2024-12-23 — Akasha

Jorge:Thank you.

Jorge:Misha?

Jorge:Hello?

Jorge:Hello, Misha?

Jorge:Hello?

Noah:Yo, yo, yo, yo.

Noah:Did you get a haircut?

Jorge:No, it's just different lighting.

Noah:Well, this is a nice top, Jorge.

Noah:I'm out.

Jorge:Here's Miesch.

Noah:Aw.

Noah:Make sure you're looking good.

Jorge:I'm over back in Rhode Island for the break.

Noah:How are you doing, man?

Noah:What'd you say?

Jorge:I'm over in Rhode Island for, yeah, Christmas.

Noah:Do you have family in Rhode Island or just Bailey?

Mike:Oh.

Jorge:Yeah, my folks moved to Rhode Island once I graduated.

Noah:I did not know that.

Jorge:I haven't actually been back to Massachusetts since I left.

Jorge:Oh, I've been once for a work trip.

Jorge:What is funny, though, is I'm literally only here Christmas, Thanksgiving, and whatever other holidays.

Jorge:But what's funny, though, is I have the whole week off.

Jorge:from work and uh google only gave us tuesday and wednesday off but gemini and deep mind gave us the entire week because they said you guys have been working so hard we've gotten two different nobel prizes from you guys you're doing great um

Noah:Wait, they said, oh, hey, Tanner, you got a Nobel Prize.

Noah:Here's a week off.

Jorge:Well, three days at Gemini.

Jorge:So Gemini as a whole got a Nobel Prize for physics, for deep learning, and then one for alpha fold, which is just like a breakthrough in protein folding stuff.

Jorge:So Google only got Tuesday, Wednesday off.

Jorge:Then we got the rest of the week.

Jorge:But my director told my team and another team, they go, yeah, we're really sorry.

Noah:Congrats on your...

Jorge:But I know you guys have been working really hard and you're burned out.

Jorge:But we have this launch with Samsung coming up.

Jorge:So, like, you guys got to work this week.

Jorge:And I was like, what a day of excellence.

Tanner:What?

Jorge:And they're like, you can take it another time.

Tanner:Do you have to work tomorrow?

Jorge:What?

Tanner:Do you have to work tomorrow?

Jorge:Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jorge:Yeah, but it's really funny because instead of getting the two normal days Google gets or the three extra days DeepMind was getting, I get zero.

Tanner:Hmm.

Tanner:That's tough.

Noah:you

Jorge:That's fine.

Mike:I mean, you guys only shipped, like, one of the largest breakthrough and smaller versions of LLMs.

Mike:So, I mean, you got to ship something else, right?

Mike:I mean, OpenAI dropped to O3 benchmark, so you guys have to do something else now.

Jorge:Which is so unimpressive, their O3 benchmarks.

Tanner:Thank you.

Jorge:It is actually very unimpressive.

Noah:Thank you.

Jorge:They're like, hey, our model specifically trained on this benchmark does this.

Jorge:And it's like, oh, cool.

Mike:Oh, yeah.

Mike:That was almost predictable with the ARC benchmark.

Mike:The research math benchmark is mildly interesting, but then they give you a little bit of hints on how it works.

Mike:And essentially, they ask 64 instances of the model

Mike:And then they have them vote.

Mike:So they have like 64 versions of O3 vote.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:And this is the O3 low efficiency.

Mike:So they have like literally a fucking conference for like 8 million human hours.

Mike:And then they're like, all right, we can get 25% on research math.

Mike:And it's like, oh, God, how much do you get if you don't have the conference?

Mike:They're like, well, we got two and a half last time.

Mike:And we get, I think it's like 10 if you don't have 64 of them voting.

Mike:So...

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:But I've seen someone on some of these benchmarks.

Jorge:They can get, like, on the Arc, they got, like, 80 or something like that.

Jorge:And then a fine-tuned 8-gig model open-sourced Lama can get 55.

Jorge:And that's 8 gigs.

Jorge:I can run that on my MacBook.

Jorge:So is that impressive?

Jorge:Eh.

Mike:Did you see the... Yeah, also the open AI thing.

Jorge:But Gemini also did some other ones.

Jorge:Oh, and then Microsoft's Phi model is also like, we did really well in this thing.

Jorge:And it's like, yeah, because you fine-tuned off the eval set.

Jorge:What did you expect?

Mike:Did you see that... So ARK, they have to share some level of stuff with ARK so that they can actually run the AGI tests.

Mike:And they specifically asked Arc not to share how much the compute costs, and then Arc shared it anyways.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:So per task, per task, so for each problem in the Arc, it was around three grand for O3 inefficient to run.

Mike:And for O3 efficient to run, it was like 150 bucks or something.

Jorge:OpenAI also lost a lot of their... All of their senior leadership besides Altman is gone.

Mike:It's just like...

Jorge:And then most of their top researchers all left.

Jorge:And what's funny in the LLM community, people are like, yeah, OpenAI is just fucking... It's a shark that they cut the fins off of and now we're just watching ground.

Tanner:yikes whoa i used her voice is that right

Jorge:I firmly believe that if our world was Critical Role Season 2, OpenAI is Cognosa.

Jorge:I firmly believe that.

Jorge:They do the creepiest, craziest shit.

Noah:Yes.

Jorge:Like, you heard what they did with Scarlett Johansson?

Jorge:Do you know what they did, Tanner?

Noah:They did a solid PR job of making that go away very quickly.

Jorge:Yeah, so they wanted to build a voice model.

Jorge:Then they first told people, because they just wanted it to sound like Scarlett Johansson from the movie Her.

Jorge:But then Scarlett Johansson sued them and was just like, hey, you guys told me this was in like March.

Jorge:You told me in September you wanted to clone my voice.

Jorge:And I said no.

Jorge:And then you said please.

Jorge:And I said no.

Jorge:And then Sam Altman was like, please, let's talk.

Jorge:So then she's like, fine, let's talk.

Jorge:And then he didn't talk to her and then just fucking launched it.

Tanner:Hmm.

Jorge:And then they're like, oops, we didn't copy it, I swear.

Jorge:And then her lawyers were just like, okay.

Jorge:But when they were subpoenaing them, they're like, we also want to know how you trained this voice model.

Jorge:And then all of a sudden, OpenAI is like, we're pulling off the model.

Jorge:It's not online anymore.

Jorge:This is normal, all normal.

Jorge:If someone sues you, you do this.

Jorge:And then they came back with a voice model that didn't sound like her anymore, and it went away.

Noah:Fully unrelated.

Tanner:Zero consequence.

Jorge:Sorry.

Tanner:Zero consequence.

Mike:They just had to take it down just because there was, you know...

Jorge:They lose billions a year.

Noah:Unrelated issues.

Jorge:They're also fighting with Microsoft now.

Jorge:They also made the worst deal ever.

Jorge:So I'm pretty sure Microsoft gets like 70% of their profits.

Jorge:But if they can achieve AGI...

Noah:They make problems.

Noah:They said.

Noah:Hey.

Jorge:Apparently Microsoft loses controlling stake and goes down to 49%.

Jorge:So that's why they're rushing to try to find AGI because they're trying to get Microsoft out of there.

Mike:It's like a betting market Oracle hack, right?

Jorge:It's a fucking... Yeah.

Mike:Well, what do you call AGI?

Mike:Well, these people say they know what it is, so let's just beat their benchmark, and then Microsoft can fuck off.

Noah:I have a question.

Noah:not well versed in AI and becoming increasingly less versed in every day.

Noah:What is AGI?

Jorge:Um, it's artificial general intelligence.

Jorge:It's supposed to be, you know how like models can be like good at math and some are good at writing and some are good.

Jorge:A human is just inherently good at all of that.

Jorge:So they're like, they're like artificial intelligence.

Jorge:That's old school.

Jorge:We want to find like this new thing that's good at fucking everything, everything.

Jorge:So that's what they're trying to rush for.

Jorge:But that means they're also just like making shit up to try to get out of Microsoft.

Jorge:And it's really funny just how like, oh God, they're just such a shitty company.

Jorge:They had some dude that was like pretty high up.

Jorge:When he left, he's like, hey, I'm losing out on millions of dollars.

Jorge:But in the OpenAI contract, there's a contract that if I talk badly about OpenAI or if I even mention this clause exists, I forfeit all of my shares forever.

Tanner:He was just waiting for someone to call his bluff.

Jorge:So when this first came out, people were like, I don't know if I believe this is true.

Jorge:And I was one of them.

Jorge:I was like, this seems a little bullshit.

Jorge:And then Sam Altman tweeted like 24 hours later being like, I'm so sorry.

Jorge:I didn't realize that was in the contract.

Jorge:I'm just the CEO, guys.

Jorge:I had no idea it's there.

Jorge:You can talk to me, guys.

Jorge:I'm removing it from the contract.

Jorge:And I was like, oh, so it's fucking there.

Jorge:This dude wasn't lying.

Jorge:He was just fucking actually bad.

Jorge:And I was like, oh, that's why no one talks bad about OpenAI.

Jorge:Because they're scared.

Jorge:Yeah, no, they're just fucking... Oh, 100%.

Mike:Many people think Sam is a sociopath.

Mike:Many, many people.

Jorge:I interviewed at a startup...

Jorge:where the founder was a co-founder with Sam Altman for WorldCoin.

Jorge:And I was like, this is not a selling point.

Jorge:I heard that and I met with the dude.

Jorge:I'm like, he's as fucking sociopathic as I expected.

Jorge:No, I don't want to work for these people.

Jorge:It was so funny.

Jorge:I was like, damn, he is slimy.

Jorge:And I didn't even meet Sam.

Jorge:I met someone who worked with him once.

Josh:No.

Jorge:Hello, Josh.

Tanner:Thank you.

Mike:Is there?

Noah:Mike, what was today's image?

Mike:Yeah.

Noah:Who...

Josh:No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Josh:Let him spew his nonsense into the void completely unacknowledged by everybody.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:I'll be right back.

Jorge:You guys can keep going.

Mike:I feel like, I don't know.

Mike:You guys should know.

Mike:It's like basic trivia at this point.

Mike:I'm definitely not just coming up with combinations of letters after the letter Y, Googling it, and if it's a thing, I send the image.

Mike:I don't do that.

Josh:I don't know why you say that as if it's some sarcastic ha-ha-ha in-joke.

Josh:We all clearly know that's what you're doing.

Mike:How many weeks ahead do you think I have these?

Mike:I have zero.

Tanner:Oh, geez.

Noah:I assume you have a file folder and at some point you're like, I should just get these done and you just did a whole year's worth just to be safe.

Josh:I did not consider that you would have them more than before the day that you need them.

Josh:Why are you pre-planning them?

Tanner:No, I think he's got maybe five.

Mike:I Google it when Josh asks if we're playing.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:That's good.

Noah:I was hoping you had just

Noah:hundreds of these.

Mike:That would have been so funny if I just dropped a zip file that's just 4,000 images, and you're like, wait, what?

Noah:It's crazy that you do that and don't just pull up a dictionary of the letter Y.

Mike:But there's still the names of the image are not the thing, so you still have to reverse image search it.

Mike:No, I'll run out.

Tanner:you

Josh:I don't... Are you a fan of wedding and corporate entertainment band Yelba's Variety Band?

Mike:I'll run out.

Mike:There have been many proper, this is a proper noun sent.

Mike:I mean, it's a group of people.

Josh:Is that why you have this image?

Mike:I'm so mad that you reverse image searched it now because I was going to make up a different definition and just hope none of you searched.

Jorge:I will say, I love how good of people Tanner and Noah are, but you guys are bad judges of character if you think Mike has a folder of those.

Mike:I was going to say, like, it's a group of people of certain ethnicity.

Mike:And then you guys would be like, what countries start with Y?

Mike:And then...

Josh:Latin and American.

Tanner:Well, I think he didn't have a lot.

Jorge:Do you remember his one shot?

Jorge:He doesn't plan.

Tanner:Oh, when the back fell off.

Tanner:Yeah, I do remember.

Mike:It's all part of the illusion.

Jorge:Yes!

Tanner:Yeah, that's the reality, man.

Noah:But the whole one-shot, I don't know.

Noah:I alternate between being like, Mike is 15 steps ahead of everyone, and Mike is just laying down the railroad track as he goes, pulling up from behind the car, putting in front.

Mike:No, guys, I don't plan any of this.

Tanner:You think it's too late for me to get Yelba to come to my wedding?

Josh:No.

Josh:I bet it isn't.

Tanner:I wonder where they're located.

Josh:I think that'd be good.

Mike:Let's see.

Mike:I'm sure though.

Noah:A hard dig against them.

Tanner:They're in Texas.

Jorge:Who is this?

Josh:And planes exist.

Jorge:Who is this?

Josh:Yelba.

Jorge:Oh, I thought, did you invite Sam?

Tanner:Sam.

Tanner:Oh, to my wedding?

Tanner:No.

Tanner:I have not spoken to Sam.

Jorge:She's at Arizona.

Noah:For a moment, for a moment, I went, who's Sam?

Mike:Elba.

Jorge:Yeah.

Tanner:I didn't.

Tanner:No, that's not my intent.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Yeah?

Jorge:She goes to church a lot of the week, though, now.

Jorge:At least she's talking to someone.

Mike:Empathy.

Josh:Is that our problem, that we're not godly enough?

Noah:Hey, we've killed at least one god.

Jorge:I guess.

Mike:Is it blasphemous to call myself godly?

Josh:Yes.

Mike:Then, were it too godly?

Josh:Assuming you've subscribed to an Abrahamic faith.

Mike:Oh.

Josh:Do you?

Jorge:So in Abraham's case, it's not blasphemous to equate yourself to God.

Mike:Not today.

Jorge:If you are God, then it's fine.

Mike:Oh.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:Oh, no, that's blasphemous for Mike to do it.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:I'm not a sinner.

Josh:Considering that you might be God, is humorous and blasphemous?

Mike:I'm not considering it.

Mike:I know.

Jorge:For Mike to do it, very blasphemous.

Mike:Oh, right.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So, yes, that's the answer.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Wait, so God's just hanging out and he's like, oh, I gotta write an exception for me because I am, so I don't want to be blasphemous to myself.

Jorge:I think it's in black for everyone.

Noah:Oops.

Josh:I have a feeling that exception isn't there.

Josh:Like, if you look up where they talk about what blaspheming is, I bet it doesn't say, unless you're God.

Mike:Well, yeah, maybe.

Mike:I don't know.

Mike:I guess he was the one that was writing it.

Mike:So he's like, this is implied.

Mike:Like, I'm writing it.

Mike:This isn't for you guys.

Josh:You can't do things that God does.

Mike:I don't go by these rules.

Josh:And so it's weird for God to be like, I can't do things that I do.

Tanner:you

Josh:I think it's just assumed that there's a blanket exception.

Mike:This is the start at the end of, like, each blaspheme statement.

Mike:And at the end, it's like, obviously, unless you're God, then you can do this.

Mike:Like...

Jorge:Just like... He's like, do you think I read this book?

Mike:Unless you're me.

Mike:No, no, I just said unless you're me, then you can do this.

Jorge:Come on.

Mike:That's for you guys.

Mike:Rules for thee and not for me.

Josh:Like, canonically, and in the actual original religious version of the word canonically, canonically, God did not write most of the Bible, regardless of New Testament or Old Testament or Quran.

Josh:So, it's entirely possible he hasn't read it.

Mike:Oh.

Josh:He's never gotten around to it.

Josh:It's just on the list somewhere.

Mike:He's probably like, yeah, not bad, I guess.

Jorge:Well, he's supposed to have inspired man to write every part that's in there.

Noah:It's like an authorized biography.

Mike:You guys got the gist?

Josh:No.

Josh:Because most of the Old Testament is written by Jews who very explicitly were not writing on behalf of God.

Josh:And the Old Testament is part of the Christian Bible.

Jorge:Oh, I mean the New Testament.

Josh:So... No, actually, I guess we'll shut up about the Old Testament, despite the fact that it's not supposed to apply to you anymore.

Jorge:New Testament.

Jorge:We don't really talk about Old Testament that much.

Jorge:It's pretty angry.

Josh:Like, every time anybody's like, you can't be gay, they quote something from Leviticus, which is Old Testament and not supposed to apply to Christians.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:But also most of the people that are really angry about religion tend to not reflect most of the views of it.

Josh:It's fair.

Tanner:yeah yeah

Jorge:Except for... I'm kidding.

Jorge:I'm kidding.

Jorge:I'm not going to finish that sentence.

Mike:Why did the Testament need a sequel?

Mike:Was God too mean in the first one?

Noah:The big question is where does the word communion come from?

Josh:If my, and, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if my understanding of it is correct, is that we murdered a guy, and then the guy turned out to be God?

Josh:And it's like, I'm going to write a book about it.

Mike:Oh, we need another one?

Josh:People are like, I'm going to write a book about it.

Josh:But, like, yeah.

Josh:France.

Mike:Marks.

Josh:No, definitely not marks.

Noah:Thank you.

Jorge:Old marks.

Mike:Old Marks.

Josh:Old marks?

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:He wrote the communion part of one of the Testaments.

Josh:I don't... I don't care if... The books of a mark?

Tanner:Oh, were you thinking of the book of Mark?

Mike:No.

Tanner:In the gospel.

Mike:There's more than one of those.

Josh:Or gospels?

Mike:The Books of Mark would be quite a disjoint collection.

Mike:Just biographies of everyone named Mark.

Josh:No, it's all of the books owned by one mark.

Tanner:Ooh.

Mike:Oh, The Books of Mark.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:Yeah, I guess that works.

Mike:Depends on the Mark.

Jorge:Little known fact about Mark, he changed his name to Marcus and then founded a clothing company.

Mike:Ooh.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:When is maybe Neiman then?

Jorge:No, that was his brother.

Mike:That's a chess player.

Jorge:Um, one random thing.

Josh:Oh.

Josh:Sure.

Josh:That could be true.

Jorge:I saw this one clip and it has to be one of the favorite clips I've seen in a while.

Jorge:It's like this young kid.

Jorge:He's probably like eight.

Jorge:He's a prodigy in chest.

Jorge:This is in a Russian, this is on a Russian talk show.

Josh:Oh.

Jorge:And then they're like, oh yes, you're so good at chess.

Jorge:You want to, and then like the host plays him and obviously the kids like beat again.

Jorge:And then he's like, oh, this isn't going to be fair.

Jorge:I have a guest.

Jorge:And then they bring in the former World Champion.

Josh:Garry Kasparov.

Mike:No, they bring in Karpov because Kasparov's not friendly with the Russians.

Josh:Wait, is there another similar thing?

Jorge:No.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Very funny.

Josh:Their names are too similar.

Josh:You should not be able to mix those up.

Mike:They're close.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Karpov and Kasparov.

Mike:They had a fierce rivalry.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Did they actually?

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:That's gotta be confusing.

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:Karpov and Kasparov, yeah.

Josh:Good for them.

Jorge:I feel so bad for...

Jorge:Fuck, who was the guy that would... Oh, shit.

Jorge:I'm blanking on his fucking name.

Jorge:So, Magnus, when he was a kid, who was his biggest rival?

Jorge:Or is it something Kuna?

Jorge:No.

Mike:Is it Hikaru?

Jorge:There's another... Hikaru, yeah, yeah.

Jorge:He would have been so good in pretty much so many other generations.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:He just had to have been born around the time Magnus was.

Josh:Did he originate the Bond Cloud?

Mike:Well, he was... Oh yeah, his Bond Cloud theory is unmatched.

Josh:Doesn't that automatically make him one of the best chess players of all time?

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Mike:But, yeah, Hikaru also had, like, historic tilt against Magnus.

Mike:It was like, Magnus might be, like, beating people 75% of the time, and then he beats Hikaru, like, 90%.

Mike:And it's like, Hikaru just can't beat Magnus.

Mike:This really fucking blows, because he's number two.

Mike:At one point, he was number two to Magnus.

Mike:But... It's kryptonite.

Jorge:Magnus is just anti-tilt, though, to be fair.

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:It's really cheating.

Mike:There's, like, some stat.

Mike:I think he played, like...

Mike:13 or 20 I don't know he won like 90% of the chess tournaments or 95% of the chess tournaments he played in this year and it's like he's just playing him back to back to back like fucking knocking him down they actually have the world rapid and blitz is in New York this year yeah debating getting tickets

Jorge:Oh.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:I would love to go and just be like, oh, fuck, idiot.

Jorge:Did you see that move, guys?

Jorge:That was crazy.

Jorge:Which move?

Tanner:I would not have put my night there.

Mike:They have a very expensive finance chess conference where they're bringing... Magnus will be there.

Mike:Magnus and Fabiano, who's the American number one, will be there.

Mike:And general admission is $1,000.

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:Well... I don't know.

Josh:What is a finance chess conference?

Mike:Ask them.

Mike:You can play Magnus and Fabiano in Blitz.

Mike:They have hedge fund managers that really like chess, like Boaz Weinstein will be there, and a couple others.

Mike:Boaz was the only one I recognized.

Josh:So it's just a chess conference, but it's aimed specifically at people in the finance industry.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:know what else did they're gonna talk about yes yeah it's called the Wall Street gambit it's on Sunday

Josh:It seems strange.

Tanner:Josh, it makes a lot of sense, Josh.

Josh:Like, from a money perspective, absolutely.

Josh:I think in general it makes sense to just take a thing and then direct it at people with money.

Josh:I get it.

Josh:Of course it is.

Josh:Are you attending?

Jorge:Thank you.

Mike:Not as of right now, no.

Mike:Well, see, I want to attend something the week of World Rapid and Blitz because there's hardly ever high-profile chess tournaments in New York nowadays.

Mike:And the tickets are way more affordable for other stuff, but I don't know if I'll be back in time for other stuff.

Mike:Like, this is on Sunday because it's after the World Rapid and Blitz.

Mike:The World Rapid and Blitz starts, like, tomorrow or Christmas or something?

Mike:It might start...

Jorge:These people do not believe in God.

Jorge:Definitely the Russians have started that.

Mike:Well, yeah, FIDE is run by Russians.

Jorge:See, sometimes stereotyping you're right.

Mike:The truth.

Tanner:That's our lesson of the day.

Noah:No, I don't agree.

Jorge:Yeah, yeah.

Josh:This episode is sponsored by stereotyping.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:If you're thinking something, don't be ashamed.

Mike:You're probably right.

Josh:Wow.

Jorge:Agree to disagree.

Jorge:I didn't know you could do that.

Jorge:There's been times... There's been times where I've talked to someone and they're like, agree to disagree, and I'm like, no!

Josh:I mean, it's a stupid thing.

Josh:Sometimes the other person is wrong.

Josh:And you don't get to step away being like, oh, both people had good points.

Josh:Because one person's points were stupid.

Jorge:You're wrong!

Tanner:Like, you must change your stance on this.

Jorge:I will not...

Jorge:Yeah, yeah, like, like, you're just wrong.

Jorge:Like, you're just wrong.

Josh:At some point, it's not even you have to change your stance on this.

Mike:Thank you.

Josh:It's important to me that you know that I think you're wrong.

Josh:That's the biggest point.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:I just need them to know that I think they're stupid.

Josh:And then that's it.

