Cursebreaker | 40 - Bones, Bones and Beyond
Last time on Cursebreaker. We got lost in the fog. It didn't take long for our afternoon to transform into a fun little miniature hellscape complete with barbed bloodworms and jet black nightmare mushrooms. Tibio got separated from the party and had a run-in with one big bad evil curse. It took control of Tibio's exoskeleton and nearly crushed him to death, but Gaspard's singing seemed to shut him down.
Tim / GM:The rest of us made it out with the help of Judge Marlborough's portal magic and we finally found the peaceful village of Memoir. We're not out of the woods yet. I I mean, we are kind of, but there's something big coming. I can feel it. So you all made it to memoir.
Tim / GM:You met Phibolo, that's Tibio's younger brother. You also met Fen, who seems to be some kind of authority figure around these parts, and, young lass named, Timikla. It's a necromancer teacher around here. After a, very noisy introduction to these folks on the bridge just leading into town after Phibolo almost shot some of you with a, Bone? Yeah.
Tim / GM:A bone crossbow.
Hannah / Eryn:Crossbone.
Tim / GM:Shoots little bone shards. They lead you back into town, and this place is beautiful. All of these buildings are really kind of set in. It looks like they've been here for maybe 100 of years, but it's all these small cobbled stone cottages with, like, mossy roofs. Some of them are tiled with little nice clay tiles, but it's all very grown in and all very well taken care of.
Tim / GM:You can see that some of the townsfolk must have departed recently. This place isn't as, busy and bustling as it as it should be with the number of houses here. Looks like maybe 50 people make this their permanent home, but even less right now. For the first time, you also feel like you've got some time to unwind and relax and rest.
Hannah / Eryn:Yay. Rest.
Speaker 3:Is everything here small?
Tim / GM:Yeah. It is actually. So there are some buildings that are kind of like for guests that are built to, like, normal standards where, like, a
Speaker 4:human body is the the default.
Speaker 3:What about Half Orcs?
Tim / GM:I mean, yeah. You'd do fine in those buildings. So there's a couple places for you to actually, like, sleep. But it it is a little difficult to get into some of these buildings and you'll have to stay hunched over, like in the, Bone Archives and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Lovely place. Very small.
Speaker 5:Yes. We spend most of our time outside anyway, so
Speaker 3:I can get behind that.
Hannah / Eryn:Yeah. What's the, like, weather like, the temperature, climate?
Tim / GM:Really nice. Compared to all the gloom around here, memoir is like this perfect little sunspot. It's like a beautiful breezy summer day, probably, like, 75 degrees, bright and sunny, you know, healthy trees shaking in the breeze.
Hannah / Eryn:It seems like, the town's doing pretty good, Tiv, even though the rest of the forest surrounding it is not so hot.
Speaker 5:Yes. The magic that, maintains the Fernglaid is kind of centered here. So this would be the last place to be affected by the hut.
Hannah / Eryn:Was all the forest kind of like this town before?
Speaker 5:Yes. Oh, yes. And I think that the faster, the sooner I fix things, the better. Otherwise, things will start to get bad here as well.
Hannah / Eryn:Well, it's really beautiful. Thank you.
Speaker 4:The darkness actually emanates from a place not too far away from here. It is called Laporte Delannuit.
Speaker 5:Yes. We passed it on our way here. The, did you say that the Grand Maire is there still?
Speaker 4:Oui. She is, watching the gate?
Speaker 5:Once I have rested a bit, I will go see her and, deal with all of this.
Speaker 4:It's the right thing to do. She needs her rest. She's been there a week already.
Speaker 3:Oh, my dear. What is this? What's this place?
Speaker 4:It's actually quite beautiful. It, it's a,
Tim / GM:he looks at the TV and says pond.
Speaker 5:Pond or
Speaker 4:lake? It's a body of water. It has a temple arising from the middle of it.
Speaker 3:The thing we passed on our way in.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But what is it?
Speaker 4:It is a place that connects us to the afterlife Oh. In some ways. But also the temple itself, the pond, it goes through all of the seasons in a single day. It's a it's a beautiful, process.
Speaker 5:Cool.
Thomas / Guy:Incredible. Do you know what this darkness is that's coming from this place?
Speaker 4:It seems to be a leak a leak from the other side.
Speaker 3:Like like death?
Thomas / Guy:Or a curse.
Speaker 5:Something like that. It is the barrier between life and death, and it should be guarded, and I failed to guard it.
Thomas / Guy:Well, you're a bit busy.
Speaker 3:And you're only one person. So It
Speaker 5:is the charge of my family.
Speaker 3:But you seem to have more than just you in your family.
Speaker 4:Unfortunately, I was not born with, the gift, the necromantic gene,
Tim / GM:as you see. And he pulls on some of the leather belts and levers in his skeleton, and
Speaker 4:he says, I must rely on engineering to ambulate.
Speaker 5:My brother is a technological genius.
Hannah / Eryn:It's remarkable. And Holly is like, squeaking one, like, little rib bone connection and, like, messing with it.
Tim / GM:Yeah. You see, like, some random wire just kind of, like, pop out of place.
Hannah / Eryn:Oh, sorry. And then she just, like, pats it back out.
Tim / GM:You see, like, part of his pelvis kind of, like, flop off, and he turns around and
Speaker 4:says, what? What does he meant to do?
Hannah / Eryn:It looks great. It's so cool. I'm sorry I broke it a little bit.
Tim / GM:He just stands proudly.
Thomas / Guy:Will we be allowed to go with Tibio to La Porte?
Hannah / Eryn:It's
Speaker 5:maybe best if you stay outside of the water, and I go into the part myself at at least at first. It is a sacred place.
Speaker 3:I don't I don't feel comfortable with that.
Hannah / Eryn:I you don't have to go right now, though. Right? Like, we can just I feel like no one's in shape to face anything major.
Speaker 5:We we should rest and and then go when we are prepared.
Speaker 7:Okay. Well,
Hannah / Eryn:we can talk about it more too. Where where do we get some food?
Speaker 4:In this way, I am magic.
Tim / GM:And he, like, he, like, pulls this big, like, crank shaft on the skeleton, and the whole thing goes completely rigid, and the rib cage just pops open. And the skeleton stands on its own power, and then he just hops out of it and, runs to start preparing food for all of you.
Hannah / Eryn:I literally thought an easy bake oven was gonna, like, come out of his stomach. And I was
Thomas / Guy:like, I'm
Speaker 3:not eating this. Wow.
Tim / GM:But, yeah, he just, puts the or pulls the e brake on his skeleton and goes to make you all, some lunch dinner.
Hannah / Eryn:Some liner. Love it. Marlborough.
Tim / GM:He's, like, had just, like, stuffed a little, like, tea cake into his mouth, and he turns and goes, yes.
Hannah / Eryn:I need to know more about this portal situation and using the weave to move around the world.
Tim / GM:He's, chewing and, like, nodding his head emphatically and just kinda, like, continues to chew, and he's staring at you and gives you a finger just like, wait one second.
Speaker 4:Yes. The Weave, it's, it's enormously efficient, to get around on, but it's hard to keep friends. You know, not many people can follow you.
Hannah / Eryn:Oh, we all followed you.
Speaker 4:Well, yes. That's sort of advanced creating a portal, but traveling on the Weave, I mean, you've already done it, haven't you?
Hannah / Eryn:Yeah. I didn't really know what I was doing exactly. So, I wasn't sure if it was just an accident, which I think it was still, but I didn't know if I could replicate it exactly.
Speaker 4:Well, when you, change your body, say, if you enter the ethereal plane, those threads become sort of, like a highway of sorts. And if you just grab onto those threads, well, they'll take you far away. The key is knowing which thread is which and where it goes.
Hannah / Eryn:So if I just grabbed a random thread, I wouldn't be able to go anywhere?
Speaker 4:Well, you might go somewhere, but who's to say where that might be?
Speaker 7:Yeah. That could get risky.
Hannah / Eryn:Awesome. Well, that helps explain a lot of what's been happening to me as I go through this, strange time in my body and life. As I was saying it, I was like, this is more and more like going through puberty. I
Speaker 4:encourage you to, practice, but exercise caution. You can end up in some some unhospitable environments.
Speaker 8:Mhmm.
Hannah / Eryn:Is there any sort of protection?
Speaker 4:Well, go with what you know at first. You can put these little condom things on your fingers.
Hannah / Eryn:When you
Speaker 4:come near the threads, you'll know what's what and who's who. I wouldn't go anywhere unfamiliar at first. How's that?
Hannah / Eryn:That makes sense. Thank you for explaining, and, you'll definitely have to teach me the portal spell next time I'm back in Tilderie for a time.
Speaker 4:Yes. You should think ahead if it helps. The portal is like, taking a single thread and widening it out,
Hannah / Eryn:if that
Tim / GM:makes any sense.
Hannah / Eryn:Wow.
Speaker 4:I know. It's kind of mind blowing shit.
Hannah / Eryn:Holly is, like, dazed after he said that, just thinking about how that would work in her mind's eye. So she's kind of just, like, now just stunned into quiet.
Thomas / Guy:Have you been back to Tildry since my trial?
Tim / GM:He gets, like, real quiet and kinda looks down. He says,
Speaker 4:no. I don't think I will.
Thomas / Guy:Do you do you even know what happened there, how it ended up?
Speaker 4:I've done some work to gather news, but I don't know the specifics. He's
Tim / GM:he's gone though, right?
Thomas / Guy:He's gone.
Speaker 5:Good ish.
Speaker 3:Not in spirit.
Thomas / Guy:Flan's still around.
Speaker 4:Flan is also terrible, but not as not as calculated, just as dangerous.
Thomas / Guy:I'd be willing to bet a judge's face is not the first thing that people there would wanna see. So maybe you're right to stay away.
Speaker 4:I've made my peace with Tildrey being behind me.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I just, you know, did the cowardly thing and ran and didn't pay for it.
Tim / GM:He kinda nods his head and stares at the floor. Mhmm.
Hannah / Eryn:So what are you doing now? Just making portals and walking around and
Speaker 4:Well, I'm trying to do what I should have done all these years and fight for the right side and maybe take some risks.
