From the Grave - Part 1

This transcript is machine-generated and may contain errors in names, terminology, or attribution.

[clink] [clink] Pickaxe. Coming to Apple TV+ on August 9th. You're the Marine? Yeah, you're the ex-con. Yeah, I did time, but you don't gotta cast aspersions at me. From the director of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity comes a new film. It's your first job? I know what I'm doing. I'm a little late for a crit change. Starring Matt Damon. Everybody in New England is after us. And Casey Affleck. Go, go, go, go, go! What are you doing? Taking notes. Taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. The Instigators, rated R. Streaming August 9th on Apple TV+. This summer, during the biggest sporting event of the year, Peacock turns to two broadcasting legends for the Olympics coverage you can't find anywhere else.

Um, I think they mean us. Oh, s***. Um... [clears throat] With an incredible duo sure to take home the comedy gold. Olympic Highlights with Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson. New episodes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Only on Peacock. Ark 2, episode 33 of the DNR podcast is brought to you today by DiceEnvy.com. Dice Envy has a wide variety of dice for you to choose from, both acrylic and metallic. You can also get a subscription box starting at just $5. Send yourself a little something, or send that special person in your life a little something in the form of geeky dice to play with.

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So, if you hear a weird beep or boop, that's just Twitch. I couldn't get it to stop doing that, but we did try to remove them from the podcast as much as possible. It kind of captures that live feeling that we were doing. That being said, please send us an email to dandrpodcast@gmail.com. That's dandrpodcast@gmail.com. Let us know what you thought of the entire event, what we could do better next year. And we can't wait to see you at Tharryathon 2019. Previously for Group C, after receiving a message from the Eladrin to deliver to the Houses of Brightport, and agreeing that their time was pretty much done in the city of Onakal, the team started to head north.

They caught their breath in the tiny town of Whitehedge, while they had a new cart built from a gnome named Wilfen. After catching up with some locals, and Elorath running into Lucia and Shaul, two children that she'd help rescue in Lochfort, the group bid a fond farewell, and continued their journey north. And that's where we're picking up things today. Let's do that thing! Where we go around the table and introduce ourselves. I'm Jason, I'm the Dungeon Master. Going around the table, starting with Jasper. Oh hey, I'm Jasper, I play Maric, Eltharid, Human Cleric.

And Elisa. Hey, I'm Lisa, and I play Elorath, Beastinger, the Halfling Barbarian. And Jane. Hi, I'm Jane, I play Ephini, the Gnome Lord. And Bree. Hello everyone, I'm Brianna, I play Klara, Eorath, Dale, the Half-Drow Soldier. And Zach. What's up, I play- my name is Zach, and I play Evelyn, and Bates, the Human Fighter. I don't know who I am. [Laughter] Where am I? What's happening? I broke my toothbrush, I don't- [Laughter] Oh goodness, okay, so it should be noted we are playing live at Theriathon today. Hi everybody out there in the chat. Hey. If- I don't know, if you missed it, there was a fire, it was crazy, you should have been there.

I don't know. I can assume there's a fire somewhere, right? Like someone had a fire, like a little kitchen fire type thing to make them popcorn. Don't worry, I'll start a fire later so you're not a liar. Thank you, that's all I wanted. It'll be like last Friday. The movie? When Elburn- no, when Elburn the pizza. Oh! Oh yes, yes, yes. I don't know what you're talking about. [Laughter] Didn't I start a small fire in the kitchen once while we were recording? I thought so, yeah. Well you did so when you were drunk. [Laughter] Okay, that was not my fault, I was dating a person who thought it was a good idea to put cardboard boxes in the oven to keep them like- I don't know what he fucking thought he was doing.

I don't know. But that was a thing that happened. Heat and cardboard, they- they- mwah, go together great. Instead of putting the old pizza in the fridge, he would put them in the oven and so you start the oven to, you know, heat something up, which is what an oven is for, and fire is what happens after that. [Laughter] Well, there haven't been any fires on the road for you guys yet. Actually, you coasted yet. Can't speak for the rest of the journey yet. You guys coasted out of the wastes, easy breezy. You were riding a caravan, or riding in a caravan, and you got to White Hedge and you set yourselves up very nicely.

You got yourself a brand new wagon, which is outfitted really well. It's even got this nice little hidden compartment in the back where you can tuck all your tools and stuff away so that you don't have to carry that or lump it in the back. People can lay down and get some rest and it's a really nice wagon. Efanny made a new friend? [Laughter] Wilfen. Wilfen, yep. Right. I can't wait to see that relationship blossom. That'll be great. What? [Laughter] Like a beautiful flower. Ew. He'll probably buy her beautiful flowers. [Laughter] Stop. [Laughter] Well here's how we're going to open things today.

You guys are five and a half days away from the city of Brightport. You are going to be relatively taking it easy because you're in a wagon. It's a heck of a lot nicer traveling than if you were on foot, obviously. The weather, sadly, is going to start to get pretty rough. Not a thunderstorm per se, but really bad rain. That kind of wind that sweeps the rain horizontally into your face as you're going. It's pretty crappy. Now, the cool thing is, anybody who is riding in the back is going to be pretty much protected from the weather. It's got a nice little tarp over top of it.

It's a nice capped wagon. Anybody who would be up front in the driver's seat is going to get drenched. There's just no way around that. Who would be driving? Or steering? I don't know what it is in a wagon. I always assume that Merrick is going to jump up there and let everybody hang back. To him, it's like, "I'll do it." Everybody else, just relax. Let us know if it stresses you out too much. What matters to me is that it's not sand horizontally coming into my face. So that's fine. Getting all up in our business. If that's the case, I think Avalon would be riding shotgun.

Yeah, that's my vision. Weird question I don't think I've ever asked you. Do you own a floppy hat or anything like that for situations like this? Obviously ponchos don't really exist. But do you own anything to keep the rain off of you? Because wearing armor, that's got to really suck. Because if you're just wearing a hoodie, and you go out and you're soaked, your clothes cling to you, and it's windy and it's cold, and you just feel icky. Imagine wearing chainmail. I hope that there's something between the chainmail and skin. That would number one. But I always imagine that there's like, part of the tunic that Merrick would wear, I've always imagined there being sort of like a hoodie thing.

That does not mean that it would actually be any sort of real protection, but I've always imagined that he would probably look like a wet rat with a hoodie on. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm going to give you guys a couple of options. One, you could just kind of plow forward and keep going in this weather. And the stuff that you would normally face, obviously, are huge puddles, that type of thing. It can wreak havoc on your cart, because on the normal road, when it's dry, you can see potholes coming up and you can avoid them pretty easily. When it's raining like that, it's tough to see how deep a hole is until you're already through it.

You guys have run into that kind of thing before. So you can just keep plowing through this and just take your chances and hope for the best. Or you can try and pull over and wait for the weather to kind of subside. Like, look for a shaded spot, something that will give you some cover from the weather. What day of the trip is this? You said it was five days? You've got about five and a half days left of Brightport. It's the 17th of Ferriore. How many days have we been on the road? Is this immediately the first day that the rain is starting? I'd say it's the first day, yeah.

Okay, that's awesome. Cool, well now we know what the Charisma Roll was for, so this is great. Okay, that's taken care of. First thing, and not to speak over anybody else who might have an opinion here, but since Merrick's driving, I think what would end up happening is he would plow through as long as he could. And at some point he would sort of push off to the side and say, "Enough, I can't do this anymore." And he would, I imagine with this new cool badass wagon that maybe there's a way to make a lean to or something like that, and be like, "We've got to take some cover here for a little bit." Like, it's just not worth it.

I would imagine out the back you could kind of set, almost like a camper type of thing. Yeah, or like a vestibule for a tent, you know what I mean? Like this little entry area before you get into the actual tent. It doesn't have to be much, it's just more like a little piece of canvas with some string. Right, yeah. Just something to, honestly just something to kind of spread this out a bit to kind of shape. And I would imagine, again this is a weird, I'm on a tangent today, but I guess there's towels or something for you to dry off on? Because I imagine you guys always have like bedroll blankets, that type of thing, especially if you loaded up a cart with all kinds of stuff.

Oh yeah, Wolfen definitely did that. Well, how high is our wagon off the ground? I mean, like the standard, probably a couple of feet, two and a half feet, somewhere in there. Okay. Because someone might be able to fit under it? No, that's true. Okay. Do you want to? Sorry, I couldn't. No, I was just, do you want to fit under it? Well, I was just seeing like how high it was off the ground to see if it was possible. Like if we needed more room to lay out or lay down or something? Just depends on the ground too. Like if we, it might suck as much there as anywhere else.

Could we like try and make sure that the horses are covered too? Yeah, well we could put whatever canvas or tarky type things that we have, whatever the Therian equivalent of vinyl or nylon or whatever. Yeah. Okay. So it's not like we're like, all right, we're going to be dry, but you guys suck it up. Like Merrick would probably try to find like, you know, hey everybody, I'm pulling off just too much and then try to find a place that isn't like in the middle of a glade. It's more like, here's a few trees, it's a little bit of shelter. You know, the horses will be okay.

They can munch down on some grass and then, you know, we'll be a little bit okay. All right, so let's do a thing. Do me a favor, roll a flat D20. Let's see what's around you. You talking to me? Yeah. God dammit. What? What's with that? You're going to do great. I didn't even see a roll. Oh, let me roll again. Damn it, no, the first one. All right, seriously, one more. Yeah, 19, like I said. Okay, fine. The first roll was a four. Okay. For my screen, it just popped up. The other two, I saw dice rolls, but yeah, let's go with the first roll. Yeah, there's a four. Okay, well, this isn't about luck or anything.

I just want to see what options would be around you when you pull off the road here. So, okay, so near you, again, you're about three quarters of a day into your first day on the road here. So you still got a few hours of sunlight. Obviously, it's overcast and dreary. It's been raining for a good three, four hours, and I would imagine eventually you're just like, okay, this is not letting up. It could rain all night. I'm tired of getting stung in the face with rain. And the cart, every once in a while, feels like it's going to tip, like the wind is that strong.

So coming up on the road, there is kind of a clearing off to the right, and it looks like it winds around. It doesn't look like it's very often used. You don't see any wagon tracks or anything like that. The grass is kind of tall, but it looks like it winds around into a clearing surrounded by trees and stuff like that. It could give you some cover from the weather. Or you could pull over to the opposite side of the road, and there's just a kind of an outcropping of trees. The only problem with that is if this turns into a thunderstorm, it could be a bad place to sort of park your cart.

On the off chance something gets struck by lightning. Yeah, not towards the tallest thing pointing up in the sky, but more like, there's a clearing, but then towards the edge of the clearing where, you know, it's a little bit of respite from pouring torrential rain. We'll just take what we can get, but certainly not get near lightning rods. So if you pull the cart over into this clearing here, you're going to notice a few things right away. One, it doesn't look like this is a rest stop for many people along the road. If you're traveling on the road, there's a lot of times you'll see old camps that someone made, because it's just, like, friends tell friends.

It's like, oh yeah, if you're traveling on the road, about three, four hours outside of town, there's this place, it's a great rest stop, there's a spring there, it's not, that type of thing. This doesn't look like this has seen too much use. Beggars can't be choosers. Beggars can't be choosers, come on. Yeah, it's definitely not bad looking at all, and it's going to wind around, and I would imagine there's a point where you're like, okay, I want to find a place where there's lots of cover, and we're kind of away from prying eyes, so, you know. Good eyes.

Okay, I'm going to tell you what you see. This appears to be a long forgotten cemetery. Oooooooh. We're talking really old headstones here, kind of crumbled and stuff from the weather. Some of them have fallen over. A lot of them, you can tell how old this is, just because these little markers and headstones and things, they're crooked. Grass has grown over these plots a long time ago, there's no one's keeping this up, they're not weeding the place and keeping this nice looking. But there's something else in the area that's very interesting. Usually there's some sort of, some sort of ornate like statues or decorations or something like that, just like in modern day society, people who can afford really big headstones or nobles have mausoleums in this world.

