2024-12-9 — Akasha

Jorge:Hello.

Jorge:I already heard it.

Mike:Now recording.

Mike:No, but it's me now.

Jorge:How are you?

Mike:Good.

Jorge:They caught the guy.

Mike:dad i i can't believe uh i can't believe who it uh who it turned out to be like the the demographics he fit in it's it's uh it's uh so fucking crazy

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:What's funny, too, is that, like...

Jorge:I've seen Ben Shapiro say some crazy leftist shit.

Jorge:I've seen some leftists say, oh, this is why liberals love it.

Jorge:And then a lot of the comments I've been seeing are just like, this isn't partisan.

Jorge:We all wanted this dude fucking dead.

Mike:Oh, as far as the UnitedHealthcare CEO?

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Yeah, I don't... It's like... I don't... I mean, killing someone is just excessive.

Jorge:I know...

Jorge:Sure, but... I have been saying this for a while, though, that I feel like a...

Mike:But also, I don't know, are you allowed to kill anyone that is just acting inside of a system?

Mike:I feel like politicians or healthcare policy makers

Mike:Or more at fault than fucking whatever his name is, Brian Thompson.

Jorge:I feel like products and everything have been getting worse because they just have been just... I haven't even seen it at Google, just the difference of worshipping Wall Street versus not.

Jorge:I'm not justifying killing someone.

Jorge:I'm not saying I would do the same thing.

Jorge:But you know what?

Tanner:Oh.

Jorge:Healthy fear?

Jorge:I don't know.

Mike:Well, it's also like the wrong person.

Mike:Like large companies like that, they're not owned by the CEO.

Mike:The CEO is essentially like trying to juggle the interests of like 12 board members.

Mike:And ultimately the board members are the ones that say, no, my shares have to return a higher dividend this year.

Mike:You need to do this.

Tanner:Oh.

Jorge:Okay, I don't know.

Mike:So it's not even like the...

Mike:In terms of levels removed, he is not even close to the person that is causing any sort of harm from that company.

Jorge:I'm about to say again, he should have died.

Jorge:But he's definitely not an innocent person.

Jorge:I don't know if you could say he's fully removed from fully optimizing UnitedHealthcare and denial of claims.

Noah:Thank you.

Jorge:What's the stat?

Jorge:Like 74 people since that CEO's died would have been died from not getting treatment.

Jorge:I don't know if that's true, but it's just like... I would, yeah.

Mike:Yeah, but I mean, like, I don't know.

Mike:Does that responsibility even fall on United?

Mike:Like, United is not paying for it per the terms, but, like, I mean, are the hospitals fighting price transparency too hard?

Jorge:Kill him too.

Tanner:Oh, no, we're having a very morally gray conversation today.

Mike:What?

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:I realized very quickly where this was.

Noah:He wasn't a good dude.

Jorge:The person who's on the political spectrum definitely does not lean left.

Jorge:I still say, good, he's dead.

Jorge:Personally.

Mike:Okay, so what's the desired result?

Mike:That CEOs start working against the demands of their shareholders and boards?

Mike:They're just going to be fired and then another guy's going to get put in.

Jorge:Do you know of this?

Mike:You know what I mean?

Tanner:It's a message to the shareholders.

Mike:As far as affecting... Well, then target the shareholders.

Mike:As far as affecting change...

Mike:I would not go to this guy for effective execution or effective intent behind a plan.

Mike:He does not seem very hinged.

Tanner:Oh, it was an effective execution.

Jorge:No.

Jorge:Yeah, it was definitely effective.

Noah:Here's my take.

Mike:Well...

Jorge:It's going well.

Jorge:I'm just saying, I think it's...

Tanner:Josh, you should weigh in on this.

Jorge:Hello.

Josh:That's me.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:What am I weighing in on?

Tanner:Should he have died?

Tanner:There you go.

Josh:Yes, probably.

Josh:What are the circumstances, though?

Jorge:All right.

Mike:He's a CEO of a Giant healthcare company.

Jorge:The bicycle assassin.

Josh:Oh, then absolutely.

Jorge:Thank you.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:It is so funny.

Tanner:There you go.

Jorge:Sorry, go, Noah.

Noah:One, bad dude.

Noah:Probably should have died.

Noah:Two, I also agree with Mike.

Noah:Not the most effective way, but also, bad dude.

Noah:Probably should have died.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:But, like, I... Like, I don't...

Noah:I'm not saying this was the right way to go about it.

Josh:yes very very public well

Noah:I'm just saying he was a bad dude.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:But what's the evidence for that?

Mike:That he was the CEO of a healthcare company?

Noah:Yes.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Yeah, that's crazy.

Jorge:You think he's innocent?

Jorge:Do you think he's an innocent, just good guy trying to be like, guys, the board's trying to get me to kill more people.

Mike:But innocent of what?

Jorge:I'm just, I'm limiting it to this.

Josh:I mean, I think you can talk about initiatives that the company took under his leadership that directly or indirectly led to the deaths of actually literally thousands of people.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:For you to say that, or sorry, for one to say that he's the CEO, he didn't actually do anything, he has responsibility to shareholders and crappy business practices either happened not with him knowing or perhaps with implicit consent and none of his decisions directly led to the deaths of somebody.

Tanner:Okay.

Josh:I think are maybe limiting the responsibility of the CEO.

Josh:Do I think he should have been executed in the street?

Josh:No.

Josh:Do I think it's bad that he was?

Josh:Also, no.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:I'm not even saying like limiting the responsibility, but like the CEO position at one of those companies is just to execute whatever the board, hey, you have to deny more claims so I get more money.

Mike:So like if the idea... No, no, I'm not saying...

Josh:So, well, if I can, well, yes, I was going to say, if I can, a very common defense in the Nuremberg trials was specifically I was just following orders.

Jorge:This is starting to sound pretty close to Nazis.

Josh:And at some point, like, one's conscience has to come into play.

Mike:I just prefaced it with not to remove responsibility and to say this, but as far as attempting to affect change, you're going to scare CEOs so they're just going to get someone that is okay with security.

Mike:I don't think that we're going to run out of people that are going to enter that particular space.

Noah:Thank you.

Mike:I feel like, I don't know, if you kill a board member or a shareholder, it's not going to make news.

Mike:If you kill a politician that gets lobbied by hospitals or even by insurers that is affecting policy, that's allowing the insurance companies to do poorly, that would probably make the news.

Mike:Not as easy to kill a politician.

Mike:So I don't know if he's like, I want to kill someone in the health care system and have it make news.

Mike:Sure, he picked a great target.

Mike:If he wanted to actually change anything, I feel like he didn't do it.

Mike:I feel like he wanted to kill someone.

Josh:I've failed to see how killing a politician would have changed anything else.

Jorge:I'm going to... But I'm also going to... Yeah.

Mike:Okay, so you kill the CEO.

Mike:What, now CEOs are to be scared?

Josh:Nobody's scared.

Josh:People are talking about healthcare more than they were before, which was already a lot, but I do not think killing a healthcare CEO or killing a politician will enact meaningful change regardless.

Mike:What's...

Josh:That said, the fact that healthcare reform has been in the news way more this past week than one could say has been true for the past...

Josh:decade means that he's done something what yeah that's true

Mike:I don't... First off, I don't think that's true.

Mike:Second off, I... No.

Jorge:You don't think it's more in the news?

Mike:I mean, we've had... Very, very anecdotal.

Jorge:Alright, we can just disagree because we're fundamentally not going to agree here.

Jorge:If you think we're not talking more about healthcare, we've never talked about healthcare at D&D.

Jorge:I'll just put it that way.

Jorge:We've never talked about it until now.

Noah:We should have more healthcare talks during D&D.

Noah:That's what I'm hearing.

Mike:what a decade would take us to 2014 so donald trump running on repealing medicare or repealing obamacare republicans taking congress that's that's equally as much in the news probably more dispersed because it's not like one person that was in charge of a healthcare company died but like i don't know

Jorge:I would love for you to count...

Josh:No.

Josh:I mean, even the mention that it's more dispersed, besides the fact that people have been talking about healthcare in a nebulous whatever since before Obama and Obamacare and the ADA and all of that fun stuff.

Josh:This is not a single-payer healthcare discussion.

Josh:This is very specifically an insurance premiums discussion.

Josh:And the ability for insurance companies to deny claims, which are different things.

Mike:Okay, so... But that's a... You guys just said talking about healthcare specifically, you've now moved the goalposts to talking about premiums specifically in the news.

Josh:No, because one of them is talking about changing how healthcare is represented in the country, and the other is talking about how healthcare as it currently is in the country.

Josh:Oh.

Mike:No, but you've changed because I mentioned something that had larger... That had... No.

Josh:No.

Jorge:We are talking about healthcare more.

Josh:We're definitely talking about healthcare more.

Jorge:Yeah, but this is proof of that goalpost not being moved.

Mike:And as far as, like... Can I get the stream?

Jorge:Bam!

Jorge:Healthcare's talked about more.

Jorge:That's just... Yeah.

Josh:Oh, are you streaming something?

Noah:That is very far back.

Josh:It said that you were clipping my voice.

Mike:No.

Mike:UnitedHealthcare?

Mike:Do healthcare.

Jorge:Okay.

Mike:Do healthcare and go as far back as it goes.

Tanner:Thank you.

Mike:No, no, no.

Mike:Wait, it said decade.

Josh:All the way back.

Jorge:So, yeah.

Josh:Yeah, from 2004.

Josh:That is a bigger spike.

Mike:It's a dotted line.

Mike:That's a dotted line.

Josh:That's a bigger spike, Mike.

Jorge:Yeah, because you told me to go back two decades.

Mike:No, come on.

Josh:So, is saying that that's a downed line is not moving the goalposts?

Noah:Thank you.

Mike:No, hover over it.

Mike:Values for what?

Mike:Have incomplete data available.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:It's larger, and it's not even complete yet.

Jorge:That's what you're talking about.

Josh:There's no way to justify that we're not talking about healthcare more than we were back when Trump was talking about repealing Obamacare.

Jorge:Nod-dotted line.

Jorge:We could disagree on everything else, but we're definitely talking about healthcare more.

Mike:Fair enough.

Mike:I'll leave healthcare.

Mike:But, I mean, either way, like, okay, a guy burns himself in front of an embassy for Palestine, and that's, like, immediately left the consciousness.

Tanner:you

Mike:So, again, as far as affecting anything...

Josh:One of them is self-immolation, the other is striking the fear of God into someone else.

Josh:3D printed silencer on a veterinary gun.

Jorge:With the 3D printed silencer.

Noah:He should have set someone else on fire.

Jorge:Did you hear that?

Jorge:3D printed silencer.

Mike:Oh.

Jorge:That's why it jammed, I'm guessing.

Noah:On top of the backpack full of Monopoly money.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Yes, on top of the backpack of Monopoly.

Jorge:He had flair, I will say.

Josh:I mean, yes, like, separate of the whole...

Jorge:He got caught because he was flirting with the receptionist at the hospital.

Josh:And also, did he get caught?

Jorge:I checked... Yeah.

Josh:They have a partial view of the upper half of his face.

Jorge:No, no, no, no.

Tanner:They have a guy.

Jorge:They catch.

Josh:Did they catch him?

Josh:They caught him?

Mike:Yeah, they caught him.

Josh:Oh, good for them, I guess.

Jorge:His Instagram, I was looking at his Instagram, I found it when there was like 1,500 followers.

Noah:Insane.

Jorge:There's now like 50,000, last time I checked, hours ago.

Jorge:He had one where he was eating McDonald's, and obviously it wasn't about, but he got caught at a McDonald's, but he's eating, he posted with like a happy meal, and hashtag killed it.

Noah:That McDonald's specifically has thousands of one-star reviews now.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Wait, what does?

Mike:The McDonald's?

Jorge:Yeah, so fucking crazy.

Noah:McDonald's, they caught him.

Tanner:that you thought

Josh:Yeah, they should have hidden him.

Jorge:I think what this signifies...

Mike:Either way.

Mike:Yeah, I don't think this is a way of, even an acceptable way of going about affecting age.

Josh:What is the correct way?

Mike:Well, I mean, so, okay, if someone is, like, particularly animated about a problem, should they just go kill, like, a random person that's part of a power structure that they dislike?

Tanner:Traditionally, yeah.

Mike:And they're like, you know what?

Josh:I mean, that is... In the vast history of the world, that is traditionally how one changes power systems.

Mike:Something happened.

Mike:I'm gonna go... No, but I'm saying it's...

Jorge:That also seems to be the US's... The US's method.

Josh:It's not the U.S.'s.

Josh:It is very distinctly not the U.S.'s.

Jorge:Maybe not on our soil.

Josh:As is true of most countries in the past.

Jorge:I'm saying not on our soil, but that tends to be our country's choice.

Josh:Like, oh, oh, absolutely!

Noah:It's weird.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:No, it's way easier to overthrow a government you don't like than convincing the government you don't like to get rid of itself.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:They tend not to want to do that.

Jorge:Look, I'm not... Yeah, I'm not saying that's...

Jorge:I would have killed that CEO or I would have told someone to kill that CEO.

Jorge:But this dude is clearly upset at our broken system, which is clearly broken.

Jorge:And I saw some stats.

Jorge:I don't know how true these are.

Jorge:But as that acting CEO, that man's increased their percentages of rejections.

Jorge:They've also recently started using an AI that has been proven to have a lot of false negatives, which is denying a bunch of people.

Jorge:And United as a whole... Yeah.

Noah:Yeah, they knew that it was very faulty.

Noah:It was basically just a rejection bot.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:United as a whole has the highest amount of rejected claims.

Josh:By a large percentage.

Jorge:Crazy amount.

Jorge:And I know if I... If I was CEO, I physically couldn't be the CEO of that company.

Mike:So.

Jorge:I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

Jorge:Now, all of that being said, that reaction that happened, I feel like is what happens when you just keep

Jorge:boiling something in a pressure cooker, something's going to pop.

Jorge:Unfortunately for that man, it was denied, unapproved, whatever with the pops.

Jorge:And am I sad about him, Dad?

Jorge:Absolutely not.

Jorge:So that's my feelings on it.

Noah:It's very important to live your life in a way that when you get shot in the street, America doesn't celebrate.

Josh:I think it's important to live your life such that there isn't a list of people that might want to shoot you in the street.

Tanner:Yes, the vigilante justice is not the correct way to deal with this problem.

Jorge:Nobody celebrated.

Jorge:Their stocks went up.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Well, I mean, if shooting people in the street gets encouraged, everyone's likelihood of having that list goes up.

Josh:No.

Mike:Josh, you did mention that most times to affect change inside of a system in human history, someone gets killed.

Josh:But like...

Mike:But it's still a judgment call on the system by a single person.

Mike:So sure, maybe most people agree with his judgment call on the system.

Josh:Yes.

Mike:But like...

Mike:Who's the next person that's going to decide that they're judge, jury, and executioner of a system that they didn't like?

Mike:And as far as claim denials, I mean, is UnitedHealth the largest?

Mike:I'm not going to advocate for this thing.

Josh:Yes, by far.

Josh:No, they aren't, by far.

Mike:Yeah, so that, I mean... No, no, no, that's what I'm saying.

Jorge:No, it's percentage of denials, not amount of denials.

Josh:I mean, it's only important to talk about percentage of denials.

Jorge:It's denial rate.

Mike:No, no, it's...

Mike:It's still percentage.

Mike:So you could blame United for denying people stuff, which is maybe really shitty, but they're also covering a larger amount of people.

Josh:Well, I... I, like... Sorry.

Mike:I would have to guess the striations of people that have coverage.

Mike:They're probably people that are getting very minimal coverage because it's all they can afford, and the other places aren't even deciding to mess with whoever.

Mike:So percentage of claim denials, like, yeah, it's super shitty.

Tanner:Thank you.

Jorge:That's from Fox News, by the way.

Jorge:Their claims have jumped from, their denial rate has jumped from 10.9% to 22.7% in two years, from 2020 to 2022.

Mike:But...

Josh:I will also say private health care in general is at odds with health care, just by virtue of the fact that they are incentivized to not pay money for you to receive care.

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:Regardless of how many people they help compared to how many they don't, it ignores the fact that they are directly incentivized to reduce the amount of good they do in the world.

Mike:Oh, no, no, 100%.

Mike:And that's the case with insurances in general.

Mike:They're not kind.

Mike:It's like, but did you really... Does this follow exactly... It's inherently a lawyer apparatus, which I am, for one, not for lawyer apparatuses that nickel and dime semantics on whether you're covered or not.

Josh:capitalism yes

Mike:Definitely, like... But that seems like an indictment of... I don't know, like...

Mike:Maybe this guy should have had one hell of a day in New York and found all the healthcare CEOs.

Mike:Maybe that would have been like, I dislike private insurance.

Mike:But as far as having a company cater to people that may have to get shoestring health coverage, you could argue that they're as bad as loan sharks in very poor areas that do payday loans for 70% APR.

Noah:Yeah, that's a solid argument.

Josh:Yes.

Josh:Which is why that's illegal in many places in the country.

Noah:They are just as bad.

Josh:They are also bad.

Mike:No, no, no, I'm not saying that... No, no, no, I'm saying that... You guys are interrupting me.

Josh:You don't get to say, look, this bad guy sucks because he's just as bad as this other bad guy who also sucks.

Jorge:He's just as bad as a loan shark!

Noah:The argument is that this bad guy doesn't have the lobbying money to change the law that this bad guy does.

Jorge:He's just as bad as a loan shark!

Mike:No, no, you guys are interrupting me.

Mike:I'm saying they're both bad.

Mike:I'm saying we should not find a payday loan CEO and shoot them in the head.

Josh:Yes.

Josh:That's what I'm disagreeing with.

Mike:That's where I draw the line.

Noah:Okay.

Mike:I think we should just not let those people operate as bad people instead of killing them.

Josh:Right, no, the fundamental issue with not letting bad people operate as bad people is that the vast majority of the machinery that is used to prevent from bad actors performing like bad actors is also set up by and maintained by those bad actors.

Jorge:Yeah, maybe...

Josh:Like, I understand it's not nearly as bad as, like...

Josh:doomsayers and eat-the-rich people on the internet talk about how we have to burn the whole system down from the ground.

Josh:There are absolutely legal mechanisms that can be used to restrict negative actions like that.

Josh:But also, the ability to affect change in those systems is very much correlated with the amount of money you have.

Josh:And just by virtue of the economic system that we currently use, the amount of money you have tends to be directly correlated with how much of a bad actor you are.

Josh:Like, healthcare CEOs have a lot of money because healthcare companies have a lot of money because they're really good at making money by doing things that suck to people that can't say no otherwise.

Josh:That's also true of large financial institutions.

Josh:That's also true of painting loans.

Josh:That's also true of most banks.

Josh:Like, separate from hedge funds and all that kind of stuff.

Josh:They're the people that have the most direct access to the lawmakers that are the ones that actually propose changes into the system.

Josh:Not even getting into the fact that you have actual legislators...

Josh:that would prefer not to regulate themselves.

Josh:Like, if you walked into Congress as a congressman and on the first day said, I would like to restrict the amount of money that we can receive from super PACs, you will never go anywhere in Congress because no one will vote for you because you just proposed to a bunch of people to cut their primary form of funding.

Josh:Very few people who managed to make it to the legislative branch are going to agree to that.

Josh:So, like, from the perspective of an individual person who doesn't have the capital required to effect change directly, a la Bloomberg or Elon Musk in the case of spending a quarter of a billion dollars to get somebody elected, what is the solution?

Josh:Because canvassing only does so much.

Josh:And I'm not advocating for people to, like, uprise and shoot everybody, but I can absolutely understand the perspective that would lead somebody to that point.

Mike:So I don't disagree with actually probably 99% of what you said.

Mike:Even the part of it is easier to make money if you are not a good person in the US, just straight up.

Josh:Thank you.

Mike:It is much, much easier if you're like, I'm going to lie, cheat, and steal.

Mike:You will make a lot of money.

Mike:Just by virtue of most people won't do that.

Mike:definitely true of people like healthcare CEOs, lots of fucking scammy-ass places that don't... that don't actually seemingly do any sort of good, but...

Jorge:I'm just raising my hand for when he's done.

Jorge:Sorry, I didn't mean to.

Mike:Yeah, like, as far as affecting change, I mean, I guess I'll be proven wrong if anything good comes of this.

Mike:I don't actually believe the system will let anything good come of this because it set a bad precedent.

Mike:So I think by construction, it's sort of just going to sit there.

Jorge:You know what would be the worst precedent?

Jorge:If Biden pardons him.

Jorge:That would be the worst precedent.

Mike:Well, he's got a list and he's checking it twice.

Tanner:There's no way that that happens.

Tanner:There's no way.

Mike:I'm sure someone can sneak it on there and he wouldn't notice.

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:It's like Ron Burgundy, man.

Jorge:He's preemptively pardoning people now.

Josh:Yeah, it's legally unclear if a president can preemptively pardon somebody for a crime that they have not been tried for.

Jorge:Oh no, he said he's thinking about it.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:My final closing arguments.

Jorge:This is insurance companies by market share, UnitedHealthcare, 15.7%.

Jorge:A lot more, right?

Jorge:Anthem is the second highest.

Jorge:Looking at our earlier metrics I found, where it shows that error rate by companies, they're only around...

Jorge:23% of the claim denials.

Jorge:And when you look at statistically difference, it is statistically significant at the claim rate denials that Anthem has per Anthem, which is the second one, based off of population sizes.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:I didn't do the full billions.

Jorge:This is enough.

Mike:Uh, what do you mean based off of population sizes?

Jorge:I just did the 97%, 15%, assuming same thing.

Mike:uh what that it's that it's oh i wasn't making a statistical argument that it's not higher i wouldn't doubt that it's that it's higher it's like you know uh average interest rate of auto loan by lender i wouldn't be surprised if there's like one lender that lends to only low income and has like a 27 auto loan and if i had to make a judgment call on which auto company

Mike:loan company is is run by fucking assholes and is pieces of shit it would be the one that caters to low income where they can fuck them over on interest rates if it was a health care company it'd be the one that caters to low income where they can fuck them over on premiums because they know they're ill-equipped to say prosecute or or litigate any sort of claim verbiage i just cannot co-sign

Mike:I cannot co-sign to murder.

Mike:I think it's such a bad precedent for schizophrenic people everywhere.

Josh:I mean... I think separately, I think we should encourage people shooting CEOs, but then also institute gun reform such that they can't get guns.

Mike:Like, you know, that guy down at the hardware shop didn't sell me a hammer.

Mike:I need to effect change in this system.

Mike:I don't... It's...

Noah:If we're pro-

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:There you go.

Josh:Perfect solution.

Jorge:Or we just hop all our school shooters up for CEOs.

Josh:Yeah, I saw that meme too.

Jorge:That way.

Jorge:I'm kidding.

Josh:I think it's unlikely we'll get disgruntled incels who start shooting CEOs instead of eight-year-olds.

Jorge:CEO extraordinaire, Jeffrey.

Mike:Well, because the CIA has an interest in CEOs staying alive.

Josh:Like... I mean, but, like, yes.

Josh:Oh, America.

Mike:Yeah, so they won't be shot by incels anytime soon.

Mike:But yeah, I mean, it's so gross.

Mike:The guy is also fucking...

Mike:The guy is so... Josh, you just heard that they caught him, so I'm guessing you have not seen his online presence.

