2026-7-20 — Akasha

Argyle:Now, reporting.

Argyle:Yoyo.

Johnny:Yo, yo, yo.

Argyle:How's it going?

Johnny:How's it going?

Johnny:Jorge, I thought of you today.

Johnny:I was showing these two people a property

Johnny:that we have for lease,

Johnny:and they're from Chihuahua, Mexico.

Johnny:We were there with a broker.

Johnny:And so the one guy goes,

Johnny:oh, hi, I'm Jorge.

Johnny:And he introduced himself later on.

Johnny:The broker goes, so anyway, you and Jorge.

Johnny:And he goes, Jorge,

Johnny:I was trying really hard not to laugh

Argyle:You know, some people, my dad's one of those.

Argyle:You know, I was muted there.

Benny:Hello.

Argyle:But yeah, I agree.

Johnny:and I was like this is not for the reason that you guys think

Johnny:this is funny for a totally different reason I promise

Johnny:hi Mike

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Hey, Mike.

Benny:Hello.

Johnny:How are you guys?

Benny:Not bad.

Argyle:Good.

Johnny:Because of a...

Argyle:It pains me to say that I feel like and uh open ai is caught up in a surpassed claude

Argyle:but claude's shit faces so

Johnny:But dude, Fable, it's so good at cybersecurity.

Johnny:It's so dangerous.

Johnny:Look at how dangerous it is.

Johnny:It's so dangerous!

Argyle:the problem with it is that they they overhyped it and they always overhype things like

Argyle:last year it was oh my god this llm was gonna blackmail people in the company and that was

Argyle:also all fake um well not fake but really weirdly done uh then they finally released fable

Argyle:because they say they can't release mythos they're like we gotta release fable it's a

Argyle:safety version and then opening i released five six soul and it is like so good and then on top

Argyle:of it, Kimi, an open source thing

Argyle:in China, released a model last

Argyle:week. It's available online

Johnny:You can have Fable at home.

Argyle:and they go, it's Fable class

Argyle:and on top of that

Argyle:we're going to give you the full weights.

Argyle:So apparently we're going to get

Argyle:the weights soon on the 27th.

Argyle:And apparently it's going to be as good as

Argyle:Fable, which is just so funny.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:Everyone can be cracked with cybersecurity problems now.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:You would need...

Benny:I did see people...

Benny:Oh, to run Kimmy K3.

Argyle:Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.

Benny:I did see people or someone had an anecdote like,

Benny:we gave Kimmy K3 two cybersecurity problems

Benny:to help fix vulnerabilities in our system.

Argyle:Yeah.

Benny:And Fable clearly didn't want to do it.

Benny:So they gave it to Kimmy and Kimmy fixed it,

Benny:which I think is reasonable.

Argyle:Uh no

Benny:but uh Jorge did you see i guessing you saw the jacobian conjecture it was actually very funny because

Gamemaster:you Are we talking about how AI solves math

Benny:yeah it was well it was very funny because someone tweeted out like last week maybe like

Benny:two days ago like uh it's crazy how like all the math breakthroughs like the solved erdos problems

Benny:all come from GPT and not from

Benny:Claude. And then

Benny:two days later, a Claude employee posts

Benny:a counterexample to the

Benny:Jacobian

Benny:conjecture. Just no proof,

Benny:or no method on how they got

Benny:there. Just like,

Benny:thanks to my friend Fable,

Benny:we've now got this counterexample.

Benny:And it's like, yeah, now the theorem

Benny:that's been open for 87 years is now

Benny:disproven. Or the conjecture that's been

Benny:open for 87 years is now disproven.

Benny:Yeah.

Benny:But the thing is, the unit distance problem...

Argyle:hello there the

Argyle:jacobian projection

Argyle:is false

Argyle:the tweet is so

Benny:The what?

Benny:Oh, yeah, if you go on the...

Argyle:crazy

Argyle:it's not even worded

Benny:Oh, yeah, the tweet's just like, during the World Cup...

Argyle:correctly they didn't even use fable

Argyle:to write it hello there

Argyle:the jacobian conjecture is

Argyle:false thanks to my

Argyle:close friends

Argyle:ha

Benny:yeah it's it's like actually a little uh obscene and it's now it's on the wikipedia like it's a

Argyle:There.

Johnny:It's crazy to drop this like it's a meme.

Benny:it's the wikipedia updated on july 19th 2026 anthropic employee and mathematician levant

Benny:alpogue presented an explicit counterexample in three-dimensional space discovered by

Benny:anthropics large language model claude fable 5

Benny:literally just like

Benny:especially because it like not a constructive proof where you have to like show all the steps it just like guys we don know if this is true it just like just like what about this It like fuck I guess all the work is And also you look at the polynomials that disprove this

Benny:and it's like, wait,

Benny:mathematicians couldn't find this for 87 years?

Benny:And then, of course, now that you can see it,

Benny:someone posted via GPT-SOL

Benny:a formula for generating

Benny:counterexamples

Argyle:That's so funny.

Benny:for this problem. So now we have

Benny:an infinite number of counterexamples.

Benny:I guess these algebraic geometers aren't shit,

Benny:dog. Like, what the fuck?

Benny:Fable just walked up?

Benny:It has people

Benny:actually confused on Twitter.

Benny:I feel like you could give this to

Benny:100 reasonably

Benny:sharp grad students as a homework assignment and they would come up with at least one counter

Benny:example within a week.

Argyle:yeah very funny

Gamemaster:Listen,

Benny:Let me go through my tweets.

Gamemaster:I'm running behind and I'm

Gamemaster:doing something quickly on

Argyle:I got an idea.

Johnny:Wait, is this about the Jacobian conjecture?

Gamemaster:Foundry and so you guys

Gamemaster:not talking about some dumb shit

Gamemaster:that Mike found on Twitter for 30

Gamemaster:minutes is really breaking up my

Gamemaster:flow

Argyle:So I got this.

Argyle:I'm going to pitch it.

Argyle:Partly you need to pay attention just because I came up

Argyle:with a balancing idea.

Argyle:So we all know Benny's busted, right?

Johnny:Because I heard it's false.

Johnny:I can't focus on anything else.

Johnny:Okay.

Argyle:So we all know Benny's busted.

Argyle:So I came up with a new rule set.

Argyle:I call it super grounded.

Argyle:spell casting and the way it works is when you cast a spell you can use n number of points per

Anzu:Aha.

Gamemaster:What?

Argyle:spell level to not expend a spell slot okay so it's like a secondary resource how do you get

Gamemaster:What?

Gamemaster:Wait, no, actually

Argyle:these points you might ask as long as you're the player is not named mike you get nine per turn

Argyle:there we go

Argyle:it's a great balancing idea

Anzu:Aha.

Benny:we'll say

Argyle:no no no that way he can't

Gamemaster:I'm pretty sure you could give the nine to Mike as well

Gamemaster:Bet he doesn't have spells

Argyle:I don't want Benny to multiclass or something

Argyle:no no no no

Argyle:I don't need Benny to now get some other

Anzu:He would find a way to exploit.

Argyle:weird

Argyle:yeah he'll get like harm

Benny:i will say i probably did like 20 to 30 hours of reading between last session this session

Argyle:at like max level and he'll just

Argyle:cast that every turn while he swipes

Argyle:no no no

Argyle:we also had another

Benny:on archetypes, and I was heavily considering

Benny:a spellcasting archetype, but ultimately

Johnny:Oh, we lost him.

Benny:I kept what I originally

Benny:gave Josh.

Gamemaster:Oh, he's back.

Benny:Yeah.

Johnny:Zach.

Benny:Oh! I mean, hey,

Johnny:Oh.

Benny:how's it going?

Johnny:Oh.

Johnny:

Johnny:Oh.

Gamemaster:I was going to say...

Johnny:Oh.

Argyle:so we also have another business idea for you guys well not business but just

Gamemaster:Oh, sorry, you go.

Argyle:so you know how i'm running that assistant locally

Argyle:K2 is launched

Benny:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:or K3 so we could self host it

Benny:Thank you Thank you Well

Argyle:if we want to

Gamemaster:I looked into it.

Argyle:yeah so I just need

Gamemaster:You can't self-host it.

Argyle:all of us to go in on a purchase

Argyle:we probably need

Gamemaster:It's...

Argyle:like

Argyle:72 GB200s

Argyle:I did the math

Gamemaster:Yeah, I was gonna say, because my work was for a very, very small period of time debating

Argyle:out it's like 3 million dollars

Argyle:but we could totally go in on it

Argyle:now yeah No Yeah

Gamemaster:if it made sense to host out of a cloud somewhere If you just wanted to like do like f8 uh uh like floating point 8 version it something like three hundred thousand dollars a month which is not worth it

Gamemaster:it's not i don't know what kind of volume you could get to with k3 but i guarantee that like

Argyle:Really?

Gamemaster:the normal $3 in, like $15 out is cheaper than $300,000 a month. It's fine.

Argyle:um

Benny:Well, it's also –

Argyle:that's a how much tokens are you guys churning how much tokens are you guys churning

Gamemaster:Sorry, I interrupted you. I don't know. We don't have a leaderboard because those are dumb.

Argyle:i'm actually surprised it would be that much for that quantized

Gamemaster:I'm sure I could like go into the billing and check.

Argyle:I expect like

Benny:The way that they're offering it is China-powered.

Argyle:3 to 500k a year

Argyle:but yeah

Benny:If you were to do how many tokens per second can you get on K3 from what they're giving you, and then figure out if you were running it 24-7 for the whole month, just using their service, would it be more expensive?

Argyle:yeah

Benny:and that's assuming 100% usage

Argyle:I'm looking at it.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Benny:which is not realistic unless you're

Benny:being silly

Benny:so actually let's do that

Benny:exercise

Benny:tokens per second

Benny:Kimmy K3

Argyle:I think we can...

Argyle:We actually had less than 30 people, 5 to 10.

Argyle:I think we can do 16 B200s.

Argyle:I'm just having Claude check costs for that.

Gamemaster:And what do you want for this?

Benny:That be this will be in the D house 27

Argyle:Yeah, I figured we could all chip in.

Gamemaster:this is just like a personal hosting instance

Gamemaster:for K3

Gamemaster:yeah

Gamemaster:well I figure don we already don we need to chip in on the D house in the middle of nowhere Like

Argyle:Yeah yeah Oh no no We just going to pave over that with the Dana Center

Johnny:Oh I would I would

Anzu:you Uh

Argyle:that's just going to be

Argyle:yeah

Johnny:We're going to buy the D and D house and then pave over.

Argyle:so if you

Anzu:Very smart.

Johnny:Okay.

Johnny:I see.

Johnny:I mean, it's a lot of work.

Benny:27.

Johnny:I don't know where.

Anzu:And you don't need to pay to heat your living space if it's also a data center.

Benny:27.

Argyle:that's true

Argyle:yeah

Johnny:So we're done.

Anzu:So that's actually kind of synergistic.

Argyle:so I see if you only need 16

Argyle:B200s

Argyle:that's like the smallest you can deploy this

Argyle:it will be about 45 to 65k

Argyle:a month

Argyle:if you want to go up

Argyle:to the full 36 rack

Argyle:that will be 120 to 160

Argyle:and then if you want

Argyle:I guess the full 72 rack

Argyle:that's 250 to 300k

Argyle:that's probably what your company spec'd out

Argyle:we have

Benny:this can't be correct

Gamemaster:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:yeah

Argyle:Desiree has

Argyle:there's the

Argyle:B200s

Argyle:but they're

Argyle:they're too busy

Argyle:wasting them

Argyle:on other things

Argyle:so

Argyle:B200s are

Argyle:they're like

Argyle:the newest version

Argyle:they're Grace Blackwell

Argyle:they run on ARM

Benny:Kimmy K3

Argyle:why

Argyle:what are you looking at

Benny:at 27 tokens per second

Argyle:that's not that many tokens

Anzu:.

Benny:if you run one Kimmy K3

Benny:for 30 days straight

Benny:that is

Benny:70 million tokens

Benny:at the output

Benny:that is

Benny:$1050

Benny:for running a

Benny:Kimmy K3 for

Benny:30 days straight

Benny:well it's only 27 tokens per second

Argyle:7 million tokens though

Argyle:I guessing if that like streamlined not like disarrogate batching or anything crazy

Benny:my source is

Gamemaster:I believe on open router you get 16 tokens a second off of K3 at like 12 second latency

Gamemaster:So that number doesn't sound stringy.

Benny:it is open router

Gamemaster:Oh, is it OpenRouter?

Benny:it's gotta be

Benny:is it like

Benny:no it's just gotta be raw tokens like even if it's

Benny:reasoning it's still tokens per second

Benny:and that's at

Benny:the output price is $1,050.

Argyle:27 tokens per second.

Benny:If you have whatever mix of input

Benny:output, it's going to be between $200

Benny:and $1,000.

Benny:That doesn't make me feel good. I can replace

Argyle:Yeah.

Benny:my whole team with just a Kimi K3

Benny:subscription.

Benny:Having that thing work 24 hours a day.

Argyle:Apparently Moonshot's own API serves K3

Argyle:at 62 output tokens per second.

Benny:Check the math.

Benny:$2,400.

Argyle:yeah

Gamemaster:Was that a thing?

Benny:$2,400.

Benny:They say,

Benny:not your weights, not your assistant,

Benny:or whatever the slogan from crypto was.

Benny:Yeah.

Benny:It's like, not your keys, not your coins.

Benny:Like when FTX went down, they're like,

Benny:you don't have the wallet.

Gamemaster:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benny:not really your coins.

Gamemaster:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gamemaster:That's true.

Argyle:Strange.

Gamemaster:completely unrelated

Gamemaster:if you guys end up using

Gamemaster:at all the

Gamemaster:new frontend thing that I sent

Gamemaster:to archives of nethers

Gamemaster:let me know if you bump into a weird bug or whatever

Gamemaster:I'm still knocking out

Gamemaster:strange

Gamemaster:data

Gamemaster:implement migrations

Argyle:Oh, okay.

Gamemaster:yeah it's strange

Gamemaster:just because like

Gamemaster:Archives of Nethis wasn't originally designed

Gamemaster:for this to happen

Argyle:Oh, so you redirect, like you don't like store it anywhere on your machine?

Gamemaster:This is mostly from hijacking their Elasticsearch to scrape, quote-unquote.

Gamemaster:It's not actually scraping, but, you know.

Gamemaster:And Foundry. There's some Foundry stuff in there, too.

Gamemaster:No, it is stored. It is stored.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:But what effectively happens is that I hit all of the Elasticsearch endpoints that are available in Archives of Nethis,

Gamemaster:and then I also have the foundry import and then I'm doing some like merging in the two to to try

Argyle:That makes sense.

Gamemaster:and get like extra facets and stuff. It's not perfect but it was useful enough when I was using

Argyle:That makes sense.

Gamemaster:it for for some stuff earlier so I figured it's a more 5e like representation which is nicer.

Gamemaster:sure

Argyle:Should we merge and then have a chat window inside of here

Argyle:for the system?

Gamemaster:happy to do that

Argyle:And then we should sell this.

Gamemaster:it is

Gamemaster:like

Argyle:why not

Johnny:Yeah.

Benny:Mm-hmm.

Anzu:His third business idea

Gamemaster:legally cannot for a bunch

Gamemaster:of reasons

Gamemaster:besides the fact that it's

Argyle:it's open source

Argyle:it's open

Gamemaster:well

Gamemaster:so did you

Argyle:open GL

Argyle:hates AI

Gamemaster:see the pathfinder

Gamemaster:that Paizo has broken

Gamemaster:their partnership with Paizo

Argyle:oh

Gamemaster:I mean with Archives of Nethis?

Johnny:Yeah.

Argyle:no

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Argyle:wait what happened

Johnny:They were like,

Gamemaster:So

Johnny:it's costing us too much money in legal fees.

Argyle:oh

Gamemaster:my understanding was that

Argyle:All right okay all of it or fraction

Anzu:Thank you Okay have fun

Gamemaster:originally the partnership was set up

Gamemaster:such that Archives of Nethis would get

Gamemaster:the books and stuff

Gamemaster:earlier than everybody

Gamemaster:else would so that they could add the data into the site

Gamemaster:to be ready on release day

Gamemaster:and they got permission to use

Gamemaster:some token images

Gamemaster:and the like out of the books, which aren't part of the normal license.

Gamemaster:And in exchange any money that Archives of Nethis made after paying for server costs and the like would go to Paizo as royalties And over

Gamemaster:They didn't specify in the contract.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:It doesn't matter, because during the entirety of the time that the website was operating,

Gamemaster:they never once covered server costs.

Gamemaster:And as such, no money went to Paizo.

Gamemaster:And so Paizo said, we're spending a bunch of money on lawyers to maintain this contract,

Gamemaster:and we haven't seen anything from it.

Gamemaster:And I guess they, like, whatever internal view of goodwill

Gamemaster:that they might get from the community for having the site being run

Gamemaster:doesn't factor into the fact that they weren't getting money

Gamemaster:and had to pay legal fees.

Gamemaster:So they said, hey, never mind.

Gamemaster:We're not partnering with you anymore.

Gamemaster:You've got to buy the books yourself and input the data like normal.

Gamemaster:Like, it's not going down, but it's losing the privileges

Gamemaster:it had to operate outside of the ORC.

Gamemaster:Which is a little unfortunate.

Argyle:unless the game goes down

Johnny:They're trying to get us anywhere they can.

Anzu:What does that mean for our future?

Gamemaster:Paizo, in general, isn't doing great right now, though.

Gamemaster:So I'm not particularly surprised.

Gamemaster:They just had to lay off a bunch of people.

Gamemaster:So...

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:It is unfortunate, though.

Gamemaster:Nothing?

Argyle:and then they don't make any more content

Benny:what you don't mean piezo isn't is not an always-on service that we've been

Argyle:that

Gamemaster:Even...

Gamemaster:I mean...

Gamemaster:Yeah, like, even if Paizo ceased to exist right now,

Benny:subscribing to for years.

Johnny:We just have to say.

Gamemaster:I don't actually think that meaningfully changes anything

Gamemaster:other than, like, if we want more classes, we have to make them.

Benny:Actually,

Johnny:Oh.

Benny:my Uno cards

Benny:went blank after

Benny:Hasbro's third bankruptcy.

Gamemaster:I could see that.

Johnny:Oh.

Benny:So...

Gamemaster:The fact that Hasbro has not figured out how to make it

Gamemaster:so that just playing D&D

Gamemaster:is a subscription service

Benny:Thank you what was that action called where you like hold someone no no i can i i don have enough

Gamemaster:is crazy to me because they would be all over that As soon as they figure it out like the rules leave your brain once you no longer paying oh it works like uh it works like spell slots

Gamemaster:in pathfinder you put the rule in and then once you use the rule it leaves and then you can't

Gamemaster:put the rule back in once once you know if you're not paying

Gamemaster:yeah

Benny:uses of that today. I can't recall

Benny:what that is. Don't make me recall.

Gamemaster:yeah

Benny:It's like $1

Anzu:okay

Benny:for three uses of grapple

Benny:or three rememberings of grapple.

Gamemaster:so that's what's going to happen

Gamemaster:as soon as they figure it out

Gamemaster:but anyway for the time being

Gamemaster:we have our own little mirror

Gamemaster:I guess at this point of

Gamemaster:most of the data that's on Archives of Memphis

Gamemaster:I don't expect it's going to go down at all.

Gamemaster:Like, it operated for years without being partners with Paizo.

Benny:I could care.

Gamemaster:They'll just go back to operating without being partners with Paizo.

Gamemaster:It's fine.

Argyle:Oh.

Johnny:Oh.

Gamemaster:But it is a little sad.

Benny:plan Benny

Gamemaster:Also, I had a chat with Tanner about psychics.

Gamemaster:and we're going to change psychics marginally.

Argyle:Oh.

Gamemaster:So my problem is, not really, very little.

Argyle:You're going to homebrew it?

Argyle:Yes.

Benny:Benny

Argyle:Yes.

Argyle:Homebrew.

Benny:Benny

Argyle:Fuck Paizo.

Argyle:We don't need that shit.

Argyle:We got Josh.

Johnny:We'll start the session.

Anzu:they just don't care about me at all.

Gamemaster:Very, very little.

Argyle:We got Josh, bitches.

Gamemaster:They, as best I can tell, hate psychics for some reason.

Argyle:They do.

Gamemaster:I don't know why.

Argyle:They really do.

Gamemaster:Because, like, for a very long time,

Gamemaster:Psychics were kind of the caster that was better than Gish classes, like better than the Magus,

Gamemaster:which has the wave-based spells of, you know, four spells. That works like Warlocks from 5e, you know?

Gamemaster:Same thing with the Summoner The Summoner was also set up so that they had a very limited set of spell slots that they had and they made up for it in however Paizo viewed it as being like more half half focused And then psychic was kind of in the middle where they weren a full caster

Gamemaster:necessarily. They were focused more on, like, focus spells and the like, but they still had

Gamemaster:more spells than those martial casters. So the two things that, like, made the psychic unique,

Gamemaster:at least from how I viewed it, was that they had more spells, so they had two spell slots per,

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:which isn't as much as a Fulkaster, but more than the Marshals, and they were better at focus spells.

Gamemaster:They were the only class before the remaster that could get more than one focus point back in a day.

Gamemaster:Everybody else could only get one. And then the remaster comes out, and all of the classes can

Gamemaster:get as many focus points back as they like, which kind of defeats a big point of the niche of psychics.

Gamemaster:and then also this newest impossible magic comes out and magus and summoner have the same spell

Gamemaster:slots as the psychic they got bumped up to full two slots in each of the spells so

Argyle:for what it's worth

Gamemaster:summoner did suck but like they made movement to improve summoner i don't know how well they did

Argyle:summoner did suck

Argyle:yeah

Gamemaster:necessarily but like they definitely improved the summoner's viability with the recent update but

Gamemaster:But the remastered Psychic got like, we're gonna debuff this one thing, and we're gonna

Gamemaster:take some of your class features and give it to everyone.

Gamemaster:And that was it.

Gamemaster:That was all the remaster did.

Benny:What do you mean?

Gamemaster:So we're trying something.

Gamemaster:If, if, uh, um, Anzu turns out horribly, like, undertuned, like he's as strong as Benny,

Gamemaster:uh, then maybe we'll look at scaling it back.

Gamemaster:Uh, uh, it's too much.

Benny:Well, if he's as strong as Benny, we'll nerf him.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:No, uh, so we're...

Benny:It's because psychics have utility, right?

Gamemaster:Well, basically, and while I was trying

Benny:And Benny doesn't.

Benny:So he's allowed to do more damage.

Benny:no but outside of combat

Argyle:benny doesn't need utility because things die

Benny:Betty just stands there

Argyle:I like that note.

Gamemaster:to figure out with a good way to

Gamemaster:make very small tweaks

Gamemaster:to the class. Tanner pointed out something to me

Gamemaster:which I find crazy.

Argyle:Uh-huh.

