Time and Space

0:00:03 Brennan: In the world of Spyre did prophecy foretell that the dragon Kalvaxus would rise to power when once more were seven maidens chained at the mouth of his cave. What the prophecy could not predict was what The Seven had in store for the world. United by prophecy, bound by friendship, the Seven Maidens would quickly become one of Spyre's premier parties of teen heroes and all-star students at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy. [end intro]

0:00:42 Brennan: Y'all wanna play some D&D? (players cheering)

0:00:45 Brennan: Hello one and all! And welcome back to another thrilling episode of Dimension 20: The Seven. I'm your humble dungeon master Brennan Lee Mulligan. With me as always are our Heroic High Schoolers. Say hi, Heroic High Schoolers.

0:00:55 All: Hi, Heroic High Schoolers!

0:00:58 Brennan: Oh, holy smokes, gang. Last we left off, our Heroic High Schoolers were aboard the Rombosa, having hijacked, commandeered, sieged-

0:01:09 Erika: Borrowed!

0:01:11 Brennan: Borrowed.

0:01:11 Aabria: Are we giving it back?

0:01:13 Sephie: No, we're keeping it, what's a new name?

0:01:16 Becca: Long-term borrowed.

0:01:17 Aabria: It's called the Maiden Voyage.

0:01:18 Sephie: The Maiden Voyage.

0:01:19 Erika: [Danielle voice] Look man, everything's just borrowed. (Brennan laughing)

0:01:22 Becca: Where did they get it? They took the materials from the Earth.

0:01:26 Brennan: There you go, exactly, exactly.

0:01:28 Sephie: Exactly.

0:01:29 Brennan: Aboard the Maiden Voyage headed to the Nekronomikron after an incredible combat, defeating Charity Blythe, killing not only Preston but also Jana Cleaver and rescinding the murder of Tectonya Karkovnya and bringing her back to life, our wonderful Heroic High Schoolers saved the day. And then got, you know, individually either extremely plastered or partied or danced with a bunch of horses or hooked up.

0:02:06 Aabria: High five. [Aabria and Becca high five]

0:02:06 Brennan: Congrats.

0:02:08 Sephie: Or got really sad.

0:02:09 Brennan: Or got very, very sad... (Rekha cheers)

0:02:11 Brennan: ...On a balcony. (Persephone cheers)

0:02:13 Becca: Which always happens at a party, though.

0:02:15 All: Yeah.

0:02:16 Brennan: And I will say, too, that however you awaken that morning we know where and how some folks awaken. For the rest, Ostentatia and Katja got very drunk. Danielle, with this new vine tower placed, every person at the party is so happy to spend the night just dancing, speaking, talking with you. And many of the nobles of the Baronies based, sort of troubling 'cause it should be based on your incredible prowess in combat, but they're honestly still talking about that entrance to the ball primarily. And you end up having the ear of a lot of these nobles in the Baronies for that eve.

0:02:56 Becca: Get on their boards.

0:02:59 Brennan: Get on their boards.

0:03:00 Rekha: Danielle's dream.

0:03:00 Becca: This is how change happens.

0:03:04 Sephie: Destroy them from the inside out.

0:03:06 Erika: Yes!

0:03:07 Brennan: The following morning on a balcony overlooking endless gray expanses of clouds from a great height, you can look out and understand from this weather pattern that the landscape under these clouds is choked in a permanent murky grayness as you approach the Nekronomikron. But from up here, the sun is shining. There are some high little wisps of stratus cloud, and beneath you the weather is gray and dark, but up here the sky is still blue. And on a balcony, a table appointed with fresh fruit and bacon and wonderful cheeses and various sausage links and other things like that. Some breakfast wine, some sparkling breakfast wine. Breakfast wine being a mainstay of the Baronies.

0:04:09 Rekha: A staple.

0:04:09 Aabria: Yeah.

0:04:11 Sephie: Yep, gotta have it.

0:04:11 Aabria: French gang!

0:04:11 Brennan: Brunch gang. And seated at the table, a fine mahogany bench helping herself as you all arrive there for breakfast is Tectonya Karkovnya.

0:04:21 Becca: Ah.

0:04:25 Brennan: Who smiles at you all and says,

0:04:25 Tectonya: Welcome, welcome. I trust that your evenings were pleasant.

0:04:33 Penny: Don't, oh, you, mm, you know things. Is this bench taken, can we?

0:04:39 Tectonya: Oh, for sure, it was intended for you. I would feel a fool to sit at a massive banquet table by myself and abjure any possible friends from joining my company at such a well-laden table.

0:04:53 Penny: Can I just say, you called us friends, but I look up to you so much after I heard about your research.

0:05:00 Ostentatia: I wanted to kill you at first, and then I got confused. I started out confused 'cause I didn't know if you were sorta good or bad?

0:05:14 Tectonya: Isn't that a question we all ask ourselves?

0:05:17 Danielle: No, but in a much more specific way 'cause she might have been-

0:05:20 Tectonya: Oh, an immediate threat.

0:05:22 Danielle: Yeah, might have been.

0:05:22 Ostentatia: Yeah.

0:05:24 Danielle: Which I think they were a little confused, but you know what? We all sorted it out. Everything's chill and groovy, baby.

0:05:31 Katja: Except I think you did hook up with my dad, and I feel a weird way about that, but I don't ever want to talk about it.

0:05:37 Penny: Got an opening for moms! (group laughing) Is that a weird thing to say?

0:05:41 Aabria: I don't know. Katja nods. It is a weird thing to say.

0:05:44 Ostentatia: Yeah, Katja did murder her mother last night.

0:05:47 Sam: Yep.

0:05:47 Tectonya: I saw that. Well, or sorry, no, I didn't see that, but I heard about it later. I didn't see because I was dead.

0:05:54 Ostentatia: You were dead.

0:05:54 Sam: You were dead, yep.

0:05:56 Tectonya: By the way, I didn't get a chance-

0:05:57 Ostentatia: You’re welcome, you’re welcome.

0:05:57 Tectonya: Thank you so much.

0:06:00 Ostentatia: Of course.

0:06:01 Rekha: I feel like we have to talk to you.

0:06:06 Brennan: You see Tectonya looks over at you addressing her off that last point,

0:06:10 Tectonya: Oh, yes, your father. I know that you've asked me not to speak of it. I will not speak of our sexual exploits.

0:06:19 Katja: Disgusting, ew, ew.

0:06:19 Penny: Okay, but maybe later?

0:06:22 Katja: Just call it making love, God. (laughs)

0:06:24 Sam: I mean, I'm kind of curious, how was he?

0:06:27 Antiope: Oh God, no. (laughs)

0:06:27 Sam: He's hot, okay.

0:06:29 Antiope: No, but do answer.

0:06:29 Penny: Not in front of Katja.

0:06:32 Danielle: Block your ears.

0:06:32 Rekha: Cinnamon puts her paw.

0:06:33 Aabria: Her paws?

0:06:33 Rekha: Her hooves. Cinnamon's at the table, of course. Over my ears, you can talk.

0:06:38 Penny: Okay, now you can say it.

0:06:39 Danielle: Cinnamon also would like to know.

0:06:41 Tectonya: Karl is a… (Becca laughing) Very tactical lover. (Erika laughing)

0:06:48 Antiope: What does that mean?

0:06:49 Penny: He made a battle map of my body.

0:06:51 Antiope: Can you do that?

0:06:52 Tectonya: Yes, it is an interesting juxtaposition of elements in the passionate throes of lovemaking to know that you are being appraised by a master strategist and that these various maneuvers are being utilized.

0:07:14 Ostentatia: I like how different. Like, I don't know two people who talk more different than I think Tectonya and Karl.

0:07:22 Tectonya: Yes, his booming voice is alarming and yet those powerful lungs do come in handy. (players gasping)

0:07:28 Ostentatia: Are you in love? Why do you-

0:07:29 Penny: Does he fill you with air?

0:07:32 Katja: How are you still talking?

0:07:35 Sam: Wow, a man that can hold his breath, that sounds helpful.

0:07:37 Ostentatia: Okay, I have a question.

0:07:38 Penny: That sounds like the opposite of my experience with Lysander.

0:07:41 Ostentatia: I have a question. (Brennan laughs)

0:07:44 Ostentatia: Katja, you can listen, did you hear that?

0:07:47 Penny: Were you hearing the whole time?

0:07:49 Katja: No, Cinnamon. (players laughing)

0:07:51 Aabria: It echoed and made it louder.

0:07:53 Ostentatia: So why, what's been going on with you?

0:08:01 Tectonya: A fantastic question.

0:08:02 Antiope: You were marked for death, did you know that?

0:08:04 Tectonya: Yes.

0:08:04 Sam: For taking the Legendarium.

0:08:06 Tectonya: Oh.

0:08:07 Ostentatia: Marked for death, gone for 12 years.

0:08:08 Sam: Well, probably not just for that, but...

0:08:10 Tectonya: Well, my dear Miss Nightingale, I think the cart and the horse are somewhat rearranged. I took the Legendarium. Katja brushes Cinnamon.

0:08:16 Ostentatia: I know that-

0:08:17 Katja: [to Cinnamon] Ssh. (group laughing)

0:08:21 Brennan: Cinnamon looks up with a mouthful of apples and goes,

0:08:23 Cinnamon: (spits) Never! (players laughing)

0:08:25 Ostentatia: Also a little triggering considering our friend [whispers] Preston.

0:08:29 Tectonya: Oh, yes indeed. The Legendarium was something that I took after I was marked for death.

0:08:34 Sam: Oh.

0:08:37 Tectonya: The Ministry of Adventure was created I think a little over 100 years ago, but certainly under the guidance and leadership of one Charity Blythe, (Becca gasps) I became aware through some help and funding provided to me by one of my great allies, Karl Cleaver.

0:09:01 Katja: Just say making love. (Becca laughs)

0:09:03 Tectonya: That's actually not sexual. He just sincerely was a huge help.

0:09:06 Katja: Ugh, disgusting, you keep talking about it.

0:09:10 Penny: Helpful, what kind of terminology?

0:09:13 Brennan: She turns and says,

0:09:13 Tectonya: I discovered the machinations of a governmental operation known as Project Reset. (players gasp)

0:09:25 Sam: Project Reset?

0:09:27 Tectonya: Ms. Blythe became tasked with the leadership of the Ministry of Adventure a little bit over 12 years ago when she assumed the title of director. And you are aware that the Ministry of Adventure's role is to support the large and thriving adventuring community within the nation of Solace and to interface with other nations whom interact with our nation's adventurers for better or for worse. Miss Blythe... (soft instrumental music) In taking over command of the ministry...

0:10:14 Penny: Narc stuff, made it narc stuff.

0:10:17 Tectonya: Saw fit to optimize for what she saw as the mission of the Ministry. In past incarnations the Ministry of Adventure was there as a support for adventurers and also an agency to hold adventurers accountable when need be. Not necessarily an altogether evil ambition given the incredible power wielded by some adventurers and their propensity to avoid accountability when and where possible.

0:10:47 Katja: We never do that.

0:10:49 Penny: Defund the Ministry of Adventures! Now I'm with you!

0:10:51 Sam: Yeah!

0:10:53 Penny: I get it now.

0:10:54 Antiope: But it wasn't always bad, right? Like, my whole family is kinda real deep in that sauce.

0:10:59 Brennan: She looks at you and says,

0:10:59 Tectonya: Institutions on the scale of nations have outsized impact, and at any given moment the Ministry can be engaged in any number of endeavors which are blind to one another. It is not my understanding that the entire Ministry of Adventure is even cognizant of Project Reset let alone in favor of it. However, I would say that these are the issues that come around whenever any system becomes this large and unwieldy. Perhaps we should all meld our consciousness into one mind and exist as sort of an orb. That would be one idea.

0:11:35 Danielle: See, thank you!

0:11:37 Sam: You’re going a little—

0:11:39 Ostentatia: You sound like Danielle.

0:11:40 Sam: Yeah, a little bit, but, um...

0:11:43 Tectonya: But what I would say is this. Certainly the Ministry has taken a rather harmful turn in the last, a little bit more than 12 years because as we can understand, the Ministry are indeed narcs, but also adventurers, being atomized and cellular and accountable to no one and from time to time incredibly powerful also being able to do whatever they like, isn't not narcs in its own way sometimes, so-

0:12:15 Antiope: I don't feel good.

0:12:15 Penny: It could be internal affairs if we, this is complicated.

0:12:19 Danielle: Here's the thing is that, yes, any body that's created to uphold a status quo is going to inherently be rife with problems, but adventuring by and large is unethical.

0:12:39 Penny: Whoa.

0:12:39 Danielle: Because it's a group of people going into someplace where they are not, they have no stake in helping the people there.

0:12:51 Katja: Oh my fucking God.

0:12:51 Danielle: They come in the village and leave-

0:12:52 Penny: Oh.

0:12:54 Ostentatia: Then why do you do it, Yelle?

0:12:55 Penny: What's wrong with us?

0:12:57 Danielle: Because I don't know how to do anything else, honestly. How else do you make a change on an institutional and fundamental level if not just one chip at a time? And the things that we do, it's great. We help our local community. We don't go into other areas, kill dragons and take the loot, flood the local economy with gold and destandardize their currency.

0:13:26 Penny: Oh shit, yeah.

0:13:26 Danielle: Like, that's the thing that you gotta think about as an adventurer, and you guys, there's gotta be somebody to oversee that.

0:13:33 Ostentatia: So what you're saying is the system needs a makeover.

0:13:36 Penny: (gasps) Oh my God.

0:13:36 Katja: It needs to be brushed.

0:13:40 Ostentatia: Do you like that or no?

0:13:40 Danielle: I do!

0:13:43 Ostentatia: Okay.

0:13:43 Brennan: You see Tectonya holds a hand out to Ostentatia and Danielle and says,

0:13:48 Tectonya: One of the things that was suggested to the Ministry by myself in ages long past was that accountability for our adventurers be moved from a inter-Solesian governmental agency to the actual communities affected by the adventurers and to change our extradition laws such that if adventurers were to cause harm in other communities that the nation of Solace would help those communities hold those adventurers accountable. This was categorically ruled out by, amongst other people, a young Charity Blythe. (Isabella gasps)

0:14:28 Sam: And it's because they just, they don't want them to be held accountable but they also want to make sure that their interests are...

0:14:35 Penny: They want power.

0:14:36 Tectonya: It's as we've said, very complicated. Adventurers and also, once again, adventurers are not an institution. They are cellular, atomized individuals, some evil, some good, running amok. In that way, there are less problematic elements of adventurers because they do not wield institutional power but they do wield tremendous individual power. A solution was needed or thought to be needed at the time. It resulted in the Ministry. The Ministry became bad. The goal as always is to solve all the world's problems without ever doing anything wrong yourself. Good luck doing that.

0:15:09 Danielle: Yeah.

0:15:11 Ostentatia: Adventurers should unionize. (Becca gasps)

0:15:16 Tectonya: Now, an adventurers' union, it's a brilliant idea.

0:15:19 Ostentatia: My dad was his local's rep and he can help us.

0:15:26 Brennan: You see she says,

0:15:26 Tectonya: Incredible. That is the exact sort of change that is needed. I think you would be well served in pursuing that. Also know that it will mark you for death by the Ministry. Charity hates that shit.

0:15:38 Ostentatia: Well, we're gonna kill her.

0:15:40 Sam: Charity's going to die.

0:15:40 Penny: She was so close to death.

0:15:44 Tectonya: To return, Project Reset was in a world in which the Ministry of Adventure saw not the safekeeping of Spyre and its denizens but rather the promotion of a very critical adventuring industry, Project Reset came about as a means of finding methods to promote more adventure. The Legendarium Extrordia was created for this, and there was an idea to seek after Eidolons to use their power to craft or create more adventure. Now, I don't need to tell you that if what you're trying to promote, if the product you're selling is heroes and that is your supply, what is the demand that heroes are a response to?

0:16:47 Danielle: You need to create problems.

0:16:47 Katja: Oh no.

0:16:50 Danielle: You needed to create global disasters.

0:16:55 Sam: This is awful.

0:16:55 Antiope: [quietly] Do we tell her about...

0:16:58 Penny: But there’s only one Imaginarium Extrordinary, (mumbles) what's it called?

0:17:03 Antiope: And Charity has it again.

0:17:03 Penny: And Charity has it, right?

0:17:05 Katja: But we have copies.

0:17:05 Erika: Wow.

0:17:07 Penny: Oh, shush.

0:17:08 Tectonya: You have-

0:17:08 Katja: Of my book.

0:17:11 Tectonya: Oh, can I read it?

0:17:11 Katja: Yes.

0:17:13 Ostentatia: There are 200.

0:17:13 Katja: There are 200. It's called The Babysitter Horse.

0:17:17 Penny: Wait, you wrote The Babysitter Horse? (laughs)

0:17:19 Sam: Wait, wait, wait, wait, why can't we, why can't we just?

0:17:23 Katja: Fan fiction.

0:17:25 Penny: Let's find out why Charity thinks she needs to have the only one.

0:17:27 Antiope: I don't know what she knows. I kinda dipped out early last night. I assumed we caught her up.

0:17:31 Sam: We should tell her.

0:17:32 Penny: One thing at a time.

0:17:34 Sam: Well, I mean, it's kind of important.

0:17:37 Penny: Okay, Charity thinks she has the only one, right?

0:17:39 Tectonya: Yes, which is not good, if she has it.

0:17:43 Danielle: I jailbroke copies for us on our phones. Tectonya stares at her in shock.

0:17:48 Danielle: It's not a really big, it's fine.

0:17:50 Katja: It's a huge deal!

0:17:50 Antiope: It's a big deal!

0:17:51 Penny: It's awesome!

0:17:51 Antiope: That's so cool!

0:17:53 Penny: There was like a cool logo.

0:17:55 Ostentatia: It was like watching a human montage with no editing.

0:17:58 Sam: It was beautiful.

0:17:59 Katja: It was really cool. It was like the best movie you could ever watch but happening in front of you.

0:18:02 Sam: Like, forget the entrance. Talk about that hacking job.

0:18:06 Danielle: Roll in these compliments for a bit, that's nice.

0:18:07 Katja: I also have something to confess to you. Earlier when I told you that I had a book. I don't have a book.

0:18:12 Danielle: I think at this-

0:18:14 Tectonya: You lied to me?

0:18:15 Katja: I didn't mean to, I'm sorry.

0:18:15 Tectonya: I forgive you. The important thing-

0:18:18 Penny: Moms forgive.

