Cursebreaker | 55 - Ride 'em, Kobold
Less time on Cursebreaker. We gave a terse goodbye to Snack's unreasonably callous father and made our way to the door of markings. Beyond the door, we found a warm cozy hollow full of cave moss and volcanic hot springs and took one hell of a long rest. When we awoke, we pressed on to the mountain caldera and tried to formulate a plan, but we were ambushed by an old friend. Law spotted us from the edge of the caldera and made way too much noise.
Tim / GM:In a flash, the dragon was upon us, bathing the party in billowing flames. I don't know how this is going to turn out. I love you guys.
Speaker 2:Oh, crap.
Tim / GM:We had left off on only a few moments ago. Holly, polymorph as a mouse had just entered the chamber where Joe is hiding out behind his little protective force field. Inside that chamber, you see a large stone sarcophagus. There's a bunch of, like, alchemy tools and equipment. You see Joe who looks very distracted as he is mind controlling Vixi from across the way.
Tim / GM:However, Holly, that is the end of your turn. That brings us to the kobolds, which have all been incinerated, which brings us to snack.
John / Doran:That's fucked up. I okay.
Tara / Journey:Those were his brothers and sisters. Yeah.
John / Doran:So dragon's bearing down on me.
Tim / GM:Hold on a sec, guys. I lost the dragon's current HP.
Tara / Journey:Oh, I think it was, like, 5?
Tim / GM:He might just have to go back
Thomas / Guy:to full.
Tim / GM:5 a?
Speaker 2:No. It was bloodied. You said he was bloodied. Past bloodied.
Thomas / Guy:Definitely bloodied.
Tim / GM:Vixi is on the stairway that you came in from, kind of blocking the way you came from. Mhmm. It kinda flew over and passed all of you.
John / Doran:I don't wanna spend action, but can I glance at Emory and the unicorn? Yeah. Do they look dead?
Tim / GM:Neither of them look dead. You can't tell if Emory is gonna get back up or not. Okay. The unicorn is trying to get back
John / Doran:up. I'll steal my resolve, and I'm just gonna raise my hand up, shoot eldritch blast at the dragon. K. 16.
Tim / GM:Does not hit.
John / Doran:25. Hits. Alright. Alright. 22?
Tim / GM:Yep.
John / Doran:Alright. 2 hits. We're doing this whole radiant energy. Wow. Twenty damage.
John / Doran:And I will use a bonus action Mhmm. To cast my cool fly ability. K. I believe I can move 60 feet within my movement because I get had, like, the racing stripes added.
Tim / GM:Yeah. That should actually quadruple your fly speed.
Speaker 6:Wow.
Tim / GM:So it would be a 120.
John / Doran:Wow. Okay. Yeah. I'm gonna risk the attack of opportunity and try to fly about just over the water, I think.
Tim / GM:Oh, yeah.
John / Doran:Just out and over the water. Okay.
Tim / GM:Alright. Yeah. He's going to take that opportunity attack. Okay. We'll make that a claw attack as he reaches out as you fly away.
Tim / GM:27 to hit.
Speaker 7:Yeah. Alright.
Tim / GM:Fourteen slash and damage.
John / Doran:Okay.
Tim / GM:You still up?
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. Okay. Great.
Tim / GM:Alright.
Speaker 7:Sorry, Bert.
Thomas / Guy:No. I no worries. I got this. Everybody alright. Everybody's out.
John / Doran:Okay. I'm flying over the water, ready to blast more. K. End of turn.
Tim / GM:That brings us to Emery, is going to, stand up again. Yeah. Yeah. He is barely hanging on. He looks around, does not see snack.
Tim / GM:He sees Bert. Bert, you can see him shirtless after having been scorched. Mhmm. The unicorn is just getting back to its feet, but Emery's not gonna burden it again. Instead, he picks up his long sword off the ground and points it at Vixi.
Tim / GM:And, you can see there's, like, blood racing down Emory's arms, and the the curse is taking full control. His eyes just go this, like, fiery yellow and start spitting out little sparks that bounce off the ground. And he charges Vixi for a fatal swing.
Speaker 6:You know what? I'll take it.
John / Doran:Is that net twenty? Yeah. Yeah. Alright.
Tim / GM:Emery did pretty good for you guys.
Speaker 8:Yay, Emery.
Speaker 2:Finally pulling his weight.
Tim / GM:A solid hit, not as good as he possibly could have done. But Bert, you see him, kind of catch some sort of resistance as he drags his sword through the air. And almost like, striking, flint with a knife, you see it start to gather all of these yellow sparks, and then he breaks through that resistance and cuts into Vixi's belly. Oh. That is a, 23 combos, radiant, and slashing damage.
Tara / Journey:Damn.
Tim / GM:Not a bad hit from Emery.
Thomas / Guy:My man.
Tim / GM:He is, breathing heavily, and he looks down at you after the dragon does not fall over, and he just says, what do you got?
Thomas / Guy:Let's find out.
Tim / GM:Alright. That brings us to Vixi.
Tara / Journey:Oh, no.
Speaker 6:Good, great, great.
Thomas / Guy:I don't like that.
Tim / GM:Bert, you feel a moment's reprieve as Vic Shee tilts his head back and kind of backs away from Ewan Imri. And you can see him kind of aim his face down towards the ground, and then you can see the flames start to spark between his teeth, and it unleashes a second flame breath on you and Emery and the unicorn.
Thomas / Guy:Not the unicorn.
Speaker 8:Is your book still up, though?
John / Doran:That's with, Tibio. Tibio.
Speaker 2:Oh, no. Emery's gonna die.
Tim / GM:Alright. Bert, I need a deck save from you.
John / Doran:That's a 12.
Tim / GM:Can we double it? Uli and Tibio, you were focused on Joe for just a second, thinking that you could stop this before it got any worse, and then you start to hear it again. That same, almost like a whisper that grows into a roar from the other side of the room, and the dragon is flying back towards your side, sweeping this bridge with flames again. You can see Snack just barely escaping.
Speaker 2:I push Tibio prone, and I climb on top of him.
Tim / GM:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because I am fire resistant.
Tara / Journey:Yeah. I thought we're on the other side. I thought it was going the
Tim / GM:other direction. Yeah.
Speaker 2:He fly big.
Tim / GM:He does fly big. He, he runs out of flame before he gets to your side, and he touches back down on the bridge, coming towards you and Tibio. So you don't suffer the flames
Speaker 2:Okay.
Tim / GM:During the sweep. But he is coming for you. Let's do some damage.
Speaker 2:To who?
Thomas / Guy:To the 2 people who are fighting the dragon.
Tim / GM:That is, 63 fire damage.
Thomas / Guy:32 resistant?
Tim / GM:Yeah. 31. 31. Yeah. Round down.
John / Doran:How's Bert doing?
Thomas / Guy:Bert's still up.
Tim / GM:Wow. Impressive. Alright. Holy shit. Okay.
Thomas / Guy:I mean, with with without fire resistance, I would definitely get it.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah. The dragon sets back down on the bridge with a thud, and, you can all see, like, stone crumbling away from where he lands. Bert is still standing, having, like, shielded himself as best he could from the flames. Emery, you see, is on the ground and you can see some pretty substantial burns on his back.
Tim / GM:The, Unicorn has been roasted thoroughly. Its mane is completely burned, and it's lying half off the bridge.
Tara / Journey:Oh. Sad.
Thomas / Guy:No no response to Emery, but the unicorn.
Speaker 6:No. I'm extremely I'm extremely worried about Emery, but I am all the way over here.
Thomas / Guy:Bert uses both hands to extinguish flames on the side of his mustache. Yeah.
Speaker 2:If it's a summon unicorn, Yes.