Argyle:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:There is

Gamemaster:a barbarian-like

Gamemaster:subclass, or whatever they're called, a barbarian

Gamemaster:art, the thing of decay,

Argyle:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:where... yes,

Gamemaster:instinct of decay, where

Gamemaster:they can choose to, when

Gamemaster:they rage, take some amount

Gamemaster:of damage per turn in order

Gamemaster:to deal additional damage on

Argyle:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:each attack.

Gamemaster:and if you look out math-wise

Gamemaster:it's almost identical to on average

Gamemaster:how much additional damage the psychic gets to deal

Gamemaster:on its attacks when they unleash psyche

Gamemaster:except unleash psyche only gets to go for two rounds

Gamemaster:and also you can't use it on the first round of combat

Gamemaster:and also you get stupefied

Gamemaster:which makes it harder to cast spells

Gamemaster:after you've done it for the next two rounds

Gamemaster:which is crazy

Gamemaster:because the barbarian just takes like

Gamemaster:some chip damage every round

Gamemaster:which is totally fine. So we're making

Argyle:I knew it.

Benny:Nice.

Gamemaster:onto a barbarian

Gamemaster:which is

Gamemaster:to say

Argyle:I called it.

Gamemaster:he can

Gamemaster:like the tweaks that we're making

Gamemaster:are that Unleash Psyche

Gamemaster:can be used first of all on the first round of

Gamemaster:combat because it's weird

Gamemaster:that you have to wait

Argyle:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:and also that

Gamemaster:he can keep it going

Gamemaster:past the regular value before he

Gamemaster:gets stupefied by spending some

Gamemaster:health in much the same way that the

Gamemaster:decay instinct does.

Argyle:you only had two per level

Benny:Thank you you Hey now that Anzu and

Anzu:oh I didn't know we were still doing that

Gamemaster:Also, I've bumped all of his spell slots

Gamemaster:up to three from two because I just feel

Gamemaster:like the extra versatility is useful there and I don't

Gamemaster:think it's going to break much. I mean,

Gamemaster:Johnny has three spell slots for everything.

Anzu:but I'll take it

Gamemaster:Oh, I'm sorry.

Gamemaster:Yeah, no, I've decided that that's happening. I don't

Gamemaster:think that that's going to be so much of an issue that

Gamemaster:breaks things.

Gamemaster:He only had

Argyle:they hated psychics

Gamemaster:two per level. Yes.

Anzu:I had

Anzu:yeah I took the witch archetype to give myself some more spells but yeah

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:Which is crazy yes

Argyle:I sorry I have

Johnny:Since Tanner has been bumped up I feel as though Johnny is no longer as powerful and

Johnny:would like to have the fighter class feet triple slice.

Gamemaster:Yeah, that's fine.

Gamemaster:You know what?

Gamemaster:If Johnny wants triple slice, he can have it.

Gamemaster:What's Johnny gonna do with triple slice?

Gamemaster:Whack people with some fans?

Gamemaster:Like, sure.

Gamemaster:Benny gets nothing.

Benny:now that Anzu and Johnny are buff

Gamemaster:no no

Benny:can I change my level 8

Benny:free archetype from something that doesn't add

Benny:damage to something that does add damage

Benny:I picked something that does nothing

Gamemaster:no

Gamemaster:benny is already benny is already stronger than average and that's part of the reason why i don't

Benny:for damage and there were so

Benny:many damaging options

Benny:I know because I

Benny:read all of them

Gamemaster:particularly mind raising the power level

Gamemaster:of other party members,

Gamemaster:because I feel like there's no way that he'll

Benny:Perfect.

Argyle:just to keep things balanced i think whatever you give tanner you should give double

Anzu:Yeah, tell us about your five heal spells per day.

Gamemaster:become so strong that he outshines

Gamemaster:Benny in raw damage.

Gamemaster:So I assume it's fine.

Benny:Benny.

Argyle:to me just just putting it out there yeah so i want

Gamemaster:Just to Argyle,

Gamemaster:you're a

Gamemaster:cleric. You have

Argyle:and they give me the thought

Gamemaster:way more spells. You already have

Gamemaster:the three spells, but you have so much more

Gamemaster:versatility.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Argyle:why did they hate psychic so much

Benny:Yeah.

Johnny:You're welcome.

Anzu:it's just crazy that in the first five rounds of combat i can only do my class thing

Argyle:yeah

Gamemaster:I don't know.

Gamemaster:Psychics felt like they were in an overtuned place previously,

Gamemaster:and so we're trying bumping them up,

Gamemaster:I think in a way that doesn't necessarily change much of the play style,

Gamemaster:but at the very least doesn't kneecap you.

Gamemaster:I am still...

Anzu:on rounds two and three.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You can only do your class thing on rounds two and three,

Anzu:And then I'm nerfed for four and five.

Anzu:All right Not that crazy

Benny:Even if someone does a lot of damage,

Gamemaster:and you bad at four and five Like I don understand It such a Because I would understand it if during two and three you did so much damage that you needed to be stopped

Gamemaster:But I don't think you do.

Gamemaster:No offense.

Benny:it's not like they need to be stopped.

Gamemaster:I'm making it so that Benny only has two actions around.

Benny:Double slice still fits.

Argyle:it feels like when paizo made most of the new classes whoever did the play tests are like it's

Johnny:It doesn't fix the problem.

Anzu:He strides with his hasted action, and then he double slices.

Gamemaster:Oh yeah, that's right, because he's always hasted.

Gamemaster:So if he gets to walk with his haste, then he still does a double slice,

Gamemaster:and the thing still melts when it comes into contact with him.

Gamemaster:It's fine.

Argyle:something broken because of this.

Argyle:So they like nerf pretty much all new class.

Argyle:I feel like most new classes are kind of disappointing.

Gamemaster:Rune Master and Necromancer both seem fun.

Argyle:At least the ones I looked at,

Argyle:like I like thaumaturs.

Argyle:That was the only exception,

Argyle:but like all of them seem flat,

Argyle:like,

Gamemaster:I don't have a good grasp of how strong they would be in play,

Gamemaster:but they both seem like they're entertaining.

Gamemaster:I do think it's a little funny in that I feel like

Gamemaster:the Necromancer feels a little bit more like a summoner

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:than the summoner does.

Gamemaster:in that the summoner is closer to, I don't know, like a binder, I suppose,

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:or like a stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is the best way of putting it.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:A necromancer, you make things pop up and then they do a thing and then they go away,

Gamemaster:which is traditionally how I view summoning to be.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:And then like the summoners were just like you.

Argyle:What's weird is like.

Gamemaster:But...

Argyle:Using summoner spell slots since it like half your level they get progressively worse the higher level you get Like the distance between a level one creature and like a level two party is a lot closer than a level 10 creature and like

Argyle:a level 20 party like there was just like weird scalings where like the creatures you were

Argyle:summoning i felt get weaker the stronger you get proportionally and then if you ever fight

Argyle:stronger enemies it's like yeah i could summon a dinosaur but by the time i summoned it it's like

Argyle:it's to hit is so low i can't hit anything with it uh so yeah i i think paizo overbalanced

Argyle:they're scared of making something strong and they made most things too weak and then i think

Argyle:in their recent remasters they started buffing the other things but some dude who works at paizo's

Argyle:wife is a psychic in real life so he just really hates them and that's why they don't get any love

Argyle:that's the only thing that makes sense to me

Argyle:like I don't get any other

Johnny:They nerfed it a little bit though because they removed the focus.

Gamemaster:Well, we will see if this changes much.

Argyle:I

Argyle:it seemed like the psychic

Argyle:archetype is strong

Argyle:I think

Argyle:I don't think so

Gamemaster:Because it gives you access to amped spells and stuff.

Johnny:I think they removed the focus point.

Johnny:I know you can't amp cantrips unless you take an additional feat.

Argyle:Okay.

Johnny:I think you get like the basic cantrip, but you can't amp it, so you can cast Guidance.

Benny:Oh, Benny can cast guidance.

Anzu:get.

Gamemaster:One moment.

Anzu:Excellent.

Anzu:Nerf him.

Johnny:He's too powerful!

Johnny:This man can give himself a plus one.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:Yeah, Josh came to me and was like,

Gamemaster:I'm getting.

Anzu:I think you should have more spell slots.

Anzu:And I was like, really? That's not the problem.

Anzu:The problem is it's just...

Argyle:well i'm glad you tried this out because you seem somewhat sad in most fights

Anzu:bad.

Argyle:like like tanner not not Anzu

Anzu:Well, because I really

Anzu:I enjoy the, like,

Argyle:yeah

Anzu:conceptually, you know, the character

Anzu:and the class, like,

Anzu:how it's supposed to work is

Argyle:yeah

Anzu:cool, but it just doesn't

Anzu:work in practice.

Argyle:I mean if you still don't like it I guess you could probably

Anzu:Yeah.

Argyle:always just reflavor a wizard to

Anzu:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Well, that's fun.

Argyle:thematically be a psychic

Argyle:but

Argyle:yeah

Argyle:cool cool cool

Argyle:um

Argyle:yeah clerics

Anzu:I spent this weekend in Columbus, Ohio.

Argyle:how's that

Gamemaster:How was that?

Gamemaster:And why would you do that?

Anzu:That's a great question.

Anzu:That was the location of this year's albinism conference.

Johnny:They have been a lot of advances in album in album ism.

Gamemaster:Hello?

Argyle:um

Argyle:a lot more appropriate than

Anzu:So I was there with many, many albinos.

Argyle:Florida

Anzu:Very interesting experience.

Anzu:Um, no, sunscreen is kind of still sunscreen.

Anzu:sunglasses are kind of still sunglasses. So although Liz and I did feel like we met more

Anzu:people this conference that drive and we think that Teslas are a part of that. Just because

Anzu:they have a lot of features that make it easier with someone with a visible visual impairment

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:to drive, but I don't know.

Anzu:So that was interesting.

Argyle:I saw Liz Instagram video and I liked it Hell yeah

Anzu:Yes Liz kind of went viral a little bit That one Instagram video is approaching 100K views which is kind of crazy

Johnny:Thank you That awesome

Benny:you oh

Anzu:Yeah.

Johnny:Awesome.

Anzu:So we'll see if that leads to anything interesting.

Anzu:I don't know.

Argyle:That'd be so cool if you became a viral

Argyle:influencer couple.

Anzu:Although you guys are still really cool.

Argyle:Noah becomes a viral author

Argyle:and then the rest of us are just losers.

Argyle:Josh's startup gets bought.

Johnny:Are you are you coming a VC person now?

Benny:Exactly.

Gamemaster:Yeah, are you getting a new job?

Argyle:Mike's, I don't know, solves trading.

Argyle:I'll just be here.

Gamemaster:Do you know?

Argyle:Still interviewing.

Argyle:It's a long interview process.

Gamemaster:Wow.

Anzu:What?

Argyle:I did a take-home that was very, very long,

Gamemaster:Nice.

Argyle:and I just submitted it today.

Gamemaster:How long is very long?

Gamemaster:Like a week?

Argyle:They gave me a week.

Argyle:and I had to write a lot.

Johnny:Did they ask about Taiwan?

Gamemaster:Okay.

Argyle:And one of them was...

Argyle:I actually did write a little bit about Taiwan.

Argyle:They basically asked, like, what...

Argyle:I basically had to, like, pitch something

Argyle:that I think would be a good investment.

Argyle:And unfortunately, when I was interviewing with them,

Argyle:I recommended one company.

Argyle:I called it... It's called Modal Labs.

Argyle:And when I was interviewing,

Argyle:their, like, one of their general partners was just like,

Argyle:wow that's actually one of our largest holdings in our previous fund and i was like fuck now i

Argyle:can't write about it but if i wrote about it they would be like this guy's brilliant but now

Argyle:i wrote about how uh we are reaching the limits of uh traditional like it's called cmos or cmos

Argyle:like the traditional copper and silicon stack and how uh photonics is going to play a role

Argyle:But I didn't do like pie in the sky.

Argyle:We going to have a light processor that going to replace GPUs It was mostly just like we investing a lot into replacing some of the copper wires with photonic based

Gamemaster:you Fiber optics

Argyle:Yeah, basically.

Argyle:And it was also good because recently,

Argyle:Nvidia partnered with a startup.

Argyle:It has $4.5 billion valuation to replace NVLink.

Argyle:All these other things.

Argyle:And I'm like, great, great.

Argyle:seems like uh on topic hopefully they like it and then i asked some people at my company that uh

Johnny:That was pretty cool.

Benny:Thanks.

Argyle:work computer parts like specifically making the supercomputers like what do you guys think about

Argyle:you know alternate silicon and the the big boss was just like i think it's all it's gonna be

Argyle:useless so i was like okay that means i this actually might be useful because that guy's

Argyle:not a good judge of success.

Argyle:He's wrong a lot.

Johnny:That sounds pretty cool.

Benny:No.

Argyle:Did I tell you,

Argyle:did I mention the story about John Jumper?

Argyle:So John Jumper is one of the two people at Google

Argyle:that is a Nobel laureate.

Argyle:They got it, him and Demis,

Argyle:who's the CEO of DeepMind now,

Argyle:got it for alpha fold,

Argyle:basically like solving

Argyle:or having a way to theorize protein folding.

Argyle:Really important for drugs.

Argyle:John Jumper, before he was at Google,

Argyle:interned at Desres in the ML group.

Argyle:And Mark, the same guy who said

Argyle:the fiber optics was a stupid idea,

Argyle:said no and did not give John a return offer.

Argyle:So because they didn't,

Argyle:that guy went to Google.

Argyle:and had one of the most important inventions in human history.

Argyle:He recently just left to Anthropic to work on their drug discovery company Oh Anthropic also launched a product called Claude Science which is something Deseret should have built like five years ago

Benny:Thank you that actually really really funny i glad so i have uh my previous bosses uh were the

Argyle:They only started building it a few months ago,

Argyle:which is so funny.

Argyle:But yeah, that guy's really bad at,

Argyle:you know,

Argyle:in his response, he's like,

Argyle:yeah, you know, like,

Argyle:alternate silicon doesn't work,

Argyle:like the company Cerberus,

Argyle:which actually blew up a lot bigger than I expected,

Argyle:but I still don't think it's worth it.

Argyle:It's like, all right, dude.

Argyle:Yeah.

Benny:bosses of wes mckinney when he was at aqr wes mckinney most famous for writing pandas

Benny:uh and uh luckily they didn't give him any shit or or like revoke his return offer or fire or

Benny:anything. They saw him working on pandas.

Benny:They're like, what are you doing? Don't we have

Argyle:yeah well

Anzu:Only if it's Josh's version.

Gamemaster:It's good. It's useful.

Benny:data frames in R? He's like, yeah, but we need them in Python.

Benny:They're like, whatever, man.

Argyle:very very funny

Argyle:yeah

Gamemaster:Do we want to play Pathfinder?

Gamemaster:Okay, first change. Josh Finder.

Benny:Josh Finder.

Benny:There he is.

Gamemaster:I don't even, like, it's not like with 5e where I had, like, all of these things I wanted to change about the system in some way.

Gamemaster:So I don't have an immediate, like, off-the-cuff.

Gamemaster:I am, I will be, I will be more homebrew.

Gamemaster:It's going to happen.

Gamemaster:I have better visibility into this stuff now that I have a data set.

Gamemaster:So I'm going to be homebrewing.

Gamemaster:But for the time being, I think we should have somebody give a recap of what happened last session.

Gamemaster:I think that would be useful.

Gamemaster:Okay, he's doing it.

Benny:I'll do it.

Benny:I have no actual memory, so let me go through my notes.

Benny:so we chit chatted with machine god

Gamemaster:Okay, that's fine. That's allowed.

Benny:we were like

Benny:are you gonna die down here and he's like

Benny:no we're like alright

Benny:we talked to

Benny:ozalith we give him his

Benny:maybe doomsday ink ribbon nuclear

Benny:football codes that ends the planet

Benny:or whatever we don't care we got our book

Benny:the map

Benny:we did check who

Benny:most recently used it it was Pyre

Benny:light so the pages

Argyle:At least they're not nonsense.

Anzu:They're gooners.

Gamemaster:What?

Benny:were a little sticky

Benny:um let's see

Benny:we're also

Benny:ahead

Benny:highlight

Gamemaster:That's not canon.

Benny:oh my god this fucking

Benny:huge ass map oh my fucking

Benny:it's a big map

Gamemaster:Most of them are like fully made out of fire.

Benny:honestly

Gamemaster:I don't know how that works, but also I'm not digging into it.

Benny:if you had a map that took up

Gamemaster:It's not true.

Benny:like an entire room would you

Benny:entrust that around like a bunch of

Benny:dudes like the

Johnny:Good.

Gamemaster:What?

Benny:route you cannot move around

Benny:the room without touching the map like

Benny:the maps gonna so anyways

Benny:so

Benny:we

Benny:thought about more options for magic items

Benny:we remember that

Benny:Kadou was making us an item scanner

Benny:yeah so

Benny:our options are

Benny:orgs far out so just like

Benny:robbing people that might be on the

Benny:strider. Non-human

Benny:societies, which now that I'm rereading

Benny:what I've written down, sounds really strange.

Benny:Like, we don't care if we take their items

Benny:or something. I don't know, it still sounds like an evil

Benny:act. Magic beasts,

Benny:those are easy to kill and perfectly fine.

Benny:Unlikely, magic items

Benny:just appear. So, we can bet on it,

Benny:but it's not going to happen, really.

Benny:We did some tithe math,

Benny:I think. Oh,

Benny:I guess we going to pass Menagerie 1 This is something that significant that whoever wrote these notes didn want to write the rest of Let see

Benny:Oh, yeah, Menagerie 1.

Benny:Oh, right, right.

Benny:It's this fucking moving city thing.

Benny:It just sort of appears.

Benny:We have two more Joker Worlds,

Benny:Hellsmith and Glacier.

Benny:They are exactly what they sound like.

Benny:We did a quick check of the fitness, the physical fitness of some people, and then we did a mental check of their mental fitness on if they would defend us.

Gamemaster:Oh

Benny:We wanted three check marks on everyone, protect us, not do harm, and not have other allegiances.

Benny:I don't think we had full marks across any of the three, but I couldn't really do much.

Gamemaster:Oh

Benny:the what people

Argyle:the map group and then the big guy for the big drunk

Benny:oh yeah yeah no but i mean like there was no one category like we can trust everyone to protect us

Argyle:yeah completely

Benny:we could just everyone not to attack us we could just everyone not to have allegiances

Benny:we didn't so i don't know it's a bit scattershot um then we went over to uh radiant arms we hard

Benny:sold someone that we've

Benny:barely, if ever, interacted with.

Benny:And then after we agreed

Benny:to this huge contract switch

Benny:over, pulling the plug on their

Benny:box of bullets,

Benny:then

Benny:Ichel walked in and was like,

Benny:what's happening? We're leaving, the house

Benny:is going to explode, and they're going to take on all

Benny:the responsibility. And we're like, alright, whatever.

Benny:It's kind of what we agreed to.

Benny:Let's see.

Benny:Benny talked to

Benny:Atum, who was

Benny:salivating at the thought of an ancient heart.

Benny:Not of concern

Benny:to Benny of concern to Mike And then I think other people contacted other people that I did not write down and that where we ended

Johnny:Thank you I remember

Gamemaster:Thank you You think Benny got as far as Benny

Benny:it's not my business

Gamemaster:and that he didn't care what happened to the other two?

Benny:Benny doesn't know why am I supposed to write it down

Benny:that'd be out of character

Gamemaster:Does anybody remember what the other two conversations were?

Gamemaster:Yes, Noah.

Argyle:I remember both.

Johnny:I remember my own conversation.

Gamemaster:Oh, good.

Gamemaster:Okay, so, no, I think Noah should talk about what he and Red talked about,

Gamemaster:and then, Jorge, you can talk about your conversation.

Argyle:Sure.

Gamemaster:We'll do one each.

Johnny:Basically, there's been a lot of movement in back channels.

Johnny:Back in the Big Apple of this setting.

Johnny:A lot of guns and stuff.

Johnny:People are getting antsy.

Johnny:but Red is not really sure why.

Argyle:cool uh argal chatted with uh his supervisor and she was effectively just like wow this is crazy

Johnny:Seems like something abouts to...

Johnny:I guess he figures it's since we blew up Teller's Run,

Johnny:but that seems inconsequential.

Johnny:Something's about to pop off, and we're not there for it.

Argyle:stuff by the way you guys are about halfway through to where your dad's from and where you

Argyle:were born, which is a mega dungeon prison thing in a

Argyle:Joker world filled with demons.

Gamemaster:I mean, I don't remember Dame Quay saying those words specifically,

Gamemaster:but that was the vibe.

Argyle:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gamemaster:That counts.

Gamemaster:That's fair.

Gamemaster:Yeah, that all tracks.

Gamemaster:Mike did get the majority of it,

Gamemaster:so Benny gets the mythic point here.

Gamemaster:That is acceptable.

Gamemaster:because no I want to clarify

Argyle:Why don't we just like all get one?

Johnny:Thank you I agree

Benny:I need you to crit

Anzu:I think as a psychic I should probably get one

Argyle:Okay Can we share it What if we share the mythic point where we get to

Argyle:add

Argyle:seven?

Benny:I vote.

Benny:I vote that since Tanner's now buffed,

Benny:his starting session point goes to one of those two.

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:the changes to the psychic were to bring it

Gamemaster:up in band to the rest of you

Argyle:Why'd you suddenly be—

Johnny:Josh's favorite and his character is now

Benny:just

Anzu:He's also the most handsome.

Gamemaster:It was not to make it stronger than the rest of the party.

Johnny:canonically stronger than everybody else

Johnny:and Tanner got three

Gamemaster:Okay, you know what?

Benny:I've run out of power word kill

Gamemaster:You know what?

Gamemaster:You're right!

Gamemaster:Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gamemaster:Anzu can cast one 10th level spell around.

Argyle:Why'd you suddenly—

Gamemaster:If he wants.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Anshu comes out of his bedroom like,

Gamemaster:That's true.

Gamemaster:That's canon.

Johnny:his brain is just

Anzu:I just float around everywhere like, um, what's his name from Critical Role?

Argyle:hey, fuckers.

Gamemaster:Essek?

Johnny:oh like Shane from Jimmy Neutron

Anzu:Oh, well, that's true too, but I was thinking of Essek, yeah.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:That was way too fast, Noah.

Anzu:Way too fast.

Argyle:He had that on cue.

Gamemaster:That's crazy.

Gamemaster:I also

Johnny:laughing

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:OK.

Gamemaster:I'm sure you'll all be very happy

Benny:well

Gamemaster:to hear this

Gamemaster:I have a roll tracker installed in Foundry

Gamemaster:it is

Gamemaster:unrelated to the roll tracker I have

Gamemaster:for the dice pot

Gamemaster:but they both use perfectly fair

Gamemaster:methods of randomization

Gamemaster:so

Gamemaster:Uh, oh, I'm not exposing these actual roles, because it's just...

Argyle:This is still tracked in the MCP,

Argyle:so we can still use it through the assistant, right?

Argyle:No!

Argyle:You broke it!