Usually there's something sort of overlooking, overlooking the place, usually dedicated to like a god or something like that to sort of watch over the place. There's going to be a very interesting large statue sort of looming over the cemetery and it's almost listing to the side just a little bit, just a little bit to the right. And there is a, it's a statue of a beautiful man, long curly hair, wearing kind of a cloak or hood, something like that, long flowing robes. And half of his face is missing skin to the point where it's just a skull. This is sort of an older depiction of Vecna.

Whoa. And what's, what's even more, the statue's sort of sitting on a very large rectangular base. This, this entire cemetery looks like it was sort of dedicated to Vecna. Maybe these were followers of Vecna and they wanted to be buried here or this could have been nearby a commune or, you know, camp, something like that where these were just like minded people. What would you guys like to do? Fuck it. Yeah, can we have an orgy with the statue? I want to get all up on that face. Oh man, I love it. Yeah, I kind of want to go investigate. I imagine it's sort of like pulling the cart in or the wagon in, sort of settling into whatever parking space makes sense.

I'm envisioning the camera, turning around the corner and seeing this really old cemetery and this big, when you say large statue, how large do you mean? Is it twice the size of a man or is it like you could fit 20 people inside it? This looks like, I would say from the rectangular base up, you're dealing with about six and a half to seven feet and then the statue is another 12 or 13 feet tall. Oh wow, okay. This is big. Oh wow. Alright. I would imagine that sort of getting the horses where they need to be and the wagon where it needed to be, Merrick's gonna sort of elbow Avalon and just kind of, you know, do his head like nod up and like, check that out.

Avalon's gonna nod back and he's just gonna go, "Mm, it's quite interesting." It's worth checking out. Hey, and I guess, I don't know if everybody's already seen this, but I'm assuming that it's like, "Alright, everybody out, let's figure this out. Let's set everything up real quick." And then, you know, as soon as everybody's looking in that direction, Merrick's just gonna point at it like, "Look at that shit." This would definitely be a thing too where you'd have to be blind not to notice the largest structure in this, but like as a conversational piece, it's like, "Oh yeah, look at that." Yeah, like, "What the fuck, huh?" I feel like so cool because it's like, in my mind, it's just being like illuminated by like lightning flashes too, so it's like super ominous and awesome.

It probably looks like it's crying because of all of the, through the skull eyes. Maybe the rain's just like making it look like his skin is melting even more, just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which is apparently what I think skin melting sounds like. Well, I don't know about everybody else, but Merrick's gonna start checking it out. Let me tell you his motivations real quick. He's looking just to check it out because he's feeling like, looking at this base, if it's like square, you know, if it's roughly big enough and there's a door or something like that, it could be shelter.

It could be just enough to be able to get inside. It could be completely empty and just like an empty pedestal. Good point. I feel like Clara would reach into her bag and I imagine she has a few like, I almost wanted to say candles and I'm like, there's no way to light, but she wants to, I guess she'd probably maybe put a coin at the bottom of it or something if they went over there just to like show respect. I don't know what religious people do, man. Oh. But yeah, she's, she wants to come check it out too. I imagine we all want to check it out. Is there anyone that's like, no, that's boring.

Yeah, Avalon wants to, he wants to walk up to the statue and kind of like touch it, like, like feel the smoothness. We all want to touch him. We all. This beautiful man. Yeah, he's beautiful. Half of him. Yeah. I mean the other half, if you're into that. The right half. Yeah. So this is, what's interesting is this, this rectangular base that he's sitting on. The narrow portion of it would be facing the front of the statue and then it's, it's kind of juts backward and then caps off. There are these, they almost look like they're brass, something like that, but there are these like handholds or vertical bars that are placed around this rectangular base.

There's two in the front and then two in the back. And if you were to take a closer look at this. This is carved beautifully. It's incredibly smooth stone. It seems to be made of a much higher quality stone than any of the, any of the headstones in the cemetery, which is kind of interesting. Let's see, everybody who's getting really close, do me a favor, roll a perception check. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, almost a crit. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. We're all good at this. Wow. Hey. Look at that. Efony is the best though. Oh yeah. Jesus Christ. Guys, we did really well. Even me. I have a negative and I did okay.

That's my first official crit, guys. Is it really? Wow. Congrats. Ariathon. So this is, this is a really interesting statue for a few reasons. Obviously, this is an older depiction of Vecna. You don't really see this depiction too much anymore. Like the beautiful half of the face and the long flowing hair and all that, that's gone. Usually it's more of the Grim Reaper depiction. The almost a vilified, either a scarred, horrible looking face or just a, just like a skull skeleton type of thing. So this is kind of an interesting thing and the fact that this is out in the middle of nowhere is also kind of strange.

It does look like the front of this base contains a door. It's, it's, it looks like it would be huge and heavy, but theoretically it looks like it could be pried open using one of these long, using the long vertical handle, like as a handhold to pull. All right. Abilene, you want to get this with me? Yes. Yes, I do. Okay, Clara. Give me an athletics check with advantage, please. With advantage, click that and then athletics. Yeah! Dropped a five. That's good. Hell yeah. I dropped the five. The statue crumbles to pieces. Yeah, so this is, again, the rain's going to be pouring down and I would imagine the base of this, that the base of this statue here is almost, there's, there's grass growing up around it, kind of a, kind of a crab grassy, like you're going to see cracks in the, in the stone around the base.

And Abilene and Clara are going to just pull as hard as they can on one side of this door, and it just happens to be the right side. And after a few moments, it is going to lurch backward. And you are going to crack open the base of this statue. And after the initial pull, that kind of release, it's going to swing open a little bit easier. This is a big heavy door, though. This, this was obviously meant to, to either keep people out or just, just protect whatever would be in here. It's a little strange for this to just be a clubhouse or something like that.

You're also going to smell something foul coming from within. And a land. Opening this up, it is going to be pitch black inside, but you are going to see stairs. They look to be rather smooth leading down. The rain's immediately going to start to pour in and trickle down the stairs. I have one question I forgot to ask about the scenario here. Is there any, any interesting pose or what does, what is the statue doing? Is it just a statue of like Vecna standing there or is Vecna like holding anything or? He's sort of holding his hands outward like he's welcoming you.

I like that. Hmm. Well that's not a, oh, um, Merrick's going to look at, Merrick's going to look around and say, Look, I know it's creepy. I know it's spooky. Hell, I know it's Vecna, but it's, there's the chances of us being able to like stay dry for a little bit and maybe even start a little fire in here or something like that. It's going to be good for us. What do you think? I mean, I know, I know, but come on. Clara is going to take out a silver coin and kiss it and put it at the base of the statue, like the base of his feet above them. And then she's just going to nod to Merrick.

And I guess she'd say something like, Vecna protects. Let's go. Damn straight. Evelyn's going to shrug it. Elarath will probably pull out the new holy symbol she just got and just kind of like touch it and then go in. Like, not that she's nervous, but just like, yeah, we're OK now. Aww. This is where the sloth fever came from, guys. We're fucking morons. But I'm excited. I'm down. Let's do it. OK, who's first? Marching order. I'll go. Two by two? Can we fit two by two? Yes, this is this is definitely wide enough. It's not it's not a crypt or anything like that. This looks to be pretty smoothed over, very, very elegant in some spots.

There's even text. If you get to the bottom of these stairs, I'd imagine you guys are lighting torches and stuff. Before we go. OK. I have pittance. Those are the things that you like slam into mountains to climb them, right? Yeah. Pitons, pittance. She's going to put one in front of the door and hammer it into the ground a little bit. I know it's probably wet ground and it might not do much, but like as close as she can to the hinge to try to make sure this shit is not going to close behind them. OK. That's smart. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, just wedge it in the door.

Yeah. Wedge it between. I have 10 of them, so I'm just going to I'm going to town. Smart. Thank you. So that's that's that's that's pretty smart. About this. No, no, no, no. I honestly didn't even think about magic. I thought about when. Right. And it would. OK. There have been nasty gusts, but it would have to be pretty damn bad to to close that door. It's a big, heavy stone door. Right. Let's let me switch over here for the for the lovely. There we go. I had to I had to pull up something. So, hmm, about 15 or 20 feet down these stairs all the way to the back, there's a spot for two torches to be lit.

And there there'd be holders on either side of this large plaque. And the hallway sort of breaks around this this pillar. And again, this plaque is posted on the pillar and it appears to be written in Elvish. Who speaks Elvish here in the party? I do. It's going to say only those who are worthy will be able to wield the finger of Vecna. I just imagine Vecna flipping us all off. That's really cool. I don't know if anyone else here speaks Elvish. No, no. Then she will kind of she'll look to the party to make sure that's the case and then she'll just read it out loud, like holding up the torch.

Only those who are worthy are. Have the finger. Something in the translation that I literally like, I started saying it and then I was like, oh, no, I spaced that wording. Fuck. She's going to read it verbatim, as cool as it sounded when Jason said it a moment ago before I ruined it. Would we have any idea what the finger of Vecna refers to? Yeah, you can either roll a history or religion check. Is that anybody? Anybody can. Hell yeah. Let's do this. Come on, negative two. What are gods? Eloraf actively forgets things about religion. So what is it about this foot?

What about this foot thing? What about religion or history? Right. Yep. What are fingers? Dang, everybody. What? Twinsies. Wow. I feel like except for Eloraf. I have land with no idea when it does roll. Everybody nods knowingly and Eloraf's like, the fuck? Or else in the background, like picking her nose. Or like taking like a web wedgie out of her butt or something. Everybody's staring at the plaque and Eloraf's looking at the wall and like trying to read along. There's nothing on the wall. She's like, "Mm-hmm." Yeah. Mm-hmm. Fingers are great. So once we're at this pillar and there's the plaque, the hallway sort of curves around.

Are we going down still or is it just a stairway down and then we're at a certain level? I'd say you're at a certain level now. Okay. Like I said, you're about 15, 20 feet underground. Mm-hmm. And most of this is completely comprised of like stone. Like there's a hell of a lot of like stone pillars, kind of low bearing things. And this looks like it could be a temple. Sweet. So going back to the finger here. Okay, thank you. I was like, wait. We're not going- We were just going to- We were all like. We're not skating on by. You guys rolled very, very well. Most of you rolled very, very well.

Hey, if we were playing golf, I would win. I think you'd be cheating. Nah? Because you can't get in negative in golf. Mm-hmm. I don't know. I have a handicap. You can. You can? Yeah. I don't know golf. I don't either. I just know you need a low score. The finger of Vecna is an artifact that has been missing for centuries. Like this thing has been gone just off the map. So much so that a lot of people debated whether it ever existed in the first place. And what it was rumored to be was a longsword that was crafted by a set of Vecna worshipers. And then supposedly it was blessed with the power of Vecna himself.

All right. Well, we get back in the wagon and just take off. Okay, let's go. On to the next thing. Anyways, bye. Okay, cool. Is there any other information that any of us would know about it that would be beyond just sounds like a cool sword and it's more like, but there's a hitch or, you know, or a catch or something? Well, okay. Reports sort of vary, but I'd say with those roles, you would be able to cut through a lot of the bullshit. Essentially what the sword does is it has the ability to punish people that the sword sees worthy of being punished. Essentially anybody who is not undead or some sort of construct or something like that, this sword would on occasion deal this overwhelming, rotting, necrotic damage to.

Essentially the wielder of the sword would be an instrument of Vecna. You know, anybody can pretty much pick it up and wield it from what you heard in stories and such, but you're basically doing Vecna's will. You're punishing those who deserve punishment. It's almost an instrument of justice, something like that. But people get struck down by the sword, die a horrible death. Sounds cool. Everybody look out for swords. Just, you know, keep an eye out. Look in the corners. Just check all the cubby holes. Why? Is anybody going to tell her what it is? Someone tell her.

Efini, you're the bard. Come on. What? You're the bard. Sing the story. Sing a song about Vecna's finger. No. Dance Moki, dance. Fight me. Maybe later when I've had chance to compose something, okay? That's a promise everybody. You heard Jane promise. Oh shit. No. Bring her back at the end of Theria-san. It'll be 5 AM her time. Adrian. But no, someone, Clara will tell her. Clara will explain what the finger Vecna is. Oh shit, that sounds cool as hell. I wonder if it's here. And she's going to kind of like scan the general area. Do we know anything about where it was hidden with those rolls?

