The Name

0:00:19 Fantasy High: Junior 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 17: The Name < [Previous Episode] | [Next Episode] >

0:00:49 Brennan: Hello, one and all! Welcome back to another thrilling episode of "Dimension 20: Fantasy High Junior Year". I'm your humble dungeon master, Brennan Lee Mulligan. With me, as always, are our Intrepid Heroes. Say hi, Intrepid Heroes.

0:00:56 All: Hi, Intrepid Heroes.

0:00:59 Brennan: Last we left off, the Bad Kids got back to Elmville on the train, having seen some horrifying unfoldings in the aftermath of the Last Standard Examination. Buddy Dawn, brought back with the power of a shatter star by a giant figure, looming, cloaked, with red light pouring forth. We met Eugenia Shadow, the rogue teacher, who talked all about how Kipperlilly Copperkettle got a backhoe to defile her grave, and that's how she found the rogue teacher at the top of the year. But those Rat Grinders are nowhere to be found, Kipperlilly's presidential campaign for student body president almost defunct, as Mazey, on a date with Fabian, how cute, manages to share that, hey, you wanna throw the rager of all ragers at Seacaster Manor for your birthday, you could probably set up a polling booth and get the job done there.

0:01:56 Emily: She's all business.

0:01:57 Lou: Hey, maybe it's a polling booth, or maybe it's a kissing booth. [all cheering lasciviously]

0:02:03 Brennan: We made a clone of Kristen. We had an ice cream party. We filled out some teacher evaluations. We found out that the Thistlespring Tree is a Root Warden.

0:02:10 Siobhan: Yes.

0:02:10 Zac: Oh!

0:02:12 Emily: ♪ Root Warden ♪

0:02:13 Brennan: ♪ Root, Root Warden ♪ And Sandra Lynn told us about some trouble in the Mountains of Chaos where she works as a Solesian ranger. We come back to Elmville, and right away, we're gonna dive right back into downtime to wrap this up as you guys head towards the end of your junior year. So what I have so far for the structure of downtime as a bunch of stuff comes up, a trip to the Mountains of Chaos, Fabian, you said you were looking for Ruben's house. You were reaching out through your popularity network to look for Ruben's house. Also, my god, at the end of last episode, we saw Jace Stardiamond with a shatter star scar in his chest.

0:02:52 Lou: Shatter shtar sh-car.

0:02:55 Brennan: We also saw a little geocache location sent to Adaine from Ayda Aguefort in the distant past. So, downtime. Who's doing what? Fabian did popularity, two relationships, and then the Owlbears. If you wanted to chase down that Ruben thing, you absolutely could, but you're at a DC 25.

0:03:15 Lou: Okay.

0:03:16 Siobhan: You should maybe relax, also.

0:03:18 Emily: Yeah, I'll just try to figure out—

0:03:20 Lou: You wanna try and figure it out? Cool.

0:03:22 Murph: Also, I think they're all pretty clearly cursed, and I don't think anything's gonna turn them.

0:03:27 Emily: All I have is disguise and deception. Let me work my magic.

0:03:33 Brennan: So Fabian, you're buttoned up for downtime.

0:03:35 Lou: Yeah.

0:03:35 Brennan: Great. Adaine, you had a mystery about the Astral Realm, learning about the weird thing of where gods are borne, maybe where they're carried or something along those lines.

0:03:44 Siobhan: And an academics check to get some spells, which I absolutely did not do.

0:03:46 Brennan: So you're at a DC 20.

0:03:49 Siobhan: Yeah, but I'll... This is wild. Can I do a relaxation check for my friends? Basically, take some stuff off their plates? Like, hey, I'll go over to Kristen's room—

0:04:04 Brennan: I will let you do a relaxation—

0:04:05 Siobhan: ...and reorganize her closet so she doesn't have to worry about that.

0:04:09 Zac: Aw.

0:04:11 Brennan: That's very sweet. I will let you do a relaxation check. But you also are doing your job as the Elven Oracle, correct?

0:04:17 Siobhan: Oh yes, so I have to do that before relaxation.

0:04:18 Brennan: Before relaxation. So go ahead and do your job.

0:04:21 Siobhan: 18.

0:04:21 Brennan: 18. You don't do a very good job, but you get paid either way.

0:04:25 Siobhan: Great.

0:04:25 Brennan: Lovely. People are unhappy with your prophecies.

0:04:28 Zac: People live or die or whatever.

0:04:30 Siobhan: Yeah, whatever. I got 15 gold pieces.

0:04:34 Brennan: Yeah, exactly. Now you may go ahead and roll for relaxation. You've done a mystery, relationship, academics, and job, so this is now a DC 25 Wisdom saving throw.

0:04:46 Siobhan: Okay, so I've got to get an 18 or higher.

0:04:48 Brennan: 18 or higher.

0:04:52 Siobhan: No.

0:04:53 Brennan: You give it your best, and you don't burn any stress doing it. Okay, you're tapped out for downtime. Who else wants to jump in?

0:04:59 Murph: I just have maybe a few mystery things to do. I guess first off, I'll do extracurriculars. With disadvantage, I still got 21.

0:05:08 Brennan: Incredible.

0:05:09 Murph: Then I'll do, I guess, Owlbears.

0:05:11 Brennan: Let's see how the Owlbears do this junior year.

0:05:14 Lou: I'll give you a Bardic.

0:05:14 Murph: Can we do Acrobatics?

0:05:17 Emily: I'll give you a Bardic for Owlbears.

0:05:18 Murph: Or only Athletics?

0:05:18 Brennan: I think for the joke of it, it's only Athletics.

0:05:22 Murph: Okay, I have disadvantage.

0:05:23 Emily: I'm gonna give you a Bardic, though, because I'm invested in making sure Gorthalax is happy.

0:05:28 Lou: I'm also giving a Bardic.

0:05:28 Emily: d10.

0:05:29 Brennan: Okay, okay.

0:05:30 Murph: So, I'll roll two.

0:05:30 Lou: Come on, The Ball.

0:05:32 Murph: So this is with disadvantage. That's one.

0:05:35 Ally: What if, though?

0:05:36 Murph: Four minus two is two.

0:05:39 Brennan: Okay, so you gotta roll eight.

0:05:41 Ally: 10.

0:05:41 Brennan: 10!

0:05:42 Ally: So now you gotta at least get a six on the d8.

0:05:45 Murph: And then a d8.

0:05:47 Lou: This is your Rudy moment.

0:05:49 Murph: Two.

0:05:49 Zac: How far away is that?

0:05:51 Brennan: No no no, the DC is only 10. It’s the second roll.

0:05:54 Emily: Oh, you got it.

0:05:54 Brennan: So you've done it. You've done it. You did it.

0:05:55 Murph: Great.

0:05:57 Lou: He beat it by five.

0:05:58 Brennan: Owlbears once again beat the Hellions. Riz, you and Fabian bring it home. You bring it home.

0:06:04 Kristen: Yeah, Riz!

0:06:05 Murph: I just hide with the ball behind Fabian, let him take all the hits.

0:06:09 Kristen’s Simulacrum: Oi, Riz!

0:06:10 Fabian: No, come out here!

0:06:10 Brennan: Honestly, the most—

0:06:12 Zac: I'm outside of, like, a chain link fence.

0:06:14 Brennan: Just looking out there. The most successful play is just Riz holding onto the ball and hoping the other team doesn't notice.

0:06:21 Murph: Doesn't find me.

0:06:22 Brennan: So that if someone passes into their end zone, technically the ball is in possession of one of the Owlbears' players, and you win the game. Great.

0:06:28 Murph: Super cheese way to win. I get booed somehow.

0:06:29 Ally: Bloke Mode Kristen is shit-faced at your game.

0:06:33 Emily: I know Sklonda's busy, so I disguise myself as her to cheer in the audience.

0:06:41 Fabian: It’s Fig. It's Fig.

0:06:41 Riz: What?

0:06:43 Fabian: It's Fig. “Sklonda” (Fig): My son! My son!

0:06:45 Kristen: Don't tell her anything weird.

0:06:47 Riz: I don't know, this sounds like my mom. She always just yells, "My son!" and waves her hands. [Lou laughs] “Sklonda” (Fig): There he goes!

0:06:53 Siobhan: Uncanny. : She sounds so old.

0:06:56 Murph: And then a few mysteries. First things first, long shot, but I wanna try to figure out who this figure is, specifically looking into it, is this a corrupted version of someone we know? Whether it be Stardiamond or Kipperlilly or one of the Rat Grinders. Or, kind of looking into the history of the giants and these gods and stuff, is it possible that there's essentially an astral projection or some kind of— somebody that would be embodying a weaker version of them that could then wreak havoc until they're able to ascend or whatever?

0:07:35 Brennan: Go ahead and give me, this is—

0:07:36 Murph: Yeah, I guess I'm doing my Detect Evil and Good and comparing it to footage we have, using the AV Club.

0:07:43 Siobhan: Walking behind Jace like, how does his foot roll when he—

0:07:45 N: Yeah, just footage of people that we have around school.

0:07:48 Brennan: Give me Investigation.

0:07:48 Murph: Cool.

0:07:50 Brennan: This is DC 15, but beating that by certain amounts will help you out.

0:07:53 Murph: 26.

0:07:56 Brennan: 26. DC is 15, you got a 26.

0:07:58 Murph: Actually, I used two Bardics on the last one, but I only had to beat a 10.

0:08:02 Brennan: Yeah, you wanna keep the other one?

0:08:03 Murph: Can I use a Bardic?

0:08:03 Brennan: Yep, you can. Let's see if you can get to 30.

0:08:06 Murph: 26 right now, I just need a four or higher. And I do it. 32.

0:08:10 Siobhan: Nice.

0:08:11 Lou: Yeehaw!

0:08:12 Brennan: 32. That's an Investigation for mystery. That's your DC 15.

0:08:15 Murph: Yeah.

0:08:17 Brennan: We're gonna come back to that.

0:08:18 Murph: Okay, cool.

0:08:19 Brennan: You are trying to find, who is that figure?

0:08:23 Murph: Right.

0:08:24 Brennan: And I think you don't get it from the screen, but you begin to think, is it corrupted? Is it possible that there's another incarnation? And I think what you might wanna do is go to your office.

0:08:42 Murph: Okay.

0:08:42 Brennan: If you were to start thinking about the events of this junior year— like, the Rat Grinders were caught by you red-handed, and they've gone to ground. They've scurried underground. When Riz thinks back about the case thus far, the mystery thus far, where do you see open-ended clues, looking back?

0:09:07 Murph: Hmm.

0:09:08 Brennan: I'll let you think about that as we move on, and someone else can start their downtime track. You have plenty more to go. You're only at a DC 15 right now.

0:09:15 Murph: Okay, yeah, I'll—

0:09:15 Brennan: You think about it. Does anyone else, Kristen, Fig, Gorgug?

0:09:21 Zac: I have a pretty straightforward one.

0:09:23 Brennan: Let's do it, Gorgug.

0:09:23 Zac: I think now that we're freed from the burden of our school rolls, I'm gonna do, and this is kind of a mechanical thing as well, but mostly a relationship roll, I think, with my parents, where I'm just gonna hang out with them and kind of work on the van with them.

0:09:40 Brennan: Hell yeah.

0:09:41 Zac: And just spend some time with the fam.

0:09:43 Brennan: Give me a tinkerer's tool check.

0:09:44 Zac: Tinkerer's tool, and to the end of, I think what I'm doing with the van is remembering that the Night Yorb is sealed on the roof of it, and I'm like, is there some way that I used the Solar Lasso, to catch him, to reverse engineer a darkness? Something that would be helpful against these solar kind of entities?

0:10:04 Brennan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:10:04 Ally: Controlled Night Yorb.

0:10:07 Zac: Yeah.

0:10:07 Siobhan: Nice.

0:10:08 Brennan: Give me a tinkerer's tool check. You're just starting at a DC 5.

0:10:13 Zac: That is a 21.

0:10:14 Brennan: Roll a d6 for me.

0:10:17 Zac: I am. Two.

0:10:18 Brennan: Two. Okay, great. First, you see Wilma and Digby are so happy. You can tell that they've really missed you this year. Your dad's got a little sort of sweaty A-frame undershirt, working outside on a hot, late spring day. Your mom comes out with a bunch of iced tea, puts a welding mask on, gets to work. Yeah, taking little sips with the welding mask up. You're thinking about the Night Yorb.

0:10:43 Zac: I suddenly text Fig, in parentheses, or in quotes,

0:10:48 Gorgug: "Harness the darkness?” Is that anything?

0:10:51 Fig: Oh, that's good. I had a different title, but… How about that's my third track?

0:10:57 Gorgug: Great, great.

0:10:57 Fig: 'Cause I have another one.

0:10:58 Emily: I give you a Bardic Inspiration.

0:11:01 Ally: Yes!

0:11:03 Emily: Because you've given me one.

0:11:04 Brennan: You get approached, as well, for your evaluations, which I already have. But Porter and Henry approach you, both of whom come up, and Henry's just like,

0:11:12 Henry: I gotta say, you know, I ate a lot of humble pie. You saw a path that nobody else saw, and you really made it happen. You have a lot to be proud of.

0:11:26 Gorgug: Thank you, thank you. I feel like, yeah, I don't know. I feel like it was nice to just know that somewhere in my brain, that made sense, and that that ended up making sense.

0:11:42 Brennan: You see Porter claps you on the back and goes,

0:11:44 Porter: You would be well within your rights to think that I was a bit of a jerk, and I hope that you can see that there was a reason I wanted you to... To try. And I know that I was difficult at first, but I think— in my own way, I hope it pushed you to do something that maybe you wouldn't have been able to tap into, wouldn't have been able to do.

0:12:10 Gorgug: I do think you were kind of a jerk. But it got me somewhere.

0:12:13 Porter: Easy!

0:12:16 Gorgug: I gave you fives across the board.

0:12:18 Porter: I'm not supposed to know that!

0:12:20 Gorgug: Oh, really? Then I gave you twos.

0:12:23 Porter: [roaring furiously]

0:12:24 Gorgug: [roaring]

0:12:26 Brennan: He claps you on the back.

0:12:27 Zac: Throw a flashbang in his face.

0:12:29 Brennan: Henry is, again, very happy with everything and goes,

0:12:32 Henry: You got any fun summer projects you're working on?

0:12:35 Gorgug: Just doing some stuff with the van. We sealed the Night Yorb in the roof of the van.

0:12:39 Henry: Yeah.

0:12:39 Gorgug: We're trying to figure out if there's a way to harness that in any kinda meaningful way. I don't know.

0:12:45 Henry: I'm sure. I mean, I'd just be careful not to harness it in a way that pops back out again but, you know.

0:12:50 Gorgug: I'll write that down.

0:12:51 Henry: But absolutely, best of luck with that. Are you trying to harness it for a ray, a weapon, a protective aura?

0:13:02 Gorgug: I don't know yet. Maybe an aura, maybe a ray. Just seeing if there's any potential there. But I don't really… I'm just kind of exploring. I've kind of let it lie for most of the school year, so.

0:13:15 Henry: Gotcha. Well, if you ever want a helping hand. I know you're done with class for the rest of the year, but feel free to holler.

0:13:21 Gorgug: Okay.

0:13:24 Henry: Let me know. Take care, Gorgug.

0:13:27 Gorgug: All right.

0:13:27 Brennan: And Henry takes off.

0:13:30 Zac: I can't tell if I think he's weird or not.

0:13:32 Emily: I think he's trying to get in on your plan, 'cause he's—

0:13:36 Zac: My Insight rolls are with disadvantage.

0:13:38 Ally: If he had rage, and that other person, Stardiamond came to him with such rage, I think he would've reacted with equal rage, right?

0:13:45 Siobhan: Yeah, I think so, too. I think he was maybe just looking out for his nephew.

0:13:51 Ally: He could be good. But you never know.

0:13:54 Brennan: I think that you work on the van. Looking at the Night Yorb and all the work you're doing here, I think that you fix it up. You can definitely help protect it. I don't know if you would make a weapon, that would be capable of releasing it. That might take more time. But what I will say, too, is I think that as you're working on it, you come back to that broken engine in Fabian's basement, that Cloud Rider engine, which is another thing that you know the Rat Grinders did or were involved in or did on purpose. I think there's a part of you that's sort of like, have we ever seen that resolved? Did we ever see why that happened?

0:14:31 Siobhan: No.

0:14:32 Brennan: That's your first roll. 21 on that. What's your next downtime track?

0:14:35 Zac: This is the thing that's slightly out of character, but also what I think Gorgug could be thinking of in terms of the overall mystery, is just the idea of what the congregation is lying about. It feels like all of the Helio church is lying about something to a god. I'm trying to think of what that would be. Can I make a check? A History check or something?

0:15:07 Brennan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:15:07 Zac: I'm just curious. Do we know if Cassandra and Ankarna ever had a kid?

0:15:16 Brennan: I don't think you do. I don't think you know if they did or not.

0:15:19 Siobhan: Great question.

0:15:20 Brennan: You can roll a Religion check, yeah. DC 10.

0:15:23 Zac: Okay. Yeah, I got a 15.

0:15:28 Brennan: So first of all, the name Ankarna is not anywhere, right? You guys had to work really hard to find it on a fucking stone buried in the ancient elven homeland. There is nothing about Cassandra having a child. But you do know that your resources are very limited. The regions of these gods' appearance would have more resources, so if you wanted to learn more about Ankarna, the Mountains of Chaos would probably have more opportunity. You wanna learn more about Cassandra, Sylvaire would probably have more opportunities for that. That's great, that's a 15. That's your second downtime. What else would you like to do?

0:16:05 Zac: And then, I think I'm just gonna do another mystery roll around the cloud engine stuff. Maybe I can go to Fabian's and look at it, like we were talking about.

0:16:13 Brennan: Yeah, I think—

0:16:14 Emily: Can I give him a Bardic to say,

0:16:16 Fig: I wanna know if it was used to disperse something, almost like farm equipment.

0:16:19 Ally: Oh damn, yeah.

0:16:21 Zac: Yeah, like a pesticide kind of thing?

0:16:23 Brennan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go for it. Go ahead and give me a tinkerer's tool check. The DC is 15.

0:16:31 Zac: I got a 19.

0:16:33 Brennan: You go over to hang out at Fabian's place.

0:16:35 Fabian: Gorgug!

0:16:35 Gorgug: Hey, dude.

0:16:37 Fabian: You want some fried rice.

0:16:37 Gorgug: How old is it?

0:16:41 Fabian: I've got kind of a range. Can go anywhere from 10 days to 3.

0:16:45 Gorgug: I guess three.

0:16:45 Fabian: All right, all right!

0:16:49 Brennan: You go down, see the engine, see where it's broken. You see what you would have to do to fix it or repair it. Fundamentally, I think you don't see anything in it that appears to be blasting or anything like that. This doesn't appear to be disseminating anything.

0:17:06 Emily: Okay, maybe they're using it to get to the elemental mountains, the Mountains of Chaos.

0:17:13 Zac: Is there anything I could ask that Aviation Club kid about?

0:17:14 Siobhan: Ooh, smart.

0:17:18 Brennan: Yeah, I think so. Coming over, he says,

0:17:20 Sprak: Time for another lo-fi study session, eh?

0:17:24 Gorgug: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're just kinda working on stuff here.

0:17:27 Fabian: Yeah, do you want any fried rice?

0:17:28 Sprak: Chill beats to study to. Fried rice? I take my rice baked.

0:17:34 Fabian: I'll figure it out. You two go ahead and have a conversation.

0:17:38 Gorgug: I was just looking at this cloud engine we got downstairs.

0:17:43 Sprak: Cloud Rider Engine!

0:17:43 Gorgug: You know much about those?

0:17:45 Sprak: Ah, do I ever! Well, there's a long and proud tradition here in Spyre of vessels such as these that are nautical in nature aspiring to take to the skies alongside the great blimps and dirigibles of my people, aviators! And so certain arcano-tech engines are constructed in order that they might be able to join us in a real man's ocean. The sky!

0:18:13 Gorgug: I wouldn't say that around Fabian.

0:18:15 Sprak: Well, say what you will. He can say what he likes about me, and if he says it, I shall be at the zenith of the atmosphere!

0:18:24 Fabian: I've got a three day fried rice, and then I found some that had been out in the sun. I think that's a version of baked.

0:18:32 Gorgug: Thank you.

0:18:32 Sprak: Thank you. [munching enthusiastically] But yes, so that's all I know about the old Cloud Rider Engine.

0:18:41 Gorgug: Something this big, how big of a thing do you think it could lift into the air, or support on a cloud, if that's how it works?

0:18:49 Sprak: The Cloud Rider Engine?

0:18:49 Gorgug: Yeah.

0:18:50 Sprak: Oh, well, it depends on what model you get.

0:18:53 Brennan: He sort of looks over at the one you have here and says,

0:18:55 Sprak: I'd say this one is, you know, in all respect to the previous Captain Seacaster, probably got one capable of taking the Hangman to the sky.

0:19:11 Gorgug: Okay. It's not huge.

0:19:12 Sprak: I don't imagine he would've gotten one of lesser quality.

0:19:13 Siobhan: No, the Hangman, the ship.

0:19:15 Zac: Oh, the ship the Hangman. Wow.

0:19:17 Fabian: Yes, my "ship" is named after his ship.

0:19:22 Kristen: It's Hangman Junior.

0:19:22 Fabian: I wouldn't say junior.

0:19:25 Adaine: The Second?

0:19:25 Fabian: I wouldn't say the second. It's just another Hangman.

0:19:27 Fig: Esquire.

0:19:28 Kristen: 2.0.

0:19:28 Adaine: Like two people called John.

0:19:30 Fabian: Yeah.

0:19:31 Gorgug: That's why I called it the Hangvan, just a slightly different name.

0:19:35 Fabian: I guess I could've been more creative at the time.

0:19:38 Kristen: The Hangm'n.

0:19:39 Gorgug: Thank you for the fried rice.

0:19:40 Fabian: Of course, anytime. I have rooms full of it.

0:19:45 Brennan: Any other downtime activities?

0:19:47 Zac: I guess I'm gonna try a relaxation roll.

0:19:49 Ally: That's right.

0:19:49 Brennan: Give me a relaxation roll.

0:19:50 Lou: Give it a shot.

0:19:50 Brennan: DC 20 Wisdom saving throw.

0:19:54 Zac: That's a four, becomes a five.

0:19:57 Brennan: Unfortunately, no.

0:19:57 Lou: We live stressed!

0:20:00 Brennan: We live stressed.

0:20:00 Ally: All of us but Adaine.

0:20:02 Lou: All of us but Adaine, who's out here trying to clean closets.

0:20:06 Adaine: I'm sorry, I put your shoes in the wrong… I just confused you more, and I really did try.

0:20:09 Kristen: I can see the care here.

0:20:12 Brennan: We'll come back to Riz. I know that you're thinking about other stuff, and you have some other rolls to make, but Fig or Kristen.

