:It's the oculum's turn.

Gamemaster:Now, the oculum has this problem of he wants to cast Dispel it, you guys, but he doesn't have line of sight because there's thorns in the way.

Gamemaster:Actually, does he?

Gamemaster:And it's just you guys have cover?

Gamemaster:Is that it?

Foral:He doesn't know where I am.

Gamemaster:He doesn't know where you are.

Gamemaster:He knows where Ozzie is.

Gamemaster:And at this point, he knows where Scrazzy is, because Scrazzy cast a spell.

Gamemaster:And edges don't pass.

Gamemaster:The wall stands vertically.

Gamemaster:Everything on each side of the wall has cover from creatures on the opposite side, and the wall spaces are difficult to reign.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:So, no, he can still see you through it.

Gamemaster:He can still cast a spell.

Gamemaster:He's going to cast a spell.

Gamemaster:Actually, I don't know if that's it.

Foral:You're going to have to hit one of those menace...

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Scrazzy:Or both.

Gamemaster:I think he might go for it anyway.

Gamemaster:I need Ozzie and Scrazzy to make a reflex save, please.

Gamemaster:I will make one for the Manus as well.

Scrazzy:Wait.

Scrazzy:But I don't want to roll.

Ozzie:Yikes.

Ozzie:Not doing good on these saves so far.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:25 points of damage halved for... Why did Bob roll the reflex save?

Foral:Hmm.

Scrazzy:Uh, I don't know.

Gamemaster:Do you guys have the same reflex?

Gamemaster:Is that fine?

Scrazzy:We do.

Scrazzy:Yeah, that's fine.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:So then, except for Skrazy, Skrazy takes half damage.

Gamemaster:The other people take the full damage.

Gamemaster:Oh, I totally lied.

Gamemaster:I knew about this.

Gamemaster:I totally knew that the Manus was immune to fire damage and is completely unaffected.

Gamemaster:I didn't just learn that right now.

Gamemaster:Anyway, that's the end of its turn.

Gamemaster:It's Ozzie's turn.

Ozzie:All right.

Ozzie:I think that the first thing I'm going to do at Manus 1 in front of me is attempt to demoralize him.

Foral:You.

Scrazzy:So something.

Gamemaster:I feel like this is the most backstory and lore we've had for a group of one-shot characters.

Ozzie:I'll say...

Ozzie:You know, I once almost had my skull crushed by a trio of trolls before these two pulled me out.

Ozzie:You're nothing compared to that.

Ozzie:And I will make the intimidation check.

Foral:I had a bunch of lines queued up about, I'll work alone with you guys are rookies, but then one of them is just objectively old and not a rookie.

Foral:And then the other one first thing was just like, you pulled me out of the mud.

Gamemaster:That is a success.

Foral:I got you, boss.

Foral:So I just...

Ozzie:Whoopsie.

Gamemaster:He is scared of you.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Ozzie:All right.

Ozzie:Then I'm going to try to freaking hit him with my maul.

Foral:Okay.

Gamemaster:Freaking hit him with your maul.

Scrazzy:Bring it in, I'm done.

Gamemaster:That's a crit.

Gamemaster:Because he's frightened, that's a crit.

Ozzie:I'm so glad I chose to do it in that order.

Ozzie:Mm-hmm.

Ozzie:Not the best.

Gamemaster:26 points of damage.

Ozzie:But we'll take it.

Gamemaster:He does take the full damage.

Ozzie:Mm-hmm.

Ozzie:Oh, and he... Well, he's already frightened one, so... Um... Okay.

Gamemaster:Yeah, he continues to be frightened one.

Ozzie:Then...

Scrazzy:you

Ozzie:I will parry, I think.

Ozzie:Yeah, we'll just parry for now.

Gamemaster:Hey, absolutely.

Ozzie:Did that activate?

Gamemaster:Yes, you are parrying.

Ozzie:It did.

Ozzie:Okay.

Foral:Yes.

Gamemaster:It is the Auris' turn.

Gamemaster:They are clumsy.

Gamemaster:They are enfeebled.

Gamemaster:They are weak to bleeding.

Gamemaster:So a problem has arisen in that they can't, like, this guy can't tumble through.

Gamemaster:Does he have a ranged attack?

Gamemaster:I think he does.

Gamemaster:He has a 10-foot reach attack.

Gamemaster:So if I go here, you are within range.

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Gamemaster:It's one action to move forward, and then he's going to attempt to do a 10-foot reach jaw attack on you, where he just kind of, his neck stretches over the other one and then goes to give a gold chomp on you.

Ozzie:Oh my god.

Ozzie:This guy's got a neck.

Gamemaster:His attack roll is lowered because he's enfeebled, which kind of sucks.

Gamemaster:And I miss.

Gamemaster:So we're going to probably do a mocking cry at you.

Foral:Who should we focus, guys?

Foral:I can go for the spellcaster if you guys want to focus on these things, or I can help.

Ozzie:Yeah, you go.

Scrazzy:Yeah, that's how I was going to go for him.

Ozzie:Well, I think we should try to take the Oris out.

Ozzie:So keep going for that for now, I think.

Foral:All right.

Gamemaster:The Horus is going to mimic the voice of Scrazzy and say... What would it say?

Gamemaster:You couldn't even protect me!

Gamemaster:I'm old and stationary and you're still going to let me die!

Gamemaster:It's going to attempt to demoralize you.

Ozzie:Me?

Foral:Oh.

Ozzie:That's pretty low.

Scrazzy:Disgusting.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:Let's make a deception check for him.

Gamemaster:He gets to make deception for that, and I think he still failed.

Gamemaster:It's against your will, DC.

Ozzie:I mean, yeah, which is 21.

Gamemaster:Yeah, no, so he fell.

Gamemaster:You are not demoralized by that.

Gamemaster:Probably because it's Scrazzy's voice coming out of a weird anglerfish neck demon thing.