0:18:20 Danielle: At this time we must dispense with secrecy.

0:18:21 Aabria: Why is she sweating?

0:18:22 Danielle: And she does not have the only copy, but she still believes herself to have it.

0:18:26 Tectonya: Very well, may I? I have not observed the Legendarium in some time, may I?

0:18:30 Sephie: I toss the crystal.

0:18:31 Danielle: Uh, just to, uh, well, there's a global-wide issue now.

0:18:37 Izzy: Oh, yeah.

0:18:37 Danielle: Because one of the Eidolons has discovered that her sisters have returned to the earth.

0:18:43 Tectonya: This is all to the good. There is a secret weakness that Eidolons possess so—

0:18:51 Penny: Ooh!

0:18:51 Tectonya: What you must understand is that—

0:18:54 Rekha: Candy.

0:18:55 Tectonya: Eidolons' power waxes and wanes according to the nature of their essence. The Eidolons were at their most powerful when the gods of the outer planes crafted the prime material. As the gods began to end the primary creation of the material plane, not much was being asked of the Eidolons and their power actually waned and waned and waned enough that no one was making use of them. After a time the Eidolons in their mortal forms became bored. The grand explosion of the creation of all material things had been such an investment and as the gods asked less and less of them and there was less divine will to manifest, they began to become, for lack of a better word, bored.

0:19:48 Katja: Idle.

0:19:48 Tectonya: Idle.

0:19:48 All: [Players] Ah!

0:19:49 Izzy: Oh shit.

0:19:51 Tectonya: Ostentatia, yes.

0:19:51 Ostentatia: Okay. How did they get in the mirrors?

0:19:57 Sam: Yeah, that's a good question.

0:19:59 Ostentatia: Thank you.

0:19:59 Penny: Charity.

0:20:00 Tectonya: An incredible question.

0:20:01 Ostentatia: I also want to let you know that I'm sorry for thinking this whole time while you've been talking that I want to make jewelry out of you. (Becca gasps)

0:20:08 Tectonya: Would you?

0:20:11 Ostentatia: We'll talk later.

0:20:12 Brennan: You see that she says,

0:20:12 Tectonya: [taps the side of her nose] Yes, we will.

0:20:14 Katja: She's gonna give you her nose! (players laughing)

0:20:17 Ostentatia: I wish, I wish she could!

0:20:21 Brennan: (laughs) You see that she says,

0:20:25 Tectonya: The gods moved into granting miracles to their followers and engaging in petty squabbles as gods are wont to do, so the Eidolons began to move through the world becoming befriended by, falling in love with, engaging in trysts with mortals.

0:20:43 Penny: Ooh.

0:20:43 Tectonya: And mortals began to realize that it wasn't only divine will that the Eidolons could manifest. They could manifest mortal will into extraordinary power.

0:20:54 Penny: Oh.

0:20:55 Tectonya: And the gods saw this as being a tremendous problem. (Persephone groans) The gods of the lower planes, the gods of evil and darkness demanded that the Eidolons be trapped and imprisoned forever. And the gods of neutrality sided with the gods of the lower planes.

0:21:16 Penny: That doesn't sound very neutral.

0:21:17 Sam: Can we get some names?

0:21:17 Antiope: Yeah, name names.

0:21:19 Tectonya: Oh, the infinite number of evil gods and neutral gods.

0:21:24 Sam: I just need a few just to make an example.

0:21:27 Tectonya: Very well, I'll have an assistant type one out and send it to you.

0:21:29 Sam: Thank you.

0:21:31 Tectonya: Do you have people I should get in touch with?

0:21:33 Sam: Um, I have an agent.

0:21:36 Antiope: A what?

0:21:36 Sam: Um...

0:21:37 Penny: What?

0:21:37 Sam: Nothing.

0:21:38 Ostentatia: An agent of darkness?

0:21:38 Sam: Um...

0:21:42 Becca: Is this like a Kevin?

0:21:43 Katja: A cleaning agent?

0:21:44 Ostentatia: You're making faces and noises like you've said a secret.

0:21:47 Antiope: Yeah, we've seen a lot of that lately.

0:21:50 Penny: What, wow, who?

0:21:53 Sam: No, no, it's just, it's just a small thing.

0:21:56 Danielle: It's okay.

0:21:56 Ostentatia: Wait a minute.

0:21:57 Danielle: It's okay to have stuff going on.

0:21:59 Ostentatia: Is this for you singing?

0:22:03 Sam: ...Acting.

0:22:03 Ostentatia: For acting?

0:22:06 Sam: And singing, yeah.

0:22:07 Katja: Hey, that came off judgy.

0:22:10 Ostentatia: When has she been an actor?

0:22:12 Penny: When she was a child!

0:22:12 Erika: What?

0:22:14 Ostentatia: We don't know that.

0:22:16 Penny: I watch a lot, I didn't want to bring it up, but it was like my favorite show.

0:22:21 Sam: You've seen Wave by Wave?

0:22:21 Penny: [whispering] So many times.

0:22:24 Ostentatia: I've seen Wave by Wave!

0:22:27 Antiope: Wait, you were on Wave by Wave?

0:22:28 Ostentatia: It's my stories! (group laughing)

0:22:32 Ostentatia: I watch all the soap operas.

0:22:36 Sam: Yeah, Elliot Brine.

0:22:38 Antiope: Oh my God, okay. Wait, wait, so you want to get back into it?

0:22:46 Ostentatia: Oh my God.

0:22:46 Sam: I don't know.

0:22:47 Ostentatia: We are with a straight-up celebrity right now.

0:22:53 Sam: Oh my God, I did not want this to happen.

0:22:55 Penny: I kept a secret! (Isabella screams)

0:22:57 Ostentatia: Oh my God, Tectonya, I am so sorry.

0:23:00 Tectonya: No this is huge, I loved Wave by Wave.

0:23:03 Ostentatia: What, you watched? You were gone!

0:23:04 Katja: You watch TV?

0:23:06 Ostentatia: Where did you get TV?

0:23:06 Tectonya: Oh, yes.

0:23:07 Ostentatia: In a freaking mountain.

0:23:09 Tectonya: I don't know, it's a long day of [suddenly echoing] plumbing the depths of the cosmos. [normally] And you get home and I just have my cat and I just flop onto the sofa.

0:23:14 All: Aw.

0:23:16 Ostentatia: You gotta turn your brain off.

0:23:17 Penny: I understand.

0:23:17 Katja: Can you sign Cinnamon-

0:23:18 Tectonya: You have to turn your brain off.

0:23:20 Danielle: I've never had a TV.

0:23:23 Ostentatia: Oh Danielle, you gotta get on it.

0:23:23 Antiope: You gotta get on it, it's so fun.

0:23:24 Sam: That's actually helpful for me right now.

0:23:26 Penny: That's okay.

0:23:26 Danielle: Yeah, that's okay.

0:23:29 Antiope: Do you want to talk about what that means then, or do you want to save that for later?

0:23:32 Sam: I don't know, the only reason that I got in contact with her was because we needed information about Tectonya, and I knew that my mother had contacts all over the place in Bastion City so I figured...

0:23:49 Penny: Genasi women.

0:23:50 Sam: She put me in contact with Lola, yeah.

0:23:51 Antiope: Ooh, you can't say, they don't all know each other. Do you all know each other?

0:23:56 Tectonya: No, we don't all know each other, but we do have a group dedicated to sort of lifting people up.

0:23:59 Sam: I heard about that.

0:24:01 Antiope: Oh, that's cool, so that's fun.

0:24:02 Tectonya: It's sort of a-

0:24:02 Sam: I want to join.

0:24:04 Tectonya: Oh, I would be so happy to vouch for you.

0:24:05 Penny: I heard that it has a nice gym.

0:24:06 Katja: I feel like the Half-Orc community is too fractured. I want that for myself, but I think it's fractured.

0:24:12 Danielle: It's like when you're half you don't quite know, like...

0:24:14 Katja: I know!

0:24:16 Danielle: We can talk about it later, hon, yeah.

0:24:18 Sam: But we can talk about it later.

0:24:20 Danielle: It's okay, but just so you know you're valid and like...

0:24:21 Ostentatia: Can I be your stylist?

0:24:24 Danielle: If you have...

0:24:26 Sam: Oh my God, I would love that, but I don't know if I'm going back, but you're so talented!

0:24:31 Danielle: You got time to consider, please.

0:24:33 Penny: Okay, but the neutral gods sided- (Isabella moans and pants)

0:24:36 Tectonya: So the goods of the good-aligned celestial planes assented to this but added a condition which is that the mirrors that the Eidolons would be trapped in would have an out for the Eidolons should they wish to leave. They did not wish for the Eidolons to be trapped forever, and a very clever celestial god asked if he could be the one to craft these seven mirrors.

0:25:06 Katja: Who?

0:25:06 Tectonya: Logran Soulforger. (Isabella screams)

0:25:10 Becca: No wonder he was so busy! (Isabella burps and laughs) (group laughing)

0:25:15 Katja: Nice.

0:25:16 Sephie: Are you all right?

0:25:17 Penny: Oh, we're good.

0:25:18 Aabria: I refill your glass with that sparkling wine.

0:25:19 Danielle: Oh boy, she was real worked up.

0:25:21 Sam: Sounded like you needed it.

0:25:23 Tectonya: Logran Soulforger built the mirrors with an escape for the Eidolons and with the secret left inside of the mirrors so that they would not ever truly be trapped. However, the escape was, in Logran's fashion, a crucible of sorts, or if you prefer, a chrysalis. It required a forging, a transformation so that when the Eidolons departed the mirror, as they could at any time, their consciousness would become as vast and endless as they themselves were.

0:26:00 Ostentatia: Have you talked to him?

0:26:02 Tectonya: Oh, he doesn't talk to anybody.

0:26:03 Ostentatia: What's his freaking deal?

0:26:06 Brennan: I'm gonna make a religion check for Tectonya. That's a 17 on the die.

0:26:12 Tectonya: I think he's just very busy.

0:26:15 Ostentatia: With what? (players laughing)

0:26:16 Tectonya: I know that clerics of your faith don't necessarily, aren't given access to the Commune spell, but-

0:26:23 Ostentatia: Yeah, I have it.

0:26:23 Tectonya: You what?

0:26:25 Ostentatia: I Commune.

0:26:28 Katja: You can't underestimate Ostentatia.

0:26:30 Sam: You really can't.

0:26:31 Antiope: Yeah, she brought you back to life!

0:26:33 Tectonya: That was incredible.

0:26:34 Izzy: I'm gonna cast Commune.

0:26:34 Brennan: (gasps) Ostentatia fully vanishes, voom.

0:26:39 Izzy: What?

0:26:39 Aabria: What? (players screaming)

0:26:44 Brennan: We're gonna come to that in a second.

0:26:45 Izzy: Bye!

0:26:47 Brennan: Whew, bye! Tectonya goes,

0:26:49 Tectonya: Incredible. I love it when something fucking wild happens. (Isabella laughs)

0:26:55 Erika: Far out.

0:26:55 Tectonya: Now as to the rest of this, the crucible or chrysalis put into it was that the Eidolons would become infinite. This would satiate the worry or concern that the other gods had had which was that the Eidolons in their forms were too available to the manipulation of mortals.

0:27:17 Penny: Oh.

0:27:18 Sam: That wasn't their choice, though. It shouldn't have been.

0:27:20 Tectonya: Their choice to what?

0:27:21 Sam: It shouldn't have been up to the gods to choose that. The Eidolons should have been able to choose.

0:27:24 Tectonya: In their way, they were. We are talking about a multiverse which is often cruel and unfair. The gods of light were themselves outvoted by the other gods who feared for the power of the Eidolons in the hands of mortal beings. (Persephone sighs) Should the gods of evil had had their way, those mirrors would have been well and truly permanent. And remember, we need only understand the legends of titans and various other beings that have risen throughout time to challenge the gods that the gods are very fearful for their power. Logran's escape, though it was indeed a very stark and dire choice, was one of the only pieces of cleverness that the God of the Forge could see to manifest in that moment to provide, if not boundless choice, at least a choice.

0:28:16 Penny: Hmm.

0:28:18 Sam: Which is a kindness, but I'm really mad at the gods.

0:28:23 Antiope: You're mad at a lot of things.

0:28:25 Sam: I am.

0:28:27 Brennan: Tectonya looks and says—

0:28:27 Danielle: That's a good emotion.

0:28:30 Tectonya: It is important to understand that the Eidolons, those that left their mirrors, do exist. To be changed is a fact of reality. They are not gone forever. And indeed, I think that as much as the youngest of the seven may miss her sisters, in my studies and research I believe that they may miss her.

0:29:00 Sam: Yeah, they're not gone, from what I saw.

0:29:03 Danielle: Anima appeared to me.

0:29:05 Antiope: What?

0:29:05 Danielle: She appeared to me.

0:29:07 Sam: Really?

0:29:07 Danielle: During my entrance. She told me I wore the name well. It meant a lot.

0:29:13 Penny: Oh my God, Yelle!

0:29:13 Tectonya: She spoke to you in full, straight-up words?

0:29:17 Danielle: Like, with speech and everything.

0:29:19 Tectonya: Oh, that's, that's, I, uh, need to throw out a bunch of my research. That's incredible, that's incredible. Oh, amazing. Oh, I was speaking kind of metaphorically. They can actually just talk?

0:29:30 Danielle: Well, I don't know. It seems like if the time is right they can manifest in some way that they did before.

0:29:38 Sam: Could we possibly get them to manifest to talk to Talura? (Brennan and Becca gasp)

0:29:45 Tectonya: Oh, I think it's-

0:29:45 Penny: Seance!

0:29:46 Katja: Friendship reunion.

0:29:46 Sephie: Oh God.

0:29:48 Aabria: Could I attempt Primeval Awareness and see if I can sense anything?

0:29:52 Brennan: Oh, as you approach the Nekronomikron, you feel powerful primordial forces swirling through the storm. And you feel fire, water, earth, air, the force of life and nature itself and something very old being drawn to the Nekronomikron. Almost time itself.

0:30:18 Aabria: I for sure am leaning over the balcony like, [pointing].

0:30:21 Penny: Sam, did you do this?

0:30:21 Sam: Uh...

0:30:23 Brennan: Tectonya speaks to you and says,

0:30:24 Tectonya: But what I was going to say is, if indeed we are flying to the Nekronomikron because Talura was broken out of her mirror and was able to escape and manifest in her physical, mortal form, the good news is Eidolons are only as powerful as the will they have been asked to manifest. So if Talura is not in the process of granting a wish, she would be quite easy to defeat.

0:30:54 Antiope: Sam!

0:30:54 Penny: Did you...

0:30:57 Sam: Did I— did I what?

0:30:58 Aabria: I want to pull out my crystal and load up the Legendarium and just show her like,

0:31:01 Antiope: Um, I think Talura did that.

0:31:05 Penny: How much will did you give Talura?

0:31:08 Antiope: How hard you wish, baby girl?

0:31:10 Sam: [very high-pitched] Um… (players laughing)

0:31:13 Sam: Um, well, a lot.

0:31:17 Tectonya: Okay, how much, that's a class A.

0:31:20 Antiope: It's everywhere, it keeps going. I keep zooming out.

0:31:23 Sam: It's actually, it's sort of like above a class A.

0:31:24 Aabria: Yeah.

0:31:25 Tectonya: So what was the specific wording of your wish?

0:31:28 Sam: Um…

0:31:30 Sephie: I look at the mirror. (laughs)

0:31:32 Brennan: You look in the mirror. You wished for a class A, yeah.

0:31:37 Sam: I wished for class A quest to help my friends stay together.

0:31:41 Tectonya: Ah, so in order to have three of your six friends graduate a year early, you have doomed the multiverse to unmaking.

0:31:52 Sam: Well, so, okay—

0:31:52 Penny: Oh no!

0:31:53 Sam: Okay, so first she did grant it and it was a small one. Like it was class A but it was small. And then I handed her the mirror so that she could see what happened to her sisters.

0:32:03 Tectonya: By not asking for something specific you have given Talura almost unlimited power to interpret this wish. A class A quest is anything that threatens reality. So, so, the Eidolon of death...

0:32:17 Sam: Uh-huh.

0:32:21 Tectonya: ...Has an element of mortal will which allows her to interpret in any she want because it is just a class A quest. It literally is, give us a problem to solve.

0:32:36 Brennan: Tectonya begins to zoom into it and goes,

0:32:36 Tectonya: Ah. You know, it's interesting. So the Eidolons sort of create everything. Talura may want to sort of loophole her way into getting her sisters back.

0:32:58 Penny: Cool!

0:32:58 Tectonya: Yes.

0:33:00 Sam: By undoing everything around us?

0:33:03 Tectonya: Sort of a little do-over. Yeah, a little, talk about a Project Reset.

0:33:08 Ostentatia: Talk about a Project Reset.

0:33:09 Tectonya: [pulls the collar of her shirt] Yike-os.

0:33:10 Ostentatia: Oy, oy, oy, oy, oy.

0:33:10 Sam: Oh no.

0:33:12 Katja: That was a good one.

0:33:12 Penny: Oh, undo all reality so it could all begin again.

0:33:15 Sam: I did a bad thing, didn't I?

0:33:18 Antiope: For a good reason.

0:33:20 Tectonya: Well, the price that the universe may end up paying will be very handsome, but we should at least get your GED.

0:33:31 Antiope: Yeah, can you sign this form?

0:33:33 Brennan: She says,

0:33:33 Tectonya: Of course. Let me get my spectacles, okay, quill.

0:33:37 Katja: Wow, it's so crazy you could be a magical being made of copper but you can't make better eyesight.

0:33:42 Tectonya: No, yeah, need reading glasses.

0:33:43 Katja: That's crazy.

0:33:45 Brennan: She signs, she says,

0:33:45 Tectonya: As Superintendent of the Solisian School System I herewith bind reality!

0:33:55 Brennan: (mimics magical reverberations) It's a big spell. Screaming souls move out in all directions.

0:34:00 Tectonya: [echoing cosmically] Should these seven maidens defeat Talura, Eidolon of death, let them be graduated from the Aguefort Adventuring Academy!

0:34:13 Becca: Wow!

0:34:13 Sam: Oh yeah, we could not have forged that.

0:34:14 Antiope: Did we not fake it?

0:34:15 Erika: Danielle takes the little hat that she's wearing and throws it up in the air.

0:34:19 Rekha: Yeah, Katja moves her braid from this side to this side.