Jorge:Yeah, no, I actually had a disagreement with my sister somewhat recently when she was talking about how she's trying to hit some protein goals for some, like, because she's starting to lift a little bit more.

Jorge:And then she was having a bunch of collagen.

Jorge:And I'm like, collagen's nice, but it's not a complete protein.

Jorge:So you want a complete protein with all the amino acids you need to rebuild muscle.

Jorge:It's good for your skin.

Jorge:It's good for a lot of things.

Jorge:But, like, if you're trying to help your muscle regrowth, it's just not it.

Jorge:And then she... What?

Mike:I was going to say she's college and pilled.

Jorge:Yeah, and then she's just like, uh... No, no, it's like, it's still good.

Noah:there's there's protein specifically formulated for helping that collagen is distinctly not one of them

Jorge:Like, it's still protein.

Jorge:It's like... It doesn't matter, okay?

Jorge:So if you're going... If you just want collagen, it's fine.

Jorge:But it is not upping your muscle gains.

Jorge:I'm sorry.

Josh:Thank you.

Jorge:It's not a complete protein.

Jorge:Other proteins, too, like soybeans, they're animal-based.

Jorge:They don't have the correct ratios of all the amino acids to be the most efficient, but it's still going to help.

Jorge:But collagen just doesn't have everything you need.

Mike:If I recall correctly, collagen just gets broken down to amino acids in the body.

Mike:So it's not like you're taking collagen and it improves skin collagen content.

Mike:You're just taking less efficient protein.

Mike:But I can't remember if there was a study that was like, actually, collagen kind of does help some things more than just taking protein.

Mike:So I don't know 100%, but I do recall it being like, yeah, I don't know, you're

Mike:Your body's going to break it down the same way it breaks down other proteins and then rebuild them.

Mike:It's not like when you eat protein, it goes directly into your muscles.

Jorge:Yeah, but it's like if you're trying to build a skyscraper and then you're like, I'm only going to buy this pack and then this pack just doesn't have rebarb.

Jorge:So it's like, yeah, you can try building it.

Jorge:It just is missing an important building block there.

Tanner:Thank you.

Noah:Well, it's like the people who tried to build skyscrapers.

Mike:Or it's like if you're...

Noah:One of them tried to build it out of collagen.

Noah:That didn't work.

Noah:One of them tried to build it out of straw, and that didn't work.

Noah:And then one tried to build it out of, you know, bricks and rebar, and that worked pretty well.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:It's like you're trying to build a skyscraper so you purchased a bunch of prefab houses and then you have to deconstruct them and you don't have enough concrete to make the skyscraper.

Jorge:And they didn't have reinforced steel, so...

Noah:I know there was another way you meant that.

Mike:Yeah.

Noah:Like, I know there was another way you meant that, but in my head, I was like, you buy it with your free fab houses and just stack it.

Josh:Stack them on top.

Tanner:There's your skyscraper.

Josh:Yeah, what is a skyscraper if not 12 houses?

Mike:I saw you laughing at that before I finished and I was just like...

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:No, I saw you laughing at that before I finished.

Mike:I'm like, that wasn't my point.

Mike:But I don't want to finish my point now because a joke landed.

Noah:I know... I know you had another point, but in my head, it was just, like...

Mike:So I'll just stop.

Mike:But I have to.

Noah:Houses stacked on top of each other.

Tanner:A new Google offices.

Noah:Where everyone works on Christmas.

Jorge:You guys are also welcome to ever visit a Google office if you guys want to.

Mike:A container office.

Noah:Thank you.

Noah:I have been there.

Noah:It's great.

Noah:I visited with you.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:You're the only one.

Jorge:And you don't even live in New York.

Noah:Guys, it's great.

Jorge:No.

Noah:I had a great time.

Noah:I got a free coffee.

Noah:I got so much free food.

Tanner:Is there hot chocolate?

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Almost certainly, yeah.

Tanner:Oh, okay.

Mike:They'll punch you if you ask.

Tanner:I'll be there.

Tanner:I'll come in on Christmas.

Jorge:Shit, I gotta go.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Did anyone hear what I said?

Jorge:What'd you say?

Josh:Yes.

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:No, don't.

Josh:He's talking about violence.

Josh:We don't want to encourage it.

Tanner:Oh.

Mike:Panthers, like, they have hot chocolate?

Mike:I was like, dude, they got a lot of shit.

Mike:They'll punch you if you ask.

Jorge:If you go to the massage room, they probably would.

Jorge:I don't know about that.

Josh:Like in the face?

Mike:No, it's like a room where, I don't know, it's probably calming.

Mike:It's set up to take massages.

Jorge:Did I tell you guys they tried to do a nice thing and give us, because they've been overworking us in Gemini, like massages?

Jorge:But it was really... It sounds like a good thing.

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:Or just some guy walked around.

Jorge:In Gemini, they're like, here, you guys, relax.

Jorge:We have this, like, pop-up, which sounds really bougie and nice, but there were also just, like, five long tables and just, like, five masseuses per table.

Noah:It really does.

Jorge:And they were just like, yes, you could do hand massages here, so I would just have to sit across from another adult as they just look into my soul as they massage my hands and arms.

Jorge:And I was like, I'm gonna pass.

Jorge:Thanks.

Josh:I mean...

Mike:This is what gives people a weird perception of tech companies.

Tanner:No.

Mike:They're like, you know, the programmers at Google are so fast and they're so elite that you need to get their hands massaged at the end of the day.

Mike:My uncle, he made it kill you as a hand massager at Google.

Mike:The tips were crazy.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:And I was like, this is weird.

Jorge:And then they had a back massage, but there were like two tables and no curtains, no privacy.

Jorge:And you'd just be getting like a back massage by a stranger in front of like 30 of your coworkers.

Jorge:No, thank you.

Jorge:I'm not going to do that.

Josh:Did you watch the people who were getting a massage?

Mike:That's...

Jorge:No, because I wasn't one of the ones there because I left.

Jorge:But I walked in and I was like, this is really weird.

Jorge:And then I ate the free food and left.

Mike:That's so close to... Hey guys, we understand you're working a lot and the bathrooms are kind of far.

Mike:It's a lot of work.

Mike:So we've installed porta-potties in some of the cubicles so you guys can just shit right here.

Jorge:I got a friend that left Google and went to Meta because he was like just chasing money and promos.

Tanner:Oh, to increase efficiency.

Josh:It's convenient.

Noah:at that point just make your just make the program receipts toilets just make the program receipts toilets like at that point

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:Yeah, exactly.

Mike:Get the Gemini Team shit buckets.

Mike:Yeah, get the Gemini team shit buckets.

Mike:You guys have played CSGO, right?

Mike:You guys have grinded?

Mike:You're familiar with this.

Jorge:And then he's fucking miserable.

Jorge:He has one day he showed up at nine instead of like usually like he tries to get an 830.

Jorge:And then one of his co-workers pinged him and I was just like, are you quiet quitting?

Tanner:Thank you.

Noah:He showed up at 9?

Noah:A totally normal time?

Jorge:They were like, are you quiet?

Mike:Nine is late for most finance places.

Josh:It's a shame.

Jorge:Yeah, but not a big deal.

Mike:It should be eye-bleedingly early for a tech company.

Josh:It's not a finance place.

Mike:You'd be like, why the fuck are you here?

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:They haven't even finished making breakfast.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Yeah, actually.

Jorge:But yeah, very funny.

Mike:Finance people are freaks, dude.

Mike:Everyone at my company, when they're in office, they're like fucking working at 7.

Noah:I like the place.

Mike:What's going on?

Mike:Market doesn't start until 8.

Mike:Everyone else, all of our clients are probably up at fucking 7.

Jorge:Bond market started eight.

Mike:I'm not.

Mike:Bond markets are technically 24-7, but really kind of 8 to 5.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:No.

Jorge:That's funny.

Josh:Do we want to play some Pathfinder?

Jorge:Weird.

Noah:Are we fighting Kharkov today?

Noah:Is that happening?

Josh:Are we?

Josh:I mean, it would be useful if somebody could recap for me what happened last session.

Josh:Maybe then we can figure that out.

Noah:What did happen?

Mike:All right.

Josh:Oh.

Mike:I've got notes.

Mike:I haven't looked at them, but I'm going to volunteer.

Mike:All right.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Alright.

Mike:Session... This may also be off.

Mike:Session 98.

Mike:So we left off with the bifurcated man getting a big old megaphone out, filling our business.

Mike:SeRaan left, and we left.

Mike:And then Lev made a covenant with...

Mike:a supposed-to-be-dead god thing.

Mike:Anyways, now we're going to go ambush Kharkov.

Noah:you you

Josh:Thank you.

Mike:Now we're going to ambush Kharkov.

Mike:We need a card.

Mike:We need a spirit print.

Mike:We need to not be downfalled by the liars.

Mike:We get info on the levels, and we get to Sarengrad.

Jorge:Thank you.

Mike:We wait for the sparrows.

Mike:We meet Wojcik, who I don't know how to say or spell his name.

Mike:We learn about this bad plague, as if the world's not going to end soon.

Mike:We assume it's probably from knocking blood.

Josh:out.

Mike:We get a list of three people in the first house.

Mike:We can go find where they live, slap them around a bit, but they're low-ranking.

Mike:So instead of scaring them and trying to get info, or at least not doing that immediately, one of our compatriots went to a church where they ripped people's hearts out for fun and received a conscious heart of a fairly high-ranking person, which was exactly what we wanted according to plan.

Mike:It definitely didn't scare any of us when we became aware of somehow a still conscious heart from a man.

Tanner:Hello.

Mike:uh divex looked directly at his face as it was ripped from his body um lots of really cool stuff uh and then uh other things that our compatriot did after obtaining this heart that we we asked him to go and get um he came back and was like hey can we talk to the big boss can we get like a demigod walk at these halls and they're like sure i don't know fucking well we can make that happen so uh masha showed up was creepy as shit um

Mike:And just kept repeating that she wants what's best for the Ereskian people.

Mike:Super creepy.

Mike:But yeah, I guess no still beating heart from that interaction.

Mike:Just the second one that we had.

Tanner:So the heart is fine, but the altruist is a creep.

Mike:The altruist.

Mike:I'm sorry.

Mike:The non-blinking, non-breathing being that was just speaking in rhyme the whole time.

Josh:Thank you.

Noah:Excellent.

Mike:Yeah, that was creepy.

Jorge:You know what I also realized, guys?

Jorge:We probably shouldn't have taken that item from her.

Jorge:Because... Yeah, she definitely had that on her in case she got jumped.

Tanner:Oh, because now she's going to die without it.

Jorge:And then we're like, oh, we can use this even though we're never gonna fucking use it.

Jorge:Why would it be useful for us?

Jorge:You get immune for one round?

Noah:Thank you.

Jorge:That's fucking useless.

Jorge:It doesn't even work against divine people.

Mike:Oh, yes, that's right.

Mike:Henrik received one of those little cyanide pills, but instead of being filled with cyanide, it makes him invulnerable for a round.

Josh:Until the end of his next turn, I believe.

Noah:He's got to tighten it.

Mike:A round plus three actions max.

Tanner:So I can jump off a tall building and survive.

Josh:I can... Let me double-check that.

Mike:You can jump off of a tall building that is 500 feet or less and then survive.

Mike:If you jump off of a higher building, you'll probably die.

Jorge:Also, you better hope you're not falling onto anything divine.

Tanner:Hmm.

Tanner:I land on a church.

Jorge:Like, holy pierogi.

Mike:I was about to say you land on a church steeple.

Jorge:Those got confirmed to not have the Nox blood or divine stuff.

Noah:Oh, we all said some pierogies that maybe had beast blood.

Josh:Okay, so indestructibility is until the start of your next turn.

Mike:Correct.

Noah:Also, we should all eat.

Jorge:Even worse.

Mike:Less than a round.

Tanner:Well.

Mike:Contrast that with the pierogies give us 10 minutes of reducing our doomed condition or one minute?

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:What?

Josh:Yes.

Josh:Ten minutes.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:10 minutes.

Mike:And then we're immune for an hour?

Mike:Wait.

Josh:You know, I'm into the pierogies for an hour.

Josh:Yes.

Noah:So we should all eat, we should all have pierogi before we fight Gargantua.

Josh:No, it's not like food.

Josh:Too pesky in food.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:It's just that so far the only food you've picked up so far has been just a caterer's platter of pierogies.

Jorge:Because we have rings of sustenance, so we're just, like, walking around like...

Mike:That makes sense.

Josh:Yeah, I like I I do want to clarify it's not you become immune specifically to pierogies And then if you've picked up like a cup of borscht, you could still doubt that and get another 10 minutes Yeah Yeah

Mike:That makes

Mike:That's why I want to double check that it was immune to that sort of effect from food, not immune to the pierogi effect from the food.

Noah:Josh, before we do anything, I would like to use my immense skills as the greatest crafter across multiple worlds to make, like, a really easy open cup of borscht for everyone.

Josh:Yeah, sure.

Josh:I don't even know if you need to roll that.

Josh:I think you're guaranteed to crit on what sounds to be a level 0 item, even if you roll a natural 1, so you don't need to roll.

Jorge:He's just Alton Brown in the, just doing the science of food.

Mike:Wait, food... Wait, foods are craftable?

Noah:There's foods you can craft.

Josh:It's called cooking, actually, is the term.

Mike:Hey, man.

Mike:Wait, hold on, let me... That's...

Tanner:Josh, you're talking to the guy that makes pancakes in his Instant Pot.

Tanner:He knows what cooking is.

Mike:It's so crazy that it's not a specialty crafting.

Josh:Isn't that true?

Mike:Also, if you're good at building cars, you can also just make Beef Wellington.

Noah:Basically the same thing.

Mike:You're just following instructions.

Noah:What is... What is... Yep.

Jorge:That's what Google is.

Mike:If someone had a guide to fucking traverse the stars, I guess you could do that too.

Josh:Well, so... So, to clarify, cooking is not actually based off of crafting.

Noah:Once per hour.

Josh:It's based off of survival.

Mike:Oh.

Josh:Like, rules as.

Josh:But I also think you have a skill that lets you just craft whenever I ask you to do anything else.

Josh:So I don't think it's a problem.

Noah:Yeah.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:So we can say at some point during the day you use your once per hour craft check to make like, you know, a pull open tab can for borscht.

Josh:That's fine.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:So what is the plan?

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:So we can find, we know what he looks like.

Jorge:We just need to, we can find his body, right?

Jorge:And then we try to go, hopefully he has ID character on him.

Jorge:If not, hopefully we have information about his house.

Jorge:We go there, bingo, bongo.

Jorge:I dress up like my family member and we go, we steal.

Mike:Sure.

Jorge:Great.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:Bingo bongo is candid now.

Tanner:So we're trying to find the owner of the heart.

Jorge:The corpse of the Horde, yes.

Noah:Bye.

Mike:Sir, does this belong to you?

Mike:Are we... Uh...

Tanner:And the person, you know their name already.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:Xander or Rascal?

Jorge:Blood.

Mike:I think I asked discerned location does work for this guy's body using the heart.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:Josh read it and was like, this is definitely a body part of him.

Jorge:Because it's the new spell, not the legacy one that specifically specifies body parts.

Josh:I actually think the Legacy one does also specify body parts.

Mike:Well, yeah.

Mike:Oh, or has a piece of its body.

Josh:But... Yeah.

Noah:you

Mike:The first time I read that, I saw it have one of its significant belongings.

Mike:And then I tried to ask you, does this count as one of its significant belongings?

Mike:And you're like, read the rest of the spell.

Mike:You don't have to loophole this one.

Mike:It's a body part.

Mike:You can find the guy whose body it belongs to.

Josh:To answer your question, though, I mean, just for your own reference, the new version is Pinpoint, if you wanted to look at what the...

Jorge:okay by the way um never mind let's go let's go fight the corpse

Josh:Which is, I think, effectively the same spell.

Tanner:I don't play the remaster.

Josh:Okay, but I do.

Josh:So... There's a bit of contention there, I think.

Noah:Alright.

Mike:Uh-uh.

Tanner:Do you think we're going to run into other bad folks around this dead body?

Jorge:Possibly.

Jorge:But I would hope not.

Jorge:I'd hope they cleaned up and hid the corpse well, you know?

Mike:We all do.

Noah:Let's go.

Jorge:Alright, let's go.

Josh:Okay, so you are planning on using Pinpoint to find the body associated with the heart that you're currently holding.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:It's an 8th level spell.

Josh:And it just tells you the name of the exact location.

Josh:So you would...

Josh:Divex goes through the setup of the spell, breaks out his wand, his crafting components, and all that kind of stuff, sets it up, casts the spell, and a postcard just pops into existence in front of you.

Josh:And on the postcard is... The front is a picture of...

Josh:A corpse.

Josh:It looks like... Okay, a corpse is wrong, because its arms and legs are missing, because they've been removed.

Josh:You see, just like the torso, as it is sticking out of what looks to be a dumpster, in some back alley somewhere.

Josh:And when you flip over the postcard, it says, 1218 Providence Street.

Josh:Saturday.

Tanner:Hmm.

Jorge:Alright, let's head over quickly.

Josh:Pinpoint is crazy.

Josh:It just straight up tells you right where they are.

Jorge:Should I go by myself or do one of you guys want to come with me?

Jorge:I don't know if all of us going is a good idea.

Jorge:Or we could go.

Jorge:Go on the orb.

Noah:I'm pretty stealthy.

Noah:I can go with you if you want some backup.

Jorge:Or should we all go on the orb and you do it, big fish?

Jorge:Don, sorry.

Noah:Oh, yeah.

Noah:Same guy.

Jorge:Alright, I give Don a good little disguise and then we can go.

Josh:While you are doing the disguise, Voychek will hobble in.

Noah:Hi.

Josh:He's been coming in and out, like, every once in a while, just checking in on how you guys and your prep and all of that stuff is going.

Josh:And he will gesture for Henrik to come over to the side for a sec.

Josh:And he'll say, Listen.

Tanner:Yes, hello.

Josh:What you're doing could be very important.

Josh:And I felt a little bad that we can't send more with you.

Josh:So I requisitioned something that I thought you might find interesting.

Josh:And he...

Josh:He goes rummaging around in his messenger bag that he carries around, and he pulls out a small burlap sack, almost, and he hands it to you.

Tanner:Okay, are you sure that it won't be more useful somewhere else?

Josh:And he says, we stole those from a fourth house encampment maybe two months after you left.

Josh:I think you could make better use of them than anyone else at this point.

Josh:Only one person can use them at a time, and frankly, we're not trying to get an extended conflict, or physical conflict at least, but you seem like you will be.

Tanner:If we succeed in what we're doing, it could make a big difference in the fight.

Josh:Both I and Masha have pretty high expectations of all of you.

Josh:I'd prefer if you didn't all just run to your deaths.

Tanner:Josh, does it seem like what he's handing me is the bag, or is there something in the bag?

Josh:There is something in the bag, but he's handing you the whole bag.

Tanner:Oh, no instructor.

Josh:But, like, once he hands it to you, he just kind of, like, good luck.

Josh:And he just topples back out.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:Yeah, thanks.

Tanner:I peek in the bag.

Mike:It's a bag of wind.

Josh:Inside the bag are, um, six...

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:spike-looking things.

Josh:They are a bit narrower than the spikes that you have on your shields, and they are patterned in a way.

Tanner:Whoa.

Josh:They've got grooves running in a spiral shape down them in a form that's slightly different than the spikes that you have.

Jorge:Thank you.

Josh:But they are... At this point, you are familiar with what a shield spike looks like.

Josh:These are a form of shield spike.

Tanner:Right.

Tanner:I run to Divex.

Mike:Yeah.

Tanner:Divex, tell me what this spike does.

Mike:It looks like it pierces stuff.

Tanner:Yes, I actually, that much I did kind of suspect on my own, but...

Mike:And then I'd like to identify.

Mike:Is this an arcana check to identify something?

Josh:Okay, roll an arcana check.

Josh:Aren't you trying to identify?

Josh:Are you not trying to identify magic?

Josh:What are you trying to do?

Mike:I'm just messing with you.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:Plus three plus two.

Josh:Plus one, plus four.

Mike:I wish I had a plus one.

Mike:Starting off the session strong.

Mike:43.

Josh:Oh, gee.

Mike:These aren't magic.

Josh:43.

Josh:These aren't magic.

Tanner:Oh.

Tanner:No, they're metal.

Tanner:Tell me about the metal.

Mike:Oh.

Mike:Um... No, there's something funny.

Mike:I'll just cast Attack Metal.

Mike:I was trying to think of something funny to do in front of Henrik to confuse him, but we'll just cast Attack Metal.

Tanner:I can't.

Josh:Yeah.

Tanner:I don't get confused.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:These are made out of...

Josh:The same material that you saw in the Medbay, albeit solidified, they are Quicksilver.

Josh:There aren't any inherent magical properties on this.

Tanner:Wow.

Josh:They can be, with a little bit of work.

Josh:What's the term?

Josh:Not foiled.

Josh:Gilded with other metals to make them act like the metal of that spike.

Josh:But more importantly, they are particularly sharp.

Josh:Supernaturally sharp.

Josh:They are a d8 damage die instead of a d6 damage die.

Tanner:oh that's wild big cat big cat that's wild

Noah:Hard-hitting.

Jorge:Cat!

Noah:Ooh, cat.

Noah:Wow.

Jorge:Cat!

Josh:He's come to watch.

Josh:He's a big boy now.

Noah:Aw.

Josh:Six whole months old.

Jorge:Bam.

Mike:Oh, God.

Noah:Wow.

Noah:Big cat.

Josh:You can do a little bit of work to guild them to add whatever special metals you currently have spikes of onto them.

Tanner:That's funky fresh.

Josh:Their base effect is just that they are a damage dice higher than normal shield spikes.

Noah:Read that one.

Jorge:Cat.

Josh:Cat.

Tanner:That is funky fresh.

Josh:That's not your office.

Jorge:No, I'm in my folks from Rhode Island.

Josh:Oh.

Mike:I think all of us should go because of I can cast Locate.

Josh:Cat.

Jorge:All right, so let's go.

Josh:Cat.

Jorge:I'll go with, I'll stand outside.

Jorge:Do you two want to be in the order or all four of us go?

Mike:So if we get to the dumpster, it's going to be a lot quicker to just cast Locate looking for Oreskian entrance cards.

Jorge:I mean, should just two of us navigate, though?

Jorge:Doesn't that boy tell us?

Mike:oh yeah sure

Jorge:Yeah, just Don and I. I can talk my way out of a lot of things.

Jorge:All right, let's go.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So I think the only person who would know where this road is is in the orb.

Tanner:I can get us close and then I guess if you guys want to go the rest of the way.

Josh:Because only one of you is a native to the city.

Josh:But if the two of you that aren't in the orb want, you can ask for directions.

Josh:Are you holding the orb out?

Noah:Yes.

Jorge:Can the orb, can't you see from in the orb?

Jorge:Oh, yeah.

Jorge:All right, so I guess we should have the orb guy go out.

Jorge:I'll do it.

Josh:It's a diplomacy check to ask for directions.

Jorge:I'll just do it.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:What type of check is this, though?

Jorge:I might have something for it.

Josh:Diplomacy.

Jorge:Oh, it's not like... Yeah.

Mike:gather information or something.