Scrazzy:neck demon thing um let's think 25 feet away can bob occupy the same space as

Gamemaster:Scrancy, it's your turn.

Gamemaster:As the Auris, yes.

Scrazzy:I think Bob's going to head here.

Scrazzy:Can he get everything?

Scrazzy:Bob's going to head here.

Scrazzy:So I'm commanding Bob.

Gamemaster:you can do that self-destruct

Scrazzy:That's one action.

Scrazzy:The second action will be a familiar conduit.

Scrazzy:And the third action will be

Scrazzy:Lightning bolt.

Foral:you

Scrazzy:I don't like this line picker.

Scrazzy:No.

Scrazzy:I don't want to reload application.

Scrazzy:Where's the line picker?

Scrazzy:So I got a 120 foot line.

Scrazzy:Oh, hell yes.

Gamemaster:I see a way that you could hit Manus 1, the Oris, and the Oculum.

Scrazzy:Yeah, we'll do that.

Gamemaster:I see that you found it as well.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Scrazzy:So Bob will move into position at the behest of Scrazzy.

Scrazzy:Bob!

Scrazzy:Alpha Formation!

Scrazzy:Bob will move into position.

Scrazzy:You'll see the cloak drop from Bob's face, or from the top of Bob's head.

Scrazzy:a blue ball will form in front of his mouth, in front of his eyes, and a lightning bolt will shoot out of his head, blowing back his cape and revealing that Bob does not have a body.

Scrazzy:And all three have to make saves.

Gamemaster:Bob the Floating Head casts Lightning Bolt, and the three of them will do basic reflex saves.

Ozzie:Think of all these talking heads out here.

Gamemaster:The Auris fails.

Gamemaster:The other two succeed.

Scrazzy:Perfect.

Scrazzy:We got a 12?

Gamemaster:The Auris is not looking good.

Gamemaster:He's been hit with two pretty hard attacks.

Scrazzy:Good.

Scrazzy:Does Bob have to take his turn?

Gamemaster:His turn consecutively, yes.

Scrazzy:Oh, OK.

Scrazzy:That's fine.

Scrazzy:Bob will hang out there then.

Gamemaster:Anything else?

Scrazzy:No.

Gamemaster:Then it is Lieutenant Foral's turn.

Foral:All right, great.

Foral:I'm actually not going to activate my bullet just because of action economy.

Foral:So if it has an effect, should I just unload it?

Gamemaster:What do you mean by you're not going to activate your bullet?

Foral:I think I need to do another activation after loading it, right?

Foral:Or for elemental ammunition, I think I might need to.

Gamemaster:If you add... One second.

Gamemaster:I don't see anything.

Gamemaster:Oh, I see that it has activate.

Gamemaster:I'm pretty sure that activation is included in the loading.

Foral:Okay.

Gamemaster:I don't know if you need an additional action to add the effect.

Foral:All right, so let's strike with it.

Foral:Strike.

Foral:Snap his aim.

Gamemaster:That's crit.

Foral:So what happens is Lieutenant Four was actually like the wall, and then his eyepiece lights up and he goes...

Foral:Alpha Formation.

Foral:Ah, clever trick.

Foral:And then comes out, loads his gun, and shoots it right under Bob's body.

Foral:Well, now there is no body, but... And then he'll roll damage, yeah.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Roll crit.

Foral:Charge 4, elemental ammunition.

Foral:Cool, cool, cool.

Foral:Sneak attack.

Foral:No one shot, one kill.

Scrazzy:Oh, my God.

Foral:Much better.

Gamemaster:You blow the slip-weird orris' head clean off.

Gamemaster:Bullet slams into it, brains blow out the back, and then the residual acid melts the skull down and it collapses to the ground.

Foral:And Lieutenant Foro is going to chuckle and go, you think you're going to stop me from seeing my own daughter?

Foral:And he's going to cover reload.

Foral:So I'll make a stealth check.

Gamemaster:Of course.

Scrazzy:Okay.

Foral:Let's go stealth.

Foral:Where is the stealth on here?

Gamemaster:And then he immediately just flands back up the wall, pops out for a second, blows up some guy's head, disappears.

Foral:OK.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:28.

Foral:Am I hidden from the slip weird?

Gamemaster:He is hidden.

Foral:OK.

Foral:And I'm just going to make another attack.

Foral:I know this is going to be with map.

Gamemaster:Somehow, you're hidden from a guy whose whole face is an eyeball.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:Let's unload it.

Foral:Let's reload with the... Okay.

Gamemaster:So they are flat-footed to you, but they also have cover, which works out to be no change in AC.

Gamemaster:Because there's a wall of thorns in the way.

Foral:That makes sense.

Foral:I'll load in acid.

Scrazzy:Yes.

Foral:And then where's the... Sorry, let me see.

Foral:Did I have the...

Foral:And then I will now.

Foral:Strike.

Foral:Sorry.

Foral:So weird.

Foral:Strike.

Foral:The frame cool.

Foral:Oh wait, I don't know if I added the map.

Foral:I did not add the map.

Gamemaster:even if you didn't add the map, it would still be a crit.

Gamemaster:I mean, even if you did add the map, it would still be a crit.

Foral:OK.

Gamemaster:So you're fine.

Foral:Great great great great great.

Scrazzy:Oh, boy.

Gamemaster:That's crazy!

Gamemaster:Oh, you blow this guy's face right off.

Gamemaster:As well.

Gamemaster:This is like Benny levels of crit damage.

Gamemaster:Two shots, two kills.

Gamemaster:The oculum's head pops, and it similarly falls to the ground.

Foral:That's my turn.

Foral:I'm going to stay with my rifle mounted because I have no actions to move and chuckle and go, they thought they could mess with our team.

Foral:Yeah, that's the end of my turn.

Gamemaster:Alright.

Gamemaster:That's the end of your turn.

Gamemaster:That brings us to the manises.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately, Ozzie is just sandwiched between the two manises.

Ozzie:Sir?

Gamemaster:Man-eye?