0:20:20 Emily: I'm gonna go down to Hell and write a song called "Righteous Rebel".

0:20:23 Brennan: Oof!

0:20:25 Emily: Sort of like a mythological Led Zeppelin-type song about an avenging angel who is loyal to her followers to a fault, and lets her compass become a weather vane. [appreciative gasps]

0:20:37 Ally: Okay, okay!

0:20:37 Brennan: Give me a Perform check.

0:20:41 Ally: Is it a compass or a weather vane?

0:20:46 Emily: That's a 37. [Brennan laughs]

0:20:49 Ally: [clapping] That's right! That's right!

0:20:49 Brennan: Fig.

0:20:51 Siobhan: Album of the summer.

0:20:53 Brennan: In dreams, after writing this song, you see a vision of the Astral Realm, and a giant, burning body of a woman stretching from one horizon to the other as fields and vast oceans of skin and sinew burn in red flame beneath and endless astral indigo, her hair flowing behind her. But you see for a moment, in your dream, her eyes open, and her eyes are not red. They are burning bright, like twin suns. And you see her gasp,

0:21:45 Ankarna: Cassandra! [pained roar]

0:21:49 Emily: Can I touch her at all?

0:21:49 Brennan: Yeah.

0:21:52 Emily: Okay, I know I'm just in a dream, but I'm gonna cast the paladin spell Ceremony and do Atonement.

0:22:03 Brennan: You touch this paladin's—

0:22:03 Fig: I led you back to yourself.

0:22:09 Brennan: You see that the face of this giant looks at you. Even as a hand instinctively raises into a fist to destroy you, as the energy of that Atonement leaves, you see she looks, tears of solar fire, at a devoted paladin who cannot burn, no matter how hot the flame. She goes,

0:22:36 Ankarna: Why can you not burn?

0:22:39 Fig: Because my girlfriend is a phoenix, and sexually, it would be a complication.

0:22:48 Ankarna: I am, for the first time in ages, thrown for a loop. [players giggling]

0:22:57 Emily: I lean in for a kiss. [players cackling]

0:22:59 Brennan: She leans in and she whispers in your ear with lips, these enormous, you know, like fucking city blocks, and she just goes,

0:23:06 Ankarna: You have heard my voice before.

0:23:10 Brennan: And you hear that whisper of the voice that slithered into your ears when Yes! got pushed out into the world. It was her voice then, it is her voice now, that said, “Here is a god worthy of your worship.” She goes,

0:23:22 Ankarna: She left. Cassandra remained alive. No one understood. No one understood!

0:23:35 Fig: You've lost your way, and I lost my way too, and in trying to find you, I've been finding myself. So we can do this. Just stay with me. We're gonna get Cassandra back, and the second you see her, you're gonna feel like yourself again. I get it.

0:23:51 Ankarna: Figueroth.

0:23:52 Fig: Your girlfriend's out of town.

0:23:54 Ankarna: It's hard.

0:23:56 Fig: It sucks.

0:23:57 Brennan: She looks at you and goes,

0:24:00 Ankarna: My hero. You have always known.

0:24:06 Brennan: Fire and sunlight. The trampling of proud horses. The ringing of steel being drawn to defend what is right. And you awaken. That is incredible. You have now created two world-changing, epic masterpieces of rock.

0:24:26 Ally: Middle-aged men are writing about your lyrics, and being like, "I really loved what she did with—"

0:24:31 Emily: I definitely think Fig does kinda write uncle rock.

0:24:36 Ally: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:24:36 Emily: It's like metal, but maybe also—it's very Foo Fighters.

0:24:41 Brennan: I will say, you let me know whenever your record... Your independent studio record label is ready to go, if you wanna release these songs or you're still sitting on them, waiting for the album.

0:24:53 Emily: You know what, Fig personally loves a high concept album, but that's not the way the world works anymore. I'll release them both as singles.

0:25:01 Ally: Nice.

0:25:02 Brennan: You release them both as singles, and I'm going to roll a saving throw in front of the board. [die rolling] 15.

0:25:17 Zac: For the world?

0:25:17 Brennan: For the world. I rolled a saving throw for the world.

0:25:20 Lou: The world adds two?

0:25:20 Brennan: The world adds two. The songs take off. They begin climbing the charts. You get an email from Lola Embers.

0:25:29 Emily: I fucking block her. I say,

0:25:32 Fig: I've actually got my own record label now, but feel free to send artists you like my way.

0:25:41 Brennan: [whooping] That's your first downtime check. Go ahead and let me know what your next one is.

0:25:44 Emily: So I think for my second one, since I'm in Hell, and also, I'm kinda doing music again, I think I want to actually do a relaxation track, because I feel like we have some nice sulfurous saunas.

0:25:58 Brennan: Yeah. Know that the rule for relaxation tracks is that they have to be the last track.

0:26:03 Emily: Oh, they have to be the last. Okay.

0:26:04 Brennan: Yeah.

0:26:05 Emily: So then I'm not gonna do that. Okay, I think I'm just gonna—this is for mystery, but I'm gonna go into a dream of Ruben's.

0:26:13 Brennan: Okay, Fabian, I believe, already rolled for something that helps this. You may do this with advantage.

0:26:18 Emily: Okay, and since this is social engineering, can it be Persuasion?

0:26:23 Brennan: It can absolutely be Persuasion.

0:26:24 Emily: Okay, and obviously I'm going as Wanda Childa.

0:26:27 Brennan: Hell yeah.

0:26:28 Siobhan: You should release a second album as Wanda Childa at the same time.

0:26:30 Ally: Oh my god!

0:26:32 Lou: Just a bunch of shitty garage band tracks.

0:26:34 Siobhan: Yes.

0:26:35 Emily: That is a—

0:26:35 Lou: Acoustic guitar loops.

0:26:38 Emily: ...27.

0:26:38 Brennan: Hell yes. What are you trying to social engineer? What are you trying to hunt down?

0:26:43 Emily: I know Riz is thinking that it's a dead end, but I wanna see if there's a way that we could get between him and his crew. So I think in the dream, I want it to be dreamlike and kind of hard to see me, so I think I stage us at an emo show so there's people walking in between us the whole time, and I think Wanda's just gonna keep being like, Wanda Childa (Fig): I wanna be with you, but this will always keep us apart. It will always come between us.

0:27:13 Emily: And she points to the sigil on his chest. And I wanna see how he reacts to that.

0:27:21 Brennan: Oh, so here's an interesting thing. You go to find Ruben, but there is some abjuration that protects him, but not his dreams. So you can't speak to him, but you see this gestalt, empty space. Rather than being able to persuade Ruben, I will let you ask three questions about his dream world.

0:27:47 Emily: Okay. Where is he in the dream?

0:27:52 Brennan: You don't see the Mountains of Chaos. You see Elmville.

0:27:57 Emily: Okay.

0:27:58 Brennan: And additionally, I will say, on that incredibly high roll, you see Ruben's house.

0:28:05 Emily: Okay.

0:28:05 Brennan: Which is incredibly high up. It's in the foothills up near the Durinson Mithral Factory. But you also see that it is able to look out of this massive mansion-style balcony down at Shimmerstone Lake.

0:28:20 Emily: Okay.

0:28:20 Zac: Oh!

0:28:21 Emily: The second thing I wanna ask are, what are his emotions? If any of the other, specifically if Kipperlilly, or if any of the other Rat Grinders are in the dreamscape, do I get a sense of his emotions towards them?

0:28:37 Brennan: He is—

0:28:37 Emily: Is there any tension?

0:28:39 Brennan: Incredible tension. His dreams are violent and rage-filled, but he is also scared. You can ask whatever question you want for your third one, but you also see a glade in the Far Haven Woods and a very frightened Ruben with a puka shell necklace and sandals and a little ukulele walking towards a clearing in the woods.

0:29:09 Emily: That's where they did it. I think they all did it together.

0:29:12 Siobhan: Somewhere in there, maybe the old Ruben is trapped.

0:29:16 Emily: Oh, interesting. The old Ruben is trapped. Okay, I think I'm gonna use this to act on what I wanted to do.

0:29:26 Brennan: Cool, go for it.

0:29:26 Emily: Forgive me. I need an accomplice, though, to shoot me with a crossbow.

0:29:34 Lou: Yeah, I can—

0:29:34 Ally: British Kristen will do it. [overwhelmingly English music]

0:29:41 Fabian: Do you wanna borrow my hand crossbow? Kristen 2: [flirty] You can show me how.

0:29:47 Fabian: Mate, you need to understand.

0:29:49 Zac: Mate?

0:29:49 Adaine: I did not program that into her.

0:29:52 Lou: Mate!

0:29:52 Adaine: That was not me. Kristen 2: You're so strong.

0:29:56 Fig: So you guys are gonna come with me?

0:29:58 Adaine: I don't know where this came from. It's not me.

0:29:59 Fabian: Yeah, Kristen Two and myself are gonna— Kristen 2: Put your hands on me.

0:30:03 Emily: So I think that I wanna go— I disguise myself as Wanda Childa.

0:30:06 Adaine: Are they already fucking?

0:30:06 Fabian: No!

0:30:08 Fig: You two stay in the shadows, right? I need you guys to stay offscreen. I wanna go throw rocks at his window.

0:30:16 Brennan: We're done with the dream, this is real life?

0:30:18 Emily: This is real life.

0:30:19 Brennan: Okay, so you wanna go to Ruben's place. To Ruben's house. Cool. Lou and Ally are embracing. Lou gives an okay sign.

0:30:25 Fig: And then you guys know that the trigger is, "Kipperlilly?"

0:30:30 Fabian: Okay.

0:30:30 Kristen Two: Okay, okay.

0:30:31 Brennan: You're disguised as Wanda. Throw rocks.

0:30:36 Emily: I act really cold.

0:30:39 Kristen Two: She's so small.

0:30:39 Fabian: Very small.

0:30:40 Kristen Two: [bad English accent] She's small as fuck, mate. [players laugh]

0:30:47 Brennan: [laughing] Clone Kristen is so strange. Rock after rock after rock.

0:30:51 Siobhan: I Create Water over her so it's raining. [Emily laughs]

0:30:53 Brennan: It's raining. Incredible.

0:30:59 Emily: I have so much eyeliner.

0:31:02 Brennan: Incredible. You Create Water over her, and as she begins to— The dome projects visual and auditory rain.

0:31:08 Ally: Oh my god, amazing.

0:31:10 Emily: [mostly English accent] It's coming down, ain't it?

0:31:13 Siobhan: Cats and dogs, mate.

0:31:14 Brennan: I'm gonna roll a Luck check in front of the board just to see if Ruben is here or not. I will not lie, it is very unlikely, even if he were here, there's a lot going on right now behind the screen. So, you need a 17, 18, 19, or 20. [die rolling] That is a nine.

0:31:35 Emily: Can I use a Luck point on this?

0:31:36 Brennan: Yes, you can. You can use a Luck check. [die rolling] 17! [players cheering and laughing]

0:31:44 Fabian: I can feel it. Hold. Wanda Childa throws another rock.

0:31:48 Brennan: The window opens, but you don't see anybody. Wanda Childa (Fig): Ruben, if you're in there, I just… I'm sick of lying to myself. I really… Kipperlilly?

0:32:03 Fabian: Okay, shoot.

0:32:05 Lou: I'm gonna give you the Help action.

0:32:06 Ally: Okay, great.

0:32:07 Lou: Are you proficient with crossbow?

0:32:09 Ally: No. Well, maybe.

0:32:12 Murph: Are we gonna do all this, and then you're gonna miss?

0:32:15 Ally: Well, can't you?

0:32:15 Lou: Oh, oh!

0:32:17 Brennan: I am gonna need Clone Kristen to roll with disadvantage.

0:32:20 Lou: You have a Bardic.

0:32:21 Murph: It would be flat, 'cause you did—

0:32:22 Ally: Okay.

0:32:22 Brennan: So it's flat.

0:32:23 Lou: And you have a Bardic.

0:32:23 Brennan: You have a Bardic.

0:32:25 Zac: I'm hiding there too.

0:32:25 Brennan: All right, you add a plus two. Fig's armor class is 19.

0:32:27 Ally: Okay. [die rolling] 10. 12.

0:32:34 Brennan: Okay.

0:32:34 Ally: 12.

0:32:35 Emily: I gave you a Bardic.

0:32:35 Ally: Bardic.

0:32:36 Zac: Flash of Genius.

0:32:36 Ally: Becomes 15.

0:32:40 Brennan: Here we go.

0:32:42 Lou: One.

0:32:42 Ally: One.

0:32:43 Lou: 16!

0:32:43 Brennan: You need to roll a three. This is your last chance.

0:32:45 Ally: All right.

0:32:49 Lou: Four!

0:32:50 Emily: Okay, so as I get hit by it, I cast Feign Death on myself and then fall backwards with my thumb hoodie opening to reveal one of those death sigils on myself. And I'm dead.

0:33:06 Brennan: And you're dead.

0:33:09 Emily: My last words were, Kipperlilly.

0:33:11 Brennan: Give me Deception, just to sell the emotion of the moment.

0:33:13 Emily: Oh, okay. So, I'm an Actor.

0:33:13 Brennan: You are an Actor.

0:33:19 Emily: Nat one and a 19.

0:33:19 Ally: That's right!

0:33:21 Emily: So it becomes 34. [Emily whimpers tinily]

0:33:26 Siobhan: I'm crying, watching this happen. It's so beautiful.

0:33:28 Fabian: Jesus Christ. What did you do, Kristen?

0:33:31 Brennan: ♪ Mm, whatcha say ♪ Wanda Childa (Fig): Kipperlilly, why? Kipperlilly, why would you do this to me? Is it 'cause you were jealous?

0:33:42 Brennan: And you die, and—

0:33:42 Ally: We run.

0:33:45 Fabian: Did we fuck up? We fucked up. We have to go! We have to go!

0:33:48 Emily: [laughing] You guys know the plan.

0:33:48 Ally: Yeah, yeah.

0:33:51 Brennan: Incredible. You die. Now, here's the real question. You know that you've given the performance of a lifetime. You know that someone in the window, gotta be Ruben, someone in the window saw. How long does Fig lie on the lawn?

0:34:11 Emily: I trust my friends to take care of it from now on, because I think Feign Death, I'm just basically dead right now.

0:34:18 Ally: Okay, I think we maybe brought a cloak or something, and then one of us can run and grab the body.

0:34:23 Siobhan: Can I cast Enlarge/Reduce on Gorgug to make him look 14 feet tall?

0:34:28 Brennan: And put a giant cloak on him? Oh my god.

0:34:34 Ally: Stunning.

0:34:37 Gorgug: Okay.

0:34:37 Siobhan: [exaggerated accent] Bloody gorgeous.

0:34:40 Zac: I guess I'll run up and go... “14-Foot Cloaked Figure” (Gorgug): [grumbling]

0:34:44 Brennan: You grab dead Wanda Childa and run away.

0:34:48 Gorgug: It's all coming to plan.

0:34:51 Brennan: Unbelievable. Truly unbelievable. Okay. [Ally laughs]

0:34:56 Zac: This what we made you leave for.

0:34:57 Siobhan: This is why we made you leave.

0:34:59 Ally: This is what we made you leave for.

0:35:00 Murph: The Wanda Childa fake assassination.

0:35:03 Brennan: Literally a perfect "Mm, whatcha say," and you guys leave. You know you gave the performance of a lifetime, but you know that you will not have a bird's eye view of what the results of that are.

0:35:14 Emily: I'm not asking for it.

0:35:14 Brennan: Cool, great.

0:35:17 Emily: [in Wanda Childa’s voice] All I'm asking for, all I was asking for, Ruben, was a shot, and maybe your hoodie that I could wear through the fall.

0:35:25 Brennan: Just incredible. So, so, so incredible.

0:35:28 Emily: And then the last two things I wanna do is, I wanna try to work with a tattoo artist to make a tattoo for Fabian for his birthday.

0:35:35 Brennan: Cool, give me a Performance check. DC is 15, but you've got to beat—

0:35:39 Emily: 32.

0:35:40 Brennan: Either of the tattoos you like, you may give to Fabian.

0:35:43 Emily: Okay.

0:35:43 Lou: Looking forward to it.

0:35:45 Emily: And now, am I allowed to try to do a—

0:35:48 Brennan: You roll a— do relaxation. This will be a DC… It's 5, 10, 15, 20. This is a DC 25 Wisdom saving throw.

0:35:53 Emily: I can't do it unless I crit. Okay.

0:35:56 Brennan: So Fig, you get this tattoo designed. Who do you reach out to to design it?

0:35:59 Emily: I'm gonna text the rogue teacher.

0:36:03 Brennan: Great.

0:36:03 Emily: Eugenia.

0:36:04 Brennan: Eugenia Shadow has given you her phone number.

0:36:06 Emily: I'm gonna tell her,

0:36:06 Fig: I've had some ideas. I'm wondering if you would come do some stick and pokes at Fabian's birthday. Tattoo birthdays are really in right now, and I have a specific tattoo that I think would be really—

0:36:20 Eugenia: Splendid, I'll find a time when nobody will be able to see him, and I'll knock him out and tattoo him.

0:36:25 Emily: Actually, I do think he would like that.

0:36:27 Eugenia: Where does he want it?

0:36:30 Fig: Let me text him.

0:36:30 Fig: Hey, Fabian?

0:36:33 Fabian: Hey, what's going on, Fig?

0:36:35 Fig: So, I was wondering where you were thinking of getting your next tattoo, 'cause I'm thinking of getting a tattoo, so I'm curious what part of your body you've been thinking of tattooing next.

0:36:46 Fabian: I've got a bunch of ideas. I think there's some forearm stuff. You know, maybe an arrow, or maybe a clock to remind me that, you know— [Zac cracks up]

0:36:56 Fig: To remind you of what? What time it is? 'Cause it won't change.

0:36:58 Fabian: Yeah, I know that. No, it's more like, you know, kinda like time, we don't have a lot. We only have so much of it, you know.

0:37:09 Fig: Okay, that's actually awesome.

0:37:10 Fabian: Those are kinda the big things. Maybe some wildflowers, I don't know.

0:37:14 Emily: Okay, I text back Eugenia and I'm like,

0:37:16 Fig: I want a clock surrounded by wildflowers.

0:37:20 Eugenia: Clock surrounded by wildflowers on the forearm.

0:37:22 Brennan: She says,

0:37:22 Eugenia: And this is a Ghost Step Tattoo, right?

0:37:24 Fig: Yeah, yeah.

0:37:24 Eugenia: I wanna submit one design that I think fits Ghost Step as a concept.

0:37:30 Fig: Okay.

0:37:32 Eugenia: I will be happy to do the wildflower clock, but think about this for Ghost Step.

0:37:38 Brennan: And it's a drawing of a Pac-Man ghost with big hairy human feet under it.

0:37:43 Emily: I send it to Fabian, being like,

0:37:45 Fabian: what would you think if I got this? Would you think it was cool? Would you ever get a tattoo like this?

0:37:51 Lou: I'm gonna heart it.

0:37:54 Ally: Dot dot dot.

0:37:54 Fabian: Wild!

0:37:58 Fig: Does that mean you would get it?

0:38:02 Fabian: If, like, four other people were getting it, and it was kinda like our thing, maybe. I don't know. I mean, I guess... Is it significant to you in some way? Is ghost feet kind of a thing?

0:38:16 Fig: Yeah, it's like an inside joke with us, the Bad Kids.

0:38:19 Fabian: Really? Remind me. I think I forgot this one. We have so many.

0:38:23 Emily: I heart it. And then say

0:38:27 Fig: No, we're going with the clock with wildflowers.

0:38:31 Brennan: She says,

0:38:31 Eugenia: All right, to each their own.

0:38:35 Brennan: A beautiful, elaborate grandfather clock surrounded by a bed of wildflowers growing up around it. She send it and says,

0:38:41 Eugenia: I will make sure to tattoo it on his forearm when he least expects it.

0:38:48 Fig: Great. Great.

0:38:50 Brennan: Incredible. Kristen?

0:38:52 Ally: I have a little bit of, like, almost a scene out of a movie, and I'm wondering if you'll let me do it.

0:38:58 Brennan: Yeah, let's do it.

0:38:59 Ally: So Kristen comes out of finishing lunch in the cafeteria and she throws her crisps, the bag of them, in the bin, and she turns the corner.

0:39:11 Emily: Okay, so we know which Kristen.

0:39:13 Ally: And at the end of the hall, Kristen, normal Kristen, walks into Jawbone's office.

0:39:15 Brennan: Cool.

0:39:17 Ally: So this is the first thing I wanna do. It's a relationship roll with Jawbone.

0:39:20 Brennan: Cool.

0:39:20 Ally: And I wanna talk to him about how a lot of people have been seeming really angry lately, and I wanna hang up a bunch of posters around the school that says, "Angry lately? We can help," with a phone number on it, and if he could tell me about—

0:39:35 Brennan: Resources for—

0:39:38 Ally: Resources, or if he's noticed it too, and which students in particular have stood out to him.

0:39:44 Brennan: Give me an Insight check, difficulty five.

0:39:47 Ally: 29.

0:39:47 Brennan: 29, incredible.

0:39:49 Ally: I'd love to walk and talk with him.

0:39:51 Brennan: Can you also give me a d6 roll?

0:39:53 Ally: Oh yeah, yeah.

0:39:53 Emily: I'm wondering—

0:39:55 Ally: Two.

0:39:55 Brennan: Two, great. What's that?

0:39:57 Emily: Would my present for Fabian count as relationship?

0:39:59 Brennan: I think it would.

0:40:01 Emily: Ah!

0:40:01 Ally: Six! Two gone!

0:40:02 Brennan: You lose two stress tokens.

0:40:02 Emily: Woo! I'm back to good.

0:40:07 Brennan: Fig is completely unstressed.

0:40:10 Zac: Wow.

0:40:11 Emily: Wow.

0:40:12 Ally: So sick.

0:40:12 Brennan: Amazing.

0:40:14 Emily: You've just got to invest in your community, guys.

0:40:17 Siobhan: The two people who had the least amount of stress tokens are fine.

0:40:19 Ally: Yeah, just getting rid of them. That makes the most sense, honestly.

0:40:23 Brennan: Past a certain point, it's hard to get back, right? So Kristen, you go talk to Jawbone. Jawbone's like,

0:40:27 Jawbone: That is so thoughtful and kind. To be honest with you, yeah, it's been really… It's been really hard recently.

0:40:35 Brennan: You notice, by the way, that Jawbone's office is filled with old teacups.

0:40:41 Kristen: Oh, whoa.

0:40:42 Brennan: He's like,

0:40:42 Jawbone: Yeah, it's been tough, just taking a lot on, a lot of stress. A lot of kids need help, yeah.

0:40:51 Ally: Yeah, I think I would love to walk and talk with him and actually fill him in on everything that we've found so that he knows that there might be some sort of contagion or body-taking-over that's going on.