Josh:Not at all.

Mike:He is a techno health-maximizing terminally online Twitter data engineer.

Noah:that you would expect.

Mike:Yeah, he's got a master's in CS from UPenn.

Josh:Oh, that's fun.

Mike:His family is almost certainly wealthier than the CEO that he shot, which is very, very interesting.

Josh:Nice.

Jorge:Oh, they removed his posts.

Mike:Yeah, they also deleted his... They also suspended his Twitter.

Jorge:All of his posts got taken.

Josh:Watch.

Mike:But yeah, his family... Yeah, yeah.

Josh:I'm sure murdering somebody is against the terms of service of Twitter.

Tanner:Yeah.

Jorge:He had a YouTube video automatically go out if he doesn't stop it, and it went out.

Mike:That's the joke I made.

Josh:I think it's unlikely he could do anything else at this point if they have caught him.

Jorge:It was like a minute 30, and it said more to come, but it's already taken down.

Mike:Maybe... I mean... Yeah.

Jorge:Oh, yeah.

Mike:What else did... Yeah, his family owns a series of country clubs and malls in Maryland or something.

Mike:His cousin is a representative in Maryland.

Josh:nice so he should he should have shot them too

Mike:Like a house of reps.

Jorge:Well, he better make some change.

Jorge:That was before it got taken down.

Mike:Yeah, why didn't you just talk to your cousin?

Mike:It is very... I don't know.

Mike:Also in the context of seeing him like a successful grad, he...

Tanner:Oh.

Mike:just it's just very weird like the the him being able to pay for premiums argument or pay for out-of-pocket costs or whatever is kind of gone considering how much money his family has it's like really

Mike:People think he had a – oh, I mean, actually, yeah, Josh, wow, I could do the whole expose to you because I was just fucking scrolling this the whole day.

Mike:So he injured his spine.

Mike:People think he fell on a hike.

Mike:He's a very avid hiker.

Mike:He injured his spine and had chronic back pain.

Mike:People think he had chronic back pain and experimented with psychedelics in order to try to lower the back pain, and it gave him a schizophrenic break, and he went and killed the CEO.

Mike:He disappeared from his friends and family.

Josh:nice oh wow okay i just i i just don't see the incentive for the cia to want the ceo of united to be dead

Mike:No one that he knows has seen him for six months.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:Or, counter-argument, CIA got a hold of him, radicalized him, sent him out on his way.

Jorge:And they're like, this guy's fucking crazy.

Mike:Yeah, they slipped him... I mean... Yeah.

Jorge:I'm not saying I agree with that.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:I'm not saying I agree with it.

Jorge:But, that's gonna drop soon.

Mike:He read the... Yeah, he read the dead drop wrong.

Jorge:There's gonna be some group.

Josh:Oh, you think?

Josh:It's like some kind of MKUltra or whatever that just went wrong.

Jorge:Yeah, or Russia did it, or someone did it.

Jorge:That's going to fucking drop.

Jorge:I didn't know about the six months until right now, but 100% someone's going to be like, he was trained.

Jorge:Look at the way he cleared that gun.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Well, he definitely looked up how to do what he did, at the very least.

Mike:I mean, he really printed the tech skills coming in handy.

Mike:What else did he do?

Mike:Yeah, he...

Josh:You know what's going to happen?

Josh:The only thing that's going to happen from this is they're going to try and regulate 3D printers.

Mike:Well, I mean, they might double down on opposing his views.

Mike:One of his more popular tweets was him calling out directly the name brands of fleshlights that they should ban in Japan because he thinks that they're not making enough people.

Josh:Oh.

Mike:He's very natalist and was like, the real feel pocket pussy, they have to stop selling that in Japan.

Josh:Right.

Noah:That's great.

Mike:It was like a real post of his.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:He called out the brand name.

Josh:Sure.

Jorge:I'd love to be like, I tried it.

Jorge:It's just not worth it.

Jorge:Just find a...

Mike:So crazy.

Tanner:Oh boy.

Josh:He's just trying to help out, like, that's a government initiative.

Josh:There's all those memes of Shinzo Abe, like, in heaven saying, have sex.

Josh:So, you know, that's just a thing that, like, Japan wants people to have.

Mike:Maybe he was... Maybe the... No, maybe the guy that killed Shinzo Abe is like the son of the healthcare CEO and he's like, I gotta get one back for Shinzo Abe.

Josh:This was Shinzo Abe.

Josh:Right.

Josh:That's fair.

Mike:Jesus Christ.

Mike:Yeah, he's very pro-natalist.

Mike:What other shit did he have on?

Mike:Oh, yes.

Mike:So he was very pro-natalist.

Mike:He has a Goodreads account.

Mike:So all the books that he read are on there and people are screenshotting and laughing.

Mike:But this is the thing that is crazy.

Mike:So he has on his Goodreads Industrial Society and its Consequences.

Tanner:you you

Mike:He wrote, like, several paragraph review talking about how good it was.

Mike:Like, essentially, Ted Kaczynski explains industrial society as, like, mathematical lemmas.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Wait, sorry.

Mike:And then he rated it a four out of five.

Josh:I was not familiar with this book.

Josh:It was written by the Handbomber?

Mike:Yeah, it is the manifesto of manifestos.

Josh:Nice.

Jorge:Manifesto.

Mike:Yeah, industrial society and its consequences.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:So he read that and was like...

Noah:Bro, what if it turns out that this isn't a dude and the entire internet just went through this dude?

Jorge:I will say though...

Jorge:If I read a manifesto so good that I was going to throw my entire life away to kill a CEO, I would have rated it a 5 out of 5.

Tanner:Hello.

Mike:Yeah, which is so funny.

Jorge:Just putting it out there.

Josh:he was a very smart person, right?

Mike:Not even my favorite book.

Josh:Except for all of the murders that he did.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:He was.

Jorge:He was actually in, I believe it was Harvard.

Jorge:And then he signed up for experiments.

Jorge:And he was in experiments with the CIA.

Jorge:No cap.

Jorge:They were actually doing experiments on him.

Jorge:And the experiments were...

Mike:I think... Yeah, I think he might have actually been an MKUltra, but...

Jorge:Yeah, they were just fucking with him to see if they could break people.

Jorge:He didn't finish the program, but yeah.

Mike:Yeah, which apparently someone who went to Harvard as an undergrad and got a PhD in mathematics from University of Michigan, they thought, this guy is really stable.

Mike:People who study math for this long are super stable.

Josh:I want to back up a little bit from that.

Mike:Let's give him a bunch of chemicals and fuck with him.

Mike:Like, yeah, dude.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Totally.

Josh:Did you just insinuate that mathematicians are a generally unstable population of people?

Mike:Yes.

Tanner:He's right there.

Josh:Okay, that's fine.

Jorge:I saw... I saw a comedian that was just like... He's like, I've heard people talk about how they hate math.

Josh:I just wanted to keep that in mind.

Josh:That wasn't something I knew about them, and so now I'll know to keep my distance.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:It's like, oh, you hate algebra.

Jorge:And he goes on this five-minute rant, and then he's just like, I was a math major.

Jorge:I hate math.

Jorge:And then he talks about how stupid math is.

Jorge:He's like, try proving numbers, all right?

Jorge:Try proving numbers exist.

Josh:Do we want to play some Pathfinder?

Mike:The natural numbers are easier.

Josh:We can go back to the way less grounded fighting the communists.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:That's way better.

Josh:So... Yeah, that's what's happening.

Noah:forgot that's what we're doing

Josh:Before we begin, would anybody... The...

Jorge:We are... I mean, some of them are the communists.

Jorge:They're fighting the... Yeah, they're fighting the Bolshevik?

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:So I like, it's not the Bolsheviks were part of the communist revolution.

Jorge:The pro... Oh, the pro-Lariat?

Josh:I think the proletariat, um, I do believe that Lev and Henrik are part of the Bolshevik equivalent in this universe, but it's, this is very much leftist infighting it's communists fighting other communists.

Jorge:I forget the... Yeah.

Jorge:That's who we're fighting.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:So, um, you know, take that as you will.

Josh:Uh,

Jorge:Oh, I thought the first house weren't communist.

Jorge:I thought it was Masha was... Oligarchy?

Josh:So, Masha and the Moralists are communist in, like, modern understanding of the word, but the, like, general Orestian government is still, like, command economy, just general control.

Josh:It's not... Communism is the wrong term, because there is definitely a power structure.

Josh:Oligarchic... It's really... They are fascist, but...

Jorge:Fascist?

Jorge:Cool.

Jorge:Communists versus fascists.

Josh:Yeah, sure.

Mike:First house, first house.

Josh:It's communists versus fascists.

Josh:That's fine.

Tanner:I knew it.

Josh:You're right.

Josh:Actually, you know, that's fair.

Josh:The Golden Sparrows and the people related to them are communists.

Josh:And then Divex is fascist because he was working for the Russian government for a little bit there before they tried to kill him.

Tanner:I knew it.

Tanner:And to do it, we need to kill Divex.

Jorge:So we're trying to make Soviet Russia right now.

Josh:Yes.

Jorge:That's what we're doing.

Josh:You're currently in Tsarist Russia and you're trying to make Soviet Russia.

Noah:We did it, guys.

Mike:Listen, he doesn't...

Mike:Listen, Vlad, he didn't impale people that often, okay?

Josh:Yes.

Mike:It's more of... It's kind of like... He did not deal people that often.

Josh:Vlad was Transylvanian.

Josh:Excuse you.

Jorge:We got a Vlad.

Josh:He did also used to keep a swarm of vampire bats, which is where the thing comes from.

Jorge:Oh, yes, of course.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:he would release them.

Josh:Or there's one known instance of him releasing a swarm of vampire bats against an enemy army to try and give them a disease that they carried.

Josh:And somehow that extrapolated into, yeah, that dude can totally turn into bats.

Josh:That's like a thing he can do.

Mike:You... You release a... You release a Swarovats one time, and all of a sudden you're the bat guy.

Noah:He was so bad.

Josh:Yeah.

Tanner:He controls the bag.

Noah:He was a lot of bad.

Josh:Yeah!

Josh:I mean, it certainly doesn't help that he had a penchant for chopping people's heads off and putting them on spikes.

Jorge:He did sometimes dip his beard in the blood of his victims, apparently.

Josh:And also, he really liked tall people, but I think that's unrelated.

Josh:Well, I mean, that's just for hair health.

Josh:They didn't have shampoo back then.

Jorge:Do you know if Vikings accidentally made low-quality steel?

Jorge:Because they used to throw bones of their victims in the iron when they were smelting it, which were high in carbon, which accidentally...

Jorge:made their metal.

Jorge:They called it bone steel.

Jorge:We call it that now, but they didn't know.

Tanner:Yeah, but you can't deny the moral and motivational strength that that gives them.

Jorge:Especially when they dipped it in blood after.

Tanner:It's like an emotional quality as opposed to a physical quality.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:But also, like, their bone iron was of better quality.

Jorge:That's true.

Mike:Yeah, I think they probably were like, we're running out of firewood.

Josh:Like, low-grade steel is still better than just a plain old iron sword.

Jorge:Yeah, yeah, it did work.

Josh:The moral of the story here is that you shouldn't throw bones into your metallurgic processes.

Josh:It's just objectively better.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:We have the bones of our enemies.

Mike:And they're like, toss them in.

Mike:And they're like, yo, this fucking sword's hard as shit now.

Mike:Like...

Mike:Do we have any more enemies?

Josh:Either way, does anybody want to do a recap of the previous session?

Mike:We can go find them.

Noah:We've got to find more enemies.

Josh:There's only one mythic point up for grab.

Josh:Yes.

Noah:I got it.

Noah:We...

Noah:talked with Damien a little bit, uh, who was like, let me out of here.

Noah:And we were like, okay, we got you.

Noah:Don't worry.

Noah:Uh, and then we were like, schism, what is this floating pseudo heart?

Noah:And he was like, Oh, it's a nascent heart from a society that you've never heard of.

Noah:And I've never heard of, and no one has ever heard of.

Josh:Evening.

Noah:Uh, and it makes things.

Noah:And we were like, that's pretty cool.

Noah:Uh, and then there was a light bulb that went off in everyone's head and they all looked like different light bulbs, depending on our personalities.

Noah:Um, and then, yep.

Noah:Yep, that's how it was in my head.

Noah:And then... And then we had a really cool fight with some shadows and a bunch of minions.

Jorge:I just... Great recap.

Jorge:I'll say something after.

Noah:Very cool fight.

Noah:I like the health bars.

Noah:That was neat.

Noah:I like the buckets.

Noah:Henrik then saved the day by ultimately killing the guy.

Noah:We were like, don't worry, we will definitely save you, because it turned out that they just jammed him into a computer.

Josh:you know

Noah:But don't worry, because Henrik's not traumatized forever.

Tanner:All I do is bring death.

Noah:And... He's a harmacist.

Noah:And then we talked to... We awoke the heart with some blood of Savok.

Noah:And he was like, what do I do?

Noah:We were like, oh, you make things.

Noah:And it was like, great, before I make the thing that you need to kill a god, we need to talk to the narrative.

Noah:So we talked to some Menhir, a house-of-the-face, a really tall woman with septuple-jointed arms, Aut, who has a round head.

Noah:I'm missing someone.

Josh:and the canes.

Josh:That's important.

Noah:And big hands.

Josh:That's part of it.

Noah:He's got big hands, big head.

Jorge:The person that was cut in half.

Noah:Can't lose.

Noah:Yes, the cross-section.

Josh:Yeah, somebody called him the bifurcated man last session, and I really liked that name, so I'm stealing it.

Tanner:So he's not just Petra anymore?

Noah:Uh... Uh...

Tanner:He's just a bifurcated man?

Josh:He was never P'ter.

Josh:P'ter is the house.

Tanner:Well, I got that wrong.

Tanner:I thought for sure Insuperlex was a name that you would give a house.

Josh:Sorry.

Josh:No, Insuperlex is the name of the half-man.

Josh:And his name is still the half-man, but they all do have an epithet.

Josh:So his is the bifurcated man now.

Noah:So we discussed the five-act story structure with them for a little bit.

Noah:And then... Yeah, it's...

Mike:Meditared.

Jorge:And I guess they broke the fourth wall.

Jorge:But whatever.

Josh:They actually did not break the fourth wall.

Josh:I want to be, like, very clear about this.

Josh:They do not know that they are characters in the AD&D campaign.

Josh:They just view the world through the perspective of a story.

Josh:And so it happens to, you know... Yes.

Jorge:Okay.

Noah:We're getting into some really intense, like, meta-narrative discussions that are... Yeah.

Jorge:Literally.

Noah:They're getting very difficult to keep track of, and it's getting very meta, and I'm really here for it.

Noah:And then... Tech almost became the bad guy, even though I'm pretty convinced he is the bad guy in the end.

Noah:Uh...

Mike:Well, I mean...

Noah:And then they were like, fine, you can make the needle, but you can only use it in this story, even though it's kind of vague about what the edges of a story really are.

Noah:Does the story follow the character?

Noah:Does it follow the plot line?

Noah:It depends on who's driving the story.

Noah:Anyway, then we made the needle, and we have 18 levels left of Atum to make.

Josh:I do.

Josh:I want to say plot twist.

Josh:Tech isn't the bad guy.

Josh:Mike is the bad guy.

Josh:That's been the whole thing from the start.

Tanner:Hmm.

Noah:An even higher plot twist is that capitalism was the bad guy the whole time, driving Mike to make tech to make the sliver of nothing the bad guy.

Tanner:I could...

Mike:You think this might have been made by...

Josh:Yes.

Noah:That's a whole lot of metal.

Josh:Sure.

Jorge:I just realized something.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:That works.

Jorge:You know that wizard that was mad that we broke up his plan to try to, I think he said save the universe or something?

Noah:Mm-hmm.

Jorge:Do you think he created this small heart to just slowly mine out this planet to then create another higher kind or something?

Mike:What was that guy's name?

Josh:Aaron Silled.

Noah:Oh, I left that out.

Mike:Oh, yeah.

Mike:Well, I mean, that could be a pseudonym for Rector.

Noah:I left that out.

Noah:We did get the how dare you stop my important galactic savior works for the fifth time.

Noah:We've gotten that speech a lot as a group.

Tanner:I'd just like to say that I knew Mike was the big bad ever since my first trip to the bathtub.

Josh:That was the monologue that he gave because I could not have done that off the cuff.

Josh:I don't know if it's at all important for you to have, but, you know, I've put it out there.

Josh:Oh, actually, I do, I have, that's terrible.

Josh:I have a very important question for Tanner specifically.

Tanner:Ooh.

Josh:I had a reason to go back through some documents that I had written at the very, very beginning of the campaign.

Tanner:Uh-huh.

Josh:And in those, I've referred to your character as part of them, and his name is Hendrick.

Tanner:Uh-huh.

Tanner:Yes, that was you.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Sorry.

Josh:Your character's name is Hendrick, just to confirm?

Tanner:No D, yeah.

Josh:Okay, okay.

Josh:I just wanted to make sure that I didn't accidentally remove the D out of the name, and you were just too nice to correct me on it for two and a half years.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Tanner:No, it was more like you added the D in the one document and I was too nice to correct that.

Josh:Okay, that's fine.

Josh:That's alright.

Josh:Cool.

Josh:Okay, yeah, no, that's a pretty good summary.

Josh:You guys had a nice conversation with the narrative.

Josh:They hung out.

Josh:One of them didn't like that you were trying to change the story.

Josh:The other thought it was a good time.

Josh:The rest of them were kind of scattered.

Josh:They're not a single people.

Josh:But yeah, you... Yes.

Tanner:I feel like the men here is not properly translated by the rest of his associates.

Josh:Because it hums and then the rest of them understand and you don't?

Tanner:Because Aut was just like, oh, that's a vote for me.

Tanner:And I was like, I don't really think that's how the men here feels.

Josh:Well, I think you can rest assured that the rest of the narrative do know what the men here are saying.

Jorge:Oh, so it did sell us out.

Noah:Dang, I can't be the man who pulls out.

Josh:Yes.

Noah:This is an important question.

Noah:With the spike, I was thinking about this.

Noah:You said that it's either dexterity or strength, whatever is the best one to your two hit.

Josh:Yeah, so the way it works, it is the golden spike, or like the needle or whatever you want to call it, is designed in such a way to facilitate being used.

Noah:Okay.

Josh:So, whichever set of traits you want to assign to it that give you the most likely chance of making contact is what you have.

Josh:I'm not trying to make it hard to use because it's a one-time, oops, this thing's no longer divine button.

Josh:To the point that I am considering just making it, you spent an action, you have used it, that thing is no longer divine.

Josh:The whole trickery of, I don't know if we can land a hit, requires getting close enough to make contact.

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:But once you're close enough to make contact, I do not care about the difficulty of actually landing the spike.

Noah:Okay, cool.

Jorge:So it just automatically .

Josh:Yeah, so, like, I'm calling an audible, if you are within melee range, it is an action, you've done it.

Josh:You have pinned them to the local weave, they're done.

Josh:Um, yeah.

Noah:Okay.

Josh:Like, keeping in mind, I'm thinking about the possible targets you might want to use it on, and all of them are, um, very far away from you, so...

Jorge:Oh.

Noah:Tech is canonically injured.

Mike:Divex looks relieved.

Josh:But how does tech look?

Mike:Peck is very far away, so he's drawing no conclusions.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Tech is canonically not at max health.

Josh:That's actually a big driving force of why he's working with you guys.

Mike:You better hope he doesn't break cannon.

Josh:You never know.

Josh:That's it.

Josh:We begin today's session still in the core where we left off the previous session with the fight.

Josh:You have the newly named Damien, the Nascent Forge, who currently has 18 levels worth of item that it can make.

Josh:If you feed it more divine energy, you can increase that, although I'm not going to let you guys make an item that is higher than level 18, just because...

Josh:Like, we gotta play a game for a little bit longer, you know?

Jorge:What's the name of that thing that lets you teleport to places?

Josh:Yes.

Jorge:Is that a 17th thing?

Josh:It might be.

Josh:You were talking about the Witch Something Beacon, I believe.

Josh:The Witch Weird Beacon.

Josh:I sent it in the chat earlier.

Josh:I can resend it.

Noah:I also would like to put this item up as a possibility.

Noah:I sent it half a second before Josh just sent this one.

Jorge:I like that idea for the clockwork rejuvenator.

Mike:Well, if

Jorge:Problem.

Jorge:Kind of cheap.

Jorge:I feel like we could just buy one.

Josh:It's rare.

Josh:You're going to have to find it somewhere.

Jorge:I'm very good at talking to people.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:If you're confident you can find it somewhere, that's fine.

Josh:But, like, you know the rules for, like, when you get into a major city and they let you buy any item is it's specifically a common item.

Josh:You can't just walk up and be like, I would like this unique item.

Jorge:So...

Josh:I'm sure it exists in every store on the continent.

Josh:So...

Josh:I will also note, it is a consumable.

Josh:I don't know if you care about that or whatever, but the Clockwork Rejuvenator is a one-time use thing.

Tanner:I can.

Noah:Yeah.

Noah:I did see that, but I don't know.

Noah:I figured we were going into some big fights.

Noah:Someone dying.

Noah:Because I don't know, Henrik, can you bring people back to life?

Tanner:Within three rounds of death, I can bring you back.

Noah:My one worry is that Henrik dies.

Tanner:If you have a body that is reasonably restorable.

Tanner:I don't know what the actual... Let me check the...

Jorge:So I agree.

Jorge:It's just we could also get a cool beacon, put it here, and then have a cool little hideout that we can just teleport to.

Josh:So you know that you can't teleport from outside of a risk into it.

Jorge:Can we teleport in the rest as long as we don't leave?

Josh:I will let...

Josh:the only person out of the four of you who would have ever attempted to teleport like out of the bounds of Aresk I will give a very hard DC for Divex to try and make um just roll your intelligence plus legendary proficiency um

Jorge:Well, also, if we take a rest, you could just try teleporting.

Jorge:Yep.

Josh:That is also true.

Josh:You could just try it.

Josh:But, like, the only one out of you that might know this information would be Divex.

Josh:And even then, it's unlikely because he was a low level when he had to leave Oresk.

Tanner:Oh, he wants it.

Mike:uh we're gonna burn a hero point well and i feel like trying to teleport won't get us exactly what we want like it won't be super informative yeah let's burn the hero point we're at the start of this session it can't go wrong or is this a mythic point so i add 10.

Jorge:Oh.

Tanner:He wants it.

Noah:Thank you.

Jorge:Okay, let's do it.

Josh:You don't add 10.

Josh:You should have already added 17 plus 8.

Josh:You should have a 27 modifier, plus whatever your intelligence is.

Josh:I don't know what that is.

Mike:uh why does it say my proficiency is 25 oh is this from it has to be more than APB

Josh:One second.

Josh:I can tell you what your actual role is here.

Jorge:Are scrolls twice the cost of the spell?

Josh:You normally have a plus 33 to your personal history checks, Mike, but because you're rolling it with a point, you actually have a plus 35.

Jorge:And then wands four times?

Jorge:Oh, yeah.

Jorge:If we can get someone to give me a scroll of Raise Dead at the appropriate level, max level, 3,200 gold pieces, double that, I can raise someone from the dead.

Mike:Okay, so am I adding 35?