Josh:Gather information.

Jorge:Okay, I think I have something for that.

Jorge:That's fine, I'll just roll.

Tanner:Thanks folks.

Mike:Bless you.

Josh:Bless you.

Mike:One of those electronic music checks.

Noah:um don't

Jorge:All right, I just have to see all my bonuses.

Josh:I don't get that one.

Mike:Diplo That's not funny

Josh:Oh.

Jorge:Oh, no, no, that's definitely wrong.

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:I've killed him.

Josh:51?

Jorge:I forgot to add the rest of the 35.

Jorge:Plus 35.

Jorge:So 51.

Josh:Yeah, I mean...

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:The street is kind of close to the center of town, not quite in the actual government district, but near it.

Josh:You're starting to get into an area that's a bit more... It's difficult to call it wealthy, because a lot of the people here don't necessarily actually have a lot of coin, but there is a system by which one can obtain things through government permits.

Josh:and you're starting to get into the area where those permits are a bit more giving and generous, and so the houses here are larger, the people here are definitely... the ones that you see on the streets are, for the most part, they don't look like adventurers, they're not walking around with weaponry and the like.

Jorge:Uh-huh.

Josh:but they are walking around with well-maintained clothing and the like.

Josh:You guys do definitely stand out a little bit if you're carrying your weapons openly.

Josh:Okay, but do you have your weapons out?

Jorge:We have disguised.

Jorge:We're disguised, aren't we?

Jorge:Not me.

Jorge:I don't have weapons or armor out.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Right, of course, because you don't have those.

Noah:I'm kind of sneaking along behind, so I'll be stealthing.

Mike:He has blood, which is plenty.

Josh:Yeah, but the blood's in the body.

Josh:So... The, um... The only people that are walking around this part of the city with weapons out or exposed in some way are the local law enforcement.

Josh:Not members of the First House.

Josh:The First House are not the rank-and-file police.

Josh:These are, instead, members of the rescue military.

Josh:Um...

Josh:This is kind of like the job you want to get.

Josh:There's a mandatory draft for everybody who grows up in Oresk, and this is the cushy job if you manage to get a draft and you're assigned to policing the street in a nice part of the neighborhood.

Tanner:It's brutal out there.

Mike:We'll be seeing.

Josh:So the...

Josh:people here are definitely happier than the ones that are actually sent out onto the front lines and have to fight things and deal with supply line issues and hunger and just pain and all this stuff that you don't have to deal with them you're just walking around picking up pickpockets um that's it literally everybody's doomed um

Josh:uh regardless the two of you disguised you had rolled high enough for your deception last time i'm assuming that carries through you are good enough to fool like some 17 year old who's already bored because it's 10 he's been walking for three hours and hasn't seen anything interesting so it is fine for you guys to walk past

Josh:and find your way over towards a, like, mixed residential commercial area, the address on the postcard actually points you to a pretty quaint-looking coffeehouse-type deal.

Josh:There are people on the inside you can see looking through the windows.

Josh:There are warm, inviting lights.

Josh:The street lamps in this area are interesting in that when you stand under them, you get the same effect as if you had just eaten some of the bio-organically engineered food.

Josh:While you're under a heat lamp, the cold just kind of fades from your body and you're not doomed.

Josh:As soon as you leave it, it comes back, but it's a nice little reprieve as you walk through.

Jorge:Thank you.

Josh:And if your day-to-day involves walking from your house to, like, the office, and it's just covered in those street lamps throughout, it's not really a problem.

Josh:That said, you know that this is not in the restaurant, but in fact an alleyway behind it.

Josh:So if you like, you can sneak behind to try and get to the back where you imagine the postcard was pointing to.

Josh:I will need stealth checks if you're trying to do so without arousing those.

Noah:Delft check.

Josh:Yes.

Noah:Interesting.

Noah:43.

Noah:Strong start.

Jorge:Give me a second.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:No.

Jorge:I will re-roll that.

Jorge:I try one more thing with my coin.

Jorge:Jesus Christ.

Josh:A d2?

Jorge:I don't know if this rolls once.

Jorge:If this rolls twos, I mean.

Josh:It rolls twos.

Jorge:Yeah, I've only gotten once.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:You're just unlucky.

Jorge:It just... So... Yeah.

Noah:There you go.

Josh:You're just unlucky.

Josh:It happens.

Tanner:Sure.

Josh:So would we get a 22 and a 30-something?

Josh:40-something?

Josh:What'd you get, Don?

Noah:I got a 43.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So, good news, bad news.

Josh:Good news, the person you're really sneaking from is just, like, some people who are sat near the front of the coffee shop or looking out onto the street, and one employee who happens to be cleaning one of the counters near the area when you duck by, none of which have a particularly high perception DC.

Tanner:Bye.

Josh:The bad news is, let me check something real quick.

Josh:What is... Oh my god, people are so unperceptive.

Josh:I was curious, I just checked what a commoner's perception DC is.

Josh:It's 13.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:So, because you avoided the critical failure, you are okay.

Josh:So you do manage to sneak behind, and you think that you haven't pulled any attention yet.

Josh:But you do absolutely make tracks when you do so.

Tanner:you

Josh:There's snow on the ground.

Josh:One of you is light and fast and nimble enough that you manage not to leave any tracks on the ground, a la Legolas.

Josh:One of you very much did not do that.

Josh:So there is a very clear trudging into the back of the alley through the snow.

Josh:Maybe it's not an issue.

Josh:You're in the back of the alley now.

Josh:There are two dumpsters, both of them look like they're closed.

Josh:There's like a pile of trash bags on the side near the exit where employees have come out and just dumped stuff.

Josh:There isn't like some telltale pool of blood somewhere.

Josh:So if you like, you can make a perception check to search around to try and find out.

Noah:I swapped spots with Henrik for him to make the perception check.

Jorge:I'm going to leave the orb and everyone here and then go back into the inn and just try to keep the innkeeper people distracted.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Talking with them.

Jorge:I'm disguised and I'm just... Yes, yes.

Josh:Sorry, the coffee house that you're behind?

Jorge:Just go there.

Josh:Okay, cool.

Jorge:Keep them distracted.

Josh:Just to clarify, it's a rescue in Starbucks.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:Yeah, yeah.

Josh:It's not like a place that people are sleeping.

Josh:Like, there is traffic coming in and out, but you can go in and, you know, choose the barista.

Josh:That's fine.

Jorge:Yeah, I just want to make sure that none of the staff are throwing out anything else right now.

Jorge:So I'm just going to keep Anaïs and try to... Okay.

Josh:Okay, so that's a performance check to make a distraction.

Noah:I will knock you out.

Jorge:I thought they're normally deception checks, is that not?

Josh:Is it?

Josh:Let me... Oh.

Jorge:Cray Diversion is a... It was a special Marzo feat to do it as a performance.

Josh:Okay, then, sure.

Jorge:That's Cray Diversion.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Yeah, if that is... It's a deception check, that's fair.

Josh:So you can make a deception check.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:And Tenric, if you're popping out of the order, you're welcome to make a perception check.

Tanner:39.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Okay, one second.

Josh:No.

Josh:Now or never.

Jorge:Two, four... No!

Josh:Guess it's never.

Josh:All of the employees walk out the back entrance at the same time.

Mike:Hey, what's going on?

Jorge:I got a 50.

Josh:Okay, you can absolutely hold the attention of, like, the two employees that are working in the coffee shop right now.

Jorge:I also have a feat Charming Liar.

Jorge:So if I critically succeed on a lie check, they also like me more.

Jorge:That might step towards me increasing.

Josh:Uh,

Jorge:I don't know if I critically succeed.

Josh:This isn't a lie check.

Josh:It's a creative diversion check.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:Those are different things.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:You're not lying.

Josh:You're just trying to stop them from walking behind.

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:But regardless, I think, once again, there's not like a high bar.

Josh:It's a barista and some guy that's bussing tables.

Josh:There's not a very high bar to both keep them distracted and make them like you.

Jorge:Yeah, yeah.

Josh:So I don't think that's a problem if you want that to happen.

Josh:with a 39 perception you are lucky in that it's not like there are 50 dumpsters to pull through.

Josh:you're a little unlucky with the 39 in that the first dumpster you look through is the wrong one.

Josh:so you like pull it open you start rummaging through trash

Josh:Not much in there except a small family of rats that has made it home, so you just stink like trash now.

Josh:But you go to the other one, you pop that open, and there's an immediate, very distinct scent of decay here that you would not associate with whatever trash a coffee shop makes.

Josh:And it's relatively quick work to pull apart the bags.

Josh:And you find the reason that in the postcard the man didn't have arms or legs.

Josh:It's because they have been neatly put into a bag next to him.

Josh:But you have found the torso.

Josh:Well covered with garbage bags, but regardless.

Josh:Having pinpointed their location, you found him.

Tanner:Is there a head?

Tanner:Oh.

Josh:There is a head.

Tanner:Can I bring it into the orb?

Jorge:Is there an ID card?

Josh:sure yeah uh this torso is clothed okay um

Mike:Bring the body?

Mike:Okay.

Tanner:Don't we need it?

Tanner:Wait.

Jorge:We need the ID card.

Tanner:Oh.

Tanner:Is this torso clothed?

Jorge:Just bring it into the warm bucket.

Tanner:I search it.

Mike:I meant let me get out of the orb and cast locate.

Mike:I didn't mean don't bring it in here.

Mike:It'll stink.

Mike:Search it in the alley.

Mike:I didn't mean that.

Josh:So are you doing that?

Tanner:What would you like me to do?

Mike:Yeah, Divex will pop out of the orb.

Josh:Okay

Mike:Stop touching it!

Noah:Thank you.

Mike:And then he'll cast Fifth Level Locate, looking for... So I can cast it for a specific type of object.

Mike:I'm looking for Orestian Pass Cards.

Jorge:For Zen.

Mike:Or, sorry, First House Pass Cards.

Josh:Okay, that's good.

Mike:Whatever.

Josh:Because otherwise I was going to point you to his wallet where you could find a loyalty card to the coffee shop that you're behind.

Mike:Guys, I've got this loyalty card.

Jorge:I mean, it cuts to Lev who's just like, thank you for this loyalty card, I can't wait to come back.

Josh:Sure, that's fine.

Noah:than the other.

Mike:They're apparently very hard to... And then Divex is just holding one.

Josh:yeah okay so the nearest target sure it's a type of object divex will have an accurate mental object because he used to have one of these so you have cleared the hurdle there uh

Josh:You've already, there's no lead or running water between you and the body, so you're fine.

Josh:So yeah, if it's within 500 feet, which it absolutely is if you pop out of the orb, there is one in the inside, like, you have to, you now have to feel like...

Josh:you have to search through the corpse to find it, but there is a pocket in the, like, inner lining of, like, an inner jacket that this person was wearing that you can, like, pull open, since you have the direct area, and pull out a passcard.

Mike:Its color is... Which is this guy.

Josh:Its color is red.

Josh:It's red, and on the front, the name is Leonard Fildren.

Jorge:No.

Josh:Yeah, it's the picture of this guy's face, and the face matches up with the one that you saw with Psychometric Resonance.

Tanner:Undercover I He's looking at me he's looking at me Wait, let me just check something

Jorge:Oh, but we also heard it was the name Xander.

Jorge:Was he undercover?

Jorge:This piece of shit.

Noah:So now you're pretending to be a dude pretending to be someone else.

Jorge:He was a double A.

Josh:You're looking at this dead body.

Josh:Henrik, can you roll a medicine check for me, please?

Noah:Oh, my God, this isn't.

Mike:My God.

Mike:He's not dead.

Jorge:His heart's still beating.

Jorge:Just bring the body, guys.

Jorge:We don't want this in the fucking trash.

Jorge:What if someone finds this?

Josh:Honestly, the only reason nobody's walked out so far is because you rolled so well on your distraction check.

Tanner:I think I'm just going to keep it.

Jorge:Just get the body and go.

Josh:What are we doing?

Mike:What was this check?

Josh:Okay.

Mike:Oh, the medicine check?

Mike:You take a bite of the body.

Noah:Good.

Josh:Yeah, I'm one of those DMs now, when you roll a natural one, the worst possible thing to happen can happen.

Mike:Your body gets controlled by like a fucking toddler for a split second.

Josh:Okay, critical failure.

Mike:Just fucking...

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:You don't learn any information.

Josh:This guy's been dead for a little bit at this point, so.

Jorge:Yes, bring the body and then.

Josh:Or the body's been dead for a little bit.

Josh:The heart is definitely still alive.

Mike:Okay.

Tanner:I think we should get outta here.

Noah:Excuse me.

Mike:Let's get out of here.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:So... Yeah, yeah.

Josh:Okay, so what are you doing?

Josh:Where are you going?

Mike:I guess we'll just... Uh... How about this?

Jorge:I'm in the coffee shop distracting.

Jorge:What are you guys doing back there?

Noah:Get Lev out of here.

Mike:This was the card.

Mike:So...

Mike:Taking a step back, wasn't this guy, like, blue?

Mike:He was supposed to have blue clearance or something?

Jorge:His name is Xander Orskalka.

Jorge:He has blue clearance.

Jorge:We went to his body, and there's a red card, and the name is... What was it?

Jorge:Leonard?

Josh:leonard short you have not you have not heard this

Mike:Leonard, L-E-N-N-A-R-D?

Mike:Okay.

Mike:I think I saw that name somewhere else.

Mike:So I thought I'd seen it here and we'd already heard this guy's name.

Mike:So no, this is a new name that we're hearing.

Mike:This is the first time we're hearing about Leonard.

Noah:Take a bow.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:So what are the odds he has another one on his body?

Jorge:He might have... Just take the body and let's go.

Mike:I'm going to hand the card to Henrik and ask him to walk 10 feet away because Locate finds the closest one.

Jorge:I don't know.

Jorge:We're doing a full inspection here.

Jorge:Okay.

Tanner:Alright, I'll go.

Tanner:Sure.

Mike:Divex is going to get as close to the dumpster as he can muster.

Josh:I need another check from you, Lev.

Josh:Because this is going on a little bit.

Noah:We're in an alley.

Jorge:Yeah.

Tanner:Yeah, we probably should just take it and go.

Jorge:I'm their king.

Josh:Okay, you continue.

Josh:You're actually quite good friends at this point.

Josh:Like, friends.

Jorge:They're gonna join me in a cult.

Josh:They love you.

Mike:white good friends.

Noah:Jeez.

Josh:Okay, so you're giving it to Henrik, who steps 10 feet away, and then you're casting it again?

Josh:Okay.

Mike:Yep.

Josh:The closest one is 10 feet away, and Henrik stands.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:We should leave.

Jorge:Just take the body, though.

Mike:Divex will kindly ask someone else to take the body.

Mike:Henry, can you take this body?

Tanner:I mean, I could bring it into the orb.

Mike:Sure, yeah.

Tanner:I'll bring it into the orb.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:And then someone should go in and get Lev.

Jorge:Or, yeah.

Josh:Well, so I assume you guys are talking to each other through schism, because otherwise Lev could not have made the suggestion, just take the body.

Jorge:Are you guys gonna go?

Noah:Love having this whole conversation.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:So... Okay, so you have the body, you put it in the orb.

Tanner:All right.

Noah:Take the money.

Jorge:Take the booty and let's get the fuck out of here.

Jorge:What are you guys doing in there?

Jorge:Oh, you know, I love these roasts.

Jorge:I really love the dark roasts.

Jorge:It's just so nice and faint.

Mike:Take the body!

Josh:Totally doable.

Tanner:I'm in the orb.

Josh:okay um so

Tanner:Divex is in the orb.

Mike:We head back.

Mike:Divex is going to sustain this locate.

Tanner:And...

Mike:He's going to milk it because the duration is sustained.

Mike:So we're going to keep popping this and we're going to go back to the drawing board and go somewhere else in the city where we think a blue card might be.

Josh:You all, uh, you hop back in the orb.

Josh:I need one more stealth check from Don if he's the one outside of the orb just to exit the alley without arousing suspicion.

Josh:The DC is very low, uh, given that they're being distracted by a 60.

Noah:The fuck is happening?

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:It's low, but is it that low?

Noah:What the fuck is happening?

Noah:I'm just going to take it because I'm going to need this later.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:I'm going to need this later.

Josh:I need somebody to do me a favor and roll a d20 plus 3.

Noah:I'll do it since I just fucked up.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Don't roll a 20, please.

Noah:I'm gonna crit on this, aren't I?

Noah:I got a 10.

Tanner:Thank you.

Jorge:Nothing.

Mike:Oof.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:You do manage to make it out the back of the coffee shop.

Josh:Nobody spots you, but you can tell them.

Noah:I, like, pick up the orb, turn around, trip, and slam headfirst into the dumpster and shell.

Noah:Fuck!

Noah:So loud!

Josh:You manage somehow completely accidentally to time slamming your head into the dumpster with them turning on an espresso machine and just the sound of the pump completely drowns it out.

Josh:You're fine.

Noah:I left the screen on in the orb, though, so both Henrik and Divex watch me do this.

Josh:Of course.

Jorge:Okay.

Tanner:That's our man out there.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:You know, this was so great talking.

Jorge:I can't wait to see you guys later.

Josh:You have managed to get a loyalty card out of them.

Jorge:Cool.

Josh:Pre-stamped twice, despite the fact that you haven't bought anything.

Josh:They just hooked you up.

Jorge:Oh, no, I would have bought some stuff.

Jorge:These are my friends now.

Josh:Okay, well, listen.

Josh:If you buy two things, then you are four on the way to a free cup of coffee.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:That's what I'll be doing.

Jorge:Alright, see you soon.

Jorge:And then I'm saying in schism, do I come back pretending to be this guy to see what information I can get out of the baristas?

Tanner:I don't know what kind of top secret government information the baristas are going to have.

Noah:Guys, I think I gave myself a concussion.

Mike:Or if they know that he's dead...

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:It's really unfortunate.

Tanner:Dawn, I need you to focus.

Jorge:Now, Don, I need you, respectfully, to lock the fuck in, alright?

Josh:red orange yellow green blue violet ultraviolet

Jorge:This is a bat operation.

Jorge:Don't fuck around.

Tanner:So, okay.

Jorge:No.

Tanner:We know the location of some other people.

Jorge:What are the tiers of access again?

Jorge:Okay, so then...

Noah:So we thought we were getting the blue and we got the worst.

Josh:I will also say, like, I think I mentioned this when I gave you, like, when Roycheck gave you the list of people.

Josh:None of them are going to be high level.

Tanner:yeah well we can go by their homes and try to use the locate spell and see or just you know

Jorge:Yeah, they're all red.

Josh:The people who are tracking are all going to be, yeah.

Mike:They're all red, yeah.

Jorge:So none of those names matched this one, right?

Josh:This is a new name.

Jorge:And this was the corpse we saw on the pinpoint?

Jorge:This wasn't just another corpse that was there?

Josh:Or if it is, any other corpses in the dumpster that you may have missed did not have a passcard on them.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:I think you would have been yellow.

Jorge:Divex, did you only... What tier of access did you use to have?

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:You would have been yellow or green.

Jorge:Okay, so you know for a fact there are cards past red.

Jorge:It's not like, one's a card, one's a coin.

Josh:It's all cards, but it just goes up in clearance.

Jorge:And then to go by, so the way we get in is there's, is it card, soul print card per level?

Jorge:Or how does it work?

Josh:So to get into the facility itself, you need to show a card of any clearance level, and then you walk through a checkpoint that does the spirit print and the liar's downfall, the waterfall.

Josh:And then once you're in the facility itself, the different floors are restricted depending on what level clearance keycard you have.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:So now do we just... Okay.

Josh:So this keycard would get you at least into the first floor of the facility.

Jorge:Do you... Divex, could you cast another one of the eight level ones to just try to find his blue keycard if it exists?

Jorge:Maybe just... He has two identities for... I don't know what the fuck's happening here.

Mike:One creature object.

Jorge:But can that search for a specific keycard?

Noah:Yeah.

Mike:You learn the name of the target's exact location.

Mike:Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Mike:You can target an object.

Mike:You must have touched it or have a fragment of it.

Josh:Unfortunately, you would not qualify for that.

Jorge:You don't qualify for a fragment of it?

Jorge:What's in the card?

Jorge:Is it a soul print?

Jorge:Can we have a stretch of his soul?

Josh:No, they don't put a piece of your soul in your ID card.

Josh:You're thinking of photographs.

Jorge:Okay.

Noah:Canon.

Mike:Real life canon.

Jorge:Can you guys talk to your dad?

Josh:Oh, that's a good pun.

Jorge:Can you guys talk to your dad?

Mike:Talk to the dead?

Mike:Oh right, we have his body.

Mike:Uh... Uh...

Josh:We've managed to go the whole campaign without getting a dedicated Divine Caster.

Noah:Yeah, Lev, I think you're our holy man if you can't talk to the dead.

Noah:I can also do that.

Jorge:Well, we... Could we... Does he have a dream?

Mike:I could blow up his body.

Mike:I don't know if that helps.

Tanner:We can look at his soul in the soul-looking machine.

Mike:I take out the otteroscope.

Mike:Can I... Not the body, but the heart.

Mike:Because the heart still has a... It still... Actually, I take out a dagger.

Mike:Does the heart have a cord?

Josh:The heart does not have a cord.

Mike:Interesting.

Mike:Can I see if the heart or the body has a dream?

Mike:If I can put an iriscope into one.

Josh:Yeah, absolutely.

Josh:Okay, so I can say that you guys found your way back to the safe house.

Jorge:Should we go back to our safe house to do this?

Tanner:Yes.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:That's fine.

Jorge:I'd also, before we do this, I'd also like to take a look at his body to see if I see like, I'm assuming I see like vampire blood stuff.

Jorge:Does it look like that?

Josh:How are you doing that so I know what to make?

Jorge:Okay.

Mike:VPP stuff.

Noah:Josh, can I take a look at his body?

Jorge:51.

Noah:I'm gonna pull out a large medical device that I've crafted to create a 3D model of his body and pull it apart using crafting.

Noah:Is this actually the guy?

Josh:Okay, sure, but also you have to tell me what you're looking for.

Noah:Who is this?

Josh:Okay, yeah, World Craftsman check.

Josh:And what did you get for your esoteric check, Lev?

Jorge:50 51. i so

Josh:50.

Josh:The body's a little decayed at this point.

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:It's already past rigor mortis, and it's starting to kind of deflate, almost.

Josh:But from what you can tell, there is no indication on this guy that he is any part Night Kip.

Josh:You're fairly confident that this is just some guy.

Josh:He does not seem supernatural in any way.

Jorge:Alright.

Mike:He seems natural.

Josh:He seems natural.

Tanner:Does he have a wound in his chest?

Josh:Super natural.

Jorge:I... I...

Josh:Yes, he does.

Josh:And this is the guy the heart came from.

Josh:There is a wound to the chest where the heart was removed.

Tanner:Alright.

Josh:No, that's totally fair.

Tanner:You can't blame me for asking.

Josh:What is your graphic check?

Josh:45.

Noah:I got a 45.

Josh:Yeah, I mean, so, like...

Josh:Pulling apart, you know, doing phrenology on the skull compared to the image in the ID card.

Josh:This is the same guy that is associated with the ID card.