Tim / GM:If it's a summon unicorn, is it a real unicorn? No. At that damage, you see it kind of, turn to ethereal white flower petals and drift away.
John / Doran:There is a school of thought that that is a real unicorn.
Speaker 2:So I don't want your school of thought.
John / Doran:Those taken from its natural home
Tim / GM:No.
John / Doran:And murdered.
Speaker 2:Shut up.
Tim / GM:We are back to the top of the round with Tibeo.
Tara / Journey:Hey. That's me. Yeah. I'm gonna gently push Uli off of me and stand. Mhmm.
Tara / Journey:And how close am I to the door?
Tim / GM:Not far, actually. I think you guys were, like, partway up the stairs, so you could get there in the course of this turn
Tara / Journey:Okay.
Tim / GM:And do something.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. The award that is on
Tara / Journey:the doorway Mhmm. Do I know that I wouldn't be able to get through it with Misty Step? Is that pretty clear from the magic? Or
Thomas / Guy:I expressed that there's some weird magic stuff going on with the ward.
Tim / GM:Make a perception check to you.
Speaker 8:Okay. Make
Speaker 2:an inception
Tara / Journey:check. 16?
Tim / GM:Okay. I don't remember the languages you speak, but there is an inscription on the archway, across the top.
Tara / Journey:What language is it in?
Tim / GM:Giant. No? Okay.
Speaker 2:Bert Bert was the only one who could read that.
Thomas / Guy:I do know that.
Tara / Journey:Okay. So what I'm going to do, is the dragon within a 120 feet of me?
Tim / GM:Yes.
Tara / Journey:Fantastic. I am going to cast magic missile
Tim / GM:Mhmm.
Tara / Journey:At a 5th level.
Speaker 8:Mhmm.
Tara / Journey:And I'm gonna cast cast it at the dragon with all of my might.
Tim / GM:Oof.
Tara / Journey:21 damage.
Speaker 8:Okay.
Tara / Journey:Force damage. And then I'm going to okay. I'm just gonna shout through the doorway as best I can and also telepathy.
Speaker 6:Joe, we know how to beat him. We can beat him together. You must stop this. We can beat Mocha.
Tara / Journey:And then I'm gonna communicate to Holly, like, tell him if he can't hear me, like Oh, sure.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Holly, you're able to hear that as well. So you can hear through that word. Okay. Joe does register that.
Speaker 8:Can I respond, or
Tim / GM:do I have
Speaker 8:to wait too much?
Tim / GM:Yeah. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:We
Tim / GM:can hear you.
Speaker 8:In telepathy. Okay. But it she's a mouse now. So
Tim / GM:Tibio, like, spreads out his fingers or his bone fingers, and, from each fingertip launches a magic missile and then 2 fingers in the other hand. They all pelt into Vixi's face. The first little volley, just kinda hits him, like, around his eyes and mouth, and you see him shake his head and kind of try to shy away from them. It almost stops his progress across the bridge. And then the last couple that fly out kind of converge, and they tear a small hole in his wing, and he stops and puts a strong claw down in the bridge.
Tim / GM:And you just hear him. Next up, we got Bert, who is alive. Yeah. Smoke coming out of your mouth, mustache singed.
Thomas / Guy:Alright. What does that breath attack look like? Is it, like, moving across the bridge, Shane?
Tim / GM:Yeah. So it's like a conical gout of flame that he drew, like, roughly halfway across the bridge and then settled back about a 100 feet from Tibia.
Thomas / Guy:So I'm still in range if I
Tim / GM:no. It's, like, 400 feet away from you.
Thomas / Guy:400 feet?
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah. Both times, I've just bullshitted the fly speed on the fire breath.
Thomas / Guy:So So I can't even attack it?
Tim / GM:Yes. Because I put it in range of Tibio's magic missile.
Thomas / Guy:That's right. I'm probably bringing bringing Emery up then.
Tim / GM:K. Emery is in bad shape.
Thomas / Guy:Mhmm.
Tim / GM:He just barely survived those last couple hits, and then the flame breath came on top of that. Yeah. You see his chest is, like, heaving. And you can see actual smoke coming out of his mouth when he's breathing. His lips are, like, crispy.
Tim / GM:You can see most of his hair again is burned away. There's really just a blurred kind of scene between the burns he got from Uli and the burns he got from this dragon. Emri is really, really dying. So much so that you see his curse begin to peel away from him, recognizing that his host is no longer fit. What do you do?
John / Doran:I
Thomas / Guy:wanna do a medicine check to see I I guess I wanna know how much healing he needs to get back up on his feet.
Tim / GM:Okay.
Thomas / Guy:I got a natural 20. Woah.
Tim / GM:Oh, shit. K. Well, we'll say if, Emery Bert. Emery's perfect day would be a 42 out of 42.
Thomas / Guy:Okay. Good to know. But he's making death saves now.
Tim / GM:We'll say he has one death save to make.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. Okay. No. I'm just gonna use a third level healing word on him.
Tim / GM:Okay. By the laws of the game, he's fine.
John / Doran:Yeah. Kinda weird, isn't it?
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah. Bert, before you tell me those numbers Yep. The curse has almost left Emory, and Emory is not quite dead. If you waited a little while longer, you might be able to heal Emre after the curse leaves.
Speaker 6:But then what's that curse doing?
Thomas / Guy:And he was so cool just a second ago. It seems too risky.
Speaker 8:What would the Bert who can rewrite time and space feel? Put yourself in Bert's mind.
Thomas / Guy:Bert thinks that Emery, by his own words, seems to have made peace with the curse that was there. And he remembers the time in Holly's house where trying to rip
Speaker 6:it out of him literally almost killed him. So Bert's just gonna heal him.
Tim / GM:Okay. Alright. What was the healing on that healing? Ten hit points. Okay.
Tim / GM:You see Emery give another big cough, another gout of black smoke comes out of his mouth. And then, he kind of, like, rolls over, and you can see a few of his burns are instantly kind of shiny and healed. And then he begins to, like, roll onto his arms and knees so he can stand up, but albeit slowly.
Thomas / Guy:Hey, we need one more big hit from you, big guy. Let's go. And I'm gonna run toward the dragon, I guess.
Tim / GM:Okay. Yeah. He, looks up at you and gives you this incredulous, like, you've gotta be kidding me. Like, have I not done enough for you?
Thomas / Guy:Oh, actually, with my bonus action or no. That was my bonus action. I would like to drink that anyway, pushing for the other one.
Speaker 2:44+4. Yep.
Thomas / Guy:15. Nice. Double digits, baby.
Tim / GM:Despite all that, you do hear a sword slide against the ground as Emory picks it up and begins running with you back along the other side of the bridge. He's down to, like, trousers pretty much, like undershorts. It's just like tattered pants.
Tara / Journey:He's got the Hulk outfit.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Next up is Uli and then Holly.
Speaker 2:Okay. Talking is a free action?
Tim / GM:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Is yelling a free action? Yeah. Is yelling someone's name a free action? I was gonna yell at the dragon.
Tim / GM:Oh, okay.
John / Doran:We never tried scolding
Speaker 8:it. Leave it. Yeah. Leave it. Do it.
Speaker 2:But for my action, I also wanted to try and, like, manipulate the ward on the door.
Tim / GM:Okay.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I can do that. I'm just assuming I can.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Let's resolve the dragon first.
Speaker 2:Okay. I'm just gonna keep yelling at it. Stop fighting, and I'm gonna try and read its surface thoughts.
Tim / GM:Yeah. I think wherever you are, in this room, you can hear Uli shouting Vixi over and over again. And, like, you're all like, yeah. I know. Like, he's coming.
Tim / GM:He's here.
Speaker 2:Like, Lily, calm down.