Gamemaster:I can, like, so you can separately just query the chat and it'll tell you.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:That's available in the MCP.

Gamemaster:There's like a separate, like, one of the...

Argyle:Let me see.

Gamemaster:I was going through the...

Argyle:I see.

Gamemaster:the stuff because I was...

Gamemaster:I thought it would be fun to see if I could

Gamemaster:make

Gamemaster:Anzu's Unleashed Psyche

Gamemaster:into a single effect that does all

Gamemaster:of the cool stuff.

Gamemaster:And it is now. And so while I was

Gamemaster:toying around with that kind of stuff, I saw a new setting

Gamemaster:to enable a world tracker. We'll see how it goes.

Argyle:Sounds good.

Gamemaster:Oh, actually...

Argyle:Argyle is going to pull the group over to our little War room.

Argyle:he's gonna have a notebook

Argyle:and um

Argyle:he's a little agenda on it and he's like

Argyle:hello compatriots

Argyle:we should start planning

Argyle:what we should do next

Argyle:i have a couple of things on my to-do list

Argyle:i would like to go through

Argyle:you guys can all share and uh his

Argyle:first thing's gonna say like debrief squad

Argyle:and he's gonna give you an update on uh dane

Argyle:key um and

Argyle:she'll be like by the way

Argyle:uh the place where

Gamemaster:For your general bookkeeping, you are currently at about, I don't think you have an exact

Argyle:I was birthed will be...

Argyle:We'll reach there soon.

Johnny:Go on.

Benny:Oh,

Anzu:Like both halves of you were birthed there?

Argyle:A lot of demons, but there's nice stuff.

Argyle:Maybe that's...

Argyle:Yeah, so that might be where the other one is.

Johnny:Oh, we should stop.

Argyle:We probably should investigate.

Benny:there we go.

Argyle:Hmm.

Gamemaster:number, about 150,000 voidward, which means that you're looking at about 300,000 void

Argyle:Hmm.

Gamemaster:word is where you're looking for for that one.

Argyle:How many cycles?

Anzu:This band?

Argyle:How many tithes would that be?

Gamemaster:300,000 puts you pretty early on in, not next cycle, oh, actually, wait, maybe I was off

Gamemaster:by a little bit, because the first two cycles gets you to a quarter of a million.

Gamemaster:It happens after the Menagerie, but before Hellsmith and Glacier.

Gamemaster:So it might be off numerically by a little bit but effectively you like Oh yeah I was early here is the problem because it feels like you guys have gotten really far into the second cycle but you haven

Argyle:I know what this is.

Argyle:you Okay

Gamemaster:The idea, generally speaking, is that you hit quarter of a million at the end of this tithe,

Gamemaster:at the end of the cycle, at that tithe, and then about three days in to the next cycle,

Gamemaster:you hit the Menagerie. About two days after that, you hit that particular world, the Quorum.

Argyle:okay

Argyle:okay um when i originally started on this journey did i think do we have reason to believe that the

Gamemaster:And then near the end of the cycle, it was unclear from the map. When you get closer,

Gamemaster:you might be able to do something a bit more specific. Near that end of the tithe,

Gamemaster:near that end of that cycle, is going to be where Hellsmith and the Glacier are.

Argyle:other Argyles past the wall, so it's not in the quorum?

Argyle:Or did we not know?

Johnny:I did. I did debrief with my org. There's trouble brewing back home, so I don't really

Gamemaster:The only vibe you had was that

Gamemaster:the other Argyle is voidward.

Argyle:It's that way.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Argyle:Okay, okay.

Argyle:So keep Anaïs on that.

Argyle:Did any of you guys debrief any of your orts?

Argyle:Any notable things you should mention?

Johnny:know what to do with that, but a lot of movement of guns and whatnot. Yeah, probably. Probably

Argyle:Should we...

Argyle:Should we let Iconoclausel know?

Johnny:good to send Dura and Ginny.

Anzu:How do we contact them?

Johnny:I guess that's kind of then that.

Anzu:Is there a phone here?

Argyle:We got a phone.

Anzu:Make a call back across the horizon.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Like, you know, the one you used to call your dad?

Anzu:I haven't called him since we got here.

Argyle:You haven't called your father since you got here?

Anzu:No, I didn't think there was a phone.

Argyle:that's kind of rude.

Anzu:I didn't...

Johnny:You don't want to tell them your sister's here?

Argyle:I'm just going to,

Argyle:I mean I talk to my supervisor and they not even my dad Wow Okay

Johnny:on board?

Benny:We live in the modern era There no phone

Anzu:Well I didn know since we were traveling on the horizon Like jeez

Johnny:And as you like the Giant word

Argyle:Wow. Did you contact your dad, Benny?

Benny:Uh-huh.

Argyle:All good? Anything you want to report?

Benny:I mean, yeah.

Benny:I asked him to check out

Benny:Aurelia the First's party.

Benny:Except for leading to the machine god.

Argyle:You told him about the machine gun?

Benny:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:I specifically didn't want to mention that to mine.

Johnny:Well...

Benny:I'm just interested in the machine God

Anzu:Yeah, I think he's a great ally.

Argyle:What did he say?

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:Sounds good.

Argyle:Cool.

Argyle:He scratches that to-do list off.

Argyle:Another thing.

Argyle:I had a dream.

Argyle:Maybe we should just, like,

Argyle:dive deeper into the Strider and just,

Argyle:you know, go after the other group now.

Argyle:Let me do that.

Johnny:I guess that brings up the big question of do we want to go after the sleeping one or

Benny:on Zeus

Anzu:I mean, we got a couple days, you know.

Johnny:do we want to go after Anzu's sister?

Benny:I mean

Anzu:Well, yeah, so I'm willing to do either.

Benny:well it's up there

Anzu:My caveat is I would like to have a little time before encountering my sister

Anzu:to see if I could do some research on how I might sway her

Argyle:Oh, similar idea.

Benny:probably just go in there

Anzu:and maybe find a way to target the harmony

Anzu:that she's fallen under without doing too much direct harm.

Argyle:Well, first of all, we could just knock her out

Argyle:and then, you know, normalize her on this side.

Anzu:Yeah, but that's not going to clear it.

Anzu:I mean, I've been knocked down a couple times

Johnny:To that point maybe going after the other big bug would be useful Then we can have a test subject it a you know singer of Herald or whatever

Anzu:since we heard the Voidsong, and I still am hearing it.

Anzu:So yeah Yeah so I support that plan

Argyle:I can cure her.

Argyle:Thank you my worry is that the sleeping group is stronger i don know why i would think it stronger i

Benny:Thank you All right

Anzu:But if you wanted to go after the more active group first, I would understand.

Argyle:I just feel like it's stronger.

Johnny:there's something about it being sleeping that makes it feel like it's stronger but

Argyle:Yeah, right?

Argyle:There's something about it that makes me think

Johnny:It feels like, it feels like this, these are two encounters that have been designed so

Anzu:Unless we should strike it now while it's not fully realized.

Argyle:that we really should let it sleep,

Argyle:and then it can wake up, and then we can fight it,

Argyle:which doesn't make sense from a tactical point of view,

Argyle:but it's just kind of scary that it's sleeping.

Johnny:that there's no correct way to do them, but each one will have pros and cons in the future

Anzu:Man, life's just crazy like that.

Argyle:so my other worry is that if we don't try to free your sister now she's gonna get even more of a

Johnny:directly affecting the other encounter.

Johnny:Oh, we also have another point of input.

Anzu:My God.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Argyle:heads up that we're coming and then they're gonna do some weird freaky thing with your sister

Argyle:not like that type of freaky i mean like they're gonna use her as like a trap

Johnny:Hey, Machine God.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:do you have

Johnny:Between the sleeping guy and the party with Anzu's sister,

Johnny:which do you think is the better route of attack first?

Anzu:like beyond the four of us

Gamemaster:allies

Gamemaster:capable in a fight

Gamemaster:I shouldn't ask

Anzu:because we're kind of the core

Anzu:you know

Gamemaster:leading questions like that

Gamemaster:The trade-off is simple. The sleeping clan is more powerful individually, but you may catch them unawares.

Gamemaster:The waking clan is much larger in number. They're sprawling. They have taken over multiple large sections.

Argyle:Are you able to pinpoint where on two sisters?

Gamemaster:of the striker. Each of them presents their own challenge.

Gamemaster:This is difficult, specifically because I do not know Anzu's sister. I can see

Gamemaster:the heretics crawling around

Gamemaster:in their cage

Gamemaster:there are many

Argyle:Are they all hanging out together in like a group of Tengu?

Johnny:Like a murder of Tengu?

Benny:They've cloned her.

Anzu:Is there a Tengu in there?

Gamemaster:I count eight

Anzu:Whoa.

Anzu:Uh-oh.

Gamemaster:eight

Anzu:Eight.

Gamemaster:they all exist within the waking

Johnny:Like a parliament of Tengu?

Gamemaster:clan's grounds they're not all

Gamemaster:connected in some way, if that is the question.

Argyle:Hmm.

Gamemaster:you are to my knowledge one of only two groups that have attempted any descent into the strider

Argyle:So we can't surgically.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:Like a block?

Argyle:Unkind, yeah.

Johnny:That's all the owl, that's all the bird names I got.

Argyle:Do you see any of the surface groups interacting with them?

Gamemaster:Your church. The Iridescent Church. Aurelia's Church.

Argyle:What's the other one?

Argyle:What are the other ones?

Johnny:You think they're looking for you?

Gamemaster:It's not unreasonable. Although there are many treasures hidden within the strider itself,

Gamemaster:I am but one of ancient make. It is possible they are here for some other reason. Oh, all manner of

Gamemaster:of remnants of the time before we were captured and moved This was once a particularly important part

Argyle:you Okay

Gamemaster:of the party's offensive,

Gamemaster:and as such there are many pieces

Gamemaster:of that offensive that stick around.

Gamemaster:Untouched. Aged, but untouched.

Argyle:Are there any pieces of artifacts that are, I should say,

Anzu:now i don't know are you listening to us all the time

Gamemaster:Ha! No. That which isn't well defended is gone. All that remains are remaining for a reason, 700 years on.

Argyle:easy to get to without fighting too much of the other ones?

Argyle:I know.

Gamemaster:I have I suppose what you would call

Argyle:OK.

Anzu:somewhat

Gamemaster:a wake word

Gamemaster:you call me

Anzu:Well, I was talking...

Gamemaster:and I answer

Anzu:Right.

Anzu:I was talking before about my sister,

Anzu:who has been affected by this, you know, Herald scheme.

Gamemaster:hmm

Anzu:And seeing as, you know, you were somewhat targeted by that as well for a time,

Gamemaster:If I had any particular insight into the methods of control, Herald, and its chosen use, I

Anzu:do you have any insight into how I might target that part of her mind

Argyle:Why don't we could just kidnap her and then brainwash her back to normal.

Anzu:and maybe free her of that influence?

Anzu:That's fair.

Gamemaster:would not have been restrained in the way that I was for so long.

Anzu:I'll see what I can figure out.

Anzu:You say that like it's an easy thing to do.

Anzu:That's the part I'm trying to figure out.

Argyle:This Scale has brainwashed a lot of people to being normal good people Like my uncle Uncle Flintlock to Boggin

Johnny:they bring They brainwashed him into being normal

Anzu:Right Right

Argyle:Well, he was already kind of brainwashed as well,

Argyle:and then he's fine now.

Johnny:So they un-brainwashed him?

Argyle:Well, they tried brainwashing him.

Argyle:They chained him to a chair.

Argyle:A lot of demons tried torturing him,

Argyle:and then even a group of the Scale met him.

Argyle:They weren't the smartest of the Scale, I'll give you that.

Argyle:but they made a deal with him.

Benny:Didn't he say nothing freaky?

Anzu:So you think we need to chain my sister to a chair?

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:And then eventually

Argyle:their other skill

Argyle:broke him out

Argyle:and now he kind of walks around

Argyle:and advises.

Argyle:He taught me, you know,

Argyle:demonic.

Argyle:I have very strong healing magic.

Argyle:We can wipe her brain.

Benny:Hmm.

Anzu:He did.

Argyle:Your minds are in the gutter.

Anzu:I'm going to see what I can learn.

Argyle:okay um sounds good sounds good uh other thing that you should try learning see if you have a

Anzu:You know, maybe let's not go today.

Anzu:I guess I can look into that.

Argyle:way of transporting us to that void parallel world because if we could just slip into that

Argyle:and then grab hearts that'd be great

Anzu:That area that we were in felt very fleeting.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:It seemed like it was formed, it seemed like it was made when someone couldn't pay their

Anzu:But I guess if we could find others, find a way to, you know, sense them.

Johnny:tithe.

Johnny:So, what makes another one of those?

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:Some kind of magical imbalance opened, you know.

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:Nah, I don't think we need to acknowledge it yet.

Argyle:Speaking of which,

Argyle:are we going to acknowledge that we might have to attack another civilization

Argyle:or another thing?

Argyle:Because like should we start working or having them work on siege weapons

Johnny:I think we good at pretending we don have to

Benny:Thank you Mm Mm

Anzu:I feel like we can go

Anzu:hard as hell

Anzu:because that's going to make us a target.

Johnny:okay

Argyle:I don't think we should attack a Fane first.

Argyle:But I do think a Fane's going to start attacking people.

Argyle:Do you guys want to be caught with your drawers down?

Anzu:I mean, are the twins done with whatever they've been working on?

Argyle:I'm an expert on warfare lore, so I'm just trying to think ahead.

Argyle:Actually, a master at it, but...

Anzu:Just make them build a siege weapon.

Anzu:You know they'd be happy to.

Gamemaster:A siege weapon is not something they will be able to materialize out of thin air.

Argyle:yeah

Benny:Of course.

Anzu:We just get some lumber from a Joker world, and then it's all good.

Gamemaster:I will give you a car bonnet and a moat,

Gamemaster:because those are things that are either relatively easy for them to make,

Gamemaster:or don't actually involve the expenditure of resources.

Gamemaster:They're not going to pull a trebuchet out of nowhere if you're looking to do that.

Gamemaster:You need to put something into that to, like...

Argyle:I think there's lumber in normal worlds

Gamemaster:uh six

Benny:A lumber world.

Anzu:from any world

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:yeah from any world on the horizon

Anzu:yeah

Anzu:alright

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:So are we going to dive into the...

Argyle:How many days do we have until the dive?

Gamemaster:you guys have been like going at a breakneck pace

Argyle:Do you just want to start explaining?

Anzu:yeah

Gamemaster:ever since the last time happened

Anzu:let's

Gamemaster:it's just not been many days

Argyle:Okay.

Anzu:Let's take two days, kind of see what's going on, actually stay in the neighborhood and observe.

Argyle:okay johnny do you mind um just generally working on a morale

Johnny:You got it.

Anzu:that way I could do a little research

Anzu:you know and then

Anzu:we could delve

Argyle:specifically on our two weak links i don't want them turning into spies wait um

Johnny:I'll do that.

Johnny:And then I was going to aid Anzu a little bit because research.

Argyle:um sounds good by the way are we tracking when people leave or are people leaving our fame

Argyle:we're walled in are like these normal npc like the the weaker ones are they like walking around or

Anzu:I think that that is okay for the time being.

Gamemaster:You have not indicated to me that you wanted to trap them in your compound, so I was not

Argyle:i did not yeah

Argyle:okay

Gamemaster:assuming that that was the case.

Gamemaster:They are and have been leaving, like, to go into the middle of town and stuff.

Argyle:Just double checking they could get flipped

Argyle:when they're out doing

Argyle:They could get mind controlled

Johnny:Hey guys, you know what's really cool guys?

Benny:We are propagandists

Anzu:Argyle, I just... I don't mean to offend you, but sometimes I worry that your authoritarian tendencies are going to turn people.

Argyle:and then they can come try to pull out the heart

Argyle:putting it out there.

Anzu:you know there's wildfires outside

Argyle:That's why we need Johnny to tell them this.

Argyle:I'm so scared.

Benny:We are propagandists

Johnny:Day in Indoors.

Johnny:And I'll sing the Indoors line.

Anzu:don't go out there it's smoky

Johnny:Listen, I have a friend who walked outside and he tripped, fell, broke his head.

Johnny:You know where you don't trip?

Johnny:Inside.

Argyle:I'm just saying.

Argyle:All right, so keep that in mind.

Argyle:We might want to start thinking of a way to defend the actual heart.

Anzu:I going to go talk to Yao

Argyle:Maybe in two rooms, we make a heart vault.

Argyle:or a general vault that has her

Argyle:heart in it and aerothymocytos

Argyle:alright that all on my agenda do you guys have anything I vote on you sister

Johnny:I guess everyone start thinking about if you want to

Johnny:Everyone start thinking about where you want to attack first, the sleeping guys or Anzu's sister.

Argyle:you know I vote sleeping guys

Argyle:because they're going to wake up

Argyle:and if we wait they're just going to be awake

Argyle:so

Argyle:cool

Argyle:uh whatever

Johnny:I got some sandwiches I gotta send down, so that's when I'm on.

Benny:Sure. I can't remember which one you said, but I'll tell something.

Argyle:play bang people

Argyle:um

Argyle:i'll walk with you if you then walk with me to the Scale or go with me to the Scale after

Johnny:You talking to me?

Argyle:yeah i'm talking to johnny

Argyle:oh never mind I'll go by myself

Johnny:I just gotta get back in time to save morale and then help Anzu.

Benny:Yeah.

Anzu:No, go talk to them.

Argyle:I'll go to the Scale by myself

Argyle:or have them come to me

Argyle:should they come to here

Argyle:Benny do you want to come with me

Anzu:I think they'll like that.

Anzu:It'll make them feel good about their egos, probably.

Argyle:I'm scared of getting jumped

Benny:

Argyle:and our most terrifying party member

Benny:True.

Argyle:is a nine year old so

Argyle:And he could drive, so.

Anzu:Yeah, is it like daytime?

Gamemaster:Best driver in the party is a nine-year-old.

Gamemaster:Okay, so Johnny's going to go lower a sandwich down

Gamemaster:for your friend in the undercroft.

Gamemaster:Benny and Argyle are going to the Scale,

Gamemaster:and then Anzu, you are going to the Protectorate

Gamemaster:to talk to Yao and Kadou.

Gamemaster:yeah it where i time is a little bit wibbly wobbly at the moment uh we can like you guys got a rest last session so we say it the middle of the day today for when you start doing your stuff

Anzu:Thank you I send a quick message over to the Protectorate and ask if I could come pick his brain for a little bit

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:They're happy to let you in now,

Gamemaster:know that they aren't hungover, so to speak,

Gamemaster:from their battle trance.

Gamemaster:So you can absolutely do that.

Gamemaster:we'll do these one at a time

Gamemaster:first and easiest is

Johnny:Yeah, and then I'll wait a little bit for a note to come back up.

Gamemaster:Johnny go to the garage

Gamemaster:call the elevator

Gamemaster:put the sandwich in it, lower the elevator

Gamemaster:absolutely

Gamemaster:sorry I forget what were the rules with the note

Gamemaster:he's supposed to leave a note if he's not dead

Gamemaster:okay

Johnny:Yeah, I think it's...

Johnny:I send the sandwich down, he sends a note back up with his name on it.

Gamemaster:yeah no you'll get a note i think his name was marin um you'll get a note back up

Johnny:And then if I don't get a note, I assume he's dead.

Argyle:Okay.

Johnny:nice

Anzu:Yes, for now, I'm just going to go just myself for now.

Gamemaster:day one successfully passed off a sandwich um

Gamemaster:um wonderful uh we go over to the Scale i suppose now let's do let's do yow let's do

Gamemaster:Yao and Kadou in...

Gamemaster:Because you had also spoken to Kadou

Gamemaster:about wanting to chat about this stuff, right?

Gamemaster:So I assume he's coming with?

Gamemaster:Oh.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Argyle:also one quick thing before I forget

Benny:You can see that the

Anzu:to Yao and then maybe set up some group meetings in the future.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Argyle:Kadou said he was able to make

Argyle:a scanner for items

Argyle:and it'd be helpful if he had a map

Argyle:when we got the map, was the map so good

Gamemaster:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:he's like, I don't need to make a scanner

Argyle:or was there a... is he still working on a scanner?

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

Gamemaster:They do...

Gamemaster:They do different things.

Gamemaster:He is actively working on the scanner.

Argyle:okay

Gamemaster:The point of the scanner is such that when you arrive

Argyle:hmm

Gamemaster:in an area, he can tell you the direction you need

Gamemaster:to move in in order to start heading towards any magic items that exist Because otherwise the map that you have tells you oh this is Hellsmith everything on fire And then what do you do with that information necessarily The point of the scanner is to be able to point you

Argyle:Sounds good Yeah Okay Okay

Gamemaster:in a general, like, cardinal direction, at the very least.

Gamemaster:So he is still definitely, like, using that.

Argyle:Okay, just double-check it.

Gamemaster:Yeah, okay, so, sorry.

Gamemaster:Just going over without Kadou to the Protectorate.

Gamemaster:Easy peasy.

Argyle:You know.

Gamemaster:It is as you remember it, except there are additions.

Gamemaster:They've made changes.

Gamemaster:The last time you were there, you saw that they had walls.

Gamemaster:They have more than just walls now, one second.

Gamemaster:So they have the reinforced bulkheads.

Gamemaster:They don't have a moat,

Gamemaster:although they do have the barbed wire on top,

Gamemaster:because they like alarms.

Gamemaster:Gosh, I didn't describe a way to make it obvious that they have things for the utility and comfort upgrades, but you are supposed to know what upgrades they have.

Gamemaster:So you can tell that they have a workshop of some kind peeking out from behind the wall.

Gamemaster:There is a similar in architecture to the one that you have, you can see from the exterior, as well as you can see that there is what looks to be...

Gamemaster:As you walk up to the front of the gate and you can see inside, it looks like they've picked off an area that's been turned into this kind of zen garden-looking area.

Argyle:It's the shrine.

Gamemaster:It's got a very small water feature, it's got a bunch of pebbles and a rake to be pulled through it that appears significant in that it wasn't there the last time you showed up.

Gamemaster:And something of that nature.

Gamemaster:But you are, when you go up, the gate is lifted for you since you called ahead, so to speak.

Gamemaster:They know that you're arriving so you don't get questioned at the gate.

Gamemaster:or anything like that, they just open the gate for you to come on in.

Gamemaster:And this is, I think, the first time that any of you have actually been within Protectorate's actual base.

Gamemaster:The whole compound itself is kind of shaped like this long rectangular area.

Gamemaster:Before they had the walls, it was one extended, almost cylindrical building, like on its side.

Gamemaster:But now with the walls around it, it just forms this big rectangle on the map.

Gamemaster:It isn't marked in the Strider map because I forgot to go and update it, but in the past day or so, they have been expanding the territory of control of the Protectorate into the now vacated areas that you left behind, as was the original deal.

Gamemaster:so they are kind of expanding that territory of influence upward,

Gamemaster:which kind of surfaces on the Strider itself as part of the alarm system upgrade that they have.

