2026-5-25 — Akasha

Gamemaster:Oh.

Gamemaster:Hello?

Anzu:Hey Josh, how's it going?

Gamemaster:Going all right?

Gamemaster:How about yourself?

Anzu:Pretty good.

Anzu:I love this map that you made.

Anzu:Oh, if there's some faction takeover?

Gamemaster:Yeah, I'm hoping we see some tiles switch colors at some point, which will make it worth it.

Gamemaster:Yeah, I built it with, like, layering changes in mind if changes happen.

Gamemaster:Although it is also entirely possible that we just go the entirety of the time of your guises on the Strider, and nothing ever changes hands.

Gamemaster:At which point it'll just be a handy reference, you know?

Gamemaster:For...

Anzu:Well, I like that our allies are linked to us.

Anzu:That's a very fun visual as well.

Gamemaster:Yeah, and you could turn it on and off if it gets annoying.

Gamemaster:One thing I have found that I haven't been able to figure out is for whatever reason, if you check your browser's task manager, I assume this is true on your computer as well as mine.

Gamemaster:But while those little lines that connect the different groups are on the like scan layer, it increases the percentage utilization of my CPU by like 70%.

Gamemaster:And I can't figure out why because it's just not that complex in animation.

Anzu:Oh.

Gamemaster:Yes, I don't know how it's doing it.

Anzu:That's horribly inefficient.

Gamemaster:I don't know enough about rendering things on websites to know why making little pulses of light move from one side of the screen to the other requires my CPU to be going full throttle.

Anzu:Is it... And I'm not well-versed in this, but...

Gamemaster:But it does.

Anzu:Is there anything with how they calculate where the lines need to go?

Anzu:Like, is it doing unnecessary math?

Gamemaster:Like, probably?

Anzu:Like vector stuff?

Gamemaster:But I can't figure out where or why it would be doing it, because the way that I define it, like, in the CSS is not very complicated.

Gamemaster:I say, start at this particular point, end at this point, and then draw a line that is, like, x pixels long and offset x pixels from the start.

Anzu:Hmm.

Gamemaster:And that's it.

Anzu:Yeah, you would think that it wasn't that complicated.

Gamemaster:Like, that's...

Gamemaster:Yeah, that I assume isn't particularly difficult for a computer to figure out how to render.

Gamemaster:So I assume it's like some web technology doing something stupid.

Gamemaster:But it ran well enough on my phone that I...

Gamemaster:I didn't bother to debug too hard.

Gamemaster:If it crashes somebody's browser, then I'll go back and fix it.

Anzu:Yeah.

Gamemaster:But for the time being, it seems fine.

Gamemaster:I assume it hasn't crashed your browser when you opened it, or else you would have mentioned.

Anzu:No, I'm looking at my task manager, and I have it open on Microsoft Edge.

Gamemaster:Are you looking at your computer's task manager or your browser's task manager?

Anzu:Oh, I'm looking at the computer task manager.

Gamemaster:If you open it in your browser, let's see, is it shift escape?

Gamemaster:Is it alt escape?

Gamemaster:I don't know the, one second.

Anzu:I can look in the Settings.

Anzu:I'm in Microsoft Edge, which is just the default, and Browser Task Manager.

Gamemaster:It's,

Gamemaster:In Microsoft Edge, it should be Shift Escape.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:And then sort by CPU usage and see how much you get when this game layers on and off.

Anzu:Okay, so right now it's on, and it's ranging from 130 to 170.

Anzu:Oh, it's going down a little bit, but let's turn it off and see what happens.

Anzu:Now it's down to 70.

Anzu:It's very intensive.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Why does it do that?

Gamemaster:Apparently.

Gamemaster:I don't... I don't know why.

Gamemaster:But... They just... Some groups were able to feed a little bit more energy into their base than others.

Anzu:I do not like how big Amber Call's base size is compared to everybody else.

Gamemaster:It happens.

Anzu:Well, where'd they get it from, Josh?

Gamemaster:Some brought stuff on that they could use.

Anzu:How did they know they were going to need that, those bastards?

Gamemaster:Well, they... Yeah, you guys aren't the smallest fish by any means.

Anzu:Anyway, I'm equally amused by how small some of the other ones are.

Anzu:Garrick Textiles having only two hexes for their base.

Gamemaster:They're trying their best, okay?

Anzu:They are fucked.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:Josh, Jorge, hello.

Gamemaster:You have four right now.

Anzu:If you look at the map, the bases are varying in size within their landmass.

Argyle:I didn't pay attention to this.

Anzu:And Amber Call has what looks like probably 15 hexes of base size.

Anzu:And Garrick Textiles, right next to it, has two hexes.

Argyle:Oh, no.

Anzu:We have, what, four or five?

Anzu:PLS is... Oh, the Pale Lantern Society is pretty big.

Gamemaster:You're the... You can also... You can also click on them.

Argyle:um garrick is so fucked those fucking RunGunners i it makes sense the RunGunners no no that they're making it on their borders so they can traffic goods those smuggling assholes

Anzu:Protectorate is big, which makes sense.

Anzu:The Scale is relatively big, yeah.

Gamemaster:There's not a lot of info on them yet, but you can click on it, and it brings up a little bit of information on each of the factions.

Gamemaster:I mean, for the most part, you already know them, but... You don't like the RunGunners?

Gamemaster:Sometimes you prepare, like, if they understand what's happening.

Johnny:thank you

Gamemaster:Sometimes they have ways to prepare.

Argyle:You didn't ask us.

Gamemaster:You guys, unfortunately, none of you had experience when you were building your art.

Gamemaster:But it's fine.

Gamemaster:It happens.

Gamemaster:No, I understand, because it's not something your characters would have known to do.

Argyle:That's fucked up.

Gamemaster:Like, it's not a, I'm going to ask you, do you guys know how to do it?

Gamemaster:It's just, it's a specialized skill that none of you have that ability with.

Argyle:It's also funny that Iridescent Church built theirs all the way at the end.

Argyle:They're like, I want to see you coming.

Gamemaster:I like, separately, if you go two segments up, if you look at the Ministry of Cultural Progress and where they put their base, it's just right on an edge.

Anzu:Yeah, they're pretty far back.

Argyle:Those people are crazy.

Anzu:They're hugging the Scale.

Gamemaster:They didn't know who the plot next to them was going to be, but they're like, we're going to get up close.

Anzu:Yeah, good luck taking the Scale down.

Gamemaster:And they did.

Gamemaster:They've got plans.

Argyle:Sable and Suns.

Benny:We're not going to need luck.

Anzu:Ministry of Cultural Progress.

Gamemaster:Did anybody wish you luck?

Benny:Tanner just did.

Johnny:I think he's just saying... No, I didn't hear it.

Gamemaster:Oh, okay.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Benny:Tanner just said, good luck taking down the Scale.

Anzu:I think that Mike only heard the second half of my sentence, but well, I was talking about the Ministry of Cultural Progress who built their base right up against the border to the Scale as if they're trying to, you know,

Argyle:I think... I have...

Benny:I didn't realize he was going to strike out so aggressively against them, but I guess they kind of are against everything he's for.

Gamemaster:That doesn't sound right to me.

Johnny:Like him being Tanner or him being on...

Gamemaster:What?

Benny:What did you say?

Benny:Oh, yeah, I didn't realize you had plausible deniability.

Benny:I'm sorry.

Anzu:Looks like Noah got a pretty nice haircut.

Argyle:It does.

Johnny:Thank you.

Argyle:Guys, looking at this base, at this chart, I low-key want to cut ties with the Solari Sub-surface.

Argyle:It's kind of embarrassing to have our hearts communicate.

Argyle:Is that like a security risk?

Argyle:Like, is it a security risk?

Argyle:Because they're going to get taken over.

Benny:They don't even have the smallest one.

Gamemaster:the the the Solari Sub-surface base is only one tile smaller than yours is it's not you know such a huge difference they don't

Benny:The handsome chaps at Garrick Textiles do.

Anzu:Yeah, they're screwed.

Anzu:They are absolutely screwed.

Johnny:You can get sponsored.

Benny:Hey, hey, they make a great poncho.

Anzu:Yeah, they did a decent job.

Argyle:Yeah, but they don't got that dog.

Argyle:They don't have that dog.

Anzu:They might have it.

Anzu:They're underdogs.

Anzu:That's the kind of dog they got.

Argyle:We can use them, but we could use them to take over the freight.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Benny:The Freight.

Gamemaster:You want to fight a proxy War against a group that you don't have any issues with, to my knowledge at the moment.

Anzu:Yeah, I was thinking they might be another good ally, to be honest.

Argyle:No, fuck this.

Argyle:Oh, you want to unify all the losers?

Johnny:oof that's too old don't the pale lanterns hate undead people and undeath isn't that their thing

Benny:And Brick Hall has a huge base.

Anzu:Yeah, that's why I need all the losers, Jorge.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:Look at that base on Amber Call.

Argyle:So I really hope the Pale Lantern Society are good people.

Argyle:I just really don't think they are.

Argyle:So it's unfortunate that I think they're going to be working with the Amber Call.

Benny:We could totally...

Anzu:I mean, they...

Anzu:They're a society of necromancers and healers endorsed by the Eternal Pulse.

Argyle:No, don't.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah.

Argyle:They're canonically necromancy.

Johnny:I think I had the wrong people.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:I was thinking the opposite.

Anzu:Also, they refused to speak to us.

Argyle:We should try to reach out to the Radiant Arms.

Anzu:So, I think...

Johnny:That's unfair.

Argyle:They might be a good buffer between Hilda Brandt and the monsters.

Gamemaster:The group that refused to speak to you was Necrolog, which instead said, we defer to the Pale Lantern Society, to clarify.

Benny:They said that.

Anzu:Oh, my bad.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:Yeah, great.

Johnny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Which, you know, slightly different message there, but still not a great one.

Argyle:And also, the Prime Meridian?

Argyle:Told us.

Argyle:I mean it could be worse.

Argyle:You guys could be the pale lantern society.

Argyle:So.

Gamemaster:Prime Meridian doesn't like... You never know.

Anzu:Yeah, I don't think we're going to get to 18 out of 20 in terms of number of friends, but...

Gamemaster:Wait, who are the two that you wouldn't be... Sorry, who's the one you aren't friends with?

Gamemaster:Is it just Ambracol?

Anzu:Right.

Anzu:I mean, guaranteed no, is Amber Call.

Gamemaster:In this scenario, you are friends with the Harlequins, though.

Gamemaster:They're your buds.

Johnny:Yeah, we're best.

Anzu:No, well, that's why I said 18 out of 20, because I figured... Because there's only 19 groups, right?

Gamemaster:Oh.

Argyle:Well, I think from their words... I mean, I think from talking to their devil leader, we quote-unquote don't want to be his friends.

Gamemaster:Well, there's 20 in total.

Gamemaster:There were 19 keystones because the Harlequins are the 20th.

Anzu:Including the Harlequins.

Anzu:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Anzu:And also, they're kind of impartial, I feel, to the conflicts.

Anzu:I could be wrong about that, but... I don't think they'll do that, but you never know.

Benny:This is the thing.

Argyle:We're going to be so fucked if Amber Call takes out the Harlequins.

Johnny:I don't like what you said at the moment.

Argyle:I don't think they will either.

Gamemaster:At the moment, at least, the Harlequins are the ones running the Strider.

Gamemaster:So... Well, I can't predict the future.

Johnny:I don't like that.

Gamemaster:I'm not a future teller.

Johnny:Yes, you can.

Benny:We can deal...

Benny:This is a great opportunity.

Benny:One of the funny things, we don't like Amber Call.

Benny:I know how to get some people on Amber Call's case.

Benny:Point out to the Iridescent Church that they have a smaller base than the Amber Call.

Benny:Their whole thing is pride.

Anzu:If we could get them to take over Necrolog, that could be really good.

Argyle:That's true.

Benny:This is nice, but Amber Call's is huge.

Benny:I mean, they're showing out.

Benny:I'm surprised.

Benny:I mean, one of the best showings for any org on this Strider.

Benny:I mean, it's kind of amazing.

Benny:Why do you hate NecroLog so much?

Anzu:There's the proxy War.

Benny:They're not going to take over Necrolog.

Benny:They're going to rub it in Necrolog's face.

Benny:They're going to help Necrolog and take selfies handing out food to Necrolog.

Anzu:Thank you.

Benny:I imagine people at Necrolog look like they're dead.

Benny:So it's going to be like one of those... Yeah, exactly.

Gamemaster:The one person at NecroLog you met is a dhampir.

Johnny:Dead.

Benny:And that's probably the best looking person.

Gamemaster:Only half.

Gamemaster:They're only half dead.

Benny:They work the door.

Benny:Yeah, but that's the best looking person.

Benny:So everyone there is at least half dead.

Argyle:The other thing is... Disabled... It's also... I don't like how the RunGunners have their smuggling base from border to border, and one of the borders is our side.

Anzu:They're going to be full dead by the time I'm done.

Anzu:Yeah, we're going to have to try really hard to become friends with them.

Benny:Yeah, what the fuck is it even about, dog?

Johnny:mm-hmm

Argyle:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anzu:Because we need to be insulated.

Argyle:Sable and Suns is also really close to the walkways, which I don't know if they're planning to do pop shots and trying to rob us, because they're going to get fucked up if they try robbing people.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Who are the other small ones?

Argyle:Which one do you think has Anzu's sister?

Anzu:Yeah, I don't know.

Anzu:I'm really not sure, because... Well, my sister is with people that are listening to The Herald, but I don't know who... That doesn't one-to-one match up with any of these companies, necessarily.

Johnny:I think it's Derek textiles.

Johnny:I think she's hiding in there.

Benny:Or it's the PLS.

Argyle:It's kind of embarrassing

Benny:Or it's Necrolog, and all of your hate is justified.

Benny:Well, PLS...

Johnny:It's Amber call.

Benny:PLS already has a thing that they're doing.

Benny:I feel like they wouldn't listen to the Herald because they already have a thing.

Benny:Necrolog is adjacent.

Benny:They're like, I mean, we're not with the PLS.

Benny:We're cool and hip.

Benny:We're new.

Benny:We're with the hip stuff.

Benny:We're with the Herald.

Benny:They both have age.

Benny:I think it's Necrolog.

Argyle:Wait, wait.

Argyle:Alkahest Freight.

Argyle:What do we know about them?

Johnny:Sounds like they're a freight company.

Anzu:Not a lot, I don't think.

Gamemaster:Very little.

Argyle:Do we know where they're from or anything?

Benny:Alkahest?

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:Alkahest, their whole deal is they're really good at shipping stuff out very far along the horizon.

Gamemaster:If you want to start a new colony 300 or 20,000 positions starward, you use Alkahest Freight to bring all of the stuff you need to colonize the area.

Anzu:Could be.

Anzu:They went out pretty far.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:I think it might be them.

Anzu:Heard the Herald's call.

Anzu:Could be.

Johnny:Thank you.

Benny:Trying to get Giant.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:This is concerning.

Anzu:Also, I have absolutely no reason for this, but I'm suspicious of Ætherion Limited.

Johnny:Thank you.

Anzu:They're the blue in the bottom left.

Argyle:Me too.

Benny:What even are these people?

Benny:Where the hell is Ætherion?

Gamemaster:Ætherion is the bottom left.

Argyle:Thanks.

Benny:Oh, I see.

Benny:What do they do?

Anzu:They're an energy company.

Benny:Oh.

Gamemaster:They're a power company.

Argyle:Oh, we can click on him and it gives us information.

Benny:yeah that's not that's not weird was this josh or was this the whale was it the whale or was it you deep seek

Anzu:Yeah.

Anzu:Yeah, Josh made a really good site.

Johnny:Oh.

Johnny:Wow, this is nice.

Anzu:Can someone send in the applause emoji for Josh, by the way?

Gamemaster:Hmm?

Gamemaster:What?

Gamemaster:I was... The whale?

Argyle:I don't think he uses deep seek.

Gamemaster:Who's the whale?

Gamemaster:I don't use Deep Seek.

Argyle:He doesn't use deep seek.

Argyle:If anything, he could use Claude.

Benny:Yeah, I was worried about my Claude stuff.

Argyle:Or Codex.

Benny:And my brother was on the phone.

Benny:He's like, do this.

Benny:I want you to be doing agentic coding before I get off the phone.

Benny:And I was like, all right.

Benny:But he calls him the whale.

Benny:So now when I'm talking to DeepSeek to make me stuff, I'm like, hello, Mr. Whale.

Benny:This is what we're going to work on.

Gamemaster:None of it was made by DeepSeek.

Johnny:Call Mike if you want to help.

Gamemaster:I used a little bit of it.

Gamemaster:I asked Claude to help me with some of the UI stuff, and I was telling Tanner.

Gamemaster:It turns out that's been a bit of an accident, because while the scan layer is active, it adds like 50% to 70% CPU utilization, despite the fact that all it's rendering is just like a little bit of line just moving.

Gamemaster:I don't understand how he did it, and I don't know enough about, like, rendering on the DOM to fix it myself.

Gamemaster:And I asked, like, four times, hey, it's doing this thing, can you fix it?

Gamemaster:And each time it's like, oh yeah, I found the issue.

Gamemaster:And then it does something completely unrelated to the fix.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:So I've given up, and I've decided so long as nobody's browser crashes while they open the website, I'm not going to try and fix it.

Benny:That's how it feels to be a PM.

Gamemaster:It's just not worth it.

Benny:Hey, can you fix this?

Benny:Yeah, no, we found the issue.

Benny:It's fixed.

Benny:And then it's not.

Benny:You're like, hey, I don't know what you're doing or what's going on.

Benny:Can you please just fucking fix this?

Johnny:Yeah, we'll fix it on that.

Benny:But I had the whale one shot one thing, and then it took like, I don't know, fucking half an hour to get another thing done.

Benny:But I was very impressed.

Benny:I mean, I'd used cloud code.

Benny:I just hadn't looked at it.

Benny:And then I figured out the trick.

Benny:If you want to feel the magic of AGI, just have it make you a UI for whatever you're doing.

Benny:And you're like, what?

Benny:This would take me seven years.

Benny:I don't know anything about UIs.

Gamemaster:Cool.

Benny:So if it makes a box that moves and shit, I'm like, holy fuck, this thing is insane.

Benny:And it's so easy for it to do it.

Benny:I had it do like some options pricing software, but it plotted the options.

Benny:It plotted like the stock moves.

Benny:And then it gives me like a bunch of sliders.

Benny:And I'm like, oh, this is so much fun.

Benny:It took like five minutes for it to make.

Benny:It's a shiny thing.

Gamemaster:People like a good fucking shiny thing.

Gamemaster:Especially when you don't really have to do much work other than command some peasant to do it.

Gamemaster:And then it's done.

Benny:And also I don't mind having random dumb ideas or like, this would be a cool thing for me to look at and then pay 50 cents because it's deep seek.

Benny:And then it's just done.

Benny:And I'm like, oh, okay, cool.

Benny:I didn't use any of my cloud usage.

Anzu:you

Benny:I don't feel bad about 50 cents.

Benny:And I could play with this for like a minute and then ask the whale to do something else.

Johnny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Either way, when you guys invade somebody on this map, we'll change colors.

Gamemaster:It'll be a good time.

Gamemaster:That's why it's split up into hexes, so I can change the colors of individual hexes.

Benny:Wait, which one's... Birth 4 is the Protectorate.

Benny:That's right, we went over that last time.

Argyle:Questions.

Gamemaster:Which is...

Argyle:So I have a question for Anzu.

Argyle:Does Anzu have mind link?

Anzu:It's a spell, right?

Anzu:I don't have it.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:But it's something I could look to in the future if you think it would be helpful.

Argyle:Can a cleric write a scroll for a spell?

Gamemaster:I believe so, but Mindlink isn't a divine spell, so I don't know if a cleric would have it on its spell list.

Benny:with crafting rules and

Argyle:So I could write dream message, right?

Gamemaster:If you have it on your spell list, and I think you need to be able to craft magical items, but assuming those are both true, then I think so.

Argyle:OK.

Gamemaster:Let me double-check that.

Argyle:So how do I?

Gamemaster:You have to be able to cast the spell, or you must be doing it well.

Gamemaster:Oh, that's actually interesting.

Argyle:Can you make it, Tanner?

Gamemaster:You can have somebody else craft the scroll, so long as you have somebody around to craft the spell into the scroll, which is interesting.

Anzu:Whoa.

Anzu:Are making scrolls crafting checks or arcana checks?

Gamemaster:It's a crafting check.

Gamemaster:It's a magical item, so you would need the magical crafting feat in order to be able to do it.

Gamemaster:But so long as you have the magical crafting feat, you can make the check to make the scroll.

Anzu:Oh.

Anzu:I don't have magical crafting.

Argyle:God damn it, Anzu.

Anzu:Is that a skill feat?

Anzu:What kind of feat is that?

Gamemaster:It is.

Gamemaster:That is a crafting skill feat.

Johnny:Hey, Mason.

Anzu:Let me do some investigating, please.

Benny:Then we have to talk to them.

Argyle:God damn it.

Anzu:Magical crafting expert in crafting.

Anzu:I'm only trained right now, guys.

Gamemaster:I do feel like it's not unreasonable for me to mention that the twins have magical crafting.

Argyle:So, context.

Argyle:Context.

Argyle:Why?

Argyle:Because I was thinking about... Oh, yes!

Argyle:Yes!

Argyle:Let's ask them to make a scroll.

Gamemaster:Like, you did bring them along with you.

Argyle:Yes.

Gamemaster:You'd have to cast the spell.

Gamemaster:Like, they're not going to provide spells, but if what you need is the scroll made and you're willing to spend the spell slot, they will help you craft a scroll.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:I think that's fine.

Gamemaster:You do have to spend the components on it.

Argyle:It's 30 gold.

Benny:Aided by his young ward.

Argyle:I believe it's 30 gold.

Gamemaster:You're not paying them, you're buying the materials to make the item.

Argyle:Well, it's 90% of 30 gold.

Gamemaster:What is the spell you're doing?

Argyle:Rank three.

Gamemaster:Dream?

Argyle:Three message.

Gamemaster:Oh, it's rank 3.

Anzu:I did think about taking Dream Message, but I got very few spell selections, so I didn't go for it.

Anzu:Yet.

Gamemaster:Yeah, it'd be 27 gold pieces if you wanted to craft it.

Benny:in his young word.

Argyle:Okay, if during our downtime we could craft that, that'd be great.

Argyle:I'll pay for the gold for that.

Argyle:I'll also pay for the gold to finish the health potion a day early.

Gamemaster:How about... How about... But this is stuff we could do during gameplay.

Argyle:I know.

Argyle:I'm just giving you a heads up.

Argyle:This is what I want to do.

Argyle:Giving you a heads up.

Argyle:I know.

Gamemaster:If you want, we could just start playing Pathfinder.

Argyle:I'm just giving you a heads up.

Argyle:Sure.

Benny:If we...

Anzu:Well, you've got to ask the question, Josh.

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Do people want to play Pathfinder?

Johnny:you you

Anzu:Also, Mike made a comment on the AI summaries that you've been working on with the one that said, and then they decided to play Pathfinder, and I almost had an opposite reaction.

Argyle:Gosh.

Anzu:Ooh, a little voice crack.

Anzu:That was fun.

Anzu:I thought it was kind of funny.

Anzu:I don't

Anzu:in my point of view, the AI does not understand that we're playing Pathfinder as our main activity.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:And so it just sees us doing stuff, and it's like, oh, they talked about this and this and this, and then, oh, and then they played some Pathfinder.

Gamemaster:yeah that's just what they chose to do and because of how the windows and stuff are split out it's never going to get the context that we played multiple sessions each time it's always like oh and then they played Pathfinder that was a spontaneous decision they made oh

Anzu:Okay.