Gamemaster:Man-eye.

Gamemaster:So they're just gonna go for ya.

Ozzie:Please do one thing at a time for now.

Gamemaster:I will do one thing at a time for now.

Gamemaster:I don't like how you're making that request, but sure.

Gamemaster:I mean, these guys' attacks are going to be very simple.

Gamemaster:First, they're going to spine attack you, then they're going to claw attack you, and then they're going to use their glaive to stab you.

Gamemaster:So... Actually, no, we'll switch it the other way around.

Gamemaster:It's glaive and then claw.

Gamemaster:So we start with the spines.

Gamemaster:That's a critical miss.

Gamemaster:I'm going to do a glaive.

Ozzie:Carry on.

Gamemaster:That's also a miss, I think.

Gamemaster:That's also a critical miss.

Gamemaster:We're going to do a claw.

Gamemaster:That's also a miss.

Gamemaster:This guy sucks.

Gamemaster:And by this guy, I mean me, because I rolled poorly three times in a row.

Gamemaster:Luckily, we get to do the exact same thing again.

Gamemaster:Spike attack.

Gamemaster:That was also... I rolled a three!

Foral:Ha ha!

Gamemaster:Glaive attack.

Scrazzy:Oh that's a crit.

Gamemaster:Okay, that's a crit.

Gamemaster:I'll take a crit.

Ozzie:Okay.

Ozzie:I am going to do something, but I have to... I take the crit.

Ozzie:I'm going to do something after taking the damage from the crit.

Gamemaster:Okay, you are going to take 37 points of damage, split amongst slashing and spirit, unholy, if that's relevant, as well as some persistent bleed damage.

Ozzie:Mm-hmm.

Foral:It's a good thing they don't have that ammunition.

Gamemaster:because this wound is inflicted by an infernal.

Gamemaster:It is an infernal wound.

Gamemaster:These are harder to heal.

Gamemaster:You are familiar with this kind of wound.

Gamemaster:Mm-hmm.

Ozzie:Okay, that's interesting.

Ozzie:I may have... Alright, so after he hits me with that, I say, You dare hit me in the presence of my team?

Ozzie:Kneel before me or be punished, as I do in Iron Command.

Ozzie:And he can choose to either drop prone or take mental damage.

Gamemaster:Ooh.

Scrazzy:you

Gamemaster:I think he'd probably take the mental damage.

Gamemaster:He doesn't want to drop prone.

Ozzie:And also... No, never mind.

Ozzie:That's it.

Gamemaster:End your strike, steal additional damage against it until the end of your next turn.

Ozzie:Yeah, yeah.

Ozzie:Alright, he can do his final attack.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Oops.

Gamemaster:I gave him three instances of the extra damage.

Gamemaster:I've removed two of them.

Gamemaster:Okay, he'll do his third attack, although he has a pretty harsh map at this point.

Gamemaster:Oh, no luck.

Gamemaster:All right.

Gamemaster:Why are you still in the initiative order?

Gamemaster:It's Ozzie's turn.

Gamemaster:Ozzie, you're no longer parrying.

Ozzie:Sure, that's fair.

Ozzie:And is this guy no longer afraid?

Ozzie:Yeah, yeah.

Gamemaster:Correct.

Ozzie:I'm allowed to try and demoralize him again, right?

Gamemaster:Uh, yeah, if you like.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Gamemaster:Wait.

Gamemaster:He becomes immune, I think, at some point.

Gamemaster:Yes, no, he's immune.

Gamemaster:You can attempt to demoralize the other one, but this one in particular is immune for the next ten minutes.

Ozzie:I see.

Foral:I remember Lev got the fear of God thing, which you could mark someone and then just unlimited to just keep stacking it.

Gamemaster:Hmm.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Ozzie:All right, so I will look to the other guy and say, you're nothing.

Gamemaster:And that was mean.

Scrazzy:you

Ozzie:My team here, they once saved me from getting sucked dry by a vampire.

Ozzie:You got nothing on that.

Ozzie:And I'll demoralize.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately, he doesn't speak common.

Ozzie:Alright, that one wasn't as effective.

Foral:Is that the one that took the mental damage?

Foral:Or is that two?

Ozzie:No, I'd still...

Gamemaster:No, two took the mental damage.

Ozzie:All right.

Scrazzy:you

Ozzie:In that case, I'm going to go for two because he's a little more damaged.

Ozzie:And I didn't make him any afraid.

Ozzie:Oh, boy.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Gamemaster:I'm sorry, that is a critical miss.

Ozzie:Well, I got a mythic point.

Gamemaster:Eh, that's not bad.

Gamemaster:Got one more action.

Ozzie:Yeah, I think that probably I just parry again.

Gamemaster:Alright, that's allowed.

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Then we go to Scrazzy.

Gamemaster:Oh, I'm sorry, before we go to Scrazzy, you take 8 points of bleed damage, and you may attempt a recovery check if you like.

Gamemaster:You take four points of bleed damage.

Gamemaster:You're resistant.

Gamemaster:Oh, because it's bleed inflicted by physical.

Gamemaster:Either way, you're still bleeding.

Gamemaster:Now it's Grazi's turn.

Ozzie:Oh, he does look kinda frozen, don't he?

Gamemaster:I can't tell if Mike is frozen or deep in thought.

Foral:but he also does look pretty happy with himself.

Gamemaster:Oh, he's back.

Foral:Sorry, so one took the mental damage, two got demoralized, or failed to get demoralized.

Gamemaster:It's your turn, Mike.

Gamemaster:So... One failed to get demoralized.

Gamemaster:Two took the mental damage.

Foral:Gotcha.

Foral:Gotcha, gotcha.

Gamemaster:Two is looking weaker than one as well.

Gamemaster:He's been hit more times.

Foral:Alright.

Scrazzy:Um, yeah, I mean, I think the threat's sort of gone.

Scrazzy:I mean, I'll command Bob to come back to my side and then cast.

