The Mick & Pat Show - MÖRK BORG

The wind carries the stench of blood as we dive into Mörk Borg, a doom-laden RPG where survival is merely postponing the inevitable. Join Pat and Bryant as they create bizarre characters and embark on a grim one-shot adventure called "The Devil's Tomb."

Pat's character Vaughn, a fallen noble with a magical sword that openly despises him, pairs with Brian's Vatan, a mushroom-raised occult herb master with a hook for a hand. Their quest begins beneath an ancient sarcophagus, descending into a labyrinth where death lurks around every corner. The duo confronts a spore-infected madman, negotiates with greedy goblins, and wades through flooded hallways teeming with amphibious horrors.
Their final moments showcase Mörk Borg's brutal essence: finding meaning in a world already condemned.

Whether you're curious about dark fantasy TTRPGs or seeking inspiration for your own tabletop sessions, this episode demonstrates how simple rules combined with rich atmosphere create unforgettable gaming experiences. And remember - in Mörk Borg, the only god is the apocalypse, and it's coming for everyone.

Transcript

Entering the World of Murkborg

Speaker 1 0:50

the wind from the west, from the sundered land rot rides it and the stench of blood. Cursed walker, will you travel there to the valley of the unfortunate dead? Our young ones are taken by the child thief gurgle, known for his vile crimes and alchemy of flesh. Distances shift paths, warp between places, as if this pale, lightless world possessed a will and bitter life, its mercy curdled to wrath over a too long age. Who are you the grave robber? Was silver glittering between cracked fingernails? The mystic who would bend the world's miserable heart away from its inevitable end? Most likely, it makes little difference. No one has seen the sun in years. The old care more for sacrifice and god offerings than their bawling spawn. Doomsayers are proved right time and again and embraced by hidden powers. Maybe it's the best to surrender.

Speaker 1 2:01

That's my dog it's great background to trust your own instinct and skill rather than the whim of the dice. Before all, life is drowned in welcome silence, life locked in, falling in a dark fort. What was written must be known. That's essentially the preamble to what we're doing today Murkborg, murkborg, murkin, murkin, murkinborg. We're playing Murkborg, we're gonna call it Morkborg because we're Americans, andkborg or more, we're going to call it more board cause we're Americans. Uh, and we pronounce things improperly. Uh, but Connie is not happy about it. Um, but anyways, it's uh, created by Pell Nielsen and Johan Nor, as well as dead people, which I think dead people is actually a Scandinavian band. Um, or is it made by dead people? Well, it's called Johan, by Johan Nor and dead people which I think dead people is actually a scandinavian band.

Speaker 3 2:53

Um, or is it made by dead people? Well, it's called johan by johan noren dead people. Based on that preamble, it could have actually been made by dead people.

Speaker 1 3:00

It could have been it's pretty metal book, um, but if you hear that, also joining us for this, so that way pat has someone to wander with him into the uh, what is known, as I believe, the york land not york.

Speaker 1 3:14

I'm looking up the one shot we're playing tonight, um, devil's tomb. We'll be playing the one page rules, one shot, known as the devil's tomb, and, uh, we'll be going through creating characters, um, and then I've already provided Pat and Brian the link to auto-generate some characters in case their players die, so that way they can just generate another one and start playing and we'll see how far they get. But I'm going to grab my dog before she eats us. And you guys, pat, brian, feel free to discuss Brian while you're here, thoughts, experience, playing games like this.

Speaker 2 3:57

Oh for sure, I've never played this before. I've never played any of this. Is this D&D or is this like? This is not officially D&D, but it's D&D style game RPG.

Speaker 1 4:09

Yeah, it's known as a tabletop RPG, all right, which means you, it's a role-playing game. You create a character. That character has a a role in one way or another on a team and they play. Well, sorry, you play the character, uh, on that team, right, um, and a lot of people make weird voices and stuff like that. And you know, a lot of people like myself we like to do like miniatures on a map, kind of like chess pieces, right, um, and some people take it really far, you know, and they like dress up in costumes and all that, which, hey, if that's your thing, as long as it's not hurting anybody, I'm all right with it.

Speaker 3 4:47

They're like interlude larp sessions that's.

Speaker 2 4:51

That's what I've spoke about before on here. I'm afraid to do this because I'm going to show up here next week with braids and leather armbands.

Speaker 3 5:00

That's sick.

Speaker 2 5:02

I will say the back of this book says really not suitable for those under 16 years of age.

Speaker 1 5:08

Yeah, so what we're doing?

Speaker 2 5:10

to try to. It's written so funny. It says really not suitable.

Speaker 3 5:14

Not suitable for those who are really.

Speaker 1 5:16

Yeah, we are playing Mirkborg and it is certainly a very rules-like game, but it is also a very brutal game in that it is incredibly easy to die. But it should give Pat a pretty good idea of kind of how a one-shot D&D plays, just with way less rules, much more abstraction to it. Wildly demonic Well, I don't think they're demonic, but devils and demons are an issue in the world Literally the crescent over a ram's head with an upside down star of David.

Speaker 1 5:56

So yeah, but I think that's a bad guy you have to kill in the game.

Speaker 3 5:59

He looks like he's welcoming you into the game. He's the hero.

Speaker 1 6:02

That's one of the things a lot of people I feel like don't get about these games. Right is that they are designed for killing the evil, right. But a lot of people mistake that as like about joining the evil not. This one's not about joining all right.

Speaker 4 6:15

Well, I guess you could if you want to, but you could do that in anything oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 6:22

So we have to build our characters and we have to. Uh, then we gotta play, and I'm gonna interrupt the show for a second to save you listeners about an hour of time where me and Bryant spent time developing our characters before we got to playing, and I boiled it down for you so that it's you know, a little bit more palatable.

Speaker 2 6:48

And so here's what we came to as we developed our characters using this little sheet for the game. And I, pat, is going to be playing as the character Vaughn, and he is classified as wretched royalty. He's bowed down only by the memories of his lost glory and he could never submit to anybody else Not anybody, for he had noble blood and he's kind of an arrogant guy and he's, but he's also. He's painfully average. But he carries a magical talking sword who is unreliable and quietly despises Vaughn and this sword taunts his failures. He also rides a magical intelligent horse who can also talk. Moving on to Brian's character, vatan, as an occult herb master, born of the mushroom, raised in the clade, watched by the eye of the moon in a silverback pool, his character he wields a hook for a hand and he carries these soups and potions that can help him along on his journey. So, all right, you guys, back to the show and we're going to play the game. All right, I think. Are we ready? I think so.

Speaker 2 8:19

Do we just hop in?

Speaker 3 8:20

So we have two characters we're managing here. No, you don't have to manage them. It's just like if you that's when we die. Oh then, we have.

Character Creation and World Introduction

Speaker 2 8:28

This guy might last for like half a roll. So all this that we just did, he just might be smoked out the gate.

Speaker 3 8:33

So then you've got to use this. Baton's the front runner and the hey-roo comes from the ashes, yeah.

Speaker 1 10:10

Like you guys will see, we're just going to run it very slim here, yeah good.

Speaker 3 10:16

As you left, I was telling Pat. I was like I'm going to cry, that's good, I hope you do. I, hope you do I hope you do cry, dude, tears of joy. There's a lot to hold on here Again, hold your hand.

Speaker 1 10:29

I mean, I'll hold your hand because I'm also new to this, right? This is the first time I'll be running, yeah, good old little one shot of New York Borg, so give me a second just to go over a couple rules here, just so I understand how, uh, things are gonna roll like, play out, as well as like you guys will understand, right, yeah, so let's say we run into a scenario where there's violence. Okay, who goes first? Well, it's decided by rolling a d6. One of you can roll it, I can roll it, but just one person rolls it. If it's a one to three, whatever the enemies are, they go first. If it's a four to six, you guys go first, okay, um four to six, so it has to be the end.

Speaker 1 11:15

So they have the advantage it's three numbers for each 50, 50. It's 50 50. One to three for them, four to six right 6, but we re-roll it each round.

Speaker 1 11:25

So we roll, run one round. They might go first. Next round. You guys might go first. Right, you get to attack and you get to defend. So if you roll a 20, that's a critical, that's the highest value on the die. That means good job. And so when you're attacking something, if you roll a 20, it's a times two damage and they lose some armor. When they're attacking you, again, you guys roll the die. If you roll a 20 when they're attacking you, you get to give a free attack back to them, because that's that's narratively right. Like you, you have an excellent defense in you, youry, and then riposte um, a fumble, fumbles. When you roll a one, okay, uh, your weapon may break or it is lost, parried out of your hand and falling down the well I stabbed it into myself yeah, uh, and when you're defending, if you roll a one, you take double damage and your armor is reduced.

Speaker 1 12:31

If you got no armor, I guess you got nothing to lose, right? That's true, alright cool, and so that is pretty much how that works. There is reactions and all that that I have here for like how something may react to you all if you don't know if it's good or bad is that what we have here?

Speaker 3 12:51

reaction like kill, angered and different almost yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 12:54

So that's how like it may respond after like on a result of those dice rolls that's how we responded.

Speaker 3 13:00

we were trying to discuss that, no no, no, no.

Speaker 1 13:02

That's all for me. The morale is like, for these things, if they flee or run away when you're fighting them or interacting them, right, and then resting is you know how they heal as well as how, how is you heal? So you're just catching your breath Like, oh, I got a bandage myself. You roll one D four and you get that many hit points back when you got an infection. It's not good, I die in one night. Yep, uh, it's not good for you, man. Anyways, um, my dog is tangled up on her. Uh leash here. Um, do you guys have any other questions before we start?

Speaker 2 13:42

I don't think so, but I guess I'm going to try to play true to my character and not to who I am. That's great, you know, because that's you know. Here's the number one rule.

Speaker 1 13:53

Just saying who are the four of you, your other two backup guys.

Speaker 2 13:58

My backup. Oh yeah, my backup is Torn the heretical priest Nice yeah. Yep, my backup is Torn the heretical priest, Nice yeah.

Speaker 3 14:08

Read your little. Who are you thing For?

Speaker 2 14:10

that guy. He comes from the temple ruins of the valley Of the unfortunate undead, haunted by Two headed basilisks Of the one true faith. You can be found Raving in ruins, Traipsing endlessly Vindictive and endlessly aggravated, a rotting face wearing mask.

Speaker 1 14:31

Oh, yeah, got to cover that up.

Speaker 2 14:33

Best friend is a skull. I carry it with me too, and I tell it everything. I trust no one more. Then I have a shepherd's crook for a weapon and some, some cool equipment, including my skull, which is a skull, a trusted friend.

Speaker 3 14:51

That's funny, that's great. Um yeah, and then and I, I'm here, haru L also has the Amla over the you yeah, raised in the calm isolation in the Sarkesh dark, born of the mushroom Raised in the glade washed, watched by the eye of the moon in the calm isolation of the Sarkesh dark, born of the mushroom Raised in the glade, washed by the eye of the moon in the silverback pool. That seems like practical knowledge, I should know. Loud mouth and ruthless Hands caked with sores Laughs hysterically at your own jokes, which you then explain in detail. Burn or be burned is the fate you accept.