Thomas / Guy:Well, I'm glad to hear it.
Hannah / Eryn:Good for you, old man. And, Holly smacks him really hard on the back a little
Tim / GM:too hard. He, like, flinches before you
Hannah / Eryn:even hit him.
Speaker 3:It's just so vague. You guys are fine with that?
Hannah / Eryn:I mean, he was, like, you know, 3 cities ago. So I'm just kidding.
Speaker 5:He does not seem to be doing any harm here, and he did try to help us in some way.
Thomas / Guy:It's not always easy to do what's right. I don't begrudge him anything.
Speaker 4:I know you're all going through something. I don't know exactly what you're chasing or what you're trying to solve, but I know some pieces of it, and I can help you get around if need be.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. That sounds dope.
Speaker 4:Because I feel like
Tim / GM:you make the right decisions even when I can't.
Hannah / Eryn:The Malboro mobile. Mar Marborobil. Malboro bill. Sorry. I was, like, trying to get there.
Thomas / Guy:Did we ever get there?
Speaker 4:Nope. We'll we'll workshop it.
Speaker 3:I think that would begin to pay us back. Yeah. Definitely.
Speaker 8:Mhmm. Snack does not want to be the one to tell Carl of this.
Speaker 3:What are you gonna tell Carl?
Speaker 8:That we have new transportation and his services are not needed.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. You didn't seem to have any problem giving bidet away.
Speaker 8:Bidet is serving a higher purpose now.
Speaker 3:When he mentions Bidea, like, phase out.
Tim / GM:Yeah. You, you start to hone in on the tracking ring, and it's it's, it's really far away at this point. It looks like they're probably getting close to Vindorn. You guys, of course, are all the way east into the Fern Glade, deep in there. It seems like they've stopped for the time being.
Tim / GM:It doesn't look like they're moving at all right now.
Speaker 3:Okay. Are we just, like, sitting, hanging out?
Tim / GM:Yeah. You're all just talking, chilling.
Speaker 3:I'm just gonna kind of half keep an eye on the ring.
Tim / GM:Just kind of, like, stare into it?
Hannah / Eryn:Mhmm. Trying to catch a glimpse of Dave.
Speaker 3:You know when you unfocus your eyes?
Tim / GM:Yeah. Like a sunspot or something. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'm not looking at anybody right now.
Thomas / Guy:So that's what I think. What do you think, Uli? About what?
Speaker 8:We were talking of giving a tattoo to Marlboro.
Speaker 3:Oh, hell yeah.
Speaker 8:Yes. We need to be able to make sure that he is part of our faction.
Speaker 3:Like, how are we gonna let him know we need to move?
Hannah / Eryn:Well, doesn't he have a Tildry tattoo?
Speaker 4:Of course.
Hannah / Eryn:We can just summon him with the little hammer.
Speaker 4:Oh, well,
Speaker 8:we could still do another tattoo, though. Little hammer? What? Oh, it's it's, it's nothing.
Speaker 4:Is that Tonberry's gavel?
Speaker 8:I yes. Yes. It is. Yes. Well, it's Snex.
Speaker 5:It is Snex's gavel?
Speaker 8:Yes. He, like you can see
Tim / GM:him nervously tap his fingers against his lap. I'm like, oh, dear.
Thomas / Guy:I think we can all agree it's in much better hands now.
Speaker 8:Yes. And I peed on it a little bit so that it's officially my hammer.
Speaker 3:Is that how you claim things?
Hannah / Eryn:Gotta
Speaker 4:mark your territory. Yes.
Speaker 3:Remind me never to touch anything snack has
Speaker 8:ever owned. A day all the time.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, god.
Tim / GM:Yeah. So I think you guys wanna kinda pass the afternoon that way, just eating tea cakes and chatting, sitting, chilling. Mhmm.
Hannah / Eryn:I
Speaker 7:do wanna talk to Fenn about the bones I've collected.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Zippo and
Speaker 7:I got the feeling that she's the, like, archivist type person.
Speaker 4:Tibio, you've traveled far.
Speaker 5:Oui. I have some offerings to the archives. I have, this finger bone from king Mambo Dundas.
Speaker 4:Ah, the royal family. Dwarves. Yes?
Speaker 5:Yes. And, it is imbued with his essence. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Is this something you're looking to donate to the archives?
Hannah / Eryn:No.
Speaker 5:I just wanted to, include it in the record.
Tim / GM:She kind of does, like, a half disappointed, like, half smirk. She says, well,
Speaker 4:can I sketch it and write it down at least?
Speaker 5:Oh, of course. And also I have, the ideas of my good friend, Veronica Venus.
Tim / GM:She picks it up and she says, another tease?
Speaker 5:Unfortunately. But I do have the, the bones that they replaced that I can give back.
Tim / GM:Mhmm. Oh, yes. Like
Speaker 7:Plain ass bones.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Standard default bones. These are exquisite, Tibio. You have a good eye for these things. I'm glad you didn't go picking up every knoll bracelet that you found.
Speaker 7:As he tucks the whole bracelet back into his pocket. He just like tucks it behind his back, just like,
Speaker 5:yes.
Tim / GM:You know, we've had people coming in with chicken bones before. It's embarrassing.
Speaker 5:That is truly tragic. Yes. Quite.
Speaker 4:And, these look new as well.
Tim / GM:And, she gestures to the spines on your cloak.
Speaker 5:Yes. A good friend of mine, Gaspard. He gave this to me.
Tim / GM:Gaspard. We met a Gaspard not long ago.
Speaker 5:Are we? I had never heard of him before. I did not know that he was familiar to memoir.
Speaker 4:He came through here looking for your parents.
Speaker 5:What?
Speaker 4:Yes. He, seemed concerned. He knows much of our culture. He says he also lives in the Fernglais. Did you know that?
Speaker 5:Just I just recently found out, but when did he come to look for?
Speaker 4:Maybe a month ago, just over.
Speaker 5:Thank you for the information. It is good to know.
Tim / GM:It's strange. He's so soft spoken, but it seems nothing I said was information to him.
Speaker 5:He seems to know much more than he lets on, and his power is quite mysterious.
Tim / GM:You take off that cloak for a second and start inspecting these spines. You realize that they're actually, like, loose on there and they're just tied at the end so they could come off very easily if need be. But you you kind of explore, the commands that these spines respond to, and they are 3.
Hannah / Eryn:Mhmm.
Tim / GM:The first is that you can use it as a quarter staff. They form into just a rigid, beating stick. The second functionality is that they can, kind of, inter braid and reach out up to 10 feet and function as a hand. They can grab things. They can grapple things.
Tim / GM:You can swing from it. And then, finally, their kind of default position, as a cloak. They can just wrap tight to your spine and arms and give you a plus one AC while they're on you. And she just kinda helps you learn and explore faster than you could on your own. She's got a good sense for kind of finding out the, potential within every bone that you bring in.
Tim / GM:And so she just helps you, like, reach at things across the room and you just, like, pick up a goblet and bring it to yourself from 10 feet away and Cool.
Speaker 5:Thank you so much, Fen. I appreciate your time.
Thomas / Guy:Yep. And sing.
Hannah / Eryn:So on. She
Tim / GM:She actually kinda stops you on the way out and she says, Tibio, I understand there's a lot of, pomp and circumstance around what you're going to go through tonight, I wouldn't pay too much attention to that. You need to succeed tonight. Traditions be damned. Do what you have to. Don't go alone.
Speaker 5:I I understand. I I will do what I must. I know the stakes are very high.
Tim / GM:She, walks up to you and, kind of like noiselessly just like embraces you. And, like, you you've known Fen for so long, almost like an auntie kinda thing. And so, like, just like her smell is so familiar, and, like, it feels like you're home for the first time in a long time. And then she says, you're going to be fine.
Speaker 7:Okay. Okay. And I, like, kinda, like, rub at my face, and I try to, like, puff myself up a little bit. Like, yeah. I got this.
Hannah / Eryn:Yeah. I have a quest a query.
Tim / GM:Mhmm.
Hannah / Eryn:Holly wants to know if there is a way she can find a quiet spot in, like, the archive library of this town. She's gonna she realized after being in the fog that she needed to reassess her wizard spells, witch spells.
Tim / GM:Yeah.
Hannah / Eryn:So she's gonna take a little bit of time in the library or a little cafe on the bistro street side. I don't know. But I was thinking in the archive library would if they have Yeah.
Tim / GM:In the archives. It's a little cramped in there for you, not unbearable, but you find a very cozy nook that was supposed to be like the spacious, like, eating lounge. But for you, it's like a rather cramped little bay window. But, yeah, you, go over your spells there and get things a little resituated.
Hannah / Eryn:Yeah. So Hala's gonna spend some time doing that. Yeah. Because she needs to revamp her spells.
Tim / GM:Refinance her magic.
Hannah / Eryn:For level 10, maybe.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Behind the
Tim / GM:scenes, everyone's level 10 now.
Speaker 7:Tibio is gonna go practice his loot in a corner.
Speaker 4:Nice.
Speaker 3:Are we all just, like, chilling?
Tim / GM:Kicking it all day. Yeah.
Hannah / Eryn:Anything you wanna do, do it.
Thomas / Guy:This might be a great opportunity to use my new crystal ball.
Speaker 3:That actually He
Speaker 7:spins it on his finger like a basketball,
Speaker 3:and it falls off.
Tim / GM:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Do you wanna check on my brother or Dave and Emery? I know what direction Dave and Emery are, but I don't I can't really see them.
Thomas / Guy:So maybe we check-in on door?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I would like to know how they're doing.
Hannah / Eryn:Let's do it. Okay.
Speaker 3:We're good.
Hannah / Eryn:Takes a
Thomas / Guy:lot of energy to cast, so I can't do it all the time every day. But all that expensive stuff we bought is good.
Speaker 3:I would really appreciate it, if you wouldn't mind.
Tim / GM:Alright. So, Bert, you're plenty comfortable in all the known buildings.
Hannah / Eryn:Mhmm.
Tim / GM:So, yeah, there's a actually, probably part of the same archives is a very cozy, familiar atmosphere for you to, really study down and get into your crystal ball here.