It's one of those things that just disappeared off the face of the planet, seemingly. It was not exactly, okay. So worshipers of Vecna aren't exactly high up on the food chain. You will find temples of Vecna, but usually they're in really tucked away places in bad neighborhoods, that type of thing. They are sort of hidden out of the way. People who worship Vecna, sometimes they wear it on their sleeve, but a lot of times they sort of keep it on the down low until they know they're in the company of friends. That type of thing is like, "Oh, you're in the club?

Okay, cool." And it's not because of any nefarious purposes, most of the time. It's just because they're... Vecna's kind of looked at as the vulture of gods, the hyena. You serve a purpose and that's great, but it's not seen as noble to worship Vecna, that type of thing. He's like the garbage man of the gods. Pretty much, yeah. So thankless job. I think Clara would probably be kind of explaining this to LRF/anyone in the group who might not know as she looks around the general area. As Clara's describing this, is it... How is it phrased? Is it kind of matter of factly, or are you trying to paint Vecna in a good light, a bad light?

Is it pretty much just neutral? I feel like coming from drow society, she would kind of paint him in a better light than most people would. Kind of like exactly what I just said, like he has a thankless fucking job. Like he deserves more respect than he gets kind of situation. Okay. Just because I imagine the drow would kind of have that sort of outlook considering they also have been fucked over in their history. A little bit, yeah. A lot. Like they would kind of see that side of Vecna more. Right. So that's where she's coming from when she's describing it.

Okay. Aww. I like that. That's so cute. Anybody else in the party, did you have preconceived notions of Vecna? Was it something that your characters had kind of a hard stance on either way? I was going to ask actually what we would kind of each know about Vecna. I don't know what F in your nose. Jane just kind of, Jane hears Vecna and thinks big bad. Right. But that's kind of a preconceived idea. And I'll break it down what the common person would know, right? Okay. Common person would basically know that Vecna was, and still is, supposedly in charge of keeping the demon world locked away from the human world.

Basically guarding that seal, making sure that the barrier between regular, everyday folks like yourself and the horde of tens of thousands of demons that lurk beneath are kept away from you. He's also the god of undeath and resurrection. Necromancy, that kind of thing. Basically granting, trying to grant people a second life or a second chance, but it's usually in some, it's looked at as a twisted form of yourself. Like, if you remember how Actaronis came back, something similar to that. Something kind of a, you're you and you're walking around, but it's kind of a shambling body or something like that.

There are all kinds of resurrection techniques and blood magic and everything that are tied to Vecna in some way or another. It's kind of attributed to him. And it's tough to kind of parse what is real and what isn't. So a lot of bad things are also attributed to Vecna. That's why the whole big bad feeling is pretty standard across Theria. People blame vampires on Vecna. They blame basically anything you don't have a full understanding of that has anything to do with death. It's kind of blamed on Vecna. While the Raven Queen sort of crosses over into that where, you know, "Oh, she takes people because it's their time." It's like, well, you know, it's almost like, oh, the Raven Queen works in mysterious ways, that type of thing, while everything bad or perceivably unfavorable about death is kind of placed on Vecna's shoulders.

If that makes sense. It makes sense. That's awesome. Merrick would have, you know, his only background with Vecna, not his only background, but his experience with Vecna has a lot to do with the library. The library of tiefling research, basically. And basically, this would kind of make him feel a little bit on edge. He's not worried that something's happening. Honestly, Merrick right now is just like, this is just an old cemetery. This is just a, you know, this maybe it was an old temple. This is long gone. There's no big deal here. But just the thought of Vecna is just like, ah, this kind of starts bringing in Darmok back into his mind.

He's probably flashing back a little bit to, you know, Darmok in a bubble, crushing demons heads and just being a super creep. So he's probably a little creeped out right now. Okay. Not worried about like doing something, but just like got a chill, chill up his spine. I'd say Avalon's pretty impartial right now. He's never, he's always been very ignorant of religion growing up. So he just recently learned that gods are very real. So he kind of feels like he's at a dance with no partner. He doesn't know which god is for him. So he, the way he feels about Vecna is like, he doesn't think Vecna's a bad god.

He doesn't feel like he would exist if he was a bad god per se. Like, there's a reason other gods accept him. And that's kind of how Avalon is himself. So he kind of understands that. Okay. I feel like Elorath with like her newfound kind of like respect for the gods or whatever, you know, since the events at Onakal, I feel like she would actually become a little bit more reverent, I think, upon hearing that. Because like Avalon, she's just kind of unfamiliar with the gods and everything. And so she's just kind of like, oh, that's awesome. Like if Clara's describing it to her and then describing Vecna a little bit, I imagine.

She'd be like, that is cool. And I respect you. Do not touch anything in here. Okay. Well, it's interesting you should say that. Oh boy. You approach a wall filled with very touchable objects. Vecna welcomes you in. Just like a boo from Aladdin. Just like, aww. So that pillar in front of you obviously breaks to either side and it leads down to the same hallway. It's wide enough that you could all walk two by two, probably three by three if you wanted to kind of get shoulder to shoulder. And I would imagine, again, your torches are lit, you're walking through and there's all kinds of decoration dedicated to Vecna.

All kinds of artwork, that type of thing. Like there's one of him alone kind of sealing away the demons and like basically Vecna holding out a hand. And on the other side of this wall, there are tens of thousands of these tiny individually carved demonic looking creatures. Like it's really fucking cool. It's the kind of thing that would be airbrushed on the side of someone's van. Merrick takes out his phone and puts it on Instagram. God, why can't he just be present for a change? I feel like Clara would touch Alarath's shoulder and kind of motion to it and then fold her hands and she's going to do a little silent prayer.

Alarath would probably follow suit because like she takes kind of direction from Clara with regards to like religious matters. So she would just kind of like pay a little respect if she could. Efanny's on the lookout for any more text as we go along, any more writing anywhere. At the end of this hallway, you're going to have three options. Oh boy. You can either continue to go straight and holding at a torch, you can see that this hallway sort of curves around to the left. But you could also go right or left. The pathway breaks up three different ways.

It's kind of a four way intersection here. Is there anything down any hallway that looks interesting? Like, do they look different at all or does it look exactly the same? They look exactly the same. As a matter of fact, it looks like you if this continues, it might be an easy way to get lost here. Are we on a dirt floor? I would say yes, this is a dirt floor, but everything else would be stone walls, ceiling pillars. Are there any like spots to put a torch in along the hallway? It's like maybe you could track your progress with torches if we have enough of those, like every maybe five or 10 feet.

I think we all have 10 torches. OK. So we'll leave a torch here and in the ground, put an arrow pointing towards the door. OK. Yeah. Sound good? Yeah. Sounds good. So we'll do that. Someone else pick which direction we go in. I did my part. Also, I have an idea. What is it? Can we like put that if there's a way, can we like just put the torches like on one side so that way we know if we come like down a hallway, we like, oh, it's on the right side, which means we're heading back towards the main chamber. Yeah, I got it. I got it. I got it. I took boating whenever I was like in sixth grade.

And there's something called red right returning. And what it means is that when you see red lights on the right hand side, it means that you're heading back in towards land. So that means that as we as we as we move down the hallway, we put torches on the left so that we know. Right. So when they're on the right, we're returning. All right. I barely understand that, but it sounds like a great plan. Just think of right return. I feel like that's one of those things that like if you explained it to me while showing me, I get it. But because I can't see anything, I'm just like, I believe you.

The bottom line is let's put torches on the left so that when we know that when we're heading back, they'll be on our right hand side. Like if we come on a chamber that we've already been in, we could be like, oh, well, if you face this way, that's the left. So going back would be this way. You know, sounds perfect. Love. Perfect. Love it. Love it. Let's do it. This must be great for the chat. Like they're talking about walls and torches. It's all part of the process because it's yes. These look, I like it when you guys talk about things. I like that you are weighing options out.

I don't like it to be frivolous. Liar. I think we should go straight. And the reason is let's not go off the beaten path yet. Let's just go straight until we can't go any further. We can come back. Right. And maybe this turns around to a big room or, you know, you never know. And if we run out of torches, like before we hit the end of it, like maybe on our way back, we can like pick them up. Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I'd hate to think we run out of torches because that kind of negates what we were talking about earlier. We've got somewhere between 20 and 40 torches between us, probably in some way, even small or like splinters of stuff.

So as long as we don't put them every time we see a sconce in the wall, but we just as soon as we get on the edge of the torch light, put another one down. Then, yeah, we'll be fine. I'm with you. We'll be good. Trust me, it's just back. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Heading straight into this hallway here. Again, the right left side, you're going to hear you're going to hear your footsteps sort of echoing just a little bit, even though it's dirt. It's you can kind of hear this open up a little. When you hit this four way stop. Continuing straight into the hallway, this is going to lean to the left, sort of wrap around.

And it's going to lead you to a dead end. No. But this is completely decorated with more artwork and there's more writing in the wall right in front of you on another plaque. Again, an elvish. Again, it's going to say, "You are indeed brave to come here. Hopefully Vecna has chosen you." Again, Clara will read it out loud and look towards the group like, "Shit." Evelyn's going to fold his arms. He's going to say, "That sounded like a threat. We should be more careful from now on." Yeah, we probably should have been checking for traps this entire time. Oh shit.

Spent too long talking about torches. And that is something Clara said out loud and I hope Evelyn responds with like, "Oh yeah." He said, "I agree." Yeah. So yeah, I think that I imagine like we have everything we need. So I guess we just keep going forward, but a little bit more carefully like checking for traps if anyone is good at that. I don't know what that is. What the hell would that be? So... Is that investigation? I have a plus one. I've got a plus two. Hang on. Somebody must have iotrope. I got a plus three. I have a negative two so I would just like to take the lead on this.

I say we split it out. Merrick looks high, Ephony looks low. Okay. That's not a bad idea. Oh, that's cute. Oh my god. Adorable. Yeah, so Merrick's gonna look at Ephony and after Clara you said like, "We gotta look for traps." It's like, actually that's a really good idea. And then... That impression was hurtful, but yeah. Oh my god. Sorry. You gotta look for traps. That's true, but you're not supposed to say it. Oh my god. I didn't mean that. Yeah, and we're like, "Yeah, let's do that." So remind me, so Jason, you said that we went straight, it curved around to the left, and then we're basically at a dead end.

Yeah, just a dead end. And the hallway doesn't go for very long. Okay, just wrapped around the corner. Before we leave, can we roll like a perception check or something to see if there's anything hidden that we've missed? Yeah, I mean I think at this point poking around is not the worst thing that Merrick would think of doing. He'd be like, "Let me see if there's anything here. This is a weird dead end for Nicole." Right? Okay. Go right ahead. Is that perception or investigation again? Perception. It's the same thing basically. It's all working off your wisdom.

Oh, my... Okay. That good. Ah! Almost to Chris. I feel like she thinks she's really good at investigating, so she's like, "Mm-hmm. Almost." Uh-huh. I'm worthy. Sorry. If anything... Okay, so this entire area, it seems weird that someone would place a dead end here. And it's almost like this is either like a rest area or like a last warning. Like, you're getting a sense of... This is ominous, right? So that entire thing, if it's verbatim what Clara is saying it is, that does sound like a threat. That sounds like, "Okay, this is your last chance. Keep going or leave, but hey, I hope everything works out for you." That type of thing.

But it doesn't appear as though there's anything hidden in the walls or floors or anything like that. This just looks like a really short hallway curves around to the left and then it just stops. Hmm. Hmm. Okay. Meryk's gonna real quick, "Hey, I'm as enticed as everybody else, but I just want to point out really this was just to get out of the rain. So we don't have to go any further." What part in the day is this? Like later on in the day, like maybe we're tired? It's like, I'd say 4, 5 p.m. somewhere in there. Oh, okay. It's not that late. Yeah, I think Elorath would be down to keep looking if everybody else does because she's curious now.

Her interest has been piqued. Yeah, Clara's also like mostly just interested. Like we haven't run into any monsters or anything yet. So it's kind of like, "What are we looking at?" Like she's just super excited. Aveline's gonna say, "Meryk has a point. We could be trapped here at any moment." Meryk's gonna look at Aveline and say, "Okay." And Elorath's gonna say, "Yeah, I wasn't saying I don't want to do it." Oh, fuck it then. Basically, Clara's gonna kind of motion the group, everyone for continuing forward and she's going to raise her hand. Elorath raises her hand.