Johnny:So then.

Anzu:It's like... Yeah.

Anzu:And actually give me one minute before we start.

Anzu:Apologies.

Benny:Have you considered doing rolling context, like giving it a compacted summary of previous sessions for the guy to summarize the next session?

Gamemaster:Okay, so Wiley's doing that.

Argyle:God damn it.

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:No, the reason...

Gamemaster:that I'm not doing like rolling context or anything like that is because the way that I'm using the AI right now is very strictly as I need it to pull specific facts out of the previous thing.

Gamemaster:And so I'm trying to do things that would reduce the chance that it hallucinates as much as possible.

Gamemaster:And I'm worried that as soon as you start doing things like compacting context, that increases the chance that it could hallucinate.

Gamemaster:Because I don't want the wiki to get updated with information that isn't correct just because an LLM played a telephone with itself over the course of 40 sessions.

Gamemaster:Um, so I, I'm like, it doesn't really need the context and the way that I have it set up.

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Like I have it as a multi-password.

Gamemaster:First, it just finds the bits that are in character because it was, before I had that like identifier step, it started like pulling out random facts that aren't useful at all because there, there's stuff like, you know, Joe Biden has interesting ideas about taxes or something like that.

Gamemaster:And it's like, that's not, I don't want that in the wiki.

Gamemaster:And then once I've pulled out the in-character stuff, I literally have a different LLM that gets fed just like a bunch of 20 to 40 lines at a time, and just gives facts that happen in that specific window.

Gamemaster:And then I can synthesize that into actual prose.

Argyle:Do you, what do you use to embed the different text?

Argyle:Do you use like a vector base, vector store?

Gamemaster:No, I'm feeding it just fully, just straight into Sana.

Gamemaster:Like the script itself is rendered, the script itself is stored in a markdown file.

Gamemaster:So I'm just going line by line.

Gamemaster:I have this like rolling window where I make sure that like 20 or 20% or something of the previous window overlaps.

Argyle:Isaac.

Gamemaster:But I'm literally just feeding 20 lines of markdown text into Sonnet and then telling it to return in like this structured JSON.

Gamemaster:Here is a fact or two that I've pulled out.

Argyle:Makes sense.

Gamemaster:Um, it's still, it's not the smartest.

Gamemaster:The reason I haven't like actually put it into production yet is that it's still, it, it will, the biggest problem it has is our transcripts are obviously machine generated.

Gamemaster:I'm not the one that's going through and then writing the transcripts after each session.

Gamemaster:So occasionally it spells something wrong, especially when you get into, like, not real words, because we're playing a fantasy game and some of the words aren't real.

Johnny:Well.

Gamemaster:And so, like, it doesn't know how to spell Hallia for the capital.

Gamemaster:And so it comes up with eight different ways to spell it.

Gamemaster:And so that results in recommendations from the thing to make eight different pages called Hallia spelled different ways, each with basically the same information in it.

Gamemaster:Um, and so, like, I haven't found a good way to get rid of the typos other than me manually going in and updating whenever I find typos to, like, unify them on a particular thing.

Benny:Give it to the whale.

Gamemaster:Which is fine, but it's kind of annoying.

Gamemaster:I just, I am loathe to figure out how much it would cost to chuck, like, the whole script at an LLM and tell it, identify all of the typos.

Argyle:You also could look into potentially storing them as vector databases and then just doing vector lookups.

Gamemaster:Um, I don't think that would work anyway.

Gamemaster:So...

Argyle:But on a side note, I created a Pathfinder 2E Spell Creator Claude skill.

Argyle:I spent a lot of tokens to optimize this.

Argyle:Um, so this should have maps of like average damage per level, things like that.

Benny:you

Anzu:Thank you.

Argyle:And, uh, I've been meaning to share, I was looking through Josh's old code for the five East, uh, homebrew he made and I converted a lot of them over.

Argyle:So they should have more grounded spell effects and damage, but I've been meaning I'll, I'll push this to the GitHub as well, but I've been also meaning to, um, go by and see if I can use Claude to estimate actions.

Argyle:Because I realized all of these, like, that's a big thing in Pathfinder spells is, like, how good it is to weigh the actions.

Benny:you

Argyle:But yeah, this is, if... Yeah, the sad thing is...

Gamemaster:I would be curious if you could send me what the machine-generated translation is from 5e to Pathfinder of those spells, because I imagine a lot of those are not particularly easy to translate into the Pathfinder rule set.

Argyle:I wonder if it's a little... It either might be too free with it or too not free with it.

Johnny:Hmm.

Argyle:But it should do a pretty good job of at least doing damage numbers to make sure it's inbounds.

Gamemaster:I believe that.

Benny:Going all the way back, I do think it's very funny to pull out a fact and it's like, the team debuted a new character, Tall Biden.

Gamemaster:I imagine that's true.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:No, I was absolutely getting a bunch of those.

Gamemaster:Even when I switched it to only pull out in-character stuff, sometimes we'll, for a few lines in the transcript, switch back to out-of-character things.

Gamemaster:And those will sneak in.

Gamemaster:And so it'll pull out a fact that is completely nonsensical.

Benny:Yeah.

Benny:The episode where Spongebob needed to give Gary a bath.

Gamemaster:So...

Johnny:told hmm

Anzu:Thank you.

Gamemaster:I will say, like, one of the most confused I've seen it get is there is one one-shot we did where the first half of the session was wrapping up the Cagley Middle School one-shot, and then the second half of the session was the fight devils in the Lava Palace Quorum session.

Gamemaster:And because, like, the thing that I have that writes the transcripts to figure out what the names of the characters and stuff are doesn't do it in the middle of the file.

Gamemaster:It just looked like the whole time that these middle schoolers went down into these mines, beat up this shadow demon, and then were transported to hell.

Gamemaster:And then spent the rest of the time fighting through demons like Doom Slayer.

Johnny:That's what happened.

Gamemaster:Which was fine.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Argyle:Which is where Argyle's character came from.

Argyle:But anyway.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:Argyle's character used to go to Cagley Middle.

Benny:Oh.

Gamemaster:That happened.

Johnny:That session created two characters in this party.

Gamemaster:That's true.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Johnny:I distinctly remember Mike going, I'm going to make my next character a nine-year-old.

Johnny:Oh, before I forget.

Gamemaster:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:And we all thought he was joking.

Johnny:I'm planning on coming out to New York around the end of August or end of September.

Johnny:Does one of those work better for everybody?

Benny:I'll be here for both.

Anzu:September.

Johnny:September?

Anzu:Personally.

Argyle:End of September?

Johnny:Cool.

Johnny:Okay, I'll plan on the end of September.

Anzu:Epic.

Johnny:Probably.

Johnny:Because I can do the beginning of September, but it gets kind of close to the Jewish holidays.

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:Sounds good.

Argyle:I might be doing something early October, just to give you a heads up.

Johnny:Okay.

Argyle:By early October, I mean like October 4th.

Johnny:Okay, I'll probably be there.

Johnny:I'll be there before then.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:I'll send a couple of options.

Argyle:Anniversary.

Johnny:Oh, sounds unimportant.

Johnny:I'll send a couple of weekend options.

Gamemaster:End of September is Sukkot.

Gamemaster:I can't believe you're fine with ignoring Sukkot.

Gamemaster:That's crazy.

Johnny:Josh, no, I'm not.

Johnny:We're just going to play Pathfinder in Asuka.

Gamemaster:I would love to do that.

Gamemaster:Make everybody shake a lulav.

Gamemaster:Like an Erev?

Gamemaster:No, not an Erev.

Johnny:The...

Gamemaster:What's the other one?

Gamemaster:Etruk, that's what it is.

Gamemaster:Erev is the wire that we put around New York City so that you can pretend it's indoors.

Gamemaster:That gets back to the Jews and loopholes.

Gamemaster:Are the rest of you familiar with the Arab in New York?

Argyle:no okay okay

Anzu:No.

Benny:Mm hmm.

Gamemaster:So there is a rule or there's like 40 rules about the kind of work that you're allowed to do on Saturday and how to differentiate what kind of work you can do within your home and outside of your home.

Gamemaster:One of those things being you cannot carry things from the interior of your home to the exterior because that's considered work.

Gamemaster:And God said, no, you have to relax on Saturday.

Gamemaster:And as it turns out, that's kind of a really big pain because people like bringing groceries home or would carry their child from their car to their home or something like that, none of which is technically allowed on Saturday.

Gamemaster:So Jews in Manhattan...

Gamemaster:came up with this idea of it started out with you delimited like the lines of your property with with this wire on on on a like kind of like a telephone pole wire type deal and it used to be just around your backyard so that you can include the backyard as part of your home because it's still like your private space uh and then one particularly enterprising uh congregation was like well what if we just all shared

Gamemaster:the our property because we all live near each other so instead of having a wire around each property we'll draw one big wire around our like little congregation and then we could walk to our friends houses and stuff but since the wire demarcates the whole congregation we'll count that as like part of our private property uh and then they kept expanding the wire

Gamemaster:And now there is a wire that gets inspected by a rabbi every Saturday that extends from like 86th Street all the way down to Fidei in one unbroken loop so that you can count the entirety of Manhattan as the interior of your home for the sake of being able to carry things and do some work.

Benny:Wait, wait, wait.

Anzu:like...

Argyle:You see, it's funny.

Johnny:Listen, guys, there's a whole book on loopholes in the Torah.

Johnny:It's called the Talmud.

Johnny:They make you study it.

Johnny:They're like, this is the correct interpretation of the Torah.

Johnny:And it's just like, yeah, this is how you get around everything and still keep it good.

Benny:They had it.

Benny:This is the correct interpretation.

Benny:You read through it.

Benny:You're like, this undoes all the rules.

Benny:No one's following the rules in the original.

Benny:No, no, no.

Benny:No, no.

Benny:It's following all of the rules of the original.

Benny:That's why it's the good one.

Benny:Don't say anything else.

Benny:Because all that shit's a fucking pain in the ass, and we don't want to do this.

Johnny:We did it once a thousand years ago.

Johnny:We're not redoing it.

Argyle:What's also funny is I feel like... I was talking with Bailey about this recently.

Argyle:I know some Baptists, and it seems like a lot of it is shaming people for committing sins, but it's more of like, you're a bad person because you committed sins.

Argyle:It's almost like the person shaming them is to feel better about themselves.

Gamemaster:Yeah, that's the difference with Jews.

Argyle:I feel like Catholics are like...

Argyle:shaming you for committing sins and you should feel bad because we all commit like it's like a different thing where it's just like we should all feel bad because we all suck and the baptists are like you guys suck more but there's a lot of guilt in catholics there's a lot of guilt that's kind of the main thing

Johnny:Hmm.

Gamemaster:We don't have any guilt.

Gamemaster:We know what we're doing.

Gamemaster:It's on purpose.

Gamemaster:Yeah, I sent in the chat the PDF from eriv.nyc, which is... I apparently got it wrong.

Gamemaster:It goes up to 145th Street.

Gamemaster:I was off by a few streets.

Anzu:Yeah, I just looked.

Anzu:It's pretty expansive.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:So that's all indoors.

Gamemaster:If you live in Manhattan, that counts.

Johnny:Manhattan's all indoors.

Benny:It rains a lot indoors.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:It's funny because you go on the website and they're like, hey, please donate to us.

Gamemaster:It costs a lot of money to maintain this wire that goes around the entirety of Manhattan.

Gamemaster:Please help.

Benny:What's with the areas that are not covered?

Benny:I know, but why?

Gamemaster:The wire doesn't go there.

Gamemaster:Possibly for maintenance reasons.

Gamemaster:Possibly because the people there didn't want random Jews walking around hanging up wires.

Gamemaster:Because you do need buy-in from the neighborhood.

Benny:It seems like what?

Gamemaster:And possibly just because there aren't enough Jews there to, like, make the expenditure necessary.

Gamemaster:Because you kind of have to, like, you know...

Benny:This is like vaguely meatpacking.

Benny:I guess like Chelsea slash meatpacking.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Argyle:That's the Google office.

Benny:They're like, no, no, no, no, no.

Gamemaster:I mean, a lot of that I think is also commercial.

Benny:Those are the... Well, I'm...

Argyle:Those are the Google office.

Gamemaster:So... Yeah.

Argyle:They're not allowed to, they're like, no, no, no.

Benny:That's what I'm thinking.

Benny:I'm thinking they're like, no, no, no, don't have it go around our office.

Benny:We actually don't want to do that kind of work on Saturday.

Gamemaster:Either way, sorry.

Gamemaster:I just thought of a random Jew fact.

Gamemaster:Do we want to do a recap for the last session?

Gamemaster:Does anybody remember what happened last session?

Argyle:I can do it.

Benny:I'll do it.

Argyle:Oh, Mike, do it.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Argyle:Do it.

Benny:Let's hope these notes are more interesting than just straight facts.

Benny:We almost went into a loop.

Benny:Because I start my notes out with the recap of the last session.

Benny:So I was going to go, the recap.

Benny:So we invite Hilda Brandt over.

Gamemaster:Just all the way back.

Benny:Benny goes to the gym.

Benny:Johnny puts up audition flyers.

Johnny:Thank you.

Benny:Benny spars at the gym.

Benny:We meet a bunch of interesting people.

Benny:There is a third person in the gym there.

Benny:I don't even know why I mentioned them.

Benny:Let's see.

Benny:We find out we have a meeting, cookout and meeting on the same day.

Benny:We're kind of slammed.

Benny:We're pretty lazy.

Benny:We usually don't do that much in a day, at least not things that are planned.

Benny:People start arriving a bit more.

Benny:One of the people that didn't show up to the cookout was Grayson's relative.

Benny:Don't know what the issue is there.

Benny:At the cookout, Johnny converses with Salvado from Solari, our strongest and most powerful ally.

Benny:Anzu speaks with an old man.

Benny:Argyle sets up a visit with Scale people.

Benny:We go to the Scale place.

Benny:We hang out.

Benny:They've got maps, guns, normal Scale stuff.

Benny:And then at that point, we...

Benny:go to... We also figure out, through all of these interactions, the general gist is no one has any idea what the fuck is going on at all.

Benny:And it's kind of nice because we don't.

Benny:We actually probably know more than everyone else.

Benny:Then we meet with the MC.

Benny:It is definitely a diner and not an Italian restaurant.

Benny:He's brandishing a firearm, but no guards.

Benny:trying to test his mettle.

Benny:We ask him weirdly pointed questions about his identity.

Benny:He shows us his gross, burned face to try to get us to stop asking questions about his identity.

Benny:He smells like shit.

Benny:We suspect that he is a devil related to the Harlequin.

Benny:He makes a bunch of vague-ass statements to us.

Benny:We make a bunch of vague-ass statements to him.

Benny:We...

Argyle:Oh, you know about the six, right?

Benny:We test our heart to make sure that it's not under central influence.

Gamemaster:Thank you.

Benny:Much more orgs show up, and we started doing a roulette wheel of meeting the orgs, including the Protectorate, the Iridescent Church, NecroLog that slammed the door in our face, even though they look gross.

Benny:We didn't meet Verdant Holdings, but we learned about them.

Benny:we met Prime Meridian, we're looking at a bunch of things, and we got a bunch of people hooked into our network, like Hildebrandt, Prime Meridian, Solari, the Protectorate, and the Scale.

Benny:And, we're continuing on, knocking on doors, asking if they've heard...

Benny:of our Lord and Savior, the vocalist, and wearing oddly anachronistic suits, like ties with striped shirts.

Benny:Jehovah's Witness is what I'm saying.

Gamemaster:Yeah, I mean, that's actually not particularly anachronistic.

Johnny:The outfits were wrong.

Benny:And Mormons.

Gamemaster:Mormons would be anachronistic, but suits are not particularly anachronistic in this setting.

Gamemaster:But yeah, no, I think that's a pretty faithful retelling of the previous session.

Gamemaster:That's worth a mythic point, yes sir.

Johnny:We were all wearing swimsuits with belt loops.

Gamemaster:You were wearing swimsuits at least partially when you all hung out in the sulfuric hot springs with each other for a little bit.

Benny:Before...

Gamemaster:But that's gone now, and I assume you all took a shower afterwards, so it's fine.

Johnny:We will.

Gamemaster:Yeah, I think that's good.

Gamemaster:So we got a little bit loosey-goosey with where we were temporally near the end of the last session.

Gamemaster:So how I'm going to put this is we're going to pick back up in that loosey-goosey area still.

Gamemaster:Uh, it's, it's a question of, like, were there things you guys wanted to do before, uh, everybody's on board and the Strider sets, sets sail, sets off, um, towards the, the, the Voidsong?

Gamemaster:Um, with the, not with a caveat, that's the wrong term.

Benny:sets foot

Gamemaster:Sets foot.

Gamemaster:Yeah, sets foot.

Gamemaster:It's got feet.

Gamemaster:That works.

Gamemaster:Uh, just with the reminder that, uh, you had been informed, uh, that...

Gamemaster:right before you set off, like the evening that the Strider starts moving, there's going to be a kind of more formal get-together where all of the different orgs, everybody who made it onto the Strider, or the top layer of the Strider at least, is invited to meet each other in a less ad hoc setting.

Argyle:you you

Gamemaster:You're absolutely free to try and meet whoever you would like to beforehand in a less formal setting, if you like, but you will be seeing everybody if you choose to attend that gala at the end of the week.

Gamemaster:The other note, sorry, Jorge, you keep raising your hand up and I keep just steamrolling over you.

Benny:you you

Gamemaster:The other thing to note is I had neglected to mention it last session, but over the course of the week, at some point, Chuck, your butler, so named, will show up and offer you a blue crystal that looks awfully similar to the keystone that you had originally used to create your heart and to get onto the Strider.

Gamemaster:and inform you that it is a totem linked to your heart, which some of you are already familiar with totems.

Gamemaster:It's basically this item that, while you're holding it, and within some certain range, can telepathically communicate with your heart.

Gamemaster:So if you, for whatever reason, need to speak with Eerie from a distance, you can use this new keystone totem to do so.

Gamemaster:Okay, now that I've steamrolled it over everybody, Jorge, you had something you wanted to do?

Argyle:Yes, so I have a little list.

Argyle:So one, I'm going to wrap up my healing potion early, because I'd also like to make some holy water.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Argyle:I also want to have the twins make this dream message spell as quick as possible.

Gamemaster:Okay, so...

Gamemaster:It's a day, I believe, to craft something, regardless of level, so long as you have the money for it.

Argyle:Okay.

Benny:you you

Argyle:So I'm going to make two holy waters, and then the twins can make the dream message.

Argyle:And then let me know when that's ready.

Gamemaster:Let me double check.

Gamemaster:Crafting.

Gamemaster:We're getting a little bit into game balance here.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Anouk and Anaïs are physically capable of casting items that are higher than your current level.

Gamemaster:They will not be doing that.

Argyle:Yeah, I'm not going to do it.

Gamemaster:I just want to, like, you know, clarify.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:This isn't a Marvel movie.

Gamemaster:Okay, so magical crafting.

Argyle:There isn't going to be some Redditors being like, why don't they just make this?

Gamemaster:Let's see.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Let's double check.

Gamemaster:Let me go to crafting items.

Gamemaster:Craft activity.

Gamemaster:Two days of work setting up, or one day if you have the Addams Formula.

Gamemaster:For simple stuff like this, we'll say it's just one day they have the formula.

Gamemaster:So long as you have the 27 gold it takes to make the scroll, it takes one day for them to produce it.

Argyle:I'm gonna make my own holy water.

Gamemaster:They are also, I believe they had to spend a day making the last boots for Johnny.

Johnny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:So that's two days if you want to...

Gamemaster:If you had anything else that you wanted to make.

Gamemaster:The third thing you wanted besides the scroll was the... You're going to make your own holy water.

Gamemaster:Okay, you can make your own holy water.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Argyle:And I also.

Argyle:I deducted the original gold that I used for the healing potion, and I was going to make it over the entire week, but I've changed that, so I've paid the new price.

Gamemaster:Oh, right.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You're speeding it up.

Gamemaster:Okay, sure.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Gamemaster:Yeah, you can make holy water.

Argyle:And then I would like to, on the second night when we have this, to unite our little group to talk.

Gamemaster:That's okay.

Johnny:Bye.

Gamemaster:Is your little group the four of you?

Gamemaster:Okay, sure.

Argyle:Yes.

Anzu:Our merry little band.

Argyle:Yes.

Gamemaster:Gotcha.

Argyle:All right, so... No, no, no, no, no.

Gamemaster:I didn't know if that was like everybody in your skin network or if it was just like, yeah, okay.

Argyle:All right, so... On to... How are you going to communicate with your sister?

Argyle:Have you put thought into that?

Anzu:I was thinking when I saw her, I would probably say hello.

Argyle:That's a terrible plan.

Argyle:What if you don't see her?

Argyle:Don't you want to see your family?

Anzu:Well, for one thing, we don't even know for sure that she's going to be here.

Argyle:So if she's crazy, do we abduct her and then bring her to here and we bring her to see the light?

Anzu:But, yeah, I'm a little nervous to see her, to be honest with you, because I'm worried that her mind has been addled by whatever she's been...

Johnny:deprogrammed Anzu in a one-on-one fight between you and your sister who would win

Argyle:Yes.

Argyle:Just like you did with your bird?

Argyle:Is that the plan?

Anzu:I don't think I could do that to a mind as complex as anyone here, especially someone like my sister, who's also psychically gifted.

Argyle:How do we... He's not going to win.

Anzu:That's hard to say.

Anzu:She has been working with my grandmother, who is very powerful.

Johnny:Oh, no.

Anzu:And then I don't know what's happened to her since getting in with this other crowd.

Argyle:He's not going to win.

Argyle:Do you have any secrets to

Argyle:To taking out a psychic?

Argyle:Like, if we had to beat you up, what's a... Why not?

Anzu:If I did, I definitely wouldn't share if I knew.

Anzu:Well, I mean, the one thing is, if you see what it looks like when I channel my psyche, that wears off, and then you have some time where you're a little dazzled.

Argyle:Are most of your spells auditory?

Anzu:I have a lot of... Auditory, very interesting.

Argyle:Like, should we slug her ears or not look at her or?

Benny:Delicious.

Gamemaster:If your spells don't have the subtle trait, then for the most part, they make sound.

Gamemaster:If that's the question.

Anzu:Yeah, I don't think I have any subtle spells, personally.

Argyle:Okay.

Anzu:But I don't know.

Argyle:All right, so we should silence her.

Anzu:She might have a totally different set of spells than me.

Argyle:Second question.

Johnny:If she needs to be silenced, we'll just pop a silence on Benny and he'll run up and make Chick-fil-A.

Argyle:No, no, no, no.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah.

Argyle:I have a spell for you.

Anzu:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:It's called Dream Message.

Anzu:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:I think you should send her a dream message to meet us somewhere.

Anzu:Yeah, that's not a horrible idea.

Anzu:Well, no, I'm just nervous to see her.

Argyle:What do you mean, not a horrible idea?

Argyle:Do you have a better one?

Anzu:That's all.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah, try to have her meet either at our heart or a neutral location, like the Scale's headquarters.

Anzu:I just don't want to make... I also don't want to make her too suspicious.

Argyle:She probably won't go for that.

Argyle:What do you mean?

Johnny:We don't know what these other people have been telling her about Anzu, right?

Johnny:They could be filling her head with lies.

Johnny:They could be like, Anzu's trying to destroy the world.

Anzu:Which, as you all know, I'm very much not.

Argyle:So she'd want to come chat with you.

Argyle:All right, well, if you don't want the spell, I'll take it back.

Anzu:Yeah, I guess I'll try to... No, no, I'll try to reach out to her.