Tim / GM:And then, then you do get, Vixi's surface thoughts now for the second time.
Speaker 2:The second time? Yeah.
Tim / GM:Bert did it earlier.
Speaker 2:I just I wanna, like, get a feel for what he's afraid of and, like, try and talk to him.
Tim / GM:Okay. You hear, I I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.
Tim / GM:I am under the influence of someone. One of them is controlling me. I knew it. Oh, well, Bert's still at the back. I'm going to need to deal with him eventually.
Tim / GM:And Willy and Tibia are going to break through with some Shame. Shame up. Who is it? Is it that one?
Speaker 2:It's Joe. At me.
Tim / GM:It's her.
Speaker 2:I It's Jill.
Speaker 8:Destroyer. Alright.
Speaker 2:And so you're part of the train. Bang on the ward and, like, try and
Tim / GM:Wacky waving arm flailing into the devil tube man against the ward?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna just try and, like, grab onto the magic and, like, yank.
Tim / GM:Give me a give me a spell attack.
Speaker 8:It doesn't work.
Speaker 2:I have no idea what I'm doing. 13.
Tim / GM:Okay. Wait.
Speaker 2:Can I use my bless on that?
Speaker 6:I still have a
Thomas / Guy:Attack roll or saving throw.
Tim / GM:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What's Bard's bow?
Tara / Journey:D 6?
Speaker 2:A d I wanna do that.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. Bless is d 4.
Speaker 2:Yeah. 17?
Tim / GM:Okay. Yeah. You all see Uli, like, banging on the ward, and then she just, like, starts grabbing it as if there's anything to grab. Like, she grabs a flat surface and then just starts, like, pulling it away like taffy, and you see it, like, like, rebound and kind of, like, shutter. And then you do see her, like, stick her fingers into it and just pull it side to side, and you can see part of this ward just, like, a literal hole being ripped in the ward.
Tim / GM:Ula, you can feel it's rapidly trying to close behind you. You can step through, or you can let somebody else through, but you can't destroy the ward entirely.
Speaker 6:I should talk to him. Okay. You go.
Speaker 2:Do I have
Tara / Journey:to wait till my turn?
Tim / GM:Well, say Uldi's holding it when your turn comes around.
Speaker 8:Okay.
Speaker 2:I've got, like, a foot shoved
Tara / Journey:in there. It's happened so fast.
John / Doran:Yeah. It does. Yeah.
Thomas / Guy:Uli's breaking through the AT field.
Tim / GM:Holly, it is on you as a mouse in the chamber.
Tara / Journey:Is that the very tiniest monkey?
John / Doran:Yeah. Holly
Speaker 8:okay. Holly needs to investigate this room really quickly, to see to assess the situation of the best course of action. Is Joe, like, not present?
Tim / GM:Joe is not seeing, like, what's going on in this room.
Speaker 8:Because he's putting all his energy to to control the dragon. Okay. And you said there's a large stone too? Yeah.
Tim / GM:It's like a giant box, a giant, like, refrigerator.
Tara / Journey:Ancient coffin.
Speaker 8:Is it open?
Tim / GM:It's not open. You see some, like, familiar markings, so, like, the door of markings and that little shrine that you saw earlier.
Speaker 8:It's the tomb of the guy. Yeah. Okay. Got it.
Thomas / Guy:Tomb of the guy.
Speaker 8:Oh, shit. Yeah. I'm gonna telepathy, to Tibeo and say, I think the dead architect is in this room. This is his grave. Oh.
Speaker 8:I think you need to do something with that when you get here. I don't think I can open the gate, but I think Uli's on it.
Speaker 6:Okay. Okay. Good to know.
Speaker 8:Over and out. Okay. Coffee. Okay. Holly is going to can can Sal pop out of my mouse body?
Tim / GM:Yep.
Speaker 8:Great. So weird. Alright. Because he's in with me, I guess, or whatever. We'll say he was in my pack of holding.
Speaker 8:Mhmm. Okay.
Thomas / Guy:I forgot that.
John / Doran:Yeah. I was thinking yeah.
Speaker 2:Just like a giant cat coming out of her tiny mouth.
Speaker 8:Anyway, so, Sal pops off, Holly, and, I'm gonna have Sal get on Joe. And is he sitting in chairs? Is he standing? Like, can Sally jump on top of his head and scratch his eyeballs out? That's kinda my vision.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Joe is standing quite close to the ward, so he can have a good view of the room out there if he needed to.
Speaker 8:So
Speaker 2:so you see the giant hole?
Tim / GM:No. He he doesn't register anything that's in front of him
Speaker 2:or anything
Tim / GM:that's in this room. Yeah. He's he's looking at it from the other side.
Speaker 2:That's very convenient.
Tim / GM:Although we've established Sal does not do damage, we'll say he's distracting enough, to break Joe from what he's doing. So Sal just kind of, like, climbs all over Joe and, like, kind of, like, sits on his head or, like, gets his little claws in his clothes and climbs him.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Tim / GM:And, Joe kind of, like, breaks his concentration. You see him, like, shake his head side to side, and then Joe sees Sal, and you hear Joe just go, Sal, what in the hell are you doing? And he, like, grabs it by the scruff of the neck and throws it to the ground, and you see, like, Sal hit the ground, shatter into 2 cats, and they both just, like, like, start witching and sprint out of the ward. You can tell that the ward goes one way but not the other.
Speaker 2:I forgot he knew him. Okay.
Speaker 6:That's why you let her do it.
Speaker 8:From behind, Joe Mhmm. After that all happens, Holly is going to polymorph into Holly.
Tim / GM:K.
Speaker 8:And then she's gonna cast sunbeam. At Joe's back.
Thomas / Guy:She's gonna
Speaker 8:holler him over. Hey, asshole. Why don't you take some of your own medicine for once? And Holly just crystal sunbeams him.
Tim / GM:He is spinning around in a giant whirl, his robe flapping up beneath him, and he looks at you and says, I take my own medicine all the time. And
Thomas / Guy:it's kinda my thing.
Tim / GM:And, is it a save for the sunbeam?
Speaker 8:Constitution saving throw. K.
Tim / GM:That would be a 12 for the constitution save.
Speaker 8:Yeah. It fails.
Tim / GM:K.
Speaker 8:That fails. Sorry. That constitution save fails. K. So you said this is bad.
Speaker 8:You said he was standing in front of the entryway
Tim / GM:Yeah.
Speaker 8:Right in front of the lee.
Tim / GM:Mhmm. Then tibia.
Thomas / Guy:Sec sec sec sec.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Thomas / Guy:Sec sec.
Speaker 6:I mean,
Tara / Journey:you could be at an angle. You don't need to be right behind him.
Speaker 8:Is the dragon within 60 feet of this opening? Okay. Then I'm gonna stand at an angle, not right. Right behind him so I don't sunbeam Uli and, Tibia in the doorway. Would it come out the ward?
Speaker 8:Oh, you're holding it open.
Tara / Journey:It's a one way ward.
Speaker 2:It would be right in
Speaker 8:the face. Alright. Yep. I guess I don't know. I mean, it still hurt you, but it's radiant damage.
Speaker 8:Okay. It is going to be 31 radiant damage.
Tim / GM:K.
Speaker 8:And they are blinded.
Tim / GM:K.
Tara / Journey:Interesting.
Tim / GM:Well, Holly, I'll tell you what. Most people are blinded when they're unconscious.
Speaker 8:Yes. Woo.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Joe is not special.
Speaker 8:Joe, you dumb.
Tara / Journey:This is bad. Is
Speaker 2:it bad?
Tara / Journey:Because now it's just Vixi.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. The thing that Bert has been saying, like, a bunch of times
John / Doran:Yeah.