Speaker 1 15:23

That's awesome. So here's the background. Right, we all know that that shifting alien foreign object embedded in Vatan's chest is some kind of threat. Last encounter, wherever it was, here across this ravaged world, something orcish goblinoid swung its maul and landed a should have been lethal strike into vatan. But as this creature was slain, its spinal cord snapped and with urgency, von repeatedly piercing its chest over and over with a sword baton, it was brought to your attention by one of your companions that the thing in your chest, the head of this mall, was shifting like puzzle pieces, yes, twisting and aligning itself with runes. It has stopped recently, and with some divining of your companion, who's a heretical priest, so who knows if you can even trust what he's saying.

Speaker 3 16:41

And my left upper rib.

Speaker 1 16:43

Yes, he has informed you that there is a tomb nearby that possesses riches and wealth, and it is known as devil's tomb, not the devil, for there is not a satan in this world, just like there is not what is known as like a god or messiah. There's only one god, and that is the apocalypse, and it is arriving any day. Now. You haven't seen the sun, and god knows who. Long, how long, and every day the two-headed basilis just utters prophecy of the end of the world, and every day another prophecy comes true, pretty much either making the fanatically faithful more confirmed and what they believe, and those who are simply just resigned to making whatever existence they can on this plane the best they can before the apocalypse arrives all.

Speaker 3 17:43

All right, can we go back to the game? They're talking politics.

Speaker 1 17:46

The four of you, for some reason or another, are aligned. Through your circumstances, you have come to put faith and trust in one another, more so than the other ragged strangers of this land. And it is with the words of your heretical priest companion, confirmed by the talking horse of Vons with its intellect and recalling books it has read, that you best understand that Devil's Tomb, probably at its core, possesses answers to what this device is and how to get it out of your chest without awakening whatever the puzzle seals away. Um, this abandoned hellhole, rumored to actually be a pit to the hells, uh, is deep in the graventosk forest and it is in there where you will begin. Uh, it has been outlined to you that there is an empty sarcophagus here in this grave. Uh, graventosk is like, literally, just imagine, like, uh, honestly, like the, the graves of normandy right, just endlessly going into the trees and imagine that you know more. You know nordic and viking medieval, right, not as well aligned like graves of heads to headstones kind of thing like just headstones spanning millennia, like they they've.

Speaker 1 19:17

They were once just piles of stones, and then they became this, and then they became that, and now, like sometimes they're just mounds of dirt with the shovel. Because what's the point? No one's going to remember you anyways.

Speaker 1 19:28

And so with that, there's a certain sarcophagus here that your priest tells you. Descending down the stairs there is what is known as a pit to hell. It is a dungeon, and it is a dungeon and it is layered, confusing, and surely those who have sought the treasure and riches hidden beneath have been laid away in a stray, likely driven mad by the groaning, gurgling pit and whatever echoes up from the heart of the earth. But I do believe from the heart of the earth, but I do believe that deep in here we could find, at the altar of the drowned, answers to this shifting device and quite a sum of silver and gold and anything else that the dead have left.

Speaker 1 20:22

Your heretical priest. You guys don't know him as a heretic. The followers of the basilisk Call him a heretic Because he speaks against the end of the world. He speaks for hope. Perhaps a different prophecy.

Speaker 3 20:35

He's also greedy as hell, yeah because he has somewhere to spend it.

Speaker 1 20:39

Exactly, he's a gambler.

Speaker 3 20:40

Isn't he the?

Speaker 2 20:41

gambler of the group. Yvonne's the gambler of the group. I wish for money if you had to have a future.

Speaker 3 20:44

You know Exactly. He's a gambler, isn't he the gambler of the group? Yvonne's the gambler of the group. I wish for money if you had to have a future.

Speaker 1 20:49

You know, with all of this, you guys find the sarcophagus and, with a combined strength check, both of you roll a d20. And use your strength modifier to add to it. The difficulty of this is low because I'm going to say that you're working together, so the difficulty rating is a six. It's incredibly simple. Only a fool would fail.

Speaker 2 21:17

I got a three Fifteen. There we go.

Speaker 3 21:21

Vaughn, he needs to get this shit out of his chest.

Speaker 1 21:26

Vaughn, it is a sickening feeling in your gullet, as you know, with the disappointed of the horse that you call a friend. It's clearly embarrassed by your effort. But what really makes that sour pit in your stomach is the cackling whine of a blade glimmering in this dark starlight. You know your sword is going to rip you apart for failing to be able to push this measly, dilapidated stone sarcophagus open. And as you struggle and fawner while Vatan basically single-handedly unseals the sarcophagus, you hear the winnowing sound of the sword. It's you, you pathetic.

Speaker 1 22:12

What ancestor messed up along the way to birth a Cretan like you. It is hushed and whispered like the ringing of a sword, but you know exactly what it's saying, vatan, you don't know if this sword talks, but certainly your companion, vaan, always has a sweating brow of grief whenever he fails and swears. This blade mocks him. As you open the sarcophagus, it is true to your heretical priest, your friend, saying there in front of you can see descending, oh, maybe 20 feet down into the darkness, before it is beyond the sight of twilight. Light is a staircase old and there's a reeking stench of sulfur.

Speaker 3 23:08

I farted.

Speaker 1 23:09

Nice Vatan's mushroom diet. All right, with that you guys can descend. What are your backup characters' names? Again, the heretical priest is who? Torn Torn and Heru? Heru is also a mushroom guy.

Speaker 3 23:28

Yeah, we're both two mushroom guys.

Speaker 2 23:30

You guys travel in pairs. I think it should be his cousin, yeah.

Speaker 3 23:34

This is my trip, master.

Speaker 1 23:36

Your cousin Heru and the heretical priest Torn Torn informs you, it's best that someone stay with the horse in our supplies. The horse, of course, cannot fit down these stairs. If you don't return in an hour we will come and search. But the first sign of death. You know what we must do. And your cousin Heyru says yeah, so I'll stay here with him. And you know, good luck, cousin. He gives you a good slap on the back, the two of you.

Speaker 3 24:14

Can I urge?

Speaker 1 24:15

him. Otherwise you can try. You can certainly try. Give me a presence check. I will say your cousin seems like he feels it is probably best to wait to see you Cousin. Hey, Rue, Do you survive? The difficulty for this, we'll say, is moderately difficult. So give me a presence check. You got to beat a 12.

Speaker 3 24:41

With a 20.

Speaker 1 24:42

Roll a d20 and add your presence modifier to it.

Speaker 2 24:47

Two, and what's your?

Speaker 1 24:47

modifier Not 10. Zero. Okay, what do you say to your cousin Heru?

Speaker 3 24:54

I don't think it's a good idea. Alone in the grave of eternity.

Speaker 1 24:59

You will not be going alone. You'll be going with Vaan, don't worry, cousin. No, I'm talking about you, andrew. No, I'll be here with Torn and the horse that talks.

Speaker 3 25:11

Fine, fine, fine, you see already.

Speaker 1 25:13

The horse has essentially set up your cousin's tent like, just with its teeth and hooves. This thing is clearly capable. It's easily the smartest. Member of the group probably.

Speaker 1 25:30

Yeah. So you just lost your horse in one foul swoop. There you go um. Anyways, you two, you know it's up to you. You know, if you guys don't return after an hour or if you don't give some kind of communication of like coming back to the stairs and be like, hey, we're okay, but we're going deeper, they'll. They'll probably come looking for you, but they're not going to come to your rescue, right they're. They're just going to first sign of blood and ichor, they're probably leaving.

Speaker 3 25:46

They'll be like well, we tried.

Speaker 1 25:47

At least that thing is stuck down there and we don't have to worry about the puzzle piece anymore.

Speaker 2 25:51

All right.

Speaker 1 25:56

If there is no turn order here, it's really up to you guys. First you can discuss between yourselves what you want to do, but you know, down the stairs you must descend.

Speaker 3 26:04

Hold on. Well, let's see what we got. What do you got Things that we got? Just so we know. I've got ten nails, throw one down, no.

Speaker 1 26:13

Oh, wait, wait, Give me those D6 back, because I might have to roll those against you.

Descending into the Devil's Tomb

Speaker 3 26:20

They also sound good. They sound like the nails. The teen metal dice I've got a hammer.

Speaker 2 26:24

I've got a drill. I come in handy. I've got a sharp needle.

Speaker 3 26:29

Okay, and my talking sword. Give me that navy blue. I've got a silver crucifix and a tent. Thank you. It's dark so we have nothing to illuminate the stairs.

Speaker 1 26:41

I would say you guys grab a torch from your cousin or something. Torches stay lit for about an hour before they burn out.

Speaker 3 26:47

Oh, does he have a torch.

Speaker 2 26:49

We'll just say he does, we're just making up our.

Speaker 1 26:51

I'll say this Each of you guys, all of you, have at least one torch.

Speaker 2 26:55

Okay, great, we've got a torch, some things with us All, right Okay.

Speaker 3 26:58

All right, let's light our torch, are you?

Speaker 1 27:00

light yours? Yeah, you probably only want one lit. Might be a long time. Yeah, you scrape some of that shiny stone against another and it sparks light onto the fetid animal fat soaked into the rags.

Speaker 3 27:17

Okay all right. So we've got to decide who goes first here. Huh Down this chasm. You've got the torch.

Speaker 2 27:21

You should go first All right, let's go, I'll go Down this chasm. You've got the torch, you should go first.

Speaker 3 27:25

All right, let's go. I'll go. Okay, all right, I've got the least hit points. Let's do it.

Speaker 1 27:29

You also have no armor. He does. I'm like, hey, all right yeah.

Speaker 1 27:34

As you are going down the stairs, you see that there is viney roots and a slight trickle of water running off of them. Uh, down the stairs they're rather slick and well hewn, even if they were made over a thousand years ago. It's not too far down their descent before you see that they veer with a right angle to the left, and from the left there is a very faint, faint wicking of light just licking the front of those stairs. So wherever they lead to, there is something glowing or a light source Not of the torch.

Speaker 1 28:23

Not of your torch. You can see ahead of you.

Speaker 3 28:24

Where it's darkness, there's a second light, not of your torch Like you can see, like ahead of you, like where it's darkness.

Speaker 1 28:27

There's a second light. There is no right. It's just like the stairs go to the left. Oh, we just go.

Speaker 1 28:30

You just know something's down there with a fire. Give me both of you All right. So I'm prompting you right now, but this is an example of where you could ask for something you want to do. But I'm prompting you. Go ahead and give me a presence check. This is your. This is checking to see if there's anything else you hear, anything else you notice other than what is obviously here. So both of you would roll a d20 and add your presence modifier to it.

Speaker 2 28:59

Got a 12.

Speaker 3 29:00

Nice, 16 total.