Mike:Jesus.

Josh:Yeah, just roll into 20, add 35.

Mike:41.

Josh:You know that, like, you have seen superiors teleport from one point in Oresk to another, so you know that internal teleportation is possible.

Josh:I don't think Divex would have ever experienced somebody inside of Oresk trying to teleport outwards.

Jorge:But we're in a risk, though.

Josh:You are currently in Oresk, yes.

Jorge:Yeah, yeah.

Jorge:So we could probably teleport here.

Josh:For what it's worth, teleportation is not specific enough to get you into this room, if you try to teleport to it with the teleportation spell.

Mike:Thank you.

Jorge:If we had which word beacon, though, it would be?

Josh:The point of the beacon is so that you can teleport directly into this room, if you got it.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Jorge:Could do that also.

Jorge:um you know if someone dies as well if heinrich dies uh worst case i can just bring him back so you know if you're feeling like you're about to die just let me know

Josh:To clarify, vampires cannot raise dead and turn them into vampires.

Josh:You need a living person to turn into a vampire.

Josh:Oh.

Josh:That's totally fine.

Tanner:You got it.

Tanner:That makes a lot of sense.

Jorge:And if we can find someone who can cast Raise Dead at 8th level or higher, we can buy this scroll often.

Noah:My one worry is that we are so deep in enemy territory right now.

Josh:It's actually something they have in every inn, just in case.

Mike:You don't think they'll just have an 8th level raised dead for us?

Mike:Just waiting at the local tavern?

Jorge:We could buy it in the city.

Noah:Hey.

Noah:I just know that we... This is my pitch.

Noah:We are going up against an enemy that the left has...

Noah:had for a long time, and last time they just wiped the floor with us.

Noah:And then the second time also wiped the floor with us.

Noah:And the teleport is cool, but we do know this location versus if Henrik dies in battle.

Noah:It's bad.

Jorge:I think we could get him to a holy man.

Jorge:I'm going to be honest with you.

Jorge:But, you know, I'm newest to the groups.

Jorge:I won't vote, but...

Noah:Here's what I'm seeing as a scenario.

Josh:Like, just for a little bit of background specifically, I don't want to influence you guys in any way, it's your choice, but I do want to say specifically for we can get him to a holy man, you already know that resurrection is not a common thing in Illyara, sorry, on Althane as a whole.

Josh:In Oresk, the only people that will have the ability to resurrect the dead will be high-ranking members of the Oreskian government.

Josh:Like, you would know for certain nobody in the Golden Sparrows has this ability.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:Not even Raise Dead, the spell?

Josh:Um, what level is Ray's dead?

Jorge:It's sick.

Josh:No.

Noah:My one worry is that, say we're in a fight, say we're in a fight, and they, just for, not to rag on Henrik, and they hit a...

Jorge:God, they're so weak.

Josh:Yes.

Josh:Ray's dead at level 6 doesn't work on you guys.

Josh:Also, I do want to clarify that.

Jorge:Well, I know.

Jorge:They could upcast it.

Josh:Right, so you don't need raised debt at level 6.

Jorge:That's just a spell.

Josh:You need raised debt at level 8 at least.

Jorge:I did at 8.

Josh:You're not going to find somebody in the Gold Sparrows that has that.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Do I think a member of the Cabal has it?

Josh:Maybe.

Jorge:They probably have it.

Jorge:Yes, you know.

Jorge:I think it'd be harder to get them to cast it.

Josh:I think you can identify one person in your past that might have the ability to do it.

Josh:No.

Jorge:I might be able to find one, but...

Josh:I don't want to give away too much of your backstory, but think of the strongest person in the Cabal that you will be familiar with.

Josh:They will be the only one in the Cabal that is capable of casting an 8th level spell.

Tanner:you

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:Oh, that means we could kill most of the Cabal.

Jorge:Great.

Josh:Sorry, an 8th level resurrection spell.

Noah:That's a sideways takeaway.

Noah:Do you have a pitch for an item two while we're pitching these?

Mike:wait so are we we're trying to figure out what to use the 18 levels on or something yeah uh true endless grimoire the extra seventh level spell for divex will be instrument no um

Jorge:Yes.

Mike:do we do we have an idea of conversion like if we were to provide like a vi did we already provided some vials to give it consciousness right

Jorge:I have three.

Josh:Correct.

Jorge:I have three divine vials that are glowing from this.

Josh:You had to give up all of the blood in order to make it sentient.

Josh:You collected three of the motes of light that were scattered around that were being sent.

Josh:I will let you... It will take some time.

Josh:If you want to spend the rest of the day tinkering with this to try and figure out how much you would get from putting those vials in, I will let you do so.

Noah:Other side thing on that, if the endgame plan for fighting the F.E.E.P.

Mike:I'm done.

Noah:is we ascend and get it to come to us instead of going to it, don't we need to save those motes?

Mike:I guess if that's the only method, I mean, I don't think it's the only method we're going to have for Ascension.

Jorge:Well, that's how you guys might descend.

Jorge:I know how I'm going to ascend, but that's okay.

Tanner:Hmm.

Mike:If we're even ascending at all, I don't know if ascending is necessary to...

Jorge:Okay.

Noah:straw and knocks and just chug until you're a god.

Josh:Delicious.

Jorge:Maybe.

Jorge:Now, we also have eternalis chunks, perhaps.

Jorge:This could also be.

Jorge:You know what?

Jorge:I don't think we're going to get another 18 levels, no matter what we do.

Jorge:So I say we don't be greedy, and we take the clockwork rejuvenator.

Mike:Uh, wait, Rey's... Rey's dead.

Mike:Oh, we have to... That's what I was thinking.

Jorge:Oh, could it just give us... Oh!

Jorge:Big brain move.

Jorge:Gives us a wand of wristed.

Noah:Oh.

Josh:Magic wand of an 8th rank spell is a level 17 item, so you could do that if you want to.

Noah:We need an eighth level?

Mike:Yeah.

Tanner:And then we can make a potion of healing.

Mike:And then we could get like goggles of the night or something.

Jorge:What about the next level wand?

Mike:Or yeah, a potion of healing.

Noah:One more.

Josh:The next level 1 is level 19, and I will not let you make that with the... Correct.

Jorge:Play for a ninth level.

Jorge:I figured.

Jorge:No, no, no.

Jorge:I know.

Jorge:So this will only work for if we die now.

Josh:It is no longer useful if you guys level up another time.

Noah:well what are the effects of raised dead because it might have a drawback that the yeah there is a drawback on the bottom

Mike:We just won't do that.

Josh:I mean, you could opt out, I suppose.

Josh:Raise the...

Josh:You return to life with 1 hit point.

Josh:You are also clumsy 2, drained 2, and enfeebled 2 for a week.

Jorge:Okay, okay, second idea, second idea.

Josh:It does also take 10 minutes to cast.

Jorge:If you get the Clockwork Rejuvenator, could you reverse engineer it?

Tanner:Ooh.

Noah:I can.

Noah:In one level, I can make more of them.

Jorge:So you could reverse engineer, so we could hold on to it, and if we don't die before next level, I mean, before next time we get more powerful,

Jorge:then you can reverse engineer it, and then we have unlimited.

Jorge:But if we use it before, it's good.

Jorge:The wand only works on this level, but if multiple of us die, it is useful as long as they are within more than a day after.

Noah:So let me see my hand.

Josh:It kind of sounds like you're going to die.

Tanner:I feel like all of our plans will go a lot better if we just plan on not dying.

Noah:So I think not only can I reverse engineer it, I think I can reverse engineer it right now, but the thing is, if I don't crit, then it gets destroyed, but I can still build more.

Jorge:That's why I want to buy the teleportation.

Noah:So I can get the formula out of it probably for sure.

Noah:And if I do really well, then I get the formula out of it and we still have it.

Jorge:Which is why I say we just wait till next level, because if you break it, we can just make another one.

Josh:You can't craft level 18 items yet, correct?

Jorge:But if you use it, what I'm saying is we keep it now.

Noah:No, but I can get the formula out of it.

Noah:So we have it even if it gets destroyed.

Josh:Sure.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:Hopefully, we don't use it.

Jorge:But if we do need it, it's better that we have it, and then we use it up, rather than just betting that you do perfectly.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:What is the DC you need to hit?

Noah:That's a great question.

Josh:What is it?

Josh:Is it the level-based DC for the item?

Noah:Let's see.

Noah:Reversed engineering.

Josh:Okay, so if you need to create you need to hit a 48

Tanner:Hmph.

Noah:Rules, formulas.

Noah:Reverse engineering.

Noah:Use the formulas price.

Noah:It's the items craft DC.

Jorge:Oh, we should wait.

Noah:Okay.

Noah:There's a pretty good chance, but not 100%.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:Wait one second.

Jorge:I have an item.

Jorge:I want to see if it's only for attack rolls.

Josh:Or crafting checks is included?

Jorge:I don't know.

Jorge:I'm assuming it's only for attack rolls.

Josh:It's one of those rare attack and crafting checks.

Jorge:Oh!

Jorge:Well, I hand you my fortune's coin.

Jorge:I have two of them.

Josh:Oh.

Noah:It is.

Josh:You fail a check or attack.

Jorge:Look at the reaction.

Josh:Oh.

Josh:This is a check.

Josh:I apologize for making fun of you.

Noah:It is.

Noah:Crafted checks.

Jorge:If it lands on the Seraph side, you get a 12 on the die instead of what you roll.

Jorge:If it lands on the Fiend side, one of the eyes closes.

Jorge:Either way, you temporarily... Oh, you don't guarantee it.

Jorge:It just gives you another roll.

Noah:Josh.

Josh:Right.

Josh:It gives you a 50% chance of getting a 12 if you got below a 12.

Noah:You said that I need to get a 48 to crit.

Josh:Correct.

Noah:For reference, my crafting is plus 38.

Noah:So there's 50-50 chance I crit.

Tanner:Ooh.

Tanner:And you have two hero points.

Jorge:And if you use a mythic, you have two mythic... And you've got this coin for another 50-50.

Noah:And I do have a spell that if I fail a crafting check, I can re-roll it with a plus 2.

Tanner:Oh, I think the narrative is going to come back.

Jorge:So if all else goes, you've got another 50-50.

Noah:So...

Josh:That's true.

Noah:I have guidance.

Josh:You have two coins.

Jorge:Each one has, I think, like six uses or something.

Josh:Seven.

Tanner:guys.

Jorge:But you can only use it in one.

Tanner:Aut is not going to like us talking about this random chance.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:And you have guidance.

Josh:Which gives you a plus one.

Noah:All I have to do is roll a nine or higher.

Jorge:You know what?

Noah:Guys, I'm the greatest crafter.

Jorge:Let's fucking do it.

Jorge:I'm for it.

Jorge:Let's fucking do it.

Noah:I'm the greatest crafter in any world.

Noah:I have a lot of

Josh:You cannot keep using mythic points on the same check.

Jorge:Let's fucking do it.

Jorge:You have so many chances.

Jorge:You have, what, four chances?

Jorge:You could do this.

Jorge:You can use two mythic points.

Jorge:You have the coin, and then you have the other thing.

Josh:He gets one mythic point he can use.

Jorge:Okay, so he has one roll, one mythic roll, one coin roll.

Jorge:No, you can only use one coin.

Josh:And then two throws of the coin if you want to donate both of them to him.

Jorge:It's your mule into the fortune's coin for one hour.

Josh:Okay.

Noah:I thought you were like, no, this is my coin.

Josh:Okay, so there you go.

Josh:I know it could help, but I like this one.

Noah:This is mine.

Noah:Well, that's the coin he's going to use when he attempts a fortitude save to suck all the blood directly out of Nox.

Mike:Thank you.

Jorge:Just for the record, each coin has seven eyes, so there's seven fails I could use.

Noah:That's crazy.

Josh:Yeah, you should be using these more liberally.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Fortune's coin.

Jorge:No, no, no, no, no, no.

Jorge:I'm very scared that I can't find more in a rest.

Jorge:If I can buy another one in a rest, they're relatively cheap.

Noah:What is this?

Jorge:and not rare, I will 100% do it.

Noah:Jorge, this is a level 14 item.

Noah:I can make this so easily.

Josh:He actually has the level 8 variant, which is even easier for you to make.

Noah:I can just crank these out.

Josh:That is true.

Josh:Like, completely separately from the being able to source a thing, the Cult of Fortunes coin Goofy.

Tanner:What are these?

Jorge:Well, we're going to start making these coins, brother.

Noah:We're a mint now.

Josh:But it's common.

Josh:So even by my own rules, hand tied behind my back, it's totally fine for you to make a bunch of these.

Jorge:Yeah, I honestly didn't want to use these because I was scared they would get taken away.

Jorge:So I wanted to save them.

Josh:I'm imagining a character who walks around with a coin pouch that is own Loot Fortune coins.

Noah:That's Jorge, circa level 18.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Once an hour is not bad.

Jorge:Yeah, yeah.

Jorge:And if you succeed... Alright.

Noah:Okay, are we doing the... Mm-hmm.

Josh:Okay, so what are you guys doing?

Jorge:He's going to roll for it.

Jorge:We're not pussies.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So you're asking Damien to make the resuscitate or whatever it's called, right?

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:Easy enough for him to do it.

Josh:He does expend all of the divine energy he has, so unfortunately the heart can now only make an infinite number of level 0 items.

Tanner:you

Josh:But that is still an option.

Josh:But you do firmed whole cloth out of thin air.

Noah:That's very funny.

Josh:Interestingly, it almost looks like an insect of some kind made out of very intricate clockwork that you would know you would just place directly on the heart and it will defibrillate them back to life.

Noah:Great.

Noah:OK.

Noah:If we can take some time, I'm going to try and reverse engineer this thing.

Josh:Go for it.

Noah:Oh, Josh, it's so over.

Tanner:Is the defaulting an inventor ability?

Josh:How much?

Jorge:Oh, my God.

Josh:No.

Josh:Yeah, okay.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:You don't need to take it apart.

Josh:You watch as Dawn flicks down a bunch of lenses, and from his perspective, it just kicks Ray's into the internals, so you don't need to take it apart to figure out what's going on.

Josh:And just real quick, like, oh yeah, I've never seen this before, but I understand the concepts now, and just quickly sketch out a formula for it.

Jorge:Well, while this was happening...

Jorge:You see Liv go, fuck, you were right.

Jorge:And then Hans divex some money.

Jorge:He's like, I can't believe I bet against him.

Jorge:I bet against the world's greatest inventor.

Josh:Is it an ancestry or is it an archetype?

Noah:Tanner, for reference, I think the feat is like SOAC astrology and then Arrow of the Astrologers.

Josh:It's an archetype, right?

Noah:No, it's just a human ancestry feat.

Josh:Oh, that's fine.

Tanner:I feel like I should have that.

Josh:It's funny.

Tanner:And that's because you, like, boosted it?

Josh:You just get to roll extra stuff and most of the time you get extra bonuses.

Josh:What is it now?

Josh:You roll a d4.

Josh:If it's a 1, you subtract.

Josh:But if it's 2, 3, 4, you get to add it.

Noah:Yep.

Josh:Nice.

Noah:Yeah, the other one, I think it's like a d8, and if you roll a 1 or a 2, you get a minus 1.

Noah:And then the other, it's like a plus 1 or a plus 2.

Jorge:Hey, can you reverse engineer this coin, too?

Noah:Yeah, sure.

Josh:Is it even possible for me to fail?

Josh:One second.

Noah:Probably not.

Jorge:What's the DC for an 8?

Josh:For a level 8...

Josh:Do you need to crit, or do you just need to succeed?

Jorge:He said Kurt succeeded.

Noah:Oh, I need to... Yeah.

Josh:Oh, right.

Jorge:If you wanted to keep it.

Josh:To not dismantle it, you need to crit succeed.

Josh:Okay, so to crit, you need to get a 34.

Josh:Oh, yeah.

Jorge:So just don't roll a one.

Jorge:If you rolled a one, you could have just flipped my other coin.

Noah:Yeah, as long as I don't roll a one.

Noah:I didn't roll a one.

Josh:Yeah, you're fine.

Tanner:Hello.

Jorge:Okay, so just so you'll know, these only cost 450 gold to make.

Josh:You're fine.

Josh:That's easy enough.

Josh:It gives you a 14 instead of a 12 if you get the 10th side.

Jorge:The other one is like 10 times that, and it only gives you slightly better chances.

Jorge:So I go with the cheap one.

Jorge:Which I feel like is so fucking greedy.

Jorge:Like, it is so much more expensive per flip.

Jorge:Like, if you only get 14 flips on average.

Josh:Well, it's a nice bonus if you find it in a treasure chest or something.

Jorge:Yeah, that's true.

Jorge:But don't buy it, greedy bastard.

Mike:Okay, so Divex can keep 100 bulk in his shadow.

Mike:He currently has 90 bulk left.

Mike:A fine mask is level 0 and 2 gold pieces.

Mike:It has negligible bulk, which means 10 of it is light bulk or 100 is 1 bulk.

Mike:So 90 times 100 times 2 is like 18,000 gold worth of masks.

Josh:I mean, like, you absolutely can do that.

Mike:If we just shove and then...

Noah:You broke this so quickly.

Josh:I don't know who you're going to sell all of those masks to at market prices, but you are more than welcome to just stuff your shadow full of fine masks.

Mike:but...

Jorge:Can you... What about finding cloths?

Jorge:It might be easier to put cloths in there.

Jorge:Or find metal.

Jorge:I'm just going to give out some requests to the heart.

Jorge:Nothing crazy, but I basically just want more stuff, like prosthetics, things like that, for my disguise kits.

Jorge:Like, I don't know, like a better cane, like slightly things just for future prosthetics.

Jorge:I don't expect any pluses to my roles.

Jorge:This is purely cosmetic stuff, but I just want to refresh my design.

Josh:Yeah, absolutely.

Noah:Oh.

Josh:I will, I am, I do have to walk back my statement a little bit.

Josh:I just, out of curiosity, I did the optimizing thing, and I just pulled up all of the items in the game at level 0 and sorted by how much gold pieces they were worth.

Josh:You cannot make rare metals with them.

Josh:Do not say I would like 1,000 warp glass ingots and 8,000 gold pieces per.

Josh:You can't do that.

Jorge:No sky medals.

Jorge:Those came from the sky, not the ground.

Josh:nor can you convince it to produce a political favor, which is an item for some reason.

Josh:It is worth 10,000 gold pieces, despite being zero bulk, because it's a political favor.

Tanner:Wow.

Mike:don can you reverse engineer political favors i i actually also think that you could you could do that because you have just the thing where you can sub in a crafting check first so if someone was like how do political favors work you'd be like i don't know let me let me think of a a sterling engine that describes that to me accurately

Noah:I think I understand how politics in this country work.

Josh:The most expensive thing I'm looking on this that I think you could feasibly convince me this could make that it's level 0 is the atmospheric breathing suit.

Jorge:You guys keep going.

Jorge:I'll be right back.

Josh:I just scrolled down until I found something that wasn't ridiculous.

Josh:Please don't, but you could feasibly ask it to make a bunch of atmospheric breathing suits at 100 little pieces per.

Mike:Well, I'm seeing... What?

Josh:Or, level 7 propaganda.

Josh:Well, you've never heard of level 7 propaganda?

Josh:300 gold pieces per propaganda.

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:The problem is when you click all equipment, it also includes services you could feasibly hire somebody for as items for some reason.

Noah:Wait, this thing can make anything.

Josh:So you get silly things like level 5 smuggling or level 7 propaganda as items that you could purchase.

Josh:Or, or, an alpaca.

Josh:Level 0, 75 gold pieces.

Mike:Yeah, they're, well, I think that bulk column is not.

Josh:Oh, yeah, I haven't sorted by bulk.

Josh:I'm not trying to optimize by bulk.

Josh:I just wanted to see what the most expensive thing was that you could get.

Mike:Oh, for level zero?

Josh:That was level 0.

Mike:Oh, that's a good, yeah, that's a good point, actually.

Noah:You can make the concept of unarmored.

Mike:Let me remove that.

Josh:Not bad.

Noah:You can make 9th level spellcasting.

Josh:I'm sorry.

Josh:The fact that according to this, you can just walk into a town, spend 1,800 gold pieces, and find a 9th level spellcaster to just cast any 9th level spell for you is crazy to me.

Josh:In what world is that balanced within the balance of the items that they have set in the game?

Mike:Okay, so I found clockwork dials.

Noah:Oh.

Mike:They also have negligible bulk, which means one bulk of them is 100.

Mike:So that gets us to 180,000 gold pieces worth of clockwork dials.

Josh:Yeah, I mean, you guys could just abandon the campaign and become bulk goats traders.

Mike:Can...

Mike:Well, the thing is, we're not going to do it bulk.

Mike:We're just going to keep them, and then any time we can, we're going to try to sell one.

Mike:By the way, do you have any interesting clockwork dials?

Josh:I'd like to barter.

Josh:I would like that sword for 230 clockwork dials and 88 fine masts.

Josh:Is that a good trade for you?

Mike:How long would it take to make... How many is this?

Noah:Oh, my God.

Josh:what's funny is it's thematic like if you're going to find a clockwork dial this is probably a good place to find it i'm not

Mike:9,000...

Mike:9000 clockwork dials.

Jorge:Wait, what happened?

Mike:Hold on.

Josh:You know what?

Josh:If you want it, I will give you 9,000 clockwork dials.

Tanner:No.

Josh:I think you will have a hard time bartering for literally anything with 9,000 clockwork dials, but if you want to have that filling up your shadow and you find some use for it, I'm okay with that.

Mike:Hell yeah.

Jorge:I... I... As Dyvex is doing some math out loud, Lev turns to him and goes, I could sell...

Jorge:horseshoes to a man that has swamp cows.

Noah:Leveleen.

Jorge:You give me clockwork dials, and I will sell you more clockwork dials than you think is possible.

Josh:9,000.

Jorge:For a small fee, of course.

Josh:That's how many he'll have in his shadow.

Mike:It's in there.

Jorge:For the group.

Mike:It's in there.

Noah:Leveleen's in the divex because I can tell anything.

Mike:We have him.

Josh:Did you just write down 9,000 Clockwork Dials?

Mike:It's recorded.

Noah:Show me this edge.

Mike:DiveX's shadow is full.

Josh:Okay, so... So...

Jorge:You know what's the funniest part?

Jorge:Is if we ever need to pick something up, there's just...

Josh:You're just going to leave a pile of clockwork dust.

Josh:Yeah, so Lev goes up to the forge.

Jorge:That's it.

Josh:After you have produced this magical clockwork device that can revive somebody after they have died, then Lev goes up to the forge and says, hey, with whatever magic you've got left, can you just make me some things to make my disguise kit really good?

Josh:And Forge is like, absolutely, does that.

Josh:And then Divex comes and he opens his shadow like one of those trick-or-treaters when he goes up to a house and says, some clockwork dials, please.

Mike:Beats me.

Josh:And the Forge, having been born earlier, like more recently than yesterday, is like, yeah, that's a normal thing for somebody to ask.

Josh:And you watch as an actual waterfall of, what are these, like the minute hands on a clock?

Josh:What is a clockwork dial?

Josh:One second.

Tanner:Oh, jeez.

Josh:How does it describe... It's a small timepiece.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:It's like small sundials.

Josh:It's just a bunch of small sundials.