Gamemaster:There are a number of what look to be almost kind of fence posts with wire

Argyle:Oh, very nice.

Anzu:Is your entire space your Fane, or is the Fane more limited?

Gamemaster:that have been placed in the areas north of their area that kind of feed back in.

Gamemaster:Yes.

Gamemaster:your Fane is the slice

Gamemaster:of the

Gamemaster:strider that you occupy

Gamemaster:so it's not just

Anzu:So they've expanded their Fane.

Gamemaster:correct, they have expanded

Anzu:Yeah.

Gamemaster:their Fane itself, the actual area in which

Gamemaster:is considered part of their Fane has

Argyle:I wonder if Hildebrandt's going to expand.

Benny:Thank you Don forget to check the grays and textiles

Anzu:Yeah.

Gamemaster:expanded

Gamemaster:can I get an

Gamemaster:arcana check please to that note

Gamemaster:because that is interesting

Anzu:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Anzu:And I'm also, well, on my way home, I'm going to see if Grayson has expanded into the textiles area.

Anzu:But someone help me remember that Okay

Gamemaster:20 okay uh yeah a 20 isn't fantastic what i will say uh is

Anzu:I got a 20 Arcana.

Anzu:Not ideal.

Gamemaster:yeah i guess you don't get any of the mechanics behind it what you would know what anzu knows

Gamemaster:off of a 20, is this area.

Gamemaster:If you recall, the entire Stryger, when you first popped up and set up your shops, it

Gamemaster:was just kind of this, like, open green field, and that's it.

Gamemaster:The only point of interest was the Giant set of rings that, you know, powers your travel

Gamemaster:through the horizon.

Gamemaster:the

Gamemaster:area

Gamemaster:that is under the control

Gamemaster:within the Fane of Protectorate

Gamemaster:seems

Gamemaster:greener almost

Gamemaster:than other parts

Gamemaster:of the Strider were

Gamemaster:like the grass has almost taken on

Gamemaster:this deeper green than the other grass had

Gamemaster:and it started to like grow

Gamemaster:out of the more

Gamemaster:almost lawn mower feel that the rest

Gamemaster:of the Strider has

Gamemaster:with the 20, like

Gamemaster:nothing underlying that, just specifically

Gamemaster:for whatever reason in this particular

Gamemaster:area of control, it's a bit

Gamemaster:greener than everywhere else

Gamemaster:um

Gamemaster:either way

Gamemaster:you're let in, you're brought into the actual

Gamemaster:building itself, into the

Gamemaster:constructed Fane

Gamemaster:and you can see that

Gamemaster:uh

Gamemaster:I

Gamemaster:I don't know how much or if any

Gamemaster:of Brithwyn that Anzu

Gamemaster:knows

Gamemaster:because I don't think Anzu would have had

Gamemaster:an excuse to go to Brithwyn or

Gamemaster:learn much about Brithwyn as an entity

Gamemaster:to the point that I would say

Gamemaster:the architecture inside is strange both from the perspective of somebody from Austrene and from somebody who lived in Hallia for a while and so the assumption to make there is this is some kind of Brithwinian standard architecture

Gamemaster:Uh, the interior of the, they don't have a moat on the outside. There is water inside. Um, the,

Gamemaster:the interior of this large cylindrical building is itself, uh, a Giant water fixture where water,

Gamemaster:uh, moves around the base of the interior, um, until it flows towards the back. It hits a water

Gamemaster:jet that shoots it up, and then it cascades down the sides of the cylindrical interior of the

Gamemaster:building before landing in the collection pool and flowing back towards the back. It is intricate,

Gamemaster:and as best you can tell, completely aesthetic in nature. It doesn't look like there's any

Gamemaster:functional purpose to it. It's not impeding your travel as a defensive nature or something like

Gamemaster:that. It is out of character with what I think you would associate normally with the reputation

Gamemaster:of something like Protectorate.

Gamemaster:Not to undercut that,

Gamemaster:literally the first room upon entering

Gamemaster:appears to be a sandpit of some kind

Gamemaster:where it looks like there is

Gamemaster:a recognizable person.

Gamemaster:You know this person.

Gamemaster:This is Tamara.

Gamemaster:This is the elf

Gamemaster:who looks like she is currently

Gamemaster:sparring with maybe five

Gamemaster:of the little entourage of people

Gamemaster:they brought along onto this trip.

Gamemaster:It is a violent affair.

Gamemaster:The sand is covered in blood.

Gamemaster:They're using weapons, she is not.

Gamemaster:And like, when you walk in, she looks over at you,

Gamemaster:she gives you a wave, and then she goes back

Gamemaster:to beating up the people that was in the sand pit with her Off to the side sitting on what looked to be you don see a lot of seating in this area or that not fair you don see a lot of chairs in this area There are cushions on the

Gamemaster:ground and you can see that Yao, the other one of the Protectorate that you've met, is currently

Gamemaster:kneeling on one of the cushions and it looks like sketching Tamara beating up people in the sandpit.

Gamemaster:But he sees you and he kind of gestures towards one of the other cushions on the ground

Gamemaster:and gives you a gruff little, like, acknowledgement.

Anzu:Hey, Yao, good afternoon.

Gamemaster:He's not been in the times that you've spoken to him.

Gamemaster:He's not exchanged many words.

Gamemaster:You can tell he is not one for a lot of words, at least so far.

Gamemaster:But he's happy to let you come in and is willing to lend an ear.

Gamemaster:Of course.

Anzu:Thanks for letting me come by.

Anzu:I first of all wanted to apologize

Anzu:we kind of spooked one of your guys out front a couple days ago

Anzu:we weren't really familiar with how you guys

Anzu:operate in your battle, post-battle

Anzu:kind of thing, so I hope that wasn't offensive

Gamemaster:Not offensive.

Gamemaster:Few experience after battle.

Gamemaster:Except Protectorate.

Anzu:That's fair.

Anzu:Listen, the main reason I wanted to come talk to you was because of a quick interaction we had actually a while ago.

Anzu:I had kind of hinted at some of my feelings on the Voidsong.

Anzu:And the way you reacted just made me curious.

Gamemaster:Not a secret.

Anzu:So basically, that's my first question is, what are your thoughts on the Voidsong?

Anzu:If you don't mind sharing, what do you think its origins are?

Gamemaster:I expect, outsider as you are,

Gamemaster:who are not familiar with the traditional belief system of Brithwyn,

Gamemaster:so the very short version is,

Gamemaster:we believe in the Iridescent Church,

Gamemaster:but we believe that Aurelia has ascended past what she is now

Gamemaster:and has become one with the horizon.

Argyle:I like that.

Gamemaster:with Færrin i think the reason there sits an impostor in the calarian church is because the true aurelia is trapped far on the horizon trying to reincarnate but unable and she sings for true believers to come save her

Gamemaster:When you mentioned the vocalist, that rung true to me, albeit I imagine you don't believe

Anzu:well frankly

Gamemaster:it Aurelia at the end, but some other singer.

Anzu:i hadn't really been able to come up with a great theory as for who it is i i i just can feel their

Gamemaster:I

Anzu:urgency. And my feeling is similar to you that it's a cry for help. And

Anzu:that's really fascinating. It could be her, could be somebody else. Yeah, I'm not sure. But

Anzu:I'm glad to hear that you've had a similar kind of interpretation, at least.

Gamemaster:I do not know if many where you are from carry this belief but I know that I am not the only one of my people who believes There are no true orts other than the Protectorate in

Gamemaster:Brithwyn, but

Gamemaster:they did consider

Gamemaster:temporarily

Gamemaster:something like your Iconoclasm,

Gamemaster:albeit more

Gamemaster:focused on finding Aurelia

Gamemaster:specifically.

Gamemaster:It is interesting

Gamemaster:that in

Gamemaster:Calaria, where

Gamemaster:the false prophet sits, Iconoclasm would come to be. I imagine they have good reason for

Anzu:Yeah, and I mean, they've got their spot here too, so definitely, yeah.

Gamemaster:wanting to hunt down the true one as well.

Gamemaster:Unsurprising to say the least.

Anzu:So, is this almost rescue mission, if I can call it that, your reason for being here?

Gamemaster:That is fair. It is almost presumptuous of me to imagine that I could save the great Aurelia, but if she needs aid, I would come beckon.

Anzu:I spoke with Cato.

Gamemaster:I did

Anzu:Did you get a chance to meet Cato?

Gamemaster:I have heard his theory

Gamemaster:It is pleasant

Anzu:yeah I kind of am also feeling like his ultimate source is not the one but I do

Gamemaster:I think it unlikely

Gamemaster:I have seen the death and destruction

Gamemaster:That Calaria can rain down on others

Gamemaster:And to think that it would stop short

Gamemaster:of Illuminating Reliant, to think that it would banish them on accident?

Gamemaster:Oh, wish. Nothing more.

Anzu:think it fascinating that we all feeling this call for aid And not everybody seems to have that

Gamemaster:I don't understand

Anzu:interpretation.

Gamemaster:what people would think it

Gamemaster:if not a call

Gamemaster:for aid

Gamemaster:it just, it feels so much

Gamemaster:like a call

Gamemaster:for help, there's intention there

Gamemaster:and it

Anzu:there are some I've spoken to that believe it to be a trap of sorts.

Gamemaster:It has to be. I don't see what else it could be.

Anzu:Um,

Anzu:but,

Gamemaster:For whom?

Anzu:uh,

Anzu:that's a really good point.

Anzu:Uh,

Anzu:don't feel that way,

Anzu:obviously.

Anzu:Um,

Anzu:I feel like whoever it is out there,

Anzu:you know they've reached out to all of us for a reason and

Gamemaster:It's important to have a goal.

Anzu:I'm here to help as well you know whatever is out there

Anzu:I know they need me and they've

Anzu:bolstered me and called me to them so

Gamemaster:It's good that yours is just.

Gamemaster:although I hope you do not feel too bad

Gamemaster:when your vocalist turns out to be

Anzu:I think that would be okay.

Gamemaster:the prophet of another religion

Gamemaster:it will still be a good deed

Anzu:You know, she had a massive impact on our world.

Anzu:I don't really think anything else that we have would exist

Anzu:if she hadn't paved the way.

Gamemaster:This is true.

Gamemaster:He would be enslaved as likely would I This is a better outcome

Anzu:Yeah Just one interesting thing I show you that I been working on in trying to connect

Argyle:It left by who I not there

Anzu:and get closer to the vocalist, whoever they may be.

Anzu:there's some musical, obviously, notes to what they do, and there's some more magical layers

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Anzu:to it as well. I managed to imprint it on these pieces of paper, and I'll pull out my void paper,

Anzu:and I don't know, I'll hand them to him if he will touch them. They have a pull. The Voidsong,

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Anzu:I was able to imprint it onto these and it calls on these as well.

Anzu:Well,

Gamemaster:This is interesting.

Gamemaster:I wish we had the foresight to have brought one or two of our wise men on with us.

Gamemaster:I'm afraid neither I nor Tamara are particularly learned.

Gamemaster:But this is interesting.

Gamemaster:Do you think we are being pulled in this way?

Gamemaster:I certainly don't feel a physical pressure to move.

Anzu:Well, they are using our connection as a guide on the Strider.

Anzu:So, in a way.

Gamemaster:I find myself liking our hosts less each time I learn something about them.

Gamemaster:That would have been good to know.

Anzu:Yes, they are definitely a bit nefarious.

Anzu:To be honest with you, I didn't really like them coming in.

Anzu:but it was more of a calculated gamble of, well, if they're going to the vocalist, I need to be there too.

Gamemaster:Understandable. We are on this trip for some time.

Anzu:Yes.

Gamemaster:I wonder if it is worth exploring resting control.

Anzu:I see it as a possible long-term possibility.

Anzu:Uh, it remains to be seen how deep their roots go here.

Anzu:well in a way you already are but uh

Gamemaster:Understandable. I would not know how to drive this thing.

Gamemaster:Not on purpose.

Anzu:uh yeah i don't know how automated the process is so that's another thing but if you guys have any

Anzu:theories or things you want to test that you feel you don't have the

Anzu:tools or capabilities to do, I'm happy to try and run experiments for you.

Anzu:We're in this together. We're trying to get to the end here.

Gamemaster:That is interesting.

Anzu:And I'd like us both to be there.

Gamemaster:I would take you up on that.

Gamemaster:Had I some idea of what we wanted to research?

Anzu:Not yet.

Gamemaster:You have no way, I take it, of knowing who sits at the end of this, because that is truly

Gamemaster:all I am curious about.

Anzu:I mean, it's something I am working towards, but that's really the big question, right?

Gamemaster:Would it help you?

Anzu:That's why we're going.

Anzu:I do wonder as we get closer if it'll become clearer.

Gamemaster:I should hope so.

Gamemaster:I was going to offer, since you offered to help, two things.

Anzu:Thank you Did they say anything about us

Gamemaster:One, just in the name of allyship, I would note that we were approached.

Gamemaster:We said no But it appears Amber Call is attempting to form an alliance with other players on the Strider and they asked if we wanted to participate

Gamemaster:He made a pretty good plea about taking down the Iridescent Church, but I said we were already promised.

Gamemaster:Just something to keep in mind.

Anzu:and the folks that we have more aligned ourselves with.

Argyle:But.

Gamemaster:No, it seemed you were beneath his attention.

Anzu:Honestly, for now I'll take that.

Anzu:I'd rather him set his eyes on the church.

Anzu:It's good to know that that's his primary target for the time being.

Gamemaster:The other thing, if you are attempting to look into who sits at the end of our journey,

Gamemaster:it might help. I have a piece of Aurelia's armor, the first one, if that would be useful.

Anzu:Really?

Anzu:This is something that the Protectorate has had in their possession?

Gamemaster:I keep it as a talisman.

Gamemaster:It was given to me by my mentor, and my mentor received it from her mentor,

Gamemaster:and her mentor received it from his mentor, so on and so forth, until they get

Anzu:Wow, I mean, yeah, I'd love to be able to take a look at it and maybe see if it bears

Gamemaster:back to Aurelia, who passed it down in the first place.

Anzu:any resonance with, you know, everything else that we've been working on.

Gamemaster:It is precious to me, and if you lose it I will kill you and the rest of your

Anzu:Frankly, I'm not even sure I want to take it with me.

Gamemaster:organization searching for it.

Anzu:But I...

Gamemaster:That is also acceptable You may come here to look at it at any time

Anzu:No I not taking that outside

Argyle:unless we have the full party to escort it do not do not do that I want everyone from our heart

Argyle:to be on top of this item

Argyle:this is way scarier than the

Anzu:They have a workshop.

Anzu:That's good enough.

Argyle:creepy library I don't want this thing

Argyle:I'd rather

Argyle:take a book from that library

Argyle:than this piece of armor

Anzu:Well, thank you for entertaining some conversation.

Gamemaster:Of course.

Anzu:I was very curious to see how like-minded we are, and I think that there's a lot we

Anzu:could work towards as we go on this journey.

Gamemaster:I am pleased to have somebody who sees the same path that I do, even if the end is possibly

Anzu:Indeed.

Argyle:Hmm.

Gamemaster:blurry.

Anzu:All right, then I'll let you get back to your drawing.

Gamemaster:Of course.

Gamemaster:In the time that you had this conversation,

Gamemaster:Tamara has at this point

Gamemaster:fully battered and

Gamemaster:bloodied and broken bonesed

Gamemaster:everybody in the ring with her and is now in the

Gamemaster:process of resetting those bones

Gamemaster:and casting what looks to be some kind of healing magic

Gamemaster:on them to get them ready for

Anzu:Indeed.

Gamemaster:round two. You do

Gamemaster:not envy the

Gamemaster:non-slayer rank of Protectorate members in this in this organization.

Argyle:You got it.

Gamemaster:But you are you are free to see yourself out as you please.

Gamemaster:You can... okay. I remember so I'm going to remind you even though it seems that

Anzu:I will go home.

Gamemaster:nobody else will.

Benny:There's a grace and the textiles

Anzu:Please.

Gamemaster:Yeah no Amber Claw has claimed 100 of the area that used to be Garrick Textiles It all the way up to the border where the Harlequins are at this point

Argyle:That guy's definitely from somewhere else.

Anzu:Yeah.

Anzu:I would expect nothing less.

Gamemaster:Also, just for fun, can you make a society check for me?

Anzu:Sure.

Anzu:I'm trained in that.

Gamemaster:Hmm?

Argyle:guys from somewhere else.

Benny:16 and then what's your modifier?

Anzu:Gosh darn it.

Gamemaster:What'd you get?

Anzu:Uh, I got a 16, but I'm thinking of using a mythic point.

Anzu:I don't know.

Anzu:My modifier is 14. I rolled a 2.

Gamemaster:He's being mean.

Anzu:No, I'll just leave it. I'll save it.

Argyle:With Benny.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:absolutely all right so you can make your way back home um next we will move over to argyle

Gamemaster:who's going over to the Scale with benny sorry argyle and benny going over to the Scale um

Gamemaster:you have seen the skills uh like pillbox fortress setup that they had originally

Gamemaster:um similarly it seems that a lot of people have gone for walls uh because this is also

Argyle:yeah

Gamemaster:and walled

Gamemaster:now, which is

Gamemaster:honestly not that much

Gamemaster:of a change in the defensive

Argyle:yes

Gamemaster:position, given that it was already

Gamemaster:a pretty heavily reinforced box.

Gamemaster:But

Gamemaster:it's been walled.

Gamemaster:You can head up to the front.

Gamemaster:I am assuming that you sent

Gamemaster:a message ahead of time that you were visiting?

Argyle:yeah

Gamemaster:Okay. So, similarly,

Gamemaster:you get the much more lax

Gamemaster:entrance, where there is still a

Gamemaster:sniper pointed at your head as you enter, but you know that's part for the course.

Argyle:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:And you are brought back into the pillbox area

Argyle:I like that

Gamemaster:This time you have Bishop is around. He's that golden scarred lizard folk man.

Gamemaster:And then Lance, the cursed one, who is their sniper, who is set up back.

Gamemaster:Drake, the third, the really big tattooed guy, doesn't seem to be present at the moment.

Gamemaster:He's out in some form.

Argyle:Drake isn't the dragon

Argyle:um

Gamemaster:Drake is not the dragon.

Argyle:yeah

Gamemaster:Drake is also, that's his last name.

Gamemaster:His first name's Cassian, but everybody calls him Drake, so he's Drake.

Argyle:um

Argyle:so two things one i would have chatted with the group should we tell them about machine god yet

Johnny:The Protectorate or...

Benny:Sounds good.

Anzu:No.

Gamemaster:That's a good question.

Argyle:or no to Scale

Johnny:No, no, no.

Argyle:okay that's not why i'm here um i was here because that sniper is cursed

Argyle:and i was wondering if i could break that curse with my feet break curse

Argyle:and I took this

Johnny:Can he break the curse with his feet?

Benny:he has

Johnny:All ten toes?

Gamemaster:do your toes work to break a curse

Johnny:I think so.

Argyle:on level 7

Argyle:and I forgot to do it earlier

Argyle:so I'm seeing, so when we get there

Argyle:I'm gonna have like this like doctor

Argyle:bag and just like let it go

Argyle:and just like unreal a bunch of remedies

Argyle:and it's an 8 hour procedure

Benny:wait no do you know where I'm going with this

Benny:he's got break curse tattooed on his toe see he knows I just started counting the

Benny:letters like break

Benny:curse.

Gamemaster:You spent eight hours weakening a Chris's power, attempt to counteract.

Johnny:Well, I got that one.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Okay, so did Benny know that you were dragging him along for an eight-hour ritual?

Argyle:to be honest with you I probably would have said something to Benny if he wanted to come I was more scared of walking around Yeah Yeah You could spar with Bish Hang out with Bish

Benny:I don know what else Benny just going to be hanging out He could go and beat some people up at the gym I guess but he be hanging out

Gamemaster:Thank you That fine

Benny:It's true.

Gamemaster:Something funny that I see, having pulled this up,

Argyle:Where's that?

Gamemaster:the break curse feat, because it has the opportunity to, like, derail Pathfinder Society things,

Gamemaster:there's this caveat that says you may only use it once and at the very end of a session.

Gamemaster:at no other time are you allowed to use breakers

Argyle:Uh-oh.

Argyle:I didn't know that.

Gamemaster:sorry um

Gamemaster:you're not you're i mean we're not in a pathfinder society session so you can use it whenever that's

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:fine um okay so you want to set up drop down your your your bag of accoutrement and then set up this

Argyle:Cool, cool, cool.

Argyle:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:ritual to attempt to break the curse on Lance. Absolutely. You take out the various, like,

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:The holy man came to the door.

Gamemaster:unguents and candles and, like, random bits and bobs. Absolutely. I think Lance is...

Gamemaster:This is not the first time that Lance has attempted to get rid of the curse on him,

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:so he is used to this, to the point that as you're drawing out of the circle, he's like,

Gamemaster:Do you want some help?

Gamemaster:I could finish the other half while you're doing the...

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:How did you get cursed?

Gamemaster:And then he'll look.

Argyle:How did you get cursed, by the way?

Gamemaster:It's a pretty long story.

Argyle:What curse should I answer that?

Gamemaster:A hag.

Argyle:As a child?

Gamemaster:No.

Argyle:Alright, let's just try it.

Gamemaster:I don't know.

Gamemaster:Okay, you set up the rites.

Gamemaster:You start praying.

Gamemaster:you can use either occultism or religion

Gamemaster:the rank is half your level

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Okay okay Yeah buddy

Gamemaster:rounded up

Gamemaster:so this is a rank 4 counteract check and basically you just making an occultism roll I have to okay I gonna figure out sorry you just make a religion roll

Argyle:I want to make a religion roll.

Gamemaster:It's fine too. Counteract.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:32

Johnny:We had this image pinned.

Benny:it's his feet

Gamemaster:32 is pretty good.

Argyle:I went to mythic

Gamemaster:Uh, level base DC?

Argyle:I only get a 4

Argyle:that's not worth it

Gamemaster:What?

Johnny:I feel like it's kind of important.

Argyle:yeah

Argyle:No.

Gamemaster:I hate that so much.

Benny:it's his feet that break curse

Gamemaster:I hate that so much.

Benny:but it's his feet

Gamemaster:Argyle, do you have break curse tattooed on your toes one letter at a time?

Johnny:It's not going to work.

Anzu:Josh

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:It doesn't have the feet.

Argyle:32.

Gamemaster:Sorry, what number did you get?

Anzu:can you

Gamemaster:Sorry, yes?

Argyle:32.

Anzu:are you able to remove Jorge's

Anzu:tongue reaction to the

Anzu:picture

Anzu:hmm

Argyle:No.

Gamemaster:No.

Gamemaster:I don't think I have the ability to remove reaction oh I do

Gamemaster:um absolutely a 32 is pretty good um that's a success

Anzu:All right. Sorry. Carry on.

Gamemaster:how does this what does the success mean contract rank four on a success um

Gamemaster:What is the...

Argyle:I think it's up to five.

Gamemaster:Oh, level range.

