The Friendship Section

0:00:00 Fantasy High: Sophomore Year Emily Axford as Fig Faeth; Zac Oyama as Gorgug Thistlespring; Siobhan Thompson as Adaine Abernant; Lou Wilson as Fabian Seacaster; Ally Beardsley as Kristen Applebees; and Brian “Murph” Murphy as Riz Gukgak Episode 7: The Friendship Section < [Previous Episode] | [Next Episode] >

0:00:00 Brennan: Hello and welcome back to "Dimension 20 Live"! I'm your humble Dungeon Master Brennan Lee Mulligan. With me, as always, are our intrepid heroes. Say hi, intrepid heroes!

0:00:07 All: Hi, intrepid heroes!

0:00:09 Brennan: Oh, shucks, gang. Dare I even say it, last we left off.

0:00:16 Zac: Don't say it, don't say it.

0:00:17 Emily: I don't think we need a recap this week.

0:00:19 Lou: Yeah, don't you have DOLLARDEAL to talk about?

0:00:21 Brennan: Oh okay, oh, let's talk about the DOLLARDEAL, that's a great point.

0:00:23 Lou: Let's talk about anything else.

0:00:24 Brennan: Guys, first of all, thank you for coming, and we're CollegeHumor and Dropout's actual play D&D show where we get together with a bunch of funny folks from CollegeHumor, we play some Dungeons & Dragons, this is the continued adventures of the Bad Kids, a group of high school teen adventurers from an adventuring academy in the world of Spyre. Now, a couple things about that, number one, if you like actual play stuff, you should check out Dimension 20. We're running for one more week an exclusive deal where you can get your entire first month of Dropout for a single dollar.

0:00:58 Siobhan: What?

0:00:58 Brennan: The DOLLARDEAL.

0:01:00 Siobhan: That's so cheap.

0:01:01 Brennan: That's so cheap! We have dozens of hours of content that you could binge for a single buckaroo.

0:01:07 Emily: Less than a Snickers bar.

0:01:08 Brennan: Less than a Snickers bar! And then you could abscond into the wilderness of the Internet, having paid your single dollar, gotten your views, and say ta-ta. So check out the DOLLARDEAL over on Dropout. Also, we are unofficially, meaning that only you guys watching the live show right now get to know about this very unofficial, very chic, very cool, very hip, extending our Cyber Monday merch deal, 30% off everything in the Dropout store with the code SAVEBIG. Ooh, SAVEBIG.

0:01:40 Zac: You're saying it like it is a character.

0:01:42 Siobhan: Yeah, you have to do it, type it lower.

0:01:46 Brennan: SAVEBIG.

0:01:48 Lou: S-A-A-A-V.

0:01:51 Zac: One of Brennan's iconic characters.

0:01:51 Brennan: SAVEBIG. Bunch of awesome murph: merch, you can get a bunch of awesome Murph.

0:02:00 Murph: Hi.

0:02:01 Brennan: You can get a bunch of awesome merch that way, which is very, very exciting. We got a bunch of this cool "Unsleeping City" stuff, there's "Fantasy High" stuff, you gotta go check it out, we got all kinds of cool new stuff, and for other Dropout shows as well. And finally, if you're watching this Twitch Live thing and you're like, "I don't know about this Dropout stuff, my friend made me watch this, they said I had to or we couldn't be friends anymore." First of all, talk to your friend about communicating more gently, and second of all, you can go see the entire first season of this show, "Fantasy High" for free over on the "Dimension 20" YouTube channel. We got a YouTube channel, you can go and subscribe to that, and you can see a bunch of Adventuring Academy podcasts where we're running games, you can watch season one of "Fantasy High" where we meet the Bad Kids originally. Enough about that, let's get back to the recap. Last we left off, oh boy.

0:02:51 Siobhan: What happened last week? [everyone groaning] Lou sits very low in his seat, crossing his arms unhappily. He keeps doing this for the next five minutes or so.

0:02:54 Siobhan: I think we had a great episode.

0:02:57 Brennan: Last we left off. (chuckles)

0:02:58 Siobhan: I definitely haven't used my portent rolls.

0:03:02 Brennan: You see, you see, gang, the Bad Kids are a group of adventurers from the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, you can see it right here. The preeminent high school for heroes in all of Spyre. And their spring break is being spent doing their sophomore year project for 60% of their grade, which is retrieving the crown of the Nightmare King. That quest has brought them to the pirate city of Leviathan where they've met certain allies, such as Garthy O'Brien, the half-orc aasimar, and tender of the Gold Gardens, and they also have met some enemies, including Captain James Whitclaw of the Crimson Claw, the illithid pirate, an old rival of Fabian's father Bill Seacaster. While our intrepid heroes, most of our intrepid heroes, were busy uncovering a little mystery of potential infidelity on behalf of one of their hirelings and Fig's mom Sandra Lynn. Fabian got up on his own and was having a feast with the followers of his dad, warlocks of the multi-level marketing cult of Bill Seacaster, a bunch of broke warlocks that are now almost all dead. (laughs)

0:04:21 Siobhan: You okay there Lou?

0:04:22 Lou: No.

0:04:25 Brennan: Through deeply in-character choices, we-

0:04:30 Lou: Thank you.

0:04:32 Brennan: -we ended up seeing Fabian Aramais Seacaster bloody and suspended from ropes at the bottom of Crow's Keep after having been cursed by Chungledown Bim, and abandoning young Alistair Ash to the clutches of Captain Whitclaw. We also later saw some horrifying dreams of the souls of those warlocks going to hell. And we had some fun with Fig impersonating Jamina Joy as her and Gorgug rocketed at close to 200 miles an hour—

0:05:08 Zac: Another deeply in-character-

0:05:10 Brennan: (laughing) -in-character choice.

0:05:12 Emily: I thought that was solid. I stand by that decision.

0:05:14 Lou: It's incredible.

0:05:15 Emily: -had I rolled quickly, I think. (laughs)

0:05:19 Brennan: Absolutely. And finally, we ended with some really troubling news. Fabian ended up in the ocean after failing some Wisdom saving throws, because the Sleep had been interrupted, the moon haven did not last long enough to cover everybody. Murph, as Riz, had a terrifying encounter with Kalina, the Shadow Cat, who eventually pulls information from Riz concerning the fact that Ragh Barkrock had spilled the beans about being able to see her. She threatened to kill Lydia Barkrock, Ragh's mother, back in Spyre, and our intrepid heroes headed out the next morning, having recovered Fabian from the sea, to head to Crow's Keep with a note from Garthy O'Brien to find their friend, a woman named Ayda Aguefort, in the library of the Compass Points in Crow's Keep. You guys have suffered some pretty harrowing defeats. It is a new day, as Baxter, the Hangvan, and the party trundle off towards Crow's Keep. With that being said, are there any questions about anything that I did not cover from last session?

0:06:37 Murph: Is the Hangman dead? It's got like a--

0:06:39 Emily: Yeah, is the Hangman dead?

0:06:40 Brennan: The Hangman is on top of the van, sword of the Seacasters through the engine block with oil spilling out. (laughs)

0:06:48 Emily: So is it dead?

0:06:50 Murph: Do we find Fabian?

0:06:51 Lou: I'm in the car with pneumonia.

0:06:53 Brennan: With pneumonia, yeah, that's correct.

0:06:59 Gorgug: Listen, guys, (laughs),

0:07:01 Zac: Or do we, have we started? (adventurous music)

0:07:03 Brennan: So, a new day dawns over the wide city of Leviathan. Mist and fog rise up from the city's edge as the smell of rotting wood, Pirate's Grog, and the brine of the sea air wash over you. You hear the cawing of gulls and the creaking of the many decks as you wend your way in the early morning light to one of the many pulleys and rigs that will take your large cargo, the van and everything else, up to the raised platform village of Crow's Keep, high above the rest of Leviathan. Looking up at the Crow's Keep in the morning air, you guys spy something like dark smoke curling from a corner of the Crow's Keep as you make your way there. Does anyone else have any questions or what do you guys do as you approach?

0:07:56 Murph: I guess, can we do--

0:07:57 Emily: Yeah.

0:07:57 Murph: Do you guys, I guess first off, let's do a Perception check, see if we could see what the smoke is, and if not, I can sneak off. Good Stealth.

0:08:03 Ally: 10.

0:08:08 Murph: Nat 20 on a Perception check.

0:08:10 Emily: Ooh.

0:08:12 Brennan: A single, a small plume of smoke as a single building burns in the Crow's Keep. With nat 20, you know it is not the Compass Points library, so your destination is safe.

0:08:24 Ally: But a building was burned down.

0:08:26 Fig: I'd go check it out.

0:08:27 Brennan: It looks like a building was burned down.

0:08:28 Fabian: Nobody needs to check it out. (Ally chuckles)

0:08:31 Fig: All right, all right.

0:08:32 Gorgug: Fabian, I can't see you down there.

0:08:35 Fabian: (sighs, sits up) Nobody needs to go check out the building. I was there, I'm the reason there's a fire there. (energetic music)

0:08:44 Adaine: Are you gonna put your eye patch back on?

0:08:45 Fabian: No.

0:08:45 Adaine: Okay.

0:08:48 Kristen: Well.

0:08:49 Adaine: Do you wanna hold Boggy?

0:08:51 Kristen: You know, I feel like we need to clear the air on this, okay.

0:08:53 Siobhan: I give Fabian Boggy.

0:08:53 Kristen: Fabian, you made a bad choice, and then something bad happened to you that you couldn't control. Although, technically, we did have the moonstone set up for a full night's sleep, so yeah, it was actually way your fault that none of us could-

0:09:07 Adaine: Here is my question.

0:09:08 Kristen: Sorry.

0:09:09 Adaine: (to Riz) Why aren't you having nightmares?

0:09:14 Gorgug: You don't go to sleep, right?

0:09:14 Kristen: Me?

0:09:14 Adaine: No, Riz has nightmares, Riz goes to sleep.

0:09:18 Riz: Yeah, I've been attacked several times in the night.

0:09:22 Adaine: But you haven't had nightmares.

0:09:23 Riz: In a way, my life is a nightmare.

0:09:25 Adaine: Relatable.

0:09:26 Riz: But I haven't had actual nightmares, that's true.

0:09:28 Fig: Have you had any dreams?

0:09:29 Riz: No, I got grabbed by a mirror monster one night, and then the other night-

0:09:36 Fig: You weren't trying to sleep in.

0:09:37 Adaine: You were asleep and then Kalina--

0:09:39 Gorgug: Was he asleep when Kalina grabbed?

0:09:40 Riz: I just woke up and I was paralyzed.

0:09:43 Fig: I wonder if there's some reason that she protects you.

0:09:46 Riz: I don't know, she seemed pretty obviously concerned that Ragh had seen her, and she knows that I know she exists. Seems like she doesn't want anybody to know that.

0:09:58 Gorgug: And then Garthy didn't see her and then saw her, and same with-

0:10:00 Riz: Right.

0:10:03 Adaine: Right.

0:10:04 Gorgug: With Tracker.

0:10:05 Riz: Is it possible that she's masquerading as someone else or something?

0:10:10 Adaine: Or maybe if she finds out.

0:10:11 Riz: 'Cause like why would Garthy have—

0:10:13 Siobhan: But you've always been able to see her.

0:10:14 Riz: I've always been able to see her but she was my dad's partner at one point, so I'd seen her before.

0:10:19 Kristen: Interesting.

0:10:19 Riz: It seems like you have to have seen her before.

0:10:23 Kristen: But Tracker, who have you seen that we haven't? Have you been off on your own? I don't think so, right?

0:10:28 Adaine: No.

0:10:28 Tracker: No, I haven't been off on my own at all.

0:10:32 Kristen: Weird.

0:10:33 Riz: And you haven't had any dreams with the Shadow Cat, right?

0:10:37 Tracker: No, I haven't had any, like, even when we first started, I didn't have any really weird dreams other than normal. I have intense dreams, but that's because of my condition more than anything else.

0:10:49 Fig: Right.

0:10:49 Kristen: Yeah, totally. Huh.

0:10:52 Adaine: Weird.

0:10:53 Kristen: Okay.

0:10:54 Riz: All right, well, we better get the word out to Ragh's mom. Make sure she's okay.

0:10:58 Adaine: Yeah, let's go to the library so we can get this spell.

0:11:03 Brennan: Lovely. You guys ascend up to the Crow's Keep. You begin to approach the Compass Points library. Huge emblems of like a massive bronze sextant govern the entrance to the library.

0:11:20 Siobhan: (quietly) Nice.

0:11:22 Brennan: And you see giant sort of golden towers and they all are sort of made of wood. You'll see that there is a collection of just figureheads from various ships that cover this place almost like a cathedral but spars and splinters of the ships that they were taken from still extend past from the figureheads, so it's this strange, almost like a Library of Alexandria, a place of cultural significance and wonders, but splintered and fractured because all of it had to be fought for, protected from the drunken deprivations of pirates that might not have as active an interest in the preservation of their own pirate culture.

0:12:01 Emily: But also, are these books in here all stolen?

0:12:05 Brennan: Extremely so.

0:12:06 Emily: All right, it is my kinda library. (Ally laughs)

0:12:09 Emily: I sign up for a card.

0:12:11 Brennan: You go to the front desk as you guys approach this place, and you see that there is an ancient long gray-bearded, hunched over pirate who has like a thick sash spellbook in front of him. Long rings on his spindly fingers. Little sort of tricorner hat. (grouches)

0:12:33 Adaine: Ahoy.

0:12:34 Pirate Librarian: (weak, old-sounding, strained) Ahoy, welcome to the library of the Compass Points.

0:12:39 Ally: I feel like there aren't a lot of spellcasters like, can I do an Insight check to see if he's also, like Fabian's dad is giving him spells?

0:12:47 Brennan: Sure. (dice clatter)

0:12:50 Ally: Ooh, oh, goddamn it, 11.

0:12:53 Brennan: Uh, you would clock this guy actually at first as a wizard, you see that he has a sort of holster at his side, which is chained and buckled, and it looks too chained up to be able to access it easily, and it is a massive tome that has a giant Jolly Roger on it, and written in scratched red ink on the surface of the leather-bound book, it says, "Here be pirate spells." So you guess he's probably a wizard.

0:13:23 Fig: Can I rent that book? Pirate Librarian Wizard: What, this book is not a part of the library's general stock. This is my personal book.

0:13:33 Adaine: Can I rent that book?

0:13:38 Pirate Wizard: My book of pirate spells?

0:13:40 Adaine: Please? May I?

0:13:41 Pirate Wizard: Why?

0:13:42 Gorgug: Is it making you sad that we're asking?

0:13:43 Kristen: You are a whisper of a man. (all laugh)

0:13:46 Fig: (laughs) A faint idea.

0:13:48 Adaine: In our culture, that's a compliment.

0:13:52 Pirate Wizard: Many of the spells have taken a hefty toll on my constitution. There are spells within here, there are spells that only the most powerful pirate wizards can conjure. There's a spell to turn bananas into gold coins.

0:14:10 Fig: Huh, I'm not interested in that.

0:14:13 Pirate Wizard: There are spells—

0:14:13 Gorgug: It's pretty cool.

0:14:13 Pirate Wizard: to turn—

0:14:14 Kristen: I think bananas are pretty important on the sea, right?

0:14:16 Pirate Wizard: Well.

0:14:16 Adaine: Yeah, it's a good source of vitamin C and potassium.

0:14:18 Gorgug: Does it go the other way?

0:14:19 Pirate Wizard: Well.

0:14:20 Gorgug: Could you turn gold coins into bananas?

0:14:21 Pirate Wizard: That knowledge has been lost. But there are spells to turn parrots into bananas.

0:14:27 Gorgug: Okay, so if you had a bunch of parrots and you wanted gold coins, you could turn them into bananas and then into gold.

0:14:30 Fig: (crosstalk) A two-fold process.

0:14:33 Pirate Wizard: (a little more energetic) A bunch of transmutative properties do make it rather taxing, so let's say that I wanted to have a single gold coin but I had to start with parrots, I would probably need about 50 parrots.

0:14:46 Gorgug: So 50 parrots turn into 25-

0:14:49 Pirate Wizard: Turn into 10 bananas.

0:14:51 Gorgug: 10 bananas.

0:14:52 Fig: And 10 bananas turn into one gold.

0:14:54 Pirate Wizard: You're correct.

0:14:54 Gorgug: Wow.

0:14:55 Adaine: How many parrots have you eaten?

0:14:55 Fig: I just feel like an honest day's work will get you more gold.

0:14:57 Pirate Wizard: What?

0:14:59 Adaine: Yeah.

0:15:00 Pirate Wizard: Wait, how many parrots have I eaten?

0:15:00 Adaine: Are we looking for Ayda Aguefort?

0:15:02 Pirate Wizard: Well, one time, I turned a community of parrots into a bunch of bananas, and there were about eight bananas in the bunch, so you can assume eight times five is 40, so I've eaten about 40 parrots.

0:15:14 Gorgug: And what about the gold—

0:15:16 Pirate Wizard: So I ate 42 parrots, there were another two occasions where I just ate a parrot the normal way.

0:15:21 Fig and Adaine: What's the normal way?

0:15:23 Gorgug: You cook a parrot.

0:15:23 Riz: Just pop in a parrot, yeah.

0:15:24 Kristen: So we are looking for Ayda Aguefort.

0:15:27 Pirate Wizard: (screaming briefly) Ah, the mistress of the library.

0:15:30 Kristen: Yes.

0:15:30 Adaine: Yes.

0:15:31 Pirate Wizard: She is the quartermaster of the knowledge of Leviathan. The pirates are not a scholarly bunch.

0:15:43 Adaine: Except for you.

0:15:43 Pirate Wizard: Except for we, the few who maintain the Compass Points, the charts of the stars and the maps of the sea and its currents. We who know the comings and goings of Leviathan. Would you like to sign up for a library card?

0:15:51 Adaine: Yes, please.

0:15:59 Fig: I actually would, yeah.