0:41:05 Brennan: How do you actually explain it to Jawbone?

0:41:07 Ally: I say,

0:41:07 Kristen: Okay, so, well, you know we passed the Last Standard.

0:41:14 Ally: And then I tell him about how Buddy got his throat cut.

0:41:18 Brennan: Yeah.

0:41:19 Kristen: And we also think that the Rat Grinders are involved in some way, and we've kinda traced it back to this trip that they took with Stardiamond to the Mountains of Chaos, and we think— we have a video now of Buddy getting a gem thrust into his chest, and he comes up and says, "I have a new nameless god," and he looks angry as I've ever seen him.

0:41:51 Jawbone: [sighs] Ay, caramba.

0:41:53 Kristen: Yeah.

0:41:55 Jawbone: Well… That's bad.

0:41:59 Kristen: Yeah.

0:41:59 Jawbone: That's really bad.

0:42:00 Kristen: So I think that they're trying to do something in Elmville, and I'm trying to get the names of as many people as possible, so that I can... Honestly, I'm kind of picturing a 24-point star is what they're really obsessed with, and I'm wondering if there are 24 homes or locations that they're doing something at, and it will come into a center. So would you mind giving me... Or, you know, you don't have to say anything if you just want me to... I don't know, I just need addresses of the people that I know for sure already are taken over. And I tell him all the Rat Grinders, plus Jace and Molman.

0:42:40 Brennan: He says,

0:42:40 Jawbone: Jace?

0:42:43 Kristen: We're positive. Jawbone? Will you show me your chest? Jawbone shows Kristen his chest and gives her a thumbs up.

0:42:54 Kristen: You're looking toned as fuck, dude.

0:42:56 Jawbone: There's a lot of fur there, but I appreciate that.

0:42:59 Kristen: Okay, good. Okay.

0:42:59 Brennan: You see he says,

0:42:59 Jawbone: Okay. Did Yolanda know about any of this stuff?

0:43:04 Ally: I tell him everything about Yolanda, and then I tell him that it's because she stood up for herself and refused to get corrupted, and that I wanna try to bring her back, but we're running out of time.

0:43:16 Jawbone: Okay, we gotta… I'm trying to think what the smart way is to do this. 'Cause Jace is here, working at the school.

0:43:25 Kristen: Yeah, I know.

0:43:26 Jawbone: Do you, you have video evidence of him—

0:43:29 Kristen: We just Scryed. I don't think we were able to record it.

0:43:31 Jawbone: But Buddy, you do.

0:43:33 Kristen: He's wearing a scarf, right? Jace? Why is Jace wearing a scarf? It's so fucking hot.

0:43:39 Jawbone: Okay, I'll try to see if I can organically engineer, maybe invite him to dance. How do I get that scarf off him?

0:43:48 Kristen: Wait, why? He's gonna kill you if he sees you looking for it.

0:43:51 Jawbone: Okay, good point. Good point, good point.

0:43:52 Kristen: Jawbone, I'm worried about you! Can we go clean up the tea?

0:43:58 Jawbone: Been drinking a lot of tea. I've been kinda plowing through tea.

0:44:01 Kristen: I'll be 100% honest with you. My first plan was, me and you are walking and talking, and British Kristen goes into your office and steals all the addresses.

0:44:10 Jawbone: Who's British—

0:44:10 Kristen: Turn around.

0:44:11 Jawbone: Oh, I remember British Kristen. Yeah.

0:44:12 Ally: And then British Kristen's at the end of the hall.

0:44:12 Kristen Two: Now?

0:44:16 Ally: So the three of us, I think, can we go and deep clean Jawbone's office for him?

0:44:21 Jawbone: Look, I can't give you kids' personal files. But what I can do is try to see if there's anyone that I think is more corrupted or not, but—

0:44:33 Kristen: We just need addresses. I'm trying to mark it on a map with some pushpins.

0:44:38 Jawbone: Okay, can you just give me a map, and we'll see if it spells something out?

0:44:43 Kristen: Okay, if you can do that work, that would be awesome.

0:44:47 Emily: Also give him Loam Farm.

0:44:49 Ally: Yeah, Loam Farm could be one of the points. I'm trying to see if we're getting up to 24. Right now I only have nine.

0:44:53 Murph: Yeah.

0:44:55 Ally: But that's just of who we know.

0:44:58 Brennan: When you point out that Lydia Barkrock's place was also one of the places, he sort of looks at that and is like,

0:45:02 Jawbone: Man, that's odd.

0:45:07 Kristen: Why?

0:45:07 Jawbone: I don't know. Did y'all ever find out who it was that tried to kill Lydia?

0:45:13 Kristen: We think that it was Kalina. When she was corrupted for the Nightmare King, right?

0:45:19 Siobhan: We also don't know know. We just—

0:45:21 Brennan: He looks at you and says,

0:45:21 Jawbone: But it had to be… There's a reason that Kalina had all those Vrock demons when y'all fought at the Hotel Cavalier. Kalina wasn't physical enough to actually hurt anybody outside of the Nightmare King forest. Lydia's house got destroyed, so there were some demons, or maybe it was Vrocks, or maybe it was whatever else Kalina was working with, but something physically destroyed her house. That couldn't have been Kalina. Kalina might have been able to kill her in her mind—

0:45:49 Kristen: Did it look like a giant stepped down on it? 'Cause—

0:45:51 Jawbone: Yeah, it looked like a giant.

0:45:52 Kristen: ...we've had a lot of people getting smashed.

0:45:53 Jawbone: Okay, I'm gonna work on this map.

0:45:55 Kristen: I know I'm kinda pushing it, but could you just give me five addresses? Just the Rat Grinders, so that I can go by their house and—

0:46:02 Jawbone: I can't give you a kid's address, kiddo. I'm sorry.

0:46:04 Kristen: All right.

0:46:04 Jawbone: But I'll work on this map, and if it turns into a 24-point star or something like that, I'll let you know, okay?

0:46:10 Brennan: That's your relationship roll with Jawbone. You see Jawbone looks at you and says,

0:46:14 Jawbone: You gave your teacher evaluation for Bobby, right?

0:46:17 Kristen: Yeah.

0:46:17 Jawbone: Okay.

0:46:19 Kristen: I lit that bitch up.

0:46:22 Jawbone: You might have another chance to light him up again. Knowing that Buddy is missing, his behavior makes a little bit more sense.

0:46:28 Kristen: What do you mean?

0:46:28 Jawbone: He's losing it.

0:46:31 Kristen: He probably has a gem. Losing it like sad, or losing it like mad?

0:46:35 Jawbone: Losing it like sad. You can go talk to him. He's got his office hours. You're a cleric student.

0:46:41 Kristen: Okay.

0:46:43 Brennan: You walk into the cleric office, and you see that, first of all, there's a bunch of just staff of the Church of Sol in here, which is a complete break with rules and protocols. But you see there is an older woman with incredibly wildly overdone makeup, huge blonde beehive hair, who's got a greatsword on her back and a white pencil skirt and white blazer. Bobby looks sleepless and he's like,

0:47:09 Bobby Dawn: Now, I don't care how long we have to look, we're gonna find this boy, and I need everyone here working double overtime until we do! Hello, Ms. Applebees.

0:47:19 Kristen: [sighs] You can't find him?

0:47:22 Bobby Dawn: We know that he died. But now we can't locate his soul in the blessed afterlife.

0:47:30 Kristen: That's because he chose a new deity.

0:47:33 Brennan: The room goes silent.

0:47:38 Kristen: I think someone offered him a chance to keep living, and he would've had the, I don't know, make a harder choice, so... [sighs]

0:47:56 Ally: I think it's too sad for me to not tell him, so I tell him a version of it.

0:48:02 Brennan: When you say that, Bobby looks and says,

0:48:02 Bobby Dawn: Ms. Applebees... Everyone keep looking. Keep on those phones. We got a whole bunch of believers in a whole bunch of countries, we're gonna find this boy!

0:48:10 Brennan: And you see that he says,

0:48:12 Bobby Dawn: Ms. Applebees, you step into my office.

0:48:13 Ally: What is he wearing around his neck?

0:48:14 Brennan: He's got a white seersucker suit. He's got the, you know, button-up shirt. You can't see his chest.

0:48:22 Kristen: This is gonna sound weird, Bobby, but if you want my help, you're gonna have to show me about halfway down your chest, as if you were wearing a deep V-neck. And you have five seconds to make that choice. Five, four—

0:48:38 Brennan: He takes it and shows you a incredibly hirsute, platinum white hairy chest.

0:48:45 Kristen: Honestly, really deeply impressive, and thank you for going with me.

0:48:49 Ally: All right, I go into his office with him.

0:48:50 Brennan: He goes, buttons up, and says,

0:48:51 Bobby Dawn: I don't understand the request, but I'm not interested.

0:48:54 Kristen: What? God!

0:48:54 Bobby Dawn: No, I mean, I'm not interested in what the request was about.

0:48:58 Kristen: Oh, okay, great, great. Yeah, yeah.

0:49:01 Bobby Dawn: All right, Buddy was a devout priest of Helio. There is no way on this earth that he would've chosen a new deity.

0:49:10 Kristen: I know two people who were somehow able to not, and maybe it was because they were powerful clerics, so maybe he was just too young of a cleric. Maybe I wouldn't be able to do it. But I tell him... I don't tell him that we recorded it or that we're so onto them, but I just point out to him that the entire party is not here.

0:49:30 Bobby Dawn: Do you know what afterlife Buddy would've gone to if he's dead? We can't find him. We don't even know if he's alive or dead.

0:49:37 Kristen: I think it's the Astral Plane.

0:49:41 Bobby Dawn: Do you know anything at all about if he's been corrupted? There is some deity that has taken over his mind. Do you know anything about them? Anything that they are vulnerable to? Where their church might be located? How we might be able to find them? Where their followers are? Do they have a church here in Elmville?

0:50:06 Kristen: I don't, I really don't. I really just know it might be… It's definitely a god that's been dead for a long time that only recently just came back.

0:50:16 Bobby Dawn: How did a god… You mean Cassandra? Your deity?

0:50:21 Kristen: It's her ex-wife, actually. And I savor all four letters of the word wife.

0:50:29 Bobby Dawn: Ms. Applebees, I see now that I have, in fact, been punked.

0:50:33 Kristen: No, no, no, it's not. She—

0:50:35 Bobby Dawn: You've come in here with some sort of sacrilege. You are telling me that the god that has corrupted my grandson is the dead wife of your goddess.

0:50:52 Kristen: Mm-hmm.

0:50:53 Bobby Dawn: Is this some sort of practical joke? You're taking advantage of a man in the depths of grief?

0:50:57 Ally: I think that this is a moment for Kristen, especially with all of her baggage with Sol, that she is earnestly bridge-building and trying to work, so I would love to try to do a Divine Intervention roll.

0:51:13 Brennan: Give me the roll.

0:51:14 Ally: To give us some sort of sign, for Cassandra to help both of us.

0:51:19 Brennan: Okay. [die rolling]

0:51:21 Ally: Damn, eight.

0:51:21 Brennan: Eight, okay. The Divine Intervention does not come in this moment. You see he looks and says,

0:51:30 Bobby Dawn: I would love to be certain that you're telling the truth, and look, I know that you bear me no fondness.

0:51:36 Kristen: I am trying to help you.

0:51:38 Bobby Dawn: I'm trying to help my grandson, and furthermore, if this divinity poses a threat to Spyre and the world, regardless of our political differences, I assure you that I have a vested interest in the world remaining by and large the same as it is right now.

0:51:58 Kristen: Yeah, but I think you're missing the point that this is the corrupted, unhealed version of this god. This isn't the actual god.

0:52:07 Bobby Dawn: Who's the actual god?

0:52:07 Kristen: I don't know. That's what we're trying to figure out. Murph has his face covered and looks stressed.

0:52:12 Brennan: [laughs] I'm just looking at Murph. Murph is fucking going through it.

0:52:18 Ally: What? What am I missing? Message me! Message British Kristen! Murph shakes his head no.

0:52:23 Brennan: It's all good. He says,

0:52:23 Bobby Dawn: All right. Is there any resource that we can provide to you? Anything that you or your friends might need to make it more likely that we are gonna recover Buddy?

0:52:35 Kristen: Can I get back to you? Can I email you at your teacher email?

0:52:39 Bobby Dawn: Absolutely. You have my faculty email address.

0:52:42 Kristen: When's the last time you heard from Buddy? What have you heard about him?

0:52:45 Bobby Dawn: Frankly, Ms. Applebees, the last I heard was, he was going to look at your Last Stand exam, where he died.

0:52:52 Kristen: Yes. When he died, I would have brought him back. But I had been pickpocketed. All of my diamonds were gone. And I checked his pockets, and his were, too. So this was a calculated effort.

0:53:03 Bobby Dawn: I cannot help but shake the feeling that you are not being forthcoming.

0:53:12 Kristen: That's because you're paranoid, and your religion really backs that up for you.

0:53:18 Bobby Dawn: [sighs] If there is any information you can give me about the god that has corrupted my grandson, I am a very prodigious cleric and I assure you I would be able to make use of it.

0:53:38 Kristen: Oh, yeah. Totally. I'm sure. I'm getting a phone call.

0:53:45 Bobby Dawn: That's all, Ms. Applebees?

0:53:48 Kristen: Yeah, 'cause I gotta go talk to my friend Murph. [cast laughs]

0:53:57 Brennan: You head out from there, and you see immediately, as you head out, Bobby goes right over and has a short, whispered conversation with Pamela as you walk out the door. I think you can regroup with your friends after that.

0:54:08 Kristen: Okay, what's going on?

0:54:10 Riz: Was he trying to get you to say the god's name?

0:54:12 Kristen: I think so, I think so, yeah.

0:54:14 Riz: Yeah, I was scared, in theory.

0:54:17 Fig: I think he's maybe putting on a show about, where's my grandson?

0:54:20 Riz: Yes, yes, yes.

0:54:20 Kristen: Oh, you think so?

0:54:23 Riz: Let's also not say the name at all. Let's not say the name, even when we're talking about it when we're—

0:54:26 Kristen: Oh, wait! I thought he—

0:54:28 Fig: 'Cause his last name is Dawn, and I think they're trying to use— they're trying to steal that power and funnel it into Helio and Sol.

0:54:34 Riz: Here's my question. I have a couple suspects of who the giant might be, and one of them is somebody that can cast Revivify or Raise Dead, and that would be Bobby Dawn. Adaine/Kristen: Yeah.

0:54:46 Riz: I'm wondering if Bobby Dawn was the person we saw.

0:54:49 Adaine: Or Pamela Dawn, 'cause she's also a paladin, right?

0:54:51 Riz: She's a paladin.

0:54:51 Kristen: Oh yeah.

0:54:53 Brennan: I will say that your theory, you cannot rule out your theory based on previous rolls.

0:55:01 Murph: Okay, other—

0:55:03 Kristen: I do think he did seem earnestly scared. The only reason I didn't say the name is because he is so strong and he might try to actually just straight-up kill her and end her as a god.

0:55:13 Fig: I think, yeah—

0:55:13 Riz: Whether or not he's—

0:55:16 Fig: I think that this rage, Sol, I just feel like there's some connection there.

0:55:21 Kristen: I tried to pepper in a couple things that would make him really mad, just to see if he's had some other version of the rage crystal in him, and I think he's—

0:55:30 Fig: He might not need to be crystalled to be worshiping this god.

0:55:31 Kristen: I think he's a bad guy, but maybe not that kind of bad guy. But I'm also open to it.

0:55:37 Riz: They also might just be the first to flip when this god gets summoned. Here's the other question.

0:55:45 Fig: And if the Church of Helio has been losing followers, maybe it's because him and her being televangelists are [clicks tongue] picking off people towards this new god that they think is gonna have more power.

0:55:55 Kristen: Totally.

0:55:56 Riz: So either Bobby Dawn is in on this, or Bobby Dawn is just a stooge that could make things worse. Another thing is, we haven't really considered Lydia's dead allies. What if they were given an offer when they died at Bakur's hand?

0:56:12 Gorgug: Kristen, can you get a pamphlet of a church service from your family?

0:56:15 Kristen: Yeah.

0:56:17 Gorgug: And see what they're praying about, and ask them what they are actually taking communion with?

0:56:22 Kristen: Oh, that's great. That's a great question. Like mead wine? Honey wine or something like that?

0:56:29 Gorgug: Yeah, and what are they being asked to pray about?

0:56:31 Kristen: Yeah, great question.

0:56:31 Riz: And the other thing, I feel like because we know stuff happened in the Mountains of Chaos or that they went on a trip there, we've maybe overlooked some of the stuff with Lake Shimmerstone, which is that—

0:56:47 Emily: Yeah, I also point out that glade that I saw in Ruben's dream and say,

0:56:50 Fig: We should probably go there.

0:56:52 Riz: At first, I think when we realized that they must have made some deal to come back, we assumed that maybe something happened in the Mountains of Chaos. But we know that Lucy—

0:57:04 Fig: I think it happened here.

0:57:06 Riz: ...had multiple attackers, so it happened here, and I think it happened... I think she could've made the deal after. Or someone put in a request to change her god, so she could've been thinking about going along with them, and then didn't, and that's when they betrayed her.

0:57:23 Fig: I wonder if in this glade, they had some sort of ritual.

0:57:26 Murph: Yeah, with my Investigation check, Lake Shimmerstone, is it called Shimmerstone 'cause it literally reflects the Chaos Mountains? Does it have water from it?

0:57:35 Brennan: I will say on that, no roll necessary. Lake Shimmerstone gets its name because of the gem filaments that flow down from the Mountains of Chaos.

0:57:41 Ally: Yeah.

0:57:44 Murph: Cool, we don't even need to go to the—

0:57:46 Brennan: You guys are rapidly closing in. You can smell it right ahead of you. Let's close up this downtime track real quick right here. Anything else from Kristen?

0:57:52 Ally: Two more things. One, I would like to pull up the PDF and find what the changes in the bylaws were.

0:57:58 Brennan: Cool, no roll necessary. When Mazey became president, there was a request during the Night Yorb thing for a change that basically happened to the bylaws, which was that there is no inaugural period. So once the results of the election are counted, whoever wins is president. So the new president wins on election night.

0:58:29 Emily: Mazey did that?

0:58:29 Brennan: Yes, and it looks like, looking at the changes that were put in, that was based on a faculty request.

0:58:38 Siobhan: Oh.

0:58:38 Ally: By? By Jace?

0:58:39 Zac: Jace requested it, probably?

0:58:41 Brennan: Not listed, and in fact, you think that's why someone went through Mazey. Someone's hand is disguised by Mazey having made the change, but it's noted as a faculty request.

0:58:49 Emily: We were wondering if what's-his-face, the principal that was a robot—

0:58:54 Siobhan: Grix.

0:58:54 Lou: Grix.

0:58:55 Emily: Grix, if he was affected by changes in bylaws.

0:58:58 Ally: [gasps] They're gonna... Oh, if my thing is correct and there's 24 points around and a center place, whoever becomes president now is the principal, they can use Aguefort, with all of us having to attend graduation, and do something that charges the place and fucking, I don't know—

0:59:17 Siobhan: Is Aguefort in the middle of town?

0:59:19 Brennan: Just about, just about. It's pretty close.

0:59:21 Ally: Okay, okay. Okay, that's that. I think I'm going to… If I can catch Bucky in the halls, I'm gonna peer around.

0:59:33 Brennan: Is this a relationship roll or is this—

0:59:35 Ally: Yeah.

0:59:35 Brennan: Go ahead and give me an Insight.

0:59:38 Ally: That's a 26.

0:59:38 Brennan: Incredible! You see Bucky hanging out on the steps of the school, looking really bummed.

0:59:48 Kristen: Aw. Hey, hey.

0:59:50 Bucky: Hey, Kristen.

0:59:51 Kristen: How's it going? You look sad.

0:59:57 Bucky: [sighs] I got really mad, yelled at all of my friends. My adventuring party.

1:00:06 Kristen: Why?

1:00:07 Bucky: I just kept being like, I'm here, I healed people and I protected them, and they didn't change their religion right away.

1:00:21 Kristen: Yeah. You know, Bucky, I... You're in an interesting situation, and I was in it also, so if it ever feels hard for you, or like two things are kinda conflicting, you always have me to talk to, 'cause I went through it too. It seems like you kinda have a one track mind about Helio and Sol, but at the same time, you know, people are kinda... Does it seem like Mom and Dad are still really worried about you and can't trust that you'll be able to take care of yourself?

1:01:01 Bucky: Yeah. Yeah, I think Mom and Dad... 'Cause, like, there are parts of this school that I'm really excited about. You know, you find new people, and they have all this different stuff, and you look at them and you're like, wow, they're just like that, and it's so weird. But they're, like, fine. And they're, like, friendly.

1:01:34 Kristen: Yeah.

1:01:34 Bucky: And it's like, that's so… You know, they're so different, and that is how...

1:01:54 Kristen: Bucky, I can only speak for myself here, but I really felt like I was kind of given a faulty alarm system by our upbringing, and so something— meeting new people, some of it felt so fun, but then I had something that was put in there that was installed against my will that was like, "This is bad! You have to run! Danger, emergency!" And it's not that complicated. If you meet people and it feels warm and it feels inviting and you're just interested, I think you gotta listen to that. You have a lot of wisdom in there. Right in there!

1:02:35 Ally: And I'm kind of feeling around.

1:02:41 Brennan: You don't feel anything on his chest.

1:02:42 Ally: Okay, good.

1:02:42 Brennan: He feels you touching him.

1:02:44 Kristen: Right in there.

1:02:45 Brennan: He goes,

1:02:45 Bucky: That's really nice, Kristen. It feels... I don't want it to be complicated, but it feels complicated, because it's like, I don't want to... I don't think any of my friends are bad, but there's a lot of things that Mom and Dad have said are bad. So here, it's everything you're warned about, right? It's like, hey, you're gonna meet people, and if they're different in this way, that they don't believe in Helio, they don't, you know, do this stuff, then it's like, I don't... Won't temptation feel exciting? Won't temptation to do bad stuff feel really good? So I'm walking around imagining being like my friends, feeling really good, and then it's like, well, that's literally what I was warned about.

1:03:43 Kristen: Yeah, that's that alarm system that might... That might be wrong. I think you have a very courageous choice to make, and it's to decide if Mom and Dad know your life better than you do.

1:04:02 Brennan: You feel the shards of twilight glowing in your pocket.

1:04:09 Bucky: I don't even know what my life could look like, other than what Mom and Dad said it could look like.

1:04:17 Kristen: Yeah. If you ever wanna talk, my god is literally about... about free fall, about doubt, about being honest about not having all the answers. So if you feel kinda like you wanna try on that sticky situation in between, that's where I'm living.