Tara / Journey:I thought we were not in
Thomas / Guy:previous episodes.
Speaker 2:The the dragon that is no longer controlled and is just paranoid.
Tara / Journey:And is going to kill us.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah.
Tara / Journey:Joe, we could reason with theoretically.
Tim / GM:And
Tara / Journey:Vixi, we defo pants.
Tim / GM:Will you know that Vixi just concluded that you're the one doing all this?
Speaker 2:Why would it be me?
Tara / Journey:Shouting at me.
Speaker 8:Shouting at me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now that Joe's unconscious, I'm just holding a sunbeam in my hand, and I can point it at anything. It doesn't do damage, but it lights up stuff.
Speaker 8:So
Tim / GM:Alright. Snack, it is now your turn. Still flying over the open water, along the bridge near the water wheel.
John / Doran:Can I get within a 120 feet of
Speaker 7:Vixi flying?
John / Doran:Yes. Okay. Did I get any sense that, a spell was broken? Due to events, I don't know as a character, but Okay.
Tim / GM:I think Snack was definitely, like, trained on this guy the whole time. You know, you don't take your eyes off this dragon, obviously.
Tara / Journey:This guy has a name.
Tim / GM:Sorry. This is Vixi. So Vixi did the flame breath, landed, and then started walking towards Tibio and Ulya as if to consume them. But then it, like, abruptly stopped and even, like, shook its head, and you saw it, like, look around the room again. You've seen it do this, like, perception check thing a couple times where it, like, takes in all the information around it.
Tim / GM:This is different. It looks like it just woke up and doesn't know where it is.
John / Doran:Alright. So next, it's gonna fly up close using thaumaturgy. Mhmm. I'm going to try to speak to Vixi. Okay.
John / Doran:Okay. So the thaumaturgy is going to just make my voice extra boomy.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Vixi. You all hear this kind of, like, ripple out from snack just like Fig she had been speaking when you first came into this caldera. It grabs his attention.
Speaker 7:Your actions have disturbed the balance of the different flights. I, Snack, have come on behalf of the golden flight to bring justice.
Tim / GM:You see Vixi, like, look around the room. It looks towards, like, who it was, advancing on. It looks back at what it's done at the scorched bridge, at the, incinerated unicorn, all the kind of scorched bodies around. It seems to be piecing together that it had been used for something. Vixi looks up at you and says, justice?
Tim / GM:What do you mean justice? How is this justice? I don't know where I am. I don't know who you are.
John / Doran:Snek looks around, unsure and surprised that he's being spoken to.
Speaker 7:Idris has summoned me to bring you to justice for the destruction you have laid here. Destroying caravans, destroying anything coming to and from Vindor. No.
Tim / GM:What? No. I've been here here. I've been I've been sleeping so much.
Speaker 7:Your alliance with Joe has been destructive.
Tim / GM:You see kind of like look side to side and you see its claws digging into the bridge and crumbling the stone away. And you hear, do not reason with this, Snack. You have been sent to annihilate.
Thomas / Guy:Does Jessnack hear that?
Tim / GM:Yes. Okay.
John / Doran:Can I get posture on somewhat, like, a read on posture? Yeah. Like you said, he was, like, kinda scrambling at stuff.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah. So he immediately faded into this anxious behavior where he's clutching things. And so he's grabbing the bridge really hard, and he keeps breaking stone pieces away and tapping his claws. And now, he's looking around at what's happened here.
Tim / GM:Again, he looks over the destruction on the bridge. You know, he sees the bodies of kobolds. He sees, you know, the scorch marks and everything. He's trying to piece together what he's done here.
John / Doran:Snek, looks down at the remains of cobalts all, like, just covering the bridge, like, dangling off, falling into the lava in the water as well. Mhmm. Looks back up at Vikshi and shoots 3 eldritch blasts.
Tim / GM:Nice. Okay.
John / Doran:I'm going to intentionally miss.
Thomas / Guy:Oh.
John / Doran:So I'm gonna just if I can't do I don't know if I need to roll the miss, but I'm No.
Tim / GM:No. No.
John / Doran:I'm gonna try to shoot and try to scare him.
Tim / GM:Okay. Yeah. You, you send 3 kind of crawling up the bridge toward him, and, some of the stone crumbles away. In fact, maybe you hit a support column, and he loses his footing a little bit, and he starts to back off. But he's looking up at you and he says, hose this justice.
Speaker 7:You will be destroyed, Vixi, for what you've done.
John / Doran:And I'm going to
Speaker 7:just I used all my movement, but Yeah. I'm coming to get you still. Okay.
John / Doran:And then I just kind of move my cloak aside and brandishing my sick looking knife, which
Tim / GM:For the bonus? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think with the eldritch bolts on top of that, you're gonna have, advantage on this intimidation roll in addition to the plus 4.
John / Doran:Awesome. Okay. K. So intimidation. Why did I never take that?
Tim / GM:25. Wow. Okay.
Speaker 8:Because we don't need
John / Doran:That's why. Okay.
Thomas / Guy:Well, you're Christmas plus 6. Right?
John / Doran:Yeah. It's pretty high.
Thomas / Guy:I don't know what you need to roll to intimidate a dragon, a full sized dragon though.
John / Doran:What do you roll, Tim?
Thomas / Guy:Apparently, pretty good.
Speaker 7:It could mean anything.
Tim / GM:You see, Vixi, like, throw his wings out as if to take flight, and he comes straight at you.
Speaker 2:Oh, shit. Oh, damn.
Thomas / Guy:Okay. Vick, she got
Tim / GM:a natural 20 against your entire Oh.
John / Doran:Damn. It's Cute. Are you guys not using real dice?
Tim / GM:That was very close. Yeah. Alright. Alright. That was pretty much the only thing that was the only role I think I could get him out of.
Tim / GM:Uh-huh. Okay.
Thomas / Guy:Wow.
Tim / GM:Kind of freeze frame on that with Vixi taking off the bridge towards snack. Emery sees the kind of, dire situation that you're all landing into now. He doubles up his pace, and he is going to throw Bert on his shoulders and take the dash action. Bert, you can place yourself wherever you want to begin your next turn.
Thomas / Guy:Great.
Tim / GM:We're gonna say Emery can run 300 feet in a turn.
Speaker 8:Damn. Jesus. The fuck.
Tara / Journey:My name is Emery, and I'm the fastest man alive.
Tim / GM:Yeah. I
John / Doran:took 4 levels, whatever Usain Bolt is.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. He's wearing Heelys.
Speaker 8:Yeah. Oh my god.
Tim / GM:After Emery will bring us to Vixi, after a brief little intermission, snack. Give me a contested grapple.
Speaker 7:Oh, sweet. I still get
John / Doran:to grapple the dragon. Alright.
Speaker 8:Wait. Do they meet in the sky? Like
John / Doran:Oh, wait. Yeah. I am flying. Oh, sweet.
Thomas / Guy:You're just This is sick.
Speaker 2:Very small in comparison. Yeah.
John / Doran:See, I can go Sometimes this is not
Speaker 8:a waste.
Tim / GM:Or a plus 2.
Speaker 2:Roll the damn dice.
John / Doran:Natural 9.
Tim / GM:So That's 24 on
John / Doran:the side.
Tim / GM:11. Okay. Well,
John / Doran:it's close. K.
Thomas / Guy:Alright. Hold on.
Speaker 2:Good god.
John / Doran:Hold on. I have something, but what do you got, Bert?
Thomas / Guy:A book that I can rewind time is what I got. But just once. Is this it?
Tim / GM:With you in his hands, Snack, Vixi leans in his flight and draws a huge circle across the caldera going to the side of the magma. It is going to multi attack you with its claws, taking advantage on these attacks. Okay.