0:16:01 Kristen: I would, too, actually, yeah.

0:16:01 Pirate Wizard: Wonderful.

0:16:01 Kristen: We're looking for books on religion, anything but Helio at this point, I feel like I've got that covered.

0:16:09 Pirate Wizard: Well, very well, we will be happy to instruct you onto some religious texts or manuals. And after this way of sign you up, it costs nothing to join, but we receive more funding from the city government the more people sign up for a library card.

0:16:26 Adaine: Oh, that's fantastic.

0:16:27 Fig: Okay, I've got a couple burner phones, I could make up some personalities.

0:16:32 Pirate Wizard: Ah, we actually receive double funding for invented personalities.

0:16:36 Gorgug: Really?

0:16:36 Fig: I'm your girl. (all laugh)

0:16:37 Kristen: That's very pirate, I like that.

0:16:39 Pirate Wizard: Yes, absolutely.

0:16:40 Gorgug: You don't happen to have any books on a guy called the Nightmare King, do you?

0:16:46 Pirate Wizard: The Nightmare King, I am sure if it is forbidden knowledge you seek, then it shall await you in the rows here of the Compass Points, unless it has been stolen, which happens a lot, we have a lot of stolen books.

0:17:00 Adaine: May we steal books?

0:17:03 Pirate Wizard: Mm, please don't.

0:17:04 Emily: Can I steal his book?

0:17:06 Brennan: (laughs) Give me a Sleight of Hand check.

0:17:07 Zac: It's chained to him.

0:17:08 Ally: I would like to do--

0:17:10 Emily: 14.

0:17:11 Brennan: 14.

0:17:11 Ally: I would like to stop you, I feel so bad for him. Can I try to beat that?

0:17:16 Brennan: I'm gonna say that make you roll with disadvantage. Give me a roll, so you roll lower than 14.

0:17:21 Emily: I got a nat 1.

0:17:22 Brennan: Okay, I'm gonna need you to make a Constitution check.

0:17:25 Ally: Don’t! No, I'm so sorry. I just felt bad for him.

0:17:29 Brennan: Or a Constitution saving throw?

0:17:31 Emily: I got 16.

0:17:31 Brennan: 16. You see that the dude blasts you with a spell and there is a tiny horned parrot fluttering where Fig just was a moment before.

0:17:43 Kristen: What, come on!

0:17:44 Gorgug: Oh, don't eat her, don't eat her.

0:17:45 Fig: (parrot voice) No, it was a joke. Turn me into a banana.

0:17:48 Pirate Wizard: I could only turn you into one fifth of a banana.

0:17:52 Siobhan: I Dispel Magic.

0:17:54 Brennan: (laughs) Fig, you pop back.

0:17:55 Fig: It was a joke, dude, get a sense of humor.

0:17:58 Pirate Wizard: Do not attempt to take from me my tome of pirate spells.

0:18:01 Gorgug: So, great. Wait, is Ayda Aguefort here?

0:18:06 Pirate Wizard: Yes, she is now in the observatory, mapping the movements of the stars. Well, I guess it's day, so she might be napping.

0:18:16 Kristen: Let's go.

0:18:16 Fig: Mapping and napping, got it.

0:18:18 Gorgug: Can we go up there?

0:18:20 Pirate Wizard: Yes, the observatory is open to all that is not forbidden. Please do not go into the forbidden areas, though, if you find them, they will be clearly marked, they are often intruded upon, please don't.

0:18:31 Adaine: Yes, we won't. (winks obviously)

0:18:33 Pirate Wizard: Do not wink at me, I am being sincere in my objection.

0:18:37 Gorgug: Can we go in if we have a library card?

0:18:40 Pirate Wizard: (sighs) I need to look that up. I think maybe, but I don't know.

0:18:44 Gorgug: Okay, we'll leave you alone.

0:18:45 Adaine: The rules seemed vague enough that we might.

0:18:48 Pirate Wizard: The rules are quite specific. (cheery but slightly mysterious music)

0:18:50 Brennan: As you wend your way away from the front desk, you guys all, by the way, get your library cards, so all of you can, in your inventory, put Compass Points library card. You know, membership to another prestigious organization. You guys all sort of en masse head up to the observatory. As you arrive at the observatory, you guys see a massive wooden dome that has a huge gilded spyglass, but it is the size of like an observatory's telescope, so this, you know, 60-foot monolith, but you see that it is still like a spyglass and that is has golden filigree work, there's like fluid leaves on it, shapes and busts on the side of the telescope. You see, you don't look, you look around, there's a couple people napping in here and sleeping, it looks like. There's a couple people playing chess in a corner. A lot of places in the library seem to be more social areas, some people appear to, it doesn't feel like a library. Again, library and pirate city aren't two vibes that go very well together, so there is some clashing.

0:20:05 Siobhan: So you're saying it's like an L.A. library.

0:20:07 Brennan: It's a lot like a Los Angeles library, yes. So, you guys mose your way through, there is a large bit of arcane runework going around the outside of the observatory, there's an enormous sort of tropical looking red, orange, and yellow bird that has covered itself with its wings and is swinging from a little perch. The bird is about maybe like six or seven feet tall. Go ahead and make Perception checks, anyone that would like to. (dice clattering)

0:20:41 Siobhan: 15.

0:20:42 Emily: 6.

0:20:42 Ally: 18.

0:20:44 Lou: Nat 1.

0:20:44 Murph: Dirty 20.

0:20:45 Zac: 2.

0:20:45 Emily: (in sympathy) Oh, Fabian.

0:20:48 Brennan: Nat 1 for Fabian, Fabian, you cannot see anything in this room because your eyes are turned only inward. Riz, you look up at that bird in the corner, and you actually can't tell if it's a bird. You see two large yellow talons. The talons might be about two feet long, and the wings are wrapped around, but they're sort of creating a little night thing for the bird, so you actually can't see its body, it's sort of like a little shield of wings and two talons sticking out from under it.

0:21:06 Riz: Hm.

0:21:16 Kristen: Hm.

0:21:25 Adaine: Excuse me.

0:21:25 Riz: Shall we say hello?

0:21:26 Fig: Yeah.

0:21:27 Adaine: Miss Aguefort.

0:21:27 Gorgug: You wanna go talk to that bird?

0:21:30 Riz: It might not be a bird.

0:21:33 Zac: (nodding) Gorgug doesn’t... (Murph laughs)

0:21:36 Gorgug: What?

0:21:37 Brennan: As you say, “it might not be a bird,” You hear (screeches) and then the wings spread. And a resplendent beautiful woman who from the knees down has large talons, she also has digitigrade ankles, she has those ankles that kind of kick back like a lot of animal feet do. So from the knees on down become these almost like metallic golden talons. She bears a striking resemblance to Arthur Aguefort the moment you look at her.

0:22:16 Zac: Is she a harpy?

0:22:17 Brennan: She looks kind of harpy-esque until you realize that she does have arms in addition to wings. So she has these incredibly, and as they spread, deep red wings that as they approach the tips of the feathers sort of change into orange, and by the time they get to yellow, flicker in a little edge of flame on the outside of the wings. She's dressed in sort of like white linen pants with a pirate's sash on them. No guns or anything you can see. Sort of vest, a lot of sort of orange runes tattooed on her arms, you see that she has a short shark of red hair, it seems to be not on the sides or back as much, almost like a plume of red fiery hair that comes off the top of her head. And her eyes have pupils in them but are otherwise clearly roiling balls of flame.

0:23:14 Fig: Guys, I think this is the creature Arthur Aguefort made for me.

0:23:18 Adaine: No.

0:23:18 Fabian: No.

0:23:20 Adaine: This is a full person. This is a full sentient person.

0:23:22 Brennan: You see that there's a whoomp, pew.

0:23:24 Fig: It was kind of wishful thinking. (laughs)

0:23:26 Brennan: This woman lands in front of you. You see that she does have two scrolls at the side on her bandolier, and similarly to the guy downstairs, but sort of like she has it on those leather harnesses you would have for guns, but it's two small books strapped under each arm.

0:23:46 Ally: I said,

0:23:46 Kristen: Fig, you should feed it.

0:23:48 Emily: I hold out food.

0:23:50 Adaine: What are you, I , excuse—

0:23:52 Ayda: So you offer this food—

0:23:53 Siobhan: I turn her back into a parrot.

0:23:55 Brennan: (laughs) And she says,

0:23:55 Ayda: (crisp, forceful voice, British accent) Do you offer this food to me as a gift?

0:23:58 Fig: Yes.

0:23:58 Ayda: Then I do not accept. I will be in no one's debt as a wizard.

0:24:02 Fig: Oh, okay,

0:24:02 Emily: I eat the food.

0:24:05 Ayda: Are you now in your own debt?

0:24:06 Gorgug: Are you eating birdseed?

0:24:07 Fig: I owe myself.

0:24:12 Adaine: Aren't we all in our own debt?

0:24:12 Ayda: Oh, are we all in our debt?

0:24:14 Brennan: She takes one of the books out and begins to scribble something in it. Anyone here can make an Insight check if you would like.

0:24:20 Ally: I need to know if this Fig's animal. (Emily laughs)

0:24:24 Siobhan: I got a nat one.

0:24:25 Murph: 12.

0:24:26 Siobhan: I guess, can I have Boggy help me?

0:24:27 Brennan: Yes, go for it.

0:24:28 Siobhan: Great.

0:24:28 Zac: Five.

0:24:29 Fabian: 18.

0:24:29 Brennan: 18. (pointing at different players)

0:24:30 Emily: 9.

0:24:30 Ally: 13.

0:24:31 Siobhan: 12.

0:24:33 Brennan: You (Fabian) immediately recognize this is, you know what it's like to have famous and notorious parents and kind of be a little, what that does to you growing up. This is Arthur Aguefort's daughter.

0:24:46 Gorgug: Oh. He really did fuck anything.

0:24:49 Adaine: You're being, everybody’s being very rude.

0:24:51 Fig: Don't talk about my creature that way.

0:24:52 Adaine: Stop saying things out loud.

0:24:54 Ayda: I'm sorry, did you just refer to me as your creature?

0:24:56 Fig: I'm sorry, it's just wishful thinking. See, Arthur Aguefort promised me he'd make me the coolest creature in the world.

0:25:02 Ayda: (yelling) Arthur Aguefort!

0:25:04 Kristen: Uh-huh.

0:25:05 Adaine: Yeah.

0:25:06 Ayda: His name (pause) is my father's name.

0:25:11 Adaine: Yes, we're students of the Aguefort Adventuring Academy.

0:25:14 Ayda: What are you doing here?

0:25:16 Adaine: I'm Adaine Abernant. (offers hand to shake)

0:25:17 Brennan: Oh, you see that she grabs your hand to shake it, turns it around, looks at you, and says,

0:25:21 Ayda: The Elven Oracle, in the flesh.

0:25:24 Adaine: Yes, hi.

0:25:25 Ayda: I thought you died.

0:25:26 Adaine: No, it gets passed on.

0:25:29 Ayda: Ah, much like a phoenix, curious.

0:25:33 Adaine: Well, actually, it's quite different from a phoenix.

0:25:34 Gorgug: Are you part-phoenix?

0:25:36 Ayda: Half-phoenix, to be exact.

0:25:39 Fig: (gasps) That's so cool.

0:25:40 Kristen: Wait, so did Arthur Aguefort sacrifice his wife when we died?

0:25:46 Riz: No, that was like an egg.

0:25:48 Kristen: Oh. Wait, was that his kid though?

0:25:51 Fig: Is one of your parents a full phoenix?

0:25:55 Ayda: Yes, when it comes around, my mother is a full phoenix, she is an adult most of the time and then becomes a kid every so often. It's complicated, if you're weirded out by it, join the club.

0:26:08 Adaine: If you guys had read his very spicy autobiography, you would've already known all this.

0:26:12 Gorgug: We died and were brought back to life by a phoenix egg.

0:26:16 Ayda: Ah, the last phoenix egg.

0:26:18 Kristen: Yeah.

0:26:18 Ayda: Yes.

0:26:20 Kristen: Was that a relative of yours?

0:26:24 Ayda: Most likely, phoenixes are all related as celestial creatures. This is the Compass Points library. Who are all of you?

0:26:30 Adaine: It’s so nice to meet you. I'm just here to learn a spell.

0:26:33 Riz: Riz Gukgak, yes, we're here for a spell.

0:26:36 Fig: I'm Figueroth Faeth and we're taking down the Nightmare King.

0:26:40 Ayda: Did Arthur Aguefort promise you a creature of some kind?

0:26:42 Fig: Yes, I paid him handsomely to make me a really cool creature I could ride around on. Then we got this really cool van, so we haven't really needed it.

0:26:49 Adaine: (crosstalk) Also, we're not taking down the Nightmare King, we're just getting his crown back, I just wanna make that clear.

0:26:53 Ayda: I apologize to you Figueroth Faeth. Though you have insulted me almost immediately upon meeting me, you find yourself in the unfortunate but all too common position of having been lied to by Arthur Aguefort.

0:27:04 Fig: You think he scammed me? My principal scammed me?

0:27:09 Ayda: You are adventurers of the Aguefort Adventuring Academy.

0:27:11 Adaine: Mm-hmm.

0:27:13 Fig: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Also—

0:27:14 Kristen: I'm Kristen Applebees, no relation to Applebee's.

0:27:17 Ayda: That's nothing. What you were about to say would be crazy to say, because there's no relation to anything, 'cause why would there be?

0:27:25 Kristen: I was saying applebees, like when you go to an apple store and you get bit by a bee.

0:27:30 Ayda: I have a spell for that if you would like.

0:27:32 Kristen: Really?

0:27:32 Ayda: Yes.

0:27:32 Gorgug: Wait, you're saying that us as students going to stop the Nightmare King for 60% of our grade and being put in life-threatening situations nearly constantly is a scam?

0:27:46 Fig: Is he a scam artist, is school a scam?

0:27:50 Ayda: Hm, hm.

0:27:52 Adaine: I like school a lot.

0:27:54 Ayda: I bet you would.

0:27:58 Fig: (laughs) Battle, battle. (claps)

0:28:01 Kristen: Dance battle.

0:28:04 Adaine: We're here to learn the Sending spell, and by we, I mean I, I don't know why my friends are here, because they are embarrassing me.

0:28:09 Ayda: I understand. Listen, there is an obstacle before us if your quest here is to learn a spell, and that obstacle is this, I don't want to help you. (all chuckle)

0:28:25 Adaine: Oh.

0:28:25 Gorgug: Ah.

0:28:25 Adaine: So by us, you mean us.

0:28:30 Ayda: What?

0:28:30 Adaine: And not you. There is an obstacle before you—

0:28:33 Ayda: I require seed.

0:28:34 Brennan: She flies out the window. (whooshes)

0:28:36 Riz: Wait, wait, wait. Is there anything we can do for you?

0:28:39 Siobhan: I cast, I don't have it.

0:28:40 Fabian: (yelling) Garthy O'Brien sent us.

0:28:42 Ayda: (yelling) What?

0:28:43 Fabian: Garthy O'Brien sent us.

0:28:44 Brennan: You see, she flies around and says,

0:28:44 Ayda: (growling) That name!

0:28:47 Gorgug: Do you have your letter?

0:28:47 Fig: Is a good one?

0:28:48 Ayda: Is the name of my close friend.

0:28:51 Riz: (laughing) Tough to read.

0:28:51 Fabian: They gave us a slip that says—

0:28:55 Adaine: Oh yes, I have a piece of paper.

0:28:57 Fabian: Yes, we're not here just because.

0:28:59 Ayda: Why, are you bragging? I have many slips of paper.

0:29:02 Adaine: It's a specific piece of paper with a letter from Garthy on it.

0:29:06 Ayda: Do you give this as a gift or as a message? Ayda snatches the message and opens and reads it.

0:29:08 Adaine: I give it as a message. I would never give you a gift, you've made it clear that you do not want one.

0:29:12 Ayda: I wish for no gifts.

0:29:13 Adaine: But if you would like to buy this message off of me, you're more than welcome to.

0:29:19 Ayda: Much as a candle can light a second candle without diminishing its own light, I give you back your message unchanged for I have your message now as do you.

0:29:29 Fig: This is so painful 'cause this is what I'm like emotionally, right?

0:29:32 Adaine: No.

0:29:33 Ayda: What am I like emotionally? Explain.

0:29:35 Fig: Oh, no, no, no, I'm saying the way that you are so transactional, never allowing for any moment of tenderness, that's me and my life.

0:29:45 Gorgug: I don't, I think people think you're very tender. (all laugh)

0:29:47 Adaine: You're the tenderest person that I know.

0:29:49 Ayda: Have I given you any reason to believe that I'm not tender?

0:29:51 Gorgug: I just,

0:29:53 Fig: No.

0:29:53 Gorgug: There's a lot, there's an intensity in your—

0:29:55 Ayda: (demanding) Why?

0:29:56 Fig: There's a lack of vulnerability, you know, the fact--

0:29:57 Ayda: Where?

0:29:59 Fig: That fact that you fear—

0:29:59 Adaine: I think you're cool.

0:30:00 Fig: A debt when sometimes our debts to each other are what bond us to each other in the most beautiful way possible.

0:30:05 Adaine: Society is built on that.

0:30:07 Riz: We don't need to save everyone, guys.

0:30:08 Ally: [to Adaine] I hit you and I'm like,

0:30:09 Kristen: Get some seed out of the jacket.

0:30:12 Fabian: Do not feed this person.

0:30:13 Gorgug: Listen—

0:30:14 Riz: So you're friends with Garthy, huh?

0:30:16 Gorgug: Yeah. (all laugh)

0:30:17 Kristen: Yeah, we love them.

0:30:18 Adaine: I can teach you a spell if you teach me a spell. Then the transaction is clear.

0:30:22 Ayda: I will teach you a spell for the going rate of 50 gold pieces per spell level.

0:30:28 Gorgug: What level is Sending?