Just so everyone knows I'm raising my hand in real life right now. Totally version, I like it. Meryk just starts walking back the way they came. Like, "Yep, let's do it." Can I ask a question? How would Efani be feeling right about now? She's feeling very curious about this place. It's kind of exciting, but at this point she's feeling a little unsure and like maybe turning back would be a good idea, but she also kind of doesn't want to be a buzzkill. So that's probably where she's at. Okay. Heading back down this hallway, you're going to reach the same intersection again.

You can go left, right, or straight, which leads you back to the front door. Left to right? Flip a coin. Yeah. Evens left, odds right. Here we go. Bam. Left. Alright, we're going left. Canonically, Clara did flip a coin. Okay. Just doing a rough glance constantly for any sort of something that stands out as a trap or something like that. Okay. This hallway looks pretty much identical to what you've been down before. Again, every wall is adorned with artwork. Some of it is actually very small. Like it'll be an eye or something like that. Half the eye looks rotted.

The other half looks beautiful and pristine. Sometimes it'll be whole murals. Like it'll be the length of hallway about 10 feet. It'll just be this beautiful etched thing. All of them are etched into the stone. It's not just painted. Like these things are works of art, basically. Someone, maybe teams of people, labored for many years. Coming up ahead, the hallway is going to continue straight, but there's going to be an offshoot to the left. What would you guys like to do? Do you guys want to flip a coin? Yeah. Before we flip a coin, before we flip a coin, Evelyn's actually going to say, "I think the straight ways in this place are usually dead ends.

Just keep that in mind." Okay. For every corner, we are doing the arrow/torch thing. The arrow always pointing back to the door, not anywhere else. Agreed. I still say we go straight until we... Always go straight as a default, if possible. That way we don't get turned around too much. What do you think? We'll go wherever, though. Trust me. We got chalk. We got arrows. Can we tell if the offshoot is another path leading off somewhere or if it's just like a room? From what you see right here, without leaning down the hallway, it looks like another hallway. It doesn't look like another room.

I'm almost with Merrick on this one. I think that going straight and rolling that out first and then doing a coin flip for the second one is a good base. Especially if at the end of those dead ends we get more text each time. Okay. Who's in the front? I believe Merrick is looking up high and Effiny is looking down low. It's kind of true. Effiny. Yes? Could you do me a favor and give me a perception check? Okay. Oh, crap. It's fine. It's good. So you guys are going to continue down this hallway and all of a sudden the floor beneath Merrick's feet is going to give way.

Do me a favor. I need you to roll a dexterity saving throw, Merrick. I got this. No problem. You got it. I believe in you. That's what he means. That's what he needed to pass, right? Yeah. Oh, wait, wait. Actually, that was my ability throw, so I actually didn't do a save. I'm so sorry. Okay, do the save. Oh, thank God. Okay, okay. All right, okay. That was a crit. Oh, my. Sorry. Almost, Effiny. Merrick's going to turn around and say, "It's okay. Let's go straight. I think this is..." and then whatever happens happens. Just like one of those cartoons. Is there any argument to be made for the person standing behind Merrick to try to grab him?

I wouldn't say so just because it sounds like everyone's pretty much got their head craned in different directions looking at artwork and traps. Or... Yeah, Evelyn's such a smart... Ugh. Fine. Well, roll a new character. That's right. Oh, no, not yet. Maybe it's just... Wow, that is defaced. Maybe it's a little pile of feathers. You don't know yet. Yeah. Let's start over. Can we reset? Can we go back to the last saved point? You know what? Let's just start the arc over. Let's go. Maybe it's one of those famous Vecna trampolines down there. You don't know. Oh, that's right.

A Vecna trampoline. That's good. All right, what happens? What happens? What happens? Okay, you are going to take 1d6 damage from the fall. What am I going to land on? You are going to land on hard ground beneath you. Love it. No stakes or anything like that. Just hard ground. So let's do that. Oh, 6! 6 damage is what you're going to take. Great. That's fantastic. That is amazing. That's 6 damage. Okay. So let's adjust your hit points accordingly. So a couple things are going to happen. One, you guys are walking down this hallway here and then Merrick is going to disappear.

Just fall. And he's going to fall a good 10 feet to the ground. Just blam. And you're going to hear the rustling of chainmail and just a horrendous clatter basically of a human being covered in armor falling 10 feet and then just spilling out of the room. You are then going to hear a second sound. You're going to hear hissing. Oh no. Coming from the pits. And Merrick, would you do me a favor and just give me a perception check. Let me describe to you what you see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. This is going to be good. I'm going to get a really good roll on this one. 13.

Totally admirable. So Merrick is going to land and just kind of with a thud, boom, hit the ground. And I would imagine there's there's a couple of things going through his head. One, ow, is probably probably one of them. Two, there's going to be a column of not a not a very thick light, but there's light from torches above you shining into this pit. And then you're going to be slightly expansive when you when you land like there's there's kind of dirt in every direction and sort of not stone stairs, but like there's going to be little bits of stone layered throughout this place.

And then you're going to hear that hissing and crawling, kind of slithering into the light. You're going to see several snakes. Could you do me a favor and roll a nature check for me, Merrick? Yeah. This is cool. I don't I don't you know what I got a five. I don't really give a shit. There's some really big worms. Yeah. Aw. Why are those worms hissing at me? Danger noodles? Danger noodles. Guys, it's OK. There's just caterpillars down here. They're really mad, though. Merrick is going to recognize that these are snakes, but not what type of snakes. The party up above was up.

Hey, wait, quick question. Quick question. Merrick was Merrick was holding a torch or not? I would imagine he was. I would imagine he was. OK, so that means that there's a torch down there with him, right? Yeah. OK, that's my question. I think it's a fair question. Does Merrick say anything like other than like, ow, and then you hear that? Do we all hear the hissing, I guess? I would say. You could probably see from your light. If you're peering in, if it's one of those things where you're looking in, I would say I would say you're hearing that hissing because it's not one snake.

If you if you peer in and look, it looks like a good dozen snakes, maybe more, at least that you could see. All right. OK, I'll probably jump down in there. Yeah. OK, I'll ask you do your thing. I'm going to get rope. You jump. She's not very smart. Oh, you're jumping in. Yeah. Merrick, catch. The pretty is like land on the snakes and kind of crush them. She tried to do that, but we just cured yourself fever. She dumb. She is dumb. OK, she got it. Let me I just want to put this out there. She's got a negative two for intelligence. Yeah, that's fair. OK, do me a favor.

Roll an athletic. Actually, OK. Are you just leaping into the pit? I feel like she would do that thing where you like put one hand on the edge and kind of like. Yeah. OK, OK. So give me an athletics check. And unless you fail horrendously, you're just going to drop down like, you know. OK. All right. Yeah. So you are going you're going to drop down and then boom, you are in the pit. And I would say you even stepped on a snake on the way, like just on the head, just crush. So that's a snake. Yes. Yay. That was her intention. It's a reaction. Oh, no. Whoops. Sorry. Let's see.

As a reaction, I'm going to have this the snake next to the one you crushed roll an attack on Ellorath. Rude. I'm just going to see how this how this goes here. So here we go. That is a 16 versus Ellorath CC. Yeah, that hits. OK, so. Poisonous. Thank you. They are poisonous. Yes. Sorry, go ahead. OK, so they are going to do four damage. And I would like you to roll a constitution saving throw for me. Fun fact, I have resistance against poison damage because I am a halfling. Oh, you're going to need that. Oh, that's great. I have stout resilience. Ooh. How how big is this?

Is this sort of like a 10 by 10 type of square thing or is it like a rounded, you know, bubble? It's what it looks to be is if you're if you're sitting in it right, it looks like if you were much smaller, maybe there's places to crawl away. That's where the snakes are sort of coming from there. They're almost like slats in a wall type of thing, like very, very flat to the ground. OK, so what is resistance against poison damage? So if you have resistance against any type of damage, basically that cuts the damage in half. Oh, OK, cool. Which is a good thing.

But first, I need you. Yeah, roll a constitution save for me. It's a constitution. Oh, you're good. You're not going to take any poison damage. Fantastic. I did like a little shimmy, but you guys can't see it, but it looked like this. Wow. Wow. I really painted a picture. Yeah, geez. Specifically what your mouth was doing. You're a master wordsmith. Thank you. So we have an Elorath and a Merrick in this 10 foot pit. What's OK, what did what did Elorath do after jumping in and like a snake bites her? And I would imagine just kind of prying it off. She would then draw her flail and get back to back with Merrick if he is standing up so that they can't like surround both of us at the same time.

Yeah. Yeah. There's no way that Merrick would have been like, oh, snakes, I'm going to lay down here with them and see what they look like. Like he would have jumped immediately up like that was assumed. But to be clear, he would be like, OK, OK, snakes pick up his torch. Maybe try throwing the torch at the snakes. No, Merrick has a better idea or at least I do. Yes. Do it. Can I ask a question? Does anyone in the party have a fear of snakes like an Indiana Jones-esque type of... Yeah, there you go. Excellent. Clara probably would not. She's dealt with worse.

Like as far as as far as like underground type things that could attack you. She eats spiders, so she's fine. Oh, sorry. I didn't know that. Exotic? They're like the lobster of the Underdark. So whatever. It's the Undercity. That's what we call it, right? Well, in the book, it's the Underdark. We just call it the underworld, that type of thing. Whatever. It's yeah. Sweet. Ours is more hardcore. I like it. So it sounds like rope. It sounds like rope. That's what I was going to do. It's like, I know we're technically split right now, but like we're going to try to get rope and get them back up here, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. OK, that makes sense. My first thought was jump down and defeat the snakes. Your first thought is pull him out. Smirt. Smirt. He lives through your character. It's method acting. What was what was so OK there. So Elrath's first notion is jump into the hole, right? Everyone else is like get rope down to them, that type of thing. So they're they're they're lowering rope. So what was Maric's idea? Like initially, you know, thunk, ow, stand up snakes. What was Maric's idea with the torch? Well, it wasn't so much the torch. He would just have instinctively picked up the torch.

But speaking of torches, fire was the first thing. It's like fucking burn them to shreds, whatever could possibly happen with that. The torch isn't going to do it. But one of the spells that he has actually at his at his fingertips is burning him. Burning hands. And so he would he would be like, I'm going to burn the fuckers. So what I'm imagining is is that, you know, Maric's going to land and go, ow, and he's going to hear hiss. He's going to go, fuck. He's going to stand up really quickly. And then all of a sudden, Elrath is going to jump in. He's going to go, oh, like, thank you, idiot.

But but but then but then Elrath is back to back. Right. So here's what I imagined. Immediately, as soon as back to back, Maric would would push backwards all the way up to a wall, not crushing Elrath, but effectively like like pushing her back so that he can get up up to up to a wall and protect Elrath. From anything that might be happening. Does that make sense? He's trying to protect you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's adorable. What's going to. Well, no, because he's about to do something. So he's going to be like, OK, I got to like he's going to push back.

Basically, I got it. And then push Elrath up against the wall. He's not again, not crushing her, hurting her, but like pushing. He's going to put his his thumbs together and his index fingers together, and he's going to make like a fan shape with his fingers, like all spread out. And Jason, I should clearly he's trying to get into a position where he can see as many snakes as he can at first, drop the torch and then do his his hands like this and cast Burning Hands. All right. So is this a is this a burst or something? Is this just. So I can read it to you real quick.

What happened, right? It's yeah. So thumbs touching finger spread. A thin sheet of flame shoots forth from your outstretched fingertips. Each creature in a 15 foot cone must make a dexterity saving throw. Three v six fire damage or if it's if it's unsuccessful, it's half damage. So dexterity save, right? So here's what we're going to do. We're going to have the let's say there's three swarms worth. Oh, wow. OK, there's one. Oh, they're going to fail. There's two. You said it was 10 or 13. 15 foot. Save. Oh, it's just a save. Yeah, it's just a saving throw. And OK, so one's definitely going to fail.

