The Heart of the Matter

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

Howdy folks and welcome back to Frostborn! Before we dive into today's episode, just a couple of quick announcements. First off, a huge thank you to our partners EN Publishing and GM Assistant. We've got exclusive codes for both so if you're looking to level up your games or grab some awesome resources, be sure to check the episode's description for those links and discounts. Also, mark your calendars! Fairyathon is coming! For real this time! We are gearing up for our biggest event of the year on May 31st from noon to midnight Eastern Time. There will be canon games with new characters from Fort Frostborn played by some of your favorite cast members that you've been missing and some big surprises.

More details to come but trust me, you don't want to miss it. Last but not least, you can always help us keep the lights on by supporting us over on Patreon.com/dandr. We have a new game coming up, a limited six session D&D A5E campaign set in the desert continent of Kodai. So if that sounds fun or if you just want to help us keep the show going, check out our Patreon and see if anything strikes your fancy. Alright, let's venture back into the cold. Let's do that thing where we go around the table and introduce ourselves. I'm Jason, I'm the Dounchie Master going around the table.

Starting with Ian. Hi, I'm Ian. My pronouns are he/him/any and I am playing Chimera the tiefling warlock. I don't know why I said it like that. He doesn't talk like that. You can say however you want. That's true, dammit. Thank you. It's your character. Fuck everybody out there. Everybody. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Please give us your money. Especially, especially not Dustin or Celeste or Rebecca. Yep. Susan. Hi, I'm Susan Spinnader. I'll be playing Nythera Ryleth, the elven rogue. And Jameson. Hi, I'm Jameson. I play Logrin Cragborn, the dwarven marshal.

And last and certainly not least, Jasper. Hello, this is Jasper. I play Ruby Pettigrew, the half orc gear slinger adept. A clarification for everybody out there. For us, seconds have passed since the behind the scenes segment and the actual show. For you, days, weeks or months could have passed because they're separate entities. So when something gets said stupid and it will in the behind the scenes and we carry that over because it's just, you know, just know that we haven't lost our minds. We all checked for gas leaks. We know we're saying stupid things, but it's explained somewhat in the behind the scenes, which you can find at patreon.com/dandr.

We are leaving the fort, the comfort of the fort, guys. Before we check out and leave everything in the capable hands of these settlers. Which is interesting because we're going to play that stuff at Theriathon. And now we just pushed Theriathon back till May 31st. And I don't know when this is coming out. So it's probably not going to be over by then, but like, that'll be interesting. Everyone do a good job. That's that's it with the point of clarification. We left the fort a session ago, right? Because we did the whole graveyard thing and everything. OK.

Yes. So that was all just a just a lead up to talk about Theriathon, honestly. Oh, OK. I misunderstood the assignment. I apologize. I was unclear myself. I'm constantly searching your approval. Please don't take it away. We actually started this episode a week or so ago. Didn't work out. We had some tech issues and stuff, but we're going to keep the roll because it was interesting. And I don't know. I want to see where it goes. So same. Same. Same. Yeah. So that role was for travel day. It was for travel day. Yes. So as you guys are making your way to Aubrey, obviously there's miles to go and there's all kinds of stuff that you can run into.

And this is a weird one kicking things off as you're rounding a corner and the sun is set and it's one of those things where you're you're probably looking for a place to bed down that's a little safer. If you could find like a wolf den or a cave or something that isn't too expansive, it's always preferable to make sure you're covered from the elements. But as you're walking down a particularly gritty path, lots of gravel, lots of stone and stuff, you're going to see this eerie green light. And as you get closer to it, kind of kind of peering around, you just just like, OK, so that's probably probably magic in nature.

That's probably arcane. You're going to see a semi translucent figure sort of, I guess, pacing would be the word for it, but floating back and forth. But within this circle, it seems to be bound to the circle. You're going to see that someone has erected some kind of of binding implement here to keep the spirit in one place. Now, if you guys are trained in Arcana, give me give me a role for that. Or if you're trained in religion, give me give me a role for that. Arcana, let's go. Yeah, this is not for Ruby. This is not for an Eithera. Yeah, I think as we see this, we all stop and all three of us turn and look at Chimera like.

And Chimera rolls a nine total. Some kind of binding ritual, it looks like. But these things, they happen all the time on the road. I see this in all of my travels with the Witchlight Cabal. Best just to walk on by. Don't make eye contact. It honestly goes so kind of annoying. I want to talk to it. Ruby, no. I'm going to talk to it. It's just going to wail and scream and try and tell you some reason why it's anchored to this world still. And there's nothing you can do about it because whoever put this ritual together wanted this ghost to stay here and they wanted us to see it.

And well, our time is just too important, too valuable. I grew up on the streets of Brightport. I was in Pettigrew orphanage. We used to get back at home after hours and hours of just trying to exist on the streets and we would tell each other ghost stories. I've never met a ghost, but I've always wanted to meet a ghost. I'm going to meet a ghost. This is her. This is her. Can I pet that dog moment? Can I talk to that ghost? Can I paint a picture for you guys while you're describing like, you know, deciding? So this ghost does appear to be male and it's it's got these big it's kind of tough because it's a little translucent, but it looks like wolf pelts over its shoulder, down its back, and it's wearing some pretty pristine looking armor.

You know, you would expect like I guess the stereotype of a ghost. Is you know, it's decaying skeleton, spooky, you know, this this looks kind of just like a person just dead, but very much frozen to this specific little circle. Can we tell? Is there is it visible how how they died? Like is there any wound or do they look frozen or starved or something like that in their appearance? Yes, it does look like there's battle damage, I would call it. So it looks like there is a hole in the breastplate of the armor that goes straight through the heart and through the back.

But more than that, it looks like the mouth has been sewn shut. So yeah, I point that out to Ruby. I'm like, mouth sewn shut. Probably not going to be very talkative. I can talk to it. My theories are this is going just don't step into the circle. I won't step into the circle. She looks at Lagran. Just basically because Lagran's gonna try to call her call her down or stop her. But if it asks you for money, we don't have any. We don't have any. So perfect. Perfect. You're doing great. Go ahead. You got like five minutes and then we're out of here. Ruby is truly just ecstatic.

Thinking about that, this is a ghost, never met a ghost, isn't thinking about danger and is just figuring this is going to be fun. This is like an amusement park ride or something. She's not bad. I'm going to miss Ruby. She's not dumb, but she just figures, I got it. I'll handle this. You know, like I'm not going to get too close. You're street smart, book smart. Well, there you go. There's not a lot in the frozen waste tundras of Alara to be entertained with, you know. This is fun. This is entertaining. No, guys. Dinner and a show. I mean, she wouldn't do things to be unsafe.

That's not Ruby. But doing something that has to be. Like step into the circle. That's honestly a good, yeah. That's fair. So this ghost, like you can't see where its feet go. It kind of evaporates into like a mist. But you could tell this was like a tall man, big muscular person. And as you approach, it's it's going to kind of like look at you. And you could tell it's kind of waiting for you to go by. But you're approaching, which is odd. And you're going to you're going to hear like the rattling of armor as if he's stepping toward you. But it's just going to gently glide up to this barrier, kind of put a hand out.