Speaker 1 29:02

Both of you do great. Those are excellent rules. It is not just the light you notice flickering down to the left, but there is a soft whisper echoing off the walls, bouncing off the stairs, and it is the whisper of can speak to himself. Can't make out what it is, other than that there's still about consonants, but it is down there and it is coming from you say that, and you your your cousin. You see, he's like oh worry, I'm covering up now. And you hear the, and you see the sarcophagus lid close behind you.

Speaker 1 29:51

I mean you could probably pound on it.

Speaker 3 29:53

He rolled really well right there. Anyways, it's a strong mother.

Speaker 1 29:58

There is what sounds like someone around the corner, so you guys know someone's there, that's what your knowledge tells you. All right, but it doesn't sound like multiple people.

Speaker 3 30:08

It sounds like a single voice, Obviously malicious, because you know we're in a tomb.

Speaker 2 30:16

But they could be hiding out from all this badness, really.

Speaker 3 30:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2 30:22

They sound nice? No, they sound.

Speaker 1 30:25

I'm moving your mic to you because I can't hear you're turning towards him. They sound.

Speaker 2 30:27

They sound pleasant. Um, but uh, all I could go first. I've got the armor and I've got I've got a tiny, tiny, tiny sword can we play?

Speaker 3 30:37

I've got some yummy soup. Makes him vomit. Okay, it's not gonna kill him. But all right, you know it'll give us some time I mean it would be like let's, let's like offer, see if he's cool you know, offer him the soup I mean as yeah it was like hey, I've got some, I've got some warm soup. All right that. I warmed with my torch.

Speaker 2 31:00

Just minutes before all right, I love it. Give him the soup, I like it uh, so who's going?

Speaker 3 31:06

first. You're gonna go first with the soup. I'm I'm gonna well hold on. We're gonna step one, keep our distance for like and just be like a little bit of hey. Hey, there are you. Okay, you know this is.

Speaker 1 31:17

This is a good idea. I will say so in this scenario. Are you trying to be quiet, to not startle whoever it is?

Speaker 3 31:23

yeah, we're gonna like going to like acknowledge our presence, but keep our distance All right, good, go ahead.

Speaker 1 31:30

So who's going first? I have no armor.

Speaker 3 31:34

I went down the stairs first.

Speaker 1 31:35

I feel like you should go first. I'll go first. All right, Vaughn, you go?

Speaker 2 31:38

first around the corner and I'll call to him from a little distance. What do you say, vaughn? Say, sir, it was a man's voice. Yeah, yeah, I go with pleasantries. I was raised royal. I'll address him with the greeting of the day, then I'll ask if he's in need. Well, yeah, just say it.

Speaker 1 32:02

What do you say? That's what I'll say. Say, sir, well, yeah, just say it. What do you? Say that's what I'll say.

Speaker 2 32:05

Say sir.

Speaker 1 32:06

Oh, okay, all right, cool, sir, and you peer around the corner. Right, Sir, are you here? As you step around, you see a man tattered with some what looks like wounds naked, some what looks like wounds Naked, nothing in his hands.

Speaker 3 32:25

Me too.

Speaker 1 32:31

As he moves his fingers across the stone wall, you can see he's standing on hewn stone tiles in a wall that's rather no longer eroded. However, the stairs in front of you, you can can see, have sheared off into that. They can like he can't get up the stairs. Uh, he would need someone with a rope of some kind to drop it down and pull him up, because the steer stairs into the room have essentially like crumbled away and it's just like a flat stone face. So you all stand essentially like ten feet up from the floor of the room where he's at. He, you can see, is just muttering to himself and there is this faint dustiness in this room and you hear a and, as that happens, you see a mushroom, a spore, and, as that happens, you see a mushroom a spore exhausting itself and releasing spores into the room around him and he turns, you can see fungus growth off of one side of his face.

Speaker 1 33:40

An actual head of a mushroom coming out of one eye socket and as he turns to look at you, we'll see how he reacts initially well, first of all, let's back up, because the spores are freaking in his room.

Speaker 3 33:54

You like spores?

Speaker 1 33:55

this is all kind of happening simultaneously. So we got a seven here and you see, he kind of looks and there's like the naked madness of someone stuck down here for who knows how long, the small fire in the room that he has to keep himself warm or cook something on. And as he looks at you both, he just turns back to the wall and keeps muttering to himself, indifferent of your address to him.

Speaker 2 34:30

So, what do you want to do? Offer food?

Speaker 1 34:34

We haven't gone down the slippery steps yet you haven't gone down yet, we're not stuck yet.

Speaker 3 34:38

Oh wait, wait. So I don't understand that. So he's down the steps.

Speaker 1 34:41

Think about it like this you take a left at the stairs, right, yeah, and you can see where those stairs lead, they turn into a slick ramp that you can't get back up. But they've eroded away from something and now, once you hop off them, you're going to be stuck in the room and you'll have to wait for one of your companions to come and toss you a rope.

Speaker 2 35:01

Can we see further on? Does the room continue? That's a good question.

Speaker 1 35:06

I will say, from the angle you're at, you can't see even the entire room, just because you're kind of looking down a hole.

Speaker 3 35:11

What's his physical state Naked?

Speaker 1 35:14

infected with spores. Scrawny, very mad, no weapon in hands. He's naked, so it doesn't look like he's got a dagger hitting him.

Speaker 3 35:28

I think we need to try to change his state, break his focus from that wall a little bit, if we can. How far?

Speaker 2 35:36

does this drop Like a 12 foot drop?

Speaker 1 35:38

If you squatted on the stairs and hopped down.

Speaker 1 35:42

It'd be like a solid 10 foot, drop 10 foot. Yeah, I'm not going to make you squatted on the stairs and hopped down. It'd be like a solid 10-foot, drop 10-foot. Yeah, I'm not going to make you roll to kill yourself or anything on it. It's just one of those things of you know, when you hop down it's not going to be easy. You could boost your friend out and then your friend could probably pull you back up but it's just going to take time to get back out.

Speaker 3 36:01

This guy has no friend. He's stuck down here. Yeah, I think, go ahead.

Speaker 2 36:07

These spores are not. My people do not have these things in our lives. We are clean. I think you should hop down there. You think I should hop down there. You should hop down there. These spores you've built a tolerance over the years to these things. You know how your body reacts to these things. I eat them, not breathe them, and but I I have a way to get you out. If you need it, I have the tools for escape.

Speaker 3 36:35

So okay, well, all right I mean I feel like we should try to reason this guy before jumping in the bear.

Speaker 1 36:40

I will say this, you do know, time is of the essence, because the thing, embedded in your chest starts shifting a little. So you have to make decisions.

Speaker 3 36:54

Let's throw him a bowl of soup. I'm serious, throw him the bowl of soup.

Speaker 2 36:57

Do you have two soups? I've got four. Do you have a different soup option?

Speaker 3 37:01

I've got spider out. This is for me. That makes me climb on walls for 30 seconds. I could jump down there and then climb back up.

Speaker 2 37:08

I think you should go engage him and talk to him, and if you can't get out, yeah, use your soup he probably can't get back up offer him the soup. Yeah, in the time he's speaking to you. So diplomacy, so give him the soup that he's gonna throw up and if he goes bad, if he turns into a bad guy, he's going to start yakking and you can eat your soup and get out.

Speaker 3 37:28

Yeah, yeah, I can eat my spider owl soup while he eats the southern frog stew. So what's the plan?

Speaker 2 37:34

And because of your tolerance, those spores will not affect you. You can get out, you'll be of right, sound mind.

Speaker 3 37:40

I'm going to go down.

Speaker 2 37:41

I'm going to slip or slide down.

Speaker 3 37:43

I've got only 30 seconds of wall climbing.

Speaker 1 37:48

You haven't drank this yet, right, you haven't drank this yet. No, I'm not drinking it, and if he's.

Speaker 3 37:55

Oh, I'm going to pretend to drink it with him, but I'm drinking spider soup, he's drinking no.

Speaker 2 38:01

Talk to him and if you trust him, I don't think you can trust me.

Speaker 3 38:04

He has a mushroom coming out of his eye.

Speaker 2 38:06

No, you both drink. No, we need his information, we need to know. We have to get this out of your chest.

Speaker 3 38:11

Get this off your chest man.

Speaker 2 38:12

No, no no, engage him. If you trust him, you both drink the spider soup and you get him out the top and we'll talk and we'll bring him up.

Speaker 3 38:26

If you don't trust him, give him the bad soup, like hey man, have you ever seen a talking horse? And you get out of there. You want him. All right, yeah, all right, all right. I mean, okay, let's. So. Plan is we're gonna go down, I'm gonna slippery slide down we, and then I'll say this do the thing, rather the same.

Speaker 1 38:40

What the plan is, start the plan oh, okay there you go, great, I Great, I slide down, you slide down. It's a little scramble but, you know, with help either from a potion or a companion, you can get back up in about a minute. And as you feel your feet hit the cold stone floor, there are some vines coming out of where the stairs used to be and you see the vines grow across the floor now, uh, this room.

Speaker 4 39:05

They're moving actively. No, no, no, no, they just have grown.

Speaker 1 39:09

Um, you see, the room is about uh, 30 feet by 25 feet, okay, and to your right, uh middle on the wall, are another set of stairs descending, and in front of you, straight across, is a door that is closed. Um, the mad man here turns to you as you get on the ground, you hear no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, choir no one else is supposed to come, I'm supposed supposed to.

Speaker 1 39:42

You have to turn around, you have to go back. You have to go back the choir. And it's at this point, coming from the stairs where the vines grow down, you hear the faintest, so scary, just a soft sound of the echo of a note from a choir um kind of like what's happening right now yeah, vaguely um, and what do you do? What do you do? You can see he's, his hands are not defensive, but yeah ushering you to go away.

Speaker 3 40:22

I think I'm going to talk. I say we're here to help. What do you need? You see, please, please, please, please, please.

Speaker 1 40:37

I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying. What are you trying? He's not talking to you and he, you see, now that the fire Something smoking on it. It's not a rat, but it is flesh from something larger, something that has been slowly parceled out, and it's now that you see, like, there are signs that people have died in this room. Um, maybe days ago, weeks ago. This man may be the survivor of whatever attacked him in his group. He may be the one that attacked the previous occupants here, but you can see he's twitching and the one eye that he has left you can see turning and furrowing, and as he wrinkles his brow, another mushroom spore spews. Give me a presence check here.

Speaker 3 41:37

Okay 12.

Speaker 1 41:40

12. You know that he is infected with spore fever as a mushroom ecologist yourself. Spore fever is what occurs when you have some kind of deeply infected wound that these spores land into and, if untreated, begin to fester, but they're symbiotic, they don't want to kill the host. Treated, begin to fester, but they they're symbiotic, they don't want to kill the host. So he is mad with spore fever, but he's also like not gonna die anytime soon as long as he still has something to eat yeah, um, you're trying to talk to him.

Speaker 1 42:13

He doesn't seem like he has the presence of mind to talk okay, I turn this.

Speaker 3 42:23

We need to put this guy with misery.

Speaker 2 42:25

I have a sword no, don't do it, I'm coming down whoa, we're talking, I have a plan.