0:34:23 Brennan: To that side, and she's like,

0:34:23 Tectonya: Well, don't jinx it 'cause it's conditional on, you know, saving reality.

0:34:28 Katja: Oh, we got it. (Brennan laughs)

0:34:29 Penny: Isn't it ironic that Talura put herself on this map and was like, come defeat me, here I am?

0:34:37 Brennan: Well you see that, yeah, Tectonya looks at you and says,

0:34:40 Tectonya: Well of course, the Legendarium would be able to map even a much smaller quest than this so the Legendarium is, and of course Charity will also know that the Eidolon is here. Talura has the power to end reality. That is very much within, that's her domain, the Ending of All Things. (Penny gasps softly) Yes?

0:35:03 Penny: Okay, so we hate Charity obviously and clearly, but would our purposes be aligned in this quest?

0:35:11 Danielle: No.

0:35:11 Antiope: With Charity?

0:35:13 Danielle: No, because Charity-

0:35:13 Antiope: Fuck that bitch!

0:35:15 Penny: I mean, I'm asking Tectonya.

0:35:17 Tectonya: You bring up an interesting point, Miss Luckstone.

0:35:21 Penny: So maybe she'll be there, she'll help us and then we'll kill her.

0:35:24 Tectonya: I would say that two very intense forces are at work here. The first of which is an ancient elemental being is seeking to end reality. The second is a very nasty lady is seeking to harness that reality-bending power to her own devices. It is up to you to determine where and how these opposing forces may be played off each other. I would not trust Charity.

0:35:55 Penny: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

0:36:00 Antiope: We're not giving her a death genie.

0:36:02 Penny: I just mean in the way that we led her to you, maybe she will lead us to Talura and distract her.

0:36:11 Brennan: She nods and says,

0:36:11 Tectonya: Yes, I would keep a definite eye out for any Ministry officials traveling there.

0:36:17 Brennan: Tectonya looks at the Legendarium again and says,

0:36:22 Tectonya: It is possible, no, it is definite that Talura is summoning her sisters to her in this moment. Remember that one of the things she is trying to end is the reality which is composed of her six sisters so in point of fact, her sisters are going to be present there and coalescing there as Talura unmakes everything. So there is an opportunity for the plan that Miss Nightingale mentioned. It may be more likely that you can address these infinite beings as their infinite matter is coalesced to this central point.

0:37:01 Sam: I have an idea.

0:37:01 Penny: [whispering excitedly] A sister seance.

0:37:05 Sam: Um, so I don't know if anyone noticed, but the conversation that I had with Talura was a lot deeper going than I thought it would. My powers are different. (tender instrumental music) So I think we can use that connection, the one that you have, too, through her to the Eidolons. And we can possibly do this.

0:37:32 Penny: You're so powerful! We're so proud of you.

0:37:36 Sam: Oh, thank you.

0:37:40 Brennan: Tectonya looks at you, Sam, and says,

0:37:41 Tectonya: The courage to reach out to something infinite and yet whole and finite in pain may well have been the act that saves reality. Tremendous courage is the mark of a great sorceress, and I will say also here that though your actions have entered the multiverse into a place of great risk, they have also created an opportunity for great healing. Tumult, strife, a little bit of chaos is sometimes what's needed. I'm not one for the status quo, after all.

0:38:31 Brennan: Winks at Danielle.

0:38:31 Penny: Ooh, to channel Danielle, you have to open the wound to clean it. [finger guns]

0:38:37 Brennan: (laughs) Tectonya stands up and says,

0:38:39 Tectonya: We will arrive in the Nekronomikron soon. (sighs) Your task will begin there.

0:38:47 Brennan: Rocketing through endless spiraling columns, there are ancient Dwarven-

0:38:53 Ostentatia: Oh wow, gorgeous columns.

0:38:57 Becca: Oh!

0:38:57 Sephie: Wow.

0:38:58 Brennan: Gorgeous columns.

0:38:58 Sephie: It's granite?

0:38:59 Brennan: Ringing of hammers, cling, cling, cling. You see crucibles pouring molten steel (screams) like falling through space. You are suddenly-

0:39:06 Izzy: [whispering] Brennan, what's a crucible?

0:39:11 Brennan: A crucible is a massive, basically cauldron used to melt down ore into refined liquid metal. It's the thing that's used to heat metal. So huge crucibles, burning forge light all around you. And you see off in the corner these massive, massive barrels filled with glowing spears and hammers and axes. There's bolts of lightning and bows and arrows and all these things. And you see all the things here are incredible, but the things that this figure is wearing are so humble given the incredible things that have been crafted here. A sweat-stained shirt, common boots. And you see a mighty hammer raining down on this glowing piece of some wicked-looking sword, dagger something. Clang, clang. (exhales sharply) Logran Soulforger turns around, puts the hammer on the anvil, wipes the sweat off his brow, looks at you and goes,

0:40:19 Logran: [very New York Italian] How's it going, Stan?

0:40:25 Ostentatia: Stan?

0:40:26 Logran: Yeah, Stanley Gucci, here you go.

0:40:29 Brennan: And throws the dagger at you. You see the head of Kurraghran, the beast that you banished to the forge, the soul has been forged into a magic dagger.

0:40:40 Becca: Oh, oh!

0:40:40 Aabria: Yo!

0:40:41 Logran: I bet you'll like it, kid, hold on.

0:40:43 Brennan: And you see he walks over, starts throwing some of this like, takes some steel ingots, throws them into this crucible, starts to melt them down. You can see he takes some tongs and puts a steel bar into this massive furnace to start heating it up. He goes,

0:40:58 Logran: Whew, shit, how's it going, kid? You need some water? It gets hot in here, there's a barrel of water over there.

0:41:04 Ostentatia: Wow, you are busy. (laughs)

0:41:04 Logran: Yeah, no kidding. The universe is about to be unmade and all the gods put in a request for weapons now, but I didn't have fucking time! Like, you didn't think this would maybe come up? (players laughing)

0:41:18 Ostentatia: How old are you?

0:41:18 Erika: Hell yeah.

0:41:20 Logran: Old as time, I made the world. (Becca laughs)

0:41:24 Ostentatia: Is that like, a… [raises an eyebrow]

0:41:28 Logran: Are you interested? You got a crush on your god? (players laughing)

0:41:33 Ostentatia: I got a crush on my God.

0:41:34 Logran: Hey, it wouldn't be the first time, kid, look.

0:41:34 Brennan: He goes-

0:41:38 Ostentatia: Hey, and you don't talk to me so it like, makes it-

0:41:41 Becca: Hot.

0:41:41 Ostentatia: Like more attractive. (Aabria laughing)

0:41:42 Rekha: Unavailable, an unavailable-

0:41:43 Logran: Oh, I'm sorry.

0:41:45 Brennan: He says,

0:41:45 Logran: You got your spells in the morning when you wake up. You say your prayers, you get magic.

0:41:50 Ostentatia: Hey, everybody else's god talks to them.

0:41:54 Logran: Yeah, 'cause they're all fucking around.

0:41:55 Ostentatia: And then us fucking Forge Dwarves are over here looking like jackasses because we're getting ghosted every day.

0:42:05 Logran: No one's gettin' ghosted, all right?

0:42:07 Ostentatia: Well, I'm just gonna tell you, like, there's talk around town that like, you're not real.

0:42:12 Becca: (gasps) You started that talk.

0:42:14 Rekha: I know, it's so funny. (players laughing)

0:42:17 Rekha: Somebody's been spreading the vicious rumor.

0:42:18 Ostentatia: No, people are spreading rumors that you're not real.

0:42:25 Logran: I… I'm sorry. ?: Aw.

0:42:31 Logran: You deserve to be spoken to. (soft instrumental music)

0:42:36 Logran: There's a lot going on, and there's a lot on my— oh, shit.

0:42:41 Brennan: You see he goes over and grabs a handful of dust like, (exhales powerfully) Blows into the furnace, pulls a bunch of shapes that you see are stars. Just pulls stars out of this furnace, hits them on the anvil as this Dwarf with burning eyes, fiery hair, fiery beard he says,

0:42:59 Logran: Go take this out to the edge, thank you.

0:43:02 Brennan: And this Dwarf flies out with a bunch of stars.

0:43:05 Ostentatia: Hey, you don't have any assistants around here. Let me give you a hand. He stares at her. (Becca gasps)

0:43:10 Rekha: It's gonna be like in Ghost.

0:43:12 Brennan: You see- Izzy laughs, then mimes putting her arms around Logran.

0:43:17 Rekha: And you go around a god.

0:43:18 Aabria: Yeah! (laughs)

0:43:19 Brennan: You see he weeps a little bit.

0:43:22 Becca: Oh!

0:43:22 Ostentatia: Is that sweat?

0:43:25 Logran: [sniffing] Yeah, I'm fucking sweaty. My eyes are sweaty. (Becca laughs)

0:43:28 Brennan: You see he says,

0:43:28 Logran: Careful 'cause all this stuff is made out of like, souls and—

0:43:32 Ostentatia: Hey, don't worry about it! (group laughing)

0:43:36 Brennan: Ostentatia you get your hair in a scrunchie, pull your sleeves up. He hands you a pair of tongs that you know gripped your planet in the dawn of time.

0:43:47 Ostentatia: So cute. (group laughing)

0:43:51 Rekha: This tiny.

0:43:53 Brennan: And you help your god begin to forge this stuff. Give me an insight check. Give me an insight check and a religion check at the same time and kindly add them together.

0:44:04 Aabria: (gasps) Let's go.

0:44:04 Rekha: Oh my God.

0:44:05 Erika: Wow.

0:44:05 Rekha: 40.

0:44:08 Aabria: Baby!

0:44:09 Izzy: So I'll say this is insight.

0:44:10 Brennan: That's insight, yeah.

0:44:12 Izzy: 12 plus 13.

0:44:12 Brennan: 25.

0:44:15 Aabria: Oh my gosh.

0:44:15 Izzy: This is religion. 19 plus 5, 24.

0:44:19 Aabria: 24.

0:44:25 Sephie: Dang.

0:44:25 Becca: 49.

0:44:26 Brennan: That is a 49. Lots of people have a powerful enough connection to their divinity to gain first-level spells, to cast a Cure Wounds, that they are religious in some way. You hear working in the forge, sweat dripping off your brow. It hits the floor. As it does it hits the hot stone floor and turns to steam. You are helping your god fashion stars and light. And you realize that as you go over to this station and that he opens a cabinet and there are all these threads. The threads are made out of time and energy and you stitch them into a new cloak that gets thrown out into the edge of the universe to become gravity and the pull of bodies in motion throughout time and space. You have a profound revelation and can feel yourself moving from being just a cleric of a divinity to being maybe something closer to a prophet. In other words, not someone who just carries out the traditions of their faith, but someone who actually has a revelation about their faith and the ability to say new things about what they believe to be true. The work that Logran is doing here to craft physical reality, you know the people that would have been doing this work if Logran was not doing it. And this is the physical reality that the Eidolons would normally be tasked with doing, and Logran is doing it instead.

0:46:05 Becca: No wonder he's busy.

0:46:06 Brennan: And on a 49 you see Logran make eye contact with you, crying, again, to see that he has help for the first time in, you know, he has aides that are around but it seems that all the help he had, like, all these people helping him are people that are just coming with new jobs for him. Messengers coming with new tasks to do, people taking the work that he's created somewhere else. This is the first time that someone's actually been able to lighten the load. The reason that the burden on him is so vast and the reason that, you heard him say like,

0:46:38 Logran: The other gods are fucking around.

0:46:40 Brennan: He looks at you, is still crying a little bit as you realize the burden he has removed from other people as he says,

0:46:46 Logran: Those gals did enough, you know? They deserved a break.

0:46:54 Ostentatia: You know, if you have a position open, I know a pretty good guy who needs a job.

0:47:04 Brennan: Here he looks down and says,

0:47:07 Logran: [about to cry] The Eidolons got a really bad deal. They got a really bad deal. And I know that the out that I made for them, that wasn't perfect. You know, things were uh... I did what I thought I could. There are a lot of evil gods who, if I try. (sighs) There were other things I could have tried to do.

0:47:32 Ostentatia: They're really happy.

0:47:36 Brennan: He fully weeps here and gets down on one knee and just goes like,

0:47:40 Logran: I really, like, you know, I've just been, I knew that when the mirror, you know, they're out in the universe, they're doing their thing. They don't gotta work for nobody no more, you know what I mean? We got it covered here in the forge and, you know, I know that mortals want to hear from me. I know they do, but I... Mortals were the reason that... Mortals were one reason that this all happened in the first place. Not all of them, but a lot of them knew about the power of the Eidolons, wanted to go after them and (sighs) I just did the best, fastest thing I thought I could. And you know, once you're in the shit, the requests, the orders start coming in, you kinda can't get a second to think about anything else that you're gonna be able to do so I just started working and...

0:48:47 Ostentatia: Can I tell you something?

0:48:49 Logran: Yeah.

0:48:51 Ostentatia: I make all my stuff, and I don't want anybody to know because I want everybody to think that what I have is designer. And I'm here, you're the designer. (Brennan chuckles) (tender instrumental music)

0:49:14 Ostentatia: You're my Bottega.

0:49:20 Logran: Coming from you, I know how much that means. (players laughing)

0:49:28 Ostentatia: It's so weird, like, material things mean a lot to me, but I think maybe not in the way that they shoulda. It's like, we've had this like, empty mansion for like, my whole life.

0:49:52 Logran: Yeah.

0:49:58 Ostentatia: And now, you know, my dad's in a rough spot, and he told me they were gonna sell the house. And my first thought was like, people can't know that we're doing bad which is why I got as strong as I did so it wouldn't look like we were doing bad and I could look like we could afford everything. And then it sort of took his light away.

0:50:39 Logran: It's a pretty profound realization to have.

0:50:43 Izzy: An order comes in for Logran and Ostentatia takes the ticket and puts it up and starts working.

0:50:48 Rekha: Short-order cookie.

0:50:48 Aabria: Let's go. (players laughing)

0:50:51 Aabria: Two stars all day.

0:50:51 Rekha: Yeah, Grubhub.

0:50:54 Brennan: Ostentatia starts making that order. Go ahead and give me a smith's tools check with advantage and you're gonna add Wisdom plus proficiency to this so it should be a +9 to the roll.

0:51:13 Izzy: 18.

0:51:14 Brennan: You begin crafting something there and as you're, you get this huge order for this complex thing that goes up and you see you end up making what looks like some kind of comet or something like that.

0:51:32 Ostentatia: This is weird.

0:51:33 Brennan: And it's like a little bit lopsided and Logran comes over to it and goes,

0:51:41 Logran: This is beautiful.

0:51:43 Ostentatia: Mm, it's a little fucked up.

0:51:44 Brennan: You have the hammer in your hand as you take it, and he is going to go ahead and give the help action here.

0:51:52 Rekha: (gasps) Oh my God.

0:51:52 Aabria: Yes.

0:51:54 Brennan: As he puts a hand on your shoulder and I'm gonna ask, give me another roll with advantage, if you'd be so kind.

0:52:01 Becca and Rekha: [whispering] Ghost, Ghost, Ghost, Ghost.

0:52:03 Izzy: Come on Whoopi! (Aabria laughs)

0:52:06 Izzy: [covering her mouth in dismay] Oh my God.

0:52:06 All: No!

0:52:07 Brennan: It's even worse?

0:52:10 Penny: Did you nat one?

0:52:10 Sephie: No, that can't be it.

0:52:11 Rekha: What was it?

0:52:12 Becca: Is that two nat ones?

0:52:13 Izzy: No, I got a nat one and a three.

0:52:14 Aabria: No!

0:52:14 Brennan: Nat one and a three, cool.

0:52:16 Sephie: No!

0:52:16 Rekha: Okay...

0:52:17 Brennan: Ostentatia, the hammer comes down and the comet shatters underneath it. Your family's doing bad. You think you're gonna lose your house. And you feel fear build up in your body as the hammer comes down. (mimics hammer impacting) And it breaks.

0:52:33 Ostentatia: Motherfucker!

0:52:37 Brennan: Logran smiles, takes the hammer and goes,

0:52:45 Logran: This here, (warm instrumental music) this isn't your forge. Your forge is waiting for you out in the world. You know where it is.

0:53:01 Brennan: And you see he says,

0:53:01 Logran: It's with your friends, it's with your family, it's with that adventurers' union. That sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

0:53:11 Ostentatia: You heard that?

0:53:11 Logran: I hear everything.

0:53:12 Brennan: He says,

0:53:12 Logran: You want to know why it's okay to love material things?

0:53:18 Ostentatia: Yeah!

0:53:23 Logran: People talk to me about this all the time. I got Elven deities coming in here going like, Ah, contemplate the mystery of fucking [jerk off motion] (Ostentatia blows raspberry)

0:53:32 Brennan: He takes a thing off the wall and you see he says,

0:53:36 Logran: I keep this here in the forge. This was a hammer, a couple hundred years ago. Dwarven cleric, amazing. (metal clanging) In this time, right, she forged this hammer to be able to save her people. This isn't just a thing, right? This isn't a thing. This is time, it's time, which is all that any of us have. When you pour it into something like this, what an act of giving, what a moment of love. You make all of your things.

0:54:19 Brennan: And here you see he takes a button, like a brass button off of his apron, pulls it off, puts it in his hand into the fire, pulls it out, slams it onto the anvil and takes an embossed logo which is four little line marks dashed through a circle which you realize is a very stylized O and W.

0:54:47 Rekha: Cute.

0:54:47 Sephie: Aw. [Becca gasps]

0:54:49 Brennan: And he hands it to you and goes,

0:54:53 Logran: You know, I'm not supposed to tell the future to mortals, but I hear a couple years from now, a Wallache handbag is all the rage. (players cheering and laughing)

0:55:08 Izzy: Passes out. (group laughing) (Erika screams) The fans come out.

0:55:11 Brennan: Ostentatia wakes up back at the table.

0:55:13 Penny: Ostentatia, you disappeared!

0:55:13 Sam: What happened?

0:55:16 Katja: You're like, foaming at the mouth.

0:55:19 Penny: Your skin looks great.

0:55:21 Antiope: Yeah!

0:55:21 Sam: Do you need a napkin?

0:55:22 Ostentatia: Uh-uh.

0:55:23 Katja: Are you sure you don't need a napkin.

0:55:28 Antiope: Oh.

0:55:28 Ostentatia: Yeah.