1:04:40 Brennan: Give me an Insight check. [die rolling]

1:04:43 Ally: Okay, that's a 16.

1:04:47 Brennan: Bucky can't bring himself to ask for it, but you see that he wants to talk with you about it. He just goes,

1:04:56 Bucky: Thanks for talking to me, Kristen. I miss you.

1:04:58 Brennan: He gives you a big hug.

1:05:00 Ally: Really big hug.

1:05:00 Brennan: Really, really big hug. He walks away, and I think that the light from the shards dances out in front of you and shows you all the many versions of Bucky's life that he can't see.

1:05:21 Siobhan: Sweet boy.

1:05:24 Ally: That's really beautiful.

1:05:25 Brennan: Anything else after that relationship track?

1:05:27 Ally: I was gonna try a real quick relaxation.

1:05:30 Brennan: Go for it.

1:05:30 Lou: You got 'em.

1:05:33 Ally: I didn't get it.

1:05:34 Brennan: What'd you roll?

1:05:34 Ally: Seven.

1:05:36 Brennan: Plus your Wisdom saving throw.

1:05:38 Ally: So that's a five, right?

1:05:41 Brennan: Yeah, 12.

1:05:41 Ally: Yeah, okay, 12.

1:05:42 Brennan: No, I think you're proficient in Wisdom saving throws.

1:05:45 Siobhan: Wis save, not—

1:05:46 Brennan: It's the save, not just the modifier.

1:05:47 Siobhan: Not the modifier.

1:05:47 Lou: 10.

1:05:48 Ally: Oh, 10? Okay, 17.

1:05:50 Brennan: 17, DC was 15. You can remove a stress token.

1:05:54 Ally: Oh yeah, oh yeah, 'cause I didn't do all that bullshit with Bloke Mode Kristen.

1:05:58 Emily: Do you want a Bardic so you can see if you could remove two?

1:06:01 Lou: Go big.

1:06:01 Brennan: You could go big. You got 17. You could maybe move some more.

1:06:04 Emily: It's a d10.

1:06:04 Brennan: d10. Let's see what you get. [die rolling]

1:06:08 Ally: Seven! 24!

1:06:08 Brennan: Seven, 17, 24. DC is 15, that's nine. You lose three stress tokens.

1:06:15 Ally: Hey!

1:06:15 Emily: Woo!

1:06:17 Brennan: I think with three stress tokens… And also, wait, that was a relationship chat with Bucky.

1:06:22 Ally: Oh yeah.

1:06:22 Brennan: Roll a d6. [die rolling]

1:06:24 Ally: Six!

1:06:25 Brennan: You lose all your stress tokens. Describe for me—

1:06:27 Ally: So sick!

1:06:28 Brennan: What are some of the different versions of Bucky you see as all of the stress melts away?

1:06:34 Ally: I think I just see a really happy Bucky with friends that are not necessarily Helio. Or maybe some of them are, but just a little bit less paranoia of black and white thinking, of good and evil, and there's this spiritual warfare, and you have to be on guard or something like that. It's just really, really relaxed.

1:07:03 Brennan: Hell yeah. I love that. All of your stress melts away, and you hear Cassandra's voice speaking to you and saying,

1:07:11 Cassandra: So many untread roads, and all so beautiful. I am trapped. The king will come again to Spyre, Kristen.

1:07:21 Kristen: Where are you trapped? How can I help you? How do I stop the king?

1:07:26 Cassandra: My bride's fiery hand grasps mine in death, and I must shield her from the destruction that will come. But I cannot do it as myself. Know this, my champion. My bride has a champion as well.

1:07:44 Kristen: Who? Can you give me a name or a location?

1:07:47 Cassandra: You know her already. Know this, Kristen Applebees. My shadow, my familiar, would not have said something with no meaning behind it.

1:08:01 Brennan: And you see that she vanishes.

1:08:01 Ally: Ragh?

1:08:04 Siobhan: Or Lydia. Maybe Lydia got corrupted by Bakur.

1:08:09 Murph: Or Lydia's clone actually wasn't killed?

1:08:12 Siobhan: Fuck.

1:08:12 Murph: Or was killed, and was brought back. Ally/Siobhan: Was brought back.

1:08:16 Brennan: We're gonna go ahead and go to Riz.

1:08:18 Ally: Blimey.

1:08:20 Brennan: Blimey, indeed. By the way, just 'cause we're moving through for time stuff, Fig and Adaine go to a beautiful geocache that is a cavern of immense— all the most incredible spell components you could ever want. It's got like 10 Revivify gems for Kristen. It's got all kinds of expensive diamonds and diamond quill ink for scribing stuff. There are so many ancient musical instruments from Ayda, and they all lovingly have little tags on them. You see there's one alpine horn that's supposed to stretch down a mountain and call sheep from an entire region.

1:08:54 Emily: I mean, look, I know my future involves a writer's block in which I switch from instrument to instrument, thinking that will solve it, but I'm not currently there. Is there a really sick bass?

1:09:06 Brennan: There's an incredibly sick bass.

1:09:09 Emily: Okay, I'll take the incredibly sick bass.

1:09:11 Brennan: I will get that card to you ASAP.

1:09:15 Siobhan: I feel so suddenly rich. I have diamonds burning holes in my pockets.

1:09:19 Brennan: Riz, go ahead and let me know what the next roll is, when you were thinking of unsolved clues.

1:09:26 Murph: So yeah, the things I was mentioning before were the possibility of Bobby Dawn being the champion of Ankarna. There's also the possibility that it would be Lydia's dead allies that were maybe offered something when they were killed, and then there's the fact that we had this clone of Lydia that was apparently killed, but maybe she's not.

1:09:50 Brennan: Yeah.

1:09:51 Murph: Or maybe Lydia herself is somehow...

1:09:54 Brennan: Yeah, you can do multiple mystery tracks. You can just keep gunning this down as the downtime difficulty increases.

1:10:02 Murph: All right, yeah.

1:10:02 Brennan: Yeah, let me know what you wanna chase down, especially after that figure. So go ahead and call that 32. What are you hunting down?

1:10:10 Murph: That figure, trying to figure out if that was potentially... It seemed, perhaps, like a cleric move, so I will make a guess that that is maybe Bobby Dawn?

1:10:23 Brennan: Okay, I think that you cannot, sadly, rule it out. Even on a 32, you cannot rule it out. But you're not certain.

1:10:30 Murph: Okay, then I guess I will look more into— we know that Lydia Barkrock's allies died.

1:10:40 Brennan: Mm-hmm.

1:10:41 Murph: Were their remains recovered? Is there proof that they were buried, and they stayed buried?

1:10:50 Ally: You could even ask Lydia, maybe, if there was something on them. [gestures to their chest]

1:10:54 Brennan: Yeah, so go ahead and make this next Investigation. This is a DC 15.

1:10:56 Murph: Okay.

1:10:59 Lou: Here we go now.

1:11:02 Murph: 28.

1:11:03 Brennan: 28. You pore over all of the stuff from Cormyr and Rana. You find an exact location in the Mountains of Chaos called the Temple of the Fallen Sun.

1:11:19 Siobhan: S-U-N or S-O-N?

1:11:19 Brennan: S-U-N, S-U-N. Looking at the Lake Shimmerstone stuff you were talking about before, you find a lot of that non-magical force damage. You also find, in the Loams, some indication of some incredible ability to stun opponents, that they had no defense wounds. You think the stunned condition was brought into play during some of these murders. You also find, talking about Ruvina the giantess goddess of winter and sorrow, that her festival was called the Festival of Frost.

1:11:51 Siobhan: Oh, Frosty Fair.

1:11:52 Brennan: So you find a place within that, and you see some writings that are actually historical, talking about a thing called the War of Shattered Stones, and it looks like from a time period around where Adaine pinpointed the change in Ankarna, the change, sort of, throughout. Go ahead and give me another downtime track roll. [die rolling]

1:12:14 Murph: 30.

1:12:14 Brennan: Okay. What are you trying to track down on this DC 20 roll?

1:12:19 Murph: Okay, so we just did Lydia's dead allies. We did Bobby Dawn. We were talking about Root Wardens and stuff. So I guess, sort of, maybe the ecosystem around the lake, and the importance of it. This might just be crazy conspiracy theory, but I'm like, are they really out there just killing rats for fun? Or are the rats like... Part of the like- They're drinking the water, they're eating the fucked up ground. Are they literally grinding up rats?

1:12:57 Brennan: You beat the 20, right?

1:12:57 Murph: Yeah, I got, like, a 30.

1:13:00 Brennan: You follow Fig out, as it's getting closer and closer. Fabian's birthday, at this point, is like a week away, a week and a half away. The school's thing is still that they are on their spring break adventure, right?

1:13:13 Ally: That's what they say about the Rat Grinders?

1:13:13 Brennan: About the Rat Grinders, yeah. You go out to the Far Haven Woods to find that glade near Lake Shimmerstone. It's quite near Lake Shimmerstone.

1:13:21 Murph: Okay.

1:13:22 Brennan: Ground suffused with crystals out in this glade. Moreover, there are about a month of old tracks in it. You get magnifying glass out, get down on the ground. It looks like, at a certain point, the Rat Grinders were brought here, and a massive giant was out here slaughtering deadly monsters.

1:13:52 Lou: Can I have come?

1:13:52 Brennan: Yes, you can come.

1:13:56 Fabian: One second. [soothing panpipe music] [rats chittering]

1:14:00 Emily: I put on my Mask of Animal Friendship.

1:14:02 Brennan: A bunch of little rats run in.

1:14:03 Siobhan: I cast Comprehend Languages.

1:14:03 Rat: Hi.

1:14:07 Fabian: Do we have any—

1:14:07 Kristen Two: [English accent] Fucking disgusting.

1:14:10 Fig: Keep playing. They'll turn on us.

1:14:12 Fabian: If you have any questions for them, Riz.

1:14:13 Riz: Okay, do you— [Lou mimicking panpipes]

1:14:16 Riz: There was a giant here that was killing monsters. Was somebody Polymorphing rats?

1:14:22 Brennan: The rats speak and they say,

1:14:25 Rats: Yeah, well, there was a big, scary giant who came out here, and the little kids, the little kid with the puka shell necklace and the ukulele came out, and the giant would take big scary monsters, he would smash 'em up and kill 'em and cut 'em and, you know, do all kinds of stuff, and then he would call up a kid and say, “Stab it in the head.”

1:14:53 Fig: So that they'd get the XP? Fabian continues playing the panpipes.

1:14:55 Kristen: For the killing blow? The final blow?

1:14:57 Riz: So they weren't killing rats. They were killing high-level monsters.

1:15:01 Adaine: But, like, not really.

1:15:03 Fig: Oh my god!

1:15:03 Gorgug: And that works?

1:15:06 Fig: Who was the fucking giant who was in on it?

1:15:08 Adaine: Was it a boy giant or a girl giant?

1:15:09 Rat: Looked like a boy giant.

1:15:11 Fig: Pissed?

1:15:11 Rat: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:15:13 Fabian: Can I ask you a question about the rat city?

1:15:15 Rat: Mm-hmm. Rat World?

1:15:15 Fabian: Yes, Rat World.

1:15:17 Adaine: With the mall?

1:15:17 Rat: Yeah.

1:15:19 Adaine: What do you use for rat money?

1:15:20 Rat: Rat dollars. Bye-bye! [players shouting angrily]

1:15:22 Kristen: Adaine!

1:15:24 Fabian: Rat dollars? Are you kidding me?

1:15:28 Brennan: Runs away.

1:15:28 Adaine: I didn't know they were gonna run away.

1:15:32 Brennan: That's your DC 20. Go ahead and give me your DC 25, Riz.

1:15:35 Murph: Okay.

1:15:35 Ally: That was your DC 20.

1:15:37 Emily: So they're so high level.

1:15:39 Murph: Can we have asked the rat, [laughing] before Adaine started asking weird questions, if Lucy Frostblade was with them when they were doing that part of it?

1:15:48 Brennan: Yeah, Lucy was here.

1:15:49 Murph: They made a deal with this giant to get powered up. Okay, yeah.

1:15:54 Ally: And maybe the giant was using them, and they just thought it was a cool bargain, like, "We're getting so strong!" And then the giant smashed them, put crystals in them, and now that's the giant's army.

1:16:04 Siobhan: Kinda made a sacrificial circle.

1:16:06 Murph: So I think not all of them are… Yeah, okay, so... Man, what do we wanna know?

1:16:11 Brennan: Sandra Lynn is ready to take you guys to the Mountains of Chaos whenever you wanna go. So Sandra Lynn can take you to the Mountains of Chaos.

1:16:17 Murph: Should we check out this Temple of the Fallen Sun?

1:16:18 Ally: Yes.

1:16:19 Siobhan: Yeah, let's do it.

1:16:19 Emily: Yeah.

1:16:20 Brennan: Temple of the Fallen Sun. You also know where Ruben's house is, which is the one Rat Grinder that you know where their house is. Before you head to the mountains, your mom, who was talking with Sandra Lynn, basically goes,

1:16:32 Sklonda: If there feels like something that is not adding up or not fitting together, like, you keep getting this Barkrock thing from Lydia over and over again, she's like, what I used to do on the force, get every file you've ever had on Ragh Barkrock and comb through everything, as many years as you've known him, from when he was a bad guy in freshman year.

1:16:55 Emily: I wanna know what level the Rat Grinders are. Does it say in Kipperlilly's—

1:17:00 Zac: Ragh was pretty… I feel like he got tricked by Daybreak, right?

1:17:06 Siobhan: Yeah, I mean—

1:17:06 Ally: He's pretty impressionable.

1:17:09 Murph: We've already questioned Ragh, but Ragh easily could've eaten that honey.

1:17:12 Siobhan: Yeah, he could've had the devil's honey. God, I don't want Ragh to be the bad guy, though. I love Ragh. Emily/Zac: I don't think he's the bad guy.

1:17:18 Zac: I think could be the answer to...

1:17:19 Brennan: The night before you guys are gonna head to the Mountains of Chaos, now that Sandra Lynn has that location, the Temple of the Fallen Sun.

1:17:24 Murph: I guess I'll look into Ragh. I'll do my last Investigation check on Ragh.

1:17:28 Brennan: Cool. Okay, cool.

1:17:29 Ally: Can I give him the Help action?

1:17:30 Brennan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [dice rolling]

1:17:32 Murph: 25's the highest.

1:17:33 Brennan: 25. 25 is the DC for Ragh.

1:17:33 Murph: Great.

1:17:36 Brennan: So I think on a 25, you gather all the materials on Ragh from your office over years and years and years of doing mystery solving.

1:17:43 Murph: Is there also a chance that there was another Ragh Barkrock? Looking more into the name, in addition to—

1:17:53 Brennan: So, you will be able to roll that again when you have a second. I think you'll probably have to get to the Mountains of Chaos, where you'll be able to go over everything. The night before you leave, you get a message at school from Zara asking for you to come by real quick.

1:18:06 Murph: Oh, right.

1:18:07 Brennan: Just very quickly, Zara meets up with you up on the roof of the school, sort of smiling, and goes,

1:18:12 Zara: Figueroth.

1:18:15 Fig: Hi.

1:18:16 Zara: Thank you for this rotting flap of skin.

1:18:18 Fig: Yeah, you're welcome, you know? I think I actually passed the Last Stand, so I don't technically need an agreement but, you know, Bill Seacaster could be my agreement. I kinda have my own agreement now.

1:18:31 Zara: Your bases are covered, which is nice.

1:18:34 Siobhan: B-A-S-S-E-S.

1:18:36 Emily: I shred.

1:18:37 Brennan: She says,

1:18:37 Zara: Do you remember your letter? Do you mind if I read it to you?

1:18:40 Fig: I think I'd be really embarrassed if you read it.

1:18:43 Zara: Then I won't. [Emily laughs]

1:18:46 Brennan: She closes it and says,

1:18:46 Zara: I want you to know—

1:18:49 Siobhan: What did you write? I'm gonna steal that letter.

1:18:51 Emily: It was personal.

1:18:53 Brennan: She says,

1:18:53 Zara: I want you to know that it is very strange to not be a fan of Figueroth Faeth. You have such a bright future. I hope that you are happy. Truthfully, your future is wide open. What do you think you will do, when you dream of the future?

1:19:22 Fig: Well, it feels good to be writing music again, and I think I'm gonna…

1:19:32 Emily: Can I do an Insight check?

1:19:32 Brennan: Yeah, yeah.

1:19:35 Emily: Actually, I don't even do it with disadvantage anymore. Dirty 20. Do I feel like I can trust her?

1:19:41 Brennan: Yeah, on a dirty 20, I think you can trust her.

1:19:43 Fig: I'm gonna resurrect a dead god. Or, rather, un-corrupt a dead god. And then after I do that, get back to the music. Well, actually, no, the music and that are sort of intertwining like a Stussy S.

1:20:00 Brennan: She smiles.

1:20:00 Siobhan: So rad.

1:20:01 Brennan: She says,

1:20:01 Zara: There are two reasons I wanted to talk to you, the first of which is, part of having a paramour that is timeless is, sometimes, you get messages from different parts of time.

1:20:16 Brennan: And you look up and see that a meteor shower begins. As a meteor shower starts, it begins to spell in words across the sky, My darling paramour, my infernal flame, my Figueroth. I sent these meteors to you from the dawn of time, when a rogue asteroid almost hit my dad's jet ski. Sundering the space rock with but a gesture of my most potent art, the debris surrounded me, and with it came the sorrow of your absence. I sent these rocky chunks across the galaxy, and they have traveled since the beginning of time to tell you that I love you. In each moment of our mutual ignorance, where we had yet to meet, this message was already spinning its way to you through time and space to illuminate the night sky, to tell you that I love you. Us, our love, like time, has been inevitable and strange. I have walked in its shadow joyfully. It gives me peace to know that in my darkest moments, my love for you was already on its way, flying through the stars. We have been on our way to save us since before the lights of our world were first lit. Pretty cool, my darling paramour. P.S., I know you have another year of school after this, but I hope one day soon, you and I might travel amongst these stars together. XOXO, Ayda Aguefort. P.S., you are not gonna believe how much my dad spent on this jet ski.

1:22:05 Emily: I think that I absolutely flush and look at Zara and say,

1:22:09 Fig: Excuse me, I have to go use the hot tub.

1:22:17 Brennan: You see Zara smiles and says,

1:22:17 Zara: Oof, I can't blame you.

1:22:21 Brennan: She just goes,

1:22:21 Zara: Do you ever... If you wanted to go on an adventure with her... I know, from speaking with you about your academics, how much of this is because of your loyalty to your friends.

1:22:37 Fig: Riz.

1:22:40 Zara: To Riz.

1:22:40 Fig: Yeah.

1:22:42 Zara: If you chose another path, there would be a time soon to choose one where it would not disadvantage any of your loved ones, and you could do what your heart desired.

1:23:00 Fig: Yeah. Yeah, um... I've been thinking of that, and I will... I appreciate the vote of confidence.

1:23:14 Zara: I have rarely been so wowed by a student. My confidence is yours forever. Just getting to class at these late hours, I really appreciate it.

1:23:22 Fig: They're so much easier than morning classes.

1:23:26 Zara: All right, you have a hot tub to get to. But number two reason, whenever you have a chance, this is the last thing you need from me before —

1:23:33 Fig: No, I already filled one out for you.

1:23:34 Zara: You did?

1:23:34 Fig: Yeah.

1:23:36 Zara: Oh. Splendid.

1:23:38 Fig: Yeah, I called you a hot goth. Oh, I did in the letter too, though.

1:23:43 Zara: Oh, well, inappropriate, but you're not wrong.

1:23:48 Brennan: She clasps your hand and says—

1:23:50 Fig: It was fives across the board.

1:23:52 Zara: Let's go, Zara Sool! [pumps her fist]

1:23:58 Brennan: She smiles and says,

1:23:59 Zara: I'll always be in your corner, Fig Faeth.

1:24:03 Emily: I think I'm also gonna be like,

1:24:05 Fig: I just realized I actually can work a little chronomancy.

1:24:09 Emily: And I'm gonna sit down and write a letter to Ayda, knowing that when she reads it, it will be the future.

1:24:21 Brennan: I love it, I love it.

1:24:21 Ally: Powerful.

1:24:23 Emily: And then I'm gonna use the hot tub twice.

1:24:25 Brennan: Incredible. I love it. You all head— [players laugh]

1:24:29 Zac: Whose hot tub?

1:24:31 Ally: Get out!

1:24:33 Lou: Yeah, where is the hot tub?

1:24:33 Siobhan: It's in Kristen's room.

1:24:36 Lou: There's a hot tub in Kristen's room?

1:24:37 Ally: We swap rooms. I hang upside-down in your room for a while to work on my spine.

1:24:43 Zac: With your rod?

1:24:43 Ally: Yeah.

1:24:45 Brennan: Cool, after that interaction, you watch a meteor shower paint this love letter from Ayda, and the next day, all of you see, waiting outside of Mordred Manor, you see Lydia come down with huge, giant trash bags of food as there are seven griffins out on the lawn, all saddled up and ready to go.

1:25:06 Gorgug: You can just grab… You can just get griffins? Sandra Lynn Let me be clear. I'm an incredible adventurer, okay? You want griffins, I can get you griffins.

1:25:15 Gorgug: That's good to know.

1:25:15 Fig: Why not before? Sandra Lynn Well, they're park griffins. This is ranger business.

1:25:22 Fabian: Are they safe? [griffin whinnying] Sandra Lynn Fabian, don't keep withdrawing your hand.

1:25:28 Fabian: What? Don't?

1:25:29 Emily: I'm gonna put on my orangutan mask and approach a griffin.

1:25:34 Griffin: [squawking]

1:25:38 Fig: Do you like me?

1:25:38 Brennan: It bows.

1:25:41 Emily: I bow.

1:25:41 Ally: Is Lydia coming with us?

1:25:45 Lydia: I didn't know you wanted me to come with. There's only seven griffins.

1:25:46 Kristen: Oh yeah, no worries.

1:25:48 Zac: Do we have any questions for her before—

1:25:50 Ally: Yeah.

1:25:50 Kristen: I was wondering, Lydia, do you know… Did you ever get to see your clone that was attacked?

1:26:01 Lydia: No, I was deep underground. I was sequestered by Aguefort's magic. My experience was, and Aguefort also didn't tell me this was happening...

1:26:11 Brennan: By the way, you guys all see that Lydia's looking great. She's looking really flush and hale and healthy, chest is healing.

1:26:16 Kristen: How's the physio?

1:26:19 Lydia: Physio's going great. Ragh is being really sweet. He's taking me to therapy, and it's going really, really well.

1:26:30 Kristen: Is Ragh here?

1:26:31 Lydia: No, Ragh has his big tryouts for the Buccaneers.

1:26:35 Kristen: Oh!

1:26:35 Ally: I text him.

1:26:37 Kristen: Good luck today, man. You got this.