Speaker 3 42:31

I I yell up and say he's right there.

Speaker 1 42:37

He's like literally just six feet above you at the stairs no, okay, fine I turn up quietly say I know what this is. This doesn't turn out good for him, you see he's like now, twitching a little bit, he's moving his fingers while your companion Vatan has his back to him, right, but he's slowly approaching.

Speaker 3 42:59

Vatan, we kill the mother Heal him. How do we?

Speaker 2 43:03

heal. We have the power. Heal him. How do we heal? We have the power, we do. We have the power to heal characters. Heal him and get the information we need. What?

Speaker 1 43:12

do you mean we're giving him some help? Heal him.

Speaker 3 43:14

Let's do it, let's do it.

Speaker 1 43:15

Yeah, yeah, heal him I do it you turn back at him. As you see, his hands are just like they're. They're cranking sinewy muscles tightening, veins explode as he's getting ready to essentially lunge out at you.

Speaker 2 43:27

And I jump down, no, no, and I jump down and I draw my short sword at the same time. So now I'm saying as he heals him.

Speaker 1 43:36

I'm coming in. Okay, great, go ahead.

Speaker 3 43:39

Roll the use of power 2d6, right, Wait, wait yeah so, on your Look at your cheat sheet.

Speaker 1 43:46

Your cheat sheet will tell you what to do when you're using power. It's the other sheet I printed out for you. Oh yeah, so powers down.

Speaker 3 43:56

Make a presence dr12 test. Yes, so a 12 set of die yep, oh, no, sorry.

Speaker 1 44:03

So you you roll a d20 and add your presence to it oh my god four, and what's your presence?

Speaker 3 44:15

the, the adding, yeah, zero so you rolled a four.

Speaker 1 44:20

Give me the book. So you, you radically, horribly fail, if it's, if you feel, by five or more. The the test was a 12 and you rolled a four, which is a failure of, uh, eight. So let's roll to see what happens when this occurs. Um.

Speaker 2 44:50

I got you. I'm down here with my sword now, oh sorry.

Speaker 1 44:53

Sorry, it's only on um. If it's a fumble, so you didn't roll a one, all right, so good stuff. Um, so you just. If it's a fumble, so you didn't roll a one, all right, so good stuff. Um, so you just, uh, lose a d2 hp, so roll d4 and divide the result by two, and then you become dizzy for the next four yep two one right, yep, so you had you lose one hp, so it's down to five and uh, you're dizzy.

Speaker 1 45:18

which means if you try to use a power, is she tangled up in you there?

Speaker 3 45:27

we go.

Speaker 1 45:30

So you're dizzy, which means if you fail a power, check again. Like you try to use another power and fail, then it will result in a catastrophe while you're dizzy. So if any further use of your powers for the next hour is a very dangerous gamble.

Speaker 2 45:48

Well, is it too late? Do I got to kill him or do I have time?

Speaker 1 45:52

I'm letting you decide. You guys are going first, then he's about to go, so I was like, yeah, so I feel I have time to try.

Speaker 2 45:58

Yeah, so I feel I have time to try. Yeah, you do, before I have to kill him, yep.

Speaker 1 46:06

What'd you get? What'd you get?

Speaker 2 46:09

A five, a five.

Speaker 3 46:11

What's your modifier?

Speaker 1 46:14

Zero Zero. Both of you not being incredibly magically inclined, both fail Roll D4 and divide the result by two. It's that four-sided one yep.

Speaker 2 46:29

Three.

Speaker 1 46:30

So you take it rounds up right. So three and four is two damage. So you take two damage and you're dizzy for the next hour as well. The madman is going now. The madman is going to try and eat you, valon, no Vatan. So Vatan, roll a d20, and let's see if he lands his attack On you. 16, alright. So a 16 Is against your Toughness, I believe. Let's look at Double check on the combat thing here. Let me make sure I got this right.

Speaker 2 47:14

Um, Was he rolling for the madman or was he rolling for himself?

Speaker 1 47:23

No, that was for the madman to attack him. That's a bad score this is actually a good check. Hey, give me a moment here. Let me pause and just look this up, Because I actually, when they're rolling against you, do you guys have an arm like a toughness score for your?

Speaker 3 47:43

I mean just our zero.

Speaker 2 47:45

Yeah, like I've got a negative one.

Speaker 3 47:47

Yeah. All right Let me. Look at it, you're a pussy. I got to pee really fast.

Speaker 1 47:53

No worries, I'll look this up and we'll resume after you get back. Welcome back from that brief respite, Brian.

Speaker 3 48:01

Tell them what happened here.

Speaker 1 48:02

You roll for defense as this madman tries to scratch your face. And you rolled what did you roll? 16. 16. Now, when you're rolling defense, you add your agility modifier and you successfully dodge the attack if you roll above a 12. Okay, great, so you rolled a 16, but what's your agility modifier Ass?

Speaker 3 48:26

Negative 2. Okay, so that becomes a 14. 14, so still good.

Speaker 1 48:29

You're still good. God bless you. Let's go. Brian, you should not be in melee rage. Yeah, this madman is trying to bite you. All righty, let's go ahead and roll a D6, and we'll see who goes first this time.

Speaker 3 48:47

One.

Speaker 1 48:48

You guys go first now. Okay, okay, all right, so it doesn't matter who you guys, either one of you could go first.

Speaker 2 48:53

Is this a fight, fight or can we try to heal this guy one more time? And I want to hear what he has to say. If you fail on the healing, we're still dizzy.

Speaker 3 49:00

You're right, good point, good point, all right, thank you. Thank you, we should have.

Speaker 2 49:03

Okay, so I'm rolling on an attack, right.

Speaker 1 49:08

You were rolling a strength so you got to beat a 12 to hit him.

Speaker 2 49:11

With a 20. Yep, all right. And I've got plus one strength, here we go. One plus one equals two.

Speaker 3 49:27

Well, if you roll a natural one, it's a critical fail.

Speaker 1 49:28

You swing your short sword and as you swing it you see this madman, just duck under it and it smashes against the stone wall and cracks in half your short sword is broken.

Speaker 2 49:44

Now all I have is my ass. All you have is your sword that hates you as he's swinging the short sword and it shatters against the stone.

Speaker 1 49:50

You can hear the sword sheathed on your back. No, no, now he's going to touch me with his poor failure hands and you're, like this sword's, not excited about it either. Here's one last insult. Please why couldn't that have been me broken upon the stone? Rescue me from this pitiful excuse of an inheritance.

Speaker 3 50:16

And I'm like dude, why are you freaking out about your sword? All right, what do you want to do? You can attack him too. Okay, yeah, what do I?

Speaker 1 50:25

roll, so you, you roll strength if you're doing melee, so if you're using your sword. It's up to you. I'm gonna do the sword, all right, actually wait, wait.

Speaker 2 50:34

Rustic can as a decent. Come up, what's your sword?

Speaker 1 50:38

I Didn't. So Sword's nothing. No, it does say. It does say what the damage is. Let me go back to the character sheet.

Speaker 3 50:47

Oh sword, I see a D6 as well. Great, can I do a little double you?

Speaker 1 50:53

can do one attack, okay, sword or hook hand.

Speaker 3 50:59

It's the same roll for both. Yeah, let's do a sword Hook hand because it's fun.

Speaker 1 51:02

Alright, cool, great. Roll that d20 and add your strength modifier.

Speaker 2 51:06

Give him the rusty hook.

Speaker 1 51:07

Six, no, no, no. The strength modifier D6 is your damage. You gotta roll to hit him Twelve. Twelve plus your strength mod Nine minus 1. 11. You just barely miss as this madman again, is just nimble. He's skinny and wiry. You swing that hook at him, he just hooks on his beard and he's away in the wind. He is now going to attack you, since you are weaponless. So roll a D 20 for me and add your agility modifier to it. Von he's attacking. Von Go ahead Von.

Speaker 2 51:50

I was questioning if I should pull out my sneaky sharp needle or my stupid ass sword.

Speaker 1 51:56

It's not your turn. Yet you got to roll for him attacking you. The madman is trying to bite you. He's trying to eat your face Right Because you guys just went, so you gotta do something.

Speaker 3 52:04

So now it's his turn in combat to go.

Speaker 1 52:06

He's still a 12. That's what I'm saying. You have to roll for your own defense. He's attacking you, oh.

Speaker 2 52:12

I see and you want to get above a 12. Seven.

Speaker 3 52:19

Plus seven plus nothing.

Speaker 1 52:20

Eight plus one plus one so a nine I mean sorry, an eight total. That's not enough. You see him reach out with his nasty, rotten mushroom, soft gooey gums and teeth. That's a d2 damage. And I rolled a four. So you take two piercing as his bite sinks into your shoulder, just going through the leather, and you can feel it pinching on your bone and skin. It's wet, warm. Oh man, you might be infected. Now that's two hit points. Two hit points. What are you?

Speaker 2 52:55

looking at you, got one left.

Speaker 1 52:57

You got one hit, point left.

Speaker 2 52:58

Yeah, it started at four.

Speaker 1 53:00

You don't want to go negative? Alright, roll a D6 for me, Vaughn.

Speaker 2 53:06

Let's see who starts this next round. Yep, alright.

Speaker 1 53:11

You want a one through three. You want a one through three so you guys can go first. Again. Six he goes first. You see him step back, blood slathered against his teeth.

Speaker 2 53:20

He's like no, we had the top, we had the top.

Speaker 1 53:24

You guys are one through three, all right, um, and he is going to try and bite you. Uh, mr vatan, go ahead, roll another agility. Check, a defense check for me. So you want to roll that and add your agility to 18 18 nice minus minus 216 that's good you again move definitely out of the way that little bit of armor um all righty.

Speaker 2 53:49

Oh awesome. Does my armor not count for nothing? It?

Speaker 1 53:52

does reduce your damage when melee by a d4, so roll a d D4. And it might just reduce the damage entirely. One Alright it gives you one HP back, alright, we'll take it. I forgot about that Good thinking. But also keep in mind, your armor makes you slower on these defense checks too, so it's actually a minor like you have to get above a 14 now Instead of a 12. So I dodge, you dodge. Now it's your guys' turn. As he is just tempted to play, I'm going to swing back at him again.

Speaker 2 54:24

I just you guys got to hit him, get him.

Speaker 3 54:26

Yeah, I got the sword. I'm going to do the sword, pull the sword, come on.

Speaker 1 54:33

So I do a melee, go for it. What is it what? No way, you pull out your sword.

Speaker 2 54:42

Thank. God, you pulled the sword in and lose your rusty hand.

Speaker 1 54:44

You see, he just like, literally like water over the top of the blade, just matrix back, flip over it. It just, you see it like glisten as it just slides underneath his naked crazy butt, cheeks His flat ass. He misses flat ass. He lands on the palms of his naked crazy butt cheeks His flat ass. He misses flat ass, he lands on the palms of his hands and rolls away and you see the sword just swing again into the stone and just shatter you both, essentially your swords that you had they're both equivalently like daggers, now right.