0:55:29 Sam: You're kinda glowing though.

0:55:31 Izzy: Wait, what does the dagger do? Do I still have it?

0:55:33 Brennan: Oh yeah, you have both this little Ostentatia Wallache emblem and this sick dagger made out of the soul of a monster that you cast into your god's forge.

0:55:45 Penny: Is that Kurragha-rag-ran?

0:55:45 Ostentatia: I got fucking decked out. (group laughing)

0:55:49 Sam: Wow-

0:55:51 Izzy: I put the O and W on as a belt buckle.

0:55:55 Katja: Ow.

0:55:55 Aabria: Heck yeah.

0:55:56 Brennan: Incredible.

0:55:59 Katja: It's your initials!

0:55:59 Brennan: Mm-hmm. As you're turning it into a belt buckle, you see on the back of the emblem written in Dwarven runes-

0:56:06 Rekha: Is his phone number.

0:56:06 Brennan: Is his phone number. No, you just see very, very small. It's not even part, it's almost like a secret, little message you just see that it says in Dwarven writing, from Logran. “Many miracles were granted to the world, and to mortal beings did I grant the greatest miracle of all, that the world might be reshaped through love and work.” And that is written around the other side. And you think of your dad and you think of your home. You can pray for spells and you've been praying for a miracle for a long time. Looking at how hard Logran was working in that soul forge and the fact that he was so moved by you offering yourself in that moment to aid that, you don't know how easy the path forward for your family will be, but you feel your heart fill with a ringing of hammers on anvils and know that there is no part of this world that you do not have the power to reshape.

0:57:19 Izzy: Mm.

0:57:19 Becca: Aw.

0:57:20 Brennan: So Ostentatia returns and the ship moves towards the Nekronomikron. You're all gearing up, everyone's long rested.

0:57:30 Becca: Whew.

0:57:31 Brennan: You are all getting ready for literally like the descent craft to bring you down through the clouds. And I will just ask if anyone has any last things they want to do aboard the Rombosa. I also will say, Antiope and Sam, you see Zelda looks at you, Antiope, and sort of says to you like,

0:57:50 Zelda: Sorry, I knew about the, I knew about the agent thing.

0:58:00 Antiope: It's okay. Look, it's okay. This is the time where we have to figure out what we want to be, and I've said it before, Penny and I talked, and I want to say it again here. There's nothing that anyone could pick here that could separate us. We're a family so if you want to be an actress, act. If you wanna be in the thing that none of us know about, yeah.

0:58:29 Penny: Me?

0:58:29 Antiope: Yeah, you. If there was a random group, a shadowy organization that recruited you, you can do that, too. We're connected by something stronger than going out on adventures.

0:58:42 Danielle: It's a very foolish thing that Talura is doing. She, I, well, I'm sorry. I seek not to judge, only to know. (Brennan chuckles)

0:58:55 Danielle: She thinks of the times that she and her six sisters spent together and feels like that's it. Change is scary, you know? And it's okay to be scared by that. But you know, she's trying to roll back the clock in the most literal sense. She doesn't know if that's what her sisters want. It probably isn't. Penny nods.

0:59:23 Danielle: And she doesn't know that maybe if what she goes forward to might be better.

0:59:29 Katja: Gertrude always says when I get a new saddle, you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

0:59:38 Sam: I think I was just so afraid of things changing again. I haven't had a lot of control over anything really. And I think I'm just afraid of what comes next. I don't know if I want to be an actress again. I don't know if I want to sing again. I don't know. All I knew is that I don't want any of you to leave me like Penelope did or my mom did or...

1:00:11 Aabria: I want to like, grab you by the face.

1:00:14 Antiope: We're not going anywhere. And even if this is the, nope, don't look down. Even if this is the last adventure we go on, everything that's happened before stays with you. It goes through to the future. It's okay, we're still here.

1:00:30 Erika: Danielle pulls up the chart of the water tablet and she's like-

1:00:34 Antiope: Fucking water table, ridiculous.

1:00:35 Danielle: Look, every single one of these steps is valid. Condensation, precipitation, and the evaporation, but it's all part of the same water cycle and it's all still there, baby. You can't create and destroy matter.

1:00:48 Sam: How are you explaining water cycles to me?

1:00:51 Antiope: Yeah, that's wild.

1:00:51 Erika: Yeah!

1:00:53 Katja: You're kind of watersplaining.

1:00:55 Sam: I am a water genasi storm sorceress.

1:00:58 Danielle: Yeah.

1:00:59 Sam: I get it though, I get it, I do, I do.

1:01:01 Ostentatia: Yelle, can I ask you a question?

1:01:03 Danielle: Oh, anything, yeah, I'm an open book.

1:01:04 Ostentatia: You just said you have to get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

1:01:10 Katja: I said that, but I'll never say it, bring it up again, it's okay. (players laughing)

1:01:14 Ostentatia: But have you ever let yourself be uncomfortable?

1:01:18 Danielle: Oh, no, no, not even a little bit.

1:01:21 Ostentatia: Yeah, why?

1:01:24 Danielle: Oh, well, you know, I, it's, I strive for complete loss of ego. And I don't mean that in like a, “I'm not gonna be selfish” way. It's like, I want to be one with everything. Like that idea that Tectonya had about being the big ball of consciousness, that's my jam.

1:01:44 Antiope: Yikes.

1:01:45 Danielle: I'm gonna shed this flesh husk and go back to the Earth one day, baby. [throws up twin peace signs]

1:01:48 Katja: I love your flesh husk.

1:01:48 Sam: It's still you.

1:01:50 Penny: It's beautiful.

1:01:50 Erika: But yeah...

1:01:51 Sam: You still gotta take care of you and you don't.

1:01:54 Danielle: I trust that you'll take care of me in whatever form I am and I just want to be there to help you all in whatever way I can, you know? It's, uh...

1:02:06 Sam: That's not what I meant.

1:02:06 Ostentatia: You know what'll help me? If you do that for you.

1:02:14 Sam: Remember how it felt to walk into that room? I saw it on your face. It's different than anything you experienced, right? Sometimes opening yourself up to that can show you new things about yourself that you didn't know and that are good. You don't have to lose yourself for it.

1:02:35 Katja: I think sometimes we're made to feel like it's selfish to want to feel nice, but it's not.

1:02:44 Izzy: Ostentatia's gonna take off her CHANEL earrings and give them to-

1:02:48 Antiope: Oh my God, yes!

1:02:49 Katja: Oh my God.

1:02:49 Penny: Those are CHANEL!

1:02:52 Ostentatia: They are. (Aabria laughing)

1:02:55 Danielle: What a— Oh.

1:02:55 Ostentatia: No, I'm not fucking around. That's the only designer thing I own. (Brennan laughs)

1:02:59 Sam: Wait...

1:02:59 Danielle: What, are you sure?

1:03:02 Penny: Wait, we thought there was...

1:03:04 Sam: Nothing.

1:03:04 Penny: Okay.

1:03:05 Ostentatia: Because you know what? You're a fucking maniac, and you may be one with the earth and you're gonna shed your fucking husk or whatever the fuck weird thing you said, but you can also be a pretty princess while you do it.

1:03:19 Sam: Mm-hmm.

1:03:20 Ostentatia: 'Cause you're a pretty princess to us.

1:03:23 Brennan: Danielle, as you put the earrings on, feeling, you know, touched by this act of generosity, Zelda makes eye contact with you. Give me an insight check.

1:03:37 Erika: Oh no.

1:03:40 Becca: Can I help?

1:03:41 Erika: Oh, wait, no, no, no, it's 16.

1:03:42 Brennan: Oh, 16, okay. You see Zelda realizing something about you that isn't positive. (soft instrumental music)

1:03:53 Brennan: And you see her get a little bit hurt. And she's not sort of joining into the love fest right now. And there is a flicker of other moments in Danielle's life when people, adventuring parties, other groups had moments of realizing over time that though they had been close to Danielle maybe they didn't want to remain close anymore. And Zelda in her fashion just sort of lets her hair fall over her eye and says nothing. Tectonya steps forward and says,

1:04:31 Tectonya: We have arrived.

1:04:35 Aabria: For the purpose of a feat I have, does that count as 10 minutes of inspiring talk?

1:04:40 Brennan: It sure does! (players laughing)

1:04:44 Aabria: For the first time I use my Inspiring Leader feat and the six of you all get 13 temporary hit points.

1:04:52 Becca: What? (players shouting)

1:04:53 Aabria: That includes--

1:04:53 Rekha: Beef me up.

1:04:54 Brennan: Zelda.

1:04:55 Aabria: That includes Zelda, yeah.

1:04:56 Rekha: Beef me the fuck up.

1:04:58 Sephie: I wish temporary hit points stacked 'cause then I would do the song on top of it but I won't.

1:05:01 Penny: Antiope, I love you.

1:05:01 Antiope: I love you.

1:05:05 Brennan: So descending in a small, little Zeppelin craft, like a little 10-person craft down to the base of the Nekronomikron. You emerge out of the clouds (mimics soft wind blowing) and see a vast gray city. Endless stone mortuaries, catacombs, and crypts as far as the eye can see. Rumor has it that long ago the Nekronomikron was a city like any other filled with the living but that its people and its rulers made pacts with beings of the dead long ago and created a city shrouded in eternal undeath. This place is a center of negative energy. It is tied directly to the elemental plane of death itself. And you can feel the storm coalescing here, the clouds roiling overhead as somewhere within the city Talura is beginning to unravel the fabric of reality itself. What do you do as you see in the distance the heart of the city where you know Talura must be?

1:06:38 Sephie: Is Tectonya with us?

1:06:39 Brennan: Tectonya can come with you here. She looks and says,

1:06:43 Tectonya: It occurs to me that we have the Rombosa on high, and I also know that Charity and the Ministry will be coming here so there is a potential for threats aside from the reality bending one. Well, I'll cut to it. I might want to be up in the sky to blast some aircraft out with terrifying magic.

1:07:11 Sam: That's totally fair.

1:07:11 Tectonya: Yeah.

1:07:11 Antiope: I don't think I got my phone back from you, so you can just hold on to it, but like, please text someone if like, my parents call or whatever.

1:07:19 Katja: The group is called The Seven. It should be probably the most recent text thread.

1:07:23 Antiope: Yeah, I pinned it to the top.

1:07:24 Penny: There's a lot of pictures and stuff.

1:07:25 Katja: Don't look at the pictures.

1:07:28 Sam: I mean, the ones of Ostentatia are really nice. Tectonya swipes through the photos. Her gaze slides over to Ostentatia.

1:07:31 Antiope: Oh, you're just all up in my shit. Wow.

1:07:32 Sam: Very photogenic.

1:07:33 Tectonya: Tasteful... (Rekha laughs)

1:07:35 Brennan: All right. You see she looks at you and says… Looking at the Nekronomikron as well, it is a tangled web of towers and walls and rubble. There is a lot of climbing here.

1:07:53 Penny: [suggestively] Oh!

1:07:54 Brennan: A lot of things to climb, a lot of things like that so you see-

1:07:58 Aabria: I spritz her.

1:07:58 Penny: It's all good, oh yeah.

1:08:00 Brennan: You see Cinnamon looks at you.

1:08:02 Katja: No! (players gasping)

1:08:06 Cinnamon: Should you need me...

1:08:06 Katja: Oh my God.

1:08:08 Cinnamon: You need only call my name.

1:08:08 Katja: I need you!

1:08:11 Sam: I cast Fly on Cinnamon.

1:08:11 Brennan: (laughs) Amazing, you cast Fly on Cinnamon.

1:08:17 Sephie: I cast Fly on Cinnamon.

1:08:18 Brennan: Cinnamon says,

1:08:18 Cinnamon: All right, you other horses, I'm gonna head in. (laughs) (group laughing)

1:08:24 Katja: That's my girl!

1:08:24 Sam: Sorry Taffodil, but Katja needs her emotional support horse.

1:08:27 Taffodil: Oh Lord, you know I'm not going into a dead city. (laughs) Oh, I'm gonna call this one out. I'll be up on the Rombosa manning one of those gunner stations.

1:08:33 Antiope: Yo!

1:08:36 Sam: You can't use lock picks, but you can use a gun?

1:08:39 Taffodil: [whispering] I don't know how to use a gun. (players laughing)

1:08:41 Ostentatia: Laffy Taffy.

1:08:42 Sam: I'm sure you'll do fine.

1:08:42 Taffodil: (chuckles) Okay, I'll try. I mean, how hard can it be? You point it and what, you kick it?

1:08:49 Ostentatia: Yeah.

1:08:49 Penny: Kind of.

1:08:50 Sam: Fine, that should work.

1:08:50 Danielle: That's what the saying is. It's just point and kick. (group laughing)

1:08:57 Taffodil: Okay, I'll do my best!

1:09:00 Brennan: With that, do you all head off into the city?

1:09:02 Aabria: Can I use Primeval Awareness to try to get a bead on where shit's coalescing?

1:09:07 Brennan: You absolutely can. Go ahead and roll a Survival check with advantage.

1:09:18 Aabria: We'll ignore that, that's fine, I didn't. Oh, thank God for the 11. Uh, 18.

1:09:23 Brennan: Okay. (wolf howls) With Primeval Awareness, Antiope begins to lead you into the Nekronomikron. As you are venturing forward into it, your Primeval Awareness allows you to sense the presence of undead which this city is crawling with. Adventuring parties have entire adventures in the Nekronomikron and don't get a fraction of the undead that are crawling in this space. However, you do sense a powerful undead presence unlike any you've ever felt before. And for a second you almost register it as primordial and then you realize, it is both undead and primordial. It is Talura.

1:10:05 Aabria: Okay.

1:10:07 Brennan: You sense her because the negative energy plane is itself one of the inner planes, undead are almost like a specialized kind of elemental in a weird way, and Talura is the perfect combination of those two things. On an 18 survival and also with Primeval Awareness you can not only navigate a track through here. You can navigate a track through here avoiding any pockets of undead along the way to the best of your ability.

1:10:33 Sephie: Before we go in there's some stuff I want to do.

1:10:37 Brennan: Okay.

1:10:37 Sephie: So I am going to cast Protection from Evil and Good on Ostentatia. I know you're a cleric, but you're also our biggest healer so.

1:10:45 Brennan: Cool.

1:10:46 Sephie: That means that you are protected against certain creatures, specifically like in this case elementals, fey, undead.

1:10:50 Izzy: Thank you.

1:10:53 Sephie: I don't know if you have that. I can move that here. [gives Izzy a spell card] I am just going to look at Antiope, Katja, and Penny and go,

1:10:59 Sam: We can all do this. We'll all come out of here. We're gonna save the world.

1:11:06 Penny: No problem. I've seen what we can do, and it's super badass plus the power of friendship.

1:11:10 Sephie: You all have Bardic Inspiration. (players gasp)

1:11:11 Aabria: Thank you.

1:11:12 Brennan: Amazing.

1:11:14 Rekha: Does Cinnamon have Bardic Inspiration?

1:11:16 Sephie: No.

1:11:16 Brennan: Only Katja.

1:11:18 Sephie: I gave Cinnamon Fly, that's all. Oh shoot I have no more Fly.

1:11:23 Brennan: I'm gonna say that you get Cinnamon past the first couple layers of defenses with that Fly spell.

1:11:29 Rekha: That's so kind.

1:11:30 Erika: In the back of everybody's minds they hear a little voice pipe up and goes,

1:11:38 Danielle: Hey, so I think maybe it's time to let you know this is probably the easiest way to strategize without, uh, you know, revealing our position.

1:11:50 Sam: Are we hearing things again?

1:11:51 Antiope: Wait, is your mouth not moving?

1:11:52 Danielle: Oh, yeah.

1:11:52 Penny: What?

1:11:54 Sam: Wait, that's you?

1:11:54 Danielle: Yeah...

1:11:55 Penny: I thought I just put you there and imagined things you would say to me.

1:12:00 Danielle: Oh, well, I just never really wanted to, kinda, hm, it kinda freaks people out when I did it and so I just kind of let it be like, a little voice in the back of your head that you know, uh...

1:12:17 Penny: I'm all freaked out and I love it.

1:12:19 Danielle: Oh, great.

1:12:20 Antiope: You know not calling that shit out is weirder, right? You can be just like, I'm telepathic.

1:12:23 Sam: Yeah, you could just like, mention it, yeah.

1:12:25 Danielle: Yeah.

1:12:25 Katja: It's like if you like, fart and you don't, everyone's like super weird about it.

1:12:31 Penny: If you just said, it'd be funny, yeah.

1:12:32 Rekha: It becomes weirder.

1:12:32 Sam: Yeah.

1:12:34 Danielle: It's, well, having mental powers is like, a little more long-lasting and upsetting to people than a weird fart.

1:12:42 Katja: Okay, Danielle, okay.

1:12:42 Penny: Kinda one and the same.

1:12:44 Antiope: Can you read our thoughts? Oh shit.

1:12:46 Danielle: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not without, I would never do that without consent.

1:12:50 Penny: Wait, hold on. I ask if I can send them back to you through my mind.

1:12:54 Danielle: Like, if you want me to, I'll do that, yeah.

1:12:58 Ostentatia: Were you saying something?

1:12:58 Danielle: I can detect thoughts. Yeah, there's always been times where it's like, on your six, you know, like, whatever.

1:13:06 Ostentatia: No, I mean like before. I always knew you could communicate with us telepathically. That seemed pretty obvious to me.

1:13:11 Antiope: Yeah.

1:13:11 Danielle: Right, no, yeah.

1:13:13 Sam: Wait, really?

1:13:13 Ostentatia: Uh, yeah.

1:13:15 Brennan: Antiope and Danielle, give me insight checks.

1:13:19 Erika: Yeah, I Detect Thoughts on Penny. Oh, 14.

1:13:25 Aabria: 18.

1:13:25 Becca: You just hear like, a ball of dust. (Erika laughs)

1:13:30 Brennan: So you're busy talking about your telepathy. Antiope, you see Zelda looking at Danielle looking really sad.

1:13:40 Aabria: I want to kick, like while we're kind of doing this, I want to kick a rock hard enough and subtle enough that there's a sound in that direction.

1:13:47 Brennan: Cool.

1:13:47 Antiope: And be like… [jerks her head]

1:13:49 Brennan: Give me a perception check, Danielle.

1:13:52 Erika: Oh, (chuckles) 27.

1:13:55 Aabria: Oh my God.

1:13:57 Sephie: Hell yeah.