Thomas / Guy:It's Dora and Ilio that are together? Sorry.
Speaker 8:I know we just had a Are
Speaker 3:we both in the archives? Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 7:I'm Crouched.
Speaker 3:Crouched and also where Bert is very comfortable in that sort of situation. I am so bored. Yeah. I'm probably, like, fiddling with stuff and, like, I, like, found some dirt on the floor, and I'm, like, drawing in it.
Speaker 7:Every once in a while, you start to nod off a little bit.
Speaker 5:And you're like
Thomas / Guy:The target must make a wisdom saving throw, which is modified by how well you know the target and the sort of physical connection you have to it.
Hannah / Eryn:Mhmm. Okay?
Thomas / Guy:But, also, your target can choose to fail the save if they just are fine with being observed,
Tim / GM:so I don't.
Speaker 3:Well, he doesn't like magic.
Thomas / Guy:That's true.
Speaker 7:Ilya doesn't mind it.
Speaker 3:Ilya is less so worried about it, but you did have
Hannah / Eryn:a way to
Thomas / Guy:connection with Dor than any
Hannah / Eryn:of your
Speaker 3:He did give you his ax. Mhmm. So you have that physical I don't know if you got more physical.
Thomas / Guy:I'll never tell. I think Bert would be killed.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Hannah / Eryn:What if you
Speaker 3:wrote to him first?
Thomas / Guy:Oh, that's a good idea.
Speaker 3:Just let him know that you're just seeing how they are.
Speaker 7:Following up. I'm preceding a startle with a startle.
Thomas / Guy:A minor startle.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Just check-in with Ilya. Say, hey. We're gonna look at you guys.
Thomas / Guy:Just get a, dear Ilya, it's me, Engelbert f f Wisterspoon. We're here in the Fernglade with your sister and the others, and we want to I want to test out a new spell and also see how you guys are doing. So don't be alarmed if you see a little floating orb that's looking at you.
Speaker 3:Look at my orb.
Thomas / Guy:Do not be alarmed. Just ponder the orb.
Tim / GM:You can see that. Ilya has seen the message.
Thomas / Guy:Alright. I buffed the crystal ball a little bit.
Tim / GM:Perfectly shiny.
Hannah / Eryn:Mhmm.
Thomas / Guy:Alright. This takes 10 minutes, so just sit tight.
Speaker 3:Alright. I'm playing tic tac toe with myself, and I'm losing. I don't know how. While he's doing that, I'm just gonna, like, focus on the ring again, I guess.
Tim / GM:Oh, okay. Interesting. Yeah. I think there's, like, a little kind of reverse flash of lightning where the room kind of, like, goes dim for a second, almost like there was a power surge to all the candles. And, and Bert, suddenly you can see something starting to take shape inside this crystal ball.
Tim / GM:And, this whole time, Bert, that you've been, like, focusing on this thing, Uli has just been it looks like she's fallen asleep, but she's actually staring off into space focusing on her tracking ring. And so over the course of, like, 5 or 10 minutes while you're casting this spell, what Uli's looking at in the tracking ring, that sunspot becomes clearer and clearer Mhmm. Until she can see Dave wearing the ring. She can just see his form walking through absolute darkness. And then he just kind of, like, smiles and then, like, pats an invisible figure on the back and then, like, imitates like he's shouting something and then laughs again and then looks back at some other invisible figure.
Tim / GM:And then, Bert, you finish your crystal ball spell, with a bit of a jolt, and, Uli, you snap out of that little vision that you were having. And all of a sudden, Bert, it's completely clear now. You can see in the crystal wall.
Thomas / Guy:It's them. I did it.
Speaker 3:Oh, shit. Can I see?
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. Yeah. Take a look.
Tim / GM:Yeah. So it's like it's like an optical illusion. It's the same from all sides no matter how you perceive it. But you can see, Ilia and Dor are both belly down on gravel, and you can see this, like, large, dusty tarp that is covering a wagon. And they're both they both have their heads down on the gravel.
Tim / GM:And you can see that they're, like, breathing deeply, and they're, like, partially covered by a canvas.
Hannah / Eryn:What the
Thomas / Guy:Oh, this doesn't look great. Are they maybe they're sleeping.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Sleeping really hard.
Thomas / Guy:Well, Ailey got my message, so I I don't know what's going on here.
Speaker 3:That doesn't look safe.
Tim / GM:You continue watching for a while until you see, Ilya pop out of underneath the canvas a little bit and take a little look around. And then you see Dor kind of lurch over, grab Ilya, and, like, roll her off to the side, and a crossbow bolt just lands in the rocks right where Ilya was.
Speaker 5:Cool. Cool. Cool.
Thomas / Guy:Cool. So this was, this is a bad time to call maybe.
Tim / GM:Yeah. They both kind of, like, roll out of the way, and you see, like, a following hail of crossbow bolts just kind of land in their immediate area. And, like, you you see them kind of leave the vicinity and their their their mouths are moving, they're shouting, they're, like, throwing shit, and they're trying to get the wagons on the move again.
Speaker 3:Safe to say they're probably near Vindorin. Yeah.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. And it's a little scary, but if if any 2 can take care of themselves, it's them.
Speaker 3:I guess. But so much bad has happened to my family recently, and I I worry. You know?
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. Yeah. You just gotta have faith that they could take care of themselves.
Speaker 3:Are you religious?
Speaker 7:Just wondering if this is a cleric.
Thomas / Guy:Faith with a, lowercase f.
Hannah / Eryn:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:I was just not I didn't wanna insult you or anything. I No. Never talked about it.
Thomas / Guy:I get that question a lot,
Hannah / Eryn:a better
Speaker 3:sight. They're alive. That's
Thomas / Guy:true. I
Hannah / Eryn:I
Thomas / Guy:a better sight.
Speaker 3:They're alive
Thomas / Guy:That's true.
Speaker 3:As of 2 seconds ago. So
Speaker 4:yeah. And,
Thomas / Guy:Emery and Dave, they seem okay?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I think I, like, had a daydream or something.
Thomas / Guy:And what did you
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm I just I wasn't thinking about Dave or anything.
Thomas / Guy:I would never in senior life.
Speaker 3:I I think they're probably okay.
Thomas / Guy:Well, that's good enough for me.
Speaker 8:What's snack doing? Snack will try to find stuff to buy.
Tim / GM:Oh, okay. You, you kind of go, like, door to door in all these little, like, cobblestone cottages. Show me your wares. And, like, literally nobody's answering. All the, like, lights are out.
Tim / GM:There's no smoke pouring out of chimneys. Nothing.
Speaker 8:Alright. I think if I wait 10 seconds, I can enter. So I will wait and then try to go in the
Speaker 4:door. What?
Speaker 5:Snug, what are you doing?
Speaker 8:Oh, Tibio,
Speaker 5:That's someone's house.
Speaker 8:Yes. Well, I I follow the 10 second rule.
Speaker 5:The 10 second rule?
Speaker 8:Yes. If you knock and they don't answer, then you can go inside.
Hannah / Eryn:No. Are
Speaker 8:you are you sure, Tibio?
Speaker 5:I am good for you.
Speaker 8:Okay. Well, Tibio, I am looking to purchase some wares.
Speaker 5:I don't sell anything.
Speaker 8:I know. That's why I'm not asking you. Where can I buy procure these items?
Speaker 7:Is there, like, a general store or anything like that?
Tim / GM:There is, but you'd have to play store manager. You're you're allowed to. You you are you are, without mixing words, you are royalty in this island. Yeah.
Speaker 7:Okay. I
Speaker 5:I guess I could take you to the shop.
Speaker 8:Yes, Please.
Speaker 5:What are you looking for?
Speaker 8:Well, I don't want to tell you, but can you just set things out and then I will exchange coins for the items?
Speaker 5:You need to know how much they cost.
Speaker 8:Yes. Fine. Well, Titio, first of all, we need more pillows. And,
Speaker 5:I do not think we need more pillows.
Speaker 8:I have way too few bones and don't have any more extras. We need a shelf and, perhaps another another rug.
Speaker 5:Are you shopping for the lamp?
Speaker 8:Snack reflexively covers the slab. Yes. No. Yes. I am.
Tim / GM:Snack, you feel between your fingers. You feel something being, like, forced up between your fingers and the spot of the lamp.
Speaker 8:Hi hi, Genie.
Tim / GM:You see, like, rug tassels, like, pushing their way out of the lamp, and you hear, like,
Speaker 8:What what is this? And I set the lamp on
Hannah / Eryn:the floor.
Tim / GM:And the dirty rug falls out of the out of the lamp. And he says, have you got a new one yet?
Speaker 8:I'm working on a genie.
Tim / GM:No one oh, Tibio. I didn't want you to see this. I didn't want anyone to see that old thing.
Speaker 5:It is okay. I understand needing to do some spring cleaning.
Tim / GM:I meant for it to for Snack to wipe his feet on it, but you wiped everything
Thomas / Guy:on it.
Speaker 7:Well, there is, this and I point to, like, a nice rug woven out of fern glade fibers. Mhmm. Locally made and sourced. Ginny says,
Tim / GM:very nice. How much?
Speaker 5:It is let us say it is, 10 gold, and you have to exchange the dirty rug in as well, and we will clean it and keep it.
Tim / GM:Snack, pay the man.
Speaker 8:Here you go, Tibio. I reach in the lamp and fumble for some coins.
Speaker 7:You give me, like, way too many, so I give you back all the extras.
Speaker 8:Yes.
Thomas / Guy:And then
Speaker 8:I will need these later.
Speaker 7:So I take the 10, and I put them in, like, a jar that's on the counter.
Tim / GM:He's like, Zach, I like that too, and he's pointing to, like, a very modest chandelier that's, like, just part of the shop.
Speaker 8:I suppose. It doesn't does it have any bones on it? Definitely. Ah, yes. Suppose it has bones.
Speaker 8:Yes. We will take this as well.
Speaker 5:It's that is not for sale.
Tim / GM:But I want it.
Speaker 8:Tibio. I pulled Tibio and said, Ginny wants this.
Speaker 5:I I appreciate that you appreciate the, but it does light the shop.
Tim / GM:This is taking a very long time. I can just and he kind of, like, gets tall and starts to reach for it.