And you can see it stop just where these pillars have been erected. So can't can't touch. But it doesn't look like it's doing it with any force, like any intent to harm. It's more just like a, you know, a greeting maybe or, you know, but you're going to see in its eyes like there's just like a fire, like a desperation to speak. She's staying probably about, I don't know, six to 10 feet away from wherever the edge of this circle is. So she is not close, but she's approached. I like the juxtaposition of this desperate ghost reaching out and she's going to look back at the rest of the group and be like, oh, my God, it's looking like at a zoo in front of the.

Yes, exactly. Did you notice it's eternal torment? Like, yeah, just do. OK, she's going to she's kind of like not going straight towards this ghost, but kind of like to one part of the circle, and then she kind of like walks past a little bit, kind of like she's just being nonchalant. And then it's reaching out a little bit and she's going to stop and she's going to say. You want a caramel that she's going to have a little bag of caramels that she's been snacking on. She's just starting conversation. She didn't think it wants a caramel. I did this kind of kind of be a look of not not understanding what that is, you know what I mean?

Like just like. You know what I mean? Just kind of like questioning that also could be translated into why do you think I'd want that? Like there's you know, there's a chance. But just just kind of like a dog, just it's trying to communicate to you and you can like there is so much pain as it's trying to like open its its mouth. And there is a like a thick wire that has been stitched over over the mouth and just like it's even like kind of popping out on both sides where. Yeah. Yeah. She's going to feel kind of bad. She's like, oh, that's oh, right. Of course, like even if you could eat something, you probably couldn't actually eat something.

OK, this is bad. She'll she'll just quickly put the little bag of candies away. I'm Ruby. What's your name? And she's going to wince because she's like, can it be? Come here often? Like it's kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chimera just shouts out yes or no questions only. Oh, right. Do you have a name? Night theorist is going to wince. Going to nod. You know, like it even looks like the ghost is settling in for like, OK. She is going to turn around and kind of like shrug a little bit, like, I don't know. I just like she got in way over her head very quickly. Right. This is going to be very exciting.

And now she's like, oh, this is not normal. This is not. Do you. Do you need help? She's again like, I don't know. Night theorist is going to wince again. Yeah. Nodding its head yes. And going to place a hand over his chest, it almost looks like like he's saluting. Is it is it because she noticed the hole, right? Is it is it your heart? Is that is it here? And then she'll put her hand up right. Just like he does. And just like nodding, yes. And going to take the hand away and just like act like he's holding something in his hand and hold it far away, like outstretched away from him.

OK, let me see what I can do. You wait here and she's going to turn around and walk back over to the three of them and she's going to go, I don't know, but I think he needs his heart or a heart or. Anybody got any ideas? Let me see if I have any extra hearts. No. Ruby shoves Chimera. Struggling a little bit with why it needs a heart if it's dead, but I guess it's not for us to understand. Let me ask you something, Ruby. You know, let this go or are we going to have to go find this thing's heart? I mean, I don't even know his name, but. You could give him one.

Oh, that's true. The best I could come up with earlier was Rebecca. Rebecca is a lovely name. I think he looks like a Celeste. To Logran. I can let it go if we have to let it go, but it does seem like I mean, yes, it's a ghost, but I don't know what that means. I mean, maybe it is in pain. Maybe it needs some help. Maybe it'll do us a favor. I don't know. Listen, why don't we ask? What are we going to ask it? Where's where's its heart? That's not a yes or no question. Is the heart close? Is the heart? Does it need a living heart? I don't know. I don't know what to ask a ghost.

I've never had to do this before. I'm an expert at this point, so give me a second. She's going to walk back up. Do you excuse me? Do you need your heart? Is that why you're here? It's going to it not emphatically like, yes. Do you know where your heart is? It's going to not emphatically, yes. And it's going to kind of raise a fist up and you can see it trying to do something. But the more concentrates it is causing this thing, physical pain, like it looks like it's being pulled apart, like little bits and pieces of it, like like cotton candy, just like as it's and a path is going to illuminate slowly like next to you.

Which is happening on our screens. So there is a broken bridge right next to this thing and a canyon below. And it looks like these ghostly lights are leading you down into this little canyon and tucked underneath of this spot is a cave. We can see we can see that that's a cave from here. Yeah. If you like, look over the edge, it's like, oh, I see where you're going, because it's like there's one half in and half. Yeah, you'll see. You'll know. Like Theora having like wandered over to the edge of the cliff and look down, she'll look back to the logon. Well, at least it's somewhere where we could sleep.

It looked like he was about to say something else when he goes, but like, oh, I didn't think of that. Has anybody stopped to wonder what this guy did to get his heart ripped out and shoved in a cave? It's not a normal way to kill a guy. Maybe he's a bastard. If we get your heart back, will you kill us? Excellent question. You got to tell me if you're a cop. That's ghost entrapment if you don't. Did Logran say that bit out loud? Yeah. So looking at Ruby, like shake his head, no, but kind of like staring over to Logran, he'll kind of hang his head a bit in shame and just kind of give you a nod, you know, like, oh, he's a bastard.

In life, like just kind of, you know, I, he'd have to be a bastard. They trapped him forever. In a rare show of compassion, Nythera seeing the remorse right now, says we all have a past. Let him prove himself now, I guess. Here's a look. This guy looks grizzled, like Willem Dafoe in the lighthouse grizzled. And some of that may be because of the who knows how long he's been here. And some of it, he was probably a rough fucker in life. And he's gonna put his hand up again and kind of look at Nythera. And there is something in his eyes that is just, just please let me die.

Just please, I'll do anything like it is a yeah, like end of the fly. Like it's, you know. Wow. All right. But if one of you guys gets haunted, we're gonna have a long talk after this. Yes. OK. So we can definitely make camp down there at the same time as finding the heart. And she's gonna sort of look over to the ghost like, now the ghost is part of the team, right? Like, so right? We can totally get the heart while we camp. You'll be fine. It'll all be taken care of. Like she's like, this is the best first ghost impression I've ever had. This could not be going better.

How do we get down there? And like he goes and walks up to the edge of the broken bridge where Nythera is and like looking for a way down because, you know, obviously it wasn't intended for somebody to walk down from here, it seems like. Yeah. I mean, it's your classic Indiana Jones cut rope bridge. So it's basically just kind of a ladder now, a little bit, not a sturdy one, but, you know. I've seen this in Dark Souls. Dark Souls loves broken rope bridges, like fucking loves them. This looks like a 30 foot drop, nothing crazy, but like at the same time, it's like, I'd rather not fall, you know.

Doobie's going to try to figure if she can engineer something a little bit here for this bridge, maybe some way to be able to stabilize it, to use it as a way to be able to climb up and down a little bit. Give me an engineering. I certainly will. And I believe this may be not right. I believe I'm supposed to have an expertise die on my engineering and it does not have that. But I will not do it. Is that because of a specialty? It is because of a specialty. I cannot remember the detail and I'm not going to worry about it now. I will do it with it later. I don't want to.

I'm going to show you something. I'm gonna show you something. Unlock your character sheet. This goes for everybody. Go over to your skills. Yep. And then hit the cog next to skills you're trained in and it'll show you any specialties you have. Oh, oh, oh, oh. That's right. That's because I never, I wasn't sure. I'm going to do gadgetry. That's what it was. Logran will assist with that because he's got, he's like, he's cooking up like a, a pulley system we can use for like the stakes at the edge of this bridge, extra rope and stuff. So I'll, I'll assist that role.