Josh:It doesn't look like there's any magic disguising his appearance.

Josh:He's maybe in his, or was maybe in his late 40s.

Josh:A smoker.

Josh:Definitely some issues there in the lungs.

Josh:Not much else besides that.

Mike:Did he have any... Did he have any sign of... Did he have any sign of knock sickness?

Jorge:I take a little taste.

Josh:No.

Jorge:I take a little taste of his blood.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:I am a super taster.

Mike:What the... What the fuck?

Josh:Yeah.

Jorge:I am... I am a vampire, so I'm trying to be like... Can I...

Josh:We don't need to rule.

Noah:Gross.

Josh:This is slightly rancid, just human blood.

Mike:A little nutty.

Josh:It's like pennies.

Noah:So, the heart is definitely from this guy, but also it's from your friend who is a night kitten.

Jorge:Family.

Jorge:But, um... Now... Do I know Xander?

Jorge:Do I know of him?

Jorge:Was he a high-ranking old vampire?

Jorge:Like, what do I know about him?

Josh:I'm going to have you make a personal history check here, which your modifier to that is plus 25.

Jorge:Okay.

Noah:Thanks.

Jorge:42.

Josh:So the name Xander Orozcoca would definitely, like, ring a bell for you.

Josh:That is a mid- to high-ranking member of the Orozcoca Cabal.

Josh:Like, his name, I don't know if you ever would have met him personally.

Jorge:Like Enzo level?

Josh:What?

Jorge:Like Enzo would have been?

Jorge:Or... Okay.

Josh:No.

Josh:Um, yeah, like, not quite one of the upper-ranking lieutenants, but somebody who would serve them.

Jorge:This makes no fucking...

Noah:Is it possible they ripped out this dude's heart, performed some crazy dark magic to make it match the soul print of Lev's family member without having to kill him and rip his heart out?

Mike:Oh, God.

Jorge:That could have happened.

Jorge:Can you go... I can ask the spirits about this as well, but...

Noah:So now we have... Well, so the big issue is that we have the soul print of a dude who's blue ranking, but...

Noah:Just a red card.

Noah:So is it possible... Like, how do we get... Is it possible for you to just walk in and be like, I'm sorry, I forgot my card.

Noah:I lost it in the snow.

Noah:I'm so doomed everywhere.

Noah:Josh, can I make a blue card?

Jorge:Can you make a blue car?

Jorge:Pawn?

Josh:I'm just going to flat out say no.

Tanner:you

Josh:You never interacted with the system that would be manufacturing these, so you have no basis for understanding it.

Noah:In game, I'm just staring at this red card really deeply and then go, oh, fuck, my brain.

Josh:You are very, very smart, especially when it comes to this type of technology.

Josh:But it is also like, if I came to you in real life and was like, hey, can you make a Russian computer?

Josh:That's all the information you get.

Jorge:okay okay so do you want to try the cognitive thing and then i consult the spirits and then we just go in i don't know maybe we get to red floor and i just start killing people

Mike:Thank you.

Noah:Guys, I really hurt myself on that dumpster.

Josh:um oh

Noah:Yeah, I might get the red floor and it might not even be an issue.

Noah:I mean, different kind of issue, but...

Tanner:We just have to get to the gun and then we could use the gun.

Jorge:It's true.

Tanner:And they'll be scared.

Jorge:Okay.

Tanner:They'll run away.

Jorge:It's true.

Jorge:All right.

Jorge:Cognitive time.

Josh:Yeah, absolutely.

Jorge:I wish the bats were just more helpful.

Josh:I mean, yeah.

Jorge:It could have been like, here's the card, or you can't get a... Just give us some fucking information, not just a beating heart and say, figure it out.

Noah:Good luck.

Tanner:They're esoteric.

Noah:Unhinged.

Josh:They're also not the bats.

Tanner:Yeah, stop trying to make the bats work.

Josh:It took me a second to be like, who are you talking about?

Josh:So you're taking out the aniriscope to look to see if the heart has a dream or anything like that?

Mike:Mm hmm.

Josh:Okay, awesome.

Josh:You take out the aniriscope and you go look through the dream.

Josh:There is a dream here, which is interesting, because normally if there isn't anything around, the orb just remains opaque.

Josh:You don't get any clearance.

Josh:You don't get a clear view into anything.

Josh:This time, it turns translucent.

Josh:But the other side is just matte black with a flashing burst of red every second or so.

Jorge:Thank you.

Josh:I apologize.

Josh:It's not Matt Black.

Josh:Make a perception check.

Mike:Oh, I do love making perception checks.

Mike:43.

Mike:I imagine this doesn't ring any bells then for Divex.

Josh:No, it is Matt Black with like a flashing red light every few seconds.

Jorge:Can I try taking a look?

Noah:Bye.

Mike:care.

Mike:I'll hand it over like some binoculars and we're both on a ridge trying to figure out when the trucks are going to leave.

Josh:Perception check.

Tanner:Should I be looking at these?

Josh:It is very much like a viewfinder.

Jorge:Okay, you can look, Yannick.

Josh:You know those things where they look like binoculars, but you hold them up to the light and you can hit the button and a different image passes by?

Josh:So it's just, everybody's holding the aniroscope up and looking at the nearest lamp, just trying to get it to show something.

Tanner:I did worse.

Josh:What did we get?

Tanner:I got a 39.

Jorge:Are you getting a hero?

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:I don't know if it's worth it.

Josh:Pure.

Tanner:Oh, I could... I have two now.

Jorge:Oh, then maybe.

Jorge:You also have a beast point.

Tanner:Alright, I'll use one of my hero points, because that's kind of fun.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:How good are you at perceiving?

Tanner:There's something... What?

Josh:How good are you at perceiving?

Tanner:I'm pretty good.

Tanner:I mean, that roll... I'm a master of perceiving.

Josh:You're a master, so we need to add an additional four.

Tanner:49.

Tanner:Let's call it 50.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:50 is just enough to notice a difference.

Josh:It's not pure black.

Josh:There are very, very faint hairline fracture lines in the matte black surface that the aniroscope is looking at.

Josh:And behind the hairline fracture lines, the ever so smallest bit of yellow light is shining through.

Josh:That's it.

Tanner:Yellow.

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:That's so bad.

Tanner:That's concerning.

Noah:That's so bad.

Noah:That's so concerning.

Tanner:This is the dream of the heart.

Josh:This is just the dream, in general, looking at the heart or not.

Jorge:Oh no, the Oreskean government's making something, but the Deep's involved.

Jorge:Fuck.

Tanner:I guess they're using the deep in place of beasts since they lost beasts.

Jorge:Well, they were trying with Knox, but I think the problem is Korkov is the champion for the Deep, whether he knows it or not.

Tanner:I thought he had all three.

Jorge:Yes, but he was also the Deep's special guy.

Jorge:They told us that.

Mike:special day.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:That's the academic term, actually.

Jorge:I will consult with the spirits today, since I've done it for the last two days before.

Jorge:What questions should I ask you guys?

Jorge:One is, is this actually Xander's heart or some clone of it?

Jorge:Should I ask that?

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:Is this a clone of Xander's heart, I will ask.

Jorge:And what else?

Jorge:I get three questions.

Noah:Do we need to worry about getting a blue card or is the red card going to be good enough?

Jorge:I don't know if he would know that, unfortunately.

Jorge:It's like, it does stuff about death, you know?

Noah:Oh.

Jorge:Where... If he... Where he lived, maybe?

Tanner:What do we ask?

Tanner:Well... Right, because we want to find his blue card.

Jorge:Where does Xander live?

Jorge:We'll find out where Xander lives, and maybe he's not, you know, alive.

Tanner:Yeah, there must be... So if he's one of your family members...

Jorge:Maybe he is alive, and we kill him anyway.

Tanner:That means they must have some kind of presence here, like some kind of den or home or something.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:Alright, I like that.

Jorge:And then I'll ask if there's a bunch of other vampires there.

Noah:you

Tanner:Right.

Tanner:Let's see if there's anywhere where they meet.

Jorge:Alright.

Jorge:Alright, so wait, so should I, so the first question, should I ask is this a clone of Xander's heart, or should I flat out ask if Xander's actually dead?

Josh:uh wait sorry which one is this religion

Tanner:While his heart's beating,

Jorge:Oh, you're right, so they'll say no, and we don't actually know anything.

Jorge:So I'll ask if it's a clone, okay.

Jorge:Let me make my relation check.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:Oh my god, last reroll.

Josh:Is it here a point?

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:and so many nat ones tonight.

Noah:It is not auspicious.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:39.

Josh:You're a master in religion, so you can add an additional 4.

Josh:So, 29.

Tanner:Thank you.

Jorge:Oh.

Josh:A 39 is a failure.

Josh:Nothing appears.

Jorge:I thought that would, uh... I thought I passed it with less than 39 before.

Josh:No, you met a spirit with less than 39 before.

Jorge:Oh.

Josh:You met a spirit with less than 39 before.

Jorge:Oh, sorry, what'd you say?

Josh:I know.

Jorge:That's what I was trying to do.

Jorge:Oh.

Jorge:What if it was 40, though?

Jorge:Beast.

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:Yeah, it's still a failure.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:Do you know what the spell does?

Josh:I feel like at this point I inclined to ask.

Jorge:I guess not.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:So what is it then?

Josh:So, your roll.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:If it's a critical success, you summon a spirit that is friendly to you, that will answer your questions and one-word responses.

Josh:On a regular success, they will answer one question with a one-word response, if they know the answer.

Josh:On a failure, nothing happens.

Josh:And on a critical failure, a malevolent spirit who is antagonistic to you gets summoned and will purposefully give you answers that are misleading or harmful.

Jorge:Oh, so I just got probably wrong ones before.

Jorge:OK.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:No, you critically failed twice yesterday.

Jorge:OK.

Josh:Or last week.

Jorge:Well, that's good to know.

Jorge:So it just gave this doesn't have blue.

Tanner:Thank you.

Jorge:OK.

Noah:Oh, okay.

Noah:Well, good thing to know we're not just being brain-fucked with.

Noah:Bad thing, this is what we got.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:All right, let's just kill him tomorrow, I guess.

Mike:What was the bad information that we got before?

Noah:Alright.

Mike:Oh, the color was wrong.

Jorge:Wrong name.

Jorge:Everything.

Jorge:Pretty much everything.

Noah:Wrong name, wrong color.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:So this is a spirit for a guy that has red.

Jorge:Yes.

Tanner:Thanks.

Noah:Nope.

Mike:We still have to locate a card.

Mike:And we actually don't even have any leads on the card.

Josh:You know how that works, but okay.

Jorge:I'm going to try some of this again and then just try to kill that spirit.

Jorge:Fuck that spirit.

Jorge:Bless you.

Mike:Which spirit did you contact?

Josh:So, both times that he cast the spell last session, he summoned an Ice Spirit that told him a few things.

Josh:It told him that the heart is that of Xander or Skalka.

Josh:It told him that Xander is of blue rank in RC3.

Josh:What else did it tell you?

Josh:Oh, it told you that there's no Noxblood in the Pyrodes.

Jorge:I don't think I asked important questions.

Jorge:Oh, so there were nox blood in the pierogi.

Josh:That's the important information you got out of it.

Jorge:I'm going to take a bite of the pierogi with Super Taster.

Jorge:Can I taste any of the nox blood in it now?

Josh:No, I don't think so.

Josh:Unless Super Taster... What does Super Taster get you?

Josh:It might be.

Tanner:This is what defeat is for, Josh.

Tanner:You gotta let it live.

Josh:Let me read it.

Tanner:You gotta let it live.

Mike:It tells you the contents of everything that you just ate.

Mike:It's a shortcut for identifying magic.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:Just take a bite.

Josh:Reception check.

Jorge:I'm a geologist.

Josh:Recall perception check.

Mike:If Lev bit the body, he would know exactly where to go for a blue chip.

Josh:You get a plus two circumstance bonus to this check from your Supertaster feed.

Mike:Or a blue card.

Jorge:Oh, what type of check is this?

Josh:This is a recall knowledge perception check.

Tanner:Oh, you are toast.

Tanner:No way you succeeded this.

Josh:Unfortunately, that is what Supertaster is for.

Jorge:Oh, I totally got Noxblood with my 35.

Jorge:So they're definitely...

Josh:Yeah, no, this thing is filled with Nox blood.

Josh:I don't know how you didn't taste it before.

Josh:Uh-huh.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:He confirmed that there was not Noxblood in the pierogies.

Mike:Divex continued to investigate the pierogie.

Mike:And actually, Lev was upset that Divex was still looking into it.

Mike:You don't have to look into it.

Mike:Did Divex find out that there was Noxblood?

Mike:Because he did spend the remainder of the evening...

Josh:No, actually.

Jorge:No, he didn't think there was anything.

Josh:You explicitly didn't.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:He got pissy even for continuing to research, so you said okay and stopped.

Josh:I remember that because if you had continued the line, it would have either been something that corroborated or went against what the spirit said, and then you didn't do it.

Jorge:Oh, I thought you continued and then found nothing, but yeah.

Josh:No.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:So what do we want to do?

Tanner:I need help from Dawn.

Mike:Listen, I've... Well, hold on.

Mike:I'm a little friendly with the spirits.

Mike:What do we want to ask them?

Josh:Do you also ever consult the spirits?

Mike:What do we want to ask these spirits?

Jorge:But now we know everything.

Tanner:Well, I think we were planning on asking them about this dude.

Jorge:Well, if they could tell us something about a blue or higher, that'd be great.

Tanner:Well, but we don't.

Tanner:Well, we're not supposed to.

Jorge:Or anyone higher than red would be ideal.

Mike:uh spend 10 minutes to attempt to recall knowledge check with the chosen skill dc blah blah blah spirits though uh indifferent to you and only answer one question so what is the nature of the questions that you can ask occultism

Josh:What kind of check are you rolling?

Josh:Occultism allows you to contact lingering spirits, psychic echoes of the departed dead, and spirits beyond reality, who will tell you about things like strange auras effects or the presence of unnatural occult beings.

Mike:Strange auras affect the presence of unnatural occult beings.

Mike:I don't know if that's... Obviously, RC3 is screwing with the occult, but I don't know what sort of questions we could ask that would let us get in better.

Mike:Is there a different dimension by which we can...

Josh:Especially given that the responses will be probably one word.

Mike:Well, we get three if I crit succeed, which can be like...

Josh:Just something to keep in mind.

Josh:The questions you ask should be able to be answered with a single word if you want a useful response.

Mike:Is there a backdoor into RC3 by some sort of occult type dimension or means?

Tanner:Thank you.

Jorge:Well, we know there is a back door.

Jorge:The question would be more how to find it, or where is the other entrance.

Mike:Wait, what is the backdoor?

Jorge:We don't know, but we know there is one.

Mike:This is how Kharkov gets in?

Jorge:Masha told us.

Mike:Masha told us, okay.

Jorge:And told us she couldn't tell us more.

Jorge:Which means I think it's narrative or lighthouse related.

Mike:Oh.

Mike:uh yeah then we just ask what is the what is the back door into rc3 what is the back door they'll give us a word if the word is lighthouse we kind of have the answer i don't know what else the word might be but it'll be a word and then we get two more questions if i could succeed but that should be the one if if we get one

Tanner:That's a great question.

Jorge:Where is the back door?

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Let's do it.

Mike:Yes.

Josh:Okay, you're rolling in a cultism check.

Mike:Divex will take out the Oniriscope, his Pendant of the Occult, and he's just got a piece of... He's just got a bone that no one's seen him with, and he just lays him out to sort of help the...

Josh:What size is it?

Josh:Is it like human sized or like bird sized?

Mike:It's like a smaller femur.

Mike:It's shaped like a femur, but it's smaller.

Jorge:I'll be right back.

Mike:And he says it's not a child's bone.

Mike:Before he puts it down, that's the only info he gives on the bone.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Great.

Mike:But it looks very human femur-y.

Noah:Like it's a child's bone now.

Josh:I don't even think that, like, in the remaster, wizards use material components anymore.

Josh:So I like to imagine that it's unrelated to the spell.

Josh:Dyvex just takes out a small bone.

Mike:He thinks it helps become a conduit to the occult.

Mike:Let's see.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:What are we going to add here?

Jorge:Thank you.

Mike:Let's add our hourly beast to get 46.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:You cast the spell.

Josh:The bone floats up into the air and around the bone... So the three other people in the room will see just the bone float up in the air because they cannot see the spirit itself.

Josh:Divex gets to see this decaying...

Josh:Dwarven male.

Josh:Like a string is pulling their chest up, so you can see their legs are hanging down and their arms are hanging behind them.

Josh:Their mouth and their eyes are all wide open and yellow light is pouring out of it, and it's twitching.

Mike:Hello.

Mike:Won't even say anything, even if there's not a question.

Noah:That was...

Josh:And it disappears.

Mike:That was not a question, Josh.

Mike:I'm very specific that I'm making statements.

Josh:That's fine.

Mike:Because I would have asked, hey, how are you?

Mike:And then, good, and then disappear.

Tanner:That was not a good answer.

Mike:What is the backdoor into RC3?

Jorge:Liv pulls out the bottle of the wine.

Josh:Ill kind.

Josh:And the bone falls.

Tanner:That was not a good answer at all.

Noah:Bad answer, no.

Mike:huh but i that's honestly a very good chunk of info but info at the most i think i was cool

Noah:I mean, that's good to know.

Tanner:There's no way that going to Ilkheim is the safer option.

Josh:That's good.

Jorge:you

Noah:Wow.

Noah:So should we sleep and then storm the castle tomorrow?

Tanner:Yeah, Dawn, do you think you could incorporate these spikes and my warp glass spikes into one spike, super spike?

Noah:Super Spike!

Noah:Josh, can I incorporate everything into Super Spike?

Josh:You can make a crafting check to do so.

Josh:Like, if you want to.

Josh:I'm not going to make you.

Noah:That's rough.

Noah:Yeah, I think I can do it.

Noah:I got a 51.

Josh:Cool.

Josh:Yeah, absolutely.

Josh:It's a little finicky, but you can definitely melt down the metal and have it melt on top of these spikes.

Josh:Definitely doable.

Noah:bike.

Tanner:Sick.

Jorge:We don't think we can go anywhere and buy anything, right?

Noah:Anyone else have any last...

Jorge:Let's probably draw it.

Josh:You, I will say, can purchase things, but you're going to have to do so through the sparrows, like through a fence they have.

Josh:So no uncommon or rare weapons, and they cost 20% more.

Josh:No uncommon or rare items, flat out.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:So when you said no uncommon or rare weapons, what about like... Oh, okay.

Jorge:So I was going to say, what about metals?

Josh:No.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:What metal are you looking to purchase?

Jorge:Warp glass.

Josh:Ah.

Josh:Yeah, unfortunately, WordPress is rare.

Josh:You would not be able to source it in a day to have.

Jorge:Yeah, I figured, but gotta ask.

Josh:No.

Josh:No, I understand.

Josh:You do not have shameless requests in real life, so I am angry at you now.

Josh:But...

Jorge:There's nothing.

Jorge:Yeah, I guess I'm ready to go.

Mike:So, I don't think we should go in there, get as far as we can without killing anyone, and then shrug our shoulders when we get to the red level and go, well, guess we gotta start what?

Josh:Excuse me.

Noah:All right.

Tanner:Alright, wait, okay, so I actually had a thought about this.

Mike:Yeah.

Tanner:So, these cards are used to access the different levels.

Tanner:But is it like a, you show someone your card and they let you through?

Tanner:Or is it like a, you put the card near something and there's some magical activation?

Mike:Yeah, it's like a

Josh:Divex, from your experience, it's like a hotel room.

Josh:You slide the card.

Tanner:so okay so we know that dawn cannot make a blue card but using this card as a reference could dawn kind of try to figure out a way or at least gain some ground on finding a way to pick like or like trip the system like to break through one

Mike:Hmm.

Josh:I don't think it would be fair to say anything on that point from, like, Dawn's perspective until you've seen one.

Jorge:Well, what about potentially we find someone who has access, and we just try to bum it or clone it with our transfer metal?

Tanner:yeah it's not a horrible idea to get more access

Josh:Pickpocketing is always an option.

Josh:It's harder.

Jorge:OK, other question.

Jorge:Should we go kill the other people with red access, and should we all get access in, or just go in an orb?

Mike:That's true.

Mike:We do get three now.

Mike:Sorry, four.

Mike:One for each.

Mike:I do like that.

Mike:I also like the idea of Divex, say, renting a room at an inn in a central area near RC3 and just spamming locate object the whole day until someone walks by with a blue card.

Tanner:And then we call them home.

Mike:Blue or... Yes, actually.

Tanner:I don't think that's a bad idea either.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:We might want to do that first.

Jorge:Yeah, let's do that.

Jorge:Fuck that.

Jorge:Yeah, let's do that.

Noah:That's pretty funny.

Jorge:And we'll just fucking trail and kill them.

Jorge:That's what we'll do.

Jorge:Hey, do you guys know how to make one of these chambers for the heart?

Mike:To make... Wait, wait, to make one of what?

Jorge:You know, and I pull out the beating heart.

Jorge:Do you know how to make one of these to contain someone else's heart?

Josh:He wants to know if you can replicate.

Mike:Like, do it to someone else's heart?

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:What was your other plan?

Jorge:To just gut their heart and just hold it?

Jorge:It gets one person through.

Mike:I mean, this gets us through the moron's downfall, or whatever it's called.

Mike:No, it's the trickster's downfall.

Josh:Is it?

Noah:Thank you.

Mike:It gets us through there.

Mike:You're right.

Mike:I guess we need one of each.

Jorge:Well, the hearts don't need to be higher tier.

Jorge:They just need to be at least red.

Jorge:We clone them, and then we can go.

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:Or we could just kill the remaining three people and rip their hearts out and do this to them.

Josh:Where is cloning coming from?

Jorge:That's what I was originally saying.

Mike:I think it's like when you replicate a living...

Josh:Part of the plan that you just outlined involves cloning something.

Jorge:clone there's multiple ideas we can clone we could try to clone this heart spirit print so everyone has a spirit print to get through we could try cloning a card but ideally we just kill more people and take more cards not not the containments for the heart

Josh:Okay.

Josh:The reason I said that a little incredulously was because I don't think that you guys have the ability to clone any of the things you want to clone.

Mike:Doubting us?

Josh:You can try a crafting or an occultism check to see how it works, but I think you would understand this to be...

Josh:Some kind of, for lack of a better term, vampire tech, like something the Orazcalca Cabal is aware of and has kept secret.

Josh:And a member of, what did you call them?

Josh:The Bats?

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:No.

Josh:Likely took it with them when they defected.

Jorge:Do you want...

Josh:Like, you can try, it's just going to be very high DC to try and replicate this tech.

Mike:Can Dybex just identify what sort of magic is going on here?

Mike:That's how Dybex talks when he's identifying magic.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:It's a very powerful spell, and it requires him to have extreme focus.

Mike:He cannot have normal motor coordination.

Mike:46.

Jorge:That's how Zugg talked, remember?

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Canonically?

Josh:Okay, so with a 46...

Jorge:You become an archmage and your voice drops.

Mike:Widowy and Archmage.

Josh:This is a preserved heart.

Noah:Bye.

Josh:That's what the item is called.