Speaker 6:So I have to watch Snack die first.
John / Doran:Hit. Yeah. It's probably it's gonna be a hit.
Tim / GM:So, yeah, that was a, a 25 and a 24. Yeah. Yep. That's 22 slashing damage.
John / Doran:Unconscious. Okay.
Tim / GM:At the conclusion of that so, Bert, you're kind of, like, riding on Emery's shoulders, trying to like keep your vision steady on what's happening here. You see Vikshi fly in this giant arc across the front of the room and cross over to the magma side, where you can see this orange light bathing its belly. It, in the hand that it has snack in, you just see it flex and close its hand in. And then you see it do it again, and you see one of the claws goes through part of Snack. And then it does a barrel roll and throws Snack into the magma.
John / Doran:Snack.
Tim / GM:The last thing you all see of Snack is his lamp glinting in the light, falling away from him, and Genie bursting from the lamp to chase Snack into the lava. No. And he says, goddamn it. No.
Thomas / Guy:I don't think so, Vixi. Bert pulls out his book, and his quill starts glowing gold. Right? Yeah. Gold?
Thomas / Guy:And he writes, Snek, emissary of the golden dragonflight, having returned to his homeland to rid it of the red scourge Vixi, grapples the mighty dragon in one fell swoop. Period. Awesome. No exclamation points.
Tim / GM:Oh. Alright. We will cut from that scene of Snack fading into the lava a la golem. We cut back. We are on the bridge.
Tim / GM:Snack intimidates Vikshi, drawing a knife pointing at him telling him to get. Vikshi leaps from the bridge, flies straight towards Snack, its arms outstretched. Snack. How do you grapple this thing? Why are
Thomas / Guy:you making me do this?
Tim / GM:Because I couldn't think of
Speaker 8:it. Wait.
Thomas / Guy:Is this technically my job or
Tim / GM:what you got, Bert?
Speaker 2:What if it's like in, like, cowboy movies where the horse is running and they grab on and they, like, swing around? Yeah. Yes. I did.
Tim / GM:Oh, okay.
Tara / Journey:Well, Legolas was the only boss.
Tim / GM:Okay. That's what's going on.
Speaker 2:That's not a cowboy movie, I guess.
Speaker 8:It's full western. Yes.
Tim / GM:Vixi is flying towards you with with terminal velocity as fast as you could fly almost. It reaches you and swipes 2 claws missing you entirely. It overshoots its trajectory. You grab it by the nostrils and slide backwards onto its neck as it continues to fly. You now have control of Vixi's direction by yanking on its scales.
Tim / GM:Vixi is headed westbound towards the water wheel, towards the break in the wall. Where do you take Vixx?
Speaker 7:It's time to cool down, Vixx.
Tara / Journey:Little doggy. Stupid.
Speaker 2:K.
John / Doran:I'm going to direct it into the water. Right? Okay. Yeah. Alright.
Tim / GM:You all see Vixi fly towards Snack. It goes terribly wrong for Vixi, and you all hear this colossal splash. You all look to see this Michael Bay CGI, like, torrent erupting from this hot spring as the water's falling in.
Speaker 8:Too many lens flares. Yeah.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah. We get a, JJ Abrams tableau of the water settling as all of the sprinkle and mist settles into the pool. Joe is down. Vixi is underwater, and you're all waiting for the bubbles.
Speaker 2:Does Snack go in with it?
Tim / GM:Yes. He did. Snack, you are underwater with Vixi.
Speaker 2:He'll come back.
Tim / GM:What are the rest of you doing up top side?
Thomas / Guy:Woah. It worked.
Tim / GM:Let's let's break initiative. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I want to tear open the ward again
Speaker 8:Yep.
Speaker 2:And grab Joe
Tim / GM:Okay.
Speaker 2:And tie him up with my personal rope.
Tim / GM:Okay. Yeah. You can tell Joe's breathing is is, shallow and rapid, and he's, he'll die if he's not helped.
Tara / Journey:I'm gonna cast a healing word on
Tim / GM:him. Gosh.
Speaker 8:Are you coming into the sarcophagus room?
Speaker 2:Sure. I'm going to hold on to his jar and hold it hostage in case he tries anything.
Tara / Journey:His jug? His jug.
Tim / GM:Okay.
Speaker 2:I want to be able to smash it if I have to. K.
Tara / Journey:Yeah. I cast a healing word on him so that he doesn't die.
Tim / GM:Alright. He
John / Doran:then he,
Tim / GM:like, looks around and sees all of you, like, standing over him, you know, on the other side of the ward or whatever. He sees Uli right on top of him.
Speaker 2:One wrong move, and the jug gets it.
Tim / GM:He shakes his head rapidly side to side. He knows he's been bested.
Speaker 6:Five healies
John / Doran:Okay.
Tara / Journey:For for Joe.
Tim / GM:Yeah. He's stabilized.
Tara / Journey:And then Tibeo's gonna go into the sarcophagus room. K.
Thomas / Guy:Is Law's body around here?
Tim / GM:You haven't seen it yet.
Thomas / Guy:Can I investigate for it
Tim / GM:or something? Yep.
Thomas / Guy:Wow. Rolling hot tonight. 23 to find a body.
Tim / GM:Alright. I'll I'll give you this then. Law is not dead. He is about to die. He is on, like, the second underlayer of the bridge.
Tim / GM:He tried to dive out of the way of the flames coming.
Thomas / Guy:Ah, okay.
Tim / GM:So to, like, protect himself from the overhead flames, he got underneath the bridge, but he is still alive.
Thomas / Guy:So could I reach him somehow?
Tim / GM:Yeah. We'll say with Emery's help, you can get as close as you need to.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. Okay. Emery, now are you down there?
Tim / GM:He just, like, like, takes one hand and, like, whips you down onto the floor level. Boop.
Thomas / Guy:I have spare the dying now because I Okay. Had an extra cantrip slot I didn't know about against D and D Beyond.
Tim / GM:Yeah. So,
Thomas / Guy:he is stable.
Tim / GM:Yeah. You see him take one big breath and kinda open his eyes, and then he immediately looks down at the ground, and you hear him say, oh, I'm sorry. I I know this was all my fault.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, not entirely your fault. You're just a little loud.
Tim / GM:So I just need to rest my eyes.
Thomas / Guy:Yeah. Take a rest. By the way, thanks for everything you did to try to reach this, Joe.
Tim / GM:He looks up at you. In consequence, he says, that was you. Right?
Thomas / Guy:What was who? The
Tim / GM:that orb, the the blur. I I saw it, and I thought it must have been you.
Thomas / Guy:Oh, yeah. I was scrying on you guys. You gave us some really important intel.
Tim / GM:He kind of, nods to himself, and he says, I knew it. I knew that was the only way I had to trust it. Thank you.
Speaker 6:You're not such a bad bird after all.
Tim / GM:Snack. You are still attached to Vixi, underwater. He is kind of like barrel rolling at the bottom of this little lake. What do you do?
John / Doran:So he's not calmed down at all?
Tim / GM:He still still seems to be, like, thrashing against your influence. Yeah.
John / Doran:Just in the tumultuous situation snacks in right now. The only thing he can think to do is, if you'll allow a minor illusion, I'm just gonna try to make the sound of the melody he heard from Tibio. He wants to see if that will calm Vixi as it has handled bad situations in the past, and that's all he's got right now.
Speaker 2:So you're playing him a lullaby and saying, shush. Can can
Speaker 8:I know that now.
Tim / GM:Yeah. I mean, the I think the minor illusion works perfectly well. You know, you remember the tune well enough to I mean, Tibia's played it god knows how many times. You know? Yeah.