0:30:29 Fabian: Three.

0:30:29 Adaine: It's a third-level spell, so that's 150 gold.

0:30:32 Gorgug: I'll throw in 50. We all gotta send some messages back to the mainland.

0:30:38 Ayda: Ah, I see. You have discovered information here on Leviathan that you dearly wish to communicate to your friends and allies on the mainland.

0:30:44 Adaine: Yes.

0:30:47 Ayda: Fascinating.

0:30:48 Kristen: Someone's mother is in danger.

0:30:49 Ayda: Whose?

0:30:50 Adaine: It is somewhat pressing.

0:30:50 Gorgug: And my girlfriend's really mad at me.

0:30:52 Ayda: Whose, yours?

0:30:53 Gorgug: Yeah.

0:30:54 Ayda: Why?

0:30:54 Gorgug: Well—

0:30:54 Ayda: What have you done?

0:30:56 Gorgug: Oh god, this feels kind of complicated to explain right now.

0:31:01 Adaine: Our friend's mom might die. This is more imp, sorry, it's more—

0:31:04 Ayda: Your friend's mother might die. Does she then possess some chance of immortality?

0:31:09 Riz: She's being hunted.

0:31:09 Gorgug: We will all die eventually, I think.

0:31:14 Adaine: I would love to give you 150 gold for this spell.

0:31:16 Fig: Can I give you 400 gold to get--

0:31:18 Adaine: No.

0:31:19 Ayda: What?

0:31:20 Fig: Oh, actually, 200 gold to get Greater Invisibility?

0:31:22 Adaine: That's not how bards work.

0:31:25 Ayda: If you would like a copy of the wizard spell Greater Invisibility, I would be happy to take 200 gold.

0:31:31 Fig: It is also a bard spell.

0:31:32 Ayda: (unconvincingly) For sure.

0:31:35 Kristen: So, you know Garthy and so do we, and it'd kinda seem like since they sent us, maybe this could be a little bit easier. Are we bothering you, does Garthy send a lot of people this way?

0:31:47 Ayda: Hm, I will answer your question truly, I find you tremendously bothersome. However—

0:31:50 Fig: Thank you.

0:31:50 Ayda: There is also much that you bring in the way of information. And I find myself transfixed by your strangeness.

0:32:00 Kristen: Yes, very mutual.

0:32:03 Brennan: Her eyes do that eagle thing, and they're made of fire, so she is extremely hard to read. She looks at you and says,

0:32:11 Ayda: Yes. You are looking for answers in a book for a question you have long posed. Questions are good, are they not? To seek something. But what if there's nothing at the end of your journey, nothing to find and the long years of questioning leave you thirsty and mad, filled with hunger?

0:32:36 Kristen: Then I would be bummed, but maybe asking questions is the answer.

0:32:45 Ayda: (very seriously) Hm, probably not.

0:32:48 Gorgug: Would, I think we have maybe some larger questions but then also some smaller questions that have very specific answers.

0:32:57 Ayda: Very well, I shall answer them if I can.

0:32:59 Gorgug: Can we have that spell?

0:33:01 Ayda: Yes.

0:33:02 Adaine: Can you see this cat? Riz holds out the picture. (Lou laughs)

0:33:08 Ayda: There is no cat in this photograph.

0:33:10 Fig: Yes, but do you see, who do you see in that?

0:33:14 Ayda: I see a goblin man.

0:33:16 Kristen: Do you listen to music?

0:33:17 Ayda: Yes.

0:33:17 Riz: Wait, hold on, let's keep on the same line of question—

0:33:21 Adaine: What school of magic do you study?

0:33:22 Ayda: What's that?

0:33:23 Adaine: What school of magic do you study?

0:33:24 Ayda: Divination.

0:33:25 Adaine: (excited) Me too!

0:33:25 Ayda: Fascinating.

0:33:26 Adaine: Fascinating.

0:33:27 Riz: Are you aware of any kind of creature that would only be visible to someone who had seen it before?

0:33:35 Ayda: How would that work?

0:33:37 Riz: We see a cat in this picture.

0:33:38 Gorgug: But some of us only—

0:33:39 Adaine: I don't.

0:33:41 Gorgug: Some of us can't see it.

0:33:42 Ayda: If you can only see it if you've seen it before, then only the people who can already see it, would ever be able to see it, and nobody new would ever be able to see it.

0:33:50 Kristen: Yeah, that's what we think is happening.

0:33:51 Fig: Yeah, well, no.

0:33:53 Gorgug: But nobody—

0:33:53 Adaine: But see them in real life. And then you can see them in the picture.

0:33:56 Fig: The rules of the game have changed perhaps.

0:33:58 Adaine: Maybe. Or not. The logic doesn't hold up, but it is fascinating.

0:34:03 Ayda: I find that the most curious instances of magic are those where the logic specifically doesn't hold up. Study of magic is of course the study of the edge cases in the marginal, where the rules of physics and reality bend to the will of individuals. Very curious indeed. Did my father talk about me?

0:34:23 Fig: All the time, constantly.

0:34:24 Brennan: Give me a Deception check.

0:34:27 Ally: Can I give her the Help action?

0:34:30 Brennan: Yeah, if you want.

0:34:34 Emily: 21.

0:34:34 Brennan: 21. She looks at you and says,

0:34:41 Ayda: Hm, deeply unlike him, but I find myself very moved.

0:34:44 Fig: Yeah.

0:34:44 Gorgug: You know, your father was often pissed off by the things I said unintentionally.

0:34:51 Ayda: Yes, why? Are you bad?

0:34:53 Gorgug: I would say things, I don't think I'm bad, I think I would accidentally make him mad by saying things that maybe threatened him in some way, not physically.

0:35:08 Ayda: I understand, you seem (pauses, stares intensely) simple to me.

0:35:14 Gorgug: Oh, thank god, yeah.

0:35:16 Brennan: You see, she says,

0:35:16 Ayda: It's an enviable position. There is no way to pursue the craft that my father and I both pursue, and your friend Adaine as well, and—

0:35:27 Gorgug: I could probably do it.

0:35:30 Ayda: Oh?

0:35:31 Gorgug: What is—

0:35:31 Siobhan: (having just taken a drink) I spit my tea.

0:35:36 Gorgug: What's a telescope but a spyglass pointed at the stars?

0:35:40 Fig: Whoa, that's so good, that's gonna be one of our songs!

0:35:43 Ayda: What?

0:35:46 Adaine: What's your favorite spell?

0:35:48 Ayda: Hush, I must solve this riddle.

0:35:50 Brennan: And you see that she flies up to a perch.

0:35:51 Ayda: What is a telescope but a spyglass pointed at the stars? (muttering)

0:35:57 Brennan: Anyone can make an Insight check that wants to. (dice clattering)

0:36:01 Ally: 19.

0:36:02 Siobhan: Nat 20.

0:36:03 Brennan: Nat 20.

0:36:04 Emily: Ooh.

0:36:05 Brennan: You're looking at her and she is just extremely her father's daughter. She is just—

0:36:11 Adaine: Anytime with that spell.

0:36:17 Ayda: Gorgug.

0:36:18 Gorgug: Yeah.

0:36:18 Ayda: Your name is Gorgug.

0:36:18 Gorgug: Yeah, that is my name.

0:36:22 Ayda: I believe you'd be the greatest wizard of this age.

0:36:28 Emily: (laughs) I look at Adaine.

0:36:31 Siobhan: I don't look at anyone. It's too awful.

0:36:33 Gorgug: Should I learn the Sending spell? To be frank, gotta be clear, clean slate, no spells.

0:36:41 Ayda: Yes, a clean slate. The mind clutters as the years of study wear on and on, sometimes I think that the greatest wizards are themselves burdened by the taxing mental weight of all their past knowledge. A clean slate, you may be capable of the greatest spellwork in generations.

0:37:03 Fig: (whispering) Give him the Sending spell.

0:37:05 Gorgug: So, do you just read it until you know it? Or do you—

0:37:15 Ayda: (laughs) (screeches) Very good. You're hired.

0:37:20 Gorgug: Hired?

0:37:21 Fig: Good for you, man.

0:37:21 Ayda: 150 gold pieces and I will honor this favor for my friend Garthy O'Brien and give you the spell.

0:37:27 Kristen: Let's do it.

0:37:29 Adaine: Yep.

0:37:29 Fig: Yep.

0:37:29 Adaine: Thank you.

0:37:30 Brennan: Cool, you guys erase that gold.

0:37:35 Fig: Who paid for it, do we need more?

0:37:36 Adaine: I'll pay for it for now.

0:37:38 Fig: I can also go.

0:37:39 Adaine: I've got it.

0:37:40 Fabian: We'll pay you back later.

0:37:41 Adaine: Great.

0:37:44 Brennan: You see that, you get the Sending spell, it's given to you, manuscript, this is a, you can make a little mark in your spellbook as you put Sending, which is a third-level spell, in there. This is actually a modified version from a pirate spellbook.

0:38:01 Siobhan: Okay.

0:38:01 Brennan: Sending normally has a 25-word limit in the message that goes out and the message that comes back. Ancient pirate mages of long ago found a way to slightly modify the spell, so curse words and swears don't count against the word limit of this version of the Sending spell. (Emily laughs)

0:38:22 Brennan: So if you get creative, you can actually transmit really long messages with this as long as they are… (looking at someone outside the screen) Are we not supposed to curse? (all laughing)

0:38:34 Brennan: Well, there you go.

0:38:37 Siobhan: What about pirate curses?

0:38:38 Brennan: Yeah, pirate curses, exactly.

0:38:40 Siobhan: Shiver me timbers, et cetera.

0:38:42 Brennan: Et cetera, et cetera.

0:38:42 Lou: Timbers is a curse, right?

0:38:45 Brennan: Yes, yes, yes, of course.

0:38:46 Murph: So that would be two words.

0:38:46 Ally: We are timbered.

0:38:47 Siobhan: Yeah, we're absolutely timbered. (all laughing)

0:38:50 Zac: A lot of math conversions in this session.

0:38:55 Brennan: You guys see, so, Adaine, it's gonna take you six hours to sit down and fully transcribe this spell.

0:39:01 Adaine: Thank you so much, everybody. (starts to turn away)

0:39:04 Fig: While that's happening, does anyone wanna look for a forbidden section?

0:39:08 Kristen: Yup.

0:39:09 Fig: Cool.

0:39:09 Zac: Can I, are there any sort of Intro to Wizard books I can just--

0:39:16 Brennan: She comes over to you, looks at you again.

0:39:18 Zac: Keep in mind, I just wanna be completely clear, 8 Intelligence.

0:39:25 Brennan: She comes over to you and holds your head in both hands.

0:39:33 Ayda: I'm looking at a perfectly serene lake of still, clear water. Unburdened—

0:39:40 Gorgug: Where, oh.

0:39:41 Ayda: It's a metaphor, hold on.

0:39:41 Gorgug: Okay.

0:39:45 Ayda: You are completely unburdened by the weight and sorrow of intellect, your mind as empty and free of trappings or weight as anything I've ever seen. It is like staring at a clear and cloudless sky, completely beautiful. I forbid you to ever read a single word of wizardry.

0:40:07 Gorgug: Got it, I won't. Give me a book and I'll cut it in half.

0:40:13 Ayda: (sincere) You are beautiful to me.

0:40:15 Gorgug: Thank you.

0:40:15 Kristen: Wow, Gorgug's got a new girlfriend.

0:40:17 Gorgug: I don't, come on.

0:40:19 Kristen: Gorgug's gonna get HPV. Zac puts his head in his hands.

0:40:21 Adaine: You're dating the headmaster's daughter?

0:40:24 Fabian: Immediately assume she has HPV?

0:40:26 Kristen: No, I just mean, as your parents were--

0:40:28 Ayda: You guys have been crazy rude since you got here.

0:40:31 Kristen: Look, I didn't mean to say that within earshot. Wanna go look for books on the Nightmare King?

0:40:35 Fig: Yeah, I do, I do.

0:40:36 Ayda: You wish to study the Nightmare King?

0:40:38 Fig: Yes, I also have a question. And it's a sincere question. You're studying the sky, do you think that there's anything, and you're a Divination wizard, do you believe that the sky has any insight into the future or even the present, or do you study it as a matter of curiosity of the stars?

0:40:55 Ayda: Hm, I study it so I can know where this big city is floating.

0:40:58 Fig: Okay, that's a very practical reason.

0:41:00 Gorgug: Sort of navigational.

0:41:00 Fig: Yeah, that's honestly why I asked, cool. So, I don't have any interest in the stars.

0:41:05 Adaine: Can you also look for books on the Elven Oracle. Feels like this might be a place where there would be more information.

0:41:11 Ayda: Yes.

0:41:11 Krsiten: Yeah, do you know much about the Nightmare King, we're trying to get the crown.

0:41:16 Fig: I actually have another thing.

0:41:17 Ayda: Yes.

0:41:18 Fig: Do you have any books on cursed gems? I’m willing to read them.

0:41:21 Ayda: Books on cursed gems, you might be surprised to know that the interest of pirates and various cursed gems is quite high.

0:41:29 Fig: That's what I thought.

0:41:30 Ayda: Yes, absolutely.

0:41:32 Brennan: Each of you guys can go ahead and make an Arcana check with advantage as you are in this library. (dice clatter)

0:41:38 Murph: Can I investigate?

0:41:39 Brennan: Sure.

0:41:39 Emily: (claps) 19.

0:41:40 Ally: Nice.

0:41:41 Brennan: 19, hell yeah.

0:41:41 Emily: And that's with plus 2 Arcana, so.

0:41:43 Ally: 13.

0:41:44 Murph: Ooh, I got a 27.

0:41:48 Brennan: Cool, you got 27 for Investigation.

0:41:51 Ally: 13.

0:41:51 Brennan: 13. We'll start with Kristen, what's Kristen looking for here?

0:41:54 Ally: Anything about the Nightmare King. I think I'm looking for a project.

0:41:59 Murph: I think I'm also looking for Nightmare King as well.

0:42:02 Zac: Can I look for something too?

0:42:04 Brennan: Yeah, for sure. What'd you get?

0:42:09 Zac: (tiny laugh) I got a 2.

0:42:10 Brennan: 2, okay.

0:42:11 Zac: I'm looking for a book on, so your friend's sad.

0:42:15 Brennan: (laughs) So your friend is sad, yeah.

0:42:16 Lou: Can I check on, is the Hangman outside the library?

0:42:19 Brennan: Yes, the van is still out there.

0:42:19 Lou: Can I go check on him?

0:42:20 Ally: Can I grab him as he's about to leave and be like,

0:42:22 Kristen: No.

0:42:26 Fabian: I'm just going outside. I'm just going outside!

0:42:26 Kristen: No, I'm just saying, it's buddy system from here on out. We almost lost you.

0:42:29 Fabian: I would be right outside at the van.

0:42:32 Brennan: You see Ragh looks at you, Kristen, and says,

0:42:33 Ragh: I got him, I'm good, I'm good.

0:42:35 Kristen: Okay.

0:42:37 Brennan: Ragh goes out with you to check up on the Hangman. You guys go ahead and check up on the Hangman, what do you do to sort of check on it?

0:42:44 Lou: Can I get, I don't know what a mechanics check is, but can I see how badly I've damaged it?

0:42:49 Brennan: This is gonna be an untrained Intelligence check.

0:42:53 Lou: Great, I love that. It's a nat 1. (Ally laughs)

0:42:57 Emily: What?

0:42:57 Siobhan: Get new dice. My lord.

0:43:02 Emily: Brennan's gonna have to do backflips to keep this thing alive.

0:43:06 Brennan: The Hangman is fully gone. On a nat 1, it's full, it's destroyed, the sword went right through it. The motorcycle is broken. Ragh, as you go to investigate, you fumble through, just a big chunk of the engine block falls out, and Ragh goes,

0:43:26 Ragh: Oh, man, you can probably fix that.

0:43:32 Fabian: (strained, weak voice) I probably can, Ragh. I can probably fix that. I know I can.

0:43:38 Ragh: You wanna get under some blankets, man, you're sweating so much.

0:43:42 Fabian: I just, I think I have pneumonia. I'm not used to being sick, I'm so rich. I don't normally get normal sickness.

0:43:50 Ragh: Yeah, like poor people sick. For sure.

0:43:52 Fabian: Yeah, I get like rich people sick, like ate too much caviar, or I smoked a cigar for too long, I don't get like, poor, normal sick.

0:44:01 Ragh: I wouldn't know anything about that. (Fabian retches)

0:44:03 Brennan: See he goes,

0:44:03 Ragh: Okay, man. Hey, dude, there you go, dude, just get it out, boot and rally, dude, you're good, man, just. (Fabian groaning) Okay, well.

0:44:14 Fabian: Hey, Ragh.

0:44:15 Ragh: Yeah.

0:44:15 Fabian: Yeah, I don't feel good, I don't feel good.

0:44:18 Ragh: I hear you, man, I think, you know, I have one emotion that I use to process stuff, and that's rage, and I don't know how to be angry if my mom is dead a full continent away. You're going through some stuff with your dad. We've full stop, you know, dude, we are some dudes who for real have not processed, and honestly, you know, when I think about what I would have to do, you know, I get pissed, you know. 'Cause it's like I just made it here to where I'm, like, comfortable in my own skin, you know what I mean? And then something bad happens on top of that, and it's like, hey, is this bad enough that I'm gonna lose like all the progress I made, you know what I mean? And I'm like, I have gotta kill something. You know?

0:45:17 Fabian: Yeah.

0:45:19 Ragh: So, you know, Hoot, Growl! (coughs sadly)

0:45:26 Fabian: Growl.

0:45:28 Ragh: Yeah.

0:45:29 Fabian: Yeah.

0:45:30 Ragh: Wanna sit in the back of the van? Just to sit.

0:45:30 Fabian: Yeah.