1:26:39 Adaine: Break a leg, specifically somebody else's.

1:26:43 Brennan: He sends back a bunch of heart emojis to everybody.

1:26:45 Siobhan: So we know that Ragh is in Bastion City. Can I cast Locate Creature on Ragh?

1:26:52 Brennan: Yeah.

1:26:52 Siobhan: Just to confirm.

1:26:55 Brennan: You know he is not within 1,000 feet. He is not within 1,000 feet.

1:26:58 Siobhan: And it's a new day, so I'll roll.

1:27:00 Brennan: Sandra Lynn says, Sandra Lynn So do you wanna go to Bastion City? That's gonna take us a couple hours out of our way.

1:27:04 Riz: No, we've got the files on Ragh. I'll look at them while I'm on the griffin, and then I'll beeline— we can beeline—

1:27:09 Gorgug: You're gonna throw up.

1:27:10 Riz: Yeah, that's fine. sa: We'll get you set up when we get there, Riz, so that you don't have to read them on the back of a griffin.

1:27:17 Riz: I'd prefer to ride on the back of the griffin with the papers flying everywhere. The griffins know how to get there, right?

1:27:24 Gorgug: I'll hold you and try to keep you level.

1:27:26 Riz: There you go.

1:27:27 Adaine: Kristen's clone needs a griffin as well, so maybe you can ride with Gorgug.

1:27:31 Fabian: I can rode with Kristen Two.

1:27:31 Kristen: Okay.

1:27:34 Fig: Kristen's clone? Or Kristen, too?

1:27:36 Fabian: I'll ride with Kristen's clone.

1:27:38 Ally: She slaps you across the face and goes,

1:27:39 Kristen Two: All right, all right, all right.

1:27:42 Adaine: She is still Kristen. She's just straight, hornier Kristen.

1:27:45 Emily: I thought she was British.

1:27:45 Ally: That was British to her!

1:27:49 Fabian: Also, Adaine, can you Reduce the Hangman?

1:27:51 Ally: British doing an American "Dazed and Confused" impression.

1:27:53 Siobhan: Yeah, can I cast Reduce on the Hangman?

1:27:55 Hangman: Yes, please make me a little puppy.

1:27:57 Fig: Actually, the Hangman can fly on my pegasus.

1:28:02 Ally: As a little puppy?

1:28:02 Siobhan: Oh, yes.

1:28:04 Ally: Still needs to be a puppy.

1:28:05 Emily: Can you turn him into hellhound?

1:28:07 Fabian: Hangman, can you take your hellhound form? And then we're gonna put a dog on a horse.

1:28:12 Hangman: I prefer to be a motorcycle. But that's okay, I'll do it.

1:28:16 Brennan: You see he changes into a hellhound, jumps on the back of the Daymare. The Daymare takes off.

1:28:21 Hangman: A dog riding a horse, can you believe it?

1:28:24 Fabian: Adorable!

1:28:26 Brennan: So, you all take off to the Mountains of Chaos. It is a long, all-day flight. You only stop a couple times. Your inner thighs, your ass, is just chapped. It is a hard day's ride.

1:28:37 Zac: My ass!

1:28:40 Ally: Ass!

1:28:40 Siobhan: They're predators, so they're not really— they're bad for riding.

1:28:43 Kristen Two: [Brit-ish] Someone's gonna need to rub my bum.

1:28:48 Brennan: You're all on griffins. There's one griffin with two Kristens holding each other. Sandra Lynn Which one is British Kristen?

1:28:55 Kristen Two: Oi.

1:28:56 Murph: Oi?

1:29:00 Kristen Two: [accented] What's all this, then?

1:29:03 Ally: And she jumps off to be on Fabian's griffin.

1:29:07 Fabian: What? Ah! What?

1:29:09 Kristen Two: [grabbing onto Fabian] What's all this, then?

1:29:11 Ally: She swings up and she rides with Fabian.

1:29:14 Siobhan: She's her own person. She's her own person.

1:29:17 Ally: She always copies what Kristen is wearing that day, but makes it a little bit tighter, a little bit more femme.

1:29:24 Adaine: Other Kristen, you're supposed to be making it so that nobody can tell which one—

1:29:28 Kristen Two: We're just the same.

1:29:28 Adaine: You're literally not.

1:29:30 Kristen Two: We're "litcherally" dressed the same.

1:29:32 Gorgug: Twins are so weird.

1:29:32 Riz: [nodding in agreement] Twins are so weird.

1:29:35 Brennan: You fly and fly and fly over the Mountains of Chaos. Tall rocks, stones, fade into peaks, mammoth valleys, snow-capped mountaintops framed against the sky. As the sun sets so that it is almost a red, angry, burning ember in the western sky, Sandra Lynn banks suddenly and begins to turn, and on a peak behind you, you see, carved into the mountainside, at first, the perspective seems normal, but then you realize it is enormous. The colonnades and opening of a temple carved into the mountainside itself. You see, all over this temple, steps leading down to nothingness, steps leading down to rocks and rubble, and the bottom of the mountain is filled with bones. You look and see a temple that is infernal in nature, and surrounding the peaks in all directions, you see that beacon fires are lit with a sickly green glow to them as a warning to the peoples of the Mountains of Chaos not to come to this place.

1:30:57 Murph: And Lydia's adventuring party is buried here?

1:31:00 Brennan: You guys land on the steps. Sandra Lynn says, Sandra Lynn No no, not buried here, but this is one of the places they stopped at on their adventure.

1:31:08 Emily: And this is where we thought that maybe they were... That maybe the god was borne?

1:31:14 Zac: It's the Temple of the Fallen Sun.

1:31:16 Siobhan: Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. It does sound like where she was borne, B-O-R-N-E. Maybe they brought her body here after she died.

1:31:24 Zac: Are the bones just giant bones?

1:31:26 Brennan: They are vastly humanoid-sized bones. Larger, like big people, mountain warrior-type people, but there are some giant bones down there as well. Huge, 15-foot-tall bones.

1:31:37 Siobhan: [to Ally] Can you do some kind of divine sense to see—

1:31:40 Emily: I can actually do Divine Sense.

1:31:43 Siobhan: Oh, right, 'cause paladin.

1:31:44 Gorgug: If someone has some kind of divine—

1:31:47 Adaine: If only somebody, anybody, had some kinda divine sense.

1:31:50 Emily: I start tuning my guitar to get in the harmony of this location.

1:31:57 Brennan: It is effortless, because this is a temple to your god. You look and see, up above, a glyph that has been hacked away, a name erased, perhaps 1,000 years ago, the name destroyed from the lintel of the temple and replaced with a simple scratched ranger's warning. Fallen temple; do not enter.

1:32:25 Adaine: Let's go in.

1:32:26 Emily: Do I sense the location of a Hallow spell, celestial, fiend, or undead within 60 feet that's not behind total cover?

1:32:36 Brennan: You do not.

1:32:38 Zac: Do we think that the Rat Grinders could be here?

1:32:40 Ally: I cast See Invisibility on myself.

1:32:43 Brennan: Cool, See Invisibility.

1:32:43 Siobhan: Can I cast Truesight on myself?

1:32:45 Brennan: Yeah.

1:32:46 Ally: Does someone else need Truesight? I can cast that also.

1:32:49 Emily: Yeah, I'll take it.

1:32:49 Brennan: You cast Truesight, Adaine?

1:32:52 Siobhan: True Seeing, yes.

1:32:52 Brennan: True Seeing. You see, in the scratched Sylvan ranger's warning that you believe used to say Ankarna on it, the nameless god glyph, unseen, left with magic in this place.

1:33:05 Siobhan: So somebody's tried to rewrite the name.

1:33:08 Brennan: Somebody's tried to rewrite the name. But you also feel like there might be, as bizarre as this is, the followers of this... Whoever's moving around, trying to work this ritual of Ankarna, doesn't know her name, so there's just a glyph meaning her without being her, right?

1:33:23 Ally: Bobby maybe needed it.

1:33:27 Emily: Yeah, I think that's why he was trying to get that name.

1:33:29 Ally: That could be totally right. Who can see what?

1:33:31 Emily: So you gave me Truesight?

1:33:33 Ally: Yeah, you guys both have Truesight.

1:33:36 Brennan: You have Truesight, and you have See Invisibility.

1:33:39 Siobhan: I also have the invisibility thing switched on, on my thing.

1:33:43 Brennan: Go ahead, as a group, and give me an Investigation check.

1:33:47 Emily: Yeah, I wanna know if we're walking into a situation that's populated in any way.

1:33:54 Murph: 32. I rolled a 19.

1:33:54 Brennan: Jesus Christ.

1:33:59 Emily: Nat 20.

1:33:59 Brennan: Wow! Holy shit!

1:34:02 Emily: Thanks for the Truesight.

1:34:02 Ally: Yes-uh! Yes-uh! Yes-uh!

1:34:04 Zac: 15.

1:34:04 Brennan: What's that?

1:34:06 Zac: 15.

1:34:06 Brennan: 15, okay.

1:34:07 Siobhan: I got a 14.

1:34:07 Brennan: 14, cool.

1:34:09 Lou: Five.

1:34:09 Brennan: Five.

1:34:10 Siobhan: What did other Kristen get?

1:34:10 Ally: Oh yeah, other Kristen? Seven.

1:34:13 Brennan: As you walk in, there are steps, you're fanning out. This is the exact kind of place adventurers get attacked. Sandra Lynn looks at all of you and says, Sandra Lynn This place, the folk, the people that live in this part of the world know that this place is here, and keep it free of monsters. This is sort of a cursed location that has civilization sort of surrounding it, for the most part. I don't think new monsters should have populated in here, or they would have had to get other regions and territories to be able to get here.

1:34:54 Kristen: Yeah, unless they were transported or something. Sandra Lynn Unless they were transported or something.

1:34:57 Brennan: Fig, you have walked in these halls before. You know this place. You feel it. You hear people. You look in the corner, and see almost a flash or a vision. Adaine, you can see this as well. You can see it because Fig can see it. You see that there are two of these beautiful giantkin who are kneeling down. They have white robes, and you see that they have emblems of the sun around them as they kneel down. And you see an armored individual that you can't even see what it is, it's so heavily armored, raise up a spiky axe with a fiery emblem in it and behead one, and behead the other. And all of you see that, and you see that there is an ancient blood rivulet that leaves and goes out to the steps outside. That's just in the antechamber. You begin to move through, finding more. You realize, based on the timing, that this temple was built at the beginning of the period where Ankarna's domain was changing, where the goddess was being reinterpreted.

1:36:07 Ally: Borne.

1:36:07 Siobhan: Do we get the impression that those priests were maybe priests of Sol?

1:36:12 Brennan: You don't.

1:36:12 Emily: They're the new, corrupted—

1:36:14 Brennan: The old priests of Ankarna being killed by the new priests of Ankarna.

1:36:18 Emily: Did it seem like those sun things, was it like, oh, those are Sol, or those were pre-corruption—

1:36:25 Brennan: The runes on them were written in Giant, so you believe they were Ankarna.

1:36:29 Emily: Okay. I definitely— can I write down that— since I saw that, can I draw that—

1:36:34 Brennan: The symbol you saw? Yes, absolutely. You draw the true writing of Ankarna's name as it was written in the primordial days.

1:36:40 Ally: Just to say, I think I told everybody what the message that I got from Cassandra was, about Ankarna needing help, and Cassandra needed to turn into the Nightmare King to save her and all of that, and a warning.

1:36:53 Brennan: So all of that, the warning from Cassandra that you got on losing all of your stress.

1:36:57 Adaine: She has a champion, also.

1:36:59 Ally: And that she has a champion also, and that it's Ragh.

1:37:01 Brennan: You begin to walk through this place, and you see that this is a temple built for empire. It is a temple built for the religion of a state. And you see that there are these tall, proud warriors everywhere that have massive great-weapons and fire and conquest and all this stuff. You see fiery horses all around. As you begin to move through, you get into a chamber, and you also begin to see... Who here can read Giant?

1:37:33 Siobhan: I cast Comprehend Languages.

1:37:37 Brennan: This is straight "Tomb Raider". This is all you were doing in your Night Yorb quest. Adaine, walking through, your eyes gleaming white. Fig, you keep having visions of what this place was. This was a place dedicated, you realize, to moving Ankarna from the celestial heights to the infernal realms by a people that needed her to be able to do that for them. And why did they need that? All of the etchings in stone are of armies of this thing you see, writing in Giant, and you begin to translate. All of these things basically are different crests, adages, religious words of prayer, but the thing you keep seeing is—

1:38:21 Emily: War of the Shattered Stone?

1:38:22 Brennan: War of the Shattered Stone, and you also see a new word that you did not see in these older books. There might have been some notes in a margin somewhere, but you connect them here in the actual writing. 'cause you also see that Cormyr did not— Cormyr was a sorcerer and had a limited selection of spells. Comprehend Languages was not one of them. So he did his best to transcribe stuff and take meticulous notes, but for not being able to read Giant... He could read some Giant. This is an ancient form of it.

1:38:48 Siobhan: Sure.

1:38:48 Brennan: Right. You see everything being like, "This temple built in the glory of Ankarna," and whenever it says Ankarna, you see that the rangers have come in and smashed that out, but you know that's where the name would be, right? They knew enough to know where the deity's actual name was, and destroy it. "This temple, in the glory of [deliberate silence], for the eternal honor of the House of Sunstone. Sunstone, clan of monarchs, royal clan of the giantkin." You move through this space, continuing, continuing, continuing, and you arrive at a massive chamber. Within this chamber, you see there is a massive altar raised on multiple staggered platforms. There is a sacrificial space in front of it. You see that there is a place, almost like a kneeling block like you would have for a guillotine, but instead of where a guillotine would be, there is an iron brazier with ancient coals in it that you would make someone kneel and push their face into burning coals. Behind them, maybe 80 feet tall— this chamber is filled with stillness. You see many rows of pictographs interlaid with rows of runes, commemorating battles. The entire history of the War of Shattered Stones rests up on this wall with stark poetry here. You arrive in this space, feeling the presence of Ankarna. You know this is not where she died, 'cause that was in the Red Waste, but you feel this is where she was…

1:40:33 Emily: Changed.

1:40:33 Brennan: ...changed.

1:40:34 Emily: And it feels like by doing bad things in her name, they were able to change her meaning.

1:40:41 Brennan: There is a relationship between gods and mortals that has push and pull on either side.

1:40:47 Ally: So they were killing and sacrificing the believers that had the old vision of her, and therefore way outnumbering them? Brennan nods.

1:40:54 Siobhan: And they were doing it because they were getting invaded, and they needed—

1:40:57 Zac: They were doing it to change the interpretation of what the god is.

1:41:00 Emily: It seems like if this House of Sunstone was basically like, we wanna overpower the other houses, let's try and corrupt this good power into evil, so that... And if we do all this stuff, then we'll make her more and more evil and infernal.

1:41:16 Siobhan: And everything here is giant.

1:41:18 Brennan: Everything here is giant, except... That's a good question. There's lots of things that aren't. Like, the brazier couldn't fit a giant's head. You think that's more humanoid-sized. Riz, you have stuff you wanna go over from your thing. This wall is fucking enormous. There's a ton here to just study regularly, but I also know that people have a lot of magical shit they can do as well, so whatever you wanna do here, go for it.

1:41:47 Ally: I'll give you the Help action if you need it to investigate Ragh.

1:41:51 Emily: Does the name in Giant, the old name, the symbol of Ankarna in Giant that I wrote out from her previous self, is it pronounced differently or is it the same?

1:42:05 Brennan: It's the same pronunciation, same name. That's sort of the sacrilege of what happened here, is they really changed this thing, but it was the same name. It's like, we're going to make you be different.

1:42:15 Siobhan: Uh-huh. So with True Seeing, we can see into the Ethereal Plane. Are there ghosts here? I mean, I know that Fig has been seeing visions, but—

1:42:23 Brennan: You look in the Ethereal Plane, Adaine, and have a start, as this place is swarming with spirits. They are not ghosts. In other words, they are ghosts, but they're not the ghost monster stat block. They have no desire in crossing over to the material world and killing people.

1:42:38 Siobhan: They're more like Edgar.

1:42:39 Brennan: Yes, they're more like Edgar. They are echoes of the people that died here, and Fig's nat 20 and her connection to the divinity in this place is making her be able to literally see back through time to what was happening here.

1:42:52 Siobhan: Can I cast Legend Lore?

1:42:56 Brennan: Oh baby, can you cast Legend Lore. Siobhan mimes busting this thing open.

1:43:01 Brennan: For everyone watching at home who DMs, if a wizard has Legend Lore, assume they're gonna use it and plan effectively.

1:43:11 Siobhan: Yeah, when I was gonna take it, I texted Brennan, is it okay if I take Legend Lore?

1:43:15 Brennan: That's the responsible thing to do, because a campaign pre-Legend Lore and post-Legend Lore cannot be the same campaign.

1:43:20 Siobhan: Yes.

1:43:23 Brennan: Riz, let me know what you get on your Investigation as you're looking at the Ragh stuff.

1:43:29 Murph: Okay. [dice rolling] Nat 20.

1:43:34 Siobhan: Fuck yes.

1:43:34 Emily: Yes!

1:43:36 Lou: Can't be stopped.

1:43:37 A: [breathy cheer]

1:43:38 Emily: Honor the cock! [players laugh]

1:43:41 Lou: Never forget.

1:43:41 Brennan: Today—

1:43:43 Murph: There's no cock on this one! We don't have to honor the cock. There was no cock on it.

1:43:48 Brennan: Today and every day, we honor the cock, and in no moment more—

1:43:51 Murph: No reason to honor the cock. We're missing the meaning of it. It's if it's cocked, you have to reroll it. This is not one of those situations. It's a natural 20. It was regular.

1:44:02 Brennan: So, how long does it take to cast Legend Lore?

1:44:04 Siobhan: 10 minutes.

1:44:05 Brennan: Fig, you are way deep in the mountainside. Your steps were unerring. You have walked these halls before. You arrive in this giant chamber. Kristen, the twilight shards are so bright that you have to put extra fabric around them 'cause it's hurting people's vision, they're so bright. And you realize, Fig and Kristen, your deities have been in this room before.

1:44:28 Ally: This is where they got married?

1:44:30 Brennan: No, they got married in Fallinel. But you don't think they got married here.

1:44:33 Emily: They got divorced here. [Brennan snaps fingers]

1:44:35 Siobhan: Oh no!

1:44:37 Ally: Because she changed so much.

1:44:37 Emily: Yeah.

1:44:39 Brennan: As you say that, you see a vision, Fig, of a group of Sylvan elves with symbols of Cassandra on backing slowly away, placing their weapons on the floor, and you see javelins and spears riddle their bodies as they fall to the ground, dead. You see a breaking between followers of gods that had been, at one point, associated or seen as part of a shared pantheon.

1:45:03 Fig: But Cassandra wants her back, though, right?

1:45:05 Kristen: Yes.

1:45:05 Fig: Or wants her un-corrupted.

1:45:07 Kristen: Yes, and she's trying to protect her. They're holding hands in space right now, she said.

1:45:12 Adaine: That's cute.

1:45:12 Fig: That's so romantic.

1:45:13 Ally: In outer space.

1:45:14 Siobhan: It's like otters floating in the water, and they're holding hands.

1:45:17 Brennan: As you two feel the presence of these divinities here, Sandra Lynn looks over and is like, Sandra Lynn I'm gonna go keep an eye on the exit.

1:45:25 Brennan: And has an arrow knocked to her bow.

1:45:28 Siobhan: I'm just on the ground, drawing chalk sigils.

1:45:32 Emily: Can I prepare myself to basically make my weapon sacred? I'm kind of tracing this little symbol I've found on my bass guitar. I just wanna prepare an action to, the second things get bad, channel who she was into my weapon.

1:45:51 Brennan: You begin to cast that. On a nat 20 Investigation, on a nat fucking 20, not only is this the exact moment you needed it, I also have never been more ready to honor a nat 20 Investigation.

1:46:05 Ally: Okay, okay, okay!

1:46:08 Brennan: Adaine, your Legend Lore begins.

1:46:11 Legend Lore Spell: This is another casting of the Legend Lore spell.

1:46:15 Brennan: And this time, I'm gonna say all of you guys can see the spell around Adaine as it begins.

1:46:20 Legend Lore Spell: This Temple of the Fallen Sun holds within it the record of the Royal House of Sunstone, high clan of the giantkin, whose wars in antiquity conquered all the clans of giantkin within the Mountains of Chaos. The clans of Thunderfist, of Hornspear, of Moonpeak and Frostblade, all fell to the wrath of the imperial clan of Sunstone.

1:46:55 Brennan: And all of you are seeing this play out, visions, and see people...

1:46:58 Legend Lore Spell: A time came in antiquity when magical craft and ships of sailing came to a point of refinement, where peoples that had previously been separated by wide tracts of land came together in harmony, and none were so beautiful of a moment as that of the wedding of Cassandra, goddess of twilight and mystery, to the goddess Ankarna of the dawn, of justice. Zac cracks up silently. Emily looks at him questioningly.

1:47:33 Legend Lore Spell: Their matrimony was shepherded by the followers—

1:47:37 Zac: [whispered][to Emily] Dawn of Justice.

1:47:37 Brennan: Dawn of Justice! [Emily laughs]

1:47:41 Legend Lore Spell: Their matrimony was shepherded by their honor attendants. Ankarna by her attendant sister, Ruvina, and Cassandra by her sister, Galicaea. But another god was present. The god Sol of the sun. Sharing of a divine domain with Ankarna, goddess of the dawn, Sol's desire to officiate and sanction this wedding was born of his desire to see the gods' pantheon made whole. But in the coming together of these great beings, after centuries of happiness and peace, the leaders of the Church of Sol became aware that their domain was split, and thus an idea was born.

1:48:32 Brennan: You see it shows human clerics of Sol speaking to these giant, mountainous warriors, who begin to speak back and forth, armored up, and you see they are going back and forth. It says,

1:48:44 Legend Lore Spell: Ambitious always, and wishing for power above all things, the warriors of Clan Sunstone rose, claiming Ankarna not as belonging to all of the peoples of Spyre, but belonging to none so much as them, interpreting her as not a goddess, but their goddess. Theirs alone to bring an empire upon the Mountains of Chaos.

1:49:15 Kristen: What happened to Sol?

1:49:17 Legend Lore Spell: The damage was done, the idea seeded. The clerics of Sol did not need to shepherd this idea past its inception. They needed only to convince those leaders of the clan of Sunstone of what would come, and what would come was an age of war and wrath.

1:49:33 Brennan: You see Clan Sunstone warriors murdering other clans, taking over the lands of the Hornspear, the Frostblade, all this other stuff.