All right. I just made myself not proficient. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. I just forgot how to do this. Let me lock that sheet before I break something else. I blame the ghost. All right. Engineering. So wait, uh, you're going to help. So what do I do here? One D four expertise die. If he's got the D four, does it bump it up to a D six, right? Yes. All right, here we go. You guys get it. You're, you're, you're all good. Oh wow. The D six and eight, this is not, this is Ruby's too excited about the ghost. She's not thinking straight. Yeah, this isn't, this isn't going to work.

This is all out of the wrong position. Yeah. The wind is just like taking this tattered old bridge. I will say, um, you can walk around. Oh, okay. Can we just say, well, while Ruby and Logran are arguing about it, Nythera and Chimera, Nythera gestures to Chimera over towards that and we just start walking down. I take her arm and we just go, yeah, like the worst thing, it's a little steep and you just got to walk around cause there, there was, there's a frozen river. So this is in a different world. Classic one hour, the party bickers over how to do a thing and the easy answer is next to them.

So yeah, but yeah, as you guys are messing with the rope ladder trying to make this work, you're going to look down and see Nythera and Chimera just like looking up at you. How's it going? Are you done yet? Not done yet. And then she is cause they are fighting and she is, this is exactly what it is too because Logran has a way that he's always done it and Ruby has a new way she wants to try and he's like, no, it's not going to work. Like, yeah, ropes. Absolutely. This role was 20 or above and the fighting has made it go down to an eight. Like 100%. If either one of us had done it on our own.

Yeah, 100%. I was just watching like, oh no. Logran will stop and look down at Chimera and Nythera and like, and then almost go back to the fight and be like, wait, what? What did you do? Chimera just will point over to the, to the side to where they walk down. All right, well here, let's walk, but here's what you need to understand is just a regular pulley. All you need to do is just get the rest of the adventure is us arguing about the best way to do that. Adventures in theoretical rope physics. Just, well, the ghost is wondering what the hell we're doing.

We're just walking away. Well, it knows that it's, it, you know, it, it lit the way. So it's like, boy, I hope they're going there. That hurt a lot to have to do. Yeah, we got a couple of those in me. So I don't know if it came through really fucking hurt. As you guys, you know, I imagine them coming around like the bickering is echo-y that, that doppler effect of like them then coming down into the little canyon. Just fine, fine, fine. She's just giving up. She knows she's right, but she's giving up. Both of you saying, let's let it go. But in a mean way, it's like, yeah, let's let it go.

Yeah, let's do it. Like just agree to disagree. I mean, what is the, for an active opportunity to prove his way the next time we encounter one. Yeah. Yeah. That last bit of green kind of ghostly light is lighting up the mouth of a cave and you can kind of see it getting dimmer. But there's like a, you know, there's a shelf life on this. He has very little connection to the outside world and it hurt a lot. Probably took him a long time to figure out how to do that. So just, I mean, probably, you know, like, just re imagine him by himself in the, in the cold snowy forest, just fucking around with his ghost powers, trying to figure out all of these stuff.

And it hurts him every time. Why, why? It's like a kid sitting bored in class, just farting around with a pencil until they stab themselves. And we're the first fucking group that stumbles across him and he's like, these guys. Okay. Here's the thing. There's a lot that has to happen, right? One you're the first group that stops and approaches and then takes the time to try it. A lot of people would just go, well, it's not harming us. Let's go. So there's probably been an endless string of irregular people who have walked by and it's like, just let's give that wide birth and just figured they got out lucky or whatever.

Like, yeah, but it is going to light up this, this, this cave. And it, it looks like it goes back away. It's like, it looks like a spooky midnight. Well, they'd be like after dusk, so it's dark. So spooky dark cave frozen, you know, there's a heart in there. Maybe like as much as you could get from, you know, mr. Ghost time of day. Is it? I just told you. Did you? Sorry. Yes. I got spooky. I got spooky dark cave, but I didn't know if that meant it was just after dark. So it's, it's like, no, that's fine. Let's say it's like 9 PM. Cause it's summertime. In the calendar it actually is.

That's funny. All right, well, let's set up camp here and then we'll explore a little bit. Does anybody in this group not have dark vision by the way? I think we, Ruby's got, It's D&D. I just figure everyone has dark vision. Ruby has some, but it's not, I think she has like maybe half cause she's low light or something. Yeah. I mean, she's got like a one eye. It's like pirate vision. Neat. Yeah. I got like super dark vision because I got like two things from like rogue and then a shadow elf background. So I could see far, so far. So far you guys. All right. Well, Logran's still grumpy.

So he said no camp and kind of grumbling about it. I thought of it. I finally thought of what Chimera and Nythera were doing. We were playing cards while waiting for you guys. Like we got through like two games while you guys were. Nythera lost money, of course. Yeah, actually. When you were with the orcs, did they ever do the baby thing with you? Oh, you got one of those. Yeah. It was fun. Yeah. They're called muscle mommies. Yeah. Yeah. Usually I was the one having to do it. So it was. Oh. I'll have to try that next. It's fun. I'm not sure how much we want to get into this.

Yeah, sorry. I think we were all taking a step back. It's like, OK. This is the rest of the episode. Yeah, shit. I light a fire. I make a fire for camp. Yeah. I mean, Ruby's she's not she's not upset with longer. This has probably happened a thousand times. This is nothing like this is just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We come at it from different ways. But she's she's helping put things together. But she's kind of just glance or glancing around. She's wishing that she didn't have to help set up so that she could go explore. Basically. It's boring to put up to put up tents.

But there is going to look beyond the lights into the cave just to see what she could see is part of her job setting up is to make sure areas secure. Well, it's interesting. You you would expect an area like this to have some kind of signs of wildlife, be it you know, animal droppings or or like, oh, it looks like a bear set up shop here. What? Nothing. Nothing. Not even insects. And you're going to notice that this cave is a little narrow by cave standards, probably like twenty five feet, like across. And it just keeps going back. So kind of like think of a mall game stop.

Like it's like a shoebox just keeps going back. And there are little. Spots for torches on either side, about 10 feet. You know, all the way down. So this looks like a place that was. Like kept up at least at some point. Night the era, just having like taken a step in to look beyond the lights, back to the group goes, this looks manmade or at least man cared for. Anybody been here lately or just disused? It looks disused, and I'm not sure if any of you have noticed, but there are no tracks down here. There is not even insects. So besides the ghostly presence, there is definitely some sort of magic presence or at least something keeping things away.

Is there any mirror? Yeah. Can you see it on my face? Well, I could see the wheels turning like I knew you were going to ask. But actually, this is more so those hands are going to like wrap over your shoulders. And is that voice in your ear? Baby boy. I'm sure you can feel it deep, deep in you. There's a strong magical presence. I would be careful if I were you. Anything familiar? And there's gonna like just kind of like, it's almost like he's breathing this in. Someone really wanted to torture our ghost friend. Please be careful. I hate it when you get bruises.

Except the ones that you leave me. There's gonna be just OK. By the way, you guys can see the hands. I know everyone's nodding at me. So you're gonna hear this kind of a giggle. Save that for later. Right now, if you're intent on helping out our ghost friend, there may be a reward in it for you. So on. Oh, well, when a spirit is lashed to a place like that. You get to free it or absorb it. Now that does sound interesting. He did look quite formidable and we could learn a few things. Or you can let him go and hope he rewards you out of the goodness of his heart.