Scrazzy:Where is it?

Scrazzy:Electric arc.

Gamemaster:I banned electric arc.

Scrazzy:Does this?

Scrazzy:What the fuck?

Scrazzy:Why can't I send this?

Gamemaster:Do you have electric arc?

Gamemaster:Where are you casting it from?

Gamemaster:Oh, is that from your... That's from your staff.

Scrazzy:the staff at the tempest i'll just add another one you know what it is

Gamemaster:Right.

Gamemaster:Um...

Gamemaster:Yeah, I'm sorry.

Gamemaster:I don't think Foundry plays very well with the staves, and I didn't add that as a separate spellcasting entry.

Ozzie:I think if you open up your character sheet, the staff might be in there and you can cast from within.

Ozzie:Did you purchase any armor?

Scrazzy:He was so obsessed with damage.

Foral:I just forgot to put armor on my character.

Gamemaster:He's been fine.

Gamemaster:He's been hidden the whole time.

Gamemaster:Nobody knows about him.

Gamemaster:Both of the menaces have to roll a reflex save.

Scrazzy:Yes.

Foral:I had the gold.

Foral:I just forgot.

Gamemaster:They both succeed.

Ozzie:We're going to need two more kill shots from the lieutenant.

Gamemaster:So we'll take half of that.

Scrazzy:I guess I do get one more action.

Foral:All right, I'm going to have a reload.

Gamemaster:Anything else, Mr. Scrazzy?

Gamemaster:You don't have to spend it.

Gamemaster:You could forfeit.

Gamemaster:You could run into the slip.

Scrazzy:I'll cast shields.

Gamemaster:Lieutenant Fort, it's your turn.

Gamemaster:Alright.

Foral:And then I'll make the steel track.

Scrazzy:you

Gamemaster:The DC you're looking for is... It doesn't matter.

Gamemaster:You critically succeeded.

Gamemaster:You're still hidden.

Foral:As I hide, load in on the other arquebus, come back up, and I'm going to make a shot on two, I guess.

Foral:That makes the most sense.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Foral:And I will fire.

Foral:I will do sniper aim, no one shot.

Foral:Strike.

Foral:Oh, no ammunition assigned.

Foral:Oh, it's empty.

Foral:OK.

Foral:This one has to be.

Foral:I got one more acid.

Foral:So I will strike it.

Gamemaster:Lieutenant Forel's walking around with like 14 different kinds of bullets in his pocket.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:And as I come out, like at my hiding spot, I go,

Gamemaster:That's a crit again.

Foral:He chose to strike him in front of his own team.

Scrazzy:you

Foral:Rookie mistake.

Foral:And then aim for a shot.

Gamemaster:Just kill him.

Gamemaster:Yeah, 50 is enough to fully blow his head off.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately, it is going to do one point of acid splash damage to Ozzie.

Ozzie:Son of a B.

Gamemaster:But that does fully kill Manus too.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:I think... I don't have the actions to reload and shoot, so I'm just going to hide reload.

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Correct.

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You have the actions to reload, but not to shoot.

Foral:If I would have taken the quick draw, I could have pulled out my hand cannon.

Gamemaster:You are not hidden.

Gamemaster:He sees you, finally.

Gamemaster:But you do reload.

Foral:Fucking mistake seeing me.

Foral:He's going to give him an edge.

Gamemaster:Spanis wants to turn.

Gamemaster:The problem here is, like...

Foral:It can try running.

Gamemaster:There's no way the Manus can win in this situation, but also it has nowhere to run to, so there isn't anything it can do except try and take Ozzie out with it.

Gamemaster:No, it doesn't have anywhere to run to.

Gamemaster:You've pulled it out of the slip when you rotated the ship.

Foral:Yeah, but it can try to run more than 150 feet from me.

Gamemaster:It doesn't know where it would go.

Gamemaster:There's no place to run.

Gamemaster:It's just going to try and bring Ozzie down with it.

Gamemaster:But if I roll fours, it doesn't matter.

Gamemaster:Great.

Gamemaster:Ozzie, it's your turn.

Ozzie:Dick.

Ozzie:I can't demoralize him because I failed.

Gamemaster:Correct.

Ozzie:So... We're just going to try to hit him.

Ozzie:Deal some damage.

Gamemaster:He's going to dodge.

Gamemaster:He didn't dodge.

Gamemaster:It's a hit.

Gamemaster:Very high roll.

Ozzie:Pretty good.

Gamemaster:He is bloodied.

Gamemaster:He's more than bloodied.

Gamemaster:He's looking pretty not great.

Ozzie:Um, shoot.

Ozzie:I guess I just gotta try to hit him again.

Ozzie:Oh, that one didn't work.

Gamemaster:Critically missed that time.

Gamemaster:I'm sorry.

Ozzie:Um... And then I'll parry.

Gamemaster:Scrazzy!

Gamemaster:Oh wait, sorry, before we get to Scrazzy, you're going to take six points of bleed damage, halved to two, but you do not succeed on your recovery check, so you will continue to bleed out.

Ozzie:Oh.

Gamemaster:Scrazzy!

Scrazzy:Yeah, let's do telekinetic projectile.

Gamemaster:What do you got for me?

Scrazzy:I didn't even hit the cast button.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:What kind do you want?

Scrazzy:It's the same thing.

Scrazzy:I guess it's

Gamemaster:Bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing?

Gamemaster:You must pick one.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Scrazzy:No specific traits or magic properties of the hurled item.

Scrazzy:Oh, affect the attack.

Scrazzy:But it's magic, whatever.

Scrazzy:We'll go with bludgeoning.

Scrazzy:A boop attack.

Gamemaster:I'm gonna attack her.

Scrazzy:Hopefully this is not Bob's attack.

Gamemaster:Go ahead.

Scrazzy:Get him.

Gamemaster:That is enough.

Gamemaster:Takes him out.

Gamemaster:He is dead.