1:49:41 Legend Lore Spell: Not until Clan Frostblade rose anew with the power of Ruvina, who had spoken to her clerics of a need to stop her sister, though she loved her still. The War of Shattered Stone saw revolution and rebellion as the peoples of the Mountains of Chaos rose up against the Imperial House of Sunstone to throw them to the ground. And it was at the sundering of the Cliffs of Colcath where House Sunstone was destroyed forevermore, fleeing into obscurity and secrecy forever.

1:50:18 Brennan: [snaps his fingers] Riz, on a nat 20 Investigation, you're in the corner going over this stuff about Ragh Barkrock. You get to it. The connection. Ragh and Kalina. Ragh and Kalina. Kalina said Ragh. What was their relationship? What did Kalina know about Ragh? Why would she say Ragh Barkrock? It clearly wasn't the point. It was at the edge. It was past the edge of her Spy's Tongue Curse. She had to say it because it was the closest thing to all of the real things that she couldn't say. And you look at your notes from your caper in sophomore year with the Nightmare King. Kalina spread like a disease. You look back at your notes. How did Ragh get that curse? How did Ragh actually become able to see Kalina? The dome projects a video clip from Fantasy High: Sophomore Year Episode 4. It has been edited to look like a VHS tape with occasional static.

1:51:15 Brennan: Ragh imparts to you—

1:51:15 Siobhan: [eyes wide][startled] Fuck.

1:51:17 Brennan: ...that on the night of the Prompocalypse, he saw this person.

1:51:25 Ragh: So, after the fight, I was pretty amped, and afterwards, I was just kinda pumped, and I was running around the school, and, like, Jace and Porter came and talked to me. I was, like, still somewhat injured after the fight with Kalvaxus, and Porter did some, like, barbarian healing stuff with me. [tape rewinding] Porter did some, like, barbarian healing stuff with me. Emily grins.

1:51:49 Siobhan: That bitch!

1:51:49 Ragh: And after that, I was, like, walking home, and I saw this, like, cat woman, this tabaxi. The clip ends as if an older TV was turned off and the dome goes dark.

1:52:06 Zac: Fucking Porter.

1:52:10 Brennan: [to Emily] Ankarna's words to Fig. You've known all along.

1:52:15 Emily: I fucking knew it.

1:52:15 Murph: Porter's the champion?

1:52:19 Emily: I even wrote on my fucking thing, 'cause he said, "I have an old ancestor." I wrote on my fucking thing, I still don't know if he's evil or not.

1:52:29 Brennan: The House of Sunstone had to flee into obscurity after they were overthrown, after the breaking of the Cliffs of Colcath.

1:52:40 Murph: Cliffbreaker.

1:52:40 Emily: Yeah.

1:52:43 Siobhan: Son of a bitch.

1:52:44 Brennan: You, Gorgug, flash back to earlier this year. When first learning to Divine Smite, isn't it interesting that Porter's a paladin? You remember a giant stone in the room, and he took a sword and, whoosh, cut an obelisk in half. Pretty strong. Pretty strong. And you remember all of those fallen trees in the woods. You remember the shattered remnants of Lydia Barkrock's home.

1:53:14 Siobhan: So he can get big? That's why I asked how tall he was! [growls][throws her pen on the table]

1:53:19 Murph: He was also really pumped about you becoming a paladin, and also dissuaded you with Cassandra. Motherfucker.

1:53:28 Gorgug: I knew he was a bad teacher! I convinced myself—

1:53:32 Adaine: He was such a dick to you!

1:53:34 Riz: What did you rate him, out of curiosity?

1:53:35 Fabian: Yeah, exactly?

1:53:35 Kristen: What'd you give him?

1:53:37 Gorgug: It doesn't matter what I rated him!

1:53:39 Emily: I gave him all fives, but I wrote in the comments, I still don't know if he's evil or not.

1:53:44 Gorgug: What was his relationship to the warlock teacher?

1:53:48 Kristen: [gasps] Is she okay?

1:53:50 Brennan: Give me an Insight check.

1:53:54 Emily: Dirty 20.

1:53:55 Brennan: Hey, you were charmed by him. Was Zara? Who knows. It's not immediately—

1:54:00 Murph: Yeah, she's not necessarily—

1:54:02 Brennan: But you go back through years of this. You go back through the fact that in freshman year, the two teachers who came into the cafeteria, very first time, were Porter and Jace, side by side, checking out the crime scene, standing there while Riz hid in the corner waving at his mom.

1:54:21 Fig: I always knew that was weird. That was so weird. That was so weird of them.

1:54:27 Brennan: And you remember in sophomore year, Riz, what the fuck is barbarian healing? What the fuck is barbarian healing? You've never heard of a barbarian having a feature that let them heal. But I'll tell you what might seem like barbarian healing.

1:54:41 Emily: Lay on Hands.

1:54:41 Zac: Multiclass barbarian.

1:54:45 Ally: Oh, and he was so mad at you multiclass barbarian.

1:54:49 Emily: Him saying that he's a paladin of his ancestry is kind of sketchy.

1:54:53 Brennan: And what would Lay on Hands allow you to do if you were touching an injured person? Pass Kalina on to them.

1:55:01 Emily: Okay, so Porter's the champion, and I guess… What does that mean?

1:55:11 Ally: Porter is the champion of Ankarna?

1:55:14 Emily: Of the bad Ankarna.

1:55:14 Murph: Yeah.

1:55:15 Emily: So I think we've gotta go fucking kill him.

1:55:17 Ally: He was the tall person in the video!

1:55:19 Brennan: The tall person in the video.

1:55:20 Murph: Paladins can Revivify.

1:55:20 Brennan: Paladins can Revivify.

1:55:23 Ally: Was he at school when we were there these last few weeks?

1:55:26 Brennan: Yeah.

1:55:26 Siobhan: Is he a full paladin? 'Cause he's a paladin of rage. Is he not a barbarian at all?

1:55:32 Brennan: You think he might genuinely be multiclass. Barbarian/paladin's not a bad multiclass.

1:55:37 Zac: He can get bigger. He can go to 14 feet tall, is what it seems like.

1:55:40 Ally: Yeah.

1:55:43 Brennan: You also realize, by the way, as you look through it, Lucy Frostblade was a frost genasi, but frost genasi are like tieflings. They crop up magically, right? Genasi almost happen magically.

1:55:57 Emily: He did act way too… 'Cause I was trying to probe him. I asked him—

1:56:00 Brennan: Goliath are a type of giantkin. Goliath speak Giant. So you realize that all these Sunstone people, all the people you see on the wall, this was a goliath empire. This was an imperial house of goliath, and you see all the other giantkin that they were conquering and other things like that. But Lucy Frostblade, you go look back at a picture of her. Obviously she has the frost genasi stuff, but if you go to her old social media or whatever, you see a baby picture of her with two goliath parents holding her in a house, happy and smiling.

1:56:34 Emily: Okay, so he's definitely working with Jace and what's-her-face, Kipperlilly. When's the last time they were here?

1:56:48 Brennan: The Legend Lore concludes,

1:56:50 Legend Lore Spell: After the sundering of the Cliffs of Colcath, the Sunstone clan went into hiding, dropping behind their old name and assuming one anew. The rebellion was fruitful. The Frostblades, leading the charge, destroyed the name Ankarna in order to free the corruption of her sister from its current state. Over the centuries, the name, even, was lost. Even in the casting of this spell am I only able to say the name because its caster knows it already. Many agents of the fallen goddess stayed, working for her return. The pit fiend Bakur, corruption of Athenriel, who was punished for his pride, that the gods could live in peace together when Ankarna's marriage failed, the armor she made for him to burn him forever as a testament to the folly for having introduced the gods and allowed them to walk in the mortal land of Fallinel. Bakur was working until very recently with the descendants of the mortal followers of Ankarna, but Bakur was betrayed by them for a difference in their plans. Bakur wished for the goddess to return in her form as he remembered, and the mortal followers of Ankarna did not wish for this. But their wishes, as the wishes of mortals, do not yet constitute a legend.

1:58:34 Brennan: And the Legend Lore ends.

1:58:37 Ally: Lydia's adventuring team got sent to stop that, because they run Aguefort, and they could send them on a bad—

1:58:47 Emily: So they basically stopped the summoning of her previous self.

1:58:49 Ally: Let's let Bakur out!

1:58:52 Brennan: You remember there was something in the Bakur stuff where Bakur actually mentioned, I think back in Fallinel, something about, I was left hanging by my mortal allies in my quest. And you remember Lydia talking and being like, Yeah, Bakur's ritual kind of didn't go off for a couple reasons. It wasn't in the right place, and we were expecting mortal followers to be there, but we found none.

1:59:15 Ally: Oh yeah, right.

1:59:15 Brennan: So it seems like there was a difference, literally, in what they were trying to do.

1:59:21 Adaine: You know what I'm worried about right now? We just played that spell that everybody could hear that said the name, and I'm worried about Kipperlilly Copperkettle having heard it.

1:59:32 Siobhan: And when I say her name, I would like to cast Raulothim's Psychic Lance.

1:59:36 Brennan: Okay.

1:59:38 Siobhan: And if she's within 120 feet, she has to make an Intelligence saving throw.

1:59:45 Brennan: She is not within 120 feet.

1:59:45 Emily: Okay.

1:59:48 Brennan: But you fire it off. It resounds around this place. I will take a moment now just to say that I've been sitting on this secret for five years of my real life, and I told Emily at the beginning of this season, I said, "There's something I think Fig will really, really like about this season!"

2:00:07 Emily: [laughs] So that's why!

2:00:08 Brennan: The whole season is proving Fig right!

2:00:12 Ally: Wow.

2:00:12 Emily: I knew it! It was weird he was there to begin with!

2:00:16 Brennan: Porter's been bad the whole time!

2:00:19 Siobhan: Jace being bad the whole time.

2:00:22 Brennan: There you go. Jace having the scar.

2:00:25 Ally: Yeah.

2:00:26 Brennan: Does that make you conclude that Jace is in charge?

2:00:29 Siobhan: No, not at all.

2:00:30 Zac: I think he’s being like, coerced?

2:00:31 Siobhan: But Jace was with Porter—

2:00:31 Murph: Yeah, I'm sure he'd rather just be alive than be dead.

2:00:34 Zac: He's not a good guy.

2:00:34 Siobhan: No.

2:00:35 Zac: But he's coerced.

2:00:36 Murph: It takes pretty incredible courage to just cease to exist instead of coming back, and maybe he stopped short of that.

2:00:46 Brennan: So, you guys have cracked this all the way open. You realize the reason Kalina kept saying Ragh Barkrock is it was the only way she could point you at Porter.

2:00:58 Ally: Yeah.

2:00:58 Murph: Right.

2:00:58 Brennan: She couldn't say Porter's name. That's clearly who her Spy's Tongue Curse was with, was with Porter and Jace, who she never mentioned.

2:01:05 Murph: We have Bakur here, don't we?

2:01:07 Ally: Yes, we should let him go.

2:01:08 Siobhan: You think we should let him go?

2:01:08 Zac: You wanna let him go?

2:01:10 Ally: Let him out, to work with us.

2:01:12 Murph: Wasn't he kinda messing with us?

2:01:14 Lou: He did, toward the end. I mean, he's still corrupted.

2:01:17 Murph: I think Riz, you would assume that he's working on the same rules as Kalina, which is, while his boss is bad, he's bad.

2:01:22 Ally: Okay.

2:01:22 Emily: Yeah, yeah.

2:01:23 Siobhan: So maybe let's keep him in for now.

2:01:24 Ally: You’re right, you’re right.

2:01:25 Murph: Okay, we'll try to get him out later.

2:01:26 Siobhan: Having said that, he is bad right now, but is he necessarily allies with the other people that are bad?

2:01:35 Zac: That's good to keep in mind.

2:01:36 Murph: Why don't we bust him out in a bad situation during the fight, if we need to?

2:01:40 Siobhan: Yeah.

2:01:40 Ally: Hell, yeah.

2:01:41 Lou: Great, I'll spike it like a grenade or something.

2:01:43 Ally: Yeah, you pull a pin.

2:01:46 Brennan: Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah.

2:01:46 Ally: Twisted Pokemon. Go! It might attack me!

2:01:52 Lou: Go, Bakur!

2:01:52 Siobhan: Hail Mary.

2:01:55 Emily: Go, wild animal!

2:01:55 Ally: And it's like… [punches]

2:01:59 Brennan: I'm so glad I got to let go of that after all these years.

2:02:04 Ally: And you knew it when he told you not to follow Cassandra.

2:02:06 Emily: I thought it was so weird he didn't. I thought his, "I'm devoted my ancestry," was weird. I specifically asked him about the chaos thing, and he kind of deflected and was like, "Oh, no no no, that's not a plane," and tried to change the subject.

2:02:21 Emily: And he really wanted you to have rage.

2:02:23 Siobhan: Yeah.

2:02:24 Brennan: He really wanted you to have rage.

2:02:26 Zac: Yeah, 'cause he wants everyone to have rage.

2:02:28 Brennan: Yeah.

2:02:28 Emily: Yeah.

2:02:29 Brennan: So, where you guys are at right now, you see Sandra Lynn, seeing all of this, looks and says, Sandra Lynn Holy shit, okay. Normally I let you kids run around kinda doing stuff, you know? It's okay for adults to help. This is sort of an 'adults are gonna help now' situation. So you know it's Porter. So you know that it's him. You know the who. Do you know the what? Do you know what they're going to try to do?

2:02:54 Fig: We think that they've been corrupting areas in Aguefort. We think that they're trying to set up Kipperlilly to basically be the principal of Aguefort. We think that they're basically putting these rage crystals in the soil.

2:03:07 Kristen: And that she will become principal just in time for graduation, that we all have to attend.

2:03:13 Brennan: She goes, Sandra Lynn So there's something they still need, right? Anytime the world's not already blown up, it means they can't blow up the world yet, right? So is there anything that you think is critical that they are waiting for or need in order to be able to pull this off?

2:03:26 Gorgug: The election.

2:03:26 Fig: The election?

2:03:27 Adaine: And the name, the name.

2:03:27 Kristen: Maybe the name. Sandra Lynn If it's the election, then you have, I think, four days. So I think it's time to get to stepping. Let's get back to Elmville.

2:03:38 Fig: Okay.

2:03:38 Adaine: Let's go kiss some babies.

2:03:40 Emily: Before we go, are there any images of Ankarna in this place?

2:03:44 Brennan: Yes, there are many. You see one. You see there's one that's beautiful of her surrounded by stars that don't look misshapen and angry. There's a beautiful one, surrounded by these shapes there. Even in this imperial place, there's one vision of her here.

2:04:01 Ally: Still 24-point?

2:04:03 Brennan: Still 24-point.

2:04:03 Ally: Cool.

2:04:04 Brennan: It's imperial art, right? So it's beautiful, but she's armored. She looks ferocious. Unlike some places you've been in Spyre that have skulls and evil torture shit, this is very much like, look at how strong we are. Look at what we do to our enemies.

2:04:23 Siobhan: There's a stylization to it.

2:04:23 Brennan: There's a stylization. It's romanticized warfare, right?

2:04:27 Siobhan: It's like Alphonse Mucha meets Russian propaganda posters.

2:04:30 Brennan: Yeah. A goddess of conquest as you would actually pitch her if you wanted people to come and follow.

2:04:36 Emily: I know that it doesn't actually mean anything, but I am gonna try to actually cast Atonement on her image.

2:04:42 Brennan: I fucking love it. Go ahead and roll Performance.

2:04:45 Emily: I think I'll do it by... Technically it has rules here, which is, DC Wisdom Insight check, DC 20 Wisdom [Insight] check, but I also know it's just her effigy. I wanna play the song that I wrote her about the avenging angel.

2:05:03 Brennan: [rolls in front of the board] One.

2:05:05 Emily: And then should I roll Performance?

2:05:07 Brennan: Yeah, roll Performance.

2:05:10 Emily: I will take that. 33.

2:05:19 Brennan: You hit a chord on your bass. A metallic sound reverberates through this place, and your bass is accompanied in its lowest note by the sounding of horns. The masonry crumbles, and 40-foot-tall walls—you all have to leap back as massive stones fall and shatter before you and you see a final profanity, which is that behind this place is an even more ancient picture of the goddess as she once was. This temple was built on the bones of a more ancient holy place to her, and Kristen, you see a beautiful dawn goddess with points of light around her in 24-pointed stars that, rather than thin, isosceles razor lines, are softened and beautiful motes of light. You see that she carries no weapon, but in her hand, a set of scales, and her other hand is not armed, but is holding another hand.

2:06:26 Kristen: Keep breaking the wall! Keep breaking the wall! [Emily mimics a sick bass riff]

2:06:30 Brennan: It comes down. You see ancient Giant writing on it, and you see an image of your goddess, and you see the stars of Cassandra intermingling with the stars of Ankarna here in this place, covered up for many long centuries.

2:06:47 Kristen: Cool.

2:06:49 Brennan: Sandra Lynn says, Sandra Lynn Kiddos, let's get on those griffins.

2:06:51 Riz: Right.

2:06:53 Fig: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:06:53 Adaine: Let’s go.

2:06:53 Brennan: You head out. So to answer your question about, why would Porter and Kalina work together—

2:07:00 Emily: Yeah.

2:07:00 Brennan: Think about it as, Cassandra also has a corrupted version, right? Cassandra, as the Nightmare King, maybe has a relationship to Ankarna in her infernal form. But the history that Adaine can carbon date, almost, for you guys, is just that Cassandra's fall into the Nightmare King is many centuries after Ankarna's infernal fall and eventual death. So the War of Shattered Stones happened way longer ago than the appearance of the Nightmare King. So if you think about Cassandra's situation, Cassandra was happily married. Her partner's followers... Not just her partner's followers. A fraction of her partner's followers killed all the other followers to change the god to something that would help them conquer and pursue a material political agenda, and then that caused the marriage to dissolve. Cassandra lost her partner, and then when the War of Shattered Stones happens, and Ankarna went from being infernal to being fucking dead, Cassandra was bound by Obliviati Mori to never—

2:08:07 Ally: Couldn't even talk about her ex.

2:08:09 Brennan: Couldn't even talk about her ex.

2:08:10 Ally: Like an NDA.

2:08:10 Emily: Wow.

2:08:13 Siobhan: Okay, I'm sorry to hark on about this, but obviously Kipperlilly is not within 120 feet, or she passed her test. Are there signs that other people have been here recently?

2:08:27 Brennan: Yeah. On a nat 20 Investigation, you see Porter's boot prints, all of the boot prints. There's very recent ones. Buddy Dawn's shoe prints are here.

2:08:37 Emily: Buddy Dawn's in on it.

2:08:37 Brennan: You see a 12 year long… Those are very recent. Like, last couple days.

2:08:42 Emily: So Porter has just been wanting to know the name Ankarna.

2:08:47 Brennan: Looks like it.

2:08:47 Siobhan: Fuck.

2:08:49 Ally: Do we see their boot prints coming up from the stairs, entering like we did, or do they have a way of teleporting in here, some sort of—

2:08:56 Brennan: You find evidence. You can see it forensically, Riz. It's like a dust blast of how the air displaces when people teleport.

2:09:05 Riz: Jace.

2:09:06 Brennan: You see Jace's footprints as well.

2:09:08 Gorgug: I'm gonna fucking—

2:09:10 Fig: And Porter's been fucking leveling up, and all of fucking Kipperlilly's bullshit about, "Oh, they're being favored!" No, Porter's been taking them out. He's the one who's been taking them out—

2:09:20 Kristen: But she started out being like, “this school clearly has favorites,” so I'm sure the second someone was showing her a little bit of favoritism, she was so primed for it.

2:09:28 Adaine: She was like, I deserve this.

2:09:31 Fabian: Now, can a paladin cast Polymorph? Or does that mean Jace was Polymorphing for them?

2:09:37 Brennan: The rats were talking about these big monsters coming out to the Far Haven Woods, but it's possible that if Jace could teleport, they could just go, knock a big monster unconscious, bring it to the woods, and they might not have even been Polymorphed. They might have just been bringing real monsters from—

2:09:51 Ally: Do we think the giant was Porter, in the woods?

2:09:55 Brennan: I think Adaine, looking at an Enlarge/Reduce—I think a lot of questions get answered when you realize that Porter and Jace have always been kind of a duo at the school.

2:10:04 Siobhan: Yeah.

2:10:06 Brennan: So Porter getting Enlarge cast on him would be about 14 or 15 feet tall. But you also remember, who did Yolanda say she was gonna go talk to? Jace.

2:10:15 Siobhan: Yes.

2:10:16 Brennan: And then Jace sent her out to Shimmerstone, where Lucy was buried, and the trees were all felled, and—

2:10:25 Ally: And Porter killed her.

2:10:25 Brennan: ...Porter killed her.

2:10:27 Fig: I told Zara that I had pledged myself to bringing back a god, an unnamed god.

2:10:33 Kristen: That's good that you didn't say anything.

2:10:34 Gorgug: Wait, are all the teachers bad?

2:10:35 Fig: No, no, no. I don't think Zara is bad.

2:10:37 Ally: Can I Send to Jawbone?

2:10:38 Brennan: Yeah, do a Sending to Jawbone.

2:10:40 Zac: I'm thinking Henry Hopclap, too.

2:10:40 Ally: And I say,

2:10:40 Kristen: Jawbone, Porter is also involved in the corrupted teachers. Please be careful.

2:10:50 Brennan: You get a Sending back from Jawbone saying,

2:10:54 Jawbone: Understood. Be safe getting back here.

2:10:58 Kristen: Okay. Okay.

2:11:01 Fig: Okay, but Porter will know that this is what we're on to, if he presses Zara to be like, “has Fig declared her agreement with herself yet?”

2:11:09 Siobhan: Can we follow the Rat Grinders' tracks to see—

2:11:13 Ally: Yeah, let's see, are they setting anything up? Is there some sort of ceremony?

2:11:16 Brennan: It looks like they've come here to this place to kind of do some ceremonies.

2:11:21 Emily: I wonder if they're gonna try and teleport all of graduation here.

2:11:25 Siobhan: I mean, if you have a teleportation spell and you cast the same spell over and over again, it becomes a permanent teleportation circle.

2:11:33 Brennan: I think something tickles your mind there at teleportation circle, Adaine. In terms of a mystery, it's like the who, what, where. Huge advancement of "here's who we're dealing with." And then the what, as you say teleportation circle, you're like, what was it...? Bakur wanted to bring Ankarna back, and the mortal followers didn't like something about his plan. And you just think about teleportation circles for a second. There's another thread here that leads to one of those other huge questions getting answered.

2:12:12 Siobhan: Is it, if you're raging, you can't cast spells?

2:12:15 Ally: There's something at school that looks like a teleportation circle?

2:12:19 Siobhan: But it's something specifically that Bakur wanted.

2:12:22 Emily: Well, he wanted to do it at the Red Waste.