Tim / GM:It's the only song he knows. So you do hear that, echo out through the water, like, in the Harry Potter bath scene before the Goblet of Fire trials. But you can hear this almost, like, wail echo under the water of, the sound kind of bouncing around down there, and it does seem to catch his attention to the point where he at least, like, chills out for a second and surfaces the water with you on him. You can still I mean, he's still smoldering. He's still steaming, and he is still frantic.
Tim / GM:But he does not seem intent on action right now. He he looks, exhausted. You can tell that he is. He's also near death.
John / Doran:So, I I will use the bonus action fly
Tim / GM:again. Mhmm.
Speaker 6:So I'm
John / Doran:gonna float up and just lay on the thaumaturgy thick. You know, my my eyes are, like, glowing golden and, flying in the air and trying to boom my voice again.
Speaker 7:Vikshi, you have been bested by me, snack. You must be destroyed or surrender to my flight.
Tim / GM:Maybe I maybe I maybe I deserve to be destroyed. I don't remember. What am I?
Speaker 7:You have killed many kobals, humans, common folk all. Snack knows you did not choose this.
Tim / GM:It looks at you after you say that, as if it has some hope for redemption or forgiveness. He, looks at you, and then references the bodies on the floor. He says, this this was your prude.
Speaker 7:It was indeed. They were trying to flee.
Tim / GM:And yet,
Speaker 7:Vixi, I have orders to destroy you.
Tim / GM:And kinda bows his head waiting for it.
Speaker 7:Say, Jeanie, are you busy right now?
Speaker 8:Oh my gosh.
Tim / GM:Snack, is is everything okay? It's awfully quiet out there. Yeah. We we gotta
Speaker 7:make this quick. Otherwise, it's a traumatic moment. Dishaust. So, Jeanie, giant dragon surrendering, bowing its head for me to kill it. Yep.
Speaker 7:Idris wants me
Tim / GM:to do that, which just
Speaker 7:makes it the good thing to do, I think. So, Genie, do I kill Vixi?
Tim / GM:Let me answer that question with another question.
Speaker 7:Perfect. Yes. Come on. You Why not make it original, actually?
Speaker 8:You solved my big sheet puzzle.
Speaker 7:Jesus.
Tim / GM:Jeanie says, Snack, we've we've learned a lot. Yes. We know that people who pretend to be good aren't. Not all the time. Those judges, people trusted them.
Tim / GM:Just because someone is supposed to be good, doesn't mean that they always do the right thing. Snack, what would they do? And he, gestures kind of towards the bridge. And, you look out towards Uli and Holly, and then he turns your head and goes, not them. And he points you towards Burton Tibby.
Thomas / Guy:Okay.
Tara / Journey:Okay. He says,
Tim / GM:Snack, think of all the adventures we've had and all we've learned. We've learned a lot about mercy and good and evil, but at the same time, Snack, evil should be destroyed where we find it. It should be killed without mercy or hesitation. But, Snack, look. Is this evil?
Tim / GM:He, gestures towards Vixi. You see, Vixi is taking like a huge sigh, and there's, like as he does, you can see blood drifting away from him like ink in the water. Did he mean to do all of this, Snack? Does he deserve death?
Speaker 7:There must still be order, Genie.
Tim / GM:I don't know. It's complicated, Snack, but he he doesn't deserve to die. Vixia,
Speaker 7:thank you, Genie.
John / Doran:Yep. That that helped a lot.
Speaker 7:As I said, Vixia, I have been ordered to destroy you. I need you to escape. I need this to miss, and then I
John / Doran:shoot eldritch blasts. Okay.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Take a disadvantage on each of those attacks.
John / Doran:Okay.
Tim / GM:As you finish your sentence, you see the water kind of, like, shutter and ripple as Vikshi's wings rise out of the water, and it takes a huge flap to get out of the water. 14. Does not hit.
Thomas / Guy:Alright. Leaving it up to the dice.
John / Doran:Do I have
Tim / GM:to do all 3? Yes. Oh, shit. 21. It does hit.
Tim / GM:21. Go ahead. Damage.
John / Doran:Can't I choose to do minimum damage?
Tim / GM:You can choose to do non lethal damage.
Speaker 7:Non lethal?
Tim / GM:Yep. Fuck.
John / Doran:So I I can't choose to roll a 1? Correct. 24 damage. Total?
Speaker 2:Yeah. But it's all, like, paper cuts.
Tim / GM:It's in tech. Maggie tried to couch it. It's like a low 24, not like a
Thomas / Guy:high 20. Yeah.
Tara / Journey:Like an icky squishy 24. Yeah.
Tim / GM:Vixi takes off from the lake and has to get a few extra flaps in to catch himself as the extra weight from the water, but also the holes in its wing are making it difficult for him to fly. He flaps hard and makes it up towards the break in the western wall and is kind of thrashing and kicking his feet to find purchase on something. And he ends up ripping the water wheel off the wall, and it falls into the lake. The trap is forever paused.
Speaker 2:But how will they tell time?
John / Doran:You,
Speaker 8:Says ooey as the thing falls into the water.
Speaker 2:Such a shame. What a cool piece of equipment.
Tim / GM:You fire a warning shot as Vixi slips back into the room, and, it misses him, but it scares him enough to get him back up on the ledge. Looks back into the room and immediately catches 2 of your eldritch blasts. You see one hit him in the throat and the other in the chest, and he lists forwards as if to fall into the lake. And then you see him almost twist backwards and fall the other way, and you can see the silhouette of Vixi flying away into the evening sunset.
Speaker 2:This has this is Fox and the Hound vibes. We're like, get. Go on now. Get.
Thomas / Guy:Don't you say we don't want you anymore?
John / Doran:And with that, Snack is going to drift down onto the bridge, find somewhere dark with shade, and it's going to sit against a wall.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Yeah. We'll see you're, yeah. Like on that second layer of the bridge, just kind of chilling in the shade there. Snack, I'll grant you this perception check.
Tim / GM:With that last Eldritch Bolt, something glowing fell off of Vixhy into the water.
John / Doran:I'm too sad to care right
Tim / GM:now. Oh, man. Alright. We'll just leave it then.
Speaker 8:Okay? It
Speaker 2:floats down to the bottom.
Tim / GM:Yeah. Alright. So back up in the warded chamber.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 8:Holly is shaking her hands to try to get the sunbeam to calm down a little bit.
Tim / GM:It's still, like, strobing in there.
Speaker 8:It's just, like, light, like Yeah. And then she's just gonna put her hands on her thighs so that those the light is, like, snuffed out a little bit.
Tim / GM:Yeah. You guys see smoke developing from Holly's thighs?
Speaker 8:I'm like, ow. Ow. It's hot. Okay. Okay.
Speaker 8:She's gonna stand like Iron Man.
Tim / GM:You start to take off.
Tara / Journey:Tibio walks up to the sarcophagus and reaches out with his necromancy.
Tim / GM:Okay. Immediately, you hear as the top of the sarcophagus slides off and a giant skeleton stands and bows to you, Tibio.
Speaker 6:Hello?
Tim / GM:It kind of, like, rises from its low bow, and it says, I am the wow. Sorry. Sorry.
Speaker 2:Sorry. He I stopped because
Tim / GM:he wouldn't refer to himself as the demented architect. But I did.
Speaker 2:Oh, no. No.
Speaker 8:He does that, but then he realizes his jaw bone was missing, and he's tattooed it.
Thomas / Guy:That's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yay.
Tim / GM:Okay. And then, yeah, he goes, sorry, Wednesday. Reaches down, grabs his jawbone, puts it back in and says, I am the architect who constructed this place. It is excellent to meet each and every one of you, though it's obvious to me now you did not pass my ward as intended. How many more of my traps did you skip?
Speaker 6:Sorry. Well, is it really skipping them if we got here? I mean, we just avoided them. Isn't that also sort of winning?