Speaker 3 55:13

They're like improvised daggers. They only do a D4 damage.

Speaker 1 55:16

Yeah, but you see everybody's like I have to be faster. Alright, you are up, vaughn, I did.

Speaker 3 55:28

How did I roll the ones Ten?

Speaker 2 55:33

Ten plus one your strength and eleven. Wait, what are you using? My stupid sword Plus your strength and 11. Oh, what are you using? What are you using?

Speaker 1 55:45

My stupid sword. What's his? Does he have any? I?

Speaker 2 55:46

think actually my stupid sword has some exactly. I think that's how one doesn't it? And let's see, he does have a plus. He deals d6 plus one damage.

Speaker 1 55:54

I Don't know attack defense is down is reduced to 10. You defense is reduced to a 10. You only need to roll a 10 for your attack to hit You're good, or defense also. Defense is that plus you know two because of your armor.

Speaker 2 56:09

Okay, well, so I got him, you hit him I got 11.

Speaker 1 56:14

Roll your damage A D6 and add one to it. Come on Five, Six. A D6 and add one to it. Come on Five, Five. You swing this sword and you hear it. Just Please, God, succeed once in your life and as you strike true and kill this madman Vaughn, tell me how this happens, Describe it to the audience.

Speaker 3 56:38

How does Vaugh?

Speaker 2 56:38

von kill this mad man that shit on his cheek was pissing me off so I hewed it off first from top to bottom so that just clipped that thing off. Then we went down through the collarbone into the neck, split them wide open down to the lungs.

Speaker 1 57:00

You see it looks like a banana peel right, just like peeled to one side and you hear, with a rattling, gurgling left, like what leaves his lungs going through his infected larynx, the spores, thank you. And he just collapses dead, his trial over larynx, just thank you. Collapses dead his trial over. And as it does, almost in honor of him, you hear down the stairs, down the stairs, this angelic choir which he seemed to be in communion with but also avoiding warning us.

Speaker 1 57:39

He was afraid of, yes, telling you to turn back. What do you guys want to do? You're both injured. You can use this time to catch your breath.

Speaker 3 57:50

I've got a tent.

Speaker 1 57:52

I think we should. Well, you don't want to necessarily sleep here, but you want to, for sure, catch your breath right?

Speaker 3 57:56

No, let's catch our breath.

Speaker 2 57:57

Yeah, let's catch our breath. I think we should nail this door shut.

Speaker 3 58:02

And take a nap. With what? Oh, you have nails. With my nails.

Speaker 1 58:05

And you mean the door across from you, the scary door. Well, there's no door to the stairs to the right of the room.

Speaker 3 58:13

What else do we see in the room?

Speaker 1 58:14

Yeah, you look around around. There's a small fire. Uh, there are piles of feces. There are strewn about scraps of clothing and decayed armor. Um, there are some pouches of like possessions, of treasures, like you know, that were personal to someone, but nothing of clear inherent value. And then there is to the right side of the room, from where you enter stairs descending to this sound of an angelic choir, and then straight across from you, where you dropped down, is a door that is closed.

Speaker 2 58:47

There's two exits out at the bottom of here.

Speaker 1 58:49

So you're saying there's a door across from you that is closed, and then there are stairs going down.

Speaker 3 58:54

Can we jiggle the handle, not open it, just just quietly, just to click, press, check, walk up to that door.

Speaker 1 59:00

Yeah, you go to the door. I think we need a rest. It's not locked. Like you do a press check on the door, there's some give to it, okay, but as you push against it it's like there's clearly a pressure differential, like whatever's on the other side of the door is like a higher pressure that you would have to like, push against and like would like. You know you'd feel a blast of air from the other side yeah, okay, not open it.

Speaker 3 59:25

Don't open it. I'm from royalty.

Speaker 2 59:28

I need to take a nap. This man was down here for a long time. You guys are more than welcome to take a rest to catch your breath. Now, in this case from the herb expert, should we heal?

Speaker 3 59:42

each other real fast.

Speaker 2 59:44

Well, the rest will heal us. The rest is healing.

Speaker 3 59:48

You have a wound, that could be infected, as do you.

Speaker 2 59:52

That's true. You got a 2% chance you could die if you sleep. You got bit. I just what I'm saying is. Don't worry too much about the mechanics of the bite and infection right now, but what I'm saying is this guy was down here for a while. I think we can spend one time down here.

Speaker 1 1:00:08

You spend an hour to rest, patch your wounds and try to decide what you want to do. Catch your breath.

Speaker 2 1:00:13

Yeah, I think we need to catch breath in here.

Speaker 1 1:00:17

Roll a d4. That's how many hit points you get back.

Speaker 3 1:00:22

One hey.

Speaker 1 1:00:24

That's better than none.

Speaker 3 1:00:25

Back to the six. There we go, fully healed.

Speaker 2 1:00:28

Uno Also, I'm up to three.

Speaker 1 1:00:33

Just pulse check you guys having fun.

Speaker 2 1:00:36

Oh yeah, all right, I'm now in.

Speaker 1 1:00:41

Yeah, I wasn't't. And now I am um. An hour passes and you hear a a rather grating stony sound and you hear from get your echoing down the stairs. Are you all still alive? Live, live, Live. It's your heretic priest torn yelling down the stairwell. I don't think we should yell back, Say fuck you.

Speaker 2 1:01:06

Fuck you, fuck you, get down here.

Speaker 1 1:01:11

Good to know, hard to hear what you're saying, but you sound okay, okay. Okay, those bastards, you sound okay, okay, okay, those bastards.

Trading with Goblins

Speaker 1 1:01:21

Now you just know down to the right of where you're resting, these vine-covered stairs, you see a bulbous flower growing along the walls, descending the stairs, and you hear this angelic, wordless song still echoing up from the stairway, the door that is sealed behind you, or wherever you're resting in the room, whatever its orientation is, from you you do hear now, while resting here for an hour, this like harsh blowing of a wind, as if on the other side of this door is a, a desert, you know, or a storm, but it's just the, and every once in a while it's bolts, uh, and hinges are rattling and the handle to the door chain rattling. Right, yeah, pat, you should actually just go through and add sound effects post to this, right, Like we did for our D&D short story. It sounds like paper shaking against the microphone. Anyways, what do you guys want to do? Decide what you want to do.

Speaker 2 1:02:35

At least they're still alive up there, those bastards.

Speaker 1 1:02:39

You just think about your horse you do. For the last hour your sword has been weeping Like just In pride, in like just like relief of just like you realize, like you've never actually successfully killed something with this sword before, and like this is a first for you, a first for it. You realize, you've never actually successfully killed something with this sword before. This is a first for you, a first for it. It's like literally having?

Speaker 2 1:03:05

Am I turning him around? We'll see.

Speaker 1 1:03:09

Like it says, if you fail enough, it will try to kill you. It's best to just continue to at least not fail.

Speaker 2 1:03:15

All right. I don't think we should split up downstairs or through the door, but I think what if we open the door?

Speaker 3 1:03:29

look down the door, just open, the windy door, just like, and see what we can see like beetlejuice.

Speaker 1 1:03:34

All right, closet you just. No, just close it afterwards.

Speaker 2 1:03:38

All right, we open the door and we look down, and what do we see?

Speaker 1 1:03:41

You pull on the door's loop and as you pull, it does have some hinge giveaway towards you, but you realize that's just because of whatever is pushing on the other side and you have to push the door open. And so you push against it together and as it unseals, a pushing blast of wind sees by your face and you can feel almost as if sand stinging against your cheeks. You have to squint and close your eyes. An immediate, uncomfortable, humid heat, heat.

Speaker 1 1:04:22

And as the door opens all the way, uh, once you get past that is myth it just kind of pushes itself with the rest of the air pressure behind it and blasting past you, going up and filling these stairs. Behind you, uh, blowing the fire out in the room behind you, you just see a glowing, scintillating like reflecting red water across this pit. In front of you, uh, spanning the pit is a very, very narrow, maybe two foot wide stone bridge being slowly eroded by the wind blasting up from the pit, and you hear no demonic cackle. All you hear is the wind blasting by your eardrums. Um, this is a pit to hell and there's a greenish bronze door and it has chains on it with something written in blood on the other side of the bridge.

Speaker 3 1:05:35

Chains door wind snare bridge pits of hell.

Speaker 2 1:05:40

Nope chains door wind narrow bridge, pit to hell, nope, well, but the problem is we have to go to the devil's tank to fix this, fix this thing.

Speaker 3 1:05:47

That's in you. That's true, you know.

Speaker 2 1:05:50

Fuck it, let's go, I'm gonna die anyway do we stand to gain any advantage by going to the sexy?

Speaker 3 1:05:59

voices. What's?

Speaker 2 1:05:59

the voices doing.

Speaker 3 1:06:02

Also, do we trust? The guy that tried to kill us said don't go.

Speaker 2 1:06:06

And they're calling us against the. Are they calling us to get?

Speaker 3 1:06:10

us dashed against the rocks.

Speaker 1 1:06:12

There's no words in the choir, it's just notes. Ah, ah, ah, it's just notes. You guys can close the door and go check out the stairs.

Speaker 3 1:06:25

You can look at both without. Yeah, let's close the door and look down the stairs a little bit.

Speaker 2 1:06:28

I want to go to the voices and we can come back to?

Speaker 3 1:06:30

Is our torch still lit?

Speaker 1 1:06:32

Uh, no, it is burnt out during your rest, so you do have to light your next one.

Speaker 2 1:06:36

Okay, or there's no more glowing light. Can we light a new torch? Yeah, sure, during your rest, so you do have to light your next one. Yeah, there's no more glowing light. Can we light a new torch?

Speaker 1 1:06:40

yeah sure if you close this door, yeah, you'll be in darkness yep, yeah, because we can see through there well, is there light coming from the door? It's all, there's light coming up from the pit to hell oh, okay, yeah, all right yeah let's close the door.

Speaker 3 1:06:53

Light the torch.

Speaker 1 1:06:54

great, you guys do that, no problem. Um, and stepping over the stairs it is at the foot of the stairs you realize these bulbous flowers have angelic faces on them and as the flowers bloom and then conceal themselves again, retreating into their leaves, they echo out this note. I need both of you to roll a presence check as the song sinks into your ears.

Speaker 3 1:07:28

That's a 20, right.

Speaker 1 1:07:29

Yep roll a 20 and add your presence modifier 19 plus 0.

Speaker 3 1:07:34

19.

Speaker 1 1:07:35

Nice 5 plus 0. Awesome, you say, it just sounds like, but to you Vaughn, with a five you fail and you just hear in your ears, just for unendingly you can realize why this man was bad down here. You see, vaughn, just like. Vaughn, you're like reaching for the needle to deafen yourself, to stab your eardrums.

Speaker 1 1:08:13

You can see he's struggling. Vaughn, while you hear the screaming, you will be. You're going to fail, like any time you try to cast a spell Right. You don't know how long it's going to go on for, but the screaming is going on All right, that confusion thing.