OK, who do you do? Is it half damage for the others? Yeah, it's half damage for the others. So it's three v six. Hang on. Each creature will take three v six fire damage. So just roll damage once. I believe that's right. Hang on. I'm reading this again because it's written weird in the in the spreadsheet that we have. I just want to make sure I got this right. It might be a formatting thing, too. Yeah, I think it's just a I just want to clarify real quick. So I'm going to turn it in hands. A creature takes three v six fire damage on a failed save or half as much damage on a successful one.

That doesn't make any sense. That's backwards. No, no, no. If they succeed on the save. Oh, a failed. OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So got it. Got it. Got it. So that's them. If they save, that's them seeing the fire going perfect and just moving. Got it. So three v six fire damage. So I should do three v six. I got three v six. What you got? I got 14. OK, so that is going to what's going to happen here is you're going to see this this this fire kind of fan out real quick and you're going to hear hisses and them react and stuff like that. A few snakes are going to fall down dead, kind of clearing the way right around, I'd say, where that rope is lowered.

Um, you know what I'm going to do? No, no. You're going to let us out. Oh, no. No, no. This rope is going to start to catch fire at the base of it. Wait a minute. You said there was a rope yet. They were going to go get a rope. They were lowering a rope. I was lowering a rope. That said, I have 50 feet of rope. Yeah, you're fine. You're fine. Put it out and we'll lower more. This is just more flavor than anything. I just want to put you in a picture. It's not a wick. Yeah, thankfully the wick is not a wick, it's a bomb. Well, I thought all your ropes were soaked in kerosene.

I thought that was just standard adventure gear. No, so this is just just for flavor. So this rope is lowered in. The base of it's going to start to kind of like burn upward a little slowly. Like it's not it's not going to jump up. But a bunch of these snakes are going to die. Some are going to back off a bit. But it looks like it looks like some of them are coiled to strike. So who is the first going up this rope here? Elarath would probably try to make Merrick do that since he got a little hurt during the fall. No, no, no. Whatever. I feel like they would just be like, no, no, I insist.

You go first. Ah, we're all dead. Guys, we've not got time for British politeness. Get your asses up the rope. I'm going to queue up politely. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any chance that Merrick would be able to throw Elarath? Oh, don't you two. Don't throw the dwarf. No, I'm just saying. All right. I'm going to throw this out there. One of you is immune to poison slash. Yes, that's what I was thinking. She was like, no, you. Fine. That makes sense. Fine, fine, fine, fine. Merrick's going to try to get up that rope real quick. OK. Do me a favor. Give me an athletics check.

That is good. I can do this because I've got a plus five. Oh, it's a 10. Wow. That was an 18 on my screen. It was. I mean, I mean, 18. I saw 18. I'm going to count that. Yeah. You are going to we're talking race. Yeah, you're basically it's like, OK, do you remember Bane in Dark Knight Rises where he he comes down that chain? That's what you're doing. Like you are just you are just ambling right up the thing. I'm going to have these snakes attack Elorath once more. Does that sound OK? Oh, fine. Just one more. Crit miss. Oh, wait. Oh, we don't. Oh, that was close. By the way, everybody, just to just to let everybody know, we are playing with brand new crit tables, crits and fumbles.

We are also playing with some some different rules and stuff introduced in the patch. But the way crits work on our table is we if someone rolls a crit one or 20, we roll a d6 on a three or higher. That's when you roll on the table. So sadly, that was a two. So no crit roll. Elorath, do me a favor. Give me an athletics check. Can do. Athletics. Oh, beautiful. Elorath is going to follow. I would say that the fire is not even like it's more like it's like kind of a clap it out type of thing and then just run, just climb straight up this rope and that'll get you out of the hole.

And these snakes are just going to sort of circle the pit at the bottom. And they are no danger to you anymore. Yeah. So Merrick's just going to he's probably on his back with like on his elbows a little bit at that point and just like lift up one hand for a high five. Oh, she definitely does it. OK. Holy fuck. That's what Merrick says. Did you see where that one like tried to bite me and was like, fuck miss. He's stuck. Another high five real quick. OK, everybody, we have a choice now. Do we deal with this kind of shit or we just stay dry until the weather's better?

That's actually Merrick and be like, I'm thinking maybe straight stay dry. Why don't we go stay dry now? Clara's going to look to like the whole party, like at first it seems like she's going to go, come on. But then she kind of realizes she's not the one who just fell into a snake pit. And just like. Fine. I mean, don't get me wrong, I. This is cool as shit. I just don't want anybody here to die or me. Um. There's a godly weapon in here, maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Could you imagine if we were the first ones to find that? After how long it's been missing. Can you imagine?

I mean, maybe we just maybe we just be extra, extra careful. Could we like, I don't know, can we like tie ropes to each other or something so that does not happen again? Then we all fall in together. Yeah, already. True, all that. Gotta be something, guys. Let me ask a question about this pit. Is, is this from side to side for, for this, um, this corridor or is this like we could go around it? You can go around it. This is not, this does not take up the entire corridor. OK. If we're like super, super careful and we all sort of stay towards the edges and we stay two by two and keep each other real close.

Maybe we could keep exploring because I don't want to, I don't want to pass this up. This is too cool. Clara's just going to nod like emphatically like, yeah, yeah, that anything you say, let's just keep going. OK, but you're leading. But you're leading from now on. I got this. Let's go. OK. As we're talking, Evelyn. This is all my bread and butter. Let's go. Evelyn just like kind of had his arms fold, folded, and he just has his look on his face like he, he, you know, he's just going to, he's just going to say, I feel like the stakes are rising. Keep that in mind.

But he'll continue forward. Mary, I'm going to be an idiot. Can I do a stupid thing? Jump back in the pit. I love snakes. No, no. This is going to be good. Ready? Say it again, Evelyn. Say what you said. Say what you said. Stakes are rising. I feel like the stakes are rising. Merrick's going to look him dead in the eye and put his hand on his shoulder and he's going to go, there may be stakes, but I'm a vegetarian. And then he's going to walk, then he's going to walk right past Evelyn and follow Clara. It's going to start raining snakes. Evelyn's doing that thing.

It's going to start raining. Evelyn does that thing where like, in movies, where like someone just walks off and like tells you off, he's just mouthing words, but he's like kind of thinking. He tilts his head. He kind of nods and then he walks forward. That's a good point. Is it legitimate? Yeah? Okay. Eph and he looks at the rest of the group and goes, okay, next time we leave him in the pit, yeah? Clara gives her a thumbs up. Merrick is walking going, yes! Yes! To himself. Brilliant! I might die, but I got that out. And you said you're going to continue to go straight.

I think so. Yeah, I think so. Okay. And Clara's leading the way. Yes. Okay. So, this hallway's going to continue and it's going to wrap to the left. Just kind of take a little bit of a dip. And then it's going to even out again and go straight until you get to the end of the hallway. Again, you are faced with a choice. Would you like to go right or left? No straight? No straight. You are at the end of this hallway. Stay left, maybe? Straight or left only. Or right. Or backwards. The other left. Clara will give Alarath the coin that she was holding. You want to roll a d6?

We'll just do whatever. Here we go. Evens left, right? Yep. Left is! We are going left. To the left, to the left. To the left, to the left. It had to be done. It's right up there with the "why did it have to be snakes" joke. Pasta. Going left down this hallway. It's going to curve very subtly to the right for a while. It's going to take some time to get to the end. But at the end of this hallway, it's going to open up into a room. And I think Clara is going to see pretty clearly, before even Torchlight hits it, being in the lead and Darkvision and all that stuff, there is a pedestal.

There's like a tiny little column. It takes up about maybe two, three feet, something like that. And there is something placed right on top of it. Almost like this were a museum. But it appears to be very small. Can I... I guess I couldn't see what it is because he said it's small? Yeah. Does anyone have a bag of sand that weighs exactly the same as what this item... Is it a golden head of any sort? No, it appears to be very small. Just tell from where you are outside the room, because I don't assume you walked in yet, from where you are outside the room, it appears to just be hovering off of this little pedestal.

Maybe it's the hand that the finger goes in. So it's like this to the brass knuckles of Vecna. Clara is going to check for traps before she enters the room. OK, do me a favor. Give me a perception check. I'm going to give you a negative one. This will go great. Hey, 14! Nice. You're not going to see anything. It looks pretty clear. This looks to just... She'll tiptoe in and she's like on her guard, but she's going to go in. OK. Merrick's going to push in behind because of illuminating things and also don't want to let you go in alone if you're going to get...

Well, I was actually going to have her do the thing where she tells you guys to wait because she doesn't want you guys to get in trouble. Do it. Depending on what you want to do. It doesn't either or, but it's kind of a thing where it's like, you just fell into a pit of snakes. I'll take this one. Merrick would be like... He would start to come in and if you turned around and were like, hang on, he would stop. Yeah. That way if a trap goes off, you guys aren't in the line of fire. Got it. So she'll do that. And then approach the thingy by herself. Yes. OK. And then...

Stone! Jason! So in this room, there doesn't appear to be anything other than this small dais. This... It's almost a display piece. But as Clara gets closer to this and the torchlight dances around this room, she's going to notice two things. One, the artwork in this room is different. It depicts different things. Essentially, Vecna is sort of looming over and there's going to be sort of... It almost looks like spirits or something coming out of his hand, that type of thing. But it stretches all the way around this room like one single mural. Floating just above this tiny display piece is a ring.

It appears to be purple and green, kind of like a swirling, almost like someone mixed two paints in water and just sort of swirled around. Almost like they dyed an egg. And it is going to be floating right here on this platform. What would Clara like to do? History check? Yeah. Go right ahead. OK. Let me see if I know anything about this. Hey! Yeah, you do. Correct! Wow. Very, very nice. Oh, I dropped that. Yeah, that's my mother's ring. And playing. Yeah, we're going to wait for that play. You said "deus" and now I have "rock me armada" stuck in my head. I love the "deus" in "deus".

So do I now. Thank you. I'm glad. It's either that or meat or cheese. So I mean, between the two. This ring belongs to a set, actually. Another artifact tied to Vecna, but it's a much more common item compared to the finger of Vecna. This is a ring that wards off this plane that's fucking circling our house. It's not doing a great fucking job. It's not. Well, you gotta put it on. Oh, yeah. Oh, shit. They have the ring of Vecna. The airport shuts down. OK. Thank you. Let's try that again. So this ring essentially is said to ward off necrosis. It's said to ward off damage that would be inflicted by the undead or by liches or by basically the things that go bump in the night.

Score? Clara is going to I assume she's holding a torch with one hand, so she's going to bring the other hand to her chest and close her eyes and whisper a small prayer to Vecna. And then she's going to grab the ring. You're going to feel an ever so slight pull as you as you grab for almost like it's held up by magnets, that type of thing. Like a Lego of my ego situation? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. You're just going to pull it and it's just like. Remember? No, no, no. Do you remember one? It's going to it's not a common piece of jewelry. You're going to you're going to feel that right away.

It's that there's definitely some some magic coming off of this. You could feel that the second it it it was on your hand. Are you wearing it or just grabbing it? She knows about it. Mm hmm. So I feel like she put it on. Wait, she's wearing gloves. OK. You can't put on a ring over gloves, so she's just going to hold it because she's holding a torch. I'm thinking very logically about what would happen in this situation. She's she's holding the torch with one hand. She's got her glove on. She's got the ring. I don't think she's going to put it on yet. She's just going to keep it in her hand.

OK. And then, you know, put it in a pouch or something on her waist. And then kind of look around the room and is there are there any other doors or did she come in through the one entrance? Just the one entrance, that's all that's in this room. And again, there there are no other doors, no no ways out beyond the one that you came in. And I imagine the party's kind of hovering around the doorway. Do you remember how I said that the the shadows were sort of dancing around, just the flame from the torch is illuminating the room? Yeah. These shadows are going to start to dance more aggressively, like you're going to just that periphery, your vision is just going to pick it up.

It's like, man, it looks like something just ran by that type of thing. Shadows are going to start to spring from the walls and take up space in the room with you. And they're going to try and attack Clara. OK. Now, the party is going to see this happen. It's almost the thing like if if if if Clara's looking around and and you guys get a clear vision of this room, you get a you have a clear sight of this room. And these shadows are going to start to almost like Bram Stoker's Dracula thing where the shadows are doing different things in the background.