0:45:33 Brennan: You see, he covers you with some blankets in the back of the van. Cathilda comes in a moment later as the two of you are sitting in the back of the van. Ragh is just dead-eyed, thousand-yard stare. Cathilda comes in with food for you both, with some piping hot soup. She sits next to you and she says,

0:45:53 Cathilda: Well, Master Fabian, have you taken a look at your motorcycle, is it, it's not looking too good, is it?

0:45:58 Fabian: (quietly) It's looking really bad, Cathilda. It's like, I like, did a great job in doing a bad thing. I like really stabbed it well in a moment where I wish I hadn't done a good job.

0:46:16 Cathilda: Oh, Master Fabian, I'm so sorry, it's been a hard day. Well, here's the truth, hard days come and they go, and as impossible as it might seem right now, you'll take one step and then the other, and that'll be hard as can be, and step by step, you'll move further and further away from this bad day, all right?

0:46:43 Fabian: But what, Cathilda? What, it's just a bunch of, I don't know, maybe I'll just be eating banana yogurt in a mansion? Filled with mementos to a life that wasn’t mine.

0:46:59 Brennan: She looks at you and says,

0:47:03 Cathilda: There is no pirate who can see the horizon in a squall. That doesn't mean it's not there.

0:47:12 Brennan: And she starts to rub little circles on your shoulder. And she starts to sing a little song in halfling that you recognize. There's a little song in halfling that you remember. (shanty-like strings) She used to sing it to you, she hasn't sung it to you in years, but she used to sing it to you all the time when you were very little. And your dad would be like, gone for long periods of time, and your mom was sort of like on a long bender,  and there'd be times when you were back at like castle up on the open seas. And it's just a light little halfling tune, and you have tons of memories of like skinning your knee or falling on a ship deck, or something like that, and her finding you and making you well, and you remember the hundreds of times that Cathilda has done this for you, although it maybe hasn't happened in years at this point. You watch as she trails off, and at a certain point, you can feel a little bit your shoulder start to relax. Go ahead and give me a Constitution saving throw. (dice clatter)

0:48:35 Lou: Nat 1. (tiny laugh of disbelief)

0:48:38 Siobhan: I'm taking them. Siobhan reaches across the table and steals Lou’s dice.

0:48:38 Zac: I can't believe this.

0:48:40 Siobhan: I'm taking them and I'm gonna throw them in the garbage.

0:48:41 Emily: What?

0:48:43 Zac: What's happened?

0:48:45 Brennan: You have, mark down that you have a level of exhaustion, and you are also, we're actually gonna put you at two levels of exhaustion. Cool?

0:48:50 Zac: That's…

0:48:55 Murph: Good lord.

0:48:56 Lou: Two different dice.

0:48:57 Zac: So your speed is halved?

0:48:57 Emily: Stop here.

0:48:59 Brennan: Speed is halved, skill checks at disadvantage. Emily tries to give Lou some of her dice.

0:49:01 Lou: Keep your dice.

0:49:04 Brennan: Cool, back inside, our investigating crew, I'm gonna say that Riz and Kristen— (Lou laughs)

0:49:11 Brennan: Riz and Kristen.

0:49:12 Emily: Oh my--

0:49:12 Gorgug: I'm glad Fabian's getting some air. He probably needed it, it's probably doing him some good.

0:49:16 Kristen: He's probably doing great.

0:49:16 Adaine: Yeah.

0:49:20 Brennan: Riz and Kristen, you guys are both looking for Nightmare King stuff, so I'm saying that you guys look together. You end up going into a religious studies section.

0:49:29 Ally: Oh cool.

0:49:30 Brennan: Of the library where, Riz, you're investigating the Nightmare King, there's a fair amount, the library here is kind of sparse when it comes to this high occult stuff, it's much more practical library for the most part. But you do find some stuff about the hidden gems and jewels of Sylvaire. There's a lot of maps here. And you find in these old treasure maps of Sylvaire that there are religious texts to a temple of a forgotten god. You rolled a 27 on your Investigation check, right? It looks like there is a temple somewhere in this place that might have had some treasure that pirates long ago would've gone and sought out or tried to find prior to the reign of Kalvaxus. Looking at the information available to you in this book, as you get into the section of maps that talk about Sylvaire, you look at this religious text, Kristen, that Riz has sort of found. Go ahead and make a Religion check for me. (dice clatter)

0:50:41 Ally: (whistles) What a ride. Okay.

0:50:45 Lou: (to the camera) Rolled for a while.

0:50:46 Ally: It's a 9.

0:50:47 Brennan: Cool. There's a lot of mystery here. The main thing you come away with is that the god is never named in any of the texts. And you don't know enough about religion to know that that is really damn weird.

0:51:04 Ally: Yeah.

0:51:06 Brennan: Because there's a lot of specifics, there's like imagery of wood elves and centaurs, and unicorns, there's like specific names for some of the relics that were in this dungeon, there's a lot of stuff about what pirates, some of them are like crossed out, there's notes in the margins from certain pirates being like yeah, we went here and successfully stole this stuff. But there's just never a mention of the name of the actual god in question.

0:51:31 Siobhan: Think this is in an island?

0:51:32 Brennan: This is in Sylvaire, this is in the Forest of the Nightmare King.

0:51:34 Emily: Yeah, this is in Forest of the Nightmare King, right? Can you guys take a picture on your crystal of, if there's any pictures that might look like this temple.

0:51:45 Murph: I think we're just gonna steal it. We're just gonna take the book.

0:51:48 Fig: Riz, welcome to the dark side.

0:51:51 Brennan: Go ahead and give me a Sleight of Hand check if you’d be so kind.

0:51:54 Murph: Sweet, Kristen, cover me. Can I get an advantage?

0:51:57 Kristen: No.

0:52:00 Brennan: You have to beat a 10 on a Stealth check to give Riz advantage.

0:52:03 Ally: Okay, I say,

0:52:04 Kristen: You know, a lot of people have HPV.

0:52:08 Ally: Hey, here we go, okay. Oh, negative 3, okay. (all laugh)

0:52:14 Ally: It's a 9.

0:52:15 Brennan: It's a 9! You do not get advantage on your Stealth check.

0:52:18 Murph: All right.

0:52:19 Emily: You're a little--

0:52:20 Brennan: Kristen will not stop talking about HPV, it makes it very hard for you to do anything stealthy.

0:52:23 Kristen: I'm just saying.

0:52:26 Murph: Stealth or Sleight of Hand?

0:52:28 Brennan: Sleight of Hand.

0:52:30 Murph: Not as good. 14. (dice clatter)

0:52:33 Brennan: I'm gonna roll this in, actually, let's bring out our old friend, the Box of Doom, which is now successfully ready for our little livestream. Hold on one second. (attaches the skull to the Box) Cool.

0:52:42 Ally: Ha.

0:52:46 Siobhan: Hello, friend.

0:52:50 Brennan: Our old buddy, the Box of Doom. You had a 14. The pirates here have a plus 6 to their Perception.

0:52:58 Siobhan: Great, good.

0:52:59 Brennan: 8 or higher does the trick. (die clatters) 7! (all cheering)

0:53:03 Ally: Yes.

0:53:06 Brennan: How about it.

0:53:07 Ally: Wow.

0:53:10 Brennan: Lovely. So you grab this tome, slip it into your inventory, and walk away. What else are we looking for?

0:53:23 Emily: I'm looking for anything about cursed gems or people being kept in objects.

0:53:33 Brennan: Hell yeah, and you got a 16?

0:53:35 Emily: I got a 19.

0:53:36 Brennan: Oh, you had a 19.

0:53:37 Emily: Yeah.

0:53:37 Brennan: Awesome.

0:53:38 Emily: Which is, I only have plus 2 to Arcana, so I rolled really high.

0:53:41 Brennan: That's great. You do find, I'm gonna say it's a pirate library. You see that there is a large tome of various curses and charms called Breaking the Evil Eye, there's an entire chapter in it, that it seems to be successfully stealing and breaking the curses on treasure.

0:54:07 Emily: Okay, I desperately wanna steal this, so I'm gonna use a Disguise Self to look like the guy from the front, and then walk out with the book.

0:54:17 Brennan: Great, give me a Deception roll.

0:54:18 Zac: Don't you have to walk past the guy?

0:54:20 Emily: I'm gonna walk out one of the back entrances. Back exits.

0:54:21 Brennan: Cool, very cool, go ahead and roll that for me. (dice clatter)

0:54:25 Emily: That's gonna be a 17.

0:54:28 Brennan: Okay, plus 6, back in the Box of Doom.

0:54:31 Lou: Here we go now.

0:54:33 Ally: So 11 or higher.

0:54:35 Brennan: 11 or higher. (die clatters) That's a nat 2.

0:54:38 Emily: (laughs) Oh ho ho, Yes, yes!

0:54:40 Brennan: So you walk out. (laughs)

0:54:43 Emily: My Sleight of Hand is bad, man, this is how I had to do it.

0:54:47 Brennan: Yeah, you see that Ayda Aguefort, by the way, comes out, oh, by the way, and Ayda, her name, when you actually handed the hand over is spelled (trouble pronouncing) all- literally-, alliteratively.

0:55:00 Siobhan: A-I-D-A.

0:55:00 Brennan: It's A-Y-D-A Aguefort. You see that Ayda Aguefort looks at you and says,

0:55:09 Ayda: Rawlins, where are you going with that book?

0:55:11 Fig: (in a wizard voice) It's my lunch break. I deserve a break too.

0:55:19 Ayda: Debatable, I'm not sure that you deserve a break, or that any of us do. However, I don't feel like stopping you right now.

0:55:27 Fig: Look at how fast I could run.

0:55:30 Emily: And then I run.

0:55:30 Brennan: You see that she peers down and just observes you running. She says,

0:55:35 Ayda: (loudly) Faster than I imagined, Rawlins. (all laugh)

0:55:42 Ally: Oh my god.

0:55:44 Brennan: Wonderful. So, the only people sort of left that are not stealing from the library are Adaine and Gorgug.

0:55:52 Siobhan: Yet.

0:55:53 Zac: Gorgug's just gonna go up to the real Rawlins and talk to him.

0:55:56 Gorgug: Hey.

0:56:00 Rawlins: Can I help you, young man?

0:56:01 Gorgug: So I'm looking for just any sort of, is there a section, I am allowed to read wizard books that aren't about wizarding, right?

0:56:10 Rawlins: Yeah.

0:56:10 Gorgug: You know right.

0:56:12 Rawlins: You are allowed to read anything. You're allowed to read whatever you like.

0:56:16 Gorgug: Awesome. So I'm just trying, my buddy kinda had a big old bad day. And I'm looking for anything that's like about cheering up friends and helping them get through some hard times.

0:56:24 Ally: Aww.

0:56:31 Gorgug: And if there's any kind of book section on that. Are pirates big on books on cheering up your friends?

0:56:37 Brennan: Go ahead and give me just a flat Intelligence check.

0:56:42 Emily: Ooh.

0:56:44 Zac: Well, 14 minus 1, so.

0:56:46 Brennan: Oh, you see, he looks and says,

0:56:48 Rawlins: All right, I can bring you to the friendship section if you would like.

0:56:52 Gorgug: Pirate friendship.

0:56:52 Siobhan: That's so cute.

0:56:54 Rawlins: Yes, here on Leviathan, we just call it the friendship section because everything here is pirate. So we don't—

0:57:01 Gorgug: I don't have to add that.

0:57:03 Rawlins: You don't have to add that.

0:57:04 Gorgug: Cool.

0:57:05 Rawlins: All right, this way.

0:57:06 Brennan: You see, walks off, he says,

0:57:08 Rawlins: I haven't seen your young friends about, are they perusing the selection?

0:57:14 Gorgug: Yeah, I think, I don't know.

0:57:16 Rawlins: This is the friendship section.

0:57:18 Brennan: And you see he gestures to a small little dusty shelf with a couple of little books and—

0:57:30 Zac: Big Legos. (all laugh)

0:57:35 Brennan: Little books and parchments and stuff like that. See, he says,

0:57:38 Rawlins: Here is the friendship section.

0:57:41 Gorgug: Okay. Kinda not as much as I was hoping for.

0:57:45 Brennan: You see, he sort, he, give me an Insight check.

0:57:50 Zac: Nat 1.

0:57:51 Brennan: Nat 1. He's mad at you. (all laugh)

0:57:57 Gorgug: If you didn't have a friendship section, you could've just told me.

0:58:00 Rawlins: We do have a--

0:58:00 Gorgug: We can talk, you don't have to like...

0:58:01 Rawlins: We do have—

0:58:03 Gorgug: ...mess around with me.

0:58:04 Rawlins: I'm not. Are you accusing me of messing around with you?

0:58:06 Gorgug: It just feels like you're kinda trying to prank me right now.

0:58:10 Emily: I run by. (laughs)

0:58:13 Rawlins: There I go.

0:58:15 Gorgug: There I go, pranking people again?

0:58:18 Rawlins: No, literally, there I go. I'm running so fast.

0:58:22 Gorgug: This is just some weird old man prank, clearly.

0:58:27 Rawlins: Who are you calling an old man?

0:58:28 Gorgug: You, you're a stupid old man.

0:58:29 Rawlins: Hey, I command the seven winds of the nine stars, secrets of the deep have I learned, I can summon ancient krakens of seas long gone. Spirits of wind and wave do answer my call and at my beck and command.

0:58:47 Siobhan: I steal his book.

0:58:50 Brennan: Go ahead and give me a Sleight of Hand check.

0:58:51 Murph: Oh god.

0:58:52 Siobhan: Oh god. Can I have Boggy help me?

0:58:55 Brennan: Yes, you can. (dice clatter)

0:58:58 Siobhan: I got a not nat 20.

0:59:04 Brennan: (die clatters) You yank the book out of his chains, he turns into a skeleton and collapses in a pile of bones.

0:59:08 Gorgug: (screaming) Ah!

0:59:10 Siobhan: I put the book back.

0:59:12 Brennan: You put the book back and he comes back together in a pile and starts screaming.

0:59:18 Rawlins: (screaming) Ahh! That just gives me meat! The book in the chains just gives me meat, it doesn't put me back the right way!

0:59:25 Gorgug: Can I help you?

0:59:25 Rawlins: Please help!

0:59:25 Gorgug: I'm sorry. Adaine yanks the book back out.

0:59:27 Rawlins: Take the book out, I do not--

0:59:29 Brennan: (sputtering) Bones.

0:59:31 Gorgug: Huh, okay, let's arrange the bones in the way that would make it a human being.

0:59:35 Adaine: I'm gonna keep doing the studying, you do that.

0:59:41 Gorgug: Oh, Adaine, why have you done this to me?

0:59:41 Lou: Wow. Wow!

0:59:43 Gorgug: Why have you done this to me?

0:59:45 Lou: Wow.

0:59:45 Adaine: I just wanted to learn how to control the seven winds of the nine stars.

0:59:52 Zac: I'm gonna look at the shelf on friendship.

0:59:54 Brennan: Cool.

0:59:55 Zac: Which is next to the bones.

0:59:57 Brennan: What are you, so you start looking for something, a book on friendship? Go ahead and just give me a Dexterity saving throw, which I’llgive you with advantage. (dice clatter)

1:00:05 Zac: I have advantage, right?

1:00:06 Brennan: Yeah, you got advantage, yeah, absolutely.

1:00:11 Zac: That's only a 7 or no, 5, yeah, 5.

1:00:15 Brennan: Ooh, only a 5. You end up going in, you push the door, the sort of shelf, and you see that it's open as a secret door. You look in golden light, vast and countless towering shelves with ladders attached to rails that wheel around the outskirts are hundreds or perhaps thousands of tomes dedicated to the subject of friendship.

1:00:48 Gorgug: They love friendship here.

1:00:50 Brennan: On the back of the little shelf that you see there, you see that there's an inscription. And you see it says, "Much like this shelf, friendship may at first seem humble, but beyond a drab exterior, lies a golden treasure, greater than any ship's bounty. Go with love, me hearties."

1:01:15 Zac: Gorgug cries a little bit and walks into this room.

1:01:21 Brennan: Great, you walk into the room, the little door closes behind you, and you're in a vast room to friendship.

1:01:28 Gorgug: Hello? (wind blowing)

1:01:35 Zac: Okay, well, I'm gonna take out my Compass Point library card and see if it points to anything.

1:01:46 Brennan: (die clatters) You see that the Compass Points library does start pointing, you see little compass things, which shifts around a little bit. And you see that there is a small book on a shelf called "Cheer Up Me Hearties".

1:02:02 Zac: I'm going to pick that one up and exit the room.

1:02:10 Brennan: You exit from the shelf, and you see that several large muscle-bound pirates have apprehended Gilear and have him face down on the ground, and they're like,

1:02:22 Pirates: What did you do to Rawlins?

1:02:24 Brennan: And he's like,

1:02:24 Gilear: I have done nothing to, I don't understand, I just found these bones and I started to pick them up, I thought I was helping!

1:02:34 Gorgug: Someone else did that.

1:02:36 Pirates: What's that?

1:02:37 Gorgug: Someone else did that.

1:02:38 Pirates: Well, how do you know, you didn't see it!

1:02:40 Gorgug: I did see it. But then I didn't know what to do about it. 'Cause it seems hard to figure, do you know how to fix him?

1:02:47 Brennan: Are you still holding the book, by the way?

1:02:49 Zac: Yeah.

1:02:50 Brennan: He's like,

1:02:50 Pirates: You got Rawlins's book in your hands!

1:02:53 Gorug: Wait, this is the "Cheer Up My Hearties".

1:02:55 Brennan: Oh no, because you were gonna fix Rawlins, so you're still holding Rawlins's book, right.

1:03:01 Zac: Oh right, okay.

1:03:01 Brennan: Of pirate magic.

1:03:04 Gorgug: Listen, I have two books in my hand. One of them is his book, yeah, this is his book. But I took it out 'cause when I put back in,

1:03:12 Zac: And I put it back in for a second.

1:03:13 Rawlins: Please, ah, it's worse than death. Gorgug removes the book again and Rawlins returns to being bones.