Argyle:Okay.

Anzu:Do you think that I should wait until where we've got going so that she's got nowhere to run?

Anzu:I think I'll wait anyway.

Johnny:Check for one.

Argyle:I don't think she's going to leave.

Anzu:unless you really want me to do it before we go.

Argyle:Howard.

Argyle:I wanted to know before we went to this dinner, because if she doesn't show up to the dinner and she's hiding, we don't know who from her group we should be grilling, you know?

Anzu:Okay, so here's who we haven't spoken to yet.

Benny:Mmm, Chick-fil-A.

Argyle:Yeah, check the line.

Argyle:You can think about it when we talk to the other people in this group.

Argyle:Because we still have a list of people.

Argyle:Who are we about to go talk with?

Gamemaster:you haven't attempted to speak with them i don't believe it

Anzu:Sable & Sons, Ætherion Limited, Verdant Holdings, The RunGunners, Radiant Gun, The Pale Lantern Society, Amber Call, and Garrick Textiles.

Argyle:Sable and Suns.

Argyle:Yeah.

Benny:Woo Gary.

Argyle:We also haven't chatted with the Ministry of Cultural Progress, right?

Argyle:Did they not talk to us?

Benny:They won't like us.

Argyle:We also didn't try chatting with Freight either.

Anzu:Oh, did...

Anzu:Oh, you're right.

Anzu:Yeah, why did that happen?

Anzu:We skipped a couple.

Argyle:We skipped a bunch of people in the beginning, but then we decided we should just chat with everyone.

Gamemaster:Okay, so your plan is to just go down the list of the factions you haven't spoken to and make introductions.

Johnny:I mean, I think through... Yep.

Argyle:Yep.

Anzu:Josh, unless that would be really grueling for you.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:No, it's fine.

Gamemaster:It's totally fine.

Johnny:We can speed it up.

Argyle:It's either going to happen now or in the party, so at least here we are.

Gamemaster:If you want to get a vibe off of everybody first before the party, you're more than welcome to do so.

Benny:Thank you.

Johnny:We can speed through that.

Johnny:We don't have to roleplay every single one.

Argyle:Yeah, and ideally, we would have done this pretty early on of them setting up.

Johnny:That's important.

Gamemaster:Yeah, so... You have the downside there.

Argyle:I want them to not be too situated.

Gamemaster:I guess the upside is that they filter in over the course of the next seven days while you're waiting for the actual takeoff.

Argyle:Like, hey, neighbors, here's some proudies.

Gamemaster:So I guess you could just hang out in the central area with a telescope and wait to see when you see a Fane start popping up in different areas.

Benny:you

Gamemaster:Yeah, exactly.

Gamemaster:I see you're new here kind of stuff.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Gamemaster:How about you guys tell me an org and then if you just want a really basic overview or if you want to actually talk to them and we can just knock them out one by one and get you whatever information you're looking for.

Johnny:Let's start with the RunGunners because they're right next door and we can be like, do you know Dura?

Argyle:I'm trying to recruit as many people into our coalition as possible.

Argyle:And if they basically are not talking to us, that's okay.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Gamemaster:So, you know, to explain the weird thing on the map, when you go over to the RunGunners, you see that their Fane is not the traditional shape that you would expect.

Gamemaster:It instead appears to have the width of their segment of the Strider has been turned into this weird...

Johnny:Okay.

Gamemaster:racetrack slash trench is the best way of putting it.

Gamemaster:It's fortified on both sides, but it's open effectively to the side where you guys are on and to the other side of the segment.

Gamemaster:And in the middle, there is a full... It's turned into flat, paved asphalt.

Gamemaster:There are garages and stuff to set up vehicles, which, of course, they were only allowed one.

Benny:Thank you.

Johnny:Bye.

Gamemaster:But it appears in the Fane of, you know, skirting around the rules as best as possible.

Gamemaster:They brought one 18-wheeler, the interior of which was enchanted to be a garage.

Gamemaster:Um, and so they, uh, uh, have, there's, like, the setup is the 118-wheeler with a ramp coming off of it, and if you guys are trying to get to them as they're setting up, you get to watch this procession of other cars, of, uh, clearly post-market modification, uh, drive out of this 118-wheeler, because that is kind of their shtick.

Gamemaster:Uh, when you head over to them, uh, run...

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Uh... The... Oh gosh, what does a fetchling look like?

Johnny:Good job.

Gamemaster:I wrote that down and I can't remember what they actually look like.

Gamemaster:Oh, right.

Gamemaster:It's just a person but with no color.

Gamemaster:Um... The... The person that you meet... Well, this person doesn't have any.

Argyle:Josh doesn't see color I don't like that

Gamemaster:Uh... I am colorblind.

Benny:That's what you'd say.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Um...

Gamemaster:When you go over to visit them, they are generally friendly.

Gamemaster:I'd love a society check.

Anzu:I'm so on it.

Gamemaster:Or I suppose a deception check would also fit here.

Anzu:Whoa.

Anzu:And you'd also allow one of each.

Gamemaster:Yeah, I would allow one of each.

Gamemaster:Or two of one.

Argyle:I'm not going to make it unless I can make a religion check.

Johnny:That was an okay roll.

Anzu:Yikes.

Johnny:I got a 23 deception.

Anzu:And I got a 20.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Argyle:You guys suck.

Benny:Oof.

Gamemaster:Alrighty.

Johnny:Oof.

Gamemaster:So the representative that you get to meet with the face of the RunGunners here is a male, maybe late 30s fetchling, which is humanoid.

Gamemaster:They look like a human, except they have completely colorless gray skin.

Gamemaster:Named Ceres, who is... Yeah.

Argyle:Oh.

Argyle:23 is the level-based DC.

Argyle:If it's easy.

Argyle:I always have to calibrate myself on this goddamn game, because this would have been like endgame for 5e.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Right, of course.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Yes, no, 23 is if you're on level.

Benny:you you

Argyle:Yeah, yeah.

Gamemaster:If you're above that, yes.

Argyle:And it's like a normal, not hard or anything.

Gamemaster:Sirius is wearing what looks to be a worker's overalls oil stand.

Gamemaster:Honestly, kind of similar to what you would see Dura wearing when she worked on cars in the Sin and Tonic back home.

Gamemaster:He is pretty unemotive.

Gamemaster:They are generally friendly.

Gamemaster:They make small talk.

Gamemaster:They don't seem like they're going to immediately drive you away.

Gamemaster:They're happy to let you take a look around their area, especially given how close it might get to yours, since you're neighbors.

Gamemaster:Makes a lot of overtures towards being good neighbors, being friendly with each other, all of that kind of stuff.

Argyle:Thank you.

Gamemaster:With that role, they are...

Gamemaster:Definitely amiable, but not friends.

Gamemaster:They are a little bit closed off.

Gamemaster:They're not necessarily, they're not going to agree to an alliance or to information sharing or anything like that.

Gamemaster:They're actually not even, despite being the only org currently with a road running through their territory and being adjacent to you, they don't seem particularly enthusiastic about letting you use it if you needed to pass through.

Gamemaster:So they're friendly, but they're not friends.

Gamemaster:And unfortunately with those roles, you can't quite tell like what the underlying reason is.

Argyle:How many of them are there?

Gamemaster:You don't know if it's because they're distrustful of other orgs in general, if they have a reason for disliking you in particular, if they're just secretly pretty mean, who knows.

Gamemaster:But they are, you know, they're on good terms.

Gamemaster:They're not on information sharing terms, if that makes sense.

Johnny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:All told, there are about 12 vehicles and about eight people.

Argyle:What do their raiments look like?

Argyle:Do they look like all...

Gamemaster:Raiments are complete hodgepodge.

Gamemaster:Like, there's no unifying god or anything like that amongst them.

Gamemaster:You actually see a few of them that have interesting split raiments, where it looks like they converted halfway through, or they equally worship two of the outer gods or something like that.

Gamemaster:If you... What did we get on the society?

Anzu:Oney.

Gamemaster:Okay, so you don't know a lot about the RunGunners, but one thing you do know as a kind of...

Gamemaster:like, mythology around them, if that makes sense, is that they have one city in the middle of the desert that is filled with hundreds of hearts that all have their own fame.

Gamemaster:There's no coordination amongst them.

Gamemaster:It's a complete patchwork of a city, and the people who live in it are said to kind of take on that effect, where they just pick up bits and pieces of different religions and cultures and all of that kind of stuff.

Gamemaster:And the representative sample that you see here definitely matches it.

Argyle:I offer my services as a healer if they need it.

Anzu:The only thing they worship is the open road.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:A little bit.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:They don't seem particularly interested.

Gamemaster:They give you the pleasant, oh, I thank you for offering kind of thing.

Argyle:I don't expect any orc to take me up on it.

Argyle:I don't expect any orc, but I deal with curses, you know, open wounds, sicknesses, plastic surgery also, in case you need some face work.

Gamemaster:Sure, but you're offering.

Gamemaster:You're getting a lot of active listening cues with clearly not a lot of actual, like, okay, sure.

Argyle:I hand him a card.

Johnny:Wow.

Benny:wow oh

Gamemaster:It goes into some pocket in the overalls.

Johnny:Oh, no way.

Gamemaster:Yeah, exactly.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:I resonate.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Of the group that are here, Ceres, the person that you're talking to, and one other of the RunGunners picks up on that resonance.

Argyle:Cool.

Argyle:Well, I'm ready to go to the next group.

Benny:Sure.

Anzu:Maybe Radiant Arms or... I would talk to Garrick Tectiles.

Benny:PLS.

Benny:Let's go to Garrick.

Anzu:I would.

Johnny:Let's do it.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Gamemaster:Next up is Garrick Textiles.

Anzu:I feel like there's going to be one person there.

Johnny:Yeah, I don't really know what I'm doing here.

Gamemaster:You are close.

Gamemaster:There are two.

Anzu:Oh my god, it's a mom and pop shop.

Gamemaster:Garrick Textiles... The...

Anzu:Oh my god, I feel so bad.

Benny:John and Jacob Garrick.

Gamemaster:So Garrick Textiles, when you go to their Fane, it is unfortunate in how it's been situated, because it is clearly the beginnings of a much larger building that they ran out of energy for as they were constructing it.

Gamemaster:So they have the initial entrance hall, and then they have a very cramped little bedroom, and then that's it.

Gamemaster:They ran out of energy as they were making stuff up, so you greet... Who is...

Gamemaster:Actually, can I get a perception check as you meet one of the two people, Mr. Obratz?

Argyle:Yeah, I'll make one.

Johnny:make one true 31

Argyle:Is this a site check?

Gamemaster:I mean, you're looking at the guy, so sure.

Gamemaster:31, okay.

Argyle:All right, 28.

Argyle:You bitch.

Gamemaster:So, Letov Obratz, Mr. Obratz, he's clearly old money.

Gamemaster:he's this deep purple-skinned tiefling wearing an ornate, heavily filigreed three-piece suit.

Gamemaster:He's carrying around this expensive-looking, almost obsidian rock material-looking cane that he uses to support himself as he walks.

Gamemaster:He is...

Gamemaster:pretty friendly as far as what you would assume somebody of old money would necessarily be.

Gamemaster:He's welcoming.

Gamemaster:He is immediately apologetic of the standings of the fame that you guys have entered, because you walk into this grand staircase that leads nowhere, nice marble flooring that goes to a back door that is sealed shut.

Argyle:This is so sad.

Gamemaster:There are some little couches in the front as decoration.

Argyle:Wait, what sealed shot?

Gamemaster:There's a door that should head to further into the building, but there's nothing behind the door because they ran out of energy as they were building it.

Argyle:Uh...

Gamemaster:He's a little bit...

Gamemaster:He's nice, but he's clearly a little bit disconnected from the rest, because the only other person that's here on behalf of Textile, a band of Garrick Textiles, is what seems to be his secretary, his administrative assistant, however you want to call it, who is clearly way too far in over their heads.

Gamemaster:It's this little sprite that is carrying around this big ream of paper that's supposed to be like meanings and stuff, but it seems not a lot of people have reached out to Mr. Obratz for whatever reason.

Gamemaster:But he's all very, come on in, come on in.

Benny:you

Gamemaster:If I had a kitchen, I would make you some tea.

Gamemaster:I do not, unfortunately, as of yet, but I can offer you some water.

Argyle:Are you guys eating?

Gamemaster:We've been going into the restaurant in the center of town.

Gamemaster:They have been particularly kind to us.

Gamemaster:And whenever we go, we ask if we can take one of their crafts home, because we have not yet gotten indoor plumbing working.

Gamemaster:But as soon as we have that, trust me, we will be holding all of the best soirees here.

Gamemaster:Yes, sir.

Johnny:Add a character.

Gamemaster:For me, sure.

Johnny:I'm going to use double speak.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Johnny:And I'm going to say, it's so great to meet you.

Johnny:I'm Johnny Skyfall.

Johnny:If you ever want to come over and have some of our food and hang out, really great to have you over at Iconoclasm.

Johnny:That's what I'm saying to him.

Benny:you

Johnny:I'm going to use double speak so that the rest of the team knows that I'm saying these guys are going to die.

Johnny:But also, I really like these guys.

Johnny:We got to protect these guys.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:They're so dead.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:It's so great.

Johnny:How did you guys end up here?

Johnny:What was the scenario that led to you guys getting...

Argyle:I resonate.

Gamemaster:You resonate.

Gamemaster:Neither of these people resonate back.

Gamemaster:Mr. Obrez.

Argyle:Does anyone else... Do we get any other pings?

Argyle:Because it's a 30-foot.

Gamemaster:There are only two people in this building as far as you're aware.

Argyle:Just double-checking there isn't some secret... Some secret thing.

Gamemaster:Oh, I understand.

Gamemaster:I understand.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You ping as far as you're aware.

Gamemaster:These are the only two people.

Gamemaster:You get no pings back other than the four of you.

Gamemaster:Mr. Obrat says, well, my nephew actually received this wonderful invitation, but unfortunately he fell ill.

Benny:What?

Gamemaster:And so I thought it would be a grand adventure to visit this place.

Gamemaster:I figured I could do my work on the road.

Gamemaster:It would be a nice vacation.

Gamemaster:I'm afraid I didn't expect the accommodations to be quite so do-it-yourself, so to speak.

Gamemaster:But my grandfather built Garrick textiles from the ground up, and surely I have a little bit of his spirit in there.

Argyle:Who's your nephew?

Gamemaster:I'm sure I'll find my craftiness.

Gamemaster:My nephew?

Gamemaster:Oh gosh, what's his nephew's name?

Argyle:Sorry, sorry.

Argyle:No, you don't have to tell us.

Argyle:Dude, I just wanted to know we didn't know him.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Argyle:That it wasn't just like, it's Illmari!

Gamemaster:You have... Yeah, no, no, no, no, no.

Argyle:Okay.

Johnny:It's totally over.

Gamemaster:It's something Obratz.

Benny:I don't know

Gamemaster:I don't remember his name.

Argyle:Okay, okay, okay.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gamemaster:You haven't met the nephew.

Argyle:That's fine.

Argyle:Alright, just double checking.

Argyle:Who didn't ask him his nephew, you idiots?

Johnny:You know what I mean?

Anzu:Mr. Obratz, if you have any magical items that you could maybe deal with parting with, you are able to feed them to your heart and maybe expand your home.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Argyle:I'm gonna pull Johnny aside.

Johnny:It's really easy for me to do that.

Argyle:No, no, no, no.

Gamemaster:Yes, my... Yes.

Argyle:I'm going to pull them aside.

Argyle:My friends aside will be like, we need to talk him into moving with us because they're going to fucking die.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Argyle:Tell them the Amber Call is scary.

Argyle:I don't know.

Argyle:You guys figure it out.

Johnny:Listen, you know, Mr. I'm so sorry, what was his name again?

Gamemaster:Oh, Bratz.

Johnny:Listen, Olbrats, you know, I know you're getting everything set up here, but we have plenty of space if you want to come to stay over with us and, you know, we can join forces here.

Johnny:I know that I'm just trying to meet you, but, you know, we're just...

Gamemaster:Oh, roll a diplomacy check.

Argyle:And Argyle's going to try to add these, like, you know, you could just be with us while you get the kitchen set up.

Gamemaster:The DC here is pretty high.

Gamemaster:You can, that's, that's an aid, that's an aid check if you want.

Argyle:Trying to pretend is going to be a short-term thing?

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:I'm not going to aid.

Argyle:I'm just going to make it worse.

Gamemaster:Nope.

Argyle:Good luck, Johnny.

Johnny:27.

Johnny:Oh, that's high enough.

Argyle:Nah.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:He says...

Gamemaster:My boy, I deeply appreciate the offer, but I was taught not to lean on others when your own efforts can resolve your situation.

Gamemaster:I wouldn't impose on you like that.

Gamemaster:Just you wait.

Gamemaster:Just a week or two from now, this place will be fully constructed, and if anything, I'll be asking if you'd like to stay over instead of... I unfortunately obviously haven't had the pleasure of seeing your home, but...

Gamemaster:Trust me, I have grand designs for this place.

Gamemaster:It's going to be an atelier over in one corner.

Gamemaster:I'm going to perhaps, I don't know how all of you think of runways, but I've been thinking, I don't know what kind of entertainment we have on the Strider.

Gamemaster:We could do a fashion show of some kind.

Johnny:That's the spirit.

Gamemaster:I brought literally a ton of fabric.

Gamemaster:So I'm more than happy to... I'll be able to test all manner of designs.

Gamemaster:I just haven't had the time to test out.

Gamemaster:It'll be good fun.

Gamemaster:We've just hit a little bit of a roadblock for the time being.

Johnny:You know, I'm sure in a week, I can't wait to see it.

Johnny:Double speak.

Johnny:Everybody else hears.

Johnny:This guy's going to be dead in a week.

Johnny:That was never getting finished.

Johnny:We're gonna steal that fabric.

Argyle:Argyle has made an addition to his business cards, which now say where in the Strider they're located, and he hands one to the secretary.

Gamemaster:the poor pixie like he's just very very harrod looking gives a nod a bit of pixie dust goes flying like no

Argyle:If you need any shelter or time off.

Argyle:Argyle's pleading with his eyes, you're gonna die.

Benny:Well, I look forward to the fashion show.

Benny:I mean, I'm a fan and he'll show the tag on his poncho, his performance poncho that says Garrick Textiles.

Gamemaster:He looks into it.

Johnny:moments.

Gamemaster:Oh, this is, I didn't realize that there were fans of the industry on board.

Gamemaster:This is, you know, the poncho wasn't particularly popular, which always surprised me because I always thought it was an excellent multi-purpose garment.

Benny:Exactly.

Gamemaster:It's just, it's not been particularly popular in Hallia.

Benny:Couldn't have said it better myself.

Gamemaster:Listen, if you go further out, Velthara, they love the poncho, especially further out, especially our waterproof variants.

Gamemaster:Although, admittedly, that fabric isn't as soft, so I don't wear it myself.

Argyle:Are you friends with any of the other, have you been able to meet any of the other parties yet?

Gamemaster:But if you ever find yourself in Velthara, big poncho, big poncho county, county, I can't speak.

Gamemaster:Uh, no, actually, you caught us just as we were setting up.

Gamemaster:I haven't had the chance to go out and socialize.

Johnny:Mm hmm.

Gamemaster:Um, but, uh, I haven't, uh, none of my, none of my, uh, uh, known associates in the textiles industry even knew of this particular invitation, which, you know, exclusive, that's always exciting.

Gamemaster:Uh, but I don't know of anybody else that's, that's on board with us today.

Argyle:Well, be careful of some of the folks here.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Benny:Quite militant.

Gamemaster:Well, I don't plan on entering any War zones, so I'm sure we'll be fine.

Argyle:They might.

Argyle:So just be careful.

Argyle:Also, I'm a doctor.

Argyle:In case anything happens, let me know.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:I suppose if we have a medically related emergency, I'll let you know.

Gamemaster:We have your business card.

Argyle:And Argyle's going to do that thing at the start of a horror movie, which I guess these people are, where he's just going to be like, be careful.

Argyle:And then we're leaving.

Argyle:Not as a threat, as like the wait, holy shit, my neighbors are like, you've moved into the wrong neighborhood, my friend.

Gamemaster:Do you... Do you offer to connect their heart to your skein?

Johnny:You moved into the house where everyone dies once a week?

Johnny:Be careful.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah.

Benny:We can hear them die.

Argyle:So question, Josh, is it dangerous to do that?

Johnny:I think we should... I feel like we have to.

Gamemaster:It opens two-way communication between the hearts.

Argyle:But can you hack hearts through this?

Johnny:They're going to scream for help in the middle of the night.

Johnny:They're going to...

Johnny:We're going to get a call in the middle of the night and they're going to be like, help, we're under attack.

Johnny:And it's going to be tonight.

Gamemaster:Benny and Anzu may roll an arcana check to know what you could possibly do through this game connection.

Gamemaster:While you're doing that, I'll be back in a second.

Benny:Step aside.

Benny:Bird.

Benny:Huh?

Anzu:It's going.

Argyle:Yeah, Benny, you gotta make it roll.

Johnny:You don't have a modifier to that?

Argyle:Yeah.

Benny:To Arcana?

Benny:Benny kills things.

Anzu:It's okay, I got a... That would give you Mythic Proficiency.

Argyle:Mike, use your hero point!

Johnny:Use it right now.

Argyle:Yeah!

Anzu:Anyway, I got a 34, so we should be alright.

Johnny:Okay, good.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:This guy's totally gonna get it.

Argyle:I just hope... I really hope the old man lives.

Argyle:He's totally gonna die, but I hope they just...

Johnny:We gotta connect our heart.

Johnny:We're gonna get a call in the middle of the night and he's like, help!

Johnny:Someone's attacking!

Johnny:My wife is dead!

Johnny:Oh, my secretary is dead!

Argyle:Not wife, just poor secretary.

Anzu:Maybe Amber Call will just make him an offer he can't refuse instead, and he'll live.

Argyle:Well, I'm worried that Amber Call is going to mind control him or something.

Johnny:Oh, no.

Anzu:Oh, that could happen, yeah.

Johnny:Such a nice guy.

Anzu:So I have to mind control him first, is what you're saying.

Argyle:Yes.

Johnny:Yes.

Johnny:We got to get there first.

Anzu:I'll start sending him dream messages.

Argyle:Maybe we should just attack him first and then kidnap him and the other person so that they can survive at our place.

Gamemaster:What?

Argyle:No, we're doing you a favor.

Gamemaster:What?

Johnny:cat we're gonna gaslight this dude we're doing this

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Yeah, it kind of sounds like you're trying to give him Stockholm Syndrome.

Benny:It's for your own book.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Because you are kidnapping him, locking him up, and then being like, but we're doing this because we like you.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Okay, what did we get for the Arcana check?

Anzu:But don't worry, I got a 34.

Benny:Eight.

Gamemaster:Eight?

Gamemaster:Hot damn.

Gamemaster:What's your modifier?

Benny:Anzu rolled two.

Gamemaster:Anzu rolled a two?

Gamemaster:Oh, as well.

Gamemaster:Okay, that makes more sense.

Gamemaster:Gotcha.

Gamemaster:With a 34.

Gamemaster:Okay, so a few things.

Gamemaster:First is, is that...

Gamemaster:If a, like the easiest thing one could do to turn this particular game network connection to you is if somebody who you don't like manages to get their hands on the heart on the other end, they can send messages as that heart and get information that way.

Gamemaster:Like the normal user spoofing.

Argyle:Bye.

Gamemaster:If you get a hold of somebody's phone, you can text somebody pretending to be them type deal.

Anzu:you

Gamemaster:You can't like remote take over another heart or something like that.

Gamemaster:It is purely a communication network.