2:12:24 Brennan: On that Legend Lore, I'll say, too, that the association with the Red Waste is where the last follower of Ankarna who remembered her name was killed. It was a member of House Sunstone, that at that point was the Cliffbreakers, out in hiding that was found and killed by agents of the Frostblade to go and wipe this—

2:12:49 Murph: So then there was the flip side of the ritual, right, was the last follower was killed, or where the god was killed, or where the god was borne, right?

2:12:58 Siobhan: Right.

2:12:59 Ally: But this is where she was borne.

2:13:01 Emily: But they're trying to learn her name, right?

2:13:04 Brennan: Fabian, Bakur's gem glows in your pocket a little bit.

2:13:07 Fabian: Oh, gosh.

2:13:10 Siobhan: Can we talk to him again? I have the spell stocked.

2:13:14 Brennan: Yeah, if you want to.

2:13:14 Lou: We've got questions.

2:13:17 Brennan: Yeah, so Bakur [snarls] appears again.

2:13:20 Siobhan: Do we wanna ask, what was the thing that was different between what you wanted and what the mortals wanted?

2:13:28 Murph: I think we know that. I think we just don't know the specifics of, what kind of ritual did the humans wanna do?

2:13:36 Adaine: What ritual did the humans want to do to bring your goddess back?

2:13:41 Bakur: The mortals? By the time I discovered the mortals' betrayal, it was too late. I wanted to bring Ankarna back in her full glory, let her walk this earth as once she did. In a circle of standing stones... [snorts] No, I wanted her to come back, but—

2:14:04 Emily: Fallinel?

2:14:04 Brennan: You see he goes,

2:14:06 Bakur: But I realized, the mortals had other plans. At any time that the followers of my goddess concocted a plan to slaughter either Cassandra or, more importantly, Ruvina, her sister, whose followers were hunting hers, she would refuse to grant them spells. She wished to conquer and dominate, but there was some part of her, no matter how much they prayed, that would not harm Ruvina or Cassandra. I discovered all too late that those mortals had given up on Ankarna. They want her armor, her weaponry, her domain, but I do not believe they want her. They said something—

2:15:11 Ally: Sol?

2:15:13 Murph: Do they wanna kill, maybe that's why—

2:15:15 Ally: They kill her, and then Sol has sole domain.

2:15:18 Emily: But do they need her name to finally off her?

2:15:21 Brennan: You see Bakur says,

2:15:23 Bakur: I remember, in defeat, the heroes, Lydia Barkrock and her companions that captured me in the gem, they spoke of this after I was captured. I had made the error of placing my ritual in the place of Ankarna's death. But she need only be remade in a place where a god has been borne.

2:15:58 Emily: Where was Helio borne?

2:16:00 Ally: I know this.

2:16:00 Lou: Where was Yes! borne?

2:16:02 Emily: Oh, where was Yes! borne?

2:16:02 Siobhan: In the gym.

2:16:05 Lou: Was it in the gym?

2:16:05 Emily: In the gymnasium, which is where graduation will be.

2:16:11 Brennan: You remember Kipperlilly talking about, at the beginning of the year—

2:16:14 Ally: Was asking Jawbone about—

2:16:16 Brennan: Where Yes! was borne, yeah.

2:16:16 Murph: Kalvaxus.

2:16:19 Fig: Okay, I think that we should send me back to Porter and have me tell him that I know the name, and give him a different name.

2:16:27 Fabian: Do you think he'll believe you?

2:16:30 Adaine: Can we get some devil's honey?

2:16:32 Brennan: Sandra Lynn says, Sandra Lynn All right, gang. You know a lot. You know who your enemies are. You know where they're gonna try to do whatever the fuck it is they're gonna try to do, but time is precious. Let's get on these griffins and get back home.

2:16:47 Brennan: You guys fly to Elmville.

2:16:50 Emily: I'm gonna mock up a fake version of this Giant thing of Ankarna, the thing I copied, her true name. I basically wanna make a copy of it, but fuck it up a bunch.

2:17:06 Siobhan: I'll translate it for you so it looks real and in Giant.

2:17:09 Gorgug: Tell him it's Clobica. Fucker.

2:17:12 Ally: With this, can I do a Religion check—

2:17:13 Siobhan: Clocica.

2:17:14 Ally: ...just to try to get this straight?

2:17:16 Brennan: Yeah.

2:17:17 Ally: I'm trying to get the what they're trying to do.

2:17:18 Brennan: Yeah.

2:17:18 Ally: Does it seem like they are trying to have enough grasp on Ankarna to kill her and have Sol be the only person in this sun domain, because he will grant them—

2:17:32 Brennan: I don't think any of the material you guys have is gonna spell out the nature of what Porter, as this scion of the Cliffbreakers, what he's gonna try to do. But you're back in Elmville, and you have four days.

2:17:47 Siobhan: Great.

2:17:48 Fig: Okay, try and make this say something else in Giant, and then I'll bring it in and be like, you wanted me to choose an oath, and we went to this temple, and I found this.

2:18:01 Adaine: Great. Oh, in which case, I'll cast Nystul's Magic Aura on it, so it looks magically convincing.

2:18:08 Riz: Do you wanna throw a Death Ward or something on Fig?

2:18:10 Kristen: Definitely.

2:18:10 Riz: Because if this goes wrong, this is just probably a murder, 'cause he murders people.

2:18:16 Fabian: And because, I mean, you know, well, do they know who Wanda Childa is? Nobody knows who Wanda Childa is, right?

2:18:24 Fig: Pretty much just Ruben knows who Wanda Childa was.

2:18:27 Riz: Wanda Childa is dead. Yeah, Wanda Childa is dead in Fig's canon.

2:18:31 Adaine: For now!

2:18:31 Fabian: Also, real quick, before you maybe go off and get killed by this man, Mazey was talking about this whole thing where we could have a polling place, at our place, at my birthday party slash election night.

2:18:47 Riz: Is there anything up with Mazey?

2:18:50 Fabian: No! What?

2:18:52 Riz: Is there anything up with Mazey?

2:18:53 Kristen: Yeah.

2:18:53 Fabian: What do you mean?

2:18:54 Kristen: She did change the rule.

2:18:56 Riz: Are we sure that Mazey is just being tricked?

2:19:00 Kristen: Has Mazey ever asked you about the god?

2:19:03 Riz: Mazey wants it at your house.

2:19:05 Fabian: Yes.

2:19:07 Riz: Why, though?

2:19:08 Fabian: She was talking about, for the votes. I mean, she's pro-Kristen.

2:19:11 Gorgug: It feels almost like a scheme, right?

2:19:14 Fabian: All right, everyone needs to relax, okay?

2:19:15 Adaine: Has any other god been borne... Where was the other Yes-Question-Mark borne? I guess in the—

2:19:20 Ally: Can I try to remember where I made all my gods?

2:19:24 Brennan: Cassandra was not borne anywhere by you, 'cause you reconstituted her. And you realize the borne with an E is where it first arrived in mortal-dom.

2:19:33 Emily: 'Cause the second one was a reinterpretation.

2:19:35 Brennan: Reinterpretation. It's the gymnasium.

2:19:37 Ally: And where was Yes-Question-Mark made?

2:19:39 Brennan: Fig is right. That's a reinterpretation, the god changed. That location would be similar to where Ankarna became the goddess of conquest after being goddess of the dawn.

2:19:47 Siobhan: [indistinct] visions of Fabian's birthday. I mean, does it include being reborn? Like being kicked out of the Astral Plane into Fabian's house?

2:19:57 Brennan: I will say, to Fabian's point, if there's some part of this that they need someone to be president, straight-up winning the... Straight-up winning the election does sort of prevent that.

2:20:10 Ally: I put on my Wranglers.

2:20:10 Emily: Mazey could be sincere, but it could just mean that that is gonna be a situation in which they rig the election for themselves.

2:20:19 Ally: I have Zone of Truth.

2:20:19 Riz: I'm thinking... Mazey, I think, can't be secretly bad, because she's already the president. Why wouldn't she just be —

2:20:30 Gorgug: They would've killed her.

2:20:33 Riz: If she was enough, they would've launched it.

2:20:34 Fabian: Who said the thing? The shoe would've already dropped. It all would've already exploded.

2:20:40 Fig: I mean, there are always gonna be people who are just nice and get manipulated for being so.

2:20:48 Brennan: If you think about— you think about what reason Mazey would have for a teacher asking her to do something, to not do it.

2:20:54 Murph: Right.

2:20:54 Siobhan: Right, okay.

2:20:56 Fabian: Cool. So, are we doing it? Election night at my place?

2:20:59 Fig: Yeah, we'll do election night at your place. We're doing tattoos there as well.

2:21:02 Fabian: Yes.

2:21:02 Adaine: Yes.

2:21:04 Fabian: I'm gonna head down to Party Village.

2:21:05 Adaine: Always happy hour with Applebees.

2:21:06 Fabian: Get some cups and stuff.

2:21:08 Fig: We're gonna have to be on high alert for that party, because I think they're gonna try and rig the election.

2:21:13 Adaine: Fabian, I think you need new fried rice.

2:21:15 Kristen: You guys, we have to stop the steal. [brief silence] [players laugh despite themselves] Siobhan throws something at Ally.

2:21:21 Fabian: We have to stop the steal, all right?

2:21:25 Brennan: This is gonna be coming out in, like, three months ahead of the election.

2:21:31 Lou: We have to stop the steal.

2:21:31 Ally: This is gonna hurt to watch.

2:21:33 Brennan: This is gonna hurt to watch.

2:21:33 Zac: We're patriots.

2:21:34 Lou: Exactly.

2:21:34 Ally: We're simple patriots. I zip-tie Mazey's hands.

2:21:43 Lou: I'm gonna give you a Bardic.

2:21:45 Murph: Thank god that this is not relevant. All this happened years ago. There's no new stuff.

2:21:54 Brennan: Okay.

2:21:54 Emily: Okay, so yeah. Basically, I think I've not really used too much of the actual one, I'm just doing... I wanna have Adaine help me spell something else in Giant, but make it look like I put it up against the wall and copied it.

2:22:12 Brennan: Okay, go ahead and make a forgery check for me. Or it's magic, right?

2:22:16 Ally: What's the name that we're picking?

2:22:17 Emily: I think I'm just doing a Deception, basically. Yeah, what is the name we're picking? What do we think—

2:22:22 Siobhan: Long Tall Sally.

2:22:22 Murph: Nope.

2:22:28 Ally: Nope. Just so quick. [snaps]

2:22:30 Emily: Hilda.

2:22:30 Lou: What about Bacharat?

2:22:33 Emily: Bacharat. Okay, Bacharat.

2:22:33 Ally: Bacharat!

2:22:37 Brennan: Badidas.

2:22:40 Siobhan: No.

2:22:40 Emily: Bacharath!

2:22:42 Siobhan: Bacharath, great. I love that.

2:22:44 Murph: Can I, just in case he attacks you or something, first off, can we get a Death Ward or something on Fig?

2:22:49 Ally: We have a Death Ward on you. I cast Death Ward on Fig.

2:22:51 Murph: Can I go invisible? Can I go invisible and stealth and follow you? And I'll also record this interaction—

2:22:58 Ally: Nice.

2:22:58 Siobhan: Great.

2:22:59 Murph: ...in case anything crazy happens.

2:23:00 Siobhan: And I would love to hide outside the window and as this interaction is happening, cast Detect Thoughts on Porter.

2:23:07 Lou: And I'm gonna go buy party cups.

2:23:08 Ally: Does he have anything for that? He can Mindless Rage, right?

2:23:12 Emily: Yeah, but if he's talking to Fig, he won't be Mindlessly Raging.

2:23:15 Zac: I will be outside, too.

2:23:17 Murph: Cool, yeah, everybody just nearby.

2:23:19 Emily: I'm gonna play it as casual as possible, just so you guys know.

2:23:22 Brennan: So you have a tracing of this name, and you're walking up to Porter's office at school, basically?

2:23:28 Emily: Yeah, I think I'm just gonna loudly kick a locker outside of his office, like in frustration.

2:23:36 Brennan: You see Porter steps out of his office, walks down the hall and says,

2:23:40 Porter: Hello there, Ms. Faeth. How's it going?

2:23:44 Fig: I'm sure Zara has told you. I gave her a note telling her that I was feeling a lot of… I gave her a very, very deeply tender, insecure note that I wrote at a really dark time in my life.

2:23:59 Porter: All right.

2:24:00 Fig: About how I was trying to resurrect this god, which… Anyways, I feel like I found its name, and I just feel like if I'm gonna get this agreement, I have to know this name. [sighs]

2:24:18 Porter: All right.

2:24:20 Brennan: People that are present here. Riz is invisible.

2:24:23 Siobhan: I'm hiding outside. I'm outside the window.

2:24:26 Brennan: Hiding outside the window. You have Detect Thoughts active.

2:24:29 Siobhan: I'm just listening to surface thoughts. I'm not going any deeper.

2:24:31 Brennan: Cool.

2:24:32 Siobhan: I'm hoping that Fig's—

2:24:33 Zac: I'm outside the window.

2:24:33 Brennan: Gotcha.

2:24:34 Emily: I'm also just gonna quickly change the subject like I normally would and be like,

2:24:38 Fig: What's going on with you and Zara anyways?

2:24:40 Porter: That's not appropriate, Ms. Faeth. That's all right.

2:24:43 Adaine: [covering her eyes] Oh god.

2:24:44 Brennan: You see his surface thoughts are just focusing in on Fig saying something about resurrecting something.

2:24:49 Fig: Well, Zara asked me to make an agreement with myself, and in sent me into an existential spiral. And I think for myself, I really, really wanted to come up with that agreement with myself, so I sent her a note. So I was like, okay, but I actually have an agreement now. I have an agreement, and it's gonna be me bringing back this dead god that I believe in. But I feel like in order for it to work, I have to be able to say the name—

2:25:19 Porter: What is this dead god that you believe in?

2:25:22 Fig: It's just this, like…

2:25:25 Emily: I'm holding this little thing I made, and I'm just waving it around, gesturing.

2:25:31 Brennan: Cool, give me a Deception.

2:25:31 Emily: Okay.

2:25:34 Lou: You have a Bardic.

2:25:34 Brennan: Okay.

2:25:40 Emily: Okay.

2:25:42 Siobhan: Actually, you crit.

2:25:42 Emily: [claps] Yes!

2:25:46 Brennan: Porter's surface thoughts, Adaine.

2:25:48 Porter: I can't believe it. I can't believe it. She's walked into it.

2:25:51 Brennan: He says,

2:25:51 Porter: What's that you've got there in your hand?

2:25:54 Fig: This what I'm trying to fucking... 'Cause I'm supposed to be a warlock, and I'm supposed to make a fucking pact with someone, and I was gonna make it with myself, but if I could just make it with someone else, then that wouldn't put the responsibility on me to do any sort of introspection! So I found this freaking, like, carving, that I was like, okay, this is it, but I don't know how to fucking speak Giant, and it was stupid of me to even think that I could fucking speak Giant. [exaggerated sigh] You wanna practice smiting? Oh my god, you should've seen how mad Gorgug was the other day. [players chuckle]

2:26:29 Ally: Just all the things he likes to talk about.

2:26:32 Brennan: You see he says,

2:26:32 Porter: Ms. Faeth, would you mind if I actually take that and run that down in the library?

2:26:38 Fig: Oh, really? You can read this?

2:26:40 Porter: I speak Giant, as a matter of course.

2:26:43 Fig: Yeah, that would be a huge fucking help for me, because then I can say, my agreement is with… Lucy!

2:26:48 Porter: Hmm. Yeah, understood.

2:26:51 Brennan: He looks so distracted right now. Even for Porter, who's been keeping up a good face. Give me an Insight check. [die rolling]

2:27:00 Emily: 14.

2:27:01 Brennan: You get a vibe from Porter that he's not even keeping up a good face right now, you know what I mean? He's like,

2:27:06 Porter: Yeah, I'll run it down for you. That's all right. Here.

2:27:07 Brennan: Takes it.

2:27:09 Fig: You want it? Come get it!

2:27:09 Porter: Give that to me!

2:27:12 Brennan: And he grabs it out of your hand.

2:27:14 Porter: Thank you, Ms. Faeth.

2:27:14 Emily: I flex at him.

2:27:18 Porter: Nice flex. I'll make sure to get right back to you with this.

2:27:21 Brennan: Where are you in relation to Fig right now?

2:27:24 Murph: They were in the hallway?

2:27:24 Brennan: In the hallway, yes.

2:27:26 Murph: I think I'm maybe in between the lockers and the top of the ceiling.

2:27:30 Brennan: So you're up on the ceiling.

2:27:34 Murph: Yeah.

2:27:34 Brennan: Okay. Porter suddenly stops for a second, and Adaine, you hear him say in his head,

2:27:38 Porter: Got it.

2:27:41 Brennan: And he turns and says,

2:27:41 Porter: Ms. Faeth, one last thing.

2:27:44 Fig: You wanna fight? Spar a little?

2:27:45 Porter: I kinda do wanna fight a little bit.

2:27:47 Fig: Do you know that I actually finally fucking smited?

2:27:50 Porter: You smited?

2:27:50 Fig: I did smite, yeah.

2:27:52 Porter: Oh, way to go. How did it feel?

2:27:56 Fig: It felt like a mean orgasm.

2:27:58 Porter: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And if it is partially a regular one, that's okay, don't judge yourself for that.

2:28:07 Brennan: He says,

2:28:07 Porter: If you wanna spar a little bit, I'll spar a little bit.

2:28:10 Brennan: Give me a Constitution saving throw, and I'm gonna need one from Gorgug, Adaine, and Riz. [die rolling]

2:28:15 Emily: I'm gonna use a Luck point.

2:28:15 Brennan: Okay. [dice rolling]

2:28:21 Lou: Do you still have your Bardic, 'cause you didn't use it on the other roll?

2:28:23 Emily: Yeah, but I got a nat one.

2:28:23 Murph: Nat 20.

2:28:26 Brennan: Un-fucking-believable.

2:28:26 Lou: Oh, it's beautiful.

2:28:30 Murph: I needed it to be really good, 'cause I don't have good Con.

2:28:33 Zac: I'm gonna use my Flash of Genius to make mine an 18.

2:28:36 Brennan: 18, okay.

2:28:37 Siobhan: I got a seven, and I'm assuming his DC is way higher than 15, 'cause he's very strong.

2:28:44 Emily: I got a nat one.

2:28:44 Brennan: Nat one. Gorgug, Adaine, you lose Concentration on Detect Thoughts. He says,

2:28:49 Porter: I'll do a little sparring. [roars]

2:28:53 Brennan: Bam, and steps on the ground. [pointing at Siobhan] Stunned, [pointing at Zac] stunned, [pointing at Emily] stunned, [pointing at Murph] not stunned. 18 doesn’t do it. He has some area of effect. You all go flying and are knocked prone. There is no damage associated, but you remember how many of the people died with no defense wounds. As he does that, Riz, because of where you're hiding, I'm gonna need you to make a Luck check, and you've picked a really good hiding place, but in this moment, that's a disadvantage for reasons I can't explain. So I'm gonna need you to roll a Luck check, and you're gonna wanna hit, let's call it, like before, a 17, 18, 19, or 20.

2:29:32 Siobhan: With disadvantage?

2:29:32 Brennan: No.

2:29:34 Murph: 18.

2:29:34 Brennan: 18! 18! Who is this fucking man?

2:29:37 Lou: A new Murph, baby.

2:29:40 Emily: It's Moon Murph!

2:29:40 Ally: Moon Murph!

2:29:41 Brennan: On that Luck check, Adaine, the last thought you get, someone told him something, and you realize it was telepathic. He goes bam, stuns all three of you. The last thought you get is a thought from Porter of,

2:29:53 Porter: Did I lock the office? That's the last thought you get from him. Riz, you are fine. You would've dropped invisibility, and that would've been a fucking shit-show. That nat 20 followed by an 18, what happens with you is, again, you picked a really good hiding place. You got the luck. What the luck is, is the very edge of your blindsense, everything rattles, because Porter stomps the ground, but something rattles right near you, a locker, and you know for a fact that an invisible creature just moved. It was 15 feet away from you, but it moved like an inch off of the lockers where it was also crouching, an invisible thing, in the direction of Fig and Porter. And Porter goes,

2:30:41 Porter: Now now now, Ms. Faeth. You've got to be better on your feet. Wide stance, wide stance.

2:30:45 Brennan: And goes to lift Fig up. Combat does not ensue, but all of you have watched what you kind of would clock as a legendary action. Porter lifts you up and says,

2:30:56 Porter: Brush it off, brush it off. Come on now.

2:30:58 Emily: Am I not stunned anymore?

2:30:59 Brennan: It takes what, in combat, would be a couple rounds, but you come out of it.

2:31:04 Fig: What the fuck was that?

2:31:04 Zac: A couple of rounds?

2:31:07 Brennan: All of you come out of it, but you come out of it a little bit less fast. I'm gonna say Fig gets brushed off by Porter.

2:31:13 Fig: What the fuck was that, and how do I do that?

2:31:15 Porter: Well, I'll be happy to teach you. Listen, we're getting to... You got senior year. Plenty of time to learn, and believe me, this school's gonna be in great shape for senior year. Good on you, Ms. Faeth.

2:31:29 Murph: Misty Step into his office.

2:31:33 Brennan: [whoops joyfully] ♪ Ooh, child ♪ Let's go, let's go! ♪ Things are gonna get easier ♪ Un-fucking-believable. Riz, you teleport into the office. Porter walks away. Fig, as you're standing there, and you, Gorgug and Adaine, you guys get up outside, Fabian and Kristen, if you guys are on phones or whatever. Riz, you're in Porter's office. Do other people wanna risk going into the office?

2:31:56 Emily: No, I instead want to—'cause I played like I was buying into that, so I instead wanna go to light a cigarette and accidentally trigger the... I basically wanna just be so authentically myself that it's disruptive, right outside of the office.

2:32:15 Brennan: So you're just outside of his office being distracting.

2:32:18 Emily: I'm gonna light a cigarette and then take out some drumsticks and start drumming on the lockers.

2:32:24 Brennan: Incredible. [mimics drumming] Sick as hell. Riz, you're in Porter's office. Go ahead and give me an Investigation check.

2:32:30 Ally: That's right.

2:32:30 Lou: Keep it rolling.

2:32:35 Murph: [unimpressed sound] Going with Reliable Talent for a 23.

2:32:37 Emily: Could I have given him a Bardic, though?

2:32:39 Brennan: Give him a Bardic. If you can get to 25, that would be better.

2:32:42 Zac: You have that Medal of Wit.

2:32:42 Siobhan: Oh, I'll give you a 13.

2:32:43 Murph: Oh, the Wit?

2:32:43 Brennan: The Medal of Wit.

2:32:45 Murph: Good time to use that. I'll roll with advantage.

2:32:47 Brennan: Okay.

2:32:49 Murph: Okay, even worse. So 23, but I have a Bardic.

2:32:51 Siobhan: I gave you a 13.