1:03:18 Gorgug: So I just thought it would be better for him to not have it on him.

1:03:23 Brennan: You see they look, go ahead and give me a Persuasion check. (dice clatter)

1:03:28 Zac: Ooh. 19.

1:03:31 Ally: (impressed) Hey.

1:03:32 Brennan: They look and they say,

1:03:32 Pirates: That's a good man. That's a good man, what you done for poor Rawlins here. Not like this LOUSY LAYABOUT!

1:03:42 Brennan: They start shaking Gilear. (screaming)

1:03:43 Gorgug: I really, he didn't do anything. I don't even think he was here when--

1:03:46 Gilear: I've never done anything! I've never done anything!

1:03:49 Gorgug: He's never done anything, that's true.

1:03:51 Gilear: With my life, with anyone, please help?

1:03:54 Brennan: And you see that the two pirates say,

1:03:56 Pirates: Is this codger yours, he's one of your mates?"

1:04:00 Gorgug: Yeah, he's kind of, well, he's like my friend.

1:04:02 Gilear: Please speak more enthusiastically on my behalf, Gorgug.

1:04:04 Gorgug: Yes, you know what, he is one of my mates.

1:04:07 Gilear: Oh, it hurts to have to ask for it.

1:04:12 Brennan: You see the pirates let go of him and they say,

1:04:14 Pirates: This is not the first time this has happened, we'll take the book off your hand, we'll take Rawlins and we'll sweep him up, and get Ayda to put him back together.

1:04:22 Gorgug: Okay, you are all good friends to him.

1:04:29 Pirates: (touched) Do you mean that?

1:04:29 Gorgug: Yeah.

1:04:30 Pirates: Well, you're a good man.

1:04:33 Gorgug: I'm—

1:04:34 Pirates: What?

1:04:35 Gorgug: I'm a wizard too, so.

1:04:37 Pirates: Is that true?

1:04:38 Gorgug: Yeah, pretty much.

1:04:39 Pirates: Ayda mentioned the greatest wizard of the age. Now I see it.

1:04:44 Brennan: You see the two of them sweep up the bones, get the book, leave from that place. The rest of you guys kind of meet up out by the van, and pretty much, I think, it's Adaine is here with, I think, Sandra Lynn would've stayed by your side to let everyone else sort of run around and do their shenanigans. But the rest of you guys sort of meet up by the van, couple hours pass by, you guys do see that plume of smoke up in the corner of the Crow's Keep.

1:05:09 Emily: Can I start reading my book?

1:05:11 Brennan: Yeah, absolutely.

1:05:12 Emily: Can I see if I find anything about curse or gems, or I'm also kind of interested if there's something about taking a soul that's been bound in an object after the object's been destroyed, and saving it.

1:05:27 Brennan: You don't find anything about, because pirates wouldn't have any interest in destroying a piece of treasure that they were trying to get.

1:05:31 Emily: I see, okay.

1:05:33 Brennan: But they do talk about specifically things that are bound to gems, and you see that there's a little charm that can affect the Plane Shift spell, and it basically says, if a curse has effects hidden within a cursed object that are effectively obscured or obfuscated from your ability to interact with them, what you can do is actually Plane Shift inside of the cursed object to get an interior landscape to see the hidden effects. So in other words, the contingency effect that would kill Gorthalax if you tried to break this curse, you could potentially Plane Shift into the gem, dispel that effect, and then break the original curse.

1:06:14 Fig: Adaine, do you have seventh-level spells? Siobhan opens her mouth to speak, but says nothing.

1:06:18 Fig: Okay, something to work for. (Brennan laughs)

1:06:23 Siobhan: Is Plane Shift seventh level?

1:06:23 Emily: Yeah.

1:06:25 Ally: I was wondering if I can--

1:06:26 Siobhan: Ah. I have Blink, that changes the plane that I'm on. But only onto the ethereal plane.

1:06:31 Emily: Oh, okay.

1:06:32 Ally: Can I look at my subject of world religions book, and try to start cross referencing that with this thing that we have to see who maybe the unnamed deity is?

1:06:41 Brennan: Yeah, absolutely, give me a Religion check.

1:06:43 Ally: Got it, all right.

1:06:46 Murph: And just to be clear, does it look like there's a name omitted or is it—

1:06:52 Brennan: Let's see this roll and I'll see what you guys find. (dice clatter)

1:06:56 Ally: Ey, there we go, 20 but not nat.

1:06:59 Brennan: 20, not nat. You look at this and there are a lot of gods that existed in Sylvaire back in the days of old. The wood elves had their own god, the centaurs did as well, the gods of the treants are a little bit mysterious. The fairies that lived there kind of were chaotic and kind of almost celestial themselves a little bit, they were sort of otherworldly themselves. And then very little is written about the role that unicorns play it in that forest. But you do see that there is, in other words, there are a lot of things that this god could have been, and there are elements of like, oh, there were other deities at the time, this could be this person, it could be this person, could be this person. A dirty 20, a lot of it doesn't match for you. Like you're looking at what your book has to say about it, and it's sort of, you are able to, kind of frustratingly, rule out a lot of the things in the book. In a way that makes you confused. You're like, man, this is like, if there's this treasure map and this thing where the name is, and like you're saying, like Riz, almost omitted, it would be weird that it wouldn't be represented here, and yet you're looking at it and you're like, yeah, there's nothing here about this.

1:08:34 Riz: Adaine, could you maybe Dispel Magic on this, or sense if there's—

1:08:37 Adaine: I could, but if it's illusory script, then a Dispel Magic will destroy it.

1:08:41 Riz: Eh.

1:08:45 Adaine: I mean, the original script and the illusion both disappear, is what happens if it's illusory script.

1:08:50 Kristen: I could cast Detect Evil and Good, and see if we're getting a vibe from either of those. 'Cause wouldn't Nightmare King—

1:08:57 Riz: I could do a Detect Magic on it.

1:08:59 Murph: Do you wanna do Detect Magic?

1:09:00 Adaine: Mm-hmm.

1:09:00 Riz: That's not a bad idea.

1:09:01 Adaine: Yeah, or I could also do the Identify spell.

1:09:05 Riz: Would that tell us if it was--

1:09:08 Adaine: Enchanted.

1:09:08 Riz: Yeah.

1:09:10 Adaine: Yeah, it says if it is a magic item.

1:09:12 Riz: Okay.

1:09:13 Adaine: Or a magic imbued object.

1:09:16 Kristen: Cool, let's do it.

1:09:17 Siobhan: Great, I cast the Identify spell on this book about this unseen god.

1:09:20 Brennan: Okay.

1:09:24 Siobhan: Unnamed god.

1:09:24 Brennan: You—

1:09:25 Murph: The, okay.

1:09:27 Brennan: You're casting, on this book of religion of this unseen god, the one that has the original maps on it?

1:09:36 Siobhan: Yeah.

1:09:36 Brennan: Cool. You go ahead and cast the Identify spell. (chiming Identify spell music)

1:09:43 Identify Spell: (energetic, posh British accent) Ah, yes, this is another use of the Identify spell. The hefty tome that you now hold in your hands is a perfectly normal book. (music immediately and abruptly cuts off)

1:09:57 Adaine: Well, at least he was efficient.

1:09:59 Kristen: Great.

1:09:59 Riz: Great.

1:10:00 Kristen: Okay.

1:10:01 Adaine: Why is the voice in my head a man?

1:10:03 Gorgug: So. (all laugh) (Identify spell music resumes)

1:10:06 Identify Spell: Why would you assume that?

1:10:08 Kristen: Wow. Wow, wow, Adaine.

1:10:09 Fig: Open your mind.

1:10:13 Fabian: Damn, Adaine.

1:10:15 Adaine: It's my brain, guys. (all laugh)

1:10:20 Adaine: It's my brain.

1:10:22 Kristen: Wow.

1:10:22 Gorgug: What if you take a picture on your crystal of the picture?

1:10:27 Riz: Oh, and see if it's like the Shadow Cat?

1:10:29 Gorgug: Yeah, can you see--

1:10:29 Riz: And see if things don't show up.

1:10:32 Gorgug: I'm curious to see if you took a picture of the picture, if we could see it. If it's a picture you took.

1:10:39 Riz: Oh, so nothing to do with the book, just take a picture—

1:10:40 Siobhan: Oh, of the Shadow Cat.

1:10:41 Riz: —of the picture?

1:10:41 Fig: Yeah, I like it.

1:10:43 Murph: All right, I'm gonna take a picture of the Shadow Cat picture.

1:10:45 Brennan: Okay, you take a picture of the Shadow Cat picture on your crystal.

1:10:49 Murph: Yeah.

1:10:50 Brennan: Hold on one second.

1:10:51 Emily: And then put it into Photoshop and see what the color profile is.

1:10:55 Siobhan: Change the contrast on it.

1:10:57 Zac: The picture you took can maybe (laughs).

1:10:59 Brennan: Okay, you take a picture of the picture, you (Riz) can see the Shadow Cat in your crystal, you guys cannot.

1:11:05 Gorgug: Okay.

1:11:05 Kristen: Okay.

1:11:06 Siobhan: All right.

1:11:07 Fig: Interesting.

1:11:08 Gorgug: I'm just ruling out things.

1:11:10 Kristen: Great.

1:11:11 Riz: Cool.

1:11:12 Gorgug: So this is the last time, so, what do we know about the unicorn again? It was the last time people saw it was when the Nightmare King came into our realm, right?

1:11:24 Kristen: The great unicorn?

1:11:25 Gorgug: The great unicorn or something like that. What did this say about the unicorn?

1:11:32 Kristen: Just that the unicorns, there wasn't much known about who they… worship?

1:11:36 Brennan: There wasn't much known about them, yeah. In the treasure map that you guys see of that area, whatever this sort of unnamed god is, you find stuff in it that seems to include elements of every culture that was present in Sylvaire at the time, in these temples. So a god big enough to be partially revered or at least acknowledged by five separate types of beings that inhabited Sylvaire, not being anywhere in your religious text is weird, it is weird enough that is actually extremely noteworthy.

1:12:17 Fig: Did they reference how this god was celebrated or worshiped or what the practices were like? Because what if the Nightmare King is just a god who got pissed, a vengeful god?

1:12:29 Adaine: Is there some kind of cleric on Leviathan?

1:12:33 Kristen: Well, isn't—

1:12:36 Adaine: Garthy?

1:12:38 Kristen: Tracker? Isn't Tracker—

1:12:38 Adaine: Yeah, but maybe like a pirate—

1:12:41 Kristen: Oh, got it.

1:12:41 Adaine: —cleric.

1:12:42 Brennan: Oh, there are a lot of pirate clerics here. Pirate clerics tend to subscribe to a model where they will often keep shrines to every single god they've ever come into contact with to hedge their bets.

1:12:55 Adaine: So maybe they know a lot about a lot of gods.

1:12:57 Kristen: That'd be cool.

1:12:57 Fig: That's interesting.

1:12:58 Gorgug: It feels like this god, and forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, is removing itself from history.

1:13:05 Riz: It sounds like the Shadow Cat, yeah. Right?

1:13:10 Fig: I was wondering the same.

1:13:11 Gorgug: And seems like there's a lot of power in people not knowing you exist.

1:13:14 Fig: Yeah, yeah.

1:13:16 Lou: Yeah.

1:13:19 Adaine: You know, Zaphriel also didn't know anything about himself. The van.

1:13:26 Fig: Yeah. Was that something that was done to him though?

1:13:34 Adaine: We don't know.

1:13:34 Fig: Yeah, we don't know.

1:13:35 Adaine: He might have done it to himself. He might be lying. We don’t know anything about him.

1:13:37 Kristen: Well, my dream before we took off was that I couldn't draw the face of my god. When we all had our nightmares before we took off.

1:13:43 Fig: Well, does that--

1:13:46 Adaine: That maybe you've been worshiping some unnamed god by mistake.

1:13:50 Kristen: I don't know.

1:13:51 Riz: Are they trying to make us forget everything?

1:13:58 Adaine: Everybody shut up, I need to do my homework. (scribbles in a journal)

1:14:01 Brennan: Adaine eventually finishes her homework, you guys have sort of eaten, Fabian's very sick in the back of the van, Ragh is back there having a hard time as well, Cathilda is just tending to the both of them. Sandra Lynn is kind of guarding over Adaine while she studies. Gilear is (laughs) also playing it safe in the van at the moment. You see, eventually, Ayda comes back over to you guys as you are almost finished, and she looks at you and says,

1:14:29 Ayda: I take it you're almost done with the spell.

1:14:31 Adaine: Yes, thank you, yes.

1:14:33 Ayda: Very good, all right. If you see my father, (long pause) tell him whatever you want, no concern of mine.

1:14:45 Adaine: We can hang out if you like.

1:14:46 Ayda: What?

1:14:47 Adaine: I don't have any wizard friends.

1:14:50 Ayda: Why?

1:14:51 Gorgug: I'm a wizard.

1:14:53 Adaine: (looks briefly at Gorgug) I don't have any wizard friends.

1:14:54 Ayda: Are you hard to be around?

1:14:55 Adaine: No, I, no? Are you hard to be around?

1:14:58 Ayda: Yes.

1:14:59 Adaine: Oh, do you want a friend?

1:15:03 Ayda: (pauses, intense stare) Desperately.

1:15:04 Gorgug: Aw.

1:15:04 Adaine: I'll be your friend. Would you like to hold my frog? It's not a gift. Ayda frowns a little and holds out her hand for the frog, which Adaine gives.

1:15:14 Brennan: She takes Boggy.

1:15:17 Ayda: Utterly fantastic.

1:15:20 Adaine: Isn't he good? Ayda exames Boggy closely. (Ally ribbits)

1:15:23 Ayda: What level spell is this?

1:15:25 Adaine: Oh, it's just Find Familiar, it's—

1:15:27 Ayda: How?

1:15:28 Adaine: I can teach you it. It'll cost you 50 gold per level.

1:15:37 Ayda: (laughs screechingly) Very good. Hm. This is a first-level spell. Your spellcraft would make it seem much higher than that.

1:15:51 Adaine: (genuinely) Thank you!

1:15:53 Brennan: She hands Boggy back to you. Adaine receives Boggy and promptly places him on her shoulder.

1:15:56 Ayda: A truly fantastic frog. I've misjudged you.

1:16:00 Adaine: Do you like my— he has a backpack.

1:16:02 Brennan: You see, she says, her eyes go wide, you haven't seen her display much emotion but she says,

1:16:07 Ayda: (loudly) He has a tiny little backpack that he wears?

1:16:10 Adaine: No, that I wear that he lives in.

1:16:13 Ayda: Oh, that's also good.

1:16:15 Adaine: Oh, you know what, he should, hang on,

1:16:17 Siobhan: I pull out a tiny little backpack.

1:16:18 Brennan: You see she goes,

1:16:18 Ayda: (yelling) Nooooo, it's too cute! (all laugh)

1:16:24 Brennan: Boggy happily puts on a tiny little backpack that he now wears.

1:16:28 Ally: He wears a backpack in a backpack?

1:16:30 Brennan: In a backpack. She says,

1:16:31 Ayda: There's a frog in that backpack wearing a tiny little backpack.

1:16:35 Fig: What's in his backpack?

1:16:37 Ayda: Oh, maybe a smaller frog.

1:16:40 Brennan: You see Ayda looks at you and says,

1:16:44 Ayda: I cannot believe that I've met the two greatest wizards of this age on the same day. You and your friend Gorgug will surely either kill each other or save this world.

1:16:58 Brennan: And she begins to stride out of the room.

1:17:00 Emily: I say,

1:17:00 Fig: Make it three.

1:17:01 Emily: And then I dismiss my Disguise Self.

1:17:05 Ayda: Rawlins, why have you disguised yourself as this young woman? (all laugh)

1:17:07 Emily: Oh, this is gonna be hard to explain. I turn back into Rawlins.

1:17:12 Ayda: Rawlins, get back to the front desk.

1:17:13 Fig: Okay. Watch me run.

1:17:18 Brennan: You see she looks at you and says,

1:17:20 Ayda: You did a very good job running earlier. But I could do with even faster if I'm being honest. Many people steal books from here, and we should catch more often.

1:17:27 Emily: I desperately wanna please her, so I run even faster.

1:17:30 Ayda: Very good, (yelling) faster, Rawlins, faster! (all laugh)

1:17:38 Gorgug: I'm faster than her.

1:17:38 Brennan: You see she says,

1:17:41 Ayda: Adaine Abernant, you're welcome here at the Compass Points whenever you wish. And your companion Gorgug Thistlespring as well. Whatever knowledge that I can offer you, I shall offer you a fair price for it. Not only because you are gifted wizards but because you took the time to fill out a library card and we really need the funding. I appreciate it.

1:17:57 Adaine: You're welcome.

1:17:59 Brennan: You see she turns around, you guys return to the van, and have your Sending spell.

1:18:07 Emily: I have a real quick question. Was my book in a forbidden zone?

1:18:09 Brennan: It was.

1:18:11 Emily: Or was it regular? Okay.

1:18:14 Siobhan: So, I don't have a card for Sending, I can just—

1:18:18 Zac: You need a card?

1:18:19 Siobhan: A spell card.

1:18:20 Zac: Oh.

1:18:23 Siobhan: I have two third-level spells left this day. Do I Send one?

1:18:30 Brennan: You get a free response with it.

1:18:31 Siobhan: Great.

1:18:31 Brennan: So—

1:18:31 Siobhan: I wanna send one to Aguefort.

1:18:34 Emily: To Ragh's mom.

1:18:36 Zac: Yeah, 'cause she's kinda laid up, yeah.

1:18:38 Emily: Oh, right.

1:18:39 Siobhan: And then one to Zelda.

1:18:42 Gorgug: Yeah, well, do you get, could we just have Aguefort message Zelda. I mean—

1:18:47 Adaine: No, I'm saying we could--

1:18:50 Gorgug: I think I should talk to her but I also--

1:18:51 Adaine: I'm saying we shouldn't.