Well, who knows how good that heart is? I guess we'll know when we find it. Your friends are staring. I should go. Just three flat stairs. Just mild nose. Yeah, I miss doing video. You know what I have to say? I don't like him. It takes only tonight. Come here, I'll shiver and look at everyone and say, well, whatever's in there, we should definitely be careful. Lots and lots of magic. And if we end up helping this ghost, there's a chance that we could get something out of it. The ghost may not like it, though. Feel like that needs an explanation. Well, with these kind of rituals, this kind of binding, if there's a release and we end up helping him out, there's a chance that we can absorb him.

There's a lot of energy involved in this, a lot of arcane energy, and that won't just... That'll just dissipate if we let it. Otherwise we can sort of gather it. It sounds like getting haunted. Not exactly. Which I'm pretty sure I said we're not going to do. Let's find the heart first. I think we should just end it. End him. He's going to look heartbroken. If you finally look at her face, she's going to be like, what? Just staring at you like, no. Get his heart back and let him go. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean... There, I meant at Chimera. Oh. Sorry. She's just going to be staring at Chimera after saying, oh, there's a chance we could absorb him.

What? Ruby. No. This wasn't a good person in life. And they weren't someone who was helping others like you are wont to do. The world isn't full of rubies, unfortunately. She's going to come up to Chimera and while he's talking, shove him again. No, this is my ghost. If we're going to help him, we're going to help him. OK, fair enough. Whatever we do, we've got to be careful because whatever is in there is very powerful or it was at one time. She's just going to say once again, she'll sort of like, yeah, yeah, I hear you. If we're going to help him, we're going to help him.

I'm going to get louder because she's talking also to Kolkata. You're going to see those little hands like slip back into nothing. She's going to go back to finishing up whatever needs to be done for the tents and sort of whatever. And as she walks by Lagrin, she's just going to say, my ghost. She's mad. She doesn't want anybody here to discuss. She's all worked up now. She is. After fighting. So, once the camp is set up, I think Lagrin will kind of take a peek at like the very mouth of the cave and then just say, all right, listen, it's late. We'll go in like a hundred feet tonight.

Take a look. If it's any deeper than that, though, I think we should come back in the morning. Fair enough. Let me scout for traps. You can do it my way. He holds up his shield. Let's do it my way first. That's better. Let's see your way is better. Nythero will scout for traps. I'm going to assist because if there's torches, I'm going to light them. I'm going to put some fire in there. Yeah, yeah, no, that'll that'll light up the area. And I imagine you're starting a little campfire and stuff like that to near the mouth of the cave just to, yeah, cats out of the bag.

You're there, right? So, yeah, there do not appear to be any traps whatsoever. None mystical or otherwise between the two of you looking like. Yeah, they seem to be clear. All right, well, let's go see what we got, you know, like brush snow off of them and the four of us will go in. I don't like that. I'm interested to see what becomes of this. I don't know. We'll see. So first of all, let's get some torches for you guys. Torches ruin my vision. I had one hundred twenty feet of dark vision. He should have said something. Nope. It's new. I can sniff them out. No, no, no.

Everyone else needs them. Actually, I don't think we do. Yeah, he does. Well, Ruby can still see 30 feet in darkness, so it's not like she's blind. Yeah. So she's got just like she needs glasses. Yeah. Yeah. It's just nearsighted. Yeah. Snow could be very cold. Thank you, foundry table. That was me. There's going to be more interesting ones later and helpful ones. But tonight I was testing things. I like that. As the table's loading something from now on, you'll get a little like there's going to be little random things. But think The Witcher, like something like that, which is or oblivion or Skyrim or so.

No, the World of Warcraft ones where it tells you to turn the game off and go outside. Never listen to that. Yeah. Touch grass, you stinky nerd. You didn't have the words for that at first. Yeah. Yeah. The Switch will do that sometimes, too. They'll be games like, hey, it's been an hour. You should go maybe get some vitamin D. It's like, no, you should move your legs before you get a clog in your arteries. Fine. I'll play the Switch on my porch. Our car does that on long drives where like every two hours, it's like, would you like to stop for a break? It's like, yes, I would.

The country's very big. There's nothing here. Yeah. Snow can be very cold. Wait, what is that? You'll notice that all of your characters have been corrected now that they don't say player anything. They be correct. You know, everything is right now. So on the right, the navigation bar, it says Spiderden. Yes, but it's not. You're fine. Don't worry. No spiders, I promise. Until there's spiders. Just what somebody would say when they're hiding spiders. That's what a spider would say. The true spiders were inside us the whole time. I don't like thinking about that at all.

I'm not even afraid of spiders and that freaks me out. We were watching the old Creepshow movies and I don't know if anyone remembers the end of Creepshow 1, the guy with the cockroaches. Can't watch that to this day. It screwed me up as a kid. I've hated cockroaches. I grew up poor, so of course we had them and I just fucked me right up. Bill's like, why, why don't you guys want to watch it? Me and Bree both went, it's like, oh, you watched it too? Cool. Like we just. Oh God, I haven't seen that in a while. Now I want to watch it. It holds up better than you think.

And that's a problem. Like, you know, walking into this cave. You're definitely getting that empty feeling. Usually there's sounds in a cave. There's dripping water. There's skittering of bugs. There's there's there's it feels alive. Even if it's not bustling like the outdoors. Almost as soon as you walk into this cave, the sound of the wind and snow behind you is going to kind of dampen a little kind of muffled. And you just, you can feel it in your bones that this, this is, there's some unholy shit going on in here. Who's leading the way? Probably Nythera.

Cause she probably wouldn't let anybody else lead. So you're going to see that the cave walls are decorated. And it's not very crude, but it's someone doing their best as an artist. And there are renderings of people like their, their busts basically. And there are born and death dates for all of them. And there's like 10 of these lined up. And the death dates are all the same. And you're, you're going to see that they all have the same surname, Sarah. So this was a single lineage, like a family, whatever, all dead. So Lagran has a stone cunning, which gives him an expertise dive for history related checks using stonework.

This is the first time in my career. Holy shit! I can't believe it. Oh my God! How fortuitous and specific. Right? I'm going to be like, I know a thing or two about this backup thing. Been waiting my whole life. So yeah, I'm going to roll a history check on, on not just even he's even less interested in the names that he is in like the actual stonework, right? Like the way it was carved. And, you know, all that type of stuff. So we will do an expertise and draw. Ooh. Well, we'll take that 18. Nice job. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's your thing. That makes sense.

That would, that would be depressing if it was a, like his glove and he's like running his thumb down the lines. He's like, all right. You know, muttering to himself the whole time. So you're going to pick up a few things. First off, these were all carved relatively close together. You're guessing within weeks of each other and you're guessing, because the person who did this stone cutting wasn't there. Like this is like me drawing versus you drawing. You know what I mean? Like you go, Oh, Oh, bless his heart. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's, it's like, this wasn't there.

They did a pretty good job for being, you know, yeah. You know, and, and I'm not going to say what I was going to say. So you're, they are all done by the same hand too. You can tell, so this might be a surviving family member or, you know, friend of the family, something like that, but they did all of these in a pretty close proximity, like maybe two weeks. And you said the death date was more or less the same on everybody. Yep. And it was all to Ornn 1038. So this was, this was a few centuries ago. It's been a while. All these people died within weeks.

One person recorded all of this. Might be our friend upstairs. Do do, are there, do any of these busts have enough features on them that we could see if any of them looked like the ghost? It's really difficult because these were carved a long time ago by someone who, you know what we'll do, I'm going to roll a D10 and let's see, that's a, that's a D6. That looks different than the D10 I know. Uh, five, I, because of Logran's, I was going to say rock fingering because of, no, no, you can say it. Take it. And again, there's the name of the episode right there.