Gamemaster:Up to five. It is up to five.

Gamemaster:There is a brief moment at the end of eight hours where you casting it and you can see that a bit of color comes back to his skin You definitely counteracted some effect for

Argyle:I don't expect a single level,

Gamemaster:a short period of time before it just comes back and he becomes like sallow

Gamemaster:and sunken like he was previously. It seems that that is unfortunately not

Gamemaster:quite enough.

Gamemaster:you rolled pretty high uh on religion um so i will say that it is pretty close

Argyle:but do I have a range of what I think it might be?

Argyle:damn it am i allowed to try this again if we have another day tomorrow

Gamemaster:but not exactly like what you had was was barely not enough

Argyle:okay yeah i'll try that so i'll be back i'll be back

Gamemaster:yeah i mean if you want to if you want to try again on another day that's fine

Gamemaster:he says okay see you tomorrow

Argyle:yeah it'll work

Argyle:oh by the way

Argyle:our hearts a lot more fortified now

Argyle:we have also gunslingers

Argyle:do you guys want to move in

Argyle:just a heads up

Gamemaster:uh

Gamemaster:no

Gamemaster:bishop will say when does shit not go down with the Iridescent Church uh we have we we came into

Argyle:I think some shit's gonna go down with the

Argyle:Iridescent Church so

Argyle:that's true

Argyle:yeah

Gamemaster:this with the expectation that all of the big players are going to try something shifty at

Gamemaster:some point during our stay uh i don't know how comfortable they feel yet because i feel really

Gamemaster:the second any blood is spilled

Gamemaster:a lot of blood will be spilled

Gamemaster:at the moment I think we're all just kind of

Argyle:so

Argyle:so why not uh you guys are kind of sandwiched between two enemies why not uh

Gamemaster:watching each other

Argyle:come over to us bolster it up even more

Gamemaster:in part

Gamemaster:because we don't want to seed

Gamemaster:this territory to

Gamemaster:to the

Gamemaster:combined iridescent churches block

Gamemaster:given that we are sandwiched

Gamemaster:above and below it makes it harder for them to coordinate. It's much easier if they have

Argyle:Well, they're incorrect.

Gamemaster:connection between the two.

Gamemaster:But also because

Gamemaster:if we're being completely honest,

Gamemaster:for your protection,

Gamemaster:I imagine that we are

Gamemaster:a much, much larger target

Gamemaster:to any of the larger organizations

Gamemaster:than your

Gamemaster:ragtag group of small

Gamemaster:players.

Argyle:No offense.

Argyle:we are also a dangerous target.

Johnny:We're dangerous.

Benny:Yes.

Gamemaster:We will keep that in mind.

Argyle:That being said, I appreciate it.

Argyle:And if you do see signs of an invasion,

Argyle:I recommend you just get in your car

Argyle:and drive over to our place.

Argyle:And then we'll house you.

Gamemaster:I appreciate the offer.

Gamemaster:We are pretty well fortified here.

Gamemaster:It'll take a pretty concerted effort to get us out of this location if nothing else.

Argyle:Okay, good to know.

Argyle:Okay, cool.

Argyle:We got a map, by the way, so we have some ideas

Argyle:of what we're starting to work on

Argyle:the diving

Argyle:for the items.

Gamemaster:That's good.

Gamemaster:I may send Drake over at some point to take a look at your map, just so that we have our

Gamemaster:own sketch of it.

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:We're going to work with Hilda Brent

Gamemaster:I don't know if that's quite true

Argyle:so they can help scout some of the areas if you trust them.

Argyle:I do, because I don't think anyone else likes them,

Argyle:so we're their only allies.

Gamemaster:I'm sure some people like them

Gamemaster:but I imagine

Gamemaster:if they were going to do something

Gamemaster:I don't think it would be in the first tithe

Gamemaster:I really do think the fact that you all have been running around so much

Gamemaster:this early on is an obvious boon to your point because most of the big orgs us included have chosen to move slowly and watch the other ones

Argyle:you yeah

Argyle:all right well good luck let us know if anything if you need any help from us scrappy dogs

Gamemaster:But, yeah.

Argyle:um

Gamemaster:Of course.

Argyle:hey um

Gamemaster:End.

Argyle:do you have any tips on this cursor tomorrow or was this a sea hag or was this like a forest hag or

Gamemaster:Lance will say,

Gamemaster:well,

Gamemaster:so in my youth,

Gamemaster:I had been a bit arrogant, I suppose.

Argyle:uh sorry i i gotta head back up to train the new folks uh but just like high level sea hag you know

Argyle:gotcha gotcha gotcha I can break this shit

Gamemaster:Coven of Nighthacks.

Johnny:you guys come back

Benny:I did say a coven, which sounds like more than one.

Gamemaster:Okay, and you can head up.

Argyle:alright let's go

Argyle:as the second I get out of there I go I don't know if I'm gonna be able to break this

Argyle:buddy

Argyle:that's a lot

Argyle:yeah

Argyle:alright

Johnny:you guys come back

Gamemaster:If you sorry, if you want, you go.

Johnny:I was going to say you guys come back and just find Johnny

Argyle:wait

Johnny:he has all three guys on the couch

Johnny:listen, outside

Johnny:it's not even that great

Gamemaster:You waited until he was no longer a propagandist to get him to do propaganda.

Johnny:I was outside earlier

Johnny:I don't know, it smells a little weird

Johnny:I think Benny farted when he walked by

Johnny:inside we got AC

Argyle:aren't you actually a propagandist

Johnny:I dropped it for

Argyle:didn't you take that dedication

Argyle:uh okay

Johnny:I dropped it for the dandy archetype

Argyle:okay

Johnny:because it's better long term

Argyle:yeah Yeah

Johnny:uh

Johnny:It was deception or diplomacy and we really needed diplomacy in this stretch of the campaign Listen guys the big thing is that we need you all safe and indoors is just a little more safe Out there you never know what gonna happen A

Benny:Just when I think that I out from

Johnny:shell's got bullets everywhere. There's bullets just flying. You could walk by a wall thinking

Johnny:you're totally fine. Boom! The biggest bullet you've ever seen is gonna punch a hole through

Benny:from what angle

Johnny:there. Anyway, stay inside. Like what? I think you guys... it's...

Benny:do we approach this discussion

Benny:do they see Benny when he walks

Argyle:No, no.

Benny:they see Benny before Benny sees them

Johnny:I was thinking there's two couches. They're all on one couch, I'm on another couch.

Johnny:Like this, and you guys enter sort of through here.

Benny:Benny would like to stealth

Benny:and run up behind them

Benny:and then

Benny:grab their shoulders and go

Benny:it's scary

Benny:what

Johnny:Anyway, guys, you're all doing a great job. Stay indoors.

Argyle:No.

Argyle:They're going to hate us.

Benny:bye bye but he won't sneak up

Argyle:They're going to try to kill us.

Argyle:Yes.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:Give a hoot. Don't pollute. Stay indoors.

Gamemaster:Great.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Can I get a religion or a nature check from Argyle, please, about the hags, just to see if you have any information there?

Argyle:22.

Anzu:That's crazy.

Gamemaster:22. Not a lot of info. You know that a coven is more than one.

Gamemaster:You also know that hags are fiends.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:That's it.

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:Alright, well.

Argyle:I going to save my hero point to actually try to break the curse rather than Nope

Anzu:you I just share what I spoke to Yao about

Gamemaster:Okay Okay Is there anything else you guys wanted to do on this day

Anzu:I'll mention that it seems like Amber Call's top target is the Iridescent Church.

Argyle:So...

Johnny:Crazy.

Anzu:and that Yao believes, as well as many listeners from Brithwyn,

Anzu:believe the source of the Voidsong to be Aurelia herself.

Johnny:Just saying.

Johnny:I feel as though if we were like, hey, we're best buds with the heart that Aurelia made and was their guy in the chair.

Johnny:I feel like that would get some big points for us and maybe they want to come and help

Argyle:I am down for that

Anzu:I do think that there is, yeah, some allyship to be had there for sure.

Johnny:us kill some sleepy bugs.

Argyle:I

Argyle:and especially since they want to take over the fiends

Argyle:I think

Argyle:first step would be regaining full

Argyle:machine god control

Argyle:then we probably need to take over

Argyle:maybe

Argyle:Grayson and then we go for the

Argyle:fiends

Johnny:I agree.

Argyle:yeah

Benny:Yeah.

Anzu:They're scary, but I guess they're both scary.

Anzu:So, yeah.

Argyle:no but we would definitely need to go for grayson first because grayson's right by the fiends and i

Anzu:Either one is not something that's attainable at the moment.

Argyle:don't want to fight fiends and then have to walk past grayson

Argyle:uh okay cool cool cool uh we should i i vote we should tell them

Benny:That's true.

Argyle:Oh, wait, I have a better plan about the bugs.

Argyle:Wait, does that mean that Iridescent Church is the good guys here?

Argyle:If Grayson doesn't like him.

Anzu:It means that there are multiple groups here with varying degrees of morality, and the

Gamemaster:Don't have nuance.

Anzu:big orgs seem to care more about each other than they care about us right now, and that's

Anzu:the most important thing.

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:Well.

Gamemaster:Shut up with your nuance.

Argyle:I got a.

Gamemaster:There's a good guy and then there's a bad guy.

Argyle:Yeah.

Argyle:Don't any of you guys know anything about a coven of hags?

Benny:one or many covens

Anzu:Josh, can I make a roll to see if I've studied hags in my time?

Gamemaster:It's actually a religion check here.

Benny:oh yeah uh no

Argyle:One coven, from what I understand.

Argyle:Benny, you were there.

Argyle:Anzu?

Gamemaster:It's religion or nature, but yes.

Anzu:Oh.

Anzu:Yeah.

Anzu:They might fall a little bit up.

Gamemaster:What kind of academia were you doing?

Gamemaster:What is your academia, Loran?

Anzu:It's like...

Anzu:It's called academia lore, but like...

Anzu:Like, theoretically, like thematically,

Anzu:it was more occult-type research that Anzu was doing.

Gamemaster:Yeah, so I don't think it applies here.

Anzu:So...

Gamemaster:So it is just religion or nature.

Gamemaster:What'd you get?

Argyle:All right, well, I'll try again in the morning.

Anzu:I'll make a nature check. I am trained in that.

Argyle:Do we need

Anzu:So.

Anzu:I rolled in foundry and I got a natural one.

Gamemaster:Uh huh.

Anzu:So.

Anzu:Now I have two mythic points.

Anzu:So when you have when you have a covenant it a hag that has gained a really high level of independence

Gamemaster:That's good.

Gamemaster:No um you not even sure if there more like a coven sounds like it one It a coven

Anzu:and actually defiance towards other hags, and it's this really individualistic self-empowerment

Anzu:kind of thing.

Argyle:Well, I didn't think so, but you're the learned one, so.

Argyle:No, you're not.

Argyle:I don't believe you on this.

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:Did you even go to university?

Johnny:This was not Anzu's area of study.

Benny:Hag dot com.

Anzu:I think I read one article on hags once, so...

Argyle:How many degrees do you have?

Argyle:OK, well.

Anzu:No.

Anzu:I would like a day to do a little research, if that's all right.

Argyle:Well, I'll try again tomorrow.

Argyle:Do you guys want to dive into the Strider tomorrow,

Argyle:or are we going to do that?

Argyle:Not tomorrow.

Johnny:I mean, are we...

Johnny:I don't...

Argyle:Okay.

Benny:oh

Anzu:Okay.

Argyle:Go with me.

Johnny:Yeah.

Johnny:I know this is a big thing.

Anzu:And then...

Argyle:Let's go with me.

Johnny:Does anyone else have other stuff they want to do tomorrow?

Johnny:Or maybe we could all chip in and help out Anzu with this.

Argyle:I'm going to go try to uncurse that guy.

Benny:I already clocked in for my

Johnny:All right.

Johnny:Let me...

Benny:uncursing guy shift and

Benny:we just stared at each other for eight hours

Benny:while

Benny:in the other room on the guy

Johnny:Oh, I heard that. I wondered what that was. I wondered who was throat singing.

Benny:yeah I think he's gonna try screaming next

Benny:because there's a hag or more than one or something

Benny:he actually had his

Johnny:We just...

Johnny:Our guy leaves 30 seconds later.

Anzu:Incredible Incredible Incredible

Benny:feet out and he was just stomping grapes

Benny:in the middle of the room

Benny:his toes to break

Benny:or something

Benny:Oh Oh

Gamemaster:You all get a night rest and you wake up the next day

Anzu:I have so many spell slots now.

Anzu:Oh, they're actually here.

Anzu:Gosh, that's so exciting.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Oh, actually, can you do me a favor? Where are you?

Gamemaster:Oh, you guys are... I didn't realize you were in Foundry.

Gamemaster:You're just looking at some tires.

Benny:Yeah, you didn't want to look at the burning tires.

Anzu:Yeah, I was not going to comment on the tires.

Gamemaster:Um...

Anzu:I don't know what they mean

Johnny:Is everyone else tired?

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Anzu:I

Gamemaster:You get no context for the tires.

Gamemaster:You've just learned that there are tires.

Gamemaster:I will...

Anzu:I've started

Johnny:I got hopping tires.

Anzu:loading Foundry at the beginning of the sessions

Anzu:no matter what just because it annoys me

Anzu:sometimes with its loading times so

Anzu:that's why I'm here

Gamemaster:That is fair.

Anzu:I can't speak for everybody else

Gamemaster:I don't mind you guys showing up early.

Gamemaster:I will...

Gamemaster:What I do want to do, though, is...

Gamemaster:I want to double-check something, since you're here.

Gamemaster:I've started an encounter.

Anzu:Yes.

Gamemaster:It's just Anzu's in the encounter.

Gamemaster:It looks like there's an encounter started for you, right?

Gamemaster:Okay, can you unleash your psyche?

Anzu:Probably.

Gamemaster:Yeah, but there should be...

Anzu:I don't think there was anything ever really stopping me from unleashing psyche.

Anzu:Maybe.

Anzu:Oh, Unleash.

Gamemaster:Now that you sent it to chat, there should be like a little button on the bottom that

Gamemaster:you can press.

Benny:and

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Okay, you're unleashed.

Anzu:Oh, fascinating.

Gamemaster:It's the next turn.

Gamemaster:Now we're on round two.

Gamemaster:It's the next turn.

Gamemaster:Now we're on round three.

Anzu:Ooh!

Gamemaster:Did you get a pop-up?

Anzu:Yes!

Gamemaster:Awesome.

Anzu:Oh, let's burn

Gamemaster:Okay, did that apply the damage to you?

Anzu:It did

Gamemaster:It did.

Anzu:Yes uh wait give me Oh okay we do one more after this because I want to try something but I going to burn again

Gamemaster:And you still unleashed Great Next turn Oh Okay I going to go with the great next turn oh okay okay

Gamemaster:did you want to do something now I'm holding

Anzu:Okay, hold on. Yes, I want to see if it will apply to temporary hit points or not.

Gamemaster:all right thanks everybody else for sitting along for this the one thing I

Gamemaster:couldn't test on my own end was if it actually works on his computer. Okay let

Argyle:There it is.

Anzu:Yes, please, go ahead.

Gamemaster:me know when it's okay to go to the next round.

Anzu:It does apply to temporary HP.

Anzu:I don't know if that's good or not, but

Gamemaster:Great I mean that's what it should do. I think that's what it should do and then

Anzu:I do get

Anzu:MHP from time to time, so.

Gamemaster:I click it again and then don't extend it this time.

Anzu:Yeah, I will let it subside.

Gamemaster:And you're...

Anzu:And I'm stupefied one.

Gamemaster:And then it's the next round,

Gamemaster:and you're still stupefied,

Johnny:Oh.

Benny:Shit.

Anzu:Indeed.

Gamemaster:and it's the next round, and it's gone.

Gamemaster:Great. Everything works.

Gamemaster:Wonderful. You can heal yourself back up.

Johnny:Oh.

Anzu:Excellent work, Josh.

Anzu:Really remarkable.

Gamemaster:I'm happy that that works.

Gamemaster:If you guys have anything else that's like that,

Johnny:Oh.

Gamemaster:like, I will work on.

Gamemaster:Now that I know the pattern for doing it,

Gamemaster:I can get that stuff set up for you as well.

Gamemaster:Oh my god.

Gamemaster:Who are you targeting?

Gamemaster:Oh, that's just damage.

Johnny:Oh.

Gamemaster:You're just rolling damage.

Benny:Well, I rolled a crit earlier, so I wanted to...

Gamemaster:Oh, okay, sure.

Gamemaster:Obviously.

Argyle:Yes.

Benny:Get my damage in.

Anzu:Oh, that's on me. Oh, no.

Anzu:He's testing out his theory from the bot last week.

Gamemaster:Okay, sorry.

Gamemaster:Let's ignore the tires for the moment.

Gamemaster:There are no tires.

Anzu:...

Gamemaster:We're going to do

Gamemaster:Attempted a Curse again,

Gamemaster:if you like.

Argyle:Yes.

Gamemaster:Religion check, Mr. Argyle, sir.

Argyle:I'm going to cast heroism on myself first to give a plus one.

Gamemaster:Oh, that's fun.

Argyle:Alright.

Argyle:I'll roll again.

Argyle:If this doesn't work, I'll just wait till next level.

Johnny:Yeah, I'm sorry.

Benny:The other guy.

Gamemaster:Mm-hmm.

Argyle:I'm not going to get an aid because you're aiding the other guy, right, Johnny?

Argyle:It's alright. It's alright. It's alright.

Argyle:Oh, yes, that's great.

Argyle:37. Does that work?

Gamemaster:What'd you get?

Gamemaster:I'm so sorry

Gamemaster:a 37 is literally

Argyle:Can I use a hero?

Johnny:I'm so sorry.

Anzu:who this man

Gamemaster:one off of the crit that you needed

Gamemaster:yeah

Argyle:Sorry.

Gamemaster:what'd you get

Argyle:Okay, I'll try.

Argyle:I'll try.

Argyle:It's not going to work, but it's worth a try.

Argyle:No!

Argyle:Alright, alright, alright.

Gamemaster:yeah

Argyle:That's fine. I leave.

Gamemaster:correct

Argyle:Wait, if I had eight,

Argyle:it would have worked!

Argyle:Damn it!

Gamemaster:yeah you needed

Gamemaster:you needed a 38 to crit

Gamemaster:I'm so sorry

Argyle:Damn it.

Johnny:totally

Anzu:We're doing research today.

Gamemaster:okay the rest of you

Gamemaster:well what's the plan here

Gamemaster:what's going on

Gamemaster:okay

Anzu:We're doing science.

Gamemaster:mhm

Anzu:All right.

Anzu:So, this is very abstract.

Anzu:and I don't know how to say exactly what I'm going for,

Gamemaster:Okay.

Anzu:but I'm going to give you some of the building blocks that I have

Anzu:and we'll see where we can go from there.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:

Anzu:So the goal is to see if I can find a way to reverse and or alter

Anzu:the harmony that has likely beset my sister.

Anzu:here some of my building blocks i have my void paper so i have experience uh applying harmony to other things Sort of I have from very early in the campaign

Gamemaster:Correct Kind of correct kind of yes you do

Anzu:I still have an intact Sentience Distributor.

Gamemaster:uh-huh

Anzu:That's just a tool in the toolbox.

Anzu:I have seen, to a mild degree,

Anzu:some of the research done by

Anzu:Higher Light

Gamemaster:Okay.

Anzu:and some of their ways of

Anzu:adjusting the Voidsong

Anzu:or overriding the Voidsong.

Anzu:And so I know that they have

Anzu:looked into doing this

Anzu:and maybe even have done this.

Anzu:I think those are my building blocks.

Anzu:I forget if there was something else.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:so let's see i think you have you have two uh two friends that you brought along with you that may

Anzu:Hmm.

Benny:So,

Gamemaster:or may not be of any help um i think what we're going to do is we're going to treat this like a

Gamemaster:skill challenge or ritual if that makes sense where anzu is the primary caster here caster

Gamemaster:primary researcher um you've got your building blocks you're trying to figure out some info here

Gamemaster:with like the caveat that um the Voidsong was around like for a while even as iconoclasm was

Gamemaster:being founded and people were like how do i get this out of my head and no good answers were

Gamemaster:discovered um so you're definitely like treading into an area that has already had a bunch of

Gamemaster:people thinking about it and at least publicly weren't able to come to a reasonable conclusion

Gamemaster:so you know you're you're treading some some deep water there uh but you're the primary researcher

Gamemaster:uh your your two um lab rats slash uh assistants are uh available to help you out um and so i think we going to start with the secondary casters in this case Benny and Johnny

Gamemaster:What I'd like you to do

Gamemaster:if you wish to participate

Gamemaster:is come up

Gamemaster:with some kind of skill

Gamemaster:that you think contributes meaningfully

Gamemaster:to this research in a way that you can help

Gamemaster:Anzu with the primary of the bulk work.

Gamemaster:If at all.

Gamemaster:If you can't think of anything or you think you do more

Gamemaster:harm than good, then you're free to abstain.

Argyle:Might be, guys. I should have stayed for this.

Benny:so for record keeping

Gamemaster:That's allowed.

Benny:benny did go through the computer for the was it the Pyrelight research

Gamemaster:Mm.

Benny:could benny have maybe a bit better insight in the way that the information is laid out and be

Gamemaster:Mm-hmm.

Benny:able to pull slightly more info from Pyrelight and use record keeping lore

Gamemaster:Yeah, I think that's fair, given that this is digging through some Pyrolyte's records

Argyle:Oh,

Johnny:This is not my skill set, so I think I should abstain and just aid.

Anzu:well my my one thing possibly for johnny is there is a whole like musical aspect to this

Gamemaster:and the like.

Gamemaster:I'll give you record keeping.

Gamemaster:Okay, you can do that as well.

Johnny:And...

Johnny:Oh, I didn't even think about that.

Anzu:because it's the you know the Voidsong their harmonies like

Argyle:oh,

Gamemaster:I will let you attempt a performance check.

Anzu:so if there's like some music theory that we could apply and like uh

Johnny:Could I dig deep into music theory and see if there's any sort of harmonics or if there's like destructive frequencies that are going on?

Anzu:I don't

Johnny:Okay, it's got a lot better, guys.

Anzu:that's not me trying to cheese this Josh

Anzu:with his best skill that's like

Gamemaster:No, that's...

Benny:We rolling we rolling um

Anzu:I feel like there's relevance

Gamemaster:That is a reasonable connection to make Yeah that fine I accept it If I thought you were trying to be cheesy I would just say no

Anzu:fair Thank you Fair Fair

Argyle:you Yeah

Johnny:Roll in.

Gamemaster:You're rolling.

Johnny:

Johnny:Roll in.

Anzu:Well, that's unfortunate.

Benny:i do have one extra hero point so i'll just hero point this

Benny:or mythic

Gamemaster:Okay.

Benny:I'm rerolling

Argyle:It's much better.

Johnny:I know importance is to Anzu, so I'm actually going to try and I'm going to use my mythic

Anzu:Okay.