Speaker 5:Oh, be very careful.
Tim / GM:Snack, can you get up here?
Speaker 8:Yes. Oh, yes. I, give Genie a boost.
Tim / GM:He's like, I'm having ethereal problems, and his finger keeps, like, slipping through the chain.
Speaker 7:I Tibio just puts his hands on his hips. He goes,
Speaker 5:I guess, if you safely detached it, you can have it for 100 gold, leave them in the can, and do not get anything else, and let's go.
Tim / GM:You hear a snapping noise as the chandelier separates from the ceiling, and he says, 100 gold. Put it back.
Speaker 8:No. We can purchase this chandelier, do you need? I will exchange 100 gold for this item. And we also need those pillows over there.
Speaker 5:I don't think you need any more pillows.
Speaker 8:I'll grab those pillows. Thank you, Tibio. Your services are no longer needed unless you know where more bones are.
Speaker 5:I know where very many bones are.
Tim / GM:You know, we left
Speaker 4:a lot of pillows in
Tim / GM:that cave. We should go back.
Speaker 8:We can yes. I will ask I will ask Marlboro. I slam the gavel on the ground.
Tim / GM:He kind of like shows up in the item shop. Marlboro.
Hannah / Eryn:Uh-huh.
Speaker 8:Yes. Is it l silent? Silent? I can't remember.
Speaker 4:I don't like this when other people do it to me.
Speaker 8:Yes. Yes. Empathy.
Thomas / Guy:Wow.
Speaker 8:Marlborough. Have you ever been to this cave that, it's really dark and there's a undead dragon down there? It's wet. It's a fall. And we have pillows there.
Speaker 8:And can we do you know where that is? Can you take us there with your teleportation to the circle thing you spun on the on the sky?
Speaker 4:Was this in Hogwild?
Speaker 7:No. Timmy was slowly walking out of the shop.
Speaker 8:Yeah. No. I'm very animated. I'm like, it's an underground river, and then you hear a voice in your head that says jump and you're like, okay, and then you go down and then you and then that's why
Tim / GM:Jamie is just kind of mirroring everything you do and he's like, yeah, and then there's like a you jump off and it's, oh, you
Hannah / Eryn:fall. Yes. Yes. It's on
Speaker 8:the way it's on the way to, your town that you
Tim / GM:And you crash, but
Speaker 4:there's a genie. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah.
Speaker 4:Pillows. Pillows. Pillows. Pillows.
Hannah / Eryn:Pillows. And I was
Speaker 8:like, cobalt are those stinky little cobalt Nobody died.
Tim / GM:Everybody was fine. Gross. This is good. Yes.
Speaker 8:Yeah. And undead dwarves and stuff. Do you know where this is, Marbro?
Speaker 4:He left. What? Ma Bro left while
Tim / GM:we were talking.
Speaker 8:Useless. He stuffed the pillow
Hannah / Eryn:up into the lamp. What's the name of the shop Bone Kia? Bone Kia.
Speaker 8:I'm trying
Hannah / Eryn:to think of the name of the shop the whole time, but it's all
Tim / GM:I got. You landed on Bone Kia.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It was Bone Goods.
Speaker 7:It's Bone Bone Goods
Speaker 3:is good. Bone Furnisher. Mhmm.
Hannah / Eryn:TF Max, Tibio from her.
Tim / GM:No. Nice.
Speaker 7:Sure. Max.
Hannah / Eryn:It's great. TF Max and Bone Goods are next door to each other, owned by the states.
Speaker 3:Bones and Beyond.
Speaker 8:Bones, bones, and Beyond. That's
Hannah / Eryn:Bone Depot. Bone Depot. Bone Depot. Bone Get. Oh
Speaker 3:my god.
Hannah / Eryn:The Bone Depot. Oh, no. The bones and noble. Oh, yeah. That's
Tim / GM:That's even better.
Hannah / Eryn:So many possibilities, and I can go bonkia. Right.
Tim / GM:So it feels a little weird, but you all don't get moving until evening. It's actually almost dark by the time you guys set out. It is, dusk has begun. And you start moving northward back through the woods towards La Porte Del Anuit, where you, kind of entered in from the fog. On the way there, you're, a little more keen to take notice of your surroundings this time being that you're no longer in survival mode.
Tim / GM:And you notice all of these pools of water all around you. Some of them almost completely, perfectly circular. Some of them even have small little grassy islands rising up within, inside of them. In these, perfect little pools, you sometimes see clean white bones resting in the pools in, like, a sleeping position. And, Tibia, you can explain to them that animals, when they're ready to retire, will just come to these pools and calmly leave.
Speaker 5:It is a safe place for them to depart to this world.
Speaker 3:So you just curl up a little cat donut, and then
Speaker 5:It is the place they go for their final sleep.
Hannah / Eryn:Tibio, do all dogs go to heaven?
Speaker 5:I do not believe in heaven, but I believe there is a dog heaven.
Hannah / Eryn:Only dogs. Holly just smiles to herself and stares wistfully.
Thomas / Guy:Bart just looks at snack, and he's shaking his head.
Tim / GM:The, the townsfolk did not come with you on this, but, Malborough and Gus Bard both did. They're remaining fairly quiet, as you move. But, one of them takes note that as it's, pretty much become nighttime now, there's no more of that evening sun, But you see, in one of these pools is a flickering white light reflecting into the water. And a moment later, you hear gently sloshing water as Gaspard calls your attention to what's going on, and you see a deer skeleton that begins to stand. But when it stands, it rises up on its hind legs.
Speaker 3:No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 3:Not again.
Tim / GM:It's starting to click now that what you had seen before was an entity inhabiting an empty body. This white light is clinging to these deer bones, causing it to move around, and it's moving towards you, and it looks aggressive.
Thomas / Guy:Does it look like what we've seen of
Tim / GM:Yeah. It looks like a curse.
Speaker 3:Oh, goddamn it.
Tim / GM:It, doesn't really make a sound as it doesn't really have the means to, but you can hear these bones clacking together as it takes a big wet step out of this pool onto the grass, and it looks like it's falling forward and constantly catching itself as it charges towards your group.
Speaker 3:Oh, well, I'm ready for it this time.
Tim / GM:As you finish that saying that, Uli, Marlboro steps out from behind you and kind of bumps into you as he does and finishes drawing a huge circle in the air. And then with a clap, he kind of claps his hands right in front of him in this big motion, and the ring just flies forward and engulfs this deer as it's charging towards your party, and the deer disappears. And then he raises a hand, and the ring disappears.
Speaker 7:Oh, jeez.
Hannah / Eryn:Okay. Woah. Okay. Now, I need to learn portal attacks too. So cool.
Tim / GM:He kind of like shakes his hands out, and he looks at me and says, that one is exceptionally risky.
Speaker 4:I I sent him to an aquifer a mile underground.
Speaker 3:Holy shit. Wow.
Thomas / Guy:Good job, bud.
Tim / GM:Tibio, looking around, you can see several more white lights lighting up in these pools all around you.
Thomas / Guy:I do question why we chose nighttime to face this evil darkness.
Hannah / Eryn:No questions. Let's go. Holly starts speeding up everyone and, like, trying to push them along to GTFO.
Speaker 3:Tibbs, this isn't normal, I assume.
Speaker 5:No. It does not. This is something very bad. We should get inside and see what, my grandmother is, how she is faring.
Tim / GM:As you arrive on that same little, vista that you had seen before that perfectly frames the temple out in the water, you realize why you had to come here at night. The closer you get, the colder it grows. By the time you get there, it is full on winter. The air is biting cold, and dry snow crunches beneath your feet. Leafless trees tremble and clack in the icy breeze.
Tim / GM:The lake is frozen solid into smooth black ice. Windswept dunes of snow erode away in airborne streams, and white shearing cracks in the ice below disappear into darkness. The same cubic stone temple and the same black archway is rising out of the water, but now that fatally mysterious water is completely frozen over and traversable.
Thomas / Guy:Oh. I get
Tim / GM:it. Caspar says, I don't think we should go any further than this, he and I.
Speaker 7:Chibi looks at them and nods.
Speaker 5:Yes. I think it would be best if it is just us.
Tim / GM:Malboro says, I'll be
Speaker 4:sure to dissuade anyone who tries to interrupt.
Speaker 5:Mercy.
Speaker 3:You're doing the least you could do. Thank you.
Tim / GM:He gives you a big jolly smile with his rosy red cheeks.
Speaker 3:How long does the winter part of night last?
Speaker 5:Not very. So we should get going.
Thomas / Guy:So what are we expecting to find in there?
Speaker 5:My grandmother and, the door. The door? Laporte.
Hannah / Eryn:It's a door? Yes. To the underworld? Yes.
Tim / GM:Oh. The 5 of you, shuffle over the black ice and walk into the great black archway of the cube. Stepping inside isn't that scary. It's not all that different from being outside. You can tell at normal times, this entire temple is full of water.
Tim / GM:It looks just like a almost like a level surface. The howling wind outside is barely audible in here. In fact, all you hear is the echoes of your own movement. But in the center of this room is a stone island, rising just a few inches over the ice. And in that island, it's a staircase that leads straight down into the water.
Speaker 3:Cool. This is, is it lit up at all in here?
Tim / GM:Yes. There are small white torches burning a white fire in little sconces.
Thomas / Guy:Okay. Looks like we gotta go swimming again like in Hog Wild.
Speaker 3:I hope not.
Tim / GM:When you look down into these stairs, there's no water there. It's open air.
Speaker 7:Not quite, like, Oak Wild. And Tibia starts going down the stairs.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Oh, cool.
Hannah / Eryn:Holly fell. Everyone falls.
Thomas / Guy:Well yeah. Okay.
Hannah / Eryn:I'll hold up the rear. You hold it.
Thomas / Guy:I'll be somewhere in the middle.
Tim / GM:Uli Uli tightens up her glutes.
Speaker 3:I'm prepared.
Tim / GM:You all travel down a a long stone hallway that's lined by these repeating white torches, and then you can see someone standing at an archway at the end of this hallway. It's a little old lady, a gnome. She's looking kind of tired leaning on a staff. She's got white hair tied up in a clean little bun. Looks like she's got some provisions laid out for herself so that she could be here for quite a while, including a place to sleep and some extra food stores.