Josh:There is a an organic necromantic laboratory called a Cranium Preserver.

Josh:that is used in necromancy in the helps of interacting with this kind of, like, keeping bits of the body alive while the rest of it decays.

Josh:A modified cranium preserver turned into a heart preserver can be used to extract and then preserve the still beating of the heart of somebody and maintain their soul on it while the rest of the body kind of just perishes.

Josh:You will need one of those.

Josh:I do not believe that anybody in this party has the, like, in-depth knowledge in necromancy specifically to make one whole cloth.

Josh:Nor the stomach, because it involves, like, the death of many people to construct one.

Jorge:Okay, so do we think any of us could use this on a different heart, like dump the old heart and then use this?

Noah:Thank you.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:No.

Josh:It's not really an item.

Josh:It's a process.

Josh:The glass itself is mundane.

Jorge:Gotcha.

Josh:It is a glass cylinder.

Josh:The problem is if you open up the glass, then the heart pops out and you have a beating heart just on the ground, spasming.

Josh:Which is not what you want.

Tanner:Yeah, that's nasty.

Mike:So the liar's downfall, which is what it's called in my notes, it dispels magic.

Tanner:Leave it in the jar.

Noah:Thank you.

Mike:Does it dispel any magic item, or is it just illusion effects?

Josh:It's specifically a counteract against illusory effects.

Mike:I guess we're fine in the orb, then.

Mike:I mean, there might be another check for extra-dimensional areas, but...

Jorge:And they never check.

Mike:People probably walk in with those all the time.

Jorge:Is there ever a part where they check your soul print with your ID, or is it just ID, soul print ID?

Josh:ID gets you into the building, past the first guy.

Josh:There is a second checkpoint to use the elevator to descend that involves checking your soul print just to see that it's on file, and then you pass through the Liar's Downfall, Trickster's Downfall, I forget what it's originally called or what it's called now.

Tanner:Yeah, you go to the bathroom.

Josh:One of them is what they called it in Harry Potter, and then I realized, oh, I stole that name from Harry Potter, and so I changed it, but I don't remember which was which.

Josh:So...

Josh:But once you're through that, then you take the elevator down, and then you're on the first floor, and if you want to go to any other floor, you need to swipe your passcode again to unlock the relevant doors.

Jorge:Cool.

Jorge:So we just pop out more people.

Jorge:Once we get out, yeah.

Mike:No, just... Okay.

Josh:They do have those.

Josh:Divex, like, knowledge of research complexes, they had bathrooms, at least in the one that he was in.

Tanner:When they read the spirit print, do you think that they'll be aware that there are other spirits in the vicinity, like if we're in the orb?

Jorge:No, because the way it... Yeah.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Because the test that we did with the wire that was connected to the heart in the pocket only showed the heart spirit print, even though Lev was right there.

Mike:So extra-dimensional, I think, is even a step removed.

Tanner:okay very well sweet i don't see any way that this could go wrong

Mike:If they're looking at count, they're going to see fucking five with one person.

Mike:But I don't think... It doesn't seem like they would.

Jorge:All right.

Jorge:Wait, are we still going to try to find a blue ID card?

Mike:same yeah or some i mean we're start we're on blue because we thought we had a blue but um blue is going to be more common i mean ultimately this hmm

Jorge:All right.

Jorge:So we can – we have a day, right?

Jorge:So we can take a day to do that, and then we can –

Jorge:We can also tell the playwright to start moving, to get Kharkov to move it, right?

Jorge:The item.

Tanner:Yeah, do we want to do that?

Mike:Does a low card get you in everything above it?

Mike:Okay.

Josh:Yeah, like an ultraviolet keycard would get you access to the whole facility.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:So, we could look for blue and hope that the playwright is going to have him leave the gun somewhere else.

Tanner:Thank you.

Mike:Or...

Mike:Do we also know how long it's going to be moved for?

Noah:Thank you.

Mike:Is it like 10 minutes or is it like a day?

Mike:Okay.

Josh:What you were told is that the playwright can get Kharkov to move the firearm from inside the vault.

Josh:No other guarantees have been made.

Jorge:We don't know if it's going to even be in the fucking facility.

Mike:That would be really annoying if he did the thing I just thought of and I'm not going to say it.

Jorge:Can you ride over to Ilkayb?

Mike:Yeah, if you brought it to Elkine.

Mike:Okay, so let's... Let's shoot for blue.

Mike:Because I believe locate... I mean, I could locate any, but I'm going to get so many fucking red and orange and yellow pings.

Mike:So we can just try to get blue and say maybe blue is low enough, and then if we need to fight to get into an indigo or something, then we fight.

Mike:Or we just hope that it's moved from the vault to blue.

Tanner:Yeah, because anyone that's going to have this kind of access is going to be like a substantial person.

Mike:Um...

Mike:Yeah.

Tanner:So the higher you go up, the more difficult it's going to be.

Tanner:So I think we got to find the sweet spot.

Jorge:You don't want to do indigo?

Mike:So, like, Ultra... What?

Josh:just to clarify indigo being violet just to clarify indigo red orange yellow green blue violet ultraviolet

Jorge:No, you said indigo earlier, but yeah, violet.

Jorge:No, no, indigo.

Mike:I thought there was... I thought it was Indigo and then Violet.

Mike:Is this not RoyGBiv?

Mike:Oh.

Mike:Okay.

Jorge:If we go Violet, we will 100% guarantee if he puts on a different floor than the vault, we will have access.

Jorge:If it's on the floor.

Mike:But Kharkov has ultraviolet among a select other few.

Mike:If we tried to get someone of Kharkov's stature into a compromising... No, no, no.

Jorge:I don't want... I want one tier below.

Jorge:That's what I'm saying.

Mike:This is just an example.

Mike:If we tried to get an ultraviolet, it would be a significant fight, and then we'd also have to... Like, someone that had ultraviolet would go missing.

Jorge:Okay.

Mike:If we get...

Mike:violet similar thing but like lesser degree it's going to be easier to get the card from them and if they go missing or we have to make them go missing it's slightly less noticeable so like the further we go i mean up in terms of like the floors the better a shot we have of making the card last long term so we could do we could do violet but i don't know who we're going to meet or how important they're going to be

Jorge:I go Violet, but I am okay with blue.

Jorge:If you guys want to go blue, I'm okay with blue.

Noah:I think we should go for blue.

Mike:OK.

Noah:It's also more likely to find blue, and at this point we're just trying to get somebody.

Jorge:All right, let's go blue.

Mike:Can we arrive at an inn or find an inn somewhere within like a quarter of a mile of RC3?

Josh:You can look... So RC3 is in a series of office buildings.

Josh:It is not a place where there are a ton of hotels.

Josh:So you can get kind of close.

Josh:I'll say within half a mile is the closest.

Josh:I mean, for a lot of reasons, there aren't a lot of inns in the city.

Josh:Biggest of which is not a lot of tourism is happening in Serengrad.

Josh:But, you know, for like business trips, I suppose, you can find one that's half a mile away.

Mike:Which is weird.

Josh:It's two silver pieces for the knight for a rune.

Josh:And if you are casting Locate, it lasts for ten minutes, but it's a level three spell, so I imagine if you spent the day doing it, you could load up all of your spell slots with it and you could get it going for a considerable amount of time.

Mike:The time it takes to cast is 10 minutes.

Mike:The duration is sustained.

Josh:Oh, so you can just keep it going.

Josh:Great.

Mike:yes

Josh:If you are targeting an object, you have to have an accurate mental image of the type of object.

Josh:So you are looking for specifically blue RC3 keycards?

Tanner:It's in the upper half.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:I need you to do me a favor and roll a D100.

Josh:You want high.

Mike:A lot of people say that's a high number, Josh.

Josh:unfortunately unfortunately after you can't use a hero point on this okay i wouldn't though yeah uh if you were looking for a blue key card unfortunately you needed a 75 or above um so you may not um

Tanner:That's pretty high.

Jorge:Wait, does he reroll?

Jorge:Could we try one more day?

Mike:If I were to roll that on a D54, it would be like, wow, you can't roll any higher.

Mike:Fair enough.

Mike:Oh.

Tanner:All right, what's below that?

Josh:You spend the day looking for a blue key card and you do not get any picks.

Tanner:Go for a green.

Josh:You're in a little bit of a remote area.

Josh:You're not waiting directly outside or anything, so you're not catching everybody that leaves.

Josh:You're in an area that is primarily commercial, so there isn't a lot of reason for somebody leaving the facility to come out here.

Jorge:Is there any higher-end neighborhood that we could try walking around?

Josh:You could go to a higher-end neighborhood and look around there, but it's very much needle in a haystack, even with Locate, because you'd have to do it at night when people are at home sleeping, and the vast majority of the people in the city do not work at RC3, a top-secret first-house research installation.

Mike:I have a better idea.

Josh:It's not like one out of every three people just happens to work here and the majority of them are very high clearance members there.

Mike:I have a better idea.

Josh:Like, you can try, but once again, it will be difficult.

Josh:Or unlikely.

Josh:Sure, go for it.

Mike:Lev, let's dress you up as an RC3 researcher.

Mike:And let's see if there's any bathrooms on the first floor of RC3.

Tanner:Ooh!

Noah:Well, they have...

Tanner:See, we should have thought of this earlier.

Tanner:Oh, we wait for someone to go to the bathroom and then we take their card.

Mike:So you'll head in with us in the orb.

Mike:You'll scan yourself in with the card.

Mike:You'll go to this guard at the front desk and say, I'm going to fucking shit my pants.

Mike:Is there a bathroom on this floor?

Mike:And if they say no, you run out because, again, you have to shit.

Mike:And then we regroup.

Mike:But if there is a bathroom on the first floor, Divex pops out of the orb and we'll cast locate until we get a blue ping.

Mike:Well, no.

Noah:Oh, no.

Mike:DiveX will be within 500 feet of the lobby.

Mike:We're not waiting for people that are shitting in the essentially public bathroom.

Mike:They probably would go to their floor before they shit.

Jorge:Wait, I don't know if there's... Yeah, I... What?

Tanner:Well, it's... Alright, I don't know if it's a public bathroom.

Tanner:It's still a top secret facility.

Mike:It's pretty close.

Mike:The guard can use it.

Tanner:Also, if they have their pants down, I believe it's a status bonus to armor class.

Josh:Not like not really

Tanner:Status penalty, excuse me.

Mike:Yeah, yeah.

Mike:I was going to say, like, what is it?

Jorge:Um...

Noah:Hell of a bonus.

Mike:Intimidation?

Mike:They've got their shit out and it's just fucking... You get scared?

Tanner:I meant to say penalty.

Jorge:Is there just not like a coffee shop near the entrance or something?

Tanner:Oh, now I feel like a fool.

Mike:You have reservations?

Josh:It's not... This is a command economy planned city.

Josh:This is an office building near other office buildings in a part of the city that is zoned for office buildings.

Jorge:Oh, what if, what if, so locate can find things in interdimensional spaces, right?

Jorge:Because they don't count as like distances and stuff.

Jorge:What if we just all get in the orb and you cast it and then just our sneaky boys hiding in a shadow near the front door and we just wait for someone to leave and then we follow them.

Mike:Is he going to be hanging out in front of the building?

Jorge:All right, I'll disguise him up.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Roll a deception check.

Jorge:or within 500 feet of the entrance.

Noah:I can also just hide in plain sight.

Mike:Yeah, I mean... Do you think someone with...

Mike:Bruce site or see invisibility just on all the time is going to walk by.

Mike:I don't know.

Noah:I think someone with true sight and see invisibility is going to be coming in through the back way and will not be entering that direction.

Jorge:But Truesight doesn't... It shows you... It doesn't just find people hiding.

Noah:Yeah, there's also...

Jorge:They still have to make DCs, right?

Noah:Yeah, this is not invisibility.

Noah:This is just me up against a wall like this.

Jorge:They're still hard to spot.

Jorge:That's the annoying thing if I were to get Truesight.

Jorge:I don't immediately see everyone hiding.

Jorge:I just have the ability to see people if they were invisible.

Josh:It's not like 5e, where it actually highlights secrets for you.

Josh:It just makes it so that invisible things aren't invisible.

Josh:But also, Don doesn't turn invisible.

Mike:And that's not even true seeing.

Mike:That's seeing... What?

Josh:Don doesn't turn invisible.

Josh:That's not his thing.

Mike:No, I'm saying it's someone that has the ability to detect him walking by.

Mike:Mm-hmm.

Noah:But that's not like a life sense going on, which also they wouldn't work on me because I have precautions against life sense.

Noah:I have precautions against all special senses, and it's not like a condition or invisibility or anything.

Noah:It's just me hiding, which I guess is a condition in this game.

Jorge:57.

Josh:Okay, yeah.

Josh:Very, very good disguise.

Josh:Dawn doesn't look like Dawn.

Jorge:I used my item in Beast, by the way.

Josh:Sure.

Josh:Dawn doesn't look like Dawn.

Josh:Dawn instead somehow looks like a background character.

Josh:Like, if you looked at him, you would just... Yeah, that guy's an extra.

Josh:And then just keep going.

Josh:Like, your eyes just kind of slide right off his face.

Jorge:I added an N to his PC.

Josh:Okay, Dawn, I'm sorry, you can't.

Josh:No, you're not playing Dawn anymore, I am.

Noah:Oh no!

Noah:I'm going to re-roll that.

Noah:Nice.

Noah:I got a 50 for my stealth check.

Noah:I used a hero point.

Noah:Do I add anything to that hero point?

Josh:Crazy.

Josh:Okay, so... What's your normal stealth?

Noah:I'm legendary in it.

Josh:So add an additional two.

Noah:Okay, so that would be 52.

Jorge:Any other beast, if you want to use the beast thing.

Noah:I used my beast for that one.

Josh:Okay, so... Hidden in Truesight, you're not actually invisible.

Noah:Fifty-fifty with Beast.

Josh:You're not even really camouflaged.

Josh:You're just set up in such a way with the ridiculous, effectively, aid that you were given from Lev.

Josh:You have managed to perfect the Heart of... You've seen Guardians of the Galaxy, right?

Josh:You know tracks?

Noah:I just stand.

Mike:Thank you.

Josh:Yes.

Josh:But it actually works.

Josh:You pick a spot that's like maybe 300-ish feet away, and you still have view of the building itself, of the front door.

Jorge:That's crazy.

Josh:But you're kind of peeked a little bit in an alley.

Josh:Not all the way, because that would be suspicious if some guy was standing in an alley.

Josh:Instead, you're just so nonchalant loitering that everybody assumes, yeah, that guy's supposed to be there, and just doesn't give you a second thought.

Josh:um you are hidden in plain sight roll a perception check please you're the guy that's watching so yes divex i assume you also have the locate are you still looking for blue okay

Noah:Oh, no.

Noah:I know.

Jorge:Well, Divex has the detect magic on too, right?

Mike:Yes.

Jorge:You don't want to go higher?

Jorge:Cowards.

Jorge:We're with cowards here.

Noah:Yeah, I got a big old 33.

Josh:Okay, within 33.

Josh:I do have a question for you.

Josh:When about do you think you would post up?

Josh:Like, time-wise?

Josh:And how long would you wait?

Noah:I think I would post up, like, a little before the workday starts to be able to start trickling in whatever, I don't know if they're psychos and show up to work at 7am or if it's like a sort of soft 9am here, but whatever that is.

Josh:Uh...

Noah:And then I'd just stay until Divex says follow this guy or until we've stopped seeing people exit for a while.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:Well, with the 33, that is high enough.

Josh:You're posted there for a while.

Josh:You get there before you expect people to go in for work.

Josh:You don't see anybody enter the building.

Josh:You wait a few hours.

Josh:Nobody enters the building.

Josh:No one leaves, either.

Josh:You're waiting there for a few hours.

Josh:If you wait, eventually the realms will set.

Josh:It will become dark.

Josh:It's nighttime.

Josh:No one's left the building.

Mike:Is it Saturday or something?

Mike:Wait, so if we walk...

Josh:It's the middle of the workday.

Josh:You see people come and leave the other office buildings around here.

Josh:No pings.

Jorge:There's another entrance.

Jorge:Just keep waiting, I guess.

Jorge:Nope, no pings from cards.

Josh:No.

Noah:Oh, there's another entrance.

Noah:Either there's another entrance or they've gone... I think either there's another entrance or they've gone into such overdrive mode for whatever they're working on that no one's...

Mike:if we walk in the front door is that a red flag they're like you like the security cards like oh yeah i know just go in there like we got one like what

Noah:Entering or leaving.

Noah:They probably assume that this is what we're going to do.

Jorge:Well, they also do know that we're here, like, in the country.

Noah:That we're going to kill someone and walk in the front door.

Noah:Since this is exactly what we would do.

Tanner:Yeah.

Jorge:That'd be crazy.

Jorge:I don't know.

Noah:You know what they wouldn't expect us to do?

Josh:The thing that we're doing is what we would do.

Josh:Always true.

Noah:Come in guns blazing.

Jorge:Go to Ilkheim.

Jorge:That's what they wouldn't expect us to do.

Noah:We gong in the back way.

Noah:No, we can gong.

Mike:Could we gong into Ilkain?

Mike:I mean, ignoring the Oreskian... Yeah.

Jorge:No, we don't.

Jorge:We have a tuning thing.

Jorge:We have the yellow shirt and we have the fire wine.

Jorge:The yellow shirt would get us closer to the ascension of Beast.

Jorge:No, of Deep.

Jorge:Or we learn to put us into the city.

Josh:So the gong will get you onto Ilkain.

Josh:Somewhere on Ilkain.

Josh:The piece of the shirt that you took off of the Herald and the wine will both get you into the city where the deep is.

Josh:On Ilkain.

Tanner:Now,

Noah:I think of the two directions to go in, going in the front door seems much less dangerous than going in the evil god city.

Mike:yeah uh can we could we like check the security guard meaning can can one of us go in can can lev go in and be like hey uh i was away for for a week um what's uh you know is there anything that that happened and just see if the security i'd be like oh yeah the new protocol everyone's entering through blah blah

Josh:you

Tanner:We just gotta get in.

Jorge:That sounds super suspicious.

Jorge:I can do it.

Jorge:But that sounds sus to me.

Mike:I mean, you're going to have a keycard that hadn't been used in some time.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Say I was sick or something.

Noah:I don't think there's a way we can go in and not have it seem so suspicious.

Josh:Okay, sure.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:So, alright.

Jorge:I vote okay.

Mike:What?

Noah:I vote front door.

Noah:I'm not voting front door.

Jorge:I make myself look like Leonard.

Jorge:What's his name again?

Mike:letters.

Josh:Leonard.

Jorge:Leonard.

Jorge:Yeah, I'm just seeing if my modifier was minus four or five for that.

Tanner:His name is Leonard, but Mike chose to spell it in a crazy way.

Josh:And I'm going with it.

Noah:Lenardi.

Josh:Leonard.

Josh:Sure, you can disguise yourself like Leonard.

Josh:Let's get a deception check.

Josh:400.

Jorge:Oh, it's just 36 plus 2 plus 2.

Josh:Why is it not just 37?

Jorge:Oh, 37.

Jorge:So I have my deception, which is 37, right?

Josh:Your deception is...

Jorge:Or is it 36?

Jorge:Does yours say 37?

Josh:I have 37 total.

Josh:8 for charisma, plus 25 for legendary, plus 2 for your potency, plus 2 for your heart.

Jorge:I have two for my circumstance regalia.

Josh:Okay, so 39.

Noah:I was going to.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:56.

Josh:Okay, you feel like you've pretty well disguised yourself to look like Lenard.

Jorge:Cool.

Jorge:Let's go ahead.

Josh:Okay, so are the rest of the people coming in the orb?

Josh:Are you leaving them behind?

Josh:What's happening there?

Jorge:Yeah, I guess in the orb.

Noah:Or been.

Mike:I thought it was just information.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:I'm going to try to get in and that's it.

Jorge:I don't think we should be like, oops, does it work?

Jorge:Okay, oopsie.

Jorge:And then like walk out again.

Jorge:Yeah.

Tanner:Yeah, you just got to go for sure.

Mike:We can just ask with a guard what's going on?

Jorge:No, that is so suspect to go to a spy research site and be like, can I poop in the lobby?

Jorge:Oh, no.

Jorge:And then like run away.

Mike:Oh, no, no, no.

Mike:This is asking him if anything happened when you were gone.

Jorge:Yeah, and then not go into work.

Jorge:I got to go in at that point.

Mike:You're the charisma guy.

Mike:Make up a reason that you gotta leave.

Jorge:Just because I'm the charisma guy doesn't mean I could just.

Jorge:I don't know what reason would I tell him.

Jorge:I don't know what I would tell him.

Mike:You're asking me to make up the reason.

Mike:Oh, actually, I'm getting a ping.

Mike:My wife is telepathic.

Mike:I gotta head back.

Jorge:All right, team vote.

Jorge:Do you think I should do that or do you think I should just go in?

Jorge:I think I got to go in once I talk to the guy.

Noah:I think that they have prepared extensively for us.

Tanner:I think you just.

Noah:They know this is the exact sort of thing we can do.

Noah:I think going to Ilkhan is all bad if Kharkov's running around there.

Noah:I think fighting Kharkov on Ilkhan is going to get us killed.

Noah:I think fighting Kharkov here is a better choice.

Tanner:I think that just the prospect of going to Ilkain and walking through the Ilkain city is more dangerous than being on the red level of RC3.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:Alright, let's do it.

Josh:Absolutely.

Jorge:Let's do it.

Jorge:Alright, I'm going in.

Jorge:Should we reset for tomorrow to get our spells and everything back?

Josh:Okay, so three of you in an orb in a pocket.

Josh:I guess four of you, because you're taking schism, I assume.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:We'll wait till tomorrow.

Josh:You guys go back to the safe house.

Josh:You get a nap, and then you load into the orb.

Josh:One of you re-disguises to look like Lenard again.

Jorge:Yep.

Josh:You head back over, and then you just walk in the front door.

Jorge:Yep.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:Okay, so front door, pull open the door, you walk in, you're in this... It's a reception for regular office building.

Josh:There's like a little plaque behind the reception desk that says Office for Regional Logistics.

Josh:There are like some little pot of plants, some chairs and stuff.

Josh:At the reception desk, there is an empty chair.

Josh:No one here.

Jorge:They moved.

Noah:They move the entire fucking facility?

Jorge:Do I keep going, guys?

Noah:I think you keep going.

Mike:Yeah.

Noah:I... I...

Josh:There isn't, like, the rest of the building, like, beyond the reception area.

Jorge:I think it's like Ashmon's thing, where they could just move where it's hooked up.

Jorge:All right.

Jorge:I'm going to, I guess, keep walking in, pretend I don't know what's happening, look confused, try to swipe where I used to.

Josh:Absolutely.

Jorge:I'm not going to say where I used to swipe.

Jorge:I don't know where I used to swipe.

Josh:Roll a perception check to try to figure out where the MLU would go.

Josh:I will let, I know Divex is in the order, but I will let Divex aid this with his personal history because he would have actually done something like this.

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:Your modifier, Divex, is 33.

Josh:On your personal history lore, that's what you spent your APB on?

Mike:33?

Mike:I have 34 because of APB.

Mike:On my engineering lore.