Speaker 3 1:08:32

I'm going to cast it on him, are you sure, are we?

Speaker 1 1:08:35

still dizzy. No, no, you're past the dizziness, honestly. Here's my theory. I think.

Speaker 3 1:08:40

I think it will just Disorient him away from that screaming you probably don't know what he's going through, I'll say you seem you seem you seem pretty comfortable.

Speaker 1 1:08:49

Like you don't know what he's wincing about, because you feel totally fine, von, is there anything you want to do? I Want to go home, but I think Let me say this as well With a 19 presence, you also notice, Vatan, that the spores are floating around from these flowers as well. Like they're probably what originally gave this dude spore fever I.

Speaker 3 1:09:17

I Got it Down the stairwell, down the stairwell, down the stairwell. How, how, yeah, how can I see like if there are they continuing down the stairs? You?

Speaker 1 1:09:27

look down this stairwell looks to be about twice as long, with a mid-level landing in it. Uh, from the stairs you descended from the sarcophagus, so it's about probably 40 feet down, um, but at the mid-level landing you can see it veers to the left. If you were to go down the stairs, um, and going to the left, um, what you can see from here is not much. You just see that it's a landing, um, maybe, maybe with a 19, that's pretty good.

Speaker 3 1:10:02

You see, like a faint glowing light at that landing coming from the left okay, um so he's, he's kind of freaking out a little bit, um it is. Can I move him away?

Speaker 1 1:10:15

sure, yeah you can grab him.

Speaker 3 1:10:16

I'm gonna grab you and move you pull you back from the flowers?

Speaker 1 1:10:18

Yeah, I'll do that You're probably having to pick up the torch as well. He probably drops it and it clatters on the ground. You have to pick it up and kind of shuffle him away while he's through this headache Vaughn. Anything you want to do while you're still deciding.

Speaker 2 1:10:36

I'm going to stick one of these flowers with my needle. I just want to stick it in there.

Speaker 1 1:10:41

Before he moves you away. What's the needle do? Again, it's just a sharp needle, that's all it is. You poke it, and as you do, you do hear like you poke it and it goes from. You poke it and it's like it screams louder, goes from, like it also goes like spores cut out. But uh, anyways, I'm glad you guys like that. It is only, though, like I'll save you from more screaming. It is after a minute that you feel it subside and your hearing returns after like a death swelling and the blood pressure leaving your brain, and you're like, oh okay, like all you hear is the notes of angelic choir. Again, you can see how this probably would have been very detrimental in combat if you guys had came over here from the madman, but you're pretty much immune to the effect after a minute of exposure. So now you just got to decide going down the stairs or through the door.

Speaker 3 1:11:55

I mean we could do. I feel like if we do another presence check, if we get close again, you're immune to the effect of them.

Speaker 2 1:12:05

Now let's go down there and see what's going on. If we're rewarded and it helps us in the future, good if not.

Speaker 3 1:12:14

I think the first step is to not go straight to the. There's something down there for us that we need.

Speaker 2 1:12:19

I think that's what I'm saying. Let's go down there, and if not, we'll kill that stinky voice, and then we'll come back up to the gates of hell.

Speaker 1 1:12:25

Okay, so you guys are going down the stairs, right yeah, as you descend and the spores float all around you it's hard to breathe through. But you kind of pull up a piece of fabric, maybe part of your scarf or your shirt or robe, to help cover your mouth and nose and breathe a little bit clearer. Again, you have nothing to worry about, unless you have deeply untreated injuries. This landing as a door closed on it, but you can see moving underneath the lip of the bottom of the door is silhouettes moving to and fro on the other side, where this warm orange light emanates from. Go ahead, both of you, give me an agility check to see if you fumble going down the stairs and make noise right, I imagine you're trying not to be super loud going down these stairs and then you guys can give me a presence check if you want to see what you detect.

Speaker 3 1:13:33

God, my agility is terrible, but yours is real bad. I got a 10 total.

Speaker 1 1:13:39

You got a 10 total.

Speaker 3 1:13:40

You got a 10 total Because I'm minus two, so 10.

Speaker 1 1:13:44

What'd you get? Fumble, fumble, nice, natural one. As you both descend down these stairs you're not like super quiet and sneaky, but you get down to this landing and it is at the landing. You're both kind of looking around the corner and notice this movement and Vaughn it's not you that gives away, but your sword is perhaps withdraw blood again. Perhaps you prove your mettle. Uncheese me, uncheese me. And like you see all the silhouettes that were moving on the other side of this door, just like stop, and the door just open. You see just silhouetted, hunched down, pointy ears, rounded knobby heads, and there are three goblins, uh, as they, um, look like they all want a piece of you. Uh, they have knives and uh, behind them, glinting on the ground of the firelight of the room they're in. Uh, seems like a nice sword, um, but they look like they want to stab you with these daggers sword, but they look like they want to stab you with these daggers.

Speaker 3 1:15:01

Yeah Well, you have that thing that does like it gets two people right.

Speaker 1 1:15:06

I am going to roll to see how they react entirely to you, if you guys are going right into combat or not. Oh yeah, get out, get out, get out. And another one's like you can't have it, you can't have it, it's ours. And then one turns and bonks both of the others on the top of the heads. No, it's not ours, it's mine. They seem to be in the middle of an argument and angry and upset, but they're just not outright trying to stab you, right, but they got their daggers drawn and they want you to leave Quickly. What do you do? This is a time that you don't get to make a plan, but you need to decide.

Speaker 2 1:15:48

Kill them.

Speaker 1 1:15:50

There are three of them. Can we run? Yeah, you can turn around and run up the stairs.

Speaker 2 1:15:55

The voices were not. There's something back there, though. Did you say there was something beyond the little goblins? There's a sword.

Speaker 1 1:16:03

There's a room like they're in, with some firelight inside and there seems to be a large sword behind them, and one of them said it's ours, you can't have it. And another one slapped that one and said it's not ours, it's mine. Clapped that one and said it's not ours, it's mine. So they seem to be in disagreement over the ownership of this weapon, but they also seem like they're certainly not willing to let you get involved. They are very angry but they're not trying to kill you?

Speaker 2 1:16:27

Are these demonic beings that could be dissuaded? Do you see?

Speaker 1 1:16:30

that these are through and through the nasty, vicious baby-eating, you know, women-ravaging goblins.

Speaker 2 1:16:38

Are all bad guys a 12? We gotta be a 12 for every bad guy we ever fight, or these little slapping rounders. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 1:16:47

These little goblins right, they're rather nimble, so they're harder to hit and they're a little bit harder to defend against because they are fast. You gotta decide now what you're doing.

Speaker 2 1:17:00

Just for the sake of keeping on schedule with time. Alright, let's go. Let's go. Alright, I'm rolling for my great balls of fire here. At the end of this game I'll realize I've been rolling a d12 for all the d20s.

Speaker 3 1:17:16

no wonder I was sucking so hard. You're like damn it, damn it oh yeah what is that?

Speaker 1 1:17:24

a seven? What's your prowess? Uh? Or presence, yeah, your presence, sorry, your presence, it's a.

Speaker 2 1:17:34

Zero.

Speaker 1 1:17:34

Okay, great you fail. Go ahead, mark off your failure and take a D4 divided by two damage. Oh my gosh, and you are dizzy for the next hour, all right.

Speaker 2 1:17:53

Or a D4.

Speaker 3 1:17:53

Here we go Okay, I'm going to hold up my silver crucifixion Because I don't know what elseifixion yeah, do it.

Speaker 1 1:18:02

You just hold it up in front of them.

Speaker 2 1:18:04

I already asked this question. They're not, they're just Don't do it.

Speaker 1 1:18:10

I asked if they were like demonic and he said no, oh, okay, you hold it up, it's shiny they look at you, they look at you as your companion goes and like you hear a and like you look over at Vaughn and he has shit himself and failed to cast another spell with his power. Vaughn, you don't have a catastrophic failure, right, but it is not good. Uh, you're confused for the next hour. You best not try to cast another spell. You could if you want, but you would fail. Right, I'm at two hit points. So and do mark.

Speaker 2 1:18:48

I think even when you fail, it still uses a power right, yeah yeah, so you only have two left to use one, or yeah, yeah the confusion power I have?

Speaker 3 1:18:59

will that confuse all of them or just one? Uh?

Speaker 1 1:19:02

it says one creature, I think right, okay um, all right.

Speaker 1 1:19:05

So with that, though, you do see them, it is their turn, because you haven't outright harmed them. You just hold up this silvering like crucifix towards them. And again, this is nordic. So this is not a, you know, don't get it wrong. This is not a. You know, don't get it wrong. This is not a Christ crucifix. This is literally a. You know, some form of an ornate cross of some kind, but it has not got the representation we have, for, you know, real Christian faith, right, but they look at it and you see their eyes just go wide and bulge with the sight of silver. They look at you. Yes, give it.

Speaker 1 1:19:44

Give it. They reach their hands out expectantly. The daggers aren't immediately coming up to cut your throats, but they seem like now they want the silver crucifix you hold before them. Roll a. Well, you guys aren't in combat yet, you're not necessarily in violence, but it's close. It's close, it's on the precipice. What do you guys want to do? I would say there's a good chance, whether by your actions or theirs.

Speaker 3 1:20:12

this enters violence. Are these like intellectual? Probably not intellectual, they're probably not super smart. Yeah, but they are humanoid right. They sword cursed creatures that can be reasoned with and negotiated with if I go. But first I'll only give it to you if you eat this stew, oh sure you could try it yeah I'm gonna do that.

Speaker 1 1:20:34

all right, give me a check. I'm going to say, since it's three of them, the difficulty is 12 to get all three to do it. If you get an 8, two of them do it. If you get a 6, one of them does it. If you get below a 6, none of them are going to do it. 7. Plus your presence 0. Alright, 7. You see one just like, and the other two are like yes, uh, you see. One just like hey, eric, and the other two are like. Yes, he will eat it, give us.

Speaker 3 1:21:03

Oh wait, but I go.

Speaker 1 1:21:06

Hold on, let's try to convince. It's Bond's turn. It's Bond's turn now. Go ahead Bond. What are you gonna do?

Speaker 2 1:21:17

Can. I just attack one of the ones that didn't eat the soup. Go for it.

Speaker 1 1:21:20

They haven't eaten the soup yet None of them have None of them. Yet they're about to.

Speaker 3 1:21:25

It's your choice in the interim.

Speaker 2 1:21:28

In that case I mean Try to convince the other two. Can I talk?

Speaker 3 1:21:30

to them? Yeah, you can still talk to them, convince them, all right.

Speaker 2 1:21:39

A little dizzy.

Speaker 1 1:21:40

You could offer them your sword.

The Drowned Altar and Final Sacrifice

Speaker 3 1:21:42

Okay, this is a great idea you pretend to eat the soup and say it has special powers.

Speaker 2 1:21:49

Give me the climbing soup when I ask you about this.