1:18:54 Gorgug: Right, and I'm saying--

1:18:55 Adaine: We have 25 words per Sending.

1:18:58 Gorgug: Yes.

1:18:59 Adaine: Plus curses and swears.

1:19:01 Gorgug: Okay.

1:19:02 Adaine: That are PG-13 appropriate.

1:19:04 Gorgug: So you can do two third-level spells today.

1:19:08 Adaine: Yes, I have two fourth-level spells as well but,

1:19:12 Gorgug: I think the only thing, I don't want you to use a spell on this if you can use it tomorrow. 'Cause one is like a life-threatening situation and one is a situation where I feel like I definitely should handle, but also don't wanna need that spell later in a fight or something.

1:19:28 Adaine: Okay, well, let's come up with a 25-word message to Arthur Aguefort. “Avast, headmaster, can you please check on Ragh's mom. We think she might be in danger?”

1:19:48 Fig: Yeah, we could--

1:19:48 Riz: I think let's be specific, right? Shadow Cat wants to kill--

1:19:50 Adaine: From the Shadow Cat.

1:19:52 Gorgug: Ragh's mom.

1:19:52 Fig: Shadow Cat threatened Ragh's mom, wants to kill Ragh's mom, please keep her safe, stop.

1:19:58 Riz: Yeah, keep her safe.

1:20:01 Adaine: Batten down the hatches.

1:20:03 Kristen: Go immediately.

1:20:03 Gorgug: Please protect her. That's nine.

1:20:06 Riz: Maybe could tell my mom. She could get the cops there too.

1:20:11 Fig: Get a detail on her.

1:20:13 Adaine: Yeah, okay, tell--

1:20:14 Gorgug: Can we tell, so, (counting the words on his fingers) Shadow Cat wants to kill Ragh's mom, please protect her.

1:20:22 Adaine: Tell Sklonda.

1:20:22 Gorgug: Tell Sklonda.

1:20:25 Fig: Does Aguefort know who Shadow Cat is, that's sort of just what we call this creature.

1:20:31 Fabian: I mean, her name is Kalinda?

1:20:33 Brennan: Kalina.

1:20:34 Fig: Kalina.

1:20:37 Gorgug: (still counting) Shadow Cat, okay.

1:20:39 Riz: Nightmare King--

1:20:40 Adaine: Nightmare King's agent Shadow Cat--

1:20:43 Riz: Perfect.

1:20:45 Gorgug: One, two.

1:20:46 Brennan: Cool.

1:20:46 Adaine: Nightmare King’s agent Shadow Cat.

1:20:47 Brennan: That's all under 25.

1:20:47 Riz: We got it, we got it. Yeah, that's all we need.

1:20:48 Brennan: You guys send that off.

1:20:50 Gorgug: Tell Zelda I'm sorry.

1:20:52 Brennan: You guys get a response back almost immediately from Principal Aguefort, going,

1:20:58 Aguefort: Ah, wonderful, the use of a pirate Sending.

1:21:03 Brennan: A spree of profanity that is so specific that it actually communicates a kind of intricate message that he's gonna go check up on it, and he says, "Stay where you are, I'm gonna scry on you, and then send a screening, send a screen to communicate with you more in person.” So you guys are all in the van. A minute or two later, a (blows raspberries) screen goes across the windshield of the van that is kind of tilted to, even though the windshield's at a tilt, it just shows Arthur Aguefort there.

1:21:35 Zac: I was driving.

1:21:35 Brennan: In his suit, while you're driving. (both yelling) (all laugh)

1:21:38 Brennan: You see he goes,

1:21:38 Aguefort: How wonderful, my fine students, here, take a look!

1:21:43 Brennan: And he adjusts the screen. Ragh's house is a smoking crater. It is completely—

1:21:51 Ally: I hold Ragh in a way that turns him away from it.

1:21:55 Brennan: Ragh puts his head in his hands. You see that Arthur looks and says,

1:21:59 Aguefort: Utterly destroyed.

1:22:03 Adaine: And why did you say that so enthusiastically?

1:22:06 Fig: Everyone in it?

1:22:08 Adaine: Where's his mom?

1:22:08 Aguefort: Well, a dead body.

1:22:09 Adaine: No!

1:22:09 Gorgug: Who was in the—

1:22:11 Fabian: Just one dead body?

1:22:13 Aguefort: Yes.

1:22:14 Gorgug: Is it Ragh's mom?

1:22:17 Brennan: You see that he look in and you see that he says,

1:22:20 Aguefort: Well, the body of Lydia Barkrock, yes.

1:22:24 Fabian: Oh.

1:22:25 Adaine: Can you bring her back?

1:22:25 Fig: Was anything taken from her? Didn't she have a gem-

1:22:28 Aguefort: Crystal.

1:22:30 Fig: A crystal inside of her?

1:22:31 Aguefort: Yes, yes, she did.

1:22:34 Zac: Can I get do a Perception, like Insight check?

1:22:35 Brennan: You wanna do an Insight check?

1:22:37 Zac: To see if this is actually Aguefort.

1:22:38 Brennan: Sure.

1:22:45 Zac: 15.

1:22:47 Brennan: Aguefort doesn't seem that perturbed.

1:22:49 Zac: Yeah.

1:22:50 Brennan: You see he says,

1:22:50 Aguefort: Yes, the body of Lydia Barkrock was killed, destroyed here. And we're gonna have to get her a new one, I guess, but-

1:23:00 Gorgug: What are you talking about?

1:23:02 Aguefort: What are you talking about?

1:23:03 Adaine: You can just get her a new body?

1:23:03 Fig: Reincarnate?

1:23:05 Aguefort: Oh, yes, I've been meaning to do this for some time. Lydia Barkrock had a demon, a very important demon in a gem that she had implanted into her chest, so what I did was I went and cloned her, took her real body, put it into a temporal stasis with the real gem in it, took a sort of piece of glass shaped like a gem, a fabricated one, cast Nystul’s Magical Aura so it would read as an artifact, stabbed that into the clone, and then what I did, is I Magic Jar projected Lydia's consciousness into this kind of puppet body so that she would be able to see and speak and pilot it even though her real body is actually in extradimensional space about a mile underground beneath the Aguefort Adventuring Academy. Throughout Aguefort’s entire speech, the entire cast is staring at him with various degrees of dropped jaws.

1:23:55 Adaine: So she's not dead?

1:23:56 Gorgug: Magic jaw?

1:23:57 Fig: Yeah, you said magic jaw.

1:23:59 Aguefort: Jar.

1:24:00 Fig: Jar, Magic Jar.

1:24:01 Aguefort: In my accent, I drop the hard rs.

1:24:03 Gorgug: That's a spell we've heard before...

1:24:05 Brennan: You see Ragh says,

1:24:06 Ragh: (yelling through tears) Is my mom fucking dead or not?

1:24:07 Adaine: No, she's not dead.

1:24:09 Riz: She's not dead.

1:24:09 Brennan: And he says,

1:24:10 Aguefort: Well, it's an interesting philosophical point because one of her bodies has been destroyed, so her consciousness shot back to her body prime but in a sense, she did experience death, so very interesting.

1:24:22 Fig: But she's still alive.

1:24:23 Kristen: Oh, Lydia.

1:24:25 Fig: She's still alive, Ragh.

1:24:27 Ragh: Okay, good, I'm glad. Were you ever gonna tell me that you did that?

1:24:31 Brennan: You see Arthur Aguefort says,

1:24:33 Aguefort: My dear boy, I truly forgot that I did that stuff. It was on a list somewhere and I was going to eventually tell you. But! Very troubling indeed that somebody believes they killed Lydia Barkrock.

1:24:50 Adaine: We saw your daughter.

1:24:52 Aguefort: Which one?

1:24:53 Adaine: Oh.

1:24:53 Gorgug: Ayda.

1:24:55 Aguefort: Ayda, how is she doing? Oh, I forgot her birthday, I've forgotten many of her birthdays.

1:25:00 Fig: Where is my creature?

1:25:02 Aguefort: Oh, I have many, I've been working on it. You didn't get back in touch with me.

1:25:07 Fig: Yes, well, I'm in touch with you now. Send it to,

1:25:11 Emily: I send him a PIN.

1:25:13 Aguefort: Oh, wonderful, they cost a tremendous amount of money.

1:25:16 Fig: Yeah, remember, I gave you money.

1:25:18 Aguefort: No, you didn't.

1:25:19 Fig: Okay, well, I said I'm gonna give you money.

1:25:21 Aguefort: Oh yeah, for sure, you said you were going to… saying that you were going to give someone money, and giving them money, two of the most different things in the world.

1:25:28 Adaine: I think if you're a rockstar, they're actually the same.

1:25:30 Fig: Yeah, everyone just knows I'm worth the money 'cause they see all the posters with my face on it.

1:25:34 Aguefort: A lot of very famous artists and creators are quite broke.

1:25:38 Fig: Yeah, well, what do you got for me?

1:25:41 Aguefort: Well--

1:25:41 Fig: We'll talk about it another time.

1:25:42 Aguefort: Okay, the cheapest option is the pentacorn, that's 30,000 gold, so.

1:25:46 Fig: Mmm, okay, I'm gonna Google that and then we'll talk.

1:25:48 Aguefort: All right.

1:25:49 Fig: (writing it down) Pentacorn.

1:25:50 Aguefort: Well, I'm very glad that young Mr. Barkrock is not without his mother. I will get to work on making another clone very quickly.

1:25:58 Brennan: He goes,

1:25:58 Ragh: (hands to hit head) Wait, so, like, when I've been cuddling my mom and stuff for like years, it's not been her?

1:26:06 Brennan: And he goes,

1:26:06 Aguefort: No, my boy, her consciousness has been inhabiting a perfect replica of her own real body while her real body has been, sort of incorporeal and lodged in temporal stasis deep beneath the crust of the Earth. (laughs)

1:26:24 Adaine: What level is—

1:26:24 Aguefort: (screaming) Magic!

1:26:26 Adaine: How do I learn a Magic Jar spell?

1:26:28 Aguefort: Oh, it's very powerful.

1:26:29 Fig: Why do people put people away in stones with it?

1:26:32 Aguefort: (laughs) Why wouldn't you?

1:26:35 Fig: How do you break one?

1:26:36 Aguefort: Well, there's a couple ways. A Wish spell would do it.

1:26:41 Fig: Cool.

1:26:42 Adaine: A ninth-level spell? A ninth level spell would do it?

1:26:44 Aguefort: A ninth-level spell, yes, the good, the good stuff, yes.

1:26:47 Fabian: This family is wild.

1:26:49 Gorgug: Professor Aguefort.

1:26:49 Aguefort: Yes.

1:26:51 Gorgug: While I got you here, do you know anything about unicorns?

1:26:55 Aguefort: Oh, I know a tremendous amount about unicorns.

1:26:58 Kristen: Who did they worship?

1:27:07 Aguefort: (frowns) I think I've quite forgotten.

1:27:09 Gorgug: You forgot?

1:27:10 Aguefort: Yes, I've forgotten. I used to know and I don't know anymore. That's troubling.

1:27:15 Fabian: Is this like a forgetting thing like you did with Lydia Barkrock's body or like—

1:27:19 Aguefort: (realizing) Lydia Barkrock! I need to tell her son that I've put—

1:27:21 Gorgug: You just--

1:27:22 Fig: Okay, heavy forgetfulness.

1:27:22 Riz: Can unicorns turn into other things, is that a thing?

1:27:26 Aguefort: Forgotten to tell Lydia that I've done that. Lydia doesn't even know, I did it while she was asleep.

1:27:29 Adaine: Can you see this cat?

1:27:31 Aguefort: What?

1:27:34 Riz: (holds out the picture) Do you see a cat?

1:27:36 Brennan: Hold on one second.

1:27:38 Fig: Or a person that looks like a cat?

1:27:41 Adaine: Right-

1:27:41 Fig: We don't know what, I don't want him to take it very literally and then be like, "I don't see a cat."

1:27:47 Murph: Am I the only one of our little crew that can see the cat?

1:27:49 Zac: Tracker can see it.

1:27:51 Siobhan: And Tracker.

1:27:51 Murph: Tracker can see it.

1:27:52 Ally: And— Sandra Lynn.

1:27:53 Zac: Sandra Lynn.

1:27:55 Emily: And Sandra Lynn.

1:27:55 Siobhan: Can Ragh see it?

1:27:57 Brennan: Ragh can see it, yeah.

1:27:58 Emily: And Ragh.

1:27:59 Brennan: You see that Arthur says,

1:28:00 Aguefort: I'm afraid I can't see a tabaxi in that photograph, how strange.

1:28:05 Kristen: Oh, that's so crazy 'cause we didn't say tabaxi, we just said, do you see a cat?

1:28:10 Aguefort: Hmm?

1:28:11 Kristen: We just asked you do you see a cat in this, and you said, "I don't see a tabaxi."

1:28:14 Aguefort: I read from your intonation that you were using the term cat to mean a tabaxi, which, by the way, is extremely offensive.

1:28:22 Fig: I'm not gonna worry about.

1:28:22 Kristen: That's my vibe though.

1:28:22 Aguefort: Yes, for sure. Well, it seems like we have all of this covered up.

1:28:27 Ally: Can I do an Insight check? I don't know if I can over this screen but.

1:28:30 Brennan: Oh, sure, yeah.

1:28:34 Ally: All right. (vocalizing)

1:28:39 Emily: We should steal a book about unicorns.

1:28:40 Ally: Ah, 17.

1:28:42 Brennan: 17. Arthur doesn't seem more strange than usual. You see Arthur looks and says,

1:28:48 Aguefort: Well, I'm glad to tell you then that Lydia is alive, the person or peoples that did this were not able to get the demon gem from within her body, so kudos for us, apocalypse averted, hurray Aguefort, put another W up on the board.

1:29:04 Brennan: You see he says,

1:29:04 Aguefort: However, Ragh, my good boy, you are officially homeless, so good luck with that.

1:29:09 Riz: Principal Aguefort, you've gotta get better at talking to kids.

1:29:12 Aguefort: (very similarly to Ayda) Why?

1:29:14 Fabian: I mean, the entire family is just seemingly awful.

1:29:15 Riz: He's a principal though.

1:29:17 Adaine: Ragh, you can live in Mordred Manor with us.

1:29:20 Brennan: You see Ragh goes,

1:29:20 Ragh: Okay, good, my mom's alive. We've got a home.

1:29:24 Kristen: Yeah, you got it, bases covered.

1:29:26 Adaine: Yeah.

1:29:26 Ragh: Okay, cool.

1:29:27 Adaine: Mordred Manor is actually extremely chill.

1:29:29 Fig: It's really cool.

1:29:30 Adaine: I live in a tower.

1:29:31 Fig: I live under a piano.

1:29:32 Ragh: I'm super psyched, I would love that. Party house, yeah.

1:29:36 Adaine: Absolute party house.

1:29:37 Brennan: You see Aguefort says,

1:29:39 Aguefort: Is there a party house around?

1:29:39 Adaine: No sir.

1:29:41 Kristen: No, that's just what we call our study hall.

1:29:44 Fig: For a discount on that pentacorn, there is.

1:29:47 Aguefort: You drive a hard bargain, Miss Faeth. (laughs) All right, I'm going to go, Ragh, should I make your mother a new body? I would probably have to deposit her here in this wreckage. Should I just hold tight on that? I probably should tell her that I made a body and I did a bunch of jib jabs.

1:30:04 Gorgug: You probably should, yeah. Seems like you should explain you did that.

1:30:07 Adaine: Yeah, wait until he has a place to be that's not on fire.

1:30:10 Aguefort: Yes, ooh, her consciousness probably has returned to the molten core of the Earth, I should get on that.

1:30:16 Brennan: As Ragh goes--

1:30:16 Gorgug: The molten core?

1:30:18 Ragh: What?

1:30:18 Gorgug: The molten core?

1:30:19 Aguefort: Wait, how many miles down did I place her? I am going to check. Form of Earth!

1:30:24 Brennan: He turns into an earth elemental and burrows into the ground. (all laugh)

1:30:31 Kristen: Okay, wait, Ragh, when you were saying and you met the tabaxi woman, who had she talked to, was she talking to Aguefort at any time?

1:30:40 Brennan: You see he says,

1:30:42 Ragh: No, I never saw her talking to Aguefort.

1:30:45 Riz: Saw her talking to Adaine's mom.

1:30:47 Kristen: Yeah.

1:30:47 Ragh: Yeah, and Jace.

1:30:49 Kristen: And Jace.

1:30:51 Fig: The biggest thing is Tracker, and Tracker seeing it overnight.

1:30:55 Adaine: Oh yeah, that is very strange to me.

1:30:57 Kristen: Very strange.

1:30:58 Gorgug: So Tracker—

1:30:58 Adaine: Can we look in the library 'cause we're right outside the library right now, right?

1:31:02 Brennan: Yeah.

1:31:02 Siobhan: Can we check in the library for some kind of book on invisibility?

1:31:11 Brennan: Yeah, absolutely.

1:31:12 Kristen: Didn't Ayda say you could ask her anything?

1:31:14 Brennan: Everybody here make a Perception check for me if you'd be so kind.

1:31:17 Kristen: You can get help from her though, like librarian.

1:31:20 Siobhan: 20, 20 not nat.

1:31:20 Zac: Nat 20.

1:31:22 Ally: Ey.

1:31:25 Brennan: Cool. Nat 20. You look off and see that the smoke coming from the edge of Crow's Keep is finally stopped down but you get a good look at it when you're with Fabian. I don't think Fabian has described the events of last night, but Fabian has basically been like, he's like, "Oh, I know what that was” or whatever. It's on the wrong side of Crow's Keep from where Fabian fell. It's not the place that Fabian would've fallen from. On a nat 20, you're just triangulating where you guys got him, so that smoke's not coming from where Fabian fell from.

1:32:01 Gorgug: Hey, Fabian.