Gamemaster:And with that, you have killed all of the slipweirds that walked out of the hallway now that you, um...

Scrazzy:To the observatoire.

Gamemaster:Now that you've rotated the ship, go to the observatoire.

Ozzie:Excellent.

Ozzie:I'm bleeding.

Ozzie:Is there something I could do to aid?

Gamemaster:You will continue to bleed as well.

Gamemaster:A friend can aid you to try and put it out.

Foral:Ken, Ozzie, do you have good medicine?

Ozzie:Administer first aid, right?

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Ozzie:But I can't do it to myself.

Gamemaster:I don't think so.

Gamemaster:One second.

Gamemaster:Let me double check.

Ozzie:It does say adjacent creature.

Foral:I know Arctos was able to just do a first aid check to cure people, but I don't know.

Gamemaster:Let me double check the actual reading of Infernal Wound.

Gamemaster:Flat check to start at DC 20.

Gamemaster:The DC is reduced to 15 only if the bleeding creature or an ally successfully assists with the recovery.

Scrazzy:I'm just giving you the option.

Gamemaster:The DC to administer first aid is increased by five.

Gamemaster:So you can attempt to do it on yourself, it says.

Ozzie:So I'll do a medicine check.

Gamemaster:If you like.

Foral:Oh man, Scrazzy's doing one too.

Ozzie:I did pretty poorly.

Ozzie:All right.

Gamemaster:That is unfortunately... It's not a critical failure, it's just a regular failure, so nothing happens.

Foral:Scrazzy, are you able to?

Scrazzy:What's the cooldown for someone else to attempt?

Gamemaster:You can attempt it on your turn, which is now, but first he's going to take 12 points of bleed damage and may attempt a recovery check.

Ozzie:Jeez, what the heck?

Gamemaster:He fails his recovery check.

Gamemaster:Skazzy, it's your turn.

Scrazzy:Bob.

Scrazzy:Beta formation.

Foral:Lieutenant chuckles.

Scrazzy:Bob.

Foral:They are not prepared for our beta formation.

Scrazzy:Well, how did you make the role?

Gamemaster:That's also a failure.

Scrazzy:Administer first aid.

Scrazzy:What do I click?

Foral:There should be a roll button next to the right of it.

Scrazzy:Oh, stop.

Foral:Yeah.

Scrazzy:Stop bleeding here.

Scrazzy:Yes.

Ozzie:Bye.

Scrazzy:Better beta formation.

Gamemaster:Foral, do you have anything you can do?

Gamemaster:Or do you have a one-action thing that Bob can do?

Foral:I didn't take the... There's a gunslinger feat that you can stabilize with the hot end barrel of the gun.

Scrazzy:I think Bob spent both his actions.

Gamemaster:Oh, he did.

Gamemaster:So I guess Old Man Scrazzy can also attempt to administer First Aid, if you like.

Gamemaster:Otherwise, we'll move on to Forewell and then back on to Ozzie.

Scrazzy:Yeah, let me just double check that I don't have anything that says.

Foral:I just didn't take it.

Ozzie:Oh my gosh.

Gamemaster:Mm.

Scrazzy:Yep.

Scrazzy:Looks like Scrazzy is going to be making this check.

Gamemaster:Scrazzy's making the check.

Scrazzy:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Scrazzy:That's the reason that Bob tried to check.

Scrazzy:Oh!

Gamemaster:18.

Scrazzy:No, I don't know if this is enough.

Gamemaster:No, it's not enough.

Gamemaster:Lieutenant Forrell, anything you want to do?

Scrazzy:What are we looking for?

Scrazzy:Yeah.

Foral:Can I make it worse if I critically fail?

Gamemaster:If not, we go back to Ozzie.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Foral:I will not do anything.

Gamemaster:Ozzie, it's your turn.

Ozzie:Alright, I guess I'll try to aid myself.

Scrazzy:What other conditions stop this?

Ozzie:Oh my god.

Ozzie:Let me, no.

Ozzie:Let's just mythic this.

Ozzie:I mean, this is dumb.

Foral:You've been a mythic this entire time?

Gamemaster:At 25 is a success.

Scrazzy:What?

Gamemaster:You are no longer bleeding.

Scrazzy:It's...

Foral:I should have shot you with the blood-sensitive one to make the adrenaline go.

Ozzie:Guys, I'm so upset because I literally have a feature that lowers my bleeding recovery DC, but I kept rolling so low that it didn't even matter.

Gamemaster:That sucks.

Gamemaster:I'm sorry.

Scrazzy:One of the odds that you take bleed damage and have to make these recovery checks anyways, I think it's probably a 50-50 shot and a one-shot that that even comes into play, and it didn't technically come into play because you rolled so poorly, you must not have had it at all.

Ozzie:I'm so annoyed.

Gamemaster:Oh, wow.

Gamemaster:Damage reduced from 15 to 10?

Gamemaster:Or from 10 to 5?

Gamemaster:That's crazy.

Ozzie:But I literally did not roll above a 10.

Gamemaster:Man, I'm sorry that... No.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:I'm sorry about that.

Ozzie:So, guys, we need to wait 10 minutes while I treat my wounds.

Gamemaster:I'm in their way.

Gamemaster:So, I will say, the damage has passed, and we are about at 11.

Ozzie:Yeah, that's a good point.

Gamemaster:We are also approaching the end of the one shot, so I will disclose that you will not come across something that will take any damage away from you for the remainder of where we are, so you don't need to spend the time rolling the healing.

Foral:The observatory.

Gamemaster:Really, the last bit of damage would have been it's possible you died from the bleeding if nobody was able to get you to recover from it.

Ozzie:That would have been sad.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Scrazzy:Y'all be sure to watch.

Ozzie:Then we'll go to the observatory.

Ozzie:I feel like the rest of the ship is completely safe, team.

Gamemaster:As you guys head into the observatory, I would love a perception check, just to take a look around.

Gamemaster:Because as you've been wandering around the ship, you haven't actually figured out what it was doing here, what's going on.