1:13:57 Brennan: Copy that. As you continue along you get to a place where you, in order to avoid undead, there's going to be Nightwings and stuff flying up, very dangerous, powerful undead flying in the sky as you get closer so you're gonna need to go subterranean to move through a safer pathway. You're also now getting deep enough into the Nekronomikron that you are now not choosing safe routes. You are choosing safer routes.

1:14:17 Aabria: Got it.

1:14:22 Antiope: Zelly, scout out with me really quick.

1:14:24 Zelda: Yeah, oh, we're just gonna go ahead.

1:14:26 Antiope: You got like, tiny goat feet so I figured you would be perfect.

1:14:29 Zelda: Yeah, rubble is great, I love rubble, yeah.

1:14:30 Antiope: Yeah, it's so good for you. [whispered] Hey, what's going on?

1:14:32 Zelda: I'm not gonna bring it up. We're about to go into a battle.

1:14:35 Antiope: Oh, I know, but it's clockable, you good?

1:14:39 Zelda: Sorry.

1:14:39 Antiope: Did something happen? No, you don't have to apologize, you're okay.

1:14:44 Zelda: It's just sort of obvious, right?

1:14:47 Antiope: Yes, but for the sake of, what are, you talk.

1:14:50 Zelda: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:14:51 Brennan: You see she looks up and goes, (tender instrumental music)

1:14:53 Zelda: I don't know. I guess my feelings are, Danielle... Like, think about all the powers that Danielle has shown us. Think about how much Danielle loves to explain things to us. What's the one power she's always hidden from us? The fact that we could be in her mind. And I just, I don't know. Just Ostentatia talking to her earlier and being like, why can't you be vulnerable? Why can't you be this, why can't you be that? And everyone was sort of doing this love fest. I know why Danielle can't be vulnerable. I don't think she trusts us. I think she loves us. I know she loves us, but I don't think she... The thing that she provides to all of us I think somewhere deep down in her, she has no faith that we would do the same for her.

1:16:04 Antiope: Look, I can't speak for her 'cause she can talk for herself, but knowing what I know of her past and bouncing from other groups, I don't think it's that she doesn't trust us. I think that she's so afraid of losing us too that she holds herself back. Ooh, I get that a little. That hit kind of double hard. That she's keeping herself away, but nah, she does love us. And I think she trusts us with her life and everything. I just don't think she's comfortable yet, and that's okay. I don't think she knows what to say yet.

1:16:50 Zelda: I think she does trust us with her life, and I think that, like even today, she said that she's not afraid to die. I don't think her life is something she values super much and I think that's why she's okay trusting us with it. I think her heart, that she doesn't trust us with.

1:17:16 Danielle: It really does taste like horse smells. (Brennan laughing)

1:17:22 Katja: You're eating it!

1:17:23 Brennan: Eating it.

1:17:23 Penny: No, try it, yeah. No, everyone gets one from the fanny pack of tricks.

1:17:28 Sam: I'm not trying it.

1:17:28 Ostentatia: Absolutely fucking not.

1:17:30 Brennan: Danielle-

1:17:30 Sam: It smells bad enough here without smelling dead horse.

1:17:31 Brennan: On a 27 Perception check, you hear that entire conversation. (players gasp)

1:17:38 Rekha: I pour water on this heart to see if it'll grow a horse. (players laughing)

1:17:43 Penny: Maybe overnight maybe.

1:17:45 Brennan: A very small, little sponge horse sort of grows and goes

1:17:47 Little Sponge Horse: [screeching] Why? (players laughing)

1:17:50 Brennan: And dies.

1:17:53 Aabria: That sounds worse!

1:17:53 Ostentatia: Honestly Katja, it seems like what you're doing is sort of fucked up.

1:17:58 Penny: Yeah, yeah, you gave it consciousness that it was immediately was gonna lose. I feel like that's the roughest thing of all.

1:18:04 Katja: [crying] I loved her! (Brennan laughing)

1:18:07 Sam: It's been like a week though. Why isn't the horse back? Is it 'cause you fed some to...

1:18:11 Penny: She's probably in a stable somewhere. I haven't asked.

1:18:17 Brennan: Antiope and Zelda lead The Seven down into the catacombs and we are going to go TaleSpire to our first board.

1:18:27 Sephie: Whoa!

1:18:27 Aabria: Let's go!

1:18:29 Brennan: So you guys get to some staircases where up at the top of this, entering subterranean catacombs you guys get to a series of doorways and halls that Cinnamon just straight up will not fit through. Cinnamon looks at you and says,

1:18:43 Cinnamon: I will meet you at the end. I still have the gift of flight and while I have that I shall be there when you most need me.

1:18:54 Katja: You're always there when I need you.

1:18:56 Sam: Um, I'm not sure I'll be able to maintain concentration for that long.

1:18:59 Cinnamon: I'll hoof it on over there, I'll get over.

1:19:01 Sam: Okay, cool, I believe in you.

1:19:02 Katja: You're perfect. (smooches)

1:19:04 Brennan: (mimics smooching) Cinnamon takes off. We are not going to roll initiative here. (sinister music)

1:19:11 Sephie: Uh-oh.

1:19:12 Brennan: But I invite you all to move your minis around as you sort of explore the space.

1:19:16 Becca: Are the sewers sewerable?

1:19:18 Brennan: Penny, you go, give me an Investigation check as you go to look at the sewers.

1:19:22 Becca: Okay, I look in this first one. 13.

1:19:29 Becca: 13, hell yeah. Sorry, Danielle.

1:19:32 Erika: General sort of survival check.

1:19:35 Brennan: Yeah, give me a survival check.

1:19:36 Erika: Get the vibe.

1:19:36 Aabria: Can I give her advantage and assist?

1:19:38 Brennan: Yes, you absolutely can. You can give Danielle Survival here.

1:19:46 Erika: 25.

1:19:46 Aabria: Yo.

1:19:48 Brennan: Oh, there's not even a fucking dust mite in this room. This is a dead, dead room. And you look around and see a bunch of the skeletons around here. You still have your Primeval Awareness kicking, right?

1:20:00 Aabria: Yeah.

1:20:01 Brennan: You sense a weak undead presence in this room.

1:20:03 Antiope: Oh, something in here is, I know this is gonna sound stupid, but there's like an undead dead thing in here.

1:20:08 Brennan: Penny, you go to investigate. On a 13 investigation check you're looking at the sewers. You have to get down into the water there.

1:20:15 Penny: Ew, ew, ew, ew.

1:20:18 Brennan: As you investigate, a clawed hand reaches up. (Becca gasps)

1:20:23 Brennan: And a skeleton grabs your wrist and pulls you down and your face goes under the water. (Penny gurgling)

1:20:25 Izzy: Turn Undead.

1:20:27 Brennan: Amazing. Talespire, I'm gonna need us to raise the water 25%.

1:20:33 Rekha: Oh, the water's gonna raise.

1:20:34 Sephie: Wow.

1:20:36 Becca: No!

1:20:37 Brennan: We're out of initiative so because these are not full combats here, I am gonna need, first of all, a strength saving throw from everybody. Let me know if you got a 17 or higher. Izzy and Persephone raise their hands.

1:20:51 Brennan: So Sam and Ostentatia. Antiope, Katja, Penny, and Danielle are all nabbed. Sam and Ostentatia are not. We're not gonna go full-blown initiative for these so we're just gonna kinda bounce around a little bit, keep it a little bit more freeform in this sort of like trap area. Ostentatia, you called for a Turn Undead. Could you go ahead and read that power for us real quick?

1:21:17 Izzy: It's within 30 feet and it's a wisdom saving throw. And if they fail, they're turned for one minute. But if their challenge rating is lower than my level I think they're destroyed.

1:21:31 Brennan: Okay, so 30 feet. So only the people within there. Is anyone on the other half?

1:21:38 Rekha: Me I think, right?

1:21:39 Brennan: Katja, so Katja's undead that are grabbing her are not gonna be in the range, but it's a wisdom saving throw, right? And your DC is...

1:21:48 Izzy: A 17.

1:21:49 Brennan: 17, hold on one second.

1:21:50 Becca: Blub, drowning.

1:21:51 Brennan: Ostentatia you, whoom. What does it look like as you Turn Undead? What manifests magically as you Turn Undead?

1:21:59 Izzy: They get my hair. (Brennan laughing)

1:22:03 Erika: Oh my God.

1:22:04 Brennan: As you summon forth this power to turn undead-

1:22:08 Izzy: And they get an Ostentatia Wallace logo on their head.

1:22:11 Rekha: Oh my God.

1:22:11 Brennan: Yeah, your designer logo burns bright with forged fire. All the bones crack apart. All of the undead grappling Sam, Ostentatia, Danielle, Katja and, oh sorry, not Katja, Penny, Antiope, and Zelda are destroyed. So half of the room's bones are sundered with this Ostentatia Wallace Turn Undead. Sam, you want to--

1:22:33 Sephie: Shape Water.

1:22:35 Brennan: Amazing, what five-foot cube do you want to affect?

1:22:39 Sephie: Penny, I want to get as much water away from her as possible.

1:22:42 Becca: I jumped out once the saving throw.

1:22:44 Sephie: Oh, you jumped out?

1:22:45 Brennan: No, you're still by that grate, that sewer grate you were looking in.

1:22:50 Becca: Okay.

1:22:50 Sephie: Your head's underwater.

1:22:51 Brennan: Your head's underwater. The water's moved up high enough. But Penny, you see that the water has pushed away and is now back to just around your knees as Sam saves you there. Becca gives Sephie a thumbs up.

1:23:01 Sam: [quietly] Penny!

1:23:02 Aabria: I want to look over at Katja and go,

1:23:02 Antiope: Can I?

1:23:04 Katja: Yeah.

1:23:04 Aabria: Sweet. And I want to pull out one of the mirror arrows.

1:23:07 Brennan: Hell yes.

1:23:07 Aabria: Like, let's line this up. This is gonna be an undead thing for a bit and shoot the one on her.

1:23:13 Brennan: Incredible, go ahead and make an attack roll.

1:23:14 Katja: Thank you!

1:23:14 Aabria: Not calling any shots. I would like to hit please. Fuck, 15.

1:23:19 Brennan: 15 hits 'cause you didn't take any minuses.

1:23:22 Aabria: Thank God.

1:23:22 Rekha: Thank you!

1:23:23 Aabria: I've learned my lesson.

1:23:23 Brennan: Go ahead and roll damage.

1:23:27 Aabria: 5 points of damage, and now it's my favored enemy.

1:23:32 Brennan: Undead are your favored enemy for the rest of the encounter. Danielle and Penny, is there anything you're doing?

1:23:39 Becca: Oh gosh.

1:23:39 Erika: Uh, Wild Shape into like, you see like a whole swarm of piranhas that form into the shape of a bigger, like,

1:23:55 Brennan: Amazing.

1:23:55 Erika: You know, when they're trying to pretend to be all big and stuff.

1:23:56 Rekha: Yeah, like in cartoons.

1:23:56 Erika: Yeah, like in a cartoon.

1:23:58 Brennan: Incredible.

1:23:59 Izzy: It's bigger than one big fish just like the proletariat.

1:24:00 Erika: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:24:03 Brennan: Wow, there you go. Swarm of piranha. You used your action to turn into a school of piranha and Penny.

1:24:09 Becca: I am going to cast Disguise Self on myself so that I can look like Sam. One, I'll be taller, my head will be out of the water. And if other things are afraid of a water genasi spellcaster then maybe I'll fake them out.

1:24:25 Brennan: You, whoom, make yourself-

1:24:27 Becca: It does not hold up to physical inspection. It's just an illusion.

1:24:30 Rekha: This is the illusion.

1:24:31 Brennan: Cool, illusion, whoom.

1:24:31 Sephie: yeah.

1:24:32 Brennan: And Katja, that's gonna be you.

1:24:33 Rekha: Is there one grabbing me?

1:24:34 Brennan: Yes, there is one grabbing you.

1:24:35 Rekha: Okay, can I roll an attack roll?

1:24:38 Brennan: Yes, go ahead and roll an attack roll. Please do so with disadvantage.

1:24:41 Rekha: Okay.

1:24:42 Sam: Also, what is my hair doing, like what?

1:24:44 Penny: It looks awesome!

1:24:45 Sam: I mean, it's like, awesome for now but like-

1:24:47 Rekha: A nat one. (laughs)

1:24:47 Becca: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, you're too far.

1:24:52 Brennan: TaleSpire crew, let's raise that water to 50%.

1:24:56 Becca: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. (screams)

1:24:58 Rekha: So my head's underwater now, right?

1:24:59 Brennan: Your head's underwater. With that nat one on the attack roll and the saving throw.

1:25:04 Rekha: Yeah, kind of cool that I rolled two nat ones.

1:25:07 Izzy: Pretty cool--

1:25:08 Brennan: Katja, what is your constitution modifier?

1:25:13 Rekha: Which would be this?

1:25:13 Brennan: Mm-hmm.

1:25:15 Rekha: Plus 9.

1:25:15 Brennan: Or no, no.

1:25:17 Rekha: No, no, sorry, this, plus five.

1:25:19 Brennan: Okay, you can hold your breath underwater for six minutes as you roll that nat one on that saving throw, and you feel the bony arms of the skeletons on the ground pull you under the water and hold you there. You lose four out of your six minutes of breath.

1:25:33 Rekha: Okay.

1:25:34 Brennan: We're gonna go back to the top, Ostentatia.

1:25:36 Izzy: I would like to cast Fabricate and make a boat out of the stones.

1:25:41 Brennan: (laughs) Ostentatia, you cast Fabricate. Boom, create a stone boat in the water, whoom, and can crawl into it with your movement.

1:25:56 Izzy: Mm-hmm.

1:25:58 Brennan: Incredible, Sam, what are you doing?

1:26:00 Sephie: I'm going to...

1:26:00 Izzy: You should get on my boat.

1:26:03 Brennan: And we don't have to go in the same initiative order so Antiope, what are you gonna do?

1:26:06 Aabria: Can I deal my full round of attacks?

1:26:07 Sephie: Yeah, come back to me.

1:26:08 Brennan: Yeah, cool, cool, cool. Yes, give me your full round of attacks.

1:26:09 Aabria: Slayer’s Prey and then attack, attack.

1:26:11 Brennan: You're gonna be rolling these with disadvantage 'cause you're shooting through water.

1:26:14 Aabria: Okay.

1:26:14 Brennan: Oh, wait a minute, sorry. Water would be like cover, you have Sharpshooter. You shoot fine through water.

1:26:18 Aabria: Yeah!

1:26:20 Brennan: Go for it.

1:26:20 Aabria: Cool, cool, cool. 28 and a 17.

1:26:24 Brennan: Those both hit.

1:26:28 Aabria: 32 points of damage.

1:26:29 Brennan: Katja, as you are being pulled under and can feel (coughs) breath leaving you, arrows (mimics arrows slicing water) go through the water and shatter the bones around you, you are free.

1:26:38 Rekha: (gasps) For one moment I think, Cinnamon? And then I go, no, Antiope did it. (group laughing)

1:26:43 Aabria: Honestly, a huge compliment. [Rekha laughs]

1:26:45 Sephie: Who's underwater?

1:26:46 Brennan: No one is held, but the water is rising rapidly and you are underground. There is a ceiling up above you.

1:26:53 Izzy: Oh no!

1:26:55 Becca: I've got a question.

1:26:55 Brennan: Uh-huh.

1:26:57 Becca: Ooh, yeah.

1:26:57 Erika: Oh, this is like, so as we see it there's doors. This is a sewer system, correct?

1:27:02 Brennan: Sewer system and this hall is lined with doors. There's doors everywhere.

1:27:06 Rekha: Yeah, I wanna push one.

1:27:07 Erika: The little swarm of piranhas starts opening all the doors.

1:27:12 Brennan: Okay, you have one free object interaction. Do you want to make an investigation check to try to ascertain the right door?

1:27:18 Erika: Yes, yes.

1:27:22 Brennan: Go for it.

1:27:23 Erika: There's like, some sort of drainage system involved here. That would be… 22.

1:27:32 Brennan: I'm gonna say 22 is a very high roll. You rule out, there are seven doors near Katja that you rule out. You swim through, try all of those, it is none of those.

1:27:44 Sephie: Can I try the other ones?

1:27:45 Brennan: Give me your investigation.

1:27:46 Erika: And Danielle says in the her mind, is like,

1:27:48 Danielle: Open the doors.

1:27:51 Sephie: I can swim and breathe underwater so I'm gonna roll investigation.

1:27:55 Brennan: Go roll investigation, yep.

1:27:57 Izzy: And could I cast Augury?

1:28:03 Sephie: Nat 1.

1:28:05 Brennan: Yes, we're gonna let everyone go and the room's gonna go again.

1:28:08 Sephie: Nat 1.

1:28:08 Brennan: Nat 1, okay. Yes, Penny.

1:28:12 Becca: How heavy does the sewer grate below me look? Or is that still guarded by a skeleton?

1:28:18 Brennan: The sewer grate by you looks somewhat heavy. Give me an investigation roll.

1:28:25 Becca: My dice are broken. That's…

1:28:32 Brennan: Do you want to use... (laughs)

1:28:34 Becca: I'm gonna hold on to my luck.

1:28:36 Brennan: Okay.

1:28:36 Becca: I don't know. Investigation, I rolled a 6.

1:28:40 Sephie: Is that a turtle?

1:28:41 Brennan: Sam and Penny begin to search. You do not discover any correct door out of here.

1:28:50 Becca: I wanted to cast my Invisible Mage Hand and try and lift up the grate.

1:28:55 Brennan: Hmm, I can dig that. You try to lift up the sewer grate with your Mage Hand.

1:29:02 Becca: It's invisible though so the skeletons wouldn't see it to stop it.

1:29:07 Brennan: Can I ask which sewer grate are you going for?

1:29:10 Becca: You know what? I look at Antiope and I am just in awe of her majestic arrow and I go for the middle one by her.

1:29:19 Brennan: The middle one by Antiope, incredible.

1:29:21 Becca: And the hand, it's invisible, but it's sort of tip-toeing. (hums cheerfully)

1:29:26 Brennan: Okay, give me a Sleight of Hand check.

1:29:31 Becca: (gasps) Yes, it's 23.

1:29:31 Brennan: You go to cast Mage Hand. It grabs onto something, pulls it to the side. And in the water you feel yourself, again, as Sam and Danielle and Katja are all fully submerged and Ostentatia is in this stone boat. Ostentatia's got a hand up as the ceiling is approaching as the water rises. You disguised as Sam Nightingale feel a hand, not bony, but soft caress your cheek and-

1:30:06 Becca: I call out to Nera.