Gamemaster:You can't like remotely execute commands or anything of that nature.

Gamemaster:But it is not possible to listen in on a conversation that happens on this game from outside of this game.

Gamemaster:Um, so like if you go to talk to the Scale for whatever reason across the Skane network, um, and, uh, like somebody in Prime Meridian, no, that's a bad example because they're connected.

Gamemaster:If somebody in Amber Call, uh, like wants to listen in, but they're not connected to the network, they can't.

Gamemaster:It's just not possible.

Gamemaster:Um, if somebody is connected to the Skane network, but you're not messaging them, like for instance, if they get their hands on this particular heart, uh,

Gamemaster:It is possible, although difficult, to listen in on messages that happen also on that scan network.

Anzu:And can a connection be broken?

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:Yeah, it is possible to, like, unilaterally disconnect from the network.

Gamemaster:That's always an option.

Gamemaster:The, like...

Gamemaster:I would say that normally the caveat is that the administrator of the network has to be the one to do it if you're not voluntarily leaving the network.

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:But this is your scheme, so that's not really an issue.

Gamemaster:If you want to kick off that heart at a later date, you can choose to do so.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Anzu:Nice.

Johnny:We gotta... I feel like we gotta connect with these guys.

Argyle:Are we at them?

Anzu:Does their heart have a name?

Gamemaster:Their heart does have a name that I have to...

Argyle:As long as they tell us to send an SOS if they're being attacked, we can cut them off.

Gamemaster:Their heart is whirling in racks.

Johnny:They're gonna die.

Benny:Yeah.

Anzu:I would connect.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Alright.

Johnny:Well, we should connect our hearts so we can chat in case anything happens.

Gamemaster:He has absolutely no idea how to do what you're talking about, but the secretary can lead you to the heart, which is...

Argyle:Can we create a second network just for him and us?

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:You can only be part of one network at a time.

Argyle:Wait, so is Prime Meridian now getting access to this heart, technically?

Gamemaster:Prime Meridian is on the same Skate Network as you, so you can talk to them, and if they had the ability and willingness to do so, could possibly listen in on your conversations with other people.

Argyle:No, but what I'm asking is, are we creating a group chat with cool people and then adding the loser in, and then all the cool people go, oh.

Gamemaster:It's not a group chat.

Gamemaster:It's like assigning an IP to this person.

Gamemaster:They're on the same local network as you, if that makes sense.

Argyle:OK.

Argyle:But the cool people like Prime Radio don't know that this guy's added, or do they?

Gamemaster:They'd be able to tell that they're part of the network, yeah.

Argyle:This might make us look bad.

Benny:or they might all want in on the canary in the coal mine.

Anzu:It's fine.

Johnny:Yeah.

Argyle:Okay.

Johnny:We'll get it connected.

Gamemaster:Okay, so...

Argyle:We'll give a dossier of these people and basically be like, we don't know.

Gamemaster:You get... Okay, sure.

Argyle:We're keeping Anaïs on them because they're next to Amber Call to let everyone else know.

Argyle:We think they're... Yeah.

Johnny:It's not gonna die.

Gamemaster:So, you get Whirling and Rags hooked up to your skein network so that you can feasibly have a chat with them if you want to, or if you think that they might die in the middle of the night and send off, like, a death rattle, you can... Okay.

Argyle:I stress... Yeah.

Argyle:Yeah, I stress that.

Argyle:If they get attacked, don't let us know.

Gamemaster:okay the pale lantern society

Argyle:Alright.

Argyle:Who's next?

Anzu:We can do it.

Benny:PLS?

Argyle:Case?

Argyle:Who?

Benny:Pale Lantern Society?

Anzu:I'm nervous, but we can definitely do it.

Benny:It's nervous about it.

Anzu:I guess it would be good to really see who it is.

Argyle:Should we wait to talk to these people for the party?

Argyle:I don't know if we should walk on their land.

Argyle:Nah, they're not going to attack us.

Argyle:We should go.

Benny:Yeah.

Argyle:Alright.

Benny:Anzu, why don't you want to see PLS?

Anzu:I just, I feel like they're going to be aligned with Amber Call.

Benny:Well, let's see.

Gamemaster:Hey, you guys head over to the Pan-Landrin Society.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Pan-Landrin Society, the way that their fame is set up is a, it's not a, a complex is too fancy of a word for it.

Gamemaster:It's really more a collection of buildings in an area.

Gamemaster:It's not walled in or anything of that nature.

Gamemaster:They haven't

Gamemaster:seemingly built defenses of that kind.

Gamemaster:Instead, it's set up so that there is one larger building in the middle and then a handful of smaller auxiliary buildings around.

Gamemaster:I'd love a perception check as you guys are walking up to this one.

Gamemaster:Since you're doing the whole strategy of getting to people semi-recently after they've set up their Fane, like once they've come on, you are in this...

Argyle:That's so they're not like, will be trapped.

Gamemaster:Sure, they're not booby-trapped, but also there's no road infrastructure, so it's very much like walking over grass fields just to a random set of buildings that seem to have sprung up in the middle of nowhere.

Argyle:Oh.

Johnny:Johnny and I got... Okay, well, mine's 34 crit.

Argyle:I made a mistake.

Argyle:Mine's actually a 36 crit.

Argyle:Might be.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:Not as good.

Gamemaster:That's two successful crits.

Gamemaster:They're actually equally good in this scenario.

Argyle:You sure the border wasn't 35?

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:You're both so observant as you walk up to this complex.

Gamemaster:There is, at first glance, a substantially higher number of people that they've brought here than you have seen so far in other areas.

Gamemaster:But with your high perceptions, you're not fooled for that long, because you can see the movements of a lot of the figures as they are setting up the Fane and the like are slow and jerky in a way that you wouldn't expect regular people to be.

Gamemaster:And so you can identify them from pretty far out as the movements of...

Gamemaster:some kind of undead, probably, being directed in some form.

Gamemaster:And as you get closer, you can see it is... It's interesting, they're not zombies, because if they were zombies, you would be hit with this immediate stench of rot.

Gamemaster:If anything, these guys don't really have much of a scent at all.

Gamemaster:But they do very much seem like... It's as if somebody took a skeleton...

Gamemaster:and then attached musculature and ligature and the like, and then didn't bother putting skin on top.

Benny:you you

Gamemaster:It is very much the bare minimum needed for something that doesn't have pain receptors and something that doesn't need to look particularly attractive.

Gamemaster:to interact with living things.

Gamemaster:And then they just chuck some clothes on top to stop them from wearing away with exposure to the elements.

Gamemaster:They are drones, so to speak.

Gamemaster:Humanoid drones just grown instead of built.

Johnny:you

Gamemaster:And something is directing them, as they set about moving objects, unloading them off of... They didn't try to skirt around the you-get-one-vehicle rule, so they just had one, like, trailer that they are actively pulling boxes off of and unloading into their home.

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:You get, just from the size of this area, multiple houses, any one of which is larger than yours, that when they were putting together this feign,

Gamemaster:They had somebody around who was familiar with the Heart of constructing fanes from hearts and was able to steer it in a direction that fit whatever they were looking for.

Anzu:Thank you.

Gamemaster:This is clearly a better outfit group.

Gamemaster:I don't think any of you have necessarily had the chance in your backstories to interact with the Pale Lantern Society all that much.

Gamemaster:Yes?

Argyle:When I got registered with the College of Surgeons, did I interact with them?

Argyle:Or is that a pure Scale thing?

Gamemaster:That's a pure Scale thing.

Benny:you

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:Because otherwise the Scale would then be admitting that the licensing of surgeons is operated by a different org that isn't them, and I don't think they would see that power.

Gamemaster:The Scale operates hospitals, and they do have those kind of licensing, but it's for...

Gamemaster:Not extra-national military organizations, if that makes sense.

Argyle:It's MDs and DOs, you know?

Gamemaster:Yeah, exactly.

Gamemaster:Still doctors, but certified by a different organization.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Yeah, so I, like, the closest you might have gotten is that you may have, any of you would have had the opportunity throughout your backstory's lifetimes to walk through a columbarium, which is kind of their big, famous, that's what they're known for thing in the modern day.

Benny:you

Gamemaster:which are these huge art pieces made up of petrified corpses posed in ways to be artistic, such that in the future when they figure out mass revive dead, they'll just open up the doors and everybody that had been stuck in the columbariums will walk out.

Gamemaster:But for the time being, they're art pieces.

Gamemaster:And you can see that as part of what these weird undead creatures are doing is...

Gamemaster:They appear to have brought some corpses that they are posing in the front, like, courtyard area to make a nice, pleasing little diorama.

Gamemaster:You're here too early to figure out what the diorama would be, but it is a little macabre to see these undead skeletons with muscles lugging around what are clearly corpses of...

Gamemaster:Some people, like, you wouldn't recognize the actual people, but they do strike you as dead.

Gamemaster:And then, like, tying wires around the legs so they can hold the pose while upright and the like, and moving them into position before putting clothing on top to hide all of that kind of posing armature and the like.

Gamemaster:But none of those drone things take notice of you as you walk up.

Gamemaster:It is perhaps obvious from your roles where you would need to go to meet the actual people.

Gamemaster:which you can absolutely do.

Gamemaster:The front-facing bits of the Pale Lantern Society, there would be two people that strike you as being the more diplomatic of the group.

Gamemaster:There are a few people.

Gamemaster:You had asked about the RunGunners, where the RunGunners had eight.

Gamemaster:Pale Lantern Society is probably one of the larger ones.

Gamemaster:There's maybe 20 people, all told.

Argyle:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Maybe a good half of those look to be of combat role, of not necessarily part of the Pale Lantern Society, but as hirelings brought on.

Gamemaster:But quite a few of them do appear to be full-fledged card-carrying members of the PLS.

Gamemaster:Which you can see, their logo is...

Gamemaster:literally just a lantern, and you can see that a handful of them have a little badge that kind of glows like a lantern pinned to their lapel.

Gamemaster:Yes, Jorge.

Argyle:I'm going to resonate and then also level-wise, do they look like size of their ringments?

Gamemaster:Hmm.

Argyle:Do they look on par?

Gamemaster:So, the...

Gamemaster:The majority of the people that were hired by them, you would benchmark as being not as strong as you are.

Gamemaster:You would guess like around level three, level four, but there's a lot of them.

Argyle:But there's a lot.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Of the actual members of the society that are here, most of them are clearly civilians, don't have any necessarily combat experience.

Gamemaster:They look like maybe level one.

Gamemaster:But there are two that do stand out as being pretty powerful, maybe eight or nine, like slightly larger than yours, not a whole lot larger.

Gamemaster:One of them is... They look like they could be related.

Argyle:Go ahead.

Gamemaster:Or maybe it's just racist to assume they're related.

Gamemaster:They're both very pale-looking elves of indeterminate but clearly older age with pulled back, pure white hair, wearing lab coats that have been very meticulously treated.

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:They look almost like they were ironed before they were put on.

Gamemaster:They don't have gloves, but they both clearly have a spot where gloves could be pulled out of a pocket in the front, as if they were immediately going to walk into a surgical suite somewhere, despite the fact that's likely not to happen here.

Argyle:Hmm.

Gamemaster:They... Of note, because you guys rolled really high...

Gamemaster:One of them, the one that would immediately greet you, Manus, smells of preserving agents, of formaldehyde and ethyl alcohol and other really strong-smelling, pungent, sterilizing fluids and the like.

Gamemaster:Um, the other one, uh, the female elf of almost the same similar, uh, uh, like, general structure as this person, uh, Brienne, uh...

Benny:you

Argyle:he's a lich mhm mhm

Gamemaster:doesn't have that smell at all, as if just Manus came out of, like, making a new one of these drones or preserving something or the like, and the other one has been... Neither of them immediately strike you as liches.

Gamemaster:That doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Gamemaster:I don't know how frequently your characters would have interacted with liches and know the telltale signs, if there are any.

Gamemaster:But both of them look to be alive at first glance, at least.

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:No rainbow flags.

Gamemaster:No?

Gamemaster:Oh.

Argyle:We'll...

Gamemaster:Yeah, I got it now.

Anzu:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You don't have to explain.

Anzu:Sorry about that, Josh.

Gamemaster:It's fine.

Gamemaster:It took me a second.

Anzu:That's my bad, apparently.

Gamemaster:God.

Gamemaster:God, the fact puller for this session is just going to be like, liches are gay.

Gamemaster:And then chuck that into the...

Gamemaster:Yeah, so Manus, the formaldehyde-smelling one, will greet all of you.

Gamemaster:Doesn't necessarily... None of the people in here seem like they're quite in the mood to receive guests, but they're not immediately turning you out like Necrolog did.

Argyle:We can come back.

Gamemaster:It's more of a, I'm busy.

Gamemaster:Like, I don't know why you're necessarily coming up to me.

Gamemaster:I will...

Gamemaster:I will humor you for a moment, but I'm busy setting up the fan right now.

Argyle:We can chat with them.

Gamemaster:For what?

Argyle:I just want to chat.

Argyle:We can chat with you at the dinner.

Gamemaster:If you have something pressing, I don't mind speaking about it.

Gamemaster:I just... With all due respect, I don't know who you are, and we haven't joined this pilgrimage to make friends.

Argyle:Why did you join the pilgrimage?

Johnny:We're just trying to share information.

Gamemaster:Information.

Gamemaster:I imagine the same reason all of you did.

Benny:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:I look to John and be like, tell them we're sharing information.

Johnny:None of us really know what's happening here, so we're just trying to work together.

Gamemaster:Well, the issue, if we all work together, is that no one has any particular edge.

Johnny:but you don't need an edge if you work together.

Gamemaster:There is...

Gamemaster:There is a bet to be had here, which I think is perhaps interesting.

Gamemaster:Do I trust the ability of myself and my companions to be able to gather information faster or more wholly than you and whatever friends you've made for information sharing?

Gamemaster:Because if I don't believe that to be true, then it absolutely makes sense for me to join your little cadre.

Gamemaster:But I do believe that's true, and then there's nothing for me to gain and everything for me to lose.

Johnny:We just wanted to make friends, guy.

Johnny:Figured it's better to...

Gamemaster:It is often the position of the weak to band together.

Gamemaster:And I do admit that has worked on more than one occasion.

Gamemaster:I am mostly a study of history more than anything else.

Gamemaster:But not always.

Gamemaster:No, it's preserving the weak.

Benny:Isn't your whole thing saving the week?

Benny:And Benny will gesture to his one-third pulse raiment.

Gamemaster:Those are two different things.

Johnny:I mean, talking about banding together, there's several million ants for every person and they work together.

Johnny:I'm just saying.

Johnny:It's not going to be said for ants.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:And how many great civilizations have ants constructed?

Johnny:Every great civilization has ants.

Gamemaster:It's a cheeky way of saying none.

Johnny:Some could say that great civilizations are just building houses for ants.

Gamemaster:Some would be wrong.

Anzu:I don't speak Ant, so I don't know how advanced their culture is.

Johnny:I speak very advanced.

Gamemaster:Don't worry, no one speaks ants.

Benny:Could have fooled us.

Gamemaster:Their brains are not large enough to speak.

Gamemaster:When one casts speak with animals, it grants the ability to speak to the ant.

Gamemaster:They do not speak with each other normally.

Argyle:That's fair.

Johnny:You know, we just came by to be fun.

Benny:Did you guess?

Argyle:I have a question for you.

Johnny:It sounds like this is the first experience, actually.

Gamemaster:I applaud you.

Gamemaster:I... I... Okay.

Johnny:Have you tried it?

Argyle:As a doctor, I have a question for you.

Gamemaster:Like a consult?

Argyle:Do you know, would you be willing to share if you have information of the ritual reincarnation?

Gamemaster:No.

Johnny:Are you sure?

Johnny:Well, how can, sounds like you don't know it then.

Argyle:Sure that you don't know it or sure that you don't want to share?

Gamemaster:Absolutely sure that I would not share that.

Benny:you

Argyle:That's fair.

Argyle:That's kind of against their whole thing, you know, reincarnating.

Gamemaster:Roll a diplomacy check, I suppose?

Argyle:They're kind of just... It's like the opposite of the pulse to actually reincarnate.

Gamemaster:You're, like, goading him.

Argyle:They're like, no, die as a body.

Johnny:Oh, that was a bad roll.

Johnny:That was a really bad roll.

Johnny:I got an 18.

Gamemaster:In 18.

Gamemaster:Yeah, no, so reincarnation absolutely is like of the realm of the air, which is the opposite of the pulse.

Gamemaster:The pulse's whole deal is either you stay alive or you're gone.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You are at no point coming back as someone else.

Gamemaster:Do not reenter the cycle of life.

Johnny:What if you die but come back as the same guy every time?

Gamemaster:That's actually totally fine.

Gamemaster:That's, like, super cool.

Gamemaster:That's awesome.

Gamemaster:Because that's you explicitly leaving the circle of life and reincarnating as yourself, I suppose.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:But he says, I'm confused.

Gamemaster:Do you need the ritual, or is this some kind of gotcha where you're trying to figure out if I know it?

Johnny:If you have the ritual and want to share it, we would take it.

Johnny:I mean, I personally... What if we invite you over to a pool party?

Gamemaster:I have the ritual.

Gamemaster:I'm not going to share it.

Gamemaster:You're clearly getting on his nerves a little bit.

Argyle:Ready to go.

Gamemaster:Because his response is to snap his fingers and three of those drones that were busy unloading will walk up next to him and be like, if I needed a pool, I could ask them to dig me one.

Benny:Well, I mean, you've backed us into a corner because if we demonstrated a better ability to obtain information than the people you have here, we make your team look like fools.

Gamemaster:I do not need to visit your pool.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah, thank you for your time.

Anzu:Well, it was really great to make some introductions.

Anzu:Uh...

Benny:So I think we'll just leave it here.

Gamemaster:This is true.

Gamemaster:If you are able to collect information more wholly than we can, I will concede that you are clearly better and I made the wrong decision.

Argyle:That's fair.

Gamemaster:Admittedly, I don't make the wrong decision often, but I suppose we'll see.

Benny:Okay.

Johnny:Johnny's gone with him.

Argyle:Do you think he knows about the other six?

Benny:Well, if you want to give us a challenge, if you want to give us a challenge, and Benny will slap Anzu's shoulder, this guy loves nothing but a challenge.

Gamemaster:Frankly, I don't care whether you like challenges or not.

Argyle:Argyle's gone.

Benny:Oh, it's him.

Argyle:Argyle left.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Benny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Argyle:Now, Johnny, Johnny, you are the most social of all of us.

Gamemaster:It's fine.

Argyle:You cannot be the most goading of all of us as well.

Argyle:It is your responsibility to smooth out everything else.

Johnny:Listen, there's people, we got to, there's some conversations we get into where there's a, you know, maybe there's a way.

Johnny:There's some where the guy is like, I'm smarter than you and I don't need to be part of this.

Johnny:And at that point, I'm going to be a jerk.

Argyle:Yeah, but we don't need him to...

Argyle:hate us, and then start talking bad about us at dinner parties.

Gamemaster:Where to next?

Johnny:Fine, next person we go to, I won't be as goading.

Argyle:Yes, yes.

Argyle:Because if Prime Meridian decides to cut ties with us, that's bad.

Johnny:As long as we're friends with the Protectorate, I feel like they're really the big dogs that we need in our corner.

Argyle:They're tentative.

Argyle:They're tentative right now.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah.

Argyle:All right.

Argyle:Where to next, gentlemen?

Benny:The freight people, yeah.

Argyle:Do you want to go to the freak thing?

Argyle:Yeah, let's go there.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Argyle:The military planes guys didn't want to speak to us, right?

Argyle:They were like, eh, well.

Gamemaster:Military planes, guys.

Argyle:Did we go there?

Gamemaster:Oh, Ternion Heavy Industries?

Argyle:Did we go there?

Gamemaster:You didn't try to go there, no.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:Alkahest freight.

Gamemaster:These guys are one of the smaller ones.

Gamemaster:There is a pretty noticeable divide now that you guys are walking around the span of the Strider.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Some of these areas are large.

Gamemaster:There was clearly some know-how in building veins.

Gamemaster:And some of these areas are smaller and were more like you, where they were figuring things out as they go, type deal.

Gamemaster:Alkahest Freight, clearly the latter.

Gamemaster:Their home is, or their base, is approximately the same size as yours.

Gamemaster:It's around the same length.

Gamemaster:I think theirs was more like a line, if I recall.

Gamemaster:Let me double check.

Gamemaster:Yeah, it is.

Gamemaster:But it is...

Gamemaster:similar in general structure to yours.

Gamemaster:It's clear at some point that they realized that they would get more out of the construction if they spent less effort making it look nice.

Gamemaster:So it is like pretty plain concrete exterior, but it does the job.

Gamemaster:The person that you meet there is this really wire-thin looking elven man, Kadou Floch.

Gamemaster:he's clearly like he's not the owner of Alkahest Freight from his bearing he's pretty soft spoken he's clearly not commanding any rooms he strikes you more as like middle to upper level like upper middle management he doesn't necessarily strike you as the guy who's coming up with the new initiative to push it to an area or something like that

Argyle:I'm going to hang for secret stowaways.

Gamemaster:That said, can I get an Arcana or Society check here?

Anzu:I did Arcana and I got a 28.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:So there are only like four people here.

Gamemaster:This guy, Kadou, is clearly the head of the group.

Gamemaster:Kadou is also the only one that resonates when you resonate.

Johnny:you

Gamemaster:28.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:So when you guys come in, I think the first thing that makes you think, oh, this guy isn't familiar with the politics game or anything like that, is that he is immediately...

Gamemaster:pretty friendly with you guys, and assumes that you're friendly with him.

Gamemaster:Because when you show up and you introduce yourselves, he says, great, now that you're here, I had a question for you, if you could answer it.

Gamemaster:And then he pulls out this map of the infinite horizon that marks different areas.

Gamemaster:A lot of it is question marks, but some of it are, there's a colony here, there's a rail line that goes this way, all of that kind of stuff.

Gamemaster:And he says...

Gamemaster:So, like, I've been trying to map out where we might be headed and what we might be hitting because I didn't bring enough gear to survive, like, a multi-month long trip.

Gamemaster:So I was hoping we would be able to, like, pick up some supplies somewhere.

Gamemaster:Where do you think any gestures to the map would, like, make sense for us to stop at?

Gamemaster:With the 28 Arcana, the way that he's looking at the map and he can identify things and knows logistics and stuff like that, you gather that this is a pretty smart individual, if not a combat or politics like social based person.

Anzu:Right.

Gamemaster:This is clearly somebody who works for Alkahest Freight for the actual job of like getting things across the infant horizon and has a lot of experience with that particular task.

Anzu:So my

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Benny:you you

Anzu:Personal opinion is this craft is kind of unprecedented in size and function.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Anzu:And it will really require us taking our first step of the journey to make any calculations of what its efficiency is.

Gamemaster:I've been making some assumptions about how far we can get before stopping to pick up some more energy.

Gamemaster:Because traditionally, I haven't had the chance to look at a Strider normally.

Gamemaster:We just use standard locomotives.

Gamemaster:But traditionally, they have to stop for an extended period of time to pull up latent ambient energy to proceed further down the horizon.

Anzu:They've got these big arms that spin around, and I'm not sure what they do yet, but they have something to do with the ability of the Strider to jump.

Gamemaster:But if we have to do that every five or ten hops, we're going to be here for decades.

Gamemaster:So I have to imagine they've done something to address that.

Gamemaster:I was hoping you had some insight, maybe I'd be able to map around it.

Gamemaster:You know, I've noticed the arms spun a little bit when we were first getting set up.

Gamemaster:And we were still setting up some equipment and the like, because I'm planning on mapping out the journey so that we can send it back home so they know the route that we took and we get past the wall, which, you know, fingers crossed we do.