If Logran's rock fingering isn't the name of this episode. Okay. Perverts. Uh, so the, you're going to be able to tell that some of these had, had more features and he's going to be able to kind of like take his nail and like get some of the, some of the finer details were kind of gunked up with just, you know, centuries of dirt and dust and kind of grime. And he's kind of digging these out like the two or three that are pretty legible. No one looks like that ghost. These are, they all look like elves. And that ghost looks very human. Is the lifespan on these dates?

I mean, I obviously they all died at the same time, so they probably didn't all die naturally, but are there like elven length lifespans recorded? The oldest one was 46. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, and also with that information, you might gather that they were all murdered at the same time. Pretty sure that's true by the ghost, perhaps. And all to Ornn, today's the anniversary, or at least it's very close. Well, yeah. What is the, do any of the dates line up with today? Cause it's the 10th, isn't it? It so here's what we're going to do. I'm going to leave that up to chance, right?

Like I think that could be fun. It is dungeons and randomness. Yeah. Is it, so is this the same day as when we fought the wolves and Eddie or is it, has it been a full day since then? Cause that was the 10th. It's been a full day since then. Yeah. Okay. So it's the 11th today. Yes. It's the 11th. Yes. Okay. Let me bring up simple calendar. As we're looking at the date, Nythira is going to turn to Ruby and go, no, I'm not that old. Ruby honestly, there's been a lot of tension and a lot of like, like Jamison said, Ruby got worked up. She's just kind of sort of lean her head on like there's like on her arm and just kind of like, just like have a little moment.

Nythira will bring her hand up and like pat your like side of your face for just a moment. Side of Ruby's face, letting it happen. And seeing this, we'll look at Chimera and just kind of like the 28th of Ulta Orn is the, yeah. So that's the date of all of them, all the deaths. Okay. You said they were carved a couple of weeks apart, so I didn't know if the deaths were also a couple of weeks apart. No, it just took them. It just took them a long time. Cause that's not their medium. And maybe they lost Adobe for a while and like, you know, they had to wait.

Sometimes you just don't have it in you, you know, you got to put it down for a day and come back. You know, you have to wake up and go, what am I willing to put up with? Wow. All right. Let's see what else we can see in here. How far into the cave are we like at the very entrance of the cave still, or is this still a good ways in? You're about a hundred feet in and you're starting to see where they've, you know, you're getting a sense it's not that big, but there is a curve coming up and I'm going to go ahead and guess that our resident rogue is looking for traps.

Yes. Can I get a perception check please? Yeah. With a 19. Did you roll a 1D 29? I did. Yes. For the date. For the date. Oh, okay. Yeah. I was very confused. I was like, what is stopping us? I thought you were impressed and I was like, oh no, he's disappointed. I don't need my approval. I'm just trying to imagine what a pretty nine sided die looks like. That's all. That's the extent of it. It doesn't roll well. That's for sure. I love this gag because I'm like two years older than you. Okay. Those murals stop and obviously the torch torch light is there the entire time.

Right? So once you round the corner here, you're going to see this place open up and this is still very much a natural cavern. It's not like the dwarves would have gussied the place up, right? Put a little olive oil in there, sprinkle a little grated Parmesan on top, you know, but like this is just a natural cave and people did their best, but there is a slab right in the middle of this room. Let's call it. And there is a body laying on it. Bones, but dressed exactly the same as that ghost. But there's this silver twine like wrapped over and over and over the corpse.

And you can see where someone has went to great pains to like, so it's mouth shut and everything. But now that it's skeletal, it's just kind of like this leather thing that was put. Like you could tell they put it in his mouth and then sewed his lips to the piece of leather over and over again. Fucking brutal. And there's also on a separate little little little dais type of thing. There is a still beating heart. Kept separate from the corpse. Is it in a container or is it just sitting on this thing? It's kind of, yeah, it's just kind of sitting on this little stone pillar.

Like it's, there's nothing really ornate or special about it other than it's a beating heart like, yeah. And you can kind of hear it in the room if you stop. And remember how I said it's kind of the outdoors is muffled. There's not a lot of skittering or anything in here. You can just kind of like just barely audible. Can I try, can I feel for, cause there's some, there's some magic shit going on here. Obviously. Oh yeah. We're well past that. Can I roll an arcana to get like, get a better sense of that, a more specific sense of that to see if we can undo it.

Give me some arcana and I'll give you, based on how high it is, I'll kind of fill you in on features around the room. Okay. Let's see. Oh, that was almost a 20. But that's a 10. So which is not bad. Well, it's not going to tell you how to undo any of this necessarily, but you are going to notice a couple more things that you didn't notice on your first glance. Along the walls here. I'm just going to kind of highlight. So imagine that body is in the middle right there. That's the green, right? Along the walls into the walls, there's almost caskets with bodies in them.

And you're, there is some, there's something funky. You're getting some, it's not as strong as what's in the center of the room with the heart and the body and everything. But you get the sense that there's something weaved through these bodies and they are in a state where they could change. That's the best I can give you with a 10, but you're, you know, you know, yeah. I point this out to everyone just like on the sides of the caskets. I know we all have dark vision, so there's something flowing through here through all of these, a state of change.

In fact, almost as if, if we do something wrong or maybe if we do something right, whatever's in these caskets could get back up. I want to avoid that. I'm just throwing out an idea here. This is not a suggestion. Probably. What if we set them on fire? It's a good suggestion. I think that might get them to, you know, move, come back, but then they'll be on fire and that's always good. But then they'll be on fire. Exactly. Yes. So it doesn't feel respectful, but I don't want to be eaten by zombie skeletons. Whatever those are in there. I assume they're zombie skeletons or more ghosts.

I don't know. Is our goal to destroy that heart? Because maybe we could just shoot it from a distance. Wait, I thought we were supposed to give the heart back. Aren't we supposed to put it back in the body or at least give it to the ghost or something? I don't know. This is my first ghost. That's usually how it goes. That's pretty good for a first ghost. Nice. She'll sort of do that like, yes. I'll take it back. This episode needs to be called Ruby's first ghost. Let's not bury the lead at all. Ruby's first dot dot dot. Right. Ruby. So don't, we don't want to shoot the heart.

I don't think so. No. I think that body is bound and disturbing that might cause our friends here to come back. If we can get the heart back into the body by disabling that somehow, then maybe we can bypass all that. But I actually love the fire idea. That sounds fun. Well, hold that thought. I just got another idea. If zombie skeletons come back to eat us, any gestures to all of the sarcophagi or whatever they are, the coffins all around, then we got time. All we have to do is not touch that heart. As far as we know, we could set traps. How many bear traps do we have?

Do we keep a running tally of that? Is that under resources? Ruby just lifts up two fingers. All right. We got two bear traps. She makes them in her spare time. Never know. Probably not the first time he's asked how many we have too. This has come up before. No, so he's thinking that if all we have to do is not disturb the heart based on our educated guess, then we have near infinite time to account for things getting out of their graves and chasing us. So don't do anything is the plan? No. Let's dig a hole so that when the zombie skeletons get up, they fall in the hole and they don't chase us.