1:30:11 Brennan: The face of Nera of the eidolons looks at you and says,

1:30:17 Nera: It takes a very clever and cunning mind to remain fluid and calm in the face of adversity.

1:30:25 Penny: No one's ever called me those things!

1:30:27 Brennan: You see she says, (sighs)

1:30:27 Nera: My daughter, you are water genasi, born and bred.

1:30:32 Penny: Oh yeah, I mean, um...

1:30:35 Nera: I give you my gift. (players laughing)

1:30:42 Izzy: This dumb bitch can't tell it's not Sam?

1:30:46 Sephie: I love it.

1:30:46 Brennan: Your mage hand.

1:30:47 Rekha: She's really farsighted. She's like, up close.

1:30:50 Brennan: Your mage hand, Nera's like, very water feeling. It seems like, “I'm just kind of checking in. It seems good, all right, good job,” and then is gone. And you see your Mage Hand turns the grate which was the trick of the thing that there's all these doors and it was one of the grates.

1:31:07 Becca: Yes, yeah!

1:31:07 Erika: Yeah.

1:31:09 Becca: I was like, what's the sneakiest thing in here, boom.

1:31:13 Brennan: The water, whoosh. (water splashing) Once you turn that grate, the runes realign on it and the water--

1:31:19 Penny: I found the bathtub plug.

1:31:21 Brennan: The water, zoom, zooms through.

1:31:22 Katja: Thank you, Penny!

1:31:23 Sam: Thank you.

1:31:23 Ostentatia: Thank you.

1:31:25 Antiope: You rock.

1:31:25 Ostentatia: Well, now we got a boat.

1:31:27 Penny: Call me Sam.

1:31:27 Katja: I don't know how to swim.

1:31:28 Sam: I don't know how to feel about that.

1:31:29 Brennan: Yeah, stone boat kind of slowly lowers to the ground.

1:31:31 Penny: Call me Penny-Sam.

1:31:31 Antiope: It's a good boat.

1:31:32 Brennan: All of you can continue. And actually, all of the doors were in fact false doors, and the only answer is to go deeper down into the grate.

1:31:41 Aabria: Ooh. (Becca laughing)

1:31:42 Brennan: We are going to move into the next map. Let's go ahead and move to the next map, if we could.

1:31:49 Becca: I'm so sorry I broke your puzzle so fast.

1:31:50 Rekha: We could have gotten stuck.

1:31:51 Becca: I'm just really good at puzzles!

1:31:52 Rekha: No, I am so glad we didn't get stuck in this fucking stupid place for this long. Oh, do the piranhas die?

1:31:58 Erika: No, she changes back. She changes back, all of them form into one, the big fish. They actually turn into a big fish and then turn back into Danielle.

1:32:10 Sephie: Do they eat each other to turn into the big fish?

1:32:12 Erika: Yes, they do. : That's very good.

1:32:14 Brennan: After long traveling underground, you begin to ascend through spiral staircases, wrought iron ladders all the way up through dark catacombs and eventually realize that even though you cannot see the sky you suddenly realize that you have left from deep underground. Even as you're going up through pitch black catacombs, you get the sensation somehow like, oh, we have gone from underground to aboveground. We are in a tall tower. And emerge on a rampart with strong wind blowing in all directions.

1:32:47 Antiope: Penny, can you dry me off? It's very cold up here.

1:32:50 Becca: Oh, I cast Prestidigitation which I now— How did I do this? And I dry out Antiope's outfit.

1:32:58 Antiope: Thank you.

1:32:58 Becca: And everybody's if I can.

1:33:00 Brennan: Yes, you absolutely can. I'm gonna say, you approach this next tower. Any part of that is wood or wasn't made of stone is rattling and being threatened to be torn off by the power of the wind up here. The wind is not even coming most fiercely from the sky but feels like it is coming from inside of the tower. If not for these giant walls on either side, you truly believe you would be ripped off the rampart and thrown to the city below. What do you do as you approach the door?

1:33:27 Sephie: As we get towards the door and I hear the wind I use my ability Storm Guide, if it is windy you can use a bonus action each round to choose the direction that the wind blows in a 100-foot radius sphere centered on you. The wind blows in that direction till the end of your next turn. So I can control where the wind blows.

1:33:48 Aabria: Dope.

1:33:48 Brennan: Incredible. What direction would you like the wind to blow as you approach the tower?

1:33:53 Sephie: Well I can turn it, I can control it in a sphere so I would just like to push it away from us and have it spin 100 feet out.

1:33:57 Brennan: Okay.

1:34:00 Sephie: So like, we're almost like at the eye of a hurricane like it's wind blowing all around us but we're calm wherever we're centered on.

1:34:08 Brennan: Hell yeah.

1:34:08 Becca: This is scary.

1:34:10 Rekha: I know, is it just a drop?

1:34:11 Becca: Who's afraid of heights?

1:34:12 Brennan: Yeah, you see a tall drop. As you approach-

1:34:14 Rekha: Who dis? (gasps) Who are these, Dementors? I mean...

1:34:18 Sephie: No copyright.

1:34:21 Brennan: You see three spirits appear here.

1:34:24 Izzy: Demomplegangers? (Aabria laughs)

1:34:27 Brennan: Appear here.

1:34:27 Rekha: Can Zefira help us?

1:34:29 Brennan: I will say this, Sam has single-handedly eliminated a tremendous part of this challenge.

1:34:34 Becca: Oh no!

1:34:34 Aabria: Hey!

1:34:36 Becca: We will break you every time.

1:34:38 Brennan: Every time, so yeah, Sam, you just control the wind, and what you could see was a tower that was going to hurl all of you into the center.

1:34:48 Rekha: Oh.

1:34:48 Brennan: The wind was going to like, pull you off of the rampart into the center and cast you down to the city below. Instead it's all like a Gravitron, you've probably--

1:34:57 Penny: Wait, hold on, watch this.

1:34:59 Becca: I jump into the middle.

1:35:00 Brennan: And the wind just buffets you back to the... (Becca cheers)

1:35:02 Antiope: Oh, I want to do it. [grunts]

1:35:05 Erika: Yeah Danielle spreads her wings and her long cape is very like scroll wing seats. Whee, like sugar glider.

1:35:13 Penny: Sam, you're so awesome.

1:35:16 Sam: Who says an undead city can't be fun?

1:35:18 Antiope: I'm having a great time.

1:35:18 Brennan: It's full Gravitron here. The wind is blowing so powerfully against you all now that you could probably walk on the wall on the outside as the wind pushes you up against it.

1:35:29 Becca: Okay. (laughs)

1:35:31 Erika: Danielle has the spider Birkenstocks so she's like, sugar gliding onto the surfaces and going. (mimics shoes sticking)

1:35:38 Brennan: I'm gonna actually go ahead and need Antiope, Katja, and I think Zelda are all going to need Wisdom saving throws.

1:35:48 Aabria: Ooh.

1:35:51 Rekha: 21.

1:35:52 Sephie: Remember you have Bardic Inspiration.

1:35:54 Rekha: Oh.

1:35:56 Izzy: Probably gonna need it later.

1:35:57 Aabria: I want to know what bad thing's...

1:35:59 Sephie: It doesn't last for long.

1:36:00 Brennan: So, sorry, it was--

1:36:00 Rekha: 21.

1:36:01 Brennan: 21.

1:36:01 Aabria: 11.

1:36:03 Brennan: You see one of the spirits in the center of the room goes to sort of charm you and goes,

1:36:14 Spirit: (inhales raspily) Come into the center of the wind. Let the air bear your soul aloft.

1:36:25 Brennan: And everyone here's going to get one chance to react, but you see that Antiope loses a Wisdom saving throw and is preparing to jump into the spirit's arms.

1:36:35 Aabria: I'm tightening my laces like,

1:36:35 Antiope: All right, let me get a good leap here.

1:36:39 Brennan: A good old fashioned leap here. Danielle, yes.

1:36:42 Erika: Charm Person.

1:36:46 Brennan: You're gonna cast Charm Person on-

1:36:48 Erika: She's like. [pretends to wiggle her earrings] (chimes twinkling) (Becca mimics chimes twinkling)

1:36:51 Izzy: Bling bing.

1:36:51 Becca: Bling bing.

1:36:52 Rekha: Bling bing.

1:36:52 Sephie: Bling bing.

1:36:54 Erika: Bling bing.

1:36:54 Aabria: That's the time I roll high, 19.

1:36:55 Brennan: Ah, oh no!

1:36:57 Antiope: This isn't the time. I have to go bear my soul aloft, hold on.

1:37:01 Danielle: Aw.

1:37:02 Brennan: Yes, Ostentatia.

1:37:02 Antiope: It's not a no. It's just a, not right now.

1:37:04 Izzy: Dispel Magic.

1:37:04 Brennan: Incredible.

1:37:07 Rekha: Does that dispel the wind thing?

1:37:09 Brennan: That dispels the Dominate Person. Go ahead and give me a Wisdom ability check.

1:37:14 Izzy: 16.

1:37:14 Brennan: 16, amazing. Ostentatia, you break the spell on Antiope, and as you do that Zelda is also going to make an athletics check. That is a nat 20. (players cheer)

1:37:27 Aabria: Yeah!

1:37:28 Brennan: So as you dispel the spell Zelda grabs Antiope and full springs across the chasm and just skids and bashes through the door on the other side like,

1:37:37 Zelda: I'm not gonna let anything happen to you!

1:37:38 All: Aw.

1:37:38 Aabria: I just hug her back.

1:37:40 Antiope: Thank you.

1:37:41 Brennan: The rest of you all have actions that turn, and the distance is so minimal that I'm going to say that the wind being here, you all scoot past this immediately. The biggest part of that challenge was the wind sucking you all out, and that's not a thing anymore. Persephone does a little victory dance.

1:37:52 Becca: Beautiful map though.

1:37:53 All: Beautiful map.

1:37:53 Brennan: Beautiful map.

1:37:56 Rekha: That round went on for two minutes.

1:37:58 Brennan: I know, we were there for two minutes.

1:37:59 Sephie: As I leave, I command the wind pressure to just push these spirits all the way down to the center.

1:38:05 Brennan: As it does you see the spirits go down, (mimics wind rushing) and you see another face appears. A flitting--

1:38:11 Rekha: Zefira.

1:38:13 Brennan: Worried-looking face going, (gasps)

1:38:14 Zefira: [quick and shaky] I have very little time left. Younger sister does have a temper sometimes.

1:38:19 Brennan: She reaches out to the person there with Antiope and touches Zelda and says,

1:38:24 Zefira: Please take care of things and I don't know, I feel that something is being unraveled—!

1:38:31 Brennan: And Zefira disappears down below you.

1:38:34 Aabria: I'm just in Zelda's arms by the way, I am enjoying this like, thank you very much.

1:38:38 Izzy: As Zelda got a gift from the wind Eidolon.

1:38:41 Brennan: You see that Zelda already had a 55 movement speed and has that Fleet of Foot, swift as the wind thing. Oh sorry, you had-

1:38:48 Aabria: No, I'm just hugging Zelda.

1:38:49 Brennan: You see that she looks at you and says,

1:38:49 Zelda: Wow, oh. It was cool to get a gift from an elder being that seemed really super stressed.

1:38:56 Antiope: Ooh, that's a—

1:38:57 Erika: Danielle grows a couple of mushrooms.

1:38:58 Sam: This is kinda cute. I'm feeling this, this is cute.

1:39:01 Antiope: Oh, hey.

1:39:01 Zelda: Hey, hi.

1:39:02 Antiope: Thank you very much.

1:39:02 Zelda: I love you so much.

1:39:04 Antiope: I love you so much.

1:39:05 Aabria: I give her a little kiss on the horns.

1:39:06 Sephie: You two should date.

1:39:07 Becca: (gasps) On the horns.

1:39:08 Antiope: She is with someone and this is not the time!

1:39:10 Sam: I mean, when is ever the time?

1:39:15 Antiope: Okay, I appreciate love during strife.

1:39:17 Sam: All I said is that you two would be cute if you dated.

1:39:19 Aabria: Thank you.

1:39:20 Brennan: And you see she says,

1:39:20 Zelda: I think that's, I agree, I think that's true.

1:39:21 Antiope: Oh my God, thank you, aw.

1:39:23 Sam: Yeah, yeah, right?

1:39:24 Brennan: Winks she says,

1:39:24 Zelda: Sorry, I winked behind my hair. The other eye winked.

1:39:26 Antiope: I didn't see it.

1:39:27 Zelda: Yeah, it did.

1:39:27 Antiope: But I felt it. (laughs)

1:39:31 Brennan: We move into a room in which all of you see the central sort of humble dwelling or humble room in this tower. And you see in the middle covered in lichen that has long since died the husk, the carcass of an ancient moss on it is a sundial that is cracked and partially ruined and falling apart.

1:40:01 Rekha: Can I do a history check?

1:40:02 Brennan: Yeah, give me a history check.

1:40:07 Rekha: 15.

1:40:08 Brennan: You look up and see ancient, the walls are actually made of ancient headstones of graves here. Looking at the sundial you look and see a number of doors leading forward from this place. There might be something underneath the moss of the sundial. You can't quite read the figures on its face, but this is an ancient timepiece, although you don't know how it would have worked in this room with no sunlight here.

1:40:38 Aabria: I have a real stupid, uh, no.

1:40:41 Rekha: Do it.

1:40:42 Aabria: Like, I have a high Survival. Is there any chance that I can catch any sense of the way light would be in through here to try to figure out how to make the sundial tell any amount of time.

1:40:54 Brennan: Mm-hmm, yeah, give me a survival check.

1:40:57 Rekha: Fire is light.

1:41:00 Aabria: 15.

1:41:00 Brennan: Okay. There's a place that there might have, it looks like that maybe stone was added to it and light could have come through. You go to move it, and as you move and sort of pull some of this dead husk of moss off of a gravestone you see a name on the gravestone, Antiope Jones, and you vanish. (player gasps)

1:41:19 Becca: She vanishes?

1:41:19 Brennan: Vanishes, gone.

1:41:20 Penny: (gasps) Antiope, Antiope, are you invisible?

1:41:22 Sam: Where did Antiope go?

1:41:24 Brennan: You all see Penny go up to the wall and step onto a gravestone. Then as she falls through and vanishes, the name Penny Luckstone appears.

1:41:34 Sam: What is happening?

1:41:35 Brennan: One by one, each of you vanishes.

1:41:41 Rekha: Time.

1:41:42 Becca: Can I roll for Arcana?

1:41:45 Rekha: Yeah, give me an Arcana check.

1:41:46 Becca: What the F just happened?

1:41:50 Rekha: Can I also roll for arcana?

1:41:50 Becca: 19.

1:41:52 Brennan: Yeah, 19.

1:41:52 Aabria: Let's go.

1:41:53 Brennan: Penny, you're rolling arcana here as you tumble through...

1:41:58 Rekha: 22.

1:41:58 Brennan: 22 for you. Antiope, I also want you to give me, actually give me Perception. (tense instrumental music)

1:42:07 Aabria: 16.

1:42:07 Brennan: Arcana, something is happening here. You're not vanishing because you're dying. You are all in the same space, but I think Penny realizes you're not all in the same time anymore.

1:42:16 Penny: Oh...

1:42:18 Brennan: Antiope, you feel a presence by your side in a kind of inky, dark void. It feels cold here. Your favored enemy is undead. Currently you have your Primeval Awareness around. You sense a powerful primordial being sort of walking beside you.

1:42:38 Primordial: Young though she is, she does have the dominion to end all of this. It is her domain. In matters of death, she cannot be questioned. And if she calls for reality to die, we must answer. You are youngest of your family, are you not?

1:42:59 Brennan: You look up and see, the other faces that have appeared have been composed of their element. And the face that appears here is almost imperceptible, like drawn in crystal line art like something that's barely even there, but so ancient and powerful.

1:43:21 Becca: Oh man, I was drawn to use this clear die when I rolled for her.

1:43:23 Aabria: You knew, you knew.

1:43:25 Becca: And I was like, why this one? I don't know.

1:43:27 Brennan: You see Chronoa looks at you and says,

1:43:30 Chronoa: All of the elements may be bent in their time towards the purpose of death in their time to the purpose of death. I hope that you can make the most of the time you have had.

1:43:48 Brennan: And you're in a military graveyard outside of Bastion City. A lot of members of your family for many generations back have been buried here. There are various markings that appear on headstones and in mausoleums here and places of honor and respect. And you see the same headstone, though it is not covered with lichen, that bears your name here placed at the end of a long line of headstones unmarked with neither honor nor merit.

1:44:23 Aabria: I'm gonna walk up to it. And I want to reach out and I want to rot it. I want to reduce it to rubble.

1:44:35 Brennan: (mimics rocks pulverizing) The stone crumbles and falls away and you see before you a woman stumbles out of the tree line with an arrow in her chest, epaulets, medals, decorations. An older Antiope with gray in her hair is dying, has been shot in the heart with an arrow. You don't feel Chronoa anymore. You've left her side. You're going into something here, but you see something dying in this space and you look at yourself, blood oozing from your mouth and looks up and says,

1:45:17 Older Antiope: (sputters and coughs) Don't turn your back on this, don't let me die.

1:45:32 Antiope: What happened, what, why did?

1:45:34 Older Antiope: You... (coughs) You can still be this.

1:45:41 Brennan: And you look and see the epaulets on the coat from a servant of the Ministry.

1:45:54 Older Antiope: You can still be this, don't let me die.

1:45:56 Aabria: I pull my bow out and I use one of the mirror arrows. (Rekha screams)

1:46:01 Aabria: And I aim for the center of her head.

1:46:02 Antiope: I choose how I spend my time. (bowstring twangs in release)

1:46:05 Brennan: (mimics arrow slicing air) Pow! (Becca cheers) Sephie fans herself.

1:46:07 Brennan: Incredible! You fill yourself with the gift of time, the ticking of moments, the time you spent, the fact that you were always called a late bloomer. What is late? You are always on time.

1:46:24 Becca: Oh.

1:46:28 Brennan: Your arrows never miss, and you are surrounded in a storm of arrows, each perfectly paced to arrive at their target in motion through the vast mysteries of the cosmos.

1:46:42 Aabria: I'm fine. It's very hot, my eyes are sweaty, it's fine.