Gamemaster:And...

Gamemaster:Noticeably, the ambient energy around the Strider dipped by almost 50% when that thing was spinning, which is wild.

Gamemaster:So I'm excited to see what happens when it's fully running.

Gamemaster:It got to the point that I almost felt tired when it was spinning up for a half second.

Gamemaster:But it'll be exciting to see where we're going.

Anzu:Yeah, and this first jump will elucidate a lot, I think, about what the rest of the journey will be like.

Gamemaster:Yeah, it's exciting.

Gamemaster:I'm looking forward to it.

Anzu:Can I ask you actually an... Oh, sorry.

Gamemaster:Who are you, by the way?

Anzu:Well, my name's Anzu.

Anzu:We're part of Iconoclasm.

Gamemaster:Nice to meet you all.

Johnny:Nice to meet you.

Anzu:I'm trying to become a student of the Voidsong, if you will, because with it being such a new phenomenon, we're going to need someone like that or people like that, really.

Anzu:I'm wondering if you've got any theories or if that's part of the draw of you being here is the Voidsong itself.

Gamemaster:Well, I mean, the reason I'm here is to get to the Voidsong.

Gamemaster:I have my own theories.

Gamemaster:People laugh me off every time I talk about it, for the most part.

Gamemaster:You know, and at this point, you notice his raiment is pure silver.

Gamemaster:which you guys would know is the compels Raymond.

Anzu:I do believe that it is a cry for help of some kind.

Gamemaster:He says, my theory, and everybody laughs me off, is that Raelion is out there on the other side of the wall, and this is them crying out for help.

Argyle:Maybe the maybe the bomb transported them.

Anzu:And so maybe you're onto something.

Anzu:Because I get kind of a similar feeling of need.

Anzu:Yeah, so that's very fascinating.

Gamemaster:I just think they got thrown out there and this is the only way.

Johnny:You see Johnny kind of like slump a little bit.

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Gamemaster:I mean, like...

Gamemaster:I know it was wishful thinking, but I just can't imagine that a whole country's worth of people got blown up and just ceased to exist.

Gamemaster:It was magical.

Gamemaster:It did something to the weave.

Gamemaster:I think it's possible they got chucked so far voidward, and we just couldn't find them because they're on the other side of the wall.

Gamemaster:But we're, presumably, these little clown people have figured out a way across the wall, so I guess we'll see then.

Anzu:Mm hmm.

Johnny:I really like that theory, and I hope that theory's right.

Gamemaster:Thank you.

Gamemaster:You're literally the first person that hasn't laughed in my face when I've said it.

Johnny:I don't think that's something to laugh about.

Gamemaster:I mean, I appreciate all of you.

Benny:There's three other of us here.

Argyle:You seem like a good person.

Johnny:We should connect, if you want to connect to this game we're putting together, so we can chat.

Gamemaster:Oh, that'd be awesome.

Gamemaster:I've already been running out of compute space.

Gamemaster:So if we could share some, that'd be great.

Gamemaster:Because, you know, if you wanted to hook our skates up together, I just... We're kind of... I didn't bring enough magical items.

Gamemaster:I didn't realize we'd be making a heart.

Gamemaster:We weren't prepared for that.

Anzu:Yeah, we didn't get that memo either.

Gamemaster:But...

Benny:Thank you.

Anzu:I'm not sure how some people did, because some people were very much ready for that.

Anzu:That's true.

Gamemaster:For what it's worth, I mean, I'm sure some people predicted it, but also, you know, some of those big shots just walk around with a ridiculous number of magical items on hand.

Gamemaster:You know, like, listen, my boss doesn't walk anywhere anymore.

Gamemaster:He has an enchanted palanquin that he just sits on and it moves from place to place.

Gamemaster:Completely unnecessary because we work in an office so the most he has to walk is like 30 feet.

Gamemaster:But, you know, he could give that up, and that would, like, that's an eighth-rank magic item.

Gamemaster:I'm sure that'd get him a room or two and a home.

Gamemaster:So, you know, you imagine, like, a group of people coming in with all kinds of dumb crap that eats up ambient energy and doesn't actually do anything useful.

Gamemaster:Feed those in, you get something nice.

Gamemaster:I just, you know, I would have brought some crap if I knew that we needed fodder.

Gamemaster:But, anyway, more than happy to make a connection.

Argyle:yeah yeah sounds good do you have any uh connections with any other group here well keep us uh posted we're trying to set up a

Gamemaster:if that's what we're going for.

Gamemaster:No, we're just getting set up.

Gamemaster:Honestly, you're the first group we've spoken to other than the Harlequin people.

Gamemaster:You actually had pretty good timing.

Argyle:You know, a network, allies and such.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Gamemaster:And you guys can hook their heart up to this game.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:They are Chromatic Drift.

Anzu:Just trying to be as far away from them as possible.

Johnny:I think as we walk over there, Johnny like trails behind and it's just a thousand yard stare.

Argyle:And yeah, cool.

Argyle:You guys want to head over to?

Argyle:At first, I thought the bodyguards were going to try to take over the Scale, but now looking at it,

Argyle:might have just been scared of the Protectorate.

Benny:Thank you.

Johnny:Like fully silent.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Maybe your wife and kid are over there, Johnny.

Johnny:You ever gone through your entire life and then all of a sudden you find something and you realize you want it more than anything in the world?

Johnny:And if it's not true, you're going to break apart?

Argyle:Yes.

Anzu:I hate to say it is a bit of a crackpot theory, but it's not out of the question.

Johnny:I just want it so bad.

Johnny:Cool.

Argyle:That's why they kept you around.

Argyle:Imagine the story will be.

Benny:If only we were on a Giant vehicle headed that direction.

Argyle:Just prepare yourself for the event that it's correct.

Argyle:And it might not be as nice as you might expect.

Johnny:I think Johnny is just gone.

Argyle:Yeah.

Benny:So,

Argyle:All right.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Argyle:The T-H-I.

Argyle:It's right here.

Gamemaster:Turning in heavy.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Just a quick hop, jump, and a skip away.

Gamemaster:Turning in heavy, clearly in the same general bucket as the other ones.

Gamemaster:It's a smaller area.

Gamemaster:Of note is that they've spent a considerable amount of their famed budget towards a very rudimentary airstrip.

Gamemaster:and when you approach, it looks like they are hauling pieces out of the car that they were allowed to build what looks to be a small airplane.

Argyle:Oh, let's just not go.

Gamemaster:They brought all the pieces.

Anzu:Now, before we speak to them, I do want to point out that they, outside of the Strider, their company is very competitively against Hildebrandt.

Gamemaster:They couldn't, like, tow it in, so they brought it in pieces, and now you can see there are two engineers that are currently in the process of what looks like putting it together, while there's another one or two people that are kind of supervising as the whole thing goes up.

Gamemaster:You can see from out far and you're like, no.

Argyle:I'm okay.

Anzu:It doesn't mean they're bad people, but they are going to have different opinions.

Argyle:No, no.

Johnny:Huh?

Argyle:No.

Argyle:I'm not risking our alliance with Hildebrandt even talking to these people.

Argyle:It's a good call-out.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:So you see from a distance them putting together this plane on this little airstrip.

Argyle:It's a good call-out.

Gamemaster:And they're like, oh wait, they're not friends with our friends.

Gamemaster:So we're not friends.

Gamemaster:And you... Yeah.

Argyle:Yep.

Anzu:We're petty.

Argyle:It's not that we're petty.

Argyle:I don't want to jeopardize the Chronicle.

Anzu:No, no, you're absolutely right.

Anzu:That's why I wanted to point it out before we went in.

Argyle:That's good.

Argyle:All right, so we have left the Ministry of Cultural Progress, The Scale & Sons, the Limited, which has Tommy Shelby, and then we have Verdant Holdings.

Gamemaster:welcome yeah there's there's a bunch

Benny:Bye.

Anzu:And Radiant Arms, I think, right?

Argyle:Oh, and Radiant Arms.

Argyle:which you guys want to go to next, or do you want to just go to a party?

Anzu:Yeah.

Argyle:Where do you think your sister is?

Argyle:We have to find her.

Argyle:Actually, no, we should keep talking to them.

Argyle:This has actually been great.

Argyle:We actually added to our network.

Anzu:I'm trying to think of who I want to speak to most.

Anzu:I kind of like want to talk to Radiant Arms.

Argyle:Okay, let's do it.

Johnny:Let's do it.

Benny:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:And as we're walking there,

Argyle:Our guy was going to be like, you ever talk to someone and just reach for your weapon?

Argyle:Just subconsciously, you're like, they gotta die.

Benny:Well, okay.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:Johnny looks around.

Johnny:I have a dagger I sometimes carry.

Benny:Your voice is your weapon.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:When we chatted with the Pale Lantern Society, I just found myself...

Argyle:reaching for my holy water, and I just wanted to burn that place down.

Argyle:I don't trust those people.

Johnny:I didn't like that guy.

Argyle:So, I think it's interesting.

Johnny:Bad video.

Johnny:You think they're working together?

Argyle:They're hospital people.

Argyle:They like liches, and we know our nemesises supply a lot of hospital stuff, and also is a lich, so just keep that in mind.

Argyle:I wouldn't be surprised.

Argyle:but not be surprised.

Argyle:Bye.

Anzu:Josh, in the firearms industry, do Radiant Arms and Sable & Sons compete, or do they have kind of different niches?

Gamemaster:Thank you.

Gamemaster:A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. Radiant Arms is the... Radiant Arms is kind of the... I don't know how you... A household name, I suppose, is the best way of putting it.

Benny:you

Gamemaster:They do a lot of really heavy advertising.

Gamemaster:You take the tram and there are advertisements for the latest firearms plastered on the ceiling and stuff.

Gamemaster:They, for the most part, don't sell their weapons to private militaries and the like.

Gamemaster:They don't sell to contractors.

Gamemaster:They're almost entirely for the consumer market.

Gamemaster:They sell it like their whole... Yeah, exactly.

Argyle:Mithun Weston.

Gamemaster:It's like you get this for self-defense or you get this for hunting at home, that kind of stuff.

Gamemaster:They've gotten...

Gamemaster:The most recent big thing is maybe two decades ago, there was this big news article about how somebody got mugged in an alleyway, and they had been walking home with a prototype of their newest high-caliber pistol, which is a hand cannon that's a .75 cal.

Benny:you you

Gamemaster:And when they fired it, it broke the arm of the person shooting the gun, but it also completely blew the upper half of the person mugging them off.

Gamemaster:And then as part of that advert, as part of like advertisements, they just took newspaper clippings of the report and posted it everywhere.

Argyle:So as a group.

Gamemaster:Look how good our guns are.

Gamemaster:And that was apparently a pretty effective campaign.

Gamemaster:So they've been leaning full into that.

Gamemaster:So, like, you know, they compete with Sable and Suns in that they both make firearms that do get sold to the general populace.

Gamemaster:Radiant Arms is winning in the retail space.

Gamemaster:Sable and Suns is winning in the military contractor space, if that makes sense.

Johnny:Yeah.

Argyle:Do you guys think Sable and Suns are working with Embercall?

Johnny:Yeah, there seems to be some.

Argyle:Because that's where they're getting the blue stuff, right?

Anzu:Thank you.

Argyle:So we should probably go for Radiant Arms first.

Benny:They sound cooler anyways.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:One of their guns tried to kill our Polar Bear's friend's family.

Johnny:Oh.

Benny:Oh.

Argyle:So keep that in mind.

Benny:Was it autonomous?

Argyle:No, no, no.

Argyle:The RunGunners are actually using them.

Argyle:It's a long story.

Argyle:He gave me the lowdown while we were drinking some Polar Shiv.

Johnny:We go to rating arms.

Argyle:Because canonically, all of Jorge's characters are friends.

Benny:Hmm.

Gamemaster:Yeah, that's true.

Gamemaster:Anytime he introduces a new character, the old one leaves, goes off somewhere, becomes pen pals with the new one.

Argyle:Alright, to ready and arms!

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Argyle:So, just off the bat, I do think it's interesting that a good amount of these hearts are further back.

Argyle:And those show like they're ready for War.

Argyle:And then there's like a bunch of dipshits that are just like, oh, just put it anywhere.

Argyle:They're so good.

Anzu:Well, Garrick put theirs in the front because they were planning on using the whole space.

Gamemaster:Some people are... Partially, yes.

Anzu:That's not true.

Gamemaster:Partially, absolutely, yes.

Johnny:No.

Gamemaster:The other part was, well, I want to be closer to everybody else because we're going to be hosting parties as people come over.

Argyle:Oh my god.

Gamemaster:So it would be easier if we were closer to the center.

Johnny:No.

Argyle:They're so cooked.

Johnny:We got to protect Derek Textiles.

Johnny:Those guys are the only good people on board.

Argyle:I was trying to get Resurrection spell for them.

Gamemaster:Wow.

Argyle:I really feel like we're going to walk in and they're going to be murdered.

Johnny:No, we're going to get a call in the middle of the night, and they're going to be mid-murder, and then it's going to be a race.

Argyle:Hopefully at least the secretary makes it out.

Johnny:We didn't meet the secretary.

Argyle:Alright, well.

Johnny:I don't think we got the secretary's name, so she's dead.

Anzu:She's a little pixie.

Gamemaster:No, yeah.

Benny:If we don't get their name, they're dead.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Argyle:Oh, well, maybe she can die.

Argyle:Then we can save the old man.

Anzu:I think she could slip out.

Anzu:She could...

Argyle:Yeah.

Benny:If we don't get their name, they're dead.

Argyle:Anyway.

Benny:Josh just reuses their name elsewhere.

Benny:Every interaction, he's just crossing off names every time we don't ask a name.

Gamemaster:Easy, that's easier for me.

Gamemaster:So long as they don't ask the name, it's fine, great.

Argyle:Every child we come across, what is your name?

Argyle:All right.

Johnny:We have to save you.

Benny:We could tell what...

Argyle:Radiant Arms.

Benny:It was a reuse.

Gamemaster:Radiant Arms.

Benny:Sorry, go ahead.

Gamemaster:Radiant Arms, when you go to their base, it is clearly a house, or like a multi-tenant house.

Gamemaster:It was built...

Gamemaster:in the modern style at the time, which means it kind of looks like a brownstone that's just been erected in the middle of a field, because once again, there are no roads or anything yet.

Gamemaster:But it's a few stories tall.

Gamemaster:It's not made for defense necessarily, but no perception check necessary.

Gamemaster:There have been some modifications to the exterior of this house as it was being built.

Gamemaster:For instance, you've never seen a residential home that has...

Gamemaster:What do you call those holes in medieval walls that you can shoot arrows through?

Gamemaster:Sure.

Anzu:I forget what they're called but I know them.

Johnny:Murder holes?

Benny:arrow arrow slits i'm seeing or balistraria if you want a fancy word for it

Gamemaster:But those have been installed in the exterior walls of this particular house.

Gamemaster:It also has notably pretty good sight lines just all the way throughout.

Argyle:Make sense?

Gamemaster:But you guys approach... Are they actually called murder holes?

Johnny:They're actually called murder holes.

Johnny:That wasn't me joking.

Gamemaster:Yeah, murder holes.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Balustrade is the term I was looking for.

Gamemaster:But Murderhole also works.

Gamemaster:But either way, you guys show up.

Gamemaster:There's a little knocker on the door to let them know that you've arrived.

Gamemaster:And after a moment, you are greeted at the door by the face of Radiant Arms here, which stands out most immediately to Benny as very similar to the construction of what you've seen.

Gamemaster:with a number of your siblings, and presumably in your interior, this is clearly an android.

Gamemaster:Although they haven't... They're... They're...

Gamemaster:They haven't gone so far into the mimicking organic features, necessarily.

Gamemaster:You can see that they've got a kind of porcelain lower faceplate, and parts of their arms and upper torso have been replaced or never actually were skin and are instead this kind of more metallic alloy-looking thing.

Gamemaster:They're clearly an android, though.

Gamemaster:You can see there are actually parts of glass that are almost artistic installations by the looks of it, along their neck and their upper torso here, so that you can see the machinery on the inside, where you can see this weird internal, half-organic, half-magically constructed substrate that is the interior of most androids.

Gamemaster:But they open the door.

Benny:Greetings.

Gamemaster:Yep.

Gamemaster:Retanks.

Gamemaster:And they put out a hand.

Gamemaster:Ichel.

Gamemaster:And they shake yours.

Benny:Benny.

Gamemaster:Where are my manners?

Gamemaster:Please, come in.

Gamemaster:and they bring you into what is, for all intents and purposes, a pretty cozy-looking living room, sitting room area.

Gamemaster:They clearly figured out pretty quickly how to put together a home of some kind.

Gamemaster:This does feel like a home.

Gamemaster:It doesn't feel like a forward operating center like the Scale's does, or like half of an airstrip like Journey and Heavy Industries is.

Gamemaster:This is a house.

Gamemaster:Um, this is a house that actually has a lot of firearms in it.

Gamemaster:Um, both in terms of, like, art pieces and the like.

Gamemaster:There are paintings of firearms.

Gamemaster:There are what look to be blueprints of firearms hung up in frames on parts of the wall.

Gamemaster:But there are also just, like, you are led to sit down around a little coffee table on a couch.

Gamemaster:and there is this little bowl on the coffee table, and there are what look to be three pistols instead of fruit in the bowl.

Gamemaster:Y'shael itself also has both a holster at their chest and a holster at their side with firearms on them.

Gamemaster:If nothing else, it seems to be almost decorative, because the style of the holster matches the clothing, like it's the same color fabric that they're wearing.

Gamemaster:So if anything, it seems more like a style piece than anything else.

Gamemaster:But they say, please take a seat.

Gamemaster:Is there anything I can offer you to drink?

Gamemaster:To eat?

Gamemaster:We're still getting set up, but we have coffee, tea.

Benny:i'm good

Gamemaster:No?

Gamemaster:Alright.

Johnny:The Jets.

Argyle:I'll take some tea if you're offering.

Gamemaster:And then they sit down.

Gamemaster:Yeah, absolutely.

Gamemaster:And they walk over into the kitchen, they get a little teacup, their hand pops open and a stream of water comes out of their wrist into the teacup, they close it, they put the teabag in, hand it over to you.

Gamemaster:And to what do I owe the pleasure of Benny and Co.?

Gamemaster:Benny and the Jets, of course.

Gamemaster:So you're from Ternion and Heavy, or from Hildebrandt?

Johnny:No, sorry.

Benny:No.

Johnny:We're from Iconoclasm.

Johnny:That was a joke.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Johnny:Johnny Skyfall, great to meet you.

Gamemaster:I shake your hand.

Gamemaster:Dr. Argyle Cross.

Argyle:Dr. Argyle Cross.

Gamemaster:Shake your hand as well.

Anzu:And I'm Anzu.

Anzu:We have just been kind of going around trying to meet everybody.

Anzu:We're going to probably be on this thing for a while, so it's good to be friendly with folks and get to know each other.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:It's good to meet all of you as well.

Gamemaster:I take it we're still getting set up a little bit.

Argyle:If I may ask.

Gamemaster:I take it you've been around for some time.

Gamemaster:What do you think of the place so far?

Gamemaster:No?

Argyle:Oh, what'd you say?

Argyle:Sorry, what'd you say?

Gamemaster:What do you think of the place so far?

Gamemaster:Anybody we should be looking out for?

Johnny:It's kind of weird.

Gamemaster:You're kind of weird as underselling it, I think.

Argyle:I don't trust some of the groups for sure.

Argyle:A lot of tension.

Benny:A lot of tension.

Gamemaster:Really?

Gamemaster:I believe that.

Argyle:We also chatted with the maître d' of sorts of this whole strata.

Gamemaster:The maître d'?

Anzu:Master of ceremonies.

Benny:The MSK.

Gamemaster:Oh, okay.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:I think it might be a bumpy ride.

Johnny:No one really seems to know why we're here or what's going to be happening, but everyone seems to have some varying level of we should work together to I'm going to get there and no one else is, which that's not our MO, by the way.

Gamemaster:Wouldn't surprise me.

Gamemaster:Also unsurprising.

Gamemaster:Yeah, I mean, I have to imagine that everybody is about the same as me and mine, which is we're interested to see where this leads.

Gamemaster:Interested enough at least to drop whatever we were doing and sign on for an indeterminate period of time.

Gamemaster:I'd just like to get it out of my head.

Argyle:I was assigned here.

Anzu:Yeah, I'm endlessly fascinated by the Voidsong.

Anzu:That's why I'm here.

Anzu:Assigned.

Gamemaster:I was hoping this would work.

Gamemaster:Signed?

Gamemaster:By Iconoclasm?

Argyle:Yes.

Anzu:He said assigned.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:No, I... Sure, I... My question was, was Iconoclasm the one who assigned you?

Argyle:Our group is supposed to be looking into the Voidsong.

Benny:Well, yeah, if we weren't here, it'd be kind of weird.

Argyle:They told me to come look at this, yes.

Argyle:I also work with the Scale.

Gamemaster:Double-dipping?

Gamemaster:That's interesting.

Argyle:Yes.

Gamemaster:I did see that the Scale was on board already.

Gamemaster:Did you come with them or you came with this group?

Argyle:I had no idea they were showing up here.

Gamemaster:Oh, interesting.

Johnny:Iconoclasm sort of... Iconoclasm sort of double dips off.

Gamemaster:I don't know anything about the inner workings of the Scale.

Gamemaster:That's fun.

Johnny:We all sort of double dip.

Benny:Mm hmm.

Johnny:Double duty.

Gamemaster:I hope you don't mind.

Gamemaster:I hadn't really heard of you before a few seconds ago.

Gamemaster:I mean, we went through quite a bit of work to get our berth.

Gamemaster:I imagine you had to do something similar, so we don't doubt your ability.

Johnny:Yeah.

Johnny:We've heard of you.

Johnny:I'm a fan of the .7 hand cannon.

Johnny:It was quite an ad campaign.

Gamemaster:Oh, of course.

Gamemaster:And they, like, pull out one of the things at their holster.

Gamemaster:It is a pistol, but it's massive.

Gamemaster:And they take it and they flip it over so you can see the bottom of the barrel.

Gamemaster:And there are runes carved underneath the barrel.

Gamemaster:And they say, this is our new prototype if you'd like to fire it.

Gamemaster:We're working on removing some of the recoil from the fire so it's not one shot per arm, so to speak.

Argyle:Look how he covers his ears.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Benny:May I?

Gamemaster:Yeah, absolutely.

Benny:Just in here?

Gamemaster:And so you guys, you need to...

Argyle:He has earplugs.

Argyle:He actually puts them in.

Gamemaster:They will gesture for you to leave the home before you shoot.

Johnny:Johnny Cass silence.

Anzu:I'm on it.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gamemaster:Okay, so I want you to do two things here.

Johnny:Johnny Cass silence on himself.

Johnny:Just...

Gamemaster:First, I need an athletics check, and then someone else needs to roll a d100 as a misfire die.

Gamemaster:We're hoping for a 15 or higher on the die.

Anzu:Nailed it.

Anzu:51

Gamemaster:Okay, totally fine.

Benny:29 for the Athletics.

Gamemaster:29 for the athletics, absolutely.

Gamemaster:You pull the trigger.

Gamemaster:The trigger is hairline.

Argyle:I'll put this field up.

Gamemaster:You barely put pressure on it.

Gamemaster:And there is a...

Gamemaster:massive explosion sound from the barrel in front of you.

Gamemaster:Interestingly enough, with your roll, it is not hard to control it.

Gamemaster:You would expect a ridiculous amount of kickback from it.

Gamemaster:There's very little kickback.