Tim / GM:No, please. One of those. He, goes towards the ward, walks outside by crouching and kind of squeezing himself through the door, goes to the other side of the ward and, reads the inscription across the top and says, who is it that approaches my resting place? Kinda looks down at each of you.
Tara / Journey:Ollie?
Tim / GM:Shakes his head side to side, looks back up at the inscription, and says, why, it's your younger brother, and the ward, like, dies down. And then he steps back inside and says, simple.
Speaker 6:To be fair, we did know that your brother was welcome here. We figured out the pouch.
Tim / GM:Why didn't you apply the knowledge?
Speaker 6:We were fighting in dragon.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. To be fair, growing up with brothers, they definitely tore my bedroom door down.
Tim / GM:Well, you're the first ones to have ever made it to this chamber.
Speaker 8:Oh.
Tim / GM:Congratulations.
Speaker 8:Okay. Thank you. Technically, I was the first one. Holly Hyacinth, pleasure.
Tim / GM:Very good. Holly Hyacinth, you are now the owner of my treasures.
Speaker 6:My god. Oh,
Speaker 8:well, I mean, these people helped me. Gesturing to Tibio and Uli.
Speaker 2:Just showering more magical items on Holly.
Tim / GM:Do with them what you wish.
Speaker 6:Is there anything that you need? You seem to be quite active.
Tim / GM:I've been waiting for this day for a long time. All I've ever wanted is someone to appreciate my traps and puzzles.
Speaker 6:They were fantastic. They were quite wonderful.
Tim / GM:Do you really mean that?
Speaker 6:Oh, I definitely do. The one with the water was just amazing.
Tim / GM:Was this a satisfying dungeon? Was it clever? Say it was clever.
Speaker 6:It was very clever. It was excellent. The stairs had very many, things that made you go brown.
Tim / GM:What were the highlights for everyone else?
Speaker 6:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:Oh, I
Speaker 8:Oh, I love the smooshy, arena. That was fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, the the stairs that, like, almost kill you by throwing you. Yeah.
Tim / GM:I'm pretty good at making dungeons.
Speaker 2:How likely
Tim / GM:anyway, just be sure to reset the traps on your way out and leave some treasure behind for the next people.
Speaker 6:Yes.
Tim / GM:Sounds good. I'm going back to bed. And he crawls into the sarcophagus and closes the top, and then he opens it for a quick second, and he says, oh, this is for you. And hands, his top vertebra, his atlas, to Tibio. Tibio, this is the architect's atlas.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 8:I knew there was a bone in there for you, Tib.
Tim / GM:There's another bone in here too if
Speaker 2:you like. Woah. No. That was
Tara / Journey:funny but gross.
Speaker 8:Holly raises an eyebrow at Tibia like
Thomas / Guy:Sorry. I'm very lonely.
Tara / Journey:Oh, man.
Tim / GM:I had no idea how that giant thing was gonna go, but that was delightful.
Speaker 2:Treasure is cool and all, but we have Joe now tied up.
Speaker 6:I want to talk to him. I I really I think I need to talk to him. I think that Bert is right that we need to work with him to defeat Moja.
Speaker 2:I don't trust him.
Speaker 6:Well, of course not. He's not trustworthy. We don't necessarily need to hold on to him, but I need to talk to him. My parents were trying to find him.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 6:He knows a way to free the people of Indore. We must.
Speaker 2:I hand over the jug, and then I go digging through treasure.
Tara / Journey:I come out of the room and take the jug, I guess.
Speaker 6:Seeing that the ward is down, Bert and Emery are gonna go wander into the room. Okay?
Speaker 8:What treasure do we find?
Thomas / Guy:Oh, hey, guys. Emery and I were just finding a dragon. What are you guys up to?
Speaker 8:I hoped. Hey. I stopped the mind control. Okay. Dealt with Joe.
Thomas / Guy:Ah, Joe.
Speaker 8:But I'm sure your stuff was cool too. Yeah. Totally.
Tim / GM:I think the best way to deal with the treasure here is probably through, texts.
Speaker 8:Holly specifically is also is gonna look for money in this chamber, whether from Joe or
Tim / GM:I'll say you find some, like, fine sculptures, together probably totaling a 1,000 gold.
Speaker 8:Holly accidentally drops one of them Okay. Because she 750? She, like, butterfingers it. She's like, oh, oh, oh, and then she just puts the other ones in her bag of gold. Okay.
Speaker 2:Hey. Did you drop something? Sorry.
Tim / GM:You see, Joe had no interest in the architect's tools that had been left out in here. However, you lot are able to identify their magic properties. In here, there's a hammer and chisel. These are the gravity hammer and the shaper's chisel. Gravity hammer is a weapon.
Tim / GM:It has a knock back effect with the hits. While you're wielding it, you can also walk on any surface wall or ceiling. Damn. The shaper's chisel gives temporary life to a touched object. A mass of stone, wood, or metal becomes a medium sized creature in a humanoid or animal shape of your choice.
Tim / GM:Also up for grabs, Joe's jug. When activated, begins pumping healing potion. Heals 5 HP at the beginning of each of your turns or 50 HP over 1 minute.
John / Doran:Oh, that's sick.
Speaker 2:And Joe will die without it. Yeah. Alright.
Tim / GM:The Orb of Perfection, another relic from the architect. It is a sphere and is an opaque white sphere about the size of a grape that just barely glows a little bit. But it is perfect. It is perfectly spherical. It is exactly 1 ounce and there are no flaws in it whatsoever.
Tim / GM:It grants permanently plus 3 to any stat. It cannot change owner, and the stat cannot be changed. Tibio, the architect's atlas
John / Doran:Yeah.
Tim / GM:Gives you the bone cage ability. It sends bones toward a target to pin them.
Speaker 8:Cool.
Tim / GM:The DC goes up with the level of spell slot that you choose to use for this spell. You get another ability called Pain Shadow. When enemies deal damage to you, you have the opportunity to deal that same damage right back to them to make them feel the harm they've done to you.
Speaker 8:That would have been useful in, you know, the fighting a dragon, but
Tara / Journey:I'm calling it no you. Yeah.
Tim / GM:Snack, do you investigate the glowing object in the pool?
John / Doran:After some time of contemplation, yeah.
Tim / GM:This is another dragon scale. Oh. This is a smoldering scale. While you own this object, you are immune to fire damage. That's amazing.
Tim / GM:Your fire breath attack deals an additional 2 d 8 damage, and its range is doubled.
Tara / Journey:Why? Don't give him any more.
Speaker 6:Because
Speaker 2:he gets to be a real dragon.
Tara / Journey:That no. See, the funny thing is, this is the way that you fight John's o penis now is that o penis. Sorry.
Tim / GM:John's OP ness.
Tara / Journey:As soon as I said it.
Speaker 2:Boom. Anyway,
John / Doran:You know what's funny is I'm not that OP.
Tara / Journey:You are. But you are.
Tim / GM:No. No. No. No.
Tara / Journey:In comparison with all of us, but the way that you fight that is by making him have to roll low. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Oh, okay. Anyways
Thomas / Guy:You know who would love all these treasures? Snack.
Speaker 2:No. Do not. He will feed them to Genie.
Speaker 8:Okay. So anyway
Thomas / Guy:Snack at a brave thing just now.
Speaker 6:Let that dragon go.
Tara / Journey:He's just got a really cool scale.
Tim / GM:Joe goes, so, what's what's gonna happen here?
Speaker 6:Well, you and I are going to have a conversation.
Speaker 8:Meet my lawyer, Tibio Fermer. Yeah. That's the end of the episode.
Tara / Journey:Those two sounds together actually needed to be it. Yeah.