Josh:You put an APB on your Engineering Lord?

Mike:My lore.

Josh:Okay, sure.

Mike:I don't know.

Mike:Might have just come with it.

Josh:Then yeah, 34, it doesn't just come with it.

Josh:No, you have to have applied it.

Mike:It might just come with it.

Josh:It definitely did.

Josh:Okay, a 43 is a success, I believe.

Mike:Oh, I did put it on my engineering.

Josh:That's crazy.

Mike:Yeah, there's no other great candidates for it.

Josh:One second.

Josh:Okay, you get a plus two circumstance bonus to this perception check.

Mike:Yeah, 43.

Jorge:38.

Mike:Fucking rolls.

Josh:Okay, you are walking through a, you know, albeit quiet...

Mike:Yes.

Josh:office building.

Josh:There are some desks off to the side where it looks like people could work, some shelves that have some books on it, with the 38 as you peruse, just look through past the books.

Josh:They're all exceptionally generic, like how to succeed in business, or top ten staples.

Josh:Things that are very clearly not actual books, just set pieces from a distance.

Josh:38 is enough to, as you're looking through the building, the further back area, there is one door that looks... The door itself is the same as everything else, but there is a small pad that stands out to you next to the door, like where there might be a lock on the side of the wall.

Jorge:Good question.

Josh:Are you... Yeah.

Jorge:When they're in the orb, they're in the cognitive realm, right?

Josh:No, they would see a apparently matte black area with flashing red light every few seconds.

Jorge:Can they use a remote viewer to see me in the normal place?

Jorge:Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Jorge:OK, I walk up.

Jorge:Does this look like the soul scanner that

Jorge:The gang, yeah.

Jorge:I'll try to put the soul.

Josh:You hear a soft click.

Jorge:Press the elevator button.

Josh:Well, so it's a door.

Jorge:Oh.

Jorge:I opened the door.

Jorge:Close the door.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:You open the door, and on the other side of the door, there is an immediate rush of water.

Josh:It doesn't come through.

Josh:It's just, like, falling down in front of it.

Noah:Always.

Mike:There's a leak.

Jorge:First thing I thought this was the deeps.

Jorge:I was like, fuck.

Josh:You open the door, and just plain of water.

Josh:Now, there's...

Josh:There's just like a mixture on the other side.

Jorge:Yeah, I walked through the water.

Jorge:Hopefully my disguise was good.

Josh:Okay, you walk through the water.

Josh:You rolled very well on your disguise, if I recall.

Josh:It was over 50, right?

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Yeah, okay.

Josh:So you thought far enough ahead.

Josh:You applied some waterproofing to your... You're coated in oil.

Jorge:Lard.

Josh:The water just slides right off.

Jorge:Good thing I have cold skin so it doesn't melt.

Josh:Oh, yeah, exactly.

Tanner:Au revoir.

Josh:You walk through, and you are in a small hallway.

Josh:Behind you is the fall of water.

Josh:To your left and right are what look to be glass checkpoints of some kind.

Josh:There are chairs behind them, both empty, with...

Josh:small desks that one might put paper or something like that, there are a few pieces of paper strewn throughout.

Josh:And at the end of the hallway, there is a doorway, no door in it, and an opening to a circular room, kind of, maybe about five feet across.

Jorge:I look confused and I start walking forward.

Josh:Okay, absolutely.

Jorge:I'm narrating what's happening to all the group.

Josh:Sure.

Jorge:I'm so happy we didn't waste our playwright thing on this, because I don't know what the fuck's happening, but I don't think it would have been useful to get him to move it.

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:This is...

Jorge:Alright.

Jorge:Keep going.

Josh:Okay, yeah, you reach the end of the hallway, which is this, like, metallic circular room.

Josh:If you turn around, there is another, like, flat pad, and below it a series of six buttons, labeled one through six.

Tanner:I guess... Is one on top and then six is... I guess try to use the red card to go to one.

Jorge:Those are the colors, I'm assuming, right?

Mike:Well...

Josh:Hmm?

Tanner:I don't know.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:We'll try that.

Tanner:This is crazy.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:Where is everybody?

Josh:You scan the red card.

Josh:You hit the one button.

Josh:The button flashes on and green.

Josh:The doors in front of you shut.

Jorge:You should flash red!

Jorge:Kidding.

Josh:You feel a very slight lurch as the whole chamber that you're currently in starts to descend further into the ground.

Josh:It is a... Sorry?

Jorge:there you go there you keep going

Josh:I don't know what perspective you would have for the length of elevator rides, but from an outward perspective for us, it is a longer trip than one might think to just go down to the first floor.

Josh:You're in there for maybe 45 seconds without any particular change in velocity, just descending downward.

Josh:Eventually, you do feel a very slight slowdown.

Josh:It's very gentle.

Josh:The doors...

Josh:Open.

Josh:And roll a perception check.

Tanner:Kharkov is aiming the gun at you.

Jorge:43.

Jorge:And it could be a 45 if I could use my tasting for this.

Josh:43.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

Jorge:Like a snake.

Mike:It runs.

Josh:If you would like to click the elevator button, you may do so.

Mike:Runs up and licks Kharkov's face.

Mike:He's here.

Josh:The door opens to reveal a linoleum floor, metallic-walled hallway that extends out directly in front of you, and then it splits off into a T. It says, in very big yellow lettering in front of you, Floor 1, Clearance Red.

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:And then there are signs on the, like, there's like a little plaque that just points to different areas on this floor.

Josh:The ones on this floor immediately in front of you would point to the left and say Paranectural Cartography Division, and then point to the right and say Department of Dimensional Correspondence.

Josh:But none of that would immediately grab your attention.

Josh:What would immediately grab your attention is the flashing red light, the sound of a klaxon that blares once every five seconds or so, just... And a voice on the loudspeaker in Oreskian...

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:that says, warning, cognitive breakwater on floor 6, sector 12.

Josh:Warning, unexpected threshold manifestation on floors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Josh:Warning, unplanned architectural restructure in progress.

Josh:Warning, to prevent mnemonic breach, contingency A12 is now in effect.

Josh:Facility may not be exited under any circumstances.

Josh:All surviving personnel move towards Firebreak Gamma on Floor 5.

Josh:Message repeats.

Josh:And then it just goes back up to the top and continues down that list.

Tanner:Hmm, so stuff's going down here.

Noah:Can we, if we're in the elevator, can we just try hitting one of the other buttons and see what happens?

Mike:We have to be able to get to five.

Jorge:You guys want to try to go to the correspondence room first?

Mike:Yeah, five is where everyone's heading.

Mike:So we have to, I mean... Sure.

Jorge:Dimensional correspondence room?

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Okay, so you exit out of the elevator, and the door will slam shut behind you.

Jorge:No, wait, no, they said there was a breach on one.

Josh:No, you said you were leaving.

Jorge:Fuck it, let's just go to five.

Jorge:Let's just go to five.

Jorge:Fuck this.

Jorge:I don't want to find out what's... Mm-hmm.

Tanner:Now, we're going to go to five, and that's where all the survivors are going to be.

Noah:And then we start blasting.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Well, I'm sorry I was so sick.

Tanner:Last time that we heard there was a cognitive breakwater, was that when that crazy creature attacked the flying shuttle that we were in?

Noah:Was in dawn.

Mike:That was...

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:So you guys, as players, have heard the term cognitive rake water three times, I believe.

Noah:There was.

Jorge:It was the bear pig thing.

Jorge:Wolf pig thing.

Josh:You saw it once on the Autoc transport in another world, which is the only time that you guys as characters would have heard it.

Josh:But there were two other instances you as players have heard it in one chance.

Jorge:Was that when the quarries attacked the ship?

Josh:That is one of the times.

Josh:And then the other time is on the interstellar cruise.

Mike:Ah.

Mike:Can Divex just check if there's a dream here?

Mike:Did it... Did it... Did it...

Josh:Absolutely, no.

Josh:Matte black, flashing red light.

Josh:The flashing red light is actually in time with the red light flashing in the facility itself.

Noah:Is this the playwright moving it out of the violet level to the fifth floor?

Jorge:We didn't ask him, or did we?

Noah:Moving the gun?

Josh:You haven't asked the playwright to do anything yet.

Jorge:Gentlemen, I think we're going to Ilkheim.

Mike:Can we open floor one?

Jorge:I think we're going to Ilkheim, gentlemen.

Jorge:Sure!

Mike:I just want to see.

Jorge:I opened floor one.

Josh:Okay, sorry.

Josh:So when you said that you left the elevator, were you lying to me?

Josh:Is that what we're going with?

Josh:What are you talking about when you said you left the elevator, right?

Jorge:So when I first left the elevator, right?

Jorge:Then I found out all the sirens and everything, right?

Josh:Okay, yes.

Josh:Well, you didn't actually exit the elevator to see the sirens, because you would have seen those.

Josh:But you did see them.

Jorge:Oh, oh.

Josh:You, like, left to go to the dimensional correspondence.

Jorge:So I stopped myself from going to the correspondence thing.

Jorge:I was going to go, and then I go, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Jorge:They said it was dangerous.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Sure.

Noah:I think we should just go live.

Jorge:I don't know who should go.

Jorge:They said there was a breach.

Jorge:Why are we fighting?

Jorge:What's our goal here?

Mike:We could go to 5.

Jorge:I vote 5.

Mike:Yeah, I kind of want to know what the breach is and maybe see the breach without seeing the people that work here.

Tanner:Right.

Tanner:There is some knowledge to be gained.

Tanner:I don't know if it's worth it, but that would be the reason.

Jorge:You see, I think we're going to end up going to 5 anyway.

Jorge:And I would like to be as fresh as possible in the event there are healthier reskins on 5.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:I don't know if that's true.

Noah:I don't think seeing whatever it is and knowing what it is is going to help us once we actually get down there.

Noah:Because whatever it is, it's not good.

Noah:Like, if they're evacuating the facility, it's bad.

Mike:Sure.

Mike:Yeah, we can go directly to 5 then.

Jorge:All right, let's go to five.

Josh:Okay, you're hitting the 5 button on the elevator to do that?

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:You hit the 5 button on the elevator, the light flashes red and you hear the loudspeaker in the rescue.

Josh:Clearance.

Josh:Not accepted.

Tanner:Oh frick.

Noah:stairwell or something yeah yeah

Jorge:I have to go outside for the stairwell, huh?

Jorge:Is there any, like, way to open this elevator?

Josh:From the outside?

Josh:Do you go outside to look to see if there's a way to open it?

Jorge:No, I meant, like, can I, like, cut down?

Josh:Oh, you mean you want to open the elevator.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Roll a perception check.

Tanner:He wants to access the shaft.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:Roll for shaft.

Jorge:29.

Josh:29.

Josh:There is no obvious hatch, either in the ceiling or the floor of this elevator, that you can see that would give you access to the shaft.

Jorge:Gentlemen, should you guys come out now?

Jorge:Or do you guys want to see if we can get out this elevator or go just straight to one?

Noah:I think we should try to open the elevator shaft.

Jorge:I kind of want to try to see if we can open the elevator shaft to go down.

Noah:I will pop out of the orb.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:we out here.

Mike:We out here.

Josh:Alright, you guys leave the orb and you are now all in the open in the first floor of RC3.

Jorge:I assume it can do them up to look like a rescue people.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Like, you don't need to do anything to make them look Oreskian.

Noah:You.

Josh:Everybody in your party is Oreskian.

Jorge:Yeah, but I don't want them to look like the people that got the... Yeah.

Josh:You can disguise them so that they don't look like the four of you who had a dossier that was administered.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:But yeah, absolutely.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:Yeah, that's fine.

Josh:You rolled a good deception check before.

Josh:We can keep that for now.

Jorge:Cool.

Josh:So the four of you are in an elevator.

Josh:Klaxon's blaring on the outside.

Josh:You may make perception checks or a crafting check, I suppose, if you were looking for a hatch or some kind of maintenance to the elevator itself, to the, like, body of the elevator.

Noah:Look.

Josh:40 is pretty good.

Noah:48.

Jorge:I'm here, I'm just petting Misha.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:With a 48.

Josh:No.

Josh:No hatch.

Josh:Unfortunately, that is a very obvious security feature.

Tanner:Okay, so what we need to do is search the first floor for someone who died here and dropped something that goes to a lower level.

Noah:And then just keep doing that.

Noah:Yep.

Mike:that's a good point let's it's gonna take 10 minutes but uh so what am i pinging for just any card then

Jorge:Divex can ping for it.

Noah:Hey, Divex.

Noah:This is your moment to shine.

Tanner:Is it active or is that going to take 10 minutes?

Tanner:Like, should we go walking around?

Tanner:But it's safe.

Jorge:Now, fifth floor or bust.

Jorge:We need at least fifth floor.

Mike:You think there's going to be a fifth on the... Yeah, but so I can either pick one floor or pick every floor.

Tanner:That's Violet.

Noah:I think any card level 2 or below.

Jorge:There might be stairs or something.

Noah:Because if we can just get level 2, we can just keep doing this and see how far down we can get.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Any floor, yeah.

Mike:Yeah.

Noah:Hmm.

Noah:Never mind then.

Mike:We can just look for any cards.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:But we're going to have to fight stuff, which means I'm going to have to be spending an action per turn.

Mike:We could just go in and... Yeah, let's head into Dimensional Correspondence.

Jorge:Alright, let's just start doing nothing about these and shit.

Noah:Cool.

Noah:Let's do it.

Jorge:Let's do it.

Josh:Okay, so you exit the elevator.

Josh:I just, like, first step.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:Okay, you exit the elevator.

Mike:I mean, yeah, but no.

Mike:If you ask us if we did and there's consequences, then we didn't.

Josh:The door is closed.

Josh:You are standing in this hallway.

Noah:Yep.

Josh:Okay, Lev is out.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:Level go out first.

Josh:You have all left.

Josh:Where are you going?

Noah:We're exiting the elevator.

Jorge:I go to Dimensional Correspondence.

Josh:You've entered the elevator.

Mike:Dimensional correspondence.

Josh:We passed that.

Jorge:Dimensional Correspondence.

Josh:Okay, absolutely.

Josh:So you head right towards the Department of Dimensional Correspondence.

Jorge:What was the other one?

Josh:Paranatural cartography.

Jorge:Oh, so it's just photos of Ilkaim.

Jorge:Okay, now we're good.

Josh:Okay, so you handwrite, or I guess for you guys, this is right, to the Department of Dimensional Correspondence.

Josh:As you walk down this hallway, there are nice signs every once in a while that are reminiscent.

Josh:You actually saw things like this when you were looking through the ziggurat that the beast is on.

Josh:Things like, this is a deja vu area.

Josh:If you feel that you have been here before, immediately report to a superior.

Jorge:Mm-hmm.

Josh:Keep in mind, and that's it, that's the whole poster.

Josh:As you continue forward, there are a few more branches.

Mike:Thank you.

Josh:As you look down other hallways that head towards different departments and the like, there are quite a few things on the first floor.

Josh:I can pull up those names if you like, but as you...

Josh:the ones that are important between you and dimensional correspondence are the Office of Symbiotic Interactions and the Bureau of Emotional Contagion.

Josh:That said, what?

Jorge:Try and look at this.

Jorge:Symbiotic reactions.

Jorge:Maybe there's stuff on there.

Jorge:I don't know.

Jorge:Like cognitive beings pairing with meat bags.

Jorge:Nah, we can keep going.

Josh:Okay, you continue until you do make it up to a door that is slightly larger than would necessarily be required for somebody to fit through.

Josh:Big yellow letters on top, Department of Dimensional Correspondence.

Josh:You haven't seen anybody as you've been walking through this hallway headed forward.

Josh:But I will say, without a perception check, there is just like a constant static.

Josh:And it's not a sound so much as it is just kind of in the back of your head.

Josh:It's like your head has pins and needles, almost.

Josh:It's not a particularly comfortable sensation.

Josh:Yes?

Jorge:I'd like to look up.

Josh:You look up.

Josh:There is nobody stuck to the ceiling that immediately reaches down and grabs you.

Josh:So it's like linoleum flooring and then metal and then concrete up at the top.

Josh:They're interesting.

Josh:Not geometric shapes.

Josh:It's all squares and stuff, but they're like weird, interesting levels in the ceiling of indents of squares up and down.

Tanner:All right.

Josh:And they do move.

Josh:ever so slightly, like the levels of the different squares kind of equilibrate and then pass each other.

Josh:They don't extend all that far down, but it is an interesting architectural note.

Mike:Can I use my heart ability?

Josh:Okay.

Mike:It is either true seeing or third rank translate, depending on what is more immediately useful.

Josh:Mm-hmm.

Josh:Correct.

Josh:Uh, one second.

Josh:Let me just double-check what true sight gets you.

Josh:Because, silly me, I used the non-remastered name of the spell in that heart description, so you should shoot me.

Tanner:Despicable.

Josh:Um... Okay.

Josh:What's the other one?

Josh:Comprehend languages?

Josh:or whatever it's actually called.

Mike:but yeah it's called translate in the heart description

Josh:Right, because Translate is what it's called now.

Josh:I did the remastered version of that spell.

Josh:Okay, so you get Translate casted on you.

Josh:There isn't anything currently going on that is a different language, but out of the two of those, that one is more immediately useful.

Josh:I will say, though, thank you for reminding me of your heart.

Josh:There is one thing that actually would stand out.

Josh:A feature of your heart is that it tags things in your view, right?

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:I would note that the ceiling and the floors and all of that kind of stuff all have a tag on them that say the First House, capital F space capital H, which in itself is significant because traditionally buildings don't get labeled like that, but universally it's all labeled as the First House.

Josh:Regardless, you enter into the Department of Dimensional Correspondence.

Mike:Very crazy.

Josh:This area is, as best you can tell, a huge mail room.

Josh:There are massive sections of pneumatic tubing that all stretch out into the ceiling and then out into further parts of the building that all terminate here with open slots for you to put in or receive mail out of.

Josh:There's paper strewn all about the floor here.

Josh:One part of the ceiling has descended and pushed in slightly such that a whole gap on the upper right corner of the wall it's not a gap, it's filled in.

Josh:It hasn't caved in because the ceiling hasn't collapsed.

Josh:It's more like it's kind of just pushed in to fill the space that used to be part of this area.

Josh:But immediately noticeable is...

Josh:There are people in here.

Josh:There are, without a perception check, just looking around, five people that you notice.

Josh:All of them floating maybe 15 feet up, as if they were pulled by their chest upward, so their head is lulled back, their arms and their legs are spewed downward, and their mouth... What is happening?

Jorge:Thank you.

Tanner:I'm not sure.

Josh:It shared a lot of beeping.

Tanner:Me too.

Mike:I think there's discord feedback.

Josh:And their mouths are open and yellow light is spewing out of it.

Noah:I don't even know if there's a chance these guys are alive

Josh:Every once in a while from a distance you can see their mouths moving, but you're not close enough to hear anything coming out of it.

Tanner:That's horrible.

Tanner:That's so bad.

Mike:Does anyone have read lips or something?

Jorge:uh there's no chance these guys are good all right um can they have wings or no are they flying or were they just walking around

Josh:They are floating.

Josh:Their bodies are limp, and it looks like they're being suspended by some invisible string pulling on their chest upward.

Jorge:I like to hold on to my sword enacting the rune of the rune cutter or the string cutter.

Jorge:Do they have yellow cords?

Josh:Sure.

Josh:Uh, they do.

Jorge:Cool.

Jorge:Lev will bring out his wings.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:You guys ready to kill some deep things?

Noah:Yeah, let's do it.

Mike:I figure we could talk to these things and then see.

Jorge:Okay, you go first then.

Jorge:If you'd like to chat.

Mike:Okay.

Jorge:I'm kidding, I can chat first.

Jorge:They're just going to attack us, but I'm okay trying.

Mike:Sure.

Tanner:I don't even know if they're going to respond at all.

Tanner:They might just be catatonic.

Jorge:Alright, I walk forward and go, hello!

Josh:They continue to mouth words.

Josh:They're close enough that you can hear them.

Josh:Each of them in tune, not in tune, in time with each other, are all mouthing the same words in unison.

Josh:That was the word I was looking for, in unison.

Josh:They are...

Josh:Each saying, adjoining the center of the black sun, a city unending, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always.

Josh:And then all the way back to the beginning.

Noah:So what did the deep freak out that we were coming through here and try to come, come for it.

Noah:And they knew that we had a needle and it panicked and just tried to break through here or something.

Jorge:Uh...

Mike:I don't think our intent was known.

Mike:We're looking for this gun, but I don't think that was what was... It's just they have a god-killing weapon now, so... Oh, and he's the guy that fucked with us the most.

Josh:All right.

Mike:He's like, yo, no, shit, dude, I've been fucking with them for months.

Noah:he fucked with us the most he knows we don't like him he knows we have a god killing weapon and that we need to come here he probably had a temper tantrum and now this is happening

Jorge:I'm going to be honest with you guys, not to be rude or anything like that.

Jorge:Do you think he's scared of us?

Jorge:I don't think we scare that being at all.

Jorge:In fact, he's still in three of your heads.

Mike:Yeah, we have the only object on the planet that can kill him.

Jorge:You guys never did the memory erasing thing that we learned we had to do.

Noah:I think he's scared.

Jorge:He still looks through your eyes.

Noah:We literally have the one thing he can be scared of.

Noah:And we personally do not like him.

Mike:Also, we're in the area of the continent that has the strongest connection to Ilkain, or one of the easiest routes to Ilkain.

Mike:And he's been fucking with us.

Noah:I did openly threaten this guy a little while ago.

Mike:Yeah, I believe you did, like, point at him or something.

Mike:Like, man yells at cloud.

Noah:I did like a... I did a squish.

Mike:Yeah, okay.

Josh:You did do that.

Noah:I was like, squish.

Tanner:All right, well, we need to check these guys' pockets for key cards.

Noah:So... Can you cut these guys down?

Josh:Yeah, that made him very angry.

Josh:That was rude of you.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:I just fly up and I try to strike their courts.

Jorge:Do they resist?

Josh:No, they don't make any notice of you approaching.

Josh:You can cut through their cords easily.

Josh:Their bodies just fall limp to the ground.

Noah:I searched the pockets.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:No perception check necessary.

Josh:These guys all have red keycards.

Mike:yes let's go all right what's the next department

Josh:If you wanted to move on from this department, the next one would be... Oh, shit, where did that go?

Noah:Wait, are they still, did they die?

Noah:Are they just dead now?

Josh:Oh, there is, like, no medicine check necessary.

Josh:They're corpses.

Josh:They might have been dead before their cord was cut.

Noah:Oh.

Noah:Okay.

Josh:Excuse me.

Mike:Yeah, I didn't want to think too hard on if we just killed a bunch of helpless beings suspended in time or something.

Jorge:Oh, you killed researchers.

Tanner:I mean, they were like the most or whatever.

Noah:Okay.

Jorge:I'm sorry.

Jorge:Oh, researchers for the evil people.

Jorge:No offense.

Josh:Divex's co-workers.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:Yeah, but no offense, Divex.

Jorge:If you didn't get framed, we'd probably be trying to kill you right now.

Jorge:I'm sure you would have been a very good researcher, probably unlocking very bad things.

Jorge:We would have had to try to kill you.