Speaker 3 1:21:52

Okay, but also yes, yes, yes. All right, let's do it.

Speaker 2 1:21:55

I will offer this sword and trade to you for the sword behind you. And you look around and we'll give you all this soup and I'll eat it with you. As you says, this sort of you bastard.

Speaker 1 1:22:09

How dare you dishonor your family's name? Offering me to these grains, like the guy was like yeah, it speaks, speaks. And they can hear it. For some reason you still can't. Vatan. I'm just like it's too high on this question.

Speaker 1 1:22:23

Yes, yes yes, For that in the crucifix we give you this sword and the other one's like, and the soup and the soup. The other one. One turns around, picks up the sword and comes back. Actually, sorry, give me a presence check real quick. Just want to see. It's a low DC. You got to get a six to convince them all that this is a good trade 17.

Speaker 2 1:22:46

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 1:22:46

They're like this is a great trade dude, a talking sword and soup and a crucifix. So they each reach out a hand expectantly One goblin for the soup, one goblin for the crucifix and one for the sword, and the other one that seems to be in charge is offering you this larger sword in return. Okay, wow.

Speaker 3 1:23:10

And we take it.

Speaker 2 1:23:11

I'm grabbing that thing, you grab it.

Speaker 1 1:23:16

It is a two-handed sword.

Speaker 3 1:23:16

It is incredibly sharp, I think, because you only got one. What's the hit power on this?

Speaker 1 1:23:20

thing. It's incredibly sharp. It is a d10 plus one let's kill those shitheads while they're vomiting. Let's leave you see them they take this soup all excitedly. They take no one of them takes a soup to drink it. The other one takes your crucifix and your talking sword. You hear your talking sword swear your name, damning it to the basilisk to devour you in the hells beyond, starts cursing the goblins, because now no. And then the goblins return back.

Speaker 1 1:23:51

It's my sword no mine and they begin to immediately argue over it, as you can just hear your sword screaming. They close the door and they go back to their business. The door is closed. You can descend the rest of the way down the stairs or go back up to the pit of hell. It's up to you, are there? More voices downstairs, down the stairwell you don't see any light at all at the bottom of the stairs. It is pure darkness from where you stand.

Speaker 3 1:24:19

You can't see what's down there, can you? You can? Oh nice, with this I've been wasting our torches, oh with the spider spell. Mm-hmm, I feel like it's a good time to use it.

Speaker 1 1:24:28

How many sips of that you got.

Speaker 2 1:24:31

He still has four. He has three. I have one Of the of the spider no, yeah, one of the spider he's got one use of the spider before we go to hell, that's the crawl on walls one though I thought you had four of those.

Speaker 1 1:24:44

No, he's got four of the poison four of the soups wow, I've been playing reckless with the soups, everybody. No, I've been playing reckless with those, alright how long does it take for that soup to cause him to throw up, does it say?

Speaker 3 1:24:56

no, I think it's immediately. It says vomit for D4 hours.

Speaker 1 1:25:01

Rule of D4.

Speaker 3 1:25:04

Oh, because I gave it to the yeah.

Speaker 1 1:25:07

One All right excellent. Before they come after us, Okay all right, you guys better make a decision. You gather that it won't be long before one of them is retching and they may turn on you for a sour deal, especially if the sword is angry with them.

Speaker 2 1:25:22

And you say we can't hear the voices anymore.

Speaker 1 1:25:25

You hear the angelic choir. The only other voice you guys heard was the madman whispering to himself.

Speaker 3 1:25:32

I think I have 30 seconds of seeing in darkness. That's bad. Alright, the torch. We have a torch with a torch.

Speaker 1 1:25:40

You guys still have the torch, you just it's it, the stairs are so far down right like from where you stand on the stairs you can't just go in like a brisk all right, we're going on down, we're going great, we're continuing.

Speaker 1 1:25:49

You guys start going down the stairs and you reach the base of the stairs, which is known as, uh, the drowned, but the basically stairs. Uh, you see that this level is flooded. Uh, the water comes from a collapse somewhere within it, um, and it comes up to your chest. Uh, it flows towards, uh, like away from you, like you get to the bottom of the stairs and you could see that this water is flowing, uh to the side, like to your left, um and uh, there are quite a bit of sounds down here and the torchlight. You see scatters, eyes that are kind of swimming across this current of small like amphibious creatures, you know, looking, looking like fraud or maybe tadpole, like nasties in this dark, inky water. Okay, what do you guys want to do?

Speaker 1 1:26:51

you're not like in the water yet, but like you know, like you could tell, looking at it like throw something in the water, just see, like just you know been in situations like this.

Speaker 3 1:27:00

You don't know what's in there. All right, is there like a rock or something like that?

Speaker 1 1:27:04

like a stone, something from your equipment I know that's the problem.

Speaker 2 1:27:07

What do you have on your equipment?

Speaker 3 1:27:08

there's got to be some chipped stone nearby. Uh, you got flowers on the side of the wall. I'm not gonna pick one of those. It makes my head hurt.

Speaker 1 1:27:15

Guys, gotta, guys got to do something. All right, we'll throw a flower in the water. Cool, you pluck it, you just just like a soft whisper as you rip it off the wall and then toss it into the water and you see it like gently land and begin its petals unfurling and there is this like almost as if oil, a slick of oil, was alive and it is the size of you know, maybe a fist, and it just kind of comes up and goes and just gulps this oil. This oily mouth with eyes just kind of gulps the flower head away. It's quick, it's not loud or anything, but it's clearly like the flower was something it could fit in its mouth and it got it okay yeah, let's go fishing.

Speaker 1 1:28:04

I think we need to go back to hell shit you do know that your priest said that it is at the drowned altar where there should be answers to this scintillating object engineering itself in the chest of your companion.

Speaker 2 1:28:28

There's lots of eyes, there's not just one.

Speaker 1 1:28:30

Yeah, like you're looking around with the torch light and reflecting back at you at any time could be like.

Speaker 3 1:28:35

How far can we see? Probably 10 or so Across the spring, yeah or so.

Speaker 1 1:28:39

Yeah, the hallway from like where you stand on the stairs is probably about 10 feet wide. We couldn't like jump across the stream. There's nowhere to jump. The stream itself like fills the hallway up to like the stairs you're at and you imagine it's probably about chest high, based on how much of the wall is left up. Oh, I see, and it's probably about chest high, based on how much of the wall is left up.

Speaker 2 1:28:58

Oh I see, Can we take our sharp needle and turn it into a hook and put some frog soup on it and start catching these things?

Speaker 1 1:29:09

I will say you may certainly try it. Do you have string? Do you have a stick?

Speaker 2 1:29:14

We have clothes.

Speaker 1 1:29:17

As you are debating this and deciding. You just hear behind you just okay, unending retching. Are there lots of flowers around us? Um? There's, yeah, just easily like throwing them in.

Speaker 2 1:29:35

It doesn't around you. And how and how far do we have to go to get across this?

Speaker 1 1:29:39

thing you don't know. You got to start getting into the water and starts like you have to get down the stairs Cause you're kind of like at the stairs and there's this ceiling in front of you.

Speaker 2 1:29:47

Let's throw flowers. I think we've picked a bunch of flowers and we chum the water and then we go and we carry some with us and we chum it as we go and we get across there.

Speaker 1 1:29:57

Sure like that uh, you hear the door behind you from the goblins slam open and uh you better hurry. They're coming, bro. If you don't want to be in a fight, you better start getting in this water that's what we're doing.

Speaker 1 1:30:11

We're throwing the flowers you get in the water and start chumming and throwing stuff over, um, and you see that these, uh, amphibian creatures are coming up engulping the flowers, um, and as this happens, uh, you see, they kind of disperse around you. They don't seem too interested in like trying to eat you or anything like that, because they're more like tadpole frog, like size um. But you see, immediately, probably about 10 feet in front of you, to your right, is an indent going into another room.

Speaker 2 1:30:49

Like we got to go beneath the water.

Speaker 1 1:30:51

No, no, no, Like you're in the water chest high now, yeah, in a hallway, and that hallway goes straight four ways with your torchlight. But it also has a, like you know, outlet to the right as well. That would go to another area or down another hallway and as far as you can see with your torchlight, you don't see the end to the hallway ahead of you, like it keeps going into the darkness.

Speaker 3 1:31:17

How do we decide where to go? I don't know that.

Speaker 1 1:31:25

Yes we got a goblin coming down the stairs. The feet pattering.

Speaker 2 1:31:32

We got to go in the first door.

Speaker 3 1:31:34

Yeah, go, let's go straight. You got to choose.

Speaker 2 1:31:37

You're going to go straight, or you're going to take a right, we're going in the first Straight, or we got to explore that doorway and then we'll come out and go straight again. That's just another 50-50. So I know, but we can see, this is the doorway versus. We don't know what's ahead of us yet. Oh, let's hide, let them go by, all right yeah we're gonna hide.

Speaker 1 1:31:58

We're gonna hide in the door, yeah, uh, so you're going to the right.

Speaker 3 1:32:02

Yeah, we're gonna hide. Let them pass here.

Speaker 1 1:32:06

As you are going down to the right, you see that rounding the corner there is raised in the room. It's completely flooded. But raised here is a granite slab, circular, and draped across it is this fleshy again, like wet amphibious skin of this kind of like, almost as if like a fish head perhaps, maybe like a viper fish had been attached to, like a humanoid amphibious body. It's got large, thin, almost translucent, needle-like teeth and foggy, bulbous eyes that faintly glow and reflect your torchlight. You see its chest is cut and ripped open, organs disemboweled, ribcage exposed and it lays dead on this altar, all right.

Speaker 3 1:33:10

Meanwhile goblins.

Speaker 1 1:33:12

The goblins as you go around this corner they reach the bottom and one of them you hear behind you. They'll be back soon and you know how they are about us, near the young, and they turn to go back up the stairs, pitter-patter away.

Speaker 4 1:33:32

Nice Also if they were to get in the water, they'd be underwater. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 1:33:38

They wouldn't be able to stand at chest height like you guys can, so these tadpoles might become something scary later, but we found the altar.

Speaker 2 1:33:46

This is the altar.

Speaker 1 1:33:49

If you go into the room you can probably deduce more. We're in it, you're going to walk in all the way there, vatan. You seem skeptical, as if you're going in or not In the room.

Speaker 1 1:33:59

Yeah, in the room there's kind of like a transitionary hallway between the main flooded hallway and this flooded altar room, so you could kind of be in that transitionary hallway before just outright stepping into the altered room. Do we hear anything else in there? Just the sound of current and then the bobbing gurgling of just because there's still water in this room oh yeah, it's, it's just as high, okay, the chest. The pedestal is at chest level, okay, nice.

Speaker 3 1:34:29

Wow, what's down the rest of the hallway.

Speaker 2 1:34:32

Like the main hallway. What I'll say is we found the altar's key.

Speaker 3 1:34:37

Oh, the altar is, the altar is key to this.

Speaker 2 1:34:39

So we got to go in. And it's disemboweled at the chest, yeah, but there could be more that also.