1:46:47 Brennan: Chronoa looks at you and says,

1:46:47 Chronoa: Never late, my dear.

1:46:52 Brennan: You move through that space. Normally these arrows only last until a long rest, however you are in a time storm right now so for the rest of your life an additional favored enemy will be the people you don't want to become.

1:47:08 Aabria: Yo, yes, self-actualization! (players screaming)

1:47:13 Sephie: Oh my God.

1:47:13 Becca: It's too good! How am I here?

1:47:16 Sephie: So hot!

1:47:19 Aabria: Why is this hitting so hard, so hard?

1:47:20 Sephie: Oh, that was so good.

1:47:23 Brennan: Antiope, in this moment you feel that you have a gift. You know that your friends are similarly cast adrift. What you basically see is that Talura, by summoning each element of the Eidolons here, each of them is flooding. Like, what is the way that death would manifest water? Drowning, what is the way that death would manifest the wind? Tearing apart structures and hurling people into oblivion. The way it's manifesting time is like, every person here is confronting their eventual death through time. You can move through this space. Who is the next person you move to that feels like the closest to you in this space? You know that Penny and Katja were the ones right behind you, for example. You feel the ability to maybe save all of your friends here, but who would you move to first in this space?

1:48:06 Aabria: So she's thinking about her future and her past. She's going back and remembering like back in the day when she was still best friends with Katja, and that's who she reaches for.

1:48:16 Brennan: Katja.

1:48:16 Rekha: Yes.

1:48:17 Brennan: You are in an abattoir. You're in a place where they slaughter livestock.

1:48:23 Rekha: Hm… (Aabria stifles laughing) Oh my God, okay.

1:48:29 Brennan: You are standing there and laid out on the table, her sternum cracked open. Rekha slumps her head down.

1:48:37 Brennan: Don't worry, I wouldn't do it with Cinnamon, is your mother Jana.

1:48:40 Rekha: Oh.

1:48:43 Izzy: Oh, it's just her mom.

1:48:43 Sephie: That's fine. Yeah, that's fine.

1:48:44 Becca: Whew!

1:48:45 Brennan: I thought it was gonna be my horse.

1:48:46 Aabria: We thought it was gonna be your real mom, Cinnamon.

1:48:48 Becca: Oh my God.

1:48:48 Rekha: Nope, I'm good.

1:48:49 Becca: Close one.

1:48:49 Rekha: Yeah.

1:48:51 Brennan: Katja, your mom looks up at you, dead on the table and speaks to you.

1:49:00 Jana: You're still waiting for it, aren't you?

1:49:06 Rekha: Waiting for what?

1:49:07 Jana: You had 100 things to say, but ultimately the thing that you most want to say can't come out of your mouth.

1:49:21 Rekha: Why do you think that is?

1:49:23 Jana: 'Cause the thing you most want has to come out of mine.

1:49:29 Rekha: You think that after all this time I want to hear you say, “I'm sorry, I love you, I never meant to leave you”?

1:49:47 Jana: No. Oh, you're not afraid of me. I know what you're afraid of.

1:49:56 Brennan: And you leave the abattoir. Antiope saw a vision of her future and you see a vision of your past. In a bright pink T-shirt with a Babysitter Horse backpack is a nine-year-old Katja Cleaver in the twilight outside of Skull Cleaver Elementary which is named after her family. And she's sitting on the curb and has been waiting for a car that is still not here for about an hour and a half. (Becca sobs)

1:50:32 Brennan: What's this Katja have on her face in this memory of the past of being forgotten here?

1:50:42 Rekha: This little Katja, this is not the first time this has happened to her. This is not the first time she's had to shoo away a line of teachers asking if someone's coming and her saying, “Oh yeah, my mom just said she'd be late.”

1:51:06 Brennan: Katja, you are standing over this figure. And you see, just like in the past, this Katja has been here for so long, is sitting on the curb, turns as it gets dark and puts her head on her backpack and you begin to smell flowers, jasmine, honeysuckle. And you see in the distance a headstone that reads your father's name and hear your mother's voice say,

1:51:40 Jana: You know what's truly dead and gone? This little girl. You want your dad to come home? He can only come home to you, Katja. This stays in the ground.

1:52:04 Brennan: And you see as little Katja is covered in flowers, you do know that the request for your dad to come home is being made by a woman who is eighteen years old. Some things go away, and there is no childhood for your father to share with you.

1:52:34 Rekha: I peel back the flowers on little Katja and I say,

1:52:40 Katja: Even if no one else is there to share this with you, I was,

1:52:44 Rekha: And I scoop her on my back like a horse. (Brennan and Aabria laughing)

1:52:51 Rekha: I say,

1:52:51 Katja: You're coming with me.

1:52:53 Brennan: Katja, you move forward from there and lost here in death you feel a hand reach out. Coming through time itself, Antiope reaches out to grab you. They hold hands.

1:53:09 Antiope: Hey. I love you, bitch.

1:53:13 Katja: I fucking love you.

1:53:17 Little Katja: I love you, too.

1:53:19 Antiope: [pointing to Little Katja] Nightmare, yoink. (group laughing)

1:53:22 Brennan: Whew, yoinked out, amazing. Katja and Antiope, you emerge from Katja's time stream. Where to next?

1:53:33 Katja: Who do we got? I mean, uh...

1:53:38 Antiope: Make a choice faster, Ostentatia!

1:53:39 Katja: Ostentatia, I was gonna say!

1:53:40 Antiope: Yeah!

1:53:40 Katja: Oh my God!

1:53:41 Antiope: We are best friends!

1:53:43 Katja: We have to get Osten. (group laughing)

1:53:46 Brennan: Ostentatia, you are in a rumbling, cavernous place. You can feel that you're deep underground, and an earthquake is happening. These are literally the halls of your fathers. These are ancient places where Dwarves are interred. There are sarcophagi everywhere. And they are breaking as stones fall from the ceiling and crush them and they are shattering around you. And you can see that you have a hammer and chisel in your hand. What are you doing in this moment as you can see these things, these beautiful marble sarcophagi being ruined and destroyed?

1:54:30 Izzy: Cast Mending.

1:54:32 Brennan: You begin to cast Mending and start fixing them. You feel yourself fighting the tide of the earth itself and you begin to hear voices around you going,

1:54:45 Voices: [tsks] Oh, it's such a sad thing, that poor girl. Can you imagine? Such a fuckup that they had to send their daughter to work. What a fucking piece of shit.

1:54:55 Brennan: And you can hear voices pitying you. And you look around and see a pile of corpses in a corner of the room for the unhonored dead. Honorless, not given the reverence of a place of burial. And you see Carmine atop that pile. What does Ostentatia do in this moment?

1:55:28 Izzy: Not using any magic, she's gonna take the rubble from around her and start building, like, what could be like mausoleums.

1:55:59 Brennan: You go and start building these mausoleums. And you hear the voices around you go,

1:56:10 Voices: Oh, it breaks your fucking heart. Look at her, she's trying to build something for that piece of shit, why? What's the fucking point?

1:56:18 Brennan: And you can hear, again, a chorus of all these Dwarven ancestors around. People that were master crafters and master smiths and can hear them talking about your family. And they say,

1:56:31 Voices: It breaks your fucking heart, that poor girl. Look, she's still trying to give honor to... (scoffs)

1:56:39 Brennan: And you hear a final voice say,

1:56:42 Voice: (sighs) Someone should put her out of her misery. It's not worth it.

1:56:48 Brennan: And you see your body sort of crumpled. It's almost skeletal. It looks like it's been here forever, but you see it is wearing your jewelry. And it is at the base of a wall where you have been carving all of the names of your family, Carmine, Lucia. And you see over and over again to the point of almost madness that this body of yours has carved into the wall over and over again the words written in Dwarven runes, “accept us,” written over and over and over. The skeletal figure of this, what you assume is a corpse looks up, but you see it is in fact Ostentatia looks up.

1:57:40 Skeletal Ostentatia: (inhales harshly) If I only carve a little bit more, it'll come true. If I only carve a little bit more, it'll come true. They're not gonna be able to pity us.

1:58:02 Ostentatia: Bitch… (group laughing)

1:58:07 Ostentatia: They pity us 'cause they ain't us.

1:58:10 Brennan: (laughs) You see there is a thunderclap from under the Dwarven caverns and you see her look up and see you and points to your belt buckle and says,

1:58:28 Skeletal Ostentatia: What is that?

1:58:32 Ostentatia: (chuckles) Best new brand on the market. (group laughing)

1:58:38 Sephie: Whew! Cast whip fans open.

1:58:39 Brennan: Antiope, you move through time with Katja behind you and you grab Ostentatia. You see Antiope and Katja coming through.

1:58:47 Ostentatia: Wow!

1:58:47 Katja: Wow.

1:58:49 Antiope: It's good.

1:58:50 Ostentatia: This place is fucked up!

1:58:50 Antiope: Yep, that sucks.

1:58:52 Brennan: Ostentatia, as you jump in, where to next as you're moving through time? You can feel you're picking up steam. Time is racing forward, where do you go now?

1:59:05 Antiope: Where do you want to go?

1:59:07 Katja: Penny!

1:59:07 Antiope: Penny! (Aabria and Rekha screaming)

1:59:10 Katja: We still have it, we still have it!

1:59:14 Brennan: Incredible. (Rekha laughing)

1:59:17 Becca: I'll pass. (laughs) (players laughing)

1:59:22 Brennan: Penny, you are looking through the scope of a rifle at a woman walking with a candle, her back to you through a graveyard kneeling down at a grave. And you hear a voice in your ear saying,

1:59:41 Voice: When she kneels down and places the candle, take the shot. (suspenseful instrumental music)

1:59:49 Becca: I take the shot.

1:59:51 Brennan: (mimics gun blasting) The woman slumps forward dead on the grave.

1:59:55 Voice: All right, retrieve the artifact and report back. Good work, Agent Luckstone. (Aabria gasps)

2:00:03 Penny: Call me by my number.

2:00:04 Brennan: You see they say,

2:00:04 Voice: Good luck, Double Eights.

2:00:09 Brennan: As you walk through the graveyard to go retrieve the artifact, you see that the woman's wearing a cloak and there are a bunch of scattered cookies that have little heart candies in them scattered over the grave, but you know the artifact's on her person somewhere. As you kick it over, you see a dead Penny Luckstone on the ground, her face frozen in a mask of horror. And you see that there is a giant headstone in front of her with the words, “here lies some Mumple people.”

2:00:46 Aabria: [hands over her mouth] Oh!

2:00:50 Rekha: Ooh.

2:00:54 Becca: I start digging.

2:00:54 Brennan: You start digging. This voice comes over your surveillance again saying,

2:01:00 Voice: Double Eight, not necessary. The artifact's on the person. Collect the artifact and return back.

2:01:07 Becca: I take the thing out of my ear and toss it.

2:01:09 Brennan: (laughs) You start digging. You see the blood oozing out and Penny, dead, (gasps roughly) turns to you as you're digging furiously. You can feel yourself, this little Halfling digging a burrow in the earth. You see it turns to you and goes,

2:01:29 Dead Penny: Come on, it's okay. It's okay that you killed me. We didn't want me to be alive. Who wants to be a Mumple person? Sitting here making cookies like an idiot. Look at how cool you are!

2:01:46 Penny: I am really cool. Do you know how hard it is to be an agent?

2:01:51 Dead Penny: So hard, you did it! (retches blood) All your dreams came true.

2:01:56 Penny: It's not that… I don't know what my dreams are.

2:02:02 Dead Penny: Yeah, you do.

2:02:04 Brennan: And you get down and find a coffin down here in the dirt and you can pry it open.

2:02:17 Becca: I do so.

2:02:19 Brennan: You see 21 skeletons in the casket. Amidst them you see all of these clutched letters written from you but anywhere you wrote your name it's gone.

2:02:35 Becca: [unsteadily] I check all of them.

2:02:38 Brennan: One by one you check them all. You hear a push of dirt as Penny from up above joins the bodies down here in the casket. You have all these letters assembled here. And you see Penny, this other one covered in blood, crisp little sweater. You're dressed all in black so you have bullets, bandoliers. You see this Penny there covered in blood joins everyone else and says,

2:03:02 Dead Penny: Why are you sad?

2:03:11 Penny: I thought this was what I wanted. But no one knows how much I've done.

2:03:22 Dead Penny: (chuckles) I do. I know how hard it is to be this. We know how hard everybody,

2:03:30 Brennan: And gestures with bloody hands to the bones here,

2:03:34 Dead Penny: How hard everybody worked. They love us. So if we love them, don't we have to make their sacrifice matter?

2:03:53 Penny: That's what I always thought.

2:03:57 Dead Penny: If they loved us enough to work this hard so that we could be anything we wanted to be, we owe it to them to become everything (gags) everything we can be. And if that means that we have to forget them and they have to forget us, then isn't that love? (gagging)

2:04:18 Penny: That doesn't feel like love. I feel love when I was at home and we were all together around a little hearth eating tiny sandwiches.

2:04:30 Brennan: Penny's face goes emaciated and her eyes go hollow-

2:04:33 Penny: Wait!

2:04:33 Brennan: And she says,

2:04:34 Dead Penny: So you just want to be another fucking Mumple person!

2:04:39 Penny: I don't want that either.

2:04:42 Dead Penny: It's disgusting. There's nothing in this world I hate more than a fucking Mumple person!

2:04:47 Brennan: And you see that she--

2:04:49 Penny: Give me the artifact!

2:04:52 Brennan: Cool, you reach forward, reach into her chest, pull out the artifact. It's a glowing heart. It's a glowing bloody heart. Blood drips through your hands and inside of the heart you see a fractured mirror in the reflection of the blood in the heart glowing light. You see a fractured mirror. The mirror's broken straight down the middle. And you see in one half of it there is a Penny Luckstone going to Mumple surrounded by or with a bunch of kids going to Mumple. Penny's there with a little Rube Goldberg house. And in the other half is your reflection of this agent person on either half of this broken mirror.

2:05:39 Becca: Does it kind of look like Katja's necklace?

2:05:41 Brennan: It looks a lot like Katja's necklace. And as that happens, you realize that the edges of the mirror expand out to the edges of the heart you are holding. The fracture runs right down the middle and you hear screaming from your cast-aside surveillance up ahead,

2:05:58 Voice: 88, return the artifact! Make your choice!

2:06:04 Brennan: What do you do?

2:06:05 Becca: I crawl out of the grave. And I crawl over to the earpiece. And I take the half, halves in each hand and I look at them. One half is Mumple people and one half is agent?

2:06:22 Brennan: Mm-hmm.

2:06:25 Becca: I smash both of them into this earpiece until all three shatter.

2:06:32 Brennan: (mimics glass shattering) Your hands are bloody and cut up to ribbons. You shatter them apart. And I'm actually gonna say that, Antiope, you step out here. You feel that this place is different. Penny has torn up hands and is staring. Your heart is shattered as you look up and see Antiope emerging from time, Ostentatia and Katja behind her. You see that this Penny is dead, skin paper white and she is neither breathing nor do you detect a pulse in her. Even your ranger senses, this Penny is dead.

2:07:13 Antiope: We were too late. Penny?

2:07:18 Brennan: You can feel in your chest that there is no heart beating. Looking at the shattered both halves in front of you and the earpiece gone, does Penny want a heart back?

2:07:39 Becca: I think that the Penny is in the grave wearing the cape, and she crawls out and collects her cookies and gives them to her friends.

2:07:52 Antiope: (yelps) Jesus!

2:07:54 Aabria: I kick the corpse.

2:07:55 Antiope: What the fuck is that? Hey.

2:07:56 Sephie: Oh my God!

2:07:58 Antiope: You're so weird! I love you!

2:08:01 Katja: And in a great way, are these?

2:08:03 Penny: I made these, they're Candyheart cookies.

2:08:04 Katja: I know, I want to save this for later.

2:08:07 Rekha: I try to water it again.

2:08:09 Brennan: This weird undead Penny. Oh my God, character switch, whoop! Weird undead Penny turns to look at Penny that's just crawled out of the grave covered in blood and says,

2:08:18 Penny: I killed you. How are you still alive?

2:08:24 Penny: 'Cause when you got friends, you can never die!

2:08:27 Becca: And then I take my rapier and stab that one!

2:08:31 Brennan: And you both see that the two halves of that fractured heart, Penny's Luckstone's heart glows with incredible light.

2:08:37 Becca: Ooh!

2:08:41 Brennan: And we see an incredible secret agent, silencer, arquebus, bandolier, bullets walking down the street with a giant tray of cookies.

2:08:55 Aabria: Wild. (Becca laughing)

2:08:58 Brennan: And all her family around her.

2:09:00 Becca: We make a parade with just my family. (group laughing)

2:09:03 Rekha: It really is a parade, it's a riot.

2:09:06 Aabria: 100%.

2:09:07 Brennan: Penny, you are covered in blood and cookies. Where to next?

2:09:11 Penny: Uh, I think...

2:09:13 Katja: What you gonna say?

2:09:14 Antiope: Yeah, what were you gonna say?

2:09:16 Penny: What are we gonna say?

2:09:19 Penny and Katja: Danielle!

2:09:19 Antiope: Sam! Hold up, I want to like, I jump in, hold on! We have to get Zelda first. I think she needs to see whatever we're gonna see.

2:09:27 Penny: Oh, great point.

2:09:27 Antiope: Is that okay?

2:09:29 Rekha: Is it so fucked that I keep forgetting-

2:09:29 Penny: We knew she was here the whole time. (Erika laughs)

2:09:32 Penny: I totally forgot.

2:09:34 Rekha: I know it's fucked, I know it's fucked up.

2:09:35 Penny: Zelda, were you just standing there?

2:09:37 Brennan: Yeah, you guys move through time and see Zelda absolutely drenched with blood with thousands of dead Zeldas in a metal concert with a bunch of Zeldas on stage like. (growls metal music) She's like,

2:09:54 Zelda: We gotta go, we should go, we should really go.

2:09:54 Antiope: Yeah, come on.

2:09:56 Katja: Wait, it seems like you're headlining though.

2:09:57 Zelda: I don't like it here, I figured out some stuff.

2:10:00 Katja: Okay.

2:10:00 Zelda: I don't like it. I super don't like it here!

2:10:03 Penny: Wait, pick me up on your back. Swing me around and I'll kick. (Zelda growls) (group laughing)

2:10:10 Brennan: And moves on out and you go to Danielle.

2:10:13 Aabria: Yeah.