They're going to sort of ebb into the 3D space of the room instead of being against the 2D space of the walls. And they're going to lurch forward towards Clara. What would you like to do? Leave. More than anything. That said, I imagine she would reach back and grab her short sword for protection and start backing out of the room. They are going to try and head Clara off? Mm hmm. And I would like you to do me a favor. Yes. I want you to roll a deck save. OK. You get a 15 or higher. You are just boom. You are out of the room before they can cut you off. OK. I'm just going to.

Here we go. Oh, no. I tripped. You, I'm not going to say you tripped, but it was maybe you're just like maybe it takes a while for the message from your brain to be sent to your legs. Like it's like. Right. Like that type of thing where this is just so freaky. These things, these are shadows like they are 3D manifestations of shadows. So what's going to happen is they are going to surround Clara instead. And let me go ahead and get you a map so that. Cool. I am going to ask everyone to do me a favor and roll initiative. All right. I need to pull up the combat tracker and cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

Oh, those are some good rolls. Not bad. Hey, hey, I got to do it. I got to do it. And I got to I got to figure out exactly where I do that. It's on the main page between your your armor class and your speed. Oh, God, thanks. I could not find it. Good. Gorgeous. Love it. So what we're going to do is we're going to start off with shadow number three and then there's a chunk of you guys and then it's following up with the rest of the shadows. Mm hmm. What are the shadows on the ball? Yeah, the other ones were just kind of like asleep at the wheel. All right, fine, then let's do this.

Are you guys ready? Yes. Yes, definitely. OK, that was. Oh, man, I've always wanted to die during a live stream. Let's go. Oh, boy. Here defense defense. I can't kill you. It's going to kill you. That was another wrestling reference, but I think everyone can appreciate it. So it's not a sport. Let's do that, too. So, uh, shadow number three is going to move up to chlora, dark at chlora and use something called strength drain. Let's see. Ta da. That's going to miss. Oh, beautiful. That is a that's a good start. And that'll bring up Effany. What would Effany's reaction to this be?

Oh, shit. Um, yeah, probably shock. Oh, crap. What the hell is going on? And then try and very quickly pull us off together and probably move. Yeah, move up closer to where Clara is and go for shadow number three. Um, what to do? She's going to cast dissonant whispers at it. So she's going to pull out her violin and draw the bow across it, but very, very badly to make a real screech sound towards this creature to cast dissonant whispers. I can definitely sound a Georgia shit right there. I thought that's what I was going to say. And he pulled the bows across the string and it made an evil hit.

Remember how to cast a spell? It sounded something like this. Don't worry, we kept everyone entertained while you were doing that. I did it twice again. My accent. Sorry. Take the first one. They're both failures. So this is the show is going to fail either way. Excellent. It takes three d six psychic damage. Oh, that was it rolling for. Never mind. Take the second one. I thought that was Anthony rolling twice. Okay. Do me a favor. Give me some damage. Ooh, nine damage to shadow number three. It all has so has to move as far as its speed allows away from me. Okay. Away from you specifically.

Yes. So. It's going to move back into the corner. I forget a forced a force move. Does that the Decorate Combat? Or the Attack of Opportunity? Attack of Opportunity. Yeah. I think so. I believe that's how it was worded in the book because we've used this before. Go ahead, Clara. Take an attack against that shadow. Basic melee. Yep. All right. I'm using my short sword. I forgot to target him. Should I do it against targeting him? Or do you want to just tell me whether or not I hit or miss? You hit. Okay, cool. All right. Now I'm going to target him and do my damage. Good.

Eight. Eight damage. Good, good, good. All right. Wait. Oh. Oh, shit. Did I pick the wrong shadow? I'm sorry. Yep. You picked the wrong shadow. I have everything minimized. Do you want to just switch it over? Yep. I got it. Sorry. That's okay. It was, I had a window open, so I saw Anthony move it back. So I picked the one that was in that direction. You're totally fine. All right. Anything else, Anthony? That's everything for now, I think. All right. Aveline, your turn. What would Aveline's reaction to this be? Oh, he'd be definitely surprised, because he didn't think anyone was here.

So having shadows jump out of the wall is very surreal. And he's not sure if he could even touch any of them. So he's going to run towards shadow number four in the corner over here. Okay. I should have enough movement to get right there. Yep. Or maybe even right here if I can. And basically, Aveline is going to take a slash to see if anything hits. Okay. Let's see. Sorry, man. Oh, that is going to miss. But that is, that's not you hitting and it sliding through. It's more like you take a slash and this thing just sort of deftly moves. It's almost like water, trying to hit water.

Okay. Anything else? No, that's it. All right, Clara. All right. Okay. I'm trying to decide whether or not Clara would just tell everyone to get the fuck out of here. The attack I did, the attack of opportunity, looking at the guy I hit, does it look like it did anything? Yes, but not traditionally. I would say as Clara strikes with the short sword, it's almost going to feel like swinging oatmeal. Like that type of thing where you are going to, you're going to feel resistance, but it's not like hitting a human person. It's not like hitting like a gut, like normal.

It's going to be like dragging it and there's going to be almost like ink in water. Like it's just going to pull away from the body a little bit. So as it floats away, you are going to see, you're going to see that you affected it and you're going to guess that it hurt. Right. Okay. So it did hurt, so she's not going to run. I was thinking about running, but if it hurt, it's fine. She's going to move up to this fucker. She is going to drop her torch and take out her sickle. And she is going to try to hit with short sword. All right, let's do it. Shev number two.

Ooh, that's going to miss. All right, and then I believe... "To do weapon fighting, you can add a Billing Modify to the damage of your second attack." I don't think... Yes, okay, so I have a thing where I can replace my second attack with an action, but I can still, I can take that second attack as long as I don't do that thing. We figured that out, right? I believe so, yeah. Yeah, so I'm going to attack with my sickle next. Okay. Oh, wow. That one is also going to miss. Yep. Hmm. I'm going to hold on to my action surge and just end my turn there. All right, Elrath.

How would Elrath be feeling about this whole situation? Oh, she hates it. Okay. Okay, so here's where she's thinking. Clara and her have been getting real close. They've been getting really close over the last few times, and she wants to be over there, but I don't think she can get there. She doesn't think she's fast enough to get to Clara. Right. So what she's going to do is pop over here by Avalon and try and at least dispatch of one of them where she can get advantage. Okay, and you will have advantage. She's going to try and swing her flail at shadow number four.

Yay! Let's do it. Oh, dang it, I forgot to hit advantage. Well, you hit anyway. Well, but maybe then I hit it. You might get a crit, so yeah, go for it. All right, I'll do it just one more time. Okay. Almost a crit. I have been waiting for this crit for like two years. I haven't gotten a crit in two years. Okay, sorry. All right, so damage, I think it's just this. Ooh, seven damage. Nice. And that will be her turn. All right, Marek, how you feeling? Not great, I'm going to be honest. But my question, so first of all, question. With any of these torches that are now in the room, Marek is trying to pay attention.

Does the light that's in this room affect the shadows in any way? In other words, are you avoiding it? It doesn't seem to. Well, that's shitty. [laughter] I wanted fire to solve the problem again. I did, kind of. Okay. All right, well, I guess Marek's just going to rush in and try to just smash something with his mace like a golf club. All right. How far can I go here? Is it possible for me to run up to any of these? Is it that close? You are, what's your run speed, 30? Sure. Let me look. 30, yep. 30, yeah. So you can move six spaces. One, two, three, four, five, six.

Blam, there you go. I'm going to try to target something. There we go. There we go, shadow one. Shadow one. Good luck. And I am going to, yeah, thanks. That'll hit. Yes. Thanks. And damage is... No way, what am I doing? Mace. Damage is mace. Cool, I think it's dead. Mace to the face. That was an attack. Why are you riding, why are you on a T20 on a hit? Oh, you're a monster. I got it. So five damage, okay. Five damage. And again, you're going to feel, it's like swinging it, it's like swinging it a water balloon or something. It doesn't have that same satisfying strike that you normally get.

Does it bleed? God, anything else? Nope, I'm good. All right, shadow number four is going to target Elorath. Let's target Elorath. So rude. I just came here to have a good time and I'm feeling personally attacked. Let's see if this, ooh, that's a 20, that'll hit. Why do you got to do me like that? Look, so this is 12 necrotic damage. Ow. Shit, Elorath, take my ring. Just throw it. Here's the worst part. You're giving me your ring? The target strength score is reduced by 1d4. My what? Your strength score. Fuck you. Could you do me a favor? My what? Roll a 1d4. I'm going to roll a fucking four.

Okay, three. Three? Okay, so that brings your strength score down to 11. Why? That affects how hard I can swing, Jason. I know. Okay, hold up. That's probably why they call it strength drain. Yeah. You're so mean. Now, the good news is this does not last forever. It's just until you take a longer short rest. But yeah, in this fight, that's not great, obviously. So let's reduce your strength score. There we go. Ooh, that is not good. That hurts. Shadow number one is going to target Marek. Nope. 17. That'll hit. Will it though? I think. Another 12. Damn. Could you do me a favor?

Roll a 1d4. Yeah. Four. Fuck. That's high. That's good. That's a good one. Oh, boy. I'm writing down your original strength score just so that we return it to normal after this. So that'll reduce you to 12 for strength. And I would say that you would feel... Yeah. Ooh, yeah. You're gonna feel yourself get weaker the instant these shadow monsters strike you. You're gonna feel it like, whoa, like almost a dizziness, like you could fall down. That's gonna bring up shadow number two. Shadow number two is going to target Klara. Checks out. Fuck. You're not wearing the ring, correct?

Nope. Okay. Well, that's a seven. Could you do me a favor? Roll a 1d4. I sure can. Oh my God. Okay. So we're all gonna run, right? Now that we know they can do this. We're taking off. Okay, cool. About time to be hitting that dusty trail. Whoa. That was my bad. I didn't mean to roll a strength check. Oh, fuck you. Good, a 20. Oh my goodness. Okay. Well, that brings up shadow number three. Shadow number three is going to mosey on down here to Marek. No. Why not? Target Marek. Stop targeting Klara. Well, yeah. I mean. He's gonna get advantage on this one and attack. Oh, he dropped a two to get that fucking 18.

Holy shit. Okay. That's only five damage. Could you do me a favor and roll another 1d4? Yeah, I can do that. Why would I not do that? A three is no big deal. Not bad. So Jason, do we know what happens if our safer chance or strength reaches zero? Anything crazy happen? You die. Oh, that's kind of crazy. It's kind of crazy. A little bit. It was nice knowing you guys. What if I put the ring back? Do you think that would be chill? Seriously though, what if I put the ring back? It's an option. At least try it. Here on this map is the dais, the Rock of the Amadeus. I'd say dead, like right in the center of the room, like right behind you.

Okay. So, you have a few options. You have a few options here. Okay. One, you could try putting this back. Two, you can make for the door. Three, you can continue fighting. Right. Those are our options. Those are your options. I think that everyone kind of agrees that we should not keep fighting. At least everyone who's been hit by the strength drain recognizes that. Like, Avalon might not get it yet, but everyone else is kind of like, "Oh shit, something bad is happening inside of me." Right? Like, it's not a good feeling. No. Yes. Correct. That said, it's not my turn.

It's Efenny's turn and she's the safest of the three of us. So far, yeah. Of the four of us. Yeah, Efenny's going to stay where she is. Being a little bit of a coward, but she's also trying to keep an eye on everybody as well. You're also a fucking magic user. No one expects you to. Right. Yeah, exactly. And hey, it worked last time, so let's dissonant whispers again. Let's see if we can do some more psychic damage to this guy. All right, let's do it. He's going to succeed on that one. Damn it. Is there any... I don't think it takes half damage. I'm just checking, sorry.

Oh no. Yeah, half damage and doesn't move away. All right, sweet. That's good. That's great. Ooh, that's good. That's good damage. Fuck yeah. So, one of them that's going to be half that will kill the shadow. Yes. Yay. So the shadow is going to almost explode. It almost looks like spider webbing, like this kind of, like a fireworks display, but for shadow just and then fade away. Okay. All right. So they can be killed or at least dissipated. They can bleed. Since that's someone that hit Maric, does his strength kind of feel like it's returning? Like maybe it was an effect?