Gamemaster:25 is a good roll.

Foral:What's Benny's two hit?

Ozzie:you

Gamemaster:But 28 is better.

Foral:Mike.

Scrazzy:uh let's see i'm double clicking on benny's not coming up

Gamemaster:Um...

Foral:That's fine.

Gamemaster:You're not allowed to look at him.

Foral:We don't need to stop this.

Gamemaster:That's illegal.

Gamemaster:With a 28 looking around, Ozzie consistently getting very good rolls on perception.

Gamemaster:The observation deck of this ship is situated similarly.

Gamemaster:It's built into that outer ring that the rest of the ship is constructed out of.

Gamemaster:But it is dominated by the center of this ring is a Giant, what looks to be crystal ball, that is exposed to the external vacuum of space.

Gamemaster:It is refracting light coming in from the exterior of the ship and being focused to a number of sensors that look like they've been hooked up to it at various positions near the interior.

Gamemaster:There are a number of dashboards lining the area.

Gamemaster:There are conduits that move from here into what is now in the, no, it's not in the slip, just over to the bridge where you'd seen that it hooks up to the AI core.

Gamemaster:As you can see, there's a bit of the interstitial like lava lamp stuff as you head more west towards, or more south towards where the engine room would be.

Gamemaster:If you like, you can make... I want either an occultism check or a... We'll do religion check here to look into what this thing was doing.

Foral:I can make the religion.

Gamemaster:I will also note, because you got a 28 and a 28 is a high roll, there is a number of... There are silver inked...

Gamemaster:magic runes drawn on both this crystal orb and the dashboards around it as well.

Gamemaster:It looks like whoever had cast the original spell on the AI in the Power Core has done something similar here on this telescope-like structure.

Ozzie:Oh yeah, for sure.

Foral:I got 26 for my religion.

Foral:An old man got a 26 on his occult.

Scrazzy:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Two 26s.

Gamemaster:Okay, I want...

Gamemaster:I want one more roll here just to see if you glean an additional piece of information.

Gamemaster:What do I want you to roll here?

Gamemaster:I want either of the two of you that rolled for the 26.

Foral:We can all agree the entity is tech, right?

Foral:Okay, great.

Gamemaster:You can attempt a society check here.

Gamemaster:to see if you get an additional piece of information.

Gamemaster:26?

Scrazzy:society 26. of course it's old

Foral:We live in a society.

Foral:We have a much better modifier than I do for society.

Gamemaster:7 is almost as good as 26.

Ozzie:you

Gamemaster:Okay, so first looking at what this thing is monitoring and what it was doing there.

Gamemaster:This crystal ball that's exposed to the vacuum appears to be pulling in just as much information as it can about the external world, like trying to build as high a resolution map of the astra as it can.

Gamemaster:But notably, it's not looking at visible light.

Gamemaster:it seems to be tuned specifically at amplitude of magic energy.

Gamemaster:It's looking for spikes and for flow of magic energy.

Foral:Thank you.

Gamemaster:And as you look through the logs, the setup here as you dig through with your...

Gamemaster:your checks to read through the dashboard and stuff, it appears that this had been set to autonomously just observe the world, observe the Astra and find those spikes.

Scrazzy:Thank you.

Gamemaster:And the most recent hit was around 600 years ago, pointing towards a system that is very close to the core of the Astra.

Foral:Oh, no.

Gamemaster:Sorry, not 600.

Gamemaster:I apologize.

Gamemaster:Like 850-ish, maybe a little longer than that.

Scrazzy:It's so much work.

Gamemaster:I don't know how I got that year mixed up.

Foral:Oh, no.

Foral:That's so close to our timeline.

Gamemaster:It finds a spike around a sphere that is very close to the core around that time.

Gamemaster:And it appears, with the occultism check, looking through the logs and stuff here, that this particular system that was doing the monitoring was accessed...

Gamemaster:Also in that timeframe, like soon after it logged the discovery, it appears that somebody accessed the computer and noticed that particular, that flare.

Foral:Hello.

Scrazzy:What the hell is...

Gamemaster:With the additional 26 in society, the other piece of information you get isn't actually about what this observatory is, what it was watching.

Gamemaster:It's actually reading into what the hell this script is that's been written in the silver ink.

Gamemaster:The reason it's a society check and not an occultism check is specifically to know, is this something that you've seen before, either in your capacity working at Ceticium or something that Ceticium has logged or something of that nature?

Gamemaster:And a 26 is barely a success in that format.

Gamemaster:There is, gosh, I have to, oh, I know his name.

Gamemaster:The particular MO here of this occult-attuned magic script, this kind of ritual being used to extract information and things of that nature, does ring a bell for you, Scrazzy.

Gamemaster:There is a...

Gamemaster:Fourth generation Thessium, one of the weakest, or at one point one of the weakest ones, Gremory, who matches this particular MO, writing in that script, using this particular dialect, all of that nature.

Gamemaster:The reason it comes to mind is because there was maybe a few years ago at this point, it's kind of just in the back of your head,

Gamemaster:You remember reading one of the updates sent out by Sedecium Central Command just about general movements and stuff, and how Gremory had been...

Gamemaster:Promoted?

Gamemaster:It's unclear, because how Thessians work is still very unclear.

Gamemaster:But it appeared that Gremory had amassed a considerable amount of power in a relatively short period of time, and was now going by the name Esoterica.

Gamemaster:And that was kind of the alarm bell that popped up in your head.

Scrazzy:hmm so i did disconnect you said uh the last spike was 850 years ago was fear near the center i don't know if

Gamemaster:And this matches what Gremory's MO had been before they had been promoted in some form.

Foral:Okay.

Gamemaster:A little over 850 years ago.

Gamemaster:It's not exact.

Gamemaster:The logs are a bit damaged at this point.

Scrazzy:I wasn't sure if you just added anything else about the sphere.

Gamemaster:No, the last spike, it's on the last spike, and there are access logs that show that something accessed the logs around the time that the spike occurred.