Jorge:Like pocket watches.

Jorge:Like really small.

Josh:Yeah, pocket watches, but with more moving parts.

Josh:It's literally just, you pop it open, and then there's like a little sundial.

Josh:All the waterfall of them pours out of the forge directly into Divex's shadow.

Josh:He now has 9,000 clockwork dials in his shadow.

Jorge:You are very lucky, friend, that that guy knows how to count to 9,000.

Josh:Sure.

Jorge:Because I would have been very sad if he gave you 9,001.

Tanner:Uh huh.

Josh:I apologize, I read this wrong.

Josh:There are moving parts.

Josh:They are wind-up clocks.

Josh:They last an hour.

Mike:That's why they're worth 20 gold pieces per.

Mike:That's why there's $180,000 of them among 9,000.

Josh:You just, you wind it up, it goes for an hour, and then it's done, and then you wind it up again.

Mike:We can count the hours with these bad boys.

Jorge:You know, back... Well, you know... Yeah, we did.

Josh:Is this just because you don't have the feet that tells you the exact time of day?

Mike:No, anytime you give us the option to have something in bulk, like a ridiculous amount of thing on our person, I dive in.

Mike:Like when we just filled a portable hole with a boat and water and it just stayed for half the campaign because we didn't have to use it.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:Wait, do we ever agree to buy the portable hole?

Josh:That's fine.

Jorge:There's a bike in there.

Mike:that's no no no we put the bike stop with you said don't have the bike we were like but we maybe and then josh was like he'll be pissed yeah and then josh said he'll be pissed and we'll say okay we'll leave it no no you said yes

Noah:There is a bite.

Jorge:I did say that.

Josh:Did I say that?

Josh:Did I say I'll be pissed if you take the bike?

Josh:Oh, I said Yudan will be pissed.

Jorge:Yeah, Ed Lev was like, don't take it.

Josh:Yeah, absolutely.

Josh:Sorry, not Yudan.

Jorge:It would piss him off.

Josh:What's his face?

Josh:Yeah, Yudan will care.

Jorge:So we didn't take it.

Jorge:Good.

Josh:Turk would be pissed off.

Jorge:Yeah, but we did it.

Josh:That, on top of the fact that it wouldn't run.

Jorge:Yeah, so we didn't take it.

Jorge:That being said.

Jorge:You know, Lev pulls out a battered clockwork dial.

Jorge:I used to use one of these when I worked for the Sparrows.

Jorge:You know, we used to wind it together, and we would know, like, on the 26th, we all murdered someone.

Jorge:Separate parts of the city, all at once.

Jorge:It was a lot of fun.

Jorge:Yeah, yeah.

Noah:in schism you just hear schism don't ruin this

Tanner:you you

Jorge:A lot of fun.

Jorge:We should all make sure we have these and secret it for plants.

Jorge:They're great.

Jorge:What if you have to bomb, you know, like, I don't know, an office and then also assassinate the butler at the same time?

Josh:At this point, Skizzin will say, can't you guys just talk telepathically through me?

Josh:Oh, sorry.

Mike:Divex also has Synchronize, which does exactly what Levmir is describing.

Josh:I do also come with a timekeeping function.

Jorge:You do?

Tanner:you

Mike:And it's like a first level spell.

Josh:Yes.

Josh:No, that's fine.

Jorge:Yeah, right.

Jorge:Well, and then Levmir makes sure to get his coin back from Don.

Noah:Oh, yeah.

Jorge:Actually, you know what?

Jorge:You can keep it because you can owe me a new one.

Jorge:And I can't use two at the same time anyway, so.

Mike:Double also, DiveX has the cantrip that tells you the exact time that it is.

Josh:It's just, it's not game-breaking to know what time it is.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:All right, guys.

Jorge:Shall we keep going?

Jorge:Oh, by the way, Damien, remember, don't let anyone inside.

Jorge:It's not us.

Jorge:We are your creators.

Jorge:Cool.

Josh:I mean, I have very limited function to stop that.

Mike:Well,

Josh:I can raise and lower a bridge, I can open and close a door, and I can ask nicely.

Jorge:Yeah, sounds good.

Mike:Also, don't we want to hang around a day and get an idea for how much divine energy yields levels?

Jorge:OK, and we should raise probably.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Alright, so you guys are hanging out for a, uh, it's fine.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:You can camp out in here.

Josh:It's nice and toasty.

Jorge:should also if you can should everyone have a serpent coin a fortune coin it's 450 a pot divex and henrik you want one fortunes coin so if you with a reaction if you fail a check or an attack rule you can just flip a coin if it lands on the serpent side

Josh:It will take him a day per coin to produce.

Josh:Assuming you want to spend the full amount of money.

Josh:And he succeeds his crafting check.

Mike:Want to call it a Sharper coin?

Noah:Fortunes coming.

Jorge:you get a 12 dice roll instead of what you actually rolled.

Jorge:If it's on the fiend side, you get nothing, and one of the seven eyes closes.

Josh:Also, to clarify, it's a seraph, not a serpent.

Jorge:When all seven eyes are closed, coin's kaput.

Jorge:You can only use it once per hour.

Josh:It's an angel on one side and a demon on the other.

Jorge:Oh, cool, cool.

Jorge:That makes way more sense.

Jorge:You can only use it once per hour.

Jorge:But the utility cost for the 8th level one is 32 gold per flip.

Jorge:The other one's like 230 gold per flip for a 14 instead of a 12.

Mike:Sure.

Mike:I mean, they're made at the same rate?

Mike:One day per?

Mike:Or is that only one day for the... Oh, sick.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:it just it just costs more to make the the platinum version don't make that noise you i mean do you want to forge gold pieces okay they're being forged they're forged it's a forge it's forging them

Mike:What level is a gold piece?

Mike:No.

Mike:Don't say forge like they're fake.

Tanner:no no we want to mint them josh we want to mint them

Jorge:He's going to forge him.

Mike:yeah but i mean for make make le make legitimate gold pieces yeah i don't know what does it taste like yeah

Josh:Is this the Oreskian mint?

Noah:It is not.

Josh:No.

Josh:Lava?

Josh:Rock?

Josh:Like, have you ever put a rock in your mouth?

Jorge:Do you rescue it?

Josh:I like that.

Jorge:We're crazy people.

Jorge:I would not put it past them to have imprinted souls of dead ancestors in them, and if they don't have them, they're going to find out we were forging in Drakastown.

Jorge:We're crazy people.

Josh:I don't...

Jorge:You guys should know this.

Josh:They don't have the gold standard, they have the soul standard.

Jorge:Yeah, we're crazy people.

Jorge:I wouldn't be surprised.

Josh:At any time, you can trade in one gold piece for one dead relative.

Tanner:Are our foreign gold pieces not going to hold any value here?

Josh:No, wait, you guys would know that.

Mike:Oh.

Josh:They absolutely would.

Mike:Oh, okay.

Josh:We don't have paper money yet, so it's based off the weight of the gold.

Mike:We were about to do like a this from Inglourious Bastards.

Josh:And I have...

Mike:Like, we'll have like two pints of whatever and then we go to pay with like gold from not this country and they're like, uh...

Jorge:What about the... He can't make metals, right?

Jorge:He can't just give us 9,000 pounds of gold.

Josh:Yes.

Josh:No, he can't make precious ones.

Jorge:Okay.

Mike:It's not a scam, Josh.

Jorge:We'll just make iron.

Josh:Yes.

Jorge:He'll just make us a mountain of iron, and then we bring it up to a town, and we go figure it out.

Tanner:But you can give him gold and he'll reshape it.

Noah:can he make can't he just make iron and then make a lot of gold paint

Josh:Yeah, I'll allow that.

Tanner:I have this pinky ring.

Josh:Yeah, you guys should, instead of being world traders, you should be scammers.

Josh:I suppose if you tell them, would you like this iron inky that has been wrapped in gold foil, then it's not a scam.

Mike:Exactly.

Mike:Then they go sell it as gold.

Mike:So it's worth some midpoint between iron and gold because you can trick people into buying it.

Josh:Gotcha.

Tanner:oh

Josh:So are you guys going to rest him?

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:Who are you guys resting?

Josh:Or how are you guys resting, more accurately?

Jorge:Are we taking shifts?

Mike:Soundly.

Noah:We should take shifts.

Jorge:Okay, we'll... Who wants to go first?

Jorge:I can watch if you want.

Josh:Well, all of you apparently only need to sleep like 30 minutes a day, so, or whatever.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Two hours, yeah.

Tanner:Okay.

Noah:Two hours.

Jorge:Alright, I'll stay up with Schism.

Josh:Absolutely.

Jorge:I just shoot the shit with Schism.

Jorge:If you will talk to me.

Jorge:Without, like... Yeah.

Josh:Yes, because we'll talk to you.

Josh:I will say, though, about...

Josh:I guess like 30 minutes into your watch, you do feel a little bit of weight on your right shoulder.

Josh:And when you turn to look at it, your view is obstructed by a massive arm that has just rested itself on your shoulder.

Josh:It's familiar.

Josh:You saw it like a few hours ago at this point.

Josh:It is the left half of the half-man.

Josh:Um...

Josh:Who just kind of looks over at you and says, Hey, long time no see.

Jorge:Hello.

Jorge:How are you?

Jorge:I can wake them up.

Josh:And Superlix is fine.

Josh:Something has been bugging me, and I just, I like, I try to forget it, because, you know, we already held the vote and all of that, but I just, I don't like where we left it.

Josh:Can you wake up your friends?

Josh:I can wake him up if you don't want to.

Josh:Bye.

Jorge:And I just shake my hands.

Jorge:Hello, hello.

Jorge:One of the...

Noah:I'm asleep on the other side of the bifurcated man, so I just don't see him.

Josh:So you do see, you see, like, he is very much a cross-section.

Josh:You see a bunch of organs, uh, like, cut in half, um, from him.

Josh:Uh, I, I don't, what's your medicine?

Josh:Just, like, your medicine modifier?

Josh:You don't need to roll for it.

Josh:It's not high.

Noah:My medicine is 21.

Josh:Okay, so you would, you would have a working understanding of, like, humanoid bodies and, like, generally where their organs are and what their functions do, and this guy's got none of them.

Josh:He's got viscera for the sake of viscera, not for a particular function.

Josh:There's no way to identify functions of whatever's sticking out of him.

Josh:It's also, it's strange, it's not like he's just been cut in half, because when he rotates, the cut is situated such that it always follows you when you're looking at him.

Josh:So if he rotates, you instead get a different cross-section through him.

Josh:But there is, in theory, if you did a full 360, you would get a full view of the person.

Josh:Just never at one time.

Jorge:I wish I was a necromancer and just could tell how many hit points I get.

Noah:All of them.

Jorge:A billion.

Noah:He doesn't have a health bar.

Jorge:What?

Josh:Who knows?

Noah:He just doesn't take damage.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Divine.

Jorge:All right.

Jorge:I wake up, my comrades ready to come.

Jorge:Hello, dear.

Jorge:Our friend, the half man is here.

Jorge:What was your name?

Jorge:What was his name again?

Josh:Insuperable.

Jorge:Insuperlex is here.

Josh:Insurmountable.

Josh:Overcomable.

Jorge:Oh.

Josh:Not overcomable, sorry.

Mike:Umable?

Tanner:Uh, hi, uh, Mark.

Josh:That's a word.

Tanner:How can we help you?

Josh:You can't help me.

Josh:I thought I could help you.

Josh:So, I was already talking to your compatriot over here.

Josh:I just, you know, you guys...

Josh:You just got something that wasn't written in the original story.

Josh:It's a little bit of a balance breaker, if I'm being perfectly honest.

Josh:You can kill something that's not meant to be killed, kind of out of the bounds of what's supposed to happen.

Josh:And it just doesn't sit right with me.

Josh:You're all clearly the heroes.

Josh:You're the protagonists here.

Josh:And I'm not going to do anything about that.

Josh:But you've been creeping around.

Josh:And I'm not super happy about that, you know?

Josh:I don't know about you, but I don't like reading or watching stories where the heroes only beat up unsuspecting, unprepared foes.

Josh:How many times have you read a story and the entire time it's just sneaking up behind people in an alley and whacking them on the head with one hit?

Jorge:But we got jumped by the deeps people.

Josh:If you want to nitpick here, when's the last time you meaningfully interacted with who I assume the target of this story is?

Josh:Pick your favorite.

Josh:Any of them.

Josh:When's the last time you spoke to them?

Jorge:He was going to kill us with his thoughts.

Noah:A few weeks ago, we looked into the face of nothing and felt terror.

Jorge:And he almost killed us.

Josh:See, there's the problem there.

Josh:At no point was he looking at you.

Josh:You were near him.

Josh:And that's painful.

Josh:And I get it.

Josh:I feel for you.

Josh:But he did not look at you.

Josh:You did not make yourselves known.

Josh:Same thing with Wutz's face, the rescue man.

Josh:What's his name?

Josh:Kharkov.

Jorge:Thank you.

Josh:Last time he saw you guys, you were ruts.

Josh:I just don't think it's fun if you show up and he's like, oh no, what happened?

Josh:The last time I saw you, I could easily do blah blah blah, but now all of a sudden you're super powerful.

Josh:So I think to keep it interesting.

Josh:I think all of the players in the game should know what's going on.

Josh:You know?

Josh:You guys have a weapon.

Josh:You've been selected at this point.

Josh:So let's make it more fun.

Josh:Let's get everybody on the same page.

Josh:Right?

Noah:Wait, wait, what does that mean?

Noah:What does that mean?

Jorge:What does that mean?

Josh:He snaps, and a CRT television appears directly in front of you guys, just on the ground, because you guys are sitting at this point.

Jorge:Did you clear this with the rest of the narrative, shameless request?

Josh:There's a little bit of static electricity.

Josh:It fuzzes and then clarifies into... Yeah, roll a diplomacy check.

Noah:Don is panicking.

Noah:This is so bad.

Noah:Our whole thing is doing this.

Jorge:This is very bad.

Noah:Our entire MO is not doing what's about to happen.

Jorge:OK, so 35 plus my 37 plus my, that's the item bonus.

Josh:You're making a diplomacy check, which is 37 plus 4, because I assume you're using your heart's ability, so you get a 41.

Jorge:Yes, 41.

Jorge:And then I have the regalia.

Josh:That's... Do you not have to use an action to start doing that, or is it just always?

Jorge:Just plus 2.

Jorge:Status.

Jorge:No, it's a free action, remember, for all of my stuff?

Jorge:To swap between.

Josh:Uh... Oh, right, it's a circumstance bonus, so you get... It's a circumstance bonus.

Jorge:There's a status bonus, isn't it?

Jorge:Oh, OK.

Josh:um but you like that's fine so add an additional two so it's uh 43. all right i want the eyes closed of course our one is tails although in the future we're welcome to call your shot there okay um

Jorge:So yeah.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:I am going to flip a coin.

Tanner:Oh boy.

Jorge:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh:He watches you do it.

Josh:I mean, there is a very physical motion of taking out a coin and flipping it.

Josh:He's looking at it.

Josh:48.

Jorge:All right, so it's a 48.

Josh:He'll say, well, I talked to the men here, and, you know, they said it wasn't fair if I only told your enemies, so I told some of your friends, too.

Noah:Hey, when you say you talk to the men here, and also while doing this, Don is watching the CCTV and in schism being like, dude, we gotta fix this, we gotta fix this.

Noah:So when you talk to the men here, do you actually have a conversation?

Noah:Because it sort of seemed like he was just vibing and you guys were sort of interpreting off the cuff.

Josh:Well, I... Yes.

Josh:I can talk to him.

Jorge:Okay, so when you said, you said past tense, did you already tell everyone?

Josh:The CRT television fuzzes, and you see a very familiar, at this point, velvet-suited humanoid sat behind a desk.

Josh:There's a bit of a crackle.

Josh:It takes a bit for the sound coming through to resolve into something that's visible.

Josh:are audible.

Josh:But you do hear, welcome, welcome, welcome to the lighthouse with an aspect of Immix.

Josh:There's a little bit of fanfare in the background.

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:Immix says, I am, as always, your stalwart host, Immix.

Josh:With me today is the lovely, lovely Ki-Rin.

Josh:Ki-Rin, any words for the audience?

Josh:Ki-Rin doesn't say anything.

Josh:Immix comes back and says, folks, this is a special broadcast today.

Josh:I have it on...

Josh:very good authority that the days of this cycle are numbered one way or the other for better or for worse and at the center of it all you know them you love them or you love to hate them everybody's favorite adventuring group the left um

Jorge:We should pin this guy.

Josh:You will see the screen, like, now in talk shows and stuff, sometimes there's in the corner of the screen an image that goes along with what the person is saying.

Noah:Oh my God.

Josh:You see, like, illustrations of the four of you pop up in the corner as the camera pans over a little bit to make room.

Josh:It's not like a live feed.

Jorge:Let me quickly try to disguise himself.

Josh:This is like a wanted poster that they drew of you.

Josh:It is now projected on the screen.

Josh:And Emick says, folks, they dropped off the radar for a little bit, but they are back and in force.

Josh:Now, this is shaping up to be the event of, I'd say the millennium, but I think even past that.

Josh:What do you think, Kyron?

Josh:Kylo Ren doesn't respond, and he says, but listen, we're not the only ones who are interested in this, although I know all of you at home are.

Josh:There are other movers and shakers who are preparing one way or another for what is going to be the greatest clash.

Josh:Kylo, why don't we take a look, you know, down around all things, see what's going on.

Josh:The camera cuts.

Josh:and you see a familiar blue-skinned older Orestian man in a deep blue uniform sat at a desk.

Josh:It looks like he's talking to an elven woman also in first house uniform.

Josh:This is Kharkov.

Josh:And this slips here, one of the two lieutenants that he brought with him when we last saw him.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:The camera pans upward, and we can see on the desk is this dossier, which similarly holds images of the four of you, as it looks like they flip through it.

Josh:It cuts again, and it's now in...

Josh:a very sterile looking room, like, cleaned white walls, steel flooring, uh, there was an orc man also in First House, um, Regalia, uh, it looks like he is, this is Rampart, by the way, uh, it looks like he is looking into this large glass tube.

Jorge:My nemesis.

Josh:On the inside of the tube you can see a very faint motionless blue glow, and a reddish glow also starting to fade, slamming against the glass repeatedly.

Josh:It cuts again.

Josh:You see...

Josh:an ocean of blood, and in the center of the ocean of blood is a massive wolf-bear-cat-deer hybrid monster, like a mile long from this perspective, and directly in front of it is a smaller figure playing a riff on a guitar.

Josh:as waves of energy pass out from the center altar and push back and the camera pans upward and you can see directly overhead is the 13th realm.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:It cuts again and there is an image of...

Josh:this grid of red crystals held together by golden wire in this, like, 3D collected lattice.

Josh:Light bounces back and forth from the different crystals, and you can see there are two figures standing next to it.

Josh:They're humanoid in nature, but you can't see their faces because it looks like they've been dipped head and shoulders into wax, such that it completely covers them.

Josh:You can't make out any sound from this.

Josh:It cuts again, and it looks like a library of some kind.

Josh:Stacks of books on either side, a table in the middle, and you can see, I don't know if you guys have seen his face before, but for his hoodles down, dark metal exterior with these

Jorge:Jack.

Josh:wooden accents, and this strange, indecipherable symbol stamped into the forehead.

Josh:Surrounding the table around the broker is this large, two-headed dragon that you would identify as Terexanthes.

Josh:But sitting next to him at the table is a man in a suit, except where the head should be is instead this burst of green flame that your characters would recognize.

Josh:It cuts again,

Jorge:Wait.

Jorge:Oh, he's a librarian.

Josh:And it cuts again, and it is now much darker.

Josh:It takes a second for the camera to adjust.

Josh:There's this mahogany table splattered with blood.

Josh:It's hard to place age.

Josh:You want to say based on the dress, an older gentleman, but the face is completely smooth and very pale.

Josh:There are discarded two...

Josh:humans, also very pale, just kind of limp and unconscious in a corner, and on the other side of the desk is this waterfall of blood, and projected into the blood are images of the four of you.

Josh:It cuts again.

Josh:This time, some of you would recognize this person.

Josh:It is an Afro dwarf, platinum skin, golden hair and eyes, this very faint yellow glow through the chest.

Josh:It looks like the lungs almost project through the clothing.

Josh:walking and talking to a much older, bleached, gnomish fellow.

Josh:As they pass through a large-looking, like, hospital ward, almost, they pass a number of cots, and the camera pans up to see what they're talking about, and similarly, this is a, like, booklet, almost, with your pictures on it.

Josh:Cuts again...

Josh:There is a ship floating in the air aboard which a captain that you have seen once before is looking down upon what looks like the mountain range that borders Oresk.

Josh:It seems the ship is kind of near the general country there.

Josh:It cuts again.

Josh:There is a collection of four people standing around a Giant, tentacled brain.

Josh:One of them is holding up a green, glowing orb, and you can see, reflecting on one of the eyes of this brain, because it has, like, two stuck on the front, almost flipped is seen in the images of the four of you as it passes through.

Josh:It cuts again.

Josh:We now see a city, spires made out of this dark stone, but the city itself appears to have been twisted, where instead of just being on the ground it twists on the walls and then almost up towards the ceiling sticking down like stalagmites, motes of blue light floating around.

Josh:In the center of the the general twisting of the city is

Josh:almost a mile across.

Josh:From this perspective it almost looks like a floating bundle of silk, just this very fine fabric that's been just pulled together and now just sits in this open space.

Josh:It cuts again.

Josh:There is bowtie dominating the center of the image with 12 little points of light behind it.

Josh:A great storm forms on the part of Ilkheim that is facing the camera.

Josh:It goes from red to black to yellow.

Josh:It cuts again.

Josh:There's no image on the screen, but instead there's just the sound of a heartbeat.

Josh:The screen of the monitor cracks.

Josh:And it cuts back to Imex.

Josh:The soundstage appears to have taken some damage.

Josh:The sign on the back that says the lighthouse has fallen down a little bit, the desk is askew, papers are everywhere, the couch has fallen over.

Josh:Imex, a little bedraggled, says, And folks...

Josh:That's not all.

Josh:I'm sure there are others who are interested in what's coming up.

Josh:We're going to keep our eyes on whatever will unfold in the future.

Josh:Listen, after a short commercial break, we're going to go a little bit more into the left, their strengths, their weaknesses, what they had for breakfast yesterday.

Josh:I know you're all interested.

Josh:We'll tell you everything you need to know and everything you don't.

Josh:Listen, stay tuned.

Josh:This is the only television show this side of Simon.

Josh:I'll see you on the flip side.

Josh:And the TV disappears.

Josh:And Insuperlik says, isn't that fun?

Josh:Don't you like it when people learn to comment?

Tanner:Now, how does that make the story better than what we just did?

Tanner:That was way more of a, you know, what's the word?

Josh:Improvement?

Tanner:Interjection.

Noah:In Superlix.

Josh:Yeah, there's nothing wrong with me changing the story.

Noah:Wait.

Noah:I have a request.

Noah:If everyone else gets to hear our story, we should be able to tell our bit too.

Josh:When you read, oh wait, sorry, tell your bit, what do you mean by that?

Noah:I want to talk to everyone on Althein.

Josh:Yeah, I don't see how I can make the story any worse.

Josh:That sounds like a good time.