2:10:15 Brennan: Danielle, you are… Erika shakes their head no. (Aabria laughing)

2:10:20 Rekha: Uh-oh, uh-oh, bitch.

2:10:23 Izzy: Uh-oh, bitch.

2:10:23 Sephie: Someone's in the hot seat.

2:10:24 Brennan: You are moving through the ruins of Bastion City, brought low in ages long past by the forces of nature itself. Trees, thorns, vines. And you walk through the forests in the ruins of this place. There's the Ministry, there's Slappy McFinnigan's destroyed by vines and roots. And you arrive at the Museum of Questing. The forests here are all dead. Trees are dead and leafless, roots dead. You feel no life here in this place. And as you walk through the reclaimed rubble, Zelda's words from before ring in your ears,

2:11:18 Zelda: I don't think she trusts any of us.

2:11:21 Brennan: As you summit this area and look into the museum and see all of the rubble and waste, you see a massive dracolich, the bones of Kalvaxus.

2:11:38 Kalvaxus: Well, Miss Barkstock, it's a pleasure to see you.

2:11:47 Danielle: It's been a while.

2:11:50 Kalvaxus: Were you expecting to find yourself?

2:11:57 Danielle: You know, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on myself.

2:12:05 Kalvaxus: Yeah, I bet you do.

2:12:08 Danielle: That makes it sound like you don't think I do.

2:12:13 Kalvaxus: Oh, I worked at a school for a very long time. A junior believing that they have it all figured out is not anything new to me.

2:12:25 Danielle: Point taken. What did you teach?

2:12:28 Kalvaxus: I was the vice-principal.

2:12:30 Danielle: Oh, that makes so much sense, ugh.

2:12:36 Kalvaxus: Well, you have nothing to learn. Welcome to paradise.

2:12:43 Brennan: And you see he returns and just sort of goes back to sleep and you hear wind blowing. (wind rushing)

2:12:52 Erika: I cast Speak with Plants. (magic reverberations echo)

2:12:56 Brennan: Plants kick up. Do you also have the spell Speak with Dead?

2:13:03 Erika: No.

2:13:04 Brennan: Then you can't speak with plants. As you attempt to cast it, though, you do hear a voice on the wind speaking back to you.

2:13:18 Voice: Is there anything you wish to ask them?

2:13:23 Danielle: How can I build a future that's sustainable for everyone? How can I do it? I'm just one person. A person with a human and elf body. I only have so much power, and it's a lot, but it's still not enough to, you know, sort of revisit a whole capitalist economy and power structure and destabilize the status quo and make all my friends happy.

2:14:04 Brennan: Your arm falls off. (bone cracks) (flesh splats on ground) (Danielle sighs)

2:14:09 Brennan: The Draconic head looks up and says,

2:14:11 Kalvaxus: In the grand scheme of things, an arm falling off is not that big of an issue.

2:14:16 Danielle: It's really not.

2:14:16 Brennan: Your other arm falls off.

2:14:20 Erika: (groans) Tendrils of mushroom mycelae grow out of her body. They move their tendrils up to make a little peace sign. (Aabria and Becca laughing)

2:14:35 Danielle: Did you know, Mr. Kalvaxus, sir, Professor Kalvaxus, sir, that mushroom, when they grow out their root structures work to enrich the soil for the trees that shelter them. One of the primary purposes other than doing how mushrooms do is to enrich the soil and to support the other life around them.

2:15:00 Kalvaxus: Mm, yeah, and you're a mushroom.

2:15:05 Brennan: Your legs root to the ground.

2:15:05 Rekha: Mm...

2:15:10 Kalvaxus: That's a good aspiration for a young woman. You want to be a mushroom, nice, very good.

2:15:15 Danielle: Well, it's better than being a shitty dragon who was a vice-principal.

2:15:18 Kalvaxus: Oh.

2:15:20 Danielle: No offense to vice-principals.

2:15:23 Kalvaxus: By all means, if you want to hurt my feelings, go for it, but that doesn't change the fact that your greatest aspiration for yourself is to not exist anymore.

2:15:33 Brennan: And your torso turns into plant matter. It's just your head on a stump.

2:15:41 Kalvaxus: I mean, Danielle doesn't get a story, right? You're just an ecosystem. You're just here to enrich the soil so why don't you start enriching it? You don't want anything. Or maybe you do but you don't think the world can provide it to you, certainly not your stupid friends. What could they do? You're there to support them. Oh look, you make fruit.

2:16:02 Brennan: And you see he takes a little thing and says,

2:16:05 Kalvaxus: Very generous, Miss Barkstock. (slurps) (Becca yelps) (Rekha groans softly)

2:16:10 Danielle: I'm not afraid of giving everything up and having nothing left for myself, imperious like you that just take and take and take and take and giving myself, everything is still not gonna be enough. I just hope that, you know, maybe my friends might remember me while they continue to fight for what's good and right.

2:16:40 Kalvaxus: Well, Miss Barkstock, welcome to nobility, very selfless.

2:16:50 Brennan: And you turn into this fungal plant mass and feel yourself being devoured. Mites and grubs move on you and this sort of fungal form grows. Strange budding spores. Yeah, you feel the ability to bring some semblance of life to this place. Danielle would have to go away. But if you want, you could bring some life to this place.

2:17:19 Erika: Danielle calls the rain. (rain pouring) (thunder rumbles)

2:17:23 Erika: And the rain comes. It washes to little cracks in the soil, little crevices of stone. And the water nourishes the root system. And the root system takes hold. It creeps into every inch of the soil in the surrounding area, first just the exhibit with Kalvaxus then the museum then the whole town until all of Bastion, the mighty network of roots digesting the decay, bringing about new life, cracking and crumbling the remnants of pavement and the stones and pieces of metal as it slowly goes back to the earth.

2:18:22 Brennan: [nods slowly] You feel this ecosystem move upon itself. And I'm gonna say at this moment that your friends arrive. You arrive in this new place. The rain has come in, life has returned to this place. It's flowering and blooming.

2:18:45 Erika: They walk through to the museum exhibit and they see two little diamond earrings in the Kalvaxus exhibit.

2:18:55 Brennan: Kalvaxus is there covered with moss and lilies and shit and he says,

2:18:58 Kalvaxus: Very humble beginning to a hoard.

2:19:02 Antiope: Dragon! (group laughing)

2:19:06 Brennan: You take the dragon slayer arrows. (mimics bowstring twanging) (screams) Skull shatters, crumbles.

2:19:13 Antiope: Anyway, where's Danielle?

2:19:13 Penny: Yeah, where is she?

2:19:16 Brennan: You see there is this beautiful tree right near where the earrings were. And it's both plant and fungus intertwined and there's buzzing insects in it. You see it's near where the arrows were, and it has a wreath of flowers in its branches that looks like flowers and fungus and blooming things.

2:19:41 Becca: I pull out my dagger and I look to you guys.

2:19:44 Antiope: What, are you gonna stab the tree?

2:19:47 Penny: Do we get her out? Is she in there?

2:19:50 Katja: Is she in the tree or is she the tree?

2:19:51 Aabria: Can I cast Primeval Awareness to see if I can sense my friend?

2:19:56 Brennan: The only thing you're aware of is Danielle. She is the primeval right now.

2:20:00 Antiope: That was a bad idea. Don't kill the tree, maybe.

2:20:02 Penny: Okay.

2:20:07 Antiope: Danielle, are you the tree?

2:20:07 Penny: Wait.

2:20:08 Aabria: Kick it.

2:20:09 Penny: Let's put our hands on it and kinda like...

2:20:14 Aabria: I aim for what I think is not her chest. (Erika laughs)

2:20:19 Penny: I want to like, be part of the tree, too.

2:20:22 Brennan: Zelda doesn't put her hands on the tree.

2:20:24 Antiope: Zelda...

2:20:24 Katja: Hm… Zelda.

2:20:26 Penny: Zelda, we need you.

2:20:28 Antiope: We gotta do it.

2:20:30 Penny: Danielle's in here, she needs you.

2:20:33 Brennan: She lowers her head, walks up, and puts her hands on the bark.

2:20:37 Antiope: Okay, hold on, you're not gonna put it on grumpy.

2:20:39 Penny: Yeah, no, not like that.

2:20:39 Antiope: What the fuck do you want to say?

2:20:43 Zelda: Danielle, are you around here?

2:20:46 Erika: The wind whispers through the wooly branches of the tree. A little mushroom spore goes and a little bee flying by is like (mimics air puffing) and its eyeballs completely dilate.

2:21:02 Rekha: That's hot as hell.

2:21:04 Zelda: Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm not… (sighs)

2:21:14 Brennan: You see she sighs and looks up at you and just goes,

2:21:19 Zelda: I wish you would have trusted us. I wish you would have... I wish you would have felt like you could let your guard down. I wish you would have felt like you could say how you felt. I wish you could have said when you were hurting. I wish you could have said what you wanted. I wish you could have been with us and not beside us and under us and over us supporting or explaining or understanding or being there but not being with. I wish you could have seen how much we wanted to take care of you.

2:22:15 Erika: Lightning strikes the tree. (thunder crashes)

2:22:17 Erika: It falls. Roots and moss, lichen and mushrooms grow up over it into a mound and you can see this all as if in time lapse. And just as soon as it has fallen and been reclaimed into the earth it reforms and Danielle is there. (players gasp)

2:22:41 Danielle: Maybe sometimes self-care is helpful for supporting others. (Izzy sputter laughs)

2:22:50 Penny: Nope, nope, nope.

2:22:53 Katja: You're so close.

2:22:53 Antiope: Really close.

2:22:54 Katja: You were so close.

2:22:54 Penny: Really close, not about us.

2:22:57 Antiope: Not about that, one more time.

2:22:58 Danielle: I like being a pretty princess. (players cheering and clapping)

2:23:02 Becca: We lift her up.

2:23:03 Rekha: And I put her arms back on her.

2:23:04 Brennan: You lift her up, amazing. You move from this space.

2:23:14 Rekha: Sam.

2:23:17 Brennan: You are at the funeral of Sam Nightingale in a pew in the back of a temple filled with adoring fans. You see your body laid out in the casket at the head of the congregation, and a veiled figure steps up to the lectern. Removing her veil is Penelope Everpetal. (players gasp)

2:23:50 Brennan: And you hear the loud performative sobs of your mother from the front row.

2:23:59 Penelope: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to mourn a soul departed from this world too soon. Nobody was better friends with Sam—

2:24:16 Sephie: I cast Infestation. [Brennan laughs] (player cheers)

2:24:18 Brennan: Boom, pow, that spell goes out and is Counterspelled by a corpse. Sam Nightingale leaps from her casket. (roars) Lunges forward and grasps you and shatters through mirror after mirror after mirror after mirror and goes,

2:24:39 Corpse Sam: Why couldn't you play nice? Why couldn't you get with the program? Don't you understand that they loved us?

2:24:46 Sam: No, they didn't, they never have!

2:24:49 Brennan: Sam looks up at you and you see the mortuary makeup and can smell the preservative and can feel that this body died horrifically and has been put together again to keep up appearances. And goes,

2:25:13 Corpse Sam: Listen to me. I'm not gonna let you ruin this.

2:25:22 Sam: Ruin what? There's nothing back there. None of that matters.

2:25:29 Corpse Sam: Sam, you're smart. Figure out the constant. Wherever you go, people leave. Where is Mom? Where is Penelope? Where is that non-fuckboy Johnny? Where's your home? Where's Gideon and Rebecca? These are all very different people. The constant is us.

2:26:07 Sam: So people leave. That doesn't mean that I can stop existing. It doesn't mean that I want whatever that is. [gesturing to the other Sam]

2:26:16 Brennan: Sam looks at you and says,

2:26:16 Corpse Sam: Okay, okay. So we need people to stick around. That's what we need. We need people to love us. We just need people to love us.

2:26:35 Brennan: And mirrors start to appear around you and you hear applause. (crowd applauding) (players clapping)

2:26:42 Voice: Presenting Sam Nightingale returning to the stage. Folks, give it up.

2:26:48 Brennan: (mimics crowd applauding) A roar. And boy, does that roar feel a lot like love.

2:26:55 Rekha: Hmm...

2:26:59 Sam: Is this what you want? Is this what we want?

2:27:04 Corpse Sam: This could keep us alive.

2:27:10 Sam: Everyone does leave. This is one thing we could rely on, isn't it?

2:27:22 Corpse Sam: We could rely on this, we could rely on this.

2:27:26 Sephie: Sam goes up to one of the mirrors and touches it. (suspenseful instrumental music)

2:27:32 Brennan: (mimics wind whooshing) Beautiful image swirls past. You feel some sense that you could control what this mirror sees. You see you looking glorious talking to some talk show host in Bastion City. Everyone's laughing at something you've said. It moves past, nice things, Sebastian at the fleet, at the head of a fleet of cars in a massive garage.

2:27:57 Rekha: I thought he was driving.

2:27:58 Brennan: You see all of these things which very few people are talented enough or gifted enough to get. You could get them.

2:28:12 Sam: Even if I want these things, I don't want it at the expense of what I really want.

2:28:21 Corpse Sam: What is it you really want?

2:28:23 Sam: To be loved and cared for.

2:28:26 Brennan: You say that with a hand left on the mirror and you see a ratty, old sofa, and on it is, wearing sweats, having just cried off a bunch of makeup is Rebecca Everpetal.

2:28:40 Rekha: Aw.

2:28:43 Brennan: And you see her talking to her sister. They have some music on in the background. Her sister's apartment is not that great, but she has a glass of box wine and she's crying. And she goes,

2:28:56 Rebecca: She's just, she's just so special and she's been through so much and for a kid to get knocked around that much by life and in a moment like that where everything's been thrown up in the air for her again, the first thing she does is reach out to me. Oh, she's a special, special kid. She's going places, I know she is. (exhales loudly) (slurps) Ah, do you have more of this? This is great.

2:29:36 Sam: Oh, that can't be good.

2:29:36 Brennan: (laughs) And you see, her sister gets up and goes to the kitchen and she looks up and says,

2:29:46 Rebecca: I just hope… You know, we make up stories, you know? And it doesn't take too many times for a thing to happen for us to go, that's never gonna stop. And Sam has got more than her fair share, and I just hope she knows that even though she's gotten the same bad cards a few times in a row that that better hand is coming just around the corner.

2:30:18 Brennan: And faces begin to appear in the mirror. At the very front of it, racing through time faster than an arrow is Antiope with a chain of the other maidens behind her stretching through time and space coming towards you. Persephone stretches her hand out.

2:30:36 Brennan: (mimics mirror shattering) Hands grasp in time and space. Antiope mouths ‘I love you’.

2:30:42 Sam: I love you, too.

2:30:45 Antiope: [whispered] It's time to go.

2:30:47 Sephie: I give one glance back through the shattered mirrors at the funeral home and look at Penelope. (Brennan inhales raspily)

2:31:02 Sam: I don't love you anymore.

2:31:05 Brennan: (mimics mirror shattering) Like an arrow, you are all in this long chain. Antiope you're like, flying through time. You have the Seven Maidens with you. You are all moving through time and space. That last thing you say, Sam, echoes behind you and all of you are free. Time and death you begin to leave behind. Everybody dies and in some ways there are many deaths of things other than our material form through time. And in this space you have said goodbye to many things that were that can never be fixed and said goodbye to many things that could be that now never will. Moving through time, a face appears before you as you hear in the distance the racking, screaming sobs of Talura, Eidolon of death. You see ahead of you fire and earth magma crashing up as Chronoa slips past you, being pulled towards Talura, and a face flickers as you can see twisting helixes of magic, Solisian magic, some powerful arcano-tech. (mimics energy shooting) And a crystal, the mirror is hacked in your friendship bracelet.

2:32:34 Penny: (gasps) Oh no!

2:32:37 Brennan: And you see the face of Charity Blythe.

2:32:41 Becca: Bitch!

2:32:41 Brennan: Wearing battle armor, almost like fucking cloaked plate armor going,

2:32:49 Charity: You know, at their core I've always felt that heroes and villains were quite similar. They both enjoy the sound of innocent people screaming, just for different reasons.

2:33:03 Sephie: I cast Infestation through the mirror. [Brennan laughs]

2:33:05 Charity: Bugs, I hate bugs!

2:33:07 Brennan: You see she says,

2:33:07 Charity: Oh, you're so much better than me? Your own little Project Reset here seems to be going quite well. Or did you not want to make some problems to solve?

2:33:20 Katja: We wanted a quest! We didn't make problems to make a quest.

2:33:25 Antiope: You could have done like, a written fucking test for the G-E-D. Like, you know, that's on you.

2:33:30 Ostentatia: What's the G-E-D?

2:33:30 Antiope: Sorry, GED.

2:33:32 Katja: GED, otherwise known as GED.

2:33:32 Penny: GED, GED.

2:33:34 Brennan: You see she looks at you and says,

2:33:38 Charity: (sighs) Very well, I had hoped that time would have sorted you out, but it seems I'll take matters into my own hands.

2:33:45 Sam: Well, time definitely didn't sort out your face, you wrinkly bull bitch.

2:33:47 Penny: Ooh!

2:33:50 Charity: I hate teenagers!

2:33:52 Brennan: And you see-

2:33:53 Sam: Botox can't help you anymore!

2:33:55 Brennan: I'm gonna need everyone here to roll initiative!

2:33:57 Rekha: Yeah! (players cheering)

2:33:59 Brennan: That's all for this episode of Dimension 20. Tune in next week for the thrilling finale! [Next Episode - Episode 10: I Fucking Love You] [NEXT TIME ON DIMENSION 20] : Oh my God, I didn't even know you could trip a snake.

2:34:06 Katja: You can trip anything.

2:34:08 Danielle: We'd follow you into hell itself.

2:34:10 Antiope: We've done that!

2:34:11 Izzy: There is piss in my pants. (Rekha screams)

2:34:16 Katja: I knew the Earth loved horses! ?: Is there a doctor here, is there a doctor? I need to commit to trying to shit or barf the owl out right now!

2:34:24 Sam: Oh no, I said my mom, not the bitch that gave birth to me.

2:34:28 Penny: Gotcha.

2:34:28 Antiope: Respect. (group laughing)

2:34:31 Izzy: And Ostentatia passes away.

2:34:33 Antiope: My name is Antiope Jones, and you tell everyone that The Seven did this. ____________________________________________________________

2:34:33 Captions extracted by: Kyber Bonsai

2:34:33 Edited by: gluegunshots, solsys