I hate to point out that this is a cavern. Yeah, but you can go further down. Through stone. Yeah. Wow. Shit. The point is we can set something up so that they don't chase us. Let's do ropes. I don't know. This plan's getting looser as it goes. I don't know if you trim the skeleton, does it just fall apart? I have no idea. A hundred percent. Ruby has completely tuned out at this point. Is it clear to Ruby that there's a way to put the heart back in the body if she were to pick it up and shove it in there? Yeah, there's a hole. Yeah, definitely. No reason. Asking for a friend.

Just asking. You're going to stealth check your way over there while we're arguing about digging holes. Right. No, she's not. Ruby. Yeah. Do me a favor, give me a wisdom saving throw. Oh, all right. To be clear, she was not about to do that. I just want to point that out. No, this is completely unrelated. My tabletop has frozen. I'm going to come out and come right back in. Let me see what happens. This happened last time too. Weird. I'll be right back. That's fine. Wait, are you leaving the call? No, just the foundry. Okay. Okay. Just making sure. Okay. God, no. We're doing so well.

I would not do that to you. All jokes aside, please don't leave. I'm just going back to the tabletop. Okay. This happened last time and there was a little bit of a weirdness. I don't know why. That's fine. We made it so much further than we did last time. Yeah. Or a time or two ago. I don't remember, but whatever it was, you may have to do it for me. Give me a second. The important thing is it was Jameson's fault last time. It is important that we all remember that. I have not forgiven myself yet. Thank you for not making me do one on Sunday. That would have sucked.

I deleted so many copies of Photoshop this week. Oh yeah, that's right. I was hoping that - I was hoping that - yeah, I was hoping that that trial was done when we logged off last time. No, it wasn't. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, it's okay. Every time I log - I turn on my computer now, I check for Photoshop. It's like checking under the sheets for - Fucking doppelgangers. Fucking doppelgangers. Which one do I shoot? Jump scared by Photoshop every time I come. That didn't work, so I'm going to try one more time. Every time it comes up to Foundry, it freezes my browser, so - Oh.

I don't know why. But give me one more time. Could be a cookie issue? Could be. That's a - that sounds like somebody - something about a PC that somebody would need to know about, but this is a Mac, so - Oh, you're right. I'm sorry, so - There's no getting under the hood in here. Yeah. Nah. That's not working. Flawless design. So, yeah, can you roll that for me? Can somebody roll that for me? I'll roll a die. I have a real die here. What's your modifier? Three. Plus three for a wisdom save? Alright, add three to this. Woah! That doesn't count because he didn't roll it.

What? I'm joking. I can't even see. 22. Nice. Thank you, sorry. Very nice. Very nice. That's the kind of teamwork I like to see. Wonderful. There's going to be this very soft female voice, but it sounds - it sounds weathered, very eager, very weak. What do you want here? Does everybody hear this or just Ruby? Just Ruby. Could she - it doesn't seem to be coming from any place. It's just in her mind. There's a bit of an echo to it, like it's in the cavern, but like mostly just in your head. So there might even be like a "you guys hear that?" Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

She's going to - she'll put her hand on Chimera's arm like "stop. Hang on. Did you hear that?" Hear what? No. What did you hear? Well, probably nothing except a voice that said something about "what am I doing here? What do I want to do here?" I wasn't paying much attention, honestly. God, that's the thing about ghosts. You see one and there's like five more. That's not really what I wanted. Well, you did want this. It is your ghost. I want to help the ghost, she'll say. The one outside. Good specifics. You cannot help that man. Well, and she's going to keep looking like she's got headphones in.

Are you able to hear this or is it just me? So she says that we cannot help this man. Well, that's the thing is that we've got the man without the heart, but he says sort of that the heart is the problem. And if we could just get me the heart's right here, is it? Is this the wrong thing to do? Is that what you're trying to tell me? My entire family is gone because of him. He deserves to rot forever. I'm sorry, what was your name? Do me a favor. Give me a persuasion check. Susan, can you do it for me this time? God damn it. I actually don't know because I can't get to my home.

I think I have it on the wiki. I think I know. Oh, look at this. Look at this. I love this roundabout. Oh, I could I can. There's another place I could go. But there's Ruby. Susan, what's that about a wiki? I got Ruby's done. You have for persuasion plus zero. Oh, there you go. Sixteen. You rolled a sixteen. Very nice. Good job, Jasper. No problem. My pleasure. My name is. Elsa. Sarah, by any chance. Yes. Well, see, I kind of stuck a little bit between what he wants and what you want. And we're just passing through. I'll be honest with you. So we don't want any trouble.

But it sounds like this is trouble is kind of what I'm getting from you. Is that that about right? And not the good kind of trouble. 16th bracket for a persuasion. Let's do this. Let's let's because there's. That man. Murdered our entire lineage in one afternoon. I. Was the sole surviving member. He would pay for his crime. Including keeping my family in this cave. To guard it from people like you. Ruby is going to be all on board with that until then. She's going to say, well, hang on to people like us. Hey, we're just trying to help. We're not trying to work.

It wasn't a race. By the way, so Ruby is trying her best to sort of repeat just a second or two after what she's hearing to everybody else. Like she's getting something she's going to translate something. Yes. She's trying to translate it a little bit. So she's she's getting the information across to everybody else as long as everybody else understands what she truly is picking up on something. OK, I hear you give me just a minute. To chat with my friends, be right back. She's going to turn around. I don't know. So something's talking to me about all of this, as I told you, they don't want this to happen.

It's actually one of them. And she's going to point back to where they came from at the for this for the stone cut walls. One of them trapped him because he was the one who killed all of the family. And you get the point, right? So now what? Now, who's trained in Arcana? I am. OK. This is the redemption. Yeah. Give me a note. Let's hope. Come on. All night long. It's been not your inspiration. No, sadly, no. Oh, my God. Nine. OK. OK. I can't give you an answer, but I can. OK. You got a big. You've just dumped out a 500 piece puzzle, right? And you're starting to put the little borders together.

That's like that's part of the sky. All right. Just do it. OK. Not only did whoever this this Elsa, not only did Elsa trap the ghost. And keep him here. It seems as though to the layman that she trapped the souls of all of her family in this cave as well to make sure that the original punishment stood. So anyone who comes down here. So not only can that guy not rest, none of these family members can. Hmm. Sorry to make things more complex. No, I'm not. What are their coffins made of? Are they wood or are they stone? Well, it's not really coffins. It's just holes really in the walls.

Oh, we can block holes. We can block holes. You could block holes. I don't know that that's going to keep them out. They're like, listen, we just blocked the holes. Well, they let us get back. You just blocked the holes and maybe they go through them. But we're long gone by then. Right. Like how there's other like looking around like they are loose rocks, boulders. So move somewhere. Not only did this woman trap the man who murdered the family. Fine. OK. But she trapped her entire family, too. She let it go. So focused on revenge that she probably I mean, in some weird roundabout way, convinced herself that the family would definitely want to make sure this guy paid for eternity.

And if they got to keep their souls in this little cave forever, then they'll do that. Like, yeah, she kind of made the decision for him. It's not cool. Consent is key. Yep. This is how it always happens. One ghost leads to so many more. This warning is like, you told you this was going to be a thing. I don't know when listen. Absorbing is looking a lot more interesting, isn't it, Ruby? I will not say no, actually. I don't. I'm a little bit caught here myself. Hang on a second. Excuse me. You still there, Elsa? You're going to kind of get like a like an affirmative grunt kind of thing.