Josh:I just wanted to make sure that you had a proper challenge.

Josh:Feeding up a guy in an alley when they're not looking around is no fun, but overcoming an opponent who is at their best is a story worth telling.

Tanner:Thank you.

Jorge:Do you?

Josh:If you think that talking to everybody will help with that, I don't mind.

Noah:You already let the cat out of the bag.

Noah:We might as well.

Josh:Yeah, or...

Jorge:Do you mind if we take a, yeah, do you mind if we get back to that?

Josh:That's a boon you can have.

Josh:I don't mind paying it out.

Josh:We'll call it recompense.

Jorge:OK, cool.

Jorge:Thank you.

Jorge:Do you mind telling us what you told them or just like high levels?

Josh:Oh, they know what you can do.

Josh:And where you are.

Jorge:Like what do you mean what we can do?

Josh:What you can do.

Jorge:Do they know about the needle?

Josh:Oh, absolutely.

Noah:So they know.

Josh:You can't have a god-slaying needle.

Tanner:Do they know what we're after?

Josh:No!

Josh:No, they know you have a god-slaying needle, they know where you are, and they know how strong you are.

Jorge:Right after he said that they know where we are the first time, Lev was already starting to pack up his stuff very calmly.

Mike:Thank you.

Jorge:But he's like, oh, yeah.

Jorge:When did you tell them, by the way?

Josh:Oh, we just watched it.

Jorge:Oh, okay.

Noah:We got to start running, guys.

Jorge:Yeah, let's go.

Jorge:Let's go.

Jorge:Nice chatting with you.

Jorge:No, I'm okay.

Josh:Of course, I enjoyed it.

Josh:If you want to sit, like, you know, spend some time chatting, you're not often going to get a chance to talk to someone like me.

Josh:You sure you're missing out on that?

Noah:Can we take that talk to all of all thing to go as like a little coin or something to use later?

Jorge:You said we could do it as the boon, right?

Josh:Yeah, if you decide you want to talk, you just think about it.

Noah:Awesome.

Jorge:OK.

Noah:Thanks.

Noah:We got to run.

Jorge:Is there any way we could bring this orb with us?

Josh:No.

Josh:Especially not in the limited time you have right now if you're going to start running to try and figure out how to... No.

Jorge:Can it fit into a portable hole?

Josh:As I said last time, it is a star.

Josh:You are not going to be able to put a star in your portable home.

Mike:DiveX will kindly request Levmir to get in the portable and be like, what do you mean?

Mike:We can't have a star in the portable.

Noah:We gotta go.

Jorge:Let's go.

Mike:Yeah.

Noah:John's already at the door.

Jorge:What?

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Let's go.

Noah:Yeah, we gotta start running, guys.

Josh:But on a good show.

Jorge:This feels like the start of the second movie of John Wick.

Jorge:Right?

Jorge:When he gets excommunicado and we're limping with a dog and we're like, fucking come!

Tanner:And all the phones, right?

Josh:That's it.

Tanner:With all the cell phones.

Jorge:Yeah, yeah.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:Yeah, literally everyone's fucking scrying divine fucking head beam is just blah blah blah blah.

Noah:This conversation is all happening as we're running.

Jorge:Well, we do have SeRaan's thing, so they might not be able to see us easily.

Mike:They have a god-killing needle and they're in a rest?

Mike:Like... Well... Where's my...

Josh:That's fine.

Jorge:But they know the location, so we want to get away from the location.

Jorge:Yes, yes.

Josh:So, as you're running, Damien will have lowered the bridge and opened the gates, and if you want to continue further into Oresk, you may do so.

Josh:And Superlix says, is that for me?

Jorge:Don't trust other people.

Jorge:Goodbye.

Jorge:No, no, you do what you want.

Jorge:I trust you.

Josh:Sure.

Mike:Okay, so I'm looking at the map of the Occident.

Mike:We are... We're on that little peninsula south of Sarengrad, if I recall correctly.

Josh:I believe that's correct.

Mike:With the two dots.

Noah:Mm hmm.

Josh:That sounds correct.

Jorge:Since I'm now level 17...

Mike:Where has...

Jorge:I'm going to activate my bat's blessing and just have bat wings out because I can have them.

Jorge:It's actually called dragon's blessing, but because I switched characters, it's bat blessing.

Jorge:I'm just going to have my wings out.

Josh:What?

Mike:Where?

Josh:Yes, you are correct.

Josh:You are on that peninsula south of Sarengrad with the two dots.

Josh:The dot in the top left is the current name prison outpost.

Josh:That's also where Lev would be most familiar is where his cabal or his former cabal is based and is likely where the entrance to Knox from the top is.

Josh:The other dot, the eastern dot, is where you would understand

Josh:RC9, the dragon's lair thing that you saw in the other world to be.

Mike:Okay.

Jorge:Hey, quick question.

Jorge:The guy with blood, did I recognize him as the head of the... We probably should not exit near there.

Josh:That is Ezrik Oraskalka, the head of the Oraskalka Cabal.

Mike:Well...

Josh:So you would know that your exit is going to be the bottom left of that peninsula, jetting up against the mountains.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:So we need to move.

Noah:Yeah.

Tanner:Josh, I have a question.

Tanner:It's mildly meta.

Josh:Sure.

Tanner:There is an individual that was very lightly fleshed out in my backstory by the name of Aurel.

Josh:Oh gosh.

Tanner:I don't know if he ever really made it into existence, but theoretically...

Tanner:He was relegated by the military to a less populous area.

Josh:I have no idea who you're talking about, but I am absolutely happy to do that, sure.

Josh:This is the first time that somebody has said, yeah, it's in my backstory.

Josh:But I'm like, yeah, no, that's fine.

Josh:I'll take it.

Josh:Do you want Orel to be nearby, in some smaller town?

Jorge:That's fucking awesome.

Tanner:Somewhere, like...

Tanner:Yeah, like if there's a small town, like probably not on this peninsula, but... Mm-hmm.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Yeah, you'd have to go south if you wanted to go to, like, less populated but still populated areas, um, further away from Serengrad, closer to Kirov, uh, but you could do that, I will, that's fine.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Tanner:Essentially, I'm seeking asylum.

Josh:Yeah, sure.

Jorge:As we're also moving, I can do it in three actions.

Jorge:I'm disguising that.

Josh:Okay, so you guys are running down the lava bridge and towards the exit.

Josh:Uh, levels just touching you up.

Jorge:And by the time we get there, we look like just some Oreskian soldiers.

Josh:Yeah, sure, absolutely.

Josh:Um, okay, roll a deception check for your disguise kit.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:50.

Josh:Okay, you at this point are practiced in quick disguising, and you just got an improvement from the Forge, so I will give it to you.

Josh:You think you're pretty well disguised at this point.

Josh:You still look like people, but if anything, you look like maybe very off relatives from who you are.

Josh:Nobody would, you think at first glance, think that you are who you are.

Josh:Okay, you head down the lava bridge.

Josh:It's not particularly far from this point before you get to the mouth of a cave that leads further out into the Oreskian wilds.

Tanner:you

Josh:It is freezing, but none of you care because you all have thermal gear.

Josh:It was already tiring just to run this much, and you haven't even gone anywhere.

Josh:You know that that's the imposition of...

Josh:the nexus of decay that encompasses all of ORS.

Josh:But for now, you're all right.

Josh:Can I get a perception check as you guys emerge out into the snow here?

Tanner:Ooh, that's me.

Josh:Excuse me.

Tanner:I guess I have a new perception mod.

Jorge:What's the... Is it nighttime?

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:Yeah, because you guys have just started sleeping, so it would be that time.

Jorge:So I can make a check because I have darkvision.

Mike:I don't think we should either.

Josh:Oh, do you have, do you have darkvision?

Tanner:I get 46.

Tanner:Who?

Noah:you

Josh:Uh, the person making the perception check.

Tanner:Oh, I have whatever the middle, the, like, step down is.

Josh:Uh, okay, are you lighting the area as you emerge?

Jorge:Low light.

Josh:Do you guys have like a torch?

Tanner:Mmm, I don't think we should.

Jorge:I rolled a 44, and I would motion away his lights.

Josh:Sounds good.

Jorge:I have pure darkvision, so 44.

Josh:All right.

Josh:As you emerge out into the open space, you find yourselves at where the mountain kind of juts out.

Josh:It's still hilly.

Josh:You still have to descend downwards from where you want to get to the actual ground, but it has clearly been snowing here for an extended period of time, and it has not gotten warm enough for any of that snow to melt.

Josh:So you come up to the mouth of a cave, and you take a step out, and you immediately sink like two feet down into the snow.

Josh:Which is a problem for a few reasons.

Josh:First of all, if you're planning on traversing on foot, you will both leave a trail as you do so, and also it will be hard to walk through the snow.

Jorge:Everyone get in the orb.

Josh:But you come out... Okay.

Noah:Yeah.

Noah:Chip.

Jorge:I'm going to hold the orb and with my bat wings, fly.

Josh:Okay, sure.

Josh:So all of you are hopping in the orb.

Josh:You're chucking that in your pocket, and then you're flying just south.

Jorge:Where was I told this guy is?

Jorge:That's where I'm going.

Josh:Would you have pointed him in the direction of... Who is this, by the way?

Tanner:No, so Aurel served as a medic with Henrik in the same unit or whatever.

Josh:Is this a relative of Henrik's?

Josh:Is this...

Tanner:But he was seriously injured and discharged and was kind of just relegated to light duty somewhere less important.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Sure.

Josh:So you can point him.

Josh:Do you have the maps open?

Josh:If I describe where you're pointing him, will you guys be able to know where it is?

Jorge:And yeah, can you share the map at your screen?

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:you.

Josh:One second.

Josh:Where is that?

Josh:Can you see?

Jorge:Does DiveX have Expeditious, the thing to make you go faster?

Mike:Uh... Like, Expeditious Retreat?

Jorge:Or Fleet of Foot, maybe.

Jorge:Maybe it's Fleet of Footstep, whatever.

Mike:Um... I'm maybe not prepared.

Josh:Can you see my screen?

Tanner:yeah or l-o-r-e-l

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:Okay, so you guys emerged here.

Jorge:It's loading, yes.

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:This is Carnier.

Josh:This is Dragon's Lair.

Josh:This would be Kovograd, which is where Orrel would have retired to.

Josh:It's not like a town.

Josh:It's like a mid-sized city, but it's definitely much smaller than the population of Sarengrad or Kirov.

Jorge:Where is the Umbral Keep?

Josh:The artifact is over here.

Jorge:OK.

Noah:Wait, and where's the artifact?

Jorge:And then where's Sparrows?

Jorge:Oh, yeah.

Josh:The sparrows are headquartered up here.

Jorge:Should we pass by the artifact?

Noah:I think if we can hit it, we should.

Noah:I think if we have the chance, because I don't think we're going to get it again, we should try and hit the artifact.

Tanner:It's risky, but it could be worth it.

Jorge:All right, we go that way.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:boy stephens.

Tanner:There's probably something there in this version of the world.

Tanner:I find it unlikely that they're unaware of it and it's just sitting there.

Jorge:Oh, let's not do it now then.

Jorge:Yeah, honestly, probably not worth.

Noah:Thank you.

Jorge:We can hit it later.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Should we go to your friend or the sparrows?

Tanner:I mean, my plan was to go to the Sparrows, but if we feel like we want to go somewhere less expected first, you know, and try to regain some of our element of surprise, or at least less obviousness, I think Aurel would hide us.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Yeah, we may want to go to the sparrows just because, no offense, your friend's going to get brutally tortured and murdered.

Noah:I mean, do we think that it depends on what we think.

Noah:Do we think that they're going to immediately go on the offensive, assuming we're going on defensive and try and hunt us?

Noah:Because if so, it might be good to strike first and strike hard if they think.

Tanner:Very possible, very possible, yeah.

Tanner:My one thought, and I agree with you, my one thought is that our path to the sparrows is probably more dangerous than our path to him.

Jorge:Is your friend a sparrow?

Tanner:I don't think so.

Josh:It's up to you.

Jorge:Do we... So, Lev has killed a lot of people across Oresk.

Jorge:Do I know of any other sparrow headquarters that isn't the main one that might be able to smuggle us across?

Josh:No, I mean, especially because you specifically do not integrate with the rest of the sparrows.

Josh:That is the whole point of your, like, splinter cell, effectively.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Do I know where Enzo is?

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:You would know that Enzo had received a different mission around the time that you ended up starting to work with Desmond.

Jorge:So where are we going?

Tanner:With the artifact?

Josh:Oh, Desmond!

Josh:I forgot to put him in the TV thing.

Josh:He was there.

Josh:Where are you going?

Noah:I still would like to at least try and swing by the artifact, but I understand if I'm overruled.

Noah:Even if we swing by and say, oh, there's clearly something there.

Jorge:I say no artifact.

Jorge:But you say artifact, what do you say, Henrik?

Mike:I say Artifacts.

Mike:They know where we're at.

Jorge:Yes or no for artifact?

Jorge:By the way, I'm just getting distance right now.

Jorge:I figured I could fly elsewhere, but I'm just getting distance from there.

Josh:That's fine.

Tanner:I say no artifact.

Tanner:I think that it's somewhere that we are currently close to and somewhere that is likely to have presence.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:I say we swing by and hit it later.

Tanner:Yeah, so I guess we just...

Noah:I'm just assuming there will be no later.

Noah:Anything we do is like a point of no return.

Tanner:I guess we rush Sarengrad and try to get there before they can mount too much of a resistance and try to... I mean, they're like... They're underbelly there.

Jorge:Well, the Sparrows are near Sarengrad, right?

Josh:The sparrows are headquartered in Sarenkrad.

Jorge:Yeah, so I guess we go there.

Jorge:Let's do it.

Tanner:Yeah.

Mike:So, uh, Josh, uh, the lab that Divex worked out of was in Serengrad?

Jorge:No, he's not.

Josh:No, it was in Kirov.

Mike:Fuck.

Josh:Other side of the country.

Josh:You were in the capital.

Mike:Um, do you guys want to go to Kirov?

Mike:We have no reason to go to Kirov.

Noah:I hope.

Jorge:But I do have on my hit list the...

Jorge:president of or the czar of the country so comment on yes great two to two slip a coin

Josh:Commandant?

Josh:The Commandant.

Mike:Oh, okay.

Mike:Yeah, we'll get him on the way out.

Mike:Alright.

Mike:I say Artifact and Sarengrad, but I think it's... Is it 2-2?

Noah:Yeah.

Noah:So do we just flip a coin?

Mike:Well, actually, how about Schism?

Mike:Do you want to see the Artifact?

Josh:I think it's probably safer if I don't vote here.

Noah:Sauron's gone.

Mike:SeRaan, do you want to see the Artifact?

Josh:Shran's gone.

Jorge:The broker took him back.

Noah:This motherfucker.

Tanner:Hmm.

Jorge:Oh, no.

Noah:Okay.

Jorge:That means they can find us now.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:We need to go to Serengrad.

Jorge:We need to go to where these sparrows are.

Jorge:They might be able to help us.

Noah:I'm going to flip a coin.

Noah:On a one, we hit the artifact.

Noah:On a two, we don't hit the artifact.

Jorge:They know where we are.

Mike:Do we still have that sentient cauldron?

Jorge:We should not be going to this artifact.

Mike:Do they have a vote?

Noah:That was hit the artifact.

Josh:So you just got a one.

Josh:What is that?

Jorge:What?

Jorge:Oh, we did a great... They can scry on us.

Mike:They...

Jorge:Why are we going to the artifact?

Noah:We are safe nowhere because we can flip realities with the artifact.

Tanner:I guess approach the artifact and we can make a judgment call once you can see it.

Jorge:Fine.

Jorge:Alright.

Noah:At least if there's like a whole setup going on, then I'm totally cool dipping out.

Noah:But if it's just like a thing in the middle of nowhere.

Jorge:Can any of you guys send messages?

Tanner:Like magically?

Jorge:Yeah.

Tanner:No.

Mike:Yeah, to 30 feet.

Tanner:I hit stuff and heal stuff.

Tanner:With my hands.

Josh:Like with an envelope?

Tanner:With my hands.

Noah:Possibly.

Jorge:You can't upcast that?

Mike:So if I upcast it, then we don't need to have the same language.

Josh:I guess not bad.

Noah:I can cast Animal Messenger.

Tanner:you you

Noah:I think that's the best I got.

Jorge:I can't, too.

Jorge:But... Alright, well... Guess we're going to the artifact.

Josh:Davex, it is unclear to you if you'd be able to play Shift out of Oresk.

Mike:I can make an earthquake.

Mike:We could just... We could just plane shift and fucking hang out with Hashmon's corpse or whatever.

Noah:you

Mike:Yeah, to Divex, not to them.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:They trust him.

Josh:I will say, I think Divex is pretty confident that if you needed to Plane Shift, he could Plane Shift you to Udacil, to the Realm of Decay.

Tanner:I do trust her.

Josh:I don't think he thinks he could go anywhere else.

Mike:I can bring us to hell if you guys want.

Jorge:Could we go... Could we... Um... Hang out in the cognitive?

Tanner:It's my creator.

Jorge:Would that... Divex, would that help us scry on them?

Jorge:Would that reduce their scarring?

Mike:But Divex... No?

Josh:I guess without a rule, the question I would pose to Divex is, do you think the Oreskians have any knowledge of the cognitive realm?

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:That's as far as I will go with that line of questioning.

Josh:You can figure out if you think it's safe to hide in the cognitive realm or not.

Mike:So Divex can send a message.

Mike:Who do we want to talk to?

Jorge:the broker, to see if he could give us SeRaan back.

Mike:All right.

Mike:I imagine the broker has a high save, so I guess we'll see.

Josh:He has to make a save?

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:This is the crystal ball we have.

Mike:You can scry and communicate telepathically with the target.

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:Oh, awesome.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:All right, sure.

Mike:I have two uses today, so if he doesn't pick up, we've got another call.

Josh:One second.

Josh:What kind of save or what kind of roll are you making?

Mike:It's 10 minutes frequency types per day.

Mike:Cast a DC 33.

Mike:Oh no, this is the upper crystal ball.

Mike:Scrying is DC 39 and gives you the benefit of telepathy.

Mike:So it's a scrying spell.

Josh:And you have to make a... He has to make a will save against DC39?

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:One second.

Josh:I just need to figure out his modifier.

Jorge:Well, good thing he's from 5E, so he can't.

Josh:Give me a second.

Josh:I have to translate some things.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Is that DC... Is that DC your wizard, DC?

Mike:Good thing.

Mike:DC 39 is impossible.

Mike:No, it's the balls DC.

Josh:It's the balls, DC.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:One second.

Josh:I have a stat buff.

Josh:My brows.

Josh:They're frozen.

Josh:Please.

Jorge:I wonder if the guy took SeRaan, the bifurcated man, or if the broker recalled him.

Jorge:I have a feeling the broker recalled him.

Noah:I think so too.

Jorge:But... I'm a fucking bitch.

Josh:You don't know the circumstances.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:I do know the circumstances, because he got the exact scoop on him.

Mike:We literally watched him watch us on the Jumbotron being like, we got the needle.

Jorge:Yeah.

Tanner:But you already would have known that through SeRaan anyway, right?

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:Well, he knows the heat that's on us now.

Noah:you

Mike:He's like, yeah.

Josh:Mike, can you do me a favor and roll a d20 and add 41 to it, please?

Jorge:Biscuit of one.

Tanner:You got a two.

Josh:That's crazy!

Mike:So close.

Josh:Unfortunately, he succeeds.

Josh:You can use a hero point.

Mike:Then make him rear.

Josh:You actually can't.

Josh:No, it's on his... You can try again if you like.

Jorge:You can use it twice.

Jorge:You can do it twice today, though.

Mike:Do we want to?

Noah:Gizm, can you contact Sauron?

Josh:Probably, yeah.

Noah:Can you ask what the fuck?

Jorge:Can you?

Josh:Sure.

Josh:Is that what you actually want me to say?

Jorge:No.

Noah:No.

Jorge:If you could pipe me through, that'd be great.

Josh:Okay, sure.

Josh:There's a little bit where there's like, beep, beep, beep, beep.

Josh:And then you hear on the other end, SeRaan will come through and say, oh, hey, sorry about that.

Jorge:Hey, why'd you leave?

Josh:I always recall.

Jorge:Would you mind asking the broker why he recalled you?

Josh:Oh, yeah, no, that's easy.

Josh:But you guys made a really big splash.

Josh:And apparently it wasn't just you guys in the dossier.

Josh:Because you are working with him.

Mike:Oh.

Noah:Can we get this dossier?

Jorge:Oh.

Noah:Everybody else got it.

Jorge:uh okay um do you have any tips on maybe we should all group up you know that way we can protect get all protected from scribes

Josh:I don't know.

Noah:Wait, SeRaan, what's in the dossier?

Josh:We didn't get it.

Josh:I just know that he called me back because apparently he got two immediate scrys on his location.

Mike:They're in red it is.

Josh:Sure, do you have the ability to teleport back to Liara?

Noah:Boo.

Jorge:You mind putting the broker on?

Mike:Not right now.

Mike:But we're working on it.

Josh:I mean, if you just become incorporeal like I do.

Josh:Sure.

Josh:After a second, you do hear the broker come through.

Josh:Yeah.

Jorge:Yeah, so we look like we got lit up by the narrative, huh?

Josh:Yeah.

Jorge:What should we do now?

Josh:Hide.

Jorge:We're still going to kill that man and get you, or get the device.

Jorge:We don't know if we kill him.

Josh:That's fine.

Josh:Do they know where you are currently?

Jorge:I hope not.

Jorge:I'm flying.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:We were kind of relying on the anti-scrying thing from Saran.

Jorge:Do you have any tips on us getting that heat off us?

Josh:Well, there are items that you could find that reduce the chance of Scry more protecting from it.

Josh:Or if you find a big enough hunk of metal...

Josh:or magic energy, something that could disrupt it.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:Also, to clarify, one second, let me reread, because my understanding of the spell is that it does not tell you the location of somebody.

Josh:Yeah, okay, so, to clarify, scrying will let them see your, like, the area around you.

Josh:It does not give coordinates.

Jorge:Nope.

Jorge:That's good to know.

Josh:Yeah, so if you hide somewhere that you think is nondescript enough, even if you get scryed on, they'll know your current state, but they don't necessarily know where you're located.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:If you are, for instance, in the middle of the plaza of Saragrad, and they scry on you, and they see the location, it's pretty obvious.

Josh:But just to clarify there, it's not an instant, there they are, and they can appear on your location.

Jorge:But if you're flying in, I don't know, low tree level in a forest, probably hard to pin down.

Josh:Probably, yeah.

Josh:But it at least tells them that you have left the cave and are on the move, if that happens.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:I'm terribly sorry, one second.

Josh:Sorry.

Jorge:Yes.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:Do you know of any items or things that

Jorge:Off the top of your head.

Josh:Don't you have the crafting person?

Jorge:Batch is through.

Noah:Bye.

Josh:I know things that would work using the laws of physics that I'm aware of.

Jorge:Oh.

Jorge:OK, cool.

Josh:Unfortunately, it's differently here.

Jorge:Makes sense.

Jorge:OK, well, if you come across anything or you know anyone that knows anything, please, batch is through.

Josh:It is it is safe to talk to me on this line, but only if you trust.