Thomas / Guy:Executive producer, Dick Wolf.
Tara / Journey:Tibeo crouches in front of Joe in all of his bone armor glory and tilts his head
Speaker 6:and says, do you really wish to defeat Moja? Is that really what you want?
Tim / GM:It's what needs to happen.
Speaker 6:I agree. Your method does not work. We need to work together.
Tim / GM:I can't trust you.
Speaker 6:I cannot trust you, but we can trust that we know that this is our goal. After that is another story.
Tim / GM:I I'm done. I'm not fighting anything. I'm not doing this again.
Speaker 6:You don't need to fight anything. Tell me how to free the people of Indore.
Tim / GM:Joe looks you, like, dead in the eye, and he kind of, like, moves his weight and shuffles a little bit. Is he tied up?
Speaker 2:Yeah. He is tied up with 6 33 and 316 feet. A personal rope.
Tim / GM:Alright. You see him, fumbling with something, like, around his, like, waist with
Speaker 6:his
Tim / GM:hands that are, like, tied down.
Speaker 2:I yank on the rope.
Tim / GM:Okay. Yeah. You yank, and he, like, falls off to his side. And what he was dealing with, like, falls onto the floor abruptly, and you hear this clinking Tibio.
Tara / Journey:I'm gonna investigate that.
Tim / GM:Yeah. You grab, it's a literal belt, a bandolier that he wears. You pull it off of him as soon as he loosens it. His pants fall down. You pick it up and examine these small, elite looking vials.
Tim / GM:Each of them are sealed with wax, and they have this, like, each of them have little gold decals painted on them. This looks to be like Joe's private reserve. A bandolier of 7 incredible potions. He says, use them however you need to. I'm not going through this again.
Tim / GM:This suffering for nothing. No appreciation. No understanding. If you fail, it's all over. But at least it's not my damn fault.
Tim / GM:I tried as hard as I could.
Speaker 6:Joe, you do not understand.
Tara / Journey:I have faced Mojo myself.
Tim / GM:You'd be dead.
Speaker 6:I have pushed him back.
Tim / GM:Give me a, persuasion.
Speaker 6:15.
Tim / GM:He shakes his head powerfully side to side, says, if I couldn't do it, there's no way.
Thomas / Guy:You know what, Joe? You're right. Tibio couldn't do this by himself, and you couldn't do it by himself. We're gonna do it by doing it together. Fuck.
Tim / GM:It's fucking friendship, isn't it? He says, you're all gonna rely on each other until one of you skips rank, until one of you doesn't come through, and then it's all fucking over. How can you trust that?
Speaker 2:We love each other. We've done all of this together the whole time.
Thomas / Guy:No mind control.
Speaker 2:No mind control. No back stabbing. No Beatles.
Speaker 6:We all know how important this is. It is the world at stake. It is not just us.
Tara / Journey:I'm gonna cast minor illusion and make a little image in my hand of my parents.
Speaker 6:Do you know these gnomes?
Tim / GM:He looks down at the ground.
Speaker 6:Do you know them?
Tim / GM:What do you want me to say?
Speaker 6:Did you talk to them?
Tim / GM:I knew from the second I saw you that you were one of them, whatever they were. And we talked. They wanted help.
Speaker 6:And what did you give them?
Tim / GM:Some information.
Speaker 6:Tell me. Tell me what you told them.
Tim / GM:They wanted to stop this, and I told them where to find Moja. And they found him.
Speaker 6:In in Vindor?
Tim / GM:He nods his head.
Speaker 6:Did you give them anything else? Did you tell them anything else?
Tim / GM:They they weren't prepared. They he's got them.
Tara / Journey:Tibio nods.
Tim / GM:He'll get all of you too if you're not careful.
Speaker 6:He's already tried, and he has not succeeded yet. If you have a cure for the people who have been infected, who are under his control, you must give us this, but then you do not need to have any other part of it.
Tim / GM:Joe nods his head towards that belt you're holding because he can't move his arms right now. Mhmm. He says, number 7. You look at the belt, the last potion in there is this faded pinkish liquid. He says, that's rose water.
Tim / GM:It lets you control other people in the same way that vampires control their lineage. It's made with vampire blood, but in order to get it to work for me, I mixed it with my blood. This is what Mocha fears the most. He somehow fishes a little journal out of his pocket and shows you his recipe book. He points to a line in there, and he shows you the vaccine for vampirism.
Tara / Journey:I reach out, and I grab that whole damn book.
Speaker 2:So if this was what you were using on people, how is that gonna help us?
Tim / GM:I had to change the formula. I found the cure for vampirism, and from there, that's where I discovered how to use it for myself. Or if you can find out who controls Orzo's lineage, it'll break the chain of command.
Speaker 2:So someone's in control of Orzo?
Tara / Journey:Someone made Orzo.
Tim / GM:He looks up at you and he says, potentially. But we don't know if that vampire is still alive.
Thomas / Guy:Right. There's a bigger bad besides Orzo.
Speaker 2:Right. I just built boats. How did I end up here?
Thomas / Guy:I just wrote books. That's how it goes.
Speaker 8:We can't always choose our fate, but we can choose what we do now.
Tara / Journey:Tibia has the journal and the bandolier and stands up.
Speaker 6:Joe has done many terrible things for a good goal ultimately, but still terrible. I do not know who he should answer to.
John / Doran:I started creeping up probably around this point.
Tim / GM:Okay. Hey. I will say that Snack caught this last bit here. With the word done, you can walk right in Snack. But, Genie also catches, what's being said here.
Tim / GM:And, Jeanie says to Holly, Holly, do you remember what the, jail cells looked like in Tildrey?
Speaker 8:In Tildrey?
Tim / GM:Yeah. I was thinking we could give Joe a one way trip.
Speaker 8:Sure.
Tara / Journey:We pinned a note to Joe's test, to Joe's jug lung because we can't keep the jug because we're not gonna kill him.
Tim / GM:Right. That that would have been the there are a couple, like, optional treasures here. You're not gonna get that one if you're gonna let him live.
Speaker 8:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I mean, once he passes, it would be very useful.
Tara / Journey:Useful. We put 2 notes on Joe. 1 says, to jail, love us. And the other
Speaker 8:one says, Do
Tara / Journey:not resuscitate. When dies, this belongs to.
Tim / GM:When dies when owner dies, mail to. Engelbert wishes
Speaker 2:to it.
Speaker 8:Perfect. If I found an empty cell portal, I just portaled in to, like, 4 cells until I oh, sorry. Wrong one. Oh, oh, next one. Okay.
Speaker 8:Found one that's empty.
Thomas / Guy:Also, in retrospect, Tildry should do something about letting people portal indirectly into their tails
Speaker 8:on to you. We're asking way too many questions about this. Okay. We send him to jail.
Speaker 2:Goodbye, Joe.
Tim / GM:Joe, like, steps through the portal, and he's looking at all of you, and he says, I'll see you all again when Orzo wins. And then the portal closes. We did it. Thanks, everybody.
Speaker 6:We made it.
Tim / GM:Thanks so much for listening. I'm Tim, your DM and your genie.
Speaker 8:I'm Hannah playing Holly Hyacinth.
Thomas / Guy:I'm Thomas. I play Engelbert FF Wisherspoon.
Tara / Journey:I'm Tara, and I play Tibio Femur.
John / Doran:I'm John. I play Snack the kobold.
Speaker 2:And I'm Maggie
Thomas / Guy:Dear listeners, thank you for sharing this story with us. If you're wishing there was a way to support us, that's right, you can. Check us out on Twitter and Instagram at peapopodcast and leave us a rating and review wherever you're listening. You can even help us out with a small donation at buy me a coffee dot com slash pbop. Sincerely, Bert.