You're getting the sense that it's taxing for. You OK, if I could put a finer point on this. You can hear a pain in her voice, similar to the pain you saw on the ghost's face trying to do. It's the same magic. That's how focused on revenge this woman was. So Ruby will. In a genuine way, heartfelt way, she'll say it. So it sounds like. Something terrible happened to your family, to your lineage, to you and. This person made that happen. He's, of course, in a lot of pain for eternity, as far as you're concerned, but it also seems like your family is in pain for eternity, too.

I don't care about this person. I don't care about your family in particular, although I. Understand that it was terrible. Here's my suggestion. Is there anything that we could do to just put all of this to rest? Let everybody be pain free. I'm going to need a persuasion and we're going to see. Yeah, it's it's a big ask because it is someone. OK, so if you guys are doing the math. It's it's been centuries that this is you know what I mean? Like it's just whatever the guy did, obviously fucked up, right? That's a long prison sentence of 300 years of eternal day and night torment forever.

Also, 300 years keeping your family shackled to the walls of this cave to make sure that no one fucks with that heart is. You know, so it's kind of tough, even if you believe in, you know, it's like, yeah, I should be punished forever. There's a it's double edged sword. Let me I'm trying to join one more time. I think I can do it. You're fine. You're fine. You're all good. Try. We have we have members standing by. I believe it's Ian's turn. You don't want me to run for you. Let me restart my entire system. OK, I figured it out. I think it's maybe arriving. This is where it pauses.

Give me a second. Sure. It's OK. It's sticking. All right. And it is. It's your turn, buddy. Susan, what's my what's Ruby's persuasion? Is that what you were at? Three, I believe. Plus three. No, zero zero persuasion. Zero for persuasion. Maybe you should have took the plus three. All right, Ian. All right, buddy. I'll really I'll really. Yeah. Come on, baby. Come on. This isn't for me. So now that's true. All pressure. What is it? It's a two. But to show Ruby have inspiration. I don't know. I can't. I'll check. Oh, buddy. No. So that's a two. You're going to see you're going to kind of feel this place like.

Have you ever been arguing with somebody and you can see through their body language, they're upset, but they're not saying anything like they're they'll breathe a little heavier that you can feel this cave, like shake a little, like just tremble like you can feel it. And the entire party can feel it, too. That did not go over well. Ruby, she's going to again like being on the phone, she's going to turn to the rest of the party and she's going to just shake her head like it. No, it's not working. I tried thoughts and prayers and that didn't it just didn't start.

OK, well, it's going to get a little upset now, but seeing this reaction and just like take a step towards the like middle, just just take a step towards wherever the bodies are and say. Yeah, I get it. He did something horrible to you and your family and you took your revenge. You have had your revenge. Your family is now suffering because of you. Don't be that person for them. I get it, but you have to be better for them. You get this. Can I please get a persuasion check, Susan? Yeah. Also plus zero, but I do have inspiration. I thought you're going to say, but I'm not Ian.

That's always helpful to not be. Just tonight, like you're just having a pack of dice tonight. If it's sex with an orc through the roof, like you've got all the dice rolls. So that's a 13. Would you like to use your inspiration or let it ride? Do I take the better role with inspiration? Just anyone? OK, well, of course. OK, I'm going to use inspiration. Good vibes. Good vibes. OK, no, I'm taking the 13. Well, OK, 13. That was a six. Everybody at home. We don't want that. One by one. These family members, skeletal forms are going to turn their heads and look at the party.

And all of them are going to speak in this woman's voice in unison. And it's going to sound even more pain, like this is it's like you're like you're making me do this and it's kind of this vengeance loop of like, how could you make me do this? You don't understand that type of thing. You have no idea how it felt. And I fear to all of them. Yes, I do. I have been there. I have held my husband's corpse in front of our children. I have seen my sisters felled before me. My parents screaming in agony. I have been there. Do not tell me what I have or have not experienced.

I know where vengeance takes you. I know what it makes you do. But your family would not want this. Your daughters, your sisters, your mother. They would not want this. There's going to be a long pause, like a long pause. And those mouths are going to start moving in unison again, just just like flapping jaws, the ones that have jaws. Like a yeah, just just just really morbid to kind of you know, it's meant to scare you off like you're getting the impression. How do you go on? It's hard. But. Your children, your family gesturing to the bodies. They need you to go on.

They need you to let go. Is this what they would want from you? Or would they want you to move on? All of the heads of these skeletal figures are going to look over. At the dais with the heart, the slab with the body on it. And one by one. Each one are going to raise a hand and point toward the heart. Return it to his body. And let this be done. There's still a lot of bitterness and resentment. You can hear it, but it's. Probably. Taking a step back and seeing it, it's like, oh, fuck. In making sure this guy paid, I have lost sight of some things and. You're getting the sense she's not going to stand in your way if you move toward the body.

Night there is going to take a step forward and say, no, that you're you had your vengeance and let that help you rest. After night there, it says that Lagram turns and looks at Ruby and says, well, your ghost. She is going to bound over to the heart. And snatch it up. There's no squeamishness, by the way, whatsoever is just like, oh, yes. And then just slam it wherever it's supposed to go. Like she's going to be beaming as she does all of this. This is like a video game. This is like a this is like some sort of amusement park thing, like a ring toss or something to her.

I was about to say, it sounds like you're dunking. Like it's like, you know, it's not surgery, but God like. So there's this heart is just as pulsing and moist as there is a better way that just is wet and slimy as a heart would be day one. Right. No degradation. It's like a McDonald's hamburger, like just, you know, hundreds of years. And the second you place this heart back in the chest cavity, you're going to feel this surge of energy and. The body on the slab, the jaw is going to contort like very painful. You could see like the body somehow is feeling pain and one by one, those stitches are just going to like pop, pop, pop all the way across.

And you're just going to hear this deathly shriek. And one by one, you're going to watch these spirits kind of like dissipate and almost get sucked out of the cave as if there's some sort of almost like a submarine imploding or something like that. Just boom, just within half a second, they all get ripped out and you're going to feel that that that power, that that that wind, that's kind of a surge of emotions, you know, grief, anger and regret. All that rip through you all. You're going to feel it for just a few seconds and then nothing. There is nothing in this cave, still bodies, but.

You know, any any connection to the mystical or arcane is just gone. First thing Ruby would do is as soon as all of that, it probably took breath away, like like like a vacuum, like all of a sudden she would turn as soon as everything was sorted. And then she would probably go lunge at Nythera and just give her a huge hug. Just hug hug hug hug hug hug hug hug. And then she'd say in a small voice as you were hugging her, it's OK now, little one. I think I got blood on your armor. She's going to take her hand off your back. There probably was already blood there.

I'm sorry that you. Well, it's been horrible. You should get some sleep. Seems like all of us are going to get some rest. Don't you want to check on your ghost? Right. She's going to sprint out of the cavern. She. Yeah, she'll sprint out of the cavern and and go up to the top if possible. I don't know how long that would take. I don't guess we're that that far away. But well, if you fuck around with that rope bridge, probably a lot longer. Just walk around. It's really not like part of me almost said that she's going to try to find a way up the bridge. But I think she would probably have thought it in and just said, fine, forget it.

She would run back up the other way. Nythera would probably linger for a moment in the cave as everybody's starting to leave and just look towards the family corpses and maybe offer a silent prayer before she leaves. To any of the gods, she's not she doesn't particularly have particular faith in any of them, but just, you know, a generalized prayer. Non denomination. Yeah. When you get back up, you know, like obviously that cold wind just kind of blasts you that the sound is no longer muffled as you re approach the entrance way and you kind of walk across that frozen river gap and walk up and around.