1:32:04 Zac: Well, first off, real quick, I hand him an orange. Fabian takes the orange, looking a little disbelieving.

1:32:07 Gorgug: I read that somewhere that you give your friends oranges so they don't get scurvy. But anyways, the other thing is-

1:32:16 Brennan: Ragh tears up.

1:32:18 Gorgug: And you can have an orange too.

1:32:20 Ragh: Fuck. (sniffs) Oh, it's a good day, dude. Do all those hugs from my mom count, they counted, right?

1:32:27 Gorgug: They counted.

1:32:27 Kristen: Yeah.

1:32:28 Adaine: Absolutely.

1:32:29 Fig: They absolutely did.

1:32:30 Ragh: She like had like a mech of her own body made of normal body stuff, that's normal.

1:32:34 Adaine: But her brain was in it, so that's the same thing.

1:32:37 Ragh: Yeah—

1:32:37 Fig: Ragh, is this not a hug?

1:32:39 Emily: And I hug the gem that Gorthalax is trapped in.

1:32:43 Fig: Is this not a hug?

1:32:45 Brennan: You see, he gives you a hug.

1:32:46 Fig: Does this not count, this counts.

1:32:47 Brennan: He gives you—

1:32:47 Fig: (crying) This counts—

1:32:51 Ally: Everyone in the van is crying.

1:32:52 Ragh: Super hard, guys, super—

1:32:54 Adaine: (crying) My parents never hugged me.

1:32:56 Ally: I just hold, I hold Tracker's hand, just kind of quietly, but.

1:33:04 Gorgug: So Fabian, I don't think that's what you’re talk--, it seems like that's a different fire.

1:33:07 Lou: I got a 16 Perception, can I tell that that's not.

1:33:11 Brennan: It's not the building. You would know where that is. You look at the building, that used to be the Ramble.

1:33:21 Zac: What's the Ramble?

1:33:22 Fabian: Oh, the Ramble, that's the main head of government here. It's like the top of the government here.

1:33:30 Fig: What? Is Jamina in trouble?

1:33:33 Fabian: Probably not Jamina, that's probably James making some kind of move to take over Leviathan. That's my guess. 'Cause he was up here earlier.

1:33:43 Adaine: Okay, so let's attack him, let's fight him.

1:33:45 Fabian: Oh, we shouldn't do that. Oh, we shouldn't.

1:33:46 Fig: If anything, we need to get revenge on what he did to you last night.

1:33:50 Adaine: Yeah, you're right, you're right, we shouldn't fight him at all, you should fight him one on one.

1:33:54 Fabian: No, none of us should fight him, we should, our goal is to get a C+ on this assignment by getting the crown of the Nightmare—

1:34:01 Adaine: No, our goal is to get an A.

1:34:03 Fabian: (a little shaky) All right, either way, the Nightmare King's crown is our goal, I don't think we should stay here longer than we need to.

1:34:13 Adaine: The Nightmare King's goal. (stutters) This is personal and I don't like seeing you like this. It scares me, where is your sword, where is your eye patch?

1:34:28 Riz: Fabian, this is real Gilear energy.

1:34:30 Kristen: Yeah.

1:34:31 Brennan: Gilear goes,

1:34:31 Gilear: Hey.

1:34:33 Fig: Yeah, hey!

1:34:33 Emily: I slap Riz. (all laugh)

1:34:36 Riz: Assault.

1:34:38 Ally: I grab a lemon yogurt from near Gilear. There's an ant in it.

1:34:45 Brennan: You see, he says,

1:34:47 Gilear: No, oh, sometimes ants get in there, it's okay.

1:34:51 Ally: I say,

1:34:51 Kristen: Look, hold this. Does this feel comfortable in your hand? It's warm yoghurt (pronounced oddly), you know how Gilear says yogurt?

1:35:00 Fabian: (holding the yogurt) Yes.

1:35:00 Fig: (quietly) Okay, everyone, everyone.

1:35:02 Kristen: Is this, do you wanna be a sad, sad elf-man.

1:35:06 Adaine: I think somebody cursed Fabian. I don't know if there's any other explanation.

1:35:10 Fabian: (still shaky) I haven't been cursed. All right, here it is, here it is. While I was off on my own last night, I ran into Alistair Ash and he introduced me to all of my father's followers, and we all had a great time, and then—

1:35:30 Adaine: Great, so we can get them to help.

1:35:31 Fabian: No, no, no. I (laughs nervously).

1:35:37 Riz: Are they okay?

1:35:38 Fabian: No, okay.

1:35:40 Gorgug: They quit being pirates, is it?

1:35:41 Fabian: No.

1:35:41 Fig: I bet they had real fun names, I can't wait to meet 'em.

1:35:45 Fabian: They did have fun names, they did have fun names. There's Chungle-Down Bim.

1:35:50 Adaine: What?

1:35:50 Kristen: Are you having a stroke?

1:35:53 Fabian: No, no, no, no, no.

1:35:54 Adaine: Maybe it's an anagram, it must be an anagram.

1:35:55 Fabian: No, it wasn't an anagram, his name was just Chungle-Down Bim, and there was also one named Old Young Benjamin, (crying) who was old but also young. And there was another one, there was another one that jumped out when they all found out that I didn't kill my father like I said I did. Well, I did kill my—

1:36:15 Adaine: You did.

1:36:16 Fabian: No, but I didn't kill him the way that they all thought I did, I didn't fight him in combat. (quick panicked breath) They all said that they were gonna, we were gonna die and they challenged James to a fight, and I said, ‘Well, come on, I'm Fabian Seacaster, we could beat him,’ and then he was walking by. He was walking by and I jumped out of the door, and I (laughs) Captain James, and I stabbed him. And I stabbed him really good. And it didn’t do a good job.

1:36:53 Adaine: So it’s fine, so he’s dead!

1:36:54 Fabian: No.

1:36:57 Gorgug: You didn't kill him?

1:36:58 Fabian: No.

1:36:59 Gorgug: Did you almost kill him?

1:37:00 Fabian: (fully crying, head in hands) No, I mean, I thought I did, I thought I did some good damage. I thought I really hit him hard, and then the next thing I knew his tentacles were on my head and he was gonna eat my brain. Adaine shrieks a little.

1:37:10 Fabian: Then he told me that he'd eaten my siblings' brains. So I guess I have brothers and sisters but I didn't have enough time to process that, because by the time I escaped, he murdered like all of, (crying) he murdered all of my, (crying) he murdered all of my father's followers, like all of them in like one hit. It was like he just went haaa and then—

1:37:32 Adaine: Is Alistair dead?

1:37:34 Fabian: No, the only four that survived were Chungledown Bim, Old Young Benjamin-

1:37:38 Kristen: Well, didn't Chungle-Down Bim help you?

1:37:39 Fabian: No. (crying)

1:37:41 Gorgug: Chungle-Down Bim probably saved you.

1:37:42 Fabian: No. (crying louder)

1:37:44 Riz: We should go to Chungle-Down Bim—

1:37:46 Gorgug: To Chungle-Down Bim.

1:37:46 Kristen: How did he help you in the fight, how did he help you?

1:37:49 Fig: I've got a phone book here, I'm looking for Chungle-Down Bim.

1:37:52 Fabian: No, please don't, he told me-

1:37:54 Fig: He's on the line.

1:37:55 Fabian: He told me he was gonna shit in my mouth. He told me he was gonna shit in my mouth. He was gonna shit in my mouth, and then I would never be a real pirate, and that I was disgraced in my father's memory.

1:38:09 Kristen: Huh, hang up.

1:38:12 Fabian: And then (choked) Old Young Benjamin's hiding somewhere, and Alistair Ash was crying as I ran away.

1:38:20 Gorgug: But you grabbed him when you ran away though, right?

1:38:22 Fabian: No, I abandoned him like confidently 'cause I knew that the only way I would survive was if I ran away. The only ones of my followers left are Chungle-Down Bim, who probably works for James, Old Young Benjamin, who's doing a monkey thing up in the rigging, and then there's, honestly I probably have one follower who's running around, he's not even mine, he's my father's, just like everything else I have, and I don't know, so we shouldn't fight James. He's just going to murder all of you, and I'm going to feel awful and I'm just gonna end up eating banana yogurt in a house that I built in the memory of my father.

1:38:56 Ally: I slap him.

1:38:58 Fabian: Ow.

1:38:59 Adaine: Fabian.

1:39:00 Brennan: Tracker looks at you and goes,

1:39:00 Tracker: Jesus.

1:39:02 Kristen: Fabian Aramais Seacaster, we need you, okay. We brought one Gilear, we made that mistake, we did not mean to bring two.

1:39:06 Adaine: You are more than your father!

1:39:11 Emily: Okay, real quick, I need to cast Suggestion on Gilear, and tell him to believe in himself. 'Cause a lot of mean stuff is getting said.

1:39:19 Kristen: (gesturing to Fabian) We need that here!

1:39:21 Brennan: You see, I'm gonna roll a save for him real quick. Oh, he fails his save. You see he says,

1:39:28 Gilear: I'm okay with the fact that it takes mind control to make me like me.

1:39:34 Fig: Well, we'll deal with that later. I just, everything's gonna keep being really against you, so just...

1:39:39 Gilear: No, no.

1:39:40 Fig: Buck up.

1:39:40 Gilear: I am looking up from the bottom and I'm seeing how close Fabian is sinking towards me and it is alarming, even to me, I won't lie.

1:39:50 Fig: Okay. Fig gives Gilear a thumbs up, which he returns.

1:39:50 Riz: Fabian, you don't—

1:39:52 Adaine: You have so much more than just being your father's son.

1:39:54 Gorgug: Everything you have is not your father's.

1:39:57 Adaine: None of us are friends with you because you're Bill Seacaster's son. We are friends with you because you’re Fabian.

1:40:04 Kristen: It's true.

1:40:05 Fabian: Yes, but the reason I'm at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, the reason I'm a Bad Kid, the reason I have the sword that I do and the bike that I do is all because-

1:40:17 Adaine: You got that bike because you won it fair and square, because we killed a lot of people.

1:40:21 Fabian: Yeah, but you know who was in my head when I killed Johnny Spells, my father, my father, my father.

1:40:28 Fig: Hey, just because he started you off on this journey, doesn't mean that he needs to follow you everywhere you go. He just gave you a headstart.

1:40:36 Riz: Yeah, he's always gonna influence you.

1:40:38 Adaine: You know why, I am who I am because of my parents?

1:40:43 Fabian: Aren't you like the opposite because—

1:40:44 Adaine: Exactly, and you can be that too. Or the same, it doesn't matter, but we're not friends with you because your dad was famous. Actually, if I'm being honest, that's the least likable thing about you.

1:40:57 Fig: Yeah.

1:40:59 Riz: Yeah, it's pretty insufferable sometimes.

1:41:01 Fig: Yeah, it's kinda like get over it, you know.

1:41:05 Brennan: You see Tracker looks up and says,

1:41:10 Tracker: ...I think there's a lot of true things that have been said here, and you know, just from the outside of this friend group looking in, seems like Fabian might be struggling with depression and I think that we've all reacted in a way where you see a depressed person and we all shout at them. So, you know.

1:41:31 Fig: Okay.

1:41:33 Adaine: I feel like you can't be depressed, like, depression is like a long-term illness, and not just a thing that happens to you on one day. I think what you mean is that he's sad.

1:41:39 Tracker: Sure.

1:41:44 Adaine: And that's different.

1:41:46 Riz: Fabian's life rules 95% of the time.

1:41:48 Adaine: Yeah, he's had one vaguely mediocre day.

1:41:52 Riz: It was a bad day. It’s a bad day.

1:41:53 Fabian: I watched 14 people die on my orders. Chungle-Down Bim said he’d shit in my mouth—

1:41:59 Kristen: (crosstalk) So you had a bad day.

1:42:00 Riz: Honestly—

1:42:01 Brennan: You see that Tracker says,

1:42:02 Tracker: I'm gonna stand by, we might be catching this at the beginning of this process.

1:42:07 Adaine: Call Chungledown Bim, because I'm gonna-

1:42:10 Fabian: Do not call!

1:42:13 Fig: I actually can't, I called him a couple times during that rollercoaster, and now he's got my phone blocked.

1:42:21 Brennan: And also you see that Gilear looks and says,

1:42:23 Gilear: What actually is a phone book for Leviathan? Because that's fully nothing.

1:42:26 Fig: Oh, it's some animal hide with a bunch of numbers.

1:42:31 Gilear: These are the scrollings of a mad man. These are not, this is--

1:42:34 Riz: He just found it in the bathroom.

1:42:35 Gilear: Yeah, this is nothing.

1:42:36 Fig: It does what I--

1:42:37 Adaine: It does say Chungle-Down Bim in it.

1:42:39 Gorgug: Fabian, I think you're gonna have to, we obviously can't fix this overnight, and obviously I want you take time to figure what is going on and recover from what a bad situation that was, but I think we need to check this out with or without you.

1:42:57 Riz: But also, Fabian, you, you know, we all draw strength from each other. You went in without your crew. What's a pirate without his crew?

1:43:07 Fabian: I did have like 14—

1:43:09 Kristen: No, you had randos.

1:43:09 Riz: They're not as good as us. You had randos.

1:43:12 Fabian: But not as good as—

1:43:14 Riz: That's like you trying to do an escape room with just a bunch of strangers you just met.

1:43:17 Kristen: Yeah.

1:43:17 Adaine: No, thank you.

1:43:18 Fig: I think also, if something's going on, I understand that maybe it feels really hard but it might not be something we can avoid right now. Although it is the politics of a city that we're not from.

1:43:30 Riz: Yeah, but if he takes over the entire city, it might be hard to get away.

1:43:33 Adaine: Yeah, that's true.

1:43:35 Riz: Let's check it out at the very least.

1:43:37 Kristen: Let's do it.

1:43:39 Brennan: You see that, this is the first time that Cathilda has heard the whole story, so you see the van pulls away, you guys start heading towards the smoke at the edge of Crow's Keep. As the van is pulling away, you see Cathilda looks up at you and she says,

1:44:04 Cathilda: Master Fabian, are you… (looks down for a moment)

1:44:15 Brennan: She sort of has the blanket over you 'cause you have your pneumonia, you’re messed up, she looks at you and says,

1:44:24 Cathilda: I want you to know something.

1:44:27 Brennan: And as she, you know, the noise of the van, you guys are driving away, she looks up at you and goes, (gentle music)

1:44:44 Cathilda: My children passed away before you were born, and I've never spoken about it with you because I, it's something that I never truly intended, I think, to share, you know, you're becoming a young man and throughout your childhood, the conversation has moved farther and farther away and I don't know if there ever would've been a day where I would've brought it up. I, your father loved you the moment he laid eyes on you when you were nothing but a whimpering babe. You had no exploits to your name, there was nothing heroic, you were a little ball of wailing and waggling your arms and legs around, and you are worthy of love no matter what it is that you do in this world, and there are those that love you. And I hope you know that I love you.

1:46:20 Fabian: (stuttering) Yeah, yeah, I know that.

1:46:32 Cathilda: (long pause) I never wanted to overstep my bounds, and your father built you up a great deal, and I don't think he ever prepared you for the sudden fall. Maybe I should've done something about that before. (sighs) You are a good lad. And nobody is defined by their worst day.

1:47:06 Fabian: Sure, sure.

1:47:11 Cathilda: I'm sorry that you had to go through that, and worst of all, I'm sorry that you had to go through it without your family.

1:47:19 Brennan: You see a look come over Cathilda's eyes. It's creepy to look at. She has normally sort of brown, dark brown eyes, and her face is always so creased in a perpetual smile that kind of like, the pupil and iris of her eyes fills out most of her eyes. Her pupils dilate and her eyes lose their luster a little bit in what you can only describe as a look of such pure menace. Like you've heard the expression that someone goes black in the eyes, this is the first time you've seen that where someone looks like any shred of empathy, remorse, or hesitation leaves from her expression. She says,

1:48:10 Cathilda: You are Bill's son, his darling boy, and you are mine as well. And that squid put his hands on you. And he's gonna pay handsomely for it with every last thing he's got. Do you hear me?

1:48:29 Fabian: Yes, yes, I do.

1:48:34 Cathilda: That's good, Master Fabian.

1:48:35 Brennan: Pinches your cheek. And you guys head off to the edge of the Crow's Keep.

1:48:45 Ally: I try to hold Cathilda's hand as we walk.

1:48:48 Brennan: She grazes your hand,

1:48:48 Cathilda: Oh, deary.

1:48:51 Kristen: You're hot.

1:48:52 Cathilda: What?

1:48:53 Kristen: What? Nothing.

1:48:55 Cathilda: You know, I don't think you're wrong. I think I'm quite a catch.

1:48:59 Kristen: It's so true, right, Tracker?

1:49:01 Cathilda: You have to like yourself, you have to, you know, I don't have a problem saying it, I'm a catch.

1:49:06 Kristen: It's like that Tweet song, "Oops Oh My". She's done dressing in front of a mirror and just kinda taking it all in.

1:49:14 Cathilda: What a world-shattering reference. (all laugh)

1:49:19 Brennan: You see she,

1:49:23 Cathilda: An impossibly deep cut. I can't believe where your mind flashes to in the briefest possible moment.

1:49:31 Kristen: Listen to it, it's a great pump up song.

1:49:34 Cathilda: It's a banger.

1:49:35 Brennan: You see the Ramble. The Ramble used to be this giant sort of, almost like "Walrus and the Carpenter"-esque ramshackle, multi-level tavern that was home to, the building the Ramble was home to, the actual Ramble itself, which was a collection of Leviathan's oldest pirates that would sit here and smoke and drink, and tell tales of great acts of piracy in the distant past. It was kind of like, how to put it, similar to what like a courthouse would do, it was like the repository of the judicial system of piracy where people would come before these ancient pirates, who wouldn't really hold trials but would just like ramble and wax philosophical, and eventually, a decision would come out through the assembled wisdom of the elder pirates gathered here. It is now a smoking ruin. You see that there are a bunch of pirates that have gathered here that are kind of like salvaging what they can from this place. Some of the people here, you see that Jamina Joy is here as well. So you see that the bosun has come up from the Maelstrom's Maw to help salvage this place. What do you guys do as you approach?