Nope. I tried. You did. No, that's completely admirable. Okay. All right. We might be able to take these guys. All right, but let's retreat a little bit. Okay. Can I say for sure that the door is right there behind Efni where that opening is? Yes. Okay. Everyone just do their turn normal. No one panic. I don't want to meta game. I'm just saying like, there's where the door is in case. Does Efni do anything else? As a bonus action, Efni will give Bardic Inspiration to Clara. She will sing Me Against the World by Simple Plan. Yes! I'm going to bring them back. I'm going to bring them back.

They'll never bring us down. We'll never fall in line. We'll make it in a row. See, that's why I chose that one. I don't have to sing it. Breedon. Is there a bonus now because I sang it? I was going to sing it either way. It doesn't matter. And that will end my turn. All right. So what does Bardic Inspiration do? You get to add a d6, I believe, to a roll. Awesome. Avalon, you're up. How are you feeling? You feeling good? Feeling strong? I feel great. Everyone around me though is... I see all this, right? I see people not doing so hot. I would say the normal response to getting struck by something, right?

The normal response is like, "Oh!" and you tighten your grip. This is a little different where someone gets hit and you can kind of see them lilt a little bit. Like the Elrath's flail drops a little bit. Just having a bit of a hard time. I do have advantage, right? Because we're flanking. You sure do. All right. As a bonus action, I want to drop the shield in front of me, which lowers my AC by two. I'm going to two-hand wield my longsword. And I'm going to try to bring it down twice using my action surge on this shadow. All right. Let's do it. Let's see what you got.

Here's the first swing with advantage. We might see a crit, guys. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it in the air. There it is. Oh, it's the crit! Oh my gosh. I'm a fighter. I'm a champion, so I crit on 19s. What? Take me favor. Holy shit. Take me favor. Roll a D6. Come on, come on, come on. Three or higher, we are rolling on the new crit table. Oh, that's okay. Still a crit. Yeah. Do me a favor. Hold shift and click for damage. Okay. Gorgeous. That is eight damage to this shadow. You're going to do another strike. Yep. 15. You have advantage. Oh, yeah. That's right. Okay. Let's take that first one. 15 will hit and that is another eight damage.

Anything else? That is it. All right. Klara, your turn. Sweet. I am going to attack this shadow. All right. Did you see that one coming? Did you see it? Bet you didn't see that one coming. All right. It's out of left field, but we'll go with it. All right. I'm going to use my sword sword. Here we go. That'll hit. Nice. Do I have to say I add the Bardic Inspiration before I make a thing or after? I believe you can use it after. Okay. Anyway, here's my attack. That is max damage. Seven. Nice. And I'm going to go ahead and add that superiority dice to that roll as well. So I'm going to do this many more damage.

Is that cool? Seven. Sounds like it. Yeah. Good. Bam. Oh. Well. It's still extra damage. No. It's cool. Okay. So I did eight damage. And then I'm going to attack it with my sickle. That'll hit. And then I'm going to do 1d4 slashing. That's three. So there you go. That's it. That's good. That's not bad. Wait, actually, do I want to use an action surge, guys? Do you think that would be a good idea and just get one more hit in? Just one more lick? Hit and run. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to use my action surge and hit with my short sword one more time. All right. Let's do it. I was going to save it for running, but like, I want to kill this thing.

All right. That'll hit. You know, it's your duty as a fighter to blow your load. Oh God. Yeah, this is Vecna. Oh God. Why? Ew. That's another three damage. Three damage. It was kind of lackluster orgasm. I was just like, oh, okay, I guess we're done. I could start over and try again, but like, I'm tired. It's already really late. Took some Nyquil. Uh, Elorath. Apparently it's going to spin in a circle for a second. Breakdancing? Sure. I didn't realize maps could zoom in like that. Okay. Well, she's going to do the same thing. Even though like she feels a really weak and that scares the shit out of her.

She's going to try and swing her flail at it one more time with advantage. All right. Still targeting shadow number four. Okay. I'm waiting for our first crit of the day with the new. I'm waiting for it. It's not happening for me. Holy shit. Fuck. I dropped a one though. At least he dropped the one. That's true. Cause then we would have gotten the first crit of the day. We would have. It would have happened. Well, uh, that's a five that's going to miss. Gonna miss. Um, I'm trying to think. I don't think there's anything else she could really do. Um, other than maybe yell fuck really loudly.

Is that the second miss in a row? Uh, no. She hit last time, which is why I missed shadow attack her. Okay. But she's, but she's like really tired. She's like, fuck. Uh, Maric. Well, hello. Uh, quick question. Would there be any sense since Maric's a cleric, um, that this, that these creatures would be a sort of undead? Uh, they, I would say you're definitely picking up some. Just as a hunch. That's all. Yeah. I think you're definitely picking up a little something on that. All right. Well then, cause I'm a cleric, I'm actually going to do what clerics do best and that's turn undead.

So I'm going to pull out my holy symbol and I'm going to, to, um, go, I'm going to say some, some, basically a little curse against the undead. Be like you foul creatures, get the fuck away from me. Um, and then, okay, hold on one second. I don't want to interrupt. Go ahead. Not that they're flat out undead, but the same kind of, um, you're, you're thinking maybe some radiant damage might be in order. Oh, Oh, Hmm. Hmm. Well then that's not what I meant to say. I know. No, I just, Hey, I just, I thought that's not what you meant to say. That's why I wanted to chime.

I appreciate that. Um, I've been itching to turn undead since I've been playing a cleric and that's been almost four years and haven't actually had the chance to do it. Um, that's okay because what I can do is use my other channel divinity called radiance of the dawn. Okay. Uh, because I'm in the light domain because of, um, my, my deity. Um, I'm going to present my holy symbol and basically at this point it's going to, if there's any magical darkness, which I don't know that there is, is just going to be completely dispelled. Um, also any creature that's, that's hostile, which I'm assuming that they're hostile.

They're a little hostile. Yeah. They're going to have to make a constitution saving throw. Um, failed saving throws, radiant damage and half if they have a successful one. Okay. And that's, uh, that's how far out from you? Uh, 30 feet in any direction. Oh, so that's, yeah. Uh, uh, shadow one and shadow two. Not all of those. Yeah. All of those 30 feet in any direction. Sorry. Uh, so yeah, that's six spaces. Yeah. That's straight. Yeah. You listen to me. I know what I'm doing here. I'm sorry. No, I don't know what I'm doing here. Um, yeah. So they have to all save a constitution saving through.

All right. Let's uh, let's fucking do this then. Uh, uh, well that's uh, that's bad. Uh, that's bad. Uh, this one is also, uh, 13. What's your spell DC? You tell me. I have no earthly idea. Where do I even look for such a thing? I believe if you go to your spells, it will have your spell DC listed near the top. Proficiency in what? Just your overall proficiency. Your overall, it's your plus two right now. So I am. Yeah. Oh, it's got it. Yep. 10 plus my wisdom water, mom water fire would be a 13. Uh, so that's going to be it. Sweet. So what this means is 2d 10 plus my level, which is four.

Okay. 10 plus wait, roll two. Hmm. How do I do a plus four on this? I got it. Yep. That modifier right at the bottom of the screen. Yep. Four. Two D 10, two D 10. Everyone hope for eye roll. Oh shit. Beautiful. That is fucking phenomenal. Yes. That is going to wipe the room clear of the shadow beast. Fantastic. Can you detail how that happens? Yeah. How the fuck does this look? You mean from my point of view? Yeah. How does that, how does that radiate out for me? Give me a little, you should not pass. What are you, what are you doing? Yeah. So what happens is I basically, it's my turn.

And all of a sudden I'm, I just pull out my holy symbol, which is really around his neck. And he just basically grabs an amulet and just sort of like holds it up front a little bit and then starts doing a little bit of a, of a chance, sort of like a little prayer. And then I don't, there's no real magical darkness I think in here, but just for effect, I feel like the room would just brighten just a little bit like this. Whoa, like what's happening? And then you're just going to feel like a, like a, a radiant, not a bomb going off, but like a whoosh that radiates out from my amulet and goes basically through everything in the room.

But it won't affect anything but the, the bad guys. So it just goes whoosh. And as it does, I imagine that they would all sort of break apart into those little spider webby things. Yeah. They are all going to dissipate and there's going to be a silence that sort of clears the room. I imagine there's a lot of huffing and puffing. Especially the people who were struck with that, that strength drain. So the only thing that you're going to hear in this room right now is the sound of your own breathing. I pull out my mace and... Kidding. Okay. Shit. Clara's going to like fall to her knees panting.

Just fuck this. I think from the, from the strength drain, I think Merrick would do the same thing except for not with the orgasmic. Yes. I really like fighting the shadows. Uh, Abilene wasn't hit. So he's just gonna look around the room and ask, is everyone all right? Fuck. I feel like Clara is going to look over to Merrick who it seems took the most damage. Yeah, not good. And kind of pat him on the back. Like, are you all right? Uh, yeah, I'll be fine. That uh, you okay? She'll kind of like, um, bend her fingers. Like she's checking to make sure and nod. Feel weird, but I'm okay.

Me too. I'm super weak. Uh, no, no, I just not, not just from damage. I just, I feel really weak. She's going to look to the party and be like, guys, come here. And she's going to reach into her pouch and hold out the ring of Vecna. And she's going to kind of hold it into the middle of the group and go, this probably would have been super useful a few minutes ago. And then she's going to explain what the ring of Vecna is and what it does. Evelyn's going to pick up his shield. The rest probably going to like, I, that ring to be like, that's cool. And just like put her flail away and take a breath.

And Clara's eyes are kind of lit up. Like she's pretty fucking excited. Everyone made it out. Okay. So she's just excited. You know, this means that there might, the sword might actually be here. Like if this is here, then that, you know? Yeah. If, if we're having to deal with this shit, I mean, snakes is one thing. Shadows coming out of a wall and a ring, uh, that that's, that helps you against necrotic stuff. There's something here. And it ain't just that. And we, we took care of the shadows like that was fine. We'll be, I mean, yeah, I, thing is I can't do that again.

Like I truly can't do that again unless I get some sleep. And I don't know if I feel safe sleeping in here. Do you? I mean, if, if we went back to the front room, maybe not this room, this room sucks, but like we could trek out again in the morning, maybe like she's leaving it open for you guys to say no, but she's very excited. We could, um, like try to just like rest for a minute. Cause like, I'm pretty tired right now, but like, I just need to sit down for a minute. Like I don't think I can go to bed yet. Clara will nod and just like very acquiescing to any requests.

And she's like, how about, how about we bed down and maybe we can talk about it in the morning. We could go sleep in the wagon if you guys want, or we can set up camp upfront, wherever you guys want to do. Let's let's at least pop back up, check the weather, see how it's going. And look, if we don't have to stay down, this is not safe. If we don't have to stay down here, I don't want to abandon this place because who knows when the last time somebody was even in this place, right? I mean, it could be, it could be a long time. We can't give this up, but let's take a break.

Clara will nod and do a little half jog back to the door. I agree. Yep. And before you go, I think you should put on the ring. Smart, smart. They might save you. You never know. Is there a way to make sure that that ring is not like, don't hurt you or are you are are you good with it? Clara's going to open her hand and look at the ring again. And judging by the look on her face, it only just occurred to her that one of us could wear the ring. Like she was thinking of it as like this really cool artifact, not as an actual like thing. Are you guys sure I should be the one to wear it?

Like, and she's going to kind of hold it out to the group. Like I'm pretty sure this is just protection. It's Vecna. Look, we're not going to flip a coin and see who gets it. You're the one who ran into the room. You're the one who got it. And, you know, as far as I'm concerned, we helped you get back out of the room. That's yours. You deserve it. Her face is just going to light up and she'll take off her glove and slip on the ring. I hope that she's right about the thing she just said. As a result. Roll a d4. You are definitely going to feel something when you put this on.

And it's I'd say in your in your spirit, like you just feel it's like I can't explain it, but I feel like something's protecting me like that. It's a good feeling overall. Before I'm pretty sure I know where you're going with this, but before we end it, she's just going to look to the group and go, whatever we whatever else we find, we're going to split it up fairly, right? That's what groups do. Avalanche shrugs. Shrugs as well. OK, unless we want it. All right. So you're heading back up top to get some rest, it sounds like, right? Yeah. Check the weather, see if we can like we got to get out of this place to rest.