Gamemaster:You hold it in front of you, you barely press down the trigger, there's an explosion, and the shockwave of the bullet heading forward makes this kind of divot.

Gamemaster:in the grass of the plane in front of you in the direction that you shot.

Gamemaster:Notably, the barrel of the gun has also, like, banana peel folded away from the force of the explosion.

Gamemaster:And they gesture to take it back from you.

Gamemaster:They say, it's still in the prototype phases.

Gamemaster:But we expect...

Benny:Well, whenever you finish up, I hear it's good luck to give a pistol to a child.

Gamemaster:I have actually heard that.

Gamemaster:I'm not from Hallia natively, so there was a little bit of a culture shock when I visited our offices in Hallia, and in the gift shop, we just had a little bowl of firearms that children could take as they left, instead of lollipops.

Johnny:Where are you from?

Gamemaster:I'm actually from Istria, normally.

Johnny:Oh, so this is familiar territory.

Gamemaster:I've traveled... Yeah, I grew up on a strider.

Argyle:Motion to go back inside as we're talking.

Gamemaster:This is...

Gamemaster:I've never been topside on a Strider before, so this is a novel experience.

Gamemaster:But I feel more at home here than I did in Hallia.

Gamemaster:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys can head back in.

Argyle:So you asked us what we thought about this place and the people here.

Argyle:What do you think about it?

Gamemaster:Well, we're still getting set up, but I saw a number of interesting groups, I'll say, on our way in.

Gamemaster:candidly because it seems like you're a little bit of um small fry too so to speak um it seems that there's a bit of a divide between the orgs that brought as many people and as much manpower as they could and the orgs that brought what they had on hand if that makes sense um that's eating bags um

Anzu:Hmm.

Gamemaster:So I think it'll be interesting to see if the larger orgs start trying to push around the smaller ones, so to speak.

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:I imagine it'll start happening, and I think really our only saving grace is the hope that one big org pushes against the other big org and saves us in the process.

Anzu:We had a conversation with the master of ceremonies, and they were almost salivating at the thought of there being conflict.

Gamemaster:Because I don't know about you... Oh, sorry.

Gamemaster:I mean, even if there was no one to stir the pot here, there are so many different groups.

Gamemaster:We're going to be enclosed in a relatively tight space for the next who knows how long.

Gamemaster:I can't imagine everybody playing nice with each other.

Anzu:Yeah, we were met with some rather standoffish folks really kind of in it for themselves and some folks talking about wanting to maintain an edge in this place.

Gamemaster:Not surprised.

Johnny:It's crazy, though.

Gamemaster:Well, ultimately, it probably feels like a competition to a lot of them.

Anzu:So...

Benny:you you

Gamemaster:I'm not particularly surprised.

Gamemaster:It feels a little bit like a competition to me.

Gamemaster:If nothing else, survival's big.

Gamemaster:I'd like to make it out in one piece.

Anzu:Indeed.

Johnny:The easiest way to survive is just not kill each other.

Anzu:Right.

Anzu:Along those lines, we're not looking to be the last man standing when we get there.

Anzu:We'd rather have some other folks at our side.

Anzu:If that's something you're interested in, we're looking to have some friends around.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Gamemaster:I was actually planning on asking all of you since you seem like friendly enough folk.

Gamemaster:I'm more than happy to be part of your, uh, your little gaggle.

Argyle:What?

Anzu:Yes, actually, our space is not too far from here.

Anzu:And our shared neighbor, Hildebrandt, here has also been pretty forthcoming.

Anzu:So it could be a nice block, this area of the Strider.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Happy to participate if you wouldn't mind.

Argyle:And if you need any medical needs and you don't trust the Pale Androgen Society, I can also help you.

Gamemaster:Oh, that's good.

Argyle:I am familiar with Android.

Argyle:I've taken coursework on it.

Gamemaster:We do actually have a medic on staff.

Gamemaster:They're upstairs getting ready, but it's good to know that there are other people around that have that skill set.

Benny:Thank you.

Argyle:What are your thoughts on sable insights?

Gamemaster:I mean, I try not to think about them too often, to be honest.

Gamemaster:There are competitors, so we bump into them from time to time, but I try not to run in the same spaces if at all possible.

Argyle:Any particular reason, just competitors or you don't trust them?

Gamemaster:I mean, I don't not trust them.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:It's another company.

Gamemaster:They make firearms.

Gamemaster:We've hired people from them, they've hired people from us, so it's not like there's no connection there, but we try to stay off each other's toes where we can.

Argyle:All right, well, good chatting with you.

Gamemaster:And their heart will join your skein.

Gamemaster:This is Final Caliber.

Argyle:Should we give them the gun we stole from, say, one of the guns we stole from, say, one's sons?

Argyle:Or is that too much of an act of War?

Anzu:that is a decent idea at some point but maybe not right now I do like it though

Johnny:I don't think we do that quite yet.

Johnny:I think we hold on to that laser gun.

Argyle:All right.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:All right.

Argyle:That's pretty much it for me.

Argyle:I mean, we could go to the limited and verdant holdings, but what do you think?

Johnny:I feel like I'm good for now.

Johnny:Unless you guys want to...

Benny:We can also just meet them at the party.

Argyle:Yeah, yes, I'm saying.

Benny:I'm sure we're probably running up against some constraints of meeting people when they arrive anyways.

Argyle:All right, well, I'm ready for a party.

Gamemaster:So you guys want to skip forward towards the end of the, um, the end of the week, uh, hitting the deadline.

Benny:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:By the way, I'd like to tell everyone, do not invite anyone from Necrolog to our house.

Gamemaster:Yep.

Argyle:It may be a vampire.

Argyle:And if we give him permission to enter, they can then come in.

Johnny:Vampires are very cold.

Gamemaster:Roll the cultism check.

Anzu:Oh, is that like a rule that they have or something?

Anzu:They have like some kind of politeness code.

Argyle:What would you say, Josh?

Gamemaster:I'd love an occultism check.

Argyle:I'll have Anzu roll that.

Anzu:He says this and I go, is that even a thing?

Anzu:What is he talking about?

Anzu:I think I got a 38 crit.

Anzu:Yeah, I did.

Anzu:I know a lot about vampires.

Gamemaster:Nice.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Gamemaster:second.

Gamemaster:I have to double check.

Gamemaster:I'm pretty sure that's, like, not a thing for Dompiers.

Anzu:Argyle's superstitious.

Argyle:Is that a thing for regular vampires in Pathfinder?

Gamemaster:But I want to double check before I say that, like, definitively.

Gamemaster:Um... I don't think so.

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:That's fine.

Argyle:We can just say it's not.

Gamemaster:But I'm double checking.

Gamemaster:Okay, so... Let's see.

Benny:Yes.

Gamemaster:Vampire vulnerabilities.

Gamemaster:Because they do have some.

Gamemaster:compulsions.

Gamemaster:Some have compulsions.

Gamemaster:Some vampires do.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:But it's a particular... First of all, it's not Dompiers.

Argyle:Gotcha, gotcha.

Gamemaster:It's vampires.

Gamemaster:And to the guy that you spoke to, it was a Dompier.

Gamemaster:He's only half vampire.

Gamemaster:But there are... It's just not a blanket rule.

Gamemaster:Some vampires can't cross running water.

Gamemaster:Some vampires burn if they touch garlic.

Gamemaster:Some vampires can't come in unless they're invited.

Gamemaster:It's not necessarily something that affects all of them.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:So...

Gamemaster:but all vampires die if you drive a wooden stake through their heart.

Argyle:OK.

Argyle:There it is.

Benny:I don't know why, but all of them die if you drive over them with a car.

Argyle:Most people do, too.

Argyle:That sounds like a Buffy line.

Gamemaster:Which I'm fairly certain there is a line in Buffy that's like, yeah, nobody tested if they're immune to rocket launchers, and then they blow up a vampire with a rocket launcher.

Argyle:Well, so there's an episode of Buffy where they're fighting this demon, and throughout history, no one's been able to slay it.

Johnny:That's pretty good.

Argyle:None of the slayers, they're like,

Argyle:everything nothing will work so she shows up to the gym with a grenade launcher and like kills it and she's just like they didn't have grenade launchers in the 1600s yeah all right so potty time we're going in was there any dream message or no

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Which is true.

Gamemaster:Nobody tried that.

Gamemaster:Party time.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Anzu:Yeah, I guess... Oh, jeez.

Anzu:Maybe I should have been thinking about this more for the last hour.

Anzu:No, no, I do think it's a good idea.

Argyle:All right, it's fine.

Argyle:We can just skip it.

Anzu:One minute of speech.

Benny:I want us to find his speech.

Anzu:Roughly 150 words.

Benny:Can you beat boxing?

Argyle:All right, you could talk way more than 150 words in a minute.

Benny:A hundred words about...

Johnny:I'm having some crazy dreams over there.

Anzu:All right, sis, let me lay down a track.

Johnny:And give him a beat.

Anzu:Josh, can you do me a favor and remind me of some of the notable landmarks that are not these particular properties owned by the different orgs?

Benny:You.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Um, so on the, like on the top level where you are, uh, of the Strider, there's the, um, whatever you would call the, like the slide thing, the set of rings in the center.

Johnny:you

Anzu:Right.

Gamemaster:Um, and then below that is the cluster of buildings and stuff that the Harlequins have constructed for general shared use.

Gamemaster:So they have like a restaurant, there's a gym, there is a kind of, um,

Gamemaster:Not convectionary.

Gamemaster:I can't remember the term.

Gamemaster:Like a convention hall type area, which is where the gala would be today.

Gamemaster:as well as a number of other buildings that haven't been, looks like, assigned any use yet, but they've been constructed in this little town area for if something comes up that they need to build something.

Benny:you

Gamemaster:There are, closer to the front, closer to where the Harlequins are, there is the Harlequin kind of base itself, because they have one as well, although that's not demarcated on the map right now.

Anzu:Thank you.

Gamemaster:There's also a very far up to the front of where the Strider is, like where the...

Gamemaster:tip would be i don't gosh prow proud where the prow of the uh the strider would be um is a series of spherical um like a row of 12 Giant spheres that glow slightly uh in the evening uh that if you had asked chuck about he would have told you as part of the fuel stores

Gamemaster:for the Strider.

Anzu:Okay, and the gal is going to be in the evening.

Gamemaster:Those are kind of the only things that aren't bases on the topmost layer.

Gamemaster:There's a ton of stuff below decks, but you guys haven't really had the time, I think, to explore below decks all that much.

Benny:you

Gamemaster:Yes, the gala is in the evening, and then as part of the kickoff for the gala, the Strider will do its first slip into the...

Anzu:And does the restaurant have a name?

Anzu:Or is it just kind of the restaurant?

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:I mean, it does.

Gamemaster:I don't know it.

Anzu:Okay.

Gamemaster:Because I didn't bother to come up with a name for it.

Anzu:Yeah, I just want to... The reason... Yeah.

Gamemaster:Listen, I don't... Yeah, like, it would have a name.

Gamemaster:Think of something Sardinian, and then that's the name.

Anzu:It's Giacomo's.

Gamemaster:Yeah, that's fine.

Anzu:Anyway, okay, so it says that the spell, if the person is not actively sleeping, they get it, like, the next time they sleep.

Anzu:So I would have casted it, like, the night before the gala, like sometime in the evening, so that she would experience it that night if she was, you know, in this time zone.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Anzu:And...

Anzu:I'll just say, you know, hello, sister.

Anzu:Sorry to reach out to you in this way.

Anzu:I spoke to dad.

Anzu:He said you might be out and about as well.

Anzu:And then I'll name drop the restaurant and say, if that sounds like somewhere near you and you'd like to chat, I'll be having brunch there tomorrow morning.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Argyle:That's very helpful.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:You leave that message into the ether to eventually find its way to your sister, assuming she is on the same planet as you.

Gamemaster:And then you get a night's rest.

Gamemaster:It is now the day of the gala, and I assume you're spending your time in that restaurant for brunch, waiting to see if she pops in.

Anzu:Guys, I left my sister a message to meet me at brunch if she was here.

Anzu:I don't want it to seem like I'm expecting conflict, but it would probably be good if you guys were nearby.

Johnny:Do you want us to come with you for backup or do you want to go alone?

Argyle:He is stronger than you.

Anzu:Yeah, but she's my sister.

Argyle:Yeah, she is stronger than you, so I'll be close.

Benny:Hey.

Johnny:We'll be at another time.

Anzu:We're supposed to be friends.

Argyle:Oh, you took that really well.

Argyle:If I found out one of my siblings was stronger, I'd be very mad.

Gamemaster:Thank you.

Anzu:Well, the thing is, she did start to experience her psychic abilities earlier than me.

Anzu:That is something that I kind of struggled with for a while.

Anzu:I would be mad, but I'm really proud of you for making a joke.

Argyle:Would you say you have a chip on your shoulder about it?

Argyle:I'm sorry.

Argyle:These just write themselves.

Argyle:Let's go.

Argyle:Thank you.

Johnny:He's getting better.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:You know, sometimes I say things that are a little across this line, and other times they're too nice.

Benny:Thank you.

Argyle:I don't understand it as much.

Johnny:You know, guys, we're going to have an improv showcase at the end of the year.

Johnny:You guys should come out.

Johnny:It's going to be great.

Johnny:Argyle's going to perform.

Anzu:Have you had any inquiries about your audition sign?

Johnny:Oh, I don't know.

Johnny:I haven't even checked.

Johnny:Josh, has anyone signed up for the auditions?

Gamemaster:You haven't gotten any hits yet, but people are still, like, filtering in, so it's possible once it's under way, some people sign up.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You know, it's not too late.

Anzu:It would be great if Silven Grayson came and was like, hey, so I'm here about the improv class.

Johnny:I have a monologue from Angels in America.

Benny:I don't know if we have our different, but I like, I really like improv.

Anzu:I love the performing arts.

Johnny:Be heartfelt.

Benny:He's like, he's like really, really shy.

Benny:He's like, guys, I don't, it's just like, no, no, it's you, you can come in.

Benny:And he just breaks out his song super loud, like dancing, like, I don't know, guys, was it good?

Benny:What did you guys think?

Benny:That's how we convert him.

Anzu:If we could...

Johnny:My uncle wants me to be a witch.

Benny:We get a man on the inside.

Johnny:I just want to sing.

Anzu:Instead of using Inception to get him to turn on his father's company, we just used the magic of music.

Benny:he's gonna hate improv josh is just writing him like all inroads we have to killing grayson

Argyle:He's gonna be so evil, man.

Gamemaster:My work?

Gamemaster:You don't know?

Gamemaster:You haven't met him yet.

Gamemaster:He might be very, very open to improv changing his worldview.

Johnny:Oh, man.

Gamemaster:Hates improv.

Johnny:This is going to be my enemy.

Gamemaster:His catchphrase is no.

Gamemaster:Not no, but just no.

Gamemaster:No, period.

Argyle:No, period.

Johnny:No.

Argyle:No stop.

Argyle:All right, let's go.

Anzu:Alright, I'm going to brunch.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Argyle:Brunch.

Anzu:We're going to brunch.

Gamemaster:So, sorry, I forget.

Johnny:No.

Gamemaster:Is it everybody's going to brunch?

Gamemaster:Is it just Anzu's going to brunch?

Gamemaster:Who's going to brunch?

Anzu:I think we're all going, but I'm going to kind of sit at a smaller table.

Argyle:Separately.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Argyle:Also, generally, Argyle, when he's going to the gym and stuff like that, he's going to pass by Garrick and just double check they haven't been blown up.

Johnny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Over the course of this week, you check by every once in a while, and they are both fine.

Gamemaster:It seems like halfway through the week that begrudgingly...

Gamemaster:gosh, what's his name, Warbats?

Gamemaster:Um, Obrats.

Anzu:Give him another hex on the map.

Gamemaster:Uh, Obrats.

Gamemaster:Um, gives up, like, a little pocket watch he had been carrying around, uh, that happened to have, like, some spells built into it to cast out of, uh, so that they could actually have a kitchen.

Gamemaster:So now they have running water.

Gamemaster:Um, but it's still not very nice.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:It wasn't a large addition to the space, but they have the, you know, he donated some stuff.

Gamemaster:Not that much.

Benny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:But, you know, it's slightly more livable.

Gamemaster:You guys head over to the restaurant to do brunch.

Gamemaster:This place is the trendy New York.

Gamemaster:They've got bottomless mimosas.

Gamemaster:Brunch starts at like Tywelwyn goes until 4.

Gamemaster:You can head on over.

Gamemaster:I'd love a perception check from one or two people as you walk in, just to get your bearings around the space.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:to proceed.

Argyle:I just want to call out, Josh, I have darkvision.

Gamemaster:You have darkvision.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Benny:Oh, Benny has a... They're bat waiters?

Gamemaster:Which is good because as it turns out, this restaurant is actually one of those restaurants where all of the waiters are blind and they turn off the lights so that you can like feel the food more.

Benny:Like, clicking the echo locate?

Benny:Oh, yeah, Benny has a new sense.

Benny:I don't know if it's been relevant.

Benny:I haven't highlighted it because I haven't wanted to know the answer.

Benny:Benny can sense blood within 10 feet.

Gamemaster:Oh, you have blood sense.

Gamemaster:That's so fun.

Gamemaster:Good for Benny.

Johnny:I got a 27 to see things.

Gamemaster:27.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Anzu:Do androids have blood?

Gamemaster:Uh... Blood... Blood...

Anzu:Do they come up on Bloodsense?

Benny:Yeah.

Johnny:Do androids dream electric blood?

Gamemaster:Androids do not dream of electric sheep, unfortunately.

Gamemaster:But they do have, it's not blood, but it's a blood equivalent.

Gamemaster:And so for all intents and purposes, it can be considered blood.

Gamemaster:The only difference is that it's like magically generated instead of made in the bones like normal people have to do.

Argyle:Who are you to say that androids can't dream of cybernetic sheep?

Gamemaster:Well, the person who made the setting and therefore can identify what they can and cannot do.

Gamemaster:They can.

Argyle:They can't dream?

Argyle:Benny couldn't if he wanted to.

Johnny:of electricity.

Gamemaster:They just don't dream of electric sheep.

Gamemaster:I've decided.

Gamemaster:I've decreed that.

Argyle:There's a block.

Gamemaster:Benny can dream of almost anything.

Benny:They're normal sheep.

Gamemaster:He just specifically can't dream of electric sheep.

Benny:They're normal sheep, yeah.

Gamemaster:They could be normal sheep or it could be like electric cows.

Gamemaster:It just can't be specifically electric sheep.

Johnny:Philip K. Dick is rolling straight.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:It's a decent book.

Argyle:Anyway, Argyle doesn't need to use a light to read the menu if it's a little dimly lit.

Gamemaster:Well, okay, so it's not dimly lit.

Gamemaster:It's brunch.

Gamemaster:They've, like, the front of the restaurant kind of in awning pulls up and the windows, like, fold open so that there's, like, an exterior space for you to eat outside as well as the interior.

Benny:you

Gamemaster:It's not dim at all because it is the morning.

Gamemaster:With the 27 perception check, you notice a handful of figures.

Gamemaster:First of all, there is a bar in the back.

Gamemaster:It looks like there's a bartender back there.

Gamemaster:Nobody's actively engaged with them or ordering anything.

Gamemaster:It's the morning, and it seems that the alcoholics have not found this part of the bar yet, although you do know from your interaction with Solari Sub-surface that they do have some alcohol on tap, and they're probably pretty far into it by now.

Argyle:Hmm.

Gamemaster:There are some waiters either like harlequins acting as waiters kind of loitering around in the back.

Gamemaster:And it looks like there are currently two customers already situated when you guys arrive.

Gamemaster:The first one is kind of tucked away in the back in a booth.

Gamemaster:There is just like a person.

Gamemaster:It looks like they're drinking coffee.

Gamemaster:pretty nondescript, just like an average guy, you know, in the background taking a sip.

Gamemaster:And then sitting at one of the outdoor tables that they've pulled out for the brunch seating, it looks like currently reading some kind of like telegram or newspaper or something like that.

Gamemaster:and sipping on a cup of what looks to be tea, is a black-feathered tengu.

Gamemaster:They're facing away from you, so you can't see their face.

Gamemaster:They're a little hunched over.

Gamemaster:They appear to be wearing some kind of leather jacket or the like, and are just kind of idly tapping away at the table.

Argyle:As we're getting close, before we separate, I'm going to tap on Anzu's arm or wing and say,

Gamemaster:With the perception check, this is...

Gamemaster:A Tengu?

Gamemaster:This is not a Tengu related to you, Anzu.

Anzu:It doesn't look like Galzu.

Gamemaster:Uh... No, just from the silhouette, this is not Galzu.

Argyle:Good luck, and cast Strength of Mind to give them a plus one status bonus to throws against mental effects, because you guys are psychics.

Johnny:You got this Anzu.

Argyle:And effects that hinder movements.

Benny:you

Anzu:I'm not going to immediately go to the other Tengu, although it is odd that there's another one here.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Anzu:I'll just sit at my own table, at least for a little bit, but somewhere where I can see where this other Tengu is.

Gamemaster:You can get a seat so that you can actually see the front of the tengu because they're kind of facing into the restaurant.

Gamemaster:I would love it if I could get a medicine check from you.

Anzu:Oh, no.

Anzu:That's going to be horrible.

Benny:It's just a health potion wearing a Tengu wig.

Gamemaster:Yes, it is.

Gamemaster:You figured it out.

Anzu:I got a seven.

Anzu:I have a plus two to medicine, so...

Gamemaster:Seven.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:This tengu has clearly seen and lost combat before.

Gamemaster:As you see the front of them, they are pretty battle-scarred.

Gamemaster:It looks like one eye has been with a seven.

Gamemaster:It doesn't look like they're hiding it.

Gamemaster:It looks like the eye has been replaced with a glass eye of some kind.

Gamemaster:It's not color matched or anything like that.

Gamemaster:It's just so that they don't have a gaping socket in their face.

Johnny:Okay.

Anzu:Ugh.

Gamemaster:You can't tell, like they're managing to somehow make their beak almost grimace in a way.

Gamemaster:It's like weirdly bent downward.

Gamemaster:And there's this huge scar running through the majority of the beak, like the top and bottom.

Gamemaster:You're not sure what caused it, but it almost looks like somebody took a sword and just swiped it right through the guy.

Gamemaster:There are like chips in the beak and all that kind of stuff.

Gamemaster:He doesn't seem to take notice of you or the rest of your people as you sit down.

Gamemaster:He's busy reading some kind of printout or something like that.

Gamemaster:He doesn't approach you or anything like that while you're...

Anzu:I know we spent a lot of time walking and driving around a big city.

Anzu:What in Hollywood, how rare is it to see a Tengu in the city?

Anzu:Are they around?

Gamemaster:Um, Tengu are, like, just by nature of their general construction, so to speak, they tend to live in higher altitude areas.

Anzu:Is it pretty rare?

Gamemaster:So you get a lot of them over in Austrene, a lot of them in, like, the Opaline Mountains in Brithwyn and the like.

Benny:you

Anzu:Okay.

Gamemaster:Not so much in Calaria and Hallia.

Gamemaster:Like, they're not rare by any means.

Gamemaster:If you see one, you're not like, oh my god, that's a bird person.

Gamemaster:But they're definitely a minority in the area.

Anzu:And then the last thing I'll do before I just sit and wait is send Othello just kind of up into the sky, do a little circle and view through his eyes.

Benny:you you

Gamemaster:Roll a perception check, then.

Anzu:All right.

Anzu:And I guess it's his perception, right?

Anzu:Not mine.

Gamemaster:Yeah, if you're looking through his eyes, it's his perception.

Anzu:Oof.

Anzu:Really bad.

Anzu:13.

Gamemaster:Okay, looking around...