1:51:03 Murph: Might as well ask Jamina.

1:51:06 Riz: Jamina, what happened here?

1:51:12 Jamina: (deep, low, mechanical voice) (grunting) Captain Whitclaw destroyed the Rumble. He came here last night and asked what need be done for there to be a new king in Leviathan.

1:51:30 Gorgug: What needed to be done, destroy that?

1:51:32 Brennan: You see, says,

1:51:32 Jamina: The elders of the Ramble said that it was merely the words of old Bill that had kept a king from the throne of the helm for a generation. So the elders of the Ramble said that all that need be done would be for a captain to claim the crown from the head of the Pirate King in Gibbety Square, and to head to the Row & the Ruction there to crown themselves as Pirate King. Captain James need not have destroyed this place. He did so from what I can only say is malice. To destroy the wisdom gathered here, and have there be no other elders to claim court or principle in the city of Leviathan.

1:52:35 Riz: Do you know where he is now?

1:52:39 Jamina: If his aim was to become the Pirate King, I can only assume he will have headed to Gibbety Square to claim the crown.

1:52:49 Fig: How do you feel as the person who takes-

1:52:50 Gorgug: Pibbety Square?

1:52:54 Jamina: Gibbety, what did you say?

1:52:55 Gorgug: I thought it was Pib, never mind.

1:52:57 Jamina: No, Gibbety, Gibbety, yes.

1:52:59 Adaine: It's Gibbety.

1:52:59 Fig: As the person who watches over this city, and has its interest at your heart, that's an assumption I'm jumping to about you.

1:53:07 Jamina: I have no heart. (grunts) I have an automaton.

1:53:11 Fig: Right, but it's programmed in you to care about this city. Whatever, let's not debate this. Do you think it's good? Do you support his claim?

1:53:21 Jamina: I was the bosun of the Leviathan under the last Pirate King. When Bill Seacaster came here, cut off his head, stuck it to the mast of Gibbety Square, and said that there would be no king in Leviathan, everything changed. Everything may change again with James Whitclaw.

1:53:39 Adaine: So you're saying you're apolitical?

1:53:47 Jamina: (whirs) Hey, you know, I keep the ships floating.

1:53:50 Adaine: Right, you just obey orders.

1:53:53 Jamina: (whirs) What's your deal, you have some dog in this fight?

1:53:56 Adaine: What's your deal?

1:53:58 Jamina: What?

1:53:58 Adaine: What's your deal?

1:54:00 Jamina: I work from the moment I come from my maintenance to keep this massive city afloat.

1:54:09 Adaine: Why?

1:54:11 Jamina: Somebody's gotta do the actual work of this city floating. All right? Is it so crazy for me to ask that the citizens of Leviathan keep the politics in line and afloat?

1:54:26 Adaine: When there's a bad person—

1:54:28 Jamina: (angry) How about this? I'll run my crew that keeps the city from literally sinking into the ocean, I'll do that by myself with the crew that works for me, and how about the other 98% of people keep an evil king from happening.

1:54:42 Adaine: Why don't you be the evil king?

1:54:43 Fig: Okay, you've said evil king though. The only reason I was asking is because I feel like you know this city better than I do, so I wanted to know if you supported this claim or not. But you said evil king.

1:54:53 Adaine: Yeah, if you're the one that's keeping it afloat, you're the one that's running it. You should be the king.

1:54:59 Jamina: (buzzes) Look.

1:55:00 Adaine: If there's anyone-

1:55:03 Jamina: This, when, you come from a democracy, right?

1:55:05 Adaine: No, I come from Fallinel.

1:55:07 Jamina: Okay, you come from a magocracy. But my point being that when something goes extremely wrong in your country, do you go find the like snowplow drivers? And like the mail people?

1:55:23 Riz: We need to go to Gibbety Square people.

1:55:24 Kristen: We need to go to Gibbety Square.

1:55:25 Riz: This person’s not gonna help us.

1:55:26 Adaine: You're the head of the civil service, that's different.

1:55:29 Gorgug: I feel like this is—

1:55:30 Riz: Everyone read the room.

1:55:30 Adaine: You should resign.

1:55:32 Jamina: Oh, (whirs), do you wanna throw down? Do you want my job?

1:55:34 Adaine: I want you to be, no, I want you to go and be your own pirate captain on your own and be really good at being a pirate, and let Leviathan sink under this bad, evil king.

1:55:44 Jamina: So you want for Leviathan to sink into the waves?

1:55:47 Adaine: Yes.

1:55:47 Kristen: No, we don't agree. Let's go to Gibbety Square.

1:55:49 Riz: What are you talking about?

1:55:51 Fig: I didn't mean to start any of this, I totally just wanted to know what you thought, 'cause I trust your opinion.

1:55:56 Jamina: Well, I'm the only one here with a job. All right, I do my job, I keep the city-

1:55:59 Adaine: We all have jobs.

1:56:01 Ally: Riz, start doing your— oh no, that was a different, your baby dance.

1:56:03 Emily: I say--

1:56:04 Ally: Completely different world.

1:56:06 Emily: I say Kristen's ribbon dance, and try to distract--

1:56:10 Murph: I start sprinting towards Gibbety Square.

1:56:13 Gorgug: Let's go.

1:56:13 Murph: Yeah, let's go.

1:56:15 Brennan: You guys take off from Gibbety Square.

1:56:18 Adaine: I think you'd be a really good king.

1:56:21 Jamina: (whirs) I would be a queen of this place, and if I was, it would sink to the bottom of the ocean! Because (incomprehensible yelling)

1:56:29 Brennan: You guys drive away. So you all head off. As you do so, you go down the pulley system back to the lower levels of Leviathan where you (whirs) drive over to Gibbety Square. As you arrive in Gibbety Square, you see that the crown has already been pulled off of the head of the Pirate King. You see a gruesome sight, by the way, just a giant mast that has an artificially preserved bearded pirate's head with a dagger through the tongue, pinning it so it hangs from the tongue off of this thing.

1:57:01 Emily: Gross.

1:57:02 Brennan: And no crown on the head.

1:57:06 Riz: All right, so he's already going to the place where he needs to crown himself.

1:57:09 Fabian: The Row & the Ruction.

1:57:11 Riz: Let's head there.

1:57:11 Fig: Yeah, let's go.

1:57:14 Brennan: You guys head to the Row & the Ruction.

1:57:20 Siobhan: Where is that?

1:57:21 Zac: (pointing on the map) It's nearby, Gibbety Square.

1:57:25 Brennan: As you guys get to the Row & the Ruction, you see a massive pirate warehouse in the Aftward neighborhood. These are more like classical buildings, they're well to do, it's not all ship’s hulls here, these are actual platforms, streets, buildings, and you see a colossal building. You guys hear a crazy amount of noise from this, of pitched fighting. (adventure music starts) So the Row & the Ruction are two separate fights going on. The Row is a massive fistfight on the sort of sawdust covered and bloodstained floor of this massive warehouse. It is a fistfight that's been going on for 150 years. They have been like bringing in new people, it's just a fight, it's been going on forever. The Ruction is a series of planks and barrels hanging from a net about 20 feet above the Row. The Ruction is people using flintlock pistols, swords, weaponry, all that kind of stuff. It basically forms a bicameral legislature for the city of Leviathan where the lower house is this bar fight, fist fight, the Row has been going on for 150 years, the Ruction is partially in session from time to time when the fight gets rowdy enough, the people can actually climb up and get the weaponry and stuff aboard that other fight. You're not allowed to bring your own weapons into the Row, or if you do bring them, then you have to hide them and not use them. Again, if you do use them, that's fine. Everyone will just gang up on you and kill you, right, so the way it works politically is you gotta have enough people have your back to go into this fight to start winning it, to get enough ground, to climb up into the Ruction, which means you start taking over that second level, and basically, if you can hold the Row & Ruction for long enough, you can make political decisions for the city. (pauses) Cool!

1:59:23 Zac: Wow.

1:59:23 Siobhan: Cool. Can I use magic in the Ruction?

1:59:26 Brennan: Yeah, absolutely.

1:59:27 Siobhan: But you have to go through the Row to get to the Ruction?

1:59:30 Brennan: Theoretically, you could probably fly over it straight to the Ruction if you, there's, you might be surprised to learn, it's pretty rules-light here in the Row & the Ruction. But you guys walk in and you see that the Row is going on, you guys arrive here just on the heels of Captain James and his crew, who have all gone to get drinks on the other side, and are basically preparing to enter the Row. As you walk in, you know, you see your boom, pow, peng, pow, pow, you know, fists flying, people fighting. You see across from this massive fist fight, underneath this suspended net with platforms and stuff like that. You see Captain James turn to look at you guys as you enter. Is anyone staying outside with the van for anything else? Everyone's going in?

2:00:23 Fig: Unless we need someone to do it, I think I'm probably going in.

2:00:25 Gorgug: Fabian.

2:00:26 Riz: I think I'll.

2:00:26 Adaine: Can you Revivify Fabian to make him not two levels of exhausted?

2:00:31 Riz: Oh, yes.

2:00:31 Kristen: Yeah, let's do it.

2:00:32 Riz: Oh, is there, it's like Greater Restoration or something?

2:00:34 Adaine: Greater Restoration.

2:00:34 Kristen: Yeah, I have a bunch of stuff. Let's do-

2:00:36 Riz: What gets rid of exhaustion? Any-

2:00:40 Kristen: Yeah, I don't know how to get--

2:00:41 Brennan: I don't know if you have anything to get rid of exhaustion right now.

2:00:44 Ally: Okay.

2:00:46 Murph: I think I'd like to, I don't wanna wait by the van or anything, but I'd like to be maybe stealthing.

2:00:51 Brennan: Cool.

2:00:51 Murph: Just so I can like be their backup, just kinda hovering around them.

2:00:55 Brennan: Hell yeah. (die clatters)

2:00:58 Murph: 26.

2:00:59 Brennan: 26, hell yeah, you are a shadow in the corners of the Ruction.

2:01:04 Ally: I guess I'm just gonna cast Resistance on him.

2:01:07 Brennan: Okay, it's not gonna get rid of your exhaustion.

2:01:10 Ally: It'll just give him advantage on like, you can add a D4 to your saving throws.

2:01:15 Brennan: Cool.

2:01:15 Emily: Just your next one, I think.

2:01:19 Brennan: You guys approach, you guys see Captain James Whitclaw turn up to you as you guys come in here. You see he puts a hand on his crystal saber. As he does so, he looks up and specifically catches Fabian's eyes. What do you guys do as you approach here? (music changes to something darker)

2:01:44 Emily: I want to, just to cover our bases, I'm gonna use Countercharm, which is, I'm just gonna play a little song that makes us all brave so that at least for a round, we won't get frightened or charmed.

2:01:58 Brennan: Gotcha. Cool, you start doing your Countercharm.

2:02:01 Zac: I'm gonna take the sword of the Seacaster and plant it in the ground in front of Fabian and say,

2:02:06 Gorgug: Do whatever you need to do, but here's this if you need it.

2:02:11 Siobhan: Yeah, I pull the eye patch out of his pocket and put it on jauntily.

2:02:16 Ally: I pat him on the back and I cast Warding Bond, so.

2:02:21 Brennan: Cool, great.

2:02:22 Zac: So there's, one side is like balancing and stuff, and one side is just fist fighting.

2:02:28 Brennan: So, it's the lower level's a fist fight, and then there's not really anyone in the Ruction right now, which is the sort of net with planks and barrels and stuff up above it. You see across, Captain James actually walks around the fight that's continuing, he has not entered it with his men yet.

2:02:45 Zac: How many, oh sorry.

2:02:46 Brennan: He comes around, looks at you and says,

2:02:49 Whitclaw: Hi there, boyo. Had yourself quite a bit of a run last night, didn't ye?

2:02:57 Fabian: (not confidently) Oh, Captain James, you're not going to be king. We're gonna stop you.

2:03:03 Fig: Hey Fabian, you got this.

2:03:07 Brennan: You see, he says, he looks at you. As he does, he goes,

2:03:19 Whitclaw: (deep breath) You're gonna stop me, boyo, is that right?

2:03:22 Fabian: (stuttering) I'm not gonna stop you, me and my crew are gonna stop you.

2:03:26 Whitclaw: Not made of stern stuff, are ye? Needed your friends to come and help you. You know, yer father was not made of such stern stuff as well. Took off and ran, took that forgiveness they offer in Solace, didn't he?

2:03:43 Adaine: So you have no friends, you didn't have any friends with you last night?

2:03:47 Gorgug: Seems like you got a bunch of friends here.

2:03:49 Adaine: Seems like a lot of friends here.

2:03:50 Gorgug: I got this book on pirate friendship,

2:03:51 Adaine: You seem like a friendly guy.

2:03:52 Gorgug: And I've learned a lot about it, and it looks like you got a bunch of friends here.

2:03:55 Adaine: You want an orange, pal?

2:03:57 Whitclaw: Oh, I am hungry, but not for an orange, girl. I can smell the smarts on you from here. (mindflayer burbling, but it does sound like a turkey)

2:04:07 Adaine: I'm sorry, was that supposed to be scary?

2:04:09 Whitclaw: Oh, it is, I'm gonna eat your brains.

2:04:12 Fabian: He's gonna eat your brains, it's very-

2:04:14 Adaine: This is my impression of you. (wiggles fingers in front of her face, makes the turkey noise)

2:04:17 Whitclaw: Hey, it can be silly but it's gonna be real bad when your brains are gone.

2:04:22 Gorgug: You know what, my friend Fabian's gonna eat your brains.

2:04:24 Adaine: Yeah, we're gonna eat your, all of us eat your brains.

2:04:27 Brennan: You see, he—

2:04:29 Adaine: We're gonna shit in your mouth and eat your brain.

2:04:30 Fig: We’re gonna eat your brains. We're gonna eat your brains as a snack 'cause that's how small they are.

2:04:35 Brennan: You see, he looks at all of you and you see that he goes,

2:04:42 Whitclaw: Well, son of a coward and run off like a coward to his friends. I'd be happy to mince them in front of you. You have no true pirates here.

2:04:56 Brennan: You guys hear a noise behind you, and you hear (laughs), you hear a little voice go,

2:05:04 Cathilda: (laughs) Shut that squid mouth, you dirty pirate piece of shit.

2:05:09 Brennan: And Cathilda steps out, and you see that there's even a noise of like the kind of the Row quiet, people are looking and punching, looking away to look at Cathilda, punch. Cathilda has fully changed. She's wearing seven-league boots, a black dress, she looks like a widow in mourning in like a black dress with a high white collar and a black tricorn hat.

2:05:31 Adaine: Oh, I'm so sorry, we've been so rude. This is our friend Cathilda the Black.

2:05:35 Brennan: You see James looks at her and says,

2:05:38 Whitclaw: Huh, Cathilda the Black, eh? Well then, she's still no captain. I hear she's nothing more than a maid.

2:05:48 Brennan: You see she goes,

2:05:49 Cathilda: (laughs) Right you are, James, that's right, I'm a maid, and as such, I can tell you that I've got all the breadcrumbs ready and all the spices and seasonings and a nice lemon wedge for when I turn your fucking face into a plate of calamari. It's gonna taste delicious going down. And I'm gonna keep you alive to watch it, I'm gonna feed it to you, 'cause it's not healthy just to be eating brains, James, and I care about your health and your wellbeing.

2:06:13 Gorgug: And I'm gonna kick your ass. (all laugh)

2:06:18 Brennan: You see Captain James looks over and goes, and I'm gonna make a little roll for him, he's shaken by what Cathilda said. You see he says,

2:06:33 Whitclaw: Well then. If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get. But you know, I'm not the only enemy that you've made here in this place. I'm not the only enemy that you've made in the wide world beyond, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't fight fair.

2:06:54 Brennan: Everyone here make a Perception check.

2:06:55 Ally: Oh no. (dice clattering)

2:07:00 Siobhan: 19.

2:07:01 Ally: 21.

2:07:01 Emily: 17.

2:07:02 Zac: 10.

2:07:03 Brennan: Did anyone beat a 20?

2:07:05 Ally: (raises hand) 21.

2:07:06 Brennan: You see a scrying sensor like you saw before up in the Ruction looking down at you.

2:07:15 Zac: Where's Garthy?

2:07:19 Brennan: A moment afterwards, James says,

2:07:22 Whitclaw: A fight then with the soul of the city of Leviathan. And maybe a fight more than just that, but I'll only be fighting on one front. You'll have to be fighting on two.

2:07:39 Brennan: Three beautiful elves in long flowing robes appear before you. You see them surrounded by motes of silvery white light as they appear in the Ruction. One of them has a small will-o'-wisp in their ear. And you see that they raise a hand, look directly at Adaine and say,

2:08:02 Elf: (British) We found the Oracle, we'll be returning with her shortly.

2:08:06 Adaine: Oh, I don't think so.

2:08:08 Brennan: I'm gonna need everybody here to roll initiative. Gang, that's gonna be all for this week.

2:08:17 Ally: Whoa!

2:08:18 Brennan: On "Dimension 20 Live"! Tune in next week for the Row & the Ruction in the pirate city of Leviathan. Captain James Whitclaw and (Elf accent) some friends from the elven nation of Fallinel, doing a classic shift to battle sign off. We have two more weeks of shows in December, and then we'll take a little break through the New Year, but we'll be back in January. Thanks for watching, check us out on Dropout, and we'll see you guys next week, 7 p.m. Pacific, bye-bye.

2:08:48 Siobhan: I wanna play now! (all clapping) [NEXT EPISODE - Episode 8: The Row and the Ruction]

2:08:48 Captions extracted by: gluegunshots

2:08:48 Edited by: gluegunshots, tevildo, rowan solsys