Josh:And he doesn't he doesn't finish that sentence there.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:All right, well, stay on your side, friend.

Josh:Good luck.

Josh:Don't die.

Jorge:I really don't want them to get a hand on this thing, you know?

Josh:For my own sake, who is currently holding onto the pin?

Josh:Where is it?

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Where is it?

Noah:In my bag of holding.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Alright, so you are flying through the air, three of you are in an orb, one of you is a bat, kind of, just the wings.

Mike:unfortunately it's full divex in it can divex open the portable hole in the orb i think that makes sense all right divex will open the portable i'll be like

Josh:You are beelining towards Sarengrad.

Noah:As this is happening, I think we should put the pin in Divex's shadow, now that I've said that.

Noah:Divex!

Tanner:uh we're gonna lose film

Jorge:All right.

Josh:Yeah, you can.

Jorge:Take out enough pins.

Noah:We have a God killing sin.

Mike:fine, and then he'll just barf out half of the clocks.

Josh:So to clarify, just in case it's important, the needle has a bulk of one.

Josh:So, you know, do with that as you will.

Mike:That still means I need to barf out a hundred clocks to fit it.

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:This is just the only storage space we have that can't get detached from us.

Josh:So long as it's alive.

Mike:True.

Mike:well i mean like the clock the clocks are important too but we'll keep them you know terrifying

Noah:If we really need it, I can build the needle into my arm, but historically speaking, my arm has been ripped off once.

Tanner:In multiple timelines.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Also, you got killed before, so... This one.

Josh:That's true of most living people.

Tanner:Well, that wasn't him.

Noah:Yeah, I've never died.

Noah:Not Henrik.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:I have.

Tanner:Not for me.

Josh:I said most.

Jorge:Alright.

Noah:I mean, I can put it in my arm or you can put it in the shadow.

Jorge:So...

Jorge:So they can watch us as we go.

Noah:There's...

Jorge:You guys still think we should go through these artifacts?

Jorge:I think that's a horrible idea.

Jorge:What if they see it in the background and they go, ah, I know where that is.

Mike:No, I think we need to speed up whatever we're doing here.

Noah:Okay, Sarengrad.

Mike:And what we're doing here... No, not artifact.

Jorge:OK, so artifact.

Mike:Serengrit.

Mike:Immediate Serengrit.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:Cool.

Noah:Wait, are we putting the needle in Dive X's shadow?

Josh:Okay.

Josh:All right.

Noah:Or am I building it?

Jorge:Yes.

Mike:Yeah.

Noah:It's in the shadow.

Noah:That's where the needle of god killing is.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:All right.

Josh:Put the needle in the shadow.

Josh:You guys are doing this inside of the orb while Lev is just beelining north towards where you know Sarengrad to be.

Josh:Can I get...

Jorge:Did we get an arrest?

Jorge:Did we get the effects of arrest or no?

Jorge:OK.

Noah:Good.

Josh:Can I get... Well, first of all, are you being stealthy?

Jorge:I'd like to be.

Josh:And then roll a stealth check.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:34.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:You are flying, like, close to the tree lines as best you can.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Okay, can you do me a favor and make a will save, please?

Jorge:OK.

Tanner:I don't know what that would be for.

Jorge:Best scry.

Jorge:Wait a second.

Jorge:I'm trying to see what my will save is thing.

Jorge:Greater resolve.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:I'm going to reroll this.

Jorge:Isn't the mental effect, by the way?

Josh:This is a concentrate manipulate scrying effect.

Jorge:I'm going to reroll the hero point.

Josh:It's present, which I think I just have to tell you.

Jorge:44, and I have greater resolve.

Josh:I'm just going to pull a little Satan foundry to see if it gives me anything.

Tanner:Thank you.

Jorge:So if I roll a crit failure, I get a failure instead.

Jorge:Yeah, I thought I had something else too, but whatever.

Jorge:Maybe they'll support.

Jorge:Yeah, same.

Josh:for you.

Jorge:It's loading in.

Josh:Oh, you have resolve and greater resolve.

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:So if you get resolve, with just resolve, if it's a success, it's a crit success, and with greater resolve, if it's a crit failure, it's a failure instead.

Josh:You have both, which is very handy.

Jorge:Cool.

Josh:Because in this particular instance, that actually does raise it up to a critical success.

Josh:Which is interesting, because you are immune to scrying for the next week.

Josh:And in addition, you gain a glimpse of the person who casts Scrying and learn their rough distance and direction from you.

Tanner:Ooh.

Jorge:Fuck yeah.

Tanner:Ooh.

Jorge:My eyes fill with blood.

Jorge:As Knox blesses my eyes.

Josh:That is crazy.

Josh:Okay, so an arcane eye appears above your head, you look at it, blood running down your face, and the eye inverts, like it turns inside out, and you find your own vision as you're flying, pushed in the direction that you're currently flying.

Tanner:Give him a glimpse.

Josh:I don't know how to talk distances.

Josh:It's towards Sarengrad.

Josh:It's the direction and the distance of where you know Sarengrad to be.

Jorge:Hmm.

Josh:Except perhaps maybe a little south.

Josh:Not south, like down, altitude-wise, from where you are.

Jorge:Hmm.

Josh:You actually saw...

Josh:this room projected on the tv earlier uh you are looking at this elven woman that you know to be the slips here uh one of kharkov's lieutenants um so you

Josh:You can look around, roll a perception check if you like, just because you get a view into this room.

Josh:There isn't a lot to learn here, just like there isn't a lot in general to learn from scrying, but I will give you a perception check to see if there's anything that stands out to you.

Jorge:don't worry about it it's 29

Tanner:On Levmir.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:I mean, you saw this room from the thing.

Josh:You know now that Kharkov has a vested interest in figuring out where you guys are.

Josh:But it seems that this spell, and now for the next week, any scrying clairvoyant spells from the slips here will just not work on you.

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:On Lefmere specifically.

Jorge:I like that they got this dossier, and they're like, hey, just so you know, those fucking rats that you ran into before, they leveled up.

Jorge:Oh, and there's a new guy.

Jorge:I think you know him.

Jorge:He's credited with a lot of hits, and then they look to see him, and then he looks back at them.

Josh:Since you entered the orb, it takes 10 minutes to cast Scrying, and you are not the first person they tried to Scry, so we're going to say it's been a half hour.

Tanner:How much time has passed since we entered the orb?

Tanner:Are Divex and Dawn, are you guys in need of hit points?

Mike:Um...

Noah:I think I'm full after the last fight.

Jorge:All of our allies just got put on blast.

Jorge:It's a good thing we didn't have that many allies.

Josh:Thank you.

Tanner:Just Mars.

Noah:Yes.

Noah:I think we do have an opportunity to do a little bit of misdirection right now.

Noah:We do have the opportunity to speak to all of Althane.

Noah:We can do whatever with that, but also we could say something like, Crystal Point Lattice, I speak directly to you.

Noah:We are coming, or something.

Noah:Just to throw them off.

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

Mike:Give us your power.

Tanner:Hmm.

Tanner:Well, now what do we want to say to all of Ulfheim?

Jorge:I think that might... Well, I don't know.

Jorge:We're about to... I don't know.

Jorge:Dropping some ideas.

Jorge:We're about to be like, hey, Althane, we're all going to ascend, and the 13th realm will try to strike you down, but don't worry.

Jorge:The evil guy is going to protect you as we try to kill him.

Noah:No, I think we use it as like a distraction when we need to throw the entire planet into chaos.

Jorge:I heard there is a magic word that makes a man poop himself.

Jorge:Divex, you have to learn this word and then we say it.

Noah:The brown.

Josh:power word crap.

Noah:Power word poop.

Noah:And then we just use it for all of our things.

Mike:Wait, hold on.

Mike:Am I legendary in occultism yet?

Mike:I am.

Mike:No, no.

Josh:That means you have power word crap.

Mike:I have... Oh, no.

Jorge:Guys, I have shameless requests.

Mike:This has a range.

Jorge:I could just shameless request all of Althane to give me five gold pieces.

Mike:That's annoying.

Jorge:And by law of large numbers, we're going to have an empire.

Mike:Yeah, you could shameless request.

Noah:Okay.

Mike:Depending on how Josh rules this, I could frighten the entire planet.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:There's a feat.

Josh:I'll let you know.

Jorge:You need to get...

Josh:Feet lets you do that.

Josh:Of course.

Mike:Disturbing knowledge.

Mike:It's a two-action feat for people that are master in occultism.

Mike:You just utter dark truths of the world and it scares people.

Tanner:Wait, does anyone have scare to death?

Jorge:What about a... Marzo does.

Mike:And if you...

Jorge:We just give Marzo the mic and he's like... It'd probably be like 95.

Mike:Boo!

Mike:And you give, like, 90% of the planet heart attacks?

Mike:Boo!

Josh:Yeah, I will.

Tanner:No more commoners.

Josh:Divex absolutely could distribute some disturbing knowledge to the entirety of all fame.

Tanner:Yeah, but that's not going to have much of a lasting effect.

Tanner:I mean, they'll get over it, right?

Tanner:I don't.

Mike:Well, also, why do we want to scare, like, innocent people in, like, a lore race?

Noah:I think we gave it for like, we need mass chaos.

Tanner:I don't.

Mike:Everyone, get on a table three feet high and jump in exactly 15 seconds.

Mike:It just implodes.

Jorge:I think we should use it to talk to the people.

Josh:As you are trying to figure out what to do with this boon-ish thing that you've received as part of what is clearly not a good trade, I would like... I need Mr. Batboy to make a perception check.

Mike:We kill the feet with...

Noah:Josh, how long is this all taking as we are fleeing?

Josh:You are about 30 minutes out of the entrance of the cave right now.

Tanner:Hello.

Jorge:40, that one's much better.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:There is something of note.

Josh:You're not scryed on, again, as best you can tell here.

Jorge:Oh no.

Josh:Instead, as you are continuing above the tree line here, heading towards Sarengrad, you know that you're approaching closer to a few things.

Josh:You're heading towards Sarengrad, but in the process, you are flying by the Umperhold, where your cabal is, as well as the Krimje prison outpost, and the mountain range that lays beyond it.

Josh:And as you feel yourself getting closer to that area, just by virtue of geography,

Josh:you note with a 40, the stars above are starting to get brighter, if anything.

Josh:But it's actually more of a contrast thing.

Josh:It's more like the rest of the world is starting to lose saturation.

Josh:It's starting to turn grayscale and become dimmer and darker.

Josh:You're not sure what phenomenon is causing that necessarily, but you feel that as you continue in this direction, the whole world is starting to fade.

Josh:Yes.

Jorge:I grew up kind of in the Umbral Hole.

Jorge:Does this feel like a Nox thing?

Josh:Yes, I think it would not be difficult to attribute darkness to the Thessina of night that is nearby.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:Might be good.

Jorge:The Ultis of Night might help us through.

Mike:Okay.

Tanner:you

Jorge:I keep going.

Jorge:I don't want to get too close to the Cabal, because I know they have a hit on me, but I want to, like...

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Yeah, that's fair.

Josh:You're not trying to confuse it, but you're not necessarily flying out of the phenomenon either, is what you're saying.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:As you continue forward, the effect becomes... Do you communicate this, by the way, to Patriots in the Orb?

Josh:Because they would not notice this.

Jorge:No.

Josh:Okay, absolutely.

Josh:Make a little save for me, please.

Tanner:I don't know if I agree with the title Goddess of Night.

Jorge:I will use my coin.

Jorge:I could throw again.

Jorge:45.

Jorge:Oh, wait.

Jorge:No, I don't get to use it again.

Jorge:That's not how it works.

Josh:Roll a 1 to 2.

Jorge:It was a 12.

Jorge:It's a 1d5.

Jorge:1d2.

Jorge:35, but I have that will thing.

Josh:Okay, so what did you get?

Jorge:Good or will resolve.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So I think what would happen is that the three of you that are currently in the orb would feel this weird sensation in your gut, like the ground underneath you has dropped.

Josh:And that's because the whole orb that you're in, as inertia-heavy as it is, falls.

Josh:I'm trying to figure out how I would... You guys have, like, six seconds.

Josh:You have, like, three actions to react as any of this happens.

Josh:I don't know if there's anything you want to do, but I'm just putting that out there.

Noah:Wait, so we're in the orb and it's falling?

Josh:You're in the room.

Noah:Where are we in relation to the controls?

Josh:Feel the orb just drop.

Josh:Like, near-ish.

Josh:It'd probably be two actions to get to them.

Noah:I will two actions over to the controls, take them and try and haul us up.

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:What?

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:I was about to say make a vehicle handling check, but that's the wrong system.

Josh:We'll just do crafting.

Josh:That's reasonable.

Josh:Absolutely.

Jorge:Luckily, you also have a coin.

Noah:51.

Jorge:Oh, never mind.

Josh:Okay, so one of you, the person who just fell unconscious and is falling out of the sky,

Josh:will be woken up, luckily, as you impact with something very cold and something very flat.

Josh:The rest of you will be saved from this fate due to Dawn, like, just pulling up on the controls as fast as possible.

Josh:So, I need to... Oh, actually, make a fort save, please.

Jorge:I got a 46 and I have Juggernaut.

Josh:And one of the three of you in the orb is welcome to make a perception check if you want to look outside of the orb.

Josh:You don't have to.

Tanner:it's dark so i can't i'm just blind right aren't i

Josh:You can stay in the orb if you like.

Mike:It's not just dark.

Noah:Uh, wait.

Mike:It's advanced darkness.

Josh:It is advanced darkness.

Josh:That is true.

Josh:You are blind.

Noah:I will... Josh, is this all happening, like, back to back to back, or do we have time to... Uh... Oh, no, it's the same day.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:viral sescas.

Noah:Never mind, I don't have this gadget prepared.

Noah:Never mind.

Josh:Unfortunately, this is very soon after your fight in the Forge.

Josh:This is a lot of things all happening one after the other really quickly.

Tanner:Dawn, you got to bring us down.

Noah:Okay, I will just try and slowly bring us straight down.

Josh:It's an interesting...

Josh:experience trying to pilot through nothing, except that you do have one reference point, which is a very faint splotch of color on the ground below you that is where he impacted the ground.

Josh:Fortunately, with that save, Lev, like, it doesn't take the impact with the ground to wake him up, it is just like a split second before he wakes up again and just curls and flips onto his back, and so you don't take any damage from the impact.

Josh:But as you navigate downward...

Josh:There aren't any trees to be seen here.

Josh:It's like you've moved.

Josh:Almost.

Josh:What did you get for the perception?

Josh:Whoever rolled perception?

Josh:Or did nobody roll perception?

Jorge:I rolled a perception.

Jorge:It was a 40.

Josh:Yeah, not you.

Josh:It was one of the three people that you worked.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:Did any of you roll perception?

Tanner:I'm blind.

Noah:I don't think any of us...

Tanner:There's no light.

Tanner:I can't

Josh:Okay.

Mike:Same.

Josh:Absolutely.

Josh:So you guys are just in darkness, floating around.

Josh:There is a pressure from above you.

Josh:This is familiar pressure, actually, because the last time you felt this, you had just entered into this, like, pocket area where Savick had set up shop, effectively.

Josh:It's a very similar emanating... Radiance is the wrong term, but it is the closest I can get here.

Josh:There's no light involved, it's just pressure emanating out from a singular point in front of you that eventually resolves.

Josh:into modes of light above you.

Josh:This is another scene that you guys had seen on the television just a few minutes ago at this point, less than an hour, just enough time for a single syndicated TV show.

Josh:As it resolves, you find that you are standing in this empty, void space, being loomed over by a Giant...

Josh:Bundle of silk is the best way of putting it.

Josh:It is larger than a building as it stretches back and forth, and it very slowly moves.

Josh:You don't feel any wind, but something propels the bits of the silk to push back and forth.

Josh:And it stops.

Josh:And the notes become less.

Josh:And you all hear a question in your head.

Josh:it's not a question from words.

Josh:Nobody has spoken them.

Josh:It is just an intent that is broadcasting outward that you happen to be in the path of.

Josh:And it is, do you need assistance?

Noah:Yes.

Jorge:Yes.

Mike:I left my wallet at home.

Jorge:I kneel.

Josh:The next question follows that is, will you pay?

Josh:If you ask the price you're immediately responded with, will you pay?

Tanner:What's the price?

Jorge:Yeah, what's the price?

Jorge:Shameless request.

Jorge:Does it?

Jorge:I will pay.

Jorge:Can I see my compatriots?

Josh:You can.

Josh:You are all, like, the only points of light, effectively, at this point in the space.

Josh:I mean, they're in an orb.

Josh:I don't know if they've left the orb at this point.

Noah:I think this is the mushroom.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:I will step forward and I will say I will pay.

Tanner:So this is the mushroom?

Jorge:The mushroom?

Josh:It does not look like the mushroom.

Josh:The...

Jorge:When I heard that, I'm appalled.

Jorge:I'm like...

Jorge:Lev lets his fangs out, and he's like, come on.

Josh:I would say the architecture of the buildings here are very similar to what you had seen in Vyre.

Josh:The geography is different.

Tanner:But the threadiness, like the...

Jorge:Oh, no, this is silk.

Jorge:Those are like fibers.

Josh:Yeah, it's like a different... That's my fault for saying two different fibrous materials.

Josh:I don't know how to...

Josh:So, the, like, floss stuff was like cotton candy.

Tanner:so it does not look like the floss like really at all okay then I wouldn't have said anything I just that was Tanner trying to understand

Josh:The image I have in my head is, um, you know, like, very sheer fabric, where if you hold it up, you can see right through it?

Noah:Mm-hmm.

Josh:Um, it's if you had miles and miles of that, like, wrapped around itself in a massive, very slowly flowing mass.

Josh:Um... Yeah, no.

Josh:That is my fault.

Josh:The city that you're in right now looks visually very similar to Vyre.

Josh:It is the same architecture, it's the same stone, it's just shaped differently.

Josh:There are bits that are coming out of the ground, there are bits hanging from the ceiling, but there are bits coming out from the walls as well.

Tanner:Did you say what color it is?

Tanner:The silk?

Josh:The silk is black.

Jorge:This is the queen of darkness.

Josh:Pitch black.

Josh:Roll a religion check for me.

Jorge:I don't know.

Jorge:Can I do an esoteric?

Josh:There is no moniker here that is Queen of Darkness, especially because it's a bundle of silk and does not have gender.

Jorge:All right.

Josh:Roll a religion check for me, though.

Jorge:39.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Like, with the 39 in your religion check, I think that is enough for Lev to be able to piece together what this thing is.

Josh:It is most similar to how stories have described Knox.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:No stories have described Knox as the Lady of Darkness.

Tanner:The queen of darkness.

Jorge:All right, I will color that.

Jorge:Yes, this is Nox.

Tanner:The goddess of the night.

Jorge:The qualities of the knight.

Jorge:The knight queen.

Jorge:All right, I go for it.

Josh:Okay, what are the rest of you doing?

Josh:Are you watching?

Josh:Are you following?

Josh:The question is open.

Mike:Watch.

Noah:Yeah, just going to watch.

Mike:I didn't offer anything.

Mike:It would be weird for me to walk up.

Josh:Okay, so Lev steps forward.

Tanner:you you

Josh:The three of you watch as the silk

Josh:in a very rapid motion, unravels itself, a piece of it, stretches out towards him, and wraps around him, and as soon as he's covered, he's gone.

Josh:I need the three of you to make will saves, please.

Josh:We'll start with that and see how that resolves.

Tanner:Ooh.

Tanner:Hmm.

Noah:I'm sorry.

Jorge:Anark, you have something with will saves, right?

Tanner:Am I wanted?

Tanner:Just against fear.

Tanner:I have bravery, which is resolve, but only against fear.

Jorge:Oh, I thought you also, you didn't have some resolve.

Jorge:You only have Juggernaut.

Josh:Yeah, unfortunately this is not against fear.

Tanner:But I'm wondering if I should reroll with my hero point or if it... I'm going to use a hero point.

Mike:Potency is different than item bonus.

Josh:We are playing that way, yes.

Mike:They're added separately.

Mike:OK.

Josh:They add together.

Josh:They stack.

Tanner:So from expert to mythic is four.

Jorge:Plus four.

Josh:uh no plus six yeah expert master legendary mythic

Tanner:Is it six?

Jorge:Oh, plus six.

Tanner:Because there's expert, master.

Jorge:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tanner:Yeah.

Mike:uh trying to figure out how i'm not gonna die real quick uh

Tanner:Wow.

Jorge:Too bad you guys don't have coins yet.

Jorge:No, it was quiet because he just rolled a 20.

Tanner:Jesus.

Tanner:I got a 38.

Tanner:Brutal.

Tanner:Well, I'm glad, you know.

Noah:I have nothing else to say.

Noah:I have three other characters.

Jorge:At least one person can make it out of this.

Jorge:I got three other characters.

Josh:Yeah, you're fine.

Jorge:It's fine.

Mike:What do we have?

Jorge:You guys aren't going to take an audience with a Thessian?

Jorge:Of course I'm going to do that.

Mike:What do we have?

Noah:No.

Mike:The plus one?

Noah:John cannot do this.

Jorge:We just got put on blast in John Wick.

Mike:The...

Jorge:We need an ally.

Noah:Fundamentally, John can't do this.

Noah:It's okay.

Noah:I rolled a 20.

Josh:Okay, so what did we get for our real saves?

Noah:47 crit.

Tanner:I got a 38.

Tanner:I don't know if Divex knows what he got.

Noah:47.

Josh:what crit 47 crit nice um okay so i don't actually okay i will let diamonds figure out what he got first

Mike:Hold on.

Mike:I don't have anything to re-roll anything.

Mike:None of my gear.

Tanner:You just got to take it then.

Tanner:That's the game.

Jorge:Yeah, I guess you're regretting that hero point on that other thing.

Mike:I think I'm cooked.

Josh:I don't know if it's useful to you guys, but there is only one trait associated with this effect, and it's a cult.

Josh:I don't know if you have anything that keys off of that, but... Okay.

Mike:No.

Jorge:Alright, well...

Mike:That's it.

Tanner:I'm not liking how conscious Knox is.

Noah:I thought he was dead.

Josh:What'd we get?

Josh:So, 47 crit.

Josh:Sorry, 47 crit.

Josh:What'd you get?

Tanner:38 oh so i just regular fail

Josh:Okay, what'd you get?

Mike:Crit fail.

Josh:You got a natural one?

Josh:Crazy.

Josh:The DC is 45.

Jorge:to...

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So, critical success.

Josh:You are unaffected.

Josh:There is a mental strain on witnessing this thing just as it exists.

Josh:And unfortunately, some of you who are subjected to it just cannot handle the strain.

Josh:So, this will be 22d6 mental damage.

Noah:Remember when we did a long shot and it ended with all of us opening a door and looking upon unimaginable horrors?

Tanner:Oh.

Josh:So, for those of you who just regular failed, you are going to take 71 points of mental damage.

Josh:And for those of you that critical failed, you are going to take 142 points of mental damage.

Josh:In addition, you failed, right, Henrik?

Tanner:Yeah, what did you say it was?

Josh:You are 71 points of mental damage, and you are drained 2.

Tanner:I'm sorry.

Tanner:It was 72 or 71.

Tanner:Oh, I can't.

Tanner:I was hoping that would let me take damage.