Gamemaster:Mythic point. You didn't want to keep your natural one? That's so strange.

Benny:with a

Benny:no

Argyle:Oh.

Johnny:point too and try and get a better roll.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:All right.

Johnny:Okay.

Johnny:That was a little better.

Anzu:Okay.

Benny:Advantage.

Gamemaster:Anzu, you have a choice that you can make here from these two successes.

Johnny:Okay.

Johnny:I have a question.

Gamemaster:You can either add two circumstance bonus to your roll,

Gamemaster:or you can give yourself advantage.

Gamemaster:Yep, yep.

Johnny:If he takes the advantage, can I still aid him?

Johnny:Or does the aid...

Gamemaster:No.

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

Gamemaster:If he takes the points, I will let you aid him, though.

Johnny:Well, because eight is a circumstance bonus, so I don't think we'd stack it.

Anzu:Now, if I take the two, my ceiling is higher, including with Mythic.

Gamemaster:Oh, aid is a circumstance bonus.

Gamemaster:Okay, then, yeah, never mind.

Gamemaster:So you either just get a flat two or you get advantage.

Gamemaster:It's your choice.

Argyle:yeah

Anzu:Three shots, yeah.

Anzu:Which is fine.

Johnny:You didn't pay your subscription to use that 5e rule?

Benny:oh

Anzu:as well. I guess we'll take the advantage.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Anzu:and I'll make an occultism check

Gamemaster:Sorry, it's not advantage, it's a fortune effect that allows you to roll twice and select the higher.

Gamemaster:I apologize. If we call it advantage, the Pinkertons will be knocking down my door.

Argyle:that's tough

Benny:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:If you like.

Anzu:34 is pretty good.

Argyle:it's not good enough for hags i'll tell you that

Anzu:34 is pretty good.

Argyle:so if your thing's more complicated than hags put it out there

Argyle:Those are not good odds.

Benny:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:Where do you think you sit on a Scale from Voidsong to Hags?

Anzu:Um...

Anzu:I'd have to roll

Gamemaster:Somewhere there.

Anzu:what, like an 11 to beat that, probably?

Gamemaster:Okay.

Anzu:I think I'm going to stick with the 34.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Argyle:Statistically, you won't do better unless Tanner thinks with his heart that he will.

Argyle:It's a gamble.

Anzu:Right.

Gamemaster:You're sticking with the 34?

Anzu:Indeed.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Okay, with a 34.

Gamemaster:So, part of the problem here is that you're doing a little bit of, I don't know what the term here is,

Gamemaster:research at a distance, I suppose is the best way of putting it.

Gamemaster:You like trying to figure out how to take this out of somebody um without doing harm presumably Um but you don actually have anything to test it on necessarily So you working from a lot of trying to figure out base fundamentals

Gamemaster:like how does this work, how does it interact with things,

Gamemaster:what does it end up doing,

Gamemaster:and then is there a way I can use that in some fashion?

Gamemaster:And I think that it is...

Gamemaster:First of all, this is not a one-day activity.

Gamemaster:I need to be pretty clear about this.

Gamemaster:You are not going to figure anything out of use in one day,

Gamemaster:given that a lot of very smart people back in Færrin Prime

Gamemaster:had spent a considerable amount of time on it

Gamemaster:and didn't get anything, at least publicly didn't get anything

Gamemaster:that they were willing to share.

Gamemaster:So I guess my first question for you is,

Gamemaster:as you start this process and you see that it will take longer

Gamemaster:than the one day you've kind of time-blocked for it,

Gamemaster:what is the plan?

Gamemaster:Are you willing to, like, extend it further out and see it through to completion?

Anzu:What was under the impression that this is complicated and would take some time?

Gamemaster:Or is this more of, like, a spike to see how long it might take in the future, but you're okay not necessarily pursuing it, if that makes sense.

Gamemaster:Okay, okay.

Gamemaster:So then, we'll make this a little bit wishy-washy, I suppose.

Gamemaster:I will say that Anzu guesses that he's not even going to have a base of information that he can work off of to start hypothesizing things until the end of the cycle.

Gamemaster:If he's willing to devote the time to that, he thinks that there's a pretty good chance he might get something out of it, but not necessarily a cure.

Gamemaster:If he doesn't want to invest that time now, you can do some amount of work towards that and then leave the rest for later as well.

Gamemaster:That's an option.

Gamemaster:You are currently on day four so there about five days of work you put into this The next Joker world is eight

Argyle:How many days till the next Joker world

Anzu:you Is that with the menagerie or is that a separate

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:That's the Menagerie, yes.

Anzu:Okay.

Gamemaster:There are lots of little insignificant Joker Worlds in the middle.

Gamemaster:the one that you saw embarked on the map

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:as being important, the Menagerie

Gamemaster:or Menagerie 1 as it was on the map

Anzu:Okay.

Gamemaster:is 8 days out from where you currently are

Gamemaster:so you're doing it, you're doing the full 5 days through

Anzu:Okay.

Anzu:Well, I might have to take a break day to travel under the strider.

Gamemaster:that's fine

Gamemaster:absolutely

Anzu:But, like, my intent is to, like, any downtime that we have for me is going to be this.

Johnny:How many sandwiches do I get in before those notes stop coming?

Anzu:That's tough.

Gamemaster:okay so then we're gonna put this

Gamemaster:a little bit on hold to see if there's

Gamemaster:anything else the rest of the party

Gamemaster:wanted to do

Gamemaster:in the time between here and the end

Gamemaster:of the cycle yes Johnny

Gamemaster:oh just the first one

Gamemaster:Yeah, no. You sent the first one down, you got a note back. You sent the second one down, the sandwich was gone, no note.

Johnny:All right.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Johnny:No more sandwiches.

Johnny:Go down.

Johnny:Guys, I meal prep sandwiches for a whole week, so we gotta eat these.

Benny:So.

Benny:Okay.

Benny:Benny will take one immediately.

Benny:So do we want to kill the sleeping people or kill most of the waking people and then have a hostage to speed up Anzu's...

Gamemaster:Thank you Okay

Johnny:I kind of vote we kill the sleeping people, because we have the jump on them now, versus

Johnny:So I feel like if they wake up it going to be not going to be a great time

Benny:also be a clash of group names should they wake up I can handle that so we have to go get them now

Anzu:That was a good one That would make the record keeping really tough wouldn it

Benny:I would have to

Benny:waking people, parentheses one, I don't know.

Benny:But I think we should go.

Johnny:I'm ready.

Johnny:I was doing it.

Argyle:Yeah.

Benny:Next time.

Anzu:Before the tithing.

Gamemaster:Just temporally, when is this happening?

Gamemaster:Like, the next day?

Gamemaster:The day before the tithe?

Gamemaster:What's the plan?

Argyle:No, the next day.

Gamemaster:As soon as you can.

Argyle:So we have four.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Argyle:If we leave the next day, we'll have three days per tithe?

Gamemaster:If you...

Gamemaster:So, if you leave on the day after Anzu begins his research,

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:it is day five of nine.

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:we should...

Johnny:And there you go.

Benny:Yes.

Anzu:I think that I would very much like this to be less than a four-day journey into the Strider.

Argyle:You think we can be back within four days?

Argyle:Because we should probably try to be here for the first

Argyle:time. I feel like it's going to be the purge.

Benny:Yes.

Anzu:Although we do have plenty of sandwiches.

Argyle:Also,

Argyle:my big thing is I'd rather get this done

Argyle:earlier because I don't...

Argyle:I'd rather be topside

Argyle:as much

Argyle:is possible once shit starts hitting the fan.

Johnny:Yeah.

Benny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:So we'll just speed run it.

Argyle:And ideally...

Argyle:Yeah, it's gone.

Benny:Easy enough.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Day five of cycle two.

Gamemaster:You guys want to descend back down into the strider,

Gamemaster:presumably ask the machine god for directions to where you're going,

Gamemaster:and then your goal is you're currently aiming at the sleeping clan,

Argyle:Mm hmm.

Gamemaster:the group that is not currently awake.

Argyle:Does Machine Gun think it's possible for us to do this, right?

Gamemaster:why I just said isn't, you know, sorry.

Gamemaster:Machine God has said nothing to indicate otherwise.

Argyle:I mean, I'm going to ask him.

Argyle:Just be like, it's conceivable we could come out on top, right?

Gamemaster:Of course.

Argyle:OK.

Argyle:Sounds good.

Argyle:If we die, you should reach out to the Scale.

Argyle:Okay.

Benny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:I will have to wait for them to wander upon my fame.

Gamemaster:But okay.

Argyle:All right, that's fair.

Argyle:All right.

Gamemaster:Okay, the four of you group up and you start heading down to explore the Strider.

Argyle:Let's go.

Argyle:Actually, before we dive into it,

Johnny:Put them in.

Benny:No, this is...

Anzu:I feel like it is.

Gamemaster:This is not the right music for this.

Gamemaster:No, I need...

Gamemaster:It needs to be something substantially less upbeat.

Anzu:Oh, before we go down, I'm going to go to the tire yard and grab about 300 tires to bring down.

Gamemaster:How about...

Benny:We'll put them in the back of the truck.

Gamemaster:Yeah, of course.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Johnny:There's oil-soaked tires.

Benny:Move over, gasoline.

Benny:We've got tires to store.

Argyle:I'm going to ask Machine Gun, what's this other group like?

Johnny:You're on the run.

Benny:all of these matter very much for Benny Yeah yeah no fire

Gamemaster:What Well I don know why you would be asking that now

Argyle:You know, let's just do some basic prep.

Argyle:Like, are they on fire?

Argyle:Are they ice people?

Argyle:Do they like to mind control?

Argyle:Is there any useful?

Argyle:Is there anything useful?

Argyle:What's their domain like?

Argyle:Are they also spiders?

Argyle:You know?

Argyle:yeah yeah just like before yeah yeah

Gamemaster:It's too late.

Gamemaster:You've already agreed to go.

Gamemaster:Yeah, absolutely.

Gamemaster:If you're trying to do even a little bit of pre-recon,

Gamemaster:he will say

Gamemaster:they are

Benny:...

Gamemaster:not spiders

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:nor are they on fire

Gamemaster:or encased in ice

Gamemaster:they wear flesh

Gamemaster:the same as you do

Gamemaster:although it tends not to be their flesh

Gamemaster:that they wear

Gamemaster:they are skinwalkers

Gamemaster:more traditionally

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:sorry more specifically

Gamemaster:they are small

Gamemaster:ropey

Gamemaster:worm-like creatures

Gamemaster:that wear people's skin.

Argyle:Is that Leshies?

Gamemaster:What?

Argyle:No, that's not Leshy.

Johnny:Do they have any weaknesses like silver or silver?

Argyle:What's the Pathfinder one that does that?

Argyle:Never mind.

Gamemaster:I don't know.

Gamemaster:I mean, I know what a leshy is, but it's not that.

Argyle:Yeah, never mind.

Argyle:I think there's like a character race.

Argyle:Continue, continue.

Gamemaster:No.

Johnny:I got some silver.

Gamemaster:I don't believe so.

Gamemaster:I have to actually double check

Gamemaster:do they have weaknesses

Gamemaster:they make

Gamemaster:heavy use of

Argyle:do they have phones and then is he describing the shit that was following us

Gamemaster:mindless beings

Gamemaster:flesh piloted

Gamemaster:they don't really count

Gamemaster:as people

Gamemaster:so to speak

Gamemaster:they have minds

Gamemaster:they can be affected in that way

Gamemaster:but they are immune to most other effects that...

Argyle:early on in the campaign those cop things Well we knew what those were right

Benny:The bubble gum people

Anzu:you Of course

Gamemaster:Um Yeah I Uh Roll an Occultism or Nature check

Gamemaster:You did.

Argyle:We did research.

Gamemaster:Uh-huh.

Argyle:I'll roll a nature check if you want to roll

Argyle:on a cultism check.

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:Of course.

Argyle:I don't even want to roll, but I'm going to do it

Argyle:just so it's lower.

Anzu:Another 34.

Anzu:Oh man, I have them in my notes somewhere.

Argyle:Yeah.

Benny:They shall be nuked anew.

Gamemaster:a 22

Anzu:Who goes ball?

Gamemaster:is not quite enough

Gamemaster:a 34 is

Gamemaster:they were oogathals

Gamemaster:they were skinwalkers

Argyle:Booga sauce. Yeah.

Gamemaster:they were fleshy

Argyle:And they had ropes.

Gamemaster:rope-like skinwalkers

Argyle:Okay.

Anzu:Bruh.

Gamemaster:um

Gamemaster:you will say

Gamemaster:because their bodies are

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:constructed or inhabited

Gamemaster:rather than necessarily

Argyle:Good to know.

Gamemaster:made they do not carry

Gamemaster:a unified

Argyle:Good to know.

Gamemaster:a universal weakness

Gamemaster:in much the same way as these

Gamemaster:spiders did

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:I will say

Gamemaster:most of them do not have a soul

Argyle:Good to know.

Gamemaster:and as such are neither holy nor unholy

Argyle:Okay, good to know.

Gamemaster:if you are

Argyle:Good to know.

Gamemaster:venturing into their deaths now

Gamemaster:you do not have to worry about the

Gamemaster:true kin

Gamemaster:of the clan awake

Gamemaster:only the

Gamemaster:keepers

Gamemaster:those that maintain their bodies as they wait

Gamemaster:nothing

Gamemaster:particularly intelligent

Argyle:A little more.

Argyle:What are these true kin?

Argyle:Also, what should we do?

Argyle:just go in and kill everything?

Gamemaster:I would see them destroyed.

Anzu:Is is

Gamemaster:The true kin are the things that once invaded the Strider all 700 years ago

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:They sleep, waiting there, I suppose, awaiting the end of this journey, although it's not

Gamemaster:like they ever explained it to me.

Argyle:Oh, no.

Argyle:guys so that would have been so bad if we got

Argyle:somewhere and then all of a sudden there were

Benny:Of course.

Gamemaster:They're asleep.

Argyle:clone skinwalkers of other people

Argyle:that we knew

Argyle:that's so bad

Argyle:okay

Argyle:so we should go in and kill the sleeping

Argyle:ones do you have any tips

Argyle:on that while they're sleeping

Argyle:okay

Gamemaster:Surely you can learn how to kill something that is asleep.

Argyle:Okay.

Anzu:area where they're holed up is that another um well what was once the intent of that place

Gamemaster:A medical center.

Gamemaster:It was once, I suppose, a hospital.

Argyle:Fresh stuff.

Gamemaster:Change.

Gamemaster:It, like me, has a heart running it.

Gamemaster:Although that heart is dying or not quite sane in the way that I maintained my sanity.

Argyle:We can't save it.

Benny:Okay.

Anzu:So.

Argyle:We just got to unplug it.

Gamemaster:No, the years have not been kind to it.

Argyle:Okay.

Argyle:What's that heart's name?

Anzu:So.

Gamemaster:Oh, gosh.

Gamemaster:What's that heart's name?

Gamemaster:Lifeline.

Argyle:Okay.

Anzu:So.

Anzu:that area falls under the domain of life

Anzu:Do you have presence there as well, or will clearing these creatures kind of give you access to that area?

Gamemaster:Correct.

Gamemaster:I have no control over the area, although if you cleared them out I suppose I could

Anzu:I think that

Gamemaster:usurp the position that Lifeline now holds.

Gamemaster:It wasn't my original responsibility, but I can make do if necessary.

Anzu:we don't want to spread you too thin

Argyle:If we do, I assume, would you want the essence of Lifeline?

Gamemaster:I appreciate the intent.

Anzu:per se but

Anzu:we would like you to have overarching

Anzu:access to the underside

Anzu:of the slider

Gamemaster:I suppose we will see if and when you clear them out of that hospital.

Argyle:It'd be useful for us, but if it'd be more useful for you to control that part, we can also bring this to you.

Johnny:Okay.

Benny:Okay.

Gamemaster:I would have its position.

Gamemaster:I would not eat the corpse of my fallen friend.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:The remains of the hospital are on the third floor, and I'll give you the general directions

Gamemaster:to get there.

Argyle:Cool.

Gamemaster:This one is a little bit of a ways away for two reasons.

Gamemaster:The first is it's kind of close to the surface,

Gamemaster:which means that it's not really part of the section that you had to descend into.

Gamemaster:You have to kind of go down a little bit and then make your way up a floor almost and then move over.

Gamemaster:The other thing is if you recall the spot where the machine gun is its particular area of the strider is a little bit under where Hildebrandt is

Gamemaster:like kind of south of their slice.

Gamemaster:This one moves further north in the strider.

Gamemaster:It's still on the left-hand side,

Gamemaster:but it's definitely much further north in the strider than you were.

Gamemaster:It is...

Gamemaster:Actually, I guess I'll get a survival check

Gamemaster:to see if you can pinpoint around where it's located.

Argyle:Hi Johnny, you and me.

Johnny:Yeah, we will survive.

Argyle:I'm gonna say I have a compass.

Gamemaster:You do have a compass.

Johnny:I have no idea.

Argyle:28

Gamemaster:28 is enough.

Gamemaster:It's not a particularly hard check here.

Gamemaster:it's kind of like smack dab in the middle between pale lantern and uh amber call like in between

Gamemaster:their territories like kind of on the border just a little bit below the surface um so you

Gamemaster:you kind of have to navigate through a bunch of uh under tunnels uh and areas that aren't really

Gamemaster:designed for people, or were at one point designed for people,

Gamemaster:but are at this point long past the original service

Gamemaster:by date for these parts of the Strider.

Argyle:me and Benny then

Johnny:I think we did two by two last time.

Benny:Are we a single file?

Gamemaster:I am going to need a marching order, which I'm just

Gamemaster:going to arrange you guys in the tire area

Gamemaster:so that we know the ordering of where people are located.

Gamemaster:So who's in front?

Gamemaster:You can do two by two here.

Benny:Yeah.

Johnny:And then me and Mindbird in the back

Gamemaster:That is.

Argyle:anybody.

Gamemaster:And then just

Argyle:All right so we both be looking Did you guys take AOE Because sorry

Benny:Thank you Okay

Anzu:Okay Aoe spells

Argyle:Yeah.

Anzu:Yeah, yeah, of course.

Argyle:All right, good, good, good.

Argyle:I didn't have that.

Johnny:I have a sort of AOE, I guess.

Gamemaster:i took some aoe as well

Argyle:OK, cool.

Johnny:No, no, no.

Anzu:Uh-oh.

Argyle:No.

Anzu:Boo this man.

Benny:We fan out, we fan out, we run, we run.

Benny:Scatter, scatter.

Johnny:It's like the scene in Ratatouille.

Argyle:Sorry, I just assumed that was...

Anzu:I want my board.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Oh yeah, is Othello with you?

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:All right, so you guys venture into the strider.

Gamemaster:Since we have two people leading Argyle and Benny,

Gamemaster:one of you is going to need to navigate.

Gamemaster:Oh, you got a perception check.

Gamemaster:Okay, I guess we'll use that for your perception.

Gamemaster:You just assumed.

Argyle:Yeah, sorry about that.

Gamemaster:no that's it's correct that was what i was gonna ask for um okay so

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:uh another virtue of the fact that you're on the third floor is that it seems that you're

Gamemaster:not actually all that far into the inner guts the the inner workings of the strider itself

Gamemaster:at this point there aren't many if any mongrel folk that you come across at this height uh it

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:seems that a lot of the mongrel folk are kind of kept to the lower floors so you're you're just

Argyle:Mm hmm.

Gamemaster:kind of walking through twisting tunnels and rafters that go over these steep drops um

Gamemaster:i like the for a machine it is not uh built in a way that is easy to navigate

Gamemaster:It is unclear why anybody in their right mind would construct the interior of like a fully planned out building in such a way that you have to There are switchbacks installed in hallways in the interior of a Strider I don Maybe for defense but if you were to get this far into the Strider

Argyle:for defense i don know

Gamemaster:it would be ridiculous that, like, an invader has already fought through all of this area.

Gamemaster:To the point that, and you not knowing anything about the construction of Striders,

Gamemaster:the only thing you can think of is that it was either done on purpose

Gamemaster:to make whoever lived inside of the Strider as miserable as possible,

Argyle:Yeah.

Gamemaster:or it wasn't built and it just kind of got brought into existence in this way.

Gamemaster:There might be a third explanation that you can't think of right now,

Gamemaster:but it just, it's the worst, and you're only walking through it for like a day's journey.

Gamemaster:You don't have to live down here.

Gamemaster:You can imagine how absolutely mind-rending it would be

Gamemaster:to have to live in, effectively, a 3D labyrinth,

Gamemaster:but then also have to do work in different parts of the labyrinth.

Argyle:All right.

Gamemaster:But you were given directions by and continue to have a connection with,

Gamemaster:so he can correct you if you start to go off course.

Gamemaster:So no survival check necessary.

Gamemaster:The machine god is whispering in your ear the correct directions to take,

Gamemaster:like which junctions to move around.

Gamemaster:At one point you have to jump into a chute,

Gamemaster:which is crazy in itself.

Gamemaster:why are there chutes that are people-sized here, but you do.

Gamemaster:And eventually you find yourself in around the area that you guys had guesstimated

Argyle:Yes.

Johnny:I feel as though we should try to be stealthy.

Gamemaster:where the spot that he was pointing you towards was.

Gamemaster:I guess a question here is, can I get...

Gamemaster:Are you trying to be stealthy?

Gamemaster:And if you are, I need stealth checks.

Johnny:Yep, be installed.

Benny:Let me

Argyle:Meanwhile, the two people in full plate

Johnny:I can't see anything.

Benny:cross

Anzu:I think if we talk louder it gets brighter.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Argyle:are like, goddammit, loud.

Argyle:They're so fucking loud.

Anzu:All right.

Johnny:Wow, I stubbed my toe.

Argyle:How is a bird made of feathers

Anzu:I'll reroll using a mythic point.

Benny:okay

Johnny:Sandals were the wrong one.

Argyle:so loud?

Johnny:I shouldn't have worn sandals.

Argyle:Just feathers and fabric.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Argyle:It makes sense.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Benny:the Giant chip on his shoulder

Gamemaster:Because Anzu chose to spend the mythic point on the reroll,

Gamemaster:now you have one crit to make up for the failure that you have in Johnny

Gamemaster:and cancel it out across the board.

Gamemaster:So the way that plays out is...

Gamemaster:Sorry, Mike?

Gamemaster:No?

Gamemaster:Nope.

Benny:smacks Johnny and Johnny's like,

Benny:oh, I should be more quiet.

Benny:Go ahead, Josh.

Gamemaster:when you were when you were walking through the uh area that the the spider clan um of of uh the

Gamemaster:people had been going through there were a few noticeable distinguishing factors of that

Gamemaster:particular area there was the the red and brown paint covering the walls and all these weird

Gamemaster:pictograms. There was evidence, like, of warping in the floors and walls as if there had been some

Gamemaster:kind of magical event. And the whole place was covered in spider webs. All things that didn't

Gamemaster:necessarily strike you as part of the normal operation of the Strider. As you approach this

Gamemaster:new area that the Machine God had pointed you towards, you may have expected something similar,

Gamemaster:if certainly not the same but there is nothing In fact the eeriest bit of it is as you been going around the other parts of the Strider

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:it has been pretty dirty.