Tanner:And we would have done well.

Mike:You would have just...

Mike:killed me on principle?

Mike:Just like, well, we're in here, might as well kill everyone in the facility.

Jorge:Well, if you resisted, would you have resisted?

Mike:Probably not.

Mike:I'm a researcher, not a... Okay.

Jorge:Then we probably wouldn't have killed you.

Mike:Well, you said you would have killed me before even knowing if I would have resisted.

Jorge:Well, that's because I think you would have still been very good, and you probably would have ascended to ultraviolet, and then probably done something very bad.

Jorge:So that's why we need to kill you.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:So even if I...

Jorge:I foresee if you were in this compound, you wouldn't be like some random guy.

Jorge:You'd be a person we came for the compound for.

Jorge:That's what I'm saying.

Jorge:It's a compliment.

Tanner:We don't have time to discuss other wicks.

Tanner:We need to get moving.

Josh:The two departments that you passed were the Office of Symbiotic Interactions and the Bureau of Emotional Contagion.

Tanner:Now, I want to check one of those doors that we passed by on the way here.

Tanner:I think we should check both doors.

Noah:Let's do it.

Jorge:I say we do symbiotic relationships first.

Jorge:That's going to be freaky.

Noah:So the emotional mutation sounds rough.

Noah:Symbiotic interactions.

Josh:Okay, sure.

Josh:So you exit out of this room.

Josh:You head back in the direction of symbiotic relations.

Josh:And...

Josh:As you leave, you note that the bit in the ceiling that had, like, pushed in a bit continues to push in as you leave.

Josh:The area around you is actively morphing as you navigate through the facility.

Josh:But you exit out, you hang a left, you head over towards the symbiote department.

Josh:Same deal, like, big doorway kind of...

Josh:There is a... Past the door, it only moves about three feet before it looks like it's just concrete wall blocking any forward progress.

Josh:But there is a light cord just hanging out of the air in front of the stone wall there.

Jorge:I look at Don.

Noah:I mean, if we're trying to get out of the place with the cognitive breakwater... Does anyone have any objections to this?

Jorge:Send it.

Mike:End it.

Josh:Okay, you pull it once, everything goes dark.

Noah:Pull it again.

Josh:Pull it again, everything lights up.

Josh:There's this immense pressure, like the ocean's on you.

Josh:Pull it a third time, everything goes dark, and then it becomes light, and the pressure lifts, and you find yourselves sat, or not sat, standing in, well, this is familiar, actually.

Josh:It is a hotel lobby.

Josh:This is familiar from your journey throughout the lighthouse previously.

Mike:Thank you.

Josh:Some luggage strewn about.

Josh:There's a sign mentioning that there is, in fact, a cocktail hour happening right now.

Josh:There are some pamphlets for attractions and stuff on the left.

Josh:There aren't the, like, clock doors in front of you anymore, though.

Josh:You're just in this lobby area.

Josh:What is significant this time is that the bar that was closed in your other ventures is now open.

Josh:And there are a number of cocktails poured, just sat there on the front, like, laid out on the bar.

Noah:Is there any descriptions on them, or are they just kind of sitting there?

Mike:Shall we?

Josh:No, there are four different cocktails that you can see.

Josh:One of them is, like, standard martini glass with a very green-looking liquid inside of it.

Jorge:you

Josh:One next to it is this, like, full beer mug, almost, but it's filled with a very blue-looking liquid that's almost viscous.

Josh:You can see it sticking to the side of the cup.

Josh:There's one that looks to be a normal tall glass of water, completely clear liquid, and then a fourth one that looks like a tiki face.

Josh:You can't see inside because the cup itself is opaque, but there's a fun curly straw sticking out of it.

Noah:I'll go pick up the tiki one.

Jorge:I'll go to the blue one.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Give it a little sip.

Jorge:I give it a little sip.

Jorge:I'm a supertaster after all.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:Make a fort save, please.

Noah:I also take a little sip of my tiki drink.

Josh:Fort save.

Jorge:Is this against a disease or poison?

Josh:This is not against a disease or poison.

Noah:Well, I got a 37

Jorge:Is it against a mental effect?

Josh:It is not against a mental effect.

Jorge:Is it against a magical effect?

Josh:It is against a magical effect.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Okay, so with the 37, you drank the Tiki.

Noah:fatiguing.

Josh:And then what did you get for the blue drink?

Jorge:Sorry, is this a curse?

Josh:It is not a curse.

Jorge:Okay, so I can roll.

Jorge:49.

Tanner:Nice.

Josh:Okay, uh 49, okay Um, absolutely, uh, okay, so you drink the blue drink you got a critical success your skin turns blue You are what

Jorge:And I believe I'm a juggernaut?

Jorge:Yeah, so my proficiency rank ain't... Oh, sorry, when I roll a success, I get a critical success.

Jorge:All right, look like.

Jorge:Oh, continue, continue.

Josh:You look a little bit like Henrik.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:It's the same general shade.

Jorge:Ooh.

Josh:You give resistance 5 to poison and avoid damage.

Josh:If you are killed by poison or avoid damage in the next 8 hours, you immediately come back to health with 88 hit points.

Noah:Wow.

Jorge:Dope.

Noah:That's great.

Jorge:Is there a bottle of this stuff?

Josh:As far as you can see, there's just the one big jug of the blue liquid.

Noah:Josh, anything happen with my 39?

Noah:I also have Juggernaut.

Josh:With a 39, absolutely.

Noah:If that happens to be a success, then I get a crit.

Josh:You feel there's a weird twinge in your eyes.

Josh:To an outside observer, your pupils have just contracted into cat-like eyes.

Noah:Oh.

Josh:You have a plus two status bonus to perception checks.

Tanner:Hmm.

Tanner:I feel like we should take sips of these, so... Uh, Divex, do you intend on taking a sip?

Mike:It appears the prerequisite is doing well on the save.

Tanner:Hmm.

Tanner:I don't know what that means, so I'm going to take a sip of the clear one.

Noah:Oh.

Josh:Okay, absolutely.

Josh:Make a fortsail.

Tanner:I'm just going to... Let's just assume I succeed.

Josh:I would love to do that, but no.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:I also have the Juggernaut ability.

Tanner:48.

Josh:Cool.

Josh:And this was the clear liquid?

Tanner:Clear.

Josh:Okay, you take a sip, and you feel your whole body lock in place.

Tanner:Alright, well, that's tough.

Jorge:Thank you.

Josh:There is a... all of the lights dim, and then brighten again, and you find yourselves standing next to a flat stone wall, and directly in front of you is this research lab-looking thing.

Josh:There are a few different operating tables stuck in front of them.

Josh:There is, in big lettering above you, like on the back wall, Department of Symbio... Interaction?

Josh:Gosh, I've already forgotten what it's actually called.

Mike:Reactions?

Mike:Symbiotic reactions?

Josh:Interactions.

Josh:Office of Symbiotic Interactions.

Mike:Oh.

Josh:There are a few people here also suspended from cords.

Josh:There's maybe six people you can see in the ceiling, or like hovering above the ceiling being pulled up by yellow cords.

Josh:Also repeating the same garble.

Josh:So just to clarify, you are holding... So the three of you that took a sip, rule of threes, you each got to keep your cups.

Josh:So you still have a serving left of the things you got.

Tanner:Yeah, yeah.

Josh:I'm pointing at Tanner right now, right?

Josh:You drank immovable potion.

Josh:So for the next moment, for the next minute, your body has the same properties as an immovable rod that's been activated.

Josh:There was.

Mike:Was there a fourth drink?

Mike:I just want to identify it.

Josh:It's not there anymore.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:You guys drank three.

Mike:Oh.

Josh:Gone.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:Fair enough.

Jorge:I'm gonna hold on to... No, no, no, no, you don't understand.

Tanner:I should have picked the other one, darn it.

Jorge:This potion is gonna be so fucking funny if we can force someone to drink it.

Noah:really funny, though.

Noah:Even if we can't force someone to drink it, if Henrik just, like, lays on Kharkov and then drinks it... I can't drink it.

Tanner:I tackle him.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:With the spikes!

Noah:Let's cut these guys down.

Jorge:Yeah, I'll go do the cutting down again.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:With the guys, I just look like the Witcher.

Josh:They don't resist or anything like that.

Josh:They just fall.

Tanner:So stupid.

Josh:A little bit, yeah.

Jorge:Do I feel... Do I feel... Does, like, my arm silk have any reaction to this deep thing?

Jorge:The deep presence?

Josh:That's actually a good question.

Josh:Can you roll a religion check for me, please?

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:Oh, fuck.

Jorge:27.

Josh:There's like a weird tinkling sensation, but I don't think you can gain much out of it other than that.

Jorge:Alright.

Jorge:I wonder if they're still homies.

Jorge:They might not be.

Jorge:Alright.

Jorge:So, cards all red.

Josh:Roll a perception check to just look through this room in general.

Jorge:Liv's not going to do that.

Tanner:Ooh.

Tanner:Can I move yet?

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:I will look around the room once the minute has passed.

Josh:After a minute passes, you can move again.

Josh:It only lasts a minute.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Can we, like... No offense to something else.

Jorge:Wait, did this make Kenrick... Like, I would have also pushed or pinched Kenrick's arm and stuff.

Jorge:Was he, like... Was he... Can I still move him?

Josh:He gains the quality of an immovable rod, so he can't be moved from his position without, I believe it's a DC-40 athletics check to move him.

Josh:But it doesn't make his body more resilient.

Josh:Like, you could still stab him, he's just physically there in that space.

Jorge:Okay, so we just gotta find a really strong metal rodent, and then we teleport it into Karkov's stomach, and then he's just fucked.

Tanner:Why does the rodent have to be metal?

Jorge:Once we get to drink it.

Jorge:Because we have to drink it, so it's a strong thing that's like a cannonball.

Jorge:We give him to drink the potion, we throw it into Karkov's stomach, and then Karkov tries to walk, and he's like, Divex like that.

Tanner:I got a 43 to look around the room.

Josh:43 looking around the room.

Josh:So this room is set up more like a hybrid...

Josh:honestly, a veterinary center kind of deal where there's a bunch of medical tooling and stuff for things that are obviously not for human-sized things.

Tanner:you

Josh:It's on smaller scales.

Josh:But definitely, like, a series of beds with tooling and pliers and all that kind of stuff.

Josh:But the outer wall have these...

Josh:containment areas where it's like a raised pedestal that is covered in glass or some glass-like material.

Josh:Where there are a few of them are cracked such that you don't actually see anything on the inside.

Josh:Although there are two that do look like they are still intact and there are things inside them.

Josh:With your roll, the things that you would see is one of them looks like a...

Josh:It looks very similar to a mimic, honestly, in that it's got the same oily corded substance, but it's got too many legs.

Josh:Mimics have four legs.

Josh:This thing has eight, ten, twelve.

Josh:It kind of keeps changing and morphing.

Josh:And it's also made out of this, like, red coloration.

Josh:Almost the same... Like, if you were to pull out somebody's intestines, it's the same general pinkish-red color as that.

Josh:And it is active.

Josh:It's like running around the inside of its little chamber.

Josh:It's crawling up the side of it.

Josh:It doesn't seem to have noticed you outside of it, but it's definitely moving.

Josh:The other still closed pedestal area looks to have a single pearl earring.

Josh:Like, this big.

Josh:Just sat in the pedestal.

Josh:Unmoving.

Josh:It is there.

Tanner:I'm almost more worried about that.

Tanner:Let's go.

Josh:I will also say, if you're going through and cutting down people and looking through them, you would find one yellow keycard.

Mike:The pedestal material is glass.

Tanner:That's wrong.

Josh:Whoever looks to be the head researcher in this area.

Jorge:right so so it might it's probably clitoral titanium okay

Josh:Some clear substance.

Josh:It looks like glass.

Mike:Is it metal?

Josh:Do you cast Detect Metal?

Mike:Sure, why not?

Josh:No, it's not metal.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:Can I identify the pearl?

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Do you have to touch it?

Jorge:No.

Jorge:Remember when we realized he's just looking at things?

Josh:Right, you just look at it and you go, vibes.

Josh:Yeah, you can identify it.

Josh:It's Identify Magic.

Josh:It's Arcana.

Noah:what if we take the weird carnage symbiote mid-fight we just go Kirkov, yeah!

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:That's stupid.

Josh:That's a 60?

Josh:Did you mistype your bonus?

Mike:That's a 60.

Mike:Non-crit.

Jorge:Well, it's the second 60 of the day.

Josh:Is that what happened?

Mike:Nope.

Jorge:Just want to put that out there.

Josh:I don't know.

Josh:That needs to stop.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Also, mine wasn't a 20 either, so we have two dirty 60s.

Josh:I hate that.

Josh:That's 10 higher than a base level DC 25 check, which is crazy.

Josh:So on 60, that is a curious teardrop.

Noah:You raised your hand.

Jorge:What the fuck is that?

Josh:It is an earring.

Josh:I'm trying to, what do you learn out of identifying magic?

Mike:All of it.

Josh:I think it is all of it.

Josh:But I just, I want to double check before I give you all of it, you know, just in case.

Josh:How do I?

Josh:Identify magic.

Josh:Show me the rules for this.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:Critical success.

Josh:You learn all the attributes, including its name, what it does, any means of activating it, and whether it's cursed.

Josh:It tells you whether it's cursed?

Josh:That's crazy.

Noah:plus art

Josh:It's not cursed.

Josh:You activate it by putting it in your ear.

Josh:It is an earring.

Josh:The earring has Intelligence plus 6, Wisdom plus 2, Charisma plus 4.

Josh:It's pretty good at Diplomacy.

Josh:It's got a plus 24 bonus to that.

Josh:It's proficient.

Josh:It is intelligent.

Josh:It knows Telepathy.

Josh:It speaks Common.

Josh:It's a spirited chatterbox which always observes and takes mental notes, but it's easily overwhelmed by news sites, which often causes it to devolve into a sobbing mess.

Josh:Occasionally, it enters a stage of melancholy over the fragility of all matter, which requires immense reassurance to pull it out of its nihilism.

Josh:But once per day, you can use a two-action concentrate manipulate action to ask for the teardrop's assistance.

Josh:It can cast Curse of Lost Time, Pharos Form, or 7th-level Elemental Form.

Mike:Only for the metal elemental.

Jorge:So it gives you depression for a couple of spells.

Josh:Also, if you're targeted by an emotion or mental effect, it can, as a reaction, give you a plus four status bonus to the saving throw against the effect.

Josh:Whether or not you're successful, the teardrop will then attempt a counteract check at plus 36 to immediately reflect a copy of the effect back at the originator.

Noah:Oh, that's pretty cool.

Tanner:Probably we break the glass.

Noah:Can you identify the scary other one?

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:How do I get access to this teardrop?

Noah:Shove in your ear, man.

Jorge:You want to... You'd have to convince her.

Jorge:Are you charismatic?

Mike:Invented to do what?

Jorge:Don't you have to, like, talk it out of being depressed and suicidal?

Mike:If I want it out of its nihilism.

Tanner:Oh, oh, that's toxic.

Josh:correct yeah you definitely can

Mike:It does not.

Mike:None of the requests or activates are like it has to not be in its nihilistic state.

Noah:So this thing's stopping being like, everything is going to die.

Mike:So can you make me a big metal guy?

Noah:And you'd be like, yes, anyway.

Noah:What's the... Wait, can we see what the other one is?

Mike:To identify creatures, is there going to be a nature check, or can I?

Jorge:Yeah, can I also, um, esoteric exploit vulnerability to see if the spider thing has anything?

Jorge:52.

Tanner:Thank you.

Jorge:Uh, yes.

Josh:A52 is a success, so you learn its biggest weakness.

Mike:it loves too hard like it's like a wwe wrestler from like the late 90s where it just says no known weaknesses or no that was in the ufc they had like no known weaknesses

Josh:No, it actually doesn't have any weaknesses.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:So, on success, you recall an important fact about the creature learning its highest weakness.

Jorge:But now it's other weakness.

Jorge:Okay, never mind.

Josh:Yeah, so you know that it doesn't have any weaknesses.

Mike:So can I?

Josh:I'm sorry.

Josh:I just completely missed this.

Josh:It does have a weakness.

Josh:It is week 15 to Holy Spirit Gem.

Josh:Holy Spiritual Damage.

Josh:Or Holy Sanctified Damage.

Jorge:Cool, cool, cool.

Mike:Not a great indicator.

Mike:So to identify the creature or, yeah, I guess trying to figure out what it is.

Josh:That's a nature check.

Mike:I want to do that.

Josh:You can try an occultism check, but the DC is much, much higher.

Josh:The correct thing to roll is a nature check.

Mike:Well, when you say much, much higher, I have quite the differential between those two skills.

Josh:Alright, you can try it.

Mike:I'll roll an occultist.

Josh:I'm sure you'll get it anyway.

Josh:You're going to roll a 78, and that'd make me cry.

Mike:54.

Josh:54.

Josh:You don't just learn everything about it, because fuck you.

Mike:What the fuck?

Josh:It's definitely magical in some way.

Noah:Well.

Josh:It looks like it has the inherent ability to cast some particularly high-level spells.

Josh:I'm trying to figure out what to tell you off of that, because occultism is the wrong thing to roll.

Jorge:Can we make... Can we make some special mind juice out of it?

Josh:Probably.

Josh:I feel like you can always make special mind juice out of something if you try hard enough.

Mike:This ball of goop can catch 7-7.

Mike:I don't like that.

Noah:going on.

Josh:Yeah, unfortunately, occultism doesn't give you a lot, because it's the wrong thing to roll there.

Mike:Wit.

Josh:So you learn that it's a high-level spellcaster, but you don't learn much else.

Mike:Wit.

Josh:Red goop.

Mike:Wit.

Mike:What's everyone's nature look like?

Tanner:all right probably like a my nature is 24. yeah

Mike:I don't think I can re-roll this check, but perhaps it's worth... Okay.

Noah:um i got 21.

Jorge:I don't really know why we want to open this up.

Jorge:But as I say that, I go to... Yeah, I mean, I think we just move on.

Mike:What?

Mike:We're trying to figure out what it is.

Tanner:Do you want me to break open the earring one?

Jorge:I'm going to...

Tanner:I think it's being kept there.

Mike:Well, I want to talk to the area before we break open its place of business.

Tanner:I don't know if it wants to be there.

Noah:Thank you.

Mike:I know, but maybe there's a better way to open it.

Mike:No one wants to roll nature to figure out the goop guy that can cast... It's a ball of red tar that can cast like 7th, 8th, 9th level spells.

Jorge:is this the mimic thing um I am like I don't know we should but excuse me and I go to cough but I miss my arm and then I just spat out blood onto Henrik's shield and I share weakness and give him the uh

Tanner:All right.

Tanner:Let me see what I can do.

Mike:Yeah.

Tanner:Let me see.

Josh:The mimicking thing, yeah.

Josh:Great.

Josh:So now with your snot, blood, cough, phlegm shield, you also deal holy damage.

Noah:Thank you.

Jorge:hehehe

Tanner:I got a 41 on my nature check.

Josh:Okay, so, like, the thing here is that it's not like this is a creature you're just going to find in, like, one of those, you know, here's a whole book of animals to show your kid in kindergarten kind of thing.

Josh:Unfortunately, the two characters that have ever been in this party that would be the most likely to be able to identify this particular monster, one of them is off hunting vampires who knows where, and the other one got vaporized.

Josh:So, from what you have left, collectively, I will say...

Josh:and this is probably being a little generous, but I will say with that role, you might think of Big Fish in thinking maybe this is like a fairy tale thing.

Josh:You've seen weirder shit.

Josh:And the reason that that might be important is because Mimics came up in fairy tales.

Josh:They're similar.

Josh:And there is a myth around Mimics

Josh:of a mimic that continued to devour things that it came across in the cognitive realm, before it even came to the physical.

Josh:It just came into other things and then it ate them, and it ate them, and it ate them, and eventually it figured out how to get more out of eating them, just eating them.

Josh:And, you know, it's a fairy tale, so the next step is that the heroes come in and they slay it and it's, you know, gone and it'll never threaten the world or anything like that.

Josh:But it kind of matches the description of this thing.

Josh:In the fairy tale, it's called Sitzmittel.

Josh:Spelled T-Z-I-T-Z-I-M-I-T-L.

Tanner:you

Jorge:Is this enough to do, like, an esoteric check to be like, I know I've read something about this, like a lore check?

Josh:You can try it.

Josh:We can count this as moving it to eight, if you've ever heard of this particular thing.

Noah:It's six minutes.

Jorge:47.

Josh:Yeah, unfortunately, not a lot.

Josh:They're supposed to be very powerful.

Josh:Beyond that, you don't get a lot of information out of it.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:Yeah.

Jorge:I tried talking to Attila.

Josh:It doesn't respond.

Josh:It's just like running around to the inside of its chamber.

Noah:Maybe we hold on to this one in case things go bad and just go, yeah!

Jorge:You want to hold on to this while we're going to put it?

Noah:Did I go holding?

Jorge:That sounds fucking terrifying.

Mike:Anyways, you guys figure out how to store the container of terrifying being.

Mike:Can I go talk to the eardrop?

Josh:You can try it.

Mike:Or teardrop?

Josh:You know that its telepathy only works with its wearer.

Mike:Oh.

Mike:Um.

Josh:Like, you have to invest in it first.

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:This can only be activated once per day.

Mike:Yeah, let's crack open the teardrop's container.

Josh:How?

Tanner:I'm gonna hit it with a light hammer.

Josh:Yeah, it's glass.

Josh:It shatters.

Mike:I shall put on the earring now

Josh:Absolutely.

Noah:They put this...

Josh:Your ear's pierced.

Josh:Okay, so you just quickly pierce your ear with the earring.

Josh:It takes you six seconds to invest in it, because Pathfinder is wonky.

Josh:And then you immediately hear, like, you feel the connection hit, and then it's immediately followed with...

Josh:Somebody new just put me on.

Josh:That's so exciting.

Josh:It's really exciting to meet you.

Josh:My name is Crystal Earring, or Crystal, or Earring.

Jorge:you

Josh:I know how to do a lot of things, like I could turn you into metal, or I could turn you into metal.

Josh:Actually, that's kind of the only thing I can do, but I'm really good at it, if you ask me to do it.

Josh:Also, you haven't said anything in a few seconds, which is kind of rude.

Josh:Do you not like me?

Josh:Are you regretting putting me on?

Josh:Is that, like, is this already going to be a problem?

Josh:Because I can stop talking if you don't want me, like, I just, I feel like if you immediately put me down, that would be a huge blow to my ego.

Mike:Hey, Schism, can you talk?

Josh:Uh, Skizzle will say, no, what are you talking about?

Mike:Can you hear Crystal?

Mike:Can you hook Crystal up?

Josh:To what?

Mike:The telepathy that we use?

Josh:I don't hear your earring talking, my guy.

Josh:I don't have ears.

Mike:Can you invest in the earring so that all of us can hear Crystal?

Mike:I don't think that's a prereq.

Josh:Uh... Yes, uh, Noah?

Noah:While this is happening, I'm gonna scoot the sits middle into the bag of holding.

Noah:How big is this thing?

Josh:Like, the whole thing into the bag of holding?

Josh:Yeah!

Noah:Okay.