Speaker 1 1:34:44

It's like laying on top of this pedestal. It's chest ripped open.

Speaker 3 1:34:50

Something ripped it open, but we got to go in there to find out. I'm going to use that darkness thing because I can't see a lot. Right, it's pretty dark in here.

Speaker 1 1:34:57

I mean, if you step into the room you could probably fill the whole room with light, with torchlight.

Speaker 2 1:35:01

You just guys have to go in all the way.

Speaker 1 1:35:08

All right, let's step in. Yeah, let's step in. We walk up to the altar. Give me a. We'll say agility check. To be sneaky about it. Try not to be loud and obnoxious, but the difficulty is a lot higher. Just because you're moving slowly through water, it's not a lot higher. We'll say it's a 12, to be not super duper, crazy loud.

Speaker 2 1:35:30

What does a 2 get me okay?

Speaker 3 1:35:32

good to know. I got a 10 minus two, so an eight. Uh, you're it doesn't?

Speaker 1 1:35:36

you guys are just sloshing through the water holding the torch way above your head just to keep it from getting wet. Um, as you walk up straight to the altar, you see this thing disemboweled and written on this stone. Both of you give me a presence check to try to understand what is written here or interpret this ancient writing 13, 15. 13, total, nice. Both of you together start kind of parsing out and reading back to one another as you're holding the torch light down. The water has flooded a lot of this pillar away, and so you have to kind of like slosh water and get the torch close to the water surface to see what might be below. Working together, you deduce that this altar calls for a sacrifice. That this altar calls for a sacrifice, the sacrifice must be imbued with what is known as the enigma and if done, the enigma will pause and it will essentially prevent the arrival of what is only known as the abominable. This thing maybe, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 1:36:53

Whatever it is, the things sacrifice it. This thing doesn't have anything in his chest. They probably couldn't read it. Maybe it was the goblins that sacrificed this thing here, but whatever it is that was sacrificed on this altar, it cut its chest open and we're trying to find the enigma. But the enigma was never there, was it Vatan? It's in me, it's in you and clearly this altar calls for your sacrifice to prevent the completion of the code. Let's do it.

Speaker 2 1:37:21

And their rival, the abominable Wait, you want to what, wait you wanna what the alternative is you just let it finish and perhaps it arrives through you.

Speaker 1 1:37:34

Perhaps your body is the vessel, the portal for this thing to walk across the material plane, or you could just jump down into hell and meet it early, maybe, or you could sacrifice, be sacrificed here and prevent it from occurring at all. If this is to be believed, what will you do?

Speaker 3 1:37:56

Vaan Vatan.

Speaker 1 1:38:00

You guys got to decide, I know, but oh my God. Oh my god. You start hearing an echoing from If you were to look back at where you came down to the right, further down that hallway you hear a.

Speaker 2 1:38:20

It's like a deeper. We can sacrifice anything.

Speaker 1 1:38:24

It has to be something with this enigma in its chest. Okay, do you know? Plucking it out of Vatan's chest would probably kill him right now.

Speaker 3 1:38:34

Without some kind of magical assistance. This is kind of like there's no options here.

Speaker 1 1:38:40

Well, you guys don't have to do it. I'm going to die anyway. You can be selfish.

Speaker 3 1:38:45

Might as well. Just kill me. I think, just lay on. Yeah, come on, let's go, let's do it. I'm going to lay on this thing, are you serious? Yeah, yeah, let's go.

Speaker 2 1:38:55

But it said in this it said a puzzle cube has been calibrated incorrectly or has it awakening a slumbering abomination. But I you hear the croaking and in the sloshing in water as they return where they are yeah, I know that's what I'm like, or has it been done wrong, meaning that could be nefarious or not? It's just like, and the fact that you this could be a gift to me. You could be, because every.

Speaker 2 1:39:26

It could be destined for you that's what I'm saying To be the abomination. Well, so, every day there's a chance, there's a 2% chance of you dying from your infection, from it as it slowly gets closer to your heart, right? So it's like the does it have to become?

Speaker 1 1:39:41

I'll say this boys, Realized yeah, billy Jean's out at the parking lot. You guys got to make a call right now. Whatever call you go with, we'll stick with you. Either choose to do the sacrifice or not. You choose to leap into hell, back at the pit to hell, or not, or you go back up the stairs and you call for your friends to pull you out and be like yep, it's a bust, let's get out.

Speaker 2 1:40:04

It's up to you guys yeah, I can wait. You were just so keen on getting whacked open.

Speaker 3 1:40:08

I mean A moment ago you were saying cut me open, baby, cut me open.

Speaker 2 1:40:12

All right, all right, let's cut him open.

Speaker 1 1:40:15

Batana.

Speaker 2 1:40:16

I got that fancy, smooth sword.

Speaker 1 1:40:17

Tell us how you push the corpse off of this altar and lay yourself out.

Speaker 3 1:40:25

All right. I walk to the fishy corpse. It's stench, salmon breath slosh it off into the water in chunks because it can't even hold itself together, and I lay upon the altar, willingly, in sacrifice to the greater good.

Speaker 1 1:40:43

You see, as he lays on the altar, the sigils in it begin to glow.

Speaker 3 1:40:49

In my chest.

Speaker 1 1:40:50

Not just his. No, like the puzzle piece glows, but the sigils of the altar glow.

Speaker 3 1:40:54

All right, yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 1:40:58

What do you say? This is like an Isaac situation All right, that's pretty brutal.

Speaker 3 1:41:02

So, all right, I say you grab your. I grab my janky dacker and I hand it to you. I think you grab your. I grab my janky dacker and I hand it to you.

Speaker 2 1:41:07

I think you should hook yourself up, just hook yourself. I take my hook off my hand.

Speaker 3 1:41:12

My rusty hook, give it to me. No, you got to do it, you got to do it, do it. And I say For the greater good.

Speaker 2 1:41:22

I'm going to say F this hook. I'm using this fancy new sword I just got.

Speaker 1 1:41:26

What do you do, vaughn? What do you do you swing? Oh, put the sword with me, decapitation.

Speaker 2 1:41:31

What? I'm going right up, I'm starting from the tank up to the throat.

Speaker 3 1:41:38

You're just going to do a good old chop, just try to cut it out. Just try a little cut out.

Speaker 2 1:41:50

Well, I'm trying to get the same tablecloth effect that the frog put the tip on it just to see.

Speaker 1 1:41:55

You know, maybe I don't have to die you do the gentle piercing, a little bit of blood is drawn, the ruins glow brighter and you see, the puzzle piece begins, almost as if it's afraid, trying to unlock itself quicker, spinning, and the pain is clearly visible on viton's face as it is literally moving its pieces against your ribs and heart, uh, inhibiting your ability to breathe, to keep a pulse. Uh, you better decide now, because you hear the croaking approaching behind you. It's multiple splashes.

Speaker 2 1:42:30

Yeah, I love this noggin off. You swing not the neck, just like right the.

Speaker 1 1:42:40

Yeah, bro, you swing. But odd, you look at him maybe like as he holds the torch. No, actually X asked you to hold it, so he can do a hit, point check or strength. Check on that. Uh, if you're not gonna deny it, he's just gonna wipe you yeah, and I yelled him for holding the torch.

Speaker 2 1:42:56

Bad, while I'm trying to do it like no, I said right here um go ahead, roll a strength attack.

Speaker 1 1:43:02

You got to beat a 12. We'll just say if you do hit, though uh got to beat a 12, we'll just say if you do hit, though uh three, uh, baton is willing roll with advantage, which means you roll it a second time take the higher number, 20, oh double damage roll the d10 just to see how much it is.

Speaker 2 1:43:24

That's close two is it two.

Speaker 1 1:43:28

It doubles that to four plus one yeah, so that's another two on it so it's a total of six. Yeah, you chop the sword cleaves halfway into his face. You see he's unconscious. It's gonna need another strike to finish him off. If he's at zero hp, he's not actually dead yet.

Speaker 2 1:43:49

Oh, wow, so I got to roll again, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:43:52

Roll with advantage 12. That's enough, yeah. You swing again and you hear the Of just the brain and cavity spilling into the water. You see the puzzle piece lock in place and then fire of blue flames release from the altar its glyphs and you see the body begin to incinerate the puzzle piece, with it going back to whence it came Vaughn it is at this moment. You hear through the flames and the splashing of water behind you. You have sacrificed your companion for the greater good, at his own will. But you turn to see more of these amphibious things which were sacrificed on the altar, their translucent fangs reflecting in this blue firelight, their orbs of foggy eyes reaching for you, ready to take you to a dark, watery grave. We'll leave off there, matan. Thank you, bryant and Pat, thanks for playing. That was fun that was really fun.

Speaker 3 1:45:04

Did you guys have fun?

Speaker 1 1:45:05

I had fun, that was really good, a good ultimate final choice there at the end. Thanks for playing. That was fun. That was really fun, did you?

Speaker 3 1:45:12

guys have fun, I had fun. That was really good. A good ultimate. You know, final choice there at the end of Also what does this mean for the time?

Speaker 1 1:45:17

Oh, Brian, with the classic rip-up, you actually honestly, we always like are told to burn the character sheets. The book says when you reach the end of the apocalypse, when the apocalypse happens, it says burn this book. I'm like okay, it's 35 bucks, I'm not doing that, it just goes. That is the most metal thing to do, right. But anyways. I hope you guys had fun. It seemed like it was a lot of fun. Pat. Brian, any kind of final thoughts in regards to your opinion of?

Speaker 3 1:45:48

mirkborg, I'm gonna be dreaming about this tonight. I'm gonna be like what was down the hallway. I just want to know that's always a question right do you have a map over there? Is that what you're looking? I do I do.

Speaker 1 1:46:00

It's a one-page map, that is, you know, illustrated with descriptions of the rooms it's like a nice little black and white pencil ink drawing of the map telling me what's in each room and I kind of just make up what you guys can do based off of what you want to try.

Speaker 3 1:46:15

Yeah, yeah, that's fun. Good job, that was fun.

Speaker 2 1:46:17

Awesome Pat. Any thoughts? Yeah, no, I'll say I think it's funny how, once we got into it, I mean I was in there, I was in there, I was in, I was in that spot and it was fun so I think, I think it was, excuse me, a fun exercise and a fun uh uh exercising creativity and imagination. And I have to come back to the. The story's not done, there's still two guys. There's still two guys and a talking horse upstairs. Yeah, yeah, that'd be fun.

Speaker 3 1:46:48

Yeah, I've got a backup character up there. Exactly, that's awesome. You've got to explain to him how you killed me. All right, that was fun, guys, it's up to him.

Speaker 1 1:46:58

All right. Hey, thanks for joining us. Ken Appreciate you. We hope you enjoyed this. Hopefully it encourages you to get out there and try something new, pick up another fun game for friends or family time. But, yeah, thanks for joining us. Brian. Always appreciate having you at the studio. Yeah, it's good to be here. Thank you, pat. Any sign off?

Speaker 2 1:47:16

Till next time.