Tim / GM:As you come down, you hear this dry voice.
Speaker 5:I'm so sorry. I'm I've been away so long, but I'm here now. I can help.
Tim / GM:She takes a little drink of water and says,
Speaker 4:part of me hoped you would never show up, that you would just go on living your adventure. It's good that you did. This place needs you.
Speaker 5:I know now. I know, and I am here.
Speaker 4:She says, come here.
Tim / GM:And she gives you a big hug.
Speaker 7:I give my grandma a hug.
Speaker 3:Aw. Aw.
Speaker 4:She says, Tibia, I don't know how much you know, but things they are not good.
Speaker 5:I have seen the the badness in the Fernglaid. I've seen it in the forest.
Speaker 4:It is pervasive. Our family has much work to do, you see? And Titio, who is this?
Speaker 5:Come here. These are my friends. I know that it is not
Tim / GM:her eyes, like, dart right to Snack and back to you. She says, who is he? Do you know him well?
Speaker 5:Oui. This is my friend. His name is Snack.
Tim / GM:Stand back, Tibia. She kind of like pushes you off to the side. She picks up her staff and points it down at Snack, and she says,
Speaker 8:No. It's snack. S. What are you doing?
Tim / GM:You feel your lamp start to shutter, and you hear What the hell is this?
Speaker 8:Tibio, your grandma's been rude to me. Leilise.
Tim / GM:And the lamp kind of bursts open, and Genie is in the room. And he says, snack, I don't get this. And he's like shuddering and kind of like moving towards Sacro a little bit.
Speaker 3:I I step in front of them.
Speaker 5:Wait. Come here, please.
Tim / GM:She she kind of like presses you to the
Speaker 4:wall, Tibby, and she says, this is what we are after.
Tim / GM:And she says, back with you. And she points to the archway behind her, and she says,
Speaker 5:Not this one.
Tim / GM:And Jeanie looks down at Snack and says, Snack, I I think I'm dying.
Speaker 8:We must leave, Jeanie. Can I can I grab Genie and try to Misty step away?
Tim / GM:Yeah.
Speaker 8:Okay. I'm gonna have Misty step up the stairs and run away.
Tim / GM:Yeah. You, you get some good distance between you and Saegra, and Genie comes with you. And then she looks down at you
Speaker 4:and she says, this is what is happening. They're coming back. They threaten us, the flow of life. It is wrong.
Speaker 5:I know that the I know there are so many curses in the world. I know I know that there is so much danger, but Ginny is our friend.
Speaker 4:There is duplicity in them. You cannot trust them. They will do anything to remain in our world.
Speaker 5:He is not doing any harm. He's he's only helping. He's been helping us destroy curses.
Speaker 4:You have destroyed? But you calls him curses. What is this?
Speaker 5:I have been I have met so many people on my journey, Kamer. It is, there is a group of people called curse breakers, and they are haunting the evil magic that is coming through the world.
Tim / GM:I see.
Speaker 4:Girls' this is a misnomer. Certainly, a chaos helps them get into this world, but to be all, these are spirits of the dead.
Speaker 3:What? I
Speaker 4:Tibial, this is why you are here. This is Tebio. Very recently, your parents, your mother and father are no longer with us. I did not see it for myself, but I feel the energy leave us. And the reborn in memoir rose to mourn their passing.
Speaker 4:You must have felt something too, a week ago, maybe more. Did the bones call to you in any way?
Hannah / Eryn:Yes.
Speaker 5:Yes. They they did. I, I did not know that that it was me. I I had hoped to find them still.
Speaker 4:We still do need to find them. Sabon hailed you as their new king, but until now, you have not come to take your crown.
Speaker 5:I was not ready.
Tim / GM:Your parents left me with something
Speaker 4:just for you to read. I'm sorry that all of this is happening tonight, but it's important.
Speaker 7:Am I reading this out loud as Tibio? Oh, for fuck's sake.
Speaker 5:Dear Tibia, we love you so much. I hope that you never see this letter and that we come back home full of stories and songs to share with you and fibula. But if it happens that you do see this letter, there is much I need to tell you. As you know, our family has a duty to care for the dead. I am sorry to say that the world of the dead is very sick right now and we have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 5:Souls that have already passed on are finding their way back into the world of the living. They appear as apparitions of white light and bind themselves to people in order to survive in our world. This defies the flow of life that we are sworn to protect and it is our family's duty to put a stop to it. If you are reading this letter, my dear, I'm sorry to say that duty now follows to you. I am sorry, my beautiful debut.
Speaker 5:We have to leave sooner than expected, and I cannot summon the courage to wake you. Forgive me. Forgive us. As much as I want to keep writing and listening to you snore in the next room, We have to leave now. We love you so much.
Speaker 5:We will leave for you to find, as you explore the dry depths beneath undying light, and reach the pinnacle of magic itself. Have the courage to travel far to the harshest places, but do not go
Tim / GM:alone. Sekhar kind of lets out a big sigh, and she says,
Speaker 4:I read it a few times myself. I'm sorry.
Speaker 5:How how could they be gone? I
Speaker 4:They were trying to stop this and they came so close. I can feel it.
Speaker 5:I I must finish what they started. I must I must fix it. I I did not know, but I was on that path already. I I joined up with the curse breakers. I've been trying to send these things back to where they came from.
Speaker 4:This, Deboo. This is why it's going to be okay.
Tim / GM:She, turns you around and points you towards the archway, and she says,
Speaker 4:I'm sorry for the circumstances of tonight, but you must succeed in this. Normally, if you were to fail the test, you wait another year, you'll try again, but we do not have that kind of time, Tibio. You must go forward and seek out the doorway. A representative from the other side is waiting for you. Be patient with them and be honest.
Speaker 5:I will do this. Of course, I will do this.
Thomas / Guy:Tibio, I'm so sorry, but we're gonna help you finish this.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We're not going anywhere.
Speaker 5:I think that this was something we were meant to do. I think we found our way to it anyway. Snug, I am so sorry. I'm so sorry for what my grandmother tried to do. I and, Jeanie, I hope you are okay.
Thomas / Guy:Why was she so interested in Genie anyway? Yeah.
Tim / GM:Genie and Saker kind of like lock eyes for a second, and Genie says, well and he looks down at snack.
Speaker 8:Tibio Genie and I conferred, and I've decided you must choose between me or your grandmother.
Hannah / Eryn:Snack, that's unreasonable.
Speaker 8:She assaulted us, did not give us any tea or anything like the other old ladies we met in the past.
Tim / GM:Sakera gives the rest of you a glance like, don't worry about it. Like, I got this.
Speaker 3:Snack.
Speaker 8:What was this assault for?
Speaker 4:I was not making this up. This is what you call a curse, a spirit from the dead. Are you not?
Tim / GM:And Jeanie looks around kind of like shyly and then does like a big shrug.
Thomas / Guy:Jeanie? Oh my god.
Speaker 3:You knew this whole time.
Hannah / Eryn:Snack's a curse? What? Holly's just staring at snack, like
Tim / GM:Genie does kind of like like other way around hand motions.
Hannah / Eryn:Well, Genie, you're a curse?
Tim / GM:I well, I didn't catch on right away when you all kept saying curse because I'm not a curse, am I?
Speaker 8:I think not.
Thomas / Guy:You do know we're called the curse breakers, right?
Hannah / Eryn:Yeah, but I'm not Wait, are you cursing snack?
Tim / GM:Okay. Yes. Yes. But wait.
Speaker 8:Listen. Yes. This is just like all the other things we do together. We all have the curse of friendship. Genie has cursed me.
Tim / GM:Right. Just like that.
Hannah / Eryn:Well, now we know how you really feel, Snack. Snack,
Speaker 3:I think we need to have a discussion about what friendship really means. And I think one of the key important features of friendship is being honest with your friends.
Speaker 8:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Tim / GM:Listen, Snack knows all about friendship. He learned my big dirty secret, and he kept it to himself. And because I asked him to. I begged him to. Because
Speaker 3:you didn't want us to kill you.
Tim / GM:Correct. Yes. And look at you now. You're proving me right.
Speaker 3:Am I killing you? I just want Snack to be open about things more.
Speaker 8:How could I be open with how you've all treated Emery?
Hannah / Eryn:Oh.
Speaker 3:I'm the only one with an issue with Emery.
Hannah / Eryn:No. Emery was, you know, kind of a womanizer, like, not a great guy before he was cursed. So
Tim / GM:Our relationship is much the same. It's true. I I'm the spirit. I I was alive once, and now I reside in this lamp, and I guess I haunt snack in some ways.
Thomas / Guy:Do you remember your life from before you crossed back into our realm?
Tim / GM:I do. There are some holes. I've lost a little bit of that. It's part of consequence of being a spirit, actually. You start to lose things.
Speaker 3:Like trust.
Tim / GM:And humanity.
Thomas / Guy:But that means other curses can remember their past lives too.
Tim / GM:Indeed. How
Speaker 3:come every curse we've encountered has been evil and trying to kill us?
Tim / GM:Well, the same kinds of things that would claw their way back from hell to have another chance at life tend to be pretty driven. And like I said, being a spirit strips away a lot of important emotions.
Hannah / Eryn:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:How are you different?
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. How did you make it back?
Tim / GM:Well, I knew what I was doing.
Thomas / Guy:Look, there's been plenty of chances for Genie to take care of us if he wanted to, but
Tim / GM:He's pointing at Bert.
Thomas / Guy:Despite this shocking revelation, I think we can count him as a friend still.
Tim / GM:You give Snack a little thumbs up.
Speaker 8:We are all cursed.
Speaker 3:No more. Jesus. Alright.
Speaker 8:Snack goes for a group hug.
Speaker 3:I'm a little reluctant.
Speaker 8:Well, well.
Tim / GM:Fully surges.
Speaker 3:Just don't hide things from us anymore, please.
Tim / GM:I won't. I promise.
Speaker 3:Snack.
Speaker 8:Oh. Well, if I'm not going to hide anything from you all, there's one other thing I should probably show you.