Tanner:I'm drained too.

Josh:You were drained 2.

Tanner:Sweet.

Josh:You took 71 points of mental damage.

Josh:You die X. You take 142 points of mental damage.

Josh:You are drained 2 and doomed 2.

Tanner:Ooh.

Josh:It's like it increases your doomed condition by 1, but you are already doomed 1.

Josh:So... Because he has death word for the next few hours?

Jorge:But he's only the effects of doomed one now.

Josh:Sure.

Tanner:It might only be like 10 minutes in this game.

Josh:Oh, well then, never mind.

Jorge:Never mind.

Jorge:All right, well.

Tanner:Yeah, it's only 10 minutes in this game.

Jorge:I tried rolling will saves for both Henrik and Divex, because I was curious if you guys had any special things.

Jorge:And I found out I could do it.

Jorge:So I did it.

Josh:What?

Tanner:Alright, well I don't really like you having all that power, but...

Josh:Um... What?

Jorge:It says I did it, so don't worry.

Josh:Oh.

Jorge:In Foundry, I can click on their thing.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:You're all observers.

Josh:You can do whatever you want with each other's characters.

Josh:I trust you guys not to mess stuff up.

Noah:Thank you.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Except for some reason, apply effects to each other.

Josh:I tried giving you permissions and it wasn't allowing it.

Josh:I don't...

Jorge:The one useful thing.

Josh:A little useful thing.

Josh:Either way, would... I don't know if this is a thing that would exist in the setting.

Josh:I don't know if they had these before, like, 2002.

Josh:Would life have ever experienced a sensory deprivation tank?

Josh:Uh... Yeah, sure.

Jorge:Would sitting in a tub of blood be one?

Jorge:Then yeah.

Josh:Um...

Josh:As the one who offered to pay the price here, Lev feels the ground below him fade as he's wrapped by the same silk that Nox is made of.

Josh:And the area around him that was actually quite chilly starts to warm up until it becomes the same temperature he is.

Josh:And there's this piece of bodilessness

Josh:that at some point, he loses the ability to feel where his skin ends and the outside world begins.

Josh:It's just existing in this void, absent of all stimuli.

Josh:And there's no way to measure time like that.

Josh:You don't have an internal clock because there's nothing that's attached to it.

Josh:There's no light, so you could not use one of your 9,000... Right, but it works based off... God, you're going to make me make Knox kill you, is what's going to happen here.

Jorge:I have darkvision.

Jorge:I could see a darkness and dim light, but I... I would not be doing this.

Josh:Imagine you walk up to God and then God takes away your senses and you're like, nah, and you take out a pocket watch.

Josh:What is God supposed to do in that circumstance?

Josh:There's the sense of just oneness or nothingness, however you choose to interpret that.

Josh:And after an indeterminate amount of time passes, you feel, again, this intent emanating out.

Josh:The only one out of the four of you that would have a reference frame for it is Marzo, because he spoke to the Nightmare Heart.

Josh:But unfortunately, that's just not a thing that any of you would have experienced, so you have no reference frame here.

Josh:It's just...

Josh:like vibes sent through the air directly into your head um where you hear in your head what are you willing to pay nope just you

Jorge:Oh, it was asking me.

Tanner:No.

Jorge:I thought they were hearing that.

Jorge:What can you offer me?

Josh:There's a pause, and then you hear another burst of intent.

Josh:Everything.

Jorge:Can you offer my companion's aid in your ever darkness?

Jorge:and destroying of this person from below.

Josh:Roll a society check for me, please.

Jorge:Can I roll an esoteric?

Josh:No.

Josh:You're not... This is attempting to read the emotions of an inscrutable being.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:That's fair.

Tanner:you

Jorge:21.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:There is a...

Josh:Very intense pressure that I think Lev just doesn't have the faculties to interpret.

Jorge:OK.

Josh:You've triggered an emotional response, but I don't think Lev knows what that emotional response is.

Jorge:I'm hoping it's a hatred for the guy below.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Really can't read it.

Josh:It tapers off, and then there's another intent that is...

Josh:protection under the cover of night.

Josh:But, you would need to offer something of your own value.

Josh:For instance, your life.

Mike:Thank you.

Jorge:Is Lev familiar with any deals Nox has made with other Cabal leaders, or how does that work?

Josh:Um, I think the answer would be no.

Josh:Lev would not have been privy if Noxus ever made a deal before with any Kamal leaders.

Josh:Everything.

Jorge:What do you want with my life?

Jorge:I will be your sword.

Jorge:Help me first.

Jorge:Destroy the creature from below, and I will help you.

Josh:There's another burst of intent here.

Jorge:I will usher the Cabal into a new era.

Josh:It's that same, you can't quite get a grip on what it is, but there is a tinge that you do recognize, which is indifference.

Jorge:Ah.

Josh:Knox does not seem to care about the cabal or what it does.

Josh:It is unimportant to its existence.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:God, I wish these thessians were just more descriptive.

Josh:Again, you feel the intent, everything.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:You feel a sudden rush of gravity as senses are returned to you.

Josh:The rest of you watch as it was only for a split second where the silk had wrapped around and then pulled away and retreats back to the bundle floating in the air above.

Josh:Uh...

Josh:Lev now has wrapped around one arm a piece of silk.

Josh:It looks like... At first it looks like a piece of clothing, but proper inspection would note that it is actually fused at certain points to his skin, where it's been wrapped around and almost like silk burned into the skin, and then the skin has grown into it.

Josh:Um...

Josh:Other than that, we feel much the same.

Josh:And the darkness fades, and you find yourself standing in snow in the middle of a forest.

Tanner:Divex looks pretty bad.

Mike:Yeah.

Tanner:My first step would just be to run over and just activate the healing gloves and pump in the healing from the healing gloves.

Tanner:Which is a certain amount that I will find out in a moment.

Tanner:4d6 plus 15.

Tanner:29. yeah

Mike:49.

Mike:Okay.

Jorge:So do I feel any different?

Josh:Roll a religion check.

Jorge:40.

Josh:Feel different is probably a... You feel not much different.

Josh:The silk that is not much different.

Jorge:Docs, most different.

Josh:The silk wrapped around your arm is...

Josh:an ever-present reminder of what you just did.

Josh:You can feel it.

Jorge:I will do that.

Josh:Like, even if you try focusing on other things, it is just there now.

Josh:With a 40, though, I think... I think you should probably summon your sword.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So you have summoned your sword a few times in the presence of others, where normally the veins in your arms burst open, blood flows out and congeals into that of a weapon.

Josh:And something similar occurs here.

Josh:Your veins burst open, but instead of blood coming out, it is this thick, black acorn, almost like tar.

Josh:And as it extends out, the silk on your wrist...

Josh:comes with it and wraps around the blade.

Josh:And you're left with an extension of your arm, a jet black blade with flowing bolts of silk wrapped around it, flowing in the air that move as you move the sword around, leaving almost this trail of the sword where the silk follows behind in another path and traces images through the air.

Tanner:you

Josh:Notably,

Josh:I think Divex is probably the one most likely to notice this, but also the one who's most out of it.

Josh:The flow of magic around you guys is... damn pimp is the best way of putting it.

Josh:It's like looking through a veil.

Jorge:Oh.

Josh:It is kind of shamed a little bit.

Jorge:I guess the deal worked.

Noah:What just happened?

Jorge:I think I made the deal with Nox.

Jorge:We shouldn't be Scrydon anymore.

Josh:So, to clarify, you are all or just Lev, but while you're near Lev as well, you are under the effects of fail of primacy.

Tanner:Did we connect Lev to Beast?

Jorge:We did.

Noah:So, yeah.

Tanner:Did we do that?

Tanner:Oh, boy.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:Very good.

Josh:He's collective and bold.

Noah:That's two out of three.

Noah:Ed's our own car cop.

Noah:Fun.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:uh uh should we fly a little bit further away from the umbrella keep

Noah:I would suggest we take a nap.

Noah:Sure.

Josh:Thank you.

Tanner:Yeah, but now I feel less comfortable if we encounter something than I did before, which I guess being here or there, not much of a difference.

Jorge:I guess we could sleep now.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:All right.

Jorge:I start setting up a tent.

Noah:I am feeling good, so I can take first watch if we need.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:All right.

Tanner:I will, uh... I just, I'm going to treat wounds on Divex and myself.

Josh:You're resting here?

Josh:Sorry, you were saying something.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:It's ten minutes.

Tanner:There we go.

Jorge:all right gentlemen shall we watch the watch i always took first watch before this whole thing i don't know so i'll sleep

Noah:I can take first watch if we need.

Josh:Okay, done.

Tanner:62 to divex, by the way.

Josh:Perception check.

Noah:Yeah.

Noah:Yeah, I'm super good at those.

Noah:Oh, my perception is so high now.

Noah:Wow.

Mike:Yay.

Noah:I'm going to use one of my two hero points.

Josh:Okay.

Noah:So it makes it go up to mythic proficiency?

Josh:Yes, so whatever you had before, up to 10.

Josh:So add another 6.

Noah:I am an expert in this.

Noah:Nice.

Noah:Wow, that's neat.

Noah:34.

Josh:Roll the d50 for me, please.

Noah:50.

Noah:11.

Josh:Yes, 5-0.

Noah:It's all the men here.

Josh:okay um you're sitting watch and you feel a weight on your shoulder no i'm joking um yeah you uh

Mike:Thank you.

Jorge:That'd be so fucking sad.

Josh:You sit watch.

Josh:You are definitely on edge.

Josh:This has been a rapid series of events all at once, so it's probably difficult for Don to stay in one place and to keep looking around, but he manages it for the three hours that his watch is.

Josh:And it is cold.

Josh:It is dark.

Josh:Nothing disturbs you in this time.

Josh:Who's taking the next watch?

Jorge:I could take a watch.

Josh:I'm going to need two more throughout the night.

Josh:Okay.

Jorge:I can do one more.

Josh:Roll a perception check.

Jorge:I'll put out any fire that we needed for surveillance.

Jorge:I see nothing.

Josh:Roll a D50 for me, please.

Jorge:I'm so sorry, gentlemen.

Noah:So.

Jorge:27.

Josh:And what did you get for your perception check?

Jorge:I got a fumble 28.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:You take over for Dawn's watch.

Josh:I think you're... I was about to say you're more comfortable, but that's not true.

Josh:Dawn spent a bunch of time trudging through the snow here.

Josh:You are all, at this point, comfortable.

Josh:Yes.

Tanner:Uh, we only need to actually sleep for two hours, right?

Josh:Yes.

Tanner:So, I can't see, but could I also have been, like, keeping an ear out now that I'm awake?

Josh:Yeah, that's fine.

Josh:Yeah, you guys need to rest for eight hours, but you only need to be asleep for two of those eight hours.

Jorge:Don't worry, Henrik.

Josh:One second.

Jorge:I'll turn off the fire.

Jorge:You don't need to bother.

Jorge:I'll keep Anaïs out.

Tanner:Oh, I made it a private role.

Tanner:Whoops.

Josh:I can reveal it as soon as I find whichever tab I have found.

Tanner:Oh, me as well.

Josh:Oh, that's a good one.

Josh:okay so one very bad role one very good role

Tanner:I'll do that in here.

Tanner:I feel like it makes more sense to do it here.

Tanner:Oh, that's fascinating.

Noah:Hmm.

Tanner:50.

Josh:It's good that... Unfortunately, Henrik can't see anything, but he's very good at hearing when there's no stimulus with his eyes.

Jorge:I'm looking at my hat.

Josh:So, Lev, you know, he's got darkvision.

Josh:He doesn't need the fire.

Josh:He's looking around.

Josh:He sees... He sees nothing.

Josh:But... Henrik, you hear...

Josh:Very faintly.

Josh:Something that you're probably just attuned to from the years you spent in Oresk.

Josh:It is the sound of very faintly crunching snow.

Josh:As if something has walked by.

Josh:and compressed the snow just a little bit.

Josh:It doesn't seem like it's enough to have pushed all the way down, because the snow here is like two to three feet deep.

Josh:You would have heard it if it went all the way down.

Josh:So it's clearly something that is attempting to be quiet.

Josh:But you do make note of it.

Josh:And you can point it out to Liv, if you like.

Tanner:Yeah, well, through the dude.

Josh:Because it...

Tanner:Schism.

Tanner:Lev, I hear something.

Tanner:It's sneaking around.

Josh:you can pinpoint it in the direction that it currently is, which is good, because it would have gone unnoticed otherwise.

Josh:Very faintly, in the distance, through the darkness, at the edge of what you can even see left, there is almost floating just above the snow a...

Josh:It's humanoid.

Josh:It's shiny.

Josh:It's got this kind of reflective quality that you can see little bits of starlight bouncing off of it.

Josh:It is... maybe... eight feet tall?

Josh:It looks heavy.

Josh:You don't understand how this isn't pressing down the snow, but instead walking across.

Josh:Its movements are very deliberate, where you see one leg comes up, moves forward, presses down.

Josh:Comes up, moves forward, presses down.

Josh:It's...

Josh:Honestly, it looks like it shares most similarities physically with what you know of the broker of the bits you've seen, like metal exterior, just on a larger Scale.

Josh:But what's most notable is floating around where the head would be, it's just kind of this cylinder, is a...

Josh:a ghost, like a collection of very faintly glowing green light that seems to be tethered to it by a wisp, and then the cloud just kind of pulls up off of it, that flits back and forth.

Josh:It's not moving in your direction, but it's kind of moving tangentially to you across the way.

Josh:Sorry.

Jorge:Esoteric slash vulnerabilities.

Jorge:Can I try to get any insight out of that?

Josh:If you're trying to do and exploit vulnerability, you may.

Josh:It's not like you immediately stand up and yell, I know your weaknesses!

Jorge:That doesn't alert the creature.

Jorge:I'm just sussing it out, right?

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:That's how it is.

Josh:Unless you want to.

Mike:Retail monster.

Josh:46.

Jorge:46.

Josh:I think that's a success.

Josh:Let me double check.

Tanner:This isn't like an obvious thing that like I've encountered in my service to or us Yeah

Josh:You can attempt, if you like, a personal history check, which for you, it's just your lore.

Jorge:I'm going to let people know in Tehran as the other two are sleeping.

Josh:So you can make a d20 plus 26 check here, if you like, Henrik.

Jorge:Or not Tehran.

Jorge:It's schism.

Noah:Josh, does this look like one of the Autocs from the 13th Realm?

Josh:Not really.

Josh:It maybe has a very distant architectural similarity here, but not quite.

Jorge:Medicaid?

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Metagame, I would have just gone Rasu, but anyway.

Josh:The DC was 38.

Josh:What did you get for exploit vulnerability?

Jorge:I got 46, so that's a success.

Josh:Okay, so what do you learn on a success?

Jorge:I learned an important fact about the creature, and I learned its highest weakness, or one of its highest weaknesses of multiple.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:It doesn't have any weaknesses.

Jorge:But if not, any other weaknesses, resistances, or immunities?

Josh:Like, all of them, or any one of them?

Jorge:Oh, never mind.

Jorge:It says, but not its other weaknesses.

Josh:No.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:It doesn't have any weaknesses.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Okay.

Tanner:I got a 45 on my lore.

Tanner:Ooh.

Josh:Okay, so this is stretching back a little far back, but with a 45, that's a very good roll.

Josh:You would have seen something similar to this once in a raid on a first house safe house.

Josh:At the time it was inanimate, I think you would have thought it was a statue of some kind.

Jorge:Thank you.

Josh:That is clearly at this point not the case.

Josh:Let me see if I have an image of this thing.

Tanner:So this is something that I saw as a sparrow, not as a military member.

Josh:Yes.

Josh:Correct.

Tanner:Whoa.

Josh:Let me see if I can... Oh, I can.

Josh:What I'll do... You're all in Foundry right now, right?

Noah:Oh, terrifying.

Mike:Mm hmm.

Josh:So I'm just going to so that you can see what the token looks like.

Josh:It looks like this.

Jorge:Thank you.

Josh:It's not on a direct collision course with you guys right now, but it is walking through the forests, kind of over a little bit to the east.

Josh:It doesn't appear to have noticed you, but if you give it a little bit of time, it likely will, just by virtue of the path that it's walking.

Tanner:It's a bacon tester.

Tanner:It prefers applewood smoked.

Noah:Good to know.

Josh:I recently got a smoker, and I've been smoking things, and it's great.

Tanner:Oh.

Josh:I just... No, I am borrowing my parents' backyard for storage.

Jorge:It's balcony.

Tanner:Do you have outdoor space?

Jorge:Ah.

Jorge:I wake up my compatriots, give them the lowdown.

Noah:Should we hop in the orb and out of here?

Tanner:Continue to cruise.

Tanner:He would have to drop a lot of watches to do that which is not going to be quiet.

Jorge:Can I pick the yurt up?

Josh:You can attempt a stealth check to quietly pick the yurt up, if you like.

Noah:Oh, no, you're... Oh, excuse me.

Jorge:Divex, can you?

Josh:Unless... I don't think the yurt has anything that says it can be quietly picked up, right?

Jorge:Divex, can you just put in your shadow?

Mike:The yurt?

Mike:How big is the yurt?

Josh:When not activated, it's one bulk.

Josh:When activated, it will not fit in your shadow.

Jorge:It's very useful.

Mike:Uh...

Jorge:Can you disassemble it, Don?

Noah:Not quietly.

Josh:Unfortunately, I'm looking at it.

Noah:I can make you a new one though.

Mike:How about we get in the orb, you disassemble it, and we're out of here?

Jorge:You can.

Mike:How long would it take you to disassemble it?

Tanner:Does it have rules for how to deactivate it?

Josh:It has rules for activating it.

Josh:It just unfolds itself into something.

Josh:I don't see something that says...

Noah:Oh no.

Josh:Let's see, explorer's yurt.

Josh:Activate unroll once per day.

Josh:The rolled up tent expands into a spacious yurt.

Josh:We can have it feed you fires and light inside the yurt.

Josh:Don't extend illumination surrounding the yurt, making it harder to spot from a distance.

Josh:It doesn't describe how one might pack it up, so I think you would be packing it up the same way as you would any other tent.

Jorge:In New York, let's go.

Jorge:You have to get me a new one.

Noah:I'll make you a better one.

Jorge:Cool.

Tanner:So we're flying away.

Tanner:We've still not completed a rest.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Correct.

Noah:Great.

Jorge:Keep going.

Josh:Okay.

Noah:Wait, do we just want to bring this orb up, maybe like out a little bit, bring it up like 50 feet in the air and just park it and finish a rest?

Tanner:Rest in the orb.

Noah:Rest in the orb pocket.

Jorge:Well, if we're going to just be above it, let's just see if this thing does anything with the Earth.

Noah:Okay, so we'll just bring this thing... Yeah, we'll just start bringing this thing up, and as I'm bringing it up, you guys can watch what's happening.

Jorge:If it acknowledges it, then we go.

Mike:Sure.

Josh:Okay, so all four of you are in the orb right now.

Tanner:I have a question before you carry on.

Josh:John is making the orb just increase altitude, get away from where it currently is.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:Are we able to tell if this creature continues moving at its current rate, at what point it might come, like an estimate of how many minutes it'll take to get close to the Earth?

Josh:Yeah, no check necessary here.

Josh:If you just leave it, it'll probably take about 10 minutes.

Josh:It's moving at a leisurely pace, and it's pretty far away.

Tanner:Well, it might hear us.

Jorge:So we could just take out the yurt and go.

Jorge:OK.

Tanner:I'm thinking I could spend another 10 minutes now that it's been a couple hours to treat wounds on dolphin dyvex again.

Jorge:But before we get into the yurt, Levmir's going to go through and try to make sure to get it.

Jorge:Making sure we're not leaving hair or something there, basically, if possible.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Yeah, I don't know what a cleaning check would be here.

Josh:Survival is probably the closest.

Josh:Either when you do survival or thievery, it's your choice.

Jorge:I'll do theory.

Noah:And just as a flavor thing, I think basically since we've been revealed, the Clockwork Rejuvenator has just been in Don's hands the entire time.

Jorge:36.

Noah:He's been fiddling with it.

Josh:Okay, absolutely.

Noah:Just non-stop.

Josh:All right.

Josh:So did you roll your healing?

Tanner:i'm going to now i'm going to spend 10 minutes treating wounds oh natural 20 62 so uh divex you actually receive the 62 plus

Jorge:A DRL to 36 for the tidy up.

Noah:Nice.

Tanner:another 51 as I redirect the extra healing that I don't need to you.

Josh:Nice.

Tanner:Another 51 on top of the 62, yeah.

Mike:I am at full.

Josh:Nice.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So you float up.

Josh:You've got a 36.

Josh:Eventually, it takes a few minutes, but the lumbering thing does eventually come across.

Josh:It looks around, it stands inside the yurt, and you watch as the floating bit of light around it descends into the yurt itself.

Josh:I am now going to... I'm just going to have that out there.

Josh:This is the light.

Josh:Let's make a little perception check for this guy.

Noah:Mmm.

Tanner:you

Josh:What perception?

Josh:Are you gonna make me start an encounter just so I can roll?

Josh:Okay.

Josh:That's fine.

Josh:Uh... Alright.

Josh:After a moment, the... the cloud of light comes out of the earth, goes back over to the, uh... the robot-looking thing.

Josh:which then stands up straight, and you hear the sound of peeping coming from it.

Josh:But otherwise it's mushrooms.

Jorge:Let's go.

Noah:Slowly start to navigate away towards Serengrad.

Josh:Okay, roll a stealth check, please.

Noah:Still one hero point left, guys.

Jorge:And a coin.

Noah:Don't worry.

Noah:52.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:You begin to move towards Sarengrad, away from where you were.

Josh:After a few minutes of travel, nothing's followed you, as best you can tell, so you think that you, undetected, managed to move away from that space, unfortunately leaving the yurt behind.

Jorge:Yes.

Josh:That said, you continue your...

Noah:Yeah, I can pilot it while you guys finish your rest, and then I'll just rest at the end.

Josh:your trip north.

Jorge:Can I sleep while he's driving it to get his rest?

Josh:Yeah, somebody needs to be piloting, but everybody else is welcome to try and get an arrest, if you like.

Josh:Since you haven't actually attacked anybody yet, it has not interrupted your rest, you just still have six hours to go.

Jorge:Hm.

Tanner:Yeah, I've already done the sleeping portion of my rest, so I'm awake, but...

Jorge:Oh, and you have, too.

Jorge:Oh, I guess not.

Jorge:Never mind.

Noah:Yeah, I haven't slept yet.

Noah:This is the longest night.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:I do want one more perception check as you're looking out over the space for the last bit of this night.

Jorge:We meet Knox, and it's the longest night ever.

Jorge:Who's rolling it?

Jorge:I guess, would it be the driver?

Jorge:Or I guess Henrik can roll it if he's awake.

Noah:Oh, okay.

Josh:It's somebody who's awake needs to do it who hasn't already rolled.

Tanner:Yeah, I mean, I'll roll it, but I can't see anything, but I'll roll.

Jorge:Lev is sleeping.

Josh:Yeah, I mean, that's not helpful.

Josh:You've already rolled as well.

Josh:It's got to be either Dawn or Divex.

Mike:Don, do you want to roll?

Noah:My perception is plus 25.

Mike:Divex will roll perception.

Mike:36.

Josh:Oh, sure.