And the binding circle still there. But that ghostly green light is completely gone. Except. For one small bit of something, and you could see it in the snow, like it's it's starting to get covered up by the new new falling snow, but there's something glowing there. Like an like an item, like an object of some sort. Yeah, like an item. It looks physical because it's being covered up by snow. And it's within the boundaries of where that ghost was was floating around. Yep. And someone told Ruby to not go in to the barrier past the edge of that. So she will go immediately past the barrier.

Of course. As we all would. Yeah, sure. She'll look around. She's looking around to see if there's any sort of sign. Doesn't see anything. Then she sees that and she's like. Fine. And then she just goes in and checks it out like she doesn't just go grab it, but she crouches down to sort of see what it is. See if she can see anything about it. So as you get closer to this right, the guy gave off a vibe, right, the big animal pelts and stuff like that. And you know, he was he was a rough dude, probably did a lot of rough things. Definitely pay for those rough things.

At least some of them. Right. I don't know. You know, he got three life sentences, basically. So. This is a necklace of teeth, not human, more some kind of like reptile. It looks like something like a giant gator or something akin to that. Right. And that ghostly green glow, you're going to feel something come off of it. And it's dissipating like there's not there's not much to it. And as you get near it, you're it's it's it's a feeling that comes over you. It's not a sound. It's not a thought. It's just a vibe that like. This was like a thank you. Like just like I don't have anything to give but this thank you.

And let it protect you. And that green glow is just going to dissipate. It's gone. She'll absorb this moment. She'll take that feeling. And I mean, this all kind of started for her as a little bit of a lark. You know, like this, this will be fun to meet a ghost. And all of a sudden now she's got kind of a purpose for it. And then it worked and everybody helped. And there's a lot of feelings here for her. And it's going to be even not just about the ghost, but the fact that this group and Logran and Athera and Chimera, it all kind of worked out again, is going to really be special for her and warm.

And she's going to not just take this as a thank you from the ghost, like, oh, good, I got a thing. But kind of as a memento of something bigger and that this is going to touch her in a way that is validating the fact that she's with this group and she's with Logran for so long. And anyway, it's big. And she's just going to pick up this necklace and it's going to look very weird. But she's going to be she's just going to hold it up to her chest and then grab onto it. And she's going to say, bye, ghost. And then she's just going to eventually stand up slowly and and she's going to go over to the where the rope bridge is and she's going to figure out how to get down.

Jesus Christ. She's going to take as long as it takes. Logran is going to spit out the fire and watch the whole time. Can I please get an engineering check? I just want to see. Now I'm just curious. I can roll a die over here. Yeah, I trust you. Dude, is Jameson trusting you? Hang on, I've got Ruby dice. Oh, yeah, you have to see those, right? Yeah, if I could find them. Now, Logran has to do an opposing check. Just shouting counter advice from the bottom. Shaking the thing. All right, I'm going to do I'm going to roll actual dice here and it's a plus three. Wait, no, no, no.

That was for that. So you get the D4, right? Yeah, I got a. It's becoming a spectacle. We'll just have Ian roll again. Let's see what I'm rolling. Oh, nice metal dice. All right, my 20, D20 is I'm not. Hang on. You do have a plus three. I'm going to take a picture. If it's a crit, Jamis, it's going to fucking flip out. Plus a D6, I think as well. Wow. That is a crit. Plus three. You want to roll a D6? So we'll just say Ruby was right. That's what we'll say. And what time is it? Which was Logran's goal the whole time. Leans back and smiles. My work here is done. Oh, my God.

That's the maximum on both dice. All right. Well, and for real, I'm never going to let you roll dice like that again. So instantly abuse it. Do you want to hear about this necklace? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, OK. Do you put it on? Yeah, I think well, she's going to not immediately. She's going to take it back. What's going to end up happening by the time she gets down when they get to camp, when she gets into the tent, whatever it is, she's going to sort of figure a way to sort of. Attach it in on on her her leather vest, on her everything. So she's not wearing a necklace necessarily.

It's just kind of a. It's wearing it. Yeah. Yeah. That's fine. It's not a she's not just going to throw a necklace on. She's going to figure out a way to engineer onto her her clothing. I'm going to make it way more complex than that. That's you just hit Ruby on the head. Tyrants teeth is the name of this necklace. These are very long, sharp. God. OK. When you attack while wearing this necklace, a ghostly reptilian head appears and snaps down on your target. While where? So there it does bonus damage and stuff while wearing this item. Your footsteps make the ground tremble very slightly and you have a negative one before on stealth checks.

However, when you take energy damage, your attacks deal an extra one D six damage of the same type until the end of your next turn. If you're damaged by multiple energy types, you only deal bonus damage of the most recent type. And once per day, when you hit with a melee attack, you can use a bonus action to create a spectral Tyrannosaurus Rex that bites the target dealing for D six force damage. That's so cool. Oh, my God. I I'd leave it nowhere to begin. I I would love for over time, you know, as as this absorbs in sort of attunes to Ruby. If maybe we can find some way to flavor the Tyrannosaurus.

Oh, yeah. Like gradually, the Tyrannosaurus just. Yeah. It becomes like a mecha like it. Yeah. It starts as Godzilla becomes mecha Godzilla. I just want to I just want it to be something that has it manifest some of her gadgetry somehow in some way. I think that would be fun. This is awesome. That's dope. Now, when I was writing this scenario, there are a few ways this could have gone. Right. There's a choice at the end where you could have let that spirit go. You could have punished the family. You could have punished the guy more. You could you went the ultra difficult route of trying to make everyone happy.

And in doing so, you guys got the maximum amount of XP for this situation. A which is twelve hundred divided four ways. Three. So that's four hundred each. Even I know three hundred each. God, I was going to make a fucking God damn it. Everyone's everyone's going to hear me go, even I could do that math. Fuck. I fucked it up like instantly. Just say sixteen and you would have been right. Sixteen hundred. No, no, it's too late now. For what it's worth, I was nodding along when you said the answer. I thought, yes. Yes. I second guessed myself. I was like, do I not know?

Always assume you know and I don't. Just assume. If it's a creative thing, maybe. If it's a logic thing, you've proofread my work. You know that it's probably not right. Not spelling, not grammar, nothing, but the idea might be sound. Guys, that means we love. Oh, that's level three, baby. Hey, yes. And I think that's a good time for us to stop for the evening, which means we're going to start with a level up, which means you guys have a week or a while. I don't know, a few days. What are we doing every week? We week. OK. I don't even know anymore. But you guys have a week to kind of sort it out and figure out what you'd like to do.

Excellent. Excellent. That was cool. Yeah, that was awesome. Thanks. Thanks for letting me have a ghost. Right. Did you just copy and paste night there's backstory and was like, OK. Honestly. So it's one of those things where I obviously want to bring out these backstory moments, but I didn't think we'd get that deep into it. So good fucking job stepping up because that's a softball pitch right down the center. If you get that far. But I couldn't give it to you. I'm saying so. Good job. Jasper for bringing us there. Could you just as easily walked on by? I seriously honestly, I thought, how funny would it be for Ruby to get excited and then just be like, forget it.

Terrible idea. Go to sleep. And second thought, let's not go to Camelot.