Thomas / Guy:Uh-oh.
Hannah / Eryn:It just was like snack takes off his lung.
Tim / GM:I've had this the whole time.
Speaker 8:Knock knock. And we all appear in a room that's, there's a chandelier on a couch made of bones, several pillows, like, stacked around, near the couch area. And there's, some, like, soft, like, hymn ish music playing from nowhere.
Speaker 3:Is this your lamp?
Thomas / Guy:Yes. Are we in the lamp?
Speaker 8:Yes. Yes. So You're forgiven.
Speaker 5:Neck. This is amazing.
Tim / GM:Genie is quickly moving around, like, fluffing, like, throw pillows, and he's, like, humming along with the monastic music in the background.
Speaker 8:We were trying to get more pillows and everything, but Tibio has been
Speaker 5:Well, I did not know
Speaker 8:that this was surprises us.
Speaker 5:Okay. Tibio. It is lovely, Snack. And Genie.
Speaker 8:Yes. Here. Grandma gets a nice, the recliner chair. Yes.
Speaker 5:Hold on.
Hannah / Eryn:Because he's okay. Oh, yeah. Can I be in here?
Speaker 4:Because of
Tim / GM:the pack of privacy.
Speaker 3:Extra dimensional space.
Tim / GM:I'm gonna say there's a there's a near dimensional mudroom where you can leave all extra dimensional items.
Speaker 7:Okay. Amazing. That's beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Extra dimensional adjacent.
Speaker 7:Yeah. Near dimensional mudroom is our title for this episode.
Speaker 3:And not Bones, Bones,
Hannah / Eryn:and Beyond.
Speaker 7:Bones, Bones, and Beyond is very good also.
Tim / GM:They both fit really well.
Speaker 8:And, well, this is the general living space. Wipe wipe your feet on that mat. And then over here, this is, snacks room, and this is, Jeanne's room.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Jeanne's room is still this, like, large purple door that's, like, impossible to open. There's no handle on it or anything.
Speaker 3:Yes. This is very cool.
Thomas / Guy:I love what you've done with the place. But, you know, some sort of plant or something would really light the home room.
Tim / GM:That's what I've been saying. Well Anyway, we've got a bath over here. We've got, laundry room here. Kitchen's there. Breakfast nook.
Tim / GM:And he's kind of, like, pointing out all these little areas. Got, like, a chill out room. We've just got orange slices and a hookah going in there. Make yourself at home.
Speaker 5:I would I would love to, but I think that we should be getting back. I have a sort of quest to complete.
Thomas / Guy:I believe we have to travel to the land of the dead. Is that correct?
Speaker 5:Yeah. Kind of. Yes.
Speaker 3:Can Genie go there?
Thomas / Guy:Oh, he's from there.
Tim / GM:He kinda looks at Sacra and says, that's a good question. Am I going to be okay? And she looks back and says,
Speaker 4:just don't go through the door. You'll know it when you see it.
Speaker 8:I suppose, Tibia, if you insist we can leave, I'll show you my my bone collection later.
Speaker 3:Your bone collection?
Speaker 8:Yes. It would lovely having you all over. Bye bye. And then we all appear outside the lamp again.
Speaker 3:Was that a level 10 thing?
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yes.
Hannah / Eryn:Awesome. That's so cool.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, hell yeah.
Tim / GM:As you all pop out and prepare to, enter this sort of, dungeon, let's say, Oh. You all step out again, and the first thing you hear is and a Jesus. Black black raven comes flying down the stairs, down the hallway, casting a shadow through all these white torches and flies right through this archway. And the archway just goes to a dead end, but the bird disappears when it passes through the archway.
Speaker 5:It's platform noise. Regalters to the dead.
Tim / GM:Sakhra gestures towards the arch and and, kinda launches her eyebrows and says, death awaits?
Thomas / Guy:Anything you can tell us about what to expect in there?
Speaker 4:There are some trials, and then you will meet, well
Thomas / Guy:Any rivers?
Speaker 4:No rivers.
Thomas / Guy:Okay. Oh, thank god.
Hannah / Eryn:Who will we meet? You will
Speaker 4:meet, relatives of Tibio, I believe.
Speaker 7:Oh, we shall see. And, Tibeo starts to, like, march himself up to the the archway.
Tim / GM:Tibeo, as you pass through, the atmosphere you enter into is almost like not being alive at all. It is exactly room temperature, and there is no breeze, and nothing you can do generates a breeze. It's like living an awakening dream. Apart from that, you've been here before. When you touched Veronica's coffin, you briefly saw these hallways.
Tim / GM:It comes back to you immediately. The rest of you get the same sensation of stepping into, like, room temperature oil almost, where everything just becomes completely stagnant and surreal, but still somehow cold. In the center of this circular room is a small recessed well that only dips down a couple feet. The well is about 10 feet in diameter. Inside this well, you can see this, fuzzy black mold growing in the cracks between the cobbles, and every minute or so, this circle, this well, just pulses and gives off a bunch of black ash.
Tim / GM:There are no other exits from this room. In fact, there are no exits at all because you can't really tell where you came in from.
Hannah / Eryn:Were we all able to go through the doorway after Tibio? Okay.
Tim / GM:Yep. No problem. No problem with Jeannie either.
Thomas / Guy:Holly, do you see any way out of here?
Hannah / Eryn:Where'd the door go? Holly looks back behind her.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Thomas / Guy:I I meant, with a weave. Can you see any sort of magical means
Speaker 4:out of here?
Hannah / Eryn:Oh, you gotta be more specific, my man. Okay. Holly fazes her, her gaze goes, like, slack for a second, and she looks off into space. Can she see any weave?
Tim / GM:I think, actually, Holly, you're blinded in here. You can't, like, see anything because it's just, like, pure white light.
Hannah / Eryn:Her eyes Oh. Go white for Milky White.
Tim / GM:Yeah. And it's just back. Yeah.
Hannah / Eryn:And then she's like, the weave is not in here.
Tim / GM:Or the weave is everywhere in
Hannah / Eryn:here.
Speaker 3:It is the weave.
Tim / GM:Yeah. It's so close to the weave that it's too bright to see.
Hannah / Eryn:Or what he said.
Thomas / Guy:Fair enough. Is this the same black ash we saw? No. Does it look like the same?
Tim / GM:Sorry to use black soot so close together, but this is entirely different.
Speaker 3:Fair enough. Yeah. This is not spores?
Tim / GM:Yeah. Not spores. No. So, yeah, we've got big circular stone room, a stone well in the center. The well only goes down about 1 foot, 1 foot deep well, and there's a black mold or black moss growing in the cracks of these cobblestones.
Tim / GM:And then every minute, you see the whole thing kind of pulse, You see a little puff of black, and then it just kind of resets.
Hannah / Eryn:Is there water in the well, or is it just empty?
Tim / GM:No. No water. I would
Thomas / Guy:like to investigate the well.
Speaker 7:You have I checked the well?
Thomas / Guy:14.
Tim / GM:Okay. Bert and Oobly get down on their hands and knees and just start watching things. You can time it pretty much perfectly. It is once per minute on the dot this thing, kinda goes off. I think you guys watch that bird is in here too.
Tim / GM:A, a raven had flown in here with you.
Speaker 3:That bird is in here.
Thomas / Guy:That bird is in
Tim / GM:here. I think while you're watching this, you you see it go off, like, 3 or 4 times just waiting a couple minutes to see it happen. And then during one of them, you see a little, like, a roly poly, like, crawl across the floor and go into the well. And when it pulses, you see the roly poly just, like, turn over and die.
Thomas / Guy:Death pulse. Yep. That doesn't seem promising for people who unlive.
Speaker 3:I agree.
Speaker 7:Would I have been, like, prepared for this at all?
Tim / GM:Yes. But it's a very, like, wax on, wax off sort of preparation.
Speaker 7:Yeah. Do I know what I'm supposed to do?
Tim / GM:Give me a personal history check. So, let's say history with advantage.
Hannah / Eryn:Okay.
Tim / GM:There's just a a hollow of sacra going, remember your training.
Thomas / Guy:Someday, little Tibia, there's gonna be a magic well.
Speaker 7:You said history? Yeah. 12. I rolled a 2 and a 4.
Tim / GM:You you remember lessons about how, like I mean, just being here reminds you of your foundational lessons, like life is a part of death. Like, don't let death be scary. Happens to everybody.
Hannah / Eryn:Mhmm.
Tim / GM:What we do is not like a dark thing or, an immoral thing by any means. That's what comes to mind.
Thomas / Guy:Tipia, what happens when living beings enter this place? They're not supposed to be here. Right?
Speaker 5:We have not made it to the archway that is the way into death. This is still sort of the entryway.
Thomas / Guy:Some of an in between place. So
Speaker 5:And not very many living people would find their way here by accident. It is mostly my family.
Thomas / Guy:If someone were to die here
Speaker 5:If you die in
Speaker 7:the game, you die in real life.
Tim / GM:It's true for this dungeon.
Speaker 8:Well, it seems pretty simple. We need to sit in the well until it zaps us to the next room. Yes.
Hannah / Eryn:I agree. A snack, actually. Can't believe I'm saying that.
Speaker 8:Well, it
Thomas / Guy:it might kill us, but I'm wondering if
Hannah / Eryn:We gotta be a little dead.
Thomas / Guy:The rules, you're right, don't really apply the same way here. It's not really something I wanna leave to chance.
Speaker 5:Well, all I know is death and life are not different. They are part of the same all, and so there is not one without the other. And to move forward here, I believe we must go through.
Speaker 3:I don't like I don't like that.
Speaker 7:Tibio steps in the well. Mhmm.
Hannah / Eryn:Ali, will step in with Tibio.
Thomas / Guy:K. Is this a situation where we all step in together to show we trust each other?
Tim / GM:I think right as Bert finishes that, you all hear this as the, soot kind of expresses again. And when it does, when this black soot is released everywhere, Tibeo and Holly both take 25 necrotic damage.
Hannah / Eryn:No. I take half because I have my shroud.
Tim / GM:Yes. You do.
Speaker 3:It's just gonna.