Gamemaster:Yeah, nothing really stands out to you.

Gamemaster:The only thing of note is at some point, depending on how long you wait, if like 15 minutes go by, you'd see another group start to filter in being shepherded along on a floating disc by their butler.

Argyle:I'll sit down with him.

Gamemaster:As they get closer, unfortunately you have to wait until they're basically on the doorstep of the restaurant to identify them.

Gamemaster:It is Paavo and a group of other people from Hildebrandt who it looks like are just coming by for brunch.

Anzu:Hmm.

Anzu:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:They stop in.

Gamemaster:Yeah, absolutely.

Gamemaster:Baba will wave at you guys and you can grab a seat with them.

Argyle:Do you pay for food here?

Argyle:Or... Oh, damn it.

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:You're welcome to just take stuff.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately, you can't buy somebody else food using that setup, but no, you don't have to buy food here.

Argyle:I was going to turn water into wine, but that's not needed here.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:Also, it's brunch.

Gamemaster:But, yeah, no, they're, like, more than happy to sit down with you and chat.

Gamemaster:But other than that, Othello doesn't really spot anything.

Anzu:I hang out.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:Oh.

Gamemaster:How long are you willing to wait?

Benny:Thank you.

Anzu:What I'll say is let's go an hour for now, but let me know if the other Tengu starts to mobilize prior to that.

Gamemaster:At about an hour, the other Tengu looks like he waves down a winger.

Gamemaster:Oh gosh, no, he wouldn't have to pay a check or anything like that.

Gamemaster:It looks like he just starts packing up and getting ready to head out.

Anzu:I'll go over to him briefly and just say hey I don't mean to bother you can go on your way but just want to say it's nice to see a familiar face of sorts around here

Gamemaster:If you don't stop him, he will walk away.

Gamemaster:He starts talking to you.

Gamemaster:It's weird.

Gamemaster:He's got like a little bit of a lisp going on.

Gamemaster:You imagine something to do with the bit with his beak.

Gamemaster:And he says, hey, not often I get to see another Tengu.

Gamemaster:So, you know, good on you.

Gamemaster:And I'll put out a hand.

Anzu:Yep.

Anzu:I'll shake.

Anzu:I'll say, my name's Anzu.

Anzu:I'm here with Panaclasm.

Anzu:Who are you here with?

Gamemaster:Lark Crowe.

Gamemaster:I'm here with Sable and Suns.

Gamemaster:I'm a gun salesman, so to speak.

Anzu:Oh, great.

Anzu:Nice to meet you.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Anzu:Well, I'm glad that we'll be sharing some space around here with all these low-altitude folks.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Anzu:You know what I'm saying?

Gamemaster:Yeah, I'm curious to see if we end up anywhere a little bit cooler on our journey, because let me tell you, it has been hot these past few days.

Anzu:Indeed.

Gamemaster:I have not built for deserts.

Gamemaster:I'll tell you that much.

Gamemaster:But, you know, I do got to be on my way, but it was good being on you.

Gamemaster:You're from Iconoclasm, did you say?

Anzu:That's right, yeah.

Gamemaster:All right, well, I'll keep Anaïs out for you.

Gamemaster:See you at the gallery.

Gamemaster:Also, if you need any firearms, we've got plenty.

Gamemaster:Happy to sell to a friend of the people.

Anzu:All right.

Anzu:Thanks.

Anzu:Well, yeah, enjoy your day.

Anzu:See you later.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You as well.

Gamemaster:And he will, you watch as he, like, takes out a little figurine and crushes it and then hops on a floating disc and gets carted away.

Anzu:Anzu just thinks to himself how derivative a last name Crowe is for someone like us.

Gamemaster:Jude's name, Jude's first name and last name are both birds.

Johnny:This guy works for Pyrelight.

Anzu:Oh, my God.

Argyle:What's his first name?

Anzu:You're absolutely... Lark, yeah.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:Yeah, we've heard of Lark.

Johnny:Yeah, he was the project lead on the scheme viewer.

Benny:Bye.

Johnny:No, on the hybridization.

Johnny:There it is.

Johnny:Whoa.

Gamemaster:You've seen the name Lark Crowe pop up in two different locations.

Anzu:Yeah.

Anzu:Because he supplied those stupid bandits, right?

Johnny:He was also the ghost's gun contact for a little bit.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:Correct.

Gamemaster:Yeah, Lark Crowe was the contact for the ghosts for Sable and Suns that they were using to try and figure out the firearms.

Anzu:Thank you.

Gamemaster:He's the one who sold the firearms to the bandits, and you also saw his name show up on the terminal underneath the television.

Benny:you you

Johnny:What was the guy's name for the Pale Lantern Society?

Gamemaster:Um... Manus.

Johnny:Oh, okay, it wasn't Camden Moss.

Johnny:Camden Levine.

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:No, you have not.

Gamemaster:You have not met a Camden Levine.

Gamemaster:Which, every time I see that name come up in my notes, I'm like, oh god, he's clearly a Jew.

Gamemaster:I don't know if I should have given him the last name Levine.

Gamemaster:It's just gonna stick out in my head every time I see it.

Gamemaster:But it's fine.

Gamemaster:Sometimes a member of the tribe is evil.

Gamemaster:It happens.

Johnny:Yeah.

Johnny:Look at the...

Johnny:Oh, Ponzi scheme guy.

Gamemaster:We don't need to name any real names.

Johnny:Yeah.

Benny:I don't know.

Gamemaster:Bernie Madoff?

Gamemaster:Yeah, so he bids you adieu and leaves.

Gamemaster:So now the only people in the bar are the nondescript guy, your friends, and Paavo and co.

Gamemaster:from Milt's brand.

Argyle:Alright, so I guess we go.

Benny:I saw that guy in the gym earlier.

Anzu:you don't need to talk to him he's just a guy

Argyle:Who?

Benny:He's got the coffee.

Argyle:The completely average person?

Benny:I don't know.

Johnny:Oh, you want to go talk to the... Yeah, I mean, he looks kind of boring, but we can go talk to him.

Argyle:Yeah, let's go chat with him.

Gamemaster:Can I have whoever just decided to go talk to him make a will save for me, please?

Benny:Yeah.

Johnny:He's just a guy.

Johnny:He's boring.

Johnny:It's totally normal that he's wearing a dark metal and wooden mask or whatever.

Argyle:Give me a second.

Argyle:Is this an emotion effect?

Gamemaster:It's a mental effect.

Gamemaster:I don't believe it's an emotion effect.

Argyle:Okay.

Benny:is it fear i'm gonna get items that buff my will 21 for benny

Gamemaster:It's not a motion.

Johnny:I think eventually... Level 9?

Anzu:You wish.

Argyle:31 for me.

Argyle:And confirming it's not a motion, right?

Argyle:Okay.

Johnny:Oh, are we all making this save?

Argyle:Do you want to talk to him?

Johnny:Nice.

Johnny:Yeah.

Johnny:Yeah, nope.

Johnny:I don't want to talk to this guy at all.

Gamemaster:What did we get?

Johnny:Actually... I'm going to use my method point.

Argyle:31 for Argyle.

Benny:Probably is optimal for me to use it too.

Johnny:Why not?

Johnny:yeah I got a 34 with the mythic point

Argyle:If we were level nines and I rolled a success, I'd also get a critical success, but it's not really helpful right now.

Gamemaster:Okay, so 34, 31, and then did other people roll?

Gamemaster:Did you want to talk?

Benny:21.

Gamemaster:21.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:21, unfortunately, isn't enough.

Gamemaster:You hear your friends talking like, hey, should we go talk to him?

Gamemaster:And you're like, actually, wait, what would we gain out of talking to him?

Gamemaster:The other two, 31 and above, is enough to get over that initial why would we want to talk to him.

Gamemaster:And so if you like, you can walk forward and have a chat if you like.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:It's not that Benny's insistent on not talking to him.

Argyle:So does Benny... Is Benny insistent on not talking to him?

Johnny:Come on.

Argyle:Or is it just that... Yeah.

Gamemaster:It's that Benny just doesn't see a reason in talking to him.

Gamemaster:You can drag him along because one of you did save if you wanted to force him.

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:Yeah, so we'll go.

Johnny:Let's go talk to the guy.

Johnny:Josh, are we aware?

Gamemaster:you are aware that for whatever reason you thought that there wasn't any reason in talking to him and that didn't quite feel like your own impression I don't think you can pin down necessarily what's causing it but you know that there was an influence there that you had to override a little bit

Benny:I don't see why, but...

Johnny:I know that sometimes when you cast a spell, you're aware you have to make a will save or that some sort of save is made.

Johnny:Are we aware of anything?

Argyle:Is there a raiment on this map?

Gamemaster:Since you passed the will save and you can take a closer look at him, yes, there is.

Gamemaster:There is a pretty large iridescent raiment.

Gamemaster:This person is clearly a devout of the host.

Gamemaster:If you had to guesstimate 11 or 12 level around?

Gamemaster:Okay.

Argyle:So I'll sit down.

Johnny:Same.

Gamemaster:So you sit down.

Gamemaster:This person, bitch.

Gamemaster:Despite, like, forcing your way through the do I want to talk to this person deal, even when you're up close, there isn't a lot to inspect.

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:They are a perfectly average... They're a perfectly average human.

Gamemaster:Or a perfectly average elf.

Gamemaster:or perfectly average half-human, half-elf.

Gamemaster:It's weird.

Gamemaster:It's like your brain can't decide if their ears are pointed and if their face is slender or something like that.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:It's some weird mix going on in there.

Gamemaster:There is clearly an illusion or a glamour or something on top of them that makes it difficult to discern that is separate from the impulse to not bother them necessarily.

Gamemaster:But you sit down in front of them and they'll put down their cup of coffee.

Gamemaster:and look at both of you with their piercing nondescript eyes, which is a bit of an oxymoron.

Gamemaster:You know they're significant, but, man.

Gamemaster:And I'll say, and how can I help you, gentlemen?

Johnny:Oh, we're just making the rounds.

Johnny:We're from Iconoclasm.

Johnny:We're trying to just kind of meet up with everybody, but I don't think we've met up with you yet, so I just wanted to introduce ourselves.

Gamemaster:You haven't.

Gamemaster:No, you had passed me by.

Gamemaster:Spoke to the people above and below.

Gamemaster:But that's no worries.

Gamemaster:Happens to the best of us.

Johnny:Oh, sorry, where are you staying?

Gamemaster:The Ministry of Cultural Progress.

Argyle:How are you Giannos?

Gamemaster:MoCA.

Gamemaster:As this is often referred to.

Johnny:What's your name, friend?

Gamemaster:Giannos.

Johnny:Great to meet you.

Gamemaster:I was doing fine.

Gamemaster:My brunch was interrupted, but I imagine I'll get over it.

Benny:you you

Johnny:Well, we won't interrupt your brunch for long, but maybe we'll stop by your little slice of the pie later, and we can chat more.

Gamemaster:You must.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:We just wanted to say hello, make a nice impression.

Gamemaster:Hello.

Johnny:We're setting up a little network with our hearts if you ever want to be on that and communicate.

Gamemaster:Oh... I'm afraid that kind of conflicts with us setting up our own network.

Gamemaster:I appreciate the invite, though.

Johnny:Oh, well, who's on your network?

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:Because we may already have some folks that you want to set up with.

Gamemaster:Why... why would I tell you that?

Johnny:Oh, I don't know.

Johnny:I don't really know how hearts work.

Johnny:I thought, you know, save a little bit of time and energy.

Gamemaster:No, I prefer the competition.

Johnny:Okay.

Johnny:Well, we'll let you enjoy your brunch in peace, but

Johnny:Hope to see you around.

Gamemaster:Thank you.

Johnny:I will double speak and I'll say, all right, let's get out of here, guys.

Gamemaster:You won't.

Gamemaster:And they'll go back to sipping their coffee.

Benny:you you

Gamemaster:They've decided they're done with the conversation.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:And double speak say, what the fuck?

Johnny:Who is this guy?

Gamemaster:And he's ignoring you.

Gamemaster:And he doesn't care.

Argyle:Yeah, we're leaving.

Argyle:Does the Ministry of Cultural Progress work a lot with the Iridescent Church?

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:They're pretty big buds.

Gamemaster:The Ministry of Culture... Actually, roll a society check.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:I got 29.

Benny:you

Anzu:I'm sitting at my own table.

Johnny:I can society.

Johnny:I got a little society.

Argyle:Oh.

Gamemaster:Oh, actually, I'm sorry, I would allow a religion check here if you wanted to, like, if that modifier is better, you can swap out the modifier because that would fit.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Argyle:So add plus 8.

Argyle:So 36.

Gamemaster:36, that's crazy.

Gamemaster:Okay, so the Ministry of Cultural Progress started out as a convox of the Iridescent Church before it was kind of spun off into its own thing.

Argyle:So they might be.

Gamemaster:Their whole claim to fame is they own...

Gamemaster:the radio waves in Calaria and Tormeré and some of Rithwin.

Benny:you you

Gamemaster:And so their whole deal is they manage who can broadcast and when, they fund radio shows to ensure there's stuff going on, that kind of stuff.

Gamemaster:And they are very, very heavily involved with the Calarian government and the Iridescent Church.

Argyle:I really don't like how they sandwich the Scale.

Argyle:That's not a great thing.

Argyle:Also, I don't like that they do radios because that's what Embercall uses.

Argyle:But anyway.

Argyle:To the gala?

Johnny:What a gallop.

Argyle:I guess your sister isn't coming, Anzu.

Gamemaster:Yeah, I mean, after an hour passes.

Anzu:Yeah, I give it a second hour.

Gamemaster:You don't hear anything.

Anzu:Maybe she's not here.

Anzu:I doubt it.

Argyle:Nah, she totally doesn't care about you.

Benny:Maybe she couldn't find the place.

Johnny:I wish I'd got lost.

Anzu:She's pretty smart.

Argyle:Alright, well, we wait for the gala.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:You guys get ready for the little soiree that's going to happen where everybody gets to show up.

Gamemaster:And you get to formally meet all of the players on the Strider, or all the players topside on the Strider.

Gamemaster:You're making that face.

Gamemaster:You guys would know no role necessary.

Gamemaster:There are thousands of people below decks that are maintaining the Strider at any given time.

Argyle:Yeah, but they weren't players.

Gamemaster:I'm just not discounting them as people.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Gamemaster:It's like a group of people you haven't interacted with, is what I was saying.

Anzu:Thank you.

Gamemaster:They're not showing up to the party.

Gamemaster:They're not invited.

Benny:I invite them.

Gamemaster:You can't.

Gamemaster:They're not allowed topside.

Johnny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:So you guys all get your best dress ponchos on and head over to the convention center.

Gamemaster:I can't remember the name that I was originally going to call it.

Gamemaster:It's a ballroom, effectively.

Gamemaster:I guess I have a question for you guys.

Gamemaster:Would you show up on time?

Gamemaster:Early?

Gamemaster:Fashionably late?

Gamemaster:Unfashionably late?

Gamemaster:What's the plan?

Benny:On time.

Benny:For Benny, at least.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Argyle:time i don't want them to be i don't want anyone to be making friends without me there

Johnny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:So you guys show up when the invitation tells you to.

Gamemaster:You head into the...

Gamemaster:You head into the room, and it is this large, it almost looks like it's set up to kind of be, there's a dance floor in the middle, there are tables on the side.

Gamemaster:You can see there's a kind of buffet area where it seems they're serving some kind of hors d'oeuvres, and there are also harlequins walking around with hors d'oeuvres.

Gamemaster:It's honestly situated kind of similarly to the party that you guys had attended six months ago when the Keystones were first announced and distributed into the world.

Argyle:There.

Gamemaster:You see a ton of faces here that you've already seen before.

Gamemaster:Plenty of people showed up to this that you had already met.

Gamemaster:There are a handful that you haven't.

Gamemaster:Just to run down them quickly of the groups before we get into anything that you hadn't originally met with, you can see there is this really tall-looking kind of bulky humanoid who is wearing a suit that is clearly too small on him.

Gamemaster:uh it's like actively straining as he moves his arms and the like um he has a very loud booming voice that you can hear uh as it appears that he's having an argument uh with somebody um on the other side of the room and so you're not actually catching the words but you you hear the commotion uh the person that he's arguing with is uh a much smaller looking oh gosh where did they go um

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:A much smaller-looking figure.

Gamemaster:They are, like, small folk in stature, like Dwarven or Gnomish or some kind, but they appear to be made out of rock.

Gamemaster:And they have this big, mossy beard growing along their face.

Gamemaster:Similarly, they seem to have gotten in a shouting match with this tall, burly human.

Gamemaster:Who else did you miss?

Gamemaster:Uh...

Gamemaster:kind of in the corner in a group with Tas, the hop goblin that's running Prime Meridian.

Gamemaster:And Ceres, Fetchling, the greyscanned person from RunGunners, you see a third person that is a sylph.

Gamemaster:They are a humanoid that's got this kind of like windswept, almost cloudy look about them in this gossamer thread suit type deal that's interacting with them in some form.

Gamemaster:And then I think that's literally everybody that you didn't talk to.

Gamemaster:You got everybody but three.

Gamemaster:Oh, no, sorry.

Gamemaster:The fourth one.

Gamemaster:You see Manus and Brini, the two people from Pale Lantern Society, talking to the dhampir that you had seen at Necrolog and a fourth figure, a taller-looking human, gray slicked-back hair.

Gamemaster:He looks to be in his early 20s or so.

Gamemaster:clearly like holding court amongst the four of them like he's telling a story by the looks of it and the other three are standing around listening and that's all of the people you can absolutely do that if you like

Anzu:I roll to attack with my beak.

Benny:you

Johnny:Oh, auto-kill.

Johnny:The beak is deadly.

Argyle:So we got Grayson over there with his cohort of fleshy guys.

Argyle:We got a big burly guy in a suit.

Argyle:Who do you guys think that is?

Argyle:The Harley and Sons?

Johnny:Yell at everybody.

Anzu:What did you just say?

Johnny:Go.

Argyle:I called them the Harley and Sons, the team manufacturer.

Argyle:So there's a big burly guy in a suit.

Argyle:There is a gossamer-looking guy.

Anzu:Well, what I like is that one of them was talking to some friends of ours.

Gamemaster:And then... The sylph wearing the gossamer clothes.

Johnny:Yeah.

Argyle:Who is that?

Argyle:What do they look like?

Anzu:The sylph was talking to Tas.

Johnny:Yeah.

Argyle:What's a sylph again?

Johnny:Wind person.

Gamemaster:Uh, they're... Yeah, they're a wind person.

Argyle:Okay, let's go talk to them.

Johnny:Go up to you.

Gamemaster:Let me see if I can get a picture of what a... Uh... Yes.

Argyle:And who's Tas again?

Anzu:Tas works for Prime Meridian.

Argyle:Uh... Millet.

Gamemaster:Tas is the one that agreed to hook up the, yes.

Argyle:Oh, yes.

Anzu:Whoa, that's electric.

Gamemaster:There, that was the, like, of the, there are two images for sylphs on the, on Archives of Nethis, and that was the better of the two.

Johnny:Oh, wow.

Argyle:Woogie Woogie.

Gamemaster:This is the other one.

Anzu:Ooh.

Gamemaster:which that person just fully looks possessed by multiple evil things.

Argyle:yeah that checks out

Johnny:That was spooky.

Benny:Thank you.

Gamemaster:Okay, so if you want to head over, you can go.

Gamemaster:It's a series from the RunGunners and Tas from Primordian talking to this third person.

Gamemaster:This third person is Braxton Hall from Ætherion Limited, the energy company.

Anzu:Thank you.

Gamemaster:They are, from your conversation with them, they seem pretty lax, pretty free-spirited here.

Gamemaster:It seems that they're generally friendly with you as you show up.

Gamemaster:They express mild disappointment that they didn't get a chance to see you before the gala, but are happy to make your acquaintance now.

Argyle:Hmm.

Gamemaster:Just kind of chatting.

Gamemaster:As you guys are getting to know them, there is a soft clinking sound from up towards the front.

Gamemaster:And you can see that there is the horned, masked, cloaked figure of the Master of Ceremonies with a little champagne flute and a fork tinking it, getting everybody's attention.

Anzu:Thank you.

Gamemaster:And he waves the champagne flute around and says,

Gamemaster:friends, or fellow pilgrims, at the very least.

Gamemaster:I'm happy all of you could attend our pilgrimage.

Gamemaster:You are all the chosen, or I suppose the lucky.

Gamemaster:Many, many people attempted to get keystones, but only a small handful actually managed to get here with them.

Gamemaster:And so I applaud your service.

Gamemaster:We all enter this new unknown together, and I assure you we are all very excited to see what waits us on the other end of this trip.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately, and as he says that, you hear the sound of the rings of the Striders start to spin up as you power up the first step into this journey.

Gamemaster:He says, unfortunately, this is a taxing journey.

Gamemaster:It is energy intensive, and it relies on all of you.

Gamemaster:Anyone with a connection to the Voidsong, we need a way of getting where we're trying to go.

Gamemaster:And as much as I'm happy to do the legwork for all of you, it can't just be me.

Gamemaster:Can I get fortitude saves from everybody, please?

Johnny:Oh, no.

Argyle:I will also be using my mythic point.

Johnny:Have I ever passed one of those in this game?

Johnny:I shouldn't have used my mythic point.

Anzu:We should hire some non-listening bodyguards.

Johnny:Oh, god.

Johnny:Oh, thank god.

Anzu:Anzu will use his mythic point.

Anzu:I'm only trained.

Anzu:I get 8 points if I'm trained, or 6?

Gamemaster:8, if you're trying to.

Johnny:Oh, that was a good reroll.

Anzu:Incredible.

Gamemaster:It should go up to 10, so.

Johnny:31 crit.

Anzu:I got a 39!

Gamemaster:29, nice.

Argyle:I got a 20.

Argyle:20, 28 for Argyle.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Benny:29.

Gamemaster:29 and 28.

Gamemaster:Okay, and for the 29 and the 28, do you guys have anything that bumps the success up to critical success?

Gamemaster:Report saves.

Gamemaster:I don't think you're at the level where that happens yet.

Johnny:you

Argyle:Is this emotional?

Gamemaster:It's not emotional.

Argyle:Then no.

Argyle:I don't.

Gamemaster:This is not emotional.

Argyle:I will get wisdom bumped for future ones, but that's not a Ford thing.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:So then for the two of you that succeeded, all of you feel as the thing spins up outside this kind of drain on you.

Gamemaster:You all of a sudden feel fatigued.

Gamemaster:For those of you that just succeeded, you are actually fatigued in the status effect fatigued, which gives you a minus one status penalty to your AC and saving throws until you take a long rest.

Argyle:Or bathe in a pool.

Johnny:Okay.

Anzu:Where's the line into critical?

Gamemaster:Or bathe in a pool.

Gamemaster:You succeed.

Gamemaster:You critically succeed.

Gamemaster:The two that take the minus one are Argyle and Benny.

Gamemaster:The Master of Ceremonies continues, and as he does, which of you has the totem to talk to Eerie?

Gamemaster:I think he's done.

Gamemaster:One of you must.

Argyle:I can hold it.

Benny:On zoom.

Anzu:Whatever you prefer, Jorge.

Benny:Argyle.

Benny:Yeah.

Argyle:I was interacting with Chuck, so you can have this thing on Zoom.

Anzu:Okay.

Argyle:Take it.

Gamemaster:Okay, so Anzu, you can see on the keystone, it starts to glow at the same time that you feel this draining effect.

Gamemaster:And the keystone shows a number on it.

Gamemaster:It shows 100.

Gamemaster:And then over the course of about 30 seconds, it drains to 90.

Gamemaster:The Master of Ceremony says...