Josh:They make a feat that lets you see the actual numerical HP of things, and all of a sudden you can just talk about whose bonus is whose.

Josh:What did you get?

Josh:36.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:You continue.

Josh:Slowly, because this thing does not move very quickly, but doggedly in the direction of Sarengrad.

Josh:It feels like forever.

Josh:This has been, I think, the longest adventuring night that you guys have had in the whole campaign.

Josh:You've been chased the whole time.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:It's one thing after the other.

Josh:Um...

Josh:But floating in your orb just above the tree line, staying away from things on the ground, you don't notice anything else throughout your journey here.

Josh:Especially because, Dynex, can you see in the dark?

Mike:Oh.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Yeah, so just doing the best you can, avoiding anywhere that you think might be tricky.

Josh:Unfortunately, with maybe an hour or so of travel left over the forest, the forest ends.

Josh:Sorry, an hour left before you would expect light to appear on the horizon.

Josh:The forest ends.

Josh:You are now just floating above a snowy, flat plain.

Josh:It's still dark.

Josh:You have the blessing of something that controls the darkness.

Josh:And so you feel, for the last bit of this journey through the night, you are...

Josh:harder to see than normal.

Josh:Not invisible, but nothing appears to take notice of you, nor do you notice anything below.

Josh:Eventually, however, the night comes to an end.

Josh:The sky brightens to reveal a nice, dull, gray, cloudy sky.

Josh:And you find yourselves both visible from the ground and the sky across the backdrop of the flat, snowy ground and the flat, gray sky above you.

Josh:but you don't immediately see anything following you.

Josh:You still have, at this rate, a day or two of travel before you get to Zarengrad.

Noah:I want to bring us down really close to the ground so that we're not just like a Giant orb or like a little orb in the sky.

Noah:Super visible.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Sure.

Noah:Skim across the snow.

Josh:All right.

Jorge:Do you want to sleep while someone else drives?

Noah:Yeah, I'll take my sleep now.

Josh:Okay, you will get your two hours of sleeping.

Jorge:Ivex, you want to drive?

Mike:What?

Mike:Yeah, Dynamax is probably best equipped to drive.

Jorge:So once day broke, did the veil go away?

Jorge:Or do we still have it?

Josh:No, that's attached to you.

Jorge:Fuck yeah.

Noah:All right.

Jorge:Liso's, yeah.

Jorge:All right.

Josh:So you are inexorably tied to Nox now, but also you have a veil protecting you from detection with a DC45, because that's the DC here.

Jorge:Oh.

Josh:Excuse me.

Josh:All right.

Josh:You can continue on your way.

Josh:I do need a piloting check, which is crafting for whoever's taking over for Big Fish.

Josh:Sorry, for Don.

Mike:We shall raft away.

Mike:49.

Josh:49.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Taking to the controls really well, honestly.

Josh:You had some time to observe, you know, how it works.

Josh:You can continue to pilot this orb now low to the ground, trying to just make as little a noticeable footprint on the world as possible.

Josh:Eventually, you come up to what you know to be the northern river that encompasses this peninsula, and you know a cross-up on the other side is the mainland, so to speak, the bit where Sarengrad actually is.

Josh:You're still quite a ways away, but you're at least, you've distanced yourself from the peninsula where you emerged, and where Knox and the Umber hold keep, and the, uh...

Josh:Kearney Prison Outpost and all of that fun stuff is, and you've moved further into Horesque.

Josh:And I think that's probably a good spot to end it for today.

Jorge:Cool, cool, cool.

Jorge:Just out of curiosity, this orb does have an invisibility feature, doesn't it?

Josh:Not really, no.

Josh:What do you mean?

Jorge:I thought they had the cloaking thing that they could enable.

Jorge:Did we ever get that working, or am I just hallucinating?

Josh:I don't recall that being a thing.

Jorge:Did Hylian Tenno ever have a cloaking feature?

Jorge:All right, never mind then.

Josh:If you'll excuse me, my battery's dying.

Mike:It's his battery, not his headphone battery.

Mike:1-1-0-0-1-1-0-1-1-0 Not a lot, but some things, yeah.

Noah:it's oh my god oh my god

Jorge:We'll come back.

Josh:Sorry, it has nothing to do with the headset.

Josh:That was for me.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:Things happened this session.

Josh:I told you this was a point of no return.

Josh:We could just, like, go back.

Josh:Who cares?

Jorge:Yeah, I think it finally hit us that we can't do everything anymore.

Josh:No.

Josh:I mean, you could try.

Noah:Of all the things I expected to happen, having all of our everything broadcast to everybody who hates us, and Dahl also?

Noah:Wasn't he the dude with the waterfall of blood?

Josh:Wait, where did Dahl come from?

Josh:No.

Noah:Was that not him?

Josh:No, that's the head of the cabal that drinks the Nox blood to turn them to vampires.

Noah:Oh, I thought that was Dahl.

Jorge:The one that does bounty hunting is their obsession.

Noah:I assume every evil old guy who we don't know but hates us is Dahl.

Jorge:Got our contracts.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Now, unfortunately, Dahl is not on the list of people that are believed to be your foes.

Josh:Or friends, for that matter.

Josh:So, if Dahl is on Altheim, he did not get a dossier of your information.

Jorge:Hell yeah.

Jorge:Well, thanks for the cool sword.

Jorge:It's no holy gold.

Jorge:But it's better.

Jorge:Because it's black.

Josh:Sucks.

Jorge:Gold's tacky.

Josh:Oh, okay.

Jorge:Trump loves gold.

Josh:Right.

Josh:Yeah.

Jorge:That dude's a dick.

Noah:Yeah, that was so uncool.

Josh:Insuperlex?

Noah:That was so uncool.

Jorge:Yeah, what a fucking dick.

Josh:Listen.

Jorge:Did you have that planned if we didn't make the holy gold?

Josh:Uh, yeah.

Josh:No.

Josh:Either way.

Josh:See, the thing is, Insuperlex is the narrative associated with the trials and tribulations that a protagonist must overcome to reach their goal.

Josh:And he just doesn't think that you guys have overcome enough.

Josh:So, you know, make it more fun.

Josh:They're all representative.

Tanner:but we were about to.

Josh:It's not the same.

Josh:You go up against Kharkov and he's like, what?

Josh:Last time you guys were level five and this was easy.

Josh:No.

Noah:And now he got handed a document being like, here's everything they can do.

Noah:The Overwatch was.

Josh:Yeah.

Jorge:And then, was it Reinhardt just was torturing Hallie and Tenno?

Jorge:That's fucked.

Josh:Rampart.

Jorge:Rampart.

Josh:Reinhardt is the guy from Overwatch.

Josh:Which, I understand the confusion.

Tanner:Also, Big Shield.

Tanner:Big shoe.

Jorge:Yeah, big Russian guy.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:I get it.

Josh:But it's a different guy.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:His name's Viktor Kozlovsky, is his actual name.

Mike:Blood.

Josh:But, you know, Rampart's cooler than Kozlovsky.

Josh:So...

Noah:Zlotsky.

Mike:I do think it's very funny because it's not like, oh, finally, we've got our enemies.

Mike:Now time to get them.

Mike:It's more like Kharkov took the deal where you get $10 million, but a snail follows you, and if it touches you, you die.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:And all of a sudden, someone's like, hey, the snail's behind you.

Mike:He's like, what?

Mike:They're at Oresk.

Noah:It is a little interesting, though, because now, like, last time we faced down any extraplanar entity, like a Thessian, we were like, oh, we're just kind of fucked.

Mike:He's like, they're...

Noah:But now we just have a god-killing needle in our back pocket.

Jorge:And now we're inching close to... He's like, oh yeah, those guys are pretty weak.

Mike:yeah no it's it's actually more like

Jorge:And he's reading through the dossier and he's like, one of them's not from the wick.

Jorge:The other one's guarding beasts.

Jorge:What?

Jorge:They're divine.

Jorge:They killed a god.

Jorge:They did.

Josh:and it is yes

Mike:It's more like you're in your bathroom and you're taking a shower and there's a spider on the wall and you try to kill it, but it gets away.

Mike:And then later in the day, someone tells you the spider has a gun.

Noah:Wait, that spider ate my shower?

Tanner:And it is coming for you.

Mike:Yeah, and he's out of the bathroom.

Mike:He no longer likes the bathroom.

Mike:You're like, what?

Mike:Where is he?

Josh:No, it's not even just where is he, it's he was there.

Josh:Ten minutes ago, he was right there.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:I don't know where he is now.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:Yeah, so they know that we're in a resque, but they've just lost sight of us.

Josh:But... Correct.

Josh:They know where you guys were at this point last night, but since then, you've managed to elude.

Noah:The question is, does Kharkov think we're stupid enough to launch an all-out assault?

Noah:And how well does he know how stupid we are?

Mike:Does he?

Tanner:Well, they got a dossier on us.

Josh:They know what you've done in the past.

Mike:Well, no.

Mike:See, but this is the thing.

Mike:They're going to read through the dossier and read what we did and then they're going to take our action patterns and try to predict what we're going to do next and they're going to fuck themselves.

Mike:It's horrific.

Mike:You can't do it.

Mike:So they're going to be like, oh, these guys tend to avoid the big confrontation.

Mike:So we've got a little bit of time before they come back.

Mike:They might get a little stronger, but we can prepare.

Mike:And we're going to be at his front door next session.

Noah:Okay.

Mike:We're literally going to be there next session.

Mike:We're going to be blowing up the entrance.

Mike:It's RC3 has the gun that damaged the broker.

Mike:Is it RC3 or is it RC8?

Josh:I think it's RC8.

Josh:I believe RC3 is where you used to work.

Mike:Okay, fair enough.

Mike:Yeah, so RC8, we're going to blow open the doors of RC8 and be like, you guys fucking know everything.

Mike:Give us some fucking bullshit and just fucking kill a bunch of people.

Josh:It is funny that you were presented with a few options, I guess, after you left the cave of where to go next, and the two you narrowed it down from was lay low for a little bit, or beeline straight to where we know they are.

Josh:Just straight at them.

Noah:Well, because he's right, though.

Josh:Full speed ahead.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Yeah, it's not fair.

Noah:They have all our movement patterns, and according to everything we've done, we should just vanish and not appear for several months, possibly put on a play in between, level up a little bit, maybe go to a different side of the planet.

Josh:Yeah, I wasn't saying it was a bad decision.

Jorge:You're right.

Jorge:Could you imagine the dossier they put on a play?

Noah:So the best... It has the full script for the play, too.

Jorge:Why'd they put on a play?

Noah:It's pretty good.

Noah:So the best thing for us to do is just launch an assault right now.

Mike:I guess.

Josh:From the perspective of the guy running the thing, I did not expect you to be, like, towards Sarah Grant.

Josh:So, like, congrats.

Jorge:That means it was a good decision.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:I can just imagine Kharkov and the Slipseer.

Mike:Kharkov's at his desk reading through it.

Mike:The Slipseer's reading through it at the other side in one of the auxiliary chairs for the desk.

Mike:And you just see to the left of them there's a big window.

Mike:And he's just like, hmm.

Mike:Well, they tend to avoid direct conflict.

Mike:So they're probably not going to come directly for us.

Mike:And then the Slipseer will say, that's a good point.

Mike:But they're very unpredictable.

Mike:He's like, you're right.

Mike:They might come directly here.

Mike:But if we know they're coming directly, then they won't do it.

Jorge:Oh.

Mike:But if they think that you're not going to be prepared, they'll still come.

Mike:And then all of a sudden, you just see in the background just the orb getting closer and closer, getting bigger and bigger.

Mike:You're right.

Mike:But if we prepare now, then either way, we'll be prepared if they come here now or if they don't.

Mike:But what if we're wasting resources, not looking for them?

Mike:You're right.

Mike:We might have to spend resources.

Mike:And then just boom, the orb comes through the window.

Josh:There's just an Abbott and Costello bit happening with you just looming ever larger in the background.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:Great.

Noah:Well, now we know.

Mike:Thank you.

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:We know the Rampart is immune to magic.

Noah:We don't know anything about the other two, and they know everything about us.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:Yeah, it's unfortunate that Yugo's been getting a dossier on what their abilities are.

Josh:That would have been nice.

Jorge:The way he said... At first I thought he was going to give our allies dossiers also, but then I was like, no.

Jorge:They were just listed.

Josh:No.

Jorge:They were just put on blast.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:Well, they were just also present in the dossier.

Josh:Except now he's thinking, oh, you know those guys that put on that play that last year now have a god-killing weapon?

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:I like that the Crystal Point Lattice got one too.

Noah:So he's like, you mean those guys that put on that play last year?

Noah:You mean the Spikes that put on the play?

Jorge:I wonder if in the... Yeah.

Josh:Easy!

Josh:They're just, like, playwrights.

Jorge:At that arrest, I was like, I already knew Marza was at Beast.

Jorge:He's been jerking with that.

Jorge:He's been talking to the arrest.

Josh:uh i haven't filled out the dates should i remove my scheduler okay

Jorge:So... Oh yeah, one other thing while I have everyone here.

Jorge:Tanner...

Jorge:We're going to do a bachelor party.

Jorge:Noah, if you can make it, that's great.

Jorge:If you can't make it, it makes sense.

Jorge:Just make sure to fill out the dates, everyone, if possible.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Were you going to say something?

Tanner:Denver is a very far place to fly from, especially twice in a two month span.

Tanner:So don't feel like, you know, there's a lot of.

Noah:I will try my best to come.

Noah:Nice.

Jorge:All right.

Jorge:If you do come, you can stay in my place.

Noah:Me and Leo can cuddle.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:OK.

Jorge:Well, I will.

Jorge:Oh, good session.

Jorge:Good session.

Tanner:Do we want to play next Monday?

Noah:Crazy.

Josh:yeah i'd like to yeah you just you're that excited you're not that excited anymore all right we got a bunch of guesses uh can you come to

Jorge:I'm down.

Mike:Yeah.

Jorge:That'd be great, actually.

Tanner:Oh, I think Noah wants to.

Noah:It's confusing because I can trigger them manually.

Noah:So whenever they don't trigger manually and it's like a random thing, it's very confusing.

Noah:See?

Tanner:It kind of just does its own thing from what I've seen.

Noah:Yeah, it really doesn't matter.

Noah:I don't know what the trigger is.

Jorge:You point at no one on my screen.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:I don't know who I was just pointing at.

Mike:Me.

Josh:Who am I pointing at right now?

Tanner:Looks like you're pointing at Mike.

Noah:It was Mike.

Josh:Oh.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Okay, I thought I was pointing at Mike.

Josh:Oh.

Josh:Yeah.

Tanner:All right, sweet.

Noah:Now I'm doing it manually.

Josh:Lasers are fun.

Josh:That's what it looked like when Don first showed up.

Josh:Just, like, constant lasers in the background so you couldn't see his face.

Noah:Yeah, that was it.

Noah:Lasers everywhere.

Noah:No one could see him.

Noah:It was just a smoke machine and lasers.

Jorge:It actually showed up very close to where we were, just different dimension.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:Or reality.

Josh:It happens.

Noah:Yeah, we're pretty close to Don's turf.

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:One big move over.

Jorge:Should we go over to the dragon heart and eat it, and then go?

Tanner:We're eating them now?

Noah:I feel like the dragon... No, because I feel like we know for sure the dragon heart is super heavily guarded.

Noah:Well, when you put it like that...

Jorge:That's true.

Jorge:It is interesting, though, that we got the boon from Nox to be veiled, and then we're like, let's not move right after we got this.

Jorge:We probably should have moved after that.

Jorge:They could attract us, and then right when they stopped being able to attract us, we're like, let's just stay here.

Jorge:When the robot showed up, I was like, fuck, we're here.

Mike:Thank you.

Noah:They found our yurt.

Josh:They found your yurt.

Noah:No.

Jorge:Which I tried to scrub of crime scene so they don't have more scrying stuff.

Josh:Unfortunate.

Noah:Our yurt.

Jorge:We should just sit on fire and leave.

Mike:We were in great need of a rest.

Mike:I had... You kept asking me, like, do you have a... No, I can't plan for... The one thing that I had was if the robot got too close, I would have cast Disappearance on Marza, or on Levmir, and then hopped in the orb and been like, we're fucking out of here.

Tanner:We could have taken it on.

Mike:Fly the orb.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:Run.

Mike:Probably, but...

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:Yeah, better safe.

Jorge:But, yeah, we don't know if it has reinforcements and stuff.

Jorge:It definitely was calling people.

Josh:I guess we might find out next week.

Noah:On the left.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:You guys are stars of a TV show.

Josh:It's crazy.

Noah:We got to kill that dude.

Jorge:Yeah.

Tanner:yeah he's done i don't know now i feel like we need to use it on nox because they're so awake why they're supposed to be dead they're so awake

Jorge:That's what I want to use the needle on.

Josh:On Imex?

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Why?

Jorge:I'm going to be honest with you.

Noah:Also, the deep is waking up.

Noah:There's a lot of people who should not be awake.

Jorge:I think Thessians are more friendly to us right now than everyone else.

Josh:I will also say, I mean, this is revealing a bit, I think, of Lev's backstory here, but I don't know if you remember it.

Josh:The original motivation for Lev and Desmond working together and investigating the area near the Carnegie Prison outpost is because there was an increase in activity in that area from the Orestian government.

Josh:I don't know if you care about that, but I will say that is a tidbit that Lev knows.

Jorge:Oh, yes.

Jorge:So they're trying to wake up.

Jorge:Or maybe they're just fucking with it.

Jorge:They're trying to drain him.

Jorge:Or it.

Noah:They're doing something bad.

Josh:Nox is not the lady of the night.

Jorge:I like Lady of the Night, though.

Josh:That's not who that is.

Noah:The Lady of the Night.

Jorge:Sounds... Lately, I was like...

Tanner:Guys, it's Operation Bloodless Night.

Mike:Also, kind of a... Yeah, I was going to say, kind of a crazy... It is an innocent enough nickname, but it is not... It's not... You're... You're... Somebody...

Josh:That's just a prostitute.

Josh:It already has a meaning, and I refuse to associate that with the representation of stillness and night.

Jorge:Silk Monster.

Josh:It's just not happening.

Noah:Oh no.

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:And now the party has a Herald of Nox.

Mike:Herald?

Tanner:You are going to trigger an ascension, mister.

Mike:Yeah, you gotta...

Noah:Stop.

Josh:You're collecting them all.

Jorge:No.

Josh:It's fine.

Josh:There's only one left.

Noah:We have this needle, and we don't intend to use it on the Feep at all, but there's like 15 other people that are real high contenders for it.

Jorge:Honestly... Honestly, Bifurcated Man, I kind of wanted to needle him.

Josh:You're going to have to figure out how to spear Lev and Tech at the same time with the needle.

Jorge:I don't know how it would work.

Noah:There was a part where I was like, wow, I'm going to needle this dude.

Jorge:I don't know if it would even work.

Tanner:do we think that the narrative ranks higher than the thessians they must right they must

Noah:I don't know.

Jorge:Well, if they can make Holy Gold, and Holy Gold can be a needle, I think they must.

Jorge:I don't know if they're just fucking... Wait a second.

Jorge:What number Decian is Beast?

Josh:You know it's a third generation Vesna.

Jorge:Do we know it's six?

Josh:What?

Jorge:Was it six?

Jorge:Never mind.

Josh:No, so you know that Beast is somewhere in the 31 to 60 range.

Jorge:Okay.

Jorge:And the deep was the lowest of the three.

Josh:Deep is the numero uno, or technically numero dos, because Formless is counted as one.

Josh:But Deep was the first Thessian created by Formless.

Jorge:Oh, the deep... The first.

Josh:Because the Deep was the...

Jorge:Oh, I thought that was a leitmotif.

Jorge:Damn.

Josh:No, the... Leitmotif, you know, is in the top ten.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:You don't know where in the top ten.

Jorge:Okay.

Josh:You know that Leitmotif and the Deeper, both first generation, Nox is second generation, and Beast is the third generation.

Josh:With Mephi and Muriel are fourth.

Josh:And as you go down the generations, they get weaker, but more like people.

Tanner:So the beast is more dead because he's weaker.

Jorge:can't believe Formulus is just trying to be the deep.

Jorge:That's so fucking weeby.

Jorge:Especially when he's number one.

Jorge:We're gonna have to... Yeah.

Tanner:It's an echo controlled by someone else with their own motivation.

Josh:yeah that's correct he's a weeb honestly it makes sense for there to be a weeb from cyberpunk land so it tracks no you haven't

Jorge:Yeah.

Jorge:Sorry, not Formulus.

Jorge:I meant the guy below.

Jorge:Thiep.

Tanner:Yeah.

Jorge:He's a weeb.

Noah:Yeah.

Jorge:Yeah.

Mike:The Bieb.

Jorge:We know... That's true.

Noah:Oh, my God.

Jorge:Oh my god, we haven't even gotten to cyberpunk land.

Jorge:So we gotta... We actually have to maybe speedrun this.

Jorge:No, we can visit the sparrows.

Jorge:We can visit the sparrows.

Jorge:For next session, do you guys think we're gonna visit the sparrows or just go literally straight to the research site and just try to fucking fight?

Noah:I thought we were, like, no-holds-barred, just blitzing the research site.

Josh:let's see but like in slow motion

Tanner:Well, the sparrows might be able to help.

Noah:Like, don't want to... Yeah.

Jorge:Yeah, but then we're not blitzing them.

Noah:Do we want to go... Do we think the... I guess this is a good question.

Mike:Lootsing.

Noah:Do we think the Sparrows would be in for an all-out assault, or is that not their style?

Jorge:I don't think it would.

Jorge:Would it be their style to do that high level of a place, or do they usually just go for smaller?

Josh:No, the Sparrows are not going to risk, like, extinction of the whole movement by assaulting unknown, like, where one of the highest-ranking members of the First House currently is.

Jorge:Yeah.

Noah:That's why.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:I mean, that's not the only way they could help.

Tanner:But the entirety of Altane hinges on this.

Tanner:We'll speak to her.

Jorge:Henrik was about to get his best friend brutally murdered.

Tanner:We'll convince her.

Tanner:They wouldn't have found us.

Jorge:He would have pulled a Jonathan on you, where he would have taken him and then slowly had him killed in front of you.

Tanner:They wouldn't have found us.

Josh:I feel like every time you bring up our first campaign with Jonathan, what he did to the NPCs gets worse.

Mike:Ripped by the robot.

Josh:I do not ever recall him slowly murdering somebody in front of us.

Josh:We found one dead kid one time.

Mike:That's enough times to build a reputation.

Josh:okay sure it's just it gets it gets like corrupted every time it gets retold it happens

Jorge:No, no, no.

Jorge:And then in the Wheat Town, that lady just got murdered that Tanner was piloting.

Noah:And he's not traumatized at all from it.

Jorge:God.

Jorge:I was probably like, this dude was a sadist.

Josh:I wouldn't go that far.

Josh:It's storytelling.

Josh:It's fine.

Josh:I made Tanner rip medical equipment off of a weird corpse thing literally one session ago.

Josh:It happens.

Jorge:Yeah, but that wasn't a kid that Tanner spent time bonding with.

Jorge:Yeah.

Josh:Same time next week?

Jorge:Same time.

Noah:Same time next week.

Jorge:Adios.

Tanner:Good night.

Mike:Peace.