Josh:So the Sitz middle itself is like this big.

Josh:Like not huge.

Josh:The container itself is like two feet by two feet by two feet.

Jorge:Hey, the ring you're wearing, Davex, has a very good memory, correct?

Mike:The earring?

Jorge:Yes.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:Can you ask it what happened in this room recently?

Mike:Sure.

Mike:Hey, Crystal.

Josh:You interrupt the crystal as it's already gone into.

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:Oh, no, he hasn't said anything in a while That probably means he's going to get rid of me.

Josh:But like if I just stopped talking and then he'll immediately take me out But if I keep talking maybe I could say something interesting to him and that'll keep me around Yeah, yeah.

Mike:Hey, Crystal.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:Yeah Um

Mike:What happened to this room?

Josh:I kind of like staying in the moment.

Josh:I don't want to think back on other things that used to happen.

Josh:In my stat block, it actually specifically says I don't like talking about the past.

Josh:I'm sorry.

Josh:But if you wanted to have a chat with me right now, we could totally do it.

Josh:I could hold a very interesting conversation about the chemical makeup of pearls, if that was interesting to you.

Josh:Or if you don't want to do that, we could talk about my feelings or your feelings.

Mike:Wait, wait.

Mike:You take notes of things that happen, but you don't... You prefer not to discuss the past?

Josh:Talk about my past.

Josh:Yeah, I don't want to talk about my past.

Noah:Josh, so you're saying I can't fit the sits middle in?

Mike:Well, I mean, it's not your past.

Mike:It's the room's past.

Mike:It's disconnected.

Josh:Oh, you... You don't think that... But... Roll a diplomacy check.

Josh:No, you can.

Josh:You can.

Josh:I just wanted to confirm that that's what you wanted to do.

Josh:Sure.

Noah:Oh, yep.

Noah:Whole thing in the container.

Noah:Never mind.

Tanner:Thank you.

Mike:27 on the diplomacy.

Noah:Never know when we'll leave that later.

Josh:Okay, that is unfortunately not enough to be its diplomacy, DC.

Josh:So it says... Listen, there are so many more interesting things we could be talking about.

Josh:I don't necessarily want to talk about, you know, what happened before.

Josh:I mean, it was scary.

Jorge:What did you hear?

Josh:It's not interesting.

Josh:You don't want to think about it anyway.

Mike:So, Josh, I think the teardrop doesn't want to talk about its own origins.

Josh:But...

Josh:Yeah, and I'm treating it as it doesn't want to talk about its past at all.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:This is my game.

Mike:So then... No, no, I'm just saying, like... Fair enough.

Jorge:What does it say?

Josh:You had a chance to convince it, and you did not roll well.

Josh:So it will continue to blabber, but you have it on your ear.

Jorge:Yeah, what does it say?

Mike:it's uh it's freaking out um it is not very informative on on any of the ongoings of this room okay uh i'll take the earring off and hand it to him what

Jorge:That's why I was telling you, you should have been more charismatic.

Jorge:I don't know.

Jorge:If I had the ring, if I had the earring, we'd be good friends by now.

Jorge:I'm just saying.

Jorge:That coffee barista, we're good friends.

Josh:Okay, that's fine.

Jorge:Will you let me?

Jorge:It's okay, Vito, but...

Noah:you you

Jorge:I'll try to convince it to tell me about its origin.

Jorge:If possible.

Jorge:If not, it's fine.

Mike:I think he's asking you, Josh.

Josh:Oh, I thought you were asking Mike.

Mike:No.

Jorge:No, Mike gave me the ring.

Josh:You're asking me.

Jorge:The earring.

Josh:If you want to put on the earring, you can do that.

Josh:You start off on not a great foot with it, because it's already like, oh no, they've already traded hands.

Josh:I was pulled off the second I got put in somebody's ear, and now I'm already in somebody else's ear.

Josh:I'm sorry, I promise I'm really helpful.

Josh:I'm a good earring.

Jorge:Oh, yeah, I'm sure you do.

Jorge:Can I try to make an impression first?

Josh:Yeah, you can try.

Josh:Also, I will say, as you're bringing the Zitz missile into your bag, when you pick up the containment unit, the whole thing...

Josh:fills with darkness, uh, emanating out of the, uh, out of the creature as it skinners around, as it, like, gets jolted, um, and the whole thing immediately cools instantly.

Noah:Good.

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:Uh, it is freezing to the touch, but you can't get it to, like, chuck it into your bag, um, and you now just have it in a container in your bag of holding.

Noah:We might need this later.

Josh:What'd you get?

Jorge:56.

Josh:Uh, 56.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Um, it says, listen, I don't know why you guys are so interested.

Josh:Like, nothing really happened.

Josh:They were hanging out here, they were talking to each other, and then all of a sudden there was this weird staticky thing.

Josh:My head hurt.

Josh:I don't really have a head.

Josh:My mind hurt.

Josh:And then all of them started floating and saying weird things.

Josh:And the whole building started to shift around.

Josh:It's like, not a lot of stuff.

Noah:Thank you.

Jorge:Oh, no, no.

Jorge:That's good information.

Jorge:Thank you so much.

Jorge:What did they... Did they ask you questions?

Jorge:Why did they put you away?

Jorge:You're such a great companion to talk to.

Jorge:Oh, my goodness.

Josh:Oh, that's very kind of you.

Josh:I don't know why they put me away.

Josh:I would ask them questions, they would tell me to shut up, and they would take me off.

Jorge:They're such idiots.

Jorge:Can you believe that?

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:It happened to me.

Jorge:Did they also do that with the other thing?

Josh:No, the other thing?

Josh:The big creepy crawly thing?

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:No, that's not an earring.

Josh:You know what an earring looks like.

Josh:I know you know what an earring looks like.

Josh:Everybody knows what an earring looks like.

Jorge:What'd they do to that thing?

Jorge:Did they just, like, poke it?

Josh:I remember one time I watched them feed it to a guy and then it like burst out of his stomach.

Jorge:Terrifying.

Noah:Here's the plan, guys.

Noah:Henrik jumps on Kharkov, drinks the amoeba potion, holds him down.

Noah:We run over to Kharkov, take the Sitzmittel, smash it into his mouth.

Noah:End of game.

Jorge:Yeah.

Tanner:He would find a way to make that benefit him.

Tanner:He's one creepy guy.

Jorge:So I would like to just chat with this thing for a little bit to keep it being friendly.

Josh:Okay, that's fine.

Jorge:And then I'm going to try to look for a segue to be like, oh my god, Divex is an expert or something to draw to Divex and then give it back to Divex so he doesn't seem hurt.

Noah:you

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:He is hurt regardless that he keeps transferring from one person to another.

Josh:He does not have a particularly high self-esteem.

Josh:So the fact that he keeps getting pawned off is not helping.

Josh:But you have the earring and it is cooperative.

Jorge:Okay, cool.

Mike:DiveX will put it back on.

Mike:Wow, you're popular.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:I also still have Jan.

Josh:Oh, that's very kind of me to say.

Josh:I know you're lying to me.

Josh:I know everybody's always lying to me when they put me on, but I appreciate that you were trying at least.

Josh:It's better than some other people.

Josh:You didn't call me stupid or threaten to crush me or anything like that, so it could be worse.

Josh:What?

Mike:I still have Jan.

Josh:Oh, you do.

Josh:Is it like a dare or something?

Josh:Did you make a bet with somebody?

Mike:No.

Josh:I mean, if you did make a bet with somebody, I don't think you would answer yes.

Josh:I'll just keep Anaïs out in case at some point you... I don't have any way of compelling you to tell the truth, unfortunately.

Mike:Well, you could ask me if that's part of the bet.

Mike:I can't tell you about...

Josh:I tried getting that earlier, but it didn't work because I have no way of teaching myself new tricks because I'm an earring.

Josh:But, you know, it'd be helpful.

Josh:If I had it, I'd use it all the time because then you couldn't lie to me about how much you hate me.

Jorge:In Lev's mind, he's thinking, man, I wish I could have just brushed that earring.

Jorge:That was really annoying.

Jorge:Oh, my God.

Josh:Yeah, he's, um, he's talkative.

Noah:And that.

Jorge:All right.

Josh:But he can be helpful.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:What a terrifying spell to have in a neurotic earring.

Josh:Curse of Lost Time, Pharos Form, or Elemental Form?

Mike:Curse of Lost Time.

Josh:I don't know.

Mike:That's the equivalent to the spell that we use to terrify that mob boss in Sigil.

Mike:It ages someone rapidly.

Mike:So I get this sad earring on my ear and I go, hey, this guy's messing with me.

Mike:And the earring goes, I'll kill it.

Jorge:All right.

Mike:And then just fucking zaps the person with like 80 years and they just turn to frail dust.

Mike:Like, thanks, earring.

Josh:No.

Tanner:We got a key card to a lower level.

Jorge:Do you guys want to check the other ring?

Tanner:I feel like we got our card.

Jorge:Or do we think the emotional contagion is scary enough to avoid?

Tanner:Let's move on.

Mike:Wait, there's another containment with a ring?

Mike:Oh.

Mike:What am I missing?

Jorge:No, it's called Emotional Contagion.

Jorge:There's another room.

Josh:There is another research lab for emotional contagion.

Mike:Oh.

Jorge:Nah, let's go.

Jorge:That's probably fucked up.

Noah:Let's go.

Jorge:What'd you say?

Mike:I want to go to that room.

Jorge:Don't.

Noah:Let's go down.

Jorge:Let's go back.

Mike:I'm overruled.

Tanner:So yellow.

Josh:okay so to make it back to the elevator you will have to pass back like there's a cement wall where the door should be you do have to do the cord again um but you just flip the cord and it brings you back to the other side you don't have to pass through the lighthouse again

Tanner:We got yellow.

Mike:Yep.

Jorge:Yes.

Tanner:That's floor three.

Tanner:Let's go.

Tanner:We didn't even have to do stupid orange.

Mike:Bye.

Jorge:I'm starting to wonder if this is in the deep city.

Noah:Oh, bad.

Josh:So, as you make your way back towards the elevator, I will note, you do get to the elevator, but you have to make different turns than you had to to get here.

Josh:Like, the hallway has restructured itself in the time that you had been in the other area.

Josh:Um...

Josh:But you do make it to the elevator eventually.

Josh:You just follow the signs.

Josh:There are some helpful signs that tell you which way the elevator is.

Josh:You can hit the button.

Josh:It does open back up.

Josh:And you have free reign.

Josh:What floor are you going to?

Noah:Yellow for three.

Jorge:Free.

Mike:Yellow.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:You hit three.

Josh:Well, you scan the key card.

Josh:You hit three.

Josh:Door's closed.

Josh:Descends further.

Josh:This is like maybe a four-minute elevator ride.

Josh:It's a long time.

Josh:But it does eventually slow and pop open.

Josh:Very similar to what you had seen on the first floor here.

Josh:It does now say third floor yellow clearance.

Josh:And then the plaque here points in two directions.

Josh:To the left is the Department of Recursive Entities.

Josh:And then to the right is the Office of Mnemonic Preservation.

Mike:I was going to ask if those were the only... I'm guessing there's not any sort of central directory.

Josh:And that's where we'll end it for today.

Josh:Those were the two on the side that you saw, so those would be the two closest apartments.

Josh:There would be more as you continue down in each direction, but that's... You haven't seen one.

Jorge:Leo?

Mike:Or maybe there is and we just haven't seen it yet.

Noah:So we got the oomph and the recursive recursive.

Noah:The departments of departments of departments of departments.

Josh:Yes.

Jorge:So I don't love that we keep going closer and closer to the center of the planet.

Noah:I don't know if we're on our planet anymore.

Jorge:Yeah.

Tanner:I think we are.

Tanner:I think that he's trying to, the Deep is trying to do an incursion on this facility, but I don't think that he's fully claimed it.

Tanner:The alarm says it's undergoing restructuring, which could mean that it's a feature of the structure to restructure itself.

Noah:Oh, like trying to... Hmm.

Tanner:Right, Josh?

Tanner:Didn't it say, like, undergoing architectural or something like that?

Josh:That's nice.

Josh:Well, there's another one.

Tanner:Personal.

Mike:Well, we just walked through a floor that was doing it.

Tanner:Unplanned architectural restructure.

Mike:Mnemonic breach.

Mike:Aren't we on a floor that has mnemonic something?

Noah:and mnemonic preservation.

Josh:Yeah, the two that you saw were Department of Recursive Entities and Office of Mnemonic Preservation.

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:I'm vaguely annoyed.

Mike:We don't really have time to look through the whole facility, but it is a top Oreskian lab that is currently vacant.

Jorge:I'm proud of us for not fighting that thing.

Mike:Items are there and the people are not.

Mike:It is grubby little finger time.

Tanner:Well, we gotta search this floor for another card, so, you know, we'll probably come across some stuff.

Tanner:We got an earring.

Tanner:That's cool.

Tanner:And goop.

Noah:We got to its middle.

Mike:Yeah, we covered...

Josh:You could have thought it.

Noah:You never know when this is going to end.

Josh:At any time, you can take it out and fight it.

Josh:Just for a little bit of extra experience.

Mike:just a little bit gross probably oh incredibly yeah

Jorge:Yeah.

Tanner:So do we think that this is because of us that this is happening?

Jorge:I don't know...

Noah:That's what I'm saying.

Tanner:Sweet.

Tanner:It's kind of convenient for us, though, don't you think?

Tanner:So that's a little...

Jorge:I don't know if the deep's scared of us.

Jorge:If anything, it might be trying to help us.

Noah:No way.

Noah:I think it's scared.

Jorge:You think, like, Thessian number, like, three or four is scared of us?

Noah:Yeah, can you imagine being an entity as old... Can you imagine being an entity as old as the deep, this close to coming back to life, and four fuckos who have openly been like, hey, we don't like you, now have the one thing that can kill you.

Jorge:Even within you?

Josh:Or two, depending on how you count.

Jorge:What'd you say, Josh?

Josh:It's one or two, depending on how you count.

Jorge:Yes, but also it almost dropped an entire city.

Noah:Yeah, almost.

Noah:Like a bitch, it didn't.

Noah:Which means it's scared.

Noah:I defy you to find a fault in that logic.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Listen, if I was some celestial god and I started messing with a group whose every time they take a step it makes a honking sound and they haunt their enemies when they're at their weakest and I fuck with them a little bit and then they get the only thing that I've ever seen that can kill me or the quickest way to kill me that is non-thessian violence

Jorge:I think...

Josh:Love.

Mike:I would be like, yeah, I don't know.

Mike:I mean, I don't know what motivation they would have.

Mike:I mean, this could be some incursion by Kharkov.

Mike:Kharkov's like, I'm getting a slipseer, I'm getting this, and then we're going to fucking grab some shit from this lab and get the fuck out because they want to kill me.

Jorge:Maybe Kharkov also accidentally fucked up.

Jorge:They pushed this facility too far.

Noah:Yeah.

Mike:That could also be...

Jorge:Also, maybe the Deep's trying to do this to make sure we don't get that gun so we don't leave.

Mike:I don't think people know we want the gun.

Jorge:Well, the Deep's in your brain, and you guys never took the spell to get it out.

Jorge:I don't know.

Jorge:We'll see.

Jorge:I guess maybe the deeps probably doesn't want to be pinned regardless if we kill it or not.

Jorge:Just the act of pinning it is probably really obnoxious.

Noah:Oh, we penned it to the local weed.

Jorge:Yeah, which kind of gets rid of it permanently.

Jorge:I don't know if it can unpin itself.

Josh:It becomes immortal.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:Even if we don't kill whatever the fuck that thing is, it probably is pretty annoyed by that.

Tanner:It just gets stuck here.

Mike:It becomes mortal.

Mike:It's more than being annoyed.

Mike:It's immediately brought to our level, essentially.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:I just want to recount.

Jorge:Earlier in the campaign, I thought we were going to kill the deep and everyone laughed at me.

Jorge:You guys were like, that's fucking crazy.

Noah:It's the size of the room.

Jorge:We're never going to kill the deep.

Jorge:We're not even going to make it there.

Jorge:Even if we had the other needle that we got from the other person, we would never use it on the deep.

Josh:I do think the problem that you have is you have a list of gods that you would maybe like to kill, and that list is longer than the number of needles you have.

Jorge:You think we could beat the deep?

Jorge:You think we're going to take all three bloods?

Jorge:But you know what?

Jorge:It's getting closer and closer.

Josh:So you do have to do a little bit of priority here.

Mike:Yeah, and I don't think the Deep is high on that priority list.

Mike:Meaning it's not one.

Noah:No, but it's sort of like a, oh, we either use the needle or we die situation we're walking into, which is not really what we want, but it's either kill this thing or die.

Mike:Yeah, yeah.

Noah:Mm-hmm.

Jorge:So we fought the Black Hole God guy, which was, honestly, it could have been tougher.

Jorge:But it still wasn't, like, he's going to be not as bad as the Deep.

Jorge:He's going to be much worse than the Deep.

Jorge:Much, much, he's going to be much worse.

Noah:That was like two levels ago.

Josh:Yeah, you guys are way more powerful now.

Josh:You regularly roll 80s.

Noah:There were like at least four 80s rolled just tonight.

Noah:If not an 82.

Noah:Oh, congrats.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Well, I cannot play next week.

Jorge:My sister's getting married on Tuesday.

Josh:Oh, yeah.

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:Very fun.

Josh:I mean, I kind of figured we were taking a bye week next week anyway.

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:So we'll see you guys next year.

Josh:Yeah.

Tanner:Very well.

Tanner:Yeah, I think that makes sense.

Tanner:Oh!

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:Before we meet next, then, I will probably be sending, I know it's early for this, but I will be sending a Færrin campaign guide for you guys to start thinking a little bit about that stuff.

Josh:It's either coming out later this week or next week.

Jorge:Josh thinks we're in a TPK right here, guys.

Noah:gosh things are going to let him end the campaign

Josh:you might legitimately that's not why I'm giving you the campaign guide it's just because like it's so that you can stew a little bit before you come up with character ideas or whatever um I I

Mike:Thank you.

Tanner:Josh thinks we're going to let him end the campaign soon.

Josh:My honest thinking here is that we are not at the end of the campaign, but we are definitely approaching the end of the campaign, one way or another.

Josh:Especially because my foot is a little bit on the accelerator.

Josh:Because things have to happen.

Josh:I refuse to have 12 sessions of you guys being like, okay, and now time to go explore this random garden completely unrelated to what we're doing because this one guy said he used to be a fish.

Jorge:We definitely would have ended up going back.

Mike:Listen, we had self-control around that to not check immediately, but after considering that we have not met anyone else that used to be a fish, that was a significant oddity and may warrant investigation.

Noah:Okay.

Jorge:We almost did.

Jorge:Mike really wanted to.

Josh:And to be clear, I'm not actually speeding up the end of the campaign.

Josh:I'm just making things happen.

Josh:I imagine we still have a bunch of sessions left in this campaign.

Josh:There's a lot of boxes to tick.

Josh:Which god are you going to kill?

Josh:Are you going to go to Syrin?

Josh:Is the broker secretly evil?

Josh:All of these questions to answer.

Josh:Who knows?

Josh:I do.

Noah:We'll find out next time.

Noah:It's all going to happen next session.

Noah:All of it.

Josh:All this next session.

Mike:On the left.

Josh:This is the last session, for better or for worse.

Mike:The bifurcated man shows up and is like, guys, I thought you would, like, actually bum Rush RC3.

Mike:It's been days.

Josh:It has.

Josh:You guys did say, okay, no one will expect if we'll immediately rush RC3 and just storm it, and then you immediately took, like, a week.

Mike:Hold on.

Noah:For us, that's all brushing it.

Mike:It took...

Noah:This is fast for us.

Mike:It took, what, two days of travel because we orbed it?

Josh:days to get there, and then you spent three to four days at the safe house.

Mike:I think that's completely reasonable because it would have taken people a week to get there.

Josh:I'm just saying, yeah, all I was saying is it is very funny to say we will bum rush later.

Mike:But that's exactly what we did.

Jorge:Well, we almost went in to poop check the lobby too, which would have been... And we would have spent another week.

Noah:Now we have to fight the deep.

Josh:If you had gone slightly earlier, there would have been people around.

Josh:So, like, it's fine that you waited.

Josh:It's just a different set of encounters.

Mike:flawlessly timed.

Mike:I would.

Josh:I wouldn't go that far.

Josh:Just a different set of encounters.

Tanner:I'm with Mike on this one.

Tanner:I think that we made the right call for sure.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Yeah, I was hoping.

Josh:I didn't know how that would happen.

Josh:The spirit purposefully gave you the wrong names.

Josh:If you had attempted to locate him by name instead of by body part, it would have brought you into a vampire's den.

Tanner:Hell yeah, it would have been sick.

Josh:Because he was very alive.

Josh:And the spirit was trying to harm you.

Noah:Wow.

Tanner:That would have been so sick.

Jorge:That would've been sick though.

Tanner:now that's tricky because we're not supposed to know right is that supposed to be like a hidden gm role yeah

Jorge:Hello.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:But like, I have been playing all of the secret rolls we've had this campaign have been out in the open, so it's fine.

Josh:I was waiting at some point, like there were a few ways that you guys could have figured out that he had gotten bad info from the spirit and some manner of rolling poorly on a bunch of checks and thinking about using a hero point and then deciding not to use the hero point because you would save it for something else, which happened twice.

Josh:uh meant that it just it went for a very long time like the the thing that actually ticks it off was that you rolled higher than you did previously and got no information if you had rolled literally one less you would have gotten ice guy again and you would have gotten more bad information yeah

Jorge:That was the only reason.

Jorge:That was literally the only reason.

Tanner:That would have been fun.

Jorge:If I didn't use beast power, I would have gotten... What would he have told us?

Noah:Wow.

Josh:I wonder if it depended on the questions you asked.

Mike:He said, guys, no, no, no, you don't understand.

Josh:He's just like, these guys are the easiest to mark.

Josh:They keep calling me up, asking me questions.

Josh:I said them the wrong way.

Jorge:We are still.

Mike:We have to go directly into RC3 and reveal ourselves.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:It's the only way to get in.

Mike:Or it's at the bottom of an ice lake.

Mike:We have to drill into an ice lake and jump into the water in order to get to Ultraviolet on RC3.

Mike:That's the only way.

Mike:This guy hasn't misled us before.

Josh:Yeah It's fine the spell can be handy you did learn it though, but you know Yeah, see you next year yeah Happy Christmas

Mike:We got the blue... I mean, you know, some things happened.

Jorge:Alright, well.

Mike:We didn't get the blue card, but he hasn't...

Noah:Perfect.

Jorge:Well, adios, muchachos.

Tanner:Happy holidays.

Noah:See you folks.

Tanner:Merry Christmas.

Tanner:Happy Hanukkah.

Tanner:Happy New Year.

Tanner:You know, all of it.

Jorge:I gotta bring my dog out.

Jorge:I think he has to go to the bathroom.

Jorge:Bye-bye.

Mike:Peace.

Tanner:Well, fine.

Mike:Ah!

Tanner:He doesn't like my happy holidays.

Josh:He doesn't do I appreciate it happy holidays to you, too

Tanner:That's fine.

Tanner:Bye, Josh.