Gamemaster:Of course, this pilgrimage isn't free, and so we ask from all of you that you maintain a tithe every week or so of a little bit of energy that just keeps us going, keeps us in the right direction.

Johnny:No.

Gamemaster:And you hear from further in in this gala area this

Gamemaster:yell that immediately gets cut off into this kind of gurgling sound.

Gamemaster:Can I get a perception check please?

Anzu:Gosh.

Argyle:33 for me No.

Benny:Follow it.

Gamemaster:33's enough.

Johnny:at 23.

Gamemaster:You can see that kind of close to the center of the dance floor area, writhing on the ground, is this older purple-skinned tiefling that appears to have collapsed and is in quite a bit of pain.

Gamemaster:The Master of Ceremonies looks over and sees him writhing on the ground and says, Oh yes, unfortunately, since we are pulling from the Voidsong in you, if you don't,

Gamemaster:have enough energy to sustain, there may be negative effects.

Gamemaster:and you watch as the 90 on your keystone pulls down to 80, and the person writhing in the center almost twists unnaturally, as you can see that he's almost being wrung out.

Gamemaster:This blackish-purplish liquid starts to leak out from breaks where his skin has torn from his own body contorting under the pressure.

Gamemaster:Yes, both of you have your hand raised.

Gamemaster:Let's do Jorge first.

Argyle:Can I make a medicine check on our dear friend?

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Are you running up to him to make the medicine check, or are you just doing it from a distance?

Argyle:I guess I'll go to him.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Argyle:From a distance, from a distance, from a distance.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:Johnny's running up.

Argyle:If he looks like he's about to die, then I will.

Johnny:I'm going to cast Soothe on this guy at third level.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Argyle:All right, if I see Johnny, I'll go up to him.

Argyle:34 for my medicine.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Yeah, with the 34, I mean, like, physically, he's doing very, very, very bad.

Benny:Hello.

Argyle:Mm hmm.

Gamemaster:It looks like his body is literally twisting in on itself, like a towel that's being wrung out.

Argyle:Mm hmm.

Gamemaster:At the same time, with that roll, you note that the blackish-purplish liquid that's coming out of him is almost congealing around him, and you swear that you can see something in the liquid, like it's reflecting something that isn't.

Gamemaster:outside, if that makes sense.

Gamemaster:What did you roll for the soothe?

Gamemaster:38.

Johnny:Oh, God.

Johnny:Nice.

Johnny:Roll.

Johnny:I'm going to roll here.

Johnny:38.

Gamemaster:Hot damn.

Gamemaster:Okay, so you stuff 38 more hit points into this guy, prolonging the amount of time he can be wrung out for energy as he continues to contort and his body gets pulled in new shapes.

Argyle:I cast heal.

Gamemaster:Shapes that, like, okay, absolutely.

Argyle:If he keeps going, yeah.

Gamemaster:How much are you healing him?

Argyle:I'll cast, let's see what it is.

Argyle:What's the fifth level here?

Argyle:So it's, okay.

Argyle:40, oh, it's 40 times plus.

Argyle:62 points of healing.

Gamemaster:62, absolutely.

Gamemaster:You chuck more hit points into him so there's more to pull out of him.

Gamemaster:As he continues to twist and almost fold back in on himself, you hear a popping sound as both of his lungs burst in his chest and then almost deflate.

Gamemaster:More black liquid pools out from under him and has formed a shiny sheen underneath his mangled body, which is still at this point breathing because you keep pumping healing into him.

Gamemaster:Um, the master of ceremonies at this point says, well, you all may deal with this.

Gamemaster:Just make sure you have enough to pay your tithe.

Gamemaster:Um, and he, he steps out.

Gamemaster:Um, at this point, can I have a, uh, it's not a dexterity saving throw.

Gamemaster:What's the, a reflex save, please.

Gamemaster:Uh, from the two of you that are next to the body in the pool.

Argyle:19.

Argyle:Oh, it's a 21, I think, because of Bulwark.

Johnny:Uh, 25.

Gamemaster:Okay, the 25 is a success, the 19 is a failure.

Gamemaster:How much damage does this do?

Argyle:But still is a fail, I'm guessing.

Gamemaster:21 is still a failure, yes.

Gamemaster:So you're going to take... Did you have the minus one from your fatigue?

Argyle:Oh, yeah, never mind.

Argyle:So that is correct then.

Argyle:I actually have a plus 3, but that subtracts the minus 1.

Argyle:So there you go.

Gamemaster:Okay, you're going to take 23 points of piercing damage.

Argyle:OK.

Gamemaster:As out of the pool of liquid that has been wrung out of this guy, there is what looks to be deer antlers shoot out of the liquid.

Benny:you

Argyle:Good.

Gamemaster:And...

Johnny:Oh, no.

Gamemaster:Coming out of the liquid past the deer antlers, attached to a face of this half-deer, half-horse-like hybrid that pulls itself out of this weird blackish liquid.

Gamemaster:Interestingly enough, it's got carnivorous teeth instead of what you would expect a deer or a horse to have.

Gamemaster:And it is covered in this black chitinous Scale instead of actual, instead of like fur or horse hair that you would expect.

Gamemaster:And as it pulls out, it is clearly aggressive.

Gamemaster:It screeches, and it'll charge forward as more of these deer-horse-chiton hybrid things pull themselves out, as well as behind it, out of the pool, these weird dog-like creatures with big slobbering tongues.

Benny:Oh, Benny needs a Z. He runs over.

Gamemaster:I would say Roll Initiative...

Gamemaster:It is 1045.

Gamemaster:I don't think we have time for combat right now.

Gamemaster:So at the very least, if you like, you can see what the map looks like.

Gamemaster:But I think we might want to just hold off until the start of next session.

Gamemaster:You guys are in the bottom right, if that's at all useful.

Anzu:Yikes.

Johnny:It's still loading for me.

Johnny:Oh, this is a lot of folks.

Benny:Yeah.

Johnny:Where's the guys from Textiles?

Gamemaster:Oh, he is that black thing in the center.

Argyle:He's dead.

Anzu:Yeah, that was him.

Argyle:So.

Anzu:He did not have enough Voidsong in him.

Johnny:Oh, that was him.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Johnny:Oh.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Johnny:Oh, I missed that part.

Johnny:No, my guy.

Johnny:He died already.

Johnny:Oh, it is the Ki-Rin.

Johnny:Ki-Rin.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Can we tame him and use him as horses?

Gamemaster:You want to try?

Benny:No.

Argyle:Well, this isn't.

Argyle:Do you think the other people are going to help fight?

Johnny:I think it's 2050.

Argyle:Because if they're going to help fight, these are going to be very nasty things.

Benny:Yeah.

Argyle:All right.

Argyle:Well, I can't believe you guys thought the Voidsong would be good people.

Gamemaster:The Voidsong?

Anzu:Hey, it's still Byte B. I mean, this was the result of pulling the Voidsong out of him, so it's not ideal.

Johnny:This wasn't the voice line, this was the...

Argyle:Definitely not.

Anzu:It's not looking great for my theories right now.

Anzu:But next session, I'm going to have a powwow with Yao, and we're going to figure it out.

Johnny:how I'll do.

Argyle:Yeah.

Benny:Ugh.

Argyle:You know, it's the sad part about this, too, is when I saw that guy collapse, I just immediately thought, hopefully we can get to that ton of clothing.

Anzu:So,

Anzu:Go ahead.

Gamemaster:Yeah?

Argyle:I'm kidding.

Gamemaster:Yeah?

Gamemaster:He's got some pretty valuable fabrics in there.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:What were you going to say, Tanner?

Anzu:I don't remember.

Anzu:Nope.

Argyle:We're about to tell us you can't do next Monday.

Anzu:I'm here.

Gamemaster:I'm about to tell you that he can't do next Monday.

Johnny:Yeah.

Anzu:Oh, Josh scheduled an appointment for me.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Argyle:Without him.

Argyle:I have a range for you to hang out with my other friend.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Argyle:I thought you two would get along well.

Gamemaster:Right.

Gamemaster:Yeah, no, I'm busy.

Gamemaster:I'm playing Pathfinder.

Gamemaster:But you, you're... Does Monday work for everybody?

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Will we pick it up with some combat then, by the sounds of it?

Benny:Yeah.

Argyle:yeah it's also possible

Anzu:I'm just going to flee.

Gamemaster:You could just flee.

Gamemaster:That is also an option.

Gamemaster:You don't have to fight.

Gamemaster:You could use all of the other attendees as bait and make your escape.

Gamemaster:Of course, they might also be doing the same thing.

Gamemaster:But, you know, that happens.

Anzu:I'm going to put Silven Grayson in betwixt myself and the creature.

Johnny:I think it's this guy right next to Argyle who looks kind of like an off-brand Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3.

Gamemaster:See, I've made that trickier for you by not labeling the names of any of the attendees because that would have been a lot of effort.

Gamemaster:So you just have to guess which one you think is Silven.

Gamemaster:And then just sacrifice that guy.

Anzu:Oh, I just got the gala to load.

Argyle:I wonder if killing these things are going to give us energy.

Gamemaster:Yeah, a little bit.

Gamemaster:I see it.

Gamemaster:Although, that does also read a little bit like Old Lady to me.

Gamemaster:So, Old Lady Asterion.

Argyle:I think so.

Argyle:For our heart.

Gamemaster:I mean, listen, so long as you have enough to pay the tithe, you don't have to deal with these guys.

Benny:That would be nice.

Gamemaster:So it's fine.

Anzu:Why do they all have moods?

Gamemaster:Because the options I have when I put them out are I can either have it add an incrementing number or I can have it add a random adjective.

Benny:My mom doesn't.

Johnny:Oh, I like that.

Anzu:Gosh.

Johnny:I like the adjective.

Johnny:That's fun.

Gamemaster:Part of the problem is that some of the random adjectives are just, like, bad.

Gamemaster:Like, I pulled out a bar guest and it called him a defeated bar guest.

Gamemaster:And I'm like, we're starting combat.

Gamemaster:You can't start at defeated.

Gamemaster:That's not useful.

Gamemaster:I didn't change the name.

Argyle:Where do you see the names?

Anzu:All of these creatures, they're called Trusting barghest, Cowardly barghest.

Argyle:Oh.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:The bottom ones don't, but the top ones do, yeah.

Johnny:clinical bargain.

Gamemaster:Yeah, the ones close to you guys have incrementing numbers, but the ones on the far side have all fun names and stuff.

Benny:I want to come up with... I want to come up with the adjectives.

Anzu:Why is there both?

Anzu:How is there both?

Gamemaster:Because I clicked the check marks.

Benny:Like, legless barghest.

Benny:Just so whoever is playing is like, what the fuck?

Benny:It's not legless.

Benny:It isn't.

Argyle:There's no feet on this one.

Argyle:Don't get your modifier.

Anzu:No, that one's actually on our side.

Gamemaster:Also, like...

Argyle:This one's pretty gassy.

Gamemaster:Some of this doesn't make sense for, like, if it's not an intelligent creature, I'm not sure how it's supposed to be cynical.

Benny:Undead Parkers.

Gamemaster:Like, I don't know what a cynical bar guest is in this case.

Argyle:Or a defiant barghest.

Gamemaster:Yeah, how are you jaded if you don't have thoughts other than eat things?

Gamemaster:I don't... Oh.

Johnny:Pretty cool.

Gamemaster:Oh!

Gamemaster:Oh, of course!

Argyle:I like the satisfied one.

Argyle:That one's definitely on our side.

Argyle:He's just like, I'm okay.

Gamemaster:You satisfied?

Gamemaster:Yeah, he's about to eat that person.

Gamemaster:I imagine that's why he's satisfied.

Gamemaster:I do also, the other thing was, this was really big, and so I thought I would focus it in an area, but I didn't know how to do that, so I just made a spotlight, and I'm hoping that works well enough during actual combat.

Gamemaster:Because I can turn off most of the lights except for the spotlight, and then it kind of feels like it's narrowed, but it's not all the way narrowed, you know?

Gamemaster:It doesn't help when the other ones start running around, but at the very least, for, like, sticking near you, it's helpful.

Argyle:You know, I feel that son sucks.

Gamemaster:Although we have to actually... One second.

Gamemaster:I have to rearrange you guys because... The nephew?

Argyle:The son that got sick that decided he's not going to go on the pilgrimage and just sent his old man.

Johnny:Yeah.

Argyle:The nephew.

Argyle:That sucks.

Argyle:How could you have been to that first party and be like, whoa.

Johnny:Yeah, my grandpa can do this.

Argyle:Yeah, my grandpa could do this.

Johnny:My uncle can do this.

Gamemaster:Uh-huh.

Gamemaster:Do you know if the nephew likes the uncle?

Gamemaster:Maybe he hated his guts.

Argyle:That's true.

Gamemaster:I don't know.

Argyle:That's fucked up.

Gamemaster:If you ever make it back to Hallia, you can hunt him down and ask.

Johnny:Man, really right up in the mix.

Benny:This is true.

Gamemaster:He's still around.

Gamemaster:You know who he works for.

Gamemaster:Also, he went to the effort of getting a keystone, and then he pawned it off on somebody.

Gamemaster:So...

Benny:Yeah, some of these people, I mean, I wanted to ask, but I guess it's very prying to be like, how the fuck did you guys get a Keystone?

Johnny:How did you get a keystone?

Gamemaster:Yeah, there are some that are pretty obvious, like how they have the capability of getting a keystone.

Gamemaster:And then, you know, there are some of the smaller ones where there's a story behind it.

Gamemaster:I had to roll some dice.

Gamemaster:Sometimes the dice did not land in the direction that I expected them to.

Gamemaster:It happens.

Argyle:I like the Protectorate.

Benny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You like the Protectorate?

Argyle:They're just like, there's a 99% chance they're going to get this.

Argyle:And there's a 1% chance.

Gamemaster:There was a chance that they didn't get the Keystone.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:They did get the Keystone, but it wasn't a guarantee.

Argyle:That would have been really unfortunate if they didn't get one.

Argyle:Because as far as I know, they know of at least one other Keystone location.

Argyle:That would have been weird.

Gamemaster:Hmm?

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Johnny:Yeah, that wouldn't have been good.

Johnny:That wouldn't have been... I hope they'll help us in this fight.

Argyle:Yeah, well.

Gamemaster:Might have had some beef with the Protectorate.

Gamemaster:They're in there.

Gamemaster:Maybe by the time next week rolls around, I will have gone in and updated the token names and stuff so that you can identify actual people in the crowd.

Johnny:So we can shove Silven Grayson.

Argyle:Wait us.

Gamemaster:Yeah, so you know who to shove in the way of the vicious monsters coming out of the tiefling.

Benny:This is a crazy encounter because if we wanted to kill any specific faction, we could try right now.

Gamemaster:Oops.

Gamemaster:You absolutely could.

Gamemaster:There's a lot of people.

Anzu:It'd be a bad look, though.

Gamemaster:There's a bit of chaos going on.

Gamemaster:If you had somebody you wanted to hit on, you could do so here.

Argyle:You know what I also just realized, guys?

Argyle:Something I kind of might be kind of concerning.

Argyle:What do you think's in the middle of this map right now?

Johnny:It does look like a black hole.

Johnny:There are key written here.

Benny:Bye bye.

Argyle:Do you think if we went into the black hole, we would come out with a void heart?

Johnny:We saw those once before.

Argyle:that's not great that's not great I guess this ties back in I guess Josh has a story he's trying to tell yeah

Johnny:We don't... Our characters don't...

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:I come up with... Yeah, your characters don't know anything.

Gamemaster:I come up with mechanics, and then I think, how can I fit this mechanic in this location?

Gamemaster:Is what happens.

Gamemaster:It's a good time.

Benny:just open an auto shop

Gamemaster:Yes, of course.

Gamemaster:Listen, I introduced dreams in all of Second Campaign, and they're very present in this campaign.

Argyle:Beaks undefeated.

Gamemaster:They're just not called that.

Gamemaster:We had Voidhearts and Ki-Rin and all of that fun stuff, and they've come back.

Johnny:Who are you attacking?

Gamemaster:the weft is showing up.

Gamemaster:Anzu, did you just crit one of the attendees?

Anzu:Listen, there's so much chaos.

Anzu:Anything could happen.

Benny:No way you rolled minimum damage on the beak.

Gamemaster:Anything could happen.

Argyle:Is there a faction we want to take out that we think we could?

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:If you're trying to be opportunistic, is there anybody that, like, knows the opportunity?

Johnny:I don't know about Achievable, but everyone in Silven's team, those guys from the Ministry of Progress.

Anzu:Right.

Anzu:There's the qualifier of, is it achievable?

Argyle:That's what I was thinking about.

Gamemaster:Just get rid of all the doctors.

Gamemaster:Doctors be gone.

Gamemaster:Exactly.

Johnny:Yeah, they brought all... Well, that's just competition for Argyle.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah.

Johnny:Jeez.

Gamemaster:Captive Kirk of the USS... Yeah.

Anzu:Guys, what if my sister's a stowaway and she's below decks?

Argyle:That's what I thought.

Argyle:That's where you gotta go talk to... Or maybe she's capped it.

Argyle:You know?

Johnny:Thank you.

Argyle:She's attacked.

Argyle:Alright.

Benny:captive kirk of the uss enterprise mo cup mo

Gamemaster:Well, I guess...

Argyle:I think if we opened up the Protectorate on birth 4, that door, probably would have been the mocap, whatever they call them.

Argyle:That would have attacked them, huh?

Gamemaster:MoCuP.

Argyle:Mocap.

Gamemaster:The Ministry of Cultural Progress.

Benny:cojones yeah

Johnny:Everyone loves the FCC.

Gamemaster:There's some cool guys that like telling you what to put on the radio.

Gamemaster:I don't understand why you don't like them.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Alright, well.

Gamemaster:They're just like the FCC.

Gamemaster:People love the FCC.

Gamemaster:Do you remember that time that there was that guy at the FCC that had the really cool big mug?

Gamemaster:That could be, you know, that could be here.

Gamemaster:What was it?

Gamemaster:Ajit Pai?

Benny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:That's him.

Gamemaster:Yeah, this is...

Argyle:Actually.

Argyle:I think it's going to be less of what group to take out and make sure our group gets out.

Johnny:Yeah.

Anzu:Oh my god, if they come for Paavo, I'm going to be so upset.

Johnny:I mean, I hope those people are going to jump in to the mix because there's...

Gamemaster:Yeah, I mean, you know, the counter of is there anybody we want to take out right now is is there anybody who wants to take you out right now?

Benny:Thank you.

Argyle:Yeah, or allies.

Gamemaster:Or your allies.

Argyle:Did the Scale show up?

Gamemaster:Yeah, all of the orgs showed up.

Argyle:Again.

Gamemaster:They are here.

Anzu:but not all of them are here anymore.

Johnny:Favorite guy got dishragged.

Gamemaster:One of them got dishragged.

Gamemaster:But the rest of them are around.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:I thought he was going to get got by someone else.

Gamemaster:Listen, yeah, all of you joked about him dying like 20 times.

Johnny:I thought someone else did.

Anzu:I didn't think he'd be so weak that just the act of being here would kill him.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:It's not the act of being here, he just didn't have enough for the tithe.

Gamemaster:He should have had more energy.

Gamemaster:So long as you can pay up, it just might make you a little tired.

Benny:True.

Johnny:All right.

Gamemaster:That's all.

Gamemaster:Before I forget, I'm going to add the fatigued condition to Benny and Argyle.

Benny:Just for fun.

Gamemaster:Well, no, because you have it.

Gamemaster:And I'm not going to remember that you have it when we start next week.

Gamemaster:You're fatigued now.

Anzu:Oh, I need to rest.

Argyle:I knew I shouldn't have gone up to his old-ass body.

Argyle:But I followed the good-spirited Johnny.

Gamemaster:What?

Argyle:Because to be honest with you, I thought he would have turned into a monster, and I didn't want Johnny there by himself.

Johnny:We just gotta get out of here.

Argyle:That's the only reason I went up, and I was right, and I'm mad about it.

Gamemaster:Too altruistic.

Johnny:I think we just gotta, like, hole up in a corner and...

Benny:Wait, fatigued is just minus one to AC and saving throws?

Gamemaster:It's not nearly as bad as it is in 5D.

Argyle:My benediction can do a lot of work here.

Anzu:Benny, you're not currently at maximum hit points.

Gamemaster:Yeah, so for, like, I think it just carried over from the last time.

Benny:Am I a target or something?

Johnny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:The last time you did.

Gamemaster:I will just give you a full rest.

Gamemaster:There you are.

Gamemaster:Which I think means I have to reapply Fatigued.

Benny:You had to remove the fatigue.

Gamemaster:There you go, that's back.

Gamemaster:And we'll do the same for Argyle.

Gamemaster:And then reapply Fatigued to Argyle.

Gamemaster:And now you guys should be... Okay.

Anzu:I rested already.

Gamemaster:Johnny, are you rested?

Gamemaster:You look rested.

Gamemaster:You're arrested.

Gamemaster:All right.

Gamemaster:So now we're prepped for combat or for running away or for some other secret third thing.

Argyle:Well, I guess the good thing is we were generally chatting with allies right before this happened.

Gamemaster:You guys made some friends.

Argyle:No, no, but we were also in the process of chatting with some friendlier people.

Gamemaster:You got, you know.

Gamemaster:Hmm.

Benny:you

Argyle:We weren't trying to talk to Grayson right when this happened.

Gamemaster:So that he's, like, right behind you to backstab you when all this stuff comes out?

Argyle:Yeah, literally.

Gamemaster:That's fair.

Johnny:I don't know.

Gamemaster:I mean, what makes you think that Grayson would want to do that to you anyway?

Gamemaster:Like, what reason does Grayson have for disliking you guys?

Argyle:He didn't show up to our cookout.

Argyle:What would you be doing for 40 hours?

Gamemaster:He was busy.

Gamemaster:You invited him as they were setting up the fame.

Gamemaster:He said no.

Gamemaster:I think sometimes you're just too negative.

Gamemaster:He could be a cool dude.

Gamemaster:I spent 40 hours fleshing out his character and you guys won't even talk to him.

Gamemaster:That's not true.

Argyle:Just like taking like.

Gamemaster:I have no idea.

Gamemaster:Is he INTP or ENTP?

Argyle:Taking psych tests to be like, how would he answer?

Johnny:Just Josh standing there staring in the mirror.

Argyle:He does have a borderline personality disorder.

Benny:What is this evening routine?

Gamemaster:He's definitely type A.

Benny:Coffee or tea?

Argyle:What type of philosophy books would he read?

Argyle:I should read those to get into the mind of Grayson.

Johnny:I am Silven Grayson.

Argyle:Every morning he must start with a French omelette.

Argyle:I must master this.

Argyle:Alright, well this was fun.

Gamemaster:Yeah, so I guess I'll see you all Monday.

Argyle:Good night, comrades.

Anzu:Indeed.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:Hey.

Johnny:See you Monday.

Benny:Monday.

Argyle:Wait a second.

Argyle:This attendee with a sweatband?

Argyle:He's gonna go.

Gamemaster:A headband.

Argyle:That guy's gotta go.

Gamemaster:You're killing him.

Argyle:That guy's gotta go.

Gamemaster:Because he has a headband?

Argyle:Yeah, he's gotta go.

Gamemaster:Well, I mean, he's currently surrounded by three barghests, so he's not in a good position.

Argyle:Alright.

Gamemaster:But...

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:All right.

Gamemaster:I guess we'll find out next Monday.

Argyle:Well, weird.

Gamemaster:His fate.

Argyle:Adios.

Anzu:Peace.

Johnny:I guess.

Gamemaster:See y'all.

Gamemaster:Good night.

Benny:Peace.