2:32:52 Brennan: Adaine, through the window, can give you a 13.

2:32:54 Murph: Okay, so that then gets me to 26.

2:32:56 Brennan: 26, hell yeah.

2:32:57 Murph: Should I do a Bardic?

2:32:57 Emily: Yeah.

2:32:58 Murph: See if I get an impossible one?

2:33:00 Brennan: If you roll a four, you will clean this room out.

2:33:02 Emily: And I sound like I'm writing a really bad song that's...

2:33:05 Fig: ♪ Ayda, I'd-a marry you ♪ [Siobhan laughs]

2:33:09 Murph: That's 10.

2:33:09 Brennan: That's a 10! [clapping] Yeah! 36 Investigation! Siobhan and Emily excitedly pump their arms. Zac smiles.

2:33:15 Siobhan: Damn! Rolls!

2:33:15 Murph: What is this?

2:33:19 Brennan: From the fucking briefcase, gloves on. You are a ghost in this room. Everything you find, we need for posterity to understand, Riz is able to deduce, discover, and put back in less than two minutes. There is information in here. There's correspondence between Halo St. Croix and Porter, where Porter is effectively intimidating Halo into letting him, saying,

2:33:46 Porter: As a multiclass paladin, doesn't it make more sense for me to train multiclass paladins? You see that at one point, Lucy and Buddy had MCATs signed by Porter to multiclass paladin. You find a hard drive hidden in a secret compartment under an arcane lock that your Arcadian Watch cuts through. It could not be more sealed. You find correspondence between Bobby Dawn and Porter where Bobby Dawn is communicating to Porter, and you just see the top of a letter that says, My dear Mr. Cliffbreaker, have you ever heard of a thing called devil's honey? I feel like it might be able to help your plan, to some degree. While I don't claim your religion, nor do I care for your divinity, I think you and I share one thing in common. We are happy with the amount of solar deities in the world. I, for one, would welcome a new god of war.

2:34:43 Brennan: You see some medicine in Porter's desk to help with an allergy to feline dandruff, and in parentheses, psychosomatic.

2:34:51 Ally: He was hanging out with Kalina so much.

2:34:53 Emily: Oh!

2:34:54 Brennan: There are some flakes of filo dough on the desk.

2:34:57 Siobhan: Baklava!

2:34:58 Emily: [slams table] Baklava! Lou starts shaking and holds his hands to his head.

2:35:00 Emily: Baklava!

2:35:03 Lou: You know they're eating baklava in church.

2:35:04 Brennan: There is a leather cord that smells kind of rank to you, and you see that it has a grip on it, almost like a hand wrapping, and you see that it's a twisted, figure-eight leather cord, and you're like, oh, this would be worn on two hands shaking.

2:35:20 Emily: Oh.

2:35:20 Siobhan: Hand-fasting.

2:35:22 Brennan: A hand-fasting thing. Spy's Tongue. You also see—now, this is the weird one, and you remember this ties back to something Aelwyn said. You see there are so many fucking NutriBullets in here, just blenders, blenders, blenders, and as you smell them, you smell this nectar-sweet yogurt-y protein shake, and as you look at it and sample it in a little thing in your briefcase that goes [beeping] it comes up containing protein, whey, several vitamin supplements, and a huge amount of ambrosia.

2:35:53 Ally: What did that do again?

2:35:54 Lou: Aelywn was collecting that for—

2:35:56 Siobhan: So, I have a question. So, having used Detect Thoughts, one of the things that you can use Detect Thoughts for is, you can use the spell to detect the presence of thinking creatures you can't see.

2:36:08 Brennan: Before you were stunned, there was a brief moment where you felt the presence of Kipperlilly Copperkettle.

2:36:15 Siobhan: Stunning.

2:36:16 Ally: Who was invisible next to you. You guys are so close. Like good and bad.

2:36:20 Siobhan: I'd like to Misty Step into where Fig is and go,

2:36:23 Adaine: You know what would make this song even sicker?

2:36:26 Fig: What?

2:36:26 Adaine: Fucking Sickening Radiance!

2:36:28 Siobhan: And I would like to cast it on Fig so that it crosses the door of Porter's office.

2:36:35 Brennan: Okay, it crosses the door of Porter's office.

2:36:41 Siobhan: Rocking out.

2:36:41 Brennan: I love it. I will allow you to mold that spell any way you want. It does not hit an invisible figure.

2:36:47 Siobhan: It does stay up for a while.

2:36:47 Brennan: Cool.

2:36:49 Siobhan: It's 10 minutes.

2:36:49 Brennan: Amazing. Riz, the one big part of that that is confusing to you is the ambrosia. You know it as the food of the gods. It's what the gods eat.

2:36:57 Zac: Is it how he got so strong?

2:36:57 Siobhan: Yeah, maybe.

2:36:57 Brennan: Possibly.

2:37:00 Ally: Did you already tell us what ambrosia does? Or did you just tell us what devil's nectar does?

2:37:05 Brennan: Just the devil's nectar. You guys know about— ambrosia's the thing Aelwyn was getting, but you just know that as the food of the gods. It's a food from divine realm.

2:37:14 Ally: Protein. Is he giving it to the team?

2:37:16 Siobhan: Yeah, the Rat Grinders, to make them stronger? Can we, can you do, maybe, a Religion check, to see if you've learned about ambrosia in cleric class?

2:37:25 Emily: Yeah.

2:37:25 Siobhan: Maybe I can do an Arcana.

2:37:28 Emily: You should do Arcana, 'cause if it's a spell component—

2:37:30 Siobhan: Yeah, I can use Arcana, also. 26?

2:37:35 Brennan: On a 26 Arcana?

2:37:35 Siobhan: Yeah.

2:37:38 Brennan: So, Religion would give you different information. On Arcana, you know mortals are not supposed to eat ambrosia.

2:37:47 Siobhan: But it seems like multiple mortals have been eating this ambrosia.

2:37:49 Murph: Or just Porter.

2:37:52 Brennan: Porter's a big boy who works out a lot.

2:37:55 Siobhan: Is this aren't supposed to, or will kill them?

2:37:58 Emily: Yeah.

2:37:59 Siobhan: Is this, hee hee, I stole some ambrosia?

2:38:01 Brennan: Give me a Religion check. You know mortals aren't supposed to do it, and you know that it's from another plane.

2:38:06 Lou: Is there something to eating the ambrosia to sustain the crystal inside of them?

2:38:11 Siobhan: Yeah, I mean, he also is—

2:38:12 Lou: Instead of going crazy, the ambrosia feeds that.

2:38:15 Siobhan: Maybe he's trying to make himself into a god king, 'cause if he's the king of this place—

2:38:19 Emily: Oh, he's trying to be the god of war.

2:38:20 Siobhan: He's trying to be the god of war.

2:38:21 Murph: Yeah.

2:38:21 Zac: So if he kills Ankarna, he becomes the god of war?

2:38:25 Ally: 'Cause he's the right hand person. Does the main follower take the god's place?

2:38:30 Brennan: What you know is, the mortal followers of Ankarna became frustrated over time that she refused to deliver a killing blow to Ruvina and Cassandra.

2:38:42 Emily: And Porter would be willing to deliver.

2:38:44 Siobhan: And he wants to take her armor and weapons and stuff, which is her divine attributes.

2:38:50 Emily: Yeah.

2:38:50 Murph: He's prepping himself.

2:38:53 Ally: Can any mortals—

2:38:53 Emily: And that guy said, “I would welcome a new god of war.” He's basically like, “I'll come, I'll be a god of war. I won't touch the sun.”

2:38:57 Siobhan: He's bulking.

2:39:00 Ally: Does it look like he could ingest that ambrosia?

2:39:05 Brennan: You're not supposed to, but I think you see that he has, right?

2:39:08 Murph: I mean, Lydia Barkrock can use her rage to contain a demon. Who knows what this guy can do with his?

2:39:16 Siobhan: Can you do a Religion check on it? I got a 12.

2:39:18 Ally: Yeah, I failed mine. I got a five and a seven.

2:39:21 Emily: I'll do a Religion check, 'cause I'm religious these days.

2:39:23 Brennan: Go for it.

2:39:25 Emily: Nope. I'm busy drumming.

2:39:28 Siobhan: Can I give Kristen an 11?

2:39:28 Ally: That would get me to a 15. Sorry, that would get me to an 18.

2:39:35 Brennan: 18.

2:39:35 Zac: And I'll Flash of Genius.

2:39:36 Brennan: Okay.

2:39:36 Ally: 21 Religion.

2:39:38 Brennan: 21 Religion. Ambrosia is the food of the gods. A mortal eating it does die, but they die because they actually don't experience their heart stopping, they just bodily ascend to their afterlife.

2:39:53 Emily: So maybe, is he using his rage to contain his body in this life?

2:39:57 Zac: So he's dead?

2:39:57 Brennan: He might not be dead yet. He might not be dead yet. But he's preparing... It's basically like, I'm eating god supplements.

2:40:06 Emily: So that I can ascend.

2:40:06 Siobhan: Damn.

2:40:08 Brennan: So looking at that, you also see that there are a ton of little encryptions and codes with his communications with the Rat Grinders in the office.

2:40:20 Murph: Okay.

2:40:20 Brennan: And what you see is that the Rat Grinders' headquarters is Ruben's house, and there's a lot of communications back and forth, and it's very clear he sees them enough at school that he doesn't have to say anything incriminating over text. He's not stupid. But there's a lot of, like, How are things going? And it's like, We're headed over to Ruben's later to work this problem out. Things that are very vague and cryptic. But you see, there is a kind of understanding that that's where shit is going down. Cool. That day passes. The next day, this is the day before Fabian's party. This is the day before it's all gonna go down. You guys, when do you wanna try to head to Ruben's house?

2:41:01 Emily: Do we wanna head to Ruben's house?

2:41:03 Brennan: You don't all have to go.

2:41:04 Murph: I think we should go to Ruben's house. I think let's prep. I don't know. Maybe we gotta fight the Rat Grinders and we gotta fight Porter another time, but let's deal with the Rat Grinders, right?

2:41:14 Lou: Right, and we're going like—

2:41:14 Siobhan: Wait, this is a new day?

2:41:18 Brennan: A new day, yeah.

2:41:19 Murph: I think we're going in hot. They're trying to summon… We've seen Kipperlilly kill people.

2:41:24 Lou: Okay.

2:41:24 Fig: Oh, Kipperlilly wanted to kill you because that would probably help kill Cassandra.

2:41:28 Gorgug: No, 'cause she's gonna be elected.

2:41:30 Kristen: Yeah, 'cause I'm the runner up president. You guys, can I be honest? I'm getting kind of annoyed with Kristen Two. Does she have to come?

2:41:41 Adaine: It's a lot, and I'm so sorry.

2:41:44 Fig: I love her.

2:41:44 Adaine: But here's the thing.

2:41:46 Fig: She rounds out—

2:41:47 Gorgug: Wait, are you Kristen Two doing— [all laughing]

2:41:51 Kristen Two: [accented] You got me! You fucking scoundrel!

2:41:55 Ally: And I jump and I shove your head into my chest. I show you all my ass and I run.

2:42:02 Kristen Two: What are you waiting for?

2:42:02 Fabian: All right, all right.

2:42:04 Zac: Kristen would've done that.

2:42:07 Emily: There is some overlap.

2:42:10 Ally: Kristen comes down from upstairs.

2:42:11 Kristen: Are we going somewhere? You guys don't tell me anything!

2:42:15 Brennan: When do you wanna head to Ruben's house?

2:42:17 Murph: Okay, first things first, I think just in case this is all part of their... Just in case we get there and Kipperlilly's masterminded it and we get trapped and can't go to the ceremony or something like that, or if we're gonna miss the party at Fabian's, I wanna essentially maybe get some of the evidence of like the video that I have or something and hmm... I'm trying to think of who I could give it to.

2:42:45 Ally: You could maybe set up something that releases the video unless we stop it, so it's already set up and it's going to be released.

2:42:51 Murph: You can send it with your stuff.

2:42:54 Zac: I will just put it in my crystal in that way.

2:42:57 Brennan: You set up a video time bomb, just a mass email.

2:43:00 Murph: Send it to my mom and stuff.

2:43:02 Adaine: Fabian, can you check your nemesis list?

2:43:04 Fabian: Yeah, sure.

2:43:04 Lou: I text, is it Josh?

2:43:08 Brennan: Alston.

2:43:08 Lou: Alston!

2:43:08 Fabian: Hey, Josh… Yeah, can I check my nemesis list?

2:43:14 Ally: Doubling down.

2:43:15 Alston: It's still just Chungledown Bim.

2:43:17 Fabian: Just Chungledown?

2:43:17 Alston: Yeah, Gertie's off.

2:43:19 Fabian: Again, you call me the minute that changes, all right?

2:43:21 Alston: You got it.

2:43:21 Siobhan: Can I text Aelwyn? Because Aelwyn is an abjuration wizard.

2:43:25 Brennan: Yes.

2:43:28 Adaine: Hey, I know you're busy. Was wondering if you could cast some wards on Fabian's house.

2:43:35 Brennan: She shrugs and says,

2:43:35 Ae: All right. I'll stop by and try to cast some wards on Seacaster.

2:43:39 Emily: Does she have Guards and Wards?

2:43:42 Siobhan: Almost certainly, yes.

2:43:42 Emily: There's a 6th level spell.

2:43:44 Brennan: She says,

2:43:44 Ae: I can cast Guards and Wards on Seacaster Manor.

2:43:49 Emily: You need a password for it.

2:43:49 Adaine: Oh yeah, can you give us the password? What disgusting thing are you gonna have us say?

2:43:53 Fabian: Can we put it on the voting booth?

2:43:55 Ae: You're having a voting booth at a party?

2:43:56 Ally: The password is "stop the steal."

2:43:58 Brennan: Aelwyn says she's got it.

2:44:00 Emily: Okay.

2:44:00 Brennan: Aelwyn says she's got it.

2:44:01 Adaine: Okay, great. Text us the password. Make sure it's not "stop the steal."

2:44:06 Kristen: I'm sorry, you're against that?

2:44:08 Adaine: Jesus Christ.

2:44:08 Brennan: Okay, cool.

2:44:09 Adaine: Kristen Two is too much.

2:44:09 Kristen: Am I the only one awake?

2:44:13 Brennan: When do you head to Ruben's house?

2:44:14 Murph: Yeah, let's just go, right?

2:44:16 Fabian: Kristen Two is on the Hangman with me. Let's do it.

2:44:18 Gorgug: Spring break, I believe in you.

2:44:19 Fabian: Spring break, I believe in you!

2:44:20 Adaine: Spring break, I believe in you.

2:44:22 Emily: Does someone have Teleport or Plane Shift? Without saying what it is for, Brennan rolls in front of the board. Zac and Ally gasp.

2:44:25 Brennan: Cool.

2:44:25 Ally: What is that?

2:44:26 Brennan: All good. Sorry.

2:44:28 Emily: Does someone have Teleport or Plane Shift?

2:44:29 Ally: I have Plane Shift.

2:44:29 Emily: Maybe we should just teleport in the middle and just start fighting them.

2:44:33 Siobhan: Plane Shift won't work to… But I can Scatter us in there, or I can Scatter five of us in there.

2:44:39 Emily: Yeah.

2:44:41 Adaine: So sorry, Kristen Two, you're out.

2:44:43 Kristen: I'm Kristen One, and if you guys keep getting this wrong, I'm literally gonna kill her myself.

2:44:50 Adaine: You look good today. Your clothes look really tight.

2:44:52 Brennan: You all go to Ruben's house. You go in the middle of the day, which was the right choice, and I rolled a Luck check to see if anybody would be there, and no one was there.

2:45:00 Siobhan: Hell, yes!

2:45:04 Ally: Carte blanche, but also, where are they? Not at school.

2:45:07 Murph: Let me go ahead, can I sneak ahead and essentially case the whole place to make sure—to see if anyone else is home, to kinda make it so the less stealthy people in the party can open things?

2:45:20 Ally: Let's get in there.

2:45:23 Siobhan: Yeah, I'll cast Rary's Telepathic Bond on all of us so we can be quiet.

2:45:25 Brennan: Cool.

2:45:27 Murph: Cool, and then I'm going to sneak in.

2:45:31 Siobhan: Oh, can I cast True Seeing on Riz?

2:45:33 Brennan: Oh, awesome. True Seeing on Riz.

2:45:35 Ally: I cast Invisibility on myself so only Kristen Two is visible.

2:45:38 Siobhan: Great.

2:45:40 Brennan: Riz, go ahead, first of all, give me a thieves' tools check. [die rolling]

2:45:45 Murph: That's a 28.

2:45:46 Brennan: Jesus, okay. Riz, you walk up. Arcadian watch. [beeping] Laser forms a holographic key that quickly materializes, opens the door. You're in.

2:46:01 Murph: And also, my watch automatically retains an imprint of any lock it unlocks, so if somebody casts that spell, I'd like to keep that in mind for if there's something else locked.

2:46:13 Brennan: Copy that, amazing. So you get in and have a key to every other entrance in the house, essentially. Invisible, telepathic bond. Are you invisible right now or no?

2:46:23 Murph: I am not right now, no.

2:46:24 Brennan: Okay, give me a Stealth check, number one.

2:46:26 Murph: Cool. [die rolling] Reliable Talent, 24.

2:46:31 Brennan: You move through the house. Go ahead and give me Investigation. [die rolling]

2:46:36 Murph: It was so close to a nat 20, but still really good. 27.

2:46:39 Brennan: Are you planning on having other people come in and being able to do other checks as well?

2:46:44 Emily: Yeah.

2:46:44 Siobhan: I think I should come in.

2:46:46 Emily: I could come in with Mislead—

2:46:47 Murph: I think I'm essentially trying to investigate to be like, okay, is there an Alarm spell here? I'm trying to just secure the scene so that when the six of us come in and we're much less stealthy, nobody's tripping alarms or anything.

2:47:02 Brennan: Gotcha, if you're being that careful and you just rolled a—

2:47:04 Murph: 27.

2:47:06 Brennan: ...27, you get through, you clock multiple Alarm spells. There is a Guards and Wards on the place. There's these other abjurational spells all over Ruben's house, and I'm gonna say that given that there's no one home right now and you guys have a full array of spell slots, it's just a matter of time. It's quick work. Dispel, Dispel, wait for one to work. With Reliable Talent, all these DCs are like 20. There's not even really a point in rolling. You just go, "Got it, got it."

2:47:33 Murph: Yeah, I think as we're going, I'm just, like, Prestidigitation on a camera or whatever so these guys see it. I just put a little light up and keep sneaking.

2:47:41 Brennan: Cool. One by one, you get through, never getting on camera, and even using little Prestidigitations to point them out, and also just to cover. So, you guys get into this place. You are now all here. You have cased the house, shut it down, alarms down, and even get a Dispel Magic on top of that Guards and Wards. The only way to get this perfectly safe so that you can work thoroughly means they will be able to discover you were here. These spells coming down will be an alert, but it will be an alert way later.

2:48:15 Ally: Okay, got it. Not in real time.

2:48:15 Brennan: So that's just something you gotta make peace with.

2:48:17 Siobhan: They'll know, but we will have already left.

2:48:19 Brennan: Yes, correct. Let's make some rolls. Give me Investigation, Arcana, Religion, History, whatever the fuck you wanna do.

2:48:24 Emily: I'm gonna give Riz the Help action.

2:48:26 Lou: I give, [gesturing to Siobhan] did you already, are you good?

2:48:28 Siobhan: I mean, I'll take the Help action just to see if I crit.

2:48:29 Lou: Sure.

2:48:30 Siobhan: I don't. I got a 28 Arcana.

2:48:30 Murph: 28 Investigate.

2:48:33 Zac: Could I do a tinkerer's tools to see if...?

2:48:34 Brennan: Yeah, give me tinkerers.

2:48:37 Zac: That's a 24.

2:48:37 Brennan: Okay.

2:48:39 Ally: 19 Religion.

2:48:39 Brennan: 19 Religion? Hell, yeah. Anyone gonna use a Bardic or a Guidance or a this or a that?

2:48:45 Murph: Anyone wanna help me get up to 30? I'm at 28.

2:48:47 Emily: Yeah, I can give you a Bardic.

2:48:48 Murph: Oh wait, I already have a Bardic.

2:48:49 Brennan: You have a Bardic, yep.

2:48:49 Murph: You gave one to me before.

2:48:50 Ally: I can do Guidance, though. That's a d4, and you can save the Bardic.

2:48:53 Murph: Okay. That's a 32.

2:48:53 Siobhan: Great.

2:48:56 Emily: I'll also—

2:48:57 Lou: What are you at right now?

2:48:57 Ally: 18.

2:48:57 Emily: ...Divine Sense to find out—

2:48:59 Siobhan: That's a 32.

2:48:59 Brennan: You get your Divine Sense up and sniff out the room for the Religion check, and you see the stuff we're all... There's a secret panel in Ruben's place. You move this aside. Riz, you're investigating. You're looking at Arcana. Here's what you get. Adaine, you find Oisín's area. You find his wizard tower in Ruben's mansion, which is an old sound studio that has been turned into a little wizard sanctum. You see he's working on tons of conjuration stuff. Riz, as you're sweeping that room with Adaine, you guys are kind of tag-teaming to put stuff together. You find a family photo from Oisín of his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother hanging out with Kalvaxus.

2:49:39 Siobhan: Fucking dragons.

2:49:39 Brennan: Gotta help Grandma out. In Oisín's area, Adaine, he's got a bunch of stuff. There's stuff about Cloud Rider there. He's a conjuration specialist. He has some notes on stealing summons from people.

2:49:53 Siobhan: Oh, so he has ways to take over other people's summons.

2:49:56 Brennan: In this sound studio, you also see notes from Porter on Ruben's composition, crafting a song, and it's "Get Mad". It's the song he performed at Frosty Fair.

2:50:10 Zac: He's a bard, too.

2:50:11 Brennan: Oisín has some notes on something you don't understand, which is a tool, a practice series of hand motions, for telekinetically writing on the inside of a sphere.

2:50:28 Emily: A gem?

2:50:28 Siobhan: Or a skull?

2:50:31 Zac: Or a voting booth?

2:50:33 Brennan: A spherical voting booth, potentially. On that tinker's tool, Gorgug, you actually get a computer and crack the private server that the Rat Grinders were talking on. So you see all of their stuff.

2:50:41 Gorgug: I'm in.

2:50:43 Brennan: Kipperlilly corrects someone and says,

2:50:45 Kipperlilly: We don't use the name Cassandra. NMK, that's how we refer to her.

2:50:49 Emily: Nightmare King.

2:50:49 Brennan: Nightmare King. It says, Big guy wants the Nightmare King. Says that he should have her locked down sooner rather than later, as soon as she exposes herself in the Astral.

2:51:02 Ally: And Kalina convinced her to go there. She's been working… Yeah, there is no such thing as a good Kalina.