Gamemaster:And I apologize, I don't actually know if I mentioned this, but again, relatively recently, within the past two years or so.

Foral:And when did the promotion happen for the Hardworking Thessian?

Gamemaster:similarly within the past two years or so.

Gamemaster:They don't have an exact date on it, but it's recent.

Foral:He might have ate some of the... He might have scavenged.

Ozzie:Right.

Ozzie:Found some dead or weakened other Thessian.

Foral:Yeah.

Foral:Interesting, interesting.

Foral:Well...

Foral:Should we try to get the ship out or just leave it here?

Gamemaster:That said, you guys aren't on a time crunch.

Gamemaster:You actually haven't been on a time crunch the whole one shot.

Gamemaster:But you seem to have, yeah.

Foral:So we can just call back up and suggest the airmen.

Gamemaster:You seem to have discovered what the purpose of this station is for.

Gamemaster:I think the next step would probably be figuring out why the entity led you here.

Gamemaster:If anything, it seems to be pointing at wherever that spike was.

Gamemaster:It seems to be of interest.

Gamemaster:So probably worth reporting back to HQ and letting them know that that is something that gets taken place after the one-shot.

Foral:Sounds good.

Scrazzy:Sure.

Ozzie:Lily's gonna live.

Gamemaster:Lily gets to live.

Foral:Lily's gonna laugh.

Gamemaster:But Lily apparently has an incurable disease.

Gamemaster:Or it's curable, you just don't have... Oh, right.

Foral:No, no, no.

Foral:I had the cure on me.

Gamemaster:You're just not giving it to her?

Foral:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Right, right, right.

Foral:No, no, no, no, no, no.

Foral:This was in case I died here when I made it back.

Gamemaster:Right.

Gamemaster:So Lily's fine.

Foral:Yeah, yeah.

Gamemaster:Lily will be fine.

Foral:He's going to be fine, but I still have to find my wife's murderer.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:We'll do another one-shot that's just the lieutenant looking for his wife's murderer.

Ozzie:He does usually work alone.

Gamemaster:It's true.

Gamemaster:He does.

Foral:Now I had to rewrite that part.

Foral:It wasn't consistent.

Foral:Instead, he had to be an anime character.

Foral:Oh, formation.

Ozzie:I didn't really need to taunt anybody.

Gamemaster:No.

Ozzie:They all just kind of attacked me anyway, which is fine.

Gamemaster:Yeah, you stood out in front of everybody else, so they were all like, yeah, we're just going to go for the big guy that's in front.

Ozzie:Save some actions.

Ozzie:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Which worked out, because these guys didn't go for either of the two people the whole time, effectively.

Gamemaster:Except for that one fireball that got chucked back there.

Gamemaster:And even then, Mr. I'm invisible because I'm just kind of up against a wall didn't take any damage the whole fight, I don't think.

Foral:I took damage from my own mutagen.

Scrazzy:Bye.

Gamemaster:Oh, good.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Foral:Yeah, yeah.

Gamemaster:So the only one who can do damage to Lieutenant Forel is Lieutenant Forel.

Foral:Goblins also have the feet very sneaky.

Ozzie:You had a lot of things adding to the damage of your bullets.

Foral:And I had a deck of cards in case someone jumped on me, I would have thrown them and then hid.

Gamemaster:When do you get very, very sneaky?

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Foral:Fully loaded out, I can get a plus 20.

Gamemaster:Yeah, no, that is a scary gunslinger.

Scrazzy:Oh, yeah.

Gamemaster:Those damage numbers are wild.

Scrazzy:Benny has a plus 17 to hit.

Foral:That's with the mutagen and then sniper aim.

Scrazzy:I also don't think you can use crushing on your arquebus.

Foral:Why not?

Gamemaster:Why not?

Scrazzy:It has a concussive trait, but it doesn't do bludgeoning damage.

Gamemaster:No, it does do bludgeoning damage.

Scrazzy:this piercing maybe the bullet does there are some firearms that do that do bludgeoning only i wonder do those do

Gamemaster:These weapons smash as much as they puncture when determining a creature's resistance or immunity is the weaker the target's resistance to piercing or bludgeoning.

Gamemaster:Oh, maybe it can use crushing.

Foral:I think it's level 7.

Gamemaster:I feel like it can.

Gamemaster:Hmm.

Ozzie:And aren't there those rock bullets or something like that?

Scrazzy:Is it Boulder?

Foral:Yeah.

Scrazzy:Big rock bullet.

Gamemaster:Right?

Gamemaster:Because it's still doing piercing damage.

Gamemaster:It's just for the sake of resistance.

Foral:I was just taking a different run on.

Ozzie:Well, through loyalty and great teamwork we made it through.

Foral:But yes.

Foral:Yes, good job team.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You did it.

Gamemaster:And you learned some stuff, although I don't know if you learned as much lore as you would have liked.

Gamemaster:I'm sorry.

Scrazzy:Towards the end, I was worried this was like some sort of doll thing.

Foral:You should be.

Gamemaster:The next one shot will just be me or Raything to you guys for four hours.

Foral:Yeah, we're just librarians, and we're just reading books.

Scrazzy:I was like, God, I bet this asshole is going to come up again.

Gamemaster:Sorry.

Gamemaster:It's too much to have two different entities that can make people forget they exist in the same way.

Gamemaster:That should be illegal.

Ozzie:But I love the concept that he's just floating around the universe, just dropping hints for Sedecium.

Foral:Yeah, you should speak with the creator of the cinematic universe.

Gamemaster:I will.

Gamemaster:I do think there's a little bit of irony involved in how tech fought against a false Hydra and then ended up getting false Hydra-like powers.

Gamemaster:But...

Ozzie:Just like, these guys need help.

Gamemaster:He's just off doing stuff.

Ozzie:Let me...

Gamemaster:This one shot takes place like 860, 870 years after the events of Campaign 2.