I think we checked that side chamber on the way. No. OK, I mean, it's not the way. We'll come back. We're going to come back. We're coming right back down. All we got to do is get some rest. Stick a snap. On a scale of one to thirty one, Merrick feels twenty three shitty right now. OK, fair enough. Fair enough. Wow. Anybody got any healing potions? Anthony would like to cast cure wounds on Merrick before we leave this room. Smart. Can you please? I'll take it. Let's do it. Now, every day, a cleric needs healing, you know? Well, you know, it's kind of dawned on me.

It happens. For this day, I didn't I didn't prepare a lot of healing spells. I prepared a lot of offense stuff for some reason. OK, I rolled it, but I wasn't sure I was actually properly targeting Merrick. You weren't, but I'll take care of it. You're good. Don't worry. You are going to head back up to the surface. It's still very much raining now. There's like a thunderstorm going on. But if you're bending down in the cart, there's plenty of room for everyone to sort of stretch out and lay down. Merrick, do me a favor. Could you roll 2d for me? Oh, yeah, that's you.

Oh, no. Thank you. Just because of the stress of the situations that you were in. I just want to go five. All right. Sweet. Maybe you want to go meditate or something like just before bed. That's his thing anyway. It's either going to bed or waking up. He's going to meditate anyway. You're probably going to be fine. It's just to keep track. No, totally. So you're you're bedding down for the night. You're taking and you're getting a long rest. Yeah. Yes. America's going to do that. I don't know if everybody else is going to do it. Checking on the horses to making sure that they're cool, that they're hanging out.

Yeah. Everything's fine with the horses. No one stole your cart or anything like that. Everything's good. So let's get you guys a long rest. Let's do that for you. All right. So your strength is going to return to you. Like you're going to you're going to wake up and just feel like 100 percent better. Like it's the difference between having a really bad cold or the flu and just waking up and feel it's like, oh, man, I feel so much better. So let me go ahead and adjust your strength scores. Yeah. Thank God. I was worried about that. I didn't know how that was going to happen.

Yeah, you're you're fine. Everything returns to normal. I'm going to go ahead and fix this right up for you. America's down to nine strength out of 16. Yeah. Wow. All right. What would you guys like to do? It sounds like you wanted to head back in. Yeah, we got to go. We got it. We can't let this go. OK. Super, super careful. Always super careful. Heading back down, torch is lit. The the pittance pitons. I don't know how you pronounce that word. Those little those little railroad spiky type things are hammered still in front of the door. So this is still cracked open.

The stairs are going to be a bit slippery. But nothing you guys can't handle just because the rain has been pouring in and stuff like that. So you're going to see sort of the old crime and dust and and and stuff kind of swirl with the with the fresh rain coming in from outside. So it's a bit muddy down at the base of the steps. Now you've went straight and you've went left. Do you want to continue to explore what was left or do you want to head right this time? Efni, you said you wanted to go to that side room, right? That was like something you really wanted to do.

I mean, I'm sorry, I'm an Elarath. Yeah, that was me. That was Elarath. Too many e-names. All the e-names. I think she would just because it would be like nagging at her, like, what is that? So it sounds like we're going left. Yeah. All right. And I feel like it's a thing where we're planning to go through all of the things eventually. OK. As long as we don't, you know, nothing unfortunate happens. I highly doubt that's going to happen. All right. So you got yourself another hallway. And this is interesting. A lot of the artwork in this particular hallway leading down as this thing kind of takes a couple of banks, like a little left, a little right, that type of thing.

It's all about, it appears to be all about resurrection or, you know, maintaining someone's life beyond the normal, that type of thing. So there's all kinds of different bits of artwork. Again, all of this is etched into the wall. So you're going to see Vecna's hand hovering over a complete cemetery and bodies rising out from under that. You're going to see people on their deathbed and they return sort of like there's a happy kind of aura to their face. Like they look delighted to be back from the dead. Thank you, Vecna, that type of thing. Whoever etched this into the wall was a big Vecna fan.

Like you're getting that if the other carvings didn't send that to you already. Finally, you're going to reach a room. Is this a thing where you would just walk in or are you sort of... No. No? Okay. You're just walking on the outside, just like, uh huh. We're like three times as slow as we were when we went in the first time. Like walking in every direction, every step, basically. Who's leading? Let's let Avalon kind of take point. Avalon, could you do me a favor? Roll a perception check for me. Ooh. All right. That's a 12. That's respectable. That's good. This room is interesting.

There appears to be more on the outskirts of the room than anything in the center. The center is kind of wide open. And you're going to see what appears to be some sort of a storage area or... It's almost like there's cubby holes. Holes sealed away, almost lockers lining the walls. That's all you're going to see. Each one of these, they appear to be labeled, but it's a little tough to make out from here. Want to check for traps and then head in? Yep. Do it. Someone not me do it though. Well, we got... A lot of people need to be doing as much as we can. I know Merrick's going to do it.

Is it an investigation? Just give me a perception. Perception. It's a 13. Oh, that was almost a 20. So okay, you guys are percepting the shit out of this. So okay. Adeline already gave one at the beginning of this. So here's the thing. I'm going to say this is like a Friends-style, everyone positioned at the doorway here. And all of you are just leaning in, craning your heads up and down and looking around just like, okay, okay. And then stepping into the room. And if you were to walk up to these, they're all written in Elvish, but they appear to be people's names.

Oh, this is going to be treasure trove time. Let's do it. Carefully. Told you that you came down here last night. Clara will kind of go down the list with her torch and just be reading off some of the names. Okay. And none of these appear to be famous figures or anything like that, but each one of these has the same brass handle, but much smaller. Looks like it's a drawer or a door you can pull, something like that. But I'd say there's a good 25 to 30 of them in this room. Do they appear locked? No, they don't appear locked. These are all etched out of stone.

Again, just like every room you've encountered so far, coated in spiderwebs and thick, thick dust. It doesn't look like anyone's been here in probably centuries. Well, Elorath will probably pull one open. Yeah. The second Elorath touches. No. Were you very- He loves Elorath. No. Never. It's amazing. So Elorath is going to pull one of these. Do me a favor, give me a strength check. Oh, okay. No. All right. This is going to come off fairly easily. So it's not a drawer, but you are going to pull this door clean off of its hinges. This is just, it just fell away. And inside, it's going to take your eyes just a second to adjust because this is sort of, I would say probably a four foot wide space, about two and a half, two and a half, three feet tall.

So this little rectangular box, basically you're going to rip the door off of this and it's going to be much deeper on the inside. Oh no. Yeah. Is there a body in there? Yeah, it's a body. There is indeed a body in there. Oh no. Wrapped. Oh shit. And then on the other side of the door, you have a door in the back of your toe, in what appears to be grimy brown faded, like dried up bandages. Mirek leaves the room. As the door comes off in Elorath's hand, three of these doors are going to fall away and move in the room. I think that's a good time for us to stop for the day.

Oh no. Oh my God. Mummies! We're seeing mummies! They're droger. Mummies, Elorath. Oh my goodness. I hope that five of them come together and help protect me because I'm actually their ancient pharaoh resurrected and that is a deep ass cut. Guys I have two things to say. Number one, I'm glad it's canon that Mirek left the rooms because that's perfect. Secondly I know that's not true. Actually the third thing is mummies I'm absolutely certain are undead. I'm fairly sure. So my four year plan has come to fruition. I can turn. I can turn. You can turn. You got this.

I got this. You guys are going to be great. That is one session in the can for Theriathan. Damn, nice job. Thank you guys so much. We did it. Went out of the way there buddy. Yeah, we got this. We can do it. I believe it. This is going to be weird. It's just me for a while now. And the other groups. It's this weird. Yeah, I got to go apologize to my wife. And also get yelled at. Telana I said hi. I deserved it. And I will. After you apologize. I don't want her associating me with anger. Like I... No, no. Jason says hi! See if I can say it passive aggressively somehow. That'll help.

Jason said hi. Jason said hi. Roll my eyes. Also, I didn't pick a side in whatever fight is going on. Like it's not. There are no sides. It's just a fight. That's not what I meant, Kammock. We get to say hi to the chat. Hi chat. Thanks for being there chat. What have you all been talking about? Apparently like danger noodles and snakes. Oh, thank you. 10 out of 10 best shimmy. I'm like scrolling back up. And I'm like, what do you guys think about that one? Someone mentioned Vecna in the chat and I I've always loved Vecna. Like I know he's evil in most traditional games, but even then I fucking I adore him.

Like so he's been cool guy. Wolfman versus the mummy. That's good. Wolfman versus the mummy. I think what we should do is we should start a cinematic universe and fuck it up right out the gate and then never speak of it again. That sound good to everyone? All right. Yeah. Oh my God. That was such a good session. Yeah, I loved it. Thanks everybody for being there and listening. Is it weird to hear it live or is it the same? Because I always hear it live. I would say was it weird for you guys like knowing that people are listening like right the second? No, no. I was able to immediately forget it as soon as I closed out the chat.

Yeah, I think that helped. It was just playing. I definitely think if I had been able to read the chat, I would have been nervous. But since I didn't read the chat, I was fine. I'm gonna eat an apple while we're while we're sitting here. Sounds amazing. Go for it. No, for real. I'm gonna go apologize to my wife. Okay. Actually, yeah, let me clear the call and get ready. We're gonna have a quick intermission. Sweet. Can I show the chat what I've been working on this whole time? Sure. Okay. Because it's me. I've been crocheting. Surprise, surprise, while we've been doing this.

Oh, I hope I'm not too backlit. Hold on. Let's do this. Blam. Look at that. Oh, wow. Beautiful. And then it's when it's done. I think all these loopies are gonna get pulled through kind of like a braid. Where are you looking? I can't see anything. Oh, sorry. Oh, there. Oh, there it is. It's on Skype. Pretty. Oh, nice. Very cool. That's beautiful. Also, I'm Lisa. Hi, everybody. Well, now, I may have a bias, but I do believe that every single group did an amazing job at Theoryathon. I can't wait for you to hear the entire set. If you see them on Discord or on Twitter, stop and say hello.

Tell them they did a great job at Theoryathon because, honestly, every single person did amazingly. Speaking of our Discord, we are brought to you today by patreon.com/dandr. Don't skip this. It's really important, actually, because during Theoryathon and the week after, we hit two milestones, one of which was character art. We're actually in the process of doing character art now. Cole Vernon, you may know him as Ink Splatter Architect on our Discord server, does some amazing art, and he is doing two things for us right now. One is character art. We're going to slowly but surely start churning those out.

We're actually getting a chance to do town and city art. We're taking votes right now on our Patreon. It's public. Anybody can vote on it. You don't even have to back us on Patreon. But that's going to close up Monday, May 7th, so jump on that. We actually have a host of brand new milestones, too, including wrestling randomness, something where we are going to be playing a wrestling RPG, essentially. It's a modified version of 5e, and we're going to be doing something really silly. It's an additional one shot on top of everything else that we do, and it's just kind of an excuse for us to have goofy fun.

There's also a short audiobook about Talor, and it's completely written. I'm in the midst of recording that right now, so when we do hit that milestone, it just goes out to all our lovely patrons. Thank you very much. There's a bunch of other stuff on there, too. We do a character chat each and every month. I'm getting ready to be interviewed, which is kind of... The last one I did was like 2016, something like that. Breeze being kind enough to do that and answer all of your questions. I believe we're still taking questions up until Tuesday or Wednesday, which is the...

I believe it's the 9th or 10th that it's the cutoff. So if you swing by our Discord server and you want to ask a question, go ahead. We're actually taking them on Twitter and Facebook, too. You can send us an email to dandrpodcast@gmail.com. That's dandrpodcast@gmail.com. If you want to ask a question about me personally or something, that's usually what the character chats are. And then, I don't know, process characters, that type of stuff, whatever. It's all on the table. Go right ahead. Thank you guys so much for listening to us. I really hope you enjoyed today's episode.

Please give us any feedback. Swing on by iTunes, give us a five-star review. We're really trying to climb back up in the charts, because I think we're like number 12 or something on that. That just won't do. We want to expand our reach. We want to reach new listeners. Share it with your friends, all that good stuff. Thank you guys, and we'll see you next week with another great episode of Dungeons & Randomness.