Gamemaster:700 years of people not going through areas

Gamemaster:means that you get dust collected,

Gamemaster:you get weird bits where steam has been collecting

Gamemaster:and depositing minerals on the floor and rusting the wall,

Gamemaster:you get oil spills, you get weird pressure breaking walls just from not being maintained.

Gamemaster:It is generally not a pleasant experience, and it's not upkept,

Gamemaster:because none of the mongrel folk have been conscripted to make the place look nice.

Gamemaster:They just need to keep it going.

Gamemaster:So the first thing that stands out to you is once you've passed into what is clearly the area,

Gamemaster:if not the fame, generally near the fame of where you're trying to go, of where Lifeline is,

Gamemaster:is that it is clean. The hallways are free of dust. They are spotless. They are repaired,

Gamemaster:in some cases. The walls don't look like they've been weathered by time at all.

Gamemaster:The most significant is Johnny, as the four of you are walking through the hallway,

Gamemaster:Johnny brushes against something against the wall, and these lights embedded in the ceiling

Argyle:Hmm.

Gamemaster:light up for a split second before Anzu and his chip on his shoulder bump back into the light

Gamemaster:switch and turn it off before it can alert anybody to their presence. But there are, in fact,

Gamemaster:working mechanisms functioning as intended in this part of the Strider in relatively good condition.

Gamemaster:There is a circuit network.

Gamemaster:They had electricity.

Gamemaster:You guys barely got electricity 20 years ago.

Argyle:Okay.

Gamemaster:But there's electricity in the Strider, set up powering these kind of weird bright white lights.

Gamemaster:It strange If anything it almost reminiscent to you of what uh a machine god looks like His machining is not reminiscent of what you guys have around you and this gives you similar vibes

Gamemaster:Um, but, as you're stealthily walking along this pristine hallway,

Gamemaster:You can see that the bit that's actually clean in the hallway that you're in is only a small segment around what looks to be a double door, currently closed, that moves into another area.

Gamemaster:If you get past that double door too much, it starts to return back to its normally dirty, unmaintained state.

Gamemaster:So you gather that the direction you're being pointed in is this closed set of double doors.

Argyle:Yeah Johnny did you prepare silence for that

Gamemaster:There is a button next to them.

Gamemaster:It looks like they open, but you don't have any good visibility on what's on the other

Gamemaster:side.

Johnny:Did I answer your question?

Benny:Shall we prepare?

Johnny:I did.

Gamemaster:One second.

Argyle:Good, good, good.

Johnny:I switched up a lot of stuff, so I have some fun new tricks.

Argyle:Is that at fourth level?

Johnny:Do we?

Argyle:or...

Johnny:Yeah, it's a fourth level.

Johnny:so I can slap it on someone.

Argyle:Great.

Johnny:I got some fun new stuff.

Argyle:Alright.

Argyle:Yeah, I guess we go through.

Johnny:Do you think there's going to be monsters on the other side?

Gamemaster:One second.

Johnny:Should we...

Argyle:The only reason I ask about silence

Argyle:is once we get to wherever the true forms

Argyle:ones, we should probably silence the area as we try

Argyle:killing them.

Johnny:Yeah, so it's...

Johnny:I would just slap it on Benny

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:and I think as long as you outside of it you can still do things you can still cast spells and stuff but they just won be able to hear you

Benny:Thank you Okay

Anzu:you Hmm

Gamemaster:So, this is the door that's in front of me.

Argyle:

Argyle:Yeah.

Johnny:Ooh. Neat.

Anzu:Does it seem openable?

Gamemaster:That needs to be opened.

Anzu:Or...

Gamemaster:Hmm?

Gamemaster:You don't see any physical lock on it.

Gamemaster:There is a button that appears to be the thing to open it. It is just currently closed.

Anzu:Does anyone want to attempt to listen in?

Johnny:That's pretty cool.

Anzu:Neat.

Gamemaster:Let me double check.

Gamemaster:That's how that works.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Now that works.

Johnny:That's pretty cool.

Anzu:Hmm.

Johnny:Okay. That's cool.

Johnny:Wait, sorry, which one was that?

Johnny:Cool.

Benny:Oh.

Johnny:The bird is cow, the child is bird, the bard is turtle.

Benny:The birth.

Gamemaster:yeah

Johnny:Yeah, that's probably gonna be a big cha-chunk.

Johnny:I don't want to blow any spells in case there's nothing on the other side, but also...

Gamemaster:if you guys want to

Gamemaster:give it a little listen. You can put your ear up to it and roll perception.

Johnny:Oh, oh.

Anzu:Heck it. Take guidance.

Johnny:33.

Gamemaster:33. Absolutely. Okay, with a 33.

Gamemaster:33 is probably good enough

Gamemaster:there are definitely sounds coming from inside

Gamemaster:discounting the normal sounds of the strider moving

Gamemaster:because you're in the undercroft and you can hear the strider moving

Gamemaster:there is

Gamemaster:god I don't know how to describe this

Gamemaster:there isn't a lot of movement

Gamemaster:but you have pretty good hearing and you can hear

Gamemaster:the sound of like something dragging

Gamemaster:maybe pretty far in.

Gamemaster:It's not a particularly loud sound,

Gamemaster:but you don't know if that's because the thing that's dragging isn't very large

Gamemaster:or if it's just because it's far away

Gamemaster:and there's a Giant iron door between you and them.

Gamemaster:I walking you towards the home of this particular clan where the true kin are sleeping where their caretakers walk where Lifeline resides

Gamemaster:What can silence target?

Gamemaster:Uh, unfortunately this door is not a creature.

Johnny:Should I slap silence on Benny and then have him stand there?

Benny:We just want to brace and open it.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:Okay.

Johnny:Maybe I'll just back up a little bit.

Johnny:Open that door.

Benny:And he does it then.

Gamemaster:You guys have backed up a little bit.

Benny:Also.

Gamemaster:Somebody's walking over. The button is right here.

Gamemaster:Somebody has to be on that square in order to hit the button.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:I'm hiding behind these boxes.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:You have a no dodgy.

Benny:Also, Benny is sporting a new weapon that he has drawn.

Gamemaster:Are you hiding?

Gamemaster:I'm just asking because Anzu's the only one that isn't hiding

Gamemaster:at the moment

Gamemaster:Anzu's also hiding

Gamemaster:alright

Gamemaster:like

Benny:I think the visual is important because it doesn't look normal.

Benny:Benny has a Nodachi in one hand.

Benny:All right.

Gamemaster:the two handed super long

Gamemaster:katana looking thing but in one hand I don think the Shifting Root lets you hold the two weapon in one hand

Johnny:you That insane

Benny:Benny has a no dodge Yeah it probably twice the size of him The shifting rune is great

Benny:I think...

Benny:So it allows me to change grip in Foundry.

Benny:I think I just can't attack if it's one hand.

Gamemaster:Oh, sure.

Gamemaster:So you're just holding it in one hand for fun.

Benny:Well, to hit the button.

Gamemaster:Right.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Yeah, so long as you already

Benny:Oh, never mind.

Anzu:Great Josh, now he has to do a whole new character build.

Gamemaster:So long as the thing that you turned was a two-handed weapon

Gamemaster:You can turn it into a no-dodgy

Gamemaster:It has to keep the same amount of handedness

Benny:That makes sense.

Gamemaster:As whatever you're shifting

Gamemaster:I'm sorry

Benny:Okay.

Benny:Benny doesn't have that, but he is armed.

Gamemaster:He is armed

Benny:No, now I just have, I know dodgy does less damage, but

Benny:I wanted to reach

Gamemaster:You just wanted it because it was cool?

Johnny:That's so nasty.

Benny:because there have been a couple of times where I'm like

Benny:one square too far away

Benny:...

Gamemaster:Okay, with a

Gamemaster:chunk,

Gamemaster:there's the sound of

Gamemaster:some kind of pressurized mechanism

Gamemaster:inside decompressing when you hit

Gamemaster:the button, and after that there is

Gamemaster:a

Gamemaster:pretty loud, noticeable

Gamemaster:steam-releasing sound as the doors disconnect from each other and kind of pull into the

Benny:about receive

Gamemaster:walls next to them.

Gamemaster:You can see beyond.

Gamemaster:Roll a perception check, please.

Gamemaster:Benny sits here up front.

Gamemaster:You have the good view.

Benny:uh that makes sense

Gamemaster:20.

Gamemaster:Okay through this doorway you can see just a bunch of vats

Benny:20

Benny:that just that

Anzu:Busting Bats a lot of first kind

Gamemaster:Um.

Gamemaster:Nothing to

Gamemaster:explain the sound that

Gamemaster:Argyle said he heard earlier

Gamemaster:though. With your roll looking in, you

Gamemaster:don't see anything.

Johnny:You want me to let you?

Benny:Fair enough.

Anzu:Do we wait for a moment and see if we draw anything to us?

Benny:Back where?

Johnny:Yeah.

Benny:Okay.

Anzu:Let's, well, we've just made some sound with the door.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:Maybe we can throw something in there.

Johnny:Make some sound.

Anzu:Let's give it one minute.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:You guys are just hanging out there, waiting a moment?

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:Wait a second.

Gamemaster:Sorry, I'm just figuring out ranges.

Gamemaster:Okay, absolutely.

Gamemaster:Benny, I need you to attempt that will save, please.

Benny:Sure.

Benny:Small children.

Gamemaster:nice absolutely um okay uh benny and only benny um sees i don't know what would be scary to benny

Gamemaster:what is benny scared of

Gamemaster:benny sees a horde of small children without permission slips running down the hallway Atum

Gamemaster:and he

Gamemaster:first of all he knows that it's an illusion

Gamemaster:but

Gamemaster:second of all he knows that something just cast a

Gamemaster:hostile spell at him

Gamemaster:but he is able to shake it off

Gamemaster:it does not injure him

Benny:But he'll say they they tried to trick me

Benny:There's a flood of children coming out of that room and only in my mind

Gamemaster:um

Benny:When can I attack?

Gamemaster:What are you starting to throw out?

Johnny:Should we do stuff? Should I start throwing out buffs?

Benny:Benny away for buffs.

Johnny:Are we doing stuff?

Johnny:Or are you running in?

Johnny:I will vault this one over here.

Johnny:How many of these, Josh,

Johnny:how many of these can I throw out

Johnny:before stuff starts happening?

Gamemaster:Excuse me.

Johnny:Haste or silence, which we think is more important.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:Yeah.

Benny:I don't think you can go either way.

Benny:Do you want me to try silence just to switch it up?

Johnny:This guy's a spellcaster.

Johnny:I will throw out silence.

Johnny:Silence.

Johnny:Bless.

Johnny:I'm throwing stuff out.

Gamemaster:Silence is the first one you threw out?

Johnny:Yep.

Gamemaster:Okay Absolutely Nothing seems to come after you

Johnny:And then if I Do I have any more things I can do before we run in Do I have more actions I will feel my oats

Benny:you He feeling his oats

Johnny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:What?

Johnny:Well, it didn't matter.

Gamemaster:What?

Gamemaster:That's crazy.

Johnny:Yeah, well it didn't matter anyway because that was a terrible roll.

Benny:He's an oat feeler.

Gamemaster:Which one does that come from?

Gamemaster:Is it because you're a dandy?

Gamemaster:You get to...

Gamemaster:The next time you roll a will save, you can choose to critically fail on it.

Gamemaster:Because you're a dandy.

Johnny:So if I choose to critically fail, then I can get the mythic point for that failure?

Gamemaster:No, you get the mythic point right now.

Johnny:Oh, great.

Gamemaster:Because you rolled the natural one.

Johnny:Well I guess that's sort of a free mythic point.

Johnny:All right, well, that's all my stuff.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:I'm ready.

Benny:It's the first time I've looked in this other room.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:Do it.

Gamemaster:Um, absolutely.

Gamemaster:You guys start heading in.

Gamemaster:You're welcome to do so.

Gamemaster:That door is open.

Gamemaster:I know it doesn't look it on the map.

Gamemaster:I don't have a variant of this map, but just with that door open.

Gamemaster:So.

Johnny:What?

Benny:What?

Benny:What the hell?

Benny:Is this second door open or?

Johnny:What?

Gamemaster:That door is open. That door is open.

Anzu:I think it's fine.

Johnny:This is not what I expected.

Johnny:Why is one of these...

Gamemaster:Before we continue much forward, Argyle, where are you? You have to be moving with everybody

Gamemaster:else if you're moving with everybody else.

Gamemaster:Okay, great.

Gamemaster:You guys walk in.

Gamemaster:You kind of just out in the open So we going to resolve this first with a spell being cast on you and then we going to enter combat

Gamemaster:Did you cast it?

Gamemaster:Okay, there you go.

Gamemaster:black tentacles

Gamemaster:shoot out of the ground where you guys are walking

Gamemaster:and

Gamemaster:grab onto

Gamemaster:each of you

Gamemaster:I'm going to make spell attack rolls against the

Gamemaster:fort DC of everybody in the area

Gamemaster:which is a weird

Gamemaster:thing to target

Gamemaster:um

Gamemaster:okay so it says critical miss but that's because it targeted

Gamemaster:myself oh no because it targeted benny specifically um unless i rolled one oh no

Johnny:Okay, so the guy's over here.

Benny:I don't think so.

Anzu:Terrifying.

Gamemaster:i rolled a natural one i got a 21 but a natural one

Gamemaster:does that does that get anybody with um with your fort dcs i assume no

Anzu:No.

Gamemaster:okay absolutely

Gamemaster:so you all are

Gamemaster:because I rolled so poorly

Gamemaster:saved from the black tentacles

Gamemaster:I will say

Johnny:I can drop a rainbow.

Johnny:Yeah, I can drop a rainbow.

Benny:attack kill

Anzu:What the hell?

Johnny:Are we in combat yet?

Gamemaster:now that you're in one second

Gamemaster:we will be in combat in half a second

Johnny:Oh, sorry.

Gamemaster:you don't get to move yet

Johnny:I've not moved yet.

Gamemaster:No attack, no kill.

Benny:a

Benny:jaw

Johnny:I have this rainbow ready.

Gamemaster:I'm sorry.

Johnny:Oh, no, there's other things.

Gamemaster:I would love it if you could roll initiative.

Johnny:Oh, there's so many things.

Johnny:I think Benny got to get up there to that guy and stop him from dropping spells

Benny:Thank you What asshole Oh he in the call

Anzu:Who rolled such a crappy perception check

Gamemaster:One second.

Gamemaster:I accidentally...

Benny:Gold, dang it.

Johnny:I'm not going to Rainbow's End.

Johnny:I have to Rainbow's End before you anyway

Johnny:so I can Rainbow's End and then just flip you up there

Gamemaster:This is where tentacles are.

Johnny:I can't get up

Johnny:actually I can get up there afterwards

Johnny:but I can't take the Rainbow's End

Johnny:we realized that last time

Gamemaster:Yeah, everybody but Johnny can take the rainbow's end.

Gamemaster:Johnny himself is not able to get to the other end of the rainbow, unfortunately.

Johnny:I have other ways out of the game

Johnny:I got back at the start of the book.

Johnny:Yeah.

Anzu:Guide others to treasures I cannot possess.

Gamemaster:One second.

Gamemaster:Because Noah thought he was making a choice.

Gamemaster:Johnny knew.

Johnny:Go on, Zoom.

Johnny:I'm doing this for you.

Johnny:I'm making this choice.

Johnny:Meanwhile, he's like, dang.

Benny:Okay.

Anzu:Maybe we flee?

Gamemaster:I think...

Johnny:Oof.

Johnny:But there's many things.

Anzu:No, I'm just kidding.

Johnny:I mean, we gotta get out of this situation, but...

Gamemaster:Does this guy have reach? He doesn't.

Gamemaster:Oh no, he does! He has a cudgel, which has a reach of ten feet.

Gamemaster:He just doesn't get to flay anybody with his cudgel.

Johnny:Wait, where's he going?

Gamemaster:I'm going to do one action to go over there.

Gamemaster:He's silenced.

Gamemaster:He's going to...

Gamemaster:He moved a little bit over in front of Benny

Gamemaster:so that he could be within 10 feet of Benny.

Johnny:Fuck you.

Johnny:Lose the path.

Gamemaster:It's an attempt at will save.

Johnny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:it fails

Johnny:Okay.

Johnny:So it treats all squares as difficult terrain.

Anzu:Feel fun though.

Gamemaster:I mean it only moved 10 feet

Gamemaster:so that counts as 20 feet now

Gamemaster:unfortunately it does have 20 feet of movement

Gamemaster:I'm sorry

Gamemaster:he's going to

Gamemaster:do a bludgeon

Gamemaster:attack on Benny

Gamemaster:we'll see if this hits

Gamemaster:I haven't been rolling well.

Gamemaster:I'm not particularly happy about this.

Johnny:Oh, God, he's in the tentacles.

Gamemaster:Fine.

Gamemaster:We'll try again.

Gamemaster:Nope.

Gamemaster:Skindrome 2's turn.

Gamemaster:I think this guy probably doesn't care that he's going to end up in the tentacles.

Gamemaster:He'll walk the 20 feet.

Gamemaster:He's in the tentacles.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Gamemaster:It'll affect him at the end of his turn.

Gamemaster:but for now he can. I'm going to roll

Gamemaster:a d4, even as Johnny

Gamemaster:Adesanzu.

Gamemaster:He's going to

Gamemaster:attempt to flay Johnny.

Johnny:I shouldn't use lose the path. I got a breaker.

Anzu:Perfect.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Anzu:Not good.

Gamemaster:Second one hits.

Johnny:Okay Oh there persistent No

Gamemaster:We deal some flay damage You going to take 13 points of damage Ignore the fact that I was targeting Benny

Gamemaster:Yeah, it is...

Gamemaster:He's flaying you, so you take some persistent bleed damage.

Gamemaster:And that is the end of his turn.

Gamemaster:He ends his turn in the tentacles.

Gamemaster:So I have to roll an attack on this guy.

Benny:I think so.

Gamemaster:I critically succeeded

Gamemaster:wait does this work on enemies

Gamemaster:I mean on friends

Gamemaster:just to confirm

Gamemaster:I assume it does

Gamemaster:yeah

Gamemaster:each creature in the area

Gamemaster:okay so

Gamemaster:you're

Gamemaster:grabbed

Benny:Which is why Divex would drop it at the beginning of combat

Gamemaster:and that's the end of his turn

Benny:before everything got intermixed.

Gamemaster:it's this guy's turn

Gamemaster:What's the Oogathol going to do? I don't think it's going to do much. I think the Oogathol

Benny:I was going to ask Josh

Gamemaster:is going to go over here.

Gamemaster:And it's going to wait.

Gamemaster:OK.

Benny:what are my options for charging directly

Benny:at the maker

Benny:what sort of jumps or acrobatics

Anzu:What did Argyle get for initiative?

Gamemaster:So the, yeah, well, so the, like, you'd have to,

Benny:or whatever I'll have to make.

Gamemaster:If you're going straight through this guy, you'd have to tumble through, which is an acrobatics check.

Gamemaster:And then also you'd have to climb up the wall to get to where the maker is sitting, because it is on a raised platform.

Benny:Mm-hmm.

Gamemaster:But that is possible.

Benny:How high is the wall?

Gamemaster:We'll say 10 feet.

Benny:I come back to you on that

Gamemaster:That one action

Gamemaster:It'll take one action there, and then it'll use its second action to do a surgical detachment

Gamemaster:on its own arm, which will cause a skin skitter to pop off as its arm becomes sentient.

Johnny:Pop-offs get screwed.

Benny:hop

Benny:here

Gamemaster:It pops off.

Gamemaster:It's not what I meant and you know it.

Gamemaster:Do I have a...

Gamemaster:Are these... does that work?

Gamemaster:That does work, there we go.

Gamemaster:And then it's going to use its third action probably to double back.

Johnny:Uh-huh.

Anzu:So, to take the rainbow, I have to be adjacent to Johnny.

Gamemaster:And that is, then the Skinskitter gets to go, goes over there, that's 30 feet, and that's

Gamemaster:the end of its turn, and it's Anza's turn.

Gamemaster:You have to touch him.

Anzu:and

Anzu:currently the door is making it such that I would have to tumble through this guy to get to Johnny.

Anzu:Am I saying that correctly?

Anzu:Or is this part of the open door right here?

Gamemaster:You could...

Gamemaster:That's part of the open door.

Gamemaster:That's fine.

Gamemaster:you could get there without tumbling through.

Anzu:Very well.

Anzu:But we got all these tentacles.

Anzu:I have to stick around in the tentacles.

Anzu:I could run to Johnny next turn I guess

Anzu:Uh, because that's when I would be able to do it anyway.

Anzu:Uh, okay.

Anzu:So, first...

Anzu:We're gonna try to attack this man.

Anzu:Um...

Anzu:I guess I can unleash Psyche.

Gamemaster:you should have a macro in your in your bar as well to unleash psyche

Anzu:That's new.

Anzu:If I click, this is going to do something.

Anzu:Caw-caw.

Anzu:Yeah, that's what I just clicked.

Gamemaster:okay

Anzu:I've done it.

Anzu:I've unleashed.

Anzu:Basic Fortitude.

Anzu:I guess let's find out.

Anzu:I am going to reach a handout towards this creature and say,

Gamemaster:Oh, that's fun.

Anzu:I'm going to need some of what you got.

Anzu:And I just start feeling with my mind through my touch on him, just his vitality, his whole essence,

Anzu:and I try to leech it as I cast Vampiric Feast on him.

Johnny:Super cool.

Benny:Oh.

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:He will make that fortitude save.

Anzu:So you can make this Fortitude save.

Anzu:Well

Gamemaster:He critically succeeds the fortitude save.

Anzu:Noted

Anzu:Nothing happens

Gamemaster:I'm sorry.

Anzu:Um

Anzu:And so

Anzu:Do I think that he has?

Anzu:has opportunity strikes. I kind of do. I think I'm just going to take two diagonal step actions

Gamemaster:Okay.

Anzu:and end up over here outside of the...

Gamemaster:All right.

Gamemaster:You do that.

Gamemaster:You are outside of the range of the tentacles.

Anzu:Yeah.

Anzu:Oh, that's a really true point.

Johnny:You can drop this guy in one go.

Benny:kill

Gamemaster:That crits.

Anzu:Well, here we are.

Benny:oh wow

Benny:that's a very nice round number

Benny:for my two hit

Benny:yep

Benny:really hoping so

Benny:with two tens and a six

Gamemaster:60 points of damage is a lot of damage.

Benny:so we're going to get close

Benny:60

Benny:fair enough

Gamemaster:It is, unfortunately, not enough damage.

Gamemaster:In fact, this thing is soulless, and as such does less damage than you would expect from

Gamemaster:this.

Gamemaster:It has no spirit to harm.

Gamemaster:Um, okay, but you've done a ton of damage.