Tim / GM:That's 12, Holly. And then you see the entire center of this well drops by about 5 feet slowly. It just kind of recedes into the ground, and they're farther down now.
Speaker 3:So you have to pay it with life. Yeah. I don't no. I don't like this.
Speaker 8:Come on, Ole. Let's go.
Hannah / Eryn:You guys, the more of us that are in here, Holly's, like, calling from the well, the more life we have to give to make it go down faster.
Thomas / Guy:One sec. Bert's gonna cast death ward on himself. Alright, guys. I'm ready.
Hannah / Eryn:Hurry. Get in. Hurry.
Speaker 3:Okay. Fine. But I don't trust you or this well, and that is a loophole to the friendship rule.
Thomas / Guy:That's a healthy attitude, really.
Speaker 4:Who is
Tim / GM:in the well and who is not in the well?
Speaker 3:I'm in the well.
Thomas / Guy:I'm in the well.
Speaker 3:I'm in the well.
Speaker 8:Snack appears in the well.
Hannah / Eryn:Okay. What?
Thomas / Guy:How'd you get it?
Tim / GM:You all spend another nervous minute together, and then there's a little puff of black soot. And you all take 10 damage, and the well sinks another 5 feet down into the ground.
Hannah / Eryn:Holly takes half up
Speaker 3:still. You know the reason this is going so slow. Yeah.
Tim / GM:You all, you're like 10 feet down in this well now, so none of you can really see out, and you just kind of pass the time until it pulses again. And, right before it pulses, one of you notices this little, like, triangular peak, on the wall towards the ground. And when this pulse goes off, the well descends again and that triangular peak turns out to be the top of a doorway. And as this well pushes down, you can now see this doorway right in front of you. You all took another 10 for that last pulse.
Tim / GM:Holly was correct.
Speaker 4:The more
Tim / GM:of you that are in there, the more the damage gets spread.
Speaker 8:Snack tries to check for traps. 26.
Hannah / Eryn:Oh my god. How
Speaker 8:I rolled an 18.
Speaker 5:What do you
Speaker 8:mean how?
Speaker 3:I feel like you just wrote whatever you wanted on the page, and, like, no one can read it, so no one can question it. And you're like, here's all
Speaker 8:the I feel like I'm the only
Tim / GM:one level 10 right now. I was gonna say, maybe he's the only
Thomas / Guy:one doing the math. Yeah. Didn't you,
Speaker 3:like, forget
Thomas / Guy:to level 2 times, I think?
Speaker 8:Oh, you know what? It's, actually a 23. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:Oh my fucking
Hannah / Eryn:good job, Maggie.
Tim / GM:It all starts to unravel.
Speaker 8:I thought you solved traps with charisma for a second.
Tim / GM:Interesting. Interesting
Speaker 4:choice. I thought you punched people with wisdom.
Speaker 3:What was it? Before 26?
Speaker 8:26. Hey. So,
Tim / GM:Snack, you bravely go ahead of the whole party.
Speaker 3:Is he sniffing this the ground like a cartoon dog or
Tim / GM:not? Yeah.
Speaker 8:I'm from the underdog, and I'm trying to be cool and know how to do this stuff.
Hannah / Eryn:Keep in
Tim / GM:mind, he's 7 and a half feet tall. Yeah. He's, like, crawling around on the ground. You're all startled when a, raven flies in overhead through the doorway and just kind of, swoops down straight through this hallway that you're all staring down, and it's a long hallway. On either side, you can see 100 of skeletons, kind of in these perfect, they're all, like, facing each other, on either side of this hallway, and the hallway is at least 500 feet long.
Tim / GM:And every 10 feet or so, there's this 2 a pair of skeletons staring each other down. Some of them have weapons and armor. Some don't.
Speaker 3:Are the ones facing each other, do they match?
Tim / GM:No. Okay. You spend a while trying to, like, figure out the significance between the pairs, and there's just nothing there.
Thomas / Guy:Do you know any of these fellas, Tibio?
Speaker 5:Not often, but I would not have I would not recognize them without their skin.
Hannah / Eryn:Are they gnome bones?
Speaker 8:No.
Tim / GM:All shapes and sizes.
Speaker 3:Okay. Can I investigate the first one? Sure. Nope.
Hannah / Eryn:Feel free to add your charisma modifier.
Speaker 3:Dang. 7.
Speaker 8:Taking 5 second
Speaker 4:It's it's bones.
Speaker 5:Tibio.
Speaker 3:I think Yeah. Now I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is a skeleton.
Speaker 5:You would be correct?
Speaker 3:Yes. It might be human.
Speaker 5:Very likely.
Speaker 3:Alright.
Hannah / Eryn:Are we concerned about this, bird that's flying with us getting a free ride into the underworld?
Speaker 8:Yes. You a spy. Can you still hear me? I yelled down the hallway.
Tim / GM:You hear this extremely distant echoing like,
Thomas / Guy:it's like those ones we saw in Hog Wild.
Speaker 5:Well, of course, they are the messengers here.
Thomas / Guy:What's Could be under Does this one have a message?
Speaker 5:Possibly not. Sometimes they are just around.
Hannah / Eryn:Do they often go to the underworld? I feel like we shouldn't let random things in here.
Thomas / Guy:Maybe it's like a guide for us.
Speaker 3:What did the bird say?
Tim / GM:It didn't say anything. It just kind of called.
Speaker 3:It just screamed? Yeah.
Hannah / Eryn:Okay.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Your your your trap check was fairly thorough. So there's there's nothing springing as you move to the hallway here.
Speaker 3:There's a sign on the wall. It says, beware of traps, and he goes, yes. I will.
Hannah / Eryn:I will be aware.
Speaker 7:Tibeo kinda opens up his necromancy and tries to get a feel for the place.
Tim / GM:These bones feel exceptionally dormant, almost like props, scenery.
Speaker 5:I think that, this is not where I need to be. I think we are still on our way. Let's go.
Hannah / Eryn:Okay.
Tim / GM:Yeah. You begin to travel down the hallway. Snack is sniffing things out ahead of all of you, and, you take a brief break. Halfway down this hallway is a little circular chamber where there's a little step up and then a step down. And then you pass through that to the end of the hallway where that raven is waiting.
Tim / GM:It's sitting on a, a steel, what do they call it, brazier, like a fire
Hannah / Eryn:Mhmm.
Tim / GM:Ring, and it's unlit. Oh, I
Hannah / Eryn:have a spell for this.
Speaker 5:I don't see when it
Speaker 3:I'm kinda the fire person, but go ahead.
Hannah / Eryn:I, been re I've been working on myself a little bit, and I got some new spells. Holocast fire bolts on the brazier.
Tim / GM:Okay. Yeah. You, like, directly hit it, like, right in the coals, and it looks like it should go up, but you just see, like, smoldering smoke and smell a little burning, but nothing takes.
Hannah / Eryn:Holly, like, shakes her crystal that she used to cast it. That's weird. That's not what the book said.
Thomas / Guy:Bert is going to check out the brazier.
Tim / GM:Yeah. You go ahead. Give me an investigation again.
Thomas / Guy:Natural what?
Speaker 3:Oh my god.
Hannah / Eryn:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Bert, Bert, the it's over here.
Speaker 7:He's looking at, like, another candelabra. So Bracher
Thomas / Guy:so Bracher, it's like like a big rock. Right?
Tim / GM:Or it's like, I know what this is.
Speaker 7:I look up at the Raven, and I say,
Speaker 3:any hints?
Tim / GM:It kind of like cocks its head rapidly to one side and then the other and gives you the single eye, and then it flies back to the front of the room. Fuck.
Speaker 7:I follow
Tim / GM:it. It is perched there, near a torch sconce.
Speaker 7:Is there a torch in the sconce?
Tim / GM:A burning white torch.
Speaker 7:I take the torch from the sconce
Tim / GM:k.
Speaker 7:And I carry it to the brazier.
Tim / GM:You pass the first skeleton, and you see its eyes ignite with white fire.
Speaker 4:Woah.
Tim / GM:And it, like, pulls one arm off the wall and then the other, and it reaches down and grabs this rusted claymore and, like, raises it up and looks down at you. And it kind of, like, eyes the torch, and it, like, looks at the sconce where the torch should be.
Speaker 5:Friends, I think I need, some assistance. I run back.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Uli, you're, like, charging down the hallway and you see this hulking skeleton take a slash down at Tibia with a claymore.
Speaker 5:Shield?
Hannah / Eryn:Sure.
Speaker 3:How long is this hallway?
Tim / GM:It is 500 feet long.
Speaker 3:Oh, perfect.
Speaker 7:Damn. I'm try I I wanna know if I can misty step with the torch or if it'll do bad to the torch.
Tim / GM:Okay. Yeah. I'll say you misty step of the torch and the torch does not go out. It's still burning. Teleportation works.
Speaker 7:Okay. I
Tim / GM:do that then. You look behind you and you see about 20 skeletons with their eyes lighting up, all, like, peeling off the wall, and you just see this white flaming arrow just whistle down the hall.
Speaker 7:Oh my god.
Speaker 4:And
Tim / GM:that'd be a 19 to hit. I'll see your shield's still going.
Speaker 7:Okay. It definitely still hits.
Tim / GM:Okay.
Speaker 8:Is there another torch and sconce that's lit?
Tim / GM:Just at the beginning, there's 2 of them. Yeah.
Speaker 8:Okay.
Tim / GM:That is 9 piercing damage as you are shot with an arrow.
Speaker 5:I'm gonna die.
Thomas / Guy:Tibia, can can we fight these things, or is that a faux pas?
Speaker 5:Please fight these things. I'm very much in danger.
Speaker 3:How far away is Tivio from me now?
Tim / GM:I mean, you just started running down the hallway. You got maybe 60 feet with your speed.
Speaker 7:460 feet away.
Tim / GM:Tibio went 30, so about 400 feet away.
Thomas / Guy:So there's no so there's skeletons behind Tibio.
Tim / GM:Yes. There's not any
Speaker 7:As I move forward toward the brazier Yeah. The skeletons are coming to life behind me. Okay.
Tim / GM:Are you continuing to go?
Speaker 7:Oh, I'm running. Okay. Yeah.
Tim / GM:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I'm running towards Tibio.