Gamemaster:So he's been around for a while in this new echo-fragmented form.

Gamemaster:He's doing stuff, but he's also helping Sedecium out.

Foral:Is Zugg around?

Ozzie:I wonder if he's happy.

Gamemaster:Maybe I'll get a chance to ask him.

Gamemaster:Or maybe not.

Gamemaster:Who knows?

Scrazzy:If you're there, if anyone, if you're there, are you happy?

Gamemaster:You just need, like, a Ouija board.

Scrazzy:I'm like an episode of Ghost Hunters.

Ozzie:Well, Rodak's not around to care anyway, so...

Scrazzy:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Zeg is around.

Gamemaster:Rodak isn't around.

Foral:Hell yeah.

Scrazzy:Dorcan is a god.

Gamemaster:Dorcan is around.

Gamemaster:Dorcan's a god.

Foral:Is Lev around?

Gamemaster:But, I mean...

Gamemaster:Lev is definitely around.

Foral:Yes.

Gamemaster:I'm fairly confident that of the Campaign 2 characters at this point, Lev...

Gamemaster:Lev is definitely around because he's been walking the lighthouse and because he's a vampire, so he would have figured out a way to be immortal.

Gamemaster:Divex is almost definitely around unless he went and got himself killed because he's a level 20 wizard, and I don't think age affects level 20 wizards.

Gamemaster:Which then brings us to Henrik as a fighter not having any inherent ability to live, but it's a question of would Henrik accept Divex

Gamemaster:making him immortal in much the same way of would Rodic accept Zugg, like making him immortal and the like.

Foral:Or vampires.

Ozzie:Right.

Gamemaster:Same thing for Dawn.

Scrazzy:I was thinking about it.

Ozzie:Yeah.

Scrazzy:I was thinking about it the other day.

Scrazzy:It's kind of like Rhoda just killed himself because, I mean, he could keep living.

Gamemaster:Nope.

Gamemaster:Nope, that's not what that is.

Scrazzy:He's like, I've had it.

Foral:Basically the same thing.

Scrazzy:I've had it.

Scrazzy:I'm leaving.

Gamemaster:Rodic lives on immortally as one of the three founders of Sedecium, alongside Dorcan and Zugg, so... Yeah.

Ozzie:Right.

Ozzie:The idea of me lives, and that's enough.

Gamemaster:He's still there.

Gamemaster:And then there's one member of their party of four that left to go start a casino, and unfortunately isn't included in the founders' group.

Foral:No, and is not immortal.

Gamemaster:And that's it.

Foral:She did not get a... Yeah.

Gamemaster:No, she's definitely dead at this point.

Ozzie:Long, long dead.

Ozzie:Bones are dust now.

Gamemaster:Yeah, it's been centuries.

Ozzie:It's been so long.

Scrazzy:It was an overdose.

Gamemaster:Yes, I feel like you could definitely do that.

Scrazzy:Did he run a casino and not taste a little?

Scrazzy:Or like a mob hit.

Scrazzy:I bet it was a mob hit.

Ozzie:That I can see.

Gamemaster:I mean, that casino doesn't exist anymore because it was eaten by the pale anyway, so... No.

Ozzie:Yeah, is that our fault, or...

Gamemaster:No, it was pointed out, but I wouldn't expect any of you to remember it because it's been literally four or five years since that happened.

Gamemaster:But it was a very minor plot point that the Pale was expanding just the whole time.

Foral:I remember that.

Foral:Would we have been able to do stuff to stop it?

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:No, that's just kind of an eventual... It started out...

Gamemaster:It started out as an allegory for global warming and then quickly morphed into, no, it's this like eldritch, crazy encroaching thing that's happening to the prime material.

Ozzie:Right.

Gamemaster:But no, there wasn't anything you could have done to stop it.

Gamemaster:That was just an eventuality.

Gamemaster:It just wouldn't have done anything on the timeframe that we were playing in the campaign.

Gamemaster:And then campaign two took place just a few decades after campaign one.

Gamemaster:And so it wasn't relevant.

Gamemaster:But now we're pushed almost a thousand years into the future, and that was long enough for that to have done stuff on any time frame.

Foral:No.

Gamemaster:But even with Dorcan as a god, that was just kind of inevitability.

Ozzie:So now, is new Volcantum within the crystal sphere of Ushas, or is it, like, existing elsewhere?

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:No, Ushas got reformed.

Ozzie:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:Dorcan had to remake new landmasses out of the pale in order to do it.

Gamemaster:So Ushas still exists, it's just the old landmasses and all that kind of stuff are gone now.

Foral:And Citadel's outside of all of this, right?

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:Yeah, you guys visited the Citadel in Campaign 2.

Gamemaster:That is an external, like, free-floating space station, effectively.

Gamemaster:It's not Inuitious, because there are members of... At the time, there were three other spheres that were part of your little coalition that's been bumped up over the past few hundred years.

Scrazzy:The better forthsundum.

Gamemaster:But it's growing.

Gamemaster:There's like this B-plot of Sedecium is just becoming its own kind of little empire off in the distance.

Foral:Okay.

Ozzie:The fourth Sundom.

Gamemaster:No, the fifth Sundom.

Gamemaster:There was already a fourth Sundom.

Ozzie:Darn it.

Gamemaster:Yeah, I know.

Ozzie:Josh, we need just like a, you got to publish a lore book because I can't keep up with all this stuff.

Gamemaster:It doesn't need to be relevant if there's a fourth Sundom, though, because you haven't interacted with them in any meaningful way.

Gamemaster:At some point, we'll do a sci-fi campaign or something, or a series of a multi-shot, and then we'll be able to go more into the Astra, the greater meta setting.

Gamemaster:Yeah, this was a good time.

Foral:Yeah, this was fun.

Foral:Thank you.

Ozzie:I think so yeah

Gamemaster:I'll see you all next Monday.

Foral:See ya.

Scrazzy:See you then.

Gamemaster:See you then.