Gamemaster:You crit, so it is off-guard to you.

Benny:Fair enough.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately, you are in melee range of both of these skin dragons, so you are off guard as well.

Gamemaster:And I am going to attempt to flay you.

Gamemaster:First one was a natural one.

Gamemaster:Second one was much better. 30.

Gamemaster:Absolutely Okay Okay we will roll damage We going to take 15 points of slashing damage as well as 1d6 persistent bleed

Gamemaster:And that is the end of its turn. It's ending its turn in the tentacles.

Gamemaster:So we're going to do another attack roll on this guy.

Benny:So.

Gamemaster:Haha, that's a hit!

Gamemaster:He is grabbed.

Gamemaster:By the tentacles.

Gamemaster:Uh, okay.

Gamemaster:Next up is Benny.

Benny:So.

Benny:I'm trying to think, like, is there any way to climb up on these things to make the gap a little bit...

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:I will say specifically that Benny does not know how strong the glass is that is encasing these creatures.

Gamemaster:And so it is a gamble that he can take that will make it so that he doesn't need to climb up at all.

Gamemaster:instead he can run up the side

Benny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:but there is a chance of shattering the glass

Gamemaster:to what end?

Gamemaster:who knows

Benny:This is 10 feet, 15 feet.

Benny:So it's kind of two actions to get to when I can start climbing.

Benny:Let me think here Because I also have I have this which has a very weird

Gamemaster:Okay.

Benny:When attempting a high jump or long jump during sudden leap,

Benny:determine the jump distance using long jump's rules

Benny:and change your maximum distance to double your speed.

Benny:I don't know exactly what that means

Gamemaster:Um, so, you, assuming you stride, and then you attempt a DC-15 athletics check, and then, regardless of what you get, assuming you beat the DC-15 athletics check, you get to jump double your speed? 50 feet?

Benny:75, but for 70, but yeah.

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Sorry, your movement speed is 35? Your movement speed is 35.

Benny:Yeah.

Benny:And I get to.

Gamemaster:Determine the jump using long jump's rules and then change your maximum distance to double your speed.

Gamemaster:Oh, wait, no, sorry. It doesn't set your distance to that. It sets your maximum distance to that.

Benny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:The way that long jump works is you leap a distance equal to your result.

Benny:Yeah, and then I...

Gamemaster:But, like, it can't be more than your normal speed.

Gamemaster:But in this particular instance, you're max 70 instead of 35.

Benny:And then I also get...

Benny:So if I do this attempting a high jump,

Benny:I can jump high using my long jump distance.

Benny:distance?

Gamemaster:Yes.

Benny:So if I

Benny:have 25 feet of movement and I walk up to the non part can I sudden leap to the maker or attempt a sudden leap

Gamemaster:Thank you What is the distance there

Gamemaster:35 feet?

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Gamemaster:You can attempt that.

Benny:OK.

Benny:We'll do that then.

Benny:So this is 25.

Benny:And then, uh...

Benny:Determine the jump distance using long jumps rules

Gamemaster:You're making an athletics check, and whatever number you get on the die, assuming it's larger

Benny:and change your maximum speed.

Benny:So do I have to make a check and then the?

Gamemaster:than 15, whatever number you get on the die plus your modifier, assuming it's 15, is how

Gamemaster:many feet you will be jumping.

Benny:Gotcha.

Gamemaster:32, I think that's enough.

Gamemaster:I think that rounds, like, that's fine.

Gamemaster:32 is within

Benny:Sure.

Gamemaster:close enough to 35 that I will accept that

Benny:Nice.

Gamemaster:as you make the jump

Gamemaster:and you fully hurdle over

Gamemaster:the vat of that creature

Gamemaster:and land right next to the maker

Gamemaster:this weird chitinous

Gamemaster:insectoid crab-like thing

Gamemaster:that was the source

Gamemaster:of the spells that have been attacking you

Gamemaster:you jump right next to it

Gamemaster:that's crazy

Benny:A nice swing.

Gamemaster:okay, absolutely

Benny:I have a mythic

Gamemaster:you don't hit it

Johnny:Yeah.

Benny:I used one

Benny:I used one for the

Benny:for the knowledge roll

Benny:I don't think I

Benny:I haven't used any other

Benny:so

Benny:how do I re-roll this with mythic

Benny:oh yeah

Benny:oh I have to give myself a mythic

Benny:Because I didn't give myself one at the beginning.

Benny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:I'm sorry if that misses as well.

Benny:Oh.

Johnny:Both.

Benny:That's absolutely brutal.

Benny:This is why I hate Mythic Points.

Johnny:I mean, you just get it.

Benny:All right, right up.

Gamemaster:All right, that brings us to the maker.

Gamemaster:Oh, sorry.

Gamemaster:Benny, you take some bleed damage.

Benny:Can I make the recovery check?

Johnny:You just get it.

Gamemaster:You can, and you should.

Benny:Nice.

Benny:Get all these terrible rolls out now.

Benny:Hopefully.

Gamemaster:Yeah, you are still.

Johnny:Any cast anesthesia?

Gamemaster:Okay, let's see, what is the maker going to do to you?

Gamemaster:That's not particularly useful.

Gamemaster:Just to give you synesthesia?

Gamemaster:Yeah, I'm gonna give you synesthesia.

Johnny:he can't

Gamemaster:He casts Synesthesia.

Benny:and I just

Johnny:no way Josh he's silenced

Gamemaster:It is a manipulate.

Johnny:he's silenced

Johnny:sorry

Benny:oh yeah

Gamemaster:He's silenced!

Benny:yeah

Gamemaster:You're totally right!

Benny:a crit

Gamemaster:He can't cast spells!

Gamemaster:He doesn't get to cast Synesthesia!

Gamemaster:Okay, we take that back.

Gamemaster:Instead, he's just gonna try and bite Benny's head off.

Gamemaster:We don't get to do any of the fun things, so we just do a chomp chomp.

Gamemaster:Yeah, that rolled very well.

Benny:alright

Johnny:I show them

Johnny:I'm sorry

Benny:that's fine he can't cast

Johnny:All right.

Gamemaster:Take 42 points of damage and then attempt this Fortitude save.

Benny:synesthesia. That's a lot of damage.

Johnny:All right, guys.

Johnny:I'm asking you.

Johnny:Let me try this spell.

Gamemaster:That is, I believe, a success.

Benny:I didn't even see it.

Gamemaster:It is a success.

Benny:I got a Wi-Fi thing popped up

Gamemaster:Oh?

Benny:that said sending.

Benny:Oh I got a 28 ACAC

Gamemaster:Uh okay Absolutely So you succeed So you aren affected by this poison Congrats

Gamemaster:So then he's gonna... he's gonna follow it up. He's gonna spend another action to turn on his Mindfog Aura.

Benny:Nice.

Gamemaster:and then he's going to spend his third action to try and bite you again

Anzu:They have no soul.

Gamemaster:nope

Gamemaster:at no point did he mention undead

Gamemaster:no

Gamemaster:unless I

Gamemaster:yeah unless I accidentally said undead

Gamemaster:if any of you heard it

Gamemaster:these guys aren't undead

Gamemaster:okay

Johnny:I don't think I can do the rainbows then, guys.

Benny:Fair.

Gamemaster:I'm gonna take another 18 points of damage

Gamemaster:Johnny's are sure

Johnny:I think it's going to be too much.

Johnny:So what I'm going to do, I'm going to try something.

Gamemaster:You can attempt to do so.

Johnny:Josh, there's a lot happening.

Johnny:What's the ruling on just straight climbing up these pods?

Gamemaster:There is a chance it will break the glass.

Johnny:Okay.

Gamemaster:You don't know how fragile the glass is.

Johnny:And this one pod that looks like it doesn't have a person in it, does it have a person in it?

Gamemaster:No, it doesn't have a person in it.

Johnny:Okay.

Gamemaster:No that would be tumbling through

Johnny:Okay, and then one last question.

Johnny:Can I move diagonally through these guys or would that be tumbling through Would I have to go all the way around them okay uh let me just measure something 15

Johnny:okay

Johnny:i i'm trying something new i hope this works

Johnny:i'm going to use health spell dance

Johnny:So, I get to stride either once or twice, and then cast a spell.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Which is how smell dance do

Johnny:So I have a couple questions before I do this whole thing.

Johnny:Can I flourish cast a spell as part of this, or is that a separate thing?

Gamemaster:Yeah, nope same rules

Johnny:Okay, then first I'll use performance check to perform as I moonwalk away.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:That's great, and that's going to be against everyone watching's perception DCs.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:Does that critically beat any of their perception DCs?

Gamemaster:It crits against everyone.

Johnny:Okay, great.

Gamemaster:everyone

Gamemaster:it's just Chris against everybody

Johnny:So then whoever I cast the spell against is going to take a minus one circumstance penalty to the saving throw.

Johnny:So first, because I have to move first before I do this, I'm going to moonwalk.

Johnny:There we go.

Johnny:Five feet here.

Johnny:And then I'm going to run up this thing.

Johnny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:See if I can get right up to there And that all my movement Now Benny is in trouble Yeah Does anything happen before I do this spell

Anzu:they could be an ally in there

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Roll an acrobatics check.

Gamemaster:Roll a d20.

Johnny:Okay.

Johnny:I'm gonna guess that fails.

Johnny:I'm, this is my, I re-rolled with mythic.

Benny:Oh.

Gamemaster:Oh.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Okay, a 47. You don't need to roll that d20. You are light enough on your feet that you can make your way up the vat without disturbing the glass.

Johnny:And I would hope that I get to this part above here.

Johnny:and now what I'm going to do

Gamemaster:Yeah, that's fine.

Johnny:I'm going to cast another spell

Johnny:I'm going to flourish cast

Johnny:calm

Johnny:it's a 10 foot burst

Johnny:so I want to try and get

Gamemaster:Mm-hmm.

Johnny:these two guys

Johnny:while missing Argyle

Johnny:so they have to make

Johnny:this will save and they both have a

Johnny:minus one circumstance penalty

Johnny:Yeah, I'm hoping that they're...

Johnny:Okay.

Johnny:So, they...

Johnny:That's amazing.

Johnny:The one that critically failed, I guess...

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:The one that failed can't use hostile actions unless someone does it before to them.

Johnny:The one that critically failed, same, but you can use hostile actions against it as long as I sustain this spell.

Johnny:Let's see which one.

Johnny:So ignore those guys.

Johnny:really well

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:So, yeah, so number three, the guy right next to Argyle, you can attack and he still will.

Gamemaster:It's interesting.

Gamemaster:Like, comm normally you would expect it to be just not incensed, not angry, but these guys don't really do stuff.

Gamemaster:Like, they don't seem to be angry, they're just kind of being piloted around.

Gamemaster:And so their version of comm is just going completely stationary.

Gamemaster:Just stock still.

Gamemaster:And yeah, you've effectively incapacitated them.

Gamemaster:That's the end of your turn?

Gamemaster:Okay, you're going to take one bleed damage.

Johnny:Yep, that's all I got.

Johnny:And I'll just yell out what I did to everybody.

Johnny:This was Johnny's best turn ever.

Gamemaster:You can attempt a recovery check if you like.

Gamemaster:Oh, and you recover!

Gamemaster:You are no longer bleeding.

Gamemaster:And now it is Argyle's turn.

Gamemaster:Like climbing up the vat?

Benny:Thank you That a great question That okay

Gamemaster:Oh, right, of course, so you don't actually need to touch the vat, that's totally fine.

Gamemaster:Yeah that fine So you are actually like 20 feet above the maker at the moment

Gamemaster:Okay, it's the skin drone's turn.

Gamemaster:Now, you guys have discovered the flaw in the skin drones.

Gamemaster:They cannot break the vats.

Johnny:Yes, we did this on purpose.

Benny:Of course, we knew that they would never break their own vats.

Johnny:We discovered this.

Benny:We've precariously placed ourselves directly on the vats.

Johnny:We definitely didn't just cram up it

Johnny:because it was the fastest way.

Benny:Way quicker than running around the whole map.

Johnny:What?

Benny:Uh...

Johnny:Oh, no.

Benny:Kill, kill, kill, kill.

Gamemaster:That was his third action, to just walk over and climb up.

Johnny:What?

Benny:Yeah, well, hopefully it'll be his last ever.

Gamemaster:That's a hit.

Gamemaster:18 points of damage.

Gamemaster:Unfortunately for you, the Ucathal survives.

Anzu:Yeah, so

Gamemaster:But it is injured.

Gamemaster:It's the maid's turn.

Gamemaster:That's it.

Gamemaster:This is just kind of a positioning round for a lot of them.

Gamemaster:Anzu, it's your turn.

Gamemaster:You are on the wrong side of the tentacles compared to your friends.

Benny:you I believe it just end of turn

Anzu:Do the tentacles trigger as soon as I go back in or is it now just an end thing

Gamemaster:Um Whenever a creature ends its turn in the area

Gamemaster:Okay.

Anzu:Alright, so I can attempt to pass through.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Anzu:Uh, so...

Johnny:I can heal him.

Anzu:That's because of diagonals.

Anzu:That's okay.

Anzu:Okay.

Anzu:Hmm.

Johnny:I'll have one action to heal.

Johnny:No, I got a...

Johnny:I'm out of fourth, but I got a third level

Johnny:sooth that I can cast.

Anzu:Hmm.

Johnny:I got to keep sustaining this though, so it's going to get in action.

Johnny:So I'm going to just heads up.

Anzu:All right, I think we're...

Johnny:I mean, I don't really have many better things to do so.

Anzu:The way things are currently laid out, we're just going to send an amped telekinetic projectile

Anzu:at the maker.

Benny:Bop them

Gamemaster:Okay.

Benny:Get this crab out of here

Anzu:We'll do piercing, why not.

Gamemaster:That's a good roll.

Gamemaster:That hits.

Anzu:That's crazy.

Anzu:That should be a crit probably.

Anzu:I gonna roll damage No this would have been the round All right

Gamemaster:It's just a hits, but it hits.

Johnny:That wild Okay Wow that a good roll

Gamemaster:Thank you 38 points of damage

Gamemaster:Absolutely.

Gamemaster:You deal the full 38 points of damage to it.

Gamemaster:It screeches as you break what looks to be one of its many limbs.

Gamemaster:yes it looks like it's screeching but you can't hear anything because benny is a walking silence ball

Anzu:Yes, of course.

Gamemaster:okay skin drone three's turn

Anzu:I spent two actions running, so that's the end of my turn.

Gamemaster:oh my god i just realized skin drone two was supposed to take

Gamemaster:1d8 points of bludgeoning damage

Gamemaster:from the tentacle that is wrapped around it.

Gamemaster:Which I think would break it out of its calm.

Johnny:Um...

Anzu:Hmm.

Johnny:I...

Johnny:If the target slipped a hostility from any other creature,

Johnny:would you say this is a creature?

Gamemaster:So you're saying

Gamemaster:that the spell as written, it just has to

Gamemaster:stand there and get squeezed

Gamemaster:to death by this tentacle and not react?

Johnny:It can...

Johnny:It can do many things.

Johnny:It just can't.

Anzu:I guess

Johnny:It can move out of there.

Johnny:It just can't do anything hostile.

Johnny:I'm just reading the rules, Josh.

Johnny:I'm doing what I got.

Johnny:I moonwalked the pod and cast the spell.

Anzu:well

Anzu:right

Johnny:That's all I got.

Anzu:they

Anzu:are allowed to act on their turn

Anzu:right

Anzu:I forgot

Gamemaster:No, because he's grabbed so the only thing he can do is escape, which has the attack trait, and as such is a hostile action.

Johnny:Yeah, they can do stuff.

Anzu:I forgot that he was grabbed because I was going to say he could just run but no he can't

Johnny:Um.

Anzu:Can't run.

Gamemaster:He can't run.

Johnny:Hoisted by your own guitar.

Anzu:All right, Josh, it's up to you.

Anzu:You're the dungeon monster.

Johnny:It's hard.

Gamemaster:I'm gonna say that, like, clearly this is hostility from another creature, because a creature casts the tentacle spell.

Johnny:Okay.

Gamemaster:What I will allow is we're not going to retcon it.

Gamemaster:We will say that next round it's going to take the damage and the comm is going to wear off.

Gamemaster:I'm just letting you know

Johnny:Okay.

Anzu:But number three, he's just sitting there like, sure, why not?

Gamemaster:not that that matters for Skindrone3

Johnny:I was really worried about taking a

Gamemaster:because he critically failed

Gamemaster:so even hostile actions don't snap him out of his comm

Gamemaster:so he's gonna stay there

Gamemaster:and take the 1d8 damage

Gamemaster:from the tentacles and then just continue

Gamemaster:to hang out

Gamemaster:which is so great

Gamemaster:so so great

Gamemaster:one second

Anzu:Love tentacles.

Gamemaster:I'm just gonna recast that so I know what damage to do

Gamemaster:Okay.

Benny:Okay, so the Maker does go after me,

Johnny:I think it's a hesitation spell, but it worked out well.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Benny, it's your turn.

Benny:which means I will have to figure out

Benny:how to get some level of healing.

Johnny:I got you.

Benny:Well, no, this turn.

Benny:so I have

Johnny:Oh, you will? Okay.

Gamemaster:Oh, I apologize.

Johnny:Thank you you It was going to do

Benny:grub gloves

Benny:okay

Gamemaster:Before you do anything, you're starting your turn within 20 feet of the Maker and its Mindfog

Gamemaster:Aura is on, so I need you to attempt this will-say first.

Gamemaster:You are fine.

Benny:the maker is hard to hit

Benny:if I get a crit big heals and I don think I going to crit on the maker so I think I have to attack the Ugathal to try to get the big heal crit

Gamemaster:Thank you Yeah 22 hits at least

Anzu:you I think that fine

Benny:Nice.

Benny:Grab gloves it is!

Benny:18 damage to the agathol

Gamemaster:18 points of damage

Benny:yeah well

Gamemaster:hey at the very least that wouldn't have hit the maker

Gamemaster:so

Benny:uh

Benny:where are these grub gloves

Benny:3d10

Benny:perfect

Benny:I just needed two ones and a two

Benny:and then

Benny:where

Gamemaster:Not a good roll.

Benny:wait the Uggathal

Anzu:Josh, can you do a thing for me?

Benny:hold on hold on how do I apply this

Gamemaster:Why are you...

Benny:to myself

Benny:oh there we go apply healing

Gamemaster:No, I think you should have given it to the Ugathal.

Gamemaster:He's looking a little bit worse for wear.

Gamemaster:You keep hitting him.

Benny:take a bite of my hands

Gamemaster:Yeah.

Benny:That's it.

Anzu:A telekinetic projectile would have pushed the maker five feet away from me on a successful hit.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:I bet he is healed for 14 damage.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Benny:It's all three actions.

Gamemaster:All right.

Benny:Yep.

Gamemaster:Benny, take three bleed damage.

Benny:All right.

Gamemaster:You can attempt a recovery check, though, if you like.

Gamemaster:Nope.

Gamemaster:I sorry Is this yeah

Johnny:you Oh

Benny:there

Anzu:you You know

Gamemaster:He's gonna scuttle away from you.

Anzu:

Benny:oh right my turn just happened

Anzu:you know,

Benny:I thought I'd have the reaction I do have the reaction

Anzu:you know,

Benny:yeah I was actually just thinking I should be rolling a five right now but

Benny:didn't work out.

Johnny:Wait, is that a failure?

Gamemaster:I'm so sorry, a 25 misses.

Gamemaster:Now he's gonna give you synesthesia.

Gamemaster:Attempt that will save, please.

Benny:I was actually thinking I should roll a five again.

Gamemaster:That is a failure.

Johnny:I'll use my new feet.

Benny:Okay.

Johnny:Such a disgrace.

Benny:re-rolls with a one plus one circumstance bonus and uses the higher resolve

Johnny:You can't hear those, so I'm just like...

Gamemaster:That's crazy.

Gamemaster:You call Benny a disgrace and it gets to try again.

Benny:oh my god it was almost a fucking one

Gamemaster:Benny try again?

Gamemaster:A 35 is a success.

Gamemaster:So you have synesthesia for one round, which means that you are a clumsy three.

Benny:Fair enough.

Gamemaster:Is there not like a general effect that gives you this?

Gamemaster:Okay, we're just gonna have to remember.

Gamemaster:For the next turn, you're clumsy three, your movement speed has been reduced by ten feet,

Gamemaster:everything is concealed from you, and if you want to do something with a concentrate action,

Gamemaster:you have to make a DC five flat check.

Gamemaster:And that is the end of its turn Johnny

Johnny:Yeah we got stuff that I gotta do First up we got a little lingering composition going on

Johnny:Oh, first action, sustain the whatever it be.

Gamemaster:Sure.

Gamemaster:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Johnny:Second action, is that a success at this level?

Gamemaster:A 26

Gamemaster:maybe.

Johnny:Nice.

Benny:Thanks for watching!

Gamemaster:A 26 is a success, yes.

Gamemaster:At level 8 the DC is 24.

Johnny:Cool.

Johnny:So we'll get a good old dirge of doom going on for a few rounds.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Johnny:And then third action.

Johnny:I will flourish cast.

Gamemaster:okay

Johnny:Soothe at third level on Bennix.

Gamemaster:Oh

Johnny:That's my turn.

Benny:Yes.

Gamemaster:all right or down

Gamemaster:On.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:That hits.

Gamemaster:Ten damage is better than no damage.

Gamemaster:It is still injured.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:Uh.

Gamemaster:You were 20 feet before.

Gamemaster:Are you staying 20 feet?

Anzu:For the Ugathal, if you can.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:What?

Gamemaster:Does...

Gamemaster:Um, I don't know.

Gamemaster:Do you need to sustain your walk?

Gamemaster:Um, no.

Gamemaster:It just five minutes You do need to sustain spiritual armament Do you get to attack again with it

Gamemaster:Oh, each time you sustain the spell you can repeat the attack against any creature within 120 feet. That's not bad.

Gamemaster:Okay.

Gamemaster:All right, that brings us up to the top of the initiative order.

Gamemaster:It's clear we're not going to end this combat.

Gamemaster:in a reasonable time, so I think we're going to leave it here mid-combat and

Anzu:Yeah, that's fair.

Benny:Sure.

Johnny:Oh, this is a cool map.

Gamemaster:pick it up next week, if that's amenable to everyone else.

Anzu:Totally fair.

Johnny:Yeah.

Gamemaster:All right, does next Monday work for everybody?

Anzu:I think so, yeah. Why not?

Gamemaster:Okay, then we will see the end of this fight next Monday.

Anzu:unless it carries over into the session after that too.

Benny:We continue.

Johnny:this is only phase one

Gamemaster:Entirely possible.

Gamemaster:Who knows?

Gamemaster:Next you're going to have to fight all of the things in those vats one at a time.

Anzu:We'll see how good my decision making is.

Johnny:peace

Anzu:Awesome.

Gamemaster:Alright, okay. Next week, you continue to fight some weirdos.

Anzu:Yeah, they're kind of strange.

Gamemaster:See y'all.