Thomas / Guy:And they cast sanctuary on Tibio.
Tim / GM:Oh. Okay. What's the range on that?
Thomas / Guy:30 feet. So I'm not doing that. K. Well, I'm gonna run towards Tibio.
Tim / GM:Okay. Yeah. You're right behind Dooly by a little bit.
Speaker 8:I'm running towards Tibio.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. Holly?
Hannah / Eryn:I'm just by the brazier still, maybe?
Speaker 4:Yeah. End of the hallway? Yeah.
Tim / GM:Okay. So, Tibia, you just kind of continue to panic and run, and you're about a quarter of the way down the hall now, and there is just a hellish cacophony following you.
Speaker 7:Clacking.
Tim / GM:Clattering and clacking and, like, metal armor, like, falling off and being adjusted and swords being, like, raised and dropped and thrown. And you, you pass by these 2, hulking half giant skeletons that each attempt to drop a hammer on you as you move underneath them. I
Speaker 8:If Tim's okay with this, I'm picturing, like, we roll initiative and if anyone gets to go before the swings happen.
Tim / GM:That's a good idea. Yeah. Let's do that.
Thomas / Guy:That works. K. Let's get better than a 1.
Speaker 3:Natural 20.
Speaker 8:I got a 4.
Speaker 3:We were 1st star rolls.
Speaker 7:I got 18.
Thomas / Guy:Wow. That's a snack roll.
Speaker 7:Yeah. That's what I'm saying.
Hannah / Eryn:If you
Speaker 7:got a crappy Tibia roll.
Tim / GM:12. And, Holly? 2. Alright. These hammers are coming down.
Tim / GM:And, Uli, you are the farthest ahead, closest to Tibio. And you see this before Tibio even realizes what's happening. But these things, they were kind of these skeletons were locked in like a hammer dropping position, and as soon as they come alive, their arms just fall down and swing with the hammers.
Thomas / Guy:I wish we would have noticed that earlier.
Speaker 3:And and I dimension door, bowl him over, like, knock him out of the way.
Speaker 4:Tibio? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'll try and cushion his little head.
Tim / GM:Oh, yeah. I'm gonna say you take the brunt of that damage.
Speaker 3:That's that's fine.
Tim / GM:So that's a 12 to hit Yep. And a 21 to hit.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. Okay. 12 hits you?
Speaker 3:My AC is 11.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, dear.
Speaker 3:I don't have anything.
Hannah / Eryn:I think
Thomas / Guy:you should've gotten AC overalls instead of fire resistance.
Tim / GM:That is 15 bludgeoning damage on the first hammer and 14 on the second hammer. Very consistent bludgeoning damage.
Speaker 3:29?
Hannah / Eryn:Yes. Yep. Oh.
Tim / GM:Yeah. So you managed to kind of, teleport. I mean, you're just, like, sprinting down this hall and you see Tibio about to be crushed and did nothing, and you just wanna be there as quickly as you can. And you take one more step and travel some 350 feet in a single step. You push Tibio out of the way, and you're pretty much prone on the ground, and you're like, yeah.
Tim / GM:I did it.
Hannah / Eryn:And
Tim / GM:then just smashed by 2 hammers, one after the other. Y'all can hear, like, bones crunching on the ground, hoping that they aren't oolies. Next is Tibio.
Speaker 7:I see Uly come out of nowhere. I get knocked to the ground, and then I see the hammers come down, and I say, no. And I cast vampiric touch on the one I can reach.
Tim / GM:Okay. Go ahead and make that attack run.
Hannah / Eryn:One of
Speaker 8:the big ones? Or
Speaker 5:Yeah. 16 to hit?
Speaker 4:It does hit. Yep.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 7:Okay. So it'll be 3 d 6. Necrotic damage, and I regain hit points equal to half the amount of damage dealt. Sure. So 13 damage.
Tim / GM:K.
Speaker 7:So I'll take 6 health.
Tim / GM:You do gain some kind of sustenance off this thing. When you, like, siphon this energy out of it, it's strange. Like, skeletons are full of necromantic energy, but you also kinda feed on that. So, yeah. It's okay for you to siphon dark energy from a skeleton.
Tim / GM:You see it, shutter a little bit, but it's barely enough to slow this guy down.
Speaker 7:Okay. I'm gonna keep moving if I can.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Tim / GM:Next up is that big old pile of skeletons that is starting to mass over itself. Like, there are skeletons literally crawling over other skeletons, forming this wave in the back of the room. From that wave, another arrow launches. Let's see here. And that is Uli again.
Tim / GM:That is a non natural twenty to hit Uli.
Speaker 4:Fuck.
Tim / GM:For 6 piercing damage. That's fine.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Hannah / Eryn:And
Tim / GM:then I'm gonna say one of those hammers comes flying through the room, like, overhead, and it just, like, crashes into, the ceiling not far from you guys and creates a sort of, rough terrain of fallen stone and cobbles and debris.
Speaker 8:Well, Bert, Holly will have to find a new party soon.
Tim / GM:Next up is Bert.
Thomas / Guy:Am I able to reach these 2,
Tim / GM:these guys? Turn? Not quite. I'd say you're, like, almost to, like, the halfway point, and they're not far from the halfway point either. I'd say you're within 60 feet with the rebels separating the 2 of you.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna move as far as I can toward Tibio Anuli. Mhmm. I'm gonna raise my book in the air and channel divinity to turn undead.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, fuck
Tim / GM:yes. Okay. Fantastic.
Thomas / Guy:Get out of here, undead. Can't you see nobody wants you?
Speaker 3:Question. Yeah. Does Tibio's skeleton
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. I wondered about that, but I didn't bring it up. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Tibio's like, yeah, Bert. Bert,
Speaker 3:can you make it stop now?
Thomas / Guy:I mean, Tibio doesn't need his bones to proceed.
Speaker 3:No. But I'd like them.
Thomas / Guy:There's plenty of bones here. So this one is just, they if if they fail with some saving throw, they run away from me.
Tim / GM:So I I divided the skeletons into, like, tiers of, like, strong mobility
Hannah / Eryn:k.
Tim / GM:With those giants being at the top of it. And when I rolled for them, I got a 3, a 4, and a 3 for their saves.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, okay.
Tim / GM:So even with significant bonuses, none of those would be above 10.
Thomas / Guy:And depending on their challenge rating, they just get straight up destroyed if they're low.
Tim / GM:Yeah. And so the only ones that I
Thomas / Guy:think challenge rating 1 or below, they get destroyed. Okay.
Speaker 4:Cool. Mhmm.
Tim / GM:So, Bert, you're like, this is my moment, and you just come, like, sprinting from the other end of the hall, like, watching this wave of bone sort of overtake, Uli and Tibio as they're, like, literally scrambling for dear life, and you see, like, the tunnel collapsing over them, and everything is just going to shit. You park yourself right on top of that pile of rubble and raise your book up high, and all of a sudden, all the undead, like, turn up to see its pages, and you show them wisdom they cannot perceive. Yeah.
Hannah / Eryn:These
Tim / GM:you you the both of you look up at these glowing pages and just become dazed for a moment as you look at its light and this radiant glow. You feel the skeleton start to shutter, and 75% of them turn to dust.
Speaker 3:Wow. Holy
Tim / GM:shit. The other remaining few, like, shield their eyes even though they have no eyes and begin to scramble towards the back of the place. The skeletons that are still in these recesses in the walls have all, like, turned around to face the wall and are now just, like, trying to, like, flatten themselves up against the wall so as not to face what Bert has.
Speaker 7:Oh my lord. So I think my skeleton would be fine because it's not animated. It's ambulated.
Thomas / Guy:Tibio's catchphrase. Ambulated, not animated.
Tim / GM:With that, I mean, for the next minute, all of these bones are either disintegrated or shaking in their proverbial boots. You use this time to make it to the end of the hallway with that white torch
Hannah / Eryn:Mhmm.
Tim / GM:And light that burning brazier. And just a few moments after you do, you see the outline of a door being shown in the white light of this torch, and the way forward becomes clear.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, I didn't think I'd have a chance to use that one.
Hannah / Eryn:Oh, man. What took you guys so long with that torch?
Speaker 5:That was amazing. Ollie, you did nothing.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. Sorry about the skeletons. Anyone?
Hannah / Eryn:I rolled a one initiative. Okay?
Speaker 3:I'm not feeling too hot.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I am also in a little bit of pain.
Speaker 8:I believe Ginny will have the chandelier, hung at this point if anyone is interested in taking a rest. Is there time for a respite?
Hannah / Eryn:In a lamp?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Could we take a short
Speaker 8:Yeah. Oh, it's good.
Thomas / Guy:That's a is that a thing? Yep. We should probably leave
Speaker 3:bring back some
Speaker 8:Yeah. We should probably leave the skeleton hallway, though.
Hannah / Eryn:Can we
Speaker 8:go through the store? Yeah.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 8:Yeah. 1st, I must check for traps.
Tim / GM:It's an archway again, not a not a locked or closed door or anything. Okay.
Speaker 7:He steps the arch.
Tim / GM:Snek so timidly creeps through this threshold into the next room, and there's not much to see here. These these hallways are ever so slightly curved so that they kind of cut out invisibility after a while. And all of the walls, all the surfaces here, it look like a thin sheen of ice or like perfect water. Looking down the hallway here, as you're all about to head into Snacks Lamp for a quick rest, who's the last one out?
Speaker 7:Oh, me.
Tim / GM:Okay. So you're all kind of, like, I don't know, diving into the lamp head first, like a diving board, and then, Tibia, you just take a glance down the hallway,
Hannah / Eryn:and you are certain of what you
Tim / GM:see here. You see staring at you from the end of the hall, and you step into the
Hannah / Eryn:lamp.
Tim / GM:Thanks so much listening. I'm Tim, your DM and your genie.
Hannah / Eryn:I'm Hannah playing Holly Hyacinth.
Thomas / Guy:I'm Thomas. I play Engelbert FF Wisherspoon.
Speaker 7:I'm Tara, and I play Tibio Femur.
Speaker 8:I'm John. I play Snack the Cobalt.
Speaker 3:And I'm Maggie playing Uli.
